Change The Default Location For Installing Apps

As the size of hard drives increase, more people are using partitions to separate and store groups of files.

XP uses the C:\Program Files directory as the default base directory into which new programs are installed. However, you can change the default installation drive and/ or directory by using a Registry hack.

Go to :-

- Start > Run

- Type “regedit” (without “” NOOBS!)

- Go to this directory…
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

- Look for the value named ProgramFilesDir. by default,this value will be C:\Program Files. Edit the value to any valid drive or folder and XP will use that new location as the default installation directory for new programs.

How to: Convert Stubborn Webpage To .pdf

I have come across some websites that i wanted to save the page for later review. I found that i was having some problems with certain sites. I found a way around it.

what you need:adobe acrobat 6 pro or better popupcop

There may be a simpler way to do this but i found that this works:
when at a webpage that you want to copy (YOU MUST BE USING IE AND HAVE BOTH POPUPCOP INSTALLED AND ADOBE ACROBAT 6 PRO OR HIGHER, ACROBAT ICON MUST BE IN IE TOOLBAR TO CONVERT TO .PDF), slide popupcops popup intensity bar to the far left, now click on adobe acrobat icon to convert webpage to .pdf document. I have yet to find a webpage where this trick does not work.

How to : Improve your torrent download speed

Pear 2 Pear file sharing is one of the widely used technique in present. The Torrent search engine is the back bone for this context. As the young generation says “impatience is our trend”, means the generation can’t afford something slow.


Here are some tips which can really help to improve your download speed. Let’s have a quick glance at these tips.

1. Choose your ISP wisely
The basic rule is that the maximum Torrent download speed that you can get can’t cross the upper limit of the bandwidth provided by your ISP. Usually ISP’s specify the upload and download maximum for the connections. So it is always better to have an ISP who provides better Download and Upload limits for an affordable price.


2. Choose the right BitTorrent client
Always choose the latest versions among the available BitTorrent clients. mTorrent, Vuze etc are some of these latest versions available now. The latest versions are equipped with provisions for obtaining the highest download speed and an overall smooth downloading experience.


3. Check the seeds and peers
A peer is a computer which participates in the P2P sharing either for downloading or uploading. A seed is a computer who has got a complete copy of the file and is sharing that file in the network. A leech is a computer who doesn’t have a complete copy of the file, and is downloading the file at the moment. A leech becomes a seed when it completes the download and shares it over the network. It is always advisable to choose the files with more number of seeds and less no of leeches. That means the file with the highest seed to leech ratio.

4. Altering the firewall configuration
By default the firewalls block all the BitTorrent connections coming through. This can adversely affect the downloading speed. So you must make sure that your firewall is configured in such a way that it allows the BitTorrent connections through it. This can be done by checking the box ‘Add Windows Firewall Exception” in the firewall settings following the path options/preferences/connection. For ease some users may disable the firewall, but it is strongly advised that you shouldn’t disable your firewall that it will open your computer to serious threats.(


5. Limiting your upload rate
A peer to peer sharing is all about simultaneous upload and download. So every BitTorrent clients must upload some data at the same they are downloading some other data through torrent. For obtaining a high download speed you should vary your upload speed accordingly. Usually the upload maximum by the ISP is very much less than the download maximum. It is only 50Kbps for a 2Mbps connection. For fast downloading you can set your uploading speed to 80% of your maximum uploading speed. You must vary the speed as the download progresses for an efficient downloading. Keep the uploading limit maximum in the
beginning and then slightly decrease it as the download progresses. In mTorrent the upload limit can be set from the option Global Upload Rate.


6. Selecting a different port
The default port for the BitTorrent file sharing is one between 6881 and 6999. As BitTorrent sharing involves high bandwidth usage the ISP’s usually throttle traffic on these ports. So you can increase the downloading speed by selecting some port above 10000. Usually mTorrent randomly assign the port as the application starts. So set a specific port with a number above 10000, by disabling the Randomize port checkbox.


