But tweak the right settings and you could make it faster still, more than doubling your speed in some situations, all for about five minutes work and for the cost of precisely nothing at all. Here’s what you need to do.

1. Enable pipelining

Browsers are normally very polite, sending a request to a server then waiting for a response before continuing. Pipelining is a more aggressive technique that lets them send multiple requests before any responses are received, often reducing page download times. To enable it, type about:config in the address bar, double-click network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining so their values are set to true, then double-click network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and set this to 8.

Keep in mind that some servers don’t support pipelining, though, and if you regularly visit a lot of these then the tweak can actually reduce performance. Set network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining to false again if you have any problems.

2. Render quickly

Large, complex web pages can take a while to download. Firefox doesn’t want to keep you waiting, so by default will display what it’s received so far every 0.12 seconds (the “content notify interval”). While this helps the browser feel snappy, frequent redraws increase the total page load time, so a longer content notify interval will improve performance.

Type about:config and press [Enter], then right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) somewhere in the window and select New > Integer. Type content.notify.interval as your preference name, click OK, enter 500000 (that’s five hundred thousand, not fifty thousand) and click OK again.

Right-click again in the window and select New > Boolean. This time create a value called content.notify.ontimer and set it to True to finish the job.

3. Faster loading

If you haven’t moved your mouse or touched the keyboard for 0.75 seconds (the content switch threshold) then Firefox enters a low frequency interrupt mode, which means its interface becomes less responsive but your page loads more quickly. Reducing the content switch threshold can improve performance, then, and it only takes a moment.

Type about:config and press [Enter], right-click in the window and select New > Integer. Type content.switch.threshold, click OK, enter 250000 (a quarter of a second) and click OK to finish.

4. No interruptions

You can take the last step even further by telling Firefox to ignore user interface events altogether until the current page has been downloaded. This is a little drastic as Firefox could remain unresponsive for quite some time, but try this and see how it works for you.

Type about:config, press [Enter], right-click in the window and select New > Boolean. Type content.interrupt.parsing, click OK, set the value to False and click OK.

5. Block Flash

Intrusive Flash animations are everywhere, popping up over the content you actually want to read and slowing down your browsing. Fortunately there’s a very easy solution. Install the Flashblock extension (flashblock.mozdev.org) and it’ll block all Flash applets from loading, so web pages will display much more quickly. And if you discover some Flash content that isn’t entirely useless, just click its placeholder to download and view the applet as normal.

6. Increase the cache size

As you browse the web so Firefox stores site images and scripts in a local memory cache, where they can be speedily retrieved if you revisit the same page. If you have plenty of RAM (2 GB of more), leave Firefox running all the time and regularly return to pages then you can improve performance by increasing this cache size. Type about:config and press [Enter], then right-click anywhere in the window and select New > Integer. Type browser.cache.memory.capacity, click OK, enter 65536 and click OK, then restart your browser to get the new, larger cache.

7. Enable TraceMonkey

TraceMonkey is a new Firefox feature that converts slow Javascript into super-speedy x86 code, and so lets it run some functions anything up to 20 times faster than the current version. It’s still buggy so isn’t available in the regular Firefox download yet, but if you’re willing to risk the odd crash or two then there’s an easy way to try it out.

Install the latest nightly build (ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/), launch it, type about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Type JIT in the filter box, then double-click javascript.options.jit.chrome and javascript.options.jit.content to change their values to true, and that’s it – you’re running the fastest Firefox Javascript engine ever.

8. Compress data

If you’ve a slow internet connection then it may feel like you’ll never get Firefox to perform properly, but that’s not necessarily true. Install toonel.net (toonel.net) and this clever Java applet will re-route your web traffic through its own server, compressing it at the same time, so there’s much less to download. And it can even compress JPEGs by allowing you to reduce their quality. This all helps to cut your data transfer, useful if you’re on a limited 1 GB-per-month account, and can at best double your browsing performance.

By Mike Williams
http://www.techradar.com

10. De-bulk your MacBook’s power cord

For all their design emphasis on elegance and minimalism, MacBooks come with rather bulky power cords that aren’t easy to coil up and tuck away. Gizmodo editor Brian Lam travels quite a bit with his MacBook Pro and doesn’t dig the bulk of the cord leading up to the two-prong “brick,” so he details the not-so-tough technique of swapping it out for a lighter, more flexible PlayStation cord, which shares the same adapter at the end. (Original post)

9. Install your own RAM

It almost always costs less to buy your own RAM from a reliable source and install it yourself than to let the Lenovos, Dells, HPs, and Apples do it for you, either when you first purchase your system or as an upgrade. On most systems, laptops included, it’s a beginner-level hardware project to swap out or add on a memory chip. Adam details how to install a new stick of RAM in your desktop PC and took us on a video tour of MacBook RAM upgrading. From what this editor has seen, that process is nearly identical on non-Apple laptops: find where the RAM is kept, unscrew a plate, pop the memory sticks in and out at an angle, then re-seat it to be back on one’s way. Not sure which chips you need to buy? Try the How-To Geek’s guide to determining what kind of memory your computer has installed.

8. Quiet a noisy hard drive

You don’t notice the sound of your hard drives when you first boot up a new system, but over time, the hum, whir, and clicking of all those disks and moving parts can become maddening low-level irritants. A lot of the noise is usually caused by the hard drive vibrating against a metal desktop case, which can be eliminated with small rubber inserts, or, for a nearly complete vibration elimination, suspending the drive from elastic straps. If you’re rocking a laptop, or looking for other ways of quieting any kind of system, try searching and digging around at Silent PC Review, End PC Noise, or check out PC Magazine’s multi-step guide to a quiet PC.

