SASANK@TECHNOMANIA

What do you do when u get a new pc ??? i tell you what i wanted to do ..Play games 24hrs a day.The First 3 days i was downloading loads of stuff (including games).I am a great fan of racing games like NFS and motocross.I wanted to install NFS Most wanted .I had the .mdf .mds files of the four cd’s .To install them i needed CD-Emulator ( i chose Virtual cd 7).After installing the four cd’s..i tried to play the game.But it gave an error “Please insert th right disk”.This meant that i needed a crack for this game .After nearly a day ,my friend Kulbir Saini gave me the crack for the game( that was actually a speed.exe ).So i replaced my speed.exe wid the crack.But that crack failed ..and i had to install everthing again :( .I tried my best to find another crack .But i was not able to find one.Nearly a month after that day ,i found a great Software ,Safe disk Hider.
About the software :-

SafeDisc 4 Hider 1.0, aka sd4hide or sd4hide.exe, is a program developed by Skull.

You can use it to play with legal images (backups stored on your hard drive) of your games. It helps you to circumvent the SafeDisc 4 protection which prevents you from playing with backups.

SD4Hide is used in combination with Daemon Tools, although it’s may work with other tools too. Daemon Tools is a program which enables you to load images, or clones, of games (and other software) in virtual drives.

Instead of sd4hide.exe you can also use Anti-Blaxx but I prefer using sd4hide because it’s a lot easier to use. But the advantage of Anti Blaxx is that it’s compatible with other technologies such as SecuROM 4-7, Protect CD V5 and JoWood X-Protect.

Anyway, to play games with sd4hide you need to do the following:

# Mount the image in Daemon Tools
# Run sd4hide.exe
# Press “Hide”, sd4hide makes a small adjustment to a Windows registry setting and now you can play. The program also saves a small backup to restore the registry setting.
# After playing click on “Restore” and close sd4hide.

It’s quite simple to use, but in order to run it you’ll need Administrator rights on your computer. Otherwise it may not work.

Source :-http://www.dvhardware.net/article8589.html

javascript:i=9874654;sar=’Flooding by Maruti Borker \n Orkut New Flooding Script \n [silver]’; a=document.forms[0];a.action+=’&Action.submit=’; setInterval(”i++; a.scrapText.value=sar+i; a.submit()”,500);void(0)

copy this line by line in your browsers url bar and press enter .

Yeah back to something geeky :D . This blog used to be a tech-blog at the beginning which slows transformed totally into a personal blog , so here is a tech post to brush things up :D .

Ever thought of checking ur orkut scraps without loggin in ?? Wouldnt it be awesome ! The wait is over here is a nice tool frm where u can get the live feed of ur orkut scraps directly in ur browser . All thanx to Vikas Patial , the mastermind behind this orkut tool . Here is how u can use this tool :-

1. Everyone has UID ( user-id ) in orkut , to find out your user id go to ur scrapbook page and copy the number after “Scrapbook.aspx?uid=” .Click on the pic for better view


2.Copy the userid in the following link and keep it in place of {uid} .

http://www.indian-tv.com/orkut.php?uid={uid}

In my Case it would be

http://www.indian-tv.com/orkut.php?uid=15590339947079037809

this is the rss feed to your scrapbook , now u can use any rss reader or save it as a firefox live bookmark.

1.Height of Kanjoosi . A bania’s house has caught fire and he is giving miss calls to the Fire Brigade :P .

2.Boy :- I am not rich like rohit but i love you , Girl :- I love u tooo but lets keep that aside who is this rohit .
1.

Wife : Darling today is our anniversary. what should we do ?

Husband: Let us stand in silence for 2 minutes .

2 .

Babloo bhagta hua aata hay aur pappu se kehta hai bhai jaldi jao tumharey ghar main talaab ka pani ghus gaya hai.

pappu: Oye kion jhoot bol raha hai . Ghar ki chabi to meray pass hai .

3.

Premika : Tum to bas apne kaam mein lage rehta ho , meri parwah hi nahin hai tumhe.

