Windows 7 driver issues

Some of you have taken the jump to Windows 7.
As a MS Technet subscriber, I am one of those who have been using it for some time.
I believe it is the OS that Vista should have been. It takes security way beyond XP and usability way beyond Vista.
But some have still had problems with drivers not working correctly.
MS has a great – how to on how to fix this.
If a device will not work with Windows 7 drivers or you need to use older drivers you can use this method.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprohardware/thread/80cae5ee-dc98-4a2f-8284-a1ab826059b7

Online TV and Movie viewing

Some of you may know what a fan I am of watching ‘on-demand’ content so I thought I’d pass this along.
I love watching what I want when I want (ala tivo) and watching movies and shows online enables that nicely.
Hulu now has a desktop application you can use with your media center or like an onscreen tv controller.
Hulu desktop application:
http://www.hulu.com/labs/hulu-desktop
Hulu desktop
review:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2350009,00.asp

Sites I frequent:
http://www.history.com/video.do?action=home

http://www.hulu.com/

http://www.fancast.com/

Discovery channels – they have military, science, health and more:
http://dsc.discovery.com/our-networks.html

Exernal Media Player

I was recently looking for another way to view my saved movie files.
I have loads of movies saved on one of my PC’s that I actually used as a TV and work machine for many years.
They are actaully high quality mpegs from a high-quality TV card in my PC.
I have since copied most of them off to a seperate hard drive and converted most of them to DVD via DVD Flick
You can of course go full out and for a few hundred bucks make a great home DVR out of an old PC with little work. Especially if it has Windows XP Media Center or Vista with Media Center.
Or you can follow this guys great tutorial here:
Free TiVo/DVR out of old PC
But back to the story.
I had this drive sitting around with all these movies on it. 500GB Seagate SATA loaded with mpeg’s and AVI’s and thought it would be cool to just ‘hook it up’ to the tv and watch the movies and shows.
So I happened on this really cool device.
The SATA HDD Multi-media player adapter allows you to connect any 2.5″ or 3.5″ SATA Harddisk to your computer via USB. It a powerful tool for data transfer, backup and cloning.
The kicker:
It functions as a Multi-Media player as well. You can play the media files via SATA HDD, SD(HC) card or external USB storage on TV without using a computer!
I can now take my external drive anywhere and share my stuff.
I ordered this thing from these guys http://usb.brando.com.hk/ on the 24th of June and it was delivered – all the way from Hong Kong – by the 1st of July!
I plugged in my external USB drive to the device and then plugged in the AV cables to TV and with very little setup (adjusting for NTSC Video and TV playback in the setup menu of the device) my stuff played awesomely!
Just thought I’d share a cool technology device that is very inexpensive, easy to use and seems to work great too.

Peace.

OS X Security and Malware

Please folks practice safe computing – keep your systems up to date, don’t install pirated software (including music and videos), clear your browser cache often, and don’t install ‘helpers’ or ‘codecs’ you cannot thoroughly verify.
Using the line, “I have a Mac I don’t get worms or virus’ etc.” is not only naively silly, it can also be costly.
Remember OS X is built on a Unix foundation and Unix has been around since 1969! So you can bet as the Mac user population increases the number of hacks ‘ported’ to OS X will start to grow exponentially. That coupled with the Apple’s misleading marketing campaign saying, “Mac’s don’t get virus’ etc.” often leads to poor computing habits that can, and I am sure will be exploited more and more.
So keep safe out here.
Some scary info:
http://www.sophos.com/blogs/sophoslabs/v/post/4811

http://www.sophos.com/blogs/sophoslabs/v/post/3710

Peace out

Stop Spam Calls

Ok, how many of you have gotten calls that were dialed by an automated system?
You know the kind. Your phone rings and if you pick it up there is a ‘pause’ before someone gets on the line.
Who then proceeds to tell you that,
”the FBI needs your information..”
“your car warranty is about to expire..”
“you owe money to such and such and we can reduce the amount…”
“we are in the neighbor hood doing x for the Jone’s etc.”

