How To Make An Invisible Folder ?

 

To hide folder most people will right click on a folder and in the property choose hidden. But its not very safe as anyone can unhide it. But there is another trick.

Well its not a new trick. Many people know it. But just in case you haven’t heard till now

1) Firstly, on your desktop press Right Click -> “New” -> “Folder”

2) Rename the folder and press Alt0160 simultaneously (use Alt key plus the numbers in numpad). You will see the folder name disappear.

3) Right-click on the folder, and clock on “Properties” -> “Customize”. Change the folder icon into none.

Voila!

The folder will reappear when you highlight all the icons on your desktop or click on the spot where the ‘hidden folder’ is located.

Now you can keep you little secrets in this invisible vault.

How to Reset AWARD BIOS Password?

 

Forgetting password is a common phenomenon. I keep forgetting password which I don’t use for for considerable duration of time. And when it comes to motherboard password… oh boy. You hardly use them. So what happens when you forget you BIOS password. Now if your BIOS is AWARD BIOS then you are in some luck as I will tell you how to reset it.

1. Go to Start Menu, click on Run.

2. Type “cmd” (without quotes) into the field and press enter.

3. At DOS prompt, type the commands below and hit enter after each command.

DEBUG

-o 70 2e

-o 71 ff

-q

exit

Restart the computer.

*This method is supposedly to work with most versions of the AWARD BIOS.

How to Capture Full Height Screenshot of a Website ?

 

Most of the screenshot capture program offers you a screenshot of what is seen on your monitor at the time of taking screenshot. Anything special.. and you gotta pay buddy. But here is a freebee.

Use either graphical (above) and/or command line interface

Using this Webshot program, you can capture full height screenshot of a website.

Another interesting feature is,  you can adjust the image quality of the screenshot easily.

WebShot is a program that allows you to take screenshots and thumbnails of webpages or whole websites. It comes with a command line interface for advanced users. The following image formats are supported JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP.

The freeware version comes with a demo of the command line interface, which can be purchased, and used to streamline the screenshot process on whole websites. The server edition of WebShot comes with a DLL that will allow you to embed WebShot technology in your own applications.

 

Full Features as per the website

Automatic determination of page width and height that captures the whole page accurately. Frame dimensions are determined and calculated on pages that have them.

Browser size specification allows you to capture the whole page or part of it

Image thumbnailing reduces the final capture image easily

Timeouts allow you to wait for activex controls to load before capturing

Image encoding to JPG, GIF, PNG, and BMP with image quality control to save on disk space

CSV output allows you to easily parse the results of a screenshot capture operation

CSV output of page title, meta keywords, and description helps you parse the most important information from  a page

Use within your own applications using the dll and example source code

Blocks most popups (javascript popups, script dialogs, injected via wmp popups, etc)

Multiple threads allow you to quickly capture more screenshots without running multiple processes

Custom user agents allow you to view a web page that might be served to other browsers

Easily delete all of Internet Explorer's cache, so your hard drive doesn't get full

Configure custom HTTP post strings and HTTP authentication credentials

Configurable message box popup automation to automatically deal with message boxes that Internet Explorer might throw

Higher quality color quantized gif images produce better screenshots with less disk space

Take multiple image captures several seconds apart on each url

Actively maintained and developed

Homepage | Download

How to make multiboot USB/ISO for free ?

