Disable or Enable Auto run CD in Windows XP?

Desember 06, 2008

In windows XP you can enjoy a good feature to run CD or DVD automatically when you loaded it into you CD drives on your computer. This is a defaults feature in windows XP but you can disable and enable it according to your nature of work. In user interface mode there is no option to disable or enable this feature, you must edit the registry of windows and be careful to work registry.

Click Start button then type regedit in Run option then press Enter for next.

Here locate the location to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom

Here you can disable or enable automatically running your CD. Change the value of Autorun to 0 for disable and change the value to 1 for enable. At the end restart your computer for this change.


Carlsberg web-tv

November 19, 2008

Are you like watching??

Or even you love football??

Now Carlsberg which well known as sponsorship in football launches WEB-TV channel www.partofthegame.tv . In this site we can find five (5) channels that shown all aspects about football from all classic football matches and fan life. You can view funny football to make you cheer up or even you can view rituals and celebrate fan to shown their real fans.



Not only that, you can get extra feature by upload favourite football, share your video and create your fan-group. For sosialize in this you can also give comments to each members. So if you like football and would be called fan you must visit and join www.partofthegame.tv as your favourite site.


Motherboard Cleaning Tips

November 12, 2008

Motherboard is the main part of your computer that contains all hardware components. Your computer motherboard could fry, if you do not keep it clean on periodically basis. Dust is the main cause to heat up your system and heat link to hardware failure. You can save your computer maintenance cost if you clean your computer on the regular basis. This will improve the cooling and performance of the motherboard components.

Here Tips For Clean your motheboard
  • First unplugs your system power from the electrical outlet.
  • Using the screwdriver remove the side covers of your computer case and put them to one side.
  • Check all data and power cables connections. Inspect all motherboard PCI and AGP slot.
  • Remove all add-on card of your motherboard for example RAM, modem, VGA, sound card and LAN card.
  • Now blow the air around all the motherboard sides and keeping away your blower nozzle 4 to 5 inches away from main board components. You can use vacuum cleaner also for this purpose but compressed air is the better solution to clean a system.
  • At the end assemble back all cards, cables and side covers of your system.
  • I recommend you doing this after every three months if you want to save your system life.

7 Common Disc Publishing Problems and What You Can Do

November 11, 2008

It always happens when you need your discs in a hurry. You're working on your disc publishing equipment and you are faced with bad burns, bad prints, or the machine just keeps grabbing more than one disc at a time.

Everything worked perfectly the last time you used the machine, but now everything has gone haywire. You glance at the pile of brand new discs at your elbow and assume that must be the culprit.

What do you do?

Stop for a moment and take a deep breath. Many problems that occur during the printing or burning process can be taken care of quickly and easily. Whenever you have an issue, contact your equipment provider, first. Equipment issues are easier to identify than problems with media and your equipment provider can help you identify and solve most issues over the phone.
Let's take a look at some of common problems Polyline customers have reported.

1. Wrong or Missing Colors
The most likely culprit is the printer is low on ink or you are using an old inkjet cartridge.

Another possible cause is that the nozzles on your inkjet cartridge need cleaned. (Check the Web site of your printer manufacturer for directions on how to clean your cartridges.)

Even brand new cartridges may require cleaning. If the cartridge is older than 90 days, even if it is sealed in its original packaging, the nozzles can begin to dry out. Rather than keep a lot of cartridges on hand, we recommend keeping one or two on hand and finding a supplier that has your inkjet cartridges in stock and can deliver them to you quickly.

2. Banding - faint lines that appear across the disc surface
A defective, empty or clogged ink cartridge will cause banding. First, try cleaning the print nozzles. Then, try a new cartridge.

You may also have an issue with your print quality settings. The number of passes the ink cartridge makes increases as you increase print quality.

3. Image Pixelation
Check the resolution of your image. You can either open the image in your photo editing program or, if you are using Windows, right click on the image, select image properties. Click on the "summary" tab. You may need to click on the "advanced" button at the bottom of the properties window. Disc art needs to be saved at 300 dpi to ensure the best print.

4. Smears or Smudges
To avoid smudges, make sure the disc is completely dry before picking it up. Because summer is fast approaching, we should warn you that discs may take longer to dry on humid days. Keep in mind that some disc surfaces do dry faster than others. If you've changed disc brands it could affect your drying time.
5. Blurry Artwork
Blurry artwork can be caused by using a graphic that does not have a high enough resolution. Another cause could be that the designer took a low resolution graphic (like one downloaded from the internet) and attempted to increase the graphics DPI using a photo editing program.

A blurry appearance may also be caused by misaligned print heads. Check with your equipment manufacturer on how to identify and address this issue.

6. Feeding Problems
If your printer is grabbing two or more discs at a time, the printer may require maintenance. Some machines use springs in their loading systems and those springs can wear out and no longer perform optimally.

Also, not all media are the same. Some discs are thicker or heavier than others. They are not defective, but they may not be optimal for your equipment. For example, we've learned that heavier discs usually perform better in gravity-fed printers. Try to use the disc that is recommended by your equipment manufacturer.

7. Bad Burns
First, make sure you are using a high quality, professional grade disc. The discs you purchase at big box stores are consumer grade media and contain more "coasters" (bad discs) than a package of professional grade media would contain.

Also, keep in mind, that even professional grade media will hold the occasional coaster. If you are consistently getting error messages or bad results, call your equipment manufacturer. The manufacturer can help you determine if you need to download a new print driver, are having an issue with your USB or have a bad drive.

Prior to purchasing your disc publishing equipment, make sure to ask about the manufacturers policies for trouble shooting and replacing defective or worn-out parts. Most manufacturers provide a standard one-year warranty, with the option of purchasing an extended warranty.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Stacy_M._Strunk

Disable Windows XP Login Prompt for Password

November 10, 2008

This trick will show you how to bypass the login prompt in Windows XP with your "local account". Yes, it's only applied for local user accounts.

Most home users would love this trick. It allows you to bypass the login prompt on Windows startup and go straight to your desktop without a login.

This Windows XP feature is pretty cool in case the machine is mostly used by a single user. Is's kindda annoying when you're the only one using the pc and you have to login everytime, isn't it?

Use this trick at your own risks

Here's how:

1. From Desktop, Click on "Start" >> "Run".
2. Then type in "control userpasswords2" and press Enter.
3. Uncheck the box for "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer."
4. Click "Apply" and "Ok".


Toner Cartridges

Oktober 29, 2008

Toner cartridges are implements that ensure that your copier produces high quality work with a look of professionalism. While there are many copiers that you can use, supplementing them with toner cartridges just gives you an additional touch of glamor.

The cartridges are generally in filled in black paint which are just but perfect for those documents you want to appear in black and white only. But for this to happen, the cartridges have to be compatible with your copier. The best way in which to ensure compatibility of the two is to check the model numbers and the brand names as well. Be very careful with the selection because there are many fake products in the market nowadays and you may just end up with scrap for a toner cartridge. One way you could do this is to ask the experts or manufactures to help you identify a mark of originality that would possibly not be their on the counterfeit goods.

Once you are quite satisfied with the information at hand, go to a reputable toner cartridge store to place your order. as you do so, you will find that there is a wide range to select from. Select only the cartridges that you are sure you need and those that will suit you comfortably. Get the right model number and brand name as the one of your copier. Make a pre-run copy test before making any financial commitment as this is the only way to ensure that your cartridge is in good shape and is functioning normally.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_Gitundu

How Adding RAM Speeds Up Your Computer

Oktober 28, 2008

When your computer runs slowly, technicians often advise you to add more RAM memory to speed it up. Not only does this normally work, but sometimes the increase in speed is quite dramatic, especially when loading large programs or graphics. So how does this all work?

Well, RAM, or Random Access memory, is a small plug in card of Integrated circuits, which people commonly call "chips." What this means is that this memory is solid state ie. No moving parts, and is thus extremely fast, able to do hundreds of millions of operations every second. Programs, pictures, documents, videos and so on are all stored in this fast memory while you have these various things open and are working on them.

Now if your RAM gets full, and can't fit all this stuff in, the computer starts using what it calls Virtual memory, which is actually just space on your hard drive that is set aside for this emergency. You can see it on your hard drive as a file called pagefile.sys - and it's usually huge, because it has to be at least the size of your RAM.

What the computer system does is, it swops stuff in your RAM that you're not actually using right at that moment, putting it onto your hard drive, and then swops what you want to use right then, from your Hard drive to your RAM.

