Archive for ‘ Useful

Things to know…. 10 January 2009 at 4:08 pm by BigDaddy

Tips from the Hair Shears Blog :

http://www.hairshearsblog.com/scissor-sharpening/how-many-of-these-did-you-know-about

A sealed envelope -
Put in the freezer for a few hours, then slide a knife under the flap.
The envelope can then be resealed. (hmmmmmm…)
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Use Empty toilet paper roll to store appliance cords.
It keeps them neat and you can write on the roll what appliance it belongs to.
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For icy door steps in freezing temperatures: get warm water and put Dawn dish washing liquid in it.
Pour it all over the steps.
They won’t refreeze.
(wish I had known this for the last 40 years!)
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To remove old wax from a glass candle holder, put it in the freezer for a few hours.
Then take the candle holder out and turn it upside down.
The wax will fall out.
=================================================
Crayon marks on walls? This worked wonderfully! A damp rag, dipped in baking soda.
Comes off with little effort (elbow grease that is!).
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Permanent marker on appliances/counter tops (like store receipt BLUE!) rubbing alcohol on paper towel.
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Whenever I purchase a box of S.O.S Pads, I immediately take a pair of scissors and cut each pad into halves.
After years of having to throw away rusted and unused and smelly pads, I finally decided that this would be much more economical.
Now a box of SOS pads last me indefinitely! In fact, I have noticed that the scissors get ’sharpened” this way!
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Blood stains on clothes? Not to worry! Just pour a little hydrogen peroxide on a cloth and proceed to wipe off every drop of blood.
Works every time! (Now, where to put the body?) LOL
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Use vertical strokes when washing windows outside and horizontal for inside windows.
This way you can tell which side has the streaks.
Straight vinegar will get outside windows really clean.
Don’t wash windows on a sunny day.
They will dry too quickly and will probably streak.
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Spray a bit of perfume on the light bulb in any room to create a lovely light scent in each room when the light is turned on.
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Place fabric softner sheets it dresser drawers and your clothes will smell freshly washed for weeks to come.
You can also do this with towels and linen.
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Candles will last a lot longer if placed in the freezer for at least 3 hours prior to burning.
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To clean artificial flowers, pour some salt into a paper bag and add the flowers.
Shake vigorously as the salt will absorb all the dust and dirt and leave your artificial flowers looking like new! Works like a charm!
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To easily remove burnt on food from your skillet, simply add a drop or two of dish soap and enough water to cover bottom of pan, and bring to a boil on stove top.
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Spray your TUPPERWARE with nonstick cooking spray before pouring in tomato based sauces and there won’t be any stains.
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Wrap celery in aluminum foil when putting in the refrigerator and it will keep for weeks.
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When boiling corn on the cob, add a pinch of sugar to help bring out the corn’s natural sweetness .
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Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half, and rub it on your forehead.
The throbbing will go away.
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Don’t throw out all that leftover wine: Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces ……… Left over wine? What’s that?
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To get rid of itch from mosquito bites, try applying soap on the area and you will experience instant relief.
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Ants, ants, ants ! everywhe re …
Well, they are said to never cross a chalk line.
So, get your chalk out and draw a line on the floor or wherever ants tend to march.
See for yourself.
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Use air-freshener to clean mirrors.
It does a good job and better still, leaves a lovely smell to the shine.
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When you get a splinter, reach for the scotch tape before resorting to tweezers or a needle.
Simply put the scotch tape over the splinter, and then pull it off.
Scotch tape removes most splinters painlessly and easily.
=====================================
Now look what you can do with Alka Seltzer…….
Clean a toilet.
Drop in two Alka Seltzer tablets, wait twenty minutes, brush and flush.
The citric acid and effervescent action clean vitreous China.
============================================
Clean a vase.
To remove a stain from the bottom of a glass vase or cruet, fill with water and drop in two Alka Seltzer tablets.
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Polish jewelry.
Drop two Alka Seltzer tablets into a glass of water and immerse the jewelry for two minutes.
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Clean a thermos bottle.
Fill the bottle with water, drop in four Alka Seltzer tablets, and let soak for an hour (or longer, if necessary).
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Unclog a drain.
Clear the sink drain by dropping three Alka Seltzer tablets down the drain followed by a cup of Heinz White Vinegar.
Wait a few minutes, and then run the hot water.
=============================================
Do your friends a favor.
Pass this timely (and some not-so-timely) information on to a friend! I just did.
Makes you wonder about ingesting Alka Seltzer, doesn’t it?

+ Top Free Software By BigDaddy 10 January 2009 at 3:50 pm and have No Comments




Top Free Software

Viruses
Free online scans
Kaspersky (per file scan)

AVG: – No longer recommended. Since version 8, it’s bloated and doesn’t catch the latest threats. Use Anti-Vir for free.
Avast: Another free Anti-Virus software. Just as good as AVG. However this one is more system intensive than AVG or NOD.
Bitdefender: Popular anti-virus software- Free of charge. (Free- NOT real time scanning -only manual scanning)
ClamWin: Small and non-intrusive anti-virus. Like Bitdefender (Free- NOT real time scanning -only manual scanning)
AntiVir: An anti-virus that has been around for a long time – still free for home use.
NOD32: The absolute BEST anti-virus protection. (I know, I clean scumware for a living). Enter "ramsinks" as a Discount Code and save 5%
Kaspersky: A very sweet anti-virus software with a 30day trial. Be sure to JUST get the AV, not the full suite of bloatness.

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Worms/Trojans

TheCleaner: This finds/prevents trojan horses. This is on a 30day trial, however very recommended – try it.
DiamondCS: Many high-end programs for worm/Trojan detection, 30day trial.
Windowsecurity: Free online Trojan scanner.

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Spyware/Hijacks/Malware

Ad-Aware SE: Great for getting rid of spyware and malware – the items that can cause annoying pop-ups.
SpyBot: Similar to Ad-Aware, however more aggressive. Clean up spyware and hijack attempts.
SpyCatcher: Active Protection. One of the most advanced antispyware solution available as a free service.
AVG AntiSpyware : Clean annoying malware such as spyware, Trojans and hijackers. Great compliment to an anti-virus.
MalwareBytes: Since programs like Ad-Aware have become.. crap, this is a GREAT replacement for cleaning.
CounterSpy: Probably the best shield against spyware. The best database cleaner there is. Period. 30day trial.
Comodo BOClean: This is more of a "real time" (run the the background) anti-spyware. Not a fan of TSR’s, but this works.
CWShredder: Takes care of many hijacking software – run if you get many pop-ups/redirecting pages.
HijackThis: Tool to find out if there is "hijack" software on your system. Use the logfile analyzer if your not sure.
Kill2me: Another stomper of spyware – bring it on.
KillBox: Very nice for taking care of "Abetterinternet" and other n00bish software.
a² free: This bridges the gap with anti-virus and malware. This free scanner cleans Trojans, worms, spyware (all malware).
SpywareBlaster: Active prevention against spyware, adware, browser hijackers and dialers.
HitmanPro2: Incorporates all major Anti-Spyware software and updates/runs them all for you. Too cool.
WinDiz: Windows updates with FireFox. Great if ActiveX is damaged by spyware.

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Spam

POPfile: Perfect/Free ani-Spam tool. Involved installation, but once it’s set – it’s good.
IHateSpam: For Exchange (V5.5, 2000 and 2003) was uniquely developed to be both user and admin-friendly. 30day trial.
Spamihilator works between your E-Mail client and the net. Useless spam mails (Junk) will be filtered out.
SpamBayes: is a tool used to segregate unwanted mail (spam) from the mail you want (ham).
SpamPal: Mail classification program that separates your spam from the mail you really want to read.
OSpam: A great and simple spam solution for any POP account.

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Security

Firewall

Caution: Do not install a software firewall. Great for testing security and diag if your a tech: - My clients – please ask me about it before doing it.

Sygate. Just bought by Symantec – now it’s going to be crap. Hurry and get this before it happens.
Tiny: Tiny is a free firewall. It is designed for the more advanced due to the heavy features included.
Comodo: Great little personal firewall. This is pretty new and robust.
OutPost: An Opensource based firewall. Works very well protecting against worms, trojans and hackers.
Kerio: Smart, easy-to-use personal security technology that fully protects PC’s against hackers and internal misuse. The best.
Protowall: Very small application that blocks IP address. Very cool.
Prevx: Stops the attacks that bypass anti-virus and firewall products.

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Data Encryption/Passwords

PowerCrypt 2000: Encrypted files, folders and E-mails. This free file lets you hide all your data.
PGP: "Pretty Good Privacy". Actually it’s probably the best encryption software out there. Free – PC/MAC
Cryptainer LE: Secure your data and ensure absolute privacy with Cypherix’s powerful 128bit encryption.
BitCrypt: A sophisticated tool allowing for encryption of plain text within a bitmap image.
EasyCrypto: Encrypt both standalone files and entire folders. Many cool options here.
Truecrypt: Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows XP/2000/2003.
MD5HashGen: Simple application that can generate one-way MD5 hashes – Great for password generations.
PerfectPasswords: GRC’s Ultra High Security Password Generator.
RoboForm: A free password manager and one-click web form filler. Just be carefull who uses your PC.
Password Safe: Allows you to have a different password for all the different items that you deal with – remembers for you.
CutePasswordManager: Form filling software that auto fill user/password. Stores info with 256-bit AES encryption – 1click login.
PIN’s: Storing of any secure information like passwords, accounts, PINs etc. 448 bit Blowfish. Does not install.

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Data Destroyers

Eraser: FBI just kick in the door? This little program will erase data to a level that the Dept. Of. Defense uses.
KillDisk: KillDisk conforms to US Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DoD 5220.22-M.
AutoClave: Hard drive sterilization on a bootable floppy.
SuperShredder: Shred’s individual files. It’s stronger than DOD specs.
DBAN ("Darik’s Boot and Nuke") is a self-contained boot floppy that makes it an appropriate utility data destruction.

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IP Spoofing

Anonymizer: Installs a small toolbar into your browser. Moves your connection to proxies around the word. Slows connection.
Proxify.com Spoof your IP address without installing software. The paid version is much faster.

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Tuning

Monitor System Resources

SpeedFan: Allows you to see your CPU temperature. Good for overclockers and modders.
Motherboard Monitor: Like speedfan, reads temperature and fan RPM data – alerts you when there’s trouble.
Si Meter: Great/free/small application that does live monitoring on system resources.
TDIMon: Lets you monitor TCP and UDP activity on your local system.
InterMapper: Gives a visual in real-time view of traffic flows through and between critical network devices and links.
WinBar: A compact program that lets you monitor your system and provides easy access to frequently used controls.

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System Cleaning

RegSupreme: Clean up the registry from old entries, speed up your system. 30day trial.
RegSeeker: Very tiny – does not install. I have tested this and trust it. Many tweak options with it.
RegscrubXP: A great free registry cleaner for XP. Fix those "weird issues" with Windows.
Beclean: is the complete suite of system cleaner. Registry to history – cleans many things.
CCleaner: Removes unused and temporary files from your PC – allowing it to run faster, more efficiently and saving space.
MyUninstaller 1.0: Uninstall anything,clean out old video drivers, uninstall programs that are not in "add/remove".
DriverCleaner: Made to fully clean out the drivers of ATI and NVIDIA.
MSconfig: Get rid of startup programs that slow your PC down. This would be for Windows 2000.
Starter: It’s better than Msconfig. Also works with Windows 2000, which is nice due to the fact that 2k doesn’t have msconfig.
PreFetch cleaner: A pre-fetch scrubber to clean out files that are used commonly – can be corruption or spyware hiding.

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Diagnostics

Belarc: Takes a snap-shot about a PC (hardware-software) with a full profile report. This is very handy.
SIW: A small .exe that when ran – gives you all kinds of info about your PC and software. Need this on your tools disk.
PcpBios: Very tiny script that looks at all BIOS related information. RAM, CPU and motherboard instant info.
EVEREST: (recently AIDA32). Like Belarc, gives full system summary of hardware and software/keys.
SpaceMonger: A tool for keeping track of the free space on your computer. It shows a graph of files and sizes.
IP subnet calculator: A diagnostics tool to calculate your network latency and subnet information.
CPUid: A very small application that tells you about your specific specs. (FSB, core clock, dual channel etc.).
PC Pitstop: A good site to check how your doing on fine tuning your computer. It will also help you fix your issues.
PowerMax: Diagnostics for hard drives made by Maxtor. Download, put on a floppy or CD and test your HDD.
MemTest86: Diagnostics for your RAM. Download, put on a floppy or Cd and test your RAM.
Monitor Asset Manager: A Plug and Play monitor information utility. Provide detailed technical information about the target display.
ShieldsUP: Port scanning of all ports or custom scans. See how good your firewall is doing.
BandwidthTest: Test your internet connection speed.

