Raymond.CC Blog

Category: Computer

  • Fix Ad-Aware 2007 Fatal Error During Installation

    I can understand how frustrated you are when you tried installing the latest Ad-Aware 2007 and faced the error message “Fatal Error: Installation ended prematurely because of an error.” during installation.
    Ad-Aware Fatal Error Installation ended prematurely because of an error

    I wasn’t able to fix this problem the first time I downloaded Ad-Aware 2007 until I have more time to do some research on it. Now I found the solution and here’s how you can fix this error message and install Ad-Aware 2007 without problems.


    It seems that there’s a bug in Ad-Aware 2007 installer. Apparently the installer was not tweaked correctly and this workaround which I am going to show you resolves the problem.

    There are two options to resolve this issue – I used the latter ‘passive’ option. One method involves registering the Visual Basic Script runtime which will permit the installer to work correctly. The other method involves installing in “passive” mode which will bypass the portions of the installer that are causing the error.

    First method:
    To register the Visual Basic Script runtime:
    Go to Start -> Run, type the following command and hit Enter.

    You should a prompt that says “DllRegisterServer in C:\WINDOWS\system32\vbscript.dll succeeded.”
    Repair Ad-Aware Fatal Error Installation
    Now you can try running the aaw2007.exe installer again and you shouldn’t get the Fatal Error message again.

    I tried unregistering the vbscript.dll by adding a /u at the command and ran the installer again. The Fatal Error message appears. This proves that by registering the vbscript.dll fixes the installation problem.

    Second method:
    To install in “passive mode”:
    Either run the command “aaw2007.exe /passive” on Start -> Run, or from command prompt. Make sure you change the directory to where the aaw2007.exe resides.

    Passive installation mode will bypass all questions during installation, hence, bypassing the part of the installer that are causing the error. Please take note that if you’re using the passive mode to install Ad-Aware 2007, make sure you’ve closed all your running programs and also save any documents that you’re typing. This is because IF the installer requires a restart, it will automatically restart without asking for your permission.

    Enjoy using the new Ad-Aware 2007 😉

    P/S: This solution works not only on Ad-Aware 2007. Any software that uses this installation and has this same error can be fixed by the 2 solutions above.

    Related posts:

  • The BEST Anti-Spyware Ad-Aware 2007 Final is Here
  • Download Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 with NO ACTIVATION
  • Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise and Application Key Generator
  • Manifest Parse Error: Invalid at the top level of document
  • nLite – Windows Installation Customizer

  • Renaming The [Start] Button Under Windows XP

    Few days ago, I got a friend telling me that it’d be nice to modify the default “Start” button to his name or any text that’s cool.
    Hack Windows XP Start Button
    I know it’s possible to change the default Start button text because many years back, there was a utility to do that on Windows 98. After a quick search, I manage to find a small and free utility that’s able to easily change the default Start button text.


    “StartBtn Renamer” is a simple utility for renaming the [Start] button under Windows XP. With this freeware tool, you can change default label of the [Start] button with your own text. StartBtn Renamer also is Open Source. This means that the source code of the program is presented with it, so that you could change it according to your own taste and wish, therefore you can add more possibilities on it.
    Rename Start Button Under Windows XP

    Simply run the standalone program “StartBtn.exe” and then type your desirable label in the “New Label” field. By pressing the key, or clicking on the “Rename It” button, the [Start] button will rename with the new Label.

    You can also rename the [Start] button by running the file “StartBtn.exe” from the MS-DOS command prompt. To do this, you must go the directory which you have been installed the application, use this syntax to run the program. To change the default [Start] to Raymond, you just need to run the commmand “StartBtn.exe Raymond”.
    Raymond Start Button

    StartBtn Rename, a neat and simple tool that works ONLY on Windows XP.

    [ Download StartBtn Renamer | RapidShare Download Mirror ]

    Related posts:

  • Making Windows XP Start 60% Faster Tutorial
  • Register and get a Live.com or localized Live account
  • Maximize New Internet Explorer Windows

  • How Terrorist Hide Messages in Images

    Nearly a year ago I posted an article on how to hide MP3 audio inside GIF picture. It’s a very cool trick but I believe that terrorist must have used this method to convey messages across the world. I just found out that it is possible to hide TEXT messages in any images file. It can be encrypted and the text can’t be viewed easily. Hiding text in images is called Steganography is NOT something new. There are freewares that is capable of doing this and the release date is year 2005. Looks like I am a little outdated to know this technique! Continue reading if you’re interested to know how to hide text messages in images.

