Top 10 sites to test your broadband connection speed

Are you getting the optimal bandwidth that you paid for? Test your internet connection for speed, latency and packet loss with 10 free online tools.
Follow these five steps first to get accurate broadband speed test results before you start testing:

1. Why do you need ten different options to test your broadband connection? Well, we’d suggest you try all ten to get and average out the results. You can then more or less confirm the kind of bandwidth that your service provider is piping to you. If you have the patience, it is suggested that you try each tests at least twice to ensure that the occasional drop in bandwidth or any communication by the background apps don’t end up giving you the wrong picture.
   

How to Prevent a Data Disaster

A corrupted Outlook database trashes your e-mail archive and contact list. An accidentally deleted folder wipes out critical business documents. A sudden hard-drive failure destroys your MP3s and photo libraries. The list of potential catastrophes goes on and on, and few users are prepared to deal with them. That's because they lack a diversified backup plan.

From a certain point of view, data is a little like money. Financial advisors always recommend maintaining a diversified portfolio, the idea being that if one stock or mutual fund tanks, you won't go broke. The same concept applies to backups: By diversifying your approach--that is, archiving your data in multiple places using multiple methods--you're safe even if disaster strikes one location or collection of data.
Let's take a look at the ways you can expand your backup portfolio to protect against the inevitable data catastrophe. To ensure the safey of your important files, I recommend using at least a few of the following methods in unison.

Method 1: The Full-System Backup

 

With external 500GB hard drives readily available for as little as Rs 5K, there's no reason not to keep one plugged into your PC. Pair it with a drive-cloning utility like Macrium Reflect Free, which can perform scheduled, incremental backups with or without compression. A full-system backup to an attached drive is your best line of defense against data loss: In the event of total failure, it's a simple matter to restore every bit and byte to a replacement drive.

Method 2: The Remote, Data-Only Backup

 
While it's great to archive your entire hard drive, don't overlook the benefits of backing up just your critical data: documents, bookmarks, financial records, e-mail, address books, and so on. Why bother? Simple: Sometimes you just want to restore a handful of files or a select chunk of data. Plus, data-only backups take a lot less time than full system backups.
For this step, look to an online backup service like iDrive or MozyHome. Both offer 2GB of free storage and the option to upgrade to unlimited storage for a fee. Mozy relies on client software to help you select both common file types to back up and important user data files for programs like Outlook and Quicken, while iDrive uses an Explorer-style interface for selecting specific files and folders to preserve. The real advantage to both services is that they work automatically and in the background, uploading new and changed files while you work (or at scheduled times). That kind of set-it-and-forget-it backup is well worth a few bucks every month.
If you'd rather save your pennies and don't mind taking a more hands-on approach, loads of services let you park files online free of charge. ADrive, for one, offers 50GB of absolutely free storage. However, no synchronization is involved: It's up to you to pick and choose which files to upload, and when. Thus, use these services for files that don't change all that often, like MP3 and photo libraries.

Method 3: The Spare-PC Backup

 
These days it's not uncommon to own two or more PCs, and if you have family members under the same roof, they probably have their own machines as well. Why not create a "backup network" that leverages everyone's hard drives? All you need is SyncToy 2.0, one of Microsoft's free PowerToy utilities. With it, you can create "folder pairs" between PCs, copying files between them with a single click. This is a great way to sync, say, disparate photo libraries between your PC and your spouse's, and to create a backup of both in the process.
If your PCs aren't on the same network--one is at home and another is at work, for instance--try Microsoft's Windows Live FolderShare, which syncs files across the Internet (and does so automatically; SyncToy requires you to manually resync whenever you change or add files). FolderShare's advantage is that you can expand your backup network to include friends, syncing critical files to their machines and vice-versa. Like SyncToy, FolderShare costs nothing to use.

Method 4: The Document Backup

If you're a Google Docs user, you know that this Web-based office suite can import documents from Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. But wouldn't it be great if you could actually synchronize those kinds of documents between your PC and the suite? You can with the free tool - OffiSync. It lives directly inside Office, as part of the same overall menu you use for opening files. A new entry, OffiSync, appears there. From here, you can save files to Google Docs, open files from Google Docs, add or remove collaborators to documents, and send a link to a Google Doc document via e-mail. It's exceptionally easy to use.

