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3 Utilities to Schedule System Shutdown
31 August '10 by InF, under Software, Tech Posts, Tips and Tricks.
So, a friend of mine wanted to know if she could shutdown her PC automatically at a certain time. Or after a certain period of time. Well it’s possible. And I’m going to show you 3 utilities to do it, and how to do it from within your OS too, in case you don’t want to download. There are a LOT of shutdown utilities out there, but those below, I have used personally.
1. Shutter
Shutter
Shutter is my favourite shutdown utility due to its simplicity, but also because it comes from the author of the great ReNamer that I have already covered on Geekscribes previously.
Basically, you just choose the event that triggers the action. Events can be: countdown, at a specific time, a period of low CPU usage, a process stops, battery low, among others. After that, you just set the action to do: sleep or shutdown the computer, mute volume, lock the computer, among others. Then just click Start. I don’t like that “Start” button. In my opinion, it should have been “Schedule”. If you want the action to take place immediately, just click “Now”. Shutter also offers an extensive set of options, like showing a message before an action takes place.
Shutter also includes a Web Interface if you want to do “Now” actions, or run commands remotely. This is a really great feature for those of you with a download/torrent box. Note, this can be a security problem, so be sure to set a good username and password when configuring the web server in Options.
Shutter comes in Installer and Portable formats.
2. PowerOff
PowerOff
PowerOff takes another approach at events and actions. It puts everything on the main window. So you just select your action on the left. On the right, set options, like whether you want a warning before the action executes, or whether to force-close applications. Then set the time. Either immediate, or schedule it to execute at a specific time.
There are extensive scheduling options, like at a time, on a fixed day, or a daily schedule, on a weekly schedule, on a day of month, or after a time period elapses. One thing I’d like is the “After” option to allow me to set minutes, hours etc, instead of just seconds.
PowerOff also includes remote-control features, like Shutter. Interestingly, you can have the command execute on a remote computer, if the latter supports it. I haven’t tested that feature though.
PowerOff is portable, and comes with the source code, if ever you want to mess around with it. It’s coded in C/C++ language.
3. Amp WinOff
Amp WinOFf
Amp WinOff, as you can see from the screenshot above, offers extensive options. You can set the actions to execute at a specific time (1st frame, top-right), or use a countdown (bottom-left frame), or when according to CPU load (top-right frame). You then set which action to take. It’s called “Shutdown mode” in Amp WinOff. You can even schedule days in advance.
While the program offers a many options and is very customizable, I don’t like the terminology used. Why is there a “Use the current time + 1 minute” and then a countdown feature? Also, I doubt “Lock Computer” is a “Shutdown Mode”. Anyway, those don’t really matter once you get familiar with the program. Now, the second thing that is annoying with Amp WinOff is that the website has been down for a while now, and I can’t find a mirror that’s still alive. The shot you’re seeing above is not from the latest version.
If you can find the utility somewhere, good.
4. Directly from your OS
Linux:
Yes, you can execute a sheduled shutdown right from your OS. Let’s start with Linux first. It should work on most major distros, but I only tested on Ubuntu.
Fire up your Terminal/Konsole or whatever it’s called in your distro.
Then the command structure is as this:
shutdown [- shutdown parameters] [ time parameter] [ optional message ] shutdown parameters: r = reboot, h = halt, c = cancel shutdown (time parameter is then not required) Some examples: shutdown -r now <-- Reboot immediately shutdown -h 19:00 <-- Shutdown (Halt) the system at 19h shutdown -h +5 "System will shutdown" <-- Shutdown the system in 5 mins from now, and tell users why.
Quite easy huh? Just note that while a shutdown is scheduled, new users won’t be allowed to login 5 minutes before the shutdown sequence is initiated, i.e. only 5 mins left before shutdown. This is to be considered for multi-user environments.
