Yes, you have your own set of portable applications – your secret super portable software weapons. I understand, it’s like click and run, your cyber veins are screaming to forget native installation. No more to installation cycles!
You got your portable Firefox, Firebird, Ccleaner, KompoZer, UTorrent, VLC, Gimp and a host of other apps like portable games. Then you fire-up your portable Firefox with your custom set of bookmarks, plug-ins and settings. Read more »
I was tinkering my way to fetching mail from my other old e-mail accounts like from hotmail and yahoomail when for some reason Gmail won’t let me do so. I found out that you can only fetch mail from your other e-mail accounts (Gmail and others) for up to five accounts. That’s pretty hard to accept for people with more than plenty of e-mail accounts. I hope Google makes this feature available in the very near future. Say, from the limit of five accounts crank it up to at least ten. Read more »
Rock-Five Five Best Philippine Sites for Finding Deals Online
The following are the Top Five Philippine sites which I find to be relevant and useful in your search for finding great online deals in the internet. In these sites you can sell, swap, trade, auction or buy various items from other users. I have here listed the best sites for the trade, the do’s and don’ts, and my experience in dealing in these sites.
ph.88DB.com This giant online company has established a presence in almost 8 countries and provides a free online classified ads service. It is a subsidiary of JobsDB.com, the no.1 Job search site in Asia Pacific. With its innovative way of presenting product and service descriptions and a comprehensive range of categories such as Household, Wedding, Pet, Health & Fitness, gives people the power of choosing the right product or service they require. It is also a great place at finding business franchise deals.
Sulit.com.phThe E-Commerce Sulit.com.ph is definitely a rising star in the Philippine online classifieds scene. What I like about Sulit the most is it’s Service oriented and Community driven approach. The Ad currency system also plays a large part to it’s popilarity.
TipidPC.com is the leading trade site for buying and selling brand new and second-hand computer parts and peripherals in the Philippines. In this trading site you can buy new or used Add-on Cards, Cables and Adapters, Casings and Power Supplies, CD/DVD-R/RW Drives, Cooling Devices, Desktops Systems, Digital Media Players, Digital and Web Cameras, Game Consoles, Game Controllers, Games and Software, Graphics Cards, Hard Disk Drives and more.
Auction.phAuction.ph provides online market services where members can buy or sell goods and services, either through bidding or buying. After a potential buyer chooses an item, the buyer fills up a form and pays thru the site’s payment facilities.
From Wikipedia: Abandonware refers to computer software that is no longer sold or supported, or whose copyright ownership may be unclear for various reasons. While the term has been applied largely to older games, other classes of software are sometimes described as such. Definitions of “abandoned” vary; generally, it refers to software no longer available for legal purchase, or of a certain age. Software companies may change their names, go bankrupt, enter into mergers, or cease to exist for a variety of reasons.
Here are is my Rock-Five list of the Five Best Abandonware of 2009. The following are my most recommended software which are no longer supported or updated by their respective authors, or inactive for some reasons, but are generally very competitive or still superior than with other recently released software. As an added bonus, all of them are also freeware.
Orbit is a program similar to Apple’s dock and another of the long list of clone windows app launchers. But it’s different in many ways. It is a program that instead of taking up space on screen, it stays hidden and only shows up whenever you call it. Orbit has some very nice effects too when it comes to animating the icons: Spinning, sliding, and zooming are all included in the animation if you choose. And it’s rounded!
Very nice app launcher with a tabbed and colorful, customizable design. It can give RKLauncher and RocketDock a run for it’s money and acts clearly almost the same albeit with a tabbed twist. It looks more of a folder organizer and ledger in one. The good thing about it is the plethora of launch options and the relatively tiny memory footprint.
Powerful default Notepad replacement. It offers customizable syntax highlighting, built-in function tips, tag completion, template support and much more. Besides the standard text editing functions, it also includes various convenient features, including browser preview, file insertion, bracket matching, line numbers, word count, export to Rich Text, HTML color picker and more. With color themes and useful for web-developing, programming and scripting. I use this frequently to edit and view the ‘ini’ files in my Red Alert 2 Mod PROJECTALPHA. Read more »
CWShredder finds and destroys traces of CoolWebSearch. CoolWebSearch is a name given to a wide range of different browser hijackers. Though the code is very different between variants, they are all used to redirect users to coolwebsearch.com and other sites affiliated with its operators. Read more »
RK Launcher is a free application that will allow the user to have a visually pleasing side or dock bar at the side (or anywhere) of the screen that is used to quickly launch shortcuts and executables. With support for themes, PNG’s and ICO’s and with smooth amazing animations, RK Launcher is a versatile and great taskbar replacement. In a sense, it rivals Rocketdock in some aspects and at times bests that great application in areas like memory footprint. Read more »
Regcleaner is a simple and minimalistic program that is more than capable to perform registry editing chores. It has start-up customization and software uninstall capabilities. It features a very powerful registry fixer and cleaner which to my opinion is better than other recent retail cleaners. If by mistake you delete an important registry entry, you still have a very handy back-up utility right down the interface. Good program for the elite and newbies alike.
