1.open our very own google
2.without entering any keyword press "iam feeling lucky"
3.a secret countdown will been seen at the end
Multiple login in yahoo messenger Without Using any Software
Useful & Important Tricks
Multiple login in yahoo messenger Without Using any Software
You can login with multiple id's on the same yahoo messenger without any download or patch .
Follow these steps :
1. Go to Start ----> Run . Type regedit, then enter .
2.Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER --------> Software --->yahoo ----->pager---->Test
3.On the right page , right-click and choose new Dword value .
4.Rename it as Plural.
5.Double click and assign a decimal value of 1.
Its done!!
Now close registry and restart yahoo messenger and Enjoy Many Logins...
Examkiller IBM 000-081 exam Software Description
Certification: IBM
Exam Number/Code: IBM 000-081
Exam Name: System x Technical Principles v9
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Exam Number/Code: IBM 000-081
Exam Name: System x Technical Principles v9
Why choose Examkiller IBM 000-081 braindumps
Quality and Value for the IBM 000-081 exam
100% Guarantee to Pass Your IBM 000-081 exam
Practice Test Questions accompanied by exhibits
There are four methods that Examkiller uses to educate the masses in Information Technology. Using any combination of these steps will absolutely ensure success on test day. Our most popular Examkiller IBM 000-081 training product is the IBM 000-081 questions and answers with a downloadable testing engine. Use the IBM 000-081 Examkiller exam simulator to prepare for your upcoming exam and pass it with confidence!
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Important Hidden Facts About Windows XP OS
1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type ’systeminfo’. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type ’systeminfo > info.txt’. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only). 2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run… and type ‘gpedit.msc’; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care — some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only).
3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter ‘rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation’ in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That’s it — just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that’s not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.
4. XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can make it show everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word ‘hide’ and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be the software and you can now uninstall it.
5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include ‘eventcreate’ and ‘eventtriggers’ for creating and watching system events, ‘typeperf’ for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and ’schtasks’ for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options.
6. XP has IP version 6 support — the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type ‘ipv6 install’ into Run… (it’s OK, it won’t ruin your existing network setup) and then ‘ipv6 /?’ at the command line to find out more. If you don’t know what IPv6 is, don’t worry.
7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using ‘taskkill /pid’ and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’, which will also tell you a lot about what’s going on in your system.
8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you’ve got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files alone by typing ‘regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll’ at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can change things back by typing ‘regsvr32 zipfldr.dll’.
9. XP has ClearType — Microsoft’s anti-aliasing font display technology — but doesn’t have it enabled by default. It’s well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.
10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who’s using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your friend’s real IP address — they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com — and get them to make sure that they’ve got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.
11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As… and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.
12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might go insane before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.
13. You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run… from the start menu and type ‘control userpasswords2′, which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.
14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options… and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.
15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can’t see the LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You’ll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic.
16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.
17. You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By… Show In Groups.
18. Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks — if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn’t, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.
19. Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.
20. Windows XP secretly KNOWS that the average user has no idea what they are doing. Therefore, it doesn’t let you do really stupid things like deleting the windows directory (at least not without spending several hours convincing it that you REALLY want to do this). Oh yeah, and internet explorer kinda sucks, get Firefox.
3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter ‘rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation’ in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That’s it — just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that’s not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.
4. XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can make it show everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word ‘hide’ and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be the software and you can now uninstall it.
5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include ‘eventcreate’ and ‘eventtriggers’ for creating and watching system events, ‘typeperf’ for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and ’schtasks’ for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options.
6. XP has IP version 6 support — the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type ‘ipv6 install’ into Run… (it’s OK, it won’t ruin your existing network setup) and then ‘ipv6 /?’ at the command line to find out more. If you don’t know what IPv6 is, don’t worry.
7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using ‘taskkill /pid’ and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’, which will also tell you a lot about what’s going on in your system.
8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you’ve got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files alone by typing ‘regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll’ at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can change things back by typing ‘regsvr32 zipfldr.dll’.
9. XP has ClearType — Microsoft’s anti-aliasing font display technology — but doesn’t have it enabled by default. It’s well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.
10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who’s using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your friend’s real IP address — they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com — and get them to make sure that they’ve got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.
11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As… and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.
12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might go insane before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.
13. You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run… from the start menu and type ‘control userpasswords2′, which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.
14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options… and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.
15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can’t see the LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You’ll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic.
16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.
17. You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By… Show In Groups.
18. Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks — if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn’t, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.
19. Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.
20. Windows XP secretly KNOWS that the average user has no idea what they are doing. Therefore, it doesn’t let you do really stupid things like deleting the windows directory (at least not without spending several hours convincing it that you REALLY want to do this). Oh yeah, and internet explorer kinda sucks, get Firefox.
ALL ABOUT 3G Networks
3g is mobile broadband bro
ur phone should have the 3g capability to access 3g network
speed u get is around 344 kbps...
right now bsnl and mtnl provide the service and that too in limited areas..
3g in india is a dream and dont start jumping around as there are still many yeears to go to have full fledged
3G = UMTS just like 2g = GPRS/EDGE. 3G offers upto 7.2 Mbps speeds on mobile/data card. You can use 3G to browse on your mobiles, video calls and run many network intensive apps simultaneously.
Off course there's 3.5G called HSDPA and 4G called LTE/WiMax but that's a very very long way ahead in India
Is N72 supports 3G, bcoz when I called MTNL they told me N72 nokia supports 3G but I am not sure
ur phone should have the 3g capability to access 3g network
speed u get is around 344 kbps...
right now bsnl and mtnl provide the service and that too in limited areas..
3g in india is a dream and dont start jumping around as there are still many yeears to go to have full fledged
3G = UMTS just like 2g = GPRS/EDGE. 3G offers upto 7.2 Mbps speeds on mobile/data card. You can use 3G to browse on your mobiles, video calls and run many network intensive apps simultaneously.
Off course there's 3.5G called HSDPA and 4G called LTE/WiMax but that's a very very long way ahead in India
Is N72 supports 3G, bcoz when I called MTNL they told me N72 nokia supports 3G but I am not sure
Inbuilt Bluetooth Software in Windows XP!
Now you don’t need 2 install any software for ur blutooth device.
you don’t know but u already had it in ur window xp nd vista
it can be used as:-
1.open the run command
2.now type ‘fsquirt’ without quotes...
3.now just select where 2 send or receive any file vry easy
Hve Fun !!
you don’t know but u already had it in ur window xp nd vista
it can be used as:-
1.open the run command
2.now type ‘fsquirt’ without quotes...
3.now just select where 2 send or receive any file vry easy
Hve Fun !!
Airtel GPRS 2GB FREE DOWNLOAD Rs. 95/- Per Month !!
New scheme of airtel in GPRS
2 GB night time download per month
100 MB at day time.
Night time 11.30 PM TO 8.00 AM
ENJOY.. FRIENDS
2 GB night time download per month
100 MB at day time.
Night time 11.30 PM TO 8.00 AM
ENJOY.. FRIENDS
Garmin nüvi 760 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Automobile Navigator
Garmin's nüvi 700 series brings two exciting new features -- multi-destination routing and, "Where am I?/Where's my car?" -- to its popular pocket-sized GPS navigator lineup. As with all nüvis, you get Garmin reliability, the fast satellite lock of an integrated high-sensitivity receiver, a slim, pocket-sized design with a gorgeous display, an easy, intuitive interface, and detailed NAVTEQ maps for the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico with more than 6 million name-searchable points of interest. All of the 700-series navigators also feature a rich array of features including spoken directions in real street names, MP3 player and photo viewer, and an FM transmitter that will play voice prompts, MP3s, audio books, and more, directly through your vehicle's stereo system.The nüvi 760 and 770 add integrated traffic receivers and Bluetooth capability for hands-free calling. The nüvi 770 adds maps for Europe. The nüvi 780 adds enhanced MSN direct content capability..
Garmin Oregon 400t Touch-Screen Handheld GPS Receiver with US Topo Maps
Unlike the other two GSP devices in our Top Picks, this one is an outdoor GPS devices and this high-end model features a touch screen. Oregon 400t is the best off the road GPS available;, its tough, 3-inch diagonal, sunlight-readable, color, touchscreen display is the highest of the high end with regard to these kinds of devices. Its easy-to-use interface means you'll spend more time enjoying the outdoors and less time searching for information. The Garmin Oregon 400t is rugged built for hard impacts and can be submerged in water up to a depth of a meter for half an hour without damage. It features wireless communication and the 400t is preloaded with topographic maps, perfect for hiking and biking. It also can be upgraded with additional maps, including the City Navigator, which adds street-level, turn-by-turn automotive navigation for the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico along with a six-million-entry points-of-interest (POI) database. With Oregon 400t you can share your waypoints, tracks, routes and geocaches wirelessly with other Oregon and Colorado users. Now you can send your favorite hike to your friend to enjoy or the location of a cache to find. Sharing data is easy. Just touch "send" to transfer your information to similar units. Oregon 400t supports Geocaching.com GPX files for downloading geocaches and details straight to your unit. No more manually entering coordinates and paper print outs! Simply upload the GPX file to your unit and start hunting for caches. Show off the photos of your trip instantly. Though Garmin does not reveal which GPS chipset is used in the device, the receiver highly sensitive, and satellite acquisition time is rapid. With its high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled GPS receiver and HotFix satellite prediction, Oregon 400t locates your position quickly and precisely and maintains its GPS location even in heavy cover and deep canyons. The advantage is clear - whether you're in deep woods or just near tall buildings and trees, you can count on Oregon to help you find your way when you need it the most. Both durable and waterproof, Oregon 400t is built to withstand the elements. Bumps, dust, dirt, humidity and water are no match for this rugged navigator. The Oregon GPS is easy to use and maintain, powered by two AA batteries . A latch releases the back panel to expose the battery and memory slot compartment. Insert a microSD card and some batteries and this highly mobile GPS is ready to go anywhere
Microsoft Streets and Trips 2009 with GPS Locator DVD
You know where you want to go, and Microsoft Streets & Trips 2008 with GPS can help you get there. This best-selling travel and map software has been enhanced with several new features that take all the guesswork out of traveling, letting you focus on the sites, instead of the directions. With more than 1.6 million points of interest to choose from, and with updated maps and the most extensive trip planning features you'll find anywhere, Streets & Trips will help you plan your trip, your way. This package of software and GPS Locator is the ultimate travel tool for anyone who wants to plan a memorable vacation, or simply needs to find their way around town without a hitch.
It starts with all the door-to-door routing, location-finding and comprehensive mapping power of Microsoft Streets and Trips, and adds a plug-and-play Global Positioning System (GPS) locator that helps you stay on track and always knows where your next turn is. Combining the power and versatility of a GPS receiver with mapping information that is pinpoint accurate and easy-to-use, Streets & Trips 2008 with GPS Locator is the essential travel tool.
It starts with all the door-to-door routing, location-finding and comprehensive mapping power of Microsoft Streets and Trips, and adds a plug-and-play Global Positioning System (GPS) locator that helps you stay on track and always knows where your next turn is. Combining the power and versatility of a GPS receiver with mapping information that is pinpoint accurate and easy-to-use, Streets & Trips 2008 with GPS Locator is the essential travel tool.
What is The Practical Uses of Global Positioning Systems?
These are some of the ways that GPS is used in the "real world" for a variety of different purposes. In this lens we feature the "best of the breed" products in these GPS use categories
uses of gps technology
1. GeoCaching: High Tech Treasure Hunting: Geocaching takes treasure hunting one step further by using GPS units to located hidden treasures. The name of the game is a combination of "Geo" from geography and "Caching" from the action of hiding the cache (or treasure). The term cache is commonly used among hikers and campers to refer to a hidden supply of food or other provisions.
2. Personal Emergencies: GPS equipped cell phones can transmit precise locations to 911 dispatchers. This allows the dispatcher to have an immediate and accurate location instead of relying upon descriptions of people who may be unfamiliar with the area or too distraught to explain their location. The same technology has also helped catch people who make crank 911 calls from their GPS-enabled cell phone.
3. Recreational Uses: GPS is popular among hikers, hunters, snowmobilers, mountain bikers, and cross-country skiers. rails can be viewed on topographic map software, traced on the screen and that route can be downloaded into the GPS. Then, in the field the route can be displayed in the map window of the GPS and easily followed. Another use is to leave the GPS on and in a mesh pocket of your backpack while hiking. This will allow the GPS to record a tracklog of your hike. The tracklog can be shared with others, plotted on maps, used for distance hiked estmiates and even printed with mapping software and shared with friends
4. Emergency Roadside Assistance
OnStar by GM for example uses GPS to track vehicles' whereabouts and allows motorists to summon emergency help or to ask directions.
5. Tracking Your Kids: GPS-enabled cell phones can be used to monitor your kids. When Johnny calls you for his after school check in you can confirm if his coordinates are at the public library or at the pool ha
6. Photography: Geocoding Photos Some cameras will annotate your digital and traditional images with the date and time, however, new GPS-enabled cameras can also annotate them with precision coordinates which mark the location of your photos. These annotations can be very useful in science field work, real estate, law enforcement and many other areas.
7. Automobiles and Driving: GPS tracking devices can be used to navigate your car through traffic and find your way to any destination. Many Auto GPS Systems come with preloaded destination settings or points of interest (POI) that provide directions to attractions, and important pit stops such as gas stations, hotels, motels, and lodges. For vacation travel, or any other time you need to map out a course for traveling, the system has course-planning functionality.
8. Laptop GPS: Laptop GPS receivers turn any mobile computer into a fully functional GPS System. Save money and use a laptop GPS receiver for in-vehicle, office based meetings to track locations and find directions or simply to plan a cycle ride for the next day. The in built sophistication of the laptop, augmented with navigation and mapping programs provides much more extensive information than most handheld applications. By using laptop GPS navigation, you are using an already familiar tool, with no need to learn new hardware functionality. Laptop GPS receivers are simply attached to your laptop, notebook or utlrasmall computer using USB or serial connections as with many other peripheral devices. Quite often bundled with software, they are very effective GPS systems
uses of gps technology
1. GeoCaching: High Tech Treasure Hunting: Geocaching takes treasure hunting one step further by using GPS units to located hidden treasures. The name of the game is a combination of "Geo" from geography and "Caching" from the action of hiding the cache (or treasure). The term cache is commonly used among hikers and campers to refer to a hidden supply of food or other provisions.
