Sublime Maxxus

Search Securely On Google Without Anyone Seeing What You’re Searching For

2010-06-13T11:18:00.004-04:00

One of the biggest problem these days, when it comes to internet is, there are a lot of sniffers sitting around trying to capture every single word you type in on your compute

Just imagine that you are trying to search for something on Google, something really personal, and what if this search of yours is being intercepted and is being read by a third party ?

You are in your office, trying to find some information about a new job you are interested in applying. You run a search query on your system and this information goes straight to your bosses inbox!!

Would you want to compromise your security to technology ? The answer is definitely a NO.

Now Google offers search over SSL (those of you who have no idea what SSL is, follow this link), which ensures that your search is private and secure from any external interference.

Google surely understands the need of the day, but then again, Google themselves keep track of what you are searching, so it like Google plans to become a monopoly in knowing what customers / users want ??

Google SSL: https://www.google.com/

Beep Codes That Tell You If Your Graphic Card Is Faulty

2010-05-11T11:14:00.000-04:00

As with the motherboard, there are several beep codes relating to faults with graphics cards. What complicates the situations is the fact that some of these codes can also imply problems with the systems memory. So it’s quite tricky and not as simple as it seems to be. For example, assuming you have an AWARD BIOS and are getting one long beep and two short beeps, this would indicate a probable problem with the graphics card with less likely possibility of a fault in the memory.

All you can really do is check out the possibilities in the order of likelihood. Unfortunately, for the average PC user suspecting a fault specific to a board, the options are limited. Unless you have specialized test equipment and the knowledge to use it, you are basically restricted to the following:

* Check the connection- Do this by replugging the card into its socket.

* Replacement – if you are fortunate enough to have a functional graphics card handy, perhaps from an earlier upgrade, try installing this. If you don’t have another card, consider going out and buying the cheapest one you can find, as substitution is the only way to be really sure.

* Resource conflict – You could have a situation where by your graphics card is OK but is being prevented from working by another hardware device which is claiming the same system resources. The usual method of sorting out this type of problem is by using the Device Manager in the Control Panel. This however, requires access to Windows, which in this situation you obviously haven’t got. What you’ve got to do therefore, is one by one, physically remove every device in the system, restarting each time and seeing if the PC now boots. If and when it does, then the last device removed will be culprit. Once back in windows go into the Device Manager to resolve the issue.

Embed MSN Windows Live Chat in your Website

2009-11-15T10:56:00.010-05:00

If you have a website you can embed MSN Windows Live into your website pages so people can chat with you and ask questions when you appear online. They could be anywhere in the world, visiting your website, see you online, and begin to chat with you. I think this is fantastic because it is a great service and it is free.

Can you embed MSN Windows Live chat into any website?

Yes, as long as you can paste the script into your website. For example if you have a Blogger or Wordpress website you could paste the script into a widget for the sidebar.

Why would you want to embed MSN Windows Live chat into a website?

There are many good reasons for embedding MSN Windows Live into your website, however the main one is the personal touch. Website visitors can actually chat with you personally. People love that. Its also great if you have a forum and someone needs to chat or get help asap. Its all about customer service.

How to embed MSN Windows Live chat into your website?

Make sure you are signed up to use Windows Live chat with an email and password.

Go to http://settings.messenger.live.com/Applications/WebSettings.aspx

See the screenshot below. Tick the box next to Allow anyone on the web to see my presence and send me messages.

Press on Create HTML in the left column. See screenshot below.

You can now choose to show an entire window, a button, or just an
icon, to show your status.

When you have made your choices, copy the code and paste it into your website.

Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop, and can hide your icons when they're not in use. It's FREE for personal use, so try it out

2009-11-02T01:09:00.004-05:00

Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop and can hide your icons when they're not in use. A "Fence", a term coined by this program, is an icon group on your desktop. Fences is an add-on to your desktop, not a replacement.

Rope off your desktop
Fences allows you to create shaded areas on your desktop that you can place icons in. You can label them however you wish, and move/resize them anywhere on the desktop. Pre-included layouts help speed the process for new users.

See your wallpaper again! Quickly hide & show all your icons with an easy double-click
Double click blank space on your desktop, and all your icons will fade out. Double click again, and they’ll return. We think this feature is so useful and unique, that we’ve applied for a patent on it. And with the upcoming Fences FeaturePack / included in the community preview, you can even pick icons and individual Fences to exclude.

Check out the review video from CNET below.

Fences runs on all of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. On Vista and Win7, both 32bit and 64bit versions are supported.

Since Fences uses nearly no system resources, having the operating system is its only requirement. Installation is through Impulse (IE7 required).

It's FREE for personal use, so try it out today, and change how you use your desktop forever! Download Now (8.64MB) Tested spyware free!!

Windows 7 Basics

2009-11-02T00:50:00.002-05:00

How to create a Windows 7 system repair disk.

Computer Networking Tutorial - 6 - OSI Model Network and Transport Layer

2009-09-27T02:10:00.000-04:00

A very informative introduction to computer networking. Part 6 of 6.

Computer Networking Tutorial - 5 - OSI Model Data Link Layer

2009-09-24T13:09:00.000-04:00

A very informative introduction to computer networking. Part 5 of 6.

Computer Networking Tutorial - 4 - OSI Model Physical Layer

2009-09-20T08:23:00.001-04:00

A very informative introduction to computer networking. Part 4 of 6.

Computer Networking Tutorial - 3 - Network Topology

2009-09-20T08:22:00.001-04:00

A very informative introduction to computer networking. Part 3 of 6.

Computer Networking Tutorial - 2 - Networking Basics

2009-09-17T21:19:00.002-04:00

A very informative introduction to computer networking. Part 2 of 6.

Computer Networking Tutorial - 1 - Introduction to Networking

2009-09-17T21:13:00.005-04:00

A very informative introduction to computer networking. Part 1 of 6.

Repeating Seamless Background Image Tutorial Using Photoshop

2009-05-26T11:38:00.001-04:00

A trick often employed on webpages is to use a seamless background that can tile both vertically and horizontally. If your website gets alot of traffic and you don’t like paying for extra bandwidth costs you need to optimize your site for every single kilobyte. This generally translates to NOT using a giant JPG as a background; (unless you’re doing silly myspace layouts). This tutorial will explain how to make seamless backgrounds for your webpages.

Step One - Identify image you want to use as your seamless background

In this case we’ve put together a 500x500 red and gray image that we think will work well as a textured background. It’s important to know the height and width of your image for the next step in the tutorial so be sure to write down or remember what your height and width are. 500x500 may be too large for some websites since you may want to use something more like 100-200px in height and width, but for this example we’ll use a fairly large image:

Step Two - Offset the image

The second step to properly making a tile-able background is to offset the image. My image is 500px wide and 500px high so I will be offsetting this image by 250px both vertically and horizontally. To do this I use the offset filter. (Filter>Other>Offset in Adobe Photoshop CS3)

I set the Horizontal and Vertical offset values to exactly 50% of my image height and width and set the undefined areas to wrap around. After clicking ok I get an image that looks like this:

This isn’t quite what we want our background to look like… Ideally our background has no seams in it and appears to be one large image which leads us into step three of the process

Step Three - Clone Stamp out the seams

One of my personal favorite tools that Photoshop has to offer is the Clone Stamp Tool (s key on keyboard to select it) I’m not going to go into great detail about how to use it except to say that if you’re not using the clone stamp tool then you need to start to.After selecting the Clone Stamp Tool you need to choose a sample area in the image. Hold the alt button, (or option on mac) and a crosshair will appear, you then need to click in an area away from the seems preferrably in the lower left or lower right area. After clicking you can release the alt/option button and your brush will appear again. You can at this time use the clone stamp tool just like you would a brush and draw over the seams. As you drag the mouse over your seams you will see that is has cloned the portion of the image you just sampled. Here’s a video on Youtube that outlines how exactly the Clone Stamp works in detail:

One trick I like to use when sampling the areas of the image is to use either a soft brush:

Or for instances like this where I have a textured image I like to use my textured brushes:

After you’ve clone stamped out your seems your image should look something like this:

Step Four - Check to make sure it tiles properly without seams

To make sure it will look alright for for tiling I recommend using the Offset filter again by hitting cntrl+F or apple+F or you can just goto Filter>Other>Offset and hit ok. The image should re-wrap itself by 250px vertically and horizontally and you should still not see any seams. If you do, repeat step three and clone stamp out the seams.

Step Five - Define Pattern to save for later use

If your image is going on the web you can export it now and use the necessary CSS code to tile your background either vertically, or horizontally and vertically as you can with our image and you can see your results on your webpage. Example:


background: url(path/to/image.jpg) repeat-x repeat-y;

If you want to use the tile-able seamless graphic in Photoshop then you need to create a defined pattern for your image.

To do this, select all (cntrl+a or apple+a) and goto Edit>Define Pattern… then name the pattern and hit ok.Step Six - Fill with Defined Pattern

To fill an area with your newly defined pattern goto Edit>Fill… and you should see the fill window popup. Set the “Use” drop down to “Pattern” and then select your pattern from the list below as I have:

After clicking ok you should see that the image (or selection) has been filled in with your seamless texture. You can see the result of my tiled image by clicking on the thumbnail below:

Conclusion

One thing you’ll notice about the image is that it will have a repeating area of lighter red texture and some gray splotches that may be easily seen when tiled over and over again. The way to get rid of this is to keep resampling the original image with the clone stamp tool in the begining steps to get rid of clearly noticeable areas of pattern. The less variation in the texture/colors of the image the less noticeable it will be that the image is a tiled graphic.

Your computer, without the computer using a portable application!!

2009-02-01T10:55:00.002-05:00

What is a portable app?

portable - carried or moved with ease
app - a computer program like a web browser or word processor

A portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug the device, none of your personal data is left behind.

No Special Hardware - Use any USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod/MP3 player, etc

No Additional Software - Just download, run the portable installer and go

No Kidding - It's that easy

Consider the Possibilities...

Carry your web browser with all your favorite bookmarks
Carry your calendar with all your appointments
Carry your email client with all your contacts and settings
Carry your instant messenger and your buddy list
Carry your whole office suite along with your documents and presentations
Carry your antivirus program and other computer utilities
Carry all your important passwords and account information securely

Consider the Convenience...

Have your favorite websites handy to recommend to a friend or colleague
Have your presentation AND the required software ready to go for that big meeting
Have your password with you if you want to bank online while traveling
Have utilities handy when visiting family or friends that are having PC problems

PortableApps.com Suite™ is a complete collection of portable apps including a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, antivirus, audio player, sudoku game, password manager, PDF reader, minesweeper clone, backup utility and integrated menu, all preconfigured to work portably. Just drop it on your portable device and you're ready to go.

Choose Your Download 1.1 for Windows, Starting at only 1MB Download Details

Included Applications

All versions of the PortableApps.com Suite include the integrated PortableApps.com Menu (pictured at right) and the PortableApps.com Backup utility along with a set of custom icons, an autoplay configuration, folders and a quick start shortcut. In addition, the packages include:

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition (web browser)

Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition (email)

Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition (calendar/tasks)

ClamWin Portable (antivirus)

Pidgin Portable (instant messaging)

Sumatra PDF Portable (PDF reader

KeePass Password Safe Portable (password manager)

Sudoku Portable (game)

Mines-Perfect Portable (game)

CoolPlayer+ Portable (audio player)

OpenOffice.org Portable* (office suite)
- Writer (word processor)
- Calc (spreadsheet)
- Impress (presentations)
- Base (database utility)
- Draw (drawing)

*Note: The Light Suite includes AbiWord Portable (word processor) instead of OpenOffice.org Portable.

License: Free / Open Source (Mozilla apps: MPL, Others: GPL)

Cool Web Effects - Lightbox Image Viewer 2.03a

2009-01-24T15:51:00.007-05:00

The Lightbox Image Viewer 2.0 expands upon the original Lightbox Image Viewer with a few new features. While the original version is great for viewing images individually on the page, Lightbox 2.0 supports a new "grouping" feature that lets you group related images on the page for easy browsing amongst them. The transitional effect for bringing up an image also differs from the original. And like before, this script supports optional caption display, plus incremental preloading of the next image when images are grouped. Very nice!

Demo 1: (individual images):

(Note: caption for "Evi" is hyperlinked, v2.03a feature)

Demo 2: (grouped images set. After an image has enlarged, you can move between images by clicking on the right/left edges of the enlarged image):

Directions:

Simply download Lightbox V2.03a, and refer to the index file inside for installation instructions. If you're merely upgrading from v2.03 to v2.03a, simply refresh the following file:

lightbox.js (v2.03a)

Installation instructions

Just for your reference, the installation instructions are repeated below.

Step 1: Insert the below code in the HEAD section of your page:

<script type="text/javascript" src="js/prototype.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/scriptaculous.js?
load=effects">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/lightbox.js">
</script>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/lightbox.css" type="text/css"
media="screen"/>

Lightbox v2.0 uses the Prototype Framework and ScriptaculousEffects Library.

Step 2: Create your "thumbnail" image links,
for example:

<a href="images/image-1.jpg" rel="lightbox" title="my caption">
image #1</a>

The rel attribute is mandatory in order to activate the effect for this particular image. The "title" attribute is optional, and when defined, adds a caption beneath the enlarged image. The "href" attribute obviously should contain the path to the enlarged image. If you wish a particular caption ("title") to be hyperlinked to a specific URL, throw in a "rev" attribute pointing to the desired URL. For example:

<a href="images/image-1.jpg" rel="lightbox" title="my caption" rev="http://sublimemaxxus.blogspot.com/">image #1</a>

LightBox version 2 also adds the ability to group multiple image links together, so an image gallery is created out of the enlarged images:

<a href="images/image-1.jpg" rel="lightbox[roadtrip]">image #1
</a>
<a href="images/image-2.jpg" rel="lightbox[roadtrip]">image #2
</a>
<a href="images/image-3.jpg" rel="lightbox[roadtrip]">image #3
</a>

As you can see, to group image links together, simply modify the "rel" attribute to be "lightbox[roadtrip]" instead, where "roadtrip" is an arbitrary but unique name for that group. You can have multiple groups of images on the same page- just use a unique group name in each case. Grouped images can be cycled through by clicking on the right/left edges of each
enlarged image.

That's it! Enjoy this superb script. Remember, there's also LightBox V1 if you don't need the grouping feature and just want an elegant transition effect to bring up each image.

Notes

For your information, inside lightbox.js, there are a few configurable variables:

// Configuration
//
var fileLoadingImage = "images/loading.gif";
var fileBottomNavCloseImage = "images/closelabel.gif";
var resizeSpeed = 7; // controls the speed of the image resizing
(1=slowest and 10=fastest)
var borderSize = 10; //if you adjust the padding in the CSS, you
will need to update this variable

Block IP Address Script

2009-01-05T18:22:00.000-05:00

Use this script to block certain IPs from your webpage, by redirecting them to another site. Note that your web server must have SSI enabled (most Linux servers do), with the page using the correct extension (ie: .shtml) in order for this script to work. Furthermore, since this script relies on JavaScript to block the user (by redirecting the person to another site), if he/she disables JavaScript in the browser, the script will become futile.

Just insert the below script to the HEAD section of your page, and enter your list of IPs to block:

<script type="text/javascript">

//Enter list of banned ips, each separated with a comma:
var bannedips=["23.23.23.23", "11.11.11.11"]

var ip = ''

var handleips=bannedips.join("|")
handleips=new RegExp(handleips, "i")

if (ip.search(handleips)!=-1){
alert("Your IP has been banned from this site. Redirecting...")
window.location.replace("http://www.google.com")
}

</script>

Zango Removal Instructions and Help

2008-11-28T19:19:00.000-05:00

What is Zango?

Zango is a entertainment site with free access to videos, music, games, and other downloads. The site is free to all users, but is paid for by advertisements. Visitors are presented with an end user license agreement that they accept before downloading any content.

Zango does display popup advertisements and such to pay for the games and videos. The Zango software includes a search assistant and toolbar. Since the software does not collect or share any information about users they are not considered spyware but rather adware. Advertiser sponsored free software that anyone can view and play as long as they are willing to view the ads that go along with it.

If you want Zango installed on your computer, you can visit their site.

How Do I Know If I Have Zango Installed?

