Usman Javaid

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Password Security Scanner: View Passwords Stored In Windows Apps & Check Their Strength

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Most Windows applications including Google Talk, MS Outlook, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Windows Live Messenger etc, which have login input form, allow users to save the username and password, so they don’t have to enter their login details every time to login in to the application. Since Windows doesn’t have an option to list all the saved login details to verify the username and password integrity, you may need an application that lets you check all the saved passwords from one hood. Password Security Scanner is a standalone application from Nirsoft, which finds all the saved login details, letting you check the password strength and other like attributes to verify the integrity without having to manually extract login details from applications. Read More

HostsMan: Edit, Restore, Manage And Merge Multiple Windows Hosts File

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Just like other OS platforms, Windows includes a hosts file that lets user map domains with their IP address to increase access speed, redirect domains to preferred locations (by specifying IP address), and completely block the domain access. In a network environment, a system administrator may enforce using a single hosts file that redirects, let’s say, Facebook.com to Google.com every time a client PC tries to access Facebook, or map domains with active IP locations, so client PCs can quickly access them without having to wait for DNS resolve processes to respond. Earlier, we covered a number of hosts file managers including BlueLife Hosts Editor, Hosts Mechanic and Hosts Editor. This time around we bring you a feature-rich hosts file management solution called HostsMan. It has been developed to efficiently manage and edit multiple hosts file without having to manually modify Windows hosts file (present in System32/drivers/etc folder). Read More

How To Recover Lost Partitions And Hard Disk Data [Guide]

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In our previous guide on securely wiping the hard disk and removable media via Ubuntu Live and DBAN boot CD, we discussed that Windows based disk shredding applications don’t allow wiping the disk partition where Windows is installed. Similarly, there are a great deal of data recovery applications available for Windows such as Recuva, Power Data Recovery,  Undelete 360, RecoveryDesk etc, which can seamlessly perform the data recovery operations over not only auxilirary disks, but also removable disks including USB drives, external hard disks, SD cards and so on. What if you want to recover data from disk partition that holds Windows? What would be the most convenient way to run disk recovery operation over an entire disk (including all basic, extended, logical partitions and unallocated space), especially when system fails to boot up? Read More

QuickText: Visual Studio ReSharper Like Text Expansion For Notepad++

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QuickText is a multi-purpose text expansion/text substitution plugin for Notepad++, that lets you create tags for most frequently used code modules and structures, so that you don't have to write them over and over again. In a nut shell, QuickText is to Notepad++, what ReSharper is to Visual Studio. While it offers a convenient configuration console to define the tags and their substitution text, you can easily make changes to defined substitution text, and edit and modify ‘tags’ text. The Tab key is a trigger key. Once you’ve defined the tags and substitution text, all you need is to write the tag, press the trigger key, and it will replace the tag text with defined substitution text. Read More

How To Completely Wipe/Erase A Hard Disk Drive [Step-by-Step Guide]

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You may know that when you delete a file, it doesn't actually get removed from the hard disk. This is because, when an OS, including Windows, attempts to delete a file, it removes the pointer or reference to the file, making it inaccessible to user. However, the low-level data recovery applications can still be used to view and restore deleted data from storage mediums. When file is deleted from the system, OS makes the space, which was previously used by that deleted file, available for new data write operations, and if OS doesn't fill that deleted space, data recovery application doesn't take long to fully restore the data from unfilled tracks. Therefore, it's always advisable to perform a multi-cycle shred operation over entire hard drive to prevent data theft. You could use CCleaner and other data shred/disk wipe applications (Secure Wipe, Hardwipe, HDShredder etc, for instance), to permanently delete the data, but file shredding can't be performed over the partition where Windows is installed. In this post, we will discuss how to fully wipe out entire hard disk, and make the deleted data unrecoverable.