Till now I know only one other software who does this. And that is Eazyboot. But that is commercial software and this XBOOT is free ware. So I am promoting it here for all. You can see the other details and updates on

http://reboot.pro/13246/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

XBOOT vs 1.0.0 beta5

(A utility for creating Multiboot USB/ISO.)
(based on .net framework vs 4)
Finally after lot of work I am releasing this software on which i have been working for past few months.
Purpose of this software is to create multiboot USB/ISO from various ISO files.
Support for some ISO files have been added , support for some other ISO files will be added later on the request of users.
Right now the purpose for creating this thread are:
1) Debugging. As xboot is in beta stage so there will be some bugs.All of you who are interested in using this software can test it and report here if you have any success or failure.
2) point out if you want any changes or make request for new features on this software.
3) The current name "xboot" of this software is just temporary. so please do suggest some nice name for it.(EDIT: XBOOT now is the permanent name for this software.)
Many people have helped me directly or indirectly in this project.
So they definitely deserves the credit. I do not remember all of the names but i am mentioning some of them here.
Wonko the Sane.
icecube.
cdob.
jotnar
tinybit.
steve6375 (author of RPprepUSB tool)
and many others....

Here's some screenshots:

And Last but not least some precautions:
1) This software requires .NET framework vs 4 so install it before using this software.
you can download .NET framework vs 4 from here:.NET framework vs 4
2) If you are creating Multiboot USB :

a) Please defragment it after creating it.(else booting speed will be slow).(This is not because of Flashdrive but something related to bootloader)
EDIT: From beta5 , XBoot will automatically defragment all files which might slow down the booting speed , you don't need to defragment your flash drive manually.)
Note: All files don't need fragmentation , only some files , and they will be defragmented automatically by XBoot.If XBoot is not able to defragment some file due to low space or whatever reason , it will prompt you to defragment it later)

b ) Also FAT32 is the highly recommended file-system format for Creating Multiboot USB. (NTFS is not supported now but will be supported in future releases).
EdIT: From version beta4 NTFS is supported , but be careful Some linux distros don't support booting from NTFS partitions.So NTFS is not a good choice for multibooting. FAT32 is supported by all.
Caution:XBOOT will not check if a particular iso file supports booting from NTFS partition or not , that should be taken care by the user.To be on safe side always use FAT32.
If you are worried about the size limitation of FAT32 partition , and wants large partition size , then please use RPprepUSB tool . It can create FAT32 partitions up to 2TB as mentioned by the Author of this software.

steve6375, on Dec 9 2010, 02:53 PM, said:

FYI - RMPrepUSB can format a 64GB FAT32 drive, it has no FAT32 size limitation (up to 2TB I think but never tested!)

c) For USB device USB-HDD is the recomended format, though others( USB-FDD ,USB-ZIP) are supported too.

3) Sometimes multiboot usb\iso doesn't work on vmware, virtualbox, qemu etc. but works on real PC. So If you are testing multiboot usb\iso on vmware, virtualbox, qemu etc. and it didn't boot .Then please do check it again on Real PC.
4) Only supported ISO file will works.
There are some files which are not supported but can be added using Grub4dos ISO Emulation.
I am listing some of them here for you reference:
1) MSDART6.0(vista) & MSDART 6.5(windows 7)
2) Windows vista recovery cd & windows 7 recovery cd.
3) windows vistape & windows 7 pe.
4) All DOS based cd's.
5) Darik's boot and nuke(DBAN)
6) Hiren's boot cd (HirenBootCD vs12.0 will not work)
7) ....
Here's a screen shot of adding a file using Grub4dos ISO Emulation

