Make Googling Faster in Firefox

Firefox 2 has a little Search Box built into the browser into which one can type in ones search queries without going to the search engine website. Usually, the default behaviour for the Search Box is to send its query to google.com. When a person does so from a PC in India, the google.com servers automatically redirect the search request to a google.co.in server for localized results.

Now that’s where our problem is. This redirection causes a noticeable and irritating lag which is entirely useless (and unacceptable!). I would be quite fine with results from google.com instead. So is there a way to make the Search Box send its query directly to the google.co.in servers ? Turns out there is !

The Search Box is not very configurable from within the browser itself. The only thing one can do is to add or remove more search engines or change the default serach engine.

However, if you take a moment to navigate to the Firefox 2 installation directory (probably C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\) you’ll see a directory “searchplugins” in there with a file corresponding to each of the installed search engines.

In Firefox 2, the files are .XML files. Google.xml is what seems to be interesting for us at the moment. Open it ! But if you open it with Notepad, the line breaks will not show up properly. So use either Wordpad or Editplus or something similar if you are on Windows.

In case you are using an older version of Firefox, you’ll see an image file which contains the icon for the Search Engine and a .SRC file. Open Google.src in this case.

I’ll proceed assuming that you have the ‘latest and greatest’ version of Firefox, Firefox 2. But the same idea is easily applied to older versions.

Now there are many things in Goolge.xml, but just look at the line with the URL tag,



Aha ! Change “google.com” in that line to “google.co.in” ! Save the file. And it’s done !

Restart Firefox. Type in a query into the Search Box and feel elated at the reduced latency of your searches. No more redirection is involved from the google.com servers. Yay !

Now for some bonus info. We saw that older versions of Firefox had an image file for the icon and a .SRC file for configuration info. But in the newer version, there is a single .XML file. So where did the icon go ?

The icon is now embedded in the .XML file. But mixing binary image information with textual configuration information can be problematic. So how does one store the icon along with the rest of the configuration data ?

Base64 Encoding can be used for doing that. This kind of encoding is often used to convert binary information into a form that can be stored and transferred in a manner that is compatible with normal text. If you see the contents of the .XML file, you’ll see an tag which contains the Base64 encoded icon.

Ok. So this does seems a little too easy to be labelled a “hack” at all. But nice enough for majority of the people out there. Maybe I’ll put in something more l33t for all you h4X0rs out there…but that’s for another day.

Until then, enjoy the faster search results !


View Source

Use Microsoft Calculator As Web Browser

1. Open your MS Calculator. This is normally found in Start => All Programs => Accessories => Calculator.

2. Open the help-window by pressing the F1 key.

3. Click the top-left corner icon of the help window once (Icon with a Question mark).

4. Select Go to URL-address.

5. Type your address into the avaliable field, but remember to type http://, and not just www. (or equivalent).

6. Have fun!

Warning: Do not close the Calculator as the help windows(your new browser) will also close.

Speed up WIndows XP

XP Pro runs a lot of services by default that are pointless if your not on a corporate network, the following services are ones that I safely disable thereby freeing up memory but check what each one does first to make sure your not using it for something:

Go to Run and type services.msc, right click on each service, properties and choose disable.

Alerter
Application Layer Gateway Service,
Application Management
Automatic Updates
Background Intelligent Transfer
Clipbook
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Distributed Transaction Coordinater
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
IMAPI CD-Burning
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Messenger
Net Logon
Net Meeting
Remote Desktop Sharing
Network DDE
Network DDE DSDM
Portable Media Serial Number
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Secondary Logon
Smartcard
SSDP Discovery Service
Telnet Themes
Uninterruptible Power Supply
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Upload Manager
Webclient
Wireless Zero Configuration
WMI Performance Adaptor

Add "Reboot into Safe Mode" into Safe Mode

1. First open the notepad and copy following matter and name this file "Reboot Computer Into
Safe Mode.bat" without quotes,save this file to any (your's choice) location.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@Echo Off

:: StartInSafeMode.bat - by [piyush]
:: Sets Windows XP to boot in Safe Mode / Normal Mode

Echo.

