Tips and Tricks

[tuluvaguy]

Don't you feel like crying every time you add another disc to your pile of scratched discs. Trashing that disc which contained your favorite songs, pics, files, games or videos is not easy.
Read-on, if you find yourself wishing for a miracle every time your fav CD is scratched:

Home Remedy :here's an easy home remedy, which might give you the desired results. Rub a small amount of toothpaste on the scratch and polish the CD with a soft cloth and any petroleum-based polishing solution (like clear shoe polish). Squirt a drop of Brasso and wipe it with a clean cloth.

Technology to the rescue There are many softwares available on the net, which enable the recovery of the CD data.BadCopy Pro is one such software, which can be used to recover destroyed data and files from a range of media.
Just a few clicks is all it requires to recover the disc from almost all kind of damage situation; be it corrupted, lost data, unreadable or defective.
DiskDoctors is another popular company, which offers both software and solutions to recover data from a scratched CDs and DVDs.


General Tips:* Always wipe the CD from the center outward with stratight spoke-like strokes. Wiping CDs in circles will create more scratches.



* Do not scratch the graphics layer as you cannot repair the disc. HINT: Hold the disc up to a light with the graphics layer facing the light source. If you can see light thru the scratches at any point then the disc may be irreparable and or exhibit loading or playing errors.
* Clean your Disc players lens regularly with a suitable product to ensure optimal viewing pleasure.
* Make sure to use a soft, lint-free cloth to clean both sides of the disc. Wipe in a straight line from the centre of the disc to the outer edge.
* If wiping with a cloth does not remove a fingerprint or smudge, use a specialized DVD disc polishing spray to clean the disc.
* Only handle the disc by its outer edge and the empty hole in the middle. This will help prevent fingerprints, smudges or scratches.

Statistics:*Fingermarks/prints cause 43% of disc problems! * General wear & tear causes 25% of disc problems! * Player-related issues cause 15% of disc problems! * User-related issues cause 12% of disc problems! * PlayStation 2 machine scratches cause 3% of disc problems! * Laser rot (a manufacturer error) causes 2% of disc problems!


Another small tip here would be for people using 2000 and above version of Windows.Whenever you are trying to copy or play something from a cd and it doesnt happen, then ( you have to be quick on doing this), first open the task manager in the backlgroung and then start the process that you wanna do. As soon as the CD is started to access, immediately go into the processes ( you can right click on the program and click on show process) right click and set the prioirty to "high" or depending on the condition of the cd. This really worked for me when I needed it the most.

[sahil_india_boy]

Why you create many threds dear ????

You need to post all topic in one thread..

[Guttu]

Yes I agree wid sahil

If u post them in 1 thread it wud b more helpful

Can ANY MOD make 1 thread out of this??

[solksjaer15]

Indexing services is a small little program that uses large amounts of RAM and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. This system process indexes and updates lists of all the files that are on your computer. It does this so that when you do a search for something on your computer, it will search faster by scanning the index lists. If you don't search your computer often, or even if you do search often, this system service is completley unnessesary.
Go to Start
Click Settings
Click Control Panel
Double-click Add/Remove Programs
Click the Add/Remove Window Components
Uncheck the Indexing services
Click Next
That's it, you have now uninstalled the Indexing service, you system will not have more RAM and be more responsive.

[solksjaer15]

Here's the Procedure...
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 purposes of this article I have used 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.

CODE
http://delphi.icm.edu.pl/ftp/tools/ResHack.zip


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, 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 Click Me!
You’ll notice that after the new text string has been entered the Compile Script button that was grayed out is now active. I won’t get into what’s involved in compiling a script, but suffice it to say it’s going to make this exercise worthwhile. 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 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 explorer.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 I’m not sure this article is for you, but just in case it’s a temporary memory lapse, go to Start (soon to be something else) Run and type regedit in the Open field. 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 explorer.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.