    If you search in Google on “Hide Messages in Images”, you’ll find a lot of program that can do this. Some are shareware and some are freeware. I’ve tested a few freewares and only 1 of it works fine in hiding messages inside images.


    ImageHide is the one that gives me no problem in hiding text messages inside any image file.
    Hide Message in GIF
    Surprisingly ImageHide last update was on 04-July-2005 and it still works! You’re able to load .cut, .pcd, .pic, .cel, .pbm, pgm, .ppm, .pdd, .psd, .bw, .rgb, .rgba, .sgi, .rla, .rpf, .scr, .pcc, .pcx, .eps, .fax, .tif, .tiff, .ivb, .tga, .vda, .vst, .win, .dib, .rle, .jpeg, .jpe, .jpg, .jfif, .emf, .wmf, .ico, .bmp, .png. I bet you don’t even know half of the extension! Although you can load many types of image files, but you can only save it in .BMP or .PNG after you’ve entered the text.

    It’s very easy to hide text messages in images by using ImageHide. First, load any image you want. At the bottom of ImageHide, you can type your secret text. Once you’ve done that, click on “Write Data button” to insert the text message into your image. Finally, click on Save Image button to save your image in either BMP or PNG format.

    To read the hidden text message, click the Load Image button. If there is text embedded into that image, it’ll show the ImageHide version you’ve used to embed the text message, whether it’s encrypted or not and also the data size.
    Hide text message in JPG

    If you want extra security, you can use the Encryption. Just click on the Encrypt button before you Write Data. It’ll prompt you to enter a password to encrypt it. After you type in a password, you’ll see that the text that you want to hide becomes random letters and numbers. So if someone knows that you use ImageHide, they still can’t simply read the hidden text message without the password.
    Encrypt text message

    The image file size is much smaller if you hide text message instead of hide mp3. If a normal image with small scale has big file size, it can be suspicious. I tried inserting a text “This is a Hidden Message – Raymond.CC” into a PNG image file, surprisingly the file size is 2kb smaller than the original image file.

    Hiding text messages in images is NOT only for terrorist use. If you’re a graphic designer and someone used your images without your permission, you can sue them by having this very good proof. The person who ripped your images will have nothing to say if the image he has on his computer or website has hidden text that you placed.

    [ Download ImageHide v2.0 ]

    Related posts:

  • Hide Your Secret Files by Embedding it to another Safe Source
  • Hide user accounts from the Windows XP Welcome screen
  • Hide shared folders – based on users access level
  • Decode Yahoo Messenger Messages Archive
  • Hide MP3 audio inside GIF picture

  • You Enjoy Piracy but is it SAFE?

    Everyone loves fully licensed software such as Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007, movies in DVD format, albums of MP3, games for computer, XBOX, PS2, PS3, eBooks and comics, ALL FOR FREE! But not many will really support anti-piracy by buying original music albums and DVDs because it’s too expensive! Why pay when you can get it all for FREE?

    It’s no doubt that P2P software are the most downloaded softwares in the world in all time. Even though P2P technology is for sharing, but it is widely being used for distributing pirated files. That’s when Anti Piracy companies such as MPAA and RIAA comes in to work. Questions is, are we all still SAFE from piracy?


    There has been reports that MPAA and RIAA has infiltrated private torrent sites, uploading fake torrents and setting up fake torrent trackers. When they’ve done all that, they could have gotten maybe millions of IP addresses that’s violated the copyright law. There is a very important information you should know and that is “IT IS NOT SAFE” downloading from torrent or P2P. Latest report says that according to an insider who worked for several anti-piracy organizations, blocklists significantly decrease the risk of getting caught by the MPAA or RIAA. Their main conclusion is a user who is not using blocklist software is practically GUARANTEED to be monitored.
    Download PeerGuardian 2
    One of the very popular and free blocklist software that provides protection against MPAA or RIAA from monitoring you is PeerGuardian 2. PeerGuardian 2 are free and open source programs developed by Phoenix Labs. They are capable of blocking incoming and outgoing connections based on IP blocklists. Their purpose is to help protect the user’s privacy from organizations such as the RIAA and MPAA while using filesharing networks such as FastTrack and BitTorrent. The system is also capable of blocking advertising, spyware, government and educational ranges, depending upon user preferences.

