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How to Dual Boot Windows 7 and Windows Vista

eches — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:13:17 +0000

Windows 7 Beta gets so much attention from Windows enthusiasts and it is proven when the official page of Windows 7 was crippled temporarily by the continuous stream of traffic who looked for download link on January 9th. Windows 7 is way much better than Windows Vista and XP, no doubt about it. However many are not willing to give up their current OS because it is still in beta stage.

Dual boot is one of several options to those who want to keep their current OS for daily works while simultaneously giving themselves chance to play with new Windows 7 Beta features. It is not really that hard to create dual boot for both operating system Windows 7 and Vista; it requires only few steps to make it happen.

Step 1: Burn Windows 7 Beta on DVD

Assuming you have already downloaded a fresh copy of Windows 7 Beta, you need to burn it onto a DVD. There are wide range of DVD Burning tools that can deliver what you want. Here are some of them; InfraRecorder, ImgBurn and Nero 9 just to name a few.

Step 2: Partition Your Hard Disk
Creating partition in Windows Vista is easy because it has a built in function for partitioning. I have covered this in great length in my previous post, so may want to take a look at this post.

Step 3: Windows 7 Installation

Now come the easy part. Insert your Windows 7 disc and start installing Windows 7. After successfully copying files, it will reboot your computer. Make sure booting from your DVD drive is enabled - (most PCs and laptops will have this enabled by default anyway).

A simple installation wizard will come up after DVD boots up. When you are choosing installation type, make sure to select custom (advanced) and the partition you have created.

Windows will take care of the rest of installation process. Grab a drink and sit back. If you insist not to do anything else but staring at your PC screen you will notice it restarts a few times. Eventually you'll be prompted to set up your account and enter the license key.

If everything goes as planned you will be brought into the new realm of Windows 7 :)

Next time when you start your PC, you will see new entry in boot screen. You will be given 30 seconds to decide which operating system you want to use. If you don't choose after 30 seconds it will automatically choose Windows 7 as the default OS.

Technorati Tags: windows 7, windows Vista, dual boot, partition, how-to, tutorial

Backup your data with FREE Paragon Drive Backup 9 Express

eches — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 07:14:23 +0000

If you use your computer on daily basis, there are definitely a lot of new stuffs being introduced in the computer and not to mention editing and modifications on files that take place continously. With so many important data held in your hard disk, it's vital for you to make a regular backup on the data, that's the way to prepare yourself from unexpected hard drive crash or virus threat that could damage your data or even worse wipe out everything entirely. Norton Ghost can do the job but why we need to pay if we can get alternative and equivalent software for free?

Paragon Drive Backup is a simple, straight-forward and easy to use application that backups up your entire hard disks as clone without hassles and recovers whenever disaster strikes. Here are some of the features that make it a reliable tool when unprecedented disaster looms upon you.

Some features

- Entire PC or File Backup
- Fast Data Restore and System Recovery
- Backup data to any portable device
- Scheduled Backups and HDD Cloning

Even though this program is designed to entirely back up a hard drive or partition, you have the options to include optimizations designed to speed the process up. For example, by default, it will only copy areas of your hard drive that contain data and skip temporary files like the paging file.

The backup is created in a single file and compressed in zip format, so you could save archives to network drives, burn them to DVD (on available on full commercial version only) or even save them locally on the drive you're backing up.

Paragon Drive Backup 9 Express is available for free personal use and is also fully compatible with Windows Vista.

Download: Paragon Drive Backup 9 Express (72 MB)

Technorati Tags: backup data, paragon drive, freeware, Paragon Drive Backup 9 Express, free backup software

Keep your arsenal up-to-date with Anti-Malware Toolkit

eches — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:30:08 +0000

When I first came across this program, I thought it will help us by scanning the existence of any malware and clean them up but that is not really the case. Anti-Malware Toolkit, instead, provides automatic downloads of all the recommended security software, cleanup tools and all other related programs to keep your computer efficient.

Basically the recommended programs are divided into 4 categories; applications, definitions, recommended and utilities which all contain several programs and checkboxes before them. If you never heard some of the programs recommended by this software you can simply select the unknown program and a brief details of what the program is all about will be displayed with a quick link to the program's homepage to help you getting additional information.

Some of the programs I use on my computer such as Unlocker, Firefox & CCleaner are also listed. It's really a good centralized download system protection but having said there's only downside that needs to be taken care of. It doesn't detect if the programs are already installed in our computer. Once it is fixed, I must say this is a superb program to be installed.

