Phone on a USB

Skype, the program that makes it easy to have telephone conversations over the internet, is one of the most useful programs ever created for the PC. However, it can be frustrating and inconvenient to pitch up at a computer and discover that the program isn’t installed.

Fortunately, it’s relatively straightforward to get around this by putting a copy of Skype on a USB memory key and carrying it around – then, when the time comes to make a call, just plug the key into a spare socket and run the program as normal. Well, almost as normal. As this step by step guide explains, with only the smallest amount of tinkering it is possible to have Skype always on hand, whichever PC you’re using.

Don’t have Skype? Go to www.skype.com, download and install the software. Plug in a USB memory key and then double-click on My Computer, the main drive (usually C) then open these folders – Program Files, Skype and Phone. Open the USB key and then click and drag the Skype icon over from the hard disk to the USB key window. Next, right-click there and choose New, and then Folder and call it ‘Data’. Make sure the Skype program and the Data folder are stored at the key’s top level and not inside any other folders.

Next, click the Start button and choose All Programs, Accessories and then Notepad. We’re going to use this to create a small launch command that will make our USB-based version of Skype work properly. Type the following, exactly (including the spaces): skype.exe /datapath:"Data" /removable. Then click File, Save As and when the dialogue box opens, open the dropdown menu next to Save as type and choose All Files. Type in Skype.bat as the file name and save the file onto the memory key next to the copied Skype program.

Switch back to the open USB key window and scroll through the list of files. See the new one called Skype? To start the portable version of Skype we’ve created, double-click on this icon (be sure to choose the one that says MS-DOS Batch underneath it, not the original blue and white Skype icon). After a moment an odd-looking black window (a DOS window) appears and disappears, followed by the Skype program. Either create a new account or sign in with an existing name and password to continue and use the program as normal.

Tools for Windows...FREE

No computer runs perfectly forever. Somewhere along the line, something will go wrong. While each successive version of Windows has been that much more reliable and self healing, that's never been an argument to forgo a good collection of software tools.

Over the years I've accumulated a slew of third party troubleshooting apps that have proven their value again and again, so much so that they're among the very first programs installed in any system I use. If something goes wrong a Blue Screen of Death, a slow booting system, a recent program install that's made everything slower than molasses going uphill in January I turn to these tools to set things right. All of them are free for personal use, some are open source, and each of them deserves a place in the toolbox of the savvy Windows user.

Sysinternals's Process Explorer
"Task Manager on steroids" that's how someone described Process Explorer to me when Mark Russinovich first released it many years ago. It can replace Task Manager or run side by side with it, but either way it's an absolute must have for technically savvy users. I typically use it as the replacement for Task Manager on any PC I run; it's just too handy not to have installed.

When you launch Process Explorer, you'll see a tree view of processes; they're nominally organized by which process spawned which, but you can click on the column headers to change the sorting as you please. The top portion of the window has four graphs: CPU usage, commit history, I/O bytes history, and physical memory history. Click on one to bring up a full sized window view that's akin to the Performance tab in Task Manager but with a level of detail and insight into what programs are doing that Task Manager doesn't even come close to providing.

Double click on the name of a process, and up pops a window with a startling amount of detail: the process's running threads (and the stack for each thread), which can be frozen or killed; its permissions; its network access; the program it was launched from; even a dump of text strings in either the on disk program image or its copy in memory. Processes, or whole trees of them, can be killed off, frozen, resumed, or have their windows or priorities manipulated handy if a process window vanishes behind something else and you need to force it to the front. You can also toggle on or off a lower pane that contains detailed information about a process, find the process for a particular window by pointing to it, or search by name for any running process, handle, or DLL.

System Information for Windows
No other free tool I've encountered packs as much true utility into a single executable as this one. System Information for Windows, abbreviated as SIW, has replaced more than a dozen other programs I've used that dump one kind of system or application data or another. SIW lists application license keys, probes installed hardware, fetches device temperatures, catalogs installed multimedia codecs the list seems endless.

SIW is organized into four basic categories. Three of them are available through a tree view on the left side of the program window: Software, Hardware, and Network. Click on a branch of any of those items and you'll see the right hand window pane fill with the corresponding data. The harvesting process may take a moment, especially for things like device lists, so don't freak out if you have to wait a bit before SIW pulls everything together. Half the fun of using the program is just spelunking through these three lists and seeing what's available.

The fourth category is a gaggle of miscellaneous tools in the program's Tools drop down menu. This is stuff program author Gabriel Topala apparently couldn't fit in one of the previous three areas, but still wanted to include. Among them are such goodies as Eureka, a way to expose starred out password fields in most any program; a tool for sending a wake on LAN packet to the MAC address of your choice; a BIOS dumping tool; a Base64/UUencoder decoder; a CPU stress test; and plenty more. SIW even runs in the Windows Recovery Environment.

One caveat: SIW is mostly read only. While it's good at listing or dumping out system information, it doesn't always allow you to change those settings. If you wanted to disable or enable ActiveX controls listed through SIW, for instance, you'd need to do that with a third party utility such as Nirsoft's ActiveXHelper.

BlueScreenView
In Windows, there's little worse than dealing with a Blue Screen of Death, or BSOD for short. Aside from being cryptic and difficult to decipher especially since some BSODs can have multiple causes they're just plain annoying. Granted, BSODs happen much less frequently these days, but when they do it's no less of a chore. After dealing with a whole slew of BSODs the other month which turned out to be a hardware issue I hunted around for tools to help analyze BSODs and found one that did the job and more: BlueScreenView.

