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.

• 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.

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!

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.

“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.

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:

1. Right click on the driver .exe file and click “Troubleshoot Compatibility”.
2. 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”.
3. You will then see a list of operating systems. Choose Windows Vista and click next.
4. 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.

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!

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.

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]

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]

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.

First Method to Download Imeem Music MP3

Note: This first method only works for downloading imeem music. You cannot download video files using this method. This method only works with Mozilla Firefox.

1. Go to File2HD.com

2. Input the URL of the song you want to download. For example:
http://www.imeem.com/neyo/music/Yp5LGwXJ/neyo_mad

3. Check the agreement box and hit the “Get Files” button.

4. Wait for the website to fetch the download link. You will see one media file listed on the page. I have attached an image so you can see how it is listed.

5. As instructed, right click on the url and choose the “Save Link As…” option. Wait a while for the download to begin. It may begin within a few seconds or it may take up to a couple of minutes.

Second Method to Download Imeem Video and Music Files

This is an unreliable method to download imeem video and music files. You will be required to use Internet Explorer and you will be locating the video file among your temporary internet files. You can use this method to download both imeem music and video files although I would highly recommend you to use the first method to download Imeem Music.

1. Go to the imeem video page and let it load to 100%.

2. Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\*USERNAME*\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files. This may be different then your temporary file folder so just open the folder by opening Internet Explorer and going to “Tools -> Internet Options -> Settings -> View Files”.

3. You will now locate the temporary file for your video. Sort the folder into descending order by size. Your desired file will have a huge filename and will most likely be in “.gif” extension. It will have one of the largest size and the “Internet Address” column will have a link containing the phrase “imeem”. Locate your file and copy it somewhere else. Rename the extension to “.flv”.
Here is a a screenshot of one such file(click for full-size view).

5. You will need a FLV player to play the file. VLC Media Player is also able to play FLV files. To convert the file into another format like AVI, you will need a converter. SUPER is a free converter which you can use.

Third Method to Download Imeem Music or Video

This method involves Internet Download Manager(IDM). It is a world class software and can be helpful to do many tasks easily. Newer versions of IDM enable you to download any streaming content and a button is shown above the video or audio player. IDM has a 30 day fully functioning trial version so you can use it for free for 30 days. You can use this method on either Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox.

1. Go to the IDM download page and start downloading IDM.

2. Install IDM to your computer and be sure to have it integrated into your browsers.

3. Open up any video or music at Imeem.

4. Let the Video or Audio load to 100%. This is very important!

5. Once it is loaded 100%, you can click the “Download this Video” button for IDM, specify your desired location to save the file, and your video will be saved there instantly. If you see more then one file when you click “Download this video”, just try each one in turn and bear in mind that only one of those files will work, the other will give an error.

You can use SUPER(free program) to convert any audio FLV file to MP3. You can also convert it to any other format you want, such as iPod compatible, mp4, .3gp, etc. You can also convert your downloaded video file to several different video formats such as avi, wav, etc.

So that’s a solid list of three ways for you to download imeem music and video files. If you have any trouble, just leave a comment below and I will help you out!

Download Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1

Download Internet Explorer 8 RC1 for Windows XP

Download Internet Explorer 8 RC1 for Windows Vista

Internet Explorer 8 adds a ton of new features and promises to be a great piece of software. The IE team has added many features that people enjoy in firefox and other browsers. A brief list of new features in Internet Explorer 8 are:

• Smart Address Bar
• Tab Grouping
• InPrivate Browsing
• Suggested Sites
• Tab Crash Resolution

For a full list of the new features in Internet Explorer 8 and their explanations, head on over to lifehacker.

RemoveWatermark is a freeware universal patcher that lets you remove watermarks from not only Windows 7 but also Windows Vista RTM, Windows Vista SP1, Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 SP2. RemoveWatermark supports both 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems so you can use with either version of your Windows 7. All languages are supported. The zip file that you will download contains two executable files, RemoveWatermarkX86.exe is to be used on 32-bit systems and RemoveWatermarkX64.exe is to be used on 64-bit systems.  You can download the zip file for RemoveWatermark from rapidshare or mediafire.

How to Remove Watermarks from Windows 7

1. Firstly, you will need to have administrators rights to run this program. You do not need to boot in Safe Mode to run this program. The program will work just fine in normal mode.
2. Open the exe file that corresponds to your system(either RemoveWatermarkX86.exe or RemoveWatermarkX64.exe)
3. Read the instructions listed and type ‘Y’ and hit enter to patch.
4. Restart your computer so that changes will take affect.

