As a part of Google’s quest to be the undisputed overlords of the Internet, they’ve made a lot of quality services available for free. Gmail, Google maps and Google Docs are all famous examples, but one of the search giant’s coolest free offerings, Sketchup, flies under a lot of peoples’ radars.

Sketchup is a free 3D modelling tool developed based on the philosophy that by giving people a small set of powerful, intuitive tools, you can lower the barrier of entry to 3D modelling, so that almost anyone can make quality 3D models with just a couple of sessions of practice.

Still not conviced to give Sketchup a try? We’ve compiled a list of 7 awesome things you can do with Sketchup that you probably didn’t know were possible. Did you know, for instance, that you can create a Left 4 Dead map in Sketchup? How about that you can design your own papercraft models? Read on to find out more!

Build a Model of Your House from a Floorplan

There’s something oddly rewarding about seeing a tiny version of your house. And beyond just the “Oh, neat!” value of seeing your living quarters in miniature, there’s real utility in being able to rearrange your furniture and try out different wall- and floor-coverings without actually having to do any heavy lifting. Fortunately, with Sketchup it’s surprisingly easy to make a model of a building interior. To do so is essentially a three step process:

1)    Obtain a floorplan of the building. If you live in a rented property, you might be able to ask your landlord for a floorplan, or you can simply take measurements of your rooms and draw your own floorplan in your preferred graphics program.

2)    Make a 2D replica of the floorplan in Sketchup. This step is easier than you might imagine. Simply click File > Import to import the image of your floorplan into Sketchup, and place it flat. Then, using the Rectangle, Line, and Offset tool, trace over the walls, drawing directly onto the floorplan. When you’re done, make sure to delete any extraneous lines.

3)    Finally, use the “Push/Pull” tool to extrude the walls you’ve drawn up. Click the surface, and type “10’” and press enter to manually select a height of 10 feet for the walls. Next, to make doors, simply draw a rectangle on the wall where the door should be, and use the “Push/Pull” tool to push the door through the wall, making a hole. You can copy/paste the door-shaped rectangle around the house, so you don’t have to individually draw each door. Repeat the same process for windows.

And that’s it! Now you’ve got a model of your house, ready to be furnished.

If you’d like more in-depth instructions about how to do this, Google has an excellent video tutorial here.

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Design Your own Papercraft Schematics

You know about papercraft, right? It’s the art of making models out of paper and glue, generally from plans downloaded from the internet (and also one of our 50 things every geek should know). With Sketchup, and a program called “Pepakura Designer,” you can create your own papercraft plans.

Here’s how it works:

First, you create a model in Sketchup. Simpler is better, particularly if you’re new to papercraft. Models with lots of rounded surfaces will produce difficult-to-follow plans, and won’t look as good when complete.

Next, you export your model as a Google Earth 4 kmz file. Unfortunately: Sketchup 7 is not able to export in the Google Earth 4 kmz format. Fortunately, it’s still easy to find older versions of Sketchup with a Google search, so you’ll need to install one of those to make your Papercraft model, and export it as a Google Earth 4 kmz.

Finally, open the kmz file with Pepakura Designer, which is shareware. The full version costs 40 bucks, but with the trial version you can still create papercraft plans and print them, you just can’t save your projects for later.

Now you’re ready to cut, fold and glue your papercraft model.

Design custom furniture

Alongside architects and designers, woodworkers have been one of the groups of professionals to embrace Sketchup in a big way. And why not? It’s quick, allows you to work in real-world measurements, and there are plugins to add all sorts of woodworking-specific functionality. For instance, here’s a free plugin that takes a Sketchup model, and creates a cutlist and layout. That means it shows you exactly how much of each type of wood you need to buy, and shows you how to cut it so that you get all the pieces you need, while wasting as little wood as possible.

If you’re interested in woodworking, or would like to try your hand at making furniture in Sketchup, check out Design Click Build, a site with tons of helpful guides about woodworking in Sketchup.

Image Credit: Tim Killen

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Make a Left 4 Dead Level!

For a lot of computer users, their first experience with 3D modeling was in building levels for one of the classic 3D shooters, like Quake. In terms of sheer fun value and sense of accomplishment, it’s hard to do better than getting to run around and gun down your friends in your newly created model. While Sketchup was not originally meant for making game levels, Google’s been making efforts to move in the direction, starting with a plugin that allows you to use Sketchup to make levels for Hammer—the level editor that powers Source engine games like Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress.

Making a Left 4 Dead level in Sketchup is a pretty simple affair with the Hammer Sketchup plugin. First, install the plugin by downloading the Left 4 Dead Authoring tools in Steam (requires a purchased copy of Left 4 Dead) and finding the plugin in Steamsteamappscommonleft 4 deadsdk_toolsplugins. Extract all files in the plugins folder to Sketchup’s plugin directory. Once you’ve done that, two new items will be in the “Plugins” menu next time you start: Export SMD and Export VMF.

By allowing you to export as VMF, the Hammer plugin lets you to save your Sketchup models in a format that the Left 4 Dead version of the Hammer level editor understands. This means you can use Sketchup to quickly model props for Left 4 Dead models, or even entire level geometries, then use the Hammer editor to add the finishing touches, like scripting and AI pathing.