    I’ve discovered this blocklist software many months ago but back then, this software was quite confusing to use. I’ve just downloaded and installed the latest version of PeerGuardian 2, it’s very easy to use.
    After installing PeerGuardian 2, you’ll be asked a few questions on the first run. First questions is which range you’ll like to be protected from. By default, only P2P is checked and I believe that’s sufficient. The more you block, the more problems you’re going to face while browsing normal websites.
    Protect from RIAA

    Next questions is about Automatic Updates. It’s very important to always keep your blocklist up to date otherwise it’s like running an AntiVirus that has old definition. To be on the safe side, select Every day.
    Protect from MPAA

    Before you get to run PeerGuardian 2, it’ll look for the latest updates on the software and the blocklist. After updating, it will run.
    Safely downloading piracy

    That’s all you need to do. If you see the PeerGuardian2 tray icon at your traybar blink 3 times, it means PeerGuardian2 is blocking a bad IP range.
    PeerGuardian blocking IP

    There is an option in PeerGuardian which can block HTTP (website) connections. I noticed that it blocked a lot of websites and resulting the website unable to load. If you encounter this problem, simple click on the “Allow HTTP” button to stop blocking the HTTP. Another method is you can right click on the IP address in the log window and allow the IP manually, PeerGuardian 2 will automatically create a new list for you. The IP address can be allowed for 15 minutes, 1 hour or permanently.

    According to an expert in the field, who worked with several anti-piracy organizations, the blocklists contains approximately 75 – 80% of IPs used by the anti-piracy companies he worked with. This means that they offer some protection, but that they’re not foolproof. Well, at least better than nothing.

    [ Download PeerGuardian 2 ]

    Related posts:

  • How to Identify Fake Torrents Uploaded by Anti-Piracy Organizations
  • Hide Your Secret Files by Embedding it to another Safe Source

  • Stop Guestbook Spam, Blog Spam, Wiki Spam, Comment Spam with CAPTCHA Service

    Nearly everything with a form can get spam by those nasty spammers. Somehow they have an automatic program that is able to automatically spam without them visiting your website at all! It’s just like a daily routine for them to promote their site but for us, it’s a daily annoying task to delete spams on our guestbook, blog, wiki, comment and etc…

    One of the best way to counter this problem is by using CAPTCHA. A CAPTCHA is a program that can generate and grade tests that most humans can pass, but current computer programs can’t pass. For example, humans can read distorted text as the one shown below, but current computer programs can’t.
    Integrate CAPTCHA into form

    Many of you might be already using a contact form that works and it’s just troublesome to update the whole code to support CAPTCHA. Moreover, your webhost must support GD library for verification of the image. I found a solution to this problem which you only need to update ONE line of your form to have the CAPTCHA feature.


    Protect Web Form provides free CAPTCHA service. It only requires 3 steps to start using their FREE CAPTCHA service on your forms to prevent spambots. Good thing about Protect Web Form is that it also supports Audio. Meaning if you can’t see the random letters and numbers, clicking on the small speaker icon will read the letter and numbers.
    FREE CAPTCHA Code

    1. Create account on http://www.protectwebform.com/
    To do this, just go to the registration page: signup and fill in all the fields. The new password will be sent to the email address which you provide.

    2. Login to the http://www.protectwebform.com/ with the login name you provided and your new password. Go to the page My Verification Urls and click on the button “generate“. You will see two urls, which will be used to show the image and to verify the code.

    3. Click on the link ‘Install‘, choose type of installation and follow a few short instructions on that page to install the protection scripts.
    1. Update you html file as described on the installation page.
    2. (If required) update you code file as described on the installation page.

    CAPTCHAs do have drawbacks; the main drawback to any CAPTCHA implementation is that is makes it almost impossible for visually impaired individuals to use. In some cases, even those users who are not visually impaired may have a difficult time reading the CAPTCHA string since they are designed to be difficult to read. Also, there may be accessibility laws in your area that you must conform to as well.

    CAPTCHAs are not fool proof and they are not a final solution against spam bots. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) has been used to break many CAPTCHA implementations. Also, there have been reports on using cheap ‘sweat shop’ labor to get around CAPTCHA implementations by having people perform the registrations en mass.

    It is not perfect, but CAPTCHA provides an additional level of defense against spam bots.

