Data is the cornerstone of organizations. Be it customer relationship management, tracking sales performance, supply chain optimization, or market trends and demand, it’s data that guides each and every function of business. […]
Well this is just a little registry hack that changes the size of the thumbnails of images that are displayed in windows explorer by default. The default size is relativly small and most people surely would like a bigger size for the thumbnails to get a better preview of the images. To do that you have to add a new entry called ThumbnailSize to the following registry key:
I recently received some emails asking about the kind of hosting that I was using for ghacks.net and I decided that it would be a nice idea to write about it in an article. Ghacks is running on a dedicated server provided by the German company Hetzner with the following details: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ cpu, 2 GB DDR 400 Ram, 2x 160 GB SATA hard drives, unlimited traffic and Suse 10.0 as its operating system.
This topic has been covered before in my blog but I tend to take a look at older interesting topics from time to time and update them to reflect the changes that happened to the concept in the time between. One-Use-Emails, also known as Disposable Email Addresses and Throwaway Emails are really helpful when you do not want to give someone your real email address because you fear that they would abuse this information and probably sell the address to make a quick bug.
I started my gaming "career" on an Atari 2600 system with stunning games like River Raid and Pitfall, bought a C-64 later, then an Amiga and finally a PC. If your history looks similar you've come across many unforgetable moments and games - that is why I'am going to post this retro game article. Every game mentioned is free to download and play. I know that a top 10 is probably not enough because there are many great remakes out there but I had to limit my post somehow, therefor, it is only a top 10.
Songbird is a relatively new open source media player that is build from Mozilla and aims to revolutionize the media player market the same way firefox did to the browser market. Songbird is currently available in revision 0.2 "test flight" and runs on Windows 2000+, Linux and Mac just like firefox. Songbird comes with pretty much the same functionality as iTunes and more, due to the fact that it is based on the same core as firefox you can easily use songbird to browse between websites of radio stations, podcasts and blogs. Which means you play the songs and at the same time read what they have written in the same program.
System Safety Monitor 2 is available in a free version from the developers website. The tool basically works as a firewall preventing malicious software to be started automatically. The free version runs in paranoid mode which means you have to allow or disallow every process and get nagged quite a bit at the beginning. Once the majority of rules are established the software runs a lot smoother and seems to come forth only when you tend to install a new program or change existing ones.
I finally decided to make the switch from Operas M2 mail client to Thunderbird. The reason for the change was primary that the anti-spam combination Opera and Spamahilator was not working that well anymore and I thought that it would be better to have one single program to handle the spam and the mail. Thunderbird has a great working junk filter that seems to handle spam really well even after just a few days of working with the program.
I found a pretty small and useful open source application that pulls images from google images in a given interval and displays them as the wallpaper on the pc the application is running. Once unrared you can run the application right from that location without installation; you will see a small icon in your system tray if the application is running. Right-click the icon and select options.
Until yesterday it was only possible to download the 32-bit client version of the release candidate 1 of Windows Vista. Yesterday Microsoft added the Vista 64-bit client to the download list which can be downloaded through your browser by either using a direct download or Microsofts download manager. As usual this version is time limited and will stop working on June, 1st 2007. You will also need a product key for vista, I wrote a little article detailing the procedure to receive one.
Ever wondered where those guys in stormtrooper armor got their suits from ? Look no further, the Shepperton Design Studio is selling a complete Stormtropper armor for a very reasonable price. You can purchase the battle helmet for 299 British pounds and the suit (without helmet) for 999 British pounds. Both combined sell for 1299,95 pounds. The offers seems successful because currently all items are out of stock and will be available again in October.
You see lots of processes when you start your taskmanager, svhost.exe, csrss.exe, winlogon.exe and many more. A user who never dealt with those executables before has a hard time figuring out which are safe and which could be malicious because normally you can't say which program is using those files. A question like "Is svhost.exe a virus, is it safe ?" is normal and can be answered using the methods described below.
I'am using Teamspeak for several years now and would like to introduce it to you. Teamspeak makes it possible to voice chat over the internet, just like skype but without its phone abilities. Everyone using it needs the Teamspeak client software which is available for free on the Teamspeak homepage. The client software is available for windows, linux and mac. You also need a teamspeak server that can either be setup on one of the computers that is also running a client version or on a dedicated /or virtual webserver.
Hamachi is a small freeware application that creates virtual private networks (vpn) on the fly without configuration at all - well almost. You can download the application from the hamachi homepage, once downloaded install and run the software. Versions for Windows, Linux (installation guide) and Macintosh OS X exist, means everyone should be happy although the linux and mac versions are console only while the windows one comes with a gui. Before I go into configuration details I want to describe the main advantage of Hamachi, it gives you LAN over the Internet.
