The overall computer’s performance doesn’t depend on just the CPU or RAM alone. You can have the a lot of RAM with the fastest CPU but if you have a hard drive that is not capable of keeping up with the speed, the whole performance gets degraded. Many years ago, whenever I help someone to build a computer, I would make sure that they would at least get a 7200RPM hard drive instead of the “standard” 5400RPM. It cost slightly more but the speed improvement is noticeable. As for now after installing Corsair Force SSD hard drive on my laptop, I find it hard to tolerate the slowness of 7200RPM hard drive that is on my desktop 😛

When your computer is performing very slowly but you find that the CPU usage and memory usage are not hitting the roof, then most of the time it is your hard drive that is being maxed out. One very good tool to confirm that is by using Drive Speedometer. Drive Speedometer is a simple and small utility created by Shane from PcWinTech (the same author who created CleanMem) that lets you monitor your hard drive’s read and write speed.


Drive Speedometer effectively shows you the current read and write speed of your hard drive. As you can see from the screenshot below, the SSD hard drive on my laptop has an excellent 71MB read and 56MB write.

But when it comes to the normal 7200RPM hard drive, it maxed out at a pathetic 10MB read and 10MB write.

This is a very simple straight forward program that uses the Windows performance counters to pull the information. If Drive Speedometer doesn’t work, probably you have Windows performance disabled and you can easily re-enable it back by running the provided enable_performance_counters.reg file.

[ Download Drive Speedometer ]

I received an email from Mariana asking me to review about a HTML5 remote desktop access tool they just released. It definitely sounds interesting because HTML5 is upcoming major update for HTML standard and one example is you can view YouTube videos directly from the web browser that supports HTML5 without using Flash player anymore. To remote control a computer using VNC, normally there is a server and a viewer(client) module. However by simply using ThinVNC, all you need to do is install the server module and you can access the remote computer from anywhere using just a web browser that supports HTML5. Currently Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Opera are HTML5 compliant. Internet Explorer users would have to wait until IE9 to enjoy the HTML5 support.

ThinVNC takes advantage of the latest web technologies like AJAX, JSON and HTML5 canvas to deliver a high-performance Remote Desktop access over the web, using HTTP and SSL protocols. Without the need for any plugin, add-on or any kind of installation on the client side, ThinVNC is the optimum way to ensure that you can connect to your remote computer from any place.


Installing and setting up the ThinVNC server is very easy. After installation, run ThinVNC and you will see an interface that looks like the screenshot below.

At the General tab, you get to set whether you want to allow anyone to connect or restrict it using authentication. By default both user and password is admin. Finally you can click the Start Server button to instantly allow connection. The checkbox for Auto-start is to allow the server to start automatically, not the software. If you want ThinVNC to auto run whenever Windows is booted up, then click on File at the menu bar and select Install as Windows Service. At the HTTP tab, you get to define the port and also to use HTTP or HTTPS protocol.

For a client to connect to the ThinVNC server, fire up any HTML5 compliant browser such as Google Chrome and type in the IP address followed by the port, for example http://192.168.1.1:8080 and hit enter. Then type in the server’s computer name and click Connect. You will then be prompted to login by entering username and password. There is a top bar which you can enable/disable control, show cursor, pause, refresh screen, scale, 256 color for faster and smoother control and disconnect.

ThinVNC also has a presentation mode to show your desktop or selected application windows to people over the LAN or Internet. It allows to create a presentation ticket and invite others to connect to your presentation, each using a different userid/password combination created ad-hoc. To access the ThinVNC Presentation Manager, you will have to right click on the ThinVNC icon at the notification area and select Start Presentation. Then you get to add the e-mail address of whom you want to invite to the presentation and select the application that you want to present. The server must be started in order to start the presentation mode or else the option will be grayed out.

I tried using TightVNC viewer to connect to ThinVNC server and it’s not possible. When you connect, it would say connection established and ends up with Connection closed. Of course no one would use the VNC viewer anymore if you can directly connect through a web browser but just wanted to test the possibilities. Another problem I discovered while testing ThinVNC is the scaling when using Firefox and Opera browser. If you click on the Scale button, the mouse cursor doesn’t get updated according to the new scale and causing the mouse clicks and movements to be inaccurate.

ThinVNC is definitely very useful, fast, easy to use and it’s free for non commercial usage. However it is still lacking of some advanced features such as file manager, chat and support for other operating systems. The ThinVNC server supports Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/Win 7/Windows Server 8.

