Nafees Tech Tips By IT Geeks

Official: Sami Hinedi moves in as Acting CEO of Wi-Tribe Pakistan

2010-03-01T20:39:00.001-08:00

Sami Hinedi moves in as Acting CEO of Wi-Tribe Pakistan while ex-CEO Mohammad Sadiq is going to return to Qtel while being on the BoD of Wi-Tribe, said an official statement.

Mohammad Sadiq, CEO of wi-tribe Pakistan, is set to return to his post at Qtel after successfully completing his term in launching the operations in Pakistan. The announcement came as Group CEO, Sami Hinedi, revealed that he will be replacing him as Acting CEO.

Mohammad Sadiq will still remain on the Board of wi-tribe Pakistan and will continue to provide overall strategic direction for the company to reinforce its growth within the market. "It is sad to bid farewell to one of the greatest leaders in the tribe, but we rest assured that his expertise and guidance will continue as he remains on the board of directors," said Hinedi.

As a Group, wi-tribe consciously strives to recruit local talent for each operation in order to ensure local knowledge and expertise is applied at all work levels.

Wi-Tribe Pakistan is the group's largest market to date, and was launched in July 2009 covering four major regions; Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi.

via [propakistani]

Technology Explained: How Does Facebook Work? The Nuts and Bolts

2010-02-28T22:40:00.001-08:00

Social networking is the art of connecting with those who share common interests. Your 'network' is a community that helps keep you united with others and offers many benefits. Networking via social media sites has revolutionized how we use the Internet and is at the forefront of what we now call Web 2.0.

Facebook is social networking. People have been "facebooking" each other for about 6 years now, makingFacebook the most used social network with over 350 million users worldwide. But how does Facebook work?

In this article, I will discuss Facebook's inner workings, covering its architecture and frontend/backend infrastructure—the nuts and bolts that hold Facebook together.

How Does Facebook Work?—The Front End

Facebook uses a variety of services, tools, and programming languages to make up its core infrastructure. At the front end, their servers run a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) stack with Memcache. Not a computer science expert? Let's take a look at exactly what that means.

Linux & Apache

This part is pretty self-explanatory. Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system kernel. It's open source, very customizable, and good for security. Facebook runs the Linux operating system on Apache HTTP Servers. Apache is also free and is the most popular open source web server in use.

MySQL

For the database, Facebook utilizes MySQL because of its speed and reliability. MySQL is used primarily as a key-value store as data is randomly distributed amongst a large set of logical instances. These logical instances are spread out across physical nodes and load balancing is done at the physical node level.

As far as customizations are concerned, Facebook has developed a custom partitioning scheme in which a global ID is assigned to all data. They also have a custom archiving scheme that is based on how frequent and recent data is on a per-user basis. Most data is distributed randomly.

PHP

Facebook uses PHP because it is a good web programming language with extensive support and an active developer community and it is good for rapid iteration. PHP is a dynamically typed/interpreted scripting language.

Memcache

Memcache is a memory caching system that is used to speed up dynamic database-driven websites (like Facebook) by caching data and objects in RAM to reduce reading time. Memcache is Facebook's primary form of caching and helps alleviate the database load.

Having a caching system allows Facebook to be as fast as it is at recalling your data. If it doesn't have to go to the database it will just fetch your data from the cache based on your user ID.

Downsides to Using LAMP

Facebook has realized that there are downsides to using the LAMP stack. Notably, PHP is not necessarily optimized for large websites and therefore hard to scale. Also, it is not the fastest executing language and the extension framework is difficult to use.

Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's Vice President of Engineering, recently did an interview atEmTech@MIT concerning this. "Scaling any website is a challenge," Schroepfer said, "but scaling a social network has unique challenges."

He went on to say that unlike other websites, you can't just add more servers to solve the problem because of Facebook's "huge interconnected dataset." New connections are created all the time due to user activity.

Facebook has grown so quickly that they are often faced with issues regarding database queries, caching, and storage of data. Their database is huge and largely complex. To account for this, Facebook has started a lot of open source projects and backend services.

How Does Facebook Work?—The Back End

Facebook's backend services are written in a variety of different programming languages including C++, Java, Python, and Erlang. Their philosophy for the creation of services is as follows:

1. Create a service if needed

2. Create a framework/toolset for easier creation of services

3. Use the right programming language for the task

A list of all of Facebook's open source developments can be found here. I will discuss a few of the essential tools that Facebook has developed.

Thrift (protocol)

Thrift is a lightweight remote procedure call framework for scalable cross-language services development. Thrift supports C++, PHP, Python, Perl, Java, Ruby, Erlang, and others. It's quick, saves development time, and provides a division of labor of work on high-performance servers and applications.

Scribe (log server)

Scribe is a server for aggregating log data streamed in real-time from many other servers. It is a scalable framework useful for logging a wide array of data. It is built on top of Thrift.

Cassandra (database)

Cassandra is a database management system designed to handle large amounts of data spread out across many servers. It powers Facebook's Inbox Search feature and provides a structured key-value store with eventual consistency.

HipHop for PHP

HipHop for PHP is a source code transformer for PHP script code and was created to save server resources. HipHop transforms PHP source code into optimized C++. After doing this, it uses g++ to compile it to machine code.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, that's Facebook. This article could easily be 37 pages longer if I were to go into more detail, but to answer the question "How does Facebook work?" I think this will suffice. If you look past all of the features and innovations the main idea behind Facebook is really very basic—keeping people connected. Facebook realizes the power of social networking and is constantly innovating to keep their service the best in the business.

FarmVille Surpasses 80 Million Users

2010-02-22T09:49:00.000-08:00

FarmVille, the massively popular Facebook game, surpassed 80 million monthly active users this week (source: AppData). Facebook has around 400 million users in total.

FarmVille has been a breakout hit, with its active user count growing by around 10 million users per month. Note that this isn't simply signups: This is a count of people using the app at least once in the 30-day span.

FarmVille's daily active user count is currently 29.7 million — that's almost 30 million people using FarmVille every day.

FarmVille's parent company, Zynga, was valued at 1 billion dollars late last year.

HOW TO: Block FarmVille on Facebook

2010-02-22T09:47:00.001-08:00

The Facebook-platform game FarmVille has 80 million players. It's been named social networking game of the year. It's played by people young and old. It's bigger than Twitter. But that doesn't mean it's for everyone.

The game optionally advertises itself by sending out news feed updates to your friends whenever you accomplish a milestone with your farm or character. When you have lots of friends playing FarmVille, those updates can be ubiquitous enough to drive you a little crazy.

Here we'll save your sanity by showing you how to hide all those FarmVille news feed updates and notifications without burning any bridges with your passionate social gamer friends.

Hiding Friends' FarmVille News Feed Updates

This task is simple. Any time you see a FarmVille update in your news feed, move the mouse cursor to the right of the update and a "Hide" button will appear as seen above. Click on it.

As illustrated above, you'll then be given the choice to either hide that friend or just the FarmVille app. Since you probably want to keep seeing your friend's updates (we hope), click "Hide FarmVille." This will hide FarmVille news feed posts from all your friends, not just the one who published that particular update.

Blocking FarmVille Notifications

Sometimes friends will send you notifications inviting you to join them in FarmVille or other games. These can be annoying if you're not interested in playing. The easiest way to take care of this is to click the "x" next to the notification when you receive to block the FarmVille application.

But if you want to do this preemptively without waiting for another notification, just search for the FarmVille application using the Facebook () search bar, go to the application page, and look for the "Block Application" link directly below the application image. We've included a pic above so you'll know what you're looking for.

Clicking that and confirming will prevent FarmVille from accessing your information or sending you notifications, but it won't hide news feed updates from friends.

[via mashable]

Fly By – Pakistan’s First Flash Game on Facebook

2010-02-20T06:48:00.000-08:00

As spotted by CodeWeek, Fly By, Pakistan's first Flash Game has ultimately appeared on Facebook, and already it has attracted more than 800 users from all over the world.

Fly By is developed by Web Sketchers, a team of individuals who graduated from FAST-NU Lahore in 2009.

The game is visually spectacular, rich in colors, and encompasses eye-catching 3D modeling.

The basic theme of the game is the flight of an aircraft through the city centre. The aircraft is flying low, and has to evade the numerous skyscrapers and hot air balloons that encroach in its path. The player has to maneuver the aircraft through these obstacles. As the player progresses, points are earned and newer levels of play are attained during game play.

Web Sketchers say they are going to add more features in coming days, based on users' feedback.

Web Sketchers also intends to launch a number of new and exciting games in the near future under the umbrella of brand "Wesga".

Link on Facebook to play: http://apps.facebook.com/flybygame

Convert RPM to DEB in Ubuntu

2010-02-20T05:10:00.001-08:00

Many Linux distributions use .RPM files, like Red Hat and Fedora.
There is a great program to convert RPM's into DEB's, Alien.

To install Alien, Go to Terminal and type

sudo apt-get install alien

Once installed, you can convert the RPM file like:

sudo alien -k FileName.rpm

To then install the DEB file, you can either double click on it or run the command:

sudo dpkg -i FileName.deb

Or another way to convert and then install straight after, you can run the following command:

sudo alien -i FileName.rpm

source

Windows Activation Technologies for Windows 7 Update Available

2010-02-18T01:54:00.000-08:00

We have covered the news about the Windows Activation Technologies for Windows 7 update earlier this month with the expectation that Microsoft would provide downloads for the update later in that month. The first step has apparently been made as a Knowledgebase article now links to the update that can be downloaded for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 computer systems.

The update basically improves the capabilities of the Windows 7 operating system to spot activation hacks that have been used to activate the operating system without a purchased product key.

Windows Activation Technologies helps you confirm that the copy of Windows 7 that is running on your computer is genuine. Additionally, Windows Activation Technologies helps protect against the risks of counterfeit software.

The update is currently only offered on the Microsoft website but will be added to Windows Update at a later time. It will however be an optional update in Windows Update as well for the time being which means that it only serves the following purposes:

Provide the ability for users who have bought a computer system with Windows 7 or Windows 7 standalone to verify that their product is genuine and not counterfeit.
Provide the ability for hackers to find out if their activation hack is still working

Users who have illegally activated Windows 7 will obviously not install and run the Windows Activation Technologies for Windows 7 update as they might risk getting it flagged as non genuine.

It will be interesting to see if and when Microsoft decides to make the update mandatory for all Windows 7 operating systems.

[via ghacks]

Mobilink’s Blackberry Stock Clearance Loot Sale

2010-02-14T21:30:00.000-08:00

Looks, Mobilink want to clear its stock – by all means. For the purpose, they are offering plenty of discounts on Blackberry handsets.

Earlier, Mobilink offered 30 % Discount on all Blackberry Storm smarphones, if bought online – and now the offer got even better.

Despite, the fact that Blackberry Storm didn't click the market, Mobilink's this loot sale is pretty impressive. Following are three offers you can choose from!

BlackBerry® Pearl™ Free with Blackberry Storm

The BlackBerry® Pearl™ is offered free of cost, if you buy a Blackberry Storm, till the stocks last.

BlackBerry® Pearl™ with 40 % off!

The BlackBerry® Pearl™ 8110 and Pearl 8120 both have discounts on them of 40%! This offer is only till stocks last.

BlackBerry® Storm™ with 30% off!

BlackBerry® Storm™ smartphone is available from Mobilink with 30%! This offer is only till stocks last

To avail this offer click this link and fill the form: http://www.mobilinkgsm.com/indigo/bb_offer.php

via propakistani

Google's Facebook

2010-02-12T22:37:00.001-08:00

First they challenged the likes of RIM, Apple and Nokia, and now they are up against Facebook and Twitter. By all means and in all sanity Google has launched its social networking website by name Google Buzz. This was done on February 09, 2010.

Buzz offers a stream of status updates, pictures, links, and videos from your friends. You can "like" these items and you can comment on them. Updates from Flickr, Picasa, Google Reader, or Twitter can also be automatically imported into a Buzz stream. Buzz will recommend items you might like based on your friends' activity.

But the question that counters the world is: will it outdo Facebook and Twitter? Let's see how Microsoft answers this:

"Busy people don't want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation. We've done that. Hotmail customers have benefitted from Microsoft working with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and 75 other partners since 2008."

Mostly biggies leave all this stuff for the blogger community and Press but this time Microsoft went ahead to fight at the front.

The edge which Buzz will have over Facebook and Twitter is the existence of Google's own mobile world.

http://buzz.google.com ;)

via [Zumbeel news]

Google Buzz in Gmail

2010-02-09T22:45:00.000-08:00

Five years ago, Gmail was just email. Later we added chat and then video chat, both built right in, so people had choices about how to communicate from a single browser window. Today, communication on the web has evolved beyond email and chat — people are sharing photos with friends and family, commenting on news happening around them, and telling the world what they're up to in real-time. This new social sharing is valuable, but it means there's a lot more stuff to sort through, and it's harder to get past status updates and engage in meaningful discussions.

Today, we're launching Google Buzz, a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting and share updates, photos, videos and more. Buzz is built right into Gmail, so there's nothing to set up — you're automatically following the people you email and chat with the most.

We focused on making the sharing experience really rich by integrating photos, videos, and links. No more fuzzy little pictures: Buzz makes it easy to quickly flip through photos and experience them the way they were meant to be seen: big and full-resolution. And videos play inline so you can watch them without opening a new window.

You can choose to share publicly with the world or privately to a small group of friends each time you post. And you can connect other sites you use, today there's Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, and Twitter, so your friends can keep up with what you're doing around the web — all in one place.

To make sure you don't miss out on the best part of sharing, Buzz sends responses to your posts straight to your inbox. Unlike static email messages, buzz messages in your inbox are live conversations where comments appear in real time.

You can follow the specific people whose posts you want to see, but Buzz also recommends posts from people you're not directly following, often ones where your friends are having a lively conversation in the comments. If you're not interested in a particular recommendation, just click the "Not interested" link and your feedback will help improve the recommendations system. Buzz also weeds out uninteresting posts from the people you follow — collapsing inactive posts and short status messages like "brb." These early versions of ranking and recommendations are just a start; we're working on improvements that will help you automatically sort through all the social data being produced to find the most relevant conversations that matter to you.

For all those times when you want to share something but aren't in front of your computer, Buzz is also available on your phone. When you're out in the real world, a lot of the information you want to share often has to do with where you are: for example, you may want to talk about a new restaurant you discovered or the score of the game you're watching. So rather than simply a small screen version of the desktop experience, Buzz for mobile brings location to the forefront and makes it easy to have conversations about places. In addition to checking out buzz from people you're following, you can also see nearby buzz from the people around you.