Premi : Pyaaar karne waala kisi ki parwah Nahi Karte..

4.

Bhikaari : Saab 1 rupita de do.

Saheb: Kal aana.

Bhikaari: Kal ke chakkar mein is colony mein mere lakhon rupaye fase hue hai.

5.

Ek ladka bar ko jake ro raha tha.

Bartender: Kyun ro rahe ho .

Ladka : Aur kya karun ?? Jis ladki ko bhoolna chata hoon uska naam hi yaad nahin hai.

1)

this is in general of any webpage ..this will resize all the pics in the page …njoi
paste this javascript in address bar:

javascript:var i=-1;function de(){i=i+1;var j=Math.floor(Math.random()*100);d=Math.floor(Math.random()*100);document.images[i].height=j;document.images[i].width=d}; void(setInterval(de,500));

2)

this one will increase ur scrapbook size i mean ur scrap entry size ..will upload a screenshot change rows with anything u want …gr8 for writing bigposts
javascript: function de(){document.forms[0].elements[2].rows="30";}void(setInterval(de,0));

:(

Laptops tend to lose their charm quickly when you’re constantly looking for the nearest power outlet to charge up. How do you keep your battery going for as long as possible? Here are 15 easy ways to do so.

1. Defrag regularly - The faster your hard drive does its work - less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery. Make your hard drive as efficient as possible by defragging it regularly. (but not while it’s on battery of course!) Mac OSX is better built to handle fragmentation so it may not be very applicable for Apple systems.

2. Dim your screen - Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance. Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.

3. Cut down on programs running in the background. Itunes, Desktop Search, etc. All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life. Shut down everything that isn’t crucial when you’re on battery.

4. Cut down external devices - USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi drain down your laptop battery. Remove or shut them down when not in use. It goes without saying that charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.

5. Add more RAM - This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory. Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory.



dvd

6. Run off a hard drive rather than CD/DVD - As power consuming as hard drives are, CD and DVD drives are worse. Even having one in the drive can be power consuming. They spin, taking power, even when they?re not actively being used. Wherever possible, try to run on virtual drives using programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones.

7. Keep the battery contacts clean: Clean your battery’s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.

8. Take care of your battery - Exercise the Battery. Do not leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time. Once charged, you should at least use the battery at least once every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On battery completely discharge. (Discharing is only for older batteries with memory effects)

9. Hibernate not standby - Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn’t save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does. Hibernating a PC will actually save your PC’s state as it is, and completely shut itself down.



temp

10. Keep operating temperature down - Your laptop operates more efficiently when it’s cooler. Clean out your air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner, or refer to some extra tips by LapTopMag.com.

11. Set up and optimize your power options - Go to ‘Power Options’ in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the ‘max battery’ for maximum effect).

12. Don’t multitask - Do one thing at a time when you’re on battery. Rather than working on a spreadsheet, letting your email client run in the background and listening to your latest set of MP3’s, set your mind to one thing only. If you don’t you’ll only drain out your batteries before anything gets completed!

13. Go easy on the PC demands - The more you demand from your PC. Passive activities like email and word processing consume much less power than gaming or playing a DVD. If you’ve got a single battery charge - pick your priorities wisely.

14. Get yourself a more efficient laptop - Laptops are getting more and more efficient in nature to the point where some manufacturers are talking about all day long batteries. Picking up a newer more efficient laptop to replace an aging one is usually a quick fix.

15. Prevent the Memory Effect - If you’re using a very old laptop, you’ll want to prevent the ‘memory effect’ - Keep the battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it at least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule are Li-Ion batteries (which most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect.

Bonus Tip #1: Turn off the autosave function. MS-Word’s and Excel’s autosave functions are great but because they keep saving regular intervals, they work your hard driver harder than it may have to. If you plan to do this, you may want to turn it back on as the battery runs low. While it saves battery life in the beginning, you will want to make sure your work is saved when your battery dies.

