Create Your Own Cloud with Opera Unite

by Scott Nesbitt – February 14, 2010

Cloud computing. It's one of the big buzzwords in the tech world. And whether you're excited by it or turned off by it, cloud computing has the potential to change the way we use our desktop computers, laptop computers, and netbooks.

The idea behind cloud computing is to move applications off your desktop and on to the Web. That opens a very large digital can of worms, though. While you get access to your favorite applications no matter where you are, your information is in someone else's hands. You don't get much control.

Why not create your own cloud? Under normal circumstances, this is difficult even if you have experience programming Web applications. You can do the deed on your desktop computer or laptop computer for free using the Opera Web browser and a feature of that browser called Opera Unite.

What is Opera Unite?

A feature of Opera version 10 or later, Opera Unite is a file and application server. Whereas a traditional server can be difficult to set up, you can get up and running with Opera Unite with just a few mouse clicks. More on this in a moment.

Using Opera Unite, you can share files and collaborate with anyone. And, for the most part, they don't need to be using Opera. The files and applications that you're serving can be accessed with any Web browser.

With Opera Unite, you get a a unique URL that gives you and your collaborators access to your Opera Unite server. With Opera Unite, you can:

• Share files and photos
• Run a basic Web server
• Have instant messenger chats
• Play music files on your computer
• Share notes
• Back up files
• Use Twitter

And more.

Note: If you have more questions about Opera Unite, you might want to check out the very detailed FAQ.

How does it work?

Opera Unite is built into the Opera Web browser. You need to enable and configure it. That's a surprisingly simple process that only takes a few clicks.

To get going, download and install Opera. Start the browser and then select Tools > Opera Unite Server > Enable Opera Unite. This will start a wizard that will walk you through the process. Two things you'll have to do are sign up for a My Opera account and create a name for your computer.

Your Opera user name and computer name identify your PC to the DNS server run by the folks at Opera Software. The DNS server directs all traffic  to your Opera Unite server using a specific URL. When you or your friends want to access the Opera Unite server that you're running, you'll type http://yourcomputer.yourname.operaunite.com – for example, http://zen.scottnesbitt.operaunite.com.

If you want to stop Opera Unite, click the Unite icon in the bottom left corner of the browser window and select Stop.

It's all about the applications

You've got Opera Unite running. Now what? The best place to start is with the built-in applications. You can access these applications by clicking the panel button in the top left corner of the Opera window, and then clicking the Opera Unite icon (the third one from the top).

There are six applications bundled with Unite:

• File Sharing – exchange any type of file with your friends and colleagues
• Web Server – host a Web site
• Messenger – exchange text messages with other people in the My Opera community
• Fridge – A collaborative sticky note system
• Media Player – Play the music files on your computer, anywhere you are
• Photo Sharing – Displays a directory of your photos as a gallery

By default, the applications aren't running. You can start them by double-clicking the application in the panel.

Remember that you can make the applications visible to everyone, or just give selected people access. For the latter, Opera Unite assigns the application a password. You might want to change that password – the default is four or five characters. Not the most secure passwords around.

I usually use the File Sharing and Media Player applications the most. But to create your own cloud with Opera Unite, you can install any of the available ones from the Opera Unite Web site. There were only 42 applications out there at the time this TechTip was written, but there probably will be more coming down the pike in the near future.

Applications: interesting and useful

Not every application will be of use to everyone. Here are a few of my favorites.

My business partner and I have different schedules and work in different parts of the city. A lot of our collaboration and brainstorming takes place online. When we brainstorming ideas, the Whiteboard application comes in handy. It lets us sketch out ideas and add corrections or comments. All without getting marker on our hands or shirts.

While the File Sharing application is good, it's download only. I often work away from my home office using a netbook. Running Opera Unite on my main computer with the Document Sync and Document Courier applications, I can exchange files between the computers and synchronize any changes. Sort of like the online file sharing services that were covered in a previous TechTip.

Like everyone else, I have a lot to do. Keeping up with all of those tasks requires a lot of work on my part. The Task Manager application makes that a lot easier. I use it as a simple online to-do list, and often share it with my wife so we both know what we're up to and can fit things into our schedules.

