Computer Tips & Tricks Sharing

How to check graphic card memory in Window XP

2012-01-04T09:59:00.000+07:00

Checking graphic card memory in Window XP is quite easy. Follow the below step

Right click on any empty space on your Window XP desktop and then click on Properties
Now click on the Settings Tab and Click the Advanced button.
Now click on the Adapter Tab.
There you will see Memory Size : xxxMB. [ See the Screen Shot Below]
That is your Graphics Memory.

Disabling unnecessary Windows services

2011-09-23T15:41:00.000+07:00

As a disclaimer, this is a bit more of an advanced tip. This is not that risky. However, you can cause problems if you disable services that are needed.

Services are programs that are continuously running in the background of Windows and are doing different tasks that Windows needs done. There are a lot of these services and they can use a lot of resources. The good news is that a lot of these services are expendable and can be turned off without any problems. You can go through the list and read the descriptions Windows gives to decide which services you need. You can always turn the service back on if need it later in time. The following steps show you how to turn off services.

Managing Services with Services.msc

Go to Start -> Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Services. You can also go to START -> Run -> and type services.msc.
Left-click on a service.
Read the description of the service just to make sure you don't think you will need the service.
If you decide you want to disable the service, Right-click -> Properties -> Change the "Startup Type" to "Manual" and then stop the service. The next time you reboot Windows the service will not start.

Here are some services we found could be disabled in most common home computers:

Computer Browser
Error Reporting Service
Help and Support
Indexing Service
Messenger
NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing
Performance Logs and Alerts
Protected storage (this service stores passwords and enables auto-complete for web forms)
Remote Registry (this service allows remote access to your registry)
Routing and Remote Access (this service enables dial-in routing to your computer if you use this)
Secondary Logon
Task Scheduler

Bits, Bytes, and Megabytes - Know the difference?

2011-09-23T15:34:00.001+07:00

It's amazing how too many people still have no sense of computer storage space, even when they handle a computer on a daily basis. This lack of perceptiveness is often inconvenient. Fortunately, it's something that can easily be fixed.

This is the kind of thing they're teaching first graders nowadays, and yet it's something that adults often have never been taught. The digital age dawned quite rapidly on us, and many people are still adapting to this transition.

Regardless of the fact, you need to keep in mind that knowing your storage space units is extremely important in this day and age. Moreover, it's extremely simple. Five minutes from now (or as fast as it takes you to read this article) you will have no trouble telling the difference between a byte, KB, MB, GB, TB. You'll finally and decisively grasp your storage space measurement units.

From byte to Terabyte: a reference guide

Even though these measurement units may sound strange, they all revolve around the same semantic root if you watch closely: the term "byte". A byte is the base unit for storage space, and it's just a tidbit of information: a sequence of seven "bits" to be exact, wherein a "bit" is either a 0 or a 1.

But let's not get into excessively technical stuff, for this explanation. Just keep in mind that a byte is the base measurement unit, and the remaining units are byte multiples by the thousand (technically it's x1,028... but let's round down to square thousands to keep it simple).

You can easily tell the storage capacity of a device just by looking at the word attached to the "byte": it's usually "kilo", "mega", "giga", or "tera". Here's a simple reference guide, for your convenience.

1 byte: basic measurement unit

Just a short string of numeric code; not enough to hold much of anything.

1 Kb (Kilobyte) is roughly one thousand bytes

It's enough to hold a low quality picture, or a small text file.

1 MB (Megabyte) is roughly one thousand Kilobytes

Enough to hold five or so high quality pictures, or a large document, maybe a small PowerPoint presentation, or an MP3 with 30 seconds or so.

1 GB (Gigabyte) is roughly one thousand Megabytes

It's the standard unit for measuring the capacity of portable storage devices such as thumb drives and SD cards (range from 2 to 32 GB at the time of writing); also DVDs (4.7GB) and Blu-ray (25GB).

A Gigabyte is plenty capacity to store a medium quality full-length movie, or 5-10 MP3 albums.

1 TB (Terabyte) is roughly one thousand Gigabytes (and 1 Million Kb)

When one speaks about TB, it's usually in the sense of computer hard disks, i.e. massive storage capacity.

At time of writing, the biggest hard drives on the market are about 2 TB.

2 TB = 2,000 GB = 2,000,000 MB = 2,000,000,000 Kb = 2,000,000,000,000 bytes

(remember, these numbers are simplified for your convenience: to be accurate, 2 TB would be 2048^4 = 2,199023255552)

On computer storage space measurement units

Would you feel OK about not being able to tell an ounce from a pound, or a gram from a kilo? What if you had no notion of how an inch compared to a mile? That would most certainly be inconvenient, wouldn't it?

Well, the truth of the matter is that being unable to tell a byte from a Gigabyte is just as strange, for someone who's familiar with these computer storage space units.

Have you ever noticed when people (especially younger folks) tend to shudder and squint when you ask them to e-mail you a big video file? Or when you ask if you can fit a PowerPoint presentation in your 2GB pen drive?

Maybe you don't always get those reactions, but try to imagine how you would feel if they asked if you could fit a twenty foot pole inside a regular wall closet! Well, it's pretty much the same situation: all about having a grasp on storage space units.

Spend 5 minutes re-reading the reference guide in the middle of this article, and understand how the storage space measurement units relate to one another. It will be well worth your time!

Free MP3 Cutter and Editor 2.5.0.612

2011-09-09T10:47:00.004+07:00

Free MP3 Cutter and Editor is an extremely simple and easy to use Windows software for editing mp3 files. The program displays a waveform graph that lets you easily select a portion of the MP3 for editing. You can cut out unwanted part of the audio, change volume by specifying a percentage value, create a fade in or fade out, and convert the audio between stereo and mono.

Here are some key features of "Free MP3 Cutter and Editor":

Delete Selected - Deletes selected part from the MP3 document.
Delete Unselected - Deletes unselected part from the MP3 document.
Change Volume - Changes audio volume by specifying a percentage value.
Maximize Volume - Increases volume as high as possible without distortion.
Fade In - Gradually increases the volume throughout the selection.
Fade Out - Gradually decreases the volume throughout the selection.
Convert to Stereo - Duplicates mono track to make a stereo track.
Convert to Mono - Mixes all channels to make a mono track.

How to Reduce Firefox Memory Usage

2011-09-02T15:22:00.000+07:00

Firefox is very easy to use and has also proved itself to be one of the best browsers when it comes to security year after year. Firefox also is known for having great add-ons to the browser that are both useful and easy to use. Despite all of these great reasons to use Firefox, I have noticed that Firefox can be a bit of a memory hog at times. I have noticed it using over 1 GB of memory at times for my new PC. This large use of memory can surely contribute to a slow PC. In this article, we look at ways to reduce this memory usage.

Restart Firefox

The first and most obvious way to reduce the memory usage for Firefox is to restart the browser. The longer you have the Firefox browser open, the larger the cache will grow in memory. By restarting Firefox, you will clear all the caches out of the memory.

Reduce Session History in Firefox

The session history keeps track of the pages you visited in the past. This history is cached in memory and it is what allows you to hit the back and forward buttons. The default value for this is 50. You can reduce this to a number much lower such as 10.

To change this value, type "about:config" in the Firefox URL bar and click enter. You may be warned by Firefox. Click OK. Search for "browser.sessionhistory.max_entries" by using CTRL+F. Double click on the line item and change this to 10 or whatever value you want. Click OK and restart Firefox. That is it!

Reduce Add-ons, Themes, and Extensions

Despite how useful they are, some add-ons, themes, and extensions can increase Firefox resource usage. I recommend using only the extensions and add-ons that you really need. However, this is 100% a personal preference. If you are ok with a little extra memory usage, then keep the extension by all means.

If you decide you want to remove an extension, you can press CTRL+SHIFT+A to edit the extensions, add-ons, and themes.

Explicitly Set Firefox's Max Cache Size

Another thing you can do is to tell Firefox exactly how much memory it is allowed to use for its cache. You will want to be careful with this setting though. Giving it too small of a cache could slow down your browsing.

To do this, type in "about:config" in the address bar and click enter. If warned, click OK. Search for "browser.cache.memory.capacity" by using CTRL+F. Set the capacity keeping in mind that it is in Kilobytes (1024KB = 1 MB). For example, if you wanted to set this to 100 MB, then you would use 1024x100 = 102400 Kilobytes. I also want to point out that this is a setting that I personally have not changed. On my PC, I let Firefox determine the cache size based on my amount of memory.

Quick Tip: Check Memory Usage in Firefox

In Firefox, you can check to see how much and where memory is being used. To do this, simply type "about:cache?device=memory" into the URL bar and click enter. A webpage will be displayed that shows you memory cache for the browser. This is a cool feature included with Firefox to help you analyze how Firefox is utilizing memory.

5 tips for using text effects in Microsoft Word 2010

2011-08-20T10:08:00.001+07:00

Word 2010 has many text options--including glow, shadow, and reflection text effects.

But how much is too much? How can you make sure a text effect will enhance your message, not detract from it?

When you want to make your words pop with special effects, here are five tips to keep in mind.

1. Be consistent

Choose one effect or effect combination and one color theme for your text effects. And use text effects in specific, only in headings. Also, because text effects can make the text thicker and harder to read, consider using effects only for larger text, such as headings and the title.

2. Use styles

If you apply a style to a heading and then apply text effects, you can select the heading, right-click the style in the Styles gallery, and then click Update style to match selection. Now all your headings with that style will display the same text effects.

3. Speak, don't scream

People tend to avoid looking at ads or any content that looks like an ad, so take care to add effects that suit your content aren't flashy for the sake of flash.

4. Keep it readable

Be sure that the text is still easy to read (and not a big blob of colorful shapes). Graphic designers will tell you that text is just shapes on the page. And they're right. But these shapes are communicating a message--and the effects are there to play a supporting role, not the star.

5. Think about your message and your audience

What's appropriate for a back-to-school barbecue flier

might not work for a paper on the Amazon Basin

or a sales report or a company newsletter.

Choose effects that complement and enhance your information.

Musicmatch JukeBox 10 Free Full Download

2011-06-08T16:57:00.004+07:00

Get access to Musicmatch Jukebox 10

Musicmatch Jukebox 10 is a powerful and easy way to find, organize, and enjoy your music. An all-in-one, digital-music solution, Jukebox 10 lets you manage, play, rip, burn, buy, and discover music in one easy-to-use program.

Musicmatch Jukebox also provides instant access to all of its popular music services, including Musicmatch On Demand, Musicmatch Music Store, and Musicmatch Radio with more than 800,000 songs in its catalog.

The Most Powerful Way to Experience Digital Music

Play, Discover and Manage digital music
Transfer music to portable devices
Access Music Store and On Demand
Burn music, MP3 and data CDs faster Up to 48x Up to 8x
Rip tracks from audio CDs faster Up to 40x Up to 10x
Tag tracks fast with Super Tagging
Create MP3s from vinyl and cassette tapes
Print custom CD labels and covers
Export to spreadsheet
Duplicate Track Finder
Personalized email tech support

Microsoft gives sneak preview of Windows 8

2011-06-06T23:57:00.000+07:00

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, California - Microsoft gave a sneak preview on Wednesday of the successor to Windows 7, a next-generation operating system designed to work on both personal computers and touchscreen tablets.

Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows Division, demonstrated some of the features of the operating system code-named "Windows 8" at the D9 technology conference here hosted by All Things Digital.

"Laptops, slates, desktops -- all can run one operating system," Sinofsky said.

"Things that people see work... on an iPad, I think we can do that and then bring with it all of the benefits that you have with Windows," he said.

"We have an approach that is different but builds on the value of an operating system that sells 400 million or so units a year," he said.

"Windows 8" builds upon many of the features in Microsoft's latest mobile operating system for smartphones, Windows Phone 7, including the use of touch "tiles" instead of icons to launch and navigate between applications.

In a blog post, Julie Larson-Green, corporate vice president of Windows Experience, said Windows 8 is a "reimagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface.

"A Windows 8-based PC is really a new kind of device, one that scales from touch-only small screens through to large screens, with or without a keyboard and mouse," Larson-Green said.

"Although the new user interface is designed and optimized for touch, it works equally well with a mouse and keyboard," she added.

Larson-Green said Microsoft would reveal more features of Windows 8, which uses Internet Explorer 10 as a Web browser, at its developers conference in Anaheim, California, opening on September 13.

Windows powers most of the world's personal computers but the Redmond, Washington-based software giant has been slow to enter a fast-growing tablet market dominated for the moment by Apple's iPad.

Many other tablet makers have opted to use Google's Android software and Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said a "well-formed Windows 8 will pose serious problems to Android."

The iPad was expected to remain the tablet market leader but "Microsoft will be a contender," she said. "What's more, they'll have a product that can compete across devices, and a foothold in the post-PC future."

Source = Chhanel News Asia

Firefox 5 Beta Released for Desktop and Android

2011-05-25T09:22:00.001+07:00

Mozilla has announced the availability of the first Firefox 5 beta release for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Android. The new desktop version includes a built-in release channel switcher and support for CSS animations. The new mobile version introduces support for the Do Not Track header and a number of other improvements.

Mozilla is transitioning to a faster-paced development model with shorter cycles between major releases. The organization is aiming to deliver three more major updates this year, bringing the Firefox version number to 7 by the end of 2011. To accommodate the more iterative release management strategy, Mozilla has established a system of release "channels" through which new improvements will flow before arriving in a stable release. It's similar to the approach already used successfully by Google for its Chrome Web browser.

The Aurora channel was created to provide a middle ground for testing features between the nightly builds and the beta releases. After being subjected to close scrutiny and testing by Aurora users for five weeks, the new Firefox 5 features have landed in a beta release. One of the new features is a combobox in the Firefox "about" dialog that allows users to select the release channel that they wish to use. The options include: stable releases, beta releases, or Aurora builds. There doesn't yet appear to be a way to get on the nightly bandwagon through the channel system yet.

Another major improvement is the addition of support for CSS animations, an experimental CSS3 feature that was originally created by Apple. It allows Web developers to use keyframe animation to tweak CSS properties. Mozilla's implementation was developed by David Baron and was merged into the Firefox code base last month. The custom "-moz" prefix is tacked onto the properties—a standard practice for CSS features that haven't been finalized—which means that you can't test it with any of the existing CSS animation demos. Baron did, however, provide a demo of his own so that users can see the feature in action.

Firefox 5 beta for Android was released concurrently with the desktop beta. The new version on Android includes support for Mozilla's Do Not Track flag, an HTTP header that is transmitted in HTTP requests to indicate to advertisers that the user doesn't wish to be tracked. Although the header isn't yet widely recognized by the advertising industry, it has started gaining some acceptance. Firefox is likely the first major browser vendor to offer the feature in a mobile port.

The desktop and mobile beta releases are available for download from Mozilla's website, alongside the latest Aurora build.

Microsoft Bing Adds Facebook Data

2011-05-17T09:34:00.001+07:00

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is rolling out an expansion to features on its Bing search engine that display data from Facebook Inc., such as restaurants, brands and links friends have recommended, aiming to make results more social.

The company is broadening the scope of a tool that lets users who are searching for a restaurant, movie or news story see if their friends have "liked" it on Facebook, the world’s most popular social network. Searches for places will list friends who live nearby, while looking for www.amazon.com shows Amazon items “liked” by friends, as well as popular items among the Facebook community, said Sean Suchter, general manager of Microsoft’s Search Technology Center in Silicon Valley.

Since overhauling its search engine and releasing Bing in June 2009, Microsoft has built the product into a credible alternative to Google. Including traffic from a search agreement with Yahoo! Inc., Bing now underpins about 30 percent of searches in the U.S., according to ComScore Inc. With Google still dominating, Microsoft is pushing forward with improvements like social search as a way to gain more share.

“It’s not going to be something that overnight changes people to Bing,” said Danny Sullivan, who runs the search- analysis website Search Engine Land. He said Microsoft has already rolled out some social features since signing an agreement with Facebook in October. “The social evolution is important and it is growing. It’s going to be an interesting thing, but it’s not going to blow the doors off.”

Microsoft fell 46 cents to $24.57 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have declined 12 percent this year.

Compare With Friends

Bing’s travel site will add features to let customers compare trips with Facebook friends and get their suggestions. If a user likes a city on Bing Travel, Bing will send flight deals to the user’s Facebook feed. The Bing search tool bar will now include a “like” button to let users recommend any site they visit.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft already lets users “friend” someone on Facebook from within search results and shows searchers things their friends have liked. The company this week is boosting how much Facebook data Bing scans, meaning users will see more of these kinds of social results. The features won’t show users information from friends who have set up their Facebook accounts to be private, Suchter said.

To promote the social options, Microsoft will sponsor the Los Angeles and New York premieres of the movie “Hangover 2.” The company announced the expansion in a blog post today.

Online ‘Packs’

Information on friends’ recommendations can make searches more useful and help get customers comfortable with researching and purchasing online, said Chad Stoller, executive vice president of digital strategy at advertising agency BBDO North America.

“There’s a reason teenage girls shop in packs in the mall,” he said. “Anything that can give people greater confidence shopping online is a good thing, and social search can give people that level of confidence.”

Having the Facebook data gives Microsoft an advantage over Google, Stoller said. If search engines don’t combine social data, they could lose one to three searches a day per customer, because users who are spending more time on social networks like Facebook will get links and references there and have less need for search engines, he said.

“This is going to be the next big thing,” said Suchter, who previously ran Yahoo’s search technology team before joining Microsoft in December 2008. “This is one of those big sea changes. We can make it where really your friends are always with you.”

Google, Twitter

Suchter declined to say whether the deal with Facebook is exclusive. He said he expects Google to try to match the Microsoft offerings.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, uses Twitter data to provide searchers information on what their friends have shared. That feature is only available to people who use Google’s Social Circles product, while Microsoft is showing these search results more broadly, Search Engine Land’s Sullivan said.

Suchter, who has worked in the Internet search area since 1998, oversees a team of about 130 search experts housed at Microsoft’s Mountain View campus. The team has largely been drawn from rivals over the past two years -- when Suchter started at Microsoft, he was the only one, he said.

To build the product, Suchter said his team worked long hours with Facebook engineers. Suchter said he’s done late night software-coding sessions at their offices, and Facebook co- founder Mark Zuckerberg did the same at Microsoft.

