If you live in the United States then you probably won’t get the Hulu.com reference, however if you live anywhere else, chances are you know exactly what I mean. 

For those not familiar, Hulu is a popular video playback site from NBC that streams many mainstream television shows right to your browser.  The biggest problem with the site is that it blocks access for users outside the continental United States.  Hulu isn’t the only site in the world that does this either.  Many sites restrict access based on the IP Address that you are currently connected with.

This is where Hotspot Shield comes to the rescue.  Hotspot Shield is a free software download that allows you to use the internet anonymously – for both Windows and Mac computers.  It works by providing you with a different IP address than you would normally get, allowing you to bypass country-type restrictions. 

Here’s a look at just how easy it is to use.

Here are three among many things I really hate about files downloaded from the internet:

- sometimes they use extremely crazy name such as “ad724bcb-0e34-b538-b712-1e4cc553c114.flv” or “ix5rba2UjXQ.mp4″ (They are real names, I didn’t make them up).

- sometimes they are saved not with the date they were downloaded but with the date they were created.

- sometimes they are saved in the unknown location.

Now, here’s the reasons: the files becoming difficult to find. I can’t use “Find” because I don’t know the name, I can’t use sorting by date because the possibilities are endless, and I can’t do manual search either because the location is unknown. Then after a while, they are totally forgotten.

Ask anybody who uses computer what command he/she uses most and you will likely have Copy, Cut and Paste among the tops. Basically, everytime you Copy or Cut an item, it will be stored in the clipboard to be put wherever you do the Paste command. These are extremely useful, not only for text-related activity but also for almost anything including images, sound and videos.

One caveat, though, by default the computer sets that only one item could be stored in the clipboard. I guess this is a legacy from when the computer’s storage capacity was still within megabytes range. If you put one item in the clipboard, the previous one will be replaced by the newer. This limitation can be very annoying if you – like most people – constantly have to do Copy – Cut – Paste between multiple items.

Despite the many competitions, we can safely say that the default electronic document format accepted by the mass is “portable document format” or more known by the abbreviation: PDF.

One of the reasons I was glad to switch from Windows to Mac is the support for PDF. Creating and viewing PDF files are second to nature for Mac users. You just print the document and choose “PDF -> Save as PDF” to create one, and Preview automatically handle the viewing of PDF documents.

So, in the world where PDF is natively supported, why would anybody need another PDF viewer(s)? The answer is because Preview can’t do everything, and we can use these alternatives to fill in the holes.

How many applications do you open at one time on you Mac? One? Not likely. Ten? Possible. My MacBook white always runs at least three applications at a time, with several windows for each and a constant switching among them.

I’m not much of a mouse person. I prefer to use keyboard and shortcuts whenever possible. So, two of my favorite combination of keys are Command + Tab to switch between apps and Command + Tilde (~) to switch between windows in one app.

Personally I don’t feel this two steps process as a problem – maybe like a more organized way of working. But for recent Windows switcher the process could feel a bit annoying. There’s an easier way, though. Use Witch, a small application from Peter Maurer which behave similar to Alt + Tab in Windows – switching between windows of all open applications.

There are many occasions where you need to convert a video from one format to another. For example, you want to convert a video to iPhone format so you can transfer to it and watch it on the move, or you want to convert the raw footage of your outdoor video shoot into a format that you can upload to Youtube. For whatever reasons, you will need a video converter to carry out this conversion task.

For Mac, there are several converter software that you can use to convert videos. Some of them are powerful, but come with a hefty price tag, while some are free, but is rather limited in functionality. If you are looking for a video converter that is both free and powerful (or useful), here are 5 of them that you can consider.

We all know that Apple is one of the companies which (in)famous for their hobby to constantly release mouth-watering products. Those fanboy whose will strength is not that strong would always be tempted to constantly replace their belongings with the latest breeds.

The problem is, when you switch your machine(s), you also have to move your datas along. And as surprisingly as it seems, most people don’t know how to migrate their datas – properly – from the old Mac to the new.

I don’t know about how everybody else work, but I am the kind of person who always need to do quick calculations. From a simple “how much is the change” or “how much should I pay for everything” to something like “how much IDR (Indonesian Rupiah – my country currency) should I pay for this USD (US dollar)”. I have my calculator app in my cellphone for everything I need to count while I am on the road; but in front of my computer – Mac or Windows, I use Calq.

There are already too many calculator applications out there with extra bells and whistles. Why choose this one?

Well, because it’s quick, cute and simple.

This is an updated version of my previous post Turn Ubuntu Hardy into Mac OSX.

That post was written six months ago and many things have changed during this period of time: release of Ubuntu Intrepid, newer Mac4Lin theme, better globalmenu applet etc. As such, I have decided to rewrite this tutorial for the Intrepid platform.

Disclaimer: This tutorial was based on Ubuntu Intrepid and Mac4Lin RC1 themes. I don’t guarantee that it will work on other distro or other version of Ubuntu.

For simple resizing of your existing Windows partition, Norm has done a good job in showing you how to get it done with Easus. If you want to do more, such as creating new partitions of different file format (such as Ext3 or HFS), then Gnome Partition Editor (Gparted) is the one for you.

GParted is a powerful application that you can use to change the partition organization therein, while preserving the partition contents. It allows you to resize, move, create and format your partition to various file formats. The file formats that it supports include ext2, ext3, fat16, fat32, hfs, hfs+, jfs, linux-swap, ntfs, reiser4, reiserfs, ufs and xfs. While most partition management software are restricted to a particular platform, GParted is cross-platform compatible and can be used regardless you are using Windows, Mac or Linux.