Just a short post for today because I will be on the plane in a few hours leaving to my hometown for my mother’s birthday. I am no graphics designer but I do know that Paint.NET is probably the BEST free image and photo editor on the Internet. I say that because I saw many people giving 5 out of 5 ratings to Paint.NET. Of course, there are some people that gave 1 out of 5 and they got a good bashing from other reviewers. They should know better that Paint.NET is frequently updated and it might support the feature that he/she wants in future.

Don’t be confused with the Windows built-in Microsoft Paint with Paint.NET. It is different and Paint.NET is far superior than Microsoft Paint.


Paint.NET supports layers and it is usually only found on expensive or complicated professional software such as Photoshop. Layers form the basis for a rich image composition experience. You may think of them as a stack of transparency slides that, when viewed together at the same time, form one image.

Many special effects are included for enhancing and perfecting your images. Everything from blurring, sharpening, red-eye removal, distortion, noise, and embossing are included. Also included is our unique 3D Rotate/Zoom effect that makes it very easy to add perspective and tilting. Adjustments are also included which help you tweak an image’s brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, curves, and levels. You can also convert an image to black and white, or sepia-toned. If that is not enough, you can visit Paint.NET plugin forum to get more free effects plugin.

Yeah I know you might be a hardcore Photoshop fan but can you believe that Paint.NET installation file is only 1.65MB? It might not be as powerful as Photoshop but the file size is surprisingly small for an image editing software that is packed with powerful features!

Most importantly, Paint.NET is Open Source and FREE!

Love Paint.NET so much but hate to run it on Windows? Someone has made an effort to port Paint.NET to linux using Mono. That’s the good thing about open source programs. More information about Paint.NET for Linux here.

[ Download Paint.NET for Windows ]

If you read the comments on this post, there are actually quite a few people with questions in their mind thinking of how many versions of .NET Framework should we install on our computer. It started from version 1 up and now it’s up to version 3.5. Very soon we’ll have .NET Framework 4 as we’re already seeing BETA versions of it. Actually I was having the same question as well because I don’t want to install multiple versions of unnecessary .NET Framework on my computer. It’s a waste of space if I am not going to need it.

Most of the time the official website for a software would write something like this sentence “This program requires .NET Framework 2.0 or higher” on the requirements. On my Windows XP Professional laptop, I am seeing a total of 5 .NET Framework installed (Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1, Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Hotfix (KB928366), Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2, Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 2, Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1). I was wondering if I could just uninstall the older versions of .NET Framework and only keep version 3.5 SP1?

I found the answer after a little research.


The answer below is taken from Aaron Stebner, the guy who created the brilliant Microsoft .NET Framework Cleanup Tool.

When you install the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, it will also install the .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 and the .NET Framework 3.0 SP2 behind the scenes. You cannot use the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 unless you also have the .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 and 3.0 SP2 installed. Therefore, you will not be allowed to uninstall the .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 or 3.0 SP2 if you have the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installed. If you try to uninstall those versions of the .NET Framework, their uninstall processes will block and tell you that they are needed by another application on your system.

The .NET Framework 1.0 and .NET Framework 1.1 can be installed side-by-side with the .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5. Most applications that were created for the .NET Framework 1.0 or 1.1 will automatically use the .NET Framework 2.0 instead if it is installed on the system. In most cases, that means you do not need to keep the .NET Framework 1.0 or 1.1 installed on your system if you already have the .NET Framework 2.0 installed.

In short, it is a must to have have .NET Framework 2 and 3 installed for 3.5. As for .NET Framework 1.0 and 1.1, you can safely uninstall them. Do note that there are some applications that are configured to use specific versions of .NET even though you have the latest one installed. If you get that error, you can reinstall back the .NET Framework 1.0 / 1.1.

On my Windows Vista computer, I checked the Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework folder and there is v1.0.3705, v1.1.4322, v2.0.50727, v3.0 and v3.5. It means that I have all that versions of .NET installed but the Programs and Features shows only Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. It looks like the older versions are no longer being listed anymore. I believe this is better so not to create any confusion.

The only few reasons that you would need to transfer files from RapidShare to Megaupload is when you no longer want to continue using RapidShare and prefer to use Megaupload. As for me, I have premium accounts for RapidShare and Megaupload but I always prefer to use RapidShare because I just couldn’t get a good download speed at Megaupload. I would say that my Megaupload premium account is underused.