    [ Use CAPTCHA Service to Prevent SPAM ]

    Related posts:

  • Nasty Spam on WordPress Comment box
  • Parsing PHP in HTML or HTM Files
  • Temporary Email for avoiding SPAM
  • Cancelling MSN Hotmail Plus service
  • Slipstreaming Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Create Bootable CD

  • Scan Suspicious Files for FREE using Several Antivirus Engines

    You’ve received a file from a friend but you’re unsure if the file is safe to open or not. You launch your AntiVirus program to scan and found no problem with it. You’re still scared because that friend of yours is very untrustworthy and you know that you can’t 100% trust antivirus programs as they rely on definitions to detect known viruses. New viruses are growing exponentially every year and it is possible to not have a definition in time to properly diagnose a dangerous line of code. You thought of maybe installing 2 or more antivirus on your computer might give you better protection. You’re WRONG! It is advisable to ONLY install ONE antivirus program on a computer because more than that can cause conflicts.

    So you can’t install more than 1 antivirus program and you can’t 100% trust your antivirus. Here’s the solution.


    What if you can scan the file that your friend sent you using 30 different types of anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-malware and anti-hacker engines listed below? Now you can with VirusTotal! Thanks to Hispasec Sistemas, Virustotal offers a free service for scanning suspicious files using several antivirus engines. No download, license or installation needed. Simply upload the file or files that you want to scan and you’ll be in queue for a while depending on the VirusTotal server load to start scanning and display the result.
    Free Antivirus Scanning

    ● Aladdin (eSafe)
    ● ALWIL (Avast! Antivirus)
    ● Authentium (Command Antivirus)
    ● Avira (AntiVir)
    ● Bit9 (FileAdvisor)
    ● Cat Computer Services (Quick Heal)
    ● ClamAV (ClamAV)
    ● CA Inc. (Vet)
    ● Doctor Web, Ltd. (DrWeb)
    ● Eset Software (NOD32)
    ● ewido networks (ewido anti-malware)
    ● Fortinet (Fortinet)
    ● FRISK Software (F-Prot)
    ● F-Secure (F-Secure)
    ● Grisoft (AVG)
    ● Hacksoft (The Hacker)
    ● Ikarus Software (Ikarus)
    ● Kaspersky Lab (AVP)
    ● McAfee (VirusScan)
    ● Microsoft (Malware Protection)
    ● Norman (Norman Antivirus)
    ● Panda Software (Panda Platinum)
    ● Prevx (Prevx1)
    ● Softwin (BitDefender)
    ● Sophos (SAV)
    ● Sunbelt Software (Antivirus)
    ● Symantec (Norton Antivirus)
    ● UNA Corp (UNA)
    ● VirusBlokAda (VBA32)
    ● VirusBuster (VirusBuster)

    You’d feel safe after scanning with all these 30 types of antivirus engines isn’t it? If one can’t do it, definitely 30 of them can! However, Virustotal does not substitute any antivirus software installed in a PC, as it only scans individual files on demand. It does not offer permanent protection for the user’s system either. Although the detection rate afforded by the use of multiple antivirus engines is far superior to that offered by just one product, these results DO NOT guarantee the harmlessness of a file. Currently, there is not any solution that offers a 100% effectiveness rate for detecting viruses and malware.

    Other than uploading through VirusTotal website, you can also scan file by using email.
    1. Create a new message with [email protected] as destination address of your email.
    2. Write SCAN in the Subject field (write SCAN- if you do not want to distribute your sample to any AV company).
    3. Attach the file to be scanned. Such file must not exceed 10 MB in size. If the attached file is larger, the system will reject it automatically.
    4. You will receive an email with a report of the file analysis. Response time will vary depending on the load of the system at the time of placing your request.

    I did a test by placing 3 viruses into a ZIP file and upload to VirusTotal for scanning. FileAdvisor wasn’t able to scan compressed file because it reports “no virus found“. As for the rest, it only reports 1 virus and not 3.
    FREE Antivirus antispyware antihacker

    [ Scan Files with VirusTotal ]

    Related posts:

  • TCP Scan for alive VNC Server
  • Password to Uninstall Symantec Antivirus Client
  • FREE Anti-Virus Protection: AOL Active Virus Shield for EVERYONE!
  • Problems installing Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition

  • Huge Database of Cheats and Walkthroughs for Games

    I can give up on games real easily if I felt that it’s impossible to play. But it’s a waste not to finish up the game since I’ve already bought, downloaded and installed on my computer. To finish up the game, I’ll need some help either using some cheat codes that gives me God mode (unlimited health) or trainers that can hack the game and also freezes the money and health. Searching for cheats from one website to another can be tedious since most of those sites are filled with pornographic pictures, popups and advertisements.