GeoShell is the best replacement shell for the Microsoft Windows operating systems. It replaces the default Explorer interface. It features menu bars – called geoBars – that can be dragged-and-dropped anywhere on the user’s screen. It also has plugins that add stuff like mp3 player, rss readers, weather forecasts, mail checkers, web search bars, virtual desktops and more. In it’s default installation geoShell also uses less resources than Windows Explorer, and is particularly effective when combined with third-party web browsers and file managers to completely upgrade your basic Windows interface. Easy to customize and readily skinnable. I have never used the default explorer again after stumbling upon Geoshell.
The popular website h33t.com had been down since January 2, 2009 and has never been back up until now. Some members expressed concern that the famed torrent site might have been hijacked. Apparently, according to some users it was only temporary since it was a router issue and it’s on the way to being fixed.
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UPDATE: H33t is now Up
As quoted on downtime
H33t is down for the first time in almost 3 years. It happened because the server payment didn’t make it due to the holidays.
LD has addressed the issue and it will be up as soon as the host clears the payment.
I’ve had direct contact from LD and the issue should be resolved shortly.
There is no problem with the servers. The server is new and purchased by the membership. A brand new server was recently
purchased and put online. The forums and other items run on a second server. Thats why both sites went down. It was due to hosting rather than server. H33t actually owns it’s servers rather than renting them.
While in-game, hold CTRL + SHIFT + TILDE(~) or CTRL + SHIFT + @ to open the console, and enter any of the following codes:
You must press CTRL + SHIFT + TILDE(~) again to close the console.
Here I present my acid test of the service provided by Innove’s Globelines Broadband in Makati. I have been a subscriber to their ISP in Quezon City before and was satisfied from the very beginning, but things are slightly different here in Makati as I presently see it. I applied for their wired 995 Plan which offers 1mbps bandwidth. Their Sales Rep told me that there are no lock-in periods for Globelines subscriber in my area and anytime I wish to terminate the connection, I can do so without hassles. Obviously, that’s not the case. It also took them a good 10 days to process my request and the technicians sent to my place had a hard time getting the DSL light in the modem steady. They spent almost three hours troubleshooting and configuring the lines and the switch cabinets I guess.
Now comes the fishy part. You should remember that I applied for 1mbps but the speed I am having is dismal, and visibly in all the tests I performed of the connections – produced only a maximum of only 384kbps. That’s the speed of Smartbro. So as of now, I’ll write nothing against Globelines and the speed they are currently providing. I will be spending the whole month monitoring the speeds, and if need be, ask for rebates and compensations. If they produce the speed I’m paying for, then I guess I’ll commend the great service here in Makati. However, if things go south, rest assured that my observations and rants will not go unnoticed. So let us wait and see until Globelines comply and deliver as they promised.
As of the meantime, these are the rated speeds I got from the tests I performed:
Type the following codes at the intro screen. This is the screen that says “CLICK to Continue” right after the intro movies and BEFORE the main menu. If entered correctly, a message will come up letting you know what you have unlocked.
Cheat
Effect
castrol
Unlock Castrol SYNTEC Ford GT in Bonus Cars
burgerking
Unlock Burger King Special Event in Challenge Series
vanquish
Unconfirmed / Unknown Effect
Bonus $10,000
To get an extra $10,000 in career mode, have a Need For Speed Underground or Need For Speed Underground 2 career game saved on your hard drive. After the prologue you will have $40,000. Read more »
When you buy a PC in Manila or the NCR belt, your best choice is only PC Options and RSun. Here’s why:
PC Options in Gilmore Quezon City by far in my honest opinion offers the best service and price range for PC consumers like myself. The price range of PC Options merchandise compared to other stores is most of the time 300 to 400 pesos (VAT inclusive) lower than what you can acquire in the market. They also offer purchases via Credit cards. The drawback and main downside with this store is they don’t have a website, and they only offer one year shop warranty. Most of the retail technicians too don’t use grounded straps when they open computer components, thereby at times damaging the parts before you can even use them.