Well you will once again hear me complaining about the Malaysian ISP TM Net again because currently I am getting a very crappy, slow and unstable Internet connection. I normally use RapidLeech script that is installed on one of my server hosted in Malaysia to download stuff from RapidShare. Few days ago when the Internet connection was stable, I had already downloaded 6 parts with 1 more part to go. When I tried to download the last part yesterday, my server that is hosted in Malaysia was downloading from RapidShare at less than 10KBps! I needed the last part desperately because I wanted to watch the movie yesterday night. I tested a random Megaupload link on my RapidLeech server and was getting a pretty good download speed around 80-100 KBps.

The Megaupload download speed is fine but unfortunately I couldn’t find any megaupload link for the last part of the file that I needed. The only probable solution I have now is to somehow make Megaupload download the file from RapidShare and I am glad I did it.


It is possible to transfer files from RapidShare to Megaupload but the only drawback is you’ll need premium accounts for both RapidShare and Megaupload. Here are the steps.

1. Log in to your RapidShare premium account and make sure that Direct Downloads is enabled.

2. Copy and paste this link javascript:alert(document.cookie) to the URL bar and hit Enter. You should get a popup something like enc=some-random-codes-here. Right click at the characters, click select all and then again right click and this time select Copy.

3. Now log in to your Megaupload premium account.

4. Go to Megaupload Multifetch Cookie Manager page.

5. Enter the following details and click Add Cookie when you are done.

Domain = www.rapidshare.com
Cookie name #1 = RapidShare1
Cookie value #1 = Paste the random codes that you got from step 2.

6. Click New file fetch link.

7. Enter the RapidShare link that you want to Fetch URL and enter a description of the file. Click Fetch file to Megaupload button.

Megaupload will now start downloading the file from your RapidShare account. Because both RapidShare and Megaupload has very fast download and upload speed, it took merely 30 seconds to transfer a 100MB file. This is definitely useful to transfer files around but like I said earlier, you will need to have premium accounts for both RapidShare and Megaupload to work.

There are many popular FTP clients such as CuteFTP, FileZilla, FlashFXP, WS_FTP, SmartFTP and etc. A FTP client is used to connect to a FTP server to mainly upload or download files. If you have a website, most likely you already have experience in using a FTP client to connect and transfer files to your FTP server. It is not very difficult, and all you need is the FTP address, username, password and most of the time the default port for FTP is 21.

One of my favorite FTP client software that I normally use is Cute FTP by Globalscape. Cute FTP has been around for a very long time since 1996. What I like about Cute FTP is it is easy to use yet very powerful allowing me to connect to multiple FTP sites. It also supports concurrent connections so that I can browse a folder on a site while transferring files from the same site. There are 2 ways to make a connect to a FTP server which is through the site manager and quick connect bar. Site manager is where I create a site’s profile with the server login info so I can connect directly by double clicking on it. As for quick connect bar, it is meant to make speedy connections to FTP sites by specifying only the basic necessary login information.

I recently canceled a dedicated server hosting which had Cute FTP installed. I was able to easily remove all the FTP sites in site manager but when it comes to clearing the quick connect bar history, I couldn’t find how to do it. After spending more time digging deeper, I finally found it.


There is no way to delete the connection history individually for Cute FTP quick connect bar. It’s either you keep it or delete everything on the list.

1. Click on Tools at the menu bar and select Global Options. Alternatively you can use the hotkey Alt+F7.

2. Click on Security tree at the left hand window.

3. Check “Remove Quick Connect & Connect to URL history upon program exit“.

4. Click OK.

Once you close Cute FTP, the quick connect history will automatically be cleared. It seemed easy but not easy enough since we have to do that in options and not from the quick connect bar itself. By the way, only the Professional and Home version has the quick connect bar. The Home version of Cute FTP doesn’t have that.

The biggest headache to remotely access a computer is the port forwarding configuration. Few months ago I talked about accessing a remote computer in 2 minutes without port forwarding using Crossloop. It is one of the easiest way to connect to another computer at the opposite of the world even if the other person is a basic computer user. Just download, install, click share and give the access code to the person who wants to connect. Can’t get any easier than that… No need to worry about IP address, firewall or router configuration.