[ Download ThinVNC ]

Here’s a quick tip for Windows Vista on how you can boost your hard disk drive performance. It is not enabled by default because there’s a risk of loosing your data if the disk loses power. Meaning do NOT enable this option if you don’t have a battery backup (UPS). If you’re using laptop, then enabling this option wouldn’t pose any risk since there’s a battery attached on every laptop.

Simply follow the steps below on how to boost your disk drive performance.


1. Go to Start, Control Panel -> Device Manager.

2. Expand Disk Drives.

3. Right-click on your hard disk drive and select Properties.

4. On the Policies tab, check Enable Advanced Performance.

5. Click OK and close Device Manager.

This option only available in Windows Vista. I’ve checked Windows XP and there’s no such option.

I bet you’d have heard about Windows 7 by now, the next release of Windows operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers. Few days ago Microsoft released Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 to public and allowing everyone to download the ISO image and test it out. The word BETA means it is tested for bugs, crashes, errors, inconsistencies, and any other problems before releasing it out to the public as stable version. There are 3 situations that I’d never use a BETA and that is an operating system, patches/updates and security software (antivirus and firewall)

Until today I was never satisfied with Windows Vista, so I was curious to test out Windows 7 and see if it could be as good as Windows XP. I don’t want to mess around with the master boot records to create a dual boot and also re-partitioning my hard drive for extra space to install Windows 7. The best way is to test drive Windows 7 in a virtual environment. Today I will show you step by step on where to download Windows 7, how to get Windows 7 product key for activation and how to install it on VirtualBox so you can mess around with it. I chose VirtualBox because it’s free and also much easier to use compared to other virtualization software.


Before you start, please make sure that your computer is faster than 1 GHz processor and has more than 1 GB of system memory to install and run Windows 7 Ultimate.

Where To Download Windows 7 Beta Build 7000

Windows 7 Beta 32-bit ISO (English): 7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD.iso

Windows 7 Beta 64-bit ISO (English): 7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULXFRE_EN_DVD.ISO

If you’re not sure which one to download, just get the first one Windows 7 32-bit ISO (English).

Obtain genuine Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 Product Key
1. Go to Microsoft TechNet website

2. Click Sign In link which is located at the top right corner of the website.

3. Sign in with your Windows Live ID. Login with your Hotmail account will do.

4. Copy the URL below and paste it to the web browser that you used to login to Microsoft TechNet.

https://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience/scripts/gcs.aspx?Product=tn-win7-64-ww&LCID=1033

5. Windows 7 product key will be displayed.

Download, Install and Configure VirtualBox for Windows 7 Installation
1. Download and install VirtualBox.

2. Run VirtualBox and click New button.

3. Click Next

4. Enter the name as Windows7, select Operating System as Microsoft Windows and select Other Windows for Versions.

5. Depending on how much RAM is on your computer. My computer has 2GB and I could only set 1018MB. The Next button will be inaccessible if I set more than that value. Try setting as high as possible so that running and installing Windows 7 would be faster.

6. Click New button to create a virtual hard disk.

7. Click Next

8. Select “Dynamically expanding storage” and click Next.

9. Select the size of the virtual hard disk. I set is as 10GB but if you can set it higher if you have more to spare.

10. Click Finish and you’ll be brought back to Virtual Hard Disk. Click Next.

11. Click Finish.

12. Make sure that Windows7 is selected at VirtualBox and click Settings button.

13. Go to CD/DVD-ROM, check “Mount CD/DVD Drive” and select ISO Image File. Click the small folder icon.

14. Virtual Media Manager window will appear. Click Add button and browse for the Windows7 ISO file that you downloaded and click Open. Click Select.

15. Now you’re back to the Settings to configure the options for Windows7. Click Network.

16. Make sure that “Enable Network Adapter” is checked. Click on Adapter Type drop down box and select Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM). Windows 7 doesn’t include drivers for PCnet-Fast III.

17. Click OK to close the VirtualBox Settings for Windows7.

Install Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 on VirtualBox
1. Make sure that Windows7 is selected at VirtualBox and click Start button. You will see a bar saying Windows is loading files.

2. When it has finished loading the required files, you can select the language to install, time and currency format and keyboard or input method. Click Next when done.

3. Click Install now

4. Check “I accept the license terms” and click Next.

5. Select Custom (advanced).

6. Select the drive that you created from VirtualBox and click Next. Windows 7 setup will start copying files, expanding files, installing features, installing updates and completing installation.

