firefox lovers rejoice 3.0 beta is here

Reason?
firefox 3.0 beta 2 is out of the box for testing.While i was using 2.0.0.6 i thought there will never be any more development coz its really impossible to improve onto something thats already perfect. But as usual firefox 3.0 offers so many features that i i have decided to expect more from next releases instead of thinking present one as best.

Here i have listed few of its features:

• The coolest feature for me is "One-click site info".If you just click the favicon in the location bar you will be able to see who owns the site. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand.
• No matter how unbelievable it seems this version is much faster than previous one i had been using.
• It has an inbuilt list of site that are previously known for spreading malware/spyware.
  
• Web Forgery Protection: the content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown.
• Automatically installs and checks for newer versions of plug-ins.It also disables those which are less secure.
• Firefox 3.0 also informs antivirus when downloading any executable.(WOW!)
• You will no longer need a devoted download manager(though i recommend trying DDL). 3.0 is capable of resuming downloads.
• text selection: this is another excellent feature if you want to select only few words of line then you can double click at the starting word and just drag, your selection will be word by word. To select whole paragraph use tripple cilcking.
• The "smart bookmarks" at left corner makes it easy to see most visited and recently bookmarked pages.

Enough there are thousands and i dont really want to go on and on for hours.

Now towards the other side of the coin.

With all the improvements ,being a beta version it carries some characteristic "beta version" flaws:

1. From what i have seen it doesnt seem to sort the sites alphabetically.No matter what you enter in location bar it shows the most recently visited site first.(In my case even if i entered "r" for rediff it shows orkut first.)
2. According to "mozilla.org" IDM wont work with this version.
3. malware/phishing list is yet to be completed.

There are few more as those fall in "developer's issues" i listed here.

But keep in mind only one thing that the new era of browsing is here and there will no stopping to firefox in future.

Download it from here

TUNE UP your windows xp pc

So many times a day you wish to make your PC faster with speedy browsing experience.
And you end up accusing "windows" of sluggishness. Actually no matter what people say windows is one of the operating system(i can see you laughing but thats the truth.).
All of us know how fast windows runs when just formatted. But with passing time we just keep burdening it with use full/less softwares resulting in reduced performance.
Coz whenever you uninstall nay program most of the times the traces are left in registry causing registry errors.

• Now to make your PC run at highest possible speed you will have to delete all these unnecessary registry keys and for that first you will have to learn original registry by heart.
• For faster browsing again you will have to learn all registry along with protocols and other settings.

If you dont want to do this there is only one full proof way to speed up your PC and thats by using "tune up utilities"
If you will ask me then i'll say this is the best available under windows platform.
I have shown a snapshot above and you can easily see the numerous tasks that can be performed by using tune up.

STATS AND FACTS:

TuneUp Utilities 2008 optimizes the performance of your computer, corrects problems and helps you to customize your system to suit your needs.

It combines important aspects of system configuration, security, cleaning and maintenance under a modern interface. You can

1. remove unnecessary files from your hard disk,
2. clean and optimize the registry,
3. tweak your internet connection settings,
4. recover deleted files,
5. optimize memory and more.
   
6. In addition, you can analyze your system, receive automatic suggestions for potential performance improvements and view detailed(and i mean detailed) hardware information.
   

TuneUp Utilities comes with an Uninstaller, registry Editor, Task Manager.
TuneUp Utilities 2008 makes Windows faster, more secure, and comfortable.

And if all above doesn't appeal you then you can even beautify your windows by customizing
appearance and boot screens.
It also includes a disk defragmentor.
After only one usage you will experience a dramatic increase in your performance.
With all above features it is extremely light and you wont even notice it running in the background when you ask it to optimize memory.
You can download the fully functional trial version from:

http://www.tune-up.com/products/tuneup-utilities/

PS:
It also solves hardware related problems.
stop scrolling what more do you want from a software?

Web Ecommerce: Where To Begin?

In web ecommerce, you are going to find a wealth of information about what it is and what it can do for you within minutes of looking on the web. The problem with this is, it is hard to sort out the good from the bad and the worthless from the maybe-worth-something options. Relying on the bad stuff will leave you broke and everyone is in search of the best options to make them a ton. So, where do you begin when it comes to web ecommerce?

In order to help you get started with web ecommerce, here are some of the things that anyone on the web selling can do to make their business more profitable and more potentially interesting to their buyers.

* Provide quality and something that is user friendly to the client. If you want to sell, you need to convince them that you have something that is better than what is out there or something that isn't out there at all. You need to provide for them a good experience as well.

* Sales and promotions work as they would in the retail setting of a store. To get people in and buying, offering incentives can definitely help.

* Provide a great looking website for them to visit. Make sure that it is user friendly and that it is easy to navigate as well. Things like photos and graphics that are exciting and appealing are great tools to use as well.

* You can also do well by offering things like chat rooms and blogs that keep up the readership to your website. Allow them to play a role like this and they will likely book mark you and come back for more web ecommerce action!

Web Ecommerce can be a remarkable tool when you use it well. So, as your first step, take the time to explore what ways you can create a great place for your customers and how you can make sure that they come and come back.

