Temp files? What are they good for?

Temporary files - or temp files - as they are commonly referred to, are everywhere. When you add software to your computer, change a setting, browse a webpage and create a document, a temporary file is created. Some are beneficial, most are a nuisance and take up precious hard drive space. What’s more, cleaning them is not so easy because they often reside in many different folders. It can be quite a task locating them and deleting them. Some of them are can even be operating system required files. Delete one of these and you’ll quickly learn the hard way that temporary files cannot haphazardly deleted with a fell swoop of the delete key. For the most part, yes they can be, and if they are needed by the operating system, they won’t easily be deleted.

Some say that temporary files are the droppings of bad software; when a developer forgets to include the instructions to clean out the temporary files. When a program is installed, or requires large amounts of data, they will often create a temporary file. These usually end with file extensions such as tmp, or a leading ~ tilde in the filename. Internet explorer and Microsoft Office utilize capitalized alphanumeric folder names to store temporary data. If you are working on a word document, a temporary version is opened as well until you save it.

Not all temporary files are bad though, you may often find log files that signify the process of an installation or an update to a piece of software. One example may be installing Microsoft Office, and then reinstalling it to add or remove a component. Office leaves temporary files that are used to aid users in modifications, upgrades, un-installations and so on. Microsoft is not the only software designer to use temporary files and you will find temporary files in Linux as well. Just as dust mites grow and multiply, so do temp files! The million dollar question – how do you get rid of them? There are some computer data-swiffer’s and electric broom’s to clean up the data-mites. If you care to use the 3^rd party route, then look here for some great cleanup utilities. If you are curious as to where to look for them, and what they look like, start off:

- Your local user profile (c:\documents and settings\(your username)\local settings\temp
- Same as above, but temporary internet files (easily cleaned by opening Internet Explorer, selecting Tools\Internet Options\Temporary Internet Files – delete

You may also locate more temp files in the following folders:

- C:\temp
- C:\windows\temp
- C:\windows\system32\temp

The death of the screen saver!

Screen savers on computers have been around since the first versions of Windows. The purpose was to save the monitor from screen burn in. Early versions of computer monitors used a phosphorescent backing on the inside of the screen to help display colors. If the image on the screen was not changed frequently, the image would actually burn into the phosphorous permanently. Screen savers are designed to activate after a set period of computer inactivity. Original screen savers on Windows 3.1 systems would display the windows logo in random on the screen. Then came the starfield effect, where you could pretend you are Captain Kirk of the enterprise and watch the stars zoom by from your captain’s quarters.

If zooming through space is not your thing, how about your own marquis banner. You can customize your own text, text colour, size and text direction. Pretty snazzy stuff!

Soon after Windows 3x came Windows 95 and the screen saver desktop basically stays unchanged. There was of course the option to make your own slideshow screen saver. Windows would collect images from your favorite folder and randomize them. Many 3^rd party sites popped up offering customizable screensavers for download. Really, this is where the spyware and adware started. Screen savers became no-no’s and were spyware and adware breeding grounds. Still, very popular and very much a part of our computer persona’s.

For a short time, there was the option to use the active desktop with your screen saver. This would allow you to place a website, or an animated picture on the desktop. The screen saver would be tied into the active desktop with the same type of theme. Microsoft released a package called Plus! which included additional games, desktop themes and matching screen savers. Not much has changed in the world of screen savers until now.

Microsoft Windows Vista has taken the screen saver to a new level. Vista offers a free download for certain releases of Vista Ultimate, it is called Dreamscene. This offers some great features for your desktop background. Essentially, allowing you the option to use video as the desktop background. Dreamscene includes sample videos such as a waterfall, a flower complete with bees and all! You can choose videos, pictures, tiled background patterns, or the standard one color desktop. Nothing like having your favorite music band or family gathering as your desktop! One limitation however– there is no sound on these desktop videos. T o change the desktop to a video:

- Download the Windows Vista Dreamscene an then reboot.

- Right click on your desktop and select Personalize.

- Click desktop wallpaper.

- Open the drop down list to select Video File.

- Browse to your favorite video and select it.

Note, only certain types of video files are support, primarily AVI and WMV. Your selected video file will now be displayed as your wallpaper.

Make Vista look like XP

Never thought you would call Windows XP good, and old would you? How many bars of soap would your mother have made you eat for all the bad words you uttered towards XP, and the headaches you had installing it and learning it.

Guess what … it’s “start me up” - all over again, if you've been bit by the Vista bug.

Microsoft has changed some of the rules in upgrading to Vista from your previous version of Windows. The first problem is upgrading from XP. It also seems that Vista makes the decision whether it will let you upgrade or not.

Generally, it looks as if upgrading any Windows version always has some surprises in store. Forget the fact that the upgrade just might not work. It would be better to allow the user to make the decisions about partitioning, formatting, and where to install the version, but sometimes we just want fast and simple. So Windows makes those assumptions and decisions.

Nevertheless, there are some tools and options in the setup of Vista, but you have to really dig – and heaven forbid – read the documentation.

The first Vista annoyance – Vista renames and moves many folders, including:

• your existing Windows Installation folder
• your profiles folder (C:\Documents and Settings)
• your Program Files folder
• Your My Documents folder

It doesn't delete them. It only manipulates and buries them.