If for some reason you do not like or can’t get Crossloop to work, no worries as there are other alternative which might work better on your computer. This remote access tool called TeamViewer which I am about to show you has more features than Crossloop.



TeamViewer is a simple and fast solution for remote control which establishes connections to any PC behind any firewall and NAT proxy 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 are more than 7 million users that trust TeamViewer. Let’s find out what is so good about it.

TeamViewer Features:

Encrypted Connection

No installation required

Works behind firewalls and routers

Chat

File Transfer

Record Remote Session

Support Multiple Monitor

Remote Reboot

Disable Remote Input

Show Black Screen

VPN

Supports Windows and Mac OS

Present my desktop to customer

Let me walk you through on how easy it is to remotely access a computer using TeamViewer. Let’s say Joe wants to connect to Sharon’s computer to help her troubleshoot some computer problems.

1. Joe will have to download the full version of TeamViewer which contains the remote access feature. As for Sharon, she can download the “Customer Module” which is smaller in size and doesn’t require installation.

2. Joe and Sharon will have to run the downloaded TeamViewer.

3. Sharon will be presented with a 8 digit ID and password which will have to give to Joe.

4. Joe enters the ID and click Connect to partner button.

5. Joe enters the password which he received from Sharon.

6. Joe is now connected to Sharon’s computer and able to view and control her computer.

There are a bunch of useful features at the top bar of the remote screen. You can easily transfer file, start a chat session so you don’t need to open up notepad to chat with your partner, record remote access session to have a log on what you did, remote reboot and disable keyboard and mouse to prevent the other person from messing around when you’re doing your job. One of the weird feature is the “show black screen”. This feature will make the remote partner screen turns black so you can do whatever you want without letting the partner know what you did. It’s a little weird isn’t it?

Other than that, recently TeamViewer released a version for Mac OS. The new TeamViewer for Mac even supports cross-platform access so you are now able to connect to a Mac from your Windows machine and back! Since they have a Mac version, I believe they will start working on a Linux version pretty soon as Mac is built from Linux.

By default TeamViewer uses only the outgoing Port 80 (HTTP), so no firewall configuration is necessary. It is also advisable to open port 5938 for incoming connections which may result in faster point-to-point connections.

I’ve heard about TeamViewer for quite a long time already but I’ve never really tested it. Now that I’ve tested TeamViewer and I am glad I did, it would be my first choice whenever I need to remotely help someone with computer problems.

[ Download TeamViewer ]

VirusTotal is one of the best online service that is provided for free to everyone. It is an online file scanner that allows you to upload any suspicious file to have it scanned using 41 different antivirus software with the latest virus definitions. If you find that uploading file to VirusTotal is a hassle, you can always use their uploader program that works on Windows. Simply right click on the file, go to Send To and finally select VirusTotal from the list. The uploader program will automatically send the file to VirusTotal without you opening your web browser, typing virustotal.com in the URL bar and wait for the website to load.

The VirusTotal Uploader has been recently updated to version 2.0 and it has a couple of major improvements to make it even faster and better.


First of all, you are now able to upload up to 5 files at a time, which comes in handy in case of multiple-file malware queries. Additionally, the file limit has been increased to 20 MB (previously 10MB) per file.

Secondly, VirusTotal Uploader version 1.0 only allows you to send the file to VirusTotal using right click context-menu but now it has an independent standalone program! In this mode, you can upload files to VirusTotal in a few ways:

1. Select an executable process that is active in Windows
2. Drag and drop up to 5 files to the program
3. Manually browse for the file in your computer
4. Enter an URL address with a suspicious file that will automatically “Get and upload”.

Another improvement to the latest VirusTotal Uploader 2.0 is a pre-upload check if the file is already present in the VirusTotal database. In this version, the Uploader calculates a hash of the file before uploading it, and checks if it appears in the database. If so, the file doesn’t get uploaded, saving both time and transfer. Of course, you are still able to force the uploading of the file for reanalysis.

If you are the adventures type that likes download a lot of dangerous programs such as keygen, cracks, patches, trojans, crypter, binder and etc, then you should definitely use VirusTotal Uploader. This program does not take up any system resource at all when it is not running. Another advantage in using a desktop uploading tool is the transfer rate speed is definitely faster than uploading from web browser.

