Utilities

Bricko packs

This is a installer that changes your windows XP desktop to a new interface that looks a little like vista. With new sound sequence and icons. If you don't like it, you can uninstall.

Speed Fan

This program shows temperature , voltage of multiple fans on your computer. Good for monitoring system temperature. If there is any unusual rise in temperature, it is time to clean the fans or even replace fans that have broken down

Gamma panel

For those who are familiar with power strip for ati, this is the alternate choice. It can adjust the brightness and correct gamma with a simple user interface whether be it for games or watching videos.

USB Disk Ejector

Have you ever try to figure out which device is the correct one that you should remove from the safety remove hardware icon? This is an application that allows you to identify and help you eject the device easily. Good for external storage if you are afraid of ejecting the wrong one.

New Gadgets

Creative ExpressCard Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook

This is creatives newest external sound card that packs even more features in a small package. Apart from being a sound card, it has 1GB built in storage that can be used as a thumb drive for easy retrieval of gaming data, like save games or gaming profile etc.

Another feature is the Voice FX that has 18 effects to disguise your voice when you are gaming.

Needless to say about its ability to improve sound quality when it plays compressed Mp3, as it uses X-Fi sound card technology.

One more new feature about this device is that it can stream audio through WiFi. You can walk around without restrictions in your home and listen to audio that is streamed from your computer.

Sony USM8GH 8GB Micro Vault Tiny

Good things come in small packages. This tweeny thing measures 3cm from top to bottom. You can easily carry this anywhere like a spy agent. It is not a SD card that requires a card reader, but a usb device. Just plug and a drive shows up, and you can copy anything over. Good for students who like to sneak large programs into a computer lab class to exchange with friends. It's a whooping 8Gig.

RAZER Salmosa Black Gaming Mouse

Can't afford to buy a razer gaming mouse? Razer has come up with a scaled down mouse that has great sensitivity with 1800dpi 3G Infrared Sensor.

The Razer 3G Infrared sensor is rated as the fastest tracking optical mouse sensor in the world, enabling movement speeds of up to 2.25 times faster than other regular gaming mice

Those who are on a budget, and are eyeing Razer mouse for a long time can get this for around $40

ZyXEL Powerline Homeplug AV

Setting up wireless connection is a chore. With so many settings and installation CD or setting passcode to encrypt bandwidth. This device turns any wired connection into a wireless one by transmitting the wired signal across to its receiver. Simply plug the ethernet cable to the device on both sides , and no settings required , turn on and surf.





Livescribe 2GB Pulse Smartpen

It has a 2GB flash memory, mini camera, mic and completed with software in a pen. You can book mark your written notes with recordings. As you are writing, you can talk and record down at the same time. Tapping on a word that you have written on the writing pad will jump to the part of the recording when that word was written.
Connecting this device to your PC and it will send a digital replica of your written notes like a scanned document embedded with audio recordings.
It has calculator mode that calculates as you to write and will display the answer on the LCD display on the pen.
It even has a music mode, instructing you to draw lines and making 9 cells. Then tapping on the cells create music like playing the piano.

This device is a head turner

Western Digital My Book Office 1TB 3.5" External Hard Drive

Looking a a budget storage solution and don't want it to be out dated too soon. This device goes for around $200.

Interface: 1 x Hi-Speed Mini-USB Type

BRotational speed: 7,200 RPM Buffer size: 16 MBTransfer rates (serial bus): 480 Mbps maximum

Vigsys HSPDA Modem

What's this device used for? Insert in any 3G sim card and you will have a portable broadband on the go.

For road warriors who need a strong connection on the go will love this baby, it has dowload

rates of 7.2Mbps and upload speeds of up to 384kbps.

This device was reported to achieve downloads speeds of 412.2kbps at a ping of 300 milliseconds traveling at 90km/hr in a vehicle using M1's 1 Mbps connection service.

