This episode was recorded with my new Samson Zoom H2 Handy Recorder (crappy name), how about Zoom H2 Portable Personal Digital Recorder. O’Reilly Digital Media has an in-depth review here. This tiny, lightweight handheld recorder has four microphones and can record true surround-sound audio! How cool is that? Plus it sounds great and comes with a carrying case, stand, mic-stand adapter, headphones and an ac adapter. Two AA batteries can also power it for up to 8 hours. I love it so far, I just wish it was aluminum instead of plastic.

Hate proprietary single network instant messaging clients, like AOL Instant Messenger or Yahoo Messenger? I do too. I briefly touch on two great free and open-source IM clients. Pidgin (formerly GAIM) is a free open-source multi-network IM client for Windows, Fedora, CentOS (and others) and Adium a multi-network IM client for the Mac. Nurse Apps listened to the raw recording of this episode and told me to add that all you have to do to start using Pidgin is type in your AOL IM (or Google Talk, Microsoft MSN/Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, etc) username and password and Pidgin will import your buddy lists so you don’t have to. Truly awesome examples of well-done free open-source software.

I also try my best to discuss the different types of software, like open-source vs. proprietary (or as I call it closed-source) and freeware, crippleware, shareware and commercial software.

If you are new to podcasts/netcasts I discuss some of my favorites, like Buzz-Out Loud, TWiT, Command N, LabRats and Tekzilla (and I forget to mention GeekBrief TV).

And finally, for 2008 the Apprentice and I agreed that we need theme music and decided that the show will be released on Sunday (still bi-weekly).

Thanks for listening and feel free to comment here or email us.

Dr. Apps / Host of the Appsolute Tech Show

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This week (or bi-week, actually tri-week) we talk about Circuit City’s crappy $15 coupon code and CompUSA’s new all sales are final policy. Of course we had to mention the availability of the Windows XP SP3 Release Candidate and the Windows Vista SP1 Release Candidate.

We kept it simple on the apps and talk about two great open-source, cross-platform programs which are video related; Miro and VLC Media Player.

Thanks for listening to the Appsolute Tech Show. Leave your comments, corrections or suggestions here or send us an email.

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Sorry for the delay in getting this episode out. First our Internet connection dropped out on Thursday and then yesterday I realized that I forgot to actually record the segment on Firefox extensions, so we had to re-record the whole episode.

All the links below are for the extension creator’s website, you can also find all these extensions at addons.mozilla.org. If you decide to install these extensions from the creator’s website you must go to Tools > Options > Security > Exceptions and add the url of the site and click allow to be able to install the add-on.

List of the Firefox extensions we talk about:

Adblock Plus – MUST HAVE! Block unwanted ads, banners, etc…

CLEO – Compact Library Extension Organizer. Make one installable extension file comprised of multiple extensions. Great way to install a given set of extensions on multiple computers.

Colorful Tabs – Show your true colors, makes each tab have a unique color to visually differentiate multiple tabs.

CustomizeGoogle – MUST HAVE! Customize your Google experience, including anonymizing your Google cookie, and making sure you view Google Calendar, Docs and other Google services over an encrypted (SSL) connection.

DownThemAll! – A nice download manager with resume and multithreaded downloads.

ErrorZilla Mod – Replaces basic “Page Not Found” error page in Firefox with a more useful error page which includes links to WhoIs, Google Cache, and the WayBack Machine.

Fasterfox – A Firefox tweaking utility to speed up Firefox and your overall browsing experience.

FEBE – MUST HAVE! Firefox Extension Backup Extension allows you to backup your whole Firefox profile (including Extensions) or selective elements of your profile. Includes restore capability.

Firefox Showcase – Shows a page of clickable thumbnails of all your open tabs.

FirefoxView – Adds right-click menu option to Internet Explorer that allows you to open the page your viewing in Firefox.

Firekeeper – Increase your browsing security by block cross site scripting (XSS), includes whilelist/blacklist capability.

Flagfox – Adds a little flag icon in the bottom right hand corner of Firefox to show the country the site your viewing is based in (according to IP address).

