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OfficeFIX is a Software Suite that recovers damaged MS Excel (all versions), MS Access (95, 97, and 2000, XP & 2003), and MS Word documents.
When an Office file shows an error while trying to open it, chances are it is corrupt. OfficeFIX extracts the information from the file and creates a new file that is trouble free.
Just Try this demo version…and if you like then go and buy this wonderful software.
Want to squeeze the very best performance out of your PC with these Windows 7 optimization tricks?
Windows 7 comes as a significant performance improvement over its predecessor, Windows Vista. But if you want to get the very best performance possible, you should make a few system tweaks to eliminate resource-hogging programs and features. In this guide, I'll show you a few good ways to boost your PC's performance without upgrading your hardware.
First, one warning:
A quick Internet search will lead you to treasure troves of advice for making the most of your OS, but beware -- many of those suggestions are fool's gold, myths inherited from Vista and XP optimization guides that could actually do more harm than good for your Windows 7 system's performance.
The tweaks and suggestions I offer here won't transform your rusty old junker into a screaming new Porsche, but they will help you squeeze some extra speed and space out of your native Windows 7 installation.
If you intend to perform additional modifications to Windows 7 beyond the options I describe here, be sure to run a quick search for "Windows 7 performance myths." Don't be fooled by the more outlandish tweaking claims and tutorials you'll find on the Internet. Investigate the changes you intend to make to your system before you do anything, or you might find yourself in an undesirable (or even irreparable) situation.
Speed up a fresh Windows 7 upgrade
When you reach the first, fresh desktop after completing a successful Windows 7 installation, you might be stunned to find your components in perfect working order. For the most part Windows 7 is quite good about setting up drivers for networking, video, input devices, and other elements -- good, that is, but not great.
To maximize your PC's performance, first hunt down and install Windows 7 drivers for all of the critical components attached to your system. Motherboard drivers are the most important consideration, especially if your system's video and sound are integrated onto the system board.
If those components aren't integrated in your PC, add drivers for your video card and sound card to the list, followed by your input devices and any additional parts you've attached to your system in some capacity (including, but not limited to, a Wi-Fi card, any PCI-based devices, and printers). If you're not sure what components you have, grab the free program DriverMax and use it to scan your system for components and for potential driver updates.
Can't find Windows 7 drivers for a product? Try using Windows Vista drivers instead.
If you run into trouble, try right-clicking on the executable file and left-clicking Troubleshoot Compatibility. Run through the wizard and select the option that refers to the program's running fine in an earlier version of Windows but not in Windows 7. Select Windows Vista as the subsequent operating system, click Next through the offered prompts, and then run the installation executable again.
Finally, though it might sound odd, don't use the Windows Updater to install drivers for your machine -- Microsoft is notorious for releasing old and/or incompatible drivers through this service.
Optimize your storage
If you installed Windows 7 as an upgrade from Windows Vista, you'll find a folder labeled C:\Windows.old.
This folder, as you might expect, holds the full contents of your old Windows Vista system. It's huge, and it's a waste of space. Scroll through the folders for any files that you want to save in your new Windows 7 OS, and then delete the entire folder from your drive
McAfee is one of the oldest and well-known anti-virusvendor and this one allows you to enjoy a full 3 user license valid for 12 months of genuine McAfee VirusScan Plus 2010 with SiteAdvisor.
To benefit from this offer simply visit the special promotional page here and follow the instructions to get your personal 12 months McAfee VirusScan Plus 2010 subscription license for free; hurry-up this could be pulled out anytime.
In Firefox, even if you have the option “Security Remember passwords for sites” checked in Tools > Options,the browser will still display a notification bar at the top that asks “Do you want Firefox to remember the password for “Username” on website.com?” with three buttons “Remember”, “Never for This Site” and “Not Now”.
There is a easy way to remove this pop-up tool bar. Just do the following:
1. Close Firefox
2. Edit nsLoginManagerPrompter.js with notepad which is normally located in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components\
3. Replace everything comng in between
_showSaveLoginNotification : function (aNotifyBox, aLogin) {
and
/*
* _removeSaveLoginNotification
*
*/
_removeSaveLoginNotification : function (aNotifyBox) {
with
var pwmgr = this._pwmgr;
pwmgr.addLogin(aLogin);
4. Save the file.
Now whenever you login to any website, Firefox will auto save the site, username and password to the login manager WITHOUT showing the notification bar. You can access the saved password area by going to Tools > Options > Security and click the Saved Passwords button. There is one possible bug which is even when a user entered the wrong username or password, it will still be saved.
Now enjoy firefox with automatic password saving without showing notification.
1. Go to:- google.com
2. Click "images"
3. Fill in "bikes, flowers, cars" or any other word.
4. You will get a page with alot of images thumbnailed.
5. Now delete the URL on the addressbar.
6. Copy the script down here, and paste it in your adressbar:-
javascript:R= 0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI= document.images ; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i<DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=Math. sin(R*x1+ i*x2+x3)* x4+x5; DIS.top=Math. cos(R*y1+ i*y2+y3)* y4+y5}R++ }setInterval('A()',5); void(0)
--
Enjoy!!
The Most Free-er-est Software Giveaway Ever!!!
As you know, the Windows 7 launch is October 22, 2009. You’re making an investment in updating your operating system, this says some things about you: you’re smart, computer savvy and interested in staying up-to-date. But due to your recent purchase, your wallet might consequently be a little lighter, too.
Not to worry! Everyone remotely related to the tech industry is taking advantage of this marketable launch party by giving away free stuff. Not that we can blame them—we are too.
But our stuff is free-er than free: Panda Security is the free-er-est of them all.
October 22, 2009 is the magical 24 hour period when ordinarily pricey things turn into free things. Well, Panda Security is now compatible with Windows 7, so why not pair the two? Register on this glorious day for ONE FREE YEAR of Panda Security’s anti-virus protection. Prevent viruses, malware, Trojans, worms, identity theft, online banking and other threats from infecting your PC. Internet Security is ultra light-weight because it’s using “cloud” technology so it won’t hinder your computer from operating as freely as it can. Because the only freething we can think of that isn’t good is a computer virus.
Follow these easy steps to free your computer of viruses, hackers and other
cyber-criminals:
1) Register here
2) Download Internet Security 2010 from our Web site
3) Receive an activation code for one free year and use it
4) Run Internet Security and instantly begin protecting your PC from all the cyber junk that will make fixing your computer the opposite of free!