Find "default=" C:\boot.ini > default
For /f "skip=2 tokens=2,3* delims== " %%i IN (default) DO @set default=%%i
For /F "tokens=5,6* skip=4 delims=: " %%i IN (C:\boot.ini) DO @set mode=%%k

If "%mode%" == "/safeboot:minimal" (
Echo Safe mode detected.
Goto setnormalmode
) Else (
Echo Normal mode detected.
Goto setsafemode
)
Goto end

:setsafemode
attrib C:\boot.ini -s -r -h
echo> C:\boot.ini [boot loader]
echo>> C:\boot.ini timeout=30
echo>> C:\boot.ini default=%default%
echo>> C:\boot.ini [operating systems]
echo>> C:\boot.ini %default%="Windows XP Safe Mode" /noexecute=alwaysoff /fastdetect /safeboot:minimal
Echo. Your PC is now set to start in Safe Mode.
attrib C:\boot.ini +h +r +s
Goto end

:setnormalmode
attrib C:\boot.ini -s -r -h
echo> C:\boot.ini [boot loader]
echo>> C:\boot.ini timeout=30
echo>> C:\boot.ini default=%default%
echo>> C:\boot.ini [operating systems]
echo>> C:\boot.ini %default%="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=alwaysoff /fastdetect
Echo. Your PC is now set to start normally.
attrib C:\boot.ini +h +r +s
Goto end

:end
Del default
Set mode=
Set default=

Echo.
Echo. Press [X] to close this window.
Pause > nul

Shutdown -r
Exit
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Now suppose your windows xp is located in 'C' drive, then go to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu ,here right click in the empty place & select New >Shortcut, then browse to 'Reboot Computer Into Safe Mode.bat' file (saved in 1 step) then click next here you may give shortcut name as 'Reboot Computer Into Safe Mode' or of your choice.
(YOU MAY DRAG & DROP 'Reboot Computer Into Safe Mode.bat' FILE IF YOU WISH.)

3. Now click start then click just created shortcut, 'Reboot Computer Into Safe Mode', Click 'X' TO reboot into safe mode. That's all! For booting into Normal mode again click start & then 'Reboot Computer Into Safe Mode',Click 'X',now your computer will once again reboot to Normal mode.

Spanish Orkut Virus

Orkut has changed the lives of people, usually only geeks would roam the internet searching for whatever found their fancy. Now the scene has changed, everyone seems to be orkutting and feeling on top of the world for the same reason.

But recently a bug/virus/spyware seems to have hit orkut, people who get infected complain that testimonials and scraps are sent automatically from their accounts to all their contacts. The virus is clever, excluding the http part of the URLs with the viruses so orkut does not ask for captcha verification which is usually asked for whenever a URL is posted onto Orkut.

Messages such as these are best avoided and deleted ASAP.


Oi , como vai?
Acho que realmente estamos cada vez mais perto do fim do mundo. Nunca tinha visto massacre igual àquele que aconteceu na universidade Politécnica de Virgínia nos Estados Unidos. Fiquei chocado quando assisti às imagens dessa atrocidade.
Segue o link do vídeo da tragédia, feito pelo celular de um aluno:
Copie o link e cole no navegador.
URL Part Removed
São imagens chocantes.
Um abraço!

The messages are also posted in Portugese and other Latin origin languages.

View Source

Goin Offline with Google Gears

Quoted from Google Gears Blog


One of the most frequently requested features for Google's web applications is the ability to use them offline. Unfortunately, today's web browsers lack some fundamental building blocks necessary to make offline web applications a reality. In other words, we found we needed to add a few new gears to the web machinery before we could get our apps to run offline. Gears is a browser extension that we hope -- with time and plenty of input and collaboration from outside of Google -- can make not just our applications but everyone's applications work offline.

There are many ways to approach offline web applications. The Gears team believes in the open web and the simple technologies it is built on, and we didn't want to change that. So Gears is an incremental improvement to the web as it is today. It adds just enough to AJAX to make current web applications work offline.

Gears today covers what we think is the minimal set of primitives required for offline apps. It is still a bit rough and in need of polish, but we are releasing it early because we think the best way to make Gears really useful is to evolve it into an open standard. We are releasing Gears as an open source project and we are working with Adobe, Mozilla and Opera and other industry partners to make sure that Gears is the right solution for everyone. We also want to get early feedback, community involvement, and rapid iterations.


Visit Google Gears

Google - The King of Hidden Services

When someone says Google, I think at least 60%-70% of people reply that it's a "Search Engine". Do you know that Google has so much thing going on that we don't even know it exist? Google has the ability to search for images, news, blogs, music, video, maps, products, answers, notebook, linux, apple, movies, definitions and the list goes on...

One thing I don't understand is why when we visit Google's URL (www.google.com), we only see a very simple and clean search page instead of a full featured page like Yahoo? At least now it's much better with a navigation bar where it shows Web, Images, Video, News, Maps, Gmail and more but it's still NOT complete.
Google free stuff
Here's a quote taken from Don Norman's "The Truth About Google's Simplicity".

