Raymond.CC Blog

Category: Computer

  • Measure Time Taken to Complete a Batch File or Command Line Execution • Raymond.CC

    I am in the midst of planning for an updated and more accurate antivirus, internet security, total security performance test and one of the test features on measuring the amount of time taken to convert media files and also file compression. There are media converters which shows the total amount of time taken to convert the media files but it only shows second. I wanted a more accurate benchmark time which shows even up to milliseconds but there I couldn’t seem to find any. Finally I figured that I will have to resort to a slightly more sophisticated method in measuring the time taken to complete a command line or batch file execution.

    So far I have found 2 command line tools that can accurately measure program execution time and also a good old batch command. Basically we will need to run the batch file or command line after the application that is used to measure the time.


    The first tool I found is called ptime for Windows. ptime will run the specified command and measure the execution time (run time) in seconds, accurate to 5 millisecond or better. It is an automatic process timer, or program timer. One usage example is if you want to measure how long it takes to run this command “dir C:/s”, then you should run ptime as “ptime dir c: /s“. Once the dir command has been finished executing, you will see “Execution time: X.XXX s”.

    Another similar tool to ptime is called Ultra Precision Command Timer (UPCT) which also works exactly the same as ptime. UPCT can even tell you the measurement in microseconds and seconds. Both ptime and UPCT is very old but it still works on Windows 7.

    ultra precision command timer ptime

    The more old school way without using any third party tool is to create a batch file and use the %Time% variable to append them to the result file. For example:

    ECHO Start Measure %Time% >> timer.txt
    YOUR COMMAND GOES HERE
    ECHO Stop Measure %Time% >> timer.txt

    After running the batch file, you will get a text file called timer.txt showing the date and time before and after running the command line or batch file. Calculate the difference and you have the amount of the time taken to complete the process.

    Measure Batch File Timer

    These methods will only work on command line application and not on Windows application with graphical user interface. There in fact another one called Gammadyne’s Timer which belongs to the same category as ptime and upct but for some weird reason it is not capturing the command line parameters. If you want to test it out, you can download it from here.

    [ Download ptime | Ultra Precision Command Timer ]

    Related posts:

  • Free Batch Thumbnail Creator and JPG Picture Resizer with Command Line Support
  • Sending Email Using Command Line Useful for Downtime Alert Notification
  • Find Out the Command Line Location When Windows Opens a Window
  • Find Hidden Command Line Silent Switches for Setup Files
  • Embed Command Prompt in Explorer to Easily Run Batch or DOS Tools

  • Instantly Get a FREE 6 Months Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 License Key by YuvaYantra • Raymond.CC

    The last time I’ve posted about a tip that Kaspersky India is giving out free 6 months Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 license but unfortunately some people didn’t manage to get it. I requested 3 license and I got them all. Since the key generation by Kaspersky India was done manually and not automatically, I believe Kaspersky India would missed some requests. If until today you still didn’t get the 6 months license, here is another chance for users in India (or other country as well if you know how) to get free Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 license valid for 6 months.

    This tip which I am about to share with you all on getting a 6 months Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 license for free by YuvaYantra is not something new since many site has already posted this trick. However, if you’re not from India and you try to access the page, you’ll get a page saying “This site is only for Indian Subscribers”.
    YuvaYantra This Site is only for indian subscribers
    Nowadays a lot offer pages especially ESET are doing an IP check to make sure that the offer is only available to the eligible people. Even if you’re not in India, bypassing the IP restriction is not difficult if you’ve read my previous articles on using open proxy. It took me less than 10 minutes to get a free KAV 2009 license from YuvaYantra even though I am not from India.


    I believe Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 needs no introduction if this is not your first visit here. Kaspersky antivirus is my first choice of antivirus program that I’d use. Many readers who came here has switched from other antivirus such as Trend to Kaspersky and they are satisfied with it. Here are the steps for Indians to get your free Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 key valid for 6 months:

    1. Go to YuvaYantra registration page: http://www.yuvayantra.com/RegistrationForm.aspx

    2. Enter your first name, last name, email, password that contains 8-15 characters with a combination of at least one word and letter, landline phone number, secret question, secret answer, word verification, check I accept and click Submit button.

    3. If the registration is successful, you should see a page that is telling you that you are now a member of YuvaYantra. Click the blue colored “Get it here” button.
    FREE Kaspersky for YuvaYantra

    4. Then click another “Get it here” button that looks like the image below.
    FREE Kaspersky key

    5. Now there are 4 steps that you need to go through to get your free Kaspersky key. Click “Get your FREE License now!”
    free kaspersky key

    6. Click Confirm at step 2.

    7. Click I agree at step 3.

    8. Voila! The FREE Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 16-digit activation code appears. You can activate the code via Kaspersky online activation server or from Kaspersky program itself if you’ve already got it installed on your computer.
    FREE KAV key

    This offer is meant for Indian users only and using an Indian open proxy to get the Kaspersky key is actually wrong.

