Empower Your Needs

Vista User Time Manager v4.1.1.1 (NEW)

2009-05-28T06:37:00.002-07:00

If you're concerned your child may be spending much time or the games online
Or you do not want him or her to use your PC when you want to sleep or away from home
Vista User Time Manager allows you to set limits on how much time your child spends on the computer or online.
- Vista User Time Manager allows you to specify exactly when and how long the computer can be used and define users who are allowed to use the computer without any limits. You can schedule time intervals and the number of hours each child can use the computer per day a week. It automatically logs your child out of your computer when it's time for lights out. You can also prevent the PC usage until the specified date, after the specified date or between specified dates.

- Vista User Time Manager can record all actions to a log file so you will know when and how much your child used the computer. The password control prevents unauthorized users to change settings and uninstall the product, the internal file guard system protects all important files so the program can not be deleted by unwanted person. The multylanguages multiuser intuitive interface and will help you manage this software easy and with pleasure.
FEATURES:
* Set time for appropriate user or group
* Manage Groups
* User Logging activities
* Shedule time of working days
* Set time period allowed
* Set extra time to use
* Setting user restrictions
* Avoid changing system of time
* Stop install unwanted software
* Protect files and folders
* Hide / show the icon in the tray
* Weather suspended while a user leaves PC
* Log off Windows after the expiration time
* Restart Windows after the expiration time
* Shut down Windows after the expiration time
* Program password to access authorized
* Schedule information window
Size: 2 MB

http://w14.easy-share.com/1701666968.html

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 v.8.0.0.454 FINAL

2009-05-28T06:37:00.001-07:00

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 v8.0.0.454 FINAL

http://rapidshare.com/files/147200556/Kasp_Anti-Virus_2009_v8.0.0.454_FINAL__FULL___ENG_.rar

NodLogin v9.7 Final 32bit/64bit

2009-05-28T06:35:00.000-07:00

This software Updates the login of Nod details automatically (the logins are usually taken from sites that update their login database on a daily basis).

ОS:
- Windows 98
- Windows XP
- Windows Vista

Can be use for:
- Nod32 2.7; 3.0
- ESET Nod32
- ESET Smart Security

*NOTE* You will need to choose the correct 32-Bit or 64-Bit version from within the .rar file depending on what O/S you are running.

Patch Instructions
1. Extract/Copy setup.exe to the folder that you installed Nod32 in, (The default is Program Files - ESET - Nod32...)
2. Double click the file you just copied.
3. Press install
4. The patch is now installed and should run on start up.

Or

1. Follow steps above
2. Remove the file from start up (Using something like WinPatrol or msconfig)
3. Open Nod32/Smart Security - Setup - Click "Enter Entire Advanced Set-up Tree"
4. Press Tools - Scheduler & Planner - Add - Run External Application - Enter your own task name - Repeatedly - Choose how often you want to check for updates - Finish - Click the browse menu beside Executable File - Go to the folder that you installed Nod32 in - Double click "Nodlogin.exe".

http://w13.easy-share.com/1701665608.html

Norton Internet Security 2009 v.16.0.0.125

2009-05-28T06:32:00.000-07:00

Norton Internet Security 2009 is a very useful internet security utility that will protect your computer while you

Norton Internet Security 2009 is a very useful internet security utility that will protect your computer while you surf online. Enjoy your connection to the world. It gives you the confidence to travel the Internet like never before, protected against viruses, hackers, spyware, and spam. A comprehensive set of security tools, Norton Internet Security helps keep you safe online as you surf and email, swap files, download programs, and chat.

Key Technologies:
• Antivirus
• Spyware protection
• Two-way firewall
• Identity protection
• Antiphishing
• Network monitoring
• Bot protection
• Rootkit detection
• Browser protection
• Internet worm protection
• Intrusion prevention
• OS and application protection
• Web site authentication
• Pulse updates
• Norton™ Insight
• SONAR™ behavioral protection
• Antispam
• Parental Controls & confidential information blocking

Key Benefits:
• Proven fastest, lightest security suite available—Spend more time using your computer and less time waiting for your security software to perform.
• Pulse updates for up-to-the-minute protection—Delivered every 5 to 15 minutes to detect and eliminate new threats. NEW
• Intelligence-driven for faster, fewer, shorter scans—By leveraging a unique online intelligence system, Norton™ Insight technology targets only those files at risk. NEW
• Stops viruses, worms, spyware, bots, and more—Keeps your system protected against all types of malicious threats.
• Prevents virus-infected emails and instant messages from spreading—Feel secure while you keep in touch.
• Blocks browser exploits and protects against infected Web sites—Surf the Internet with confidence.
• Blocks online identity theft—Buy, bank, and browse online wherever and whenever you want. IMPROVED
• Secure network connections—Monitor your home network and more safely connect to Wi-fis. IMPROVED
• Blocks threats and hackers—Two-way firewall automatically makes security decisions for you. IMPROVED

Features:
Engineered for Speed
* New! Proven fastest, lightest security suite available
* New! Intelligence-driven Norton™ Insight technology targets only those files at risk for faster, fewer, shorter scans
* New! Installs in under one minute on average, requires less than 10 MB of memory, and only 100 MB of disk space plus definitions

Up-to-the-minute Protection
* New! Delivers up-to-the-minute protection with rapid pulse updates every 5 to 15 minutes.*
* New! The Norton™ Protection System provides multilayered protection technologies that work in concert to stop threats before they impact you. †
* New! Real-time SONAR (Symantec™ Online Network for Advanced Response) helps prevent bots from taking control of your PC.
* Improved! Prevents threats from entering or leaving your firewall.
* Detects and automatically removes online threats.
* Improved! Defends against Web-based attacks with patent-pending technology.
* Automatically detects and removes spyware, viruses, Trojans, bots and Internet worms
* New! Boots and repairs badly infected PCs.
* New! Specialized deep-cleaning technology delivers our most complete scan possible to repair heavily infected computers.

Norton Identity Safe
* Improved! Keeps your online identity safer than ever when you buy, bank, browse, and game online.
* Advanced phishing protection keeps your personal identification out of the hands of fraudulent Web sites.
* Stores and encrypts your passwords and other confidential data.
* Improved! Fills in online forms at your request to save time and protect you from keystroke loggers.

Control without disruptions
* Puts every element of your security at your fingertips
* New! Schedules resource intensive tasks for when you’re not using your PC.
* New! Review the security status of every process on your PC.
* New! Silent mode suspends alerts and updates to avoid interrupting or slowing games and movies.
* Smart two-way firewall automatically makes security decisions for you.

Secure Networking
* Improved! Helps you secure your home network.
* Conceals and secures your PC on public Wi-Fi networks.

Parental Controls
* New! Create individual user profiles with enhanced parental controls.

Spam Blocking
* Filters spam better than ever.

Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Basic/Home Premium/Business/Ultimate
Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 Home/XP Pro/XP Media Center Edition
* 300 MHz or faster processor
* 256 MB of RAM (*512 MB RAM required for the Recovery Tool)
* 200 MB of available hard disk space
* Standard Web browser

Email scanning supported for POP3- and SMTP-compatible email clients.
Support for AntiSpam feature:
* Microsoft Outlook® 97 or later
* Microsoft Outlook Express 6.0 or later

Supported instant messaging clients:
* AOL®
* Yahoo!®
* Microsoft®
* Trillian™

Browser support for Browser Defense and Phishing Protection features:
* Microsoft Internet Explorer® 6.0 (32-bit only) and later
* Mozilla Firefox® 2.0 and later

Size: 58.3 MB
Quote:
This crack is for Norton Internet Security 2009 & Norton AntiVirus 2009. It just resets the trial period every time you start your computer. It is only for Windows XP (x32) & Vista (x32). I wasn’t able to get Norton 2009 to install on Windows x64. There is a nag screen when you open up Norton 2009.

Installation:
1. Install Norton 2009. (It would be best if you are not connected to the internet.)
2. Install crack and restart your PC.
3. To remove, just use the uninstall.

http://www.mediafire.com/?kgnorz4y2em

Raxco PerfectDisk 2008 Build v9.00 Build 64

2009-05-28T06:31:00.000-07:00

Delivering a unique set of easy-to-use features and benefits not found in any other solution, PerfectDisk® 2008 will make your computer run like new. Work and play faster - and smarter. PerfectDisk makes everything you do on your computer faster - so you can be more efficient at your work or play. PerfectDisk 2008’s patented SMARTPlacement™ optimization is paired with its exclusive single-pass defragmentation and Space Restoration Technology™ to maximize PC and laptop performance. All controlled and automated according to your unique requirements through AutoPilot Scheduling™ or StealthPatrol™ unattended background processing

http://www.rapidshare.com/files/144655237/Raxco.PerfectDisk.2008.v9.0.0.Build.64.rar

AVG Internet Security v.8.0.169

2009-05-28T06:29:00.000-07:00

AVG Internet Security 8.0.169
AVG Internet Security 8.0.169 with 10 years keygen.

The antivirus compontent protects your computer with Windows from viruses, worms and trojans.
Antivirus detects viruses, worms and Trojans as well as executable files or Windows DLL libraries that could be potentially unwanted within your Windows Vista or Windows XP system. Antivirus also holds the internal virus database, and therefore it keeps the maximum level of protection when regularly updated.

AVG Internet Security 8.0.169 with 10 years keygen.

The antispyware component protects your computer from spyware, adware and other malicious programs.
Antispyware protects tour computer from all kinds of malware (malicious software), e.g. spyware that secretly gathers information and privacy data from your computer, or adware that generates unwanted advertisement on your computer.

AVG Internet Security 8.0.169 with 10 years keygen.

Firewall enforces an access control policy between your computer running Windows and the network by blocking/permitting traffic.
Firewall defines rules that protect your computer from outside attacks, typically from the Internet, and control (allow/forbid) all communication on every network port. If Firewall recognizes and intrusion attempt, it blocks immediately and does not let the intruder access to your PC with Windows.
If you firewall is active, you are protected against hacker attacks and threats from external networks.

AVG Internet Security 8.0.169 with 10 years keygen.

Anti-Rootkit allows searching for rootkits hidden in your Windows operating system.
Antirootkit scans for dangerous rootkits hidden inside applications, drivers and Windows DLL libraries. A rootkit is usually a collection of malicious software that allows attacker to gain administrator-level rights and access to a computer or possibly whole network in your home or office. Rootkits are generally very well hidden in an operating system which makes them hard to detect or remove by regular security tools.

AVG Internet Security 8.0.169 with 10 years keygen.

Advanced settings for Advanced Users. Shows information about Windows processes, network connections, automatically starting applications, Internet Explorer extensions and Layered Service Providers on your computer.

AVG Internet Security 8.0.169 with 10 years keygen.

LinkScanner blocks dangerous websites and checks links on the most popular search engines such Google, Yahoo and MSN and Live for threats.
LinkScaner works with Internet Explorer and Firefox, and consists of two features. AVG Active Surf-Shield and AVG Search-Shield.
AVG Active Surf-Shield
Prevents you from accidently becoming infected by drive-by downloads and other exploits, ensuring the web pages you visit are safe at the only time that really matters – when you are about to click the link.
AVG Search-Shield
Works with Google, Yahoo, MSN and Live search engines to deliver a real-time safety verdict on all search results, including search ads, displaying an icon to show the safety rating for each site.

AVG Internet Security 8.0.169 with 10 years keygen.

Web Shield checks network traffic for possible threats and disallows dangerous connections.
This component protects you against accidentally downloading infected files or exchanging infected files over instant messaging.

AVG Internet Security 8.0.169 with 10 years keygen.

Resident Shield
Works in the background and is scanning all files that you work with.
Scans files as they are copied, opened and saved and if a threat is found, it forbids its activation. It also provides vital protection for the Windows system areas of your computer

http://rapidshare.com/files/145931679/AIS.rar

Universal Translator Deluxe v.4.1.327 (Orginal ISO)

2009-05-28T06:28:00.000-07:00

Here it is!Universal Translator Deluxe.It's a trasnlator that includes languages like: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Zulu. All you need!

