Technodorm

Spice up your Windows 7 Taskbar with Taskbar Meters

Fahad — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:59:03 +0000

Here is a nice little application that I stumbled across when browsing CodePlex today, Taskbar meters. Taskbar Meters adds two(soon to be three) meters into your Windows7 taskbar that keep you informed of your CPU and memory usage. A third meter for hard drive usage may soon be added as well. The main advantage that I see is that you dont need to open windows task manager or any other 3rd part software to see your system usage data. You can easily identify the usage by glancing over the windows taskbar and visually seeing the level of usage of each CPU and memory.

According to a reply from the applications author, to a suggestion made at the applications message board, we may soon see a third meter for hard drive usage as well. This would be a great addition as whenever you are doing a hard drive intensive task, your cpu and memory wont be used much, but your computer will feel sluggish if you try to multitask. The average user may not know that it is the hard drive which is causing the slowdown. If a user has taskbar meters installed however, they can quickly identify which program, upon being loaded, or upon being used, causes their system to crawl at a snails pace. I find this tool has many uses that may not seem useful right now but can be realized after using this app for some time. Download Taskbar Meters by going to its home page by clicking here.

Apple releases iPhone in China

Fahad — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:13:51 +0000

After two years of being released internationally, the iPhone has finally been released in China. Quite ironic, considering the fact that the iPhone is made in China. One important aspect to note however is that there is no Wifi in these iPhones, a feature that is perhaps used often by many iphone users worldwide. The iPhone in China is being released by Unicom, Apples official network provider. The price for the new iPhone in China, as quoted from Mashable, are between 4,999 yuan($730) and 6,999 yuan($1,025).

You may be wondering why there is no Wifi, considering it is an integral part of how the iPhone runs. Well, as it turns out, Wifi was banned temporarily in China. However, the ban has been lifted and there is widespread speculation that the next batch of iPhones in China will have Wifi. Until that time however, it would be interesting to see how the iPhone sales fare in China.

Automatically delete all empty folders using Folder Vanity Remover

Fahad — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:00:01 +0000

If you use your computer a lot for storing files such as music, shows, personal files, etc, you would have surely found yourself in a situation where you would have lots of empty folders sitting idle on your hard drive. I myself have come across this situation several times and end up wasting precious time in locating and deleting all empty folders. Another source of empty folders is if you install and uninstall lots of applications over a period of time. Some applications, although deleting all the files, fail to delete all the folders associated with their program and hence leave empty folders in the users hard drive. This is where Folder Vanity Remover comes in and automates the job of having to delete all empty folders.

Folder Vanity Remover is able to locate and automatically delete all empty folders within a specified directory or drive of your choice. To test this software, I used it to on a folder that contained 2 empty folders and a third folder containing 2 files. It was able to successfully delete the empty folders and leave the third folder alone. This could be quite a timesaver in certain situations for many people. I know I will end up using it from time to time.

Note: If the selected directory itself does not contain any files then it will be deleted as well.

[Via Blogsdna]

Blackberry Tour 9630 Review

Fahad — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:37:22 +0000

The Blackberry Tour is one of RIM’s latest devices and aims to bring much needed improvements to the popular Smartphone series. That said, it should be noted that this is not a Blackberry Curve replacement. Although they share similar dimensions and design cues, the Tour is a whole different story compared to its brother the venerable Curve 8300.

DESIGN:

If you take a look at the Curve and the Tour it’s clear to see they have an obvious resemblance, but at the same time, admire the differences between the two. The Blackberry Tour would remind you of what would happen if the Curve and Bold made love and out popped a baby phone. The device is sleek and slender measuring just 4.4 inches high by 2.4 inches wide and only 0.6 inches thick. Weight is a mere 4.58 ounces.

The screen is 2.6 inches with 480 x 360 pixels and over 65,000 colors. The phone features a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus and image stabilization, video capture, 2x digital zoom and geo tagging. Also included is a Bluetooth 2.0 chip which accepts hands free, stereo headset and Phone Book Access. A standard 3.5mm jack is also included. The different networks supported are CDMA 800/1900 with support for EVDO. Rev A. a SIM card slot is also included so roaming is supported on the 850/900/1800 and 1900MHz GSM/GPRS and EDGE networks.

Full QWERTY keyboard and a 1400 mAHr removable battery that is rated at 5 hours of talk time and up to 14 hours of standby time are all included.