7. Enter your user name, computer name and click Next.

8. Enter your password and hint.

9. Enter the 25-digit Windows 7 Product Key that you got earlier and click Next.

10. Select “Ask me later”

11. Review the time and date settings. If it is correct, click Next.

12. Windows 7 will now finalize your settings and voila! You have Windows 7 running in VirtualBox.

The Windows 7 Beta (build 7000) installs Ultimate Edition by default. When you activate the Windows 7 product key, it will allow you to continue using until August 1, 2009. Not sure what will happen next but most probably you’ll need to upgrade to a later beta version of Windows 7.

The first thing I noticed about Windows 7 is the fish wallpaper. I wonder why… Then I tried looking for a way to change the Start Menu to classic but was unable to. Seems like Microsoft is not planning on having a Classic Mode that lets you switch back to the old interface. The bad thing about it is people like me will have to try to get use to the new interface, menus and etc, but at least they’re setting a standard so that it won’t be so confusing.

I always like to use program that can do everything rather than installing two or more separate programs that does the same thing just because they used different type of technology with the same function. For example, you can’t use WinZip v10 to open RAR files. They had to wait till version 11 to support reading RAR and BZ2 files. That’s why I chose PowerArchiver.

Back to the story… Viewing files can be a pain since there are SO MANY types of extensions and softwares available. What if you can view all types of images, text, media, internet files and RTF files by using only ONE program?


Universal Viewer (ATViewer) is an advanced file viewer with wide range of formats supported. Implemented view modes and corresponding file formats are:

* Text/Binary/Hex/Unicode: all files, with unlimited file size (even 4Gb+ sizes are allowed);
* RTF/UTF-8: RTF and UTF-8 encoded texts;
* Image: all general graphics formats: BMP JPG GIF PNG TGA TIFF etc;
* Multimedia: all formats supported by MS Window Media Player: AVI MPG WMV MP3 MIDI etc;
* Internet: all formats supported by MS Internet Explorer: HTML XML DOC XLS etc;
* Plugins: all formats supported by Total Commander Lister plugins.

The Viewer is fully Unicode compatible and can be integrated into Windows Explorer’s context menu, so there is no problem to call it from anywhere in Explorer: right-click on a file and select “Universal Viewer” item. It can also be integrated into file managers that can pass to Viewer filenames via the command-line: in this case filename should be passed as first command parameter.

Some files can’t be read if you don’t install the main program. For example, you’ll need to install Microsoft Word to read .doc files. I know it doesn’t make sense to have Microsoft Word installed but not using it to read .doc files. That’s why there is something called “Lister plugins” which you can use load it to Universal Viewer and it will then support reading the respective extensions.

It’s free, open source and only 750KB in size. Might be useful to you if you’re like me who constantly need to handle many types of files.

[ Download Universal Viewer (ATViewer) ]

This data recovery software is free and developed by a Russian named Ivan Komlev. It features a friendly user interface and only three steps required to copy files from damaged CD.

1. Choose source drive
2. Selecting destination drive and folder
3. Copy files automatically.

Dead Disk Doctor – allows copying files from scratched or damaged CD, DVD disks, unreadable Floppy and Hard Drives or other media. It replaces lost data with random bytes reading files by expandable blocks. (Click on image to enlarge)

This software reads file by 4-16kb blocks and when hardware involves errors, the size of block decrease two times and so on until the moment when block of data will be read without any errors, or it reach minimum read size block, depending on file system, then program fills one block with random data and starts to read second one. After successfully reading data, block size increase two times again and again to reach maximum size.

I believe the text above is being translated directly from Russian to English. Whole paragraph seems a little blur to me and I find it hard to understand. From what I understand, this software will try to read the damaged media block and copy it to the specified location. For the block that is unreadable, it will replace with random data. Usually when you try to play a scratched CD, your CD player will be jumping from one track to another or will hang if it’s badly damaged. This software lets you create a new CD out of the damaged CD, so you can still play it.

The Dead Disk Doctor website says that this freeware “works excellent with Video or Audio files“. From logic, I think that’s true because you can skip a few seconds in video or audio files and you can still play it. As for data, if any part of the bytes are being replaced by random data, it will definitely corrupt the data.

Another good news is Dead Disk Doctor works on Intel Pentium 133Mhz or equivalent supporting Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP or higher with only 32Mb RAM and 7Mb free disk space on hard drive for installation. Of course you’ll be needing more disk space to recover and copy your dead disc data to your hard drive.

[ Download Dead Disk Doctor v1.23 ]

On the older versions of Windows Live Messenger, you get to see a lot of interesting fancy names on your contact list. However logging in to the latest Windows Live Messenger 2011 today shows a lot of “real” names on the contact list rather than nick names. If you haven’t noticed, you can no longer find an option to change your display name as you want others to see it on Windows Live Messenger 2011. That is because the developing team has decided to remove it and make it to show your first name and last name that is set on your Hotmail or Live ID profile. To me, Windows Live Messenger is used for chatting with friends or probably with people that you are not so familiar with and there is no reason for them to know both my first and last name so that they can “Google” me.

