How To: Use Spotify Outside of Supported Locations

Background

[Windows/Mac] For those who don’t know, Spotify is a new music streaming service based out of Sweden currently making waves around the world. It allows for instant access to Spotify’s database of 4.5 million tracks through searching for artists, songs, albums, labels and genres for no cost and completely legally. Of course with something this good, there’s always a hitch. Currently, Spotify only supports access in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, France and Spain – some of which require an invite.

Spotify interface.

Not in a supported country?

Not to fear! Thanks to my super-incredible Google-fu (not really), I found a posting on a forum detailing how to set up an account online and download the program. All that’s needed is a proxy to set up our account and once that’s set up, the proxy is no longer required and you’re home free. Quoted below is the original forum posting found here.

TO MY KNOWLEDGE, THIS DOES NOT WORK IN THE US. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO CONFIRM THIS FOR ME, FOLLOW THE STEPS BELOW AND LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS.

“Step 1. Find a good UK proxy. Easiest will be web-based, since you’ll only have to use it to register. I used this one.

Step 2. Through the proxy, visit https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/

Step 3. Register. You’re going to need a UK postal code, the one I used is LS18 5AZ, but you might find another one on Google.

Step 4. Download the installer. It should give you a link, otherwise use this one.

Step 5. Install it and enjoy your music. No need for any proxies or anything, you’re just enjoying free music. One extra pro here is that if you listen to it through an unsupported country there are no ads!

Step 6. Set your country to your actual country in the settings.

So, there you go, enjoy.

Oh, and once you have it, you can try it out with this link.”

Happy loophole-ing!

Turn off Compatibility Check for Extensions in Firefox

Want the latest and greatest Firefox build but find that when you install it, none of you extensions work anymore? WEll here’s the simple solution – although this is not always guaranteed to work, in my case, it helped a lot.

Step 1: Open a new page and type about:config in the address bar

Step 2: Right click on the page and select New > Boolean

Step 3: Enter extensions.checkCompatibility as the name

Step 4: Choose False

All done! Now restart Firefox, and you should be good to go!

Make Safari Open Links in New Tab [Terminal Tip]

One of the major gripes I have with Safari is that when you click a link, it opens the page in a new window. I find this totally throws me off and I end up with a bunch of windows and a cluttered mess. Luckily, there’s a quick workaround.

First, quit Safari by going to Safari>Quit Safari (or ⌘Q). Next, open up the Terminal, which can be found in Applications>Utilities>Terminal.app. Then all you have to do is copy the following text and hit enter.

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

Once you hit enter, you can quit the Terminal and relaunch Safari. Now you will notice that all licked links open in tabs instead of new windows!

How to Get The Latest Version of Wine

Found out a new version of Wine was released? Need to get the updated version? Don’t worry, the process is quite simple.

1. Remove the wine that comes with Ubuntu (if you’ve installed it)(sudo apt-get remove wine)

2. Open a terminal and type:

Quote:

wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add –

3. Type:

Quote:

gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

4. Add one of the following to your sources.list

Quote:

## Wine, Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04): deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt hardy main deb-src http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt hardy main

Quote:

## Wine, Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10): deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt gutsy main deb-src http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt gutsy main

Quote:

## Wine, Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (7.04): deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt feisty main deb-src http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt feisty main

Quote:

## Wine, Ubuntu Edgy Eft (6.10) deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt edgy main deb-src http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt edgy main

Quote:

## Wine, Ubuntu Dapper Drake (6.06) deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt dapper main deb-src http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt dapper main

5. Type the following:

Quote:

sudo apt-get update

6. Type the following:

Quote:

sudo apt-get upgrade

7. To install wine either type:

Quote:

sudo apt-get install wine

Or by using the Synaptic Package Manager under System->Administration.

[Ubuntu Forums]

Error 13213 with iPod Touch? [Fix]

Yesterday, I downloaded the new version of iTunes along with the update for my iPod touch. In doing so, I got the error message “The iPod “Jahfers iPod” cannot be synced. An unknown error occurred (13213).

My first guess was that something went wrong in the iPod firmware update so I restored it to factory settings. If you have gotten this error too, don’t bother – it doesn’t help. As of yesterday there was nothing on the web but today I found a discussion on Apple’s site that seems to have fixed the issue. Follow the steps below and your ipod should work fine.
1. Unplug your iPod Touch and turn it off. Hold the power button at the top until the red slider appears and power it down completely.
2. Quit iTunes 8
3. Relaunch iTunes 8
4. Plug in Touch – DO NOT TURN IT ON FIRST. Make sure it’s still off completely from step 1.
5. Should sync normally

[Apple Discussions]

Boot Camp & Parallels Together

Recently I found myself installing my Windows Vista on Boot camp but I didn’t want to have to reboot every tome I wanted to do something simple. Through some playing around, I found a very easy way to use your Boot Camp partition in Parallels.

First install your Windows operating system through Boot Camp. Once that is completed, Open Parallels and follow this path:

File > New… > Custom > Choose your OS > Allocate RAM used > Use Boot Camp.

And that’s about it. It’s pretty straight forward after that, but if you have any trouble, feel free to comment below.