We have previously reviewed some VPN and Proxy tools like Astrill, Ultrasurf and CCProxy etc. In this article I am going to review one of the finest and most effective VPN service called ibVPN.

The configuration of this tool is slightly complex, but unlike other tools, this is a true low level VPN service, not a utility. ibVPN will create a tunnel to the VPN server and routes your traffic through that tunnel.

The configuration of VPN is a bit tricky but the tutorials given on the website are really elaborate. Below are the tutorials for configuring ibVPN on your computer :

1. Configure ibVPN on Windows 7
2. Configure ibVPN on Windows Vista
3. Configure ibVPN on Windows XP
4. Configure ibVPN on Mac OS

After you are done with the configuration, you can simply connect using your username and password for which you need to register with ibVPN. For free account giveaway see the rules at the end of the article.

This is my external IP address before connecting:

Then I connect to the VPN and it routes my traffic through a tunnel. This will change my IP address.

This is my external IP address after connecting to VPN:

I really like the speed and effectiveness of this VPN. To win a free account for US or UK VPN servers for 3 months, you need to do the following :

1. Subscribe To Our Email Newsletter.
2. Follow @technixupdate on twitter and tweet this text in brackets – [ ibVPN Giveaway – Win 20 Free Accounts - http://bit.ly/9vTytB via @technixupdate ]
3. Leave a comment below.

The winners will be chosen randomly out of the participants. Winners will be announced on this article after 25 Feb 2010. Their free account activation codes will be emailed to winners after the contest ends.

Network Password Decryptor is a free program which allows you recover the network passwords stored in the ‘Credential Store’ of Windows. Windows ‘Credential Store‘ provides the framework for storing various network authentication based passwords in secure encrypted format. Not only Windows uses it to store network authentication passwords, but also other applications such as Outlook, Windows Live Messenger, Remote Desktop, Gmail Notifier etc.

Note: These network passwords are saved only when the user has selected ‘Remember Password’ option during login time, this tool works on all windows from xp to windows 7

These network passwords are stored in encrypted format and even administrator cannot view these passwords. Also some type of passwords cannot be decrypted even by administrators as they require special privileges, but Network Password Decryptor allows you decrypt and recover these network password stored in windows credential store.

In short It can recover following password in windows

• All network authentication passwords stored by Windows.
• Basic/Digest authentication passwords stored by Internet Explorer
• Google login password stored by GMail Notifier
• Remote Desktop stored passwords.
• Exchange server login passwords stored by Outlook.
• Login passwords of Windows Live Messenger

Some Related Tools

Hack and Reveal Google Chrome Password

Reset Windows Password

Recover or Hack Google Account Passwords Stored In Google Talk

Reveal Remembered Hidden Password In Opera

Hack / Recover Windows Live Messenger Password

Disclaimer: – The above tool is designed for good purpose so as to help users to recover the lost network accounts passwords, this is tool is supposed to be used for educational purpose only. We are responsible for any damage caused with this tool.

Download Network Password Decryptor

Webpage Screenshot is another cool extension which lets you capture the whole webpage, and even the long pages are saved in one single vertically long image file. This extension lets you save the entire page screen shot as a single PNG image.

As shown in the screen shot above, you can select to the screenshot of the page to different resolution or select no resize at all, click the button Visible screenshot to take the page screenshot of the visible section of the page or take All page screenshot button to take entire page screenshot.

Install Webpage Screenshot to capture web pages in google chrome  

Windows 7 Orb Changer is a freeware program which allows you to change or edit the ORB button in windows 7 or in other words the start menu image in windows 7. It is a tiny portable tool which contains some sample Orb bitmap images which you can use to change the default windows 7 start menu button image.

It contains around 33 sample start orb bitmaps which you can use in the start, then you can more orb bitmaps at google. Here are the simple steps you can take to change the Orb button in windows 7

Note: This utility is designed to work on windows 7 only, so please don’t try to use it vista or xp 

1. Extract the zip archive of the application [ download link at the bottom of the post ] and double click the executable named Windows 7 Start Orb Changer and this will open the following window.

2. Now click on the Change Orb button on the application and locate orb bitmaps, if you don’t have any orb bitmaps you can use the sample orbs bitmaps supplied with this tool, which can be found the extracted contents of the archive.

3. After selecting the orb, the windows explorer will be terminated so that the new orb can be applied, now click the button Start Explorer [ as shown in the image below ]

4. Once the explorer is restarted you will see the new orb button applied in windows 7 taskbar as shown in the image below.

Download Windows 7 Start Orb Changer

If you have ever downloaded any file from rapidshare, then you must be knowing about this countdown which gets started when you try to download any file, this reverse countdown starts at around 30 seconds normally which means you need to wait whether you wish or not before you can start downloading the file from rapidshare server.

