Following last week’s Part 1, today we bring you the 2nd and last part in ‘Recovery Software’ series. This time we have covered some miscellaneous recovery tips. Whether you have mistakenly deleted your tweet, want to recover your MS Word/Excel document, or simply want to restore accidently closed files, they are all given below.

• Recover Deleted Twitter Messages/Tweets
• How To Repair/Recover Corrupt Microsoft Word And Excel Files
• Restore Accidentally Closed Files, Programs, And Folders In Windows
• Backup And Restore System Data With Sbackup in Ubuntu Linux
• How To Recover Deleted Files/Data In Ubuntu Linux
• How To Restore The Run Command In Windows
• How To Restore The “Show Desktop” Shortcut Icon In Your Quick Launch Toolbar
• How To Backup, Restore, Create, And Manage Your Google Chrome Profile(s) Instantly
• Save And Restore The Position Of Desktop Icons In Windows
• Create Image Of Your Hard Drive And Recover Single Drives

Watch out for more interesting tips next week. Enjoy!

One of the perks of Linux is that it offers a large numbers of free tools and applications. Ubuntu supports a vast number of media players, below we have reviewed 12 of them along with their installation instructions and usage. The benefit of writing the installation instructions along with a short review is that it helps a user to install multiple apps easily without having to visit the product page.

VLC Player

It is a very stable, cross-platform  and portable media player which can  also be used as media converter. There is long list of audio and video formats like Wave, DivX, MPEG, mp3, ogg, and aac which VLC player can support.  Installing and using it on Ubuntu is easy. To install it, run the following command in terminal.

sudo apt-get install vls vls-plugin-esd mozilla-plugin-vlc

Once installation is complete, it can be loaded from  Applications > Sound & Video > VLC Media Player.

Here is the screenshot showing main window of VLC media player while playing an audio media file.

It has very rich set of features and a lot of options are available. You can use Media tab to perform basic media operations like Open File, Open Directory, Open  Disc, Save Media File and Convert etc.

Similarly Audio and Video menus offers wide range of options,  you can check various play list options from Playlist menu.

Mplayer

Mplayer is also one of the most used media player across all operating systems.  It offers features like user-friendly interface, support for large number of media formats,  etc. We have already covered MPlayer in one of our previous post, you can check the full details regarding its installation and usage here .

Amarok

Amarok is a cross-platform media player which has gained quite a popularity over the time.  It has rich set of features like playing all media formats files, tagging music, creating and editing play lists, etc. Bbasically it uses the components of KDE and in case you are going to use it in Gnome Desktop environment then you will need to install its supporting components. Installation is very easy, just follow through the following steps.

Go to Applications > Add/Remove.

Search and Choose Amarok and click Apply Changes, it will install all its required components as well.

Once installation is complete, load it from Applications > Sounds & Videoss> Amarok. Here is screenshot showing its main window.

As discussed in its introductory paragraph that it offers wide range of features, you really need to spend some time with it to get familiar with its all set of feature.

SongBird

SongBird is one of the most famous open source, customizable media player. It is well known for interacting with online contents using its plugins.

To install it, first download its latest release from its official site. Once download is complete, open terminal and go through following steps.

1. Untrar the downloaded file as :

tar -xvf Songbird_1.2.0-1146_linux-i686.tar.gz

2. Go into extracted folder

cd Songbird

3. Run following command to initialize the installation wizard.

sh songbird

Now, go through the graphical installation wizard. At first step accept the license agreement and click Continue.

Next, choose Add-ons and click Continue to proceed further.

In the final step, click Finish.

Now, songbird will initialize to install, it will hardly take couple of minutes to complete installation.

Thats all, now here is how it looks when launched.

Banshee

Banshee makes organizing, playing, and sharing music much more easier. It has very eye-candy and user friendly interface. It encodes/decodes different media formats by using GStreamer on the back end. To install it, run following command in terminal.

sudo aptitude install banshee

Once installation is complete, load it from Applications > Sounds & Video > Banshee Media Player.

