Tricks For Internet Explorer

Most people use Internet Explorer to browse the net. It loads up fast because parts of it is loaded by Windows as the latter boots up. Using the feedback from its huge user base, Microsoft has made numerous improvements, which you can use to your advantage.
• Disable the Links toolbar and save space. Remove the Explorer view for the same reason.
• Customize the toolbar via View » Toolbars » Customize.
• Blank home page: Set your home page to a blank one so that it loads up faster. This is done via Tools » Internet Options » General » Use Blank.
• Offline browsing:You do not have to connect to the Internet to revisit a page. You can access it from the cache. This is done via Tools » Internet Options » Temporary Internet Folders » Settings » Check newer versions of stored pages: » Never. After setting up IE like this, you can browse offline by, click on the History button. This will open up the History folder in a left pane. Browse through this to access the pages that you have visited earlier. You check the latest version on the net however by clicking on the Refresh button.
• Context Menu Extensions For IE: IE allows you to copy the address of a link with just two clicks. But to copy the address of an image on a webpage, you have make at least 5 clicks. To make things like this more easier, you can create your own context menu extensions. For this, some new keys will have to be added to the registry. These keys will refer to Javascript or VBScript functions placed in some special HTML files. Extract the HTM files to C:\. Extract the cmes.reg and double click on it. The keys will be merged into the registry. Your IE context menu will have new options - "Copy All Hyperlink Address" (default), "Copy All Image Addresses" (default), "Copy Image Address" (on images), "Set Text Size To Medium" (on selected text) and "Copy HTML Code" (on selected text). You will have to make some modification to the cmes.reg file if you are not able to place files at C:\, a common scenario for people who are on a network.
• Computer Security: Some websites have ads that tell you that your computer could be transmitting vital/private information about you, which could be targeted by hackers and viruses. They will tell you to download a security software. Considering the fact that they are using wrong tactics to sell their product, it is quite possible that their software could be doing more harm than good. No matter which software you use, it is not possible to completely hide your computer on the net. People who have always-on Internet connections like broadband or cable should instead use firewalls like the trusty ZoneAlarm or Tiny.
There are other websites that will ask visitors to install ActiveX controls like Gator or Bonzi. These are spyware and Internet users should avoid them.
Neither should you install programs like MP3 Dancer. These are spyware. Even if you uninstall them, they will still remain on your computer without your knowledge.

• Paranoia 1: IE's autocomplete feature may throw up some web addresses at the address bar, which you may not want others to see. So, clear the history. This is done by Internet Options » Clear History. If otherwise you want to selectively remove history items, then delete the appropriate folders inside the History folder. In Windows 9x/Me, the History folder is inside the Windows folder. In Windows 2000/XP, it will be inside the Documents and Settings\«User name»\Local Settings\ folder.
• Paranoia 2: Deleting the files in the Temporary Internet Files folder can remove only part of your tracks. Cookies stored by websites usually remain in this folder with their full web address. So, that is a security violation. To remove them, choose Internet Options » Temporary Internet Folder » Delete Cookies.
• Paranoia 3: All evidence is still not removed. There is a file inside the Temporary Internet Files folder called index.dat, which has some evidence of your browsing history. Delete this file too. IE will regenerate another index.dat later.
• Paranoia 4: When the Autocomplete feature is enabled, all your personal information including passwords are stored on the computer, which is available for others to misuse. So, when you are done with browsing at your office or an Internet cafe, follow the above three steps and clear the saved data by choosing Internet Options » Content » AutoComplete » Clear Forms and Clear Passwords. Sometimes, the Internet Options menu option might be disabled in your office or web cafe. So, delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\IntelliForms key from the registry. If you want to steal or backup passwords, export this key and import it on a different machine or installation. You will also have to copy the {username}.pwl file and cookies to the new machine/installation. Sometimes, there are ActiveX programs that sit silently recording everything. You can check them out at Internet Options » Temporary Internet Files » Settings » View Objects. This will open the Downloaded Program Files folder in the windows folder. By right-clicking the contents, you can either remove them or check out their properties.
• Paranoia 5: In certain Internet cafes, silent keyboard loggers are installed by certain people to collect userids and passwords, and send them to their email addresses. Remove these programs from memory and only then browse. Also disable form fillers such as Gator in Internet cafes.
• Dialer: When you click on a link, IE starts the dialer program. If this is annoying to you, disable this via Internet Options » Connection » Never dial a connection.
• Saving on telephone bills: You can make optimum use of your online time by opening the links in new windows rather than the current one. Take for example your HotMAIL Inbox. Every time you go there, there are many messages there. Instead of just clicking on a message and waiting for that message to load, right click on the message's link and choose Open in New Window. Go back to the Inbox and do the same for all other messages. By this time, your first message would have been downloaded. When you finish reading it, all the other messages would have been downloaded in their windows. Now, you can logout and disconnect the Internet connection.
• Downloading recalcitrant files: Most people use a downloaded manager to download huge files. But, sometimes they run into problems when the download manager is not able to catch the correct url of the file. In such cases, open the source of the page via View » Source and do a search for the download file. Usually, the full url of the file will be found here. Copy this and paste it in the download manager. If some website prevents you from right-clicking to save an image on it, just look inside the Temporary Internet Files folder for it.
• IE Toolbars ∓ Desktop Tickers: Add the Google Toolbar to IE. With this toolbar, you will get to the results without having to visit Google's home page first. You may also use Yahoo! Companion instead. With Yahoo! Companion you will be able to harness the power of the Google search engine and also get easy access to other Yahoo! services.
• If you have to keep in touch with the latest news, then get the Reuters Desktop Ticker. Reuters is the world's leading news provider and almost every newspaper and TV station in the world gets feeds from it. Once connected to the Net, headlines flash across the ticker and you can click on the headlines to see the news stories in a browser window.
• ESCAPE: Many people do not know this. If a page is being downloaded and you want to stop it, then pressing the Escape key will do that. Also, pressing Backspace key will take you to the previous page.
• Saving web pages: Beginning with Version 5, IE allows saving a web page in a single file including its images and other embedded content. To do this, choose Save As from the File menu. Here in the Save as type, choose Web Archive, single file (*.mht). Sometimes, MHT files may not show anything even though its thumbnail does show something. If you disable Javascript, you will be able to see the whatever something you saw in the thumbnail.