You'll notice the following toolbar in your browser if Zango is installed on your computer.

as well as the following icon in your system tray

If you run Hijackthis, you'll also notice the following lines that have been added:

C:\Program Files\Zango\zango.exe
C:\Program Files\ZangoToolbar\Bin\4.8.3.0\ZbSrv.exe

O2 - BHO: Zango Search Assistant Helper /fleok=1D8A83A5C5E0117D9CA975760EA83FA5EF80752B94E2DE765D754E2937C3 - {56F1D444-11BF-4879-A12B-79CF0177F038} - c:\program files\zango\zangohook.dll

O2 - BHO: Zango Toolbar - {5CBE2611-C31B-401F-89BC-4CBB25E853D7} - C:\Program Files\ZangoToolbar\Bin\4.8.3.0\ZbHostIE.dll

O3 - Toolbar: Zango Toolbar - {5CBE2611-C31B-401F-89BC-4CBB25E853D7} - C:\Program Files\ZangoToolbar\Bin\4.8.3.0\ZbHostIE.dll

O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [zango] "c:\program files\zango\zango.exe"

How Do I Remove Zango?

1) Click on Start, Settings, Control Panel

2) Double click on Add/Remove Programs

3) Find "Zango" in the list of installed programs and click on Change/Remove to uninstall it. There may also be a program called Media Gateway, remove it as well.

You'll be presented with the following screen during the uninstall process, you'll want to check either the Zango toolbar or Search Assistant, or both before clicking Next to complete the uninstall.

4) Reboot your Computer and run HijackThis.

5) With HijackThis, scan for and fix any of the entries shown above that may be remaining.

6) Zango should now be completely uninstalled from your computer.

7) If for any reason, Zango did not completely uninstall, click on the following link to download and run the uninstaller.

http://www.zango.com/Uninstall/ZUninstaller.exe

If you decide later you want to play the games or watch the videos on Zango's site, you'll have to reinstall their software.

How to Remove Norton Antivirus and Security Products

2008-11-28T19:06:00.000-05:00

One of the most frequently asked questions how to uninstall Norton or McAfee antivirus and security products. Maybe its because trial versions of these products were preinstalled when the customer purchased the computer, or maybe you want to uninstall Norton Antivirus and install another antivirus software product.

Other computer users may be trying to install an antivirus product and they are told to uninstall Norton before they can proceed even though it appears Symantec products are not running on the system.

It's also amazing how many viruses attack Norton and Symantec products especially and disable them so they can wreck havoc on the computer.

My personal experience with Norton Antivirus has been mostly positive. However, each successive version seems to incorporate more functionality but it gets slower and slower. One of the best ways always is to uninstall Norton and install a free antivirus product. I've also experienced situations where internet access is completely shut down and many times uninstalling all of the Norton Antivirus or firewall products on the computer fixes this issue.

Follow the instructions below to safely remove Norton and Symantec security products including their antivirus and firewall from your computer

Removal through the Add/Remove Programs Control Panel

In many cases, you can simply remove Norton products through the Add/Remove Control Panel.

1) Click on Start, then click on Control Panel.

2) Double-click on Add or Remove Programs.

3) Find the Symantec or Norton product listed and click on it.

4) Click on Remove.

5) The click the Remove All button to start the removal process.

6) Once the removal process completes, you'll be asked to restart the computer. Go ahead and reboot at that time.

7) After rebooting, Norton should be removed from your system.

If for some reason, the normal uninstall does not remove it, I recommend following the automatic uninstall instructions below to remove any leftover Symantec or Norton security products.

Removing Norton Automatically

Norton has created an automatic removal program to remove the following software products when the normal removal methods fail. Warning: if you use ACT! or WinFAX, back up those databases and uninstall those products as well. The removal tool will remove the following software products from your computer.

* Norton AntiSpam 2004 - 2005
* Norton Antivirus 2003 - 2007.2
* Norton Ghost 2003, 9.0, and 10.0
* Norton GoBack 3.1 - 4.2
* Norton Internet Security 2003 - 2007.2
* Norton Password Manager
* Norton Personal Firewall 2003 - 2006
* Norton SystemWorks 2003 - 2007
* Norton Confidential Online 2007
* Norton Internet Security 2007 Add-on Pack
* Norton Save and Restore 1.0 - 2.0
* Norton 360

Follow these directions to download the Norton Removal Tool and run it to remove the above programs.

1. Click on the following link to download the Norton removal tool

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/removal_tools/Norton_Removal_Tool.exe

2. Click Save and save the file to your desktop.

3. Close all Norton Application windows you may have open, and double-click on Norton_Removal_Tool.exe to start the removal tool. Windows Vista users will have to right-click on the file and select "Run as Administrator".

4. After the removal tool finishes, you should be prompted to restart your computer.

5. Once the computer restarts, your Norton product should be uninstalled.

Create Dazzling Photo Effects for FREE Using Your Browser

2008-11-28T18:54:00.000-05:00

Want to create cool digital photo effects but are a bit intimidated with more complex editors such as Photoshop? Try the world's most advanced image editor for FREE... click here to use if FREE!!

Send Your Pictures From Phone to Computer

2008-11-01T11:43:00.001-04:00

We all know that cell phones are one of today's big crazes. An even bigger one is camera cell phones. Before we know it, all cell phones will probably have camera abilities, because the world today likes to see real images rather than just words. So, it may be a good idea to know what you can do with the pictures you take on your phone after the shooting is done.

Picture Messaging

A common way that people transfer photos from their cell phones to their computers (that doesn't really have any additional cost from your regular monthly bill) is picture messaging. It works pretty much the same as text messaging; you just have to have text messaging enabled on your cell phone. If you don't, this method will not work.

Note: Expect this method to be a little different for various phone models, but the following directions are pretty basic and similar for all phones.

If you would like to send a picture to another person's cell phone or if you want to e-mail a picture to a friend or even to yourself, you just need to open your phone and go to the Menu. Find your phone's Media Gallery and then choose Pictures. At this point, you can pick the photo you'd like to send. Once you have it chosen, go to Options and choose Send in Message (like you're sending a text message). This is where you choose to send it to one of the Contacts listed in your phone or if you want to e-mail it to someone or yourself. Pick the person you're sending it to and push the OK button and then Send.

You can also send text with the picture if you want to do that. If you end up e-mailing the picture to someone, you will just have to type in their e-mail address and they will get it in their Inbox. You just need to make sure the person you're sending the picture to has picture capabilities too.

Data Cable

Another way you can transfer photos to other people is to put them directly onto your computer, so you can e-mail them to your friends or save them to a disk or a CD. So, to do that, you have to have some sort of a USB data connection kit, which comes with the cable cord that plugs your phone into your computer's USB port and the software that will help you in transferring the pictures from your phone. You usually have to purchase these kits separate from your phone. The store where you buy your phone should have them available and they will be able to tell you which one will work with your type of phone.

Once you have your phone and computer connected, you can start transferring the pictures. Again, keep in mind that these kits are phone specific, so you need to make sure that you get one that will be compatible with your phone model.

Bluetooth

Another way to handle the pictures on your cell phone that is becoming more popular every day is a wireless technology called Bluetooth. Bluetooth works with short-range wireless technologies that allow you to easily send photos from your phone to a laptop or desktop computer. The computer you are sending them to just has to be equipped to accept the pictures.

The most difficult (but it can sometimes be fairly easy) part about Bluetooth is matching the phone to the computer, so they are both compatible with each other. But, once that it is done, sending the images couldn't be easier.

As long as your phone has the Bluetooth software on it, you can send the images without any extra charges billed to you. You can also send photos to other Bluetooth users' phones without any wires or additional charges. This seems to be the most versatile way to go if you're looking to maybe spend a little more money up front for the Bluetooth works, but it will save you money in the long run when you don't have to pay any extra charges when sending your pictures back and forth.

E-mail

Another way for you to send pictures between your friends and family is to e-mail them. Your cell phone has to have e-mail capabilities for this to work, but a lot of the phones these days come with that ability. You can e-mail them to other people or, as mentioned above, to yourself. You just have to type the e-mail address in the To: field just like you would if you were using Outlook Express and it will be sent.

If you see something while you're out and about that you just have to take a picture of, you can snap the photo on your phone, send yourself a quick e-mail and when you get home, the picture will be on your computer waiting for you. You can then send it off to other people or do something like set it as your desktop wallpaper.

Removable Memory Cards

Another new technology that is presenting itself with camera phones is an external memory card for your phone. The phone just comes with a slot for the card and you can transfer the shots to your computer in a snap. You will need to purchase an external memory card reader so it will all work, but it's one of the easiest ways to go if you takes several pictures with your cell phone.

When you have the card reader installed, you just remove the memory card from your phone, insert it into the reader and your computer will recognize it as another drive. You can then drag and drop the photos wherever you want them to go, e-mail them to others, etc. The options are pretty endless with this choice. You can then get rid of the existing pictures on your phone (since they're on your computer and not lost) and go out and take more. It's that easy!

Just one more reminder: all of these applications work differently with different phones, so make sure you refer to your phone's manual before doing anything you're not sure of.

Add Your Logo To A Video File For FREE!

2008-10-03T15:22:00.001-04:00

Many people like to add their logo or their URL to video files. I will show you how to add a professional looking transparent logo to your video files using a free program called VirtualDub which is the best free program to work with AVIs (like DIVX, XVID or any other AVI format). You can use the same technique to add a picture or a text using VirtualDub.

Prepare your logo by opening your favorite image editor and making a new image file, try to use a suitable dimensions and suitable color that will look good in the final video also make it as simple and as small as possible.

Fill all the areas that you want to be transparent with black.

Save the image as bmp, jpg or tga.

Open VirtualDub, Drag and Drop your video on it.

Click Video > Full processing mode.

Click Video > Filters or (Ctrl + F).

In the Filters window, click Add.

In the "Add Filter" window scroll down to logo and double click on it or choose it and click Ok.

In the "filter: logo" window click "Logo image" and browse to the logo image you have created.

Check the three check boxes: "Enable per-pixel alpha blending…", "Use premultiplied alpha…" and "Use gray channel…".

In the "Alpha image" browse to the same image file again.

Click the "Show preview" button, you should now see your logo on the video.

Change the "X offset" and "Y offset" to change the position of your logo.

You can also change the Opacity value if you like your logo to be semi transparent, you should see the results immediately in the "Filter preview" window.

Click Ok twice to return to the main window, press (Ctrl + P) or click Video > Compression to choose a video compression - like Divx - and press F7 to save the video file.Here is the final result:

.NET Framework Cleanup Tool User's Guide

2008-10-03T14:32:00.000-04:00

This .NET Framework cleanup tool is designed to automatically perform a set of steps to remove selected versions of the .NET Framework from a computer. It will remove files, directories, registry keys and values and Windows Installer product registration information for the .NET Framework. The tool is intended primarily to return your system to a known (relatively clean) state in case you are encountering .NET Framework installation, uninstallation, repair or patching errors so that you can try to install again.

There are a couple of very important caveats that you should review before using this tool to remove any version of the .NET Framework from your system:

This tool is designed as a last resort for cases where install, uninstall, repair or patch installation did not succeed for unusual reasons. It is not a substitute for the standard uninstall procedure.
This cleanup tool will delete shared files and registry keys used by other versions of the .NET Framework. If you run the cleanup tool, you will need to perform a repair/re-install for all other versions of the .NET Framework that are on your computer or they will not work correctly afterwards.

Download locations

The .NET Framework cleanup tool is available for download at the following locations:

The copy of the tool is the same at both locations. There are 2 locations so that the tool can still be downloaded even if one of the sites is temporarily unavailable.

The .zip file that contains the tool also contains a file named history.txt that lists when the most recent version of the tool was published and what changes have been made to the tool over time.

Supported products

The .NET Framework cleanup tool supports removing the following products:

.NET Framework - All Versions
.NET Framework - All Versions (Tablet PC and Media Center)
.NET Framework - All Versions (Windows Server 2003)
.NET Framework - All Versions (Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008)
.NET Framework 1.0
.NET Framework 1.1
.NET Framework 2.0
.NET Framework 3.0
.NET Framework 3.5

Not all of the above products will appear in the UI for the .NET Framework cleanup tool on every operating system. The cleanup tool contains logic so that if it is run on an OS version that includes the .NET Framework as an OS component, it will not offer the option to clean it up. This means that running the cleanup tool on Windows XP Media Center Edition or Tablet PC Edition will not offer the option to clean up the .NET Framework 1.0, running it on Windows Server 2003 will not offer the option to clean up the .NET Framework 1.1 and running it on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 will not offer the option to clean up the .NET Framework 2.0 or the .NET Framework 3.0.

When choosing to remove any of the above versions of the .NET Framework, the cleanup tool will also remove any associated hotfixes and service packs. You do not need to run any separate steps to remove the service pack(s) for a version of the .NET Framework.

Silent installation mode

The .NET Framework cleanup tool supports running in silent mode. In this mode, the tool will run without showing any UI, and the user must pass in a version of the .NET Framework to remove as a command line parameter. To run the cleanup tool in silent mode, you need to download the cleanup tool, extract the file cleanup_tool.exe from the zip file, and then run it using syntax like the following:

cleanup_tool.exe /q:a /c:"cleanup.exe /p "

The value that you pass with the /p switch to replace in this example must exactly match one of the products listed in the Supported products section above. For example, if you would like to run the cleanup tool in silent mode and remove the .NET Framework 1.1, you would use a command line like the following:

cleanup_tool.exe /q:a /c:"cleanup.exe /p .NET Framework 1.1"

One important note – as indicated above, the cleanup tool will not allow you to remove a version of the .NET Framework that is installed as part of the OS it is running on. That means that even if you try this example command line on Windows Server 2003, the tool will exit with a failure return code and not allow you to remove the .NET Framework 1.1 because it is a part of that OS.

Similarly, you cannot use the cleanup tool to remove the .NET Framework 1.0 from Windows XP Media Center Edition or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition or remove the .NET Framework 2.0 or 3.0 from Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008. In addition, if you run the cleanup tool on an OS that has any edition of the .NET Framework installed as a part of the OS, it will prevent you from using the .NET Framework - All Versions option because there is at least one version that it cannot remove.

If you are planning to run the cleanup tool in silent mode, you need to make sure to detect what OS it is running on and not pass in a version of the .NET Framework with the /p switch that is a part of the OS or make sure that you know how to handle the failure exit code that you will get back from the cleanup tool in that type of scenario.

Unattended installation mode

The .NET Framework cleanup tool supports running in silent mode. In this mode, the tool will run and only show a progress dialog during removal, but will require no user interaction. Unattended mode requires the user to pass in a version of the .NET Framework to remove as a command line parameter. To run the cleanup tool in unattended mode, you need to download the cleanup tool, extract the file cleanup_tool.exe from the zip file, and then run it using syntax like the following:

cleanup_tool.exe /q:a /c:"cleanup.exe /p /u"

For example, if you would like to run the cleanup tool in unattended mode and remove the .NET Framework 1.1, you would use a command line like the following:

cleanup_tool.exe /q:a /c:"cleanup.exe /p .NET Framework 1.1 /u"

Exit codes

The cleanup tool can returns the following exit codes:

0 - cleanup completed successfully for the specified product
3010 - cleanup completed successfully for the specified product and a reboot is required to complete the cleanup process
1 - cleanup tool requires administrative privileges on the machine
2 - the required file cleanup.ini was not found in the same path as cleanup.exe
3 - a product name was passed in that cannot be removed because it is a part of the OS on the system that the cleanup tool is running on
4 - a product name was passed in that does not exist in cleanup.ini
100 - cleanup was able to start but failed during the cleanup process
1602 - cleanup was cancelled

Log files

The cleanup tool creates the following log files:

%temp%\cleanup_main.log - a log of all activity during each run of the cleanup tool; this is a superset of the logs listed below as well as some additional information
%temp%\cleanup_actions.log - a log of actions taken during removal of each product; it will list files that it finds and removes, product codes it tries to remove, registry entries it tries to remove, etc.
%temp%\cleanup_errors.log - a log of errors and warnings encountered druing each run of the cleanup tool

How To Capture A Frame From Any Video File

2008-10-03T13:55:00.001-04:00

To capture a screen of any window you have one of two options: either you press the Print Screen key on your key board (or Print Scrn) to capture the whole desktop or press (Alt + Print Scrn) to capture only the active window. Black area? Read how to fix this.

Open the video file using your favorite software.

Press (Alt + Print Scrn) together on your key board, now you have copied the active window to the clipboard.

Open Paint by going to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Paint.

Click on Edit -> Paste (Ctrl + V) to paste your captured window, now you should see the picture, go to File -> Save (Ctrl + S) to save the file.

Easy? yes. But what is that? you have the whole window but not the video! Instead you have a black area where the captured frame should be, why?