[solksjaer15]

You may have noticed that everytime you open my computer to browse folders that there is a slight delay. This is because Windows XP automatically searches for network files and printers when you open Windows explorer. To stop XP from doing this follow the instructions below.
Open My Computer
Click on Tools menu
Click on Folder Options
Click on the View tab.Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and printers check box
Click Apply
Click Ok
Reboot your computer
Try it now, you will see a significant increase in speed.

[solksjaer15]

Adding SafeBoot to the Boot Menu
1 Open a command prompt
2 Copy the current c:\boot.ini to another name (just in case)
3 With your favorite text editor, edit c:\boot.ini
4 Copy then edit the current boot line to another line.
For example:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect might copy and then change to:multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Mi cro soft Windows XP Professional Safeboot" /fastdetect
5 Start MSCONFIG
6 Click on the BOOT.INI tab
7 Highlight the second line with the additional name of Safeboot
8 Check the /SAFEBOOT box with option you wantMinimal - Minimal set of driversNetwork - With Network SupportDsrepair - Directory Services RepairMinimal (Alternate Shell) - Standard Explorer Desktop

[solksjaer15]

Detecting Complex VirusesBy : Peter Ferrie (Internet Security Agent)
There are many metrics by which to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of an antivirus product and the response organization that is backing it. Some of the commonly used metrics today include the antivirus company's response time to new threats and well as the availability of proactive detection. But are these metrics enough?
The purpose of this paper is to examine the difficulties of detecting complex viruses, including polymorphic, metamorphic and entry-point obscuring viruses. Whether or not an anti-virus technology can detect these viruses can be a useful metric to consider when evaluating AV products.
In this article, we will show how complex viruses can offer an entirely different threat to organizations. It is important to step into the world of complex viruses by defining what a metamorphic, polymorphic, and entry-point obscuring virus is, understand when it is considered a real threat, and then see some real-life examples of complex viruses that have been discovered. This will lead into a discussion on the limitations of current anti-virus engine technology, and then finally, we will try to gauge the importance of detecting these complex viruses accurately, and in a timely fashion.Overview of complex virusesAt one time, the aggregate number of viruses a product detects was considered a useful and popular metric, but this has largely been abandoned in favor of other more useful and scientific measures. Today, an AV company's response time to new threats and the proactive detection that their product offers are both considered more important evaluation criteria. But these criteria often do not consider complex viruses, a different kind of threat. Detecting a complex virus means detecting a threat that is either inherently difficult to detect, or exposes engine limitations that make it difficult to detect. We will start with a few definitions.
A polymorphic virus is a virus that changes its appearance in host programs. For instance, it encrypts its body with a different key each time, and prepends a decryption routine to itself. The decryption routine (known as the "decryptor") is mutated randomly across virus instances, so as to be not easily recognizable.
A metamorphic virus, by comparison, is a virus that also changes its appearance in host programs, however it does so without necessarily depending on encryption. The difference in appearance comes from changes made by the virus to its own body. There are several techniques that can produce such an effect.
One of these morphing techniques used by metamorphic viruses is with the insertion and removal of "garbage" instructions. These are instructions that have no effect on the function of the virus, but simply take up space and which can make analysis more difficult when they appear in large quantities. Another technique is to change the basic encoding of instructions at the opcode level. That is, switching between two different opcodes that are functionally-equivalent.
Perhaps the most complex transformation of a metamorphic virus is the replacement of entire blocks of logic with functionally-equivalent blocks of logic. Consider the task of multiplying x by 3. One expression of this is "3*x". However, an alternative expression is to replace the single multiplication with a repeated addition instead: "x+x+x". Both expressions will result in the same answer, yet they look very different.
An entry-point obscuring ("EPO") virus is a virus that gets control from the host program in an indirect way, rather than straightforwardly through the main entry-point. Typically, it involves patching a variable location in the host program code, perhaps a function prologue or an API call sequence, and redirecting control flow to the virus code from there.
An inherently difficult virus could be a polymorphic Win32 virus whose appearance varies greatly between samples. Regardless of what technology is available to detect the virus, the first hurdle is to analyze and understand the way the virus works, and invent an algorithm capable of detecting all virus replicants. This can be a daunting task, even assuming the ability to write the detection as a standalone program in a language of one's choice.Determining the threatComplex viruses do not represent a real threat until they are discovered outside of a laboratory and "in the wild". Herein lies the problem: the difficulty is in defining what it means for a virus to be "in the wild".
The industry definition of a virus "in the wild" is typically a virus that has been seen by at least two independent submitters in at least two different regions. However, this definition overlooks the existence of localized outbreaks, in which one or more companies in a single region might be heavily infected. In that case, a virus might be considered "in the wild" based solely on the number of submissions, but this can be misleading if people submit the same virus sample repeatedly. This also overlooks the case of virus "seeding", in which a virus is placed in a public location, such as the Usenet newsgroups, in the hope that enough people will be tempted to run it -- but no one actually does.
