Office Excel allows you to get live data from the web and do all the other calculations without any unnecessary distractions from the web.At regular intervals it updates all the data and the calculations you have done.

How to get the live date from the web in Excel 2007 :

- Go to Data tab and click From Web under Get External Data. (There is an advanced web query plugin for Excel 2007 which makes this feature much easier) In the new Web Query box, enter the website from where you want to get the data.
e.g :looking at the top 20 companies from the Technology sector.

- Click the yellow arrow near the table that you want to select, it will turn green with a check mark and click Import at the bottom.


- Choose in which cell you want to place the table or choose a new worksheet.

You will have the live data in your spreadsheet now.



You can set it to update in a regular frequency.

You can manually refresh or update the data using the Refresh button or using the keyboard shortcut CTRL + ALT + F5.
(or)
You can set the time at which the data should be automatically updated. Click any of the cell which is retrieved from the web and click Properties from Data tab under Connections. Under Refresh Control, you can mention how frequently you want to update the live data.

We often use keyboard shortcuts for various applications in the systems.

We use some folders in the system frequently.It is little easy if the frequently used folders can be opened directly with a keyboard shortcut.The following tutorial guides you to CREATE KEYBOARD SHORTCUT TO ANY FOLDER..

- Right click the folder that you want to create a keyboard shortcut and click Send To and click Desktop (Create Shortcut).

- Now go to the desktop and right click the shortcut that was created.Click Properties.Now in the Shortcut Key box,click the shortcut tab and use the keyboard shortcut that you want to use.Click Ok.

Now you can use this newly created shortcut at any time to open that folder.

Isn’t it questionalble that how these free SMS services are really free. How do they make money? How do they sustain thousands of users send FREE SMS?

Every thing has a catch and when you make use of a free SMS service to send a SMS to any number the SMS service will have an additional number in their database. Selling this database to marketing companies can make them a handsome amount.

Every FREE product has a catch because everyone has to make money somehow and running such sites can easily cost a lot of money, so there has to be a way they make money in return. Most Free SMS sites do not disclose whether they store the numbers in their database or not.

Yahoo! with your music.

If you want to let your friends what your listening to in Media Player or Winamp while chatting you can change your status to what you listening in Yahoo Messenger using a cool plugin for Yahoo Messenger : yStatus that lets you show what you are listening to in Windows Media Player.

YStatus updates your Yahoo Messenger status text with the currently playing song info from Windows Media Player.


For Winamp there is a similar plugin named YMS Status Changer.

You can hide your files in a JPEG file.

- Gather all the files that you wish to hide in a folder anywhere in your PC (make it in C:\hidden - Recommended).

- Now, add those files in a RAR archive (eg : secret.rar). This file should also be in the same directory (C:\hidden).

- Look for a simple JPEG picture file (eg : logo.jpg). Copy/Paste that file also in C:\hidden.

- Open Command Prompt (Go to Run and type ‘cmd‘). Make your working directory C:\hidden.

- Type: “COPY /b logo.jpg + secret.rar output.jpg” (without quotes) - Now, logo.jpg is the picture you want to show, secret.rar is the file to be hidden, and output.jpg is the file which contains both.

- After you have done this, you will see a file output.jpg in C:\hidden. Open it and it will show the picture you wanted to show. Now try opening the same file with WinRAR, it will show the hidden archive.


If you’re an AMD processor users, you must have been effected by the Blue Screen of Death, after installing Windows XP SP3 on rebooting their computer. The error begins with something like this: STOP: 0×0000007E (0xC0000005 and contains the error text SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED. And after this, the computers reboots again and keeps repeating this.

Windows XP SP3 apparently copies an Intel power management driver to the computer that was not there before the installation of SP3 and that is said to be the cause for the restart bug. But thanks to HP, a fix has been given for this bug.

The following fix can only be used if you use a non-Intel processor and encounter the restart bug after installing Windows XP Service Pack 3. Below are the fixes given by HP and Microsoft:

NOTE: Make sure you make a quick backup of your system using System Restore. And also backup your Registry entries.

HP’s Fix For XP SP3 Restart Bug:

* Boot Computer in Safe Mode
* Use Windows Explorer to browse to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers
* Right-click intelppm.sys and rename it to XXXintelppm.syx
* Restart Windows

If the computer is unable to boot into safe mode do the following:

* Press F8 during startup and load the Microsoft Windows Recovery Console
* Type the number that corresponds to your Windows installation
* Log in as an administrator
* Type cd c:\windows\system32\drivers at the command prompt
* Type rename intelppm.sys XXXintelppm.syx
* Restart Windows

Microsoft’s Fix For XP SP3 Restart Bug:

* Boot the Computer into Safe Mode
* Press Windows R, type regedit, hit enter
* Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Intelppm
* right-click the Start entry in the right pane and select modify
* Enter 4 in the Value Data box
* Close regedit, restart the computer.

If u want to type word or sentense in BOLD in google talk.. jus type * before and after the word or sentence.After u send the message, u can see the selected text in BOLD.



Follow the steps..