Because your video card doesn't use your computers memory for playing frames! (Sounds strange?) Instead it uses its own memory to speed things up for much better performance and only uses the area where you see the video as an empty window for the video to appear. When you pressed the (Alt + Print Scrn) keys, you copied the contents of the Ram of your computer assigned to the window, that is why you saw a black area instead of the video frame. Try moving the Paint window and you will see parts of the video frame while moving if you still have the video open (I told you it is just like an open window) but of course it will not be saved with a file, just black area instead of the video frame.

So what shall we do? I will tell you what to do without buying any additional software, just using Windows!

To do that, we have to stop our video card from using its memory and force it to use our computer's ram until we capture the video frames and set it back to normal again, here is how:

Right click on any empty place on your desktop and choose Properties from the popup menu.

The Display properties window will open, now choose the Settings tab (located at the top right).

Click on Advanced button.

A new window will open now choose Troubleshoot tab.

Move the Hardware Acceleration slider to the left (None).

Click on the Apply button for your changes to take effect without closing the window.

Open the video file and capture the frame by doing the above four steps again.

We now can see a video frame instead of this black area, now save the file.

Repeat the top four steps to capture as many frames as you like.

Move the hardware slider to right (Full) press Ok and Ok again in the Display Properties window to revert every thing back to normal and close all open windows.

Free your RAM and improve system performance

2008-10-02T15:22:00.002-04:00

1) Start any application, say Excel. Open some large documents.

2) Now go to Windows Task Manager and click Processes tab and sort the list in descending order on Mem Usage. You will notice that excel will be somewhere at the top, using multiple MBs of memory.

3) Now switch to excel and simply minimize it. (Don’t use the Minimize All Windows option of the task bar).

4) Now go back to the Windows Task Manager and see where excel is listed. Most probably you will not find it at the top. You will typically have to scroll to the bottom of the list to find excel. Now check out the amount of RAM it is using. Surprised? The memory utilization has reduced by a huge amount.

5) Minimize each application that you are currently not working on by clicking on the Minimize button & you can increase the amount of available RAM by a substantial margin. Depending upon the number and type of applications you use together, the difference can be as much as 50 percent of extra RAM. In any multitasking system, minimizing an application means that it won’t be utilized by the user right now. Therefore, the OS automatically makes the application use virtual memory & keeps bare minimum amounts of the code in physical RAM.

Make Your XP Look Like Mac OSX

2008-10-02T14:47:00.000-04:00

So you want your to look like a Mac OSX. There are two ways to accomplish the OSX look: the easy way - with a transformation pack, and the hard way - manually. I will, of course, show you how to do this the easy way:

Step 1: Get a transformation pack.

The best Mac OSX transformation pack for Windows XP is probably FlyakiteOSX. The creator’s website itself is worth the visit, but if it doesn’t load in your browser, get Firefox, and here’s a download link.

Step 2: Install

Run the installer and when you get to the following screen, MAKE SURE you check the box Create System Restore Point. The transformation pack will change a lot of system files and settings and although you should be able to uninstall easily later, you might find yourself in a mess if something goes wrong. This way you can always do a System Restore. Check any other options you want and you’re ready!

Step 3: Enjoy!

After the restart, you should be able to convince all, but the most die-hard Mac lovers, that you have an OSX. This is what your desktop should look like now:

Like other good transformation packs this also leaves you a nice Mac OSX shutdown screen:

…And a Mac OSX logon screen:

Note: The transformation pack might trigger your anti-virus protection as it changes some system files, but this is probably a false positive. Be careful though, and remember to back up!

Top 21 Firefox 3 Compatible Themes

2008-09-29T13:29:00.001-04:00

If you were using a customized theme on your Firefox 2 and have just upgraded over to Firefox 3, you might not want to settle with the default Firefox theme your peers have on their desktop. Firefox 3 may be new, but theme designers already have their muscles all flexed up. Here’s 21 Firefox 3 compatible themes to make your browser a little bit different from the rest.

Office 2007 Black

Download [ Office 2007 Black]

iPox

Download [ iPox ]

Flook

Download [ Flook ]

Vista Aero

download [ Vista Aero ]

MacOSX Theme

Download [ MacOSX theme ]

Kampelton

download [ kampelton ]

iFox Graphite

Download [ iFox Graphite ]

Gradient iCool

Download [ Gradient iCool ]

Camifox

Download [ camifox ]

Firefox 2 Theme

Download [ Firefox 2 theme ]

Aero Fox

Download [ Aero Fox ]

Aero Fox Silver

Download [ Aero Fox Silver ]

BlackX 2

Download [ BlackX 2 ]

SKY

Download [ SKY ]

NASA Night Launch

Download [ Nasa Night Launch ]

MyFireFox

Download [ My FireFox ]

Qute 3.3

Download [ Qute 3.3 ]

Blue Ice 2.1

Download [ Blue Ice ]

Pitch Dark

Download [ Pitch Dark ]

Silvermel

Download [ Silvermel ]

Noia 2.0 (Extreme)

Download [Noia 2.0 Extreme]

Download Social Music, Video & More…for FREE

2008-09-29T11:19:00.000-04:00

Orbit Downloader, leader of download manager revolution, is devoted to new generation web (web2.0) downloading, such as video/music/streaming media from Myspace, YouTube, Imeem, Pandora, Rapidshare, support RTMP. And to make general downloading easier and faster.

Current version : 2.7.6 No adware! No spyware!

Why use Orbit Downloader?

Download Rich Media: Streaming Media, RTMP, Social Music & Video
Orbit Downloader supports HTTP/FTP/HTTPS/RTSP/MMS/RTMP protocols and provides a total solution to download rich media. So Orbit Downloader can be used as YouTube downloader to download YouTube more simply and easily. Additionally, you can download music and video from social music/video websites like YouTube.
Great Speed: Up to The Fastest Download Manager
Orbit Downloader is based on p2p and multi-source downloading technology. More Efficient mirrors selection algorithm and faster download sources which allows you to download files up to 500% faster than before. Maximum possible download speed, up to the fastest download manager!
Super Light: Micro-sized and Resource-friendly
Orbit Downloader is written with efficiency in mind, it typically uses less than 3MB of memory and 3% of cpu when downloading. Additionally, the installation package is less than 2MB.
Support RapidShare
Orbit Downloader supports most of the file-sharing service websites, including megaupload, badongo, sendspace, sexuploader, yourfilehost, uploading, filefront, 4shared, turboupload, depositfiles, filefactory, and more.
Easy to Use
Orbit Downloader has a simple and clear user interface. It is easy to use and configure for both newbies and professionals.
Free and Safe
100% free and no registration required. No adware!!! No spyware!!!

How to hide files in JPEG pictures

2008-09-27T13:09:00.000-04:00

Here we're going to show you a new way to hide files that is very counter-intuitive and therefore pretty safe! Using a simple trick in Windows, you can actually hide a file inside of the JPG picture file!

You can actually hide any type of file inside of an image file, including txt, exe, mp3, avi, or whatever else. Not only that, you can actually store many files inside of single JPG file, not just one! This can come in very handy if you need to hide files and don’t want to bother with encryption and all that other technical stuff.

Hide File in Picture

In order to accomplish this task, you will need to have either WinZip or WinRAR installed on your computer. You can download either of these two off the Internet and use them without having to pay anything. Here are the steps for creating your hidden stash:

Create a folder on your hard drive, i.e. C:\Test and put in all of the files that you want to hide into that folder. Also, place the image that you will be using to hide the files in.

Now select all of the files that you want to hide, right-click on them, and choose the option to add them to a compressed ZIP or RAR file. Only select the files you want to hide, not the picture. Name it whatever you want, i,e. “Hidden.rar”.

Now you should have a folder that looks something like this with files, a JPG image, and a compressed archive:

Now here’s the fun part! Click on Start, and then click on Run. Type in “CMD” without the quotes and press Enter. You should now see the command prompt window open. Type in “CD \” to get to the root directory. Then type CD and the directory name that you created, i.e. “CD Test“.

Now type in the following line: “copy /b DSC06578.JPG + Hidden.rar DSC06578.jpg” and press Enter. Do not use the quotes. You should get a response like below:

Just make sure that you check the file extension on the compressed file, whether it is .ZIP or .RAR as you have to type out the entire file name with extension in the command. I have heard that some people say that they have had problems doing this with a .ZIP extension, so if that doesn’t work, make sure to compress to a .RAR file.

And that’s it! The picture file will have been updated with the compressed archive inside! You can actually check the size of the picture and see that it has increased by the same amount as the size of the archive.

You can access your hidden file in two ways. Firstly, simply change the extension to .RAR and open the file using WinRAR. Secondly, you can just right-click on the JPG image and choose Open With and then scroll down to WinRAR. Either way, you’ll see your hidden files show up that you can then extract out.

That’s it! That is all it takes to hide files inside JPG picture files! It’s a great way simply because not many people know it’s possible and no one even thinks about a picture as having to the ability to “hide” files. Enjoy!

SHOUTcast on your PC

2008-09-27T12:56:00.000-04:00

If you’re a radio fanatic or even just a fan, you’re going to love SHOUTcast! SHOUTcast allows you to listen to any radio station found on the Internet. If that sounds good to you, here’s how you can get it!

Getting Winamp

For starters, you’re going to need the Winamp Media Player. To get Winamp, head on over to www.winamp.com and click on the Free Download button. Then click Run (or Save if you’re using Firefox) and install it.

I recommend unchecking the boxes for the additional features you can get, such as the Winamp toolbar. I don't know about you, but the last thing I need is another toolbar!

Now, just sit back, relax and allow the program to install.

Once Winamp is installed, head over to www.shoutcast.com and choose a radio station you would like to listen to. For example, let’s try NPR (National Public Radio).

Of course, NPR transmits from many different places, so for now, let’s just stick with the non-localized version.

Next to the radio station, click on Tune In. If your computer starts playing the station, you’re good to go. On the other hand, if yours opens something else, here’s what you can do:

1.) Right click on Tune In.

2.) Choose Properties.

3.) Highlight the link’s address and copy it (Ctrl + C).

4.) Now, open Winamp and click on Add, Add URL.

5.) Press Ctrl + V to paste the link you copied from the SHOUTcast Web site.

6.) Click Open and you’re done.

You can also use SHOUTcast to pick up independent radio or stations from another part of the world. Isn’t technology amazing? Happy listening!

5 Tools to Make Windows XP Look Like Vista

2008-09-26T12:10:00.002-04:00

Do you like Windows Vista only because of its newly revamped Graphical User Interface? It surely does have an attractive interface but many are still hesitant to upgrade. Some because of it’s massive system requirements, and some because of all the negative buzz around it. Whatever your reasons are, you still can get a Vista like look even on your Win XP system. Below are some of the better free tools that can help you to make your Windows XP look like Vista. Just make sure you got a bit of spare RAM on your system.

Vista Start Menu

Vista Start Menu turns XP’s Start menu into one like on Vista. Not only do you get a better look but also many new features that are normally not there. These include: resizable start menu, zoom in/out, program launcher, desktop search, power buttons, tabs, and more. Another noteworthy aspect, Vista Start Menu does not change your system settings, thus making it easy to install, as well as simple to remove.

Vista Transformation Pack 8.0.1

VTP changes XP’s interface, including the Start menu, the Control Panel, system dialogs, icons, and more, to Vista style. Also includes a transparency function to mimic Vista’s Aero Glass functionality. It’s probably the most comprehensive package out of all, so be very careful with it. While I haven’t experienced any problems some folks reported difficulties in uninstalling it (see comments here). Here are some of the notable changes that will be made to your system.

Boot screen / Welcome Screen / Logon Screen.

New desktop, file and toolbar icons.

Progress Dialogs.

New System Tray icons.

New Sounds scheme.

New interface visual styles.

Windows Media Player Skins.

RocketDock

RocketDock is a portable, memory-friendly, smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher that sits on your screen. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. Some features that are worth looking at include: Minimize active windows to the dock, drag-n-drop interface, Dual-monitor support, Auto-hide and Popup on mouse over, and Running application indicators. Check it out in action in the video below

VistaMizer

VistaMizer modifies about 400 of your system files, and when you reboot your system after installation you won’t remember how your old desktop looked like. It’s highly customizable and changes lots of stuff. What’s really good about is that it will keep backup of all the changes (so that you can easily revert it) and won’t replace/overwrite anything that would risk destabilizing your system.

WindowBlinds

WindowsBlinds is not a program specifically designed to Vistalize your system. It’s more a tool for applying different visual theme on your entire current Windows environment: changing overall look and feel, title bars, push buttons, start bar, start menu and more. Similar to the above RocketDock, it claims to be memory-friendly, so it shouldn’t slow down your system. Once installed, you can either apply one of the default visual themes or download one from the WindowsBlinds gallery (over 1000 themes). WindowsBlinds comes both in a free and paid version. Although the free version lacks some of the additional features it still does the job.

How to create an “Admin Control Panel” in your Blogger template

2008-09-22T21:42:00.000-04:00

Written by Amanda Fazani from Blogger Buster on September 22, 2008

Hiding the Blogger nav-bar is one of the most popular customizations for Blogger blogs. The advantage of this is that your blog design does not immediately appear to be powered by Blogger, and it is very useful for designs where the appearance of the nav-bar distracts from the overall design of the blog.The only downside of removing the nav-bar is that the admin links for “New post”, “Customize” and “Log Out” are no longer visible. When the nav-bar is visible, blog administrators can create a new post or customize their layout with just one click; when the nav-bar is hidden, many more clicks are required to access the dashboard panel again.

In this post, I’ll explain how you can easily add a “Admin Control Panel” widget which enables one click access to the main sections of your dashboard if you have hidden the Blogger nav-bar from your layout.

First things first!

There are two things we need to do before adding the control panel to our Blogger template:

Make a back-up of the existing template

Find our unique Blog ID number

Let’s go through both of these in order.

Make a back-up of your Blogger template

As we are adding code directly to the Blogger template for this customization, it is omportant to make a back-up of the existing (working) template code.

Then if we do make any major errors, we can easily restore the original working template to our blog.

To make a back-up of your Blogger template, go to Layout, Edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard, and look for the “Download full template” link near the top of the page.

Clicking on this link will prompt you to save your existing template as an XML file to your computer hard drive. You can change the name of the file and choose the location to ensure it is easy to find if you need to use this later.

Locate your unique Blog ID number

To create the admin control panel, we need to use your unique Blog ID number, as this will form part of the URL required for admin links.

To find your Blog ID number, log into Blogger and ensure you have accessed the dashboard you intend to work with.

While you are logged in, access any page of your Blogger dashboard and take a look at the address bar in your browser:

Locating your Blog ID number

Within the URL you will notice a string like this:blogID=XXXXXXXXXX Where XXXXXXXXXX is the unique identifier for your blog.

You need to make a note of the BlogID number for the blog you wish to work with so we can add this in the links for your admin control panel.

Adding the control panel to your template

The Admin Control Panel will only be visible when the owner/author of the blog is logged into their relevant Blogger account. It is invisible to blog readers, similar to the “edit post” and “edit widget” links which are only visible while you are logged in and viewing your own blog.

To add the control panel to your Blogger template, go to Layout>Edit HTML and do not check the “Expand widget templates” box.

Then search for the following line of code (or similar):

<b:section class='sidebar' id='sidebar' preferred='yes'>

Immediately before this line, paste the following lines of code:

<span class='item-control blog-admin'> <h2>Admin Control Panel</h2>> <h2>Admin Control Panel</h2> <a href='http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=BlogIdNumber‘>New Post</a> | <a href=’http://draft.blogger.com/blog-options-basic.g?blogID=BlogIdNumber’>Settings</a> | <a href=’http://www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=BlogIdNumber‘>Change Layout</a> | <a href=’http://www.blogger.com/html?blogID=BlogIdNumber‘>Edit HTML</a> | <a href=’http://www.blogger.com/moderate-comment.g?blogID=BlogIdNumber‘>Moderate Comments</a> | <a href=’http://www.blogger.com/logout.g’>Sign Out</a> </span>

Replace all instances of BlogIdNumber with your unique BlogID.

Once you have done this, preview your template. You should not see any of the code for the Admin Control Panel appear in your template during the preview! If all is well, you can then proceed to save your template.

Now take a look at your blog. While you are logged in to Blogger, you should notice your control panel appear above the widgets in your sidebar.

If you log out of Blogger and look at your blog, you will not see the control panel appear (this is also how your readers will see your blog).

How this works

The code for the control panel is wrapped in span tags with the class of “item-control blog-admin”. These CSS classes are not included in your Blogger template code, but are instead added in when your blog pages are generated by Blogger’s external scripts.

