By now you are probably familiar with Ted: Torrent Episode Downloader.  In fact, Michael recently covered, how to Turn Your Computer into a DVR with Ted.  However, I have yet to see a guide on how to install/run Ted in Linux.  Since it is written in Java, it is fairly straightforward to get running, but there are probably some new guys to Linux that could use some help.  I will also show you how to create a menu icon to launch Ted.

Requirements

Java is the only software requirement to actually open Ted.  According to Ted’s website, you need at least Java 5.  If you don’t already have Java installed, you can install it from the Ubuntu Software Center, by searching for java6.  You need the ‘Sun Java 6 Runtime’, not just the plugin.

You can also run the following command:

sudo aptitude install sun-java6-bin

Getting Started

It just so happens Ted released a new version yesterday, so make sure you download the most recent release.  You will notice there is a a different download depending on which operating system you want to run Ted in.  Obviously, you are going to want to choose the Linux download, which is in the form of a .zip archive.

Once the download is finished, we need to extract the contents of the zip archive.  You can do this several ways, depending on if you are a click and point kind of person, of if you prefer the command line.

For those of you who like the mouse, right click on the downloaded zip archive and choose ‘Extract Here’.  Be sure to rename the extracted folder to ‘ted’ (without the quotes).  The name of the folder will matter later on.

You can also use the command line by navigating to the directory where the zip archive is located and running the following commands:

mkdir ted
unzip tedv09715.zip -d ted

*Note: the second command will change slightly with each version of Ted.

If you want to move the ted folder to another location, now would be the time to do it.  The location does not matter, but changing it after this point will cause problems.

Creating an Application Launcher

Right click on the Applications menu, and choose ‘Edit Menus’

Choose the Internet menu from the list on the left.  Then click the ‘New Item’ button on the right.

Now, add the Ted entry. Be sure to change the location of the ted.jar file to where you put it earlier.

Finally, we will add the Ted icon to the launcher.  Click the spring looking icon button in the upper left corner.  This should open a window allowing you to browse for icons.  Click the Browse button and then navigate to the ‘ted’ folder. You will only be able to see the folders within the ted folder; however, this is okay. Simply click the Open button and you should see a file named ‘winicon.ico’.

Select the icon and then click ‘OK’.

(Optional)

Now for those of you who like doing everything on the command line, don’t fret, I haven’t forgotten about you.  Start by creating a text file named ‘ted’ that contains the following:

#!/bin/bash
java -jar /home/eric/ted/ted.jar

Obviously, change the location of the ted.jar file to match your system.  Next, we need to make this file executable.  To do so, run chmod +x ted from the command line.  Last, we need to move it to a folder included in your search path.  For example:
sudo mv ted /usr/bin/

Notice root privileges are needed here since you are copying the file to a system folder.  Enter your password when prompted.  You should now be able to run ‘ted’ from the command line to launch the application.

Upgrading safely

Since Ted includes the version number in its folder names, you have to be careful to not break the application launcher.  Either follow the Getting Started section above, or simply copy and paste the contents of the new release of Ted into your current ‘ted’ folder.

Troubleshooting

If your application launcher quits working, it is probably because the path to the ted.jar file has changed.  Just double check that it is still in the same location, and update either the launcher or the location if it is different.

In some of the older versions, Ted was set to use a tray icon by default; however, this would cause problems with Java.  This problems seems to have been fixed in newer versions of Ted, but I thought it was still worth mentioning.  If you get an error similar to the following:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: no tray in java.library.path
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1709)
at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Runtime.java:823)
at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(System.java:1028)
at org.jdesktop.jdic.tray.internal.impl.GnomeSystemTrayService.(Unknown Source)
at org.jdesktop.jdic.tray.internal.impl.ServiceManagerStub.getService(Unknown Source)
at org.jdesktop.jdic.tray.internal.ServiceManager.getService(Unknown Source)
at org.jdesktop.jdic.tray.SystemTray.(Unknown Source)
at ted.TedTrayIcon.(TedTrayIcon.java:28)
at ted.TedMainDialog.initGUI(TedMainDialog.java:312)
at ted.TedMainDialog.(TedMainDialog.java:121)
at ted.TedMain.main(TedMain.java:37)

try changing the command to run Ted from java -jar /home/eric/ted/ted.jar to java -jar /home/eric/ted/ted.jar noTray This can be substituted for the normal command in any of the examples given above.

