Run Windows Xp in Vista Using virtual PC 2007

Microsoft virtual PC 2007 is a free program that lets you run almost any OS in virtual machine window,without affecting your primary operating system.
Download and install Virtual PC. Launch it, click next to start the wizard , and click next again to crate a virtual machine. The wizard then asks you to confirm the amount of memory and disk space to dedicate to the virtual machine. If you have 2 GB or more on your host PC, give 512 MB to the virtual XP machine. Unless you plan to install lots of apps, the default hard-disk size is usally fine.
Click next and then finish, and your virtual machine will appear in the virtual PC Console. Insert an XP installation CD and then doubble click the virtual machine icon in the virtual PC Console to start it up. Select the optical drive in the virtual PC's CD menu, choose action and then click Ctrl-Alt-Del to boot the virtual machine from the CD. After that ,the installation process should proceed just as it would on a nonvirtual PC. To run your virtual XP machine, select it in the Virtual PCConsole and click start. To close, choose Save state from the list of options. nad click OK.Clicking within the virtualzed OS window once allows it to capture the mouse pointer.
In the virtual PC menu , click action install or Update virtual machine additions to install several tools that will allow youto copyand paste text between the virtual machineand the host PC, as well as to send documents back and forth via a shared folder on the host system.
To get the mouse pointer to realese back to the host OS, press the right hand key and drag the mouse outof the Virtual PC window.

Security Optimization

Use these programs to kill infections and prevent them from attacking your machine in the first place.

• Comodo Firewall Pro (free) this excellent firewall has been rated as one of the top tools of its kind by the independent testing site Matousec , which found that Comodo has the highest level of “antileak” protection(in sense, a measure of a Firewall’s effectiveness). It offers two-way protection and a great view into your system and your internet connection as well.

• Avast (Free) A lightweight antivirus utility, Avast won’t weigh down your system by consuming too many system resources –yet it does a great job scanning

• AVG Antivirus Free Edition (Free) AVG’s excellent antivirus software is similarly prudent with PC resources, simple to use, and easily configurable.

• Spyware Blaster (Free) keep your system in top running form by stopping the installation of active X-based malware and other types of spyware.

• Spybot Search & Destroy (Free) A longtime favorite, spybot offers live protection against spyware installations, and scans your system for pre-existing spyware and squashes it.

• Ad-ware 2008 (free) some people like to use more than one scanner.

Ad-ware does a great job of scanning, and it lets you put potentially damaging software in a quarantine area, where you can later restore the item if it isn’t dangerous.

• Trend Micro HijackThis (Free) it you think your PC is infected with spyware, but your spyware killer can’t track it down, try this freebie, after Hijack This analyzes your Registry and file, which you can upload to one of several HijackThis Web forums for the community to analyze.

Creative’s Zen X-Fi : An All-Around Star

Creative’s Zen X-Fi is a tremendous digital music player , offering more out of the box features than Apple’s recently revamped iPod’s . the X-Fi has great sound, superb headphones, expendable storage via SD Card, and the ability to stream and download music from your PC wirelessly. It looks great, too. Its features differentiate this player from the competition. Not only can you download music, video and images wirelesslt to the device, but you can also stream media from your PC from creative servers, or from a computer that’s running on an open network.

Creative’s heralded X-Fi Xtreme fidelity Audio playback deserves much of the credit fro this player’s amazing sound. It delivered dep, clean well-defined audio.

As much as I found to like about the X-Fi, it does have some limitations. It doesn’t work with Mac OS X (only with XP and Vista); its online chat application doesn’t work well; and you won’t get the same degree of integration with third –party speaker systems, car stereos, and accessories that you would with the ubiquitous iPod.

The masses may continue to think iPod first when they need a new MP3 player. But you check out the X-Fi , too : it might be the most innovative, features-packed player on the market, and it’s an absolute steal for the price.