7. Increasing the number of Maximum Half Open TCP Connections
Usually the maximum no of half open TCP connections in Windows XP with SP2 is set as 10 for blocking the virus multiplication. But torrent needs more. To facilitate this a patch TCPIP.sys is available. Through this patch you can set the maximum no of open TCP connections. Set it to any number between 50 and 100.


8. Protocol encryption
Some ISP’s constrict the bandwidth for P2P sharing. Protocol encryption can be used to override this restriction. Check the Allow incoming legacy connections box and make the outgoing Encryption as Disabled for getting maximum speed on Torrent downloads. Between non-encryption is not advisable as it may lead to some encrypted client to be left as undiscovered.


9. Connections and bandwidth
The BitTorrent client you are using will allow you to enter values forGlobal maximum no of connections: It is the maximum no of connections BitTorrent client can make for any P2P sharing. Setting this no to a very high value will take up useless bandwidth, and to a very low value will miss out some peers. For a 256kbps connection you can set this number to 130.

Maximum no of connected peers per torrent: Set this no to one which is closer to the no of available peers for the file.
No of upload slots per torrent: It gives the maximum no of peers to which the BitTorrent client uploads at a time. Since a
low settings may affect the download set it to a moderate low value.

10. Miscellaneous
Disable the individual files for download along with a particular file, if we don’t want them at the beginning of download. Be familiar with your BitTorrent client settings from the users manual or web.

What is: Band width

Band Width Explained
Most hosting companies offer a variety of bandwidth options in their plans. So exactly what is bandwidth as it relates to web hosting? Put simply, bandwidth is the amount of traffic that is allowed to occur between your web site and the rest of the internet. The amount of bandwidth a hosting company can provide is determined by their network connections, both internal to their data center and external to the public internet.

Network Connectivity
The internet, in the most simplest of terms, is a group of millions of computers connected by networks. These connections within the internet can be large or small depending upon the cabling and equipment that is used at a particular internet location. It is the size of each network connection that determines how much bandwidth is available. For example, if you use a DSL connection to connect to the internet, you have 1.54 Mega bits (Mb) of bandwidth. Bandwidth therefore is measured in bits (a single 0 or 1). Bits are grouped in bytes which form words, text, and other information that is transferred between your computer and the internet.

If you have a DSL connection to the internet, you have dedicated bandwidth between your computer and your internet provider. But your internet provider may have thousands of DSL connections to their location. All of these connection aggregate at your internet provider who then has their own dedicated connection to the internet (or multiple connections) which is much larger than your single connection. They must have enough bandwidth to serve your computing needs as well as all of their other customers. So while you have a 1.54Mb connection to your internet provider, your internet provider may have a 255Mb connection to the internet so it can accommodate your needs and up to 166 other users (255/1.54).


Traffic
A very simple analogy to use to understand bandwidth and traffic is to think of highways and cars. Bandwidth is the number of lanes on the highway and traffic is the number of cars on the highway. If you are the only car on a highway, you can travel very quickly. If you are stuck in the middle of rush hour, you may travel very slowly since all of the lanes are being used up.

Traffic is simply the number of bits that are transferred on network connections. It is easiest to understand traffic using examples. One Gigabyte is 2 to the 30th power (1,073,741,824) bytes. One gigabyte is equal to 1,024 megabytes. To put this in perspective, it takes one byte to store one character. Imagine 100 file cabinets in a building, each of these cabinets holds 1000 folders. Each folder has 100 papers. Each paper contains 100 characters - A GB is all the characters in the building. An MP3 song is about 4MB, the same song in wav format is about 40MB, a full length movie can be 800MB to 1000MB (1000MB = 1GB).

If you were to transfer this MP3 song from a web site to your computer, you would create 4MB of traffic between the web site you are downloading from and your computer. Depending upon the network connection between the web site and the internet, the transfer may occur very quickly, or it could take time if other people are also downloading files at the same time. If, for example, the web site you download from has a 10MB connection to the internet, and you are the only person accessing that web site to download your MP3, your 4MB file will be the only traffic on that web site. However, if three people are all downloading that same MP at the same time, 12MB (3 x 4MB) of traffic has been created. Because in this example, the host only has 10MB of bandwidth, someone will have to wait. The network equipment at the hosting company will cycle through each person downloading the file and transfer a small portion at a time so each person's file transfer can take place, but the transfer for everyone downloading the file will be slower. If 100 people all came to the site and downloaded the MP3 at the same time, the transfers would be extremely slow. If the host wanted to decrease the time it took to download files simultaneously, it could increase the bandwidth of their internet connection (at a cost due to upgrading equipment).