[ Download VirusTotal Uploader 2.0 ]

I didn’t want to post anything today but I thought I should share with all of you that I found a really powerful computer surveillance and monitoring software PC Pandora and they are giving away free registration keys valid for 365 days.

PC Pandora is a software based surveillance and monitoring application developed for Microsoft Windows. It will record and capture computer activity such as Keystrokes, Instant Messenger, Emails, Search Queries entered into popular search engines, File Tracking to monitor file creation and deletion, Webcam snapshots to see exactly who is using your computer, download Activity from P2P applications, User Activity which records computer login information, Websites Visited, Programs used and for how long, as well as capture Snapshots (Screenshots) of the computer screen so you can see exactly what is being done on the computer.

You may also Block Websites, programs, and chat protocols as well as send E-mail Reports of the recorded data to a specified e-mail address so that you don’t have be on the PC that PC Pandora is installed on to view recorded data. PC Pandora is simple and intuitive and recorded data is provided in a familiar Explorer style view.

PC Pandora normally cost a whopping $109.95 but has been reduced to $69.95. To promote their upcoming PC Pandora v6, they’re giving away 50,000 FREE license first come first serve. So go ahead and grab your free license before all of them are being given away!

Here’s what you need to do in order to get your free PC Pandora license key valid for one year.

1. Go to this page http://www.pcpandora.com/order/clickbank/.

2. Make sure PC Pandora Pro is selected and UNCHECK Backup CD. Enter the Promo Code as PCPANDORAHOLIDAY or SLICK8 and click Proceed to Step 2.

3. Enter your name, email address, verification code and hit the submit button.

4. Check your email and you should receive an email from Pandora Corp ([email protected]) with the subject “PC Pandora order confirmation”. Note the down registration key.

5. Download PC Pandora http://www.pcpandora.com/bin/PCPandoraSetup.exe and install.

6. During installation, you’ll be asked to create a password and also the hotkey to bring up the PC Pandora viewer. Restart when asked to.

7. When Windows is fully booted up, hit Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Z simultaneously and enter the password that you entered in step 5. Paste the registration key to register PC Pandora. Make sure you have an internet connection because it validates the key online.

Out of so many computer monitoring software, PC Pandora is one of the most powerful. I am sure that a lot of antivirus or security programs will detect PC Pandora as a threat because it can monitor a computer without the user knowing it. A computer monitoring software is very useful in helping you to monitor, control and protect your families and yourself online. From keeping children safe from predators and shielding them from potentially harmful or mature content, to ensuring the integrity of your relationships, online records, accounts and personal information. However, it can also be put to the wrong use in stealing passwords and etc. So end of the day is your choice.

PC Pandora runs on Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP and Vista with 200Mhz or faster processor, 30MB of memory and 10MB-50MB hard disk space for a typical day of recording.

Yesterday I got a report from my customer that her computer is being infected by virus. Her description of the problem in her computer was computer is slow, can’t save any documents because her hard drive is nearly full although she doesn’t have much files, and Internet Explorer font is weird.

The first thing that I always do before anything is run MSCONFIG (System Configuration Utility) and check the startup entries there. It’s not the best tool to check for every programs that starts up with Windows, but it’s a basic one which is able to give me a rough idea if the computer is infected by virus or not.

When I go to Start, Run, type MSCONFIG and click OK, I got the error message “Windows cannot find ‘msconfig’. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search for a file, click the Start button, and then click Search.”

Usually virus is the culprit for removing msconfig, regedit and etc from Run command. Anyway, here’s how I manage to bring back MSCONFIG to the Run command.


First of all, we need to make sure that the MSCONFIG file is still in your drive. Surprisingly MSConfig.exe is not located in Windows or System32 directory. Two ways to find where MSConfig.exe is. You can either use Windows search to look for *msconfig* or go to another computer, use Process Explorer to find the path to MSConfig.

As you can see, Process Explorer clearly shows that MSConfig.exe is located in C:\Windows\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\MSConfig.exe.

Go to C:\Windows\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\ and check if MSConfig.exe file is there or not. If it’s not there, you can copy it from another computer to the Binaries folder or if you only have Windows XP CD, open a command prompt window, insert your XP CD into the drive and enter the following command: (assuming D is your CD drive and C is where your Windows is installed)

EXPAND -R D:\I386\MSCONFIG.EX_ C:\WINDOWS\PCHEALTH\HELPCTR\BINARIES

That should restore MSConfig.exe to your Windows. IF MSConfig.exe is already there and you still can’t launch MSCONFIG from Run command, then the reference to the path within the registry may be wrong. Check this location in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\MSCONFIG.EXE

In the right pane, next to Default, it should show:

C:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\MSConfig.exe

Once you have both MSConfig.exe file in your computer and the registry path is set correctly, you shouldn’t have problems running msconfig command from Run.

In addition to the fix above, here’s a very good tool that is able to create usable copies of REGEDIT, MSCONFIG and Task Manager which I found from Doug’s website. This small VB 6 utility will create a usable backup copy of Taskmgr.exe, MSConfig.exe and Regedit.EXE in a new folder, called C:\EmergencyUtils. The new copies will be named Copy_of_Taskmgr.exe, Copy_of_MSConfig.exe and Copy_of_Regedit.com.

These programs are extremely helpful, and usually necessary in helping to rid your computer of a viral infection. Many virus programs will intercept these programs, based on their original file name, and prevent them from running. The alternate copies will not encounter this problem. Simply navigate to the C:\EmergencyUtils folder and double click the file you need to run.

[ Download XP Emergency Utility Copier ]

Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It is fast and supposed to be stable. Sulav came to live support yesterday reporting that Google Chrome stopped working. All he got was a popup saying “The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000142). Click on OK to terminate the application.” You might also get another error code which is (0xc0000005). Reinstalling the latest Google Chrome did not solve the problem.

Did a little research and found that there is a known problem caused by Symantec product but Sulav is using Avast Antivirus. Fortunately I’ve managed to find workarounds to stop Google Chrome from crashing whenever its being ran.


There are two workarounds to this Google Chrome crashing problem. You can either use the --no-sandbox or --in-process-plugins switch when launching Google Chrome. Both should fix the crashing problem but there is a huge difference between this 2 switches as each has its own pros and cons, so you should decide yourself which option is more important for you.

By default Google Chrome enables Sandbox security. It is designed to prevent malware from getting installed on the system. Using the --no-sandbox option leaves your computer more vulnerable to flaws or security exploits on those pages. This switch is more suitable for those tech savvy people who don’t need to rely on antivirus program to keep their computer from being infected by computer viruses.

As for the --in-process-plugins, by default, Chrome runs plug-ins in separate processes from the browser itself. An advantage of doing this is if a plug-in crashes, it won’t cause the entire browser to crash. So the --in-process-plugins switch tells Chrome to run plug-ins in the same process as the browser. This switch is more suitable for users who is not able to determine if the website they visiting is dangerous or not.

Now you understand which switch to use, here is how to run Google Chrome with these switches.

1. Make sure you close all running programs.

2. Right click on the Google Chrome icon at your desktop or Start Menu and select Properties.

3. Go to the Shortcut tab if you’re not already there, add the switch at the end of the target. By default the last character is double quote, so you’ll need to add a space then followed by --no-sandbox OR --in-process-plugins. Do take note that there is two dashes.

4. Now run Google Chrome as normal. You won’t see the 0xc0000142 or 0xc0000005 crash popup anymore.

What really caused the 0xc0000142 crash on Google Chrome? I really have no idea because I couldn’t find anything on it and I am a full time Firefox user.

Just woke up today and got a news that the most popular instant messenger Windows Live Messenger has been updated to 2009! I immediately updated it and found that the interface is much nicer with a lot of flashy effects and shadows like what you usually see in Windows Vista. There are a lot of new features and more than 200 bugs have been fixed.

Usually I am well informed when a new Windows Live Messenger is about to release but this time is like a big surprise to me. Have you noticed that a lot of software released this year goes with “2009″? This is like the first time Windows Live Messenger includes the year as a version number although they still maintain the internal build version number.

