One of a new problem that you will experience in Windows Vista and Windows 7 but not on Windows XP is the screen going black for a few seconds and then comes back on with a popup notification telling you “Display driver stopped responding and has recovered. Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered.” From the message it does seemed like the driver has crashed and most of the time neither upgrading nor downgrading the driver will fix the problem. If you search for this error in Google, you will probably end up with hundreds of threads to read and with some really ridiculous suggestions such as reformatting your computer, sending back the graphics card to manufacturer, etc.

The good news is you don’t have to go through that because SilentBob420BMFJ has already went through all the hard work which he finally found a workaround that fixes the problem and shared it in NVIDIA forums. Thanks to FunkY for finding that as well and posting it in our forums to help BigGuy.


The simple trick is to set a fixed graphics card for PhysX processor instead of letting it auto select which may end up selecting your CPU and causing the crash. Go to Control Panel > NVIDIA Control Panel > Expand 3D Settings > Set PhysX configuration. At the select a PhysX processor, by default the “Auto-Selected (recommended)” setting is selected. Click on the drop down menu, select your graphic card and click the Apply button to confirm the changes.

This simple solution should be your first attempt to fix the problem before reinstalling drivers, replacing nvlddmkm.sys driver file, fixing registry, uninstalling windows patches and etc.

Nowadays I get most of my updates from the forum itself because I do not have time to browse around the web to visit the sites that I normally visit. 3 weeks ago LunarWolf posted a thread at the forum about Avira going over to the dark side by pushing ASK toolbar to its free users. Some people say that the Ask.com toolbar is a spyware or adware but Ask.com denies it. As for me, I would say that it is an “unnecessary addon” to web browsers. Avira detection for malware is superior, period. I think it would be a waste to abandon Avira just because of the “optional” toolbar, so I decided to check it out myself since I have a little bit of time today. First I downloaded both the paid version of Avira antivirus (Avira Premium Security Suite & Avira AntiVir Premium) and installed on my test computer. Fortunately both did not ask to install the toolbar.

Then I installed the free version of Avira antivirus which is Avira AntiVir Personal. After restarting Windows, I was prompted for a “free update” which is actually the Avira AntiVir 10 Service Pack 2 (SP2) that claims to provide better detection and protection. After installing the SP2, I still don’t see any new toolbar installed on Internet Explorer or Firefox but after a reboot, I got another popup alert that says “New function! Safe Internet searching. Avira SearchFree Toolbar offers more freedom for searching and surfing the web. Upgrade now for total free on Internet Explorer and Firefox.”

Here is the problem. Avira says that the toolbar is optional but clicking the Install later button only temporarily closes the popup alert. The popup window will continue to show whenever Windows is booted up and will only stop nagging you until the Avira SearchFree Toolbar is installed. After spending a couple of hours analyzing how the toolbar works, I discovered the solution on how to enable the WebGuard on Avira Personal WITHOUT installing the SearchFree (Ask.com) toolbar.


The first (and lame) method which I discovered is you need to disable the WebGuard from Configuration, then only followed by uninstalling the toolbar. If you uninstall the toolbar WITHOUT turning off the WebGuard first, Avira will start asking you to install it again after you restart Windows. This method works but you won’t have the WebGuard protection to keep you away from malicious websites.

From Avira Premium, I can see that the WebGuard still works without the SearchFree toolbar so I decided not to give up and continue analyzing. The logic of it is to somehow let Avira AntiVir Personal know that the SearchFree Toolbar by Ask.com is installed. After sniffing the registry a couple of times, I found the registry key to trick Avira in thinking that the Ask.com toolbar is installed.

Here is what you need to do:
1. Create a registry string value with the name value as tb and the value data as AVR-W1 under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\AskToolbar\Macro. If you don’t see AskToolbar and Macro, you will need to create it by right clicking and select New > Key.

Alternatively, you can just download the registry file below and run it on your computer. Click the Yes button when prompted if you want to continue.
http://www.raymond.cc/images/disable-avira-toolbar.zip

2. Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features. Use your mouse to select Avira AntiVir Personal – Free Antivirus from the list and click on the Change button.