Method 5: The Bookmark Backup

 

If you're like most users, you've accumulated years' worth of bookmarks in your browser--a collection you definitely don't want to lose. Fortunately, it's a snap to copy those bookmarks to the Web for easy retrieval if the need ever arises. Firefox users should install the free Xmarks plug-in, while Internet Explorer users can accomplish the same thing with BookmarkSync. Incidentally, both tools can also keep your bookmarks in sync across multiple PCs, and both let you access them from any browser.

Method 6: The E-Mail Backup

 

Are you an e-mail packrat? If so, you'd probably be loathe to lose your archives. Start with one of two free backup utilities designed expressly for e-mail: Amic Email Backup, which copies everything--including your address book, account settings, and message rules--to a single compressed file; or Mailstore Home, which duplicates all your mail into a searchable archive and optionally backs it up to CDs or DVDs.
Amic supports nine e-mail clients, including Outlook, Outlook Express, and Eudora. Mailstore Home works with Windows Mail, Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, and Seamonkey.
Of course, unless you put those discs in a safe or upload the archive file to the Web, those kinds of backups are still vulnerable to fires and other local disasters. That's one reason to consider routing your e-mail through Gmail IMAP, which effectively creates a Web-based archive by syncing mail between Google's servers and your PC.
Start by signing up for a free Gmail account, then enabling IMAP and following the configuration instructions for your mail client. Then you can either configure your mail account to forward all messages to your Gmail account or set up Gmail's Mail Fetcher to retrieve messages from your ISP's POP3 server. From then on, all of your mail will go through Gmail, giving you more than 6GB of storage space for messages and attachments, and some excellent spam filtering in the bargain. Once you have everything set up, you'll forever have copies of your messages available in your Web-accessible Gmail account. That's not only an ideal e-mail backup, but just plain handy, too.

Method 7: The Already-In-Your-Pocket Backup

 
Finally, we come to the backups you already have--but don't know you do. For example, if you carry a smart phone that syncs with your PC, it's like having a mobile backup of your contacts, calendar, memos, and tasks. In the event of desktop data loss, just sync your device to restore everything to Outlook, or whatever contact manager you use. (Be sure to make a one-time adjustment to the sync settings so everything gets copied from the device to the PC, not the other way around.)
Likewise, if you own an iPod or other media player, you can use it to restore a lost or damaged music library. iPod users should check out iPod Folder, which copies music directly from the player to any folder on your Windows and Mac system. You can even store the program on your iPod so it's available on the spot. You can do the same thing with any MP3 player that your PC recognizes as a hard drive.

Has your OS installation gone bad? Grab a Live CD and follow our guide to rescuing rogue partitions

When you’re used to the world of Windows or OS X, Linux can seem a little unforgiving. Not only does command-line access hand over the complete keys to the manor to any unwitting user with access to the administrator’s account, there’s rarely a safety net should things go wrong. Despite advances in most Linux desktops (where the ubiquitous Trashcan safely buffers deleted files), you get no such protection from most system-specific configuration, installation and maintenance tools. And while it’s rare for anything to go wrong without your direct input, some accidents do happen, especially if you enjoy tinkering with the latest distro release each month. But this being Linux, there’s plenty you can do to dig yourself out of a hole, which is why it’s always a good idea to have a repair-worthy distribution close to hand when performing configuration and installation tasks.
One of the best developments in recent years has been the Live CD. These offer a fully functional Linux installation that runs from an optical drive. If you’ve got enough memory, you can even install new packages to the RAM disk just as you would when completing a standard installation. This makes a recent release of a Live CD-based installer like Ubuntu Jaunty the perfect system recovery tool. Not only does it include every package you might require, but because it runs from the optical drive rather than the hard drive, your data isn’t touched and there’s no chance files will be overwritten without direct input. It’s the obvious place to start when you get stuck.

