The Crusaders

I don’t know how many of you have noticed this but I noticed this just yesterday that I couldn’t rename the recycle bin. Then as usual I Googled it out… I found 3 ways from different resources which I am going to mention here.

The first one is pretty simple but you need a software TweakUI for that. After installing it just do this:
1. Click Start / Settings / Control Panel
2. Open TweakUI
3. Click on the Desktop Tab.
4. right-click the Recycle Bin and rename it.

The second and third are both a little tricky. They are both playing with registry settings so you need to first back up the registry before editing the values in case of any problems later on.

Second Way:
1. Click Start / Run
2. Type regedit and press enter.
3. Open the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT folder
4. Open the CLSID folder
5. Open the {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} folder
6. Open the ShellFolder folder
7. Change the “Attributes” data value from “40 01 00 20″ to “50 01 00 20″. Once completed change the “CallForAttributes” dword value to “0×00000000″ (double-click and change value data to 0). You must change both of these values to get the rename to appear.

After doing this you will be able to rename the icon like any other icon. Right-click the Recycle Bin icon on the desktop and click Rename and rename it to whatever you wish.

Last but not the least is the third way:
1. Click Start / Run
2. Type regedit and press enter
3. In the registry editor go to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\MUICache
4. Double click on the following value: @C:\WINDOWS\system32\SHELL32.dll,-8964
5. Change the value to whatever you wish.
6. Click OK and close out regedit
7. Click on a blank area of the desktop and select refresh from the context menu.
8. After the screen refreshes, you recycle bin will be renamed to whatever you decided.

written by rajit \\ tags: Recycle Bin, Renaming Recycle Bin, Tips

It’s a little bit out of the track but today I just decided to blog about another blog … a new start. Still, I’m keeping everything under technology and computer stuffs. I don’t want to ruin my niche writing about something really stupid like some credit card, payday loans or some other things that my readers don’t prefer to read about in my blog.

Actually, I struck upon this blog by Stylish Web Design as I was looking for some information on user accounts in Windows Vista because I was much used to Xp previously and I had to configure User Account Control in my Laptop which has Vista as its operating system. This techno design blog was a big help to me and I couldn’t help refer this blog to my readers as it’s all about sharing the knowledge one has with others who need it, isn’t it? It has really got some good stuff on Web designing, Internet, Programming and other technology related stuffs. One of their posts on spyware community was also very useful. Do read it too.

It’s not that old blog though; started off just fresh this year on January. They are updating the blog frequently with news and reviews in tech crunches. So, if you are a tech freak then do check it out. If you like what you read you can even subscribe to it for latest updates. 

written by rajit \\ tags: Internet, Programming, technology, Technology Blog, Web Design

The usual process of changing your password is very simple almost familiar to everyone I guess.

1. Go to Start -> Setting -> Control Panel
2. From the list select User Accounts and pick an account to change (its better if you log in as an administrator, only then you are allowed to change the password)
3. Select change password
4. Enter the old password, new passwords, new hint and enter

In the next restart you’ll be allowed to log in only with the new password. This process as you may see will ask for your old password to change your password. But you’re a human and many times humans tend to forget their passwords. What then? With this process you’re never going to be able to change the password. But, if you have an additional administrator account whose password you do remember, there is a small backdoor way to change the password of any other account (limited or even another administrator) and you won’t even need to enter your old password. You have to first log in with an administrative privileged account. After that just follow these instructions:

1. Start -> run
2. Type ‘lusrmgr.msc’ (without quotes) and enter. (This will open Local User and Group management window. You can get this window by right clicking the ‘My Computer’ -> ‘Manage’ and from the Computer Management window, in the left pane under Computer Management’s System Tools select Local User and Group.)
3. Under ‘Local Users and Groups(Local)’ select ‘Users’
4. In the right pane right click the username whose password you want to reset
5. Select ‘Set Password…’
6. A warning dialog box will appear, read it carefully and click ‘Proceed’
7. Enter and confirm the new password and click ‘OK’. A message will appear that your password has been changed.

You’ve successfully changed the password of an account (even administrator account) without even knowing the old password. Now, logoff and login with the username whose password you just changed. If you still can’t login, restart the system and then try again. Sneaky!!! Huh?

written by rajit \\ tags: Change Window's Password, Tips

I had previously written a post on grabbing Mobile Screenshot using a Symbian software. This time I came up with a tweak using which one can take screenshot of the video being played in the Windows Media Player (versions 9 and above). Usually with the default settings of the Windows Media Player, one can’t take screenshot of the videos using the PrintScreen button and neither is there any option in the Windows Media Player like capture or something like that which is available in other multimedia applications (e.g. PowerDVD, WinDVD). This was one of the complaints that I and most other users had with the Media Player in the past. But with a simple change in your Media Player option, you are able to take screenshot of the video being played over the Media Player using the PrintScreen button.