But your hard drive is very slow in accessing data compared to your RAM. And this swopping can get very hectic if your RAM memory size is small. Sometimes when you are in a word processor and you click page down, the computer has to swop the one page of your document out of RAM to hard drive, then pull the next page off the hard drive into RAM. This takes time and gives the impression that your computer is slow. Every time the computer swops a "page" of memory between the RAM and the hard drive, it registers what is called a "page fault." You can view these numbers in your task manager program, under the tab "Performance."

If you think of your computer as a restaurant, and yourself as the customer, then the RAM would be your plate of food, and the hard drive would be the kitchen. If your plate was full but you wanted to add a roast chicken, then you send all your potatoes back to the kitchen, and the waiter brings the chicken back to you. Getting a bigger plate is like getting more RAM. (Either that, or you have to eat less!)

With programs and graphics getting bigger and bigger all the time as new and exciting features are continually added, quite a large RAM memory is necessary even in the most basic computer. 256 MegaBytes is about the absolute minimum you can get away with, 512MB is usable, but I would recommend putting at least 1 Gigabyte (1000MB) of RAM in yoyr PC for comfortable computing. Put in more if you do a lot of graphics, gaming or you're a NASA space shuttle programmer.

And finally, if you can't afford any more RAM, then you can reduce RAM swopping aka Page faults, by closing any programs that you don't need. Try and close any process that uses memory if you don't actually need it. This will give your computer more RAM space to actually do it's job in.

And start saving for RAM!


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Duncan_Kelly

About WMV Files

Oktober 27, 2008

With the increase in CPU power and the availability of high speed Internet connections, watching movies on PCs has become the norm. These videos can come in different formats, but one of the most widely recognized is WMV.

What WMV is

WMV stands for Windows Media Video, and it is the name of the video encoder that was created by software giant Microsoft. A video encoder is the file that makes it possible to watch videos on computers.

WMV is part of Microsoft's Windows Media, a series of files, formats and encoders aimed at integrating sound and video. These include the Advanced Systems Format (ASP), High Definition Photo (HDP), and Windows Media Audio (WMA), which is used for playing music files (similar to the mp3 format).

WMV uses several technologies, but mainly it serves as Microsoft's own version of the popular MPEG - 4 encoder.

History and Development

WMV was developed by Microsoft in the 1990s and made its debut in 1999. It has undergone several version upgrades and changes, and today it functions mostly to distribute video on the Internet and also in some CDs and DVDs. This codec (as video encoders are called), while popular, has also faced competition from others, notably DivX, Xvid, MPEG-4 AVC, and Real Video.

How to Play WMV Files

To play WMV files you need to have Windows Media Player version 7 or higher (there are also several other media players on the Internet that you can download that plays this format). Among the more popular alternative WMV players are WinAMP. BSPlayer and MPlayer.

Other third party applications that can view WMV files include Zoom, KMPlayer, and Power DVD. There are also some portable music players that support this file format.

There are also several programs, from full blown to shareware to freeware, that allow for the export of video into the WMV format. They include Windows Movie Maker, Sorenson Squeeze, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Microsoft Expression Encoder.

WMV Specifications and Features

All these files end in the .wmv extension. There are several components in each one, and some of them include ASF files, Sipro ACELP.net audio codes. Most versions of .wmv can also be converted to avi files.

With each new upgrade and release, Windows Media Video increases its features and capabilities. Among them is the ability to process the data with a wide range of network protocols. WMV can also be played locally, and you can also download updates and components from the Internet.

WMV files can also be scaled, and offers support for several languages. It also supports constant bit rate, variable bit rate and average bit rate, frame interpolation, interlaced video high definition video content resolutions, and non square pixels.

Another advantage of WMV files is that it is supported by a large variety of applications and systems. The Xbox 360 and Windows Mobile can run WMV files.

For users of the Macintosh, there are currently several software programs that allow viewing of WMV files, one of the most popular being Flipmac WMV, which is part of the QuickTime application.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_Garant

About Sound Cards

Oktober 26, 2008

A sound card also known as "audio card" or "audio adapter" is a peripheral device of a computer which handles the functions related to sound. The sound card is attached either to an ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) or PCA (Peripheral Component Interconnect) slot on the motherboard of the computer. The sound card receives input sound from an input device (e.g. Microphone), records the sound and performs some manipulations and delivers the resulting sound as output. It basically functions as digital-to-analog converter which converts the input digital signal to an analog format. The output devices include amplifiers, headphones or some external devices using standard interconnects (e.g. TRS connector, RCA connector). The sound cards are commonly used in multimedia applications like music composition, editing video or audio, presentation/education, and entertainment (games).

The major functions of sound cards are:

a] Synthesis (sound generation from digital signals)

b] MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface: a standard protocol which allows electronic devices communicate, control and synchronize each other. Simply we can say that MIDI allows exchange of system data)

c] Analog-to-Digital converter (e.g. converts the input analog sound signals from microphone to digital mode)

d] Digital-to-Analog converter (e.g. reconverts the digital signals to output analog signals)

The sound synthesis includes three methods. They are FM (Frequency Modulation) synthesis, Wavetable synthesis and Physical Modeling.

Before the invention of sound cards it was widely believed that computers are not designed to produce sound or music. The computers then, had an internal PC Speaker which could deliver only a beep sound, which was produced occasionally as alarm or warning. Eventually, computer programmers thought of giving beep as accompaniment for the games. Even then they could produce only beep sound for the game. Initially the sound cards was designed and marketed for IBM PC , based on specific audio applications such as music composition (AdLib Personal Music System, Creative Music System, IBM Music Feature Card) or on speech synthesis (Digispeech DS201, Covox Speech Thing, Street Electronics Echo).By 1988 game companies such as Sierra started switching towards adding sound effects in games.

In the beginning, sound cards for IBM PC were manufactured by AdLib. The card was based on Yamaha YM3812 sound chip, aka the OPL2.At the same time; Creative Labs also marketed a sound card called the Creative Music System. The Creative Labs introduced the Sound Blaster card which created a major twist in the IBM PC compatible sound card market. The Sound Blaster had an additional processor for recording and play back of digital audio in addition to the AdLib model.

As of now, in the commercial market, sound cards are available in a price range of $10 to costly models of $1000.



Different Methods Through Viruses Maybe Transferred

Oktober 10, 2008

There are different methods through viruses may be transferred from one computer to another.

  1. Now- a-days, most of the viruses spread due to receiving unknown e-mail messages that contains viruses. When a user opens such an infected message, the virus is also loaded into the computer memory. In this way, many other program files loaded into the memory are infected. This virus is also transferred to other computers when e-mail messages are sent from the infected computer to them. Due to these viruses, some time an auto generated email message from your email ID sends to your friends from your side with different virus messages. Never open unknown and attractive subject line email messages, always scan first even if you know the sender of the message.
  2. Another way of spreading virus is by using Internet and other networks. For example, when you download infected executables files or data files from the Internet or from a shared disk on the network, viruses are transferred to your computer. It must be noted that many software are available on the Internet with free of cost. Most of that software contains viruses, for example free PHP or ASP scripts are the main source of virus, always get these scripts from reliable sources. In an LAN, if a computer contains a virus, then all the computers on the network may be infected with that virus.
  3. One important means of exchanging data is through the use of removable media like, CDs, MP3 player, ipod and flash devices. So, when you copy the data from one computer to another by using a removable media, the viruses are also transferred.
  4. The virus can also infect your computer by using pirated software. The software, which is installed into your computer without license is referred to as pirated software. Some companies may intentionally attach some virus programs into their software. This program will only activate when it does not find some special files like license files on your computer.


Wireless Security

Oktober 09, 2008

The ability to share an Internet connection is great and the ability to do this wirelessly is even better. Wireless networks are easy to install, you don't have to run cables, and you can roam around a location within the WLAN (wireless local area network), or physical range of wireless connectivity . These features are what makes wireless networks so popular with both end users, and hackers.

The one problem with wireless networks is the vulnerability of your network. A typical hardwired network has physical security due to limited access to the actual network and one opening to the internet (Gateway) has a firewall or two in place (or it had better). This can stop most unauthorized access to your network. The difficulty in setting up wired networks has discouraged a lot of people from installing networks in the first place.

Then a long came the wireless which, as I stated earlier in the article, made the home networking game more appealing and not as intimidating. Having a wireless network means that the physical security that is inevitable in a wired network is simply not there. Anyone in the range of your wireless network can see your network, and if not secured properly, can gain access. If your wireless access point isn't the router on your network then outsiders can slip in behind your firewall. This used to happen at my college, there was an apartment complex behind a portion of the school, and the other techs would piggyback on some guy's network. He had an unsecured wireless network, no one did anything bad to him, they just used him for Internet access but he never knew.

