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TUAWApple up, down in end-of-year report originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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<p>Want an easy way to remove all the junk from a webpage and retain the formatting so that you can copy/paste or print it out nicely with a single click? See how simple it is with the Clippable Bookmarklet.</p> <p><strong>Get the Bookmarklet</strong></p> <p>To install Clippable just go to the website, grab the bookmarklet, and drag it to your “Bookmarks Toolbar”. Now you are ready for instant one-click “webpage cleaning”.</p> <p><img border="0" alt="clippable-01" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/clippable01.png" width="640" height="508" /> </p> <p><strong>Using Clippable</strong></p> <p>For our example we decided to visit the Microsoft webpage with information about customizing Windows 7. Notice all the items at the top of the page and on the sides…</p> <p><img border="0" alt="clippable-02" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/clippable02.png" width="640" height="508" /> </p> <p>Just one click and all the excess items are gone leaving just the article and pictures related to it. That is about as quick and simple as you can get for functionality. Now you can easily copy/paste the article into your favorite note-storage program (i.e. Evernote or other) or print it out without losing the original formatting.</p> <p><img border="0" alt="clippable-03" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/clippable03.png" width="640" height="508" /> </p> <p><strong>Easy-Style Printsheet for How-To Geek Articles</strong></p> <p>Recently a new easy-style printsheet was set up for the How-To Geek website, so here is a quick look at it for those of you who may not have heard about it yet. Here we have our sample article with all the normal webpage extras on display…</p> <p><img border="0" alt="clippable-04" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/clippable04.png" width="640" height="508" /> </p> <p>If you need to print one of the articles, you will certainly be pleased with the new printsheet setup. To access it make certain to use the “Print Button” at the bottom of the articles.</p> <p><img border="0" alt="clippable-05" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/clippable05.png" width="640" height="508" /> </p> <p>To show how nicely the pages turn out, we printed the article directly to a pdf file. All the top, sidebar, and bottom items have been removed so that you are able to print exactly what you need. No more wasting your printer’s paper and ink on unnecessary webpage items.</p> <p><img border="0" alt="clippable-06" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/clippable06.png" width="640" height="508" /> </p> <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p> <p>If you have been looking for a quick “one-click” way to clean up webpages for copying/pasting or printing out, then you will definitely want to add the Clippable Bookmarklet to your favorite browser. Remember to use the easy-style printsheet function to print out your favorite How-To Geek articles.</p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <p><a href="http://brettterpstra.com/share/readability2.html" target="_blank">Add the Clippable Bookmarklet to Your Browser</a></p> <table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" id="articleTable"> <tr> <td align="center" width="300" width="50%"><strong>Similar Articles</strong></td> <td align="center" width="300" width="50%"><strong>Tinyhacker - Tiny Geek Hacks</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top"><ul><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/5722/conserve-your-printing-supplies-with-printwhatyoulike/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Conserve Your Printing Supplies with PrintWhatYouLike">Conserve Your Printing Supplies with PrintWhatYouLike</a></li><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/the-geek-blog/how-to-geek-on-lifehacker-debunking-windows-performance-tweaking-myths/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: How-To Geek on Lifehacker: Debunking Windows Performance Tweaking Myths">How-To Geek on Lifehacker: Debunking Windows Performance Tweaking Myths</a></li><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/5797/remove-colors-and-background-images-in-webpages/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Remove Colors and Background Images in Webpages">Remove Colors and Background Images in Webpages</a></li><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/3976/print-only-what-you-need-in-internet-explorer-with-printee/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Print Only What You Need in Internet Explorer with Printee">Print Only What You Need in Internet Explorer with Printee</a></li><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/the-geek-blog/prevent-firefox-or-internet-explorer-from-printing-the-url-on-every-page/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Prevent Firefox or Internet Explorer from Printing the URL on Every Page">Prevent Firefox or Internet Explorer from Printing the URL on Every Page</a></li></ul></td> <td valign="top"><ul> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/to-you-and-yours/">To you and yours,</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/picturing-the-last-10-years/">Picturing the Last 10 Years</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/renoir-theme-for-windows-7/">Renoir theme for Windows 7</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/links-to-16-smithsonian-institution-museums/">Links to 16 Smithsonian Institution Museums</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/panda-cam/">Panda Cam !</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/muziic-stream-virtually-any-song-or-music-video/">Muziic – Stream Virtually any Song or Music Video</a></li> </ul></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" width="300"><strong>Latest Software Reviews</strong></td> <td align="center" width="300"><strong>Super User Daily</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top"><ul> <li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/registry-mechanic-9-for-windows/">Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/pc-tools-internet-security-suite-2010/">PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/pcmover-professional/">PCmover Professional</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/spyware-doctor-antivirus-2010/">Spyware Doctor + Antivirus 2010</a></li> </ul></td> <td valign="top"><ul> <li><a href="http://superuser.com/questions/90035/minimum-os-requirements-for-iphone-programming">Minimum OS requirements for iPhone programming</a></li> <li><a href="http://superuser.com/questions/90014/hackintosh-preliminary-research">Hackintosh preliminary Research [closed]</a></li> <li><a href="http://superuser.com/questions/90012/how-do-i-make-os-x-display-the-date-in-the-menu-bar">How do I make OS X display the date in the menu bar?</a></li> <li><a href="http://superuser.com/questions/90008/how-to-clear-the-contents-of-a-file-from-the-command-line">How to clear the contents of a file from the command line?</a></li> </ul></td> </tr> </table> <p><a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/3iJnO352EKweoJWM5pmGWaanubc/0/da"><img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/3iJnO352EKweoJWM5pmGWaanubc/0/di" border="0" ismap="true" /></a><br /> <a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/3iJnO352EKweoJWM5pmGWaanubc/1/da"><img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/3iJnO352EKweoJWM5pmGWaanubc/1/di" border="0" ismap="true" /></a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/HowToGeek?a=5Kvxf5tbILM:B17RBEYrksI:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/HowToGeek?i=5Kvxf5tbILM:B17RBEYrksI:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/HowToGeek?a=5Kvxf5tbILM:B17RBEYrksI:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/HowToGeek?i=5Kvxf5tbILM:B17RBEYrksI:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0" /></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/HowToGeek/~4/5Kvxf5tbILM" height="1" width="1" />