PERFORMANCE:

Blackberry’s have long been known for the stellar call quality, top of the line messaging support and more recently, great multimedia functionality, all of which have been bundled together in the Blackberry Tour.

The full QWERTY keyboard is beautiful and typing is a pleasure. The keyboard is more in line with that of the Blackberry Bold and keys are not too firm and not too soft. Plus, thanks to a special coating, slipping and sliding on the keys due to sweating fingers is not a problem.

The 3.2 megapixel camera is decent. While it didn’t take the best quality picture we’ve seen on a mobile device is was still comparable to most and colors were accurate. Video recording quality on the other hand was not the best. While not as bad as the Curve, there were still some pixilation and jitters.

Messaging is still the best. Being a Blackberry owner myself, I never knew how much I loved my email until I got one. The Tour brings all the messaging functionality the Blackberry is known for and thanks to Blackberry OS 5.0, support and integration is tighter then before.

Call quality was, as always, great. Voices sounded crisp and clear without a hint of any noise. Speaker phone was also good but still not hitting the mark that the Bold has set. While we’re at it, WiFi is nonexistent on this device thanks to Verizon. That said you will be stuck with either Sprint or Verizon’s high-speed 3G network when data is required.

Speaking of data, we did find that the JAVA based browser wasn’t comparable to that of the iPhone, Pre or Skyfire. While it is a great improvement from Blackberry OS 4.3 it still needs some work as pages don’t always render right and sometimes the CSS is screwed up.

During our battery drain tests we were able to pull a full 6 hours of continuous talk time out of the device.

CONCLUSION:

Out of all the Blackberry’s to come out in recent years, the Tour seems to be one of the best. No, it hasn’t reinvented the wheel, but rather RIM has wisely chosen to refine the features that define the Blackberry. Have they succeeded? Yes!

Windows Mobile 6.5 Review

Fahad — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 03:58:57 +0000

Microsoft has long been a major player in the Smartphone software industry. In fact they were one of the first (just behind Palm). However, in recent years, they have seen a slew of attacks from other players. Blackberry has become the defector king for those concerned about security and messaging. Android has come out of nowhere to court some of Microsoft’s major partners, whereas Apple has created a Smartphone that even a baby could use. Palm on the other hand has shocked everyone with their Pre, the one device that can truly be called an iPhone killer.

With the new onslaught Microsoft has sought to ramp up production on its Windows Mobile platform. Windows Mobile 6.5 is supposed to be the next step just before Windows Mobile 7 which will finally bring long awaited features such as multi-touch, better browsers, etc, to the fledging platform. So how does it stack up? Is it a worthy upgrade from Windows Mobile 6.1?

Windows Mobile 6.5 is not a radical change from version 6.1. Rather it’s more like what Snow Leopard is to Tiger on the Mac OS (sorry Mac fans). Design wise, it has been reworked and many of the outdated icons and menus have been replaced.

In the latest craze for touch UI’s, Microsoft has updated the UI of Windows Mobile to be more finger friendly. Menu text is bigger, icons are also larger and more spaced and in general the UI seems more on the lines of a design that were thought out sans a stylus.

The “Today Screen” has been reworked and now resembles that of the Zune HD. For those still stuck in 2003, the old “Today Screen” is still there, but we will say the new version is a whole lot better. Speaking of UI, there is also a new addition to the improvements which include a “Honeycomb” Start screen which as it would sound would remind you of a bees hive honeycomb. As we said before, the outdated icons are gone and have been replaced with more moderns ones.

The lock screen has been reworked. Microsoft has implemented a design that allows you to go right to the location you wanted when you unlock your screen. For instance when you get a new text message or email the lock slider changes so that when you unlock you phone it carries you right to your inbox for you to read your message.

One of the bigger additions to Windows Mobile 6.5 has been the revamped Internet Explorer. We will be frank, it’s not up to par with the iPhone web browser but Microsoft deserves credit for reworking their crappy excuse of a browser to include better zoom and pan features as well as full support for HTML and a new JavaScript engine. It would be interesting to see how feature rich the web browser is in Windows Mobile 7.

Windows Mobile 6.5 has gotten a marketplace as well. Windows Marketplace is Microsoft’s version of the App Store, App Catalog or Android Marketplace. The store is available on Windows Mobile 6, 6.1 and 6.5 devices. While not the best designed application store, is does provide a way for Windows Mobile users to get all the apps they want in one place.

