5 Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do

For all the folks with cell phones. (This should be printed and kept in your car, purse, and wallet. Good information to have with you.) There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies. Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it:

FIRST
Emergency

The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find Yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile network and there is an Emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to Establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly, this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.

SECOND
Have you locked your keys in the car?

Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys In the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other ‘remote’ for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).

Editor’s Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a cell phone!’

THIRD
Hidden Battery Power

Imagine your cell battery is very low. To activate, press the keys * 3370#.Your cell phone will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your cell phone next time.

FOURTH
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

To check your Mobile phone’s serial number, key in the following Digits on your phone:*#06#. A 15-digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe.

If your phone gets stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won’t get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can’t use/sell it either.. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.

And Finally…..

FIFTH
Free Directory Service for Cells

Cell phone companies are charging us $1.00 to $1.75 or more for 411 information calls when they don’t have to.. Most of us do not carry a telephone directory in our vehicle, which makes this situation even more of a problem. When you need to use the 411 information option, simply dial: (800) 373-3411 without incurring any charge at all. Program this into your cell phone now..

This is the kind of information people don’t mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends !…;-)

This builds upon my previous post about disabling PulseAudio in your login in Fedora 12, it is recommended that you read that article first to understand in depth what’s going on in a general sense. GDM in Fedora 12 is built to run PulseAudio (hereafter “PA”) which causes popping on my system, and more importantly makes noise in certain situations that I don’t want; for instance if you backspace over a typed password to the beginning it dongs at you. You cannot uninstall PA, you have to just disable it.

FIRST, using a little knowledge from a previous post about Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic having the same annoyance (sound in GDM) we’ll perform some similar steps. Install gconf-editor if you have not already, and run it as root:

$ su -
# yum install gconf-editor
# gconf-editor &

Inside the tool, navigate to the same key as the Ubuntu post:

/apps/gdm/simple-greeter/settings-manager-plugins/sound/

…untick the active key in order to disable the sound and exit the editor; this places a config file in the /root/ directory which I’m not entirely sure is needed, but can’t hurt. Now run the below command to place the exact same entry into your systemwide /etc/ configs:

# gconftool-2 –direct –config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory –type Boolean –set /apps/gdm/simple-greeter/settings-manager-plugins/sound/active False

That’s one big long line in case it’s cut off in the blog; it basically just writes the same setting to a file, nothing more. For the curious that is exactly /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory/apps/gdm/simple-greeter/settings-manager-plugins/sound/%gconf.xml – feel free to poke around.

NEXT, we disable PA from autospawning in the exact same way we did for the user login, GDM runs as a user ‘gdm’ group ‘gdm’ and has a home directory of /var/lib/gdm/ on your system. You’ll need to become root to add the file, then change owership to gdm:gdm when done:

$ su -
# vi /var/lib/gdm/.pulse/client.conf

  autospawn = no
  daemon-binary = /bin/true

# chown gdm:gdm /var/lib/gdm/.pulse/client.conf

…and presto, all sound is gone and PA never fires up for GDM; it seems on my system to also be faster now to load GDM during a log out/log in and initial startup session but I don’t have concrete evidence of that… yet. Once again, you may need to fully reboot depending on your particular machine’s setup.

PulseAudio has never worked correctly for me upon install, and I’m unwilling to spend the time to try and figure it out — to me, PulseAudio (hereafter referred to as “PA”) is a solution in need of a problem to solve on my laptops; also (and oss) have always worked just fine for everything I need. PA causes cracking, tearing and all sorts of undesirable side effects when it’s enabled and used.

Fedora 12 has integrated PA so deep now that any attempt to remove the RPMs (packages) result in an attempted uninstall of everything else (GDM, bluez, X11 and who knows what else). Ugly – it’s no longer a user choice to just not install it like in Fedora 10 and Fedora 11. Instead we have to do an end-run around it with a few simple steps.

FIRST, clean up all the extra *pulse* PA packages out of your system that can be removed; on my system I could easily remove packages such as:

alsa-plugins-pulseaudio
xine-lib-pulseaudio
xmms-pulse

This is arguably the most time consuming part; in the end, I am left with these packages below that can not be removed without harm to other components:

pulseaudio
pulseaudio-gdm-hooks
pulseaudio-libs
pulseaudio-libs-glib2
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
pulseaudio-module-gconf
pulseaudio-module
pulseaudio-utils

NEXT, open gnome-session-properties (Menu -> System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications) dialog and scroll to the bottom. There is listed an item entitled “PulseAudio Sound System” – go ahead and remove the checkmark from that option to disable it and close the dialog, saving your options.

