Register your site in Web Directories

It has been a year since I left blogging and for the past one month I have been actively doing my blogging. Despite my hard work, the visitors to my blog never increased. I know that only with great number of visitors, my blog's visibility would increase and ultimately my blog's Page Rank. I wanted to acheive it and desparately searched for some answers in the internet. One convincing solution which I got was Web Directory. A web directory is nothing but a world wide web where sites are linked based on the categories of the links. I wanted to know more about this web directories and so searched the internet for more information. I got a lot of information about this web directory and the sweetest thing which I got was, it helps in improving a site's page rank. There are different types of web directories available such as business web directory, SEO friendly web directory etc. Since some of these web directories require you to pay them, I decided to submit my blog to free web directory. I can suggest you some of the free web directories available on the internet such as DMOZ, Yahoo Directory etc. With this kind of service, one can easily improve his/her site's visibility in the world wide web. I have submitted my blog in the free web directory hoping to find some positive results soon.

Boot Windows 7 and Vista using a USB

While I was browsing through the internet, I found this helpful information and thought of posting it so that few people can benefit. Here is what i found from that site ( I forgot the URL of that site).

This guide works 100% for Vista & Windows 7 unlike most of the guides out there. I have seen many sites/blogs that have “Install Vista from USB guide” but either with incomplete steps or not working guide. I have also seen some guides that don’t’ use proper commands in this guide. After spending many hours I have come up with this 100% working guide.

I just did this method on one of my friends machine and installed the new Windows 7 BETA. The main advantage is that by using USB drive you will be able to install Windows 7/Vista in just 15 minutes. You can also use this bootable USB drive on friend’s computer who doesn’t have a DVD optical drive.


The method is very simple and you can use without any hassles. Needless to say that your motherboard should support USB Boot feature to make use of the bootable USB drive.

Requirements:

*USB Flash Drive (Minimum 4GB)

*Windows 7 or Vista installation files.

Follow the below steps to create bootable Windows 7/Vista USB drive using which you can install Windows 7/Vista easily.

1. Plug-in your USB flash drive to USB port and move all the contents from USB drive to a safe location on your system.

2. Open Command Prompt with admin rights. Use any of the below methods to open Command Prompt with admin rights.

*Type cmd in Start menu search box and hit Ctrl+ Shift+ Enter.

Or

*Go to Start menu > All programs > Accessories, right click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

3. You need to know about the USB drive a little bit.

Type in the following commands in the command prompt:

First type DISKPART and hit enter

Next type LIST DISK command and note down the Disk number (ex: Disk 1) of your USB flash drive. In the below screenshot my Flash Drive Disk no is Disk 1.


4. Next type all the below commands one by one. Here I assume that your disk drive no is “Disk 1”.If you have Disk 2 as your USB flash drive then use Disk 2.Refer the above step to confirm it.

So below are the commands you need to type and execute one by one:

SELECT DISK 1

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS

(Format process may take few seconds)

ASSIGN

EXIT

5. Next insert your Windows7/Vista DVD into the optical drive and check the drive letter of the DVD drive. In this guide I will assume that your DVD drive letter is “D” and USB drive letter is “H” (open my computer to know about it).


6. Maximize the minimized Command Prompt in the 4th step.Type the following command now:

D:CD BOOT and hit enter.Where “D” is your DVD drive letter.

CD BOOT and hit enter to see the below message.


7. Type another command given below to update the USB drive with BOOTMGR compatible code.

BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 H:

Where “H” is your USB drive letter. Once you enter the above command you will see the below message.


8. Copy your Windows 7/Vista DVD contents to the USB flash drive.


9. Your USB drive is ready to boot and install Windows 7/Vista. Only thing you need to change the boot priority at the BIOS to USB from the HDD or CD ROM drive. I won’t explain it as it’s just the matter the changing the boot priority or enabling the USB boot option in the BIOS.

Note: If you are not able to boot after following this guide means you haven’t set the BIOS priority to USB.