Suchter also has to make Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates happy. Search is one of a handful of areas Gates continues to work on since leaving his day-to-day role, and Suchter had his first review of the social features with Gates several weeks ago.

"This is an agenda for us," Suchter said. "It's much bigger than what we are doing here."

Source = Bloomberg News

Microsoft to buy Skype for US$8.5b

2011-05-11T09:54:00.000+07:00

Microsoft announced Tuesday it is buying Internet phone service company Skype for US$8.5 billion cash in the largest acquisition ever by the US computer software giant.

"Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world," Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said in a statement.

"Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world."

Microsoft said Skype will become a new business division within Microsoft, and that Skype CEO Tony Bates will assume the title of president of the Microsoft Skype Division, reporting directly to Ballmer.

Tens of millions of people use Skype to make low-cost or free phone calls over the Internet using their computers or smartphones. Skype bypasses the standard telephone network by channeling voice and video calls over the Web.

Buying Skype could be a way for Microsoft to shed some of its business software image and gain momentum in a hot smartphone market at a time when Internet lifestyles are going mobile.

Microsoft's biggest acquisition until now had been its 2007 buy of digital marketing firm aQuantive for US$6.3 billion.

Skype had also reportedly attracted interest from Cisco, Facebook and Google.

Microsoft and Skype said the deal has been approved by the boards of directors of both the Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft and the Luxembourg-based Skype, which is owned by investor group Silver Lake.

Bates said Microsoft and Skype "share the vision of bringing software innovation and products to our customers.

"Together, we will be able to accelerate Skype's plans to extend our global community and introduce new ways for everyone to communicate and collaborate," Bates said.

Silver Lake managing director Egon Durban said he is "excited about Skype's long-term future with Microsoft, as it is poised to become one of the world's most dynamic and comprehensive communications platforms."

The companies said Skype will support Microsoft devices like the Xbox game console and Kinect motion controller, Windows Phone and a wide array of Windows devices.

Microsoft will also support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms, they said.

Skype was founded in 2003 and acquired by online auction giant eBay in September 2005. It was sold to the investment group led by Silver Lake in November 2009 in a deal that valued the company at US$2.75 billion.

Skype has 170 million users and logged more than 207 billion minutes of voice and video conversations in 2010.

Skype last year announced plans for an initial public offering of stock and appeared on its way to profitability, but investors are evidently eager for a payoff.

Other members of the investor group led by Silver Lake include eBay, CPP Investment Board, Joltid Limited, Europlay Capital Advisors and Andreessen Horowitz.

The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals which the companies said they expect to obtain this year.

Source = Channel News Asia

Google to launch online music service

2011-05-10T12:10:00.001+07:00

Google Inc could launch a new online music service as early as Tuesday, which will be similar to a service recently started by Amazon.com Inc, The Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Journal said Google is likely to announce the service at its annual Google I/O developers conference in San Francisco, adding that the service will operate in a testing mode initially and not be available to the public at large.

In April, Amazon unveiled a service that allows customers to store about 1,000 songs on its web servers for free instead of their own hard drives and play them over an Internet connection directly from web browsers.

Google could not immediately be reached by Reuters for comment.

The Journal said Google has not sought licenses from the four major recorded-music companies and the new feature is likely to include a system that functions much like a remote hard drive.

Users could listen to songs they have uploaded to the service in a "streaming" mode, but will not be able to download the files, the daily reported.

Earlier in the day, Google-owned YouTube said it will add more than 3,000 mainstream movies for users to rent from Monday.

Source = Reuters News

Window 7 Basic - Change computer sounds

2011-05-10T12:03:00.001+07:00

Firefox 4 Tips: Using App Tabs

2011-05-03T09:56:00.001+07:00

Mozilla created Firefox 4 with an extremely useful feature – App Tabs. The purpose of App Tabs is to place any website in permanent tab from at the top of your Firefox window.

For all those websites you visit daily, hourly or even more frequently, you can now keep them within easy reach. No more bookmarks, typing addresses or adding links to your bookmark bar. App Tabs appear on the left side of any tabs you have open and display as a small tab with the website’s icon.

Pin as App Tab

Open your favorite website in Firefox. The website must be open before you can add it. Right click the tab the website is displayed in and select Pin as App Tab.

Once added, the regular large tab turns into a small tab with an icon.

You can add additional tabs by pressing the + sign next to your added tab, visiting a new site and repeating the process.

Remove an App Tab

If you decide you no longer need an App Tab, right click it and select Unpin Tab.

Benefits of App Tabs

Regular tabs have a close button. If you click the wrong area of the tab, your tab suddenly closes. This can be especially problematic if you have numerous tabs open. App Tabs, on the other hand, do not have a close button. They are always open and can’t be closed unless you either unpin them or right click and select Close Tab.

If you add an App Tab that updates, such as email or Facebook, your tab turns blue when it updates. For instance, if you receive a new email, your tab would turn blue to let you know. This helps immensely if you are waiting for an important email or update. No more switching back and forth, wondering if any new emails have appeared.

When you close Firefox, all of your normal tabs close. They don’t reload when you reopen Firefox. App Tabs close and reload with Firefox. They become a permanent part of the browser window until you remove them. This makes loading all the pages you typically open immediately anyway much easier and faster.

You can use App Tabs in addition to Tab Groups. This works well if you have multiple levels of tabs. If you use App Tabs within a Tab Group, your App Tabs are displayed on the right side of your Tab Groups.

Android smartphones winning over 'app' makers

2011-05-01T10:51:00.000+07:00

Google is the new darling of software wizards out to cash-in on the world's love for customising smartphones with fun, hip or functional applications.

Developers once obsessed with "apps" for Apple's hot-selling iPhones are touting creations tailored for smartphones built on the Google-backed Android platform.

"In the past seven months, Android has become the de facto second platform out there that people are developing for," AppNation chairman Drew Ianni told AFP during the gathering of software entrepreneurs this week in San Francisco.

"I think there is a general wait-and-see interest regarding platforms outside of Apple iOS and Android," he added.

Mobile platforms being watched by developers include BlackBerry, Microsoft Windows Phone 7 and Hewlett-Packard's webOS.

Ianni expected smartphones based on Microsoft or HP software to increase in allure as they gain traction in the market.

"We need a third platform that is viable, otherwise it is going to be the Android show," Urban Airship chief executive Scott Kveton said after taking part in an AppNation panel.

"Android is growing at a phenomenal rate," he continued. "I'm afraid it is going to be Android running away with it."

Urban Airship provides tools that help developers make money from smartphone programs. Early in April the Oregon-based company added a feature allowing people to make purchases inside Android applications.

"Increasingly, people are finding it a good investment to build for Android and build for tablets and we are trying to support them," Google director of mobile Americas Jason Spero said after an on-stage chat at AppNation.

Android's share of the US smartphone market has surged this year while BlackBerry's sunk, according to recent figures from industry tracker comScore.

Android commanded a third of the market, while BlackBerry ranked second with 29 per cent and Apple third with 25 per cent, comScore reported.

"Almost everyone developing for iPhone has moved on to Android," said Mario Tapia, director of mobile products at application store GetJar and coordinator of a Mobile Mondays social group for developers in Silicon Valley.

"At the end of the day, it is about distribution," he added. "You move to where the audience is."

Apple had slightly more that 333,000 iPhone applications in its App Store in March, but Google's Android Market boasted 206,000 "apps" and was growing fast, according to figures from industry tracker Distimo.

"The Android Market is going to take over as biggest application store in terms of quantity of apps in about five months," Distimo researchers concluded.

Distimo predicted that Apple's App Store would be relegated to second place, followed by Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and BlackBerry App World.

Windows Phone 7 Marketplace had about 12,000 applications in March while Nokia Ovi Store had 30,000 and BlackBerry had 27,000, according to Distimo.

Distimo expected Windows 7 Marketplace to leap ahead of BlackBerry and Ovi by October.

"If Apple has 150 million iOS devices out there it is almost a no-brainer, you write for iOS," said analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies.

"You see Android coming up the line, and that is almost a no-brainer," he continued. "Where it becomes tougher is making the next step to go after webOS or BlackBerry or whatever with limited money and talent."

Independent application operations typically have only a few, if not just one, software developer, according to Bajarin.

Finding ways to get noticed and make money in a sea of more than 600,000 smartphone applications were hot topics at AppNation.

Attendance at the event grew to 1,700 this year from 1,100 at its premier in San Francisco last year. The number of exhibitors grew to 210 from 80.

Opera Mobile Store that spans more than 200 countries launched an "Appcelerator" program at AppNation to help developers promote and profit from

software creations.

"The apps here are great," said Opera Software consumer mobile executive vice president Mahi de Silva. "You are seeing the tip of the iceberg in innovation."

Advertisers are increasingly tuning into the potential to target consumers on smartphones and tablet computers.

"There is no question that ultimately, this is probably the most powerful vehicle for ads that we've ever had," Bajarin said. "Television was obviously significant but if I can do location-based services tied to ads this changes the dynamics of advertising completely."

Mobile ads are more effective for advertisers and can translate into more money for developers, according to Lisa Abramson, director of marketing at mobile video ad network Rhythm New Media.

"Consumers love free and the best way to monetise that is through advertising," Abramson said.

Developers can also make money from in-application transactions, selling virtual goods, or simply charging for software.

"It becomes a collage of monetisation mechanisms," Spero said. "Each developer has to be an expert on what their audience has a tolerance for."

Source = Channel News Asia

Yahoo's First-Quarter Sales Beats Estimates as Online-Ad Demand Increases

2011-04-20T09:46:00.001+07:00

Yahoo! Inc., the most-visited U.S. Web portal, reported first-quarter sales that topped estimates as companies stepped up their use of Internet advertising. The shares rose as much as 5.5 percent in late trading.

Excluding sales passed on to partner sites, revenue was $1.06 billion, Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo said today in a statement. Analysts had estimated $1.05 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz is benefiting from buoyant demand for display advertising, such as banners and videos, as Yahoo sites attract more visitors. U.S. users grew 15 percent to 179.5 million in March from the year-earlier period, putting Yahoo ahead of No. 2 Google Inc. (GOOG)’s 176.8 million, according to ComScore Inc. Yahoo’s results eased concern that arose in January after its forecast disappointed investors.

“This certainly gives her some breathing room,” said Kerry Rice, an analyst with Wedbush Securities Inc. in Los Angeles. He rates the stock “underperform” and doesn’t own it. “This keeps investors on the line.”

Yahoo rose as much as 88 cents to $17 in extended trading. The shares, down 3.1 percent this year, had closed at $16.12 earlier on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Quarter Forecast

Sales will be $1.08 billion to $1.13 billion in the second quarter, the company said. The midpoint of that range matched the $1.1 billion projected by analysts.

First-quarter net income attributable to the company fell to $223 million, or 17 cents a share, from $310.2 million, or 22 cents, Yahoo said. One-time benefits a year earlier accounted for some of the decrease. Excluding some items, Yahoo had earnings of 19 cents a share, topping the average estimate of 16 cents.

Yahoo’s sales have been shrinking as the company offloads businesses, farms out much of its search operations and refocuses on its best-performing websites. At the same time, it’s selling more display ads. Excluding revenue shared with partner sites, display-advertising sales climbed 10 percent last quarter to $471 million.

“Our turnaround is proceeding right on schedule,” Tim Morse, chief financial officer, said in an interview. “We’re confident that we’re heading in the right direction.”

Improvements Seen

During the quarter, Web visitors’ engagement on the site showed some improvements. Page views on Yahoo’s media properties, including the home page, were up 8 percent during the quarter after declining in previous months, the company said. Time spent on those properties rose 17 percent. Still, page views on communications and communities, including Yahoo e- mail and its “Groups” messaging service, fell 6 percent and time spent fell 10 percent.

Yahoo is trying to maintain its role as a top Internet portal at a time when more users are heading to social- networking sites, such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. Under Bartz, who became CEO in January 2009, the company has pared down its workforce in a bid to make Yahoo more efficient. Earlier this year it announced plans to cut about 1 percent of its staff, following a decision to eliminate about 4 percent, or about 600 jobs, in December.

Bartz also struck a deal with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) to use its search technology on Yahoo’s sites. As part of the agreement, Yahoo shifted its search-marketing platform for advertisers to Microsoft’s system, called AdCenter. The companies began the shift in October with Canada and the U.S.

AdCenter Pause

The company will hold off on further implementation of the search-advertising part of the agreement until Microsoft improves the performance of its AdCenter platform, which has been a disappointment thus far, said Bartz, who met personally with Microsoft officials.

Bartz said she is confident Microsoft, which is guaranteeing revenue for Yahoo during the transition, will address “issues” with the platform. Overall, she said the quarter’s results show her efforts to turnaround the company.

“We continue to make headway on our plan to increase profitability and grow revenue,” Bartz said. “We are growing engagement and monetizing it.”

Microsoft has expanded its share of the U.S. search market for eight straight months, reaching 13.9 percent in March, while Yahoo’s declined last month to 15.7 percent from 16.1 percent the previous month, according to Reston, Virginia-based ComScore. Still, Google holds more than twice the market share of both companies combined, with 65.7 percent.

Yahoo also has held talks to dispose of its stake in Yahoo Japan, an Internet portal company, two people familiar with the matter said last month. Yahoo co-owns the Tokyo-based joint venture with Softbank Corp.

Source from Bloomberg News

Intel Forecasts Second-Quarter Sales That May Top Estimates; Stock Surges

2011-04-20T09:42:00.001+07:00

Intel Corp. (INTC), the world's biggest chipmaker, forecast second-quarter sales that may top analysts' estimates, evidence of booming demand for machines that deliver computing over the Internet.

Revenue will be $12.8 billion, plus or minus $500 million, Intel said today in a statement. That compares with $11.9 billion, the average of analysts’ projections compiled by Bloomberg. Shares surged as much as 6.7 percent in late trading.

The company is benefiting as mobile devices including Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s iPad drive demand for online services provided by Intel- powered servers. Even as PC sales came under pressure last quarter, Intel’s 80 percent share of the microprocessor market boosts sales when companies upgrade their server and PC fleets.

“This is the strength of a new product cycle,” Hans Mosesmann, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates Inc., said in an interview. “There’s a refresh cycle occurring in the servers space, and they are probably gaining share.”

Intel, based in Santa Clara, California, rose as high as $21.19 in extended trading after the report. The shares had gained 24 cents to $19.86 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock has lost 5.6 percent this year.

First-quarter net income rose 29 percent to $3.16 billion, or 56 cents a share, from $2.44 billion, or 43 cents, a year earlier. Analysts on average had estimated profit of 46 cents. Sales increased 25 percent to $12.8 billion, compared with an average prediction of $11.6 billion.

Cloud Demand

Customers are snapping up the machines needed to deliver computing, software and storage over the Internet -- via the so- called cloud. Sales of servers used to deliver cloud computing may rise to $6.4 billion in 2014, representing 1.3 million units, from $3.8 billion, or 600,000 units, last year, according to researcher IDC.

“The server business exceeded our expectations as strong demand from the data-center segment continued,” Intel Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith said in a statement posted on Intel’s website.

Gross margin, the only indicator of profitability that Intel forecasts, will be 61 percent, plus or minus a couple percentage points, this quarter, the company said. Gross margin -- the percentage of sales remaining after deducting production costs -- was 61 percent in the first quarter.

Server Sales

The company’s sales of chips for servers, storage and networking devices should reach $10 billion this year, Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini said on a conference call to discuss earnings.

“What we are witnessing is an explosion of computing devices that connect to the Internet, and Intel is a big part of this trend,” Otellini said.

The chipmaker also expects more companies to buy computers based on its microprocessors as they continue to refresh their PCs. Intel estimates that 75 percent of corporate computers still run Microsoft Corp.’s Windows XP software. PC sales should grow at a percentage in the low double digits in 2011, Otellini said.

Intel also faced challenges in the first quarter. The company said in January that one of the support chips it makes for its microprocessors had a flaw that would cost it $300 million in sales in the first quarter. It predicted having to spend $700 million on replacing faulty chips and systems.

On April 13, IDC said global personal-computer shipments unexpectedly fell 3.2 percent in the first quarter as businesses and consumers held off on purchasing new PCs. The market- research firm also said the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan and unrest in the Middle East may have disrupted PC sales.

Mobile, Tablet Laggard

The results may help quell investors’ concerns that the company has yet to parlay its dominance in PCs into market share for mobile-phone and tablet chips.

Apple's iPad tablet works on a mobile-phone processor based on technology from ARM Holdings Plc. (ARM) Some makers of rival tablets have opted for less power-hungry chip designs than Intel now offers. The popularity of tablets is cutting into sales of cheaper laptop computers, said Christopher Danely, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

On April 11, Intel announced a new product, called Oak Trail and sold under its Atom brand, that is 60 percent smaller than its predecessor and will provide “all-day” battery life in touch-screen computers. And the company has designed a handset that may be manufactured by China’s ZTE Corp., according to two people with knowledge of the plan.

On the call today, the company touched on how it plans to gain ground in mobile devices, particularly chips for phones, a market dominated by rivals like Qualcomm Inc.

Some 35 tablets based on Intel's chips should come out this year, the bulk of them based on Google Inc.'s Android operating system, Otellini said. He said he would be “very disappointed” if there’s not a phone based on Intel’s chips available for sale in 12 months.

Source from Bloomberg News

Microsoft Needs to Accelerate Product Development

2011-04-19T10:06:00.002+07:00

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world's largest software maker, "needs to accelerate the pace of product development" to compete with Google Inc. (GOOG) and Apple Inc. (AAPL), co-founder Paul Allen said in an interview.

Microsoft's Windows 7 phone software and XBox Kinect sensors, which help people play video games using physical motion instead of controllers, are "resonating with a younger audience" as the company tries to "get more momentum" in new technology markets, said Allen, 58, who spoke at an event at the 92nd Street Y in New York last night.

Allen, whose memoir, "Idea Man," will be released this week, co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975. He left the company in 1983 after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and resigned from the board in 2000. He is the 17th-wealthiest American with a net worth of about $13 billion, according to Forbes magazine, and currently owns the National Basketball Association’s Portland Trail Blazers and the National Football League's Seattle Seahawks.

Microsoft has struggled to compete with mobile devices from Apple, which has supplanted Microsoft as the largest technology company by market value. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs's transformation of Apple since his return in 1997 has been "unbelievable," Allen said. Microsoft, Google and Apple may be in a "three-horse race" to innovate and win consumer approval on new platforms including smartphones and tablet computers, he said.