7. Get good at soldering

Most DIY gadget projects, and a lot of computer or electronics repairs, require the use of a hot soldering iron, some solder, and occasionally flux. If all that sounds pretty foreign and new to you, Instructables’ guide to basic parts fusing and circuit mending will be worth every minute you spend absorbing it. It’s packed with good tips and answered beginner questions. Planning to jump into a more advanced, detail-oriented project like the MintyBoost? Aaron’s Homepage has a guide on how to solder on circuit boards. (Original post)

6. Turn a PC into a Hackintosh

Getting Apple’s OS X running on hardware you didn’t buy from Apple doesn’t require magic powers, a 128-character secret code, or much more than just the patience to follow a few work-around steps, really. Adam showed us how to take some gear nabbed from NewEgg and assemble it into a “Hackintosh,” with greater ease of use than his first go-round. If you’ve got a desktop system looking for a few new parts, or you’d like to try out the Mac world without paying Mac premiums, it makes for a rewarding weekend project.

5. Replace a power supply

Power supplies are not something you want to cheap out on, or hang onto if they’re on their way out. They’re often the noisiest component of a desktop system, they’re fickle, and they can bring down other components if they fritz out. Lifehacker alumnus Rick Broida ran down the basics of unplugging and removing your power supply and re-seating a new one in its place. That answers one half of the equation, but how do you know what PSU to replace it with? Online parts megastore NewEgg offers a convenient Power Supply Calculator that figures out power supply needs from the components already installed. Just as with a house, you can sometimes get by with less than you should, but you don’t want to find out what happens when you’re wrong.

4. Install a new hard drive

Every hard drive seems like it will be way, way too big for your uses when you first get it. A few months of willy-nilly downloading later, and you’re looking for bigger digs for your data. Adam broke down the desktop installation process, but for the increasing number of folks jamming all their stuff onto laptops, we offer up guides on MacBook upgrades from the Houston Chronicle’s TechBlog and Popular Mechanics’ general laptop hard drive guide. All the techniques, of course, also apply if your drive goes dead and you need to yank it out for a replacement.

3. Replace a busted laptop LCD

LCD screens are often the second-most expensive component of a laptop, so when they go bad, most folks just swing for a full replacement. If you can find an LCD replacement for your model, though, there’s a good chance you can save yourself some pretty serious cash, especially if your laptop’s screen went dark early in its life. The This Is My Defective Kit site runs down a step-by-step process for replacing a faulty display, which is mainly a matter of being careful and not losing very tiny screws. If that sounds a little beyond your powers or patience, you can turn that working-but-not-visible laptop into a headless system that hides away easily. (Original post)

2. Upgrade to a new motherboard and CPU

Replacing the other parts of your computer is akin to attaching arms and legs to a Frankenstein’s system. When you add an entirely new CPU and motherboard to your case, that’s when you’ve truly become a mad scientist. Actually, it’s not all that hard, as Adam demonstrates, and on a system where everything runs well but the brain just needs to move a bit quicker, it’s a relatively cheap and efficient upgrade—and one that instills a lot of confidence in your computer hardware skills.

1. Build a whole computer from scratch

As Gina notes in her comprehensive run-down of building her own PC, from choosing the parts to (finally) getting to a log-in screen, you don’t build your own PC because you want to save a whole lot of money (though you can, depending on the build). You build it yourself because you want complete control over the quality and features of every single piece of it, and you learn a heck of a lot about how they operate together. Do yourself a favor, though, and learn from Gina’s “several WTF moments” before giving it a go yourself.

Where do you turn when you’re looking to fix or replace some hardware? Which hardware projects are worth the time and effort, and which have you left to the pros? Relate your repair tales in the comments, and feel free to offer up other worthwhile hardware links.

“There seems to be a myth that Microsoft limits security updates to genuine Windows users,” wrote Microsoft’s Paul Cooke, who works in Windows Client Enterprise Security. “Let me be clear: all security updates go to all users.”

“Not only do all security updates go to all users’ systems, but non-genuine Windows systems are able to install service packs, update rollups, and important reliability and application compatibility updates,” Cooke continued in the blog entry. “In addition, the users of non-genuine Windows systems can also upgrade a lot of the other software on their computer. For example Internet Explorer 8 has numerous security- oriented features and improvements, and it is available to all users.”

That’s not to say that non-genuine copies of Windows are allowed to run completely free. Certain updates and software may be blocked at Microsoft’s discretion, such as value-adding updates and non-security-related software.

Bootlegged copies of Windows Vista can still access updates through the Windows Update control panel. A non-genuine Windows XP system can only access updates through Automatic Updates, but not through the update websites.

Microsoft said that it won’t be changing this policy for Windows 7, meaning that pirates will still be as protected as legit users. While this might seem a little strange for any software company to provide software support to pirates, keeping even illegal copies patched up is in the interest of the entire computing ecosystem.

While it may be mildly entertaining to laugh at illegal installations of Windows fall at the hands of a computer worm, an epidemic is still an epidemic – especially if it affects legitimate users who simply haven’t applied the current patches or security software.

Source : Tom’s Hardware US

Enjoy!
Office Suite

1. OpenOffice.org – OpenOffice.org is a viable alternative to Microsoft Office – even for professional use. It can do just about anything Office can.
2. AbiWord – A lightweight version of Microsoft Office. Simple, straightforward interface; easy to use.
3. Jarte – A word processor based on the Microsoft WordPad. It can be run directly from a USB flash drive.
4. Notepad++ – A free source code editor and Notepad replacement, which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment.
5. EditPad Lite – A general-purpose text editor, designed to be small and compact, yet offer all the functionality you expect from a basic text editor.


Security

6. avast! 4 Home Edition – A complete antivirus solution that is able to find computer viruses, create and check the integrity of programs installed, test executed programs and opened documents, to test and check email and other functions.
7. AVG Anti-Virus – A free security solution that is easy to use, has low system resources, automatic update functionality and ability to protect as files are opened and programs are run.
8. Comodo Firewall – A free firewall that constantly monitors and defends your PC from internet attacks. It is a fully functional product that comes with continual updates that are free forever!
9. McAfee SiteAdvisor – A plugin for Firefox and IE browser that shows safety rating as you browse the Web.
10. SpyCatcher Express – A free anti-spyware program that allows novice PC users to remove aggressive spyware, stops next-generation, mutating spyware, blocks reinstallation of aggressive spyware and removes spyware safely and automatically.
11. StartupMonitor – A small monitoring program that keeps a constant eye on your system’s startup entries. When ever a change is made, you will be notified and given a choice to either allow the change or not to change.
12. SuperStorm Freeware – This software allows you to hide your confidential files and folders in a wide variety of media files such as pictures, audio, video, executable programs among many other file types.
13. Windows Defender – A free program that helps protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware and other unwanted software.
14. HijackThis – A malware remove tool that makes a detailed log of what’s going on in your Registry and gives you the opportunity to remove things that might be suspect.
15. Zone Alarm – This software lets you block uninitiated and unwanted traffic, even while your PC is unattended or while you’re not using your connection.