Great tips for iPhone

With the communication technology developing in a fast pace, the demand for smart phones are increasing day by day. Talking about smart phones, one of my favorite smart phones is Apple's iPhone. The state of the art touch screen technology and the cool user interface, the great looking fonts make iPhone a great looking phone. Recently, I got a chance to take a look at my friend's iPhone and it was amazing. He said that we can install a lot of applications on the iPhone as per our needs. Say for example, if you are short-minded and ofter forget your iPhone or if someone steasl your iPhone, you can Track and recover your iphone with Findme. If you want to stay update about your favorite websites, you can also Read news rSS and Websites Quickly on Iphone. Another exciting feature he explained me was How to Read eBooks on Your iphone?. With this kind of tip, you can no longer take heavy books with you. Instead, the ebook and iphone would make your reading better. There are a lot of things that can be done with th iPhone. If you wish to learn more about those tips and tricks, I recommend you to take a look at the site web-articles.info. You can also find a lot of other information under various categories in the site.

A Memorable Ride

Rode through Snow, Dust, Fog, River, Forest, Markets, Highways and what not... Cant forget the -4 degree blistering snowfall while on the way back from Pangong Tso and taking the offroad track to the lake-side camp in the middle of the night with no clue where we were heading... That was one hell of an experience...Pouring rains, Zero-Visibility Fog, unexpected Snow-fall, Raging rivers in the middle of the so called roads... it was adventure biking at its peak... The friendly Army men in Kargil to the little lamas of Lamayuru, the range of people we met on this great journey was awesome...

The accomodation and things were way beyond expectations... even in places like Lamayuru and Kargil, hospitality was top class...

We had an awesome Bullet Mechanic with us in Naresh... So we were resting assured bout our bikes' condition...

But I thought 15 days were a bit too short...

Anyways...All in all... the 15 days were the best 15days of my life...

Looking forward to exploring the Unexplored and Exotic North-East and other great destiantions with India on Bike...

Kudos to all the bikers who were involved in this great expedition.

---Great Journeys are complete when we realize that we've found our home in them---

Understanding Computer Firewalls

When I was talking to my friend over the phone, he said that he has a class on Computer firewalls. Right from my college days Understanding computer firewalls. Being in Information Technology field, I felt that i should know about the firewalls as they are very important in protecting one's identity from the hackers. So, I thought of looking for information on firewalls over the internet. Even with lot of searching I was not satisfied with the quality of information i got about firewalls. I wanted some kind of article that will help me in Understanding computer firewalls. As usual, I continued my searching and finally found a great website called web-articles.info. This amazing site provides articles on almost every topics on the planet. Say for example, if you need articles on arts and entertainment or business or health, you will find it here. Let me tell about the article on Understanding computer firewalls. The article started stating how the internet has become a part of our life and the various risks and threats that are found in the internet. Then they explain the importance of firewalls and then take back in time explaining the history of firewalls. With the history, they explained about the various technologies used in the firewalls and stress on the importance of having a firewall for each computer. After reading this article, i was clear about the firewall concepts and decided to have a personal firewall for my computer too. If some of you need some knowledge on any topic, you can visit the site and have a look at it.

Live - India vs Austraila, ICC Champions trophy '09

After losing to Pakistan in the first ICC Champions Trophy 2009, India are about to take on Australia today. This is a must win game for India if they have to stay in the tournament. Australia would also try to win the game to make sure they enter the semis. And above all there is one more interesting thing to look out in this match is Sachin Tendulkar vs Brett Lee. This would be an awesome competition between the two and all cricket fans are looking forward to it. Since the live telecast wont be available in my place, I have decided to watch the match Live on the web. If someone wishes to watch the live streaming of the match on the web, check out this page after the start of this match.