Hosting Bandwidth
In the example above, we discussed traffic in terms of downloading an MP3 file. However, each time you visit a web site, you are creating traffic, because in order to view that web page on your computer, the web page is first downloaded to your computer (between the web site and you) which is then displayed using your browser software (Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.) . The page itself is simply a file that creates traffic just like the MP3 file in the example above (however, a web page is usually much smaller than a music file).

A web page may be very small or large depending upon the amount of text and the number and quality of images integrated within the web page. For example, the home page for CNN.com is about 200KB (200 Kilobytes = 200,000 bytes = 1,600,000 bits). This is typically large for a web page. In comparison, Yahoo's home page is about 70KB.


How Much Bandwidth Is Enough?
It depends (don't you hate that answer). But in truth, it does. Since bandwidth is a significant determinant of hosting plan prices, you should take time to determine just how much is right for you. Almost all hosting plans have bandwidth requirements measured in months, so you need to estimate the amount of bandwidth that will be required by your site on a monthly basis

If you do not intend to provide file download capability from your site, the formula for calculating bandwidth is fairly straightforward:

Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size x 31 x Fudge Factor

If you intend to allow people to download files from your site, your bandwidth calculation should be:

[(Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size) +
(Average Daily File Downloads x Average File Size)] x 31 x Fudge Factor

Let us examine each item in the formula:
Average Daily Visitors - The number of people you expect to visit your site, on average, each day. Depending upon how you market your site, this number could be from 1 to 1,000,000.

Average Page Views - On average, the number of web pages you expect a person to view. If you have 50 web pages in your web site, an average person may only view 5 of those pages each time they visit.

Average Page Size - The average size of your web pages, in Kilobytes (KB). If you have already designed your site, you can calculate this directly.

Average Daily File Downloads - The number of downloads you expect to occur on your site. This is a function of the numbers of visitors and how many times a visitor downloads a file, on average, each day.

Average File Size - Average file size of files that are downloadable from your site. Similar to your web pages, if you already know which files can be downloaded, you can calculate this directly.

Fudge Factor - A number greater than 1. Using 1.5 would be safe, which assumes that your estimate is off by 50%. However, if you were very unsure, you could use 2 or 3 to ensure that your bandwidth requirements are more than met.

Usually, hosting plans offer bandwidth in terms of Gigabytes (GB) per month. This is why our formula takes daily averages and multiplies them by 31.


Summary
Most personal or small business sites will not need more than 1GB of bandwidth per month. If you have a web site that is composed of static web pages and you expect little traffic to your site on a daily basis, go with a low bandwidth plan. If you go over the amount of bandwidth allocated in your plan, your hosting company could charge you over usage fees, so if you think the traffic to your site will be significant, you may want to go through the calculations above to estimate the amount of bandwidth required in a hosting plan.

Facts: The Brain

The human brain is the most complex and least understood part of the human anatomy. There may be a lot we don’t know, but here are a few interesting facts that we’ve got covered.

1. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour. Ever wonder how you can react so fast to things around you or why that stubbed toe hurts right away? It’s due to the super speedy movement of nerve impulses from your brain to the rest of your body and vice versa, bringing reactions at the speed of a high powered luxury sports car.

2. The brain operates on the same amount of power as 10watt light bulb. The cartoon image of a light bulb over your head when a great thought occurs isn’t too far off the mark. Your brain generates as much energy as a small light bulb even when you’re sleeping.

3. The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia Britannica. Or any other encyclopedia for that matter. Scientists have yet to settle on a definitive amount, but the storage capacity of the brain in electronic terms is thought to
be between 3 or even 1,000 terabytes. The National Archives of Britain, containing over
900 years of history, only takes up 70 terabytes, making your brain’s memory power
pretty darn impressive.

