Reset Admistrative password in Win Xp

There are times when we forget the all exclusive Windows XP Administrator password in our home or office system. Here are few steps with which you can easily reset your Administrator password in Windows Xp   Boot your system with the Windows XP Setup CD. Afer the welcome screen, accept the EULA agreement, etc - proceed as required. In the option to install XP afresh or "Repair your existing Windows XP installation". Choose to Repair by pressing "R". Repair process will start by first copying files the files needed. After few minutes, the setup will restart your system and when it restarts remember NOT to press any key when it shows "Press any key to continue…".  Don't press any key and setup will resume from where it stopped. It will start doing other tasks and will show a small progress bar with a few details in left hand corner. When it shows "Installing Devices", remember to press Shift key + F10 key in your keyboard. This will open a Command Prompt window. Now type nusrmgr.cpl and press the Enter. This opens up the "User Accounts" window which you normally get in the Control Panel. You can now easily reset any account's password.

Bandwidth Explained

Most hosting companies offer a variety of bandwidth options in their plans. So exactly what is bandwidth as it relates to web hosting? Put simply, bandwidth is the amount of traffic that is allowed to occur between your web site and the rest of the internet. The amount of bandwidth a hosting company can provide is determined by their network connections, both internal to their data center and external to the public internet. Network Connectivity: The internet, in the most simplest of terms, is a group of millions of computers connected by networks. These connections within the internet can be large or small depending upon the cabling and equipment that is used at a particular internet location. It is the size of each network connection that determines how much bandwidth is available. For example, if you use a DSL connection to connect to the internet, you have 1.54 Mega bits (Mb) of bandwidth. Bandwidth therefore is measured in bits (a single 0 or 1). Bits are grouped in bytes which form words, text, and other information that is transferred between your computer and the internet. If you have a DSL connection to the internet, you have dedicated bandwidth between your computer and your internet provider. But your internet provider may have thousands of DSL connections to their location. All of these connection aggregate at your internet provider who then has their own dedicated connection to the internet (or multiple connections) which is much larger than your single connection. They must have enough bandwidth to serve your computing needs as well as all of their other customers. So while you have a 1.54Mb connection to your internet provider, your internet provider may have a 255Mb connection to the internet so it can accommodate your needs and up to 166 other users (255/1.54). Traffic: A very simple analogy to use to understand bandwidth and traffic is to think of highways and cars. Bandwidth is the number of lanes on the highway and traffic is the number of cars on the highway. If you are the only car on a highway, you can travel very quickly. If you are stuck in the middle of rush hour, you may travel very slowly since all of the lanes are being used up. Traffic is simply the number of bits that are transferred on network connections. It is easiest to understand traffic using examples. One Gigabyte is 2 to the 30th power (1,073,741,824) bytes. One gigabyte is equal to 1,024 megabytes. To put this in perspective, it takes one byte to store one character. Imagine 100 file cabinets in a building, each of these cabinets holds 1000 folders. Each folder has 100 papers. Each paper contains 100 characters - A GB is all the characters in the building. An MP3 song is about 4MB, the same song in wav format is about 40MB, a full length movie can be 800MB to 1000MB (1000MB = 1GB). If you were to transfer this MP3 song from a web site to your computer, you would create 4MB of traffic between the web site you are downloading from and your computer. Depending upon the network connection between the web site and the internet, the transfer may occur very quickly, or it could take time if other people are also downloading files at the same time. If, for example, the web site you download from has a 10MB connection to the internet, and you are the only person accessing that web site to download your MP3, your 4MB file will be the only traffic on that web site. However, if three people are all downloading that same MP at the same time, 12MB (3 x 4MB) of traffic has been created. Because in this example, the host only has 10MB of bandwidth, someone will have to wait. The network equipment at the hosting company will cycle through each person downloading the file and transfer a small portion at a time so each person's file transfer can take place, but the transfer for everyone downloading the file will be slower. If 100 people all came to the site and downloaded the MP3 at the same time, the transfers would be extremely slow. If the host wanted to decrease the time it took to download files simultaneously, it could increase the bandwidth of their internet connection (at a cost due to upgrading equipment). Hosting Bandwidth: In the example above, we discussed traffic in terms of downloading an MP3 file. However, each time you visit a web site, you are creating traffic, because in order to view that web page on your computer, the web page is first downloaded to your computer (between the web site and you) which is then displayed using your browser software (Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.) . The page itself is simply a file that creates traffic just like the MP3 file in the example above (however, a web page is usually much smaller than a music file). A web page may be very small or large depending upon the amount of text and the number and quality of images integrated within the web page. For example, the home page for CNN.com is about 200KB (200 Kilobytes = 200,000 bytes = 1,600,000 bits). This is typically large for a web page. In comparison, Yahoo's home page is about 70KB. How Much Bandwidth Is Enough? It depends (don't you hate that answer). But in truth, it does. Since bandwidth is a significant determinant of hosting plan prices, you should take time to determine just how much is right for you. Almost all hosting plans have bandwidth requirements measured in months, so you need to estimate the amount of bandwidth that will be required by your site on a monthly basis If you do not intend to provide file download capability from your site, the formula for calculating bandwidth is fairly straightforward: Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size x 31 x Fudge Factor If you intend to allow people to download files from your site, your bandwidth calculation should be: [(Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size) + (Average Daily File Downloads x Average File Size)] x 31 x Fudge Factor Let us examine each item in the formula: Average Daily Visitors - The number of people you expect to visit your site, on average, each day. Depending upon how you market your site, this number could be from 1 to 1,000,000. Average Page Views - On average, the number of web pages you expect a person to view. If you have 50 web pages in your web site, an average person may only view 5 of those pages each time they visit. Average Page Size - The average size of your web pages, in Kilobytes (KB). If you have already designed your site, you can calculate this directly. Average Daily File Downloads - The number of downloads you expect to occur on your site. This is a function of the numbers of visitors and how many times a visitor downloads a file, on average, each day. Average File Size - Average file size of files that are downloadable from your site. Similar to your web pages, if you already know which files can be downloaded, you can calculate this directly. Fudge Factor - A number greater than 1. Using 1.5 would be safe, which assumes that your estimate is off by 50%. However, if you were very unsure, you could use 2 or 3 to ensure that your bandwidth requirements are more than met. Usually, hosting plans offer bandwidth in terms of Gigabytes (GB) per month. This is why our formula takes daily averages and multiplies them by 31. Summary: Most personal or small business sites will not need more than 1GB of bandwidth per month. If you have a web site that is composed of static web pages and you expect little traffic to your site on a daily basis, go with a low bandwidth plan. If you go over the amount of bandwidth allocated in your plan, your hosting company could charge you over usage fees, so if you think the traffic to your site will be significant, you may want to go through the calculations above to estimate the amount of bandwidth required in a hosting plan.