• Open Windows Media Player
• Go to Tools => Options => Performance => Advanced
• Deselect the “Use overlays” option and click OK

This much change and now you can start grabbing the screenshot of your favorite scenes being played over Windows Media Player using the PrintScreen button and pasting it in the Paint Brush. Hope you like the trick. Do comment if you have some more like these.

written by rajit \\ tags: PrintScreen button, Screenshots, Taking screenshots, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Player Screenshots

This is quite an interesting registry tweak that I came across few days ago when I was looking for a multi-messenger over the net. If you too are looking for a multi-messenger for your multiple yahoo account login then I’m sure this tweak will prove very handy. You don’t need any extra multi messenger application (like Trillian) or any new version of Yahoo messenger at all. Just few modification in the registry editor and that’s it. But remember; since it needs changes to be done in registry you need to be very cautious a please remember to back up your registry in case anything disastrous might happen. Then follow this procedure:

• Go to Start -> Run
• Type “regedit” (without quotes) and enter. This will open registry editor
• Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\yahoo\pager\Test
• On the right side, right click and choose “new->DWORD value”
• Rename it as “Plural”
• Double click it and assign a “decimal value” of “1”
• Exit registry

Wasn’t that simple? Now the number of times you open your Yahoo Messenger by double clicking the application exe file or the shortcut, a separate Yahoo Messenger will open from which you can login with separate account. I could have installed some other multi-messenger applications from which you can login with multiple IM accounts but I find the interface of Yahoo very appealing. So, I stick to Yahoo Messenger.

written by rajit \\ tags: Multiple Yahoo Messengers, Tweaks, Yahoo Messengers

I don’t know how did this happen… whether someone changed the setting or was it some kind of virus or spyware that did this but a couple of days earlier, the emoticons just stopped working in my MSN messenger. When I was chatting with my friends, I was neither receiving the emoticons from them nor was I able to send it to them. This was really pissing me off. So, I did a quick Google search to find out how to bring it back to normal. The answer was pretty easy. Here’s what I had to do:

1. In the MSN messenger’s Tool menu bar at the bottom there is Options. Click it

2. A list of Options will open. Choose Message

3. Check Show emoticons and Show custom emotions and press OK

Now I can receive as well as send emoticons to my friends. What a relief.

written by rajit \\ tags: Emoticons, MSN Messenger

Toady while I was checking out the new thread in digitalpoint, I came to read about this crazy facts about Microsoft’s OS. I haven’t tried out this in others but these tweaks sure do work in my XP Service Pack 2.

Fact #1

Nobody can create a folder anywhere on the computer which can be named as “con”. Even if you try to rename an existing folder, it’s just not possible. Why this is happening is still an unanswered question.
Fact #2

This is something pretty cool and unbelievable. ..
At Microsoft the whole team, including Bill Gates, couldn’t answer why this happened!
Try it out yourself…
Open Microsoft Word and type “=rand (2,10)” without quoted and then press ENTER

Fact #3
1. Open an empty notepad file
2. Type “Bush hid the facts” (without the quotes)
3. Save it as whatever you want.
4. Close it, and re-open it.

Weird huh?? Check these out and if you know about other such facts please do let me know about them too.

written by rajit \\ tags: Crazy Facts, Tweaks

Just check the title and homepage of your browser (IE only I guess). If any one or both have ‘sujin.com.np’ on them then congrats… you have successfully been infected by what is called the “Sujin Virus”. Most people may get frightened how this got into their computer and what does it do. Well, need to get frightened. This is not a harmful virus at all. The only thing that it does now is scare people out and that’s it. It was just some script programmed by some guy from Nepal (who thinks he’s a genius) in Visual Basic that changed some registry settings and copied itself to all drives in root directory. I can’t really understand what he really wanted to do.