We'll be rolling out Google Buzz to everyone over the next few days; you'll see a new "Buzz" link under "Inbox" when it's on for your account. We're still working on some features to make Buzz work well for businesses and schools, so it isn't yet available in Google Apps, but stay tuned. If you want to learn more in the meantime, visit buzz.google.com

Wireless Network Scanner inSSIDer

2010-02-09T22:43:00.001-08:00

The wireless network scanner inSSIDer can be used to quickly scan the area for wireless networks. The software program works well with Windows Vista and Windows XP (even the 64-bit editions) and can quickly display all wireless networks in the vicinity. A network adapter has to be selected to start the scanning. All discovered wireless networks are then added to a table in the same interface which lists information like their MAC address, SSID, channel, security and network speed.

Graphs are shown below the table that visualize the signal strength of the selected wireless networks over time. It is possible to select some or all of the wireless networks and observe their performance.

The visualization can help the user troubleshoot the wireless network. It could for example be that all or most of the wireless networks in the area are concentrating on specific channels for the communication. It could then help to switch to one of the transmission channels that are the least used in the area to improve the speed and performance of the wireless network.

InSSIDer is an Open Source software program that might be useful for users who want to troubleshoot, optimize or configure their wireless networks. Beta 1.2 of the program has been released a few days ago and is available for download on the developer's homepage.

Very Simple Network Scanner

2010-02-09T22:39:00.001-08:00

A network scanner is a program that can scan a specific network IP range for devices. This can be interesting for maintenance or inventory related tasks as well as network monitoring and retrieving information about a specific device in the network.

Very Simply Network Scanner is a free software program for the Windows operating system that can scan a network range. The main purpose of the program is to scan a specific network range, display a list of devices discovered in that range and provide the means to export the findings in a csv file.

The network scanner is relatively easy to use. The network IP range can be selected in the network field. The first three digits of the IP are left untouched but the last digit defines the starting point of the scan. The end point of the scan is the last possible digit in that range (e.g. from 0 to 255).

A click on scan network will initiate the network scan which does not take longer than a few seconds usually unless the network utilizes many devices on different IPs.

Each device will be listed with its IP, DNS, time and TTL, Mac address and device type among other parameters.

Selected information can be copied to the clipboard. The user of the program can select the device type by right-clicking on a line in the results which makes identification of devices easier.

A port scanner is included that can be used to retrieve the ports that are open by the selected network IP.

Very Simple Network Scanner is a work in progress. The portable software program is currently offered as an alpha version that can be downloaded from various software portals like Betanews.

Recover Operating System After Virus Attack

2010-02-09T22:38:00.001-08:00

One of the problems that many computer users experience after a computer virus attack are changes to the system cause by the malicious software. This can for instance mean that system tools like the control panel or task manager do not open, that security permissions have changed, services or startup items have been added or modified or that processes run in the background that have been loaded by the virus.

It is sometimes impossible to fix the damage done to the system which means that in those cases only backups or new installations are an option. But most changes are not as severe. They can be fixed either by the antivirus software cleaning the malicious program or by a third party tool like Virus Effect Remover.

We have reviewed Virus Effect Remover in the past but it has evolved since then which is reason enough to take a new look at it.

The software is a specialized tool which becomes apparent after startup. There are lots of buttons and information displayed in the main interface from access to tools in the left sidebar to a tab driven interface that displays a processes tree and links to various tools that can be used to check and repair specific system settings, files and features.

The tools on this page allow a user for instance to scan services, startup locations, check system files, show suspicious files, generate a process list and about a dozens of others. And that only from the main tab.

The other tabs list autorun details, process details, files and folders options, unlocker, other tools and options. Some of those, like the files and folders options display another tab bar below which demonstrates the complexity of the program.

Virus Effect Remover links to various Microsoft Windows system tools like the Registry Editor, Group Policy Editor or MSConfig.

The program provides the user with many useful information about the operating system and controls to repair some of the damage that has been done by a computer virus.

Backup Your Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, Wordpress, Twitter and More, Fore FREE

2010-02-08T22:21:00.000-08:00

Just seconds ago, Dr. Awab tweeted that he took backup of his blog, and downloaded almost 1 GB of files on local computer. Just that moment, a co-incidence maybe, I was reading this post by CyberDera about taking online backups of almost every online activity that we usually do – for FREE.

Yes, this very amazing service Backupify, is offering backups for Wordpress, Gmail, Hotmail, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Google Docs and what not.

Essentially, for every internet user – they are offering something to backup – and for expats, this is a one stop platform to backup all your online accounts.

If you are using Wordpress, stop worrying about backups, as this cloud based backups are automatic, seamless and are free (only if you sign-up before February 15^th).

Backupify will keep a copy of your database (.sql file) and blog files separately, that you can access anytime in future.

Though it's very rare, but we have seen instances of Gmail accounts vanishing and then never appearing back.

If you find your emails very crucial, which I suppose they are, you can add your gmail account as well, to download latest copy of your Gmail data.

And all this comes with extremely easy to manage interface. Usually it doesn't take more than few clicks to add an account for taking backups.

Based on cloud storage, you need little to worry and there are almost no chances that Backupify will lose your backups. They are using Amazon's S3's secure and reliable services. Also to mention, all files are stored with secure keys – so that no one can access them.

If you have your own S3 storage account, you can configure it with Backupify to use your space.

Backupify is offering free sign-up till February 15, 2010, and will remain free who are signing up now. After this date two variants of premium accounts (49$ per year and 79$ per year) will be available, which I find very attractive – with what they are offering.

Click here for Backupify FAQs.

YouTube Banned on Selected ISPs, Update: YouTube is Back, Except Some Videos

2010-02-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

We have received multiple confirmation from various sources that YouTube has been banned in Pakistan, at least on some ISPs.

We are checking ISPs and authority for any official word on it. We will update this story, when and if we get anything further in hands.

Update: YouTube is back. We are told by sources that during filtering policy update, YouTube got banned by mistake. We are yet to get any official word from PTA.

Website remained down for at least 40 minutes.

Update 2: Looks, not all of YouTube got back, as President Asif Ali Zardari's recent videos are still restricted. So, apparently the puzzle has been solved.

We will update this post, when and if we get any word from PTA or ISPAK.

via [propakistani]

Chat with Any Mobile in Pakistan using MSN Messenger!:SMS Live Pakistan

2010-02-06T11:36:00.001-08:00

Introduction

MSN provides service to chat with your SMS contacts in a few countries, like USA, Brazil and UK. This service is not available in many countries including Pakistan. MSN Messenger Mobile Service Pakistan is a free service that enables people to chat with their mobile contacts in Pakistan, no matter which service provider they might be using.

System Requirements

Windows XP/2000/2003/Vista (latest service packs recommended for all Operating Systems).

Internet Connection (broadband recommended).

Windows Live Messenger 2009. Download

Installation

You are required to download and install the service client which will automatically install the required pre-requisites. Download and unzip the archive and execute the setup.exe

MSN Messenger Mobile SMS Service Client Download

Configuration

Configuring MSN Messenger is very simple. Just follow these three steps:

Sign-out MSN Messenger.

Run the client application.

Sign-in MSN Messenger.

Sponsors

How to use?

After the installation and configuration, the SMS capabilities of your Live Messenger will be activated for Pakistan. If you are diconnected from the service, sign-out and sign-in again to get connected. You can now add an SMS Contact and chat with them normally.

In Windows Live Messenger 2009 click the Contacts > Add a contact menu item.

Only provide the mobile number you wish to chat with and select the country Pakistan and click next. The mobile contact will start appearing in your list. In case the contact does not appear at first, repeat step 1 and 2.

Just double click the SMS contact and start chatting.

Sponsors

Trouble-shooting

MSN Messenger Mobile SMS Service for Pakistan is a free service. This service will become more and more reliable in the coming days. If you are facing difficulty trying to use this service please see the following common issues. If you are unable to solve your problem please contact us at info@smslive.pk

Look for the mobile icon in your system tray. If you cannot see any such icon, may be you forgot to run the client or donot have enough previlleges on your machine.

Are you connected to the MSN Messenger Mobile SMS Server? The icon in the tray turn Red if the server cannot be connected. If the icon is Green, please revisit the How to Use section of this page.

If you are not connected to the server, please run the connectivity test Tools > Options > Connection > Advanced Settings > Test (SOCKS). If this Test is successful, please sign-out and re-sign-in the MSN Messenger.
If the test fails, report this occurance to info@smslive.pk via email OR add admin@smslive.pk in your MSN Contacts to get LIVE help.

How to Install BitDefender in Ubuntu

2010-02-01T21:28:00.002-08:00

BitDefender is a program to check for Windows viruses and malware. It can be run in the background or on demand when required. Once installed it can be found under Applications - Systems Tools. It can be used as an alternative to clamav/clamtk.

Installation

Add the repository by going to System -> Administration -> Software Sources and click on the 'Third

Party Software' tab. Now click on 'Add' and copy+paste the following line:
deb http://download.bitdefender.com/repos/deb/

bitdefender non-free

Click on 'Close' and press 'Reload' when prompted. Ignore the 'No repository key' error (if displayed). To add the repository key open a Terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and copy+paste the following lines::

wget http://download.bitdefender.com/repos/deb/bd.key.asc
sudo apt-key add bd.key.asc

Now update the sources list:

sudo apt-get update

To install the graphical interface and command line program copy+paste the following line:
sudo apt-get install bitdefender-scanner-gui

Once complete you now need to log out and log back in again. a menu shortcut will be generated (Applications -> System Tools -> BitDefender Scanner).

Before running the scanner it's probably best to install the latest virus/malware signatures by clicking on the 'Update' button.

License

BitDefender comes with a standard 30 day free license, when first installed. It is free for private and personal use - the license can be extended to one year by requesting a new license key fromhttp://www.bitdefender.com/site/Products/ScannerLicense/ For all business use a paid for license is required.

[Via link]

Enable Automatic Login in Ubuntu 9.10 Server

2010-02-01T21:28:00.001-08:00

Ubuntu makes it easy to enable automatic login if youá��re using a login manager such as GDM. I was recently setting up a minimal Ubuntu 9.10 system with an LXDE desktopand no GDM. Hereá��s how I enabled automatic login.

Note: This was tested on Ubuntu 9.10. Previous versions of Ubuntu require different procedures because of changes to the way Ubuntu boots.

Open /etc/init/tty1.conf as root:
sudo nano /etc/init/tty1.conf

Change the last line of this file to (where USERNAME is the username of the user you want to log in):
exec /bin/login -f USERNAME < /dev/tty1 > /dev/tty1 2>&1

Reboot, and the user you chose should be logged in automatically after boot. If something goes wrong, you can switch to a different TTY with CTRL+ALT+F2 and log in normally.

If you want this user to be logged into a graphical environment instead of just a shell, thereá��s more work to be done. Open your userá��s .bashrc file:
nano ~/.bashrc

Add the following to the end of the file:

if [ $(tty) == "/dev/tty1" ]; then
 startx
 fi

This code will start X (the graphical environment) whenever the user logs in on TTY1. You can add more code after startx that will be executed if the user logs out of X.

[Via Link]

Find your Lost or stolen Blackberry–BerrySnooper to the rescue

2010-01-31T22:30:00.000-08:00

Let me confess, I never wanted to be a BlackBerry user and ever since I was forced to use my first RIM device, I have always been carrying one, it's been a few years now. I'm not that forgetful in general but I do forget my BlackBerry at places at times, and am usually not sure where I left it. Was that in my car or at home? Did I drop it somewhere or is it safe or not? Calling a lost phone to ring it, itself is an invitation to a thief if you left it at a public place. Does this happen to you too?

BerrySnooper is a great software by pepper.pk that you can install on your BlackBerry and find the peace of your mind. I have BerrySnooper installed on my phone and whenever I forget it somewhere, I send a text or email message to my own phone to find its current location. As a response I get the address (in text) and a map showing exact location of the phone. Here's BerrySnooper's official video that explains its working.

Moreover, if somebody has stolen my phone, obviously he will not use my SIM. He will throw my SIM card away and will put his own card in the phone to use it. As soon as the phone boots and finds out the change of Sim, it will start sending me location updates, at least in text if not in email format. I will have a good chance to go catch the thief.

Here is a typical use-case for BerrySnooper:

Lost or forgot my phone somewhere? I'll send it an SMS or Email.
Phone will find out its own location
It will send back an SMS and Email to me with the address as well as a map of the location.

You can see a detailed walk-through of BerrySnooper here in my post.

via [telecompk]

[UPDATE] Change DNS Settings on the Fly Using DNS Jumper v1.0.3

2010-01-26T20:51:00.001-08:00

Recently we blogged about "DNS Jumper" which is a small and portable utility which helps you in easily switch to Google Public DNS, Open DNS or other similar DNS services.

Now a new version of this small tool has been released which comes with following new features:

You can choose your network card
Very customizable, You can add or delete a DNS
You can change the language by editing DnsJumper.ini file
You can customize DNS manually
Program tests DNS IP and measures its reaction time
Flush DNS button added
Fastest DNS test added (It tests DNS reaction times and writes best one)

You can download it using following link:

Download Link

Homepage

Google Chrome 4.0 Released

2010-01-26T20:50:00.000-08:00

Google has released 4.0 version of its web browser "Chrome". Here is what the Official Google Blog says:

Today we're excited to introduce a new stable release of Google Chrome for Windows, which includes two of the browser's most frequently requested features: extensions and bookmark sync.

Extensions let you add new features and functions to your browser. Now you can browse over 1,500 in our extensions gallery and install them on the stable version of Google Chrome.

Bookmark sync is a handy feature for those of you who use several computers — say, a laptop at work and a desktop at home. You can enable bookmark sync to synchronize your bookmarks on all of your computers so that when you create a bookmark on one computer, it's automatically added across all your computers. This means that you won't need to manually recreate the bookmark each time you switch computers.

To those using Google Chrome on Linux, extensions are enabled on the beta channel. And for those using Google Chrome for Mac, hang tight — we're working on bringing extensions, bookmark sync and more to the beta soon. Those currently using the stable version for Windows will be automatically updated within the next week (or you can check for updates manually).

