TechPortal

File Extention PTX can be Uncompressed RAW image file captured with a Pentax camera; saves image data exactly as recorded by the camera’s sensor; can be viewed using the Pentax software included with the camera. Most Pentax RAW image files use the .PEF extension.

These PTX files can be opened using Pentax Photo Browser or UFRaw, Photo Laboratory, The GIMP with UFRaw plugin.

File Extention PTX can also be Paint Shop Pro Texture Files. They are Texture preset file used by Paint Shop Pro, an image editing program; stores image texture information used for applying textures to shapes and objects within Paint Shop Pro; often saved along with a corresponding .BMP file.

They can be opened using Corel Paint Shop Pro.

The website where I usually get PTX file format information has the facility to scan drivers. It is free and all you have to do is go to their website and download the driver detective that they are offering. Testimonials are all over the website. Happy clients have said their praises for this very helpful software. Some said that it has helped them in finding the right drivers for their software. It has given wonders to their problems. There is a client who shared that Driver Detective has made it easy to upgrade all of his drivers. It scanned his computer and within seconds found the drivers he needed. I haven’t tried this myself but I would love to. Even if my drivers are still updated due to an upgrade but I will definitely need one of these days.

The .DWF file extension is used to store 2D and 3D designs and images when using Autodesk’s Autodesk Design Web format. DWF files can be created using the “DWF Composer” package from AutoDesk. To view these files you need the Autodesk Express Viewer.

File extension DWF belongs to drawing file category and stands for Drawing Web Format. DWF files are created by “DWF composer” which is a package linked to AutoDesk. To view these files, one needs Autodesk Express Viewer program installation. DWF file extension is widely used in design Web designing thus it is an important file. It allows one to make two and 3-dimension images intended for Web site creation. The compressing facility linked with file extension DWF allows storage of files in compressed form thus increasing resolution and minimizing file size. Apart from graphics, data stored within DWF include data in text form.

Various operating systems have ability of opening and operating files having file extension DWF; these include Mac operating system as well as Windows operating system. While using a Mac operating system, one should install IMSI TurboCAD program to view and operate this file. While using a Windows operating system, one should install Autodesk Design Review in addition to IMSI TurboiCAD to open DWF file extension. For smooth operation of DWF extension, proper association with other files types must exist. Such file includes hard ware devices’ driver files. Examples of such files includes USB driver files

Web designing and storage of graphic data requires a reliable memory. Storage devices such as hard discs require regular defragmenting operations to enhance quick retrieval of data. To boosts system’s memory, one runs a performance scan. Performance scan also optimizes utilization of DWF file by the central processing unit thus boosting productivity. Apart from running the performance scan, one needs to run a stability scan to promote system’s stability. This enhances proper data storage as well as web designing activities. When one decides to download these programs via internet, one should take care of virus programs designed to resemble these programs.

Acer has unveiled new workstations that make it easy to work on the guts without getting in a tangle.

It seems that the desire to make business class machines sexy (or at least moderately attractive) has become popular among computer makers. I talked previously about the HP Z series workstations sporting a design that was debatably sexy in many geek cliques. Perhaps the coolest part of the HP workstations wasn’t the visual appeal of the machines, but the modular, cable-free design.

By “cable free” I don’t mean you won’t have an unsightly mess of cables hanging out the back of the PC (how messy that gets is still up to you) but rather the internal cabling of the system (though we note in the promotional Acer photo below they have cunningly not shown any cords — not even the absolutely mandatory monitor cable.)

A cable-free machine allows you to easily work on components such as the optical drive, floppy drive and hard drives without worrying about plugging and unplugging cables, or having a thicket of them getting in your way when you’re working inside the case.

Acer has unveiled its own line of not quite ugly business class workstations that are aiming for the buyer looking to spend significantly less than the high-end HP Z series workstations demand in price, while still offering a cable-free modular design. The new Acer machines include the Veriton M265, Veriton M421G, and Veriton M670G.

Two M265 models are being offered with the M265-ED2220C using a Pentium Dual-core E2220 2.4GHz CPU, Vista Business with XP downgrade option pre-loaded, 2GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, and a DVD burner starting at $US419 ($AU597 as a direct conversion, but it will cost more here due to Australia’s system of distributors and retailers who all take a cut).

