Lost Recycle Bin ??

Has your Recycle Bin icon ever disappeared from your desktop? Perhaps the icon was in place one night before you went to bed, but in the morning when you started up your computer again, it was long gone. Where did it go? What happened to it? But more importantly, how can you get it back? Well, there are a few things you can try to get your Recycle Bin icon back where it's supposed to be. So, if you've run out of options, give these a try!

The first thing you can do is right click on your desktop and choose Properties. Once there, hit the Desktop tab and then click on the Customize Desktop button. In the middle of that box, you will see some of the more common desktop icons. Click on the one for the Recycle Bin (it looks like a trash can) and then hit the Restore Default button. Click OK and then go take a look at your desktop. The Recycle Bin icon should be back, but if it's not, don't lose hope, because there are a couple other things you can still try!?

For the next option, go down to your taskbar and right click in any open space. From the menu that pops up, click on Toolbars, Desktop. The word "Desktop" will then appear at the end of your taskbar with a double arrow beside it. Right click on those arrows and you will see an option for the Recycle Bin. Next, drag and drop that Recycle Bin icon to your desktop. That should reinstate your icon for you, but if you're still having trouble, try this. Right click on your taskbar again and go to Toolbars, New Toolbar. There should be an option there for the Recycle Bin as well. You can then drag and drop that icon to your desktop. Doing either of these three things should bring your Recycle Bin icon back and you can get on with your daily computing.

How do I change my MAC address?

Although physical MAC (Media Access Control) addresses are permanent by design, several mechanisms allow modification, or "spoofing", of the MAC address that is reported by the operating system. This can be useful for privacy reasons, for instance when connecting to a Wi-Fi hotspot, or to ensure interoperability. Some internet service providers bind their service to a specific MAC address; if the user then changes their network card or intends to install a router, the service won't work anymore. Changing the MAC address of the new interface will solve the problem. Similarly, some software licenses are bound to a specific MAC address. Changing the MAC address in this way is not permanent: after a reboot, it will revert to the MAC address physically stored in the card. A MAC address is 48 bits in length.

As a MAC address can be changed, it can be unwise to rely on this as a single method of authentication. IEEE 802.1x is an emerging standard better suited to authenticating devices at a low level.

Mac OS X

Under Mac OS X, the MAC address can be altered in a fashion similar to the Linux and FreeBSD methods:

sudo ifconfig en0 lladdr 00:01:02:03:04:05

or

sudo ifconfig en0 ether 00:01:02:03:04:05

This must be done as the superuser and only works for the computer's ethernet card. Instructions on spoofing AirPort Extreme (2.0) cards are available here. There are not, as of yet, any known ways to spoof original AirPort (1.0) cards.

The AirPort Extreme MAC address can also be changed easily with SpoofMac.

Windows

Under Windows XP, the MAC address can be changed in the Ethernet adapter's Properties menu, in the Advanced tab, as "MAC Address", "Locally Administered Address", "Ethernet Address" or "Network Address". The exact name depends on the Ethernet driver used; not all drivers support changing the MAC address in this way.

However, a better solution - requiring Administrative User Rights - is to pass over the System Registry Keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. Here settings for each network interface can be found. The contents of the string value called 'NetworkAddress' will be used to set the MAC address of the adapter when next it is enabled. Resetting the adapter can be accomplished in script with the freely available command line utility devcon from Microsoft, or from the adapters context menu in the Network Connections control panel applet.

There is a nice tool to change the MAC address for all cards (even those that can't be changed through the adapter's Properties menu): SMAC MAC Address Changer

Note: to check your MAC address easily on a Windows XP box, go to Run, type CMD, then type "ipconfig /all" without quotation in the command prompt. The number under physical address is the MAC address. If multiple IP are displayed, you should look under the label "Ethernet adapter x", where x is the name of your connection (which is Local Area Connection by default).

Router

The method to change the MAC address of a router varies with the router. Not all routers have the ability to change their MAC address. The feature is often referred to as "clone MAC address". This take the MAC address of one of the machine on your network and replaces the router's existing MAC address with it. Some support the option to manually enter the MAC address.

Speedup Your pc by Cleaning RAM...

You may recognize that ur system gets slower and slower when playing and working a lot with ur pc. That's cause ur RAM is full of remaining progress pieces u do not need any more.

So create a new text file on ur desktop and call it .. uhm.. "RAMcleaner" or something...