Know everything about Webhosting

When I was introduced into blogging, I knew of only one way to create a blog which is to register in some free domains and create a blog in that domain. I was not aware of the fact that my blog URL would always be myblog.domain.com . I have always wished to have blogs that have URL’s of my own desire. I spent some time looking for solutions and found the answer, which is web hosting services. When I typed in web hosting in search engines, they fetched millions of search results and I was confused on which service to take up. At that time, my friend suggested me to look up webhostinggeeks.com. I visited that site and people I tell you that it is one amazing site to look for web hosting suggestions. Once you enter the home page of the site, you would get the top 10 best web hosts of the year. Apart from this, you get individual reviews and ratings of the web hosts. The sidebar of the site categorizes the web hosting services such as vps hosting, dedicated server webhosting, green webhosting etc. Apart from these categories, there is a special category which is the webhosting awards category. Under this category you can get details best in class web hosting details such as the best budget webhosting, best blog hosting, best forum hosting etc. The site also provides various information on web hosting news, web hosting types, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) etc. If you still don’t believe the reviews published on the site, you can take a look at the customer reviews for the real service of the web hosting. If you feel like giving a review about your web hosting service, you can very well post your view on this site. There are loads and loads of information on web hosting on this site which I cannot brief here. If you are really interested in knowing the nook and corner of web hosting, I recommend you this site which would be very useful. Take a look at the site and know for it yourselves.

India vs Pakistan, ICC Champions Trophy, 2009

Its all here. The ICC champions trophy started this week and the biggest match of the tournament is here. India vs Pakistan, the rivals face each other in the ICC Champions trophy, 2009 today. I am eagerly waiting for this match to start in few hours as this is the first match for India and they are looking forward to win it. On the other hand, Pakistan beating West Indies comfortably in their first match come with lot of confidence. So, this match is going to be a thriller as usual. So, if you are a cricket fan then don't miss this match even for a split second. Enjoy the match and let me post what I felt about this match in the future post.

Back to Vista!!!

For the past 6 months, i was using Windows XP as i had problems in accessing the network shares of my LAN in Vista. XP has been my favorite OS and recently i read an article that its performance has improved 10% with the service pack 3. The reason why i switched to Vista is that i downloaded a new game which would give me a better experience with the directX 10 available in Vista. And also, i wanted to check whether the bug of LAN access has been fixed with the Vista SP1. For these reasons, i installed Vista SP1 and i should say that my LAN access is very much improved. The NTLM proxy authentication software 'ntlmaps', which created problems with IE7 in Vista now works fine. And also the gaming experience is great when compared to XP. I think i should continue with Vista SP1 for some time. But the bad news is, i could not dual boot Mac OsX Leopard with Vista. :( Hoping to find a solution for this.

Making Windows XP bootable from a Pendrive

I got this tip from one of the forum. I am posting it for the benifit of my friends.

Note :-Your computer bios should be compatible with the usb boot function (most motherboards released on or after 2005 are compatible)

First of all download the following free tools:

HP usb stick format utility

nlite

Barts pebuilder.

Now follow the steps:-

STEP 1.Formatting the USB flash drive

Firstly, try to format the USB fl ash drive using the FAT 16 file system as most BIOS generally accept this particular format as a bootable medium. Surprisingly, the onboard Windows formatting tool did not work for us. So, we opted to use the “USB Disk Storage Format Tool” from HP instead. After starting up the program, choose the USB fl ash drive to be formatted and select “FAT” located under “File System”. Enter a name of less than 11 characters for “Volume Label” and click on “Start” to begin formatting. After the process is completed, open Windows Explorer and navigate to the root directory on which Windows is located - usually, “C:\”. Copy the “boot.ini”, “ntdlr” and “NTDETECT.COM” fi les from the directory to the USB fl ash drive. If you can’t locate the above mentioned fi les, try deactivating the “Hide protected operating system fi les” option found under “Tools Folder Options View” of Windows Explorer. Next, select “Show hidden files and folders” option as well. You should be able to see the fi les now. Copy them to the formatted USB flash drive.

----------------------------------

Copying Windows to the USB flash drive

The next process is divided into four stages. Firstly, you need to free Windows of any excess baggage. Secondly, prepare third-party utilities, then create a self starting copy of Windows and finaly, copy all of these to the USB flash drive.......................