LAST STEP, almost done – we need to stop the actual /usr/bin/pulseaudio binary from autospawning in the background under your user account. In your home directory there is a .pulse subdirectory (~/.pulse/) that stores per-user config files that are read before the system defaults are attempted to be used (if per-user are missing). Create a new file called client.conf in this directory:

$ vi ~/.pulse/client.conf

…and place these two lines in that file and save it:

  autospawn = no
  daemon-binary = /bin/true

These options should be a little self explanitory, we’re telling the system to not autospawn the binary but just in case it does we’re also telling it to run /bin/true instead of the real PA application.

Log out, log in (perhaps reboot) and presto – no more PA. I have tested the following apps with a few sample videos and music files (warning: I have RPM Fusion packages installed) and each app works just fine without touching a single setting after removing PA from my laptop:

Audacious2
Audio Player
Audacity
Exaile Music Player
GNOME Mplayer
Listen Music Player
Movie Player (aka Totem)
Mplayer Media Player
Rhythmbox Music Player
VLC media player
xine
XMMS

Yeah, I keep just a few media playing apps around. Firefox + Flash (youtube, e.g.) plays just fine as well — no detected problems so far. Your mileage may vary but it works for me on this Dell laptop.

Looking at some of the site statistics at The VG Press, it shows 82% of users reporting Java support enabled. One must then ask, WHY? Why do you have Java enabled? Java is a cross-platform language that in terms of what it provides as a browser is Java applet support.

Here are some examples of Java applets from Sun’s website:

http://java.sun.com/applets/jdk/1.4/index.html

If you can see those, you ought to go and disable Java now. For the most part, Java has disappeared from the web. A few uses remain in some web-based games, and speedtests as an alternative to flash, but that’s pretty much it. There is no reason to have it enabled by default.

I frequent ChessGames.com which uses an applet to allow to view games, so I have it selectively enabled for that singular site. This is what I would suggest to do with Java, if you need it at all in your web browser.

To do this in Firefox, you’ll require the NoScript extension. NoScript disables JavaScript, Java and other plug-ins and dynamic content by default, and allows you to selectively enable them.

If you just need to disable Java entirely, that’s an options in your preferences (Edit->Preferences) under the Content tab.

To do this in Opera you’ll need to go to your preferences (Toos->Preferences) then under the advanced tab go down to Content. Disable Java system wide is an option there, which you’ll want to do. Then click Manage Site Preferences in order to selectively enable it.

To do this in Internet Explorer, I only have the option to globally disable Java, and no way to selectively enable it, as it’s not an option for Trusted Zones. For disabling Java, you’ll go to Internet Options (Tools->Internet Options), then under the Advanced tab scroll down until you see “Use JRE 1.X.X for applet” and uncheck it.

Java has had a long history of security issues, and even that notwithstanding, the more plugins you have running, the more possibility there is for something to go wrong, as well as the more that has to be loaded. For the majority of cases, I’d suspect Java goes completely unused, so letting any old site make it available is wasteful and potentially harmful.

The Windows Firewall has always been a point of arguments for me and my co-workers.  It never quite works the way we want it to work; and we always disagree on what to do.  My manager usually decides to disable the Firewall completely.  I don’t think it’s the best way to go, but if you’re in a situation where you absolutely need to the Windows Firewall on all Windows client, this is how you do it on a Windows 2008 server. 

1. Go to Start > Administrative Tools > Policies
2. Select the policy to edit (Usually: the default policy), right-click and choose “edit”.
3. Go to Administrative Templates > Network > Network connections > Windows Firewall > Domain Profile.
4. Disable the “Protect All Network connections” rule.  Just to be sure, you can do the same for the “Standard Profile”, as well.

Now, all that’s left to do is update the clients.  It’s up to you to find a way that suits your needs.  Personally, I usually go to the client machines and use the following command:

gpupdate / force

Or, you could log off and log on again.  I wouldn’t recommend it on a network with many clients, though. 

Just a friendly warning:  Disabling your Windows Firewall might work for you, and solve your problem for now, but it’s not a safe way of working.  You should always have a firewall running.  Microsoft “Experts” will claim that the Windows Firewall must run at all time, but firewalls from third parties work just as well – or often even better.  For example, we use Trend Micro Worry Free, and the built-in firewall works perfectly for us, as it’s less “harsh.”  Find a firewall solution that works for you, and stick with it.