About the author:

For more information please see http://www.web-ecommerce-shack.co.uk

Ecommerce Web Hosting: All you need to know

Gone are the days when the Internet was only for the geek labs and university libraries. With the emergence of accessible connectivity and affordable technology, ecommerce and online business are not futuristic concepts. Websites like Amazon and Ebay are the prime examples of successful online business ventures.

If you are planning to start your online business or an ecommerce website, you need to be careful about where you host your website. There are two things that are very important to run an ecommerce website: a well-designed, content-rich website and a host that supports seamless hosting. Remember that your ecommerce host is the backbone of your business. Imagine what would happen if there are hundreds of customers eager to pay you and your website is down or certain sections are inaccessible. Or for that matter, some mischievous hackers steals your important customer and sales database and wrecks havoc with your business. Choosing an ecommerce or an online business web host is not as simple as choosing a web host for a normal website.

As it happens with any brick and mortar business, you need to take many things into account before choosing your ecommerce web host. How many other online business websites are they already hosting? What has been their track record till now? What do the other ecommerce entrepreneurs think of them? What all tools do they provide when you purchase their ecommerce web hosting package? Along with these, let us discuss in points what makes a host good for your ecommerce or online business website.

THE HOSTING PLATFORM FOR YOUR ECOMMERCE WEBSTIE

If you yourself are not developing/coding your website then your developer should be able to advise you what business hosting platform you require for your website. You may need Windows environment or Unix/Linux combination according to your website's development environment and tools implementation. For example, if your developer is an experienced ASP (active server pages) programmer, he/she would prefer a Windows web hosting environment, but if he/she prefers PHP, then you'll have to go for Linux/Unix business web hosting. Although different people have different issues with both the web hosting types, it all depends on personal preferences.

THE UPTIME OF YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS WEBSITE

This is the bane of countless webmasters. Millions in revenues are lost because when customers arrive at the websites, the ecommerce websites are down or some of the critical pages are not available. The customers arrive with the intention of making a purchase but there is no facility available...this is the worst nightmare for an ecommerce entrepreneur or a business person.

Make sure your ecommerce web host manages parallel servers so that
if one server goes down, the others can take over. Your business web host should give you the guaranteed security of your critical data.

THE BANDWIDTH OF YOUR ECOMMERCE WEB HOST

An ecommerce website requires lots of traffic in order to generate business because, as it happens with every business in this world, not every visitor is a buyer or a customer. 10 or 20 people do business if 1000s of visitors come to your website. You have to make provision for lots of traffic, and that too, targeted traffic.

THE STORAGE SPACE OF YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS WEB HOSTING PACKAGE

Ecommerce websites take up more space compared to normal, non-commercial or semi-commercial websites. First of all, you need an online database to maintain comprehensive inventory details. Then, you may have tens of flash files or hundreds of image files if your buyers would like to view the images or if they want to go through some sort of an online catalog. Keep your future server space requirements in mind while negotiating for an ecommerce hosting package.

THE NUMBER OF EMAIL ACCOUNTS YOUR ECOMMERCE WEB HOST OFFERS

Some business web hosts offer a limited number of POP3 email accounts that you can manage through software like Outlook and Firefox and some offer an unlimited number. Some don't provide a POP3 email account at all and you need to manage all your emails through a web-based interface. Make sure what your email requirements are going to be and go for an ecommerce web hosting package accordingly.

OTHER TOOLS WITH YOUR ECOMMERCE WEB HOSTING PACKAGE

* Some other tools you may want to check out are:

Autoresponders: most ecommerce hosts these days provide free autoresponders.

* Multiple FTP accounts: You may need multiple FTP accounts if you have a big team of programmers.

* FrontPage extensions: FrontPage is shipped with lots tools for an easy and fast assemblage of a basic ecommerce website but these tools need some extensions installed on the server. If you are getting your business website developed using FrontPage, you'll need the extensions available on the server of the web host.

* Secure Socket Layer (SSL): SSL can be used to collect sensitive data from your site visitors, to ensure that your emails are not intercepted online, and to provide a sense of security for your customers.

* Shopping cart software: Some business web hosting packages are shift with a shopping cart.


About the Author
Rodel Garcia is a freelance programmer and web developer. Owner and webmaster of http://web-hosting-service-directory.com/ecommerce-web-hosting.html

7 Tips To Increase Sales With Your Ecommerce Web Site

Ecommerce is just exploding right now on the Net. More and more people are doing their shopping online. Some Internet retailers are even beating out their offline counterparts. So what does this mean to you? It’s important that you are taking full advantage of your web site to get your share of the billions of dollars spent online every year. In this article we are going to cover 7 tips that you can put into practice immediately to increase your sales and revenue with your ecommerce web site.

1: Introduction
Make sure to have a brief introduction on the homepage of your web site. Your introduction should be concise and clearly identify the benefits of your visitors shopping at your site.

2: Navigation
Make sure that your site has clear and easy navigation, such as a visible search box on the top part of your web site, clear categories to browse through, a FAQ page that clearly explains your shipping and return policy, and etc.