    I found a freeware that has most of the cheats and walkthroughs collected from Jan 1998 until February 2007. That’s a 9 year database! Not only it has hints and cheats for PC games, it also has cheats for console games such as playstation 3, xbox and etc…


    CheatBook-DataBase 2007 is a freeware “cheat-code tracker” that makes hints and cheats (for PC, Walkthroughs, Playstation, Playstation 2, Playststation 3, Sega, Nintendo 64, DVD, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Color, N-Gage, Nintendo DS, PSP, Xbox, Gamecube, Dreamcast, Xbox 360, Super Nintendo) easily accessible from one central location. If you’re an avid gamer and want a few extra weapons or lives to survive until the next level, this freeware cheat database can come to the rescue.
    PC Games Cheatbook
    Covering more than 11900 Games, this database represents all genres and focuses on recent releases.

    Games are listed alphabetically in the left-hand window. When you click on a game name, the relevant cheat is displayed in a editor window, with convenient buttons that let you print the selection or save any changes you’ve made.

    You can always visit this link for updates to install on CheatBook-Database 2007. There should be updates every month. You don’t need to bookmark or memorize this page because you can get to the update page from Update -> Update infos in your CheatBook program.

    [ Download CheatBook-Database 2007 ]

    Related posts:

  • Register and get a Live.com or localized Live account

  • Raymond.CC Blog

  • Easily Record Your Desktop Screen

    3 days ago I talked about how to easily capture desktop screenshot. A person with the nickname MIND MOTION left a comment asking me about free video capture program. Well here it is…

    CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs)
    Free video recording


    Seriously, I love this freeware. CamStudio is only 1.3MB in file size and it does the job. Since I am a technical guy, most of the time I need to guide my customer step-by-step on how to detect and solve their problems. Trust me, doing that through the phone can be tough sometimes. Showing them exactly what to do on their screen is sometimes the quickest and clearest way to communicate. CamStudio is able to record the region that you specify or full screen. If you have a microphone, you can record your own voice so it can go together with the video recording.

    You can also use CamStudio to:
    * Create demonstration videos for any software program
    * Creating a set of videos answering your most frequently asked questions
    * Create video tutorials for school or college class
    * Record a recurring problem with your computer so you can show technical support people
    * Create video-based information products you can sell
    * Record new tricks and techniques you discover on your favorite software program, before you forget them

    The default keyboard shortcut to start recording is F8. Stopping the recording is F9 and canceling recording is F10. You can change the default keyboard shortcut by going to Options -> Keyboard Shortcuts. If you take a good look, there’s an icon Record Flash video at CamStudio. It’s located at the same row as Record, Pause, Stop icon. If you click on that, it will switch to “Record to SWF”. Clicking that button again will switch to “Record to AVI”. Weirdly, there’s no such option on the menu bar. You can ONLY switch it by clicking on the SWF icon.

    A small note on a problem with CamStudio. A number of people have mentioned having trouble viewing SWF videos generated by CamStudio. It turns out there’s a bug which means you can’t see anything if you try watching them with Netscape or Firefox (Internet Explorer works fine) … The next update (2.2) will fix this but until then, here’s a temporary workaround:

    Open the related HTML to the SWF you’ve just generated and look for the line starting with the “EMBED SRC” command…
    Change the Width and Height values in this line to match values in the line starting with “OBJECT CLASSID”.
    Save the file and you should be good to go…

    [ Download CamStudio ]

    Related posts:

  • Register and get a Live.com or localized Live account

  • Demonoid Registrations Are Open. Sign Up NOW!

    Hack Demonoid ratio
    Demonoid is one of the biggest private BitTorrent website on the web and the most widely used BitTorrent tracker. It’s one of my personal favorite torrent site. You’ll need to sign up for an account and logged in before you can browse the torrents listed there.