Finally, as someone who co-owns a small business I often have meetings with multiple people: my business partner, people I'm collaborating  with, clients and prospective clients. It's tough to nail down a date and time where we can all meet. That's why I find Meet so useful. It's a meeting calendar, but one which allows invitees to vote on the date and time of a meeting. It sure beats juggling a bunch of emails and phone calls .

If you want to install an application, find it at the Opera Unite Web site, (in Opera, of course) and click the Install Application button.

Final thoughts

Opera Unite is definitely useful. In the short term, it might not replace your favorite desktop or Web applications. The lack of applications available for it could be a turn off. But remember that Opera Unite hasn't been around for all that long. Its application ecosystem is small but it is growing.

In fact, it might be the start of the next step in using the Web: giving the average computer user a quick and simple way to create their own little clouds.

Thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment or to post in the forums.

Shorter is Sweeter: A Look at URL Shorteners

by Scott Nesbitt – February 7, 2010

Once upon a time, URLs (Uniform Resource Locators, which most of us know as “Web addresses” or “links”) were short and simple. Often, they looked something like http://www.geeks.com. If you had a personal Web page, your URL might look something like http://www.facebook.com/ComputerGeeks

Times change, and URLs have expanded. A lot. Just do a search at the Web site of a large corporation or your favorite online retailer. What often comes back is a long and convoluted URL. And that becomes a problem if you're into microblogging. Services like Twitter limit you to 140 characters. Some long URLs exceed that limit by quite a bit.

So, how can you tame those impossibly long URLs? With a Web-based service called a URL shortener.

How they work

As the name implies, a URL shortener shrinks a link – sometimes as much as 90%. With a couple of URL shorteners I've used, 160 character URLs were whittled down to 14 characters.

Obviously, you need to go to the site of a URL shortening service and paste a link in a field. The service checks its database to confirm whether or not that link already exists. If it does, the service gives you the short version that it assigned to the URL.

If the URL is not in the database, the service first adds it to the database. Then, the service runs the URL through a piece of software or a function called either a random alphanumeric generator or a sequential alphanumeric generator.  Those are just fancy names for a process that creates a short string of numbers and characters that the service associates with the URL – for example, http://bit.ly/7xCFKq. As you can see from the example in the last sentence, the URL of the shortening service appears in the smaller link.

Note: If your inner geek wants to know about this process in more depth, check out this article.

Clicking on a shortened link triggers a short series of events. The shortened URL points to the site of the service that originally shrunk the URL. Using the name assigned to the shortened URL, the service checks its database for the corresponding longer URL. Then, using some back-end Internet trickery called redirection, sends your browser on its way to the site in question. This all happens very quickly, and you don't really notice much (if any) of a delay.

Uses and problems

The most obvious usage is with microblogging sites like Twitter. As I mentioned at the beginning of this TechTip, some long URLs exceed the length of a tweet. A good URL shortener not only lets you add a link to a tweet, but also leaves plenty of room for a comment.

Shortened URLs are just more convenient for sharing in emails, blog posts, messages on social media sites like Facebook, or even when sending a text message from your phone. In fact, shortened URLs can appear anywhere – I saw one in an ad on the Toronto subway!

If you're sharing links with someone who uses screen reading software, a shortened URL makes is easier for the reader to process. And, obviously, it's easier for the person to type into their browser.

Of course, there can be problems with shortened URLs. Links on the Web are known to change or disappear. A shortened URL will always point to the original location. And not every URL shortening service allows its users to change URLs.

On top of that, it's not unknown for a shortened URL service to die. When a service dies, the shortened URLs created with it become useless.

Both spammers and malware writers have been known to use shortened URLs to drive traffic to less-than-savory sites. There are ways to avoid the potential problems of following such poisoned URLs. More about this in a few paragraphs.

What's out there?

There are literally hundreds of URL shortening services out there. URL shorteners come and go, but the ones discussed below are quite stable. If you want a list of all of the URL shorteners available on the Web, go here.