    For educational purposes: You can find India proxies at AliveProxy, XROXY, and Rosinstrument(India proxies are marked with the country code IN). Copy all the India proxy ip address with port and paste them to an online proxy checker. The proxy checker will tell you which India proxy is currently good and working. There are a few types of proxy, HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS 4/SOCKS 5. To use the proxy on your web browser, you’ll need to use HTTP or HTTPS proxy. As for SOCKS proxy, you can use them with Proxifier.

    leoflix also suggested that you can use online web proxy such as http://www.surfhappy.info/ to get in YuvaYantra. I managed to get in via SurfHappy but was unable to sign up.

  • How to Fully Defrag System Partition with Kaspersky Installed • Raymond.CC

    Quite long ago I read a post in forum that a user’s hard drive becomes fragmented whenever he finished a full scan. From a logical point of view, this is possible because antivirus scans archive files and to do that, the antivirus would have to extract the files to the computer. I did a full research on all major brands of antivirus by placing a huge 2GB ZIP file with thousands of files in it and then did a full scan but couldn’t replicate the problem as there were no major fragmentation.

    However I noticed another weird behavior with Kaspersky which is no matter how many times I used Defraggler to defrag the system partition, it will always end up with fragmented files even right after finishing a full disk defragmentation. Other antivirus software have no such problems and normally the analysis results shows 0 fragmented files after finished defragging. I managed to find out what is the cause of this and also how to fully defrag a computer with Kaspersky installed.


    The reason for this behavior is Kaspersky has a self-defense module where it prevents any software from accessing Kaspersky files or registry. When you defrag your hard drive with the Kaspersky self-defense module enabled, the defrag application cannot access the Kaspersky folder and skips it from being defragged. For people that wants to squeeze the last ounce of performance on their computer, they will want to defrag Kaspersky too and hopefully it will perform better and faster.

    Fortunately it is easy to defrag Kaspersky. First you need to disable Kaspersky Self-Defense by right clicking on the Kaspersky icon at the system tray and select Settings. Click on Options at the left pane and at the right pane, uncheck “Enable Self-Defense“. Click OK to close the Settings window. You can keep Kaspersky process running and it is not necessary to terminate Kaspersky’s process by exiting it from the system tray.

    Disable Kaspersky Self-Defense

    Now you can run Defraggler or any disk defragmentation tool of your choice to fully defrag your hard drive including Kaspersky. Make sure you turn on the Self-Defense option after defrag for better computer protection. Do note that whenever Kaspersky databases is updated, there will be fragmentation again.

    Defrag Kaspersky

    The self-defense module is meant to protect itself from being modified or controlled by unauthorized third party application such as virus but it can be annoying as well. One of such annoyance is the inability to remote control the computer when Kaspersky interface or popup is shown.

    Related posts:

  • RegDefrag: Does It Really Defrag Windows Registry Entries?
  • Defrag Individual Files With FREE Defraggler
  • Download Latest Kaspersky Security Suite CBE 2009
  • Unable to Access or Configure Kaspersky Remotely using TeamViewer, VNC, NetMeeting, Remote Desktop, CrossLoop
  • Kaspersky Offers FREE Tool to Scan and Remove Virus

  • Auto Start Portable Applications from USB stick with AutoRunnerX

    The amount of Windows applications that don’t need to be installed on your computer is now pretty sizable and growing. Using portable software has a number of advantages and apart from obviously being able to take the software wherever you go, another one is the fact that not installing the software helps keep your registry and system a bit cleaner. The fact that USB sticks and portable hard drives are widely available and the sticks are now ridiculously cheap, more and more users are opting to run portable applications.

    The Autorun feature available to USB storage devices has been the subject of virus attacks in recent years, and now on many machines it will be disabled. This can be useful for starting programs up automatically when you plug in the device and is something a lot of users find useful. So without the Windows Autorun, auto opening files or programs on the USB drive is now a manual operation. As usual though, there’s a utility around to do the job.


    AutoRunnerX is a freeware utility that can replace the Autorun on your PC and start a single, or multiple Programs, applications or Files from a USB flash drive or portable hard disk when it is inserted. The program actually comes with two different flavours, the first is AutoRunnerX which requires full administrator rights and affects all users. The second is AutoRunnerU which doesn’t require administrator rights and can be used and configured on a per user basis so you need to choose which version is best for your system. Right click the file and ‘Run as Administrator’. During install you can ignore the license key button if the program is being used privately, and a reboot will be needed on completion.