The file that you patched is “user32.dll” located in \windows\system32\user32.dll. A backup copy of the original file will also be created by this patch at \windows\system32\user32.dll.backup.

This method works perfectly and removes watermarks from windows 7. If you have any problems, ask for help through the comments below and I will be of as much help as I can.

How to get your Windows 7 Key:

1. Go to Microsoft Technet website and sign in using your Microsoft Live Hotmail account.

2. Copy and Paste the following link into your address bar where you have your microsoft technet website open.
http://tinyurl.com/technodorm-win7-key

3. Your Windows 7 Key will be shown. Save it to a safe location and use it activate your Windows 7 installation.

This method works as I have used it myself. If you have any questions regarding this method, feel free leave me a comment below.

Update: I have just found out that the keys you get using this method are not unique. You will only get 5 unique keys for 32-bit version of Windows 7 and 5 unique for 64-bit version. Following are the keys that you will get using this method. They will work fine so just use them!

Windows 7 Keys for 32-Bit version:

6JKV2-QPB8H-RQ893-FW7TM-PBJ73
QXV7B-K78W2-QGPR6-9FWH9-KGMM7
GG4MQ-MGK72-HVXFW-KHCRF-KW6KY
4HJRK-X6Q28-HWRFY-WDYHJ-K8HDH
TQ32R-WFBDM-GFHD2-QGVMH-3P9GC

Windows 7 Keys for 64-bit version:

482XP-6J9WR-4JXT3-VBPP6-FQF4M
7XRCQ-RPY28-YY9P8-R6HD8-84GH3
D9RHV-JG8XC-C77H2-3YF6D-RYRJ9
JYDV8-H8VXG-74RPT-6BJPB-X42V4
RFFTV-J6K7W-MHBQJ-XYMMJ-Q8DCH

Thanks for your interest in the Windows 7 Beta. The volume has been phenomenal — we’re in the process of adding more servers to handle the demand. We’re sorry for the delay and we’ll re-post the Beta as soon as we can ensure a quality download experience.

Not to worry though, Windows 7 beta direct download links have surfaced on the internet through various blogs which seem to work just fine. You can download the official Windows 7 Beta through the following links from the Microsoft site itself.

The following Direct download links are for Microsoft Windows 7 beta (build 7000.0.081212) 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Windows 7 Beta 32-bit Direct Download Link

Windows 7 Beta 64-bit Direct Download Link

I am currently downloading the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Beta at maximum speed possible on my 1mbps connection, so download speeds seem to be fine. These are the direct download links for the ISO of Windows 7 Beta version which you can use to install and use for 30 day trial period. You will need to get the key from the Windows 7 Beta download page to verify your installation.

Update: You can now get your Windows 7 Key as well.

[Via Sizzled Core]

The .daa file extension (Direct Access Archives) is the format created by PowerISO much similar to large ISO files. It is commonly used because it compresses original data, can be password-protected and is able to be split into smaller parts. The .daa files are most commonly used online to distribute large files on the internet through P2P downloads or through the bittorrent network. Even though PowerISO is free to use as trial, it has limits regarding how big file size you can open with it. It is only able to extract and open .daa files which are up to 300mb in size. Most of the downloaded .daa files you will encounter will likely be larger then this limit leaving you with no option to open .daa files. That is where a free program called daa2iso will help you.

Daa2ISO will convert your .daa file to ISO format which can easily be opened with several popular compression utility software or you can easily burn your newly created ISO file using free burning software such as Burn4Free or ImgBurn.

4 Steps to Convert .daa file to ISO and burn it to CD:

1. Download and open daa2iso.exe and select your daa file
2. Convert it to ISO and save it on your HDD.
3. Open Burn4Free or ImgBurn and select your ISO file
4. Burn it to CD or DVD as required.

Alternatively, you could use disk image emulator software which will mount your converted ISO image to a virtual drive, allowing you to see all contents within the ISO image. Some common disk image emulation software are Daemon Tools, Alcohol 120%, and MagicDisc. ISO files are also easily opened and extracted using Winrar, 7-Zip, ALZip or Universal Extractor.