I read somewhere on the Internet that it is possible to change your display name in online messengers. I spent hours testing the possibility of changing the display name with Meebo, eBuddy, ILoveIM and they are able to do that but somehow connecting back to Windows Live Messenger 2011 will revert the display name to show your first name and last name. I can only think of 4 options to prevent your real first name and last name from displaying on Windows Live Messenger 2011.


The first method is if you would like to continue using Windows Live Messenger 2011. Sign in to Windows Live Messenger 2011, click on your display name, select “Edit your name” which will open the default web browser asking you to log in to your Windows Live ID and then you get to can change your first name and last name. Do note that changing that would make all outgoing emails to reflect the changed name.

The second method is to downgrade and use Windows Live Messenger 2009. I have written a tutorial on how to do that.

As for the third method, use only online messengers such as Meebo, eBuddy or ILoveIM.

As for the final method, use a Windows Live Messenger clone called aMSN.

I’ve also tested A-Patch, Messenger Plus! and MessengerDiscovery but none of them is able to change the Display Name at Windows Live Messenger 2011.

I have a client with thousands of HTML files with contact form embedded to it. However it doesn’t have CAPTCHA function to prevent spam. A CAPTCHA (an acronym for “Completely Automatic Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart”) is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human. An example of CAPTCHA is like the image below. The numbers and letters are random each time you refresh the page.

Now my client’s inbox is exploded with hundreds of spam emails everyday. To fix this problem, I have to include a new CAPTCHA function into the HTML files. Problem is, can HTML files parse PHP? Usually if you want to parse PHP codes, it will have to be .php extension for the webserver to identify that it’s a PHP file. So after added the CAPTCHA function, I have to rename all thousands of HTML files to PHP extension.

Thankfully I can save all the trouble of renaming thousands of HTML files to PHP by editing the .htaccess file. Here’s how I did it to parse PHP in HTML or HTM files.


Go to your WWW root, usually it looks like this:
path: /home/username/public_html

Look for the file named .htaccess. If it’s not there, create a blank page using NotePad and save it as .htaccess

Now edit this file by adding the following lines:

RemoveHandler .html .htm
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .htm .html

Save and close the .htaccess file. Upload it to your webserver (to your WWW root) and that’s it! Now your webserver will parse PHP codes even in HTML files!

And here it is, the latest Mess Patch for Windows Live Messenger! This is probably our best release so far, with a couple of cool new *original!* features, improvements and comebacks. With a total of 76 messy options you will not be disappointed, and just look at that changelog for Mess Patch 8.0.0787 Generation 4:

– Added “Translucent Dashboard” option (Mess Patch Original, check out the screenshot below).
– Added new “Add Personal Settings Button To Upper Panel” option (Mess Patch Original).
– Re-added “Switch Tabs To Right Side” (Mess Patch Original).
– Lots of you are gonna enjoy hearing this: Patching Messenger doesn’t stop you from sharing folders anymore.
– Enhanced auto-update feature: The downloading process is done through the patch itself.
– Fixed multi-line nicknames feature, now fully compatible with the yet to be released Messenger Plus! Live (the “Formatting Codes” button appears properly).
– Fixed “Remove Bottom Text Advertisement” option, now removes the advertising space as well (as requested by Pure_BY).
– Detects if there are any backups and offers to restore them before patching.
– Detects if Windows OneCare Live is installed and shows a warning to the user.

Although Windows Live Messenger is now final and it’ll take a while before we see another update, authors of Mess Patch will keep developing Mess Patch.

[ Download Mess Patch 8.0.0787 – Generation 4 ]

I found a very small and lightweight universal patcher for the new Windows Live Messenger called WLM Universal Patcher ++ v0.9.1. It’s specially useful for those people who doesn’t want to mess around with their Windows Live Messenger too much with those fully featured Mess Patch or A-Patch that contains hundreds of tweaks.

The graphical user interface is very simple and no installation needed. Its only 148KB in size and it enables you to patch 6 main Windows Live Messenger restrictions.
They are:

1. Multiple Login (You can run multiple Windows Live Messenger)
2. Banner Ads (Remove bottom banner Ads)
3. Tabs
4. Ad Bar
5. MSN Search
6. Actions Pane

This universal windows live messenger patcher is ONLY for Windows Live Messenger. Please do not use it if you’re still using the old MSN Messenger 7.5. The meaning of “universal” for this patcher is probably able to patch all versions of Windows Live Messenger.