There are some practices you can perform to insure that no one is using your connection or trying to get on your personal network. First and foremost you need to get WEP (Wired Equivalent Protection) in place, which is an encryption that stops unauthorized users from accessing your network. There are at least two encryption types in 802.11b (128bit, and 64bit) and should probably be changed every other week or so. WEP encryption used to be completely the user's responsibility, but now I'm seeing hardware out of the box with at least one encryption key configured, forcing the user to configure his PCs in order to connect.

Using WEP is essential to wireless security, but don't rely on it alone, there are other security measures you can put in place as well. With some wireless units you can set a MAC address filters, witch can really beef up your security. A MAC address is an identification number the manufacturer stamps on a network device, and is (or should be) completely unique. If this security is in place then even if someone knows the WEP Key they still cannot get into the network because your wireless access device will deny it.

There are two other things you might want to do to tighten up your network: The first thing you should do is go through and change all of the default security settings, and passwords. The reason I said this is most Routers and access points usually have a lot of these configuration fields (i.e. username and password or the SSID ) filled out with generic values for ease of setup. The bad thing about this is that people can use these settings against you to gain access into your network. Secondly, with a lot of routers your SSID is set to broadcast by default, this means that it's broadcasting your network's name to the physical reaches of your network. Not good, even if your neighbors don't have the security rights to access your network they will constantly see it every time they boot up one of their wireless PC's.


What kind of attachments can contain viruses

Oktober 08, 2008

Basically, anything that is executable (able to run). You're generally safe with picture files, text files, and the like. However, it still pays to scan first.

Here is a very short list of the most common to watch out for:

exe
zip
scr
vbs
bat
com
pif
asp
doc
xls

Those are the most common; don't misinterpret this to mean that if you get one of these files it's automatically a virus. A ".zip" file may be nothing more than a set of compressed files your friend sent you to look at. A "doc" or "xls" file may simply be an MS Office file. It's just that these type of files could also be viruses.

A couple other virus tricks you need to be aware of. First, MS Office files can contain what are called "Macro Viruses". Without getting into too much detail, these files can run a "macro" (a macro is a mini-program run from within another program) that can be as destructive as any "regular" virus. So, my advice on MS Office attachments is not to open them unless you are expecting them. If they just show up, verify with the sender first.

The other trick you need to look out for is an extra extension added to an attached file. For example, you may have something like "mypicture.jpg.vbs". In fact, if you don't have your computer set to view file extensions, it may just look like "mypicture.jpg" and omit that last "vbs" part.

This may appear to be a jpg picture file, but it's actually a Visual Basic Script file. If executed, it will happily infect your computer with a virus.

So, be careful out there.


Web Bugs

Oktober 07, 2008

Have you ever heard the term Web Bug? How about Web Beacon or Clear GIF? Well, don't feel left out if you haven't, it's not everyday terminology. The terms I mentioned are different names for the same thing. For the sake of remaining simple I'll stick with one name Web Bug. So what are Web Bugs and what to they do? They are small (1 by 1 pixel), usually transparent gifs hidden on websites or e-mails within other images like banner adds. Web bugs come from a different site than the one you are viewing but are most often affiliated with the site being viewed.

They are a lot like cookies in that they allow sites to recognize you and track where you've been. Web Bugs have a couple of major differences however. Web bugs share your information with any site that you may visit with the same type of web bug imbedded on it. The personal information bugs are sharing can be harmless information or very personal information, it depends on what information you have put on one of these sites. If you have given one of these sites information like your email address, then every other site you visit with the same bug will have your email address and can now send you spam. By sharing this personal information between sites these entities using bugs can get your email address and send out more spam and web bugs right to your front door. If you visit a site that recognizes you from a Web Bug then that server can not only track you but also send images and blocks of text to you. Web Bugs are also harder to detect than cookies because they are hidden, extremely small, and invisible.

These Web Bugs can also be placed in e-mails, a favorite trick of spammers is to hide a Web Bug in a random email. Opening or even previewing this e-mail can initiate the Web Bug process, which tells spammers that this is a valid e-mail address when someone views it. This validates your address, essentially making you part of their list of e-mails to spam. Most of the more recognized e-mail clients are affected by this such as Outlook Express, Gecko for Linux, Netscape, AOL, and more.

So, how do you stop or prevent these web Bugs from tracking you? As far as e-mail, make sure you don't open or even preview e-mails from unknown sources. Another thing you can do to prevent the Web bugs from biting is to block images in your e-mail all together, this will stop the GIFs from getting through your defenses. Win XP Service Pack 2 turns this setting ON by default in Outlook Express, and other e-mail clients have similar options (i.e. MSN/Hotmail and AOL).

You can also configure tougher cookie settings in your browser, but keep in mind all of these settings will affect the way you surf the web and view your e-mail. You can get advertising blocking software, but these programs have a hard time distinguishing between images that show information and images that are crawling' with Bugs. You can also go through the HTML code and look for the img tag that relates to a cookie (sounds like fun).

So are these bugs really something to get all worked up about? Well if you really don't like the thought of constantly being tracked and evaluated. If you don't like spam or pop-ups then this could be something you might want to at least regulate. You can figure out exactly what a web bug is doing by viewing the privacy policy which should be located on the website of the owner of the bug. If you don't find the privacy policy, you can always send the company e-mail and ask for what purposes do they have web bugs on their site.


How Firewalls Work

There are mean people out there that want very badly to get into your system or network. Maybe they want to steal information, to simply cause as much destruction as possible, or to use your system for their own uses. If you're online a lot or have a broadband connection, the attempts to enter your system may be relentless.

I feel that there are three main areas of defense against these threats: Anti-virus (of course), Firewall, and Spyware removal. With some programs being more important than others, but none being without importance. What I would like to do is give all of our readers at least a good concept of what these Firewalls and Anti-virus programs do to protect your system. I'm going to attempt to highlight the functions of these utilities and even some good practices that you can implement.

This week I'll be discussing the first line of defense between you and the Internet firewall. A firewall isn't going to stop you from getting a lot of viruses out there, unless it's the kind of viruses that proactively scans systems for open ports like the 32.Sasser that has recently stepped onto the virus scene. Where firewalls really come into play is in the area of Internet or Network access.

There are two basic types of firewalls: hardware and software.

A common hardware firewall is a routers. In a small network it sits in-between your PC and modem. These firewalls feature the ability to hide your PC from others on the Internet by assigning you private IP addresses through a process called NAT (Network Address Translation) or DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol).

I may have lost some people there who are not familiar with IP addressing. This can get confusing rather quickly. To put it simpler: a router will take the Internet address that your ISP has doled out to you and give the PCs the are connected to the router a generic private IP address (not valid for the internet). The other primary job is to close ports (these are numbers that are associated with certain jobs, for example most email clients and servers use SMTP port 25 and POP3 port#110) ports can be a vulnerability as seen in the past and a hacker can have an easy time getting into your PC with ports wide open to the world. When hackers try to scan your network for known vulnerable ports the Firewall simply drops the packets because they contain data that no PC on the network requested.

Software firewalls are a little bit different and they have good points and bad points. First let me start by saying that it is always better to have a firewall then not to. The main difference between the two styles of firewalls is that one is an external device that runs on it's own hardware. The software firewall is an application that runs on your PC. This is the one down side I believe because it's one more application running on your PC while you're trying to surf the web and can cause resource overhead and slow things down in older PCs. In concept the firewalls really are the same, except that one of the biggest differences is a software firewall doesn't have any address translation services (i.e. NAT or DCHP).

Software firewalls do have some really great features however. For instance, a software firewall is great for someone who is new to this area of PCs and wants to learn more. I say this because most of these firewalls have a reasonably easy to understand interface different from the more "Techie" looking router interfaces.

Software firewalls also have a feature for Internet access that I think is very informative, for example in most of the software firewalls I have come across when a program tries to access the internet the firewall will pop up and ask you if you want this action to be allowed every time, prompt every time, or deny Internet access to the program. Most software firewalls will also notify you when someone from outside is hitting your firewall and a lot of times you get the IP address of the party on the other end of the actions. Both of these features can be used to further protect your PC, in some cases you might even be able catch a hacker trying to get into your PC by getting their IP address and then asking there ISP what this IP address is doing pinging your IP address.

