NirSoft Freeware Utilities AsterWin IE v1.02 -- This free utility reveals the passwords stored behind the asterisks in the web pages of Internet Explorer 5.0 and above. You can use it for recovering a lost web site password, if it's stored on your computer.

The Elder Geek on Windows XP

SHELL EXTENSION CITY, millions of free Windows power tools, explorer enhancements, windows add-ons, tweaks, system utilities, freeware, ie5

myWebAttack: "This free Browser Extension Manager enables you to take control over many Internet Explorer customizations and extensions that are often added by third part products or ISPs and sometimes left behind or difficult to change. Among several other options, the tool allows you to view and remove BHO extensions, context menu entries and more."

How to upgrade your system to Windows XP

Merijn.org: "TransIcon: This does exactly the same as TransText, but is WAY smaller and more flexible. It uses a tweak to make the background color of the text below desktop icons transparent, and exits. The effect should last until the next boot, so a shortcut to this program in your Startup folder works perfectly. Needs command line parameters (add them to the 'Target' field in the shortcut) to specify the color you want the icon text itself to be in the form of hex values (e.g. FFFF00), RGB (e.g. 16711935) or words (e.g. white). Note: this program is not useful on Windows XP, since that has support for this tweak natively."

Use the free ToolbarCop to remove unwanted Toolbars and Browser Help Objects

Black Viper's Operating System Guides
Installing Windows XP
Windows XP Services Configuration
Windows XP Super Tweaks

Windows 2000 Professional and Server Services Configuration by Black Viper

Sample chapter on TweakUI by Microsoft Press When an application needs your attention—or when it simply wants to annoy you—it steals the focus from the application in which you’re currently working. This leads to frustration as you flip back and forth between windows. The settings in the Focus category prevent that scenario by causing applications to flash their taskbar buttons to get your attention rather than stealing focus from the application in the foreground.

Setting Name Type Data
HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop
Prevent applications from stealing focus ForegroundLockTimeout REG_DWORD N
Flash taskbar button until I click on it ForegroundFlashCount REG_DWORD 0x00
Flash taskbar button N times ForegroundFlashCount REG_DWORD N

kellys-korner-xp.com: "Registry Edits for Windows XP"

thegline.com: "For those of you who missed it the first time around, the PowerToys and TweakUI are some of the most popular add-on downloads for Windows around. This new version is specifically for Windows XP and no other version of Windows -- not even Windows 2000 -- so XP users will want to give this an in-depth reading. Note that if you have any previous versions of these applications installed, you will need to uninstall them completely before you can load the new ones. Tweak UI itself is easily the most powerful and versatile of the apps listed here, so I'll tackle it first. The idea behind Tweak UI is just as the name would imply: it lets you edit or 'tweak' various undocumented features in the Windows user interface. There are tons of settings broken down into various categories; you could easily spend an hour or two wading through them all. I'm going to go through most of them briefly here and note what changes I made to my own system and why."

Windows XP Fixes, Tips and Tweaks

Leopard is a fully featured programming language created solely for beginners. The majority of computer programming languages these days make programming seem to be a very difficult skill to learn. But it does not have to be. Leopard blends simplicity and power in one easy to learn package, and it's free!"

A Different Perspective on Power Supplies ATX power supplies have been around a long time—since the mid 1990s. A replacement for the earlier AT standard, they added a 3.3v line and power switching through the motherboard, enhancing power saving features and allowing for less expensive boards with fewer voltage reductions for system components...

The latest system components put ever-higher stress on the power supply, especially the 12v rail. This is mainly due to processors such as the latest P4s drawing power from this rail rather than the traditional 3.3v line. The 3.3v line could no longer supply the amperage needed for these high-wattage parts. Since volts multiplied by amps yields watts, using the 12v line for high-wattage items allows manufacturers to continue using relatively thin, flexible cables for power. Even some video cards now supplement their power with a 12v line connection...

How much power do you need? Looking at UPS readings from various high-end P4 systems, I’ve found 200-250W is the norm. Lesser systems use less power. So why must people buy power supplies of 350W or more rated capacity?

Copy all files to another hard drive: "With HDCopy you can make an identical copy of a hard drive onto another hard drive. If you buy a new hard drive and don't wish to change your Windows configuration in any way, you can use HDCopy to copy your old hard drive completely to the new one (hidden files as well)."

NoBuck$ Freeware Connection Homepage

PhotoIsland.com: "Print an image or several different images in multiple sizes on a single sheet of paper. Supports JPG, BMP, TIF, PCD, GIF, TGA, PCX and FlashPix file formats and templates for Kodak and Avery photo paper products. Fit all your favorite photos on one page. Saves paper and time, and makes printing fun! Works great with your color printer. Make your own stickers, photo-labels, postcards and notecards. Free LE version. "

IconXTractor This freeware tool extracts icons, which you probably figured out just by looking at its name. Think of it as a crowbar that'll pry those pictures out of files with EXE, DLL, CPL, ICL, CUR, BMP, or SCR extensions. Now, you can use those icons for other images, programs, or shortcuts (if you so desire). The interface is self-explanatory; just click on a folder and the icons will appear. You can then choose to save them as icons or a BMP / JPG image. IconXTractor introduces complete support for Windows XP Icons !