Why are Yahoo! and MSN such complex-looking places? Because their systems are easier to use. Not because they are complex, but because they simplify the life of their users by letting them see their choices on the home page: news, alternative searches, other items of interest. Yahoo! even has an excellent personalization page, so you can choose what you wish to see on that first page.

Take another careful look at Google's front page. Want a map? You have to click once to be offered the choice, then a second additional time to get to the map page. Want to use Google Scholar to check references? Um, well, is that "Advanced Search" or "more." What about their newly announced blog search? Why is Google maps separate from Google Earth? (Oh, those were purchased from different companies. Yes, but why should I, the user, care about the history of Google's acquisitions?)

Anyway, continue reading to check out the list of free and hidden services offered by google in ONE page.

Simply Google has created a page that includes every Google hidden feature.
List of google free services

If your web browser's start page is Google.com, you might want to change it to Simply Google because it's more complete than the original and simple Google.com page.

Visit Simply Google

Did you notice the space below Run in Start Menu?

The following tutorial gives you the way to use that free space for your own shortcut, e.g., u can create a shortcut for Windows Media Player in that free space.

Simply post the following code in Notepad and save it as any file name but make sure that the extension must be".REG".



CODE:



Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}]
@="Windows Media Player"
"InfoTip"="Windows Media Player 11"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\DefaultIcon]
@="%SystemRoot%\\system32\\SHELL32.dll,168"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\InProcServer32]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00 ,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00 ,32,00,5c,00,73,00,68,00,\
64,00,6f,00,63,00,76,00,77,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c ,00,00,00
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\Instance]
"CLSID"="{3f454f0e-42ae-4d7c-8ea3-328250d6e272}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\Instance\InitPropertyBag]
"CLSID"="{13709620-C279-11CE-A49E-444553540000}"
"method"="ShellExecute"
"Command"="Windows Media Player"
"Param1"="%ProgramFiles%\\Windows Media Player\\wmplayer.exe"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{2559a1f 6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\MayChangeDefaultMenu]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\ShellFolder]
"Attributes"=dword:00000000




Now run this file and it'll ask your confirmation, say YES and then OK. Now you will see a new entry for Windows Media Player under the RUN menu item. (U may required to log off for make the changes)

In the above tutorial the things, which I have posted in BOLD may be changed for other shortcuts. Like u can change the name to some other if u want!
The "Default Icon" is the path of the icon file, which u want to display in the Start menu shortcut. (NOTE: Double slashes r compulsory).
Similarly, the "Param1" in "Instance\InitPropertyBag" is the path of the executable file, to which u want to create the shortcut. (Here also the Double slashes r compulsory!).

Customize Firefox to your memory needs

Limit RAM usage:

If Firefox takes up too much memory on your computer, you can limit the amount of RAM it is allowed to us.
1. Go to about:config by typing about:config in the address bar.

2. Select "browser.cache.disk.capacity". It is set to 50000, but you can lower it, depending on how much memory you have. Try 15000 if you have between 512MB and 1GB ram.

Reduce RAM usage further for when Firefox is minimized:

This setting will move Firefox to your hard drive when you minimize it, taking up much less memory. And there is no noticeable difference in speed when you restore Firefox, so it’s definitely worth a go.
1. Go to about:config

2. Right-click anywhere and select New-> Boolean.
3. Name it "config.trim_on_minimize" and set it to TRUE. You have to restart Firefox for these settings to take effect.

Fun with Notepad - Explained

To our new visitors, please try the trick posted earlier here

The explanation for this phenomenon is here:

1. Load Notepad in Windows (in my case XP Pro)

2. Type "bush hid the facts" (all in lowercase, no quotes)

3. Save this file under a name of your choice

4. Re-open the file

You will not see the text that you typed, but instead you will see a bunch of squares.

Most people think it's a Windows Notepad easter egg , but in fact, it isn't. It's just a lousy Notepad bug. Let me explain...

I was myself curious about the cause of this phenomenon, and I found out that this text is not the only one to cause problems. There are other strings that cause Notepad to screw up, including "this app can break", which was another version of the bug that generated a lot of buzz. I've personally tested a series of strings that have the same effect, including "this api can break", "this cat can split", "jane can not dance", "text wit hou tcaps" and even "abcd efg hij klmno" and "xxxx xxx xxx xxxxx". What do these phrases have in common? They are made up by four words made up by four, three, three and five letters, all lowercase.

So, by induction, all "4-3-3-5" strings should work.