There are many ways to run KIS/KAV. Either you hav to buy a license from the market or you just go for cracked version. But crack doesn't works in case of kaspersky as all the illegal keys gets blacklisted easily by kaspersky server. But still, we can run the KIS/KAV without buying. It can be done through Trial Resetter .......but i've another way which is very easy as compared to trial resetter. Juast follow the simple steps and you KIS/KAV for lifetime :-)
Previously, i gave 7 free downloads to pep your pc: part1. Now here comes the second part……..just don’t wait, download these remaining parts pep up your PC
8. PC Decrapifier
One big cause of software bloat is the trialware, annoying free software, and "craplets" that computer makers put on new PCs, or that you might have inadvertently installed during your Internet travels. Not only does it clog your hard disk, but the software may run in the background without your knowing it, slowing down your PC.
This little program solves the problem neatly. It gets rid of dozens of the most common kinds of junk that PC makers put on your PC, including AOL, Dell URL Assistant, WildTangent Games and trial copies of many common pieces of software. For a full list, go to pcdecrapifier.com/apps.
In addition to removing programs from the list, it will also show you all of the programs on your PC, and ask if you want to remove any.
When you run the program, it asks whether you want to create a Restore Point. It's a good idea to do this before having PC Decrapifier delete programs from your PC, in case you want to revert your system to its previous state. Note, though, that the program's FAQ page says that the Restore Point won't reinstall any software that the program removed; you'll have to do that yourself manually.
Keep in mind that if you've got a very old PC, this software may not work with it. It works only with Windows XP and Vista, not older versions of Windows.
Works with: Windows XP/Vista
9. CCleaner
Piriform's CCleaner is another excellent tool for unclogging your PC. In fact, it's probably the best piece of software you can find -- whether free or paid -- to unclog your computer's arteries. For a start, it gets rid of cache files and junk files left behind by many applications, including Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat Reader, QuickTime, Windows Media Player, and all the major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Opera.
Close your browsers and tell it to scan your PC; it reports on what it will clean up, and then cleans up what you tell it to. Often, you'll be able to get rid of hundreds of megabytes of files you don't need. If you think you need a larger hard disk, first run this program -- it may show you that just cleaning up your existing one is all you need.
CCleaner goes beyond cleaning your hard disk, though. It also has a Registry cleaner that kills unused entries and fixes bad ones; will show you what programs automatically run on start-up when you boot Windows; and will let you disable ones you don't need.
When you install the program, it also installs a Yahoo toolbar by default. If you don't want to have the toolbar installed, uncheck the box next to it before completing your installation.
Works with: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/Vista
10. Duplicate Music Files Finder
If you're running out of hard disk space, one of the biggest culprits is often music files. Without realizing it, you probably have plenty of duplicates that hog hard disk space and wreak havoc with your media library. For instance, duplicate files often end up in separate areas in your library under different names, and you end up playing them multiple times by accident.
But finding duplicate music files can be very difficult -- the same piece of music may have different file names and not appear to be a duplicate. This program from LC IBros Solutions finds duplicates by doing much more than looking at file names. It also compares file sizes, performs CRC checks and examines ID3 tags to find duplicates. It then deletes them for you.
Works with: Windows XP/Vista
11. Easy Duplicate File Finder
It's not just media files that fill up your hard disk, which is most likely clogged with plenty of other duplicates as well. Easy Duplicate File Finder scans your system, shows you in detail exactly what duplicates it finds, then lets you clean them one by one or in bulk.
Although all-in-one programs like Glary Utilities include duplicate file finders, this one has far more capabilities. You can specify minimum and maximum file sizes to search for, for example, and it does a more thorough job of examining files to determine if they're duplicates, including doing a byte-by-byte comparison. It can also protect system files so that you don't accidentally delete any vital ones.
Works with: Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/Vista
12. SkyDrive
Running out of disk space, but don't want to spend the money for a new hard disk? Here's a simple solution -- use this free online storage service from Microsoft. You get 25GB of free online space to do anything you want with.
Using the service is exceedingly simple. Just sign up for a Windows Live account and you're ready to go. It's completely Web-based, so you won't have to download and install software. Once you sign up, you can create folders on the site that you can either keep private or share with others. Then upload files to them, and you can get access to those files from any computer with an Internet connection via Internet Explorer 6 or above, Firefox 2 or above, or Safari 3 or above.
Note that you won't be able to use the service if it's a virtual hard drive; you can't save files to it directly from an application. Instead, you'll need to first create the files on your own PC, then upload the files to the service.
After that, you can delete your local files, so that you have extra room on your hard disk. Whenever you want to access your files, just head to the site and they're there.
Troubleshoot hardware
Got hardware troubles? We've got help. These two freebies will catalog your hardware so that you can more easily troubleshoot it, and monitor your PC's temperature so you can see whether it may overheat.
13. Belarc Advisor
If you've got an aging PC, you run a chance of running into hardware trouble -- so be prepared to get friendly with tech support, or be ready to do some hands-on work. The first step in any kind of hardware troubleshooting is to know exactly what kind of hardware you've got, and this free program is the best for getting an exceedingly detailed audit of every part of your PC.
It details computer manufacturer, installed RAM, hard disk size, processor type and speed, for a start. But it goes well beyond that. You'll see the maker of your PC's motherboard, hard disk manufacturer, chassis serial number, your PC's service tag, bus type and speed, multimedia devices, whether you've got free memory module slots ... and plenty more as well.
In addition, it provides similar details about your software and Windows installation, including which security hot fixes you've got, which ones you're missing, a list of all user accounts on your PC, the name of your antivirus software and whether it uses real-time scanning, and lots more.
Works with: Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/Vista
14. SpeedFan
One reason that PCs fail is that the system temperature gets too high. Overheated PCs can lead to system hangs and crashes, and ultimately to failures as well. This is particularly true for people who overclock their PCs -- that is, force them to run at faster than their rated CPU speed.
SpeedFan by Alfredo Milani Comparetti, who warns that the program is meant for advanced users only, monitors your PC's system temperature so that you can find out whether you're running into trouble. On some systems, it will also monitor your fan speed and let you adjust the fan speed to better cool your PC. It will also monitor some hard disks to see if they show any signs of impending failure.
Note that SpeedFan can't monitor all hard disks and fans. If your hard disk uses SMART technology, the software will be able to find a great deal of information about it. However, even if your hard disk doesn't use SMART, the software may still be able to get fan speed information as well as some hard disk information. The only sure way to find out is to give it a try. But it's free -- what have you got to lose?
Works with: Windows 9x/Me/2000/XP/Vista
Get a new operating system
Frustrated with your old operating system but don't want to spend the money to get a new one? No problem. The following file installs Linux as a dual-boot option on your PC for free.
15. Wubi Ubuntu Installer
Sometimes you want a new PC because you'd like a new operating system, but your PC's processor and RAM can't handle a new one. Here's a way to get the best of both worlds: Use this free program to install a dual-boot version of Ubuntu Linux on your PC.