<p>You might be interested in trying out Linux applications, but the idea of creating a dual boot system, using slow Live CDs, or setting up a VM doesn’t appeal to you. Today we take a look at andLinux which allows you to run Linux applications on your Windows computer.</p> <p>andLinux is actually a full installation of Ubuntu that allows you to run Linux apps directly within the Windows environment. The user interface is the KDE flavor, which should be easier for Windows users to get used to. It’s completely free, easy to install, and is a great way for the Windows user to introduce themselves to Linux.&nbsp; </p> <p><em>Note: andLinux is in Beta 2 stage, so keep in mind there may be some bugs yet to be worked out.</em></p> <p><strong>Installing andLinux</strong></p> <p>There are several steps following the installation wizard that are self explanatory, but we will take a look at some of the more important ones. You will need to decide how much memory you want to allocate for andLinux. This will depend on how much memory you have installed on your machine…you can experiment with different amounts and see what works best.</p> <p><img title="1lin" border="0" alt="1lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1lin.png" width="541" height="426" /> </p> <p>You can select to run it manually from the command line or the easiest option is to have it start automatically with Windows which is selected by default.</p> <p><img title="2lin" border="0" alt="2lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/2lin.png" width="541" height="426" />&nbsp;</p> <p>You can choose to have it access your Windows drives using Samba.</p> <p><img title="4lin" border="0" alt="4lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/4lin.png" width="541" height="426" /> </p> <p>Select <em>Install this driver software anyway</em> when you get the unsigned driver message.</p> <p><img title="7lin" border="0" alt="7lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/7lin.png" width="544" height="416" /> </p> <p>To complete installation, a reboot is required.</p> <p><img title="8lin" border="0" alt="8lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/8lin.png" width="541" height="426" /> </p> <p><strong>Using andLinux</strong></p> <p>After a successful installation and reboot, you will now see a small KDE icon in the notification area. This will essentially be your “Linux Start Menu” where you can select different included apps you want to run. </p> <p><img title="9lin" border="0" alt="9lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/9lin.png" width="340" height="516" /> </p> <p>There are several KOffice apps included by default and you can start exploring programs like KMail, Kexi, KWord, and more.&nbsp; </p> <p><img title="12lin" border="0" alt="12lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/12lin.png" width="632" height="361" /> </p> <p>After you’ve become acquainted with the different Linux apps offered, you might want to download more using the Synaptic Package Manager. You’ll need to sign in using the password you created during the installation.</p> <p><img title="10lin" border="0" alt="10lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/10lin.png" width="444" height="256" /> </p> <p>You can browse through the insane amount of different applications or search for what you’re looking for. You’re provided with descriptions of the different apps and when you’re ready, mark the package(s) for installation.</p> <p><img title="14lin" border="0" alt="14lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/14lin.png" width="507" height="415" />&nbsp;</p> <p>When the latest app packages are downloaded and installed. Click on Details to see what is happening “behind the scenes”.</p> <p><img title="21lin" border="0" alt="21lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/21lin.png" width="527" height="587" />&nbsp;</p> <p>You can use Konqueror to browse for the newly installed applications and launch them. Konqueror is a staple in a lot of Linux distributions that works as a file manager where you can browse by category and also browse the web.</p> <p><img title="23lin" border="0" alt="23lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/23lin.png" width="575" height="419" /> </p> <p>Here is an example of the Multimedia directory where you can launch different apps.</p> <p><img title="22lin" border="0" alt="22lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/22lin.png" width="575" height="419" /> </p> <p>Here are a few shots of how different Linux apps look running in the Windows 7 environment. Here we take a look at using Konqueror as a web browser in Windows 7.</p> <p><img title="27lin" border="0" alt="27lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/27lin.png" width="640" height="652" /> </p> <p>KSpread is a Linux app for creating new spreadsheets and running in Windows 7.</p> <p><img title="25lin" border="0" alt="25lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/25lin.png" width="640" height="593" /> </p> <p>Synaptic Package Manager allows you to download and install new Linux application packages.</p> <p><img title="26lin" border="0" alt="26lin" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/26lin.png" width="640" height="583" />&nbsp;</p> <p>Remember andLinux is still in Beta stage so expect some bugs and some things not to work correctly. If you already have a Windows virtual machine set up, you might want to try it out there before installing it on your real machine. This provides and easy way for a Windows user who’s curious about the Linux world to explore Linux apps without much difficulty. There is currently no support for 64 bit systems, but andLinux will run on Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, and Windows 7 (32-bit Versions Only). </p> <p><a href="http://www.andlinux.org/downloads.php">Download andLinux</a></p> <table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" id="articleTable"> <tr> <td align="center" width="300" width="50%"><strong>Similar Articles</strong></td> <td align="center" width="300" width="50%"><strong>Tinyhacker - Tiny Geek Hacks</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top"><ul><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/the-geek-blog/monday-fun-automatic-updates-in-linux/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Monday Fun: Automatic Updates in Linux?">Monday Fun: Automatic Updates in Linux?</a></li><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/a-live-view-of-a-logfile-on-linux/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: A ">A &quot;live&quot; view of a logfile on Linux</a></li><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/check-your-disk-usage-on-ubuntu-from-the-command-line/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Check your Disk Usage on Ubuntu from the command line">Check your Disk Usage on Ubuntu from the command line</a></li><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/5233/geek-tip-be-sure-to-enable-cleartype-in-your-xp-virtual-machine/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Geek Tip: Be Sure to Enable ClearType in Your XP Virtual Machine">Geek Tip: Be Sure to Enable ClearType in Your XP Virtual Machine</a></li><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/backup-and-restore-internet-explorers-trusted-sites-list/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Backup and Restore Internet Explorer&#8217;s Trusted Sites List">Backup and Restore Internet Explorer&#8217;s Trusted Sites List</a></li></ul></td> <td valign="top"><ul> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/to-you-and-yours/">To you and yours,</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/picturing-the-last-10-years/">Picturing the Last 10 Years</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/renoir-theme-for-windows-7/">Renoir theme for Windows 7</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/links-to-16-smithsonian-institution-museums/">Links to 16 Smithsonian Institution Museums</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/panda-cam/">Panda Cam !</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/muziic-stream-virtually-any-song-or-music-video/">Muziic – Stream Virtually any Song or Music Video</a></li> </ul></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" width="300"><strong>Latest Software Reviews</strong></td> <td align="center" width="300"><strong>Super User Daily</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top"><ul> <li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/registry-mechanic-9-for-windows/">Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/pc-tools-internet-security-suite-2010/">PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/pcmover-professional/">PCmover Professional</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/spyware-doctor-antivirus-2010/">Spyware Doctor + Antivirus 2010</a></li> </ul></td> <td valign="top"><ul> <li><a href="http://superuser.com/questions/90035/minimum-os-requirements-for-iphone-programming">Minimum OS requirements for iPhone programming</a></li> <li><a href="http://superuser.com/questions/90014/hackintosh-preliminary-research">Hackintosh preliminary Research [closed]</a></li> <li><a href="http://superuser.com/questions/90012/how-do-i-make-os-x-display-the-date-in-the-menu-bar">How do I make OS X display the date in the menu bar?</a></li> <li><a href="http://superuser.com/questions/90008/how-to-clear-the-contents-of-a-file-from-the-command-line">How to clear the contents of a file from the command line?</a></li> </ul></td> </tr> </table> <p><a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/VY2PjdZkq0uaQ3IQ6cZGawIsWJQ/0/da"><img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/VY2PjdZkq0uaQ3IQ6cZGawIsWJQ/0/di" border="0" ismap="true" /></a><br /> <a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/VY2PjdZkq0uaQ3IQ6cZGawIsWJQ/1/da"><img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/VY2PjdZkq0uaQ3IQ6cZGawIsWJQ/1/di" border="0" ismap="true" /></a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/HowToGeek?a=zJIOLsXs1sk:3gbFxHo8Xiw:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/HowToGeek?i=zJIOLsXs1sk:3gbFxHo8Xiw:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/HowToGeek?a=zJIOLsXs1sk:3gbFxHo8Xiw:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/HowToGeek?i=zJIOLsXs1sk:3gbFxHo8Xiw:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0" /></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/HowToGeek/~4/zJIOLsXs1sk" height="1" width="1" />