"What he's done with the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad -- what a triple play there," Allen said.

Health Disclosures

Like Jobs, Allen is again dealing with health issues. After surviving Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Allen was diagnosed with non- Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2009. He said it was “important for companies to disclose some level of detail” about their executives’ health conditions for transparency.

Allen declined to comment on the NBA and NFL labor situations, and he wouldn’t say if he would vote for the Sacramento Kings to move to Anaheim, California. One of the NBA’s “biggest challenges” was to come up with a financially feasible revenue sharing plan so that midsize market organizations can field competitive teams, he said.

"No one likes teams moving around, but we all face the financial consequences, too," Allen said. "No owner enjoys losing money."

Source from: Bloomberg News

Speed Up the Shutdown Process on Window XP

2011-04-12T11:48:00.019+07:00

Sometimes, Windows XP computer takes more time to complete the shut down process and this may be due to the several reasons. Here is some guideline that you can do to speed up your Window XP shutdown process.

1. Click Start ---> Run type Msconfig and press enter. In the Startup tab uncheck all the unused programs and click OK.

2. Click Start ---> Run and type Secpol.msc Click Local Policies ---> Security Options.

Go to the right panel and set Shutdown. Clear Virtual memory pagefile to disabled.

3. Uninstall all the unused programs and disable the unused services.

4. Use the Windows clean up utilities to remove the temporary internet files, browser history, cookies and/or use the TuneUp Utilities to clean up your registry and maintanance your system.

Facebook Opens Up Its Server and Data Center Designs

2011-04-11T16:52:00.002+07:00

In the movie "Fight Club," Tyler Durden, the character played by Brad Pitt, says, "The first rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club."

The same rule, by and large, has applied to the architecture of cloud computing — the massive, energy-hungry data centers and servers that power services like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon, which companies treat as proprietary secrets. But Facebook is opening the design of its custom-built servers and soon-to-be new data center in Oregon to others in the industry.

"It is time to stop treating data centers like fight club,” Jonathan Heiliger, Facebook’s vice president of technical operations, said at a news conference on Thursday at Facebook’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.

Mr. Heiliger said that with a team of three engineers, Facebook had designed stripped-down servers that were 38 percent more efficient and 24 percent cheaper than those sold by major server makers. He also said that Facebook’s new data center, which is in Prineville, Ore., is being cooled entirely with air, helping to reduce both its energy bills and carbon footprint. The data center is expected to open this month.

While Facebook is earning praise from technology industry partners, who say its openness about its designs will help everyone become more efficient, the company is being criticized by some environmentalists for choosing Prineville as the location for its new data center, because the majority of the electricity is generated by coal. Facebook is also building a data center in North Carolina, where the local utility relies heavily on coal and nuclear power.

“If Facebook wants to be a truly green company, it needs to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions,” Casey Harrell, climate campaigner at Greenpeace, said in a statement. “The way to do that is decouple its growth from its emissions footprint by using clean, renewable energy to power its business instead of dirty coal and dangerous nuclear power.”

In building its own servers and data centers, Facebook is following in the footsteps of Google, which designed much of the infrastructure that powers its services. While Google has remained fairly tight-lipped about its innovations, Facebook said it was starting what it calls the Open Compute Project, making its design available to anyone in the industry.

“We are not the only ones who need the kind of hardware that we are building out,” said Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and chief executive of Facebook. Mr. Zuckerberg said that by sharing the company’s designs, Facebook would benefit because as more companies adopt those designs, the cost of the custom servers would decline. Companies like Zynga said they were considering using Facebook’s designs.

Mr. Heiliger also said that by getting rid of air-conditioning systems that cool most data centers, the Prineville one had drastically reduced a important measure of efficiency, known as power usage effectiveness. While the average data center has a P.U.E. of 1.5, the Prineville facility has a P.U.E. of 1.07. Google, Microsoft and other large data center operators have also claimed P.U.E. ratios that are significantly lower than industry averages.

One place where fight club rules still apply is on the topic of energy consumption. Neither Facebook nor other major Internet companies have been willing to talk about the increasingly large amount of electricity that they consume or how many servers they have. Mr. Heiliger said Facebook had tens of thousands of servers but declined to say how much electricity the company gobbled up.

Source = The New York Time

Apple Patent Application Shows Second Display

2011-04-11T16:47:00.003+07:00

An Apple patent application that surfaced online Thursday indicates that Apple could add a secondary display on the exterior of a future iPhone.

According to the patent application, which was discovered by the blog Patently Apple, this new display could potentially be used to highlight additional ways a user could interact with the phone beyond just touching the traditional front-facing screen.

The application states that Apple could use the secondary exterior display to highlight virtual buttons around the phone’s edge that could “morph into various controls” on an application-per-application basis.

This would also allow developers to create new buttons to appear alongside iPhone features. One example of this would be controls for a game that would sit at the edge of the phone, instead of taking up valuable real estate on the main display.

The secondary display could improve the way users interact with the iPhone in a number of ways. For example, some games on the current versions of the iPhone place the controllers on the main display, obscuring some gameplay. The screens could also offer additional controls for the phone’s built-in iPod or camera applications.

Of course, this patent could easily disappear into a filing cabinet at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters, never to be seen again. The company continually files for new patents and many have yet to appear in Apple products.

Source = The New York Time

Google to reorganize YouTube channels

2011-04-09T11:10:00.005+07:00

US Internet giant Google is preparing a major overhaul of video sharing website YouTube by creating "channels" to compete with broadcast and cable TV, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Under a plan costing as much as US$100 million, the YouTube homepage will highlight different channels focused on topics like arts and sports, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

About 20 of the channels will present several hours of original programming produced professionally each week, while other channels would use content already available on the site.

The launch will be phased over time, starting before the end of the year, and YouTube is hiring help to implement the initiatives.

In recent weeks, YouTube was also said to have held meetings with Hollywood talent agencies, which the newspaper said were more likely to produce deals with directors of production companies than with movie stars and other celebrities.

YouTube, already the third most viewed website in the world, hopes the plan will further boost traffic to the site and take a bite out of the US$70 billion US television advertising market.

Executives of the site told the Journal they want people to "watch YouTube" the same way they "watch TV".

Co-founder Page returning to Google's helm

2011-04-03T16:56:00.001+07:00

Google co-founder Larry Page on Monday takes back the reins of the Internet powerhouse that he and Sergey Brin created as Stanford University students some 13 years ago.

Page is expected to bring an entrepreneurial spirit and a computer engineer's intensity to the chief executive position being ceded by Eric Schmidt, who helped turn Google into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise.

"I get the impression that Larry Page is going to be more hands-on," technology analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies told AFP.

"Especially with mobile," he said. "Mobile is key to Google's future."

Bajarin said he believes Page was behind recent moves to make it easier for developers to design hip, fun, or functional applications for smartphones and tablet computers powered by Google-backed Android software.

Google makes Android available for free to device makers to use and modify as it seeks to compete in the fast-growing smartphone and tablet arena with Apple, maker of the iPad and iPhone.

"When Larry is in charge of the total strategy, he has to be able to look at it in terms of devices that are going to connect to the Internet," Bajarin said. "Everything is pointing to mobile being the dominant platform."

Brin, who along with Page and Schmidt has led the "triumvirate" at the helm of the Internet search titan, is going to be responsible for strategic projects and new products in the new management structure.

Schmidt, 55, a former chief executive of Novell, is to remain with Google as executive chairman, focusing on deals, partnerships, customers and government outreach.

Schmidt replaced Page as chief executive in August 2001 to provide "parental supervision" at the company the college pals launched just three years earlier. In recent years, Page has headed Google's product development while helping with day-to-day operations.

"To some degree, Eric's heart has been much more toward the structure side of the business as opposed to the entrepreneurial side," Bajarin said.

"If you can get back to an entrepreneurial management approach, that allows for more innovation," he said. "That gives Larry a foot up in this particular case."

Schmidt will also continue to serve as an adviser to Brin, 37, and Page, who turned 38 last week.

Google has grown over the past decade from a start-up battling other Internet search engines into a technology giant with nearly 25,000 employees and annual revenue of nearly US$30 billion.

Google continues to dominate the Internet search market but has been coming under pressure from social networking rivals such as Facebook and Twitter.

Silicon Valley will be watching to see how the famously aloof Page handles being the public face of the Mountain View, California-based colossus.

"I think it's fair to say that Larry Page will not be a conventional CEO -- he's not been much of a public figure for the past 10 years," John Battelle, author of a book about Google and technology rivals, said in a blog post when Page's return as CEO was announced in January.

"It will be interesting to see if that changes, or if Page chafes at the relentless public demands of running a massively scrutinized public company."

Schmidt, explaining in January why he was stepping aside for Page, said it was an attempt to "simplify our management structure and speed up decision making."

Page was "ready to lead," Schmidt said, adding that he anticipated working "for a long time to come" with the two Google co-founders.

Source from Channel NewsAsia

PowerISO 4.7 Free Download

2011-03-28T16:28:00.005+07:00

PowerISO is a powerful CD/DVD image file processing tool, which allows you to open, extract, create, edit, burn, compress, encrypt, split and convert ISO files, and mount these files with internal virtual drive. It can process almost all CD-ROM image files including ISO and BIN. PowerISO can be used easily, which support shell integration, context menu, drag and drop, clipboard copy paste.

What's new in this version:

Version 4.7 improves CD/DVD image making and burning and also includes some minor bug fixes and enhancements.

Firefox 4 Finally Release and It Look Like Opera

2011-03-24T23:31:00.002+07:00

Firefox 4 has finally been released on March 22, 2011 and while it looks an awful lot like Opera, there's no question that it's faster, better, and an all-around great upgrade from 3.6. Here's a couple of highlights.

The bottom line? If you use a ton of add-ons, you're going to want to check them out before you upgrade, to make sure they are compatible. Firefox 4 changes the underlying extension architecture a great deal, and many add-ons just won’t work.

What's New in Firefox 4.0

There’s a ton of new stuff in Firefox 4, especially behind the scenes. Here's a couple of key changes:

New Interface that Looks Like Opera – The new Firefox interface is a huge improvement, but it does borrow some elements heavily from the Opera browser, especially the menu in the upper left.
Hardware Acceleration – Looks like everybody is implementing this now, since Microsoft put it into IE9, and it makes Firefox much, much faster.
New Add-ons Panel – you can now browse the add-ons through a very nice add-ons panel, built right in.
Internal Add-ons Changes – which break many of the add-ons out there. You'll probably find that add-on compatibility isn't as good, and even if you hacked Firefox to use the old add-ons, many of them won't work well.

There's a ton of other features, but you can always download and check it out.

Firefox Shows Up Late to the Party, Wearing the Same Opera Clothes

We're being a little hard on Firefox here—but it really does look like the Opera web browser. Click the screenshot for a larger view.

The Menus Have Moved

If you've ever used Opera, you'll see that Firefox now has the exact same style of menu, up in the upper left. It's from here that you can get to things like the Add-ons, Options, and everything else.

Pinning App Tabs

If you've ever used Google Chrome, you’re familiar with the application tabs, which only show you an icon. They are now baked directly into Firefox instead of requiring an add-on. Definitely a good change.

Enabling Windows 7 Taskbar Previews

If you head into the Options panel, you can select the "Show tab previews in the Windows taskbar" option…

…which will show every tab as a separate window when you mouse over the taskbar icon. You can mouse over the tab, and Aero Peek will show a full-size preview of it.

Bringing the Menus Back

The menu bar is hidden by default, but if you hit the Alt key, it'll show up temporarily—or you can just use one of the shortcut keys directly. Using Alt+F, for example, will bring up the File menu.

Private Browsing

Firefox has private browsing, which you can access from the Firefox menu on the upper left—the only problem is that it replaces your current session entirely—so if you had tabs open, they will be temporarily closed.

This is probably the one feature where Firefox could use some improvement—Google Chrome and IE have much nicer private browsing modes.

Tab Groups

If you hit Ctrl+Shift+E or use the little tab menu on the right of the tab bar, you can drag and drop to rearrange your open tabs into groups. It takes a little bit to get used to, but it’s an interesting way to manage loads of tabs.

All in all, you should still switch to Firefox 4, it’s blazing fast, and a huge improvement.

Just check your extensions first.

Download Firefox 4 Here.

Google digital book plan rejected

2011-03-23T14:38:00.002+07:00

A US judge dealt a major blow to Google's digital book-scanning project Tuesday, rejecting a settlement with authors and publishers that would have paved the way for the Internet giant to run a vast online library.

US District Court Judge Denny Chin said in a 48-page ruling handed down 13 months after the parties had their day in court that the proposed agreement "is not fair, adequate and reasonable."

"While the digitisation of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many, the (proposed settlement) would simply go too far," Chin said.

Explaining his ruling, he said the settlement would grant Google "significant rights to exploit entire books, without permission of the copyright owners."

The settlement would give Google "a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission," he said.

At the same time, the judge left the door open for the parties to go back to the negotiating table.

"The motion for final approval of the (proposed settlement) is denied, without prejudice to renewal in the event the parties negotiate a revised settlement agreement," Chin said.

The settlement agreement resulted from a class action lawsuit filed in 2005 by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) charging Google with copyright infringement.

The settlement called for Google to pay $125 million to resolve outstanding claims and to establish an independent "Book Rights Registry," which would provide sales and advertising revenue to authors and publishers.

Supporters of the settlement argued that Google's proposed digital library and electronic bookstore would make millions of out-of-print books available and provide a new avenue for authors to profit from their works.

Opponents urged the judge to reject the deal on antitrust, copyright and privacy grounds and said it would give Google exclusive rights to digitise "orphan works" -- out-of-print books whose authors cannot be traced.

The US Justice Department criticized the settlement between Google and the Authors Guild and the AAP for including books unless an author expressly opted out of the deal.

Chin also expressed concern about the opt-out aspect of the settlement.

"Many of the concerns raised in the objections would be ameliorated if the (proposed settlement) were converted from an 'opt-out' settlement to an 'opt-in' settlement," he said in his ruling.

Google counsel Hilary Ware expressed disappointment with the ruling.

"This is clearly disappointing, but we'll review the court's decision and consider our options," Ware said in a statement.

"Like many others, we believe this agreement has the potential to open-up access to millions of books that are currently hard to find in the US today," she said. "Regardless of the outcome, we'll continue to work to make more of the world's books discoverable online through Google Books and Google eBooks."

Google opened an electronic bookstore, the Google eBookstore, in December, a project that is separate from its Google Books project, which was launched in 2004 and has digitised over 15 million books from more than 100 countries.

The Open Book Alliance, a coalition of groups which opposed the settlement and included Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo!, welcomed the judge's ruling, calling it "a victory for the public interest and for competition in the literary and Internet ecosystems."

"The ruling ratifies the objections of a diverse cross-section of voices who stood up to Google and its partners," Open Book Alliance counsel Gary Reback said in a statement.

Microsoft's Windows Internet Explorer 9 Officially Launched

2011-03-20T23:31:00.002+07:00

Microsoft has officially launched the much-anticipated Windows Internet Explorer 9.

A Web browser that allows you to unlock a PC's processing power -- almost 90 percent of which previously went untapped.

That's what Microsoft is striving to do with its latest Internet Explorer.

The idea is to allow the browser to make optimal use of your PC's processing power without the use of plug-ins such as the Adobe Flash Player.

Microsoft says that the beta version of the product is already Microsoft's more-downloaded beta browser of all time.

And the product is free for consumers.

Microsoft's chief marketing officer for consumer and online division (Asia Pacific), Haresh Khoobchandani, said: "Currently, Internet Explorer's overall (market) share is about 72.7% across Asia....we believe this will continue to grow through IE9.

"Windows 7 will be a big driver of that as we start to see more and more people deploy and upgrade to Windows 7, and as more and more Asians go online and ask for a more secure browser and one that is fast, simple, intuitive and immersive. We do expect IE9 will grow on that for all our consumers."

Some digital marketing agencies welcome the move and say it will help to boost speeds and experience.

"It's great for us and Web agencies and people working in the online area because we can create much more immersive experiences that are better for the end customers. At the end of the day, one of the problems is that Web isn't close to real life experience," said Christer Eriksson, regional strategy director at The Upper Storey.

Analysts welcome IE9's launch, saying it is a more competitive response to newer market entrants such as Firefox.

"This is more of a competitive response to some heavy users of the Internet preferring browsers like Firefox more than IE. The multi-threading capability will definitely improve performance. HTML5 will improve video access (and this is important) since video is close to 65% of Internet traffic...," said Jayesh Easwaramony, director of ICT practice at Frost and Sullivan.

Going forward, experts say competition in the browser market is healthy since the user experience is evolving due to the proliferation of tablets and video content over the internet.

Source from Channel News Asia

Avast Free Antivirus 6.0

2011-03-20T23:21:00.000+07:00

Avast Home Edition is a complete ICSA & Checkmark certified antivirus, Checkmark certified anti-spyware & anti-rootkit package. It includes the ff. components: On demand scanner with skinnable simple interface, special providers to protect the most of available e-mail clients, Network traffic-intrusion detection, lightweight firewall on PC and a lot more.

Download Link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NT6C1CJ5

How to Make Your Laptop Run More Efficiently

2011-03-12T11:21:00.001+07:00

Whether it’s for work or pleasure, a laptop can be a real joy. However, if your laptop is not running as fast as it did when it was new, it may be time for some routine maintenance and cleanup.