Get that shovel out again, and be ready to dig! After you have installed Vista, browse your C: drive, you will notice a folder called Windows.old. Open that folder and you will find all your previous data. You will also see a C:\Users folder. Microsoft did away with Documents and Settings naming conventions and changed to the obvious – Users isn’t that where the user folders SHOULD be?

If you have come to love the look and settings of Windows XP, and Windows 2000 for that matter, there is some saving grace to get some familiarity of Windows of old back. You can easily change your Start Menu to the one you have been forced to love.

Right-click on your start button\circle\bubble? Select Properties, then left-click that to get Start Menu and Taskbar Properties. Under the Start Menu tab, select Classic Start Menu. This will bring back some Windows XP/2000 familiarity and have you screaming through Vista in no time.

Ipod’s dirty little secret

The ipod as well all know has some amazing features. With its ability to mobilize our music and media files. It can serve up all a digital buffet of music and video, help organize your contacts, and allows you to play games and view the family photos.

All great and amazing, but one very important feature that many of us overlook is the ipod’s dirty little secret. I am referring to its ability to double as a mobile filing cabinet.

The average ipod has a 20Gb hard drive. If you are like me, I have about half of my ipod filled with music that I actually listen to. Once the honeymoon is over, and you organize your media collection to include what you actually listen to, you can free up some space on the hard drive. iTunes by default manages your ipod and the space on it. Change a few settings in iTunes and you can access those precious Gb’s of unused space.

The real benefit is of course the amount of storage you have. In comparison to USB flash drives, they typically offer 4Gb of storage at a reasonable price. Any larger, and the price seems to be slightly out of reach. Of course wait a few months and USB storage capacities will double and quadruple, and prices will continue to fall. For the here and now, you cannot beat the price per Gb of storage the ipod offers.

To manage your ipod hard drive usage follow these simple steps:

- Connect iPod to your computer and then open iTunes. You should wait until the ipod and itunes are finished synchronizing.

- Select your iPod in the source pane on the left hand side. Open the Summary tab and select “Manually manage music and videos” and then click Apply.

At this point, you can close iTunes, or minimize it and continue working. Open My Computer, and you will see an additional drive letter (C:\ is your primary hard drive, D: may be your cdrom) If you have any other hard drives or partitions, then your ipod will appear as the next logical drive letter in the sequence. Open your ipod’s drive letter and you will notice many other folders. Note: Leave those files and folders alone. You can drag and drop your files as you please. There are no limitations to what you can store on the ipod, as long as you don’t go beyond the drive’s capacity.

To revert back to automatic mode, simply remove the check mark that you placed earlier in the itunes summary tab. You can also view how much free space you have on the ipod drive with the summary tab.

Windows XP password hacks! oh my!

Forgot your windows password?

If you have ever forgotten your windows XP password, you are in a mess. A few years ago, yes, but not now. There are ways to recover your administrator password with little or no money down!

Typically, you could have created a password reset floppy disk, however I don’t think I’ve ever made one of those personally. OK, Next option - Load your windows xp recovery cd, and boot the computer from that cd. Then upon accessing the startup menu, you have the option to repair the windows XP installation. This effectively replaces your windows directory and reloads your windows files. You have the option to setup windows again and put in a new password. It does not easily allow you to recovery a password. Sort of like making a mountain out of a mowhill.

You run the risk of losing your my documents folder and other windows related settings, however it does not format the hard drive. This is the safest way to recover your password, but obviously not the best.

Recently, independent software developers and computer enthusiasts have developed their own methods of recovering Windows XP passwords. For the most part, this was born out of hacking into Windows XP, and for other malicious purposes, however nowadays, it is used for less harmful purposes – to help you and I gain access to our computers without having to reload them.

If you need one of these cd's, I can make one for you. Email me
You'll have to Cover the shipping charges of course.

Or download from me by request

There are several methods to recovery your password, starting with software that you can purchase. There are hacks or workarounds also that you may wish to try, however nothing is as simple as it seems. These may end up causing you more grief in the end. You will have to know something about file copying, editing registry files, and lots of dos based commands. The final alternative – saving the best for last is a simple Windows XP password recovery cd. This CD is linux based, and is free. Prior to using this cd, you have to burn the image to a cd. This means that you have to download it, extract the ISO image to your hard drive, then use your favorite cd burning software (one that supports ISO images) and make a copy of the cd. I know – what if you don’t have another computer to download and make this cd? You’re in a bit of a jam then, unless you can drop by a friend’s house and borrow their computer, or visit the local internet café.

To use the password reset cd, you simply boot the computer with the cd (you may have to access your computer BIOS and change the boot sequence) to allow you to boot from cd first. Once you have booted from the cd, you will be prompted with dos like text with questions. Most of the questions are straightforward and have been designed to allow the default answers to be used. Ultimately, you will be asked to reset the administrator’s account.

Be warned – you do run the risk of losing some data, especially encrypted files and passwords in other programs – that are linked to your administrator’s account.

The next time you boot the pc, your administrator password should be blanked out, and you simply hit the enter key to regain access. Don’t forget to change your password, and make a reset disk this time!

Losing your bearings? or a haunted pc?

If your computer makes strange noises (I don’t mean through the speakers) and not what your children or friends may be listening to on the computer. I mean whining, or grinding, or general poor health sounding noises. Maybe you’re losing your bearings!

Computers have many parts and only a few of them move, thus only a few of them can make any noise, so this makes it much easier to source out and troubleshoot the noise.

