Boxee is a USB stick hack that unlocks the Apple TV so users can play DRM-free content.

Techware Labs has some quick tips to speed up your Vista system.

This is too cool. Unobtrusive, simple, and effective. The best kind of tool. Thanks to Shauna Nicholson for the link.

NV PhysX Tweaker 1.0 allows you to enable or disable GeForce PhysX and switch to CPU PhysX.

Having the utilities on hand to diagnose, troubleshoot and fix issues is imperative for geeks like us to do their jobs and hobbies. Yours truly is a proficient collector of freeware or GPL utilities that make my life a little easier, so I thought I’d share them with all of you:

GParted: With functionality similar to Acronis Disk Director, you can freely merge, move, resize, split and create partitions with this swanky liveCD.

Knoppix STD: Contains a vast collection of encryption, password recovery, networking and conversion tools for all sorts of security functions. Another liveCD.

Memtest: The grand daddy of all memory testing utilities, this bootable ISO will allow you to see if your blue screens and instability is from bad RAM. Icrontic has the hookup with another tutorial!

Drive Fitness Test (DFT): Courtesy of Hitachi GST, this hard drive testing tool does SMART analysis, sector-by-sector integrity scanning, interface tests, cable tests and more! Icrontic can help you give the tool a run, if you click over here.

TestDisk: An amazing piece of freeware that allows direct access to hard drives where the partitions, MBR or MFT have been borked. Did you know that Icrontic can help you with its usage?

Ghost4Linux: Need to archive an image of your hard drive, but can’t afford Norton Ghost or Acronis TrumeImage? Ghost4Linux saves the day! Similar functionality, all for free courtesy of the GPL. Another convenient liveCD.

Dozens of freeware utilities: Courtesy of econsultant, this is a comprehensive list of freeware utilities that do darn near anything you can think of when it comes to getting your PC in fighting shape!

Have fun!

7/3 UPDATE: Long-time Icrontic member LIN studiously noticed that the final link in this post was broken. It seems that the eConsultant domain is having some configuration issues, so we’ve posted Google’s cached page in its place. Cheers!

IC forums member RADA has a quick fix for those of you whose Arial Black font went south after an upgrade to SP3.

Read on in the forums.

Thanks, Rada!

There was a time when I used to run Windows 2000 Server as my desktop OS as well, so this quick guide brought back memories and helped remind me that this is often a good idea. If you’re comfortable in the registry, you can often make a leaner, better workstation OS out of Server edition software by enabling some key user experience features and disabling some totally unnecessary server features. Vijayshinva Karnure tells us what he did to turn Server 2008 into his own “sorta-custom” Vista.

Thanks to IC Forums member Nolf-Job for the link.

When Windows XP was released in 2001, it was not foreseen that specialized hard drive controllers for a new generation of hard drives would become the norm. As IDE died its slow death, the rise of SATA prevented the venerable floppy drive from going with it. While Vista accepts CDs and flash drives containing SATA drivers, XP recognizes only the dreaded floppy. Adding insult to injury, those lucky few who have a drive and the appropriate disk are met with scores of updates once Windows is installed. Pleasantly, there is a solution to these common irritations known as “slipstreaming.”

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I consider myself to be fairly energy conscious. After moving into a new home last year, I replaced all of the incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent equivalents. I’m not just talking about the ones that are convenient to change: the one outside, the one high above the staircase, and even the small vanity lights were replaced.

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Ghetto camera stabilizer using a screw, a washer, and a string. (via DF)

The easiest guide to a bootable USB flash drive ever

People often inquire how to make a flash drive bootable. There are many tutorials out there, some to greater success than others, but Icrontic is here to give you the definitive answer. All that’s required are two programs, and an arsenal of floppy images that you’ll want to put on the flash drive. When all is said and done, you’ll be able to boot into a spiffy menu that will give you the option to launch any one of the utilities you have selected with the touch of a button. Best of all, your USB key will still be usable in Windows, Linux, or anywhere else you desire.

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I’m replacing my current sequentially organized one with this catagoricaly organized one.

Today, Icrontic serves up a crash-course in the mysterious relationship of the Core 2 front side bus, RAM and bandwidth. The nature of the Core 2’s design may be baffling, particularly to users exiting the era of synchronized Athlon XP buses, and we intend to cut through the haze and serve it straight just as we like to. Before we begin, however, there is a bit of background information that we will establish so we can quickly dispense with the rest of the juicy morsels.

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A new version of Rivatuner is out, adding support for all the new cards and driver updates. Just don’t fry your card.

Somebody figured out how to add the Portal gun into HL2 and its associates. Thanks for the tip TT!