What’s new in Windows Live Messenger 2009:

User interface has been updated, including the toasts

Sign-in screen has been restyled

New program/tray icon

Updated e-mail icon showing the number of new e-mails more clearly

Updated Group window header

SkyDrive officially replaces sharing folders feature (Actions > View your online files)

Expanded What’s new area shows more details (eg. complete Tweets, added pictures, etc.) and Post a note has been updated for some items

What’s new per contact in conversation window

You cannot choose your own signature sound any longer. You can only assign signature sounds to your contacts

Webcam snapshot has been renamed to Webcam Picture

Tile with moods has been renamed to Dynamic Picture

Modify moods, videos and/or pictures of previously made Dynamic Pictures

Change scene option added to status dropdown list

More default Scenes

Updated and new static/animated display pictures featuring the Messenger buddy, Morty and Daisy

Windows 7 Jumplists

Save pictures presented through PhotoShare (Previous photo/Next photo/Save photo)

What’s new list options accessible through an icon next to What’s new header, or from a button in Options > Layout

I am sure there are a bunch of other new features which haven’t been discovered yet. I’ve chatted with one of my cousin and everything just looks great! So go ahead and update your Windows Live Messenger to 2009 if you haven’t done so. Mess Patch and A-Patch haven’t been updated to work with MSN 2009 but the Messenger Plus! Live is compatible with this build although not fully functional. We’ll just have to wait a little longer for the patchers to be updated and I’m sure it won’t be long.

To download and install the latest Windows Live Messenger 2009, you’ll have to download Windows Live Installer which contains installation files for all software programs inside the Windows Live products, such as Windows Mail, Photo Gallery, Toolbar, Writer, and etc. By default all program will be selected, so if you don’t need them, just uncheck all of it and make sure that only Messenger is checked. If you already have the old version of Windows Live Messenger installed, you will see that Messenger is at the lower section that says “This program will be updated”.

[ Download Windows Live Messenger 2009 ]

Firefox is simply the best web browser. In my opinion, no other browser such as Opera, Internet Explorer, Chrome or Safari can beat Firefox. I’ve been using it for a very long time now and am very satisfied with it. However the only problem that I face with Firefox browser is it gets annoyingly slow after using it for a few months. Every morning when I launch Firefox and type a couple of letters in the URL location bar, it hangs for a while, then only it shows a bunch of suggested links. Even when I close Firefox, it takes a while for the firefox.exe process to be terminated.

I figured that since Firefox hangs when I am typing in the URL, it could probably be that I have a huge list of history. My Firefox 3 has all the default configurations and I never change anything. By default Firefox remembers my browsing history for 90 days which means that Firefox will remember the URL of the site that I visited for the past 3 months.

So I did a little investigation on my Firefox history list to check if it is the culprit that causes my Firefox to respond slowly.


I downloaded a free tool called MozillaHistoryView which reads the history data file of Firefox Web browser, and displays the list of all visited Web pages in the last day. Again it took quite a while for MozillaHistoryView to load the history file and I was shocked to see that I have 72184 links in my Firefox history! If you divide 72184 with 90 days, I visit an average of 800 websites a day, 33 every hour! Beat that and you’ll be the next raymond.cc 😛 (I’m just joking)

My idea of fixing this Firefox slow respond problem is to export all the history into a text file so I can search for it at a later time when I need it and then delete the Firefox history file to start all over again. Starting in Firefox 3, both the bookmarks and browsing history are stored in the places.sqlite file, located in the Firefox profile folder. Since the bookmark is also saved in the same file as history, I will need to backup my bookmarks as well. When I am done with that, I will try lowering down the number of days from 90 days to 45 days for Firefox to remember my browsing history.

Backup Firefox Bookmarks
1. Click Bookmarks from the menu bar and select Organize Bookmarks.
2. Click the Import and Backup button and select Backup.
3. Save the bookmark backup .json file to a location that you remember on your hard drive.

Export Firefox Browsing History
1. Download MozillaHistoryView and run it.
2. You can either export it to text or HTML format. For HTML format, go to View and select “HTML Report – All Items”. For text file, go to Edit and click on Select All. Then go to File and select Save Selected Items.

Delete Firefox Browsing History File (places.sqlite)
1. Make sure that Firefox is not running
2. Go to RUN, type %appdata%/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/ and hit Enter.
3. You should see a folder with random letters and numbers followed by a .default (eg; 89ns5tbp.default)
4. Go in to the folder and rename the places.sqlite file to places.sqlite.bak

Note: I noticed that clearing the “Browsing History” from Firefox doesn’t make the size of places.sqlite file smaller. That’s why I resort to letting Firefox re-create a new places.sqlite file.