These classes also apply for your post and widget editing icons (the familiar pencil and wrench icons) which are invisible to readers of your blog.

The links will still be visible if a reader views the source code of your blog. However, these links are only accessible by the administrators of the blog. If anyone else attempts to access these pages, they will be asked to log in to their own Blogger account and would be unable to make any changes to your own blog.

How to hide the Blogger nav-bar

If you do not already hide the Blogger nav-bar in your template, you can achieve this in just a few simple steps:

Go to Layout>Edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard.

Just before this tag, add the following lines of code:

#navbar-iframe {

height:0px;

visibility:hidden;

display:none

}
Then save your template

These few lines of CSS code hide the Blogger nav-bar from the design. The code is still present in the source code, and all functions generated by the nav-bar will still work.

FREE Black Leather Desktop Background

2008-09-22T17:31:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting leather image to use as a wallpaper or background. Very sophisticated!

Download it here!!!

Firefox Cool, Fun Icon Packs

2008-09-22T16:42:00.000-04:00

Check out some of these cool icon packs for your Firefox browser!!

Beautiful new icons for the very cool Firefox.

Install blue icon (Windows|Linux)

Install yellow icon (Windows|Linux)

Click on the install link above to install. All newly opened windows will use the icon pack when it has installed. To uninstall, click here .

Remember 2005 with the Firefox 2005 icons!

Install for Windows/Linux

Click on the install link above to install. All newly opened windows will use the icon pack when it has installed. To uninstall, click here .

A beautiful Anime Firefox icon.

Install for Windows/Linux

Click on the install link above to install. All newly opened windows will use the icon pack when it has installed. To uninstall, click here .

Beautiful icons with foxes. There are two versions.

Install Firefox Lustre Gold Icons (Windows and Linux)

Install Firefox Lustre Green Icons (Windows and Linux)
Click on the install link above to install. All newly opened windows will use the icon pack when it has installed. To uninstall, click here .

Mozilla Firefox Shortcut Keys

2008-09-22T16:16:00.004-04:00

This is a listing of Mozilla Firefox shortcut keys.

** Use this trick at your own risk.

Shortcut Description
F5 Refresh current page.
F11 Display the
current website in full screen mode. Pressing F11 again will
exit this mode.
Ctrl + D Add current page to favorite
Ctrl + I Display
favorites
Ctrl + J Display
the download window.
Ctrl + N Open New browser window.
Ctrl + P Print current page / frame.
Ctrl + T Opens a
new tab.
Ctrl + F4 Closes
the currently selected tab.
Alt + Left Arrow Back a page.
Backspace Back a page.
Alt + Right Arrow Forward a page.
Esc Stop page or download from loading.
Ctrl + (- or +) Increase
or decrease the font size, pressing '-' will decrease
and '+' will increase.
Ctrl + Enter Quickly complete an
address. For example, type computerhope in the address bar and
press CTRL + ENTER to get http://www.computerhope.com.
Shift + Enter Complete
a .net instead of a .com address.
Ctrl + Shift + Enter Complete
a .org address.
Ctrl + Shift + T Undo the
close of a window.
Ctrl + Tab Moves
through each of the open tabs.
Spacebar Moves
down a page at a time.
Shift
+ Spacebar Moves
up a page at a time.
Alt + Down arrow Display
all previous text entered in a text box and/or available
options on drop down
menu.

FREE - Brushed Metal Photoshop Style

2008-09-18T20:59:00.000-04:00

Get this Photoshop style and apply to any layer to get the brushed metal effect instantly.

PS: To use this style, download the .asl file, then open styles window in Photoshop, click on the drop down menu and select ‘load styles…’ and browse to the .asl file.

Photoshop Carbon Fiber background

2008-09-18T20:19:00.001-04:00

I have been wondering for some time now how to create a good looking carbon fiber background or wallpaper. I started playing around with some color combinations to get the carbon fiber to look right. So lets get started.

What you need to have: Adobe Photoshop

PS: ⌘ key for Mac users / CTRL key for Windows users

Prepare the texture pattern

1. In Photoshop, create a new document. Set the size at 20×20 pixel.

2. Zoom in (z) few step so that you can work on it easily. Choose Rectangular Marquee from the toolbar (m).

3. Make the selection of 5×10 pixel

4. Set foreground and background colour as different tone of gray:

Foreground: #171717
Background: #3a3a3a

5. Select Gradient Tool (g), then choose ‘Foreground to Background’

6. Fill the selection with the colours chosen by dragging across the selection area.

7. Make another selection of 10×5 pixel, fill with the gradient of:

Foreground:#282828
Background: #0d0d0d

8. Select all (⌘A / CTRL-A), copy selection (⌘C / CTRL-C), paste selection (⌘V / CTRL-V), then use Move Tool (v) to arrange the new layer into position:

9. Paste the selection into new layer again and arrange until it looks like this:

10. Combine all the layers: Menu > Layer > Flatten Image

11. Define a new pattern: Menu > Edit > Define Pattern…

Making the actual wallpaper

12. Create a new document by pressing ⌘N / CTRL-N. Set the size of your screen resolution. Eg: 1600×1200

13. Fill with the texture pattern: Menu > Edit > Fill… ; Use ‘Pattern’ and choose the last pattern that you just created from the Content section.

14. Apply effect: Menu > Filter > Render > Lighting Effects…

15. Adjust levels (⌘L / CTRL-L): Menu > Image > Adjustments > Levels…

Save!

16. To preserve the detail quality of the wallpaper, save it as PNG or BMP.

Cool Blogger Template: Ultimatum

2008-09-06T13:10:00.000-04:00

This one is great for you if you like lots of columns. 3 sidebar columns on the right, 3 columns below the post, and 3 additional leaderboard-size columns to place ad banners! The template image above is captured from a 1024 pixels wide screen.

Download Template

Header Image
The header image doesn't come with the template file. To put the header image in your blog, left-click on the image below and save the actual size into your computer. Then, upload the image into the Header Page Element in the Layout section of your blog.

If you want to use your own image for the header, the image has to be 938 pixels wide (with any height) to fit the header nicely. DO NOT click the 'Shrink to Fit' option in the Edit Header box because it'll make the image smaller than 940px.

Ads
This template was customized so that you can put ads in a lot of places. In addition to the usual sidebar, header, and main columns, you can place long leaderboard-size ads above and below the blog and above the footer. Check out these ads locations in this test blog.

Cool Blogger Template: Portrait

2008-09-06T12:58:00.000-04:00

Download Template

If you want to use your own image for the header, the image has to be 777 pixels wide (with any height) to fit the header nicely. DO NOT click the 'Shrink to Fit' option in the Edit Header box because it'll make the image bigger.

There are some who complaint that they had a problem when adding a header image without the Blog Title and Description. Their header image is blocked behind the Linkbar.

Here's a way to solve this problem.

In your template XML file, look for the following CSS code:

#header a img {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
border: 0;
position: absolute;
top: 0px;
left: 0px;
}

To solve this problem, delete the code in red. That's it. The problem with the code in red is that it floats your header image and puts it near the tip of your blog.

Transparent Glass Lettering. Learn how to make a stunning glass text effect using Gimp!

2008-09-04T19:42:00.000-04:00

In a previous post, I commented on a cool free graphi cs editor called Gimp. It is a powerful, full featured editor. To show you one of the things you can do with it, below is a post which was on gimpology.com.

Step 1

Create a new file and fill the background with a dark gradient. I used #0f291a to #22502b.

Now type in a word with a nice font and a light color. I used Myriad Pro, 144px at #72bd90:

Step 2

Select your text layer and set its opacity to 60%. Now select the text tool and click on your text, then click "Create Path from Text":

Step 3

Select your text layer, then click Layer > Layer to Image Size. Now add a drop shadow (Filters > Light and Shadow > Drop Shadow). I set my offsets to 2, blur radius to 20, color to black, opacity to 80 and unchecked allow resizing:

Step 4

Create a new layer. Then select Select > From Path (Shift+V). This will create a selection around your text. Now Select > Feather at 10px. Then pick a light, yellowish color (#e8ffb1) and bucket fill your selection. Next, Select > Shrink by about 2px. Delete this selection by pressing the Delete key on your keyboard (or Edit > Cut). Set the layer mode to Screen and set the opacity to 50%:

Step 5

Create another layer. Select your path again (Shift+V), then Select > Shrink by about 8px. Now Select > Feather by 10px. Fill your selection with black and set the layer mode to Overlay at 100%:

Step 6

Almost done! Create a new layer. Select your path again (Shift+V). Now choose the Ellipse Select Tool and set the mode to Intersect:

Make a big selection over the top half of your text:

Set your foreground color to white (#fff) Now select the gradient tool, set the shape to radial and gradient to "FG to Transparent":

Fill in your selection, dragging from the top-left of your first letter to the lower-right of your last letter. Set the layer mode to Overlay at 50% and you're done! Viola:

Watch the informative tutorial on You Tube !!!!!

How To Use Your Favorite Text As Bullet In MS-Word

2008-09-03T03:11:00.000-04:00

In Microsoft Word, lists of items or important points of a specific topic are presented in the documents in a prominent way by applying default bullets and numbering. By default, word provides only few built-in bullets and numbers to prominent your important points. But if you wish to use your name or any favorite word as a bullet then you can modify the default bullets lists.

Follow the given steps to modify the default bullets with your favorite name:

First open your Microsoft Word program.

Now go to File menu and click on Open option to open any word file.

Now go to Format menu and click on Bullets and Numbering option.

Here a small dialog will appear with title "Bullets and Numbering", now click on one of the number formats that you are not using in the document and click on Customize button.

In the number format box, type your favorite text (in this case, we are using Tony, Google and MSN as bullets, you can set a different font if you like, or the underlying paragraph font will be used).

You can enter 30 characters in the box which should be sufficient for most of the uses to which this is likely to be put.

Prevent Users From Writing To USB Drives

2008-09-03T02:44:00.001-04:00

Today USB drive also known as keychain drive is becoming the most popular removable storage device to move data to different locations. USB drives are available in the market with different features, for example password protected, compatible with all windows versions and extra storage capacity (up to 65 GB and more).

A common security issue at organizations is how to prevent their workers to write data onto USB drives using their PCs, because a user can easily move confidential data for other location.

If you have windows XP with SP2, then you can disable the writing option to USB drives.

Follow the given steps to disable the USB writing option:

To edit the computer registry, first you should log onto your computer with administrative rights.

First click on Start button and type "Regedit" in Run option.

Here locate the location to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control

Here in right side panel, click right to create a key with the name "StorageDevicePolicies".

Now in left side panel, select "StorageDevicePolicies" key, again right click to create new DWORD value then label it "WriteProtect".

Set its value to "1". But again enable this option set its values "0".

Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

Acrobat.com - Inside Peek on Adobe's Web-Based Document Collaboration Service

2008-09-03T01:52:00.000-04:00

Did you know that on June 1st, 2008 Adobe officially launched Acrobat.com beta version for public use, and it's free?! Acrobat.com is a web-based version of the popular PDF document creation applications. You will need the latest version of Flashplayer, but you can download it there!!

Turn on a screensaver with adding a shortcut

2008-09-03T01:19:00.000-04:00

You can run screensaver on your system with a single click, If you have any screensaver file like .scr extension, or first download it using Internet, there are many free sites for screensaver downloading.

If you have not any .scr file then please go to Start button, and click on Search button. Here in search windows type *.scr and search all screen saver file from your hard disk.

Here you will find a list of screensavers in the results. Pick a screensaver you want. You can preview it by double-clicking it.

Right click on the file, choose Send To, and then click Desktop (create shortcut).

To activate the screensaver, double-click the icon on your desktop.

How to Connect Your Home Computer From Remote Location

2008-09-02T18:58:00.000-04:00

Follow the given steps to configure your computer to connect remote computer:

Using the Remote Desktop feature, you can connect your home computer (host) from any other remote computer (client) and can access all computer resources (installed programs, data and any network resources). You can run any computer application on the remote computer as you were running actually sitting in front of home computer.

To use this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.

To perform this task, first make sure both your computers are connected to the internet.

First you have to configure the host computer that allows the users to connect it remotely. On the host computer, right click on "My computer" and click on Properties option.

Under the Remote tab, select the option "Allow users to connect remotely tothis computer" and click Ok button.

Now get the IP address of the host computer (type the "ipconfig /all" on the command prompt of host computer to find IP address).

Now make a connection on remote or client computer, click on Start button, go to All Programs> Accessories, and Communications, then click on Remote Desktop Connection, option. A Remote Desktop Connection, dialog box will appear.

Click on Options button for detail configuration, under the General tab, type the IP address of host computer in the Computer box and also type username and password of host computer then click on Connect button to make a connection to remote computer.

If your username and password is correct then a remote desktop windows will appear.

Check Out This Funny Trick

2008-09-02T18:37:00.002-04:00

Copy and paste the javascript code in the following red lines to the address bar of your browser.

javascript:function Shw(n) {if (self.moveBy) {for (i = 35; i > 0; i--) {for (j = n; j > 0; j--) {self.moveBy(1,i);self.moveBy(i,0);self.moveBy(0,-i);self.moveBy(-i,0); } } }} Shw(6)

Press enter and watch your window's "shaking it". You can change the value of it if you wish.

A Cool Flash Animated Label Cloud for Blogger!

2008-08-31T01:51:00.001-04:00

"Blogumus" is an Flash based tag cloud widget which uses scripts converted from Roy Tanck's WP Cumulus plugin for Wordpress. That original plugin was converted into the Blogger widget by Amanda Fazani you see on my sidebar. Hover your mouse over the Flash object to see the animation begin.

In this post, I'll explain how you can add Blogumus to your own Blogger layout with ease!

How it works

This widget uses a combination of JavaScript and Flash animation to parse and display your blog labels. Once installed in your template, it should work "out of the box" without any additional tweaking required, though of course you may prefer to change the variables for color, background and size if appropriate :)

You should also be able to move the Label Cloud widget through the Page Elements page of your dashboard if you prefer display in a different layout location.

To see Blogumus in action, both Flash and Javascript must be installed and enabled for your internet browser. However, it does degrade relatively gracefully, and label links will still be clickable (though not animated) for those who do not use JavaScript of Flash (including search engine spiders).

How to install Blogumus in your Blogger layout

Installing Blogumus in your Blogger layout is surprisingly simple! You should only need to copy and paste a section of code to your Blogger template, though any tweaks for the style of display will require some manual editing.

Here are the steps required to install Blogumus in your Blogger layout:

Go to Layout>Edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard, and search for the following line (or similar):

<b:section class='sidebar' id='sidebar' preferred='yes'>

Immediately after this line, paste the following section of code:

<b:widget id='Label99' locked='false' title='Labels' type='Label'>
<b:includable id='main'>
<b:if cond='data:title'>
<h2><data:title/></h2>
</b:if>
<div class='widget-content'>
<script src='http://halotemplates.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-cumulus-example/swfobject.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<div id='flashcontent'>Blogumulus by <a href='http://www.roytanck.com/'>Roy Tanck</a> and <a href='http://www.bloggerbuster.com'>Amanda Fazani</a></div>
<script type='text/javascript'>
var so = new SWFObject("http://halotemplates.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-cumulus-example/tagcloud.swf", "tagcloud", "240", "300", "7", "#ffffff");
// uncomment next line to enable transparency
//so.addParam("wmode", "transparent");
so.addVariable("tcolor", "0x333333");
so.addVariable("mode", "tags");
so.addVariable("distr", "true");
so.addVariable("tspeed", "100");
so.addVariable("tagcloud", "<tags><b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'><a expr:href='data:label.url' style='12'><data:label.name/></a></b:loop></tags>");
so.addParam("allowScriptAccess", "always");
so.write("flashcontent");
</script>
<b:include name='quickedit'/>
</div>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>

Then preview your template. If installed correctly, you should see the tag cloud appear in your sidebar. Then you are free to save your template, edit the colors and dimensions as required, or move it to a different location.

That's all!

Customizing Blogumus

In this default installation, Blogumus includes the following preset variables:

Width is set to 240px

Height is set to 300px;

Background color is white

Test color is grey

Font size is "12"

If you would prefer to make your widget wider, shorter, change the color scheme, etc, you will need to do this by editing various parts of the code. I'll go through these options in the order they appear in the widget code.

Editing width and height

The variables for width and height are found in this line of the script:

var so = new SWFObject("http://halotemplates.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-cumulus-example/tagcloud.swf", "tagcloud", "240", "300", "7", "#ffffff");

The width (currently 240) is highlighted in red, while the height (300px default) is highlighted in blue. These numerical values specify the width and height in pixels, so you can alter these of you prefer.