Chances are that one of the internal cooling fans is the culprit. There can be several cooling fans in your pc, and laptop. If they stop working, you’ll know it in a hurry. When the processor gets too hot, it has built in thermal protection to shut it off. However there may be cases where the cpu fan is working and keeping the cpu within its operating limits however other components are boiling up.

PC Cooling Requirements:

- CPU has its own fan

- Hard drive needs to be cooled, as it has NO internal fan.

- The video card – if newer - most likely has its own fan.

- The power supply has a fan

- The pc case itself will have at least one cooling fan, and maybe even another for airflow direction. It’s not uncommon for there to be three fans!

Laptops

- 1 internal CPU fan

- Possibly 1 or 2 airflow fans inside the chassis

Computers have many parts inside from motherboards, mainboards, systemboards to modems and mice. The inside of a computer – although appears ominious and confusing, it’s pretty basic stuff. A case, a motherboard to accept all the physical connections such as memory, processors, cables, peripheral cards and ports.

Navigating inside your pc to locate the noisy fan should be broken down into specific areas to investigate.

In the case of a PC, the power supply itself is where the AC power cord plugs in. You will find a large fan there. If the noise is coming from the power supply, try gently tapping the pc case just above the power supply fan. The noise should intermittently stop and go. you can either replace the entire power supply for about $25 – 50, or have the fan itself serviced. The power supply is not intended to be serviced however, and not many PC repair shops will bother. If they do, they labour alone may be more than just buying a new power supply. Replacing a power supply should be done by an experienced technician. It is one of the most time consuming and difficult tasks.

If the case fan itself is making the noise, these are easily replaced for about $10. They usually have a few chassis screws, or plastic connectors. The power plug is also modular, and can be easily disconnected. These fans can be bought just about anywhere. Bring the old one with you though!

If the CPU fan is the source, you have another semi delicate task, and may consider having a service technician handle the task. CPU fans are either screwed to the cpu heatsink, or in the case of newer processors, are actually part of the cpu heatsink. Replacing them may not be so easy. If your CPU fan has 4 screws, most like it can be replaced. The heatsink holds the fan, and may have to be removed to gain access to the fan. Careful not to disturb the cpu, and the thermal compound on the cpu. If you can remove the fan, take it to a repair shop to find a suitable replacement. There Are different types.

Fan’s are also a source of fashion for computers. They have LED’s and frikkin laser beams these days and can light up your entire case!

Planning on a vacation - from Vista?

Summer's here and the time is right - for finally telling the computer that you have "another" That good 'ol pc will have to take a backseat because you're going to do some traveling. Now comes the task of planning where to go and how to get there - (no... I don't mean by someone telling you to do that)

Need a few suggestions, or maybe just interested in learning about some new websites that can help you plan and organize your next trip. These aren't your typical travel booking sites and maps, these are web 2.0 style!

tripbase – Travel Your way - is a travel website that gives you unbiased recommendations about where to go on your next trip based on what you like. Tripbase will find you places based on your rank.

Tripcart - Trip Planner and Online Travel Guide
Whether you're taking a family vacation, traveling on business, or driving cross-country, TripCart gives you all the tools you need to plan a memorable experience, whatever your budget. No more endless Internet searches or wading through masses of articles and travel books. TripCart is designed by travelers for travelers. TripCart sort through the world of travel information to make it easy for you to plan the best possible trip.

grapheety - Tag your World - Explore the world or your own neighborhood with Grapheety. Share an experience for someone else to discover. A site for sharing stories via location. (google maps) The goal being to detail people's stories all over the globe, so a person exploring can see what's going on before they go there.

TripUp - Social Travel Network - is an interactive travel community that connects people from all over the world through a social network with a travel twist. Whether you are interested in meeting locals or fellow travelers during a trip or finding a 'trip buddy' so you don't have to travel alone, TripUp gets you connected before you depart. Plus, as a TripUp member you can create Trip Flicks, Trip Blogs and Trip Albums to share your travel videos, journals and photos.

OGGtours - Open Source Audio Tours and GPS Guides - is a complete resource for those looking for audio tours
and GPS audio points of interest. Many of these tours are open source making it possible for anybody to modify or remix content. Hundreds of tours to destinations around the world can be downloaded
from OGGtours with many more being created and added daily.

PairUp - Connecting Business Travelers - is about empowering the business traveler to reinvent his/her business trip by introducing the concept of connected travel, allowing businesspeople for the first time to easily share travel plans and instantly search for potential business connections at their next trip destination or industry event – across companies and across booking engines.

Hotels Combined - One Site to Search them All - is a unique free tool that searches multiple hotel reservation websites simultaneously to help you find the lowest rate instantly. Hotel Combined eliminate the need to search major websites one by one in order to compare prices and availability.

tripmates - The Interactive Travel Community - Interested in meeting up with someone on a trip or sharing travel expenses? Looking for candid travel advice? Want to broadcast your trip? Join Tripmates, the interactive travel community, and never feel like a tourist again.

geobeats - See the Destination... Before you See It - A fun and reliable way to learn about your next international destination. GeoBeats is an interactive media company whose mission is to inform travelers about international destinations through the use of video.

EveryTrail - Share your Adventures Like Never Before - is an online platform that enables you to visualize your travel and outdoor activities and share these with likeminded people from all over the world. With EveryTrail you can easily upload GPS data you recorded while out on the trail and add your photos and notes, to create a visual record of your outdoor activity.