Run Firefox now and you should notice that Firefox no longer slow or hangs. To restore your bookmarks, go to Bookmarks in your menu bar and select Organize Bookmarks. Then click the Import and Backup button > Restore > Choose File. Select the file that your backed up earlier.

Lower Firefox History Size
1. Go to Tools > Options..
2. Click on the Privacy button and click on the drop down menu for Remember History. Select “Use custom settings for history”.
3. Set the “Remember my browsing history for at least XX days” to 45 and click OK.

Firefox developers should set a lower number of days for Firefox to remember the browsing history as default. 90 days is probably way too high and can cause the browser to crawl even on a Windows XP computer with 2GB of RAM.

I believe sometimes you find files that are called “images” and it is required you to burn them into CD or DVD. Image file is a file containing an exact representation of the data that will be placed on the CD-ROM. CD Image files are often written as the first step in the pre-mastering process when the complexity of the disc makes “On-the-fly” recording impossible. In these cases the CD Image file is created from the source data on the hard disk then transferred to the CD Recorder.

Here’s a FREE software you can easily use to burn the CD images to a CD or DVD with 3 steps.

1. Insert Disc in Burner.
2. Select Image to burn.
3. Click ‘Write’ button.

ImgBurn can write most types of CD / DVD images and it supports all the latest writers (including booktype / bitsetting on many of the major ones – i.e. BenQ, LiteOn, NEC, Plextor, Sony). You can even use ImgBurn to erase / format your rewritable media!

ImgBurn will try its very best to burn your DVD-Video double layer images using the layer break you’ve specified in the IFO files, but it can also calculate the best place for you, to save you the trouble.

Advanced functionality can be found in context menus that appear when you right click on various bits of the user interface.
ImgBurn supports burning BIN, CDI, CDR, DI, DVD, GCM, GI, IBQ, IMG, ISO, LST, MDS, NRG, PDI and UDI image files to a CD or DVD depending your on drive.

[ Download ImgBurn v2.4.1.0 | ImgBurn Website ]

Here’s something different to share with you all today. I was browsing the Internet and stumbled on two interesting websites that provides reports on “Top 500 Worst Passwords of All Time” and “Distribution of passwords between men and women“. From this two reports, I get to learn what are the most common bad password that normally people use and also I know that most of these lousy guessable passwords are used by men. These passwords seemed to be the same whenever an account database is analyzed.

Do you know that the all time most used password is 123456? I didn’t know that until today and I have to admit that I am one of them that uses passwords like “123456″ or “password” out of convenience but I only use them when I felt that the account is not important and I have no problem losing it.


I know a big percentage of this blog site’s visitors are men, so ask yourself whether are you using any of the password listed in the 2 reports? If yes, then I’d advice you to change your password to a better one which cannot be brute forced by a dictionary list. A good password is something that you cannot find in dictionary which consist of at least 8 characters of numbers and words.

You shouldn’t also rely on those password generators because they generate totally random characters and chances are you won’t even remember them unless you write it down somewhere. Forgetting your password and trying to recover them back is a hassle too.

I again wanted to take a break from posting but I couldn’t resist sharing a new year’s gift to all of you courtesy of Emil. I bet some of you have heard about operating system virtualization software such as VirtualBox, XEN, Hyper-V, VMWare and VirtualPC. If not, they are software that allows you to run multiple operating system simultaneously on 1 computer. For example, you have Windows Vista installed on your hard disk and you can run other operating system such as Windows XP and Linux as a program from Windows Vista.

Another very good OS virtualization software is Parallels Workstation. It is a powerful, easy-to-use, and cost-effective desktop virtualization solution. It enables the user to create completely networked, totally secure independent virtual machines on a single physical computer. Parallels Workstation is empowered by a lightweight hypervisor, a thin layer of software that “works” between the host computer’s hardware and the primary operating system. The lightweight hypervisor controls some of the host computer’s hardware resources, which results in dramatically more stable, secure, and higher-performing virtual machines. Each virtual machine has its own set of virtual hardware: processor, RAM, floppy, CD and DVD drives, I/O devices, and hard disk.