Zackary เด็กพิเศษวัย 6 ปี ที่เป็นแรงบันดาลใจในการสร้างบราวเซอร์พันธุ์ใหม่ Zac Browser For Autistic Children

คุณปู่ผู้อยู่ในแวดวงธุรกิจซอฟต์แวร์ทนไม่ไหว เมื่อเห็นหลายชาย 6 ปีซึ่งป่วยเป็นโรคออทิสติกต้องอารมณ์เสียจนขว้างเมาส์คอมพิวเตอร์ทิ้งหลาย ครั้งที่ไม่สามารถใช้งานคอมพิวเตอร์ได้ดั่งใจ ไหนๆก็เสิร์ชหาโปรแกรมสำหรับเด็กออทิสติกในโลกออนไลน์ไม่พบ จึงลงมือสร้างเองพร้อมใจบุญเผื่อแผ่ให้เด็กที่มีภาวะการเรียนรู้บกพร่องทั่ว โลกได้ใช้งานด้วย

คุณปู่ใจบุญรายนี้มีชื่อว่า John LeSieur เป็นผู้สร้างโปรแกรมเว็บบราวเซอร์พันธุ์ใหม่ Zac Browser For Autistic Children โดยอุทิศความดีให้กับหลานชายนาม Zackary เด็กพิเศษวัย 6 ปีซึ่งเป็นแรงบันดาลใจในการสร้าง ซึ่งคุณแม่ของหนูน้อยรายงานว่า Zackary สามารถใช้งาน Zac Browser ในการท่องโลกอินเทอร์เน็ตได้ด้วยตนเอง ซึ่งเป็นสิ่งที่หนูน้อยไม่เคยทำได้แม้จะชื่นชอบการฟังเพลงผ่านโปรแกรมและการ เล่นเกมตัวต่อ puzzle ด้วยคอมพิวเตอร์มาตลอด

คุณ ปู่ LeSieur นั้นมองว่า โลกออนไลน์นั้นสร้างโอกาสการเรียนรู้และการสื่อสารที่สำคัญให้กับมนุษย์ก็จริง แต่สำหรับกลุ่มคนที่มีความบกพร่องด้านการเรียนรู้ คอมพิวเตอร์กลายเป็นปัญหาใหม่ที่ครอบครัวต้องปวดหัวเพราะต้องพยายามสอนให้ ใช้งาน ซึ่งเมื่อเด็กพิเศษเกิดความผิดหวังในการคลิกหรือกดปุ่มใดๆ อาการชักหรือปฏิกิริยาเฉพาะรายก็จะปรากฎขึ้นทันทีคุณปู่ LeSieur จึงพัฒนาให้ Zac Browser ใช้งานง่ายที่สุด ไม่มีฟังก์ชันบล็อกคอนเทนท์ลามกอนาจารสำหรับผู้ใหญ่อย่างที่บราวเซอร์สำหรับเด็กทั่วไปนิยมมี แต่มีฟังก์ชันที่ให้ผู้ปกครองสามารถเลือกเกม เพลง วีดีโอ หรือภาพเสมือนเพื่อสร้างความบันเทิงอย่างสระน้ำจำลอง จากเว็บไซต์ที่ให้บริการฟรีได้ตามต้องการแทน

ที่สำคัญ ปู่ LeSieur ฝังคำสั่งลดตัวควบคุมลงเพื่อให้เด็กออทิสติกสามารถควบคุม Zac Browser ได้ง่ายขึ้น เช่น ปุ่มฟังก์ชันต่างๆ บนคีย์บอร์ดจะถูก disable เพื่อให้ไม่เกิดผลใดๆบนหน้าจอหากเด็กเผลอกดโดน มีการปิดการทำงานของเมาส์ขวา เพื่อให้เด็กไม่เสียความมั่นใจหากคลิกเมาส์ผิด นอกจากนี้ Zac Browser ยังมีไอคอนขนาดใหญ่กว่าบราวเซอร์ปกติ ไม่มีโฆษณาให้รกจอและไม่มีภาพกระพริบที่ทำให้เด็กเกิดภาวะลมชัก

คุณ ปู่ LeSieur ให้เหตุผลว่าหากไม่มีการควบคุมเช่นนี้ ผู้ป่วยออทิสติกจะเกิดอาการผิดหวังได้ง่าย โดยยอมรับว่า Zac Browser ไม่ได้สร้างขึ้นจากคำแนะนำของนักวิชาการด้านออทิสติก แต่สร้างขึ้นมาเพื่อความต้องการของ Zackary โดยเฉพาะ และต้องการให้บราวเซอร์นี้มีประโยชน์ต่อเด็กที่มีอาการออทิสติกด้วยกัน ซึ่งการพัฒนาโปรแกรมในระยะที่สอง คุณปู่จะเปิดกว้างเพื่อรับความต้องการของผู้ปกครองรายอื่น ว่าต้องการให้ Zac Browser มีคุณสมบัติใดเพิ่มเติม