Here are a few simple tips that you can use to make your laptop run faster, and last longer:

Defragment your laptop on a regular basis – at least once a week. Your computer breaks all of your files up into many pieces, and scatters them throughout your hard drive. What defragmenting does is take all these mixed and scattered pieces, and re-organizes them neatly into a space where they can be easily accessed more quickly.
Cleaning your Registry is a must. One of the most important parts of Windows is the registry. Fatal errors to your laptop can occur from disfiguration or corruption of this section. The most common cause of registry problems is buggy software installation. Keep your registry clean and consider getting and running a registry cleaner from time to time. There are many of these programs available online, and some of them are even free. Get the best software to clean your window registry.
Unclutter your hard drive of unnecessary programs and files such as entertainment, games, music, pictures, etc. If you allow them to add up, these files can clog the hard drive and slow it down. If your hard drive is too full, it can also cause problems with your computer’s RAM and processing capability. This can lead to significant slow-downs and frequent crashes. Download Window Cleanup Utility
Get good virus protection. You need to run a good anti-virus program and spyware/adware program at least once a week, if not more. Many people do this every day at start-up. Most of these programs are able to run automatically on their own schedule without your assistance, which can save you a lot of time. Download Kaspesky Antivirus 2011 free trial version.
Empty the recycle bin regularly. It doesn’t do you a lot of good to delete all that unnecessary junk if it's just going to sit in your Recycle Bin. No one likes taking out the trash but it needs to be done!
Erase temporary Internet Files. This cannot be stressed or emphasized enough. Every time you go to a site on the web or open a file, a temporary copy is made and kept in your hard drive. They may be called "temporary" but they’re there for a long time. The more you have on your system, the more they’re going to slow down your laptop. Whether you’re running Firefox, Chrome or Internet Explorer, find out how to clear your browser’s cache, and do it regularly.
Get rid of unnecessary startup programs. Many programs want to start running as soon as you boot up your computer. Although these programs may not always be visible on your desktop, they’re still running in the background and sucking up your valuable RAM. This can significantly slow down the laptop as time goes by. Find out how to modify your "msconfig", and manually remove these programs from launching on startup. You won’t be removing them from your computer, just preventing them from running every time you start up your computer.
Keep your laptop running cool. Avoid keeping your laptop directly on a soft surface such as your bed or couch. It needs to be able to breather freely and allow air to circulate. Otherwise, your processor might overheat, causing slow-downs, crashes and even physical damage to components.
Uninstall unused programs. Any programs that are not being used are just taking up space on your hard drive. Please note that deleting a program folder is not the same as uninstalling. Make sure to properly remove programs using the Uninstall function in your Control Panel. Otherwise, you could just end up creating more problems.
Upgrade your RAM if necessary. If you have a tendency of having many large programs all opened at once, you may not have enough RAM on your system. Look into purchasing some new RAM. Prices are very reasonable, and it’s a cost-effective way to increase the speed and efficiency of your laptop.

If you follow the advice listed in this article, you can possibly get an extra 2 or 3 years of life from your laptop before you’ll need to replace it.

But remember… before doing any kind of work on your system, it’s vital that you create a backup copy of all your most important data. This way, you’ll be prepared in the unlikely event that something goes wrong.

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 2011 10.0.1204

2011-03-11T11:13:00.000+07:00

Basic antivirus and antispyware protection for Windows. Improvements include faster scans, faster boot times and a linkscanner. If you want an anti-virus software without any extras and free of charge this is what you should get.

File Size: 4.52 MB

Download Link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=I859SUV5

Microsoft hopes daily deals make its cash register go 'Bing!'

2011-03-07T10:44:00.003+07:00

Bing is assembling daily deal offers from sites like Groupon, Living Social and Restaurant.com into one location.

Microsoft has dialed up its competition in the search-engine wars with the introduction of a daily deals facility on Bing.

Microsoft knows daily deals are the hottest meme at the moment, so its announcement is suitably cheeky and aggressively street-hawkeresque (we kid): "Calling all bargain hunters, deal lovers, Groupon groupies and Living Social fanatics! Things just got easier" it trumpets, making no bones about mentioning the biggest name in daily deals right now, Groupon, to gin up interest in its service.

Bing Deals arrived Thursday on desktop PCs and smartphones (where it's possibly most useful) via Bing's dedicated, simpler, mobile site m.bing.com. It promises to give access to "more than 20,000 unique offers in over 14,000 cities and towns across the U.S."

But how has Microsoft managed to amass such a diverse coverage and ad-partnership pool already, you may wonder?

The answer is that Bing, unlike Google's more head-on direct competitor efforts, is actually assembling daily deal offers from sites like Groupon, Living Social, Restaurant.com "to name a few" into one location, making it easy to work out where you can find a super-cheap purchase, or perhaps a spontaneous birthday gift for someone.

It's using technology from The Dealmap ("a leading source for people to find and share the best local deals") to power its systems, which means as well as location-based deal discovery, you'll also be able to share results with people via email.

It seems the system is spread throughout Bing, as well -- if you search for a local restaurant using Bing, then the engine will "make sure you know" about any deals that establishment may have available by listing them directly beneath the business details in the search window.

The system appears ideal for consumers previously uninterested in deals sites like Groupon -- which may offset the slight brand erosion each of these individual sites may suffer as their deal offers are wrapped into Bing's front-end UI.

In launching daily deals, Bing is stepping up its competition with Google and jumping aboard the (already bursting) daily deals bandwagon.

With new data suggesting total revenues from daily deals services could reach as much as $6 billion by 2015 in the U.S. alone, this is a fast-growing market segment that Microsoft simply can't ignore.

So how can Microsoft grab a share of this if it's just gathering together everyone else's deals? By selling ads to you when you surf to its pages.

TuneUp Utilities 2011 Free Full Download

2011-03-05T11:51:00.006+07:00

TuneUp Utilities 2011 is a powerful PC optimization program to have in your toolbox. TuneUp 2011 helps increase the speed of your computer by freeing up unused disk space and cleaning out the registry. TuneUp Utilities 2011 switches off memory intensive Windows functions to dramatically increase the speed of your PC. It performs much needed system maintenance and keeps your computer clean with just one click!

TuneUp Utilities 2011, is now available for users of Windows 7, XP and Vista (both the 32- and 64-bit versions). The software is designed to keep PCs running smoothly, extend their lifecycles and provide users with a noticeable boost in speed and performance. With a number of new tuning features, including TuneUp Program Deactivator, and enhancements of its trusted optimization tools, the intelligent software developer is enabling users to solve performance issues with their operating system and other areas, such as third-party software.

Support: Window 7, XP and Vista 32bit and 64bit version

File size: 18.87 MB

Facebook Is Said to Resume Talks With Skype on Video-Calling Partnership

2011-03-05T10:42:00.002+07:00

Facebook Inc., the world’s biggest social-networking company, is holding talks with Skype Technologies SA about offering Web video calls to its 500 million users, two people familiar with the discussions said.

Video calling between friends on Facebook was first discussed by the two companies last year, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks were private. The feature wasn’t offered in an October update to Skype, which did include voice calling between Facebook friends.

As Web users adopt new ways of communicating, such as video and mobile messaging, Palo Alto, California-based Facebook has added features to give members more ways to keep in touch. Bringing video calls to its social network would ramp up competition with Apple Inc., which introduced the feature on its iPhone in June, and with Google Inc., which offered Web calling through Gmail in August.

Video calls accounted for more than 41 percent of all Web calling between Skype users in the second half of last year, the company said in January. Luxembourg-based Skype registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in August to sell its shares to the public.

“Last year, we announced the integration of Facebook in Skype, so people can keep up to date with their Facebook friends through News Feed in Skype and even call and SMS their Facebook friends on any phone from Skype,” Facebook said today in an e- mailed statement. “With regards to any further integration, we don’t comment on rumor and speculation and have nothing to announce at this time.”

Bloomberg News

Microsoft Said to Plan Windows for Tablets Release for 2012 Back to School

2011-03-04T09:56:00.005+07:00

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world’s largest software maker, won’t release a competitor to Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc.’s tablet operating systems until the 2012 back-to- school season, people with knowledge of the plans said.

Public testing of a new version of Windows with partners and customers will begin at the end of this year, said the people, who declined to be identified because the plans haven’t been disclosed publicly.

Microsoft needs to update its Windows 7 operating system with programs more tailored to the touch screens, size and battery life of tablet computers to win a place in the surging market for the devices. The longer it takes Microsoft to release its operating system, the more time Apple and Google have to strengthen their hold on the market.

“If 2011 is the year of the tablet wars, Microsoft will be awfully late suiting up for that battle,” said Michael Gartenberg, a New Jersey-based analyst for research firm Gartner Inc. “It’s not a good position to be in.”

Gartenberg said a 2012 debut for Microsoft would likely put it up against a third-generation iPad from Apple and second and third versions of devices based on Google’s Android system. Hewlett-Packard Co. and Research In Motion Ltd. will probably also release second-generation tablets by then, he said.

Mark Martin, a Microsoft spokesman, declined to comment.

Competition Revving Up

Competition among tablet makers is growing, with more than 100 new designs entering the market this year, according to In- Stat. The market for tablets will grow to 118 million units by 2015, the Scottsdale, Arizona-based consulting firm said in a report today.

Apple introduced its second iPad version yesterday -- less than a year after the original went on sale. Apple sold 14.8 million units of the first iPad through December.

“Battle lines are being drawn, land is being grabbed, users are being evangelized and spending money,” Gartenberg said.

Timelines for new versions of Windows often shift as the company develops and tests the product. Windows Vista came out more than two years late, while the current version, Windows 7, was a few months early.

In response to the iPad’s popularity, Microsoft in January said it would make a version of the next Windows software that works on ARM Holdings Plc (ARM) technology for the first time.

That technology, the basis of chips made by Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM), Texas Instruments Inc. and Nvidia Corp., dominates smartphones and is in tablets that run Google’s Android operating system. Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. have used ARM-based chips in tablets to take on the iPad.

PC Forecast

Gartner sliced its forecast today for shipments of personal computers this year, citing higher demand for PC alternatives, such as tablets. Computer makers will ship 387.8 million units this year, an increase of 10.5 percent from last year, Gartner said. That’s down from an earlier projection for a 15.9 percent increase in 2011.

Microsoft’s operating systems power more than 90 percent of the world’s personal computers. Apple has more than 90 percent of the tablet market, Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs said yesterday.

Bloomberg News

Using Comments in Microsoft Office Word 2007 Documents

2011-03-02T22:05:00.001+07:00

The comment tool in Word 2007 is a great way to proof-read a report or thesis paper and make notes to yourself instead of writing them onto a sheet of paper.

Open your Word Document. On the Ribbon click the Review tab, and click on the New Comment Icon.

Highlight the area where you want to create a note and Word adds a balloon linking to that text where you can add your notes.

After organizing my thoughts on this rough draft I choose the "Show all Revisions Inline" option.

This makes it easier to maintain the clean interface on the document. Just hover your mouse over the noted text to see the comment.

Facebook buys group text service Beluga

2011-03-02T15:40:00.001+07:00

Facebook is making a play for a piece of the small but much-buzzed-about group text messaging market. On Tuesday, it announced that it has acquired eight-month-old Beluga.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The move gives Facebook both the Beluga service and, more significantly, the engineering team behind it. Beluga has a small but skilled staff of three, all of whom are former Google employees. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., the company is located just a few miles away from Facebook's new Menlo Park headquarters.

Group texting -- services that let you send messages to multiple recipients at once -- is a tiny, niche field right now, but it's expected to be in the spotlight at the upcoming South By Southwest (SXSW) conference. That gathering is known as a launch pad for social media technology: Both Twitter and Foursquare took off after drawing attention at past SXSW shows.

Beluga, which just hit the "1 million messages sent" milestone, said its decision to sell to Facebook would expand its user base.

"We talked to people at Facebook, we saw how much our visions aligned," co-founder Ben Davenport told CNNMoney.

"We have a lot of fans of the app inside Facebook, and we think that by joining forces, we will have an opportunity to build something very powerful for many many more users," he said.

For the time being, the service will "continue to function as it does today," the team wrote on their blog.

Facebook also suggested that it doesn't plan to tamper with the core Beluga concept. "We're excited that the team will continue their vision for groups and mobile communication as part of Facebook," Facebook spokesman Jonny Thaw said.

Also on Tuesday, Beluga rival GroupMe rolled out a new version of its app. The update allows users to share their locations through Foursquare and share photos within the app.

Another contender, Fast Society, plans to release an updated version of its group messaging service next week -- just ahead of SXSW.

"We think it's going be evolution of not only of our product, but of the space in general, " Fast Society co-founder Matthew Rosenberg said.

Nitro PDF Professional v6.2.0.44

2011-03-01T16:22:00.001+07:00

Nitro PDF Professional, the complete Adobe Acrobat alternative, enables you to do more with PDF through powerful tools to create, convert, edit, combine, secure, annotate, form-fill, and save 100% industry-standard PDF files. Recipient of multiple best product awards, Nitro Pro is specifically designed for the business user and makes working with PDF faster and easier than ever before. Export text and images from PDF files for reuse in other applications, creating files that are highly editable and retain the look and feel of the original. Generate files with well-formatted, correctly-justified and easy-to-edit paragraphs. Turn tabular content into editable tables, including complex and irregular tables that other converters can't. Convert vector-based images into scalable objects in Microsoft Word, wherever possible. Summarize all comments so you can view them alongside page content, either on screen or on paper. Use a customizable grid to layout objects, such as form fields and links, faster and more precisely.

Download Link: http://pcxplorer.co.cc/free-software-for-download/297-nitro-pdf-professional-62.html

How to remove Window multiple boot option?

2011-02-28T22:17:00.001+07:00

If you have multiple boot option for your window at start up and you really want to delete some of them, the following step can help you.

Option one: Click on Start ---> Run and type msconfig click the tab BOOT.INI. The contents of the boot.ini file are shown and a number of configuration settings are available. Under Operating systems, delete the one you don't want. Be careful not to delete the wrong one.
Option two: Right-click on "My Computer" icon and choose "Properties" from the context menu. The System Properties dialog box will open. Click on Advanced tab in the section Startup and Recovery click the button Settings. To delete the unwanted operating system from the boot display menu, use the Edit button on the right of the entry.
Option three: If your operating system is Windows XP Professional, it has a command line utility for manipulating boot.ini called bootcfg.exe.
Click on Start ---> Run type cmd click OK and you are presented with the command prompt. Type bootcfg /? It will list the description and parameter list. Once again, you can delete the unwanted operating system.

The option you choose depends on your preference but they all work the same.

How to install wordpress on localhost - Wamp Server

2011-02-27T15:11:00.004+07:00

How to use backup and restore in Window 7

2011-02-27T14:48:00.000+07:00

The backup utilities in previous versions of Windows have been less than spectacular resulting in a nice market for third party applications. Today we take a look at the Backup and Restore feature in Windows 7 that may be their best backup tool yet.

Set the Backup

To set up a backup in Windows 7 open up Computer right-click on your local drive and select Properties. Then click on the Tools tab and click the Back up now button.

In the Back up or restore your files window click the link to set up a backup.

Windows will search for a suitable drive to store the backup or you can also choose a location on your network. If you backup to a network location you might need the password to the share.

You can have Windows choose what to backup or you can choose the files and directories. Because I like more user control for this tutorial I am choosing what to backup but it’s completely up to you.

Note: If you let Windows choose it will not backup Program Files, anything formatted with the FAT file system, files in the Recycle Bin, or any temp files that are 1GB or more.

Select the files and folder to include in the backup. Also notice you can select the option to create an image of your local drive.

Now review the backup job and make sure everything looks correct.

Here you can also schedule the days and times the backup occurs.

Save the backup settings and kick off your first backup and while it runs you can monitor the progress.

Click the View Details button to see exactly what is being backup during the process.

When the backup is complete you will see the two backup files and image folder if you created one. I backed up 20GB of data and it took around 15 minutes including the system image which came to 11GB.

Double click on the backup file and can restore files or manage the size of the backups folder.

Restore file from your backup...

If you need to go back and restore a file from a backup click on Restore my files in the Backup and Restore Center.

Now you can browse or search the most recent backup for a file or folder your missing.

Next you can restore them back to the original location or choose a different spot then click Restore.

Progress of the restoration will vary depending on the size of the data and location it’s restoring from.

Manage Backup Size...

Sometimes you may need to recover some disk space and Windows 7 allows you to manage the size of your backups. In the Backup and Restore section click on the Manage Space link.

Your given a summary of the backup location and what is taking up space from the backup.

Click on the View backups button to check the different dated backups where you can delete older ones if needed.

You can also change how windows retains older system images.

Backing up data is one of the most important but overlooked tasks for a computer user. If you have another backup app you might not consider letting Windows do it, but overall, the new backup and restore utility in Windows 7 is much better than previous versions.

Adobe Reader X 10.0

2011-02-26T11:29:00.003+07:00

Adobe Reader lets you read and print from any system any document created as an Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) file, with its original appearance preserved. PDF files are compact and can be shared, viewed, navigated, and printed exactly as the author intended by anyone with Adobe Reader.

File size: 35.09 MB

Download Link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VFITN600

Google Changes How It Ranks Search Results to Spotlight High-Quality Sites

2011-02-26T09:25:00.004+07:00

Google Inc. said it changed the way the company carries out Web searches to feature more "high- quality" sites, following criticism that its results favored information of little value to users.

The change to Google's algorithms, which it relies on to discern what users want when they search the Web, affects 12 percent of queries, the company said. Google made the change this week, aiming to give higher rankings to sites with original content, in-depth reports or "thoughtful" analysis.

"This update is designed to reduce rankings for low- quality sites -- sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful," the company said in a blog posting late yesterday.

Google, which gets most of its sales from search-engine advertising, has received complaints that spammers and websites game its system to receive prominent placement. The company has made other changes in recent months aimed at quelling concerns over so-called content farms, which tailor information in such a way that it takes precedence in results.

"People are asking for even stronger action on content farms and sites that consist primarily of spammy or low-quality content," Mountain View, California-based Google said on its blog last month.

Demand Media

Companies like Demand Media Inc., a content farm that uses on an army of freelancers to generate material, needs Google to bring traffic to their sites, said Danny Sullivan, the editor in chief of search-analysis firm Search Engine Land. Demand Media’s initial public offering in January put a spotlight on content farms, and Google’s latest changes could affect their performance, he said.

"What it does mean for them is they are definitely on notice," Sullivan said. “If they have subpar content, Google is going to try to take out that content. If they've getting some of the revenue -- or significant amounts of their revenue -- from subpar content, then it's going to go to their bottom line."

Larry Fitzgibbon, Demand Media's executive vice president of media and operations, said Google's changes haven't had a big effect so far on its content and media business.

"It's impossible to speculate how these or any changes made by Google impact any online business in the long term -- but at this point in time, we haven't seen a material net impact," Fitzgibbon said in a blog post.

Stock Reaction

Demand Media's stock dropped as much as 7.8 percent today following Google's announcement, before rebounding. The shares closed up 36 cents at $22.96 on the New York Stock Exchange. They have risen 35 percent since their debut last month.

Google advanced $1.22 to $610.04 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have climbed 2.7 percent this year.