    AutoRunnerX runs quietly in the background and is very light on resources using only around 1.3MB of memory. To configure the program, you can either go through the start menu or there is an option added to Control Panel:

    The configuration and setup of AutorunerX is really simple with not too many options likely to confuse anyone. I will mention one thing and that is the original language for this program is German and the translation although understandable, is far from perfect so bear that in mind.

    Auto Start Portable Applications from USB Stick with AutoRunnerX

    The configuration window only has a few buttons and a window listing what is to be started with a USB drives insertion. There is already a default option for Challenger Encryption which is another piece of software by the developer. The buttons for ‘Add’, ‘Delete’ and ‘Edit’ pretty much describe themselves, and the ‘Options’ button provides a few on/off tick boxes for how the program functions.

    Auto Start Portable Applications from USB Stick with AutoRunnerX

    As the translation in here is a bit sketchy, it’s probably worth going quickly over most of the options .

    Always all available objects start – Choose whether all of the objects in the list are to be started on autorun. If unticked, only the first item in the list will start.
    Drive link to desktop – Place a shortcut icon for the drive on the desktop while it’s inserted.
    Drive with Explorer open – Automatically open the drive in an Explorer window.
    Start picture – Opens a small blue window which tells you what the program is currently executing.
    Checksum function – I believe this is supposed to verify the checksum of the files in the list against their original checksum when you created the autostart objects. It didn’t seem to do anything for me but you may have better luck.

    Auto Start Portable Applications from USB Stick with AutoRunnerX

    Clicking on the ‘Add’ button will offer a choice of adding a file or folder. Simply select what you want, this can be an executable, text file, document, picture etc. The next window allows for opening / executing the file, adding a shortcut to it on the desktop and adding the file into the Window ‘Send To’ menu. The ‘Details’ button allows for a couple of more advanced functions such as arguments for an executable and altering the ‘Start in’ folder.

    If you have one or several files or programs on your USB drive which you want to be opened when it’s inserted, minor language issues aside, AutoRunnerX is worth a look.

    Compatible with Windows 2000 – Win 7 32 and 64bit

    Website and Downloads

  • Execute any File When Application Crashed or Stopped Running (Useful for SRCDS) • Raymond.CC

    I have been managing a Counter-Strike: Source server for nearly a year and believe me, it is a very sensitive and buggy server to maintain. Buggy in the sense that it crashes nearly everyday especially when you are running intensive mods such as ZombieMod or Garry’s Mod. Moreover there are hundreds of third party plugins for SourceMod and EventScripts which makes it even more unstable because of incompatibility problems. It is not easy and time consuming to debug and find out what is causing the crash. So it is important to be able to auto restart the server when the srcds crashes.

    If you are running a CSS server on linux, the server itself already supports auto restarting srcds when crash. However on Windows, you can do it via a batch file. It works but it has its problems in doing that which I’ll explain further.


    This is the batch file that you need to run to keep srcds.exe open by automatically running when crashed or closed.

    @echo off
    cls
    echo Protecting srcds from crashes...
    echo If you want to close srcds and this script, close the srcds window and type Y depending on your language followed by Enter.
    title srcds.com Watchdog
    :srcds
    echo (%time%) srcds started.
    start /wait srcds.exe -console -game cstrike +map de_dust +maxplayers 16
    echo (%time%) WARNING: srcds closed or crashed, restarting.
    goto srcds

    The command above will monitor for srcds.exe and immediately auto runs the command line if it’s not running. Well Valve recommends that we should wait for at least 10 seconds before restarting so that there is enough time for the memory to clear up. I’ve used this batch and noticed that there were a few times the server crashes, restart, crashes again and restart. Previously I’ve written an article that contains a couple of free tools that can auto rerun program when closed but this time I needed something different.

    I was looking for a free, small, simple and portable tool that can monitor for a specific process and then run a “different” file when it detects a crash. I found Restart on Crash which has been working perfectly ever since I started using it. Restart on Crash is an monitoring tool that will watch the applications that you specify and automatically relaunch any program that hangs or crashes. You can add any number of applications to monitor, enable/disable them individually and edit the command line that will be used to restart an application. Restart on Crash doesn’t require installation and stores all it’s configuration data in a “settings.ini” file in the program’s folder, so it’s portable. It should be compatible with most NT-based Windows versions.

    Basically the below image is the settings for the srcds server. It monitors srcds.exe and when it isn’t running, a run.bat file will be executed.
    Restart on Crash

    The more interesting part is the run.bat which is executed when the program detected that srcds.exe is not running. Since it is a batch file, I can program it to run multiple commands.
    run program when crash
    The first command shows that I ping localhost 3 times. This command is being used as a feature to wait for 3 seconds before going to the second command. The second command from the batch file is to execute CleanMem which is a tool to clean process and file cache to recover even more memory and performance. Then again pause for 10 seconds before running srcds.exe with the full command line. This method has been working perfectly for weeks already and I didn’t need any other more advanced crash recovery software such as Firedaemon that cost money.

