Here’s another freebie for everyo.. erm.. VNU readers. I know I’ve always been using the term EVERYONE but actually it is NOT meant for everyone. These freebie promotions that I’ve been promoting are coverdisc promotions for magazine readers. It is actually wrong for me to be providing these so-called “open secrets” where I am linking to the software directly as the provider did not give me approval to do that.

However, Chris Wiles from VNU is kind enough to compromise and allow me to continue promoting the promos as long as I fulfill some of the requirements. So here it is, full version VCOM Fix-It Utilities 7 Express which normally cost $30 but free if you get it from VNU.


Fix-It Utilities 7 Express optimizes the performance of your system, and our tools can find and prevent problems before they occur. In addition, you’ll get easy scheduled maintenance to keep your PC running in top shape.

This software is very similar to what System Mechanic does. It is an all-in-one software for computer beginners to maintain your computer in tip top condition. It has tools to clean and optimize your hard drive, optimize your registry files, check the status of your hard drive and be warned if it about to fail, keep track of your computer’s resources, and be warned when there is a problem, manage the programs that start when your computer starts up, recover deleted files, diagnose your hardware, gather information about your computer, synchronize your computer clock with an ultra-accurate atomic clock and many more!

If computers are a mystery to you, and you’d like to have Fix-It Utilities maintain and fix your computer without worrying about the details, the One-Click Solutions wizards are for you. These wizards can perform a complete check-up cleaning, and optimization all in one step!

Follow the steps below to get your free registration license key code for VCOM Fix-It Utilities 7 Express.

1. Visit this page, enter your Email address, first name, last name, country and the “Proceed and receive your serial codes” button.

2. The refreshed page will display the serial number. Note down the code.

3. Visit VNU promotion page, and click on the button that says “Free download“.

4. The setup file Fix-It-Utilities7Express.exe itself is 53.7MB. Run Fix-It-Utilities7Express.exe to install.

5. During the installation, you’ll be asked to enter Serial Number. Enter the code that you received earlier and it’ll turned into a fully licensed version.

If System Mechanic doesn’t work well for you, Fix-It Utilities would be a good alternative for you to maintain your computer. According to Chris from VNU, this promotion has been going on for nearly 3 weeks and it has received more than 6000 downloads!

Although this version of Fix-It Utilities is the EXPRESS edition, which often means some of the features have been removed, I think you should take a look at it yourself. It is just crammed with PC maintenance tools! If you’re not happy with it and would prefer to use the Professional version of Fix-It Utilities 8, you can upgrade it and save 50% on the normal price bringing it down to just £14.99. Just click Help and select Upgrade to Professional to claim the discounted price. Enjoy!

VIPRE Antivirus is originally from Sunbelt Software but On July 13, 2010, GFI Software has bought over the company. To me, the first thing that comes to my mind when you mention GFI is their server-based email security software called GFI MailSecurity which comes with 5 virus scanners (Kaspersky, McAfee, Norton, BitDefender and AVG). Unfortunately I never got a chance to use or set it up since my work place is running Red Hat Enterprise Linux and GFI MailSecurity is only compatible with Windows. I believe many people especially Americans trust GFI Software because it is a USA company with USA tech support.

Anyway, back to the topic. If you visit the official VIPRE Antivirus website, the first thing you will notice is the banner that says “SPEED MATTERS Voted #1 By Users”. If you refer to my antivirus benchmark test on VIPRE Antivirus, the report shows that the speed and lightness is just at a acceptable moderate level. They have also recently joined the VB100 comparative testing and so far failing only 1 test because of 2 false positive and passed the other 3 tests. VIPRE Antivirus normally cost $29.95 for 1 year subscription on 1 computer but if you searched around, you would find that Amazon UK and HSN is selling LIFETIME license which is very rare!


Antivirus signature needs to be constantly updated which is why most if not all antivirus are on a subscription plan rather than just a one time payment. Surely there are some of you that are just fine using the free version of antivirus such as Avira AntiVir, Avast, AVG or Comodo, but there are also others that think that paid version will always have more advantage over the free ones. That is quite true because paid antivirus normally contains more features than the free one to provide extra security.

