I have a lot of files and icons on my desktop and it’s filling up nearly 75% of my desktop space. Even though it’s quite messy but I remembered where I placed the icons and files that I always use because I never move them around. Yesterday I booted my computer into Safe Mode and the screen automatically changes to a bigger resolution. When I booted back to normal Windows, all my files and icons on my desktop automatically reshuffled! It took me sometime to rearrange the icons and files back to the place where it used to be. Here’s how I solve this problem in case next time my icons and files gets reshuffled without my knowledge.


Icon Restore installs LAYOUT.DLL (along with the required registry entries) from Microsoft. Two new options are added to the pop up menu that opens when any Windows system icon (ex. My Computer) is right clicked. These options are “Save Desktop Icon Layout” and “Restore Desktop Icon Layout“. See the screen shot below:

After installing Icon Restore, simply place your icons wherever you want them on your desktop, right click My Computer (or any ‘system’ icon) and left click on “Save Desktop Icon Layout” from the pop up menu.

If your icons ever get moved because your computer entered safe mode or you changed the screen resolution, right click My Computer (or any ‘system’ icon) and left click on “Restore Desktop Icon Layout” from the pop up menu.

It’s that easy to use and the installation file is only 281KB.
[ Download Icon Restore ]

Currently Icon Restore does not support UnInstallation from Windows Add/Remove Programs. However, if you installed Icon Restore and want to get rid of it, download the following uninstall program and run it. This will remove Icon Restore from your system.
[ Download UNINSTALL Icon Restore ]

I believe many of you experience Explorer.exe crashing before especially during Windows 98 era. This is mostly due to corrupted Windows, spywares or unstable software that has not been extensively tested.
Once explorer.exe crash, most of your icons in your traybar which located at the bottom right will disappear.

You might also see that everything in your desktop and taskbar went missing for a while and then comes back again. Windows is somehow smart enough to restart it’s explorer.exe when it crashes but it’s not smart enough to restore the icons of running programs in your traybar. Don’t get me wrong, the program is still running, but it’s hidden and you have no way of bringing it back. What I used to do is to go to Task Manager, kill the process and run the software again.

There’s a way you can bring back the hidden running applications without killing the process and running it again…


Win-Res-Q (read “win rescue”) is a simple utility that restores (shows) hidden windows.

It can be used for bringing back your “lost” applications after their tray icons disappear following Explorer crashes that abundantly occur on Windows 98(It also happens on Windows XP!). It’s also useful for exposing strange, hidden windows lurking around your desktop.

Very simple software and easy to use. Win-Res-Q shows a list of running applications, you choose the application that you’d like to restore/show, and click on the left button below. The middle button is to refresh the list of running applications and the right button is show the About/Credit screen of Win-Res-Q.

[ Download Win-Res-Q 1.0 ]

Let’s face it, we’ve all been in a situation where we have accidentally deleted a required file, or lost important files on a ‘dead’ floppy. At this point, most people accept the loss with frustration, thinking that once a file’s gone, it’s gone. Not exactly. From a normal point of view, the file is gone and it’s not possible for the file to be still laying somewhere hidden from you. But from an experience computer person point of view, the file is still around and it’s recoverable IF the cluster hasn’t been overwritten.

Before we can determine how to restore files that were incorrectly deleted, we must first understand how Windows handles deleted files. Many people are unaware that when they delete a file, the file is not actually removed from their hard disk. Instead, Windows just marks the file as being deleted, and treats it as free space, ready to be written over. For this reason, the trick to regaining these deleted files is to restore them before Windows writes over them again. Therefore, it is very possible to be able to restore files that were deleted anywhere from a few minutes ago to a few days ago. Obviously, files deleted more recently are much more probable to be recoverable. If you realize that you accidentally deleted files that you need, it is very important to stop using your computer extensively until they are recovered, because any hard drive action could potentially overwrite the file.