Editing background color

You can change the background color from white to any other color by altering the hex value in the same line:

var so = new SWFObject("http://halotemplates.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-cumulus-example/tagcloud.swf", "tagcloud", "240", "300", "7", "#ffffff");

For example, if you prefer a bright red background, you may replace #ffffff with #ff0000.

Alter the color of text

By default, the text is set to display as dark grey ( hex value #333333). You can alter this variable in the following line:

so.addVariable("tcolor", "0x333333");

Be aware that "tcolor" is a Flash variable and doesn't include the usual hash symbol of hex color codes. Be sure to only replace the numbers!

Adjust the font size

The maximum font size of tags is specified in this line:

so.addVariable("tagcloud", "<tags><b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'><a expr:href='data:label.url' style='12'><data:label.name/></a></b:loop></tags>");

You can alter this to ensure tags are displayed in a bigger or smaller font if you prefer by changing "12" to a larger or smaller number.

While making any of these changes, you should be able to preview your widget and be certain that your new choice of color, dimensions and background are suitable for your needs.

On-Screen Keyboard on Windows XP

2008-08-30T16:02:00.001-04:00

Heres a neat function which you may find some use for sometime. Windows XP comes with a built in on-screen keyboard. Basically a graphic of a keyboard comes up and acts like your keyboard, you can use your mouse to hunt and peck around on it. It's perfect for people with disabilities, where it would be easier to use a mouse than trying to type or it's great to use when your keyboard goes kaput. Works also if you have multiple language settings setup on your computer. You will see that the keyboard changes languages as you do, ie Russian language setting will present a cyrillic keyboard.

Here is how you launch it:

* Go to start
* Go to run and type OSK
* Then the keyboard comes on

It's really just that simple. It's best to make a desktop icon for it or a shortcut, because if your keyboard should go out on you, it would be handy to have it. All you do to create the shortcut is to:

* Right click on the desktop
* Click the new shortcut button
* Type osk, click next twice, and there you have it.

Program Your Own Keyboard Shortcuts

2008-08-27T19:00:00.004-04:00

We'll show you how to save time, keystrokes, and mouseclicks by making your own customized shortcuts.

Pressing buttons isn't particularly good for you. Jane Jetson knew it as early as 1962, and your friendly neighborhood orthopedic surgeon would be hard-pressed to argue with her today. Problem is, you can't very well answer your daily deluge of e-mails without typing, and as if to add insult to injury, odds are you're pretty much typing the same thing again and again.

One approach is the macro: a tiny program you write (or have generated automatically) that can lift the burden of repetitive tasks—like typing email replies—by doing them for you. Macros have been around for decades, but there's usually a catch that makes then not worth the trouble. You can write a macro in Word or Excel, but you can't use it outside (nor inside Office in some cases, depending on your antivirus settings). Windows includes the Script Host, but it's hard to use, and it's lousy at controlling programs and typing text. But a small, free download called AutoHotKey takes a different tack—one that, as it turns out, might actually save you some time.

AutoHotKey has no interface to speak of; you use only a plain text editor (for example, Notepad) to write your scripts, and then save them with the AHK filename extension. But since AHK files are more configuration files than procedural scripts, you can double-click an AHK file right away to load it and leave it running in the background while you work on other things. Then when you press one of the hotkey (or "hotstring") combinations defined by the AHK file in memory, AutoHotKey does the rest.

Each line in your AHK script identifies a trigger and an associated action. For instance, the one-line script in Figure 1 opens Google's search page in your default browser whenever you press the Windows logo key + G. (Here, the # character represents the Windows logo key, and the double colon :: separates the hotkey from the commands to carry out when the key combination is pressed.) But that's AutoHotKey at its simplest.

Global Autocorrect

Are your annoying texting habits creeping into other parts of your life? Use AutoHotKey hotstrings (Figure 2) to automatically expand abbreviations as you type, no matter what program you're using. Here, the double-colon mark goes before and after the abbreviation.

Without changing the way you type, "btw" instantaneously becomes "By the way," "fubar" becomes "[fouled] up beyond all recognition," and "kissoff" becomes "Thank you for your suggestion; it has been forwarded to the appropriate department for review." AutoHotKey is even smart enough to ignore incidental abbreviations buried in other words, so "atmosphere" doesn't become "at the momentosphere."

You Can Do Anything—but Seek Help First

You can also carry out a sequence of commands from a single hotkey, as long as you end the sequence with the "return" keyword (Figure 3). The flexible (albeit sometimes confusing) scripting language lets you simulate mouse clicks, read and write text files, display balloon-tip messages, override Windows' default keystroke combinations, control speaker volume, change the opacity/transparency of windows, and more. You can even "compile" your scripts into standalone EXE files and then run them on other PCs without having to install the full AutoHotKey package. Nearly everyone will need to peruse the enormous help file to accomplish any of this, however. AutoHotKey also has an active forum that provides, among other things, sample scripts and community support.

What AutoHotKey lacks, though, is context awareness. If you want to personalize a canned email reply spit out by an AutoHotKey script, you'll have to do it by hand. But here's a tip: If you need a more personalized touch and you happen to use Mozilla Thunderbird, try the QuickText extension (extensions.hesslow.se/extension/4/Quicktext/), which can grab names and other cues from your outgoing message and use them in your reply. So, instead of "Dear Customer," your canned response could automatically begin, "Dear Miss Teschmacher."

The beauty of AutoHotKey, though, is that it can be used anywhere. If you're able to use the same shortcuts in Gmail, Excel, Photoshop, and World of Warcraft, it might finally be worth your time to write a macro or two.

Create Navigation Buttons for your Blog

2008-08-27T15:43:00.002-04:00

Many blogs and websites feature "navigation button" links like a menu at the top of the page or beneath the header. This can be really helpful for readers to navigate to areas of interest in your blog, such as the home page, about page and contact links.

In this tutorial, I'll explain a very simple (but effective) method of creating such a "navigation buttons" for your own blog, which you can use to add easily accessible links to your post pages.

To create these buttons for your blog, we don't need to use any external images! With a little CSS styling, you can easily create navigation buttons which change color when your mouse hovers over them, making it easier to see that these are indeed clickable links. This style of button is helpful to your visitors and invites them to view the important pages you link to using these links.

There are two main steps to creating these buttons for your blog:

Add some styling code to your blog's template
Create a new HTML/Javascript widget, and create your links

You can use these links anywhere in your blog that you are able to place an HTML/Javascript widget, such as your sidebar, the header section, or above your blog posts.

Here are the steps in detail:

Add some code to the style section of your blog template

The "style" section of "layouts" blogs is contained between the <b:skin> and </b:skin> tags in your template. The simplest way to add extra styling code is to place this just after the closing tag (key CTRL+F to easily find this in your template).

The styling code used for the buttons featured above is as follows:

a.navigation {

background: #000000;

color: #ffffff;

margin: 1px;

padding: 5px 35px 5px 5px;

border-width: 0;

text-transform: uppercase;

text-decoration: none;

font-weight: bold;

}

a.navigation:hover {

background: #5d5d54;

text-decoration: none;

}

If you copy and paste this code just before the closing </b:skin> tag in your blog template, you will easily be able to create your navigation buttons. If you prefer, you can change the color of the backgrounds (highlighted in red) to colors which better suit your blog. You can easily find the hex values for the colors you need by using this handy Color Calculator .

You will notice that there are two statements in this styling: the first defines what the buttons will look like as they appear in your blog, while the second (hover) statement defines the background color of the button when you place your cursor over the button (the "mouseover" effect).

Create your links in an HTML/Javascript widget

Once you have added this style code to your template, you should save your template and go to the layouts section of your blog (Template>Layout). Here you should create a new HTML/Javascript widget where you would like your buttons to appear.

In this new widget, you should add your links in the following format:

<a class="navigation" href="http://your-link-url.blogspot.com">Your link</a>
<a class="navigation" href="http://your-link-url.blogspot.com">Your second link</a>
<a class="navigation" href="http://your-link-url.blogspot.com">Your third link</a>

Be sure to replace "http://your-link-url.blogspot.com" with the URL of the post page (or link) you would like the button to link to, and replace the link text (eg: Your Link) with the text you would like to display.

Once you have created your links (you can add as few or as many as you like), save your HTML/Javascript widget, and take a look at the effect in your blog.

How this works

The styling code we add to the template creates styling rules for "anchor links" which are given the class of "navigation". We can use different "classes" to create different effects for elements which appear in your blog layout; the class we give for the navigation links does not affect other links in your template, only those which have the class of "navigation".

With a few tweaks, you can change the style of these buttons to completely blend with the overall appearance of your blog template, and create attractive clickable buttons to your important pages which your visitors will love.

Free, Cool Graphics Editor

2008-08-24T15:25:00.018-04:00

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms. But basically the same code also runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X.

Microsoft Windows Screenshot		DOWNLOAD GIMP FOR WINDOWS
Mac OS X Screenshot		DOWNLOAD GIMP FOR MACINTOSH

Features and Capabilities

This is only a very quickly thrown together list of GIMP features. You can also have a look at the illustrated features overview. Visit their site here.

* Painting

* Full suite of painting tools including Brush, Pencil, Airbrush, Clone, etc.
* Sub-pixel sampling for all paint tools for high quality anti-aliasing
* Extremely powerful gradient editor and blend tool
* Supports custom brushes and patterns

* System

* Tile based memory management so image size is limited only by available disk space
* Virtually unlimited number of images open at one time

* Advanced Manipulation

* Full alpha channel support
* Layers and channels
* Multiple Undo/Redo (limited only by diskspace)
* Editable text layers
* Transformation tools including rotate, scale, shear and flip
* Selection tools including rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse, free, fuzzy
* Foreground extraction tool
* Advanced path tool doing bezier and polygonal selections.
* Transformable paths, transformable selections.
* Quickmask to paint a selection.

* Extensible

* A Procedural Database for calling internal GIMP functions from external programs as in Script-fu
* Advanced scripting capabilities (Scheme, Python, Perl)
* Plug-ins which allow for the easy addition of new file formats and new effect filters
* Over 100 plug-ins already available

* Animation

* Load and save animations in a convenient frame-as-layer format
* MNG support
* Frame Navigator (in GAP, the GIMP Animation Package)
* Onion Skin (in GAP, the GIMP Animation Package)
* Bluebox (in GAP, the GIMP Animation Package)

* File Handling

* File formats supported include bmp, gif, jpeg, mng, pcx, pdf, png, ps, psd, svg, tiff, tga, xpm, and many others
* Load, display, convert, save to many file formats
* SVG path import/export

* Much, much more!

Stop Blogger from turning all your text into CAPITALS

2008-08-24T15:19:00.001-04:00

Blogger makes your post footer, blog footer, profile widget and header text turn out in uppercase letters by default, and this of course, sucks like a black hole for some (I know it does for me). To remedy this, just do the same procedure as with eliminating borders (see above) but instead of searching for "border:", search for "text-transform:" and eliminate every instance of it. Change "uppercase" to "none".

Web Color Calculator: Find the Hex Values for your favorite colors

2008-08-10T14:11:00.000-04:00

Use this color calculator to find the HEX and RGB values for the colors you would like to use in your blog or website.

ColorCalc 1.0 is a freeware Javascript applet written by Hendrik Schreiber.

HACKED!!! Supercharge Firefox For Speed Surfing

2008-08-04T11:16:00.002-04:00

Nowadays THE most popular freeware is the Mozilla Firefox browser. As a huge Firefox fan, I wanted to give you some tips on increasing the speed when surfing the web using Firefox!

First of all I suggest you to download and Install Mozilla Firefox. In my opinion, its the best browser available. Download it here.

Some obscure preferences exist that affect the network performance and display performance of Firefox. They're the equivalent of special hardware tweaks that enthusiasts use to make your CPU run faster. There are security implications to modifying the network performance. They might make you a hazard as you burn down the street. There are also stability risks in cranking up the display performance. Such tweaks are really meant only as debugging tools. If you can't keep your hands off the engine, here's how to proceed without warranty.

The following preferences might not make you a good web citizen, but they'll get you as much bandwidth as you can manage. Note, however, that too many simultaneous network connections will just slow you down. The best possible performance occurs when there's one connection only and the remote web server is blindingly fast. If web servers or other hops in the network are comparatively slow, try playing with these many preferences.

As all we know Firefox is more flexible than other browser out there. Firefox can be tweaked by editing some preferences in it. For this operation we want to open Firefox editing surface, by typing

about:config command in your url bar and press Enter on your keyboard.

After that search the following preferences that I indicate by green color or just copy them and past them in firefox filter bar.

Turn the following preferences on by double clicking on them.

network.http.pipelining /* default = false */ double click on this for change it to TRUE
network.http.proxy.pipelining /* default = false */ double click on this for change it to TRUE

Search the following integer and change it to 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests change its value to 30.

After that Right click anywhere and select
New-> Integer.
Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

You can make your Firefox browser much faster by doing adjustment I posed above. Those adjustments are very common and you can find them by go surrounding the web much easier. But when I became an advanced Firefox user I wanted more options for speeding my browser than those I mentioned above. I found the following preferences and they work well for me. So I thought I would post them here as well as the very "common" tricks I showed you above.

If preferences name doesn't exist in your browser don't be concerned. It is not your doing. If some preference doesn't exist just follow last adjustment we did at the above of this post.

Right click anywhere and select
New-> Integer or Boolean ( If change we are going to do is a Number it should be a Integer / If change true or false it's a Boolean )

And set it's name and value as I given:
Name it "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx” and set its value to “xxxx″ or "false" or "true"

* browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs - true -- ( boolean )

* network.http.pipelining.firstrequests - true -- ( boolean )

* content.notify.backoffcount - 5 -- ( Integer )

* ui.submenuDelay - 0 -- ( Integer )

* content.interrupt.parsing - true -- ( boolean )

* content.max.tokenizing.time - 2250000 -- ( Integer )

* content.notify.interval - 750000 -- ( Integer )

* content.notify.ontimer - true -- ( boolean )

* content.switch.threshold - 750000 -- ( Integer )

* network.http.max-connections - 48 -- ( Integer )

* network.http.max-connections-per-server - 24 -- ( Integer )

* network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy - 16 -- ( Integer )

* network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server - 8 -- ( Integer )

* network.dns.disableIPv6 - true -- ( boolean )

* network.http.request.timeout - 300 -- ( Integer )

By adjusting these settings in Firefox you can make your browser super faster..

How to Build a Huge Opt-In Email List and Increase Your Profit

2008-07-31T22:24:00.000-04:00

The value of a large opt-in list is usually grossly understated. It is never good enough to simply be making sales from your affiliate products. Failing to compile a fresh mailing list will result in lack luster or stagnant sales.

The purpose of building a list of your website visitors is to help you maintain contact with them and develop a relationship with them. Your mission in doing this is to turn as many as you possibly can into your customers. It has been said, and rightly so, that your list is the most valuable asset in your online business. With your list being that important, here are some tips that will make building a quality list possible.

* Offer an incentive to get people to give you their email address and name. This is one of the best ways to encourage people to sign up for your list. I like to offer a special report, free Internet marketing course, or anything else that my visitors find useful. It is essential to give them something for signing up for your list. This tip alone can easily double the number of opt-ins you receive.

I see many people trying to build a list without offering any kind of incentive for signing up which can be a huge mistake. Incentives are so easy to create that it only makes sense to offer one. Anything with a high-perceived value that you offer free will help boost signups significantly. I've test both ways of list building and I must say that offering incentives will give you far better results.

* Include a privacy policy. Many people do not opt-in is because they are afraid they will be spammed. Everyone abhors spam. Give your website visitor a guarantee that you will not share or sell their email address with anyone. This will make a huge difference in he number of opt-ins you receive.

* Create many tightly targeted lists. Few people understand the power of a targeted list. By offering different lists on one site you dramatically increase the chance for people opting into your list. One of the lists could be for periodic updates, another could include a tips letter that your market would find helpful, while another could be for a newsletter. No matter what they choose, you get their email address.

Think about things that your market might be most interested in and offer that information on that topic or, at a minimum, access to it on your site. If you do not provided several options that person would have signed up for nothing. Two or three options are plenty.

* Be sure to make all your lists double opt-in. Double (or Verified) opt-in lists require people to first sign up on your site, and then activate their subscription by replying to a confirmation email. There are many good reasons to use the double opt-in format. First of all, it will take away any chance of being labeled a spammer. You can show definitive proof that people actually did requested your emails.