Gusto - Travel + Lifestyle - will give you all the tools you need to experience better travel through better information. You can read and write reviews and blogs, upload and store your photos and check out others photos, and use the Gusto! Grabber to bookmark Gusto content and other Web sites. And while you're traveling, you can use Gusto as a handy resource that you don't have to haul along with you.

Travelistic - A Travel Video Site - is a travel video site. Their tag line, "Watch Where You're Going," pretty much explains the concept. Travelistic want to be useful, as well as fun.

Kayak - Life's a Trip - is a new kind of website; a travel search engine site. We help people like you find travel products from travel suppliers all over the world. This means a better travel search experience, more complete search results and best of all, savings for you every day. If you use Kayak.com for your travel planning, you are going to save time and money.

TravelPost - Unbiased Hotel Reviews, Hotel Ratings, Resort Reviews - is the premier source for relevant hotel reviews, hotel ratings, travel blogs and advice from real travelers truly like you. TravelPost have over 269,448 hotel reviews & hotel photos from real travelers.

Sending Large Files (continued)

Most ISP’s allow you to send attachments of up to 5Mb per email. Some ISP’s have increased this to 10MB. This is great for Mp3’s and pictures, but terrible for everything else. Let’s say you have an Adobe Photoshop graphic to send to your favorite printing company, chances are it’s over 5Mb. You may be fortunate enough to have a graphics designer that is savvy in splitting the file into sections – and most likely this is a common occurrence for designers to send their files to the printer. What do you do if you don’t have this magical graphics designer?

Further to the dilemma, most ISP’s only allow a certain amount of storage space for your emails, so you can easily exceed your storage quote with 1 large email, worse yet – if you have a slower internet connection, you will have to wait for the email and it’s attachment to arrive at it’s destination. You then receive that dreaded deliver failure report email – your email didn’t make it through because you misspelled the address, or the email address is no longer used.

Email systems were never designed for high speed transfers, and large attachments. These should be done through ftp, or regular http transfers to begin with. The problem lies in the ability to send large files quickly and easily. FTP (file transfer protocol) programs require a special server and a client software, as well as a specific username and password to allow people to upload their files. This means someone has to administer the FTP server. The sender’s will also have to know a little about FTP clients to be able to upload files to the server. HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) or the web - as it is commonly called nowadays is the best method, however there was no easy way to send files from a web browser. This also requires some behind the scenes magic, and a host of applications and software to create a place to put the uploaded files, a method to accept the uploaded files, and finally – someone to manage the server.

The good news is there is a solution. With the ever evolving internet, several companies have developed the means to allow us to send large files. It is not uncommon to be able to send an entire CD to another person. There are basically two methods available. The first method requires the installation of proprietary software. Which is often a free version, limited in some way to either control you upload and download speeds, file size maximum’s, or possibly riddled with advertisements. Pando is one example, although you may purchase a subscription to avert all the advertising.

You may also just visit a website such as dropsend and use the regular interface with no additional software installation, however you can bet there will be advertisements. A third option is to upload the files to an online sharing and storage storage website, such as box.net however services such as these typical limit the attachment file sizes. You may store several Gigabytes of data, however you have to split them into parts using Winzip, or Winrar.

This then resembles websites and web mail services such as gmail, msn, and yahoo, typically offering 2 Gigabytes of storage, however in 5Mb or 10Mb pieces.

The best option seems to be web based uploading and sharing – even with the occasional advertisement. Here is a list of some of the few companies offering this type of service;

Dropfiles - Want to email large files? We've got the answer
Send files of up to 1 GB - store files online.

Fileden - Free File Hosting and Online Storage
With File Den's free file hosting service it's easy to share files across the internet with friends, family, work associates or anyone else. FileDEN allows their users to direct link to their files also giving you the opportunity to also embed your files into your webpages, myspace or other social networking profiles

Quickeo - Private File Sharing
Quickeo is an application for people who want to share their private digital photos, videos, music and other files with their friends, family and community – not the whole world. It simplifies the transfer of private multi-media files for both the sender (no uploading to a server necessary) and the receiver (no downloading necessary)

Fileho - Host - Transfer - Deliver
FileHo is an online one click file-hosting service. It allows users to upload, host and share files for free. FileHo offers unlimited speeds, unlimited file-size, unlimited lifetime of files and unlimited disk space for any of your needs. Also, FileHo is an ad-free site! That's why downloading process has never been so easy and fast.

Mediafire - Free File Hosting Made Simple
MediaFire is truly 100% free and unlimited file host. Unlimited uploads, unlimited downloads, unlimited bandwidth, multiple simultaneous downloads and no sign up required

Dliveo - Send and Track any size file
Dliveo solves the problem of how to easily send and track large files over the Internet. The most advanced Internet file delivery service, Dliveo delivers your very large and important files to one or many people and you always know when they arrive. No file is too big!

Zapr - Share Stuff with your Friends
Zapr is an application which lets you create links to any files on your PC. You can then send these links to friends (via email or IM) and they can get the files directly from your computer via their browser. It's safe and secure.

Omnidrive - File access anywhere, anytime and from any platform
Omnidrive is what you expect hosted storage to be - easy to use, accessible from anywhere and unrestrictive. Omnidrive will make your life easier by allowing you to store, access and stream your files from almost any web connected platform.