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Customizing

TweakUI: Perfect for somebody who really wants to customize there XP. Made my Microsoft
X-Setup: Like TweakUI but with more functionality and options. Very slick.
ResourceHacker: Get in and really tweak or fix Windows. Great registry GUI hacking.
RenameRecycleBin: I made this registry value in notepad, download/double-click/"yes"/throw away, rename your recycle bin.
Matrix Screensaver: Best (only) Matrix screensaver out on the web. Great options. Here is actual text (change name for you)
FOOOD’s Icons: Great free icons for XP. Default is boring.
Strokit: Advanced mouse gesture recognition engine and command processor.
ReForce: Windows 2k and XP have an issue with Hz in games. This will allow you to set all games at a specific Hz setting.
Keyboard Remapper: Remap your keyboard keys. Easy enough.
ClocX: Analog clock for the desktop.
Xpadder: Map your game pad or RC TX to keyboard keys. Wokrs great for customized controllers.
Alarm: A digital clock that you can set to display a message and play a sound at a time of your choice. AlarmClock
WeatherPlus: Display satellite images and video around the globe, stay updated on current and expected weather conditions.
Nlite: Remove or add Windows components to your Windows CD – for next time you re-install Windows.
AutoStreamer: Just like Nlite, this is specifically for adding Service Packs to your Windows install CD’s.
Digital Blasphemy: Probably the best wallpapers and images on the net.
Konfabulator: Engine that lets you run little files called Widgets that can do pretty much whatever you want them to.

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Tasks

Data Recovery

File Recovery: This is free software made by PC Inspector. Really, Really nice if you lost or trashed a file and need it back.
Smart Recovery: Recover data from flash drives: CF, SM, Thumbdrives, micro drives – etc.
Disk Investigator: Discover all that is hidden on your computer hard disk, recover lost data.
File Scavenger: Undelete and data recovery utility for NTFS volumes. 64KB or smaller files can be recovered with free trial.
CDCheck: Utility for the prevention, detection and recovery of damaged files on CD-ROMs and error detection.
Restoration: Tiny program that doesn’t install. Perfect if you trashed a file (even emptied the recycle bin) and you need it back.
RecoverOutlookMail: A little trick for recovering those corrupted .PST files.

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Browsers

FireFox: Drop Internet Explorer and get a superior browser. Check out the add-ons.
Google Chrome: A great webkit based browser by Google. Very fast.
Opera: If you don’t use FireFox, use Opera. Now that it is free and Ad-free – it is now recommended.
Safari: Apples web browser now for Windows. Great web browser next to Firefox.
Reload Every: Extension for FireFox. Allows you to set reload times on your browser windows so you won’t be logged out.

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FTP/Remote Administration

FileZilla: An FTP program that is superior to "Cute", and is Free.
WinSCP: Open source SFTP client for Windows using SSH and SCP protocol’s. Secure FTP.
FireFTP: If you use FireFox browser (like you should be) – use this plug-in for FTP functionality in your browser.
Hamachi: Setup two or more computers with an Internet connection into their own virtual network for direct secure communication. How-to’s
FolderShare: Securely keep files synchronized between your devices and remotely download your files from any browser.
LogMeIn: Easy to log into a PC from a PC, MAC or linux machine. No port forwarding involved! Just like terminal services but easier.
Avvenu: Remote connect to your PC from another PC or any web-enabled handheld. Perfect for getting those files you forgot.
Crossloop: Secure screen sharing utility designed for people of all technical skill levels. Basically, TightVNC but no port forwarding needed.
TightVNC: Remote control software- see the desktop of a remote machine and control it with your local mouse and keyboard.
RemoteDesktop: Microsoft remote desktop client side installer for older Windows versions.
RDPortX: A small app I made to change the defualt 3389 port that Remote Desktop ueses. Great for multiple RD servers on the same network.
eMando: Client/server package which you can use to control and manage a computer over a LAN or the Internet.
DirectUpdate: Get an Email of your WAN IP address changes even behind a router (for dynamic ISP’s). 60day trial ($15.00 – buy).
DynDNS: A full list of dynamic IP administration software tools.

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CD Burning

CDBurner-XP Pro: Just like it sounds, burning program for Windows. Free.
ImageBurn: A lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application.
ISORecorder: Small program to burn images of CD’s. Once installed, right click an .ISO’s or a ROM drive and "create CD image".  
DeepBurner: A full featured Burning app for CD’s, DVD’s and ISO’s. Much like Nero only totally ~~Free

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File Sharing/Communications

LimeWire Pro : Great GNU file sharing application. Never pay for this type of software.
Shareaza: Like kazaa, however it combines all good P2P networks into one. This is an open source application (GPL).
uTorrent: A great torrent client to download "items". Offers multiple torrent downloads, queuing/priority systems.
Skype: Make phone calls for free (VOIP). Sounds better than your normal phone.
HFS: This is an instant HTTP web server. Very tiny. File server and web server – easy to setup GUI.
Pando: Personal P2P software that makes sending and receiving large files a breeze
OpenWengo: Phone calls and video chat from PC to PC. (for free). Also supports SIP.
Orb: Stream all your live and recorded TV, your photos and your music to any web-connected device. Secure login to your drive content.
iTalk2U: Basically like Skype, but with some advanced features. WebClick2Call is great for site admin’s.
Gizmo: Internet telephone. Like Skype however better quality and custom add-ons. More options and cheaper to call normal phones.
Trillian: Perfect for friends and family who use different instant messaging clients. This combines them all into one.
Pidgin: The Open Source AOL IM client -but without the ad’s. Combines IM clients all into one.
Jabber: Open protocol instant messenger. Setup your own internal server. Great universal client.
GoogleTalk: Much like GAIM and Skype. With VOIP and mail capabilities. (It will add a TSR for itself – fyi)
TeamSpeak: Talk to one another with voice. 1on1 or a bunch of people. Great for multi-player games.
AllSeeingEye: (ASE)- Find your friends playing any popular multi-player game.
XFire: Like "Messenger", however for gamers. Find your friends and join the game they are playing- all in real time.
Agent Newsreader: The best newsreader there is. free
Juice: Great "pod casting" software. Subscribe to some good audio. Don’t every pay for podcast software.
Miranda: A multi protocol instant messenger client. Very tiny – does not install. Great for portable USB drives.

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Office Applications

OpenOffice: Free Office suite and is back-ward compatible with Microsoft Office docs. (It’s better too).  Templates.  Templates 2.
OpenOffice Extensions: Tons of add-ons for OpenOffice. Why even use Microsof Office?
NolaPro: web-based accounting. POS system that is just great. Using open standards.
Palm Organizer: Now have the awesome Palm organizer for Windows. Easy to use and nice for free. (choose PalmV in the list)
7-Zip: A file archiver with high compression ratio. OpenSource GPL. Much better than WinZIP. Free no ad’s.
DOCX Convert: Convert the annoying proprietary X format to a nicer format. Ignore the "Tune up Your PC" – it’s spyware. *
IZark: IZArc is the ultimate archive utility supports many archive formats. Supports most formats. Bit bigger downlaod than 7-Zip.
PDFcreator: Create PDF’s. Download a ghostscript and the patch – print to PDF.
Foxit Reader: Reader/viewer/printer for PDF documents – has a size less than 1M, needs no installation and opens up immediately.
ThunderBird: ThunderBird replaces that Outlook mail client with a real mailbox.
SunBird: Want the nice calendar in Office 2003? This stand-alone calendar is very sweet. Or just get the Thunderbird calendar add-in.
TinySpell: A very small application that spell checks for you while you type anywhere – I need it. ;)
Google Calendar: Online calendar that can be shared with clients, friends and family. Easy to print, share and modify.
AceMoney: A freeware personal finance manager. Like MS Money or Quickbooks – free.
ESBCalc: is a Freeware Scientific Calculator.
FireFox remiders: Tiny Firefox extention for easy reminders through the day. Very handy (aways on – no extra TSR).
Thunderbird minimize to tray: Great extension to make Thunderbird run in system tray- not task bar.

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Backup Solutions

BackRex: Outlook Express and Outlook backup tool. Most features in the free version.
Mozbackup: Simple utility for creating backups of Firefox, Thunderbird profiles. It allows you to backup and restore bookmarks, mail, contacts, history etc.
IMAPSize: A great tool to transfer Thunderbird e-mail to Outlook/Outlook Express (not sure why you would – but it’s here).
NasBackup: Is a great backup solution. Designed to be easy for end desktop users, yet scalable to enterprise setups.
DriverBackup: finds and collects the drivers for the hardware. After it collects them, the program backs them up to a specific folder.
CopyX: This little customizable backup/copy utility is in Windows by default – but this makes things easy.
Gmail Drive: If you have a Gmail account you can use this to create a drive on your system to drag-n-drop files for backup.
Box.NET: A free data storage that is online and can be accessed anywhere in the world. 1GB is free. Works perfect.
Cobian Backup: Backup program that can be used to schedule and backup your files – drives, directories and FTP.
SyncBack: Powerful program that backups and synchronizes your files to: same drive, different drive, CDRW, Network, Zip.
SyncToy: Customizable application helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and PC’s. Automated sync as in "RAID1".
Replicator: Automatically backup files, directories, even entire drives!
HTTrack: Download a web site from the net to a local directory, building all directories, getting HTML, images and files from the server.
Comodo BackUp: Easily create backup copies of files. Includes complete file and folder-duplication to local network drives and FTP servers.

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Text Editors/HTML Editors/Development

–Text–
Crimson Editor: is a professional source code editor for Windows.
jEdit: A mature and well-designed programmer’s text editor that has been in development for over 5 years
Vim: Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. – voted best text editor
Notepad++: Source code editor and Notepad replacement, which supports several programming languages
–HTML–
Matrix Y2K: A free and very slick GUI Website builder like Dreamweaver.
Nvu: Web editing environment based on the Mozilla platform and its Gecko layout engine.
FirstPage: HTML editing software gives you unsurpassed freedom to create and edit web documents with absolute code control.
–Development–
Jitterbit: Client and server designed to configure, test, and deploy integration solutions. Connect ERP and CRM data -ect.
PHP DESIGNER 2006: A freeware IDE for coding PHP for both professional and novices.
Sun JSC: Sun Java Studio Creator development environment is the next-generation tool for Java application development.
Google WebToolKit: Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications (Google Maps,Gmail) easy.
Netbeans: Open-source project dedicated to providing rock solid software development products.
NSIS: A professional open-source tool for the development of Windows installers.
Zip2Secure: Create .ZIP into .EXE. Great for letting somebody download a self extracting zip. Even .ico icon settings.
MyGeneration: The free code generator / mapping and architectures tool.
SketchUp: Simple but powerful tool for quickly and easily creating, viewing and modifying your 3D ideas.
FreeMind: A mind-mapping software written in Java. Great for flow-charts, networks, layouts etc. (much like Graphviz).
Graphviz: A way of representing structural information as diagrams of abstract graphs and networks. Automatic graph drawing.
Maguma: Full-featured, modular Integrated Development Platform. Full feature set for PHP and Python, can be customized for your project.

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Misc.

FSRaid: Want to read and reconstruct your PAR files? Get it now.
WiGLE and Jwire: WiFi Access Locators. Before traveling, take a look at access points you can get on for free.
Stellarium: Planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.

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Multimedia

Media Players

QuickTime Alternative: No need to download and install "QuickTime", use this instead. Much smaller application.
RealPlayer Alternative: Don’t ever install "real one player", just use this instead.
MediaPlayerClassic: Slim down hacked version of old Media Player. Has pretty much all codecs – can play anything.
Democracy: Download and watch all the best internet TV shows and videos. RSS feeds including podcasts, video blogs, BitTorrent feeds.
VLC Player: VideoLan is a perfect DVD/Divx media player. Much like PowerDVD. The only video player needed for everything.
MediaMonkey: Very powerful media player. Much like iTunes, however this gives much more flexibility. Drag items back and forth from an iPod.
SongBird: A desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Supports extensions, built from Mozilla and open source.
iTunes: A digital jukebox with a download music store inside.
JetAudio: Play most all types of media files with internet broadcasting and a nice alarm clock.
MediaPortal: Turn your PC into a media center. Like Windows Media Center – but free.

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Codecs/Rippers/Converters

MP3DirectCut: Fast and extensive audio editor and recorder for compressed mp3. No need to recompress.
SLD codec pack: All Dvix, Xvid etc. codecs combined in one install. Great for using Windows Media Player for these file types.
K-Lite: KL is a large "all-in-one" codec pack.
HandBrake: Great DVD ripping tool for OSX and Winodows. Rip DVDs to the hard drive.
FormatFactory: a multifunctional media converter. *
FFmpeg: cross platform command-line encoding tool that powers many of the more popular graphical applications *
DVDFlick: Turn almost any video file and make it into a DVD to play on your DVD player (TV). Simple and easy.
CDex: A free tool allows you to Rip you CD’s into MP3’s.
DVDFab Decrypter: Rip DVD’s to your hard drive. This will decrypted DVD’s to files to be stored (as .VOB files).
DVD Shrink: Remove extra features and compress to fit a DVD (VOB file) to a single blank DVD.
DVDbackup: Free DVD backup tool.
dBpoweramp: Called the Swiss army knife of Audio. Rip and convert any CD into any format. Great app.
Super: A simple, yet very efficient tool to convert (encode) or play any Multimedia file. Easy-to-use with 1 simple click.
Bink Rad Video: Perfect tool to rip movie’s into an executable player. End-users don’t need special codecs to use.
VCDgear: Designed to extract MPEG streams from CD images, convert VCD files to MPEG, correct MPEG errors and more.
StaxRip: Easily convert your DVD’s, DVB or DV captures or almost any other source format.
Dr. Divx 2.0: Unofficially the Official DivX encoding tool to create DivX media files for playback on DivX hardware and software players.
MediaCoder: Audio/video batch transcoder. Capable of transcoding among different audio/video formats with many extras.
EphPod: Manage your iPod music and more.  Drag and drop music back and forth.  