I've actually helped one of customers do this they called me up and said that there firewall kept making noises and popping up with windows saying that there was some activity on here firewall. She said that this had been going on for a couple of days. Well we opened up the interface and looked at the log describing what the activity was and from whom it originated. There were a bunch of pings hitting her firewall, but the software gave us the IP address, and from there we opened up a command line and pinged the IP address back and it came up with their ISP's domain name. She called that ISP and talked to them about this address and what has been going on. I wouldn't be surprised if he was kicked from his Internet service.


How to secure your password from hackers attacks?

Oktober 06, 2008

Today tip will help you to secure your computer from the access of professional hackers. There are some hacker’s breaks into your computer without using any impressive programming skills but trying to find words to guess as your password. Normally people use their name, house number, mobile number and word “password” as a password. If you have very simple password then a hacker can hack your computer very easily. To safe your computer from hackers there is a best way to create a tricky password. Here I will tell you some different type of tricks to make your password that can’t guess easily by any body.

Use the maximum characters in your password.
Always set the password using maximum characters length, because it is simple method, if your password is longer then it is very difficult to guess.

Use the combination of lower-case and upper case letters in your password.
Normally computer users use the lower case in password selection but it is best practice to use the combination of both (lower-case and upper case). So using different cases in your password makes it much more difficult to crack.

Use the combination of letters and numbers in your password.
When you mix both letters and numbers just like one letter and one number then your password is more incomprehensible.

Avoid using the name of your family members as password.
Always try to avoid the name of your child, spouse, city and country name as password, because if any body knows about your personal life’s details then they try to use these detail to guess your password.

Use any tools to create random password.
There are many third party tools are available to create the random password. You can create passwords containing a very difficult –to-guess collection of random characters with these tools.

How You Can Maintain Your Personal Computer

It has been said that computers are the new revolution. Once thought only to be essential for business offices, computers are now in over 60% of all homes in the US and other countries are quickly getting there as well. Computers used to be for the scientist or the geek but now people from all walks of life use the computers to get onto the Internet to communicate via email, read the news, share pictures and videos and even work from home. With the number of home computers now almost as common as homes with television sets, the issue of PC maintenance comes into the picture. Should you buy the limited or lifetime warranty on your PC or MAC, or should you scout your local classified section of your newspaper to get a technician to call in case something goes wrong? Or should you just do maintenance yourself? We're going to concentrate on how you can maintain your PC to avoid making that call to a technician.

1. Power surge protection

While electricity is what powers your home PC, it can also be its worst enemy. Power surges are now the number one cause of computer data and critical parts malfunction in the United States and elsewhere. A power surge is a sudden increase in the power coming into your home through the electrical outlets. This sometimes can come about as a result of a storm that causes lightning to surge through the power grid causing a temporary interruption and then resumption of power. This slight electrical hiccup can cause a massive power surge to be sent into your PC and practically fry critical components. To guard against this, you need to purchase a Power Surge Protector. The best ones come from a company called APC.

2. Do not turn off PC

Many people have this impression that computers, like television sets or radios, need to be turned off when they go to bed. This is not the case. Windows operated computers need not be turned off and on all the time. Turning computers off and then on may result in data damage and even a system crash. Most PCs have a sleep or hibernate button which should be pressed to enable to computer to "snooze"

3. Do not download from unknown websites

A computer's worst enemy is a computer virus. Viruses travel across the Internet and gain entry into one's computer via emails, email attachments and downloading software and other programs from third party sites which have a dubious origin. Viruses can also get into your computer via streaming media (watching streaming video or listening to audio from unverified sites). If you are given to visiting third party sites and downloading media and programs, make sure you have a recent version of a good anti-virus software such as Norton or McAfee. Also do anti-virus scans on your PC and do not open email attachments from people you do not know.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Theodor_Cartman

8 methods prevented Laptop Overheat

Oktober 05, 2008

The incident laptop exploded because overheat (hot excessive) in recent times often happened. Be on the alert quite important, but did not become paranoid. Take note the method avoided overheat in laptop along with this…

1. Clean the ventilation system in laptop with the compressor.

2. Always placed laptop in the hard surface. Avoided placed laptop in the blanket, cloth wool or the other soft surface that could obstruct the wind and the exchange of air.

3. Turn off laptop before putting him into the box/the bag. If you did not want to kill him, arranged laptop in the condition hibernate. This was important to prevent the occurrence of the process of the hot increase. Don't very much-time placed laptop that was operating in the crowded place, this could increase hot.

4. Instal software monitoring, like SpeedFan, that enabled you to supervise and monitor the temperature of the processor, hard drive and the other component.

5. Arranged setting power to prevent hot was abundant to the component like the screen and hard drive. Lowered power as soon as possible if indeed was not needed.

6. And you too could use the cooler laptop that could prevent hot excessive.

7. If laptop you potential experienced overheat and still in the guarantee period, don't hesitate to report your complaint.

8. If you were planned bought laptop just, don't be reckless! Thorough previously thoroughly. Look for information about laptop the model and the make what often overheat, so as you did not regret in afterwards the day.



How to Penetrated Proteksi PC Security TM

Oktober 01, 2008

If you the lover software-software the protection for windows, you must know with software this one. PC Security was software the protection to file-file, the system, boot et cetera that was equipped with fiture-fiture the interesting protection.

To be able to enter and changed setting his protection, you must ident as the administrator PC security and for this will be asked for password

So that you could login without through password, his method searched file that his name sdeamon.exe and winwd.exe that was file the PC Security TM gift, file this dihidden from windows, so entered through DOS.

Usually this location in the directory c:\windows or c:\windows\system. Delete the two file this and you can enter PC Security TM easily and changed setting him without being asked for password.

Have Nice Try..


What is a Wireless Router and What Are Its Benefits?

September 30, 2008

With the onset of advanced technology and communications, more terms have come up to define and refer to the systems and processes. With interconnection changing the landscape of the world and Internet phenomenon, our lives are more connected with each other.

But there is the need to provide security against those elements that would seek to destroy our systems and processes. One of these is a wireless router and this refers to a device located in a wireless local area network that identifies what is the next network point to which a packet should be transferred towards its planned destination. A wireless router has the same function and work as that of a hard-wired home or business local area network but the difference is that a wireless router actually provides a greater movement or mobility for laptops, notebook and other portable computer. This is because the individual computers are installed with wireless trans-receivers that can be inserted to a USB port or a PC Card slot.

Another function of a wireless router is that wireless router actually provides for a hardware firewall for those computer with high speed Internet connections, either for a home or business use and even if the home or business only has one computer. It was also believed that the use of this wireless router guarantees a higher protection against the possibility of hacking because when one has individual computer, the IP addresses are not exposed to the Internet.

Another thing is that a wireless router does not eat up the resources of a computer unlike a firewall. The past years, the technology of a wireless router developed, allowing for more connection of different computers to a LAN. Specifically, the newer wireless router provides a specification of 802.11g and this allows for greater transmission over shorter distances up to 54 megabits compare with the earlier standard.

Further, wireless routers can allow greater connectivity inside various enterprises and the internet and inside what is called as Internet Service Providers and larger routers are used in very large enterprise networks and the small ones are for the connectivity for small and home offices. So the size of your wireless router would depend on how extensive the use would be.

The question arises on whether there is the need to have a wireless router and the answer is in the affirmative. This is because most home users would want to connect all their computers to the Internet without the need to pay broadband service for each of the computers. In several instances, an ISP will permit you to use a wireless router and connect various computers to an Internet connection and simply pay a small fee. The price of wireless router would depend on the brand but the price range is from $40 to $73.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Wendy_Pan

How to Use the Zone Alarm Free Firewall

Zone Alarm's free firewall program is designed to help protect your computer from hackers and viruses. Basically, a firewall is like a castle wall surrounding your computer. Only those programs and users that you choose to lower the drawbridge for can enter. The rest, including harmful programs and hackers, will be unable to access your computer. There are a variety of firewall programs out there, but Zone Alarm is one of the most trusted and well-known.

The first step in installing Zone Alarm is, of course, to download it. Visit www.zonealarm.com to get the free version of the software. Unlike some "free" software, Zone Alarm won't expire after so many days or require any sort of code to access all of its features. Before you start the install, you should disable (or, preferably, uninstall) any other firewall programs you have on your computer.

After going through all the normal installation steps (agreeing to the user license, entering your email, etc.), you'll see the option to install Zone Alarm Pro instead of the Free version. This version costs money. Although you may eventually want to upgrade to this product, select the free option for now. You will also get the option of having Zone Alarm update itself automatically. That's not a bad idea if you don't want to have to deal with installing updates.

