Fast "8" Windows XP Tips & Tricks

Fast "8" Windows XP Tips & Tricks

Delete Files Immediately
This will allow you to delete files from your system without sending them to the recycle bin first.Select Start > Run… type gpedit.msc then select User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer then locate the ‘Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin‘ setting and set it.

Faster Start Menu Appearance
Ever wondered why it takes the start menu a few seconds to appear when you click on it? To speed it up, go to Start > Run… Type regedit then navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay section and change the value from 400 to 0.

Disable Unneeded Startup Services
Disabling these services will not only make your machine a little safer, but will speed things up a bit. To disable services, go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services and disable the following:

• Alerter
• Clipbook
• Human Interface Access Devices
• Indexing Service
• Messenger
• Net Logon
• Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing
• Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
• Remote Procedure Call Locator
• Remote Registry
• Routing & Remote Access
• SSDP Discovery Service
• TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
• Telnet
• Upload Manager
• Windows Time
• Wireless Zero Configuration

Turning Off The Welcome Screen

Navigate to the Control Panel and select User Accounts then select the option that says Change the way users log on or off.

Speed Up Shared File Viewing across Network

Machines have been known to have a bit of a delay when ever trying to view files shared across a network, due to the fact that Windows is taking the extra time to search and see if the networked computer has any Scheduled Tasks. To prevent Windows from searching for scheduled tasks on a remote computer click Start > Run… Type regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace and delete the key {D62277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

Speed Up Shutdown Process

Many times, the shutdown process takes a while due to the fact that Windows is trying to clear the Page File. To stop Windows from clearing the Page File on shutdown click Start > Run… type regedit navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\ClearPageFileAtShutdown and set the value to 0.

Add Your Own Folders To The Send To Menu

Having your own folders in the Send To menu can be a big help. This way, when you right click on something and select Send To you can choose to send it to your very own special folder. To do this navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\username\SendTo\ and simply add your own shortcuts to what ever folders you want to appear.

Launch Any Program From The Run Dialog

We’ve been running applications like regedit by going to Start > Run. Now what if we could launch any application by doing this. We can! To do so, we need to once again, go to Start > Run… and type regedit. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\App Paths and 1) Add a subkey of the file name you wish to use. For example, Photoshop.exe. Set the default value’s data to the full path of the application. For example, C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop\Photoshop.exe. 2) Create a string value named Path that contains only the path. For example, C:\Progarm Files\Adobe\Photoshop\..

The above Windows XP Tips & Tricks should be used at your own risks'

Have fun and keep looking for ways to improve your Windows XP operating system!

Create One-Click Shutdown and Reboot Shortcuts

Create One-Click Shutdown and Reboot Shortcuts

First, create a shortcut on your desktop by right-clicking on the desktop, choosing New, and then choosing Shortcut. The Create Shortcut Wizard appears. In the box asking for the location of the shortcut, type shutdown. After you create the shortcut, double-clicking on it will shut down your PC.

But you can do much more with a shutdown shortcut than merely shut down your PC. You can add any combination of several switches to do extra duty, like this:

shutdown -r -t 01 -c "Rebooting your PC"

Double-clicking on that shortcut will reboot your PC after a one-second delay and display the message "Rebooting your PC." The shutdown command includes a variety of switches you can use to customize it. Table 1-3 lists all of them and describes their use.
I use this technique to create two shutdown shortcuts on my desktop—one for turning off my PC, and one for rebooting.


Here are the ones I use:
shutdown -s -t 03 -c "Bye Bye m8!"
shutdown -r -t 03 -c "Ill be back m8 ;)!"

Switch
What it does

-s Shuts down the PC.

-l Logs off the current user.

-t nn

Indicates the duration of delay, in seconds, before performing the action.

-c "messagetext" Displays a message in the System Shutdown window. A maximum of 127 characters can be used. The message must be enclosed in quotation marks.
-f Forces any running applications to shut down.

