I Blog All: January 2008

Give Use to your Mouse Double Right-Click

Haven't you asked your self why Windows OS has a function when you press the left key of mouse twice while leaving the right-click no function when double-clicked? Personally, i don't know why Bill Gates doesn't include some use to this double right-click function. Does Bill Gates and the rest of Windows Team haven't noticed of this? Fortunately, the author of ClickZap noticed the usefulness of mouse double right-click if used.

ClickZap is a small freeware program (approx. 430kb) that can give your mouse a new functions using the double right-click. By using this program, you can assign different function (one at a time) to your mouse when your double right-click. Here are the functions that can executed using ClickZap:

Lock Computer
Log Off Computer
Shutdown Computer
Minimize Active Window
Minimize All Windows
Close Active Window
Close All Windows
Mute Sound

After you installed ClickZap, you will be prompted to choose one of the functions above. If you want a shortcut to shut down your computer, then choose "Shutdown Computer" or choose "Close All Windows" if you want to close all open windows. Of course you can change you preference at a later time by opening the program itself.

[Download] [Home]

Sync Your PC Time to Internet Servers Via the Command Prompt

Does your PC clock is not set every time you turn on your PC? One cause of this might be a ~~dead~~ weak CMOS battery which is located on your computer motherboard. If you can't replace this battery immediately with a new one, you can just automatically set your PC time to internet servers.

There are other way to sync your PC time and also a bunch of software that can sync your PC time to internet servers, but did you know that you can also sync your time via Command Prompt (CMD). To sync your PC time via CMD, open a command prompt window (Start>Run> then type "CMD") assuming you are log-0n as an administrator, then type " w32tm /resync" (without quotes). Your PC time will then be corrected.

You can also put this command to your startup folder to automatically sync your PC time during startup. Thus, saving some valuable time. To do this, open a Notepad and type "w32tm /resync" (again without the quotes) and save it whatever name you want followed by .bat extension (example: SyncClock.bat). That's it, every time your PC boot, its clock will be automatically set even if its have a dead CMOS battery.

[Source]

What to Consider When Planning to Buy a Refurbished PC?

Which do you prefer, buying a brand new PC or a refurbished one? We all know that buying a refurbished PC will save you some bucks, but is it worth it?

Luckily, PCMagazine has come up with an article about tips on buying a REFURBISHED PC. The article will surely help those people who are planning to buy refurbished PC. It also tells some of the important things to remember and questions you must ask before deciding to buy one, like "how much speed do you need?".

Here are the other questions you must ask:

1. Who did the refurbishing, the manufacturer or a third party?
2. Are the keyboard and mouse new?
3. Is there a manufacturer's warranty?
4. How long's the warranty?
5. Has the warranty been modified?
6. How old is the system?
7. Where do I send it if it arrives broken?
8. What's the return policy?
9. Do I get the original manuals?
10. What software is included?
11. What do you mean when you say "reconditioned"?
12. Has the system been tested since it was returned?
13. Why was the system returned? (Probably won't get an answer, but it's worth asking.)
14. How much would this cost if I bought it brand-new?

By asking this simple questions, you can immediately tell your self if you'll going to get the refurbished or the new one. You can read the rest of PCMagazine article for more in depth information about getting a refurbished PC here.

Automatically Show the Lyrics of the Song You're Playing in Winamp or WMP

Do you regularly search the Internet to get the lyrics of the song your listening in your desktop either in Winamp or Windows Media Player (WMP)? If you feel that your sacrificing some of your time just to get a lyrics, why not automate this process. By using a small software called LyricsPlugin, Winamp or Windows Media Player can automatically show the lyrics of the song currently playing.

Lyrics Plugin is a piece of software tailored for music fans. To put it simply - it is an add-on to view lyrics in WinAmp or Windows Media Player. No more searching for lyrics. Just start listening to your favourite songs and lyrics will be displayed automatically. Oh, and if lyrics is not found, you can add it yourself :)LyricsPlugin has separate installer for Winamp and WMP, so if you need to use LyricsPlugin for both player, you need to install the two installer, fortunately, LyricsPlugin is only a tiny piece of software which doesn't affect your PC performance.

LyricsPlugin is a freeware software which is currently in beta, but I've not yet personally encountered any problems with this software. This is a must download for all those who frequently sing along with the player, for those who love music and for those who are lyrics addict out there.

Highly Recommended.

