How to convert *.docx files (Microsoft Office 2007) online for free

Sometimes you might have no choice except to open Microsoft Office 2007 (*.docx) files that you’ve just received in your email. The problem is, you do not have any other application that support Office 2007 format.

Here’s an easy way to (kinda) solve that problem, you can convert Microsoft Office 2007 files online, using Google Docs.

Google Docs Logo

The steps are easy, you need to login into your Google Docs account, then upload the Office 2007 files. After that, you can choose the “Download file as” option to convert the file to your favorite document format (typically OpenDocument or older *.doc Microsoft Office word document).

Bear in mind that the conversion is not 100% perfect and there will be parts of document that won’t look exactly as the original ones.

How to block ads and malware websites using /etc/hosts files in Ubuntu

Here’s an easy way to block annoying advertisement and malware sites using ‘/etc/hosts’ file.

First edit the /etc/hosts files using your favorite text editor :

sudo gedit /etc/hosts

Then, paste the list of ads/malware servers in the ‘hosts’ file. You can get the list from http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ or by searching through Google.

Close the file, and Save. The change will take effect immediately after that. One of the side-effect from this modfication is that your web surfing experience would be significantly faster because your browser does not have to wait for the annoying advertisement to load.

MultiGet – a multithread download manager for Ubuntu Linux desktop

It’s extremely frustrating to have your download progress interrupted, especially when you are downloading several (relatively large) files over the Internet. Fortunately, there’s MultiGet, a download manager that supports multi-connection and parallel downloads.

MultiGet is easy to user, and from my observation, it’s interface closely resemble Flashget download manager from Microsoft Windows platform. The differences is, that MultiGet runs natively on Linux, and it supports multiple operating system too.

MultiGet has a simple, friendly user interface that is easy to use. Best of all, it supports batch task downloading.

MultiGet Screenshot

MultiGet Screenshot Ubuntu

MultiGet is available from Ubuntu universe respository

Upgrade Pidgin to solve Yahoo messenger Issue

Regarding the previous post Solving Pidgin Yahoo Messenger Connection Problem , the temporary solution may not work anymore as Yahoo already upgraded their server to accept newer authentication mode.

Pidgin logo

The good news is, users can download the latest Pidgin release (2.5.7) in order to keep connected with Yahoo Messenger.

For Ubuntu users, Pidgin 2.5.7 is available for download from the Click-and-Run GetDeb.net portal. Just select Pidgin package, and choose to open it with gdebi.

Hopefully you can solve the Pidgin login problem through this post.

How to solve Pidgin Yahoo Messenger Connection Problem

pidgin logo

Lately, it seems that some people are having trouble connecting pidgin to Yahoo Messenger services. The problem seems to be associated with the Yahoo server itself.

Solving the Yahoo Messenger problem
A temporary solution for this problem is to change the Pidgin YM server setting.

Go to Accounts->Select your YM screen name->Edit Account->Advance.

Then change the original value of “scs.msg.yahoo.com” to any of these ip address:
66.163.181.183, 66.163.181.166 , 66.163.181.169, 66.163.181.170, 66.163.181.172, 66.163.181.171, 66.163.181.181, 66.163.181.182

As shown on the screenshot :

Pidgin Modify Account

Note that this is only a temporary solution and you should only use this as the last resort.

Google Friend Connect and WordPress 2.8

After much procrastination, I finally upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.8, please refer to WordPress Codex for new features and the latest release highlights. Additionally, I’ve added Google Friend Connect feature to my blog, so you can register and follow my blog through Google Friend Connect.

Google Friend Connect Google Friend Connect

For the time being, you can only follow this blog with Friend Connect, but in the future I will expand the functionality to include video posting, commenting and post rating to make it more interesting. You can start by following my blog on the Google Friend Connect bar at the bottom of my blog, you can use either your Google account username or OpenID account to sign in with Friend Connect