Overall the improvements of Windows Mobile are great. Microsoft has really made an effort to speed up the development of Windows Mobile and version 6.5 is a worthy upgrade. It might not carry all the fancy animation as webOS or the iPhone but it is still one of the most mature Smartphone brands and deserves a look.

The only thing you should have a problem with, is deciding which one of the many Windows Mobile 6.5 devices suits your style.

Windows 7 Review: My thoughts after using for 7 months

Fahad — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:13:47 +0000

Things haven’t been going too well in Microsoft’s OS department. The software giant has in recent years faced steep competition from Apple. And although Cupertino has failed to make a serious dent in Microsoft’s market dominance, they have been more then able to tarnish the crown of Redmond.

With the release of Windows 7 later this week, Microsoft hopes to dispel some of the doubts that have been placed on its OS. So how does it stack up? Is Windows 7 a memory hog like Vista, and more importantly can systems older then three years run the 7^th installment of Windows?

DESIGN:

Windows 7 has seen one of Microsoft’s more radical changes to the UI of its operating system. While it’s still easy to tell that this is 100% Windows, things have changed since Windows 3.0 and Microsoft has taken note of that. One of the best examples of this is the redesign of the start menu as well as task bar. In older versions of Windows (even Vista), grouping programs were a lot more complicated. For instance more then 5 windows had to be opened before similar windows were grouped. That has changed in 7. Not only does the taskbar group programs, but programs, documents, videos, music, pictures etc. can be pinned to the taskbar (kind of like the same way on the Mac OS). If you rather the past, this can always be reverted to the regular taskbar setup.

Another change in design has been the omission of the sidebar that was introduced three years ago in Vista. Widgets are back but the sidebar has been removed completely so widgets can be floated anywhere on the desktop.

Other additions to the UI include the ability to “peek” at the desktop by dragging the mouse to the far right of the taskbar. The whole UI has gotten a but more transparent and desktop backgrounds can be changed at user defined time intervals.

Overall the redesign of the UI is not one that is meant to reinvent the wheel but rather refine it. Has Microsoft succeeded at this task? Yes they have.

PERFORMANCE:

This is probably going to be the make or break for many people, especially those interested in upgrading older systems. While I have never had any major problems with Vista, I do have to confess that it was a memory hog and if you wanted anything to run decent, 2GB of RAM was the least that was needed. That said, many of those who upgraded were not aware of the memory or processor requirements and got burned by the “Vista Compatible” sticker.

Using Windows 7 for the past 7 months (ironic I know ), I have had enough time to test it out in many different environments. One of the major flaws of Vista was the fact that graphics rendering was (in simple terms) an overlay and not an entire redesign.

This caused the system to require more processing power (RAM and CPU) in order to deal with the extra graphical elements. Although Windows 7 is even more graphical intense then Vista, Microsoft has re written the code behind the OS to free up more memory. But even more importantly they have also taken note of the netbook crowd and built in a few features so that those in the Intel Atom arena can have a piece of the pie also.

Overall, load times have been decreased and processing power has been increased. Boot time is significantly faster on Windows 7 then Vista. On average I’ve been able to boot to the login screen in just under 15 seconds from a cold restart. More impressive is the fact that the system becomes fully functional in about 30-45 seconds.

Microsoft has also taken out the annoying warning messages that made their first appearances in Vista, namely the dreaded UAC. While the ones in Vista could be shut down at will, Microsoft has taken special attention to only warn users on important changes to their system such as the installation of new programs, downloads or requests to access registry files.

Another big improvement is the search function which, from my firsthand experience, has been greatly improved since Vista. Searching for anything on the computer is a lot faster thanks to better indexing algorithms implemented in Windows 7.

Support for older drivers and software has also been retained. I have been able to get drivers and software well over 5 years old to install without a hitch on Windows 7. Another great feature is that Windows 7 can automatically check for updated drivers to help the device run better on the new OS.

In Windows 7, Internet Explorer has entered version 8. The latest version promises to be the most secure yet, while also promising better support for HTML 5, JavaScript and other web languages (something IE6 was notorious for paying no attention to).

CONCLUSION:

All in all, the changes in Windows 7 have been huge. Yes it might seem like a service pack to many, but playing around with the OS for a few minutes can easily dispel those thoughts, and its clear to see Microsoft has put a large amount of time and resources into the development of this, the latest version of Windows!

