Is your computer not as fast as it used to be? Do you consistently get application crashes, “time outs” and the dreaded hourglass? When you press the power button on your computer in the morning, can you start the coffee, take a shower, style your hair and get dressed, all before your computer is finished booting?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, your computer needs more than another cup of coffee. It needs a tune-up. You probably already know that there are a myriad of ways that a computer repair professional can help you. But, unfortunately, not everyone can afford to call a computer repair specialist every time something breaks – especially those hardest hit by the current economic downturn.

I’ll be honest, here. As a computer repair consultant and owner of a computer repair shop in Colorado, I am not one to suggest the use of free tools very often. When someone can afford to purchase software, I usually advise them to purchase a quality retail product, because the paid-for software is typically far superior and the user is entitled to support.

In my experience, free tools are usually either crippled versions of their related non-free products, or simply don’t do a good enough job to be useful. But, there are a few free tools that are exceptions to that rule, and offer a good product for those who genuinely cannot afford to purchase off-the-shelf software.

So, with that being said, here are my 5 suggestions for free tools to speed up your slow computer. All 5 of these popular tools can be searched for and found easily through Google.

1. CCleaner

CCleaner is legendary for its usefulness in helping rid computer systems of any and all junk that has accumulated on a hard drive. However, there is a hidden gem in CCleaner: its ability to find and clean problems in the registry.

Using CCleaner once per week will keep your system running pretty smoothly all by itself. But, combining it with the other tools listed below will give you some synergistic results. For example, in our computer repair shop, we use CCleaner before any antivirus scan because it will help the scan go much faster (the resulting drive has fewer files to scan). For choose anyother registry optimizer tools, you do have to free scan your PC  before any obligation to buy and you can also try the demo version the registry cleaner has to offer to check out the ease of use and functionality of the interface.

2. Startup Inspector for Windows

In case you didn’t know, too many programs that load on start-up can quickly cripple a good computer. Limiting start-up programs to only the bare essentials is an excellent way to reclaim much lost speed. Some people even go to extremes and disable all start-up programs and non-Microsoft services, but that can have a negative impact on things such as backup schedules, antivirus protection, and useful keyboard shortcut keys.

Startup Inspector for Windows takes the guess work out of this process. Not only does this utility take the place of MSCONFIG’s very limiting interface for managing start-up programs, but it also has the ability to access a database of known start-up programs. It will even give you suggestions for disabling certain applications, or leaving them intact so as to not limit the functionality of certain programs.

3. Malwarebytes

Nothing chokes a computer’s speed faster than Malware. But, how do you sort the good from the bad? Is that toolbar you installed a bad program? How about that game you love to play online? Could that “coupon finding” toolbar that you just installed be a virus in disguise?

That’s where Malwarebytes can help. It’s one of the best free malware removal utilities that I know of. Many seasoned computer repair technicians swear by it. Although the free version of Malwarebytes is “crippleware” (the free version doesn’t provide real-time protection), it does a very good job if run manually on a regular basis.

4. Avast Antivirus

Avast is a program that I’ve warmed up to over the years. As I stated earlier, I’m picky about that software I recommend. That goes double for antivirus protection, because antivirus protection is usually your only barrier between you and the scumbags of the Internet. I will never respect those who would steal and use someone else’s identity and/or financial information to get something for nothing, rather than to work honestly for what they want.

If you absolutely cannot afford antivirus protection, do not go without it. Instead, download Avast Home Edition. Avast Home Edition is completely free, but you do have to register it before the 60 day trial has expired. Registration is free, and afterward you can use it for a year before having to re-register. In addition to being free, Avast works pretty well, too.

5. Defraggler

Without getting into the technical details of what fragmentation is, or how it happens, let’s just say that if you haven’t defragmented your hard drive lately, you are probably overdue. Defragging your hard drive is like reorganizing your storage closet. It makes things easier (and therefore quicker) to find.

There are very few tools that rival Defraggler. Although I tend to prefer Diskeeper more than Defraggler due to it’s ability to perform real-time defragmenting, Diskeeper is not free. However, Defraggler is a close second to Diskeeper and is completely free of charge.

Coincidentally, Defraggler is made by the same company as CCleaner. It seems that Piriform is on a roll when it comes to developing and releasing free and useful utilities. Google the term “defraggler”, download it, use it. Leave it running overnight, as it will probably take several hours to finish.

The Clean-Up Proces – Step by Step

The order you use these free computer repair tools are up to you, but as a professional who has done this more times that I can count, here is my recommendation for how to use these free tools to speed up your slow computer.