The list is just about endless.

Or how about getting messages on your voice mail or answering machine that tell you “to call 800-xxx-xxxx ext. xxx for a very important matter.” Or “you have an outstanding balance please call 800-xxx-xxxx etc.”

These calls and nearly all like them are made by ‘dialing programs’. There are two types most in use today.

The first and most common is the programs that actually dial a whole set of numbers for a given area code and prefix.
Example: 310-473-xxxx from 0001 on up.

The second is used mostly by fraudsters, bill collectors (illegitimate and some times legitimate) and other scammers.
The program dials a given set of numbers the same way.

HERE IS THE KICKER:
Since the calls are made by machine they follow rules! And we can exploit them to our advantage!
The programs were designed to save money by dialing fast and not wasting the time of (expensive) people. Although one could argue that wages in Bangladesh aren’t that high, you still need real people, even if they don’t speak proper English, to carry on a real conversation.
So when the dialer get’s an out of order or line disconnected ‘tone’ it marks the number as ‘no good’ and moves on.
If however you pick up the phone the system knows the number is valid and puts you through to a person who will then annoy the crap out of you.
Same goes for the calls on answering machines and those going to voice mail – if the dialer get’s an out of order or line disconnected ‘tone’ it marks the number as ‘no good’ and moves on. If your machine or voice mail answers with a ‘message’ like, “hello we are not here ……” the call then plays the message to call a certain 800 number back etc.
With any of these calls the absolute worst thing you can do is actually call that number!!
Your phone will be marked as ‘valid’ and ‘worth calling’ forever!
[This also applies to spam email too!! Never respond to spam email to ‘be removed from list..’]
So how do you we beat the machines?
Quite simple actually.
By playing the ‘call could not be complete’ or ‘number disconnected’ tone before your answer message.
That’s right by simply placing that ‘beep beep beep the number you are dialing…’ tone before your message you will kill the auto dialed call. If you are like me you can even play the tone before you answer a live call!
Just play the tone then record your message.
Make sure you tell people who should be calling you – family friends – that they should ingnore/wait for the actual message.

So where to find the ‘tone’.
Here are a couple links to the tones with the associated message.
Remember you only need the ‘tone’ at the beginning to make the dialer think the number is bad.
You can find them here:
Disconnected number:
Wave format:
Call not completed as dialed:
Wave format

I have created a looped tone with out the message that I use. It plays the ‘beep beep beep’ twice in a row. I will try and find a ‘place’ to put it when I can for easy download. Check back.

Speeding up Firefox

I have written here before of the extensions and add-ons I use in Firefox. [see end of post]
So I though I should add what tweaks I use to speed up and enhance the browser itself.
Give them a try and if they do not improve you browsing experience with Firefox you can always go back to the default settings. [see end of article]

To speed up Firefox 3.x:
Launch Firefox thenType in
about:config
into the navigation bar, you will thne be ‘warned’ say you will be careful.
You are going to be adjusting the browsers default settings and parameters.

To find a value simply type the name of the setting (or copy between the quotes and paste it) in to the ‘Filter’ line and hit enter.
If the configuration exists it will be displayed.
Simply double-click and make the adjustments – change integer or boolean value.

If the key/setting does not exist you will have to add/create it.

For values with “true” after them,
Right click below the ‘Filter bar’ (in the empty space since no values were found)>Choose New>boolean insert the value, hit ok then select true

For values with numbers after them,
Right click below the ‘Filter bar’ (in the empty space since no values were found)>Choose New>Integer insert the value, hit ok then insert the number

Insert OR adjust these values and settings (no quotes):

“network.http.pipelining”, true

“network.http.proxy.pipelining”, true

“network.http.pipelining.maxrequests”, 8

“content.notify.backoffcount”, 5

“plugin.expose_full_path”, true

“ui.submenuDelay”, 0

“content.interrupt.parsing”, true

“content.max.tokenizing.time”, 2250000

“content.notify.interval”, 750000

“content.notify.ontimer”, true

“content.switch.threshold”, 750000

“nglayout.initialpaint.delay”, 0

“network.http.max-connections”, 48

“network.http.max-connections-per-server”, 16

“network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy”, 16

“network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server”, 8

“browser.cache.memory.capacity”, 65536

“browser.turbo.enabled”, true

Restart Firefox, and it should be much more responsive and faster!