4. Your brain uses 20% of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream. The brain only makes up about 2% of our body mass, yet consumes more oxygen than any other organ in the body, making it extremely susceptible to damage related to oxygen deprivation. So breathe deep to keep your brain happy and swimming in oxygenated cells.

5. The brain is much more active at night than during the day. Logically, you would think that all the moving around, complicated calculations and tasks and general interaction we do on a daily basis during our working hours would take a lot more brain power than, say, lying in bed. Turns out, the opposite is true. When you turn off your brain turns on. Scientists don’t yet know why this is but you can thank the hard work of your brain while you sleep for all those pleasant dreams.

6. Scientists say the higher your I.Q. the more you dream. While this may be true, don’t take it as a sign you’re mentally lacking if you can’t recall your dreams. Most of us don’t remember many of our dreams and the average length of most dreams is only 23 seconds–barely long enough to register.

7. Neurons continue to grow throughout human life. For years scientists and doctors thought that brain and neural tissue couldn’t grow or regenerate. While it doesn’t act in the same manner as tissues in many other parts of the body, neurons can and do grow throughout your life, adding a whole new dimension to the study of the brain and the illnesses that affect it.

8. Information travels at different speeds within different types of neurons. Not all neurons are the same. There are a few different types within the body and transmission along these different kinds can be as slow as 0.5 meters/sec or as fast as 120 meters/sec.

9. The brain itself cannot feel pain. While the brain might be the pain center when you cut your finger or burn yourself, the brain itself does not have pain receptors and cannot feel pain. That doesn’t mean your head can’t hurt. The brain is surrounded by loads of tissues, nerves and blood vessels that are plenty receptive to pain and can give you a pounding headache.

10. 80% of the brain is water. Your brain isn’t the firm, gray mass you’ve seen on TV. Living brain tissue is a squishy, pink and jellylike organ thanks to the loads of blood and high water content of the tissue. So the next time you’re feeling dehydrated get a drink to keep your brain hydrated.

Genaral facts to know 2

# Polar bears can eat as many as 86 penguins in a single sitting.

# The first McDonald's restaurant opened for business in 1952 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featured the McHaggis sandwich.

# The Air Force's F-117 fighter uses aerodynamics discovered during research into how bumblebees fly.

# You *can* get blood from a stone, but only if contains at least 17 percent bauxite.

# Silly Putty was "discovered" as the residue left behind after the first latex condoms were produced. It's not widely publicized for obvious reasons.

# Approximately one-sixth of your life is spent on Wednesdays.

# The skin needed for elbow transplants must be taken from the scrotum of a cadaver.

# The sport of jai alai originated from a game played by Incan priests who held cats by their tails and swung at leather balls. The cats would instinctively grab at the ball with their claws, thus enabling players to catch them.

# A cat's purr has the same romance-enhancing frequency as the voice of singer Barry White.

# The typewriter was invented by Hungarian immigrant Qwert Yuiop, who left his "signature" on the keyboard.

# The volume of water that the Giant Sequoia tree consumes in a 24-hour period contains enough suspended minerals to pave 17.3 feet of a 4-lane concrete freeway.

# King Henry VIII slept with a gigantic axe.

# Because printed materials are being replaced by CD-ROM, microfiche and the Internet, libraries that previously sank into their foundations under the weight of their books are now in danger of collapsing in extremely high winds.

# In 1843, a Parisian street mime got stuck in his imaginary box and consequently died of starvation.

# Touch-tone telephone keypads were originally planned to have buttons for Police and Fire Departments, but they were replaced with * and # when the project was cancelled in favor of developing the 911 system.

# Human saliva has a boiling point three times that of regular water.

# Calvin, of the "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip, was patterned after President Calvin Coolidge, who had a pet tiger as a boy.

# Watching an hour-long soap opera burns more calories than watching a three-hour baseball game.

# Until 1978, Camel cigarettes contained minute particles of real camels.

# You can actually sharpen the blades on a pencil sharpener by wrapping your pencils in aluminum foil before inserting them.

# To human taste buds, Zima is virtually indistinguishable from zebra urine.

# Seven out of every ten hockey-playing Canadians will lose a tooth during a game. For Canadians who don't play hockey, that figure drops to five out of ten.