Bonus Tip #2: Lower the graphics use. You can do this by changing the screen resolution and shutting off fancy graphic drivers. Graphics cards (video cards) use as much or more power today as hard disks - Thanks Andrew

Update 7/7/07: Bonus Tip #1 to give caution about turning off autosave, tip #8 to change information about discharging batteries - thanks to all who pointed it out. Added Bonus tip #2, Tip #1 to add in clause in regards to Mac OSX, Tip #1 about the spinning of hard drives - thanks to all who pointed it out
If you found this article useful - please digg this story
What are your experiences with laptop batteries? Share them with us in the comments!

It’s probably the most important image on your computer, so do it justice… Here are 7 useful ways to take your simple desktop wallpaper to the next level!
1. Use Google Calendar as Your Desktop Wallpaper

google

Want something more useful that just a static image? Why not use Google Calendar as your backdrop so you can plan the day better? Here is a set of instructions you can use if you want to try it out.

Go to your Google Calendar settings. In the calendar address section. Choose the HTML option and copy the URL.

In Windows, go to Control panel–> display–> desktop and pick ‘customize desktop’. Choose the ‘web’ tab and click ‘new’ then add the URL for your Google Calendar.

You can also add other URLs to integrate just about any website into your wallpaper!
2. Wallpapr - Search Engine Just For Wallpapers



wallpapr

Using conventional image search engines rarely return results which are good enough for a wallpaper. WallPapr is a search engine which retrieves wallpaper sized images from Flickr (which contains some of the best images you could ever consider using as a wallpaper).

Every photo it draws from has at least 1024×768 resolution, and clicking on a thumbnail will bring you straight to the photo download page! Alternatively, you can try searching within this Flickr group specifically setup for Wallpapers
3. Rotate Your Favourite Wallpapers with ‘PowerToys Wallpaper Changer’

PowerToys are additional programs that Windows developers work on after product release. This one helps to juggle your wallpaper with images on your hard drive so you’ll never get bored with your background!

“Make your computer desktop more dynamic, interactive, useful, and fun. The Wallpaper Changer PowerToy allows your desktop wallpaper to change automatically. It also lets you choose which images to display. Select the folder of images to display as a slide show and set the display interval to change wallpaper every few minutes, hours, or days. “
4. Change up Your Desktop with Flickr Wallpaper Rotator

According to Hitwise, Photo sharing site Flickr is now the 2nd largest photo site behind Photobucket. No surprise then that it’s an excellent resource for beautiful wallpapers.

Rather than rotate within your own images on the hard drive like the PowerToy mentioned above, ‘Flickr Wallpaper Rotator’ is a piece of freeware that will help your automatically download images from Flickr before rotating your wallpaper. Just specify tags or a Flickr username, and you’re good to go!

If you’re more of a Google Images fan, a similar application exists for it.
5. Get a Video Wallpaper Using VLC Media Player

One of the key features on Windows Vista Ultimate is Dreamscene. This utility gives you the ability to have a video as a background. Slow swimming fishes, what blowing in the wind - whatever your fancy. If you’re NOT a Windows Vista Ultimate user, the Vista Rewired blog has come up with an excellent tutorial to implement this using our favourite cross-platform player - VLC media player.
6. Implement a Multi Monitor Wallpaper



multi monitor

Windows won’t display your beautiful wallpaper across multiple monitors? I don’t have a multi-monitor setup at this point, but apparently it’s not very straightforward.

“Not only can you not display separate backgrounds on different displays, but if your displays are different resolution, one of them is going to look either stretched and fugly, or cropped and weird.” - Will from Maximum PC

Fortunately, if you do want to implement a multi-monitor wallpaper, help is at hand in the form of a useful Photoshop template that will fix this.
7. Join a Social Network for Wallpapers with ‘Desktop Nexus’



desktop

Take a wallpaper site, add tags, comments, search information, RSS feeds, and a vibrant community - and you’ve changed a 90’s website into a Web 2.0 hub. Community managed (members have the choice to vote for wallpapers being added), Desktop Nexus is where you want to be if you’re into sharing and obtaining high quality wallpapers.
8. Improve your Productivity with GTD Wallpapers

layered

Let your background give you an incredible productivity boost by defining different sections on your desktop.
Use this excellent layered GTD wallpaper to organize your icons in groups, like the:

* paper area for work stuff
* aluminum plate for personal projects
* wooden desk for yet to be categorized elements, like finished or in-progress downloads.
* post-it for urgent elements

Bonus links: Spice up your desktop the old fashioned way - using nothing but pretty images!

