Compressed archives such as ZIP, RAR and 7z is very useful in distributing multiple files in a single package that is also smaller in size because of compression. This would probably limit most people to download the whole package in order to get some of the files inside the compressed file. If you know how a ZIP format works, you can actually code a tool that previews the contents of the ZIP files and selectively download the file without downloading the whole ZIP file. There are such programs but most of them are shareware and is a part of download manager software.

Fortunately I have just found WOBZIP, a free online service where it can either download the compressed file from the URL that you specify or files that is uploaded from your computer, then WOBZIP extracts the archive on its server and finally output a list of files that are available for you to download. The best part is WOBZIP supports a huge list of compressed archive formats such as 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZ, TAR, ZIP, WIM, ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DEB, DMG, FAT, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, VHD, WIM and XAR, thanks to 7-zip library!


If you know the direct download link to the compressed file, then paste the URL to the URL box and click the Uncompress button. If not, the you will need to download the file to your computer first and then upload it by clicking the Browse from computer button. You also have the option to enter the password if the archive is password protected. WOBZIP is limited to only 100MB file size so make sure that the compressed file is smaller than 100MB.

Once WOBZIP has finished extracting the files, you will need to click on the filename to expand the list of files. The files will only be kept for 3 days and then automatically deleted. You also have the option to delete the uploaded files.

It is mentioned on WOBZIP FAQ page that they are using Bitdefender to scan files that are uploaded to their server but I tried uploading a virus sample that is already detected by Bitdefender as Dropped:Trojan.Generic.KDV.512550, but WOBZIP doesn’t seem to block the file nor warn that the file is infected.

WOBZIP is truly a great and useful service. I hope this website will continue to exist and also remain as free. If you find WOBZIP slow, that is because they are currently hosted at HostMonster which I think is pretty risky in getting their account suspended if they overuse the CPU or memory usage on the shared server hosting.

Visit WOBZIP

Both A-Patch 1.3.0 RC2 (build 24) & Mess Patch 7.5.0322 – Generation3 is able to visually customize your MSN Messenger.
Make sure you are patching an original unmodified MSN Messenger. If you want to patch MSN Messenger more than once don’t forget to restore your backups each time.
A-Patch 1.3.0 RC2 (build 24) contains 70 tweaks and Mess Patch 7.5.0322 – Generation3 contains 74 tweaks.
You can only use EITHER A-Patch of Mess Patch to tweak/patch your MSN Messenger. DO NOT USE BOTH AT THE SAME TIME.

Do take note that patching MSN Messenger or Windows Messenger infringes Microsoft’s Terms of Use. Downloading and installing this software is your own rational choice and I am not responsible in any way.

Features of A-Patch 1.3.0 RC2 (build 24)



[Contact List] – 25
• Remove MSN Logo
• Remove “Messenger” Title
• Remove Display Picture Container
• Remove Personal Message Bar
• Remove E-mail Button
• Remove MSN Today Button
• Remove My Space Button
• Remove Add Contact Button
• Remove Search Bar
• Remove Button Text
• Remove Advertisement
• Change Display Picture Link
• Remove Contacts Personal Message
• Remove Buttons From Contact Card
• Remove Gleam Notification
• Ad Always On Top Button
• Add Sign Out Button
• Disable Song Links
• Fix Add Contact Bar Position
• Disable MSN Spaces Contact Card Integration
• Remove Display Picture in Sign-In Window
• Remove Bottom Links in Sign-In Window
• Remove Microsoft Passport Network Branding
• Swap Title – Artist (Windows Media Player)
• Remove Toast Display Picture

[Instant Message] – 37
• Remove MSN Logo
• Remove Invite Button
• Remove Send Files Button
• Remove Web Cam Button
• Remove Voice Button
• Remove Activities Button
• Remove Games Button
• Remove Block Button
• Remove Color Button
• Remove Search Button
• Remove Send Button
• Remove My Display Picture
• Remove Advertisement
• Remove Font Button
• Remove Emoticons Button
• Remove Voice Clip Button
• Remove Backgrounds Button
• Remove Winks Button
• Remove Packs Button
• Remove Nudge Button
• Remove What’s Hot Section
• Remove Standard Toolbar Text
• Remove Formatting Toolbar Text
• Remove User Is Writing Message
• Add Always On Top Button
• Change Ink Tabs to Text
• Remove To: Bar
• Remove Web Cam Icon from To: Bar and Avatar Containers
• Remove Nudge Delay
• Disable Nudge Shake
• Add Send Button to Handwriting Tab
• Add Mess.be Custom Games
• Remove Yellow Info Bar
• Remove Convert Tab
• Remove “says” Text
• Remove “Get a Webcam” Link
• Auto Hide Display Pictures