You can play any media file with it by going to Media > Open Location option. Here browse the directory structure and select the file.

It lets you import/export  music libraries from Media > Import Media option. You can also create your own play lists (called smart list) in Banshee.

Rhythmbox

Rhytmbox is originally inspired by Apple’s iTunes, it also works very well under Gnome desktop environment. It lets you play and organize the media files, to install it in Ubuntu, run the following command in  terminal.

sudo apt-get install rhythmbox

Once installation is complete, load it from Applications > Sound & Video > Rhythmbox Music Player.

It has an icon bar located under the main bar. Here you can find most commonly used options like  Play, Shuffle and Repeat. You can add play lists form Music > Playlist > New play list option.

One of the most exciting feature of Rhythmbox is that you can subscribe to podcast (podcast is actually a series of media files which are available to be downloaded via web).

It also lets you update your subscription with podcast in an easy way by using Update option.

JuK

JuK is free audio media player for Ubuntu and it supports MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC audio files. It has strong focus on management of music but it also offers CD burning feature. Installing it in Ubuntu is a piece-of-cake, go to Applications > Add/Remove. Choose Juk from list of available program and click Apply Changes. It will take some time to install as it involves some dependencies.

Once installed, you can launch it from Applications > Sounds & Videos > Juk.

You can open audio media file by using File > Open option. Further you can explore its different available options to get acquainted with its different feature, e.g View menu offers rich set of features.

Quodlibet

The main goal for quodlibet is to provide an easy-to-use interface for organizing media collection. It is an audio media that most people prefer to use it in Ubuntu. To install it , run the following command in terminal.

sudo apt-get install quodlibet

Once installation is complete, load it from Applications > Sound & Videos > Quodlibet.

You can easily manage your audio collection form Music Option which is located in the main menu. You can add new files/folders, browse your already created libraries, set preferences for Quod Libet and install many useful plugins.

Totem

Totem is  yet another media player to play audio and video in Gnome Desktop environment . It has features like advanced coding support, full screen mode, forward and seek facility. You need not to install it as it comes as a part of Ubuntu distribution.

It can be launched from Applications > Sound & Videos > Movie Player.

One of the well known feature of totem is Youtube support, you can browse and watch Youtube video in it. To watch it, select Youtube from Playlist drop down.

Xine

Xine is also a free, light-weight, and high performance media player in Ubuntu. It offers very powerful API and is further extended and used by many opensource applications.

Run the following command to install it in Ubuntu.

sudo aptitude install xine-ui libxine-extracodecs

Once installation is complete, launch it from Applications > Sounds & Videos > Xine Media Player. Here is screenshot of how it looks.

Eaxile

Eaxile media player offers a wide range of advanced features specially automatic fetching of album art, handling of large libraries, and lyrics fetching etc. To install it in Ubuntu, run the following command in teminal.

sudo apt-get install eaxile

It will take almost no time to install, once installation is complete you can easily launch it from Applications > Sounds & Videos > Eaxile. Let me share the screenshot of its main window.

You can find common media playere’s functions like Opening media files, discs, etc from File Menu.

Beep

Beep is a free media player  which is actually based on XMMS (XMMS  is a free, opensource audio player just like Winamp).  To install Beep is a piece-of-cake, run the following command in terminal to install it.

sudo apt-get install beep

Once installation is complete, you can load it from Applications > Sounds & Videos > Beep Media Player. Here is screenshot showing how it looks when playing music file.

There could be many other media players out there, but we have reviewed only a few commonly used ones. We hope that you will find the article useful. Enjoy!

If you use MS Outlook to mark your calendar or note some tasks then there is a good news for you. DeskTask is a free tool for Windows that displays all your Microsoft Outlook Calendar and Task items on your desktop. With this tool you can now now manage the Calendar and Tasks straight from the desktop instead of having to visit MS Outlook over and over again.