# A dog's naked behind leaves absolutely no bacteria when pressed against carpet.

# A team of University of Virginia researchers released a study promoting the practice of picking one's nose, claiming that the health benefits of keeping nasal passages free from infectious blockages far outweigh the negative social connotations.

# Among items left behind at Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan were 27 issues of Mad Magazine. Al Qaeda members have admitted that bin Laden is reportedly an avid reader.

# Urine from male cape water buffaloes is so flammable that some tribes use it for lantern fuel.

# At the first World Cup championship in Uruguay, 1930, the soccer balls were actually monkey skulls wrapped in paper and leather.

# Every Labrador retriever dreams about bananas.

# If you put a bee in a film canister for two hours, it will go blind and leave behind its weight in honey.

# Due to the angle at which the optic nerve enters the brain, staring at a blue surface during sex greatly increases the intensity of orgasms.

# Never hold your nose and cover your mouth when sneezing, as it can blow out your eyeballs.

# Centuries ago, purchasing real estate often required having one or more limbs amputated in order to prevent the purchaser from running away to avoid repayment of the loan. Hence an expensive purchase was said to cost "an arm and a leg."

# When Mahatma Gandhi died, an autopsy revealed five gold Krugerrands in his small intestine.

# Aardvarks are allergic to radishes, but only during summer months.

# Coca-Cola was the favored drink of Pharaoh Ramses. An inscription found in his tomb, when translated, was found to be almost identical to the recipe used today.

# If you part your hair on the right side, you were born to be carnivorous. If you part it on the left, your physical and psychological make-up is that of a vegetarian.

# When immersed in liquid, a dead sparrow will make a sound like a crying baby.

# In WWII the US military planned to airdrop over France propaganda in the form of Playboy magazine, with coded messages hidden in the models' turn-ons and turn-offs. The plan was scrapped because of a staple shortage due to rationing of metal.

# Although difficult, it's possible to start a fire by rapidly rubbing together two Cool Ranch Doritos.

# Napoleon's favorite type of wood was knotty chestnut.

# The world's smartest pig, owned by a mathematics teacher in Madison, WI, memorized the multiplication tables up to 12.

# Due to the natural "momentum" of the ocean, saltwater fish cannot swim backwards.

# In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their lives.

# It is nearly three miles farther to fly from Amarillo, Texas to Louisville, Kentucky than it is to return from Louisville to Amarillo.

# The "nine lives" attributed to cats is probably due to their having nine primary whiskers.

# The original inspiration for Barbie dolls comes from dolls developed by German propagandists in the late 1930s to impress young girls with the ideal notions of Aryan features. The proportions for Barbie were actually based on those of Eva Braun.

# The Venezuelan brown bat can detect and dodge individual raindrops in mid-flight, arriving safely back at his cave completely dry.

Genaral facts to know

# In the weightlessness of space a frozen pea will explode if it comes in contact with Pepsi.

# The increased electricity used by modern appliance parts is causing a shift in the Earth's magnetic field. By the year 2327, the North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the South Pole will be just off the coast of East Africa.

# The idea for "tribbles" in "Star Trek" came from gerbils, since some gerbils are actually born pregnant.

# Male rhesus monkeys often hang from tree branches by their amazing prehensile penises.

# Johnny Plessey batted .331 for the Cleveland Spiders in 1891, even though he spent the entire season batting with a rolled-up, lacquered copy of the Toledo Post-Dispatch.

# Smearing a small amount of dog feces on an insect bite will relieve the itching and swelling.

# The Boeing 747 is capable of flying upside-down if it weren't for the fact that the wings would shear off when trying to roll it over.

# The trucking company Elvis Presley worked at as a young man was owned by Frank Sinatra.

# The only golf course on the island of Tonga has 15 holes, and there's no penalty if a monkey steals your golf ball.

# Legislation passed during WWI making it illegal to say "gesundheit" to a sneezer was never repealed.

# Manatees possess vocal chords which give them the ability to speak like humans, but don't do so because they have no ears with which to hear the sound.

# SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below.

# Catfish are the only animals that naturally have an ODD number of whiskers.

# Replying more than 100 times to the same piece of spam e-mail will overwhelm the sender's system and interfere with their ability to send any more spam.

Try to find out the wrong fact..!

The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.

Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts, and worms like fried bacon.

Of all the words in the English language, the word 'set' has the most definitions!

What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.

"Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

"Rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel.

In 1386, a pig in France was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child

A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off!

Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.

You can't kill yourself by holding your breath

There is a city called Rome on every continent.

It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland!

Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day!

Horatio Nelson, one of England's most illustrious admirals was throughout his life, never able to find a cure for his sea-sickness.

The skeleton of Jeremy Bentham is present at all important meetings of the University of London

Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people

Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, everytime you breathe!

The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump!

One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!

Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different!

The first known transfusion of blood was performed as early as 1667, when Jean-Baptiste, transfused two pints of blood from a sheep to a young man

Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!

Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!

The present population of 5 billion plus people of the world is predicted to become 15 billion by 2080.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, and had only ONE testicle.

Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.

Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."

Coca-Cola would be green if colouring weren’t added to it.

On average a hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute.

More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.

The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words.

More people are allergic to cow's milk than any other food.

Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.

The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times!

The six official languages of the United Nations are: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish.

Earth is the only planet not named after a god.

It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a church in Nebraska, USA.

You're born with 300 bones, but by the time you become an adult, you only have 206.

Some worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food!

Dolphins sleep with one eye open!

It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open

The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old!

The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds

Queen Elizabeth I regarded herself as a paragon of cleanliness. She declared that she bathed once every three months, whether she needed it or not

Slugs have 4 noses.

Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue.

A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years!

A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!

The average person laughs 10 times a day!

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain

One of these facts is wrong...!
try to trace it.

Women can smell better than men..!

A woman friend of mine recently commented about her guy: “He’s such a boy. His towels are stinky. And he doesn’t seem to notice!” Well, maybe he can’t smell the stinkyness. According to recent research from the Monell Chemical Senses Center, women have much sharper noses.

Scientists collected microdroplets of perspiration, and had men and women sniff the vials. According to both, the odors were equally rich. Subjects were then asked to rate odor strength when sniffing the sweat mixed one by one with 32 different fragrances. Only two of the fragrances stopped women from smelling the sweat. But 19 fragrances successfully blocked it from male noses.

Body odor is special—the authors note that in previous studies men’s and women’s scent detection did not differ when it came to other aromas. The researchers also concluded that men’s odor is harder to mask than women’s, regardless of who sniffs. Only a fifth of the fragrances could cover up male odor. But half of the scents masked female odor. The researchers suggest that for women there may be important biological information contained in male sweat. So maybe don’t wash those towels just yet.

—Christie Nicholson


ref: http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=women-smell-better-than-men-09-04-09

Happy news or sad ? :sunspots

Are Scientists of NASA blaming the sun for drop in the sunspots?


Scientists had reported last year that they observed no sunspots on 266 days (73%) of 366 saying that the solar cycle had hit the bottom in 2008.

But this is not the case as the same scientists have observed an unusually quiet time for the Sun with the sunspot counts for 2009 having dropped even lower. As on March 31, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%), NASA
said.

"We are experiencing a very deep solar minimum," said solar physicist Dean Pensell of the Goddard space Flight Centre of NASA.

Every 11 years or so, the sunspots (a region on the Sun's surface marked by intense magnetic activity) on the surface of the Sun die out during solar cycle minimum.

Meanwhile, Prof Mayank Vahia, senior astrophysicist of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
(TIFR) said that this is a golden opportunity for the scientists to study Sun in such a quiet phase.

The silent Sun may not have serious consequences on earthlings, he said.

