Transform your XP into Leopard!

Sooo what's that? A screenshot of my Mac? Nope! It's a screenshot of my XP  which is using the Leopard theme!
I have a few friends who just cannot switch to operating systems. "It's so beautiful and elegant" they say. That's true. And I do have some friends who still stick with the good old XP for many reasons. This post is for all the XP users who are bored with the XP themes. And I also dedicate this post to one
special friend of mine who wants to use Mac (for its interface) but doesn't have one.
Well, there are ways to install a Mac OS X on PC but it's illegal and the steps are a bit complicated and I don't think it makes any sense because as
an operating system, Windows is a little ahead.
Now let us come back to the topic. There's a free tool pack called LeopardXP BricoPack that can be used to give your XP a Mac OSX Leopard look. 
It offers a complete visual transformation. Not just the wallpaper and the icons will be changed. It looks exactly like Leopard. It's so complete that it looks exactly like Leopard. Even the Window controls are moved to the left! The Dock is also there.I have added a slideshow of screenshots. Watch it and decide whether you need it or not. It's absolutely wonderful.

If you think you need it, all you have to do is download it from here and just install it. It's very easy.
Enjoy!

Play games without a disk using Daemon tools lite

Many of the games that we use today need the game cd/dvd to be inserted during gameplay. It is very annoying especially if you play the game frequently. And there's a good chance of your disk getting damaged due to frequent use. There's another technical non compatibility here. The game is installed into your hard disk and it uses the cd/dvd for getting additional data during gameplay.The hard drive is much faster than your optical drive. So the game might run slowly.

There are ways to get around this problem. If we create a false/virtual optical drive and mount the game cd/dvd 's image onto that, then the system would think that it's a real optical drive with the game cd/dvd in it! So how do we emulate a drive? You need software to create a virtual drive and image file. Most of them are expensive. But there's an inexpensive option :Daemon tools lite. The lite version is free for personal and non commercial use.

Step by step instructions

1.Download Daemon tools lite from here

Daemon tools tray icon

2.Install it (don't forget to choose the free license option while installing) and reboot the machine.

After the reboot, the software will launch itself and create a new virtual drive which you can see in 'My Computer'. A tray icon will also be there.

3.Now insert the game cd/dvd, then right click on the daemon tools tray icon and click on 'Disk Imaging'.

4.The 'Disk Imaging' window will appear. Select the drive into which the disk is inserted and choose a reading speed. Reading at low speeds is better and safer.

5.You can change the destination of the saved image file if you want by clicking the button next to the file path. There's no need to change the image format. Many users are not familiar with the MDX format. But actually it is a very good one.

6.Leave the checkboxes the way they are (1,2 and 3 selected). But if you want to prevent somebody from using the image file (kind of parental control), you can add a password by selecting the 4th box.

7.Click start and close the window after the image creation.

8.Now to mount the image right click on the tray icon->go to image catalog->choose your image file.

Now the image will be loaded to the virtual drive and you are all set to go. Start the game and enjoy.

9.To unmount the drive, right click on tray icon->Virtual Devices->select your virtual drive->unmount image.

It is better to prevent daemon tools from starting with windows as it may slow down your system. To do that, r.click on the tray icon->preferences->uncheck 'Autostart'->Apply->Close.

Virtual drives can be used for many purposes other than gaming. And image file creation can be used as a method to backup your old disks.
If you enable compression, you can save disk space too. It compressed my 679 MB CD into a 413 MB MDX image file.
Have fun!

Integrate Wikipedia To Google Search

Googlepedia is an extension for firefox and chrome that can dramatically change your searching experience. It displays the relevant Wikipedia article along with your search results on google. The search page will be divided into two equal parts. One portion shows the search results and the relevant Wikipedia article is shown on the other. You can expand or shrink the article as you wish. Clicking the links in the Wikipedia article will trigger new Google searches, so you can dig deep into the topic. But you should always use the built in search box in Firefox(located at the top) and the omnibox in chrome (the combined search and address bar ie. the address bar itself) to get the results in this manner. I highly recommend this extension as all it does is place a very relevant Wikipedia article in place of those boring Google adwords.:)

The complete list of features are below

* Turns internal Wikipedia links into Google search links
* Uses Google's I'm Feeling Lucky(tm) feature to find relevant articles
* Links images directly to their full-sized versions
* Removes Google AdWords
* Can be expanded to take the full width of the page
* Uses your local language Wikipedia based on the Google language
* Hide button to disable Googlepedia
* NEW Firefox 3 support