Now you should understand how this works. Most of the software required to recover the files back are shareware. Today I found a FREEWARE utility that does the same with a much simpler graphical user interface.



Recuva (pronounced “recover”), created by the same author as CCLEANER, is a freeware utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Windows Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!

After installation, you’ll only find 2 files in the program folder which is located at C:\Program Files\Recuva that is recuva.exe and uninstall.exe. Recuva.exe is only 180KB and it doesn’t require any other DLL files. You can copy recuva.exe to your thumb drive and run it from there.

The inteface is very simple without any settings needed. Just select the drive that you want to scan and click on the Scan button.

Files that has “Excellent” state and with the comment “No overwritten clusters detected” can be recovered. It is very important not to restore files to the same drive that you are recovering from, as you could very easily overwrite the files you need!

[ Download Recuva ]

Some of the company or school doesn’t allow installing instant messenger application such as Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger. You can risk your job being terminated if they found out that you’ve installed any of the instant messaging program above. In school, there are all sorts of disciplinary actions can be taken against you if you install instant messaging program on the library computer. So what should you do if you need to send an important message to a friend or family?

Yes, that’s right. Use web based instant messenger. It eliminates the need to download and install the program. It can even work behind a firewall or proxy servers. Here’s are the links to ICQ, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger web based messaging.


1. ICQ

Notes: ICQ web messenger is called ICQ2Go! By default, it uses flash when you click on the big “Launch” button. If you prefer to use Java web based version, there’s a link where you can click on the ICQ2Go! Java. I’d prefer Flash over Java because not all computer has Java installed and Java takes time and resources to load. Flash is faster.
Link: http://download.icq.com/download/icq2go/

2. Yahoo! Messenger

Notes: Yahoo! web based messenger is newly launched. Some of the countries are not yet supported. Maybe changing the Country on your profiles lets you use Yahoo! web messenger. If can’t, there are alternatives at the end of this article.
Link: http://webmessenger.yahoo.com/

3. Google Talk

Notes: Google Talk web based messenger is called “Google Talk Gadget”. Click on the “Launch Google Talk” button and sign in with your Google account.
Link: http://www.google.com/talk/

4. Windows Live Messenger

Notes: Very plain web design with no screenshot of web based Windows Live Messenger. However, it works the same. Just click on the “Start MSN Web Messenger” button and sign in with your Passport account.
Link: http://webmessenger.msn.com/

5. AOL Instant Messenger

Notes: The last time I remembered installing this application was 8 years ago. However, it doesn’t mean that no one is using it. If I am not wrong, many people from USA has an AOL account. Now AOL and ICQ can talk to each other, so there is no need to use AOL if you have ICQ.
Link: http://aimexpress.aim.com/

All the above websites are OFFICIAL web based instant messenger. There are also third party websites that provides all in one web based instant messaging. If you’re afraid of your instant messenger login being used on the third party websites, you can use the official ones instead.

1. Meebo

Notes: The most popular third party web based instant messenger website. Supports the most instant messaging networks which is Yahoo, MSN, Google, ICQ, Jabber and AIM.
Link: http://www.meebo.com/

2. eBuddy

Notes: An alternative to Meebo except doesn’t support ICQ and Jabber. Clean interface and not too much advertisements.
Link: http://www.ebuddy.com/

3. ILoveIM

Notes: The least that I like because it has a lot of advertisements. But it still works and can be another alternative in case the administrator of your network has banned all web based instant messaging website but missed this one.
Link: http://www.iloveim.com/

I will never get tired of freebies and promotions. Today I’ll share with you another freebie which I just discovered. So far this promotion is still unknown to anyone and searching in Google yield 0 results. Most of the freebie software that I shared with you belonged to the same category but this one is totally different and I believe it will be very useful to anyone who is using a Windows computer.

This software is called DriveLED 2 by O&O Software and it is used to monitor the condition and activity of your system’s drives at all times. The good thing about DriveLED is the possibility for you to backup your data and change out the potentially affected data volume, before the hard disk fails. Now we no longer need to be afraid of sudden hard drive failure which result in important data loses.

