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Windows start up sound is some thing which you may not want to hear every time, specially when you are booting your computer in room and it may disturb others, or in some cases there are people who are annoyed by the sound everytime windows boots up.

For all those who would like to remove the start up sound and make windows silent

1. Once windows is started, press Window Key+R or locate Start Menu >> Run and type mmsys.cpl and press Enter key or clock ok button.

2. This will open windows sound dialogue window, click Sound tab then locate the checkbox which says Play Windows start up sound at the bottom of the dialogue window and uncheck the checkbox as shown in the image below.

3. Click apply button, that’s it done. Windows 7 will now boot up silently every time you boot it.

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Windows 7 SP1 Beta was released to the public earlier this month, and is an excellent preview of the first upgrade for the OS. In this regard, customers are bound to notice no new features have been added, and this because the software giant only intended to deliver a minor upgrade and nothing more.

“The Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta helps keep your PCs and servers on the latest support level, provides ongoing improvements to the Windows Operating System (OS), by including previous updates delivered over Windows Update as well as continuing incremental updates to the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 platforms based on customer feedback, and is easy for organizations to deploy a single set of updates,” Rose added.

There is only a single pre-requirement for SP1, namely that customers run the RTM Builds of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. At the same time, the language of SP1 must match that of the underlying platform. Windows 7 SP1 Beta is only available in English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish.

“The Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta will help you:

• Keep your PCs supported and up-to-date
• Get ongoing updates to the Windows 7 platform
• Easily deploy cumulative updates at a single time,
• Meet your users’ demands for greater business mobility
• Provide a comprehensive set of virtualization innovations
• Provide an easier Service Pack deployment model for better IT efficiency,” Rose added.

SP1 continues to be available for download and testers will be able to run the releases until mid-2011 when the Beta bits are set to expire. Microsoft confirmed that it plans to release Windows 7 SP1 RTM in the first half of next year, most likely in Q1 2011.

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Beta and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Beta are available for download here.

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Some customers might already be familiar with EMET, as Microsoft released version 1 in October 2009. The tool is designed to allow developers to easily built and deploy security mitigation to arbitrary applications in order to render useless and exploits targeting vulnerabilities in the apps. While EMET does not actually help patch the security flaws, it does deliver barriers/mitigations, more than capable of fending off any attacks. According to Microsoft, EMET would best be used by third-party developers building applications designed to run on top of Windows, as well as by those needing to bulletproof as much as possible legacy applications.

“EMET sparked customer interest and based on the feedback that we received, we decided to release version 2 that includes more mitigations, a better interface, and a more robust infrastructure compared to the earlier version of EMET. Our aim with this version is to provide an innovative solution that helps customers manage risk and minimize disruption in their environment,” revealed Andrew Roths and Fermin J. Serna, MSRC Engineering.

Roths and Serna also provided a list of all the mitigations built into EMET v2, along with a short description for each one:

“Dynamic Data Execution Prevention (DEP) – DEP has been available since Windows XP. However, current configuration options don’t allow applications to be opted in on an individual basis unless they are compiled with a special flag. EMET allows applications compiled without that flag to also be opted. For more information on what DEP is and how it works, take a look at Part 1 and Part 2 of our two-part SRD blog post on it.

Structure Exception Handler Overwrite Protection (SEHOP) – This protects against currently the most common technique for exploiting stack overflows in Windows. This mitigation has shipped with Windows since Windows Vista SP1. Recently with Windows 7, the ability to turn it on and off per process was added. With EMET, we provide the Windows 7 capabilities on any platform back though Windows XP. For more information, take a look at the SEHOP Overview and Window 7 SEHOP Changes blog posts.

Heap Spray Allocation – When an exploit runs, it often cannot be sure of the address where its shellcode resides and must make a case when taking control of the instruction pointer. To increase the odds of success, most exploits now use heapspray techniques to place copies of their shellcode at as many memory locations as possible. This mitigation blocks the use of addresses most common in today’s exploits.

Null Page Allocation – This is similar technology to the heap spray allocation, but designed to prevent potential null dereference issues in usermode. Currently there are no known ways to exploit them and thus this is a defense in depth mitigation technology.

Export Address Table Access Filtering – This mitigation is designed to break nearly all shell code in use today. Before a piece of shellcode can do anything useful, it generally has to locate windows APIs first. This mitigation blocks a common current technique shellcode uses to do this.