Power Supplies

The computer’s components would not be able to operate without power. The device in the
computer that provides this power is the power supply (Figure 1.36). A power supply converts
110 volt or 220 volt AC current into the DC voltages that a computer needs to operate. These
are +3.3 volts DC, +5 volts DC, –5 volts DC (ground), +12 volts DC, –12 volts DC (ground),
and +5 volts DC standby. The 3.3 volts DC and +5 volts DC standby voltages were first used
by ATX motherboards.
FIGURE 1 . 3 6 A power supply

Power supplies are rated in watts. A watt is a unit of power. The higher the number, the
more power the power supply (and thus your computer) can use. Most computers use power
supplies in the 250- to 500-watt range.
Classic power supplies used only three types of connectors to power the various devices
within the computer (Figure 1.37): floppy drive power connectors (Berg connectors), AT system
connectors (P8 and P9), and standard peripheral power connectors (Molex connectors).
Each has a different appearance and way of connecting to the device. In addition, each type
is used for a specific purpose. Newer systems have a variety of similar, replacement, and additional connectors.

Expansion Slots

Fig:1.4




The most visible parts of any motherboard are the expansion slots. These look like small plastic
slots, usually from 3 to 11 inches long and approximately 1⁄2 inch wide. As their name suggests,
these slots are used to install various devices in the computer to expand its capabilities. Some
expansion devices that might be installed in these slots include video, network, sound, and disk
interface cards.
If you look at the motherboard in your computer, you will more than likely see one of the
main types of expansion slots used in computers today:
 ISA
 PCI
 AGP
 PCIe
 AMR
 CNR
Each type differs in appearance and function. In this section, we will cover how to visually
identify the different expansion slots on the motherboard.
ISA Expansion Slots
If you have a computer made before 1997, chances are the motherboard has a few Industry
Standard Architecture (ISA) expansion slots. They’re easily recognizable because they are
usually black and have two parts: one shorter and one longer. Computers made after 1997
generally include a few ISA slots for backward compatibility with old expansion cards
(although most computers are phasing them out in favor of PCI). Figure 1.4 shows an example
of ISA expansion slots.
PCI Expansion Slots
Most computers made today contain primarily Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)
slots. They are easily recognizable because they are short (around 3 inches long) and usually
white. PCI slots can usually be found in any computer that has a Pentium-class processor or
higher. Figure 1.5 shows an example of several PCI expansion slots.
AGP Expansion Slots
Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) slots are very popular for video card use. In the past, if
you wanted to use a high-speed, accelerated 3D graphics video card, you had to install the
card into an existing PCI or ISA slot. AGP slots were designed to be a direct connection
between the video circuitry and the PC’s memory. They are also easily recognizable because
they are usually brown, are located right next to the PCI slots on the motherboard, and are
shorter than the PCI slots. Figure 1.6 shows an example of an AGP slot, along with a PCI
slot for comparison. Notice the difference in length between the two.
PCIe Expansion Slots
The newest expansion slot architecture that is being used by motherboards is PCI Express
(PCIe). It was designed to be a replacement for AGP and PCI. It has the capability of being
faster than AGP while maintaining the flexibility of PCI. And motherboards with PCIe will
have regular PCI slots for backward compatibility with PCI.
FIGURE 1 . 5 PCI expansion slots


FIGURE 1 . 6 An AGP slot compared to a PCI slot

There are seven different speed levels for PCIe, and they are designated 1X, 2X, 4X, 8X,
12X, 16X, and 32X. These designations roughly correspond to similarly designated AGP
speeds. The slots for PCIe are a bit harder to identify than other expansion slot types because
the slot size corresponds to its speed. For example, the 1X slot is extremely short (less than an
inch). The slots get longer in proportion to the speed; the longer the slot, the higher the speed.
The reason for this stems from the PCIe concept of lanes, which are the multiplied units of
communication between any two PCIe components and are directly related to physical wiring
on the bus. Because all PCIe communications are made up of unidirectional coupling between
devices, each PCIe card negotiates for the best mutually supported number of lanes with each
communications partner.
AMR Expansion Slots
As is always the case, Intel and other manufacturers are constantly looking for ways to
improve the production process. One lengthy process that would often slow down the production
of motherboards with integrated analog I/O functions was FCC certification. The
manufacturers developed a way of separating the analog circuitry, for example, modem and
analog audio, onto its own card. This allowed the analog circuitry to be separately certified
(it was its own expansion card), thus reducing time for FCC certification.
This slot and riser card technology was known as the Audio Modem Riser, or AMR.
AMR’s 46-pin slots were once fairly common on many Intel motherboards, but technologies
including CNR and Advanced Communications Riser (ACR) are edging out AMR. In addition
and despite FCC concerns, integrated components still appear to be enjoying the most success
comparatively. Figure 1.7 shows an example of an AMR slot.
CNR Expansion Slots
The Communications and Networking Riser (CNR) slots that can be found on some Intel
motherboards are a replacement for Intel’s AMR slots. Essentially, these 60-pin slots allow
a motherboard manufacturer to implement a motherboard chipset with certain integrated
features. Then, if the built-in features of that chipset need to be enhanced (by adding Dolby
Digital Surround to a standard sound chipset, for example), a CNR riser card could be added
to enhance the onboard capabilities. Additional advantages of CNR over AMR include networking
support, Plug and Play compatibility, support for hardware acceleration (as opposed
to CPU control only), and no need to lose a competing PCI slot unless the CNR slot is in use.
Figure 1.8 shows an example of a CNR slot.
FIGURE 1 . 7 An AMR slot