Startup Control Panel, by Mike Lin, is a nifty [freeware] control panel applet that allows you to easily configure which programs run when your computer starts. It's simple to use and, like all my programs, is very small and won't burden your system.

StartupMonitor is a small freeware utility that runs transparently (it doesn't even use a tray icon) and notifies you when any program registers itself to run at system startup. "

It's thievery and arrogance I tell you.

Microsoft invents new words for common words. General Motors calls nuts and bolts nuts and bolts, but haven't you noticed that Microsoft never uses ordinary terms?

Microsoft doesn't seem to invent or offer only its own privately developed ideas as many firms. It merely looks around for inventions and ideas and packages them under its own terms and with new terms of description.

Who pays for this practice? Its newly invented words cost us billions of dollars to acquire and learn.

Microsoft has been taking terminology and words from our labs and offices for years and years. Microsoft writers "re-document" our words. Our definitions and our meanings remain the same, but Microsoft pressures us to make our words change. We use Microsoft's words to describe our ideas. Too often.

It seems to most people that we must use Microsoft's new words. Less often we use our words to teach ourselves, but more often we license and use what Microsoft tells us to use.

Microsoft alters our words for ideas and inventions. Microsoft knows it. Its new words mean what they did when we used our own words. But its new words are private property.

Want an example? The term shortcuts for the word links. And many, many more.

Microsoft's private property. Which it copyrights.... Writes off at our expense.... And sells back to us.... Which it prints into every document. Which it delivers all over the world to convince every teacher, university and trainer to convert. Then it sells it back to us -- our ideas, understandings and inventions and the words we use to describe ideas, understandings and inventions.

We give the copyright. We provide the compensation and the incentives. Microsoft can barely lay a justified claim to any of this. We're being bilked.

Arrogant, I tell you. Just why would Microsft confuse every student, teacher, every scientist, technologist and computer user -- every global person -- by forcing its private and copyrighted terminology down our throats?

Microsoft frauduently claims property it cannot own. Words and ideas have often been misappropriated, stolen, and intentionally re-shaped in order to promote the use of Microsoft's newly created terms.

Microsoft is arrogant. Microsoft has a belly of lousy minds, a school of aggressive diligence, a mania of myopia and me-ism. Microsoft policymakers must be groups of swarthy savants that climb all over themselves to commandeer our public sphere.

We could easily use the word 'links'. Conscientious persons all could see that the term is a foundation term of our language to define the internet. Anyone could see that the populations of the world rely on the idea, understanding and the word 'links'. But Microsoft cannot slow its habits. It reached out and made effort to steal a use of a word and to substitute its own property into our langauge.

Out from under clouds of fraud, forcefulness and treachery... and, without the unwitting assistance of the complacent and toothless halfwits that run our agencies and nation, Microsoft should be required to become a positive social member and corporate citizen.

Were Congress to ask (another story) what is the horrid cost and effect when a party such as Microsoft with its incessently subjectively incorporate crew conspires and arranges to take public property... and to use that usurping... to make extensive claims of property... and to propel the costs of these false acquisitions... again and again upon the people... and after pilfering our language, its convenant and its sovereignty, causes the public to lose value, utility and to, of all things, lose the inalienable right to foster and preserve its language, then it has taken rights allowed only to all and never to one....

With a terrific recklessness Congress is unable to govern the issues of copyright while it provides too many rights too easily to those who march its hallways instead of those who pay for the parade.

Would an analysis show that Microsoft's market position is as much in the control of its 'terms' as it is in code? Microsoft is a tyranny so puffed in manufacturing 'terms' ( the documents and rules and voice of a company and corporation ) taken and altered from the raw material of the public discourse, that it has crossed the line in the realm of crime. Microsoft has sytematically conspired to steal and has stolen from and converted out of our practical and ancient and 'sovereign' public language.

It seems even the words of the law are vulnerable to Microsoft's interpretations. Until the wit and oratory of a properly courageous attorney can describe that Microsoft is engaging in a form of post-modern thievery that can only be called "socio-industrial crime", then we lose.

We let a private party define a public resource.

Microsoft invents words and seeks to have us then replace words already in use, often in broad far reaching use. Microsoft has taken everyday and useful language to describe events and processes in the marketplace and in our forum. It has taken both idea and word.

It has gathered our sovereign resource as its own. It has asked us to copyright and protect these thefts. It has made our very ideas, understandings and descriptions become contraband controlled and extorted by Microsoft. It has asked us to refund its fees and taxes as it deliberately and fraudulantly makes additional claims and demands by hoisting unjust costs for property it has no right to own.

Its products and works come with high fees, cruel margins, and dangerous consequences. Microsoft has built a hardship upon education, management, operations, policy and leadership throughout the world. This extreme behavior for a corporate citizen is indictable.

An operating system. An operating system. We want an operating system. A system, a legal system, a governmental system, a public system that operates.

Let's not let Microsoft take the operating out of our system.

Useful freeware. Thanks for these utilities that would never, never, never come from the thoughtless, arrogant, inconsiderate social leeches that hawk over-worn operating systems such as Microsoft Windows. Growl.