Mandatory Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) – ASLR randomizes the addresses where modules are loaded to help prevent an attacker from leveraging data at predictable locations. The problem with this is that all modules have to use a compile time flag to opt into this. With EMET, we force modules to be loaded at randomized addresses for a target process regardless of the flags it was compiled with.”

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“This issue occurs if the Wi-Fi hot spot uses wireless APs or routers that do not support the 802.11 power save protocol,” Microsoft informed. Still, the power saving features built into both Vista and Windows 7 by default, contribute to this problem. Essentially, when a Windows 7 mobile PC is plugged into a power source, the wireless network adapter will go into Maximum Performance mode and switch off 802.11 power save mode. At the same time, for Windows 7 machines running on battery power, the wireless network adapter will go into Medium Power Save mode, which is associated with the 802.11 power save mode.

“When an 802.11 wireless network adapter that is set to use power save mode wants to enter a sleep state, the adapter indicates this intention to the wireless AP. The adapter does this by setting the power save option in its packets or in the 802.11 frames that it sends to the wireless AP,” Microsoft informed.

“If the wireless AP does not support this feature correctly, the wireless AP continues to send packets to the client network adapter even if the client network adapter radio is turned off. Therefore, these packets are lost. In this scenario, the symptoms that you experience may vary depending on the phase of the wireless connection in which these packets are lost,” the company added.

Microsoft offers three methods for end users to manually correct problems:

“1. Connect the mobile PC to a power source – When you plug the mobile PC into a power source, Windows Vista or Windows 7 switches the wireless network adapter power setting in the default power plan from the Medium Power Save setting to the Maximum Performance setting. This turns off the 802.11 power save mode.

2. Modify the default power saving power plan – Modify the default on-battery power setting for the wireless network adapter. Configure the wireless network adapter to use the Maximum Performance setting when Windows Vista or Windows 7 is configured to use the Balanced power plan or the Power saver power plan. To do this, follow these steps:

- Click Start, type Power Options in the Start Search box, and then click Power Options in the Programs list.

- If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password or click Continue.

- Click Change plan settings under the power plan that is selected. For example, if the Balanced option is selected, click Change plan settings under Balanced.

- Click Change advanced power settings.

-In the Power Options dialog box, expand Wireless Adapter Settings, and then expand Power Saving Mode.

- In the list that appears next to On battery, click Maximum Performance, and then click OK.

3. Use the “High performance” power plan – If the computer is running on a power plan other than the High performance power plan when you connect to a wireless network, manually change the power plan to High performance. To do this, follow these steps:

Click Start, type Power Options in the Start Search box, and then click Power Options in the Programs list.
If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password or click Continue. Note: You can also right-click the battery icon in the notification area to access the Power Options command.

Click High performance.”

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Tabs on top are here to stay, this much is clear. I have seen negative feedback from long time Firefox users reacting to the UI overhaul suffered by Firefox 4.0, but it seems to have failed to deter Mozilla in any way from its plans. The browser vendor has now extended the new revamped design to the Mac OS X edition of Firefox 4.0 in addition to that of Windows, while Linux users still have to exercise their patience a tad longer.

“Mac and Windows users now have all their tabs on the top of the browser. We moved the tabs to the top to make it easier to focus on the Web content and easier to control the tools in your Web browser. If you have Windows 7 or Windows Vista, the Menu bar is replaced with a single Firefox button so you get to the most used options with just one click,” revealed Mike Beltzner, Mozilla’s Director of Firefox.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 2 also comes with App Tabs, a new feature designed to enhance Tab management, a different approach than the recently unveiled Tab Candy. Essentially, App Tabs allows users to transform the tabs for certain websites they visit often into buttons on the browser’s UI, streamlining access as much as possible.

“There are some websites you visit many times throughout your day, such as your email, social networks, music or game sites. Now you can turn the websites you use most into App Tabs to easily find the ones you need. App Tabs offer a better way to manage tabs, saving space on the tab bar and making it easy to find frequently used tabs,” Beltzner added.

And of course, there are additional changes on top of new features and the UI modifications on the surface. Firefox 4.0 Beta 2 also evolved under-the-hood, offering developers new features, including CSS3 Transitions, Retained Layers and XPCOM Framework.

“The Firefox 4 Beta now has support for new CSS3 features like Transitions and Transformations, making it fun to add elegant animations to your websites. To show what CSS3 Transitions can do, we added them to the Firefox 4 Beta “What’s New” page. Adding Retained Layers in Firefox 4 Beta allows for super-fast scrolling on complex websites. We made changes to the XPCOM framework that improves start up time when you load Firefox,” Beltzner explained.

