Phil writes:

I am having a problem when I open AVI files that I create from the video camera. When I select them I get a message that reads ' Dr Watson Postmorten Debugger ' you have a problem’. When I click the box to close it, it locks up the computer and I have to do a soft boot.
Sometimes it brings up the Microsoft error reporting message that you have a problem and closing you down. I click on don't send message and I go back to the desk top.
I opened [Windows file folder for error message debugging]. There is a lot of files in the folder telling me what has been done.

I also am getting the Window Explorer message, when I click on a AVI file and when I click don't send message it closes me back to the desk top.

Do you know what might be happening.

I know Phil does a lot of video editing and makes some great photo and video keepsakes for his family. Like most of us he has tried a few different programs and Windows being the complicated software that it is he has in the past had some trouble with file formats and such. So I was thinking that this might be another recurrence of your old problems.

But a little bit of research reveals some more info. Once again the sheer volume of help available from Google is mindboggling – you just have to know how to search.

I found this discussion thread at a forum called MovieCodec.com. The details here are exactly the problem Phil is having.

Windows has a default habit of offering you a preview of multimedia files when you are searching through Windows Explorer. You know how when you open My Videos or whatever and select a video and Windows wants to show you a little preview copy – that’s what I mean. Ok so what happens is Windows (well Windows Explorer actually) takes control of the file and then when you try to access it the file is ‘in use’ and Explorer locks up and requires a restart which a lot of the times will mean restarting your whole system. This lock up triggers the Windows error reporting messages and Dr Watson which is Windows debugging program.

What the linked info suggests doing is to de-register the Windows settings, specifically a DLL file, that do the preview function. By so doing it can avoid this lock up problem altogether

The easiest way is to run a command through the ‘Run’ setting or to save the settings as a Batch file. A batch file is just a plain text file but with the extension changed from txt to bat. Running a batch file is like double-clicking a program file – the simple code written in the file will run. For that reason some antivirus programs will rightly try to block batch files. More Info on Batch files  is available here at Wikipedia

To help out I have made the batch text files for you and you can download them below. There are 2 files – one turns the setting off as described and the other turns it back on.So if changing it didn’t help or you wanted to go back to having the preview you just run the On file.

WinShellMediaOff – turns OFF the Windows Shell Media Handling

WinShellMediaOn– turns ON the Windows Shell Media Handling

Click and save the file somewhere like your Desktop. Once saved right click and choose Rename and change the extension (the bit after the dot) from name.txt to name.bat. Then double click the bat file to run it. If you want to see the contents of these files just open the Text file and read before you change the names to bat or read the website.

So give this a go Phil – I reckon it will work and shouldn’t do any harm if not. Other people on the site say that downloading the newest DivX codec solved their problem.So if this fix doesn’t work that would be my next suggestion. The latest version is always available at DivX.com

Let us know how you go :)

I found this posted on LifeHacker. I reckon there might be plenty of people who would like a nice size, near indestructible mobile phone.

It’s probably a bit late for a Xmas present recommendation but it is still a good idea and $550 with a 3 year warranty is quite reasonable for a good phone. Most people wouldn’t keep a mobile longer than 3 years – planned obsolescence is a killer these days

There's nothing more infuriating (or expensive) than a mobile phone that doesn't stand up to the most everyday of activities, like being smashed by a hammer, dropped in a beer bath or strapped to a rocket. If you've ever found yourself in this situation, Sonim has a sturdy solution to your woes. Engineered for sports enthusiasts and those who work in harsh environments, the military-spec, Bluetooth and Push-to-talk enabled XP1 is shockproof, waterproof, dustproof, extreme temperature-proof and, considering the 3-year unconditional warranty, moron-proof. Despite having been on the overseas market for over a year, the indestructible mobile remains the only one of its kind in Australia and is available at Crazy John's for $549 outright. The device is hardly pretty, but it is something to consider for any adrenaline junkie, drunk, klutz, brickie or astronaut on the lookout for the ultimate in non-breakable mobiles, this Christmas.

[LifeHacker Christmas Gift Guide]

Details here via BBC

Just goes to show that the spammers/scammers will use any medium – email, IM, Facebook, MySpace, Filesharing and Torrents -  to try and infect the dumb users on the net.

To get this virus you need to:

1. Open a Facebook message (probably from someone you don’t know)
   The title is “you look funny (or ‘awesome’) in this new video” 
   I mean, wouldn’t you know if you had been videoed???
2. Click on a link that says “secret video by Tom” 
   You know Tom your best mate who videoed you – yeah right
3. Click on a prompt to download a ‘new version of Adobe Flash’
4. Sit back and watch yourself get infected

My point is you need to break the sensible rules of internet usage not 1 but 3 times to get this virus. Maybe those who get it deserve it.