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Photography/Imaging

UnFREEz: Make animated .GIF’s very easily and free.
Movie13: .GIF animator with 98 animation wizards including text and actor wizards.
GimpShop: Want PhotoShop but don’t want to pay for it? Get GimpShop.
Paint.NET: Image and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows XP.
ArtRage: A painting package designed to provide a realistic and fun simulation of using paint on a canvas.
TuxPaint: It’s like Photoshop for kids!. Very basic however much more powerful than Windows "Paint".
Inkscape: Open Source vector graphics editor – a powerful and convenient drawing tool.
MWSnap: For snapping (capturing) images from selected parts of the screen. Does not install. Very powerful.
ColorCop: Sample color – programs like firefox have color samplers, but you’re limited to that program; with this you can select anything on your screen.
IrfanView: Modify, organize and add effects to almost any image format.
Picasa: Photo organizer that allows you to share photo’s easily online with others- very powerful program made by Google.
Artweaver: Program for creative painting, i.e. Artweaver makes all artistic effects, which you need for your work.

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AV Editing

Pivot: Make stick figure animations!. This is cool.Audacity: Audio/sound mixer, that is of course FREE.
AutoGK: Video compression and converting. Divx, Xvid and DVD support. (Like "Dr. Divx" as for understanding).
Wink: Make flash tutorials for websites or software "how-to’s". ‘Teach mom how to use OpenOffice by watching.’
Anim8or: A free "Maya" program. Very tight software that lets you make your own "Toy Story".
Blender: A free GNU 3D manipulation tool. Make movies and effects. Tutorials.
Avid: Perfect for students, DV camera owners, video enthusiasts or anyone exploring video editing.
Zwei-Stein: A non-linear, non-destructive video compositing and editing system which offers many advanced features.
DAZ|Studio: 3D figure posing and animation software package. Think Nvidia "Dawn" creation. (like).
ABC VideoRoll: Easy to use, free video editing. Company no longer exists and some experience bugs with it. Seems ok.
WAX: High performance and flexible video compositing and special effects software. Look at there other free software too!
VirtualDub: Great for capturing and editing your .AVI movies and converting to Divx. Many more features.
ZS4: Combine a variety of media types (currently photos, videos and audio files) into one (or more) output file(s)
Movica:  a graphical user interface to edit .mpg and .wmv.  
Doom9 and Videohelp: Both are great sites to get any other software/help you may need for video encoding.

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+ 2008 100 Most Popular Photoshop Tutorials By BigDaddy 27 December 2008 at 4:41 am and have No Comments

The 100 Most Popular Photoshop Tutorials 2008

original Link:
http://www.photoshoplady.com/the-100-most-popular-photoshop-tutorials-2008/

Sometimes, you may find it difficult to look for some of the highest quality photoshop tutorials using search engines. As most of time, almost all tutorials would label themselves to be good, high quality or even the best photoshop tutorial you can find. When searching through all these tutorials, your time is wasted.

In order to save your time, Photoshop Lady has been spending almost a whole year to search for the best photoshop tutorials for you. Eventually, we come up with The 100 Most Popular Photoshop Tutorials of 2008. These are selected from our published tutorials, with over 1 million votes and views from our Photoshop users and readers. Enjoy.

Smokin’ Woman

In this tutorial, it is going to show how to create one smoking woman using a couple source pics, and just a few of the features associated with Phoenix. So follow along. With the magic of Phoenix, you’ve created the smoking woman of your dreams.

Turning a Image into a Beautiful Paint

In this tutorial, it will show you how to turn a photo into a beautiful paint. This process is required to implement part by part. You need to define the image by different color parts. And you may use pen tool to do it. In order to turn the paint becoming more realistic, adding shadow into the image is necessary.

 

Photoshop Beauty Tutorial

In this tutorial, it will show you how to edit and improve a image to become more pretty and wonderful. To edit and enhance the beauty of image, there are different ways to achieve this. It is worthwhile to learn it as this. (Downloading the tutorial is required.)

Create Amazing Photomontages

In this tutorial, itshows you how to make a splash, blending two very different images to create this amazing underwater effect, complete with a dissolving figure of a man. At the end, the last adjustment is to draw focus to the centre by blurring the edges a little. Hope you enjoy!

 

Age Progressio

In this tutorial, it is going to show you how to basically go about aging a woman’s face in photoshop. It may not be the most technically detailed tutorial but it gives you a good idea of the process to get the job done.

3D typographic effects in Photoshop

In this tutorial, the type-effects shows how to create the above image. The key is to create the letters in a 3D package first as individual characters, then bring them into Photoshop for further post work.This example has a few more details, but you can take it much further.

Creating Energy Spheres in Photoshop

In this tutorial, you need to find a nice photo. This stock photo is found in the website Stock Exchange. For this tutorial you will learn some photoshop techniques to create a energy sphere effect. Hope you enjoy!

Fantasy Light Effects in Photoshop

In this tutorial, it will show you how to add the fantasy light effects on your photos. what does look like, you can see the sample from the thumbnail. You can just create this fantasy scene using brushes and blur effects.

Swirl Mania in Photoshop

in this tutorial, it will show 4 ways to create swirls, and by mixing them you will learn some very powerful techniques that will allow you to easily make tons of different styles of swirls and crazy sperm vectors. The tutorial is all about combination. Nice to have a try!

Create an Awesome Grass Texture

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create a text pattern in the grass field. Of course, you can create the pattern you like by the same method. The field off by playing with the levels are finished by increasing the contrast and cropping the image to make it more horizontal.

 

Smoothing & Softening Edition for Imag

In this tutorial, it will reveal you how to edit a photo and make it into a high quality photo. To begin with, you need to remove unwanted object from the photo. Then the object will be edited to become more grant and elegant by adding the color on the fore part of the face.

 

Fantasy Art in the Lake

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create some special art on the existing photo. And, here the author give this a name called “Plasma” (Star, not the TV!). Hope you like it!

 

A Slick Supernatural Text Effect

In this tutorial we’ll be creating a smokey night effect on text to give it an eerie supernatural sort of feel. Finally to give it a more eerie feel I added a layer above all the others and with a large brush painted some green on top, then set the layer blending mode to Colour to make it so that the image is a blue-green colouring. And we’re done!

Turn Your Image into Statue

In this tutorial, it will show you how to turn your image into a statue. To create this, you are required to prepare 2 photos. One is your image, another is rock. Using photoshop, it is very amazing to do such combination.

 

Transparent Glass Lettering in Photoshop

In this tutorial we’re going to use some super layer effects and a bit of extra magic to make a lettering style that looks transparent and stunning. It’s best to place them on the most highlighted parts of the Q to make it look like they are sparkles from those highlights.

 

Photo Enhancement Tutorial

In this photoshop tutorial we will take an image of a woman and enhance photos with the use of simple photoshop tools such as the lasso, color correction, and we will enhance the photograph using simple photo manipulation techniques. After you are happy with your artwork, adjust brightness contrast to add depth. You are done!

 

Create a Brand New Car

This tutorial will show you how to create a vector car.

Airbrushing – Natural Smooth Skin

In this tutorial, it will show you how to smooth the face in the photo. A lot of photoshop skills such as tuning the brightness & color adjustments are involved in this. You will find out more and apply the same idea for your photos.

 

Pop Art

The pop art that you will create using this tutorial will look fantastic if you get it printed at your local print shop. The final step for creating the dots is to create a Clipping Path between the new layer and the “dots” layer. Hope you found this Photoshop tutorial helpful.

 

Create a Spectacular Grass Text Effect

In this tutorial, it will show you to create a rather cool looking grass-text effect using a photo of grass, the pen tool. One neat little composition featuring text made out of grass! It is nice to have a go!

 

Luminescent Lines

In this tutorial, it will explore you the technique of using brush tool and you will also learn how to create custom brushes and use them effectively, combined with some interesting layer styles. Have a go!

 

Deep and Moody Woman

In this tutorial, it will show you to create a “simple” moody image using loads of simple effects to create an image with depth and composition. This is simpler than you think but can demand a lot from your system. Thank you!

 

3D Cartoon Painting Tutorial

The tutorial is initiated with the scanned art. This tutorial will show you how to paint an art and make it like a 3D cartoon. The process is complicate, as it is related to add the shadow and a lot of art works. You will be familiar with the photoshop brush after finishing this tutorial. Since you need to frequently use the brush to process this.

Create a Natural Scenery

Readers need to download the tutorial. In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a beautiful natural scenery. Firstly, you need to find a few scenery photos to do this combination. Then turn the scenery color as this.

Black Website Desig

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create an elegant black website template. To create a user friendly and simple web, you may not find it struggling with. However, the differences between an elegant web and a simple web are the background and navigation button designs. To begin with your own webpage, you can have a go with this to learn.

Text Art – Frilly Bits Typography

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create your text art. The first thing to do is to find the elements we will use. There are lots of websites where you can find nice vectors. And the techniques can also be applied on some other texts as well.

Turn a Beauty into a Zombie

In this tutorial, it will display the process about how to turn a beauty into a Zombie. In the final part, using overlay, soft light and color burn layers and soft red and black brushes to add more shadow and bloody parts.

Create a Layered Glowing Text Effect

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create this effect using very basic tools in photoshop and layering effects. This tutorial covered some simple steps and effects to achieve stylish results. The final image is as thumbnail.

Stunning 3D Effects for Text

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create a awesome 3D text. You will be able to pick up the skill very quickly. The text, of course, can be adjusted the color you like with the same style.

Create Cool Neon Effects

This tutorial will show you how to use warping, layer masks and simple colour tweaking for a high-tech look that’s out of this world. It is nice to apply this effect to your favourite photo. Have a go!

 

Creating Smoke

This article shows you how to create a smoke effect in photoshop, and to achieve that I used a photo of smoke and some photoshop filters. The best thing to do is to play with the brushes and with the tools to achieve the desired effect.

Exploding Text

For this tutorial we’re going to use a little bit of 3D Studio Max, so make sure you have it and that you know your basics before you start. And there you have exploding text. Hope you enjoy.

Trendy Geometric Lines Design Tutorial

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create a trendy poster in a special way. With this idea, you can rough them up with brush textures in Adobe Photoshop resulting in a cool and trendy design style. Have a go!

Blue Glow Dreamy Portrait

There are thousands of effects which can apply to the photo. The main purpose is to make it more elegant. And this tutorial, it is going to show you how to adjust your portrait with blue glow effect. The process will involve lots of layer adjustments as well as color tuning skills.

Fire Lines Tutorial

In this tutorial, it will show you how to add a special effect on a stock photo. This is quite a good example to demonstrate an general idea turning your normal photo into a elegant picture like a poster. Of course, making the fire lines on the photo can increase the attractiveness in a black and white picture background as this. You can apply the same idea on your personal photo.

Hair Highlights

In this tutorial, it will teach you the steps of highlight someone’s hair and if you want a dramatic makeover in your photographs in just few minutes, Then this tutorial is really help for you.

Glamour Style

In this tutorial, you will learn how to photo retouch the skin of a model in a few steps. Better results can be obtained by using a graphic tablet instead of a mouse.

Design a Cartoon Grunge Website Layout

This tutorial will let you learn how to add a worn look that works well with cartoon style graphics. Different flavors of grunge styles are popular all over the web right now. Add in three images of your choice. Mask them to fit within the boundaries of the white rectangles.

Expressive lighting effects

In this tutorial, it will show you the ways of bringing originality to digital lighting by introducing and vectoring traditional sketches, as well as examining some nifty Illustrator-based stroking techniques. Hope you like it!

 

Professional header design for your website

This photoshop cs3 tutorial will teach you how to make a nice-looking and professional header for your website easily. For the final result, add some text, rss icon image and simple reflection text.

Design a Professional Laptop Advert

In this tutorial, it will show you how to manually create your own vanishing points, and how to use these techniques to create an awesome ’screen demonstration effect’. You can use this technique to adjust the angle of the views.

 

Slow shutter text effect

This tutorial is done on CS3 but the main screen should be pretty similar. Finally select the burn tool from the tool menu and select a large soft brush (bigger the better) on a 35% opacity and rub around the lower edges of the canvas so the overall glows seems to be coming all from the middle.

 

Create Your Own Planets

The “Polar Panorama Effect” is a photoshop technique which is eligible to turn the image into unique pieces of art. It takes a panoramic photo and uses the Polar Coordinates filter of Photoshop or The Gimp to create a circular image that seems to wrap the panorama around a planet. Have a go!

Transform a Photo into Pencil Sketch

In this tutorial, it will show you how to transform a photo into pencil sketch. You will have a chance to experience some photoshop techniques such as using brushes, adjusting the colors & level adjustments to make this.

Quick and Effective Facial Photo Retouching

In this tutorial, it will lay down the basics of retouching and take you through the entire process, applied, layer by layer. When you actually see the process take place, the person seems to look fake afterwards, therefore, some adjustments are required.

 

Professional Modern Web Layout

In this tutorial, it will show you how to design and create a modern web layout. To design a good layout, it could be very simple, but time consuming. As you may spend a few hours to design one nice navigation button.