-r Reboots the PC.

Revolution next LCD

Revolution next LCD

LCDs and plasmas rule the consumer display market today. Desktops, televisions and mobile computing use LCD technology as it offers decent image quality with greater power-efficiency and economy. But LCDs aren't efficient in a brightly-lit ambience. A new display technology based on MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) pixels improves efficiency and response time without constant refreshing and backlight. This new technology is expected to give stiff competition to LCD technology.

Researchers from Microsoft and the University of Washington reportedly published the new pixel design, termed 'telescopic pixels design', in Nature Photonics. The telescopic pixel design is claimed to be more efficient, faster and brighter than those used in LCDs.Telescopic pixel design has a pair of disc-shaped pixel carrying micromirrors, one of which is stationary, with an aperture, and the other, a de-formable micro-mirror, is placed in front of the aperture. When the pixel is turned "on" with an electromagnetic force, the de-formable pixel bends to stop light or reflect it on the stationary mirror and let it surpass the pixel. When turned "off", light is reflected back to the source.

LCD transmits barely 5-10 per cent of backlight after passing through the polarizing films, the liquid crystal layer and the color filters. Displays based on telescopic pixels can transmit up to 36 per cent of backlight.

Telescopic pixel technology also has a faster response time of less than 1.5 milliseconds, while the LCD technology pixels take average 25 to 40 seconds for switching between black and white. Thus the ultra fast response time translates to simpler, low-cost color displays, claims Michael Sinclair from the Microsoft Research team.

Sinclair said that in telescopic design the pixels are fabricated in few layers and comparatively simpler than fabricating LCDs. Thus low-cost displays can be manufactured with a simplified production process and resultant displays would obviously be cheaper. Of course, this is still in the research stage, and its commercially viability and application have not been specified yet.

Cellphones greater threat than smoking

Cellphones greater threat than smoking

This, however, does not mean that smoking is better for health than using cellphones.

A top Australian neurosurgeon of Indian origin says that cell phones use is a greater threat to human health than smoking, which kills 5.4 million people each year. Dr Vini Khurana, a neurosurgeon at the Canberra Hospital, told UK’s Independent newspaper that there is growing evidence that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer.

Dr Khurana says that the cellphone threat is greater because far more people use cellphones than smoke worldwide, some of them starting use at the age of 3 years.

Over 3 billion people use cellphones, which is three times higher than the one billion people who use tobacco. In India, 250 million people use cellphones, second only after US’s 256 million users.

"The threat came from cell phone radiation having the potential to heat the side of the head or thermo-electrically interact with the brain, while Bluetooth devices and unshielded headsets could convert the user’s head into potentially self-harming antenna," said Dr Khurana.

He said that there have been increased reports of brain tumours associated with heavy and prolonged mobile phone use, particularly on the same side as the person’s “preferred” ear for making calls.

"Since cell phones were often a necessity," he says, "people should use them as little as possible and called on the phone industry to make them safer."

The World Health Organisation says that cellphones are safe but admits there are “gaps in knowledge” that need further research about health impact in the longterm. Three large international reviews have investigated and found no conclusive link between use of cell phones and brain cancer, tumours of the brain or leukaemia, and other cancers.

High power chip from Bangalore

High power chip from Bangalore

The world's largest chip maker Intel Corp has unveiled its most powerful six core microprocessor designed and developed at its India development centre in Bangalore.

The 45-nanometre chip boasts of a whopping 1.9 billion transistors, six processing cores and 16MB of shared cache memory in the Xeon family.

"The most powerful chip in the 45 nanometre space has been designed, developed, tested and validated in our Bangalore facility by the Indian team in a record two years," Intel India president Praveen Vishakantaiah told reporters at a preview of the 'made-in-India' product.

The Xeon server processor on which a host of applications can be built for virtualised environments and data-demanding workloads such as databases, business intelligence and enterprise resource planning (ERP) enhances performance by 50 percent, consuming much less power than its earlier versions - quad core and dual core processors.