This works for nearly all high-speed connections and modern PC’s (Mac’s included).
If you are a dial-up connection DON’T DO THIS.
AND
Please step in to the 21st century, and get some form of high-speed (dsl, cable etc.) internet.

If these don’t seem to work for you, you can always reset them to their original state:
When you change a preference setting or add a new preference, the associated about:config entry will appear in bold type with a user set status.
To restore a preference setting to the default value or to remove an added preference, context-click (right-click) on the preference and select Reset.

Or you can read more at Mozilla’s site:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Resetting_preferences

Firefox Extensions I Use

Windows Utilites and Tools

After cleaning up a friends system recently and dramatically improving it’s performance, appearance and usability I was asked again, nay begged, to recommend as many of the applications and or utilities I use(d) to install or put onto an existing or new installation of Windows to ‘protect it’ and to help keep it running optimally and take full control of your applications, system preferences and resources.

The list below contains most of the things I install on, or use, on all of my machines.
There are also ‘portable’ or ‘non-install’ versions of nearly all of these applications which I carry on my thumb drives too. But I will not provide the links for them as they can be easily found the same place as the full installs of these applications.
There are of course many others I use for network administration but I won’t include all of those here now.
I just wanted to put this up so that those of you looking for some very good freeware applications to enhance and improve your computing experience could find them in one place. And to keep it as secure and trouble free as possible.

Firefox:
Download here
[see list at end for Firefox extensions and add ons I use too]

7-Zip opensource file archiver:
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.0.10&os;=win⟨=en-US
App:
http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/sevenzip/7z465.exe

Notepad++ Opensource notepad on steroids:
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/about.php
Appinstall:
http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/notepad-plus/npp.5.4.2.Installer.exe

Windows PowerToys:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

ClearType Tuner PowerToy:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/7/0/b7019730-0fa3-47a9-a159-98b80c185aad/setup.exe

Alt-Tab Replacement:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/TaskswitchPowertoySetup.

Open Command Window Here:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/CmdHerePowertoySetup.exe

Tweak UI:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/c/a/fca6767b-9ed9-45a6-b352-839afb2a2679/TweakUiPowTweakUiPowertoySetup.exe

The entire Syinternals Suite:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb842062.aspx

Complete tool set:
http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/SysinternalsSuite.zip

Of those I use most are:
Process Explorer and AutoRuns

Revo Uninstaller – freeware:
http://www.revouninstaller.com/
App:
http://www.revouninstaller.com/download/revosetup.exe

JKdefrag:
http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/
App:
http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/JkDefrag-3.36.zip

Mike Lin’s Startup Control Panel:
http://mlin.net/
App:
http://www.mlin.net/files/StartupCPL.zip

Unlocker
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

Wholockme
http://www.dr-hoiby.com/WhoLockMe/

File assassin
http://www.malwarebytes.org/fileassassin.php

A great spyware finder:

Spybot Search And Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/spybotsd/index.html

Don’t confuse this application with other that are trading on the ‘Spybot’ name and are in
and of themselves ACTUALLY spyware. The one and only original FREEWARE application is here.

http://www.spybotupdates.biz/files/spybotsd162.exe

CCleaner:
http://www.ccleaner.com/
http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/download/d1565b7fb77b48a3692a199d871845fd/

Taskbar Shuffle – a simple, small, free utility that lets you drag and drop your Windows
taskbar buttons to rearrange them:
http://nerdcave.webs.com/
download:
http://nerdcave.webs.com/downloads/ts2.5_setup.exe

