FAQforge provides answers for frequently asked questions for the Linux-, MAC and Windows operating systems.
Mac OS X-like Dock for Windows 7
The Dock, main navigation element in Apple’s Mac OS X, is a powerful tool to quickly access your most important files if you tend to use the same pieces of software or the same folders over and over again. Rocketdock is such a dock application designed for Windows:
It works like the original OS X dock and can be placed on every border of the screen, additionally being highly customizable in terms of theme, effects and behaviour:
You can download Rocketdock here: http://www.rocketdock.com
All-In-One-Gestures Plugin for Firefox
The All-In-One-Gestures plugin for Firefox is a plugin that enables you to accomplish nearly every task you want to in Firefox with the help of drawing lines on the screen. You just need to assign the directions for the common task in the preferences and start drawing:
By default, the key for drawing gestures is the middle-mouse key, meaning the mouse-wheel, which can be changed however. The plugin is highly customizable as you will see on first glance when opening the options window, it is also updated regularly to be up-to-date with Firefox’ fast updates.
To show an example, as seen in the options table above, the following gesture will duplicate the current tab:
Gestures are shown as red lines on the screen by default so that you can see what you are drawing. Additionally, the tool can be misused to draw funny pictures on your Firefox windows!
Windows XP Zune Theme
Additionally to the default Windows XP themes, Microsoft has released a darker skin fitting the Zune player. It basically uses the same textures as the glassy skin but comes mainly in black with an orange Start button:
Download the Zune theme here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=75078
Disabling Aero on Windows 7
The Windows 7 Aero desktop theme can cost you quite a lot of performance, which is why you might consider disabling it. To do so, open the Control Panel and select Appearance and Personalization:
Next go to Change the theme and scroll down to Windows Classic:
Wrap VBScripts into .exe Format
To convert your VBScript to an .exe file, or rather make them look like one, there is a native Windows tool called IExpress which you can access through your menu’s searchbar.
Select Create new Self Extraction Directive file and choose Extract files and run an installation command afterwards. Enter a package title and decide whether you want the user to be prompted or not and if you want a licence to be shown. Now browse the executables you want to wrap and select the files for installation in the next window. If they are not displayed in the dropdown menu then type their name in again manually.
If you want multiple scripts to be installed, enter cmd /c script1.vbs && script2.vbs for example. After some more configuration the executable will be placed in the directory you specified in one of the last steps.
Guake – Dropdown-Terminal for Gnome
Guake saves you the time of managing your terminal windows with circumstantial key-combinations and mouse-clicks by providing a configurable dropdown-terminal which you can call with F12 by default. Just like with usual terminals, it is possible to create new tabs, but also to edit the opacity, the size, colors and everything you need:
Guake is available in the default Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and Arch repositories. The source-code is downloadable at http://guake.org/downloads
Kill Processes On Ubuntu
When it comes to killing a frozen process, Ubuntu and its derivatives offer a great variety of ways to do so:
You can open the System Monitor to end or kill a running process. Just right-click and annihilate:
Then there is the Force Quit applet. Not that powerful, but does its job in most of the cases:
Working similarly but more powerful is the xkill command line tool. You can also wrap that one into a launcher and use it the same way as an applet.
Another command line tool is killall followed by the name of the process, granting the advantage of not having to know the process ID of the program, which the next tool requires:
kill, provided with the -9 switch and the ID of the process (available with top or ps) shuts down nearly every running process.
If none of those commands help, there is still the option to close the current session with ctrl + alt + backspace. This however comes with the warranty of losing any data you could not save before!
Install .deb Packages Manually (Linux Debian/Ubuntu)
When you download packages for Linux Debian or Ubuntu they usually come in the .deb format and are installed automatically by your local package manager. If you download them from the internet instead of the repositorial way however you are given the .deb file and have to deal with it yourself. To install it, open a terminal, direct it to the folder where it has been downloaded to with cd and use the dpkg command:
cd /home/ctest/Downloads/
dpkg -i random_name.deb
Decreased Productivity Chrome Add-On
Decreased Productivity is an add-on for Chrome that hides every kind of video and picture from the web-sites you are browsing and makes them look completely boring to by-passers. It is highly customisable in terms of what to show and how to show it, displaying the hidden elements only if you move the cursor over them.
Here’s an example of what it does with default settings:
You can download Decreased Productivity via Chrome options in the add-on manager.
Permanently Delete Files (Windows)
To permanently delete files instead of just throwing them into the waste-bin with Del, select them and press Shift and Del simultaneously. Confirm the appearing dialogue and you’ll have made sure that your trash does not overflow with forgotten data:
