Keep save file small. for better running.

As Saluki Linux is one of the many unique and varied Puppylinux operating systems. After using puppylinux myself over a few years, I notice, some people Find having a small save file, apart from taking up less space, helps to make it faster and more stable.

1. first save all you document, music, and other personal files outside the save file.
2. use sfs files instead of installing pets. sfs files are great for saving space and on smaller flashdrives, they may take up more ram to run so consider wisely which apps to install and which to run as sfs.

Another good way is to have some of the bigger apps outside the save file if possible. The following works for Thunderbird, and firefox. and maybe other applications to.

1. first download the latest Firefox (ff) tar.gz file from click here
2. extract it to the folder /mnt/home/apps folder. (/mnt/home is the drive, where the puppy setup files are. (You will need to make the folder called apps, to put all applications outside of save file)
3. once extracted, open it and click on the firefox-bin file and ff should run.
4. next you will need to create a desktop file. create the folder /mnt/home/apps/desktop-files
5. go to menu>office>geany and copy the following.

   [Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Firefox
Icon=/mnt/home/Apps/Icons/firefox.png
Comment=Email
Exec=/mnt/home/Apps/firefox/firefox-bin
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=internet
Comment=A full featured Web Browser
GenericName=Firefox

6. save this file to /mnt/home/apps/desktop-files
7. next you will want to make a folder /mnt/home/apps/icons
8. go to google images and type firefox icon, choose an icon and download it. then move it to the new icons folder you made
9. go to /mnt/home/apps/desktop-files right click the file and go to create symlink. A new linked app will popup.
10. right click on the new linked file and select cut.
11. next open /use/share/applications right click on an empty space and select paste. Now restart x. the desktop file will put firefox in your puppy menu.

This works for other apps as long as the source file tar.gz has a app bin file. some do others don´t trial and error is the best thing.
With this setup I run Firefox and Thunderbird in several different puppy os, saluki, wary, slacko, lupu528.

Puppylinux boot options and setup modes.

If you have been using puppy linux for a while you should be familiar with the 2 main ways of installing puppy full and frugal click here. The recommended way that puppy is designed to run at its best is frugal install.

Basic Options: There are some options with the frugal install. these options can be found if you press f1 when booting from the puppy live cd. there is a good explanation for them click here and click here

Advanced Options: (behind the scene, options when running puppy). There are several other ways you can run a puppy frugal install, called the PUPMODEs.  There is some good information about the different PUPMIODES click here. What pupmode you need depends on the computer specks., how you intend to run puppy and what you want to achieve. Take a look and see what is the best option for you.

Puppylinux boot options and setup modes.

If you have been using puppy linux for a while you should be familiar with the 2 main ways of installing puppy full and frugal click here. The recommended way that puppy is designed to run at its best is frugal install.

Basic Options: There are some options with the frugal install. these options can be found if you press f1 when booting from the puppy live cd. there is a good explanation for them click here and click here

Advanced Options: (behind the scene, options when running puppy). There are several other ways you can run a puppy frugal install, called the PUPMODEs.  There is some good information about the different PUPMIODES click here. What pupmode you need depends on the computer specks., how you intend to run puppy and what you want to achieve. Take a look and see what is the best option for you.

Using one set of apps across many puppy linux operating systems.

Puppy linux is a great operating system in all its many forms., as you well know if you use it.

Today we are going to look at how to set up applications to be used in more than one puppy os. (I have a usb hdd with several puppy versions on it and I was wanting to save space).

Option 1 is to try running an sfs file in different puppy os, even if the sfs file is built for one version of puppy it might work in others.

Option 2 This works only with apps that pre-compilied with all libs needed to run in them. such as  firefox (ff) and thunderbird (tb). Lets use ff here.

1. Download the latest ff tar.gz file from http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
2. extract, or unpack, it to the usb drive(or where ever your puppy files are.
3. then click on the bin file called firefox or firefox-bin and it should run.

Now you are probably going to want firefox to come up in the puppy menu so you will need to create a desktop file called firefox. To do this

open a blank txt tile and copy the following

[Desktop Entry]

Encoding=UTF-8

Name=Firefox

Icon=/mnt/home/Apps/Icons/firefox.png

Comment=Email

Exec=/mnt/home/Apps/firefox/firefox-bin

Terminal=false

Type=Application

Categories=X-Internet;

Comment=A full featured Web Browser

GenericName=Firefox

(you will need to change the 2 lines Icon=/mnt/home/Apps/Icons/firefox.png and exec=/mnt/home/Apps/firefox/firefox-bin to where the files are setup on your computer) then copy this file to /usr/share/applications

also edit the file /usr/local/bin/defaultbrowser and change the exe line to

 exec /mnt/home/Apps/firefox/firefox-bin “$@”

(again changing the path to where you have put your firefox file).