Since I don’t use MS Outlook for tasks and calendar, I have grabbed the following screenshot from the developer’s site.

Note that this software has some known issues such as during Refresh, the window from the desktop will hide automatically. To restore it back, select Restore Position from the system tray context menu.

You can always change the position and other settings by going to Options. You can also choose the time to refresh, assign refresh hotkey, select color/fonts, and set various options of Calendar and Tasks by going to their respective tabs.

Overall it is nifty little utility for those who use MS Outlook 2000/2003/2007 to organize their events via calendar and tasks. It works on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

Download DeskTask

Enjoy!

Do you want to connect and control the computers in your network regardless of which operating system they are using? Ofcourse, in every office or home environment, not every computer is running the same OS, so it makes sense to control them all using a single tool. Luckily, you don’t need to pay for such a tool.

KontrolPack is a opensource network software that allows you to control various computers over the network easily. It not only allows you to connect to other computers over LAN(Local Area Network), but you can also connect over WAN(Wireless Area Network). Since I have two laptops, both running Windows Vista and are using the internet through a Linksys wireless router, I went ahead to connect them using this tool. I have to say it was quite easy and required nothing more than two clicks.

When you run this tool, it asks whether you want to run Server or Client mode. The server mode is used to control other computer over network, while the client mode will be used by all other computers on the network.

The first step would be to run Server mode on the computer from where you want to control other computers. You will be shown the server address and server port and an option to Start the server. Note these settings down since it will be required for other computers over the network and Start the server.

Now install this KontrolPack on all other computers over the network and start them in Client mode. Enter both the Server address and Server port that you noted above and click Connect To Server.

The complete connection will be build within seconds and all client computers will show up as different tabs in your KontrolPack software that is running in Server mode.

Now click the computer in the tab that you want to control or share files with and you will find some pre-defined commands, such as, Copy File, Move File, Create Folder, Delete File/Folder, Shutdown, etc. You can also send a custom shell command to the computers over the network.

Click the Share Files sub-tab from the left side and you will get a full dual view window panel that allows dead-simple sharing.

One remarkable feature is that you can send all commands to the computers over the network simultaneously. It also allows you to get an overview of all computers over the network. At first it is quite difficult to believe that such a tool can be free, but yes it’s true. It is a powerful and robust software that gives all commercial networking software a run for their money.

Download KontrolPack

It is cross-platform tool that works on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows. Enjoy!

SE-Explorer is quite an old file manager for Windows which you might have heard about back in 2008. What you missed are the awesome features in latest builds of this software. This tool has come a long way since what it used to be, but the overall concept and interface has remained the same.

SE-Explorer is a powerful file manager for Windows that adds Media Player, Document viewer, Photo viewer, Web browser, Size Scanner, Archive explorer, File Search, etc into one simple tool. You can change the interface from the default dual panel to classic windows explorer too, but the dual panel makes navigation much more easier. To make things more quicker, it has a unique  tabbed interface from the very beginning which gives it an advantage over over similar tools.

Since I tested out the portable version of this tool, the SE-Media Player comes as a separate file where you can add all your media collection and organize them however you want.

Below are some screenshots of browsing the archives and photos. Did you know you can browse the various archives such as, ZIP, RAR, ISO, 7Z, MSI, CAB, etc.

You can find more screenshots along with the complete list if features on the developer’s website.

Download SE-Explorer

It works on all all versions of Windows. Enjoy!

Need a cross-platform tool that can automate all the important tasks for you, such as, make automatic backups, synchronize files/folders, perform archive and software tasks, etc? JaBack does that easily. It is a free utility developed on Java that works on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.

Click image above to enlarge

All you have to do is to click New Task, select the type of task you want to perform and enter further details. Once the task has been set up, you will find it in the left sidebar and it’s details in the main window. Right-click the task and you will find options such as, Run task, Schedule task, etc which are needed to get the tasks running.

Note: There is no limit on the number of tasks you can set.