Download

Technorati Tags: Anti Mawalre toolkit, malware detection, antivirus, trojan, spyware

Free Up Your Drive Space by Removing Duplicate Files

eches — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:58:16 +0000

My 200 GB external hard drive had reached its bottleneck with the additions of TV series Chuck and it's time to do housekeeping; removed unnecessary files & old videos etc. There were not so many files I was willing to remove, so I need to scrutinize a little bit harder (which folder takes up significant amount of space & see what can be deleted) to free up some space otherwise there will be no room for new fresh tv series. It turned out my mp3 folder took up roughly 35 GB of space. A quick check on the mp3 folders, expose duplicate songs and some of them got up to 3 duplicates!

I knew it long time ago but I keep procrastinating so the number of duplicates grows out of hand. So here are few softwares I found on Google that are able to help me in doing the housekeeping.

1. Heatsoft Clone Cleaner (HCC)

HCC comes in 2 version free and premium. The free version is more than enough to do the job but of course premium one provides additional features such as checking for duplicates in multiple drives and the ability to exclude subfolders from checking for duplicates. The only downside is it keeps asking me to upgrade to PRO version.

2. Duplicate File Finder

Duplicate File Finder is a simple, but effective tool to locate duplicate files in one or more selected search paths. It scans the files and compares them based on Byte for Byte Comparison, which ensures 100% accuracy. You can then choose to delete the selected duplicate or original files. The program is multi threaded and performs scans quickly. For 200 GB it only takes roughly 5 minutes to complete. It's totally free!

3. Double Killer

Double Killer is able to scan for duplicates by using names, sizes, dates and CRC32. They are not 100% accurate and if you want to use raw binary comparison, you need to Purchase the PRO version.

4. Easy Duplicate File Finder

This software is able to exclude system folders such as windows and program files. It says that it search for true duplicates (files with same contents) and it scan pretty fast!

I used Heatsoft Clone Cleaner Lite to clear up the duplicates (roughly 3 GB. What a waste of space!) and will be using this software in the future.

Technorati Tags: remove duplicate files, free up drive space, windows xp, computer tips, tricks, freeware

Backup drivers from already installed drivers

eches — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 07:35:15 +0000

Double Drivers is particularly useful when you lost a driver (backup) on your computer and it is not anywhere to be found even on the net. With this software, you can see the full list of drivers installed on your computer and make a backup out of them. Say you just formatted your computer and looking for the previous driver, Double Drivers is able to help you out by restoring the particular driver.

Here's the full list of features

View installed drivers
Backup drivers
Restore drivers
Save drivers list
Print drivers list

Even if you might not need this software for the time being, you may want to download the software or bookmark the page. This freeware can be downloaded from the main site or you can download it from softpedia.

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Reorganize your Taskbar with Taskbar Reshuffle

eches — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:33:03 +0000

When Firefox first introduced this particular feature on its tabs, I wished Windows also has the same feature. I hope this feature will be included in Vista; apparently it is not there. Searching for some kind of small application that might help be to reshuffle the taskbar, return me with promising websites, unfortunately I need to spend some dollars. Spending few dollars just to reorganize Windows Taskbar? Are you kidding me? It's not gonna happen. Luckily, there is 1 small freeware that's able to perform that task.

Taskbar Shuffle is a small Windows utility that allows you to rearrange the order of your taskbar items by dragging and dropping. All you need to do is to download, install and you are good to go with reshuffling. I'm not sure what to write about to fill an entire post but here's the full feature list.

Reorder your taskbar buttons by dragging and dropping them

Reorder your tray icons in the same way

Reorder tasks in a grouped button's popup menu in the same way

Middle-click to close programs on your taskbar

Works with UltraMon taskbars

Tweak taskbar button grouping

You might be interested in trying this little application and for what it's worth, it is compatible with all Windows versions!

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Technorati Tags: freeware, taskbar reshuffle, organize taskbar, drag and drop, DragnDrop, taskbar

Most Effective Ways To Speed Up Your PC

eches — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:35:33 +0000

No matter how good the configuration of your Windows PC may be, if you don’t take care of it, it is bound to slow down soon. Just like all other appliances you own, it is essential for you to perform regular preventive maintenance of your PC.

The following are some of the simple and effective methods to fix slow computer problems and ensure yourself an efficient and high performance PC.

Check and Remove Malware Infections

Sudden and dramatic computer slow downs usually occur when your system is infected by a malicious program such as virus, Trojans, adware or spyware. These programs usually creep on to your system via infected external media, such as CDs, pen drives, and external hard disks. Many malicious programs, especially spyware and adware come bundled with freeware software, such as games, music, and computer utilities. These malicious programs spread quickly once they are on the system.

They not only cause slow computer problems, but may also generate several computer errors. To stop and remove these malicious infections, you need to regularly scan your system and clean it with the help of reliable antivirus and anti spyware tools. To ensure that your system is protected against the latest malware, you must keep these programs updated with the latest definitions released by their manufacturers.