Make sure that Modify is selected and click the Next button. You should now immediately see the “Install Components” window.

IF you are seeing the window that asks you to install the WebGuard with Avira SearchFree Toolbar like the screenshot below, that means you did something wrong at the first step.

Click Next > Finish > go through the Configuration Wizard and followed by a restart. You will see that the WebGuard is active on your Avira AntiVir Personal – Free Antivirus WITHOUT the unnecessary SearchFree/Ask Toolbar.

Christmas will be here in less than 24 hours, and to be honest I didn’t want to spend most of my time today and tomorrow on the computer doing research. This is time when I should be thankful for what I have, what I am and celebrate the birth of Jesus in a non commercialized way with my family. I also did not plan to have a Christmas giveaway because I am already doing that the whole year round. However seeing that I still have a couple of licenses left which must be activated by end of this year or else it would expire and gone to waste, it would be much better to just give it out in a first come first served basis rather than a lucky draw.

Here are the list of software licenses which some of the are computer games that are available for the giveaway:

26 x Emsisoft Anti-Malware 6.0 (1 year, 1PC)

6 x Revo Uninstaller Pro

5 x Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2012 (1 PC, 1 year) <- Sponsored by shashireddy

2 x Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 <- Sponsored by luffy

1 x Deus Ex: Human Revolution Game

Here are the simple rules and it works:

1. Only members belonging to Moderators, Stars, Experienced and Verified usergroup in forum can request.
2. Permitted members can only request ONCE.
3. To request, simply visit this thread in forum and post a reply.
4. Check the requests being made first before requesting so that you know you are requesting something that is still available. For example, there is only 1 Deus Ex: Human Revolution game and if someone has already requested it, you don’t need to request for that anymore.

Most of the time one Anti-Virus software can’t completely protect your computer from virus. However, having 2 or more anti-virus program in your computer will make your computer unstable. My customer uses HP computers and by default it comes with 60 days trial Norton Antivirus. When it expires, nearly every of my customers would immediately download and install the FREE version of AVG WITHOUT uninstalling the expired Norton Antivirus first. Few unlucky ones wasn’t able to boot in Windows after installing AVG. There is one case that can boot in to Windows but AVG can’t function properly.

When you’re infected by persistent virus like Brontok, you’d be frustrated if the installed Anti-Virus program on your computer is unable to clean it. So how to scan computer using more than 1 type of antivirus? Is the only solution to uninstall the current antivirus program and then install another one? Fortunately not, here’s how you can scan your computer with 4 types of Anti Virus program without installing them.


Multi AV Scanning Tool by David H. Lipman is a malware removal utility incorporating multiple command line scanners including McAfee, Sophos, Kaspersky and Trend engines.

To perform a scan using these vendor’s scanners choose the number on the menu corresponding to the Anti Virus scanner you wish to run. The scripts will automatically obtain the Anti Virus vendor’s files for you. You don’t need to have them already resident on your computer. After the files have been downloaded to your computer and have been made ready to use, you will get a prompt if you want to run the scanner or not. If you do want to perform a scan then click on “Yes“, if you do not want to perform a scan (maybe you want to perform the scan in SAFE MODE) choose “No“. If you choose No or ignore the prompt it will return you back to the main menu. An example prompt for the Sophos scanner is shown below.

If you choose to perform a scan then you will be prompted to see if you want to perform the scan of a particular folder or location. An example prompt for the Sophos scanner is shown below.

If you choose “No” then the AV scanner will proceed to perform a scan of all hard disks on the computer. If you choose “Yes” then you will be prompted to type in the path of the folder or the drive to be scanned. The scanner will then proceed to perform the scan of that location and all folders below it. If the drive or folder does not exist (for example a syntax error is made in typing the folder location) you will again be prompted to type in the path of the folder or the drive to be scanned.