นักวิชาการด้านออทิสติกนั้นแสดงความยินดีเมื่อได้ฟังข่าวการแจ้งเกิด ของ Zac Browser และไม่ประหลาดใจว่าโลกออนไลน์ยังขาดแคลนโปรแกรมสำหรับเด็กออทิสติกอย่างหนัก โดยให้ความเห็นว่าอาการออทิสติกนั้นมีหลากหลาย โปรแกรมคอมพิวเตอร์ที่ออกแบบสำหรับเด็กออทิสติกแบบครอบคลุมจะเป็นประโยชน์ มากกว่า ขณะที่นักวิชาการบางรายให้ความเห็นว่า โปรแกรมบราวเซอร์ยังไม่จำเป็นจำหรับเด็กออทิสติก เพราะเด็กจะไม่สามารถแยกแยะเนื้อหามหาศาลบนโลกออนไลน์ได้

อย่างไรก็ตาม Zac Browser นั้นเปิดให้ใช้งานฟรี ต่างจากซอฟต์แวร์เพื่อเด็กพิเศษทั่วไปที่มีค่าบริการขั้นต่ำ 5,000 เหรียญ ต้องใช้อุปกรณ์เฉพาะทาง คาดว่าจะเป็นประโยชน์ให้กับเด็กพิเศษบางส่วนได้

โดย ASTVผู้จัดการออนไลน์

Ted always has thoughtful things to say.  You can disable the GPS in your iPhone easily by going to settings and turning off location services.  It can make a difference in extending battery life as well.  Click here to read this timeless post.

Disclaimer: We shall not be held responsible for anything related to the guide below. We are in no way affiliated with AVG, Grisoft, or any of their subsidiaries.

To disable the banner at the bottom of AVG Free:

1. Go to \Program Files\AVG\AVG9(or
2. Rename these files:

- avgfree_us.mht to avgfree_us.mht.bak

- avgmwdef_us.mht to avgmwdef_us.mht.bak

- any other files ending with the ‘.mht’ extension to ‘.bak’ …

- avgresf.dll to avgresf.dll.bak

If you’ve updated to the latest AVG Free 9.0.704 and you get an ad in the main interface beside the listed components, do these steps to disable it:

1. Go to \Program Files\AVG\AVG9(or
2. Rename ‘avgui.exe’ to ‘avgui.exe.new’
3. Rename ‘avgui.exe.old’ to ‘avgui.exe’

That’s it!

Sources: Wilders Security

If you’re an Adobe Photoshop user or any other Adobe product, you’ll notice that it’ll automatically check for updates once a month. On top of that, it will also create a folder by the name of  ‘Updater’ somewhere on your system(usually by-default at ‘My Documents’). If you’re not keen on checking for updates automatically and would like to stop the auto-creation of the ‘Updater’ folder, follow the simple steps below -

Disabling the Adobe Automatic Updater:

1. Start the AdobeUpdater.exe application from …\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Updater*
2. When the update screen appears, click the Preferences button
3. Uncheck the Automatically Check for updates checkbox and click OK
4. [Optional]You can also untick all the application to update if you’re paranoid

Disabling the auto-creation of the ‘Updater’ folder:

1. Navigate to …\Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\Updater* on Windows XP                                        or …\[username]\AppData\Local\Adobe\Updater* on Vista
2. Locate and open the  ‘AdobeUpdaterPrefs.dat’ file in Notepad(drag and drop into Notepad window)
3. Locate the <DownloadDir>…</DownloadDir> tag. Change contents between the tags to something else(eg. nowhere)
4. Save and close the notepad
5. This should prevent Adobe Updater from creating the folder anymore because there’s no valid location to create one

*certain versions of Adobe products have numbers(eg. 5) in front of the folder name

When you start any Adobe product, the ‘Updater’ folder should not appear anymore and you can double check to see if your efforts above were successful. Start the AdobeUpdater.exe application again and see if it matches our one:

Congratulations! You have successfully disabled the Adobe Updater.

If you want disable the Backspace key in your JSF Richfaces application put this in your view:

<rich:hotKey key="backspace" handler="return false;" disableInInput="true"/>

This will register a jQuery Hotkey handler for the document. The handler is not reqistered for input elements because in input fields you need the backspace . Tested for FF3 and IE6.