We can sneak the code in the VBS file (just open it in a Notepad). I am not a VB programmer myself so I took a little help from Boyutal’s blog which says that it’s a harmless VBScript file installed in your computer which:

o Modifies registry settings (this does things such as disabling access to taskbar, setting the start page of IE to ‘sujin.com.np’ and modifies the UserInit settings to execute Virusremoval.vbs)

o Stores a copy of itself to all drives in root directory.

o Removes all .vbs files in Windows directory and Root directory and all .inf files in root directories of drives.

o Removes ravmon.exe, sxs.exe, winfile.exe and run.wsh(now we have ask him why he wanted them removed)

o Stores VirusRemoval.vbs in root and adding the autorun.inf to make sure that it auto executes if it’s installed in a removable disk (i.e. flash drives).

So, basically this script is not that harmful if we come to know it. We have to be careful not to double click the flash drive especially as they are the main carriers of this virus. You can right click though to check if there is any autorun file in you flash drives. While right clicking the flash drive if the default option is ‘Autoplay’ then be alarmed that your flash drives contains an “autorun.inf” file that may be set to execute any other harmful files in your flash drive. So, once you know that there is an autorun file try to delete it form command prompt. There may be other harmful hidden files too, to see and delete which you may have to use a combination of switches.

written by rajit \\ tags: Sujin Virus, Sujin Virus removal, Sujin Virus removal scanner

Something common with all Apple’s product is that it tries to tie you up with Apple for lifetime. And this goes with Apple’s iPhones too. Well actually with phones and services, it has almost been like a law in US…. of tying with each other. This has made it really difficult for consumers like us to get the phone that we want with the service we want. So, if you want an iPhone you are bound to use AT&T/Cingular. And believe me fellows; this service isn’t that cheap – one of the main reasons behind sales of iPhones not increasing.

So, what does a person like me who is crazily in love with iPhone does? I look for someone who can unlock iPhone so that I can use it with any Simcard and any network. Iphone-Sim-Unlock.com is one of the sites that guarantee unlocking your iPhone within minutes. I am yet to use their services but after doing my own little research, I pretty much convinced that their solution is effective, easy to use, safe and works for any version of iPhone. Also the plus point is that if you become a member, you get lifetime support and updates. In anyway though, I don’t think $29 is much of a price to pay for the joy of having your own iPhone.

written by rajit \\ tags: iPhone, unlock iPhone

Deep Freeze is pretty solid software from Faronics to protect you computer for Virus, Trojans, Spywares, etc. It’s something similar to system restore but not quite same. In the frozen state it works like a shield. The virus, trojans, worms gets attached but when your computer restarts the germs are cleaned and your computer is same as before. I have used this software and I personally recommend this software to internet users especially who are more vulnerable to attacks.

But the one serious problem with this software is that once you have put your computer in a frozen state and if somehow you forgot your password, then you are gone. There is no other alternative than to re-install a new Operation System as you won’t be able to save anything in you computer once in a frozen state. But is this the only alternative. I myself had similar problem as I tend to forget my password and in this case there is no “if you forgot your password, click this link”. Hopefully, there was a solution though. There is an executive file called Deep Freeze Unfreezer which changes the state of Deep Freeze without needing for you to enter you Deep Freeze password. There are 2 versions of this software that you can download from this link http://usuarios.arnet.com.ar/fliamarconato/pages/edeepunfreezer.html depending upon the OS that you have.

written by rajit \\ tags: Antivirus, Deep Freeze, Deep Freeze Unfreezer, Faronics, Internet, security, Unfreezer

The popularity of the Web has almost been its undoing. Servers, routers and lines are frequently overloaded. Many people have begun calling the WWW the World Wide Wait. As a consequence of these endless delays, researchers have developed various techniques for improving performances. Some of them are caching, server replication and content delivery network.

A fairly simple way to improve performance is to save pages that have been requested in case they are used again. This technique is especially effective with pages that are visited a great deal, such as www.yahoo.com and www.cnn.com. Squirreling away pages for subsequent use is called caching. The usual procedures is for some process, called a proxy, to maintain the cache. To use caching, a browser can be configured to make all page requests to a proxy instead of to the page’s real server. If the proxy has the page, it returns the page immediately. If not, it fetches the page from the server, adds it to the cache for future use, and returns it to the client that requested it.

Caching is a client-side technique for improving performance, but server-side techniques also exist. The most common approach that servers take to improve performance is to replicate their contents as multiple, widely-separated locations. This technique is sometimes called mirroring. A typical use of mirroring is for a company’s main Webpage to contain a few images along with links for, say, the company’s Eastern, Western, Northern, and Southern regional Web sites. The user then clicks on the nearest one to get to that server. From then on, all requests go to the serer selected. Mirrored sites are generally completely static. The company decides where it wants to place the mirrors, arranges for a server in each region, and puts more or less the full content at each location. The choice of sites generally remains stable for months or years. An even more flexible strategy is to create dynamic replicas on a per-page basis depending on where the traffic is coming from.