[Miscellaneous] – 8
• Offline Systray Status
• Polygamy (Multi-MSN)
• Show Idle Status
• Remove File Transfer Protection
• Boost Personal Message to 500 Characters
• Remove Billing Info Menus
• Shorten Status Info in Info Bar
• Install WinAMP Plug-in for Now Playing feature

[ Download A-Patch 1.3.0 RC2 (build 24) ]

Features of Mess Patch 7.5.0322 – Generation3

• enable polygamy
• install custom games
• disable nudges
• remove add contact label
• remove msn search bar
• remove banner ad
• remove msn today button
• fix nickname length
• remove white (text ad) space from conversation windows
• distinguish Idle from Away status (English version only)
• remove MSN logo (from main and conversation window)
• remove premium services (what’s hot)
• remove conversation window search button
• remove email button
• remove my space button
• remove all contact card buttons
• disable nudge protection
• remove user is writing message
• remove Winks/packs and/or nudges buttons and change handwriting tab images to text
• multi-language support (catalan, danish, dutch, english, french, portuguese, brazilian portuguese, spanish, swedish, korean and traditional chinese)
• enable/remove Winamp support in Personal Messages
• clicking your MSN Display Picture in the main window opens the display picture dialog (like it used to)
• boost Personal Messages to 500 characters
• remove blocked extensions in file transfers
• remove font button
• remove backgrounds button
• Remove billing information menus
• disable MSN Spaces integration in contact cards
• enable multi-line nicknames
• sign-in status in system tray menu
• remove gleams
• disable MSN Music song links
• add always on top main/conversation window button
• remove user is typing message
• winamp support in Personal Messages with TheBlasphemer’s Winamp plugin
• swap now playing artist and song title when using iTunes, Windows Media Player or Winamp
• add sign-out button to upper panel which displays the new Passport.net logo
• hide personal messages in contact list
• remove webcam icon from To: bar
• *HOT* ‘Switch Tabs To Right Side’ option
• Sign-in window DP removal option
• option to remove the bottom links in the sign-in window
• Fixed ‘Hide Personal Messages’ to work when viewing large DP thumbnails
• remove the ‘Messenger’ title/caption
• ‘Remove Yellow Infobar’ in contact list
• ‘Add A Contact’ button can now be moved to the dashboard/upper-panel
• ‘Remove Microsoft Passport Network’ branding in Sign-in window
• fixed ‘Remove Webcam Icon’ button
• 8 new options for removing each button at the conversation window top bar
• ‘Remove My Dynamic Backgrounds Menus’
• ‘Remove Voice Clip’ option
• users can now select to remove Winamp support while restoring backups
• ‘Remove File Transfer Blocked Extensions’
• Remembers chosen options
• Position Add A Contact bar at the bottom of the contact list (again)
• Remove Yellow Infobar in Convos
• 3 options to strip text from toolbar buttons and remove the get a webcam link

*Important* Selecting the ‘Remove Advertisement Banner’ will stop the javascript errors that users in certain areas are reporting (since ads are geo-targeted).

NEW IN GENERATION3:
• options now in treeview listbox
• option descriptions
• patching profiles (patchou, rolando, timothy, theunknown, dwergs,…)
• restore previous settings
• CRC check
• optional backup
• enhanced GUI
• seperate avatar clippings
• transform round corners to perfect corners
• disable MSNIM protocol
• remove send button from typing tab
• add My Received Files button (to conversation and top toolbar)
• default DP hiding

[ Download Mess Patch 7.5.0322 – Generation3 ]

Since it is the weekends, I am not going to publish anything geeky or technical today. However I want to share a website called The Restart Page which simulates unlimited rebooting experience from vintage operating systems. Basically the web page is created as a tribute to the most significant operating systems that has been part of our geek lives. The page contains 17 restart options where it will emulate the restart process of the operating system. It really does bring back some good old memories by just looking at the restart simulation…

The Restart Page simulates reboot for the following operating systems: Amiga Workbench, Apple II, Mac OS 7, Mac OS 9, Mac OS 10, Openstep, Rhapsody, Rhapsody DR2 MS OS/2 Warp, QNX, Windows 1, Windows 3, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

I noticed that if I visited The Restart Page before and opens the website again at a later time, I get stuck at “THE RESTART PAGE IS NOW LOADING…” and the progress bar doesn’t move. All you need to do is refresh the page the the progress bar starts updating and then load the page with 17 shut down options.

I am able to recognize only half of the restart window. How many restarts are you able to recognize from the page?

Visit The Restart Page

Kaspersky is one of the top popular antivirus but can be problematic for some users as it is not compatible with their system. Some experience instability and some slowness after installing Kaspersky. I have Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 genuine license but I don’t use it because it can be annoying at some times bugging me about every single thing. So I turned to Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 which takes much lesser system resource.

I did try to disable some unneeded protection from KIS such as Firewall and Content Filtering from the Settings but it doesn’t make much difference. I’ve accessed the Kaspersky “protected” registry and can see that there is a lot of settings there but I dare not modify them since there is no documentation on it. I found an interesting tool called KIS Tweak Util2 which is able to tweak both KIS and KAV hidden settings that is not available in settings.


KIS Tweak Util2 changes some undocumented antivirus features via values in the registry, which are responsible for antivirus settings, even though they are not exposed through graphical user interface. Some of the things you can do with this tool is to set the signature obsolete after 2 or 7 days, scan quarantine upon Antivirus launch, settings for battery level threshold on laptops, disable/enable boot sector scan, prompt for password when receiving a password-protected attachment and etc…

Although the name of the program is KIS Tweak Utility, but it can also be used on KAV. This tweaking utility is meant for advanced users and COULD cause instability if you tuned it wrongly. So make sure you’ve done full back up on your system before attempting to make your KIS works faster or better with this tool.

KIS Tweak Util requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 or above installed in order to run. You MUST first disable self-defense before you can use this tool to tweak your Kaspersky product. Right click at Kaspersky icon at the icon at the notification area and select Settings. Then go to Options and “uncheck” Enable Self-Defense. Click OK to close the settings window. You can re-enable it back after you’re done tweaking Kaspersky.

KIS Tweak Util 2 has an official website which is at http://ktu.kasperskyclub.com/ and the latest beta version that can be downloaded there is 1.999.64.346. You can find a discussion regarding this tool in Kaspersky forum and the latest version there is 1.999.65.349 which is newer and compatible with Windows 7. It is important to always download the latest version because the older ones seems to have a lot of bugs.

Forget about all those expensive complicated system and performance monitoring software that gives you whole load of information which you don’t understand at all! Sometimes I just want a small simple tool that sits on my desktop to display my memory usage, CPU usage, network traffic and disk activity easily at a glance. Meaning when you look at it, immediately you’ll know what is slowing down your system.

Here’s a free software that’s rather…. “cute” in monitoring and displaying your system performance.


MimarSinan Rubber Ducky System Monitor is a free performance monitoring software that has a small aquarium that sits above your system tray. Each elements of the aquarium represent a system information.

Here are the meanings of each elements on Rubber Ducky.

Water Level – The water level indicates RAM (computer memory) usage. If the water level is too high, the duck will drown. When you open too many applications, your computer memory starts filling up. If the duck is drowning, close some running applications to improve performance.

Water Color – The water color indicates SWAP file usage. If the water color is muddy, the computer is using too much swap space. The computer starts using the SWAP file when it is running low on free memory. If the water color is too dark, close some of your memory intensive applications.

Fish – Fish indicate NETWORK traffic (such as Internet activity). When you have fish swimming, your computer is sending/receiving data. Fish moving from right to left indicate inbound traffic (such as downloads). Network traffic does not directly impact system performance.

Plants – Plans indicate HARD DISK activity. When the plans are waving, your computer is writing data to the hard disk. Almost all programs write to the hard disk, but some more often than the others. If there is too mcuh hard disk activity, your system may slow down.

Bubbles – Bubbles indicate CPU activity. As your programs use more computing power, more bubbles appear. If there are too many bubbles, one of your programs is using too much CPU. If the CPU usage is always high, it may slow down or destabilize the system.

All this while I felt that my laptop is slow but it’s bearable. When I ran Rubber Ducky, I saw that the duck was upside down and drowning due to the water level is too high. High water level = High RAM usage. My laptop has 512MB ram and running Windows XP. I think it’s time to upgrade to either 1GB or 2GB depending on my budget. See, sometimes we pay more attention to simple freewares rather than expensive sharewares.

[ Download Rubber Ducky System Monitor ]

Early February this year I’ve posted a trick on how to obtain a free Kaspersky Anti-Virus license key that is valid for a year. It’s nearly November now and I am sure the code will be expiring in 3 months time. Here is a good news to you all. I’ve found a way to obtain a free 9 months genuine commercial license key for the latest Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009. All I can say is grab this FAST before this offer expires again. This method is still not being widely published, so I thought I should share with all of you on how to get the free Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 activation code.

Basically the difference between Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 and Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 is antivirus is just an antivirus alone that protects your computer from virus. As for Kaspersky Internet Security 2009, it is a full/complate security suite that includes antivirus to protect against virus, firewall to protect against hackers, content filtering for parental control and spam filtering, and etc. Logically, KIS 2009 should take more memory usage than KAV 2009.


Before I show you or you immediately scrolling down to see how to get the 9 months free KAV 2009 license key, I would suggest you to read and get to know about Kaspersky software activation limits first. You can only use 2 activations simultaneously. If you’ve noticed, Kaspersky allows you to “merge” 1 new license to your currently installed license to extend the expire date. All this while I thought that if you have a 2 KIS license valid for a year and both activated on the same day, merging both license would give me 2 years of license. I was wrong and I just found out that this is how it works.

Let’s say I have 2 KIS 2009 license key file which is valid for 1 year and both activated today. Merging the two license key files together will only give me 1 year + 2 weeks extension but NOT 2 years. As you can see that the “activation date” data in a key is very important. So if you have 2 six months license keys, you have to activate one of it first, use it until it expires and then only activate the second one to be able to use for a whole year. Otherwise if you activate both at the same time, you’d only get 6 months + 2 weeks license. Got it?

Next, there are 3 ways to activate Kaspersky software.

1. Activation Code or online method. Kaspersky activation code comes in XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX format. Your computer will need to have an internet connection and

2. License Key File or offline method. The key file is in XXXXXXXX.key format and can be downloaded from Kaspersky activation server http://activation.kaspersky.com/.

3. Trial activation. By default Kaspersky allows you to use their products for 30 days period. The trial activation can only be used/activated once unless you use the illegal Trial Reset tool. If you’ve already activated the 30 days trial for Kaspersky and now you got a 6 months trial key, you won’t be able to merge or activate the 6 months trial key because Kaspersky only allows you to activate the trial ONCE.

All Kaspersky activation code has shelf life or deadline which you must activate or else it will automatically activated and start running even if no one is using it. The codes that are generated from Kaspersky server has a shelf line of 3 months and CD’s from computer stores have a longer shelf life.

Kaspersky India is offering a free 6 months commercial key (not TRIAL). Since the 6 months KAV 2009 license given by Kaspersky India is generated online, it should have a shelf life of 3 months. So In order to extend your Kaspersky Anti-Virus license up to 9 months, you’ll need to request 2 codes from Kaspersky India. Activate ONLY the first license key, then activate the second key after 3 months. This way you can use Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 for 9 months!

Follow the steps below to get your free Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 license valid for 6 months and extendable to 9 months.

1. Go to this Kaspersky India page http://www.kasperskyindia.com/registration.asp

2. Enter your Name of Institution/Company, Phone No , E-Mail, Contact Name, Address and Pin Code. You can enter fake information but make sure your email is valid because the KAV key is sent there.

3. Wait for a few days for the KAV key to be sent to your email because I believe this is done manually. I was lucky to get it within a day, but the second one took 5 days. So be patient and don’t resubmit your request as this will only add more requests to the long queue.

Enjoy the free commercial Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 license!

Update: Some of you are VERY ungrateful by sending me an email accusing me that I am lying and this is fake/scam. Check out the screenshot of the email that I received with the 6 months Kaspersky Antivirus key. Total I got 4 free kaspersky antivirus keys. First one was on 19 October, followed by 24 October, 30 October and 31 October.

Sometimes I find it hard to connect to my Windows Live Messenger since the Taiwan earthquake which disrupted Asia’s internet connection. Every time I connect, I get the error message “We were unable to sign you in to Windows Live Messenger, possible because of a problem with the service or with your Internet connection. Please make sure that you are connected to the Internet. Error code: 81000306“.

I am already connected to the internet and I can surf the Internet except it’s a little slower but connecting to Windows Live Messenger seems to be impossible at that time. Here’s how I fixed the problem.


I was lucky to accidentally found the fix for connecting to Windows Live Messenger. I was browsing through SourceForge and found a free third party Windows Live Messenger called Alvaro’s Messenger (aMSN). aMSN is a free open source MSN Messenger clone. I downloaded, installed, tried connecting and to my surprise, I was able to login to aMSN with all my contacts showing! Then I closed aMSN and tried signing in my Windows Live Messenger but couldn’t get to.

I’m not sure what’s wrong with my Windows Live Messenger but I do have problems in connecting it sometimes. But with aMSN, it never fails to connect. So if you need to chat with someone very urgently through MSN, use aMSN. The interface is quite similar to Windows Live Messenger except it’s simpler and without advertisements.

Features of aMSN
» Display pictures
» Custom emoticons
» Multi-language support (around 40 languages currently supported)
» Sign in to more than one account at once
» File transfers
» Group support
» Normal, and animated emotions with sounds
» Chat logs
» Event alarms
» Webcam support
» History in color
» Ability to autoclose the filetransfer window when it is finished
» New plugins log window (Alt-P)
» Plugins compatible with supported languages
» Faster loading skin window
» Skins in chatwindow
» Resizable chatwindow bottom
» When you add a new user, you can define in which group you want to add them
» When a contact change status, the top of the chat window changes color ( green for away, grey for offline, etc.)
» New panel GUI to alert when there’s a new aMSN version
» Possibility to download the new release directly by aMSN
» Automatically update language files and plugins from the web
» New gui for deleting users (also possible to block on deletion)
» Possible to add notes for each user (XML)
» Support for MSN Mobile service
» Tabbed windows so you can group conversations using tabs
» Status is displayed inside a frame, so it won’t dissapear when you scroll
» Display picture in notification alert (like MSN 7)
» Statistics for history (logging)
» Now possible to choose any state for your login status (before it was only possible to login invisible or online)
» Timestamping

Not only you can use aMSN for Windows, there are also aMSN for Linux, Mac OS X and FreeBSD. There are plugins and skins for you to customize your aMSN.

[ Download aMSN ]

Recently I visited WinToFlash website because I wanted to help a friend in creating a Windows installation bootable USB drive. At the bottom of the main page, I noticed a small top10 list of “USB Flash drives speed” that links to UsbFlashSpeed.com. The only website I know of that saves a list of USB speed test results is from Nirsoft made by USBDeview utility. The speed test made by USBDeview is very simple by writing a large file into the USB flash drive, and then reading back the same file to getting the read speed. As for UsbFlashSpeed.com, their USB Flash Benchmark tool called FlashBench works differently by writing and reading 3 times to get an average number on small files from 16MB down to 1KB.

UsbFlashSpeed.com website doesn’t really list “ALL” of the results even though the filter is set to “All. When you do that, it only shows the top 10 of the fastest Flash Drives (Read and Write) and the last 10 benchmarked USB flash drives. If you use the search function, only 50 will be displayed. Taking a look at the FlashBench tool, it is pretty straight forward and easy to use.


FlashBench is a free tool only 51KB in size with two dll files (iotest.dll and Thrift.dll) that must be placed in the same folder. It is portable and doesn’t require installation. Running the benchmark tool shows you the drive being selected to benchmark and clicking the Benchmark button will start the reading and writing process. Once the benchmark has been completed, you will be presented with a link to your online report IF you’ve checked the “Send Report” option.

The fastest USB flash drive currently listed in UsbFlashSpeed.com is Kingston DT Ultimate which is obviously because of the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 specifications. When I benchmarked my 128GB Corsair GTR with FlashBench, I noticed that the read and write performance has degraded, probably due to a lot of reading and writing cycles. I guess it was a big mistake in using it on my WD TV first generation.

[ Visit UsbFlashSpeed.com ]

Is someone monitoring your computer, emails or chat logs? Perhaps even your mobile text messages as well? If you have a secret message that you need to send to someone very often, how are you going to do that without installing any complicated PGP encryption software?

Here’s an idea. How about using a free web service that don’t even require registration to help you keep your messages secure from outsiders reading your messages?


Lockbin is a free service for sending private email messages.

To send secure messages, you need to go through 5 steps.
1. Agree to usage agreement
2. Enter security code
3. Type your private message
4. Type “security word”. It is for the recipient to decode the secure message.
5. Enter your name, email and your friend’s name and email.

The encrypted secure message will NOT be sent to the recipient email address. Your friend will only get a notification saying that you’ve received a secure message which will need a special “Secret Word” to decode the message. Your friend will need to visit a link provided in the email.

To decode and read secure messages, there are 4 steps.
1. Agree to usage agreement
2. Enter security code
3. Enter Secret Word
4. Messages is decrypted if the correct secret word is entered

Lockbin’s cryptographic algorithm uses a Secret Word to encrypt messages. You invent the Secret Word and deliver it to the recipient using a phone, text message, instant message, smoke signals, homing pigeon, or as a last resort… another email.

When the encrypted message is received, it is destroyed from Lockbin’s database, and decrypted in the recipient’s browser, provided that they entered the Secret Word correctly. I tried to retrieve the same message again, it says “An error occured – Try again“.

How secure is this Lockbin’s secure message? It uses SSL, so the HTTP traffic is encrypted. If someone has your email password, they can’t view the secure message because they don’t have the secret word. Screenshot loggers might be able to capture the secure message but it is seldom being used because constant capturing of screenshots takes up a lot of disk space. Lockbin is not perfect but it’s definitely useful.

[ Visit Lockbin ]

When you unplug the AC power from a Microsoft Windows XP-based portable computer, the battery may drain more quickly than you expect. Therefore, the operating system may shut down prematurely.

This problem may occur if one of the following conditions is true:


• The portable computer cannot enter the deeper Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) processor idle sleep states.
This occurs when the USB 2.0 driver leaves the asynchronous scheduler component running continuously. This prevents the processor from entering the deeper ACPI processor idle sleep states, or C-states. C-states save power when the processor is not busy. These states range from C0 to C3 or C4. Typically, an idle portable computer uses the C3 and C4 states to preserve battery power. If an idle portable computer cannot enter or maintain the C3 or C4 states, the battery power drains more quickly. This problem is fixed by installing the download that is available in this article.

• The USB host controller is unable to turn off.
This typically occurs when devices are removed from a nested USB hub that is attached to the host controller. The host controller does not recognize the device removal. Therefore, the controller is never turned off. This prevents the processor from entering the ACPI processor idle sleep states. This problem is not fixed by installing the download that is available in this article.

• The USB host controller uses the periodic scheduler for USB 2.0 devices.
This typically occurs when devices that rely on the periodic scheduler are attached to the host controller. These may be isochronous (Isoch) devices such as audio devices. Alternatively, they may be interrupt devices such as mouse or keyboard. This problem is not fixed by installing the download that is available in this article.

Note: Various factors can affect the battery life of different portable computers that use different types of batteries. Therefore, you may not notice any improvement in battery life after you apply this update.

Install this update to address an issue where a Windows XP-based portable computer may not have as long a battery life under certain circumstances when certain USB 2.0 devices are connected.
The patch only exists for x86 versions of Windows XP, Service Pack 2.

[ Download KB918005 Update ]

Last year I’ve share with you a tool called AIMFix I found which is able to remove any AOL instant messenger related viruses and even on some non AOL related viruses. It is a small, simple and portable tool which you can just run, and it’ll remove what it finds. In MSN, there are also virus and it’s a quite annoying one. If your friend is infected by the photo virus, it’ll keep on trying to send you photo album.zip file.

There are also other filename such as IMG-0012.zip, rachel.exe, newsXX.zip, Jenny.zip and etc. It is smart enough to send along messages like…

nice new photos of me and my friends and stuff and when i was young lol
picture of me and my friend
look at my new dancing movie
look at me doing the moonwalk!!!
Hey, I met this girl at the store a week ago. Look at the picture I took of her when she was sleeping
hey you got a photo album? anyways heres my new photo album accept k?
Hey wanna see my new photo album?
Lmfao hey im sending my new photo album, Some bare funny pictures!
OMG; just accept please its only my photo album
hey man accept my new photo album.. made it for yah, been doing picture story of my life LOL
dude i just got these pictures off my digital for you! Gimme a moment ot find em and send
My friend took nice photos of me
You Should see em loL
check out my sexy books
HEY lol i’ve done a new photo album
Hey just finished new photo album! might be a few nudes lol…
Wow! look at this old picture i found
Take a look at the new pics already

Not many people are infected by MSN virus nowadays but it is still good to stay alert so you won’t be fooled and infected by it in future. If you know anyone that is infected by MSN virus, here are some tools to help you remove them.


1. MSN Photo Virus Remover

– Create by my friend Michael. It is currently able to detect 2,436 virus. You may need to have an administrator account or to start in Safe Mode to completely remove the MSN Viruses.
[ Download MSN Photo Virus Remover Software ]

2. MSNFix

– MSNFix is a batch file that is able to detect and remove many types of msn virus. Created by a French guy but it has English translation. Download the zip file and extract. Run MSNFix.bat, select language and press R to start searching for MSN virus.
[ Download MSNFix ]

This article will show you how you can easily “teach” people how to create Audio CD from MP3, burn ISO images and burn datas to CD or DVD. The reason I say “teach” is because recently I’ve got a friend telling me that he was unable to burn MP3 using Sonic. I personally never had any experience with Sonic, and I don’t want to download the bulky 1GB Easy Media Creator and install it on my computer just to “show” him how to burn MP3 to audio CD.

What I can do is to suggest to him to download a small, free and portable CD and DVD burning software and then teach him how to burn MP3 to audio CD. It’s small and don’t require installation. He can delete it off after using it! Or he can keep it if likes it… Isn’t that a better idea than me downloading Easy Media Creator or asking him to download Nero?


I found a PORTABLE CD and DVD burning software that the file size is ONLY 2.83MB! If you only use software burner just to burn audio CDs from MP3, backing up data, and burning ISO images, this will be much better compared to those bulky software burners such as Easy Media Creator and Nero. It’s FREE and don’t require installation. The interface is quite similar to any CD/DVD burning software. You can either drag the files to burn or simply right click and add the files or folders to burn.

DeepBurner has 3 versions. Pro, FREE and FREE Portable. Pro is the paid version and it contains a little more features than the FREE version. As for FREE, it requires installation and the FREE Portable doesn’t. DeepBurner Free Portable works straight from removable media, whether it’s a USB flash drive, compact flash card, or even a good old floppy.

Features supported by DeepBurner Free Portable:
1. You can easily create and burn regular data CDs/DVDs
2. AudioCD recording functionality is included
3. Quickly build and burn ISO Images
4. Supports IDE/EIDE, USB, SCSI, and Fire Wire CD/DVD writers
5. Overburn function
6. Buffer underrun technology “Burn-Proof”
7. DAO, SAO and TAO Writing methods support
8. Support for CD-R / CD-RW / DVD-R / DVD+R / DVD-RW / DVD+RW / DVD-RAM
9. Create Multi-session CDs
10. Bootable CD/DVD support
11. Dynamically adjustable drive buffer size
12. High Performance File/Disc Caching
13. Supports Long File Name (Joliet) File Systems
14. Creates ISO (100% DOS/Windows) compatible data CDs/DVDs
15. Supports multiple simultaneous recorders
16. Easy to use wizards help you create any type of burning project
17. The Autorun Wizard makes it easy to create effective autoruns for your CDs
18. You can even easily make your own cover, booklet or case insert
19. Multi-language interface

The few things that you CANNOT do with the FREE portable version of DeepBurner is:
1. Disk-to-disk copy
2. Burn Video DVDs
3. Backup utility
4. Burn photo albums
5. Burning from the command line
6. Drive and media restoration/information utility

After I found DeepBurner, I am not going to install Nero in future if I format my computer. Nero 7 is so bulky and contains so many programs that I don’t use. It’s just taking up my hard disk space and also flooding my registry with entries. While DeepBurner is small and does it jobs pretty well. So if you can “teach” people how to burn audio CD, ISO or data CD/DVD, that means you’ve already know how to do it.

[ Download DeepBurner FREE Portable ]

I got an email from Ramakant, asking me if there are any antivirus that works beyond the 30 day trial period. The reason for trial version is for you to try out the product before buying. If you’re satisfied with it, you can purchase the subscription to continue using it. If not, simply uninstall it and look for a new software. A normal trial version of Kaspersky Internet Security is only valid for 30 days. Once the trial period has expired, you won’t be able to update its virus definition and it won’t clean any virus that is detected on the computer. You are then left with only 2 options. Uninstall Kaspersky Internet Security or spend $79.95 to purchase a 1 year subscription.

I found out that there is a way to get a 90 days trial period for Kaspersky Internet Security instead of the normal 30 days. This will give you more time to evaluate Kaspersky Internet Security.


For the 90 days trial period to work, you must NOT have activated the 30 day trial version. If you’ve already activated the 30 day trial, applying this 90 day trial key will not extend your trial period. The expiration date will remain the same. So I guess this will only be useful for those who have not installed Kaspersky Internet Security before.

To get it, you’ll need to visit a page, enter the voucher code and you’ll get a link to download Kaspersky Internet Security. However, there’s one small problem with the 90 day trial Kaspersky Internet Security. The installer and program interface will be in Dutch, not English. If you want it to be in English, just follow the steps below on how to get your English version of 90 day trial for Kaspersky Internet Security.

1. Go to Kaspersky Netherland page.

2. Enter your Last Name and Email. As for Voucher code, enter sera6r8z.

3. Check your email. You should receive an email from Kaspersky Lab Benelux Registration ([email protected]) with the subject “Free Kaspersky product download‏“. In the email, it contains a link for you to download Kaspersky Internet Security.

4. Once you’ve downloaded 24.4MB kis7_nl_digital_lifestyle.exe setup file, extract the file setup. If your computer don’t have any archiver program that can extract the setup file, use Universal Extractor. You should see 4 files after extracting kis7_nl_digital_lifestyle.exe. They are kis.nl.msi, setup.exe, setup.key and Setup.reg. The setup.key is the 90 day trial Kaspersky Internet Security license key.

5. Download latest English version of Kaspersky Internet Security and install. The reason you need to download again is because the previously downloaded KIS is a dutch version and it is slightly outdated.

6. When installation complete, you’ll get a dialog box asking you to activate your copy of Kaspersky Internet Security. Select “Apply existing license key” and click Next.

7. Browse for the setup.key and click Next. Next screen will tell you that license key successfully installed. Voila, your Kaspersky Internet Security is now a 90 days trial period, not 30 days.

Using a Kaspersky License Key Viewer, I found that the Kaspersky license key (setup.key) expiry date is on 4/30/2009. However, it is a trial key which has a 91 subscription days.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to test if I can reuse the 90 days trial license key. I changed my computer date to 2009 and ran KIS. KIS immediately tells me that it has expired. I then tried to apply the setup.key file and it detected that the key has expired. It says “Attention! Your evaluation period is over. Protection of your computer has been disabled. To enable protection, please click here to purchase.” Even after a complete uninstall and then reinstall, I still couldn’t use the 90 days trial key. I suspect that Kaspersky Internet Security has recorded the trial expiry date somewhere in the registry.

No matter how smart a software is, crackers will always there to dig up the flaw of the program’s security. There is a person by the nickname Gr0uND ZYr0 aka De-EvIL has created a simple batch file that can restore Kaspersky trial.

After a complete uninstall, I ran Kaspersky resetter batch file. Then I reinstall KIS and it allowed me to re-use the 90 days trial license key! I believe Kaspersky knows about this flaw and who knows, maybe they’ll fix it when the next build or version is out…

Better safe than sorry. That’s what I always tell my clients. I remind them very often to backup their important files at least once a week because something will go wrong someday and we don’t want to be in the situation where we loose all our important data. Imagine a company with 100 over employees and the accounting file server hard drive crashed. For personal computer, what about all those precious personal photos of your children growing up?

