Maziar Online Activities

Color Base Professional Image Search Engine from xcavator

2007-06-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

Feel like seeing thousands of professional images in a specific color range? then this amazing service from xcavator would help! This video intro may help you to introduce more.

At xcavator.net, image search is fast and painless. Its award-winning visual search technology makes any photo search task easier, more intuitive, and more precise. Most image searches today are based merely on tags or color screening methods, leaving users to scroll through hundreds of photos that may or may not be relevant to what they’re looking for. But xcavator picks up where other image search engines leave off.
Built on CogniSign’s patent-pending Intelligent Image Recognition Technology, xcavator’s image search engine allows you to quickly and easily sort through large databases of photos for similarities based on shapes, colors, image composition, object proximity, or any combination of these factors. xcavator combines human intuition with the efficiency of powerful computers to change the way we search for and manage all types of digital images and photos.
Give it a try today. Start your photo search here
from: http://www.xcavator.net

Reversing Back to ActiveSync in Vista Instead of WMDC

2007-06-26T14:23:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I decided to upgrade my HTC Blue Angel Pocket PC Windows Mobile 2003SE to a newer ROM, based on Windows Mobile 5.0. So I checked XDA-Developers forum for the newest ROM, I found a ROM cooked by Helmi.
As my Desktop PC runs a Vista, the RUU program couldn't perform the upgrading process, so after a few unsuccessful trys the only way I had, was to install a Windows XP on one of my partitions, only because of this RUU.
Any way, It worked and the upgrade successfully finished.
I was surfing XDA-Developers today, find out a useful link about how to make it possible running these kind of RUU's perform on Vista as well. Follow the instructions below to get your Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC), use ActiveSyncs drivers, in order to back to XP's situation.

UPDATE: Please try downloading the latest WMDC first before attempting anything in this section of the guides. you will find the latest version HERE .

To follow this guide please make sure you have a copy of WinRAR installed, I will refer to the Windows Mobile Device Centre as the WMDC for ease of reading. If you do not have the WMDC installed please go here to install it first.

One problem with windows VISTA is that it uses the new "Windows Mobile Device Centre" and not activesync which we are used to, thus our standard RUU programs will not upgrade our devices as in windows XP. This guide will show you how to configure VISTA to work just the same as XP with our RUU programs.

For this guide firstly you need to download the new drivers:

Please note the x64 drivers are unsigned so to use them successfully you must disable driver signing.

Extract the contents to a folder on your desktop, call this folder "AS_DRIVERS". It contains the drivers from activesync which we will use instead of the native VISTA WMDC drivers when the device is in bootloader.

Now you must enter the bootloader on your device, to do this press and hold both the side ok button and the power button then put your stylus into the hole on the bottom of the device, your device will reset and show the red blue green bootloader screen. LEAVE THE DEVICE IN BOOTLOADER MODE and connect it using the USB cable to your VISTA PC.

Now navigate into the WMDC (Start>All Programs>Windows Mobile Device Center) and click on the "connection settings" menu icon

In the connection settings menu untick "allow USB connections" then press OK.

Now exit the WMDC and return to the desktop, go into the start menu and type "Services", this will take you into the local services dialogue and show a list of all services either running or registered with your pc.

Scroll down the list and make sure these services are present:

Windows Mobile-based connectivity
Windows Mobile 2003-based connectivity

If these services are not started then double click each one and set them to Automatic start by clicking the "startup-type" drop-down menu and selecting automatic then click the start button in the same window, apply the setting by pressing OK. Now return back to the desktop again.

Go into the start menu and type "Device Manager" then run, this will take you into the device manager. Click the "+" symbol next to "Mobile Devices" and double click on "HTC USB Sync".

This will bring up the properties of the currently connected device.

Go to the "Driver" tab and click "Update Driver".

Click "Browse My Computer for Driver Software".

Select "Let me pick from a list...."

Click the "Have Disk" button.

Click "Browse" and navigate to the AS_DRIVERS folder we created earlier.

Vista x32 users select the file "wceusbsh.inf"
Vista x64 users select the file "wceusbshx64.inf"

Then click Open.

click next and the driver will be installed (wait a moment).

Press close and escape back to the desktop now.

Now we must stop the WMDC process, start the task manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Escape.

click the WMDC line and click "End Process". In the confirmation window, again press End Process.

Now re-enter the WMDC and re-enable USB connections (click connection settings and tick the box "enable USB connections").

Your RUU programs for HardSPL/Radios/WM6 ROMs should now run as desired once you are synced with WMDC. Since we have updated the driver which vista uses when the device is in bootloader mode.

NOTE:: This technique is still in testing so if you have any issues please post in the official thread. Until we find another way to get RUU working with vista you may need to revert back to XP for upgrading.

from: mrvanx.org

A Funny Computer Addicted Pic

2007-06-11T05:27:00.000-07:00

It's not me... I swear...