Booting Linux

Probably the most common problem is when the Linux boot menu disappears or gets corrupted. The most likely reason for this is that a shared Windows installation has re-stamped its authority over your disk’s master boot record, overwriting the Grub boot loader with its own system-launching code. In these cases, you need to boot into a different Linux environment, either off a Live CD or from any other Linux booting media you can get hold of. The distribution you choose will also need to have Grub installed.

With Ubuntu, open the Terminal from the Accessories menu and type sudo grub. This will launch the boot loader with administrator privileges. From the ‘grub’ command prompt, type find /boot/grub/stage1. This Grub function searches every compatible drive attached to your system for the ‘/boot/grub/stage1’ file, which is used to launch the operating system. When the file is detected, it’ll output the drive and partition number of your lost installation using the format (hd1,0). Your output will look different, but it’s the drive number followed by the partition number of the Linux partition that you’re looking for. Grub should only be installed on a single partition on a single drive, so you shouldn’t find more than one version of the file.
To restore the Grub bootloader to your drive, type root (hd1,0), swapping the drive and partition number with the output you found with the previous ‘find’ command. Then type setup (hd1), swapping ‘hd1’ for your drive number. You should now find that your Linux partition and booting ability has been restored. The only potential problem is that this process could overwrite a Windows bootloader, and if Windows was installed after the original Grub installation, it won’t launch from the boot menu.

Booting Windows

Fortunately, adding Windows to your Grub menu is easy enough, and it’s straightforward to add any other OSes you want to boot from your system if you’ve got an example entry to work from. The key to the boot menu is a file called ‘/boot/grub/menu.lst’, and if you open this in a text editor, you should see that the formatting is relatively easy to understand. For instance, here’s a typical entry for booting a Windows installation off the first partition of the drive:

title Microsoft Windows
root (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

You can make this Windows boot entry the default selection by adding a line that has ‘savedefault’ as the only word. Adding Linux entries isn’t quite so easy, as you need to get the path to both the ‘initrd.img’ (RAM disk) and ‘vmlinuz’ (kernel) files correct, according to how they sit on the Linux filesystem. The best way is to copy and paste an existing entry and change the paths accordingly. Older versions of Grub won’t support newer filesystem types. ext4, for instance, is a major upgrade to the standard Linux filesystem and it needs a specially modified version of Grub to boot into it. This could cause a problem if you installed a new Linux distro using ext4 alongside an older one with its older version of Grub. The only option in this case is to upgrade Grub, either manually or through a distribution that ships with the modified Grub, such as Ubuntu Jaunty.

Restoring the MBR

If you ever need to reinstate the Microsoft Windows bootloader onto your disk’s master boot record (MBR), you can use the Windows rescue disk and the ‘fdisk’ command. However, there’s also a handy open-source utility called ‘ms-sys’ that performs the process from a Linux installation. With the tool installed, typing ms-sys -w /dev/hda will create a Microsoft MBR on the first drive. But this may leave you with the opposite problem to the one we started with if Linux is on the same drive. To resolve it, you’ll need to reinstall Grub to get back to your Linux desktop.

Even if you can’t get to your Linux desktop, if you can get to the Grub boot menu then there’s still lots you can do to troubleshoot an installation, whether that boot menu is off a Live CD or a standard installation. Press [Escape] when you see the boot menu, and ‘e’ on the line causing you problems, and you can now edit each entry on the fly. These are the same lines we were editing in the ‘menu.lst’ file, and you can edit in-place options like the root partition for the operating system or the locations of the RAM disk image and kernel. Finally, rather than pressing ‘e’ for edit mode, try accessing the same command-line we used to search for the missing Linux installation. Just press ‘c’ to be dropped to the prompt. ‘Find’ is just one of around 30 commands that you can use to fix problems on your hard drives, list directories and even examine the contents of text files (the ‘cat’ command). For more details on what’s available and how to use it, type help.

Fixing a partition table

Another situation that initially appears to be catastrophic but can be resolved without data loss is if you happen to destroy the partition table of one of your disks. This is the kind of error that could render an entire disk’s worth of information useless, and it will also prevent your PC booting. But partition tables are stored independently of the data on the disk, and there are ways that you can rebuild them.