System Requirements:

166 MHz Pentium processor
Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT4, or later
32 MB RAM
4 MB hard disk space per language
CD-ROM drive
VGA monitor
Sound card (if using text-to-speech

Installation:

Unpack, burn or mount & install
185 MB (.ISO file)

http://depositfiles.com/files/7018106
http://depositfiles.com/files/7018192

Google Earth Pro Gold with GPS Tracking

2009-05-28T06:21:00.000-07:00

http://rapidshare.com/files/137228897/Google_Earth_Pro_Gold_www_1_.warez-bb.org.rar

Microsoft Keygens / Utils 18 in 1

2009-05-24T06:16:00.000-07:00

This is an All in One package of Microsoft software keygens which includes the following:

* Anti-WPA
* Generic Anti-WPA
* License Viewer
* Key Finder
* MS Business NT
* MS ISA Server
* MS ISA Server Enterprise
* MS Communicator
* MS Office 2k3
* MS Op. Manager
* MS VisualFOX
* MS Server 2k3 x64
* MS Server 2k3 Enterprise
* Windows XP Pro
* Windows XP Pro x64
* Windows XP Home
* Office XP
* RockXP

Scan log (PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS DOES NOT HAVE A 100% CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH, THOUGH DOWNLOADING IT WILL NOT AFFECT YOUR MACHINE, ONLY EXECUTING THE BELOW SPECIFIED KEYGEN!!!):

Download:
Hidden Block (5 post(s) are required, you have 3387):
http://rapidshare.com/files/231198674/Microsoft_keygeneros.rar

Password:
pirator.net

2009-05-24T06:05:00.000-07:00

Pirator's ESET AiO Made by Little Nicky

Contains The Following:
Programs:

Smart Security Business Edition 4.0.424 32 Bit
Smart Security Business Edition 4.0.424 64 Bit
NOD32 Anti-Virus Business Edition 4.0.424 32 Bit
NOD32 Anti-Virus Business Edition 4.0.424 64 Bit

Fixes:

NodLogin 9.9b 32 Bit
NodLogin 9.9b 64 Bit
NodEnabler 3.3 32 Bit
NodEnabler 3.3 64 Bit
Box4EVER 4.30A 32 Bit
Box4EVER 4.30A 64 Bit
MiNODLogin 3.4.0.1 32 Bit
MiNODLogin 3.4.0.1 64 Bit

Page 1:

Page 2:

Scan log:

Quote:

Scan Log
Version of virus signature database: 4067 (20090512)
Date: 5/12/2009 Time: 4:42:16 PM
Scanned disks, folders and files: C:\Users\Little Nicky\Desktop\Eset AiO.exe
C:\Users\Little Nicky\Desktop\Eset AiO.exe » ZIP » AutoPlay/autorun.cdd » ZIP » _detect.dat - error - password-protected file
C:\Users\Little Nicky\Desktop\Eset AiO.exe » ZIP » AutoPlay/autorun.cdd » ZIP » _proj.dat - error - password-protected file
C:\Users\Little Nicky\Desktop\Eset AiO.exe » ZIP » AutoPlay/autorun.cdd » ZIP » _fonts.dat - error - password-protected file
Number of scanned objects: 4627
Number of threats found: 0
Time of completion: 4:43:11 PM Total scanning time: 55 sec (00:00:55)

Download:
RapidShare: Easy Filehosting
RapidShare: Easy Filehosting

or

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=E7DESOEO

or

http://www.filebox.com/uk9mshvghut1

or

http://uploadbox.com/files/db6717bb8ca

Using My Home To Clear My Debt

2009-05-15T08:45:00.002-07:00

Becoming a home owner is one amongst the more vital stuffs you will do inside your being alive. It yet ranks wakeful there exhaustive knowledge about achieving got married to with causing a relatives of your own to deal with. Unluckily, owning a property pulls off escort miscelanneous burdens along with those burdens are the expenses that you build inside request to keep the home, flowing because you crave it. There may be immeasurable purpose on why you came down into debt, admire becoming far more than extended in addition to the expenditure you undergo, not calculating the worth of pouring a home correctly or conceivably it was curative reasons that you came across wedged plus someone inside debt along furthermore expenditure.

No matter what the purpose was that received you where you are at the moment you exceedingly may perhaps do what I made ready. By way of my real estate to clear everything my debt was the most excellent fixation I ever made ready. Millions of people imagine they got to thrown in the towel along with admit the debt prevail the struggle but you do not ought to do that. There are preferences that you labor under that more will not tell you as regards to. Along furthermore every hire you style on your real estate you improvement equity. Once a year the merit of your house works conscious in addition to that builds equity. Any mending or upgrades along with improvements you variety to your real estate also will add to its disposition as well as the quantity of equity you have inside your property. You may well purpose the equity in your property to help you lucid your debt in addition to capture your monetary resource back on the right track.

There are uncountable persons that intention a queue of credit on the equity inside their house to class indivisible mending, upgrades with the some well-known of the whole lot is to pay off debt. By using the equity in your house you may well pay off your debt all at once earning it thence you easily tolerate one single payment to class each month. It is a homeowner's systems to consolidate their debt on their own without causing to search outside help out or inducing to go away because far-flung since filing liquidation.

If you pass through along furthermore overwhelming debt at the moment you should talk over with your lender or mortgage broker. They may possibly protection you dig up a loan on the equity in your property as a result you can pay off debt along with meet up with without difficulty lone payment to be anxious near to. You will excepting much money given that you will not have to be compelled to be anxious about the whole thing those curiosity duties on the wonderful debt. There are several choices given that homeowners to help out acquire each other out of debt.

You may accompany your electricity mortgage lender or talk to esoteric lenders to examine who bestow the best inside interest taxes. These forms of loans provide a lot of reduced awareness taxes at that time the rates you pay on your exceptional debt. The lender will see you with see where you are with your fees as well as protection you get your hands on the bulk of capital riches you got to acquire your being alive back on track.

Basics Of Debt Consolidation Options

2009-05-15T08:45:00.001-07:00

Most of us have heard the term - debt consolidation and debt reduction. Those terms get thrown around with mortgages, credit cards, balance transfers, equity lines of credit and a wide variety of other financial packages.

But what exactly is debt consolidation and how does it work?

The consolidation of debt is not a difficult or complicated process. It simply involves combining all of your debts that are non-secured like medical bills, credit cards, tuition payments all wrapped up into one nice monthly payment. Very often the payment is much lower than all the combined payments totaled up.

This debt reduction plan works by letting consumers (the debtor) pay monthly a fixed amount of money to the consolidation company. The consolidation company in turn functions works as your payment representative and will negotiate lower rates of interest and sometimes a lower balance. Then the company after receiving your payment will make payments each of the creditors on your behalf.

Why would a creditor even consider lowering the balance or interest rate? The reason is it works! Creditors will usually make these financial arrangements since it is in their best interest to get paid. They understand that if a debt company is making the payments they will most likely get paid on time. They also will not need the same amount of resources contacting consumers about the unpaid balances.

How Can the Consolidation of Debt Help A Consumer?

There are various ways a debtor can be helped by reducing their debt load.

* Consolidated payments are usually lower payments

* The debt becomes managed by a professional

* Stops the addition of more debt

* Keeps bill collectors and collection agencies from calling

Is it a Better Route Than Bankruptcy?

Yes, anything is probably better than going the bankruptcy route! Bankruptcy is a serious issue and a decision, which should not be taken lightly. Even with a bad credit score you can begin to rebuild your credit history. When bankruptcy is introduced into the equation all your debts get canceled out and your credit rating completely collapses. Where consolidating debt is a much more manageable option and preserves your credit.

What Consolidation Options Are Available?

There are several ways to go about handling your debt problems. Hiring a company as mentioned above is an option for those with serious financial conditions and issues that need to be resolved. The other method involves taking out a loan for the expressed purpose of eliminating many debts and turning them into one debt.

Using a company who has built relationships with people and represent thousands of creditors can give you some bargaining power with any kind of counseling and debt restructuring plan. Loans for debt consolidation will help you get rid of the unsecured-debt and help reduce the combined interest.

Do your research and find the one that best fits your needs for a bright less debt future.

Strategies For Coping With Your Debts

2009-05-15T08:42:00.000-07:00

If you're struggling with debt problems it can seem like you're trapped in a never-ending fight to keep your head above water, desperately juggling your finances around to keep your creditors happy. It can also seem like you're alone in your struggle, but this is very far from the truth. Millions of people have at one time or another been in a similar situation, and even though it might currently seem like there's no way out, millions of people have successfully left their debt worries behind.

There are thousands of sites on the internet offering help and advice, sometimes as a free service, but often as a commercial venture which you'll have to pay for in one way or another. With all this information overload, how can you even get started on deciding how to handle your debts? Read on to learn the basics of some of the most popular debt strategies, which will help you decide which strategy is right for you and is worth researching further.

Budgeting

This is the most basic way of getting your finances back in shape. By sitting down and working out all your income and expenses, you can clearly see the parts of your money management that need more attention. Often, this basic step will show up easy ways to economize, giving you a little more breathing space every month, and making it easier to pay those bills.

Debt Consolidation

If, after examining your budget, you find that you really can't make ends meet, then it's worth considering taking out a consolidation loan. The basic idea behind consolidation is to take out one big loan which you use to clear all your other debts, meaning you only have one repayment to make every month. Ideally, your new loan will be at a lower interest rate than your current debts, so your monthly repayment will be lower. You can also spread the repayments over a longer period, taking some of the financial pressure off, but this will mean you're paying more in interest in the long run.

Debt Management

Some people who have serious debt problems might not be able to arrange a consolidation loan. This might be because they've already borrowed to the hilt and no lender is willing to advance any more credit, or it may be that in the course of their debt problems their credit rating has been badly damaged. At this point, debt management is a good option. It works by handing over the management of your debts to a specialist company or agent, who will contact your creditors on your behalf and negotiate a way forward, such as lowering interest rates, extending the repayment term, or cancelling previous fees and charges.

Entering into debt management has the great advantage of relieving the immediate stress and worry of dealing with your debts, but the disadvantage is that in most cases the management company will charge a fee, and the damage to your credit rating will be considerable.

Individual Voluntary Arrangements

This is a step further than debt management, in that the agreements you make with your creditors are legally binding. You will also have any remaining debts cleared after keeping to the arrangment over a period of five years. Should you fail to keep to the arrangement, then bankruptcy is the only remaining option.

Bankruptcy

This is the final step to take when all other attempts to handling your debts have failed. All your assets will be frozen and used to pay off your debt, and most of any income you receive during your bankruptcy period will also be taken from you. The damage to your credit rating will be almost irreperable, and even though many people have started to see bankruptcy as an easy way out of debt, the long term consequences are grave, and it should only be considered as an absolute last resort.

Add safe Mode To The Regular Boot Menu

2009-05-04T09:12:00.001-07:00

Open the System Properties dialog box. You can do this from Control Panel (click System).
- Click the Advanced tab.
- Click the Settings button under Startup and Recovery.
- Click the Edit button under System Startup. This opens the boot.ini file in Notepad.
- One line should end with "/fastdetect" (NOT "/fastdetect /sos"). Copy that line.
- Paste the line you just copied below the original line. Change "WINDOWS=Microsoft XP Professional" to "WINDOWS="Safe Mode" and add the following text to the end of the line: /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog
- Save the file and click OK to exit the dialog boxes. Note: If you named the Windows XP installation folder something other than WINDOWS when you installed XP, that name will appear instead of WINDOWS in step 6.

Or

Right-click My Computer, and choose Properties (or press Windows Key & Break together).
On the Advanced tab, click the Settings button, which brings up the Startup and Recovery window.
Click the Edit button, which will open the boot.ini file in Notepad.
Look under the [Operating Systems] for your default OS. Copy the entire line, and paste it on the line below.
Change the description in the quotations to say ?Safe Mode? or whatever description you want. Then add the following to the end of the line you just copied: /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog
If you want networking support, then change ?minimal? to ?network? without the quotes.

Another way to Lock folders without any Software

2009-05-04T09:08:00.000-07:00

Steps:--
1) open notepad & copy the matter pasted below

cls
@ECHO OFF
title Folder Private
if EXIST "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" goto UNLOCK
if NOT EXIST Private goto MDLOCKER
:CONFIRM
echo Are you sure you want to lock the folder(Y/N)
set/p "cho=>"
if %cho%==Y goto LOCK
if %cho%==y goto LOCK
if %cho%==n goto END
if %cho%==N goto END
echo Invalid choice.
goto CONFIRM
:LOCK
ren Private "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
attrib +h +s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
echo Folder locked
goto End
:UNLOCK
echo Enter password to unlock folder
set/p "pass=>"
if NOT %pass%== Password-here goto FAIL
attrib -h -s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
ren "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" Private
echo Folder Unlocked successfully
goto End
:FAIL
echo Invalid password
goto end
:MDLOCKER
md Private
echo Private created successfully
goto End

2)Replace "Password-here" with your password & save as "whatever you want.bat" anywhere you want to creat locked Folder

3) Now run that .bat file ,Now it will make a folder named "private"

4)Now again run that file,in command promt it will ask u

Quote:

Are you sure you want to lock the folder(Y/N)

press "y",Then Folder will disappear .

4)If you want that folder back again run bat file ,Now it will ask you to put password whih is stored in that file

5) You can hide that file too...

Enjoy.....

Dual Boot XP with vista STEP BY STEP GUIDE with pictures

2009-05-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

Note that you should not attempt this if you aren't ready to troubleshoot any problems that might occur.

The first issue we encounter is that computers with pre-installed operating systems take up the entire drive. Luckily Microsoft included the Shrink volume feature in Vista, so we can easily shrink the Vista partition down to make room for XP.

Open the Computer Management panel, which you can find under Administrative tools or by right-clicking the Computer item in the start menu and choosing Manage. Find the Disk Management item in the list and select that.

Now we'll shrink our volume down by right-clicking on the main hard drive and choosing Shrink Volume.

Now you can choose the size that you want to shrink, which really means you are choosing the size that you want your XP partition to be. Whatever you do, don't just use the default. I chose roughly 10gb by entering 10000 into the amount.