BlueFive Software
HTMLlink -- easily create HTML source code for Internet links. I [BlueFive] wrote this utility to quickly manage a sort of "News headlines". Any list of links or shortcuts will do. Just point, copy and paste...."

ColorPicker -- easily previews body, background, link, hover, visited

TempLab -- A handy temperature conversion tool. This tiny instrument will simultaneously show Celsius, Fahrenheit and Kelvin degrees with one push on the slider.

HEXwrite -- converts keyboard into HEX or ASCII, depending on what program mode you selected. The conversion works both ways.

Lodger -- easy to configure date reminder utility

BlueFive Software: "If you want to alter your system date just for a short period of time then Beyondo is the free tool you want."

InformationWeek >Fred Langa Ten More Ways To Make Windows XP Run Better

The Harrow Technology Report: "Moore's Law (that the number of transistors on a chip will double every eighteen months at the same price) is the culprit behind the exponential growth of the computer-related technology that has dramatically altered how we work, live, and play over the past 35 years. This massive, rapid, compounding growth of computing power provides, perhaps for the first time in history, the opportunity for average people to detect, observe, and participate in the results of exponential growth.

But of course, even though it's hard for us humans to perceive and appreciate even ONE exponential effect, Nature is FULL of exponential things, such as distance. For example, the diameter of the Earth is 12.76E+6 meters wide (12.76 times ten to the plus-six power), while a common plant cell is 12.76E-6 meters wide (12.76 times 10 to the minus-six power), or 12 orders of magnitude (powers of ten) smaller. And that comparison is right under our noses. But how far does this go? See 'Powers of Ten'."

Edskes File Download Mirror: "Real Alternative 1.11 will allow you to play RealMedia files. This way you can play RealMedia files without having to install RealPlayer/RealOne Player. You do need a player that is capable of playing RealMedia. The included Media Player Classic supports it and works very well. Supported: RealAudio (.ra .rpm), RealMedia (.rm .ram .rmvb .rpx .smi .smil), RealText (.rt), ReadPix (.rp), RealMedia embedded in webpages. .smi and .smil files sometimes only play the first part of a clip. This is a limitation of the current Media Player Classic. The RealMedia Browser plugin supports Internet Explorer, Opera, Netscape and Mozilla.

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Plus look for QuickTime Alternative will allow you to play QuickTime files (.mov, .qt and other extensions) without having to install the official QuickTime Player. As a bonus, Internet Explorer will play all QuickTime movies that are embedded in a webpage. You do need a media player that is capable of playing QuickTime files. The included Media Player Classic supports it and works very well. The QuickTime Browser plugin supports Internet Explorer, Opera, Netscape and Mozilla. The QuickTime plugins include iPIX and QuickTimeVR.

Tech-Critic: "Skype uses peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to connect you to other users. Not to share files, but to talk with them for free. The technology is extremely advanced, but very simple and easy to use. Unlimited free high-quality voice communications to people all over the world. Superior sound quality (better than your regular phone). Download latest beta at skype.com."

Tech-Critic: " ByteGuardian is an unique tool that allows you to protect your most important files against digital corruption. Data can get corrupted for many reasons, viruses, hardware or software failure and so on. When this happens a simple backup just won't always do. ByteGuardian can tell you if your files have been corrupted, and what's amazing, it can automatically fix them!

Did you know that a typical CD-R disk can start to lose its data a bit by bit even after a few years after its creation? ByteGuardian solves that problem, but it's not specific to CD-R's or to any other media, it works with all kinds of files and with any media, CD-R, DVDs or normal hard drives. $40 -- sorta costly."

Outer Technologies: "CachemanXP is a system service designed to improve the performance of your computer by optimizing several caches, auto-recovering RAM and fine tuning a number of system settings. Auto-Optimization makes it suitable for novice and intermediate users yet it is also powerful and versatile enough for computer experts. Backups of settings ensure that all user modifications can be reversed with a single click. Due to the system service nature it requires Windows NT4/2000/2003 or XP to run, uses minimal resources and virtually no CPU time. "

ToniArts: "EasyCleaner is a small free program which searches Windows' registry for entries that are pointing nowhere. EasyCleaner also lets you delete all kinds of unnecessary files like temps, backups etc. You can search for duplicate files and you can view some intresting info about your disk space usage! You are also able to manage startup programs, invalid shortcuts and add/remove software list.

Multiple Monitors: "SideCar is a portable notebook computer accessory that enables you to drive up to four extra displays from a Windows XP/2000 notebook. The SideCar attaches to the notebook via a simple PC Card interface, enabling easy docking and undocking of the notebook from the multi-monitor display setup. Combined with a notebook's built-in LCD display and external monitor support, the SideCar enables up to six displays to be driven by a single Windows laptop."

