AutoPatcher Was Shutdown By Microsoft

Sad day...this is the title of the recent post on AutoPatcher website homepage due to the immediate shutdown of their download page requested by Microsoft .

Today we received an e-mail from Microsoft, requesting the immediate take-down of the download page, which of course means that AutoPatcher is probably history. As much as we disagree, we can do very little, and although the download page is merely a collection of mirrors, we took the download page down.

We would like to thank you for your support. For the past 4 years, it has been a blast. Unfortunately, it seems like it's the end of AutoPatcher as we know it.

AutoPatcher has been a popular tool since 2003 for IT people (including me) and even those individual Windows users who frequently reinstalling Windows. AutoPatcher makes Windows updates and hotfixes to be installed offline which results to a faster installation. One reason why AutoPatcher becomes popular is because Microsoft is to slow (or just too lazy) to release new Service Pack (SP) for its OS. That's why Windows users just depend on other solutions like AutoPatcher.

Eventhough AutoPatcher team has remove the download links on their website, you can still download AutoPatcher on other sites which host the Autopatcher files (Just download it immediately before Microsoft finds and removes it).

What Microsoft should do is to immediately release service packs (Specially Windows XP SP3) for its OS or just do what AutoPatcher do.

AutoPatcher will only be a part of History...

AutoPatcher Was Shutdown By Microsoft

Sad day...this is the title of the recent post on AutoPatcher website homepage due to the immediate shutdown of their download page requested by Microsoft .

Today we received an e-mail from Microsoft, requesting the immediate take-down of the download page, which of course means that AutoPatcher is probably history. As much as we disagree, we can do very little, and although the download page is merely a collection of mirrors, we took the download page down.

We would like to thank you for your support. For the past 4 years, it has been a blast. Unfortunately, it seems like it's the end of AutoPatcher as we know it.

AutoPatcher has been a popular tool since 2003 for IT people (including me) and even those individual Windows users who frequently reinstalling Windows. AutoPatcher makes Windows updates and hotfixes to be installed offline which results to a faster installation. One reason why AutoPatcher becomes popular is because Microsoft is to slow (or just too lazy) to release new Service Pack (SP) for its OS. That's why Windows users just depend on other solutions like AutoPatcher.

Eventhough AutoPatcher team has remove the download links on their website, you can still download AutoPatcher on other sites which host the Autopatcher files (Just download it immediately before Microsoft finds and removes it).

What Microsoft should do is to release immediately service packs (Specially Windows XP SP3) for its OS or just do what AutoPatcher do.

AutoPatcher will only be a part of History...

Microsoft Hackers Official Blog

Microsoft has launched a blog called "Hackers @ Microsoft" for its employed hackers. Yap, Microsoft employs the best hackers in the world to test its products for weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

We employ "white hat hackers" who spend their time pentesting and code reviewing applications and software looking for weaknesses and vulnerabilities so that others don't once we've released that code into the wild. We employ many many smart testers who know more about some of our software then perhaps the architects who designed it. We also employ some of the top researchers in their industry, dedicated people working on the bleeding edge of whats going to be common place in the next 5 or 10 years of computing.

Hackers @ Microsoft blog promises that most of the articles and the people that will be introduce will be somehow related to security, but of course not at all.

[Visit]

Instantly Check Your Text Online

Do you want to check some text for spelling errors? Sure if your working with your text on Microsoft Word, AbiWord or OpenOffice your text is automatically check for some spelling errors.

But for any reasons that your word processor (like Notepad) that you use for your text doesn't have the capability to spell check, you can use SpellJax to do the work for you. SpellJax is an ajax online spell checker that will check any text you paste to it fast and free.

Your text is never logged or recorded by SpellJax.com. All spelling analysis is processed anonymously and automatically. - SpellJax

This online spell checker will surely come in handy someday if ever you need to check text for spelling errors. It's worth to bookmark.