The next step might be confusing, because we need to change the cd-rom drive that's invariably taking up D: at the moment, because we want to use D: for the Windows XP partition, but it's already taken by the cd-rom drive. If you skip this step than XP will install onto the E: drive, which isn't the end of the world, but it's not quite as tidy.

Right-click on the cd-rom drive in the list and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths from the menu.

Now we'll change the CD drive to use E: by selecting that in the drop-down.

Now we can create a new partition for XP to live on and make sure that the drive letter is set the way we want. If you do not create a partition now the XP install will do so automatically, but it's easier and cleaner to do it this way.

Right-click on the Unallocated free space area and then select New Simple Volume from the menu.

Follow through the wizard and select whatever options you'd like, making sure to use D: as the drive letter.

Now you will need to close out of disk management and reboot your computer. This is because we can't do the next step until we reboot. (you can try, but it won't work)

So we've come back from rebooting… open up Computer from the start menu and then right-click on the D: drive and select properties. Give your partition a meaningful name like "XP". It would be wise to name the C: drive to "Vista" at this point as well.

Now you'll want to pop your XP cd into the drive and boot off it. You may have to configure your BIOS to enable booting off the CD drive, or if your computer says something like "Hit Esc for boot menu" you might want to use that.

Once you come to the screen where you can choose the partition to install on, then choose either the unpartitioned space or the new partition you created. Whatever you do, don't try and install onto your Vista partition! See how much cleaner it is now that we've labeled each partition distinctly?

We'll assume XP is completely installed at this point, and you will have lost your ability to boot into Windows Vista, so we'll need to use the VistaBootPro utility to restore the Vista boot loader.

Download And Install VistaBootPRO

During the install you'll be forced to install the .NET 2.0 framework. Open up VistaBootPRO and then click on the System Bootloader tab. Check the "Windows Vista Bootloader" and then "All Drives" radio buttons, and then click on the Install Bootloader button.

At this point, the Windows Vista bootloader is installed and you'll only be able to boot into Vista, but we'll fix that. Instead of manually doing the work, we'll just click the Diagnostics menu item and then choose Run Diagnostics from the menu.

This will scan your computer and then automatically fill in the XP version.. click on the "Manage OS Entries" tab and then click in the textbox for Rename OS Entry, and name it something useful like "Windows XP" or "The Windows That Works"

Click the Apply Updates button and then reboot your computer… you should see your shiny new boot manager with both operating systems in the list!

If you get an error saying "unable to find ntldr" when trying to boot XP, you'll need to do the following:

Find the hidden files ntldr and ntdetect.com in the root of your Vista drive and copy them to the root of your XP drive.
If you can't find the files there, you can find them in the \i386\ folder on your XP install cd

This is a critical piece of information: Windows XP will be installed on the D: drive, even in Windows XP… so you'll need to keep that in mind when tweaking your system.

You can share information between the drives, but I wouldn't recommend messing with the other operating system's partition too much… it might get angry and bite you. Or screw up your files. What I do recommend is that you store most of your files on a third drive shared between the operating systems… you could call that partition "Data".

15 Tips to Improve your Linux Experience

2009-04-27T02:01:00.000-07:00

The beauty of Linux is in users ability to do large amount of customization to have a unique user expereince. So today we will look in to some tips for a “better” Linux experience. The term “better” here is relative, because what works for me might seem a distraction for some or plain annoying to others; some of this “tips” might appeal to beginners, while advanced users might find it too easy. Hopefully some of these tips will be helpful to some of you.

1) Turn on your computer remotely by sending “magic network packets” to WakeOnLan supported network cards. This can be very helpful if you run a server at home but only access it occasionally. There is no need for you to have the server running all the time.

2) If you dual boot with windows, accessing Linux file system from your windows installation might be important for you. There are three windows applications that can help you do this: Explore2fs, Ext2 Installable File System, DiskInternals Linux Reader.
3) Similarly to have read/write access for Windows NTFS file system, you can use NTFS-3G. Most recent popular Linux distribution has NTFS-3G installed out of the box.

4) Share a single mouse and keyboard with multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, with support for copy and paste. Thanks to Synergy, the most popular free KVM software switch out there.

Synergy in action.

5) Recovering data from damaged media can be handled by several Linux tools including some LiveCD, specifically built to help recover data. Parted Magic, Ubuntu Rescue Remix, SystemRescueCd, Foremost (data recovery), Ddrescue.

6) If you are a blogger like me and enjoy using desktop client over web editors, you will find these clients useful: Gnome Blog, Drivel Journal Editor, BloGTK, Thingamablog, Bleezer, QTM.

7) If you are a webdeveloper/designer, you will often find yourself testing a website across many platforms and browsers. IEs4Linux is a great painless way to check how IE browser will render your website. You could use services like browsershots, but I had mixed results with them.

Does your iPod miss iTunes? Here are three itunes alternative which will do most of what your iTunes would do, not an exact replacement; but does the job: Amarok, Banshee, Rhythmbox.

9) Follow multiple files by creating multiple windows in your console with the help of MultiTail, also known as tail on steroids.

10) Use Terminator to split your screen space with many terminal windows, both horizontally and vertically.

11) For even better control over your terminal display and customization and complex functions, GNU Screen is a much better choice over terminator; however terminator serves only one purpose.

12) Use RSIBreak to help prevent Repetitive Strain Injury. RSIBreak will force you to take short break, depending on your configuration, so that you don’t over-work yourself.

RSIBreak

13) If you find yourself working on a dumb terminal (hello sysadmins) or prefer working on terminals, you will find newsbeuter to be an excellent RSS reader for the console.

14) I know some will disagree with me on this, but conky is an excellent compliment to your desktop experience. If properly configured, it can add a lot of value to your desktop environment. Check out this very creative conky setup and read about it here.

15) Do you do podcasts? rootprompt has a great article with huge resources for both Linux podcasters and listeners.

10 ways to Tweak your Linux Boot Process

2009-04-27T02:00:00.000-07:00

Linux rarely needs to be rebooted. But when it does, it’s often slow to boot. Fortunately, there are ways to speed things up. Some of these methods are not terribly difficult. (although some, unfortunately, are). Let’s take a look.

#1: Disable unnecessary services

Depending upon the use of the machine, plenty of services won’t be needed. Using Linux just for a desktop? Then you won’t need sendmail, httpd, and many other services. If your server is only a Web server, you can shut off many services as well. To do this, you can go to the Administration menu and take a look at the Services entry. Just deselect all of the services you don’t want to start.

#2: Disable unnecessary kernel modules

If your desktop is wired to the Ethernet, you don’t need to have a wireless kernel module loaded. This task is a bit more difficult and will require a kernel recompilation, which is not the easiest task to undertake. To do this, you will need the kernel sources. Then, follow the standard steps for compiling a kernel. The difference is that you’re going to go through your system and disable all of the modules you don’t need.

The best way to find out what kernel modules currently install and run on your system is to install Bootchart. Not only will this give you a good list of modules, it will illustrate for you what is happening during your system boot. You can also issue the command chkconfig –list | grep 3:on to find out what services are running. Once you know what loading modules you don’t need, you can remove them during a kernel recompilation. While you’re at it, compile the kernel to exactly match your architecture.

#3: Use a lightweight window manager instead of GNOME or KDE

I plug smaller footprint window managers for a reason — they drastically reduce graphical boot time. Instead of having to wait that extra 30 to 60 seconds for GNOME or KDE to boot up, why not wait two to 10 seconds for Enlightenment or XFCE to boot up? Not only will they save you boot time, they will save your memory and the headache of dealing with bloatware.

#4: Use a text-based login instead of a graphical login

Most of my Linux machines boot to run level 3 instead of run level 5. This will halt at the text-based login, where I only have to log in and issue startx to start my desktop of choice. The graphical logins do two things: increase load times and create headaches trying to recover from an X windows fubar.

#5: Use a lighter-weight distribution

Instead of loading the heavyweight Fedora, why not try a Gentoo, Arch, or Puppy Linux? The boot times for these smaller distributions are far faster than the more bloated Fedora (and even Ubuntu). Of the larger distributions, OpenSuSE claims to boot the fastest, but I have not personally tested this. Between the latest Fedora and Ubuntu, Ubuntu blows Fedora’s boot times away (and that is out of the box).

#6: Use an OpenBIOS

If you’re savvy enough to upgrade your PC’s firmware, you might consider migrating to an open source BIOS. One caveat to using open firmware is that it allows Linux to actually initialize the hardware as it boots (instead of relying on the BIOS). On top of that, many open BIOSes can be configured to meet your machine’s specific needs. If you don’t go the open BIOS route, you can at least configure your BIOS to not search for a floppy drive that’s not there or to boot directly to the first hard drive (instead of the CD drive first).

#7: Avoid dhcp

If you are working on a home network (or a small business network) where address lease isn’t a problem, go with static IP addresses. This will keep your machine from having to call out to a dhcp server to get an IP address. If you take this approach, make sure you configure your /etc/resolve.conf to reflect your DNS server addresses as well.

#8: If you can spare it, get rid of hotplug

Hotplug is the system that allows you to plug in new devices and use them immediately. If you know your server won’t need this system, delete it. This will cut down on boot time. On many systems, hotplugging consumes much of the boot time. Removing hotplug will vary depending upon the distribution you use. NOTE: udev has, for the most part, replaced hotplug. But if you’re running an older distribution, this does apply.

#9: If you are REALLY daring, you could give initng a try

The initng system serves as a replacement for the sysvinit system and promises to drastically decrease boot times in UNIX-like operating systems. If you would like to see the initng system in action, you can give the Pingwinek livecd a try.

#10: Use a hack with Debian

If you’re using Debian, there is a simple hack you can use to switch your startup scripts to run in parallel. If you look at the /etc/init.d/rc script, you will see: CONCURRENCY=none around line 24. Change this line to CONCURRENCY=shell and you should see a reduction in boot times.

That’s about it. Of course there are always more and better hacks out there. But the above should mostly cover everything. The good news is that you’re most likely already running Linux, so the burden of boot times is generally eased by the infrequency of reboots.

Reboot Linux using simple fork()

2009-04-27T01:59:00.000-07:00

We all know that the simplest function in Linux is fork(). The fork is used create a child process which is an exact copy of the calling process (parent process). You might be thinking how can such a simple function reboot a linux machine. Well I must tell you that the program I am going to discuss today uses only this fork function and can force a Linux Server which can serve as many as 100 computers to get rebooted. I have tried this on my College’s Linux Server which Serves more than 200 computers at a time and I was lucky to get out of this situation.

Warning: I am not responsible to whatever happens to your computer after exceuting the following program on your computer.

I have found a simple C Program whose source is as follows:

#include

int main()
{
int i;
for(i=1;i<=300;i++)
{
printf(”%d”,fork());
}
return(1);
}

- Open the Linux Shell.
- Write the above program in your vi Editor and save it as reboot.c
- Now compile the program using following command:
gcc -o reboot reboot.c
- Now to execute the program type the following
./reboot
and press Enter.

Explanation: In the above program, I have used a loop of 300 iterations. In the first iteration it will execute the fork command which will create a child process which is the exact copy of the parent process i.e. the child process will have the same code as the parent process and it will execute simultaneously with the parent process. So in the next iteration both parent process and the child process will execute fork command which will in turn create child processes with the exact copy of their parent processes and this process of creation of child processes will be in the power of 2 i.e. after the first iteration the total number of processes will be 1 parent and 1 child = 2 process. After 2nd iteration the number of process will be 1 parent and 3 child = 4 process. And this will continue to double and at the end the total number of processes will be 2³⁰⁰ which is quite a big number. If you try to calculate this value in your calc it will take atleast 1 hour. So when you will execute the above program your linux machine will get overloaded and will be forced to reboot.

I executed this program in college’s Computer Lab and all the computer got hanged and after 1 or 2 mins a Global message was displayed that “Linux server is going to Reboot”. Since nobody knew what had happened I could get away from that situation. Hope that my lab faculty don’t read this Article.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Ubuntu

2009-04-27T01:57:00.000-07:00

For those who are not familiar with Linux, Ubuntu is one of the most popular and most widely used Linux distributions.

Over the years that I have used Ubuntu, other than the usual Ctrl + C (copy) and Ctrl + V (paste) shortcuts, I have discovered quite a number of keyboard shortcuts that are very useful, but seldom used by many. If you are looking for more keyboard shortcuts to add to your collection, I am sure you will be able to find some new tricks here.

1. Switch to the next/previous workspace

If you make use of the workspace very frequently, you can easily switch between different workspaces by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Left/Right Arrow. The Left key brings you to the previous workspace while the Right key brings you to the next adjacent. If you have enabled Compiz, you can even get it to show all the workspace by pressing Super + E on the keyboard.

2. Move the current window to another workspace

By pressing Shift+ Ctrl + Alt + Left/Right Arrow, you can easily move your current window to another workspace in the specified direction. This keyboard shortcut works very well with the one mentioned above. If you have the habit of opening many applications/windows when doing your work, but don’t like to see your desktop and menubar cluttered with all the application windows, you can use this shortcut key to move your applications to another workspace and get your desktop organized.