Now, let's get to why this thing happens. First of all, it seems that Notepad writes the files just fine, it just can't read them again correctly. As a proof, try opening your saved file, the one that Notepad screws up, with another text editor. It turned out to be OK. So why the Notepad thing then? Well, it's a Windows thing. Notepad uses a Windows function that allows it to figure out whether a text file is Unicode or not. And that function is the one that screws it up. Because the way it checks can easily be described as "guessing". And it guesses that the file is actually Unicode, and not Ascii, as it is supposed to be.

Rapidshare - Bypass One Hour Limit

Ever wanted to bypass the annoying limit on how much you can download on Rapidshare, and don’t want to wait until the next hour to download a second part of a file? Then try this trick. It doesnt work if u use a proxy though.

For Windows XP:

1. Launch Command Prompt: Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt

2. When Command Prompt is opened, Copy and Paste this in the Command Prompt:

@echo off
echo ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /flushdns
echo ipconfig /release
ipconfig /release
echo ipconfig /renew
ipconfig /renew
exit


3. Command Prompt does the rest from here.

Make Windows XP Genuine 100 % Working

This is for all those who want to make their copy of windows genuine. Download this file and follow the instructions. Please put your comments in the chat box.

Send Mass Scraps in Orkut - Another Way

There is a little software to send mass scraps in orkut. It is called Orkut Cute. With Orkut Cute you will be able to send scraps (the public messages that anyone can leave on anyone else's profile) to all your friends in Orkut and all your other online social networking communities. The program also informs you when you receive new scraps and new topics in yours communities.

Here are some key features of "Orkut Cute":

· You can create several standard messages: they are stored in a database, so that you don’t need to type them all over again.
· You can choose to which friends you want to send your message
· Macroreplacement unique system. By placing the identifiers $nc$ or $nl$ anywhere on your message, they will be replaced by your friend’s name once the message is posted.
· By activating the “random messages” option the program will search messages randomly on its database everytime it posts. This way you will be able to create several messages and each of your friends will receive a different message.


Download

Use Google to Find Live Webcams

Type certain strings into google and it will bring up network cams. These can be CCTV ect.There are loads of strings to get this i suggest trying this first:

intitle:snc-rz30 inurl:home/

Ok so heres a list of some i know:

inurl:indexFrame.shtml Axis

inurl:"ViewerFrame?Mode="

intitle:flexwatch intext:"Home page ver"

(intext:"MOBOTIX M1" | intext:"MOBOTIX M10") intext:"Open Menu" Shift-Reload

intitle:"WJ-NT104 Main Page"

Try them and enjoy, you may find good ones.

Change title of Internet Explorer

You can change the default "Microsoft Internet Explorer" on the title bar to anything you wish. Do the following

1. Open Registry Editor

2. Move to the following key.

3. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet. Explorer\Main.

4. In the Right Panel look for the string "Window Title" and change its value as u wish. If the String value is not there create a New String value and assign the value as your wish.

Automatically Close any non-responsive programs

With a small registry tweak, Windows XP can be set to automatically close any program that 'stops responding' (crashes), eliminating the need for you to use the task manager to close down the offending software manually.

To do this:

1. Go to Run and type 'regedit' (without quotes) and press enter.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Modify the REG_SZ entry AutoEndTasks with a value of 1

Hide your files in a JPEG file

For this, you will only need to download WinRAR. You just need to have a little knowledge about Command Prompt and have WinRAR installed.

1. Gather all the files that you wish to hide in a folder anywhere in your PC (make it in C:\hidden - RECOMMENDED).

2. Now, add those files in a RAR archive (e.g. secret.rar). This file should also be in the same directory (C:\hidden).

3. Now, look for a simple JPEG picture file (e.g. logo.jpg). Copy/Paste that file also in C:\hidden.

4. Now, open Command Prompt (Go to Run and type ‘cmd‘). Make your working directory C:\hidden.

5. Now type: "COPY /b logo.jpg + secret.rar output.jpg" (without quotes) - Now, logo.jpg is the picture you want to show, secret.rar is the file to be hidden, and output.jpg is the file which contains both. :D

6. Now, after you have done this, you will see a file output.jpg in C:\hidden. Open it (double-click) and it will show the picture you wanted to show. Now try opening the same file with WinRAR, it will show the hidden archive .

Pls leave your comments in the chat box or in the comments section

Make Mobile Calls for Free

Fring is a life saving mobile application which allows us to make free calls, send messages to other Fring user and PC-based VoIP services such as Skype and Google Talk. Fring doesn’t cost any airtime because it’s patented P2P Mobile VoIP technology sends voice calls over GPRS, 3G or Wi-Fi. It can also make landline calls using your SkypeOut credits.



You can call anybody on your Skype, Google Talk contact list for free, they can call you as well. Isn’t it a life saver?