Cleaning Recent Docs Menu and the RUN MRU

The Recent Docs menu can be easily disabled by editing the Registry. To do this go to the following Key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Now in the right pane, create a new DWORD value by the name: NoRecentDocsMenu and set it's value to 1. Restart Explorer to save the changes.
You can also clear the RUN MRU history. All the listings are stored in the key:
HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU
You can delete individual listings or the entire listing. To delete History of Find listings go to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRU and delete.

How to: Make 4 fake computer viruses!

Disclaimer: Everything here is for informational purposes only.
Why not have some fun and prank your friends? There are several kinds of fake virus messages you can make. I will discuss 4 of them:
1. Fake error message

This one is by far, the easiest one to make and all you have to do is to make a new text document with notepad, type msg * YOUR MESSAGE and save as anything.bat. As always, make sure that you select All files instead of Text Document.
2. Forced shutdown

This will display a custom error message and start a countdown which will shut down the computer.
Right-click your desktop and create a new shortcut.
Paste the following code into the Location box in the Create Shortcut menu:
shutdown -s -t 30 -c “Your message here“
Replace 30 with the length of the countdown you want (in seconds) and place your custom error message between the quotes. Click next and name the shortcut to something the victim would be likely to click on such as “Internet explorer” or “My Documents”, etc.

Next you’d want to change the icon. Right-click on the shortcut you made and click properties. Find the Change Icon button and click it. Choose a suitable icon for the name you chose earlier.

And that’s all! Now you just have to sneak the shortcut onto the victim’s desktop and run!
Note: to stop it, open Run from the start menu and type shutdown-a.

3. Endless Command prompt windows
This will open up a series of command prompt windows that will never end.
The basic idea is that there are two .bat files that open the other one when opened, so the other one opens the first one again and the windows just won’t stop coming.
How to do this:
1. Fire up notepad and type: start 2.bat
2. Save it as 1.bat (make sure you choose all files when saving it)
3. Make another new text document and type: start 1.bat
4. Save it as 2.bat into the same folder as the other one.

All you have to do to start it is to click on either of them.

The only way to stop it is to wait for the windows to become so numerous that they are a group on the taskbar. Then you can use Close group to get rid of the bastards.
4. Fake Command prompt viruses
These are also a good way to make the victim believe that a worm is gnawing at their hard drive and that they can’t do anything to stop it.
Open up notepad and type @echo off
• To make text appear, type it after an echo tag.
• To have the the commands wait for the user to press any key type pause
(Note: if you write pause >nul it won’t display Press Any key to continue…)
• To have a complete high-speed description of files in the drive of the .bat file, type dir /s
• You can also initiate any other command we covered earlier, such as shutdown, error message, etc.