The company also has faced questions about retail sites boosting their search results. The New York Times reported earlier this month that J.C. Penney Co. artificially increased its ranking on Google for a range of product categories.

The retailer has since terminated its relationship with the consulting service that worked on its search performance, said Darcie Brossart, a spokeswoman for Plano, Texas-based J.C. Penney. The company also has taken down more than 2,000 Web links that were set up to boost its results, she said. The links weren’t authorized by J.C. Penney, and the site saw no financial benefit from the higher search results, Brossart said.

Overstock.com

The Wall Street Journal raised similar questions about Overstock.com Inc., saying Google was penalizing the e-commerce site by moving its links down in search results.

The site was enabling university webmasters to provide discount links to students and faculty, which Google didn’t believe should influence its algorithms, Overstock Chief Executive Officer Patrick Byrne said in an e-mailed statement. The e-commerce company discontinued the program and worked aggressively to pull down or deactivate the links, he said.

Google also faces more competition from Microsoft Corp.'s Bing search engine. Google's market share of U.S. queries dropped to 65.6 percent in January from 66.6 percent the previous month, according to ComScore Inc. Bing accounted for 13.1 percent of searches in January, up from 12 percent.

Earlier this month, Google announced a feature for its Chrome Web browser that lets users block unwanted sites from search results. Feedback from that effort didn't influence the latest changes, though the adjustment does appear to play down many of the sites that users were blocking, Google said in the blog posting.

"At this point, anybody providing content and making money from it is highly dependent on the traffic from Google," said Whit Andrews, an analyst with Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner Inc. "Any content provider is reading that blog entry exhaustively."

Source from Bloomberg News

Google adds recipe search

2011-02-26T09:10:00.004+07:00

Targeting a huge online food audience, Google unveiled a new feature today allowing users to perform recipe searches.

But wait, you say, couldn't you already search recipes?

Sure, but they've added a new level of functionality that will allow users to sort by a recipe's characteristics.

Here's how it works:

Type in a search for something you want to make. Let's take "chicken and dumplings."
You'll get several million results, but in the rail on the left, "Recipes" will appear. Click on it.
Google will aggregate a set of common ingredients and let you include or exclude them to narrow your search. Don't want any bay leaves or rosemary in there? Just click them away.
You will also be able to filter by cooking time, in case you were looking to make them in a hurry, and by caloric content, in case you want to make a low cal version.

How big of a deal is this? About one percent of all searches performed on the search giant each day are for recipes. If you consider that they handle about a billion queries per day, that's 10 million recipe searches. Every day.

That's a lot.

The Stew talked to Jack Menzel, Google's product management director for this project, who was very excited about the new function. Unsurprisingly, he's a guy who likes to cook.

"We spend a lot of time looking at what people do," he said. "We were actually surprised at how many queries were recipe related."

And because it's just a search, you can plug anything into it. Want to search for just a chef? You can do that. Want to look at recipes that are specific to a place, thing or holiday? Sure. Plug in "Cinco de Mayo" and recipes pop in related to just the Mexican celebration.

About a year ago, Google began asking food sites if they would add a snippet of code to their HTML pages which contained time and servings info. Now when you search, you'll get results like this:

The results highlight any user-generated feedback so you can know, for instance, if people who have made the recipe liked it. Times and calorie counts, when available, are there at the top.

Now, to be sure, some of the same search quirks will apply to recipes that apply to anything else in Google. It's going to favor some of the biggest sites and those who have optimized their content to be found easily by search engines. Expect a lot of FoodNetwork.com and AllRecipes.com recipes to pop up on the first page of any search.

But as a user who cooks, it's a pretty interesting feature.

Source from Chicago Tribune

Google Tweaks Algorithm to Push Down Low-Quality Sites

2011-02-25T19:59:00.002+07:00

Google said Thursday that it had made a major change to its algorithm in an effort to improve the rankings of high-quality Web sites in its search results — and to reduce the visibility of low-quality sites. While the company did not say so explicitly, the change appears to be directed in part at so-called content farms like eHow and Answerbag, that generate articles based on popular search queries so they will rise to the top of the rankings and attract clicks.

Google has been facing criticism from some users for allowing articles that aren’t useful to appear prominently in search results. That has now changed, according to the company.

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites — sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other Web sites or sites that are just not very useful,” Amit Singhal, a Google fellow, and Matt Cutts, who leads Google’s spam-fighting team, wrote in a company blog post. “At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites — sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

Google has said that it makes about 500 changes to its algorithm a year, but most are so small that the company doesn’t announce them. This one will affect 11.8 percent of search queries, Google said, so it is big enough to significantly change the results that people see.

Google’s announcement did not mention content farms. But Mr. Cutts has spoken in recent weeks about the problem and said Google was working on algorithm changes to fix it. “In general, there are some content farms that I think it would be fair to call spam, in the sense that the quality is so low-quality that people complain,” he said in a recent interview.

While the content on these sites can be useful, much of it is closer in value to the eHow article on making friends in college, which includes tips like “consider joining a sorority or fraternity” and “remember to have a good time, smile and laugh.” Many of the articles on these sites are phrased as how-tos, and even after Thursday’s change they still show up as top results in searches for how to do something — if someone phrases a search query that way, they might want to read such an article. In the blog post, Google said the updated algorithm rewards high-quality sites, so the effect will become clear over time.

Last week, Google introduced an extension to the Chrome browser that people can use to block certain sites, and said it would study which sites people block to figure out which ones bother users. On Thursday, Google said that it did not use this data to change the algorithm, but that the new algorithm caught 84 percent of the most-blocked Web sites.

Source from The New York Times

How to disable the display "Properties" on Window XP

2011-02-25T19:50:00.001+07:00

នៅលើ Window XP យើងអាចលាក់ Display Properties ដោយអនុវត្តនូវវិធីសាស្រ្តដូចខាងក្រោមនេះ៖

ចុចលើ Start \ Run \ វាយ Regedit រួចចុច OK
ចូលទៅកាន់ទីតាំងដូចខាងក្រោម
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
អូស Mouse ទៅផ្នែកខាងស្តាំ បន្ទាប់មក Right Click យក New \ DWORD Value វាយចូល NoDispCPL ត្រង់ប្រអប់ Value name ហើយចុច Enter ពីរដង
កំណត់តំលៃ ១ នៅក្នុងប្រអប់ Value data រួចចុច OK (កំណត់តំលៃលេខ ០ ប្រសិនបើចង់ដោះលាក់វិញ)។

ឥលូវសូមបង្វែរមកកាន់ Desktop ចុច Right Click រើសយក Properties អ្នកនឹងឃើញ Dialog Box មួយផុសចេញឡើង។

Free YouTube to MP3 Converter 3.9.32

2011-02-25T14:40:00.002+07:00

Free YouTube to MP3 Converter allows the millions of YouTube users to extract the audio from those clips either one at a time or in batches. Users can select to download groups of clips from their favourite's lists, their playlists, show lists, selected site channels, or even from the responses left for another video.
File size: 22.67 MB

Download Link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=THBTPMER

Google Chrome: The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005)

2011-02-25T10:30:00.003+07:00

If you faced "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005). Click on OK to terminate the application." error with Google Chrome (chrome.exe) and you are using Symantec Endpoint Protection, then you could try the following steps:

Back up the registry on an affected system
Open the registry on the Agent system by entering regedit from a run prompt
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SysPlant
Open the Start DWORD
Change the value to 4 to disable the drivers
Reboot the system to commit the changes

The above registry solution to fix the Google chrome error was issued in symantec forums. Read it here.

Apple Announces New MacBook Pros

2011-02-24T17:06:00.002+07:00

Apple today announced a refresh of its MacBook Pro line of laptops. The highlights? New, faster processors, more powerful graphics processors, an HD camera and a new port for a technology that Apple is calling Thunderbolt.

Cosmetically, the new Pros look very similar to their predecessors. There are still 13-, 15- and 17-inch models (starting at $1,199, $1,799 and $2,499, respectively), and they still have the same aluminum unibody construction and full-width glass across the display. To look at them, you wouldn’t notice a whole lot that’s different.

It’s under the hood where things change. The new Intel processors, the Core i5 and Core i7, are dual- and quad-core chips that promise up to twice the performance of the chips in the earlier models.

One of the new features of the Intel chips is an integrated graphics processor. But in the 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros, Apple doubled down on graphics by adding a discrete AMD Radeon graphics chip. Models with both chips seamlessly and automatically switch between the two processors, depending on performance needs.

There is also a new FaceTime camera, which can stream video in 720p resolution and display it in a new widescreen format.

It’s the last addition to the MacBook Pro line that is perhaps the most intriguing: the Thunderbolt port. Apple collaborated with Intel on its Light Peak project to create a new high-speed data and display port that would be adaptable to existing connection standards. The MacBook Pros are the first computers to feature the technology, but it will roll out across manufacturers in the coming year.

The performance specs of Thunderbolt are striking: At 10 Gbps, it’s twice as fast as USB 3.0, 12 times as fast as FireWire 800 and 20 times faster than USB 2.0. As Intel calculated in their press release, a Thunderbolt connection can transfer a full-length high-definition movie in 30 seconds.

Thunderbolt is also a native Mini DisplayPort, so any display with that connection can hook up easily. HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort and VGA displays can use adapters. Thunderbolt also provides up to 10 watts of power to peripherals and can be daisy-chained to up to six peripherals.

The new MacBook Pros are available now.

Source from The New York Times

Camtasia Studio 7.0

2011-02-24T16:02:00.002+07:00

Camtasia Studio--Powerful screen recording and editing for high-quality videos. Delight audiences near or far. Record screencast videos--like tutorials, presentations, and demos--that get results and look fantastic. Camtasia Studio software is smart, powerful, and makes you look like a pro. Easily record onscreen activity in front of a live audience or from your desk. Capture PowerPoint presentations, webcam video, audio and more. Produce and share high-quality videos at any screen size instantly to YouTube, Screencast.com, your webpage or blog, portable devices like the iPhone. Make them wonder how you did it.

What's new in this version:
Version 7.0 streamlines process for creating and correcting captions; automatically generates captions with speech-to-text transcription; adds import and export options for caption files; produce searchable videos to improve viewer navigation; produces videos for the iPad with a production preset, adds 64-bit codec support for integration with 3rd party applications.
File size: 161MB

Download Link: http://pcxplorer.co.cc/Soft-To-Download/Camtasia Studio 7.0.0 + Serials & Keygen.rar

Internet Download Manager 6.05

2011-02-24T14:38:00.003+07:00

NEW! Internet Download Manager v6.05. Fixed compatibility problems with different browsers including Google Chrome. Improved FLV grabber to save videos from web players on YouTube, WOW! Google Video, MySpace TV, and other popular sites.

Version 6.05 adds IDM download panel for web-players that can be used to download flash videos from sites like YouTube, MySpaceTV, and Google Videos. It also features complete Windows 7 and Vista support, YouTube grabber, redeveloped scheduler, and MMS protocol support. The new version also adds improved integration for IE and IE based browsers, redesigned and enhanced download engine, the unique advanced integration into all latest browsers, improved toolbar, and a wealth of other improvements and new features.

Download Link: http://mirror3.internetdownloadmanager.com/idman605.exe

How to Remove User Account Password in Window 7

2011-02-24T11:30:00.000+07:00

1. Open the Control Panel from the Start menu.

2. Open User Accounts in the Control Panel.

Note: If the User Accounts item is not available, change View by to Large icons at the top right of the Control Panel.

3. Click Remove your password.

Note: If you want to remove another user account’s password, click Manage another account and then select the user account.

4. Type the current password of the user account and then click Remove Password.

ABBYY ScanTo Office 1.0

2011-02-24T10:45:00.002+07:00

ABBYY ScanTo Office is seamlessly integrated with Microsoft® Office applications which provides you with a direct access from Microsoft Word, Excel®, Outlook® and Windows® Explorer without leaving these applications. ABBYY ScanTo Office gives you a one-step conversion to scan paper or convert the scanned images to electronic documents that you can easily edit, reuse, or forward via e-mail.

Download Link: http://pcxplorer.co.cc/free-software-for-download/254-abbyy-scan-to-office.html

Star UML 5.02

2011-02-24T10:37:00.002+07:00

StarUML is an open source project to develop fast, flexible, extensible, featureful, and freely-available UML/MDA platform running on Win32 platform. The goal of the StarUML project is to build a software modeling tool and also platform that is a compelling replacement of commercial UML tools such as Rational Rose, Together and so on.

Download Link: http://pcxplorer.co.cc/free-software-for-download/62-star-uml-502.html

Apple beats off move to reveal Jobs succession details

2011-02-24T09:41:00.002+07:00

Apple has beaten off efforts to reveal succession plans for the time when Steve Jobs is no longer in charge of the company.

The proposal was made by the Central Laborers Fund during the company's annual shareholder meeting.

Steve Jobs, who is on his third medical leave of absence, did not attend the event at Apple's headquarters in California.

Apple, a notoriously secretive company, fought the proposal from the outset.

A preliminary proxy count on the controversial measure suggested the fund proposal had been defeated.
It was a move that disappointed Jennifer O'Dell who made the proposal on behalf of the fund which represents 500,000 construction workers across the US and Canada.

'Transparency'

"We want Steve Jobs to come back to work yesterday," Ms O'Dell told BBC News.

"We want him to be here every day. We want him to live forever.

"That is not realistic and that is why they need to have a plan. And if they have a plan, and I am sure they do, what is wrong with a little transparency?"

Apple until now has said such a revelation would give competitors an "unfair advantage" by publicizing the company's confidential objectives and plans.

'Internal candidates'

The first time Mr Jobs took time off work to take care of his health was in 2004 when he revealed he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

A second medical leave of absence came in 2009 following a liver transplant.

At the time investors voiced some concern about the future of the company, given how central Mr Jobs is seen to its success.

The Illinois-based pension fund said it filed its proposal last year, months ahead of Mr Jobs' most recent decision to take time off work for medical reasons.

The measure had asked for Apple to develop a plan that would be reviewed every year that specifically laid out the "criteria for the CEO position" and " identifies and develops internal candidates" to potentially fill the position.

The fund also called for Apple's board of directors to begin non-emergency planning for a new chief executive three years before an expected transition.

'Real discussion'

Despite the defeat, Ms O'Dell said this was not the end of their efforts.

The fund holds nearly 11,500 Apple shares, worth around $4m (£2.4m).

"If the company doesn't want out reach out to us and have a real discussion about this issue we will refile it again next year," she said.

"Thirty companies have adopted this [succession plans] including HP and Intel.

"There are a lot of things we can do with this proposal.

"If the board continues to not want to listen to long term shareholders, to talk about this issue seriously, we can take a second step and hold the board of directors directly accountable and we could withhold our votes from the members of the board. Do we want to do that? No."

She said while Apple provided hundreds of thousands of labourers with security for retirement the firm could not be run by just one person dictating the role of the company.

'Right decisions'

In Mr Job's absence, the company is being run by chief operating officer, Tim Cook.

During the hour long meeting, no shareholders asked questions about Mr Job's health, although a number wished him well for the future.

Outside the firm's headquarters, most of the opinion backed Apple's decision to keep its cards about succession close to its chest.

"I feel making such a plan public is unnecessary," said Pam Pallakoff, a shareholder for 20 years.

"We feel the management in place is very good management and they will make the right decisions at the time they need to."

Fellow shareholder, 76-year-old Shelton Ehrlich, said he was glad the proposal lost, and that he had faith that the company knew what it was doing.

"Mr Jobs, whether he is here or not here... the company will complete his vision. At least for the next five years everything is set on a good path."

Analysts have long agreed with this view, that Apple has a long pipeline of products and a deep management bench with a wealth of experience.

Similarly confident of Apple's future was 29-year-old shareholder Melissa Gutknecht, who has held the company's stock since 2008.

"I am respectful of the way Apple is thinking of this issue and understand a lot is being done behind the scenes," she said.

"My thought is they already have a plan in place and are not going to jeopardize the shareholder by any means. I just think they are trying to be smart about how they disseminate that information to shareholders and the public."

Bigger say

One proposal that was approved was a requirement that unopposed candidate's for the company's board receive a majority in order to be appointed.

The move has been seen as a victory for Calpers, the largest pension fund in the US, which, the meeting was told, holds 1.6m Apple shares worth just under $1bn.

Apple had opposed this measure and said it would hinder its ability to keep members on its board.

Analysts said the vote underlined the fact investors want a bigger say in choosing board members and more power in overruling the wishes of Apple management, which is seen as a very close-knit group.

IPad announcement?

The shareholders meeting also ignited rumours of an updated iPad, with an event in San Francisco next week dubbed "Come See What 2011 Will Be The Year Of".

The company has sold more than 15m of the devices since its launch last April.

Mr Cook would not talk about future products, but did say he thought the market for tablet computers was "huge, huge".

Unlike last year when the iPad had the market virtually to itself, this year it will face increased competition from a number of companies from Google to HP to Research in Motion.

Motorola's much publicised Xoom tablet, running an operating system developed by Google, goes on sale tomorrow.

The Xoom was crowned the best gadget at the giant Consumer electronics Show in Las Vegas last month.

Research in Motion plans to release four versions of its PlayBook tablet this year, largely aimed at the enterprise market.

Make your word 2010 or word 2007 always save in word 2003 format

2011-02-23T23:01:00.001+07:00

Not everyone has updated to the 2010 or 2007 edition of Microsoft Office. So a problem arises as we send them a Word 2010 or 2007 document without converting it into 2003 format. However, it is possible to make Word 2010 or 2007 always save in 2003 format. By changing a few settings, we can make Word 2010 or 2007 always save in 2003 format automatically. This can save our time as we won’t have to convert a document each time we have to send one. Follow these steps to make Word 2010 or 2007 always save in 2003 format:

1. Open your word 2010 or 2007
2. Click the File/Office button

3. Click on the Word Options button at the bottom

4. The Word Options dialog box will appear.
5. Select the Save Tab

6. Select "Word 97-2003 Document" from the menu of "Save files in this format".
7. Click the OK button

After this you will never have to worry about mistakenly sending the incorrect format of Microsoft Word 2010 or 2007 to anyone. The same procedure can be used to change the settings of Microsoft Excel 2010 or 2007.

Nokia partners with Microsoft on Windows Phone

2011-02-12T23:17:00.001+07:00

Nokia, the world's largest-volume cell phone maker, and software giant Microsoft are joining forces.