[LyricsPlugin]

Lock Your PC With a USB Drive

As we all know, every PC users nowadays own at least one USB drive which are used in different purposes. But less PC users knows that USB drive can be use as a security device to secure computers by using a small freeware utility called USB PC Lock Pro. By using this program, you can lock down you computer when you step away in front of it, and all you have to do is remove the USB drive.

USB PC Lock Pro comes with plug-ins that can do other things like muting the audio of your PC, pausing whatever music playing or putting MSN Messenger to away.

BTW, USB PC Lock Pro must be installed on the computer you want to secure and not in your USB drive. Oh! before I forget, did i mentioned it's FREE?

[Download] [Via]

Change Your Windows XP Boot Screen

Are you bored with your PC boot screen? Do you want to change the look of your Windows XP boot screen but don't want to patch XP kernel? Then use BootSkin to change your XP boot screen without needing to patch the kernel.

BootSkin is a tiny freeware (approx. 943 kb) that can change the looks of your boot skin easily and safely. When you install BootSkin on you computer, you just set what skin to use on the skins that are already included in the installation or just search and download skins online.

So, if you want to change the look of your XP boot screen, use the safe way (bootskin).

[V ia]

Another Good Collection of Open Source Software

Are you a software addict? Or opensource fanatics? Then you may enjoy this site that contains bunch of opensource software. The list are grouped in different categories to have easy navigation (like web applications, office suite, video player, etc.).

I also considered myself as an opensource software addict but to tell you honestly there are still programs in the list that i have not yet installed in my PC or even tried. Whenever i saw a list of opensource software like this, i scan the list immediately for software that i have not used and will immediately play around with it.

Surely this list of opensource programs will catch the attentions of those who love computers. This list is a good reference for finding free and opensource software alternative to those shareware programs.

I will review some of the programs included in the list on my future posts. Stay Tuned.

[Visit]

Open Recently Closed Tab in Internet Explorer

One of the most frustrating mistake a computer user can do is to close a tab in browser that is not meant to be closed. Luckily, there is this add-on for IE7 called IE7 Open Last Closed which will save you on the day you accidentally closed a tab. This is very handy than scouring deep down your browsing history just to find the contain URL of the tab you've accidentally closed.

After you've installed it, you can reopen a recently closed tab by pressing the combination of "Alt" and "X" or pressing "Alt" and "Q" to have a quick tab style view of the recently closed tab.

IE7 Open Last Closed is ad-supported but you can easily disable it by clicking the "Disable Product Bar" button on the toolbar, and when you get a message asking you if you really want to disable the Product Bar, just click the Yes button.

Similarly, if you're a fan of Firefox, you can also reopen an accidentally closed tab..here's how.

Download [Via]

Winamp Media Player 5.52 is Now Available

To all Winamp fans, rejoice! Winamp just recently released the newest version of its media player, Winamp 5.52. Winamp has been the most favorited media player by music lovers. Winamp can perform different task aside from playing your music collection like CD ripping, CD burning and many more.

With the release of this newest version there are new features that are added. So here are the new features that are now in Winamp 5.52:

A Completely Redesigned Interface, including Album Art
Multiple device support, including iPods
Access and Share Your Music and Videos with Winamp Remote
Play and Playlist the Best Music on the Web with Media Monitor
Get Artist & Concert News, Videos & more with Smart Search
Enjoy Dynamic Song Recommendations
Experience MP3 Surround Sound Support
Access to Thousands of Online Radio Stations, Videos and More!
50 FREE MP3 Music Downloads compliments of eMusic's 2-week Trial
Auto-Tagger provides automatic updates to file information
Control Winamp From Your Browser with the Winamp Toolbar

Winamp has free version (Full version) which has all the functions of Winamp but has limitation in cd ripping and burning, or if you want the Winamp without limitations, you can grab the pro version. There are also two other free Winamp flavors (Bundle and Lite), but also have limitations.

You can compare the different Winamp flavors HERE or click HERE to download the full version of Winamp.

Search, Listen and Download MP3 Files via MP3ZY

Are you looking for mp3 files? or wants to listen to it first before you burn your Internet bandwidth downloading a wrong mp3? Then mp3zy.com is for you.

Mp3zy is like the regular mp3 search engine we see, but the good thing about mp3zy is that you can listen to the mp3 first before you download it, which is i think not possible to p2p clients. This feature of mp3zy is very handy if you're not really sure for the title of the mp3 your downloading or if you only wants to be sure for the mp3 you want to download.