Mozilla also dealt with a variety of issues impacting Firefox 4.0 Beta 1. Early adopters that will jump at the chance of test driving Beta 2 will notice that a range of problems have been fixed. All in all, no less than 670 issues have been resolved with the advent of Firefox 4.0 Beta 2.

Another aspect of the open source browser’s evolution is related to localization. Firefox 4.0 Beta 2 is currently available in no less than 23 different languages. “Thanks to the help of the global Mozilla community, we’re now able to bring Firefox 4 Beta to more people around the world,” Beltzner said.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 2 for Windows is available for download here.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 2 for Mac OS X is available for download here.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 2 for Linux is available for download x86 or x64.

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Apple has updated its all-in-one iMac line with the latest Intel Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 processors, as well as better graphics, featuring discrete ATI Radeon HD processors. The computer’s design remains unchanged. The new 21.5-inch 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 iMac is now available for $1,199 (US). At the other end of the spectrum, the new 27-inch 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 iMac is available for a suggested retail price of $1,999.

On the Mac Pro front, Apple today unveiled a new line with up to 12 processing cores and up to 50 percent greater performance than the previous generation. The systems boast the latest quad-core and 6-core Intel Xeon processors, ATI graphics, and the option for up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD). The base, quad-core Mac Pro will sell for $2,499 when it’s released in August, while the new 8-core Mac Pro will be available for $3,499.

Configure-to-order options (as far as processors are concerned) include one 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3565 processor for the quad-core Mac Pro; one 3.33 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon W3680 processor for the quad-core Mac Pro; two 2.66 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5650 processors (12-cores) for the 8-core Mac Pro; two 2.93 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5670 processors (12-cores) for the 8-core Mac Pro.

The new Magic Trackpad, launched in tandem with the new computers, is specifically mentioned as an accessory for iMac owners. Sold separately for $69, the device is described by Apple as follows:

“The Magic Trackpad brings the intuitive Multi-Touch gestures of Mac notebook trackpads to the desktop. With its glass surface, the wireless Magic Trackpad enables users to scroll smoothly up and down a page with inertial scrolling, pinch to zoom in and out, rotate an image with their fingertips and swipe three fingers to flip through a collection of web pages or photos. The Magic Trackpad can be configured to support single button or two button commands and supports tap-to-click as well as a physical click.”

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Hard Reset The Router

This might seem to be an insignificant solution, but surprisingly, it does work sometimes! Simply try turning off your router, and switch it back again after a minute or two. If this doesn’t work, perform a hard reset of your router.
Remove Sources of Interference

Any metal surfaces, walls, and even floors, will interfere with the wireless router’s signals. WiFi signals are reflected by any metal surfaces, and devices operating in the same frequency as that of the routers’ will intervene with the signals. Keep your router as far as possible from microwaves, baby monitors, wireless speakers, wireless cameras and WiFi keyboards, Bluetooth adapters and cordless phones. Even the beams and columns in a building can considerably block the signal or cause it to completely drop too. Antenna’s should also be positioned well away from power cords or wires that interfere with radio reception.

Relocate Your Wireless Router

The signal strength you receive will improve if the router is placed centrally in the desired area of coverage. If you are having difficulties in getting a stable signal in the right side of the building, and the router is towards the left side, relocate the router more closer to the right. Generally, when two or more computers access the internet, it is best to place the router close to the center of the house (or where it is used) well above the floor level and maximally away from other routers in the neighboring areas.

Choose Equipments Under The Same Brand

It is advisable to buy different WiFi equipments from the same vendor. This is because manufacturers may sometimes optimize communication protocols of their equipment. Though choosing devices from the same brand might not completely solve your problem, you are sure to see a slight improvement in the performance. If you are yet to buy a network adapter, or looking to change one, make sure you buy from the same brand as that of your wireless router.
Use Reflectors

Just like how a mirror reflects light, reflectors reflect the signal in the required direction. Parabolic reflectors can be used to focus signals toward the desired area and increase the signal strength. Compact disks or tin foils can be used as effective reflectors, and they should be placed behind the receiving device or the antenna.

Add Repeaters

As the distance between the router and the computer increases, the signal strength decreases. A wireless repeater is a piece of hardware that can be used to improve signals between the router and the computer. Repeaters simply repeat the signals sent to it, and they allow extension of the range of wireless signals. Repeaters sometimes reduce throughput on the WLAN, which can sometimes be disadvantageous. These devices can be positioned halfway between the computer and the wireless access point.