Create a Control Panel menu directly below the Start Button

Create a Control Panel menu directly below the Start Button

1. Click the Start Button once with your right mouse button. You should see a right-button menu (called a context menu because it offers different choices in different contexts).
2. You should see the items Open, Explore, and Find on the context menu. Click Explore with your left mouse button.
3. An Explorer file management window should open. A directory tree should appear in the left pane, with the right pane displaying the contents of the Start Menu folder.
4. Right-click any empty space within the right pane. A context menu should appear. Click New and then Folder.
5. The Explorer will create a highlighted icon called New Folder. Type in the following string, all on one line, replacing the words New Folder with this new line. You must type the period, the curly braces, all four hyphens, and the hexadecimal numbers exactly as shown. After the closing curly brace, press Enter.

   Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

Other Folders can be added following the same instructions.

• Dial-Up Networking.{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD010CCC48}
• Printers.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
• Inbox.{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
• My Computer.{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
• Recycle Bin.{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
• Network Neighborhood.{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
• Desktop.{00021400-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
• Briefcase.{85BBD920-42A0-1069-A2E4-08002B30309D}
• Fonts.{BD84B380-8CA2-1069-AB1D-08000948F534}

Fixing Corrupted Desktop Icons

Fixing Corrupted Desktop Icons

Easier way to reset icons then deleting SHELLICONCACHE.

There's no need to exit Win95 and delete the SHELLICONCACHE file in order to reset icons that you may have changed (like Network Neighborhood).

1. Go to Control Panel, Display, Appearance Tab.
2. Select Icon from the Item drop down list.
3. Change the Size up or down one and apply.
4. Change the Size back to your original and apply.

If your Start Menu is slow or your icons are black for some reason, it means your Shelliconcache file is corrupt and should be deleted.
Delete the hidden file.
It will be recreated the next time you start Win95

How to RemovePrograms from the Control Panel

Removing Programs from the Control Panel

Easier way to remove control panel programs.

1. Edit your control.ini file in your Windows directory.
2. Under the section [don't load] add the appropriate .cpl file.
3. For example to get rid of Network add netcpl.cpl=no
4. This will disable users from accessing the network control panel.

1. You can remove seected icons in your Control Panel by simply moving, deleting or renaming the *.cpl file in your C:\WINDOWS\SYSETM directory.
2. The icon or file will still work even if it is not on the control panel screen.

How to creat a boot menu?

Creating a Boot Menu

1. Go to the DOS prompt.
2. Type: ATTRIB MSDOS.SYS -r -a -h -s
3. Edit MSDOS.SYS, adding the following lines under [Options]
   • BootGUI=1 (If you have it set to 0)
   • BootMenu=1
   • BootMenuDefault=5 (1=GUI 5or6=DOS Prompt)
   • BootMulti=1 (Allows you to boot to your old Operating System)
   • BootMenuDelay=2 (# of seconds before default is chosen)
4. Type Alt-F then S to save your file.
5. Close the editor
6. Type: ATTRIB MSDOS.SYS +r +a +h +s
7. Reboot.

Note: BootGUI needs to be set to 1
if you have the menu running, otherwise even if you select 1 (Normal), it will not go to the GUI.

P.S. Supposedly Drvspace=0 nd Dblspace=0 under the Options section saves on RAM, but I haven't been able to confirm this.

20 things you didn't know about Windows XP

20 things you didn't know about Windows XP

You've read the reviews and digested the key feature enhancements and operational changes. Now it's time to delve a bit deeper and uncover some of Windows XP's secrets.

1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. 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 tickle it and make it disgorge 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 your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

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 -- they're all far too baroque to go into here.

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 and don't bother.

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 well alone by typing 'regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll' at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can put things back as they were 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 chum'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 slip the bonds of sanity 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. The next release of Windows XP, codenamed Longhorn, is due out late next year or early 2003 and won't be much to write home about. The next big release is codenamed Blackcomb and will be out in 2003/2004.

Change your processor name

Trick - SHOW YOUR PC PENTIUM 5 OR MORE

GO TO START>RUN>TYPE

REGEDIT>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>HARDWARE>
DISCRIPTION>SYSTEM>CENTRALPROCESSOR>0

ON RIGHT HAND SIDE, RIGHT CLICK ON "PROCESSOR NAME STRING" AND CLICK ON MODIFY
AND WRITE WHAT EVER YOU WANT

Increase your internet speed

Go to desktop->My computer-(right click on)->manage->
->Device manager->
now u see a window of Device manager
then go to
Ports->Communication Port(double click on it and Open).
after open u can see a Communication Port properties.
go the Port Setting:----and now increase ur "Bits per second" to 128000.
and "Flow control" change 2 Hardware.