The M265-BE1400C uses a slower Celeron Dual-core 2GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, DVD burner, and includes a 19-inch LCD starting at $US499 (equivalent to $AU711).

Acer’s Veriton M421G-ED5000C starts at $US439 (equivalent to $AU626) and includes an Athlon X2 dual-core CPU running 2.6GHz, 2GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, DVD burner, and discrete ATI HD 3200 graphics.

The Veriton M670G-UQ9400C is the high-end model with Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 CPU at 2.66GHz, 3GB of RAM, 320GB HDD, DVD burner, and graphics via ATI Radeon HD 4350 Pro. Pricing starts at $US899, and it is available in Australia from $AU1044, though it comes with a lower-spec Intel GMA 4500 integrated graphics chip rather than the discrete ATI Radeon 4350 Pro that the US gets.

We are waiting to hear back from Acer Australia on when/if it will introduce the M265 of the M421G, and at what price. We’ve also asked whether any of its existing Veriton workstations (other than the M670G) offer the same modular, cable-free design.

Source : APCMag.com

When one chooses the Gentoo way patience is most certainly a virtue — but you can speed it up a bit with this simple and effective tweak. Speed up Gentoo? Read on!

I should probably feel ashamed — I’ve been using Gentoo since *counts on fingers*… almost since it began. Back when Daniel Robbins was leading the charge, and it quickly became the world’s most popular source distribution.

Because that’s the other side of the double-edged source-distro sword: optimised performance, complete configurability — and anywhere from minutes to hours for any application you install. Now, granted I have Gentoo on a RAID 0 stripe, but oh my gosh how did I ever miss this simple tweak?

The following line added to /etc/fstab will speed up your compile times, reduce disk thrashing, and make you attractive to the opposite sex:

none /var/tmp/portage tmpfs size=1512M,nr_inodes=1M 0 0

Just make sure you set ’size=’ to a value less than your total RAM. Here I’m using 1.5G for my 2G system.

What does it do? It knocks out the slowest component of your system, your hard drive, from the compiling process mapping /var/tmp/portage — where Portage stores all the temporary files during compilation — to a tmpfs in memory. And tmpfs, bless it, is dynamic and only uses as much as it needs — so the 1.5G setting I use is only its maximum allowable size. If nothing is being compiled, no memory is used.

The speedup is nice but dependent on what’s being compiled, and the speed of your drive (less benefit for 10k RPM drive users, for example). Only caveat: some large compiles may need more space (Open Office for example needs at least 3G) and when it does the kernel will page tmpfs out to swap, slowing the whole process down. Only a handful of applications may need this in the hundreds you compile however. Still, if you have less than 1G, you don’t want to be allocating most of that, and you may need to disable it (just umount /var/tmp/portage) for the super-large packages.

tmpfs has many other uses, but this one never occurred to me until I read it in passing in a forum post. Simple and effective, all the best tweaks are.

Source: APCMag.com

Just when Microsoft wants you to forget about alternatives to Vista, along comes the Debian based project that allows you to not only install Linux on a Windows system, but do it right under its nose.

Just when Microsoft wants you to forget about alternatives to Vista, along comes the Debian based project that allows you to not only install Linux on a Windows system, but do it right under its nose.

Linux is renowned for being a compatible operating system, catering to all manner of protocols, filesystems, and co-habitation with other operating systems including Windows.

But usually you need to install it from a clean boot. Now, thanks to Debian coder Robert Millan it’s possible to not only install Linux alongside Windows, but through it as well.

While the Ubuntu team initially announced exactly this concept earlier this month along with a downloadable prototype, Millan appears to have completed a finished version replete with a promotional (if not controversial) website to boot — goodbye-microsoft.com.

By simply clicking the ‘install Debian’ link the installer will download and, when run, install Debian through your Windows desktop. Aside from the obvious ease of use this sort of install mechanism provides, Millan also listed the following benefits in his announcement post to the Debian lists:

- Migrating to Debian on hardware without CD drive (or USB boot
capability).
- Migrating to Debian for users who have no idea how to burn an ISO and/or how to configure their BIOS for CD boot.
- Migrating a system to Debian immediately, at any time, wether
we have a boot CD at hand or not.
- Advocating Debian to Windows users. Rather than give them a CD (expensive), give them a piece of paper with an URL.

It all sounds good, but how does it work?

