Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows: Windows Vista February 2006 CTP (Build 5308/5342) Review, Part 5: Where Vista Fails I still remember the day very clearly. It was Monday, October 27, 2003. Several thousand developers--and, let's face it, quite a few garden variety Windows enthusiasts--charged into Hall A at the Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC) like teenage girls at a Justin Timberlake concert, jockeying for the best seats. The purpose of this melee? Let those words hang in your mind for a bit. Even the mightiest tree... Having dealt with Microsoft for many years, I can say this much with certainty: The company is literally filled to the brim with some of the brightest, smartest, most insightful, and friendliest people I've ever met. For Windows, specifically, the situation is dire. This Bad Microsoft is not all of Microsoft, and it's not even all of the Windows Division. So what went wrong? Promises were made. Shame on you, Microsoft. Broken promises Windows Vista was going to include a completely rewritten file system, based on SQL Server and once called Storage+. There are so many more examples.
iTinySoft Total Video Converter---Complete Solution for Video Conversion This powerful video converter tool includes following functions: Video Converter Brief Introduction Total Video Converter is a piece of extremely powerful and full-featured converter software that supports almost all video and audio formats. The software is designed to convert video for your mobile video player as 3gp, mp4, PSP, PS3, iPod, iPhone etc and also VCD or DVD player, XBOX360 and burn video to AVCHD, Blu-Ray, DVD, SVCD, VCD. Total Video Converter supports all the following file formats: Convert Audio Formats: Total Video Converter supports generating the following file formats: Video Formats Converter: Audio Formats Converter: Updated History: Total Video Converter 3.71 Features: Integrate into Windows Explorer with context menu. Total Video Converter V3.70 New Features: Total Video Converter V3.50 New Features: 1 Convert and burn video to AVCHD which can work on PS3 and Blu-ray player. Total Video Converter V3.2 New Features: Total Video Converter V3.14 New Features: 1. 2. 3. 4.
TypeFaster Typing Tutor ( free download ) Hack Attack: Seven New Year's Resolutions for your PC - Lifehacker Bad Ideas!! To quote pulp fiction,"allow me to retort": 1. 2. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 30 Essential Pieces Of Free (and Open) Software for Windows Recently, I received a fresh new laptop from Dell. Upon receiving it, I did the traditional “installation of Windows from scratch” on it to remove a lot of the garbage that is preinstalled on Dells. Then I got really busy installing tons of great software that takes care of pretty much every software need I have. Not only was all of the software free, every piece of it was open source, which means that the code is peer-reviewed; no spyware here! What follows is a list of thirty pieces of software that are the cream of the crop of open source software for Windows. Not only is every piece of it free, almost all of them directly replace expensive software packages. Now, if only there were an open version of The Sims 2, I might go the whole way and switch to Linux… Thirty Free and Open Software Programs Worth Downloading 1. Replaces Internet Explorer If you haven’t switched to Firefox for your web browsing needs, do it now. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Replaces AIM, Windows Messenger, etc. 8. 9. 10. Dia
Smashing magazine screensavers best of Advertisement Long, long time ago screensavers have been used to prevent the so-called screen-burn-effect — a permanent disfigurement of areas on a CRT display caused by non-moving text or graphics being displayed continuously for long periods of time. To avoid this effect, screen savers have been used to blank the screen or fill it with moving images or patterns when the computer was not in use. In fact, we don’t need screensavers any more, however we tend to use them as eye-candy for our coffee breaks. However, if you are tired of the default screensavers brought to you by your OS you might start searching for the fresh ones in the Web. In fact, there are only few pearls – amazing screensavers you’d be really ready to pay for once you’ve tested them. Please notice: in the overview below you won’t find enormous screensaver collections such as Screensaver.com (10 points for the first user mentioning this site in our comments). Selected Screensavers For Your Desktop Source, Source Solarwind
Reinstall Windows and outfit your system with all freeware programs Review & Download Link I recently clean installed Windows XP on my laptop, and this meant that I had to re-install all the essential software that I use. It also presented an opportunity to write a posting about how you can outfit your computer with all the essential (and non-essential) software you need using strictly 100% freeware and/or open source titles.This posting could have been titled any of the following: Pre-installation: before reformatting my hard drive, I used the following programs: Installation: re-installed Windows XP on the re-formatted primary partition. Used the CD that came with my laptop to install all the proper drivers without hitch. Post installation: now the fun begins.
Beginner's Guide to Professional Word Documents Microsoft Word is a powerful word processor which, when used correctly, produces smart business documents with a consistent layout and style. For Word to work correctly, however, there are several Golden Rules you need to followed. Rule 1: Use Styles—Avoid Direct Formatting Styles are Word's most powerful feature. Everything you create in Word is attached to a Style. A style is a predetermined set of formats that you can use repeatedly throughout all your documents. Consistency Using styles ensures that document are formatted identically. Rule 2—Use Templates Templates are a natural extension to styles. Rule 3—Don't Use Line Feeds to Make Space Don't use line feeds to make space between paragraphs! This is a bad form of direct formatting that has adverse affects on a document's efficiency and robustness. Spacing is not accumulative when using successive different styles (unless the compatibility option is deliberately changed). Use tabs to align text. Tip!