How to Overclock A Pocket PC's CPU?

2007-05-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

XCPUScalar allows you to dynamically scale the processor speed of your handheld
Pocket PC 2002, Windows Mobile 2003, WM2003 SE, and Windows Mobile 5. It uses
the power of the XSCALE or TI OMAP (OMAP850 and OMAP1510) processor and unlocks
its dynamic scaling capabilities. You can scale the processor speed from 100 to
728MHz. By scaling the processor speed down, you can increase the battery life
between recharges or increase the speed when you need more power for playing
games or multimedia programs that require more CPU power.

from Immiersoft, XCPUScalar Producer.

It's definitely important for daily use of PPC to have such program installed. It increases and overclocks the speed of XScale Cpu by doing some hack stuff on it. For my 400 MHz Blue Angel, it increases the speed up to 530 MHz with no crashes. The only problem is the battery eating when working on higher speeds.
Of course you can use it to reduce the speed too, so as my experience the battery will live about 20-30% longer.
I don't like the automatic speed changer of XCPUScalar as it gets its time to change to pre-set speed on automatic change. But it works fine if you set the minimum speed to your Pocket PC's normal CPU speed. (As mine is 400 MHz) and just use it for higher speeds auto adjusting than normal.
Don't try to use it on Omap CPU's as XCPUScalar doesn't operate any changes on speed. There are some complatible Omap devices but some folks with Omap devices said It's not have any effects...

See the compatible PPC devices below:

XScale processor Pocket PC's:

HP iPAQ hw6915, HP iPAQ hw6945, HP iPAQ hw6965, Treo 700w, XDA Atom, XDA Atom Exec, HP iPAQ 6828, Samsung I730, Mio A201, Mio A701, MDPNA, HP iPAQ hw6515, hx21xx, hx27xx, hx24xx, Dell Axim X51v, o2 XDA II executive, HTC Universal, i-Mate JasJar, Qtek 9000, Sprint / Verizon PPC-6700, Orange SPV M5000, HTC Apache, HTC Magician, XDA II Mini, MDA Compact, Qtek S100, XDA IIi, i-mate JAM, i-mate PDA2, Orange M500, VPA Compact, HP iPAQ 2410, 2750, HP iPAQ hx4700, Loox 720, Dell Axim X50v, Asus A730, MDA-III, Axim X30, X50, iPAQ 415x, iPAQ 435x, Axim X30, Axim X3, Asus A620, Asus A716, XDA, XDA2, Toshiba e800. Older but still new PDA's like HP iPAQ 2215, 51xx, 55xx series, Dell Axim Advanced, Toshiba 750/755, Asus etc. Backwards compatibility has been retained for older 400 MHz Pocket PC's like HP iPaq 39xx, 54xx, Toshiba 740, older Dell Axim Advanced, Fujistu Loox plus many more. Most Dell Axim's basics at 300MHz can also run at 400MHz / 472MHz speeds. Some Toshiba E350's / E405 can also run at 400MHz / 472MHz speeds.

TI OMAP processor Pocket PC's:

Cingular 8125, HTC WIZARD, DoPod 818 Pro, Qtek 9100, i-Mate K-Jam, HTC Prophet, i-Mate JAMin, MDA Compact 2 and clones of these PDA's.

Download the latest version from Here. (v3.0) It's Shareware. Just there's no any Technical support.
And read more here, and This is the FAQ page.

"Minutes to Midnight" Linkin Park New Album; Fake or Real?

2007-04-09T12:54:00.000-07:00

Remaining days to official release of LP new album called "Minutes to Midnight" there are Tracks all over the Internet ready to download specially in P2P networks; all related to Linkin Park. The case is if they are real.

In Fact, real o not, these tracks are awesome! As I just download some of them from Limwire, I figured in some of them the vocals are not similar to Mike or Chester's voice; but some are.

According to a Chester's interview, the genre is completely changed. Maybe It's not true to say but I believe some tracks are some how similar to P.O.D's songs but absolutely greater!

This is Chester's Interview about the musical style:

In a recent interview with MTV.com, Chester Bennington explained that the nu Metal sound from their previous albums is completely gone. He also stated that the new album is a mix of punk, classic rock, and hip-hop beats.
In the December issue of Blender magazine, Chester talked a little bit about the sound of the upcoming album, "Rick has brought more of a stripped down, classic-rock and hip-hop kind of feel. We're using vintage guitars and drums carved out of wood and skin for a more tribal sound. It's definitely not nu metal." In an interview with Brazilian paper Folhateen, Chester confirmed that the 'rap/rock', 'nu-metal' sound that Linkin Park came to be known for, is almost non-existent on the new album, "This time around, Mike [Shinoda] is singing a lot more. It may seem like he's not on the record, but he's doing a lot of the harmonics. He also sings a couple of songs alone.
We're presenting ourselves in a different way. We've had a hair cut, clothing changes and, here it is, here is a new thing."