    [ Download Restart on Crash ]

    Related posts:

  • Disable Program Has Stopped Working Error Dialog in Windows Server 2008
  • Stop Virus from Running Automatically When you Execute Files
  • Keep Application Running by Automatically ReRun When Closed
  • Prevent, Cancel and Abort a Windows System Shutdown or Restart when Application is Running
  • Restoring running programs missing from Windows Tray when Explorer.exe CRASH!

  • Win a FREE Custom Logo Design + 5 Video Tutorials Account from Professional Designer Gary Simon • Raymond.CC

    A year ago this website design was using a dark colored theme. It was the second theme and I chose black because it represents mysteriousness. Then I had plans to change the WordPress theme to match the forum skin. I had everything done except for one more thing which is a nice professional logo. If you do a search in Google on “logo design” or any other similar keywords, you’ll find so many companies or individuals trying to convince you to buy their their work. Fortunately I found Gary Simon, a talented professional logo designer who has been designing websites, logos, business cards, icon sets and etc through another famous Malaysian blogger named LiewCF. One custom logo design cost $99.95.

    Logo Design by Gary Simon

    Other than designing logos, you can now see and learn how to design websites & logos from Gary Simon video tutorials. It has over 8 hours worth of video tutorials featuring 3 full website design projects and 5 full logo design projects covering from start to finish in Adobe Photoshop. You get to follow along and don’t miss a single step. Video tutorials is one of the fastest way to learn something because you can always pause, rewind and even slow down the playback speed.

    Gary Simon is really nice and kind to offer 1 logo design that normally cost $99.95 and 5 free accounts to his video tutorials (now cost $49.95 per account). Interested? Continue reading to find out how you can win one for yourself.


    I’ve decided to make this giveaway a little different this time. Since this is about logo and web designing, you should already have a website. To participate, all you have to do is to write a short review of this blog site (Raymond.CC Blog) and post it on your website. Once you’ve done that, paste the URL of the review to the comment box located at the end of this article and let me know if you’d like to take part in the custom logo design or video tutorial account. This contest will be open for a week and winners will be announced on 19th January 2009.

    If you’re being selected as the winner for Logo Design, I will give Gary your email address and he will email you with a login to his custom backend system. You can then login and fill out a form with details about the logo you want Gary to design.

    As for the selected winner of video tutorial, you’ll get to login to the members area to either download the videos organized into downloadable sections or watching them through streaming Flash. All videos are in full 1024×764 or 1024×640 resolution. You do not need to worry about the quality because it is very crisp and clear! I know nothing about designing logos and websites using Adobe Photoshop but I’ve learned so much from the video tutorials.
    Web and logo designing video tutorials

    It was REALLY tempting to keep the logo design offer to myself but.. oh well, I might as well give it away and make one more person happy. By the way, while waiting for the results you can visit Gary’s blog where he offer free video tutorials for random stuff like how to design favicon, how to design a douchebag (no id) and more.

    [ Visit Gary Simon | Video Tutorials @ how.todesignyour.com ]

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  • Networking Test Tool – using Microsoft tools to help you • Raymond.CC

    Recently, I was tasked with the predicament of helping someone out over email who was suffering from network issues. He wasn’t able to connect to the internet consistently, but did get his ISP working the way he was hoping to long enough to get an email off to me. As a student who hasn’t seen everything by any stretch of the imagination, I decided that I would try sending him a batch file that might help him a little, to tell him when his internet was down or not. I’ve never been one exceedingly good at programming, but I do some as a hobby on the side, in C# and with scripts with Windows and with Linux. And anyone who knows programming knows C# is a rather ironic choice for a Linux user: because for the most part, it’s tied to the Windows operating system, unless you run MONO which is an implementation of .NET for Linux. Regardless, I did manage to make that worked as planned, and then I proceeded to add a few other features for myself for other people to take advantage of it. And today I’m going to share with you the file that I proceeded to create.

    While a BAT/Batch file truly is nothing special to create, since all it is, is simply using commands found inside Windows or command line options inside your own system. To those that hate command line/CMD based work, a batch file makes it extremely simple and gives you a foolproof way of doing stuff, from deleting to copying to formatting and helping your connection. While before I went to Linux, I didn’t do much in the way of batch files, ever since I switched over about three years ago today, I’ve been experimenting with the finer points of Windows and Linux. This is one of the many things that has resulted from experimenting.