A word of warning: the Hammer editor is finicky, and this affects how you have to model in Sketchup. The primary concern is that Hammer requires that all brushes(objects to be placed in the level) have a convex topography, which is means no straight line can intersect a brush at more than two points. This means that any components you wish to use must be composed of simple, convex blocks, which themselves have to be made into components (by selecting them and pressing G in Sketchup). This can be a tricky process, so if you want to learn more, check out this link and keep your eyes on MaximumPC.com—we plan to offer a more detailed guide to Sketchup and Hammer in the future.

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Use a Raytracing Renderer to Make Photorealistic Images

Once you’ve modeled something in Sketchup, it’s hard to resist the temptation to show it off to anyone who’ll look. But even with a wealth of style and lighting options, it’s hard to really make an object in Sketchup look great, or anywhere near photorealistic. Fortunately, there are 3rd party renderers that make up for this deficit.

For a free option, you can try Kerkythea. It’s a freeware renderer with a Sketchup plugin available and can put together some pretty decent renders. For more information about how to setup and use Kerkythea with Sketchup, check out this blog post.

If you’re ready to move onto something a little bit more powerful, there are some relatively affordable renderers available, such as SU Podium, which has a free evaluation, and sells for $180. Unlike the previous renderer, SU Podium works directly within Sketchup, so you don’t have to start up a separate program, then export and import a sketchup model to make a quality render.

Of course there are also more advanced, general purpose renderers such as V-Ray that can be used to make photo-realistic images of your models, but these carry an industrial-strength price tag, sometimes running into the thousands of dollars.

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Make Custom Logos and Icons

Although Sketchup’s primary purpose is as a 3D editor, it can also be useful for making 2D images. For instance, for a quick 3D effect on a logo, import an image of the logo into Sketchup, then trace over it and extrude. Then paint the logo with the right colors using the texture tool, select a style, and export it as an image (File > Export > Image).

If you want a transparent background, you’ll have to do a little post-processing using your photo editor of choice. Just pick a style that uses a flat white background before you export, then use a color-select tool (such as the “magic wand” in Photoshop) to select and delete the background.

This technique is also great for creating large custom icons for use on a website or in Windows Vista or 7. Just model an object in SketchUp (or download one from the 3D Warehouse), export an image, and then use a photo editor to remove the background and scale it down to icon size. Here’s a set of Moleskine icons made in Sketchup by Max Brown:

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Turn Your Building Model into a Blueprint

An architectural or design model is great for visualizing an object or space, but sometimes you want a more old-fashioned, formal view of an object. Here’s how to turn your model into a printable plan, like this:

First you’ll need to annotate your model with dimension lines. To do this, select the Dimension tool from the Tools dropdown menu. If you’d like quicker access to the all the tools in Sketchup, and not just the essentials, enable the larger toolset by checking View > Toolbars > Large Toolset and unchecking View > Toolbars > Getting Started. To draw a dimension with the dimension tool, simply click on two points of your model, then move the mouse to one side or the other to “pull” a dimension line out. Depending on which direction you “drag” the line, it’ll measure different distances. For instance, if you pull to the right, it’ll measure the vertical distance between the two points, and if you pull up it’ll measure the horizontal distance.

Next, we’ll change the view to a straight-on side view. For this, first click on the Camera dropdown menu and uncheck Perspective. This will make your model look weird if you look at it from any sort of angle, but is the only way to get a perfect side-on view. Next, open the Camera menu again, then select Standard Views and select the side you want to view your model from.

Now you should have a nice, straight-on side view with labeled dimensions. If you want to take it a step further, you can give it a simulated blueprint style by opening the Styles window and then choosing Assorted Styles > Blueprint.

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If you’ve ever been in a situation when you absolutely, positively, need to share a network connection wirelessly, and you have a PC with a wireless adapter that runs Windows 7, Connectify (from wireless mesh networking company Nomadio, Inc.) is the answer. Connectify (currently in beta) turns almost any Windows 7 PC with a working wireless network adapter into a fast and secure wireless access point.

What You Need

• A PC running Windows 7*
• A working wireless adapter**
• Software from the Connectify Me website
• About 15 minutes of your time

*Connectify works with Windows 7 final and Windows 7 RC

**Update – some Intel network adapters might not work with Connectify – see Paul Lilly’s comment below

Getting Started

1. Navigate to the Connectify Me website and click either the Download Beta button or Beta Test Now shield.
2. Enter registration information and click Submit.
3. Click the Click Here to Download Connectify link to download it immediately (instead of waiting for the promised email link which you might, or might not, receive on a timely basis).
4. Run the 1.41MB installer, and provide UAC information if prompted.
5. After you sign off on the license agreement, the installer does its work.
6. Click Next to continue, and click Finish. By default, Connectify will start, and a readme will open in your browser.

Setting Up Connectify

If you don’t see the Connectify icon in the notification area, click the up arrow pointer to display additional icons. Click the Connectify icon.

The first time you start Connectify, you will see an error message. That’s because Connectify needs you to provide a passphrase. Click the passphrase field and enter the text you want to use. You must enter at least eight characters (up to 32) for your passphrase text (you can display or hide the text as desired). Connectify uses WPA2 AES encryption for maximum security.

By default, Connectify uses Connectify as its SSID. To change the SSID, enter the name you prefer in the WiFi Name field.

If you have more than one connection you can share, select the connection to share from the Internet pull-down menu. You can use Connectify to share a wired connection (which is what I used for this article), or a wireless connection.  You need only one wireless adapter to make sharing work, even if you’re sharing a wireless connection wirelessly.