Official notes, determines the track names of Minutes to Midnight Album are as the following:

"Wake"

"Given Up"

"Leave Out All the Rest"

"Bleed It Out"

"Shadow of the Day"

"What I've Done" – 3:28

"Hands Held High"

"No More Sorrow"

"Valentine's Day"

"In Between"

"In Pieces"

"The Little Things Give You Away"

But available songs in Internet have these Track titles on same Minutes to Midnight Album of LP:

1. stand..

2. Bleed It Out

3. Get Through

4. What I’ve Done

5. In This World

6. The Little Things Give You Away

7. Hold Nothing Back

8. Over The Top

9. Prommise

10. Real Life

11. Afraid This Time

12. 2.World

13. Until The End

14. Collapsing The Unit

15. We Use the Pain

16. One Perfect Something

Bonus Tracks
17. No Way!
18. Feel (demo’01)

19. Screaming at Space

20. [Qwerty] (Live Sommer Sonic ‘06)

This LP's new album made to be released officially on May 14, 2007.

Another Fact that make believers of the fake being of the current "Minutes to Midnights" downloading available album from P2P's is the publishing of the "What I've done" awesome video that It's totally different from the same track in these previous downloads.

Anyway,Fake or not! I Love LinkinPark! Who's with me? Those who don't:

"GET AWAY FROM MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee......."

FreeYourID: 90 day trial OpenID for you (.name)

2007-03-14T12:17:00.000-07:00

Ok! now! Come and get a 90 day trial .name addresses like I did:
Http://Maziar.Mahboubian.name --> Redirects to Here
Maziar@Mahboubian.name --> Forwards to my main Email

Get this Service from FreeYourID

Microsoft have announced the release of .net Compact Framework 2.0 SP2

2007-03-13T15:50:00.000-07:00

Available immediately at Microsoft Downloads, the new Service Pack includes a host of fixes, detailed below. The new release is of course fully backwards compatible.It's unclear at this time whether the new version will be in ROM on Windows Mobile 6 devices, which will start shipping shortly.

New Features:

Service Pack 2 of the .Net Compact Framework V2.0 includes some new features in the Remote Performance Monitor aimed at finding memory leaks in the managed heap. These features allow you to take snapshots of the GC heap at any point in time and view the relationships between the live object instances in the heap. You can also compare multiple snapshots over time in order to spot allocation trends in your application as it executes.

Fixed Bugs:

NETCFRPM fails on x64
Setup install/uninstall fails silently when the MSI is launched from Control Panel-Programs and Features on Vista
Finalizers fail on RTF objects because COM bindings are already disposed
VS crashes on trying to attach without setting the Attach Enabled Registry Key
Thread.Join() fails with ERROR_INVALID_HANDLE on CE 6.0 platform
Potential memory corruption caused by circular reference
JIT assertion failure when non-existent COM port is addressed
TypeLoadException using generics with NETCF 2.0
IrDA is broken on Windows CE 5.0 devices
NetCFRPM and MDBG cannot target headless devices
SerialPort: Data corruption occurs if DataReceived event is used to receive Unicode characters sent across serial ports
SerialPort: Cannot open a COM port beyond COM9
SerialPort: GetPortNames() does not return serial port names beyond COM9
SerialPort: Data corruption occurs if DataReceived event is used to receive Unicode characters sent across serial ports
NETCF deadlocks on exit if native callback delegate has been called on native thread
VS 2005 RTM attempts to deploy NETCFv2.wce5.ARMV4I.cab/System_SR_ENU.cab instead of NETCFv2.wm.ARMV4I.cab/System_SR_ENU_wm.cab on Windows Mobile 6 platforms
XmlSerializerializationWriter: When GetSpecifiedMember returns false serialization is halted resulting in loss of data
Access violation marshaling a class with a string field
Stepping out from a Breakpoint after Func eval causes breakpoint to remain at same place and then VS 2005 hangs
COM: Access violation in N->M byref marshaling
Native exception in marshalling code when using Interlocked.Exchange
Access violation in StubPolicyAlloc (eestub\policy.cpp
SerialPort.Open thows IOException on CE 6.0 devices
Type.GetDefaultMembers() doesn't return base type's default members
Installing multiple locales of same MSI results in multiple instances of NetCF showing up in Add Remove Programs
VS 2005 attempts to deploy System_SR_ENU.cab instead of System_SR_ENU_wm.cab on Windows Mobile 6 platforms
Debugger does not correctly handle new native threads entering through COM
NETCFRPM parses connection string improperly when device uses ipv6
V2 SP2: HttpWebRequest: HTTPS request fails when TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA cipher is used
Debugger may AV if breakpoints active before F5
WebBrowser's NavigatingEventArgs does not allow to cancel navigation
XmlSerializer fails to deserialize enum's with spaces

Google Reader Notifier Firefox Extension

2007-03-09T16:05:00.000-08:00

This firefox extension shows you how many unread items you have in your Google Reader account.