Desktop management

16. Google desktop – A desktop search application that gives you easy access to information on your computer and from the web.
17. Yahoo Desktop – Yahoo Desktop enables you to search and instantly find information, preview it in its native format, and take action on it immediately.
18. TweakUI – This software reduces the Windows annoyance without having to meddle with the registry. It gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface, including mouse settings, Explorer settings, taskbar settings, and more.
19. Pretty run – A small program that can search your start menu, desktop or any other folder for shortcuts.
20. RoboForm – RoboForm memorizes and securely stores each user name and password the first time you log into a site, then automatically supplies them when you return.
21. AutoHotkey - This open-source utility can automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write macros by hand or use the macro recorder. You can also create hotkeys for keyboard, mouse, joystick, and handheld remote controls.
22. Keepass safe – A password manager which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key-disk.
23. Clipomatic – A clipboard cache program that remembers what was copied to the clipboard and allows you to retrieve it, even after you’ve copied something else to the clipboard.

Browser

24. Firefox – Firefox includes tons of useful features such as tabbed browsing, built-in and customizable search bars, a built-in RSS reader and a huge library of extensions developed by thousand of developers.
25. Opera – Opera introduces Speed Dial which vastly improves navigation to your favorite sites. In addition, there’s Fraud protection, an anti-phishing detection keeps browsing safe and secure.
26. Crazy browser – A browser that allows users to collect tabs into groups and then load an entire group at once. This feature is very useful for research, as you can summon a set of related sites as needed, without manually opening each one.

Fun and Games

27. Banshee Screamer Alarm – A snoozeable alarm clock designed to wake you up. Play MP3s, execute programs, or shut down your computer at the time you set.
28. BZFlag – An online multiplayer cross-platform open source 3D tank battle game. It runs on Irix, Linux, BSD, Windows, Mac OS X, and many other platforms. It’s one of the most popular games ever on Silicon Graphics machines.
29. ConWare IconArt – An easy-to-use icon & cursor editor that allows your to design your own, edit previous icons, create cursors, capture icons from programs and DLL files or import an image for your icon.
30. Google Earth – Google Earth combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips.
31. Tux Racer – Getting bored and sick of the Windows game? Tux Racer lets you take on the role of Tux the Linux Penguin as he races down steep, snow-covered mountains. Enter cups and compete to win the title!
32. ZSNES – A Nintendo emulator on your desktop. ZSNES is built to run on Windows, DOS, Linux and FreeBSD Unix and it is by far the best SNES emulator available.
33. Cartes du Ciel – A sky map that allows you to find out what constellations and planets are visible tonight.

Graphics Editing

34. GIMP – A complete image editing software with capabilities not found in any other free software product. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert-quality photo-retouching program, a mass production image renderer, or an image-format converter.
35. Paint.net – A free image and photo editing software that features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.
36. Google sketchup – A powerful yet easy-to-learn 3D software tool that combines a simple, yet robust tool-set with an intelligent drawing system that streamlines and simplifies 3D design.
37. IrfanView – A fast and compact image viewer/converter that is simple for beginners and powerful for professionals.

Video and Audio

38. Audacity – A complete recording and sound editing software that is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
39. Media Monkey – A music manager and jukebox for serious music collectors and iPod users. It offers an intelligent tag editor which looks up missing Album Art and track information via Freedb and the Web.
40. CDex – An application that records audio tracks from CDs and saves them to a disk as regular WAV files or as encoded sound files.
41. iTunes – One of the highest downloaded digital-jukebox software. Comes with the iTunes Music Store that offers music at 99-cents-per-song.
42. Winamp – A multimedia player that supports numerous audio and video formats. It also plays streamed video and audio content, both live and recorded, authored worldwide.
43. VLC – A highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
44. QuickTime Alternative – This application let you play QuickTime or Real videos without Apple or Real’s bloated, in-your-face proprietary players.

PDF creator

45. PrimoPDF – A free tool for high-quality PDF creation, comprising a user-friendly interface that enables printing to PDF from virtually any Windows application.
46. PDF creator – A simple PDF creation tool for those who just want to skip the technical steps and produce a PDF file. If you know how to print, then you know how to use this software.
47. doPDF – Using doPDF, you can create searchable PDF files from virtually any application. You can search for text within the created PDF file, and search engines will also index the text from the PDF.

Virtual Server

48. VMware Server – VMware Server installs on any existing server hardware and partitions a physical server into multiple virtual machines by abstracting processor, memory, storage and networking resources, giving you greater hardware utilization and flexibility.
49. LogMeIn Hamachi – A VPN that allows you to access your home PC from work (or vice versa) as though you’re sitting right in front of it.
50. OpenVPN – OpenVPN is a tried and true VPN solution. It is totally secure and infinitely configurable. You can install and run this software without relying on a third party.

Instant Messaging

51. Windows Live messenger – The next generation MSN Messenger. It comes with everything that were already available in Messenger, and a new i’m Initiative that makes helping your favorite charity as easy as sending an instant message.
52. Pidgin – A multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once. Pidgin can work with: AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo!, MySpaceIM and many more.
53. Trillian – A fully featured, stand-alone, skinnable chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC.
54. Skype – A software that enables you to make free calls anywhere in the world.

Download manager

55. Download Accelerator Plus – A download manager that can enhance your download experience. Features include a search tab, security check for every site and application you download, more speed per connection, resume broken download and preview file when you download.
56. Internet download manager – A tool for increasing download speeds by up to 5 times, and for resuming, scheduling, and organizing downloads. The program will resume unfinished downloads due to network problems, or unexpected power outages.
57. Getright – As a download manager, GetRight supports BitTorrent downloads too. In addition, you can use GetRight to schedule your downloads for later; it can dial your modem (if needed), download the files you want, then hang up or even shut down your computer when it is done.
58. DownThemAll – A powerful yet easy-to-use Mozilla Firefox extension that adds new advanced download capabilities to your browser.
59. Flashgot – A Firefox extension that allows you to handle single and massive downloads using the external download managers of your choice.