6 Essential Tips to Speed up Windows 7

Without a doubt, Windows 7 is a much better operating system than its predecessors, but that doesn’t mean it is the speediest of them all. Due to the hardware requirement, those who still have their old computer may not get the same performance as good as they had with Windows XP. Even if the computer comes with all the latest hardware installed, there are still many factors that can substantially slow down the performance. In this article, we are going to show you 6 useful ways to improve the speed and performance of your Windows 7.

1. Disable Unnecessary Visual Effects
• Right click on “Computer” in windows start menu and choose “Properties”.
• Click on “Advanced System Settings” at the left pane.
• Under the “Advanced” tab, click on “Settings” under “Performance” category. Select the “Custom:” option.
• Look through the list and uncheck the effects that you have no used for it. (Note: For optimum result, uncheck all the check box except the last four items). Click OK.
• Restart your computer.

You will notice the result immediately.
2.Increase the Boot Speed
With this small tweak, you can decrease the boot time of your Windows 7.
• Press Windows Key + R to launch the Run window.
• Type “msconfig” and hit Enter. The System Configuration Window will appear.
• Under the “Boot” tab, find the box (on the right side) labeled with “Time out”. Generally it is set to 30.
• If you are using only one operating system then you can set the value as 0. But if you are using more than one, then set to 3.
• Check “No GUI Boot” option.

• Click the “Advanced Options” button.
• Check the box labeled with “Number of Processor” and select the number of processors in your computer. Most probably it will be 2.

• Now click “OK”.
• Click “Apply” and then “OK”.
Note: The above tricks will work only If you are using multi-core (more than one) processor in your computer.
3: Disable Windows Aero theme
Windows Aero theme is the eye candy in Windows Vista/7. While its performance was greatly improved in Win 7 as compared to Vista, it is still taking up a large amount of memory and squeezes the graphics card to its maximum. If you can live without the eye candy, then it is a great choice to disable it.
• Right click on the desktop and select “Personalize” .
• Chose One of the standard themes from the right hand side. “Windows 7 Basic” is a good choice.

4. Remove unwanted items from startup menu
Some of the applications that you have installed are automatically added tn the startup menu without your knowledge. If you are wondering why your Windows take so long to startup, they are mainly the culprit. The best way to fix this is to remove the unwanted programs and services from the startup menu.
• Press Windows Key + R and type “msconfig” in the run dialogue box.
• Go to the Startup tab. Uncheck the applications that you have no use for. (Make sure you do not remove any system services).
5.Use your USB flash drive as RAM
In Windows 7, there is this awesome and useful feature that allows you to use your USB flash drive as an external RAM.
Before you start, make sure that you are using a freshly formatted USB drive.
• plug in your USB drive. Right click on the USB drive in My Computer window and select Property.
• Under “Ready Boost” tab, check the box “Use this device”.
• Configure the space of your USB flash drive that you want to allocate for system speed.

6. Disable unnecessary system sounds
When it is active, the system sound can take up a lot of system resources and slow down the computer.
• Press Windows Key + R to open the Run window. Type “mmsys.cpl” and hit Enter.
• Go to the Sound tab. Select “No Sounds” from the Sound Scheme dropdown box

Reset the Administrator Password

We inherited a PC. We can reset the PC password, no problem. But how do we reset the password to access Safe Mode?
A: If I understand correctly, you can log on as a user but you do not have the Administrator password. As long as you can log on with an account that has Administrator-level privilege you should be okay. In XP, click Start, click Run (in Vista, just use the Search field), enter control userpasswords2 (don't forget the 2 at the end).
In the dialog that appears is a panel titled Password for Administrator. Click the Reset Password button in this panel and assign a new password that you'll remember but that a malefactor or a virus won't guess.
If that button is disabled, check the box at the top that says, Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer. That will enable the button. After changing the Administrator password, close the main User Accounts dialog by clicking Cancel rather than OK. That way, your change to the "Users must enter..." check box won't actually change anything.

How to log on to your Windows XP-based computer if you forget your password or if your password expires

If you forget your Windows password or if your password expires, you must reset your password before you can log on to your computer. This article contains two methods that you can try to reset your password so that you can log on to your computer again. These steps only work if you have previously created a password reset disk for the computer, or if you can log on as an administrator to assign a new password to your account.

If you do not have a reset disk or cannot log on as an administrator, unfortunately, you may have to reinstall Windows XP and all other programs that were installed on the computer before you can use the computer again. This is for security. Without these safeguards, anyone could reset a password to anyone else's computer and gain access to private information.

This article is intended for a beginning to intermediate computer user.