Type

FreeMem=Space(64000000)
in this file and save it as RAMcleaner.vbs [ You may choose the "All Files" option when u save it ]

Run the file and ur RAM may be cleaned :>
Of course u can edit the code in the file for a greater "cleaning-progress".


FreeMem=Space(1280000000)

just try it out and leave your comments .. it worked for me

Showing Super Hidden Files

Even with the Folder options configured to show hidden files, there are super hidden files that you still can't see.
To view them:

1. Start Regedit

2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced

3. In the right hand panel, scroll to SuperHidden

4. Change the value to 1

5. Reboot

Get the serial number you need ! (For Certain Things)

Get the serial number you need ! (For Certain Things)

* Go to Google.

* In the search field type: "Product name" 94FBR

* Where, "Product Name" is the name of the item you want to find the serial number for.

* And voila - there you go - the serial number you needed.

HOW DOES THIS WORK?

Quite simple really. 94FBR is part of a Office 2000 Pro cd key that is widely distributed as it bypasses the activation requirements of Office 2K Pro. By searching for the product name and 94fbr, you guarantee two things.
1). The pages that are returned are pages dealing specifically with the product you're wanting a serial for.
2). Because 94FBR is part of a serial number, and only part of a serial number, you guarantee that any page being returned is a serial number list page.

See these example searches:

"Photoshop 7" 94FBR
"Age of Mythology" 94FBR
"Nero Burning Rom 5.5" 94FBR

Determining IP Address from MAC Address

Computers can determine IP addresses from MAC addresses using DHCP and formerly other protocols like RAddress Resolution Protocol and Address Resolution Protocol. DHCP Manages network configuration by registering and updating IP addresses and DNS names.

There is no universal mechanism for an end user to determine an IP address given a known MAC address, although it can be done in certain specific situations. The Address Resolution Protocol (Formerly known as ARP) allows a host to find the MAC address of a node with an IP address on the same physical network, when given the node’s IP address. To make Address Resolution Protocol efficient, each computer caches IP-to-MAC address mappings to eliminate repetitive Address Resolution Protocol broadcast requests.

The Address Resolution Protocol tool allows a user to view and modify Address Resolution Protocol table entries on the local computer. The Address Resolution Protocol command is useful for viewing the Address Resolution Protocol cache and resolving address resolution problems.

Some corporate networks solve the problem of universal MAC-to-IP address mapping by installing special management software agents on all computers. These software systems, based on Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), which includes a capability called network discovery. These systems forward messages out to the agent on every network device a request for both the IP and MAC addresses of that device. The system receives then stores the results in a master table separate from any individual Address Resolution Protocol cache.

With Internet Protocol, network discovery is often implemented using ping commands and internet Control Message protocol (ICMP) messages. Pinging a remote device from any client will trigger an Address Resolution Protocol cache update. Typically this update occurs only in the Address Resolution Protocol cache of the LAN routers and not on the originating client.

How to avoid keyloggers by scramble keystokes on public computers ?

First things first! Always try to avoid accessing your online accounts from public computers (cyber cafes…etc). With all the keyloggers that may be stuffed in public computers, they pose a serious security risk to users. Keyloggers mean not just trojans, but commercial keyloggers as well.

What are keyloggers ?
Key Loggers are software or hardware tools to that captures the user’s keystrokes from keyboard. It can be useful to determine sources of error in computer systems and is sometimes used to measure employee productivity on certain clerical tasks. However, keyloggers are widely available on the Internet and can be used by private parties to spy on the computer usage of others hence stealing users private data.

Aim of this post on keyloggers
Our aim here is to confuse the keylogger by making it log some gibberish instead of our valid password. Off course, this is not completely foolproof though. Nothing is foolproof on the net. We only have to make it harder for the hacker.(Note: These are tips I personally follow. If you have better ones, let everyone know by commenting here.)

Types of Key Loggers
We’ll be dealing with two types of keyloggers; software and hardware keyloggers.

1. Software keyloggers on the other hand are much more complex and hence difficult to deal with. Most of them record keystrokes, mouse events, clipboard activity..etc. So our best bet is to scramble the keystokes smartly.
2. Hardware keyloggers are much easier to detect. They are mostly attached between the keyboard and the CPU. A manual inspection should be enough in most cases.

How to confuse and avoid the software keyloggers ?
Let’s say we have to enter a password ‘jazz’.