File Management

60. Eraser – An advanced security tool for Windows that allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
61. Restoration – An easy to use and straight forward tool to undelete files that were removed from the recycle bin or directly deleted from within Windows (we were able to recover photos from a Flash card that had been formatted).

Torrent Manager

62. Azureus – A popular torrent manager that allows you to install plug-in and tweak your own settings.
63. µTorrent – A very, very tiny BitTorrent client that packs enough features into that small package to compete with beefier applications like Azureus.
64. Bitcomet – A bit torrent manager that allows videos files to be previewed while they’re still being downloaded, and there’s a built-in chat tool that lets users chat with other peers in the swarm.

Backup Program

65. Cobian Backup – A multi-threaded program that can be used to schedule and backup your files and directories from their original location to other directories/drives in the same computer or other computer in your network.
66. Back4Win – A backup program that uses industry standard ZIP compression to ensures that your data will be accessible regardless of which PC operating system. Does not have 4Gb and 65535 file limit of other ZIP backup programs.
67. DriveImage XML – This software allows you to backup logical drives and partitions to image files, browse these images, view and extract files, restore these images to the same or a different drive and copy directly from drive to drive.
68. JaBackup – JaBackup allows advanced automation features. You can schedule backup tasks by the second or minute, or on a hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
69. Xdrive Desktop – Xdrive gives you 5GB of online storage space to store and backup your files. The Xdrive desktop software allows you to backup and synchronize your data with the web server with few mouse clicks.
70. Gmail Space – Use your Gmail account as storage by uploading and downloading files through a browser-based interface.

File Compression

71. 7-zip – This software compresses files in new 7z format with LZMA compression. It supports multi formats, including 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR, RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS.
72. Winzip – Using WinZip, you can quickly and easily compress and decompress files, folders, and entire folder trees to save storage space and reduce e-mail-transmission time, as well as encrypt and decrypt your sensitive documents.
73. AutoUnpack – This is designed to unpack your compressed file in a single quick step. You merely point to a folder containing your ZIP or RAR files and choose an output directory. Press one button to start a process that ends with your archive perfectly unpacked, or let the program automatically unpack that directory every set number of minutes.
74. ExtractNow – A simple program allows you to extract more than one archived file at a time, with one click of a button, making extracting files quicker and easier.

System Optimization and Diagnostic Tool

75. CCleaner – A system optimization and privacy tool that removes unused files from your system and allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space.
76. Security Process Explorer – An enhanced task manager, that provides advanced information about programs and processes running on the computer. It displays all the standard information, including file name, directory path, description, CPU usage etc. as well as a unique security risk rating.
77. CPU-Z – This mini software allows you to find out everything about your computer. You can find information such as processor name and vendor, core stepping and process, processor package, internal and external clocks, clock multiplier, partial overclock detection, and processor features including supported instructions sets.
78. EULAlyzer – This takes your EULA agreement and analyze it in seconds, and provide a detailed listing of potentially interesting words and phrases. Discover if the software you’re about to install displays pop-up ads, transmits personally identifiable information, uses unique identifiers to track you, or more. It is great for picking out privacy issues.
79. Process Explorer – An advanced process management utility that picks up where Task Manager leaves off. It will show you detailed information about a process including its icon, command-line, full image path, memory statistics, user account, security attributes, and more.
80. Auslogics Disk Defrag – This software was designed to remedy system sluggishness and crashes caused by disk fragmentation. It is fast, simple to easy and what’s more, it is effective.
81. SmartDefrag – SmartDefrag boasts a system checker that continually defrags the files that you use the most, and does it without becoming a persistent drag on your system resources. The “Install It and Forget It” feature works automatically and quietly in the background on your computer and it only eats up 14MB of RAM, so it’s possible to run it smoothly on older machines.
82. Local Cooling – Fight global warming from your desktop! Local Cooling automatically optimizes your PC’s power consumption by using a more effective power save mode.
83. Belarc Advisor – Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware and analyzes elements such as whether antivirus software is up to date, or whether all the security flaws in Windows have been patched.

Email Client

84. Thundrebird – Thunderbird makes e-mailing safer, faster, and easier than ever before with the industry’s best implementations of features, such as intelligent spam filters, a built-in RSS reader, and quick search.
85. Eudora – A robust e-mail client whose features include multiple address-book-formatting options and the ability to filter, redirect, and forward mail. It supports QuickTime- and HTML-enriched e-mail, letting you include stylized, formatted text and in-line graphics in your messages.
86. Opera Mail – Opera Mail is integrated with the Opera browser, and lets you send, receive, sort and search your e-mails quicker and easier than with conventional e-mail programs.
87. Sylpheed – A surprisingly versatile email client. ‘Surprisingly’ because it has a friendly, easy to use interface to its many useful features.
88. PopTray – The premier pop-up mail checker for standard POP3 and IMAP mail accounts, including Gmail, and it can be coaxed to work with HTML-only mail such as Hotmail by following the instructions at the PopTray site.

Photo Organizer

89. Google Picasa – A free software that helps you locate and organize all the photos on your computer, edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks and share your photos with others through email, prints and on the web.
90. Xnview – A fast multi-format graphics browser, viewer, and converter. It has an Explorer-like browser that allows quick and simple browsing of directory contents.
91. FxFoto – This software provides a single tool for automatically organizing, enhancing, annotating, e-mailing, printing, uploading, and archiving your digital photos.
92. Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition 3.0 – This software makes it easy to find, fix, and share your digital photos. Instantly fix photo flaws in just a click or two.
93. Jalbum – A gallery software that makes web albums from your digital images.

