Windows is pretty useless productive-wise by default. Here is a huge selection of freeware applications available to start your work.
Adeona: A Free, Open Source System for Helping Track and Recover Lost and Stolen Laptops
Adeona is designed to use the Open Source OpenDHT distributed storage service to store location updates sent by a small software client installed on an owner's laptop. The client continually monitors the current location of the laptop, gathering information (such as IP addresses and local network topology) that can be used to identify its current location. The client then uses strong cryptographic mechanisms to not only encrypt the location data, but also ensure that the ciphertexts stored within OpenDHT are anonymous and unlinkable. At the same time, it is easy for an owner to retrieve location information.
Adeona: A Free, Open Source System for Helping Track and Recover Lost and Stolen Laptops
ImgBurn
It has several 'Modes', each one for performing a different task:
- Read - Read a disc to an image file
- Build - Create an image file from files on your computer or network - or you can write the files directly to a disc
- Write - Write an image file to a disc
- Verify - Check a disc is 100% readable. Optionally, you can also have ImgBurn compare it against a given image file to ensure the actual data is correct
- Discovery - Put your drive / media to the test! Used in combination with DVDInfoPro, you can check the quality of the burns your drive is producing
ImgBurn supports a wide range of image file formats - including BIN, CUE, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI.
It can burn Audio CD's from any file type supported via DirectShow / ACM - including AAC, APE, FLAC, M4A, MP3, MP4, MPC, OGG, PCM, WAV, WMA and WV.
You can use it to build DVD Video discs (from a VIDEO_TS folder), HD DVD Video discs (from a HVDVD_TS folder) and Blu-ray Video discs (from a BDAV / BDMV folder) with ease.
It supports Unicode folder/file names, so you shouldn't run in to any problems if you're using an international character set.
ImgBurn supports all the Microsoft Windows OS's - Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 2008 and Windows 7 (including all the 64-bit versions). If you use Wine, it should also run on Linux and other x86-based Unixes.
It's a very flexible application with several advanced features that are often lacking in other tools, especially when it comes to burning DVD Video discs. It supports all the latest drives without the need for updates (including booktype / bitsetting / advanced settings on many of the major ones - i.e. BenQ, LiteOn, LG, NEC, Plextor, Samsung, Sony).
There is an image queue system for when you're burning several images (which you can automatically share between multiple drives if you have more than one) and an easy-to-use layer break selection screen for double layer DVD Video jobs. The Automatic Write Speed feature allows you store your favourite burn speed settings on a per 'Media ID' basis, right down to a drive by drive level. Data captured during the burn (write speed, buffer levels etc) can be displayed / analysed using DVDInfoPro.
Whilst ImgBurn is designed to work perfectly straight out of the box, advanced users will appreciate just how configurable it is.
Oh and let's not forget the best thing about it.... it's 100% FREE ;-)
Please do not use this software to make illegal copies of copyrighted discs.
Screenshots
Click here to download!
ImgBurn
12 Unique Email Services You Should Know About « Ijaar
However, there are times when you don’t want to use your regular email address for one reason or another.
For such times, when you need a special type of email, following services can come in very handy to serve your purpose.
Disposable Email:
For all those times when you don’t really want to give out your email address to somebody but you really have to, these disposable email accounts can be very useful. For example, if you want to register for a software but do not want to give your actual email address, you can create a temporary/disposable email account that will expire after sometime.
10 Best Firefox Extensions to Manage Tabs
There are innumerable extensions for your Firefox tabs, but extensions below can really help you save your time managing tabs. Here are my picks…
10 Best Firefox Extensions to Manage Tabs
Total Copy
- Pause / Resuming : At any time you may pause the copy-prosess, and continue later.
- Auto-pause on any error : If you run out of diskspace, the network goes down or some other error occur, copying is automaticly paused, and you may resume when the error is sorted out.
- Resuming on powerfailure : If the computer is turned off during the copyprosess (ex. power-loss or system-crash), Total Copy let's you resume when you restart.
- Speedlimit : Slows down the copyprosess, and frees resources to other tasks.
- Faster than Windows : Copies slightly faster than Windows (approx. 10% localy, and 1% on network)
- Small improvements : Shows copy-speed, a percent-bar and KBytes remaining.
- Does not modify Windows' own copy-function : This program will not alter the existing windows-copy-function.
Conversion Central: 101 Tools to Convert Video, Music, Images, PDF and More : Codswallop
Few things are more irritating than having to deal with a format that is incompatible with what you need it to do. It doesn’t matter if it’s a media file, document, or shoe size; it’s just plain frustrating. To make your life easier, check out this list of 101 tools that will allow you to convert just about anything. |
Conversion Central: 101 Tools to Convert Video, Music, Images, PDF and More : Codswallop
How to Find Drivers for Unknown Devices in Device Manager : EmergingTechs.com
This little utility is called Unknown Devices and it works with Windows 95, 98, 98se, 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista. It’s also a portable application so it requires no installation.
When you run it, Unknown Devices immediately lists out all of the devices that Windows cannot find a driver for and tells you what each one is.
How to Find Drivers for Unknown Devices in Device Manager : EmergingTechs.com
6 Must Have Replacement Tools when Fixing a Computer Infected by Virus » Raymond.CC Blog
But if you can’t run Task Manager, you cannot end the suspicious process. You could use the taskkill command in command prompt to kill the process but again you won’t be able to do that if CMD has been disabled. Perhaps you can run msconfig to stop the virus from auto startup but also cannot because of the virus. For advance computer users who has knowledge in registry and thought that they could manually remove the virus auto startup entries there, they too can’t do anything about it if regedit has been disabled. Disabling of Folder Options is to stop you from setting your computer to display hidden and system files. This way you can’t see the virus file and hence you won’t be able to delete them.
It is easy to re-enable all those tools back by modifying some values in your registry but if the is still virus active in your computer, the restrictions will be restored back. So for emergency cases, here are some replacement tools you can use to replace the disabled Windows tools.
6 Must Have Replacement Tools when Fixing a Computer Infected by Virus » Raymond.CC Blog
Firefox 4 Beta 1 Released
It’s finally here: Mozilla has released the first beta for Firefox 4.
The new iteration of the world’s second most popular web browser, which can be downloaded here, has been hotly anticipated for almost a year. Today however, it transitions from concept to reality, with many more betas to come until its official release at the end of the year.
As we have reported in the past, Firefox 4 is a major upgrade from its predecessors. It not only includes a redesign of the user interface (tabs are now on top except for the Mac version), but a wave of additional features, including enhanced HTML5 support, hardware-accelerated HD video, WebSockets and enhanced add-on support via Jetpack.
There’s a lot more to FirefoxFirefox 4, most of which you can see in this feature spotlight the Mozilla team put together to highlight the many upgrades the new browser contains. However, we want to stress that this is an early beta of the browser — it will crash and frustrate you, which is exactly what Mozilla is hoping to catch now before its final release.
Mozilla needs Firefox 4 to be a winner; in recent months, Google Chrome has been stealing browser marketshare at Firefox’s expense. The new version could either reverse the downtrend or accelerate its fall.
Are you going to download the new Firefox 4 beta? What do you think of the new features? Let us know in the comments.
Firefox 4 Beta 1 Released
Five Best DVD Ripping Tools
On Tuesday we asked you to share your favorite DVD ripping tools; today we've sifted through hundreds of comments to bring you the five most popular answers. Hit the jump for a closer look at five of the best and most popular DVD ripping tools, then cast your vote to determine the best ripper of the bunch.
Five Best DVD Ripping Tools