2. Personal Emergencies: GPS equipped cell phones can transmit precise locations to 911 dispatchers. This allows the dispatcher to have an immediate and accurate location instead of relying upon descriptions of people who may be unfamiliar with the area or too distraught to explain their location. The same technology has also helped catch people who make crank 911 calls from their GPS-enabled cell phone.
3. Recreational Uses: GPS is popular among hikers, hunters, snowmobilers, mountain bikers, and cross-country skiers. rails can be viewed on topographic map software, traced on the screen and that route can be downloaded into the GPS. Then, in the field the route can be displayed in the map window of the GPS and easily followed. Another use is to leave the GPS on and in a mesh pocket of your backpack while hiking. This will allow the GPS to record a tracklog of your hike. The tracklog can be shared with others, plotted on maps, used for distance hiked estmiates and even printed with mapping software and shared with friends
4. Emergency Roadside Assistance
OnStar by GM for example uses GPS to track vehicles' whereabouts and allows motorists to summon emergency help or to ask directions.
5. Tracking Your Kids: GPS-enabled cell phones can be used to monitor your kids. When Johnny calls you for his after school check in you can confirm if his coordinates are at the public library or at the pool ha
6. Photography: Geocoding Photos Some cameras will annotate your digital and traditional images with the date and time, however, new GPS-enabled cameras can also annotate them with precision coordinates which mark the location of your photos. These annotations can be very useful in science field work, real estate, law enforcement and many other areas.
7. Automobiles and Driving: GPS tracking devices can be used to navigate your car through traffic and find your way to any destination. Many Auto GPS Systems come with preloaded destination settings or points of interest (POI) that provide directions to attractions, and important pit stops such as gas stations, hotels, motels, and lodges. For vacation travel, or any other time you need to map out a course for traveling, the system has course-planning functionality.
8. Laptop GPS: Laptop GPS receivers turn any mobile computer into a fully functional GPS System. Save money and use a laptop GPS receiver for in-vehicle, office based meetings to track locations and find directions or simply to plan a cycle ride for the next day. The in built sophistication of the laptop, augmented with navigation and mapping programs provides much more extensive information than most handheld applications. By using laptop GPS navigation, you are using an already familiar tool, with no need to learn new hardware functionality. Laptop GPS receivers are simply attached to your laptop, notebook or utlrasmall computer using USB or serial connections as with many other peripheral devices. Quite often bundled with software, they are very effective GPS systems
Magellan Maestro 4210 Portable Automotive GPS System
The more reasonably priced but top-of-the-line GPS is the ultra thin Magellan Maestro 4250. The Maestro comes with a 4.3-inch wide screen display, a built-in traffic receiver for live updates, and an enormous ix-million points of interest (POI) database built-in. It also t integrates with the AAA TourBook to display listings of restaurants and accommodations, local attractions, approved auto repair shops, AAA office locations, and more. This high-end model also offers text-to-speech functionality and a Bluetooth phone interface. Perhaps the most notable feature is voice command, which you can use to control many of its functions hands-free.
The Maestro 4050 let you control many of the functions with your voice. On the 4250, Voice Command works even better considering that you don't have to train the device. In fact, using Voice Command becomes quite addictive. Without an active route, the Voice Command menu can help you find the nearest coffee shop, restaurant, gas station, or ATM; navigate Home; or enter the roadside assistance menu, just to mention a few options. While not as brilliant and full-featured as the Garmin speech system, it does the job.
It also features a Bluetooth interface and pairs quickly but lacks some of the advanced features found in the Garmin such as downloading and using stored contacts from your mobile phone.
However, he most robust feature of the Maestro is its enormous database and up to date maps. Unlike other devices, all of the surrounding features are there including the newest bridges and roads. This is Magellan's top of the line GPS despite the recent of the introduction of the 5310 which has a larger screen but less features.
The Maestro 4050 let you control many of the functions with your voice. On the 4250, Voice Command works even better considering that you don't have to train the device. In fact, using Voice Command becomes quite addictive. Without an active route, the Voice Command menu can help you find the nearest coffee shop, restaurant, gas station, or ATM; navigate Home; or enter the roadside assistance menu, just to mention a few options. While not as brilliant and full-featured as the Garmin speech system, it does the job.
It also features a Bluetooth interface and pairs quickly but lacks some of the advanced features found in the Garmin such as downloading and using stored contacts from your mobile phone.
However, he most robust feature of the Maestro is its enormous database and up to date maps. Unlike other devices, all of the surrounding features are there including the newest bridges and roads. This is Magellan's top of the line GPS despite the recent of the introduction of the 5310 which has a larger screen but less features.
Garmin 885/885T Bluetooth Automotive GPS System w/ MSN Direct & Voice Recognition
Garmin is currently number 1 among all GPS manufacturers among reviewers. The nüvi 885/885T is Garmin's new top-of-the-line automotive GPS and has been chosen Number 1 by the highly regarded Consumer Reports.
This state-of-the-art GPS device features a 4.3-inch, 480-by-272-pixel, WQVGA resolution screen. Its navigation is simplicity itself using am easy-to-navigate main menu with large icons for Where To and View Map. Two smaller icons at the bottom of the screen provide access to the volume controls, as well as the tools menu. If you've paired the device with a compatible Bluetooth phone, a phone icon also appears on the main screen.
There's built-in support for Microsoft's MSN Direct service. Available from the Tools menu or the Where To screen, MSN Direct provides access to a host of useful information, such as live traffic, weather, movie times, news, stock information, local events, and even gas prices at nearby service stations.
The nüvi 880 also has a number of useful built-in, travel tools, including currency and unit of measure converters, a four-zone world clock, a four-function calculator, and 11 games. You also get a music player, an Audible audiobook player, and a picture viewer. The Where Am I tool gives you your exact latitude, longitude, nearest street address, and current intersection. YOu get one-tap directions to nearby hospitals, police, and gas stations.
What makes this device special is it's sophisticated speech recognition. Garmin takes a different approach from other GPS manufacturers, however. the Magellan Maestro for example, activates its voice command mode when it hears the keyword Magellan. Unfortunately it often misinterprets passenger conversation triggering the its voice command mode. Garmin solves this problem by giving the 880 a small wireless remote designed to be strapped to the steering wheel. A large push-to-talk button on the remote puts the nüvi 880 into Listen mode, whereupon a green icon appears in the upper right-hand corner of the screen when it's your turn to speak. A red icon tells you that the device isn't accepting speech input at that moment, or didn't recognize what you've said. The smaller button on the remote takes the navigator out of Listen mode. Alternatively, after about 10 seconds of silence, the speech icon disappears and the device reverts back to normal touch-screen function.
The speech recognition abilities of the Garmin are uncanny. For those of you who use Dragon NaturallySpeaking software on your PC and have to dictate carefully in a noiseless room for any reasonable kind of accuracy probably wonder how a GPS with all of the street noise can figure out where your going. But all you need to do is activate push-to-talk button, speak your "Where to" in your usual conversational manner, and the Garmin will promote you for additional answers until it finds out what it needs. Its amazingly better as far as accuracy with picking up numbers as compared to the aforementioned NaturallySpeaking Software.
The Garmin nüvi 880 is a the best general travel GPS on the market. Features of this luxury device, including text-to-speech conversion, multisegment routing, Bluetooth plus media players and travel tools. The Garmin nüvi 880 uncannily good speech recognition blows away the competition and seals the deal.
This state-of-the-art GPS device features a 4.3-inch, 480-by-272-pixel, WQVGA resolution screen. Its navigation is simplicity itself using am easy-to-navigate main menu with large icons for Where To and View Map. Two smaller icons at the bottom of the screen provide access to the volume controls, as well as the tools menu. If you've paired the device with a compatible Bluetooth phone, a phone icon also appears on the main screen.
There's built-in support for Microsoft's MSN Direct service. Available from the Tools menu or the Where To screen, MSN Direct provides access to a host of useful information, such as live traffic, weather, movie times, news, stock information, local events, and even gas prices at nearby service stations.
The nüvi 880 also has a number of useful built-in, travel tools, including currency and unit of measure converters, a four-zone world clock, a four-function calculator, and 11 games. You also get a music player, an Audible audiobook player, and a picture viewer. The Where Am I tool gives you your exact latitude, longitude, nearest street address, and current intersection. YOu get one-tap directions to nearby hospitals, police, and gas stations.
What makes this device special is it's sophisticated speech recognition. Garmin takes a different approach from other GPS manufacturers, however. the Magellan Maestro for example, activates its voice command mode when it hears the keyword Magellan. Unfortunately it often misinterprets passenger conversation triggering the its voice command mode. Garmin solves this problem by giving the 880 a small wireless remote designed to be strapped to the steering wheel. A large push-to-talk button on the remote puts the nüvi 880 into Listen mode, whereupon a green icon appears in the upper right-hand corner of the screen when it's your turn to speak. A red icon tells you that the device isn't accepting speech input at that moment, or didn't recognize what you've said. The smaller button on the remote takes the navigator out of Listen mode. Alternatively, after about 10 seconds of silence, the speech icon disappears and the device reverts back to normal touch-screen function.
The speech recognition abilities of the Garmin are uncanny. For those of you who use Dragon NaturallySpeaking software on your PC and have to dictate carefully in a noiseless room for any reasonable kind of accuracy probably wonder how a GPS with all of the street noise can figure out where your going. But all you need to do is activate push-to-talk button, speak your "Where to" in your usual conversational manner, and the Garmin will promote you for additional answers until it finds out what it needs. Its amazingly better as far as accuracy with picking up numbers as compared to the aforementioned NaturallySpeaking Software.
The Garmin nüvi 880 is a the best general travel GPS on the market. Features of this luxury device, including text-to-speech conversion, multisegment routing, Bluetooth plus media players and travel tools. The Garmin nüvi 880 uncannily good speech recognition blows away the competition and seals the deal.
How GPS Works ?
When people talk about "a GPS," they usually mean a GPS receiver. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is actually a constellation of 27 Earth-orbiting satellites (24 in operation and three extras in case one fails). The U.S. military developed and implemented this satellite network as a military navigation system, but soon opened it up to everybody else.
Each of these 3,000- to 4,000-pound solar-powered satellites circles the globe at about 12,000 miles (19,300 km), making two complete rotations every day. The orbits are arranged so that at any time, anywhere on Earth, there are at least four satellites "visible" in the sky.,
A GPS receiver's job is to locate four or more of these satellites, figure out the distance to each, and use this information to deduce its own location. This operation is based on a simple mathematical principle called trilateration.GPS receiver calculates its position on earth based on the information it receives from four located satellites. This system works pretty well, but inaccuracies do pop up. For one thing, this method assumes the radio signals will make their way through the atmosphere at a consistent speed (the speed of light). In fact, the Earth's atmosphere slows the electromagnetic energy down somewhat, particularly as it goes through the ionosphere and troposphere. The delay varies depending on where you are on Earth, which means it's difficult to accurately factor this into the distance calculations. Problems can also occur when radio signals bounce off large objects, such as skyscrapers, giving a receiver the impression that a satellite is farther away than it actually is. On top of all that, satellites sometimes just send out bad almanac data, misreporting their own position.
Differential GPS (DGPS) helps correct these errors. The basic idea is to gauge GPS inaccuracy at a stationary receiver station with a known location. Since the DGPS hardware at the station already knows its own position, it can easily calculate its receiver's inaccuracy. The station then broadcasts a radio signal to all DGPS-equipped receivers in the area, providing signal correction information for that area. In general, access to this correction information makes DGPS receivers much more accurate than ordinary receivers.
Each of these 3,000- to 4,000-pound solar-powered satellites circles the globe at about 12,000 miles (19,300 km), making two complete rotations every day. The orbits are arranged so that at any time, anywhere on Earth, there are at least four satellites "visible" in the sky.,
A GPS receiver's job is to locate four or more of these satellites, figure out the distance to each, and use this information to deduce its own location. This operation is based on a simple mathematical principle called trilateration.GPS receiver calculates its position on earth based on the information it receives from four located satellites. This system works pretty well, but inaccuracies do pop up. For one thing, this method assumes the radio signals will make their way through the atmosphere at a consistent speed (the speed of light). In fact, the Earth's atmosphere slows the electromagnetic energy down somewhat, particularly as it goes through the ionosphere and troposphere. The delay varies depending on where you are on Earth, which means it's difficult to accurately factor this into the distance calculations. Problems can also occur when radio signals bounce off large objects, such as skyscrapers, giving a receiver the impression that a satellite is farther away than it actually is. On top of all that, satellites sometimes just send out bad almanac data, misreporting their own position.
Differential GPS (DGPS) helps correct these errors. The basic idea is to gauge GPS inaccuracy at a stationary receiver station with a known location. Since the DGPS hardware at the station already knows its own position, it can easily calculate its receiver's inaccuracy. The station then broadcasts a radio signal to all DGPS-equipped receivers in the area, providing signal correction information for that area. In general, access to this correction information makes DGPS receivers much more accurate than ordinary receivers.
Mandriva Linux 2010 RC2 available now
The last development version of Mandriva Linux 2010 RC2 (32 and 64 bit free versions) went live on Saturday, and is now available for testing from our FileForum.
Please note that this should not be used to upgrade stable installations of Mandriva Linux, as there are unresolved issues with windows managers such as KDE and GNOME which could conflict with previous versions. This pre-release edition is mainly for bug fixes, but the official public release of Mandriva Linux 2010 remains scheduled for November 3.
This candidate is especially noteworthy because Mandriva Linux 2010 will be the first 100% free Linux distribution to fully integrate Moblin (2.0), the Linux Foundation's mobile platform designed to run optimally on Intel's Atom chips. While it is designed specifically for netbooks and such, it can still be useful for quick and straightforward tasks.
This version replaces the Splashy boot screen with Red Hat's Plymouth, includes the Guest Account ability, and also upgrades its interfaces to include KDE 4.3.2, GNOME 2.28, and Xfce 4.6.1.
Please note that this should not be used to upgrade stable installations of Mandriva Linux, as there are unresolved issues with windows managers such as KDE and GNOME which could conflict with previous versions. This pre-release edition is mainly for bug fixes, but the official public release of Mandriva Linux 2010 remains scheduled for November 3.