The idea of booting Linux from a Windows partitions isn’t entirely foreign — for a long time we’ve had distributions capable of installing to a FAT16/32 partition and boot directly from it (see loadlin), but we’ve long since moved away from those days.

And in fact this new method isn’t too dissimilar. Here the appropriate Debian images are download and configured, and installed as a loopback ext3 filesystem on the NTFS Windows drive — for those unfamiliar, this means a self-contained filesystem created as a single large file on the NTFS partition — then mounted as a loopback device within Linux when the kernel boots.

Which is the second part of the magic — the installer finishes by using GRLDR from GRUB4DOS to load the loopback image directly after being booted from the Windows boot manager. So effectively both Windows and Linux are loaded from the NTFS partition, although to Linux it’s a world within a world. No partitioning, no data moved, and aside from updating the boot loader, uninstalling would be a matter of deleting the image file.

It’s definitely a nifty trick, easy to do, and from the average Windows user’s perspective, transparent. It should probably explain however that the Windows NTFS partition becomes home to both OSes, lest they later decide to update or even remove Windows in favour of Linux and nuke their Debian install in the process.

It’s also not entirely clear how one could extend the disk space for the ext3 container file, though of course Linux can read the parent NTFS filesystem (and potentially delete said container file, now wouldn’t that be interesting).

On that note it’s probably best to wait until this mechanism has had the pants tested off it before you forward it around to your soon-to-be-converted friends, but it is none the less an ingenious use of loopback filesystems and a Linux install that hits Windows users where it matters most — at the simple click of a button.

It also bodes well for future installs of Linux regardless of distribution. The Ubuntu system, while still being developed, apparently goes a step further and pulls in necessary information from Windows itself, streamlining the process for the new Linux user even more.

If you want to give either a try, the Debian installer is here and the prototype Ubuntu one here.

Source :APCMag.com

One of the greatest strengths of open source – freedom of choice and open code for anyone to work and develop on – is also one its weaknesses. The Portland project may be about to change all that.

Without getting too deep into the philosophical and developmental debates, one of the greatest strengths of open source — freedom of choice and open code for anyone to work and develop on — is also one its weaknesses. In a world where everyone can do their own thing, standardisation and consistency aren’t usually invited to the party. The LSB (Linux Standard Base) was one key step in helping to solve this, and now Portland is another.

Many years ago now, from two completely separate toolkits, the popular Gnome and KDE desktops were born. Built as they are for themselves, interoperability between applications of one on the desktop of the other wasn’t a priority for a rather long time — it’s only been in the last couple of years for example that you could install applications that will work in KDE’s system tray the same way it will with Gnome’s, for example. While the applications always ran, as long as you had GTK or QT installed, they weren’t generally aware of their host desktop if it wasn’t native.

And this was especially true when it came to updating menus. If the functionality was included at all, the author of a Gnome application for example would only bother about updating menus under Gnome, leaving KDE users to scratch their heads and manually create a new entry.

Generally, it’s been up to the package maintainers of distributions to fix this, to create install scripts that properly add a program to the menus of the installed desktops (KDE, Gnome, Fluxbox, XFCE and others). But the onus then is on the distribution package maintainers to do this for each and every application where applicable, and it doesn’t help at all if users install programs not part of the distribution’s package portfolio.

So back to Portland — a great idea that’s sorely needed, Portland provides a set of tools primarily for use at application installation that standardise the process completely, so no matter whether you use Gnome or KDE, an application can simply call the same Portland tools to update the user’s desktop, and Portland will do the rest.

While, generally, this isn’t going to remove the entire workload of package maintainers — as distributions generally have their own configuration formats to maintain — it’ll certainly help automate the process.

Best of all, however, is if everyday developers start using the Portland tools — this way users can install an application not provided by a distribution and find, miraculously, that their desktop is aware of it and they can get right on and use it, just like under Windows. It’s such a simple thing, but it’s been missing from Linux for too long. If there’s one thing we can learn from Microsoft, it’s that consistency matters.

Actually, it’s more just common sense: people want to use their desktops, so don’t make them work for it. Linux as a desktop has come a long way — Ubuntu is a testament to this — and projects like Portland that are one more step in the yellow brick road.

You can check out Portland’s releases and documentation at the official homepage.

Source : APCMag.com