- Open your Firefox Profile folder by navigating to:
C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Mozilla\ Firefox\Profiles\

- Look for signons2 and open it in any text editor.

- Copy all the data from the file and close it.

- Now look for signons3, open it in a text editor and replace its data with the copied one.

- Save the file and close it.

- Restart Firefox and all your passwords will be updated now.

Here is a quick Vista tip that you can quickly open Command Prompt in Windows Vista from your right-click menu. It comes in handy when you don’t have a quick launch icon or a hotkey set to open a command prompt, and you have to go down all the way to Start menu to start it. This trick can be used without navigating the menu.

How To Open Command Prompt From Right Click Menu :

Just hold down your Shift key and right-click anywhere on your desktop, in a folder or on a folder to open Command Prompt. The current location of Command Prompt will depend from where you open it.

- Start any application, say Word. Open some large documents.

- Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC to open Windows Task Manager and click Processes tab and sort the list in descending order on Mem Usage. You will notice that WINWORD.EXE will be somewhere at the top, using multiple MBs of memory.

- Now switch to Word and simply minimize it. (Don't use the Minimize All Windows option of the task bar).

- Now go back to the Windows Task Manager and see where WINWORD.EXE is listed. Most probably you will not find it at the top. You will typically have to scroll to the bottom of the list to find Word. Now check out the amount of RAM it is using. Surprised? The memory utilization has reduced by a huge amount.

- Minimize each application that you are currently not working on by clicking on the Minimize button & you can increase the amount of available RAM by a substantial margin. Depending upon the number and type of applications you use together, the difference can be as much as 50 percent of extra RAM.

In any multitasking system, minimizing an application means that it won't be utilized by the user right now. Therefore, the OS automatically makes the application use virtual memory & keeps bare minimum amounts of the code in physical RA

This trick is for who have to wait for about an hour after downloading a file from rapid share...

RAPIDSHARE :

Method 1 :
- Open your rapid share link and click on free.
- As soon as timer start type this in address bar and click enter
javascript:alert(c=0)
- A pop up message will come click ok your counter is zero just download the file.

Method 2 :
- Delete the cookies in your browser internet explorer or Firefox or opera or whatever u use).
- Press start->run,type cmd and type ipconfig/flushdns press enter.Then type ipconfig/release,then ipconfig/renew .Now type exit.
- Now try downloading, for many people this may work if their ISP provides a dynamic ip.

Method 3 :
- Just switch off your router or modem and switch it back on.

Actually these methods generally work for those people whose ISP gives them dynamic ip.
If these don't work then one more thing that can be done is to use proxies.


MEGAUPLOAD :

Mega upload is very easy to hack to solve the download slots problem. Just go to http://leech.megaleecher.net/. Here you will find a place to put your original link. Put it there press enter and then you will get a direct link within some seconds. You are done!!!!!

To enable Multiple GTalk, follow the steps..

- Right click on the Google Talk shortcut.

- click on Properties.

- Go to Shortcut tab on Google Talk Properties window.

- On the Target textbox, add in the /nomutex to the end of the line so that it looks like below (or you can simply copy and paste the below syntax and replace the original).
“c:\program files\google\google talk\googletalk.exe” /nomutex

- Click on OK.


ALTERNATE METHOD by creating a new shortcut for Google Talk:

- Right-click on the desktop or anywhere you want to place the GTalk shortcut.

- Select New on the right click context menu.

- Then select Shortcut.

- Copy and paste the following line to the text box when prompted to type the location of the item: “c:\program files\google\google talk\googletalk.exe” /nomutex

You can find ur friend who is INVISIBLE on yahoo messenger...

- Open the chat window of ur friend.

- Click IMVironment button, select See all IMVironments, select Yahoo! Tools or Interactive Fun, and click on Doodle.

If the user is offline Doodle are will show this "waiting for your friend to load Doodle" continuously .See in the picture below:


If the user is online (but in invisible mode), after few seconds (it can take up to one minute, depending on your connection speed), you should get a blank page like in the picture below. So you know that the user is online.


Microsoft reserves 20% of your available bandwidth for their own purposes like Windows Updates and interrogating your PC etc

You can get it back:

- Click Start then Run and type "gpedit.msc" without quotes.This opens the group policy editor.

- Then go to: Local Computer Policy then Computer Configuration then Administrative Templates then Network then QOS Packet Scheduler and then to Limit Reservable Bandwidth.

- Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth. It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the 'Explain' tab i.e."By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default."

- So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO. This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20%.It works on Win 2000 as well.

Many of us sometimes find the folder options missing in windows explorer.
You can fix this problem by the following trick...

- Open Run and then type "gpedit.msc".

- Now goto User Configuration > Administrative templates > Windows Component > Windows Explorer.

- Click on Windows Explorer you will find the 3rd option on the right side of screen "Removes the Folder Option menu item from the Tools menu".Just check it, if it is not configured then change it to enable by double clicking on it and after applying again set it to not configured.

Hopes that you will find the option after restarting windows.