This candidate is especially noteworthy because Mandriva Linux 2010 will be the first 100% free Linux distribution to fully integrate Moblin (2.0), the Linux Foundation's mobile platform designed to run optimally on Intel's Atom chips. While it is designed specifically for netbooks and such, it can still be useful for quick and straightforward tasks.
This version replaces the Splashy boot screen with Red Hat's Plymouth, includes the Guest Account ability, and also upgrades its interfaces to include KDE 4.3.2, GNOME 2.28, and Xfce 4.6.1.
Windows Vista Vs Windows 7 !! Which one is better???
As many veteran Windows users already know, the operating system doesn't actually boot to an "idle state" -- it's not DOS. Since that time, Iolo has been characterizing the time it stops its stopwatch as the time that the CPU is "fully usable," which seems rather nebulous.
The discussion over whether this means Win7 is slower was declared moot today by TG Daily's Andrew Thomas, who wrote, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: I put it to you that there are no occasions when the boot time of a PC is important in any way whatsoever."
Unfortunately, there is one situation where the boot time of a PC is important: It affects the public's perception of whether the PC is actually faster, and thus better. And as we have seen with Vista, an operating system that was by all scientific measures much more secure than Windows XP, the perception that it was less secure -- by virtue of its highly sensitive behavior -- was as bad, if not worse, from the public vantage point as being insecure to begin with.
The public at large typically perceives the boot sequence of a computer as the period of time between startup and the first moment they're asked to log in. Betanews tested that interval this afternoon using an external stopwatch, and our triple-boot test system: an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600-based computer using a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 motherboard, an Nvidia 8600 GTS-series video card, 3 GB of DDR2 DRAM, and a 640 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive. Both Vista and Win7 partitions are located on this same drive.
The interval we tested is between the pressing of Enter at the multi-boot selection screen, and the moment the login screen appears. While the tools I used for timing were an ordinary digital stopwatch and my eyeballs, I will gladly let everyone know that I use these same tools to test qualifications at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and my measurements vary from those at the Timing & Scoring booth usually by about 0.05 seconds.
In tests of what I'll call the "perceived boot interval" on the same machine, Windows 7 posted a five-boot average time of 24.214 seconds. Windows Vista, booting from the exact same machine and the exact same disk (just a different partition) posted an average of 36.262 seconds -- just about 50% slower. Exactly how much time is required for a Windows-based system to start idling down and doing relatively nothing -- the "fully usable" state that Iolo is looking for -- typically varies wildly depending on what drivers are installed, and what startup applications may be running. On a well-utilized XP-based system (and we have a truckload of those), that time may officially be never.
However, it's worth noting that in a separate test conducted by ChannelWeb's Samara Lynn this afternoon, she discovered that boot times for a system running Windows 7 with Iolo's System Mechanic software installed were typically slower than for the same system with System Mechanic not installed. This may be because System Mechanic was authored with Vista in mind -- which could explain a lot of things about Iolo's own evaluation.
The discussion over whether this means Win7 is slower was declared moot today by TG Daily's Andrew Thomas, who wrote, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: I put it to you that there are no occasions when the boot time of a PC is important in any way whatsoever."
Unfortunately, there is one situation where the boot time of a PC is important: It affects the public's perception of whether the PC is actually faster, and thus better. And as we have seen with Vista, an operating system that was by all scientific measures much more secure than Windows XP, the perception that it was less secure -- by virtue of its highly sensitive behavior -- was as bad, if not worse, from the public vantage point as being insecure to begin with.
The public at large typically perceives the boot sequence of a computer as the period of time between startup and the first moment they're asked to log in. Betanews tested that interval this afternoon using an external stopwatch, and our triple-boot test system: an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600-based computer using a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 motherboard, an Nvidia 8600 GTS-series video card, 3 GB of DDR2 DRAM, and a 640 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive. Both Vista and Win7 partitions are located on this same drive.
The interval we tested is between the pressing of Enter at the multi-boot selection screen, and the moment the login screen appears. While the tools I used for timing were an ordinary digital stopwatch and my eyeballs, I will gladly let everyone know that I use these same tools to test qualifications at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and my measurements vary from those at the Timing & Scoring booth usually by about 0.05 seconds.
In tests of what I'll call the "perceived boot interval" on the same machine, Windows 7 posted a five-boot average time of 24.214 seconds. Windows Vista, booting from the exact same machine and the exact same disk (just a different partition) posted an average of 36.262 seconds -- just about 50% slower. Exactly how much time is required for a Windows-based system to start idling down and doing relatively nothing -- the "fully usable" state that Iolo is looking for -- typically varies wildly depending on what drivers are installed, and what startup applications may be running. On a well-utilized XP-based system (and we have a truckload of those), that time may officially be never.
However, it's worth noting that in a separate test conducted by ChannelWeb's Samara Lynn this afternoon, she discovered that boot times for a system running Windows 7 with Iolo's System Mechanic software installed were typically slower than for the same system with System Mechanic not installed. This may be because System Mechanic was authored with Vista in mind -- which could explain a lot of things about Iolo's own evaluation.
Google: No Chrome OS event tomorrow, contrary to reports
A presentation that Google had scheduled for early tomorrow evening at its Mountain View offices entitled "Front End Engineering Open House" will be a discussion about the Google Chrome Web browser, and not a preview of Google Chrome OS as reported by multiple Web sites this afternoon, one example of which appears at this hyperlink.
"This is actually just a small recruiting event and we won't be talking about Chrome OS at all," the spokesperson told Betanews moments ago, "just one engineer talking about UI design for Google Chrome (the browser)." The implication that Chrome OS was the subject was chocked up as a "false alarm."
Google took down the registration page for the event due to heavy traffic in just the last few hours. It may very well already be booked solid.
A cottage industry in Chrome OS rumors has blossomed since last July, with a treasure trove of amateur Photoshop touch-ups purporting to depict the new netbook operating system, though showing very few real features beyond what's already been seen in Windows and the Chrome browser. One longs for the good old days when relatively convincing smuggled photographs passing themselves as Mac System 7 showed up in one's mailbox.
"This is actually just a small recruiting event and we won't be talking about Chrome OS at all," the spokesperson told Betanews moments ago, "just one engineer talking about UI design for Google Chrome (the browser)." The implication that Chrome OS was the subject was chocked up as a "false alarm."
Google took down the registration page for the event due to heavy traffic in just the last few hours. It may very well already be booked solid.
A cottage industry in Chrome OS rumors has blossomed since last July, with a treasure trove of amateur Photoshop touch-ups purporting to depict the new netbook operating system, though showing very few real features beyond what's already been seen in Windows and the Chrome browser. One longs for the good old days when relatively convincing smuggled photographs passing themselves as Mac System 7 showed up in one's mailbox.
BlackBerry Storm 2 vs. BlackBerry Storm
The major upgrades in the Storm 2 are the inclusion of Wi-Fi, the increase in storage, and the "next-gen" Surepress interface. Surepress was intended to mimic the click of a mouse with a touchscreen, where any contact with the screen would highlight selections, but actions only took place when the screen was pressed into and clicked. Unfortunately, with a single point of contact behind the screen, the original Surepress user experience was somewhat unrefined. Research in Motion is promising much better accuracy with the new Surepress, which has four points of contact instead of just one. The company says this gives the onscreen keyboard (especially the portrait mode keyboard, which was highly imprecise) better responsiveness, and should provide a more engaging touch experience.
The Storm 2 is going to launch later this month in the US (through Verizon), Canada, and the UK. In Canada, it's expected not only on Rogers Communications, but also BCE Inc. and Telus. In the UK, it's expected to arrive on Vodafone, where the device will reportedly be free with a two-year contract of at least £35 per month. American carriers have not yet disclosed how much the handset will be subsidized.
The Storm 2 is going to launch later this month in the US (through Verizon), Canada, and the UK. In Canada, it's expected not only on Rogers Communications, but also BCE Inc. and Telus. In the UK, it's expected to arrive on Vodafone, where the device will reportedly be free with a two-year contract of at least £35 per month. American carriers have not yet disclosed how much the handset will be subsidized.
Yet another case for backing up your data: Snow Leopard
The bug was actually discovered within a week of Snow Leopard's launch back in August, when users found that logging out of their account, into a "guest" account, and then back into their personal account would completely erase the content from their home drive (Documents, Movies, Pictures, Music, Sites).
Though the bug is now more than a month old, it's still claiming victims, as Apple's support forums show. However, Apple has yet to acknowledge the issue and the aforesaid conditions do not faithfully reproduce the bug.
The issue is thought to only affect users who had active guest accounts in Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5), and the only workaround currently is to disable guest login altogether.
Users who have succumbed to the bug are likely to permanently lose their data unless they have performed a backup, so users who have guest accounts and upgraded to Snow Leopard from Leopard are advised to back up their data immediately. Users with Time Machine running simply need to hold down the "C" key when booting their Mac, and then selecting Utilities > Restore from Backup in the event that this bug eliminates their data.
Though the bug is now more than a month old, it's still claiming victims, as Apple's support forums show. However, Apple has yet to acknowledge the issue and the aforesaid conditions do not faithfully reproduce the bug.
The issue is thought to only affect users who had active guest accounts in Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5), and the only workaround currently is to disable guest login altogether.
Users who have succumbed to the bug are likely to permanently lose their data unless they have performed a backup, so users who have guest accounts and upgraded to Snow Leopard from Leopard are advised to back up their data immediately. Users with Time Machine running simply need to hold down the "C" key when booting their Mac, and then selecting Utilities > Restore from Backup in the event that this bug eliminates their data.
Download Opera 10.1 Beta, First public Opera 10.1 beta competes against its predecessor for performance
At a time when performance and speed are more important to browser users than ever before, and when Web apps users need the best platform available, suddenly it's Opera Software that is having the most difficult time delivering. While Opera 10's "Turbo Mode" is intended to leverage the company's pre-rendering capabilities originally designed for the Opera Mini mobile browser, none of that matters with respect to raw JavaScript performance; and these days, Web browsers are essentially JavaScript engines with some markup on the side.
Today, the first builds of Opera 10.1 that officially bear the "Beta 1" label were released to the company's servers. Betanews tests on this latest build were not very promising, as its overall CRPI score outperforms that of the latest stable Opera 10 by less than one percentage point. In fact, scores for the first public beta fell in Vista actually fell below those of the latest stable Opera 10 by about 7%.
Opera 10 Beta 1 scores a CRPI of 6.35, which compares to a 6.30 score for the stable Opera 10 (which we retested in Vista), and a 6.56 score for the last Beta 1 preview build we tested last week.
Today, the first builds of Opera 10.1 that officially bear the "Beta 1" label were released to the company's servers. Betanews tests on this latest build were not very promising, as its overall CRPI score outperforms that of the latest stable Opera 10 by less than one percentage point. In fact, scores for the first public beta fell in Vista actually fell below those of the latest stable Opera 10 by about 7%.
Opera 10 Beta 1 scores a CRPI of 6.35, which compares to a 6.30 score for the stable Opera 10 (which we retested in Vista), and a 6.56 score for the last Beta 1 preview build we tested last week.
Google vs. Yahoo vs. Bing
This week, all three of the world's top general search engines touted the addition of deep links to their search results, although Google has been actively experimenting with deep links since this time last year. The basic premise is this: For Web pages that have named anchors above selected subsections -- for example, the search engine is capable of generating subheadings in its search results that link users directly to those subsections, or at least to subsections whose titles imply they may have some bearing upon the query.
The fact that deep links are now official features of Google, Yahoo, and Bing search may not be nearly as relevant today as the fact that all three services made their announcements almost in unison. It's an indication of an actual race going on in the search engine field, reminiscent of the horse-and-buggy days of the early '90s when Lycos and AltaVista were vying against Yahoo for search supremacy. This despite the fact that Yahoo is due to be utilizing search results generated by Microsoft's search engines Real Soon Now.
But is all this just more bluster? Now that there at least appears to be a race once again in online search functionality, are the major players merely vying for position in the consumer conscience, or are they really doing something in the laboratories? Betanews sought out to see whether we could run into any real-world examples of deep linking improving the quality of search results...knowing full well that since Web pages have evolved over time to become shorter, the use of named anchors has fallen out of favor along with Netscape Navigator.
Although we managed to uncover deep-linked pages through Google and Bing just by accident this week, it's in hunting for them intentionally that deep links seem to scatter like startled squirrels. We started with some purposefully general, broad queries that should stir up old, existing pages.
"Abraham Lincoln", for instance, turned up zero deeply-linked citations within the first 100 returned by Google. Yahoo, however, provided a deep-linked reference on page 1 to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission entry on Wikipedia -- one of Yahoo's partner sites for its drill-down filtering feature. No more deeply-linked entries appeared in Yahoo's top 100, though. Bing also pulled up zero deeply-linked references in its top 100.
What if we refined the context -- would deep links crawl out from under the woodwork? For Google and Bing, no -- adding "Stephen Douglas" as a criterion, for instance, did precisely nothing to draw out any deeply-linked results. It's hard to imagine that, over the long years that pages have been published on the Web, no single page on the Lincoln/Douglas debates of 1858 ever used named anchors. It could, instead, be an indication that the anchors on those pages have yet to be indexed.
But what's this? Yahoo turned up one deeply-linked reference to the debates as item #1 in its search results, and another reference to Stephen Douglas as #5. Once again, though, both are from Wikipedia; and although Wikipedia's shallowly-linked reference to the debates was #3 on Google and #2 on Bing, Yahoo's high placement along with links to history books for sale on Amazon as #2 and #3 (including links to reviews, obviously as a favor to another Yahoo partner, Amazon) indicates that Yahoo's success on this test may not be by virtue of a highly reformed index, but instead a special arrangement with partners.
If Yahoo were as active in indexing its deep links as the Wikipedia results imply, then it would have attached deep links to other entries that it did turn up, from wiki-based systems such as this item on Stephen Douglas from Conservapedia.com -- #12 on Yahoo's list.
Which brings up an important point: As many recently published Web sites use open source Wiki software, which do generate named anchors for their subsections, there's really no excuse for search engines that profess to provide deep links to have avoided indexing them. Since we've seen occasional deeply-linked examples pop up from out of the blue on Google since September 2008, you would think at least Google would have had time to index such pages before declaring this part of its service officially live.