3. Show the desktop

Ctrl + Alt + D enables you to quickly minimize all windows and give focus to the desktop. When all windows are minimized, this shortcut can also maximize all the windows to their previous state.

4. Keyboard shortcut for the mouse right-click

In most applications, you can always right-click on the mouse to access the options menu. On the keyboard, you can simply press Shift + F10 to achieve this ‘right-click‘ effect

5. Restart session and recover from crashes

There are very few instances where Ubuntu will crash totally. But if it does, you can press Ctrl + Alt + Backspace to restart the session, and 90% of the time, it will recover from the crashes.

6. Lock the screen quickly

If you need to leave your workstation for a while, you can quickly lock up your screen by pressing Ctrl + Alt + L and prevent unauthorized access by others.

7. Switch between windows in the reverse direction

Alt + Tab is a common shortcut key that allow you to switch between open windows. But do you know that by including the ‘Shift‘ button, you can reverse the windows switching direction? This is useful when you press Alt + Tab too fast and passed the window that you want to switch to. Simply press down the ‘Shift‘ button to go back to the previous window in the switch cycle.

8. Move windows with arrow keys

Press Alt+F7 to activate the Move window function and use any arrows key (up, down, left, right) to move the window around the screen.

9. Show hidden files

Most of the time, you won’t need to view the hidden files in your home folder, but in the event that you need to, you can press Ctrl + H inside the Nautilus (the file manager for Ubuntu) to show all hidden files.

10. Show file properties without right-clicking the mouse

The conventional way to view a file/folder properties is to right-click the mouse and select ‘Properties‘. Now you can just press Alt + Enter to get the Properties window to appear.

5 Myths about Internet Safety

2009-04-27T01:54:00.000-07:00

“Internet Safety” the term has been getting vague with the increasing virus outbreaks nowdays. PC Magazine once conducted a survey in which they asked the participants to rate their broadband ISP services and the results were astonishing. Most of users didn’t completelty understand the seriousness of potential threats or how to protect their PCs. Here are the top 5 Myths about safe surfing over internet.

Myth 1 - I don’t keep important things on my PC, so I don’t have to worry about security. Your PC can be infected over internet

Long time ago,this was partially true… but the hybrid worms and viruses of today like Blaster, hidrag and others blindly spread across internet to thousands or millions of PCs in a matter of hours, without regard for who owns them, what is stored there, or the value of the information they hold for the sole purpose of wreaking havoc. Even if your computer is not attacked directly, it can be used as a zombie to launch a denial-of-service or other attack on a network or to send spam or pornography to other PCs without being traced. Therefore, your civic responsibility is to protect your PC so that others are protected.

Myth 2 - I can protect my PC if I disconnect from the Internet or turn it off when I’m not using it.

Wrong. You are a target,If you connect to the Internet at all. You could download a virus when you connect to internet and it may not be activated immediately, not until you read your email offline days after. Viruses nowadays spread wildly through USB/Pen drives, pirated cd’s or torrents or file from networks.

Myth 3 - I can protect myself from viruses by not opening suspicious e-mail attachments. Some viruses simply get activated by reading or previewing an e-mail

Wrong again. The next virus you get may come from your best friend’s or boss’ computer if his e-mail address book was compromised for simulating an attack. Hybrid worms can enter through the Web browser through loopholes and it is possible to activate some viruses simply by reading or previewing an e-mail. You simply must have a PC-based antivirus package or a firewall.

Myth 4 - I have a Macintosh (or a Linux-based system), not a Windows system, so I don’t have to worry about being attacked.

It is true that most attacks target Microsoft Windows–based PCs, but there have been attacks against Mac OS and Linux systems as well. Some experts have predicted that the Mac virus problem will get worse, because Mac OS X uses a version of Unix. And although these systems have some useful securityfeatures, they can still be attacked.

Myth 5 - My system came with an Anti-virus package, so I’m protected.

Not quite. Firstly, if you haven’t activated your antivirus to scan incoming web traffic automatically, you don’t have a good Anti-virus and malware protection software. Secondly, new threats appear daily, so an antivirus package is only as good as its last update so its a must to activate the auto-update features to keep your guard up against the latest threats. Thirdly, an antivirus package can’t protect you from every threat. Malwares, spywares are running in the wild out there and every now and then malicious code penetrate weak systems. You need a combination of solutions, including, at minimum, antivirus, a personal firewall ,an anti spyware/malware package and a plan for keeping your operating system and software up to date with security patches.

Remove RavMon.exe virus without any anti-virus(Do it your self)

2009-04-27T01:49:00.000-07:00

Removing Ravmon Virus without Anti-Virus is easy, btw I haven’t met any Anti Virus which can remove this virus. They can stop your pc from being infected but once you are infected they wont be able to remove it.
I don’t know the Actual Name of this virus nor its effects

Anyways its very easy to remove it.

You will have to follow just few simple steps.

check if your Infected.
Stop currently running virus.
Delete virus files.
Remove virus to run from startup.

So here are the following steps explained:

Remember until you delete the virus files please open drives using address bar by typing C:\ D:\ X:\ as the virus is activated if you double click the drive
1. Right click any drive on your computer and see if right click menu shows some invalild characters
like this

If yes then you are infected.

2. Press Alt+Ctrl+Del to bring up the task manager (or right click taskbar to run it) there will be a program in processes named “SVCHOST.EXE” there will be few svchost in small case but check one in capital letters, if you see more than one “SVCHOST.EXE” (all caps one) end the one with your username infront of it instead of LOCAL SERVICE, NETWORK SERVICE or SYSTEM(by pressing end process).
3. To delete the virus files you need to show system protected files.
For this goto
My Computer->(Menu) Tools-> Folder Options -> (Tab) View -> uncheck “Hide System protected files” -> press OK
If you are unable to unhide the system files you can use 3rd party software to browse drive and delete files, try ACDsee or WinRAR
Now open drive (by typing drive letter in address bar)
Delete these 2 files

Autorun.inf
Ravmon.exe

Also delete those in all drives (not CD(WR) or DVD(WR) drives) (and remember don’t double click else you will have to start over from top) Open Windows folder and delete SVCHOST.EXE, SVCHOST.dll and MDM.EXE
Now restart the explorer.exe process by killing it in taskmanager and runing it again [(winkey + R), type “explorer” and hit enter]

Now right click the drive letter and ull see a clean menu congrats virus is removed 4. Now remove it from startup (Optional as files are deleted)
Winkey + R type “msconfig” hit enter

Goto startup tab-> (uncheck) MDM -> OK -> Exit without Restart
How to prevent from this virus in feature
just right click any USB drive (that includes iPod) you have plugged into your PC
if they have currpoted menu the drive is Infected.
Access drive by typing Drive letter and Delete files from that drive
Remember you double click the curropted drive you get infected else you are safe.
The End

3 Reasons Everyone Should Clean Their Windows Registry

2009-04-27T01:44:00.000-07:00

Windows Vista Registry

Just like older Windows operating systems, the registry is an important component of the Windows Vista operating system. It is the central database in which your Vista operating system stores configuration information related to installed hardware and software. The registry also stores preferences of various users configured on your PC and the system setup information. Because the registry controls almost all functions that occur on your PC, the chances of registry errors are quite high.

Furthermore, because your operating system, hardware, and applications are dependent on the registry to carry out various activities, registry errors have a direct affect on the performance of your system and the way applications work on it. The top three problems caused by an unhealthy registry are discussed here.

Frequent System Errors

Overtime, a large number of unwanted data accumulates in the registry causing it to grow uncontrollably, making it cluttered and fragmented. A corrupted registry is unstable and generates frequent system errors, application errors, and causes system freezes and crashes.

To prevent these errors and system crashes, you need to regularly scan the registry for errors and get rid of all unwanted information stored in it. Doing this will help you maintain a compact and healthy registry and also prevent system errors.

Deteriorated System Performance

If you monitor the activity of your Windows Vista registry, you will see hundreds of entries being accessed, removed, and added to it within a short amount of time. Due to this constant addition and removal of information, registry files tend to get fragmented. Many times, when a key is removed, it leaves behind a place holder in the registry, which is actually an empty registry key and is of no use. These registry holes also unnecessarily contribute toward increasing registry size and making it unstable.

A fragmented and unstable registry deteriorates the performance of your Vista computer. Therefore, to speed up your PC, you need to regularly clean and defrag the Windows registry to maintain its contiguity and prevent it from growing too large.

Accumulation of Malicious Registry Keys

You know that all programs on your Vista PC have to access the registry to perform various operations. Well, the same goes with malware programs such as viruses, Trojans, spyware and adware too. If your PC is infected by any kind of malware, your registry is likely to be filled up with many malicious registry keys added by these programs. Although you may get rid of malware using antivirus and antispyware tools, a few registry keys may get left behind.

You can easily get rid of these left-behind malicious registry keys when you perform registry cleanup.

How Registry Cleaners Can Help

A large number of registry cleaner tools are available in the market today that you can use to perform registry fix and cleanup. Using a reliable registry cleaner tool you can:

* Scan and remove all unwanted information from the registry and ensure yourself an error-free PC.
* Defrag the registry to make the registry files contiguous and the registry compact, thereby reducing the data access time and boosting the performance of your PC.
* Perform a deep scan of the registry and weed out hidden malware registry keys.
* Make registry backups that you can use to restore the registry in case it fails.

To ensure that your PC is free from system errors and malware and is at its best performance, you should regularly clean your registry. The simplest and the most efficient method to do this is by using a registry cleaner utility.

Set Default Search Options

2009-04-27T01:43:00.002-07:00

This tweak will modify the standard search parameters so they do not have to be reset for each individual search.

[Start] [Run] [Regedit]

Registry Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\ Explorer

[Any or all of the five Value Names below may be modified to customize search options]

Modify/Create the Value Name [CaseSensitive] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: CaseSensitive
Value Data: [0 - Unselected / 1 - Selected as Default]

Modify/Create the Value Name [IncludeSubFolders] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: IncludeSubFolders
Value Data: [0 - Unselected / 1 - Selected as Default]

Modify/Create the Value Name [SearchHidden] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: SearchHidden
Value Data: [0 - Unselected / 1 - Selected as Default]

Modify/Create the Value Name [SearchSlowFiles] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: SearchSlowFiles
Value Data: [0 - Unselected / 1 - Selected as Default]

Modify/Create the Value Name [SearchSystemDirs] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: SearchSystemDirs
Value Data: [0 - Unselected / 1 - Selected as Default]

Exit Registry and Reboot

Enable/Disable Logon Screen Saver

2009-04-27T01:43:00.001-07:00

Note: This applies only to the default Login [login.scr] screensaver and is not the same as screensaver selections made in the [Display Properties] property sheet accessed by right clicking on the desktop and selecting [Properties] from the context menu.

[Start] [Run] [Regedit]

Registry Key: HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
Data Type: REG_SZ [String Value] // Value Name: ScreenSaveActive

Modify/Create the Value Name [ScreenSaveActive] according to the Value Data listed below.

Value Data: [0 = ScreenSaveActive Disabled / 1 = ScreenSaveActive Enabled]

Exit Registry and Reboot

Disable Run Commands

2009-04-27T01:42:00.000-07:00

This tweak controls the use of the Run command on the local machine।

[Start] [Run] [Regedit]

Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\ Policies\Explorer
Create a DWORD value for each Run function that will be disabled.

Modify/Create the Value Name [DisableLocalMachineRun] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: DisableLocalMachineRun

Modify/Create the Value Name [DisableLocalMachineRunOnce] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: DisableLocalMachineRunOnce

Modify/Create the Value Name [DisableCurrentUserRun] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: DisableCurrentUserRun

Modify/Create the Value Name [DisableCurrentUserRunOnce] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: DisableCurrentUserRunOnce

Setting for Value Data: [0 = Disabled / 1 = Enabled]

Exit Registry and Reboot

Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer

2009-04-13T23:25:00.000-07:00

If you've ever asked for help with your Windows computer that won't boot anymore, you've probably been told to "Backup all your data and then reinstall"… but if you can't boot, how can you get to your data? That's the question we'll be answering today.

One of the easiest methods to access your data is to simply boot off an Ubuntu Live CD… and it's completely free (except for the cost of a blank cd).

Burn an Ubuntu Live CD

If you have another computer, you can download and burn the Ubuntu Live CD using a very simple application called ImgBurn. Otherwise, you can bug one of your friends to help you burn a copy.

Just open up ImgBurn, and click the icon to "Write image file to disc"

Then click on the icon next to "Source", pick the downloaded ISO file, stick a recordable CD into the drive, and click burn.

Now that you have the boot cd (which you should keep in a safe place, as it's very useful), just stick it in the drive of the computer and boot from it. You should see an option to "Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer".

Once the system has started up, the first thing you want to do is choose Places \ Computer from the menu.

This should show you all the drives available in the system, including your Windows drive. In my case, that is the 52.4 GB volume.