With it, whenever you reboot, you'll be able to boot either your existing version of Windows, or instead boot Linux. And you won't have to muck around with bootloaders, partitions, special drivers or other kinds of assorted nastiness usually required to get two different operating systems on your PC. Instead, it installs just like a piece of Windows software.
If you haven't installed Linux before, you'll be quite surprised at how peppy it is. It requires much less hardware overhead than Windows, and so is quite fast, even on an older PC. There's also plenty of free software to try out, and it ships with a good deal of free software as well, including the office suite OpenOffice.org.
Works with: Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista
1. Go to this site .
3. After clicking on register, you will instant get a message on your mobile as well as on your E-mail address.
4. After confirming your password follow the steps below to configure your email forward
(this is for Gmail only):
Got an aging Windows laptop or desktop computer, but money's too tight to buy a new one?
Fret not. There's plenty of life in your old PC.
It may seem sluggish and on the point of expiring, and its hard disk may be nearly full to bursting, but there's plenty you can do to clean it up, speed it up and give it new life.
And here's the good news: You can do it all without spending a dime, with these 15 free downloads we've rounded up for you. They'll get you more hard disk space, give your PC an overall tuneup, monitor your hardware for potential problems and more.
Just give your PC this dose of virtual Geritol and it'll soon be as peppy as new. It'll last long enough until the good times roll again and you're in the mood to fork out for new hardware.
Do a quick-and-dirty system tune-up
An easy way to get your PC in better shape is by giving it a one-step system tune-up. The following two programs do everything from stopping unnecessary programs from running at start-up, to fixing Windows Registry problems, to cleaning up the hard disk and more.
Later in the story we'll offer plenty of downloads that perform one or two system tune-up tasks in depth, but if you want the easiest path to a peppier PC, try one of the all-in-one programs below.
1. Advanced SystemCare Free
This excellent all-around system cleaner from IObit.com will help keep your PC humming. It takes an "everything plus the kitchen sink" approach, scanning your system for spyware, Registry problems, privacy dangers, and junk files that were once needed by your system but are no longer necessary. You can then tell the program to clean up everything it finds or pick and choose what you want it to fix.
Note that the software will install the Yahoo Toolbar by default, so if you don't want it installed, make sure to uncheck the box during installation.
Works with: Windows 2000/XP/Vista
2. Glary Utilities
Glarysoft's do-it-all utility offers plenty of ways to help make sure your old PC keeps running despite the ravages of time. To start, there's a good Registry cleaner, hard disk cleaner, and a shortcut fixer that will correct any shortcut error it finds on your desktop or Start menu. In addition, there's a nice start-up manager that shows every process or program that launches when you log into Windows, and provides details about each, including whether any might be dangerous.
There's more as well, including a lot of tools that won't necessarily extend the life of your PC, but will make it easier to use, or offer you useful features. For example, there's a file shredder, a duplicate file finder and a context menu manager for editing the right-click context menu that appears when you click a file. You'll also find encryption tools, ways to clean up your Internet traces and a lot more.
Works with: Windows 2000/XP/Vista
Rein in applications
A big cause of PC slowdowns is software that runs in the background or at start-up, often without your knowledge. Unpatched software can also cause problems. Two of the following downloads help you get a handle on sneaky apps, and a third keeps the rest of them properly patched.
3. WinPatrol
This freebie from BillP Studios helps you stop unnecessary programs from running on start-up, and in doing so, speeds up your PC. Run it, and it displays a detailed list of all the programs that start when you boot your PC, including the developer, the file name and much more. Select each program you don't want to run at start-up and click the Disable button.
You'll get a PC that's zippier starting up -- and potentially zippier running as well, because if the programs aren't running in the background, you should have more memory and CPU power available.
The Delayed Start feature is especially nifty. It lets you tell some programs not to launch when Windows boots, and instead delay their launch for up to an hour. Why do that? Because you might not need those programs right away, and by delaying their start, Windows will start up more quickly. Later on, when you need the programs, they'll already be running in the background for you.
There's a lot more to this program, including showing all the services that are running on your PC, displaying all of your ActiveX controls and Internet Explorer helper programs, and showing your scheduled tasks. Examine them all, decide which are unnecessary and disable any you don't need. Again, the result is a smoother-running PC.
Works with: Windows 9x/Me/XP/Vista
4. Autoruns
One reason that your aging system gets sluggish is that as you install programs and use your PC over time, more and more services and programs end up running in the background without your knowing it. A surprising number of programs invisibly run system updaters, which constantly look for updates to software you're running, without telling you. And there are plenty of other services and programs you run that you don't really need.
Only for the technically inclined, Microsoft's Autoruns is the best way to ferret them all out so you can decide which you want to allow to run and which to stop. It breaks out the list of services into categories -- those that run when you log on, those that are scheduled tasks, those that are Vista gadgets, those associated with Internet Explorer and so on.
You'll see a brief description of each program, its publisher and the program path. To find out more details about any program or service, right-click it and select Search Online; Autoruns does a Google search for the executable so you can find more information.
To stop a service from running, uncheck its checkbox. (This doesn't delete anything; it just stops the service from running.) This is a powerful tool, so before you make any changes with it, do your research so you know you don't need the program or service to be running.
There's also some information here that most people won't need, such as details about dynamic-link libraries. Still, this is a very useful program for advanced users who want to clean out their PCs -- older or not -- and keep them running as fast as possible.
Works with: Windows XP/Vista
5. Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI)
You already know that to keep your system running well and for a long time, you need to keep it free from viruses, spyware and infections. So you're certainly running security software. But anti-malware software alone can't always keep your system running in tip-top shape. Sometimes the problem is that you're running an application without the latest security patches, and bad guys and bad software can sneak through the holes.
Secunia PSI shuts down those holes. It scans your PC for all the software you have installed, then checks to see if any applications are missing the latest patches. Whenever it finds any, it reports the results. It will also download and install the patches if you ask it to.
It doesn't stop after the initial scan -- it constantly runs in the background, checking when there are new patches available, then tells you when it's time to get them. In downloading the patches, it does more than just keep your PC secure: It also helps it run faster, because patched applications usually run faster than unpatched ones.
Works with: Windows 2000 SP4/XP SP2 or later/Vista
Clean your Registry
Think of the Windows Registry as if it were your basement -- there are plenty of useful things down there that your house needs, such as plumbing, heaters and boilers, but there's probably plenty of useless junk as well.
In the case of your home, the junk is harmless. Not so with your PC. A junked-up Registry can slow down your system and cause conflicts and freeze-ups. The following free Registry utilities will clean it out and help your PC live longer.
6. Eusing Free Registry Cleaner
One of the main reasons your PC gets more sluggish with time is that the Registry gets clogged up with old entries left behind by badly behaving software, and with outright bad Registry entries. The problem: It's not humanly possible to find these bad entries and fix them.