I’ve tried Fring from both the ends, voice quality is fairly good, but the voice gets choppy inside buildings or basements (I guess, that’s quite natural). To get Fring, go to their download page and fill-in some details, you’ll get a text containing the download link. As of now, Fring supports only Nokia handsets including N70, N72, N80, N80i, N90, 6630, 6680, 6681, 6682. Fring Fring!

Send Mass Scraps in Orkut

Assuming that you have already installed Firefox and Greasemonkey, click here and you’ll see popup, now click on install and the script is installed. Now go to this page to send mass scraps.



This is a great script to send mass greetings to all your friends at once, but let’s just keep hoping that spammers won’t misuse it.


ALTERNATE WAY:

Go to this site and send mass scraps

Integrate 2 Yahoo Mail IDs

Follow these steps to get a secondary email address added to you account.

1. Go to this link and login
2. Choose your secondary Yahoo ID
3. Done!

You can send/receive emails from your new address under the same old account. You could use both the address simultaneously with a single login. I’m still in favor of Gmail because they’ve implemented it quite nicely, you can use any email address (like you@yourdomain.com), but Yahoo forces you to stick with @yahoo.xx.xx which sucks a bit.

This new feature would probably bring a grin on the faces of millions of Yahoo Mail users.

Stun your friends using Firefox

This is a cool Firefox cheat which would possibly stun your friends by embedding a Firefox window within a Firefox Window. Just enter this code into your Firefox address bar and hit Enter:

chrome://browser/content/browser.xul

I tried it on my browser, it looked awesome, but the performance of the browser was not upto the mark. Anyways, who cares? You could try sneaking into your friend’s browser and setting the above address as his homepage, it will surely drive him nuts!

Lock your Computer

Creating a desktop shortcut for locking your computer

If you use your computer in an area where others may have access to it, and there are things on your system you would rather have kept confidential, locking your desktop when you leave the computer is an essential task. Here's a recipe for a desktop shortcut that will lock your computer in two easy clicks:

Right click on an empty area of the desktop and choose 'new' then 'shortcut.' The create shortcut wizard will open; in the first text box, type '%windir%\System32\rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation' and then give your shortcut an appropriate name on the next page, and hit 'finish.'

You will notice that the shortcut you created has a blank icon. To select a more appropriate one, right click on the shortcut and hit 'properties.' In the 'shortcut' tab, click the 'change icon' button.

In the 'look for icons in this file' box, type '%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll' then click 'ok' to see a range of icons for your new shortcut. Choose an appropriate icon. Your desktop locking shortcut is now ready for use. Test it out.

No More Next Page in Google

An average Googler would probably spend some time navigating through pages in Google, but not anymore. Thanks to Google Auto Pager which beautifully fetches the results from the next page and append it to the bottom the first page, saving both time and pageloads. Similarly, there is another Greasemonkey script which does the same for Google Image Search Results.

Assuming that you have already installed Firefox and Greasemonkey addon, click here to install Google Auto Pager script and click here to install Google Images Auto Pager script. Now that you’ve installed the script, check it out by performing a Google search. By default the script is not active, inorder to activate the script simply double click on the search page.

Make your computer shutdown at a desired time

1. Right click on your desktop and choose "New=>shortcuts".
2. In the box that says "Type the location of the shortcut",
type in "shutdown -s -t 3600" without the quotation marks and click next. Note: 3600 are the amount of seconds before your computer shuts down. So , 60secs*60mins=3600secs.
3. Make up a name for the shortcut and you're done.
You can change the icon by right clicking=>properities=>change icon=>browse

TO ABORT:
To make an abort key to stop the shutdown timer just create another shortcut and make
the "location of the shortcut" to " shutdown -a" without the quotes.


********* METHOD # 2 **************


Here is another trick to shutdown at a specific time, for example you wish to shutdown at 11:35am. Type this in

start=>Run

Type Code: at 11:35 shutdown -s

TO ABORT:
Code:shutdown -a

DataOne Bandwidth Monitoring Addon for Firefox

Majority of BSNL and MTNL Broadband users who opt for limited data transfer plans usually end up exceeding their bandwidth caps and paying heavy bills. Brain Fernandes has developed an awesome Firefox addon which helps you control your bandwidth bills by monitoring your bandwidth usage within Firefox.



Install Now

Scare your friends with the Blue Death Screen

This screensaver which mocks the most feared death blue screen which you usually see whenever something nasty happens on your system. After a while, the screensaver starts rolling the Windows bootscreen, giving an awful feeling to your friends.