Move Over Broadband,Make way for the Grid

From The Sunday Times

April 6, 2008

Coming soon: superfast internet

Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

THE internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.
At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, "the grid" will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.
The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.
David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could "revolutionise" society. "With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine," he said.
The power of the grid will become apparent this summer after what scientists at Cern have termed their "red button" day - the switching-on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the new particle accelerator built to probe the origin of the universe. The grid will be activated at the same time to capture the data it generates.
Cern, based near Geneva, started the grid computing project seven years ago when researchers realised the LHC would generate annual data equivalent to 56m CDs - enough to make a stack 40 miles high.
This meant that scientists at Cern - where Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web in 1989 - would no longer be able to use his creation for fear of causing a global collapse.
This is because the internet has evolved by linking together a hotchpotch of cables and routing equipment, much of which was originally designed for telephone calls and therefore lacks the capacity for high-speed data transmission.
By contrast, the grid has been built with dedicated fibre optic cables and modern routing centres, meaning there are no outdated components to slow the deluge of data. The 55,000 servers already installed are expected to rise to 200,000 within the next two years.
Professor Tony Doyle, technical director of the grid project, said: "We need so much processing power, there would even be an issue about getting enough electricity to run the computers if they were all at Cern. The only answer was a new network powerful enough to send the data instantly to research centres in other countries."
That network, in effect a parallel internet, is now built, using fibre optic cables that run from Cern to 11 centres in the United States, Canada, the Far East, Europe and around the world.
One terminates at the Rutherford Appleton laboratory at Harwell in Oxfordshire.
From each centre, further connections radiate out to a host of other research institutions using existing high-speed academic networks.
It means Britain alone has 8,000 servers on the grid system – so that any student or academic will theoretically be able to hook up to the grid rather than the internet from this autumn.
Ian Bird, project leader for Cern's high-speed computing project, said grid technology could make the internet so fast that people would stop using desktop computers to store information and entrust it all to the internet.
"It will lead to what's known as cloud computing, where people keep all their information online and access it from anywhere," he said.
Computers on the grid can also transmit data at lightning speed. This will allow researchers facing heavy processing tasks to call on the assistance of thousands of other computers around the world. The aim is to eliminate the dreaded "frozen screen" experienced by internet users who ask their machine to handle too much information.
The real goal of the grid is, however, to work with the LHC in tracking down nature's most elusive particle, the Higgs boson. Predicted in theory but never yet found, the Higgs is supposed to be what gives matter mass.
The LHC has been designed to hunt out this particle - but even at optimum performance it will generate only a few thousand of the particles a year. Analysing the mountain of data will be such a large task that it will keep even the grid's huge capacity busy for years to come.
Although the grid itself is unlikely to be directly available to domestic internet users, many telecoms providers and businesses are already introducing its pioneering technologies. One of the most potent is so-called dynamic switching, which creates a dedicated channel for internet users trying to download large volumes of data such as films. In theory this would give a standard desktop computer the ability to download a movie in five seconds rather than the current three hours or so.
Additionally, the grid is being made available to dozens of other academic researchers including astronomers and molecular biologists.
It has already been used to help design new drugs against malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that kills 1m people worldwide each year. Researchers used the grid to analyse 140m compounds - a task that would have taken a standard internet-linked PC 420 years.
"Projects like the grid will bring huge changes in business and society as well as science," Doyle said.
"Holographic video conferencing is not that far away. Online gaming could evolve to include many thousands of people, and social networking could become the main way we communicate.
"The history of the internet shows you cannot predict its real impacts but we know they will be huge."