This excellent free program does the job for you. Run it, and it looks through your Registry for many different kinds of problems, then shows you what it finds. Select the bad entries you want the program to fix, and it fixes them all.
Don't worry that the program will make a mistake and do damage -- it automatically backs up your Registry and lets you restore your old Registry entries if changing them causes problems.
Works with: Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista
7. Free Registry Defrag
Your Registry, just like your hard disk, can become fragmented over time when you install and uninstall programs, change system settings and manually edit your Registry. When you uninstall programs or make changes that delete or alter Registry keys, the Registry's size doesn't shrink because it keeps the space for the keys. So over time, the Registry tends to grow, which can potentially slow down your PC.
This program can potentially make your PC run faster by doing a full Registry defragmentation. It first tells you how fragmented your Registry is and how much more quickly your PC can access your Registry if you defragment it. When you do a defrag, the program restarts your PC. It also creates a Restore Point, so that you can restore your Registry if you run into problems.
By the way, not everyone believes that shrinking the size of the Registry will make a significant performance difference, but it can't hurt to try.
Works with: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista
Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer on Tuesday unveiled his company's line of Windows smartphones in an offensive against Apple's iPhone and Google's Android system.
Around 30 types of "Windows phones" with various designs will be available by the end of the year in more than 20 countries.
Seven phone-makers, including Sony, Samsung and Toshiba, and 16 operators including Orange, Vodafone and T-Mobile, are involved in the launch.
The phones, which combine the ability to make calls, surf the Internet and view videos, carry Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system.
The new mobile operating system was launched simultaneously in France and New York on Tuesday.
Ballmer presented the Windows phones at Microsoft's new French headquarters near Paris in Issy-les-Moulineaux
Nick Kallen, who is charge or Twitter Lists, wrote a blog post explaining the new feature:
The idea is to allow people to curate lists of Twitter accounts. For example, you could create a list of the funniest Twitter accounts of all time, athletes, local businesses, friends, or any compilation that makes sense.
Lists are public by default (but can be made private) and the lists you've created are linked from your profile. Other Twitter users can then subscribe to your lists. This means lists have the potential to be an important new discovery mechanism for great tweets and accounts.
We started working on this feature because of the frequent requests we received from people who were looking for a better way to organize information on Twitter. Of course, that means not just twitter.com—the Platform team will follow up in a few days with information on the Lists API. This will allow developers to add support for Lists into your favorite Twitter apps.
We're just doing limited testing for now. But once we've tested the feature out a bit, we'll launch it for all accounts!
Norton Internet Security 2010 and Norton AntiVirus 2010 leverages a new model of security, codenamed Quorum to detect new malware and is beyond the traditional signature and behaviour-based detection, said David Freer, VP, Consumer Business Unit, Symantec Asia Pacific and Japan.
Quorum takes the greatest weapon from cyber criminals-- ther ability to generate unique pieces of malware at an alarming rate--and turn it against them, he said.
Quorum,which took three years of development, tracks files and applications and dozens of their attributes such as their age, download source, digital signature and prevalence. These attributes are then combined using complex algorithms to determine a reputation.
As a file is distributed across the internet and these attributes change, Quorum updates the reputation of a file.
This reputation becomes important when a file is new, likely to be a threat, and traditionald efenses are not likely to detect it, he said.
"It uses a a statistical analysis of file attributes based on billion of scans on millions of computers to identify the trust level of a file. IT can identify files to be trustworthy or untrustworthy taht would otherwise fall into grey areas of unknown with only tradtional security methods", he said.
On the features of Norton 2010 products, David said it took just a minute to install, used just over 10 mb and could scan in only 61 seconds on a hard disk drive and in 31 seconds on solid state drive.
The Norton Insight Family of technologies in the new 2010 product uses online intelligence systems leveraging reputation to protect the PC.
Norton System Insight provides features and easy to understand system information to help keep PCs peforming at top speed. The performance graphs help pinpoint what's causing a comptuer to slow down.
The Noron Threat Insight, provides details on threats that have been detected on the PC ncluding useful information on whaere it came and when it was initially encountered.
The Norton Insight Network leverages a cloud-based approach. Based on Quorum technology, it takes cloud-based security beyond the traditional blacklist and whitelist.
The products were available for purchase through retailers and the Symantec online store as well as various retail locations and online.
With Adobe MAX 2009 around the corner, small snippets of what's to come have begun leaking. Some of the new features in Flash CS5 and AIR 2.0 earlier, and now -- that the upcoming version of Flash Player, which will be demonstrated during MAX 2009, will support hardware acceleration. Choppy video playback has long been a standing issue with the Flash Player, more so as the web goes HD. Now that even xkcd has made a joke about it, it's about time to fix it! In a leaked demonstration video by an NVIDIA employee, we see the Flash player playing HD YouTube content smoothly on an NVIDIA Ion-based computer. With GPU acceleration support on Tegra devices, it might soon be possible to have HD Flash content playing on even portable devices, such as the Zune HD, and the many other Tegra-based portable devices to come. Here is a video of the next generation Flash player in action: Source: Hexus
Itching to make Windows Vista behave the way you want it to, not the way Microsoft does?
There are plenty of ways you can hack Windows Vista, make it jump through hoops, bend it to your will and generally make it behave the way you want it to behave.
I've put together 10 of my favorite hacks for Windows Vista. They'll let you do everything from speed up Windows Aero to unlock a supersecret administrator's account and juice up the right-click context menu -- and yes, even hack the dreaded User Account Control. So if you want to take control of Windows Vista, read on.
A word of warning: Some of these tips involve editing the Windows Registry, which can be a dangerous thing to do. So before you touch the Registry, use System Restore to create a restore point so that you can revert to the previous version of the Registry if something goes awry. To create a restore point, choose Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Restore files from backup > Create a restore point or change settings.
1. Hack User Account Control
Windows Vista's User Account Control (UAC) is the new operating system's most universally reviled feature. Sure, it helps protect you, but it also annoys you to no end.
If UAC drives you around the bend, you can turn it off. There are several ways to do it. One way is to choose Control Panel > User Accounts and Family Safety > User Accounts, then click Turn User Account Control on or off.
Alternately, you can run the System Configuration Utility (a.k.a. msconfig) by typing msconfig at the command line or search box. When the tool runs, click the Tools tab and scroll down until you see Disable UAC. Highlight it and click the Launch button, then reboot. To turn it back on again, follow the same steps and choose Enable UAC.
If you're a fan of the Registry, you can also disable UAC using the Registry Editor. Launch the Registry Editor by typing regedit at the Start Search box or a command prompt and pressing Enter. Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\System\EnableLUA
and give it a value of 0. You will need to reboot in order for the change to take effect.