The Brilliance of capitalism is that somebody has figured out how to make money from the World Wide Wait. It works like this. Companies called CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) talk to content providers (music sites, newspapers, and other that want their content easily and rapidly available) and offer to deliver their content to end users efficiently for a fee. After the contract is signed, the content owner gives the CDN the contents of its Web site for preprocessing (discussed shortly) and then distribution. Then the CDN talks to large no. of ISPs and offers to pay them well for permission to place a remotely-managed serer bulging with valuable content on their LANs. Not only is this a source of income, but it also provides the ISP’s customers with excellent response time for getting at the CDN’s content, thereby giving the ISP a competitive advantage over other ISPs that have not taken the free money from the CDN. Under these conditions, signing up with a CDN is kind of a no-brainer for the ISP. As a consequence, the largest CDNs have more than 10,000 servers deployed all over the world. With the content replicated at thousands of sites worldwide, there is clearly great potential for improving performance.

written by rajit \\ tags: caching, content delivery network., server replication, www

Do you hae a updated strong Antivirus installed on your PC or Laptop? Are you sure, it will get your system immune of any kind of attacks of viruses? The answer maybe yes, it does. But what if your Antivius is sleeping? You might get surprise by the term ‘Sleeping’. Let me clear you this. You all know that when system boots, your Antivirus is not yet activated. At that time, it may be called as ‘Sleeping’; if your pen drive or floppy, which might have unknown hidden viruses that have brought from others, is inserted may copy to your system automatically. And your system may be infected. Don’t you believe?
In computing, booting (booting up) is a bootstrapping process that starts operating systems when the user turns on a computer system. A boot sequence is the set of operations the computer performs when it is switched on that loads an operating system. The boot device is the device from which the operating system is loaded. A modern PC BIOS supports booting from various devices. These include the local hard disk drive (or partitions on a hard disk), floppy, optical disc drive, a SCSI device, Zip drive, LS-120, a network interface card using PXE and a USB device (USB-FDD, USB-ZIP, USB-CDROM, USB-HDD, USB flash drive). Typically, the BIOS will allow the user to configure a boot order. If the boot order is set to “firstly, the DVD drive; secondly, the hard disk drive”, then the BIOS will try to boot from the DVD drive, and if this fails (e.g. because there is no DVD in the drive), it will try to boot from the local hard drive. So, if you leave a pendrive or floppy disk in your PC unplugged, then during booting process, your system may scan it and the viruses may be loaded to your system before your Antiviruses get awake. So, don’t insert them before or during the OS booting.
So always it’s safe to take out floppy, pen drive or any removable disks out when you are not using them. Because, they might cost you pay very high. And also always scan them by your trusted updated Antivirus after inserting them in their drives.

written by rajit \\ tags: floppy, pendrive, safety measures, security, USB

Do you know how to take a picture of your computer’s screen while doing your works? Most of you’ll answer yes I do? Ok good…the shortcut to take a shot of screen is Ctrl + Print Screen keys of your keyboard. Now, who can tell me about taking a shot of screen in mobile phones? If you don’t know then here is the solution… great software Mobile ScreenShot. Note that your phone must be Symbian OS. The version ScreenShot Ver 2.45, I’ve used is a freeware. Just install its various versions according to your mobile phones and feel the great.

Now, I’ll tell you how to use it.

After installing it, run the application Scrnshot from your mobile

Then get back from the software clicking Back key of phone. The application is still running in your mobile phone. You can see it by holding your menu key for few seconds.

Now you are ready to take pictures of your screen. Click edit (pencil icon) key on your keypad of phone with the very <joystick> or <ok> key. Note that it is the default shortcut for clicking the picture. You can change it to edit + <*> key or edit + <#> key. The captured photo will be saved in your default location phone memory or memory card.

You can capture the picture in .jpg, .png, .bmp, .mbm even in 3 options high, normal and low quality. And you can also send it to any other with the help of mms, Bluetooth or infrared. Note it depends upon your mobile phones.

For more details and software you can visit to:

http://www.antonypranata.com/screenshot

written by rajit \\ tags: Mobile ScreenShot, moblie software, ScreenShot Ver 2.45