Speeding Vista

Note: Only tweak your Windows registry if you know what you are doing. A simple mistake while tweaking it can render your OS useless. So backup your registry and be careful.
1.Restrict number of start up programs Ones you can start manually ,click internet defense manually before going on internet a pick ones you decide to start up like yahoo messenger add on ones etc. Run strong utilities like win Patrol, tune up Utilities as a rule of thumb..

2. Disable services which one may not require. For example, if your pc is a stand-alone one, there may be several services which you can disable or switch over to manual mode. Auto-starting and closing down of services takes time & resources. These can be saved. Black Viper's Vista Service Configurations is an excellent guide to follow.

3. Reducing visual effects (eye candy). Right-click on "My Computer" > Properties > Advanced > Performance-Settings > Visual Effects > Adjust for best performance > Apply > OK.
To allow the themes and the glass effects, you may have to check on the boxes: enable transparent glass and use visual styles; this way at least the spirit of Vista will be preserved- else be prepared for a really bland Vista! Use your discretion as disabling all can actually negate the purpose of 'eye-friendly' Vista.

4. Ensure that boot defragmentation is enabled, so that files used during start-up are clubbed together.
Start Regedit. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction . Select Enable from the list on the right.
Right Click on it and select Modify. Change the value to Y to enable and N to disable. Reboot.

5. Disable: "clear page file on shutdown" option. Cleaning the page-file on every shutdown means overwriting the data by zeros, and it takes time.
To clear/not clear page file you can apply this reg tweak. Back up registry before trying this.
Start->run->regedit [enter]
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management
Modify (if not present, rt click in open space and create) the Value Data Type/s and Value Name/s :
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value]
Value Name: ClearPageFileAtShutdown
Setting for Value Data: [0 = Clear Page File Disabled / 1 = Clear Page File Enabled]
Exit Registry and Reboot.

6. Defragment your System Disk & Fine Tune your Registry. If you find the Vista's in-built defragger slow, you can try SysInternals Power Defragmenter which works on Vista too! Use the freeware CCleaner to clear up your PC Junk and clean up the Registry. Compacting the Registry occasionally is a good idea too!

7. Prefetch. Generally people also recommend emptying the Prefetch directory once in a while. But Windows uses this directory to speed up launching applications. It analyzes the files you use during startup and the applications you launch, and it creates an index to where those files and applications are located on your hard disk. Using this index, Windows can launch files and applications faster.
8. Bios. Go to BIOS settings, by pressing del or F10 key during boot-up, and disable 'seek floppy drive' option. This saves time for those who do not use floppy drives. There are also some BIOS hacks like Enabling Quick Post, Disabling Boot Daly, etc but best to refrain from these.

9. Change Boot-Order Sequence: Normally, the bios is set to boot from floppy first, then CD and then Hard Disk. Changing the Boot-Order to be: Hard Disk first, then maybe CD/Floppy, could possibly "save" a second.

10. Disable windows startup/shutdown/logon/logoff sounds. Go to control panel, sounds & audio devices, sound tab, in program events select 'no sound' for these events.

11. Disable the ScreenSaver if you dont need it. Right-Click desktop>ScreenSaver>None>OK.

12. Fonts take time to load. Removing some can save on resources. But one must be careful in deciding which fonts to remove. If you delete some system fonts, you may be in for trouble. Tweak VI Pro is a good shareware to manage fonts. It uninstalls fonts without physically removing them. Open its help file. It lists down the system fonts which must not be deleted ! use the list; and then decide what to delete and what to keep.

13. Shutdown. To REALLY reduce your shutdown time.
Start Regedit. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control.
Click on the "Control" Folder. Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout"
Right click on it and select Modify. The default value is 12000.
Setting it to a lower 4 digit value,( say 1000) will make your PC shutdown faster, but you could end up losing data, so use this tweak judiciously.

14. Get rid of all the extra programs Windows Vista installs. You may not be using some like WLM, Calculator, Games, Meeting Space, Fax, etc. Go To Control Panel\Programs\Programs and Features > Turn windows On or Off and do the needful.

15. Control.Go To Control Panel\System and Maintenance\Performance Information and Tools. On the LHS you will see options to Adjust Indexing options, visual effects, power Settings, etc. These all help directly and indirectly.

Do remember that your Vista-based machine will tend to run a little faster, after the first few weeks after it's installed, thanks to its new feature called "SuperFetch" ; which basically studies the programs that use a lot and remembers them and puts the data into memory. Always run strong anti virus ,anti spyware and anti spam .Delete those temp files daily and go 100 miles faster.......

Xp Over Vista

Not comfortable with Windows Vista? Long for XP again? Here are a few simple steps to bring back the glory of XP.