O&O DriveLED 2 normally cost $19.95 but it’ll be totally FREE if you follow the steps below.


Because hard disk drives contain parts designed to operate with precision to the nearest micro inch or at speeds topping as many a thousand of revolutions per minute, the possibility of a malfunction rises with the age of the hard disk. However, the possibility of a failure and subsequent loss of data is now easily controllable with O&O DriveLED 2.

With O&O DriveLED 2 you have a reliable partner that accurately tells you when it is time to backup your important data or even if it is necessary to replace the hard disk. With this free DriveLED 2 license in your computer, you will remain constantly informed as to the condition of your hard disks and, most importantly, be warned in the event of a pending malfunction. O&O DriveLED not only contributes greatly to your system’s security and the sustained availability of your data, but is the correct solution for SMART inspections of your hard disk.

Features of O&O DriveLED 2:

Automatic monitoring using S.M.A.R.T.

Warning notification of possible operational errors on all hard disk drives

S.M.A.R.T. self-tests for an immediate health-check of your hard disks

Displaying the current temperature of each hard disk

Forecasting the life expectancy of each hard disk

Tracking and display of read/write access for logical volumes

Here’s how to get your free O&O DriveLED 2 license registration serial key code.

1. Visit this page, select your Salutation, enter your first name, last name, E-mail, Phone, Street address (1), ZIP, City, Country and hit the submit form button. It is only important that you enter a correct email address because the registration code will be sent there.

2. Check your email and open the email from O&O Register ([email protected]) with the subject Your free license of O&O DriveLED V2.0 ‏. Note down the Name, Company and License information.

3. Download OODriveLEDEnu.exe and install.

4. To convert DriveLED 2 from trial to fully registered version, run the program and select Enter registration code when you get the prompt. At the next screen you will get to enter the registration code.

I ran SMART Self Test using O&O DriveLED 2 on both of my laptop and desktop. Desktop hard drive detected no problem but I got “uncorrectable read error (0×7)” on my laptop. I knew long ago that my hard drive has problems because everyday I’ll hear a loud “TAK” noise coming from my hard drive whenever I put a little stress on it. I am now convinced that I should do a full backup of my laptop. The official page for O&O DriveLED 2 only states that it can run in Windows XP, 2000, 2003 Server, NT 4.0. I tried on Windows Vista and it works like a charm. Very useful tool!

Earlier this month I’ve posted a tip on how to obtain a 1 year genuine license for BitDefender Internet Security 2009. As usual, the promotion ended in less than 12 hours because it was too easy for everyone to request for the free license, some abusing by requesting for multiple licenses, and a finally lot of copycats that didn’t even bother to link back. Doesn’t matter, I’ve accepted the fact that this happens to every website but I am confident that you all know where to get your fresh and hot news from 😉

Yesterday night I found out on how to get a valid 1 year BitDefender Internet Security 2009 license and honestly I was quite reluctant to post it here. I wanted to use this promotion to help the needy ones and prevent people from abusing it. Posting it here will definitely kill the promotion fast and possibly causing all the promotional license to get blacklisted. Remember what happened to Barclay’s Kaspersky and Trend Micro? Thinking about it, if I don’t post the trick, someone else will and eventually killing the promotion. Moreover, this tip is shared by Ed and he wanted to share with everyone, so it’s only right that I fulfill his wishes. Unless I have a way on how to generate keys using the not-so-legal backdoor method, then I am keeping it to myself and be the Robin Hood of internet world.

Enough of the rant, here’s how to get your genuine BitDefender Internet Security 2009 license key valid for 365 days. For those that missed the previous free BDIS 2009 license, here is your chance to get one for yourself.


1. Go to this page http://www.securitasdirect.pt/antivirusmail/

2. Enter your name, email address and click the red Downloads button. Please use a real email address because the license key will be sent there.