The fact that deep links are now official features of Google, Yahoo, and Bing search may not be nearly as relevant today as the fact that all three services made their announcements almost in unison. It's an indication of an actual race going on in the search engine field, reminiscent of the horse-and-buggy days of the early '90s when Lycos and AltaVista were vying against Yahoo for search supremacy. This despite the fact that Yahoo is due to be utilizing search results generated by Microsoft's search engines Real Soon Now.
But is all this just more bluster? Now that there at least appears to be a race once again in online search functionality, are the major players merely vying for position in the consumer conscience, or are they really doing something in the laboratories? Betanews sought out to see whether we could run into any real-world examples of deep linking improving the quality of search results...knowing full well that since Web pages have evolved over time to become shorter, the use of named anchors has fallen out of favor along with Netscape Navigator.
Although we managed to uncover deep-linked pages through Google and Bing just by accident this week, it's in hunting for them intentionally that deep links seem to scatter like startled squirrels. We started with some purposefully general, broad queries that should stir up old, existing pages.
"Abraham Lincoln", for instance, turned up zero deeply-linked citations within the first 100 returned by Google. Yahoo, however, provided a deep-linked reference on page 1 to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission entry on Wikipedia -- one of Yahoo's partner sites for its drill-down filtering feature. No more deeply-linked entries appeared in Yahoo's top 100, though. Bing also pulled up zero deeply-linked references in its top 100.
What if we refined the context -- would deep links crawl out from under the woodwork? For Google and Bing, no -- adding "Stephen Douglas" as a criterion, for instance, did precisely nothing to draw out any deeply-linked results. It's hard to imagine that, over the long years that pages have been published on the Web, no single page on the Lincoln/Douglas debates of 1858 ever used named anchors. It could, instead, be an indication that the anchors on those pages have yet to be indexed.
But what's this? Yahoo turned up one deeply-linked reference to the debates as item #1 in its search results, and another reference to Stephen Douglas as #5. Once again, though, both are from Wikipedia; and although Wikipedia's shallowly-linked reference to the debates was #3 on Google and #2 on Bing, Yahoo's high placement along with links to history books for sale on Amazon as #2 and #3 (including links to reviews, obviously as a favor to another Yahoo partner, Amazon) indicates that Yahoo's success on this test may not be by virtue of a highly reformed index, but instead a special arrangement with partners.
If Yahoo were as active in indexing its deep links as the Wikipedia results imply, then it would have attached deep links to other entries that it did turn up, from wiki-based systems such as this item on Stephen Douglas from Conservapedia.com -- #12 on Yahoo's list.
Which brings up an important point: As many recently published Web sites use open source Wiki software, which do generate named anchors for their subsections, there's really no excuse for search engines that profess to provide deep links to have avoided indexing them. Since we've seen occasional deeply-linked examples pop up from out of the blue on Google since September 2008, you would think at least Google would have had time to index such pages before declaring this part of its service officially live.
Expect 22.8% performance boost from next week's Firefox 3.6 beta
The developers at Mozilla have set next week as the tentative rollout window for the first public beta of Firefox 3.6 -- the first edition of the organization's big fixes for 3.5 where it's accepting analysis and advice from the general public. Betanews tests this week on a late version of the 3.6 beta preview, close to the organization's planned code freeze, indicate that users will be visibly pleased by what they see: Generally faster JavaScript execution and much faster page rendering will result in a browser that's almost one-fourth faster than its predecessor -- by our estimate, 22.78% faster on average.
Betanews tested the latest available development and stable builds of all five brands of Web browser, on all three modern Windows platforms -- XP SP3, Vista SP2, and Windows 7 RTM. Once again, we threw the kitchen sink at them: our new and stronger performance benchmark suite, consisting of experiments in all facets of rendering, mathematics, control, and even geometry. Like before, we use a slow browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, the previous version, running in Windows Vista SP2) as our 1.00 baseline, and we produce performance indices representing browsers' relative speed compared to IE7.
Averaging all three Windows platforms, the latest Beta 1 preview of Firefox 3.6 posts a Betanews CRPI score of 9.02 -- just better than nine times the performance of IE7. Compare this against a 7.34 score for the latest stable version of Firefox 3.5.3, and 7.81 for the latest daily build of the Firefox 3.5.4 bug fix.
Betanews tested the latest available development and stable builds of all five brands of Web browser, on all three modern Windows platforms -- XP SP3, Vista SP2, and Windows 7 RTM. Once again, we threw the kitchen sink at them: our new and stronger performance benchmark suite, consisting of experiments in all facets of rendering, mathematics, control, and even geometry. Like before, we use a slow browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, the previous version, running in Windows Vista SP2) as our 1.00 baseline, and we produce performance indices representing browsers' relative speed compared to IE7.
Averaging all three Windows platforms, the latest Beta 1 preview of Firefox 3.6 posts a Betanews CRPI score of 9.02 -- just better than nine times the performance of IE7. Compare this against a 7.34 score for the latest stable version of Firefox 3.5.3, and 7.81 for the latest daily build of the Firefox 3.5.4 bug fix.
Not that Windows is any enclave of safety: Microsoft's biggest Patch Tuesday
A lot of the presentations at security (or perhaps more appropriately, "insecurity") conferences such as Black Hat are devoted to experiments or "dares" for hackers to break through some new version of digital security. After awhile, it gets to be like watching pre-schoolers daring one another to punch through ever-taller Lego walls. But in the midst of last July's briefings came at least one scientifically researched, carefully considered, and thoughtfully presented presentation: the result of a full-scale investigation by three engineers at a consultancy called Hustle Labs, demonstrating how the presumption of trust between browsers, their add-ons, and other code components can trigger the types of software failures that can become exploitable by malicious code.
Engineers Mark Dowd, Ryan Smith, and David Dewey are being credited today with shedding light on a coding practice by developers that leaves the door open for browser crashes. The discovery of specific instances where such a practice could easily become exploitable is the focus of the most critical of Microsoft's regular second-Tuesday-of-the-month patches -- arguably the biggest of 13 bulletins addressing a record 34 fixes.
Among today's fixes is one that specifically addresses a relatively new class of Web apps that use XAML, Microsoft's XML-based front-end layout language, instead of HTML for presenting the user with controls. The class of apps is currently being called XAML Browser Application, or XBAP (perhaps Microsoft should have it shut off just for the lousy acronym). Simply browsing to a maliciously crafted XBAP application could create an attack vector, says one of Microsoft's bulletins published this morning.
But that isn't actually the problem, but the symptom of a very serious problem uncovered by the Hustle Labs trio -- one that may generate several more security fixes in coming months. At the root of the problem is the fact that browser plug-ins and components external to browsers -- for instance, the components that tie browsers to the .NET Framework in order to run XBAP apps -- are given higher levels of trust than the browser itself. These days, trust levels are turned down on the browser to disable most any chance of a simple JavaScript deleting elements of the user's file system without authorization; but plug-ins are often given a medium level of trust simply because they must be interoperable with a component (the Web browser) that is outside of its own context.
So when a plug-in creates references to new components, a principle called transitive trust mandates that this medium-level trust be transferred to the new component. And when that new component is an instance of an ActiveX object, that new level of trust may mean that if the object causes an exception, the mess it leaves behind could have just enough privilege attributed to it to execute malicious code.
The mess itself, the Hustle Labs researchers illustrated last July at Black Hat (PDF available here), can be caused by a tricky data type that has raised my eyebrows since the early '90s when I witnessed its first demonstrations: It's the variant type, created to represent data that may be passed as a parameter between procedures or components, whose type may be unspecific or even unknown. The way Microsoft represents variants in memory is by pairing their type with their value as a single unit, and that type is actually a pointer to a structure. That structure may be a primary type, but most often in the case of COM components (known to Web users as ActiveX components), it's a complex object comprised of multiple data elements, assembled together like records in a database, often whose types may include other variants.
The problem with using variants, as Microsoft learned the hard way (more than once), is that when you're trying to secure the interfaces between components, the absence of explicit types makes it difficult to ensure that they're behaving within the rules. But as the researchers discovered, it's the security code itself -- what they call marshaling code, resurrecting language from COM's heyday -- that can actually cause a serious problem, a mess that leaves behind opportunities for exploitation.
"The most obvious mistake a control can make with regard to object retention is to neglect to add to the reference count of a COM object that it intends to retain," the trio writes. A reference count helps a control to maintain a handle to the object it's instantiated. But marshaling code, in an effort to provide security to the system, will also amend the reference count; and when it thinks the control is done with the object, it will decrement that count in turn. So if the control had any other plans for the object, it has to add its own reference count to the same object.
To make a (very) long story short, there often ends up being more pointers to the object than there are objects. And with medium-level privilege, those pointers can theoretically be exploited.
The case-in-point involves those nasty variants. Adding references to objects in memory often involves copying the objects themselves; and in the case of variants, there's a special function for that. But to know to use that special function, marshaling code would have to be aware that the objects being copied and re-referenced are variants; so instead, they resort to the tried-and-true memcpy() library function. That function is capable of copying the complex object, but in such a "shallow" way that it doesn't give a whit about whether the contents of the complex object are complex objects in themselves -- and since memcpy() predates COM by a few decades, it doesn't increment the reference count for new instances of included objects that are created in the process. A pointer to the new object exists, of course, but not the reference that COM requires.
So an ordinary memory cleanup routine could clean up the contents of the duplicated contained object, even though a component has designs on using that object later. As the group writes, "If the variant contains any sort of complex object, such as an IDispatch [a common COM object], a pointer to the object will be duplicated and utilized without adding an additional reference to the object. If the result of this duplicated variant is retained, the object being pointed to could be deleted, if every other instance of that object is released."
There are a multitude of similar examples in this research paper of essentially the same principle in action: a principle that points to a fundamental flaw in the way COM objects have been secured up to now. The Hustle Labs team takes Microsoft to task only at one point in the paper, and quite gently, for implementing Patch Tuesday fixes that tend to resort to using "killbits" in the Registry for turning off COM components and ActiveX controls impacted by this kind of vulnerability, instead of reworking the marshaling code to address the problem at a fundamental level.
So today's round of Patch Tuesday releases may go into more detail than just resorting to killbits -- in a few situations this week, new patches actually go into further depth at patching problems that were said to have been patched already, including with the GDI+ library. But it's an indication that independent researchers with conscientious goals are truly getting through.
'Amateur' Linux IBM mainframe failure blamed for stranding New Zealand flyers
"What seems strange about this incident is that they are blaming it on a generator failure during testing," stated California Data Center Design Group President Ron Hughes, whose organization was not responsible either for the data center's current design or the changeover. "If this failure did occur during testing, the question I would ask is why didn't the redundant generators assume the load or why didn't they just switch back to utility power."
Though Hughes has no specific knowledge of last Friday's incident, his insight does shed more light on the situation.
"A properly designed Tier 3 data center -- which is the minimum level required for any critical applications -- should have no single points of failure in its design. In other words, the failure of a single piece of equipment should not impact the customer," Hughes told Betanews. "A generator failure is a fairly common event, which is why we build redundancy into a system. In a Tier 3 data center, if you need one generator to carry the load, you install two. If you need two, you install three. This is described as N+1 redundancy. It allows you to have a failure without impacting your ability to operate...In a Tier 3 data center, it should take 2 failure events before the customer is impacted."
Though Hughes has no specific knowledge of last Friday's incident, his insight does shed more light on the situation.
"A properly designed Tier 3 data center -- which is the minimum level required for any critical applications -- should have no single points of failure in its design. In other words, the failure of a single piece of equipment should not impact the customer," Hughes told Betanews. "A generator failure is a fairly common event, which is why we build redundancy into a system. In a Tier 3 data center, if you need one generator to carry the load, you install two. If you need two, you install three. This is described as N+1 redundancy. It allows you to have a failure without impacting your ability to operate...In a Tier 3 data center, it should take 2 failure events before the customer is impacted."
Mac sales grow 11.8% as Apple takes 9.4% U.S. market share
Overall, Apple came in fourth for U.S. vendors, selling an estimated 1.64 million Macs stateside during the frame. That's up 11.8 percent from the 1.47 million the company sold in the same frame one year prior.
Last quarter, IDC reported that Apple shipped 1.2 million computers in the U.S., a year-over-year decline of 12.4 percent. That was good for a 7.6 percent stateside market share, in terms of shipments.
Overall, the U.S. PC market grew an estimated 2.5 percent. The bulk of that came from portable machines, as netbooks continue to grow in popularity, IDC said. In the U.S. in particular, consumers gravitated toward low-cost machines to save money on back to school purchases.
"Despite a continuing mix of gloom and caution on the economic front, the PC market continues to rebound quickly," said Loren Loverde, program director for IDC's Tracker Program. "The competitive landscape, including transition to portables, new and low-power designs, growth in retail and consumer segments, and the impact of falling prices are reflected in the gains by HP and Acer, as well as overall market growth."
Leading the domestic pack was HP, which held a 25.5 percent market share with 4.47 million PCs shipped. Close on its heels was Dell, which took 25 percent of the market, but was down 13.4 percent from a year prior. The second-largest computer maker sold 4.37 million units.
In third was Acer, which achieved staggering year-over-year growth of 48.3 percent. The netbook maker shipped an estimated 1.95 million units to take an 11.1 percent share of the US market, up from 1.31 million units during the year-ago quarter.
Behind Apple, in fifth place, was Toshiba, which shipped 1.43 million units during the frame, good for an 8.1 percent share. All other PC manufacturers combined accounted for 20.9 percent, with 3.66 million units shipped.
Last quarter, IDC reported that Apple shipped 1.2 million computers in the U.S., a year-over-year decline of 12.4 percent. That was good for a 7.6 percent stateside market share, in terms of shipments.
Overall, the U.S. PC market grew an estimated 2.5 percent. The bulk of that came from portable machines, as netbooks continue to grow in popularity, IDC said. In the U.S. in particular, consumers gravitated toward low-cost machines to save money on back to school purchases.
"Despite a continuing mix of gloom and caution on the economic front, the PC market continues to rebound quickly," said Loren Loverde, program director for IDC's Tracker Program. "The competitive landscape, including transition to portables, new and low-power designs, growth in retail and consumer segments, and the impact of falling prices are reflected in the gains by HP and Acer, as well as overall market growth."
Leading the domestic pack was HP, which held a 25.5 percent market share with 4.47 million PCs shipped. Close on its heels was Dell, which took 25 percent of the market, but was down 13.4 percent from a year prior. The second-largest computer maker sold 4.37 million units.