    As much as I’d like to share the source, and let you learn from what I’m doing, you have to download the file to see how it works, since WordPress strips away some of the important tags that help make it work. This is an extremely basic tool but I’m finding I’m leaving copies of it at computers that have connectivity issues, and it helps the users get their connections working without nagging me, hence why I’m sharing it here for you, perhaps it can be of some help to some users here. If you’d like to edit it, by all means, but as the comments say, please email me what you change, so I can add to it and learn from the rest of you. Like I said, I’m no expert… but I’m more then willing to learn, and despite the fact that this is a basic batch file you could edit using Notepad/Notepad++ or whatever you choose, it can still be a handy little tool at times… a front end for those Windows command line tools for those that don’t know how to use them.

    – Network Test Tool – *original
    – Network Test Tool 2.0 – *vdyll’s revisions to the tool

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  • WinPatrol Revisited – Powerful HIPS with a Bite • Raymond.CC

    I’m aware that while there are a lot of people glad to see me writing about Linux, I must say that it’s not the only operating system I use. And if you read my security suggestions, along side common sense, I’ve also recommended that people run an anti-virus and keep their patches up to date, along with an HIPS, the one of choice I have is WinPatrol.

    I’ve used it’s paid version for a long time, and I suppose that makes me very biased, as it’s one of the first things I install on a Windows operating system, and it’s the one thing that remains constant so long as I use Windows. I’ve recommended it to several people as well who need a quick free tuneup. But before I rave too much about it, let me get into it’s features.

    • Startup Programs – Like it’s name suggests, is used to see what programs are in the Startup, but works in tandem with the Delayed Start tab
    • Delayed Start – If you have something in the Startup that you must have launched, but takes a lot of resources, you can delay it from anywhere from 10 seconds to 61 minutes after boot (give or take), to make your boot ups faster
    • ActiveX – Provides insight into what’s adding itself to IE via ActiveX and can also tell you want is already installed, great for watching your security
    • IE Helpers – Like ActiveX, tells you about what’s loaded into IE at the time, great for watching out for drive by downloads
    • Scheduled Tasks – Tells you what is in Windows Task Scheduler, will help to troubleshoot anything going wrong
    • Services – Tells you the services that are enabled and running at the moment, as well as the disabled ones
    • Active Tasks – Much like the task manager built into Windows
    • Cookies – Lists the cookies inside your computer and can actively delete them
    • A File Extension watcher, to see if something changes that .TXT from Notepad to Notepad++
    • A list of hidden files on your computer, to watch for any hidden malware
    • A list of recent files to help with malware clean up, including a “Delete on Reboot” option
    • With the Plus subscription, you also get easy to understand definitions of what something is and what it could be

    Winpatrol

    It is easily one of the best tools I’ve paid for, and while $30 is expensive, considering that the license is a lifetime one, and can be installed as many or as little computers as you own, it is one of the best deals in terms of computer software. I highly recommend it for the power user or the users that don’t know very much about computers. With the ability to kill and delete a file on reboot, it really deserves a place in everyone’s toolkit. WinPatrol remains to this day on all my computer, due to the shear amount of power it allows me to have over my computer. While I admit, there are other tools that do other portions of this program, the fact that this is an all-in-one solution that weighs in at less then 2 mb, there’s no reason not to run this on a Netbook, a Laptop, or even a top-of-the-line gaming PC. I have no issues at all with this program, and I actually use the portable version in a USB drive to help others out. It supports all the way back to Windows 98, upwards and including Windows 7 64 bit. It’s one of those programs you’ve got to try to believe how amazing it is.

    And while the free version is amazing in itself, Bill Pytlovany, (the developer of WinPatrol) has given me three licenses to give away to three random commenters on this post for the paid version. On Sunday, Midnight Atlantic Daylight Time, I’ll announce the winners on this post, who will then receive an email from Bill Pytlovany with their licenses. The rules are very simple:

    Make sure you’re signed up for the newsletter
    Comment on this post about why you’d like to receive a license, doesn’t have to be long.

    That’s it, the winners will be decided via Random.org, best of luck to all who enter!

    UPDATE: Congrats to our winners, they have been decided, they should be receiving their emails and licenses for WinPatrol Pro soon!

    Congratulations to Leandro, Cesar Jimenez, and Andre, our winners!

    Related posts:

  • Review on WinPatrol – A Tool That Sniff Out Malicious Mysteryware
  • OSAM a Powerful and Reliable Autorun Manager with Online Malware Scanner
  • Test the Effectiveness of Your Antivirus, Firewall and HIPS Software
  • GMER is a Powerful Rootkit Detector and Remover
  • FREE Portable and Powerful AVZ Anti-Viral Toolkit from Kaspersky

  • Editing the HOSTS file under Linux or Windows • Raymond.CC

    In Windows and in Linux, as well as Macintosh, there is something called the HOSTS file, used in an operating system to map hostnames to IP addresses. If left blank by default, it does the automapping for us and generally goes off without a hitch, but depending on how you configure it, it can be used to block ads, to block certain sites, or to redirect us as we search the web. There are many uses for it, and none of them can be said to be foolish. For example, in my HOSTS file under Windows 7, I’m blocking the Windows Live Messenger ads that show up on the bottom of my instant messenger as you can see on the right. For me the ads were enough of an annoyance that I decided to block them outright, and though trial and error, it was possible to find which hosts were providing the ads to WLM. In this case, Wireshark is a godsend, but I’ll touch on it in another post later. If you wish to block or redirect sites, the hosts file is simply the best way to do it.