1. Use Startup Inspector for Windows to remove unneeded programs from startup
2. Reboot
3. Use CCleaner to clean junk files from the system
4. Clean the registry with CCleaner
5. Reboot
6. Update Malwarebytes and scan. Remove anything it finds.
7. Reboot if it recommends you to do so.
8. Update Avast and scan. It should quarantine anything it finds automatically.
9. Reboot if needed.
10. Use CCleaner (again) to clean up any junk left over from the virus removal.
11. Yes, clean the registry with CCleaner one more time, also.
12. Defrag the hard drive to reorganize the remaining “good” data on your drive.

Conclusion

In 9 out of 10 cases, using these 5 free utilities will have your computer back up to speed. If you properly utilize these tools and your computer is still not functioning properly, it doesn’t mean that the tools did not work.

Perhaps your computer problem is beyond the scope of these tools. Maybe you don’t have a sufficient amount of RAM memory. There is also a possibility that your computer has a serious hardware issue (such as a failing hard drive) which requires the attention of a computer repair professional.

Luckily there a hundreds of websites on the Internet that will provide free advice to those in need. They won’t do the work for you for free, but will be glad to provide information and resources to help you help yourself. There are even a few that offer free video training on how to repair your own computer. By doing your homework and asking a lot of questions, you can learn to solve any computer problem without spending any money at all.

Copyright for : Bradley Chapple, IT Consultant & Owner of Aspen Computer Services, Loveland Colorado

A centre for learning free software,sharing knowledge and bringing benefits of IT to common man.

FLC

Vylasseri road,Palarivattom,Kochi-682 025

ph:9847446918   email:ibmanoj@gmail.com

Deseori sunt întrebat cu ce este mai bun software-ul liber decât cel proprietar( cu ce este mai bun sistemul de operare GNU/Linux decât Windows, OpenOffice decât Microsoft Office, Firefox decât Explorer, etc. ).  Dacă veţi citi mai jos, veţi  înţelege.

Versiunea 1.0

Libertatea de a folosi programul pentru orice scop

Software-ul liber( GNU/Linux, OpenOffice ):  Da, puteţi folosi software-ul pentru orice scop, acasă, în comerţ, în business, la socală, oriunde – fară a plăti şi a fi restricţionat de vre-o licenţă.

Sofware-ul proprietar( Windows, MS Ofiice ): Nu, pentru diferite domenii se aplică diferite licenţe, iar pentru fiecare licenţă trebuie să plătiţi.

Libertatea de a studia modul de funcţionare a programului și de a-l adapta la nevoile proprii.

Software-ul liber:  Da, puteţi studia modul de funcţionare a programului deoarece aveţi codul sursă, puteţi modifica şi-l adapta la nevoie proprii, fară a înştiinţa pe cineva sau să aveţi autorizaţie. Programul îl puteţi modifica singur,  cu ajutorul unui prieten sau plătind un programator, o firmă sau o companie care oferă astfel de servicii. Comunităţile, companiile, firmele, businessmanii. universităţile, toţi care folosesc software-ul, au liberatea să modifice sau să se adreseze la cei care prestează servicii – pentru a elimina erorile din program sau a-l îmbunătăţi, adapta la nevoie proprii.

Sofware-ul proprietar: Nu, este ilegal să deţineţi codul sursă şi nici să studiaţi modul de funcţionare. Deoarece nu aveţi permisiunea să posedaţi codul sursă, nu puteţi modifica programul şi ar fi ilegal să modificaţi, nici atunci când lucrând cu acest software observaţi erori pe care a-ţi dori să fie eliminate. Doar prorietarul software-ului deţine codul sursă şi poate face modificările necesare, doar el decide când şi ce să modifice,  în favoarea cui. Utilizatorul trebuie să aştepte când proprietarul software-ului va decide ce este important de modificat în software şi când va face asta.

Libertatea de a redistribui copii, în scopul ajutorării celor din jur

Software-ul liber:  Da, orice utilizator poate face liber copii la software-ul pe care îl foloseşte şi redistribui oricui, pe gratis sau contra plată – fară să înştiinţeze pe cineva sau să fie autorizat, sau să aibă vre-o obligaţie faţă de cineva.

Sofware-ul proprietar: Nu, este ilegal să faceţi copii, este ilegal să redistribuiţi, trebuie să fiţi autorizaţ pentru asta. Dacă utilizatorul face copii şi redistribuie, această acţiune a sa este calificată ca “piraterie” şi este pedepsit.