Download

Googlepedia for Firefox

Googlepedia for Chrome

Browse websites offline using HTTrack

here are many websites that we regularly visit to get some already added data. You might not have the time to read all the articles at once. Or you might not be able to access the internet whenever you want. Saving every page on the website separately is both difficult and inconvenient. But a software called HTTrack can help you. HTTrack is a free  and easy-to-use offline browser utility. It downloads the website completely to your hard disk. Later you can surf the site offline as if you’re online just by opening the page on your browser. You can access the website from anywhere. It downloads everything including html, images etc from the target site. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has an integrated help system.


And this software can be used as a backup tool also. If you’re a webmaster, you can simply use this software to download all the data from the server to your hard disk. So even if something goes wrong, you will be able to redo what you did in just a few minutes!

Linux applications that run on Windows

I recently came to know that many people setup Linux on their PC just to run some basic applications. Many institutions now use Linux as a part of cost cutting. The employees and students don’t really like it. But they are forced to use it and they often get entangled in the mysterious loops inside Linux.

Actually UNIX is user friendly. It's just selective about who its friends are. :P

It is OK if you use it in your institution. But is there a need to setup Linux in your PC itself for doing work/learning at home? Thankfully, many of these apps are now available for Windows also. You can download and install them very easily on your Windows PC.

 

Some of the widely used general purpose apps in Linux are given below:

 

Gimp: It is an Image Manipulation Program. Used for retouching photos, creating logos etc. Widely used by students

 

OpenOffice: A Linux alternative for the MS Office Package. Many people find it very useful. Infact it is the most used.

 

Blender : Blender is a free open source 3D content creation suite. Very very famous.

 

Lyx: It is a document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents (WYSIWYM) and not simply their appearance (WYSIWYG).

 

VLC Player: I think Windows users are more familiar with this software. Very famous video player. :-D

 

Tuxpaint: Used by kids/students. But it found a place in the widely used apps list.

 

Avidemux: A very famous video editing software. Not very user friendly. Just like the Linux OS itself.

 

Amarok : An audio player. There are better alternatives. But I added it because of its popularity.

 

All these applications(there are much more) can be downloaded separately for the Windows platform. Click on the app name and you will be taken away to the respective websites.

 

And there are people who use other KDE tools in Linux. KDE is now available for Windows. The latest stable version is 4.4.0. It is still in its early days but I tested it and it worked very smoothly. I only downloaded a few apps. But almost all KDE apps can be downloaded. Some screenshots are added in the album below.For more info regarding KDE for Windows and its installation, visit http://windows.kde.org

 

View Full Album

 

 

Of course advanced users may use Linux because there these apps will be more stable and there are many other Linux features that they can exploit. But for all day to day uses of an average user, this method is better. I strongly recommend all of you to try Linux (not as a replacement for Windows), but only after learning its strengths and weaknesses. As I said, using it for running a few apps is like using a super computer for basic calculations.

Download videos and images in the simplest way

I know that this is not the first time you are reading an article with a similar heading… Most of them are useful for downloading Youtube videos only. Click a link on the article and you will be directed to the page of some snake oil downloader software or to some snake oil download websites.


I’m not saying that this is a perfect article but I’m gonna tell you my way of doing it using a tiny addon. Using this trick you can download videos virtually from any website.


I assume that you’re already using Mozilla Firefox if you’re not, download it from here. I’m not asking you to download it for the sake of trying this tip but because it is undoubtedly the best web browser out there right now. OK. So let’s move on.
Now open Firefox and go https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006/


You’re now on the download page of DownloadHelper, a tiny addon for Firefox. Now click on add to firefox button, click allow(pop up), click install and then restart firefox. Done!













You will be able to see a new icon in the Navigation Toolbar.

When DownloadHelper detects it can do something for you, the icon gets animated and a menu allows you to download files by simply clicking an item. When you are on a page containing links to images or movies, you can download some or all of them at once.
The latest version allows you to convert the downloaded movies to other file formats. The conversion process is explained in detail here.
It has got some other useful functions too and advanced users can access them by right clicking the addon icon. For me this is the most convenient and reliable way to download videos and images. Plus you get a video converter for day to day use. You cant ask for anything better.
NOTE:The author cannot be held responsible for any issues associated with copyright.