Video Converter

94. Free FLV Converter – This free software let you search youTube and dailyMotion videos without opening your browser and you can even watch the videos using the built-in video player.
95. Free Video To iPhone Converter – Convert video files to Apple iPhone MP4 video format. Convert the whole movie or select a partition from the movie to convert (trim video).
96. Any Video Converter – An all-in-one video converting freeware with easy-to-use graphical interface, fast converting speed, and excellent video quality.
97. iPod Video Converter – Free iPod Video Converter provides an easy and completed way to convert all popular video formats to iPod video.

FTP client

98. Filezilla – A full-featured FTP client that supports Secure FTP, SSL, and other protocols in a slick interface, complete with a tree-structured site manager that lets you store settings for multiple sites.
99. SmartFTP – An FTP client which allows you to transfer files between your local computer and a server on the Internet. SmartFTP offers secure, reliable and efficient transfers that make it a powerful tool.
100. FireFTP – FireFTP turns your browser into an FTP client, with a two-pane file manager for uploading and downloading.

EyeCandy

101. Yahoo Widget – A small, specific applications that you can run on your Windows or Mac OS desktop. You can download tons of useful widget from the widget gallery.

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Thanks to Frank for recommending another free software. Here is it:
102. Process Scanner – This application gives you a complete analysis of all the processes running on your PC, along with a risk analysis of each one.

By Damien

The about:config page contains most (if not, all) of Firefox configuration options. It is so far the most effective, and the most powerful way to tweak and enhance your Firefox performance. Here are 28 of the popular tweaks.

Accessing your about:config page

In your Firefox, type about:config in the address bar.

You will be shown a warning page. Click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button to proceed.

On the main page, you will see a long list of configuration entries. Enter the name of the key you want to update in the “Filter” field. The list will narrow to only the entries that match your keyword as you type.

To modify the value, simply double click on the entry value field and update the entry. That’s all!

Isn’t that simple? Now, let’s get to the tweaking.

1) Adjust the Smart Location Bar’s Number of Suggestions

In Firefox 3, when you start typing in the location bar, a drop-down list of suggestion URLs will be shown. If you want it to show more than 12 suggestions (12 is the default), you can adjust the browser.urlbar.maxRichResults keys and get it to show the number you want.

Config name: browser.urlbar.maxRichResults
Default: 12
Modified value: Set to your desired number of suggestion. If you want to disable it all together, set it to -1

2) Disable the session restore function

Firefox 3 automatically saves your session every 10 secs so that whenever it crashes, it can restore all your tabs. While this is a useful feature, some of you might find it irritating. To disable this function, toggle the value of browser.sessionstore.enabled to False

Config name: browser.sessionstore.enabled
Default: True
Modified value: False if you want to disable the session restore function

3) Adjust the Session Restore Saving Frequency

Same as above, if you decided to keep the session restore feature on, but want to reduce the session saving frequency, change the value of browser.sessionstore.interval so that Firefox will save the session at a longer interval.

Config name: browser.sessionstore.interval
Default: 10000 (in msecs, equivalent to 10secs)
Modified value: Set it to your desired value. 1000 means 1 sec and 60000 means 1 minute.

4) Enable Advanced Color Profile Support

Firefox has this advanced color profile features that display higher image quality. It is not enabled by default as it has a negative effect on the performance of the browser. If you are concern with the image quality rather than the performance, you can activated it via the gfx.color_management.enabled setting

Config name: gfx.color_management.enabled
Default: False
Modified value: True (if you want to activate the color profile support feature)

5) Disable Antivirus Scanning

This is mainly for Windows users. By default, Firefox 3 automatically scan the downloaded file with the default anti-virus application to make sure it is free of virus. If you download a big file, it could take a long time for the whole scanning process to complete. To increase the performance of the browser, you might want to consider disabling the anti-virus scanning via the browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone key.

Config name: browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone
Default: True
Modified value: False (if you want to disable it)

6) Configuring The Scrolling Tabs

When you opened many tabs, Firefox will not keep on reducing the tab width. Instead, it shows a scrolling bar so that the min width (100px) is conserved and you can scroll to find your tabs. If you are those who don’t like the scrolling tab function and prefer Firefox to show all the tabs, regardless how small it is, you can set the value of browser.tabs.tabMinWidth to 0 to disable it. Similarly, if you want Firefox to display more tabs before showing the scrolling button, you can reduce the default value to a lower value, say 75 pixels.

Config name: browser.tabs.tabMinWidth
Default: 100
Modified value: 0 if you want to disable the scrolling functions, other values to set the min width value

7) Show/Disable Close button on Tabs

Some people love to see the Close (the red X) button on every tabs, but some hate it. Whatever is it, you can configure it to your preferences via the browser.tabs.closeButtons setting.

Config name: browser.tabs.closeButtons
Default: 1
Modified values:

• 0 – display a close button on the active tab only
• 1- display close buttons on all tabs
• 2- don’t display any close buttons
• 3- display a single close button at the end of the tab strip

Extend Scripts Execution Time

In Firefox 3, a script is only given 10 seconds to respond, after which it will issue a unresponsive script warning. If you are hooked on a slow network connection, you might want to increase the script execution time via dom.max_script_run_time to cut down on the frequency of the no script warning.

Config name: dom.max_script_run_time
Default:10 (in secs)
Modified value: 20, or any values greater than 10

9) Handling JavaScript Popups

When you come across a site that executes a javascript open new window function, and if the popup window is without all the usual window features, i.e. back/forward/reload buttons, status bar etc, Firefox will automatically treat it as a popup and will not open it as a new tab. However, if you find this to be a nuisance and wanted to open all new windows in a new tabs, you can specify it via the browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction setting.

Config name: browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction
Default: 2 – Open all JavaScript windows the same way as you have Firefox handle new windows unless the JavaScript call specifies how to display the window
Modified values:

• 0 – open all links as how you have Firefox handle new windows
• 1 – do not open any new windows
• 2- open all links as how you have Firefox handle new windows unless the Javascript specify how to display the window

10) Enable Spell Checking In All Text Fields

The default spell checking function only checks for multi-line text boxes. You can get it to spell-check for single line text box as well.