I guess we all know the importance of keeping backup files of our most important information but let’s face it, how many of you actually implements a good automated backup system? I can honestly tell you I do not have a proper backup system. I only do it when I feel like it.

If you’re looking for a good backup software to help you automate backing up files, you should give Backup4all because I am going to share with you a trick on how to get license registration code for free which can be used on the latest version of Backup4all.


Backup4all is a backup software for Windows. It protects your valuable data from partial or total loss by automating tasks, password protecting and compressing it to save storage space. Using Backup4all you can easily back up to any local or network drive, backup to FTP, backup to DVD, or other removable media (such as USB HDD or flash drives). Backup4all is the best backup solution for desktop and laptop computers, for your business or personal use.

Backup4all comes in three editions: Professional, Standard and Lite. The free license is for the Lite edition which normally $19.95. Although the lite edition has limited-functionality, it is good enough to backup your files and I believe most of us can live without these extra features. You can check here for Backup4all feature metrix. One of the feature that I really like in Backup4all is the free backup plugins. A backup plugin is actually an XML file that contains information about the specific application it was created for. This allows Backup4all to recognize exactly what to back up from your computer in order to have that application’s configuration files and other data backed up.

Here is how to get the free license for Backup4all Lite.

1. Visit this page, enter your full name, email address and click Submit button.

2. Check your email and open the email from [email protected] with the subject Backup4all Lite Registration Key‏. Note down the registration name and registration key.

3. Download latest Backup4all b4asetup.exe and install.

4. Run Backup4all, go to Help > Register… Go to Register tab and enter the registration name and registration key at the appropriate boxes and click Register button.

Voila! A fully licensed Backup4all Lite commercial software for free! If you prefer to use the Standard or Professional feature, you can upgrade at a cheaper price without paying the full price. This key should work on all future version of Backup4all 3. Go ahead and start backing up your files.

P/S: I also found a way to get Genie Backup Manager 5.0 Professional free license code but I don’t think I will be writing an article about it. Reason is Genie Backup Manager version 5.0 is really obsolete as the latest version is already at version 8! I won’t share stuff which are old and useless with you. But if you want to have a look, go here.

There are a lot of giveaways pending at raymond.cc because many software developers contacted me to do a review of their software and they are willing to provide a couple of free licenses to be given away here. If you have been here long enough you would have noticed that I never like to simply do a quick review based on what is stated on the software website. Testing and reviewing a software is very time consuming and is not just installing on my computer and checking a few options that is on the program. It is impossible to think of ALL the logics in just a few hours so I will need to search the web to find if there are any common problems/bugs and user’s concern/questions.

Nearly two months ago I reviewed KeyScrambler, which is a very effective security software that is able to defeat all of the keyloggers including the low-level ones by encrypting the keystrokes allowing the keyloggers to capture only random characters. I was so satisfied with the extra added security that it provides to my computer that I went and bought the Premium edition to use it on my laptop. I also like the fact that it is a lifetime license where you don’t ever need to pay for an upgrade. I did contact KeyScrambler to provide a couple of Premium product keys for free but did not get a respond then. Somehow they got to know about my article and they searched for my email which was swallowed by their spam filter. Qian (“Chen”) Wang happily sent me 5 KeyScrambler Premium product keys worth $44.99 each to be given away here.


There are 3 versions of KeyScrambler, Personal, Professional and Premium. The Personal edition only supports Firefox, Internet Explorer and Flock browsers. Meaning only keystrokes typed in those 3 web browsers will be encrypted but any other software such as Opera, Windows Live Messenger, Skype or etc will be in clear-text. The Professional edition supports slightly more applications and finally the Premium edition has the most support. You can check out the apps supported by KeyScrambler from this link.

As an added test, I tested KeyScrambler Premium against Invisible Keylogger Stealth which is a driver based low level keylogger that cost $99. As you can see from the screenshot below, the Invisible Keylogger Stealth captured only random characters when it is supposed to be “test by raymond.cc”.

The latest KeyScrambler 2.8.1 works with the latest Firefox 5.0 even though the changelog only mentioned support for Firefox 5 Beta. After using KeyScrambler Premium for nearly 2 months, I’ve noticed 2 problems so far which is the encrypted text ends up on the textbox rather than the real text and hitting the backspace solves the problem. Explorer.exe sometimes will crash where Windows will automatically restore it.

If you would like to win this excellent KeyScrambler Premium lifetime license, all you need to do is leave a comment. The winner will be randomly selected in 48 hours, announced at this page and will receive an email from me containing the KeyScrambler Premium product key.

Update: The 5 lucky winners are Hardy, Joe, Joe Shu, E K and John. You should be receiving an email from me shortly. Congratulations!