In third was Acer, which achieved staggering year-over-year growth of 48.3 percent. The netbook maker shipped an estimated 1.95 million units to take an 11.1 percent share of the US market, up from 1.31 million units during the year-ago quarter.
Behind Apple, in fifth place, was Toshiba, which shipped 1.43 million units during the frame, good for an 8.1 percent share. All other PC manufacturers combined accounted for 20.9 percent, with 3.66 million units shipped.
Windows 7 Vs MAC, The BIG War...
Windows 7 is simply Microsoft's best operating system ever. Mac fanboys should worry and circle together in defensive posture. Collectively, they're making a last stand against the PC giant. Please, please, boisterous Mac defenders, stand in the front lines and receive the first blows. You deserve them.
Mac market share actually means little to Microsoft, although it sure matters lots to Mac bloggers thumping for Apple. The little dog barks, but the big dog -- with its enormous market share -- has the bite. Windows 7 is a new set of teeth. (I'll explain what competitors really matter to Microsoft after the subhead.)
The Apple fanboy crowd snipes against Windows 7 and stresses the over-importance of all things Mac. Some of the assertions about Macs or Windows 7 sales are laughable, they're so ridiculous. For example, today, Apple 2.0 blogger Philip Elmer-DeWitt asked: "Will Windows 7 boost Apple sales?" Philip writes that "over the past decade, Mac shipments have grown with nearly every new Microsoft release," based on research released by Broadpoint AmTech yesterday.
That's not what the data shows. The biggest increase in Mac sales follows the release of the much-maligned Windows Vista. The data supports what is widely known: Vista was a Windows failure. As for the other spikes, supposedly associated with Windows releases, Occam's Razor dictates that something Apple did and not Microsoft affected Mac sales. For example, the chart shows a huge spike in Mac sales for second quarter 2000, noting that Microsoft released Windows 2000 on February 17. But it ignores something else. A day earlier, Apple unveiled new Power Macs, finally reaching the long-delayed 500MHz processing power milestone and setting off a sales surge.
Another date: Oct. 25, 2001, and the launch of Windows XP. The chart shows level Mac sales for the quarter and a substantial decline for the one following. In July 2001, Apple introduced dual-processor Power Macs, and accordingly there was a two quarter spike in Mac shipments. Philip asks a silly question, and the chart is more reasonably explained by Apple actions, not Microsoft's.
ssessing the Real Competition
Microsoft's competitive problems aren't Macs but:
* Windows XP
* Software pirates
* Netbooks
Windows XP. Windows 7's biggest competitor will be Windows XP, which runs on about 80 percent of PCs, according to combined analyst reports. Microsoft's first challenge will be getting XP users to move up to Windows 7. Mac market share was 7.6 percent in the United States in second quarter, according to IDC. (Gartner and IDC should release Q3 preliminary numbers in the next couple of days.)
Mac share is inconsequential to Microsoft compared to Windows XP. My prediction: Windows 7 will slow Mac share gains, which already declined over the last three quarters, according to both Gartner and IDC.
Software pirates. Collectively, software pirates pose the greatest competitive threat to Microsoft, next to Windows XP. Not Macs. Certainly not PCs running Linux. According to Business Software Alliance, software piracy rates are highest in emerging markets, which also are where potential Windows PC adoption is greatest: 85 percent in Latin America, 66 percent in Central and Eastern Europe and 61 percent in Asia Pacific. By comparison, piracy rate in North Americs is 21 percent and 35 percent in the European Union. So in Latin America, more than 8 out of 10 copies of software in use are stolen.
Here's a loaded question: How many people among the Betanews community use software for which they didn't pay for, even though the developer charges something? Anyone care to respond in comments? Maybe this is easier: What do you feel you should have to pay for software?
More significantly, software piracy creates competitive opportunities for Macs, because of the damage done to the Windows brand. In a report released last week, BSA revealed a direct correlation between online software piracy at torrents and other file-trading sites and malware infections. Countries with high online piracy rates also have high malware infection rates. Related, 25 percent of a sampling of 98 sites distributing pirated software or digital content also contained malware. Where does the blame fall when PCs are infected with viruses? On Microsoft and Windows, which tarnishes the brand and helps foster popular folklore that Macs are more secure than Windows. Macs have problems, too, but they're not always as well publicized.
Netbooks. Microsoft also faces more competitive threat from netbooks, which are gobbling up Windows margins at an alarming rate. Microsoft makes substantially less on each Windows XP Home license shipping on netbooks than it does on either Windows Vista Home Basic or Premium.
During second calendar quarter, when Windows Client revenue fell 29 percent year over year and income declined 33 percent, netbooks made up 11 percent of PC sales, according to Microsoft. Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell acknowledged that the increase in lower-margin consumer Windows licenses -- fed in part by increasing netbook demand -- contributed to declines.
Last week, DisplaySearch updated second calendar quarter PC shipment data. DisplaySearch concluded that netbooks accounted for 22.2 percent of overall PC sales and 11.7 percent of revenues. Netbook sales jumped a staggering 264 percent year over year, while overall laptop sales (without counting netbooks) declined 14 percent.
Meanwhile, increased netbook sales exerted ever greater pull downward on average selling prices. Laptop ASPs fell to $688 in second quarter from $704 in first quarter and $849 in Q2 2008. Netbook prices fell to $361 from $371 and $506, respectively, during the same time period. Microsoft has lots more to worry about than Macs, particularly netbook cannibalization of the PC market and the negative impact on Windows margins.
Mac market share actually means little to Microsoft, although it sure matters lots to Mac bloggers thumping for Apple. The little dog barks, but the big dog -- with its enormous market share -- has the bite. Windows 7 is a new set of teeth. (I'll explain what competitors really matter to Microsoft after the subhead.)
The Apple fanboy crowd snipes against Windows 7 and stresses the over-importance of all things Mac. Some of the assertions about Macs or Windows 7 sales are laughable, they're so ridiculous. For example, today, Apple 2.0 blogger Philip Elmer-DeWitt asked: "Will Windows 7 boost Apple sales?" Philip writes that "over the past decade, Mac shipments have grown with nearly every new Microsoft release," based on research released by Broadpoint AmTech yesterday.
That's not what the data shows. The biggest increase in Mac sales follows the release of the much-maligned Windows Vista. The data supports what is widely known: Vista was a Windows failure. As for the other spikes, supposedly associated with Windows releases, Occam's Razor dictates that something Apple did and not Microsoft affected Mac sales. For example, the chart shows a huge spike in Mac sales for second quarter 2000, noting that Microsoft released Windows 2000 on February 17. But it ignores something else. A day earlier, Apple unveiled new Power Macs, finally reaching the long-delayed 500MHz processing power milestone and setting off a sales surge.
Another date: Oct. 25, 2001, and the launch of Windows XP. The chart shows level Mac sales for the quarter and a substantial decline for the one following. In July 2001, Apple introduced dual-processor Power Macs, and accordingly there was a two quarter spike in Mac shipments. Philip asks a silly question, and the chart is more reasonably explained by Apple actions, not Microsoft's.
ssessing the Real Competition
Microsoft's competitive problems aren't Macs but:
* Windows XP
* Software pirates
* Netbooks
Windows XP. Windows 7's biggest competitor will be Windows XP, which runs on about 80 percent of PCs, according to combined analyst reports. Microsoft's first challenge will be getting XP users to move up to Windows 7. Mac market share was 7.6 percent in the United States in second quarter, according to IDC. (Gartner and IDC should release Q3 preliminary numbers in the next couple of days.)
Mac share is inconsequential to Microsoft compared to Windows XP. My prediction: Windows 7 will slow Mac share gains, which already declined over the last three quarters, according to both Gartner and IDC.
Software pirates. Collectively, software pirates pose the greatest competitive threat to Microsoft, next to Windows XP. Not Macs. Certainly not PCs running Linux. According to Business Software Alliance, software piracy rates are highest in emerging markets, which also are where potential Windows PC adoption is greatest: 85 percent in Latin America, 66 percent in Central and Eastern Europe and 61 percent in Asia Pacific. By comparison, piracy rate in North Americs is 21 percent and 35 percent in the European Union. So in Latin America, more than 8 out of 10 copies of software in use are stolen.
Here's a loaded question: How many people among the Betanews community use software for which they didn't pay for, even though the developer charges something? Anyone care to respond in comments? Maybe this is easier: What do you feel you should have to pay for software?
More significantly, software piracy creates competitive opportunities for Macs, because of the damage done to the Windows brand. In a report released last week, BSA revealed a direct correlation between online software piracy at torrents and other file-trading sites and malware infections. Countries with high online piracy rates also have high malware infection rates. Related, 25 percent of a sampling of 98 sites distributing pirated software or digital content also contained malware. Where does the blame fall when PCs are infected with viruses? On Microsoft and Windows, which tarnishes the brand and helps foster popular folklore that Macs are more secure than Windows. Macs have problems, too, but they're not always as well publicized.
Netbooks. Microsoft also faces more competitive threat from netbooks, which are gobbling up Windows margins at an alarming rate. Microsoft makes substantially less on each Windows XP Home license shipping on netbooks than it does on either Windows Vista Home Basic or Premium.
During second calendar quarter, when Windows Client revenue fell 29 percent year over year and income declined 33 percent, netbooks made up 11 percent of PC sales, according to Microsoft. Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell acknowledged that the increase in lower-margin consumer Windows licenses -- fed in part by increasing netbook demand -- contributed to declines.
Last week, DisplaySearch updated second calendar quarter PC shipment data. DisplaySearch concluded that netbooks accounted for 22.2 percent of overall PC sales and 11.7 percent of revenues. Netbook sales jumped a staggering 264 percent year over year, while overall laptop sales (without counting netbooks) declined 14 percent.
Meanwhile, increased netbook sales exerted ever greater pull downward on average selling prices. Laptop ASPs fell to $688 in second quarter from $704 in first quarter and $849 in Q2 2008. Netbook prices fell to $361 from $371 and $506, respectively, during the same time period. Microsoft has lots more to worry about than Macs, particularly netbook cannibalization of the PC market and the negative impact on Windows margins.
Wi-Fi Vs Bluetooth
Imagine a wireless home network where devices communicate directly with one another instead of through the wireless router -- a sort of mesh network without the need to switch to ad hoc mode. Today the Wi-Fi Alliance announced it has almost completed the standard which could make these a reality: Wi-Fi Direct.
Wi-Fi Direct was known as "Wi-Fi Peer-to-Peer," and has repeatedly been referred to in IEEE meetings as a possible "Bluetooth Killer." By means of this standard, direct connections between computers, phones, cameras, printers, keyboards, and future classes of components are established over Wi-Fi instead of another wireless technology governed by a separate standard.
Even though the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands are often dreadfully overcrowded in home networks, the appeal of such a standard is twofold: Any certified Wi-Fi Direct device will be able to communicate directly with any legacy Wi-Fi devices without the need for any new software on the legacy end, and transfer rates will be the same as infrastructure connections, thoroughly destroying Bluetooth. The theoretical maximum useful data transfer for Bluetooth 2.0 is 2.1 Mbps, while 802.11g has a theoretical maximum throughput of 54 Mbps.
"Wi-Fi Direct represents a leap forward for our industry. Wi-Fi users worldwide will benefit from a single-technology solution to transfer content and share applications quickly and easily among devices, even when a Wi-Fi access point isn't available. The impact is that Wi-Fi will become even more pervasive and useful for consumers and across the enterprise," Wi-Fi Alliance executive director Edgar Figueroa said in a statement today.
Wi-Fi Direct was known as "Wi-Fi Peer-to-Peer," and has repeatedly been referred to in IEEE meetings as a possible "Bluetooth Killer." By means of this standard, direct connections between computers, phones, cameras, printers, keyboards, and future classes of components are established over Wi-Fi instead of another wireless technology governed by a separate standard.
Even though the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands are often dreadfully overcrowded in home networks, the appeal of such a standard is twofold: Any certified Wi-Fi Direct device will be able to communicate directly with any legacy Wi-Fi devices without the need for any new software on the legacy end, and transfer rates will be the same as infrastructure connections, thoroughly destroying Bluetooth. The theoretical maximum useful data transfer for Bluetooth 2.0 is 2.1 Mbps, while 802.11g has a theoretical maximum throughput of 54 Mbps.
"Wi-Fi Direct represents a leap forward for our industry. Wi-Fi users worldwide will benefit from a single-technology solution to transfer content and share applications quickly and easily among devices, even when a Wi-Fi access point isn't available. The impact is that Wi-Fi will become even more pervasive and useful for consumers and across the enterprise," Wi-Fi Alliance executive director Edgar Figueroa said in a statement today.
the Premium Mobile Services group at Microsoft
It's been no secret that the Premium Mobile Services group at Microsoft, headed by Corporate Vice President Roz Ho, has been working on a secret class of consumer-facing mobile projects, least secretly of all a wireless content service code-named Pink. As late as last Tuesday, speculation centered around Pink's connection with Danger, the data service for T-Mobile's Sidekick device, and ground zero for last weekend's colossal service failure. Surely Danger should be tied in somehow with Microsoft's big plans in mobile, enthusiasts thought.
But this morning, in the midst of damage control, Ms. Ho found herself revealing a card she might not have been ready to play just yet: In a message to customers published on T-Mobile's Web site, she apologized on behalf of Microsoft for the service failure, while announcing the near-complete recovery of users' lost data. But she then revealed -- and a spokesperson also confirmed to the Los Angeles Times -- that Danger had not actually been using Microsoft's technology for Sidekick service, despite having had since April of last year to implement it.
Click Here
The first clue comes from this paragraph: "We have determined that the outage was caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up," Ho writes, acknowledging the single point of failure. "We rebuilt the system component by component, recovering data along the way. This careful process has taken a significant amount of time, but was necessary to preserve the integrity of the data."
In addressing the problem of whose system it was that failed and why, the Microsoft spokesperson told the LA Times' David Sarno, "The Danger Service platform, which experienced the outage, is a standalone service operating on non-Microsoft technologies, and is not related to Microsoft's cloud services platform or Windows Live." Certainly future renditions of mobile services should be built on Microsoft's platforms, the spokesperson went on, though surprisingly she did not mention the Danger brand in reference to such future services.
The message there from Microsoft was apparently, don't blame us for the Danger Service Platform, it wasn't built on our watch.