Another program much like Tweak XP:
http://xenomorph.net/?page_id=336
installer:
http://xenomorph.net/files/xdn_tweaker_setup.exe

ImageBurn CD/DVD burner:
http://www.imgburn.com/
App:
http://download.imgburn.com/SetupImgBurn_2.4.4.0.exe

VLC Media Player:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
App:
http://www.videolan.org/mirror-geo.php?file=vlc/0.9.9/win32/vlc-0.9.9-win32.exe

KeyPass:
http://keepass.info/
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/keepass/KeePass-2.07-Beta-Setup.exe

ANTI VIRUS APPS:
I have used both of these and they are fine freeware applications.
I also am quite happy with corporate versions of McAfee and Symantec despite the idiot rantings of people who don’t do this for a living.

AVG free AV:
http://free.avg.com/
App Download:
Freeware download

Clamwin Free AV:
http://www.clamwin.com/
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/clamwin/clamwin-0.95.1-setup.exe

FIREFOX EXTENSIONS I use:
Better Gmail
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4866

Google toolbar:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6249

pdf download:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/636

stop autoplay:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1765

FoxyTunes
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/219

Video DownloadHelper
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006

Adblock Plus
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865

Redirect Remover
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/537

Grease Monkey for firefox – allows of additional script functionalities in firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748

GreaseMonkey Scripts:

Remove Facebook Ads:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/46560

YouTube HD Ultimate:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/31864

GZoom:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/7840

This was over 50 years ago and is true now

This cartoon should be watched by children and adults everywhere.
Right now!

This is well worth the time to see the whole thing.

Adolf Hitler once said “It is so fortunate for rulers that men are fools”, and that statement is just as true today as it was then. The American people voted Obama into office just like the Germans voted for Hitler…. human nature never changes.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB6p5QPVhPI]

Nancy Pelosi lies so much she can’t stop.

Nancy Pelosi is going around saying the same old crap, “Bush lied, I didn’t know, it’s all the republicans fault….” etc.

Well here she is, getting caught in her latest BOLD FACE LIES about not knowing about our interogation techniques.

Why won’t the mainstream media show this? Oh yeah, I forgot… it is against their religion.

Techniques which I should add have saved LOT’S of American lives!!

http://www.liveleak.com/e/568_1242351356

Device Drivers/Manager and Disk tools

Excellent tools:
DeviceRemover is a Device manager on steroids!
You can view almost any data on a device, update or backup drivers, and pretty much control anything you want for the device.
This can be a great help when some device all of a sudden stops working – like after an update, or when re-installing/installing an operating system.:

http://www.pro-it-education.de/software/deviceremover/DeviceRemoverSetup.exe

Using this utility is very easy.
But this is one utility you’ll want to use with a great deal of caution unless you really know what you are doing!!
You will be dealing with device drivers and settings and could easily ‘brick’ your devices or even your entire Operating System!

So make sure you have everything backed up before tweaking.
To back up just the drivers first you can use the above mentioned ‘DeviceRemover’ application or try this one:
http://small.drivermax.com/soft/dmx/drivermax.exe

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/copy-windows-drivers-from-one-machine-to-another/

Better yet and more preferable is to have an ‘image’ available of your entire system.
I have previously gone on about the utter importance of having recent images of your entire system should you have to recover data [your hdd drive dies, you get a virus or trojan, you need larger drive, etc.] so I won’t prattle on too much.
A disk image is a giant file that saves the state of an entire disk.
Disk images can re-create an entire disk drive.
I recommend having an external drive or secondary hdd for images.
I you don’t have one of my favorites, and most important, tools – Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost, there are freeware applications available to create complete system [hard drive] images.
Good Description of the difference of image vs backup is here.
Here is one:
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
Here is the direct ISO download that can be ‘burned’ to CD:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/systemrescuecd/systemrescuecd-x86-1.2.0.iso

Safe computing……..