You can download the new version using following link:

Download Google Chrome 4.0

Download Offline Installer

Create & add static pages on Blogger blog

2010-01-25T21:51:00.000-08:00

Blogger has added most requested feature of adding static stand-along pages to a blog. You can use this feature to make: about us, privacy policy, advertise, contact us pages on your blogger blog. Final page can be viewed at neat URL [like: blogname.com/p/privacy.html]. Being a new feature, as of now its only available in Blogger in Draft.

Make Static Page on Blogger blog

1. Goto http://draft.blogger.com & login into your account.
2. Open blog editor & goto Posting > Edit Pages

3. Then click "New Page" button, enter page title & contents.

4. Click "Publish Page" button, then select where you want page link to appear: sidebar, tabs or manual link.

5. Then click "Save & Publish" button. You page can be viewed at URL like blogname.com/p/about-us.html

Simple, clean and very easy to use. This feature will remove hassle of easily adding pages like about, contact, privacy on a Blogger blog – what say? [ More details]

Compare PSD photoshop files, free comparison tool

Posted: 20 Jan 2010 11:50 PM PST

Viewing a Photoshop PSD files with lot of layers of effects is not easy routine. Doing the same task for multiple PSD files is even more time consuming and effort draining. If you are an active Photoshop users, then make life easy comparing 2 PSD files using free utility ComparePSD.

Layer by Layer comparison of 2 PSD files

1. Download PSD Compare & install it on your Windows PC.
2. Launch the program & click 'File' menu option.

3. Click 'Select Left File' to load PSD in left viewer pane, then click 'Select Right File' to another PSD in right viewer pane.

4. Then start your layer by layer comparison of 2 PSD files with ease (without even need of Photoshop software).

It show detailed layer styles, effect and other sytle attribtues including visible flags of layers. Grab this tool, if you often create and work on PSD designs!

Home Windows 7 Tweaks Vista Tweaks Privacy Subscribe via RSS Subscribe via Email Recommended: Click Here to Fix Windows Errors and Optimize Windows Performance How To Make Windows Media Player Fully Transparent (Aero Glass)

2010-01-24T05:46:00.000-08:00

If you have been following us for the last few weeks or so, you probably know about transparent Calculator and Notepad software for Windows 7. For a change, here is a cool way to make your Windows Media Player transparent (aero glass).

In this guide, you need not to replace any system files manually. The procedure is simple as well.

1. Download WMP full glass tool and extract the content to desktop to see a folder named WMP full glass.

2. In folder, you will see WMP full glass x64 and WMP full glass applications (exe files).

3. Run the appropriate (.exe) file. Note that this tool doesn't have any UI. So you won't see anything on screen.

4. Don't Reboot your PC!

5. Open Windows Media Player in video mode to see the Aero Glass Media Player. If you can't see the Glass Style, follow the next step.

6. Switch to Library mode and then revert to Now Playing mode to see the Aero Style.

Although we have tested this tool only on Windows 7 (x86) this tool should work fine on Vista as well.

Download Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Final Now

2010-01-24T05:45:00.001-08:00

The wait is over. Mozilla has released the much awaited Firefox 3.6 final to its FTP servers and is ready to download now.

The final version of Firefox 3.6 comes with several improvements and features. You can now download Firefox 3.6 from the link mentioned below.

Download

Download WinUtilities Pro v9.3 Worth $39.99 For Free

2010-01-24T05:40:00.001-08:00

GAOTD site has been giving away several Windows utilities these days. After giving away Glary Utilities Pro and Paragon Partition Manger earlier this month, it's now offering the well-known WinUtilities Pro worth $39.99 for the next 24 hours.

WinUtilities Pro is a collection of tools that help you secure, optimize and speedup your Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 in a jiffy.

List of available tools in WinUtilities:

# Disk Defrag

# File Undelete

# Disk Cleaner

# Startup Cleaner

# Registry Cleaner

# History Cleaner

# Exe Protector

# File Splitter

# Memory Optimizer

# Duplicate Files Finder

# Shortcuts Fixer

# Process Manager

# Uninstall Manager

# Registry Search

# BHO (Browser Help Objects) Remover

# Auto Shutdown

# System Control

# Task Manager

It can be remembered that GAOTD had offered WinUtilities v8.3 back in November 2009.

Download WinUtilities Pro

Recovering Deleted Files/Data In Ubuntu 9.10

2010-01-19T23:39:00.001-08:00

Scalpel is one of the best command line tool to recover deleted files in Ubuntu Linux. It can recover almost all types of files.

It visits data blocks of files sequentially and identifies deleted files and recovers them instantly. You can install it by running following command in your terminal.

sudo apt-get install scalpel

Once installation is complete, you can start to recover your deleted data by using a simple command. Run the following command in terminal to recover your data.

scalpel /dev/sda1 -o output

where 'output' is the name of directory in which scalpel places the recovered files. You can specify any name to this directory, just make sure that this directory should not exist in your system because Scalpel create directory itself. Check the following snapshot to get an overview of how Scalpel searches deleted file.

The time taken by scalpel to recover files depends upon the total disk space and the amount of deleted data in your machine. Further you can check logs of recovery process by viewing audit.txt file in output directory.

Source

Cheese:Webcam Software for Ubuntu

2010-01-19T23:36:00.000-08:00

Cheese is a very good Utility for the GNOME Desktop which used for take photos, videos, and anything else you can think of with your webcam.

Just start it up and shoot! Gather all of your friends around, have some fun! Cheese uses GStreamer to apply fancy effects to photos and videos. It also allows you to take videos. Effects, sharing.

How to install in Ubuntu

open a terminal

$sudo apt-get install cheese ( or use synaptic package Manager)

Deb Package is available here

[Via Shibhuvarkala]

How to Share Internet Connection in Ubuntu

2010-01-19T23:35:00.001-08:00

The following will explain how to share your Internet connection:

Note: Type all the following commands in a root terminal, DO NOT use sudo.

1. Start by configuring the network card that interfaces to the other computers on you network:

# ifconfig ethX ip

where ethX is the network card and ip is your desired server ip address (Usually 192.168.0.1 is used)

2. Then configure the NAT as follows:

# iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o ethX -j MASQUERADE

where ethX is the network card that the Internet is coming from

# echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

3. Install dnsmasq and ipmasq using apt-get:

# apt-get install dnsmasq ipmasq

4. Restart dnsmasq:

# /etc/init.d/dnsmasq restart

5. Reconfigure ipmasq to start after networking has been started:

# dpkg-reconfigure ipmasq

6. Repeat steps 1 and 2.

7. Add the line "net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1" to /etc/sysctl.conf

# gedit /etc/sysctl.conf

8. Reboot. (Optional)

I hope this helps.

Good luck!

[Via UbuntuForums.org]

Change your forgotten password in Ubuntu

2010-01-19T23:33:00.000-08:00

Following are the steps :

1. Boot up your computer, and when you see the screen that says something like "Press ESC to enter grub," press ESC (the escape key) as soon as you can.

2. Now you should see a menu with many options. Use the arrow keys to navigate to the newest kernel (the one with the highest number) that has "(recovery mode)" written next to it. Now, hit enter (return).

3. Next, your system should boot up normally. BUT, you WILL NOT see the boot splash. Don't worry about that. Lots and lots of text WILL fly past you.

4. Now you are at a root shell.

5. Type
Code:

passwd username

replacing username with your username

6. Now a little thing will come up and say "New UNIX Password" or similar. Type the new password that you want. Hit enter. Type it again. Hit enter

7. Then, your password has been changed! Type

Code:

shutdown -r now

8. Your system is now rebooting. Once it comes back up, login with your new username and password.

Pls Comment !!!

Thanks to Ubuntuforums.org

Grab Paragon System Backup 2010 with Serial Key For Free

2010-01-19T23:16:00.001-08:00

In past we have covered several promos of big software titles like Kaspersky 2010, Avira Antivir Premium 2009, PDF Password Remover etc. Now here is yet another Promo offer and this time it's Paragon System Backup 2010.

Paragon System Backup 2010 is simple, automatic and reliable backup solution for complete PC protection. It offers out of box automated backup. A single license of Paragon System Backup 2010 costs $24. But now you can grab Paragon System Backup 2010 – Release Candidate along with free product key and serial number for free.

Key Features and Benefits of Paragon System Backup 2010

Features	Benefits
Intuitive user interface	System Backup is based on simplicity and minimal user participation.
Advanced notification system	Color indicators in the system tray inform you about the level of danger your system and data are in and prompt you with ways to fix it.
Set-and-forget backup strategy	Cyclic Backup establishs a self-running data protection system, providing a "set-and-forget" backup strategy.
Backup your entire PC	Out-of-the-box automated backup protects your system and data on a regular basis, immediately after the software is installed.
Smart backup engine	The Smart backup engine effectively distributes resources among other applications when backing up in the automatic mode — keep working on your computer while backing up without taking a performance hit.
Backup on-the-fly	System Backup saves your PC on-the-fly, without interrupting your current activity. You don't need to close any of your applications or restart the computer during the process.
Easy restore to previous state	System Backup restores a snapshot of your PC to the point when it last ran smoothly!
Fast recovery after system failure	Start the recovery process simply by clicking F6 key!
Selective restore	Easily extracts files and folders from a snapshot without needing to restore the whole PC.
Worry-free Paragon Recovery CD	Recovery CD provides the possibility to boot and recover your computer in case of a hard disk malfunction, a virus attack, or a system failure. Gain system access when no other methods are possible.
Windows 7 support	Full support for Windows 7.

Grab Paragon System Backup 2010 with License Key

1. Go the Paragon System Backup 2010 promo page

2. Enter Your details and click on submit

3. You will receive email containing Product Key & Serial Number.

4. Download Paragon System Backup 2010.

Download EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Worth $69.95 For Free

2010-01-19T23:14:00.001-08:00

CHENGDU YIWO Tech Development is offering its EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard (v4.3.6) free of cost for a limited period of time.

As the name suggests, EASEUS Data Recovery tool helps to recover deleted, formatted data, or lost files from lost partitions.

Key features:

# Recover deleted or lost files deleted from the Recycle Bin

# Supports hard drive, memory card, USB drive, & camera card

# Get back files after a partitioning error

# Bootable media based on WinPE

# Supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS/NTFS5 file systems

# Supports Windows Vista, XP, and Windows 2003 operating systems

# File recovery after accidental format, even if you have reinstalled Windows

This software generally available for $69.95 but you can download for free now. Note that EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard giveaway ends before 1 Feb, 2010. So hurry up!

Download

Encrypt Your Internet Connection with Net Guard 2010

2010-01-19T23:10:00.001-08:00

Those users who frequently download stuffs from torrent websites may want to encrypt their internet connection to stay under radar. The sole reason behind encrypting internet connection is every time when your computer connects to internet it leaves a trail of identity in the form of IP address.

Using this IP address all your activity can be traced by your ISP. Here is Net Guard 2010 an easy-to-use application that will ensure your privacy by masking your true IP address from a variety of Internet threats. Net Guard 2010 masks your IP address and keeps you invisible on the Internet.

Net Guard 2010 is also useful for those users who regularly surf the internet from Wifi connection at public places.

Net Guard 2010

Download Net Guard 2010.

Go GodMode Lets You to Create 50 God Modes on Windows 7 & Vista

2010-01-19T23:09:00.001-08:00

Recently we had covered nifty utility GodMode Creator which lets you to access 36 God Modes of Windows 7 & Windows Vista. Now here yet another even more power utility Go GodMode which claims to create over 50 GodModes just by selecting them and pressing the GO button.

Go GodMode also offers ability to add God Modes into context menu or add shortcuts to the Start Menu, QuickLaunch and Favorites folder.

Go GodMode

Windows 7 GodMode Creator – Create 36 God Modes in Windows 7 & Vista

If you have been following tech blogs and tech news websites then you might have heard about so called God Mode trick of Windows 7 which is nothing more than old trick with new wrapper. Anyways in this God Mode trick you can gain access to all the features at one place meant for developers.

The MVPs at TheWindowsClub has released GodMode Creator a freeware utility which lets you create 38 "GodModes" in Windows 7 & Vista with a click.

GodMode Creator

Download GodMode Creator.

Download Go GodMode.

How to Enable Aero Glass Effect in Windows 7

2010-01-19T23:06:00.001-08:00

Aero Glass effect is one of sexiest feature of windows vista is also extended to Microsoft latest windows operating system windows 7. The Aero Desktop experience lets you to enjoy premium visual experience of windows 7. It features a translucent glass design with sublet windows animations and new windows colors.

Basically in Aero glass effect all your open windows boarders are transparent like glass with power full graphic advance. In order to enable Aero in windows 7 you need to have good hardware configuration. I have seen many users looking for how to enable aero effect in windows 7.chek out below steps to enable aero in windows 7.

How to Enable Aero Glass Effect in Windows 7

1. Once you have finished Installing Windows 7 install updated video drivers for your windows 7

2. Refresh your WEI (Windows Experience Index) Score. In order to refresh WEI right on My Computer -> Properties, A New window with System information will be displayed.

3. Click on Performance Information and Tools at bottom right side of window.

4. Now click Re-run the assessment

Or you can simply Click on start->type cmd or Command Prompt-> and type following command

winsat formal

Once your Windows Experience Index is recalculated and if its higher then 3.0, Aero in Windows 7 will get automatically enabled.

You can change colors by righ clicking on desktop-> Personalize -> Select Windows Colors

We are not aware of any working registry hack to enable aero in windows 7 but we will update you once we get any such Hack / Trick to Enable Aero in Windows 7 . Mean while stay tune with us.

How to Create Hidden Password Protected & Encrypted Partition on USB Flash Drive

2010-01-19T23:05:00.001-08:00

USB flash drives have become more popular in short period of time because of its extreme small size and high storage space sooner or longer it will replace traditional CDs. Users are carrying all important documents, passwords files, portable software's within this USB Flash drives. Imagine what will happen if you lose such USB flash drive, do you feel it's risky to carry?

Well if answer is yes and if you want to protect all your USB flash drive content even in case if you have lost your USB flash drive then Rohos Mini Drive freeware tool can be extremely useful for you. Rohos Mini Drive is small utility which lets you to create hidden and encrypted partition on the USB flash drive memory stick.

Rohos Mini Drive automatically detects any flash drive connected to your computer and setups encrypted partition properties with password specified by you. When you need to open USB Flash drive on a guest computer, you just click Rohos icon on the USB flash drive root folder and enter disk password.

Rohos will start a volume and will sit near the system clock to close the disk when you'll finish. No administrative privileges are required to open and read.