Get Error Code Meaning Using ErrMsg

We often see dialogue boxes with some error code (usually when we do something wrong) while using Windows . Even the experts sometimes fail to understand what they mean. It is not practical to google or search a tech dictionary every time we see an error code. So what do we do? FavesSoft has developed an application called ErrMsg which explains the error code that we enter. It is a small but extremely useful tool. I just entered the error code 23 which stands for CRC error and I got the result immediately and accurately.





It can be downloaded from this page: http://www.favessoft.com/downloads.html

The author has developed some very useful utilities.

So from now on don't raise your eyebrows when you see those error codes popping out. :D

Have fun!

Changing the default installation directory

In windows, all the programs are installed into the C:\Program Files directory by default. I don't like it because I always install software to another volume. Filling the C drive with files can cause problems and I use that partition for so many other purposes also.

Today you will learn to change the default installation directory so that you wont have to change the path manually. First open registry editor by typing regedit in the run box (in XP) or by doing the same in the search box in Windows 7 start menu. Then, navigate to : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

Find the key named ProgramFilesDir. By default, this value will be C:\Program Files. Edit the value by double clicking on it. Close the editor and reboot your PC.

Change folder background in Windows XP

Here is an interesting and funny trick to change the background image of folders in Windows XP. It is an old trick but still many people don't know about it.

Note: this trick will not work in Windows 7.

First open notepad and copy the following code:

[ExtShellFolderViews]
BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC=BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC
[BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC]
IconArea_Image=Image Location

Now replace the Image Location to the path of the image. For eg F:\Images\Image1.jpg

Then save the file with name "Desktop.ini" and copy the file to the desired location.

Done! Now reopen the folder and you will see the background image .

Regards,
Prince

Computer Maintenance

Hi!
You may not realize it, but your computer and your car have something in common: they both need regular maintenance. No, you don't need to change your computer's oil. But you should be updating your software, keeping your antivirus subscription up to date, and checking for spyware. Read on to learn what you can do to help improve your computer's security.


Getting started

Here are some basics maintenance tasks you can do today to start improving your computer's security. Be sure you make these part of your ongoing maintenance as well.

* Sign up for software update e-mail notices. Many software companies will send you e-mail whenever a software update is available. This is particularly important for your operating system (e.g., Microsoft VV!|VD0VV$® or Macintosh), your antivirus program, and your firewall.
* Register your software. If you still have registration forms for existing software, send them in. And be sure to register new software in the future. This is another way for the software manufacturer to alert you when new updates are available.
* Install software updates immediately.
When you get an update notice, download the update immediately and install it. (Remember, downloading and installing are two separate tasks.)
An ounce of prevention

A few simple steps will help you keep your files safe and clean.

* Step 1: Update your software
* Step 2: Backup your files
* Step 3: Use antivirus software and keep it updated
* Step 4: Change your passwords


Developing ongoing maintenance practices

Now that you've done some ground work, it's time to start moving into longer term maintenance tasks. These are all tasks that you should do today (or as soon as possible) to get started. But for best results, make these a part of a regular maintenance schedule. We recommend setting aside time each week to help keep your computer secure.

* Back up your files. Backing up your files simply means creating a copy of your computer files that you can use in the event the originals are lost. (Accidents can happen.) To learn more read our tips for backing up information.


* Scan your files with up to date antivirus software. Use your antivirus scan tool regularly to search for potential computer viruses and worms. Also, check your antivirus program's user manual to see if you can schedule an automatic scan of your computer. To learn more, read our tips for reducing your virus risk
.
* Change your passwords. Using the same password increases the odds that someone else will discover it. Change all of your passwords regularly (we recommend monthly) to reduce your risk. Also, choose your passwords carefully. To learn more, read our tips for creating stronger passwords.

Making a schedule

One of the best ways to help protect your computer is to perform maintenance regularly. To help you keep track, we suggest making a regular "appointment" with your computer. Treat it like you would any other appointment. Record it in your datebook or online calendar, and if you cannot make it, reschedule. Remember, you are not only helping to improve your computer, you are also helping to protect your personal information.

Prince.

Speedup Mozilla Firefox significantly!