Libertatea de a îmbunătăţi programul,  de a pune îmbunătăţirile la dispoziția publicului, în folosul întregii societăţi

Software-ul liber:  Da, utlizatorul poate îmbunătaţi programul deoarece are codul sursă, poate redistribui programul în formă modificată sau nu, oriunde, oricui.

Sofware-ul proprietar: Nu, nu puteţi îmbunătaţi programul prentru că nu aveţi codul sursă, dar nici nu este legal să faceţi asta, dar nici să deţineţi codul sursă.

Preţul

Software-ul liber:  Un preţ extrem de mic, în majoritatea cazurilor este valabil gratis.

Sofware-ul proprietar: Un preţ mare, deseori foarte mare, iar dacă expiră licenţa, utilizatorul trebuie să plătescă iară un preţ la fel de mare pentru activarea licenţei.

Posibilitaeta creării unui business dezvoltând software

Software-ul liber:  Da, prin oferirea serviciilor în domeniul programării şi serviciilor IT. Programatorii îşi vând timpul lor pentru  realizarea, modificarea programelor, eliminarea erorilor, întreţinere, mărirea calităţii programului. Iniţierea unui astfel de business necesită un capital mult mai mic, deoarece nu este nevoie să plateşti pentru licenţe şi patente.

Sofware-ul proprietar: Da, prin impunerea licenţelor şi patentelor, restricţionarea utilizatorilor de a modifica, copia, reditribui şi a studia  modul de funcţionare a programulul. Îniţierea businessului necesită capital mare căci este nevoie să plătiţi pentru software-ul  de dezvoltare licenţiat şi patente.

Posibilitatea creării unui business folosind software

Software-ul liber:  Da, deoarece software-ul este valabil practic gratis şi este nevoie de un capital mai mic, nu este nevoie să plătiţi pentru licenţe.

Sofware-ul proprietar: Da, dar este nevoie de un capital mare şi chetuieli periodice pentru reactivarea licenţelor programelor proprietare.

Securitatea pe care o ofera software-ul

Software liber: Este foarte securizat şi transparent. Utilizatorul( comunităţile, firmele, oricine ) în orice moment poate depista eoririle şi vulnerabilitaţile, poate  iniţia verificarea codului sursă pentru a vedea ce face în realitate programul pentru ei, în orice moment are libertatea şi posibilitatea să elimine vulnerabilităţile.

Software proprietar: Deoarece codul sursă este ţinut în secret, utilizatorul nu ştie exact ce face programul în realitate pentru el. Erorile le poate corecta şi verifica doar proprietarul, din acest motv software-ul este vulnerabil. Unii dezvoltatori de software proprietar introduc păţi în program pentru a spiona cu diferite scopuri, iar aceasta nu poate fi depistat în nici un mod de utiliztor pentru că nu are codul sursă.

Software-ul face exact ceea de ce aveţi nevoie?

Software-ul liber: Da, orice utilizator particular  poate adapta softwre-ul exact la necesităţile sale dacă este nevoie. Dezvoltarea software-ul liber este dictată de utilizatori. Puterea asupra sofware-ului o deţine utilizatorii deoarece deţin codul sursă. Utilizatorul nu depinde de dezvoltator.

Software-ul proprietar: Nu, utilizatorul foloseşte un program care oferă ceea ce crede proprietarul că utilizatorul are nevoie. Dezvoltatorul adaptează programul judecând din necesităţile şi raţionamentele sale financiare, de profit . Utilizatorul depinde complet de dezvoltator, care deţine puterea absolută asupra utilizatorului.

Utilizatorul este stăpânul( proprietarul ) software-ului pe care l-a cumpărat?

Software-ul liber: Da, de mai sus vă puteţi vedea că chiar este deţinătorul software-ului pe care utilizatorul îl foloseşte, are codul sursă, are drepturi de a modifica şi de a  face copii, redistribui în formă modificată sau nu.

Software-ul proprietar: În realitate utilizatorul nu este stăpânul software-ului, el foloseşte doar învoirea de a utiliza programul( ca şi când ai avea o maşină luată în împrumut …  iar când s-a teminat timpul( licenţa ), trebuie să o întorci înapoi( software-ul nu mai funcţionează)  şi rămâii fară nimic( nu ai nici codul sursă, dar nici drepturi, nici program). Mai mult ca atât, nu ai voie să deschizi capota maşinii ca să vezi ce motor e acolo, care este contrucţia( nu ai voie să citeşi codul sursă ), chiar dacă maşina s-a stricat, este ilegal să faci asta – doar compania de la care ai “cumpărat” maşina va decide când vor repara-o( peste 3 ani, cât vor emite următorea versiune ). Şi ultima restricţine, ai voie să mergi doar pe drumurile autorizare de vizător şi nici o posibilitate să depăşeşti 80 km/h… Ce ar fi dacă am cumpăra maşinie şi le-am folosi la fel ca cum cumpărăm şi ne folosim de software-ul proprietar?…