[Visit]

Blog Visitors Stat Live With Feedjit

Do you want to see the arrivals and departures pattern of your visitors or the site that refers him to your blog? and in real time? Then Feedjit is for you.

FEEDJIT gives you real-time traffic data on your blog. Just cut, paste, and you're all set. No registration required and it's completely free.

Feedjit is a widget that you just need to copy and paste to your blog without registration. Feedjit has two free widget, the real time feed which shows the arrival/departure of your visitors and the map location of your recent 100 visitors.

Unlike the popular Mybloglog, Feedjit don't show much information about your visitor aside from its location and the referrer URL. But if you just want to track realtime visitors of your blog, Feedjit is a good widget to accompany your installed blog visitor counter.

Encrypt And Hide Disk Partition Using Open Source Software

Sometimes we need to hide something from others, like in computing, we sometimes have some files that are not for others business but for us alone. If that's the case, you need to hide and encrypt a partition in your hard drive that contains your private data to avoid others from accessing it.

Luckily, you don't need to spend money just to encrypt and hide a partition. You can use open source programs like GParted and TrueCrypt to do the encrypting and hiding of your partition. Oops, before you look mad with me, here's the tutorial on how to use GParted and TrueCrypt to do this task. The process won't cost you any dime, just your effort to the process.

[Visit]

Create Image Of Your Windows XP Installation Using Open Source Software

When our trusted Windows XP system is behaving badly and we can't perform well our computing task, we sometimes choose to reformat and reinstall Windows XP to have a fresh and clean system. But reinstalling Windows XP and installing system drivers and programs eats a lot of are valuable time. So, if you don't want anymore to see the slow progress bar of Windows XP setup, you may want to choose to have an image of your Windows XP in the time that it's in good condition.

Fortunately, Lifehacker has a helpful post on how to create an image of your Windows XP without spending any penny by using only open source software GParted and Partimage. If you have image of your Windows XP installation, you can save your valuable time by not waiting for Windows XP setup to finish when you need to reinstall Windows XP, instead just restore an image of your Windows XP installation and your bad system will be wiped out with a fresh and clean Windows XP installation.

[Visit]

How To Enter XP Even If You Forgot All Your Account's Passwords

There is a way (despite Microsoft claims that there's NO way aside from reinstalling a fresh copy of XP) to log 0n to your Windows XP system if ever you've forgotten all your users account passwords and don't have any administrator account to enter the system.

The truth is you don't need to install expensive 3rd party software or don't even need to be an expert to enter your locked XP system. What you just need is your Windows XP installer disc and your locked system to have an optical drive (of course). This is very handy if you forgot your administrator password and don't have any access to other account with administrator rights or if you're friend have also forgot his password.

Here's what you'll do if ever you forgot all your User Account's password and you thought (including Microsoft) that you can no longer enter your System.

1. Put the Windows XP installer disc into the optical drive (CD/DVD) and restart your PC.


2. Press any key when prompted with "Press any key to boot from CD", then wait for the "Welcome to setup" screen to appear, just press enter.


3. Then press F8 to agree on the license agreement.


4. On the next screen, you will be prompted to repair or install a fresh copy of Windows XP. You just need to select the locked Windows XP installation you want to enter (If you've more than one Windows XP installed) and press "R".


5. The system will then reboot after setup checked the disk and copied setup files (Just wait for the system to reboot). And when it reboots, don't press any key when prompted to "Press any key to boot from CD".


6. The setup will be automatically start the setup process. This is the most important steps, you need to wait for the setup to install the devices. Press the combination of SHIFT+F10 when you see the words "Installing Devices" at the bottom of the shown remaining minutes of the setup to finish.


7. After that, a command console will be open, where in you need to type "NUSRMGR.CPL" (Without the quotes).


8. You will be then given access to the User Account window similar to the control panel where you will delete or edit your forgotten password. Choose remove if you need to enter the system without entering password or edit if you want to change your forgotten password.