    To modify the HOSTS file in Windows XP though to 7, you can simply open up Notepad and direct your Open dialog to:

    C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

    An important thing to note is to run Notepad as an administrator in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

    To modify the HOSTS file in most Linux distros and Mac OS X, you must open up a terminal and open the HOSTS file as a root user. In the case of Ubuntu and other sudo-based distros, the command would be:

    sudo nameoftexteditor /etc/hosts

    where you put in the name of the text editor you wish to use. But for Salix and root/user based distros, ‘su’ is used, so the command is instead,

    su
    nameoftexteditor/etc/hosts

    To block a site, simply type 0.0.0.0 sitename or if you’d rather redirect it, you can put in a different IP address in before it, like you can see below.


    Note: IP provided for OneMoreLevel.com does not exist at present

    The HOSTS file is a very powerful and valuable tool to learn and use, as I use it for force myself to be productive rather then game all the time during school time. Once home, however, that’s quite the different story. I hope this helped some people in resolving what a HOSTS file does and how to use it.

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  • About Windows HOSTS File and How To Make Use Of It
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  • A Fast Way to Annoy and Flood Your Contacts in MSN or Yahoo Messenger • Raymond.CC

    Recently one of my very old friend who is not so good in computers ask me to help him check his computer and router connection because very often he’d get a whole line of online alert flooding the right side of his screen. He also told me that this only happens only one of his contact and not other people.

    When he told me this, I immediately remembered that this is an old trick that people use to annoy everyone in his contacts by changing the status as Appear Offline and then back to Online again. If you do it correctly, your friend’s screen would look something like the image below.

    MSN Flood

    That is the manual way of doing it. I searched in the Internet and found quite a lot of tools that can automate this process.


    Buddy Annoyer is a small program (only 74KB in size) that will allow you to go online/off-line at your own selectable speed. All you need to do is to sign in to your Windows Live Messenger or Yahoo Messenger first, then run Buddy Annoyer, select which instant messenger you’re using and click the big “Enable” button. The help button mentioned that this tool uses 32-Bit API, so I am not sure if it will work in 64-Bit Windows. There is a limit to changing your status in MSN. If you keep Buddy Annoyer enabled for a while, you’ll get a popup that says “Your status could not be changed. Please try again later.”

    Download Buddy Annoyer

    If you search the term “buddy annoyer” in Google, you’ll find that there are many other similar tools such as Y! Buddy Annoyer, Voodowares Buddy Annoyer, Buddy Annoyer 3x, SevdaBoy Y! Buddy Annoyer 2.0, and etc… I have not tested others so I am not sure if they are safe to use or not.

    The best way to protect yourself against this type of annoyances is either block the contact that is doing that or simply disable “Display alerts when contacts come online” at Tools > Options > Alerts and Sounds.

    I’ve scanned Buddy Annoyer with VirusTotal (36 types of antivirus) and none of the antivirus detected it as threat. IF one day it is detected as a malware, I won’t be surprised at all because this tool is used to prank and annoy your contacts in Windows Live Messenger or Yahoo Messenger. To be on the safe side, I’ve submitted Buddy Annoyer to ThreatExpert for analysis and it didn’t detect any suspicious activity.

    Just a word of advice: this might be a fun tool to annoy the crap out of your friends but it is also a very fast way to loose a lot of friends. If you want to take revenge on the person that flooded you with the alert in the first place, you can put all your contacts in block list except that person that you want to flood. By putting all your “real” friends in block list, they can’t see you online, so they won’t be flooded by this annoying alert.

    [ Download Buddy Annoyer ]

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  • Restore Internet Connection by Repairing Winsock and TCP • Raymond.CC

    Ever uninstalled a program that spitefully took your Internet connection with it? Ever run an antispyware program and end up with sporadic Web access? There are times that when you remove network related software, Adware or after registry clean-up, your network connection no longer works.

    Here’s a LAST option if you’ve tried all ways to fix the internet connectivity issue. It has worked for many people and of course, it doesn’t necessarily means that it will 100% fix the problem. But it’s worth a try…


    WinSock XP Fix will offer a last option if your Internet connectivity has been corrupted due to removed or invalid registry entries. It can often cure the problem of lost connections after the removal of Adware components or improper uninstall of firewall applications or other tools that modify the XP network and Winsock settings.
    Repair Winsock and TCP

    It can create a registry backup of your current settings, so it is fairly safe to use. Winsock XP Fix has been tested on a test machine that was having a Winsock problem due to some Adware removal, and after running the utility and rebooting, the connectivity was restored.