Sophos, McAfee and Kaspersky uses the same method above to ask you which location you’d like to scan but for Trend, it will automatically obtain the Trend Micro Sysclean utility and the latest Trend Pattern File. After the files have been downloaded to your computer and they have been made ready to use, you will see the following GUI utility.

By clicking on the “Advanced” button you can choose to scan a specified folder or drive. If it is not chosen then Sysclean will scan all hard disks.

Here is how to run Multi AV Scanning tool in your computer.
1. Download Multi_AV.exe from the link at the end of this article.

2. Run Multi_AV.exe (You must use the default folder C:\AV-CLS)

3. Run StartMenu.BAT or double-click on ‘Start Menu‘ shortcut from C:\AV-CLS folder.

There are two modes of operation: Remove/Delete and Detect Only. The software defaults to the Remove/Delete mode which means that any files that are deemed to be infected will be automatically removed from the system and can which can not be cleaned. If you desire to use the Multi AV Scanning Tool just to detect and not delete malware, you can hit the letter “D” and place the software in a Detect Only mode of operation. Those files found to be infected by malware will be logged but not cleaned nor deleted from the system. These two modes of operation are only for the McAfee, Sophos and Kaspersky modules since the Trend Micro Sysclean utility has a GUI selection for detection with or without file deletion.

Included in the C:\AV-CLS folder is a file called killproc.txt and is used to shutdown or kill running processes prior to scanning the platform. There are two processes already in the text file. iexplore.exe (Internet Explorer) and firefox.exe (FireFox).

You can add more file names in the text file making sure the last line is a blank line. You can also bring up the killproc.txt text file by hitting the “E” key in Multi-AV menu.

Multi AV Scanning Tool website no longer accessible but it’s still a very good free multiple antivirus program that can be used to scan and remove viruses.

Note: The directory C:\AV-CLS is hard coded and should not be changed. Multi AV should be used to remove an infection from your computer. They are not a replacement for realtime antivirus protection but they are an effective tool to remove malware (viruses etc.) from an infected machine where antivirus software is disabled, out-of-date or even if it is not installed at all.

[ Download MultiAV ]

All of us know that we cannot count on one antivirus to 100% protect us from computer virus. Since one antivirus can’t protect us, installing two or more antivirus should offer better protection right? Well logically yes but technically no because antivirus software nowadays are so complex and they’d conflict with each other causing crashes and blue screens. If we’re talking about installing two antivirus 15 years ago on Windows 95, then it’s possible. I remembered running PC-Cillin and Norman back then and no problems at all.

The only way we can put multiple antivirus software on a computer is if we can disable the real-time protection, self-defense and only use it for on-demand scanning. Well if we wanted to scan a single file using on-demand scan, we could upload it to Virustotal and have it scan with 40 antivirus but the problem is Virustotal distributes the file to antivirus company. Trojan coders usually wouldn’t use Virustotal because obviously they don’t want their trojan to get detected.

I recently found a tool called Multi AV Scan developed by Gakh from HackHound that allows you to run on-demand scan using 10 types antivirus on your computer.


Multi AV Scan currently supports A-Squared, Avira AntiVir, BitDefender, ClamWin, DrWeb, Ikarus, McAfee, Solo, Sophos and VBA32. There are a few similar tools such as Multi AV Fixer, KIMS, ScanLix and Mini AV Scanner but they are all no longer in development except Multi AV Scan.

Multi AV Scan works but it’s a little buggy. You have to put the file that you want to scan in the same folder as MultiScan.exe or else the program will say Scanning the whole time without progress. Also if you’re using Avira AntiVir, you need to place Avira license key HBEDV.KEY (where you can get it for free here) file in \AVs\AntiVir\ folder. As for the updates, it takes quite a while to download and update all virus definition signatures. Another issue that I encounter is it takes 99% CPU usage during updating and scanning.

Do take note that Multi AV Scan is not meant to replace the antivirus installed on your computer that has real-time protection. The upcoming Multi AV Scan v1.6.2 will include 2 more antivirus which is Kapersky and VirusBuster. You can download Multi AV Scan from this thread in HackHound forum. There are 3 parts to download from RapidShare.