You might think that it’s particularly difficult to destroy your partition table, but there are ways that you can easily do this accidentally. The most common cause is if your PC is forced to restart while resizing a partition. You might find that the entire partition table is corrupt, despite the fact that no other partitions on the drive were touched by the process. Another likely scenario is that the wrong device name is used while installing Linux onto an external USB device with a command like ‘dd’, resulting in your principle hard drive becoming the incorrect destination for a write command. This can happen from Windows installations too, but Linux can fix both.
The command you need to use is called testdisk. This is one of the most useful commands we’ve ever had to use in an emergency, though it’s not installed on many Live CDs by default. With the latest Ubuntu Jaunty, you’ll need to install it from the Live CD environment using the package manager. After this is done, you should type sudo testdisk on the command line. If you don’t use the sudo command to run with administrator privileges, testdisk will ask for your password when the main page first appears. Before you get to that step, though, you’ll need to let the app know whether you want to create a log file or not. The correct answer is ‘Create’, but most people skip this stage and move straight on to the repair. Before you select the ‘No Log’ option, just remember that a log file can really help if testdisk fails or makes the problem worse. It’s the only way that you’ll know how far the along the process the repair procedure managed to get before it stopped, and where any fatal errors might have occurred.

Writing the new table

After choosing whether or not to create a log file, the next screen you’ll see will list the storage devices attached to your computer. The size of each disk should be correct, along with the unique identifier for the drive at the end of the line. Use the cursor keys to select the drive that you want to repair and press [Enter]. The screen that now appears is the most important, because you need to give testdisk some indication of the type of drive partition used on your system. In the vast majority of cases, this is going to be the first option – an Intel/PC partition. If you’re using a system other than this, then there’s a good chance you’ll already know what it is. You may be using the ultra-new EFI standard, for example, and this can be selected from the list.

After pressing [Enter] again, you’ll see a page that has another list of options. You need to choose the first one to analyse the contents of the drive. This will first display the registered partition details, if possible, before allowing you to perform a quick search for the table configuration within the data on the drive. There’s also an exception for Vista-based partitions, as these are handled slightly differently. If the search is successful, you will see the list of partitions discovered on your drive. If not, you’ll be presented with the option to perform a deeper search, but we’ve never found this necessary on a normal Intel Linux system.
From the page that lists the discovered partitions, make sure that the general parameters are correct – such as one of them being labelled as bootable – and press [Enter]. From this file list of partitions, select ‘Write’ to make the list of partitions you can see on the screen permanent. After a system reboot, you should find your drive fully restored, although there’s a chance you might need to install the Grub bootloader.

Back up your data

Before you start messing with your drives in an attempt to rebuild a working system, make a copy of the data on the drive. There are many ways of making a backup in Linux, but the easiest is to use the ‘dd’ command. This makes a bit-for-bit copy of what’s on your drive, creating the Linux equivalent of a disc image. This means that you can work on this image to restore lost or deleted files without even touching the original disk. The ext3grep command we talk about in the ‘Restore deleted files’ box can use the output of ‘dd’ as its raw input, for example. Unlike ext3grep, ‘dd’ is easy to use. Just execute the command with a source followed by a destination: dd if=/dev/sda1 of=sda1_image.bin, for instance. The only caveat is that ‘dd’ will do exactly as you ask, overwriting anything it finds without any pleasantries. This is a big cause of overwritten boot blocks and MBRs on Linux. The command is also difficult to use because there’s next to no output to tell you what it’s doing, and it can take a while if you leave the block size at its default value. Sometimes the only way you can make sure ‘dd’ is making a copy is to check that the activity light is flashing.

Solving Error 18

One of the more problematic Grub errors is Error 18. It’s a throwback to a time when BIOSes couldn’t detect the size of a large drive properly. There are a couple of solutions to this problem. One is to try changing the drive order in the BIOS; the other is to create a smaller root Linux partition on the drive, as partitions over 500MB in size have been reported to cause the problem with certain BIOSes.