PC Options also do not give out their pricelists, the lists are only placed at the top of their cashier counter. If there are many people in the store, you have to wait for the long queue before you get your turn to choose and buy your own. I also don’t know what’s the problem with their stockmen for it takes a long while before they manage to eke out the ordered components to their buyers. With regard to processors, though they sell really cheap processors, if you only buy a separate Intel or AMD procie without the board, then you have to pay extra 200 pesos. They also don’t offer volume order discounts.
I admit I’m a bit late in publishing this scandal involving the PLDT call center agent who was caught cursing a customer on tape. It has spawned into a viral case which prompted the blogosphere and other related social-networking services to capitalize on the heat of the scandal. It was uploaded in 2006 and made more than 200,000 hits and almost two hundred ratings, but nevertheless still important for those considering a service from PLDT. I certainly feel the weight of this being a customer of PLDT myself. Take note that I am dissatisfied myself and I feel betrayed by this ISP giant if I may say. You can read here my past tech rant on PLDT myDSL. PLDT certainly employs a lousy customer service and ill-equipped agents at worst.
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I do not condone how the customer bullied, cursed and belittled the agent. It was wrong and downright unprofessional. It is a social and moral decay of sorts for any person to treat anybody like that. As we say, “Your right as a person stops when the rights of others begin.” The person over the phone is not a machine nor a dog – whom you can lash with shame and be stripped of dignity. However, the agent involved made the worst out of that scenario. I was a call center employee before and I knew the task and the weight of the load it carries to satisfy the needs of an irate customer. Had the agent taken control of the situation and not let her emotions cloud her judgment, it couldn’t have gone the way it went. Muting your microphone while you curse back the customer is never an option.
It is what we call “Customer Service”, not customer disservice. We must bring not our emotions over the very job which we took an oath to provide with utmost responsibility. It is a moral obligation of a CSR to assure the customer how the company is doing its best to provide quality service and meet the very needs they pay for. The bad thing here in our country, bureaucracy and personal upliftment is higher in priority than selfless customer service. It is a social norm like a lingering cancer that must be eradicated so that we as a nation can progress.
The CSR or agent could have made steps to avoid the unnecessary heated altercation with an irate and disappointed client or customer. One’s effectivity in communication is crucial in not only assuring a satisfied customer but also avoiding substancial loss of a number of dissatisfied customers for your company: Read more »
This is my simple Do-it-Yourself tutorial on how to properly and safely clean your PC without the unnecessary hiccups. I have included the pertinent steps that we must undertake to ensure the best possible cleaning regimen.
Step 1
Before all else begins, power down or shutdown your PC and remove all power cables. Ensure too that we remove all cables from peripheral devices. As a rule of thumb, it is prerogative that we label all cords, cables and devices properly either with a masking tape or labeling sticker so as to ensure we never forget to put them back into place during re-assembly of our unit. For precaution, make yourself properly grounded using a wrist grounding strap before opening the PC case. Place all the screws in a secured place so you will avoid losing it.
Step 2
Use isopropyl alcohol moistened into a lint-free fabric to wipe dirt off the external case and monitor. Be gentle in wiping and not force your hands too hard on delicate parts like DVD drives. For the keyboard, use a nylon brush to take-off dust and turn it over to force accumulated dirt out off it. Disassemble the mouse, remove dirt from inside with a cotton-bud soaked with alcohol. Remove also the mouse ball and cleanse it with lint-free fabric moistened with alcohol, reassemble afterwards.
Note: This technique requires an intermediate knowledge of your directories. We assume that you know what you will be doing and we strongly advise for you to back-up files to be replaced in case of any problems.
Head to the difficulty files in your Crysis folder (for example: C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis\Game\Config). The four files you’re looking for are titled diff_easy.cfg, diff_normal.cfg, diff_hard.cfg and diff_bauer.cfg. Open the file (using Notepad) of the difficulty level you are currently playing or wish to edit.
For archiving purposes, I have here posted the usual Counter-Strike: Source Cheats and Hints for PC.
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Counter-Strike: Source hints
Hint – Italian Closet Dweller
In the map cs_italy got to the apartments and there should be a (breakable) cabinet to hide in. To do this, go up the stack of logs by Counter-Terrorist spawn. Go through the window, up the flight of stairs (consisting of 4 steps) and into the next room. There you will see a large cabinet in the right hand corner of the room. Run and crouch jump into the cabinet. You will now be inside the of it. Although you cannot shoot out of the cabinet (it will break if you do) it is a good hiding spot.
2008 is the resurgence of the Internet Browser wars. I have here listed the Browsers I try frequently myself. I suggest that you try to check all these stuff first before installing your browser of choice.