Vipre Antivirus Features:

– Antivirus and Antispyware
– Anti-Rootkit with FirstScan cleaning technology which is very effective in removal because it runs without loading the Windows operating system.
– Email Protection for email program that uses POP3 and SMTP
– Active Protection to protect against known and unknown malware threats by analyzing the software’s behavior
– System Tools such as Secure File Eraser, History Cleaner, and PC Explorer. The PC Explorer is a very useful module to easily identify specific application files and processes within different programs that may be suspicious.
– Free malware removal assistance from the support team
– Small footprint. Most antivirus setup installer is nearly at 100MB in size but VIPRE Antivirus is only at 15MB

I tried installing 2 different keyloggers that uses rootkit technology to hide itself and VIPRE Antivirus’ Active Protection immediately notifies me and stop the installation.

Here is a piece of good news. Jesmond Darmanin from GFI has generously offered 5 LIFETIME license to be given away at this blog and here is what you need to do to be eligible for the draw. Please subscribe to my newsletter, Digg, Like in Facebook, Share in Facebook, Tweet, Stumble, etc etc etc. spam spam spam. Nah I’m just joking. All you need to do is make sure you’re already a subscriber and then leave a comment. It is that simple. The winners will be announced tomorrow.

[ Visit VIPRE Antivirus ]

UPDATE: Winners has been randomly selected and they are jayschwalb, jbellante, GaleVette, mithiljani, and car_cubero.

I’ve added Alexa Traffic Ranking button on my site few months back. I know that Alexa’s traffic ranking is not accurate but its a good motivation to keep me going to get more visitors. Whenever the traffic ranking number drops, I work even harder to find and write good articles. Alexa ratings are based on a level from 1 to 4,000,000 and it goes beyond 4 million sometimes. The lower the rating on Alexa the better. So if a website has a ranking below 100,000 then the website should be getting a good number of daily visitors. 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 ratings are for new sites mostly, or sites with no traffic. While a rating of 1 will be the website with the most traffic, a spot currently occupies by Yahoo. The main flaw in Alexa is that it only measures visits from people with the Alexa toolbar installed and Alexa assumes that this group of surfers are representative for all Internet surfers.

Anyway, when I added the code from Alexa to my blog in order to track my traffic, a small picture will be displayed stating the Traffic Ranking and date it was updated. Below is the picture of how Alexa’s Traffic Ranking picture looks like.

If you click on that picture, it will bring you to Amazon.com with a small thumbnailed screenshot of your website together with your traffic details. I am quite surprised to find that the thumbnailed screenshot of my website shows Precondition Failed. I honestly have no idea what is the meaning of this Precondition Failed error so I waited for a few weeks waiting for Alexa to crawl to my site and get a new screenshot. Weeks has passed and still the same Precondition Failed screenshot.

To solve this problem…


I just disabled Bad Behavior plugin for WordPress, waited for the next Alexa Traffic Ranking update, and voila, I now have my thumbnailed screenshot of my website and no more Precondition Failed thumbnail picture. Not sure why Bad Behaviour anti-spam plugin for WordPress can cause this Precondition Failed problem but the other anti-spam plugin such as Spam Karma 2 doesn’t. Perhaps Bad Behaviour is pretty old anti-spam plugin and hopefully the upcoming new version 2 will be a much better updated anti-spam plugin.

Previously I’ve written about editing photos online and also resizing image or pictures online. Both of the websites is no match for this one which I am about to show you. It has all the basic functions of the powerful Photoshop and you can do it online without downloading and installing anything!



Wiredness is pretty amazing. You can either upload your photo or pull it from any website by entering the URL. It also has Flickr integration. You can resize, remove red eye, apply effects, insert text, zoom the image and many more! You have to check them out yourself!

The thing I really liked about Wiredness is the clean and simple interface yet powerful. No registration or logins required which will make even more people use this service. No doubt there are even more powerful online photo editor such as Picnik, but it requires registration. If I only need to resize my picture or insert a text as watermark, I wouldn’t want to go through all the trouble to register even though it’s free.

While researching on online photo editing websites, I’ve found many other powerful websites that can do the same. Smiley Cat blog has already done an extensive comparison of ten web-based image editing suites along with a very informative comparison table.

The editors in question are Cellsea, ImageAuthor, LookWow, NetImager, nexImage, Phixr, Picture2Life, PXN8, Snipshot (formerly Pixoh), and VicImager.

