A new version of FairUse4WM hit the Internet two days ago which is able to strip the DRM - that is Digital Rights Management - right of music files that use MS DRM IBX components up to version 11.0.6000.6324. So, if you own a Zune, use the Yahoo music service, Urge or several other services you might want to give FairUse4WM a try and get rid of the DRM in the music.

The original post at the Doom9 forum lists several download locations and a short instruction on how to work with the drm stripper.

To actualize fair use rights with the new IBX, first run ‘mirakagi’ which will enter the IBX keys into the FairUse4WM blackbox-keys.txt text file.Next, you should use the attached version of FairUse4WM, 1.3Fix-2. This includes an important fix for a video corruption bug, often seen in scenes affording high compression.

continue reading "FairUse4WM 1.3 works with Vista and Zune"

Optimizing a computer to improve performance while keeping everything stable is something that I really like to do. The first thing that I do when I get a new computer is to get rid of useless softwares and take a look at system settings to find ways to improve them.

The following list consists of links to excellent freeware utilities that can be used to optimize and test your operating system. The list is divided into the categories benchmarkingand hardware tweaks. Benchmarking tools can be used to test the system before and after applying a tweak while the hardware tweak category links to programs that aid you in changing settings in the system.

Please feel free to add any utility that you are using or would recommend.

continue reading "Top Utilities to Optimize your System"

After a few months of using Launchy and Rocket Dock I realized that I actually did not use the startmenu of my Windows operating system at all. I either use these great apps that give me more flexibility and speed or use icons on my desktop for certain tasks.
Another reason why I’m not using the startmenu anymore is that it really looks and feels messy after a while because every new application adds it’s own folder to it. The question that came up for me is whether I needed the startmenu at all.

The answer was a clear ‘no’. There is however a much better way than to simply ignore the startmenu. I’m talking about an application called JetStart which is a tiny utility which replaces the original startmenu with a cleaner better one. It looks more compact, displays the applications that you use the most plus adds several predefined folders like Internet that can be populated with shortcuts as well.

continue reading "Alternatives to the original Windows startmenu"

I’m using a sweet little freeware for some time now on Windows XP that tabs normal windows giving my desktop a clean look most of the time while still giving me access to all the folders that I need to work with at that time. I got used to it pretty quickly and thought that it would be a great way to expand this behavior to applications as well.

So, if you ever wanted to tab programs like Putty, WinSCP, FTP tools or any other application that you can think of you should take a look at the excellent WinTabber. WinTabber groups arbitrary windows into containers which means that almost any programa and window can be tabbed using WinTabber.

continue reading "Add Tabs to all Windows with WinTabber"

I think every Windows user experienced an error message like “Could not find xxx.dll” before and wondered what the hell happened with that dll. One reason could be that you used to uninstall a program that asked specifically whether you would like to remove the xxx.dll as well because it could still be needed by other applications.

I’m always not sure if I should remove such dll’s especially when they are located in a Windows folder and not a program folder. The easiest way to fix a missing dll error is to simply locate the dll and copy it into the folder where the program is looking for it. One way to achieve this goal would be to search the Windows installation CD or DVD and search through the cab files.

Sometimes however, the dll was not included in the original installation CD or DVD which means that it could be a lot of work and trouble before you find it. Unless of course that you use a service like dll-downloads which provides a very extensive list of many dll’s for all Microsoft Windows operating systems.

This method is not foolproof but it normally works pretty well. There could be cases however where a specific version of a dll is missing or a dll that was included for a different language is needed.