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Create Disk Image & Clone Hard Disk Partition With Ubuntu Live USB

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Earlier, we showed you how to create persistent Ubuntu Live media disk, and use it for resetting and changing Windows 7 administrator and standard user account password. Apart from tweaking with Windows registry hives, Ubuntu Live media disk can be used to create data backup, shrink partitions, clone hard disk, scan system for viruses, imaging disk partitions and more. Although disk imaging or hard disk cloning can be done using data backup and disk copying applications, malware-infected OS often make it hard to perform essential data backup operations. For instance, if a PC is infected with boot sector virus, disk cloning application doesn’t work unless you clean the system from virus and repair boot sector. Read More

Reset Lost Windows 7 User Account Password With Ubuntu Live Disk

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Windows 7 has an in-built option to create password recovery disk to log into system in case a user forgets the Windows account password. You may know that Windows 7 keeps the administrator account concealed unless you activate it from Local Users and Groups or by using net user administrator /active:yes command in CMD. Using the admin account, you can easily log in to system and reset admin, standard and guest accounts’ passwords. However, in a worst case scenario, where you don’t have a password reset disk nor have access to administrator account, Ubuntu Live media disc may help. In this post, we will guide you through step-by-step procedure of resetting and changing Windows 7 administrator, standard and guest user account password. Read More

How To Remotely Manage & Fix PC Issues With Soluto

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Last year, we covered Soluto - an anti-frustration utility for Windows that allows users to optimize system performance by disabling those applications, services and scripts etc, which bog down the system startup process. Since our review, this utility has seen quite a lot of changes and improvements including Soluto’s Windows error/crash handling mechanism replacement, Lighten Web Browser (feature to disable Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer add-ons & plugins), option to keep track of crashed applications and more. Soluto has just launched a new web-based application (currently in invite only beta), which enables proficient users to manage their friends and family PCs, and provide technical assistance in resolving routine PC problems without having to establish a remote connection over internet. Read on to find out how Soluto can help you fix your friend/client’s PC problems. Read More

Bdrive: Create Private Cloud Storage On PC/Mac With Mobile Access

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Cloud services like Dropbox, Box.net, SugarSync etc, greatly serve the need of accessing data across all the configured systems over internet, but what if you need your personal cloud storage that doesn’t require uploading files to an intermediary server for performing file sync and share operations? Bdrive lets you deploy personal cloud storage that you can configure as per your requirements. It’s a cross-platform application that supports a wide range of operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS X, Android and iOS. What makes it different from other personal cloud solutions is Mobile Access & Windows Explorer integration; it creates a 'B' drive (or drive letter of your choice) to save the files that you want to synchronize across all the Bdrive configured systems on network. Once the drive is mounted, you can access files from not only PCs, but Andriod and iOS devices (iPhone, iPod and iPad), as well. Read More

Best Free VPN Services To Anonymize IP & Secure Internet Connection

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Last week, we discussed the advantages of virtual private network over leased line-based private and hybrid networks, VPN tunneling technologies and types, and also showed you a simple way of creating a VPN connection. Apart from encrypting the communication, VPN is also used as an alternative to proxy servers to secure the communication between two clients & client and server, on a network. One of the reasons why most users prefer using VPN service instead of proxy server, is that, VPN provides strong encryption, and in some cases, multi-hopping connectivity, making it very difficult for external sources to trace down the connected systems. This VPN-provided anonymity lets users access region-restricted websites, data portals, content sharing platforms etc, from any part of the world. In this post, we will look at VPN services that you can use to anonymize the connection as well as secure the communication. Read More

Map FTP Server As Local Disk Drive With FtpUse

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Although Windows 7 allows users to map a remote location as network drive over FTP, it often fails to register the FTP account upon Windows logon, which compels users to manually map the network location after logging into Windows. FtpUse is a simple CLI based application for Windows operating system that lets you map FTP servers as local disk drive from Windows CMD. All it needs is a connection string including FTP host address, username and password to connect & map a FTP location. Moreover, if you want to connect with the remote server upon Windows logon, you can create a batch script, and then put it in Startup folder to establish FTP server connection as soon as you log into Windows. Read More

Highlight: Convert Source Code Into Formatted, Syntax Highlighted Text

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Highlight is a powerful source code formatter and highlighter that supports more than 150 programming languages, and provides multiple color themes to export code modules into HTML, RTF, XML, LaTeX and TeX format. Since software IDE and development platforms offer support for only a few programming languages, you can use this application to highlight and understand the syntax of any language, and share the code files with highlighted syntax with others to help them understand the programming language code structure. Apart from applying syntax highlighting, it has the ability to convert the source code into formatted text with proper & clear indentation. Highlight is an extensible application, and allows adding plugins, written in LUA framework, to extend the built-in functions, as well as add new features. Read More