There is also DAA Converter available for Mac OS X which will convert .daa files to ISO format. It is based on daa2iso software for windows. It runs on Mac OS X 10.3 Panther or later.

I hope this article helps you in achieving your goal to open .daa files. If you have any comments or questions, leave a comment and I will promptly reply.

Here is the full-press release from Kaspersky:

Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content management systems, announces the release of a technical prototype of Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Windows 7.

Windows 7 is the next release of the Microsoft Windows operating system which will replace Windows Vista and is a step forward in the development of Microsoft operating systems. The new OS will incorporate enhanced reliability, greater efficiency, an improved interface and extended working features both in global and local information networks.

The technical preview is a complex solution for securing computers running under Windows 7. The prototype includes not only an antivirus component but an effective and fully functional firewall and anti-spam filter.

At the heart of the new technical prototype is Kaspersky Lab’s new antivirus engine which is even more effective at detecting malicious programs than its predecessor. The new engine dramatically increases system scanning speed thanks to improved processing of objects and optimized use of system resources, particularly on dual- and quad-core processor platforms. The unique product architecture ensures high productivity and one of the lowest uses of system resources in the industry.

The technical preview includes a highly effective heuristic analyzer. The heuristic analyzer detects and blocks as yet unknown malicious programs. If a program signature is not included in the antivirus databases, i.e., the malicious program is unknown, the heuristic analyzer will safely launch the program in an isolated virtual environment, analyze the program’s actions and conclude with a high degree of probability whether it is potentially harmful before it is launched in a live environment.

In addition, the technical prototype includes a new user interface developed to meet the needs of both inexperienced and advanced users.

You can download Kaspersky Antivirus for Windows 7 by clicking here.

[Via Sizzled Core]

Windows Media Player 12 is the next version to be released in the windows media player series. It is currently in beta mode and is planned to be released for only Windows 7. Although, Misaki2009 from deviantART has come up with a trick that will let windows vista users install windows media player 12 on their computers.

You only need 2 core files from the Windows Media Player 12 12.0.7000.7000 for Windows 7 Build 7000 and copy those to your windows vista system folders. You need to do the following two steps to install Windows Media Player 12 on Windows Vista.

• Copy wmploc.dll in C:\Windows\System32
• Copy Windows Media Player folder to C:\Program Files

You can get the files by downloading the rar package from here.

Windows Media Player 12 has many new features that are not found in Windows Media Player 11. WMP12 is brighter and lighter then WMP11. One of the many new features is Auto Previewing which lets you listen to a 15 second preview of a song when you hover over it in WMP12. Windows Media Player 12 also adds supports for new formats including H.264 video, AAC audio, and both Xvid and DivX video. This will enable WMP12 to play most of the stuff that you are able to download from the internet.

There are also many more new features in WMP12. For a more detailed analysis, head on over to arstechnica.com where they have explained most of the new features in Windows Media Player 12.

I am interested to see if this trick works, so  please share your experiences in the comments.

The system also extracts small samples of audio files so that users can be sure they download the right stuff. For the torrent that contains several audio files there are 4 randomly chosen files that are processed and for each a 20-second sample is made. For videos the engine makes screenshots and puts them with the file. This way visitors can see the quality of the video and make sure the content matches the title. If the video is encrypted or password protected then screenshots will be blank. Such torrents are moderated  so it is hard to bump into those. Text information and archive filelists are also extracted and shown. Usually .nfo files are attached to the content with its description and it is quite handy to be able to read this description right from the site.

Another great feature that vertor has is being able to check the authencity of a torrent even if the user has downloaded the torrent from another site, although this is only for torrents that have been downloaded and added on the vertor site. For now the site has a little over 140,000 torrents and there are several thousands verified a day. If the torrent hasn’t been checked then users can upload it and it would be downloaded and verified by the system. The upload feature is now limited to 2 GB files.

Another nice feature that can be very useful for newbies is the option of downloading from the web. It launches the BitLet online torrent client and users don’t have to download torrent files and load them into various torrent clients on their computers. Last thing worth mentioning is that the site is completely ad-free. It is planned to be so as long as possible so that’s good news.

The overall concept that is implemented by VerTor is unique and has great potential! It contains torrents that are scanned for viruses, checked for protection and text/audio/graphic information is extracted. It is user-friendly as well. Vertor is probably the safest place to download torrents with ease of mind that it will work! Head on over to vertor to try their service out!