Christopher Lydon Interviews Tim Berners-Lee: "Sir Tim uses the word 'fractal' a lot. We live in a fractal world, he kept saying, meaning a world of many levels of structure, where the shapes of mountains often resemble the shapes of sand grains at a different scale; or giant clouds replicate tiny puffs of steam, or human communities at the village level tell you about affinities and tensions at a global level. One of his most compelling digressions was the thought that we should organize our days accordingly. We should live some part of our lives in each of the human orders of magnitude: from the family unit of six to the global population of six billion. Spend a few moments of the day with a consciousness of our individuality, then our closest family circle, our 60-member squad, platoon or company, our 600-member association, our 6000-citizen village in a 60,000-citizen city, in a 600,000 metropolitan area in a 6-million member state; then: our 60-million nation on a 600-million continent, and on to our full species extension. "

Study: Desktop's days on the decline: "Within three years, less than half of corporate workers will use a desktop PC as their primary information device, with many switching to notebooks and connecting over a thin client, according to the Meta Group. The desktop PC has been the corporate user's main information tool for about 20 years, but with the falling cost of laptops and the rapid evolution of wireless networks, Meta expects the PC's popularity to plummet as information workers adopt new technologies. Steve Kleynhans, vice president of Meta's technology research services, said that 45 percent of corporate users will still use a desktop PC as their main information tool, but 40 percent will prefer a notebook or tablet PC. The final 15 percent will migrate to a thin-client or an alternative 'information appliance.' "

Windows Fanatics - Channels - Lockergnome: "Win2k/XP FREE cdrider.sourceforge.net

{Extract songs from CDs} While at the office, I like to listen to music from CDs, but I got tired of having to transfer the CDs between home and work depending on my mood. Since we're not allowed to download programs, I just used the music program on the computer to extract the tracks. It wasn't pretty, but it did the job. CD Rider makes it look like I was working too hard to extract music. It works quickly and creates a more compact file and saves it in MP3, WAV, or Ogg Vorbis format. For MP3 encoding, the program supports BladeEnc, LAME, and GOGO. Off to go 'where everyone knows your name.' (Hint: I ripped Cheers' theme song to do the test). [Meryl]"

Max Design - Liquid layouts - the easy way: "This article explains one method of achieving a successful liquid layout as well as providing basic definitions of liquid, fixed-width and em-driven layouts."

Browser Cam :: Browser screen captures in any browser, any version, any operating system.: "What if you could say goodbye to web site browser compatibility issues once and for all? What if you could see screen captures of your web pages as they're going to look on any operating system platform? On any browser?"

Colored boxes layouts: "How do you go about building a full CSS layout? Is there an overall method that can be used for any layout? This article explains one method of building a full CSS layout from start to finish. The method, based on positioning colored boxes and testing across a range of browsers, can be used to build a wide range of full-CSS layouts.

Step 1. Decide on a level of browser support
Step 2. Look for containers
Step 3. Name the containers
Step 4. Mark-up the containers
Step 5. Choose a position method for the containers
Step 6. Colored boxes
Step 7. Drop in the content
Step 8. Styling inside the containers
Step 9. Taking out the CSS
Step 10. Hiding rules from older browsers
Step 11. Print CSS
Finished "

Google Toolbar Installed: "Congratulations!
Now that you've installed the Google Toolbar, you've got the world's best search at your fingertips. "

www.siteuptime.com : -- a free website monitoring service that watches your website 24/7/365 and notifies you if it becomes unavailable. Website downtime equals lost customers and lost profits. In addition, users to your website may not return if they experience a connection failure.

AutoPatcher.com: "This is the Official Homepage of AutoPatcher, the all-in-one updater for Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows 2003."

Free online Trojan Scanner

Personal Server Offers Painless Backup: "The Mirra Personal Server from Mirra Inc. changes that. It offers mere mortals easy and automatic backups they can handle alone. Anyone with a few networked computers at home or in a home office should take a serious look at the Mirra. Just hook it up to your network, select what you want to back up, and walk away. You can also share your data over the Internet with whomever you wish. All they need is an e-mail address and a Web browser."

LangaList Std Edition 2004-01-12: "Warning! Email *Unbelievably* Unreliable!! Email reliability is even worse than I thought. Much worse! At least, that's what our recent worldwide test showed!"

Recently recommended drive imaging software from Fred Langa at Langa.com replaces Drive Image and even Ghost!

Acronis True Image 7.0 creates an exact disk image of your live system for complete backup providing the most comprehensive data protection. The disk image file includes all the computer data including the operating system, programs, software updates and patches, data files, configurations, preference settings, e-mails, pictures, MP3s, and the like. After a fatal system failure, you can restore the entire drive contents to a known, working state or simply replace the lost or corrupted files and folders. Acronis True Image 7.0 creates a live system disk image without shutting down your PC or forcing you to boot to DOS in any operating system, including Windows 95 / 98 / Me / NT / 2000 / XP. You can remain productive and keep working while the disk image is being created. About $50

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Image for Windows is a Win32 based backup and restore utility that creates a snapshot of an entire partition or volume to a set of files to a local or network drive, or directly to most CD-R/RW or DVD+RW/+R/-R/-RW drives. If something should ever happen to that partition or volume, you'll be able to simply restore the snapshot image. With your purchase of Image for Windows, you'll also receive Image for DOS! Download for about $25

Bit-Quest.com

Delete stuck Print Job (applies to all NT based Windows OS's)

Improve XP Boot Speed

Free History Cleaner because privacy is your RIGHT: "

Permanently erase browser's cache files
Permanently Clean browser's cookie files
Clean and disables 'autocomplete' URLs
Cleans the secret index.dat file
Clean Windows temporary folder
Clean Media Players recent file menu
Permanently Clean the Recycle bin
Clean 'Recent Documents' list
Clean Run menu
Clean the 'Find files' history
Frees hard drive space
Speeds up your computer
Each function can be turned on/off
Extremely easy to use
Auto-Start on Windows start up
Easily Integrated with Internet Explorer
Life Time Upgrades "

Modelling balloons Known first of all as a toy or in form of balloon sculptures, there are other possibilities… On this web site we would like to show you how to use balloons to build models of chemical molecules.