STEP 2. Standardizing Windows

To produce an optimal copy of Windows XP complete with service packs, hotfi xes and drivers, you can use a freeware called “NLite”. Note that NLite requires access to Microsoft . NET’s library, which needs to be installed on your system. This and Service Pack 2 are available on the Microsoft web site. The Service Pack and hotfi xes need not be installed as NLite will only integrate the necessary setup fi les. Remember to install the .NET-Framework before NLite. Before running NLite, create a folder named “XP” on your desktop. Insert your Windows setup CD into the DVD/CDROM drive and copy the whole CD into the new folder. Any changes made from now are done to the newly copied fi les in the XP folder. Do not meddle with the existing installed copy of Windows on your hard drive. Run NLite and select the “XP” folder as the root directory. Click on “Next” after the program completes reading the folder until you reach “Task Selection”. Activate options for integrating SP and hotfi xes as well as “Erase components”, “Patches” and “Tweaks”. With the help of the NLite wizard, you should aim to create an optimal streamlined copy of Windows. To minimize total fi le size and shed excess baggage, remove any entries highlighted by NLite as safe for deletion. Visit www. msfn. org (MSFN Forums - Member Contributed Projects - nLite) to get more information on the latest confi guration manuals and other useful tips on this program. Also, If you prefer to use an alternative browser such as Firefox, you may discard the Internet Explorer option but do include the “Internet Explorer Core” option so that useful features such as Windows Update can still function.

STEP 3. Preparing utility tools

The next step involves preparation of installation fi les for each utility tool to be included into the USB fl ash drive. If you want to include Firefox, do not use the full setup fi le from Mozilla’s web site. Instead, use the “Mozilla Firefox Plug-In” customized for “Bart’s PE” (available from http://oss.netfarm.it/winpe. Besides Firefox, you might want to include other software such as Ad-Aware, Nero Burning ROM and Avert Stinger anti-virus scanner. Any other software you deem necessary can be included but do take into account the space limitation of your fl ash drive. As NLite only creates a copy of Windows that contains setup fi les and not the installed version, we will not be able to copy the entire “XP” folder nto the USB drive. To create a bootable Windows XP, we need to make use of the “Bart’s PE” tool found at www.nu2.nu. after installing “Bart’s PE”, run “PE Builder” and insert “XP” as “Source”. When referring to this article, just use the default directory name provided (C:\PEBuilder319\BartPE, depending on your version of PE Builder) located under the “Output” section for convenience. Next, click on “PlugIns”. If you follow our recommendations, choose to activate the plug-ins for Nero, Ad-Aware and Avert Stinger. If any of your desired tools are not displayed, visit www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/#plugins to download the necessary plugins and extract the file into the plug-in folder of Bart’s PE. Every plugin contains a readme file that describes its installation.

STEP 4. Integrating safety tools

For each tool that was marked for inclusion, there would be a specifi c folder respectively found under Bart’s PE installation directory. All the necessary fi les should be copied here. This way, the selected tools will be installed with Windows. Let’s start with the Firefox browser. All we need to do is extract the downloaded plug-in into the “C:\PEBuilder319\plugin” folder. You don’t have to make any changes as the plug-in is already optimized for integration to Bart’s PE. Next, proceed to install Nero Burning ROM. Copy all the fi les from the Nero directory to the “nero burning rom” plug-in folder. In that folder, you will notice a fi le called “penero.inf”. Open it with a Windows text editor (e.g. Notepad). For Nero Burning ROM version 6, discard the semicolon (;) in front of [Software.AddReg] and for the three lines below. Edit in your username, company name and Nero serial number before saving, and closing the file.

Making Windows bootable

Up to this point, all preparations are ready. Ensure that the USB fl ash drive is plugged in and delete any fi le copied for the first test. Next, run PE Builder and make sure that “XP” is selected as “Source”. Deactivate the “Create ISOimage”and “Burn to CD/DVD” option. Click on “Build” so that Windows is created as a self-starter.

REMEMBER UR WINDOWS XP SHOULD BE A SERVICE PACK 2 ONE.

Copying files to USB Flash Drive

With the help of a batch file, you will now

be able to copy Windows to a USB fl ash drive. Point Windows Explorer to the folder “C:\PEBuilder319\plugin\peinst” and run the fi le called “peinst”. In the opened DOS screen, select button [1] and change the source-path to “C:\ PEBuilder319\bartpe”. Next select button [2] and enter the letter in which the USB fl ash drive is located as your target path. Moving on, choose button [5] to install Bart’s PE and start through button [1]. Bart’s PE will now transfer all relevant data into your USB fl ash drive. When the “Installation completed” message shows, your USB version of Windows is ready for use. To test it, boot your PC with the USB flash drive. The USB version of Windows will look slightly different when compared

to the standard Windows XP.