When it launches on October 22 to the mass public, it will be available in various versions including Home, Premium, Professional, Ultimate and Starter edition (licensed for netbooks and nettops only).

Is it worth the upgrade? Seeing that Vista has finally become a stable OS, it all depends. If you have the money to spend, there is no reason why you shouldn’t upgrade. You will not regret it. If you have an older system you might want to check before. While I have heard of people being able to run Windows 7 on Pentium 4 and 3 systems, I would not advise you to try it unless you’re prepared for whatever troubles arise later on. If you ask me though, I would recommend an update to Windows 7 if your system is capable of handling it.

Buying a new Windows laptop? It’s a no brainer, Windows 7 is one of the best OS to be released by Redmond and after a few hours with a Windows 7 machine, you’ll see what all the hype is about!

PSP Go Review: A closer look at the new Sony PSP Go

Fahad — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:06:55 +0000

The new PSP Go is a not a replacement to the original PSP (now PSP 3000). Sony classifies it as an alternative, mainly something that is more portable, and we might add a little more expensive. Starting at $250 the PSP Go has taken on the price of the original PSP when it was first released. Sony hopes that through a tight integration with PlayStation Online as well as PS3 they can get more then a few of these consoles off the shelves.

DESIGN:

The PSP Go is a radical change from the original PSP. While it is clear that the PSP Go and the original PSP are siblings there are quite a few differences between both systems. For instance the screen is smaller then the original (although the resolution is the same). The PSP Go has a 3.8 widescreen TFT LCD display (16:9) which boasts 480 x 272 pixels. The PSP 3000 carries a 4.3 widescreen TFT LCD with 480 x 272 pixels.

The controls have been changed also. Instead of being on either side of the screen they now slide out from underneath the screen. However, they are all located in approximate locations except for the analog stick, select and start buttons which are located towards the center. The left bumper and right bumper buttons are still located at the top of the screen. But the volume, WLAN and other controls are located at the top of the device. The device also supports Bluetooth 3.0 meaning that a variety of compatible Bluetooth headsets can be paired.

One of the biggest changes is the addition of a new 16GB internal memory (still expandable though), integrated battery (to prevent hacking) as well as a new proprietary connector meaning PSP 3000 accessories will not work with the Go. Moreover Sony has removed the UMD reader from this version so all games, movies, etc will have to be downloaded.

PERFORMANCE:

Overall the performance of the PSP Go is comparable to that of the PSP 3000. However there are some drawbacks. For those used to the control arrangements of the PSP 3000, the placement of the analog switch on the PSP Go will be very awkward. That said, the right and left bumper buttons are a lot better then that of the PSP 3000.

Although screen resolution is the same, as we said before the size of the screen is smaller. While this is not a big deal for movies the smaller screen real estate might hamper your game experience.

One of the most controversial features of the Go is its lack of a UMD drive. Sony decided to omit this for portability reasons. At first Sony had promised that people who owned UMD versions of a game would be able to get a free download credit for that game on the Go. However, that deal was soon bagged and as such, left many people with large game libraries out in the cold.

But our major gripe is the fact that downloading large games can take quite a long time. Most PSP games range from 1GB to 1.5-2GB and as you can imagine downloading onto the Go can be a pain to say the least.

The processor provides around about the same performance as the PSP 3000 so there shouldn’t be any noticeable difference there.

CONCLUSION:

So the major question will ultimately be is whether the PSP Go is worth it? If you’re used to the PSP 3000 you might want to play with a store demo before you drop your $250 on this. On the other hand if you’re looking for a new gaming system and have your eyes peeled between the DSi and the PSP Go, you should definitely check out the PSP Go. Just be prepared for life without a physical disk or cartridge.

Download Google Chrome Offline Installer

Fahad — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:54:15 +0000

Google Chrome is one of the premier browsers nowadays and is in much demand due to its popular features such as fast browsing, low resource usage, clean/minimal user interface and ofcourse the trustable google brand. Google Chrome has seen immense growth since its launch and has a market share of about 3% right now. The official Google Chrome website lets you download the latest stable version or the beta version. If you decide to download through there, you will download a small file around 500kB which itself is only the google chrome installer and not the actual browser. The installer will then download the browser which should be around 8MB. This is all good and such but you may experience problems when you have to install the browser on several computers, and some of which may not have internet connectivity. The solution is to download the google chrome offline installer.