You've bought a new PC with Windows Vista installed. Or you've upgraded to a version of Vista from your XP installation. After a few days of getting used to the new and improved operating system in all its glory, you find you hate it. You long to return to the good, old and reliable Windows XP.
Here's how to do it in a few simple steps.
What you're about to do is a one-way solution. You can also consider creating a dual-boot configuration, which allows users to pick a bootable choice of both operating systems (XP and Vista) to be installed on the same machine at the same time. That option is somewhat too complicated.
So, let's start expunging Vista and bringing XP back, with as little screaming as possible. Bear in mind that the FIRST thing to do is to back up all your important data to a safe (and separate) location, such as an external USB drive or multiple DVDs. In any case, backup should be a monthly routine, anyway.
Once you're sure you've backed up everything you wanted to keep, start reversing your PC to XP.
Removing Vista can be tricky, given the secure nature of the operating system and how it interacts with the computer's hardware. Thankfully, the basic task of removing Vista is fairly easy, if you perform each step in the proper order.
Step 1: Have your original bootable CD copy of Windows XP on hand, along with the ever-important Windows product key. Along with these two items, have a CD with all the latest hardware drivers (sound, video card, etc.) on it, to ensure a smooth install of XP once Vista is gone. For those that are missing, go find them in the tech support section of the their maker's website and download them to a safe place off the machine you are about to work with. Ensure you download and burn to CD all the drivers you will need, just in case the new XP installation calls for it during the operation.
Step 2: Have a bootable CD or floppy disk handy, to allow you to clean off your PC's hard drive and install a fresh copy of Windows XP. If you do not have such a disk, you can create one fairly easily by following the very concise instructions at Allbootdisks.com.
You can also find the ISO data (an exact image of a CD) needed to create such a bootable CD at sites like The Ultimate Boot CD. Their UBCD is available for download completely free of charge and is packed with utilities for diagnostics and repair of stubborn PC boot issues. It is an excellent tool to have handy when things go wrong.
Step 3: Create a bootable CD from the ISO. Programs like Nero Burning ROM can also create a bootable CD from ISO images from sites similar to the UBCD. Once it is burned, you can boot your PC with the CD (see Step 5 to come) and so bypass the Vista OS before it starts up. Note that you should test out your newly-minted bootable CD beforehand, just to make sure there were no burn errors. You can do this anytime before Step 7. Also, you can add additional programs to the bootable CD; see Step 11 for some examples.
Step 4: Ensure you absolutely, positively have all of your important data backed up. Search your hard drive for anything you want saved, as the disk will be totally erased during the install procedure. All the data stored on it will be lost, irrecoverable.
Step 5: Reboot your computer and get into the BIOS settings, which are the basic setup settings for the PC. They exist separately from the operating system. Here; you will be able to instruct your PC to boot from the Windows XP CD first, before looking at the already-installed Vista operating system on the hard drive.
Most computers will display a BIOS option at every startup — look for messages like "Press F1 to enter setup" or "Hit DEL for BIOS" when you reboot your computer, before Vista starts up. Not every PC manufacturer does it the same way, so be quick when you look, as the boot messages do not wait around for long on-screen.
Step 6: Once you have accessed your computer's BIOS, look for "Boot Options" among the various settings. BE CAREFUL — messing up your BIOS can render your PC unbootable, so if you are not sure if you set something correctly, use the "Exit without saving" option and try it again. Once you have carefully found the Boot Order, have a look at the order of the devices listed. Boot Order will allow you to choose which device the PC will boot from first: floppy drive, CD/DVD-ROM, hard drive or other devices (such as USB keys). Make sure to select the CD/DVD-ROM drive to boot BEFORE the hard drive, so that your bootable CD will load before Vista gets a chance.
Save the BIOS settings, ensure the Windows XP CD is in the drive, and reboot. Your PC should now boot from the Windows XP CD, and allow you to run the disk management utility.
Step 7: If the Boot Order in the BIOS was set properly, Windows XP will now boot to its basic blue Setup menu, with several options. Choose the "Repair An Existing Installation" option — this will allow you to modify the way the current installation of Vista boots, which is important.
Step 8: Now, a command prompt will appear. Type in "fixboot c:\" (without the quotes) and hit Enter. This command will write a new startup sector on the system partition of the disk. This command creates a space on the drive where XP can write its own files, as opposed to the type of sector that Vista has installed so it could read its own files. This is important, as XP needs to be able to "see" the hard drive properly on startup to install itself, taking control away from Vista.
Step 9: Next, type "fixmbr c:\" and hit Enter. This command repairs the startup partition's master boot code. This code is on the very first sector of the hard drive, which is where XP looks first to help it find things like partitions. The MBR is like an index for the drive, and changing it this way lets XP see the index properly right away on boot-up.
Step 10: Now, type "EXIT" to leave the Recovery Console. Remove the Windows XP CD and replace it with the bootable CD or floppy created in Step 2, then reboot the PC again.
Step 11: Wait for the bootable CD to take you to a command prompt. Once there, type "format c:\," confirming that all the data on the drive is to be erased. This will take a while.
You can use other disk-formatting utilities such as Super F-disk, a free program that has many more features than the basic "format" command included with XP. Just make sure to extract and copy it to a bootable CD of your own creation, as it does not boot on its own. For those of you with large hard drives, it may benefit you to partition those drives into smaller chunks with programs like Super Fdisk, to speed up data access, among other things.
Step 12: Once the drive is formatted, replace the bootable CD with the Windows XP CD and reboot your system. You will be able to install XP from the CD normally now, choosing to install it on the blank partition you have created in Step11. Go through the normal installation of XP, and then enjoy your PC's newfound speed boost from a fresh OS install.
Your PC is back to the rusty but (mostly) reliable Windows XP.