First up, one of the more popular and venerable services: TinyURL. This service has few frills. You enter the URL that you want to shrink into a text box at the site, and click the Make TinyURL! button. TinyURL spits back just that. You can even create your own custom URL – instead of http://www.tinyurl.com/3rE2t you can name the shortened URL http://www.tinyurl.com/mySite.

A service that's stolen a lot of TinyURL's thunder is bit.ly. That's partially because the output from bit.ly is shorter than that of TinyURL and because bit.ly also offers some interesting and useful tools. You can shorten URLs just by visiting the site. But if you get access to some useful tools if you sign up for a free account. What kinds of tools? A full list of the URLs that you've shortened. You can check how many people clicked a link in a given day. On top of that, bit.ly is now the default URL shortener for Twitter.

tr.im is a lot like bit.ly. You get the basics just by visiting the site: shrink a URL and optionally create a custom link (just like TinyURL). You can also automatically post the link to Twitter. If you sign up for a free account, you get a list of all the URLs that you've trimmed and how many times a trimmed URL has been clicked.

If you like your software a little more open and bare bones, then you might want to give ur1.ca a peek. Made by the folks behind the identi.ca microblogging service, ur1.ca only lets you shorten URLs. Not editing or deleting, or anything else. But if you're a developer you can download the source code and add the shortener to your own Web site or Web application. And you can download the entire ur1.ca database as a tab-separated file. Careful, though, it's a big database – a 25 MB archive, and growing.

Browser tools

Of course going to a Web site specifically to shorten URLs can be a bit of a pain. If you use Firefox, Google Chrome, or Opera then you can shrink URLs at the click of a button without having to visit a URL shortening site. This is done with an extension (also called an add-on or widget, depending on the browser).

Firefox has almost 30 URL shortening add-ons. The best of the lot is Shorten URL. It works with dozens of URL shortening services. All you need to do is select the URL in the browser address bar, right click it, and choose Shorten This Page URL. You can also shrink the URLs to images and to links on a Web page.

how do i get viagra title=”http://www.geeks.com/techtips/2008/techtips-05OCT08.htm”>Google Chrome has over 40 URL shortening extensions that work with a variety of services. Most of them only work with a single service, though. My favorite is  Bit.ly Shorten URL. It's very simple: go to a Web site, and click the bit.ly icon in Chrome's address bar (it's a small blowfish). You're taken to the bit.ly site, and you have your shortened URL. No muss, no fuss.

Opera only has one URL shortening widget: Simple URL. The widget only works with a service called simurl. But don't let that hold you back. You enter the URL that you want to shrink in the Simple URL widget and then click Make Link to get a 22-character URL. You can also specify an identifier for the URL, up to 10 characters long, that lets you track the URL later. Just click the My URLs tab on the widget, type the identifier in the field, and click Get My URLs. Of course, you'll have to remember your identifiers.

Earlier, I mentioned that some shortened URLs may point to unsavory sites or sites containing malware. LongURL helps you get around this by expanding a short URL and giving you information about it.

If you use Firefox, you can download an extension that will expand a short URL without having to go to the LongURL Web site.

Summing up

URL shorteners aren't for everyone. But for anyone who needs to use one, a URL shortener is an invaluable tool. It makes using microblogging services a lot easier, and makes it more convenient to share interesting links that might get broken when you copy and paste them into an email or anywhere else.

5 Essential iPod Touch Apps for the Mobile Geek

by Scott Nesbitt – January 31, 2010

The iPod Touch is more than just an MP3/MP4 player. And it's far more than just a crippled iPhone. It's a portable entertainment center, and a powerful tool for the mobile worker.

The key to the latter, though, is finding the right apps. Many of the applications for the iPod Touch that are available through Apple's AppStore are fun. There are some that are … well, they're interesting. Others are downright useless.

The apps that this TechTip covers are perfect for the geek on the go. They range in price from free to under five dollars. Best of all, they can keep you productive and connected.

Echofon

If you use Twitter, you've probably noticed that many tweets are sent from mobile devices. I've tried several Twitter apps for the iPod Touch and the best by far is Echofon.

Like any other Twitter client out there – whether for smartphones or a desktop computer – you can use Echofon to view tweets from the feeds that you've subscribed to. You can also view @mentions, direct messages, and any Twitter lists that you follow.  Obviously, you can also post tweets, reply to tweets, and retweet any interesting posts.