Steps to Download Google Chrome Offline Installer

Once you click the “Download Google Chrome” button on the chrome website, you are taken to the google chrome terms of service page which will have an “accept and install” button. If you click the button now, you will only be able to download the 500kb google chrome installer file, which is not the file you need.
To download the google chrome offline installer, add “?standalone=1″ (without the quotes) at the end of the url on the address bar so your full url should be http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?standalone=1
Once you have added the above line into your address bar and hit the enter button, you will notice that the page will reload but there wont be any noticeable changes. This time, however, if you click the “accept and install” button, you will be prompted to download a bigger sized file around 8-9MB. This is the Google Chrome Offline Installer!
Download the file and use it at any computer you desire.

Similarly, if you want to download the latest beta version chrome offline installer, just add the “standalone=1″ parameter at the end of the address bar though you will need to add the “&” sign before this parameter to separate it from the beta version parameter. The final url after you have added the above parameter, should be http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=betachannel&standalone=1

Improve Battery Life of your Laptop Battery with BatteryCare

Fahad — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:19:23 +0000

If you frequently use a laptop to manage your work then you will definitely want to increase its mobility performance by optimizing the usage of its battery. One such software that can help you with this task is BatteryCare. BatteryCare can help you to optimize the usage and performance of your laptop battery resulting in an improved battery life. It offers many useful features which you can utilize with the help of a button through its interface. Many laptops on the market come with some sort of a pre-installed software to manage your battery usage but lack one thing or another. With BatteryCare you can choose to pause services or disable the Aero theme altogether, when laptop battery is being used, to maximize the timing of your battery. Another advantage of BatteryCare is that it is updated regularly with more tweaks and performance upgrades to ensure greater improvement for your laptop battery.

Some of the features of BatteryCare are:

Battery’s discharge cycles monitoring: The advanced algorithm within the program accurately calculates when a complete discharge cycle is performed and promptly reminds you when a full discharge is required.

Complete battery information: BatteryCare is able to calculate the statistical remaining time in laptops that do not support the battery time left information and only show the charge percentage remaining. It also shows all the information pertaining to the battery such as wear level, consumption, capacities, manufacturer, etc.

Notification area information: The remaining time and charge level are shown on the notification area when the laptop is in battery mode.
Automatic power plans switching: Pre-defined settings can be automatically initiated depending on the power source of the computer.
Control over Windows Aero and demanding Services: Aero Theme, as well as other demanding services, can be automatically configured to be stopped when the laptop enters battery mode. Once a power source is used, all stopped services are automatically run again. This helps to improve battery life of your laptop computer as well as to provide convinience to you so you dont have to stop/start the services yourself.
Auto-updates: The program updates itself whenever a new version is released.
Lightweight in the system: To help with the effort of battery performance, BatteryCare uses a minute amount of system resources so it does not negatively affect battery time nor does it slow down your pc whatsoever.

Download BatteryCare to improve battery life

New URL Shortening Service from Stumbleupon, Su.pr

Fahad — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:30:24 +0000

If you have heard of twitter or use it on a regular basis than you would know about the popular URL shortening services like TinyURL or bit.ly or is.gd. Ever since twitter has gained popularity, these url shortening services have been in much demand so that tweets remain within the 140 characters limit imposed by twitter. Not only are shorter URLs used in twitter, but they are used quite frequently on sites like Facebook and Orkut. Having smaller URLs makes the presentation of things much cleaner and nicer.

Just a couple of days ago, Stumbleupon, released a url shortening service of their own at su.pr. Much like other services, users will easily be able to shorten their long urls to just a few characters. Some features of this service include the ability of tracking a certain URL of yours so you can easily view how many times it has been accessed and more. Currently, this service is in closed beta but you can get your invite code by following stumbleupon on twitter. Keep an eye out for invite codes which you can use on that certain day to sign up to the service.

Download Google Chrome 3

Fahad — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:58:27 +0000

Only recently was Google Chrome 2 released as a stable version and work on Google Chrome 3 has already begun. As is the case, you can download the new google chrome 3 browser through the dev channel. This is a very early release so if you plan to try it out then be prepared to face errors and crashes along the way. Google Chrome 3, at present, does not have a lot of new features but as it will be closer to its release we will be able to identify the full new features included in the release.The notable features so far are:

Themes are enabled by default in Google Chrome 3.0 for Windows, Linux and Mac
Support for video tags
Increased cookie limit up to 3000, matching Firefox 3.5
Fixes for issues with various Google Chrome UI elements and numerous other bugs

To download Google Chrome 3, click here. You are once again reminded that this is a dev channel release and will be prone to bugs and crashes. Only install for testing purposes.