1. Click the password box, type any random key. Select the entered random key with the mouse and type j. So we entered the first letter of the password.
2. Click the password box, type a random key. Again click and type a random key. Select the last two letters with your mouse and type the next valid key of your password.

In this case we managed to enter 2 unwanted characters as against one in the first step.
Continue in a similar way to finish typing the password. You can choose any number of random characters between your password.

So the keylogger will log something like:
[click]b[click]j[click]g[click]m[click]a[click]v[click]z[click]t[click]c[click]z


Note how we used unwanted mouse clicks so that a mouse click is recorded before the random letters also. You can also experiment entering the password in the reverse order, infact any order.
This method can be used for entering the username too, since most banks have account numbers as username. If you are suffering from some keylogger phobia, use this technique while typing the url too.
Another way is utilizing the browser’s search bar or address bar to camouflage the password.
For eg. Click the password box and type a letter of the password. Now click the browser’s address bar or search bar and type some unwanted letters. Alternate between the password box and address/search bar till you finish. The result will be the same as the former method.

How to find the hardware keyloggers ?



Hardware key loggers are easy to find. They are devices which is attached in between keyboard and cpu junction. If you are really suspicious about them just check the back side of cpu and find if something is fishy. The images will give you a better idea.



Feeling secure? Well, this sort of stuff may not work against the really smart keyloggers. Yeah, the one’s that also take a screenshot when a keystroke or mouse event is detected.
There’s is a solution for that too, but it is cumbersome. Take a Live CD of any of the Linux distributions. Insert and use ( and hope Linux will detect the hardware so you can start surfing; I have read Ubuntu Linux is good.). Even if you can successfully access from the Live CD, don’t forget to use the above tips to workaround the hardware keylogger.
Again as I mentioned in the beginning, always try to avoid dealing with confidential data from Public Computers. What are the precautions you take? Do you know a better technique?

Optimizing windows pagefile

The page file (virtual memory) is the part of your hard drive that the Operating System uses as though it were main memory. The OS uses virtual memory when the physical memory cannot hold the data that the application requires it to. Since hard drives are much slower as compared to RAM, accessing data from virtual memory is slower and there is naturally a significant effect on system performance. Moreover, Windows XP uses the virtual memory all the time, regardless of free physical memory, so optimization of the page file is essential for a faster system.

There are two important aspects to the page file -its size and its location.

Page File size

Windows XP uses the page file dynamically, that is the page file grows or shrinks according to need. The page file is often given a minimum value and a maximum value, where the minimum value defines the guaranteed space allocated to the page file and the maximum value defines the limit to which the page file can grow. With a maximum and minimum value set, Windows XP has to resize the page file on the fly. Setting the maximum and minimum value to the same number results in more efficient handling of the page file, since Win XP won’t have to waste time resizing the page file.
Setting the size of the page file

Go to the ‘System Properties’ page. Here, go to the ‘Advanced’ tab and then select ‘Settings’ under ‘Performance’. In the window that opens, go to the ‘Advanced’ tab; towards the bottom of the tab, you will find ‘Virtual memory settings’. Click ‘Change’.

In the next window that opens, you can select the drive on which you want the page file to reside; by default, the page file resides on the C: drive. You can also see the page file size. To change it, click on ‘Custom Size’ and then key in the initial and maximum sizes to be the same. Typically, 1 GB of page file is more than enough for most users, so key in ‘1024′ as your initial and maximum page file size.

Page File Location

Keeping the page file on the same drive as the Operating System is not advised, as the page file requires intermittent read and write cycles that can significantly affect the performance of the system. Those who have only one drive can place the page file on a non OS partition.

Once in the virtual memory settings you can see all your partitions listed in the box. Select the drive on which to enable the page file, then select ‘Custom Size’, and key in ‘1024′ as your initial and maximum page file size.

Gmail: Finding an IP Address

Welcome to a quick how-to guide on how to track your Gmail e-mails to their originating locations by figuring out the e-mail’s IP address and looking it up. I've found this to be quite useful on many occasions for verification purposes and I'm sure you will too. Tracking the IP address of an e-mail sender does require you to look at some technical details, so let's dig our heels in and begin!

There are basically two steps involved in the process of tracking an e-mail. First, you find the IP address in the e-mail header section and secondly, you look up the location of the IP address.

1.) To do that, log in to your Gmail account and open the e-mail in question.