In this trick we will be entering the advanced settings page of MF and let me tell you that these settings are case sensitive. Make a mistake and you might regret. So follow the steps carefully. This trick is only recommended for broadband users because most of the steps are beneficial to them only.

First of all, type “about:config” in the address bar and press enter. Now you're in the advanced settings page.

Double Click on the following settings and put in the numbers below - for the true / false booleans, they will change when you double click.

network.http.max-connections – 48
network.http.max-connections-per-server – 16
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy – 8
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server – 4
network.http.pipelining – true
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests – 100
network.http.proxy.pipelining – true

Now, right click somewhere on the page and go to New->Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0”

That's it! Now watch it flyin...

Prince

Repair Windows 7 & Vista with FixWin Utility

FixWin is a 529 KB freeware portable application to repair & fix common Windows annoyances & issues. FixWin detects whether you have Windows 7 or Windows Vista installed and accordingly offers you the relevant fixes only.

The solutions to repair and fix 50 common Windows annoyances, issues & problems have been categorized under 5 tabs, viz : Windows Explorer, Internet & Connectivity, Windows Media, System Tools & Misc Additional Fixes.

It has been tested on Windows 7 & Vista, 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

I first suggest that you run the System File Checker Utility.

Next I urge you to create a System Restore Point.

Having done that, apply at most one fix at a time and restart your computer.







Source:The Windows Club

Ultimate Control Center In Windows 7

Here’s a very interesting tip for Widnows 7 users. There’s a way to manage your settings instead of launching the Control Panel.

You can access it by simply creating and opening a folder! That’s cool… isn’t it?

First create a new folder and name it ‘anywordyoulike’.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} and hit enter.

I named it ‘Ultimate Control Center.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}’

Open the folder and you will see all the different settings on your computer. The folder you just created acts as shortcut to those settings. I find it very useful and I’m sure that you will like it too.

Regards,

Prince

Burn ISO images instantly in Windows 7

They have made it easier to burn ISO images in Windows 7 by natively supporting the ability to burn ISO images directly within Windows without the need of a third party tool. None of the previous versions of Windows had this feature.

All you have to do is just right click on the image file and choose ‘Burn disk image’. This will launch the Windows Disc Image Burner. It is a very useful and simple tool. This tool is intended for newbies.

But if you are an advanced user and need more options, you should go for programs like ImgBurn.

Regards,

Prince

Improve The Performance Of Windows XP! [2]

Disable Recent Documents History

When you open a file, it is added to the 'recent documents' list. Stopping this process can improve the performance a little bit. And also you can maintain your privacy.

Here's how to do it.

• Go to Start -> Run -> type regedit and hit enter.
• Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Policies\ Explorer.
• Create a DWORD value (right click->new->DWORD value) with the key NoRecentDocsHistory and set the value to 1.
• Close the Registry Editor and restart your computer.

Disable Prefetch

The 'prefetch' feature is the sixth sense of the operating system. It preloads programs that you use frequently. But it can reduce the amount of RAM available to you. So it is better to turn off this feature on low memory systems. Don't turn off this feature if you have more than 256 MB of RAM.

• Go to regedit
• Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher]
• Set the value to 0.
  
• Close the Registry Editor and restart your computer.
  

Enjoy!
Prince

Some tweaks/tricks which you should avoid.

Many of the tricks which we use nowadays to speedup our computers are actually useless. I pointed out one of them in my previous post (about the registry cleaners). Today I will tell you about 2 more fake tweaks/tricks.

1) Disable QOS to speed up internet.

This is one of the most famous internet tweaks out there. Majority of the users don't know that this one is a useless tweak. Disabling QOS wont make any difference in surfing speed (under normal conditions). I think it is a ploy to wipe out those programs that depend on QOS.

2) Memory optimizers

They cant speedup your system. I don't want to give a technical explanation to this but you can test it yourself. Open 7 applications and minimize 6 of them. After some time, start a memory optimizer and ask it to free up memory. After that try to maximize those 6 windows on the taskbar. Did you notice how long it takes to load a single window??? very very slow. Why??? Simply put: Allocation and de-allocation of memory. But these memory optimizers are widely used. I wonder why.
Don't tweak your system unnecessarily and you should have a good idea about what you are doing.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker 2.0

Ultimate Windows Tweaker v 2.0 is a freeware Tweak UI Utility for tweaking and optimizing Windows 7 & Windows Vista, 32-bit & 64-bit. It can simply be downloaded and used as a portable application to customize your Windows to meet your requirements. With judicious tweaking, it can make your system faster, more stable, and more secure with just a few mouse clicks.The tweaker is a 345KB .exe file which does not require an install, but yet packs over 150 tweaks & settings. Simply download the zip file, extract its contents and run Ultimate Windows Tweaker.