A-Clue.Com: "Andrew Odlyzko, at the University of Minnesota, has posted one of those dry academic treatises [.pdf] that really can change the world.

The subject is carriers' attempts to destroy the end-to-end architecture of the Internet through differential pricing. It starts with Voice Over IP.

Carriers (the new name for local, long distance, and cable operators) are encouraging government regulation of VoIP, while building their own systems that violate the end-to-end principle on which the Internet was founded. Carriers are doing this by encouraging government paranoia over the insecurity of encrypted VoIP , promising cooperation with any regime demanding a 'back-door' allowing wiretapping. But their motivation for this has nothing to do with the War on Terror, Odlyzko writes. They simply want to limit competition to those companies that can handle the regulatory burden, which will be paid for by regulated (read rising) prices. This isn't done out of greed. It's a survival strategy. Odlyzko notes that the telecommunications industry is still 10 times bigger than the Internet access business, even though it costs more to run calls over the Internet. Why does it cost less to run calls over the more-expensive infrastructure? Taxes and regulation, which also limit competition. So by regulating (taxing, protecting) VoIP, carriers get the money they need to keep going.

It starts with carriers pushing homeowners toward installing their Wi-Fi solutions, based on a strong, modular platform of Linux or Windows. For a monthly fee, carrier technicians will make sure that your whole home (or business) has fast service, even up to your yard, but that your neighbors can't "steal" this service. They will do this with access points that support security and voice out-of-the-box, and with service contracts that will bring them out at the first hint of trouble.

Grabbing the customer in this way is just the first step, however. The next step is to start putting applications on this platform. Security is an obvious one. Install a small server that is Always-On, that monitors sensors and/or cameras around the perimeter of your home, and make sure police are not only alerted at the first sign of a break-in, but that they get the evidence needed to jail even a failed attacker. Best of all because you have built this on a modular platform that you can control, you have only just begun to profit. Work with hospitals to monitor patients who have diabetes, heart problems, or other conditions that require regular monitoring. Not only are the profits huge from that, but society benefits as well, because we all want to stay home as we age, we're all getting older, and it will cost society much, much less to let us age where we are, under the control of a wireless network, than in some warehouse under the control of an underpaid nurse. Everything is going to be Internet. All the complexity is going to be at the edge. If you can manage that complexity for people you can earn your fees, control your customers, and stay highly relevant in an Always-On world.

Infosys, one of India's largest technology consultants, has launched its first team to help clients implement trials of RFID technology. Many people tell me, "but this doesn't have anything to do with Always-On." Ah, but it does. RFID tags are read by a network. An 802.11 network in your home is just as much a network as anything that may be in a warehouse or store. Once it is shown that you own the tag when you buy the product, your home network can start taking advantage of RFID to know what you have and know where it is.

Mercury News: "How do PC makers move into consumer electronics so quickly? One factor is the rise of contract manufacturers such as Flextronics and Solectron, who can manufacture just about any electronic gadget for a low cost at the direction of any customer. Supporting the contract manufacturers are a host of other independent players such as industrial design companies Frog Design and Ideo and Santa Clara audio chip maker PortalPlayer, which made it possible for Apple Computer to quickly design its iPod music player. Using the template that PortalPlayer designs, just about anyone can design a music player. Then they can take that design to Flextronics to have it built on short notice. This has enabled companies such as Nike to slap its label on an MP3 player and sell it for the same or lower cost than consumer companies like Sony. It's why Wal-Mart can put its name on a notebook computer or why Dell can put its name on a flat-panel TV."

Data recovery tool for Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows NT

NBOR: "The first software that lets you operate a computer the way you think will soon debut. Experience it yourself on January 15th"

New Scientist: "Smart pens have become the latest way to post messages to online diaries, or weblogs, while on the move. The Nokia Digital Pen and Sony Ericsson's Chatpen both let users turn ordinary scribbles and doodles into digital images that can be sent via email or multimedia messaging service (MMS). One web logger has put together computer code to automatically convert these doodles into weblog postings."

Cobian Backup 5 "-- a free multi-threaded program you can use to backup your files and directories from their original location to other directories/drives in the same computer or other computer in your network. Now you can also backup to a FTP server. Cobian Backup exists in two different versions: application and service. The program uses very few resources and can be running on the background on your system, checking your backup schedule and executing your backups when necessary.

* You can automatically backup your files once, daily, weekly, monthly, on a timer basis or manually.
* You can backup to other computers on the network, to other partitions or to a FTP server.
* You can also save and open lists with different backup file sets.
* The program creates a log file which optionally can be mailed to you automatically.