Screenshot of Rohos Mini Drive for Creating Encrypted Hidden Partition on USB Flash Drive

To access the hidden partition on a guest machine, run Rohos mini.exe from the

USB flash drive and select the disk image from the _rohos directory on your USB Flash Drive. For Example: _rohos\rdisk0.rdi then enter the password and click the Connect Disk button:

Download freeware Rohos Mini Drive and secure your flash drive by creating encrypted password protected and hidden virtual partition on USB flash drive.

How to Hide Hard Drive Partition (Logical Drive) From My Computer

2010-01-19T23:04:00.001-08:00

Often we feel like to hide hard drive partition from my computer to prevent others from spying on our sensitive data. Specially those users having p0rn content on hard drive will be looking for such tools which can hide logical drive.

For those users here is NoDrive Manager a simple tool for hiding Windows logical drives by modifying the registry. You can select multiple hard Drive Partitions and hide instantly with NoDrive Manager.

NoDrive Manager in Action

Donwload NoDrive Manager.

Recover Deleted/Lost Partitions or Make Non-Booting Disks Bootable Again

2010-01-19T23:03:00.001-08:00

We have several freeware software like defraggler for recovering accidentally deleted data from hard drive however recovery of data is only possible when you have access to the hard drive partition which was holding your data, files & folder. What if your hard drive partition gets corrupted or gets deleted accidentally ?

Do you see the need of software which can recover your lost partition ? if yes then here open source Software TestDisk which is powerful free data recovery software! It is primarily designed to help you in recovering lost partitions and making non-booting disks to bootable again also its very easy to recover Partition table using TestDisk.

Features of TestDisk Partition Recover Software

1. Fix partition table, recover deleted partition

2. Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup

3. Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector

4. Fix FAT tables

5. Rebuild NTFS boot sector

6. Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup

7. Fix MFT using MFT mirror

8. Locate ext2/ext3 Backup SuperBlock

9. Undelete files from FAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem

10. Copy files from deleted FAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3 partitions to other hard drive partition

Screenshot of TestDisk Lost Partition & Data Recovery Software

Supported Operating System:-

DOS (either real or in a Windows 9x DOS-box),Windows (NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista), Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, SunOS and MacOS

Download TestDisk and Recover Lost Partitions or Make non-booting disks bootable again.

Fix Windows 7 Error “Windows is Not Genuine” Error code 0×80070005

2010-01-19T23:02:00.003-08:00

Slowly Windows 7 bugs are getting uncovered, recently we had provided fix for Windows 7 WMP 12 flickering issue, Windows 7 Black Screen of Death issue. Now here is yet another issue found in Windows 7. The issue is related Windows 7 activation and genuine copy.

Those users running genuine version of Windows 7 provided with their hardware platform reported that immediately after log on they were presented with following error message. "Windows is not genuine. Your computer might not be running a counterfeit copy of Windows. 0×80070005."

Some other symptoms of associated with this issue are,

The computer desktop background is black, and you receive the following error message on the bottom right corner of the screen:

"This copy of Windows is not genuine"

You receive the following error message when you view the System Properties: (Control Panel / System and Security / System)

"You must activate today. Activate Windows now"

If you try to use slmgr.vbs /dlv to view the licensing status, you receive the following message:

Error: 0×80070005 Access denied: the requested action requires elevated privileges

Microsoft is fully aware of this issue and provided following explanation for the issue,

There is a lack of permissions in the registry key HKU\S-1-5-20. The Network Service account must have full control and read permissions over that registry key.

This situation may be the result of applying a Plug and Play Group Policy object (GPO).

To resolve this issue, you can either disable the policy setting (Method A), or edit the permissions to provide the Licensing Service the required permissions (Method B).

Method A: Disable the Plug and Play Policy

1. Determine the source of the policy . To do this, follow these steps:

a. On the client experiencing the Activation error, run the Resultant Set of Policy wizard by clicking Start, Run and entering rsop.msc as the command.

b. Visit the following location:

Computer Configuration / Policies / Windows Settings /Security Settings / System Services /

If the Plug and Play service is configured through a Group Policy setting, you see it here with settings other than Not Defined. Additionally, you can see which Group Policy is applying this setting.

2. Disable the Group Policy settings and force the Group Policy to be reapplied.

a. Edit the Group Policy that is identified in Step 1 and change the setting to "Not Defined." Or, follow the section below to add the required permissions for the Network Service account.

b. Force the Group Policy setting to reapply: gpupdate /force (a restart of the client is sometimes required)

Method B: Edit the permissions of the Group Policy:

1. Open the Group Policy that is identified in Method A, Step 1 above, and open the corresponding Group Policy setting.

2. Click the Edit Security button, and then click the Advanced button.

3. In the Advanced Security Settings for Plug and Play window click Add and then add the SERVICE account. Then, click OK

4. Select the following permissions in the Allow section and then click OK:

Query template, Query status, Enumerate dependents, Interrogate, User-defined control, Read permissions

Note: The Previous rights are the minimum required permissions.

5. Run gpupdate /force after you apply the previous permissions to the Group Policy setting.

6. Verify that the appropriate permissions are applied with the following command:

sc sdshow plugplay

The following are the rights applied to the Plug and Play service in SDDL:

D:(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;SY)

(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BA)

(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;IU)

(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;SU)

S:(AU;FA;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;WD)

(A;;CC LC SW LO CR RC ;;;SU is an Access Control Entry (ACE) that allows the following rights to "SU" (SDDL_SERVICE – Service logon user)

A: Access Allowed

CC: Create Child

LC: List Children

SW: Self Write

LO: List Object

CR: Control Access

RC: Read Control

SU: Service Logon User

Note: If there are no GPO's in place, then another activity may have changed the default registry permissions. To work around this issue, perform the following steps:

1. On the computer that is out of tolerance, start Registry Editor.

2. Right-click the registry key HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-20, and select Permissions…

3. If the NETWORK SERVICE is not present, click Add…

4. In Enter the object names to select type Network Service and then click Check Names and OK.

5. Select the NETWORK SERVICE and Grant Full Control and Read permissions.

6. Restart the computer.

7. After the restart, the system may require activation. Complete the activation.

Extract/Recover Stored Passwords & Username in Firefox with PasswordFox

2010-01-19T23:02:00.001-08:00

In past we have written about FirePasswordViewer to recover & extract stored passwords from Firefox now here is yet another similar utility Passwordfox. PasswordFox is a small password recovery tool that allows you to view the user names and passwords stored by Mozilla Firefox Web browser.

By default, PasswordFox displays the passwords stored in your current profile, but you can easily select to watch the passwords of any other Firefox profile.

For each password entry, the following information is displayed: Record Index, Web Site, User Name, Password, User Name Field, Password Field, and the Signons filename.

PasswordFox – Extract Username/Password from Firefox

Download PasswordFox.

Extract & Backup Drivers from Widows XP & Vista with Driver Magician Lite

2010-01-19T23:01:00.000-08:00

ADVERTISEMENTS

Often we forget where we have kept driver CD's for variouse computer hardware and at the end we are stuck without drivers while reinstalling Windows. Incase if you are planning to format and install windows operating system then you may first extract & save already installed drivers from your existing windows operating system.

Once you have extracted and saved drivers you can use it in subsequent windows installation. Driver Magician Lite is freeware application which can used to extract and save drivers from your existing running windows operating system.

Driver Magician Lite identifies all the hardware in the system, extracts their associated drivers from the hard disk and backs them up to a location of your choice. Then when you format and reinstall/upgrade your operating system, you can restore all the "saved" drivers just as if you had the original driver diskettes in your hands.

Driver Magician Lite is lite version of paid Driver Magician software which costs $29.95 per license but this version is absolutely free for use.

Screenshot of Driver Magician Lite

Download Driver Magician Lite 3.5 to Extract and backup drivers from Windows XP and Vista.

Fix Low Hard Drive Windows Experience Index (WEI) Score in Windows 7

2010-01-19T23:00:00.000-08:00

Windows 7 is more or less like windows vista and many feature of vista has been extended to windows 7 like windows experience index to assess your hardware and system component. Based on Windows Experience Index (WEI) score many feature of Windows 7 are enable or disabled.

Even one of best windows 7 Aero glass effect is enabled only if your WEI score is more then 3. Many users have reported that after upgrading Windows Vista to Windows 7 their Hard Drive score is drastically lowered then they had on windows vista. Here is quick fix to resolved Low Hard drive Windows Experience Index score.

Fix Low Hard drive Windows Experience Index Score/Rating on Windows 7

1. Right Click on My Computer and Select Properties from context menu.

2. Select Device manager from left pan

3. Locate your Primary Disk Drive and right click select Properties

4. Now Uncheck Enable Write Caching on Drive and Press ok

5. re-run your Windows Experience Index

This should fix your low hard drive score on Windows Experience Index.

Create, Delete & Rearrange Hard Drive Partitions with Free Active Partition Manager

2010-01-19T22:58:00.001-08:00

You have recently bought a new hard drive and got it partitioned from your computer engineer but after some time you felt to rearrange your hard drive partition but don't have proper software or you can not shutdown your machine which is required when you want to create or delete hard-drive partition.

Here is one good Freeware application Active@ Partition Manager to help you in above scenario. The advantage of using Active@ Partition Manager over other partition utility is you don't need to shutdown your system while Creating, Deleting or Formatting Hard Drive Partitions.

Active@ Partition Manager is an application that helps you manage storage devices and the logical drives or partitions that they contain. You may create, delete, format and name partitions on your computer without shutting down the system. Most configuration changes take effect immediately.

Features of Active@ Partition Manager

1. Create a partition or logical drive

2. Format a logical drive or partition (FAT16, FAT32, NTFS)

3. Assign or change partition attributes

4. Format a Flash memory as NTFS

5. Delete a partition or logical drive

6. Create FAT32 partitions greater than 32GB in size (up to 1Tb)

7. Mark partition as active.

8. Create several partitions on a USB flash memory device

9. View the properties of a partition, logical drive or hard drive device

Screenshot of Active@ Partition Manager

Download Free Active@ Partition Manager 1.2.012

Download New and Improved Build of Chrome OS

2010-01-19T22:57:00.001-08:00

Google had launched the most hyped Chrome OS some months back, and also announced and showed us a demo though an official press release. But since then we have not heard a lot about any updates or developments on the Chrome OS.

But recently, an enthusiastic web developer known by the alias Hexxeh, has released a new and improved build of the Google Chrome OS. This new release of Chrome OS is code-named ZERO. It is based on Chromium build 4.0.2.89/0.5.25.

The major improvement in this new build of Chrome OS over the previous builds is that it supports most of the WiFi chipsets. This new build also has a slight improvement in speed and a new boot time splash screen.

This new build of Chrome OS is available as a download of 250-MB tar.gz archive, which contains a contains big 1GB image file. These are instructions on how to install it on a pen drive from within Windows, as given on the official website.

1. If you downloaded the OS image via Bittorent, make sure that you have extracted the .img file from the compressed .tar file (You can use open source archiving software 7-Zip to do this).

2. Using the Windows Image Writer, select the image (ChromeOS-Zero.img) and your USB drive letter from the drop down box.

3. Click "Write". The install image will then be copied to the drive. Note : The USB flash drive will be reformatted to fit the Image.

4. Once it's done, close the program and you can then boot from the USB drive.

You can know more about the new build of Chrome OS from its official website.

You can download this new and improved build of Chrome OS from here.

If you just want to try out Chrome OS in your virtual machine, you can download the Sun Virtual box image, as well as the Vmware image.

Check out : How to Install Chrome OS on USB Drive

Instantly Set/Reset Screen Resolution with ResolutionKeeper

2010-01-19T22:56:00.002-08:00

Every user has their own resolution and desktop settings also the way they arrange icons on desktop. However if multiple users uses same pc the it become really inconvenient to set & rest resolution and other settings manually every time you login or logoff.

In past we had covered Resolution Master tool to reset & automatically adjusts the screen resolution when a user logs on.

Now here is yet another similar tool ResolutionKeeper small tool that you can use to set the screen resolution under in a simple way that it will be reset to your settings upon every logon or upon a fast user switch.

ResolutionKeeper

Download ResolutionKeeper.

Avast - the world's most popular free antivirus - version 5.0 now available for download

2010-01-19T22:56:00.001-08:00

I figured the big day was nearly at hand when checking Google Pack for the switch to Avast - the spherical 'a' logo was orange instead of the blue which accompanied version 4. It's now official: Avast 5.0 is now available for download.

As with previous versions of Avast, there are both free and pro versions - as well as a a full internet security suite. It's Alwil's first suite, and a relative bargain at $59.95 per year for three computers. Norton - still the big dog in paid antivirus - charges $69.99 for a single machine.

What's new in version 5? Like many other AV developers, Alwil has made the new version lighter on system resources. They've cut down the total number of system processes Avast creates and boosted scanning speeds. The new behavioral shield provides solid heuristic detection for threats not yet included in Avast's definitions.

The professional version also adds sandboxing - which you can leverage outside the antivirus program itself. Want to run your web browser in Avast's sandbox? Go right ahead. It's an excellent way to add another layer of protection to your system and it's not coming at a premium price -- Avast Pro goes for $39.95.

In AV Comparitives December 2009 rundown, they had this to say about Avast:

"This year, Avast! showed big improvements in its detection rates and reduced its number of false alarms. Its on-demand scanning speed is one of the fastest."

One other big change in v5? The default interface. Gone is the blue and gray, gone is the tape-deck styling. Take a look at our Avast 5 beta version gallery to see what the new version looks like!

Once the v5 download links are live (and they should be after 8am EST today), you'll find the new free version on this page.

edit: It's up! As noted in the comments, you'll find Avast version 5 here:http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download. Thanks, chocholo!

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Screenshots Leaked

2010-01-19T22:55:00.001-08:00

We had reported about Windows 7 Service Pack 1 back in May 2009 that was five month prior to Windows 7 official release which was on October 23^rd 2009. Though that rumor looked false that time but is it definitely not false now as the first leaked screenshots of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) are up on internet.

The Spaninse website MuyWindows has published screenshot of Windows 7 Pre SP1 (Service Pack 1) build which will be handed to the pool of private testers in coming weeks.

Windows 7 Pre SP1 has build number between: 7600.20500 and 20,700 and claimed to have 150 fixes of varies level (Important, Critical & Optional). Windows 7 SP1 is expected in late 2010 and should come along with Office 2010 release.

