[deXter]

^ If I want to publish my software, I submit it to standard sites like Download.com, BetaNews.com and Softpedia. These are amongst the most popular sites and many sites intrun use the RSS feeds of these sites, aggregate them and publish their own feeds. Some developers also use a Software Submission Service who promote/submit your software to 100s of sites.

Where's the option for Ultra-Light? And where's the option for Arcade? Although I'd love to play RTS games (like AoE), lack of time means I just settle for 30 mins of BioMenace / OMF 2097 / Galaga and other DOS games

Upgrade to a K6-III+ 450 (not a K6-III 450), if you can find one, and you'll be surprised how much better than the P-III it is. They keep turning out on sites like eBay, from time to time. They are fine to overclock and will work at reasonable temperatures if cooled by any common socket A heatsink/fan assembly (the K6-III+ IS a socket super-7, but mounting a socket A heatsink/fan assembly on a socket super-7 is straightforward and works well), even with a reasonably higher VCore (they're mobile chips, intended for notebooks, hence their normal VCore is 2.1V, not 2.3V). Here is one case where YMMV, of course. Funny you should mention that- I was on eBay yesterday and was thinking of buying a K6-2 550 AGR. I quite liked the features of the K6-III+. Are you sure it it would work on a desktop mobo?

Actually, it makes a huge difference when you're running heavy applications, like 3D games. Maybe if all you did was run win9x and check mails and play older games it wouldn't have made any difference, but for me it's a world of a difference. I am at present on an AMD K6-2 400 (@450 Mhz). I was using a PIII-450 (512 MB RAM) all these years and let me tell you, there's absolutely no comparasion between the processors. The P3 was so good that I never really felt the need to upgrade. I feel that I could have continued even till 2009.. All programs ran well on my XP-SP2, I was even able to play games like Quake 3 and GTA Vice City without any lag. I could run virtual machines with XP in them, run multiple sandboxed environments, browse in Opera with around 80 tabs open, program in .Net, design in photoshop, edit movies.. everything. And then it was no more. After its demise, I switched over to this AMD, with 576 MB RAM. And let me tell you, its absolutely nothing like the P3. Everything is way slower, and even having more RAM than I did earlier makes no difference. It's not surprising though, the numbers speak for itself. While K6-2 has no L2 Cache, the P-III (katmai core) has 512kB L2! Also, the L1 cache controller was way better than what was present in the PII. Infact, the cache in the katmai was so good that, provided you had the right hardware, it could be overclocked to 600Mhz! Even though my AMD motherboard is finely tunable with small stepping VCore, Multiplier and FSB jumpers, my PIII (which was only overclockable thru the BIOS) was able to handle upto a 150 MHz increase with ease. Although it wasn't that stable, a 100Mhz oc was sufficiently stable. The K6-2 on the other hand can just about handle a 50Mhz increase. Anything above that is unstable and would require a high VCore that would be potentially damaging to the CPU, not to mention you'd be needing a very good cooling system. The PIII didn't require any extra cooling even though it was running at 100Mhz+.