When a BSOD occurs the results are, whenever possible, saved into a dump file that can be examined later. BlueScreenView scans your system for these files and produces a report from them, which you can read within BlueScreenView itself or save to HTML for separate analysis. Each line in the report describes the BSOD's crash code, the time and date of its occurrence, any parameters that might have been passed with the crash (useful for debugging), and a slew of other minor details. The results are searchable, so you can hunt for a particular crash code, driver, or DLL that you think might be present.

Another thing BlueScreenView does is list all of the device drivers that were running at the time of the crash. If a particular driver was listed as the cause of the crash, it's flagged and displayed in red. You can filter out all the other drivers that were loaded at the time if you just want to focus on the culprit. You can also load dump files copied in from elsewhere by pointing to a folder, or even from computers accessible across the local network (provided you have permission to do so).

One minor annoyance with BlueScreenView involves the reporting function. If you want to print out both a crash message and its attendant driver stack, you have to treat them as separate reports. That said, the core crash message typically lists the offending driver; if nothing else, you can use the basic BSOD report to derive all the most crucial information.

Sysinternals' Autoruns
One of the great banes of any Windows user's life is software that insists on shoehorning things into the system to launch at startup, whether or not you actually need or want any of it. Scanner and printer drivers are among the worst offenders in this regard. They often insist on installing a bunch of system tray resident utilities of dubious usefulness.

Autoruns by Mark Russinovich, of Process Explorer fame not only roots out these annoyances, but it comes in handy for so many other things that it's simply indispensible. Autoruns probes your system and dumps out lists of programs and system components that start automatically, without user intervention from apps in your Startup folder to scheduled tasks, from services to device drivers, from Sidebar gadgets to codecs. By default it dumps out data pertinent to the current user context, but the program's User menu lets you switch contexts. (You'll need to run the program as Administrator, though.)

Autoruns organizes its views into the system by tabs (Logon, Services, Explorer, Internet Explorer, Drivers), making it easy to drill down to the entries you're most concerned about. You can disable any app or service without actually deleting it, simply by unchecking a box, or you can remove it entirely with a selection from the right click menu. That same menu also has options for jumping to the service's entry in the Registry, verifying its code signature, and looking it up on Google.

Select Options | Hide Microsoft and Windows Entries, and when you next run Autoruns or click Refresh, you'll see only third party applications a handy way to focus only on programs added to Windows after the fact and, thus, might be a problem. If Process Explorer is currently running, you can right click on an item and bring up its Properties pane in Process Explorer, assuming said item is actually running.

Autoruns also comes in a command line version, which can be used with scripts or other automation. Finally, check out a video for some neat Autoruns usage tips, from Mark Russinovich himself.

WinDirStat
Where did all my disk space go? Every PC user asks this question at one time or another, and the answer can easily be found with a copy of WinDirStat. WinDirStat generates easy to understand graphical reports about disk usage, allowing you to see at a glance which individual files or folders hidden deep within a directory tree may be gobbling up dozens of gigabytes. A few other programs of this kind exist, but WinDirStat has consistently trumped them all.

Fire up the program and you'll be asked to select one or more drives or folders in your system, which are then analyzed for space usage. The analysis may take a few minutes or more, depending on how many files or directories are on the drive(s) in question; you can switch away and let the program run in the background. (Cute touch: The progress bars use Pac Man icons.)
Once the analysis is done, the results appear in an arrangement known as a treemap, where the files that take up the most space show up as large colored blocks. This makes it easy to quickly spot the biggest space hogs. Click on any block and the top part of the program's window will display the corresponding file in the context of its directory, via a conventional tree list view. You can also use the tree view to determine the relative space usage of the file or directory of your choice, so you can in effect drill down (or up) by either file size or location. Finally, files are color coded by type, so you can see at a glance what kinds of files take up the most space.

It's also possible to do cleanup operations within the program. Right click on a file or folder, and you can delete it either by sending it to the Recycle Bin or deleting it directly. You can also pop open a command line or Explorer window on the directory or file in question.

Unlocker and OpenedFilesView
Here is another scenario most of us have encountered: a file that simply can't be deleted because it's "in use." Windows Vista and Windows 7 are a little better at informing the user about which program is using the file in question, but sometimes you're stuck playing digital Whack A Mole trying to figure out which window to close.

I've used not one but two programs, at different times, to deal with these annoyances. The first is Cedrick Collomb's Unlocker, which many people know and love. The second is the lesser known but still valuable OpenedFilesView (by Nir Sofer, author of BlueScreenView). Both do the same thing: Determine which process has a lock on which file, and let you release it either by killing the file handle or the offending process. However, they go about it very differently.

Unlocker runs silently in the background and adds a right click context menu to Explorer. If you want to know what's locking a particular file, right click and select Unlocker. From there you can elect to terminate the processes locking a file, make a copy of the file in question, or remove the locks that the process has on the file.

OpenedFilesView, on the other hand, provides a regularly updated list of all files currently locked by all processes, which can be sorted and searched. The same types of action can be taken, although OpenedFilesView doesn't support deleting a locked file or making a copy.

