Tezzo's Technology Blog

When you need something done quickly, efficiently, and without any software overhead, the command line is where it's at. It was the first way humans told computers what to do, but as graphics became increasingly important, the command line, or terminal, became an insiders' secret weapon. But with the right commands and a little bit of know-how, anyone can get things done from a text-only interface. Let's take a look at 10 commands and tricks that make the terminal more accessible, and more powerful, on any system. via Lifehacker

Using Picasa Web Albums you can create a Flash slideshow to embed in your blog or webpage. Each slideshow features built-in playback controls, size options, and the ability to display captions. To create and embed a slideshow: Sign in to your Google Account for Picasa Web Albums at http://picasaweb.google.com using your Google Account username and password. Click the My Photos link and select the album you'd like to make a slideshow.Click the Embed Slideshow link. This creates a Flash slideshow from the album you've selected. When you update this album, your slideshow is automatically updated to show the latest photos. To embed the slideshow, copy and paste the HTML code that's shown into your blog or webpage. Tip: Once it's embedded into your blog or site, people viewing your slideshow can click the person icon to go to your public gallery or click Get Your Own to start making their own portable slideshows. via Google

Web-based music search tool Mix Turtle creates playlists of songs you find online. Working from an index of millions of songs, Mix Turtle supplies suggestions to your search terms as you enter them. Covering a broad spectrum of time and tastes, Mix Turtle returned impressive results for diverse searches such as Miley Cyrus, Robert Miles, and Miles Davis. Once you find songs you would like to listen to, you simply click on them to start playing or click on the plus symbol next to the song to add it to your playlist. Create an accoung and log in to save your playlists, but a login is not required to use the service. The playback applet has no control for volume or jumping about within the track that is playing, but otherwise the playback is clean and the quality of the tracks high. While not a replacement for more robust service like Pandora , song selection was easy and playback enjoyable. Mix Turtle is free to use. Mix Turtle

The wireless Internet is everywhere, but how do you find a hot spot—or make one for yourself? Here's the full spectrum of Wi-Fi access methods to try when you're not at home. For the last decade, as wireless networks have grown in popularity, so has the number of hot spots around the globe. The leading online hot-spot directory, JiWire , lists 215,666 locations as of this writing. Those are just the ones people bother to report. Believe it or not, they're not all in coffee shops—in fact, hotels host the most hot spots, followed by restaurants. With that many venues offering Wi-Fi, it should be easy to find Internet access wherever you go, right? It is, if you know where, and perhaps how, to look. Here are some tips on finding locations, both free and for a fee, unique venues where Wi-Fi may flourish (think: air travel), and how to make your own mobile hot spots on the fly if you've got the equipment, the cash, and the gumption to unwire beyond your home

Russ Bartels has an interesting observation about giving XP the performance tools found in Vista: "Great job; however, you missed one that I have used for a long time. In Windows 2000 and XP, you can right-click My Computer and select Manage to see a great selection of these tools. This would be a good addition to your directory of niche tools." The Computer Management window brings together many Microsoft Management Console snap-in controls that would otherwise have to be launched individually. (These Microsoft controls can be recognized in the Windows System32 folder by their .msc extension.) This windows gives you access to a couple of tools that I recommended on Jan. 10. If you want to add Computer Management to your collection of tools, the executable file name to create a shortcut to is compmgmt.msc. Alternatively, you can open the Computer Management window by clicking Start, All Programs, Administrative Tools, Computer Management. If you don't see the Administrati

There are so many tools available on the Internet, it’s difficult to keep up with them all, and some are just downright silly while others make life much easier. This list highlights 100 web tools that fall into the latter, more useful category and help you with some aspect of your life, whether it’s managing your time, more efficiently surfing the web, or planning a perfect vacation. Accredited Degrees

FeedMySearch Turns Google Search Results into RSS Feeds : "FeedMySearch, a free Google-tweaking utility, turns new results from Google's many search areas—web, news, blogs, images, and more—into an RSS feed you can incorporate however you'd like. Some of these results, like Google News, have RSS feeds built in, but FeedMySearch's web search feeds are full-fledged with embedded video and pictures, and the site makes it easy to embed the feeds in your favorite start pages or bookmarking tools. via Lifehacker

Simple techniques for touching up digital photos : "A Guide to Touching Up Your Digital Photos" One problem faced when starting out with digital photography was how to touch up my raw digital images. Perhaps an image was slightly dark, perhaps it had to be rotated or cropped. Maybe some dirty spots had to be cleaned out and erased. Digital photos usually require some form of manipulation before final output. So here's a short guide which I've compiled to help you touch up your photos. Basic-Digital-Photography.com

Q: I still haven't found a music program that will organize my music into folders for me! Any ideas? A: Go to your preferences (Don't know what platform you're on, but it wouldn't be hard to find) Go to the "advanced" tab, and tick the two boxes "Keep my iTunes Music folder organized" and "Copy files to my iTunes Music folder when adding to library". Click ok, accept, bla bla. Then, if you want to make sure music existing in your library get sorted, go to the "Advance" menu (not "Advanced" tab in Preferences), and select "Consolidate Library". The newest version of iTunes is a free download for Mac and Windows. iTunes 7.7 [Apple]

Check out the most popular Lifehacker posts that have been published in the first half of 2008. Lifehacker