Where's the Beef?

Well, it's been two months since I started GreasyPC. In those two months we've averaged slightly more than one post a day (my schedule is once a day, with some extras here and there if I've got the time), and our readership continues to slowly grow. As such, I wanted to just rewind and remind our new readers what GreasyPC is all about, and what sets us apart from other computer tweaking sites.

I started GreasyPC because about six months ago I started putting a lot of effort towards rejuvenating the experience my ever-aging Windows XP PC. From making it run faster, to look prettier, to just being able to do more stuff, I felt as though I'd done so much that I had to start archiving all of these changes. If anything, it would help me rebuild what I'd done in the future if something bad were to happen.

As such, what you see featured on GreasyPC are tweaks that I've personally installed on my own PC; none of the reviews were done just for the sake of reviewing them. In fact, I'll let you know if something I featured in the past ends up being uninstalled, or if what I'd just tried out didn't pass the muster, and got uninstalled immediately.

As such, you can assume that whatever program/tweak/hack/skin I've just featured on this blog is the best in its class, at the time I've found it. And if you know of any other that's even better, you let me know, and I promise to check it out, and if it is indeed better, I'll write about it.

Mobdydock Wouldn't Work at All

I'm pretty sure I checked out Mobydock already (yep, I did) in the past, but I saw some new screenshots of it that seemed to turn my mind. The description on the official site claims that it can serve as a total taskbar replacement (honestly I can't remember if I read the same stuff when I checked them out the first time), but nevertheless I was intrigued enough to check it out again.

Well, turns out now Mobydock wouldn't show up for me at all when I ran it after installation, and I couldn't figure out why. I restarted my computer and closed most of my active windows and still no dice. If anyone can tell me for certain what's going on and how to fix it, I'm willing to give Mobydock yet one more shot, but for now, I still maintain that the Windows Taskbar is better than a Dock.

Search Multiple Craigslist Cities with Crgslst!

I found this on a recent Lifehacker post. As my current job winds to a close, I'll have to start looking for gigs again (if you didn't know before, I make my living as a freelance animator/graphic designer in Los Angeles), and craigslist is my favorite choice for getting them. I just like not having to sign up and register to respond to job listings.

Well, since a lot of my work is done from home, I can also look for jobs in cities other than Los Angeles. In fact, I've gotten jobs from craigslist in New York as well as San Francisco. The problem is it's kind of a pain in the ass to go to each city's craigslist site and do a search for the same exact thing.

Crgslst aims to solve that problem by offering searches in multiple cities with little hassle. This of course doesn't just apply to job postings, but any other thing craigslist has to offer. I don't personally need to search other cities for stuff for sale, but you might, so all the better reason to check them out.

Managing One's Nest of Cables

This recent Lifehacker article called Top 10 Ways to Get Cables Under Control had some really cool cable management ideas, the most novel of which to me was using binder clips to keep cords from falling off the side of one's desk. This was always a problem to me whenever I needed to run a power cable from the surge protector up through the back of the desk into, say, my monitor. I can't run the cable from top down because of the power brick, so it was always a hassle to put the plug on the desk and get to it from above before the cable's weight caused it to fall off.

My main issue with extensive cable management is that they are meant for setups that don't need to be modular. However, if you're like me and you unplug and move stuff around more than a few times a year, you can't really afford to go through a lot of trouble hiding cables.

The thing that's made a lot of difference to me is simply labeling my power cables. One day I just took some masking tape and a Sharpie and proceeded to put identifying labels on each of the cables plugged in. This has done a lot to make sure that I don't spend more time than I need to on my hands and knees under my desk (::snicker::).

I've also split the cables under my desk into two surge protectors, one for items that should always be plugged in, and another for removable devices like external hard drives. This way I can keep one surge protector more hidden in the back and the other closer up front.

Another thing I've done which is a bit more permanent is always having USB and Firewire cables with varying ends always connected to the back of my tower, and run it around to the front. This way if I ever need to connect a device like a camera or my mp3 player, I don't have to look around for cables and fish around behind the tower to connect them. This concept does require me to have extra cables if I wanted to use my devices on another computer, though.

That being said, it's more of a mess on the outlet by my bed, where not only are my bedside clock and lamp are plugged in, but more modular devices like my cellphone and laptop.

I'm Trying to Learn Spanish with Learnit Lists

Learnit Lists is a widget that can be used in your iGoogle page that presents you with 10 new words every day translated into a language you want to learn. In my case, living in Los Angeles, I figured I might as well devote minutes of my day expanding my Spanish vocabulary.

You need to register with Learnit to be able to select the language you want to learn (if you don't, you can only get Czech translations). They offer 15 language pairs, from the usual suspects of languages one usually finds in these things.

I did notice, however, that when I selected the Tagalog (Filipino) translations, the translations were sometimes either incorrect or missing altogether (it would just repeat the English word). So I wouldn't necessarily suggest Learnit if you want to learn the less popular languages offered.

Learnit also doesn't conjugate verbs, and it doesn't even notify you of what type of word it is (you wouldn't know if it was the noun "watch" or the verb "to watch."). As such Learnit can only really expand your vocabulary, but not teach you any grammar at all.

Another feature that I wish Learnit offered was to recall the words I'd learned in previous days, to make sure that what I was learning stuck.

My final critique was that the widget itself, while simple looking, seemed to take up entirely too much space. I had to reorganize my entire iGoogle page to balance all my widgets out, and Learnit is the largest widget by far. For something that's essentially just a list of 10 word pairs, it can certainly be much more compact.

I may seem like I'm ripping into Learnit, but the truth is, it's still installed in my homepage, and I don't see myself uninstalling it. I do, however, look forward to it being updated and upgraded, and I'd love to learn of better alternatives that are as immediately convenient as Learnit was when I first got it. I highly suggest you try it yourself.

Keyboard_HeatMap: Could've Been Cool

The concept of Keyboard_HeatMap would be cool, which is that it creates a visual representation of what keys you hit most often in "heatmap" form, except for the fact that it seems to only take input from a form on its HTML page.

If it was its own executable program, that would be pretty cool (can anyone point me in the right direction if such a program really exists?), seeing a heatmap of a week's worth of typing would be pretty awesome, but at this current form it's pretty useless.

Of course, even if my ideal utility existed, it would still be pretty useless.

Download StatusBar: One Less Firefox Window!

Perhaps the feature that got me into Firefox to begin with was the use of tabs. It allowed me to essentially do all of my browsing in one organized window. However, it always bugged me that whenever I downloaded anything it would open another "Downloads" window. I want everything all in that one browser window, dammit!

Along comes downloadstatusbar, a Firefox extension written by Devon Jensen. It manages all of your downloads into a bar in the bottom of your browser (above the status bar, which, if you guys had been paying attention, I'd already gotten rid of).

It works right out of the box, though it is quite full featured. Here is a screenshot of my main configuration window:


I've heard of other, even more feature-packed download managers for Firefox, but if you want something super simple and functional, you can't go wrong with downloadstatusbar.