 

Design a Cool Blue Text Effect

In this tutorial, it will show you how to decorate your text with a cool blue effect. Here in the thumbnail, another motion blur design is added to be finalized with the same layer style settings just below the text designs.

 

How to Create Brilliant Light Streaks

In this tutorial, it will show a simple technique for creating brilliant light streaks which can be used in different ways to add motion and brightness to your designs. By using Wave, you can achieve some very nice looking irregular paths for your light. Very nice!

 

Create a Trendy Typographic Poster Design

In this Photoshop tutorial, you can produce some great looking contemporary designs that fit well as impact posters, by stripping back the tools to creating an interesting and eye-catching poster with a single typographic word. This is a simple way to make your wording looks attractiveness.

 

Creating a Cool Website Header in Fireworks

In this tutorial, it shows you how to create the Spectrum that is a default style in Fireworks. After that change the Blend Mode to Overlay. This rectangle will be on top of the other elements. The result will be as the thumbnail.

 

Photo Transfer Edge Effect

In this Photoshop tutorial, it will show you how to create a cool old photo transfer edge effect using a piece of stock photography, an alpha channel, the burn and dodge tools. Now you have a chance to turn your photo into aged treasure one.

 

Sparkling Hot Girl in Photoshop

In this tutorial, it will show you how to add the abstract effect on an image. It is very useful when you want your photo to be special. It is nice that you add something on the background. Of course, you can use the same sort of idea for your personal picture.

 

Lighting effects Photoshop Tutorial

This is my first tutorial in over a year and a half. It will show you the lighting effect!

 

The New Way to Create Super 3D Text

You have to download the tutorial. In this tutorial, it shows you how to create super 3D text in Photoshop. To begin with, you need to create the 3D text. Then, put the special texture for the text. It may not be necessary to follow this tutorial exactly, you can change it into the way you want.

 

Windows Vista Aurora Effect

In this tutorial, it will demonstrate you to create “Vista Lighting Effect”. You can really transform an ordinary wallpaper to something extraordinary. For add effect, you can add some extra color into it using Color Balance Layers.

 

Dramatic Text on Fire Effect

In this tutorial, it will show you how to use a photograph of fire to set text to the match. We’ll render the look on a nice dark background with a gorgeous text effect to complete the image. Finally we’ll add a last highlight. So create a new layer above all the others and draw in a white to black radial gradient.

Create a Wavy Blackberry Style Wallpaper Design

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create an abstract background image using Photoshop. The design has a cool wavy pattern with interesting lighting effects. This is a combination of design effects. You will find it very useful to create another design pattern.

Hand Drawn Design Pattern for an Image

There are several ways to create hand drawn images. User can create it from draft and scan an actual hand drawn sketch. And, most of tutorials would like to initiate it from a drafting and then paint it.

 

Digital Composting & Enhancing

In this tutorial, it will show you the steps of turning an ordinary digital photo into something vibrant and fanciful may be easier than you think. You can also apply the same skills to your photo.

 

Special Purple Lighting Effect Design

In this tutorial, it will demonstrate you how to design a special purple lighting effect scene. It is like our previous abstract effect tutorials. A lot of brushes functions are involved as you may be aware that, brushes can be used to create lots of shapes and sharpen image.

 

Matte Painting

This tutorial is actually a “making of” where explain how to proceed & achieve this matte painting. The last step is to create a Levels adjustment layer to get the final contrast of the matte painting.

 

Portrait Painting Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to start from drafting and end with painting.

 

Create a Garden on the Human Head

In this tutorial, it will basically take you through the process of converting a man’s head into a garden. The first part will be showing you how to prepare the image then add a waterfall coming out of his head with a pool at the bottom, as shown on the thumbnail. Have a go!

Texturing of Old Paper

In this tutorial, you will be able to learn the techniques to create a texturing old paper. It is preferably creating an old paper using photoshop to consume your time looking for it from archieves.

The Making of a Robotic Frog

In this tutorial, it will show you some of the steps. Our image is complete! A robotic frog created using only the very basic tools of photoshop!

 

Digital Painting Toys

This making of showing how to create ‘’so, you really think. Finally a ‘‘fitting“ background colour is picked and simply draw a gradient. After that the animals are masked and on a layer under the animals shadows are painted.

 

Seriously Cool Photoshop Explosion Effect

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create an Explosion effect in a photo. It will let you know how to create a break apart, explosion effect and add some awesome lighting and glow to finish the image off.

 

Turn A Photo Into A Collage Of Polaroids

In this Photoshop tutorial, it will let you learn how to take a single photograph and turn it into a collage of polaroids, with each polaroid containing a small section of the overall image. Your support goes towards keeping this site running and keeping new tutorials coming!

 

Strange High House

In this tutorial, it will show you how to initiate the paint of strange high house from draft to paint. Or you can draft whatever object on paper first, then scan your object. After that, you can apply the paint through photoshop featuring. Usually from drafting to painting, it takes at least 1 or 2 hours.

Impressive Colour Spectrum and Rainbow Tutorial

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create some line patterns. Sometimes, it will be nice to create your background with this kind of style. Easy, fast & simple! To create this, user has to be aware of contrast and brightness.

 

Professional Dark Header

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create a “Professional Dark Header” for your web site. In fact, web sites can succeed with their simple designs. In our previous tutorials, you may have experienced many different kind of creations. And this time, you can try another simple one!

 

Making of Fire Dragon

This tutorial is going to teach you how to make a nice fire dragon. The design process is very time-consuming. Hope you enjoy it!

 

6 Quick’n’Dirty Photoshop Text Effects

In this tutorial, it will show you how to make 6 different effects using just layer styles. But, we just focus on the golden text. It uses an Outer Bevel on top of a fat Stroke to create the highlights. Then when we place the other layer on top they come together to make a lovely gold effect!

 

Orange Porsche with Fruit Skin

In this tutorial, it will show you how to re-decorate the Posche with fruit skin. This time, orange skin is used for making the skin. Then use the color adjustment plus other special effect to complete this tutorial.

 

Special Spectrum Design for CD Cover

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create a CD cover with special spectrum design. Some useful methods of enhancing workflow and efficiency are shown like using smart objects. The image we are creating will be in the style of some of the Ministry of Sound CD’s. Take your time to make one!

 

Make a 3D Color Explosion

In this tutorial, it will show you how to take command of layer blending modes and masks, and employ simple but highly effective tricks to generate light sources, shadows and add depth to your work. This style is a bit special, as lots of art elements have been added. Very nice!

 

Create a Realistic Blueprint Image From a 3D Object

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create a a mock-up of a 3D car blueprint. After that, an image will be placed on a drafting table. Using Photoshop Extended CS3’s 3D tools, you can base on a simple and fast technique to create blueprints of real objects.

 

Creating Old Paper With Custom Brushes

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create a Custom Brush using a folded piece of paper and then how to use that brush to create an old piece of paper. To begin with, a plain white piece of paper will be taken, folded it in fours and left it in my pocket for a few hours. Next you need to scan the paper using the Grayscale setting on my scanner.

 

Create an Energy Drink Ad Design

In this tutorial, you will be able to learn how to feature a soft drink product. It really relies on a combination of using difference blending mode and radial blur filter to achieve unique colors, contrast, and lighting to emphasis the effect.

 

Reflective Liquid type

This tutorial will show you on creating metal type abound online, as do variations on simple liquid effects.Tutorials on creating metal type abound online, once you have an idea of how different techniques fit together in a piece.

 

MacBook Air

This tutorial will contain 20 steps and explain how to make the MacBook Air ad.

 

Design a Simple Rounded Content Box

In this tutorial, it will show you how to design a simple rounded content box. To make a nice interface design, you need to create a box and then, put a tab on the top.

 

Create an Amazing Nike Logo

This tutorial is about creating a Nike Logo. It looks very simple. But, it is nice. It is always good to apply a little change on the existing logo or design as I mentioned in our previous tutorials. And, the your adjustment can, sometimes, make the original design to be surprising.

 

Leopard Aurora Borealis

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create the light stream picture. The original picture is from NASA site. Take a smallish hard brush and just scribble in different colours. Basically just play around until you come up with something you like. Here is mine with a few more light streams added. Have a go!

 

How to Create Product Labels in Photoshop

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create a “Product Labels” in Photoshop. And this demonstrates you how to create a green tea label with a ninja character in background. Of course, you can use the same idea to present your products with different character. And our example is as shown in the thumbnail.

 

Create a Powerful Mental Wave Explosion Effect

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create a explosion effect for a human, like a mix of Magneto’s ability with Peter Petrelli’s power. We will use images and filters to produce this wave explosion effect. Have a go!

 

3D Pixel Stretch Effects

In this tutorial, you will learn a good 3D effect which can also apply to lots of areas. Stretching a single line of pixels is an easy way to create special digital effects in graphic design. By taking this technique a step further, you can create elegant image, drawing, or pattern as you like.

 

Light Beam

In this tutorial, it will show you how to use the photoshop tools to make this Light Beam as the thumbnail. To complete this, you will need to use the skills such as blur filters: Motion blur, Radial blur, and Gaussian Blur.

 

Make a Realistic Star Field

In this tutorial, it is going to show you how to create a realistic star field. Firstly, you need to initiate it with a background in black. Then you can create a the stars. To make this in a realistic way, you have to put more effort as there will be lots of photoshop techniques involved.

 

Creating an Abstract 3D Design

In this tutorial, it will demonstrate you how to create a 3D abstract design. To begin with, you need to extract the image first. Of course, you can pick an image you like. Then following the steps about image adjustments. At the end, using the brush to draw the colorful line and add the words design in the centre.

 

Design Watercolor Effect Menu

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create an artistic and un-typical CSS list menu as seen on Web Designer Wall. In this article, you will learn how to design a watercolor effect menu and how to slice the menu and code in CSS. Have fun!

 

Water Drops in Photoshop

This is a video tutorial. It will show you how to create some realistic water drop in 5 mins. The basic idea of how to create water drops is that they are a bit complex, they have highlights, shadows, transparencies, inner shadows and inner highlights. The best thing is that we can create all of those effects using the Layer Styles in Photoshop.

 

Magic, Fire, Light & Others in Photoshop

Under Abstract Effect, Photoshop Tutorial

Enhance Your Ad Designs with 3D Splashes

In this tutorial it will show you a creative process. The workflow for creating the splashes involves taking photographs of thrown paint. In the final, you can add anything you want to your advertisement design. You can add a logo and some text in the image you want.

 

Create a Glowing Light Painting Effect

In this tutorial, it will show you how to create taking photos with long exposures. It would be a nice idea to do that in Photoshop. If the background is too dark the blend mode won’t work. You’ll probably have to use another one with a outer glow.

 

Quick Grungy Poster

In this tutorial It will show you how to create a sort of grunge poster. We will learn how to make some elements look a bit dirty, create textures and add some depths to the elements using shadows and blend modes. This time we use that filter to create stains in our design a totally different approach like when we used it creating light effects.

 

The Making of Mystic

In this tutorial, it focuses on the big picture steps taken to create this image. You’ll learn some incredible techniques in this tutorial, and get a view into how the designer creates beautiful photo-manipulation based images. That is very

Red Gamble Dice Icon 8,378 views

This tutorial will display the procedure about how to make an icon of a red dice. Other advantage – stuff mentioned here can be used in almost any type of graphics you’ll do in a future, so we get the dice in its beauty.

Space Lighting Effects in 10 Steps 8,371 views

In this tutorial, you will be able to learn to create the space lighting effects within 10 steps. Creating Stars is something really easy. Create a new layer, fill it with black, and change the Blend Mode to Screen.

 

How To Create a Stunning Vista Inspired Menu 8,369 views

This tutorial will show you how to make a semi-transparent vista inspired menu, using gradients, shadows and blurring to produce a stunning modern effect. This menu produces a stunning effect when coupled with a bright scenic background. It uses transparency to great effect as well as modern gradients. The use of highlights is a great trick to providing a cutting-edge modern look to pictures.

+ 60+ Useful Adobe AIR Applications You Should Know By BigDaddy 24 October 2008 at 7:36 pm and have No Comments

Original Link:

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/60-useful-adobe-air-applications-you-should-know/

Adobe AIR was first introduced on 19 March 2007 with the name of Apollo and designed as a cross-operating system runtime that enables web developers to use their existing web development skills, code and tools to build and deploy rich web applications and content to the desktop.

With Adobe AIR’s rich features, developers are able to build application using HTML, Ajax, JavaScript, Flex and Flash. Therefore, we strongly believe that Adobe Air has unleashed the power to extend user experiences beyond the browser. Here’s our collection of 60+ Adobe AIR Application you should know. Full list after jump.

Google

Collection of Google product related AIR applications.

  1. GMDesk

    GMDesk is an application that lets you run Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Maps as a stand-alone application to do all your mail handling, calendar event reading etc with.

  2. ReadAir

    ReadAir is a desktop client for Google Reader.

  3. Google Analytics Reporting Suite

    Google Analytics Reporting Suite brings Google Analytics to the desktop, with a host of features that help you understand how your website is performing and where you can improve.

Photo & Video

Adobe AIR applications that allow you to search, edit, save or upload photo and video.