3: Gift Certificates
People love getting gifts at certain times of the year, so make sure that you have gift certificates that your visitors can purchase right on your web site.

4: Customer Loyalty
Instead of just focusing on getting new customers why not take advantage of repeat business? Why not give your customers an incentive to come back and do business with you again? You can easily do this by offering coupons and special discounts to ones who have already purchased something from you. This is a lot easier than acquiring new customers since they already know you and feel comfortable shopping at your site. You can also add more value to your customers by adding live



customer support to your site.

5: Special Offers
Make sure to have a section on the top part of your home page devoted to featuring your current special offers and sales items. In fact if you happen to have a lot of special offers you can just feature the most popular ones and then make a separate web page that shows all of your sales items.

6: Shopping Carts
People want the checkout process to go as quickly and smoothly as possible, so make sure that your visitors are always just one click away to checkout. Try to reduce the checkout process to as few steps as possible. Make sure to offer multiple payment options such as credit cards, Paypal, online checks, mail orders, and such. When you no longer have a product in stock make sure to either remove it from your site or clearly mark it as “out of stock”. There is nothing more irritating for a customer to go through the whole checkout process only to find out that you no longer carry the item they ordered.

7: Affiliate Program
Do you have your own affiliate program? The most successful web sites have one and you should too. By starting your own affiliate program you will develop an increasing online sales force where you only pay them when a sale is made. There is really no risk and it is one of the best low cost effective advertising methods that you can use.

If you put these tips into practice you will notice a drastic increase in your sales and web site revenue.


About the Author

Jordan Williams is the Owner of WebCashLink.com which gives you the resources, tools, and software to succeed with an online business.
Find jordan williams's website here.

Keep watching this place next few articles will be from most reputed authors in E-Commerce.

windows tips and tricks: CAPS LOCK indicator

Atleast once a day we all curse CAPS LOCK (see i am right now) when we hit the Caps Lock key and go on typing without even realizing that we are typing all capitals.
wouldn't it be nice to set your computer up so it alerts you when you accidentally tap the Caps Lock key?

Here i will show you how to turn your computer into a signalman.

Using this tip you can make your computer beep when CAPS LOCK is ON.

• goto Start
  
• Settings,
  
• Control Panel (or straight to control panel)
• Accessibility Options
• Keyboard tab,
• Use Toggle Keys

now you will hear a beep everytime you turn ON CAPS LOCK.
This is a bit boring, isnt it?

Lets make it more interesting if you set properly windows can give you visual warnings when some particular predefined event takes place.(it can really do a lot of things if you just allow it to crash at its own will)

• Accessibility Options
• sound tab
• use sound sentry
• then from "choose the visual warning"
• choose "Flash active window"
• and you are done.

Now every time you hit CAPS LOCK you will experience brilliant beeping and flashing all around you.

GOOGLE PAGE RANK : tip 1

As you are reading this i can safely assume that you have
designed a site or a blog and you want it to appear within
first few results for any related search term.
But how?
As there are billions of other sites (OK a little overboard here)
vying for top 10 positions in the page you get after
hitting "search".

To achieve top position you should consider following points:

• Does your site/blog offer anything interesting?
• Do you know anything about "SEO"? no no dont search you will learn it eventually.
• and most important have you submitted your blog/site to google's index

In this article i will explain about the third point because thats the very first and simple
step .
As google has got a lot of other sites to index the googlebots will never voluntarily
come to your site unless you ask them to do so. Thats why you have to submit your
site to google.

How to :
submitting a site to google is a simple process that can be easily completed in about
15 minutes.

• Before starting out you will need a google account.If you dont have any then you should open one at gmail . If you have any google account like orkut then you can use same username and password.
• Now login to your google account. Select "webmaster tools"
• At dashboard you will be asked to submit your site.(add option)
• After hitting ADD you will be asked to verify your site
  
• There are two ways in which you can verify that you are the real owner of the site.

1. Add a meta tag
2. upload an HTML file.

• Now if you own this site with url like www.example.com then you should choose the second option as that will be easier.
  
• After uploading the specified HTML file copy the address of that file(www.example.com/verify.html) and use it to verify your ownership.
• But if you are submitting a blog like www.blog.host.com then you should prefer adding meta tag. All you have to do is copy the tag given and paste it below title tag in your template HTML.(for blogger template>edit HTML)
• Then hit verify and you are done.
• It will take some time for google to index your pages meanwhile you should keep adding more and more quality content to your site/blog.
• As initially crawler visits "not too often" it is better to keep updating your site.
• If crawler finds your page unchanged from its previous visit then it increase the dealy between two visits assuming it wont change again.
• With more and fresh content you will definitely increase crawler visits and so you page rank.
  

Backtracking EMAIL Messages(read PS)

Backtracking EMAIL Messages

Many times when you get some funny(?) anonymous email all you wish is to strangle the
sender hidden behind some far away computer. No i wont assist you in strangling anybody
but i can atleast help to trace his/her guilt back him/her and i'll leave rest on your own judgment.