Now it's time to configure Zone Alarm. Once this is done, Zone Alarm more or less runs by itself, and you won't have to do much with it on a day to day basis. First, you'll see the overview screen. If you click on preferences, you should see that Zone Alarm loads at startup (check it if it's not). Then click on Firewall. Here, you can decide how tight your firewall settings should be. The higher the setting, the fewer online programs and web scripts your computer will be able to run. Generally, you want the internet zone to be set to high to keep out viruses and such.

Program Control is another section that you'll want to check. You always want to have it set at medium or high; otherwise, programs like adware or viruses on your computer will have free access to send information to other computers online.

Once all of this is configured, you'll get a pop-up box every time a program wants to access the internet. For the first week or so, you'll see these often, but once Zone Alarm learns which programs should have access, the pop-ups will stop and you can rest assured that the Zone Alarm firewall is protecting your computer and the personal information stored there.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sarah_Russell

4 Benefits of a Microsoft Registry Fix Program Uncovered

September 29, 2008

Every time a new update is downloaded or new software is added to a computer, the files go directly into the computer registry. Over the lifetime of a computer, the system registry gets packed full of all types of files and downloads, many of which end up being unnecessary when new downloads are complete.

Because of this, a computer can start to run slow and even errors can result, which is why a Microsoft registry fix program is essential for practically every computer.

Benefit #1

A Microsoft registry fix program is a great way to keep a computer running like new, even after various updates are completed. It is a program that is installed on any computer run on the Windows program, and it goes to work to get rid of anything and everything that is taking up extra space.

Because the system registry is important for holding all of the essential files for updates and new software, there needs to be plenty of room to hold the files that are needed. Once the Microsoft registry fix program is installed on the computer, it goes to work to clear out the system registry in only a few minutes.

Benefit #2

A Microsoft registry fix program can work in about as little as ten minutes, and it can turn a slow running computer into one that seems brand new. It will get rid of everything from old updates that have occurred, old versions of software that were installed, and even partial downloads or files that are only taking up space.

It knows how to recognize the essential files and software that is necessary for the computer to run, and they are left alone to ensure the computer is able to function properly.

Benefit #3

Not only is a Microsoft registry fix program beneficial for speeding up the performance of a computer, but it can help to fix errors and even prevent errors from happening in the future. Some common errors can result when new updates are being installed or new software being added, since the new files can interact with old files that are no longer in use.

By getting rid of the files that are no longer necessary, there is no need to worry about an error occurring when new software or updates are being added to the computer. The Microsoft registry fix program works to get rid of any possible errors that can occur, and even works great if you are experiencing an error when trying to update the software on your PC.

Benefit #4

Just like many other electronics, a computer requires regular maintenance in order to maintain its life. By performing a Microsoft registry fix program on the computer every couple of months; it can keep the computer in perfect working condition. Getting rid of old files, partial downloads, and even old software that was overrun by newer versions, the system registry will be able to fully manage all of the necessary files.

A Microsoft registry fix program is a great accessory for all computer owners, since it helps to keep a computer in perfect working order. It is great for cleaning out the system registry to help the computer run smoothly, and is even great for fixing errors and preventing system registry errors from happening in the future. By performing a Microsoft registry fix program on a regular basis, you can extend the life of your computer and keep it running smooth.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Izrul_Fizal

The Best Way to Fix a Corrupt Registry

If you are having problems with your PC, the chances are your registry has become corrupt. Symptoms of a corrupt registry include mysterious error messages, slow boot up process, programs that refuse to load, and your system running a lot slower than it used to. Before you take your computer to the local PC World, or even reformat your hard drive, there is another option to consider - cleaning the registry.

The Windows registry is like the computer's diary. This is where it keeps a note of all the programs that are installed, and all the configuration files which are associated with these installed programmes. The problem of a corrupt registry arises due to the sheer volume of these configuration files. When you uninstall or upgrade a program on you PC, unwanted registry entries should be removed by the uninstall process. Sometimes this doesn't happen, though, and as a result orphan files are left on your system. This can be a cause of error messages and the slow performance that you might experience.

Sometimes when you install a program it creates a flag in the registry which makes the program start when you boot up your computer. This sounds harmless enough, but when there are ten other programs all trying to start up while your computer is booting up, you can see where the performance degradation can come from. It can get rather frustrating when your computer takes five minutes to boot up every time.

There are basically two ways to fix a corrupt registry. Fixing it manually involves running a program called "regedit" from the Windows Start/Run command line. You would then remove entries in the registry which you knew were causing you errors. This way should only be undertaken by someone who knows their way around a computer, as it would be very easy to do some serious damage to your PC this way.

Undoubtedly the best, easiest, and safest way to fix a corrupt registry is by using one of the commercial software tools available on the market these days. There are a number of them available, and you should read up on them to find out which one is best for you. A commercial tool will scan your system for errors, fix any it finds, and record any changes it makes (so you can revert back, if need be). You can use one of these software tools to easily keep your registry clean and avoid any problems in the future.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brian_Sinclair


What You Must Know About Registry Cleaners

September 26, 2008

Registry cleaners are programs that are designed to clean your registry of invalid entries that clogs up your system and makes it slow down. Malicious threats that can harm your PC are also removed by this type of software. Registry cleaners also remove the worms, Trojan, viruses, and the likes, which can slow down your computer or cause it to crash or freeze. The first thing that you should bear in mind before buying the registry cleaner you want is to do your homework. Read the reviews and various opinions about the product.

Go to the discussion boards and forums to read on what others has to say about the registry cleaning tool. Do not hesitate to ask questions to clarify or verify that you understand what the registry cleaner is all about. Many people will gladly answer your question. Note also whether many people are facing problems in using the software.

The registry cleaner is a software that must be downloaded. After you install it, scan your system and it will clean your PC of the errors that keep on popping up. It will also remove viruses and spyware that might be harboring in your computer. No matter how many threats are detected by the registry repair tool, all of them can be removed with just a couple of clicks from your mouse. Backups and restore points are also created by the registry cleaner. It has also many tools that will repair the many errors. Another good thing about this is that the speed of your computer will be back to its original, just like when you first bought it.

You also have a choice if you want to perform a full scan or a easy scan. After a doing a simple scan, you will notice that your PC has improved a lot. You now notice the difference before and after! Your PC is running smoothly and without any error messages. Imagine if you were to use a full scan! Your system will really be superb. Do not torture yourself waiting for your system to load on start up, or wasting valuable time restarting your PC because of crashes and freezes. Get a registry cleaner today.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_James_A._Woods

What Are the Tools That You Need to Optimize Windows?

September 25, 2008

Over time, Windows tend to slow down. Even though there are updates on the drivers, the operating systems, still, there comes a time when your system just slows down. No matter how careful you were in using your machine, it slowing down of your machine will eventually happen. Many processes are loaded when your PC starts; applications searching for updates, hardware controls, and many more. Some of these processes are important while there are others that are not necessary and they may be disabled upon start up to save usage of your CPU. Here are some of the tools that can be helpful when you want to optimize the performance of your computer.

1. The Defrag and Scandisk Tool: Uploading and downloading many types of files like videos, graphics, games are often done. This clutters up the hard disk space and they become fragmented. Run a defragmenting schedule for your PC from time to time. Couple it with a Scandisk tool. For the Scandisk, use it at least once in a week. As Windows is being upgraded, Scandisk starts automatically when it detects a problem on the hard disk. It is also built into Windows which help fix system files and make your computer run smoothly.

2. Security: Tools that offer security for your PC often comes in a set of Firewall, Antivirus, Antispy, and anti adware features. Viruses are continually increasing in the internet. That's why it is important to have a reliable and updated antivirus software that will scan you computer thoroughly: during boot up, real time, and upon shutdown. It must be able to detect and fix to keep your machine running smoothly. Spyware and Malwares are also very rampant in the internet in the advent of advertising and the need to generate traffic. These things add junk and invalid entries to the registry, as a result, clogging it. One must have a good adware and spyware utility to remove these unwanted files in your computer. This can also boost the speed of your computer.

3. Registry Cleaner: These utilities have features such as a Memory Tweaker, System Restore Point combined with Windows System Restore device. This is to certify that the windows recovery process at every point in time is faultless with the Registry Cleaner operations when backups or restoration are done after a Registry fix. The Tweaker makes sure that the performance is improved after the scanning and repairing of errors. ActiveX service is there in the registry cleaner suite to deal with the ActiveX controls by blocking, filtering out malicious attempts and re-registering ActiveX whenever necessary. New trials and freewares proliferate each day from various Internet dealers who want to market their software. As a result, consumers are frequently faced with the task of removing these programs when they expire. Make certain that you uninstall applications that are no longer used to free up disk space on your computer and boost your system's performance. There are also animations of Windows XP like when you open the start menu. These add to the slowing down your PC performance. It is wise to uninstall them after use, especially the tutorials which you do not need anymore after you read them. A good Registry Cleaner will do a better job than a manual operation carry out by the user.