UAC is also the culprit for another nagging Windows Vista annoyance. When you run some commands from the command prompt, you're told that you don't have administrative rights to run them, even if you're currently logged in as an administrator.
That's because UAC requires you to run the command prompt as an administrator -- what's called running an elevated command prompt. Simply being logged in as an administrator isn't good enough; you still have to run an elevated command prompt.
One way to do it is to type cmd into the Search box on the Start menu, right-click the command prompt icon that appears at the top of the Start menu, then select Run as administrator.
But if you don't want to go about doing that each time you run a command prompt, there's a simpler way. You can create a desktop shortcut for an elevated prompt, or pin the elevated prompt to the Start menu.
To create a shortcut on the desktop:
1. Right-click the desktop, and select New > Shortcut.
2. In the text box of the Create Shortcut dialog box that appears, type cmd and then click Next.
3. On the next screen, type a name for the shortcut -- for example, Elevated Command Prompt. Then click Finish.
4. Right-click on the shortcut you just created and select Properties.
5. Select the Shortcut tab and click the Advanced button.
6. Check the box titled Run as administrator. Click OK and then OK again.
Now, when you want to run an elevated command prompt, simply double-click the shortcut.
If you'd like the elevated command prompt to appear on the Start menu, drag it from the Desktop to the Start button and place it where you would like it to be.
2. Unlock the supersecret Administrator account
Deep inside the bowels of Windows Vista, there's a secret Administrator account, and it's different from the normal administrator account you most likely have set up on your PC.
This Administrator account is not part of the Administrator group. (Confused yet? You should be.) It's a kind of superadministrator, akin to the root account in Unix, and by default it's turned off and hidden. (In describing this hack, we'll always use the capital "A" for the secret Administrator account, and a lowercase "a" for a normal administrator account.)
In versions of Windows before Windows Vista, the Administrator account wasn't hidden, and many people used it as their main or only account. This Administrator account had full rights over the computer.
In Windows Vista, Microsoft changed that. In Vista, the Administrator account is not subject to UAC, but normal administrator accounts are. So the Administrator can make any changes to the system and will see no UAC prompts.
Turning on the Administrator account is straightforward. First, open an elevated command prompt by typing cmd into the Search box on the Start menu, right-clicking the command prompt icon that appears at the top of the Start menu, then selecting Run as administrator -- or just use the shortcut you created in the previous hack.
Then enter this command and press Enter:
Net user administrator /active:yes
From now on, the Administrator account will appear as an option on the Welcome screen, along with any user accounts you may have set up. Use it like any other account. Be aware that it won't have a password yet, so it's a good idea to set a password for it.
If you want to disable the account and hide it, enter this command at an elevated command prompt and press Enter:
Net user administrator /active:no
3. Tweak Aero's glass borders
The borders around system windows, such as dialog boxes and the Control Panel, are transparent in Windows Vista's Aero interface. These borders are hackable; you can shrink them, make them larger, and change their colors and transparency levels.
To make the borders larger or smaller:
1. Right-click the desktop and select Personalize.
2. Click Window Color and Appearance.
3. Click Open classic appearance properties for more color options.
4. From the dialog box that appears, make sure that Windows Aero is selected as the color scheme. Click the Advanced button on the right side of the dialog box. The Advanced Appearance dialog box appears.
5. Select Border Padding in the Item drop-down menu. To change the size of the border, type a new size for the border. (The default is 4.) Click OK, then OK again. The sizes of the borders will now change.
There's more you can do to the borders as well. To change the border color, transparency and more, right-click the desktop and select Personalize > Window Color and Appearance.
1. Choose a color for your windows on the top of the screen, or custom-build a color by clicking Show color mixer and then moving the sliders that appear to mix your own color.
2. To change the transparency of window borders, move the Color intensity slider to the left to make them more translucent, and to the right to make them more opaque.
3. To turn off transparency, uncheck the box next to Enable transparency.
4. Protect your privacy by removing Windows Vista metadata
One of Vista's more useful features is also one of its more dangerous ones -- the use of metadata. Metadata is information about files that you don't normally see but that can help you search for them.
For example, music files typically contain the name of the composer, type of music and so on. And a photograph usually contains data on when the photo was taken, who took it, the camera model and other information, such as ISO speed. Documents and spreadsheets contain a wide variety of information about their creators, including who created the document, how much time was spent editing it, who reviewed the document and so on.
In many cases, programs automatically generate their own metadata when a file is created. Users can also easily create or edit metadata. Right-click a file, choose Properties, and select the Details tab. Then click any field and type in metadata. Keep in mind that some metadata, such as the last time a file was printed, can't be altered.
This metadata can be quite useful, because Windows Vista search uses it. So if you want to find every music track on your PC that was composed by Mozart, for example, type Mozart into a search box, and Vista will search the metadata to find all the Mozart tracks.
But there are times when you don't want your files' metadata to be viewed by others or by people outside your organization. Analyst firm Gartner Inc. points out that businesses might embed metadata into files about a customer -- for example, "good customer" or "bad customer" labels -- and a business certainly wouldn't want others to see that. There may similarly be personal metadata in your documents that you don't want others to see.
It's easy to remove any metadata from any file:
1. Open Windows Explorer and right-click the file.
2. Choose Properties.
3. Select the Details tab. A screen that displays the document's metadata appears, like the one shown below.
4. Click the Remove Properties and Personal Information link at the bottom of the screen. The Remove Properties dialog box appears.
5. Select Remove the following properties from this file and check the boxes next to all of the metadata you want removed. Click OK. The selected metadata will be removed.
6. Alternatively, you can create a copy of the document with all the metadata removed. Select Create a copy with all possible properties removed and click OK.
You can also remove metadata from multiple files at once. Select all the files from which you want to remove metadata, then right-click them and follow the directions in this hack for removing the data. In order for this to work, though, the files have to have common metadata fields so that the metadata can be removed from all of them at once.
5. Power up Windows Vista's context menu
The right-click menu (also called the context menu) in Windows Explorer under Vista is quite useful. Right-click a file, and a menu appears, letting you take a variety of actions, such as opening the file, printing it, deleting it, copying it, creating a shortcut to it and so on. The exact options that appear vary depending on your system setup and what programs you have installed.
If you want to, you can add options to the context menu. Hold down the Shift key as you right-click a file, and you'll see several new menu options, marked with arrows in the image to the right.
Here are the new options you get and what each one does:
Open as Read-Only: As the name says, it opens the file as a read-only file.
Pin to Start Menu: This pins a shortcut to the file you've right-clicked in the top section of the Start menu. To remove the shortcut from the Start menu, right-click the shortcut and select Remove from this list.
Add to Quick Launch: This adds a shortcut to your file in the Quick Launch toolbar, on the left side of the taskbar. To remove the shortcut, right-click it and choose Delete.