Click the Hotspot Off button to turn on the Connectify access point.

Connecting to a Connectify Access Point

Whether you use Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, MacOS, or Linux, connecting to the Connectify software access point uses the same procedures you use to connect to any secure wireless access point that broadcasts its SSID:

• Select the SSID used by the network
• Enter the passphrase when prompted
• Make the connection
• Make any firewall or other configuration changes requested by your wireless network client

Once other PCs have connected to the Connectify software access point, Connectify lists the computer(s) connected to it by their network names and IP addresses.

When you shut down the connection, Connectify ”remembers” who was connected to the network, listing them as “disconnected clients.”

Conclusion

Connectify works – and works well – because it relies upon new networking features built into Windows 7. Right now, Connectify costs nothing to try – and it provides a solid, secure, and fast connection. Whether you’re looking for a quick way to share a wired connection in a hotel room or conference center, add wireless capability with Internet access to a home or office wired network, or set up a quick, easy LAN party without fiddling around with your normal network configuration settings, Connectify looks like a winner. It’s one of the coolest reasons to move up to Windows 7.

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Every computer collects dust over time. When the computer is running, it creates a field of static electricity, which in turn attracts clumps of dust and hair. These cluttering particles can easily collect around your processor, power supply, and case fans, and can block airflow and lead to overheating. This is why an important part of taking care of a computer is making sure that it’s clean.

To that end, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide on how to clean your computer hardware and peripherals to make your rig look as good as new. We took a 4-year-old computer and thoroughly cleaned it using a few household supplies. All it took was a little bit of patience and a few hours and we managed to get some impressive results. Follow along below to achieve the same cleanliness Zen with your own machine.

And once you’re done, read our guide to giving your PC a professional wiring job!

What you need:

• Compressed air
• Isopropyl rubbing alcohol
• Lint-free or microfiber cloths
• Paper towels
• Q-tips
• Scissors
• Swiffer Dry Refill sheet
• Masking tape
• Vacuum with a removable handle and crevice tool

1. Start with Cord Management

First, let’s start with the external cables. Begin by untangling any that have become entwined. Now, grab a soft, microfiber cloth and dampen it with a bit of isopropyl rubbing alcohol, then run it along the length of all of your cords to remove any dust that may have built up (image A). Then, grab a few zip ties and begin organizing your cables in terms of their location in your machine: For example, the wires connecting peripherals reside toward the top; the DVI connector and power supply cord are toward the bottom, and so on. This will prevent your cables from getting tangled over time. Don’t group any power cables with speaker wire. Make sure to put on the zip ties toward the middle of the cords to give yourself some flexibility when you disconnect or connect devices (image B). Now, unplug your cable bundles so they’re out of the way while we clean the inside of your machine.

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2. Cleaning Your Case

Now, make sure the power supply is turned off, lay your case on its side, and remove the side door. First, you want to inspect the internal data and power cables to make sure they’re all connected and well-fastened (image A). If there are any damaged cables, consider replacing them entirely—do not attempt to fix them with electrical tape. Generally, electrical tape is only used for insulation purposes, not to patch-up wires, and this rule is especially crucial when dealing with the inside of a computer.

Next, you want to get rid of the dust bunnies around your motherboard. Grab a can of compressed air and make sure that the straw is securely inserted. Stand the case upright—when you shoot at it, make sure the can of compressed air stays upright as well (image B). Do not tilt the can on its side or shoot at the computer sideways.

Squeeze the trigger to blast air in the direction of the key components in your case: the crevices in between your fans, the drive bays, connection ports, and any other areas that are plagued by dust and tiny hairs. If you find that you have excess grime or stray dust balls rolling around, you can actually use your vacuum cleaner to deal with them, provided that it’s equipped with a removable handle and a crevice tool. Vacuum away from the motherboard and use it only to eliminate giant dust bunnies that fall to the bottom of the case. Additionally, if you have an air filter in your case, remove it and run it under warm water to remove the dust. Be certain it’s completely dry before re-inserting.

3. Wipe Down Fans

With a different piece of lint-free cloth, wipe down your fan blades, then sprinkle the cloth with a few droplets of 90 or 99 percent rubbing alcohol solution and run it along the inside of your case (image A). Use a Q-tip to clean tight spots like your CPU cooler’s fan blades (image B). When you’re finished and everything has dried, feel free to close up the case.

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4. Make Your Own Filter

A great way to keep dust from infiltrating your PC is to create your own air filter using a Swiffer Dry Refill sheet. All you need to do is cut the sheet to fit the grill on the outside frame of your case and affix it with a few pieces of masking tape. In this instance, we pasted it between the outside of the case chassis and the front-frame. Be sure to place this filter only where air is being sucked in and remember to replace it every few months (or as it visibly accumulates dust).

5. Clean Your Mouse

Assuming your cords are still unplugged, dampen a lint-free cloth with rubbing alcohol and clean the outside shell of the mouse, paying attention to any residue on the buttons.  It’s important that you exercise caution while cleaning peripherals like an optical mouse—cleaning solutions should never come in contact with the optical sensor at the bottom of the mouse—it could ruin it. Also, avoid using paper towels; stick to lint-free materials so that you don’t risk leaving behind any fluff that could stick to the sensor.