A good registry cleaner must be able to solve the errors of your PC and make your system run faster. If it cannot do those things, then why did you have to pay for it?



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_James_A._Woods

3 Sure-Fire Ways to Speed Up the Computer

September 24, 2008

Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to spend much to speed up your computer. You don't need advanced upgrades of a few hundred dollars, nor do you need to think about investing in thousands of dollars of new equipment to pump out more speed from your slowly chugging computer. Here, I will give you the affordable - 3 sure-fire ways to speed up computer.

First, upgrade your memory. Unfortunately in this day and age, programs require a high minimum system requirements; games, applications, etc. In fact any software whatsoever - gives you that hope that you might just be able to run that new fangled program or power house action packed game. The bottleneck is usually RAM memory, the virtual memory that Windows and all programs use to cache information and load up applications. A quick and cheap RAM upgrade (and it is cheap, looking at the market prices nowadays), can do wonders to shift from screaming at the computer to a screaming computer, trailblazing across the digital divide. 1 gig of additional RAM more will do wonders to speed up a computer.

Secondly, defragment and clean up your computer. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has found some program, some application that has been eating precious megabytes of memory just lying in the background doing absolutely nothing. And the worst thing is, you could have put it there, forgot about it and thought everything would be dandy. Then there is the case of spyware and adware, the prevalent pandemic of online surfing, installing programs, gathering information and inundating your PC with pop ups. Then you have the problem of a fragmented drive, an inevitable consequence of months of program and clutter build-up. Clean out your PC, remove programs which you don't need, make sure your Start Up only loads programs you need and most importantly, defragment your drive every few weeks - these methods are FREE, easy to do and will take up very little of your collective time; if you compare pulling at your hair as Internet Explorer takes ages to load.

Optimise and clear up your PC, especially your registry. We may think we are Steve Jobs' next protégé, but no one can comb through their entire gigabyte libraries and weed out all the loose temp files, all the bad program installs, all the trailing DLL's and system files no one is using. Build up of temporary internet files, image files, online cookies, active x controls all build up over time. Even the registry, after a few months, becomes a sand dune of bad values, orphaned embedded keys and a scratch surface of infiltrating worms and Trojans to corrupt its structure and cause an ultimate slowdown of your computer.

Get a good cleaner software. More than a hundred of these problems can be cleared up in less than 15 minutes of a simple click of a mouse. You will notice a speed difference almost immediately, and best of all, these programs are cheap, dependable and backed up by professionals with an eye for user-friendliness and feasibility.

A combination of these methods will revitalise anyone's speed woes - take it as a personal guarantee from me. Sometimes it's not about buying a new PC just to get back that feeling of speed - it's taking the effort to do a little maintenance that will benefit you over a long time. Try these simple methods to speed up computer today, and avoid a future of hair-pulling and frustration.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Logan_Albright

How to Fix Runtime Error - 3 Effective Ways

September 23, 2008

A runtime error can come in many forms, but you have to understand the basic and underlying reasons why a runtime error occurs. They occur only because one or more software you have installed on your system experiences an internal error that denies it from fulfilling its program potential and logic algorithms. In essence, the program can load at all - thus its runtime is interrupted. Here, I shall tell you how to fix runtime error - 3 effective ways.

Runtime errors originate in the registry, and that is because every time you install or uninstall a program, a 'signature' of that action gets registered in the Windows registry. Over time, with many combinations and too many records that overlap each other - especially bad installs, you get a registry that is overly cluttered with corrupt entries. You get entries that point to bad or non existent entries. You get embedded keys that cannot function and you get corrupted files and traces that cause Windows to stumble and get confused whenever you try and start the system or any program for that matter.

Slow load times, crashes, programs refusing to even launch, slowdowns, bad memory dumps, multiple runtime error codes. Active X failures, bad application paths, obsolete software and even a MUI cache (part of your registry) that is slow and full of bad information. These are just some of the things in the registry that can be causing your computer slowdowns and they can manifest themselves as runtime errors.

You can get rid of these problems by a very obvious method. But first there are two ways you can localise and identify the problems. Now some runtime problems are caused by specific software. For example runtime error 424 - a message frequently displayed to users of Microsoft Access, or other Microsoft office applications. A quick reinstall or re-register of the office applications would be a quick fix to your problems. Runtime error 53 or several others could be due to a conflict between hardware and software. Check for any recent program installs or driver installs for your hardware - the Windows rollback feature for driver installs can be a boon to anyone looking for the root of the problem.

The easiest way to get down and dirty to the issue doesn't need such extensive technical know-how. It is a good thing that a lot of tech experts have bridged the gap between the casual PC user and the techie who can rewire their RAM at the flip of a coin. Good registry optimisers and cleaners can identify up to and over 20 problems that cause all these Runtime errors. Go beyond the few effective ways and eliminate 99% of all these issues with a simple program download. Invest a little money in a good one - you won't regret it, because at the end of the day, it is a pittance to pay for to settle and repair some 20 something problems that could be plaguing and slowing down your computer at every turn. So now you know how to fix runtime error; in fact 3 effective ways of doing so.

Click here to fix your computer errors for free. Logan Albright is an authority on troubleshooting computer problems. He provides valuable advice to thousands of people on how to optimize their computers through a proper computer check up.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Logan_Albright

Best Way Back-up Your Data

September 21, 2008

People usually keep their important data in local hard drives respectively. The computer indeed the great machine and could not be made again hesitate, but like other machines, they could be broken. Sometimes your computer not mereposon exactly or even was affected by the virus and wala also you kept him, file-file this was lost after you me-restart/boot PC. This happened every day, whenever and anywhere. There were several methods of confirming your data was not lost, that is

Used Floppy the disk, CD, DVD, hard the external disk, the internet. But whatever that was safest?? CD, DVD and the disk lainn him could be easy broken. You not deliberate spilled the drink then you possibly could not see file you came back. The incident could like this happen to all the storage medias, at least that was physical. That was safest and was awakened the storage media was the internet. Anything that tejadi to the house or your office, the internet had not been broken. Now many website that has offered the storage media free, like
ziddu, bizhat etc.. Search website safe and was awakened to keep file-file important you, by this means then your data will be available every time, whenever and anywhere.

How to Create an XP Bootable USB Flash Drive

An XP bootable flash drive is a flash memory device that has been configured to allow you to boot up Windows XP on a computer by plugging in your flash drive device into the USB port. An XP bootable flash drive is highly useful for two purposes:

1. Booting up XP to troubleshoot on any computer that permits the boot.
2. Transporting Windows applications between different physical locations such as home and the office.

To create an XP bootable flash drive, you first need a computer that has BIOS that will permit you to configure its USB port as a configurable device. Then you need a flash memory drive that is set up to be able to act as a booting device. It might not be readily known at first if you have a flash memory drive that is going to boot; one thing to look for when you access a computer's BIOS is whether or not the plugged-in flash drive appears in the listed items on the setup screen. Hopefully this happens, and you can then select this as the first device to check during your boot sequence. Some computers might require that you hit F10 to select your flash memory device.

Assuming that you have the computer and the drive that you need, now you need to get the software that will permit you to condense Windows XP onto your flash memory device. This includes: PE Builder, which is easy to install just by following the directions; you need to install it into your root directory and make a folder in C:PEBUILDER3110a called SRSP1. This will enable you to download Windows Server 2003 Service Pack One to this place. There are only two files you need from it: setupldr.bin and ramdisk.sys. Don't extract anything else, because you may totally corrupt your current version of Windows if you do. Specifically, never run the Windows Server 2003 SP1 executable file.

Once you have these files, run your PE Builder CD (Windows XP Professional CD). Make sure you hold down the [Shift] key to prevent Autostart from launching the CD. Launch PE Builder manually. When the Source field on the main PE Builder screen, enter the letter of the drive in which you put the CD. Check to see that the Output box contains BartPE and that the "None" option is selected in the Media Output panel. Once you have all this squared away, click Build. You can watch the progress of the compression.

When it's complete you're prepared to format and copy the Windows XP Professional bootable image to the UFD with the BartPE USB Installer. Open a Command Prompt window and use the CD command to switch to the pebuilder3110a folder. Next, insert the UFD into a USB port; note the drive letter to which it is assigned, as you'll need to enter it into your next command prompt that you type.