The latest release adds even more useful tweaks like disabling Aero Shake, Snap, or Preview in Windows 7, customizing the amount of items on Jump Lists.

The tweaker detects whether you have Windows 7 or Windows Vista installed and accordingly offers you the relevant tweaks only.

An easily accessible button for creating the same has been provided in the tweaker. You can always restore your system to the Windows Vista default settings using the Restore Defaults button and applying them.



Download Ultimate Windows Tweaker 2.0

Test the speed of your Internet connection.

Don't know how fast your internet connection is? There are many online tools that will help you to calculate the internet speed. Speedtest is one of them. It is one of the most popular speed test tools out there.

Speedtest

Speedtest.net is a broadband speed analysis tool that allows anyone to test their Internet connection. Ookla provides this service for free to anyone curious about the performance of their connection to and from hundreds of locations around the world. Whether you test just for fun or you really need to certify and validate the true speed of your Internet connectivity, Speedtest.net is the place to be. You can view all of your historical results, share them easily, and even compare them to others in your immediate area or around the globe.

Speedtest.net performs three key measurements used to determine the overall quality and performance of your Internet connection.

*
Download Speed

The speed at which data is sent from the Internet to your computer
*
Upload Speed

The speed at which data is sent from your computer to the Internet
*
Ping (Latency)

The time it takes in milliseconds for a small piece of data to be sent from your computer to the Internet and back

The speed test results are very accurate and the test results will be shown as a png image. So you can copy the link and paste it on your website or forum.




Follow this link...

Increase the performance of Windows XP!

Deleting unwanted startup items.
Go to Start menu->Programs->Startup. Delete the unwanted startup items in this menu . For eg: MS Office. Now let’s do it in a more advanced way. From the start menu click on Run and type msconfig and cilck ok. This will launch the system configuration utility. Now click on the startup tab. A list of programs starting along with windows can be seen. Enable those ones which you want (for example antivirus software) and usually 95% of the startup items are useless. So disable all those useless ones. Remember that by doing this you are only preventing the software from starting along with windows. You can start them manually at any time.

Deleting Temporary files and cleaning up the registry.
Temporary files are residual files that remain after program installations, or that are created by programs when the programs shut down abnormally. These files will slow down your system and will occupy a lot of space too. These files can be deleted using several methods.

Registry is another very important part of the operating system. It stores very important information about the software, users, their settings etc. Sometimes unwanted keys pile up in the registry. Usually this occurs due to improper removal of software. Manually editing the registry is too dangerous.

It is better to use a software in this situation. It is easy and will take no time. CCleaner or Crap cleaner is probably the best option. You can download it from here.
Download and install it. To delete temporary files, run ccleaner, go to the cleaner tab and click on the analyze button and after the analysis click on run cleaner. Done!
Now to clean the registry, click on the Registry tab and after that click on the scan for issues button. When the scan gets complete, click on Fix selected issues button. You should always backup the changes you have made to the registry. Crap cleaner can be used for deleting startup items also. Some other functions of Ccleaner are not described here since they have nothing to do with the performance of a computer.

Note: Cleaning up registry will not increase the speed of your computer by much. There are 1000s of keys in the registry. So removing 50 or 60 of them will not make your system run faster. But your computer will become more stable. Thats for sure.

Changing the file system.

File system plays an important role in the performance of a computer. It is of two kind : FAT and NTFS. FAT is the older one and NTFS is relatively newer. NTFS has so many advantages over FAT. It is quick, safe… Still most of the people are using the FAT file system. To know which file system your computer has, right click on my computer icon on desktop->manage->Disk management (under storage tab). Now on the right side of the window the list of partitions and their details will appear.If you have FAT file system, you should convert it into NTFS. Here is how you do it without losing data (I mean without formatting the drive).
Start->Run->type cmd and hit enter. The command prompt will appear. Now type convert driveletter:/fs:ntfs Eg. convert c:/fs:ntfs. Done! This is a very useful tweak.


More tips will be posted in the next post...