<p>It&#8217;s the end of the year, the time when everybody looks back at the year before and reflects on what happened. It&#8217;s navel-gazing time, people!</p> <p><em>Yeah, there&#8217;s nothing really of value in this article, so you should check out our <a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/8178/totally-awesome-lego-wallpapers-for-your-desktop/">awesome Lego Wallpapers</a> instead. I&#8217;ll try to make it quick&#8230;</em></p> <p><strong>Pixels and Charts and Numbers and Such!</strong></p> <p>Last year we ended up a little short of our 30 million pageview goal, but this year we smashed our goal of 40 million with ease, especially after the Windows 7 launch had the XP users scrambling for answers. I&#8217;m hoping next year that we have enough pageviews to require a 24-CPU server—really, just give me <em>any</em> excuse to get a server with 24 CPUs in it!</p> <p><img title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/image86.png" width="640" height="357" /> </p> <p>If you zoom in on those numbers you&#8217;ll start to see just how much we&#8217;ve grown&#8230; we went from 2.9 million pageviews / month last year to 4.9 million this month. If you include TinyHacker and now Productive Geek numbers, we&#8217;re way over 5mil/month for our network. </p> <p><img title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/image87.png" width="640" height="403" /> </p> <p>The only other interesting stat from Analytics is the number of Google Chrome users, which has hit almost 10% this month, and continues to climb—but it&#8217;s not just taking away from Internet Explorer, it&#8217;s also taken some points from Firefox as well.</p> <p><img title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/image88.png" width="396" height="193" /> </p> <p>So let&#8217;s take a quick tour through what happened this year&#8230;</p> <p><strong>January 2009: The How-To Geek meets Lifehacker</strong></p> <p>In January of this year, I started working as a staff writer over at Lifehacker, one of the largest blogs anywhere—and quickly realized that my writing skills needed a lot of work! Working with the crew over there has been a tremendous learning experience for me, and I&#8217;m very glad I agreed to it. Every Monday you&#8217;ll find my feature articles over there, like this week&#8217;s article: <a href="http://lifehacker.com/5435523/you-dont-need-to-regularly-reinstall-windows-heres-why">You Don&#8217;t Need to Regularly Reinstall Windows; Here&#8217;s Why</a>.</p> <p><strong>April 2009: Mysticgeek Starts Handling the Editing</strong></p> <p>It didn&#8217;t take very long before I realized that handling a regular day job, How-To Geek, and also writing for Lifehacker was really starting to be too much to handle. Mysticgeek stepped in to take care of the day-to-day editing and much of the other administration, and freeing me up to take care of other stuff. He rocks! (literally).</p> <p><strong>May 2009: Asian Angel is Awesome!</strong></p> <p>When we found out that Asian Angel, the former Lifehacker intern, was available to work for us, we grabbed her as quickly as we could—and it&#8217;s one of the best decisions we&#8217;ve ever made. Before she came along, our readers would always complain that we didn&#8217;t cover Firefox enough—and she&#8217;s filled that void with loads of great articles about Firefox, Google Chrome, and now she&#8217;s started branching out into all sorts of topics.</p> <p>It&#8217;s really more than that—she&#8217;s a wonderful, sweet, caring person that we&#8217;re just thrilled to be working with.</p> <p><strong>October 2009: TinyHacker Launched </strong></p> <p>We&#8217;ve never known what to do with all the extra random stuff that we find, so in October we launched <a href="http://tinyhacker.com">TinyHacker</a>, our random geek links site. It&#8217;s random! We&#8217;ve got some interesting plans for this site in 2010, so stay tuned.</p> <p><a href="http://tinyhacker.com"><img title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/image89.png" width="300" height="105" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </p> <p><strong>December 2009: Productive Geek (beta) Launched</strong></p> <p>After a year of being around Lifehacker, I realized that we really need a forum to discuss life, hacking, and Autohotkey. The <a href="http://productivegeek.com">Productive Geek</a> forum just launched a few days ago, but it&#8217;s going to be great. </p> <p><a href="http://productivegeek.com"><img title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/image90.png" width="361" height="80" /></a> </p> <p><strong>Fun Logos and a Lazy Geek</strong></p> <p>We started out the year with a bunch of fun logos, hand-drawn by yours truly. Sadly, the time involved just got out of hand, and I didn&#8217;t keep it up all year. In case you missed them, here they are.</p> <p>Valentine&#8217;s Day 2009:</p> <p><img title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/image91.png" width="430" height="108" /></p> <p>April Fool&#8217;s Day 2009:</p> <p><img title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/image92.png" width="500" height="116" /></p> <p>Mother&#8217;s Day 2009:</p> <p><img title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/image93.png" width="434" height="100" /> </p> <p>Easter 2009:</p> <p><img title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/image94.png" width="393" height="144" /></p> <p><strong>Behind the Scenes</strong></p> <p>This year we&#8217;ve completed some serious milestones—we completely upgraded the platform the server is running on, built loads of new stuff like a better email newsletter system, and created the new Productive Geek platform that we&#8217;re actually going to use to launch more new sites. All of this is thanks to Shawn, our awesome programmer. Shawn, if you&#8217;re reading this, I&#8217;d just like to say: get back to work! =P</p> <p><strong>What&#8217;s Next?</strong></p> <p>At some point in the next month or two, we&#8217;ll be launching another new site geared at IT admin types, hiring a couple of new writers, and really branching out even further.</p> <table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" id="articleTable"> <tr> <td align="center" width="300" width="50%"><strong>Similar Articles</strong></td> <td align="center" width="300" width="50%"><strong>Tinyhacker - Tiny Geek Hacks</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top"><ul><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/advertise/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Advertise on How-To Geek">Advertise on How-To Geek</a></li><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/the-geek-blog/second-year-of-how-to-geek-growing-pains-and-lessons-learned/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Second Year of How-To Geek: Growing Pains and Lessons Learned">Second Year of How-To Geek: Growing Pains and Lessons Learned</a></li><li><a href="http://blogs.howtogeek.com/mysticgeek/2008/09/23/secure-computing-create-scheduled-scans-with-spybot-search-destroy/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Secure Computing: Create Scheduled Scans With Spybot Search & Destroy">Secure Computing: Create Scheduled Scans With Spybot Search &amp; Destroy</a></li><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/the-geek-blog/a-few-things-ive-learned-from-writing-at-how-to-geek/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: A Few Things I&#8217;ve Learned from Writing at How-To Geek">A Few Things I&#8217;ve Learned from Writing at How-To Geek</a></li><li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/the-geek-blog/heres-the-typical-end-of-year-clich-post-with-stats-graphs-and-useless-numbers-for-2007/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Here&#8217;s The Typical End of Year Clich&eacute; Post With Stats, Graphs and Useless Numbers for 2007">Here&#8217;s The Typical End of Year Clich&eacute; Post With Stats, Graphs and Useless Numbers for 2007</a></li></ul></td> <td valign="top"><ul> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/to-you-and-yours/">To you and yours,</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/picturing-the-last-10-years/">Picturing the Last 10 Years</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/renoir-theme-for-windows-7/">Renoir theme for Windows 7</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/links-to-16-smithsonian-institution-museums/">Links to 16 Smithsonian Institution Museums</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/panda-cam/">Panda Cam !</a></li> <li><a href="http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/muziic-stream-virtually-any-song-or-music-video/">Muziic – Stream Virtually any Song or Music Video</a></li> </ul></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" width="300"><strong>Latest Software Reviews</strong></td> <td align="center" width="300"><strong>Super User Daily</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top"><ul> <li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/registry-mechanic-9-for-windows/">Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/pc-tools-internet-security-suite-2010/">PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/pcmover-professional/">PCmover Professional</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/spyware-doctor-antivirus-2010/">Spyware Doctor + Antivirus 2010</a></li> </ul></td> <td valign="top"><ul> <li><a href="http://superuser.com/questions/90035/minimum-os-requirements-for-iphone-programming">Minimum OS requirements for iPhone programming</a></li> <li><a href="http://superuser.com/questions/90014/hackintosh-preliminary-research">Hackintosh preliminary Research [closed]</a></li> <li><a href="http://superuser.com/questions/90012/how-do-i-make-os-x-display-the-date-in-the-menu-bar">How do I make OS X display the date in the menu bar?</a></li> <li><a href="http://superuser.com/questions/90008/how-to-clear-the-contents-of-a-file-from-the-command-line">How to clear the contents of a file from the command line?</a></li> </ul></td> </tr> </table> <p><a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/5_lBM0AgVbofNPqmfu079Lzezss/0/da"><img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/5_lBM0AgVbofNPqmfu079Lzezss/0/di" border="0" ismap="true" /></a><br /> <a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/5_lBM0AgVbofNPqmfu079Lzezss/1/da"><img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/5_lBM0AgVbofNPqmfu079Lzezss/1/di" border="0" ismap="true" /></a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/HowToGeek?a=NPo4UdLc_Mo:8lzs1UuXCoc:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/HowToGeek?i=NPo4UdLc_Mo:8lzs1UuXCoc:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/HowToGeek?a=NPo4UdLc_Mo:8lzs1UuXCoc:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/HowToGeek?i=NPo4UdLc_Mo:8lzs1UuXCoc:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0" /></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/HowToGeek/~4/NPo4UdLc_Mo" height="1" width="1" />

An increasing number of North Korean refugees are arriving in northern Thailand, fleeing poverty and political oppression at home.