One major drawback to both Unlocker and OpenedFilesView is shaky 64 bit support. Unlocker doesn't work in 64 bit Windows at all. OpenedFilesView has a 64 bit edition, but requires that you disable driver signing system wide (which requires a reboot). Turning this off makes it that much easier for unauthorized software to install drivers, although I'd bet most users who need a tool like this are well aware of those risks.

not to Shut Down your Laptop, HOW...

That is not, repeat, not the proper way to shut down a PC. The proper way is to click Start, Shut down. (I know, it's ridiculous that after all these years Microsoft still forces you to use the Start button to end your computing session.) Alternately, you can press and immediately release! the power button, which will either shut down your PC or put it in sleep/hibernate mode, depending on how Windows is configured.

The only time you should press and hold the power button is if your computer is locked up and otherwise unresponsive. A five second press will usually force a "hard" power off, after which you should wait another five seconds before turning the machine back on. But if you do this all the time, Windows won't be able to perform its necessary shut down housekeeping stuff, and ultimately you'll muck up the OS.

Learn Your Laptop's Power Settings
My aunt recently told me about a problem with her new laptop: Whenever she'd step away from it for more than a few minutes, she'd close the lid. Upon returning, she'd open the lid, only to be faced with a blank screen and no response from the mouse or keyboard.

Want to know why? The default lid closing action for most laptops is to put the system in Sleep mode, and Windows is notoriously bad at waking up properly. That's why I advise most laptop users to use Hibernate mode instead, as it's much more reliable when it comes to waking up.

You see, Sleep (aka Standby) puts your system into a low power, off like state, allowing you to pick up where you left off after just a few seconds in theory, anyway. A PC in Standby mode continues to consume battery power, so it's not uncommon to return to a "sleeping" PC to find that it's just plain dead.

Hibernate, however, saves your machine's current state to a temporary hard drive file, then shuts down completely. When you start it up again, it loads that file and returns you to where you left off no booting required.

Both ends of the Hibernate process take a little longer than sleep mode (usually 10 20 seconds, in my experience), but you avoid any of the issues that can arise when Windows suddenly loses power. And as noted, Sleep mode is notoriously flaky. If your system refuses to wake up properly, you'll end up losing whatever documents and/or Web pages you had open. Consequently, I recommend using hibernate most of the time.

Dial2Do, Hands Free E Mail, Texting, and More
It's a proven fact: Texting while driving is insanely dangerous. Same goes for reading e mail, updating your Facebook or Twitter status, and so on. Do yourself and your fellow drivers a favor and keep both hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road.

Easier said than done, right? Actually, no: If you use Dial2Do, all the aforementioned activities are easily said and done. This amazing service lets you send text messages, listen to e mail, add appointments to your calendar, and plenty more, all using just your voice.

Start by signing up for a free trial account. Add the special Dial2Do number to your speed dial, then call it when you want to do something. If that something is, say, send a text message to Bill, wait for the prompt and say, "Send a text message to Bill." Wait for the next prompt, then say what you want to say. When you're done, Dial2Do will transcribe your words into text and send them on their SMS way.

You can do likewise with e mail, though in addition to composing messages, Dial2Do lets you listen to those you've received. It works with a variety of third party services: You can dictate Facebook/Twitter updates, add appointments to your Google Calendar, send a note to Evernote, listen to local weather, and on and on. All this happens entirely hands free. Besides safety, there's another perk: If your phone lacks a keyboard, you'll find that dictating text messages is a lot easier than pecking them out on a numeric keypad.

If you haven't tried Dial2Do, you're missing out. The aforementioned free account limits you to creating personal reminders (which are delivered to you via e mail), but it comes with a 30 day trial for a Pro account. That's what you'll need for all the really cool stuff. Dial2Do Pro costs $4 per month or $40 if you prepay for a year. I typically prefer free stuff, but this is one service worth paying for.

Secure your Emails

If you are concerned about the privacy of your email messages then worry no more. It’s relatively easy ­ and free ­ to protect email correspondence so that the contents remains hidden from everyone except the person who wrote it and the person they send it to.

In this Workshop we’ll look at how anyone can use the Thunderbird email program to protect their privacy in three steps ­ by downloading the encryption program, installing Thunderbird and then installing a little add-on program that makes them work together.

Before starting out, bear in mind that encryption like this only works if both sender and receiver have installed and set up the required software, so you may find it helpful to pass this Workshop to those you correspond with regularly.

Begin by downloading the GNU Privacy Guard by clicking the link above. Ignore any security warnings and click the Save button and then choose a download location for the software and click Save again. Double-click the new icon on the Windows Desktop to install the software and if Windows displays a security warning, just click Run. Then follow the defaults to install the software. If you’d prefer to locate it manually, got to www.gnupg.org. Click the Binaries link on the left-hand side to skip down to the relevant part of the page. Find the link labelled ‘GnuPG 1.4.9 compiled for Microsoft Windows’ and, to start the download, click the FTP link to the right of this label.

Accept all of the defaults and click Finish to conclude the installation. Next, install the Thunderbird email program, a free alternative to Outlook Express. Load your web browser again and go to www.mozillamessaging.com/thunderbird. Click the download button, ignore any security warnings and download the program to the Desktop. Once it’s there, double-click the icon and follow the prompts to install Thunderbird, accepting all of the defaults and then clicking the Finish button at the end.