2.) Click on the down arrow to the right of the Reply link. Choose Show Original from the list.



Now, here’s the technical part I was telling you about earlier! You need to look for the lines of text that start with “Received from:.“ It might be easier to simply press Ctrl + F and perform a search for that phrase. You’ll notice there are several Received from: entries in the message header. That's because the message header contains the IP addresses of all the servers involved in routing that e-mail to you.



To find the first computer that originally sent the e-mail, you’ll have to find the Received from: that is the furthest down. For example, as you can see from the above image, the first one is from a computer called “aseem� with the IP address of 72.204.154.191 (my computer and my IP address). It was then routed to my ISP’s server at eastrmmtao104.cox.net and so on and so forth.

That's all there is to it. It's pretty simple to find what you're looking for once you know what to expect. Now, you give it a try!

Editing the Boot.ini file

Have you ever received a bootup error or startup error thats says correputed Boot.ini file? Or maybe you just need to make a minor change to boot.ini file but didn’t now where to locate it?

The boot.ini file is a simple text file that is stored on the root of the boot drive / hard drive.

You can edit this with any plain text editor like Notepad (may need to unhide the file first).

To unhide the file simply select Tools - Folder Options from the explorer window. Now you should have the Folder Options Screen open -> Select the View Tab.

Now scroll down and find the header Hidden Files And Folders and click Show hidden files and folders and then click apply and ok!

Now back to editing the boot.ini file.

1. Right click on My Computer
2. Select Properties
3. Click on the Advanced tab
4. Under Startup and Recovery, click on the Settings button
5. Click on the Edit button

You now should have the boot.ini file open where you can view its contents or make changes where needed.

Increase the processor power of your computer?

This tip is very useful for those users who are still using computer with minimum processor speed. To increase the performance of slow computer, you can force your system to free up the idle tasks that are running in the background and sharing processor power. This end tasks method force the computer to devote its full processor resource to what you want it to do.


Follow the given steps to end the idle tasks:

* To enable this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.

* Click Start button and click on Run option.

* In the Run box, type the command Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks command and press Ok button.



* Here system will take some time to end the background idle tasks.

How To Manually Remove Viruses !!!

How to manually remove viruses!

Have you ever been in the possition that you know you have an virus but you dont have any antivirus?? Its almost impossible to remove it manual without knowing about a few tips & tricks.
After reading this turtorial im sure you will know how to manual remove most of the virus lurking around. But that dosnt mean you shouldnt have any anti virus on you computer!
Anyway, lets get starting with the turtorial.. I suppose you already know what safe mode is. If you dont try pressing the F8 key some times when you start your computer. You havto do this when your computer is about to start the first windows components. In win2k or xp i think you can press space and then F8 when it ask you if you want to go back to previous working setting.
Enough talk about how to start you computer in safe mode, but if you want to manual remove viruses you almost everytime have to do this in safe mode because in safemode most viruses dosnt start. Only some few windows component is allowed to run in safemode. So here is what to do.

1: Start your computer in safemode.
2: If you know where the virus are hiding delete the executable file.
3: Open the registry and go to the keys below and add an : in front of the value of the string that you think its the virus. Like this, if string is "virus" and its value is "c:\virus.exe" change its value to ":c:\virus.exe". The : is like comenting out the value. But if you are sure its the virus you can just delete the string.
Here are the keys you maybe want to look at:

HTML Code:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Runonce

4: The virus can start itself from some other places to. win.ini is the most common files that viruses can use. Soo you should find the files named win.ini and system.ini and look through them and see if you find anything.
5: Look through the startup folder that is normaly located in your profile directory \Start Menu\Programs\Startup.
6: Try searching for the virus executable to see if its hiding some other place.
7: Finally look through the list of services that windows is running. This list is often located under control panel - administrative tools - services. After this 7 steps just reboot your computer in normal mode and try to figure out if the virus is still there.. If not SUCCESS if yes, try to go back to safe mode and hunt some more. Off course this 7 steps will not work on every virus out there, but many of them.

WARNING: Be careful when in the registery because you can cause serious damage to your system in there.

Windows uses 20% of your bandwidth Here's how to Get it back !!!!!

Windows uses 20% of your bandwidth Here's how to Get it back

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Windows uses 20% of your bandwidth Here's how to Get it back

A nice little tweak for XP. Microsoft reserve 20% of your available bandwidth for their own purposes (suspect for updates and interrogating your machine etc..)

