xp-AntiSpy is a neat little utility to automatically apply different settings to the operating system, which could also be done by hand, but at a higher expense of time.

It’s latest version 3.95 can be downloaded from here

Continue reading ‘Using xp-AntiSpy’

Below I have mentioned a few tweaks that will give your system a boost in performance. Please note that these tweaks are for Windows XP.

• Format your hard drive using NTFS file system which is faster and more stable
• Defragment your disk drives twice a month for faster data access.Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter to launch the utility. Select a drive and click ‘Defragment’. This will start the defragmentation process. Continue reading ‘How To Speed Up Windows XP’

Microsoft Corp. plans to launch its system for selling advertising alongside regular search results by June in the United States, giving the company its next piece of ammunition in the battle with rivals including Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

Microsoft has been testing its ambitious new platform for selling all kinds of online advertising, called adCenter, since last spring. Right now, the company said about 25 percent of the sponsored links that accompany regular search results on its MSN Search site are from adCenter, but that will grow to 100 percent by the time the company’s fiscal year ends in June.

Read more here

Google has announced about a Personalized Home for Mobiles. The homepage displays everything from your Gmail inbox to news headlines,weather, stock quotes, and feeds.

The interface is optimized for small screens, says Abhijit Kalamkar, one of Google’s Software Engineer, on his post.

You can read the whole post here

Many people are not aware of the Windows Registry and why it is important to regularly clean it.

The Registry is Windows internal database which records an entry for every software you install and use. It even stores information of each user’s profile and hardware devices which is continuously reffered to by Windows.

If you are like me you will have a lot of unwanted entries in your registry by regularly installing and uninstalling different applications, which will affect the functioning of your PC.

There are many softwares that help you to keep your registry clean by removing these unwanted entries.

RegCleaner 4.3 is one such software that helps you with the task of cleaning your registry. You can download it from here.
Continue reading ‘Cleaning your Registry’

Google Desktop 2 is one of my favorite Google products. Google Desktop indexes my Gmail messages which helps me when I want to read my mail when I am offline.

Google Talk if installed will integrate with Google Desktop and inform me whenever I receive a mail in real time.

Web Clips is a panel in GD2 which is very useful when you want to be informed about the latest updates in your favorite blogs.

Other GD2 panels which interest me are Scratch Pad, News and What’s Hot.

Ofcourse there are other panels like Photos, Quick View, Stocks and Weather.

I just installed Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress 2.0 . It’s really awesome, you can get Googlebot to visit your site in under 60 seconds!

At first though I got an error while creating sitemap.xml, the error was because the script needed write access to my blog directory.

After a lot of searching I found how to do it. This is how I did it step by step:

• create two blank files in notepad – sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz
• upload them to your host
• CHMOD them to 666, which makes them writable
• generate the sitemap from your wordpress by going to options>sitemap

Now go to Google Sitemap and add your sitemap. Verify your site to see detailed statistics and errors for it.

If you still cannot get the sitemap generator to work then go here for a free step by step Google Sitemaps Video Tutorial.

Expect Google to get into anything that has to do with the Internet! And if the Internet gets onto the Mobile, Google would follow suit and develop applications for your cell phone.

Google has announced that it is expanding its services to the BlackBerry platform. Available immediately, Google Local for mobile can be downloaded for free, and will provide BlackBerry users with maps and satellite imagery as well as the ability to receive driving directions and locate addresses.

Due this spring, Google Talk will also be provided for free, and will enable BlackBerry users to chat and keep up with their contacts via the Google Talk instant messaging system. Google Talk requires a free Gmail e-mail account.

Of course both applications require that you have a data service subscription on your BlackBerry device, for which most providers charge.

Phishing attacks have increased a lot these days. Infact hackers are now using a more sophisticated method called Pharming. So what is this so called Phishing and Pharming? Keep reading to find out…

Phishing, also called as spoofing, is the act of attempting to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business with a real need for such information in a seemingly official electronic notification or message. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where there are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers that the legitimate organisation already has.

The term ‘Phishing’ comes from the fact that these Internet scammers use sophisticated lures as they ‘fish’ for user’s financial information and password data.

Phishing is spelt with a ‘Ph’ because hackers commonly replace the letter ‘f’ with ‘Ph’.

In Pharming, the DNS server software is exploited and the hacker acquires the domain name of a site and redirects traffic from that site to another Web site. This site is then used to steal or “phish” a visitor’s account details, or even the payment information.

Ok, now you know what Phishing and Pharming is. Now how do you avoid such attacks?

Well, the easiest way to avoid being a victim of such attacks is to be cautious as to where you give out your personal details such as credit card numbers, passwords and other payment or billing information such as bank account numbers or credit card details.

You can also use a good anti-phishing software. These programs are often integrated with Web browsers and e-mail clients as a toolbar that dispalys the real domain name for the visiting Web site. This prevents the most common form of Phishing attack called spoofing.

Browsers such as Internet Explorer 7 have in-built Phishing filters that automatically checks the visited web site against a list of reported phishing websites.

Google Earth came out of its Beta tag for Windows version and along with that Google also launched version for Mac OS X.

Following is part of the annoucement made on Google’s official blog:

We feel like proud parents around here. Our eldest, Google Earth for the PC, is officially leaving beta status today, and we couldn’t be more pleased. For those of you who downloaded early, upgrade to the latest and discover Google Earth all over again.

And we have a brand new member of the family — Google Earth for Macintosh. We’re happy to finally have some good news for the, ahem, vocal Mac enthusiasts we’ve been hearing from. Let’s just say that we have gotten more than a few “requests” for a Mac version of Google Earth.

You can read the whole post here

Google earth for PC and Mac can be downloaded from here

Also more info on Google Earth can be found here