Even though the speed achieved is considered kinda lame, compared to a wired connection, But with a good position and signal strength, decent speeds are possible, after all... What's there to bargain for when the M1 broadband is only $22.42 a month for unlimited plan.

Looks like after much complaining to M1, they finally woken up from their senses. Even at night the speed is awesome. I'm sure M1 mobile broadband users will be happy.

Creative USB Sound Blaster Play! EAX ADVANCED HD X-FI

Experience better music and movies everywhere you go!

This device will turn into a sound blaster live sound card onto any computer when plugged in. Device drivers are flashed on in the hardware itself. Plug and play. Very handy for people who use VoIP calls. Now you can have an enjoyable chat with your friends via Instant Messaging services over the Internet with our quality headphone output and mic input.

File compressors

Archiving your files to carry them around.

A lot of us are very familiar with the Winzip program. In the past, compressor programs are a must have. With limited storage space in a diskette, users will need to compress the files to fully utilize the space they have. Unless you enjoy carrying large amounts of diskettes around.

These days, with the advancement in technology, a Thumb Drive can easily have space of 8 Gigs. Else you can carry a small External HardDisk that would easily give you 200 Gigs of space at a affordable price.

However there are good compressor programs out there that still have their stand in the world today. One such example. WINRAR

Winrar is initially only meant for zip files with the RAR extension. Till today, it has improved its extension support to at least 10 different zip extensions. It also has a user interface that is pleasing to the eye.

If you have any file that is confidential, you can use the Winrar to protect the file with a password. Even if you should lose the storage medium, there is no worry that it should get into the wrong hands.

Another feature about Winrar that I like about is its ability to compress at different compression rates. You can choose to compress to max or just create a simple normal rated archive. After which you can choose to split the file to different file size. There's even preset common file size like a 700meg CD. It is so convenient to select a large number of files and burn into discs without bothering about how to fit into 3 CDs.

7 Zip software

I thank Kurt for his valuable comment on this software. Indeed it is able to work with a lot of different compressed extensions. 7 Zip is even able to extract RAR archives. Best of all, It is a freeware. Yoo Hoo.. I did not pay much attention to this program as it's user interface is kind of plain Jane. I only use it to extract 7z archives.

However, there are a few hurdles that the 7zip software is lacking in.

1) Files that are created using winrar splitting feature will not work in 7zip even though 7zip supports rar files.

2) 7Zip does not have the create password feature to secure your archives if you want to. I guess users will need to get the winzip to lock the 7zip archive.

There will probably be more problems in terms of compatibility with the wide range of compressed formats. But I would give it a thumbs up for it ULTRA squeeze ratio of it's 7z archiving system.

Fun And Games

Chill out here for some entertainment

Urban Sniper 2

Free Flash Games by Arcadeway.com

Click on game

Press Enter to start

Press spacebar to play

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Software Shelve

If you know what you need, Self service

Windows

Tweak XP

Power defragmenter

Protection software

Norton antivirus

AVG

Spybot search and Destroy

Peer guardian

Registry and history cleaners

CCleaner

Wise Registry cleaner 3

Internet utilities, booster software

TCP Optimizer

Zilla connection accelerator

Firetune

Moyea FLV Downloader

Media players or converters etc

codec pack

Download SUPER © setup file

Any video convertor

Camstudio

Audacity 

Wavepad sound convertor

Good Browsers

Safari

Firefox
Flock

CD Burning software

SLYSOFT Clone CD

Nero burning rom software

Deamon Tools

Archiving software

WINRAR

7 Zip software

winzip

Recovery and repair

Recover my files

Windows Mobile 6

Phone bak2u software

Clear Temp

Total Commander CE

Macromedia Flash

Sunglobe.cab

Windows mobile browser

You tube player

Screen shot capture

Recovering files

How to recover files in a event of a system crash?

We all know the importance of backing up our precious data, however more then often we are too complacent and until disaster strikes.

