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Apple’s SMS (Sudden Motion Sensor) has been used to create some pretty useful as well as useless programs. I wrote an article a few weeks ago about iAlertU and it’s uses. Smackbook is a program that makes use of the SMS to switch between workspaces in Leopard. To change workspaces, just tap the left or right side of your laptop. Here’s a quick look at what it does:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uvQTTPr9Rw]

Now I know there are a lot of people out there who would not want to hit their laptop (me being one of them). There is another option for us, but unfortunately only for those of us who have MacBook Pros with the built in light sensor:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slZDN7zeMWI&feature=related]

I have found a great tutorial that not only explains how to install Smackbook…

Do you have trouble installing the driver for your video card in Ubuntu? Does your XServer often crash or fail to start? Are you afraid to manually edit your xorg.conf because you might mess something up? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should give Envy a try.

Envy is a program written in Python that will automate the installation of video card drivers in Ubuntu. Envy works with several versions of Ubuntu and Debian and supports both ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards. Envy will detect the model of your video card and select the appropiate driver. It will then contact the appropriate website (ATI or NVIDIA) and package…

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format commonly used to exchange documents. The beauty of PDF files is they don’t depend on what computer you use, or what kind of operating system you have, it always looks the same. This is perfect for exchanging documents between offices because they can use different hardware and still open the PDF file. This is also the case for college students like me, because professors prefer papers in PDF to ensure the readability of the file.

Open PDFs
To open a PDF file, all you need is a PDF reader. One of the most popular programs is Adobe Reader, which is available for…

Do you like the balloon popup notices that come up from the Windows toolbar? I absolutely hate them. I don’t need to know that I’ve connected because I can look at the icon and it will tell me. The balloons annoy me because they won’t close themselves. Have you ever wanted to just turn them off?? Here’s a quick how to:

First click the start button and click run. Type in Regedit

You should now see a screen like this:

Now we’re going to navigate to the correct subfolder so be patient. You’re going to want to click the + icon next to the following folders (moving from left to right):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Explorer…

Recently I was setting up an old computer to be a file server and I wanted to place it in another room without a monitor or keyboard. To do this I needed to have remote access so I could control it from my desktop, or any computer for that matter. A friend of mine suggested that I give NoMachine NX a try. I had never heard of this program but I am glad he told me about it.

NoMachine NX is a remote access program that allows users to control a “server” from any computer with Internet access (the client). In other words, this program opens a window that allows you to see the desktop…

There are rumors that Apple is currently in negotiations with major record labels to discuss a new option that would give customers unlimited downloads from the iTunes music store. You would only get the unlimited download option if you paid a premium price for an iPod or iPhone. The idea is not only great for customers but would also help Apple as well since Apple does not make as much money from its song sales as it does from its hardware. I would be willing to pay a reasonable $50-$100 more for an iPod if it allowed me free access to all that iTunes has to offer. I would probably look at the higher capacity 160GB iPod since I would be able to download all that I want.

Did you know there is a free alternative to Microsoft Office? If you only need to use an office suite for writing basic documents, spreadsheets and the occasional powerpoint, you don’t need to pay hundreds for Microsoft Office. Here’s a quick look at OpenOffice.

OpenOffice is a multiplatform, multilingual open source office suite. OpenOffice is compatible with many other office suites, including Microsoft Office. This means that you can open Microsoft Office files as well as save Microsoft Office files. If you have a .doc Microsoft file that you need to open at home, you don’t have to worry about compatablity issues because OpenOffice will read and write to that format.

One of my favorite functions of OpenOffice is…