[ Visit Wiredness ]

Information that is stored on our disks can be much more valuable than the computer being used together with its software. Then again, to what extent is something regarded as valuable? How much money would you ask for your favorite music collection, which you have been collecting your entire life? Or your disk may contain important financial data or results of scientific research. There are many things that are unique and therefore one has to be certain about security

If you already know about the Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8.0 Special Edition promotion that was offered by VNUnet earlier this year, it is time to upgrade to 8.5 because the 8.5 is fully compatible with Windows Vista and has many new features for your most usual tasks and scenarios. With Paragon Hard Disk Manager, you can easily create, format, delete, undelete, merge, backup, restore and copy your partition or hard disk.


Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8.5 Special Edition provides the user with the most reliable data protection for the hard disk – the ability to create archive duplications (i.e. backup images). By storing such an archive onto external media the user is able to restore the data at any time it is required. The program assists planning a schedule in case the user’s disk needs a backup on a regular basis. The operation will be performed automatically at the specified time.

The second crucial function of the program is the ability to modify the hard disk structure. One day you realize that your hard drive cannot meet your requirements any more. Either its capacity is insufficient and it is time to think about a little upgrade, or you are to carry out some partitioning operations. Whatever the problem is, it requires solution. Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8.5 provides a wide-range functionality in the field of managing disk layout structures. The key features of the program are listed in the special chapter.

Setting up any operation is accomplished by using practical wizards. Each step of the wizard includes in-depth information in order to allow the user to make the right choice. Graphical representations of the data help the user to gain a better understanding.

To get your free genuine Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8.5 Special Edition product key and serial number, just follow the steps below.

1. Go to http://registration.paragon-software.com/hdm85/

2. Fill up the form with all the asterisk (*) as they are required fields and click the Submit button. Check the email address that you’ve entered in the form and you should get an email from [email protected] with the subject “The letter from Paragon Software”. If you don’t get it, please check your SPAM/JUNK folder. Note down the product key and serial number.

3. Head to VNUnet and click on the download button to start downloading hdm85_specialedition-20080117-1930-ea.exe.

4. After finished downloading, run hdm85_specialedition-20080117-1930-ea.exe to install. During setup you’ll be prompted to register the software by entering the product key and serial number.

You now have a fully licensed Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8.5 Special Edition! For your information, the free Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8.5 Special Edition offered by VNUnet is quite an old version. The version 8.5 was released on 20 April 2007 but it is definitely better than the version 8 because 8.5 fully supports Vista.

The latest version of Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2008 was released last year on 11 October 2007. Then on 22 February 2008, Paragon announced that it has 3 editions available for Hard Disk Manager 2008 that is Suite, Professional Edition and Server Edition. In the warez scene, there are already Paragon.Hard.Disk.Manager.2008.Pro-FOSI and also Paragon Hard Disk Manager v2008 Suite-CYGNUS. No sign of the server edition yet. It’d really be nice to have the latest version with all the new features and improvements but the free FREE Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8.5 Special Edition works as well…

Source: VNUnet

A newer version of unofficial MSN Messenger QFE patch is out to fix more bugs especially the 80048820 sign in problems in MSN Messenger v7.5.0311.

Rough Outline of Fixes in 7.5.0320
– a lot of people were experiencing sign in issues with v7.5.0311, we took some changes to fix that or to give better error messages to figure out whatwas going wrong. And there was another fix to get our error reporting correct.
– in Korea, if you were using an IME (Input Method Editor), you would type shortcut for your favorite emoticon and get an extra character. Now emoticons are key to any IM program and it didn’t make sense to not fix this (and we found a simple code fix).
– if you had a Dynamic Background from Blue Mountain, bought it and installed it, then the Text Ads which you should have been getting weren’t showing up.
– there is a DLL which is central to our Audio / Video features, we had to take a new version of that to fix a bug where Messenger would crash if you unplug a USB device after running the Audio Video Tuning Wizard on that device.


Instructions
1. You MUST have MSN Messenger 7.5.0311 installed (If you’ve 7.5.0316, 7.5.0319 or other versions installed, please Uninstall your MSN Messenger and then download the 7.5.0311 from MSN Messenger website)
2. Run the patch_msn_messenger.exe and you should end up with 7.5.0320.