[ Download WLM Universal Patcher ++ v0.9.1 ]

Windows Live Messenger v8.1.0178 final is out!

A few beta testers from mess.be, Ryan “Trunten” Weber, anonymouse91 & Timothy were among the 3009 testers who received an e-mail announcing the conclusion of the Windows Live Messenger 8.1 Beta. 1010 bugs and 456 suggestions were submitted since the beta started on September 7th 2006. The integrated Windows Live Call feature has been updated from 1.1.154.0 to 1.1.161.0.


You won’t see much changes on the interface, but make sure you install this latest version of Windows Live Messenger for better compatibility and stability.

And of course, it didn’t take a lot of time for Mess.be to update their Mess Patch to use with the latest Windows Live Messenger. There are dozens and dozens of options in Mess Patch but I only use it to remove advertisements, “Disable Nudge Protection” (so I can nudge the hell outta my friends *grins*) and also disable “Nudge Window Shaking” so that I won’t feel a thing when I get nudge bomb!

Another alternative to Mess Patch is A-Patch. I checked the official A-Patch website and the author haven’t update it to patch the latest Windows Live Messenger. I’ll keep you up to date on this. Once it’s out, I’ll post the download link for A-Patch.

[ Download Windows Live Messenger v8.1 | Mess Patch ]

I found this hack from Technipages and I think it’s pretty cool. It enables the features found in Windows XP Professional on your Windows XP Home Edition installation with this hack. It will allow you to turn your Windows XP Home CD into a Windows XP Professional CD. Now Microsoft is going to be pissed about this! LOL!



Follow the steps below on how to turn your Windows XP Home edition CD to professional!

Note: If your Windows XP CD does not contain Service Pack 2, you might want to Slipstream Your Windows XP CD first as you will not be able to upgrade an installation after using the CD.

1. Copy the root directory and the i386 directory of the WindowsXP CD to your hard drive.

2. Extract the Bootsector of your Windows XP CD. You can use BBIE to do this.

3. Click START–>RUN–>REGEDIT

4. Highlight HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

5. Click FILE–>LOAD HIVE and select the Setupreg.hiv file
This file is located in the i386 folder. Use the one you extracted to your hard drive from your Windows XP CD.

6. Locate the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Homekey\ControlSet001\Services\setupdd

7. Edit the DEFAULT key and change the following values:

01 to 00
02 to 00

8. Change the name to the value HOMEKEY to anything.

9. Locate the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Homekey\ControlSet001\Services\setupdd

Edit the DEFAULT key and change the following values:

01 to 00
02 to 00

10. Highlight HOMEKEY and select FILE–>UNLOAD HIVE

You can now burn the data on your hard drive to a CD to make a new Windows XP CD. Then use the CD to install Windows XP. Be sure to make the CD bootable. You can use the instructions here to help you do that.
The weird thing is your Windows XP Home serial will still be valid.

When someone says Google, I think at least 60%-70% of people reply that it’s a “Search Engine”. Do you know that Google has so much thing going on that we don’t even know it exist? Google has the ability to search for images, news, blogs, music, video, maps, products, answers, notebook, linux, apple, movies, definitions and the list goes on…

One thing I don’t understand is why when we visit Google’s URL (www.google.com), we only see a very simple and clean search page instead of a full featured page like Yahoo? At least now it’s much better with a navigation bar where it shows Web, Images, Video, News, Maps, Gmail and more but it’s still NOT complete.

Here’s a quote taken from Don Norman’s “The Truth About Google’s Simplicity“.

Why are Yahoo! and MSN such complex-looking places? Because their systems are easier to use. Not because they are complex, but because they simplify the life of their users by letting them see their choices on the home page: news, alternative searches, other items of interest. Yahoo! even has an excellent personalization page, so you can choose what you wish to see on that first page.

Take another careful look at Google’s front page. Want a map? You have to click once to be offered the choice, then a second additional time to get to the map page. Want to use Google Scholar to check references? Um, well, is that “Advanced Search” or “more.” What about their newly announced blog search? Why is Google maps separate from Google Earth? (Oh, those were purchased from different companies. Yes, but why should I, the user, care about the history of Google’s acquisitions?)

Anyway, continue reading to check out the list of free and hidden services offered by google in ONE page.


Simply Google has created a page that includes every Google hidden feature.

Chris McEvoy created the original Simply Google but the latest updated version is at the link below. It has more links compared to the original version.

If your web browser’s start page is Google.com, you might want to change it to Simply Google because it’s more complete than the original and simple Google.com page.

[ Visit Simply Google ]