You can try and double-click on the drive to open it… and if it immediately works then lucky you! Most of the time it's going to give you an error saying "Unable to mount the volume", because Windows didn't shut it down cleanly.

Click the Details link so that you can see the full message, and leave this window open. You'll see a "Choice 2″ in the message, which includes the commands to force Ubuntu to use that drive even though there's something wrong.

What you'll want to do is open a new Terminal from Applications \ Accessories \ Terminal on the top menu. Once you've done that, then you'll want to type in a bunch of commands, which I'll walk you through.

First, we'll want to switch to "administrator" mode, which in Linux terms is known as "root". The simplest way to do it is with this command:

sudo /bin/bash

Now we'll need to create a directory that we'll mount the drive on. The full explanation of mounting drives is a little complex, so just run this command:

mkdir /media/disk

Now comes the tricky part. You'll need to type out a command very similar to this one, but you'll need to replace /dev/sda1 with what you see in that message box we showed you above. This command tells Ubuntu to use the ntfs-3g driver, and force mount even if there is a problem.

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /media/disk -o force

If your drive is FAT32 instead of NTFS, then you can use the following command instead:

mount -t vfat -o umask=000 /dev/sda1 /media/disk

If you are having problems figuring out whether you have NTFS or FAT32, and you can't figure out which /dev/whatever to use, then type in the following command at your prompt (make sure you already ran the command to run things as root)

fdisk -l

In the output you should see a lot more information about the available drives… you can see in this example that the filesystem type is NTFS and the device name is /dev/sda1.

At this point, you should be able to access your hard drive through the icon in Computer.

Note: If you have more than one drive in the computer, or more than one partition, they should show up separately in Computer. You should perform the same steps as above to open those drives up as well.

Backing Up to External USB

The absolute simplest thing to do at this point is to plug in an external USB drive, which should place an icon on the Ubuntu desktop, and most likely immediately pop up a nautilus window showing the contents of the drive.

Note: I plugged in a USB Flash drive for illustration… it would be better to plug in a full external USB drive so you'll have more space for backups.

What Should I Backup?

If you aren't extremely technical, you might be wondering what on earth you should be backing up… and that's a very good question.

1) Best Method

If you have loads of empty space on your external drive or network share, you should simply backup the entire contents of the drive, and sort through it later. It'll take a little longer, but at least that way you can be sure everything has been backed up.

2) Still Good

You should try and backup your entire user folder… on XP you'll go to "Documents and Settings", and on Vista you'll go to "Users", and you should see your username in the list:

You can simply copy this entire folder to your backup drive, which should contain your music, documents, bookmarks, and most of your important files.

Important Note: This will not backup your application files, and you should look around your drive and see if you've saved anything important somewhere else. This is especially true if you have more than one drive. Again, your best bet is to simply backup everything.

Backing Up to Network Share

If you would rather backup your drive to a network share on another computer, you can use the Places \ Connect to Server item on the menu.

Change the Service type menu to "Windows share"…

And then enter in the details for your network drive, with these being the required fields:
Server: Computer Name
Share: Shared Folder Name
User Name: your username

Once you click the Connect button, you'll be prompted to enter in your password. Typically you can leave Domain set to the default, but if you have a custom workgroup name you should enter that instead. I also chose the "Remember password until you logout" button just so I won't have to enter the password again.

Once you click the Connect button you should have an icon on the desktop for your network share.

Now you can open up the network share, and if everything is setup correctly on the shared folder side of things, you can copy all of your files across the network using the instructions above on which files to choose.

At this point you should have a backup of your data. If you backed up to an external hard drive, you might want to consider also copying those files to another computer just in case, and if you copied across the network you could consider backing that up elsewhere as well.

Now you can proceed with reinstalling or whatever else you'd like to do.

Solve Problem With Internet Navigation

2009-04-13T23:24:00.000-07:00

We have seen a large number of computers coming in with problems navigation on the internet. Also unable to go to Windows update and viurs update sites. Here is a quick fix that also seems to speed navigation up some.

Just for safety create a copy of the file before making changes.

goto

C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\ (Windows XP)
C:\I386 (Windows 2000)
Open the host with notepad.
remove all entries bellow
127.0.0.1 localhost
then save and close

How to hide your drives?

2009-04-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

If u r having any important docs and u r afraid abt it . dont wory windows XP provides (not officialy ) a utility by which u can hide urs one or more drives .

1. Go to Start > run > type "diskpart".
a dos window will appear with following discription: DISKPART>

2. then type "list volume" this will look like it

Volume### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
-------------- ---- ------ --- ----- ---- ------- -----

Volume 0 F DC-ROM
Volume 1 C NTFS Partition 7000MB Healthy
Volume 2 D soft NTFS Partition 8000MB Healthy
Volume 3 E Porn NTFS Partition 8000MB Healthy

3.if u wanna hide drive E then type "select volume 3" then a message will appear in same winwods { Volume 3 is the selected volume}

4.now type " remove letter E" . Now a message will come { Diskpart Removed the Drive letter } , sometime it requires the reboot the computer .

Diskpart will remove the letter .Windows XP is not having capabilty to identify the unkown volume.

Don't afraid ur Data will ramin same .
To Come backe the Drive repeat the process . but in 4th step whish is shown in this post replace " remove" to "assign"
i mean type " assign letter E"

Covering your tracks at shutdown

2009-04-13T23:22:00.000-07:00

Instead of deleting reg files the manual way one can create reg files to do that job without having to get ones hands dirty digging through all those registry entries.

Warning
Deleting reg keys indescriminately can and often leads to an inoperable system. Use with caution

To delete a setting using a .reg file, set its value to a hyphen (-), as in this example:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Test]"BinarySetting"=-
To delete a key, add a hyphen to the start of the key name, as in this example:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Test]

Remember these commands are to be typed in a text file first and then saved as a .reg file.

Check your driver versions with these tips

2009-04-13T23:21:00.002-07:00

How do you know whether a downloaded version is newer than the currently installed driver on your system? A good Readme file should provide this information and is the preferred option. In the absence of documentation, file dates offer some clues, but are not always reliable. A better indicator is to inspect the properties of the driver files themselves. After unzipping the downloaded driver files to a folder on a local or network drive, right-click any file with a .dll or .sys extension and choose Properties. On the Version tab, you should be able to find details about the specific driver version, which you can compare to the driver details shown in Device Manager.

Save Help Topics as Shortcuts

2009-04-13T23:21:00.001-07:00

Because the Internet Explorer engine is at the heart of the Help And Support Center, each topic has its own URL. If you know how to manipulate these URLs, you can save a specific Help topic as an external shortcut. Using that shortcut, you can jump directly to a specific topic without having to go through the Help And Support Center first. Unfortunately, Windows XP does not let you create a shortcut to a Help topic directly. To do so, follow the process outlined below:

Open the topic for which you want to create a shortcut, right-click anywhere on the page (except on a link), and choose Properties.
Select the entire URL from the Address field (be sure to scroll down to select the full address).
Press Ctrl+C to copy it to the Clipboard.
Right-click the desktop (or in a folder where you want to save the shortcut) and choose New, Shortcut.
In the Create Shortcut dialog box, type %systemroot%\pchealth\helpctr\ binaries\helpctr /url followed by a space, and then paste the copied URL.
Click Next, give the shortcut a name, and click Finish.
Shortcuts you create in this fashion work with URLs in two common Help formats:

The Help Center Pluggable protocol (with the prefix hcp://) is less common and is typically used for Help topics that link to external applications and locations, such as Remote Assistance or Windows Newsgroups.
HTML Help protocol (with the prefix ms-its://) is used for access to information in Compiled Help (.chm) files. If you just want quick access and don't mind opening this type of URL in the Windows 2000-style HTML Help viewer, you can use the Hh.exe Help engine. Open the Create Shortcut wizard and type hh followed by a space and the Help topic's URL. The resulting shortcut opens the selected topic in a window that lists only topics from the same Help file.

Create hidden user accounts

2009-04-13T23:19:00.000-07:00

You can prevent an account from appearing on the Welcome screen, thereby creating a "hidden" account. (It's not completely hidden, because the account is visible to administrators in Local Users And Groups and the account's profile in the Documents And Settings folder is visible to all users.) Use Registry Editor to open HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserLis t. Create a new DWORD value, setting its name to the user name of the account you want to hide and leaving its value set to 0.

But be careful with this trick: you won't be able to get to the account with Fast User Switching because the account doesn't appear on the Welcome screen. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete two times at the Welcome screen to display the Log On To Windows dialog box works only when no other users are logged on. Therefore, if you want to use this type of hidden account, you should either disable Fast User Switching or resign yourself to using the account only when no one else is logged on.

Are computers male or female?

2009-04-13T23:04:00.003-07:00

A language instructor was explaining to her class that French nouns, unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine.

Things like 'chalk' or 'pencil,' she described, would have a gender association although in English these words were neutral. Puzzled, one student raised his hand and asked, "What gender is a computer?"

The teacher wasn't certain which it was,and so divided the class into two groups and asked them to decide if a computer should be masculine or feminine. One group was comprised of the women in the class, and the other, of men. Both groups were asked to give four reasons for their recommendation.

The group of women concluded that computers should be referred to in masculine gender because:
1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data but are still clueless.
3. They are supposed to help you solve your problems, but half the time they ARE the problem.
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that, if you had waited a little longer, you could have had a better model.

The men, on the other hand, decided that computers should definitely be referred to in the feminine gender because:
1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
3. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval...
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories.

Things to Never Say to a Woman During an Argument : xD

2009-04-13T23:04:00.002-07:00

* Whoa, time out. Football is on.

* Sorry. I was just picturing you naked.

* Is there any way we can do this via e-mail?

* Don't you have some laundry to do or something?

* You are so cute when you get mad.

* You're just upset because your bottom is beginning to spread.

* Wait a minute - I get it. What time of the month is it?

* You sure you don't want to consult the great Oprah on this one?

* Looks like someone had an extra bowl of b**ch flakes this morning!

* Who are you kidding? We both know that thing ain't loaded

Top 10 Signs You Bought a Bad Computer

2009-04-13T23:03:00.000-07:00

10. Lower corner of screen has the words "Etch-a-sketch" on it.

9. Its celebrity spokesman is Red Green.

8. You need jumper cables and a friend's car to start it.

7. Its slogan is "Pentium: Redefining Mathematics".

6. The Quick Reference Guide is written on a napkin.

5. Whenever you turn it on, all the dogs in your neighborhood start howling.

4. The screen frequently displays the message, "Is it time for a break yet?"

3. Tech support advises you to have a fire extinguisher ready before you power up.

2. The only chips inside are Doritos.

1. There is no manual, only a hand written note saying "Good Luck".

no wonder english is hard to learn

2009-04-13T22:49:00.001-07:00

1. We polish the Polish furniture.
2. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
3. A farm can produce produce.
4. The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
5. The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
6. The present is a good time to present the present.
7. At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
8. The dove dove into the bushes.
9. I did not object to the object.
10. The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
11. The bandage was wound around the wound.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15. They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
19. I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
22. I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt

Math Lesson

2009-04-13T22:49:00.000-07:00

A husband worte the following letter for his wife and left it on the dining room table:

"To My Dear Wife,
You will surely understand that I have certain needs that you, being 54 years old, can no longer satisfy. I am very happy with you and I value you as a good wife. Therefore, after reading this letter, I hope you will not wrongly interpret the fact that I will be spending the evening with my 18-year-old secretary at the Comfort Inn Hotel. Please don't be upset. I shall be back home before midnight"

When the man came home late that night he found the following letter on the dining room table:

"To My Dear Husband,
I received your letter and thank you for you honesty about my being 54 years old. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that you are also 54 years old. As you know, I am a mathematics professor at our local college. I would like to inform you that while you read this, I will be at the Ritz Carlton with Michael, one of my students, who is also the assistant tennis coach. He is young, virile, and like your secretary is 18 years old. As a succesful businessman with an excellent knowledge of math, you will understand that we are in the same situation, although with one small difference; 18 goes into 54 a lot more times than 54 goes into 18. Therefore I will not be home until sometime tomorrow."

Do you know WHO I am?

2009-04-13T22:45:00.000-07:00

It was the final examination for an introductory English course at the local university. Like many such freshman courses, it was designed to weed out new students, having over 700 students in the class! The examination was two hours long, and exam booklets were provided. The professor was very strict and told the class that any exam that was not on his desk in exactly two hours would not be accepted and the student would fail. A half hour into the exam, a student came rushing in and asked the professor for an exam booklet.
"You're not going to have time to finish this," the professor stated sarcastically as he handed the student a booklet.

"Yes I will," replied the student. He then took a seat and began writing.

After two hours, the professor called for the exams, and the students filed up and handed them in. All except the late student, who continued writing. A half hour later, the last student came up to the professor who was sitting at his desk preparing for his next class. He attempted to put his exam on the stack of exam booklets already there.

"No you don't, I'm not going to accept that. It's late."

The student looked incredulous and angry. "Do you know WHO I am?"

"No, as a matter of fact I don't," replied the professor with an air of sarcasm in his voice.

"DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" the student asked again.

"No, and I don't care." replied the professor with an air of superiority.

"Good," replied the student, who quickly lifted the stack of completed exams, stuffed his in the middle, and walked out of the room

Specimen Cup

2009-04-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

There was an elderly man who wanted to make his younger wife pregnant. So, he went to the doctor to have a sperm count done. The doctor told him to take a specimen cup home, fill it, and bring it back the next day. The elderly man came back the next day and the specimen cup was empty and the lid was on it. Doctor: What was the problem? Elderly man: Well, you I tried with my right hand...nothing. So, I tried with my left hand...nothing. My wife tried with her right hand...nothing. Her left hand...nothing. Her mouth...nothing. Then my wife's friend tried. Right hand, left hand, mouth....still nothing. Doctor: Wait a minute. You mean your wife's friend too?! Elderly man: Yeah, and we still couldn't get the lid off of the specimen cup.

33 Reasons - Why It Is Good To Be A Man?

2009-04-13T22:43:00.001-07:00

1. Your *arse* is never a factor in a job interview.
2. Your orgasms are real. Always.
3. Your last name stays put.
4. The garage is all yours.
5. Wedding plans take care of themselves.
6. You never feel compelled to stop a friend from getting laid.
7. Car mechanics tell you the truth.
8. You don't give a rat's *arse* if someone notices your new haircut.
9. Hot wax never comes near your pubic area.
10. Same work .. more pay.
11. Wrinkles-add character.
12. You don't have to leave the room to make emergency crotch adjustments.
13. Wedding Dress $2000; Tux rental $100.
14. If you retain water, it's in a canteen.
15. People never glance at your chest when you're talking to them.
16. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
17. One mood, ALL the damn time.
18. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds.
19. A five-day vacation requires only 1 suitcase.
20. You can open all your own jars.
26. You can quietly watch a game with your buddy for hours without ever thinking "He must be mad at me.".
27. No maxi-pads.
28. If another guy shows up at the party in the same outfit, you just might become lifelong friends.
29. You are not expected to know the names of more than five colors.
30. You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
31. You are unable to see wrinkles in clothes.
32. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.
33. Your belly usually hides your big hips.

Hey, Hey ,Hey!

2009-04-13T22:43:00.000-07:00

On December 24th at eleven o' clock p.m., a girl with a bathrobe on and a bikini underneath it comes downstairs to find Santa delivering presents to her and her family. Santa looks at her.

The Girl: "Santa, will you please stay?"

Santa: "Ho, ho, ho. Gotta go, gotta go. Gotta deliver all the presents before it snows."

The girl takes off her bathrobe.

The Girl: "Oh, Santa will you please stay?"

Santa: "Ho, ho, ho. Gotta go, gotta go. Gotta deliver all the presents before it snows."

The girl takes off the top part of the bikini.

The Girl: "Santa, please?"

Santa: "Ho, ho, ho. Gotta go, gotta go. Gotta deliver all the presents before it snows."

The girl takes off the bottom part of the bikini.

The Girl: Oh, Santa, please?"

Santa: Hey, hey, hey. Gotta stay, gotta stay. Can't get up the chimney with this pricker in the way!"

Read Real Slow....

2009-04-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

A Blonde And A Brunette Are Running A Ranch Together In Louisiana. They decide they need a bull to mate with their cows to increase their herd. The brunette takes their life savings of $600 dollars and goes to Texas to buy a bull. She eventually meets with an old cowboy that will sell her a bull. "It's the only one I've got for $599, take it or leave it." She buys the bull and goes to the local telegram office and says, "I'd like to send a telegram to my friend in Louisiana that says: Have found the stud bull for our ranch, bring the trailer."

The man behind the counter tells her, "Telegrams to anywhere in the U.S. are $.75 per word."

She thinks about it for a moment and decides. "I'd like to send one word, please."

"And what word would that be?" inquires the man.

"Comfortable." replies the brunette.

The man asks, "I'm sorry miss, but how is your friend gonna understand this telegram?"

The brunette replies, "My friend is blonde and reads REAL slow..."

Rail-way girl...

2009-04-13T22:38:00.001-07:00

A railway inspector and his friend in a bar chating...
Friend: Why have you got that big smile on your face.
Railway inspector: I just had the best sex of my life!
Friend:with who?
Railway inspector: With this girl I found on the railway tracks.
Friend: Oh yeah! What did she look like?
Railway inspector: She had the most amazing body!
Friend: Oh yeah! But what did she look like?
Railway inspector: She had the most amazing legs!
Friend: But what did she look like?
Railway inspector: She had perfect breasts!
Friend: Yeah but what did she look like!
Railway inspector: Don't know never found the head.

Signs Your Dog Is More Intelligent Than You

2009-04-13T22:38:00.000-07:00

10. Neighbors complain about loud music and howling coming from your apartment in the middle of the day.

9. You find mysterious sculpture of a human (who looks strikingly like you) on a leash in your living room.

8. Ice floating in toilet water.

7. Neighborhood cats bring dog treats to your doorstep.

6. Friends swear they've seen your car at the local meat-processing plant.

5. You can never find the leftovers.

4. The remote is covered with slobber, and the TV was left on The Nature Channel.

3. The dog doesn't lick itself anymore... now it's the cat's job.

2. Mensa mailings addressed to "Rover."

1. Your apartment keys no longer work.

What's what??

2009-04-13T22:37:00.001-07:00

A taxi driver was driving along when a nun stuck her thumb out, so he pulled over. The nun got into the car, and the driver started driving along.
As he was driving along, they got to chatting, and the driver said, "My names Patrick and I'm a Catholic".
Then the nun said, "My name's Sister Mary, and I work in the local nunery".
They carried on talking, and the driver suddenly said, "Forgive me, Sister. But I have always wondered what it's like to kiss a nun".
The nun thought long and hard, and was thinking, well, he is a nice lad. So she said, "Alright then, Patrick".
So he pulled over and they shared a long meaningful kiss.
Then the driver started driving along again, and all of a sudden, he burst out crying. The nun said, "Whatever is the matter??"
He replied, "I lied to you. My name is not Patrick, it's Samuel, and I'm not a Catholic, I'm Jewish".
Then the nun started crying too, and she said, "I have a confession too. My names not Sister Mary and I don't work in the local nunery, my name's Kevin, and I'm on my way to a fancy dress party".

IP AdressinG.....

2009-04-13T13:51:00.000-07:00

Here you will learn about ip address network introduction and general overview of routing, subnet mask, subnetting, data communication. IP address is an identifier for a computer or device on a TCP/IP network and Internet. Networks that use the TCP/IP protocols route traffic based on the IP address of the destination computer or network device. The format of the IP address is 32 bits 4 octets 4 bytes such as 100.100.10.1, 210.100.22.30, 1.10.1.2 these are the examples of the IP address. The format is a 32-bit numeric value written as four numbers and separated by periods.

Each number in the IP address can be between 0 and 255. In your private network, you can assign unique IP address randomly. However, when you want to connect your private network to the Public network such as Internet then you must need a registered IP address to communicate on the internet and to avoid duplicate address. The four numbers in an IP address are used in different ways to identify a particular network. The general internet registries such as APNIC, RIP, NCC and LACNIC assigns internet or IP addresses from the following 3 classes.

1. Class A- IP address from 0-126. It supports 16 million hosts and 126 networks.
2. Class B- IP address from 128-191. It supports 65,000 hosts and 16,000 networks.
3. Class C-IP address from 192-223. It supports 254 hosts and 2 million networks.
The number of unassigned IP address is running out and a new classless scheme called CIDR is replacing the classes based system of the IP address. In this system the A, B and C class is tied to adoption of IPV6.

Every device connected to the Internet must need a unique identifier, which is called an IP address. An IP address is a numeric value separated by periods into four octets. These numbers are usually assigned to the ISPs (internet service providers) within region-based blocks. An IP address can be used to identify a region or a country. An internet user’s geographical location can be determined with the help of an IP address. The number system is generally difficult to remember so the IP address may also assign to a Host name.

The host names are usually easy to remember. In simple words, every website on the internet must bound or mapped with an IP address. At one time ISPs usually issue one IP address to each user. Within each ISP a DHCP (Dynamic host configuration protocol) server is configured, which dynamically assigns IP addresses from a given pool to each user who connects to the ISP. Dynamic IP addresses also limit the ability of a user to host websites, mail servers, ftp server, mail server and web portals.

Understanding IP Addresses Scheme

An IP address is an address that is used to uniquely identify a device or computer on an IP-based network. An IP address is an address used to uniquely identify a device on an IP network. An IP address can be divided into two parts network portion and a host portion. Each IP address is associated with a subnet mask. The 32 bit address is broken into 4 octets and 1 octet=8 bits. Each octet is converted to a decimal and is separated by periods.

For example 0000000000.11111111.00000000.11111111 this is a binary representation of an IP address. Each octet’s decimal value ranges between 0 and 255. The binary octets convert into decimal value. Here you can see that how a binary octet converts into decimal value. The right most bit or least significant bit of an octet will hold a value of 20.
The bit left to that bit will hold a value of 21. This process continues until the left most bit or the most significant bit holds the value of 27. If all the binary bits are one the decimal representation will be like this.

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 (128+64+32+16+8+4+2+1=255)

Now here is a sample conversion of the octet if not all the bits are set of 1.

0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1
0 0 32 0 0 0 0 1 (0+64+0+0+0+0+0+1=33)
In the following example you can see the IP address representation both in binary and decimal values.

64. 2. 135. 19 (decimal)64+2+135+19=220
01001010.00000010.1000111.00010011 (binary)

The octets are broken down to provide a large number of the addressing scheme that can accommodate small and very large networks. There are five different classes of the IP networks. Class A, B, C, D and E. The classes from A to C and mainly in use, D and E are experimental and reserved so they are not commonly in use. Due to the classless inter domain routing (CIDR) these addresses are not practically in use.

Network/Subnet Masks

A network mask helps you which portion of the address identifies the network portion and the host portion of an IP address. The three different classes of the IP addresses have their own default masks as shown below.
Class Subnet Mask

Class A: 255.0.0.0
Class B: 255.255.0.0
Class C: 255.255.255.0

An IP address on a class A network that has not been subnetted would have an address and subnet mask pair such as 10.111.20.1 255.0.0.0. If you want to know in more detail that how a mask help you identify the network and host part of the address simply convert the IP address and subnet mask into the binary numbers.

4.16.15.1= 00000100. 00010000.00001111.00000001
255.0.0.0 = 11111111. 00000000.00000000.00000000
If you have the address and the subnet mask in the binary forms then identifying the network portion and the host portion is very easy. Any address value that has the corresponding subnet mask binary value set to 1 show the network ID. Any address bit that has corresponding subnet mask value to 0 represents the host ID.

4.16.15.1= 00000100.00010000.00001111.00000001
255.0.0.0 = 11111111.00000000.00000000.00000000

Network id | host id
If you know your IP address of a computer, you can access the services such as online games, FTP, Web and Mail servers, and remote access utilities such as Remotely Anywhere, PCToGo, PCAnywhere, Remote control etc.

How do I change my IP address?

There are a number of methods by which you can change the IP address of your computer.

What is a Proxy Server?

A proxy server is a computer that offers network and internet access services to the client computers in a network. A client computer connects to the proxy server, requests a connection, services, files and other resources on the other servers. In some cases, the proxy may alter the client’s request and the server’s response for various reasons. By using the proxy server you can hide, conceal and make your network id anonymous by hiding your IP address. To get the anonymous status on the network or Internet, strong intermediate methods are employed like cryptography etc. Examples are remailers, P2P systems etc.

There is a large number of the software available that allows you to hide your IP address with the help of the proxy servers. The well known software for this purpose is Hide IP, Stealth surf, Netconceal, Anonymous surfing, Proxify and Ghost surf.

An IP address is a unique identification number for communication between computer networks, network devices such as computers, fax machines, printers and servers. It is like the number of an apartment or a phone number. IP addresses are of two types Static and Dynamic. Internet service providers’ use dynamic IP addresses and servers usually use static IP address.
The class A of the IP address constitutes almost 50% of all the IP addresses. This class is meant for large networks like the big multinational companies. Class B networks are medium sized like used in the colleges, Universities and other educational and training institutes. Class C IP addresses are usually used for the small companies.

The Regional Internet Registry (RIP) provides the IP addresses based on the geographical distribution. RIP also offers protection against the hackers that try to access the confidential data. All the personal information recorded by the ISP is kept in confidentiality.

What is Subnetting?

2009-04-13T13:50:00.001-07:00

Two network segments are restricted by distance limitations. Submetting or dividing the network into the segments is also required when localized network management is required for example accounting, sales, customer service departments. There is another reason for the subnetting, which is that the computers on the network, which use more bandwidth, needs to be separated from the rest of the computers. There are certain advantages and disadvantages of the subnetting. Before you start dividing your network into the different segments, you should assign the IP address to each computer in your network segment.