Additionally, double opt-in will give your a significantly higher quality list of readers, as opposed to those from the singe opt-in method. The reason is because since these people are interested in your offer enough to verify with the confirmation email, they tend to be much more serious about what you offer. If that is the case, they will be much more responsive to your offers compared to those who sign up for your list on a whim. A high quality list is critical to making sales.

By putting the above tips into use you will be able to build a massive, high quality list in the shortest amount of time possible. I have personally tested all of these methods and they work marvelously. They will work for you too.

You don't have to spend a bundle to build a large list. Having an offer that a great majority of people will want also increases your click through rate. Go to Make Money Online to see how it can help you compile your list fast.

Turn Your Website Into a Revenue Generator

2008-07-30T10:24:00.001-04:00

The biggest thing in technology these days is Google. Google is revolutionizing the way people make money on the internet.

Now with the powerful Google Home Business Kit you will learn:

How to take advantage of Google Adwords.
How to find the right target keywords.
How you could get 10,000 visitors daily.
How to optimize your website for Google. (Website included with kit!)
How to find profitable products and ideas. (Wholesale club included with
kit!)
Plus much more.

Find out more here!

Broadband Internet Speed Test

2008-07-28T15:50:00.007-04:00

Broadband connections are often not as fast as advertised. The reasons are many, but include your ISP and your computer settings. Use the test below to see what your true speed is!

Hack to Change Windows XP Home to Windows XP Professional

2008-07-24T11:08:00.002-04:00

Enable the features found in Windows XP Professional on your Windows XP Home Edition installation with this hack. It will allow you to turn your Windows XP Home CD into a Windows XP Profrssional CD.

Note: If your Windows XP CD does not contain Service Pack 2, you might want to Slipstream Your Windows XP CD first as you will not be able to upgrade an installation after using the CD.

1. Copy the root directory and the i386 directory of the WindowsXP CD to your hard drive.

2. Extract the Bootsector of your Windows XP CD.

3. Click START-->RUN-->REGEDIT

4. Highlight HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

5. Click FILE-->LOAD HIVE and select the Setupreg.hiv file This file is located on your Windows XP CD in the i386 folder.

6. Locate the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEHomekeyControlSet001Servicessetupdd

7. Edit the DEFAULT key and change the following values:

01 to 00 02 to 00

8. Change the name to the value HOMEKEY to anything.

9. Locate the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEHomekeyControlSet001Servicessetupdd Edit the DEFAULT key and change the following values: 01 to 00

02 to 00

10. Highlight HOMEKEY and select FILE-->UNLOAD HIVE

You can now burn the data on your hard drive to a CD. Then use the CD to install Windows XP. Be sure to make the CD bootable. You can use the instructions here in an upcoming post to help you do that.

Vista-style Sidebar for Windows XP

2008-07-22T10:50:00.002-04:00

Thoosje Sidebar:The Thoosje sidebar for Microsoft Windows XP and Vista has gadgets like media players, google search, yahoo search and lots of more search engines. It has also vista sidebar gadgets like weather and system uptime and lots of more useful gadgets. The sidebar uses 50% less RAM and is faster than the original Microsoft Sidebar with more extras and works on Microsoft Windows Vista and XP.

Organize your gadgets in Thoosje Vista Sidebar:

Thoosje Vista Sidebar works on Windows XP and Windows Vista. Gadgets are easy to use mini applications that give you information at a glance and provide easy access to frequently used tools. Thoosje Vista Sidebar helps you to organize your gadgets. As you use your computer to access information, perform tasks, and interact with software, you may at times feel like you're facing information overload. You have to open a web browser just to check the weather, open an application to view your calendar, and open a calculator program just to add up a few numbers. Now, with Windows Sidebar and its associated mini-applications called gadgets, the specific information you need is at your fingertips.

Gadgets:
Gadgets are mini applications with a variety of possible uses. They can connect to web services to deliver business data, weather information, news updates, traffic maps, even slide shows of photo albums. Gadgets can also integrate with other programs to provide streamlined interaction. For example, a gadget can give you a view of all your online instant messaging contacts, the day view from your calendar, or an easy way to control your media player. Gadgets can also have any number of dedicated purposes. They can be Search Gadgets, Clocks, sticky notes, and more.

All this is free so visit their website here, or download direct from here.

Hovering Peek-A-Boo Navabar on New Blogger

2008-07-22T00:07:00.006-04:00

In a previous post, we explained how to remove the New Blogger navigation bar. Well, perhaps you didn't really want to eliminate it altogether? Follow along on this hack and after it is in place, when you hoover your cursor over where the navabar should be, it will appear.....Like Magic!!

1.-Open Your Layout Settings
2.-Go To The Edit HTML
3.-Put This Two Lines Of Code Inside The CSS Section That Is After The Color Parameters Arrays Of Your Blogger v3.0 Template And Before the /head Code Tag:

#navbar-iframe{opacity:0.0;filter:alpha(Opacity=0)}
#navbar-iframe:hover{opacity:1.0;filter:alpha(Opacity=100, FinishedOpacity=100)}

Need more guidance to do it? ok, just look for this spot in your template Before the /Head code tag in the CSS section:

And then put it there so it can look like this:

4.-Save Template
5.-Look At Your Blog

Why is this hack great?:

-No more need to erase the Blogger navbar without it getting in the way your blogs looks and works.

-You support Blogger default features unchanged and that makes it better than erasing it..

-It really looks cooler.

As a test, hover your curser over the top of this page above the header to see the navigation bar appear!!

Your FREE eBook: The Cheats' Guide to Customizing Blogger Templates

2008-07-21T22:03:00.003-04:00

I'm really happy to be able to release Amanda's (from Blog Buster) first eBook: The Cheats' Guide to Customizing Blogger Templates.

Based on the original article published there, this eBook will offer you many options and examples to customize your existing Blogger template quickly and easily, whichever style of template you are using.!

Features of this eBook

This eBook is much more comprehensive than the original online article, and features:

* New examples of template customizations
* An entire chapter about customizing stretch (fluid) templates
* How to use buttons, banners and images
* Many useful resources for template customization
* An optional download folder containing all of the templates and images used in the eBook

Download

Here you can download the Cheats' Guide to Customizing Blogger Templates eBook and also the download folder which contains all of the templates and images used in the guide:

How to Make FREE International Calls to Any Phone from Google Talk using Talkster

2008-07-20T13:15:00.008-04:00

Exciting News!

Google Talk users can now make free international phone calls!

· Always Free · No Credit Cards · No Registration · No Conditions · Unlimited

How it Works

· No Sign-up · Call to any phone, landline or mobile · More than 30 countries supported

Adding phone numbers to your Google Talk contact list

1) To start, launch Google Talk on your desktop

2) Add contacts the same way you usually do: click on the Add button to add a friend

3) Type in the phone number of the person you want to call in the following format. Use

full phone number, including country code and area code:

phonenumber@talkster.gtalk2voip.com

Example: for UK, use 442071234567@talkster.gtalk2voip.com or for USA , use
12125551212@talkster.gtalk2voip.com

(Note: be sure to check the list of Talkster's supported countries to check if the friend you want to call is in one of the available countries)

http://www.talkster.com/Countries.aspx

4) You'll get a confirmation from Talkster with instructions. We assign a local Talkster number for your friend in their country. Your friends will use Talkster phone numbers to call-in to be connected with you.

5) If you are calling your friend on a mobile phone, he will receive an SMS with his Talkster call-in number for you. Otherwise, let him know the Talkster number by IM or email.

Make calls from your Google Talk

1) Click on your friend's number in your Google Talk Contact List

2) Click on the Call button to start the call with your friend

3) Talkster will dial out to your friend from Google Talk

4) When your friend answers, you will have 10 seconds to check to see if he's available to talk. Tell him to hang up and call right back, using his local Talkster phone number for you.

5) You wait while your friend hangs up and calls back using his local number for you. (If he doesn't know his number, send it to him by email or IM.)

6) As soon as your friend calls in, we connect you and you can talk as long as you want for FREE.

7) When you're done, you just end the call!

8) Tell your friend to save his Talkster call-in number in his phone so he can use it whenever you want to call him from Google Talk.

You can call as often as you like and talk as long as you like. There are no catches, no limits, and no conditions!

Helpful Hints

To use the service, your friend should make sure to enable his Caller ID. That is how we recognize him to connect the call; there are no logins or passwords needed.

To see Talkster's current list of supported countries, visit the Talkster web site at
www.talkster.com.

Invite Your Friends For Free:

http://free.talkster.com/

How to Make $1000 a Day Posting on Youtube

2008-07-19T11:29:00.003-04:00

Step#1 - Sign up at a CPA network.

Monetize the traffic that you get from Youtube by sending them to CPA offers. If you don't know what a CPA offer is, well its basically like an affiliate network where they pay you every time a visitor you refer fills out a form. Getting people to fill out forms in exchange for some kind of freebie that the advertiser is offering is real easy . If you have an account at these or any other CPA I personally use RocketProfit network, that will suffice. If you don't then I suggest you signup at RocketProfit.

Step#2 – Find a good offer to monetize.

I usually find offers that give away something free and are in vogue. For example, a free iPhone. The iPhone is a very hot product right now and people are crazy about it.

Find such an offer with the network you have signed up for. Try and pick an offer that has a landing page that is well designed and has a "call to action".

Typically a well designed landing page is designed in such a way that the only action the visitor can do is to fill out the form or close the page.

Pick out two to three good offers and save the affiliate links to a file.

Step #3 - Download the video conversion software.

Files that are stored at youtube and other video sharing sites are in the ".flv" format that you,ll need to convert to suitable format. So to do that you'll need to access this site Vixy.net. I’ll explain how to use it further down.

Step#4 – Make the video.

Ok this is the place where I hear you go "heck, I don't know how to make videos"!! Trust me it’s not that hard.

Option A

Go to Youtube or any other video sharing site and type the keyword in the search
box. In our example type "iphone". You will find several videos uploaded by people. Find one that's generic and doesn't have too much branding in it. The next step is to download this video from youtube or any other video sharing site that you found it at. To download it visit this site Vixy.net.

Enter the url to the video in the box. (make sure that the video site you are using is supported by them)

Select "convert to .AVI". This will convert the .FLV to usable .AVI format as it downloads. Just follow the prompts..

If you have Camtasia you can add your advertisement at any place in the video as a callout.
If you don't have Camtasia then you can use the free Camstudio that's given along with Tube Automator as a bonus and add your adverts into the video.

Option-B

The second option is to create a presentation in powerpoint and then record that presentation with either camtasia or camstudio. Creating text based presentations is a easy simple way to make your video and keep it short and interesting.

Step#5 – Make the blog.

The next step is to make a blog at any free blog site and add the code that’s below into the template. This code will redirect the user to your affiliate offer and since it’s a blogspot blog any body snooping around will not get your real info as they can’t really do a "whois" search at blogger.

<script language="javascript"><document.location='YOUR AFFILIATE LINK HERE'></script>

Step#6 – Upload the video to youtube

Upload the video to youtube and use a catchy title. Example "Win a free iPhone" In the description add the URL to the blog. Do not write anything else in the description. Add descriptive tags based on the offer you are promoting.

Step#7 – Make it popular with Tube Automator . Get Tube Automator to Automate it…
Finally use tube Automator to post comments and vote on your video. The more you vote and post with different accounts the more popular your video gets.

Completely Uninstalling Windows Applications

2008-07-19T10:21:00.002-04:00

When you uninstall a Windows application, the uninstaller doesn't remove all the files and registry entries created by the application. Sometimes the developers were too lazy or they thought those files might be needed if you reinstall the application. The end result is that your computer loads slower because your registry contains more entries and the hard drive stores unnecessary files.

Perfect Uninstaller is a better and easier way for you to completely uninstall any unneeded application that the standard Windows Add/Remove Program usually can't do.
This product has been a favorite simply because the design is unique with ease in use but powerful in efficiency. Find out more about this powerful tool here.

Create a Secure and Locked Folder in Windows XP

2008-07-16T17:07:00.003-04:00

NOTE: Since some people were having issues with this method of hiding a folder in XP (folder being renamed incorrectly, visible via the command prompt, etc), I am adding to the bottom another way to permanently hide a folder using a program called Free Hide Folder. Please scroll down to read about it.

If you’ve come across this page looking for a way to create a password protected, secure, hidden or locked folder in Windows XP for free, you’ve come to the right place. Unfortunately, Windows XP does not have any user-friendly built-in tools to create secure folders on computers with multiple users. Of course, you can encrypt data on your hard disk, but this only helps if your computer is stolen.

There is another way to create a secure locked folder without having to buy any 3rd party software.

It basically involves using a script to morph the folder into something completely different so that it’s still visible, but nothing inside the folder is accessible. In order to view the data, you have to run another script to morph it back. Anyone who clicks on the folder will be brought to the Control Panel and simply think it is a shortcut.

Here are the steps to create the protected folder in Windows XP:

First create a folder that you will use to store your confidential data. For example, I have created a folder called Fonts at the root of my D drive. Since the hidden folder will bring you to the Control Panel, it’s best to name the folder as one of the programs inside there.

In the same location where you created the new folder, create a new file in Notepad, copy the following below into it, replace Fonts with the name of your folder and save it as loc.bat.

ren Fonts Fonts.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

To save the file as a .bat file in Notepad, just put the whole thing in quotes, like “loc.bat” and then click Save.

Now you should have a bat file named loc in the same directory as your Fonts folder, not inside the Fonts folder.

Create another NotePad file and type in the following listed below and save it as “key.bat”.

ren Fonts.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} Fonts

Now you’ll have loc.bat and key.bat along with your folder. Go ahead and double-click on loc.bat and your folder will turn into the Control Panel and nothing inside can be viewed. Clicking on it will simply bring you to the Control Panel. You’ll notice the icon should have changed also.

To view the data inside your folder again, click on key.bat and your folder will return to normal! Pretty simple!

Of course, keeping the key.bat file in the same folder will defeat the purpose of securing the folder, so it’s best to move the key.bat file somewhere else, or even better, put it on a USB stick or CD that only you can access.

Most people will be probably look at the folder and simply ignore it since it has the control panel icon and it links directly there. Of course, if someone knows this trick also, they can create their own key.bat file, etc and open it back up. However, if you’re dealing with someone who can do all of that, it’s best you check out more advanced 3rd party software to lock down a folder.

ALTERNATIVE METHOD:

If you’re having trouble with the above-mentioned method (from what I can see from the comments, a good number of people), then here’s another quick and free way to create a secure folder in Windows XP. There is a very nice program called Free Hide Folder from Cleanersoft that allows you to easily hide your private folders.

Your folders are completely hidden and you must supply a password to open the program to unhide the folders. The personal edition is free, just click the Skip Registration button unless you’re using it for commercial purposes.

I’ve tried this program myself and I cannot access the hidden folder via Windows Explorer nor the command prompt. So if the above method is not working, give this a shot!

How to track the original location of an email via its IP address

2008-07-16T16:20:00.002-04:00

Here’s a quick how-to guide on how you can track email to it’s originating location by figuring out the email’s IP address and looking it up. I have found this to be quite useful on many occasions for verification purposes since I receive lots of emails daily due to my blog. Tracking the IP address of an email sender does require looking at some technical details, so be ready to dig your heels in!

There are basically two steps involved in the process of tracking an email: find the IP address in the email header section and then look up the location of the IP address.

Finding the IP address of an email sender in GMail, Yahoo Mail, and Outlook

Let’s go ahead and take a look at how you would do this for Google, Yahoo and Outlook since those are the most popular email clients.

Google’s Gmail

1. Log into your account and open the email in question.

2. Click on the down arrow that’s to the right of the Reply link. Choose

Show Original from the list.

Now here’s the technical part that I was telling you about earlier! You need to look for the lines of text that start with “Received: from“. It might be easier to simply press
Cntrl + F and perform a search for that phase. You’ll notice that there are several Received From’s in the message header. This is because the message header contains the IP addresses of all of servers involved in routing that email to you.

To find the first computer that originally sent the email, you’ll have to find the Received From that’s farthest
DOWN. As you can see from the above image, the first one is from a computer called “aseem” with the
IP address 72.204.154.191. Then it was routed to my ISP’s server at eastrmmtao104.cox.net and so on and so forth till it got to your email server.

The computer aseem is my personal home computer and that’s my public IP address for my house! I’ll go through Yahoo and Outlook before talking about tracking the location of that IP address.

Yahoo Mail Beta

1. Log into your account and open the email (if you’re using Yahoo Mail Beta with the new preview interface, make sure you double-click on the email so that it opens in a new tab).