First let me ask you how do you determine the sender of an email message?
By looking at the "FROM" header ,right?
Unfortunately this is but half truth. The "From" header is nothing more than sender's address
on a postcard(postcard? whats that?). Just as much easily the senders address can be forged.
If you dont know the sender then the header is forged as simple as that.

i know what you are thinking now.
"OK, now you have told all this and i know the header is forged,it will be really hard to trace
back to orginil sender, wont it?"

No my friends if you can type then its the easiest and most addictive thing you can do.

For that first you have to understand how email messages are put together in order to backtrack an email message.
SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol) is a text based protocol for transferring messages across the internet. A series of headers are placed in front of the data portion of the message.
By examining the headers you can easily backtrack a message to the source
network, sometimes even to the source host.

If you are using Yahoo or Rediffmail you can viewing of headers from options menu.
i have shown how to for yahoo in above image.

The headers to be considered are as follows.

Return-Path:

X-Original-To:
Delivered-To:

Received: from
by mailhost.example.com (Postfix) with SMTP id
date and time
for

Received: from with ESMTP id

Message-ID:

From: "

Reply-To: "

To:

Subject:

date

X-Mailer:

X-Priority:

MIME-Version:

Content-Type:


According to the "From" header the message may be from "yahooawards@yahoo.com"
(in my case) if i just complain to abuse@yahoo.com, the reply will will be "we dont have such
service". So i will just try to find out the sender myself.

1.The header most useful in determining the original source of an email message is
the "Received header".

2.If you just look at the topmost header host "X" with the ip address of "Y" by my
server mail.yahoo.com.

3.The most important point to consider is at what point in the chain does the email system become suspicious?

4.My advise is to consider anything beyond your own email server to be an unreliable
source of information. Because this header was generated by my email server
it is reasonable for me to accept that it can be trusted .

5.The next Received header shows the remote email server accepting the message from
the host "X1" . Here is something required from your side.You should atleast be able to
determine whether an IP address is real. Thats all and here onwards only typing skills.

6. So here we have got something in our hand like a thread to pull.As usual Windows is somewhat lacking in network diagnostic tools; however, you can use the tools at to do
your own checking.

ARIN WHOIS database, is the place where you should look for that IP address.
you can also enter " ? " for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database if you are stuck so i wont get into details here.

You can also verify the hostname of the remote server by using nslookup,

SO , whois shows that "SOME ISP" owns that netblock and nslookup confirms the address
to hostname mapping of the remote server "X1".
If you add " www" in front of the domain name portion and plug that into my web browser, "SOME ISP'S " website.

Wait dont send any flame to that site.
There is nothing things more embarrassing than accusing someone who is supposedly responsible for a problem, and being wrong.
Here you should recheck remote host's IP address using two different tools (whois and nslookup) and minimize the chance of making any mistake.

Only by looking at the web site and it you will deduce that they are an ISP.
Now if you just copy the entire message including the headers into a new email message and send it to abuse@SOMEISP.com and explain them the situation they may do something
about it.

but even now you have not determined who the actual sender of an email message is?
Elementary!

All you gotta do is employ FBI and they will be able to tell you all you want to know.

After finding "SOME ISP" my advice is to rely on their discretion and hope you have
stopped some spammer or hate mailer.

PS:
one of my friends told me that he tried above and it didnt work for him.
Actually i assumed that after failing at "ARIN" you will try at "APNIC" and thats what
you should do. Coz to find some information at "www" you have to be creative.

FAT vs NTFS

As we all know both of these formats are out there for ages but still there is confusion regarding which one of these is best.

For most users running Windows XP, NTFS is the obvious choice. It's more powerful and offers security advantages not found in FAT. However many novice or even experienced
keep using FAT as it is mostly precofigured while shipping.

Differences among the files systems:

There are essentially three different file systems available in Windows XP:
FAT16( short for File Allocation Table)
FAT32 (32 bit version of FAT )
NTFS (short for NT File System.)

FAT16
The FAT16 file system was introduced long long ago with MS–DOS in 1981, and it's really
about to die(actually it is dead). It was designed originally to handle files on a floppy drive,
and with few minor modifications it was made to handle hard disks, and longer file names.

The biggest advantage:
It is compatible across a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows 95/98/Me, OS/2, Linux, and some versions of UNIX.

The biggest dis-advantage(s) :
It has a fixed maximum number of clusters per partition, so as hard disks get bigger and bigger, the size of each cluster has to get larger. In a 2–GB partition, each cluster is 32 kilobytes, meaning that even the smallest file on the partition will take up 32 KB of space. FAT16 also doesn't support compression, encryption, or advanced security using access control lists.

FAT32
The FAT32 file system, was introduced in Windows 95 Service Pack 2, and is only an extension of the original FAT16 file system that provides for a much larger number of clusters per partition. obviously it greatly improves the overall disk utilization when compared to a FAT16 file system.
However, FAT32 shares all of the other limitations of FAT16, and adds an important additional limitation—many operating systems that can recognize FAT16 will not work with FAT32—most notably Windows NT, but also Linux and UNIX as well.