How Much Text is in a Kilobyte or Megabyte

A bit is the most basic unit of information. At their most fundamental level, most modern computers operate on binary bits which means that they can have two states, usually specified as a 0 or 1. Long strings of these bits can be used to represent most types of information including text, pictures and music.

Most modern computers are binary systems and therefore, they are particularly well suited to working with bits. Pure binary information, however, is of little use to humans. The binary number 11000101110 is equivalent to 1582; it is obvious that we are much more suited to working with digits and text instead of ones and zeros.

To help make computers more like our language-based way of thinking, groups of bits are joined into bytes. One byte is comprised of 8 bits. A set of 8 bits was chosen because this provides 256 total possibilities which is sufficient for specifying letters, numbers, spaces, punctuation and other extended characters. This very sentence, for example is composed of 125 bytes because there are 125 letters, digits, spaces and punctuation marks. Keep in mind that we are discussing pure text; some word processing programs, include other sorts of formatting data, and therefore the filesizes will be greater than the number of characters in the file.

It is estimated that a kilobyte can accommodate about 1/2 of a typewritten page. Therefore, one full page requires about 2 kilobytes. The chart below illustrates the number of bytes in common terms such as kilobyte and megabyte and how much text could be stored:

Name	Number of Bytes	Amount of Text
Kilobyte (KB)	210 or 1,024	1/2 page
Megabyte (MB)	220 or 1,048,576	500 pages or 1 thick book
Gigabyte (GB)	230 or 1,073,741,824	500,000 pages or 1,000 thick books
Terabyte (TB)	240 or 1,099,511,627, 776	1,000,000 thick books
Petabyte	250 or 1,125,899,906, 842,624	180 Libraries of Congress
Exabyte	260 or 1,152,921,504, 606,846,976	180 thousand Libraries of Congress
Zettabyte	270 or 1,180,591,620, 717,411,303, 424	180 million Libraries of Congress
Yottabyte	280 or 1,208,925,819, 614,629,174, 706,176	180 billion Libraries of Congress

The Library of Congress in Washington D.C. is said to be the world's largest library with over 28 million volumes. The numbers listed in the chart above are based on the assumption that the average book has 200 pages. Most Compact Discs (CD) can hold approximately 750 megabytes (mB) which is roughly equivalent to 375,000 pages of text! DVDs can store 4.7 gigabytes (gB) or 2.3 million pages. The next generation of optical media, Blu-Ray discs, can hold an astonishing 27 gigabytes or 13.5 million pages which is roughly equivalent to the text contained in 67,500 books!

Data Measurement Chart
Data Measurement	Size
Bit	Single Binary Digit (1 or 0)
Byte	8 bits
Kilobyte (KB)
	Bytes	1024 Bytes
	Bits	8192 Bits
Megabyte (MB)
	Kilobytes	1,024 KB
	Bytes	1048576 Bytes
	Bits	8388608 Bits
Gigabyte (GB)
	Megabytes	1,024 MB
	Kilobytes	1048576 KB
	Bytes	1073741824 Bytes
	Bits	8589934592 Bits
Terabyte (TB)
	Gigabytes	1,024 GB
	Megabytes	1048576 MB
	Kilobytes	1073741824 KB
	Bytes	1099511627776 Bytes
	Bits	8796093022208 Bits
Petabyte (PB)
	Terabytes	1,024 TB
	Gigabytes	1048576 GB
	Megabytes	1073741824 MB
	Kilobytes	1099511627776 KB
	Bytes	1125899906842624 Bytes
	Bits	9007199254740992 Bits
Exabyte (EB)
	Petabytes	1,024 PB
	Terabytes	1048576 TB
	Gigabytes	1073741824 GB
	Megabytes	1099511627776 MB
	Kilobytes	1125899906842624 KB
	Bytes	1152292150460684697 6 Bytes
	Bits	1180591620717411303 424 Bits

Windows Softwares for free

Some Free Softwares for Windows

Here are some of the best software programs and utilities for your Windows computer that are completely free and still extremely useful. With all these wonderful choices, why pay?
Audio Editing: For some basic audio recording, use Audacity - it can record, filter noise from audio and also mix multiple sound track. You can use Audacity to record live streaming music from Internet radio stations.
Video Editing: Windows Movie Maker from Microsoft is a good choice for video. It has all the basic video editing tools and a good collection of transitions and video effects. For advanced usage, get the powerful VirtualDub - it has a number of filters (like video rotation), can create videos from image sequences, split videos or even extract sound from video tracks.