I received a message in my E-mail today from Gate_keeper, a staff from popular Demonoid torrent website and it read:
Hello THE11thROCK,
We are pleased to inform you that Demonoid.com is finally back online
The rest of the message I have no intentions presently to post online, but what a relief for all the waiting fans and general public to finally confirm that the popular torrent tracker has finally landed home. It appears that Umlauf has replaced his friend Deimos indefinitely as site admin. I personally checked out the site and without a doubt, the site is definitely back, hopefully for good.
For the uninitiated, a BitTorrent tracker is a server which assists in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol . And Demonoid (again, the name itself is not in anyway related to any of the site activity or of the supernatural realms) is one favorite site tracker for file-sharers alike. Note: In most countries, it is illegal to distribute copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder. So be sure to share only legitimate files.
I have to really let out a wail. Forgive me, but such a rant is sorely needed. Let me just remind everyone and the folk’s over there at Samsung that they can always contact or e-mail yours truly to air their respective side. Don’t ever purchase Samsung IDE ATA or PATA drives! It was pretty disappointing thinking that I thought I got a better and cheaper option by purchasing Samsung drives. Let me say that it was bad curiosity in my part why I chose to give Samsung a shot – despite being an avid user of Western Digital and Seagate. Of course, all of these headaches had been illicited by the frustration I got from Samsung drives.
If you work in a kiosk mode PC say a computer cafe or in a school setting, there are restrictions that you want to enforce when it comes to sites that users can browse. This is specially important when you have a family workstation which little kids can use. Filtering is an option but programs Procon and others can definitely affect system and browser performance. You can also use software like AnyWeblock but it is pretty complicated and time-consuming for busy users to configure.
For starters here’s a nifty way to filter those unwanted websites off your computer. For either Vista and Windows XP, go to the directory C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc (If C is your default Windows directory). Back-up first your Hosts file in another secured directory. Next, open the Hosts file with Notepad (or any other text editor like Vim or Darkroom). Most probably the file is in Read-Only attribute so you cannot edit the Hosts file. First off, right click on Hosts, click Properties and uncheck Read-Only. Now go open and edit it in Notepad and you will see this:
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Add the following on its own line in the hosts file below 127.0.0.1 localhost:
127.0.0.1 www.google.com (we will use it as an example).
From the developer’s website, it says: TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user a lot of features:
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Copy files faster. TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives.
Pause and resume file transfers. Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click.
Error recovery. In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer.
Interactive file list. TeraCopy shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.
Shell integration. TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy and move functions, allowing you work with files as usual.
For archiving purposes, I have here posted the usual Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom cheats for PC. During game play press Ctrl + Alt + C to bring up the cheat console and type these codes:
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Random Text Cheat Codes
Cheat
Effect
Uncle Sam
Tax collectors change to become Uncle Sam
SpawnMugger
A mugger is spawned in city
Delian Treasury
Add 5000 Delians (Cash)
Shutime
New Cash code
Gimme Goods
Get Free goods in your Warehouse
LizardMan
Hero changes into giant lizard
Bad Wallpaper
All buildings are Inauspicious (related to feng shui)
IgnoreDesire
Desirability is ignored in housing evolution
Great Heat
Drought
Shake Shake
Earthquake
FunForElite
Elite house evolve without required entertainment
WaresForElite
Elite houses get 100 units of bronzeware/lacquerware
Pen drives or USB drives is now the trend of tech storage in the world today. The portability, ease of use and geekiness (if I may say) makes it a must-have for all tech fans out there. Personally, it’s my first choice for tech support because I can either install any portable OS and programs without cramming-in to open a customer’s PC case. It’s also very easy to carry compared to other gadgets like external hard drives and zip drives which I often have problems fitting inside my small bag. However, there’s a big catch to all the USB hype. It is now also widely abused by hackers and virus engineers as a medium of propagation and destruction.
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Ever heard of Disk Knight? How about Brontok, Bacalid, Kopa, and Ravmon trojan viruses? I came across several hundreds of these gremlins lately whenever a client asks for a PC repair. Most of the time it will start-up with your PC or hijack some processes which make it impossible for you to access C drive, and sometimes even replaces your default copy command. There was also one time when I chance into one of these which collaborates with one virus to hijack the Hosts file in Windows.
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How do we get rid of it? Solution – proper tools and information. Disk knight is one of the best known Autorun trojans. It is even known to some tech people to be a beneficial virus. Are you kidding me? When do we associate beneficial to a PC virus? And worse, at the time of my writing – AVG, Avast and Kaspersky cannot detect most of them. Going back, here are the steps to follow:
Yeah, you heard it right. I used to like PLDT (Philippine Long Distance Telephone company) when it comes to basic telephone services. But with PLDT myDSL (their overly hyped DSL service), wow – it’s a shame if I even call it a service.