One way to recover back the files is to get another hardisk to create another windows operating system.  The one that has crashed will be set to slave and the files in there will be copied back to the new drive.

What happens if the drive is unreadable?  The partition is destroyed.  For Windows users out there.  I am very sure that some of us encounter this incident when the hard disk is failing.  There is no way to even read the data in it.  

If you feel that the data is worth saving, you can get the Recover my files software.

Recover my files

This program has got great features, it can recover data from

Deleted files

Formatted harddisks

Raw mode disk.  -- means a disk with partition destroyed.

Protecting your PC

Virus, Spyware and all the bad stuff that harms your PC.  

There are 3 main areas that we need to cover in order to safe guard your computer.

1) Antivirus software

2) Spyware detector

3) IP protection

For users who do not wish to go through all the 10 mile hike, grandmother story, but still want to protect your PC.  Get the trusty Norton antivirus pack and sleep well at night.

For those who wish to learn more.  Read on.

Getting a Antivirus software.

The good news is there are free antivirus out there, like AVG.  The free version offers protection for virus only.  You have a choice to upgrade to a version that offers more protection.  However if you intend to use Norton, do not use other brands of antivirus.  Don't be greedy.  Conflicts may arise in future.

Getting Spyware protection

The best spyware protection software, Spybot search and Destroy.  Just remember to update regularly.  There are 2 areas.  The updates section and the Immunize section.  The immunize feature will create dummy files to trick the spyware that you are already infected.  

Peer Guardian

Peer guardian is a IP blocker that has automated updates.  It blocks out unwanted activity on the net so that you can have privacy when you surf online.  If any of your favorite websites get blocked, there is always an option that you can allow the site.

Additional protection.

It will be an added advantage if the cookies and personnel information are cleared.  By doing so, Even if your system is hijacked, nothing important gets stolen.

Get the CCleaner

Boost internet speed

Broadband is fast. But is your computer set to the best of it can utilize the bandwidth?

Windows XP is created way long before broadband attained speeds of 10 meg or even 100 meg,

Therefore, even though casual users like us do not detect any obvious slow downs in our bandwidth, we may be surfing at only half the speed we applied for.

A test of your actual speed can be done here speed test net.

TCP Optimizer is a free, easy Windows program that provides an intuitive interface for tuning and optimizing your Internet connection. There is no installation required, just download and run. This program sets the values for a better connection.

There is also some free internet boosters software on the net to give an extra edge. For example, Zilla connection accelerator


By default Windows XP computers set aside 20 % of your bandwidth for the OS itself

Here's how to remove the reserved bandwidth


1) Go click on run and type
gpedit.msc

This will show the group policy holder editor
click on computer configuration, follow by administrative templates and then network on the left navigation bar.

Select QOS packet scheduler
Right click on limit reservable bandwidth and select properties
message will pop up "not configured"

But it does not mean that no bandwidth is reserved
the defult setting is hidden.


Mannually set it to 0
then click okay to exit.

2) Use the above freeware called TCP optimizer program and drag the slider to your connection speed. Then select optimal settings and apply changes

A window will pop up and make sure the backup box is ticked and click ok.
reboot and the settings will take effect


Firefox boost

This setting is only intended to be used on firefox.

1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

Do this if you're using a broadband connection.

Pocket PC section Windows mobile 6

Securing your Phone

Mobile phones are evolving to more then just a chit chat device.  The future is windows mobile.

For those people who are using PDA phones running on windows mobile 6. 

This place is for you.  Similar concept, great software for your phone.

Lets begin by securing your phone..

Phone bak2u software.

This software works with phones that run on symbian 6 and above

When someone steals your phone and changes the sim card.  This program enables users to pre-set a SMS message that will auto execute on it's own when it detects a different sim card.  The message will be sent to the phone numbers of your choice, so that your friends will receive a message containing the thief's contact number.  From there, You can call the police to trace the number.