Copy as Path: This copies the file name and location to the Windows clipboard -- for example, C:\Budget\2007 memo.xls. You can then paste that path wherever you want.
6. Speed up or turn off Windows Aero
Windows Aero may add pizzazz to the interface, but depending on your hardware, it may also slow down your system. You can speed up your PC by turning it off altogether, or by turning off some Aero features but leaving others on.
To turn off Aero:
1. Right-click the Windows desktop and select Personalize > Window Color and Appearance.
2. Click Open classic appearance properties for more color options.
3. In the Color scheme drop-down box, choose Windows Vista Basic or Windows Vista Standard, and click OK. Aero will now be turned off.
What if there are some things you like about Aero, such as window animations, but others you don't like, such as transparent windows? You can turn off some Aero features to speed up your PC but leave on others that you like using.
To do it, select Start > Computer > System Properties. Click Advanced system settings, then, in the Performance section, click the Settings button. A screen like the one shown below appears. Select Custom, uncheck those features that you want to turn off, then click OK.
7. Bypass the Windows Vista log-on screen on multiaccount PCs
When you have more than one user account on a Windows Vista PC, every time you restart your PC you'll see a welcome screen listing all the accounts on the machine. You'll have to click one and then type in your log-on information in order to start using Windows Vista.
But what if, like many people, you use one primary account nearly all the time and use others only on occasion? You'd like to bypass the welcome screen listing all the user accounts and automatically log in whenever you start Windows Vista -- but Vista can't seem to accomplish this simple task.
Actually, you can do it, as you'll see in this hack. Follow it, and you'll automatically log in on your primary account and then be able to switch to any other account when you wish:
1. At the Search box or a command prompt, type control userpasswords2 and press Enter. The User Accounts screen appears.
2. Highlight the account that you want to automatically log on with, then uncheck the box next to Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer. Click OK.
3. The Automatically Log On dialog box appears. Type in the password for the account that you want to log on automatically. (If the account shown isn't the one that you want to log on automatically, type in the username and password for the correct account. Click OK.)
4. From now on, you'll automatically log in using that account. When you're logged in, if you want to switch to another account, use Fast User Switching: Click the Start button, click the arrow in the lower-right corner of the Start menu, and select Switch User. You'll come to a screen listing all users on your PC, where you can log in as any other user.
8. Hack Vista's blinking cursor
Windows Vista's blinking cursor is razor thin, and sometimes it can be very hard to find, especially if you're using a laptop. But it's easy to make the cursor thicker -- pretty much as thick as you want. Select Control Panel > Ease of Access > Optimize visual display. Scroll toward the bottom of the screen, until you come to "Make things on the screen easier to see".
From here, you can fatten up Windows Vista's cursor. In the drop-down menu next to Set the thickness of the blinking cursor, select a number. The larger the number, the fatter the cursor. You'll see a preview of the cursor in the Preview box next to the drop-down menu. Click Save. The cursor throughout Windows Vista will now be fatter and easier to see.
9. Hack Vista's screensavers
For reasons inexplicable to mere mortals, Microsoft doesn't allow you to customize how Windows Vista's screensavers work -- for example, by changing how the bubbles look in the Bubbles screensaver, or the number or thickness of the ribbons in the Ribbons screensaver.
If you're willing to get your hands dirty by using the Registry, though, you can customize both. For the Bubbles screensaver, for example, you can turn the bubbles metallic or keep them transparent, configure whether the bubbles should have shadows, and display the bubbles against the desktop or instead against a solid black background. For the Ribbons screensaver, you can change the number and thickness of the ribbons.
To customize the Bubbles screensaver, launch the Registry Editor by typing regedit at the Start Search box or at a command prompt and pressing Enter. Then:
1. Go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\Screensavers\Bubbles
Select Edit > New DWORD (32-bit) Value, and create a new DWORD called MaterialGlass. Type 1 in the Value data field if you want glassy, transparent bubbles, or type 0 for metallic bubbles.
2. Create a DWORD called ShowShadows, and give it a value of 1 to display shadows below the bubbles, and a value of 0 to have no shadow displayed.
3. Create a DWORD called ShowBubbles and give it a value of 1 to show the bubbles on the desktop, and a value of 0 to show them against a solid black background.
4. When you exit the Registry Editor, your new settings will take effect.
You can similarly hack the Ribbons screensaver. To do it, open the Registry Editor and then:
1. Go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\Screensavers\Ribbons
Select Edit > New DWORD (32-bit) Value, and create a new DWORD called NumRibbons. Click Decimal, and then type in the number of ribbons you want to be displayed. The minimum number of ribbons is 1; the maximum is 256.
2. Create a DWORD called RibbonWidth, click Decimal, and then type in a number to determine the width of each ribbon. The smaller the number, the narrower the ribbon.
3. When you exit the Registry Editor, your new settings will take effect.
If you want to change any of the settings for either screensaver, you'll have to go back into the Registry, find the appropriate DWORD and change the value. To revert to your original settings, delete the Registry keys that you created.
10. Make Windows animation go slo-mo
Now that you've gotten your hands dirty in the Registry, here's a final fun hack for you. It serves absolutely no useful purpose except for entertainment and eye candy. It lets you slow down the animations that occur when windows minimize and maximize to and from the taskbar on your command.
To do it, you'll first edit the Registry. After that, when you want to slow down animations, hold down the Shift key. Release the key to make animations go at their normal speed.
Launch the Registry Editor by typing regedit at the Start Search box or at a command prompt and pressing enter. Then:
1. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM.
2. Select Edit > New DWORD (32-bit) Value and create a new DWORD called AnimationsShiftKey. Give it a value of 1.
3. Close the Registry Editor, log off of Windows, and then log back in again, or else reboot.
4. Hold the Shift key and minimize or maximize a window. The animation will be slowed down considerably. To make the animation go at normal speed, let go of the Shift key.
If you are a torrent lover and download a lots of stuffs from torrents and If you don’t
like public torrents which are available all over the net, then here is the website for you….
About The website : BTRACS is an automatic information site which periodicaly checks closed community bittorrent trackers for being open for signup. Some closed community bittorrent trackers' signups are closed and are "invite only" (meaning, if you have a user, you can invite your friend to join or a friend can invite you).
So…..What are you waiting for????? Just click the site and sign up for free…….and enjoy downloading…….
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\CurrentVersion\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 eligibility 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\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
@=”Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)”
I will show you two different ways (manual and automatic) on how to install Windows 7 using your USB drive.
Before you start, make sure you have at least a 4GB USB flash drive. Windows 7 installation files takes up around 3GB of space.