Source : Orkut

Protect your system from hackers

With the identity theft gaining more and more importance day by day, here are few of the tips for my blog visitors to protect themselves from hackers.


First of all, you need to switch to a good firewall.

Here is Sygate Personal Firewall. It is one of the most powerful firewalls i have ever used!

and secondly, go to start menu->run and type services.msc and press enter.

now double click Remote Registry, Routing and remote access and Remote Desktop Help Session Manager one by one and stop these services before disabling them and hitting OK in their respective property boxes.

Finally, right click my computer, and click properties. Under the Remote tab, uncheck the checkbox under Remote Assistance as well as uncheck the checkbox under Remote Desktop and hit OK.

as a final safety measure, change the name of your computer as well!

go to my computer's properties and under the Computer Name tab, click the Change button and give a new name for your computer. This name is used to identify your computer on the network.

I guess now nobody can hack your system!

For ensuring your additional safety, also disable the telnet service from services.msc however its an optional step. But sometimes it can prove to be critical.

Which is the best antivirus?

Right from the date I bought my computer, i have been using NOD 32 Antivirus. This antivirus has been my best for the past 4 years and i had no problems whatsoever i do in the internet. But, recently i used tunnelling software to make torrents work in my computer as torrenting is blocked by my LAN administrator. Along with the seeds and peers, it also brought me harmful Trojans and worms. NOD 32 was great in detecting those Trojans but it couldn’t clean up the infections. I don’t know why my best antivirus, infact the world’s 3rd best antivirus couldn’t clean the infection. So, i had no other choice than to try another antivirus to clean up my system. I decided to try with Kaspersky antivirus. But to my disappointment, Kaspersky also couldn’t clean that Trojan. I had no other way to format my system. But, i was very much impressed with Kaspersky as it scanned my entire computer in no time and also it blocked a lot of intrusions from my network. I thought i would try kaspersky for some time in my system and now, after a month my computer is still virus free even after some hefty torrenting. Kaspersky really rocks. But still, NOD 32 is my favourite antivirus as it has kept my system secure for 4 years!!!

Which is the low memory consuming browser?

Well, i am not a testing professional of softwares rather am just an end user. I just wanted to know which is the best browser for my computer. As i said in one of my earlier posts, i have been using more than 5 browsers in my PC and wanted know which is the best among them. I ran Internet explorer 7, Firefox 3, Safari, Flock and Google Chrome on my system all running google.com. ( well, google is my home page and so i left the browsers as such ). The results showed that Internet explorer 7 was the least memory consuming browser and the highest memory was consumed by Flock. I knew that flock would take up the highest memory as it has got various options embedded in it like the media bar etc. Another thing that captured my attention was the various individual processes of Google Chrome, which i think corresponds to individual tabs. These individual processes are responsible for making Google Chrome shut down the non responding individual tabs without closing the other working tabs. Here is the image of my task manager showing the browser memory consumptions.

Looking at the image, i felt that safari was good for me, but it annoyed me in matters related to proxy authentication. It would freqently ask for the proxy username and password and also showed cache administrator errors while opening certain sites like orkut, yahoo etc. Then comes my favorite Firefox. There is no much difference between Safari and Firefox's memory consumption and it had no problems with my proxy server. It ran smoothly without any problems and most of all, it was fast, very fast. Flock consumes too much memory. The reason why i use flock is that, it is compatible with firefox addons and the media bar is very useful in performing some useful searches.

So, in my opinion, Internet explorer 7 is the lighest browser but it doesn't have many options that are found in Firefox 3. Moreover, Firefox 3 is fast and i feel Firefox is the best browser for me.

Any comments regarding this topic is welcome. 

Checkout how to optimize memory usage by browser in this link

How to save orkut photos from albums? - An easier way !!

Recently, i posted a tip on saving photos from your friend's orkut album using firefox. That was somewhat a big process and some people may not use firefox. So, here is a simple tip on saving orkut photos from your friend's album. All you have to do is to drag and drop the photo to the address bar of the browser. It will show you only the snap you are currently viewing with the right click option enable. You can right click on the photo and save the image to your computer. Simple isn't it????