AVG Internet Security akan memberikan perlindungan yang aman untuk anda ketika menjelajahi, menelusuri, mengunduh, bertransaksi perbankan, dan berbelanja online dengan aman. Dan melindungi komputer anda dari serangan-serangan seperti virus, spyware, adware dan trojan

Dengan AVG Internet Security,  Anda senantiasa mendapatkan pengalaman online secara aman. Dengan beberapa lapis perlindungan dari Internet Security, Anda tidak perlu cemas dengan pencurian identitas, spam, atau virus. Dan ini bahkan mencegah Anda secara tidak sengaja mengunjungi situs berbahaya.

Keamanan yang lebih cepat dan lebih cerdas ini tidak akan memperlambat komputer Anda

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AVG Internet Security Features :

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• Firewall : Menghentikan peretas (hacker) dan penyebaran virus di internet
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PETUNJUK INSTALL :
Jangan lupa untuk remove Program Anti Virus lainnya sebelum memulai installasi Anti Virus AVG

• Download file setup AVG Anti Virus
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AVG Internet Security 9 dari situs resminya dihargai sebesar US $54.99 untuk setahun. Di situs ini anda bisa mendapatkannya secara gratis, bahkan data dan serial yang bisa anda download  valid sampai 26 Februari 2018 (9 tahun lebih).

AVG Internet Security 9.0 is compatible with : Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7

License Number :

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Download : AVG Internet Security 9.0

Download : From Indowebster

At some point in your IT-enthusiast life you must’ve had at least one dead HDD, off of which Windows wouldn’t boot anymore. Up until a while ago, particularly if the partitions were formatted with NTFS, the situation was pretty much hopeless. Nowadays, with very-much-improved NTFS support under Linux (and rather tolerant to faults compared to its native counterpart under Windows), it isn’t always so. If the HDD is in a “coma” (i.e. almost dead, but not still “sort of” kicking), booting off a Linux live CD might still help recover (some of) the data. Basic steps:

1. Get a Linux live CD distribution which has good built in NTFS support (most of them have basic support by now) and ddrescue
2. Boot off the live CD and use ddrescue to get a binary image of each partition or mount the partition(s) and copy the files to a safe place
3. [If using the dd(rescue) approach] mount the images as drives under Windows and copy the files or be brave and mount the partition in a VM and try to actually boot it, at least as far as a command prompt (safe mode) or use a backup/partitioning tool to write the images to another disk

If you’re not paranoid about security (by nature or by job description), i.e. you don’t use EFS for your most sensitive data, you’re pretty much off the hook. If you’ve made the punishable-by-huge-amounts-of-pain mistake of using EFS and your disk crashed, as is my case, hope is as dimmed as the foresight of the folks who designed NTFS and used more than the actual user password to encrypt the data. As it turns out, to decrypt the files you need a certificate which can only be generated on the machine which encrypted the files, which is

Linux live CDs with NTFS support

I’ve tried SystemRescueCd, Trinity Rescue Kit, RIP Linux and plain vanilla Knoppix, and Trinity Rescue Kit appears to be the best: it has ntfstools / Linux-NTFS installed, and it didn’t hang on boot because of the failing HDD (other distros did). As a sidenote, I haven’t managed to boot the GUI (X) of any of the distros, as my laptop monitor/graphics card seems to be uncooperative with the standard drivers/VESA mode, but apart from the visual partition manager, everything works fine from the console anyway.

When choosing a distro, the main points to check are if it has the ntfs-3g driver (as recent a version as possible, as it keeps getting better at a fast pace) and the ntfstools / Linux-NTFS suite I mentioned earlier, especially if you’ve used EFS to encrypt your data (in which case the only viable solution appears to be ntfsdecrypt from that suite, which needs the certificate with which the files were encrypted, which in it’s turn needs you to boot the (dead) machine, but it appears to be the only way to get the data back).