When Microsoft acquired Danger in April 2008, co-founder Matt Hershenson said at the time that his business' first priority would be to integrate Microsoft's platform. "As we combine our team and technologies with Microsoft, we see a clear path to evolving that experience and delivering it to an even broader group of consumers," Hershenson stated then.
A lack of any substantive transition from Danger's original Sidekick service to a division prepared to deploy Pink, would appear to confirm a report just last week from MobileCrunch's Greg Kumparak. That report cited an anonymous source with "seemingly exhaustive knowledge" of the Pink project as saying that it was going nowhere -- specifically, that most of Danger's resources on the project had actually been let go by Microsoft, leaving "no braintrust that understands how to build a product."
Just last week, analyst Henry Blodget was publicly advising Microsoft to acquire BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, if it wants a real consumer-facing mobile service player and wants it fast. One wonders whether Blodget would make the same recommendation now.
But this morning, in the midst of damage control, Ms. Ho found herself revealing a card she might not have been ready to play just yet: In a message to customers published on T-Mobile's Web site, she apologized on behalf of Microsoft for the service failure, while announcing the near-complete recovery of users' lost data. But she then revealed -- and a spokesperson also confirmed to the Los Angeles Times -- that Danger had not actually been using Microsoft's technology for Sidekick service, despite having had since April of last year to implement it.
Click Here
The first clue comes from this paragraph: "We have determined that the outage was caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up," Ho writes, acknowledging the single point of failure. "We rebuilt the system component by component, recovering data along the way. This careful process has taken a significant amount of time, but was necessary to preserve the integrity of the data."
In addressing the problem of whose system it was that failed and why, the Microsoft spokesperson told the LA Times' David Sarno, "The Danger Service platform, which experienced the outage, is a standalone service operating on non-Microsoft technologies, and is not related to Microsoft's cloud services platform or Windows Live." Certainly future renditions of mobile services should be built on Microsoft's platforms, the spokesperson went on, though surprisingly she did not mention the Danger brand in reference to such future services.
The message there from Microsoft was apparently, don't blame us for the Danger Service Platform, it wasn't built on our watch.
When Microsoft acquired Danger in April 2008, co-founder Matt Hershenson said at the time that his business' first priority would be to integrate Microsoft's platform. "As we combine our team and technologies with Microsoft, we see a clear path to evolving that experience and delivering it to an even broader group of consumers," Hershenson stated then.
A lack of any substantive transition from Danger's original Sidekick service to a division prepared to deploy Pink, would appear to confirm a report just last week from MobileCrunch's Greg Kumparak. That report cited an anonymous source with "seemingly exhaustive knowledge" of the Pink project as saying that it was going nowhere -- specifically, that most of Danger's resources on the project had actually been let go by Microsoft, leaving "no braintrust that understands how to build a product."
Just last week, analyst Henry Blodget was publicly advising Microsoft to acquire BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, if it wants a real consumer-facing mobile service player and wants it fast. One wonders whether Blodget would make the same recommendation now.
FCC's net neutrality 'will limit the freedom of the Internet'
Using the strongest language to date in firing a shot across the bow against unchallenged regulation of the broadband access market, a group of 18 Senate Republicans led by Sam Brownback (R - Kan.) sent Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski a letter yesterday, signaling their intention to oppose any efforts by the FCC to create new restrictions on broadband Internet access suppliers, without clear case studies proving such restrictions are necessary.
"We fear that the proposals you announced during your September 21, 2009 speech will be counterproductive," wrote Brownback and his colleagues, "and risk harming the great advancements in broadband speed and deployment that we have witnessed in recent years, and will limit the freedom of the Internet."
Brownback's words appear to echo -- only with greater volume -- the case made by House Republicans in their own letter to the Chairman last week. The case that Republicans in Congress have been making since the installment of a new administration is that no commission should impose unilateral regulations on markets without clear proof that such regulations are necessary -- specifically, that players in those markets are acting unfairly, and that consumers are harmed in the process.
Last month, in a landmark speech, Chairman Genachowski proposed the addition of two "Freedoms" in the communications industry worth protecting, to the "Four Freedoms" originally proposed by former Chairman Michael Powell. The "Fifth Principle," as Genachowski called it, would prevent ISPs from utilizing content-based means to restrict consumers' access to Internet content, or conversely to clear the way for less restricted bandwidth to be made accessible for a premium to content providers. On principle, as it were, Republicans in Congress are opposed to the Fifth Principle because it would eliminate the incentives provided in legislation dating back to 2005, for the creation of a nationwide licensing program for broadband services, supplementing the municipal and statewide licenses that currently exist.
But there's another reason: By deferring the matter of mandating net neutrality to the FCC -- an agency of the executive branch of government -- Senate Democrats pave the way for communications industry matters to be fast-tracked to a committee where Democrats outnumber Republicans by 3 to 2. Despite the biggest Democratic majority in years in the Senate, filibusters are still feasible, at least in theory.
Yet even when filibusters can't overcome a 3-2 vote of the FCC, Senate Republicans may still have a hand to play, as Sen. Brownback directly implied, more than once. Broadband providers have been seen as siding with Republicans since before the net neutrality debate began. If Genachowski were to pass his Fifth and Sixth Principles without debate, Brownback intimated, certain faucets of investment might be turned down a few notches.
"Broadband service providers have invested billions of dollars in building and upgrading their networks to better serve their customers," the senators write. "However, burdensome regulations will have a chilling effect on further private sector investment, at a time when the US economy can least afford such an impact. It is because of significant competition among broadband service providers that consumers have more choices and are enjoying the best online experience that has ever been available...Market-based solutions and competition is working."
After the FCC issued a ruling last February against Comcast, saying it was wrong for the leading cable ISP to throttle traffic based on BitTorrent-related sampling, it was Sen. Brownback who issued one of the strongest comments in opposition to the ruling: "There has been no market failure to justify the heavy-hand of so-called net neutrality," the senator said (emphasis ours), "and I do not believe the Commission has the authority to enforce principles as if they were adopted rules. The Bush Administration has made deregulation of the Internet and the telecommunications sector a priority; today's move was a giant step backward and may harm innovation and broadband deployment. Competitive markets, not the government, should decide which business model best suits the industry."
"We fear that the proposals you announced during your September 21, 2009 speech will be counterproductive," wrote Brownback and his colleagues, "and risk harming the great advancements in broadband speed and deployment that we have witnessed in recent years, and will limit the freedom of the Internet."
Brownback's words appear to echo -- only with greater volume -- the case made by House Republicans in their own letter to the Chairman last week. The case that Republicans in Congress have been making since the installment of a new administration is that no commission should impose unilateral regulations on markets without clear proof that such regulations are necessary -- specifically, that players in those markets are acting unfairly, and that consumers are harmed in the process.
Last month, in a landmark speech, Chairman Genachowski proposed the addition of two "Freedoms" in the communications industry worth protecting, to the "Four Freedoms" originally proposed by former Chairman Michael Powell. The "Fifth Principle," as Genachowski called it, would prevent ISPs from utilizing content-based means to restrict consumers' access to Internet content, or conversely to clear the way for less restricted bandwidth to be made accessible for a premium to content providers. On principle, as it were, Republicans in Congress are opposed to the Fifth Principle because it would eliminate the incentives provided in legislation dating back to 2005, for the creation of a nationwide licensing program for broadband services, supplementing the municipal and statewide licenses that currently exist.
But there's another reason: By deferring the matter of mandating net neutrality to the FCC -- an agency of the executive branch of government -- Senate Democrats pave the way for communications industry matters to be fast-tracked to a committee where Democrats outnumber Republicans by 3 to 2. Despite the biggest Democratic majority in years in the Senate, filibusters are still feasible, at least in theory.
Yet even when filibusters can't overcome a 3-2 vote of the FCC, Senate Republicans may still have a hand to play, as Sen. Brownback directly implied, more than once. Broadband providers have been seen as siding with Republicans since before the net neutrality debate began. If Genachowski were to pass his Fifth and Sixth Principles without debate, Brownback intimated, certain faucets of investment might be turned down a few notches.
"Broadband service providers have invested billions of dollars in building and upgrading their networks to better serve their customers," the senators write. "However, burdensome regulations will have a chilling effect on further private sector investment, at a time when the US economy can least afford such an impact. It is because of significant competition among broadband service providers that consumers have more choices and are enjoying the best online experience that has ever been available...Market-based solutions and competition is working."
After the FCC issued a ruling last February against Comcast, saying it was wrong for the leading cable ISP to throttle traffic based on BitTorrent-related sampling, it was Sen. Brownback who issued one of the strongest comments in opposition to the ruling: "There has been no market failure to justify the heavy-hand of so-called net neutrality," the senator said (emphasis ours), "and I do not believe the Commission has the authority to enforce principles as if they were adopted rules. The Bush Administration has made deregulation of the Internet and the telecommunications sector a priority; today's move was a giant step backward and may harm innovation and broadband deployment. Competitive markets, not the government, should decide which business model best suits the industry."
By Bitcomet increase the speed of torrent download
Click - > Option - > Preferences ( CRTL + P)
When you see the connection properties. There is no Limit on Global Max Upload Rate or Global Max Download Rate. I recommend you let your upload to 90% of overall upload and download speed. So, you still have overall 10 percent to surf internet or downloading other files.
For Task Schedule, It’s an useful bitcomet tweak option. As you see, Max Simultaneous download task is 10 but if you have fast internet connection and plan to downloading more torrent files. You can setup the number of download task higher.
Listen Port also important on bitcomet tweak. As some of country ISP’s have blocked the default Bittorrent ports, So, you can choose or enter specific port number to listen on. For improve the downloading, if you set your internet modem port forwarding features to your computer IP address.
3. Task Preferences
Click Preferences —> Task on the menu.
BitComet Task Preferences
There’s a lot of settings here that you might like to change. It always helps to have a default download path set, so if you have a downloads that you put all your downloads into you can click on the the option in the list and browse for a folder to set as default. As you can see you also have some more max upload rate options. This is per task and is meant for users who will be downloading multiple files. Regardless of what you put in here, your overall upload speed wont reach over your Global Max Upload Speed limit that you set a moment ago in the Connection Preferences. Other options in preferences such as Appearance are up to you, now we will look at downloading with BitComet.
4. Connection Preferences
Click Preferences –> Connection
BitComet Connection Properties
1. Global Maximum Number of Connections: 130This number should not be set too low or the number of connections made to your torrents will be limited. Setting it too high may cause too much bandwidth to be used and can cause slowdowns.
2. Maximum Number of connection per task: 10If you see that the peers connected to a specific torrent are exactly this number, or very close, increase this number to improve speeds.
3. Max Simultaneous half open TCP connection : 40you can set the number of max half open tcp connection to 50 but you might facing slow internet surf on other application. so, i recommended you use 40 is sufficient.
4. Enable DHT Network: CHECKEDThis is recommended to be checked to improve speeds. More people will be available for sharing if this is checked.
5. Enable uPnP port mapping : CHECKED
6. Enable remove port on NAT/Firewall when exiting : Checked
5. Disable Windows Firewall
Bittorrent application very hate Windows Firewall because it will blocking or slow down your download speed of bitcomet on torrent files. So, disable Windows firewall and and get yourself a decent firewall like Zone Alarm.
6. Set your router
if you have router, you can set below bitcomet tweaks to improve or increase your BitComet bittorrent download speed if you know how to set your router.
* Set port forwarding or virtual server features on your router. Then map your router to forward this port date to your local ip address. This will improve bitcomet bittorrent download speed. Remember set the both (TCP and UDP).
* Enable uPnP features on your router.
When you see the connection properties. There is no Limit on Global Max Upload Rate or Global Max Download Rate. I recommend you let your upload to 90% of overall upload and download speed. So, you still have overall 10 percent to surf internet or downloading other files.
For Task Schedule, It’s an useful bitcomet tweak option. As you see, Max Simultaneous download task is 10 but if you have fast internet connection and plan to downloading more torrent files. You can setup the number of download task higher.
Listen Port also important on bitcomet tweak. As some of country ISP’s have blocked the default Bittorrent ports, So, you can choose or enter specific port number to listen on. For improve the downloading, if you set your internet modem port forwarding features to your computer IP address.
3. Task Preferences
Click Preferences —> Task on the menu.
BitComet Task Preferences
There’s a lot of settings here that you might like to change. It always helps to have a default download path set, so if you have a downloads that you put all your downloads into you can click on the the option in the list and browse for a folder to set as default. As you can see you also have some more max upload rate options. This is per task and is meant for users who will be downloading multiple files. Regardless of what you put in here, your overall upload speed wont reach over your Global Max Upload Speed limit that you set a moment ago in the Connection Preferences. Other options in preferences such as Appearance are up to you, now we will look at downloading with BitComet.
4. Connection Preferences
Click Preferences –> Connection
BitComet Connection Properties
1. Global Maximum Number of Connections: 130This number should not be set too low or the number of connections made to your torrents will be limited. Setting it too high may cause too much bandwidth to be used and can cause slowdowns.
2. Maximum Number of connection per task: 10If you see that the peers connected to a specific torrent are exactly this number, or very close, increase this number to improve speeds.
3. Max Simultaneous half open TCP connection : 40you can set the number of max half open tcp connection to 50 but you might facing slow internet surf on other application. so, i recommended you use 40 is sufficient.
4. Enable DHT Network: CHECKEDThis is recommended to be checked to improve speeds. More people will be available for sharing if this is checked.
5. Enable uPnP port mapping : CHECKED
6. Enable remove port on NAT/Firewall when exiting : Checked
5. Disable Windows Firewall
Bittorrent application very hate Windows Firewall because it will blocking or slow down your download speed of bitcomet on torrent files. So, disable Windows firewall and and get yourself a decent firewall like Zone Alarm.
6. Set your router
if you have router, you can set below bitcomet tweaks to improve or increase your BitComet bittorrent download speed if you know how to set your router.
* Set port forwarding or virtual server features on your router. Then map your router to forward this port date to your local ip address. This will improve bitcomet bittorrent download speed. Remember set the both (TCP and UDP).
* Enable uPnP features on your router.
Improve System Speed.
1.Let your PC boot up completely before opening any applications.
2.Refresh the desktop after closing any application. This will remove any unused files from the RAM.