Upgrade your router’s firmware

The firmware, which is an embedded software contained inside the router, carries out a part of the network protocols, administrative capabilities and security mechanisms of the router. Firmware upgrades might lend a helping hand in fixing problems that exist with older firmware. Upgrading the router’s firmware not only allows addition of new features, but also improves or changes the existing operations of the router. You may also try re-loading the same firmware version that has already been installed, if you want to clear out the existing settings and start fresh in case of a problem. Visit the router manufacturer’s website to know the latest firmware updates for your router.

Upgrade your router’s existing 802.11 standard

Developed by the IEEE, 802.11 is an industry standard for wireless local area networks. There are several specifications in the 802.11 family with new ones being occasionally added. The newer modulation methods provide higher data transfer rates with reduces interference. For example, older devices using the 802.11b networks are proved to be five times slower than networks on 802.11g. Upgrading to the newest 802.11 standard will boost the performance and speed of your wireless network.

Check/ Change The Channel

The radio spectrum available, is divided into different channels, the number depending on the local licensing laws. These channels are numbered starting from one. If there are 10 available channels for example, 10 different networks can efficiently operate within a same area, if they are provided 10 different channels. On the contrary, if two networks in the same area are on the same channel, this can cause interference and bandwidth restrictions. It is also to be noted that neighboring channels, for example, 1 and 2, or 5 and 6, overlap or interfere to some extent with each other, and this overlapping lessens with the channels further away.

There are a few softwares like NetStumbler that check for interfering WiFi networks. Once downloaded, these programs show all networks in a particular area along with details like the channel, signal strength, network names and much more.

Wireless Network Adapters & Drivers

The wireless network adapter is an interface between the PC and the wireless network. For a good connection, wireless signals should be sent from the router to the computer and the vice versa. The computers sometimes may not send signals back to the router as efficiently as a router does to the computer. In this case, the solution is to replace the wireless adapter with a new adapter having an external antenna. If you are considering replacing your network adapter, also remember that it should be compatible to your router’s 802.11 standard.

From time to time, adapter manufacturers update the software that the operating systems use to communicate with the network adapter. This is called the driver software, and to encourage the signal strength that your computer is receiving, you can try updating the driver software.

Replace Your Router’s Antenna

Wireless routers have built in omnidirectional antennas that distribute signals equally in all directions. Such antennas when placed near an obstructing wall, may not transmit signals efficiently. The antenna has a significant role in determining the signal strength of the wireless router. There are a few other types of antennas that you could choose from.

Omnidirectional antennas with longer antennae perform better. External omnidirectional antennas are stronger than built in ones, but they do raise security concerns. High gain antennas send strong signals in one direction whilst reducing the number of access points.

Always remember that wireless connections are comparatively less secure than wired ones. Whenever you are trying to troubleshoot a WiFi connection, change only one thing at a time. This way, you will easily be able to find out what works and what doesn’t and you will be able to quickly apply the same in the future.

Author Biography

This is a guest article contributes by Zoe Terzetti. Zoe blogs on all things broadband or internet. She is a gadget geek and is presently writing for Broadband Suppliers, a broadband comparison website. Zoe loves experimenting on anything new in the tech world and is a die-hard Apple fan.

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“With one keystroke Tab Candy shows an overview of all tabs to allow you to quickly locate and switch between them. Tab Candy also lets you group tabs to organize your work flow. You can create a group for your vacation, work, recipes, games and social sites, however it makes sense to you to group tabs. When you switch to a grouped tab only the relevant tabs are shown in the tab bar, which helps you focus on what you want,” Raskin stated.

Built leveraging HTML, Javascript, and CSS, without any native code, Tab Candy is still in the earliest stages of development. Mozilla did make available for download a pre-Beta 3 release of Firefox 4.0, but in reality there’s no guarantee that the feature will actually make it into the next version of the open source browser. For the time being, work is being focused on enhancing performance, but also on testing, putting together code documentation as well as refactoring, and providing nightly builds with the new feature for early adopters.

Tab Candy allows users to easily zoom in and out in order to get a complete perspective over all of their open tabs, beyond what’s possible via the Tabs strip at the top of the browser. In addition, the new feature also allows for Tabs to be grouped together, streamlining visual search, with Tab bundles offering the option to be housed together in custom named groups.