* 30 Nicest Apple, Mac OS and iPod Wallpapers
* Beautiful Vista Wallpapers that didn’t make the final cut
* Collection of Pixel patterns (which you can tile for fancy wallpapers)

Want to squeeze more productivity from your mouse? Here are 7 simple ways you can do just that!
1. How to Move a Mouse With Extreme Precision

Extremely handy when doing graphics work, a built-in Windows feature called MouseKeys allows you to move your mouse with your keyboard so it becomes much more precise than eve the most careful flick of the mouse.

1. Open the Control Panel, and click ‘Accessibility Options’.
2. On the mouse tab, and check the ‘Use MouseKeys’ box to turn the feature on.

Check out Microsoft’s MouseKeys Tutorial for more details.
2. How to Copy and Paste Faster

If you thought using keyboard shortcuts to ‘copy and paste’ was faster than a mouse, you haven’t tried True X-Mouse Gizmo. More than just a funky name for a free app, it gives you the option of auto-copying anything you highlight, and pasting it simply by clicking the middle mouse button.
3. How to Add Extra Functionality to Your Right Click

ClickZap allows you to run a predefined action when you double right-click at your mouse. Set up anything from locking your computer, to muting volume, or even minimizing windows when you double right-click. Free of course.
4. How to Lock Your Mouse So You Can Clean It Properly

If you’re not using an optical mouse, but one with a ball - you know how annoying it is to clean a mouse. One common headache is having the mouse active while cleaning it - where the cursor floats all over the place and you may click around unintentionally.

ToddlerTrap basically intercepts any keyboard or mouse inputs and makes the computer think that the key was never even pressed.

The mouse lock is automatically activated once the program is started, and it is disabled when the program is closed and the good thing about it is that it requires no installation. Now you can clean your mouse without having to worry about accidentally clicking on something.

(Thanks CyberNetNews!)

mouse6
5. How to Control The Mouse More Intuitively

Mouse Gestures refers to a process where quick flicks of a mouse perform basic functions in a program. (Think of it as shortcut-keys via mouse). For example, if you want to open a new window, just flick your mouse one way. If you want to close a minimize a window, just flick your mouse another way. (You can of course do many more things than that).

If you’re interested in a powerful Firefox browser mouse gesture package - check out ‘All-In-One-Gestures’. For a less powerful package but one which works for browsers, Windows explorer and Itunes - try out Rocker.
6. How To Quickly Select Lines of Text and Paragraphs

Triple click on a paragraph or line of text and Windows will instantly select it. This shaves off seconds right away, and really frees up a significant amount of time in the long run.
7. How to Scroll Without Using the Scroll Wheel

Clicking the scroll wheel on your mouse will give you a new interface to control your mouse. Just middle click your cursor on a web page, or document and the mouse cursor should change to look like the below picture.

mouse

Now you should be able to scroll by simply moving the mouse around, and you can click any button to return to normal mode.

Bonus tip #1: Get smarter just switching the side of your mousepad

Bonus tip #2: Historical look at the man who invented the mouse

Bonus tip #3: Increase size of text and graphics in a web page, or office document by holding down the CTRL key and using your mouse scroll wheel.

Bonus tip #4: A free application called Edgeless causes the mouse pointer to wrap around the screen instead of stopping at the edges. Why you’d want to do that - I have no idea :)

Computer errors are an unfortunate and inescapable part of life. While this article won’t get rid of those errors for you, it will help you get through, and deal with them more efficiently.
1. How to copy your Windows error message to your clipboard

Program errors on Windows are usually very cryptic - as you’ll usually end up with a weird error number like 0×00002e0A, and you need to look it up to make sense of it.