Mailbigfile - Send large files when email won't, with MailBigFile
Many ISP's limit the size of files that can be attached to an email, often as little as 10 or 20 MB's is the maximum size. Or perhaps you've received a large file by email in the past and found that you have to wait whilst it downloads before you can see the rest of your emails? Well, now there's an alternative - and it won't cost you a penny.

Pando - Send and Receive Large Files
Pando is free personal P2P software that makes sending and receiving large files and folders a breeze. Need to email large attachments, IM a folder or publish your downloadable videos to the web? Meet Pando.

Send huge files with zip-ease!

I have received a link from a friend to download a program but its RAR file. What does it do?

If any of you have come to know ZIP files, these are files that have ZIP as the last 3 characters of the file name. You use a program called WinZip, or one of many similar zip utilities to open the file. A RAR file is essentially a condensed collection of files. Sometimes they are referred to as a library, or a cabinet of files. These files use a compression technique to shrink the files and combine them into one handy file. They then can be sent through the internet or email in parts which can be reassembled on the recipient’s computer.

Winrar is the utility used to open RAR files. Now, let’s explain a practical example. Your friend has a training video, that he wants to send you. You both have high speed internet, but don’t want to send it through the mail. What can you do?

The files in their native format are too big and difficult to organize. You would have a very hard time putting this all together again on your computer while maintaining the file and directory structure of the video. With Winrar, you collect the files and create a set of archives to be sent via email, or on a website download link. You can also create archives on your computer to save disk space. Every file on your computer can be condensed by a certain amount. Movies and Videos cannot be condensed as much as text files can be. Simply because of the type of data contained in them. Txt files are easier to compress, because they have unused space within them (called whitespace). The space between the letters can be compressed and removed, whereas movie and music files have little whitespace, and cannot be easily compressed.

Let’s suppose that the files to be sent are 700 Mb in total. You can use winrar to create a set archive files that will create a sequential set of files for emailing. Typically, you can customize winrar to shrink the files according to speed, or level of compression. A high compression means that your computer will work harder to decompress those files at the receiving end. A faster compression means that your computer will create the archives for a quicker decompression. You may also specify the size of the archive files to output.

For example, 700 MB would create approximately 70 files of 10Mb each, with no compression. Once you have the files on your computer, locate the file with the RAR extension or the file with the lowest numbered extension (R01, R02 etc.) and open it to view the contents. Winrar will sequentially number all the pieces, with RAR being the first of the set.
To unpack, simply drag the contents of the Winrar window to your desired location. It will take some time, and you will see a progress bar. Also remember that you now have just used twice the disk space, as the extracted files are completely separate from the original RAR files you were originally sent.

If you are still seeking a solution to send large files, you may also look at sites such As www.pando.com, and www.sendbigfiles.com to name a few.

Take Control of My Documents

Are "My Documents" really yours? Are you really in control of them?

Windows 2000, and XP started using a common folder to store your music, movies, downloads and photos. The My Documents folder is a great way to manage all your personal data, and facilitates an easy back for all your data. Provided that you use My documents as your default save locations. This is unfortunately welcomed by many, and cursed by many more. How many times do you go through the motions of clicking the save option to have My Documents appear as the first in the list of choices? Or how about this - how many times do you import data, such as your entire digital camera archive, and the Windows scanner and camera wizard appears magically to automatically upload, and name the files, then save them in my documents\my pictures. As you can see, it's a 50/50 task. Sometimes it works like a charm, and sometimes it's a pain in the southern end.

The My Documents component of Windows is tricky, if you prefer to have family members share your my documents folder, you have to implicitly share it, by dragging the items into My Shared Folders. If you ever need access to your my docs folder and you haven’t shared it beforehand, you'll not be able to get what you need, unless you log off and log on as the user that owns or has created that folder.

My documents is stored by default on your system drive, typically C: drive. If your system ever had a hard drive problem, or had to be reinstalled, you would lose this folder and all your precious data. Why not safeguard it? It's pretty simple to do, provided you have a backup hard drive - preferably a D or E partition with enough space to hold your my Docs and all its sub folders. Windows 2000 and XP have a nice feature that allows you to actually change the location of the folder. Not only to change the location, but it also will relocate everything to the newly specified location as well. Much better than a manual copy and paste!

To change the default location of my documents;
- right click on my documents, and select properties.
- Open the Target tab, click the Move Button
- Select the new location of your my Documents folder. Click apply, and wait for the actions to complete. It may take a while if you have a lot of items stored there, but it's worth it!

Slipstreaming Windows XP

How many times have you reloaded windows XP on a pc or laptop only to spend half a day applying updates? Actually, updating and patching takes more time that installing the operating system itself. It’s an unavoidable fact, so live with it. There are however, some great time saving options available.

Windows XP commonly comes with Service Pack 2 nowadays, so really the updates you need will not be as large as SP2. Updates all depend on what is installed in the system as well. If you have Windows XP installed with every accessory and option, then each of those will have their own updates as well. Outlook Express and MSN messenger alone, will require at least a half dozen updates.

The good news is your Windows XP Installation files can be updated and patched to include these updates, and then can be re-burned to cdrw. This is a process called Slip-streaming. There are several programs on the market to assist with this process. One such program is called nLite. This program allows you to take the Original Windows XP installation cd, integrate it with service pack 2, and all the updates you can stomach into one handy current Windows XP installation cd. You can also further customize the Windows XP installation to include updated drivers for your special hardware, upgrade Media player to version 10 and more. The process is quite well explained on many websites, however using google to search the term - slipstreaming windows xp with updates - should be your first option. The process is a little involved and is not for everyone, but if you ever need to reinstall Windows XP, this will easily save you a couple of hours.