Here's how to get it back:

Click Start-->Run-->type "gpedit.msc" without the "

This opens the group policy editor. Then go to:

Local Computer Policy-->Computer Configuration-->Administrative Templates-->Network-->QOS Packet Scheduler-->Limit Reservable Bandwidth

Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth. It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the 'Explain' tab :

"By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default."

So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO.

This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20%.

I have tested on XP Pro, and 2000
other o/s not tested.

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23 Ways To Boost XP !!

Since defragging the disk won't do much to improve Windows XP performance, here are 23 suggestions that will. Each can enhance the performance and reliability of your customers' PCs. Best of all, most of them will cost you nothing.

1.) To decrease a system's boot time and increase system performance, use the money you save by not buying defragmentation software -- the built-in Windows defragmenter works just fine -- and instead equip the computer with an Ultra-133 or Serial ATA hard drive with 8-MB cache buffer.

2.) If a PC has less than 512 MB of RAM, add more memory. This is a relatively inexpensive and easy upgrade that can dramatically improve system performance.

3.) Ensure that Windows XP is utilizing the NTFS file system. If you're not sure, here's how to check: First, double-click the My Computer icon, right-click on the C: Drive, then select Properties. Next, examine the File System type; if it says FAT32, then back-up any important data. Next, click Start, click Run, type CMD, and then click OK. At the prompt, type CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS and press the Enter key. This process may take a while; it's important that the computer be uninterrupted and virus-free. The file system used by the bootable drive will be either FAT32 or NTFS. I highly recommend NTFS for its superior security, reliability, and efficiency with larger disk drives.

4.) Disable file indexing. The indexing service extracts information from documents and other files on the hard drive and creates a "searchable keyword index." As you can imagine, this process can be quite taxing on any system.

The idea is that the user can search for a word, phrase, or property inside a document, should they have hundreds or thousands of documents and not know the file name of the document they want. Windows XP's built-in search functionality can still perform these kinds of searches without the Indexing service. It just takes longer. The OS has to open each file at the time of the request to help find what the user is looking for.

Most people never need this feature of search. Those who do are typically in a large corporate environment where thousands of documents are located on at least one server. But if you're a typical system builder, most of your clients are small and medium businesses. And if your clients have no need for this search feature, I recommend disabling it.

Here's how: First, double-click the My Computer icon. Next, right-click on the C: Drive, then select Properties. Uncheck "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching." Next, apply changes to "C: subfolders and files," and click OK. If a warning or error message appears (such as "Access is denied"), click the Ignore All button.

5.) Update the PC's video and motherboard chipset drivers. Also, update and configure the BIOS. For more information on how to configure your BIOS properly, see this article on my site.

6.) Empty the Windows Prefetch folder every three months or so. Windows XP can "prefetch" portions of data and applications that are used frequently. This makes processes appear to load faster when called upon by the user. That's fine. But over time, the prefetch folder may become overloaded with references to files and applications no longer in use. When that happens, Windows XP is wasting time, and slowing system performance, by pre-loading them. Nothing critical is in this folder, and the entire contents are safe to delete.

7.) Once a month, run a disk cleanup. Here's how: Double-click the My Computer icon. Then right-click on the C: drive and select Properties. Click the Disk Cleanup button -- it's just to the right of the Capacity pie graph -- and delete all temporary files.

8.) In your Device Manager, double-click on the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers device, and ensure that DMA is enabled for each drive you have connected to the Primary and Secondary controller. Do this by double-clicking on Primary IDE Channel. Then click the Advanced Settings tab. Ensure the Transfer Mode is set to "DMA if available" for both Device 0 and Device 1. Then repeat this process with the Secondary IDE Channel.

9.) Upgrade the cabling. As hard-drive technology improves, the cabling requirements to achieve these performance boosts have become more stringent. Be sure to use 80-wire Ultra-133 cables on all of your IDE devices with the connectors properly assigned to the matching Master/Slave/Motherboard sockets. A single device must be at the end of the cable; connecting a single drive to the middle connector on a ribbon cable will cause signaling problems. With Ultra DMA hard drives, these signaling problems will prevent the drive from performing at its maximum potential. Also, because these cables inherently support "cable select," the location of each drive on the cable is important. For these reasons, the cable is designed so drive positioning is explicitly clear.