Thai immigration authorities say they took more than 1,000 North Koreans into custody this year, compared with less than 400 in 2008 when Beijing tightened security for the Olympics.

Police superintendent Sutham Chatarsa says they come to Thailand because, unlike in China and Laos, they will not be sent home, where they could face execution.

"We don't have the policy to send them back to North Korea," he said. "We want to take care of them until they are accepted into a third country. It's not the same as people coming from Cambodia or Laos. North Koreans come here because of political problems. So, we want them to get to a third country."

Even so, the North Koreans are treated as illegal immigrants before being allowed to go to South Korea or another country.

Lawmakers from 12 countries met in Thailand in November to raise attention to the plight of North Koreans fleeing their impoverished and repressive nation.

Renewable energy options are the best solution to overcome the energy crisis for mountain communities. Prof  Dr. Jangna Nath Shrestha Energy advisor, ICIMOD

ICIMOD launched planning workshop on sustainable energy solutions for Himalayan Herders 

CHITRAL:  During a one day National Planning Workshop on Development of Sustainable Energy for Rangelands experts stressed upon adopting of solar (alternate) energy to overcome on  energy crises. The workshop was jointly held by Agha Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP) and ICIMODE in a local hotel. Throughout Himalayan rangelands, herders are finding it increasingly difficult to meet their daily survival need for cooking and heating energy due to looming energy crisis and changing climate. In 2007, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (CIMOD) embarked on a pilot project to find sensible solutions to the energy crisis in the rangelands using holistic framework to address the three broad criteria of sustainability - availability, affordability and acceptability.  The piloted technologies mainly metallic stove, solar cookers and solar lamps were locally acceptable and were capable of saving fuel, reducing indoor air pollution and Green House Gase (GHG) emission reducing drudgery and freeing up the excessive time of herders especially women for productive activities. Building on these positive pilot experiences, ICIMOD is initiating the second phase of the project (DESER II) to disseminate the tested technologies at sites in five countries including Pakistan ( Momi village  of Chitral) in preparation for rolling out the program in the remaining areas of the Hindukush Khimaliya  rangelands through market development and commercialization.

On the eve of New Year ICIMOD and AKRSP jointly lunched the kick off national planning workshop in in a local hotel. The workshop brought together 30 representatives from relevant government, NGOs, private sectors and local communities to discuss the overall implementation issues dealing with suitable production, innovative financing and delivery options to create an enabling environment for making the proven technologies locally available and affordable. General Manager AKRSP Izhar Ali Hunzai , Pakistan and ICIMOD’s Country representative Pakistan Dr. Inayatullah  stressed upon the importance of renewable energy in the current energy deficit situation of Pakistan. Mr. Rana, Joint Secretary,  Ministry of Environment in his inaugural speech, highlighted the relevance of the project and underscored the multi-stakeholder partnership.

 Bikash Sharma, project coordinator, ICIMOD  Nepal highlighted the critical role of sustainable energy in building the resilience of herders and regulating the global climatic pattern. He stressed the need for finding strategic policy institutional technological innovations to establish a convincing good practice demonstration model that is sustainable replicable and scalable across the rangelands. Prof  Dr. Jangna Nath Shrestha consultant energy advisor, ICIMOD highlighted the menu of technology options for rangelands. He said that we can overcome on energy crises only be adopting and utilizing renewable and solar energy.

The workshop centered around three strategic themes: suitable supply chains for the assumed supply of chosen technologies, innovative financing scheme and enabling policy environment and provided strategic directions for packing the technologies (metallic stoves, solar lamps and solar cooker) for dissemination besides piloting of new technologies based on local needs,  empowering the existing Local Support Organizations through supporting their capacity building  needs for managing micro financing scheme and  involving the central and provincial level  government and other agencies like Pakistan Council of Renewable Energy Technology (PCRET), Ministry Science and Technology (MOST), Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB), Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) for necessary policy , institutional and co financing support.

G.H. Farooqi PO Box No. 50 GPO Chitral Pakistan phone 03025989602, 0943-302295, 414418

Email: gulhamad@gmail.com

My new year's resolution is to begin every year by writing about an experience I'm grateful for. Here's the first installment.

--------------

Half my lifetime ago, in the mid-80s, I was itching to make my leap into the world. I'd saved fifteen thousand dollars, which I figured would be enough to propel me through a round the world odyssey - or at least a few years through Asia. The day I told my multi-millionaire Diamond District boss I was quitting my mid-town Manhattan job so I could go see the world, he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Well, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do." True enough, even if I still felt awkward being called a "man."

Before flying to India, I spent about a month traveling around the United States, visiting relatives and friends before setting off on my great adventure.

"Leaving on a jet plane. Don't know when I'll be back again."

In those pre-Internet days, a one-way ticket to Asia took you further than it does now. Much further. It would take a month for my letters to reach friends and another month or so for their responses to find me at whatever post office I anticipated visiting two months down the road: Poste Restante. I carried a pocket-sized short-wave radio in my backpack so I could follow some of what was happening back in "the world," though the BBC signals I picked up seemed to be primarily cricket scores, but at least they were in English. You'd have to be willing to live on squirrels and acorns to get that far away from this world these days. Back then, you just had to fly to India.

As I made my way through my farewell tour of family and friends, I came to feel like some epic nineteenth-century explorer about to step into the great unknown: Joseph Conrad or Richard Burton. Between my aunts' kisses and uncles' firm handshakes and advice, I noticed that a few of my female friends were responding to me differently, as if they sensed my impending ruggedness and budding fearlessness. These hints of halting admiration strengthened my sense that I was doing the right thing by dropping my "dream job" (even if it had been a far cry from any of my dreams) and flying off into the unknown with my pockets full of traveler's checks.
Well, not my pockets really, since after reading warnings of crafty Asian thieves I'd bought a money belt to wear under my clothes. And not traveler's checks either, since I'd heard that I could get a better exchange rate for cash. So my new money belt held my passport, an AMEX card, and fifteen grand in hundred dollar bills. I was set for a long trip into the unknown.

I'll never forget the late-night taxi ride from the airport to Old Delhi. The area had been recommended by an Israeli who was next to me on the plane. I told him how I'd been reading up on India, preparing for my trip. He said, "There's really no way to prepare for India. You'll either love it or you'll hate it." He was wrong about that, because I ended up loving it and hating it. It drove me crazy, but the place also drove me hard toward solid insight and confused admiration.

But that came later. The first night, I was too overwhelmed to ponder loving or hating anything.

I remember the smells most clearly now: spices, wood-smoke, sweat, exhaust, cow dung, kerosene lamps, human shit, clove cigarettes. We drove along highways lined with families sleeping, one after the other, night refugees absorbing the warmth of asphalt, blanketed with exhaust from trucks passing a meter from their feet.

The next few days are a blur in my memory. The Israeli on the plane was right in recommending I stay in Old Delhi. The dusty streets were swirling rivers of smells, sounds, cows, identical old-style cars (in those days, India had only one car, the Ambassador), bicycle rickshaws, the motorized rickshaws known as tuk-tuks, a few elephants, and people, people, people ... everything moving, everything alive, everything flowing into everything else.