Update 19 December 2005: A new full install MSN Messenger v7.5.0322 is out. Please download from this link. It should fix the MSN Messenger Error 80048820.

One of my very good friend called me up today telling me that he saw a news at a local newspaper saying that those with pirated copies of the Windows XP Professional operating system in their computers that are Internet-capable could find their screens going black and the icons vanishing as Microsoft Corp gets tough…

I immediately told my friend that it is impossible and might be a fake news because Microsoft wouldn’t go that far to make our screen go blackout as that is even worst than privacy invasion! Later I did a bit of googling and found that many people has started talking about it. Some people even mentioned that they’ve already encountered this problem and they had to do a hard reboot to recover from the “blackout”. The newspaper did mention that “To continue working, users will need to reset the machine’s desktop background. All will return to normal, but only for 60 minutes before another blackout occurs.”

At first I felt that this news is fake because I could only find Malaysian bloggers talking about it and of course they got this information from the local newspapers. So I decided to test and check it out myself to see if this “blackout and icon vanishing” penalty for pirated version of Windows XP Professional is true or not.


I plugged in my hard drive that I use for testing purposes, installed a clean Windows XP Professional with a genuine product key and also installed service pack 3 + all latest updates. Then I used Magic Jelly Bean Keyfinder to change Windows Key to a pirate one (from eth0). Rebooted the computer and the logon interrupt message “You may be a victim of software counterfeiting. Click Resolve Now to get help with this problem.” window appears. I clicked Resolve Later and logged into Windows as normal. I waited for more than 60 minutes because I expect a screen blackout with all my icons go missing but nothing happened.

At first I thought that maybe I don’t have the latest WGA installed. I went to C:\Windows\System32 and found that LegitCheckControl.dll, WgaLogon.dll and WgaTray.exe files installed in my computer is version 1.8.31.0. From Microsoft Download site, the latest version of Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications is version 1.8.0031.0 which is actually the same as 1.8.31.0. To be sure, I download WindowsXP-KB905474-ENU-x86-Standalone.exe and installed on my computer. So I have the latest WGA and using a non-genuine XP Pro key that failed the genuine validation, why isn’t my screen blackout and icon vanishing?

I searched further and found an official Windows Genuine Advantage blog website. It did explain about the latest update to WGA notifications for Windows XP Professional and I now understood what does the local newspapers meant by “blackout”.

After installing this new version of WGA Notifications on a copy of Windows XP that fails the validation, most users will discover on their next logon that their desktop has changed to a plain black background from whatever was there previously.

You can of course go to Display Properties to set a new wallpaper or background color but every 60 minutes it will change back to the plain black background. This will continue to happen until that copy of Windows is genuine. Other than this, the user will see the addition of what Microsoft call the “persistent desktop notification” at the bottom right hand of the screen. It says “You may be a victim of software counterfeiting. This copy of Windows did not pass genuine Windows validation.”

The notification is, however, translucent and also can be clicked through and objects underneath it can be interacted with. The notification appears above any object on the desktop, but underneath open windows or applications.

That’s about it. No scary total blackout that you have to do a hard reboot or vanishing icons… This only I think Steven Patrick, the person who wrote about the article in TheStar newspaper did a very bad job in explaining the WGA updates.

Microsoft is no longer selling Windows XP, that means the user that is using the pirated version of Windows XP Professional will have no choice but to upgrade to Windows Vista. I believe this is another move from Microsoft to push users to upgrade from XP to Vista. For those that don’t want to upgrade to Vista and wants to continue using XP, you can wait for the famous Windows Genuine Advantage Validation v1.8.31.0 Cracked eth0. If you hate the blackout and the watermark, you can uninstall WGA by using RemoveWGA 1.2. The author of RemoveWGA can no longer host the file but then RemoveWGA can still be downloaded from Softpedia. Or easier, don’t install KB905474 from Windows Update.

Update: Alex Kochis, the director of Genuine Microsoft Windows emailed me to clarify that Microsoft will continue to offer Windows XP legalization products to customers who need them including after Windows XP is not longer available for pre-install on OEM systems or at retail.