10.) Remove all spyware from the computer. Use free programs such as AdAware by Lavasoft or SpyBot Search & Destroy. Once these programs are installed, be sure to check for and download any updates before starting your search. Anything either program finds can be safely removed. Any free software that requires spyware to run will no longer function once the spyware portion has been removed; if your customer really wants the program even though it contains spyware, simply reinstall it. For more information on removing Spyware visit this Web Pro News page.

11.) Remove any unnecessary programs and/or items from Windows Startup routine using the MSCONFIG utility. Here's how: First, click Start, click Run, type MSCONFIG, and click OK. Click the StartUp tab, then uncheck any items you don't want to start when Windows starts. Unsure what some items are? Visit the WinTasks Process Library. It contains known system processes, applications, as well as spyware references and explanations. Or quickly identify them by searching for the filenames using Google or another Web search engine.

12.) Remove any unnecessary or unused programs from the Add/Remove Programs section of the Control Panel.

13.) Turn off any and all unnecessary animations, and disable active desktop. In fact, for optimal performance, turn off all animations. Windows XP offers many different settings in this area. Here's how to do it: First click on the System icon in the Control Panel. Next, click on the Advanced tab. Select the Settings button located under Performance. Feel free to play around with the options offered here, as nothing you can change will alter the reliability of the computer -- only its responsiveness.

14.) If your customer is an advanced user who is comfortable editing their registry, try some of the performance registry tweaks offered at Tweak XP.

15.) Visit Microsoft's Windows update site regularly, and download all updates labeled Critical. Download any optional updates at your discretion.

16.) Update the customer's anti-virus software on a weekly, even daily, basis. Make sure they have only one anti-virus software package installed. Mixing anti-virus software is a sure way to spell disaster for performance and reliability.

17.) Make sure the customer has fewer than 500 type fonts installed on their computer. The more fonts they have, the slower the system will become. While Windows XP handles fonts much more efficiently than did the previous versions of Windows, too many fonts -- that is, anything over 500 -- will noticeably tax the system.

18.) Do not partition the hard drive. Windows XP's NTFS file system runs more efficiently on one large partition. The data is no safer on a separate partition, and a reformat is never necessary to reinstall an operating system. The same excuses people offer for using partitions apply to using a folder instead. For example, instead of putting all your data on the D: drive, put it in a folder called "D drive." You'll achieve the same organizational benefits that a separate partition offers, but without the degradation in system performance. Also, your free space won't be limited by the size of the partition; instead, it will be limited by the size of the entire hard drive. This means you won't need to resize any partitions, ever. That task can be time-consuming and also can result in lost data.

19.) Check the system's RAM to ensure it is operating properly. I recommend using a free program called MemTest86. The download will make a bootable CD or diskette (your choice), which will run 10 extensive tests on the PC's memory automatically after you boot to the disk you created. Allow all tests to run until at least three passes of the 10 tests are completed. If the program encounters any errors, turn off and unplug the computer, remove a stick of memory (assuming you have more than one), and run the test again. Remember, bad memory cannot be repaired, but only replaced.

20.) If the PC has a CD or DVD recorder, check the drive manufacturer's Web site for updated firmware. In some cases you'll be able to upgrade the recorder to a faster speed. Best of all, it's free.

21.) Disable unnecessary services. Windows XP loads a lot of services that your customer most likely does not need. To determine which services you can disable for your client, visit the Black Viper site for Windows XP configurations.

22.) If you're sick of a single Windows Explorer window crashing and then taking the rest of your OS down with it, then follow this tip: open My Computer, click on Tools, then Folder Options. Now click on the View tab. Scroll down to "Launch folder windows in a separate process," and enable this option. You'll have to reboot your machine for this option to take effect.

23.) At least once a year, open the computer's cases and blow out all the dust and debris. While you're in there, check that all the fans are turning properly. Also inspect the motherboard capacitors for bulging or leaks. For more information on this leaking-capacitor phenomena, you can read numerous articles on my site.

How to Clone Hard Drives

Did know that you could clone your current Hard Drive without having to by extra software? Maybe you didn’t know that all that you needed, was already set up on your current system? Well, it is… and if you follow this tut, you shouldn’t have much of a problem.

Make sure that you have a Master and a Slave setup on your system. The Slave drive, in this case, is where all the data on the Master is going to go to.

First: Perform a Scandisk your Master drive and follow that with a thorough Defrag. If you have an Antivirus program, do a thorough sweep with the AV first, then do the Scandisk, followed by the Defrag.