Clean Your Registry

As you work on your PC, a lot of information is added and removed from the registry. Many times, information that is no longer required gets left behind and causes registry bloating. A large bloated registry not only causes registry problems, but also slows down registry access, which, in turn slows down your system. To prevent Windows XP and Windows Vista registry problems and to speed up your computer, it is essential that you regularly scan and clean your registry with the help of a reliable registry cleaner tool. You must also make sure to backup the registry periodically to ensure that, in case the registry fails due to a certain problem, you can easily restore it from the backup you made earlier.

Clean your Hard Disk

The hard disk is one of the most vital components of your Windows computer. This is due to the simple reason that it comprises all of your data. Over time, the hard disk gets cluttered with unwanted files and folders. If you frequently install and uninstall programs from your PC, then your hard disk may also get filled up with orphan information left behind when you remove these programs. Some of the methods that you can use to maintain a healthy hard disk are:

Keep your system free from unwanted programs. You may use the Add or Remove Programs utility or a reliable third-party program uninstaller to remove these programs from the system.
Use a registry cleaner tool to remove any orphan entries left behind in the registry after you have uninstalled a program.
Use the Disk Cleanup tool to clean up unwanted data, such as Temporary Internet Files, old program setup files, and obsolete system restore points from the hard disk.
Use the Disk Defragmenter to consolidate the fragmented files on the system and thus speed up data access time from the hard disk.

Remember, if you want to maintain a healthy and fast computer, you must take good care of it and perform regular preventive maintenance to keep it free from errors.

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How to format USB drive with NTFS

eches — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:15:20 +0000

If you are observant enough you should notice when you try to defrag your hard drive, the file system of any USB drive usually in FAT32. Even if you try to format your USB drive you are only left with 2 option; FAT and FAT32.

FAT32 is the default setting in Windows XP and there must be a good reason why it is set so. Examining the pros and cons of each system file seems to be a perfect way of portraying the essence of FAT32 system and why we want it to be formatted in NTFS. The following are the pros and cons regarding these file systems and how to enable NTFS system in the hard drive.

NTFS: Pros & Cons

Let's get down to the advantages and disadvantages of FAT32 and NTFS.

Advantages: Enabling NTFS in removable storage devices allows us to add allow and deny permissions on individual files and folders for specific Windows users; that's the function not available in FAT file system. NTFS also allows files to be encrypted by using Windows XP’s built-in encryption.

Space on the storage device can also be improved due to compression capability. Last but not least disk quotas can also be set and even creating partitions!

Disadvantages:

There are, however, few drawbacks when using NFTS on a USB drive. First and foremost, it requires more writing to the USB drive. Thus slower access to the device but not to the extend that turns off people from using it.

As far as the encryption is concerned you will not be able to access them from other computers. This could be a perfect feature, depending to what extend you want to secure the USB drive. If you think this will cause trouble when you need to do use it in multiple stations then don't do the files encryption.

How to enable USB drive with NTFS?

1. You need to connect your USB device to your computer, that's for sure. Right-click on My Computer from the desktop and choose Manage.

2. Click on "Device Manager" and expand out "Disk Drives". There are maybe couple of drives depending on how many USB drive & hard drive connected to your PC.

3. Right click on USB drive and select "properties". After that, click on the "Policies" tab and choose "Optimize for performance" radio button. Finally click OK and you are done!

If you right-click on USB drive and select "Format.." you will see NTFS is now available.

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Technorati Tags: usb drive, format in NTFS, thumbdrive, FAT32, FAT, file system, hard drive

Shutdown your PC with a timer

eches — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 10:12:13 +0000

If you download something big in term of size from torrent you can always resume your download at later time but this is not the case if you are downloading from rapidshare or from any similar services. Lately I've been using Rapidshare and Megaupload extensively for downloading purpose. The advantage of using direct download is the estimation time of download completion is fairly accurate as compared to torrent which depends solely on the number of uploaders. With the presence of timer we should be able to manipulate our PC to shutdown right after the downloads are completed especially during late night! Enough with the torrent and direct download; let's move on with the implementation of it. It's pretty easy :)

1. Type in "CMD" in Menu > Run. Figure out how much time do you want before the PC will shut itself down. Type in 'shutdown -s -t XXXX'. If you want it to shut down after 20 minutes set it to 1200 (seconds) in XXXX.

2. The following popup should appear before you. If you want to cancel the shutdown timer go into the CMD prompt and type in 'shutdown -a'.

The easiest way to further manipulate the processes of shutdown, restart or logoff of your PC is by typing in "shutdown -i". By doing this the following window will popup and you got a better control of your PC.

p/s: A small step towards shaping a better world by conserving energy ;)

Technorati Tags: shutdown PC, computer tricks, timer