Mother's day - Web 2.0 Style!

Don’t forget mom! Mother’s day is fast approaching and what better way to give mom something she can actually use. Never given your mom something she couldn’t use? Be honest, is a food processor, or an iron really for mom? Or is it for her to use to cook YOU dinner, or clean up YOUR mess? Try visiting a few of these links after you’ve taken your mom out for a nice dinner, or a show. These sites are for you mom! (also, If you have any suggestions for sites or topics I should have included, please let me know!.. after all I’m only a guy…and these are sites I think my mom would like. J

Moms Know Best
OpMom - short for Operation Mom - is a free lifestyle management system and social community for moms. OpMom members enjoy sharing the latest event ideas, travel plans, recipes, and service provider referrals with each othere.

Share - Support - Succeed
Mumspace - aims to give mums every opportunity to succeed, both personally and financially, and embrace the challenges that come with motherhood. Founded by mums, mumspace is a service designed to bring together the fantastic technology today's web has to offer, and make it easy for your average mum to use. And while they're using it, they can band together with other mums within the mumspace community.

Create and Share your own Baby Album
Baby Grapevine is a web and telephony-based birth announcement service which allows friends and family to keep up-to-date with all the latest developments as they happen. The service uses email, text and voicemail simultaneously to ensure everyone can hear the news and share the joy.

Gang of Girls (for younger girls, and new moms)
Sunsilk ‘Gang of Girls’, primarily targeted at girls between the ages of 15-24 years, provided a platform for girls to connect with each other, in the process becoming India’s largest online community. The site allows girls to interact with one another and have a lot of 'girly' fun that includes virtual makeovers, uploading cool videos or simply hanging out with their gang by participating in Gang Wars or scribbling on the Gang Blog.

Keep your Family Connected Online
Cingo is a simple, easy and powerful new way to experience the internet and organize your family in one great location! Shared/private calendars and to-do lists. News, movies, grocery lists, shopping, travel, weather... even local Real-Estate listings and more.

Where Families Live Online
Famiva is a , private social network for families. A place for you and your relatives to get connected, collaborate, build your family tree, share photos, events and stories, get reminders. With Famiva's innovative technology, you can create your site, invite members, and start building your entire family network in just minutes.

A Place to Share your Recipes
MyRecipe is a cooking community website. It's a place to share your food recipes. It is FREE and easy to add your own recipes to myrecipe.org

Want to Know Every Things on Your Favorites Celeb?
popsugar - A place to learn, love and follow the lives of your favorite celebrities.

When is enough CPU power enough?

The most common computer misconception is that you have to have the latest and greatest computer technology to get your work done. For the average computer user, we read email, visit websites and maybe run a few office applications. For those that work in corporations, maybe it is ok to use MSN, so add that to the mishmash of all the applications on your computer. That still doesn't add up to all that much. There isn’t much going on with your pc that requires all that power.

If you are administering databases, or running SQL queries, then sure you need processing power and lots of memory. If you think about it though, who actually told you that you needed more power, and that you had to have the best? Can’t remember exactly? Maybe the salesman at the computer store, or was it a friend? – a non-computer-expert- type friend, or the I-fixed-a-computer-problem-so-I-know-about-computers friend?

Chances are that you got some poor advice. The computer manufacturers will disagree, and are probably cringing right now. The bottom line is the computer industry is built on self perpetuation. Industry and consumers are led to believe that a new computer is more or less outdated within 18 months. In a world where we purchase cars and expect them to last 15+ years – and scream to the high hills to the consumer group watchdogs when they don’t – we have this computer industry nonchalantly releasing marginally updated technologies every few months. We are to blame. No one else. Why else did Intel release the 286 CPU – when they had already designed the 386 first? They claim it was because technology wasn’t available, however I believe it was because they knew full well they could sell the 286, then the 386 to the same buyers 2 years later. Perfect marketing sense, and the only logical way to do business – when you’re in business for profit.

So then, why all the power? Unless you’re running the latest and greatest games, editing digital audio and video, or crunching databases, you don’t need the power.

Sure, your computer may require some optimization, or maybe even a memory upgrade, but unless it’s a 286, there are many free or inexpensive ways to improve its performance. Don’t fall for the salesman’s advice and don’t buy a new PC because someone told you to do so. If you can afford it, and haven’t purchased a new pc in a few years, then you may want to consider it. - At least if you are running Windows 98 or older versions of Windows, you should.

Uncommon Web 2.0 resources!

Forget visiting portals and sharing websites. If you’re looking for a taste of something different, you might try a few of the web’s unusual.

For mothers’day you might visit:

mothersclick - A Place to Gather Together with Fellow Moms and for Special Interests - MothersClick, providing new tools for all moms to safely connect online, to interact and share knowledge, and to learn from each other. By joining together, MothersClick creating a powerful resource exclusively for mothers.