"Platforms based on this enterprise chip can be scaled up to 16 processor sockets to deliver servers with 96 processing cores inside, offering scalability, ample computing threads, extensive memory resources and reliability for enterprise data centres," Vishakantaiah said.

Intel has released seven 45 nanometre manufactured Xeon processor 7400 series products to about 50 global vendors (OEMs) such as Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM, HP, NEC and Unisys and Indian vendors like HCL and Wipro for deployment in high-end enterprise servers.

End-products with the new chip will hit the market worldwide in a week.

The price of sequence processors range from $856-2729 for 1000 chips and can be deployed in the servers and CPUs (central processing units) of quad core or dual core versions.

"The new chip helps IT infrastructure to manage complex enterprise server environments, enhance performance of multi-thread applications. With new features such as additional cores, large shared caches and advanced virtualisation technologies," Intel South Asia sales director R. Ravichandran said.

Products with the new processor offer frequencies up to 2.66 GHz and consume just 11 watt power for each core, which is 50 watt less than quad core processors.

Codenamed Dunnington, Intel's first six-core 86 microprocessor was designed and developed two months ahead of its delivery schedule.

Intel India, set up a decade ago with over $1.7 billion investment, has also contributed to the development of Intel products such as Napa, Santa Rosa and Montevina mobile platforms, besides quad-core processors. It employs about 2,500 engineers.

Understanding IP addresses in Computers

Understanding IP addresses in Computers

Internet Protocol or IP addresses are common in today's world of networked computers. That's because every computer connected to a single network has an IP.

Washington: An IP address is a number that uniquely identifies a computer on a network. Every computer that's connected to a network, whether that network is the Internet or a private home or office network, has a unique IP address.

IP addresses consist of four sets of numbers, with each set separated by a period (dot), such as 192.168.100.111. Every domain name, such as www. microsoft.com, maps to a particular IP address.

IP addresses are meted out either as static or dynamic. A static IP address never changes. It's the type used by most major websites. A dynamic IP address is automatically assigned to a computer when you log on to a network. Most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) assign dynamic IP addresses to their customers.

There are two types of IP addresses, internal and external.
An internal IP address is also typically referred to as "non routable". That means that it's an IP address which usually is not exposed to the outside world. Each computer in a home or office network has an internal IP address, and it's that address that you would use to make one computer in an office network, for example, talk to talk to another computer within the same network.

To find your internal IP address, open the Windows Start menu, and select Run. On Windows Vista, simply press Windows Key-R. The Run dialog box opens. Type "cmd," without the quotation marks, in the Run dialog box, and press Enter. A DOS command prompt opens.

From the command prompt, type "ipconfig," without the quotation marks, and press Enter. In a second, Windows will return a small report labelled "Windows IP Configuration." Note that one of those lines, labelled "IP Address," provides your internal IP address. Write those numbers down. To exit the command window, type "exit," and press Enter.

Note that if your computer is configured to obtain an IP address automatically, as many are, this number could change periodically, especially if you must unplug the network cable and then plug it in to another outlet somewhere in a corporation or your home. Therefore, remember this procedure for retrieving your IP address.

An external IP address has also assigned by your ISP to the computer or router that's connected to the ISP.

An IP address is normally no secret. Websites, your Internet Service Provider (ISP), and others can track your IP address, allowing or forbidding access to certain resources if they wish.
You can hide your IP address, however, by using one of the many so-called cloaking services available on the Internet. Cloaking services use what's known as a proxy server to conceal your identity online by providing you with a temporary fake IP address.

To use a cloaking service, you typically log on to the cloaking site and use a form field to type in the address of the website you'd like to visit. Once you click "go," you're taken to the website through the cloaking service, and your IP address is hidden. It not only disguises your IP but also allows you to determine the level of security you'd like.