  1. Flickr Desktop Search

    Flickr
    Desktop Search
    is an Adobe AIR based utility which helps you to search Flickr images.

  2. ImageDropr

    ImageDropr is a new tool for uploading your images to flickr. This application takes a unique approach towards preparing your content, titles, tags, etc. by creating tools that expedite this process.

  3. Flickr Flipper

    Flickr Flipper allows you to search for Flickr photos and also search for photos from specific Flickr users. It uses Papervision to display the photos one at a time and even allows you to download the photo to your computer.

  4. Snoto

    Snoto Photo is a desktop application for browsing your recent photos as well as the recent photos of others. You can also do a slideshow of the photos.

  5. FLVPlay HD

    FLVPlay HD plays your local or remote flv and mp4 videos, as well as the ones from the YouTube servers which are available via the “Search” feature of the application.

  6. AIRTube Video Downloader

    AIRTube Video Downloader allows you to download YouTube FLV videos by simply dragging or pasting in the video’s URL. After the video downloads the application will expand and show you a preview of the video.

  7. RichFLV

    RichFLV allows you to read and edit FLV data. You can cut FLVs, convert the sound of the flv to mp3 and convert flv to swf.

  8. uvLayer

    UvLayer is a social video application where you can discover, watch, collect and share video media. Searching currently focuses on videos from YouTube and Truveo.

  9. mooFlair

    A desktop application that helps you to manage and watch both online and offline FLVs videos. More than a simple flv player, build your own FLV library and save your compilations in playlists.

  10. Adobe Media Player

    Adobe Media Player allows you to queue up and download your favorite Internet TV content, track and download new episodes automatically, and manage your personal video library for viewing at your convenience.

Design

Adoeb AIR tools that sharpen your design skill.

  1. Websnapshot

    Websnapshot allows you type a URL then take a snapshot using one of the three sizing methods; Thumbnail, Browser or fullpage view.

  2. Shrink-O-Matic

    Shrink O’Matic is an AIR application to easily (batch) resize (shrink) images. It handles JPGs, GIFs and PNGs.

  3. Colorpicker

    colorPicker is a widget-like AIR application that lets you either choose a “web-safe” color from a color grid or design a color using sliders to adjust the red, green, and blue values of the color.

  4. ColourLovers Desktop Color Finder

    Desktop Color Finder lets you search our entire database of nearly 1 million named colors and more than 300,00 user created color palettes.

  5. Font Picker

    Font picker allows you to find the right font for the job.

    Icon Generator

    Icon Generator is a little application that lets you generate a CS3 or Web 2.0 style icon, only 3 step. Pick color, type characters, and save it.

  6. WebKut

    WebKut is an AIR application that allows you to capture web pages, or parts of them in a very simple way.

  7. Color Browser

    Color Browser is a simple way to create and organize your favorite color palettes. Sets of colors are easily viewable in a clean interface.

  8. Photoshop Express Uploader

    Photoshop Express Uploader lets you drag and drop photos from your desktop to upload to Photoshop Express.

Microblogging

Adobe AIR applications that allow you to communicate with microblogs easier and faster.

  1. TweetDeck

    TweetDeck is an Adobe Air desktop application that aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information.

  2. Alert Thingy

    Alert Thingy allows users to see the data stream from people they follow on FriendFeed, and post new messages directly to the service.

  3. Feedalizr

    Life streaming to your desktop. View, rate and comment on what your friends are sharing online, using one simple and easy to use desktop tool.

  4. MySocial AIR

    MySocial is the newest Twitter/FriendFeed desktop app on the block, although MySocial has previously released a Firefox sidebar addon that offers similar functionality.

  5. Twhirl

    Twhirl connects to multiple Twitter, laconi.ca, Friendfeed and seesmic accounts.

  6. Posty

    Posty simplifies your microblogging. All you have to do is writing the message and clicking a button. Posty will automatically deliver your message to the services you selected.

  7. Toro

    Toro is a very simple Twitter client that aims for a speedier Twitter.

  8. Spaz

    Spaz is a Twitter client for users who value free, open-source software, attractive design, and customizability

  9. bTT

    bTT lets you receive update from friendfee, post to friendfeed, send and receive tweets with twitter out of one application on your desktop.

  10. Tweetr

    Tweetr lets you send files to your friends, but just dragging any file on to Tweetr. Tweetr will automatically upload your file and when it is done will provide a short url to send to your friends

Social Network

Adobe AIR applications that blend your favourite social networks into your desktop.

  1. DiggTop

    DiggTop is an application for Windows and MacOSX that lets you view a blended list of your favourite Digg topic or keyword feeds.

  2. Facedesk

    facedesk is an application that, when installed, becomes a stand-alone application to do all your Facebook surfing with.

  3. Flair

    Flair is a free, easy to install application that lets you know whenever you’re poked, or someone writes on your wall, or adds you as a friend – without having to constantly check the Facebook website or your email.

  4. Babuki

    Now all your contacts are in one place wherever you are. There’s no need to create an account and you only have to add details for the other IM networks once.

  5. MINI DIGG

    The Digg mini client brings the latest news from Digg to your desktop. It also allows you to store the stories to your computer.

Miscellaneous

Other useful desktop Adobe AIR applications.

  1. Wordpress Comment Moderator

    Moderator is a WordPress Plugin and associated desktop application, built using Adobe AIR, that allows you to view and moderate comments from your desktop.

  2. Apprise Reader

    Apprise lets you read all your news in one place, and share it all in one place, too. With built-in support for over ten different ways to share stories,

  3. Ora Time and Expense

    Ora Time and Expense is a small easy-to-use application for tracking and generating timesheets, expense reports, and invoices.

  4. Timeloc

    Timeloc is a desktop widget that keeps track of the time you have spent working on a job or project. It will no longer be a case of guess work as to how much you need to bill your clients or assign to a project

  5. Doomi

    Doomi is a simple to-do-list application that designed to stay out of your way, be easy to use and look pretty.

  6. Klok

    Klok is a tool intended to be used by individuals, who have a need to track the time they spend on projects, tasks or anything else for that matter.

  7. MiniTask

    MiniTask is a FREE, fast and easy-to-use task management application that helps you with organising your daily todos more efficiently.

  8. Agile Agenda

    Agile Agenda is a project scheduling utility focused on allowing project managers to enter data about tasks. The software is capable of dynamically adjusting to changing conditions that occur during a project life cycle.

  9. Xdrive Desktop Lite

    Xdrive Desktop Lite allows you to easily upload files and folders right from your hard drive, desktop, USB devices, or removable storage drives directly into your Xdrive web storage.

  10. AirTalkr

    AirTalkr is a multi-protocol Instant Messenger that connects to MSN, Yahoo!, GTalk, AOL and ICQ. Not only that, it also has connects to to various Web 2.0 services like Flickr and YouTube.

  11. Pownce Desktop 2.0

    Pownce makes it even faster to read and send notes to your friends

  12. CL Desktop
    - Craigslist is huge, and this application just makes sense. It’s easy to use and saves you time with saved searches and the ability to view pictures right from the original list.
  13. EarthBrowser
    - EarthBrowser is a revolutionary new platform for viewing and creating geographically based information.
  14. ebay Desktop
    - eBay Desktop is made for search, bidding, browsing, and watching. It’s all there, with a brand new interface.
  15. Finetune Desktop
    - Finetune Desktop gives you quick access to your custom playlists and will keep track of your favorite music from Finetune.
  16. Pandora Desktop
    - With the Pandora Desktop Application, you can play your Pandora stations right from your desktop – without opening a new browser window.
  17. Snackr
    - Snackr is a RSS ticker that pulls random items from your feeds and scrolls them across your desktop. When you see a title that looks interesting, you can click on it to pop up the item in a window.
  18. AIR iPhone
    - AIR iPhone is a desktop application created with Adobe AIR and Adobe Flex 3, it simulates the UI of the iPhone. It has the capabilities to make calls, receive calls, check voicemail, add contacts and even send voice messages.
  19. Adobe Developer Connection Developer Desktop
    - Adobe Developer Connection Developer Desktop (ADC Desktop) is an Adobe AIR application that delivers a number of helpful resources for Developers.

Resources

Resources, tutorials and collections of Adobe AIR applications.

  1. airapps Wiki

    A collection of Adobe® AIR™ applications out in the wild that the community can update.

  2. RIAForge

    An online community site, built using their own products and targeted to support developers building open source projects for our products and platform.

  3. Apollo Hunter

    A community to share and download Adobe AIR applications with no cost.

  4. O2Apps

    The ultimate resource for enthusiasts of Adobe AIR.

  5. Adobe AIR Marketplace

    Adobe AIR Marketplace is a place where AIR developers can publish their Adobe AIR applications for users to download.

  6. Adobe Air Tutorials

    Adobe AIR Tutorials. Articles, resources, tutorials, and downloads.

  7. Refreshing Apps

    Adobe AIR application showcase and resources.

+ Devlisting – Web Developer Resources By BigDaddy 07 October 2008 at 10:07 pm and have No Comments

http://www.devlisting.com/

Pin the good items, unpin the bad ones. Easy as that!

very nice resources page.

+ The Cheat Sheet Cheat Sheet: Top 100 Lists of Web Development Cheat Sheets By BigDaddy 07 October 2008 at 9:55 pm and have No Comments

from:  http://www.jtodd.net/?p=54

With the vast array of web development knowledge available on the Internet, there’s certainly no shortage of cheat sheets to be found. However, finding a way to wrangle them all into one place isn’t quite as easy. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of some of the best cheat sheet collections out there. That’s right: this is your newest cheat sheet for cheat sheeting.

These cheat sheet lists cover information in CSS, HTML, and more.

  1. Action Script Cheat Sheet: Download cheat sheets for ActionScript here.
  2. Apollo Cheat Sheets: You’ll find cheaters for lots of different controls and events here.
  3. Ajax Cheat Sheets: Get guides from Amy Hoy, Microsoft, and more.
  4. Top 8 CSS Cheat Sheets: Find various levels of CSS cheat sheet with this resource.
  5. CSS References: Deitel lists references, including cheat sheets, for CSS here.
  6. CSS Cheat Sheets: Here you’ll find a shorthand guide, color chart, help sheet, and more.
  7. Cheat Sheets and Sites for Cascading Style Sheets: Here you’ll find some helpful CSS cheat sheets.
  8. Cool CSS Cheat Sheets on the Web: This resource has compiled 5 really nice CSS cheat sheets.
  9. Javascript Cheat Sheets: Get cheaters for Prototype, jQuery, Script.aculo.us, and more here.
  10. CSS Cheat Sheets: Learn about CSS basics, layouts, and more with these cheat sheets.
  11. HTML Cheat Sheets: Here you’ll find basic help sheets, microformats, and characters.
  12. Microsoft AJAX Library Cheat Sheets: Find a few Ajax cheat sheets here.

Server-Side

Here you’ll find gems for PHP, Python, and Ruby, to name a few.

  1. Ultimate Server-Side Web Development Cheat Sheets: This list focuses on server-side web development technologies like PHP, MySQL, and Ruby.
  2. .NET Cheat Sheets: Find quick references, common events, and more here.
  3. Apache Cheat Sheets: In this list, you’ll find cheaters for .htaccess, mod_rewite, and more.
  4. Java Cheat Sheets: These reference sheets highlight Groovy, syntax, and more.
  5. VBScript Cheat Sheets: Get syntax, functions, collections, and lots more for ASP and VBScript.
  6. MySQL Reference Sites: Here you’ll find MySQL cheat sheets and more.
  7. Perl Cheat Sheets: On this list of cheat sheets, you’ll find useful references for variables, regular expressions, and string functions.
  8. Ruby on Rails Handbook: In this handbook, you’ll find a collection of cheat sheets covering everything from command lines to migration.
  9. $ command line ruby cheat sheets: Get access to lots of Ruby cheat sheets here.
  10. Ruby Cheat Sheets: In these Ruby cheaters, you’ll see highlights from Capistrano, TextMate, and more.
  11. PHP Cheat Sheets: On this list you’ll find template engine sheets, quick reference and more.
  12. Symfony Cheat Sheets: Find a number of helpful cheat sheets for symfony here.
  13. Python Cheat Sheets: These useful references cover general Python as well as Django.
  14. Dotnet Cheat Sheets: These cheat sheets have regular expressions, basics, and plenty more.
  15. .NET Cheat Sheets: Get .net cheat sheets and more with this resource.

Blogging

Get quick access to all of the blogger tools you need with these lists.

  1. Blogging Cheatsheets for Blogger, TypePad, WordPress and Movable Type: Make sense of some of the most popular blogging platforms with these cheatsheets.
  2. WordPress Cheatsheets Summarized: Here you’ll find cheat sheets for administration, options, and more.
  3. Blog Cheat Sheets: Get references for templates, Expression Engine, and WordPress here.
  4. Cheat Sheets for CSS and HTML: These cheat sheets are designed for TypePad bloggers.

General

The vast majority of the great cheat sheet lists out there attempt to cover just about everything, so you can go big with this collection.

