HOW TO CHANGE (NOT MASK) YOUR IP ADDRESS

For whatever reason, you want to change your IP address. How do you do it? Well, there are many different methods. Some may work for you but may not work for someone else, and vice versa. I'm going to cover how to change your IP address in Windows 2000, Windows 2003, XP, Vista and Windows 7.

But first of all, what is IP Lease Time?  

"IP lease time" is how long your ISP determines you’ll be assigned a specific IP. Some IP lease times only a few minutes. Others are set to a few days. Some IP lease times are set for as long as a year or more. The IP lease time setting is entirely up to your ISP.

One of the easier methods to change your IP address is to turn off your modem/router/computer overnight. Then turn it back on the following morning. This method WILL NOT work if your ISP has a long lease time set for your IP.

If your connection is *DIRECT* to your computer and your computer gets the public IP and not a router, you can try this:

For Windows 2000, XP, and 2003
1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type in cmd and hit ok (this opens a Command Prompt)
4. Type ipconfig /release and hit enter
5. Click Start, Control Panel, and open Network Connections
6. Find and Right click on the active Local Area Connection and choose Properties
7. Double-click on the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
8. Click on Use the following IP address
9. Enter a false IP like 123.123.123.123
10. Press Tab and the Subnet Mask section will populate with default numbers
11. Hit OK twice
12. Right click the active Local Area Connection again and choose Properties
13. Double-click on the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
14. Choose Obtain an IP address automatically
15. Hit OK twice
16. Go to IPchicken to see if you have a new IP address

For Vista (Windows 7 is very similar)
1. Click Start
2. Click All Programs expand the Accessories menu
3. In the Accessories menu, Right Click Command Prompt and choose Run as administrator
4. Type ipconfig /release and hit enter
5. Click Start, Control Panel, and open Network and Sharing Center. Depending on your view, you may have to click Network and Internet      before you see the Network and Sharing Center icon
6. From the Tasks menu on the left, choose Manage Network Connections
7. Find and Right click on the active Local Area Connection and choose Properties (If you’re hit with a UAC prompt, choose Continue)
8. Double-click on Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)
9. Click on Use the following IP address
10. Enter a false IP like 123.123.123.123
11. Press Tab and the Subnet Mask section will populate with default numbers
12. Hit OK twice
13. Right click the active Local Area Connection again and choose Properties
14. Double-click on Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)
15. Choose Obtain an IP address automatically
16. Hit OK twice
17. Go to IPchicken to see if you have a new IP address

Did it work? Do you have a different method? Leave me a comment!

HOW TO TAKE A SCREENSHOT OF AN ENTIRE WEBPAGE

Sometimes, the desktop screenshot utilities are not enough when you want to take screenshot of a webpage, because these tools can capture only the visible portion of the page. So how do you capture the complete page from the top to the bottom without having to stitch multiple images together? Here is how to do it.
The easiest way is by using a Firefox addon called Screengrab. Screengrab allows you to take screenshot of an entire page, or the visible portion or just a small selection of the page. It even allows you to save just the contents of an individual frame.

See how this site looks like when captured entirely:

If you don’t want to burden Firefox with another addon, you can try some standalone tools. Webshots is the best among them.
WebShot allows you to take screenshots of web pages and save them as full sized images or thumbnails, in the JPG, GIF, PNG, or BMP formats. You don’t have to open the page in your browser - just type the URL and click Start.

Webshots has the capability of automatically determining the page width and height and captures the whole page accurately. It even supports batch processing, where you can specify multiple URLs at once. The only letdown in this application is that it uses the IE engine to render the pages. So sites that aren’t optimized for IE will result in a broken screenshot. But then, you can always use Screengrab for such sites.

Did it work? Leave me a comment! 

HOW TO CREATE ANIMATED GIFs FROM VIDEO FILES

Despite the ubiquity of online video, they’re still not as portable as images, and what better way to get the best of both worlds than through animated GIFs?

You’ll need two programs: VirtualDub and Photoshop (or GIMP), which will each cover half of the process: extracting images from a video file, and turning the images into a frame-by-frame animation.

Create the image sequence using VirtualDub

 1) Open video file (you may need to install the appropriate codecs).

 2) Mark the start and end of the scene you plan to extract using Edit > Set Selection Start / Set Selection End or the last two buttons in the playback toolbar labeled Mark in / Mark out. Use Clear Selection if you want to start over.

 3) Before exporting, you may want to adjust the number of frames exported by going to Video > Frame Rate… Select Process every third frame (decimate by 3) or enter a custom number.

 4) Select File > Export > Image Sequence… and click OK.

 5) You might notice that you can also export the selection as an animated GIF under the same menu, but if you want better control over the size and appearance of your GIF, Image Sequence is the way to go.