This is a video from the dynamic graphics project at the University of Toronto named: Keeping it Real: Pushing the Desktop Metaphor with Physics, Piles and the Pen in BumpTop. Big title, ain't it ? What they did is project the concept of the normal desktop, the real one not the one from your computer to your computer by making it 3 dimensional. Files are shown as three dimensional items as well that can be placed on top of each other, sorted, deleted and manipulated manifold.
Keyboard shortcuts make our lifes easier, hitting Win +M is nicer than to minimize every windows by hand. Windows XP already has a method of assigning new keyboard shortcuts to programs but this method is very limited. You are only allowed to assign shortcuts using a combination of at least two STRG, ALT and SHIFT keys plus one additional letter, number or symbol.
What is wrong with those movie and music companies ? Why the heck are they increasing the pressure on people who are actually buying their overpriced items instead of those who copy them in large scale ? Their newest invention is apparently an embedded radio transmitter chip that can be remotely tracked by those companies making it possible to follow a DVD, Blue-Ray or HD-DVD from factory to consumer.
USBdumper runs silently as a background process once started and copies the complete content of every connected usb device to the system without the knowledge of the user. It creates a directory with the current date and begins the background copying process. The user has no indication that his files are copied from his USB drive unless he does know that USBdumper is running on the system. (or accidentally find the directory with the copied files).
Nintendo already held two of the three press conferences about the upcoming Wii launch in Japan, America and Europe. The press conferences in Japan and the United States revealed many information that should also be valid for the European launch, that is, if it is not delayed like the launch of the Playstation 3. The Nintendo Wii will launch on November 19. in the United States and sell for 250$ including a wireless Wiimote, a Nunchuck, and the game Wii Sports which includes tennis, baseball, golf, boxing and bowling.
I wrote an article some days ago about a way to download the latest Microsoft software from Microsoft.com without wga, windows genuine advantage, checks. Several users had problems installing the software afterwards because a second check was performed during the installation of the software. It did not install if the check failed and there was not way to prevent the check from happening. Until now..
Beta and release candidate versions of Windows Vista, Microsofts latest operating system, can be download from the official Microsoft Vista website but getting a product key did not seem to be that easy. Everyone was able to download Windows Vista but this did not mean that you would receive a product key to activate the beta or release candidate. Without a product key Vista would only work for 14 days.
Many sites offer to scan your computer for viruses online which should be seen as a last resort because this method has advantages but also disadvantages. If you scan your system online you can be sure that the latest virus definitions are used while scanning your system and that the script that is running was not compromised by a virus or trojan running on your system.
With Amazon unleashing its Unbox on the world and Apple close to start their movie paradise the question for the last poll was almost obvious: How much would you pay for a DVD download ? Amazon charges up to 19,99€ for a movie download and 1,99€ for TV Episodes. Looking at the poll results this seems highly overprized even if you do not take their license agreement into account.
Sizer is a great freeware application that lets you resize any window to a predefined size. It is only 30k unpacked and can be started from any location on your computer. Once started a icon appears in the system tray that allows you to configure sizer. You are free to add exact pixel sizes to the configuration which appear when you right click any window that is open. You may also opt to reposition the window while resizing it, sizer offers some default locations like top left or bottom right but has another option that makes it possible to enter the coordinates yourself.
It all began with Asteroids, navigating a small spaceship through space, avoiding and destryoing asteroids that flew by on its way. A game of passion using a minimalistic design to create maximum pleasure for the gamer. Geometry Wars, a highly successful game for the xbox 360, is an Asteroid clone. You have a spaceship, you can move it on the screen, you don't have asteroids but geometrical figures that you have to shoot. It's faster, more colorful and meaner than Asteroids.
I received an email some days ago from a reader who would like to know if there was a program for Microsoft windows that would replicate the middle mouse functionality of Linux systems, that is copy a text with the first click and paste the text with the second click. Lucky me had already a bookmark to the freeware true x-mouse gizmo for windows website so I send him that information and think it made him happy.
More than ten dedicated servers have been seized by the German police last Thursday. Some servers were running a version of the popular anonymising software Tor (The Onion Routing) which leads to the conclusion that those Tor Servers were most likely configured to run as Exit Nodes as well as normal nodes. As you may know a request runs through different Tor Servers with each only knowing the adjacent servers but not the starting node (you) and the destination. Only the last node in the chain knows the destination.