Second: Do the same thing to the target drive, as you did the Master: Scandisk then a thorough Defrag.

Third: Right-click on the Target drive and click on Format. When the box comes up, click your mouse onto the “Full” button.

Fourth: After Formatting the Target drive, run a Scandisk again and click on the button that says “Autofix Errors”.

Fifth: In this final part, you might want to cut-and-paste to code in, unless you are sure that you can do it without making any mistakes:

Click on the “Start” button, then click on the “Run…” button, then place the following into the Runbox:

“XCOPY C:\*.*D:\ /c/h/e/k/r” (minus the quotes, of course) then press the “Enter” button.

If you receive an error message, then remove the space from between XCOPY and C:\

Anything that should happen to come up in the DOS box, just click “Y” for “Yes”. When its all finished, pull the original Master from the system, designate the Slave as the Master (change your jumpers), then check your new Master out.

This tut has worked and has been tested on all systems except for Windows 2000, so you really shouldn’t have any problems. If, by any chance, you should come across a snag, message me and I’ll walk you through it.

Hiding Text in Notepad - $3cr3t

Have you ever tried to Hide text in a regulare windows Notepad....!
Yes, there is a possibility to hide some text in a Regular Notepad, but it seems to be working on only few versions on windows, probably on Windows XP SP2.

To hide text in a notepad, all what you need to do is, just open up a command prompt and type the command as given below,......

C:\>notepad secret.txt:hidden.txt

Then it will opens up a new Notepad file, and prompts whether to create a notepad file with the name secret, go ahead and click on 'yes'., then the title of the notepad file will changes and you may see the changes in the titlebar of the Notepad. Now type what ever you want there, according to your wish and go ahead and click on the X on the right exterme end on the Notepad window ( Close ), then it prompts whether to save the file or not, click on 'Yes'. Then Just type the "DIR" command to view whether the file has been created, it must be there and now go to the location where you saved the file and try to open it up, it will open but it will not display any text in it, instead, it will display a blank Notepad File....! :->
Inorder to view this Hidden text in this Notepad File, just again go to the same command prompt and then type the same command what you have typed to create the file, as below....

C:\>notepad secret.txt:hidden.txt

Now you will view the text what you typed there....!, also if you go ahead and check with the file size, it always seems to be 0KB, sometimes 1KB, and it will not cross these two filesizes, but you can type the contents upto MBs and so on...!
Any way, if someone came to know about this, they can easily open this file by using this simple command.


Dont worry Here is another way to hide the text in the same Notepad application, but it would differ a bit from the previous one, and here in this method you will give a password to open up this file.
In order to perform this Hack, just open up a new command prompt and type the command as given below,....

C:\>echo This is a secret File.....!
>textfile.txt:pa$$wd

C:\>

Seems to be a simple echo command, is it so?
But it will make these text hidden.
once you have entered the command, just type the "DIR" Command to check whether the file has been created, it will be there. and here it will create a new Notepad file with the name "textfile". and now try to open the file in a normal way, it will open but will be blank file and nothing will be displayed there, inorder to view the text what you typed there, you need to enter another command as below

C:\>more

Once after typing this command , it will display the text what you typed over there, like below.....!

This is a secret File ....!

and the exact output would be like this,.........


C:\>echo This is a secret File .....!
>textfile.txt:pa$$rd

C:\>more


Inorder to hide your own text, use the same syntax,

C:\> echo Text >Name.txt:password

where,
echo - Command
Text - Text you want to Hide
Name - Filename
password - password

and to open up the file and view the hidden text, the ysntax would be,..

C:\> more <>

where,
more - Command
Name - Filename
password - password


The first method is not password protected, but the last one is password protected.
Try it yourself and hide the text like this. :)

How simple is to use these commands...!
:) Hope you all enjoyed..! :)

How To Watch Movies In MS Paint

• Open your favorite movie palyer and play the move (I played the .mpg format in Winamp)
• Hit "PrintScreen", keep playing the movie in the player, dont stop it.
• Open MsPaint.
• Select "Edit>Paste" Or Hit "CTRL+V"
• Presto! You can watch movies in Paint!
• But there are no Pause, Next, Previous, Stop etc. buttons
• Experiment with other formats too, it doesn't play DivX , Flash movies, etc. Microsoft hasn't revealed this i think. MsPaint is GREAT

Use GMAIL Generate Unlimited E-Mail

Gmail has an interesting quirk where you can add a plus sign (+) after your Gmail address, and it'll still get to your inbox. It's called plus-addressing, and it essentially gives you an unlimited number of e-mail addresses to play with. Here's how it works: say your address is pinkyrocks@gmail.com, and you want to automatically label all work e-mails. Add a plus sign and a phrase to make it pinkyrocks+work@gmail.com and set up a filter to label it work (to access your filters go to Settings->Filters and create a filter for messages addressed to pinkyrocks+work@gmail.com. Then add the label work).