6. Clean Your Keyboard

One easy way to clean gunk out of your keyboard is to turn it upside down over a sink and smack the bottom to knock out the colony of crumbs that have undoubtedly settled in. Run through the keyboard’s spaces with a can of compressed air to get loose crumbs and hairs out of the way, and then use rubbing alcohol and Q-tips to clean grease off the surfaces and in between each key.

For a more thorough wipe-down, you could even stick your keyboard in the dishwasher, though we warn you that this is NOT a solution for expensive keyboards with LCD displays and USB slots—there is also a very real chance that it will destroy your keyboard. Before placing it inside the machine, bundle the cord and put a plastic bag over it, making sure it covers the USB/PS2 plug and that it is securely sealed with a rubber band.

Situate the keyboard on the top rack of the dishwasher so that it is facing down—we want the jets to hit up against the keys and wash off the residue. If your dishwasher has a speed dry cycle, turn it off—if you let the inside get too warm it could warp the plastic or crack the circuit board from thermal expansion. For the first run, we suggest omitting soap altogether, but to remove tougher stains, a pea-size amount of soap is also OK, but use at your own risk. After running it through a light cycle, let the keyboard dry for several days or until all the water has dried before reconnecting it.

7. Clean Your Monitor

Grab a microfiber cloth and gently wipe your screen to free it of dust, fingerprints, and any other smudges. You can make your own screen cleaning solution using a half-and-half mix of 70 percent isopropyl alcohol and distilled water, or you can pick up a premixed solution from any computer store or office supply retailer. Under no circumstances should you use Windex or paper towels to clean an LCD screens, especially those with anti-glare surfaces. If you’re using a CRT, use a few dabs of rubbing alcohol to gently wipe away greasy spots from the screen.

Next: Give your PC a professional wiring job!

Have any PC cleaning tips or dusty PC horror stories? Share in the comments section below!

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Although most Linux users rely on pre-built Linux distros and customize their software configuration after installation, there is nothing quite like having a Linux distro that was custom-designed to your specifications. This allows you to get whatever you want out of the box, but in the past it was difficult to create such a distro since it involved compiling the entire operating system from source. (something firmly in the realm of advanced-to-expert-level users)

In more recent years, it has become possible to create your own Linux distro through various easy-to-use online interfaces. The most well-known distro customization tool is Slax (which we recently discussed) but Novell has a tool called SuSE Studio in closed beta which allows you to assemble your own custom SuSE-based distro from pre-compiled packages. Right now, SuSE Studio is still invite-only since Novell gives you storage space on their servers and bandwidth to both store and download your creations.

Read on to learn how we built our own Maximum PC-themed Linux distro!

Planning the System

Before you can create a distro, you must first plan what you are going to use it for. Our intention was to create a customized yet well-rounded desktop distro based on openSuSE 11. However, you also have the option of creating a desktop or server variant of OpenSuSE or SuSE Enterprise Linux for 32 or 64-bit x86 architecture. If you plan to redistribute your creation, you will need to use OpenSuSE as a base since SuSE Enterprise Linux is not free for download whereas OpenSuSE is. Redistribution also requires the removal of all SuSE-related artwork and branding as per the Novell requirements.

Many distros are meant to be one-size-fits-all and can be a little bit bloated since they must appeal to a wide audience. Since you know what you need better than anyone else, building your own distro gives you unparalleled opportunities to maximize efficiency. Ideally, Linux distros should be as small and compact as possible while still being feature-complete, so try to plan ahead and come up with an inventory of the exact software you are going to need. It often helps to get out some paper or a spreadsheet to make a list: break down the required software ecosystem for your distro into categories like development, Internet, multimedia, graphics, office, etc. and then populate each category with the programs you think you will need.

When you go hiking, it pays to travel light since it is seldom worth it to carry a bunch of equipment you don’t need over long distances. The same rule applies to distro planning. You should avoid including software that introduces redundant functionality; you don’t need more than one desktop environment, raster editor, or office suite on your system. For instance, don’t install both Openoffice.org and Koffice or both GNOME and KDE in the same distro.

The only exception to the rule is with GUI vs. CLI utilities; you should make sure you have a CLI alternative for important utilities if applicable. For instance, you might choose a robust tool like Kate or Gedit as your primary text editor, but you should also include a CLI-friendly tool like Vim or Nano to fall back on during the times you may not have GUI functionality. Alternatively, you could also get away with just using Vim as your all-purpose text editor in both a GUI and CLI setting if you are so inclined. While it is possible to mix and match programs from both GNOME and KDE in SuSe Studio, this will inevitably create bloat because of the extra dependencies that will also have to be installed to make everything work.

Building the Distro

Now that planning is out of the way, we can get to the really fun part. The first step to building a custom distro with SuSE Studio is creating the base configuration. This includes choosing the core operating system, (various OpenSuSE or SuSE Enterprise Linux templates are available in preset desktop, server, and minimalistic configurations) the primary desktop environment, the primary system architecture, (x86 or x86-64) and the name of the distro. The core operating system doesn’t include very much, just a kernel, desktop environment, and a few basic utilities. For our demonstration, we chose to create a 64-bit variant of OpenSuSE 11 that utilizes the GNOME desktop environment. We chose to call our creation “Maximum PC Linux.”