If you have upgraded your operating system from the previous versions of windows 98 Second Edition, or Windows Millennium Edition (Me) and now you wants to revert to the operating system that was previously installed on your computer. Windows XP can be removed by uninstalling from a Command Prompt option in Safe mode because XP includes the Uninstall Windows XP option.

Follow the given steps to revert to the operating system that was previously installed on your computer:

- First boot your system in Safe mode by pressing F8 button at the same time before the windows logo appears.

- Next click on Start button and type cmd in Run option then press Ok button to display the Command Prompt.At the command prompt type cd/ command and press enter.

- Now again type the command cd\windows\system32 and press enter button. After execution of this command, system will change the previous directory mode.


- Now type the command at command prompt osuninst.exe to start the process.


- Now on the computer screen, follow the instructions on the screen to begin uninstalling Windows XP from your computer to restore the previous operating system.

This trick permits an account that is normally displayed on the Welcome screen to be hidden from view. To hide the specific user account from the welcome screen, you need to create a special value under windows registry key.

Follow the steps...

- Click Start button and type regedit in Run option then press Enter for next.

- Here locate the location to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList


- Here in right side panel, right click to create a new DWORD Value with the name of account to be hidden - the name matches the users name exactly.



- To modify the "Value data" information as DWORD Value 0 to hide the account and 1 to display the user then click on Ok button.


- Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

But next time, if you want to enable specific user account on welcome then simply change the value of data box to 1 or delete the DWORD Value item.

In Microsoft Word, lists of items or important points of a specific topic are presented in the documents in a prominent way by applying default bullets and numbering. By default, word provides only few built-in bullets and numbers to prominent your important points. But if you wish to use your name or any favorite word as a bullet then you can modify the default bullets lists.

Follow the steps..

- Open MSWord and go to Format menu and click on Bullets and Numbering option.

- Here a small dialog will appear with title "Bullets and Numbering", now click on one of the number formats that you are not using in the document and click on Customize button.

- In the number format box, type your favorite text (in this case, we are using Tony, Google and MSN as bullets, you can set a different font if you like, or the underlying paragraph font will be used).


- You can enter 30 characters in the box which should be sufficient for most of the uses to which this is likely to be put.

You can run the data compression utility with advanced compression parameters to compress 15% more than normal method that you do not access often. Common file compression utility include Winrar is the more powerful and popular tool than other compression tools.

Follow the given steps...

- Now right click on your zipped file and then select the option "Add to archive" from the context menu.

- Here a window dialog will appear with title "Archive name and parameters". In General tab, click on "Compression Method" button to select the "Best" option from dropdown menu.


- Now select the Advanced tab and click on Compression button to display the advanced compression parameters.

- Now under the "Text Compression" area, select "Force" radio button and change the "Prediction order" value to 63 then change "Memory to use" type to 128. Now click Ok button to finish the process.


- This all compression method will help you to compress your data 15% more than normal method.

Firefox addon :

Paste and Go 2 lets you Paste Text and Load/Search It Immediately in the Address bar..


CLICK HERE to get this add-on..

The Recycle Bin is the special folders of windows on the hard disk to store deleted files and folders. These files or folders can be restored from the Recycle Bin to their original location if required for use. But you can set the Recycle Bin setting that the files and folders are deleted from hard disk are not placed in the Recycle Bin. So with the help of windows registry editor you can set the Recycle Bin to always delete items.

Follow the given steps to edit computer registry for Recycle Bin:

- First click on Start button then type Regedit in Run option.

- Here locate the location to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Explorer\BitBucket

- Here in right side panel, double click on NukeOnDelete and set its value 1.

- Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

Today tip is very useful particularly for home users who want to protect their system default settings against unwanted changes that other users can make. For example changes in system desktop appearance, themes, and screen saver as well as other display settings. Using registry editor, you can disable the right click functionality on desktop to access the "Display Properties" dialog box and this will also prevent users to access windows explorer.

Follow the given steps to disable the right click functionality on desktop:

To use this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.

- Click Start button and type regedit in Run option then press Enter for next.

- Here locate the location to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer


- Here in right side panel, right click to create a new DWORD value with the name NoViewContextMenu (it is case sensitive), then assign number 1 in value data box.


- Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.
But next time, if you want to enable right click functionality on desktop then simply change the value of data box or delete the NoViewContextMenu DWORD item.

Today USB drive also known as keychain drive is becoming the most popular removable storage device to move data to different locations. USB drives are available in the market with different features, for example password protected, compatible with all windows versions and extra storage capacity (up to 65 GB).

A common security issue at organizations is how to prevent their workers to write data onto USB drives using their PCs, because a user can easily move confidential data for other location.

If you have windows XP with SP2, then you can disable the writing option to USB drives.

Follow the given steps to disable the USB writing option:

- To edit the computer registry, first you should log onto your computer with administrative rights.

- First click on Start button and type "Regedit" in Run option.

- Here locate the location to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control

- Here in right side panel, click right to create a key with the name "StorageDevicePolicies".



Now in left side panel, select "StorageDevicePolicies" key, again right click to create new DWORD value then label it "WriteProtect".



Set its value to "1". But again enable this option set its values "0".


Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

You can change the title bar for the Windows Media Player....

- Start Regedit

- Go to HKEY_USERS \ .DEFAULT \ Software \ Policies \ Microsoft \ WindowsMediaPlayer

- Create a string value of TitleBar

- Give it a value of whatever you want to appear in the title bar

To increase the performance of slow computer, you can force your system to free up the idle tasks that are running in the background and sharing processor power. This end tasks method force the computer to devote its full processor resource to what you want it to do.

How to end the idle tasks:

- To enable this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.

- Click Start button and click on Run option.

- In the Run box, type the command Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks command and press Ok but

- Here system will take some time to end the background idle tasks.

Normally you end tasks the non-responsive programs manually using windows task manager with (CTRL + ALT +DELETE) keys. Sometimes these non-responsive programs creates problem to run windows and others programs properly. You can configure your computer to manage these non-responsive programs automatically. Windows has a feature that will close all non responding program automatically. If you have little knowledge about editing windows registry then you can configure your computer for this purpose.

Follow the given steps to configure windows registry for auto end task:

- First click on Start button then type Regedit in Run option. Here locate the location to:

- Go to Hkey_Current_User\Control Panel\Desktop

- Here in right side panel, double click on AutoEndTasks and here its default value is 0. Now change it to 1. Now windows will close your all non-responsive programs automatically.

- Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

When you are working on your local computer and want to refresh any changes in your system automatically. For example some times you are watching sports results, online Stock Exchange rates and any changes to your hard drive but these changes are not usually refreshed until you press the F5 key on your keyboard.

To refresh your screen automatically you should edit your system Registry. But the best technique to edit the windows registry keys, always export or backup the whole windows registry keys on backup drive before editing. Because any mistake in Registry can cause serious problem in your computer to run properly.

Follow the given steps to change the updates automatically.

- First click on Start button then type Regedit in Run option.

- In Registry Editor panel go to the path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / System / CurrentControlSet / Control / UpdateMode

- Here in right hand side panel edit the DWORD value to be between 1 and 5.

- Now restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

If you are using Windows Task Manager to display the information about programs and processes that are running on your computer. You can start your Windows Task Manager with pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete keys or with pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc keys.

To keep Task Manager hidden when it is minimized.

- First open it by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete keys then go to Options menu and click on Hide When Minimized.

You can easily restore it, if you click on the icon of Task Manager that will appear in taskbar near the time display.

Generally we use Add/Remove programs option in Control Panel to remove any unwanted program from our computer. Normally this may be due to poorly designed uninstaller with this program. That is why some programs may not be removed properly and a reference to this program remains in the computer registry. This reference in registry may be creating problems to run your computer smoothly. Here you need to delete this reference to edit your computer registry using RegEdit editor.

- First go to Start button and open Run dialog box. Type here RegEdit and press Enter.

- Now in editor Navigate to the given path
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall.

- Here locate the entry created by your program with its name and select that entry from
the list on the left panel and delete its key.

- Close the Registry Editor and restart your computer, the program will be removed from
your computer permanently.

Make sure before modifying your system Registry about its backup, because Registry contains all information how your system runs. This backup will help you to restore Registry in case any problem occurs after modifying. Learn how you can Export and Import Registry File Before Editing?

You can backup the whole Registry and also its subkeys.
Click Start Button then type regedit in Run box and click Ok button. Here you can export the whole Registry or you can locate the required subkeys that contain the information that you want to edit.

Go to File menu option then click on Export option for backup and save it with on any your system drive with .reg extension and you can restore this backup going File menu using import option.

When you ready to format you partitions, you have two methods to format a partition, you can work with default formatting and other quick format method.

When you first time format your system partition, you should use default method. This is slow and low-level formatting but with this method you can remove all data from the partition as well as the hard disk is scanned for bad sectors. Here you can fix your system bad sectors.

If you select the quick format method, you can save time but you can remove only data from the partition and does not scan the disk for bad sectors. If you sure about your hard disk health then quick format should be fine to remove data with in short time.

You can set your Num Lock to stay on by default when you logon your system.

There are two different techniques to set Num Lock stay on by default.

If you can use Registry Editor correctly then Click on start button and type Regedt32.exe in Run command. Here Navigate to HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\Keyboard and change the value for InitialKeyboardIndicators from 0 to 2.

You can do same by configuring the script to change the NUM LOCK state. Click Start button and then open Notepad. Copy the giving code and paste in Notepad.

set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

WshShell.SendKeys "{NUMLOCK}"

Now save this file with name "num.vbs" must including the quotes. At the end copy this file to user startup folder. The path for this folder is Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.

Now restart the computer. Num Lock should come on and stay on.

If you are working at the Command Prompt your can modify and print the text file very easily. There are different ways to print text a file while working at the Command Prompt. Assuming the file you want to print is in your current folder, you can type here with your file name with extension. For example

print filename.txt

and press Enter. Here .txt is the file extension. You must use the extension. Now in the same way you can edit this file before printing with given command

edit filename.txt

and press Enter. This command opens the MS-DOS Editor to edit this file. Edit the file and then press Alt, F, P to print it.

