gHacks technology news » Knowledge http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:31:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 MSI or EXE Setup http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/23/msi-or-exe-setup/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/23/msi-or-exe-setup/#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:47:10 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/23/msi-or-exe-setup/ Some software programs are unpacked to both an msi ans exe setup file. If you are a end user you might wonder which to execute to install the application properly. Chance is that you tried both ways at least once and noticed that clicking the msi or the exe setup file would install the application properly. The setup.exe that you encounter in lots of software distributions is called a bootstrapper. This setup.exe file will check if the computer system is capable of running the software program; If it is it will initiate msiexec.exe which will launch the installation using the msi file.

Users who double-click on the msi file directly will also install the application but with the possibility that it will not run properly on the computer system. Take a computer program that requires the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5 for example. If the user has an older version of the framework installed setup.exe will download the files needed and launch the installation of the compatible framework and launch the installation using the msi file afterwards.

If the user installs using the msi file the installation will go through without problems but might experience an application crash or warning message while starting the application. It is therefor recommend on end user systems to always install applications using the setup.exe file if both a setup.exe and xyz.msi are available after unpacking the software program.

setup ms exe

There are even some msi setup files out there that will not perform the installation upon execution but request an installation using the setup.exe file instead to ensure that all necessary components are installed.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/23/msi-or-exe-setup/feed/ 6 How To Sort Feeds In Google Reader Alphabetically Again http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/20/how-to-sort-feeds-in-google-reader-alphabetically-again/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/20/how-to-sort-feeds-in-google-reader-alphabetically-again/#comments Sat, 20 Sep 2008 09:26:08 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=7124 Google Reader sorts the feeds alphabetically which is probably the natural way of sorting news feeds. Once the user begins to move feeds around by dragging and dropping them to another location the sorting turns from alphabetical to one that does not sort the feeds at all but adds new feeds at the bottom of the list.

Users should not confuse that behavior with the temporary addition of new feeds to the bottom of the folder they have been put into. Once a user logs out and in again the feeds are sorted alphabetically again.

Google Reader offers no “sort” button that would make it possible to sort the feeds alphabetically again if the user started dragging and dropping around feeds previously. If you are one of those desperate users who want their feeds to be sorted alphabetically again read on.

The sorting setting in Google Reader is folder based. This means that creating a new folder and moving the RSS news feeds to that new folder will do the trick. It still requires some manual work on behalf of the user but it is actually the only way enable to sort the feeds alphabetically again.

Now here is what you do. The left pane shows a Manage Subscriptions. A click on that loads all the RSS News Feeds that the user has added to Google Reader.

manage subscriptions

New folders can be created by clicking on the Change Folders pulldown menu and selecting the New Folder option.

google reader new folder

And enter a name for the new folder.

google reader new folder

The next step depends on the following. If you have been using folders before you can filter by those folders at the top right corner so that only the items of one folder are showing up.

google reader filter

That ensures that all rss news feeds that have been in a folder are displayed on screen and that they can be moved to the new folder without the other feeds interfering in the display.

A click on Change Folders next to each feed that is displayed makes it possible to select the newly created folder. Once all feeds that belong to a folder have been moved into the new one the old one can be removed the same way. Going back to the main page of Google Reader will show the feeds sorted alphabetically.

It sometimes is required to logout and login before they show up sorted but it is definitely working that way. If a user has not been using folders before he has to start using at least one folder for all the RSS news feeds so that they show up sorted again.

It is also important to note that feeds should not be dragged and dropped into folders anymore. The proper way of moving them to another folder is to use the Change Folder menu which appears in Manage Subscriptions and when clicking on the RSS News Feed itself in the main interface.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/20/how-to-sort-feeds-in-google-reader-alphabetically-again/feed/ 2 Join multiple video files into one http://www.ghacks.net/2006/11/11/join-multiple-video-files-into-one/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/11/11/join-multiple-video-files-into-one/#comments Sat, 11 Nov 2006 10:36:14 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/11/11/join-multiple-video-files-into-one/ Websites sometimes split movies into smaller parts to make it easier for users with low bandwidth access to the internet to download the movies without facing problems like timeouts. Once downloaded it is rather tiresome to view such a movie because you have to click on each part which naturally means a short pause between the last and the next movie.

The following method makes it possible to join multiple video files into one big file making it that much easier in the end to play and enjoy the downloaded movie. The method is different depending on the type of movie that you are playing. If the movie consists of multiple mpg movies you can use the windows command line to merge them.

Start the command line by pressing the windows key and R. Enter cmd in the prompt which will start the command line window. Enter the following line into the command line, make sure you enter the right filepath to the movie. I suggest you move the files to the top of a hard drive to ease the amount of typing that needs to be done.

copy /B “C:\movie1.mpg” + “C:\movie2.mpg” + “C:\movie3.mpg” “C:\completemovie.mpg”

This joins movie1.mpg, movie2.mpg and movie3.mpg into completemovie.mpg. You can add more movies to join more parts without problems.

You need an additional programs if the parts are avi files instead of mpg. Download the freeware VirtualDubMod and unpack it to your hard drive. Run the tool and select File, Open Video File and browse to the first part of the movie. Select no If a popup named VBR audio stream detected appears.

Click on File, append Segment and browse to the second part of the movie. Once this is done click on File, Save As and save the newly merged movie file to your hard drive.

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