The manual way
1. Insert your USB flash drive.
2. Hit WIN+R, type cmd and click OK.
3. Type diskpart and hit ENTER
4. Type list disk, hit ENTER and identify the disk number for your USB flash drive. You MUST be very sure of this or else you’ll be formatting the wrong drive later on. If you have only one hard drive, then normally your USB flash drive will be disk 1. 
5. Type select disk 1 and hit ENTER
6. Type clean and hit ENTER
7. Type create partition primary and hit ENTER
8. Type select partition 1 and hit ENTER
9. Type active and hit ENTER
10. Type format fs=fat32 and hit ENTER
11. Type assign and hit ENTER
12. Type exit and hit ENTER
13. Insert the Windows 7 installation DVD disc and copy everything from the DVD to your USB flash drive.
14. Boot up your computer with USB flash drive. You will need to go into your BIOS and make sure it is set to boot from flash devices. If you got it right, the Windows 7 installation should load from your USB flash drive.
The automatic way
There is a software called WinToFlash that does everything above automatically. All you need to do is run the program, set the location of the Windows 7 installation disc and the destination of your USB flash drive. 
1. Download the latest version of WinToFlash
2. Extract and run WinToFlash.exe
3. Click the big check button to start Windows setup transfer wizard.
4. Click Next
5. Specify the locations of Windows files and USB drive then click Next. The Windows files path if the drive letter of your DVD drive and the USB drive is the drive letter of your USB flash drive.
6. Select “I Accepted the terms of the license agreement” and click Continue.
7. Click OK to start formatting your USB flash drive and the files will be automatically transferred from your Windows 7 install disc to your USB flash drive.
8. Click Next when finished copying and boot up the computer with USB flash drive. You will need to go into your BIOS and make sure it is set to boot from flash devices. If you got it right, the Windows 7 installation should load from your USB flash drive.
So enjoy installing Windows 7 from USB!!!!!!!!!!!
ndia's own geographic information system (GIS) dubbed 'Bhuvan' is now available for download, currently under BETA release country's indigenous Google Earth is capable of Indian specific features not available in any other competing product, Bhuvan features multiple layers of information showing topography, altitude, depth weather and other features helpful in managing public services, internal security, town planning, and infrastructure development activities.
The web-based portal requires an initial plugin download in order to provide promising high-resolution 3-D satellite imagery with smooth video acceleration, Bhuvan offers images of the globe similar to Google Earth but provides best resolutions over the Indian sub-continent with ISRO having plans to expand high-resolution images globally.
Bhuvan Features :
* Access, explore and visualise 2D and 3D image data along with rich thematic information on Soil, wasteland, water resources etc.
* Visualise multi-resolution, multi-sensor, multi-temporal image data
* Superpose administrative boundaries of choice on images as required
* Visualisation of AWS ( Automatic Weather Stations) data/information in a graphic view and use tabular weather data of user choice
* Fly to locations ( Flies from the current location directly to the selected location)
* Heads-Up Display ( HUD) naviation controls ( Tilt slider, north indicator, opacity, compass ring, zoom slider)
* Navigation using the 3D view Pop-up menu (Fly-in, Fly out, jump in, jump around, view point)
* 3D Fly through (3D view to fly to locations, objects in the terrain, and navigate freely using the mouse or keyboard)
* Drawing 2D objects (Text labels, polylines, polygons, rectangles, 2D arrows, circles, ellipse)
* Drawing 3D Objects (placing of expressive 3D models, 3D polygons, boxes)
* Snapshot creation (copies the 3D view to a floating window and allows to save to a external file)
* Measurement tools (Horizontal distance, aerial distance, vertical distance, measure area)
* Shadow Analysis (it sets the sun position based on the given time creating shadows and effects the lighting on the terrain)
* There would be many more value added functions and facilities which will be added into the package from time to time.
* Particular interest of ISRO/DOS would be to provide such functionalities to common man so that he/she adopts participatory approach with scientists to solve simple problems easily and interactively.Advanced functionality to be provided in future versions
Urban Design Tools (to build roads, junctions and traffic lights in an urban setting)
o Contour map ( Displays a colorized terrain map and contour lines)
o Terrain profile ( Displays the terrain elevation profile along a path)
o Draw tools (Creates simples markers, free hand lines, urban designs)
o Navigation map (to jump to and view locations in the 3D India)
You need to register and download the plugin in order to view the virtual earth in 3D space.
Google’s start page, iGoogle, has gotten a heavy dose of the “connected” social Web with the introduction of 19 new ‘social gadgets’, a Friends group and various sharing opportunities.
“If you're a gaming fanatic, compete with others in Who has the biggest brain? or challenge your fellow Chess or Scrabble enthusiasts to a quick match. Stay tuned in to the latest buzz with media-sharing gadgets from NPR, The Huffington Post, and YouTube. To manage your day-to-day more efficiently, check things off alongside your friends with the social To-Do list gadget,” Marissa Mayer, vice-president and product manager wrote on the official Google blog.
Basically, when you add the new gadgets, you get to ‘share’ them with your friends using a small button in the top-right corner, next to the ‘minimise’ and ‘close’ buttons. The friends, of course, are Google contacts that can be added and deleted as per your wish.
“To help you manage who you are sharing with, we've created a Friends group. You can add and edit friends in this group at any time. If you already have a Friends group within your Google Contacts, you'll be able to easily share with those friends on iGoogle as well,” Mayer wrote.
Of course, the social gadgets can be used by themselves as well, without having to share with a friend.
So how do you keep a friend informed about additions and other changes? The new ‘Update’ feature, of course.
“Your friends are able to see what you share or do in your social gadgets either by having the same gadgets on their homepages, or through a new feed called Updates. Updates can include your recently shared photo albums, your favorite comics strips, your travel plans for the weekend and more,” Mayer explained.
The tools are incredibly easy to use and collaboration becomes a snap. Playing games with all our Google contacts? Goodbye, Yahoo games; hello iGoogle
Users of the popular social-networking site Facebook will be glad to see the site rolling out an improved search feature from Monday.
“With the new improvements, you will now be able to search the last 30 days of your News Feed for status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you're a fan. If people have chosen to make their content available to everyone, you also will be able to search for their status updates, links and notes, regardless of whether or not you are friends. Search results will continue to include people's profiles as well as relevant Facebook Pages, groups and applications,” wrote engineering manager Akhil Wable on the site’s official blog.
Rafe Needleman of CNET points out: “The Everyone filter is the key new feature. It lets Facebook users monitor the entire network for news and updates on big topics, the same way Twitter was consumed for information coming from Iran after the recent election.
“Like Twitter Search, the Facebook search result page alerts you when new results come in that match your query, but it doesn't update the whole page until you ask. This is arguably the best way to keep people up to date without overwhelming them.”