Restore deleted files

Thanks to the way modern Linux filesystems like ext3 use a journal to document file management, there’s no ‘undelete’ command that can simply restore lost and accidentally deleted files. Instead, you’re often left to trawl through the raw blocks of code accessible through the device nodes on your filesystem. But that hasn’t stopped some developers from trying to replicate it. One developer was particularly flummoxed when he accidentally deleted his home directory. Almost a year of work went with a careless execution of the ‘rm -rf’ command. But rather than spending the next few weeks lamenting its loss at a local bar, he spent them creating a tool to restore all those lost files. That tool is called ext3grep, and it’s about as close to an undelete command that us Linux users will ever get. But be warned: the price you pay for file resurrection is complexity.
Ext3grep is likely to be hosted on your distribution’s package repository. Before using it, you’ll need to make sure no processes are accessing files on the partition that held the file you want to recover. It might be easier to simply reboot to a fail-safe or administration mode, or even a Live CD if you need to get at the root filesystem. You then need to use ‘ext3grep’ to search for the missing file. The easiest method of recovering a file called ‘test.odt’ on ‘/dev/sda1’, is to type ext3grep /dev/sda1 --recover-file test.odt. Ext3grep will then search through each block of the device looking for directories, before diving in and looking for references to your file. If it can be found, it will be placed in the RESTORED_FILES folder.

The Microsoft .NET Framework is a software framework available with several Microsoft Windows operating systems. It includes a large library of coded solutions to prevent common programming problems and a virtual machine that manages the execution of programs written specifically for the framework.

Direct Download Links to .NET Framework Offline Installer Full Setup File

All direct links to download .NET Framework Offline Install Setup Files from Microsoft servers

.NET Framework Offline 3.5 Setup

Download 32 bit & 64 bit Versions – Click Here

.NET Framework 3.5 Offline Setup Service Pack 1

Download .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1 – CIick Here

.NET Framework 3.0 Offline Setup

- 32 bit version

- 64 bit version

.NET Framework 2.0 Offline Setup

- 32 bit version

- 64 bit version

Above are the direct links to download all the Microsoft frameworks released till now.

Related Posts:

• 70+ Best Freewares in One Single Smart Installer Pack for Windows

BSOD, the Blue Screen of Death. Everyone who uses a computer has probably encountered a bsod (bsod is different from pc crashes). Some say it strikes with perfect timing, like when you forgot to push the ’save’ button while doing an important project or in the middle of an important battle online. Here are some world famousbsod pics. The best and funny bsod till date. Have a look…

10 Most Popular Blue Screen of Death(s) Till Date – Funny BSOD

#10- BSOD Clarity At a Popular Vista Showroom

#9- BSOD in a City Center in Germany

#8- Tilted BSOD inside a Food Plaza

#7- The Wrath of the BSOD Demon – At a Game Parlour

#6- Train Station Gets the BSOD Treatment

Also : GTA 4 Funny Spoof – Coca Cola Advertisement

#5- BSOD at an Olympic Stadium in Barcelona

#4- Final Destination – BSOD at Denver Airport

#3- Final Destination 2 – BSOD Invasion at Subway Stations

#2- World Famous BSOD At the Beijing Olympics 2008

At the exact moment Li Ning was rounding the lip of the Bird’s Nest during the amazing torch-lighting climax, someone snapped this photo of our good friend theBSOD nestled among the Nest’s steel twigs. details >>

#1- The Beginning of the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Era

The World famous appearance of BSOD happened when Bill Gates himself demoed Windows 98 on CNN (see video below).

As you see #1 was my favourite Blue Screen of Death. So which was your favourite funny BSOD ?

Extracting pictures from PDF files can be simple task if PDF file is not big, you just need to use print screen feature if save as image option is disabled in PDF file.

Tip : Edit a Read Only Secured PDF File

However if PDF file is big then it can be very inconvenient to use print screen or save as image option.

Import, Save Pictures & Images from PDF Files

#1 – PDF Image Extract (Link) is a free Windows utility that does exactly what the name suggests: it extracts images from PDF files.

#2 – PDF to JPG (Link) can also become a handy tool. PDF to JPG is command line utility to extract all jpeg pictures from pdf without any jpeg recalculation.