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Too good to be true?
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If you’d like to verify my qualms about this business titan of ISPs in the Philippines, go check out the hordes of discontented and frustrated clients for myDSL from the Petition Online site. The petition header reads, “We endorse the A complaint to PLDT Petition to Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT).” As I presently finish this article there are currently 851 signatures (probably those who are only aware of this petition including myself) and counting. Further below the header it states, “The A complaint to PLDT Petition to Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) was created by and written by Isamu Shinozaki (isamu@urithium.net). The petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.”
Are you a World Wide Web lurker? Ok, no offense meant. You are a light-saber wielding Internet wanderer. Better? Here are my personal guidelines so that you’ll be in a much safer zone when browsing the net.
Lose IE (Internet Explorer) and use Firefox, K-Meleon or Opera instead
Forget about unfixed bugs, worms, and unpatched holes. I prefer Firefox and it’s better equipped due to the tons of plug-ins. It also lets you handle phishing and harmful javascript with ease.
Use a Firewall
Ever used ICS Firewall for Windows? Whew. Trash it and use Comodo or Sygate firewall. Keeps hackers and unauthorized intruders at bay.
Use an Antivirus, Antispyware, AntiAdware, AntiMalware, AntiKeylogger, Trojan and Worm remover
Its a cruel world out there. Without the necessary security measures, you are left defenseless. Like a lamb led to slaughter. Use AVG for real-time defense, and install Avast and NOD32 (but don’t activate them automatically) handy for manual scanning. AVG antispyware and Spybot Search and Destroy for those bots. Ad-aware cleans-up your PC from those pesky adwares. Threatfire is great for security threats and malwares. For CWS worms use CWS shredder. Read more »
From Wikipedia:“Google Notebook is a free service offered by Google that provides a simple way to save and organize clips of information when conducting research online. This personal browser tool permits a user to write notes, and to clip text, images, and links from pages during browsing. These are saved to an online “notebook” with sharing and collaboration features.
Google Notebook is an interactive scratch pad for any visited web pages, offering to collect web findings within the browser window.”
I really like Google Notebook. It’s like a scrapbook, bookmarker, GTD-lister, clipper and organizer all-in-one. The main problem with it is that it consumes too much browser space. The notebook extension for Firefox is pretty pale for minimalistic purposes. Solution? Try this:
All you do is bookmark this link, then open the Properties for the new bookmark and check the box labeled “Load this bookmark in the sidebar.” Now, when you open the sidebar and click the bookmark, voila: your favorite scratch paper and post-it will now be lurking in your Firefox sidebar.
Last year I named the top Firefox add-ons for 2007. This time around, I have accumulated several add-ons which I believe should have been included in that list but which I had not bumped into last year. Why darkhorse? Well most of them I did not notice at first glance, but whew! What a blunder. Check this list, these extensions simply rocks!
Fission: Fission combines address bar and progress bar (Safari style). Very nice eye candy indeed.
Fancy Numbered Tabs: Replaces the close tab graphic with numbers to help with quick tab navigation via CTRL + [1-8] or Alt + [1-8]. Easy swapping by using the ctrl key. Looks great too.
Googlepedia: Shows you a relevant Wikipedia article along with your search results. Clicking links in the article will trigger new Google searches, making it a very useful research tool… When you start using it, browsing google will entirely be in a new level.
Disable XPI delay: Disables default delay when installing… Yeah, those delays suck big time!
QuickRestart: Ever needed to restart Firefox after enabling or disabling an extension, switching to a new theme, or modifying configuration files (such as userChrome.css or user.js)? Finally the best way to restart.
Split Panel: Open panel to left, bottom or right (left,middle or right click) with current URL from Split on context menu (right click on page) of the tab’s page. It lets you focus on one page and still gives you the reason to check on other tabs. Read more »
I personally use OpenOffice as my default desktop office suite compared to others like the bulky and bug-ridden Microsoft Office or the online processors like Zoho and Google Office (I like Online office suites, but they are severely limited). However, OpenOffice is an excellent office tool, but the start-up is truly a turtle crawl! Follow these steps that I used and ensure that you get to start in a breeze with OpenOffice:
These are the steps to make OpenOffice launch faster either in XP or Linux. Just remember that these steps are also RAM intensive.
Go to Applications > Office > OpenOffice.orgWord Processor for Ubuntu (Linux)
Or just hit OpenOffice shortcut for Windows
The OpenOffice.org Word Processor is launched. Go to the Tools menu and select Options. The Options window is opened.