[ Download RemoveWGA 1.2 from Softpedia ]

I am not a fan of gadgets released by Apple such as iPhone, iPad, iPod and etc but the irony of it is I bought an iPad for my wife as a present for the last Christmas. There are times when she had to be with our baby and there’s nothing to do, so an iPad allows her to easily and conveniently surf the web (or actually to just log in to Facebook…). The first thing I did when I got it was to install iTunes and update the iPad to the latest iOS 4.2.1.

Then I went ahead and set up the Wi-Fi followed by her email from her custom domain. It seemed pretty easy setting up the email by just clicking on the Settings icon, then click on Mail, Contacts, Calendars and finally click on Add Account… iPad supports Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft Exchange, mobileme and Other. For custom domain we would have to set it up from Other by entering the POP Account Information with Incoming and Outgoing Mail Server details. I know the SMTP and POP details by hard because they are normally easy to remember, for example, “mail.raymond.cc” for both SMTP and POP. For some weird reason I kept on getting the looping error of “Cannot Connect Using SSL” Do you want to try setting up the account without SSL?

If I click Yes, it says Verifying and ends up showing me the same error. If I click No, it brings me back to the window where I can set the email account information. I tried to login via mail2web.com and there’s no problem which means the mail details that I entered is correct.


I remembered that I did help a friend with this same problem on his iPad but somehow managed to force iPad to accept the settings. This only happened after he upgraded to the latest iOS 4.2.1. Couldn’t remember how I did it last time but as far as I know iPad was never successful in verifying the email account.

By right if you click the No button on the Cannot Connect Using SSL error and then click the Save button again, your iPad will ask you if you want to save the mail account. If you don’t get it, then please follow the workaround below.

The workaround is to disable all network connections by turning ON the Airplane Mode and also making sure that the Wi-Fi is turned off. You can find both of this in the Settings icon. When you try to add an Other mail account with no network connections, you will get an error prompt that says “The POP server “mail.yourserver.com” is not responding. Check your network connection and that you entered the correct information in the “Incoming Mail Server” field”. Click OK and then click the Save button on the top right again. This time you will get a message saying “This account may not be able to send or receive emails. Are you sure you want to save?” Click the Save button and the “Other” mail account is added.

This looping problem seems to be intermittent but the verifying of Other email account is definitely a problem.

TeamViewer is one of the most popular remote help tool which establishes connections to any PC all around the world within just a few seconds. You can remote control your partner’s PC as if you were sitting right in front of it. There’s CrossLoop, AMMYY Admin, ShowMyPC but TeamViewer is my favorite software that I use to remotely help my friend and family’s computer problem even they are hundreds of miles away from me. All they need to do is to download the customer module, run it, give me the ID and random generated password and within a few seconds, I can see the other computer’s desktop, control their mouse and keyboard.

4 days ago TeamViewer released a major update on their software and added many, many new features, from a fully featured web browser frontend to its brand new portable account system including presence state display. The web browser frontend conveniently lets you connect to another computer from any computer that has internet connection and a web browser that supports flash. Using Flash is better than ActiveX because on some computers with high security settings, installing ActiveX can be a problem. As for Flash, it is considered safer than ActiveX and is widely installed. To be able to use the web connector, you’d need to sign up for a free TeamViewer account. Once you have done that, you got yourself a TeamViewer username which would be useful in Partner List feature.


In addition to remotely controlling computers TeamViewer 4 now also allows to participate in presentations with a browser and nothing but Adobe Flash required. Multiple participants are now allowed in a presentation session (up to 2 for the Free version, up to 5 with the Business and up to 10 with the Premium license)

TeamViewer 4 offers a brand new account system that allows you to store trusted partners and remote computers in your partner list in order to connect to those partners with a single click of the mouse. The partner list will also include presence state display, so you will be able to see which of your partners or remote computers is currently online. The accounts are stored on the TeamViewer servers and are by that portable – you will be able to log on to your account from any TeamViewer and even from the new web connector. To access the partner list area, just click the Partner list icon at the bottom right. If you’ve already signed up for a TeamViewer account, you can enter the username and password, or else just click the Sign Up link to register a new account.

When your partner is online, you can right click on the account name which allows you to easily start remote control, presentation, file transfer, and VPN. The “quick access” feature allows you to skip entering password but the partner would have to grant access to do a remote support session. As for Presentation “quick access”, there’s no need to grant access or password. Currently there’s no support for online or sound notification when the user comes online. Hopefully this feature will be added in future versions.