Windows:
The command is similar to that of Linux, but different syntax and parameter names. Just open a command prompt (type cmd in the search box in Vista/Win7, or Winkey+R, then type cmd, or directly type the commands below in the search box in Win7)
shutdown [- shutdown parameters] [-t xx in seconds] [-c reason] shutdown parameters: r = reboot, s = shutdown, a = abort shutdown Some examples: shutdown -r <-- Reboots computer immediately shutdown -s <-- Shutdown computer immediately shutdown -r -t 60 <-- Restart computer in 60 seconds shutdown -s -t 3600 -c "Computer shutting down" <-- Shutdown in one hour (3600 seconds), and tell user why
You should get a confirmation that the command has been accepted. (E.g. Keys icon in the notification area with a message).
That’s it for this post. If you know other methods for scheduling a system shutdown, or maybe to get your favorite utility listed here, drop us a comment. Thanks!
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Sniper: Ghost Warrior PC Review
13 July '10 by InF, under Gaming, Reviews, Tech Posts.
Sniper: Ghost Warrior
Hello!
This is like, my second review of a game. My first was Race Driver: GRiD, which was awesome after some tweaking. For today, I’ll be reviewing a game from a little known publisher called City Interactive. It is titled with the very imagination-provoking Sniper: Ghost Warrior.
(Click here to read the rest…)
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Using BarTab to reduce Firefox Memory Consumption
06 July '10 by InF, under Firefox, Software, Tech Posts.
Hello all.
I am a fervent user of the great browser known as Mozilla Firefox. Been using it since it was version 2.x something. I was so tired with IE offloading tons of viruses on me at that time that I figured that there MUST be a safer browser out there in the wild. I tried a few before settling to Mozilla, namely Maxthon and Kmeleon. I should write an article about alternative browsers someday. *note to self*
Anyway, I like Firefox a lot, or affectionately FF if you want. 3.5x is awesome. 4.x promises to be even better. However, there is one problem that’s been around Firefox since like, forever: memory consumption.
FF consumes a lot of memory when you have many tabs open. And I often have a lot of tabs opened. Specially multiple links from the same source opened in different tabs. I got that bad habit; if it can be considered a bad habit.
So, I was casually browsing someday with around 30 tabs opened when I discovered a nice addon called: BarTab. Don’t ask how they came up with that name, I got no idea. Why would anyone name a memory-recovery addon “BarTab”?
Its purpose is to unload tabs that you haven’t visited in a while, and load them again when you focus (click) on them. It’s like opening the tab again, but automatically.
This simple concept allows you to save quite some memory, specially if you like to leave tabs on, do something else, and come back to your previously opened tabs after a while. It’ll not be a major saving, but around 30-40MB of savings are inorder.
To illustrate and prove if this addon works, I conducted a small test. I opened around 20 tabs from random Google searches (I hope I didn’t catch any virus in doing that!) as well as a few media pages like DeviantArt, Youtube and Toyota Europe’s website (Nice music!). I then let BarTab do its magic while leaving the tabs untouched in the background for a minute or two. (Time delay is configurable).
The results, before and after are below:
Before
After
Not bad huh? The 20-ish tabs are still there, but unloaded. The only annoying thing about BarTab is that you have to wait a bit for pages to reload. If you have a fast connection, it shouldn’t be a problem, but for those with slower connections, you will probably find the delay slightly annoying.
That’s all for BarTab for now. If you have more tricks to reduce FF’s memory usage, comment box’s found below!
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10 Very Useful Utilities You May Not Know About
02 June '10 by InF, under Software, Tech Posts.
Utilities are life-savers. I am usually on the lookout of new ones that give me added functionalities at a low memory cost. Here’s a rundown of 10 very useful utilities I have found. Not all are very light on memory though…
Let’s get started, shall we?
(Click here to read the rest…)
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Music Recognition Service Roundup
24 May '10 by InF, under Roundups, Software, Tech Posts.
I just saw the stats of Geekscribes and the article about the music recognition software Tunatic is leading in the number of views. Seeing how people are interested in such services, I decided to dedicate a post about other services of the same type that do work from a computer or are online services. Let’s start:
Update (05.08.10): Added Audiggle (#5)
1. Tunatic
I have already talked at length on this software now. Download and install it, plug in a microphone, record a piece of your unknown track via Tunatic and it’ll probably give you the track name and artist if they are in the database. The problem with Tunatic is that development seems to have stopped, as it can be seen from this line on Tunalyzer’s page: “NB: Tunalyzer should be available for the Windows platform in early 2007.”. Tunalyzer allows you to analyze your own known songs, and have them added to the Tunatic database.