2. At the top right, you’ll see there is a drop-down option where
Standard Header is selected by default.

3. Click on it and choose Full Header.

Again, you’ll see the same information as before, just in a different window:

Microsoft Outlook

1. Open the email in Outlook by double-clicking on it

2. Go to View at the top menu (the menu options for the email, not the main Outlook window) and choose Options.

You’ll get a dialog box where you can set the message options and at the bottom you’ll see the
Internet Headers box. For some silly reason, the box is very small and you have to scroll a lot, so it’s best to simply copy and paste the text into Notepad to view it more easily.

Tracking the location of an IP address

Now that we have our originating IP address of 72.204.154.191, let’s find out where that is! You can do this by perform a location lookup on the IP address. My favorites are IP2Location and GeoBytes IP Locator.

GeoBytes gave me a big map of New Orleans, LA along with a bunch of other
information about the location itself.

IP2Location also gave me the same information pretty much, including the ISP (Cox Communications). Of course, this is correct since I live in New Orleans!

If you want more information, you can do a WHOIS database search also. My favorite one is the

ARIN WHOIS Database Search. This will give you information on who hosts that IP address and their registration information. You can always contact them to try and find more information on that particular IP address.

How To Solve Low Memory Problems on Your PC

2008-07-12T14:24:00.006-04:00

Normally you receive a low memory warning message when you run many programs at the same time than the RAM installed on your computer is designed to support. Your can solve this problem by increasing the system paging file size also called as virtual memory. Using this virtual memory, windows will move information to and from the paging file for fast processing. This will free up enough RAM for other programs to run properly. To increase the system page file follow these tips:

Control Panel > System > Advanced > Click on Settings (Under Performance) > Advanced > Change

Here under Drive (Volume label), you have the option to select any of your hard disk drives, but the best choice is to select any drive other than C drive for virtual memory.

Set the double Initial Maximum Size of your Virtual Memory. Here set initial size 700 MB and maximum size up to 1000MB; you can change this size according to the free space available on your hard drive.

How Spyware And The Weapons Against It Are Evolving

2008-07-08T20:50:00.002-04:00

Spyware has reached epidemic proportions and is only getting worse. Recent statistics indicate that approximately 95% of the world’s PCs are infected with some form of spyware. Unfortunately, removal techniques that worked just a couple of months ago are no longer effective in many cases and new types of spyware being released are more advanced than most computer viruses.

A couple of years ago, the worst thing that could happen to you while surfing the Internet was to get bombarded by pop up ads. Lately though, I feel like all I do is clean spyware. I have spent countless hours removing spyware from computers belonging to friends and family, only to have it re-appear a few days later. I try to help as many people as I possibly can, but the spyware problem has reached epidemic proportions and is only getting worse. Find out here why the spyware problem has gotten so out of hand and more importantly, what you can do about it.

Don't pay over $90.00 a month for Cable or Satellite TV services

2008-07-07T19:45:00.000-04:00

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How to Show Your Favorite Name in Windows Taskbar

2008-07-05T23:21:00.003-04:00

In Windows XP, you can create a great fun for others by using this trick. You can display your name or any other favorite word in windows taskbar just beside the digital time area and you can surprise your friends to show them your name in windows taskbar. If you have some knowledge to edit the windows control panel settings then you can do it very easily and next time you can reverse these changes same as you done.

Follow the given steps to display the name in windows task bar:

To use this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.

First click on windows Start button> Setting then click on Control Panel option.

Here double click on "Regional and Language Options" to edit the Regional default settings.

Now click on Customize button under the "Standard and formats" area, here a new dialog box title will open with "Customize Regional Options".

Select "Time" tab on the "Customize Regional Options" dialog box.

Now go to "AM symbol" & "PM symbol" and type the name that you want to display in windows task bar and click on Apply button to affect these settings.

Now click on Ok button to end the process and enjoy you name in windows taskbar.

Speed up your Broadband Internet Connection

2008-07-05T22:38:00.005-04:00

You can increase the speed of your broadband internet connection, if you are using windows XP on your computer. This is built-in feature of windows XP to reserve the 20 percent of bandwidth of your internet connection, but you can override of this default setting. By enabling these setting, you can use this reserve bandwidth and enjoy your speedy broadband internet connection. You can set reserve able limit from 0 to 100 percent, but if you want to enjoy 100 percent bandwidth of internet connection, you should configure bandwidth limit 0 percent.

Follow the given steps to configure bandwidth limit:

First click on Start button then type "GPedit.msc" in Run option and press Enter.

Under "Local Computer Policy" expand the "administrative templates".

Here in right side window expand the "Network" then highlight the "QoS Packet Scheduler"

Now again in right side window, double click on "limit reservable bandwidth".

Under the "Limit reservable bandwidth properties" dialog box check "enabled" then change the "Bandwidth limit %" to zero.

Now close the Group Policy editor and restart your compute, after any changes to go into effect.

Add Digg Button to Blogger or Blogspot

2008-07-04T16:38:00.002-04:00

This is a step-by-step guide to automatically place a real-time Digg count and vote button to every single blog post. Digg is a social content website where your readers or you can submit content to. If you have a good story, members will 'digg' the post and write comments. As a blog owner, you may want to make it easy for and encourage your readers to submit and digg your articles.

Automatic Count and Vote Button

Before you do that though, you would want to take note of the following:-

1. Your blog should be set to save Post Pages. Post Pages are archived blog posts published to their own web page. Each post will have a unique URL, which is required by Digg for the individual posts to be submitted. To verify or enable it, login to your Blogger Dashboard. Under Settings-> Archiving, set the “Enable Post Pages?” to “Yes” and save the settings.

2. This template hack will put a Digg button to every post. You are therefore not able to choose which post you want to include or exclude a button. If you would prefer to have a Digg button added only to some posts, read the later part of this article on “Button for selective posts.”

3. The code reads the URL of the individual blog page and this shall be the URL used for submission of the story to Digg.

Under “Template”, click the “Edit HTML” tab. Block copy the entire HTML code for your site and save it in a text file. You can also click the "Download Template" link. This is one of the two necessary steps whenever you want to change the template. The second step is of course to “Preview” the new changes, and save the changes only when you are satisfied. The backup you have saved in a text file will come in handy when you accidentally click to save the changes without previewing them. With a backup, you can easily restore the template to the prior state if need be.

Click the box next to “Expand Widget Templates”. Scroll about two-thirds down the template to look for the code that reads:-

<p><data:post.body/></p>

If you want the button to show at the top right corner of your post, replace the above code with this.

<div style='float:right; margin-left:10px;'> <script type='text/javascript'> digg_url="<data:post.url/>"; </script> <script src='http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js' type='text/javascript'/> </div> <p><data:post.body/></p>

This is what you get:-

If you would like the button to appear at the end of your post, replace with this following code instead.

<p><data:post.body/></p> <div style='float:right; margin-left:10px;'> <script type='text/javascript'> digg_url="<data:post.url/>"; </script> <script src='http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js' type='text/javascript'/> </div>

The result will be this:-

If you want to have the button at the top left corner of your post, change the alignment.

<div style='float:left; margin-right:10px;'> <script type='text/javascript'> digg_url="<data:post.url/>"; </script> <script src='http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js' type='text/javascript'/> </div> <p><data:post.body/></p>

The outcome is this:-

Digg has another compact button. If you insert this code:-

<div style='float:right; margin-left:10px;'> <script type='text/javascript'> digg_url="<data:post.url/>"; digg_skin="compact"; </script> <script src='http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js' type='text/javascript'/> </div> <p><data:post.body/></p>

You will see a compact Digg count button like this:-

You can also change the background color of the button to blend with your site. For example, a code like this:-

<div style='float:right; margin-left:10px;'> <script type='text/javascript'> digg_url="<data:post.url/>"; digg_bgcolor="#BDEDFF"; digg_skin="compact"; </script> <script src='http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js' type='text/javascript'/> </div> <p><data:post.body/></p>

will give you this:-

You can insert the color code of your choice into the red portion. For a list of color values to insert, you may refer to the Hexadecimal HTML color code list.

Automatic Count Button in Blog Footer

[Update] This segment is added in response to user's request to have the Digg button in the Blog footer, i.e., after the labels. If you scroll through your template, you will see this chunk of code which gives the labels in your Blog footer.

<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'> <span class='post-labels'> <b:if cond='data:post.labels'> <data:postLabelsLabel/> <b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'> <a expr:href='data:label.url' rel='tag'><data:label.name/></a><b:if cond='data:label.isLast != "true"'>,</b:if> </b:loop> </b:if> </span> </p>

If you want a Digg button to appear just after the labels, add the appropriate Digg button code right after the above code. For example, if you want the compact Digg button, add this code below the labels code:-

<div style='float:right; margin-left:10px;'> <script type='text/javascript'> digg_url="<data:post.url/>"; digg_skin="compact"; </script> <script src='http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js' type='text/javascript'/> </div>

The resulting layout is this:-

Move the Digg button code above the labels if you'd like. Experiment a little. Just remember to preview the template and not to save it unless you are satisfied.

Digg Button in Blog Footer

If you do not want to see an Automatic Count button, you can also place a link button into the template. This button will appear at the bottom right corner of every post and readers can click it to submit that post to Digg.

Scroll to this part of the template and insert the lines (in red):-

<div class='post-body'> <p><data:post.body/></p> <div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats --> </div> <div style="float:right; margin-left:10px;"> <a expr:href='"http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=" + data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img border="0" alt="Digg this" src="http://digg.com/img/badges/91x17-digg-button.gif"/></a></div>

With the code, this is what you will see at the end of every post.

You can change the position of this button. Go through what we discussed earlier in this article to understand where to place the code if you should want the button to be at the top of the article.

The button 91x17-digg-button.gif is simply an example. As the following section explains, there are many buttons you can use. To change the button to another design, replace the image URL with that of the new button.

Button for selective posts

The methods of manually adding a Digg button to selective posts are rather tedious and complicated. The problem is that Blogger does not allow you to simply insert a JavaScript into a blog post. Since this blog is targeted at the majority of us who are not computer experts, I shall suggest a method that I think is simple enough for us.

First, go to the Digg tools site to select a Digg button that you like. You will see a wide selection of Digg buttons.

Take note of the image URL. For example, the image URL of this button is

http://digg.com/img/badges/91x17-digg-button.gif

Write a post and publish it. Next, refresh the page and click on the title of your post. This will bring you to the post page. Take note of the new URL of your story. Insert it into the orange portion of this HTML code. If you want a different image, insert the image URL into the blue portion of the code.

<a href="http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=URLofyourstory" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Digg my article" src="http://digg.com/img/badges/91x17-digg-button.gif"/></a>

Now, go back to your article and Edit it. Choose the “Edit HTML” mode and not “Compose” mode. Copy the above code and paste it into whichever part of your blog article. “Preview” it, and if you are happy with it, “Publish” it.

For this article, I have manually inserted the Digg button. If you would like to Digg this article, or just to see how it works, click this button.

5 Critical Steps to Protecting Your Computer on the Internet

2008-07-04T14:56:00.003-04:00

Spyware, viruses and worms... oh my!

If you are connected to the internet, you need to make sure you get your computer set up properly if you want to avoid problems down the road.

With all the viruses, spyware and other threats on the internet today, no computer should be set up without the proper protection.

And that protection needs to be in place as soon after you hook up your new machine as possible.

The following five steps will make your computer a much harder target for threats. You still won't be completely immune to problems, but 99% of the time the threat will pass you by, looking for the easy mark.

1. Running a Personal Firewall

A personal firewall is software that basically makes your computer invisible to hackers, worms and other threats that can infect your computer over the internet.

Setting up a firewall is the absolute first thing you should do if you're going to connect to the internet. Without a firewall, your computer could get infected in as little as one minute after connecting.

If you have a brand new computer running Windows XP Service Pack 2, there is a firewall built into Windows. It will already have been turned on when you first set up your computer.

If you're running an older version of Windows, even an earlier version of Windows XP, there is no firewall automatically set up for you. In this case there are two possibilities:

- Your computer came pre-loaded with a firewall such as Norton Internet Security or McAfee Internet Security
- You have no firewall installed and should download one ASAP.

If you don't have any personal firewall software installed, you should do so right away. Zone Alarm is a very good firewall program that has a version that you can download and install for free.

You can download the free version of Zone Alarm here.

2. Turn on Windows Updates

Again, if you're running Windows XP Service Pack 2 this is already set up, but otherwise you should turn on Windows Updates. Microsoft releases updates for security problems and other bugs in Windows on a regular basis.

These updates will keep your computer running better, and they often fix security issues that could compromise your information or privacy.

If you are running Windows XP Service Pack 2, you can double-check that automatic updates are turned on by clicking Start, then click Control Panel, then double-click Security Center. The window that opens will tell you if automatic updates are turned on, and lets you turn them on if they're not.

To turn on automatic updates in earlier versions of Windows XP, click on the Start menu, click Control Panel and then double-click on System. On the "Automatic Updates" tab, click the option to "Automatically download the updates and install them on the schedule I specify."

To turn them on in Windows 2000, click on Start, click Control Panel and then double-click on Automatic Updates. Again, click the option to "automatically download the updates and install them on the schedule I specify."

Now when Microsoft releases updates, they will be downloaded for you automatically and Windows will tell you when they are ready to be installed.

3. Install & Update Antivirus Software

Most new computers come with antivirus software these days. You might have Norton, McAfee, PC-Cillin or another brand. No matter what program you have, you will need to update it when you get connected to the internet.

It doesn't matter how new your computer is - there will be new viruses, and new updates for the antivirus software, since it was loaded.

The exact process is different for each brand of antivirus program, but most of them will have an icon in the bottom right corner of your desktop, beside the time. The icon might be a picture of a shield (McAfee), a stethoscope (Norton) or something else.

In most cases, if you point to the icon for your antivirus and click the right mouse button, a menu will pop up with an update option. It could be simply called update or could be something like Live Update or Download Latest Updates. If you click on the update option (with the left button this time) it will install the newest updates for you.

If you're not sure which icon is for your antivirus software, just point to each one for a few seconds and a little title should pop up telling you what it is.

4. Install Anti-Spyware Software

Spyware - and other things known as adware and malware - is becoming as big a problem as viruses. Spyware programs can cause a lot of problems with your computer, not to mention they can track your personal information and you never know where it's being sent.

Some new computers might includes antispyware software, but most of them don't yet. There are quite a few anti-spyware programs available, some free and some not. The one I recommend is from Microsoft and is one of the free ones.

One of the reasons I like it is because it always runs in the background and will automatically catch a lot of spyware before it gets on your computer.

Many of the other programs don't catch it until you run a scan. Not only does this allow things to get on your computer, it also means you have to actually remember to run a scan.

You can download the free Microsoft Antispyware from here.

5. Set up a Free Email Account

This last item is not as critical as the first four, but I would highly recommend you set up an email account with one of the free services like Hotmail or Gmail.

Once you're on the internet, you'll find a lot of useful information that you want that requires you to provide an email address. In some cases, these people will end up sending you a bunch of spam.

If you use a free email account to sign up for anything that you don't know for sure you can trust, it's not going to fill your main email with a bunch of junk.

This goes for anything really, not just online information. If you're entering a contest or signing up for anything offline and you don't know where your information could end up being used, I would suggest using your free email address.

If worse comes to worse, and your free email address gets inundated with spam, you can always just set up a new one and let the old one expire.

Some of the better free email services are www.hotmail.com, www.gmail.com and www.yahoomail.com.

If you've had your computer for a while and never done any of these things, you should still take these steps to get it set up properly. It will definitely save you a lot of time - and possibly money - as you use your system.

How to Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP

2008-07-04T11:28:00.002-04:00

If you must access a file or a folder that you do not have access to, you must take ownership of that file or folder. When you do this, you replace the security permissions to have access.

If you are using Windows XP Professional, you must disable Simple File Sharing. By default, Windows XP Professional uses Simple File sharing when it is not joined to a domain. If simple file sharing is enabled, you see the simple file sharing user interface appears instead of the Security and Sharing tabs.

To see hidden files:

1. On the Tools menu in Windows Explorer, click Folder Options.
2. Click the View tab.
3. Under Hidden files and folders, click Show hidden files and folders.

Note: To access Windows Explorer, click Start, point to All Programs, and then click Windows Explorer.

How Do I see the Security Tab in XP Home?

If you are using Windows XP Home then download this Security Configuration Manager file from Microsoft. SCESP4I.EXE
Double click to run it and then type in C:\TEMP\SCM and press OK
Then using Explorer browse to the C:\TEMP\SCM folder and locate the file named: setup.inf then Right click on it and select Install
Once the installation is completed you need to restart your computer.