This week is indeed a software giveaway week. Started with Online Armor, then Mamutu and now USB Safely Remove. So far I’ve never seen a USB device managing software that is so advanced like USB Safely Remove. It is a neat and reliable replacement for the standard ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ tool with unique feature “Return Device Back!” and an ability to know what prevent a device from being stopped. The program saves time and extends abilities of active users of hot-plug devices (USB, SATA, FireWire, PCMCIA).

This program has tons of features such as a handy menu to stop devices, keyboard shortcuts to safe removal, autorun program on device connection or disconnection, ejecting memory cards rather than the card reader, hiding drives of empty card reader slots, command line to safe removal, Stopping via “disabling”, and the latest one that’s being added is Return Device Back!.

From August 19th – 25th, 2009, everyone can get a free license for version 4.1 of the award-winning program USB Safely Remove. You still have around 5 more days to get your free license. So hurry and get it while you still can!


To get your free USB Safely Remove v4.1 genuine registration code, just go to their promo page at http://safelyremove.com/giveawayweeka9.htm. Make sure you enter your full name (nicknames or just names or other alphabets are not accepted), a working email address and click the “I want the license” button. You should then see a message saying that you will get your license within 24 hours or earlier. For my case, I got it immediately in my Gmail. Finally, download the latest version of USB Safely Remove v4.1.5.806 setup file usbsafelyremovesetup_4-1-5.exe and install. Enter the registration name and registration code to license the program.

If you have an antivirus software that cannot auto scan the USB flash drive after plugging in to the computer, you can set a rule on Safely Remove Hardware to call up your AV to scan once it is plugged in. This can be found in Global Autorun. I also like the Stop Menu Hotkey Win+S. By pressing a hotkey I can safely remove the device.

My favorite feature for USB Safely Remove v4.1 is the Return Device Back! Normally after we’ve stopped the device but still did not unplug it, we’ll need to unplug and reinsert it back for Windows to mount the USB flash drive. With this new feature, we can easily get it back with a click of a button without trying to re-insert the USB device back to the USB port which is at the back of the computer case. So far I couldn’t find any other software that can do this. It’d be nice to have a hotkey to enable this feature.

It seemed like Crystal Rich, the company that develops USB Safely Remove will give out free licenses for USB Safely Remove every 9 months. First time was on February 2008 for v3.3, followed v4.0 on November 2008 and now on August 2009 for v4.1. The free USB Safely Remove registration code can only be used on the particular version and cannot be used on newer or even older versions of the program. So if you want to have the flexibility of upgrading or downgrading, then you’ll need to purchase a lifetime license that cost $20.

USB Safely Remove works on Windows 2000\XP\2003\Vista. It even works on my Windows 7. Thanks Crystal Rich for the generous giveaway!

The new Left 4 Dead 2 game has been officially released a few days ago! Well I have a very good friend that is addicted to the L4D game. Today I received a call from him asking me for a favor that is to purchase the L4D2 game for him using my credit card and then he will pay me back. A single game license cost $49.99 USD and there’s a four pack license that cost $149.99 USD. Since L4D2 is such a highly anticipated game, I’ve decided to purchase the 4 pack license and give the remaining 3 away on this blog!

About Left 4 Dead 2
Set in the zombie apocalypse, Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2) is the highly anticipated sequel to the award-winning Left 4 Dead, the #1 co-op game of 2008. This co-operative action horror FPS takes you and your friends through the cities, swamps and cemeteries of the Deep South, from Savannah to New Orleans across five expansive campaigns.

You’ll play as one of four new survivors armed with a wide and devastating array of classic and upgraded weapons. In addition to firearms, you’ll also get a chance to take out some aggression on infected with a variety of carnage-creating melee weapons, from chainsaws to axes and even the deadly frying pan. You’ll be putting these weapons to the test against (or playing as in Versus) three horrific and formidable new Special Infected. You’ll also encounter five new “uncommon” common infected, including the terrifying Mudmen.