Thunderbird offers to import your settings from Outlook Express. We don’t need to for our purposes, so we’ve selected ‘Don’t import anything’ and clicked Next. At the Account Wizard screen we’re going to set up a Google Mail (Gmail) account ­ if you create another kind of email account the process will be slightly different, though the principles will be the same. Click Next. Enter the details of the email account (get these from your provider) and click Next again. Finally, click Finish to open the account and download your emails.

If the email account needs a password, type it in and click OK. Then click OK again. Now we’ve got the encryption software and the email program ­ next we need an add-on called Enigmail to make them work together, so switch back to your web browser and go to www.snipca.com/X36. At the site, choose Windows as the operating system and select the correct version of Thunderbird (ours is version 2.0). Right-click on the download link and choose Save Target As from the menu that is displayed.

Download Enigmail to the Desktop and once it’s there, switch back to Thunderbird and then click on the Tools menu and choose Add-ons. When the Add-ons dialogue box opens, click the Install button at the bottom left. Use Windows’ file commands to navigate to where Enigmail was downloaded, select it and then click Open. Back at Thunderbird, the Software Installation dialogue box will appear. Click the Install Now button to add Enigmail to Thunderbird. Finally, click the Restart Thunderbird button to finish the installation.

When Thunderbird restarts it will have a new menu item ­ OpenPGP. Click this and then choose Key Management from the menu. The first thing we need to do is set up a key for this email account that we can send to other people as proof of our identity. Since we may want to set up other keys for different email accounts and the wizard only loads the once, we’ll select the manual configuration option and click Next. Then we can click Finish. This opens the Key Management dialogue ­ click Generate and choose New Key Pair.

If there’s more than one email address on the PC, select the correct one from the dropdown menu. Then, make up a passphrase (password) and type it in twice. This can be anything you like but it must be kept private and you must not forget it ­ if you forget the passphrase you won’t be able to open encrypted emails. By default, Enigmail will make the key expire after five years, though that can be changed here. When you have done this, click the Generate key button.

When the confirm dialogue box appears, click Yes. After a moment, the key will be generated and Enigmail will recommend that you create what’s called a ‘revocation certificate’ that can be used to invalidate the key if it gets lost or compromised ­ this is a good idea, so click Yes. Use Windows’ file commands to store it somewhere easy to find like the Desktop and at a later date, move it to a USB key for safe keeping. To complete the creation of the certificate, type in your passphrase and click OK.

Click OK again. Now, since it takes two to send and receive encrypted emails, let’s imagine our friend User has followed this Workshop and is at the same stage as us ­ that means we’ve each got a public key that proves who we are and a private passphrase. Let’s send our public key to her and then have her confirm that it’s genuine. Click the OpenPGP menu and choose Key Management. We highlight her email address and then choose Send Public Keys by email from the menu. Address the email as normal ­ note that the key is added as an attachment. Click Send.

When the message arrives at User’s PC, she right-clicks on the attachment and chooses Import OpenPGP Key. After a moment the confirmation dialogue tells her the key has been imported and when she switches back to the Key Management window, she will see that it has been added to the list. There are other ways to exchange and validate keys using what are called ‘public servers’ that allow security-conscious emailers to upload their public keys so that anyone can access them. The way we’ve shown here is more suitable for two people who want to pair securely with each other.

Next, User has to confirm both the owner of the key and its validity ­ there’s no point in accepting a key of dubious origin. Because she knows it came from us, she can right-click on its entry in the Key Management list and choose Sign key. When the dialogue opens, she can select the highest level of trust ­ ‘I have done very careful checking’ ­ and then click OK. Then she right-clicks the name in the list again and chooses Set Owner Trust. At the dialogue, she selects the owner from the list and chooses ‘I trust ultimately’ and then clicks OK.

When both parties and have sent each other their public keys and confirmed that they’re genuine like this, they can start sending each other encrypted emails. Just create a message as normal and then click on the OpenPGP button on the button bar and choose Encrypt Message from the dialogue box and click the OK button. This will encrypt the message so that if anyone intercepts it, the message text appears as nonsense and they won’t be able to decipher it.

Click the Send button as normal to send the email and then, when the Key Selection dialogue box appears, put a tick in the box next to the name of the person the email’s being sent to ­ in our case it’s User ­ and then click OK. The message will be sent. At the other end, when User receives the message and tries to open it, she’ll be asked for the password ­ or passphrase ­ that she created when she set up her key. We created ours back in Step 7.

Here’s the decrypted message. There’s lots more to say about OpenPGP encryption, but that’s enough to get two people who want to send messages to each other securely off to a good start. One last thing, by default, OpenPGP will ask for your passphrase every time the PC has been left idle for five minutes. Change this by clicking the OpenPGP menu and choosing Preferences. From here it’s easy to increase the idle time so OpenPGP doesn’t keep asking for the passphrase all the time.

Better Photo Printing

Suppose you have just taken an award-winning photo with perfect composition, great exposure, and a Pulitzer Prize-worthy subject. Or, at the very least, you've managed to avoid the five most common photo mistakes, and you want to hang the result in the living room.

In the old days, photo printing was left to the professionals who developed our film. These days, though, we often print our digital photos at home, on our own equipment. All our hard work is for naught if we don't take care during the printing process. That means we have to master the art of photo printing.

This week, I've got five tips to help you get better results from your inkjet photo printer.