Subnetting makes the network management easier and it is also very helpful for the troubleshooting of a network segment. The internet is a collection of networks where users communication with each other. Each communication on the internet carries the source and the destination address of the computer. This address is called IP address. This 32 bit address has two parts: one part represents the network portion and the other part represents the host portion of the IP address. A company can use some of the bits in the machine or host portion of the address to identify a subnet. In this scenario, the IP address contains three parts: the network address, the subnet address and the machine address.

Subnet Mask Basics

The most recognizable part aspect of subnetting is the Subnet mask. A subnet mask contains 4 bytes, 32 bits and is divided into 4 period separated octets. Typically, a very common subnet mask in binary looks like this.

11111111 11111111 00000000 00000000
255 255 0 0

How to Apply a Subnet Mask

A subnet mask does not work like an IP address and it cannot exist separately without an IP address. An IP address and subnet mask work together to form a network. An IP address splits into two main parts when applying the subnet mask. The leftmost bits of a subnet mask must be set to 1. For example

11111111.00000000.00000000.00000000
11111111.11111111.00000000.00000000
11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000

The above example shows the valid representation of a subnet mask into the binary numbers.

00000000.00000000.00000000.00000000 is an invalid subnet mask.
11111111.11111111.11111111.11111111 is also invalid subnet mask.

All valid subnet masks contain two parts: the left side with all mask bits set to '1' (the extended network portion) and the right side with all bits set to '0' (the host portion), such as the first example above.

Subnetting an IP network can be performed for a variety of reasons such as using the different physical media in an organization, such as FDDI, WAN and Ethernet, preservation of the addresses and for the purpose of security, management and ease of troubleshooting. The most

common reason of the subnetting is to control the network traffic. In an Ethernet network, all computers in a segment see all the packets that are transmitted by all the other computers on the same segment.

In this situation, the network performance can be badly affected due to the heavy traffic loads, collisions and the retransmission of the packets. A router is used to connect the IP networks and it also helps to minimize the load of the traffic.

Subnet Masking

By applying the subnet mask to the IP address you can identify the network and host portion of the IP address. The decimal number 1 represents the network portion in the subnet mask and the node is represented the 0s. Performing a logical AND operation between the IP address and the subnet mask resulting in the network address.
For example, using our test IP address and the default Class B subnet mask, we get:
10001100.10110011.11110000.11001000 140.179.240.200 IP address of the class B
11111111.11111111.00000000.00000000 255.255.000.000 Default subnet mask of class B
--------------------------------------------------------
10001100.10110011.00000000.00000000 140.179.000.000 Network Address value

The following example shows the default subnet masks.
• Class A Subnet Mask- 255.0.0.0 - 11111111.00000000.00000000.00000000
• Class B Subnet Mask- 255.255.0.0 - 11111111.11111111.00000000.00000000
• Class C Subnet Mask- 255.255.255.0 - 11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000

Subnetting Review

Subnetting allows network and system administrators some flexibility in defining relationship among the hosts of a network. Hosts on the logically and physically different subnets can talk to each other through specialized devices called gateway or router. The ability to filter the traffic between

subnets can make the more bandwidth availability. Subnetting referred to as subdivision of a class based networks into subnetworks.

A router can exchange subnet routes with the other routers in the network. A subnetted network can’t be split into the isolated portion. All the subnets must be contiguous because the routing information cannot be passed to a non-network member. Router can exchange subnet routes with other routers within the network. Since the subnet masks are identical across the network, the routers will interpret these routes in the same manner. However, routers not attached to the subnetted network can't interpret these subnet routes, since they lack the subnet mask.

Therefore, subnet routes are not relayed to routers on other networks. This leads to our second

restriction. Subnetting allows you to create multiple logically different networks within the same class A, B or C. If you break a major network into smaller networks, it allows you to create a network of interconnecting subnetworks. Any device or gateway that is responsible for connecting the different subnetworks must have the distinct IP address one for each subnetwork.

To subnet a network use and extend the natural subnet mask using some of the bits from the host ID portion to create a subnetwork ID. In this example, given a Class C network of the IP address 4.15.5.0 which has a natural subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, you can create subnets in this manner:

11001100.00001111.00000101.00000000 204.15.5.0
11111111.11111111.11111111.11100000 255.255.255.224

---------------------------------|subnet|----

By extending the natural subnet mask to be 255.255.255.224, you have used three bits from the host portion of the mask and used them to make subnets. By using these 3 bits, it is possible to create 8 subnets. The remaining five ID bits of the host portion, each subnet can make 32 host addresses and the 30 addresses out of 32 are assigned to the devices or computers. The host IDs

of all zeros and all ones are not allowed.

204.15.5.0 255.255.255.224 host address range 1 to 30
204.15.5.32 255.255.255.224 host address range 33 to 62
204.15.5.64 255.255.255.224 host address range 65 to 94
204.15.5.96 255.255.255.224 host address range 97 to 126
204.15.5.128 255.255.255.224 host address range 129 to 158
204.15.5.160 255.255.255.224 host address range 161 to 190
204.15.5.192 255.255.255.224 host address range 193 to 222
204.15.5.224 255.255.255.224 host address range 225 to 254.

Ftp Error Codes What They Mean

2009-04-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

FTP Error Messages
some nice info about ftp error codes so you know what they mean. i am sure you see them all the time and sometimes you dont know what they mean, so take a look here.

The most common codes:
421 - often means: too many users logged to the same account.

530 - wrong loginass, some servers auto-switch to 530 from
421 when they reach the max # of users. so notice the
error message attached to the code.

550 - common in Ratio site, If the file exsist it means you have no
access to the file or dir.
if you try changing dirs in an FTP and you`re getting a 550
message, it means you don`t have access to the dir, but,
It doesn`t mean you don`t have access to a dir
inside that dir. (meaning when getting a direct path, log into
the path directly, not 1 dir by 1).

All others:

110 Restart marker reply. In this case, the text is exact and not left to the particular implementation; it must read: MARK yyyy = mmmm Where yyyy is User-process data stream marker, and mmmm server's equivalent marker (note the spaces between markers and "=").
120 Service ready in nnn minutes.
125 Data connection already open; transfer starting.
150 File status okay; about to open data connection.
200 Command okay.
202 Command not implemented, superfluous at this site.
211 System status, or system help reply.
212 Directory status.
213 File status.
214 Help message. On how to use the server or the meaning of a particular non-standard command. This reply is useful only to the human user.
215 NAME system type. Where NAME is an official system name from the list in the Assigned Numbers document.
220 Service ready for new user.
221 Service closing control connection. Logged out if appropriate.
225 Data connection open; no transfer in progress.
226 Closing data connection. Requested file action successful (for example, file transfer or file abort).
227 Entering Passive Mode (h1,h2,h3,h4,p1,p2).
230 User logged in, proceed.
250 Requested file action okay, completed.
257 "PATHNAME" created.
331 User name okay, need password.
332 Need account for login.
350 Requested file action pending further information.
421 Too many users logged to the same account
425 Can't open data connection.
426 Connection closed; transfer aborted.
450 Requested file action not taken. File unavailable (e.g., file busy).
451 Requested action aborted: local error in processing.
452 Requested action not taken. Insufficient storage space in system.
500 Syntax error, command unrecognized. This may include errors such as command line too long.
501 Syntax error in parameters or arguments.
502 Command not implemented.
503 Bad sequence of commands.
504 Command not implemented for that parameter.
530 Not logged in.
532 Need account for storing files.
550 Requested action not taken. File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access).
551 Requested action aborted: page type unknown.
552 Requested file action aborted. Exceeded storage allocation (for current directory or dataset).
553 Requested action not taken. File name not allowed.

Important Things to know about Vulnerability Assessment

2009-04-13T13:49:00.001-07:00

This article intends to cover following topics about Vulnerability Assessment / Vulnerability analysis in brief.

1. Meaning of vulnerable

2. What is Vulnerability?

3. What is Vulnerability Assessment?

4. Who can exploit Vulnerabilities?

5. Use of Vulnerability Assessment

6. How Vulnerability Assessment is different from Threat analysis?

1. Meaning of vulnerable

Vulnerable means weak and liable to be attacked.

2. What is Vulnerability?

Vulnerability in relation to Information System / Networking is a problematic condition because of which the system can be attacked, exploited and /or compromised. These problematic condition could be:

1. Software /Programming bug
2. Backdoors
3. Unnecessary Open ports
4. Hardware Bugs
5. Improper configuration
6. Improper parameters
7. Improper patch/update management etc.

3. What is Vulnerability Assessment?

Vulnerability Assessment or Vulnerability Analysis is the process of identification, Classification, mapping and rating of vulnerabilities of Information System / Networking System.

4. Who can exploit Vulnerabilities?

Vulnerability can be exploited by Crackers, Some kind of hackers, script kiddies for malicious intent. Some times it is exploited by Penetration Tester/ IS Auditors / Good hackers for the benefit of the general public/group and strengthening / hardening the system.

5. Use of Vulnerability Assessment

Vulnerability Assessment is used for:

1. Risk Rating and Risk Analysis
2. potential Threat Measurement
3. Protect Information assets and their integrity.
4. Prevention and correction tool for Information System

6. How Vulnerability Assessment is different from Threat analysis?

One common question asked is whether Vulnerability Assessment or Vulnerability Analysis is same as Threat Analysis. Answer is "no". No because Threat analysis is generally done after Vulnerability Assessment. Threat analysis is evaluation/examination of threats against detected /known vulnerabilities.

About IP

2009-04-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

Before you can change your IP you need some information. This information includes your IP range, subnet mask, default gateway, dhcp server, and dns servers.

1. Getting your IP range - Getting information about your IP range is not difficult, I recommend using Neo Trace on your own IP. But for my test just look at your IP address, say it's 24.193.110.13 you can definitely use the IP's found between 24.193.110.1 < [new IP] < style="font-weight: bold;">Subnet Mask, Default Gateway, DHCP Server - These are very easy to find, just open a dos/command prompt window and type 'ipconfig /all' without the ' '. You should see something like this:
Windows IP Configuration:

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : My Computer Name Here
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .: Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . . . . . . .: xxxx.xx.x
Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : NETGEAR FA310TX Fast Ethernet Adapter (NGRPCI)
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . . . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 24.xxx.xxx.xx
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .: 255.255.240.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 24.xxx.xxx.x
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .: 24.xx.xxx.xx
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 24.xx.xxx.xxx
24.xx.xxx.xx
24.xx.xxx.xxx
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .:Monday, January 20, 2003 4:44:08 PM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .:Tuesday, January 21, 2003 3:43:16 AM

This is all the information you will need for now, I suggest you either keep your dos/command prompt window open or copy & paste the information somewhere, to copy right click the window and select text and click once.

III. Changing your IP Address

To change your IP address first pick any IP you like out of your IP range and remember it or write it down. It is usualy a good idea to make sure the IP is dead (except for what we are going to do later on) so just ping it via "ping x.x.x.x" and if it times out then you can use it. Now go to My Computer, then Control Panel. In Control Panel select Network Connections and pick your active connection, probably Local Area Connection or your ISP name. Open that connection by double clicking on the icon in Network Connections, then select Properties under the General Tab. In the new window that pops up select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click properties, it's under the general tab. In this new window select the General tab and choose "Use the following IP address" and for the IP address enter the IP you would like to use (the one you picked from your subnet earlier) and for the Subnet Mask enter the subnet mask you got when your ran ipconfig /all, same goes for the Default Gateway. Now select "Use the following DNS server addresses" and enter the information you got earlier. Now just click OK. Test that it worked, try to refresh a website and if it works you know everything is okay and you are connected. To make sure the change worked type ipconfig again and the IP address should have changed to your new one.

IV. DDoS & DoS Protection

If your firewall shows that you are being DDoSed, this is usually when you are constantly getting attempted UDP connections several times a second from either the same IP address or multiple IP addresses (DDoS), you can protect your self by changing your IP address via the method I described above.

V. Web servers & Other Services

If you know someone on your IP range is running a web server and he or she has pissed you off or you just like messing around you can "steal" their IP address so any DNS going to that IP will show your site instead because you would be running a web server yourself.

To "steal" an IP is to basically use the changing IP address method above and picking an IP that someone that is running a web server has in use. Often you will be able to keep that IP at least for some time, other times you wont be able to use it so just keep trying until it works. You your self will need to have a web server on the same port with your message. You can do this with other services too. You can also DoS or DDoS the IP address you are trying to steal to kick him off the net, but I don't recommend as its pretty illegal, an your ISP will get pissed

Find And Download Old Version Of Software Quickly

2009-04-13T13:48:00.001-07:00

Did you upgrade your software and found that a feature is missing or you are having compatibility problem? Don’t fret yet, you can download the old version of the software from the company’s website. But sometimes they don’t link to old version of the software, in such cases you can try out OldVersion, it is a website dedicated to multiple versions of all software that are old.

Sometimes Old Is Gold.

It contains categories such as Communication, Graphics, Multimedia, Internet, File Sharing, Utilities, Security, Enterprise, and FTP. There is a build-in forum where you can request some old software or just talk about general topics.

According to them,

Sometimes upgrading to a newer version can be a good thing. Other times, your computer may not be compatible with the new version, the new version is bloated, or all the options you liked are no longer available.