Written by Eric

Do you watch a lot of network television? Do you ever miss an episode and have to search the Internet trying to find where you can watch it for free?  If so, you should take a look at Zinc.

Zinc is a free Internet video browser designed to help you watch practically any content available online.  Zinc integrates with Netflix, Hulu, and just about every major television network to provide unlimited video on demand.  Zinc can also play your local content, which is helpful if you use Torrent Episode Downloader very often.

Here are the downloads:

• Windows – Windows Vista or Windows XP SP2+
• Mac – Mac OS X 10.4.11 (Intel only)
• Sorry no Linux installer
• Zinc can also be used as a Firefox extension.

Setup

Install instructions, as well as the system requirements are listed on the respective download pages.  Installing Zinc is very trivial; just click next, agree to the terms, and choose where you want Zinc shortcuts placed, that’s it!

At the end of the installation, a hardware test is performed to ensure your system it is capable of running Zinc.  Don’t worry though, there aren’t many system requirements for Zinc.  Basically if your system can run Firefox and Adobe Flash, which you would need to view most online content anyway, it can run Zinc.  This test should only take a few seconds and when it is complete you should see a dialog box confirming that your hardware is compatible.  If your hardware is not compatible don’t worry just yet, you might be able to fix the problem.  Try following the troubleshooting guide found in the Zinc forums.

Once Zinc is installed, open the application and you will be greeted by a quick video clip that shows you the new features of Zinc Beta 4.

Zv Presents

The main screen of Zinc, Zv Presents, displays the online sites where you can watch videos.  Some of the notables here are Netflix, Hulu, ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central, and YouTube.  You can also follow more networks by clicking on the “More Content” icon in the bottom right corner.

From this screen, you can also search for Movies/TV shows you want to watch; however, I found the search to be a little temperamental.  For example, when searching for “How I Met Your Mother” I get an error saying the results could not be retrieved from the server.

But, if I search for “Mother”, How I Met Your Mother is 90% of the search results.  I am not sure why this is, but the search does work well once you find the right keyword.  You can also search for content on Hulu, YouTube, and Google videos by clicking on the respective tabs, but those sites only appear after the search results are initially retrieved and only if there wasn’t an error.

Netflix

The next major feature is the Netflix integration.  Before using Netflix, you will need to install Microsoft Silverlight, which can be found here.  Once you have Silverlight, click on the Netflix icon and you will be asked to login to Netflix with your username and password.

After logging into Netflix, you should see a list of movies you can watch instantly.  From this screen, you can also view your Watch Instantly queue, recommended movies, newly added movies, and you can also browse by genre.

Once you find a movie you want to watch, simply click on its icon and it should begin to stream the movie just as if you were logged into the Netflix website.

Now, when you want to go back to the main Netflix screen, simply deactivate the full screen mode of the Netflix player (if it was in full screen mode) by pressing ‘ESC’ and then moving your mouse to the top of the screen.  Moving your mouse to the top of the screen will cause the URL toolbar to appear.  You can now use the Back and Forward buttons to navigate, as well as the Return to Zv Presents button, located to the right of the Google search.

As you can see, the Zinc interface is basically a custom version of Firefox running in full screen mode.  Therefore, using normal Firefox shortcuts also works when running Zinc.  Of course just about any remote control will work as well.

At any time, you can add content to your favorites menu.  To do so, click the content’s banner located above the video results.  You can add TV networks, individual shows, categories (useful for netflix), websites, and more to your favorites.

ESPN360

Speaking of viewing websites, I have some good news for sports fans; you can add ESPN360 to your favorites menu in Zinc.  Of course, just like with Netflix, you need a special plugin to view ESPN360.com.  The plugin is called the Move Media Player and it can be downloaded from the move network website.

After install the plugin, navigate to ESPN360 and you may need to login to using the username and password registered with your ISP, in order to stream this content.  Next, click on ‘Watch Now’ and the URL of the window that opened is the one we want to add to our Zinc favorites:

http://espn.go.com/broadband/espn360/player?gameId=&sportCode=&league=

Copy and paste the above URL into the address bar in Zinc.  Then click the ‘Add to Zinc favorites’ button located to the left of the address bar and specify a name for the new favorite.