Note: To use Security settings your hard drive must use NTFS.

Note: To allow for specific users to access the share folder after the simple file sharing is disabled, you should configure both the NTFS permissions on the Security tab and the share permission on the Sharing tab of the share folder. NTFS permissions can only be set on a partition using NTFS file system. If you remove the Every Group from the NTFS permission, you cannot access the share folder over the network.

How to turn off simple file sharing

1. To disable simple file sharing, follow these steps:Click Start, and then click My Computer.
2. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options, and then click the View tab.
3. In the Advanced Settings section, clear the Use simple file sharing (Recommended) check box.
4. Click OK.

How to take ownership of a folder

1. To take ownership of a folder, follow these steps:Right-click the folder that you want to take ownership of, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Security tab, and then click OK on the Security message (if one appears).
3. Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.
4. In the Name list, click your user name, or click Administrator if you are logged in as Administrator, or click the Administrators group. If you want to take ownership of the contents of that folder, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.
5. Click OK, and then click Yes when you receive the following message:

You do not have permission to read the contents of directory folder name. Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control?

All permissions will be replaced if you press Yes.

Note: Folder name is the name of the folder that you want to take ownership of.

6. Click OK, and then reapply the permissions and security settings that you want for the folder and its contents.

How to take ownership of a file

Note: You must be logged on to the computer with an account that has administrative credentials.

1. To take ownership of a file, follow these steps:Right-click the file that you want to take ownership of, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Security tab, and then click OK on the Security message (if one appears).
3. Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.
4. In the Name list, click Administrator, or click the Administrators group, and then click OK.

The administrator or the Administrators group now owns the file. To change the permissions on the files and folders under this folder, go to step 5.

5. Click Add.
6. In the Enter the object names to select (examples) list, type the user or group account that you want to give access to the file. For example, type Administrator.
7. Click OK.
8. In the Group or user names list, click the account that you want, and then select the check boxes of the permissions that you want to assign that user.
9. When you are finished assigning permissions, click OK.

Here is an alternative method
For Windows XP Home Edition ONLY! - we need to add the Security Tab to Explorer

Download this Security Configuration Manager file from Microsoft. SCESP4I.EXE
Double click to run it and type in EXACTLY or copy / paste the following path to extract it to.
If it is not correct then this method will not work. C:\TEMP\SCM
Then click OK

NOTE! Close all open applications as you will need to restart the computer after the end of this routine

Copy this entry and click on START - RUN and paste it into the run box and click OK:

RUNDLL32.EXE SETUPAPI.DLL,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 C:\TEMP\SCM\setup.inf

This will start the installation of the Security Configuration Manager that you downloaded earlier.

It will then ask you to restart your computer. Please restart your computer now when asked.

Embed Video in Blogger

2008-07-03T12:11:00.004-04:00

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

TiltViewer

2008-07-03T11:54:00.002-04:00

&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;

TiltViewer is a free, customizable 3D Flash image viewing application.

Controls

Mouse

* Click images to zoom-in, click again to zoom-out.

* Click the background to zoom-out.

* Click the 'reload' button (below the image grid) to load a new set of images.

* Click the 'flip' button (bottom-right of a zoomed-in image) to see image
details.

Keyboard

* Cursor keys to navigate between images.

* Space-bar to zoom in/out.

* 'F' key to flip an image (when zoomed in).

Right-Click Menu

* Go Fullscreen. Opens TiltViewer in fullscreen mode. Right-click and select
'Exit Fullscreen' to revert to regular mode. Note keyboard navigation does not
work in full-screen mode.

Download:

Download TiltViewer v1.3 to use on your site.

Using TiltViewer:

Creating your own TiltViewer gallery is easy. See instructions here.

TiltViewer-Pro

TiltViewer-Pro is now available for purchase. TiltViewer-Pro has increased customization options and does not include the TiltViewer logo.
Learn more about TiltViewer-Pro.

What’s So Great About Firefox?

2008-07-02T23:10:00.003-04:00

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox 3 sets the pace with dozens of new features, including the smart location bar, one-click bookmarking and blindingly fast performance. View the top new features!!

Comprehensive Guide to .htaccess

2008-07-01T00:11:00.000-04:00

I am sure that most of you have heard of htaccess, if just vaguely, and that you may think you have a fair idea of what can be done with an htaccess file. You are more than likely mistaken about that, however. Regardless, even if you have never heard of htaccess and what it can do for you, the intention of this tutorial is to get you two moving along nicely together. If you have heard of htaccess, chances are that it has been in relation to implementing custom error pages or password protected directories. But there is much more available to you through the marvelously simple .htaccess file.

An htaccess file is a simple ASCII file, such as you would create through a text editor like NotePad or SimpleText. Many people seem to have some confusion over the naming convention for the file, so let me get that out of the way. .htaccess is the file extension. It is not file.htaccess or somepage.htaccess, it is simply named .htaccess

In order to create the file, open up a text editor and save an empty page as .htaccess (or type in one character, as some editors will not let you save an empty page). Chances are that your editor will append its default file extension to the name (ex: for Notepad it would call the file .htaccess.txt). You need to remove the .txt (or other) file extension in order to get yourself htaccessing--yes, I know that isn't a word, but it sounds keen, don't it? You can do this by right clicking on the file and renaming it by removing anything that doesn't say .htaccess. You can also rename it via telnet or your ftp program, and you should be familiar enough with one of those so as not to need explaining.

htaccess files must be uploaded as ASCII mode, not BINARY. You may need to CHMOD the htaccess file to 644 or (RW-R--R--). This makes the file usable by the server, but prevents it from being read by a browser, which can seriously compromise your security. (For example, if you have password protected directories, if a browser can read the htaccess file, then they can get the location of the authentication file and then reverse engineer the list to get full access to any portion that you previously had protected. There are different ways to prevent this, one being to place all your authentication files above the root directory so that they are not www accessible, and the other is through an htaccess series of commands that prevents itself from being accessed by a browser, more on that later)

Most commands in htaccess are meant to be placed on one line only, so if you use a text editor that uses word-wrap, make sure it is disabled or it might throw in a few characters that annoy Apache to no end, although Apache is typically very forgiving of malformed content in an htaccess file.

htaccess is an Apache thing, not an NT thing. There are similar capabilities for NT servers, though in my professional experience and personal opinion, NT's ability in these areas is severely handicapped. But that's not what we're here for.

htaccess files affect the directory they are placed in and all sub-directories, that is an htaccess file located in your root directory (yoursite.com) would affect yoursite.com/content, yoursite.com/content/contents, etc. It is important to note that this can be prevented (if, for example, you did not want certain htaccess commands to affect a specific directory) by placing a new htaccess file within the directory you don't want affected with certain changes, and removing the specific command(s) from the new htaccess file that you do not want affecting this directory. In short, the nearest htaccess file to the current directory is treated as the htaccess file. If the nearest htaccess file is your global htaccess located in your root, then it affects every single directory in your entire site.

Before you go off and plant htaccess everywhere, read through this and make sure you don't do anything redundant, since it is possible to cause an infinite loop of redirects or errors if you place something weird in the htaccess.

Also...some sites do not allow use of htaccess files, since depending on what they are doing, they can slow down a server overloaded with domains if they are all using htaccess files. I can't stress this enough: You need to make sure you are allowed to use htaccess before you actually use it. Some things that htaccess can do can compromise a server configuration that has been specifically setup by the admin, so don't get in trouble.

E-Mail Marketing Techniques

2008-06-30T00:05:00.000-04:00

Whether you are selling a product or a service on your website or blog, e-mail marketing is a good method for reaching out to hundreds and even thousands of prospective customers. But, without a proper approach to this type of marketing, you may be wasting your time. A few little known secrets to be a successful e-mail marketer are revealed here!

CSS Hacks

2008-06-25T21:54:00.000-04:00

Dealing with browser inconsistencies often makes up a majority of the work for a web designer. Sometimes there is no reasonable way to accomplish a desired layout in all major web browsers without the use of some special exception rules for certain layout engines. Hacks necessarily lead to potential complications and should be avoided whenever possible, but when the circumstances require hacks to be used, it's best to know what your options are and weigh the consequences appropriately. The purpose of this article is to describe some of the CSS hacks, also called CSS filters, with the least significant potential consequences.

Conditional comments

Due to its relatively poor level of standards support, Internet Explorer tends to be the subject of most CSS hacks. Luckily, as of version 5, it deliberately supports a rather safe-to-use hack called "conditional comments". Conditional comments are specially constructed HTML comments that Internet Explorer on Windows may treat differently from other browsers, optionally based on IE's version number. They can cause Internet Explorer to ignore the markup between comments or to include part of a comment as if it was regular markup. Conditional comments apply specifically to browsers using Internet Explorer's Trident layout engine, meaning IE-based browsers like Maxthon and Avant handle them like Internet Explorer does while browsers using other layout engines see them simply as regular comments. Internet Explorer on the Mac uses a different layout engine and doesn't support conditional comments.

The most beneficial aspect of conditional comments is that you are not relying on browser bugs when using them. When you use CSS hacks that rely on browser bugs, you run into the possibility of those bugs being fixed at anunwanted time or other browsers showing the same bugs. Conditional commentsonly work in browsers that specifically support them and claim to be based on Internet Explorer, which in this case all known browsers are honest about.

There are two forms of conditional comments: positive and negative. A positive conditional comment will expose the included markup only to web browsers that match the condition (meaning only the selected versions of Internet Explorer). A negative conditional comment will expose the markup only to web browsers that don't match the condition (meaning all non-IE web browsers and any versions of IE that the condition didn't match). Note that, since versions of IE older than IE 5 don't support conditional comments, you may get unexpected results in those browsers.

Syntax

The syntax for conditional comments is as follows:

Positive


Negative: <![IGNORE[]]> HTML

condition is one of the following:

IE: Any version of IE
lt IE version: Versions less than version
lte IE version: Versions less than or equal to version
IE version: Only version version
gte IE version: Versions greater than or equal to version
gt IE version: Versions greater than version

version is the version of Internet Explorer, typically

5, 5.5,
6, or 7

HTML is the HTML to be included if the condition does or doesn't match, depending on the type of conditional comment. When included, the HTML is placed right where the conditional comment is in the source.

For negative conditions, <![IGNORE[--><![IGNORE[]]>
can be replaced with --> if the condition is simply IE. The longer version is only needed when Internet Explorer might parse the contents.

The <![IGNORE[... ]]> directive is not available in XML, so it is illegal to use it in XHTML. A solution would be to split it up into twospecial conditional comments:

  XHTML 
where XHTML is the same both places. Note that Internet Explorer 7 and below don't yet recognize XHTML as a form of XML, so this is merely forward-looking.

Fixing stand-alone versions of Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer was not designed to allow multiple versions to be installed at once, and Microsoft doesn't officially support any such configurations. If you use one of the
hacked third party packages that attempts to do this, you will experience problems with version-specific conditional comments, among other things. This is because the different stand-alone copies still rely on a common centralized registry for certain data, including version information.

Although there is no simple way to cut through all of the issues withstand-alone versions of Internet Explorer, it is possible to force them to look elsewhere for their version information, thus fixing this issue with conditional comments. The trick is to remove the normal centralized version indicator. To do this, first open up regedit.exe from the "Run..." dialog. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/Version Vector/
(If HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE doesn't exist, try HKLM instead). In the right pane, you should see a row with a Name value of IE. Rename this by clicking on it and changing it to zIE (or anything unique and different). Restart Internet Explorer to see the effects. Now when it looks for the IE key for its version information, the key will be missing and it will be forced to determine the
correct version number from its own module.

Stand-alone versions of Internet Explorer have a number of other issues, and it therefore may be better to instead use a separate virtual machine for each version of Internet Explorer to ensure that what you see is what your users will see. I recommend VMware Server, which is completely free of charge and fairly easy to set up.

Conditional comments as a CSS hack

Conditional comments can be used as a CSS hack by including links to stylesheets based on the layout engine. Here is an example of how stylesheets can be separated in this way:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Test</title>
<link href="all_browsers.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

<!--[if IE]> <link href="ie_only.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if lt IE 7]> <link href="ie_6_and_below.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <![endif]-->

<!--[if !lt IE 7]><![IGNORE[--><![IGNORE[]]> <link href="recent.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <!--<![endif]-->

<!--[if !IE]>--> <link href="not_ie.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <!--<![endif]-->
</head>

<body>
<p>Test</p>
</body>
</html>

In the above example, all_browsers.css applies to all browsers, ie_only.css only applies to all versions of Internet Explorer, ie_6_and_below.css applies to all versions of Internet Explorer below IE 7, recent.css applies to all browsers except IE versions below 7, and not_ie.css applies to all non-IE browsers.

Color Palette Creation is a Breeze With ColorPic

2008-06-20T22:46:00.000-04:00

Ever tried using a color picker on a high resolution monitor? It's impossible. That's why this color picker has a magnifier attached. Grab palettes of up to 16 colors at once and use four advanced color mixers to select a spectrum of possibilities.

Version 4 is now available, with the following features:

Easily pick any color from the screen
Totally 100% Free!
No popup adverts or spyware, it really is free
Colors shown in hex and decimal
Adjust Hue, Saturation, Value, Red, Green and Blue values
Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black percentages shown
Easy to use with any other program
Resizable magnification area
Overlay a grid for quick colorpicker alignment
Use arrow keys to nudge mouse pointer
Save multiple palettes of colors automatically
WebSafe Colors and names displayed
Snap to nearest WebSafe color
Point sample, 3x3 or 5x5 pixel color sampling
Adjust color with four advanced color mixers
Edit colorpicker values after selection easily
Easy to use collapsible sections
Works with Firefox, Internet Explorer, Photoshop and any other application

Download ColorPic

Expandable Post Summaries for Professional Blog Design

2008-06-12T21:41:00.000-04:00

With little bit of modifications to your Blogger Beta template you can easily implement expandable post summaries in your blog main page. Expandable posts gives very professional and elegant look to your blog. You can hide most of the detailed content from main page and display them when the page of the post is opened. If you observer my blog, voting widgets are displayed on my post links and not in my main page. Also, most of the images in my posts are shown only in the actual post links only. Moving bandwidth intensive content to posts’ pages loads your main page very fast.

Let us see the steps to be followed for modifying the template to implement this.

Navigate through Template –> Edit HTML

Take backup of your template by clicking Download Full Template. This backup will help you if you want to revert to old template.

Search for ]]></b:skin> in your template HTML and paste the below code in between ]]></b:skin> and </head>

Click Here To Get The Code:D

Save your template and click on select Expand Widget Templates.

Search for <data:post.body/> in the template HTML and paste the below code after <data:post.body/>

 <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'> <span> <a expr:href='data:post.url' style='color:#0000FF; text-align:right; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none'>Read the rest of this entry >> </a> </span> </b:if> 

That’s all. Your template is modified to show expandable posts.

Now in every post, the content which you want to show only in post’s page should be included between <span class=”fullpost”>This will be shown only in post’s page</span>.remenmbering code every time is not easy for every one ,so for this also there is one trick .

Go to Setting>> Formatting Scroll down yours cursor and put below code in Post Template.
```
<span class="fullpost">

</span>
```

Another thing you must have to care about that is the part of post you want to show in home page is writen above <span class="fullpost"> and the part you do not want to show in homepage is written below<span class="fullpost"> as shown in below image.;)

Post a test article using that HTML to see your blog working as expected!

Shortcut	Description
F5	Refresh current page.
F11	Display the current website in full screen mode. Pressing F11 again will exit this mode.
Ctrl + D	Add current page to favorite
Ctrl + I	Display favorites
Ctrl + J	Display the download window.
Ctrl + N	Open New browser window.
Ctrl + P	Print current page / frame.
Ctrl + T	Opens a new tab.
Ctrl + F4	Closes the currently selected tab.
Alt + Left Arrow	Back a page.
Backspace	Back a page.
Alt + Right Arrow	Forward a page.
Esc	Stop page or download from loading.
Ctrl + (- or +)	Increase or decrease the font size, pressing '-' will decrease and '+' will increase.
Ctrl + Enter	Quickly complete an address. For example, type computerhope in the address bar and press CTRL + ENTER to get http://www.computerhope.com.
Shift + Enter	Complete a .net instead of a .com address.
Ctrl + Shift + Enter	Complete a .org address.
Ctrl + Shift + T	Undo the close of a window.
Ctrl + Tab	Moves through each of the open tabs.
Spacebar	Moves down a page at a time.
Shift + Spacebar	Moves up a page at a time.
Alt + Down arrow	Display all previous text entered in a text box and/or available options on drop down menu.