How To Extract Pictures in PDF Using Adobe Acrobat Itself

Acrobat 6 contains a new feature to extract all images from a PDF file…

1. Open the PDF document you want to extract graphics.
2. From the Advanced menu choose Export all Images.
3. In the Export All Images As dialog box, choose the location and correct file type for the images.
4. You can also give a general name to the images that will be downloaded. Each will be named the same but will include the page number and image number.

Note : Pictures can be extracted from PDF files only if the creator has not set any security restrictions.

If you frequently use USB devices like a flash drive or ipod, they you are probably already familiar with the "Safely Remove Hardware" option.

The problem is that clicking that tiny icon just right to bring up the menu every time bugs me and forces me to use brute force and just pull out the thing. Finally I found a solution.

Creating a Hotkey to Eject USB Plug & Play Devices

USB Disk Ejector is a program that allows you to quickly remove USB devices in Windows. It was originally designed to remove only USB pen drives but will now eject any USB device.

When run as a ‘normal’ GUI program the tools enables USB devices to be quickly ejected through a mouse click or keyboard press.

It’s especially useful when dealing with multiple USB devices and for Vista users who don’t want the ‘now safe to remove this device’ dialog box to appear

If you assign a hotkey to eject the desired Drive letter for eg. H: in my case. You can create an executable through a shortcut and can operate the entire thing from your keyboard. Quite useful for keyboard ninjas!

It can also be run as a non-visual command line program or a normal gui program. Its very useful if you have to use USB flash/pen drive frequently

Download USB Disk Ejector : Link

I think it’s really quite easy. Atleast much easier than trying to click the tiny icon in the tray. Do share you views on this …

If there are two releases planned for 2010 that all users should look more closely, are the Microsoft Office 2010 and Google Chrome OS. No resemblance, but both will keep you busy looking over pictures and demos. But because there are many good news about these two projects, some video and image material enough to share why these are the most wanted in 2010.

# MICROSOFT OFFICE 2010

After the changes the company made the jump from the 2003 version to the new Office 2007 suite experienced many improvements compared to the older Word and Excel we all knew when we were kids and learned computers using them.

Screen Post Installation of Office 2010

One of the things that most liked in this beta of Office 2010 is the speed that has the booting and simplicity of its structure, beyond that Office 2003 was extremely minimal.

The fact of using toolboxes for each of the options and alternatives with different tabs that are above, makes the new Office takes up less space to use more options and greater maneuverability for the common user.

Following the same point in the top right corner is an option to use these panels in a more minimalist yet. What makes the little arrow beside the question mark is getting all the panels at a time, so we only choose what to redeploy from the tabs.

If the date is hard to find, two clicks also will. That is, each of the options within the tabs (Insert, Reference, Mail, among others) are able to fold or unfold once we double click over them.

File menu in Microsoft Office 2010

In addition, the File menu is much more graphic than in older versions of the suite. Inside we find several options, among which the Recent submenu to see the latest opened files, the permissions section to protect the document when you save and the information screen provided to us before saving a Word file.

Microsoft Office 2010, Word in particular, we will also make a bridge between various blog editors. Among the list includes some known as Wordpress, Blogger and Windows Live Spaces.

To download the beta of the new office suite Microsoft go to this link and click the "Get Now" at the top right corner, green button.

# GOOGLE CHROME OS

Google’s operating system had been developed earlier this year, information that flooded the Internet for several days and fulfilled the expectations of many of us who use services from Google every day, such as GTalk, Gmail and GMaps. I guess everyone almost…

Chrome boot OS (7 seconds)

A few days back news of the launch scheduled for next year and also the novelty of the event organized by Google to give some details about gOS, demos and let us show some new images.

It was found that Chrome OS starts in about 7 seconds because the PC does not need to start with processes, one behind the other, as with Windows machines that must endure.

Furthermore, gOS will be completely free, with updates throughout the system and the opportunity to unlock the system by ensuring that all the data stored will be stored online. In addition, we have a range of applications gDocs style, Youtube or gTalk integrated with our browser, Chrome.

