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.

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Have you ever used Quicksilver on a Mac? Or maybe GnomeDo on a Linux system? If not, then I will explain what these programs do. They are programs that allow you to search for files/folders and even execute programs by just typing the name of that program. Type in ‘Firefox’ and it will allow you to open your website. Type in a song file name and it will allow you to play song in a media player.

Launchy is essentially the cousin of the above programs. Only this cousin runs Windows (although Launchy does have a Linux version too). Launchy runs in the background of your system and only appears (or disappears) when you press ‘alt-space’. The dialog box will open and allow you to search for the application/file/folder that you are looking for.

thanks to CNET for the above image

You may ask, why on earth would you need something like this? The simple answer is that it’s an easy, more efficient way of finding things on your computer. The Windows search function is put to shame when up against Launchy. You can launch applications, so that means your desktop space won’t need to be cluttered anymore. Even the start bar will become useless to you.

TIP: To search for something on Google just using Launchy, type in ‘Google’ then press TAB and then type what you’re searching for.

Here is the CNET video review of Launchy:

For the CNET editor and user reviews, click here.

To download Launchy click here.

For some cool tips and tricks when using Launcy, click here.

A couple of months ago, I was in a rush to shut down my laptop. When I finally got to my destination, I found that my computer had not in fact shut down as I had told it to do. Apparently a program had crashed and it was waiting on me to click the ‘End Now’ button. I was so annoyed that from then on I waited to see that my power light had gone out before I ever put my laptop in my bag.

But now, I have found a better solution: Force my computer to close unresponsive programs at shutdown without my permission. I’m shutting my computer down any way, who cares if it’s closing an unresponsive program. Here’s how to so it:

Step 1: Click the Start button, then click Run. Type in regedit into the run box that opens.

Step 2: Navigate (on the left side) to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop

Step 3: Make sure to click on the Desktop folder on the left side. Next, find AutoEndTasks on the right.

Step 4: Right click on AutoEndTasks, click Modify and in the ‘Value Data’ box, type 1. Then click OK. Close the registry Editor.

Step 5: You will probably have to restart for the changes to take effect. So you may have to end some crashed programs just one last time.

I like to use keyboard shortcuts mostly because I find that it’s faster. Since I keep my keyboard on a tray and my mouse on the desk above it, I find that if I use my keyboard to do as much as possible, I don’t have to reach up and use the mouse too much. So, here’s how to make a keyboard shortcut to open any of your favorite programs.

Step 1: Go to the start menu and navigate to your favorite program, then right click and select properties.

Step 2: In the properties menu, select the shortcut tab at the top.

Step 3: Where it says Shortcut Key you will be able to choose your own key combination. The system only allows you to choose a key combination in the form of ‘ctrl-alt-letter you choose‘. Just click in the box and then choose a letter. It should then say ctrl-alt-your letter. For example, I am making a shortcut to thunderbird in the picture below. I am using the letter T for thunderbird:

Step 4: Click apply and then OK. Now, test it.

If you have used Windows for more than a few days you have probably noticed that as you install more software your computer begins to get slower, especially when you first log into Windows.

On most computers this is because you have lots of programs trying to start up every time you login. Here’s how to eliminate unnecessary programs from your startup.

Step 1:
Identify which programs are running on startup. There are couple ways to do this. Before you begin, you should restart your computer to make sure you haven’t already closed some programs that would normally run on startup.

Many of the programs will have icons located in the taskbar (beside the clock) that shows they are running. Simply hover your mouse over the icon to see what it is.

You could also open the task manager by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del. This will show you a list of all the current processes that are running. If you look at the very bottom of the task manager window it should show the number of current processes. If you have over 40 processes after you login, you probably have too many programs running on startup.

You may not be able to identify what all of the processes are but some of them will be very obvious (Ex: iTunes.exe, AIM.exe, etc)

Step 2:
Once you have identified which programs are running on startup, decide which ones you don’t need to start every time you login to Windows. If you decide a program is not needed on startup that does not mean that it will be uninstalled or unusable.

It will help to make a list of the programs that are currently running and the programs that you wish to have running on startup.

Step 3:
There are a couple ways to keep programs from running on startup.

The first is by opening each program that currently runs on startup, and changing its preferences so that it no longer runs when you login to Windows. This is typically the best solution but will require different instructions for each software.

The second way is to use MSCONFIG. This system utility will allow you to disable certain programs from your startup.

To open MSCONFIG, first click on the start menu and then Run. Type in ‘msconfig’ and press enter. Once the MSCONFIG window appears, click the Startup tab on the top.

Here you will probably notice there are tons and tons of programs listed with check boxes by each of them. To disable a program from running on startup, simply un-check the check box. If you don’t recognize what the program is by the name, try looking at the file path.

Computers from manufacturers such as Dell and HP are likely to have several programs installed by these companies. Usually most of them can be disabled.

TIP: Be careful to not disable programs that control your wireless connection, unless you use the Windows utility or a 3rd party program for this.

If you still aren’t sure what a certain program is and whether or not it is needed, check out this comprehensive list of startup applications. On this site, programs with an “N” or an “X” can safely be disabled. Programs with a “Y” should be left alone and those with a “U” are left up to the user to decide.

TIP: Disable only a few programs at a time and then restart. This way if you realize you disabled a program that you need, it will be easy to identity. Also, if you need to enable a program you can do this by simply checking the box next to the program name.

Some startup programs might actually be due to viruses or spy-ware. If you are having trouble disabling a certain application, try scanning for viruses and spy-ware. It could take you several restarts to finally disable all of the unnecessary programs.

Step 4:
Once you have disabled all the unnecessary programs from running on startup, check the task manager again to see how many processes are running when you login. This number should be lower than when you started. Again, anything less than 40 is ideal. The less processes the better.You can see the number at the bottom left corner of the task manager.