The interface is attractive and clean. It's easy to scroll though tweets and the Echofon alerts you not only to any new tweets and @mentions but also how many of each. While I'm leery of calling any application intuitive, Echofon comes really close. Everything you want to do is a tap or two away. And you pretty much get  used to the interface after only a couple of minutes.

Unlike a number of for-pay apps, Echofon has a free version. The free version has fewer features than the pay version but gives you a good idea of what Echofon can do. If you like it, the full version will set you back $3.99.

Evernote

genuine viagra without prescription height="270" align="right" />One way in which two million (and counting) people keep track of information and manage their lives is with Evernote. Evernote started as a desktop application for Windows or Mac OS X. But Evernote also has a Web-based component that you can access using a mobile device like an iPod Touch.

With the free Evernote app, you can read and edit your notes in the Web edition of Evernote. You can also create new notes and even upload images to your Evernote account.

Best of all, if you're offline and want to write a note you can do that within the Evernote app. Once you're back online, just tap the Sync icon to upload the note or notes to the Web

Obviously, you'll need an account with Evernote. A basic account is free, or you can get a premium account (with more storage space and options) for $45 a year.

Stanza

Information. People can't get enough of it. And for many, that information comes in the form of books. When you're on the run though, carting one or more dead-tree volumes weighs you down – literally and figuratively.

I'm an enthusiastic user of an ebook reader. But sometimes, even that's more than I want to carry. Luckily, there's the Stanza ebook reader for the iPod Touch and iPhone.

A free app, Stanza offers the closest thing to print-quality text on a screen that I've seen. Unlike many dedicated ebook readers, it also has a backlight which allows you to read in low light.

Using Stanza is simple. Just choose the book that you want to read from the ones that you have on your iPod Touch. Once it's loaded, tap the screen to turn the pages. You can change various aspects of the text – including font, color, and the amount of space between lines. You can also bookmark pages that contain interesting information.

On top of that, Stanza supports a variety of ebook formats. (Note: the reader can't open ebooks that are protected by DRM.)

How to get books onto your iPod Touch? You can try transferring them from your computer to the device, but that process can be more than a little cumbersome. Stanza does include links to several sources of ebooks online – both free books and ones you have to pay for. You can also download ebooks from Web sites as long as they're in the ePub format.

Dropbox

You're away from your computer. But you need that file or document. And you need it now. What do you do? If you use DropBox, you can view that file on your iPod Touch with a couple of taps of the screen.

A previous TechTip discussed DropBox. Just to refresh your memory, it's an online file storage and sharing service. You upload a file or set of files to DropBox, and you can access them from any computer or device on which you have the necessary software to get to your DropBox account.

You can download the free DropBox app for the iPod Touch from the AppStore or directly from the DropBox Web site. Once you've entered your account details, you can view files or upload them from your device with a tap or two. How do you think I got the screen captures in this TechTip onto my laptop?

Of course, you need a DropBox account – you get 2 GB of space for free, and can pay for even more storage. On top of that, you'll need software to view the types of files – for example, word processor documents or spreadsheets – that the iPod Touch's built-in software doesn't support.

Boingo Mobile Client

I'd be lost without wireless – whether in my home or when I'm on the road. While there's a lot of free wifi out there, there isn't always a free hotspot where I am. Which is why I have a Boingo Mobile account.

For $7.95 a month, I get unlimited access to thousands of wireless hotspots in over 70 countries. Not that I'll ever visit all of those 70 countries, but for the two that I do frequent, Boingo Mobile is one of the most useful apps on my iPod Touch. And the monthly fee is about the same as the hourly fee charged by many for-pay hotspots.

The first time you that you try to use a Boingo-enabled hotspot, you'll have to manually connect to it. You do that by tapping Settings > Wi-Fi and then tapping the name of the network. Once you're connected, go to the iPod Touch home screen. Tap the Boingo Wireless icon, then tap Login.

If you frequent one or more hotspots, make sure that your iPod Touch is set up to automatically connect when it detects a hotspot. To so that, tap Settings > Wi-Fi, then slide the option Ask to Join Networks to ON. Whenever you need to connect,  Tap the Boingo Wireless icon, then tap Login.