Then I found out that the following snippet doesn’t work:

<rich:hotKey key="backspace"
             disableInInput="true"
             handler="alert('Backspace is disabled'); return false;" />

The Browser open the alert box and go to the previous page (in background?!). But there is a fix for that:

<rich:hotKey key="backspace"
             disableInInput="true"
             handler="alert('Backspace is disabled'); event.stopPropagation(); event.preventDefault(); return false;" />

The event variable is available in the handler function (see org.richfaces.renderkit.html.HotKeyRenderer method doEncodeEnd).

Eccomi di nuovo. Vi sarà capitato di accendere il pc e visualizzare la solita schermata del tipo: “Windows si deve riavviare per completare gli aggiornamenti” e noi abbiamo la possibilità di riavviare subito oppure c’è un timer che riavvia in automatico dopo un tot di tempo.

Sicuramente vi sarà capitato di aver messo a scaricare qualcosa, allontanarvi un attimo e toh Pc riavviato per magia.

Vediamo come risolvere questo problema.

Continua a leggere….

Disabling a network card when running sysprepping a Windows machine is easy.  Two things need to happen: 

I dont know about everyone else but for some reason I just found the notification system really annoying with my Ubuntu setup, after struggling with a few files and settings finally was able to get it all disabled.

Here is a quick how-to in case someone wants to disable/enable it….

For disabling use the following:

sudo mv /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.freedesktop.Notifications.service
/usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.freedesktop.Notifications.service.disabled

To re-enable it:

sudo mv /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.freedesktop.Notifications.service.
disabled /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.freedesktop.Notifications.service

–
Shoaib Mir
shoaibmir[@]gmail.com

Read this thread to find out how it is possible.  Click here.  Fixed the issue for one of the posters by getting a swap of the iPhone.

There is a nice replacement for the default Windows Mobile 6.5 display lock: S2U2 (Slide 2 Unlock 2) available at: http://s2v.ac-s2.com/
Unfortunately, after installing S2U2 on my HTC Touch 2, both locks locked the display. In order to disable the WM 6.5 lock add the registry entry

“HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Keybd\DeviceLockWhenSuspend”

as DWORD and set it to “0″. After a softreset I was able to lock the device with S2U2 by pressing the power/decline-button. Windows did not lock the device any more.

Widows

Asumsi: Jika kebutuhan komputer bukan untuk  jaringan, ada baiknya anda mematikan service-service seperti dibawah ini agar Windows XP anda dapat lebih aman dan lebih cepat.

Caranya yaitu:

Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services

Lalu buka masing-masing service yang ada dibawah ini dan pilih Disabled pada pilihan Startup Type.

Berikut service-service yang layak anda matikan jika anda menggunakan komputer hanya seorang diri saja/tidak koneksi dengan jaringan:

• Alerter
• Clipbook
• Computer Browser
• Fast User Switching
• Human Interface Access Devices
• Indexing Service (Memperlambat kinerja hard drive)
• Messenger
• Net Logon (tidak perlu kecuali jaringan dalam sebuah Domain)
• Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (dimatikan biar lebih aman)
• Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (dimatikan biar lebih aman)
• Remote Procedure Call Locator
• Remote Registry (dimatikan biar lebih aman)
• Routing & Remote Access (dimatikan biar lebih aman)
• Server
• SSDP Discovery Service (tidak berguna dan bahkan akan membuka port TCP 5000
• TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
• Telnet (dimatikan biar lebih aman)
• Universal Plug and Play Device Host
• Upload Manager
• Windows Time
• Wireless Zero Configuration (untuk jaringan wireless)
• Workstation

Semoga bermanfaat…………

Since defragging the disk won’t do much to improve Windows XP performance, here are 23 suggestions that will. Each can enhance the performance and reliability of your customers’ PCs. Best of all, most of them will cost you nothing.
1.) To decrease a system’s boot time and increase system performance, use the money you save by not buying defragmentation software — the built-in Windows defragmenter works just fine — and instead equip the computer with an Ultra-133 or Serial ATA hard drive with 8-MB cache buffer.

2.) If a PC has less than 512 MB of RAM, add more memory. This is a relatively inexpensive and easy upgrade that can dramatically improve system performance.

3.) Ensure that Windows XP is utilizing the NTFS file system. If you’re not sure, here’s how to check: First, double-click the My Computer icon, right-click on the C: Drive, then select Properties. Next, examine the File System type; if it says FAT32, then back-up any important data. Next, click Start, click Run, type CMD, and then click OK. At the prompt, type CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS and press the Enter key. This process may take a while; it’s important that the computer be uninterrupted and virus-free. The file system used by the bootable drive will be either FAT32 or NTFS. I highly recommend NTFS for its superior security, reliability, and efficiency with larger disk drives.