And…

OldVersion.com assists computer users who are unable to continually upgrade their computer. Those who find that their machine is not able to run the latest version of a certain application have no choice but to use an old version of the program. Unfortunately, the vast majority of software companies do not offer this opportunity. We are doing our small part to help bridge the digital divide by allowing everyone to enjoy the same software titles regardless of their hardware.

LetMeGoogleThatForYou.com

2009-04-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

LetMeGoogleThatForYou.com allows you to enter any search query, then grab the resulting permalink to share it with someone else. For instance, if someone in a forum would ask “What does ’AFAIK’ stand for?”, you could (somewhat impolitely) point them to this search, which would then interactively perform a Google search for “afaik” for the visitor. (Kind of the next version of this even more impolite site… and nope, neither site is an official Google site…)

What's a Digitally Signed Driver?

2009-04-13T13:47:00.007-07:00

I'm trying to install the drivers for this new device, and all of a sudden, Windows warns me that the drivers are not digitally signed. Is this something to worry about?

Not even a little. A driver with a digital signature is one that has earned Microsoft's esteemed seal of approval, indicating that it has passed a series of rigorous compatibility tests administered by the Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL). In theory, this warning is supposed to scare customers into rejecting any driver that does not come with Microsoft's digital signature, thereby coercing hardware manufacturers into submitting their drivers to the aforementioned WHQL tests.

In practice, however, digitally signed drivers are rarely any more stable, reliable, or safe than drivers lacking the signature. In other words, if you see this warning, just click the Install Anyway button and forget about it.

If the decision makers at Microsoft had thought about it, they might have applied this sort of warning to all software installations, not just hardware drivers. If Windows users were warned before installing software components that weren't digitally signed, we could probably say goodbye to spyware, viruses, Trojan horses, worms, and all the other forms of malware that can make their way onto your PC without so much as a peep from Windows!

Generate Colors Pallete Of Any Image Online

2009-04-13T13:47:00.006-07:00

I covered a post on extracting colors from websites. But what if you want to extract colors from an image? CSS Drive’s Image to Colors Palette Generator is a free online service that lets you generate colors pallete instantly. You can either upload the image from your computer or enter an image link. Only png, .gif, .jpg and .jpeg images are supported and they must not be bigger than 1MB in size.

I uploaded a very unique multicolored art image, the end results were astonishing.

Just move your mouse over any color and you will see it’s Hex number which you can use in art, web development or simply for inspiration. It’s great tool but unfortunately it only supports 1MB image maximum, perhaps the developer can increase the limit since most images these days are heavier in size. To use this tool you will have to compress the image first and then upload it.

It also generates Photoshop swatches and CSS stylesheet, just navigate all the way to bottom and you will find their links respectively.

Generate Colors Pallete Of Any Image Online

2009-04-13T13:47:00.002-07:00

I uploaded a very unique multicolored art image, the end results were astonishing.

It also generates Photoshop swatches and CSS stylesheet, just navigate all the way to bottom and you will find their links respectively.

What Is .DS_Store And How To Remove It?

2009-04-13T13:47:00.000-07:00

What is .DS_Store?

.DS_Store, which stands for Desktop Services Store is a hidden file created in every local folder in Mac OS X. This file stores custom attributes such as position of folder icons and the choice of background colors. By default it will be created in every local folder accessed by Mac OS X.

Since it is hidden, it’s not a big problem through, it acts a bit similar to Thumb.db which is created automatically in every folder in Windows Operating System. Removing .DS_Store and Thumb.db is OK since they are not system files.

The question is why to remove .DS_Store when it is hidden in Mac OS X operating systems? When you copy any folder from Mac to your Windows OS, these files become visible and annoying.

Removing .DS_Store and Thumb.db

Copy Folder From Mac to Windows = .DB_Store will become visible and annoying
Copy Folder From Windows to Mac = Thumb.db will become visible and annoying

FolderWasher is a free tool for both Windows And Mac operating systems that removes .DB_Store and Thumb.db files from the folders instantly.

Jus drag and drop the folders that you want to clean in this tool and it will handle the rest itself.

After you drag the folders, it will ask you for a few options, select the desired action and click Wash.

Listed below are are some features of this tool:

Deletes all files whose name begin with period of a given folder
Ability to Zip compress the washed folder
Ability to delete ‘Thumb.db’ files on Macintosh
Ability to create on the fly a list of files that should not be deleted, like “.htaccess” files
Very easy to use with its friendly interface

Best strategy for Page File Management

2009-04-13T13:46:00.005-07:00

On systems with 512 MB or more of physical memory, the large initial size of the page file can consume excessive amounts of disk space. On a system with 1 GB of RAM, for instance, the starting page file size is 1.5 GB, and under normal circumstances it's likely that this file will never be used. The best strategy for page-file management in this configuration is to set Initial Size to be relatively small—say, 512 MB—while setting a large maximum size so that Windows can increase the page file size if necessary. This setting keeps disk space use in check but prevents the possibility of experiencing out-of-memory errors. If disk space is really tight, set the initial page-file size to its minimum of 2 MB and set the maximum size to a value that is at least as large as the amount of installed memory. Use your computer normally for a few weeks and allow Windows to create a page file of the proper size. Use Task Manager to monitor the size of the page file and make certain that it's below the maximum size you specified.

What Really Happens When a Computer Starts

2009-04-13T13:46:00.004-07:00

So you want to know what really goes on when you turn on your computer.

Your computer follows a boot process that loads Windows XP, called the boot or startup sequence. This process loads all of the operating system files so you can actually use Windows XP. Here’s what happens:
1. When you first turn on your computer, a power-on self test (POST) process occurs. Your computer checks its hardware and memory and then begins to load your operating system.
2. Windows XP has a database of information called the Registry where information about your computer is kept. The Registry is loaded first so it can be read in order to boot Windows XP.
3. Next, Windows loads a file called System.ini. The System.ini file is used to load older system configuration information.
4. Next, Kernel32.dll is loaded. Kernel32.dll is the main operating system code used by Windows XP.
5. After Kernel32.dll is loaded, Gdi.exe and Gdi32.exe are loaded. These files give you the graphical Windows user interface.
6. Next, User.exe and User32.exe are loaded. These files provide code necessary to manage the user interface, including your windows.
7. Resources and Fonts load next.
8. Then, Win.ini is loaded, which provides older system programs and user support.
9. Next, the Windows shell loads, which is your basic graphical interface settings, and policies for your computer are loaded as well.
10. The desktop components are loaded next.
11. Next, a logon dialog box appears. Once you provide a valid username and password, the logon process begins. If you are connected to a network, any appropriate network policies are loaded.
12. Finally, all of the final information from any policies are loaded, and you see your desktop. The boot process is fast and efficient, and is more stable than ever before in Windows XP.

Find Out More About Your Hardware

2009-04-13T13:46:00.003-07:00

I've read of a bug that affects a certain type of motherboard chipset, but this information isn't exactly laseretched on the front of my PC. How can I find out what's inside my PC without having to pop the hood?

Your PC is made up of dozens of separate components, most of which aren't made by your PC vendor. Although you can certainly open up your computer and look at the label on your hard disk or CPU, most of the "devices" are nothing more than chips soldered to your PC's motherboard. Rather than trying to read the microscopic text on each chip, you can use software to scan your system and produce reports in excruciating detail.

First, open up Windows's own Device Manager by going to Start --> Run and typing devmgmt.msc .

Here, you'll see a manifest of every device for which a driver is loaded. Unfortunately, the information can be spotty at best. For instance, your FireWire controller is probably called simply "1394 Net Adapter." If you're trying to find out whether or not it's a VIA VT6306, for instance, you'll have to look elsewhere.

One of the best tools for this, and a free one at that, is Everest Home Edition, available at http://www.lavalys.com . (Lavalys also offers commercial versions with more features.) Among other things, Everest displays copious details about your hardware, digs into your CPU (indicating, for example, whether or not it can be overclocked), and even performs system diagnostics and memory benchmark tests.

Another worthy tool is WCPUID/XCPUID, available for free at http://www.h-oda.com , which provides exhaustive details about your processor (CPU). This tool's output is useful for overclocking, as well as for finding a compatible CPU if you're interested in upgrading.

Best strategy for Page File Management

2009-04-13T13:46:00.002-07:00

What Really Happens When a Computer Starts

2009-04-13T13:46:00.001-07:00

Find Out More About Your Hardware

2009-04-13T13:46:00.000-07:00

Controlling StartUp with Boot.ini switches (explained)

2009-04-13T13:45:00.003-07:00

The ARC path syntax supports more than 30 different switches that enable you to control various aspects of the Windows XP startup (or another operating system, as long as it’s Windows XP, Windows 2000, or Windows NT 4). You can either enter these switches by hand when editing Boot.ini in Notepad, or use the check boxes on the BOOT.INI tab of the System Configuration Utility. Here’s a summary of the switches that are most useful:

/safeboot:minimal Boots Windows XP in safe mode, which uses only a minimal set of device drivers. Use this switch if Windows XP won’t start, if a device or program is causing Windows XP to crash, or if you can’t uninstall a program while Windows XP is running normally.

/safeboot:minimal(alternateshell) Boots Windows XP in safe mode but also bypasses the Windows XP GUI and boots to the command prompt instead. Use this switch if the programs you need in order to repair a problem can be run from the command prompt or if you can’t load the Windows XP GUI.

/safeboot:network Boots Windows XP in safe mode but also includes networking drivers. Use this switch if the drivers or programs you need to repair a problem exist on a shared network resource, if you need access to e mail or other network-based communications for technical support, or if your computer is running a shared Windows XP installation.

/safeboot:dsrepair Boots Windows XP in safe mode and also restores a backup of the Active Directory directory service (this option applies only to domain controllers).

/noguiboot Tells Windows XP not to load the display driver that normally is used to display the progress bar during startup. Use this switch if Windows XP hangs while switching video modes for the progress bar, or if the display of the progress bar is garbled.

/bootlog Boots Windows XP and logs the boot process to a text file named Ntbtlog.txt that resides in the %SystemRoot% folder. Open Ntbtlog.txt. in Notepad, move to the end of the file, and you may see a message telling you which device driver failed. You probably need to reinstall or roll back the driver. Use this switch if the Windows XP startup hangs, if you need a detailed record of the startup process, or if you suspect (after using one of the other Startup menu options) that a driver is causing Windows XP startup to fail.

/basevideo Boots Windows XP using the standard VGA mode: 640 × 480 with 256 colors. This is useful for troubleshooting video display driver problems. Use this switch if Windows XP fails to start using any of the safe mode options, if you recently installed a new video card device driver and the screen is garbled or the driver is balking at a resolution or color depth setting that’s too high, or if you can’t load the Windows XP GUI. Once Windows XP loads, you can either reinstall or roll back the driver, or you can adjust the display settings to values that the driver can handle.

/sos Displays the path and location of each device driver (using the ARC path syntax) as it is loaded, as well as the operating system version and build number and the number of processors.

/maxmem=MB Specifies the maximum amount of memory, in megabytes, that Windows XP can use. Use this value when you suspect a faulty memory chip might be causing problems.

/numproc=n In a multiprocessor system, specifies the maximum of processors that Windows XP can use. Use this switch if you suspect that using multiple processors is causing a program to hang.

/pcilock Tells Windows XP not to dynamically assign hardware resources for PCI devices during startup. The resources assigned by the BIOS during the POST are “locked” in place. Use this switch if installing a PCI device causes the system to hang during startup.

/debug Enables remote debugging of the Windows XP kernel. This sends debugging information to a remote computer via one of your computer’s serial ports. You can also add any of the following switches:

/debugport=port Specifies the serial port, where port is one of com1, com2, com3, com4, or 1394. Specifying 1394 will require that you also use the /channel switch.

/baudrate=speed If you use a COM port, use this switch to specify the transmission speed of the debugging information, where speed is one of the following: 300, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, or 115200.

/channel=number If you use an IEEE 1394 (FireWire) connection, use this switch to specify the channel, where number is a value between 1 and 64.

Quick troubleshooting tip using msconfig.exe

2009-04-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

If you have a large number of check boxes to test (such as on the Services tab), selecting one check box at a time and rebooting can be tedious, to say the least. A faster method—called “troubleshooting by halves”—is to begin by selecting the first half of the check boxes and rebooting. One of two things will happen:

The problem doesn’t reoccur. This means that one of the items represented by the cleared check boxes is the culprit. Clear all the check boxes, select the other half of the check boxes, and then reboot.

The problem reoccurs. This means that one of the selected check boxes is the problem. Select only half of those check boxes and reboot.

Keep halving the number of selected check boxes until you isolate the offending item.

Keep track of your all your XP updates

2009-04-13T13:43:00.001-07:00

If you have Windows XP set up to perform automatic updating, you can keep tabs on the changes made to your system by examining the Windows Update.log file, which you’ll find in the %SystemRoot% folder. You can also review your Windows Update changes by going to the Windows Update site (select Start, All Programs, Windows Update) and clicking the View Installation History link.