GOS Applications Menu

Another positive point is that Chrome OS is a system that does not rely on any application that we have pre-installed, so for safety not to trust anyone and thus maintain our stability as possible.

The bad news is that gOS is an operating system that is downloaded like any other and installed. Quite contrary, at the time of its release, gOS will run on laptops that are manufactured exclusively for it. Most people will get discouraged, but I am sure that the Laptops or netbooks will cost much less than with Windows 7.

This video which explains a little more what is Chrome OS, comparisons with the browser and boot other operating systems. gOS will have its official launch in late 2010.

I think the whole world is waiting for this Launch … what say ??

After the boom of the apocalyptic movie 2012, breaking all expectations and lockers, I think many are wondering if when that time comes we will all live and survive the supposed end of humanity. Though I didn’t like the movie much…

News : "GO" – Google’s New Programming Language: Open Source

But for those who are not as pessimistic and prefer to keep watching the progress of technology, I must tell you that there are some rumors and dates that match for a possible upgrade of Windows Server will also be accompanied with the new Windows 8.

Too soon ? Maybe … but given the huge amount of people who have laid eyes on Seven and have been fully satisfied, to launch a new operating system in 2 years is not such a bad idea.

As discussed in Cnet, Microsoft in recent times has attempted to release versions of Windows Server almost on a par with the desktop. So in this 2009, accompanied by the launch of the new Windows Server 2008 R2, we could also consider further improvements to Windows Seven.

Given this coincidence, considering that in 2012 Microsoft is planning another new update to the version of Windows for servers, it is likely that the group of developers begins to chart a common timeline to amaze us with the MSWindows 8 .

You can get some more info at http://windows8beta.com/

As for now the said thing about windows 8, are only rumors and coincidences, but I’m sure more than one likes the idea of having a new ad within 2 years to further improve the already very good Windows Seven of this year.

The PNG file image format is one of the most popular image format we see today on the Internet. Since PNG Images are very good quality Images so they take up lot of space making it bulky. So if you are using png images the loading time of your online pages increases and also consumes more bandwidth.

Reducing & Compressing .png Image Size without Losing Quality

PngOptimizer - GUI based PngOptimizer is a free tool that compresses the PNG Image files by cleaning them of useless or wrong information. Image file types like BMP, GIF, TGA can also be converted into PNG format easily.

Reduce Size + Compress .PNG Files Easily in Few Steps

• Clean your PNG files of useless or wrong information.
• Make your PNG files smaller.
• Convert into PNG other lossless image formats (BMP, GIF, TGA).
• Create good screenshots and make them easily available.
• Perform all those tasks in the simpliest and most productive way.

PngOptimizer is free. It works on Windows (2000/XP/Vista).

Download PngOptimizer - Click Here

Revo Uninstaller helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.

With its advanced and fast algorithm, Revo Uninstaller analyzes an application's data before uninstall and scans after you uninstall an application. After the program's regular uninstaller runs, you can remove unnecessary items, that are usually left over on your computer. Even if you have a broken installation, Revo Uninstaller scans for an application's data on your hard disk drives and in the Windows registry and shows all found files, folders and registry keys so you can delete them.

Here is the list of the tools and utilities included in Revo Uninstaller:

• Auto Start Manager
• Windows Tools Manager
• Junk Files Cleaner
• Browsers History Cleaner
• Office History Cleaner
• Windows History Cleaner
• Unrecoverable Delete Tool
• Evidence Remover

With its unique "Hunter mode", Revo Uninstaller offers you some simple, easy to use, but effective and powerful methods for uninstalling software. You can use it to manage your installed and/or running software programs.

Link : Download Revo Uninstaller Now.

I think, Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to "Windows Add or Remove Programs" applet !

Many a times when you download software you will get it as a ISO or a CD image file formats which are just a image of the actual CD drive. An ISO file needs to be burned on a CD or DVD so that you can use or install the software.

For those who do not have a CD / DVD burner this may cause a lot of problems as those files will be rendered as useless.

If you are one of those who do not have a CD / DVD burner or do not want to burn the image on a CD / DVD but still want to make those use the files inside the image you can do that with the help of MagicDisc.