“When you go to a tab in a group, you’ll only see the tabs from that group in the tab strip. That means you can focus on the task you are doing. Work tabs stay separate from play tabs. Clean tab bar, clean mind,” Raskin added. “Tab Candy is not just the ability to move tabs around, you can move groups so that they fit your needs. Make the group with your calendar and email bigger so that you can see what’s new just by zooming out to Tab Candy. Hide the group with distractions in a corner. Keep things to read in a long vertical list.”

Microsoft needs to pay extra attention to the work Mozilla is doing in terms of Tab management for Firefox. The Redmond company is currently building Internet Explorer 9 which needs to offer a superior user experience for Tab organization and navigation compared to IE8. This is especially true taking into consideration the integration between IE Tabs and the Thumbnail Taskbar Previews made possible by Windows Aero in Windows 7.

Fact is that for just a few opened Tabs, Windows Aero offers an exceptional experience. However, for 20 or more open websites/tabs in a single browser window the experience deteriorates dramatically, and becomes even painful. Trying to navigate through 100 opened tabs in IE8 on Windows 7 using Taskbar Thumbnails is almost impossible, as there’s not even a way for users to jump at the start or at the end of the list of opened websites, instead having to crawl, and scroll one item at a time.

Internet Explorer 8 does offer the concept of Quick Tabs, but this, if it is to survive in IE9, needs to deliver instant speed, which means that Microsoft will have to do a lot of work on performance. Further integration between Thumbnail Previews on the new Superbar, and additional Windows Aero features could enhance the UX for Internet Explorer 9 beyond what rival browsers will be able to deliver.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 1 and Firefox 3.6.7 are available for download here.

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 3 Build 1.9.7.8.74.6000 is available for download here.

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“We’re excited to announce that the Device Stage Visual Editor Tool is now available for our partners. This new new tool and accompanying user’s guide make it extremely easy for our partners (device manufacturers) to develop and build custom Device Stage metadata packages for their products that include realistic device icons, eye-catching branding, and tasks tailored to the needs of their customers,” noted Brandon LeBlanc, Windows Communications Manager on the Windows Client Communications Team.

Essentially, what Microsoft is doing with the release of Device Stage Visual Editor Tool, is to smooth the process of tailoring third-party hardware to Windows 7, especially in the context of Device Stage. While this feature can indeed enhance UX, it needs to be taken advantage of, rather than ignored in favor of third-party software applications to match the hardware.

The Device Stage Visual Editor Tool is “a more intuitive process for partners to create their own Device Stage experience” and that it “enables faster experience prototyping, with an instant preview of the device experience that awaits the user on Windows 7,” commented Glenn Ward, Principal Group Program Manager on the Windows Planning Ecosystem Team.

Of course, Microsoft is delivering not only the Device Stage Visual Editor Tool, but also the Device Stage Visual Editor User’s Guide, both available for download free of charge. “Device Stage in Windows 7 is a new way for consumers to interact with their “Compatible with Windows 7” logo’d devices. Device Stage connects users to the status information, tasks, and settings they most care about – things like memory and battery status, uploading pictures, synching media, and accessing support resources. This Windows 7 feature enables device manufacturers to brand and customize the experience to help their customers get the most from their device,” LeBlanc added.

Windows 7 Device Stage Visual Editor Tool is available for download here.

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Obviously, Firefox 4.0 Beta 2 is not here. However, early adopters should know that the browser release is still, just around the corner. But it did suffer a small delay, just a few days. According to Mozilla, Firefox 4.0 Beta 2 is still just around the corner, and it could drop as early as today or tomorrow.

“We’re glad you’re interested in Firefox 4 Beta 2 – it’s not quite ready yet. Our candidate builds are still going through quality assurance tests,” is the message that greets testers attempting to download the second Beta Build of the next major iteration of Firefox.

According to the browser vendor, the new proposed dates for the launch of Firefox 4.0 Beta 2 are July 27 or July 28. Initially, Mozilla was indicating that it would deliver Firefox 4.0 Beta 2 by the end of the past week, although it also took into consideration the scenario in which the release would be postponed until this week.

Of course, Mozilla’s timetable for the next major version of its open source browser is by no means set in stone, with all the deadlines being susceptible to change.

At this point in time Firefox 4.0 is planned for finalization by the end of this year, with availability set for October or November 2010. Of course, any delays along the way could jeopardize the launch deadline set for the successor of Firefox 3.6. As with any other aspects of the Firefox 4.0 development process, Mozilla emphasized that nothing is set in stone and that release dates can also change.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 1 is available for download here.

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