9. After you delete or edit your account password, close the command windows and let the setup to finish. (You will also be needing to enter the XP product key if prompted)


10. When setup is finished, system will reboot and you'll be automatically enter your system if you choose to delete the password or need to enter your new password if you just edit your forgotten password.


11. That's all! You now have entered your locked Windows XP system.

NOTE: I tested this on a system running Windows XP SP2. This article is for educational purposes only and won't tolerate hacking on others machine.

Batch Uninstall Windows Programs

Sometimes it takes a couple of minutes for your Windows to load its own Add/Remove Programs specially if it has lots of programs installed. This is maybe one of the drawbacks of the Windows built-in uninstaller.

Luckily, Cybernet has reviewed a program that will uninstall programs installed in your computer and also load faster. Absolute Uninstaller load faster than Windows Add/Remove Programs and can batch uninstall programs.

Absolute uninstaller is free and its installer is only 1.10MB in size. So if you are frustrated on how Add/Remove works, Absolute Uninstaller will surely make you satisfied.

[Cybernet] [Via] [Download]

Make An Emergency Light Using A Pencil

Did you know that your pencil can act as an emergency light when you need it. It is applicable when you are working on a dark area and there is no source of light, like when you car and you is stuck on a dark road due to a flat tire.

You can use the lead of your pencil to create some light that is enough to change your car tire. Your pencil can save your day, Oops! Probably night. (Watch video below)

How To Save Money From Batteries

WiseBread has pointed out 2 videos on Metacafe on how to save money from buying a batteries by just hacking inside of a 12V A23 batteries (Energizer to be specific) and a 9V batteries.

By hacking inside of a 12V A23 Energizer battery, you will find eight 1.5 button batteries. This will save you money when you need to power up devices that need a 1.5 button-battery. (Watch video below).

Similarly, you can also save money if you need "AAA" batteries which are commonly used on mp3 player and other devices by hacking inside of a 9V Energizer battery. What you will find inside are 6 small batteries that you can use to your devices that need "AAA" battery. (Watch video below)

Free Star Office on Google Pack

Star Office, a shareware word processor which basically costs $70, can now be yours for free via Google's free PC bundled software Google Pack.

Unlike OpenOffice, StarOffice includes some proprietary fonts, graphics, and templates. 

So if you hate the very expensive Microsoft Office this deal by Google is a good alternative. What's wrong with free? Download Now!

How To Make Embedded Youtube Videos To AutoPlay

One of the best things that you can do with Youtube videos  is to embed them to your blog, web pages or to your social networking accounts (facebook or friendster). But if you'll just copy and paste the embed code of the video, you'll notice that it won't play automatically when you open the page. 

Youtube site has no option to make an embedded video to autoplay but fortunately you can manually do any Youtube video to autoplay when embedded on any webpage. You just need to manually edit the embed code you've copy from the video that you want to embed on your page. 

To do that, remove all the code before and after the embed parameter. (Remove all the code except the highlighted code like in the example image code below)

After that, add &autoplay=1 to the end of the URL of the video as shown in the image below.

And then just copy and paste the manually edited Youtube video code to any of your desired page. The code in the above image is an example of the final code you need to paste to your blog or any webpages.

You now have a video that automatically plays when someone visits your blog or webpage. Just don't make two or more videos to play automatically in a single webpage.

Hidden Word Processor in Windows XP

Did you know that there is another word processor in Windows XP aside from Notepad and Wordpad that you can use if you'll need to create or edit a simple text file? It's called "edit.com" or also known as the MS-DOS Editor. 

Edit can be used to create, modify or print a document file like the things that you can do with Notepad.

To launch Edit.com, go to Start>Run and then type "edit" (without the quotes).

Of course there are reasons why you may want to use Edit.com instead of Notepad. Some of the reasons are:

• It can edit files that are up to 65,279 lines and up to approximately 5MB in size.
  
• The screen can be split vertically into 2 windows, each of which can display a different file.
• Customizable color scheme.
• Or if your eyes are tired with Notepad.

Windows XP SP3 Beta?