Download the Bluescreen Screensaver from here (our mirror - 64KB). Extract the archive and copy bluescreen.scr to c:/Windows/system32 (Assuming that you have installed Windows XP in c:/). Now set Bluescreen as your screensaver. Optionally, you can also enable fake disk activity from the settings to add some extra realism.

Internet Explorer 7 Pro

If you are one of those die hard Internet Explorer 7 fan who refuse adjust with any other browser, then you should check out IE7Pro addon for Internet Explorer 7. It adds many features which are otherwise available only as Firefox Extensions:

* Enhance Internet Explorer’s Tabbed Browsing Capabilities
* AD Blocker
* Super Drag and Drop
* Mouse Gesture
* Crash Recovery
* Save Page to Image
* Quick Proxy Switcher
* Greasemonkey alike User Script

After reading about this addon at Download Squad, I was tempted to download Internet Explorer 7 and try this out. It tried few User Scripts which came along IE7Pro. You can also perform quick search by typing search keyword followed by the search query in the address bar, this is nothing new for Firefox or Opera users, but Microsoft never really bothered to add this feature by default.

E7Pro is also accompanied with plugins like Accu Weather, Alexa/Google Pagerank (shows Alexa Rank and Google Pagerank, comes from SearchStatus of FireFox) and Server Info.

Overall, it’s a must have addon for any Internet Explorer 7 users.

Download IE 7 Pro

Shut Down your computer in 3 Seconds

1. Press Ctrl + Alt + Del
2. Task Manager will appear
3. Now you will see the "SHUT DOWN" option
4. Hold Ctrl and keep holding it
5. Click on "Shut Down" tab on the task manager
6. You will see "Turn Off" option here
7. Keep holding Ctrl and click on "Turn Off"
8. Keep holding Ctrl until the computer shuts down

Make Yahoo Messenger Look like Google Talk

I love Google Talk because it’s simple and clean, but unfortunately that’s not the same with Yahoo Messenger. Bright colors and unwanted features make Yahoo Messenger look ugly! Thankfully, someone has created Google Talk skin for Yahoo Messenger.
Installing the skin:

* Download the skin from here
* Extract the contents of the zip and move it to C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Shared\Graphics (default installation folder, change it only if you have installed Yahoo Messenger somewhere else)

Activating the skin:

* Run Yahoo Messenger
* Go to Messenger > Change skin…
* Choose Google Talk from the drop down menu and click OK

Scare your friends by a virus scare

Open notepad and type the code below:

lol=msgbox ("Warning a virus has been detected on your PC. Press YES to format your hard disk now or press NO to format your hard disk after system reboot",20,"Warning")

Then save it as Virus.VBS

and go to the folder that contains it and open it if a window pops out saying a virus has been detected it's working. Press yes or no to close the window.

Then put it in the startup folder of the victim's account.
On startup the window should appear.
Note: This does not harm your computer as it does not contain virus.

The Yes and No button does not do anything except closing the window.

And you can edit the virus in the sentence: Warning a virus has detected on your PC to any kind of virus

eg.Trojan Horse like this lol=msgbox ("Warning a Trojan horse has been detected on your PC. Press YES to format your hard disk now or press NO to format format your hard disk after system reboot",20,"Warning")

Test if your antivirus is working properly

X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*


Open notepad..........Copy the above code in the file....then save it with the name fakevirus.exe

If this file got deleted immediately ....That means ur antivirus is working properly

Multiple login in yahoo without using Multimessenger

You can login with multiple ID's on the same yahoo messenger.

Follow these steps : ==>>

* Go to Start ==> Run ==>> Type regedit and hit enter

* Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER ==>> Software ==>> Yahoo ==>> pager ==>>Test

* On the right pane ==>> right-click and choose new Dword value .

* Rename it as Plural.

* Double click and assign a decimal value of 1.

* Now close registry and restart yahoo messenger.

* For signing in with new id open messenger again

Integrate Google Talk With Firefox and Opera

Now you can use Google Talk in the panel / sidebar
while browsing with your favourite browser.

You dont need to have the GTalk client installed at all.

1. Go to Bookmarks ---> Organize Bookmarks
2. Click New Bookmark.
3. Paste the following URL in the address (URL location) field.
http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/client

4. Enter any name for the bookmark like GTalk.
5. Select the option for adding in sidebar or panel.
6. Click OK and you are done.

Google Talk talkgadget requires Adobe Flash Player 8 or above.

Works in both Opera & Firefox.

Make Firefox still faster

1. Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit enter. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.


NOTE: This trick only works for broadband users not for dialup


Increase Internet Speed

Edit Any Website You Want

This is a java script which allows u to edit any website........ change every text in the website.... but not save it!!!!!