After a few days, I bought a ticket for the early morning train to Kashmir. I packed my backpack the night before, so I'd have no confusion getting to the station on time. I'd just wake up, brush my teeth, throw on my clothes, and go.

Which is what I did. I was drinking chai in the café of the station, forty minutes before the twenty-hour train was scheduled to depart, when I felt the bead of sweat running down my spine and realized my money belt wasn't there. Wary of thieves who might creep into my room at night, I'd been sleeping with the money belt under my pillow, certain I'd awaken if someone got that close to me. Now I realized I'd left all my money and my passport under the pillow when I'd checked out an hour earlier.

My great round-the-world adventure had lasted three days.

Running back to the nameless guest house in a back street of Old Delhi, I saw my immediate future coming at me like a falling piano. Of course, nobody would know anything about any money belt, and how could I know who was lying? I'd demand the notoriously police be called, and what would I tell them? "Were you robbed, sir?" "Well, not exactly." "Not exactly, sir?"

Fifteen thousand dollars could have bought the guest house I'd stayed in and the one next door. My US passport could have brought enough cash for one or two more. In India, in 1986, this was a lot of money. And whoever had it now knew it wasn't mafia money that would bring hard strangers knocking at the door. This was the easy-come easy-go money of a foolish tourist who would just call his mother and the embassy and be on the next flight home. This was no-strings-attached money.

I charged into the hotel, sweaty and wild-eyed, blowing past the man at the front desk, up the stairs to my room. My pounding on the door provoked panicky responses in Hindi, but no entrance. It seemed someone else had already checked in. I went down to the desk, and told the man that I'd left something in the room. He was Sikh, his beard pulled up under a tight turban.

"What did you forget?" he asked.

"Some papers."

"Papers? What kind of papers, sir?"

There was something in his eyes that felt like a test - a challenge. Not unsympathetic, but still, testing.

There was no point in lying. My dignity was long gone.

"My passport."

"You left your passport in your room? Sir, this is very serious! Was there anything else?"

"Some money."

"How much money?" he asked.

"All my money. About fifteen thousand dollars." I admitted.

"Fifteen thousand dollars?" He started to laugh, despite himself. He wasn't trying to be cruel. I could sense that he wasn't a cruel man. He almost seemed relieved, somehow. I was confused, but I couldn't help laughing with him.

He reached under the desk and pulled out my money belt. He handed it to me.

"The boy who cleans the rooms found this."

I unzipped it and saw my passport, the credit card, and what looked to be all the money - a stack of hundreds thick as a small paperback.

"This boy earns about ten dollars per month working here. You can imagine, sir, that he is a good boy."

I pulled a few hundreds off the stack and said, "Please, give this to him, and let me offer you something, as well."

For the first time, his eyes clouded a bit. "No, you would insult him if you offered him money."

"What can I do?"

He thought for a moment. "Give me two hundred rupees (about five dollars) and I'll have a party to honor him."

I gave him two hundred rupees.

"Now, you must catch your train, sir. Please, be more careful in the future."

Not knowing what else to do, I shook his hand and ran off to just catch that train into the future - this future, my life, from where I write these words. Tonight, a few minutes before midnight, December 31st, 2009, it occurs to me that there are many ways to lose a life, and as many ways to save one.

Collaboration of Civilizations

Theological Atheism

Mad As Hell

Is There a Baha’i Dr. Ruth?

Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby

Hysterical Color-Blindness

A Swirled World

Does Health Care Reform Start at Home?

Racism: More Than a Mosquito

I have a big problem. I just installed internet security 2010 and ran a scan. I then noticed my desktop had changed several icons where gone and it had somehow updated to Explorer 7 and outlook was uninstalled.

I can't find my office 2003 prof disk.

A. Why would this happen.

B. Am I screwed getting all my old contacts etc back?

I am on XP.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

During an email discussion of the explosive used by the testicle-toasting terrorist of Detroit, my friend retired Col. John Meyer commented on his own use of the stuff -- and offered a warning. "I've heated many a cup of coffee on C4, rolled into little balls," he said. "The trick was to never try to stamp out the fire when you were finished."

Asked to explain this use of C4, he added:

The small balls of C4 used to heat rations were about the size of spitballs.  C4 can be ignited with a match.  As one ball would burn out, you rolled another up next to it, so it would ignite.  We used a modified C-ration can for a stove.  One side was cut open, so there was plenty of air for the 'rapid combustion.'

As a side note, long before there was a Starbucks, we figured our C4 heated coffee was pretty expensive.  A one-pound block of C4 was reported to cost about $90. 

NABIL ISMAEL/AFP/Getty Images

After getting help on creating a rule to block IE from running at all, I found out that the users will actually need to be able to access certain intranet sites.

Is this something I can do with a firewall rule? I only want them to have access to our intranet sites but be completely cut off from outside internet traffic when using Internet Explorer.

Post from: EveryJoe

Firefox 3.5 Is the World’s Most Popular Browser

It’s the end of the year, the time when everybody looks back at the year before and reflects on what happened. It’s navel-gazing time, people!

Yeah, there’s nothing really of value in this article, so you should check out our awesome Lego Wallpapers instead. I’ll try to make it quick…

Pixels and Charts and Numbers and Such!

Last year we ended up a little short of our 30 million pageview goal, but this year we smashed our goal of 40 million with ease, especially after the Windows 7 launch had the XP users scrambling for answers. I’m hoping next year that we have enough pageviews to require a 24-CPU server—really, just give me any excuse to get a server with 24 CPUs in it!

If you zoom in on those numbers you’ll start to see just how much we’ve grown… we went from 2.9 million pageviews / month last year to 4.9 million this month. If you include TinyHacker and now Productive Geek numbers, we’re way over 5mil/month for our network.

The only other interesting stat from Analytics is the number of Google Chrome users, which has hit almost 10% this month, and continues to climb—but it’s not just taking away from Internet Explorer, it’s also taken some points from Firefox as well.

So let’s take a quick tour through what happened this year…

January 2009: The How-To Geek meets Lifehacker

In January of this year, I started working as a staff writer over at Lifehacker, one of the largest blogs anywhere—and quickly realized that my writing skills needed a lot of work! Working with the crew over there has been a tremendous learning experience for me, and I’m very glad I agreed to it. Every Monday you’ll find my feature articles over there, like this week’s article: You Don’t Need to Regularly Reinstall Windows; Here’s Why.

April 2009: Mysticgeek Starts Handling the Editing

It didn’t take very long before I realized that handling a regular day job, How-To Geek, and also writing for Lifehacker was really starting to be too much to handle. Mysticgeek stepped in to take care of the day-to-day editing and much of the other administration, and freeing me up to take care of other stuff. He rocks! (literally).

May 2009: Asian Angel is Awesome!

When we found out that Asian Angel, the former Lifehacker intern, was available to work for us, we grabbed her as quickly as we could—and it’s one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. Before she came along, our readers would always complain that we didn’t cover Firefox enough—and she’s filled that void with loads of great articles about Firefox, Google Chrome, and now she’s started branching out into all sorts of topics.

It’s really more than that—she’s a wonderful, sweet, caring person that we’re just thrilled to be working with.

October 2009: TinyHacker Launched

We’ve never known what to do with all the extra random stuff that we find, so in October we launched TinyHacker, our random geek links site. It’s random! We’ve got some interesting plans for this site in 2010, so stay tuned.

December 2009: Productive Geek (beta) Launched

After a year of being around Lifehacker, I realized that we really need a forum to discuss life, hacking, and Autohotkey. The Productive Geek forum just launched a few days ago, but it’s going to be great.