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Screenshots

Recover 7zip Passwords with 7z Cracker

2010-01-19T22:54:00.001-08:00

In past we had covered Winrar password recovery tool to extract & recover password of rar archive files. Similar to WinRAR, 7zip is also an file achieving utility but it's free and open source utility supports many compression algorithms & achieve file formats.

Files compressed with 7Zip archive utility have .7z file extension which can only be opened with 7Zip. If have received or downloaded password protected 7z archive file of 7Zip and looking for password cracker tool for 7Zip then here is 7z Cracker.

7z Cracker is simple command line utility to crack password of 7zip archive files. It uses brute force method to crack passwords. Hence 7z Cracker is extremely fast at recovering 7zip password which has only numbers in passwords.

However if you have powerful machine then it can crack 7z passwords of any length of alpha numeric combination, only downside is it will take more time.

7z Cracker 7Zip Password Recovery Tool

Download 7z Cracker Free 7Zip Password Recovery Tool.

Please Note: Above information is educational purpose only, use of such tools for the illegal purpose or activity is prohibited.

Download Avast Antivirus with Google Pack

2010-01-19T22:53:00.002-08:00

Google recently added Avast antivirus as the new antivirus software to the Google pack. Avast antivirus has replaced Spyware Doctor with antivirus, as the default antivirus that ships with Google Pack.

Google Pack added the free version of the Avast antivirus, but only for the following languages: French, German, Italian, Czech, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, and Polish. But for most of the languages, Avast antivirus is installed in English only.

Google pack is an all-in-one package of all the free software applications that Google selects and recommends for every computer user. This package includes software applications which are always free and are ready to use in just a few clicks.

It contains Google Chrome web browser, Google Apps, Adobe Reader, Real Player, Google Earth, Google toolbar for Internet Explorer, Picasa and Skype.

The Avast Free antivirus included in the Google Pack is same as the regular Avast antivirus software. According to the recent tests by http://av-comparatives.org/, Avast Free antivirus is one of the best free antivirus software applications available.

You can download Avast Free antivirus with Google Pack from here.

Did you liked the Avast Free antivirus with Google Pack? Or you are in support of the Spyware Doctor with antivirus or Norton Security scan, which were previously packaged with the Google Pack. Do let us know your experience and views with the new Google Pack, in comments.

[Pictures and news via Google Opearating system]

Free and Attractive themes for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

2010-01-19T22:53:00.001-08:00

Although there are a number of good quality themes available for Ubuntu through various sites like gnome-look and devianart, it is still a tough task to find good themes for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, which was released last year, in October 2009. There were only a limited number of new themes added to Karmic Koala. But, we have compiled here a list of free and attractive themes for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.

These themes are provided by bisigi project. These themes are very easy to install in Karmic Koala, as you just have to add the required repositories and then type a general command with the name of the theme you want to apply.

e.g: sudo apt-get install theme-name

Follow these steps to add free and attractive themes to Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala:

1. First you have to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list. To do it, open a terminal and type the following command:

gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

This command will open the file which contains the list of repositories. You have to add the following two lines to this file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bisigi/ppa/ubuntu karmic main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/bisigi/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

You can now save the file and exit.

2. In the next step you have to add the repository verification key (GPG Key). To do this, type in the terminal:

gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371 --recv-key 881574DE && 881574DE ">gpg -a --export 881574DE | sudo apt-key add -

Now, you can update the source list by typing this command in the terminal:

sudo aptitude update

3. Now you can install all the themes by typing this command in the terminal:

sudo aptitude install zgegblog-themes

This command will install the following themes in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala:

Note: To install each theme separately, you can use type the command included with that theme in the terminal.

1. Showtime for Gnome

sudo apt-get install showtime-theme

2. Balanzan

sudo apt-get install balanzan-theme

3. Infinity

sudo apt-get install infinity-theme

4. Wild Shine

sudo apt-get install wild-shine-theme

5. Exotic

sudo apt-get install exotic-theme

6. Tropical

sudo apt-get install tropical-theme

7. Bamboo Zen

sudo apt-get install bamboo-zen-theme

8. Ubuntu Sunrise

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-sunrise-theme

9. Aqua Dreams

sudo apt-get install aquadreams-theme

10. Ellanna

sudo apt-get install ellanna-theme

11. Orange

sudo apt-get install orange-theme

If you want to remove the full package containing all these themes, you can type the following command in the terminal:

sudo aptitude remove zgegblog-themes

If you want to remove individual theme, you can remove it by a command in this format:

sudo aptitude remove themename

where themname can be: showtime-theme, balanzan-theme and so on.

Did you liked these themes ? Tell us your experience through comments.

Recover Deleted/Lost Partitions or Make Non-Booting Disks Bootable Again

2010-01-19T22:50:00.001-08:00

Features of TestDisk Partition Recover Software

1. Fix partition table, recover deleted partition

2. Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup

3. Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector

4. Fix FAT tables

5. Rebuild NTFS boot sector

6. Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup

7. Fix MFT using MFT mirror

8. Locate ext2/ext3 Backup SuperBlock

9. Undelete files from FAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem

10. Copy files from deleted FAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3 partitions to other hard drive partition

Screenshot of TestDisk Lost Partition & Data Recovery Software

Supported Operating System:-

DOS (either real or in a Windows 9x DOS-box),Windows (NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista), Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, SunOS and MacOS

Download TestDisk and Recover Lost Partitions or Make non-booting disks bootable again

Backup & Restore Activation Status of Windows XP with Windows Reactivator

2010-01-19T22:44:00.000-08:00

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Every time you reinstall your windows XP you need to reactivate it online using your product key & worst if you lost your Windows XP product key. Here is simple solution Windows Reactivator to get rid of repetitive windows xp activation as well as feat of losing Windows XP product key.

Windows Reactivation is small utility which enables you to backup and restore the Activation Status of an already activated installation of Windows XP. However you can't use Windows Reactivation to restore activation status on different computers.

Whenever you activate your Windows XP a files is created called wpa.dbl which hold the activation information. The information in this file is specific to the original hardware of the computer it resides on. Using Windows Reactivator, you may backup this file prior to reinstalling Windows XP and thereafter restore the wpa.dbl file.

Screenshot of Windows Reactivator 2.0

Download Windows Reactivator 1.0 to Backup & Restore Windows Activation Status

How to Backup & Restore Windows 7 Activation Status

2010-01-19T22:41:00.001-08:00

Every time you reinstall windows operating system you have to activate online or activate using phone method. Worst if you have lost windows product key. We have written guide on how to recover windows 7 product key if you have lost it. Now here is simple batch script (Windows 7 activation Info Backup Tool) which can backup windows 7 activation status.

Once you have backup windows 7 activation status you can restore any time when you reinstall windows 7. The only condition is there should not be any hardware change and this tool is not for bypassing windows 7 activation. You must have genuine windows 7 product key to use this tool.

Windows 7 Activation Info Backup Tool

It also works on Windows server 2008 R1.

Download Windows 7 Activation Info Backup Tool.

Check out :- How to Backup/Restore Windows XP Activation Status.

Backup & Restore Windows Mail with Freeware Static Windows Mail Backup

2010-01-19T22:19:00.001-08:00

Windows Mail email client is a successor of Outlook Express and is only available with Windows Vista. Unlike Internet Explorer 7 & 8 which has been provided as windows component, windows mail still remains asset of windows vista and will not be available for any previous version Microsoft Windows.

We do have many alternative and popular emails but still many users still uses default vista windows mail. Here is useful application for windows mail users, Static Windows Mail Backup which lets you to instantly backup all your email from windows mail as well as you can restore all your mails from backups.

Features of Static Windows Mail Backup

1. Support Windows Mail

2. Windows Mail Backup Free can easy to backup email store and settings from Windows Mail

3. Easy to use

4. Just few clicks you will get your email store backed up

5. Double click to restore

6. You can double click your archive to run the restore process

7. Large file support

8. Backup program can backup large file more than 4GB

Screenshot of Static Windows Mail Backup

Download Freeware Static Windows Mail Backup 2.8d.

Quickly Backup & Restore Hard Drive with O&O DiskImage Express 3.5.26

2010-01-19T22:18:00.002-08:00

Rather then every time reinstalling your operating system, programs files and applications whenever you have formatted your hard drive it would be wise to backup and restore your old hard drive which can save lot of time and efforts.

Here is good freeware tool O&O DiskImage Express 3.5.26 which instantly backups your entries hard drive and lets you to restore the entire drive back to your computer. Ideal for quickly restoring a system partition.

O&O Disk Image Express Edition is a very simple drive backup and restore tool that will enable you to backup your drive You can backup incrementally if you only want to backup a drive or partition you've backed up previously.

Screenshot of O&O Disk Image Express Edition 3.5.26

Download O&O Disk Image Express Edition 3.5.26 for Windows

Please note: O&O Disk Image Express Edition can only backup and restore non system partition only

Fix Missing Windows XP, Vista Hard Drive Partition in Windows 7

2010-01-19T22:18:00.001-08:00

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It has been more then two week now for windows 7 beta public release and I am sure by this time most of all egger users would have already installed windows 7 and exploring windows 7 new features. Installing Windows 7 on another hard drive partition along with Windows XP or Vista is the first option to opt for as this option let us to keep our existing stable operating system and also experiment with windows 7.

Once windows 7 will get expiry it would be easier to switch back to older operating by just removing windows 7 partition and setting boot manager. But after installing windows 7 in dual boot system i have seen many users are facing one typical issue of missing hard drive partition of windows XP or Vista. Here is quick fix of hard drive does not show up in windows 7.

The main reason of hard drive partition missing or not shown in windows 7 is that drive letter of the Windows Vista or XP partition is not assigned in Windows 7.

Fix Hard Drive Partition Missing in Windows 7

1. Click on start and type diskmgmt.msc on search bar (on Run command)

2. This will open the Disk Management interface that is displaying all connected hard drives and partitions.

3. Now select Drive from lower half of your disk management interface which doesn't have any drive letter.

4. Right Click & Select "Change Drive Letter and Paths" from the context menu.

5. Now click on the Add button in the next menu and pick a drive letter from the pull down menu.

6. Click ok to assign selected drive letter and check your windows explorer or my computer to confirm missing drive of windows XP or Vista is shown up or not.

Defragment Hard Drive In System Idle Time with Disk Idle Optimizer

2010-01-19T22:17:00.001-08:00

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Most of all defragmentation software takes huge time to defragment hard drive of moderate size (40 GB) and this is one of the reason for users being lazy to defragment hard drive periodically. Since Defragmentation process significantly slowdown your computer its impossible to work while you are defragmenting your hard drive in background.

Do you feel the need of defragmentation software which can utilize system idle time to defragment your hard drive ? if yes then here is Disk Idle Optimizer a freeware hard drive defragmentation tool.

Disk Idle Optimizer takes advantage of system idle time to defragment your hard drive hence it doesn't take up any extra resource and keeps your system running at top condition at all time. DIO also has built in boot optimizer which informs you if boot files are optimized and if not – they will be, 10 minutes after you leave the computer in idle stat.

Download Disk Idle Optimizer Pro for Windows XP SP2 and Defragment Hard Drive In System Idle Time.

Hide Files & Folder On USB Drive with WinMend Folder Hidden

2010-01-19T22:16:00.002-08:00

USB drives have replaced CD/DVDs and other traditional media. This tremendous increase in popularity of USB drives is due availability of USB drives in various shapes and size at cheap price. Now many users prefer to carry all important documents, portable apps with USB drive.

However if you need to frequently sharing your USB drive with your co-workers or friends then it become difficult to carry important and private files with in same USB drive. One option is to have dedicated USB drive only for your private files and important document and another option is to hide all your important documents, files and folder in USB Drive.

Here is how you can hide folders and files on USB Drive or any other portable media. WinMend Folder Hidden is a free file/folder hiding tool which not enables you to hide files and folder of you hard drive but also on removal media like USB Drive.

Screenshot of WinMend Folder Hidden

Hidden files/folders will be safely hidden whether the drive is accessed in another operating system on the same computer or reinstalled on another computer. You can set password for WinMend and files and folder can be unhidden by entering valid password

Download WinMend Folder Hidden and Safely Hide files and folder on USB Drive.

How to Hide Hard Disk Drive of Your Computer

2010-01-19T22:16:00.001-08:00

Hide it!! Their could be several reasons where you need to hide you file & folder .like you have kept your confidential files, Password files, Important contact numbers, p0rn anything which you don't wont others to open. Hiding those files and folder is best way to protect it from unauthorized user .Their are many Tricks and Tools by which you can hide files and folder of your computer.

But guess what if you have 1000's of files and 1000's folder in a hard drive. It will take whole day to select and hide it one by one. In order to get through this tedious task we have one solution rather then hiding files and folder why don't we hide hard disk drive? We can hide hard disk drive of our computer by using Microsoft's PowerToy Tweak UI.

Tweak UI, This PowerToy gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface, including mouse settings, Explorer settings, taskbar settings, and more.

Steps to Hide Hard Disk drive using Tweak UI

Download, install and run TweakUI in your computer. Then, go to "My Computer – Drives", uncheck the drive that you want it to be invisible and click "Apply".

A hard disk drives will be disappeared immediately after the command is applied.

To quick access your hidden drive, type in the drive letter in address bar.

Download PowerToy Tweak UI (Size 147Kb )

Automatic & Hidden Backup of USB Drivers with AutoUSBCheck

2010-01-19T22:15:00.000-08:00

USB drivers has replaced CDs & DVDs and also made possible to copy large data in small sized USB drive. For IT guys and network administrators USB drives are open threats of data stealing and illegal data copying. If there is no control over USB ports of computers then here is small very useful tool AutoUSBCheck.

This is handy tool for those who want to know when USB Flash Drive is plugged into your computer? Want to know its content? Want to copy its data to your hard disk? The AutoUSBCheck application can and will do that, silently and automatically.

How to use?

1. Start AutoUSBCheck (when AutoUSBCheck is running, you can close the settings dialog; the software will continue to run in background).

2. Insert, at any moment, USB Flash Drive in your computer.

3. The whole process is starting… You can check the log files and the data on your hard disk!

AutoUSBCheck

Download AutoUSBCheck

Checkout: StickBackup USB Drive Backup Tool.

Extra Wallpaper Package for Ubuntu Karmic Koala

2010-01-19T22:14:00.001-08:00

There are many attractive wallpapers included with Ubuntu Karmic Koala. These wallpapers were picked though a competition which had many good submissions. But due to the restriction that this distribution, like the previous ones, had to be limited to a single CD, only 19 of these wallpapers were selected for inclusion.