How to Transfer DVD Movies to your iPod

Fahad — Thu, 14 May 2009 06:58:10 +0000

If you have an iPod Video device, then you know how exciting it can be when you are able to store your favourite music and movies on this powerful piece of technology. Having a selection of movies on your iPod provides you with quick access to them wherever you are and whenever you want. The reasons for wanting to have DVD movies on your iPod may differ but many of us don’t know how to make this possible. If you are one of these unsuspecting individuals, then below is a small guide on how to transfer your beloved movies to your iPod with ease.

I bought an iPod Touch recently and was able to put some DVD movies in it for my own entertainment. Believe me when I say that you would be surprised to know the amount of people (including total strangers) who are curious to know how I succeeded in getting movies onto my IPOD. So let me tell you “the secret”. The process simply involves converting a movie from the DVD format to the video format suitable for iPod’s. As you may know, iPods use MPEG-4 video format along with H.264 codec – so this is the video format that you need for your DVD movies. Also, you will need a good converting program (from DVD to iPod) to guarantee that the conversion process goes as it should.

You can be playing the movie on your iPod after completing the following two steps:

Convert the DVD to MPEG-4 format using Free DVD to iPod
Upload the videos on your iPod by utilizing iTUNES

There are some important aspects that you should look out for when you choose a DVD converting program. They are: speed, audio and video quality, that the software installation process is straightforward, etc. You should make sure that the program converts ALL types of DVD formats and if you can convert other format types so that you can make full use of it with other converting tasks that you may want to do. It is beneficial to download movies in other formats from P2P networks or YouTube for the purpose of uploading movies to your iPod. You are allowed to download various programs for free but be sure to check if they work for your particular converting needs.

To accomplish our task of converting a DVD movie to iPod format, we will be using Free DVD to iPod, which is an easy to use program that will handle our task easily. Following is a screenshot for this software. You can view the authors website by clicking here and you can download the software by clicking here.

After you convert the DVD format into the iPod format, you should then select and add the video to your iTUNES Library. From here, simply upload it on your iPod. The next thing you need to do is get ready to watch your favourite movies! The notion of uploading your DVD movies on to an iPod is just the process of converting them into the iPod format and that’s all it takes. Once completed, you will be able to enjoy movies on your iPod, wherever you go!

Get Free 1 Year BitDefender Internet Security 2009 Genuine License Key

Fahad — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:52:01 +0000

There aren’t many Internet Security tools out there that can match the performance and reliability of BitDefender Internet Security. BitDefender Internet Security 2009 provides amazing proactive state of the art protection against threats ranging from viruses to spywares to hackers and to phishing attacks. In short, BitDefender Internet Security provides you with the protection you need to securely surf the internet without having to worry about the precussions. Your valuable information such as credit card info, email credentials, personal files, will remain safe if you have an effective tool to protect you. Registering BitDefender Internet Security 2009 will give you free hourly updates as well as free 24/7 customer support.

Raymond has shared a very useful way by which anyone can get a free genuine BitDefender Internet Security 2009 serial key. I will be briefly mentioning the steps that you need to get your very own genuine license key.

1. Go to this page: http://www.securitasdirect.es/antivirus_gratis.html

2. On the left side of the webpage, you will see a small grey text box with two textboxes. See the following image that I am talking about.

3. In the first text box, enter your name. In the second box, enter your email and then click the “Enviar Solicitud” button.

4. Check your email. You should have received an email from ENVIARAUNAMIGO.COM (infoafiliados@securitasdirect.es) with the subject Licencia antivirus de regalo. Your license key is also in that email, so search for it and copy it to a safer location.

5. You need to download the BitDefender Internet Security 2009 software now. You can download it by clicking here(Thanks to Raymond for providing the direct link).

6. The rest should be pretty simple. Install BitDefender Internet Security 2009 and when it asks for a license key, just copy and paste it and you should be good to go.

I am not sure how long this promotion offer will remain up so hurry up and get your free BitDefender Internet Security 2009 license key. Once again, thanks to Raymond for sharing this promotional offer.