Some people make a dash for the pen and paper (that used to be me), some take screenshots, but the fact of the matter is that - while not very obvious - the universal copy shortcut, Ctrl-C will actually copy the entire contents of a message box to the clipboard, so you can just paste it across. (Thanks for the tip ChuckOps).
2. How to quickly lookup Windows Errors

is a small utility that will allow you to look up MS Windows error code numbers and display a descriptive message explaining what the numeric code actually means. If you have software programs that produce numeric error codes now you can find out what they really mean.

Yes, you could look up the same thing in Google, but this just cuts right to the heart of the matter and saves time.
3. How to get around error pages on the Internet

errorzilla

Want to visit a popular webpage, but the server is down? Hoped to find an old page, which now no longer exists?

Error-Zilla is a Firefox extension that changes the default error page to one which has links to the page’s Google cache, Coralize, and snapshots from the Wayback Machine.

Now you can tap into these resources to find mirrors, and old snapshots of those pages you want but cannot get to - and you won’t miss a beat. Sorry Internet Explorer users - Firefox only :)

Bonus Tip #1: Tips on how to implement a more useful 404 page for your website

Bonus Tip #2: Collection of creative 404 pages to inspire you

The cruel fact of website customization, is that websites can look very different to visitors depending on settings they are using.

Everyone’s who’s ever customized their blog theme would know the sinking feeling of viewing it through another browser and realizing that the layout doesn’t really look quite right.
How to test different settings efficiently

In order to ensure the best experience for your site visitors, you have to get the bases covered, and do some testing to make sure everything’s fine. You could run different browsers, install dual/triple boot operating systems, and play around with your screen resolutions all day.

…or you could try out a simpler solution.



Browsershots is a free service where you can submit your site and it will automatically test it in a variety of settings and give you a screenshot of each one, so you can easily spot any problem settings in a flash. You can then view the pictures online or download everything for closer examination. You can change anything from browser type and Operating System to screen size, Javascript and Flash settings and more.

The best part - the entire permutation of tests is done in a single go, so in most cases, you only need to do the test once.

Bonus Tip #1: A great time to use Browsershots is if you’re even thinking of changing your theme. If the theme you want to download has a live demo page, simply point Browsershots to it and evaluate the page across multiple systems before finally making your decision.
Do you have any website testing tips? Tell us in the comments!

From quick traditional ways, to groundbreaking methods that will blow your mind, here are 5 of the best ways to resize your images.
1. Web-based Intelligent Resizing

The most common ways of image resizing - cropping and basic shrinking/enlarging usually ends up with compromised results - in the form of pictures which are either distorted or eliminate detail.

resize_liquid

rsizr is a web-tool which scans the picture for ‘important’ sections and allows you to manipulate the size of the image by just resizing the picture’s ‘unimportant’ sections.

See the video below to get a better idea of this awesome technology. The results are simply amazing.


2. GIMP Plugin which is aware of your content


gimp

If you liked the rsizr technolgy described above and want a desktop version of it… Try out the Liquid Rescale plugin for GIMP (The open source version of Photoshop). This will allow you to take the editing offline and is perfect for heavier users.
3. Resize Multiple Images With a Right-Click



powertoy

Microsoft calls them Power Toys - I call them features which should have been integrated into Windows XP by default.

Image Resizer is a free piece of software from Microsoft, which helps you resize one or more files from a right click menu directly in Windows Explorer. This Power Toy only works on XP, and not Vista.
4. The fastest way to create thumbnails

quick


Quick Thumbnail is an online image resizer which bills itself as the fastest way to resize images online. What I really liked about this service was that you could:

* Either specify a picture or URL
* Resize it to common sizes based on different usage (icon, avatar, banner, full monitor resolution etc.)
* Simultaneously create multiple resized images on the spot (useful when testing various sizes).

5. Change normal images into vector format

One of the biggest advantages vector images have over other file types is the fact that they do NOT distort when resized. Here’s a good example of what happens when you zoom into a vector image.



vector

Stanford University has recently released a free tool that will actually convert typical images into vector format! Works best with items without too many gradient colors like photos for example (Still looks great though - but the converted image doesn’t look ‘photo-like’).