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Once the distro’s base configuration has been created, you will be taken to the start page, which is the gateway to the rest of the tools you will need to create your distro. The next step is to configure your distro’s software ecosystem. Although choosing a base configuration will already have added a bunch of software to your distro, you are still able to add any other individual programs you may want to use. This is where the list you should have made before starting this part of the process will come in handy.

SuSE Studio automatically ties in the default repositories for your distro, so you will have full access to the same packages you would normally be able to work with through the package manager in conventional SuSe Enterprise Linux or OpenSuSE. You can also add additional repositories if the default ones do not have what you are looking for; SuSE studio will integrate them and make their packages available to you if the repository is valid. You also have the option of loading individual RPM files, useful for those rare times when you have no choice but to spoon-feed packages into the operating system.

The package list in SuSE Studio is divided into several categories that will probably correspond to the categories on your preparation list: multimedia, graphics, office, etc. By browsing each category, you will be able to add additional programs to the project. Remember that while most software dependencies are handled automatically, this is not the case for system services; if you want sound to work you will need to add a sound engine like ALSA or PulseAudio. Likewise, you will also need to add any necessary codec packages for the various media frameworks (like Gstreamer or Xine) that most media players rely on.

Of course, you (or your other users) could always install these packages after installation, but a primary incentive of using a custom distro is to have most services work out of the box. Unfortunately, US patent law and the DMCA prohibited us from including MP3 codecs or a DVD decrypter with Maximum PC Linux, even though we really wanted to. To get these types of media working, you will need to add the necessary plugins yourself. (you will need the Fluendo MP3 decoder for Gstreamer and the libdvdcss2 plugin; Fluendo can be acquired as an RPM here.

Depending on the size of the installation media you are planning to use, be sure to keep an eye on the package count to prevent the distro footprint from getting too big. SuSE Studio estimates the current size of the distro for your convenience but keep in mind that the final image is slightly larger than the value provided during the software selection process because dependencies are not factored into the estimate. Therefore, if you want your distro to fit on a 700 MB CD, you should generally not exceed more than 610 MB of additional software packages although the actual safety margin will vary depending on what you install.

After all the additional software you wanted has been added to the mix, you can customize the appearance and behavior of your distro by switching to the Configuration tab:

General Settings

General Settings allow you to set the default configuration of your location, time zone, firewall, and network settings. For Maximum PC Linux, we chose to have NetworkManager handle the network configuration since it allows far greater flexibility (such as the ability to choose between wired and wireless connections) than standard DHCP. If you go this route, be sure to include the NetworkManager package and the appropriate frontend for NetworkManager that would allow it to interface with your desktop environment. We also configured the firewall to allow inbound SSH through port 22. If you do not need or want remote access functionality, be sure to disable it when you build your custom distro.

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Personalization

The Personalize tab allows you to choose a logo and wallpaper for your distro. The wallpaper image is especially prominent, since it is also shown during the boot process and is a great way to brand your custom distro to make it truly yours. The default settings are rather limited and are identical to what can be found in generic OpenSuSE. We took this opportunity to customize Maximum PC Linux with one of the official Maximum PC wallpaper images. The logo functionality allows you to use the SuSE iguana symbol, a generic Tux image, a custom image, or no logo at all.

Startup

The Startup tab allows you to choose the default runlevel of your distro. The default level is set to graphical login; you should leave this alone unless you know what you are doing and don’t want the GUI to start automatically at boot. You should know that the runlevel settings in this section correspond with the general Linux runlevels, some of which do not feature a GUI and/or disallow networking. The Startup section also allows you to define a EULA for your distro. Since the LiveCD installation utility built into the distro will complain (but will still work) if there is no EULA, it is advisable to use something generic if you do not have your own special licensing terms.

Server

The Server tab allows you to configure specific services (like MySQL) that would normally run in a server-type environment. If you choose to build a desktop distro, you will typically not need to enable any services.

Desktop

The Desktop tab allows you to further configure runtime options like automated login and automated startup programs. Since a typical SuSe Studio desktop distro is automatically set up to be a LiveCD, it helps to enable automated login since security is not as important in that situation. If you choose to install the distro, you will be able to set up a more secure environment at that time.

Storage and Memory

The Storage and Memory tab allows you to declare virtual memory allocation if your distro is going to be a VMware or Xen image. If you plan to create a conventional ISO image, you do not need to make any changes in this section.

Scripts

The scripts section allows you to create and run a shell script at the end of the SuSE Studio build process or at the distro’s boot time. Most SuSE Studio projects will work properly without additional scripting, so you should generally leave this feature alone unless you know what you are doing.

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Putting Everything Together

Once you have configured your distro to be the way you want it, SuSE studio must assemble everything before it will work. This is not a compile process (like Gentoo and similar distros would be) but is instead a very elegant assembly and configuration process where all individual packages you have chosen are brought together and configured to work with each other. You have the option of creating an ISO image for an installation CD, Vmware/Virtualbox hard disk image, (which you can then plug into a new virtual machine) Xen image, or a generic disk image you can clone onto a USB stick or hard drive.

To start this process, switch to the build tab, choose the format you want your distro to be created in, set the version, and then click the Build button. After that, all you have to do is relax and wait as SuSE Studio does all the hard work behind the scenes and creates your custom distro for you based on your specifications. Depending on the size and complexity of your distro, the build process can take awhile; creating a 700 MB build of Maximum PC Linux took about 24 minutes on average.