Microsoft to Release Windows 7 before the end of January 2010

Fahad — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 07:30:22 +0000

Microsoft has announced that Windows 7 will be released no later than January 2010, although it is expected that it may be out well before that. The eagerly awaited OS is awaited by many after a very successful beta launch conducted in January of this year. ITPro were the ones who confirmed this news from Microsoft. According to the article at ITPro, Laurence Painell, Windows OEM and WGA marketing manager stated the following to ITPro:

“We made a promise that we would release Windows 7 no later than three years after Vista. This gives us until January 2010 and we are confident it will be released by then, if not earlier.”

Windows 7 Release Candidate version is rumored to be out by next month which would mean that we would be getting closer to the final Windows 7 release and if that is the case than Windows 7 should be out before the end of the year.

Download Windows 7 Drivers

Fahad — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:44:40 +0000

Windows 7 Beta has been downloaded by thousands of enthusiastic users since its launch and has received great reviews from users from around the world. Windows 7 adds many new features and fixes over the current Windows Vista. One thing which many people will have trouble with, is finding Windows 7 compatible drivers for their devices. Although not many people know that Windows 7 structure is very similar to that of Windows Vista so in essence, drivers for most devices for Windows Vista should work in Windows 7.

So if you just installed Windows 7 or just installed a new device, head on over to the manufacturer’s website and download the latest drivers for Windows Vista. In most cases, your drivers should install no problem and you shouldn’t have any problems with your device. If however, you are displayed an error regarding compatibility, then you will need to force the installer to work with Windows 7. I have mentioned the steps to do this below:

Right click on the driver .exe file and click “Troubleshoot Compatibility”.
A program compatibility windows will open and ask you a questioned related to your problem. You have to choose “The program worked in earlier versions of Windows but won’t install or run now”.
You will then see a list of operating systems. Choose Windows Vista and click next.
Windows 7 will associate the program compatibility with Windows 7 and you will be able to open the installer now.

The drivers should now install flawlessly.

Even though Windows Vista drivers will work in most cases, there may be a device which will refuse to work. This means that the device requires Windows 7 specific drivers to work. Head on over to the manufacturer site to see if they have released drivers for Windows 7. NVIDIA has a page about Windows 7 here. ATI also has beta drivers for some of its graphics cards. Installing drivers for Intel hardware(including Realtek audio drivers) should work if you apply the compatibility trick mentioned above. You may also look at drivers for Windows 7 at Microsoft Hardware Support site. You can expect companies to release drivers for Windows 7 as it inches closer to its release.

Download Windows 7 Codecs

Fahad — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:22:37 +0000

Windows 7 has seen an improvement in the media side as it adds support for H.264, Xvid, and DivX. This support was added by Microsoft so that most of the media files downloaded from the internet could be easily played using Windows Media Player without the user having the need to install additional codecs or another media player. Although this addition seems to cover support for the most downloaded media from internet, there are still many more formats which are not natively supported by Windows 7. You may choose to install a new media player like VLC Media Player or Media Player Classic to give you support for even more media formats or install a codec package so that you wil never have to worry if Windows Media Player will be able to play the file or not.

Although popular codec packages like K-Lite still appear to work in Windows 7, you would want to install a codec package that was intended for Windows 7 so that you do not encounter any problems later on. The release of Windows 7 Codecs Package, from the author of Windows Vista Codec Package, gives you the peace of mind to install Windows 7 codecs without having to worry about compatibility issues. You can download Windows 7 Codecs from here.

The Windows 7 Codecs Package will not install any media player or change associations for any file types whatsoever. The installer will automatically remove any existing popular codec package to avoid any problems. You can remove the codecs package or part of the codecs package at anytime you want. Have fun with Windows 7!

Download Free Data Recovery Software to Recover Deleted Files

Fahad — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:20:51 +0000

Everyone has the need for data recovery software at one time or another. You may have deleted a file by mistake or a virus may have trashed your important files. I myself have used data recovery software in the past to recover several gigabytes of crucial data after a hard drive format. It is a tedious and time consuming work but if the data is important to you than it must be done. Recovering data from hard drives is made easier if you use a good data recovery software. There are lots of data recovery software on the market but choosing the right one amongst them can be a hard choice. I shall be discussing with you a free data recovery software called TestDisk which is one of the better data recovery software available right now.