Using dd/ddrescue to recover (NTFS) partitions

dd / ddrescue

The tool to move binary data from one place to another under Linux is dd. It also has a data-recovery-oriented cousin called ddrescue, which basically does the same thing, but is more fault-tolerant.
Basic dd usage:

dd if=/source of=/destination

if stands for input file and of for output file, and neither of them has to be an actual file (in the Windows sense); in the above example, /dev/sda1 is the first partition on the sda disk.
To back up just the MBR of the disk (the first 512 bytes) use:

dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/sdb1/saved/mbr.bin bs=512 count=1

This assumes that source disk is sda and that sdb1 is the partition to which you want to back up the data, so in your particular case they may need to be changed. See the next section if you’re not sure which disk is mapped to which name.
ddrescue uses fixed-position input (first) and output (second) arguments:

ddrescue -v /source /destination

The -v option makes ddrescue verbose (i.e. periodically print progress).
Note: by default, dd prints no progress/info until it’s job is finished. To check up on it’s progress, open another console (the terminals are mapped to Alt+N shortcuts in Linux, N >= 1, usually up to 4) and send it the USR1 signal. To do that, first you need to find it’s PID using ps:

ps -A|grep dd

Then, assuming the PID of the dd process is 3456, use kill:

kill -USR1 3456

That won’t actually kill the process, in spite of it’s name; it will just send it the USR1 signal, which makes dd print it’s current status (switch to the dd terminal to see it). The command’s name (“kill”) comes from it’s most frequent usage, which is to send a process the KILL signal (i.e. “kill” it).

Linux drive mapping

Linux maps your disks under /dev with names following the (“regex-like”) pattern [hs]d[abcd]. An h prefix means an (older) IDE disk, meanwhile an s prefix means a serial disk (usually an internal SATA or external USB disk). The individual partitions follow the disk naming + a digit to designate the partition number. So, for example, if you have a SATA disk with two partitions, the disk would be /dev/sda, the first partition would be /dev/sda1 and the second partition /dev/sda2.
To see the available disks/partitions, use ls (the Linux equivalent of dir):

ls /dev/sd*
ls /dev/hd*

To get extended disk info, use hdparm:

hdparm -I /dev/sda

The disks (actually the partitions) found under /dev need to be mounted before the files on them can be read/written; up until that point they are just huge blobs of binary data.

Note: for the rest of this writing, for simplicity’s sake, I’ll assume that sda is the broken disk and it has wto partitions, and that the recovered files/image go to sdb.

There are two ways to mount NTFS partitions: either using the default NTFS driver which comes with mount (ignores many problems, doesn’t care if Windows was improperly stopped & the drive was left “unclean”, read-only mode by default) or the ntfs-3g driver (more sensitive, read-write by default). Use the plain mount for the broken disk and the ntfs-3g version for the drives to which you need read-write access.
First off, you need to make appropriate folders for the partitions to be mounted under; standard practice is to do it under the /mnt folder. e.g.:

mkdir /mnt/sda1
mkdir /mnt/sda2
mkdir /mnt/sdb1

Note that the /mnt folder may not exist, in which case it must be created first: mkdir /mnt
Next, mount partitions from the broken disk (read-only):

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2

The syntax of the mount command is straight-forward: mount /what /where; /what is the device, /where is the mount point in the filesystem. It takes other arguments, such as -t type to set the filesystem type, but NTFS is (nowadays) recognized automatically. The naming convention for the mount points is at your choice (you could mount the thing on something like /my/broken/disk/partition/number/1), but sticking to the “standard” /mnt path and using the original device’s name (or the partition letter if you’re more accustomed to that and a lazy typist, such as /mnt/c) is easier, and the help you find on the net will make more sense.
Last step in the mount process: mounting the destination disk in read-write mode (default for ntfs-3g):

ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1

or

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1

The syntax is similar to the mount command; to check if the distro you chose has the ntfs-3g command built in, simply try to run it. If it doesn’t, choose another distro.

Copying the data

Run either dd or ddrescue (the latter is preferred if the disk is only partially readable):

dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/mnt/sdb1/saved/part1.bin

or

ddrescue -n /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1/saved/part1.bin

WARNING: pay attention not to pass as the destination to dd/ddrescue entire disks unless you actually want their contents overwritten (which will be the case when you restore the saved image to a new disk); be sure to add a file name otherwise. The -n option prevents ddrescue from retrying error areas, which is usually what you want. If you have a disk which does yield data after enough retries, don’t use it.

Mounting the (NTFS) partition(s) from Linux/Windows

You can mount the newly backed-up partitions from Linux using the loop feature:

mount -o loop /mnt/sdb1/saved/part1.bin /mnt/part1

The partition can also be mounted directly from Windows using the ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver (free) or using some rather expensive commercial tools (google for alternatives).

