I delete files most of the time by pressing down the shift key which will delete them immediately without moving them to the trashbin first. It happens from time to time that I deleted a file that I want to recover, sometimes it is because another file depents on the deleted one or it could be that I need to access the information again that was contained in the file. There is unfortunately no direct way to recover the files in windows which means that we have to rely on third party tools to recover lost files.

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Microsoft recently published updated figures about their Windows Genuine Advantage protection that tries to hinder users of illegal versions of Microsoft Windows to update their system with some of the software that can be downloaded from the microsoft homepage. Software like the new Internet Explorer 7 or the Windows Media Player can only be downloaded after a successful WGA check. The download and installation will be denied if a check fails.

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Glass 2k is a little freeware application for Windows 2000 and Xp which makes it easy to add a transparency effect to any window on your system. A great feature of Glass 2k is that it is able to remember the transparency settings that you set in a previous session. The default keyboard shortcut to add transparency is CTRL + SHIFT + a key between 1 and 0 with 1 being transparent and 0 not. Click on the image below to load a bigger image see some effects that I enabled on my desktop.

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USB Virus Scan is a nice little command line utility that performs predefined operations if a usb drive is connected to your computer. It is able to distinguish between various drives which means that you can add custom operations for the drives that you own and a general option for drives that are not recognized. The tool uses the volume serial number of the drives to identify them and perform the operation.

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I recommended Phonostar some days ago to record mp3 streams of more than 4000 radio stations which had the big disadvantage that it would not add the real filename, title and artist but use a generic name for the saved mp3 stream. Screamer Radio on the other hand uses the meta data that is sent by some radio stations to add those information to the name of the saved mp3 file which makes it easier to get an overview over all downloads.

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