    Registration is very easy. Just enter a username, password that has at least 8 characters, your email, birthday and finally the verification code. Country and gender is optional.
    Sign up demonoid account

    Don’t cry if you’ve missed Demonoid registration. Just wait for next Friday and the registration will be open again. Demonoid registration will re-open every Friday.

    [ Register Demonoid Account ]

    Related posts:

  • Free GMail Sign Up
  • Sign up for Gmail using your mobile phone
  • Register and get a Live.com or localized Live account

  • UnHackMe – Best Rootkits Remover

    A rootkit is a set of software tools intended to conceal running processes, files or system data from the operating system. Rootkits have their origin in relatively benign applications, but in recent years have been used increasingly by malware to help intruders maintain access to systems while avoiding detection. Rootkits exist for a variety of operating systems, such as Linux, Solaris and versions of Microsoft Windows. Rootkits often modify parts of the operating system or install themselves as drivers or kernel modules.

    From what I know, virus destroys and create havoc on your system, trojans is to gain complete access to your system, spywares is to spy on your surfing habits and tricking you into buying softwares. As for rootkits, it’s also to gain complete access to your system except it is much tougher to detect than trojan. Your antivirus could not detect such programs because they use compression and encryption of its files. Luckily most script kiddies would just stick to trojans because it’s much easier to use and requires less knowledge compared to rootkits.

    But my advice is never take anything for granted. Do scan your computers and servers for rootkits. You might never know that your servers has already been compromised by advance hackers which they use it to launch DDOS attacks.


    UnHackMe crack serial number
    Here’s a Rootkit remover I found which works is very easy to use. UnHackMe the rootkit killer is able to scan and remove Rootkits. UnHackMe can detect HackerDefender, Vanquish, AFX Rootkit, Hacktool.Rootkit, Backdoor.Isen.Rootkit, Backdoor.Rtkit, Trojan.Kalshi and more… With just a click of a button that says “Check Me Now!“, it only takes a second to scan and let you know if your system has been infected by rootkits. If infected, click on the STOP button for removal.
    Rootkit removal
    The downside of this tool is it is NOT free. You have to pay $19.95 USD to get a license. But crackers has done their job in cracking it. lord_Phoenix from REVENGE CREW has developed a keygenerator to generate a serial number to license UnHackMe. Looks like UnHackMe being Hacked! LOL! Do buy this software if you’re going to use it because the author has put in efforts to develop something that’s useful and easy to use. The reason crackers crack programs are to let the author of the software know about the weakness of their registration system.

    [ Download UnHackMe ]

  • Selfish BitTorrent Client That Improves Performance

    There are many many BitTorrent clients you can find on the Internet and µTorrent, BitComet, Azureus, BitTornado are the few popular ones. I strongly agree that Torrent technology is the best so far in terms of fair file sharing. For example, if a user is downloading at 30 KBps, they should upload at 30 KBps. However, due to the unique workload properties of many real-world swarms, this is not always enforced. So I glad that I found a new “selfish” bittorrent client that improves performance. I’ve joined a wrestling torrent site for a very long time now and a year ago, when there were 200 seeders, it would maxed out my download speed. Nowadays, even if there’s 400 seeders and less than 50 leechers, I am only getting 20-30kbps download. This new BitTorrent client will fix this problem!


    BitTyrant - Increase torrent download
    BitTyrant is a selfish BitTorrent client that improves performance. It is fast, fair and familiar. During evaluation testing on more than 100 real BitTorrent swarms, BitTyrant provided an average 70% download performance increase when compared to the existing Azureus 2.5 implementation, with some downloads finishing more than three times as quickly. BitTyrant is designed to make efficient use of your scarce upload bandwidth, rewarding those users whose upload allocations are fair and only allocating excess capacity to other users. BitTyrant is based on modifications to Azureus 2.5, currently the most popular BitTorrent client.

    BitTorrent differs from existing clients in its selection of which peers to unchoke and send rates to unchoked peers. Suppose your upload capacity is 50 KBps. If you’ve unchoked 5 peers, existing clients will send each peer 10 KBps, independent of the rate each is sending to you. In contrast, BitTyrant will rank all peers by their receive / sent ratios, preferentially unchoking those peers with high ratios. For example, a peer sending data to you at 20 KBps and receiving data from you at 10 KBps will have a ratio of 2, and would be unchoked before unchoking someone uploading at 10 KBps (ratio 1). Further, BitTyrant dynamically adjusts its send rate, giving more data to peers that can and do upload quickly and reducing send rates to others.