Windows XP users are still waiting for the release of the long awaited soon-to-be the successor of Windows XP SP2, the SP3. But there are some info that Microsoft have released a beta version of Windows XP SP3 to a number of fools who voluntary and want to try a unofficial final release of a service pack which is highly inadvisable. Due to this beta release to others, the unfinished version of Windows XP SP3 is scattered and very easy to find on Internet (Sorry if I'll not published the download link here because it's really inadvisable).

Under the Windows Omerta strategy imposed by Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, XP SP2, just as Vista SP1 Beta, was made available to a limited and select pool of testers. Windows XP SP3 is build 5.1.2600.3180 (xpsp.070718-2058) and weighs in at 350MB, including resolves for in excess of 900 problems already addressed through a variety of standalone hotfixes released after SP2.

A Google search can help you find and download a copy of a unofficial release of Windows XP SP3 if you want to try beta version of a service pack for an OS.

But why you want to install a beta version of service pack of an OS to your computer? and why want it illegally? Better think twice!

[Source]

Sumatra - PDF Viewer Alternative

If Adobe Reader eats a lot of memory in your system and load PDF files to slow then why not use a much faster PDF viewer like Sumatra (Yeah i do know of Foxit!).

Sumatra PDF is a slim, free, open-source PDF viewer for Windows and needs no installation so it can run on a USB stick. Sumatra is a single 802KB executable file and can play almost any PDF file you have and load it much faster than Adobe. Sumatra also have keyboard shortcuts for an easy navigation.

So if you frequently opens PDF file formats or want a free, fast and an easy to use PDF viewer, you can count on Sumatra. Download Sumatra Here.

Philippine Small Blogs Seo Contest

I am announcing a SEO-KEYWORD contest today. This contest is different from other SEO contests. Why? Because this contest is only open for small blogs that are authored by a Filipino and doesn't generate high traffic. Meaning if your blog is generating high traffic or has a high search engine ranking, then your blog is not eligible to join the contest.

What are the bases for a blog to be qualified?

• Blog must be authored by a male or female Filipino of any age.
  
• Blog's age doesn't matter (e.g. A 3-year old blog or a 1-day old blog is eligible to the contest.)
• Blog must be hosted on a free blog hosting service like the two most popular site Blogger.com and Wordpress.com.
  
• Blog should be using a sub domain of the free blog hosting service and not a custom domain.

What is the contest mechanics?

• Blogs should be submitted on or before the submissions deadline.
• Blog authors who want to submit a blog must leave their name and the URL of the blog they want to submit in the comments section of this contest post below.
  
• The blog authors should then write a post on the blog they have submitted about this contest and must link to this contest post.
• The blog author should also put the small contest badge on the blog they have submitted and must also link to this contest post. (The contest badge is to be available soon)
• The blog that will occupy the top 3 position on Google.com for the contest keyword on the time of the set check-point date will be the winner. (e.g. The blog that will occupy the no.1 spot will be declare the champion while blogs that will occupy the no.2 and no.3 spots will be the contest 1st runner up and 2nd runner up respectively.)
• Blog authors can submit as many blogs as they want to submit.

What is the contest keyword?

• The word to be competed in this contest is "philsmall blogseo" (without the quotes). It is a two-word keyword that Google doesn't yet indexed which will give a fair chance to all blogs that will compete in this contest.

When is the submissions deadline?

• The deadline for the submissions of blog entries is on October 15, 2007. Blog authors must submit their entries on or before this set date.

When is the Check-Point date?

• The set check-point date will be on November 11, 2007 at exactly 6:00 pm (Philippine Time). Winners will be then announce on November 12, 2007.

What are the prizes for this contest?

• The prize for the blog that will occupy the no.1 spot is a domain name registered for 3 years.
• The prize for the blog that will occupy the no.2 spot is a domain name registered for 1 year.
• Also the prize for the blog that will occupy the no.3 spot is a domain name registered for 1 year.