Lastest version: 0.30

Firefox 1.5 - 2.0.0.*

Languages: en-US, es-ES, ca-ES, de-DE, fr-FR, gl-ES, it-IT, ja-JP, pt-BR, ru-RU, zh-CN.

Install Google Reader Notifier Firefox Extension

How to Recognize Fake or Real (Original) Memory Cards?

2007-03-08T12:57:00.000-08:00

I had purchased a SanDisk Memory card and I wonder if it's fake or real. I found this nice page, explaining the deferences between the original and fake memory cards.

This is my card:

Mine is the real one! :D

The Face of Age: Oldies! Photo Collection

2007-03-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

86 year-old
Navajo Native American woman
living near Canyon de Chelly, Arizona.

I've just found an interesting collection of a project which has taken pictures of very old people all around the world.
Take a look, See how you'll look like later!!
Click Here for the series.

Real Hustle Bluesnarfing (Bluejacking)

2007-01-09T16:31:00.000-08:00

They may call it bluejacking, but this video is actually an example of bluesnarfing - taking control of someone's mobile phone to make premium rate phonecalls over Bluetooth without them even realising. See the below to see how to bluejack (Hacking with bluetooth) & how do they do! See www.bluejackq.com for info on all things bluetooth.

Later I will post about a pocket pc software for bluejacking (On windows Mobile) & explanation as much I know on how to use this bluejacking software.

Please share about information and things you know about this subject...

HTC 2007 SP & PPC Products Overview

2007-01-04T15:28:00.000-08:00

New 2007 year, and HTC products in Pocket PC and Smart Phone are going to spread out to markets. Here is an overview:

Smartphones ('S' - Series):

HTC Wings

Similar to the HTC Vox
Keypad and slide-out QWERTY keyboard
3G
GPS

Unknown HTC "clamshell"

Similar to the HTC Star Trek
WiFi
3G
GPS

Pocket PC ('P' - Series):

HTC Kaiser

Similar to the HTC Hermes
Slide-out QWERTY keyboard
3G
GPS
WiFi

HTC Elf

Budget device
200Mhz CPU
Touchpad for one-handed use

High-end Pocket PC ('X' - Series):

HTC Athena (X7500)
Clip-on QWERTY keyboard
3G/HSDPA
GPS
WiFi
8GB HDD
ATi graphics
5" Screen
624Mhz CPU

CLICK HERE to view the full news item.

Iran: Information

2007-01-03T07:06:00.000-08:00

Iran has a rich culture and, it remains widely misrepresented and little understood by the general public. Iranians are most friendly people. Forget about what you saw on the news, go and use your own eyes. You will not be disappointed. It is a great country to travel, with efficient public transport, old cities packed with sights, ruins from ancient Persian and Caspian Sea beach resorts.

Iran is located in the Middle East, bordering the Gulf of Oman, the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea, between Iraq and Pakistan. Slightly larger than Alaska, it covers the territory in 1.648 million sq km and has a population of 65,619,636 people.

The capital of Iran is Tehran and its political and cultural center. It is a big city, but not unpretty. From it you can reach Tabriz in the west, the old capital city with lots of sights and a great bazaar.

Iran is a country with great ancient sights, rich culture, splendid cuisine and a very hospitable people. Despite the political winds this is a great country to visit.

Iran will be any person’s thrill concerning vacation destinations. All the places visited and people will stay in you mind for a long time. This country is very rich in cultural history, and lacks of tourism as it is wonderful to explore and get astonished by its wonderful landscapes and historical sites. Although the country’s changed since the government policies of Ayatollah Khomeini which keep people living in a different way than before and “some harsh rules” are people daily life, Iranians can be extremely gentle and nice to foreigners, full of interest to hear about foreign things and to know how other countries live.

Iran is a country which suffered changes held by Arabs, Mongols, Turkish Ottoman, Portuguese, Dutch, etc, but which will never lose the presence of the ancient Persian Empire and Persian Culture, unique in the whole world. The highlight of this Empire can yet be experience visiting its Capital City Persepolis or Fars near Shiraz .

The Southern part of the country in the Persian Gulf is in fact very beautiful and interesting. It's strange how to go down a few thousand miles South the country and find European presence. The Portuguese presence still remaining in street names, local settlements and forgotten defence castles like in Qeshme Island are things very interesting to visit.

