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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[ Download TeamViewer 4 ]

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

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


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

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

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

[ Download TweetMyPC ]

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Download Paragon Net Burner | Official Website

Tweakers united dream of making their own operating system, as do coders and other people who just enjoy learning how a computer operating system works. And it’s actually not that hard to do, so long as you have a base to launch the system from and the proper tools for the job. I’m writing this article today because I know for a fact I’ve had to do this for my hardware classes, and you all might learn and enjoy learning how to build your own operating system, or customizing your already build OS if you’re building off Windows. This will not explain how to use a hacked operating system or where you could make/download one, but I’m assuming that you are using a legal copy of your operating system that you will be running these modifications on. Without further delay, I’d like to introduce the tools that we can use to create these custom operating systems.

nLite/vLite

How I can start this post without nLite or vLite, the staples of all Windows XP and Vista modifying is beyond me. So I’m starting with them. Both are made by the same developer, Dino Nuhagic, who was forced to drop them upon being hired by Microsoft, so neither are being actively developed anymore. But if you are using an older operating system then Windows 7, these will work perfectly for you. I’ve had no problems setting them up to work and create custom ISOs that already have SP3 and all the patches included, saving me lots of time when I have to reinstall my desktop to Windows XP to try something out. vLite also works a little bit with Windows 7 but doesn’t work entirely, which brings me to my next tool on the list.

RT Se7en Lite

RT Se7en Lite is to Windows 7 as nLite and vLite are to Windows XP and Vista, respectively. It is the brainchild of Rockers Team to provide a solution to customize and effectively make Windows 7 exactly the way you want it. I’ve tried it once or twice and while I never removed that much, it does have a lot of options for you if you demand a lot in customizing and remixing your Windows 7 installation. Much like any other customizing software, you should be extremely careful in what you remove, due to the fact that if you remove the wrong components, your wireless on your laptop might not work, or your keyboard might not have the proper language installed, so you might be trying to type English but Gaelic might be what you’re typing in. Just be careful, as with the previous solution, make sure to make a backup, and you won’t run into any problems.

ReConstructor

For those interested in using Linux, specifically Ubuntu or Debian, ReConstructor is what you’re going to be looking at to customize it via the web. It allows you to customize packages and installs to work as you see fit, instead of the generic packages that it installs by default. So if you know you’re going to use the generic drivers for your NVIDIA card, you can safely strip out the ATI and Intel video card drivers. It’s actually rather impressive, and it’s done all via the web. You have to sign up to use it though, and that is it’s only downside, that you can’t use it directly out of the box. But to say the least, it has the power to control what you put into your packaged system, and there’s no more incompatibility or slow-down unless you don’t remove the proper components. For fans of Slackware that would like this chance to rebuild your system, there’s Slax, a system that you build online with the parts it provides you with, or SUSEStudio which offers the abilities of ReConstructor for OpenSUSE. Puppy Linux offers Woof which will also do the same thing, but is geared highly towards advanced users.

And now, for the winners of the Oops! Backup Licenses and the Hitman Pro License! The winners of the Oops! Backup are:

1. daitarn3
2. Chris
3. Sudip
4. Adam Cooper
5. Kees

And for the winner of the one year Hitman Pro, we have our winner as:

1. willofthephoenix

These winners were selected by the random number generator on Random.org, and congrats to all whom entered, I’ll be sending your licenses as soon as possible. Now I’m off to enjoy my birthday, and I hope you all have a good day as well! I know I’m going to be kicking up my feet and relaxing, and I hope you’re all able to do the same, even though it’s the middle of the week. If not, you can always do a lot of customization now, so you can learn just what parts you need in your computers, and what you can get away without.

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

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


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

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

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

[ Download IceSword | PJF’s Official Website ]

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ipconfig /flushdns

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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 ]