Let's imagine that it was assigned to drive E. You will now type the following command (take note of the last letter in the command). pe2usb -f e:

When Bart is all done, you just hit any key to exit the program, and you have your XP bootable flash drive.



Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Derek_Rogers

Maximizing Your Computer's Performance

One way to get maximum performance out of your computer is to utilize overclocking. Overclocking is a means of increasing your computer's speed in order to complete tasks more quickly and efficiently. Clocking is the amount of clock cycles a computer goes through per minute as it processes things. Increasing the number of clock cycles per minute makes your computer capable of processing more things concurrently, or concentrate on one task and complete it more quickly.

This is especially beneficial if you are running games or video editing applications. The obvious advantage to overclocking is that you do not constantly have to purchase upgrades. Many people choose to purchase a less expensive computer-processing unit (CPU) and then overclock it rather than buying a newer unit or one with more memory. It is possible to overclock various components dependent upon your purpose.

Some choose to directly overclock the CPU or the RAM (random access memory) while other users prefer to direct their attention to the video card. It is important, if you do choose to overclock your computer to improve performance, that you consult a professional or purchase professional overclocking software to avoid potential problems. Some of these problems can include overheating of your computer unit, shortened life of computer components, system instability and increase noise produced by your computer.

Overheating occurs because as you increase the speed of your computer, you are increasing the rate at which the components work-more clock cycles per minute equals more energy and consequently more heat produced. It is possible to counteract this by using various cooling devices. Getting high-powered fans is one option but will produce a substantial amount of noise. Other cooling options include water-cooling units but it requires some instruction in the proper use of such units. Additionally, because you will be operating the unit outside of the manufacturer's intended operation parameters, you may expect that the computer's lifespan will be shortened somewhat.

System instability can result from improper overclocking, which is why it is best to use a professional software system to help you insure this does not happen. There are many different software programs available that will test for instability problems and bugs, as well as providing benchmark testing to ascertain how your computer's performance has improved. If you choose to overclock your computer on your own, be sure to get some professional advice.

Purchasing a book on overclocking your PC that contains excellent easy to follow directions for this process as well as troubleshooting guides and additional resources can help. After you overclock your computer you will want to test to be sure that you are not having any problems with instability such as bugs or errors. Some errors are silent errors, meaning that while you may not see them right away, they can still be causing problems with your system. This book also contains information on how to test for this type of problem before it can harm your system.

Ways to Make My Computer Run Faster

September 20, 2008

With multiple uses for computers today, everyone is looking for new ways to speed up their computer. Many have found spending a couple of hours each day deleting their cookies necessary. When searching for resources, each website tags the computer's id number and fills cookies very quickly. As such, is necessary to keep these cookies removed constantly. With the new Internet Explorer 7, the tool menu in the bar makes it simple to remove your cookies.

These days, it is important that you Defragment your computer regularly. In the past, you could get by with Defragging once a week, yet, it has become an everyday affair. So, after you finish doing your work, take a break and use this time to do the Defragging. By the time you have return from your rest, the computer will have finished the process and you can then resume work.

Defragmenting your computer is not the only thing you can do. After the Defragmenting has finished, you should also do a disk cleanup to help compress your old files. Doing both procedures takes a little time, but are well worth it. This is because these two programs help prevent your computer from shutting down or locking up.

Keeping your desktop free from unused icons will make a difference in your computer's speed. Things such as short cuts, high resolution wallpapers, graphics, cursors, and skins slow your computer down.

If you have an older computer, say three years old, it might be a good idea to upgrade it. Rams and other chips tend to get outdated very quickly in that short span of time. When you upgrade your Ram, it will greatly increase the speed of your computer. Also, it is fairly inexpensive and easy to install, providing you with the opportunity to touch the edge of the computer with your forearms for about 60 seconds, enough to ground yourself and to protect you and the chips from static that may still be inside the tower. If you are not computer savvy, be sure to talk to a computer expert to find out what sort of chips you need to get before dismantling and fixing your computer. Most experts, such as the people at Radio Shack are very educated in such fields and will tell you what you need to know at no cost.

Sometimes, computers may be infected by some of the viruses picked up from the websites you visit. It is imperative to have some sort of anti-virus and anti-spyware programs installed on your computer. One of the more popular program used by PC owners today is Tend-Micro, a program that not only tells you when that there is a virus present, it also quarantines the virus and then fixes it.

All computer users are recommended to purchase a registry cleaner as it will eliminate any clutter or junk that has built up from installing and uninstalling programs. Without a registry cleaning program, your computer could become sluggish, crammed full of error messages, and may have regular computer systems crashes.

Click Here to speed up your computer for free. Logan Albright is an authority on troubleshooting computer problems. He provides valuable advice to thousands of people on how to optimize their computers through a proper computer check up.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Logan_Albright

6 Simple Steps to Make Your Computer Faster

September 19, 2008

Remember when you first purchased your computer. The operating system would boot in a few seconds. Programs would open as soon as you double clicked. Three years later and those days are blurred memories. What happened?

ou've gone through numerous automatic updates to your Windows operating system. These came in the form of small downloads over time. All the while, you have been adding new applications to your PC. Office applications, messengers, games, and utilities have been installed. Each of these programs have likely added a new startup item, causing your boot process to become larger and larger.

Each day you've spent hours surfing the internet, accumulating thousand of temporary files. Most likely you've picked up some unwanted files containing viruses, adware, and spyware.

Here are 6 simple steps to turn the clock back on your aging computer.

1. Uninstall any unused programs. Go to the start button, open control panel (in classic view), choose add/remove programs. Anything that you have installed and no longer need, you can remove from here.

2. Remove programs from startup. Go to the start button and click Run. Type "msconfig" and press enter. Choose the startup tab. You can remove most programs you see listed here without any consequences. If you aren't sure what something is, "google" it to be sure it's not a necessary file for your system.

3. Download CCleaner (It's free) from CCleaner.com. Install it. Click the "Analyze" button under Cleaner. When it is finished click the "Run Cleaner" button. Next Choose the Registry option. Click "Scan for issues" and after that has finished click "Fix selected issues."

4. Download AVG free edition. Install it and run a full system scan. Choose "Move to vault" for any infected files.

5. Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (yes, also free) from Malwarebytes.org. Install, run the full scan and choose to remove what it finds.

6. Defragment your hard disk. Go to Start->Programs->Accessories->Systems Tools->Disk Defragmentor. Click analyze and follow the recommendation to defragment.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alan_Dwight_Sharpe



Make Faster your RAM

September 18, 2008

For you who had the problem with RAM and had Flashdisk that not used,now had a functioning application increased RAM and used flashdisk as the provider RAM. how work that was simple and very appropriate for you who wanted to speed up the achievement of the computer..

This application named Eboostr, was the solution alternativ that resembled Vista’s ReadyBoost and SuperFetch and only was available for Windows XP. eBoostr well-off menaikan the speed and the response from various applications only with used Flash the Disk that played a role as the provider RAM that was empty or cache memory in PC. was us could make use of this application to work with the quite difficult application needed your PC memory resources. With the use eBoostr™ you must not upgrade hardware your computer!

But don't forget to restart your pc after installed this application. Definitely with this application we could determine how many capacities cache flashdisk you who will be made RAM. Almost forgot this application could work with 4 flashdisk at the same time until 4GB per flashdisk. For you who wanted to try could click download.

How to Password Protect and Partition a USB Flash Drive

September 17, 2008

Knowing how to password protect and partition a USB flash drive is very important to the safety, integrity, and manageability of your data.

When you partition a USB flash drive, you make it so that you can write software into your flash memory while at once running software in another bank of your flash memory (thus you will need a flash memory with at least two banks; one bank = four memory chips). Partitioning is used to enhance manageability, performance, or data availability.

The BIOS command for partitioning your USB flash drive is: Router (config) #partition flash partitions [size1 size2]

Note: if you are running a Cisco 1600 or 3600 series router (modular, multiservice access platforms), your command would be: Router (config) #partition flash-filesystem: [number-of-partitions] [partition-size]

There is software called BootIt that you can download and use to cause Windows XP or Vista to allow you multiple USB flash drive partitions by "Flipping the Removable Bit" that restricts partitioning. However, this software is potentially harmful to your flash memory drive and is not recommended. Two other flash memory partition software packages that are more reliable are Advanced Partition Manager 6.0 (lets you create, copy, resize, and move hard drive partitions without data loss), and Rohos Mini Drive (lets you create a password protected USB drive partition on a guest computer).

