Sunday, July 30, 2006

Windows XP - Tips and Tweaks

I found a website that has a good collection of tweaks,

Customize a New XP Installation

Sunday, July 16, 2006

How to use Uploading.com

Uploading.com is an file hosting service. Instead of emailing large attachments, it's better to use a file hosting service. The file hosted on the server will remain for 30 days, and if it has not been downloaded for more than that, it will be deleted.

Some file hosting services support downloading managers, and uploading.com is one of them. But if you are on a slow connection, it could be a problem if you are downloading a large file, because links expire after 24 hours.

So here is a tutorial which will help you to use the service to your best advantage, from queuing the file in your download manager to resuming download even after 24 hours.

FlashGet is used to explain the tutorial becuase it's one of the best download managers available, but the principle remains the same:

When you visit the download page, you have to enter a number in the box, after which there is about 40 seconds of waiting. Once the time is up, you will find this message:

Click here to download
Download will start during 5-30 seconds after click.

Chances are your default download manager will catch the click, i.e it will queue the file and the download will start.

If however, the download manager doesn't start the download, here is what you can do:

1. Right click on the link that says: 'Click here to start download' and copy the link location.

2. Start a new download task by clicking on the 'New' button in your FlashGet window.

3. In the URL section of the new window, you will find a link already placed.

4. Start the download. You will find that initially it doesn't show the file name, but after a few seconds, the file name will appear in the download window and the download will start.

To resume files after a delay for 24 hours

Files will have their links changed every 24 hours. So if you have a file in queue that's over 24 hours old, chances are the link won't work.

So you will have to get a new link. Here is what you do:

1. Visit the page again, and repeat the process to get a new link.

2. Copy the link location of 'Click here to start your download' again.

3. Now, right click on the file in FlashGet and open the properties. Now paste the new link in the URL section, and press OK.

4. Now start the download. It will resume again.

How to use FlashFXP

How to use FlashFXP, a beginner's tutorial

FlashFXP is one of the best FTP clients available. It’s very reliable, and very easy to use once you get the hang of it. Here is a great tutorial to learn the basics of FalshFXP

Getting Started:

1. Press [F6] to open the options tab.

2. General Tab -

* Email address - leave the default one in place (flashfxp-user@flashfxp.com)
* Default download path - this is where downloads will automatically be stored on your computer, change to the folder you want.
* Make sure the following checkbox is checked:
*Send keep alive command (NOOP) every (60) seconds

3. Connection Tab -

* Type = "0. None"
* Check the use passive mode box - almost all of the time you will need to connect in this manner.
* Check the "Send noops during transfer" box - this will work to keep the connection alive once connected.
* Leave the rest alone unless you know what you doing.

4. Options Tab -

* Toggles: check all boxes except the following: 2,7,11
* Confirmations: check all

5. Transfer Tab -

* Options: check following boxes - 1,2,3,..6,7,8
* Transfer Mode - check auto
* Filename Case Conversion - "Don't Convert" option for all three
* On transfer complete - choose an option (Disconnect)
* Check "show confirmation" checkbox

6. Leave the rest of the tabs alone for now.


Select the "View" tab

1. Check the "Show raw command line" and "Show graph"
2. Select "show Winbl@ws" - check all 4 options
3. This will split the application view into 4 quadrants, the left side showing your computer and folder tree and right side showing the FTP folder tree.
4. You can navigate through your computer using the left side of the screen and navigate through the site you connected to using the right side of the screen (after connected)

When you find links to sites that you want to connect too, copy and paste the address into the FlashFXP address bar. The Site Manager can be accessed by pressing [F4] when the applicaiton is running. Once this window opens paste the link address into the [Site Address] field, the applicaiton will automatically parse the link into the correct fields. After pasting the link into the appropriate field, hit the [connect] button.

You can also access this window by pressing [F8] or selecting the lightening bolt a the top of the screen, right side. This is just a different view of the site manager. You can paste links in here also.
If the link address is still valid FlashFXP will connect you to the site. For example copy and paste this link into the [site address] field and press the [connect] button:

ftp://ftp.adobe.com

This link will take you to the Adobe FTP site, this site is open to the public. Once connected you will see a list of folders that you can browse through that has all of their applications.
Occassionally you will need to connect to site using the NON-PASSIVE mode. This option can be found through the [F8] option and selecting the "Toggles" tab. Make sure the "Use Passive Mode" checkbox is completely clear to connect in this manner. In addition sometimes it is useful to force a server to list all files. To do this, select the "Use Stat-l" checkbox on this tab.

Anatomy of an FTP address
ftp://movies:pardes@130.160.104.232:65171/

Section 1 - (ftp://) defines connection type FTP vs. HTTP

Section 2 - (movies:pardes) Username = movies: Password = pardes

Section 3 - (@) the word "at"

Section 4 - (130.160.104.232) IP Address of site

Section 5 - (65171) Port Number to connect through

Section 6 - (/) This is where any folders would be listed that need to be navigated through

Procedure to restore the boot loader in Windows XP

Procedure to restore the boot loader

When Windows 98 is installed in a computer when Windows XP is already installed, boot loader will be overwritten, and not appended. That is, there will not an option to choose between operating systems at boot time, instead Windows 98 is automatically started at each boot time.

In order to restore the boot loader to show the choice of booting between both Windows 98 and Windows XP, here is the procedure:

Step 1: Create a Windows 98 bootable floppy disk.

Step 2: Create a text file with the following entries, exactly as shown below:

L 100 2 0 1
N C:\BOOTSECT.DOS
R BX
0
R CX
200
W
Q

Now save this text file in the Windows 98 bootable floppy disk as READ.SCR

Step 3: Reboot the computer with the floppy disk and type the following at the A: prompt DEBUG READ.SCR

IMPORTANT: Insert the symbol "<" between the two words DEBUG and READ.SCR, and type it as a single string. Blogger is showing HTML errors when the whole string is typed.

Step 4: Now configure the BIOS to boot from the CD/DVD ROM drive. Insert Windows XP CD and let the computer boot from the CD.

Step 5: At the XP installation, there will be an option to install Windows XP or repair the existing installation, chose repair.

Step 6: Choose the XP installation that has to be repaired. Considering that there is only one XP installed on the computer, press 1.

Step 7: At the console, the password has to be entered. For Windows XP Home users, just press enter. For Windows XP Professional users, enter the password that has been entered for the administrator account at the time of installation. If there is no password entered, just press enter.

Step 8: At C:\Windows prompt type FIXBOOT. There is a confirmation prompt, accept it.

Step 9: Once the boot loader is fixed, remove the XP CD from the drive, and reboot the computer by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del.

Now you should find that there is an option between Windows 98 and Windows XP at startup.

Make Firefox Faster For Broadband Users

Here's something for broadband people that will really speed Firefox up:

1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!