It works for most songs I tested it on, but since development seems to have stopped, I don’t have much hope for the project getting new features.
Read the post about Tunatic on Geekscribes
2. Midomi
This one is a new service I’ve just discovered, but which I don’t use as it was meant to. Basically, it’s an online service where you go, and hum/sing some track you don’t know the details of. Maybe it’s a tune stuck in your head somewhere and you’d like the name. There’s a bar near the top part. So you click on it, hum the song in your microphone and it’ll almost certainly give you the track’s details. It worked for all tracks I tested, even some lesser-known tracks which surprised me. It’s also very fast in its identification.
Read the post about Midomi on Geekscribes
3. Audiotag
This service takes a different approach from the above two. Instead of recording a tune, you need to upload the track or some part of it to the service. You can use a variety of tools to do cut an MP3 track, for example, Mp3DirectCut which is free. After uploading the piece, which should be around 10-15 seconds minimum, it’ll give you the details you want.
I have not tested the service a lot since I would need to do a lot of cutting tracks. But I tested with two tracks, and both were recognized. One was fairly known, the other less-known with almost no lyrics.
Also, there are those facts mentioned in the footer: “recognized queries: 83453; DB size: 1327721 tracks, 96479 albums; last DB update: 4 days ago; added 23636 tracks, 1833 albums“, so I believe Audiotag is a reliable service.
Audiotag is good for people who do not have microphones, but the compromise is that you must have access to the digital track itself to be able to upload it. It doesn’t work for tunes you’ve heard on the radio or stuck in your mind, but it is good to identify that nice tune you downloaded off some site named “Track-01″. 
4. Picard Tagger via Musicbrainz
Picard is not an identifier per-se. It’s a tagger. You give it access to your unknown tracks locally, and it will tag them (if possible) using data from the audio fingerprint database of Musicbrainz.
When tested, Picard was able to identify some tracks which didn’t have their tags. However, its use is slightly more complex than the 3 above services. The strength of Picard is that it can do recognition on its own without needing to record or upload things. It’s also cross-platform, providing Windows, OSX and Linux support.
You can download Picard here, and check out the docs of Musicbrainz that teaches you how to use it.
5. Audiggle
That one is relatively new to me. The website is clean and simple, so I hope the program is as nice. I immediately went and put it to test. I immediately noticed the .NET requirement. So much for portability. If you need that, Midomi’s for you. But let’s see Audiggle’s worth. Installation was a breeze. First thing, I had to set my Microphone. Problem is I have two Line-Ins for microphone, both listed as “Microphone” so I have no idea about which is which. A note about which microphone belongs to which sound-card would be nice.
Next… What? Registration? What the hell? This is an immediate turnoff for me. Why do I need to register to identify a track. Ok, maybe to track all my identified tracks. Lol. Ok let’s go through this pain. Fortunately, registration is quite fast. Okayyy. First try. Login… “Audiggle is down for maintenance.” Nothing on the website indicates this though. Alright, after 5 mins of retries, it’s still failing.
Guess it’s not ready for the lime-light yet. I’ll come back to it later. If you have more success than me, do leave a comment please!
Do you know a similar service, but which is not mentioned here? Please post it in the comments below!
P.s. There are many other recognition services not mentioned in this roundup. This is because most of them either require a mobile phone or mobile device of some kind (Shazam) or they require you to type notes on virtual keyboards (MusicPedia). These are not really intuitive to use in my opinion, so I shared only the most user-friendly and accessible-to-all services.
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Internet Filtering Coming To Mauritius Soon?
24 May '10 by InF, under IT, Mauritius, News.
I have found an interesting article coming from Le Mauricien newspaper of Friday 21st of May. You can see a shot below.