    Here’s the test I ran. BitTyrant vs µTorrent.
    I tried downloading VA-Ministry_Of_Sound-Kink_Vol_2-2CD-2006-FM torrent from filemp3.org using µTorrent. I let it run for 10 minutes, the download speed is around 5-7kbps.
    hack torrent tracker ratio

    I then tried downloading the same torrent from filemp3.org from the beginning using BitTyrant. Surprisingly, the download speed is around 12-15kbps! It never went down more than 10kbps.
    increase torrent download speed
    Looks like the download speed has increased by 1 fold. Meaning if I am suppose to spend 4 hours to download a file using µTorrent, it’d only take 2 hours if I use BitTyrant. What a time saver!

    So is BitTyrant really that selfish by not sharing anything? I personally don’t think so. BitTyrant can detect when additional upload contribution is unlikely to improve performance. If a client were truly selfish, it might opt to withhold excess capacity, reducing performance for other users that would have received it. However, the current BitTyrant implementation always contributes excess capacity, even when it might not improve performance. BitTyrant goal is to improve performance, not minimize upload contribution.

    BitTyrant requires Java 1.5. If you’re having problems getting things started, try updating your JVM.
    Important: For BitTyrant to be most effective, it is crucial that you accurately set your upload capacity during configuration. If you are unsure what your upload capacity is, try taking one of the speed tests available at DSL reports and using the value reported.

    [ Download BitTyrant ]

    Related posts:

  • Smallest BitTorrent client µTorrent 1.6 is out!
  • Another tool to cheat BitTorrent ratio by spoofing
  • How to cheat BitTorrent ratio by spoofing
  • How to increase your upload/download/ratio in bittorrent trackers
  • Fix for Recent Download/Upload speed drop in Bittorrent and P2P

  • spoolsv.exe at 99% CPU usage

    Got a call from a friend and he told me he his computer is acting very slowly. When this happens, mostly it is due to spywares. The first thing I’d do when a computer is running really slow is I run the Windows Task Manager and check which image name is using up all the CPU resources. I found out that an executable file called spoolsv.exe is at 99% usage all the time and never goes down. I tried ending the spoolsv.exe process but after a few seconds, spoolsv.exe automatically runs in background and start hogging on the CPU usage.

    From the file name, I could guess that most probably it had something to do with printer spool. I searched around the Internet about spoolsv.exe and it’s not a virus. spoolsv.exe is the spooler service responsible for managing spooled print/fax jobs. After a while, I manage to find a way to solve the spoolsv.exe from shooting up to 99% cpu usage problem.


    It is advised to turn on the Print Spooler service first. You can do it from Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services. Look for Print Spooler and stop it.
    If it is already stopped, just follow the next step.

    Delete ALL files in C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\PRINTERS. It should have files something like 00020.SHD, 00020.SPL and etc…

    Now spoolsv.exe should run but it’s at 0% CPU usage. Nice fix found at tim’s journal.

    Related posts:

  • Battle of the Browsers in CPU and Memory usage
  • How to calculate electricity usage and charges
  • Register and get a Live.com or localized Live account

  • Easily edit your Photos online

    Through a user’s comment, I found a very useful website which I can edit my photos online using only your browser. It is an ajax based online photo editor. Not only it can resize the photo, it can also perform other basic operations such as cropping, rotating and flipping. Other than that, it also offers effects such as Brightness & Contrast, Saturation, ColorFX, Blur & Sharpen, and Special FX.


    So how easy it is?

    1. Browse for the photo that you want to edit on where it says “Load Image” and click on the “Upload & Edit” button.
    2. Once your photo is on the screen, simply click on any of the basic operations to apply to the photo.
    Edit picture online
    or the effects button.
    Edit picture online
    3. Once you’ve edited your photos to your liking, simply click on the Save button to save the picture on either JPEG, GIF, PNG or BMP format.

    All modifications are done in a non-destructive way. Your image on your computer will always keep it’s original quality unless you overwrite it with the modified one! One note about this tool. Photos nowadays are taken in a very high pixels which resulting the file size being very big. When you upload the photo to edit, it might take a while. I’ve only tested small sized photo and images on pixer.us and it works great.