The versioning feature is very important since it can take several adjustments (each requiring a separate build) to get everything working properly. To facilitate easy debugging, SuSE Studio has an incredibly useful tool called TestDrive, which is essentially an Adobe Flash-based virtualization tool. Using TestDrive, you can run your distro in an hour-long test session without having to download it. However, truly comprehensive testing and debugging often requires you to download and run the distro on a virtual machine or a real test system.

Once the build is finished, you can download your distro. SuSE Studio will save your builds for about a week, after which they may be deleted to free up space for other users. (however, you can always re-build them later if you have to)

SuSE Studio generally worked well for us, (all programs we chose worked properly) but there were some minor problems. On the first build, we did not expect to have to manually add packages like ALSA to get sound support, so it took more debugging than we initally anticipated to get everything working. Although using SuSE Studio is far easier than manually configuring a distro from scratch, it is still not something you are able to breeze through in five minutes without careful planning and a fairly good knowledge of Linux systems.

Also, the builds that SuSE Studio produces have problems with auto-mounting media; after plugging in a USB flash drive, nothing would happen so we had to mount those devices manually through the console. (after which they worked perfectly) We tried installing udev and any other package we could find that dealt with USB devices, but no solution presented itself. Since we concluded that this problem is caused by the HAL (hardware abstraction layer) not properly recognizing new media, we feel that this (and other essential stuff like sound support) is something that should be automatically set up in the base configuration instead of being something that users should be expected to figure out for themselves.

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Firefox may be your default browser, but that doesn’t mean you really use it to its full potential. Mozilla’s browser is a big threat to Microsoft not because it’s fast and full of unique features, but because it’s also extremely customizable. Add-ons, style scripts, and hidden preferences let you personalize your Firefox experience to meet your tastes and needs. Sure, you may know about hidden easter eggs like the about:robots page, but we’re going show you the 20 most essential tips, tricks, and tweaks to this super browser.

Undo Closed Tabs and Windows

This is actually a feature that has been around since before Firefox 3, but we’re often surprised by how many people don’t know about it. Firefox stores a record of every open and closed tab in all windows for each browsing session. So if you accidentally closed a tab, you can bring it back by pressing Ctrl + Shift + T. The restored tab retains its surfing history as well, and you can bring back old tabs even after you’ve opened several new ones since the initial close.

Speed Up Browsing

Firefox 3.5 is fast at loading pages, but its operational speed can get bogged down by overloading extensions. But you can add further optimizations to the browser by making a few tweaks behind the scenes. Load up the about:config page (by typing about:config in the location bar), and make the following changes:

Set network.http.max-connections to 96 – This sets the total number of HTTP connections Firefox can make to a web server. The default value is 30 (raised for the previous default of 24), but if you have ample bandwidth, increase the number speed up the loading of multiple-tab bookmarks.

Set network.http.max-connections-per-server to 32 – The default is 15, but you can raise it to increase the number of connections made to a single server. This is useful if you’re planning on browsing a site while downloading many files from it at the same time.

Set network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server to 8 – Raising this setting from 6 to 8 improve performance when working through multiple pages of a site. We don’t recommend setting this value to anything higher than 8.

Set network.http.pipelining to true – Pipelining is an application of the HTTP 1.1 protocol where multiple requests can be sent to a web server before any responses are received. Not all servers support it, but this will improve your browsing speed if you’re on a high-latency (slow) connection.

Set network.http.proxy.pipelining to true – Same as the setting above, but only applies if you’re using a proxy connection.

Set network.http.pipelining.ssl to true – If you’re encountering problems with pipelining enabled, the root of the problem may be a broken proxy server sitting between you and the target server. SSL (secure) sites don’t have this problem, so this setting will let you turn on pipelining for those sites only, regardless of the other pipelining settings.

Set network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to 8 – With pipelining enabled, this preference specifies the maximum number of requests to make to a server at once. Raising the default value from 4 to 8 will speed up your requests to a server, but will cause a small delay if one of the requests fail.

Use Gmail as Your Default Mail Application

When Firefox 3 was first released, one of the new features was the option to associate html protocols with web applications, such as launching a webmail service when clicking a “mailto:” link. Unfortunately, at the time of launch, only Yahoo’s mail client was officially supported, and users had to either use extensions or manipulate some javascript code to enable Gmail as the primary mail handler. The current iteration of Firefox has included Gmail in the web app client list, and here’s how you turn it on.

Go to Tools-> Options, and select the Applications tab. This is a list of protocol and content associations, with their respective plug-ins for each type of content (ie. Mp4 video). In the search field, type “mailto”. Then, in the Actions drop down menu, select Gmail as your default client. That’s it! The next time you click on an email link, Firefox will open up Gmail in a new tab to send an email. Bonus tip: download and install the Better Gmail 2 add-on to add extra UI features if you’re planning on using Gmail as your primary mail client.

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Disable the Awesome Bar

We think that the Awesome Bar lives up to its name – its auto-complete feature lets us get to our favorite websites even if we don’t remember the exact URL. But not everyone wants Firefox to auto-complete location bar text, especially if you visit sketchy or embarrassing sites that share common URL characters (ebay and piratebay, for example). You can disable the Awesome bar by turning off the XUL richlistbox widget that powers it.