Parallels Workstation normally cost $49.99 for a single user license but if you follow the steps below, you will get the genuine activation key free of charge!


As you can see at the image below, the computer is running Windows XP but has Xandros and OS/2 Warp Server running simultaneously using Parallels Workstation for Windows.

1. Go to http://www.parallels.com/getkey/lunarp/

2. Enter your name, email, company, phone number and click Submit.

3. You can download the latest Parallels Workstation v2.2 build 2222 for Windows or Linux at the next page. There are EXE format for Windows, and DEB, TGZ and RPM for Linux.

4. Check your email that you entered in the form at step 2. You should receive an email from [email protected] (Parallels) with the subject Lunarpages Registration. Note down the 25 digit activation key.

5. Install Parallels Workstation and during installation, you’ll be asked to provide valid information to receive a free trial activation key. Click Skip registration button.

6. Enter the Parallels Workstation activation key. Username should be already there but if not, just enter anything.

According to Wikipedia, Parallels Workstation has known limitation that includes:

Can only run 32-bit operating systems.

Inability to assign multiple CPUs to your virtual machine to gain additional performance for CPU-intensive workloads.

DVD/CD-ROM “pass-through” access has not been implemented, which means that it is impossible to use DVD and CD burners exclusively in guest virtual machines.

Supported memory limit for all virtual machines is 4 GB, and memory limit for a single virtual machine is 1500 MB.

Devices such as USB mice, memory keys, webcams, and mobile phones have been cited on the company’s support forum as not working correctly[citation needed]. The support team has promised to fix some of these issues, but has not indicated when users can expect a fix.

Network emulation does not support NAT.

It seemed like some of the free operating system virtualization software has better features than Parallels Workstation. The last time Parallels Workstation updated was on January 31st 2008 and I wonder if the company is working on an updated version to fix the known limitations above? No matter what, it’s still free and no harm grabbing the free license! Happy New Year 2009 everyone!

Thanks again Emil!

I got an email from Jake asking me about how to check where is the location of an IP address. OK, I try to enable IP address logging in my website wherever I can. If you send an email using the contact form, your IP address and hostname will be attached to the message that you send to me. Whenever you’re logged in to forum, I get to see your IP address. If you leave a comment on any of my articles, your IP address will be logged. Once you get in to raymond.cc, your IP address will automatically be logged by Webalizer. Don’t be afraid as it is used mainly for statistical purposes only. Other than that, it is good to have IP address logging because I get to see where the nice and bad people are from.

For example, I get to know most of the nice “thank you” emails that I get are from people in US. And then sadly there’s one particular person from MALAYSIA occasionally leaves useless and nonsense comments which can be easily deleted with a click. There’s also another country (which I don’t want to reveal) where many people beg for stuff (rapidshare, hacking emails and etc).

IP address logging is very important for online shopping website too. Once I was handling an ebook website for a company and there were a lot of charge backs from a specific country. I purchased an IP to Country database and blocked everyone coming from that country. The earnings wasn’t affected and charge backs has been reduced.

If you have an IP address and would like to trace where is the location, here’s what I usually use.


My first choice is VisualRoute. There is a desktop version of VisualRoute which cost money but I prefer to use their free web service to trace an IP. This VisualRoute Server provides a graphical traceroute and ping test from its server to any other network device you choose, useful for pinpointing network connectivity problems and identifying IP address locations.

It’s very easy to use. Just enter the IP address that you want to trace and hit the Start button. To see the location of the IP address, click the Map tab. VisualRoute loads pretty slow because it requires Java.

[ Visit VisualRoute ]

My second choice is IP2Location. This company is from Malaysia and they have full databases of IP address to country plus many other options. They have a live product demo where you can enter an IP address, and it’ll find the IP address’s location.

If you’re wondering why are they selling databases of IP – Country, there are actually many uses for web developers. Like I mentioned above, I manage to filter access from countries that has high fraud rate. Other than that, you can also display native language and currency, redirect web pages based on geographical, auto-selection of country on forms and etc…

[ Visit IP2Location ]

There you have it, the 2 places where I go when I want to find out a location of an IP address. If you have any great sites that you use to trace an IP address, please share with us by leaving a comment.