3. Check your email that you entered in step 2. You should receive an email from [email protected] with the subject “Oferta“. Note down the license key that is in 20 characters after the line “O número da sua Licença é”

4. Download latest version of BitDefender Internet Security 2009 from the link below:
– English 32-bit MSI installer
– English 64-bit MSI installer

5. Restart your computer when prompted to. When Windows is booted up, the BitDefender Registration Wizard window will appear. Select the option “I want to register the product with a new key” and enter the license key.

Voila! You now have BitDefender Internet Security 2009 registered for 1 year without paying a single cent.

I find it a little confusing on which version of BitDefender should I use with the key that I got from this promotion? The promotional page clearly stated it is for BitDefender Total Security 2009, then the email says it is for antivirus BUT the download link from the email links to BitDefender Internet Security 2009 Portuguese version. I can confirm with you all that the license key that you get is ONLY for BitDefender Internet Security 2009. I’ve tried using this key in BitDefender Antivirus 2009 and BitDefender Total Security 2009 but kept on getting the error saying that this key is for a different product.

Enjoy! Thanks ED / p3na!

Lenogris posted a question in forum about low volume when playing DVD movies at his sister’s computer. The low volume only happens when he plays DVD movies. MP3 music and Windows sound is loud. He tried using headphones but the volume is still very low. When played the DVD on his and his dad’s computer, the volume is fine.

At first I didn’t know what can cause the low volume problem when playing DVD because I never watch DVD movies at my laptop or desktop. For Lenogris case, there’s only 2 possibility. It’s either the sound card is faulty, or the codec problem. Out of curiosity, I took some DVDs from my store room and played it on my laptop. At the DVD menu, the sound is loud enough. Now I start the movie, the volume is also low! Looks like I also have the same problem as Lenogris!

I search in Google on low DVD volume and found that many people are actually having this problem especially on laptops. Laptop’s volume can never be louder than desktop speakers even if you cranked it to the maximum volume. I’ve managed to find a solution to boost the volume for DVD movies.


Before I show you how I boost the volume when watching DVD movies, here are some basic settings you should check to make sure that it’s not your codec problem.

1. Windows Volume
– See a small speaker icon at the bottom right hand side tray bar? Double click on the speaker icon and you’ll get Volume Control. Make sure that you’ve tried bringing up the slider to the max for Volume Control and Wave. If you can’t see Volume Control or Wave, go to Options -> Properties and check Volume Control and WAVE. You can also try increasing the rest EXCEPT microphone.

2. DVD Player Software Volume
– Different DVD player software works differently. For example, if you increase PowerDVD’s volume, it actually increases the volume on your Windows Control Volume. As for Windows Media Player, even if you increase the volume there, the Windows Control Volume stays where it is. Just double check the DVD software that you’re using to play the DVD movie and make sure that the volume is raised.

3. Hardware Rotary Volume Control
– Some laptops has a manual rotary volume control where you can use it to easily increase or decrease volume. It is usually at the front or side of the laptop. If you have that dial, try increasing that.

4. DVD Sound Options
– Try all Sound Options in your DVD menu. Usually there’ll be Dolby Digital and DTS. Maybe one of it will give you a louder DVD movie volume.

5. Codec (AC3Filter)
– If you’ve gone through all 4 methods above and the DVD movie volume is still low, you might be able to increase DVD volume by installing AC3Filter codec and boost the GAIN. Download AC3Filter from the link below. After installation, go to Start Menu -> Programs -> AC3Filter and run AC3Filter Confiig. Increase the Master at Gain, click Apply and OK. You will notice that the DVD movie volume has been increased.

[ Download AC3Filter ]

Download Movies Download Movies

If you didn’t know, 2 weeks ago the Thai government has banned access to YouTube from within Thailand. This is because there were offensive video clips to the Thai king. Now Thailand residents is not able to view nor upload videos to YouTube. The ban is expected to be lifted before April 20th but if it’s still not lifted on that time, there are ways to bypass the ban. I am going to share with you how easy it is to bypass the ban on YouTube or on any particular website.