To try this service, I searched for a popular song and immediately after hitting the enter key of my keyboard I have the chance to listen to it and also to download it. I also tried to search for the less popular song like the song that's only popular in my province here in Pampanga, the song "O Jo Kaluguran Daka" (Or in English: "Darling i love you"), have returned thousands of result for that song which is very rarely to happen to p2p client. (I tried to download the same title of the song "O Jo Kaluguran Daka" on popular p2p client but have returned zero result.)

Note that mp3zy doesn't store any mp3 file on their server, meaning, the speed of your download solely depends on the speed of the server that host the mp3 and of course your Internet connection speed.

So if your searching for mp3 file, you can try to consult mp3zy first before consulting those popular p2p client, which I'm sure mp3zy won't make your day bad.

[mp3zy]

List of 200 Free Online Classes

Online Education Database has compiled a huge number of links to different free online classes. The list has 200 links to useful online classes which are also categories to have an easier navigation. The list is divided into:

Natural Science
Math
Engineering and Computer Science
Language, Arts and Design
Health
Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine
Law and Politics
Social Science
History
Theology
Business and Finance
Family and Education

Whatever your interests are, you may surely find at least one of the online classes listed here. Oh! one thing more: NO TUITION fees and NO REGISTRATION required.

Reopen Closed Tabs in Firefox

Everyone who have used a browser that supports tab browsing have probably experienced to accidentally closed a tab. And it's really really annoying, that is, only if you don't know how to reopen it.

Luckily, if your using Firefox, you can easily reopen recently closed tabs by pressing the combination of Ctrl + Shift + T. Pressing this combination of keys repeatedly will reopen tabs that are closed starting from the recently closed tab. This is very handy if you accidentally closed an important tab.

While closing an active tab can also be done by pressing a combination of keys, but this time, you'll need to press different keys, the Ctrl key and the letter W. This will save you time for not clicking the mouse anymore when you need to close a tab and time will come, you'll find this very handy, believe me.

[Source]

No More URL Redirect to Alexa

As we all know, Alexa ranking is measured through your site visitors. Every unique IP address that visits your site is counted as a unique hits as long as it has an Alexa toolbar installed.

Similarly, many site owners believe that even though their site visitors doesn't have the Alexa toolbar installed they can still be counted by Alexa if they will visit the redirected URL like

http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.sitename.com.

But until now, and even though the URL redirection to Alexa doesn't work anymore, there are still no official words coming from Alexa about this issue. But i think Alexa has decided to stop the redirection of URL to their domain to silently answered this issues. Alexa might have decided to remove that redirection to avoid confusions.

So, to all webmasters and blog authors out there that have spent long hours to scattered the redirected URL all over the net now also need long hours to update those link to their primary site URL or else, they will miss all those visitors that will click that link.

Add Themes To Your iGoole Homepage

If your using iGoogle, you may want to change the boring default color of iGoogle. Thanks to Google, you may now add a theme for your iGoogle Homepage. Google has launched a directory for iGoogle themes, but as of this time, there only few themes to choose from but of course more themes will be added in this directory pretty soon.

Most of the theme in the directory was developed by other companies or Google's users, meaning Google doesn't warrant the quality or performance of the theme in your Homepage. To change your oldie-looking homepage, get iGoogle Themes here.

AVG releases second beta edition of AVG 8.0

AVG has released the second beta version of the coming AVG 8.0 for public testing. AVG claims that AVG 8.0 is a combination of anti-virus and anti-spyware, but still preserving AVG's characteristic of being a low memory consumption anti-virus. Meaning, AVG 8.0 is much concerned on the safety and security of a PC than AVG 7.5, because you got double protection.

Additional protection is provided in the form of safe searching and safe surfing protection acquired through the recent purchase of Exploit Prevention Labs, rootkit detection, basic security for MSN and ICQ instant messaging, and detection of malware-infected files on websites. - AVG Press Release

No doubt, AVG is one of the best and most used anti-virus program today because it's free and lightweight unlike other anti-virus which takes large share in your PC memory.

Similarly, AVG free edition has been downloaded more than 1,000,000 times just from the week between Christmas and New Year and also from January 1-7 2008. This only prove that AVG is still preferred by many PC users.

So, if you want to try out this newly released AVG beta version, you can register and download the software here.

Open, View and Print Excel Workbooks Even If You Don't Have Excel Installed

What if you've received a file in .xls or the new .xlsx format and you don't have Microsoft Office (including Excel) installed on your computer? What will you do, if you need to print it out or just view the content of the excel file? Will you install Microsoft Office or find a computer with Microsoft Office installed?