The Advantages of NTFS:(you see i begin with advantages umm.. biased)
The NTFS file system, introduced with first version of Windows NT, is a completely different file system from FAT. It provides for greatly increased security, file–by–file compression, quotas, and even encryption. It is the default file system for new installations of Windows XP, and if you're doing an upgrade from a previous version of Windows, you'll be asked if you want to convert your existing file systems to NTFS.
You can convert FAT16 or FAT32 volumes to NTFS at any point.
But remember that you can't easily go back to FAT or FAT32 (without reformatting the
drive or partition), and i dont think you'll want to.


So is FAT32 crap?
NO.
If you're running more than one operating system on a single computer you should format some of your volumes as FAT. Any programs or data that need to be accessed by more than one operating system on that computer should be stored on a FAT32 volume. But is no security for data on a FAT16 or FAT32 volume—any one with access to the computer can read, change, or even delete any file that is stored on a FAT32 partition.

Task manager disabled

problem:

Task manager has been disabled.

reasons:

• by your admin to restrict unauthorized access.
• if you are admin then due to some virus.

solution:
there are three to four working solutions available for this problem.

1. If you dont like to edit registry yourself then download "hijack this" this is a good free tool to check unwanted registry edits. download from here Run the program and you will see many registry keys. Locate the one related to "task manager" and delete that particular key. Be cautious about what you delete though coz you may lose some important key.
2. Apply this fix:
   

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"DisableTaskMgr"=dword:00000000

just copy-paste above code in notepad and save as .reg file open and click yes when prompted.

3. Click Start->
Run -> type this command exactly as given below: (better - Copy and paste)

G add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentREVersion\Policies\System /v DisableTaskMgr /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

4. Use of Group Policy Editor:

Start ->
Run -> type "gpedit.msc" and click OK.

Navigate to this branch:

User Configuration / Administrative Templates / System / Ctrl+Alt+Delete Options / Remove Task Manager

Double-click the Remove Task Manager option.
Set the policy to Not Configured.


you are done.

imp:
if this restriction is enabled without your doing anything (most likely) then i strongly
recommend to scan your PC with best available antivirus.
Here also i recommend "Escan internet security "

fun(?) with BLUE SCREEN

What is the most DREADED pre-enabled feature of any windows installations?

yes you are right the great "BSOD"

If you are one of few lucky users who havent had it for a long time then here is a way to "CREATE" BSOD if you are really missing it.

1. Launch the Registry Editor (Regedit.exe).
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters.
3. Go to Edit, select New | DWORD Value and name the new value CrashOnCtrlScroll.
4. Double-click the CrashOnCtrlScroll DWORD Value, type 1 in the Value Data textbox, and click OK.
5. Close the Registry Editor and restart Windows XP.
(do it when your friend is not looking)

When you want to cause a BSOD, press and hold down the right [Ctrl] key of your keyboard, and then tap the [ScrollLock] key twice. Now you should see the BSOD.

problem:

your(or your friends) system may reboot(shit) instead of displaying the BSOD,
and you'll lose all the fun.

solution:
disable the Automatically Restart setting in the System Properties dialog box.

how to:
1. Press [Windows]-Break.
2. Select the Advanced tab.
3. Click the Settings button in the Startup And Recovery panel.
4. Clear the Automatically Restart check box in the System Failure panel.
5. Click OK twice.

Now that fun is over(with your friend looking sick) disable the BSOD feature:

1. Launch the Registry Editor (Regedit.exe).
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters.
3. Select the CrashOnCtrlScroll value, pull down the Edit menu, and select the Delete command.
4. Close the Registry Editor and restart Windows XP.

favicon

Favicon is a word made up of two words:

1. favorite
   
2. icon

now that you know ask me "where is it used?"
answer is just open your eyes and you shall see its everywhere.
e.g the small computer in your URL field
it is possible to give your site URL a unique look by adding a "fevicon"

if your next is how then here is the answer:

1. Internet Explorer 5.0 and above (firefox as well) a particular icon with your website in the bookmark. It tries to obtain that icon by first requesting for "favicon.ico" from the directory of your web page. If it cannot find such a file, it will try to obtain it from the root directory of your website, failing which, it will simply use a default icon for the bookmark.
2. Create an image 16X16 pixels in size. yup a small one. my suggestion is use your own pic (well if its not scary) and go to this site.
3. just follow the directions and you will have a good looking "favicon" ready.
4. now upload this favicon(.ico file) to some website of yours(i have one at googlepages its free)
   
5. You don't need to upload one to every page of your site(well if you have free hours then its ok) .
   
6. If you are a blogger here is "how to" for you:

• chose "template"
• "edit HTML"
• scroll down to (closing of title tag)
• just below that type:
• whatever shown in above image(click on the image)

• better copy-paste
• preview and if everything goes right "save template"
• you shall see a favicon before your URL

you are done.
If you are not blogger you will have to edit your root directory and the web browsers that support favicons will apparently locate it itself.

p.s subscribe to posts if you like this one, more are coming.

increase your surfing speed by 20%

1. Make sure you're logged on as actually "Administrator". Do not log on with any account that just has administrator privileges.
you can temporarily assign administrator privileges for a particular task.
just right click on "gpedit"(as an example you can use this for any task)
[find it in C:\WINDOWS\system32] and select "Run as"
skip 2nd step if you use this.