Cobian BackUp can be used as an application (Windows 95 /98 /ME /NT /2000 /XP) or as a Windows service (Windows NT /2000 /XP).
Cobian Backup has integrated compression capabilities, using the standard Zip algorithm. All the functions in the program can optionally be password protected.

iBiz is planning to bring its Virtual Laser Keyboard to market in the first quarter. The VKB attaches to handhelds and projects the image of a full-size keyboard onto the surface of the desk where the handheld is placed, allowing the user to input text without a physical keyboard.

Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Press Release Images

Microsoft Utility: "The Tweakomatic is a nifty new utility that writes scripts that allow you to retrieve and/or configure Windows and Internet Explorer settings. So what, you might ask. Well, think about it. Because these are WMI scripts, they can be used to configure settings on remote computers. Need to change something on a remote machine? Then haul out the Tweakomatic. And think about this: because the Tweakomatic writes scripts, you could do something like run these scripts as logon or logoff scripts. In other words, you could quickly, easily, and automatically configure settings on any or all the computers in your organization. Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP."

Annoyances.org TweakUI: "Soon after the introduction of Windows 95, Microsoft got tired of responding to customer complaints (read 'annoyances'), so they released TweakUI in their collection of 'Power Toys.' TweakUI has a little settings window that allows you to fix a few annoyances without messing around in the Registry. "

modem help, error codes and fixes

OS Updates: Latest patches and updates for your Windows System - TechSpot: "Recommended updates that you should install if you have Windows XP, 2000, Millennium Edition or 98 Second Edition."

There are 3 tweaks you can make to change how XP uses memory.
Open Regedit and Find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management

Disable Paging Executive:
XP pages data from RAM memory to the hard drive. We can stop this happening and keep more data in RAM, resulting in better performance. Users with a large amount of RAM (256MB+) should use this setting. The setting we change to disable the ’Paging Executive’, is DisablePagingExecutive. Changing the value of this key from 0 to 1 will de-activate memory paging.


System Cache Boost:
Changing the value of the key LargeSystemCache from 0 to 1 will tell XP to allocate all but 4MB of system memory to the file system cache, allowing the XP Kernel to run in memory. The 4MB of memory left is used for disk caching, if more is needed, XP allocates more. Generally, this tweak improves performance by a fair bit but can, in some intensive applications, degrade performance. As with the previous tweak, you should have at least 256MB of RAM before attempting to enable LargeSystemCache.


Input/Output Performance:
This improves performance of large file transfers. By default, a value does not appear in the registry, so you will have to create a REG_DWORD value called IOPageLockLimit. The data for this value is in bytes, and defaults to 512KB on machines that have the value. Most people using this tweak have found maximum performance in the 8 to 16 megabyte range, so you will have to play around with the value to find the best performance. The value is measured in bytes, so if you want, 12MB allocated, it’s 12 * 1024 * 1024, or 12582912. As with all these memory tweaks, you should only use this if you have 256MB or more of RAM.

Troubleshooting Windows XP, Tweaks and Fixes for Windows XP: "... a lot of information from various sources, to help you find answers to the problems some users have with Windows XP"

Other links:
http://www.dougknox.com/
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/
http://www.hildrum.com/
http://www.kayodeok.btinternet.co.uk/
http://www.westelcom.com/users/rogersr
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/winhelp2002/index.htm
http://www.winguides.com/
http://www.xpmania.co.uk/
http://www.xptuneup.com/
http://www.wown.com
http://www.learntcpip.com/
http://www.jsiinc.com/
http://www.windowsxpatoz.com/
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http://www.outertech.com/
http://www.superwin.com/

Virtual Memory in Windows XP: "This page attempts to be a stand-alone description for general users of the way Virtual Memory operates in Windows XP. "

Hundreds of XP Tweaks: "Welcome to TweakXP.com, the worlds first site and best site dedicated to improving and customizing XP."

SanDiskNow viewing and sharing digital photos is as simple as watching TV. SanDisk, the world leader in flash memory cards, introduces the Digital Photo Viewer-- the fastest, easiest and most convenient way to view and share digital photos with family and friends. Just insert your memory card and the slide show begins. All in the comfort of your living room, family room, den, or any other place you like to watch TV. More ››

Just to keep pace.... check out the term "psycho acoustic coding".

Nielsen Media Research -- the television industry's lead authority on audience ratings -- is revamping its operations in an effort to capture more data on audience demographics for viewers of small digital-cable channels. The company plans to double the size of its national sample to 10,000 by 2006 and is testing a new "psycho acoustic coding" system that can differentiate between broadcasters' multicast signals. The system requires broadcasters to embed distinctive audio signals -- inaudible to humans-- into their digital broadcasts that will enable Nielsen's new set-top box (known inside the company as "golden ears") to monitor the different channels. Digital television is still in its infancy but is growing up fast as the deadline set for broadcasters to switch over from analog to digital looms. Estimates suggest that fewer than 50 digital stations are currently multicasting, but that number is expected to mushroom over the next few years. Nielsen is also working with radio ratings service Arbitron in a test to gauge the number of often uncounted viewers in dorm rooms, hotels and gyms, using a "portable people meter" the size of a pager to track what kind of radio and television programming people are consuming outside the home. In Europe, Nielsen is studying a wristwatch-type meter to measure an individual's viewing, be it at home or on the road, but the "portable people meter" still has a few kinks to work out. For instance, it records a television signal playing in a bar, even if the user isn't watching the show. Still, many critics see the moves as a step in the right direction. "Since VNU took over there has been a positive movement by Nielsen to advance the state of measurement rather than just sit back and watch their margins grow," says CBS research chief David Poltrack. "They have a plan for measuring the future and are keeping on top of things." (Wall Street Journal 29 Sep 2003)