First, open up the about:config page. Type browser.urlbar.matchBehavior in the Filter field, and right click the sole resulting entry. Click Modify, and change the value of the setting from 1 to 2. Now, whenever you start typing a URL in the location bar, you only get suggestions from websites that start with that text, not just any with those string of characters.

Now, if you want to make the Awesome Bar to not show any suggestions for pages that you have visited or bookmarked, and only show suggestions for URLS that you have manually typed, go to the browser.urlbar.default.behavior preference in about:config and change its value from 0 to 49.

3 Quick Location Bar Style Fixes

Always show the GO button

By default, the GO button the far right of the location bar only shows up if the bar is empty or if you’ve typed in something new. To make the button stay visible, go to your user Profile directory (C:Documents and SettingsUSERNAMEApplication DataMozillaFirefoxProfiles in Windows XP), navigate to the Chrome subdirectory, and create a new blank file called userChrome.css. This file lets you make stylesheet changes to Firefox. Open up the file with Notepad and type the following at the end of the file:

#go-button { visibility: visible !important; }

Restart Firefox to put this change into effect.

Disable the RSS Feed Button

If you’re not a fan of web feeds, you have no need for the RSS button at the end of the location bar. Disable it by opening up the Chrome.css file you created before in your Profile directory, and add the following line:

#feed-button[feeds] { display: none !important; }

Restart Firefox to put this change into effect.

Use Small Location Bar Icons

The location bar itself isn’t terribly tall, but every pixel counts when you’re using a tiny screen netbook or have stacked additional toolbars like the Booksmarks bar or a StumbleUpon bar. Shrink the Location Bar by right clicking the any toolbar and clicking the “customize” option. At the bottom of this screen, check “Use Small Icons.”

Reasonably Cut Ram Usage

Firefox is generally good about memory management, so we don’t normally recommend memory allocation tweaks because of the performance tradeoff. But there is one setting in Firefox that may be useful if you tend to have many browser windows and tabs open but minimized at the same time.

Open up the about:config page, and right click anywhere in the window. Select New->Boolean to create a new preference setting, and type “config.trim_on_minimize” in the pop up box. Next, choose True as the default value. This preference will offload memory using from RAM to virtual memory on your hard drives when windows are minimized. The only caveat is that “waking up” this minimized window will take a little longer than usual, since Firefox will need to transfer its state back to physical memory.

Additionally, we recommend that you try the RAMBack add-on, which gives you notifications when and how much memory can be freed up from RAM.

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Browse Privately on a Public Computer

A feature actually first introduced in IE 8, Firefox’s private browsing mode lets you surf the web without retaining any URL history, form and search fields, passwords, cookies, or web cache on the local machine. This is particularly useful for surfing at work or on a friend’s computer, when you don’t want them to snoop around your shameful habits. Turning on private browsing is as simple: just hit Ctrl + Shift + P. Firefox will save your existing windows and open a new session (unfortunately, you can’t have both private and non-private mode windows open at the same time). In the privacy options settings, you can even set Firefox to start in private browsing mode by default.

Customize the New Tab Page

One thing that Chrome and IE 8 do better than Firefox is the new tab page. When you open a new tab in Firefox, it defaults to about:blank, which, appropriately, is a blank page. Mozilla actually acknowledges this shortcoming, and has been experimenting with various new types of new-tab landing pages in their Mozilla Labs department. The latest prototype shows you a page with Frequently Visited Sites, and a “You Might Want to” suggestion based on what’s in your clipboard.
You can download and install it here.

6 Essential about:config Tweaks

About:config is amazingly powerful – it lets you change almost every aspect of how Firefox functions. Going through and explaining what every preference does would not only be an impossible task, but also unnecessary since most people are happy with the default settings. There are, however, a few settings that we think are essential to change. Make these tweaks first when you encounter a fresh install of Firefox.

browser.urlbar.autoFill = True
Enable auto-complete for URLs when typing into the location bar.

browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo = 15
Increase the number of closed tabs that firefox has stored in its cache to 15.

browser.tabs.tabMinWidth = 75
Show more tabs in a single window by narrowing the minimum width of a tab.

browser.search.openintab = True
Automatically open new search results in a new tab

middlemouse.paste = True
Use the middle mouse button to paste text from your clipboard.

browser.blink_allowed = False
Disables annoying text with the Blink tag.

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Make Smart Bookmarks

A really sweet feature in Firefox 3 is the ability to program your own smart bookmarks. These are dynamic bookmark groups that change depending on your browsing history. For example, you can have it set to show the 10 most popular pages you’ve visited within a certain domain, or the 15 most popular sites you’ve visited that contain a specific keyword in its title.

Open up your Organize Bookmarks window by typing Ctrl + Shift + B. Choose the folder you want to create your new smart bookmark, and create a new bookmark with the Organize menu. In the location bar, enter a string using the following syntax:

place:queryType=A&sort=B&maxResults=C&domain=D&terms=E

Replace A, B, C, D, and E with whatever you choose, based on these rules:

Querytype= 0 to only search your history, 1 to only search your bookmarks, 2 to search both

Sort = 1 for A to Z, 2 for Z to A, 3 to sort by most recently visited, and 8 to soft by most often visited

Domain = the domain you want to show results for, such as “maximumpc.com”

Terms = the word or words you want to show results for.

For more syntax options and explanations, visit Mozilla’s reference page.