With YouTube Proxy, you can access YouTube even if your ISP has banned the website. How it works? It’s easier to understand if you look at the image below.

YouTube Proxy is a proxy server that sits between a client application, such as a web browser, and a real server. It intercepts all requests (of the client) to the real server and forwards it to the real server, returning back the requested data to the client. There are software that is able to hide your IP address by using proxy but why need to install a software when you can simply use your browser? YouTube Proxy si a kind of proxy server that’s work directly from your web browser, without the need of installing software or change your browser configuration.

Here are the technicals specifications of YouTube Proxy:
– Works through an encrypted connection (SSL)
– Support connections to secure websites (HTTPS Sites)
– Hides the real client IP providing an anonymous connection
– Support Cookies, support cookie editing, and custom cookie creation!
– Support Posting (Post, Get, & Query Post)
– Support of Uploads!
– URLs or other navigation information are NOT logged
– Support all kind of files (Html, Swf, Pdf, Zip, Rar, etc…)
– Clean Design: No ADS, Banners or surfing console, you will see as you are surfing the web directly

Will definitely work, but if your ISP ban *youtube*, then all websites with the word youtube will also be banned including YouTube Proxy. You can use this free YouTube Proxy service to bypass any banned websites in any place(universities, company, etc..). I think I’ve discovered a small bug that is it doesn’t support proxy’ing .CC domains. I tried entering http://www.raymond.cc on the address and hit enter, it brings me back to YouTube Proxy main page. Most probably YouTube Proxy only supports top-level domains such as .com .net and .org. I will write them an email about this problem.

Update: The owner of YouTube Proxy replied my email within minutes. He said that the problem was raymond.cc responding with a wrong encoding type… Not sure what that means but it’s now fixed.

[ Visit YouTube Proxy ]

If you’re interested in trying out ESET’s security software, you can go to ESET’s official website and you’ll find that there are 2 versions of installer for their products. They have the trial version where you can use 30 days free and can be directly download by clicking on the link. Then they have commercial download link where you’ll have to login with a valid username and password in order to download. The commercial version is for customers that has purchased a license to download and install. I’ve never personally tested the trial version of ESET’s product but I got reports that they have the same restriction as Kaspersky where you can only activate the trial ONCE.

There is another way of evaluating ESET’s product for 30 days, or even sometimes up to 90 days when they have promotions by using the commercial installer, not the trial ones. The best part is when the username and password has expired after 30 days period, it is possible request for another new username and password using a different email address! I will show you where to request for a valid ESET username and password to download the commercial version of ESET software.


There are actually tons of official locale ESET website that you can use to generate free trial commercial username and password BUT they all share the same database. If you try to enter the same email on a different official ESET website, it will tell you that the email you have entered has already been registered. The trick here is to always use a different email address.

ESET NOD32 Antivirus:
http://mercuryservices.eset.ie/evaluate/evaluate.php?evaloption=EAV

ESET Smart Security:
http://mercuryservices.eset.ie/evaluate/evaluate.php?evaloption=ESS

ESET Mobile Antivirus:
http://www.eset.ie/download/free_trial_download_ema.php

All you need to do is to fill up the form and make sure you use a valid email address that you can check. After submitting the forum, check your email. Once you got the username and password, you can head on to this official ESET download page and choose the commercial version software that you want to download.

I’ve tried installing the trial version and it is slightly different than the full commercial version. The trial version doesn’t require username and password to update but it has a 30 days time limit. You can also “upgrade” to the commercial version if you have a valid username and password. If I am not wrong, you can continue updating ESET as long as you have a valid username and password for the specific product. That’s how NodEnabler and NodLogin keeps your product licensed by finding a valid trial username and password on the internet and automatically insert it to the program.