As you can see, Zinc differentiates between website bookmarks and video favorites.  You can remove content from favorites by highlighting it and then pressing delete.

Local Content

As I mentioned before, Zinc can play your local videos.  To do this, first go to the Zinc settings and and click on ‘Media Folders’.

Here, you can add the folders where your local videos are stored.

After adding the folders, Zinc will begin to scan those folders for the video content.

Now, all of the videos located in those folders can be found under the Local Content section of Zinc.  In this section you can either view all of the content, or you can browse by folder as if you were navigating through Windows Explorer.

Applications

The last feature I want to mention is the ability to launch other applications from within Zinc.  To do this, click on Settings, and then Applications.  Now, click Add Application and navigate to the location of the application you want to add.  For example, the following is the location of the QuickTime Player:

C:\Program Files\QuickTime\QuickTimePlayer.exe

Now, QuickTime will be available under the Applications menu.

Zinc includes a few applications by default, such as iTunes, Miro, Windows Media Center, and Windows Media Player.  If you don’t have those applications installed it will simply take you to the application’s website.

This feature is great for HTPCs, since you may want to use another program to play specific content.  For example, you could launch iTunes and listen to music, or browse the music store.  Then, when you are finished simply close iTunes and you will be returned to Zinc.  This also adds the ability to seamlessly switch back and forth between different HTPC applications such as Zinc, XBMC, Boxee, GBPVR, MediaPortal and others.

Final Thoughts

+ The installation was very straight forward.
+ How to/tutorial videos listed under the favorites were very helpful, and were not too long.
+ Instant access to a large amount of online videos.
+ Integration with Netflix and Hulu.
+ Overall performance was very good even on old hardware (AMD Athlon 2800+, 768MB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX 440).
+ Been using Zinc a lot over the past week and it hasn’t crashed once.
+ Being able to launch applications from within Zinc is very handy.
- Often get errors when searching for Movies/TV Shows, mostly when the search strings are more than 2 or 3 words.
- After adding content to Favorites, it does not always show up.  This can normally be fixed by removing and re-adding to favorites.

Would like to see the local content recognized by filename/metadata like in Boxee.  Also, adding online picture and music functionality would be nice.  Possibly sites like Flickr, Pandora, Last.fm, etc.  As an avid Linux user, I would love to see future versions support Linux.  Lastly, an iPhone/iPod/Android remote application would be great to use for those who don’t have a normal remote.

Extras

• Here is a short video introduction to Zinc, which covers most of the information from this post.
• Zinc FAQ
• Zinc Help
• Integrating Zinc into Windows Media Center – theHTPC.net
• Boxee vs. Zinc vs. Hulu – DeviceGuru.com

A new version of Zinc should be released soon and I cannot wait to see what progress has been made in the past few months.  Once the new version is available, I will write an updated post discussing the changes/new features, so check back then.

If you use Zinc, we want to hear what you like and don’t like.  If you don’t use it, tell us why!

Written by Eric

Firefox is now the number 2 web browser currently in use. While Firefox only holds 25% of the market share, it is gaining more and more every day. As Firefox is my favorite browser, I wanted to share a few of my favorite shortcuts. Even if you use a different browser, give some of these a try and see if they work for you.

All of these shortcuts are a combination of keystrokes, so when you read ‘Ctrl + C’, simply press the ‘Ctrl’ key and the ‘C’ key.

My Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts

• Ctrl + L Go to the address bar.
• Ctrl + K Go to the search bar.
• Alt + left arrow Navigate back one page.
• Alt + right arrow Navigate forward one page.
• Ctrl + R Reload the page.
• Esc Stop the page from loading.
• Ctrl + + Zoom in.
• Ctrl + – Zoom out.
• Ctrl + T Opens a new Tab.
• Ctrl + W Closes current Tab.
• Ctrl + Tab Move to the next Tab.
• Ctrl + Shift + Tab Move back to previous Tab.
• Alt + 1 through 8 Move to the 1st through 8th Tabs.
• Alt + 9 Move to the last Tab that is open.