A cool tip to minimize and maximize all your active windows programs. You can do all using your mouse, but if you want to do this with keyboard then simply press Windows key+M to minimize all active programs and later maximize it using Windows key+Shift+M.

If you want to minimize the all active windows programs one by one then use the shortcut by pressing Alt+Space+N keys and sequentially maximize the active windows programs using shortcut Alt+Space+X keys.

If you have multiple yahoo ID's and wants to login with more than one yahoo ID at the same time then don't worry, you can login with more than one yahoo ID at the same time using this tip. There is no need to install any other yahoo multi messenger version, you can easily covert your normal yahoo messenger into multi messenger and enjoy your many ID's at the same time.

Follow the given steps to change the yahoo messenger registry value:


- Click Start button and type regedit in Run option then press Enter for next.

- Here locate the location to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Yahoo/Pager/Test

- Here in right side panel, right click to create a new Dword value with name Plural and give it value 1.

- Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

-For signing in with new YAHOO ID open another messenger open as many messengers you need.

-If you want to disable the multiple messenger option then again open registry editor and change Plural value 1 to 0.

To edit this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.

- First click on Start button then go to Control Panel.

- Open the “Appearance and Themes” option in control panel then click on Folder Options.

- A small windows dialog box will appear with the title “Folder options”, click on View tab.

- Under the Advanced setting section, scroll down to bottom and click the “Restore previous folder windows at logon” option and then click Ok button to save sitting.

Now when you log off, restart or shutdown, your computer will automatically open the previously opened folders from the same location as before.

In windows environment, the Send To command is used to transfer files from one location to different locations. By using this command, a user can quickly send his file between default destinations (default lists in Send To menu, for example Desktop, CD/DVD Drive, My Documents, Mail Recipient and Floppy Drive). These are the default Send To menu lists in windows XP. To increase the data transfer speed between different locations, you can add more new destination in Send To lists.

Follow the given steps to add new destinations to Send To lists:

-First click on Start button and type sendto in Run option then press Ok button.

-A window will appear with default Send To lists (Compressed (zipped) Folder, Desktop (create shortcut), Mail Recipient, My Documents).

-Now using drag-and-drop technique (or using copy and paste method), you can move any program, folders and drives shortcuts to this folder.

-Now you can verify, your new shortcut is created in Send To menu.

-If you want to delete any destination, then open the Sent To folder and remove the destination shortcut.

This tip is very interesting for home and some small office users, who wants to restrict user's ability to shutdown their computer. You can hide the Shutdown button from the Start menu using registry editor and also restrict access to shutdown, if a user clicks on Ctrl+Alt+Del.

Follow the given steps to hide system shutdown button from start menu:

-To use this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.

-Click Start button and type regedit in Run option then press Enter for next.

-Here locate the location to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \Policies\Explorer

-Here in right side panel, right click to create a new DWORD value with name NoClose.

-Now assign number 1 to its value data box.

-Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

-But next time, if you want to unhide the shutdown button then simply change the value data box to 0 or delete this DWORD item.

-Again close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

Here's a cool tip for accessing a Web page from any browser address bar. You can enter any string of characters in an address bar and then press the below provided keys; the browser will automatically add both "www" and ".com", ".net",".org" and then search for the page on the Internet.

For example, if we type
techyview.blogspot in an address bar and then

1) press Ctrl + Enter, browser will redirect us to the
http://www.techyview.blogspot.com/ site..

2)press Shift + Enter,browser will redirect us to the
http://www.techyview.blogspot.net/ site..

3)press Shift + Ctrl + Enter,browser will redirect us to the
http://www.techyview.blogspot.org/ site..

There are many ways to prints a document, but you can print a document quickly if you put a shortcut to the printer on your desktop and drag a document icon to it, no need to open file for printing just drag a file to printer icon and get your print.

To do this, first click Start button, Settings, then Printers ( first make sure you installed your printer driver). When the Printers window opens, hold down Ctrl and drag the printer icon to your system desktop.

Now you can drag a document icon and drop it in printer icon on your desktop. Here you will get a print quickly and with out open a file.

Mother Boards and CPUs go together like a nuts and bolts, each is dependent on the other.

When shopping for a mother board make a list of things to consider..

* Is this machine used for business
* Will you be doing heavy graphics work
* Will you be editing audio and video
* Will you be rendering 3D videos and graphics
* Will you be playing hot new games
* Extra Hardware you will be running
* Am I on a tight budget

Once you have answered those preliminary questions you are ready to start shopping.

On board peripherals or not? If you are going to be doing any heavy multimedia then onboard adio and video my not be the best solution for you.

While most of todays motherboards are adequate for many games and photo editing, they are not the wisest nor best investment for your new PC. For heavy graphics like the newest HOTTEST games, or for editing video or rendering 3D video or graphics, a separate video card is the only way to go.

As for audio, on board adio is fine for most people since only the true audiophile will know the difference and most audio features can be done through software

If you decide to go with on board LAN be sure and chose a motherboard with Gigabit LAN (1Gb speed) minimum, as this is going to be the future of internet and LAN networking as
well.