Create the animation using Photoshop

 

 1) Open the Animation panel and make sure it's set to Frame Animation.

 

 2) Select File > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack… and select all the exported images in the proper order. Make sure the images are in the correct order (the last file usually shows up on top, so send it to the bottom).

 

 3) Create a new frame for each layer by selecting the Duplicates selected frames icon or the New Frame item in the panel menu. Hide the current layer, then select the next one below it. Repeat this until you’ve made your way all the way to the last layer.

If you have a lot of frames, you can record a Photoshop action that goes:

                    

                a) Duplicate current animation frame

                b) Hide current layer

                c) Select backward layer (this isn’t easy to record so, follow the instructions for creating that step on this page).

Now hit Play until you reach the last layer.  

 

 4) Tweak the animation settings accordingly. You may want to set a short delay for each frame, and choose whether your GIF will loop once, thrice, or forever.

 

 5) Crop, resize, and do all your image effects.

 

 6) Select File > Save for Web and Devices… and select GIF. Tweak the color range, dithering, and other necessary settings.

 

Photoshop alternative: GIMP

 

1) Select File > Open as Layers… and select the images.

 

2) Select Filters > Animation > Playback to preview your animation. You can also select Optimize to, well, optimize.

 

3) Select File > Save As and make sure GIF image is selected under Select File Type.

 

4) Choose Save As Animation in the next dialog the shows up then click on Export.

5) In the Save as GIF dialog, check the following: 

                   - Loop Forever

                   - Use delay entered above for all frames

                   - One frame per layer

                   - Use disposal entered for above for all frames

 

    Set the Delay between frames where unspecified to something low like 10 milliseconds. 

 

 

Did it work? Leave me a comment!

HOW TO GET FREE GAMES ON STEAM (LIMITED TIME)

Wanna know how to get the following games (essentially) FREE on Steam:

 Splot

Trine

ShadowGrounds

 Jack Claw

ShadowGrounds: Survivor

Go to the following charity site: http://www.humblebundle.com/

Click "Buy Now"

Enter in how much money you are willing to donate. {BUT JOHN, YOU SAID FREE!!} Yes, they are free. This is the part where you donate money to charity (you're not buying the games). You will receive the games no matter how much you choose to donate, from 1 cent to 1 million dollars.

Fill out the rest of the page according to your preferences. Once you've paid, you're free to download the games.

IMPORTANT: If you want the games to actually be on your steam account, don't do the direct download. Find and select the "generate steam key" option, and then use it with steam (Open Steam store, click "add a game" in the bottom-right corner, click "activate a product on steam", "Next", and then "I agree"). The games will download through Steam and will show up in your Steam Library.

Did it work? Leave me a comment!

HOW TO WATCH VIDEOS ONLINE WITH FRIENDS

Ever wanted to watch a video online with your buddies, while being able to chat and discuss it on the side? Well here are two fairly easy ways to do so:

 
1) If the video is on Youtube

If the video is on Youtube, its easy as cake. Just enter “social” into the URL, just after “Youtube”.

For example, if my URL was http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ then it would be

http://www.youtubeSOCIAL.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Go to this new URL, and then scroll down to the bottom. Click “copy URL”. You now have the party URL on your clipboard! Send it to your friends and they can join you in the room. Press play when you are all ready!

2) If the video is on your computer

Upload it to Youtube and do step #1! Just kidding (although that would work just fine).

The advantages of using this method over the Youtube method are:

a)      You have a permanent room

b)      You have admin abilities (you can kick annoying people out of chat add things to the video, etc.)

c)       It’s fun. You run the show yourself! You choose when and what to broadcast, and people can tune in, whether they be your friends or just interested people.

So here is what you have to do:

First, create an account on http://www.livestream.com/ (MAKE SURE YOU CHOOSE A “BROADCASTER” ACCOUNT!!!”

Next, download and install their program, “Procaster” http://www.livestream.com/platform/procaster

This is a great little program that will allow you to play your videos.

Once you’ve got it running, go to “preferences” and then to the “desktop” tab. Change your preferences as you like them. Click save.

Open up your video on your screen (preferably full screen), and press “Go Live”. You are now broadcasting your video to your Livestream page! You can check out the chat on your screen (but your viewers will only see the video, nothing else on your screen) Press “Stop” when you want to stop broadcasting.

Did it work? Leave me a comment!

Brand new blog!

Not too much to say here, I'm just excited to be starting my very own blog :P

I'm not yet entirely sure what the main theme of this blog will be, other than tips and tricks I've picked up over time.


Thanks to whoever may be reading this, I hope you will enjoy the rest of my blog


I hope to update it once every few days.