Skype is a free and simple software that will enable you to make free calls anywhere in the world in minutes. Skype, created by the people who brought you KaZaA uses innovative P2P (peer-to-peer) technology to connect you with other Skype users. If you are tired of paying outrageous fees for telephony, Skype is for you! Skype is quick and easy to install. Just download it.

A Tutorial on How to Create and Restore Ghost Images: "This guide is the site's single most requested feature [downloaded ~1K times each day]. Users of Ghost from all over the world have contributed to the insights it contains, and its popularity continues to grow. When you realize how much time & misery Ghost's supernatural disaster recovery features can save you, you'll understand why this is one program you shouldn't be without. Discover for yourself why so many people include Ghost on their list in response to the question: 'If you could only have 10 programs...?' For your convenience, a downloadable zipped PDF version of this guide is posted here."

Three Important Tasks: "The end of a year is a natural time for wrapping up loose ends from the year past and positioning yourself--and your PC--for a smooth start in the new year. In fact, taking a few minutes now to focus on some basic upkeep for your desktop hardware and software can pay off, big time, for months to come. "

Techbargains.com - Hot Tips for Windows XP: "Everyone wants their machine to run faster. We have compiled all the special tweaks we've made into this one handy article. We focus on settings that improve the performance of Windows XP and not on user interface tweaks. Note: You can disable most of XP's user interface candy and increase performance! These tweaks are designed for Windows XP both Home and Pro. Make sure you have at least 256 MB of RAM, any less and your machine will lag due to use of the hard drive as memory. 512MB is preferred. Backup your System before attempting any of these modifications!"

For WinXP, second level Datacache(L2Cache) is very important for the performance of your CPU. Normally, winXP should recognize your CPU and the value of the L2Cache. However, sometimes XP can't do this, so you must tweak it by yourself to improve the performance:

run "regedit";
goto "[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\SecondLevelDataCache";
modify its value by decimalism:
AMD Duron: 64(kb);
CeleronA/celeron2:128;
PII mobile/PIII E(EB)/P4/AMD K6-3/AMD THUNDERBird/Cyrix III:256;
AMD K6-2/PII/PIII katmai/AMD Athlon:512;
PII Xeon/PIII Xeon:1024;
reboot.

Increase Speed By Tweaking Prefetcher SettingsThis is a unique technique for XP, which could improve the performance significantly by tweaking the prefetcher. Recommended hardware: PIII 800 or higher, 512M RAM or more.

run "regedit";
goto [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher];
Set the value to either 0-Disable, 1-App launch prefetch, 2-Boot Prefetch, 3-Both ("3" is recommended).
reboot.
It will decrease the boot time, but double and increase the performance of your XP. Try it!

Clean Your Prefetch To Improve PerformanceThis is an unique technique for WinXP. We know that it is necessary to wash registry and TEMP files for Win9X/ME/2000 periodically. Prefetch is a new and very useful technique in Windows XP. However, after using XP some time, the prefetch directory can get full of junk and obsolete links in the Prefetch catalog, which can slow down your computer notably. My suggestion is:

open C(system drive):/windows/prefetch;
delete those junk and obsolete files;
reboot.
It is recommended that you do this every month.

Inside Matt's Head: "It takes very little research to see how quickly running a typical FTP server on a home computer is just asking to be hacked. Thankfully, someone has come up with a reasonable answer to this problem. Behold, Encrypted FTP or EFTP! This software allows controlled access for authorized users needing to retrieve files remotely without allowing the general public to access your 'stuff.' "

Inside Matt's Head: "For those of us who live and die by the keyboard, having access to our computers from a remote location is paramount. There are a ton of options to choose from such as pcAnywhere and GoToMyPC, but I've found that a freeware program called TightVNC fits my needs perfectly. TightVNC is derived from the original VNC software that was developed to allow remote access to almost any computer on the fly. This freeware program gives you the ability to access your home/office computer regardless of where you are connecting."

101 Tips and Tweaks for Windows: "PCStats.com -- From performance to security and privacy tips; from essential advice for beginners to registry tweaks, PCstats 101 Tips Guide will help you get the most out of your current PC! "

PC Magazine - Make Windows work Better: "There's a lot you can do to make Windows faster, easier, more reliable, even more fun. We've got 104 tips for Windows users to help you get the most out of your computer."

JpegEnhancer: "As everyone knows, JPEG (.jpg) image compression doesn't save all the information, contained in an image. It makes images very small in terms of the disk space (e.g. comparing with .bmp), but also damages them with a 'blotchy look' and the 'JPEG artifacts'. Most graphics editors have JPEG as a default format. And almost all digital photo cameras save images in JPEG format as well. Jpeg Fixer is an easy to use and extremely powerful program that lets you recover the images, damaged by a low-quality JPEG compression. It uses a unique technology that lets even the novices to easily, quickly and effectively remove the so-called 'JPEG artifacts' and a 'blotchy look' from his/her images. Unlike all other methods, our intellectual science-intensive technology, developed by graduated scientists, doesn't damage your photos simply by blurring them, but recovers them, meaning that your images will look like they looked before the JPEG compression!"