2. Start > Run > type gpedit.msc (not available in home version).

3. Expand the Local Computer Policy branch.

4. Expand the Administrative Templates branch.

5. Expand the Network branch.

6. Highlight the "QoS Packet Scheduler" in left window.

7. In right window double click the "limit reservable bandwidth" setting.

8. On setting tab check the ENABLED item.

9. Where it says "Bandwidth limit %" change it to read 0 (ZERO).

10. Close gpedit.msc.

Effect is immediate on some systems, some need to re-boot.

in case you are wondering what is "QoS Packet Scheduler"

QoS Packet Scheduler is a method of network bandwidth management that can monitor the importance of data packets and depending upon the priority of the packet, give it higher or lower priority or bandwidth levels.

Actually it is designed to affect LAN traffic but you see with windows anything is possible.

Test your antivirus

How do I Test My VirusScan Installation?

simple:
After installing VirusScan, you may wonder(you should), how do I know if it's working? The answer is a "test virus".
The EICAR Standard AntiVirus Test File is a combined effort by anti-virus vendors throughout the world to implement one standard by which customers can verify their anti-virus installations.

Solution:

To test your installation, copy the following line into its own file, then save the file with the name EICAR.COM.

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

If VirusScan is running and configured correctly, when you try to save the file, VirusScan will detect the virus.
If VirusScan is not running, start it and scan the directory that contains EICAR.COM. When your software scans this file, it will report finding the EICAR test file.

Actually this file is NOT A VIRUS.

The eicar test virus is available for download "here"

Creating Eicar.com: ( step by step)

1. Click on Start.
2. Select Run.
3. In the Open box type: notepad
4. Maximize the window.
5. Highlight the following on the following line of text:
X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
6. Right click on the highlighted text and choose 'copy'.
7. Switch back to Notepad.
8. Right click anywhere inside of Notepad and select 'paste'.
9. Click the File menu and select 'save as'.
10. Change the 'Save as Type' to 'all files'.
11. Name the file eicar.com.

p.s:
in case you dont know what "EICAR" is read here.

RETSORE:back up your valuable XP

well most of you people already know this but there still few out there in the wild
who havent used this a single time.
As no antivirus is 100% perfect(no matter what the companies claim), it is good
to protect yourself by backing up your valuable data. In case you get infected you
can just then restore your system to some previous date.

win XP has a really great tool for the same purpose.you dont really need any
dedicated backup utility (unless you truly welcome viruses by dozens every day).

• click "start"
  
• click "RUN"
• type "restore"

a screen as shown above will appear. double click the highlighted and next window will
appear.
select second option as shown another window will appear(hence the name "windows")
enter any name you like in the box shown , click create and you are done.
do this at least once a day.

next time when you get infected just repeat above procedure till second window and there
chose first option instead of second and chose the date and time from next window.
click restore and sit back your system will restart and will be(hopefully) virus free
if it wasnt infected back then.

this is especially useful where you might need to edit registry.
just create a restore point before editing registry.

e.g changing text on start button

start button trick: change text

fed up with the boring "start" button?
here is how you can use "your name" instead of "start".
there are two simple steps involved but as you have to edit registry in second step
better back your system in case you screw up something. Best way under winXP is
to create a restore point . and in case if you dont know how(great!) read this.

Step 1 - Modify Explorer.exe File

In order to make the changes, the file explorer.exe located at C:\Windows needs to be edited. Since explorer.exe is a binary file it requires a special editor.for that you will need "Resource Hacker".
"Resource HackerTM" is a freeware utility to view, modify, rename, add, delete and extract resources in 32bit Windows executables and resource files (*.res).
It incorporates an internal resource script compiler and decompiler and works on Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems.

get it from here

The first step is to make a backup copy of the file explorer.exe located at C:\Windows\explorer. Place it in a folder somewhere on your hard drive where it will be safe. Start Resource Hacker and open explorer.exe located at C:\Windows\explorer.exe.

The category we are going to be using is "String Table". Expand it by clicking the plus sign then navigate down to and expand string 37 followed by highlighting 1033. If you are using the Classic Layout rather than the XP Layout, use number 38. The right hand pane will display the stringtable. We’re going to modify item 578(change all "start" words if you like and have time), currently showing the word “start” just as it displays on the current Start button.

There is no magic here. Just double click on the word “start” so that it’s highlighted, making sure the quotation marks are not part of the highlight. They need to remain in place, surrounding the new text that you’ll type. Go ahead and type your new entry. In my case I used "onkar"

You’ll notice that after the new text string has been entered the Compile Script button has
become active. Click Compile Script and then save the altered file using the Save As command on the File Menu. Do not use the Save command – Make sure to use the Save As command and choose a name(better explorer2.exe) for the file. Save the newly named file to C:\Windows.