3.Do not set very large file size images as your wallpaper. Do not keep a wallpaper at all if your PC is low on RAM (less than 64 MB).
4.Do not clutter your Desktop with a lot of shortcuts. Each shortcut on the desktop uses up to 500 bytes of RAM
5.Empty the recycle bin regularly. The files are not really deleted from your hard drive until you empty the recycle bin.
6.Delete the temporary internet files regularly.
7.Defragment your hard drive once every two months. This will free up a lot of space on your hard drive and rearrange the files so that your applications run faster.
8.Always make two partitions in your hard drive. Install all large Softwares (like PSP, Photoshop, 3DS Max etc) in the second partition. Windows uses all the available empty space in C drive as virtual memory when your Computer RAM is full. Keep the C Drive as empty as possible.
9.When installing new Softwares disable the option of having a tray icon. The tray icons use up available RAM, and also slow down the booting of your PC. Also disable the option of starting the application automatically when the PC boots. You can disable these options later on also from the Tools or preferences menu in your application.
10. Protect your PC from dust. Dust causes the CPU cooling fan to jam and slow down thereby gradually heating your CPU and affecting the processing speed. Use compressed air to blow out any dust from the CPU. Never use vacuum.
RAM IS THE WORKING AREA (DESKTOP) OF THE CPU, KEEP IT AS EMPTY AND UNCLUTTERED AS POSSIBLE!
2.Refresh the desktop after closing any application. This will remove any unused files from the RAM.
3.Do not set very large file size images as your wallpaper. Do not keep a wallpaper at all if your PC is low on RAM (less than 64 MB).
4.Do not clutter your Desktop with a lot of shortcuts. Each shortcut on the desktop uses up to 500 bytes of RAM
5.Empty the recycle bin regularly. The files are not really deleted from your hard drive until you empty the recycle bin.
6.Delete the temporary internet files regularly.
7.Defragment your hard drive once every two months. This will free up a lot of space on your hard drive and rearrange the files so that your applications run faster.
8.Always make two partitions in your hard drive. Install all large Softwares (like PSP, Photoshop, 3DS Max etc) in the second partition. Windows uses all the available empty space in C drive as virtual memory when your Computer RAM is full. Keep the C Drive as empty as possible.
9.When installing new Softwares disable the option of having a tray icon. The tray icons use up available RAM, and also slow down the booting of your PC. Also disable the option of starting the application automatically when the PC boots. You can disable these options later on also from the Tools or preferences menu in your application.
10. Protect your PC from dust. Dust causes the CPU cooling fan to jam and slow down thereby gradually heating your CPU and affecting the processing speed. Use compressed air to blow out any dust from the CPU. Never use vacuum.
RAM IS THE WORKING AREA (DESKTOP) OF THE CPU, KEEP IT AS EMPTY AND UNCLUTTERED AS POSSIBLE!
Increasing System Performance
If you have 512 megs or more of memory, you can increase system performanceby having the core system kept in memory.
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive
Set the value to be 1
Reboot the computer
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive
Set the value to be 1
Reboot the computer
Common Command Console Utilities
WindowsXP comes with quite a few console utilities you can easily run from the command line:
Computer Management - compmgmt.msc
Disk Managment - diskmgmt.msc
Device Manager - devmgmt.msc
Disk Defrag - dfrg.msc
Event Viewer - eventvwr.msc
Shared Folders - fsmgmt.msc
Group Policies - gpedit.msc
Local Users and Groups - lusrmgr.msc
Performance Monitor - perfmon.msc
Resultant Set of Policies - rsop.msc
Local Security Settings - secpol.msc
Services - services.msc
Component Services - comexp.msc
Automatically Ending Non-Responsive Tasks
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\AutoEndTasks
Set the value to be 1
In the same section, change the WaitToKillAppTimeout to the number of milliseconds you want.
Changing the Internet Explorer Title
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Window Title
Enter what you want appear in the title bar
Changing Programs That Start Automatically
WindowsXP has a similar program, MSCONFIG, that was available in Windows98.This allows you to view and change what programs are automatically started each time you log in.The new version also allows you to view and edit the boot.ini file (as well as check for errors and use several advanced switches)
Computer Management - compmgmt.msc
Disk Managment - diskmgmt.msc
Device Manager - devmgmt.msc
Disk Defrag - dfrg.msc
Event Viewer - eventvwr.msc
Shared Folders - fsmgmt.msc
Group Policies - gpedit.msc
Local Users and Groups - lusrmgr.msc
Performance Monitor - perfmon.msc
Resultant Set of Policies - rsop.msc
Local Security Settings - secpol.msc
Services - services.msc
Component Services - comexp.msc
Automatically Ending Non-Responsive Tasks
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\AutoEndTasks
Set the value to be 1
In the same section, change the WaitToKillAppTimeout to the number of milliseconds you want.
Changing the Internet Explorer Title
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Window Title
Enter what you want appear in the title bar
Changing Programs That Start Automatically
WindowsXP has a similar program, MSCONFIG, that was available in Windows98.This allows you to view and change what programs are automatically started each time you log in.The new version also allows you to view and edit the boot.ini file (as well as check for errors and use several advanced switches)
Common Command Console Utilities
WindowsXP comes with quite a few console utilities you can easily run from the command line:
Computer Management - compmgmt.msc
Disk Managment - diskmgmt.msc
Device Manager - devmgmt.msc
Disk Defrag - dfrg.msc
Event Viewer - eventvwr.msc
Shared Folders - fsmgmt.msc
Group Policies - gpedit.msc
Local Users and Groups - lusrmgr.msc
Performance Monitor - perfmon.msc
Resultant Set of Policies - rsop.msc
Local Security Settings - secpol.msc
Services - services.msc
Component Services - comexp.msc
Automatically Ending Non-Responsive Tasks
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\AutoEndTasks
Set the value to be 1
In the same section, change the WaitToKillAppTimeout to the number of milliseconds you want.
Changing the Internet Explorer Title
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Window Title
Enter what you want appear in the title bar
Changing Programs That Start Automatically
WindowsXP has a similar program, MSCONFIG, that was available in Windows98.This allows you to view and change what programs are automatically started each time you log in.The new version also allows you to view and edit the boot.ini file (as well as check for errors and use several advanced switches)
Computer Management - compmgmt.msc
Disk Managment - diskmgmt.msc
Device Manager - devmgmt.msc
Disk Defrag - dfrg.msc
Event Viewer - eventvwr.msc
Shared Folders - fsmgmt.msc
Group Policies - gpedit.msc
Local Users and Groups - lusrmgr.msc
Performance Monitor - perfmon.msc
Resultant Set of Policies - rsop.msc
Local Security Settings - secpol.msc
Services - services.msc
Component Services - comexp.msc
Automatically Ending Non-Responsive Tasks
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\AutoEndTasks
Set the value to be 1
In the same section, change the WaitToKillAppTimeout to the number of milliseconds you want.
Changing the Internet Explorer Title
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Window Title
Enter what you want appear in the title bar
Changing Programs That Start Automatically
WindowsXP has a similar program, MSCONFIG, that was available in Windows98.This allows you to view and change what programs are automatically started each time you log in.The new version also allows you to view and edit the boot.ini file (as well as check for errors and use several advanced switches)
WindowsXP Command Line Utilities
While there are a lot of command line utilities in WindowsXP, here are some of them
bootcfg - Configures, queries, or changes Boot.ini file settings.
driverquery - Displays a list of all installed device drivers and their properties.
getmac - Returns the media access control (MAC) address and list of network protocols associated with each address for all network cards in each computer
gpresult - Displays Group Policy settings and Resultant Set of Policy (RSOP) for a user or a computer
netsh - You can use commands in the Netsh Interface IP context to configure the TCP/IP protoco
schtasks - Schedules commands and programs to run periodically or at a specific time
systeminfo - Displays detailed configuration information about a computer and its operating system.
Creating an Automated Install of WindowsXP
On the WindowsXP CP, in the SUPPORT\TOOLS directory,
there is a file called DEPLOY.CAB.
Extract the programs DEPLOY.CHM (help file) and SETUPMGR.EXE (main program)
Run SETUPMGR and answer the prompts.
This will create both a unattend.bat and unattend.txt file you can use for automated installs.
Note: The batch file might need some minor modification for file locations but it is fairly basic.
Disabling Hibernation
If you don't want to use up the disk space taken by Hibernation, or don't need to use it at all,you can easily disable it.
Open up the Control Panel / Power Options icon
Click on the Hibernation icon
Uncheck Enable Hibernation
bootcfg - Configures, queries, or changes Boot.ini file settings.
driverquery - Displays a list of all installed device drivers and their properties.
getmac - Returns the media access control (MAC) address and list of network protocols associated with each address for all network cards in each computer
gpresult - Displays Group Policy settings and Resultant Set of Policy (RSOP) for a user or a computer
netsh - You can use commands in the Netsh Interface IP context to configure the TCP/IP protoco
schtasks - Schedules commands and programs to run periodically or at a specific time
systeminfo - Displays detailed configuration information about a computer and its operating system.
Creating an Automated Install of WindowsXP
On the WindowsXP CP, in the SUPPORT\TOOLS directory,
there is a file called DEPLOY.CAB.
Extract the programs DEPLOY.CHM (help file) and SETUPMGR.EXE (main program)
Run SETUPMGR and answer the prompts.
This will create both a unattend.bat and unattend.txt file you can use for automated installs.
Note: The batch file might need some minor modification for file locations but it is fairly basic.
Disabling Hibernation
If you don't want to use up the disk space taken by Hibernation, or don't need to use it at all,you can easily disable it.
Open up the Control Panel / Power Options icon
Click on the Hibernation icon
Uncheck Enable Hibernation
Decreasing Boot Time
Microsoft has made available a program to analyze and decrease the time it takes to boot to WindowsXP.
The program is called BootVis
Uncompress the file.
Run BOOTVIS.EXE
For a starting point, run Trace / Next Boot + Driver Delays
This will reboot your computer and provide a benchmark
After the reboot, BootVis will take a minute or two to show graphs of your system startup.
Note how much time it takes for your system to load (click on the red vertical line)
Then run Trace / Optimize System
Re-Run the Next Boot + Drive Delays
Note how much the time has decreased
Hide/Unhide Logon Names
If you want to hide or unhide the names of users that are displayed on the initial logon screen:
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon \ SpecialAccounts \ UserList
Add a DWORD with the name of the user account you want to hide
Make sure it has a value of 0
If there is an existing account, you can unhide it by giving it a value of 1
The program is called BootVis
Uncompress the file.
Run BOOTVIS.EXE
For a starting point, run Trace / Next Boot + Driver Delays
This will reboot your computer and provide a benchmark
After the reboot, BootVis will take a minute or two to show graphs of your system startup.
Note how much time it takes for your system to load (click on the red vertical line)
Then run Trace / Optimize System
Re-Run the Next Boot + Drive Delays
Note how much the time has decreased
Hide/Unhide Logon Names
If you want to hide or unhide the names of users that are displayed on the initial logon screen:
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon \ SpecialAccounts \ UserList
Add a DWORD with the name of the user account you want to hide
Make sure it has a value of 0
If there is an existing account, you can unhide it by giving it a value of 1
Changing Drive Letters
If you want to change the letters assigned to your fixed or removable drives:
Right Click on My Computer
Select Manage
Select Disk Management
For a Fixed Disk:
Select it
Right click
Select Change Drive Letter and Path
Click on the Edit button
Enter in the letter you want to use
For a Removable Disk:
In the lower, right hand panel, right click on the Disk or CD ROM #
Select Change Drive Letter and Path
Click on the Edit button
Enter in the letter you want to use
Right Click on My Computer
Select Manage
Select Disk Management
For a Fixed Disk:
Select it
Right click
Select Change Drive Letter and Path
Click on the Edit button
Enter in the letter you want to use
For a Removable Disk:
In the lower, right hand panel, right click on the Disk or CD ROM #
Select Change Drive Letter and Path
Click on the Edit button
Enter in the letter you want to use
Using the Classic Search in Explorer
If you prefer to use the classic search style in Explorer,
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CabinetState
Add a String Key called Use Search Asst
Give it a value of 'no'
Changing the Registered Owner
Start Regedit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
From there you can edit the name in the Registered Owner key
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CabinetState
Add a String Key called Use Search Asst
Give it a value of 'no'
Changing the Registered Owner
Start Regedit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
From there you can edit the name in the Registered Owner key
Enable / Disable the Task Manager
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
Create the Dword value DisableTaskMgr
Give it a value of 0 to enable it
Give it a vaule of 1 to disable it
Clearing the Page File on Shutdown
Another way to set the computer to clear the pagefile without directly editing the registry is:
Click on the Start button
Go to the Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Local Security Policy
Local Policies
Click on Security Options
Right hand menu - right click on "Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile"
Select "Enable"
Reboot
If you want to clear the page file on each shutdown:
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\ClearPageFileAtShutdown
Set the value to 1
No GUI Boot
If you don't need to see the XP boot logo,
Run MSCONFIG
Click on the BOOT.INI tab
Check the box for /NOGUIBOOT
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
Create the Dword value DisableTaskMgr
Give it a value of 0 to enable it
Give it a vaule of 1 to disable it
Clearing the Page File on Shutdown
Another way to set the computer to clear the pagefile without directly editing the registry is:
Click on the Start button
Go to the Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Local Security Policy
Local Policies
Click on Security Options
Right hand menu - right click on "Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile"
Select "Enable"
Reboot
If you want to clear the page file on each shutdown:
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\ClearPageFileAtShutdown
Set the value to 1
No GUI Boot
If you don't need to see the XP boot logo,
Run MSCONFIG
Click on the BOOT.INI tab
Check the box for /NOGUIBOOT
Folder Settings
Remembering Folder Settings
If XP does not remember your folder settings, delete or rename the following registry keys
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\BagMRU]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\Bags]
Preventing Applications from Stealing the Focus.To prevent applications from stealing the focus from the window you are working
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop
Edit the key ForegroundLockTimeout
Give it a value of 00030d40
Disable Explorer Thumbnail View
If you want disable the Explorer's ability to show the Thumbnail View ,
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced \
Change ClassicViewState to 1
Close regedit
Disable Shared Documents
To disable the Shared Documents folder that shows up on the network
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer \
Create a new DWORD Value
Give it the name NoSharedDocuments
Give it a value of 1
Log off or reboot
Removing Thumbs.db Files
When viewing a folder with the Thumbnail view, WindowsXP creates a thumbs.db file.This is a cache of the current pictures in that directory.If you want to turn this feature off and save a little disk space
Start the Windows Explorer
Go to Tools / Folder Options / View
In the first section under Files and Folders, check Do not cache thumbnails
Now you can search for the thumbs.db file on your computer and remove them. No more should be created.
