Archive for the ‘Open Source’ category

How to Connect a Printer to Your Computer/Laptop

October 3rd, 2010

Have you ever watched the British TV play The IT Crowd, you couldn’t believe that even in those big companies there are so many staffs who knows only a little about computer. Most of the time the comouter is used as a typewriter rather than a useful tool. What;s more, the big companis can afford an IT apartment, but for the small companies, the IT department is unnecessary and redundance, so for those people who work at small companies or want to find a new job, it will be better if the HR knows that you are good at computers more than the office software.

HP Officejet J3680 All-in-One Printer

Last week the administrative department of my college bought 40 HP Officejet J3680 All-in-One Printers for each office, but unfortunately most of the geology professors didn’t know how to connect the printers to their computer or laptop, so I wrote this article for those people who don’t family with computers and printers after solving my tutor’s problem, even the sellers arrange for the delivery and installation.

  1. First, remove the printer out of the package box and check if there are any damages, then onnect the power cable to a power adapter.
  2. Connect the square end of the USB cable to the printer and the rectangular end to your laptop or computer.
  3. Turn your computer and printer ON, Your computer should find the newly attached hardware, and recognize it as printer. For those who used windows 2003 or below, you may have to install some drivers of the printer, you can find the driver CD-ROM in the package box.
  4. Install the necessary software, just follow the instructions for software installation and it is optional if you don’t need the additional functions.
  5. Open any document and click on Print in File menu or click on a printer icon in the toolbar, if it prints as you want, congratulations, our work is finished successfully.
Add Ink Cartridges to a printer

If you have bought the used printers or the printers cann’t print clearly, it is the time to refill ink cartridges or toner cartridges to the printers, they are just hungury. Here are some steps and tips for the beginners.

  1. First you must find out your the brand and the model number of your printer, then search the internet or go to the shops to find the most suitable ink cartridges, you can also read the instruction of the printer in the pachage box. Must notice that all the inkjet cartridges and the toner cartridges are different.
  2. Locate the “door” on your machine which will give access to the ink cartridge. While every machine will be slightly different, this access point should be a fairly obvious one. Open the door and gently pull out the spent ink cartridge. Use this cartridge as a guide when shopping for a new one at the store. Each manufacturer uses slightly different cartridges, so be sure to find one that is compatible.
  3. Get the new inkjet cartridges and peel off the packing, then release the ink into the machine.
  4. Gently insert the new cartridge into the appropriate slot and close the access door. If your cartridge is for a color printer, be sure to align color with color and black with black. Your machine will automatically recognize the new cartridge, as long as you purchased a compatible model, that is it.

With these two skills you can use the printer without troubles, if you have any other IT or computer promlems, feel easy to find the answers at feelblog.com.

Four Open Source Micro-blog Program

March 5th, 2010

Micro-blogs are popular now, the best one is twitter. Perhaps you are willing to build a micro-blog for your friends, your company or jusy yourselfe, although only a few people can play on the micro-blog. However, some programmers may want to develop some amazing functions based on the micro-blog program, this article describes four open source micro-blog program.

1. Jaiku

Jaiku is a Python micro-blog which was acquired by Google 2007, but is was totally failure. Google has made it completely open source and provides users free download, we can go to Jaiku source project addresses, use a SVN tool to download the source code.

2. Laconica

Laconica is an open-source micro-blog program based on PHP and MySQL, it is a clone of Twitter and can be achieved commonly functions of the micro-blog, a number of micro-blog systems are built wirh this open source program. Laconica received the support of a many application systems, including Twitterfeed, Hellotxt, and Gravity and so on. Click here to download the source code.

3. Sweetter

Sweetter is an open source micro-blog program which has a voting mechanism, based on Python, and click here to download the source code.

4. Jisko

Jisko‘s interface is very like Twitter, it can automatically update through ajax and also based on PHP and MySQL, this system may be developed in Spanish, using SVN to download the source code here.

Top Ten PHP Open Source

February 25th, 2010

Open Source is changing the world, as the PHP programmer said, we can use WordPress to build any kinds of websites. For the webmasters, we can also benefit from these top ten PHP open source, even not need design themes. Here are the most influential open source PHP applications.

Blog

There is no doubt WordPress is the best open-source PHP blog, millions of blogs are build with WordPress, plenty of themes and plugins make thinks much more easier.

Others: b2evolution.

CMS / Portals

Drupal is an open source PHP content management system, equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal supports a variety of websites ranging from personal blogs to large community-driven websites. I think drupal is the best CMS because it is easy to use for anyone and friendly to the search engines, look at this small site build with drupal:christian louboutin.

Others: Joomla, PHP-Nuke.

Forum

phpBB is a high powered, fully scalable, and highly customizable open-source bulletin board package. phpBB has a user-friendly interface, simple and straightforward administration panel, and helpful FAQ. Based on the powerful PHP server language and your choice of MySQL, MS-SQL, PostgreSQL or Access/ODBC database servers, phpBB is the ideal free community solution for all web sites. Features include: Unlimited forums and posts; Multiple language interface; Private or public forums; Powerful search utility; Private messaging system; Templates.

Others: SMF, MyBB.

E-Commerce

Zen-cart is a free online store-management software with PHP and MySQL. Although many will choose osCommerce, OSC is not suitable for the freshman.

Others: osCommerce, OpenCart.

WiKi

MediaWiki – is a free software wiki package originally written for Wikipedia. It allows collaborative editing on documents within a familiar interface. It was designed to be run on a large server farm and requires Apache, PHP, and MySQL.

Others: None.

Database Tools

phpMyAdmin – handles the administration of MySQL over the Web. phpMyAdmin performs many database administration tasks like running SQL statements, adding and dropping databases, and adding, editing or deleting tables or fields.

Image Galleries

Gallery – is an open source project with the goal to develop and support leading photo sharing web application solutions. It allow some basic photo manipulation, such as resizing, rotating, and altering image quality, but does not include advanced photo editing.

Others: Zenphoto.

DIGG

Pligg – Pligg CMS provides free software to create your own social networking website. Start a site in minutes using Pligg Content Management System and save time and money on your next website.

Others: None.

RSS

Gregarius–Gregarius is a web-based RSS/RDF/ATOM feed aggregator, designed to run on your web server, allowing you to access your news sources from wherever you want.

Others: None.

Advertising Tools

OpenX – OpenX is a hugely popular, free ad server for web publishers. Take control, manage your advertising and make more money from online advertising today.