Summing up

The five apps discussed in this TechTip really only graze the surface of the body of apps for the iPod Touch that help make mobile geeks more productive and keep them better connected. They are, though, a great point at which to start building your library of mobile apps.

What apps do you recommend for the iPod Touch? Feel free to leave a comment or to share your favorites in the forums.

Reusing Old PC Drives with External Enclosures

by Bryan Lambert – January 24, 2010

Given the Geek that we're sure you are, you're probably on your third or fourth desktop generic viagra computer already. If this is you, then this Tech Tip is for you!

Before recycling that old machine why not make good use of its parts – specifically the drives. This week we'll be looking at some cool things that you can do with those old drives.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Getting the most out of your old PC means more that just donating it or recycling it when the time comes, but also innovative ways to reuse some of your old computer parts. For example, because your hard drive more than likely holds information you rather not get out (even if you reformat the drive, your information is still there – and easily recoverable), why not reuse it. Or perhaps, you're getting rid of a PC because it died, but the DVDRW drive is still perfectly good. While you may think of adding your old hard or optical drive into your new PC, why not just install it into an inexpensive external hard drive case instead. Before you do that however, you will need to know what case to get for the drive you have.

The size and the interface

When you start looking at external drive cases, you'll notice that they come in three different sizes: 2.5-inch, 3.5-inch and 5.25-inch. This simply refers to the physical "size" of the drive (OK, more specifically, the physical sizes of the discs inside the drive, but I digress). Basically, it comes down to if you have a notebook hard drive, then you'll use a 2.5-inch enclosure; a desktop hard drive, a 3.5-inch enclosure; and an optical drive then a 5.25-inch enclosure (or a slim 5.25-inch enclosure for a laptop optical drive). Note that some 5.25-inch enclosures can also accommodate 3.5-inch drives as well. The interface on the drive itself will either be IDE (PATA) or SATA and most drive enclosures will take either one or the other (some can take both) so be sure that you get the correct one for your drive. This is of course the internal interface – the external interface of the enclosure will either be the very popular USB (USB 2.0 most likely since USB 3.0 is taking its sweet time arriving ); eSATA or FireWire (FireWire 400 being the more prevalent flavor). One of the nice things about using 2.5-inch enclosures is that they'll usually be powered via just the USB port and not need any external power source.

Other cool features

Some of the other cool features to look for on external enclosures are one touch back-up (for easy back-up of your main hard drive); RAID enclosures (which take two drives at a time for larger total capacity); and also "entertainment" enclosures (that can be used as a multimedia server that works not only as an external hard drive but also as a entertainment hub for your television). In addition to those types of enclosures there are also some enclosures that can be installed internally in a desktop computers drive bay and then pulled out and used as an external drive. If you don't want to go the enclosure route, you can also use cable adapters that are simply a cable that plugs directly into the drive on one end and the PC on the other (for quick and easy access to your drive). Just like enclosures, be sure to get one that "fits" your drives interface. Another innovative item that goes along the non-enclosure route is the hard drive dock. With a hard drive dock you simply "drop" your hard drive into it and can quickly access your information in that fashion.

A couple of pitfalls

One of the biggest things to look out for is that enclosures will typically have a limit to the capacity of the hard drive that they can support – so be sure that it can support your drive. Also, because the USB interface is much slower than what the drive can deliver, USB enclosures can be frustratingly slow at times (USB 3.0 promises to be much faster); this is true if using USB for either optical or hard drives. If you are planning on reusing drives from your laptop, these sometimes have caddies around them that need to be removed first (before installing the drive into an enclosure). Also, many optical drives found on laptops have curved bezels and may have problems fitting in some of the slim external enclosures that are made for notebook optical drives.

In conclusion

Reusing old computer drives is an economical way to get more life out of your old PC's components. Not only can it be a fun learning experience, but it helps reuse drives that may otherwise take up landfill space. So break out a screwdriver, pick up an inexpensive enclosure, put on your Green-Geek hat and Pimp your PC by reusing your old drives!