The fact remains that many of the most complex viruses are not especially widespread. If a sample of this virus has not been submitted by a "sufficient" number of outsiders, in a short period of time, it may be considered a "zoo" virus with minimal widespread threat. However, it's important to remember that this level of threat can change at any time.Examples of "zoo" virusesExamples of infamous "zoo" viruses include the complex Win32 viruses known as W95/SK , W95/Zmist, W32/Simile , W32/Efish (from the W32/Chiton family), and W95/Perenast. Just mention any of these names to an AV researcher and watch their terror-stricken face. W32/Gobi and W32/Zelly are two of the most recent such brain-teasers. Both are very polymorphic, employing multiple encryption layers and entry-point obscuring.
These examples are all worth a few days (and nights) of work at the least, taking into account reverse-engineering, replicating the virus, and writing the detection signature. It can help a researcher to start writing the detection as a standalone C program before integrating it into one's AV product.Limitations in AV engine technologyUnfortunately AV researchers do not have the luxury to write standalone programs from scratch to respond to new viruses. Instead they are constrained by a framework imposed by an AV product. The framework may be more or less flexible, and usually comes with a set of constraints that largely determine how efficient a response will be possible.
A comparatively simple virus affecting an emerging platform (say, Win64) may expose AV engine limitations that make it just as hard to detect as a tough Win32 polymorphic virus, in a subjective way -- depending on what AV engine technology is available to respond. Maybe the affected file format is not parsed by the engine, or only incompletely supported. Emulation may or may not be available. These factors greatly influence the ability to detect the virus.
Some of the new viruses that affected the Win64 platform in 2004, and were relatively difficult to detect, included W64/Rugrat (PDF document) (IA64), W64/Shruggle (AMD64), plus some new viruses with MSIL infectors. The corresponding executable file formats are varied, and even the job of picking a simple search string for an immutable virus can turn into a contortionist's exercise if the underlying AV engine lacks support for these file formats.
Naturally, there is the fear of an inherently difficult virus affecting an esoteric or emerging platform like Win64. Such viruses do occasionally surface in zoo collections, to the delight of no one except a virus researcher. Two examples of these new viruses, both released in early 2004, are MSIL/Impanate and MSIL/Gastropod - viruses for the Microsoft .NET framework. The first of these, MSIL/Impanate, is an EPO virus. It appends its code to a random method in the file, and rebuilds the host around it. The second of these, MSIL/Gastropod, is a metamorphic virus. Its appearance is altered by the virus intentionally adding and removing "garbage" instructions.The importance of detecting complex virusesYou may rightfully ask: why does it matter to detect such viruses, if they belong to "zoo" collections? Well, first of all, sometimes they do find their way into the wild. W32/Toal, for instance, a difficult polymorphic worm, was discussed on an emergency virus mailing list after being spotted actively spreading. Some complex viruses currently registered as zoo samples spread aggressively enough that they would stand a chance to infect machines in the real world if some mischievous soul were to release them.
Moreover, even for purely zoo viruses unlikely to ever cause problems in the wild, the response (or lack thereof) of AV companies to such viruses can reveal a lot about limitations in the engine technology available, and perhaps the skill and dedication of the response teams. Some companies provide detection quickly, in a matter of hours or days, while some others finally ship a solution after months of work (or years in some extreme cases, like W95/Zmist!), and yet other companies simply give up.
Besides the speed of response, the quality of detections also varies greatly, as measured by the ability to detect all samples of a polymorphic virus for instance, and doing so with an acceptable false-positive rate. What is an acceptable false-positive rate? While this varies from company to company, usually no more than a handful of false positives would be considered acceptable -- however, there are exceptions to this. One recent example, W32/Zelly, was allowed an enormous (up to 50%) false-negative rate by some anti-virus companies just to be among the first to detect it.
What if your AV company gives up on difficult zoo viruses? It certainly says something about either the flexibility of their technology, or the skill and dedication of their response team. What if tomorrow's Mydoom is heavily polymorphic? Will they be able to respond to it in a timely manner?
If you think it's an unlikely scenario, compare it to the following analogy: if you had to pick a surgeon, would you choose the one who carried out hundreds of successful open-heart surgeries, or the one who only ever did appendectomies? Even for an appendectomy, most would choose the first one.ConclusionIn this article we've looked as some of the difficulties in detecting complex viruses, by first discussing what they are and why they can be difficult to discover. We then looked at a few examples of "zoo" viruses and how they can uncover limitations in various AV engines. As we have seen, finding complex viruses can be another useful metric in determining which anti-virus technology is best suited to the needs of an organization -- in addition to other common metric such as response time to new threats, and how effective the pro-active detection offered really is.

