Tag Archives: featured

How To Create Backup At Remote Location When PC Stops Booting [Beginner's Guide]

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Earlier we discussed a few ways to diagnose Windows problems and fix the issues when PC fails to boot up using Ubuntu Live USB, including reset Windows 7 admin and standard account password, perform disk wipe operation, repair lost partitions and recover hard disk data, and run anti-virus scan over entire hard disk to fix booting issues. If you've persistent Ubuntu USB, you could fix various kind of issues which are generally hard to identify on Windows, such as removing virus-infected read-only system files and services, but before you start repairing your PC using Ubuntu Live USB, it’s recommended to backup all the important data at remote location, so that you can fearlessly perform the system repair operations. In the past, we showed you how to clone an entire hard disk and make IMG (image file) of hard disk partition and then restore at defined location. This time around, we bring you a step-by-step guide on backing up important files and folders on network when PC fails to boot up. Read More

How To Repair Virus-Infected PC When Windows Fails To Boot Up [Guide]

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Although Antivirus suites including MS Security Essentials, Avira, Avast, Norton AntiVirus etc., help us protect the system from malwares, viruses, spywares, keyloggers and other like potentially harmful programs, sometimes malware infected applications manage to slip through deployed antivirus security cracks and attack the system booting process. In such a case, anti-virus suites can’t identify and remove the infected application/processes unless the you repair the infected system boot sectors, and then boot into Windows to perform the virus removal operation over entire disk. In this post, we will show you how to clean your system from viruses when you can not boot into Windows. Read More

150 Best Windows Applications Of Year 2011 [Editor's Pick]

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At the dawn of 2011, we provided you with a list of 150 best Windows application of 2010. This, year we covered not only Windows software, but also Mac OS X and Linux applications in great number. Since Windows is the most widely used operating system, we tried to keep our focus on finding and covering best Windows software, tricks and tips. While it is important to look for all the good things that the future might hold, it is also worth looking back to see the fine finds of previous year. Keeping the tradition alive, we now have a compilation of the 150 best Windows applications of the year 2011. So, it’s time to browse through some extremely handy applications and pick the ones that best suit your needs. Read More

Basics To Know Before Moving From A Windows PC To An Apple Mac

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Changing phones, email providers or web browsers is something that takes a lot of conviction and adjusting to; imagine if you felt compelled to change your OS? The move would definitely be a bigger adjustment and if you’re switching from Windows 7 to Mac, since the adjustment would probably be equivalent to sleeping on the opposite of the bed. This guide helps you ease in to that adjustment. It is neither a feature list nor a comparison between the two operating systems. It was written just to tell you where the electric box is, and how the plumbing works. Briefly, we will look at how you can search for apps, files and folders on your Mac, find and install apps, manage windows and finding system preferences. Read More

How To Create Customizable Multiboot System Rescue Disk

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System Rescue bootable disks are built to help users easily troubleshoot those PC problems, which are generally quite difficult to fix such as corrupt boot sector, malware infected system files, physical & logical hard disk bad sectors, disk write failures and so on. In our previous guide on completely wiping the hard disk, we recommended using DBAN (Darik’s Boot And Nuke) Boot CD to shred the auxiliary and removable hard drives. Like any other boot disk, DBAN runs in a complete isolated environment to perform the disk wipe operation. Tools like DBAN, eScan Rescue, MSSS, Hiren’s Boot CD etc., require burning the ISO file on a separate disk for creating a bootable disk to fix PC issues, but what if you want to create a customizable bootable USB or CD/DVD disk to use all your favorite system diagnostic utilities without having to change the bootable disks on system startup? Read More

How To Setup Personal FTP Server Using FileZilla [Step-By-Step Guide]

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FTP clients like FileZilla, Cyberduck, WinSCP etc. are widely used to access, download and upload files to web server by creating an FTP connection. The FTP connection uses a special network protocol namely File Transfer Protocol to not only send and receive data requests, but also transport data by making direct connection with target host. Unlike HTTP, which is specifically designed to transport hyper-text over a TCP connection, FTP connection makes sure that server will respond to request as soon as it receives one from source host. Not only does it provide quick file transfer facility, it also brings bulk file handling capability in terms of both downloading and uploading data, and file transfer resume feature. Today, we bring you a step-by-step guide on setting up your personal FTP server, so that you can access it from anywhere via FTP client, and allow others to download and upload to your server. Read More