The additions to TeamViewer 4 don’t stop here. There are other major new features in the new version. We can now get a system overview of the technical configuration of the remote system via Extras > Remote System Info… It is able to extract basic information such as computer name, username, domain, boot time, processor, memory, operating system, drives and network card. This feature will save our time in asking the user what is the specification of their computer which they probably don’t even know.

Another new feature is remotely changing screen resolution. The resolution of the remote screen can now be remotely adjusted during a session. Simply click View > Screen Resolution.

TeamViewer 4 users will be able to connect to TeamViewer 3 without limitations. However the other way, connecting from TeamViewer 3 to TeamViewer 4, is not possible due to technical and licensing restrictions. Although version 4 can connect to version 3, I’d suggest both parties to upgrade to the latest version 4 because it is much faster than TeamViewer 3.

One thing I don’t like about TeamViewer is the constant annoying nag popup that says “Commercial use suspected. This software seems to be used in commercial environments. Please note that the free version may only used for personal use! Thank you for playing fair.” It’s way too sensitive and I believe a lot of people are getting it.

[ Download TeamViewer 4 ]

Few days ago while I was surfing the Internet and I stumble on an interesting tool. It’s not something that’s really great but it’s very innovative. Someone actually created a tool called TweetMyPC that allows you to shutdown, restart or logoff a Windows computer from Twitter. I’ve really tried to use Twitter but I do have an account. The only thing I knew about Twitter is it is an online service that lets you write a short notice on what you’re currently doing and etc… If you have followers, then they can get to know what you’ve been up to via the updates you post on Twitter.

TweetMyPC is very easy to set up and I believe ANYONE can do it. If you already normally use LogMeIn or any other similar remote access program, you can still use TweetMyPC as a backup in case the primary remote access tool stopped working or not accepting your connection, you can reboot your computer using your mobile phone and hopefully the program will recover.


To get TweetMyPC working, you must first sign up for a free Twitter account. Just go to twitter.com and click the Get Start – Join button. If you already have an account, then download the latest version of TweetMyPC from the link located at the end of this article and install. Run the program and you’ll have to enter your Twitter login information (username and password). Check the Start Automatically with Windows if you want TweetMyPC To auto run on Windows startup. Click the Save and Close button. Now TweetMyPC will start checking for new tweets every 1 minute. It will only recognize commands such as Shutdown, Restart and Logoff.

Any time you want to shutdown, restart or logoff your computer, simply post an update on Twitter with the message “Shutdown” for shutting down your computer, “Restart” for restarting your computer and “Logoff” for logging off your current logged in user.

You must be thinking why would you want to use TweetMyPC to control your computer since there are even more powerful remote access software such as LogMeIn? Well sometimes we only need something that is simple and not too complicated. Moreover, you can send updates to Twitter using your handphone via SMS, which means you can shutdown, restart or logoff your computer using your handphone. Don’t forget that TweetMyPC is also coming up with new version that supports screenshot, memory usage, ip address, custom commands, reply from TweetMyPC and etc.

[ Download TweetMyPC ]

Most computers today already comes with a disc burner but there are still some notebook users who owns subnotebooks, netbooks and ultraportable laptops that have no optical drive onboard. It could be troublesome if you need to backup files to a CD or DVD because you will first need to copy the files to a shared folder on another computer, and burn it from there. To make things easier, Paragon Net Burner is a great solution that uses iSCSI technology to share the disc burner to allow the client to work as if a physical optical drive is connected to it.

Although I currently haven no use for Net Burner, I still think that this is an interesting software that is able to help user save money without purchasing additional optical drives when they already have one on one of their computer. Paragon Net Burner is free and the installer is less than 3MB in size.


At one of the installation step that ask you to select which components should be installed. You can choose if you want to install the client installation, server installation or full installation which contains both of the modules. The server installation is for the computer that is physically attached to the disc burner while the client is without a disc burner. It is best to avoid using full installation because there is no point installing the server services on a client computer. You will need to unblock port 9260, 9261 and 9262 in firewall to allow communication between client and server side of Net Burner.