5) There will be some minor glitches so be patient and report them here . I will fix them ASAP.
changelog for XBoot vs 1.0.0.0 beta5 :
- Added support for Gparted
- Added support for trinity rescue kit
- Fixed problem with defragmentation of files
- Fixed support for ubuntu v10.10
- Fixed support for Paragon utilities
- From this version you can update old ISO files on Multiboot USB.
For example if you have added ubuntu v10.04 to your Multiboot USB along with other ISO files and later you decide to update only ubuntu with newer version( ubuntu v10.10) while keeping the other ISO files intact .Then simply add new ISO(ubuntu v10.10) file to Multiboot USB using XBoot . This way older version of ISO file (ubuntu v10.04) will be deleted and new version of ISO file (ubuntu v10.10) will be added.
Note: You can not update ISO files on Multiboot USB created with previous version of XBoot.Only ISO files on Multiboot USB created by XBoot vs 1.0.0.0 beta5 and onwards will be updated.
Known issues in XBoot vs 1.0.0.0 beta5:
1) Hiren boot cd 12.0 not working ( previous versions will work)(Reason: This is due to buggy bootloader used in Hiren's boot cd. Future version might change the bootloader and it will work again , till then use previous version)
2) darik's boot and nuke (dban-2.2.6_i586.iso) might not work from multiboot USB but will work in multiboot ISO(Reason: Faulty bootloader( ISOLINUX 4.00 4.00-pre46) used in DBAN , If in future release bootloader is changed then problem will solve itself, till then use previous version)
3) knoppix will not work.It will give error during creation of multiboot USB/ISO( Reason : Silly mistake of mine.I unintentionally broke the code in latest release. will get fixed in next release)
Download link for xboot:
XBoot 1.0.0.0 Beta 5 (Host site: www.softepedia.com)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I hope it will be useful to all those who want to make multiboot iso  from many small linux and other recovery cds ISOs.

How to find any IP Location ?

 

IP Locator is a small freeware utility that allows to easily find all available information about an IP address:

the owner of the IP address,

the country/state name,

IP addresses range,

contact information (address, phone, fax, and email),

and more.

You just need to enter the IP address and the app searches for the location  and displays it on the map.

With IP locator we can track any IP address or find the actual location and address

The IP address information is retrieved by sending a request to the whois server of to the whois server of ARIN.

If ARIN doesn’t maintain the information about the requested IP address, a second request is sent to the whois server of RIPE, APNIC, LACNIC or AfriNIC.

Download IP Locator

How to Add "Run as Administrator" to Any File Type in Windows 7 or Vista

 

NOTE : This is a registry hack. Do it at your own risk. But backup your registry first, and create a system restore point. If anything goes wrong, just restore from your registry backup or do a system restore.

If you ever try to unzip a file to the Program Files directory in Windows 7 or Vista You are likely to get all sorts of permission denied errors, and generally be unsuccessful. So what to do now to open up the zip file as an administrator? Or going even further, how do you open any file as administrator?

Don’t worry. There’s a simple registry tweak that will let us specify the action to run as administrator for a file type. Though we have to make the tweak manually, its not that difficult.

Manual Registry Tweak

1. Open regedit.

2. Browse to the following key,

3. Substituting “.zip” for the file extension that you are looking for

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.zip

4. take note of the Data value for the “(Default)” item. This tells us which application is registered to handle this file type, and also where we need to go in the registry next.

5. (For this example, since the data field in this example says “WinRAR.ZIP” we’ll need to browse down to the following registry key. (again, the find dialog helps here)

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WinRAR.ZIP\shell\open\command

6. copy the shell\open\command section to shell\runas\command. The easiest way to do that is right-click on “command” and then choose Export.

7. Now open up the exported registry file in Notepad and change “open” to “runas” where indicated below:

8. Double-click on the file to enter the information into the registry. Now you’ll see that the “runas” section is identical to the “open” section:

9. And now you can right-click on a file and open it as administrator:

In this example we have used WinRAR, but this will work for any other file type or application. We just have to change where you look in the registry.

How to Add Encrypt / Decrypt Options to Windows 7 / Vista Right-Click Menu

 

Some people are really really security conscious. If you are one of them and always searching to protect your files etc etc. they you may be using the built-in file encryption in Windows 7 or Vista. This is for you. Actually it should have been included by Microsoft.

Now You might be interested in adding an option to the right-click menu to encrypt and decrypt your files (rather than having to use the file properties dialog.)

Adding this to the menu is very simple as there’s only a single registry key to add.