On the article that I posted two days ago, I made a mistake saying that the username and password works on ESET Smart Security, ESET NOD32 Antivirus and ESET Mobile Antivirus. It actually only works on ESET NOD32 Antivirus. I’ve wrongly configured NOD32 Update Viewer and the color confuses me as I find it hard to differentiate the color when the letters are very small. After zooming in, I can now see the difference. By the way, the offer is no longer available. I hope I’ve made it up by showing you how to download the full commercial version of ESET Smart Security, NOD32 and Mobile Antivirus.

Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger is a very popular instant messenger. However, there are many problems that make users inconvenient. One of the problems that a lot of people are facing is whenever they reformat their computer, all their custom emotions that took years to find are gone! Even if you have all your cute custom emotions at your office computer, it is impossible to manually copy the custom emotions to your home computer.

I found out that there’s a CustomEmoticons folder located at C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Application Data\Microsoft\MSN Messenger\Random ID\ and thought I can just backup the map.dat file and restore it on another computer to get back the emotions, but replacing the map.dat file doesn’t restore the custom emotions. It’s not as easy as it seems! I’ve also read that renaming map.dat file to GIF or JPG will show the emotions but it doesn’t. This is because map.dat file is encrypted.

What about Yahoo emotions? What if you’re a hardcore MSN user and want to use Yahoo smileys on MSN messenger? I am sure Yahoo Messenger emotions can be found on the net but there’s an easier way to import Yahoo Messenger’s emotion to Windows Live Messenger. Here’s a free tool to make backing up Windows Live Messenger custom emotions and importing Yahoo smileys much easier.


EmoticonMadeEasy is a program that allows you to backup your MSN icons, import/export emoticons, import Yahoo Smileys, import images or icons from local machine and convert them into MSN emoticons, and share your emoticons between computers or accounts, or share with your friends. You can export MSN emoticons on a computer to a single file and then import the file into MSN Messenger on the other computers. Also, you can import Yahoo Smileys into your MSN messenger. It is easy, and it is FREE!!

OK, this program does the backup and importing emotions job automatically and easily. One very doubtful thing you have to do before it can backup or import emotion is you have to enter your REAL MSN account login information. I tried searching in website to see what is the purpose of this requirement but I couldn’t find it. I used a packet sniffer to see what is being sent when I enter MSN login name with password and click the Next button. I can only see that it’s sending information to login.live.com. Then I contacted the author of EmoticonMadeEasy and he got back to me the next day with this explanation “If you are using MSN 7.x or earlier version, you only need to enter login name. However, you need both login name and password for MSN 8.x to encrypt or decrypt data files which contain icon shortcut key and name.”

[ Download EmoticonMadeEasy ]

If you’re comfortable in giving out your MSN login information, there’s another simple tool called ConCon Retriever that is able to give you easy access to your MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger content, which includes custom emoticon (smiley), display picture (avatar/ user tile), background, wink, deluxe display picture (mood/meego/muggin) and dynamic background.

What I like about ConCon Retriever is the ability to display all logged in MSN users on that computer and then save a single file that you like to editable image file. ConCon Retriever has a file called ConDecrypt.exe which I think it is used to decrypt map.dat file.

[ Download ConCon Retriever ]

Yesterday one of our forum member solin asked a question on how to delete the LEGACY section at registry. After uninstalling antivirus such as AVG, Avast, G Data and etc, it leaves some registry keys at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\Root\LEGACY_* and also at ControlSet002. I can confirm this because I installed the Free AVG 2011 and after uninstalling it, I found a few LEGACY_AVG* keys at both ControlSet001 and ControlSet002. When trying to delete the LEGACY keys, Windows 7 prompts the error “Error Deleting Key” with the message “Cannot delete LEGACY_AVGIDSDRIVER: Error while deleting key“. You would also see this error even if you are an Administrator of the local computer with UAC disabled.