FACEBOOK ACQUIRES FRIENDFEED
In other news, Facebook has also acquired popular real-time online sharing service, FriendFeed, for an estimated $50 million. For the time being, both sites will run simultaneously, but it’s only a matter of time before Facebook incorporates all of its new acquisition’s important technologies and user base. It’s just like how everybody knew Google Video would shut down after YouTube was bought over.
FriendFeed has consistently scored points in its more Twitter-like approach to social networking, an aspect that is increasingly important for Facebook to maintain to remain competitive.
Sources: Facebook, CNET, TechCrunch
Thursday saw a real-life recreation of the scene from The Truman Show, where once the plug is pulled on the show, people search about aimlessly for something else to do – a commentary on how television has taken over our lives. Only this time, TV was replaced by social networking site Facebook and micro-blogging service Twitter, as both sites crashed after a malicious attack.
The attack came so suddenly that Twitter did not even have time to put up its ‘fail whale’ error image. Co-founder Biz Stone said on the site’s blog that they were the victim of a denial-of-service attack, a technique in which hackers overwhelm a website's servers with communications requests.
"We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we continue to defend and later investigate," Stone wrote.
Facebook too faced a similar attack, with a spokesperson saying: “Earlier this morning, Facebook encountered network issues related to an apparent distributed denial of service attack, that resulted in degraded service for some users. No user data was at risk and we have restored full access to the site for most users."
A similar attack – expected to be orchestrated by the same hackers – also took down blogging service LiveJournal.
All three services are now back to full functionality, but the impact it had on its audience spoke a lot about how dependant the world has gotten on them.
As Monica Hesse of the Washington Post puts it: “It was almost like social networking had died. Or had a heart attack, at least. For several hours, millions of users were catapulted back to the dark, informationless days of 2003, before such pertinent information as what Ashton Kutcher had for a snack became readily available, before it was possible for people to take a simple quiz to learn which ‘Twilight’ character or dog breed they were most like.”
Anand Chandrasekaran, a serial entrepreneur in Mountain View, California, said he felt "completely cut off" from hundreds of friends without Twitter.
"Director John Hughes died today and I didn't know because Twitter was down," a user called kristenthomson tweeted shortly after the site was functioning again. "Do I have to go back to watching the news to get my news?"
Sources: Reuters, Washington Post, SFGate
After writing about Firefox Addons package that everyone should have ( part 1), here is Firefox Addons package that everyone should have ( part 2)……….
3. For Multimedia
· FireShot : FireShot is a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of web pages (entirely or just visible part).
Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify web captures and insert text annotations and graphical annotations. Such functionality will be especially useful for web designers, testers and content reviewers.
· Foxytunes : Do you listen to Music while surfing the Web?
FoxyTunes lets you control almost any media player and find lyrics, covers, videos, bios and much more with a click right from your browser.
· Gspace : This extension allows you to use your Gmail Space (4.1 GB and growing) for file storage. It acts as an online drive, so you can upload files from your hard drive and access them from every Internet capable system. The interface will make your...
4. For Community
· BlogRovr : You don't have time to read all those blogs!
Let BlogRovR do it for you.
BlogRovR fetches, as you browse, posts from your favorite blogs about the page you're looking at, and shows you post summaries you can open and read right there, without leaving that page.
BlogRovR also suggests popular items, and even lets you tweet about any site you're on.
· Chatzilla : A clean, easy to use and highly extensible Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client.
· Locator : Locate highlighted address on Google map:
simply highlight the address, right click with mouse, select 'Locate on Google Map' in popup menu and your place will be shown on Google map.
·samfind Bookmarks : Install samfind to increase the number of websites on your Bookmarks Bar, search within them and read their RSS feeds. Interact with social websites like Digg, Reddit, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Facebook, and TinyURL from your Bar. With samfind on each computer your links will be backed up and synchronized. If you are away from your computer, log into samfind.com to access your Bookmark Bar's websites.
All right, so who had “one week after the RTM release” in the bets? Almost everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before Windows 7 got cracked by pirates, but to have its security already compromised just a week after it was released to manufacturing is a new low, even for Microsoft.
The company’s operating systems have been notoriously easy to crack and are very widely pirated, especially in countries with non-stringent copyright laws like India. Come on, you have to know at least 10 people using a pirated version of Windows, right?
Neowin reports that the new crack and activation, allegedly by Chinese hackers, is built on the Windows 7 Ultimate version given to Lenovo. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are given copies of the operating system much before it is released in the market, so that they can get their various devices ready for the launch.
“The news comes from various Chinese forums who state that you can already pass Windows Genuine Advantage validation offline, OEM style,” the site said. “The leaked .ISO was originally posted on a Chinese forum, which was then downloaded in order for people to get hold of the boot.wim, and in turn retrieving the OEM-SLP key, plus the OEM activation certificate. Microsoft uses the same digitally signed OEM certificate, which has an .xrm-ms extension, as that in Windows Vista. Another point to note is that the key is a master one, which can be used to activate other OEM branded installations, like ones from Dell, HP or indeed Lenovo.”
A Microsoft spokesperson has confirmed to Neowin: "We are aware of reports of activation exploits that attempt to circumvent activation & validation in Windows 7, and we can assure customers that Microsoft is committed to protecting them from counterfeit and pirated software. Microsoft strongly advises customers not to download Windows 7 from unauthorized sources. Downloading Windows 7 from peer-to-peer Web sites is piracy, and exposes users to increased risks – such as viruses, Trojans and other malware and malicious code—that usually accompany counterfeit software."
Source: Neowin
So, finally Nero has also started providing the free version of its products.
Facing competition from free CD/DVD burner applications like JetBee and BurnAware, Nero has decided to provide a free for life feature limited version of Nero 9 Software Suite as Nero 9 Free, this special edition comes with basic CD/DVD data burning and copying capabilities and is just 55 MB in size, the user is required to upgrade to full version to enjoy other features of the full version suite.
Don't be surprised as there is no publicly available Windows 8 GUI concept yet, but artists have now started to create Windows 8 theme concepts which in my opinion does not look very different then current Windows 7 interface, this Vista transformation pack concept consists of Theme, Logon Screen, System Tray icon, Tclock Lite and Wallpapers.
Earlier i wrote how to install windows from hard disk, now m going to share how to install windows components if you 
Just Follow the simple steps to work out :
1. Insert Windows XP installation disc to computer. Let’s assume that the CD drive is D: drive.
2. Copy the i386 folder from D:\ drive to C:\ drive. Now the C: drive should have an i386 folder too which looks like C:\i386\
3. Go to Start > Run, type regedit and click OK.
4. Navigate to the path below.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup
5. At the right pane, there should be a name called SourcePath with the Data value as D:\. Double click on the SourcePath and change the value data to C:\i386\
Now whenever Windows looks for the original installation files, it’d automatically look in your local hard drive instead of bugging you to insert the CD.