    [ Visit pixer.us Online Photo Editor ]

    Related posts:

  • Resize Image or Pictures Online
  • Register and get a Live.com or localized Live account

  • How to Fix “NTLDR is Missing” Computer Errors

    When your computer starts, the BIOS attempts to find the primary hard drive’s active partition to read the first sector for the MBR (Master Boot Record), it uses that info to load the rest of the OS. For Windows NT4/2k/XP the NTLDR (New Technology Loader) takes it from there. If you get the “NTLDR is missing, press any key to restart” what’s most likely going on is the BIOS either didn’t look for the right drive, didn’t find the right partition, it wasn’t active, didn’t find the MBR, or the MBR didn’t list NTLDR in the right place, or the location of NTLDR changed.

    Here’s how to fix “NTLDR is Missing. Press CTRL+Alt+Del to restart” error and get back into Windows.
    NTLDR Is Missing. Press any key to restart
    “This solution worked for me and was developed by Miles Comer at http://ntldrismissing.com/, visit that site for the most up-to-date information, and following is a copy of that websites data:


    What you’re going to do to fix this problem is make a NTLDR boot disk to get back into Windows and then fix the files on your hard drive. This should be the first step to solve this problem because you have to make sure that your Windows installation is still working and not corrupted. If you can’t even boot from the NTLDR boot disk, then most probably you’ll have to reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows.

    Here are the instructions to do create a NTLDR boot disk:
    1. Get a blank floppy (whatever is on it will be erased), and put it into a working computer.
    2. Download fixntldr.exe onto a working computer (fixntldr-winnt if you are using Windows 2000 or Windows NT4).
    3. Run the fixntldr.exe file by double clicking it. Click OK to overwrite the blank floppy disc in the working computer, you should see some screens about writing a new floppy disk.
    4. Put the new floppy you have just created into the computer that gets the NTLDR is missing error message.
    5. Start the broken computer with the floppy in the floppy drive. Once your computer gets past the BIOS screen your computer should try to access the floppy drive and you should see a black screen with white letters that says:

    1ST TRY THIS seleccione esto primero
    2ND TRY THIS essayez ceci en deuzieme
    3RD TRY THIS wahlen Sie diesen Third
    4TH TRY THIS selezioni questo fourth
    5TH TRY THIS selecione este fifth
    6TH TRY THIS seleccione este sexto
    7TH TRY THIS essayez ceci en septieme
    8TH TRY THIS wahlen Sie dieses achte
    9TH TRY THIS selezioni questo nono
    10TH TRY THIS selecione este decimo

    This file is set up to automatically select the “1ST TRY THIS” choice after 30 seconds. Try it first, if it was the wrong selection, you will likely get one of these four errors:

    1. Windows could not start because file “\system32\hal.dll was missing or corrupt

    2. Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

    3. I/O Error accessing boot sector file multi(0)disk(0)fdisk(0)\BOOTSECT.DOS

    4. Immediate reboot

    If you get the immediate reboot or some other weird error, try pressing F8 at the “1st Try This” selection screen, it will give you a prompt where you can select Safe Mode, and then try the “1st Try This” option again. Safe Mode is a special “minimal” version of Windows that doesn’t load certain parts of the operating system that might have caused the problem.

    One of the choices should eventually boot you back into Windows.
    If you got back into Windows, stop whatever you are doing and backup your most important information from this computer.

    Now that you are done backing up the most important info, try to change back whatever you were last doing and boot normally, it that doesn’t work, put the floppy back into the broken computer and double click the fixntldr.bat file on the floppy drive, if it asks you to overwrite a file, just type in y for yes (the file copies boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect.com from the floppy to the C:\ drive and removes the read only attributes). That process take a few minutes, then remove the floppy and reboot.

    If you are using the cd or usb solution, copy the boot.ini, ntldr, and ntdetect.com files to My Computer > Local Disk C:\ > and overwite whatever files might be there, then right click each file, choose properties, uncheck the Read Only attribute, and click OK.

    If you get back into Windows again, you can change that “1st Try This” menu by going into Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > Startup and Recovery section, Settings button > System Startup; then change the “Default Operating System:” to the selection that worked for you, and change the box that says “Time to display list of operating systems” to however many seconds you want (usually 1 second). Click OK twice.

    [ Original Source ]

    Related posts:

  • Easily Extract Your Computer’s Hardware Information
  • How to Hack Into a Windows XP Computer Without Changing Password
  • How To Put Hiren’s BootCD on Flash Memory