4.) Disable file indexing. The indexing service extracts information from documents and other files on the hard drive and creates a “searchable keyword index.” As you can imagine, this process can be quite taxing on any system.

The idea is that the user can search for a word, phrase, or property inside a document, should they have hundreds or thousands of documents and not know the file name of the document they want. Windows XP’s built-in search functionality can still perform these kinds of searches without the Indexing service. It just takes longer. The OS has to open each file at the time of the request to help find what the user is looking for.

Most people never need this feature of search. Those who do are typically in a large corporate environment where thousands of documents are located on at least one server. But if you’re a typical system builder, most of your clients are small and medium businesses. And if your clients have no need for this search feature, I recommend disabling it.

Here’s how: First, double-click the My Computer icon. Next, right-click on the C: Drive, then select Properties. Uncheck “Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching.” Next, apply changes to “C: subfolders and files,” and click OK. If a warning or error message appears (such as “Access is denied”), click the Ignore All button.

5.) Update the PC’s video and motherboard chipset drivers. Also, update and configure the BIOS. For more information on how to configure your BIOS properly, see this article on my site.

6.) Empty the Windows Prefetch folder every three months or so. Windows XP can “prefetch” portions of data and applications that are used frequently. This makes processes appear to load faster when called upon by the user. That’s fine. But over time, the prefetch folder may become overloaded with references to files and applications no longer in use. When that happens, Windows XP is wasting time, and slowing system performance, by pre-loading them. Nothing critical is in this folder, and the entire contents are safe to delete.

7.) Once a month, run a disk cleanup. Here’s how: Double-click the My Computer icon. Then right-click on the C: drive and select Properties. Click the Disk Cleanup button — it’s just to the right of the Capacity pie graph — and delete all temporary files.

8.) In your Device Manager, double-click on the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers device, and ensure that DMA is enabled for each drive you have connected to the Primary and Secondary controller. Do this by double-clicking on Primary IDE Channel. Then click the Advanced Settings tab. Ensure the Transfer Mode is set to “DMA if available” for both Device 0 and Device 1. Then repeat this process with the Secondary IDE Channel.

9.) Upgrade the cabling. As hard-drive technology improves, the cabling requirements to achieve these performance boosts have become more stringent. Be sure to use 80-wire Ultra-133 cables on all of your IDE devices with the connectors properly assigned to the matching Master/Slave/Motherboard sockets. A single device must be at the end of the cable; connecting a single drive to the middle connector on a ribbon cable will cause signaling problems. With Ultra DMA hard drives, these signaling problems will prevent the drive from performing at its maximum potential. Also, because these cables inherently support “cable select,” the location of each drive on the cable is important. For these reasons, the cable is designed so drive positioning is explicitly clear.

10.) Remove all spyware from the computer. Use free programs such as AdAware by Lavasoft or SpyBot Search & Destroy. Once these programs are installed, be sure to check for and download any updates before starting your search. Anything either program finds can be safely removed. Any free software that requires spyware to run will no longer function once the spyware portion has been removed; if your customer really wants the program even though it contains spyware, simply reinstall it. For more information on removing Spyware visit this Web Pro News page.

11.) Remove any unnecessary programs and/or items from Windows Startup routine using the MSCONFIG utility. Here’s how: First, click Start, click Run, type MSCONFIG, and click OK. Click the StartUp tab, then uncheck any items you don’t want to start when Windows starts. Unsure what some items are? Visit the WinTasks Process Library. It contains known system processes, applications, as well as spyware references and explanations. Or quickly identify them by searching for the filenames using Google or another Web search engine.

12.) Remove any unnecessary or unused programs from the Add/Remove Programs section of the Control Panel.

13.) Turn off any and all unnecessary animations, and disable active desktop. In fact, for optimal performance, turn off all animations. Windows XP offers many different settings in this area. Here’s how to do it: First click on the System icon in the Control Panel. Next, click on the Advanced tab. Select the Settings button located under Performance. Feel free to play around with the options offered here, as nothing you can change will alter the reliability of the computer — only its responsiveness.

14.) If your customer is an advanced user who is comfortable editing their registry, try some of the performance registry tweaks offered at Tweak XP.

15.) Visit Microsoft’s Windows update site regularly, and download all updates labeled Critical. Download any optional updates at your discretion.