TestDisk is an open source data recovery software which is able to recover lost files or lost partitions. As I said earlier, data recovery should be used when you have accidentally deleted a file by mistake or a virus deleted your files. Due to its nature, data recovery does not yield 100% recovery rate but you should still be able to recover important data and use it when needed. Some features of TestDisk are listed below:

It is able to fix partition table and recover a deleted partition
Recover FAT32 boot sector from backup
Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector
Fix FAT tables
Rebuild boot sector for NTFS
Recover boot sector of NTFS from backup
Fix MFT using MFT mirror
Locate ext2/ext3 Backup SuperBlock
Recover and restore files from FAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem
Copy files from deleted FAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3 partitions.

Download TestDisk from the official site. TestDisk is an advanced and powerful data recovery software although helpful step-by-step instructions at the official TestDisk site should provide a novice user with ample amount of help to succeed in recovering lost data. To undelete files from an NTFS system, check these instructions or for FAT file system, use these instructions. If you want to do something else, like recovering partition tables or fixing FAT tables, check out their documentation as it is an invaluable source of help.

Transform Windows XP into Windows 7 using Seven Remix XP

Fahad — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:39:00 +0000

It has been more then a month since Windows 7 beta was relased to the public and unfortunately you cannot download the beta legally anymore. If you missed the chance to download windows 7 but still want to experience it than transforming your Windows XP into Windows 7 will give you a good visual feel to it. Seven Remix XP is a free software which enables you to transform Windows XP to Windows 7. The GUI for Windows XP will be improved and will be given a feel just like that of Windows 7. The program will replace your system files and graphic resources files for icons, etc so use the program with caution.

The above screenshot shows you how your Windows XP desktop will look like after you transform it to Windows 7.

Requirements to use Seven Remix:

Windows XP (Home, Pro, Corporate, RTM, SP1, SP2, SP3)
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
Windows Media Center Edition (2003-2005)
Windows 2003 (Datacenter, Web, RTM, SP1, Standard, Enterprise)
Any language version of the above Operating Systems
Seven Remix will not work with 64 bit versions of Windows!

Seven Remix will replace your existing system files and will make a backup of them as well. You can uninstall the program to revert back to Windows XP style anytime you want. You can go to the author page by clicking here or you an download the program from here directly.

[Via Nirmaltv]

Tweak Windows 7 with Ultimate Windows Tweaker

Fahad — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:55:15 +0000

Windows 7 is in the making of being a big hit when it is released and even though many people liked the Windows 7 beta, some like to personalize the UI and many other smaller things to their liking. This is where Ultimate Windows Tweaker can help you. With Ultimate Windows Tweaker, you can tweak Windows 7 settings for the user interface, start menu, network tweaks, internet explorer tweaks, windows explorer and many more. There are hundreds of things that you can change with this handy tool and tweak windows 7 to your liking. It is also quite safe to use, as it creates a system restore point before any tweaking that you do so if you happen to mess something up, you can easily go back to the old settings.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker was initially designed for Windows 7 but they have ported it to work with Windows 7 just fine. When you run the program, it is able to recognize your version of windows and offer you tweaks according to that. The file size for this program is only 380KB. As Windows 7 progresses further, you can expect to see even more tweaks added to this program. You can download Ultimate Windows Tweaker by going to their download page. The download page also lists the available tweaks that you can perform. Stay tuned for more tips and tricks for Windows 7.

[Via Windows 7 Center]

Convert Word DOC and DOCX to PDF Online

Fahad — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:21:42 +0000

Today I came across a situation where I needed to convert a doc file to pdf because Microsoft Office wasn’t installed on the computer I was workind on and wordpad wouldn’t open the file either. I quickly asked a friend and he referred me to an online doc to pdf converter at DOC2PDF. I used the site to convert approximately 20 DOC/DOCX files to PDF format. I was very impressed with the service due to several factors:

Quality: The quality of the converted document was excellent and only required minimum changes.
File Support: DOC2PDF supports many formats and I was surprised to see they supported DOCX format which is the new format that Word saves documents in Office 2007. Excel and PowerPoint can also be converted to PDF format.
Images: Embedded images in the original DOC file did not lose much quality during the conversion.
Speed: The files were converted quite quickly by their server which was an added bonus and saved me quite a bit of time!

In conclusion, I was quite impressed with their service and will definitely be using it again when the need arises.