One last word of caution: PC repair and upgrade requires both mechanical aptitude as well as logical thinking and some degree of programming ability. While I am willing to share my knowledge of PCs here with you, I can not and will not assume responsibility for any damages or losses you may suffer from the use or misuse of information contained here. If you are not comfortable building or repairing your own PC, or if you have trouble understanding the knowledge contained in these articles, I URGE YOU to seek out a professional repair technician to do the work for you.

When buying a motherboard you should also consider what type of case you will be putting it into and what CPU you will be using. Personally I prefer to use Intel Processors and Mid to Full tower cases. Your choice of CPU may vary but I would caution tou to stick with either Intel or AMD and would further suggest not using the cheap versions of these chips (Celeron or Duron), but more on that in a different article.

Next consider RAM, you always want the option of having plenty of RAM and so I will recommend at least 3 to 4 slots, and a motherboard that will handle at least 2gigs, 4 is better though. If you are building a new system, by all means go for a motherboard that uses DDR or DDR2 style RAM.

Next lets look at front side bus (FSB) speed, this is the speed at which data can travel from the CPU to the memory. Most motherboards today have 800Mhz FSB and that is my minimum recomendation, unless you are on a tight budget. Why skimp on motherboard speed if you are going to buy fast components? Using a Fast CPU on a slow motherboard would be like using a Ferrari to shuttle people around in Disneyland's parking lot. What a waste of horse power!

Finally when choosing a motherboard do a little research, read a few reviews posted by others who have used or are using the board you are considering.

Some of my personal choices these days are ASUS and MSI they are popular motherboards and both have a pretty stable track record for performance and durability. ASUS while slightly more expensive than the MSI is actually a pretty solid choice. MSI is slightly lower in cost and is a very reliable motherboard too.

There are many operating systems available for you to use on your PC. Linux, Windows, Unix, OS2 and many more. In order to remain within the realm of my expertise this tutorial will deal with windows operating systems only.

Windows XP Vs Win9x...

Windows 98 is really not as bad as the rap that everyone laid on it. It can still be retained in many upgrades and if programmed properly and the proper tweaks are adhered to win98 can remain a very stable system. In fact most of the bad reputation it has received is actually from inexperienced PC users screwing with it or installing a ton of unnecessary crap into it. I personally use win98 on one of my 2 main machines and it has been running stable for about 6 years now. Here are the Stats.


* BCM QS400BX motherboard
* 550 Mhz P3 w/ 768Mb PC133 RAM
* SCSI Card
* Sound Blaster Platinum Card
* GForce FX5200 Video Card
* Monster II Voodoo Card
* TV Capture Card
* SN5200 100 Mbit LAN Adapter
* DVD/RW Drive
* 3x 40 Gb WD Caviar Drives


Look at Pros and Cons of Win98...

CONs

* Does not support RAM over 1Gb *
* Does Not Support HDs over 128 Mb **
* Is no longer supported by Microsoft

PROs

* Uses less CPU cycles than XP
* Has a true DOS mode still available
* Easier to control preventing OS autonomy
* Easier to repair and recover from disaster.

Look at the Pros and Cons of WinXP...

CONs

* Harder to recover from disasters and Virii
* Autonomous OS is not easily controlled by user
* Not very backward compatible for software
* CPU hog
* Memory hog
* No true DOS Real Mode
* Licensing interferes with upgrades and repairs

PROs

* Handles Hard Drives in excess of 128 Gb
* Better PnP Support
* Still Supported by Microsoft
* Improved USB support
* More compatible with new hardware


In conclusion... If you are upgrading an existing PC that has win98SE then you should try and stay with it unless you are going to be using drives larger than 128Gb
If you are building a new machine, then by all means you are much better off using either WinXP or Win2K.

As I have pointed out staying with Win98SE has not been a bad nor troublesome experience for me and I see no reason to spend $300 to change to XP needlessly. However be aware that the time is rapidly approaching when Win98 machines will not be upgradable without changing the OS, so it is probably a better choice to build new machine instead of upgrading.

Finally in defense of XP, although it is a memory and CPU hog, a well built machine using today's technology is more than up to the challenge.

Go to start bar < All programs < Accessories < Command prompt

1. Type in "net user"
2. To delete type \delete
3. The user account will be gone

Nobody wants to spend time scrolling through thousands of search results to find the page that contains the information they're looking for. In fact, few people bother looking beyond the first page of 10 results, choosing instead to recraft their search phrase and try again. But with the help of a few search operators, you can increase substantially the chances that you'll find what you're looking for on your first search try. (Note: not all of these work in every search engine.)

Restating the Obvious Operators
I'll wager you know all about using the plus sign (+) to search for two terms appearing together, the minus sign (-) to find pages that contain one term but not another, the asterisk (*) wildcard to search for a term along with any other word, and quotes ("blah de blah") to find an exact phrase. Here's another search character you might find handy: Place a tilde (~) directly in front of your search term to find pages with words similar to the term in question. So searching ~inexpensive laptop will return pages that have the term "cheap laptop," "affordable laptop," and "low-cost laptop" as well.