Disk Wiping Utilities: How to Get Rid of Your Data Permanently On one sunny summer day, Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Those 2 characters are completely fictional and are in no way related to anyone) decided that they'd had enough with their old, sluggish computer and wanted to get a brand new one. After doing a traditional format, Mr. Smith decided to put up the system for sale on ebay and prayed that they would get a good bid for it. 2 days later, a guy named John Doe offered a decent amount for the system, so Mr. Smith immediately sent it to him via an interstate courier. Everyone was happy. Here are 3 of the most popular ones: All these utilities are self-contained boot floppies that will help you securely erase data from any hard drive using one or more of the following wiping techniques (Via the Wipe Page): Here's how to use them: 1- Create the boot disk via the provided setup file and use it to boot your computer2- Select the disk to wipe3- Observe the process while laughing maniacly (Optional) That's all there is to it folks.
10 of the most annoying Vista irritations solved Like any operating system, Vista has its irritations. Things have been helped a great deal by Microsoft's updates - updating issues such as slow file transfers - but, even so, there are still several things that niggle us. And we're sure you feel the same way. So, in order to remedy this, we've gathered together the 10 most common Vista itches that need a scratch - and solved them for you. 1. UAC is always getting in my way There's nothing worse than having your progress slowed right down when the User Account Control security prompt pops up, but it happens a lot of the time. To do this, open the Control Panel, click User Accounts and Family Safety\Turn User Account Control on or off. 2. When you want to shut down your PC, you click on the Windows Vista Start button, then at the bottom of the menu you see three icons – a power symbol, a padlock and an arrow. To do this, click the Start button and type cmd to open up a command prompt. 3. 4.
How to encrypt ZIP files securely using 7Zip Windows has had built in zip file support with encryption since Windows XP, unfortunately the quality of this encryption is poor as evidenced by the number of commercial programmes available to crack it. Winzip, WinRAR are trialware commercial programs that offer secure AES encryption to your compressed files but cost between 23 and 30 Euros per user. 7-Zip is an open-source, free utility that offers AES-256bit encryption. In this how-to I will show you how to install and produce 256-bit encryption of your compressed files. A short introduction to Encryption Encryption is a way of scrambling the data within your files to prevent a third party eavesdropping. Encryption within Windows Windows supports the use of ZIP or compressed folders, however it is hampered by the use of weak encryption, that can be brute-forced using a myriad of programs in minutes to hours with a modern PC. Installing 7-Zip 1. 2. Using Z-Zip 1. Decryption Important Notes
Windows XP Management | Langa Letter: XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option | June 19, 2006 Fred Langa shows you how to completely rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation without losing data, and without having to reinstall user software, reformat, or otherwise destructively alter the setup. It's one of those software design decisions that makes you scratch your head and wonder, "What were they thinking?" The "it" in this case is XP's most powerful rebuild/repair option, and yet Microsoft chose to hide it behind seeming dead ends, red herrings, and a recycled interface that makes it hard to find and (at first) somewhat confusing to use. But it's worth exploring because this option lets you completely and nondestructively rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation while leaving already-installed software alone (no reinstallation needed!). It also leaves user accounts, names, and passwords untouched and takes only a fraction of the time a full, from-scratch reinstall does. 1 of 5 More Insights
Download Defraggler 1.09.138 Most defrag tools only allow you to defrag an entire drive. Defraggler lets you specify one or more files, folders, or the whole drive to defragment. When Defraggler reads or writes a file, it uses the exact same techniques that Windows uses. Using Defraggler is just as safe for your files as using Windows. At a glance, you can see how fragmented your hard drive is. Give your hard drive a quick touch-up with Quick DefragOrganizes empty disk space to further prevent fragmentationDefragment while you sleep - and wake up with a faster PC. Defraggler is made by Piriform, the company that also brought you CCleaner and Recuva, so is completely free! Ten Windows Password Myths With all of our advances in security technology, one aspect remains constant: passwords still play a central role in system security. The difficulty with passwords is that all too often they are the easiest security mechanism to defeat. Although we can use technology and policy to make passwords stronger, we are still fighting the weakest point in any system: the human element. Ultimately the goal is to get users to choose better passwords. However, it is not always clear how to achieve that goal. Myth #1: My Password Hashes Are Safe When Using NTLMv2 Many readers will be familiar with the weaknesses in LanManager (LM) password hashes that made L0phtcrack so popular. It will still be some time until we are completely free from the grips of LanManager. Myth #2. A common myth is that totally random passwords spit out by password generators are the best passwords. Myth #3. 14 Characters is the Optimal Password Length With LM, password hashes were split into two separate 7-character hashes.