Option 3 using Portable applications from click here This option works very well in puppy linux but it is not native, it uss wine (Windows environment emulator). To run the windows portable files

1. install the wine app for your puppy version from the ppm (puppy package manager) or the wine sfs.
2. next download the portable apps suite from click here make sure you put this on your puppy flashdrive or of you don’t have much space on a separate flashdrive will do..once you have this setup you will notice you have a set of apps already built in,
3. then you can download apps here click here or search the site for others.
4. Then click them and wine will start to install them. Choose your flashdrive with portable apps on it and install there.

(these portable windows apps will work in puppy or any other linux os, and mac using wine windows emulator)

What does the term Modem mean these days ???

What is the term Modem mean in todays  computer terms.

The general overall meaning of Modem is a device that connects your computer to the internet.   Some people use the term Modem meaning Dial-up modem. but i found a great list explaining the different modems here.

Different types of modem? – Yahoo! Answers.

Windows Computer Tips and Tricks.

Firefox Browser: (ff) Firefox is a great full featured browser if you are used to windows Internet Explorer you will find ff can do that amd much more. In ff I use the addons Adblock +, Adblock Plus pop-up addon and Element hiding helper for adblock plus. I find these addons help speed up browser running.

also here are some other tweaks you can apply to make it even better. note if you don’t like a feature just undo it. click here These works on all versions of ff and on all operating systems.

Google Chrome Browser:This is a good browser of choice. It is optemised to run fast and smooth. it needs less tweaking than other browsers, and is way faster than internet explorer. my setup usually included these 2 addons Adblock +  blocks adds using a extensive list that is updated and maintained by the application developers.  Adblock + ellement hiding helper. In chrome this addon you need to add stuff to it, manually at the moment.

other things you can do to tweak and improve chrome browser that i use are found here.http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/03/speed-up-google-chrome-by-enabling-hardware-acceleration-and-pre/

msconfig: this is a windows system command run this app and go to the startup tab. here you can tweak what applications will load at start up. if you dont know what one element is a quick Google search “what is the windows 7 start up process (process name)”. Some of these are quick start up processses for applications, to make them load faster when you run them, or might be applications you don’t use not needed really. I don’t touch another settings apart from the startup tab.

CCleaner: this is a cache and registry cleaner. It helps keep your applications in windows running at there best by automatically looking at them and cleaning them up for you. also the registry cleaner is a handy tool to clean up old registry entries that are not needed. seehttp://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/features

Windows Defrag: Dont forget to defrag your computer at least one every week or 2. in windows def ragging is needed to clean up the file system. Over time the windows file system becomes messy due to the fact that parts of the information for files and applications can be put all over the computer known as fragmentation. defragging scans the hard drive and finds all teh related files puts them together and leaves all the extra space at the end of the drive. this makes your computer fun faster when done regularly.

1. click  the windows start button
2. type defrag in the search box
3. run the defrag application.

for a good tutorial on windows defrag click here

Computer Protection:

There are 2 main types of protection you need to get when running windows 1. Anti-virus 2. Anti-spywear  these are a must have here is what I recommend and would use on windows.

Avast Antivirus: this is one of the best free antivirus i have come accross. remember it pays to run one antivirus application on your computer. to save conflicting. Avast has boot time scan feature that AVG does not. Boot time scanning is needed because some of the windows system files that are running the operating system cant be scanned. this is done before the windows boots up so it can scan everything. Run The avast boot time scan once you install and setup avast, then run it if you suspect you have a virus or about every few months. click here

Spybot S&D:  Spybot is a good application that will find allot of other things that anvitirus won’t such as Malware and Trojans and other things. click here

Here are some good things to look at:

• Anti-virus and Anti-spy click here
• Ways to protect your computer click here

I hope you find these basic tips handy and greatly improving your windows computer using.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

via How To Ask Questions The Smart Way.

I came across the article a few years ago, read it, used it a bit then as you can do I forgot about it. Found it again in my bookmarks. It’s a great place to go to get ides on how to better communicate online. if you want to ask questions that get more responses in forums and on chat sites check it out.