For those who might not know:

1. Don’t open email or messages from people you don’t know
2. Don’t just do it anyway cause like your antivirus software is really good and that
3. Don’t open any attachments to emails or links in messages unless you were expecting to get an attachment for a legitimate reason. And make sure you have ‘Hide extensions for know file types’ turned off in Windows so you can really see what the attachments are
   To do this: Open windows explorer or MY computer, Click Tools menu, Go to folder options, Go to view, Uncheck the ‘Hide extensions’ option in the list
4. Don’t click on links for program updates you didn’t ask for deliberately. If you think your Flash or other program needs an update run the ‘check for update’ function built into the program or else type/Google the programs website and download the update directly. This ensures you are getting a legitimate version. Reputable download sites like FileHippo.com or Download.com are ok too

Fishing the net is some articles of interest I have found whilst trawling newsletters and internet sites. Here you go:

Tips for Better Portraits

5 tips for taking better portrait photos with your digital camera

A brief history of Computers as told via TV ads

If you have used computers for a while you will recognize some of these ads and the machines in them. Just goes to show how good Apple usually is at it’s marketing.

Bit of trivia – as a teenager I owned both a Tandy TRS80 and a Commodore 64. The C64 was an excellent machine for playing games – I still remember some

Backup Your Mozilla Profiles

For users of Firefox, Thunderbird, Flock and even (god forbid) SeaMonkey.

Did you know that all the customizations, cookies, bookmarks, and plug-ins you add to your programs can be backed up? You can save them in case of a problem, copy them to another PC and so on. This link gives you a howto tutorial using MozBackup

Ultimate Windows Tweaker - Tweak UI For Windows Vista

Ultimate Windows Tweaker is a Tweak UI Utility for tweaking and optimising Windows Vista. It is modelled after the TweakUI program that was an ‘unofficial’ Microsoft product available for Win XP but never released for Vista. The Win XP version is available here.

Details of Tweaks :

The tweaks are classified under seven categories and can be accessed through a common interface, just like your Windows Vista Control Panel.
1) Personalization,
2) User Accounts & UAC,
3) System & Performance,
4) Security,
5) Internet Explorer (IE7 / IE8)
6) Network Optimization
7) Additional Options

The Complete Guide To Speeding Up Your PC's Startup

A good summary of tips from Lifehacker on how to make your PC start faster. Follow the tips to speed things up. You can also investigate switching off some of the services on your  PC, although this is probably for more advanced users. I have personally tried the startup Delayer program they recommend and pretty quickly stopped using it – your mileage may vary

28 Powerful Photoshop Lighting Effects

Some tricks and tips for adding fancy effects to your pics using Photoshop or similar editing programs

Learn Photoshop in One Week

Interested in all this digital photography editing and manipulation but have never used Photoshop? Well here is a beginners tutorial that may suit you

There you go – that’s a few tidbits to keep you reading over the weekend :)

Following from a recent post about Gourmet Recipe Manager I received a question from Dawn:

Hi Matt,

This looks interesting.  I went to download it and notice a second one that has the word "unstable' in the title and am feeling nervous. 

What does that mean?   Regards Dawn.

Good question Dawn. We all hear about Beta software on the internet but what is it and when should you use it?

When writing programs from scratch the authors usually go through a development cycle as depicted in this graphic from Wikipedia (click the pic for more detail)

However once a program has reached Gold or general release it can still be under development and further Beta builds testing out new features or changes may be available.

As a typical or average user it is best to avoid beta releases of programs for which you have a full working version. The old adage ‘if it ain't broke don’t fix it’ applies here. However if the beta program solves a problem you are having or includes a feature that you need then that may motivate you to try out the new Beta version.

Of course all software can have bugs and by running Beta software and reporting the bugs back to the authors you can help to have some input and improve the programs you are using. Most of the software in the Linux world and increasingly in the Windows sphere works this way too

In this case Dawn is downloading the program for the first time and she has a choice between the known Stable full release version and the Beta or unstable ‘experimental’ versions. So Dawn should download the Stable version the first time. Later on you can try out the cutting edge releases if you want to.

The link I gave you for download – this one - is linked to the most current Stable release (for Windows). Or go to the program’s website for Beta and Linux releases

Many people have seen the light and have stopped using Internet Explorer as their main browser. Opinions differ but I think alternative browsers offer better features and security than IE. Of course Firefox is the main contender but there is also Opera, Google’s new browser called Chrome, Apple’s Safari and 3 or 4 people even use SeaMonkey.

One of the things you will want to do if you are trying out an alternative internet browser is copy your bookmarks across from your current browser. One easy way to do so is with the program below – Transmute

More details via TechSnack

Some of us install and use more than one browser on our system. For example, I am using Opera, Firefox, IE, and Google Chrome. So, managing my bookmarks across different browsers bring a lot of trouble to me. Luckily, there is an free application called Transmute, which can copy your bookmarks from one browser and then export it to another browser.

Simply choose the source and target browser and click the Export button. Currently, Transmute support Google Chrome, Firefox, IE, Opera and Safari. the advance settings allow you to create a backup for your bookmarks and append timestamp at your export file.

This application require .NET Framework to run. Before performing any conversion, remember to close all browsers, else you will get error messages. It is because your browsers will lock the bookmarks database and prevent any write action on it.