This little tweak is really helpfull if you happen to have many windows open and would like to access a hard drive on your computer quickly. Sure, you could hit the left windows key and M and all windows become minimized but you still have to double click the my computer icon and the hard drive icon before you are there - that is if you have my computer on your desktop at all.
Amazon Unbox, the new video download service provided by Amazon, went live yesterday offering users a free and easy way to download and view videos on their computer. Most tv series cost 1,99$ while movies begin at 3,99$ up to 19,99$ for new releases. Files are offered in .wmv and .amzn (for portable devices) format only and can't be burned on DVD to watch the movie at the television. The only way to do that would be to connect the computer to the televsion.
I suppose you already heard the news that Sonys new Ubermachine Playstation 3 will not have a worldwide launch because of production problems. Sony once again decided to smack every European who wanted to buy the system right into the face without caring much that Europe is indeed one of the biggest markets for Sony with more than 38 million Playstation 2 systems sold compared to 42 million in the United States and 23 million in Japan.
The requested web page was not found. Errors. I hate them. Never know if the server is down because it was taken offline, because it is experiencing traffic spikes or the admin is tampering with the system. My normal solution would be to hit F5 a few times and see if the website loads fine. If it does not I tend to forget about it or save it in the bookmarks if it is worth trying again in a few hours.
Many people are using RSS feeds and feel acustomed to them but shy away from podcasts. I'am not sure why this is the case but tools like Juice Receiver could close this obvious gap. Podcasts are like radio shows, the only difference that they are not broadcasted but available as downloads mostly in mp3 format. The variety of themes excells those of radio shows in my opinion although tech podcasts are more common than, lets say, podcasts for women.
If you want to make a screenshot by using the print key on your keyboard you have to paste the copied screen to an image manipulation program like gimp and save it from within that program. Would not it be much easier if pressing the print key would immediatly result in one of the following actions specified by the user: a) copy to clipboard (default behavior) b) sent to printer and print the screenshot and c) automatically save the screenshot on your hard drive.
Internet Explorer users beware: Stealth Web Page Recorder is a little add on for internet explorer that records every visited webpage including every action on that website like entering passwords, forms, emails and account numbers. The add on can't be spotted in the task manager nor in advanced tools like process explorer, it is a so called BHO - Browser Helper Object.
Despite the latest rumors of postponing the released of the release candidate of Microsofts upcoming Windows Vista operating system a download link for the release candidate was made public earlier this day. Head over to Microsofts official Windows Vista website and grab it while it is hot. The size of the release candidate is 3677 megabytes and available in iso format. You will have to burn the iso to a dvd before you can install the new version.
Many websites post random images every time their page is reloaded, webcams come to my mind as well that load a new image once every few minutes. Saving a sequence of images is really painful if you do it manually. You have to click reload, save the image, reload, save the image. SeqDownload is a nice little freeware application that automates this task for you, download the program from the link above and unpack it into a directory of your choice - there is no installation involved, run it right fom the location you unpacked the files to.
Ghacks got slashdotted yesterday and I had to enable caching to make the site run fluent as usual. I'am sorry if you experienced troubles connecting to my website, those should be solved by now. When I was installing Windows XP on my new computer that had only SATA drives I had to use a floppy disk to load the SATA drivers because Windows did not have them onboard at that time. I had to buy a floppy drive, floppy disks and create a bootdisk and load the drivers from that disk during setup.
I sometimes quote websites and do a normal copy paste job to copy the website content to the editor of my blog or into a word processor. Unfortunately this copy job always pastes the original formatting of the original source to the editor as well which means that the text may have a different size, font type or color. It is quite a hassle to remove the formatting of the copied contents to make it look like the rest of your content.
The length of the bookmarks tab in firefox has been bothering me for a while. It is equal to the length of the largest entry which could mean that it could quickly clutter your interface when you have some sort of subfolder system that I use. One method to overcome this would be to strip every bookmark so that it would never use more than 20 chars, everything else would be cut off. I did that for some time but discovered a way that makes everything so much easier.
Quadmaster posted a nice guide to streaming video in lan on the techenclave website. All you need is the great media player VLC (video lan client), in a recent poll 36% of all voters on ghacks voted for vlc as the best media player. You need to assign local IP addresses if you have not done so allready, for sake of simplicity I assume the main pc that streams the content has a IP of 192.168.0.1 and the first client pc that recieves the stream has the IP 192.168.0.2.
Would you prefer that important data like information about yourself, account numbers, personal documents and the like are accessible all the time from everyone who has access to your computer or that this data is only available to someone with special access ? I would like to give details on an easy way to store your data safely on your computer without wasting lots of time. It may be safer keeping the data in a safe in your appartement but this is not really practicable.