If XP does not remember your folder settings, delete or rename the following registry keys
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\BagMRU]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\Bags]
Preventing Applications from Stealing the Focus.To prevent applications from stealing the focus from the window you are working
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop
Edit the key ForegroundLockTimeout
Give it a value of 00030d40
Disable Explorer Thumbnail View
If you want disable the Explorer's ability to show the Thumbnail View ,
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced \
Change ClassicViewState to 1
Close regedit
Disable Shared Documents
To disable the Shared Documents folder that shows up on the network
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer \
Create a new DWORD Value
Give it the name NoSharedDocuments
Give it a value of 1
Log off or reboot
Removing Thumbs.db Files
When viewing a folder with the Thumbnail view, WindowsXP creates a thumbs.db file.This is a cache of the current pictures in that directory.If you want to turn this feature off and save a little disk space
Start the Windows Explorer
Go to Tools / Folder Options / View
In the first section under Files and Folders, check Do not cache thumbnails
Now you can search for the thumbs.db file on your computer and remove them. No more should be created.
Shutdown & Logoff Shortcuts
Bringing Up the Shutdown Dialog Box
Create a new txt file somewhere on your system, open it and put in this one line:
(new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application")).ShutdownWindows();
Save and Close the file. Change the extension to js and your got it.You can make a shortcut to that file to make it easy to shut down your system.
Hiding the Last User Logged On
If you use the standard NT style of login and want to hide the last user:
Start the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc)
Go to Computer Configuration / Windows Settings / Security Settings / Local Policies / Security Options
Scroll down to Interactive logon: Do not display last user name
Set it to Enable
Poweroff at Shutdown
If your computer does not turn off the power when doing a shutdown,you may need to edit the registry. I have all the correct BIOS and Power settings and still needed to do this.
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Edit the key PowerOffActive and give it a value of 1
You can do the same in HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
Create a new txt file somewhere on your system, open it and put in this one line:
(new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application")).ShutdownWindows();
Save and Close the file. Change the extension to js and your got it.You can make a shortcut to that file to make it easy to shut down your system.
Hiding the Last User Logged On
If you use the standard NT style of login and want to hide the last user:
Start the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc)
Go to Computer Configuration / Windows Settings / Security Settings / Local Policies / Security Options
Scroll down to Interactive logon: Do not display last user name
Set it to Enable
Poweroff at Shutdown
If your computer does not turn off the power when doing a shutdown,you may need to edit the registry. I have all the correct BIOS and Power settings and still needed to do this.
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Edit the key PowerOffActive and give it a value of 1
You can do the same in HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
Error Messages In XP & Solutions
NTOSKRNL Missing or Corrupt
If you get an error that NTOSKRNL not found:
Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
Typically this will be #1
Change to the drive that has the CD ROM.
CD i386expand ntkrnlmp.ex_ C:\Windows\System32\ntoskrnl.exe
If WindowsXP is installed in a different location, just make the necessary change to C:\Windows
Take out the CD ROM and type exit
HAL.DLL Missing or Corrupt
If you get an error regarding a missing or corrupt hal.dll file, it might simply be the BOOT.INI file on the root of the C: drive that is misconfigured
Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
Typically this will be #1
Type bootcfg /list to show the current entries in the BOOT.INI file
Type bootcfg /rebuild to repair it
Take out the CD ROM and type exit
Corrupted or Missing \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIGI
If you get the error:Windows could not start because the following files is missing or corrupt\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM or \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE
Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
Typically this will be #1
Enter in the administrator password when requested
cd \windows\system32\config
Depending on which section was corrupted:
ren software software.bad or ren system system.bad
Depending on which section was corrupted
copy \windows\repair\system
copy \windows\repair\software
Take out the CD ROM and type exit
NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM Not Found
If you get an error that NTLDR is not found during bootup,
If you have FAT32 partitions, it is much simpler than with NTFS.
Just boot with a Win98 floppy and copy the NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM filesfrom the i386 directory to the root of the C:\ drive.
For NTFS:
Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
Typically this will be #1
Enter in the administrator password when requested
Enter in the following commands (X: is replaced by the actual drive letter that is assigned to the CD ROM drive.
COPY X:\i386\NTLDR C\:
COPY X:\i386\NTDETECT.COM C:\
Take out the CD ROM and type exit
If you get an error that NTOSKRNL not found:
Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
Typically this will be #1
Change to the drive that has the CD ROM.
CD i386expand ntkrnlmp.ex_ C:\Windows\System32\ntoskrnl.exe
If WindowsXP is installed in a different location, just make the necessary change to C:\Windows
Take out the CD ROM and type exit
HAL.DLL Missing or Corrupt
If you get an error regarding a missing or corrupt hal.dll file, it might simply be the BOOT.INI file on the root of the C: drive that is misconfigured
Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
Typically this will be #1
Type bootcfg /list to show the current entries in the BOOT.INI file
Type bootcfg /rebuild to repair it
Take out the CD ROM and type exit
Corrupted or Missing \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIGI
If you get the error:Windows could not start because the following files is missing or corrupt\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM or \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE
Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
Typically this will be #1
Enter in the administrator password when requested
cd \windows\system32\config
Depending on which section was corrupted:
ren software software.bad or ren system system.bad
Depending on which section was corrupted
copy \windows\repair\system
copy \windows\repair\software
Take out the CD ROM and type exit
NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM Not Found
If you get an error that NTLDR is not found during bootup,
If you have FAT32 partitions, it is much simpler than with NTFS.
Just boot with a Win98 floppy and copy the NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM filesfrom the i386 directory to the root of the C:\ drive.
For NTFS:
Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
Typically this will be #1
Enter in the administrator password when requested
Enter in the following commands (X: is replaced by the actual drive letter that is assigned to the CD ROM drive.
COPY X:\i386\NTLDR C\:
COPY X:\i386\NTDETECT.COM C:\
Take out the CD ROM and type exit
Repair Installation
If XP is corrupted to the point where none of the previous solutions get it to boot,you can do a Repair Install that might work as well as keep the current settings.Make sure you have your valid WindowsXP key.The whole process takes about half an hour depending on your computer.If you are being prompted for the administrator's password, you need to choose the 2nd repair option, not the first.
Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD
At the second R=Repair option, press the R key
This will start the repair
Press F8 for I Agree at the Licensing Agreement
Press R when the directory where WindowsXP is installed is shown. Typically this is C:\WINDOWS
It will then check the C: drive and start copying files
It will automatically reboot when needed. Keep the CD in the drive.
You will then see the graphic part of the repair that is like during a normal install of XP (Collecting Information, Dynamic Update, Preparing Installation, Installing Windows, Finalizing Installation)
When prompted, click on the Next button
When prompted, enter your XP key
Normally you will want to keep the same Workgroup or Domain name
The computer will reboot
Then you will have the same screens as a normal XP Install
Activate if you want (usually a good idea)
Register if you want (but not necessary)
Finish
At this point you should be able to log in with any existing accounts
Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD
At the second R=Repair option, press the R key
This will start the repair
Press F8 for I Agree at the Licensing Agreement
Press R when the directory where WindowsXP is installed is shown. Typically this is C:\WINDOWS
It will then check the C: drive and start copying files
It will automatically reboot when needed. Keep the CD in the drive.
You will then see the graphic part of the repair that is like during a normal install of XP (Collecting Information, Dynamic Update, Preparing Installation, Installing Windows, Finalizing Installation)
When prompted, click on the Next button
When prompted, enter your XP key
Normally you will want to keep the same Workgroup or Domain name
The computer will reboot
Then you will have the same screens as a normal XP Install
Activate if you want (usually a good idea)
Register if you want (but not necessary)
Finish
At this point you should be able to log in with any existing accounts
Services In Xp
There are quite a few services you can disable from starting automatically.This would be to speed up your boot time and free resources.They are only suggestions ,so you read the description of each one when you run Services and that you turn them off one at a time.
Some possibilities are:
Alerter - Sends alert messages to specified users that are connected to the server computer.
Application Management - Allows software to tap directly into the Add/Remove Programs feature via the Windows Installer technology.
Background Intelligent Transfer Service - The Background Intelligent Transfer service is used by programs (such as Windows AutoUpdate) to download files by using spare bandwidth.
Clipbook - ClipBook permits you to cut and paste text and graphics over the network.
Error Reporting Service - Allows applications to send error reports to Microsoft in the event of an application fault.
Fast User Switching - Windows XP allows users to switch quickly between accounts, without requiring them to log off.
Help and Support - Allows the XP Built-in Help and Support Center to run.
IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service - You don't need this if you have other software to create CDs.
Indexing Service - Indexes contents and properties of files on local and remote computers; provides rapid access to files through flexible querying language.
IP SEC - Manages IP security policy and starts the ISAKMP/Oakley (IKE) and the IP security driver. If you are not on a domain, you likely don't need this running.
Messenger - Transmits net send and Alerter service messages between clients and servers. This is how a lot of pop-up windows start appearing on your desktop.
Net Logon - Supports pass-through authentication of account logon events for computers in a domain. If you are not on a domain, you don't need this running
Network DDE - Provides network transport and security for Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) for programs running on the same computer or on different computers.
NT LM Security Support Provider - Provides security to remote procedure call (RPC) programs that use transports other than named pipes.
Performance Logs and Alerts - Collects performance data from local or remote computers based on preconfigured schedule parameters, then writes the data to a log or triggers an alert. If you don't need to monitor your performance logs, then you don't need this service.
Portable Media Serial Number - Retrieves the serial number of any portable music player connected to your computer
QOS RSVP - Provides network signaling and local traffic control setup functionality for QoS-aware programs and control applets.
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager - Manages and controls Remote Assistance. If you are not using Remote Desktop you don't need this service.
Remote Registry - Enables remote users to modify registry settings on this computer.
Routing & Remote Access - Offers routing services to businesses in local area and wide area network environments. Allows dial-in access.
Secondary Login - Enables starting processes under alternate credentials. This is what allows you to run an application as another user.
Smart Card - Manages access to smart cards read by this computer.
Smart Card Helper - Enables support for legacy non-plug and play smart-card readers used by this computer.
SSDP Discovery Service - Enables discovery of UPnP devices on your home network.
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper - Enables support for NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT) service and NetBIOS name resolution. This should not be needed in today's network environment.
Telnet - Enables a remote user to log on to this computer and run programs, and supports various TCP/IP Telnet clients.
Uninterruptible Power Supply Service - Manages an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) connected to the computer
Universal Plug and Play Device Host - Provides support to host Universal Plug and Play devices
Upload Manager - Manages synchronous and asynchronous file transfers between clients and servers on the network.
Volume Shadow Copy Service - Manages and implements Volume Shadow Copies used for backup and other purposes.
Web Client - Enables Windows-based programs to create, access, and modify non-local files across the Internet.
Wireless Zero Configuration - Provides automatic configuration for the 802.11 adapters
WMI Performance Adapter - Provides performance library information from WMI HiPerf providers.
Some possibilities are:
Alerter - Sends alert messages to specified users that are connected to the server computer.
Application Management - Allows software to tap directly into the Add/Remove Programs feature via the Windows Installer technology.
Background Intelligent Transfer Service - The Background Intelligent Transfer service is used by programs (such as Windows AutoUpdate) to download files by using spare bandwidth.
Clipbook - ClipBook permits you to cut and paste text and graphics over the network.
Error Reporting Service - Allows applications to send error reports to Microsoft in the event of an application fault.
Fast User Switching - Windows XP allows users to switch quickly between accounts, without requiring them to log off.
Help and Support - Allows the XP Built-in Help and Support Center to run.
IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service - You don't need this if you have other software to create CDs.
Indexing Service - Indexes contents and properties of files on local and remote computers; provides rapid access to files through flexible querying language.
IP SEC - Manages IP security policy and starts the ISAKMP/Oakley (IKE) and the IP security driver. If you are not on a domain, you likely don't need this running.
Messenger - Transmits net send and Alerter service messages between clients and servers. This is how a lot of pop-up windows start appearing on your desktop.
Net Logon - Supports pass-through authentication of account logon events for computers in a domain. If you are not on a domain, you don't need this running
Network DDE - Provides network transport and security for Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) for programs running on the same computer or on different computers.
NT LM Security Support Provider - Provides security to remote procedure call (RPC) programs that use transports other than named pipes.
Performance Logs and Alerts - Collects performance data from local or remote computers based on preconfigured schedule parameters, then writes the data to a log or triggers an alert. If you don't need to monitor your performance logs, then you don't need this service.
Portable Media Serial Number - Retrieves the serial number of any portable music player connected to your computer
QOS RSVP - Provides network signaling and local traffic control setup functionality for QoS-aware programs and control applets.
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager - Manages and controls Remote Assistance. If you are not using Remote Desktop you don't need this service.
Remote Registry - Enables remote users to modify registry settings on this computer.
Routing & Remote Access - Offers routing services to businesses in local area and wide area network environments. Allows dial-in access.
Secondary Login - Enables starting processes under alternate credentials. This is what allows you to run an application as another user.
Smart Card - Manages access to smart cards read by this computer.
Smart Card Helper - Enables support for legacy non-plug and play smart-card readers used by this computer.
SSDP Discovery Service - Enables discovery of UPnP devices on your home network.
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper - Enables support for NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT) service and NetBIOS name resolution. This should not be needed in today's network environment.
Telnet - Enables a remote user to log on to this computer and run programs, and supports various TCP/IP Telnet clients.
Uninterruptible Power Supply Service - Manages an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) connected to the computer
Universal Plug and Play Device Host - Provides support to host Universal Plug and Play devices
Upload Manager - Manages synchronous and asynchronous file transfers between clients and servers on the network.
Volume Shadow Copy Service - Manages and implements Volume Shadow Copies used for backup and other purposes.
Web Client - Enables Windows-based programs to create, access, and modify non-local files across the Internet.
Wireless Zero Configuration - Provides automatic configuration for the 802.11 adapters
WMI Performance Adapter - Provides performance library information from WMI HiPerf providers.
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