FIGURE 1 . 8 A CNR slot

Get rid of a Spyware carrying program that won’t uninstall

The uninstaller that comes with a malicious program isn’t likely to do much good. Still, you might run it with Revo Uninstaller a freebie that launches an app’s own uninstall function and then scans the hard drive and registry for left over’s. if that doesn’t work, try to manually delete the program file or folder. If Windows won’t permit that, check out cedrick collomb’s free unlocker . once you installed, unlocker comes up automatically when Windows refuses to delete , move or rename a file or folder; or you can launch it from the file or folder’s context menu. It also shows you that you what processes are hanging on to the culprit and lets you kill them. You can also try Windows’s system Restore.

In windows XP, select start>all program>Accessories>System tools>>system restore> choose restore my computer to an earlier time, and then click next. Pick the earliest restore point available, and follow the prompts.

In Vista, Click start>type rstrui and then press, Select choose a different restore point, click next and check show restore points older than 5 days. Click next, finally, pick the earliest restore point you see available and follow the prompts.

If that fails to solve things, run system restore in safe mood reboot your PC and press just before Windows loads. At the resulting menu, select safe mood with Command prompt and pick your operating system. At the command prompt type C:\windows\system32\restore\rstrui (just rstrui in vista) press and then run system Restore from there.

Still can’t get rid of the various thugs? Try hijack this ( adwarefixit.com ) a free utility that creates a very technical report on your system’s suspicious windows behavior. You probably won’t be able to make heads or tails of it, but plenty of Internet forums exist where friendly people can help you decipher Hijack this reports and can recommended a course of action.

In nothing else works, reformatting your hard drive is the last, desperate measure to take, but back up all of your data first. In fact, if you already have a full backup of your data, make an extra backup anyway, the more the safer.

Livescribe Pulse Rewrites Note Taking

The pulse “smartpen” from Livescribe is part pen, part recorder, and part nothing you’ve ever seen before.

The pulse records sounds through integrated stereo microphones and then creates audio notes that it “ties” to your written notes. The device works with special notebooks and ink cartridges; the paper bears scarcely noticeable dot patterns that provide a reference grid. This allows the pen to jump to specific moments in your note-taking history and playback audio or voice notes recorded at that time.

To record audio while you write, you tap the printed “record” button at the bottom of your sheet of paper .when you are done recording, you tap “Stop”. The pulse records audio with surprising clarity and directional precision: the pen’s on-board microphones performed well in my tests.

Livescribe gives you two ways to playback notes.

One is to tap a printed pattern at the bottom of each page, bringing up the menu on the pen’s OLED screen. You then select the day and time of audio to play back.

The second way to play back audio is by tapping written notes in your notebook’ when you do so , you can hear the audio that was recorded at the exact moment you wrote those notes. This feature is extremely useful for recording shorthand notes and interviews.

Once you plug your pen into its USB cradle and connect it to your PC, you can se a page-page achieves of your notes. From there you can us the desktop app to listen to and manage your voice recordings.

The software is well designed, but it lacks an optical character recognition mode for converting your handwriting into text. The Livescribe pulse may have limited appeal, but it’s certainly innovative and a whole lot of fun to use.