Disable Unnecessary Write Access To Extend Lifetime Of Your SSD Drive

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One of the reasons why many laptop users opt-in for SSD hard drives, is that SSDs consume relatively less power than other traditional storage disks. If you aren’t familiar with SSD drive, it is quite different from storage mediums whose read and write processes depend on spinning of disk and R/W headers; Solid State Drives save data on micro-chips, and therefore, provide quicker access and higher data reliability. However, one of the downside is the short lifetime of the SSD drive in comparison to traditional HDD. One of the ways to increase the lifetime of your SSD drive is to disable unnecessary write access. Read on to find out how. Read More

Document Monitor: Auto-Update All Opened Notepad++ Documents To View Changes

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Log file analyzers come with a built-in auto-update feature to let users view latest changes made to log files and most recent events reported by deployed solution. If you want to bring the auto-update feature to Notepad++, add Document Monitor to Notepad++ plugin list. This plugin comes useful in instances where you need to check shared documents for changes, and also to analyze long log files. Since Notepad++ requires you to re-open the document to view the changes and latest modifications, Document Monitor saves you not only the time, but also the effort, involved in finding the file and scrolling down the document to view the latest changes. Read More

Now Convert Videos Into HTML5 Formats With Free Make Video Converter

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Remember previously-covered Free Make Video Converter that included a host of file and device-based video conversion presets to quickly convert videos into required format? The application has just been updated to 3.0, bringing new video conversion presets for Nokia, Samsung, Andriod mobiles, BlackBerry, DVD conversion options, and significant speed improvements. Apart from newly added presets and under the hood enhancements, it can now convert videos into HTML5 formats, allowing you to create videos in Ogg, Theora, WebM, H.264 formats for your HTML5-based websites. Once the conversion is completed, it generates HTML5 video embed code, so that you can easily insert the video into required container of the webpage. Read More

Insync: Dropbox-Like Client To Sync Google Docs With Multiple Desktops

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A while back, we covered Syncdocs – a Google Docs sync utility for Windows that allows users to not only synchronize local files with Google Docs account, but also view and share Google Docs files from Windows right-click context menu. Syncdocs operates from system tray, providing options to pause and resume synchronization of local files with Google Docs account, open Google Docs web interface, and filter file types that users want to sync. Today, we stumbled on yet another Google Docs synchronization application for Windows and Mac OS X called Insync that brings Dropbox-like sync features for Google Docs. Read More

Gow Is Alternative To Cygwin, Brings 130 UNIX Commands To Windows

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If you’re an avid Linux user and just started with Windows, you must be familiar with Cygwin, a tool that provides Linux-like environment on Windows, bringing the utility of porting tools running on POSIX, i.e Linux, BSD and Unix system to Windows OS. GOW (Gnu on Windows) is a small, easy to use, yet powerful alternative to Cygwin that brings more then 100 extremely useful UNIX applications and commands to Windows. It provides a total of 130 CLI-based UNIX commands, which can be run from Windows Command Line Interpreter. The application has been specifically designed to bring those UNIX binaries, which don’t have easy to use installers available for Windows. Read More

What Is VPN & Tunneling; How To Create And Connect To VPN Network [Beginner's Guide]

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When it comes to deploying a highly secured and reliable data transmission system to meet the inter-organization and intra-organization communication needs, most organizations choose to adapt one among 3 types of networking techniques; Private Network, Hybrid Network and Virtual Private Network. In this post, we will look at each network type, and discuss Virtual Private Network, VPN tunneling, techniques & types of VPN and how to create and setup a VPN network. Read More

Force Windows 7 Aero Visual Style Settings Across Network PCs

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Like previous version of Windows, Windows 7 saves Aero themes settings, images (PNG format) and metadata information required to set the themes design and layout in Aero.msstyles file. Since there is a difference between Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 skinning engines and msstyles file rendering mechanisms, you can’t use Windows 7 themes on previous versions of Windows, unless you convert PNG images into BMP and tinker around with metadata to meet the required Windows version skinning engine’s requirements. Read More

Bypass Windows 8 Start Screen On Startup & Jump Directly To Desktop

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Unlike previous versions of Windows where you are taken to desktop at system startup, Windows 8 welcomes you with Metro Start Screen, providing quick access to applications and system shortcuts, pinned programs, and so on. Apparently, Windows 8 doesn’t allow users to bring the classic Windows Startup behavior back. If you don’t want to click the Desktop metro tile every time after logging into Windows, here’s how to bypass Metro Start Screen and jump to desktop directly. Read More