The basic tasks are quite easy to setup, but it also includes tons of features and options that allows a user to set up advanced tasks. One of these features is an option to allow scheduled backup to a remote FTP server or an option to mail it directly to your mail server. Among its features, Email notifications is also included which can come really helpful for task geeks.

Download JaBack

Enjoy!

Nomee is a unique service that provides a desktop tool to manage all your social sites in one place. It requires you to register and once you have done that the next step would be to create a Nomee card and share it with your other Nomee friends.

It supports all major social networking sites, photo sharing sites, video sharing sites, and much more. The main objective of Nomee is to help you manage all your social sites from one simple desktop tool.

Instead of having to manually select all the social sites, it provides a search feature where you can enter your most commonly used name across various social sites and it will pull the information for you. For testing purpose I have only added two accounts, Facebook and Twitter.

It allows you to get a more clear picture of what your friend’s are upto and let them know what you are doing. You can always hide the information that you want to prevent your friends from seeing. You can also create more than one group and share different information with different groups thus making information sharing much more easier.

Download Nomee

The desktop tool is cross-platform since it is developed on Adobe Air. Enjoy!

The most noticeable and immaculate feature of Windows 7 is indeed its taskbar. It is as robust as previous versions of the taskbars but offers a new way of interacting with the applications. You can pin any shortcut so that they can be accessed right from the taskbar rather than the desktop or start menu search bar. But like any other things there is one shortcoming, you cannot pin your folders to it, which you might want to if you access them more frequently. Here is a great way to access your favorite shortcuts right from your taskbar in Windows 7.

7Stacks is a small and handy utility that lets you create stack items which are more like standalone shortcuts. These stack items behave like an ordinary executables, which gives an added advantage to use as many shortcuts as you want.

To create a new stack item, browse to the folder you want to use as a shortcut and give it a caption, and it will create a shortcut that you’ll be able to use it as any pinned regular taskbar item. For a change you also have option to view the contents of the folders as Grid or Menu view.

If you think that folder icon is a bit boring, you can also change it to Vista – esque glossy icon by selecting the option of Use - Transparent look from the main menu.

Download 7Stacks

Wasn’t it quite easy notching up the taskbar a bit? Enjoy!

GTwitter is a twitter application for Linux desktop. It is quite easy to post, reply to a tweet, read your friend’s public timelines, etc. Once installed, its stays in your system tray and gets updates periodically so you don’t need to keep your web browser open at all times. Lets see how we can install it in Ubuntu.

First of all go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager.

Search for gtwitter, check it and Click Apply.

Click Close to complete the installation.

Now you can launch it from Applications > Internet > Gtwitter. Upon loading , it displays a dialogue box from where you can enter your twitter logins. If you don’t have twitter account yet, then you can also sign up by clicking Sign-Up option.

You can also set the refresh interval from here, just like I have configured the refresh time to be 5 minutes. Here is how it looks when logged in.

Mac OS also has one tool just like gtwitter, it is called twitterrific and it offers almost same functionality on Mac which gtwitter offers in linux. Enjoy!

Ubuntu offers a wide range of text editors, some of them are installed by default and  others are free software which can be installed in a very easy way. If you are uncomfortable with the default text editor of Ubuntu or you want to use your favorite text editor program, then it is not a big deal. Let me share a couple of ways to achieve it.

Method 1

Right Click the text file you wish to open and choose Properties.

Click  Open With tab and choose the editor you want to use. For e.g, I love to work in Cream Editor.

Click Close and now it will be set as your default editor and all text files will open with it now.

Method 2

You can also change the default text editor from terminal. This terminal command will definitely be very useful for those who work on remote servers and do not have graphical end of the system, run the following command and it will let you see a list of installed  text editors.

sudo update-alternatives –config editor

Following screenshot shows the output of terminal command.

Now set your default text editor by entering its number. Just like I entered 3 to set nano as my default terminal text editor. Enjoy!