Although it shouldn’t cause any problems to Windows since the ControlSetXXX are backups, but some users would prefer to keep their computer as clean as possible. Registry is a database and logically if a database gets too big with a lot of junk, the system eventually becomes slower. Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) explains the following:

“ControlSet001 may be the last control set you booted with, while ControlSet002 could be what is known as the last known good control set, or the control set that last successfully booted Windows NT. The CurrentControlSet subkey is really a pointer to one of the ControlSetXXX keys.”

If you still want to go ahead and remove the LEGACY entries, you can either take ownership of the registry key and setting the full control permission or simply run the Registry Editor (regedit) as SYSTEM.

1. Download RunAsSystem, extract and run it.

2. Click the Browse button and look for regedit.exe which is normally located in Windows folder.

3. Click Open and followed by OK which will open the Registry Editor.

4. As you can see from the screenshot below, regedit.exe is now running under SYSTEM account. You can delete the LEGACY entries without the “Error While Deleting Key” message.

You should make a backup of the registry keys that you want to delete by right clicking and select Export. Do note that when you want to restore it back, you cannot run the .reg file directly as you would get the error “Cannot import file.reg: Error accessing the registry”. The solution is to either run the regedit as SYSTEM, and import it from File > Import, or run the .reg file using RunAsSystem.

Some of you might be using an Internet plan from your ISP which has limited bandwidth. As far as I know, ALL of the wireless broadband in Malaysia allows unlimited usage BUT there is a fair usage threshold where once you go over the limit, your connection speed will be throttled to a very slow dial-up speed. I have a Celcom wireless broadband subscription and they offer two types of plan which is 384Kbps or 3.6Mbps. Both package allows you to download stuff at maximum speed but once you reached 5GB limit PER month, then you’re screwed with a really slow speed. Honestly it doesn’t make any sense to subscribe a 3.6Mbps download speed when you can only use 5GB of the bandwidth per month. The worst part is even the uploading bandwidth is counted to the usage.

At least they now tell us in advanced that there is a fair usage policy because last time they never expose this information publicly and you can only find it in their really long list of terms and conditions page which no one really reads. When you find out that there is a fair usage policy and file a complaint, they blame you for not reading the terms before signing up. For those that are subscribed to an Internet connection package which has limited bandwidth usage, it is important that you keep track of your bandwidth usage. Here’s a free internet traffic monitoring software that works.


iTraffic Monitor is a network monitor and reporting tool. It provides real time graph of network traffic. Detailed stats provide daily/weekly/monthly/yearly stats. Stop watch, Session stats.

Monitor and review your Internet or network bandwidth usage with ease

How fast your internet connection? We can graph it for your review

How much data do you transfer? We show you a real-time graph or numerical display, as well as daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly reports

Requires minimal desktop space and system resources

This is how iTraffic report looks like. It’s easy to read and nothing too fancy or complicated.

iTraffic Monitor is relatively new as this is their first version released on 4/22/2009. A few small bugs here and there such as copying the report to clipboard generates an access violation error but it’s no big deal and hopefully they’ll fix it in their next release. What I like about iTraffic Monitor is it can filter out local network traffic or traffic between specific IP addresses. This is very important for people connected to the internet via a local area network (LAN). Very few network monitors can do this and the ones that do usually is a shareware that cost money.

This software is free and takes less than 2MB memory while monitoring your bandwidth usage. Claims to work on all Windows.

[ Download iTraffic Monitor ]

I never had to download any movies from the Internet because most of the time I watch them in cinemas. Moreover one of my very best friend is working in a shop that is selling pirated DVD movies, so he would hand me some free DVD movies once in a while. The only video I download from the Internet is TV series such as Heroes and I prefer to watch them on my TV. My DVD player can only play VCD and DVD format but not DIVX or AVI files. So to watch the downloaded TV series on my TV, I have to burn the subtitle to the AVI file, convert it to VCD format, and then burn it to a CDRW. It takes hours to complete the whole process.