Many of my favorite Web sites have terrible site-search boxes. I usually have a much better chance of finding what I'm looking for on the site by going to Google or another search engine, and entering my search term along with site:www.thesitename.com (or .org, .edu, etc.) Here are some of my other favorite search limiters:

define:word to return a definition;
link:url to find pages that contain a link to a specific site or page;
inurl:searchterm (or allinurl:searchterm) to retrieve pages whose URL contains a specific word or phrase;
intitle:searchterm (or allintitle:searchterm the find pages with the word or phrase in their title; and,
info:url (or id:url) to get information about the page.

Javascript Bonus: Curious about when the page you're on was last updated? Just type javascript:alert(document.lastModified) in the address bar and press Enter to see the date and time in a pop-up window.

More Search Helpers
If you're looking for a weather report, simply enter weather place or zip code and press Enter to see the temperature, conditions, and forecast for that locale. To keep adult-oriented content out of the results, use safesearch: searchterm. And to see pages similar to another page, type related: url.

1)Adding More than One Home-page to Firefox..

- go to Tools | Options ..

- In the Location(s) field, enter the addresses you want to use and separate them with a [ | ](for example http://www.yahoo.com | http://www.google.com)

- Click OK



2)Auto-Closing Download manager in firefox..

- Open Firefox .

-Type about:config in the URL bar..

- Scroll down to browser.download.manager.closeWhenDone, change it from false to true.




3)Editing Close button status on tabs..

-Open about:config in the address bar

-Change browser.tabs.closeButtons to the

0 - Display close button only on the active tab
1 - Display close buttons on every tabs
2 - Never display close buttons

In Kiosk mode,there is nothing at the top, and nothing at the bottom. No toolbars, no taskbar. Nothing.

Well, you can set that up automatically. You can use the current icon, or create a new one.I recommend the latter, so you're not locked into Kiosk mode.

Start by right-clicking an empty area on the desktop. Select New>>Shortcut. In the box, enter "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" -k. Name it IE Kiosk.

Of course, there are no navigation buttons. So you have to substitute keystrokes. For instance, there is no Back button. But you can use the Backspace key. There's no Forward button, either. So you use Alt+Right Arrow. And to close the window? Click Ctrl+W.

The following link show the windows Keyboard shortcuts..

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/keyboard.aspx

The default look of the removable drives can be changed by a simple procedure.The removable disk has the following default look.
The default look of the removable disks can be changed by the following ...
-Select ur favourite image which u want to set for the icon of removable disk.

-Open a note pad and type as present below


Here label describes the text u want to appear for name of ur removable disk.Now save is notepad file as autorun.inf

-Copy both files (autorun.inf and Icon file) to your removable drive. You can make both files as hidden.

Now unplug the drive and connect it back to USB and now you can see the icon of ur removable disk as ur selected image.

There may be many cases where you want to delete all the contents inside the folder, but wanted to maintain the folder structure as usual. By default Windows does not provide this option. If there are lots of folders inside a particular folder, then its difficult to delete contents from all the folders. This task can be done by following..

To do this go to Start-> Run and type ‘regedit‘. In the registry, navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Shell key. Right click on ‘Shell’ and then create the ‘Empty folder Contents‘ sub key with the New\Key. then create the command key in the same way. Open ‘Default‘ by right clicking on it in the right hand side window. and fill it with the following entry- ‘cmd /c “cd /d %1 && del /s /f /q *.*.


Once you close the registry, a new command will appear in the right click menu of the folder. Now whenever you want to delete the contents, select “Empty Folder Contents” and only the contents will be deleted, the folder structure will remain same.



Note: Backup ur registry before performing this..

If you are working on lot of files and folders and you need to reboot computer suddenly after any installation, its difficult to rebuild all the open windows after the reboot process. But Windows has an option to save the windows that you were working on and open them again on start up in windows.

1. Open any Explorer Window and click on Tools-> Folder Options and Organize-> Folder and Search Option.


2. Under View tab, scroll down and check the box labelled “Restore previous folder windows on logon“.


3. Click OK and next time you restart your PC, all windows from previous logon will be opened.

Vista has lot of improvements over XP in features and design. People who use Vista for first time feel that many commands or features available in XP are missing in Vista. When using Vista for first time, it may be difficult to catch common commands used in XP and one such is the Run Command. Run Command is not available in Vista start menu by default. You can always use the run command using short cut key- Windows +R. If you need the run command in start menu, you can restore it in 3 simple steps.

1. Right click on the Vista start menu and click Properties.



2. In the properties window select the tab and click Customize.


3. Click OK and now you can see Run Command in the start menu.

What do you do when you found an interesting webpage and decided to keep a copy of the webpage on your desktop? The usual way is using the “save page as” feature on your browser to save your favourite webpage to .htm/.html or text file format. But isn’t it better to convert the webpage to PDF format?

htm2pdf is a free web-based service that helps you convert your favourite webpages to PDFs.