Fun Logos and a Lazy Geek

We started out the year with a bunch of fun logos, hand-drawn by yours truly. Sadly, the time involved just got out of hand, and I didn’t keep it up all year. In case you missed them, here they are.

Valentine’s Day 2009:

April Fool’s Day 2009:

Mother’s Day 2009:

Easter 2009:

Behind the Scenes

This year we’ve completed some serious milestones—we completely upgraded the platform the server is running on, built loads of new stuff like a better email newsletter system, and created the new Productive Geek platform that we’re actually going to use to launch more new sites. All of this is thanks to Shawn, our awesome programmer. Shawn, if you’re reading this, I’d just like to say: get back to work! =P

What’s Next?

At some point in the next month or two, we’ll be launching another new site geared at IT admin types, hiring a couple of new writers, and really branching out even further.

by Steve Nesius - AP

View full size photo »

If we kept track of rosterbation targets, Matt LaPorta would probably be one of the top names over the years. LaPorta has some things going for him that make him popular. Being born in Gainesville and then playing baseball for the Florida Gators is always a way to land in the thoughts of the locals. Find yourself on a team who has a perennial all-star at first base - the only position in which you should be allowed to play - and watch the interest pique when the local team is in need of a designated hitter.

I don't really have a problem with LaPorta. He's a good hitter, of that I'm sure we all agree, but while I was toying around on the International League leaderboards, a thought came to my head: is Matt Joyce a more desirable player?  As it stood, I was only looking at Joyce and LaPorta's 2009 statistics. Thankfully Baseball-Reference includes career statistics at each minor league level, so I clicked around and found the career Triple-A lines of both. Here they are:

Joyce (720 PA): .272/.367/.504, 29 HR, 16/24 SB, 12.6% BB, 25.9% SO

LaPorta (393 PA): .299/.388/.530, 23 HR, 1/4 SB, 10.7% BB, 16.6% SO

Allow me to expand on those lines a bit, because simply listing the information is boring. Their ISO are nearly identical (Joyce actually has a one point lead) and while everyone would likely give LaPorta the edge in home run power, well, he's hit a dinger in Triple-A in 4.3% of his plate appearances; Joyce only popped one 4% of the time. These are not park-adjusted, so mind that, but also mind this: Joyce is all of five months older and plays defense.  

As it stands, LaPorta's wOBA is something like 20 points higher. Over 600 plate appearances the run differential is 10.96, or just over a full win. LaPorta has been the better hitter in Triple-A, but the question you must answer in order to solve which player is more desirable involves the degree of defensive separation. Specifically: whether Joyce is 11 runs better than LaPorta.

Honestly, I can't answer that question with anything like 99% certainty and their UZR scores are basically irrelevant in such a small sample size (~600 and ~300 innings apiece), but here's what Baseball America said about both of their defensive abilities in their latest available scouting reports:

Joyce (2008):

A well above-average right fielder, he gets great jumps and has a strong, accurate arm. He can play an adequate center field if needed.

LaPorta (2009):

Though he has some feel for the outfield, he has below-average speed and range with fringy arm strength.

I think you can paint Joyce as something like a 5 < x < 10 run defender while being conservative and LaPorta as a -5 < x < -10 outfielder, give or take a run here or there. Assuming they fall within those ranges then Joyce is the better player because you also have to account for baserunning and stealing, something we didn't do originally. Give him a few runs for that, and really LaPorta isn't a full win better offensively.

Some will ask why I limited LaPorta to the outfield only and it's simple. The perception on these two players is nothing alike. LaPorta is thought to be the prototypical slugger and the big bat from college who could lead his team in dingers within three years of being drafted. Joyce came from Florida Southern and wasn't chosen until round twelve in the draft two years prior to LaPorta's class. Everybody looks forward to Desmond Jennings - and rightfully so - but Matt Joyce looks to be a pretty useful player, even when you ignore the perceptions and focus on the realities.

• Visitors 39,348
• Unique Visitors 27,150
• Pageviews 55,792
• Average Pageviews 1.42
• Time on Site 2min 12secs
• Total Time on Site 60days 2hrs 45mins 36secs

• Browsers
• Firefox 53.25%
• Internet Explorer 26.60% (of which 6.7% using version 6.x or below)
• Safari 12.96%
• Chrome 5.20%
• Other 1.99%

• Windows 67.00%
• Macintosh 21.76%
• Linux 9.47%
• iPhone 0.96%
• Other 0.81%

• 1280x800 20.07%
• 1440x900 17.12%
• 1680x1050 15.96%
• 1280x1024 15.42%
• 1024x768 15.14%
• 1920x1200 3.17%
• 1152x864 1.31%
• 1600x1200 1.31%
• 320x396 1.15%
• Others: width less then 800px 1.57%
• Others: width greater then 800px 6.78%

• 10.x 84.98%
• 9.x 14.76%
• 8.x 0.09%
• 7.x 0.09%
• 6.x 0.07%
• 5.x 0.01%

I have a simple solution that let's me easily run IE6 or IE7 on Linux. Install "playonlinux" (http://www.playonlinux.com/en/) and use it to easily install the IE6/7 tool.

You don't have to own a Windows license to use PlayOnLinux. PlayOnLinux is based on Wine, and so profits from all its possibilities yet it keeps the user away from its complexity while exploiting some of its advanced functions. PlayOnLinux is a free software. PlayOnLinux uses Bash and Python

Time for the semi-annual link clearance.

• The decade according to 9-year-olds. (Technically the decade doesn't end until next year, but try convincing anybody to care.)
• The online Dilbert strip finder does a full-text search on Dilbert comics, for those times when you want to find a particular comic. For example, a search for minivan quickly turns up the famous I'm gonna write me a new minivan comic. (Related: Text of every Dilbert from 1995ish to 2002, plus some books.)
• Know Your Meme painstakingly explains whatever it is that's taking the Internet by storm.
• The Seattle Fire Department blog, a mix of safety tips, special events, and coverage of some local fires. Sort of a user-friendly version of the fire department incident log.
• The Rubens Tube. (Mythbusters version.)
• Fantasy Kids Resort, a Japanese indoor park for children which is more of a fantasy for paranoid parents: Membership requires ID, there are security cameras everywhere, and the play areas are filled with anti-bacterial sand.
• Crimereports.com lets you browse the police blotter for around 400 communities in the United States. The Seattle Times has a special page for Bellevue.
• The Wall Street Journal's Number Guy looks at what "Kills 99.9% of germs" really means.
• The directed graph of language unintelligibility.
• Setting up automatic payments is easy. Stopping them is hard.
• How to get on television without losing your dignity.
• Have a shoebox, some aluminum foil, and some coaxial cable? Then you have most of the ingredients necessary to build a digital TV antenna.
• How MySpace came to be and why it's intentionally disorienting. Facebook's and MySpace's audiences split along social lines.
• Even though I have good friends on both sides of the aisle (or perhaps because of it), this picture never fails to crack me up.
• How to get rid of your old cell phone.
• WMI Explorer, one of the SAPIEN Community Tools is a fantastic way of explorer the WMI namespace, so you know what to plug into the standard WMI script template.
• The light switch so complicated it comes with a 42-word sticker explaining how to use it. I bet it won an award. My favorite comment: "I actually have a house full of these great switches and I've been looking for these instructions." My solution: A standard on/off switch with a vertical slider next to it to control brightness. It turns out that the boolean+slider is not new; people have been using this type of control for decades.
• Fakes and Phonies: The shadowy world of art forgery. A long New York Times article also goes into the document forgery that makes the art forgery seem legitimate.
• Andy Warhol was a pack rat, and his junk pile is an archivist's gold mine.
• I suspect there aren't quite so many listings on these types of sites nowadays.
• A working Difference Engine is on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California for a limited time, after which it will go into the private collection of Nathan Myhrvold, who paid for its construction.
• Peter J. Morris shares with us the source code to the infinitely profitable program. By an amazing coincidence, I wrote this exact same program too! (I called mine /.COM.)
• If the roles had been reversed, this would've made Slashdot, "Microsoft intentionally crashes competitors to prevent them from implementing the same feature." Instead, it's just another day in compatibility land. (Related: Google Apps Sync intentionally disables Windows Desktop Search. In both cases, the problems were ironed out.)
• There's still time for eligible nonprofit organizations to request copies of Windows 7 Professional Upgrade and Windows 7 Enterprise Upgrade.
• You can once again drag and drop into console windows in Windows 7 thanks to some nontrivial retooling of how console windows are hosted.