Top Destinations in Iran

Tehran
Isfahan
Pasargadae
Shiraz

Tabriz
Kerman
Bandar e anzali
Ardabil

Maku
Kermanshah
Mashhad
Zandjan

From: World66: Iran Travel Guide

How to sniff plain-text passwords in 13 steps

2007-01-02T10:41:00.000-08:00

The following is an instructional tutorial. I hope to show how easy it is to sniff people's passwords in plain-text form on virtually any wired network. Common applications for this would be on a university, school or otherwise large network. This has only been tested on a Windows machine, but can be used to sniff passwords from any operating system.

Step 1: Download, install and run Cain & Abel at http://www.oxid.it/cain.html.
Step 2: Click "Configure" in the top bar.
Step 3: In the "Sniffer" tab, click the adapter which is connected to the network to be sniffed, then click "Apply", then "OK".
Step 4: Click the "Sniffer" tab in the main window.
Step 5: Click the network card in the top bar (2nd icon from the left).
Step 6: Click the "+" button in the top bar.
Step 7: Select "All hosts in my subnet", click "OK". Entries should appear in the main window under the "IP address", "MAC address" and "OUI fingerprint" headings.
Step 8: From the "Sniffer" tab, click "APR" in the bottom tab.
Step 9: Click the top right pane in the main window. Click the "+" button in the top bar.
Step 10: Click on the router in the left pane. The router is generally the entry which has the lowest final IP value (xxx.xxx.xxx.*). Highlight the IP addresses to sniff in the right pane. Click "OK".
Step 11: Click the ARP icon in the top bar (3rd icon from the left). Wait until other users have logged into websites on other computers. Depending on the size of the network and the traffic which this network receives, this can range from minutes to hours.
Step 12: After some time has passed, click "Passwords" in the bottom tab.
Step 13: In the left pane, select the bolded entries. The right pane should show the time, server, username, password (in plaintext) and site accessed.

Please use this tutorial with caution as most private institutions, as well as countries, have strict rules and laws against network sniffing and could lead to expulsion from an institution, as well as critical litigation! This tutorial is for educational purposes only and should only be used to demonstrate the security weaknesses of common networking infrastructures.

Source

Top Firefox Extensions For Web Development

2006-12-28T02:56:00.000-08:00

The Firefox Web developer extension – is by far the most useful tool for Web development using Firefox. This toolbar is packed full of useful web testing tools. It can outline page elements, display the size of images, display CSS and form data, disable certain elements on a page, and more. It really does more than I could explain in this single post.
Aardvark Extension – Are you tired of using border:1px solid #000; to debug weird CSS behavior. Well this extension doesn’t completely eliminate the need for the border trick, but it sure does help. Aardvark allows you to you a visible border around items on the page while displaying their id and/or class. You can then press certain keys on the keyboard (as indicated below) to do various things, such as delete the selected element from the page, isolate the element, or move the selection rectangle outward to the containing element. So while The Web Developer toolbar is the most necessary, Aardvark is the one you will use the most
Colorzilla – An eyedropper tool for color selection and testing. Hovering over an element shows color info, DOM path info, and the X, Y offset from the previous click.
Fang – This extension creates a textual representation of a web page similar to how the page would be read by a modern screen reader.
Link Checker – Every year one of the tasks we have to do as AIR judges is check the links on each constestants page. The W3C check works is just, well slow. This link checker checks webpage links at a glance with color coding.
Measure It – allows you to measure screen height and width by drawing a ruler across a web page to display the width, height, or alignment of any page element. No more taking a screen grab and pasting it into Photoshop or Fireworks to see how many pixels an object takes up.
Screen Grab – SnagIT is by far by favorite screen capture tool because it allows me to do pretty much everything I need to do in one application. There are instances when I need to take a quick screenshot of a web site and SnagIT doesn’t integrate with Firefox. Screen Grab saves webpages as images by scrolling around and stitching the result together.
IE View – Every now and then you will run across a page that either requires IE or just looks better in Internet Explorer. This happens to me every time I want to view a video on MSN. This extension allows the current page or a selected link to be opened in Internet Explorer. Note: Another Tool IE Tab allows you to view pages in a separate IE Tab, so that you don’t even have to leave the firefox interface.
Fire FTP – I almost never perform bulk FTP operations with Dreamweaver, because it just seems to take too long. FireFTP is a free FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides both FTP and SFTP access to servers. Its not as full featured as other tools like WS FTP, but it gets the hob done.
HTML Validator – This extension is based on the now famous HTML tidy program. It adds validation inside the Page Source Viewer in Firefox.
UPDATE: Firebug – Thanks to Jon for this one. Firebug rocks. It combines a lot of the functions of Aardvark and it a great tool for diving into the DOM and XMLHttpRequest object. I have a feeling I will be using this one a lot too.
BONUS: Del.icio.us Extension – Not necessary for web development, but it seamlessly integrates everything you need to use Del.icio.us directly in Firefox.

from: The Moleskin

The Ugliest Cat and Dog in The World

2006-12-24T13:38:00.000-08:00

Oh! God!! This cat is really ugly. It's the ugliest cat in the world.