The best *ever* programs I use(d) are: For DOS: - Norton Utilities : NU was way ahead of its time. It was *the* suite that still makes people miss their good ol' DOS days. My personal favourites were NCD, NDD, NC, DISKEDIT, SPEEDISK and NDIAGS... NDIAGS especially was incredible - one of the tests was an internal PC-speaker test, in which NDIAGS would 'speak' the word "Hello" in 5 different languages! (This was in a time when soundcards were rare and internal speakers could only beep!) - SpinRite : One of the few DOS programs that I still use today. Simply incredible, the way it used to revive dead floppies and HDDs. Out-of-this-world technology employing flux reversal synthesis. The latest version (v6) is impressive even today - this single 169 KiB exe runs in both Win32 AND DOS as a native app, can create a bootable floppy or ISO image of itself, and works on almost all popular filesystems! - Cheat Machine : A cheatbook-like program, but way advanced - the whole interface was like a game itself, complete with great sounds, animation and graphics. This was also one of the first programs of its kind. The most interesting feature was that it could directly patch many games so that cheats could be enabled or created! Other specialities included trainers, cheats for other platforms, easter egss for software like norton.. all built with a really cheeky copy-protection. I had opened CM in a hex editor once to try and disable the shareware nags, and I was quite amused when I saw the string "What the hell are you doing? You're not supposed to be in here!" staring at me in the machine code! Many years after we all moved onto Win9x, the author of CM decided to give away the DOS version as freeware. I sent him a mail thanking for it and wondered whether he would do the same for the win32 version. He replied "Does a baker give away his bread for free?" Unfortunately, that decision ultimately cost him his bread, as no one in the win32 world liked the idea of a shareware cheats database. Cheatbook had arrived. :| - Arachne : Arachne was a standalone, DOS based, full GUI web browser. It could support both dialup and ethernet, and featured a builtin dialer, telnet, email client, file manager, multimedia viewer and more. The best feature though was that new features could be added by means of downloadable add-ons! One such add-on enabled Arachne to play audio files thru the internal PC speaker for those who didn't have a soundcard! All of this was packed with snazzy skins and themes. It even had loads of screensavers! Oh, and did I mention that the surfing was fast? Maybe even faster than Opera at that time Back in 1999, my HDD had crashed and I couldn't get a new one immediately. This made me wonder if I could use the PC in this internet age. without a HDD, surviving solely off floppies. Armed with Arachne in one floppy and my custom boot disk in another, it was really a cinch! One program worth mentioning is QuickView, which could play many popular audio and video files by itself - yes, even DivX files! For Windows: - Norton Utilities (for win9x) : I remember this easter egg in one of the NUs - it featured the entire Norton crew dancing to Darude - Sandstorm NU had sucessfully migrated to windows, and programs like WinDoctor, CrashGuard, AntiFreeze, CleanSweep, SpeedStart made win9x quite fast and stable. I even survived the WinME days, thanks to NU. Whaddya know, CrashGuard actually worked!. Too bad though that after WinXP was released, most of these features became redundant or inapplicable and NU qickly became what it is today - a bloated PoS. - Dachshund Software : Dachshund's utilities had actually made games work faster on my PC (by reducing the quality of the textures, etc). It also had the ability to tween between frames and thus made low-framerate games look smoother. "Hare" could actually accelerate applications using its 88-bit kernel to optimize common system instructions. "AntiCrash" was as good as NU's CrashGuard. "Battery Doubler" was a lifesaver for my Laptop. What set this software apart was that it was really tiny, compared to the increasing bloat of NU. Unfortunately, even this utility suite was killed by WinXP. - Bleem! : Bleem! was a Sony PlayStation emulator. It was the first of its kind and also the best. Bleem was simply incredible - all the games it was tested with worked *flawlessly*, and the program itself was ridiculously simple to use. Games on Bleem actually looked better than on the PS, as Bleem could take advantage of the PC's 3D card to render games at higher resolutions - so much so that PS1 games looked better on Bleem than they did even on the PS2! Infact, Bleem was so good that Sony slapped a cease-and-desist on them. >_> - DOSBox : Because I've yet to finish Dangerous Dave. I get to play all my favourite DOS games in their full SoundBlaster/Color/VGA glory. Back in the day, I didn't have a soundcard or a color monitor. Infact, I was using a monochrome monitor uptill 1998! - Naviscope : This program hasn't been in development since past 7 years, but works well in XP and still is handy. It's a very useful internet utility to view what's going on behind the scenes when you're loading a webpage. Unlike other programs (Ethereal, etc), Naviscope is a simple floating toolbar. When a site is being loaded, every file that's being downloaded gets a progressbar of its own underneath the toolbar. Clicking on that progressbar stops that file from being downloaded. Very useful when you want to know exactly why a particular site is taking so long to load. Naviscope also has built in Ad-blocking, filtering, prefetching, and could work as a proxy server. There's also a very, very useful HTTP header viewer, which I use often to get direct URLs of videos and to capture form POST data. In Win9x, it could tweak the internet connection too. I used to install Naviscope on every PC I used - even in Internet Cafés. Infact, one café was so pleased with improvements in speed and the utility of Naviscope, that they allowed me to surf for free - for lifetime! - Ad Muncher : The best program of its kind, in terms of efficiency, performance, features, usability and support. This 488 KB program is written almost entirely in assembly; it's blazing fast, stable and uses very little ram. The coolest thing is that AM can filter *any* internet app seamlessly without any manual intervention. And the name is deceiving - Ad Muncher can do much more than just block ads; you can do all sorts of content filtering, modify pages according to your liking, insert/replace JS and CSS codes and more! It even features a builtin IRC and email client for quick support! Ad Muncher saved many a huge bill in my dialup days, and still does. More importantly, it allows you to view websites that way *you* want to. - cFosSpeed : Another one-of-a-kind program. It's basically a network driver that performs traffic shaping. For very low ping times while playing online games, superb VoIP quality, surfing smoothly while downloading/torrenting, and much much more. Also works as a handy bandwidth meter. (Try the liquid crystal skin and set the window to click-thru) - Executor : Win+R (Run) fans will love this one. Kick your outdated Run box aside and try out the incredible Executor! Undoubtedly the *best* Run replacement; it's a must have for power users. I could go on and on about how useful Executor is, but since its freeware, its best that you just try it out for yourself. Trust me on this one. For my worst programs, I haven't come across any *the* worst program as yet, but are many that I don't like: Bloated programs like Norton AntiVirus (2000+) and iTunes, codec packs (all), and generally any program that claims to increase your PC's performance by applying a whole bunch of registry "tweaks". Add those so called "Ram Boosters" to that category too. I also dislike poorly written Java apps which are resource hogs. *cough*Azureus*cough*.