But we will show you here, how you can get all of those wallpapers, which do not make it the official CD. Kenneth Wilmer has packed those wallpapers into a package and put them in his ppa repository.

To get extra wallpapers for Ubuntu Karmic Koala follow these steps:

Add Wilmer's repository by typing this command in a Terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kwwii/ppa

The next step is to update this repository by running this command in the Terminal:

sudo apt-get update

Now you can install the package by using this command in the Terminal:

sudo apt-get install desktop-backgrounds-extra

If you have followed the above steps correctly, you will have a package containing many new, beautiful and attractive wallpapers for Ubuntu Karmic Koala. Do let us know about your experience with these new wallpapers, through comments.

Find Process & Applications Accessing Hard Drive or Using CPU

2010-01-19T22:12:00.000-08:00

You may sometime need to locate process of application currently accessing hard disk drive contents or using CPU cycles. You might be curious to know why LED of HDD blinks or why CPU fan gets lauder here is answers to all your curiosity "What's My Computer Doing?".

What's My Computer Doing? is creative application & It shows all programs that are accessing your hard disk or using the CPU. It also has an option to close these programs or even uninstall them.

What's My Computer Doing ?

Download What's My Computer Doing ?

Convert Scanned Documents to PDF with Scan2pdf

2010-01-17T23:12:00.000-08:00

How many times you wished to convert your scanned document into PDF files ? We are sure that will be quite few times. Normally the output of scanner is in the form of image but it can be easily converted into PDF by using simple freeware tool Scan2pdf.

Keep Reading This Post:
Convert Scanned Documents to PDF with Scan2pdf

via [dnablog]

How to Remove Fake Antivirus Programs?

2010-01-16T09:31:00.000-08:00

Many times you are visiting a web page and suddenly you receive a message that your system is at risk or your system has been infected with a virus. You also get an option to fix the issue or remove the virus from your system. As soon as you click on the button to fix the issue, a program is automatically downloaded and installed in your system which pretends to be an antivirus. It scans your system and tells you that there are some virus infections which need to be fixed. After that you are asked to purchase a paid software to fix those virus infections.

Actually these so called antivirus are fake. Many virus makers create such kind of virus to infect your system so that they can earn money once you decide to purchase the product.

Uninstalling/removing such fake antivirus is not an easy task. That's why today we are sharing an excellent utility "Remove Fake Antivirus" which helps in removing fake antivirus programs from a system.

It can remove following known fake antivirus programs:

Cyber Security
Alpha Antivirus
Braviax
Windows Police Pro
Antivirus Pro 2010
PC Antispyware 2010
FraudTool.MalwareProtector.d
Winshield2009.com
Green AV
Windows Protection Suite
Total Security 2009
Windows System Suite
Antivirus BEST
System Security
Personal Antivirus
System Security 2009
Malware Doctor
Antivirus System Pro
WinPC Defender
Anti-Virus-1
Spyware Guard 2008
System Guard 2009
Antivirus 2009
Antivirus 2010
Antivirus Pro 2009
Antivirus 360 and
MS Antispyware 2009

You just need to run the tool and click on "Start" button. It'll take some time and will completely remove the fake antivirus programs from your system.

You can download it using following links:

Download Link

Mirror

Homepage

Thanks to Ahmad for sharing it...

The 5 Best Posts From Last Week

2010-01-16T00:32:00.001-08:00


8 Steps To Regain Control Of Your Facebook Privacy
	Facebook recently updated their privacy controls and its time we look at the changes. Things appear to have got stronger with tweaks to the privacy features relating to search visibility, photos and videos, relationships and contact information. You can start with the new Privacy Transition Tool. Follow this post with its sequel - 8 MORE Steps To Regain Control Of Your Facebook Privacy Read: Full Article
6 MORE Ways To Set Up Dual Monitors To Be More Productive
	If two heads are better than one, so can be two monitors. A dual monitor workspace is one of the most functional productivity hacks. This update collates some of the inputs we have got from our readers who have gone down the two monitor path. Read: Full Article
10 Innovative Ways To Use Twitter For Business
	What's a social article doing at MakeUseof.com? Thanks to the web and technology, we can get away from a relationship without getting our ears chewed off. Though a relationship isn't a power button, this post gives a few hints on how we can try to turn if off without the side effects. Read: Full Article
What Do You Get If You Combine Dropbox and Mozy? Wuala!
	Which is your favored online storage service? Is it Dropbox? Or is it Mozy? The new startup Wuala takes the plusses of both and creates a unique place to park your files. It's a win-win situation for all with the unique file sharing offer from Wuala. Read: Full Article
Are You A List Maniac? Check Out These Ten Sites That Are About Top 10 Lists
	The web is filled to the brim with lists, especially of the Top10 variety. Perhaps it makes for easy and fun reading. Do you know that there are sites out there that cater to our appetite for Top10 kind of stuff? This site is a Top10 look at the sites that keep the Top10 lists. Read: Full Article

The 5 Others That Deserve a Click
You might find these five posts useful too -
How To Survive in the Wilderness Using Your Mobile Phone How To Make An iPod Touch Or iPhone For Kids 5 PowerPoint Search Engines To Seek Out Publicly Available Presentations The Best Free Online International Travel Guides 6 Free Password Recovery Tools for Windows
That's it for this week! Pay us a visit and let us know if we are doing a good job. Your comments stir us to do better.
via [MakeUseOf]

Careful About Jazz SMS Khazana

2010-01-15T04:02:00.001-08:00

The recent offers from Mobilink; sim lagao, IDD call charges reduction, iTalk and iSMS were much appreciated because of their transparency not only in explaining the offer but giving details of all costs associated with it.

The latest from them is the Jazz Khazana, in which one gets a chance to win cash prizes by sending blank SMS to 5555 of Rs. 50,000 daily, Rs. 5,00,000 weekly and one may even get a chance to win the grand prize of Rs. 50,00,000. Their website gives details about the Mechanics, the Points Collection Criteria, the Eligibility Criteria & Rules, Bonus Points Criteria and Terms and Conditions all very clearly but hides the cost of sending the SMS in FAQs.

So for those who wish to take part in this game BE CAREFUL the cost of each SMS to 5555 is Rs 8 + tax.

I have not got a chance to check out their TVC so not sure if they mention about the cost in it but the banner on website surely does not.

I wish they could be more clear and transparent in their advertisement and realise that this will help them gain customers trust in their offers/products.

A New Beginning: Mobile Financial Services in Pakistan

2010-01-14T04:39:00.001-08:00

By Babar Bhatti and Arsalan Mir on January 13, 2010 under Business, Emerging Markets Telecom, ICT, M-Commerce, M-banking, Mobile Phones, Mobilink, Telenor, Twitter, easypaisa | 284 views

Growth of Pakistan telecom industry took a hit in recent months because of economy and regulation of SIMs. Even though the number of new subscribers slowed down and the revenues per user remained low, Pakistan telecom industry has shifted to a whole new set of services which provide value and convenience in ways not possible before. One of the interesting trend of 2009 was the rush to offer financial services via mobile phones aka mobile financial services (MFS). These services include transactions such as remittances (person-to-person payments), payment of bills and others commerce enabled by mobile/cellular technology. This post provides an overview of MFS in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, the widespread infrastructure of mobile operators provides them strong advantages to serve as an important link in the financial services value chain. As we have seen in Pakistan, banks and mobile operators have partnered up to start MFS. And this has generated a wave of of marketing activity (see these commercials) with campaigns on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, highlighting the competition among mobile network operators.

One may ask why did it take so long for MFS to start in Pakistan? Well, unlike entrainment or information services, financial and commerce related services require coordination of multiple institutes and approval of government regulatory agencies. Security, accuracy and establishment of trust of users is also very important.

Easypaisa

An example of this is 'easypaisa' from Tameer Microfinance Bank and Telenor Pakistan. Interesting thing about this service is that money can be sent and received without a mobile phone. However, using a mobile phone provides convenience as confirmations are sent as SMS. Any person with a valid Nadra CNIC can send money or receive money. Sending/Receiving can be done from more than 4,000 easypaisa shops all over Pakistan. The transaction is encrypted and the process has been approved by the State Bank of Pakistan. Details on how this works are available at easypaisa website and on YouTube. Regardless of one's opinion on the convenience and the fees, one must admit that introduction of MFS such as easypaisa changes the status quo for payments which has been around till now in Pakistan.

Telenor is not the only company with plans for mobile financial services. Ufone started premium banking service for customers of Ufone who have account with one its partner banks. This is a different approach where an application on the handset allows eligible customers to carry out financial and non-financial transactions. Mobilink, the largest cellular company by subscribers, is also gearing up for MFS. Previously Mobilink offered Mobile money order and Mobilink Genie. In July, Orascom announced its plans for MFS:

Mobilink and Citibank will utilize Mobilink's extensive retail infrastructure to extend the reach of financial services to the previously un-served masses. Using Mobilink's cutting edge technology, Mobilink users will be able to open branchless bank accounts through a simple and convenient registration process via authorized agents across the country. The service will allow users to maintain their accounts through their phones and make secure peer to peer money transfers to any Mobilink number simply via SMS.

Read our prior coverage of the potential, opportunities and market size of MFS.

A version of this post was first published at Pakistaniat.com.

Wireless Broadband Coverage Issues

2010-01-14T04:38:00.000-08:00

By Arsalan Mir on January 13, 2010

Recently my father wanted internet connectivity at his work site in the vicinity of Port-Qasim (Karachi), I suggested him to go for wireless broadband. So, my father asked me to get the best wireless broadband connection. This was not an easy task and above all my finding surprised me even more.

I decided to check out wi-tribe connection but calling their customer support I got to know that they offer no coverage in Port-Qasim, the second most busy sea-port of Pakistan. Well I couldn't connect to change and had to change my mind to try out qubee, although they have a pretty well drawn coverage map on their website which others lack but again did not have coverage in the area.

Checking out PTCL evo and Mobilink Infinity I found the same, they also fail to have coverage in Port-Qasim. My last resort was Wateen, the first wireless broadband provider of the country. Calling at Wateen, I get to know that the call center agent does not even know if they have coverage in my desired vicinity, they only know that the coverage is available through out Karachi and to check for a particular area I will have to check myself by visiting any franchise. With this I got into argument over what are helplines for that lasted for 5 mins and the agent ended up sending me the address of the nearest franchise via SMS, which I never visited after all this frustration.

The whole point I want to make here is that the coverage area of wireless broadband services still needs a lot a improvement and to assist consumers better, coverage maps like the one qubee has must be available on all operators website and the helpline agent must also be educated completely about the service.

via [telecompk]

2010 Free Antivirus Buyers Guide>Avast on Top

2010-01-14T03:10:00.001-08:00

BY: Charles P. Jefferies, NotebookReview.com Contributor
PUBLISHED: 12/15/2009

By Charles P. Jefferies

Introduction

Over the last several months Notebook Review looked at several free antivirus solutions -- today we compile our results in our 2010 free antivirus buyers guide and declare a winner. Read on to see which one is most worthy of your bandwidth.

Antivirus Software Solutions

The following antivirus products are participating in this review; all are available free of charge:

How We Test

The antivirus solutions will be objectively and subjectively rated over four categories:

Protection
Ease of use
Performance
Extra features

Antivirus solutions will be given a rating for each category; higher numbers are better.

Section One: Protection

This section focuses on two components: pro-activeness and update frequency. Pro activeness is rated on how fast the application detected viruses and on how frequently and quickly the software updated itself.

Solution	Pro Activeness (0-12)	Update Frequency (0-2)	Total
AVG 9.0	5	2	7
Avira	5	1	6
Avast	12	2	14
Microsoft SE	7	2	9

Pro Activeness: Avast was significantly more proactive than the other suites, detecting and blocking all four of our test virus files before the download actually started. AVG and Avira both blocked one during download but only discovered the others after performing a system scan. Microsoft SE allowed all four to download but immediately neutralized them afterward -- scanning for them was not necessary.

Update Frequency: While all the antivirus solutions allow for manual updating, 99% of people will not do this. The free solutions we tested updated automatically only once per day. This is one area where free antivirus suites fall behind paid solutions, which update many times a day (sometimes several times per hour). Avira lost one point in this category since its updates took an unusually long time.

Section Two: Ease of Use

There are three categories in this section: Interface, simplicity, and free drawbacks; all are equally weighted. The interface rating is based on the presentation -- how well the interface is laid out and how easy is navigation. Simplicity is based on the relevance of terminology and items presented in the interface. Lastly, the free drawbacks rating is based on the inconvenience of using free antivirus, if any -- many have catches since they are free; higher points means there are less drawbacks.

Solution	Interface (0-4)	Simplicity (0-4)	Free Drawbacks (0-4)	Total
AVG 9.0	3	3	2	8
Avira	2	2	0	4
Avast	2	3	1	6
Microsoft SE	4	4	3	11

Interface and Simplicity: Microsoft SE has the best-looking interface of the bunch; essential information is clearly presented and labeled. Avast has an entirely icon-driven interface which has a learning curve but is simple to use afterward. Avira gets low marks for both simplicity and interface; it looks like something from 1998 and has puzzling terminology. AVG had a clear interface though presented more information than was necessary.

Free Drawbacks: Scores in this section varied. Microsoft received the best score in this category since its only 'free' catch is that it requires the user to validate their copy of Windows and participate in Microsoft's information collecting SpyNet service. AVG follows closely, only receiving two points off since it tries to upsell to the paid version but does so in an indirect fashion (drop-down below the interface). Avast gets low marks since registration is required. Avira no points since it has a very annoying 'nag' pop-up screen that tries to sell the full version; we found this to be very inconvenient.

Section Three: Performance and Efficiency

Antivirus software historically has been detrimental to performance. This category rates on two sections: Overall performance impact and scan time.

Solution	Performance Impact (0-2)	Scan Time (0-2)	Cumulative Total
AVG 9.0	2	2	4
Avira	2	1	3
Avast	2	1	3
Microsoft SE	2	0	2

Performance Impact: All of the solutions had essentially no impact on overall performance, which is very impressive and all received full scores.

Scan Time: Microsoft SE was the only true laggard coming in over one hour; AVG bested them all at 23 minutes while Avast and Avira came in at 34 and 45 minutes respectively.

Section Four: Extra Features

It is expected that free antivirus products only provide the bare essentials. The extra features category rewards an additional point to solutions that went the extra mile.