Continue reading on how to participate in this L4D2 game giveaway…


There are cheaters in every giveaway and I want this L4D2 game to go to someone that is a gamer and wants to play this game very badly. Not to someone that just wants it because it’s free so he can resell it or stop playing after a week because he/she is not interested in playing games. As you can see at the screenshot below, my friend’s STEAM account has 3 Left 4 Dead 2 as gifts yet to be given away.

So to be eligible for the draw, you need to fulfill 2 requirements:

1. You must be a subscriber of Raymond.CC newsletter
2. Have a Steam account with Left 4 Dead 1 game in your account.

If you fulfill both requirements, leave a comment together with your Steam account name. If possible, take a screenshot of your STEAM “My games” tab as a proof that your STEAM account has L4D1, upload it to www.imageshack.us and post the link to the comment box.

To install Left 4 Dead 2, you will need to download 7GB of files. This contest will close 48 hours from now and the 3 lucky winners will be announced at this page.

I always think that PC Tools products such as Spyware Doctor, ThreatFire, Privacy Guardian and etc has a lot of potential. Their software are low in system resource usage, easy to use and comes in nice graphical user interface. Their most popular product Spyware Doctor which received many many awards has recently gone through a major update from v5.5 to v6. Although the interface for Spyware Doctor v6 with AntiVirus still looks the same as v5.5, but it has a lot of improvements to protect your computer from known/unknown spyware and virus.

The key enhancements for the latest Spyware Doctor 6 are latest protection from unknown threats with Behavior Guard, improved detection capabilities, swift clean-up for heavily infected computers and improved Hacker Defense (for Windows Vista) and many other minor fixes and updates.

There are a few options if you’d like to try out the latest Spyware Doctor. First is to download and install the trial version which offers time unlimited real-time protection (free spyware blocking), but does not remove threats detected during on-demand scans. Secondly you can download Spyware Doctor 6 Starter Edition offered by VNU. The last time I compared it with the paid version, the Intelli-Signatures definition for starter edition only covers about 30% of the full definition. Or, you can continue reading on how to obtain 1 year genuine license key for the latest Spyware Doctor with Antivirus 6 AND Privacy Guardian 4.1 as well!



To get your free Spyware Doctor 6 with Antivirus and Privacy Guardian 4.1 legitimate genuine license key, just follow the few simple steps below.

1. Go to this page, click on any of the links that will bring you to http://www.pctools.com/wbc/. You must access PC Tools registration page via WestPac site, as PC Tools checks for referrer.

2. You should see 3 PC Tools product (Spyware Doctor with Antivirus, Privacy Guardian and PC Tools Firewall Plus) that is checked by default. Scroll down, enter your first name, last name, email, password and click the Signup button. Make sure that you’re entering a working email address because the verification link and license key code will be sent there.

3. Once you see the message “Westpac Banking Corporation – Special Offer! Thank you – verification email sent.”, check the email address that you’ve entered at step 2. Open the email from PC Tools Account Activation (sales@pctools.com) with the subject “Please verify your PC Tools email address”‏. Click the link that says “To activate your account please click here”.

4. A web page will open containing your license name and license code for Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus, Privacy Guardian and PC Tools Firewall Plus. Note down the license name and license code.

5. Download the software that you want to install.
Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 6: http://www.pctools.com/mirror/sdasetup.exe
Privacy Guardian 4.1: http://www.pctools.com/mirror/pginstall.exe
PC Tools Firewall Plus 4: http://www.pctools.com/mirror/fwinstall.exe

6. After installation, run the software and click the Register button. Enter the license name and license key. Voila! FREE subscription for a year!

You might notice that I did not mention much about PC Tools Firewall Plus. This is because this product is already offered as free or charge for everyone and you don’t need any special promotion to get the license key code. Get it fast before this great offer expires! Thanks to DSP8000 and ozziemozzie for sharing this tip with all of us!

P/S: So bloggers and webmasters, go ahead and spread the word like you always do and PLEASE don’t forget to LINK BACK to this original article. We both know that you got it from here first.

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 (contact@pcpandora.com) 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.