Babygrapevine - Create and Share your own Baby Album
Baby Grapevine is a web and telephony-based birth announcement service which allows friends and family to keep up-to-date with all the latest developments as they happen. The service uses email, text and voicemail simultaneously to ensure everyone can hear the news and share the joy

Cyberhomes.com - Search more than 100,000,000 Property Records
Cyberhomes valuations give you access to most of the same information that real estate professionals use to evaluate homes. Whether you own your place, are thinking of buying, or even just looking around, you can explore data ranging from property facts, value estimates, and a variety of important indicators of local and national changes in the housing market

Coworker’s - Coworker Reviews, Ratings and Feedback
Coworkers to give people the freedom to share their honest opinions about coworkers.
Coworkers gives you real, balanced, detailed feedback about your professional reputation, and lets you share the truth about your coworkers - positive, negative, and in between. And because you can remain anonymous, you need not fear retribution. Coworkers acts as a central repository of peer review from throughout your career, and it is trusted by employers as a legitimate source of information.

Weddingmapper - Make your own Wedding Map
Wedding Mapper was built to make it fun, easy, and affordable for you to map out your wedding, ensuring that everyone from your guests to your photographer have all the information they need for your wedding. You can also use your Wedding Mapper map to save on custom designs for invitations!

Karma exchange - Do Something Good Today
The Karma Exchange is fueled by Karma Tokens created by the good actions of those who initially send them. Each Karma Token is sent from user to user carrying with it the fingerprint of each user who has touched or been touched by the goodness of each transaction. As the Karma Token travels through the exchange touching and being touched by users, its impact on the exchange grows.

Have fun!

Drinking - Web 2.0 style

Drinking - Web 2.0 style!

Not another top Web 2.0 list of the best this and that oh please, spare me! How about the unusual, how about drinking (some prefer to call it tasting) Well, here’s a surprising list of wine related websites. Forget photo editing and sharing, or blogging sites. These sites are just so crazy they just might work! Wine Connoisseurs, collectors, critics, can’t remember-ers, and the everyday wine guzzler’s will all find something here.

Buyersvine - Know your Wine - Connects wine consumers directly with wineries. BuyersVine mission is simple: enable a lower price to consumers and a higher margin to wineries. Find wines using the Buyersvine tags search, watch the best-of-the-web wine videos and more

Corkd – love the name! A Simple Way to Review and Share Wine - Cork’d is a free service for wine aficionados. You can use Cork’d to catalog, rate and review wines you’ve tasted. You can also keep track of wines you’d like to try and buy as well as subscribe to what your buddies have reviewed. It’s a new way to discover and share wine.

Vinorati - Your Wines and You- Describe the wines you taste with tags. -Store, search, sort and share your testing notes. -Check out which wines your friends are enjoying. -Create or join tasting groups.

Bottletalk - )no it’s not about being in a drunken stupor and trying to hold an intelligent conversation) - Share Wine with Friends - a free online service for people who love wine. Store details of the wines you have drunk and what you thought of them in your personalised area. Share your wine experiences with friends, family and other wine lovers. Rate and tag wines for easy reference. Discover new wines you'd like to drink and store these in your wanted section. Buy wines easily from online retailers.

winelog – for those that drink a lot fo wine but have trouble remembering it - Keeps A Record of Wines that you have Tried - When you venture to try a new type or variety of wine, you are taking the risk that you will either love it or hate it. WineLog provides you with a free way to track your preferences on new wines, including the specific information about the wine, as well as personal and public comments and one to five-star rating.

Last but not least, a restaurant food rating system

Menuism - Rate what you eat\ate - Can't find a romantic place for your next date? Tired of your usual watering holes for happy hour? Frustrated while finding the best rainbow roll in town? Problem solved - Menuism takes the pain and frustration out of deciding where and what to eat.

Review: Systemax $999 Laptop

Review: Systemax Pursuit 4155

If you’re shopping for a laptop that has power, style, features and affordability, then you should look at the Systemax brand of laptops. These are entry level laptops boasting an Intel Core Duo T2250 (1.73Ghz) processor and Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate for under $999. The Systemax Pursuit 4155 is sleek, stylish and loaded with features. Whether you are business traveler, home user, student, or multimedia enthusiast, you’ll find this laptop can handle multiple roles and multiple tasks with ease.

On first look, it resembles Dell’s Inspiron laptop line with the same type of color, case profile and dimensions. However, under the hood, there is quite a difference. This multimedia media powerhouse is loaded with features including 1GB of (PC4200) memory, 15.4” WXGA widescreen lcd, 60GB 5400 rpm SATA hard drive, DVD/CDR Combo Drive, Integrated Intel Extreme Graphics 2, an integrated 1.3 Megapixel camera, Intel 3945 ABG wireless, and a variety of port/plug-in options; (3 USB, 1 Firewire, RJ45, RJ11, VGA, and SVideo Out) and a 6 cell battery. It also has a 1year warranty.
Out of the box, Vista has to be configured and registered, but that’s quickly completed. A Windows Vista cd is included, although you should use the built in recovery options first. Failing that, you can use the included Vista cd. The widescreen display is a nice feature and this screen was bright and crisp. What really impressed me were the additional memory card slots for your SD and flash memory cards. I find this lacking in many brand name laptops and only seems to be catching on in certain brands. The audio is high definition which was a nice surprise, not only in sound clarity, but also in power. The Pursuit 4155 has the power to pass as a general purpose audio player for the bedroom or living room. Not many laptops have the power to do this. Battery life seems to run about 3.5 hours with average web surfing. Of course expect less if you are playing games, or accessing the dvd drive.