The Late Sam (RIP), a 14-year-old Chinese crested hairless who held the official title for, “The World’s Ugliest Dog” for the 3 years in a row at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, Calif. Sam was so ugly, that at times he was mistaken for everything from a space alien to a burn victim. Poor little guy.

Top 10 Microsoft Windows XP Tips to Improve Performance (Part 2)

2006-12-23T13:30:00.000-08:00

This is the second part:

Tip 5: Automatically optimize your hard drive.

One of the keys to system performance is an optimized hard drive. Typically, you optimize your hard drive using Windows' Defrag utility. But there's a great registry hack that will force Win XP to automatically optimize the location of files when your PC is idle. Here's how it works.

1. Open RegEdit and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ OptimalLayout

2. Find the string called EnableAutoLayout, and change its data value to 1. (If this string doesn't exist, create it and set the value to 1.)

3. Exit RegEdit and reboot your PC. Done!

Tip 4: Set a custom resolution.

Notice a trend in the second half of this story? If you answered, "They're all registry hacks," you are correct. Windows XP's registry loads an amazing amount of flexibility and customization in a fairly low-risk package.

Tip number 4 on our list is another one of our favorite registry hacks. Windows XP allows you to specify a large number of set screen resolutions based on what types of images your display can accept. However, in a few rare instances, you may want to specify a non-standard resolution for a clearer or more accurate picture. This tip allows you to do just that. It's one of those tips that doesn't seem all that handy — until you desperately need it. Plus, it's just plain cool. If you have a wonky projector or TV screen you want to use with a laptop or PC, you might want to give this a try.

Here's how it works:

1. Open RegEdit and browse to HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\VIDEO\ {the address of your primary video card...it often begins with "23A77BF7"}\0000\

2. The Default Settings.XResolution data value is the horizontal resolution, and the Default Settings.YResolution data value is the vertical. Double-click the Default Settings.XResolution data entry, select the Decimal radio button, and in the Value Data field, enter your desired horizontal resolution. Then do the same with Default Settings.YResolution to change the vertical resolution.

3. Exit RegEdit and reboot your PC.

If you're scared of tweaking your registry on this one, a handy app called PowerStrip ($29.95, available for a free try-before-you-buy download), allows you similar resolution-changing functionality.

Tip 3: Stay on top of registry changes.

Given the power and flexibility of Windows XP's registry (and the large number of registry hacks in this Top 10), it's no surprise that the number 3 XP tip involves keeping track of any and all changes made to your registry.

But given the prevalence of spyware, rootkits, and other malware these days, knowing what you've done to your registry is a secondary concern to knowing what other applications are doing to it.

For peace of mind — and occasionally, for curiosity's sake — we consider SysInternal's Regmon an essential piece of our OS. It's a freeware application that allows you to browse through all the keys in the registry, filtering in a variety of ways to pinpoint specific registry changes.

For example, you can quickly filter for certain applications. If you're having trouble with Windows Media Player, you click on the Options menu, then Filter. At the menu, type wmplayer into the Include field. When you see the resulting list, you can double-click any entry to open up its registry value.

Because you can search and filter, Regmon is also an excellent method for tracking down hard-to-find registry items.

Tip 2: Recover lost data.

Everyone has accidentally deleted files from their hard drive, and very few feelings are as low as the moment right after you nuke 300 irreplaceable photographs of your kids/dogs/life. Actually, one feeling is worse than that: accidentally quick-formatting your entire drive.

Even if you regularly back up your drives, mistakes happen. That's why this tip is paramount. It's also really simple. There's an excellent downloadable data recovery app for XP called Zero Assumption Recovery that can help. Don't waste another minute — download and install it now.

When you run into trouble, here's what to do:

1. The moment you delete your data, stop using your hard drive. Don't save or install any new applications — they'll be written over your recently departed data.

2. Run Zero Assumption Recovery. You already had it installed, right?

3. Select the hard drive you want to scan. Wait for the scan to finish. (This can take between one and two hours -- part of Zero Assumption Recovery's effectiveness is its thoroughness.)

4. With any luck, you'll see a list of your missing folders and files. The freeware version of Zero Assumption Recovery allows you to recover up to four folders per scan. If you pay $100 for the full version, you get full recovery.

Note: You can also use Zero Assumption Recovery to recover deleted photos from your camera's memory card.