My Favorite Mouse Shortcuts

• Middle click on link Open that link in a new Tab.
• Middle click on a Tab Close that Tab.
• Ctrl + Scroll up Zoom in.
• Ctrl + Scroll down Zoom out.
• Shift + Scroll up Navigate forward. The number of times you scroll equals the number of pages you scroll through.
• Shift + Scroll down Navigate backward. The number of times you scroll equals the number of pages you scroll through.

This is not the whole list of Firefox shortcuts by any means (the complete list is here). There are many many more, however, these are the shortcuts I tend to use every day. Also keep in mind that there are other shortcuts that do the same thing, for example, backspace will navigate you back one page and shift + backspace will navigate you forward one page. I know this, yet I still always use Alt + left arrow and Alt + right arrow.

3 Extra shortcuts

When typing in a web address, the following shortcuts will auto-complete the address for you. For example, type wlmtips into the address bar and then press

• Ctrl + Enter This will auto-complete .com address. So wlmtips will become wlmtips.com
• Shift + Enter This will auto-complete .net address. So wlmtips will become wlmtips.net
• Ctrl + Shift + Enter This will auto-complete .org address. So wlmtips will become wlmtips.org

Written by Michael

I can’t afford the DVR my cable company offers. Plain and simple. Even if I could afford it, I wouldn’t be willing to pay for it. It just costs too much money.  As a busy student and TV addict, I would often have to choose between watching that new episode of my favorite TV show or studying and doing homework. Of course you can always watch the rerun, which usually shows during that next weekend, but I want to watch my shows when I want to watch them. Ted solves this problem for me. Ted is an automatic TV show downloader. Enter in your favorite TV shows and when that new episode airs, Ted starts searching the internet for a torrent of it. Ted will automatically download the torrent file and even pass it on to your bittorrent client. Here’s a quick overview of some of the features of Ted.

To use Ted, you need will to:

1.) Download Ted here for Windows, Linux, and Mac versions. (This link downloads version 0.971, go to http://www.ted.nu/ to see if there are newer versions)

2.) Have a bittorent client installed. If you don’t already have one, here are a few options:

Transmission

Deluge

Azureus/Vuze

uTorrent

I use both Transmission and Deluge. They are both great programs. I have never used Azureus or uTorrent, but I have heard good things about them. This is by no means a complete list of bittorent clients. You can use whatever client you prefer.

**If you want to automatically download TV shows, follow this guide to Ted and set your bittorrent client to always download to a specific directory.

Now, once you’ve downloaded and installed Ted, open up Ted and you should see:

The first thing to do is to edit the preferences. In Teds main window go to Extra (top left) then ‘Preferences’. Here you will see:

Here you can specify how often you search for episodes. I keep it at 60 minutes myself. Keep a note of the download directory, this is where Ted saves the .torrent files that will be loaded into your bittorrent client. If you have the ‘Open in default bittorrent client checked’ it should load the torrents automatically, but if it doesn’t, you can set most bittorrent clients to automatically import files in a specific directory. Just find that setting in your bittorrent client and set it for the same directory Ted downloads to.

The ‘Look and Feel’ tab at the top will show:

Here you can set whether Ted runs on startup or not, shows alerts, and allows logging. I definitely recommend you keep logging turned on because the logs may come in handy some time.

The ‘Advanced’ tab shows:

You can stop Ted from downloading certain file types; this is where you would want to put that information. Of course you can remove these standard ‘do not download’ file types, but I don’t like dealing with .zip or .rar so I keep them in there.

Click Save and return to Teds main window.

Now you need to add a show. Click ‘Add a show’.

The Add a show screen lists quite a few shows. Click one and on the right a tv.com summary will show up. Here you can choose to download starting with the next newest episode, the last episode that aired, or a custom episode. Once you’ve selected a show, click ‘Add’ in the bottom right. Don’t worry if your show isn’t on the list, just click ‘Add a custom show’ at the bottom and enter your show’s info.

Your show should now be in Teds main window (as you can see I’ve added the show Top Gear):

Now you will want to edit some of the preferences. Just select your show in the above window, right click and then click edit.