Step 2 – Modify the Registry

!!!make a backup of your registry before making changes!!!

Now that the modified explorer2.exe has been created it’s necessary to modify the registry so the file will be recognized when the user logs on to the system. If you don’t know how to access the registry then let me tell you its really difficult and involves complicated steps as follows:

1.click "start"
2.click "run"
3.type"regedit" (too difficult isnt it?)

now navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\ Winlogon

In the right pane, double click the "Shell" entry to open the Edit String dialog box. In Value data: line, enter the name that was used to save the modified explorer2.exe file.
Click OK.

Close Registry Editor and either log off the system and log back in, or reboot the entire system if that’s your preference.
If all went as planned you should see your new Start button with the revised text.

Faster Win XP boot

everyone must know this. has reduced my XP boot time by 10 seconds(almost 15%)

Boot Winxp Fast

Follow the following steps

1. Open notepad.exe, type "del c:\windows\prefetch\ntosboot-*.* /q" (without the quotes) & save as "ntosboot.bat" in c:\
2. From the Start menu, select "Run..." & type "gpedit.msc".
3. Double click "Windows Settings" under "Computer Configuration" and double click again on "Shutdown" in the right window.
4. In the new window, click "add", "Browse", locate your "ntosboot.bat" file & click "Open".
5. Click "OK", "Apply" & "OK" once again to exit.
6. From the Start menu, select "Run..." & type "devmgmt.msc".
7. Double click on "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers"
8. Right click on "Primary IDE Channel" and select "Properties".
9. Select the "Advanced Settings" tab then on the device or 1 that doesn't have 'device type' greyed out select 'none' instead of 'autodetect' & click "OK".
10. Right click on "Secondary IDE channel", select "Properties" and repeat step 9.
11. Reboot your computer.

run movies in MS paint

i know we all used MS Paint way back in win 98 era and its kinda useless now
but still it can be used a better way here is how:

1) Open your favorite movie palyer and play the movie (e.g .dat in wmplayer)
2) Hit "PrintScreen", keep playing the movie in the player, dont pause or stop it.
3) Open MsPaint.
4) Select "Edit>Paste" Or press "CTRL+V"
5) voila! You can watch movies in Paint!
6) But there are no Pause, Next, Previous, Stop etc. buttons
7) see how much you can do with applications like MS paint

spread this to all your little friend to show them how much you know(?) about
windows.

lock ur folders

DIY folder lock:

just copy and paste this in to notepad or any other editor and save as lock.bat
now double click to open the batch file it will create a folder "locker" put all ur files i that folder and again double click to open the batch file say yes and u r done.

cls
@ECHO OFF
title Folder Locker
if EXIST "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B303

09D}" goto UNLOCK
if NOT EXIST Locker goto MDLOCKER
:CONFIRM
echo Are you sure u want to Lock the folder(Y/N)
set/p "cho=>"
if %cho%==Y goto LOCK
if %cho%==y goto LOCK
if %cho%==n goto END
if %cho%==N goto END
echo Invalid choice.
goto CONFIRM
:LOCK
ren Locker "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
attrib +h +s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
echo Folder locked
goto End
:UNLOCK
echo Enter password to Unlock folder
set/p "pass=>"
if NOT %pass%==type your password here goto FAIL
attrib -h -s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
ren "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" Locker
echo Folder Unlocked successfully
goto End
:FAIL
echo Invalid password
goto end
:MDLOCKER
md Locker
echo Locker created successfully
goto End
:End

p.s. enter ur own password at "type ur password here" and use that to unlock ur folder

if u cant do this more simple ways are discussed here and here.

To The Agarwalla brothers

in case you dont know who they are (thats really impossible) here is a short intro: The brothers, Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, have expanded Scrabble into an online version called Scrabulous and put it on social networking site last year.
this is an extremely cool application which is made even cooler by the fact that these two are resident INDIANS from Kolkata (not NRI'S )
within past few months this has been grown immensely popular and thousands of people are playing it daily (including myself)

in this game you can

1. Play multiple games at the same time
2. invite friends quickly
3. be in touch with current games
4. View My Stats for all games
5. watch the "big " players
6. View Completed Games
7. you can even use on board dictionary if you must.

Now the important part:

as the game become more and more popular the word reached to Scrabble-maker Hasbro, which has sold the online rights to Electronic Arts (EA). The company has as you might have heard, served notices to the agarwalla brothers for violation of copyright act.
but as the application is immensely popular instead of undergoing any
courtroom battle with two worthy programmers who actually deserve
nothing less than applause, a settlement can be reached.
it is surely possible to officially license the product to the duo and
these firms can have their own names associated with one of
the most popular online games without writing a single line
of code.
well, thats what i'd do if i were heading the firms. coz
even if the firms win the courtroom battle they
will in turn receive only heat from
online gaming community.

hide: the simple way

well if you don't want to do all i have told before, then here is a simplest way you
can achieve same result:

• make a new folder
• right click to select rename
• now hold down "ALT" key and press "0160"
• hit ENTER
• you will that you have created a nameless folder
• now again right click on the same and select "properties"
• from the properties dialog box select "customize"
• select "change icon"
• scroll till you get a few blank icons as shown above
  
• select any one of three blank icons and click "ok"
• you are done

the only problem is you have to remember the location of the folder
and when you refresh the window containing this (blank) folder it sometimes shows up
momentarily.
the more secure way is here
the most secure way will be discussed in next article.

hide your precious videos/pictures

for this trick to work you will need winrar
i will now assume that you have got it.
steps:

• install winrar on your machine
• now copy whatever you want to hide
• make a new folder and paste the stuff in it.
• now right click the folder and select add to archive "new folder.rar"
• now create another folder and paste the rar file in it.
• copy a jpeg image and paste in same folder .
• rename it 1 (for simplicity) and rar file as 2
• now goto command prompt :
• start>run>cmd
• enter the folder using cd command
• now at command prompt type
• copy /b 1.jpg + 2.rar 3.jpg
• wait for few seconds so that 3.jpg gets created
• type exit
• now go back to the folder and you will see a jpg image called 3.jpg
• double click to open and you will the original image
• now open same with winrar by right clicking and you will see all your hidden files

i have tried to make this as simple as possible

this is all you need to know about copy command

copy:
Copies one or more files to another location.

COPY [/D] [/V] [/N] [/Y | /-Y] [/Z] [/A | /B ] source [/A | /B]
[+ source [/A | /B] [+ ...]] [destination [/A | /B]]

source Specifies the file or files to be copied.
/A Indicates an ASCII text file.
/B Indicates a binary file.
/D Allow the destination file to be created decrypted
destination Specifies the directory and/or filename for the new file(s).
/V Verifies that new files are written correctly.
/N Uses short filename, if available, when copying a file with a
non-8dot3 name.
/Y Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an
existing destination file.
/-Y Causes prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an
existing destination file.
/Z Copies networked files in restartable mode.

The switch /Y may be preset in the COPYCMD environment variable.
This may be overridden with /-Y on the command line. Default is
to prompt on overwrites unless COPY command is being executed from
within a batch script.

To append files, specify a single file for destination, but multiple files
for source (using wildcards or file1+file2+file3 format).

if you want to know about writing batch files just leave a comment

Digital Cameras

A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images on a light-sensitive sensor.
Many compact digital still cameras can record sound and moving video as well as still photographs.
Digital cameras can include features that are not found in film cameras, such as displaying an image on the camera's screen immediately after it is recorded, the capacity to take thousands of images on a single small memory device, the ability to record video with sound, the ability to edit images, and deletion of images allowing re-use of the storage they occupied. Digital cameras are incorporated into many devices ranging from PDAs and mobile phones (called camera phones) to vehicles. The Hubble Space Telescope and other astronomical devices are essentially specialised digital cameras

The arrival of true digital cameras:

The first true digital camera that recorded images as a computerized file was likely the Fuji DS-1P of 1988, which recorded to a 16 MB internal memory card that used a battery to keep the data in memory. This camera was never marketed in the United States, and has not been confirmed to have shipped even in Japan.
The first commercially available digital camera was the 1990 Dycam Model 1; it also sold as the Logitech Fotoman. It used a CCD image sensor, stored pictures digitally, and connected directly to a PC for download.
In 1991, Kodak brought to market the Kodak DCS-100, the beginning of a long line of professional SLR cameras by Kodak that were based in part on film bodies, often Nikons. It used a 1.3 megapixel sensor and was priced at $13,000.
The move to digital formats was helped by the formation of the first JPEG and MPEG standards in 1988, which allowed image and video files to be compressed for storage. The first consumer camera with a liquid crystal display on the back was the Casio QV-10 in 1995, and the first camera to use CompactFlash was the Kodak DC-25 in 1996.
The marketplace for consumer digital cameras was originally low resolution (either analog or digital) cameras built for utility. In 1997 the first megapixel cameras for consumers were marketed. The first camera that offered the ability to record video clips may have been the Ricoh RDC-1 in 1995.
1999 saw the introduction of the Nikon D1, a 2.74 megapixel camera that was the first digital SLR developed entirely by a major manufacturer, and at a cost of under $6,000 at introduction was affordable by professional photographers and high end consumers. This camera also used Nikon F-mount lenses, which meant film photographers could use many of the same lenses they already owned.
Also in 1999, Minolta introduced the RD-3000 D-SLR at 2.7 megapixels. This camera found many professional adherents. Limitations to the system included the need to use Vectis lenses which were designed for APS size film. The camera was sold with 5 lenses at various focal lengths and ranges (zoom). Minolta did not produce another D-SLR until September 2004 when they introduced the Alpha 7D (Alpha in Japan, Maxxum in North America, Dynax in the rest of the world) but using the Minolta A-mount system from its 35 mm line of cameras.
2003 saw the introduction of the Canon 300D, also known as the Digital Rebel, a 6 megapixel camera and the first DSLR priced under $1,000, and marketed to consumers.