Choose the Right Print Size

Computers are obedient machines: You can tell your PC to print a photo at any size and it'll comply. That doesn't mean the results will be any good, though. You need enough pixels in your image file for the printed-out photo to be sharp at the desired print size. There are a lot of factors that go into print quality, but it's safe to say that you need at least 200 dots per inch (dpi) for acceptable image quality, and at least 300 dpi for excellent print quality. But what does that mean, and how can you figure out the best print size for a particular photo?

You can ignore any properties in your photo editing program that report a particular dpi value or recommend a particular print size; that's hogwash. Instead, just do this: Determine the maximum recommended print size by dividing the photo's pixel size by 200 (or 300 for higher-quality prints).

Not sure how many pixels are in your photo? Right-click the image file's icon, choose Properties, and click the Details tab. You should see the width and height listed in pixels. (Or, if you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, you can just click a photo's icon and look for the information in the details pane at the bottom of the folder.)

Suppose your photo measures 2000 by 3400 pixels. Divide each dimension by 200, and you get 10 by 17. That means you could print the photo as large as 10 by 17 inches and get acceptable results. If you want a higher-quality printout, divide the pixel size by 300. That gives you 6 by 11, which means you should print it no larger than about 5 by 7 inches for the best results.

Of course, this is approximate; a lot of other factors affect photo quality. This technique, however, gives you a good rule of thumb for deciding whether a photo will print well.

Choose the Right Paper

You can get some stunning photos from modern inkjet printers, but not just any paper will do. Plain paper, for example, absorbs the ink. This washes out the colors and destroys fine detail, reducing the print's overall sharpness. It's fine for text, and you can use it to print drafts of your digital images. For best results, use the printer manufacturer's recommended photo paper.

Of course, you're still not out of the woods. Photo paper comes in a variety of formats. The most common varieties are glossy and semi-glossy (also called matte). Glossy is exactly what it sounds like: It's shiny and gives your photos a resounding visual punch. Glossy paper is very reflective, though, and it can generate glare in direct sunlight. It also smudges easily. If you want a less reflective, less smudgy alternative, consider matte. It's not quite as sharp as glossy paper, and fine detail can get lost in the surface--but, personally, I like the freckled finish of matte paper.

Stick With the Manufacturer's Ink

I might not win any popularity contests by saying this, but I highly recommend using the ink recommended (and sold) by your printer's manufacturer.

Printers aren't stand-alone gadgets that work with any fluid you pour into them, like oil in a car engine. They're engineered to work best with specific ink formulations, and using "remanufactured" or refilled ink cartridges will result in lower-quality prints. This can be especially obvious when you're printing photos.

Verify the Print Settings

When you're ready to print a photo, double-check all the important settings. You might think that's obvious, but you'd be surprised how often you get lousy prints because some of these settings are loopy.

Is the paper loaded correctly? Photo paper is designed to be printed on a particular side. If you print on the wrong side, the ink won't absorb properly, and your photo won't look good.

Did you set the right paper type and ink type in the print settings dialog? Be sure those settings match the specs on the box. It's not so bad if you configure the printer for premium paper and quality ink when printing on plain paper, but you definitely don't want the printer to think you're using plain paper or draft settings when outputting to high-quality photo paper.

Maintain Your Printer

Take good care of your printer. Inkjet printers have finicky print nozzles that occasionally clog and need to be cleaned. Every month or two, it's a good idea to run your printer's print head cleaning and print head alignment utilities (usually available from the printer options in the Windows Control Panel). And you shouldn't let your printer go unused for weeks at a time. Even if you have a printer that's intended just for photos, I highly recommend printing on it at least once a week whether you need to or not. That keeps the nozzles from gumming up, which can spell disaster.

The empire strikes back

It can't be easy being Ray Ozzie. Microsoft's chief software architect is just 18 months into the job as Bill Gates' handpicked successor, yet depending on whom you ask, his tenure will either signal a bold new era for the company or mark the beginning of its terminal decline.

From the perspective of Microsoft shareholders, the picture certainly looks grim. After a decade of timid stock performance, the fiscal year that ended June 2009 saw Microsoft's net revenue decrease for the first time in its history. It also announced its first-ever layoffs and has since exceeded its original estimate of 5,000 pink slips. But worst of all, for the first time in recent memory, Microsoft confronts a rival of goliath proportions that actually seems capable of going the distance with the software giant.

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That rival, of course, is Google, and the search leader's relentless expansion is battering Microsoft on virtually every front. Google's emphasis on the Web as an application platform challenges the primacy of PC software and operating systems, Microsoft's traditional cash cows. Its forays into mobile devices call into question the very concept of desktop computing. Its Web-based services and open source software fly in the face of Microsoft's core business model. Philosophically speaking, Google is the anti-Microsoft -- and it's making a killing at it.

By comparison, the world's largest software vendor has adapted poorly to the changing market landscape. On the Web, Internet Explorer is dead last in standards compliance, and its critical security flaws sometimes go unpatched for months. Windows Mobile claims just 7.9 percent of the smartphone market, and according to Gartner, sales are slowing. Microsoft's vaunted new search service, Bing, has won few converts from Google, except where Microsoft has strong-armed them into using it. In short, while it may be first in desktop software, Microsoft's track record outside its comfort zone has been fairly dismal, enough so that in 2007, venture capitalist Paul Graham declared, "Microsoft is dead”.