Backing up/restoring partitions/whole disks

Alternatively, you can use the dd command to copy the entire disk and write the image to a fresh (identical) disk. Writing an image to a partition/disk using dd simply requires passing the disk as the of argument:
Restoring a partition:

dd if=/mnt/sdb1/saved/part1.bin of=/dev/sdc1

Restoring an entire disk:

dd if=/mnt/sdb1/saved/whole-disk.bin of=/dev/sdc

WARNING: be careful when overwriting raw partition/disk contents; choose other recovery methods unless you understand exactly what you’re doing.

Recovering files from raw data/deleted files: data carving

If the partition table/NTFS structure is broken and you can’t mount the partitions but you can read the binary data, you can use TestDisk to recover some of the files (the ones with a specific structure, such as images and music, are more likely to be found as opposed to, say, plain text files). This is basically the same thing that file recovery programs (such as Recuva) do on the unused space of a disk to recover deleted files.

Recovering EFS encrypted files

As I’ve mentioned in the opening paragraph, to recover EFS encrypted files, even under Linux, you need a recovery certificate. If you don’t have one, EFS file recovery software might help, but I’ve had little luck using them. I know of no open source/free software which does that, so you’ll probably have to use commercial software such as Advanced EFS Data Recovery from ElcomSoft (demo version available). The link called “encrypted file system recovery” from the following section details the process of manually extracting the required information for EFS recovery.

Further reading

• Ubuntu – DataRecovery
• Encrypting File System in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003
• encrypted file system recovery
• ntfsdecrypt

Moral of the story

• ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR IMPORTANT DATA. Seriously. Now. Go get some storage space (USB flash drive, external hard disk, even DVDs if you make a new one often enough, as they tend not to last very long) and copy your data on it. GO!
• Don’t use EFS under NTFS. Use an alternative encryption solution, e.g. TrueCrypt. There are portable (i.e. works-from-flash-drive) editions of most encryption tools should the need arise, and they are reliable (I’ve used TrueCrypt without problems for quite a while now).
• If you MUST use EFS, create a recovery certificate using CIPHER /R:filename (details here) and store it in a safe place.

This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish), we have added a brief post about allmyapps.com a useful website which allow you to easily install software on Ubuntu (8.04, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10) and Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7).  After a simple registration you can choose the free software you prefere to install and in few clicks and some minutes you are ready to use your new programs. Allmyapps.com, automatically recognizes the OS you have installed on your PC. On allmyapps we found many useful softwares and every month more programs are submitted by readers and added to the website for the installation. For Windows we also positively tested another website ninite.com where we found many free softwares ready to be dowloaded and automatically installed.  Easy to use and useful!

I got the answer that how to backup and restore my ubuntu,just it was most significant one to me when i was love with ubuntu.At that time i had to be installed my ubuntu oftenly due to some searching problems…ya..really this is the simpler one when comparing to all other passive procedures for other operating systems..I think this information will be worthy to everyone who are flowing with ubuntu…..I hope this will be useful one which can be shared the ubunters

Here is the link to do : From UbuntuForum

Enjoy …

Last three days (12th – 14th of November 2009) our Centre invited teachers and students from around Mumbai to share our work with the public (Vigyan Vividha). During this program the team members of gnowledge.org lab demonstrated several free software applications that can be used for science and mathematics education.  We did demonstrations of several of them to hundreds of visitors. Though we showed several applications, our focus was on the following selected applications.

• Phoenix (Computer Interfaced Science Experiments)
• Step (An interactive physics simulator, part of KDE-EDU package)
• GeoGebra (A dynamic Geometry and Algebra Platform)
• KTurtle (A simple turtle graphics program using LOGO for children)
• Inkscape (An advanced vector (SVG) graphics editor)
• Stellarium (A planetarium for your computer)

Many of them are well known, except Step.  I want to therefore say few words about it.  This program will have a great role to play for physics education. An excellent platform for learning as well as teaching.  If you are a physics teacher or an educator, consider using Step.  Though the program needs several finishing touches (sometimes eats up resources while simulating complex systems), the author (Vladimir Kuznetsov) is ambitious and did a fantastic job.  Once this program is improved, it will be a classic tool for education in the high school and college level physics.

Geogebra also gives the same experience for mathematics.

These are all free software for education.  I encourage teachers to use them in the classroom, and students who own a PC must install GNU/Linux on their PCs and enjoy these applications among several others.

K-Lite codec 5.44 merupakan media player support VFW / ACM codec dan DirectShow Filter yang diperlukan untuk encoding decoding audio video format. K-lite codec 5.44 dapat memutar semua jenis file format  audio video termasuk format audio video yang awam bagi kita.