Instant Messenger: If your friends are spread across different services like Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN and others, get Pidgin and connect to all popular IM services using a single software. Pidgin provides a tabbed interface so the desktop won't look cluttered even if you are simultaneously chatting with multiple buddies.
Computer Security: Your computer needs a firewall program like ZoneAlarm or Comodo Pro to stop spyware programs from connecting to websites secretly and for blocking any Internet intruders. For removing viruses from infected systems, AVG Antivirus and Avast are very reliable and unlike other commercial software, they are not heavy on system resources.
Multimedia Players: VLC Media Player is light-weight and supports almost everything including DVDs and Flash Videos that you have downloaded from YouTube. Another option is GOM player.
Digital Photography: For organizing your vast picture collection, get Google Picasa or Windows Live Photo Gallery. With Picasa, you can create Screensavers and Picture Collages while Live Gallery has a wonderful photo stitching feature for making panoramas. Both let you transfer pictures from the desktop to Flickr. For advanced photo editing, use Paint.NET or GIMP.
Windows Enhancements: If you like using keyboard more than the mouse, get Launchy - it helps you start your favorite programs (and documents) without touching the Windows Start Menu. TweakUI is another desktop enhancement to help you control the appearance of Windows, change the location of default folders and so much more.
Spring Cleaning: WinDirStat gives you a visual overview of files and folders that are consuming the bulk of space on your hard drive so you know where to hit the delete key when the drive is full. CCleaner with automatically find and remove all the unnecessary temp files from your computer reclaiming valuable hard drive space. It also clears all the junk from Windows registry so your system runs faster. MyUninstaller will help you remove software that do show up in Windows Add Remove control panel.
Desktop Email: If you like checking and replying to your web email from the desktop, Windows Live Mail and ThunderBird are worth considering. They let you check multiple e-mail accounts in one place, apply filters to incoming email, add another layer of protection from junk email, built-in RSS reader and best of all, you can work offline.
DVD Tools: Use DVD Shrink for creating backup copies of your DVD video disks onto the hard drive. For extracting movie scenes and MP3 music from DVDs, HandBrake is a good choice. Use it to export your DVDs into portable players like the iPod.
Other Worthy ones: HTTrack helps you create a mirror copy of any website on the hard drive for offline reading. Orbit Downloader lets you save streaming music and videos from almost every website. Copernic Desktop is an excellent software for finding emails, documents, photos and other multimedia files on your computer. Microsoft SyncToy provides a visual interface for synchronizing file folders between computers and external drives.

The Big Keyboard Shortcut List

The BIG Keyboard Shortcut List

What is the allure of keyboard shortcuts? Do they really save time? Why bother since my mouse is permanently attached to my hand?

I like to use keyboard shortcuts, especially if someone is watching me, because they make me look like a pro. With just a few key strokes I can leave a mouser spinning his wheel! Whatever your motivation, here's a big list of keyboard shortcuts:

GENERAL SHORTCUTS

ALT- F4 - Quit a program / Shut down

ALT-TAB - Hold down the ALT key and hit tab to cycle through open windows.

CTL-ESCAPE - Display the Start menu

SHIFT - TAB - tab backwards through a form

CTRL - X - Cut

CTRL - C - Copy

CTRL - V - Paste

F1 - Help menu

CTRL - Z - Undo

SHIFT & Restart - To restart just windows and not your whole computer, hold down the shift key when you click the OK button on the shutdown screen. Saves lots of time. (not for XP)

CRTL-TAB - Navigate tabs on a tabbed screen

FILE & DESKTOP SHORTCUTS

Hold SHIFT while inserting a CD - Prevents the CD from "autorunning"

If an item is selected:

CTRL while dragging a file - Copies the file

CTRL - SHIFT while dragging a file - Creates a shortcut to the file

SHIFT - DELETE - Deletes an item without sending it to the recycle bin.

ALT-ENTER - Display a file's properties.

F2 - To rename the file

In Windows Explorer:

LEFT ARROW - Collapse the current selection if it is expanded

NUM LOCK-MINUS SIGN (-) - Collapse the selected folder

RIGHT ARROW - Expand the current selection if it is collapsed -Or- Select the first subfolder

NUM LOCK- * Expand all folders below the current selection

NUM LOCK- PLUS SIGN (+) - Expand the selected folder


F6 - Switch between left and right panes

In My Computer:

BACKSPACE - View the folder one level up

ALT- RIGHT ARROW - Move forward to a previous view

ALT- LEFT ARROW -Move backward to a previous view

INTERNET BROWSER SHORTCUTS

For Internet Explorer 6 and Netscape 7 (may work in older versions)