As part of a new agreement, Nokia will adopt Windows Phone as its choice smartphone platform, and Bing will become the default search engine on all of Nokia's phones.

In return, Nokia will provide services such as mapping programs and other software to help flesh out Microsoft's offerings, as well as leverage the handset giant's relationships with cellular carriers.

The companies' chief executives jointly penned a news release that went out early Friday morning in advance of the formal announcement in London. The materials describe the strategic partnership as "long term," though no timeframe was given.

Some experts say Nokia may be better served by looking to Google's Android platform instead. Android, a system provided to manufacturers for free, has quickly risen as the biggest challenger to Nokia's mobile dominance.

The Symbian platform from Nokia has shown versatility, but it hasn't aged well. The system is criticized for being clunky and especially awkward in an increasingly touchscreen-focused environment.

Still, Nokia remained the top seller of smartphones last year, with 37.6%, according to a report from research firm Gartner. But the cell phone giant had dropped from the 46.9% it held the year before, the data shows. Meanwhile, Android phones had 22.7% of the market in 2010, compared to about 4% the year prior.

(In the U.S., the numbers are stark. Nokia's presence there has almost entirely vanished.)

Like Nokia, Microsoft's global share of the heating smartphone segment fell during the same period -- by more than half, the Gartner data shows.

But Microsoft unleashed a major new smartphone system late last year, called Windows Phone 7. Microsoft's hope is that this will turn the company's fortunes in the mobile industry around.

In the few months it's been available, Windows Phone has gotten off to a slow start. Major manufacturers including Samsung Electronics and HTC initially pledged support for the software with launch devices, but most are now banking on the success of Android.

Nokia had begun developing a new system called MeeGo, along with Intel. This initiative will be dropped in favor of Windows Phone.

With a global juggernaut like Nokia signed on, Microsoft's chances at success have improved, experts say. Stephen Elop, Nokia's first non-Finnish CEO, was formerly an executive at Microsoft.

Elop sent employees a dramatic message this week saying that Nokia is "standing on a burning platform." In the e-mail, he highlighted the limitations of Symbian and contrasted it with Apple's and Google's successes at stealing away market share over a short time.

"Nokia, our platform is burning," Elop wrote in the widely circulated memo. "We are working on a path forward -- a path to rebuild our market leadership."

Elop, along with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, will expand on this path in the meeting with analysts Friday morning.

"Nokia and Microsoft will combine our strengths to deliver an ecosystem with unrivalled global reach and scale," Elop said in a statement. "It's now a three-horse race."

How to Fix - Generic Host Process for Win32 Service Encountered a Problem and Need to Close

2010-11-18T12:07:00.005+07:00

This is a common problem I have come across for long and long time. While using window XP around 15 or 20 minute it automatically display the following error message.

When this message alert it cause me the following problem:

Can not access to another computer on my network.
Can not use the printer on my network.
It make my computer stopped working.

Here is my experience on how to fix this problem:

Download WindowsXP-KB958644-x86-ENU.exe security patch for Window XP.
Downoad Generic Host Process Error Removable Tool

After you have already download all the above file you will need to restart your computer and go into Safe Mode then install the "security patch" and the "GHremoval.bat" by follow the instruction.

You have to restart your computer again and go to the normal mode of your Window XP. Now the common error message above will not display anymore but you still can't use your network.

In order to fix this problem just download and install WinSock XP Fix and then run it and click on Fix button. For more information about WinSock XP Fix click here.

Now you will see that all your problem have been fixed. Enjoy using your PC...

What is Desktop.ini and how to get rid of it?

2010-11-18T11:11:00.000+07:00

I use Windows XP, and I see a file called Desktop.ini in a lot of my folders. What is that? How can I get rid of it?

Desktop.ini is a Windows XP system file that stores information about customized folders. If you have customized the display of a folder in any way, such as changing its icon or manner of display, Windows has saved those settings in a desktop.ini file. In the following screenshot, I have right-clicked on a folder and am about to customize it.

Since Desktop.ini is a Windows system file, you are probably seeing it because you have set Explorer to display hidden/system files. By reversing this setting, you can get rid of Desktop.ini.

In any Windows Explorer window, click Tools ---> Folder Options…
Click on the View tab.
Check off the radio button next to "Do not show hidden files and folders".
Put a check in the box next to "Hide protected operating system files (recommended)".
Click OK.

Here is a picture of the settings I have just described:

Once you have made these changes, Desktop.ini should be out of sight and out of mind. Here is a screen shot of the same folder from Figure 1. It’s still customized, but Desktop.ini is nowhere to be seen.

What is Thumb.db?

2010-11-18T11:07:00.000+07:00

There’s a file called Thumbs.db in almost every one of the folders on your computer. What is it and how do you get rid of it?

Thumbs.db is a system file generated automatically by Windows XP when you view the contents of a folder in "Thumbnail" or "Filmstrip" view. Thumbs.db contains a copy of each of the tiny preview images generated for image files in that folder so that they load up quickly the next time you browse that folder. Thumbs.db also stores your settings with regard to thumbnail and filmstrip view.

Despite the fact that Thumbs.db is a hidden system file, it annoys people because it tends to show up in places where it’s not wanted. Many times you’ll try to zip up a folder full of images and e-mail them to a friend or upload them to an FTP site, and Thumbs.db goes along for the ride.

How to get rid of Thumbs.db

To stop your computer from generating and regenerating future Thumbs.db files, do the following:

If you're on the desktop...

Click Start
Control Panel
Folder Options

Or, if you have My Computer or window explorer open...

Click Tools
Click Folder Options

After performing either of those two operations, the "Folder Options" window will open up.

Click on the View tab
Check Do not cache thumbnails
Click Apply ---> OK

Once you click the OK button, your computer will cease to generate Thumbs.db files. If you delete any of the existing Thumbs.db files, they will not return. Be forewarned though, if you browse a folder that contains a large quantity of image files (or extremely large image files), it will take a long time for that folder to load even if you have previously browsed it because the thumbnail images will not have been cached in Thumbs.db.

របៀបលាក់ Shut Down ពេលចុចលើ Start

2010-10-18T23:48:00.000+07:00

ចុច Start ---> Run វាយចូល regedit
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer
អូស Mouse ទៅផ្ទាំងផ្នែកខាងស្តាំ ចុច Mouse ស្តាំជ្រើសរើសយក New ---> DWORD Value វាយ ចូល NoClose ហើយចុច Enter ពីរដង។
កំណត់តំលៃ លេខ 1 ក្នុងប្រអប់ Value Data រួចចុច OK (កំណត់តំលៃ 0 ប្រសិនបើចង់ដោះលាក់ វិញ)។
លោកអ្នកគ្រាន់តែ Restart ឫ Log off ម៉ាស៊ីន Computer របស់អ្នកជាការស្រេច។

របៀបលាក់ Run ពេលចុចលើ Start

2010-10-18T00:10:00.002+07:00

1. ចុចលើ Start ---> Run

2. វាយចូល regedit ហើយចុច OK

3. តារាងមួយនឹងលេចឡើង មានផ្ទាំងពីរ នៅខាងឆ្វេង និង ខាងស្តាំចុចចូលត្រង់សញ្ញា HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Window \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer។ ចុចពីរដងលើ Explorer។

4. រំកិល Cursor ទៅផ្ទាំងផ្នែកខាងស្តាំ ហើយចុចកូនកណ្តុរខាងស្តាំ យក New ---> DWORD Value។

5. វាយចូល NoRun ហើយចុច Enter

6. ចុចខាងស្តាំលើ NoRun ដែលអ្នកទើបតែបង្កើតហើយរើសយក Modify បន្ទាប់មកវាយចូលលេខ 1 ក្នុងប្រអប់ Value Data បន្ទាប់មកចុច OK ជាការស្រេច (វាយចូលលេច 0 ពេលចង់ហៅ Run មកវិញ)។

7. ចុចបិទ Regedit បន្ទាប់មក Restart ម៉ាស៊ីន រឺគ្រាន់តែ Log off អ្នកនឹងលែងឃើញមាន Run នៅពេល ចុចលើ Start ទៀតហើយ។

The 10 tips and tricks of window 7

2010-10-16T00:01:00.001+07:00

The New Windows 7 OS is out and running on a lot of new computers. If you installed it on your old computer or just bought a new computer with Windows 7, I have some cool tips and tricks to help you out. You will find Windows 7 has a lot of new enhanced features that will improved your performance and productivity, plus give you stronger security and a lot more.

Burn images, The easy way.
The New Windows 7 OS has finally introduces a feature that other operating systems have had for a long time - the ability to burn ISO images to CDs or DVDs. And it couldn't be much easier to use. Just double-click the ISO image, choose the drive with the blank disc, click Burn and watch as your disc is created.
Startup repair, Just Do it.
If you've downloaded Windows 7 (and even if you haven't) it's a good idea to create a system repair disc right away in case you run into problems booting the OS later on. Click Start ---> Maintenance ---> Create a System Repair Disc, and let Windows 7 build a bootable emergency disc. If the worst does happen then it could be the only way to get your PC to boot up and get it running again. Just do it.
Take control
If your tired of the kids installing dubious software or running applications you'd rather they left alone? Then try using Applocker, AppLocker is a new Windows 7 feature that ensures users can only run the programs you specify. Don't worry, that's easier to set up than it sounds: you can create a rule to allow everything signed by a particular publisher, so choose Microsoft, say, and that one rule will let you run all signed Microsoft applications. Launch GPEDIT.MSC and go to Computer Configuration ---> Windows Settings ---> Security Settings ---> Application Control Policies ---> AppLocker to get a feel for how this works.
Enable virtual Wi-Fi
Windows 7 includes a little-known new feature called Virtual Wi-Fi, which effectively turns your PC or laptop into a software-based router. Any other Wi-Fi-enabled devices within range - a desktop, laptop, an iPod perhaps - will "see" you as a new network and, once logged on, immediately be able to share your internet connection.

This will only work if your wireless adapter driver supports it, though, and not all do. Check with your adapter manufacturer and make sure you've installed the very latest drivers to give you the best chance.

Once you have driver support then the easiest approach is to get a network tool that can set up virtual Wi-Fi for you. Virtual Router (below) is free, easy to use and should have you sharing your internet connection very quickly.
Recover screen space
The new Windows 7 taskbar acts as one big quick launch toolbar that can hold whatever program shortcuts you like (just right-click one and select Pin To Taskbar). And that's fine, except it does consume a little more screen real estate than we'd like. Shrink it to a more manageable size by right-clicking the Start orb, then Properties ---> Taskbar ---> Use small icons ---> OK.
Enjoy a retro taskbarWindows 7 now combines taskbar buttons in a way that saves space, but also makes it more difficult to tell at a glance whether an icon represents a running application or a shortcut. If you prefer a more traditional approach, then right-click the taskbar, select Properties, and set Taskbar Buttons to "Combine when taskbar is full". You'll now get a clear and separate button for each running application, making them much easier to identify.
Custom power switch
By default, Windows 7 displays a plain text 'Shut down' button on the Start menu, but it only takes a moment to change this action to something else. If you reboot your PC a few times every day then that might make more sense as a default action: right-click the Start orb, select Properties and set the 'Power boot action' to 'Restart' to make it happen.
Use Sticky Notes, To do list.
The Sticky Notes app is both simpler and more useful in Windows 7. Launch StikyNot.exe and you can type notes at the keyboard; right-click a note to change its colour; click the + sign on the note title bar to add another note; and click a note and press Alt + 4 to close the note windows (your notes are automatically saved).
Protect your dataUSB flash drives are convenient, portable, and very easy to lose. Which is a problem, especially if they're carrying sensitive data. Fortunately Windows 7 has the solution: encrypt your documents with an extension of Microsoft's BitLocker technology, and only someone with the password will be able to access it. Right-click your USB flash drive, select Turn on BitLocker and follow the instructions to protect your private files.
Speedy video access
Want faster access to your Videos folder? Windows 7 now lets you add it to the Start menu. Just right-click the Start orb, click Properties ---> Start Menu ---> Customize, and set the Videos option to "Display as a link". If you've a TV tuner that works with Windows 7 then you'll appreciate the new option to display the Recorded TV folder on the Start menu, too.

Enabling Remote Assistance in the client computer

2010-10-15T23:25:00.000+07:00

Remote Assistance allows you to invite a trusted person (a friend or computer expert) to remotely and interactively assist you with a problem. You can also use Remote Assistance to remotely assist a user who trusts you. This feature is useful in situations where detailed or lengthy instructions are required to reproduce or resolve problems.

To enable Remote Assistance invitations to be sent from your computer, use these steps

Right-click My Computer icon in the Desktop.
Select Properties.
Click the Remote tab.
Enable the following check box and then click OK.
"Allow Remote Assistance invitations to be sent from this computer"

Note: If you attempt to invite someone to help you, while the above option is unchecked, you receive the following error message:

Your current system settings prevent you from sending an invitation.

Allow this computer to be controlled remotely

The ability to control your computer remotely is disabled by default. When the remote assistant attempts to remotely control the computer, the following message appears: Remote Control of this computer is not allowed.

To configure the computer for remote control, follow these steps.

On the Remote tab, click Advanced button under Remote Assistance.
Under Remote control, click Allow this computer to be controlled remotely check box, and then click OK
In the System Properties dialog box, click OK.

Disable Balloon Tips in the Notification area

2010-10-15T23:09:00.000+07:00

Balloon Tips are nothing but pop-up notifications of certain events. Some examples are the "Network cable Unplugged", SP2's Security Center Firewall or anti-virus alert messages etc.

You can disable these balloon notifications using these steps:

Click Start, Run and type regedit
Navigate to the following subkey:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced
In the right pane, create a DWORD value named EnableBalloonTips
Double-click the new entry, and give it a value of 0.
Quit Registry Editor.
Log off Windows, and then log back on for the changes to take effect.

How to generate a startup log using MSINFO32?

2010-10-15T23:06:00.000+07:00

MSINFO32 displays a comprehensive view of your hardware, system components, and software environment. The log generated out of this utility helps troubleshooting process easier. To generate the list of startup applications, use these steps:

Type MSINFO32.EXE in Start, Run dialog
Click the (+) sign in Software Environment category
Select Startup Programs. System Information will now generate the list of startup entries.
Once the right-pane is populated, click the File menu and choose Export
Type-in a file name (example: startuplog.txt) and choose a location to save the file.
Close MSINFO32 utility.

Note that you can generate logs for many other categories, such as Services, hardware, Loaded Modules, Installed drivers (signed & unsigned) as well.

Further more, MSINFO supports command-line parameters so that everything can be performed using command-line, or Batch files. For more information see this article:

How to Use System Information (MSINFO32) Switches

How to extract a system file from the Windows XP CD-ROM?

2010-10-15T23:01:00.000+07:00

There are situations where you need to expand a DLL file or any other system file from the Windows XP CD-ROM, in order to replace a corrupt or missing file in the system. Here are the instructions to expand a file from the source CD.

Note: If you have a Service Pack installed, you need to extract the latest copy of the DLL. Your base Windows XP CD (without any Service Packs included) will not help if you already have a Service Pack installed in your system. Therefore, make sure that you're extracting the system file from a slipstreamed Windows XP CD-ROM (SP2 integration), or get the updated files from %Windir%\ServicePackFiles\i386 folder.

Extracting a file from Windows XP CD-ROM

Insert your Windows XP CD-ROM into the drive. Click Start, Run and type CMD.EXE. Use the Expand command. Here are some examples - to expand a file from the CD:

Example 1: expand X:\i386\sysoc.in_ -r c:\windows\inf

Example 2: expand X:\i386\sysoc.in_ c:\windows\inf\sysoc.inf

Where X:\ is your CD-ROM drive letter. The above command assumes Windows is installed in C:\ drive. If not, change the drive letter / Path accordingly.

Example: expand H:\i386\sysoc.in_ -r g:\windows\inf

Clearing the file and URL history in Windows Media Player

2010-10-15T22:57:00.000+07:00

When you play a file, link to the file is stored in the Windows Media Player history. To clear the file and URL history in Windows Media Player 10, use the following steps:

Open Windows Media Player
Click Tools, select Options
Select the Privacy tab
In the History section, click the Clear History button once
Click OK and close Windows Media Player

How to make Windows XP Search Companion default to the All files and folders option

2010-10-15T22:50:00.000+07:00

When you open Windows XP Search Companion, you may see the dialog which asks What do you want to search for. This article describes how to set All files and folders as the default dialog when starting the Search Companion.

Start Windows XP Search Companion
Click Change Preferences, Change files and folders search behavior, and select the following option:
Advanced - includes options to manually enter search criteria. Recommended for advanced users only
Click OK.

How to reset Windows Firewall settings in Windows XP SP2?

2010-10-15T22:44:00.000+07:00

There are situations where-in you need to reset your Windows Firewall settings, after removing a Trojan etc. Resetting the Windows Firewall sets the configuration to factory defaults by removing all the programs / port / exceptions settings.

To reset the Windows Firewall to the factory default state, try this:

Type firewall.cpl in Start, Run dialog.
Click the Advanced tab.
Click the Restore Defaults button.
Click Yes to continue when you see this dialog

Restoring the default settings will delete all settings of Windows Firewall that you have made since Windows was installed. This may cause some programs to stop working.

Do you want to continue?

The Windows Firewall is now turned ON, and set to factory default state.

Alternately, you can use the NETSH command-line to accomplish this:

Open a Command Prompt window and type NETSH FIREWALL RESET

This command resets firewall configuration to default. This provides the same functionality as the Restore Defaults button in the Windows Firewall interface.

How to disable the automatic logon in Window XP

2010-10-13T16:42:00.000+07:00

If you've configured Windows XP to automatically login earlier, and want to cancel the auto-logon, try any of these methods:

Method 1

By default, MSGina.dll checks the state of the SHIFT key when AutoAdminLogon is 1. If the SHIFT key is held down during the boot process, MSGina.dll will ignore the AutoAdminLogon key value and prompt the user for identification and authentication information interactively. You can use this method to temporarily disable automatic logon at startup.

Method 2

Click Start, and then click Run. In the Open box, type control userpasswords2, and then click OK. In the dialog box that appears, enable Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer check box, and then click OK.

Method 3

Click Start, Run and type rundll32 netplwiz.dll,ClearAutoLogon

Method 4

Use this method only if you've configured the automatic logon using the registry manually. Because, automatic logon procedure using Control Userpasswords2 or using Tweak UI does not involve Winlogon \ DefaultPassword key at all. They are stored in protected area rather.