  1. A Web Developer’s Cheat Sheet List: Find cheat sheets from HTML to Dojo in this list.
  2. RefCards: Find Apache, CSS, Python, and more with RefCards.
  3. Ultimate Web Development Cheat Sheet Guide: Use this guide to get cheat sheets for just about everything out there.
  4. The 50 Most Popular Web Design Blog Posts, Resources & Cheat Sheets of 2007: Find cheat sheets and more in this resource.
  5. Our Favorite Cheat Sheets: Get some of the best cheat sheets out there through this list.
  6. IT Cheat Sheets: Check out this resource for links to more cheat sheet lists as well as cheat sheets for Mozilla products, Google, and more.
  7. The Developer Cheat Sheet Compilation: These cheat sheets cover databases, programming, and more.
  8. Stephen Flynn: Cheat Sheets: This resource offers a handful of useful cheat sheets.
  9. Cheat Sheet: On this site, you can find cheat sheets for microformats, regular expressions, and more.
  10. Cheat Sheets & Assorter Others: Get a handle on HTML entities, PHP, and more with this list.
  11. Cheat Sheets: No Sheep has compiled a list of “Cliff Notes” for technology here.
  12. Developer (and other) Cheat Sheets: Here you’ll find cheat sheets for everything from Ajax to the Wii Remote API.
  13. Cheat Sheets: This Squidoo Lens covers Firefox, Scriptaculous, and more.
  14. JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and More Cheat Sheets: Ajaxian offers a number of cheat sheets for HTML, JavaScript, CSS and more.
  15. Web Technology Cheat Sheets: This reference offers a handful of useful cheat sheets.
  16. Great Cheat Sheets: On this blog you’ll find a few cheat sheets, including HTML and CSS.
  17. Best Programming Cheat Sheets: Get some great quick reference guides here.
  18. Programmer Downloads, Tools, Resources, and 100 Cheat Sheets: With this resource, you’ll find just about any cheat sheet you might need.
  19. Handy Cheat Sheets: Check out these cheat sheets for character codes, SQL, and more.
  20. GotAPI: GotAPI offers an easy search for developer documentation, particularly cheat sheets.
  21. The Big Cheat Sheet List: David Sanchez offers some favorites in JavaScript, PHP, and more.
  22. W3Schools: In addition to other learning tools, W3Schools provides reference sheets for languages including JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
  23. Cheat Sheets: Utility for Web Designers and Developers: This resources covers a few cheat sheets for languages, blogging, and more.
  24. Learn and Thrive: On this site, you’ll find cheat sheets for development basics.
  25. CheatSheet Ultra Collection: In this collection, you’ll find more than 400 cheat sheets.
  26. IT Cheat Sheets For All: This resource lists a number of cheat sheets, including HTML. Registration required.
  27. 250+ Tools and Resources for Coding the Web: In addition to lots of other great resources, you’ll find a number of cheat sheets and quick references in this piece.
  28. My Personal Collection of Cheat Sheets: This simple list points to HTML, CSS, and Google, to name a few.
  29. Bravenet Quick References: Bravenet offers a few quick reference sheets for popular web development functions.
  30. Progenic.com Cheat Sheets: Get cheat sheets for CSS, Ajax, and more here.
  31. Cheat Sheets for Geeks: Check out the web development cheat sheets and resources compiled in this list.
  32. VisiBone: On this site, you’ll find cheat sheets for color, fonts, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and MySQL.
  33. Advanced CSS/XHTML Explained: Cheat Sheets: Get these PDF cheat sheets for Photoshop, XHTML, CSS, and WordPress.
  34. I Love Jack Daniels: Dave Child has created some of the most popular cheat sheets on the web, and you can find them all here.
  35. Silicon.com: Cheat Sheets: The cheat sheets in this list are a little different than the rest, covering encryption, blade servers, and even CRM.
  36. Top 119 Cheat Sheets: Find cheat sheets for lots of popular web development topics here.
  37. I Heart Cheatsheets: Conding Horror takes a look at a number of different cheat sheets here.
  38. WhatIs.com’s Favorite IT Cheat Sheets: These cheat sheets range from HTML to internet slang.
  39. Cheat Sheets for PHP, AJAX, JavaScript, CSS, MySQL, Perl, Google: This list has cheat sheets for a number of programming languages.
  40. References!: Here you’ll find a number of references as well as links to other reference guides.
  41. Over 30 Cheatsheets for Developers: This roundup covers databases, languages, and more.
  42. Lifehacker Cheat Sheets: Find cheat sheets for web development and daily life at Lifehacker.
  43. edocr: This site has it all, from Perl to eMacs.
  44. The Developer Cheat Sheet Compilation: This list covers Cold Fusion, CSS, and more.
  45. HTML, CSS, PHP, and More Cheat Sheets: These cheat sheets are ideal for developers who want to tweak WordPress.
  46. Randompage Cheat Sheets: Be sure to check out this collection of useful cheat sheets.
  47. Cheat Sheet Roundup: Get cheat sheets for Photoshop, JavaScript, and more here.
  48. Quick Reference Cards, Cheatsheets & Cribsheets: These quick reference cards can be printed back to back on single sheets of paper.
  49. Cheat Sheet Round-Up: Ajax, CSS< LaTeX, Ruby…: Smashing Magazine offers an extensive list of cheat sheets here.
  50. Cheat Sheets: Here, you’ll get cheat sheets for HTML entities, ASCII character codes, and even emoticons.
  51. Technacular Quick Reference Guides: This collection has CSS, Apache, and more.
  52. DevGuru Quick References: DevGuru shares some of their best quick references here.
  53. Programming Reference Sheets: This list links to cheat sheets for PHP, Visual Basic, and more.
  54. Cheatsheets Roundup: These cheatsheets featured here include Photoshop, JavaScript, and Ruby.
  55. Quick Reference Cards: This resource offers an excellent compilation of web development resources, categorized and commented upon.
  56. Cheat Sheet: Here, you’ll have access to an aggregation of nearly every cheat sheet and reference guide out there.
  57. Selected Microsoft and Code Cheat Sheets: Get cheat sheets for CSS, Java, PHP, and HTML.
  58. Stuff You Can Download: Amy Hoy lists some of her favorite cheat sheets here.
  59. Scribd: Scribd has a special section devoted just to cheat sheets.
  60. 100 Essential Resources for Web Developers: This list shares a number of cheat sheets as well as many other useful resources for web developers.
  61. NoteBind: NoteBind custom prints many of the popular cheat sheets out there. You can find a list of them here.
  62. ZVON Cheatsheets: Get lots of quick references here.
  63. Cheatsheets Galore!: These cheatsheets include both design and development.

Other

Find even more shortcuts with these cheat sheets.

  1. Google Cheat Sheets: Learn keyboard shortcuts, SEO, and references with the cheat sheets featured here.
  2. Yahoo! User Interface Library Cheatsheets: Here, you’ll get cheat sheets for YUI utilities, controls, and the YUI CSS foundation.
  3. Agile Work Resources: This list has cheat sheets for agile work.
  4. Firefox Cheat Sheets: Get one page cheaters and brochures for Firefox and Thunderbird here.
  5. Adobe Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts: This reference lists cheat sheets for a number of different Photoshop versions.
  6. Search Engine Cheat Sheets: Learn how to become a power searcher with these cheat sheets.

+ Sumo Paint, Like Photoshop only better (and free) By BigDaddy 04 October 2008 at 11:14 pm and have No Comments

http://www.sumo.fi/

Imports, Layers, filters and more.. its a free photo app online!

+ The 101 most useful websites By BigDaddy 31 March 2008 at 6:23 pm and have No Comments

Original Site:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/03/30/sv_101websites.xml&page=2

There are tens of millions of sites to visit.
Not forgetting telegraph.co.uk, here are the only ones you actually need.
Compiled by David Baker

TECHNOLOGY

1 Google
www.google.com

 

The powerhouse of the internet and the only place many people go for information. But if you thought Google was a still a mere search engine, look again. Click on ‘more’ at the top of the homepage to discover the work of ‘GoogleLabs’ – more than 50 free tools and web pages that could change your internet life.

GoogleDocs lets you create documents, spreadsheets and presentations, store them online, share them with others and access them from wherever there’s an internet connection.

Googlemail is probably the best email program – it has virtually limitless capacity and you don’t need to change your email address to use it. The Google calendar is a powerful searchable diary that you can allow others to access, so family members can make appointments together.

SketchUp could be just the tool you are looking for to design that conservatory extension and see what it will look like once the builders have gone. Add to that databases for searching academic journals and books in the public domain, the powerful GoogleMaps, with its engaging satellite imagery, a finance page with live stock quotes and an easy-to-use online messaging system, and you can see why some people say Google is taking over the world – and, with GoogleMoon and GoogleMars, the rest of the galaxy, too.

2 Anonymouse
www.anonymouse.org

Surf the web without disclosing who or where you are.

3 iLounge
www.ilounge.com

Hints, tips and troubleshooting for your iPod and associated software.

4 Only2Clicks
www.only2clicks.com

If you use just a few websites, this lets you create a home page that has links to them all. Simple, free and practical.

5 Zoho
www.zoho.com

A suite of free business programs. From word processing and presentation software to tools for taking notes in meetings, planning projects and creating databases.

6 Backpack
www.backpackit.com

To-do lists, notes, ideas and calendar. Excellent for juggling projects and much more versatile than a ring folder.

7 GetNetWise
www.getnetwise.org

All you need to know about keeping the net safe – protecting children, preventing spam, avoiding viruses and stopping others accessing your personal details.

8 DaFont
www.dafont.com

More than 7,500 free fonts (for Mac and PC), so you can at last stop using Copperplate for your party invitations.

9 Pando
www.pando.com

The superfast way to send large files over the web. Don’t attach that family video to an email, Pando it instead.

10 FlipClips
www.flipclips.com

Turn your home videos into animated flip books. Much more appealing than another DVD.

ENTERTAINMENT

11 Digital Spy
www.digitalspy.co.uk

Entertainment, media and showbiz news. Plus, a surprisingly good forum for technology-related problems – a great place to sort out your broadband.

12 BBC iPlayer
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

13 Whatsonwhen
www.whatsonwhen.com

Events, attractions, openings and exhibitions from around the world. Enter a location and dates and the site will show listings.

 
Up in lights: a guide to London’s Theatreland is online

14 London Theatre Guide
www.londontheatre.co.uk

What’s coming on and what’s making an exit in London’s theatre world. Especially good for seating plans, so you can see where the box office staff are putting you.

15 The Internet Movie Database
www.imdb.com

The world’s biggest (and still growing) reference for actors, directors, locations, plots…

16 Rotten Tomatoes
www.rottentomatoes.com

A round-up of what the critics thought of films on general release.

17 Screenonline
www.screenonline.org.uk

The British Film Institute’s definitive guide to the British film industry. Plots, features, statistics and news from the film world.

18 Good Reads
www.goodreads.com

Expand your reading. Catalogue your books online and others make recommendations based on what you seem to enjoy.

19 TV Guide
www.tvguide.co.uk

News, features and listings for Britain’s terrestrial and cable television. Customisable interface so your favourite channels are always at the top.

20 Football365
www.football365.com

The authentic (and often tangential) voice of the Britain’s ‘real’ football supporters.

21 CricInfo
www.cricinfo.com

Everything you want to know about the world of cricket.

22 Beijing Olympics
en.beijing2008.cn

The official Olympics site, with news, scheduling, features and a countdown to the games themselves.

23 Radio Locator
www.radio-locator.com

From shock jocks to orchestral baroque, thousands of internet radio stations to listen to on your computer.

24 Live Plasma
www.liveplasma.com

Expand your music and movie tastes. Enter the name of a song, band, movie, actor or director you like and Live Plasma will return some pretty intelligent recommendations for further investigation.

25 Blinkx
www.blinkx.com

A clever way of searching for video clips on the internet – from uploaded episodes of your favourite soap to comedy home-video moments.

26 Lulu
www.lulu.com

Self-publishing made smart again. Write, design and then print your own books – though you’ll still have to persuade others to buy them.

27 VideoJug
www.videojug.com

28 Wonder How To
www.wonderhowto.com

29 Instructables
www.instructables.com

DIY projects from zombie make-up to LED balloons. Excellent selection of rainy-day projects for bored children (and adults) at home.

30 Flash games
www.k2xl.com

Addictive series of Flash games including the hypnotically soothing Boomshine.

 

31 GameSpot
www.gamespot.com

News, reviews, hints and tips for virtually every console game on the market. Essential if you are still up at 2am trying to find a way into the castle on Zelda.

32 Anagrammer
www.anagrammer.com

Online anagram machine for Scrabble players and crossword enthusiasts. Also solves Sudoku.

ADVICE AND INFORMATION

33 Newsmap
marumushi.com/apps/newsmap

A wonderfully graphical – and customisable – display of news stories from around the world. Click on an item to see the full story.

34 The Eggcorn Database
eggcorns.lascribe.net

Continually updated guide to modern-day Malapropisms, misunderstandings and other manglings of language. From ‘high dungeon’ to ‘wreckless driving’, Eggcorn names the culprits and nudges them in the right direction.

35 Arts and Letters Daily
www.aldaily.com

World-class articles from intellectual and influential journals around the world. Browse the day’s selections. Like The Week for eggheads.

36 Ask Philosophers
www.askphilosophers.org

The academy comes to cyberspace. A panel of mainly American and British philosophy scholars answers questions sent in by the public. Search the database, from Abortion to War, or send in a question of your own.

 

37 When Is
www.when-is.com

Shows you the dates of Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu and American holidays from now to 2010.