Solution	Extra Features (0-1)
AVG 9.0	1
Avira	0
Avast	1
Microsoft SE	0

We felt it fitting to give extra points to AVG and Avast since they went beyond what is normally expected. AVG provides free identity theft protection, and Avast provides a basic light firewall and a virus recovery database to keep files safe.

Conclusion

Solution	Protection	Ease of Use	Performance	Extra Features	FINAL
AVG 9.0	7	8	4	1	20
Avira	6	4	3	0	13
Avast	14	6	3	1	24
Microsoft SE	9	11	2	0	22

And the winner is . . . Avast Free Antivirus! Avast took our top spot for several reasons. First and foremost it provides the best protection and additionally has a relatively easy to use interface. It also included several extra features, most notably its file recovery database and a light firewall. Microsoft SE comes in a close second -- while not as proactive as Avast it has the slickest interface and least amount of free drawbacks. AVG is right behind Microsoft as the second most easy-to-use solution with several useful extras including identity theft protection. Avira claims last place primarily due to its antiquated interface, confusing terminology, and annoying nag screen. Nonetheless, remember that all four products individually received our recommendation since they passed our tests.

Related Articles:

via [notebookreview]

PTCL Brings Calling Card Promotion

2010-01-11T20:41:00.000-08:00

Here comes a new sales promotion from PTCL, this time the target market is calling card users.

What's the deal:

Now for NWD callers first minute will be charged and subsequent two minutes will be free similarly 4^th minute will be charged and 5^th and 6^thminute will be free and so forth. (From 9PM to 7AM).

Moreover Callers to mobiles shall avail reduced Tariff of Rs 1.50/minute (From 9PM to 7AM) and Reduced tariff will be applicable for thirteen international destinations including USA, Canada, UK for Rs.1 China, Italy, Germany for Rs 1.5 Malaysia, Greece, Norway, Belgium for Rs. 1.75 Australia for 1.90, and Saudi Arabia for Rs. 7.50

Note:

New Tariffs will be applicable from Monday January 11, 2010.
This is a limited time offer starting from 11^th of January to 31st March,2010

How to check whether your blog or website infected by malicious software ?

2010-01-11T20:33:00.002-08:00

Today we are going to see how to check our blog or website whether they are infected by any virus ? because it mainly causes a traffic drop and readers scare to visit your blog .

There is a chance your antivirus software is unable to identify the suspicious scripts inside your blog files. So better we can check with 2 ways and go for safe blogging.

1. Google's Site Health :

http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://yoursite.com

Change yoursite.com with your site name and copy it and paste it to your browser and hit enter then you will receive the report from Google immediately like this:

2. You can also use another site from Novirusthanks.org, by simply paste your blog url and Click Submit Address, then it will scan your site immediately and gives you the report like this:

Happy Blogging \m/

via [rumahabi]

Upload a File to 17 Different Websites at a Time

2010-01-11T20:33:00.001-08:00

Manually uploading files to different hosting takes too much time. Happy to welcome a service which lets users to upload a file to different website at single click.

Load 2 All, is a tool for uploading a file (any file) to as many service providers as you might feel like. For example, you can upload to sites such as Rapidshare, Megaupload and DepositFiles at the same time.

You can actually upload files to 5 simultaneous mirrors, and you are clearly informed about the maximum capacity of each and every service. At anytime if your files exceed the limit, it automatically splits the files into smaller .rar files and upload them.

They support websites like HotFile, NetLoad, GotUpload, FileFactory, RapidShare.Com, Storage.To, Uploaded.to, MegaUpload, SharingMatrix, DepositFiles, 2Shared, Badongo, MegaShares, zSHARE, Sendspace, RapidShare.De, AxiFile.

Very much useful for mega uploaders and people who backup data's. So that if some host goes down, their data's are safe at some other host.

Load2All - Homepage

How to List All Control Panel Actions and Tasks Available in Windows 7 and Vista (GodMode)

2010-01-07T06:40:00.003-08:00

Windows 7 Control Panel is the main center where most configurations, personalization, customizations, tweaks, settings of the underlying operating system can be viewed set, changed, or defined. In Windows 7 and Windows Vista, Control Panel has been enhanced and made user friendlier with listing and displaying of various related common actions or tasks for easy access.

The benefits and advantages of actions and tasks available for each module in Control Panel is that Windows user has fast and direct access to various functions to tweak and customize the operating system. Besides, the descriptive title of these tasks and actions is less ambiguous and straight forward, allowing users to quickly and accurately perform various tasks and actions on Windows OS.

In Windows 7, user can easily search inside the Control Panel folder to get search results of relevant actions and tasks available in Control Panel. How about if you want a complete and full listing of all actions and tasks available in Windows 7 or Windows Vista?

Use the following hack or trick to create a single folder to display and show all available actions and tasks in Control Panel:

Simply areate a folder with any prefer name, such as "Control Panel Actions" or "GodMode", appending with a suffix of .{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} GUID string.

It's also possible to rename existing folder to append and add the similar suffix of .{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}.

For example, naming a folder named "Control Panel Actions" to "Control Panel Actions.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}" will make the folder as a special system folder with a Control Panel default icon that displays and shows all Control Panel related items and options.

The trick should works on both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) of Windows 7 and Windows Vista. And the folder can be placed on desktop or any other folder location or even pin to Start Menu.

Office 2010 Pricing and Version Details

2010-01-07T06:40:00.001-08:00

Microsoft had released the beta version of Office 2010 some time back and the final release is expected to the mid of 2010. Office 2010 comes with lots of new features and it was well accepted by the beta testers. Now, the Office 2010 team has announced the pricing and version details of Office 2010. Office 2010 will be available in 4 versions- Office Home and Business, Office Professional, Office Home and Student, and Office Professional Academic.

The pricing and version details for Office 2010 are as follows.

Office Home and Student [1]	Office Home and Business	Office Professional Edition	Office Professional Academic
Word 2010	Word 2010	Word 2010	Word 2010
Excel 2010	Excel 2010	Excel 2010	Excel 2010
PowerPoint 2010	PowerPoint 2010	PowerPoint 2010	PowerPoint 2010
OneNote 2010	OneNote 2010	OneNote 2010	OneNote 2010
	Outlook 2010	Outlook 2010	Outlook 2010
		Publisher 2010	Publisher 2010
		Access 2010	Access 2010
Full Packaged Product: $149	Full Packaged Product: $279	Full Packaged Product: $499	Full Packaged Product: $99 [2]
Product Key Card: $119	Product Key Card: $199	Product Key Card: $349	N/A

All prices are estimated retail prices and may vary by retailer.

Some of the highlights of the versions;

Office Home and Student boxed product is available in a Family Pack, allowing usage on three PCs in one house
Purchase rights for Office Home and Business, Office Professional, and Office Professional Academic boxed product allow for usage on two of your PCs.
The Product Key Card is a single license card (with no DVD media) that will be sold at major electronic retail outlets.
The Product Key Card is valid for a single installation of the product.

Notes:

[1] Not for use in any commercial, nonprofit or revenue-generating activities, or by any government organization.

[2] Office Professional Academic 2010 is available through authorized academic resellers only.

Download O&O Defrag 10 Professional for Free

2010-01-07T06:39:00.001-08:00

Although there is an in build defragmentation tool in Windows 7, it comes with lesser features when it compared to third party tools. O&O Defrag is one such tool which comes with good features, but this utility is not a free one. Generally the O&O Defrag costs around $50, but now you can get a full professional version for free, but the version is a bit older than the current one. You can now get the O&O Defrag Professional version 10 for free and this version was released back in 2007.

Although the version 10 is not officially supported on Windows 7, we have installed it on Windows 7 Ultimate and couldnt find any issues. The current version of O&O Defrag is 12 which has more features than the version 10.

You need to register with the special promo page and the license and also the download links are send through email.

Thanks to CybernetNews for this tip.

How to Create a System Repair Disc in Windows 7

2010-01-07T06:37:00.002-08:00

Once you have installed Windows 7, its always good to have a system repair disk so that if you mess up with any configuration, you can use the disk to repair. If you have the Windows 7 boot disc, then repair disk may not be needed. But still it is always good to have a repair disk, just in case you need it anytime. To create a system repair disk, click on start menu and type "System Repair Disc" in the search bar and click enter. You can also open it using the run command "recdisc".

This will open up the disc creation utility and you will need to insert a blank disc for creating the repair disc.

Once the disc creation is complete, you can use this disc to boot and repair Windows 7, in case mess up any configuration and want to repair files.

Repair Windows 7 System Files with System File Checker (SFC.exe)

2010-01-07T06:37:00.001-08:00

If any of the Windows system files are missing or are corrupted, Windows may not behave as expected. For example, some Windows functions may not work, or Windows may crash. Windows 7, like previous version, has an inbuilt tool called system File Checker tool (SFC.exe) which scans for missing or corrupted system files and repairs them. Using System File Checker tool (SFC.exe), you can determine which file is causing the issue, and then replace the file.

To start System File Checker (SFC.exe), follow the steps below.

1. Open an elevated command prompt, i.e command prompt run as an administrator. To do this, click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.

2. Now type the command sfc /scannow and press enter. The System File Checker will start checking the system.

This process might take some time as it has to scan all the system files for errors.

3. Once the scan is complete it will display the result to inform whether there are any issues with the system files.

The sfc /scannow command scans all protected system files and replaces incorrect versions with correct Microsoft versions. In case the tool is not able to fix the error, it is better to restore the system to a previous state using System restore.

Create a System Restore Point Quickly in Windows 7

2010-01-07T06:36:00.001-08:00

System Restore helps you restore your computer's system files to an earlier point in time and there is an option in Windows to create a system restore. If you are not familiar with creating a system restore, we had covered free utility called Single Click system Restore and also a simple VB script to create system restore easily in Windows. The Windows Club has come up with a similar utility for creating System restore in Windows Vista and Windows 7. Quick Restore Maker allows you to create one in a single click.

The restore point so generated is named as 'QuickRestoreMaker Generated' point. Simply download and extract the content on the zip file and place the program folder in your Program Files folder and the shortcut of its exe file to your Start Menu.

It has been tested on Windows 7 & Vista, but may work on other Windows versions too.

Download Quick Restore Maker

Download Windows 7 Login Changer

2010-01-07T06:35:00.002-08:00

There are quite a few free tools to change the Windows 7 Logon screen like Windows 7 Logon Screen, Account Screen Editor, and Logon Screen Rotator. Login Changer is another useful and free tool to change the Windows 7 Logon. Another good feature of this tool is that you can add a collection of pictures and change between them at a specified interval. You can also reset to default Windows 7 Logon any time.

You can either select a single image or multiple images. In case the image size is large than what is require the tool will automatically resize and save it for you.

Image formats supported by this tool are Bitmap (BMP), Portable Network Graphics (PNG), Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPG), and Graphics Interchange Format (GIF).

The application require .Net Framework 3.5 and works with Windows 7.

Download Login Changer

Screenpresso- The Ultimate Screen Capture Tool

2010-01-07T06:35:00.001-08:00

We have covered various free tools to capture screen shots in Windows. Screenpresso is a free screen capture tool, but unlike other free tools, this one comes with loads of features and also Twitter integration. What makes Screenpresso impressive is not the screen capture, but the tool and options once you have captured the image. The utility has a history section, image editor, easy to email option and also upload the screenshot quickly to Twitter using Twitpic.

The screenshot history section has option to save the file or edit it with your installed image editors, you can also upload the image to Twitter.

Double clicking the image from the history window open up the Screenpresso editor which has basic functions as well as drawing tools.

The settings window allows you to set the format and also other options like number of images in history, image name etc.

Some of the features of Screenpresso in short;

Simply capture part of the screen or a specific window with the same shortcut.
It saves your screenshots by default into the history window.
Drag and drop screenshots from history directly to your favorite email editor. Webmail like GMail are also taken into account
Crop, spotlight an area or comment parts of captured image.
Capture scrolling part of the screen
Add drop shadow, round corners and reflection and more
Easy share screenshots on Twitter thanks to Twitpic integration.

Download Screenpresso

Mobile Net Switch – A Complete Network Connection Manager for Windows 7, Vista & XP

2010-01-07T06:33:00.001-08:00

If you frequently need to configure your laptop or desktop machine network connection then Mobile Net Switch is the must required utility for you. Mobile Net Switch is award winning program for Windows XP and Windows Vista that enables you to use your computer on more than one network with the click of a button.

Mobile Net Switch allows you to automatically switch network related settings on the fly based on location profiles. With the click of a single button you can set Drive mappings, Internet connection settings, Printer settings, IP settings, Wi-Fi settings and much more!

With Mobile Net switch you can instantly switch between any network connections without need of any reboot. Mobile Newt Switch Network Manager supports Windows 7, VIsta and XP.

Features of Mobile Net Switch 3 Network Connection Manager for Windows 7, Vista & XP

1. It allows you to set Account Information, Drive Mapping and the Proxy Server (Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome) for each profile

2. Allows you to specify IP Addressing settings and advanced options like the Windows Firewall, DNS Suffix and what network adapter should be enabled
and disabled

3. Wireless Networking support (802.11, WLan, WiFi) based on Microsoft Wireless Zero Configuration ensures support for all Wireless Network adapters and security technologies as WPA, WPA+PSK, WPA2 and WEP

4. You can set a startup page (Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome), dialup connection, dialing rules and the ISA Firewall client

5. Configure wallpaper, display resolution, num-lock state and sound volume

6. allows you to set the default printer, default outlook profile, the system's time zone and the Power Scheme

7. Modify the IP Routes, the outgoing SMTP mail server and hosts file for each profile

8. Run Custom scripts, batch files and import .reg files when activating a profile

Screenshot of Mobile Net Switch 3

Download Mobile Net Switch 3 Installer

Convert Text into Symbols with Symbol Maker

2010-01-07T06:32:00.003-08:00

You already know how to convert any image into ASCII art now here is yet another funky tool. Symbol Maker is an application designed to be a small tool that will easily turn any normal text into symbols. Just type the text, and it makes them symbols! It's simple and it copies the text change to your clipboard.

Symbol Maker uses Wingdings font to create symbols out text. You can also use Microsoft word or textpad to convert text into symbols.

Symbol Maker

Download Symbol Maker.

Detect All Computers Connected to Your Wireless Network

2010-01-07T06:32:00.001-08:00

Wireless networks are biggest victim of hacking and misuse of connection. Wireless network setup inside your home and office may be misused by your neighbors as a way to get free internet connection. You must protect your Wireless network with strong password to prevent unauthorized users from accessing.