Back Up Your Bookmarks

Keep your bookmarks backed up and synchronized across multiple computers using the popular Xmarks add-on. Formerly known as Foxmarks, this extension securely stores your bookmarks (and even passwords) on their servers, and can even analyze your saved links to give website and tagging suggestions. It’ll even sync across multiple browsers, in case you use both Firefox and IE (Chrome support eventually coming).

Know the Location of Your Profile and Settings

What if you accidentally delete your bookmarks or profile settings before storing them in the cloud? Not to worry – Firefox makes periodic backups of your bookmarks, safely backing them up in a hidden folder. You can find and retrieve them in Windows easily. First, open up Windows explorer, go to folder options, and enable viewing hidden files. If you’re using Windows XP, your Firefox profile backups will be located in the following directory:

C:Documents and SettingsUSERNAMEApplication DataMozillaFirefoxProfiles

Just replace USERNAME with your Windows user account name, and sort the .json files by date. Copy and save the desired backup file to your Desktop, open up Firefox, and choose the Import and Backup option under the Bookmarks menu. Locate the .json file on your Desktop, and open it to restore your bookmarks.

In Windows Vista and 7, the backups are stored in:

C:UsersUSERNAMEApplication DataRoamingMozillaFirefoxProfiles

4 Scroll Wheel Secrets

• Open a link in a new tab by hovering over it and clicking the middle mouse button.
• Close a tab by hovering over the top of the tab and clicking the middle mouse button.
• Hold Shift and scroll your mouse wheel to move forward or backward through your history.
• Enlarge or shrink the size of text on a page by holding Ctrl and scrolling up or down.

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Advanced Spell Checking

Firefox’s built-in spell checker is useful for using web content management systems like WordPress for blog entries or Google docs, but the default setting only spellchecks fields that are bigger than one line. Enable single-line spellcheking (like for Google searches) by changing the following preference in about:config: layout.spellcheckDefault = 2

Additionally, you can add different language dictionaries to the spell-check database by picking and installing the right packages from Mozilla’s language packs page. Right click any multi-line text field and you can choose to alternate between different languages for spell checking.

And in case you’ve ever unintentionally added a word to the Dictionary, you can remove the entry by opening the persdict.dat file stored in your user Profile directory. Using a text editor like notepad, delete the line containing your unwanted word, and save the file.

14 Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

• Ctrl+T – Open a new tab
• Ctrl + Tab – Next tab
• Ctrl + 1-9 – Jump to a specific tab
• Ctrl+W — Close the current tab
• Ctrl+N – Open a new window
• Alt+Home – Go to your home page
• Ctrl + R – Refresh the current page. F5 also works
• Ctrl + Shift + R – Refresh the current page after flushing its current cache
• Ctrl+F – Find specific text in the current page. You can also use /
• Ctrl+D – Bookmark the current page
• Spacebar – Scroll a page down
• Shift+Spacebar – Scroll a page up
• Ctrl+K – Put the cursor in the search field
• Ctrl+L – Put the cursor in the location bar

Make Websites Work and Look the Way You Want

Browse websites the way you want. Use the Greasemonkey add-on with user-created scripts to automate and customize the way the way websites behave and look. You can make MP3 file links play with an in-line MP3 player, or make Google display Twitter search results at the top of all search pages. There are thousands of Greasemonkey scripts that you can use, and they’re all free to download.

Stylish lets you easily employ themes (called Styles) for any website without having to mess with CSS code. Like Greasemonkey, there is a sizeable database of preconfigured styles that users have created for you to try.

Disguise Firefox as Internet Explorer or an iPhone

Even if you don’t want to run Internet Explorer, there are some web services that only work if you use Microsoft’s browser (such as web outlook or Windows Update). IE Tab gives you the option to render pages using Internet Explorer or open new tabs using the IE engine. You can make specific sites always open with IE Tab as well.

User Agent Switcher is an add-on that doesn’t change the rendering engine, but allows you to make Firefox pretend to be a different browser when it retrieves information from a server. For example, you can have Firefox pose as an iPhone to view mobile-specific pages.

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Make use of the Favicon

The favicon — a website’s shortcut icon – is pretty to look at, but for the most part is pretty useless. Firefox lets you click the favicon next to a site’s URL in the location bar to display identity information, but most sites don’t utilize this feature. However, you can use the favicon as a quick way to access and manage stored cookies for specific websites. Just hit the “more information” button after clicking a favicon to open up that site’s page information window. Here, you can view and delete individual cookies for just this site, and even access saved passwords stored for users. It’s a really sneaky way to steal someone’s email password if you’re using their computer.

Manage Auto-Complete Suggestions

Forget to turn on private browsing mode and leave an embarrassing site in your URL history? You can delete individual auto-complete suggestions by hovering your mouse over the suspect URL and pressing the Delete key (not backspace) on your keyboard. The same trick also works for stored search history in your search bar, or any other auto-complete forms like user login.

Download like a Pro

From our power downloading guide: The Alpha and the Omega of downloading extensions, DownThemAll! is as simple to use as its name implies. When you activate this add-on for a page you’re surfing, DownThemAll gives you a list of every potential downloadable item on the page–everything from ZIP archives to JPEG images. You can grab the entire page’s contents and dump them in a folder, or you can selectively filter for only the file extensions that you’re actually interested in. Never before has pilfering the entire contents of a Web site been quite so easy.

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