Codec ini memiliki beberapa unggulan dibanding paket codec lain, baca disini.

Essa veio via tweeter de uma pessoa que começou a me seguir ainda agorinha. Tá saindo do forno agora:

A matéria saiu ontem na Zdnet: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=4547

Tradução Livre:

Postado por Mary Jo Foley

A Microsoft oficialmente confirmou em 13 de Novembro — poucos dias após disponibilizar o download de uma ferramenta para o Windows 7 que contém código aberto impropriamente licenciado — que a empresa cometeu, de fato, a violação dos termos da GNU/GPL.

A Microsoft disponibilizou o Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool da Microsoft Store em 10 de Novembro depois de relatar no blog “Within Windows” de Rafael Riveraque encontrou o que parecia ser código aberto na ferramenta. A inclusão de código aberto não é um proibição, mas a decisão da Microsoft de colocar uma licença restritiva, não aberta na ferramenta que incorpora o código é. (A ferramenta USB que a Microsoft disponibilizou em 22 de Outubro é desenhada para auxiliar usuários de netbooks na atualização do Windows XP para o Windows 7 de maneira mais fácil.

De um post no blog do gerente da comunidade de código aberto da Microsoft, Peter Galli:

“Depois de verificar o código em questão (incorporado à ferramenta USB), agora podemos confirmar o fato (a inclusão indevida de código licenciado pela GPL v2), no entanto não foi intencional de nossa parte. Quando contratamos um terceirizado para desenvolver a ferramenta, compartilhamos a responsabilidade uma vez que não detectamos o problema em nosso processo de revisão do código. Nós estamos, inclusive, conduzindo uma revisão de outros códigos disponibilizados na Microsoft Store, e este foi o único incidente dessa natureza que pudemos encontrar”.

Galli disse que os planos da Microsoft de disponibilizar o código fonte e os binários da ferramenta sob a licença GPL v2 “e também tomar medidas para aplicar o que aprendemos dessa experiência para a revisão de códigos no futuro”.

Sei….

Em 1999, a plataforma aberta se popularizou com o lançamento do Corel Linux OS, mas até hoje ocupa um pequeno espaço do setor.

A plataforma de código aberto Linux foi criada em 1991, mas passou a ser considerada como sistema operacional para desktops em meados de 1999, quando a Corel Corp. lançou o Corel Linux OS, dez anos atrás, quando a empresa produzia apenas software para a plataforma Windows.

Veja mais em: http://pcworld.uol.com.br/noticias/2009/11/13/linux-para-desktops-completa-10-anos-veja-a-linha-do-tempo/

Revista Espírito Livre - Ed. n #008 - Novembro 2009


A cada mês, uma vitória. Este não poderia ser diferente. Mesmo quando muitos acham que estamos cansados a ponto de desistir eis que despontamos em mais uma edição de qualidade, como os leitores por si só comentam. Esta edição da Revista Espírito Livre traz como tema de capa Comunidades e Movimentos Livres, apresentando aos leitores um pouco mais sobre este tema tão vasto. Tivemos contato com diversas comunidades que se prontificaram a apresentar suas histórias, seus cases, sua visão em matérias que demonstram o real valor e pontencial destas que iniciativas que arrastam exércitos e movem montanhas. Nossos agradecimentos a estes redatores convidados.

Como as comunidades de software livre se manifestam? Como se apresentam diantes da rede? Será que ao constituir uma comunidade tudo será mil maravilhas? Tentamos, através de várias matérias, apresentar as respostas consisas e focadas sobre estas e muitas outras indagações que permeiam as comunidades de software livre/código aberto.

Tivemos a honra de trazer como entrevistado principal Jon “maddog” Hall, considerados por muitos um exemplo de vida, superação e engajamento no movimento do software livre. Maddog “peregrina” em diversos eventos por todo o Brasil e sempre está alí disposto para mais aquela foto e para um bom papo sobre novas tecnologias. Ele muito prontamente respondeu aos questionamentos passados pela equipe da revista, respondendo com bom humor sem igual! Danilo Rodrigues, do Projeto Robótica Livre também conversou com nossa equipe e explicou um pouco mais sobre este interessante projeto.

Tivemos ainda novas participações em nossa equipe. Fernando Leme estava para fazer parte do corpo editorial e nesta edição ele aparece com falando sobre as armadilhas do mercado. João Marcello também foi uma grata surpresa… Ele começa sua participação na revista apresentando um case bem interessante sobre o “teco” de informática. Clayton Lobato é outro que estava para entrar em nossa equipe já a algum tempo, mas diversos fatores sempre atrapalhavam. Pois bem Clayton participa dessa edição com um assunto polêmico sobre as comunidades.