Luckily, you don't need that both. With Excel Viewer, you can open, view and print excel documents even if you don't have a program that is capable of handling .xls formatted file in your computer.

With Excel Viewer, you can open, view, and print Excel workbooks, even if you don't have Excel installed. You can also copy data from Excel Viewer to another program. However, you cannot edit data, save a workbook, or create a new workbook. This download is a replacement for Excel Viewer 97 and all previous Excel Viewer versions.

Excel Viewer which is approximately 74mb is a free software from Microsoft. You can use it even if you don't have Microsoft Office installed. Excel Viewer is compatible for Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and all previous excel version.

[Download]

GlobalPandora - Pandora For Non-US Residence

If you resides outside the U.S. territory, you will not be able to access Pandora. Instead, you'll only be greeted with this:

Dear Pandora Visitor,

We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for most listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

Luckily, there is an alternative way for the rest of us residing outside the U.S. territory, thanks to GlobalPandora. To try this service, I go to Pandora.com and as expected I was greeted by Pandora saying that i can't access Pandora due to licensing issues but when i go to GlobalPandora i was greeted by a saying "the box is open" and the site immediately load. I typed an artist and in a few seconds GlobalPandora starts to play music.

If your longing for the service of Pandora, this is your chance to hear you favorite music before GlobalPandora gets knockdown.

Get Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Premium Free For Six Months

Avira is giving away free license code for its Premium PersonalEdition of AntiVir which usually costs 19.95 euro. What you need to do is to fill-up a small form which will only ask for your name, last name and your email. Your free license code will be sent to the email address you've provided.

After you've received the email, you can go to Avira server to download the file. That's all! You can now test and use AntiVir within six months for free.

FeedDemon and other Newsgator Personal Products Are Now Available for Free!

Newsgator has good news to all the RSS fans and desktop reader loyalists out there. All of Newsgator personal products are now offered for free including FeedDemon for Windows, NetNewsWire for Mac, NewsGator Go! for mobile, NewsGator Inbox for Microsoft Outlook and its NewsGator Online.

Desktop RSS Readers, like FeedDemon, are sometimes preferred than online RSS readers because of its speed and the customization offered than online reader. And one good thing about FeedDemon is the ability to synchronize your feeds to NewsGator Online also for free, so for example you are reading your feeds on FeedDemon on your home and you can access and read your feeds using NewsGator Online on other computer connected to internet.

Also, FeedDemon and NetNewsGator are recently updated by NewsGator, meaning you got double a freebies.

[Download]

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Change The Target Location Of My Documents Folder

One of the worst things that could happen if your Windows XP installation was damaged, corrupted, won't boot or attacked by virus is lost of important data. If this scenarios happen to your computer are you well prepared? What i mean is, are your data are well backup?

As we all know, My Documents is the most popular folder where computer users save almost all his or her data including but not limited to videos, musics, pictures and important documents. And when Windows XP installation becomes unusable and won't boot, how can you access your important files saved on My Documents folder? My Document by default is located on drive c: or where Windows XP was installed, so when you need to reformat your Windows XP installation, you still need to make a way to access and get your files on My Documents, which is sometimes a hard work to others.

So if you don't want to do that dirty work on recovering your files on My Documents, why not just change the location of My Documents folder to other drive in your computer (ex. drive d:). So whenever you need to reformat you computer, you can freely format it without worrying of your files located on My Documents again, because it's already located on different drive which will not be affected even if your drive c: was damaged.

Changing the location of your My Documents folder is easy, just right click the My Documents shortcut on desktop and click on the "Move" button and choose the location where you want to transfer your My Documents folder and then click OK.

That's it! From now on, you will be worry-free whenever your Windows XP computer is behaving badly.

Technorati Tags: computer windows xp how to computer tips

Do you have a tip to share? Share it with others. Send me your tips.

Windows Vista, the successor of Windows XP, has features that XP don't have. Like the ability of Windows Vista to change the desktop icons into smaller list view. But if you're still loyal (like me) to Windows XP you can still experience the smaller list view with your Windows XP PC by using a small freeware program called DeskView.exe.

DeskView.exe is a very small utility (approx. 11KB) that when executed will turn your regular desktop icons into smaller list view. DeskView doesn't need to be installed, meaning you'll not mesh your system registry. One important thing to remember though, DeskView doesn't remember any settings you've made, so when you reboot your computer, your desktop icons will go back to its regular size. But fortunately, you can put DeskView in your startup folder so whenever your PC starts, DeskView will automatically resize your icons.

Download [Via]

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