[solksjaer15]

equires: Firefox: 0.7 - 1.6a1
Requires: Mozilla: 1.4 - 1.8
Download and install Adblock Mozilla Extension from.
Code:
http://addons.mozilla.org/extensions...cation=mozilla


After install restart mozilla Click tools at the top menu go down to adblock than click the preferences, enter the ad site you want to block and click add.

EDIT:
Install Adblock Filterset.G Updater too
Code:
http://addons.mozilla.org/extensions...mpg=10&id=1136

This extension automatically downloads the latest version of Filterset.G every 4-7 days. Filterset.G is an excellent set of filters maintained by G for Adblock that blocks most ads on the internet.

[solksjaer15]

Almost all users of this forum use Broadband. BroadBand comes with a monthly data tranfer limit. So here is Tips to save ur bandwidth.


1.) When you are not chatting close your IM. They cause pop-up ads. It is also good for security.

2.) Use 4 wall protection means use a Firewall, Antivirus , Antispyware, and antispam solutions. Remember to enable ad block feature of your firewall.

3.) Most software come with auto update feature. If u dont use that software more often disable autoupdate for that feature. Like I have disabled the auto update of adobe acrobat reader.

4.) Dont download software that are likely to come in Digit DVD/CD. If you want to download something first check the Digit preview List on digit forum (If available). If you cant find that software than download it. Or if download size is big than its better to request that software.

5.)Dont download software betas. They are buggy. Instead wait for 15days-1 month. final version will come out than download that. This way you can save your bandwidth by not downloading beta which wil be worthless after final version comes out.

6.)If you are a advance user dont use auto update feature of windows. Instead go to microsoft site and check for updates. Never download updates for software u dont use. Like for playing mp3s I use winamp so I never download hotfixes for Windows Media player. Why download that for something i even didn't use. You can also skip updates for office applications.

7.)(For Dialup) If u want to read some articles over the net. its better that u save the page than disconnect than read that.

8.)A extra tip from me...Dont use internet radio's and other stuff like them. They will hog your bandwidth.

9.) For surfing use opera as web browser. Cause when you are browsing in IE when you click back button IE load the previous page again. But opera show that page from cache.

10.) Its better to use web mail than using mail from mail client. for security and bandwidth reason. But sometimes using a mail client will save bandwidth.

11.)When downloading trial games check what type of trial is that. Some games only have playtime of one hour in that case it not worth downloading.

12.) Every ISP give Happy Hours (it is the time when you do not get charged for using web and downloading). Download big files in this time.
(Happy Hours for BSNL ::= 2 AM to 8 AM).


I know this guide is completely n00bish. But Hey this types of tutorials are only useful for bigginers.

Now Happy Surfing.....