It deals with some measures ICTA (Information Communication Technology Authority) wishes to introduce or see implemented. While some are laudable, such as promotion of ICT as education tools and enhancing performance of communication systems, the last part of the article ticks off my Paranoia Alarm.
The shot of the scary paragraph, with highlighted portions can be seen below.
Well, what do I see? ICTA wants to implement Internet filtering in Mauritius.
I remember Ex-President, Mr. Cassam Uteem’s wish to see some pages of Facebook blocked due to some offensive content. There have also been past instances of Facebook being blocked in Mauritius, for example, due to the usurpation of our PM’s identity to create a profile. These cases may have warranted a blocking of the incriminating pages, but I doubt censorship was the only possible solution.
Now imagine if our local politicians or authorities have the power to block sites at a whim. Tomorrow, Mr. X doesn’t like a parody video of his speech on Youtube, and the site is blocked? No thanks!
Something strikes me as funny in this article: “the idea is not to implement censorship”. Can somebody enlighten me about the difference between “filtering” and “censorship”? I thought that content that was filtered out was censored. Am I wrong?
Giving censorship powers to a Government is too much in my opinion. The Internet should be a free-flow of information, and not to be controlled by anybody. I agree that there are some content that deserve censorship, but I believe it’s best left to its users to know what should be accessed and what should not. Such situations exist in real-life too. There are some places in cities where it is dangerous to go. However, I do not see any barriers erected to prevent people, especially children from going there. So why should this apply to the Internet?
If parents do not want their kids accessing unauthorized contents, well, they can be educated into how to implement filtration software on their machines locally. Or make the government-filtering opt-in. So people who want to see the Internet filtered can install software locally to do the job, with the use of a Government-managed database. Others can continue using the Internet as they see fit, taking their responsibilities if ever they are caught doing nasty stuff.
On a side note, we see the Internet from the social and crowd aspect nowadays. You have social networking, social bookmarking, social music discovery, social-tea-making, social-what-not. Why not social filtering? I have no idea how this would work, but hey, we do democratic voting to elect out leaders, we could do some democratic voting on what we want off the Internet too right?
I leave you to the views and your comments…
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Music Identification using Midomi
16 May '10 by InF, under Movies and Music, Online Services, Tech Posts, Tips and Tricks.
I once blogged about Tunatic, which is a service you use to identify a song. It’s useful in situations where you have heard something nice on the radio or from some other source, and you wish to know the song’s details, like the artist’s and song’s name.
There are many applications that allow you to do this nowadays, but most are on the iPhone, such as the now-famous Shazam.
However, I don’t have an iPhone but I wanted to use such a service. Initially, I was using Tunatic, but the latter has not been updated in quite a long time now. I think it’s a dead project. I had to find an alternative. An alternative that can be used from a computer.
I came across this new service, Midomi. It functions just like Tunatic in that you just record a piece of a song using your microphone and it will give you the song’s details.
The thing about Midomi is that you are supposed to hum the song, or sing the lyrics. I can’t do any of those well. So I just stuck my microphone near my speaker playing the unknown song to test the service. Guess what, it works!
I kind of not followed the procedures because I didn’t sing or hum myself but the important thing is that it can identify songs with Tunatic’s simplicity.
What seriously amazed me is how many song Midomi is able to identify. I used it on some well known tracks from Ill Nino and Muse and it successfully passed the test. I then tested it using some lesser-known tracks from the Drum and Bass genre (which does not have singing and is almost un-hummable). It gave me all the correct titles, where I expected it to fail like Tunatic did. Hell, it even identified a track from the Metal Gear Solid 4 OST which I got from Youtube! (Drebin 893)
Overall, Midomi is AMAZING! It even gives you the option to buy the desired track if that’s what you wish. For me, it’s the Tunatic replacement of choice.
The requirements are that you need a microphone and Flash Player. You’ll need to allow Flash to access your microphone and speakers, but this shouldn’t be a problem since it prompts you.
So if you have some song whose name you don’t know, or who performs it, head to Midomi and give it a try. It does not deceive.