Config name: layout.spellcheckDefault
Default: 1 (spell checker for multi-lines text boxes only)
Modified values:

• 0 – disable the spell checker
• 2 – enable the spell checker for all text boxes

11) Open Search Box Results In New Tab

When you search using the search box at the top right hand corner of the browser, it will display the search results in the current tab. If you don’t want the search to interfere with your current tab, you can tweak the browser.search.openintab to make it open in a new tab.

Config Name: browser.search.openintab
Default: False
Modified value: True (open search box results in new tab)

12) Lower The Physical Memory Used When Minimized

This tweak is mainly for Windows users. When you minimize Firefox, it will send Firefox to your virtual memory and free up your physical memory for other programs to use. Firefox will reduce its physical memory usage, when minimized, to approximately 10MB (give or take some) and when you maximize Firefox it will take back the memory that it needs.

The preference name does not exist and needs to be created.

Right click on the background and select New->Boolean.

Enter the name when prompted: config.trim_on_minimize
Enter the values: True

13) Speed up your Firefox

Several tweaks required for this

Config name: network.http.pipelining
Default: False
Modified value: True

Config name: network.http.proxy.pipelining
Default: False
Modified value: True

Config name: network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
Default: 4
Modified value: any value higher than 4, but not more than 8

Config name: network.http.max-connections
Default: 30
Modified value: 96

Config name: network.http.max-connections-per-server
Default: 15
Modified value: 32

14) Increase/Decrease the Amount of Disk Cache

When a page is loaded, Firefox will cache it into the hard disk so that it doesn’t need to be download again for redisplaying. The bigger the storage size you cater for Firefox, the more pages it can cache.

Before you increase the disk cache size, make sure that browser.cache.disk.enabled browser.cache.disk.enable is set to True.

Config name: browser.cache.disk.capacity
Default: 50000 (in KB)
Modified value:

• 0 – disable disk caching
• any value lower than 50000 reduces the disk cache
• any value higher than 50000 increases the disk cache.

15) Select all text when click on the URL bar

In Windows and Mac, Firefox highlights all text when you click on the URL bar. In Linux, it does not select all the text. Instead, it places the cursor at the insertion point. Regardless which platform you are using, you can now tweak it to either select all or place cursor at insertion point.

Config name: browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll
Modified value:

• False – place cursor at insertion point
• True – select all text on click

16) Autofill Address in URL Bar

Other than the smart location feature, you can also get your URL bar to autofill the address as you type the URL.

Config name: browser.urlbar.autofill
Default: False
Modified value: True (Have Firefox autofill the address as you type in the URL bar)

17) Same Zoom Level For Every Site

Firefox remembers your zoom preference for each site and set it to your preferences whenever you load the page. If you want the zoom level to be consistent from site to site, you can toggle the value of browser.zoom.siteSpecific from True to False.

Config name: browser.zoom.siteSpecific
Default: True
Modified value: False (enable same zoom preferences for every sites)

18) Setting your zoom limit

If you find that the max/min zoom level is still not sufficient for your viewing, you can change the zoom limit to suit your viewing habits.

Config name: zoom.maxPercent
Default: 300 (percent)
Modified value: any value higher than 300

Config name: zoom.minPercent
Default: 30 (percent)
value: any value

19) Configure Your Backspace Button

In Firefox, you can set your backspace to better use by getting it to either go back to the previous page or act as page up function.

Config name: browser.backspace_action
Default: 2 (does nothing)
Modified value:

• 0 – go back previous page
• 1- page up

20) Increase Offline Cache

If you do not have access to Internet most of the time, you might want to increase the offline cache so that you can continue to work offline. By default, Firefox 3 caches 500MB of data from supported offline Web apps. You can change that value to whatever amount of your choice.

Config name: browser.cache.offline.capacity
Default: 512000 (in KB)
Modified value: any value higher than 512000 will increase the cache value

21) Auto Export Firefox 3 bookmarks to bookmarks.html

Unlike the previous version, Firefox 3 backup the bookmarks file in places.sqlite rather than the usual bookmarks.html. Since bookmarks.html allows us to export and sync our bookmarks with other browser, it will be very useful if Firefox 3 can backup the bookmark to the bookmarks.html as well.

Config name: browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML
Default: False
Modified value: True (auto export bookmarks file to bookmarks.html)

22) Disable Extension Compatibility Checks

This is useful if you want to use an extension that is not supported by your version of Firefox badly. It is not recommended, but you can still do it at your own risk.

Right click and select New->Boolean. Enter extensions.checkCompatibility in the field. Enter False in the next field.

Right click again and select New->Boolean. Enter extensions.checkUpdateSecurity into the field and enter False into the next field.

23) Disable Delay Time When Installing Add-on

Everytime you wanted to install a Firefox add-on, you will have to wait for several secs before the actual installation starts. If you are tired of waiting, you can turn the function security.dialog_enable_delay off so that the installation will start immediately upon clicking.

Config name: security.dialog_enable_delay
Default: 2000 (in msec)
Modified value:

• 0 – start installation immediately
• any other value (in msec)

24) View Source in Your Favorite Editor

This is very useful for developers who are always using the ‘view source‘ function. This tweak allows you to view the source code in an external editor.

There are two configuration need to be made:
Config name: view_source.editor.external
Default: False
Modified value: True ( enable view source using external text editor)

Config name: view_source.editor.path
Default: blank
Modified value: insert the file path to your editor here.

25) Increasing ‘Save Link As‘  timeout value

When you right click and select the ‘Save Link As…‘, the browser will request the content disposition header from the URL so as to determine the filename. If the URL did not deliver the header within 1 sec, Firefox will issue a timeout value. This could happen very frequently in a slow network connection environment. To prevent this issue from happening frequently, you can increase the timeout value so as to reduce the possibility of a timeout.

Config name: Browser.download.saveLinkAsFilenameTimeout
Default: 1000 (1 sec)
Modified value: any value higher than 1000 (value is in msec)

26) Animate Fullscreen Toolbar Collapse mode

In Firefox’s fullscreen mode, toolbars and the tab strip are hidden at the top of the screen and only shown on mouseover. To draw attention to this, there is an animation of the toolbar sliding upwards and off-screen when fullscreen mode is toggled on. For performance issue, the animation of the collapse of the toolbar only appear for the first time. For some reason that you may love/hate the animation, you can adjust Browser.fullscreen.animateUp to switch it on/off for every collapse.