The General edit window will appear:

This is where you can edit the title of the show and which season and episode to look for next. If you were to select Season 1 episode 1 in the case of Top Gear, ted will try and find Season 1 episode 1, then try and find Season 1 episode 2 and so on. If an episode is not found by Ted, however, it will not move to the next episode until that episode is found. So if it can’t find episode 2, it will not continue to episode 3 until it has found episode 2 (unless you go to this screen and manually tell it to search for episode 3).

To add feeds, click the ‘Feeds’ at the top. You will see a window like this:

As you can see Ted has already populated 2 feeds for Top Gear. Unfortunately, mininova no longer offers TV shows, so you can remove that feed. Just click it and then click the minus sign at the bottom.

To add a feed, click the plus sign at the bottom:

You can choose from any of these and have it automatically add the feed for your particular show. I recommend putting in as many feeds as you can. There is no limit, and Ted will just download from the first one it can. Click ‘user defined’ to add a feed from a torrent site not shown in this list.

Now click Filters:

Here you can edit the minimum  and maximum size of the video file. Any show that’s runs for 30 mins will usually be around the 300mb size, so choose a minimum of 150mb and a maximum of 500mb. Any show that runs for an hour, could be around 300-800 mb, so choose the minimum to be around 250mb and the maximum to be around 1000mb. If you specifically want HD content, click ‘Download in HD quality’ at the bottom and significantly increase my recommended minimum and maximum sizes.

I would recommend you use the following snippet of code in the Keywords block to stop Ted from downloading unrelated or private torrents:

(!(www | lol | com | net | org | cx | cc | leech | torrent | nova | bay | bit))

If you click Schedule at the top, you will see:

Don’t forget to click ‘Save’.

Once you have a few shows listed in Ted, on  Teds main window, click edit and then click ‘Edit all shows…’

Here you can edit values for all of your shows at once.

You should now be setup to automatically download your favorite TV shows.

Written by Michael

This post will show you step by step instructions of how to install the Google Chrome OS in a Virtual Machine. I chose to use VirtualBox to show the step by step, however you should be able to use VMware if you so choose.

The Chrome OS is a very basic Operating System that seems to be designed for use on a netbook. Now you can try out the OS on your current computer.

What you will need:

1. VirtualBox – available for download here for Windows, Linux, and Mac (VirtualBox is usually included in the repositories of most Linux distros)

2. The Chrome OS image – available for download here from gdgt -You will have to sign up on their site to get access to the file

***There is a Chrome OS image available for download as a torrent floating around somewhere. Just make sure it is a .vmdk file.

Now that you have VirtualBox and the .vmdk Chrome OS file

Open up VirtualBox and click New.

You should see the following screen:

Simply click Next.

You should now see the VM Name and OS Type screen:

You can name it anything you want; I simply named it Chrome OS. The OS type should be Other and the version Other. Click Next.

You should now see the Memory Screen:

You can set as much RAM as you would like. I kept it simple and just gave it 256 MB. I recommend that you don’t give any VM any more that half of the total RAM you have in your computer.

You should now see the Virtual Hard Disk Screen:

Click ‘use existing hard disk’ and then click the folder on the right.

The Virtual Media Manager window should pop up:

Simply click ‘Add’ and find the .vmdk file you downloaded from gdgt. Once you have clicked ‘Add’ it should show up in the Virtual Media Manager window. You will need to select it and then click ‘Select’ at the bottom.

You will go back to the Virtual Hard Disk screen. Just click next.

You should now see the Summary Screen:

Click ‘Finish’.

Now you should be back to the VirtualBox main screen and Chrome OS should be on the left side.

You will need to click ‘Chrome OS’ on the left (to highlight it) and then click ‘Start’.

Welcome to the Chrome OS

You will need to use your Gmail login info to login. Type in your Gmail username then TAB and type in your password.

Once logged in, you will see your email. The tabs across the top are as follows:

The Google Accounts screen:

The Gmail screen:

The Google Calendar Screen:

The Web:

So all in all, Chrome OS is a very simple and very ‘light’ operating system. This OS will be great for a netbook and will provide a great option for those looking for a very cheap computer/OS package. Take a look at the OS yourself and let me know what you think in the comments.

Written by Michael

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