38 Rhyme Zone
www.rhymezone.com

For when the muse has gone, a rhyme and synonym generator to help you towards the perfect mot. You can also search for Shakespeare quotations, biblical references and other literary inspirations.

39 Nationmaster
www.nationmaster.com

Giant but easily searchable database of statistics, maps and profiles for every country in the world.

40 Digg
www.digg.com

The people’s approach to news and features, Digg brings together items from across the net, ranked according to how many people have felt them worth recommending. Sometimes a little techie-heavy, but excellent for discovering what the cyberworld is getting worked up about.

41 They Work For You
www.theyworkforyou.com

A powerful way of keeping tabs on MPs and peers: attendance records, voting patterns, recent statements and more.

42 Time Bank
www.timebank.org.uk

Volunteering opportunities for young people, sorted by region, interest, skills and need.

43 Wikipedia
www.wikipedia.org

Controversial, democractic and sometimes error-strewn encyclopaedia that has brought Darwinism to the world of knowledge. Make it your first port of call for looking something up. Just be sure to check somewhere else that what you find makes sense.

44 Wiktionary
www.wiktionary.org

Wikipedia’s online multilingual dictionary. Immensely powerful and far less controversial than its encyclopaedic forebear.

45 Motley Fool
www.fool.co.uk

The original – and still the best – personal finance site on the web (the American version is at www.fool.com). For savers, borrowers, stock spotters and day traders, sound, independent advice that cuts through the jargon.

46 Martindale’s ‘The Reference Desk’
www.martindalecenter.com

From the arts, business, science and technology, a dry but authoritative conglomeration of data from around the world.

47 PubMed

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed

Free and authoritative database of more than 17 million medical research papers. Not always easy to understand if you are not a medic, but a far better place to look for information than the random sites that come up on Google.

48 About.com
www.about.com

The internet’s version of that clever uncle who always seems to know the answer to your questions. There are few subjects the site doesn’t tackle, though the coverage can be superficial. A good starting point for idle research.

49 NHS Direct
www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk

Online information and advice about health and illness, run by Britain’s National Health Service. The site includes a useful self-diagnosis tool that can reassure you that your hangover is not in fact meningitis.

50 Legal Services Shop
www.freelawyer.co.uk

General legal advice relating to housing, family law, employment, motoring, consumer issues and personal injury, plus wills, conveyancing and divorce. Good starting point to see where you stand. Will also, for a fixed fee, answer questions and put you in touch with a solicitor.

51 How Stuff Works
www.howstuffworks.com

Engaging encyclopaedia of the modern (and not so modern) world, with good illustrations and clear text. Can suffer sometimes from an ‘it’s amazing!’ tone of voice..

52 XE
www.xe.com

Currency converter covering every world currency. Azerbaijan new manats to Cayman Island dollars? Just a click away.

53 Advice Guide
www.adviceguide.org.uk

Find where you stand legally with the Citizens Advice Bureau’s online information resource.

54 Need2Know
www.need2know.co.uk

 

Advice and information for young people, including health and fitness, drugs, problems with bullying, how to study and applying for jobs.

55 Royal Horticultural Society
www.rhs.org.uk

Advice and suggestions from the world’s leading gardening organisation. A good ‘how-to’ section and seasonal tips for the time of year.

56 Babelfish
babelfish.altavista.com

Automatic translation to and from most European languages and Chinese. The results are sometimes a little strange, but you will usually get your message across.

57 eHow
www.ehow.com

How to do just about everything, from getting stains off curtains to buying a second-hand car.

58 Eat the Seasons
www.eattheseasons.co.uk

Updated weekly, information, tips and recipe ideas on British seasonal food.

59 Age Concern
www.ageconcern.org.uk

Website of Britain’s leading charity for the elderly, packed with advice about maintaining an active life.

60 Weather.com
www.weather.com

The queen of weather sites, with more information than you would possibly imagine you might need, from pollen counts to surf forecasts.

61 Uncyclopedia
uncyclopedia.org

Spoof Wikipedia-style encyclopaedia where nothing is true, but a good deal is very funny indeed. Idle away an afternoon or, even better, hone your comedy skills by making a contribution yourself.

62 Kiva
www.kiva.org

An easy way to lend small sums (from $25) to business projects in the developing world. Kiva keeps track of your investment, updates you on progress and repays your loan as the business grows.

63 Embarrassing problems
www.embarrassingproblems.co.uk

From bad breath and piles to cold sores and beyond, Dr Margaret Stearn dispenses invaluable advice.

HOUSE AND HOME

64 Noise Mapping England
www.noisemapping.org

Click on an area of the map to find out how noisy a street, or even a section of the street, is – handy for light sleepers planning a move. At the moment only London is mapped, but the rest of England will follow.

 

65 Prime Location
www.primelocation.com

One of the best sites for finding property. It is UK-based but has a good international presence.

66 Rated People
www.ratedpeople.com

User reviews on local tradesmen. You describe the job you need done and how quickly and suppliers contact you with quotes – with previous customers rating them.

67 Zoopla
www.zoopla.co.uk

Possibly the most dangerous site on this list, Zoopla gives sale prices of recently sold homes and – the tricky bit – estimates the value of the rest. We dare you not to look.

68 Money Saving Expert
www.moneysavingexpert.com

Subtitled ‘Consumer Revenge’, this is where you find the discounts, tricks and tips to save money. The weekly email is essential reading for canny consumers. It caters only for Britain, but every country should have one.

69 MetaEfficient
www.metaefficient.com

Practical guide to making your home more environmentally friendly, from low-flow showerheads to 12V lighting. US-based, but many of the products are available elsewhere.

70 Design My Room
www.DesignMyRoom.com

For budding Laurence Llewellyn-Bowens everywhere, it provides the ability to redecorate your home in cyberspace. Choose colours, furniture, accessories and finishes and then publish the results online.

71 Up My Street
www.upmystreet.com

Neighbourhood information based on postcode: schools, shopping and, juciest of all, how much the house down the road sold for recently.

72 Home For Exchange
www.homeforexchange.com

One of many sites where you can swap homes with someone else for a period. This is less cluttered than some of the others and has a good geographical spread.

73 SimplySwitch
www.simplyswitch.com

The fast way to compare utility suppliers and other services, from broadband to home insurance. Enter your postcode and the site comes back with the best deals.

74 101 Cookbooks

www.101cookbooks.com

Enchanting recipe and foodie blog from a Californian cook who believes in good food. Subscribe to the email alert service and transform your cooking repertoire.

SOCIAL

75 Facebook
www.facebook.com

The most grown-up (just) of the social-networking sites that are fast taking over the world. Excellent for staying in touch with far-flung friends, though pretty good too for re-establishing contact with those you hoped you had lost.

 

76 Wordpress
www.wordpress.com

The quickest and easiest way to create a blog of your own.

77 Ringsurf
www.ringsurf.com

Like an online Mothers’ Union meeting (though sometimes a little more risqué), Ringsurf is a chatroom where people exchange ideas about anything from politics to relationships. The quality is not always high, but users have been known to discover new (real-life) friends with interests they thought no one would share. A tribute to the information-sharing capability of the net.

78 bubbl.us
www.bubbl.us

Organise your thoughts by creating mindmaps online and sharing them with others.

79 Technorati
www.technorati.com

An intelligent, intuitive and inspiring way to read entries from some of the millions of blogs that dot the internet. You can browse by subject or area of interest, read the postings that are catching the world’s attention and bookmark blogs that catch your attention. And if you want to join in…

80 Flickr
www.flickr.com

The website you graduate to once you’ve discovered how to put your holiday snaps on the net. Here, everyone’s photos are linked by using tags, such as ‘Spain’, ‘beach’ or ‘happy’, which sets you off on an exploration of others’ uploads.

81 BabyCentre
www.babycentre.co.uk

There are plenty of great parenting forums out there – Netmums, Mumsnet – but this is still the best source of considered, authoritative, often soothing advice on everything from colic to tax credits.

82 Friction TV
www.friction.tv

YouTube for debaters. Upload a short video about an issue close to your heart and others reply in kind or by text.

SHOPPING

83 GiftGen
www.giftgen.co.uk

Gift ideas for when you can’t think what to buy someone. You enter their age, sex and interests and how much you want to pay and it scours the net for ideas.

84 eBay
www.ebay.co.uk

 

Online shopping for (nearly) everything you might want to buy. The original auction formula is still going strong, but plenty more features have been added since it began. Take a look at non-UK sites, such as ebay.fr and ebay.de, too, for bargains others may have missed. The layout is the same even if you don’t speak the language.

85 Who What Wear Daily
www.whowhatweardaily.com

Fashion tips, advice and suggestions. Includes Ask a Stylist for those tricky co-ordination problems and a What Was She Wearing? inquiry service to help you track down your favourite celebrity’s fashion choice.

86 Gumtree
www.gumtree.com

Unabashedly straightforward classified ads site, for everything from new homes to online romance.

87 AbeBooks
www.abebooks.co.uk

The Amazon of the second-hand book world. More than 13,500 booksellers selling 110 million books. If it’s not here, it’s not worth looking for.

88 Kelkoo
www.kelkoo.co.uk

There are plenty of price-comparison sites on the web, but this one seems to get it right more often than most. Type in what you want to buy and Kelkoo will come back with the cheapest prices it can find.

89 Endgadget
www.engadget.com

A (digital) finger on the pulse of the technology world. All the newest developments, discoveries, gadgets and toys – before they hit the shops.

90 Cork’d
www.corkd.com

Discover more about wine by reviewing what you’ve enjoyed and receiving tips and suggestions from others.

91 I Love Jeans
www.ilovejeans.com

Find the right jeans for your fit before you even leave home. A cheeky but revealing ‘body type’ guide takes you straight to the brand you should be trying. Search by style, body type or brand. Women only.

TRAVEL

92 Sky Scanner
www.skyscanner.net

 

Monitors prices and destinations for all the low-cost airlines so you just type in where you want to go and when to find the best deal.

93 The Man in Seat 61
www.seat61.com

Routes, tickets, tips and advice – the only guide you need to travelling by train from Britain to Europe and the rest of the world.

94 Walk It
www.walkit.com

Online pedestrian routefinder for London, Birmingham, Newcastle and Edinburgh that shows you the best route to walk from A to B. Includes calorie counter, CO2 savings and points of interest on the way. Other cities coming soon.

95 Transport for London Journey Planner
journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk

Indispensable and almost always spot-on guide to negotiating the capital’s public transport system. You enter your starting point and destination and it gives you the best bus, tube, cycle and even boat routes to get you across town.

96 ViaMichelin
www.viamichelin.com

A hi-tech hark-back to the days of leisurely motoring. ViaMichelin gives you maps, routes and directions throughout Britain and continental Europe with added panache. The maps have a pleasant printed quality about them and, naturally enough, your route is accompanied by gastronomic highlights to be found along the way. There’s also information about destinations.

97 Carbon Neutral
www.carbonneutral.com

Information on your carbon footprint and how to cut it down. Includes an online calculator to measure your effect on the world.

98 Expedia

www.expedia.com

Excellent all-round travel site. Use it for good prices on flights and holidays, but click on ‘Destinations’ for some well-researched and up-to-date travel guides.

99 SeatGuru
www.seatguru.com

Aircraft seating plans, showing you the prime seats, possible annoyances and seats you should avoid.

100 Airline Meals
www.airlinemeals.net

A consumer guide to what you can expect to eat on board. There are news and features from the airline catering world, but the best part is a gallery of photos of on-board meals sent in by passengers and listed by airline.

101 World Hum
www.worldhum.com

+ what is svchost.exe and why is it running? By BigDaddy 25 January 2008 at 8:28 pm and have No Comments

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/what-is-svchostexe-and-why-is-it-running/

You are no doubt reading this article because you are wondering why on earth there are nearly a dozen processes running with the name svchost.exe. You can’t kill them, and you don’t remember starting them… so what are they?

So What Is It?

According to Microsoft: “svchost.exe is a generic host process name for services that run from dynamic-link libraries”. Could we have that in english please?

Some time ago, Microsoft started moving all of the functionality from internal Windows services into .dll files instead of .exe files. From a programming perspective this makes more sense for reusability… but the problem is that you can’t launch a .dll file directly from Windows, it has to be loaded up from a running executable (.exe). Thus the svchost.exe process was born.

Why Are There So Many svchost.exes Running?

If you’ve ever taken a look at the Services section in control panel you might notice that there are a Lot of services required by Windows. If every single service ran under a single svchost.exe instance, a failure in one might bring down all of Windows… so they are separated out.

Those services are organized into logical groups, and then a single svchost.exe instance is created for each group. For instance, one svchost.exe instance runs the 3 services related to the firewall. Another svchost.exe instance might run all the services related to the user interface, and so on.

So What Can I Do About It?

You can trim down unneeded services by disabling or stopping the services that don’t absolutely need to be running. Additionally, if you are noticing very heavy CPU usage on a single svchost.exe instance you can restart the services running under that instance.

The biggest problem is identifying what services are being run on a particular svchost.exe instance… we’ll cover that below.

If you are curious what we’re talking about, just open up Task Manager and check the “Show processes from all users” box:

image

Checking From the Command Line (Vista or XP)

If you want to see what services are being hosted by a particular svchost.exe instance, you can use the tasklist command from the command prompt in order to see the list of services.

tasklist /SVC

image

The problem with using the command line method is that you don’t necessarily know what these cryptic names refer to.