Clearing out the mess

Clear Temp

As with a common desktop, a PDA phone will soon clutter up with all the shortcuts and temp files.  Using this will tidy up your PDA desktop and also free up space.  Portable Computers are limited in disk space and having Clear Temp is a must.

Windows explorer for Mobile phone.

Unlike Windows Xp, Windows mobile has only given users a simple file explorer.  This explorer is slow especially when the directory has a lot of files.  Renaming files is a tedious process. If you need to change the file extension.  Perform copying, deleting actions quickly without the need to move within the limited constraints of the explorer.  This total commander program is for you.  It is a PDA version of XP's windows explorer 

Total Commander CE

Macromedia Flash

Flash content is everywhere.  Therefore if there is a flash player 

for windows XP,  It is also applicable for Windows mobile.  With this installed. Anything that contains flash will be loaded instead of showing boxes.

Chinese Characters

Windows mobile does not have Chinese support.  Here's the chinese font patch.

Sunglobe.cab

Windows mobile browser

The standard windows explorer lacks in a lot of features ranging from flash and java plug-in. There are a lot of mobile browser around like thunderhawk, minimo or netfront.  The best out there is opera.  You can choose either the opera mini, or the opera mobile.  It has got a very stable java run time plugin and multiple tab browsing support.  The best part about opera is that it has got a double tab zoom in feature that behaves like a apple iphone.

You tube player

This is a standalone youtube player that allows users to search and view videos in full screen mode.  This video player resemble the apple's Iphone video streaming player.  The streaming video player that is included with the windows mobile device is not clear in resolution and does not really stretch full screen.

Screen shot capture 

This program allows users to take a screen shot of their current screen , a print screen key that is equivalent to windows desktop.

Video, audio - players and convertors

The long list of file formats

Multimedia formats are now no longer just a few types that you can count with 10 fingers.  Examples of formats frequently used are divx, 3gp, flv, rmvb, mpg, mp4, mp3 and the list is not going to end.

The windows media player is not going to play all media formats.  In any event of a system crash, a new reinstallation of windows will take great effort to install tons of players to play most of the formats.

The good news is there is something called the "codec pack".  Installing the codec pack will fill your computer with most of the required codecs in order to play various video and audio files.

There is a software the comes along with the installer called the "Media player classic".  This is a no frills player that loads fast and plays any format that is supported so long your codec database is updated.  

Videos for Fun

With mobile phones able to display more then just pictures or polyphonic ringtones, users are able to stuff their phones with videos and mp3 to entertain themselves while they are on a bus or train.  But there is a problem, getting the video and sound to a correct format to suit 101 phone models and screen specifications.

Of course, it is not a difficult task to find a video convertor that can convert between video formats. 

But there's a software that can convert any format, so long you can play the video.  I uses the codec that you have installed in your computer and is not limited to what it is programmed for.  

Best of all, It is free.

Download SUPER ©  setup file   

Don't get irritated by where is the download?  Strange that clicking on the download links bring you here and there.  It is jumping around to find a slot.  Until you see a small message that says

"  Download SUPER ©  from official site 3 " 

The official site number may differ 

Any video convertor

This is another free video convertor that is good.  It has a few extra features that I liked particularly the youtube downloader and the trim feature.  You can extract a video off youtube and trim it on the spot the parts that you want.  Then export it out as video formats

Sound converter editor

If you are looking for a program that is able to convert audio formats and allows editing and cutting of the sound file.  This is the program to look for.

Wavepad software for Windows and Mac. Free trial available. Download today for 10-50% discount off the normal price.

Audacity 

This is a free audio convertor. It has got cut and trim capabilities and export out as mp3.  But it has got very limited audio format types.  The only issue is that if you intent to be able to export the recorded sound as a mp3, you will need to manually get the lame mp3 encoder in.  This is not too hard however, just follow the on screen instructions to download the file.  You only need to do it once.