MagicDisc Virual CD/DVD-ROM is a freeware that allows you to mount ISO files as a virtual CD or DVD drive.

You can mount up to 15 virtual CD / DVD drives using MagicDisc. In addition to this you can also create a image file (ISO) from a existing CD or DVD. Usage is pretty simple. Once you have installed the software. It will show up as a tray icon like shown below.

Right clicking on the icon will load a new menu using which you can mount or unmount and image files as a virtual CD / DVD drive. Selecting the virtual drive will show you options to mount or unmount the drive.

Clicking on mount will open a file dialog from where you can choose the image file and mount it as a virtual drive and will appear in your Windows Explorer. You can then install the software or copy the files using the mounted drive. Once you have finished use of the mounted drive you can simply click on the Unmount option to unmount the drive.

This is a very useful software as it supports many different types of image files along with supporting the default ISO files

BIN (CDRWin)
IMA/IMG (Generic disk images)
CIF (Easy CD Creator)
NRG (Nero - Burning ROM)
IMG/CCD (CloneCD)
MDF/MDS (Fantom CD)
VCD (Farstone Virtual Drive)
VaporCD (Noum Vapor CDROM)
P01/MD1/XA (Gear)
VC4/000 (Virtual CD)
VDI (Virtuo CD Manager)
C2D (WinOnCD)
BWI/BWT (BlinkWrite)
CDI (DiscJuggler)
TAO/DAO (Duplicator)
PDI (Instant Copy)

MagicDisc will work on Windows 9x / Me / 2000 / XP / 2003 and Vista based PC for 32 bit version and Windows XP / 2003 and Vista 64 bit editions.

Let me know if you found this software useful. Your comments are always welcome.

Download : Click to Download MagicDisc Virtual CD/DVD-ROM.

10 things you should do when your Pc/Laptop/Computer Freezes or Hangs Up .


You are in the middle of doing your work, suddenly you realized your computer hanged up. But the problem is, you have not saved your work! Don’t panic! There is a solution for that! And you can surely save your file! Here’s how:


1. Click on “ctrl-alt-delete” keys. The windows task manager will then open, click on all programs that you don’t need and end the task. You will see that all programs on your taskbar will close one by one. If this will resolve the issue! – then save! (tip# 1: if you’re working on an MS Office application, it will automatically save your file in case the programs suddenly shut down — tip# 2: always save your file at least every 2 minutes by just simply clicking on the “diskette icon”— its just one click!)

2. If it did not resolve the issue, are there some users logged on that computer? If so, go to switch user (for XP) and log off that user, go back to your log on screen and log on again.

The reason the computer hang up is because if there are many open programs and applications, these retains in the memory, if it is too much for the memory to handle, it freezes! Another reason too the computer hang up is because if you are connected to the internet via dial up, and you are running too many applications and opening many websites. So I suggest, if you are multimedia user or a heavy internet user, then you are better off with a higher memory, at least 512Mb of memory.

There are simple ways to avoid computer to freeze or hang up:

3. Clean your history at least once a week >tools>internet options>clear history. I normally set my history to “0”, meaning, when I restart my computer, it doesn’t save history pages that I have visited

4. Delete all internet temporary files >tools>internet options>delete files (do the “offline” content too!)

5. Delete cookies (some do not do this, but I do delete cookies at least once a week!) >tools>internet options>delete cookies

6. Remove unnecessary programs that you no longer use, they are just occupying space and memory! >control panel>add/remove programs

7. Do defragmentation at least once a week >point the mouse to “start” button, then right click “explore”>right click the mouse pointing to drive C (which is usually the main system logical drive) >properties>tools>defragment now

8. You can also check the logical drive’s volume for errors >point the mouse to “start” button, then right click “explore”>right click the mouse pointing to drive C (I repeat, is usually the main system logical drive) >properties>tools>check now

9. It is better to have only one user being logged on. Even if there are many users, make sure the user logs off after using the computer, rather than keeping it logged on and you do the switching of users. Switching users is good as long as you don’t keep all users logged on—I think that is more logical

10. Always shut down properly the computer (do NOT use the power button when turning it off!