1. Go to any website

2. Paste the below code in the address bar of your browser

3. You can edit the website , but you cannot save it.

CODE:

javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

E-Books Links

You can comment me on what ebook you need. I will give you the links for most of the ebooks you ask for. Here are a few books:

1.AutoCAD 2007 Bible

2.AutoCAD 2005 for Dummies

3.The Ansi C Programming Language by the creator of C language

4.C for Dummies

5.C++ for Dummies

More Links will be put up on request of an ebook.

GMail Drive

The popular growing GMail is offering a whoooooping 2659MB and GROWING every second of space for email space.
Now, I don’t have that much email to store, so what can I do with the rest of the space?
I sure hope I can store files in it like how I do it on my Windows Explorer.

Thank GOD there is Gmail Drive!



GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Gmail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium.
GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google Gmail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your Gmail account directly from inside Windows Explorer. GMail Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag’n'drop files to.

Ever since Google started to offer users a Gmail e-mail account, which includes storage space of 2000 megabytes, you have had plenty of storage space but not a lot to fill it up with. With GMail Drive you can easily copy files to your Gmail account and retrieve them again.
When you create a new file using GMail Drive, it generates an e-mail and posts it to your account. The e-mail appears in your normal Inbox folder, and the file is attached as an e-mail attachment. GMail Drive periodically checks your mail account (using the Gmail search function) to see if new files have arrived and to rebuild the directory structures. But basically GMail Drive acts as any other hard-drive installed on your computer.
You can copy files to and from the GMail Drive folder simply by using drag’n'drop like you’re used to with the normal Explorer folders.

Because the Gmail files will clutter up your Inbox folder, you may wish to create a filter in Gmail to automatically move the files (prefixed with the GMAILFS letters in the subject) to your archived mail folder.

Please note that GMail Drive is still an experimental tool. There’s still a number of limitations of the file-system (such as total filename size must be less than 40 characters). Since the tool hooks up with the free Gmail Service provided by Google, changes in the Gmail system may break the tool’s ability to function. I cannot guarantee that files stored in this manner will be accessible in the future.

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Make Internet Explorer as fast as Firefox

Delay Startup Programs to Boot Windows Faster

The more you delay a program from starting up, the longer it takes to boot right? Here's a theory on how delaying programs from starting up allows Windows to boot faster. When Windows boots, it loads a lot of programs and practically everything at the same time. For example, your antivirus, firewall, office quickstart bar, mouse manager, messenger and so on. I've seen a lot of computer that has a long list of icons on their traybar. Loading everything at the same time puts a high overwork on the hard disk (it has to read simultaneously from totally different parts of the disk) and this shoots up your RAM and CPU usage (launching a new program is often resources intensive).

So now you understand why delaying programs from starting up can help you boot in Windows faster "IF" you have a lot of programs to load during startup. Like me, I remove anything that is unnecessary to free up my memory and also to load Windows faster. So this method might work for other people but certainly not me.

JokerSoft StartupDelayer is a FREEWARE which enables you to set a delay time between the launch of every program to avoid overloading the system. You can choose how the program windows will appear (maximize, minimize, hidden, normal) and set a different priority to the program (low, below normal, normal, above normal, high, realtime).



The image below is the report window displayed while programs are launched by Startup delayer. The Stop button allow us to stop the launch sequence at any time



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Boost your disk performance in Vista

Here's a quick tip for Windows Vista on how you can boost your hard disk drive performance. It is not enabled by default because there's a risk of loosing your data if the disk loses power. Meaning do NOT enable this option if you don't have a battery backup (UPS). If you're using laptop, then enabling this option wouldn't pose any risk since there's a battery attached on every laptop.

Simply follow the steps below on how to boost your disk drive performance.

1. Go to Start, Control Panel -> Device Manager.

2. Expand Disk Drives.

3. Right-click on your hard disk drive and select Properties.



4. On the Policies tab, check Enable Advanced Performance.



5. Click OK and close Device Manager.

This option only available in Windows Vista. There is no such option in Windows XP

Read about IP Addresses

Have fun in Notepad

Find out sizes of your files and folders easily

I found two freewares that is able to help me find out where all my hard drive space went. This type of software is called "Disk Space Management" software.

1. TreeSize Free



TreeSize Free tells you where precious space has gone to. TreeSize Free can be started from the context menu of a folder or drive and shows you the size of this folder, including its subfolders. You can expand this folder in Explorer-like style and you will see the size of every subfolder. Scanning is done in a thread, so you can already see results while TreeSize Free is working. The space, which is wasted by the file system, can be displayed and the results can be printed in a report. TreeSize Free is freeware for Windows 9x/2000/XP/Vista.