In such a case there are two useful extension which can help you download files smoothly from rapidshare, the first extension allows you to download a file quickly by removing the download counter from rapidshare. Another extension allows you to download the file automatically once the countdown is over that means you no longer need to keep a watch on the rapidshare download page.

RapidShare Countdown Remover [ via Life Rocks 2.0 ]– You just need to install this extension, and then when ever you visit rapidshare to download any file without facing the countdown.

In any case if the above extension does not work for you, or you may want the file to download automatically without any input from your side then you can try the another extension given below

RapidShare Download Helper – It will start your download once ready, RapidShare Download Helper will monitor time limitations and will auto-start your download.

Both of these above extension are useful if you download files from rapidshare and you use google chrome as a browser, We hope you like the above two extensions featured above for making downloading easy from rapidshare.

Some times you may have such a great or amazing wallpaper like the one shown below, that you may not want to spoil the look with desktop icons being shown in the screen shot below this text, but desktop icons could be really useful so you may need them quickly launching the apps for which you have created these shortcuts.

In such a case there is freeware program which solves the program as it allow you hide or show the desktop icons very easily, the application name is HideDesktopIcons. Although we have reviewed another application called Hide Icons which also allows you to make desktop icons invisible.

Below is another screen shot of the desktop after making the desktop icons invisible.

I sure you must have like the second screen shot and you know why , without the desktop icons being shown as when the desktop icons are gone the beauty of the wallpaper comes out. I would suggest you to keep the shortcut of HideDesktopIcons in the taskbar so that you can quickly access it, or keep it in the quick launch if you are using Vista or XP. This little application runs on all windows.  

Download HideDesktopIcons

It could be a case when you have executable file of the flash animation, but you might have lost the swf flash files and now you want to extract the swf file from the executable which hides swf inside in it. Exe2Swf is a small tool which lets you extract and recover the original SWF from the executable which contains the swf.

This is small portable tool which does not require any installation, so double clicking the exe runs this tool directly and you will need to locate the exe which contains the swf, the extracted swf file will be found in the same directory where the executable is placed. The swf you extract with this tool will be uncompressed exe.

Related Resources:

Free Flash SWF Protection Encryption Program

Copy and Save Flash Animations [.swf ] Files From Internet

Send a .swf ActiveX File via Outlook Email

Note: exe2swf may not work on projectors created with third party tools like SWF Studio because they bundle their SWF files differently than Flash does.

Download Exe2Swf

Wallpaper Juggler is a great automatic wallpaper downloader and changer, we had previously posted about a cool Bing Wallpaper Downloader but the tool we are talking about today seems to be more intelligent and useful.

Following are some impressive key features of this amazing wallpaper downloader and changer.

1. It runs in background with a icon in System Tray can be configured from there.
2. It can be configured to
1. It can be set to start with windows.
2. It can look for wallpapers in multiple folders including/excluding subfolders.
3. It change wallpaper once every preferred duration between 1 min and 500 hrs.
4. It can pop up a message to confirm before changing wallpaper.
5. It can adjust image positioning for odd size wallpapers as per your screen resoultion.
3. You can manually by clicking ‘Juggle Now’ menu or double clicking the icon in system tray.
4. Last changed wallpaper is a clickable menu which opens the wallpaper in windows explorer.
5. It downloads stunning wallpapers from interfaceLIFT.com and WallpaperStock.com using "Download Wallpapers" screen.

Here are some screenshots of different sections of the program interface

Preferences

Download Wallpapers Window

System Tray Menu

Download Wallpaper Juggler [ Source – TheWindowsClub ]

Upside Down allows you to turn any webpage upside down in google chrome, this way you can play a prank on your friends computer by turning any page upside down in google chrome.

How to Use this extension to flip pages upside down

This extension does not add any button in the google chrome toolbar, rather you will need to go to Extensions and then click options button on on this google chrome extension and then configure the time in seconds after which whole pages or images should turn upside down. 

Please note that existing tabs already opened in google chrome will not turn upside down but the new tabs after enabling this extension will turn upside down.

Install Upside Down Google Chrome Extension

Google Chrome dictionary extension allows you to view definitions of the word easily from any webpage you are browsing, many times you may notice some words on any webpage you visit for which you don’t know the meaning.

In order to the know the meaning of a word on a webpage just double click the word to view its definition in a small pop up bubble, by clicking more link in the pop up description as shown in the above image you can see view the complete definition.

It supports monolingual dictionaries in the following languages.
  – Chinese, Simplified (中文 – 简体)
  – Chinese, Traditional (中文 – 繁體)
  – Czech (Český)
  – Dutch (Nederlands)
  – English
  – French (Français)
  – German (Deutsch)
  – Italian (Italiano)
  – Korean (한국어)
  – Russian (Русский)
  – Spanish (Español)

You can set the dictionary extension options, like language and whether you want to show in address bar [ as shown in the image below ]

Install Google Dictionary Extension for google chrome | You can read about some other useful google chrome addons