16.) Update the customer’s anti-virus software on a weekly, even daily, basis. Make sure they have only one anti-virus software package installed. Mixing anti-virus software is a sure way to spell disaster for performance and reliability.

17.) Make sure the customer has fewer than 500 type fonts installed on their computer. The more fonts they have, the slower the system will become. While Windows XP handles fonts much more efficiently than did the previous versions of Windows, too many fonts — that is, anything over 500 — will noticeably tax the system.

18.) Do not partition the hard drive. Windows XP’s NTFS file system runs more efficiently on one large partition. The data is no safer on a separate partition, and a reformat is never necessary to reinstall an operating system. The same excuses people offer for using partitions apply to using a folder instead. For example, instead of putting all your data on the D: drive, put it in a folder called “D drive.” You’ll achieve the same organizational benefits that a separate partition offers, but without the degradation in system performance. Also, your free space won’t be limited by the size of the partition; instead, it will be limited by the size of the entire hard drive. This means you won’t need to resize any partitions, ever. That task can be time-consuming and also can result in lost data.

19.) Check the system’s RAM to ensure it is operating properly. I recommend using a free program called MemTest86. The download will make a bootable CD or diskette (your choice), which will run 10 extensive tests on the PC’s memory automatically after you boot to the disk you created. Allow all tests to run until at least three passes of the 10 tests are completed. If the program encounters any errors, turn off and unplug the computer, remove a stick of memory (assuming you have more than one), and run the test again. Remember, bad memory cannot be repaired, but only replaced.

20.) If the PC has a CD or DVD recorder, check the drive manufacturer’s Web site for updated firmware. In some cases you’ll be able to upgrade the recorder to a faster speed. Best of all, it’s free.

21.) Disable unnecessary services. Windows XP loads a lot of services that your customer most likely does not need. To determine which services you can disable for your client, visit the Black Viper site for Windows XP configurations.

22.) If you’re sick of a single Windows Explorer window crashing and then taking the rest of your OS down with it, then follow this tip: open My Computer, click on Tools, then Folder Options. Now click on the View tab. Scroll down to “Launch folder windows in a separate process,” and enable this option. You’ll have to reboot your machine for this option to take effect.

23.) At least once a year, open the computer’s cases and blow out all the dust and debris. While you’re in there, check that all the fans are turning properly. Also inspect the motherboard capacitors for bulging or leaks. For more information on this leaking-capacitor phenomena, you can read numerous articles on my site.
Following any of these suggestions should result in noticeable improvements to the performance and reliability of your customers’ computers. If you still want to defrag a disk, remember that the main benefit will be to make your data more retrievable in the event of a crashed drive.

TBILISI, Georgia- Every day Manana Galuashvili wakes up at 9 o’clock, works with her computer till one and then lookes through her blue notebook to find out what meetings she has for that day. Her day is strictly scheduled.  55- year-old Manana Galuashvili with a physical disability is the founder and the president of Georgian Disabled Women’s International Association. At the same time she works as a consultant and expert for the human rights for the international organizations. And this is not all.  Soon she will become a grandmother. Manana has already started to make hundreds of plans for her future grandchild.

“I am so happy. I can hardly wait for that moment”, she said.

Manana Galuashvili. Photo by Gayane Avetisyan

With all her expectations and emotions for her future grandchild, Manana Galuashvili goes on with her everyday work in Georgian Disabled Women’s International Association.  Together with her colleagues they write projects which will provide women with disabilities with opportunities to be involved in social life.

“It is totally unequal conditions for male and female disabled people in the society and in the family. Parents and relatives do their best to create appropriate environment for the men, though in the case of women they can simply hide her from the society in a dark corner of the house. As a result they don’t go to schools, don’t work and finally are isolated from the society”, Manana said.

There are about 1000 members in their association. Most of them are women and as Manana told here each of them happened to find a strong personality inside themselves.

27 years old Ketevan Khokhobashvili with a physical disability came to the association one year ago. Here she started to evaluate herself and her abilities. Later on she took to deal with her hobby which is now her job. After taking lessons of felting Ketevan started to create not only nice pieces of work but also to earn money.  Now she sells her hand-made works of thick felt having profitable progress.

“It is important to have support of the family. I am very lucky in this case. It is my stepmother and father who pushed and gave me opportunity to do what I like” said Ketevan showing and making the last adjustments on a nice small red bag which will be sold for 90 GEL.

Ketevan's works. Photo by Gayane Avetisyan

The government of Georgia and the Coalition for independent life had been working together for three months and made a Plan of Actions for three years. Plan of Actions consists of 52 pages and considers the steps according to which conditions will be created for the people with disabilities to get job and to be involved in social life.