Checking in Task Manager in Vista

You can right-click on a particular svchost.exe process, and then choose the “Go to Service” option.

image

This will flip over to the Services tab, where the services running under that svchost.exe process will be selected:

image

The great thing about doing it this way is that you can see the real name under the Description column, so you can choose to disable the service if you don’t want it running.

Using Process Explorer in Vista or XP

You can use the excellent Process Explorer utility from Microsoft/Sysinternals to see what services are running as a part of a svchost.exe process.

Hovering your mouse over one of the processes will show you a popup list of all the services:

image

Or you can double-click on a svchost.exe instance and select the Services tab, where you can choose to stop one of the services if you choose.

image

Disabling Services

Open up Services from the administrative tools section of Control Panel, or type services.msc into the start menu search or run box.

Find the service in the list that you’d like to disable, and either double-click on it or right-click and choose Properties.

image

Change the Startup Type to Disabled, and then click the Stop button to immediately stop it.

 image

You could also use the command prompt to disable the service if you choose. In this command “trkwks” is the Service name from the above dialog, but if you go back to the tasklist command at the beginning of this article you’ll notice you can find it there as well.

sc config trkwks start= disabled

Hopefully this helps somebody!

+ 50 Top Computing Tips By BigDaddy 24 October 2007 at 7:08 pm and have No Comments

50 Top Computing Tips

Whether you’re looking to fix what’s broken, speed up what’s slow, or just tweak for fun, our Tip of the Day can help. Here are 50 of the most popular tips from the past year.

1. Outsmarting Keyloggers
Keyloggers can thrive on public terminals and PCs, feasting on the passwords and personal info you type in. Here’s how to outwit this type of spy software.

2. The Ultimate Upgrade Guide
Looking to upgrade your PC instead of investing in a whole new rig? This upgrade guide offers strategies and suggestions about what to buy and build.

3. Protect Your Passwords
If you’re logging in using one of the 10 most common passwords, you need to change your ways, or you may face a breach in security. Protect your login with these guidelines for coming up with a safe password that you might even be able to remember.

4. Upgrading to USB 2.0
A reader writes:
“I have an old laptop that supports only USB 1.1. Is it possible to change it to USB 2.0 without changing the hardware?”

5. Google Tip: Use a Colon
Here’s an easy trick for making your search queries more precise, so you can get exactly what you’re looking for.

6. The Best Free Software
Most software is expensive and bloated, while free software typically does one task and does it with precision and elegance. Among the thousands of free apps available on the Web, we’ll show you the best, most reliable ones for your needs.

7. Virtual Memory Low—What to Do?
What should you do when you get that vexing message that your computer’s virtual memory is low? It’s an easy tweak, and you’ll find it here.

8. Hacking XP
If Windows XP finally has you mad enough to buy a MacBook, this is the story for you. We’ve got 11 hacks that can get your computer running faster, increase your productivity, and make Windows a little less annoying.

9. Speed Up Windows XP
Does it ever seem as if the little squirrels inside your computer aren’t racing fast enough on their conveyor belt? Yeah, we’ve been there, too. Memory-hogging start-up programs, a hard drive that has not been defragged since a Democrat was in the White House, and that one nasty spyware app—all of them can really bog down Microsoft Windows XP. Want to speed things up? We’ll show you how.

10. How to Unlock Your Phone
Many Americans are fed up with their cell provider’s lame handset selection. Show your carrier a thing or two by going with a cool unlocked phone that answers to no one except you. Read on to unlock the secret.

11. Dangerous Searches
Some seemingly safe and simple searches can actually make your computer vulnerable to malware. What should you be wary about typing in to that Google search box? Read this tip to find out.

12. Missing DLL Balks Install
A reader writes:
“Sometimes when I try to install a program, I receive a message that reads ‘Unable to locate component: this application has failed to start because framedyn.dll was not found. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.’ But when I reinstall, the problems keep on coming.”

We can help you fix that.

13. Make a Bootable USB Key
What do you do when your computer won’t boot, your most recent backup is three months old, and you don’t have an emergency CD? What if you’re using a laptop that doesn’t even have a CD drive? Kiss your data goodbye—or read this tip for another answer.

14. De-Clutter Your Inbox
Is your e-mail inbox a mess? Are you drowning in junk? We’ll show you how to delete it, defer it, and delegate it.

15. Undiscovered Computing Websites
When you feel like geeking out, after you’ve read everything at PCMag.com, head over to these great computing sites for inside info, tips, and tech news.

16. Cover Your Tracks Online
You’ve got nothing to hide, right? Then you should have no issue with search engines storing your data! …Feeling a little uncomfortable with that prospect? Read today’s tip to learn how to keep yourself at least somewhat anonymous with the most popular search engine, Google.

17. Shortcut to Open a Window Maximized
A reader writes:
“When I open any Windows application, it opens in either half or three-quarters of the screen. How can I make all my applications open in maximized form? And how can I quickly maximize any window from the keyboard?” Here’s our expert advice.

18. The Worst PCs
Shopping for a PC these days can be overwhelming. We’ve reviewed a ton of laptops and desktops in the past year or so, and we’ve seen the good, the bad and the worse. So, to help you narrow down your options, we’ve pulled together a list of the PCs you should avoid—don’t go shopping without it!

19. Before You Give Away Your Old PC
When you get a new computer, odds are that you don’t simply throw away your old one. You may tuck it away in the closet, or set it up elsewhere in the house as a “backup” PC but never use it. You may have considered giving your old PC away to a family member, or perhaps to someone who can’t afford a new computer (needy students are everywhere). Before you send your machine to a new home, read this tip to make sure it arrives in the best condition.

20. Make a Recovery Partition
If you’ve ever reformatted your hard drive, reinstalled Microsoft Windows, reloaded all your applications, and reset all your settings, you know what a time-consuming and generally heinous process it can be. We’ve got some steps you can take to make the process slightly less painful.

21. Still Haven’t Adjusted for Daylight Saving Time?
Is your PC’s clock still an hour off? Find out how to fix it here.

22. What Not to Buy for the Holidays
Great news! There are more ways than ever to screw up your holiday purchases. Lance Ulanoff shared some of his tech-shopping secrets last year, and his words are still applicable 12 months later.

23. Internet Explorer Sluggish at Start
A reader writes:
“I have a broadband Internet connection. Every time I try to open Internet Explorer, there is a long delay while it searches for proxy settings. I get a message “Detecting Proxy Settings.” I don’t use any proxy. My response is just to wait. After about 30 to 60 seconds, IE opens up. How can I solve this problem?” Here’s how.

24. Side-by-Side Instances of Windows Explorer
A reader writes:
“I often need to move files and have found that the best way to do it is to open two instances of Windows Explorer and then size them so they fit side by side on the screen. It’s cumbersome to go through the motions of opening one instance of Explorer, sizing it, opening another instance, and sizing that one. Is there any utility or program that can do this automatically?” Yup, and we’ll show you what to do.

25. Utility Superguide
Oddly enough, no one has come up with the perfect PC with the perfect operating system and the perfect applications that make everyone happy all the time. Crazy world. That’s why we turn to utilities, from the little ones that show you the weather forecast and keep you from making common e-mail faux pas to the far bigger ones that search your system at the speed of thought and back up your hard drive. Read this tip for all our recommendations on the most useful utilities.

26. Handy Keyboard Shortcuts
We all know a few keyboard shortcuts—Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Alt-Tab—that make our life and work easier. The PC Magazine staff has collected a few that you might not know in this tip.

27. The Best and Worst Firefox Extensions
One of the best things about that little upstart Web browser, Firefox, is how easy it is to customize it with extensions to enhance your productivity, or just to have a little more fun. You can use them to block annoying popup ads, find out your local weather forecast, and a lot more. We’ve got a collection of some of our favorites to get you started.

Top 15 Firefox Extensions

Even More Mozilla Firefox Extensions

And, of course, not all extensions are created equal… we’ve also found more than a few that have left us scratching our heads at just what possible purpose they could serve. But, hey, if someone wants to turn their stop button into MC Hammer, who are we to say no? Check out that weird extension, and nine more, in our Top 10 Useless Firefox Extensions roundup.

28. Toss Your Tapes
For most of us, the cassette-tape collection went into shoeboxes years ago. It’s time to dig out those forgotten gems for digitization—and make room for CDs in the shoebox!

29. Turn Off Hidden Shares
With all the attention that spyware, phishing, e-mails, and corporate hackers get on any given day, we mustn’t forget that good ol’ Windows itself can be the source of a security hole. It turns out that Vista has a back door that could permit someone else to read any file on your hard drive, and the same problem exists in Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP. We’ve got a way to get around it here.

30. What to Do With An .iso File
A reader writes:
“I downloaded Vista from the Microsoft Web site, and I can’t find installation instructions. The file extension is .iso, so it’s not an executable. I tried using the Run command and the install from Add/Remove Programs, but they won’t run it. What do I do to make this file run?” We’ll show you in this tip.

31. Is This Processor Fast Enough?
A reader writes: “I am looking at buying a new computer, and I like everything that I’ve seen about the HP Pavilion DV9005US, except that the processor speed is 1.6 GHz. Is this adequate? Should I try to stay over 2.0 GHz?” Here’s your answer.

32. Updates for a Sloooow Computer
It’s important to keep your system updated, but what if you’re stuck behind a dialup connection? This tip has an answer for handling those big downloads.

33. Beware Windows Hactivation Threat
This threat masquerades itself as the Microsoft Windows activation interface. Read this tip to learn how to recognize this Trojan horse, and how to remove it should you get infected.

34. Sending E-mail Without Your Server
Sometimes it’s handy to be able to send mail without your mail client or server. Learn how here.

35. IE Favorites in Alphabetical Order
A reader writes:
“Can I configure Internet Explorer to arrange the Favorites menu in alphabetical order automatically? Or must I do the arranging of the items manually?” We’ll show you how to rearrange your Favorites menu.

36. Google Tip: Calculate!
Why do math when you have the Internet? This tip shows you a quick way to do calculations and conversions using Google.

37. Customize Your Drive Icons
In the early 1980s, when the computer revolution brought us removable storage media, all we had to worry about was two floppy drives—A: and B:. By the late 1980s, the advent of consumer hard drives eliminated the need for swapping those 5.25-inch disks, but we had another drive letter, C:, to contend with. Since then, the alphabet soup has boiled over, but in today’s tip, we’ve got a solution for keeping things straight.

38. Which Wireless Router is Right For Me?
A reader writes:
“I have just switched from dial-up to DSL service rated at 3 Mbps for four computers in my home. The ads for wireless routers and adapters show “g” and “n” versions at speeds much higher than the DSL’s rated speed. What will “n” (at twice the price) do for me that “g” equipment will not? We use our PCs predominantly for e-mail, Web surfing, and sending/receiving photos.” Here’s what 802.11n can (and can’t) do.

39. Is Mysterious MFE Malicious?
A reader finds that his e-mail software is changing all instances of his name to the mysterious phrase MFEMFEM. Is this a sign of something malicious? Read this tip for the answer.

40. How to Hack Everything!
Want to upgrade your iPod? How about boosting your Wi-Fi? In this tip, we’ve got over 40 cheap ways to help you get more from your gear.

41. A Hot Tip for Firefox Users
Morning Coffee, a handy Firefox extension, helps streamline your morning surfing rituals. Check it out here.

42. Kiss Those Cables Goodbye?
Organize your desk, unclutter your office, even stream video wirelessly! If you want to get away from those tangles of cords and cables, here’s what you need to know now about new wireless technologies.

43. 59 Ways to Supercharge Windows
With our 15th Annual Utility Guide, we highlight 59 tools that instantly improve Windows (including Vista). We’ve got everything from browser boosters to widgets, and you’ll find them all here.

44. Sync Folders the Easy Way
What’s the easiest way to keep your USB thumbdrive in sync with a folder on your desktop? Forget the Windows Briefcase—it’s old, clunky, and hard to use. Instead, check out this 3-minute video tip for a far easier way, using a secret Microsoft utility that you can download for free.

45. From Video to DVD
This tip will show you how to convert your old videotapes to DVD before they deteriorate.

46. Adding USB
A reader writes:
“I have an older laptop with only one USB port, yet I need to manage a memory stick and two other USB devices through that one port. I need a solution that won’t block other ports on the back of the laptop. What’s the easiest solution?” We share our answer in this tip.

47. From VCR to DVD: Update Your Oldies
With the VCR approaching extinction, this is a very good time—maybe even an essential one—to convert your old VHS tapes to DVD. We’ve got a guide to what you need, and what you need to do.

48. The Best Download and DIY Websites
As part of our Top 100 Undiscovered Websites, we’re bringing you sites that can help, whether you’re hunting for a DLL file, the perfect font, or an invite to that hot new beta Web service.

49. Top 100 Classic Web Sites
We’ve put together our yearly list of the best sites the Internet has to offer. In our collection of classic sites, you’ll find a lot of old favorites that can teach you more about tech, the world, and even let you have a little fun.

50. Protect Your Identity
People take risks online with their identity that they’d never dream of taking in the real world. We’ve gathered 12 tips and 3 apps that can help you keep you safe.