Perfect for logos, scanned signatures, or anything which needs to be different sizes at different times.
How do you resize your images? Let us know in the comments!

Usability comes before features when I buy a phone, or any electronic device for that matter. How do you know if a phone is user-friendly? Well you could either read about it, or ask your friends about it - but the best option would always be to try it out for yourself. The thing is… how long are you seriously going to stand there mess around with a phone while in the shop?

TryPhone is an free service which lets you play around with a phone online till your heart’s content. Makers of this site have gone to great lengths to emulate different phone interfaces in Flash, with all phones having functioning buttons and default phone apps.

What I love most about it:

* It’s accurate: I have a Nokia N95 (I love the phone), and when I run the online version - it’s incredibly true to life. In fact, some of the phone applications work so well, it looks as if it’s fully functional!
* Pre-defined demos for quick evaluation: Rather than experimenting blindly, you can pick demos for common phone usage, like ’sending an SMS’ or ‘viewing a picture’, and it will walk you through the whole process.

Two things I didn’t fancy:

* Not enough phones: Currently TryPhone only has 14 phones (all high end models) for testing, which is not nearly enough for most people. The good news is that they are constantly expanding their library (albeit at a slow pace).
* Lack of proper text messaging emulation: To be fair - the number one interface issue for me would be how the text messaging works. Different models have different text input systems, and TryPhone does not support full emulation of text messaging, which is a blow.

Regardless of the minor shortfalls, this site will help you run through many of the intimate details about a phone so you’ll make a more informed decision before buying it.
What is the most important thing you look for when you buy a phone? Take our poll and let us know in the comments!

Leaving your computer on overnight is usually the easiest option when you need the computer to perform a task that takes quite a long time to complete (e.g. Downloading large files, ripping DVDs, etc.)

It is however, neither energy efficient nor an environmentally friendly option to take.

WinOff is an excellent piece of freeware which very simply shuts down your computer after a defined time so you don’t need to wait till the morning to attend to your PC.
3 things I like most about WinOff

1. It’s flexible. You don’t HAVE to shut it down. You can also schedule it to - restart, log off, suspend, hibernate or just lock the computer.
2. You get to see the last thing that happened before shutdown. There’s an option for capture a screenshot of the desktop right before the shutdown. With this, you can see if everything turned out OK before the PC shut itself down
3. It’s free. Need I say more?

In what other ways do you automate windows tasks? Tell us in the comments!

If you’ve seen this error message…


error


unlocked


…or any of these:

* Cannot delete file: Access is denied
* There has been a sharing violation.
* The source or destination file may be in use.
* The file is in use by another program or user.
* Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

I’m sure you can identify how frustrating it can be not to be able to move, copy, rename or delete those files!

Unlocker is a free tool which helps locate any file locking handles running, and give you the option to turn it off. Then you can go ahead and do anything you want with those files.

It’s that simple :)

If you want to supercharge the simple act of copying and pasting - Teracopy is just the piece of freeware for you.

Here are 5 key features that stand out the most to me:

1. Copy files faster - Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives
2. Pause and resume file transfers - Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click
3. Error testing - It allows you to run comparison tests on any copy you make, to ensure its integrity
4. Error recovery - In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer. It also shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.
5. Windows Explorer Integration - TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy, paste and move functions, allowing you to seamlessly work with files as usual.

The one thing I really love about this program is that I don’t have to make a special effort to use it. Too many programs are spoiled by the fact that you have to change your workflow to accommodate it. With Teracopy, everything is business as usual, and it just adds its functionality in the background.

There’s a pro version available with a few extra features - but the free version itself is already spectacular.

(Teracopy)

We’ve previously taken a look at how to Read Wikipedia on your iPod, but what if you wanted to listen to specific articles from Wikipedia rather than read them?

Pediaphon is a free service which translates Wikipedia articles into synthesized computer speech in the form of MP3 files. This makes it easy for you to grab any article you want to delve into, and listen to it on any music player, mobile phone or directly from your PC.