Open Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) and navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ WindowsNT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon

Delete the DefaultPassword entry.

Double-click AutoAdminLogon, type 0 in the Value Data box, and then click OK.

Introduction to Fast Ethernet

2010-10-05T11:44:00.000+07:00

For years, Ethernet has proven itself inexpensive, fast and reliable local area network technology. In 1972 Bob Metcalfe and D.R. Boggs developed Ethernet Technology and it was published in 1980 under the IEEE 802.3 set of specifications. Ethernet is a vendor-neutral computer networking standardized technology and major local area network standard. Fast Ethernet is an Ethernet standard that supports data transfer rate at the speed of 100 Mbps against the standard Ethernet that supports 10 Mbps. It is also referred as 100BaseT.

The other relevant standards are 100 Mbps Twisted-Pair, Type 100Base-TX, 100 Mbps Fiber Optic, Type 100Base-FX, 100 Mbps Twisted-Pair, Type 100Base-T4, 1000BaseT (Baseband Ethernet over category 5 UTP Cable, 1000Base-X (generic name for the 1000 Mbps Ethernet System. Fast Ethernet is ten times faster than the normal Ethernet 10-BaseT. There are different cabling schemes that can be used with the fast Ethernet such as, two pair twisted pair cables, four pair twisted pair cable and fiber optic cables. It is a standard for LAN and based on the CSMA/CD local area network access method and it works with the twisted pair or fiber optic cables.

Today many LAN cards support both Ethernet standards such as 10-BaseT and 100BaseT and these LAN cards are known as 10/100 Mbps. These LAN cards sense the data transfer speed and adjust it automatically. The well known manufacturers of LAN cards are D-Link, RealTek, 3Com, LinkSys, Intel and BayNet. There is another standard of the Ethernet known as Gigabyte Ethernet and it supports data transfer rate up to 1000 Mbps.

Ethernet works at the physical and data link layers of the OSI model and it supports IP protocol and other all the higher level protocols. The most common standard of the Fast Ethernet is the 100Base-TX and it is supported by all the major Ethernet supported computer hardware.

The other relevant Ethernet technologies are Ethernet Switching, Ethernet Bridging and Ethernet VLANs. In the 100Base-TX standard, the cable length is limited to100 meters this means that each network segment can have a maximum distance of 100 meters from the Hub/Switch.

Following list provides the detail about the other common standards of the Fast Ethernet.

100Base-TX : Operates over two pairs of category 5 Cable.

100Base-T4 : Operates over four pair twisted pair cable.

100Base-T2 : Operates over two copper pairs.

100Base-FX : It uses 100 NM infrared light wavelength over two strands of multi node fiber optic cables.

100Base-SX : It requires two strands of multi node fiber optic cable for data transmission.

100Base-BX : Single-mode fiber is used with the multiplexer.

Fast Ethernet provides the optimized performance to a local area network and cost-effective solutions to the businesses. With the increased and simultaneous usage of the computer network servers and other resources, bottleneck is created so fast Ethernet with Gigabyte Ethernet as a backbone provides high performance and greater bandwidth. Fast Ethernet switches can be upgraded to the Gigabyte Ethernet switches and the network servers can be directly connected to the Gigabyte switches that supports the data speed up to 100/1000 Mbps.

TCP/IP Network Administration Tips

2010-10-05T11:35:00.000+07:00

TCP/IP stands for Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol. TCP/IP is a suite of the Protocols and more than 65,000 protocols are packed in it. TCP/IP provides the platform for the IP based network. IP networks are most the popular networks and administering the TCP/IP networks requires a lot of experience and skills. An IP based network can be composed of two computers or thousands of computers. Bigger the network the more administration and management is required.

Being a person who is responsible for the network and system administration, it’s your responsibility to equip yourself with the all the required skills and tools. Because the lack of skills and necessary software can create problems not only for the single user but for all the network users. Following are the helpful tips for managing and troubleshooting the TCP/IP based network.

TCP/IP Network Administration Tips

Enable BIOS passwords
Lock Server Room
Make sure to have a battery backup to your network servers and computers.
Install the latest service packs, security patches and critical updates.
Backup your critical data on from the server on the regular basis.
Build and update the technical documentation.
Maintain inventory of the network hardware and software.
Maintain a good inventory of the troubleshooting, monitoring and security software.
Monitor the internet activities of the users with the internet filtering software.
For the optimized performance of the network computers, put restrictions on the users that they can’t install any software program.

Troubleshooting TCP/IP
I have categorized the common types of the problems and their solutions in the TCP/IP based computer network.

Approaching a problem

First troubleshooting step is to approach the problem in a very intelligent way. If a problem occurs, never lose your sense, don’t feel overburden and confused. Just be relaxed and find out that why this particular problem has happened. Is it a security related issue, hardware conflict, DNS error, internet connection problem, performance issue or the network connectivity issue. After finding out the problem you should be equipped with all the necessary tools, software and of course skills.

For example if you find out the problem is due to the viruses, scan your computer with the latest antivirus and anti spyware program. Block the suspicious activities and the web applications that are notorious for the viruses. The other required things for troubleshooting the problems are diagnostic tools, cable testers, protocol analyzers and network monitoring software.

What is Network Security?

2010-10-05T11:28:00.000+07:00

Network security refers to protecting computer network from the unauthorized access, hacker’s attacks, viruses, spyware and internal and external threats. It also refers to protecting the network from the unauthorized modifications, data lost, destruction, physical attacks and the protection of the company’s assets. Computer networks are being used to conduct the transactions, communications, data and resources sharing, orders processing, voice communication among the businesses and the individuals.

Every computer network without proper security mechanisms can be attacked by the hackers, viruses and intruders so it is the most important responsibility of the computer network administrators to implement the security solutions.

A personal computer, gateway computer and the laptops are the common point of attacks. Unauthorized users can steal the company’s important data. Being an administrator you need to know the common threats and implement the solution to deal with them. The common network threats include the following.

Common Threats

Viruses
Hacking attacks
Spyware
Adware
Malware
Trojans
Web Worms
Rootkits
Honeypots
Identity lost
Sniffers
Physical Threats
Dangerous Macros
Eavsdropping
Security Vulnerabilities
Risks from the Naive employees.
Denial of service attacks.
Data Interception.

More detail...

Router Commands Overview

2010-10-05T11:11:00.000+07:00

In this section you will learn about the router commands, configurations, privileged mode commands, routing protocols, cisco labs and network configurations.

There are hundreds of basic and advance level commands of a router. It is not easy to remember all the commands. But some commands are frequently used and can be remembered with some practice. I have provided a list of the most commonly used commands based on their features and usage.

You will find here some basic terminology of a router.

Routing: Routing is a process of moving the data (packets) through an inter network. Routing performs the two basic tasks. Define the paths for a packet and then forward the packets on the basis of defined paths. Routing can also be defined as the communication between two or more logically and physical networks and this communication (packet transfer) is brought by a router.

First of all you should remember the keyboard shortcuts of a router.

Keyboard Shortcuts

CTRL-N - show next command

CTRL-P - show previous command

SHIFT-CTRL-6 – Break

Configuring the Router

You will be able to learn the basic commands for configuring a router.

sh running-config - details the running configuration file (RAM)

sh startup-config - displays the configuration stored in NVRAM

setup - Will start the the automatic setup; the same as when you first boot the router

config t - use to execute configuration commands from the terminal

config mem - executes configuration commands stored in NVRAM; copies startup-config to running-config

config net - used to retrieve configuration info from a TFTP server

copy running-config startup-config - copies saved config in running config (RAM) to NVRAM or "write memory" for IOS under ver.11

copy startup-config running-config - copies from non-volatile (NVRAM) to current running config (RAM)

boot system flash - tells router which IOS file in flash to boot from
boot system tftp - tells router which IOS file on the tftp server to boot from
boot system rom - tell router to boot from ROM at next boot
copy flash tftp - Copies flash to tftp server
copy tftp flash - Restores flash from tftp server
copy run tftp - Copies the current running-config to tftp server
copy tftp run - Restores the running-config from tftp server

More detail...

The 7 Layers of OSI Model

2010-10-05T10:54:00.000+07:00

Here you will learn OSI Model Layer Introduction, overview of the 7 OSI reference model, applicaion, session, transport, network and physical layers. If you want to remember the sequence of the OSI layers model name then the following two sentences can help you a lot for this purpose.“All People Seems To Need Data Processing”. Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model is developed by ISO (International organization for standardization) in 1984. OSI reference model is a logical framework for standards for the network communication.

OSI (Open System Interconnection) reference model is now considered as a primary standard for internetworking and inter computing. Today many network communication protocols are based on the standards of OSI model. In the OSI model the network/data communication is defined into seven layers.

These 7 layers further divide the tasks of moving the data across the network into subtask and hence complete one communication cycle between two computers or two network devices. Each layer is assigned a task and the task is completed independently. The OSI layers have the clear and independent characteristics and tasks.

The 7 layers of the OSI models can be divided into upper and lower layers. I have defined the characteristics, tasks and features of each layer separately.

Layer 7: Application Layer

The application layer defines the interfaces for communication and data transfer.

This layer also provides and support services such as job transfer, handles network access, e-mail, supports user applications and error recovery.

Protocols: FTP, DNS, SNMP, SMTP, FINGER, TELNET, TFTP, BOOTP and SMB protocol are operated on the application layer.

Network Devices: Gateway network device is operated on the application layer.

More detail...

Introduction to Computer IP Address - Datacommunication

2010-10-05T10:42:00.000+07:00

IP Addressing

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

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

Class A- IP address from 0-126. It supports 16 million hosts and 126 networks.
Class B- IP address from 128-191. It supports 65,000 hosts and 16,000 networks.
Class C-IP address from 192-223. It supports 254 hosts and 2 million networks.

The number of unassigned IP address is running out and a new classless scheme called CIDR is replacing the classes based system of the IP address. In this system the A, B and C class is tied to adoption of IPV6.

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

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

More detail...

Network Software - Overview and General System Admin Utilities

2010-10-05T10:38:00.000+07:00

This section provides the overview of the network software such as free LAN/WAN tools, tutorials and labs, LAN troubleshooter, WAN optimizer, sniffer, traceroute, IP finder, whois lookup, administration, LAN security, Admin tools & proxy server software, protocol analyzers, remote computing, FTP software and many others.

Software or program enables a computer to perform the specified tasks. This includes the application software such as Win word and system software like operating systems.

A network is made up of two ore more computers that are linked together either wired or wireless to share data and resources and network can also be used to transmit information from one computer to another, to play games to talk to a friend and to share a common network resource. Network software is the information, programming or data used to make it possible for a computer to communicate with other computers or devices.

IP Addressing Utilities: If you are on the dial-up connection your IP address usually changes every time when you connect to the internet in case of (dynamic IP) and thus makes it difficult for the people to connect directly to your machine.

Misc. Communication Tools: In this category you will find various internet/network tools and utilities that are not fit in any other category.

More detail...

Ethernet Networking Overview

2010-10-05T10:31:00.000+07:00

What is Ethernet Network?

In this section you will learn about the lan terminology, basic ethernet networking overview, a general introduction to LAN, introduction to IEEE, LAN topologies, WAN standards. You can also find these categories in this site such as network tutorials, computer networking guide, what is networking, tech study guides, topologies, what is data recovery, wireless communication, computer interview questions and network certification. The IEEE standards have been developed by the International Standards Organization (ISO). The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in 1985 produced a series of standards for the Local Area Networks, which are called IEEE 802 standards.

These standards have been accepted widely throughout the IT world. One of the IEEE 802 standards, the IEEE 802.3 is known as “Ethernet”. Ethernet is the most widely used LAN technology. Ethernet was developed by Xerox corporations in 1972 and it was the first LAN.

According to the ISO standards allows manufactures to produce the devices and equipments, which are guaranteed to operate anywhere.

The Ethernet in its simplest form uses a passive bus that operates at 10 Mbps. The bus is formed from the co-axial cable, which connects all the PCs in the LAN.

A single LAN may have 1024 attached computers, although in the real practice most LANS have fewer computers than this number. One or more segments of the co-axial cable are attached to end to end to create the Ethernet Cable Segment. Each segment is terminated by 50 ohm resistors.

In today’s IT world the reliable and timely access to the information has become vital. Today coworkers thousands of miles apart from each other can share data, voice, video etc with the fractions of seconds. Similarly a larger number of the coworkers can review the research data simultaneously. The Internet allows businesses to share information and resources with their customers.

Ethernet is a communication protocol that is embedded in software and hardware devices that intended. Ethernet has become the standard computer networking protocol with the help of the Xerox, Intel and Digital

A basic LAN consists of the following components.

Two or more computers.
Network Interface card or LAN Card in each PC
Ethernet cable (Cat5, UTP/SPT) cable to connect the two computers.
A hub, switch or router to route or direct the network traffic.
Software for the communication/computer networking.

More detail...

What is DNS (Domain Name System)?

2010-10-05T09:15:00.000+07:00

You will learn about the DNS server configurations and overview, ip addressing, subnetting, domains description, how ip works. Domain name service is an Internet service that translates domain names into IP addresses. Domain names are easy to remember because they are alphabetic. On the other end, the internet is based on the IP addresses i.e every computer on the internet is associated with a unique IP address.

The communication on the internet is carried out on the basis of IP addresses and not on the domain names. A Domain name server service translates the domain name into its corresponding IP address for example the domain name www.abc.com might be translated to 102.222.34.56. The DNS system is, in fact, forms its own network.

If one Domain name serverserve doesn’t know to translate a domain name, it looks for another one and so on until the exact IP address is returned. DNS translates between the internet names and internet addresses.

How DNS Works?

DNS organizes the hostnames in the form of hierarchy. A domain is a collection of of the sites that are related because they form a network (all computers that are geographically close as well. Universities are commonly grouped in .edu domain with each university or college using a separate sub domain.

While most of the topic does not require much technical knowledge, there is one technical part of the Domain name server.

When you type a name like example.com in your internet browsers it finds a way to map that name to the internet IP numbers, by which the internet easily reach the example.com computer. For this purpose your computer uses DNS of your Internet service provider company. All internet traffic work on these numbers and the important factor is that the looking up for the name is done by Domain name server.

That computer has a list of the host names/IP address mapping, which is regularly updated by the root DNS. Root DNS servers are the master servers that can help you look up any name. All the root DNS servers copy their own data from the one master server, which is under the control of ICANN. The root servers usually have a list that where you can look for the top level domains like .com, .net, org and .info etc. The ISP sends request for the particular domain name to the root sever and root server directs the request to the master server. In this way, you get the answer with your requested domain name.

IP routing and root servers

The domain lookups go to and from the root servers because main routers on the internet, ISPs and backbones have the list that where to find it.

More detail...

DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

2010-10-04T15:42:00.000+07:00

DHCP Overview

In this section you will learn the DHCP router overview, dynamic host configuration protocol overview, network tutorials, troubleshooting tips, subnetting, IP addressing. DHCP or Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol is a network protocol, which is configured in such a way that is provides the IP addresses to the network computers automatically. There is no need to assign the IP address to the client computers individually. DHCP assigns the IP addresses from the given range of the numbers also called DHCP scope.

On the other end, client computers are configured in such a way that they get the IP addresses automatically from the DHCP server during the boot up process. Additionally, DNS and WINS servers can also be configured with the DHCP server.

When a computer starts up it gets the IP addresses from the DHCP server from the defined pool of addresses.

The assigning of the IP address by the DHCP server can be categorized as follows:

A user turns on the computer with the DHCP client enabled on it.
The client PC sends broadcast request (known as DHCP DISCOVER) and then look for the DHCP server to answer.
The DHCP server receives the DISCOVER packet and based on the availability and defined settings, the server choose any available IP address and then give to the client. Then DHCP server sends back to the client with DHCP OFFER with that available address information.
Again client sends a request to DHCP server known as DHCP REQUEST, in which it lets the server know that it is using the address offered by the DHCP.
The DHCP server then again send a acknowledgement to the client known as DHCP ACK, in which it confirm the client that the specific IP address has been assigned to it for a given period of time.

This process of assigning the IP addresses by the DHCP server also known as DORA (Discover, Offer, Request, and Acknowledgement).

When a computer uses a static IP address there can be the chances of error and conflict when two computers use the same IP address. By using the DHCP server there are no chances of such kind of conflicts and errors.

Along with the IP addresses, the DHCP server also enables the client computers to extract all the settings and configurations from the DHCP server on an IP network. These settings include the Firewall, Router, DNS, NAT, WINS, Gateway and Subnet masks settings.

The overall purpose of the DHCP server is to reduce the workload and error margins, which can occur in assigning the IP addresses manually.

The IP address assigned by the DHCP server is for the limited or leased period of time and if a client needs an to extend that leased period for the IP address then client must send a extension request to the DHCP server before this period expires. If the client do not send an extension request, then this IP address becomes free on expiration and is assigned to another client. If a user wants to change the IP address given by the DHCP server then he/she do it by giving these commands on the command prompt.

“IPconfig/release then IPconfig/renew”.

This command will remove the current IP address and assign a new IP address to the client.

There can also be some reserved addresses based on the MAC address or hostname of the client. These reserved addresses are fixed addresses and can only be assigned to the fixed clients.

How to Setup a DHCP Server?

The installation of the DHCP server in the Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 is quite easy. You can install the DHCP server by using the “Manager Your Server Wizard”.

Open Manager Your Server wizard and select the DHCP server option and press next then you will be asked to enter the name and the description of the DHCP scope.

A scope is a collection of the IP addresses on subnet that use DHCP. In the next window you will be asked to define the range of the IP addresses and the appropriate subnet mask that DHCP server will distribute across the all network. Next you will see a window in which you can add anyIP address, which they don’t want to use because these are already in use for example 100.100.100.10 is an IP address of the company’s router and you don’t want that DHCP server use this address and assign to some other client.

So you can add these addresses in the exclusion field. You can define fix range of the IP addresses for exclusion. In the next step you have to assign the lease duration this means that for how long a client can use the IP address, which it got from the DHCP server. You can assign any lease duration. 10 hours, 1 week, 1 month or 1 year so on.

Next you will be asked to configure the scope of the DHCP options now or you can also configure it later.

Next the DNS and the domain name configurations and settings can be entered. The IP address of the DNS server will be assigned and distributed by the DHCP server.