But Ray Ozzie has a plan. With the Windows division back on track and new version of Office set to debut this year, "software plus services" is the new mantra at Microsoft's Redmond headquarters. It marks a strategic shift that will transform everything about the company, from how it develops, markets, and deploys software to its relationships with its customers. Ozzie doesn't want to beat Google at its own game; rather, he wants to remind Google that the software game has been and remains Microsoft's. But to succeed, he's going to have to rewrite Microsoft's playbook along the way.

Ozzie rules: The "software plus services" vision
Nearly five years ago Ozzie, then Microsoft's newly minted CTO, issued a memo outlining his vision of the next step in the company's ongoing evolution. "(People are) increasingly drawn toward the simplicity of services and service-enabled software that 'just works,'" he wrote. "Businesses are increasingly considering what services-based economics of scale might do to help them reduce infrastructure costs or deploy solutions as-needed and on subscription basis”.

In other words, Ozzie felt it was high time for Microsoft to compete with Google on its home turf. But in Ozzie's vision, Microsoft would embrace the Web differently than the search titan has. While Google sees the browser as the ultimate client UI for software large and small, with the cloud as the ultimate repository for all data, Ozzie sees an opportunity for Microsoft to offer services that augment and enhance traditional desktop software. Where Google sees thin clients interfacing with powerful applications, Ozzie sees rich client applications consuming lightweight services.

Router Setup

Your primary router can be any brand of router whatever you already have, for example. The DD-WRT firmware with wireless bridge mode need only be installed on the secondary router you're turning into a client adapter (we'll call it the "client router").

This tutorial assumes that your primary router is, like most routers, assigning IP addresses by DHCP. Without DHCP enabled, your bridged peripherals may not be able to get onto the network.

Take note of any wireless security currently enabled on your primary router. If you are using WEP, note your passphrase and key length (64-bit, 128-bit, etc.). If using WPA or WPA2, note your passphrase. Later, you’ll need to input these on the secondary router.

You will need to access the administration interface of the secondary router, your DD-WRT router. Obviously, you can’t launch a web browser from your printer. For temporary setup purposes, you need to connect a wired PC to the secondary router. The easiest way is to grab a laptop computer, temporarily disable any wireless network it has, and connect it via Ethernet cable to one of the LAN ports on the secondary router. Do not connect it to the WAN, sometimes labeled “Internet” port, which can remain empty.

Step By Step
Assuming your DD-WRT is set to factory defaults, its IP address is 192.168.1.1. We are going to disable its DHCP server, so you should manually configure an IP address for your temporary PC. A good choice would be 192.168.1.2.

Step 1
To manually configure your IP address in Windows XP, click to Control Panel/Network Connections/Local Area Connection/Properties. Scroll down to Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click Properties. Now click Use the Following IP Address and enter 192.168.1.2 as the IP, 255.255.255.0 as the Subnet Mask, and 192.168.1.1 as the Default Gateway.


On Mac OS X, click on Apple Menu/System Preferences/Network. In the Network Preferences pane, be sure that “Show” is set to Built-In Ethernet. Click the “TCP/IP” tab and set “Configure IPv4” to Manually.

As for Windows, enter the IP address 192.168.1.1, Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0, and Router 192.168.1.1. Click “Apply Now” to save the changes.

Step 2
Open a browser on your PC and connect to the DD-WRT router its default address is http://192.168.1.1. The default login is root and password is admin. Of course, you should change these. You probably won’t, but our lawyers require us to say that.

Step 3
Click Setup/Basic Setup. Scroll down to Network Address Server Settings (DHCP). Click to disable DHCP. This will prevent the bridged router from assigning addresses, which will be the job of your primary router.


Step 4
Click Wireless/Basic Settings. For Wireless Mode select "Client Bridge". Set Wireless Network Mode to match your primary router “mixed” is the safe default, unless your primary router is set exclusively to b or g mode.


Step 5
Click Wireless/Wireless Security. For Security Mode, select the appropriate choice that matches your primary router either none, WEP, WPA or WPA2. In this example, our primary router uses WPA security. The algorithm is set to "TKIP" on both routers, and we’ve entered our shared key.


Step 6
Click Status/Wireless. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and you’ll see a button labeled “Site Survey.” You now need to associate this router to your primary router to create the bridge.


Click the Site Survey button, and a window pops up showing available wireless networks.


In our setup, one wireless network with SSID bordella is available. That is our primary router. Click the Join button to create the association.

DD-WRT will let you know that you’ve successfully joined the network.

Step 7
You’ve now completed the bridge.

To test it, you need to receive an IP address from your primary router. Revisit Step 1 and set your IP address back to automatic assignment. Unplug the network cable from your temporary PC, whistle a few times, and reconnect.

Your temporary PC should receive an IP address assigned by your primary router. You can test this by opening a browser and connecting to an Internet web site.

Success......................................?
Hopefully, your temporary PC has connected to the Internet. Your bridge is working! You can now disconnect the temporary PC and connect the DD-WRT router to your intended peripheral(s), such as your printer or Xbox.

Failure........................................!
If your temporary PC is not receiving an IP address from your primary router and can’t connect to the Internet, the bridge is not working.

Is wireless security enabled on your primary router? If so, try to disable it, even if temporarily. Revisit the configuration of the secondary router and disable wireless security there, too. Be sure to repeat Step 6 after making any changes to your secondary router.

If the bridge works without security, double-check your settings, particularly your passphrase. If you use WPA2 security on your primary router, try WPA instead. WPA2 may not work over the wireless bridge.