Config name: Browser.fullscreen.animateUp
Default: 1 (animate the toolbar collapse only the first time)
Modified value:

• 0 -disable the animation
• 2- enable the animation for every collapse

27) Autohide Toolbar in Fullscreen mode

In fullscreen mode, the toolbar is set to autohide and appear upon mouseover. If you have a need to view the toolbar at all time, you can toggle the value of browser.fullscreen.autohide to False to always show the toolbar.

Config name: browser.fullscreen.autohide
Default: True (always autohide)
Modified value: False (always show the toolbar)

28) Increase Add-On search result

If you go to Tools->Add-ons->Get Add-ons and perform a search there, Firefox will only fetch and display 5 matching results. If you want Firefox to show more than 5 results (say 10), you can adjust extensions.getAddons.maxResults to get it to display more results.

Config name: extensions.getAddons.maxResults
Default: 5
Modified value: any value more than 5

This list of about:config is definitely not the complete list. If you have any tricks not listed here, please add it in the comment.

by Damien

This tip is nothing new, and seems to have been featured on dozens of sites recently, but there seems to be a misunderstanding… this mechanism will not turn off Aero or the compositing engine, it simply disables the transparency.

Manually Enable/Disable Aero Transparency

You can achieve the same result by right-clicking on the Desktop and choosing Personalize and then “Window Color and Appearance”

You should see the “Enable transparency” checkbox in this screen, which works immediately.

Create Aero Transparency Shortcut

Right-click anywhere and choose New \ Shortcut, and then enter in one of the following into the Location box to create the new shortcut.

Turn Aero Transparency Off

rundll32.exe dwmApi #104

Turn Aero Transparency On

rundll32.exe dwmApi #102

For purposes of illustration, I’ve got the same screenshot with Aero transparency turned on and off… but I really am just trying to show off the fun Mario wallpaper.

With Aero Transparency On:

And with Aero Transparency Off:

Enjoy!

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/

1. Make certain that the
2. Num Lock key has been pressed to activate the numeric key section of the keyboard. Depress the
3. Alt key.
4. While the Alt key is depressed, type the proper sequence of numbers (on the numeric keypad) of the ALT code from the table above. Release the Alt key, and the character will appear.

Record Using VLC

You won’t see the record button in the default view so we need to make it available in the control panel by going to View and selecting Advanced Controls.

Now you can see the Record button along with a couple other handy controls like snapshot and looping.

Now when you start up a DVD or other video simply click on the record button and hit is a second time to end the recording.

While it is recording notice that the record button will be blue.

The recorded video is in MPEG format and stored them in the Documents folder labeled as VLC Record with the date and time.

This is a great way to save entire movies or specific scenes you want to watch later on your hard drive.

Of course VLC won’t burn the recorded MPEG file to DVD but you can certainly use other programs for that.  This is a much different process than “ripping” and you will need to play the video while it records.

Download VLC 1.0 for Windows, Linux, OSX

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/

I understand that many of you don’t want to use the command line in Linux (or in any operating system, for that matter). But the truth is, to be a good administrator, you have to know the command line. Why? Well, with Windows there are times when the command line is the only thing that can save your skin. With Linux, the command line is vast, reliable, flexible, fast … I could go on and on.

And of the 2119 possible commands from the /usr/bin directory (in Mandriva Spring 2008) and the 388 possible commands from /usr/sbin/, a few are indispensable. Here are 10 of them that might make your Linux admin life — or your introduction to Linux — a whole lot simpler.

I could make this easy and go with the most used commands (cd, ls, rm) but instead, I am going to go with the most useful commands, and I’ll keep it as distribution-neutral as I can.

#1 top
I figured it was fitting to put the top command at the top. Although top is actually responsible for listing currently running tasks, it is also the first command Linux users turn to when they need to know what is using their memory (or even how much memory a system has). I often leave the top tool running on my desktop so I can keep track of what is going on at all times. Sometimes, I will even open up a terminal (usually aterm), place the window where I want it, and then hide the border of the window. Without a border, the terminal can’t be moved, so I always have quick access to the information I need.

Top is a real-time reporting system, so as a process changes, it will immediately be reflected in the terminal window. Top does have some helpful arguments (such as the -p argument, which will have top monitor only user-specified PIDs), but running default, top will give you all the information you need on running tasks.

#2 ln
To many administrators, links are an invaluable tool that not only make users lives simpler, but also drastically reduce disk space usage. If you are unaware of how links can help you, let me pose this simple scenario: you have a number of users who have to access a large directory (filled with large files) on a drive throughout the day. The users are all on the same system, and you don’t want to have to copy the entire directory to each user’s ~/ directory. Instead, just create a link in each user’s ~/ directory to the target. You won’t consume space, and the users will have quick access. Of course when spanning drives, you will have to use symlinks. Another outstanding use for links is linking various directories to the Apache doc root directory. Not only can this save space, it’s often advantageous from a security standpoint.

#3 tar/zip/gzip
Tar, zip and gzip are archival/compression tools that make your administrator life far easier. I bundle these together because the tools can handle similar tasks yet do so with distinct differences (just not different enough to warrant their own entry in this article). Without these tools, installing from source would be less than easy. Without tar/zip/gzip, creating backups would require more space than you might often have.

One of the least used (but often most handy) features of these tools is the ability to extract single files from an archive. Now zip and gzip handle this more easily than tar. With tar, to extract a single file, you have to know the exact size of the file to be extracted. One area where tar/zip/gzip make administration simple is in creating shells scripts that automate a backup process. All three tools can be used with shell scripts and are, hands down, the best, most reliable backup tools you will find.

#4 nano, vi, emacs
I wasn’t about to place just one text editor here, for fear of stoking the fires of the “vi vs. emacs” war. To top that off, I figured it was best to throw my favourite editor — nano — into the mix. Many people would argue that these aren’t so much commands as they are full-blown applications. But all these tools are used within the command line, so I call them “commands”. Without a good text editor, administering a Linux machine can become problematic.