And, as always, the obligatory plug for my column in TechNet Magazine:

• When Windows Audio Goes Haywire.
• Cached Credentials.
• Windows 'Prettified' Filenames.
• Encoding Is Not Encrypting.
• Tracking Shortcuts.
• What's in a Filename?
• Junction Dysfunction.

When Kerberos authentication fails, it is always a good idea to simplify the configuration to the minimum (one client/one server/one IIS site running on the default port). In addition, some basic troubleshooting steps can be followed like using a test page to confirm the authentication method being used. If you use ASP.NET, you can create a test page like this. If you are using classic ASP, you may use the following page:

Testkerb.asp
<%
    authType=UCase(Request.ServerVariables("AUTH_TYPE"))
    authHeader=Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_AUTHORIZATION")
    response.write " Authentication Method : " & authType & "<BR>"
    LenAuthHeader = len(authHeader)
    response.write " Protocol : "
    if Len(authType ) =0 then response.write " Anonymous" else if authType<>"NEGOTIATE" then response.write authType else if LenAuthHeader>1000 then response.write "Kerberos" else response.write "NTLM"
%>

You can also check whether Kerberos is used (or not) with tools like Fiddler, STRACE/HTTPREPLAY, Network Monitor…etc When Kerberos is used, the request sent by the client is pretty large (generally more than 2000 bytes) since the HTTP_AUTHORIZATION header includes the Kerberos ticket:

If NTLM is used the request size will be much smaller:

At this stage, if you are making use of Kerberos and authentication fails, a couple of things need to be verified:

• Are the client and server in the same domain?

Usage of Kerberos requires a domain since a Kerberos ticket is delivered by the domain controller.

• Is IIS configured to use integrated authentication?

  

• Is integrated authentication enabled in Internet Explorer?

  

• Does the URL used resolve to a security zone for which credentials can be sent?
  

  
  
  Note: even if this configuration is not frequent (because it requires the client to have access to a Domain Controller), Kerberos can be used for a URL in the Internet Zone. In this case, unless default settings are changed, the browser will always prompt the end user for credentials. Note also that Kerberos delegation won't work in the Internet Zone (Internet Explorer only allows Kerberos delegation for a URL in the « Intranet » and "Trusted sites" zones).

• Is the IIS server configured to send the WWW-Authenticate: Negotiate header?
  

  If IIS doesn't send this header, you'll need to use ADSUTIL to set the Negotiate header though the NTAuthenticationProviders metabase property (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/215383).
  Note: by default, the NTAuthenticationProviders property is not set which causes IIS to send both Negotiate and NTLM headers:

  
  

• Are the client and server on the same box?
  

  By default, Kerberos is not enabled in this configuration. To change this behavior, you'll need to set the DisableLoopBackCheck registry key (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861).
  

• Can the client get a Kerberos ticket ?
  

  The KERBLIST tool (included in the Windows 2003 Server Resource Kit) can be used to confirm that the client box can obtain a Kerberos ticket for a given SPN (in this example http/MEMMANUBO1):
  

  
  

  If the Kerberos ticket request fails, Kerberos authentication will not be used. NTLM fallback may occur if the Kerberos ticket request fails because the SPN requested is unknown to the Domain Controller (DC). It is also worth noting that if the DC is unreachable, no NTLM fallback will occur.
  

  In order to declare a SPN, consult the following Knowledge Base article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929650
  

• Does the web server use another port than default (80)?

  By default, Internet Explorer doesn't include the port number information in the SPN used to request a Kerberos ticket. This can be a problem you use IIS to host multiple sites under different ports and identities. In this configuration, Kerberos authentication may only work for specific sites even if all SPNs have been correctly declared in Active Directory. To resolve this issue, you'll need to set the FEATURE_INCLUDE_PORT_IN_SPN_KB908209 registry value (as per http://support.microsoft.com/kb/908209). This will force Internet Explorer to include the port number in the SPN used to request the Kerberos ticket.

• Does IE use the expected SPN?
  
  If a web site is accessed using an alias name (CNAME), Internet Explorer will first use DNS resolution to resolve the alias name to a computer name (ANAME). The computer name will then be used to build the SPN and request a Kerberos ticket. So, even if the URL typed in IE's address bar is http://MYWEBSITE, IE will request a SPN for HTTP/MYSERVER if MYWEBSITE is an alias (CNAME) of MYSERVER (ANAME). You can change this behavior using the FEATURE_USE_CNAME_FOR_SPN_KB911149 registry key documented in this article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911149.
  Getting a Network Monitor trace is always a good way to check the SPN associated to the Kerberos ticket:
  

  
  

  You may also use other tools like KERBSPY (included in the KAPIMON tool) to check the SPN used by Internet Explorer:
  

  

• Does the application pool identity match the account associated with the SPN?

  When a Kerberos ticket is sent from Internet Explorer to an IIS server, the ticket is encrypted using a private key. The private key is a hash of the password used for the user account associated to the SPN. Therefore, only an application running under this account will be able to decode the ticket.

  Here is a summary of the Kerberos authentication algorithm's steps:

  • Internet Explorer will use the URL typed in the address bar to compute a SPN
  • The SPN is passed thought a SSPI API (InitializeSecurityContext) to the system component in charge of Windows security (LSASS process). At this stage, we can note that Internet Explorer code doesn't implement any code to construct the Kerberos ticket : IE just calls SSPI APIs
  • Using the SPN that is passed in, LSASS requests a Kerberos ticket to a domain controller (DC). If the DC can serve the request (known SPN), it will create a Kerberos ticket, encrypt it using a key constructed from the hash of the user account's password for the account associated with the SPN. It will then proceed to send it to the client. As far as Internet Explorer is concerned, the ticket is an opaque blob.
  • Internet Explorer encapsulates the Kerberos ticket provided by LSASS in the "Authorization : Negotiate" header and sends it to the IIS server
  • IIS handles the request and routes it to the right application pool (using the host header specified)
  • The application pool tries to decrypt the ticket using SSPI/LSASS APIs :
    • If the ticket can be decrypted, Kerberos authentication succeeds and all services associated to the ticket are available (impersonation, delegation if ticket allows it…etc)
    • If the ticket can't be decrypted, a Kerberos error (KRB_AP_ERR_MODIFIED) is returned. This error is a generic error indicating that the ticket has been altered in some way during its transport and could therefore not be decrypted. This error is also logged in the Windows Event Logs

  If you do not explicitly declare SPN, Kerberos authentication will work only if the application pool identity is « Network Service ». In this case, the Kerberos ticket is built using a default SPN that is created in Active Directory when a computer (in this case the server that IIS is running on) is added in the domain. This « default SPN» is associated to the computer account which, under IIS, maps to « Network Service ».