How to Convert Webpage to PDF?
Simply copy and paste your preferred webpage url in the provided box in htm2pdf. Then click “Convert to PDF” to convert the webpage to PDF. Once the conversion finished, you will be given a link to download the PDF file.

Here an example... pdf file of my blog...


Looks cool eh... Site : htm2pdf.co.uk

This trick works for the NTFS file format only...


TRICK 1:
Encrypt the required folder

This works only for folders.To make any file only accessible to us, simple encrypt the folder.

1. Right click on the folder and go to its properties.
2. Click on Advanced, and check "Encrypt content to secure data".
3. Apply the settings.
4. When asked to confirm attribute changes for folders, select "Apply changes to this folder, subfolders, and files" and click ok.
5. The folder's font color will change to Green to indicate the changes have been made.
6. Now, no one can use (open, rename, delete etc.) files in that folder except you.

TRICK 2: Disable access to required files or folder

This works for both files and folders.In this trick, we simply set that the needed files or folder should only be usable (open, rename, delete etc.) by us and not by anyone else even the system.

1. First, turn off Simple File Sharing. To do so, Go to My Computer->Tools->Folder Options.
2. Select the "View" tab. Scroll down and uncheck "Use simple file sharing" and click Ok.
3. Now, Right click on the needed file or folder and go to its properties.
4. Select the "Security" tab.
5. Now, remove all the users from the list except you by selecting them from the list and clicking "Remove".
6. Apply the settings.
7. Turn on Simple File Sharing.

You can directly compose email directly from the yahoo serach bar directly without going to ur yahoo mail and clicking compose button.Try this cool trick now...

Go to yahoo home page and type !mail xyz@abc.com in the SEARCH BAR. xyz@abc.com is the email ID to whom you want to compose and press 'web search'.You will be directed to ur yahoomail and the compose mail page appers automatically with the ID u hav given... Looks cool eh..

U can shut down your computer in just 4 sec..

- Open ‘Windows Task Manager’ - Ctrl+Alt+Del
- Click ‘Shutdown’ at the top next to ‘Help'
- Then hold the ‘Ctrl’ key and Select ‘Turn Off’.




WhatTheFont is an online service which lets you detect the font used in a logo or image just by uploading it.It identifes the font type by scanning the image or logo.

It supports most common image formats - GIF,JPEG,TIFF,BMP etc.The maximum image size is around 360 x 275 pixels. The ideal letter height for the best search result is about 100 pixels. Try to get the text horizontal and make sure letters are not touching. WhatTheFont will only recognize uppercase and lowercase letters.

1.) Keyboard Navigation

Do you get sick of moving your arm to get ahold of the mouse just so you can click on a different tab in Firefox? Well, I sure do! Luckily, the same thing can be done using keyboard shortcuts. By using Ctrl + Tab, you can move through all of the open tabs from left to right. If you want to go directly to a tab, all you have to do is press Ctrl + the number of the tab you want from the left. For example, hit Ctrl + 2 for the second tab from the left.


2.) Delete a URL

Ever find yourself at a loss when you want to delete the address of a particular Web site from your history? Well, you know you can open the history sidebar and delete everything, but what if you also want to delete it from the drop down menu on the address bar? Well, all you have to do to delete an address from the address bar menu is highlight it and press Delete.


3.) Download Page Media

Let's say you visit a Web page and you want to download a certain embedded component, such as a Shockwave file, an image or an animation. What do you do? Well, let’s also say that the page is protected and it doesn’t even let you right click anywhere. How would you be able to download anything from that page then? For this, just go to Tools, Page Info. That should open up a new dialogue box. In that box, click on the tab that says Media.


You will see a list of available media on a particular page. Click on one of them and you will be able to preview it in the link list. Click on your desired file and go to Save As. That will allow you to save a media file from that particular Web page!



4.) Get More Screen Space

To free up more space on your screen, you can make your icons smaller. To do that, just go to View, Toolbars, Customize. You will then see a little checkbox that says Use Small Icons. Checkmark that


5.) Instant Search

To search for any text on a particular Web page, you probably usually use Ctrl + F, right? Well, now you can do that even faster by pressing the "forward slash" key (it's the same one as the question mark key) on your keyboard. That will highlight the Quickfind window. So, to recap, you press the forward slash key, which activates the window, and you type in the text you want to search for.

Google Experimental :

Are you tired of the same old and boring Google?

Luckily, Google has been experimenting with their search engine and they want you to help them out! It’s fittingly titled Google Experimental.

How to use :
Go to http://www.google.com/experimental/ and choose Join this experiment, listed under the "Alternate views for search results" section.

To try it out, go back to http://www.google.com, type in "George Washington view:timeline" and
it will show you a timeline of adolf hitler's life, along with a graph that shows you when the major events of his documented life occurred.


It shows results on a timeline, map, or in context of other information types. With these views, Google's technology extracts key dates, locations, measurements, and more from select search results so you can view the information in a different dimension.

Timeline and map views work best for searches related to people, companies, events and places. Info view shows all the data found for each result, to help you select the best choice.

NOTE : To leave this.. go to http://www.google.com/experimental/ and click 'leave' button

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