The authors of the winning blogs will be the one to choose between the top-level domain name (.com, .net, .info, .biz, .org, .name), he or she will also be the owner and will have full access and control with that domain name prize.

Winners must contact me by email immediately on how to process their prize (domain name).

Note: Please keep an eye with this post regularly for updates on prizes and number of winners which might expand up to top 10.

If you have questions regarding this contest please don't use the comments section instead email me at hezron[at]iblogall[dot]com.

Macintosh System 7 In Browser

System 7 is an operating system (OS) for Macintosh computers introduced in 1991. That's 16 years ago to be exact which means that i don't have the chance to play around with that OS and maybe our older brothers and sister or maybe our dad and mom have the chance to use that operating system but have already forgotten the looks and the features of that vintage OS.

So for those who misses or for those who want to try (like me) System 7, you'll probably thank the creator of this site. This site will give you the chance to use a facsimile of Macintosh System 7. It's a good replica of System 7 of the good-old-days. 

I have try to use this replica because I'm to young to hold a computer on the days that System 7 is the king like Windows Vista today. By using this replica i have got an idea for the difference of the computers before and computer today. And the difference?....Many....

[System 7 in Browser]

PaintBall The Game

Sometimes we need a break in our daily office work and one of the best thing that you can do is to play flash games.

Luckily, there are lots of flash games to play on net like "PaintBall The Game" which will surely captures a couple minutes of your time.

The aim of the game is to bring the red small dot touch the big red square by drawing a path by clicking and dragging the mouse.

You should finish the game quickly as possible and drawing less to get a high score. 

I have played the game and find it very addicting so be sure to finish all your office work before playing it or else you'll find yourself playing for hours with this game.

[Play]

10 Things That You Can Do When XP Won't Boot

One of the worst thing that could happen to a computer system is when it can't boot. It's true that it's much easier to repair computer problems if computer can still boot, but when it can't it's another story.

Luckily, TechRepublic as a good tutorial on how to recover Windows XP when it won't boot. The article provides 10 things that you can do to your XP before you'll decide a re-format and clean XP re-installation.

The article includes tutorial on how to use the traditional Windows Startup disk to a much complicated work like fixing a corrupt boot.ini.

Sure there are other ways to solve boot problems, but this list is already a good reference if ever your computer falls with this scenario.

[Via]

A Worm That Will Delete All MP3 Files In Hard Drive

A new discovered worm (a self-replicating program, similar to computer virus) known as W32.Deletemusic is a bad risks to MP3 files stored in a computer system no matter if they are legitimate copies or not.

The worm will find MP3 files on a compromised computer and will delete every single MP3 file it founds. And because it's a worm, W32.Deletemusic will copies itself to all drives of the infected computer. 

All Windows OS starting from the oldie Windows 95 to the newbie Windows Vista can be infected by this worm.

You must update regularly your anti-virus definitions to protect your system with this kind of threat.

[Via]

Hidden Blank Icon in XP

Did you know that there are blank folder icons in Windows XP that you can use to hide a specific folder. You can use it if you want to hide a folder to others or just want to make some fun with your friend folders in his computer.

To do this we need to first hide the filename of the folder by right-clicking the folder that you want to hide and click properties. The filename should be colored with blue and have a blinking cursor then type Alt+0160 (Pressing the Alt key while keying the 0160 keys on the number pad alternately). The filename of the folder should be blank after you key in that combination of Alt and the 4 keys (0160).

Let's now hide the folder. To do that right-click the folder and choose Properties and then choose the Customize tab on the upper right portion. After you click the Customize tab, click on the Change Icon button on the lower part of the window, a windows similar to the above image will open then click the horizontal navigation bar to locate the gaps between the normal icons like the image shown above. Choose one of that gaps and click OK. The folder should be hidden after you click the OK button.

To open the folder, just double click it like an ordinary folder. The only difference is that, the icon is blank.

A Word of Warning: You should remember the place of the folder that you want to hide or else your folder will be lost.