  If your application pool needs to use an identity other than « Network Service », you'll need to declare a SPN (using SETSPN) and associate it with the account used for your application pool identity. A common mistake is to create similar SPNs with different accounts. For example:

SETSPN http/mywebsite UserAppPool1
SETSPN http/mywebsite UserAppPool2

Above configuration won't work since there is no deterministic way to know if the Kerberos ticket for the SPN http/mywebsite will be encrypted using password of USerAppPool1 or UserAppPool2. This configuration will typically produce KRB_AP_ERR_MODIFIED errors. To check if you are in this (bad) « duplicate SPNs » scenario, you can use tools documented in this article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321044. You may also use an updated version of SETSPN for Windows 2003 which allows the detection of duplicate SPNs using setspn –X (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970536).

We also recommend you to read the following blog articles:

• http://blogs.technet.com/askds/archive/2008/05/29/kerberos-authentication-problems-service-principal-name-spn-issues-part-1.aspx (no Service Principal Name defined)
• http://blogs.technet.com/askds/archive/2008/05/29/kerberos-authentication-problems-service-principal-name-spn-issues-part-2.aspx (Service Principal Name is not unique)
• http://blogs.technet.com/askds/archive/2008/05/29/kerberos-authentication-problems-service-principal-name-spn-issues-part-3.aspx (Service Principal Name is NOT added to the correct account)
  

• Does Kerberos authentication fails in IIS7 when it worked fine in IIS6 ?
  

  One of the new features of IIS7 is to provide kernel mode authentication. Kernel mode authentication provides a couple of advantages:

  • performance is increased since no more kernel mode to user mode transitions are made
  • decoding of the Kerberos ticket is made using machine account (not using application pool identity)

    This allows you to have multiple applications pools running under different identities without having to declare SPNs

  caveat: if a SPN has been declared with a specific user account (also used as application pool identity), kernel mode authentication will not be able to decrypt the Kerberos ticket since it uses the machine account. This problem is typical to web farm scenario since this scenario generally imposes to declare a SPN for the (virtual) NLB hostname. To prevent this issue, you can either:

  • disable Kernel mode authentication
  • set useAppPoolCredentials to true (this will keep you the performance benefit of kernel mode authentication while allowing to decode the Kerberos ticket under the application pool identity) – for more details, check out this blog : http://www.adopenstatic.com/cs/blogs/ken/archive/2008/02/12/16189.aspx
    
• Why does Kerberos authentication work only for a limited amount of time under XP SP2 ?
  

  There is a known Kerberos ticket renewal issue using XP SP2. This issue is solved with XP SP3 or using the following hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/939850
  

• Why does Kerberos authentication work only for a limited amount of time

  There is a known issue with Internet Explorer described in the following article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/899417 (to activate the fix, you'll need to create the following registry key: FEATURE_ENSURE_FQDN_FOR_NEGOTIATE_KB899417). This problem manifests itself through the loss of Kerberos authentication after a while. Note that Internet Explorer security update MS09-054 (released on 10.13.2009) does activate the fix by default (no need to create a registry key).

• Why does delegation fails when Kerberos authentication works ?

  In this scenario, check the following:

  • Internet Explorer Zone used for the URL. Kerberos delegation is only allowed for the « Intranet » and « Trusted Sites » zones (in other words, IE sets the ISC_REQ_DELEGATE flag when it calls InitializeSecurityContext only if the zone computed is « Intranet » or « Trusted Sites » )
  • The user account must have the « Trusted for delegation » flag set

  If delegation still fails, you may consider using DELEGCONFIG. This tool allows to diagnose - and resolve - dozens of issues preventing Kerberos authentication from working correctly. Check the following link for more details: http://blogs.iis.net/bretb/archive/2008/03/27/How-to-Use-DelegConfig.aspx

• Why do I get bad performances using Kerberos authentication?

  By default, Kerberos authentication is « request based » contrary to NTLM which is « session based ». This means that every request will include the Kerberos ticket. You can change this behavior using the authPersistNonNTLM property if you are running under IIS7 or EnableKerbAuthPersist for IIS6. For more details, please see the following: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954873
  
  Note also that it may not be a good idea to blindly use Kerberos authentication on all objects. Using Kerberos authentication to fetch hundred of images with conditional GET requests likely producing « 304 not modified » responses is similar to attempting to kill a fly with a hammer. Such approach will also not provide obvious security gains.

We hope that this « checklist » will help you to quickly identify the nature of Kerberos authentication issues. As you may have noticed it, the number of potential issues is almost as high as the number of tools to solve them!

Emmanuel Boersma

You may experience performance issue on a SharePoint 2007 site page where it has sharepoint list library lookup column, for example there is a custom list named 'List1' with custom column 'Column1', there are around 10000 items added to this list.  Create another list named 'List2' and create a lookup column named 'Column2' pointing to List1 -> Column1.

From your client where you have Internet Explorer 6 or 7, browse to the sharepoint List2 and create new item, in new item creation page go to Column2 and click on the drop down button, it will take very long time display the items pulled from List1.  We will not experience this issue in SharePoint 2003, we have identified this issue after migrating SharePoint 2003 site to a MOSS 2007 environment and there is no change in client side (IE version).

The reason behind this performance issue is because in MOSS the way we render the data and process is changed compared to earlier version SharePoint 2003.

In SPS 2003 the dropdown items are rendered as HTML SELECT element with each option in the dropdown specified as a separate OPTION elements, it will be easier and quicker in IE 7 to process and display the data.  But there will be delay in network traffic as http payload is high.

      <SELECT TABINDEX=1 NAME="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#GetData"><OPTION Value="">(None)</OPTION><OPTION  VALUE="13360">America</OPTION><OPTION  VALUE="13107">b</OPTION><OPTION  VALUE="13040">bhm</OPTION><OPTION  VALUE="12754">bnm</OPTION><OPTION  VALUE="12749">bnmvb</OPTION><OPTION  VALUE="13358">bus</OPTION> 

In MOSS the dropdown items are rendered as a SPAN element (with its opt attribute set to _Select) and then all the dropdown items are specified as a long string with items separated by ‘|’ (pipe) symbol.  So that the data packet size is reduced, it will improve the nework performance at the same time it has issues with old IE versions like IE6 and IE7.

<span style="vertical-align:middle"><input name="ctl00$m$g_b4b96149_5df0_41fd_8890_f4dac0ac0b09$ctl00$ctl04$ctl01$ctl00$ctl00$ctl04$ctl00$ctl01" type="text" id="ctl00_m_g_b4b96149_5df0_41fd_8890_f4dac0ac0b09_ctl00_ctl04_ctl01_ctl00_ctl00_ctl04_ctl00_ctl01" class="ms-lookuptypeintextbox" onfocusout="HandleLoseFocus()" opt="_Select" title="LookRom" optHid="SPLookRom_Hidden" onkeypress="HandleChar()" onkeydown="HandleKey()" match="" choices="(None)|0|America|13357|b|13359|bhm|13358|d|25|d|31|d|34|d|37|d|40|d|207|d|213|d|216|d|219|d|222|d|389|d|395|
d|398|d|401|d|404|d|571|d|577|d|580|d|583|d|586|d|753|d|759|d|762|d|765|d|768|d|935|d|941|d|944|d|

Solution:

To overcome this performance issue we need to upgrade the Internet Explorer version to IE8.

In MOSS the data packet size transferred between server and client is drastically reduced and it saves 2/3 of network bandwidth, so that we would say the design change in MOSS is much better than SPS 2003, except the IE7 client performance.  Just to improve the client performance going back to SPS 2003 method and increase network traffic does not make sense, so that we have improved IE java script execution in IE8.

With today’s rich AJAX web-applications, some of the most common JScript operations include String and Array operations. We received feedback from many users regarding slow performance of the inbuilt string concatenation functions of Jscript, there are many blog post about the same topic.  With IE8, we fixed this problem in the JScript engine. String concatenation is now many times faster when compared to the previous JScript engine.

http://blogs.msdn.com/jscript/archive/2008/03/05/jscript-in-internet-explorer-8-beta-1-for-developers.aspx