Also check whether your primary router is configured to use MAC address filtering as a secondary form of security. Sometimes people forget they’ve set this. You may need to disable MAC filtering to complete your wireless bridge.

That's it. Enjoy your new wireless

Computer can Lead to Stress

Komputer bagi sebagian besar Black Community bumi ini bukan lagi barang baru yang belum pernah dikenal sebelumnya. Komputer telah hadir mengisi tiap sisi kehidupan manusia. Perkantoran, rumah tangga, usaha jasa bahkan hampir tiap individu telah memiliki barang yang canggih ini. Beberapa tahun belakangan, kehadirannya kini amatlah penting. Tanpa komputer, dapat diibaratkan korek tanpa Djarum Black Slimz.

Apa iya...? Tergantung kebutuhan, lebih tepatnya dikatakan seperti itu. Karena ada pula Black Car Community maupun bagian tertentu di dunia ini yang tidak terlalu butuh dengannya. Mungkin saja butuh tapi tidak setiap saat.

Kita tinggalkan pihak yang tidak butuh untuk sementara waktu. Selanjutnya mari fokuskan pada pihak yang secara kontinue kebutuhannya benar-benar pasti. Betapa stres jadinya jikalau komputer yang menjadi pacar sejatinya dalam menyelesaikan pekerjaan, ternyata saat dibutuhkan justru tidak hadir alias ALPA. Mungkin juga komputernya ada, tapi ada beberapa masalah yang mengakibatkan ERROR pada benda pintar ini. Kondisi komputer yang bikin stres, antara lain :
1. Komputer masih dalam Box (belum dirakit)
2. Tidak ada sumber listrik untuk menghidupkannya
3. Belum diinstall salah satu Operation System (OS)
4. OS under DOS, si operator hanya menguasai Windows
5. Tidak dilengkapi dengan Mouse (bagi pengguna awam terhadap DOS)
6. Mati lampu karena perbuatan penguasa listrik
7. Not available Internet (target Blogger, Facebooker and other netter)
8. Ukuran monitor hanya 1 inci (kacamata terinjak Elephant)
9. Hard Disk is full with songs and videos but no player build in (putar pakai tangan biar ramah lingkungan)

Ya udah.........cukup sembilan sebagai pembuka Djarum Black...Jadinya khawatir kalau dicukupkan sepuluh karena masih banyak faktor lainnya yang akan membuat User jadi stres.

Get ready for Windows 7

Microsoft Office, PowerDVD, and Photoshop, these are just a few examples of programs on which readers have spent lots of money. Many have even customized and optimized these applications, since they spend lots of time on them. Their effort should not go to waste if they have to start all over again with a new operating system. Those who skipped Vista clearly showed Microsoft that they want a new version of Windows, but only if their old, dear applications run flawlessly, if existing hardware continues to function, and if their personal settings do not need to be saved for a second time.

Windows 7 is now supposed to be able to do all that. The switch is not only promised to be more comfortable and simpler than any other Windows version upgrade before, but it should not give rise to any additional costs for new hardware and software either. While XP in its day needed “only” a lot more system processing power and memory than its predecessor, Vista changed the entire driver model, which hardware vendors sometimes didn’t bother to update to. The result —from scanners to sound cards, a host of peripherals and components had to retire prematurely. Compared to that, Windows 7 is promised to not need more resources than Vista and even the driver architecture has not changed. Therefore, every device that worked with Vista will also work with Windows 7. Should there however be problems, then these can easily be overcome by working with Vista drivers. Windows 7 basically has XP and Vista compatibility modes ready for such cases.

Windows 7 vouchers are already being given out free to those buying

new PCs or notebooks , saving them the cost of the upgrade which is just weeks away. The cherry on the icing is that Microsoft promises that in Windows 7, all the existing software can be used just like it used to be. In a special XP-mode, it is in fact also supposed to make programs which failed in Vista work too. Sounds too good to be true? It is. Over several days, tested dozens of applications and ascertained that the brand new XP-mode is actually a deceptive marketing tool. In the end, we finally developed a free, more efficient alternative for you. With this, you can use all applications in the new Windows 7.

XP Mode: Expensive fake padding

Before we present our alternative, we will have a look at the original and show where the faults lie in Microsoft’s new XP mode. The first trap is that Microsoft only provides this luxury for a price. XP mode is included only in the Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate versions of Windows 7. Users of the less expensive Home Premium version, which will be preinstalled on most PCs, go empty handed. The second trap is that in a test using the Windows 7 Release Candidate, XP mode program worked with only 65,536 colors. This was apparently important to prevent programs from consuming too many system resources. The third trap is that you might even need a new CPU and/or motherboard, because technically, XP mode is implemented with the help of Microsoft’s Virtual PC 7. This tool runs in a special mode in the background, giving you the feeling that you are still working with Windows 7 when you actually launch a virtualized instance of Windows XP. This, in turn, requires hardware-based virtualization through the CPU (AMD-V or Intel VT) and also needs the corresponding option to be activated in the BIOS. If this is not available, a BIOS update usually helps. Using the Tool SecurAble, which is given on this month’s, you will be able to find out whether your system is capable of running a virtual machine. The program works with Intel and AMD processors. Start it by simply double-clicking its icon. If you get a “No” as the result of “Hardware Virtualization”, then the only thing that can help is changing the CPU—or our alternative for the XP-mode!