Back up all your data and wipe your drive clean using a program like DBAN. A single pass wipe should be sufficient. Once you've finished installing XP, the first thing you should do is to download and install a good antivirus program. Also, download and install Firefox (don't install it from any offline/backup sources). It's highly unlikely that Firefox or any other program for that matter would cause this problem. Finally, I would recommend using SpinRite and performing a full Level 5 run on your HDD. Unfortunately, it isn't free, but it's definitely worth buying. I was able to save countless HDDs and Floppies using SpinRite.

^ They're not entirely wrong. A dongle, although strictly speaking refers to a hardware device used for software protection, can be connected to any I/O port (serial, parallel, USB) depending on the type. USB dongles are gradually replacing the older types. There are also programs that convert regular usb flash drives into dongles.

^ Remove this -> msxml6_x86 parser setup.msi And add this -> WindowsXP-KB936021-x86-ENU.exe

^ The graphical diagram is only symbolic - it's not meant to be taken literally. They show a full circle for each partition so that it's easier to represent the data that way. But the relative positioning of data is accurate. So say if you got Akon01.mp3 right on the inner track of D: drive, it is indeed at the starting of D: drive physically. What confuses people is that they now think Akon01.mp3 is at the starting of the disk or platter, which is wrong understanding. When you're considering the whole drive, Akon01.mp3 would actually lie after C: drive. Thus, the program cannot position the data on ALL partitions to the beginning of the drive - that can only happen on C: drive.

^ You just have to copy the files in the \RegAlyzer folder. (There's no need to copy the unins* files._

RegAlyzer. From the makers of Spybot Search & Destroy. Much better than Windows' Regedit, IMHO.

CHKDSK at boot time stores logs messages to C:\bootex.log After logon, it's moved to the Application Event Log. To view the log: • Open Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer > Application Log • In the log look for Autochk in the Source column. • Double click on the appropriate line and you’ll view the last chkdsk results.

@abbhishek: I've attached the files to this post. I've also tested them by replacing the bitmaps in my shell32.dll - they look fine, without any glitches. @damian666: 32-bit BMPs support transparency (alpha-channel), but its use isn't widespread as formats like PNG and TGA are more popular. polishedToolbarBMPs.7z

Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (937143) Replaces 933566 http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/d/5/5d52bc74-efd2-467a-bf45-655d176702c9/IE7-WindowsXP-KB937143-x86-ENU.exe

In one word: Incredible. The whole idea that you can run windows apps properly, at full speed, without even using windows or having to install a (from a newbie point of view) complicated OS like Linux, is simply amazing. It isn't similar to anything right now. Freedows OS and Alliance OS attempted to do this but last I head from them was they stopped working on it. ReactOS is currently the only active project of its sort. You'll get more information at the ReactOS Website.

I use DOS, QNX, Linux and Windows XP on my desktops. I run my servers on an XP system. I've also been using a lot of ReactOS lately. Its very interesting