There is nothing that needs to be done on the server side. As for the client, after installation, launch Net Burner from the notification area and it will automatically search for available shared disc burners. If nothing found, the built-in Windows Firewall could be blocking the program. Disabling Windows Firewall solves the problem.

The disc burner drive mounted on the client will act as if there is a physical burner connected to it. Windows Explorer shows an additional drive letter for the burner and even Device Manager lists a SCSI CdRom Device.

To burn a disc, you will still need to insert an empty disc to the server except you can instantly start burning from your computer without sharing the files to burn and copying it over to the server for burning. The client computer can also read the disc when a disc is inserted to the burner.

During testing Paragon Net Burner, I found a limitation and a bug. The limitation is when the DVD drive on the server is mounted to a client, the server won’t be able to read the disc locally. If you try to access the disc locally on the server, an error window will popup saying “DVD RW Drive is currently in use. Save any open files on this disc, and then close the files or programs using the files before ejecting the disc”.

As for the bug, it doesn’t seem to work on more than 1 client. When I connect two clients to the server, both clients will hang at the same time for a few seconds quite frequently. When I unmount the drive on one of the client, the other client works perfectly. I am not sure if Net Burner isn’t suppose to work on Windows 7 because the system requirements webpage only mentioned that it supports XP, Vista and Server 2003.

To download Paragon Net Burner, you will have to go through a one time registration. The download link will be sent to your email together with a Product Key and Serial Number. Weirdly there is no need to use the Product Key and Serial Number at all.

Download Paragon Net Burner | Official Website

If you think that enabling “Show hidden files and folders” and disabling “Hide protected operating system files” from Folder Options will show every single hidden files/folders, then you are wrong. Recently I’ve been very busy because I am involved in a “secret” project (will be revealed here soon) that made me spent a lot of time testing a lot of different security tools.

There are some virus/trojan/rootkit that is able to hide itself completely from Windows Task Manager and believe it or not, even the famous Process Explorer and Process Hacker cannot even detect the hidden process. Other than that, when the virus is active, they can also make the file hidden until you cannot locate it using Windows Explorer. I found a tool called IceSword which has a Windows Explorer-like interface but displays hidden processes and resources that Windows Explorer would never show.


Do note that IceSword isn’t a “click-here-to-delete-rootkits” product but a sophisticated discovery tool that can protect against sinister rootkits if used before they infect a machine. One thing I really like about IceSword is it is portable, free and can be used in Safe Mode. Normally tools that is used to detect hidden process and files (such as DeepMonitor and many more) requires a special driver installed and it won’t work in Safe Mode since third party drivers/services are not loaded in that environment.

Here’s a piece of bad news that might be a turn off to a lot of people. IceSword is a software made in China by a person called PJF. I know now even more people would stay away from Chinese software because of what IObit did but so far IceSword has a very good reputation. Scanning it in VirusTotal with 41 antivirus and only ClamAV detects it as a threat just because the program is packed/compressed with ASPack.

Anyway I’m just sharing with you on a tool which I found useful and if you’re not comfortable using it, then by all means go ahead and use GMER which is very similar to IceSword. It’s good to have an alternative in case one of it doesn’t work. Here’s a short video demo of IceSword able to detect a folder which is completely hidden from Windows Explorer even if the Folder Options is set to show hidden files and folders.

[ Download IceSword | PJF’s Official Website ]

Some of you may like the latest Windows Live Messenger 2011 but I am sure that there are others that hated it. First of all is the missing show my webcam feature that it is replaced with the Video call button, and secondly is the first and last name appearing to contacts rather than the ability to type the name that you want others to see it. Surely Windows Live Messenger 2011 provides some upgraded feature such as the ability to set yourself to appear as offline to everyone and only show as Online to people that you want. This feature is not found in the old Windows Live Messenger 2009…

I have previously posted a trick on how to download and use older version of MSN Messenger which involves in uninstalling Windows Live Messenger by zapping it with ZapMessenger, download and install MSN Messenger, finally use ResHacker to change the version number of the executable file. I believe no one really uses the old MSN Messenger 8 anymore and should at least upgrade to the Windows Live Messenger 2009 IF they are not comfortable with the 2011 version.


First you must uninstall any Windows Live Messenger 2011 if you’ve already installed. You can do this by going to Control Panel > Programs and Features > Uninstall a program > and select Windows Live Essentials 2011 from the list.