“The plan will be accepted in three months and I am really hopeful that it will have its positive influence”, said Georgi Dzneladze, who is the head of the Coalition.

50 years old Georgi Dzneladze who uses a wheelchair has been working in NGO sphere for almost 20 years. In 2003 21 NGO-s came together and created coalition which aims to protect the rights of the people with disabilities.

The lawyer Sandro Baramidze is a specialist of Human rights. He said that in terms of law everybody is equal, which means that there should be no discrimination even based on physical ability or disability.

“As long as disabled person seeks to have a job he or she needs to be equally treated in terms of payments and whatever other treatment can be discussed by society,” said Sandro Baramidze.

38-year-old Natia Gogolashvili with physical disabilities has graduated the philological faculty of Tbilisi State University. It is very hard for Natia to write and all the exams she gave by speaking. She remembers how one of her lecturer ones told her. “Why do you study so hard, anyway you will not be able to work and to show your knowledge”.

“It was very painful for me. I wish he could see me now and understand how deeply he was mistaken”, said Natia proudly.

For many years Natia has worked in Georgian Disabled Women’s International Association and from September of this year she also works as a journalist in the newspaper “Dialogue” published by Geocell mobile company.

“In an exhibition, organized in June 2009, works of people with disabilities were to be shown. The representatives of Geocell read my story and granted me with this job. I wrote that story some months ago and told about my life, how the teacher in a school made an announcement that there will be basketball team and how much I wanted to be in that team, but I didn’t get chance”, told Natia.

Now she has the chance to tell people through her stories about her life and dreams that she had.

“Dreams… You know I don’t dare to dream. But no…  I dream that I will fall in love but at the same time I am afraid of my dream. I don’t dare to think about it”, she said.

What she really dares to do and what she has done all her life is giving power to friends, them who lost their interest in life. Despite all the difficulties Natia had in her life she never stops to smile and hope.

“People shouldn’t lose their optimism. Even in a very hopeless situation one smile can make wonders. They didn’t let me play basketball when I was in a school, but because of that story I got a chance to tell people how wrong they were. We want to throw our ball in the basket too and we will do that”, said Natia Gogolashvili.

By Arevik Badalyan, Gayane Avetisyan, Marianna Pepanyan

there are two good third party softwares i found to do the job… but first:
purpose, why i need to enable disable network card?
in my case i have this complex computer arrangement that one computer has two connection, one to LAN A one to LAN B, LAN A and B is not connected they have different PDC, and the access time is different, LAN A is for day time, while LAN B is for night time.

now what are the two softwares?
first is the simplest one, ToggleNic, it really simple you just need to use the name of the NIC. for example:
ToggleNic.exe “Local Area Connection”
this will enable the connection of “Local Area COnnection”
while:
ToggleNic.exe “Local Area Connection” disable
will disable it.

what is the bad thing about it? it will only work for xp, so you can use it to w2k below…
now this second software can work for w2k, but the real purpose of the software is not just to enable disable NIC, but wider than that, it is to act as the “command line version of the device manager”
and the command line is not using device name but the hardware id, which is mostly gibberish, but fortunately we can use wild card for the name identification, so we don’t need to type all the gibberish hardware id… the syntax is like this:
first you need to find the hardware id of your device, in xp you can easily find it but in w2k you can’t see it unless it is a troubled device (the yellow question mark in device manager). so how to do it? just type:

devcon find *

it will list all the hardware installed in your computer, look for network card…

after you found the right NIC hardware id, you can use:

devcon.exe disable [hardware id]

the [hardware id] can use wildcard, but remember if the wildcards matches more than one device then all that devices that match the wildcard will be disable, so be careful!

so instead typing:

devcon disable PCIVEN_8086&DEV_1229&SUBSYS_005C1014

you can type:

devcon.exe disable PCIVEN_8086*

now what happened when you have similiar NIC? it mush have the same id…

PCIVEN_8086&DEV_1229&SUBSYS_005C1014&REV_024&10010000&0&48F0

PCIVEN_8086&DEV_1229&SUBSYS_005C1014&REV_024&10011000&0&48F0

like you see above, the hw id is the same but the tail is different, so can we use this:
devcon.exe disable PCIVEN_8086&DEV_1229&SUBSYS_005C1014&REV_024&10010000&0&48F0

no you can’t because the tail is the class id, not the hardware id

so instead you use this command:

devcon.exe disable @PCI**10010000*

this way, you’ll only disable one NIC not both