If you’re looking for benchmarking, here is how it stacked up;
Windows Vista Experience rating was 3.0
Bapco Mobile Mark (2005, v 1.0) performance rating was 240


Product Name: Systemax Pursuit
Price: $999 US
Manufacturer: Systemax
More Info: http://www.systemax.com/

A “better than most in entry level” laptop, and a great all purpose laptop. Unbeatable price for a Core Duo processor with Vista Ultimate!

How DRM screwed itself (article)

This Article best sums up how DRM just screwed themselves, and the source of the actual keys!http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=121866&page=6



read more | digg story

Windows XP Crash Recovery

If you have ever experienced the famous error message “windows cannot start because”… There is not much of a worse feeling. You immediately go into panic mode and start to think about the files you have lost. Do not despair! All is not lost.

There are different types and different definitions of windows crashes. These are typically boot or startup problems. “Boot” in this context refers to hard drive partition or physical mechanism, and “startup” being software, or file related. A crash is typically experienced from a working windows session. For example, when you are in the middle of something it crashes. A boot or startup error is when the computer cannot load windows and presents an error message. Either by way of a black screen – which is a configuration or startup error; and a blue screen, which is a stop or sometimes called an exception error, or a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death).

The most important thing to remember in a windows crash is DO NOT FORMAT the hard drive. You may attempt to repair it using various 3^rd party utilities or even with the Windows repair console. Using the recovery console is a delicate process and may result in losing your my documents folder. That is why you should avoid any repair attempts or recovery attempts at this point. Follow this list to determine your general course of action;

If Windows XP will not boot (configuration, boot, startup, exception or BSOD) error;

If the windows XP error message relates to a missing file – example; “Windows could not start because… cannot locate c:\windows\system32\” etc…

- Run the Recovery console

- Run a Chkdsk

- Use a 3^rd party hard drive diagnostic and repair utility

- 3^rd party recovery products (Symantec, Norton, Acronis, Diskeeper etc.)

If the error message states Windows cannot locate ntldr;

- You may have success with a copy of ntldr.exe from another similar system (same version of Windows XP including the service pack version) to a floppy, cdr, or a USB memory stick. You will need to boot into Windows XP recovery more however to access a command prompt to execute the file copy.

- Use a Windows XP boot cd, or floppy set (www.bootdisk.com) to boot into a command prompt

- Windows PE (Production Environment) CD. This is a version of windows that runs entirely off a CD or a DVD. Your computer must have the BIOS set to boot from the CD or DVD drive however (access the bios by pressing one of the following keys at power on – DEL, F1, F2, F10, F12) each manufacturer is different and may have a different BIOS key) Look for boot options and set the cd\dvd drive to 1^st in the sequence of devices. The BIOS has instructions on the bottom to allow you to make changes. Make sure you SAVE those changes to the BIOS (read the bottom of the bios to see what key to press to save and reboot)

- Search google for “Bart PE” and you can download a PE cd builder.

- Hiren’s Boot cd – a 3rd party cd created by this individual that contains many utilities for hard drive repair, and file management – among others.

If windows XP boots, but will not load into the welcome screen;

1) Attempt a safe mode boot (press F8 repeatedly upon initial computer power on, then using the arrow keys on the keyboard, navigate to Safe Mode, and press ENTER) If Safe mode fails, repeat the process and select “Last Known Good Configuration” if that still fails, repeat and try “VGA Mode”

If that does no work, try the Windows XP Recovery Console. The recovery console is located on the Windows XP recovery cd. If you do not have one, you may need to contact the manufacturer of your PC and request one. Many brand names manufacturers do not include actual Windows XP cd’s in favor of preloading the files on the hard drive itself.

In this case, you may have alternative recovery options. These may be presented to you when you power on the pc.

Typical recovery options are accessed by pressing one of the Function keys. Each manufacturer is different, F2, F10, F12 and so on. They will appear on the top, or bottom of the screen when you first turn on the pc. They sometimes go by really quickly, and you may have to power cycle a few times just to read the options available. You may investigate the recovery options, just be aware of the operative “RE” words - Reload, Recover, Restore. These are almost always detrimental to your data. They are designed to “blow away” the hard drive and restore it to factory condition. PC manufacturers create recovery partitions on your hard drive and hide them for emergency. Essentially, they take a portion of your hard drive and store a compressed version of your hard drive when it was new. This is called a recovery partition and is usually hidden from use.

When accessed (By pressing one of the F2, F10, F12 keys) , it decompresses all those files to the portion of the hard drive that you use. This means that the hard drive is formatted and everything is wiped clean. You end up with a factory new system. All your windows updates, driver updates, antivirus subscriptions, personal data, bookmarks, favorites, cookies, browsing history and preferences are gone. You are back up and running again – AND if you ran a backup, you could restore your personal data. If you didn’t run a backup, then you have to rebuild and customize the computer again to your liking.

Accessing the Windows XP recovery console requires you to boot the computer from the Windows XP recovery cd and follow the prompts to “Repair your Windows XP installation using the recovery console”

Note that you will need your administrator’s password to access your system. Have this written down somewhere beforehand, otherwise you’ll have to reset it. Resetting your Windows XP administrator password is a whole other process and can be done using 3^rd party software. It will require a bootable cd that you can purchase or download.

Once you have booted, and subsequently logged into the recovery console, you are presented with a s DOS looking command line. There are a number of commands that can assist in repairing startup problems. You can find them here. Some examples are: bootcfg, fixboot, fixmbr, chkdsk. Each command has associated help reference and is access by typing the command /? – example chkdsk /?