I manage to find the official download links for full offline installer (wlsetup-all.exe) of Windows Live Messenger 2009 build 14.0.8089.726 and build 14.0.8117.416. It’s a single setup file that is around 135MB in size. You no longer need to look for individual setup file such as Messenger.msi, dw20shared.msi, crt.msi, Contacts.msi, SegoeFont.msi and wlc.msi. Obviously the 14.0.8117.416 is the latest version for build 14 BUT Microsoft has already removed the Show My Webcam feature. If for some reason you want to use the Show My Webcam feature, please download and install the 14.0.8089.726 build.

Windows Live Messenger 2009 (Build 14.0.8089.726) – Older 2009 build WITH Show My Webcam
http://wl.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/E/3/E/E3EEC6D6-1141-40C4-840F-770F99B67986/en/wlsetup-all.exe

Windows Live Messenger 2009 (Build 14.0.8117.416) – Latest 2009 build WITHOUT Show My Webcam
http://wl.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/F/1/F/F1FE75CE-C235-4250-9598-AEE5D854A7EA/en/wlsetup-all.exe

Once you’ve installed Windows Live Messenger 2009, you will most likely encounter an error “A newer version is available. You must install the newer version in order to continue. Would you like to do this now?” that forces you to upgrade to the latest Windows Live Messenger. Clicking Yes will upgrade and clicking No will stop you from signing in.

Instead of going through the hassle of manually changing the resource of the executable file, you can use “Messenger Link Reviver” tool made by Jonathan Kay. Although this tool is made to modify Messenger to re-enable the clickable links, but it has a built-in feature to circumvent against the latest forced upgrade for Messenger 2009. All you need to do is click the Start button and this tool will do the rest.

Now just sign in as normal and voila, you are now using Windows Live Messenger 2009 without being forced to upgrade to 2011.

Whenever a computer has problems in network communication such as able to access shares via IP address but not computer name, the first thing I’d do is to flush the DNS resolver cache and restart the computer. It is a simple yet effective command that has helped me fixed a couple of network problems.

If you go to Services window, you will see a DNS Client name with the description “Resolves and caches Domain Name System (DNS) names for this computer. If this service is stopped, this computer will not be able to resolve DNS names and locate Active Directory domain controllers. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start.”

To flush a computer’s DNS resolver cache, just go to Start > Run and type CMD to launch command prompt. Then type the following command:

ipconfig /flushdns

However, if you get an error that says Could not flush the DNS Resolved Cache: Function failed during execution”, here is how to fix it.



The reason why you’re unable to flush a Windows computer DNS cache is if the DNS Service is not running. Go to Start > Run and type services.msc. Double click the DNS Client to bring up DNS Client properties window. Make sure the startup type is set to Automatic and service status is Started. If not, just select the drop down menu, select Automatic and then click the Start button.

Now if you run the ipconfig /flushdns command in command prompt, you should see “Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache”.

Some security experts believe that it is better to turn off DNS Client service because it is useless and dangerous but in my opinion, it is better to leave it turned on and make sure you have installed the latest Windows updates. The DNS Client is not specifically required to use the internet. What it does do is try to improve your internet experience. The most basic way it does this is by caching domain name addresses, which speeds up the browsing experience. This service also determines if an IPv4 or IPv6 address would be more appropriate for a domain name. In an enterprise, it can also be useful in letting the network know your PC’s domain name, which can simplify finding shared resources. Though it is safe to disable this service, most users will likely end up with slower internet browsing, as well as other minor DNS related issues, so it’s best to leave this one on.

In Microsoft Knowledge Base website, it did mention that “The overall performance of the client computer decreases and the network traffic for DNS queries increases if the DNS resolver cache is deactivated.

The DNS Client service optimizes the performance of DNS name resolution by storing previously resolved names in memory. If the DNS Client service is turned off, the computer can still resolve DNS names by using the network’s DNS servers.

When the Windows resolver receives a positive or negative response to a query, it adds that positive or negative response to its cache, and as a result, creates a DNS resource record. The resolver always checks the cache before querying any DNS server. If a DNS resource record is in the cache, the resolver uses the record from the cache instead of querying a server. This behavior expedites queries and decreases network traffic for DNS queries.”