Tip 1: Automatically log when and why shutdowns have occurred.

Love it or hate it, Windows XP is undeniably more stable than its predecessors. But it still crashes, and it still has occasional trouble shutting down. This registry hack logs all shutdown errors, telling you when, where, and why strange and annoying things have happened.

Some folks have the luxury of packing their buggy PC off to a help desk. But if you like to get your hands dirty, consider this essential tweakage.

Here's how to set up logging for unexpected system shutdowns:

1. Open RegEdit and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Reliability

2. Set the ShutDownReasonUI data value to 1. (If this string doesn't exist, create it and set the value to 1.)

3. Exit RegEdit and reboot your PC.

To examine the log you've created, open up the Event Viewer, which you'll find by selecting Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer. Click on the System subheading and you'll see a massive list of system events. Errors will be marked with a red X or a yellow exclamation mark. Double-click on the error and you'll see details that may help you unravel the mystery.

from: OnlineSoftwareGuide
and the copyright: Alliance Internet Marketing
by: George Jones

Top 10 Microsoft Windows XP Tips to Improve Performance (Part 1)

2006-12-22T07:15:00.000-08:00

These are Top 10 Tips for improve using windows xp.
This the fist part which consists 5 tips:

Tip 10: Halt background services to improve performance.

This tip is one of our favorites because it always works. Running in the background of Windows are scores of services, small processes used by Windows and many Windows applications. The thing is, you don't need all these services — especially for applications you never use — and many of them actually slow your PC down.

Win XP power users have long known that you can easily eke a little extra performance out of your PC by disabling services that are completely unnecessary or that don't need to be running all the time. Here's how it works.

1. Click Start > Run, type services.msc and click OK. This will bring up the Services management console. Click on the Extended tab at the bottom of this window; each background service running on your PC is listed here. Windows includes a fairly detailed description of each service; simply drag the Description column wider to read more of each description, or click on a service to see its full description in the left pane.

2. Double-click a service to bring up a window with several options. In the Startup Type area, you can set the service to run automatically in the background at all times so it's ready whenever it's needed, or you can tell it to run manually, which means you'll have to go into this Services management console and re-enable it if an application needs it.

You can also completely disable the service. In general, you want to disable services tied to applications and/or features you don't use or rarely use. You can find a great list of appropriate services to disable at the Elder Geek's Services Guide For Windows XP.

If you're logged onto the computer as the administrator, you can also pause the service (click the Pause button in the Service Status area just below the Startup Type area), then see how the computer behaves. Danger signs include crashes or other erratic behaviors in your applications, such as running slowly or getting stuck on a query prompt. Click Resume to start up the service again.

Tip 9: Increase available disk space by scaling back System Restore.

It's not perfect, but Windows System Restore is a useful first step in recovering your PC or drive from a major system error. However, it can consume more than 10 percent of your total hard drive space.

If you find yourself desperate for an extra few gigabytes — particularly on secondary storage drives — there's an easy way to reclaim data space by simply limiting the number of System Restore points Windows XP establishes. This one's a snap and there's no tangible increase of risk, which is why we love it.

1. Right-click on My Computer and select Properties > System Restore.

2. If you have just one hard drive, skip to step 3. Otherwise, select the drive on which you want to gain storage space and click the Settings button.

3. Adjust the slider to the left to use less disk space, and Win XP will reduce the number of System Restore points by the appropriate amount.

Tip 8: Scrub your hard drive clean.

Windows Support Tools, provided free by Microsoft, are a suite of some 20+ separate applications that are extremely handy for a number of uses. Ordinary PC users probably won't use many of these apps — they're mostly used by IT pros to troubleshoot and analyze Windows XP. But even if you're not an expert, don't be afraid of using the Windows Installer Clean Up Utility, which will help you remove all leftover files from a failed uninstall of a Windows Installer application.

Download Windows Support Tools from Microsoft's Download Center. (If you're curious about the other apps in the suite, check out the help file included in the Windows Support Tools Program group.)

To run the Windows Installer Clean Up Utility, go to the command prompt (select Start > Run) and type msicuu.exe. You'll see a list of all applications with uninstall data. Select the ones you want to get rid of and click the Remove button. Obviously, you want to use caution here — don't clear the install data for an application unless you're absolutely sure you won't ever need it.

Tip 7: Run two displays on the same PC.

This tip is for the worker bee. Adding a second display to your PC won't quite double your productivity, but it will make your computing life easier. Walk around a cube farm these days, and you'll likely see at least a few power users doubling up.

Thankfully, Windows XP makes it extremely easy.

1. Plug the second display into your computer. (Many video cards today have a second Video Out port; if not, you'll have to install a second video card.)

2. Right-click on your desktop and click Properties to bring up the Display Properties window. Click on the Settings tab.