A Way out: The homemade XP mode

With the help of VirtualBox, which is also available on the issue CD/DVD, you can simply create your own XP mode. The advantages: our solution also runs on the Home Premium version of Windows 7, a new CPU is not required, and you get the full 1.6 million colors at whatever resolution you need. And if your PC does support hardware virtualization, you will not experience any loss of speed. You only need a valid license for Windows XP, which you might have since you are upgrading.

First install VirtualBox. After starting it, create a virtual PC through the “New” button. In the wizard, select “Microsoft Windows” as the operating system under Version ‘Windows XP”. In addition, you must name the virtual machine, e.g. “XP Mode”. As the working memory, assign at least 512 MB; more if you have enough. The virtual hard disk can make do with 30 GB. After closing the wizard, insert your XP setup disc in the drive and enter its letter in VirtualBox through “CD/DVD-ROM”. Alternatively, you can also specify an existing XP ISO file here. Now “Start” the virtual PC and install XP as usual.

Once this process is over, it is time for the real trick. Select “Devices | Install Guest Add-ons” in VirtualBox and follow the instructions of the set-up wizard. Once that is done, you can switch between the virtual PC and Windows 7 using the mouse cursor. Now select “Machine | Wireless Mode”. That is what will let you really simulate the Windows 7 XP mode. Once the virtual PC is active, above the Windows 7 taskbar you will see the taskbar for Windows XP. You can open Start menu from there as usual and execute programs. The VirtualBox control window stays in the background. If you wish to open the VirtualBox window again, press the right-side [Ctrl] key and [L].

Networking: Find Windows 7

Luckily, establishing a network connection in VirtualBox or in Windows 7 is simple enough. Simply proceed step by step.

Connect Through a Network : In the VirtualBox window, configure the virtual machine as follows. In “Network”, select the entry “Network bridges” in the tab “Adapter1” under “Connected to”. With this setting, the virtual computer obtains an IP address from the LAN and can then also access network resources and the Internet like the host-computer.

Setting Up Network Drives : After that, click on “Start | Computer” in Windows 7 and then right-click on a hard disk which you want to access in the virtual PC. In most cases, this can be the Windows 7 root drive. Through “Share with | Advanced Sharing | Advanced Sharing | Share this folder" define the hard disk as a networked drive.

After entering a name for it, go to “Authorizations” and decide whether the virtual PC should have “Full access” or “Read-only” access. Now start the virtual PC and select “Devices | Shared folders”. Click on “Add” and select the entry “Change” in the next dialog under “Folder path”. Open the directory path “Network”. If there are several computers available there, select Windows 7 and then the created network drive. Confirm all unconfirmed dialogs with “OK” and open “My Computer”. Through “Tools | Connect Network drive”, assign a drive letter to the Windows 7 hard disk. Using “Browse | VirtualBox Shared Folders” activate the network drive. From now on you can see, change and manage all the data on it like a normal hard disk.

If you also want Windows 7 to be able to access XP, follow the same path in reverse. Right-click in XP on the “C:” drive and select “Sharing and Security | Click here if you still wish to share the drive”. Now, under “Network sharing and security”, assign the drive, switch to Windows 7 and share the XP drive there through “Start | Computer | Connect network drive”. Now the applications work together perfectly, irrespective of which operating system they have been installed on.

Important tools for upgrading to a new OS

SecurAble : shows, whether hardware virtualization is possible
VirtualBox : starts XP on a virtual PC
Driver Collector : displays all existing drivers
Outlook Backup Assistant : secures all settings
TBBackup (Thunderbird) : saves mails and contacts
MozBackup : preserves all Firefox settings
Personal Backup : transfers personal data

Streaming music from Windows 7

Listen to your favorite music without having to carry your laptop from the living room to the kitchen. Share your music library on a wireless network.

While this workshop shows you how to stream music from one laptop to another, digital media such as videos and pictures can be accessed using the same method.

Step 1

First we’ll connect the server laptop to a wireless home network. This laptop has Windows 7 with Media player 12 and it has all the music, videos and media that you want to share. Right-click on the Internet notification area and select ‘Open network and sharing center’. Now, click on ‘Connect to a network’ and from the list of networks, choose the preferred one and connect. Enter the secure network key when prompted.

Step 2

Let’s create a ‘HomeGroup’. From ‘Network and Sharing Center’, click ‘HomeGroup’ and then ‘What is a network location?’. You’ll see a window with three options. Select the first one that says ‘Home Network’. In the following window, select what you want to share and click ‘Next’. Follow the onscreen instructions and Click ‘Finish’.

Step 3

In ‘Network and Sharing Center’, click ‘Change Advanced Sharing Settings’ and make the changes. Then go to ‘Media Streaming Options’ and allow people you want access to your files. Open Windows Media Player, go to ‘Stream’ and click ‘Automatically allow devices to play my media’. The content you chose to share is now on this network.

Step 4

To access this content on a client PC or laptop, first connect the machine to the same wireless network as the server laptop, using the procedure in Step 1. Vista users can right click and directly select ‘Connect to network’. Assuming that both laptops are in the same network, open Windows Media Player and see of you can find the shared server laptop in the left pane.

Step 5

To find shared media on the network and to share media from the client PC, in WMP, right-click on Library and click ‘Media Sharing’. Here, you can allow or deny access to other PCs and find the media you’re looking for. Click ‘Ok’ when you're done. Now, the server PC will appear in WMP and other functionalities will remain same. You’re now ready to play the music which is stored on the server PC.