Cisco routers permit more than two flash drive partitions (it all depends on how many banks your flash drive has). Every other platform will permit just two partitions.

For password protection of your USB flash memory drive, there is a free program called Cryptainer LE that many people use. Now, to use this program you need to slice up your drive into segments (the software does that for you), but the maximum volume size per segment is 25Mb--meaning that a lot of files that aren't the usual text files can't be protected unless you use multiple drives, which is very cumbersome. Another program that is similar but isn't quite as restricted is Folder Lock, which allows you to set up a password protection system on your PC and then export it to your USB flash drive and then put different folders under digital lock and key in different "lockers".

Another program called Securestix (not free) let's you pick and choose which USB flash drive files you will password protect. Let's face it: some files that are highly valuable to you just don't have any meaning to a would-be identity thief.

Some flash memory drive devices come with password protection software. These typically allow you to designate some files as "public" or "private", and some might even come with fingerprint reading security programming.

Again, knowing how to password protect and partition a USB flash drive is important knowledge that allows you to operate your flash drive with safety and better performance.


Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Derek_Rogers

How to Speed Up Firefox

September 15, 2008

Firefox is a great browser. It is the first to give Internet Explorer a run for its money. According to W3Schools, Firefox has over 40 percent of the browser market. This is due in part to its usability, flexibility and speed. Although Firefox is a fast browser there are ways to make it even faster. We will show you several ways to maximize Firefox's performance.

Disable History Cache
Every time you visit a page Firefox saves the page so when you press the back button the page will display right away. To disable this type "about:config" in the address bar. Do a search for browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers. Double-click on browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers and change the -1 to 0. Remember that this will slow down how fast pages come up when you press the back button.

Only Keep the Extensions You Need
When you have a lot of extensions in Firefox your computer needs to load the extensions to memory for when needed. The fore extensions you have, the more Firefox becomes. Go to Tools the Add-ons. Remove the extensions that you are not using. There is a possibility that one extension is causing the problem. To see if this is the case, start Firefox in safe mode. Go to the run command in Windows and type "firefox.exe -safe-mode". Once you click on OK, Firefox will start without skins or extensions.

Change the Number of Connections
The more connections you have going out for information the faster the page will load. To increase the amount of connections Firefox uses type "about:config" in the address bar. Find and change the following:
* content.interrupt.parsing - true
* content.max.tokenizing.time - 2250000
* content.notify.interval - 750000
* content.notify.ontimer - true
* content.switch.threshold - 750000
* nglayout.initialpaint.delay - 0
* network.http.max-connections - 48
* network.http.max-connections-per-server - 16
* network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy - 16
* network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server - 8
* browser.cache.memory.capacity - 65536

When done restart Firefox and check out the difference.
That's it for this one. With these three tips, Firefox should lean and built for speed. There is a lot more you can do to tweak Firefox. These are a few of the big ones.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Man

Ten Ways to Maintain Your Computer

September 08, 2008

Keeping your computer running smoothly requires that you do a little housecleaning once
in a while. Here's a list of tasks to help you get started:

1. Keep all of your working files in one folder. The My Documents folder is offered by Windows expressly for this purpose. The benefits of keeping all your files in one place are multiple. One, you know where all your files are, two, it's easy to back them all up at once, and three, your machine will run faster.

2. Don't put your personal files on the root of the C: drive. If you store a large number of files on the C: root folder you could corrupt your disk file table which could lead to a "NTLDR is missing" error message when you boot the computer. Very bad. If you have personal files on the C: drive now, move them to the My Documents folder.

3. Uninstall programs that you aren't using. But don't just delete the program. Remove it correctly so it won't cause Windows errors. Go to Start, Control Panel, Add or Remove, Programs. Find the program you want to remove in the list, and click the Remove button.

4. Store your hardware drivers and purchased software installer files off your hard drive. A flash drive works great for this purpose.

5. When you download a zipped file and expand it, delete the original zip file. You'll never remember later why you kept it.

6. If you aren't already using one, get a good surge protector and plug your computer and peripherals (printers, scanners) into it. During bad lightening storms, I unplug my computer and peripherals just to be safe.

7. Practice safe computing. Don't accept software or downloads for which you didn't ask. Delete any suspicious email without opening it. And even if the email came from your best friend, don't open any email attachments with the following extensions: * .exe, .com, .vbs, .bat, .mdb, .reg, and .js.

8. Clean up your temp files, your temporary internet files, and other junk files about once a month. To do this easily, you can download my favorite program for cleaning, CCleaner from ccleaner.com. Be sure to read the complete instructions from the associated wiki.

9. Ensure you have the latest Windows updates installed. Go to Internet Explorer, Tools, and Windows Update. Click on the Custom button. (I always use the Custom button so I can check what's going to be installed before it gets installed). Windows update may ask you to download and install the latest version of itself. Go ahead and do that, then click Close when it's finished, and then Continue. It will then scan again for real updates and offer those. Choose which updates you want to install. Uncheck the ones you don't want to install.

10. Clean out your email, paying special attention to your Inbox and Sent box. The easiest way I've found is to sort your email box by size of the message, and delete the largest unneeded emails first.

source : http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ellen_Davis

10 Rules To Follow For Hard Drive Recovery

As I talk to people about data recovery. I find that they certainly do not have all the facts.
There are so many reasons due to which information can be lost. Power outages or surges, computer crashes, spyware, viruses designed to wipe out entire disc systems, natural disasters like tsunamis and floods.
What you need to do is always be prepared for the worst and think of hard drive recovery systems.
In case of any problem and possible data loss here are 10 basic rules for you to follow:

1. Do not use your system. When you use the computer the chances of overwriting and causing irreparable losses are extremely high.

2. Do not try and copy any files to or from your disk.

3. Never connect to the internet until the lost data has been recovered.

4. Try and free space on the disk that contains lost files. Empty the recycle bin and browser cache.

5. Call in the data recovery experts. In an emergency it is best you do not attempt a data recovery yourself. Sit with the expert and indicate the important files that are lost. Once the files have been recovered. Check carefully that they are complete and functional. Then save them in multiple locations like CDs, pen drives, and another directory on the computer.

6. Once this emergency is over make efforts to put in place a data recovery system. The World Wide Web has several experts in the field. They will set up simple data recovery systems for you. It is not very expensive and you have to consider that protecting you valuable data from loss is very important.

7. Just because it was deleted does not mean it is gone forever. When you lose important data, it is still possible to recover it. In fact, even if something has been written over, it is still be possible to recover the lost data.

The US Department of Justice has said that a purposefully deleted piece of information, has to be written over 7 or more times before it is completely gone. The bottom line here is that just because it may seem that it is gone, doesn't mean that it cannot be recovered.

8. Your Drive Will Wear Out.

Physical damage can occur to a hard drive because of mechanical failures such as motors going bad or head crashes. Physical damage to the hard drive will almost always lead to data loss. In addition to the data loss, it is likely that damage to the logical structure of the hard drive will also occur. The majority of the physical damage on a hard drive cannot be repaired by the end user. The mere opening of the hard drive in the normal environment can result in dust settling on the surface which results in further damage to the platters.

9. Data Loss Can Be Difficult in Many Ways.

Losing data from your hard drive can be devastating for many reasons. If you use the computer for business, perhaps all your client files, accounting files, etc. are there. For personal users, you may have your entire family photo album there, in addition to all family contact information. Perhaps there are important emails from family members stored on the computer.

In any case, the loss is extremely important to you. In addition to regular backup sessions a good data recovery software can be helpful. This software can be useful to a personal user, and it can help you to recover important data, and save you hundreds of dollars along the way. There are many to choose from, but you'll want to make sure what you buy can do what it says it will do.

10. Data Recovery Services are an Option.

When taking your hard drive to a specialist for data recovery, they will evaluate the drive and inform you of the problem, as well as the cost for recovery. Once you have this quote, you may think the price is too high. The real question you need to ask yourself then, is how important the data is. As I mentioned previously, there are data recovery software programs available, but if your data is very critical You should consider the price quoted to you by the data recovery service. When you attempt to do it yourself, it will almost always lead to permanent loss of your data. A professional can recover most, if not all of the data in question. If your data is that important, then it is well worth the cost involved. Always remember too, that much of the headache can be avoided simply by backing up your data regularly. I can't tell you how many times this has saved me.

There are many more but I just wanted to touch on the most important. There you have it! 10 things that everyone should know about data recovery.

source : http://www.goarticles.com

 
 
 
 
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