3. See the grayed-out box to the right of the black box? That's your second monitor. Click on it and then click the check box next to "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor" to enable it. From here you can adjust the resolution of the secondary display. The goal here is to have a desktop that spans both of your displays, so if your second screen is physically located to the left of your primary one, drag and drop the #2 monitor to the left of the #1 display.

Tip 6: Force unresponsive applications to close at shutdown.

When it comes to balky PCs, few things annoy us more than the moment when we try to shut down Windows and it tells us it can't because some crashed application isn't responding, and that we have to do it ourselves by clicking the End Now button.

This registry hack changes that. Here's how it works.

1. Launch RegEdit (select Start > Run, type regedit and click OK) and browse to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop

2. Find the string called AutoEndTasks. Right-click it, select Modify from the pop-up menu, and change the data value from 0 to 1. (If you can't find this string, create it by selecting Edit > New > String Value and set the data value to 1.)

3. Close RegEdit and reboot.

Part 2 post will include next 5 tips.

How to Use Your Pocket PC/Smartphone as Web Camera

2006-12-19T15:20:00.000-08:00

Ever wish you had a little webcam that you could stick in your pocket to use for video conferences, web chats and spying purposes by using your Pocket PC or Smartphone mobile device?
While I was surfing the web, I read an article about a cool program called WebCamera Plus:

How to use your PDA(Pocket PC)/Smartphone as Webcam.

1. You should install WebCamera Plus on Desktop PC and device (versions on PDA and Desktop PC should be identical).
2. Connect PDA (or Smartphone) to Desktop PC via ActiveSync (through USB or Bluetooth).
3. On Desktop PC start application you need (Skype, for example), choose "WebCamera Plus" capture device and start video chat.
4. Start WebCamera Plus on device.
6. Press left soft key ('Start') on device.

You can connect your device through Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/GPRS/EDGE/LAN without ActiveSync. In this case you should enter Server (Desktop PC) IP-address in "Setings" dialog on device (Menu->Settings->General) .

The software works with Skype, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Virtual Dub and other programs designed to take advantage of web cams. You can also use the software to grab screenshots from your PDA and transfer them to your PC.

WebCamera Plus costs 15$ to buy... I think its worth the pay.

Software Developer: AtekSoft
WebCamera Plus developer page is Here.

See Others Photos in your desired place with Panoramio

2006-12-18T12:40:00.000-08:00

Use your 2GB account and start upload your images to Panoramio then use Google Earth and Google Map to locate the exact position where it has been taken!
Also you can use this Photo locater service to see other images taken in/from places where you point on the map...
nice job Panoramio! ;)

The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci

2006-12-17T13:47:00.000-08:00

Leonardo da Vinci really had talented drawings and ideas. Take a look at this album series. Also they have been packed in:
leonardo.tar
leonardo.zip
and ready to download.

You may also be interested in bellow pages about Leonardo da Vinci:

Snowboarding:Tips for beginners

2006-12-16T13:11:00.000-08:00

Thinking of trying snowboard? Don't know how to snowboard? This page (Snowboarding - Tips for beginners) can help you start. It has some infos and tips for beginners in bellow topics:

Basic Terminology
How to ride
Equipment
Clothing
Injury
Improving
Attitude

Of course in the case of learning how to snowboard you have to practice but reading before trying may help to reach top faster.

Here is some Pictures & Snowboard related links.

Google Toobar 3 Beta Released

2006-12-16T07:39:00.000-08:00

Google officially announced the beta version of the Firefox Toolbar 3 Beta on Tuesday, jam packed with yummy new features. New additions in Toolbar 3 include accessing bookmarks from any computer, adding custom buttons, and sharing web pages using Blogger, Gmail and SMS. The ultimate feature that Google has integrated into the new Firefox Toolbar is the ability to view Documents and Spreadsheets right in the browser window. When you come across a .doc, .rtf, .odt, .sxw, .xls, .ods, aor .csv document in your web travels, you no longer have to download them to view them. You can simply setup the Toolbar 3 Beta to open them automatically in your browser window. Some handy little features here from Google; it's totally worth the download.

From: DownloadSquad.com

Top 10 Excuses for Not Turning in Math Homework

2006-12-14T14:54:00.000-08:00

It's Isaac Newton's birthday.
I couldn't decide whether i is the square root of -1 or i are the square root of -1.
I accidently divided by 0 and my paper burst into flames.
It's stuck inside a Klein bottle.
I could only get arbitrarily close to my textbook.
I had too much pi and got sick.
Someone already published it, so I didn't bother to write it up.
A four-dimensional dog ate it.
I have a solar calculator and it was cloudy.
There wasn't enough room to write it in the margin.

From: http://www.stetson.edu/~efriedma/mathhumor.html