IMHO none of them have what it takes to be called the "best" download manager. I'm myself in between 3-4 download managers. Every one of them has something or the other missing. Getright would come close to "best", but unfortunately its too buggy and unreliable. I also don't like how Michael never implements the most basic, simple features like adding a separate column for comments and URL, allowing the user to add comments in the 'Add new download' box, multi-line comments, increasing the number of segments.. and the list goes on. What I like about Getright though, is that its the most feature packed dl manager. I love the GUI, the whole concept of tray icons as download indicators, and its mirroring service. I love the way it gets all the mirrors for SourceForge files automatically! FlashGet, I would term is the least bug free (atleast, the recent builds) - they've been adding new features like Torrents and Emule which work perfectly (unlike the highly buggy Torrent system in Getright). But FG still lacks features like Daily Downloads and the option to ignore certain servers while click/clipboard monitoring. I also wish they add a visual notification (popup box) when a download completes. Getright, for instance pops up a nice little box after a download, allowing you to open the file and more. I can live with these limitations though, but I wish they would work on adding more useful features than just improving P2P. Orbit is even more buggier than Getright! One thing I hate about Orbit is that the devteam never listens to you! Atleast the Getright guys reply (nvm that they don't implement), but the Orbit team totally ignores all posts. They have yet to fix the Scheduler bug. I use a download manager mainly for scheduled downloads, and if that feature is missing, it makes Orbit useless for me. And all the changelogs read the same "Fix some bugs" (sic) . What bugs?! Once again, ask in the forums exactly what bugs have been fixed, and you get the same reply : "Changelog: Fix some bugs". >_> Although, a few things I do like about Orbit is the handy flash/video downloader. It also has the best browser integration. Pickups the referrer and other parameters even when downloading from Firefox! FDM is in a similar league as Orbit. Its been around for a while now, and so is much more stable than Orbit. But, it's still missing some important features which I can't do without. The cool thing though about FDM is that you can submit and read comments for a file you're downloading (thru the FDM community) within the program itself. So say, if you're downloading some XYZ program, you can read comments on how good or bad it is, and whether it contains any spyware. Also, if a program has been flagged by the users as having spyware, FDM will alert you before the download! IDM is undoubtedly the fastest download manager. I personally though don't care for a few seconds faster download, but for those people on a slow line, IDM makes a lot of difference. What I don't like about IDM is its ugly GUI for one, and lack of features for other. Not as bugfree as Flashget, but more stable than Getright. Net Pumper has spyware, and we all know when one needs to use Net Pumper Does anyone even use it for regular downloads? DAP - I've never used, but I hear it's quite buggy. But I like their other product called Speedbit Video Accelerator. It's also buggy, but I can live with it. The main thing is I no longer have to wait for videos to load

• Open the WinRAR addon in WinRAR. • Open the SVCPACK folder. Select wrar370.exe and click on the View button. • In the new WinRAR window which opens, click on Comment -> SFX -> Advanced SFX options... • Now change the "Path to extract" to whatever folder you wish. • Click on OK -> OK. You'll see the archive being updated. Close this WinRAR window. Now the earlier WinRAR window will show: File "wrar370.exe" was modified. Do you wish to update it in the archive ? Click on "Yes" to update the addon.

Well, you can create a VBS file that does that. If you want to call it from the batch file, just type its name Copy-Paste this into a notepad window and save as "Refresh.vbs" (Don't forget to include the quotes!) set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") WshShell.AppActivate "Google - Windows Internet Explorer" WScript.Sleep 100 WshShell.SendKeys "{F5}"

Seagate! I've been a fan ever since I got my 300 MB (Yes, MB not GB ) ATA drive! Since then, I've had 5 different Seagate drives. And guess what, the 300 MB drive is still working today! Not that I actually use it, but I still keep it around as a proof of how reliable Seagate drives are! I also have a lot of respect for Western Digital, IMHO they make some of the fastest drives. Most benchmarks I've seen have WD at the top with Seagate a close second. Maxtor drives are amongst the worst I've across, but Samsung is hands down the worst. Cheapest but zero reliability. I don't know of the newer Samsungs, but atleast the older ones are notorious for crashing at the most unexpected times. I personally have followed the events of atleast three different crashes. (They all start off the same way - chugging noises, followed by booting problems, bad sectors and finally the crash). Samsung's Optical drives are even worst.

There's already a program for this called Appupdater. I haven't tested it out personally but from what I've heard it does the job. If this doesn't work for you as intended, then I could post the script I myself have been working on for automatic app updates.

Yeah.. just add this line before the "echo >>s.vbs Os.Save" line: echo >>s.vbs Os.IconLocation = "C:\Path to some icon\someicon.ico" You can also set the other properties too, like for adding a hotkey, just add a line having Os.Hotkey = "CTRL+SHIFT+M" , and if you want a description add Os.Description = "Lets you have online conversations."

If you really want to do this by typing out commands in the console, then just run these commands one by one: echo > s.vbs set Ws = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") echo >>s.vbs set Os = Ws.CreateShortcut("%UserProfile%\Desktop\Messenger.lnk") echo >>s.vbs Os.TargetPath = "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Live\Messenger\Msnmsgr.exe" echo >>s.vbs Os.WorkingDirectory = "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Live\Messenger" echo >>s.vbs Os.Save echo.>>s.vbs s I suppose the commands are pretty self-explanatory. The CreateShortcut line is the full path to the shortcut you want to create, TargetPath is the full path of the program, and WorkingDirectory line is required for some programs to launch properly. Windows Live Messenger however doesn't require this line and you can skip it. The shortcut will be created when you type "s" and press enter.

explorer Z: Where Z: is your mapped drive

No idea. It's working fine for me. Anyways, I added a new feature: You can also specify the icon as a commandline parameter. Just remember to enclose the full path in quotes. Eg: NoRCoTI.exe "C:\Program Files\Some Program\Some Icon.ico" Edit: Updated readme.txt NORCOTI_v1.1a.zip