Next if you have WINS requirements then you can enter the IP address of the WINS server. You can just type the server name into the box and then press resolve it will automatically resolve the name of server and find the IP address.

The next step is to activate the scope in the DHCP server because the DHCP server will not work until and unless you activate the scope. The DHCP server is now installed and you can modify the settings according the structure and the requirements of your network.

Make a plan according to the needs of your network before using the DHCP server.

Configuring a Network

2010-10-04T15:34:00.001+07:00

In this section you will learn how to configure a network, peer to peer, client server, workstation, server, basic data communication.

Peer to Peer network model

Before configuring a computer network, you have to decide that, which networking model you require. There are two main types of network models. Peer to peer and client-server network model. In the peer to peer network model you simply use the same Workgroup for all the computers and a unique name for each computer.

Additionally, you will have to give a unique IP address of the same class A, B, or C for all the computers in your network and its related subnet mask e.g if you decide to use class A IP address for your three computers in your Peer to Peer network then your IP address/Subnet mask settings can be as follows.

Computer Name IP Address Subnet Mask Workgroup

PC1 100.100.100.1 255.0.0.0 Officenetwork
PC2 100.100.100.2 255.0.0.0 Officenetwork
PC3 100.100.100.3 255.0.0.0 Officenetwor

Please note that the above example is for only illustration purpose so you can choose any IP address, computer name and workgroup name of your interest.

For doing this right click on My Computer and then click Properties then go to the Network Identification section and set these.

In a peer to peer network all computers acts as a client because there is not centralized server. Peer to peer network is used where not security is required in the network.
If a computer fails to work then all other computers work normally in peer to peer network.

Client/Server Network Model

In the client/server network model a computer plays a centralized role and is known as a server all other computers in the network are known as clients. All client computers access the server simultaneously for files, database, docs, spreadsheets, web pages and resources like hard diver, printer, fax modem, CD/DVD ROM and others. In other words, all the client computes depends on the server and if server fails to respond or crash then networking/communication between the server and the client computes stops.

If you want to configure a client-server network model then first prepare the server. Install Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 Server from the CD on the server computer and make a domain. You can create a domain by this command on the Run “DCPROMO”. You can give this command once you install the server successfully. After you give the DCPROMO command you will be asked for a unique domain name. All the client computers will use the same unique domain name for becoming the part of this domain. This command will install the active directory on the server, DNS and other required things. A step by step wizard will run and will guide you for the rest of the steps. Make sure that a network cable is plugged in the LAN card of the server when you run the DCPROMO.exe command.

When the Active directory is properly installed on the server, restart the server. You can create network users on the server computer and also name/label the network resources like computers/printers etc.

Once you install the server successfully now come to the client computers. Install Windows 2000 professional on your all client computers. Once you install the Windows 2000 professional on the clients the next step is to make this computer (client computer) a part of the network.

Configuration Steps

Choose a unique name for each client computer
Choose unique IP address for each computer and relevant.
Use the same domain name for all client PCs.

Network/System administrators are required to do these administrative tasks on the server and client computers. Any shared resources on the network either on the server or the clients can be access through the My Network Places in the Windows 2000 platform. There is another way to connect to the shared resources by giving this command in the run \\ComputerName\SharedDriveLetter.

Network configurations steps can be implemented by right clicking the My Computer ---> Properties

For giving the IP address you will have to right click on the My Network places ---> Properties --->Local Area Connection ---> Properties ---> Internet Protocols (TCP/IP) ---> Properties and then give the IP address and subnet mask of the same range and class for all the computers in the network.

Introduction to Computer Networking Devices

2010-09-28T16:39:00.000+07:00

In this tutorial you will learn get the basic introduction to network devices such as nic adapters, routers, hubs, switches, modems, communication cables, lan/wan routers, gateway and other devices. A network is consists of a larger number of the communication devices. The simplest device that is used in the communication is the NIC adapter which is attached with the every computer in a network. If you want to build a LAN, you will need to have computers, hubs, switches, network adapters, UTP/STP cables, routers, internal/external modems, connectors, cable testers and clipping tool.

On the other hand if you need to build WAN, you will need to have routers, switches, dedicated or leased telephone lines such as ISDN lines, frame relay connection and other types of wan communication connections.

There are different communication mediums such as Ethernet cables, copper wire, coaxial cable, fiber optic cables, leased telephone lines and ever air is also a communication medium for the satellite communication. The most common networking medium is the LAN is the Ethernet cable (UTP/STP), which is used in the star topology. Hub is a central device of a network and every computer in a network is directly connected with the hub.

If the hub fails to work, the communication between the computers stops till the hub again starts working. Hub broadcasts the data to its every port, and then finding the destined computer, the data sent toward it. The switch is an advance form of the hub similar in functions but the advanced switches has a switching table in them. A advanced switch stores the MAC address of every attached computer and the data is only sent to the destined computer, unlike the hubs where data is sent to all ports. A router is a key device in the internet communication and wan communication system. A router has software called routing table and the source and destination addresses are stored in the routing table.

A router connects two logically and physically different networks. Router finds the IP address of the next hop (next router) and the data is sent toward it and so on. The well known routers developing companies are Cisco systems, Nortel, DLink and others. Every ISP, banks, corporate offices and multinational companies use routers for LAN and WAN communications and communication in their private networks. A gateway can be device or software in a network.

A gateway device connects the LAN with the internet. A gateway is directly exposed to the internet so it should be securely configured and in and out traffic should be monitored. If you are using DSL connection, you must need a DSL modem in your network. The telephone line is connected with the DSL modem and UTP/STP cable attaches your computer with the DSL modem. Modems are the devices that are used to modulate and demodulate the data. They convert analogue signals to digital and digital signals to analogue so that signals can travel on the telephone lines.

There are certain types of the cables that are used to connect two or more computers in a network. Fiber optic cable acts as a backbone between the ISPs and corporate offices. Data travels at the speed of light on the fiber optic cables. The cost and the installation cost of the fiber optic cable is very high but it is becoming very popular in the home networking and LANs also. In the local area networking, 10baseT/CAT5 cable is most commonly in use.

A server is a computer in network that provides services to the client computers such as logon requests processing, files access and storage, internet access, printing access and many other types of services. Servers are mostly equipped with extra hardware such as plenty of external memory (RAM), more data store capacity (hard disks), high processing speed and other features.

How to Hide a shared folder in Windows XP

2010-09-25T20:01:00.003+07:00

If you want to hide a shared folder from the network users, right click the folder and click sharing and security and give a shared name of a folder plus $ sign e.g. ebooks$. In this way network users will not be able to see the shared folder on the network. For you to see the hidden shared folder, map the drive and type in the path including the $ sign in the folder box.

How to Setup Roaming Profiles in Windows 2000

2010-09-25T20:01:00.000+07:00

The TCP/IP component in the Windows operating systems is considered a core component so it cannot be easily uninstalled. Using the following commands with the certain switch you can however achieve the same results and by uninstalling and reinstalling the TCP/IP components.

netsh int ip reset [logfile]

Logfile is the name of the file that is used to records the actions by the netsh command.

netsh int ip reset iplog.txt is used to create the iplog.txt in the current directory.

Caution: Be very careful while using these commands because they can directly damage your system.

How to Install IIS (Internet Information Service) in Windows XP

2010-09-25T19:54:00.000+07:00

Windows XP Professional edition has the built-in IIS. Internet information server is used to host the website on your own computer and these sites can be accesses from all over the world. IIS has great administrative features but it supports only 10 concurrent connections of the clients at a time.

Click start --->settings --->control panel --->Add remove program
Click Add remove windows components.
Click on Internet information services ---> Details.
In the IIS check the boxes SMTP and World Wide Web and you can also check FTP if you want to setup it.
In Windows components selection, make sure that you have selected IIS and you may need to insert the CD of Windows XP Professional during the installation.

How to Setup Roaming Profile in Windows 2000/2003

2010-09-25T19:52:00.000+07:00

Roaming profiles are saved on the network server. If you want your users to access their own roaming profiles then you need to open Active directory users and computers, right click on the user, then properties and then profile tab. In the profile tab type the UNC path of the user you made on the server like this \\servername\profiles\%username%. Profiles folder should be in the root of the C Drive. Make sure you have created the profiles folder on the C drive and shared it with the same name as the name of the folder. Next time when the user will log on from the client computer, his/her local profile will be saved in the folder same as the user name and this folder will be created in the profiles folder.

How to setup Xbox Network Connections

2010-09-25T19:51:00.002+07:00

Following is the simple configuration methods of Xbox network connectivity.

Go to the settings of Xbox Dashboard and then network settings. You will see IP address, DNS and some other settings.
Click IP settings. You can select to obtain the IP address and other settings automatically from the DHCP server or router.
Go to the previous menu and set obtain the DNS settings from the Router or DHCP server automatically.

How to troubleshoot computer network using Ping command

2010-09-25T19:49:00.000+07:00

The PING command is the basic network troubleshooting command. Ping shows the status of the other computer whether it is on the network or not. Let’s say you have three computers in your computer network computer A (IP Address, 10.10.10.1), computer B (IP address 10.10.10.2) and computer C (IP address 10.10.10.3). You are on computer A and you want to check the connectivity of the computer B then you will need to go the Start > Run > type CMD > DOS screen will appear. Now type there ping 10.10.10.2 if you get the reply this means the computer B is connected on the network and if you get the timed out message then there is some problem in the connectivity. This can be due to different reasons like check both the ends of the network cables in the computer and in the Router/Switch, check if the green LED light is blinking in the network card of the computer also check if any software application blocking the network communication such as firewall or antivirus etc.

How to Share Printer and Folders in Windows XP

2010-09-25T19:47:00.000+07:00

If you have two or more computers then a computer network will be formed and there will be necessity to share the files and printers. For sharing the folders, you need to right click the folder > Sharing and Security > Share this folder on the network > give the shared name for this folder. You can set further rights and permissions on this folder for different users.

Sharing a printer is the same as sharing a folder on the network. Click Start > Control Panel > Printer and Faxes > Right click on the printer name > Properties > Sharing > Share this folder (set the shared name for the printer. This same shared name of the printer will be accesses from the other computers on the network to access and share the printer such as \\computename\printername

How to secure your computer network

2010-09-25T19:39:00.000+07:00

Securing a computer networking is the vital part of the administration of the network. There are different security threats of a computer network such as hacking, viruses, unauthorized user access, spywares, adware, Trojan horses and other malicious codes. If you are managing your computer network, it’s your responsibility to secure your network from all above mentioned aspects. Always install up to dated antivirus program such as Norton Antivirus, Trend Micro Antivirus, McAfee or Panda Antivirus. Enable firewall router or firewall software on your network to control the unauthorized access so that no intruder or hacker can access your network.

Filter the internet and monitor all the activities of the users on the internet. Block the risky websites and web applications. Install a network monitoring software and monitor the activities of users. Regularly update your software applications on the server and the client computers.

How to Setup Workgroup and Computer Name in Windows XP

2010-09-25T19:30:00.000+07:00

Computer name is the unique identifier of the computer in the network. If you want to setup the computer name and the Workgroup in the Windows XP then you have to follow these steps.

1. Right click on My Computer select Properties

2. Click on Computer Name tab and then click on Change to assign unique computer name.

3. Assign the same workgroup name as of the other computers.

4. You will be prompted to restart the computer.

How to Disable User Installed Desktop Gadgets in Windows 7

2010-09-23T12:01:00.000+07:00

When you’re the administrator of a shared computer, you might want to disable certain features. Today we look at how to disable Desktop Gadgets that a user installs, or how to disable them all together.

Note: This method uses Local Group Policy Editor which is not available in Home versions of Windows 7.

User Installed Gadgets

A user installed gadget would be one they install from another location on their own. For example, here we take a look at a user account who has two gadgets included in Windows 7 installed. And also two they installed themselves from the Microsoft site.

In this example we look at disabling gadgets the user installed, but keep the default gadgets that came with Windows 7. Click on Start and enter gpedit.msc into the search box and hit Enter.

Now in Local Group Policy Editor navigate to User Configuration \ Windows Components \ Desktop Gadgets then double click on Turn Off user-installed desktop gadgets.

Now just Enable the setting, click Ok, then close out of Local Group Policy Editor.

For the change to go into effect, you’ll need to log off all users then back on the machine. When the user goes back into their account they will only see the two default Desktop Gadgets showing, and the ones they installed will be gone.

If they try to install them again, they will get the following message.

Of course they will still have access to the default Gadgets that come with Windows 7.

Disable All Desktop Gadgets

You might want to disable all gadgets, including the ones that came with Windows 7. To do that, just go into the same place in Local Group Policy we were at in the steps above, but this time Enable Turn off Desktop Gadgets.

Again you’ll need to log off all users and log back on for the changes to take effect. Now when a user tries to access the Desktop Gadgets Gallery they’ll receive the following message.

How to access the recycled files from the command prompt

2010-09-21T16:21:00.000+07:00

As you may know, all the files and shortcuts you delete in Windows now goes to the "Recycle Bin." It's easy enough to "undelete" or "recycle" files in the "Recycle Bin" from Windows, but here's how to access them from a "DOS Prompt" or a "Command Prompt:"

Go to the "DOS Prompt" or "Command Prompt"
Change to the drive you want to access the recycled files for. For example, if you deleted a file from the drive C, it will go to the recycle bin on the C drive.
Change to the "RECYCLED" directory (this is a hidden directory which will not show-up on a regular DIR command).

For example: CD \RECYCLED

Files in the "Recycled" directory are hidden as well, so apply the following command to make them visible: ATTRIB -R -S -H *.*
Now you'll be able to use regular directory and file manipulation commands from the "Command Prompt" on recycled files: DIR /A
Also note that there are two special files (which you can use any text editor to view):

DESKTOP.INI
INFO

What is monitoring mean?

2010-09-21T10:57:00.000+07:00

Monitoring is about collecting information that will help you answer questions about your project. It is important that this information is collected in a planned, organised and routine way. You can use this information to report on your project and to help you evaluate.

All organisations keep records and notes, and discuss what they are doing. This simple checking becomes monitoring when information is collected routinely and systematically against a plan. The information might be about activities or services, your users, or about outside factors affecting your organisation or project.

Monitoring information is collected at specific times: daily, monthly or quarterly.

Get good advice on how your database can best serve your information needs. Talk to another project with a good management information system and to a database expert, if possible. Think about the links you want to create between different types of information. For example, you may want to be able to link user profile data with attendance at different activities.

It is important to be familiar with the Data Protection Act. Make sure data is used for its intended purpose. If personal information is kept about individual service users, make sure that they know exactly what the evaluation is for, what data exists, that they can have access to it to check its accuracy, and that the project will preserve their confidentiality.

Here are some basic points for successful monitoring:

Build simple, user-friendly monitoring systems into everyday activities, collecting data at the most natural point
Get commitment from those collecting the information, by explaining why they are doing it
Make sure that everyone responsible for monitoring has clear and consistent guidelines
Make sure that monitoring records are completed fully and accurately – people may not regard it as a high-priority activity
Give people collecting the information feedback on the results of their monitoring, and how it is being used to make the organisation more effective
Check that the project is not collecting the same piece of information more than once.

True size of a directory

2010-09-16T18:58:00.000+07:00

One of the quickest ways to find out the size of a directory (or a folder) -- including the size of the files and directories inside it -- is to press ALT+ENTER on it.

For example, to find out how much space your Windows directory is occupying:

Run "Windows Explorer"
Select "C:\Windows" (or whatever your Windows directory is)
Press ALT+ENTER or right click and select "Properties..."

How to shutdown your computer from a distance?

2010-09-16T16:29:00.001+07:00

There's a small utility called "SHUTCMD.EXE" included in the Windows NT Resource Kit that you can use to shutdown or restart a local or remote computer.

For example, you can shutdown the local computer by running:
SHUTCMD /L

To shutdown a computer on your network ("SERVER1" being the name of the computer you want to shutdown):
SHUTCMD \\SERVER1 /Y

To shutdown a remote computer connected to the Internet ("205.56.44.24" being the IP address of the computer you want to shutdown):
SHUTCMD \\205.56.44.24 /Y

Note: You must first logon to the computer that you're trying to reboot.

Forget the association

2010-09-16T16:19:00.000+07:00

Most commonly used file types such as text, bitmap, icon, document, etc., are associated with certain programs by default. This means, if you double click on a text file it will be opened in Notepad (for example) or if you click on a bitmap file it'll be opened in Paint Brush (by default).

But, what if you want to use a program other than the currently associated one to open a particular file?

Hold SHIFT key and right click on the file
Select "Open With..."
Select the program you want to use to open the current file
Click on "OK"

Who's connected to you?

2010-09-16T16:14:00.001+07:00

If you're running any TCP/IP services (such as WWW service, FTP service, POP3/SMTP services, or even just NetBIOS over TCP/IP) on your computer, you may want to find out who's connected to your computer and from where at a given time. This information is easy to obtain using NETSTAT command.

Go to the "DOS Prompt" or "Command Prompt"
Type

      NETSTAT <number of seconds>

      For example, if you want to redisplay the TCP/IP connections every 10 seconds, type:

      NETSTAT 10

Press ENTER

Sending to a contact groups in Gmail

2010-09-16T10:45:00.002+07:00

It's easy to send to contact groups. There are two ways to address a message to a contact group you've created:
From the Contact Manager:

Log in to Gmail.
Click Contacts.
Select the group you'd like to send to.
Click All at the top of the contact list or select the individuals you'd like to send to.
Click Email in the group details pane.

From the Compose window:

Log in to Gmail.
Click Compose.
In the To: field, enter the first few letters of the name of the contact group to which you'd like to send the message.
Select your contact group from the list of addresses the auto-complete feature suggests.
Compose your mail.

Creating a contact groups in Gmail

2010-09-16T10:40:00.003+07:00

To create a contact group:

Click Contacts along the side of any page.
Click the New Group link on the left side of the Contact Manager, or select Create new from the Groups drop-down menu.
Enter the name of the group.
Click OK.

To add contacts to a contact group:

Select the contacts in the Contacts list.
Open the Groups drop-down menu.
Select the group you'd like to add the contact to, or select Create new to create a new group.

Note: These instructions work only with the newer version of Gmail. If they don't match what you see in your Contact Manager, we suggest that you upgrade to a fully supported browser or click Newer version in your account.