GooglePreview – Adds a thumbnail image to the left side of your Google search results so you quickly see what the page that your going to visit look like.

IE Tab – Open pages/sites in Firefox using the Internet Explorer rendering engine instead of loading up Internet Explorer to view pages that just don’t seem to work in Firefox.

IE View Lite – Adds a right-click menu item in Firefox to launch Internet Explorer with the page your viewing.

Infolister – A quick way to automatically create a listing of all your Firefox extensions, themes, and plugins.

Link Alert – MUST HAVE! Shows a tiny icon which represents the destination of a link when you hover your mouse over a link. Shows nifty icons for exes, zips, pdfs, external sites, etc…

Meetimer – Easily and automatically track which sites you visit safely. Find out how much time you spend procrastinating, working, emails, searching, etc… Does not transmit your browsing habits to anyone/anywhere.

MR Tech Local Install – MUST HAVE! Swiss army knife of Firefox extensions.

My Portal – Install and type myportal:// into your browser address bar to see a list of your bookmarks weighted by frequency visited. Try it and see for yourself.

NoScript – MUST HAVE! Truly browse safer! Selectively enable Javascript on a per site (or even per subdomain) basis. Oh and block cross-site scripting (XSS) even on trusted sites. Stop reading and get it now.

OPIE – Ordered Preference Import/Export utility. A new extension from the creator of FEBE and CLEO. It backs up the actual configuration of your extensions, not the actual extensions like FEBE.

Print/Print Preview – MUST HAVE! Adds Print/Print Preview functionality and a corresponding button to Firefox.

QuickJava – MUST HAVE! Enable/Disable Java globally with one click. Use in conjunction with NoScript to prevent even sites you trust from loading Java applets.

SafeCache – MUST HAVE! Prevents third party sites from raiding your cache to track your activities by segmenting your cache according to the domain of the originating page.

SafeHistory – MUST HAVE! “Protects your privacy by silently defending against visited-link-based tracking techniques. It allows offsite visited links to be marked only if the browser’s history database contains a record of the link being followed from the current site.”

Save Image in Folder – A nice, easy way to save and organize pictures/graphics you find online. Create unlimited categories and save images to specific folders in two-clicks.

Session Manager – The best session management utilty for Firefox. Also saves your current browsing session every X milliseconds in case Firefox crashes, you can start it back up with your last session.

Tab Mix Plus – MUST HAVE! The ultimate tab configuration extension for Firefox. Don’t leave home without it. Way too many features to list here.

Tab Scope – Creates a thumbnail preview of an underlying tab, viewable by hover over the tab you want to see a preview of.

TabCounter – Simple extension that shows a numeric count of how many tabs you have open.

Update Notifier – MUST HAVE! Automatically notifies you of updates to your extensions/themes. You can also set it to automatically install the newest updates or you can do it manually.

Zotero – For the student, professor or even amateur web researcher. Organize your topics and save snippets of pages and add tags for more flexibility.

Please let us know what you think of the episode by leaving commends, or emailing us. The next episode will be released on Wednesday, December 6th.

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Show Notes:

This is our installing, organizing and launching applications episode. The following applications are mentioned in the show.

Control Runner v3.3.2
Published by Momsoftco
Commercialware / 45-day Trial Available
$29.95 (Listen to the premier episode of the A.T.S. for an EXCLUSIVE coupon code and get the program for only $19.95!!!)
Purchase here.

Jetstart v.4.4
Published by CodeSector
Freeware / Pro Version Available for $19.95

Launchy v1.25
Published by Josh Karlin
Open-Source/Freeware

LaunchOnFly v1.51
Published by ArturDev
Shareware

RocketDock v1.35
Published by Punk Labs
Freeware

That’s all for this week. Check back often, the next episode will be out in two weeks. Don’t forget to tell us how we’re doing.

Thanks,

Dr. Apps and The Apprentice

PS: We need theme music!!!! Also, let us know how you think it sounds at 64kbps.

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