More real world examples:

Find out who is spamming you: Be sure to use plus-addressing for every form you fill out online and give each site a different plus address.

Example: You could use
pinkyrocks+nytimes@gmail.com for nytimes.com
pinkyrocks+freestuff@gmail.com for freestuff.com
Then you can tell which site has given your e-mail address to spammers, and automatically send them to the trash.

Simplest Way To Downlaod From YouTube

Tired of using different softwares to download vids from youtube.. Neverworks??

Try this one : http://tubedown.web44.net/

So Simple :)

Make A Autorun File For You Cd

If you wanna make a autorun file for that CD you are ready to burn just read this…

1) You open notepad

2) now you write: [autorun]
OPEN=INSTALL\Setup_filename.EXE
ICON=INSTALL\Setup_filename.EXE

Now save it but not as a .txt file but as a .inf file.

But remember! The “Setup_filename.EXE” MUST be replaced with the name of the setup file. And you also need to rember that it is not all of the setup files there are called ‘.exe but some are called ‘.msi'

3) Now burn your CD with the autorun .inf file included.

4) Now set the CD in you CD drive and wait for the autorun to begin or if nothing happens just double-click on the CD drive in “My Computer”

Download Limewire Pro For Free

Just Follow These Steps.

• Go to limewire.com>
• Support>
• download/updates software>
• email = [email]aaa@aaa.com[/email] >
• then download

And That's It !!

Use Kaspersky without a key!

Use Kaspersky without a key! (Temp. sol. if ur key is not Valid).
TRY it on your own responsibility!

Backup First
( Run ) type ( regedit ) press ( OK ).

1- Go To ( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREKasperskyLabAVP6Data ) & right click on ( Data ) & choose ( Permissions ).

2- Choose ( Advanced ) From The ( Permissions For Data ) ... a new window will open.

3- On ( Advanced Security Settings for Data ) window .. look for ( Inherit from parent ... ) click on the nike or check mark to remove or uncheck it.

4- After removing the check or nike mark u will get a new message .. choose ( Remove ).

5- On ( Advanced Security Settings for Data ) click on ( Apply ).

6- Choose ( Yes ) for the new message that u will get.

7- Press ( OK ) on ( Advanced Security Settings for Data ).

8- Press ( OK ) on ( Permissions For Data ).

9- Exit KasperSky & restart it again.

- The Kaspersky icon will be GRAY but it is working perfect.
- You will have to update the database manually ... no automatic update.
- Ignore Windows security center that the antivirus is not working ... in fact it is active.

Secret Backdoor To Many Sites

Ever experienced this? You ask Google to look something up; the engine returns with a number of finds, but if you try to open the ones with the most promising content, you are confronted with a registration page instead, and the stuff you were looking for will not be revealed to you unless you agree to a credit card transaction first....
The lesson you should have learned here is: Obviously Google can go where you can't.

Can we solve this problem? Yes, we can. We merely have to convince the site we want to enter, that WE ARE GOOGLE.
In fact, many sites that force users to register or even pay in order to search and use their content, leave a backdoor open for the Googlebot, because a prominent presence in Google searches is known to generate sales leads, site hits and exposure.
Examples of such sites are Windows Magazine, .Net Magazine, Nature, and many, many newspapers around the globe.
How then, can you disguise yourself as a Googlebot? Quite simple: by changing your browser's User Agent. Copy the following code segment and paste it into a fresh notepad file. Save it as Useragent.reg and merge it into your registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
@="Googlebot/2.1"
"Compatible"="+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html"

Voila! You're done!

You may always change it back again.... I know only one site that uses you User Agent to establish your eligability to use its services, and that's the Windows Update site...
To restore the IE6 User Agent, save the following code to NormalAgent.reg and merge with your registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
@="Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)