Then about a month ago I was approached by BolehVPN if I’d like to purchase WD TV, a small hardware that is able to turn my USB drive into an HD media player. Now all I needed to do is to download the video file, copy it to my USB drive and then plug in the WD TV that is hooked up to the TV. I no longer need to go through the tedious and time consuming process anymore.

In DVD disc, we can switch between between multiple language subtitles and I wanted to see if it was possible to do that on an AVI video file. I found out it is possible and in fact there are a few ways of doing it since the support for subtitles on DVD players is getting better and better.


To play an AVI video file with subtitle, all we need to do is to re-name the subtitle file to match the video file name. For example, the video file is Heroes.S03E19.HDTV.XviD-LOL.avi so we’ll need to make sure that the subtitle file name is Heroes.S03E19.HDTV.XviD-LOL.srt. As you can see, the only difference is the extension of the file.

But to add two or more subtitles to AVI video, here is what you need to do. If your DVD player supports multiple subtitle files, you can just add numbers at the end of the subtitle file name. Let’s say the AVI video file is WeddingCrashers.avi.
The default subtitle is WeddingCrashers.srt
The second subtitle is WeddingCrashers.1.srt
The third subtitle is WeddingCrashers.2.srt

You can also replace the numbers with language codes such as EN for English, DE for German, and etc. I am not sure what is the maximum number of subtitles you can place but if I am not wrong, it is 8.

If your DVD player supports only 1 subtitle, then you can merge/join the subtitles using Subtitle Workshop v2.51. Download, install and run Subtitle Workshop. Click on Tools menu bar and select Join Subtitles. Alternatively you can also use the hotkey Ctrl+J to go to Join Subtitles. Click Add button and select the subtitles that you want to join. Now the subtitles will be listed in the window. Simply click the Join button and you’ll be prompted to save the newly joined subtitle file. Make sure that the .srt file has to have exactly the same file name than the .avi file.

There is also a website that provides free online subtitle merging service but it can only support 2 subtitles at a time.

Finally, here are 2 more free software AVIAddXSubs and Sub2DivX, that is able to merge as many as 8 subtitles to your AVI file. After finished merging, you will only have 1 .divx (you can also rename the .divx to .avi) file which is the video file. You don’t need to place the external subtitle file together with the video file because it is already merged into the video file.

You’ll have to try which method works for your video player. Press the subtitle button on your player’s remote control and if it switches subtitles, then it works. If not, try the other methods that I’ve listed in this article.

The popular growing GMail is offering a whoooooping 2659MB and GROWING every second of space for email space.
Now, I don’t have that much email to store, so what can I do with the rest of the space?
I sure hope I can store files in it like how I do it on my Windows Explorer.


Thank GOD there is Gmail Drive!

GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Gmail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium.
GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google Gmail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your Gmail account directly from inside Windows Explorer. GMail Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag’n’drop files to.

Ever since Google started to offer users a Gmail e-mail account, which includes storage space of 2000 megabytes, you have had plenty of storage space but not a lot to fill it up with. With GMail Drive you can easily copy files to your Gmail account and retrieve them again.
When you create a new file using GMail Drive, it generates an e-mail and posts it to your account. The e-mail appears in your normal Inbox folder, and the file is attached as an e-mail attachment. GMail Drive periodically checks your mail account (using the Gmail search function) to see if new files have arrived and to rebuild the directory structures. But basically GMail Drive acts as any other hard-drive installed on your computer.
You can copy files to and from the GMail Drive folder simply by using drag’n’drop like you’re used to with the normal Explorer folders.

Because the Gmail files will clutter up your Inbox folder, you may wish to create a filter in Gmail to automatically move the files (prefixed with the GMAILFS letters in the subject) to your archived mail folder.

Please note that GMail Drive is still an experimental tool. There’s still a number of limitations of the file-system (such as total filename size must be less than 40 characters). Since the tool hooks up with the free Gmail Service provided by Google, changes in the Gmail system may break the tool’s ability to function. I cannot guarantee that files stored in this manner will be accessible in the future.

[ Download GMail Drive ]