What I like about TreeSize is it's only 700kb in size and it's portable. I can copy it in my USB flash drive and bring it around with me. No configuration is needed. Just run TreeSize executable, select the directory to scan(you can select the root of the drive) and within minutes, depending on the space being used, it'll show you the size of the folders.

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2. JDiskReport
Jdiskreport hard drive management
JDiskReport enables you to understand how much space the files and directories consume on your disk drives, and it helps you find obsolete files and folders. The tool analyzes your disk drives and collects several statistics which you can view as overview charts and details tables.

What I really like about JDiskReport is, it has a pie chart beside the navigation and also the Top 50 tab which shows you the top 50 biggest files in your computer. The con about JDiskReport is it runs on Java. If you do not have Java installed on your computer, you can't run it. However, if you want to redistribute JDiskReport on your web site or on a CD, you may contact them to get a JDiskReport Windows edition that includes Java (10 MB).

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n my opinion, TreeSize wins in terms of simplicity and portability. As for JDiskReport, it has more functions than TreeSize. Since both of this freeware is small in size, no harm carry them with me on my USB flash drive.

Important Note: I've seen people simply deleting files that's taking up hard drive space without confirming that it's safe to delete. When they reboot, they got all sorts of error messages and resulting in their computer being unstable. Unless you're very sure that the file or folder is junk, then you can delete it. Otherwise, you can copy the file to another location, reboot and use your computer for a day or two. If there's no problem, then you can delete it off.

Increase Bandwidth by 20%

Add your photo to My Computer Properties

Track USB devices used in your computer

Nowadays USB is something so common that we tend to forget that many years back, we were all using serial and parallel ports for printers, modems, scanners, mouse and etc... USB was devised to help retire all serial and parallel ports since these were not standardized and required a multitude of device drivers to be developed and maintained. It was troublesome because if you didn't get it running, you have to troubleshoot it and then restart your computer hoping that when you get in to Windows, it'll work. Otherwise you'll have to go through the step of fixing and rebooting.

USB can connect computer peripherals such as mouse devices, keyboards, PDAs, gamepads and joysticks, scanners, digital cameras and printers. For many devices such as scanners and digital cameras, USB has become the standard connection method. USB is also used extensively to connect non-networked printers; USB simplifies connecting several printers to one computer. In 2004, there were about 1 billion USB devices in the world. Imagine that! USB ports can be very dangerous because Windows offers NO protection at all.

Think about this, when you walk off from your desk for a cup of coffee, anyone in your office can walk to your desk, plug in their USB flash drive to your office computer and copy your personal data, or your work project. Of course you can lock your computer but you cannot guarantee that you'll lock it without fail whenever you're out of your desk. There are also U3 smart technology on some USB flash drive that can autorun programs when it's plugged in. There are ways to hack the U3 USB flash drive to let it autorun programs you desire. It is possible that when a hacked U3 USB flash drive is plugged in, it automatically extracts all your username, passwords and sensitive information within seconds.

So now you know the danger of USB ports but I won't be talking about security it today. Before securing it, you first need to know what kind of USB device you've plugged in before on your computer. With USBDeview, you can lists all USB devices that currently connected to your computer, as well as all USB devices that you previously used.



For each USB device, extended information is displayed: Device name/description, device type, serial number (for mass storage devices), the date/time that device was added, VendorID, ProductID, and more... USBDeview also allows you to uninstall USB devices that you previously used, and disconnect USB devices that are currently connected to your computer. You can also use USBDeview on a remote computer, as long as you login to that computer with admin user.

USBDeview is released as freeware and it works on Windows 2000/XP/2003. Windows 98/ME is not supported. As for Vista, it's not mentioned but no harm trying. If you see a USB device especially USB flash drive that has been plugged in but you don't remember or recognize it, you must be cautious and change all your passwords to prevent unnecessary problems.

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Rename Start Button

"StartBtn Renamer" is a simple utility for renaming the [Start] button under Windows XP. With this freeware tool, you can change default label of the [Start] button with your own text. StartBtn Renamer also is Open Source. This means that the source code of the program is presented with it, so that you could change it according to your own taste and wish, therefore you can add more possibilities on it.
Rename Start Button Under Windows XP



imply run the standalone program "StartBtn.exe" and then type your desirable label in the "New Label" field. By pressing the key, or clicking on the "Rename It" button, the [Start] button will rename with the new Label.

StartBtn Rename, a neat and simple tool that works ONLY on Windows XP.

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