Imagine having to attempt to edit /etc/fstab or /etc/samba/smb.conf with OpenOffice. Some might say this shouldn’t be a problem, but OpenOffice tends to add hidden end-of-line characters to text files, which can really fubar a configuration file. For the editing of configuration or bash files, the only way to go is with an editor such as nano, vi or emacs.

#5 grep
Many people overlook this amazingly useful tool. Grep prints lines that match a user-specified pattern. Say, for instance, that you are looking at an httpd.conf file that’s more than 1000 lines long, and you are searching for the “AccessFileName .htaccess” entry. You could comb through that file only to come across the entry at line 429, or you can issue the command

grep -n "AccessFileName .htaccess" /etc/httpd/conf/http.conf

Upon issuing this command you will be returned "439:AccessFileName .htaccess" which tells you the entry you are looking for is on, surprise of all surprises, line 439.

#6 chmod
Permissions anyone? Linux administration and security would be a tough job without the help of chmod. Imagine not being able to make a shell script executable with chmod u+x filename. Of course, it’s not just about making a file executable. Many web tools require certain permissions before they will even install. To this end, the command chmod -R 666 DIRECTORY/ is one very misused command. Many new users, when faced with permissions issues trying to install an application, will jump immediately to 666 instead of figuring out exactly what permissions a directory or folder should have.

Even though this tool is critical for administration, it should be studied before jumping in blindly. Make sure you understand the ins and outs of chmod before using it at will. Remember w=write, r=read and x=execute. Also remember UGO or User, Group, and Other. UGO is a simple way to remember which permissions belong to whom. So permission rw- rw- rw- means User, Group, and Other all have read and write permissions. It is always best to keep Other highly restricted in their permissions.

#7 dmesg
Call me old-school if you want, but any time I plug a device into a Linux machine, the first thing I do is run the dmesg command. This command displays the messages from the kernel buffer. So, yeah, this is an important one. There is a lot of information to be garnered from the dmesg command. You can find out system architecture, gpu, network device, kernel boot options used, RAM totals, etc.

A nice trick is to pipe dmesg to tail to watch any message that comes to dmesg. To do this, issue the command dmesg | tail -f and the last few lines of dmesg will remain in your terminal. Every time a new entry arrives it will be at the bottom of the “tail”. Keep this window open when doing heavy duty system administration or debugging a system.

#8 kill/killall
One of the greatest benefits of Linux is its stability. But that stability doesn’t always apply to applications outside the kernel. Some applications can actually lock up. And when they do, you want to be able to get rid of them. The quickest way to get rid of locked up applications is with the kill/killall command. The difference between the two commands is that kill requires the PID (process ID number) and killall requires only the executable name.

Let’s say Firefox has locked up. To kill it with the kill command you would first need to locate the PID using the ps aux|grep firefox command. Once you got the PID, you would issue kill PID (where PID is the actual PID number). If you didn’t want to go through finding out the PID, you could issue the command killall firefox (although in some instances it will require killall firefox-bin). Of course, kill/killall do not apply (nor should apply) to daemons like Apache, Samba, etc.

#9 man
How many times have you seen “RTFM”? Many would say that acronym stands for “Read the Fine* Manual” (*This word is open for variation not suitable for publication). In my opinion, it stands for “Read the Fine Manpage”. Manpages are there for a reason — to help you understand how to use a command. Manpages are generally written with the same format, so once you gain an understanding of the format, you will be able to read (and understand) them all. And don’t underestimate the value of the manpage. Even if you can’t completely grasp the information given, you can always scroll down to find out what each command argument does. And the best part of using manpages is that when someone says “RTFM” you can say I have “RTFMd”.

#10 mount/umount
Without these two commands, using removable media or adding external drives wouldn’t happen. The mount/umount command is used to mount a drive (often labelled like /dev/sda) to a directory in the Linux file structure. Both mount and umount take advantage of the /etc/fstab file, which makes using mount/umount much easier. For instance, if there is an entry in the /etc/fstab file for /dev/sda1 that maps it to /data, that drive can be mounted with the command mount /data. Typically mount/umount must have root privileges (unless fstab has an entry allowing standard users to mount and unmount the device). You can also issue the mount command without arguments and you will see all drives that are currently mounted and where they’re mapped to (as well as the type of file system and the permissions).

Can’t live without ‘em
These 10 Linux commands make Linux administration possible. There are other helpful commands, as well as commands that are used a lot more often than these; but the commands outlined here fall into the necessity category. I don’t know about you, but I don’t go a day without using at least half of them. Do you have a Linux command or two that you can’t live without? If so, let us know.

By Jack Wallen, TechRepublic
http://www.builderau.com.au/

Step 1: Connect the hard drive with Computer

Make sure your hard drive have enough size before moving your iTunes library containing both audio and video files.

Step 2: Select a new location

To do so, open your iTunes preferences under the iTunes Edit menu. With the preferences pane open, click under the ‘Advanced’ tab. Click ‘Change…’ button under ‘iTunes music folder location’ to change the location to a desired folder on your external hard drive.

Step 3: Allow iTunes to Copy new media files

Under the ‘Advanced’ tab make sure you check the option ‘Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library’. This ensures that any new content you download or rip into iTunes gets transferred to the new location. Click ‘OK’ to continue.

Step 4: Consolidate the iTunes library

Once the preferences are changed, navigate to the iTunes File menu, scroll down to Library, and select ‘Consolidate Library’ from the list of options. This step could take time (depends upon the size of your iTunes library).

Step 5: Confirming the transfer of media files.

Your iTunes library has now migrated to its new location on your external hard drive or flash drive. iTunes have just copied media files to external hard drive and have not deleted from iTunes library Now. To check if the files have been copied to the new location or not, open iTunes, select a song, and select Get Info from the File menu. A window will pop up describing all the attributes of your song file, including the location of the file. If you want that new files should be transferred to external hard drive then make sure the external hard drive is not removed from the computer. If your external hard drive is not connected, iTunes will temporarily default to the original location until your drive is connected again.

It is always a good practice to keep a backup of your iTunes Library in external drive. You can listen to your favourite songs without connecting to the internet anytime and anywhere.

Source: http://www.aboutonlinetips.com