U WILL NOTICE AN IMMEDIATE RESULT
this will increase the receiving capacity of your input port and thus ur netspeed will be increased. :)

Make your folders invisible without a software.

1)Right Click on the desktop.
Make a new folder

2)Now rename the folder with a blank space by holding ALT key and type 0160.

3)Now you have a folder without a name.

4)Right click on the folder>properties>customize.
Click on change icon.

5)Scroll a bit, you should find some empty spaces, click on any one of them.
Click ok.

Now drag this folder anywhere such as at the top right or centre such that nobody can guess a folder there.
Thats it, now you can store your personal data without any 3rd party tools

Facts: Windows XP

Get XP Key From CD itself

There is a way to get XP product code from CD itself, it really works!!!
I was once wondering around the XP CD......and got this!!!
Just try it out.....

Just explore the CD then open the folder I386 then open the file UNATTEND.TXT and scroll down to the last line.
You have a product code.


How to Change the Registered Owner and Organization in XP
It is possible to change the name of the registered owner and registered organisation in Windows XP.
For those who dont know how to see the owner and the organisation follow these steps to check.
Right click on My computer, click properties. Under the general tab,there is a line 'Registered to'The first line has the name of the owner and the next line has the name of the organisation.

To change these,follow the steps given below.

1. Click Start, Run and type regedit and press enter. Go to the following location in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows NT CurrentVersion

2.To change the registered organization, double-click on RegisteredOrganization.Under Value data,type the name that you want, and then click OK.

3.To change the name of the registered owner, double-click RegisteredOwner.

4.Under Value data, type the name that you want, and then click OK.

5.Click Exit on the File menu to quit.

You are done. You make check out the changes as described earlier.

1. Click on your Start button.

2. Go to "Run"

3. Type "control userpasswords2" and click OK button

4. A User Account dialog box will appear.
Uncheck "Users must enter a user name
and password to use this computer."
and click OK button.

5. Another dialog box will appear asking you to type in the DEFAULT user account that you'd like to login
whenever you start your computer. Type in the user name and password. You only need to do this once.

That's it. Only requires 5 steps to automatically login Windows XP. Please take note that this only works
if you're trying to login locally. This feature allows other users to start your computer and use the account that you establish to automatically log on.
Enabling auto logon makes your computer more convenient to use, but can pose a security risk since anyone can just turn
the machine on and access your files.
So be VERY sure that no one else has physical access to your computer.

Am not a big fan of chasing free, open proxies all over the place. I use google instead. Here I describe what I believe is an uncommon way for bypassing blocked sites using google.

1) The first and most common way of using google to bypass blocked sites is just to search for the site and then clicked the "cached"
link that appears on google. Easy, simple, and frequently works for static information.

2) Passing the site through google translator works well as well. Here's the URL to use:
Code:
http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=enen&u=www.blockedsite.com

(where blockedsite.com is the site that you wish to visit)

This translates the site from english to english and works because the ip address will appear as google instead of you.
Here's a link to tech-recipes passed through the translator as an example.
You can actually do this with any langpair. Change enen in the URL above to spanish by using eses and it still works.

3) Unique method that I have not seen described before is to search through google mobile. Google mobile will "convert as you go"
very similiar to the translation method above.

Just search for your site with google mobile and click on the link it provides. Here's is tech-recipes brought up through google
mobile search. Once again, this will allow you to bypass any blocks because the IP request comes from google not for you.
Like the translation method above, google will continue to "proxy" as you continue to visit links through the site.
And ya it is also useful to retrive some information from net which is currently not available.

TELEPRESENCE

TELEPRESENCE

Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they
were present, to give the appearance that they were present, or to have an effect, at
a location other than their true location.
It's a new technology by Cisco systems.
Here in this picture, all the people are not in that single room. They are all in different places.



To read more:

Cisco touts new unified comms and telepresence systems(updaed in 3.4.09)