Redsn0w 0.9.10b1 Untethered Jailbreak For iOS 5.0.1 Now Available

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Good news for iOS jailbreakers eagerly anticipating @pod2g’s untether to be released. The infamous iPhone Dev Team has just updated their redsn0w and Pwnage tools to jailbreak iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad 1 untethered on iOS 5.0.1, and is available for download. The updated redsn0w 0.9.10b1 for both Windows and Mac OS X can perform untethered jailbreak on iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 1, iPod Touch 4G and iPod Touch 3G (all A4 devices) running iOS 5.0.1 (iOS 5.0 not supported). Details after the break. Read More

Smart Folders For Windows [AddictiveTips Apps]

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Do you want to get iOS and Android folder creation functionality in Windows, where folders can be created using simple drag & drop of one app over another? Although Windows 7 has a ton of highly interactive and user-friendly features, the method of creating a folder remains the same to what we saw back in Windows 98, requiring you to create a separate folder, and then put files into that folder by hand. Today, AddictiveTips brings you Smart Folders to save you not only the time, but also the effort, involved in organizing files into folders. It’s a free application for Windows that lets you create folders via simple drag & drop of file(s) over another. Read More

Bring Holiday Joys To Your Windows 7 Desktop With Christmas Themes

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Christmas has arrived once again, and all the houses, streets and cities are lit up with the Christmas spirit. While your house is filled with Christmas pleasure and goodies beneath the Christmas tree and you probably have been looking forward to the arrival of Santa Clause, it’s also time to brighten up your Windows 7 desktop with sparkling images of holiday celebration and Christmas wonder, as we have four beautiful Christmas themes for your, including a complete Christmas transformation pack to give your PC the snowy, festive look. Read past the break for more. Read More

3 Apps To Change Mac Desktop, Save Icon Layout & Add Second Menu Bar

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If you need a feature-rich image editor, or a really great app to edit and mash up videos, you wouldn’t normally go scourging for small apps, and you’d very likely be paying for what you need. For the bigger things you want to do on your Mac, there is a whole store full of them, but for smaller desktop managing needs, here are three apps that you might find useful. Secondbar lets you add a second menu bar to your Mac display, and you can extend it as a separate bar to a second monitor. The  bar can be dragged to any part of the screen, mirroring the original system menu bar in behavior. Desktop Icon Manager is a simple app that will memorize where you’ve positioned your icons, and will restore them to that point for you. Change Desktop is an app that lets you select several folders on your system, and display all images in them as wallpaper. The app expertly handles smaller photographs by complimenting the extra space with a color that brings the images out. More on these three after the break. 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

How To Setup Dropbox-Like Synchronization Using Windows Live Mesh

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Many users who use Dropbox and other cloud storage services, have recently been more concerned about security vulnerabilities that can compromise their personal data. While many people like using services like Dropbox because of the convenience that they provide, Windows Live Mesh can be used as a viable alternative for syncing multiple folders (instead of just one parent folder) between Windows and Mac computers. In this post, we will walk you through the steps of setting up your Windows Live Mesh synchronization folders. 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

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

Add Facebook Friends By Touching Your NFC-Capable Android Phones Together

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If you thought NFC (Near Field Communication) was just a means for wireless monetary transactions, Add Friend for Android is bound to open your mind to a plethora of possibilities. This simple yet inspiring free app employs NFC to lets two users become friends on Facebook simply by touching the backs of their phones. Being one of the few NFC-based mobile apps out there, and the only one (we’ve come across) that links the technology with the world’s leading social network, the app is a welcome addition to the Android Market. Head on past the break for further details and a demo video. Read More

Get Siri On iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 & iPod touch Using H1Siri [Cydia Tweak]

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Everyone with an iOS 5 device other than the iPhone 4S seems to have just one wish these days, and that is to get Siri their unsupported devices. People with iPhone 4S have been quick to make everyone envious of the vocal personal assistant. A continuous stream of news has been coming out from the dev community regarding the porting of Siri to older devices. It was largely believed that Siri might never make its way to iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and newer iPod touch models because of copyright issues. Moreover, Siri needs access to Apple’s servers to work. So it comes as a huge surprise that someone has finally been able to overcome these difficulties. That's right; Siri can now be used on devices other than iPhone 4S, provided that they are jailbroken. Read More

How To Disable/Hide Google Search Bar In Android 4.0 ICS Stock Launcher

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Among the many features and interface elements that Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich took from the tablet-exclusive Android OS variant, Honeycomb, is the static search bar that it displays at the top of its stock launcher. Being omnipresent (accessible from each of the five home screens of the stock launcher), it eliminates the need for you to make room for a search widget on the home screen. That said, users who don’t use the search application that often might consider it dead weight doing nothing more than making their home screen look all cluttered. XDA-Developers member oscillik has found a workaround that allows you to hide the search bar. Read on past the break to know how it’s done. 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