1. Open up regedit.exe  and find the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

2. In the right-hand pane, create a new 32-bit DWORD value and name it  EncryptionContextMenu

3. Give it a value of 1.

4. Right-click on any file, and  you’ll see a new option called Encrypt.

 

 

When you choose this option, you’ll be asked if you want to encrypt just the file, or also the parent folder. You can also choose just the file as the default.

Once the files are encrypted, the title of the file will become green, indicating that it’s been encrypted. The right-click option on this file will also now change to Decrypt.

How to Add "Open with Notepad" to the Context Menu for All Files

 

You operating system generally decided the program to be used for opening a particular file. By default it assign a particular file type to a certain program. For example your all movies files are opened by Windows Media Player by default. But there are certain files which WMP cannot play but still it will keep popping up. Now in this case actually what you do is you right click on that file and selecd “open with” and then navigate to the particular program which will open that file e.g. VLC media player or such.

But to select that you have to first click ‘open with’ and then navigate to ‘Notepad’ if you want to open a particular file with Notepad e.g. registry files or host file or .bin file etc. If You would like to skip this step and add an entry which simply says ‘Open with Notepad”, then this hack is for you. Its not a new hack, but just for those who needs it and doesn’t know how?

 

Manual Registry Hack

1. Open regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell

2. Right-click on “shell” and choose to create a new key, name it “Open with Notepad”.

3. Create a new key below that one called “command”. Double-click on the (Default) value in the right-hand pane and enter in the following:

notepad.exe %1

The change should take effect immediately… just right-click on any file and you’ll see the next menu entry.

 

Create Registry Hack

1. Open Notepad and copy past following

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Open with Notepad]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Open with Notepad\command]
@="notepad.exe %1"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Save it as OpenWithNotepad.reg

3.Double-click on the OpenWithNotepad.reg file to enter the information into the registry. and its done.

 

How to remove it

1. Simple. Open Notepad and copy past following

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Open with Notepad]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Save it as RemoveOpenWithNotepad.reg

3.Double-click on the OpenWithNotepad.reg file to enter the information into the registry. and it will be removed from right click context.

How to Add Defragment to the Right-Click Menu for a Drive

Manual Registry Hack

Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell

Create a new key under shell called “runas”, and then set the (Default) value to “Defragment”. If you want to hide this menu item behind the Shift key right-click menu, then add a new string called Extended with no value.

Next, you’ll need to create a key called “command” and set the default value to the following, which is the command to run defrag with the default options but show verbose output.

defrag %1 –v

 

Making Registry Hack yourself

 

To Add Defrag To Drive Menu

Open Notepad and copy paste following

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Add defrag to drive menu

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\runas]
@="Defragment"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\runas\command]
@="defrag %1 -v"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Save it as AddDefragToDriveMenu.reg

 

To Add Defrag To Extended Drive Menu

Open Notepad and copy paste following

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Add defrag to extended drive menu

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\runas]
@="Defragment"
"Extended"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\runas\command]
@="defrag %1 -v"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

save it as AddDefragToExtendedDriveMenu.reg

 

To Remove Defrag From Drive Menu

Open Notepad and copy paste following:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Remove defrag from drive menu

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\runas]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

save it as RemoveDefragFromDriveMenu.reg

 

Now you will have three registry files.

Double click on any of the file. If windows asks for your permission give it. There will be a statutory warning, click yes. A confirmation dialogue will appear that the registry entry has been added.

Now right click on the desktop and your will see you desired entry added or removed.

How to Unlock PDF Files and Remove Passwords

So you are the security conscious guy who loves passwords and codes. And so you have password protected your PDF files too. Oh yes, they are important and oho ho  ho they are “FOR YOUR EYES ONLY”. Wow.. But now you have so many files that you forgot the password of a file. Now what?

Luckily there is a program called PDF UNLOCKER and its free too.

you can unlock files and also remove the passwords with PDF Unlocker. This freeware tool unlocks the PDF using a Brute Force algorithm. PDFUnlocker saves the unlocked file separately and does not change the original file.