    Below are the steps of what Winsock XP Fix does in case you’re wondering what will happen when you run the tool.

    1.) Detect your current Operating System
    2.) Release the IP address, taking you “Offline”
    3.) Reset the TCP stack using Netsh.exe (Windows XP only)
    4.) Delete the current Registry TCP and Winsock Values
    5.) Import new “Working” Registry Values
    6.) Backup any Current “Hosts” file
    7.) Replace the “Hosts” file with a default one
    8.) Reboot the Computer

    A great tool to carry around with you. Unfortunately Winsock XP Fix is not actively supported or developed. Even the official website is no longer available. This tool was last updated on Nov 07, 2003 but it still works on today’s problem. Remember, ALWAYS use the “ReG-Backup” before clicking the “Fix” button so you can restore back when it doesn’t work.

    [ Download Winsock XP Fix ]

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  • Remove the limit on TCP connection attempts

  • Remove the limit on TCP connection attempts • Raymond.CC

    Windws XP SP2 introduces a few new twists to TCP/IP in order to babysit users and “reduce the threat” of worms spreading fast without control. In one such attempt, the devs seem to have limited the number of possible TCP connection attempts per second to 10 (from unlimited in SP1). This argumentative feature can possibly affect server and P2P programs that need to open many outbound connections at the same time.

    My download and upload speed on Torrent and P2P has slowed down tremendously after updating to Windows XP Service Pack 2.
    The file TCPIP.SYS needs to be modified in order to have more TCP connections.
    Unfortunately there exists no REG-key which could easily be set (would be so nice and easy, right? *smile*). The file TCPIP.SYS in the directory C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS and C:\WINDOWS\SERVICEPACKFILES\I386 has to be changed (system dependend eventually in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DLLCACHE, too).
    Markus Goslar from LvlLord has created a patch called Event ID 4226 Patcher (4226 fix).
    It automatically patches your TCPIP.SYS to allow TCP connection from 10 to 50 by default. You can specify the amount of TCP connection attempts you want as well.

    [ Download EventID 4226 Patcher Version 2.23d (english) ]

    To restore your TCP connection attempts if you’ve patched your TCPIP.SYS, just run the patcher again, and it will prompt you if you’d like to restore your TCP connection to 10.
    Event ID 4226 Patcher (4226 fix)

  • Raymond.CC 2 Years Anniversary is NEAR! • Raymond.CC

    Time passes by really fast. Two years ago(October 3rd, 2005) I simply installed WordPress just for testing purposes. On October 11th, 2005, that’s the first post I’ve written for Raymond.CC Blog about portable email client freeware. Since then, it has slowly grown into a blog site that is visited by more than 25,000 people daily! The main reason that kept me going and writing about useful articles every day is the people who appreciates what I write and also the support I get from new friends I make on the Internet. Sometimes I even receive a short “thank you” email thanking me about how my article has helped him in solving his computer problems.

    Honestly, I used to be a person who never willing to share what I know about computers. That is because my job is computer related and if someone know what I know, he can take over my job. I was wrong. Learning about computers is a never ending journey and it is advancing at a very fast pace. It doesn’t mean I’ll know what you know… I do consult my friends and colleagues about things that I don’t understand and we learn from each other.

    As an appreciation to all my readers, I will be offering two type of prizes but only 1 lucky winner will win the one of it. As for the next prize, I will be announcing it when the time comes. Trust me, the next prize is going to be HUGE! Huge not in the form of a car or house but it’s something meaningful and will help hundreds and hopefully thousands of people a month!


    So the prize that the lucky winner will win is again, a FREE 1 Year RapidShare Premium account. The reason why I am always promoting and again giving away RapidShare Premium account is because I personally felt that it’s better than Torrent. I can’t remember when was the last time I used torrent to download files… Rapidshare is better than torrent because:

    1. Full download speed without considering the amount of seeders
    2. Don’t need to maintain ratio and just leech
    3. You can find a lot of files in RapidShare with a simple google command
    4. Don’t need to trade or look out for private torrent signup openings
    5. You can host files as long as your rapidshare premium account is active

    Here’s the important part on how to win the 1 Year Free RapidShare Premium account. All you need to do is SUBSCRIBE to Raymond.CC’s daily article. So subscribe now and get daily computer articles delivered to your email address. Rest assured that your email will NOT be shared nor sold to anyone.
    Win FREE Rapidshare Premium account

    It’s very easy to subscribe. You can either enter your email at the “Subscribe” box and click the Subscribe Me button on the right hand side of this page or you can also do the same on this page.