Avidemux

Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, It allows use of different codecs so that the video will not be restricted to just a WMV format when you use the windows movie maker

Camstudio 

This is one of the programs that is very versatile and easy to use.  It records anything that is seen on your screen, best of all, including audio if you want.  This makes it very easy for normal users like you and me to create video tutorials or show something on your computer to your friends.  It supports use of different codecs so it is not limited to 1 or 2 video output formats.

One particular feature that is fantastic is the "region" option.  You can drag a boxed area that you want to record and leave the rest of the screen out of the shot. 

Burning Software

How to create a backup copy of your original Disc

Many of us burned CDs before, and one of the problems that we encounter are data error few years later when you want to access the data that you backup.

There are basically 3 key points to note when creating a self made CD.

1) Burn slowly at 1X speed

    [ 1X compatible CDs are hard to find these days]

    Currently, it is difficult to find a program that allows a user to burn at                1x setting.   Iwould recommend SLYSOFT Clone CD  

2) Burn with the same brand that is similar to your CD recorder Drive ,
     Use Sony disk for sony drive
     Use HP disk for HP drive

This is just the preferred situation, other brands will work as well. However burning at high speed with discs of another brand have a higher chance of write error.

I would recommend Verbatim , Maxell and Sony as 3 of my top choice if I intend to do a backup that would last a life time.

For casual burning. any brand or speed will suffice.

Finding a CD-R that supports a 1x write speed and from a reliable brand is getting more difficult to find in your local neighborhood IT store.  However with minimum effort, anyone can find them in online web stores.

3) Use of proper burning software.

All of us properly use Nero burning rom software.  This is usually bundled with the purchase of a CD writer.  This is a user friendly, reliable and easy to use burning tool.  I have no negative comments about this program. 

Now for the main focus..  

How many times we purchased a game disc or music CD and we accidentally scratch the surface or damage the nice Artist CD case.  Wish you could copy into a blank CD-R and leave the original safe away from harm..

For those who have tried using Nero to burn and failed.  The good news is that there is a way to create an exact duplicate of your original..

** Note... Users are only allowed to burn a backup provided that you own the original.  Do not end up committing piracy. 

SLYSOFT Clone CD

This program is able to burn at RAW mode.  It means it photocopies an exact replica of the original.  It has a simple user interface and does not require an expert to use it.

This is very unlike conventional burning programs which tend to rearrange the files on the disc based on filename, date and time or file size.

Although copies of backup burned in such a manner are usually still readable on a your PC, usually it won't work on stand alone players, or in some cases, it is unreadable in another computer.

Deamon Tools

This program is a Disc Drive emulator.  It means it makes your computer believe that it has got extra CD Drives.  So what is so good about that?

If you ask me, I frequently use this feature when ever i have to use a particular CD often. 

Example, I am playing Command and Conquer.  Everyday I need to insert the CD, hence my precious original Disc is spinning inside the drive everyday.  

I do not want to end up having to cry if take out the disc one day to find that the surface is scratched.

All you need to do, is to use any burning software and copy the CD into a image.  Provided the software has image writing capability.   Don't start scratching your head, image writing?

Nero is a burning software every one should be familiar.

Here's a screen shot of how to burn to image.

Notice that instead of choosing a drive, there is the image option.  After choosing that, you will be prompt to save as a NRG file. This means to say that the entire CD is copied to your drive.

However, copying a CD using Nero is not possible as it will indicate that the disc is copyrighted and will not proceed to copy.  

That is why the use of slysoft clone cd  software comes in handy.

Mounting of a burned image using Deamon Tools.

The term mounting a image is just run the disc that you just copied in simple terms.

It can be done in just 2 easy steps, set how many drives you need, and choosing the file.

Right click on a deamon tools icon at the lower right corner of the task bar, 

The File to be chosen will be your CD file.  Once done, your original disc can be kept safe from harm.