Open History Window Ctrl+H
Reload Ctrl+R
Back (Previous Page) Alt+Left Arrow or Alt+Backspace
Forward (Next Page) Alt+Right Arrow
Stop Esc
Home Alt+Home
Go to Bottom of Page End
Go to Top of Page Home
New Window Ctrl+N
Close WIndow Ctrl+W
Go Up one Line Up Arrow
Go Down One Line Down Arrow
Full Screen (toggle) F11
Find on Page Ctrl+F
Add Current Page to Favorites Ctrl+D

Print Current Page
or Active Frame Ctrl+P

Organize Favorites (IE)/
Manage Bookmarks (NS)
Ctrl+B
Maximize a Window Alt+Space+x
Minimize a window Alt+Space+N
Scroll page up Alt+Up Arrow
Scroll page down Alt+Down Arrow

Internet Explorer ONLY

Open Favorites Bar Ctrl+I
Select text in address bar Alt+D
Force Reload (not from cache) Ctrl+F5

A faster way to type in addresses with IE is to just type in the name of the site:

worldstart

and hit CTRL + Enter. The "http://www./ " and ".com" will be added for you!

Netscape ONLY

Open / Close Sidebar Panel (toggle) F9
Select text in Location Bar Ctrl+L
Force Reload (not from Cache) Ctrl+Shift+R
Zoom Text Smaller Ctrl+- (minus)
Zoom text larger Ctrl+= (plus sign)

WINDOWS KEY SHORTCUTS

The Windows key can be used in conjunction with other keys to act as a keyboard shortcut for faster access to menu commands. Now, while the Alt key tends to open program menus (ex: Alt+F opens the File menu and Alt+E opens the Edit menu) and the Ctrl key performs actual operations (ex: Ctrl+C will copy and Ctrl+V will paste), the Windows key will open various Windows tools...


Win key + R will open the Start menu's Run box
Win key + F will open the Start menu's Find window
Win key + E will quickly launch Explorer
Win key + Pause/Break will open the System Properties window
Win key + M will Minimize all windows
Win key + Shift + M will undo Minimize all windows
Win key + D will switch between minimizing all open programs and showing them all
Win key + Tab will cycle through items on the taskbar
Win key by itself will open the Start menu

You can also open programs or folders on your desktop by pressing the Windows key + the first letter of the program/folder/shortcut + Enter . Sounds kinda tedious, but if you're in a bind with your mouse, it can come in quite handy.

ARROW TRICKS

Here's a cool little arrow trick to try with word processing programs. Next time you're using your arrow keys to go from one area of a sentence to another (left and right arrows), hold down your CTRL key. Instead of moving one space at a time, you'll go one word at a time.

If you're using the up and down arrows to go from line to line, holding down the CTRL key will make your cursor jump from paragraph to paragraph (well, from carriage return to carriage return anyway).

One last thing, if you hold down the SHIFT key while you do this (i.e. hold down SHIFT + CTRL at the same time), you select text as you arrow along.

I've tested this in MS Word and Wordpad, but it *should* work no matter what word processing program you use.

HOME / END KEY FUN

Do you ever find yourself scrolling through a huge folder ? Well, if you need to get to the beginning or the end quickly, just press Ctrl+Home . If you want to get to the end, click Ctrl+End.

Hey, that's not all!

This little trick works on more than just folders. If you use the Home key in a word processor, it goes to the beginning of the line you're currently working on. If you hit the END key, it should head to the end of the current line. If you pair Home & End up with the Ctrl key in a word processor, you will be whisked away to the beginning or end of the document. Again, this should work, but it depends on your word processor.


Speedup your work by using keyboard more and mouse less.

Useful Shortcut:

Start + M: Minimizes all open windows
Start + Shift + M: Maximizes All Windows
Start + E: Runs Windows Explorer
Start + R: Open the RUN Dialog Box
Start + F: Open the Search Results Dialog box
Start + CTRL + F: Opens the Search Results-Computer dialog Box (if the computer is connected to a network)
Start + Pause (Break): Opens the System Properties Dialog Box

Windows System Key Combinations:

F1: Help
CTRL + ESC: Open Start menu
ALT + TAB: Switch between open programs
ALT + F4: Quit program
SHIFT + DELETE: Delete item permanently

Windows Program Key Combinations:

CTRL + C: Copy
CTRL + X: Cut
CTRL + V: Paste
CTRL + Z: Undo
CTRL + B: Bold
CTRL + U: Underline
CTRL + I: Italic

Mouse Click/Keyboard Modifier Combinations for Shell Objects:

SHIFT + right click: Displays a shortcut menu containing alternative commands
SHIFT + double click: Runs the alternate default command (the second item on the menu)
ALT + double click: Displays properties
SHIFT + DELETE: Deletes an item immediately without placing it in the Recycle Bin

General Keyboard-Only Commands:

F1: Starts Windows Help
F10: Activates menu bar options
SHIFT + F10: Opens a shortcut menu for the selected item (this is the same as right-clicking an object
CTRL + ESC: Opens the Start menu (use the ARROW keys to select an item)
CTRL + ESC or ESC: Selects the Start button (press TAB to select the taskbar, or press SHIFT+F10 for a context menu)
ALT + DOWN ARROW: Opens a drop-down list box
ALT + TAB: Switch to another running program (hold down the ALT key and then press the TAB key to view the task-switching window)
SHIFT: Press and hold down the SHIFT key while you insert a CD-ROM to bypass the automatic-run feature
ALT + SPACE: Displays the main window's System menu (from the System menu, you can restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the window)

ALT +- (ALT + hyphen): Displays the Multiple Document Interface (MDI)child window's System menu (from the MDI child window's System menu, you can restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the child window)
CTRL + TAB: Switch to the next child window of a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) program
ALT + underlined letter in menu: Opens the menu
ALT + F4: Closes the current window
CTRL + F4: Closes the current Multiple Document Interface (MDI) window
ALT + F6: Switch between multiple windows in the same program (for example, when the Notepad Find dialog box is displayed
ALT + F6: switches between the Find dialog box and the main Notepad window)

Shell Objects and General Folder/Windows Explorer Shortcuts For a selected object:

F2: Rename object
F3: Find all files
CTRL + X: Cut
CTRL + C: Copy
CTRL + V: Paste
SHIFT + DELETE: Delete selection immediately, without moving the item to the Recycle Bin
ALT + ENTER: Open the properties for the selected object
To Copy a File: Press and hold down the CTRL key while you drag the file to another folder.
To Create a Shortcut: Press and hold down CTRL+SHIFT while you drag a file to the desktop or a folder.

General Folder/Shortcut Control:

F4: Selects the Go To A Different Folder box and moves down the entries in the box (if the toolbar is active in Windows Explorer)
F5: Refreshes the current window.
F6: Moves among panes in Windows Explorer
CTRL + G: Opens the Go To Folder tool (in Windows 95 Windows Explorer only)
CTRL + Z: Undo the last command
CTRL + A: Select all the items in the current window
BACKSPACE: Switch to the parent folder
SHIFT + click + Close button: For folders, close the current folder plus all parent folders

Windows Explorer Tree Control:

Numeric Keypad *: Expands everything under the current selection
Numeric Keypad +: Expands the current selection
Numeric Keypad -: Collapses the current selection.

RIGHT ARROW: Expands the current selection if it is not expanded, otherwise goes to the first child
LEFT ARROW: Collapses the current selection if it is expanded, otherwise goes to the parent

Properties Control:

CTRL + TAB/CTRL + SHIFT + TAB: Move through the property tabs

Accessibility Shortcuts:

Press SHIFT five times: Toggles StickyKeys on and off
Press down and hold the right SHIFT key for eight seconds: Toggles FilterKeys on and off
Press down and hold the NUM LOCK key for five seconds: Toggles ToggleKeys on and off
Left ALT + left SHIFT+NUM LOCK: Toggles MouseKeys on and off
Left ALT + left SHIFT+PRINT SCREEN: Toggles high contrast on and off

Microsoft Natural Keyboard Keys:

Windows Logo: Start menu
Windows Logo + R: Run dialog box
Windows Logo + M: Minimize all
SHIFT + Windows Logo+M: Undo minimize all
Windows Logo + F1: Help
Windows Logo + E: Windows Explorer
Windows Logo + F: Find files or folders
Windows Logo + D: Minimizes all open windows and displays the desktop
CTRL + Windows Logo + F: Find computer
CTRL + Windows Logo + TAB: Moves focus from Start, to the Quick Launch toolbar, to the system tray (use RIGHT ARROW or LEFT ARROW to move focus to items on the Quick Launch toolbar and the system tray)
Windows Logo + TAB: Cycle through taskbar buttons
Windows Logo + Break: System Properties dialog box
Application key: Displays a shortcut menu for the selected item

Microsoft Natural Keyboard with IntelliType Software Installed:

Windows Logo + L: Log off Windows
Windows Logo + P: Starts Print Manager
Windows Logo + C: Opens Control Panel
Windows Logo + V: Starts Clipboard
Windows Logo + K: Opens Keyboard Properties dialog box
Windows Logo + I: Opens Mouse Properties dialog box
Windows Logo + A: Starts Accessibility Options (if installed)
Windows Logo + SPACEBAR: Displays the list of Microsoft IntelliType shortcut keys

Windows Logo + S: Toggles CAPS LOCK on and off

Dialog Box Keyboard Commands:

TAB: Move to the next control in the dialog box
SHIFT + TAB: Move to the previous control in the dialog box
SPACEBAR: If the current control is a button, this clicks the button. If the current control is a check box, this toggles the check box. If the current control is an option, this selects the option.
ENTER: Equivalent to clicking the selected button (the button with the outline)
ESC: Equivalent to clicking the Cancel button
ALT + underlined letter in dialog box item: Move to the corresponding item

Changing Programs That Start Automatically

WindowsXP has a similar program, MSCONFIG, that was available in Windows98.
This allows you to view and change what programs are automatically started each time you log in.
The new version also allows you to view and edit the boot.ini file (as well as check for errors and use several advanced switches)