All you have to do is select the PDF file and specify the destination where the new PDF will be saved. Specify the minimum and maximum length of password. The counter on the bottom right will show how many Brute Force attacks had been done to unlock the document. More complicated password will take more time to unlock

It’s a portable application and does not require any installation. It’s a 2.69 MB download only. So go get it.

http://www.appnimi.com/component/content/article/id/1

How to Add Control Panel to the Desktop Right-Click Menu in Vista

 

when you right-click on the desktop you’ll see a new menu item called Control Panel:

Once you select that item, it will immediately open up Control Panel:

But do it on your desktop and you will see actuall this

 

So, how to get that control panel in your right click option??

 

Manual Registry Hack

Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell

Right-click on “shell” and create a new key called Control Panel.

Under that one, right-click and create a new key called “command”.

Select the “command” key on the left-hand side, and then set the (Default) value on the right-hand side to the following:

rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL

You will immediately see the new item in your context menu.

To remove, simply delete the Control Panel key.

 

Automatic Registry Hack

I can make a registry file and give you a download link, but then you may be skeptical as to what it might contain. and rightly so in this age of computer we

should be as cautious as possible of simply downloading and applying something to our registry. So instead I will show you how to make that registry heck yourself.

You can check it or get it checked for any virus etc":

Open Notepad.

Copy-paste the enry between the lines :

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Add control panel to the desktop context menu

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Control Panel]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Control Panel\command]
@=hex(2):72,00,75,00,6e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,33,00,32,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,\
  00,20,00,73,00,68,00,65,00,6c,00,6c,00,33,00,32,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,\
  2c,00,43,00,6f,00,6e,00,74,00,72,00,6f,00,6c,00,5f,00,52,00,75,00,6e,00,44,\
  00,4c,00,4c,00,00,00

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Save this file as “AddControlPanelToDesktopMenu.reg”

Double click on the file. If windows asks for your permission give it. There will be a statutory warning, click yes. A confirmation dialogue will appear that the registry entry has been added.

Now right click on the desktop and your will see ‘Control Panel’ entry.

How to Remove it

Very simple. Open Notepad.

Copy paste the entry in between lines

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Remove control panel from the desktop context menu

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Control Panel]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

save it as ‘RemoveControlPanelFromDesktopMenu.reg’

Double click on the file. If windows asks for your permission give it. There will be a statutory warning, click yes. A confirmation dialogue will appear that the registry entry has been added.

Now right click on the desktop and your will see ‘Control Panel’ entry removed.

How to convert Text to Speech online for free.

 

For the avid readers it is not possible to carry ebooks all the times nor is it possible to read it everywhere without an e book reader. It would be real nice to have a text to speech converter to read these documents for us. There are many online free web services which allowus to easily convert text to speech and download them as MP3 format. I am giving the list of top 5 text to speech online converters.

 

1. iSpeech:

we can convert our blog posts to audio files in MP3 format with iSpeech, and the audio files can be downloaded, embedded or shared easily. www.ispeech.org

2. YakiToMe:

we can listen to work documents, homework, PowerPoint presentations, emails, RSS feeds, blogs, books. www.yukitome.com/

3. Zamzar:

For almost all types of conversion online. It also supports converting documents to MP3 format. You can upload your input file in TXT, DOC, DOCX, EPS, PDF, RTF, WPD, WPS formats and covert it into an mp3 audio file. http://zamzar.com/

4. VozMe:

A free service where text to MP3 files conversion is possible. Besides English, vozMe also supports Spanish, Italian, Hindi, Portuguese and Catalan. http://vozme.com/index.php?lang=en

5. ABCtoMP3:

With this free service you can convert Word documents, Adobe PDF, HTML Files, Text Content, Cut & Paste Text, Website Address or even RSS Feed into MP3 files. ABC 2 MP3 has the wide variety of readers that can read English documents. http://www.abc2mp3.com/