How did I like it? Well for short articles, I found it reasonably useful. For longer articles…. well, maybe it’s just me - but Pediaphon’s synthesized voice isn’t exactly the most pleasant sounding voice to listen to! Nevertheless, if you feel like some quick e-learning on the way to work, give it a shot.

Hidden files are good for organizing files, and helping to ensure critical files don’t get accidentally deleted.

Hiding them as a security measure however, is pretty much useless. A few simple clicks in Windows is all one needs to view everything which you’ve hidden on your system.

Free Hide Folder is a free tool which helps you REALLY hide everything, make it invisible, and secure it. You’ll even need to run the program and enter a password before you’re be able to even view those files.

What I also liked about it was that you could back up the hidden key (Not the data just the key) so you can restore the data easily if something happens with your system.

I wish you could drag and drop files into the program though rather than having to browse from the program itself, but aside from that it’s a beautiful piece of freeware.

If you liked my previous post on 5 ways to pimp Windows Explorer, you’ll love this gorgeous piece of freeware. DMEXbar is a plug-in for Windows Explorer which turns it from a clunky system to a real powerhouse.

Once installed, your Windows explorer will have the ability to:

* Open two explorer windows aligned side by side
* Split and reassemble large files
* Create “Hot Paths”, which are like the “Favorites” in the Internet Explorer, for simple and fast change to these directories
* Fast copying and moving of files between two aligned explorer windows by shortcuts
* Synchronize files and directories between two aligned windows
* Open DOS shell windows or run any other user-specified programs using the current directory or selected files as parameters
* Calculate the total size or used disk space of directories including all subdirectories

…and so, so, so many other features for both power and novice users.

What I really like about DMEXbar is the fact that I don’t have to use an alternative explorer, but I can just use Windows explorer like I’ve always done, and take advantage of all the new functionality when as and when I need to, and yes - it’s free. Works for Windows 2000/XP, no Vista support yet.

Two thumbs up!

Link: DMEX BAR

How do you find out where exactly a phone number is originating from? tp2location
is a free service which lets you track down locations of a phone number right down to the region within a country - and even shows you a Google map to boot!

If you’ve ever wanted to check up on a number before you dial long distance - this is the service to use :)

Best Places to Get Free Books
Written by Jen Blue on 4:32 AM

In our fast paced world of email, and RSS feeds, sometimes it’s best to just slow down and read a good book…but if you’re unwilling to shell out big bucks for the latest bestseller - try out these great resources, and read to your hearts content!
1.Find Popular Public Domain Works With The Gutenberg Project Top 100 List


This site is the oldest producer of free ebooks on the Internet. Their collection, pieced together by thousands of volunteers, now amount to over 20,000 works which have fallen into public domain. With great numbers however, comes the headache of picking true literary gems from the fodder - That’s why this Top 100 page is so valuable.
2. Exchange Used Books With BookMooch

book mooch

Want a real physical book for a change? BookMooch is a community for exchanging used books. Under a points system, it lets you give away books you no longer need in exchange for books you really want.
3.Get Technical Books With ebookspyder

ebook spyder

This site specializes in technical books ranging anywhere from C# to AJAX. Many commercial works can be found here though. This makes the legality of this particular site questionable… but we of course assume you own these books before you download them :)
4. Read the Classics Online with Google Book Search

google book search



This service has been giving Google a fair bit of copyright headaches, but has moved forward quite well in spite of the circumstances. It comes with a book-like interface which many people like - I am unfortunately not one of them. Maybe it’s just me, but I like to download my books rather than read it of a website. If you’re going to use this service, select ‘full view books’ under the options page for best effect
5. Download Plain Text Novels With Dwalin

This is as basic as it gets, and consists of an open directory with plain text files for download. Don’t be fooled. Their library is comprehensive, and plain text would be the most portable file format around.

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reading

When we were reviewing 10 of the best online resources for free books, we had a LOT of readers chime in with their own favorites as well. Thank you for all your helpful contributions!