Continuamos uma nova coluna do Cárlisson, a Warning Zone, que apresenta uma perspectiva diferente sobre a narração da história em questão. Vale a pena conferir. Wagner Emmanoel, da Fuctura, apresenta ainda um review bem interessante sobre a mais nova versão do Linux para as massas, o Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.

O pessoal da ASL e do Ubuntu-BR também participaram enviando materiais, enriquecendo ainda mais a publicação. Já os colunistas fixos tais como Alexandre Oliva, Cezar Taurion, Sinara Duarte, Jomar Silva, Filipe Saraiva, Luiz Eduardo e aos tantos outros que de alguma forma participaram desta edição, meus sinceros agradecimentos!

A revista continua premiando os leitores que nos acompanham pelo Twitter, Identi.ca e demais veículos, então fique atento, pois novas promoções sempre estão pipocando nestes lugares. Também fiquem atentos ao site oficial da revista [http://revista.espiritolivre.org], tem sempre novidade por lá.

Agradecemos a todos que não foram citados acima e continuamos a convidar cada vez mais o leitor a participar do processo de criação da revista. Quer saber como ajudar? Entre em contato, contamos com você!

A Pc World publicou uma matéria sobre distribuições ideais para os netbooks aqui: http://pcworld.uol.com.br/noticias/2009/11/13/tres-edicoes-de-linux-voltadas-para-netbooks/.

Na matéria eles dizem que “Quem procura um sistema operacional open source para usar em seu portátil, precisa dar uma olhada nestas versões do pinguim”. Devo dizer que ou eles estão otimistas demais ou não testaram todas elas. Na matéria eles citam:

>> Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR)
>> Moblin 2.0
>> Jolicloud

Eu uso e recomendo muito o Ubuntu Netbook Remix que ficou um espetáculo, tanto pela facilidade de uso, quando pela compatibilidade comhardwares.

Eu testei aqui a versão anterior do Moblin, mas ainda não tive a oportunidade de testar a nova versão. Mas ajulgar pelo que vi na versão anterior e pelas mudanças acrescentadas nessa, para mim o Moblin é uma ótima pdéia, mas ainda tem de amadurecer muito como produto.

Quanto ao Jolicloud, não conheço nem nunca ouvi falar, mas vou pesquisar e postar aqui minhas impressões.

This collage of flower photos I took was created using Picasa’s Collage feature and uploaded through it’s Blog This! feature. I’ll continue to explore and demonstrate some of it’s worthwhile features.
Thanks for reading.

This is not really a WEA Area 6 news item, however Steven who maintains technology all across the East Midlands on our behalf originally gave this top tip to me. Who am I to argue with such a knowledgeable chap?

Many people use AVG as free anti virus protection on their home computers. I myself have used it for years, but despite this we noticed that Google was not performing properly and we suspected that our lowly kitchen laptop was poorly (and not just due to being covered in flour!)

Steven recommended Microsoft Security Essentials as an alternative to AVG. I must admit to be sceptical, I mean, Microsoft? Again? But none the less I dutifully tried and am now a convert.

It took an age to perform the initial computer scan but once done this little gem uncovered two Trojan viruses and a Worm virus that AVG had missed.

Here is the link so that you can download it yourself.

http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

The software is free; the only proviso is that you are running a genuine copy of Windows. If you are not sure if your copy of Windows is genuine then install Security Essentials and it will tell you.

To find out more about Computer Virus’ click on this link to Wikipedia. 

Designed for individuals, small and mid-sized businesses and works in sports rental market. Sport rental calendar gives searching and sorting options to the user so that they can easily handle their records. It also stores the full information of every member like its address, phone numbers, history of orders etc. you can also use this program for your future planning.

You can store your appointments; you can also store your future task for the years. If you have to make reports for printing of different formats like XML, HTML, XLS and TXT, there too you can use this program. Sports Rental Calendar is great to store and keep track of calendars for unlimited number of rental units, such as badminton, squash, golf etc. Updates are also made in this program for the user in newer version you can customize various export, pagination, and document settings via a built-in PDF Export Options form.

To run Sports Rental Calendar you’ll need 32 MB of RAM, 7 MB of available hard disk space on Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2003 or Windows 2000.

Free software reviews on this site are brought to you by www.FreebieLot.com. For more daily freebies and free softwares reviews and sharing your personal experience about the freebies visit the site.

Just testing out the Blog This! option of Picasa. Pretty handy, especially when you want to share a photo fast.