Tom's Hardware Guide: "18 P4 boards In A Price / Performance Face-Off "

Lockergnome Forums -> Ram Drive: "TO CREATE A RAM DRIVE ON WINDOWS XP/2000 You may want to print this off for reference. Note: for a RAM drive you will have to sacrifice part of you available RAM. If you are low on RAM you might not want to do this. If you have typically 256MB or more and only use your computer for 'normal' tasks other than gaming, you should be OK. Also, you will be able to vary the size of your RAM drive depending on what you want to use it for. Microsoft's driver is here

Fagan Finder: "Google is now the most popular pure search engine, a well deserved title. Google gained fame for its PageRank technology, which ranks pages according to their popularity based on link analysis (see popularity ranking), however Google now has many other great qualities. They have gone farther than other major search engines to make the invisible web more visible: They index PDF, DOC, XLS, PPT, RTF, PS, and many other file formats, and are currently indexing dynamic content on a trial basis. There are fewer of these other file types, however they often contain quality information, and can be searched exclusively using the filetype: operator followed by the file type or using the selection box on this page. Google's index of websites is the largest of any search engine (although AllTheWeb hopes to top this). They are a privately held company, one of the few internet companies to be earning any money, and they do this with only minimal, text-based ads which are separate from the search results. Yahoo now uses Google for its web page results, unfortunately Google does not permit meta-search engines to include it. Google is beta testing showing thumbnails of websites on the results pages, and also has a great toolbar, an invaluable addition to the Internet Explorer browser."

Google Web Search Features: "In addition to providing easy access to more than 3 billion web pages, Google has many special features to help you to find exactly what you're looking for."

The Heliodisplay projects full color streaming video into free space (i.e. air). It is plug-and-play compatible with most video sources (TV, DVD, computer, etc.). These non-holographic images can be fully interactive, allowing a hand or finger to select, navigate and manipulate — as if it were a virtual touch screen. We have built one 42" prototype and one 15" interactive prototype. A second 15" interactive prototype will be ready in February 2004.

Stamp: " ... an award-winning software utility that renames digital camera photos so they sort in chronological order:

* Downloads photos from your digital camera
* Dates photos using camera-generated metadata
* Renames photos so they sort chronologically

If you own a digital camera, you're probably generating lots of photos and videos with uninformative filenames like 'DSC00001.JPG' and 'MOV00002.MPG'. It's not easy to view these files chronologically, especially if you mix photos and videos or files from different cameras. Stamp extracts the date/time each photo was originally shot from camera-generated metadata, then adds a timestamp to the beginning of each filename. After running Stamp, you can sort your photos and videos by filename to view them in true chronological order - even if they come from several different cameras."

Don't stop developing the interface.... : "What Are Pie Menus? Pie Menus are a naturally efficient user interface technique: directional selection of pie slice shaped targets. The cursor starts out in the center of the pie, so all targets are large, nearby, and in different directions. Fitts' Law explains the advantages of pie menus, relating fast selection speed and low error rate to large target size and small distance. Pie menus are easy for novice users, who just follow the directions, and efficient for experienced users, who can quickly 'mouse ahead' once they know the way. "

Hardware Hacking HOW-TOs, News, & Info!: "It is no secret that TweakHardware.com offer the BIGGEST collection of guides showing how to convert ordinary (PCI and OnBoard) controllers into RAID controllers on the Internet! If you don't know what RAID is, you should take a look at this article: What is RAID? In context with the big number of RAID modification guides here at TweakHardware.com, we have made this nice looking overview just for you. "

Unison File Sychronizer : "FREE file-synchronization tool that allows two replicas of a collection of files and directories to be stored on different hosts (or different disks on the same host), modified separately, and then updated by propagating the changes in each replica to the other. Unison is a user-level program that can deal with updates to both replicas of a distributed directory structure. When there are conflicting updates, they're detected and displayed while non-conflicting updates are automatically propagated. Lockergnome"

Kaboodle: " ...a free, open-source Internet app which provides:
Complete visualization of your LAN, updated in near-real time. A point-and-click interface to take remote-control of what it finds. A 'personal VPN' capability to securely connect Kaboodle-enabled LANs together across the Internet.
File transfer, continous network monitoring, and more and Kaboodle is optimized for easy use; no TCP/IP expertise required! (though it doesn't hurt...) "

(Google Weblog): "Google may not have enough numbers to identify all the internet's pages! GoogleWatch has an interesting theory: When programming Google, they used standard 32-bit integers to identify pages. 32-bit integers allow you to count up to 4.2 billion, and Google is pretty close to that many pages. It's going to be tricky to upgrade all 15,000 machines to use a larger size integer at once, so maybe this is the reason Google has been having problems lately."

All about the search engine Google: "Google 'indicateur' -- A quick and easy way to find any type of information about the world according to Google "