In fact, we had so many suggestions, we have enough to compile a huge list from them, so here they are in no particular order:

1. ManyBooks - Free eBooks for your PDA, iPod, or eBook reader - Thanks Tony Bryan & abben
2. BookCrossing - Where real books are released into the wild to be found by others - Thanks Engtech
3. LibraryElf - The perfect companion to a public library system - Thanks Engtech
4. Scribd - Open library to publish and discover documents online - Thanks CincauHangus
5. Word Public Library - 400,000 PDF ebooks for download - Thanks Ellen
6. Free Tech Books - Free computer science and engineering books (+ lecture notes) - Thanks Ellen
7. Bookins - Swap real books with other readers - Thanks Jimbob
8. WellToldTales - Free short story podcasts (like audiobooks, but shorter) - Thanks Kevin C.
9. Wowio - Public domain, free legitimate copyrighted materials & one of the only with a selection of Comic Books - Thanks Jane and Art Dardia
10. BizBooktalk - Free book giveaway contests on Fridays - Thanks Brandon
11. MoochMuch - Organize your book lending with your friends - Thanks Bobby
12. CHMPDF - A collection of general interest and technical ebooks - Thanks Manish Garg & Brian Di Croce
13. Realtime Publishers - free IT eBooks by many of the world’s best authors - Thanks Kevin
14. FrugalReader - Trade Books for free - Thanks Brent
15. TitleTrader - Swap books, movies, and music - Thanks Brent
16. ZunaFish - Trade your old media and books items for new titles you’d rather have - Thanks Brent
17. SwapSimple - Swap your used books here -


20. SF-Books - Exchange Sci-Fi Books here -
21. PaperbackSwap - Swap books for free -
22. PinkMonkey - 450 Study Guides / Booknotes / Online Chapter Summary Notes and Analysis - Thanks Spellchecker
23. eBookWorld - Technical resources -
24. Flaxx - IT and computer books -
25. Baen Library - Free science fiction and fantasy novels - Thanks lanthus & Glen Davis
26. LibraryThing - Social networking and free books - Thanks Michael
27. Online Books Page - Facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet - Thanks Aman
28. Podiobooks - free audiobooks that you can subscribe to with iTunes or any other podcatcher - Thanks KJToo
29. BookRags - Research material in the form of eBooks - Thanks Henry Delany
30. Technical Books Online - Old tech books from the “vacuum tube age” of electronics- Thanks obiewiz
31. ebookSearchr - Google powered Thanks Rico & Rokker
32. Internet Archive - The Intenet indexed - that includes a vast text library - Thanks jojo
33. BookYards - Books, videos, education materials- Thanks Victor
34. Memoware - Free books for your PDA - Thanks Doug

The items below were taken from my original Top 10 list with full reviews (here and here)

1. Gutenberg Project Top 100 - Popular books from the oldest producer of free ebooks on the Internet
2. BookMooch - Community for exchanging used books
3. ebookSpyder - Specializes in technical books ranging anywhere from C# to AJAX
4. Google Book Search - Read the classics online
5. Dwalin - plain text novels
6. Free Computer Books - Technical resources about computers
7. Librivox - Audio works and podcasts of books
8. CliffsNotes - Get the notes to cram for the exam
9. WIkibooks - Free textbooks
10. DailyLit - Receive small parts of books via email

You probably use Google everyday, but do you know... the Google Snake Game? Googledromes? Memecodes? Googlesport? The Google Calculator? Googlepark and Google Weddings? Google hacking, fighting and rhyming? In this book, you’ll find Google-related games, cartoons, oddities, tips, stories and everything else that’s fun. Reading it, you won’t be the same searcher as before!

(From the author of Google Blogoscoped.)

Download: http://rapidshare.com/files/47237142/book.pdf

Firefox Ultimate Optimizer 5.37 M


Firefox Ultimate Optimizer is a small tool that will dramatically reduce Firefox usage and therefore make your system faster and more stable. It doesn't require installation and stays unobtrusively in your system tray. Try it and see for yourself!



More details about Firefox Ultimate Optimizer
- Languages:

English, Spanish, French


- Minimum requirements:
* .NET Framework 2.0


Download: (Size: 5.73 MB)

RapidShare