However even after taking all precautionary measures to prevent unauthorized access one can't guarantee their wireless network will be safe. Here is one handy tool, Zamzom Wireless Network Tool which lets you to detect all computer names, Mac and IP addresses using your wireless network.

Zamzom also helps users to take valuable steps toward properly securing their wireless networks.

Screenshot of ZamZom Wireless Network Tool

Download ZamZom Wireless Network Tool and Instantly Identify Users/Computers connected to your Wireless Network

Batch Create Image Thumbnails with ThumbMe

2010-01-07T06:31:00.001-08:00

Posted: 05 Jan 2010 06:47 PM PST

In past we have covered guide to create video thumbnails using Video Thumbnail Maker & Video to Jpg Converter. Now here is free tool to create image thumbnails. If you are a web designer or blogger then it's likely that you will need to create thumbnails of images.

Using Photoshop like tools to create thumbnails could be time consuming, here is ThumbMe tool to batch create image thumbnails of GIF, JPG, PNG, BMP & TIF image files.

You just need to select image folder and output file prefix.

ThumbMe

Download ThumbMe.

Manage Network Connection Profiles with TCP/IP Manager

2010-01-07T06:30:00.002-08:00

In past we have covered two different network managers, Mobile Net Switch & NetCon Manager which lets you to efficiently manage multiple network profiles. Now here is yet another tool to manage different network profiles, TCP/IP Manager.

TCP/IP Manager lets you to keep track of your network configuration and it also makes it easy to instantly switch to different network profiles without much hassle.

You can create any number of network connection and save as network profile.

TCP/IP Manager

Download TCP/IP Manager.

Play GameBoy Games on PC with CrystalBoy GameBoy Emulator

2010-01-07T06:30:00.001-08:00

In past we had covered PSP2 Emulator & Nintendo Emulator. Now here is Game Boy Emulator to let you to play Bboy games. Game Boy was the second handheld gaming device of Nintendo. More than 118.69 million units of Game Boy & Game Boy color have sold.

If you are missing your GameBoy & want to enjoy Game Boy games on your PC then here is CrystalBoy a Game Bboy emulator developed in C#. CrystalBoy lets you to load Game ROMS, View Rom information, enable sound, video.

CrystalBoy provides following hardware emulation

1. Game Boy

2. Game Boy Pocket

3. Game Boy color

4. Game Boy Advance

5. Super Game Boy

6. Super Game Boy 2

CrystalBoy Game Boy Emulator

Download CrystalBoy.

Get Animated StartMenu on Windows 7, Vista with StartMenu Animation

2010-01-07T06:29:00.000-08:00

With increase in number of Windows 7 users more and more applications & tweaking utilities for windows 7 coming out. In past we have covered many useful applications for Windows 7 like win7stack, Windows 7 in Box, Windows 7 Logon Editor etc.

Now here is yet another utility to enhance your visual experience with Windows 7. If you ever wanted to add animation to Windows 7 start menu then this tool is for you. One of deviantart user has developed Startmenu Animation 2 utility which lets to add animation effect to your windows 7 start menu.

Windows 7 Start Menu Animation Video

(Click on image to Enlarge)

Supported Operating system Windows 7, Vista & Xp.

Download StartMenu Animation 2.

Desktop Tool to Easily Convert Your Photos to High Quality ASCII Art : Ascgen

2010-01-07T06:26:00.001-08:00

We have already seen the best online and desktop image editing tools, today found a new desktop app which converts our photos to ascii art. Just load your image, play with settings and get your image converted into ascii art.

Ascgen is an simple desktop app which helps to convert images into high quality ASCII art - text that accurately represents the original image. ASCII art is a graphic design technique. To understand in simple, its a text based art in general. Below you can see a tank and truck desgined using ascii art.

Coming back to desktop app Ascgen, All you need to do is, download the zip file and run the exe file. Ascgen is based on .Net framework 2.0 so ensure that you have .NET framework 2.0 or higher installed to run this program.

* Open the Ascgen - Click on File > Load Image

* Select the image which you want to convert to ascii art

* You can also customize like brightness, contrast, dither (optional)

* That's it, ASCII art will appear on your screen.

Please note : You need .NET framework 2.0 or higher version to run this program. If you don't have .NET Framework, you can download it from here (Choose the "Redistributable Package" for your system - probably x86). Windows Vista comes with .NET 3.0 installed by default.

Ascgen - Homepage | Download

Download Comodo Time Machine to Quickly Restore Windows to Earlier Point in Time

2010-01-06T01:15:00.000-08:00

If you are not satisfied with default windows system restore then here is Comodo Time Machine Quickly restore your computer to an earlier point in time. Comodo Time Machine (CTM) is a powerful system rollback utility that allows users to quickly restore their computers to an earlier point in time.

Comodo Time Machine 'snapshots' are a complete record of your entire system (including the registry, critical operating system files and user created documents).

Features of Comodo Time Machine

1. Easy to use – even beginners can quickly create system snapshots with a few mouse clicks

2. Provides instant and comprehensive system recovery after virus or spyware infections

3. Instantly reclaim your machine after devastating system crashes

4. Rollback the changes to ALL your documents – not just changes to system files and the registry

5. Boot-up console allows you to rollback even when your system will not boot to Windows

6. Test new software and network configurations in the knowledge that you can quickly switch back if problems develop

7. Completely remove unwanted software installations without the need to uninstall or clean the registry

8. Flexible restore options allow you to mount and browse snapshots to recover individual files or folders

9. Right click on any file or folder to synchronize it with a snapshot version

10. Schedule regular system snapshots to ensure highly relevant restore points

11. Network administrators have another way to quickly fix user or software problems

12. Libraries, Internet cafes and other publicly shared networks can schedule a total system restore at the end of each session

Comodo Time Machine

Download Comodo Time Machine.

Preme For Windows 7 Is A Must Have Free Enhancement Pack

2010-01-06T01:13:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows that Windows 7 is much better than any other versions of Windows. It has many new great features, especially desktop enhancement tools such as Aero Peek, Aero Snap and Aero Shake.

Let us introduce you to a new freeware that adds a few amazing features to your Windows 7 desktop.

Preme for Windows 7 is an amazing tool for Windows 7 that helps you get most out of your Windows 7 desktop corners and mouse cursor. Once you download and install this tool, you will be able to view all minimized windows in 3D style by just moving your cursor to the top left corner. There are several such features in this tool!

Key features of Preme for Windows 7:

# Touch the upper left corner of your desktop to see all your open Windows either in Flip 3D or Alt-Tab style

# Hold mouse button on the title bar area of window to keep your window on top of other windows

# Move mouse cursor to title bar area and scroll down mouse wheel to minimize the particular window

# Hover mouse cursor on the title bar are and then click the wheel to close the window

# Right-click on the taskbar button and the mouse cursor will point to Close window option

# Press ESC button twice to close the active item

# Move cursor to Start button area to open Start menu automatically

And if you are confused with these features, just click on the "How?" button to view the live demo on your screen! Overall, an amazing pack for your Windows 7 desktop.

Note: If you are using Kaspersky antivirus or Kaspersky Internet Security, you might need to close it while installing Preme for Windows 7. Don't worry, it's safe!

Download Preme for Windows 7

Thanks Marc for this info.

Download Driver Magician Worth $29.95 For Free

2010-01-06T01:12:00.001-08:00

Driver Magician is a well-known application for Windows that aids you backup, restore, update and uninstall drivers easily.

GAOTD is offering Driver Magician v3.48 for absolutely free for a limited period of time. So just head over to the offer page to grab a free copy now. Note that Driver Magician v3.48 supports Windows 7 (x86 & x64) as well.

Key features of Driver Magician:

# Back up device drivers of your computer in four modes.

# Restore device drivers from backup in one mouse click.

# Update device drivers of your PC to improve system performance and stability.

# Uninstall device drivers

# Live Update device identifier database and driver update database.

# Detect unknown devices.

# Back up more items such as My Documents and Registry.

# Restore more items from backup.

# Get detailed information of the hardware drivers.

# Clone all drivers to an auto-setup package (.EXE), so you can restore drivers without installing Driver Magician.

Download Driver Magician

Driver Magician Homepage

Backup Driver From Windows 7/Vista With Portable Driver Magician

ReadyBoost Windows XP like Vista with “eBoostr”

2010-01-06T00:58:00.000-08:00

eBoostr™ is an alternative solution to Vista's ReadyBoost and SuperFetch technologies now available on Windows XP.

It speeds up your PC and improves application responsiveness by using flash memory and free RAM as an extra layer of performance-boosting cache for your PC.

Special Features:

Vista's ReadyBoost and SuperFetch benefits on your Windows XP PCs,
Smart caching of frequently used applications and files for maximum performance,
Supports both USB and non-USB removable media devices (memory cards),
Allows up to 4 devices for simultaneous smart caching,
Cache file size of up to 4GB on each device (NTFS has no limit on the size),
Compatible with all "Enhanced for ReadyBoost" devices.

The eBoostr™ trial version has no time expiration and you can evaluate it for as long as you wish. However the product demo is fully functional only for 4 hours after each system boot.

Download Free eBoostr Now !

Manage Prefetch & Superfetch settings with TweakPrefetch

2010-01-06T00:57:00.001-08:00

The Prefetch (in Win XP) and Superfetch (in Vista & 7) feature in windows reduces the time required to open the applications and those required for the initiation of the operating system.

TweakPrefetch is a small utility coded in VB.net that can handle the fetching operating systems Windows XP, Vista and 7. It allows you to separately set the parameters of Prefetch and Superfetch.

The options are:

Disabled: disables completely the function of fetching. The"Optimization Start" (which handles the Superfetch) will be disabled.
Only Applications: fetch only active applications running on the user.
Only Boot: fetch only active on the startup files (system files, services, and startup programs).
Applications & Boot: fetch focus on applications and boot files (default for Windows Prefetch and Superfetch).

It has a 'Clean Prefetch' button which will empty the Prefetch folder, forcing the operating system to reconstruct the data fetch (or not to create them more if you choose to disable prefetching).

Note – Emptying the folder Windows / Prefetch is highly discouraged and will cause a temporary decrease in the time of opening of applications.

The program also has a "Rebuild Layout.ini" function selectable from the "Options" menu.

Download TweakPrefetch (121 KB) [Homepage]

10 ways to Speed up your PC | Tips By Microsoft & Us

2010-01-06T00:56:00.001-08:00

Everyone of us wants a speedy PC which can perform all actions without any hastle, but for that you have to Tweak your windows and maintain it to keep it running smoothly and fast.

Here are the 5 major tips recommended by Microsoft to keep your Windows performance better.

Follow Our Useful Tips:

Clean Out Windows Prefetch for Faster Startup – Goto C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch and delete all files inside this Folder ( Windows expert Ed Bott explains it )
Clean Temporary Files – Open Run > Type %temp% and delete all files inside this Folder
Cleaning the Registry Improves Performance – Use Free App " CC Cleaner "
Defrag your Windows time to time – Use Free App JkDefrag GUI ( Defragmentation Application that has a screensaver mode )
Disabling Services not in Use – You can identify or disable those services by opening msconfig.exe and checking the box for "Hide all Microsoft services" on the Services tab:
Reduce the Startup Programs – This will make your PC load faster by opening less programs at startup. This can be done by opening msconfig.exe and disable unused entries under Startup menu.

Repair 21 common Windows 7 problems with 7 Quick Fix

2010-01-06T00:55:00.001-08:00

7 Quick Fix is a simple, fast and portable tool similar to FixWin Utility, which allows users to fix and repair 21 common problems in Windows 7.

It shows the fix information at the bottom information window, when hovering over a button. It can enable the Task Manager, Registry Editor, Folder Options and other issues which are sometimes created by a virus attack.

Download 7 Quick Fix (472 KB)

via [JKwebtalks]

How to use Kaspersky Free after 30 days trial period ?

2010-01-06T00:54:00.001-08:00

Kaspersky is one of the top security software providing best protection to your data from latest Viruses, worms, phishing attacks, malware, etc. I've now found a 100% working trick, using which one can use Kaspersky Antivirus 2010 and Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 after end of its 30 days trail for Free.

Follow the steps below carefully to do it:

1. Open Kaspersky settings > Options and uncheck Enable Self-Defense. Click Ok.

2. Exit Kaspersky.

3. Go to Start, open Run, then type regedit and press enter.

4. Under Registry Editor, open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Kaspersky Lab > protected > AVP9 > environment.

5. Find the entry ProductStatus and change Release to Beta.

6. Press OK then open Kaspersky.

7. Under License, Activate beta license then press Next and Finish (Delete any trial keys first if any, as they wont work).

8. Re-enable Self-Defense from options.

9. Now you have 30 days of beta license activated. After every 30 days, simply click Activate Beta (delete the expired beta key first) and enjoy another 30 days Free

Kaspersky will now show as Beta Version though it is your final version only. Enjoy!

Update – How to delete the expired key & activate beta license ?

To delete beta key, open Kaspersky > License Manager and click on the red X (cross) next to the code. Then click on Yes button as shown in below image.

Now click 'Activate New License' option and then chose 'Activate beta license'. Click Next to activate kaspersky.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only. We advice you to purchase genuine license to run your software.

Restore Task Manager, Regedit and Folder Options Disabled by Virus

2010-01-06T00:51:00.001-08:00

Normally most of the viruses which infect any windows XP system causes the following problems:

1. Task Manager disabled – So, you cannot end the process related to the virus.

2. regedit command is disabled – Registry editing is disabled.

3. msconfig command is also disabled – This command is disabled by most of the viruses so that using msconfig you cannot remove virus from start up.

4. Folder options becomes hidden and doesn't appear from windows.

Fix: Here's a free tool called Remove Restrictions Tool (RRT) which is able to re-enables all what the virus had previously disabled, and gives you back the control over your own computer.

Download it Here

How to remove the effects caused by a Virus attack ?

2010-01-06T00:49:00.000-08:00

Virus Effect Remover is a free and All-in-one tool which helps you to remove the hard effects of a virus from windows registry and file system. It also detect the registry error caused by virus and enables the Blocked content like task manager , registry editor, folder options etc. Its small but a very effective and useful tool.

Main Features of Virus Effect Remover:

Block USB Autorun feature to protect your system from virus
Prevent Removal media or hard drive from being infected by a Virus which contain Autorun.inf file .
Enable blocked options like task manager , registry editor, folder options etc.
Remove Error & Startup entries easily
Show Suspicious Files
Option to backup and restore the windows registry

Download Virus Effect Remover (731KB)

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