Ari’s Blog

I am sold on Chrome. Not the shiny automotive kind. The browser kind. I know Chrome is developed by Google. I know Google may be the next current “big bad“. Even so, Using Chrome is just a nice experience. It is a fast browser that has a really simple user interface and has great extension. Now for those of you who do not use/know what extensions are – Think of them as an app store for your browser. Your browser comes with basic functionality (like a new iPhone) and you add additional functionality to it with extensions (like apps).  I will write about my favorite extensions in another post.

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You purchase the 500 GB 1 Terabyte drive for your computer figuring you could never fill it up. That much space should last a long long time. Then after a few months you realize you only have 100 GB left. What happened to all that space??? So you start to check all you folders and try to find what is taking up all that space. It is a long and tedious process. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an easier way to find all those large files and directories? There is. SpaceMonger.

SpaceMonger

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I get this question a lot:

“I got this .mkv (or insert other format here) video file and it won’t play on my machine. It says I don’t have the right codec. What do i do?”

First let me address what a codec is. A codec is an algorithm for compress and decompressing videos. If your computer does not have the algorithm it will not be able to decompress the video and you will not be able to watch the file.

So how do you get the codecs you need? The best option is to download a codec pack. A codec pack  is a group of codecs .. you guessed it.. packed together. The one I like to use is the k-lite codec pack.

K-lite codec pack

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Filezilla is a great free and open source FTP client. It beats the pants off of windows explorer. I have been using it for ages and enjoy it – It is user friendly and feature rich. If you need to FTP files look no further.

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Ever need to compare the contents of 2 files? You could use WinDiff. But WinMerge is a far better option.

WinMerge

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This is a cool site I read about on Lifehacker called YourFonts. YourFonts is a free website that helps you create your own font.

sample personal font

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I hate copying files on a Windows system. The system will start coping a file and if I want to copy another file while the first one is going it does so in parallel slowing down the whole process. If a copy process encounters an error  – forget it. The whole copy process dies and you have lost the queue and have no idea where you were up to. SuperCopier 2 fixes these issues in a small easy to use utility.

supercopier

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Do you use PuTTY? Ever wish Putty had tabs? Ever wish putty could remember the user name and password for a connection? Enter PuTTY Connection Manager.

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