    If you’re already subscribed, you already stand a chance to win the FREE 1 year rapidshare premium account.

    Thanks guys and girls for all your support. I will continue to do my best to share my knowledge with all of you. CHEERS!

    P/S: Hopefully the other HUGE prize will be ready by October 11th, 2007.

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  • Solution to Nero Vision Crash with AMCDocBase.dll When Importing Videos • Raymond.CC

    I have installed the latest Nero 9.0.9.4d on my new Acer laptop running Windows Vista Business edition. I still prefer to use Nero Burning ROM to burn my discs even though they add in more bloat to every major update. All I need to do is to do a Custom installation and uncheck whatever I don’t need. Nero Vision is my favorite application in burning a download movie or TV episodes to a DVD discs. There may be other video encoding software but since I use Nero Burning ROM, I might as well install Nero Vision together for this feature.

    To burn a movie or TV episode with Nero Vision, I only need to select whether I want to Make CD or Make DVD, then import the AVI videos by selecting Add Video Files, create a menu if needed, and it will automatically encode the AVI video files to VCD or DVD format which can be played on my DVD player. However, I got really frustrated with my new laptop running Windows Vista and nearly wanted to format the hard drive to install Windows XP because Nero Vision just crashes when I import an AVI video file.

    Nero Vision Crash AMCDocBase.dll

    This problem has never happened on my desktop running Windows XP with Nero 8 but happened on the clean Windows Vista SP1 with all latest hotfixes and Nero 9.0.9.4d activated with a genuine license! At first I thought it was a bug on AMCDocBase.dll file because the APPCRASH window did say something about it. After spending an hour researching on this problem, I am glad that I found the cause of Nero Vision crashing when adding a video file.


    At first I thought it had something to do with missing codecs because I did not install any codec pack on my laptop’s Acer. So I downloaded the latest K-Lite Codec Pack, installed it and tried importing the video file in Nero Vision, still the got the same Nero Vision APPCRASH window.

    I checked the Nero Vision settings from Default Video Options and found something that could have caused the problem. In General tab, the video mode setting is blank. I went to my desktop running Windows XP with Nero 8, and found that PAL is selected for the Video Mode. I did the same on my Acer laptop running Nero 9, and voila! Nero Vision no longer crashes!

    I don’t know why Nero 9 didn’t automatically set a video mode for me this time when there’s no such problem in Nero 8. An empty video mode causing Nero Vision to crash is really sloppy programming. They could have included a prompt asking the user to set the video mode if it is not configured rather than not telling anything at all and leaving Nero Vision to crash.

    Anyway, to configure a video mode in Nero Vision, click the More button and then click Default Video Options button. The General tab should display, and select the video mode according to your country.

    Nero Vision Video Mode crash

    Some country uses PAL and some NTSC. NTSC is the video system or standard used in North America and most of South America. In NTSC, 30 frames are transmitted each second. Each frame is made up of 525 individual scan lines. PAL is the predominant video system or standard mostly used overseas. In PAL, 25 frames are transmitted each second. Each frame is made up of 625 individual scan lines.

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  • Site with free service manuals and datasheets • Raymond.CC

    Have you wanted to add extra ram to your notebook but don’t know how to do it yourself because the manual that comes with it didn’t teach you how to do it? Sending your notebook to the place where you bought your notebook to upgrade the RAM will cost you double compared to do it yourself.

    This site has a wide range of free datasheets, service manuals, schema, schematic diagrams and software downloads, service menu and mode information, code calculators for many brands of equipment. You can browse according to type such as Automobile, Computer Components, Consumer Electrics and etc… Or you can browse by electronic brands such as Acer, Apple, IBM, Kenwood, and etc…
    This site even has an advanced search where you can use it to search for the manuals that you need.
    Still can’t find any service manuals, electronic components datasheets and equipment schematics database that you need? Don’t worry as they have a forum where you can request and perhaps someone has that manual and is willing to share it with you.


    I hope this web site will be useful for all technician, working in the field of electronic repairs.
    Here one can find information about many different types of equipment: tv ( plasma, tft-lcd, widescreen, hdtv ), dvd, vcr, car audio,gsm,digital camera, computer monitors (tft-lcd panels or conventional crt), test equipment, power supplies and many more digital and analogue electronic devices.
    There is also datasheet information about integrated circuits diagrams, diodes, transistors, operational amplifiers, pic, pcb design etc.
    One can find software, programs, eprom, eeprom, bin files used in equipment repair.
    Most files are pdf and djvu formats, zip or rar compressed.
    All users may add their files to the system.

    [ Visit eServiceInfo for free Service manuals and datasheets | eServiceInfo Forum ]

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