Download Transmute

Apparently there is a use for computers other than email and freecell – who knew?

Seriously though there are an ever increasing number of handy little programs available for free from sites around the net. Many of them serve a specific purpose and Gourmet Recipe Manager is one like that.

If you do a quick Google you can find a recipe to cook anything, yes anything. There are some very comprehensive free sites with many recipes on them. But some people like to keep and save these recipes, maybe make a few variations and share with friends. The GRM program seems like an ideal way to do this to me.

So if you are interested in cooking why not give this a look.
Just don’t spill the sauce on you computer, OK?

Further Info from Barry's Computer Tips

I've been looking for an application like this for a long, long time!
"Gourmet Recipe Manager is a simple but powerful recipe-managing application. Gourmet is intended for the GNOME desktop environment, but works on any platform that gtk supports, including windows.
Gourmet allows you to collect, search and organize your recipes, and to automatically generate shopping lists from your collection. The latest version also allows you to calculate nutritional information for your recipes using the USDA food database (or entering custom information by hand)."

The direct link for the latest Windows release is here)

Gourmet Recipe Manager [via Barry's Computer Tips via Lifehacker]

Grant asked me a question a few weeks ago and I thought I would share the answer

Do you know of any good free apps that can convert DVD video to Xvid or DivX? I have a Media player (think it only supports DivX) that is filling up and I need to convert to smaller formats

I have tried a few different programs and I am not totally happy with any of them. Among the ones I have tried are

WinFF and MediaCoder and both are open source and thus free

WinFF is a simple program to change file types. A couple of clicks and you are done. It doesn’t really support whole DVDs or FLV video from websites (like YouTube). But it’s handy if you want a simple program to change say an Apple QuickTime MOV file to DivX or similar

MediaCoder is a much more sophisticated program with many, many options. For the casual or new user it can therefore be very complicated. However it is powerful and offers lots of options.

Both WinFF and MediaCoder use the FFmpeg engine for decoding and are free and open source.

For ripping DVD’s to alternative files like DivX I use DVDFab with the mobile option. It has lots of settings for converting DVDs to formats for your phone, iPod or portable device. It is also my program of choice for DVD copying and back-up. Unfortunately this program is not free. You should also be careful when dealing with copyrighted materials.

To back up my opinions and provide a few alternatives here's a link to a newsletter I read a while ago
http://www.windowssecrets.com/2008/09/25/04-Converters-maximize-your-video-file-options

Windows Secrets newsletter is pretty good. There's a free version or you can get the paid version for $1 US (or however much you want to pay). Highly recommended reading!

When you are converting files for a specific device or purpose be careful what codec you select for the conversion. Grant will probably find his media centre can play at least some version of Xvid and/or DivX codec but it may be an older version. I have 2 different brand DVD players that play DivX and they play Xvid too. You just need to experiment a bit with what version of the codec you rip/compress to so for best results convert to the format that the player supports. Read the manual for the media centre and download the DivX codec version it specifies for maximum compatibility.

Being able to play the compressed files directly is great as you can fit lots of files on a single disc and still watch them in good quality. I have whole seasons of a TV show on a single DVD. Obviously you need a special kind of DVD player for this but they are pretty common these days.

The next question arises – what if I have a pile of compressed video, maybe from your camcorder or TV shows you have recorded, and you want to watch them or share with friends who don’t have a special DVD player?

You need to turn them back into a DVD of course and I will give you a list of programs to try for this too in a separate post.

Hint – check out the user name – no wonder he got negative feedback.

As always on eBay – caveat emptor

Found on MakeUseOf - Geeky Fun

At last night’s Mullies meeting, the last for the year, we discussed a number of things. One issue was the Telstra bid to be the provider to the Federal Government of the National Broadband Network.

As discussed last night it seems that Telstra has recently opened up it’s ADSL 2+ capabilities to some other ISPs via wholesale. Westnet and People Telecom already have plans and Internode is coming.

More details and an interesting article at PC Authority

It will be interesting to do a comparison on prices and speeds available in Ulladulla when Internode rolls out. Check out Whirlpool for the lowdown here

Found this entry which discusses ways to keep your computer safe when travelling. Written by Chris Pirillo who is a bit of a legend among computer geeks

With laptops becoming more common and smaller it is easy to see how there are more going laptops going around. This provides more opportunity to thieves I guess. More likely though is that the machine is damaged in transit and the data is not backed up. We all know people who have lost vital info – of course it wouldn’t be us!

As always the #1 rules is “Back-ups Don’t leave home without them!”

Here is Chris’s list

• Pad The Laptop
• Keep It On You
• Back Up Data
• Encrypt Your Data
• Document Identifying Information
• Use Strong Passwords
• Use a BIOS Password
• Implement Remote Data Protection
• Use Portable Storage
• Just Leave The Laptop At Home

Source: 10 Tips to Keep Your Notebook Safe when Travelling ~ Chris Pirillo
Site: http://chris.pirillo.com/2008/10/23/10-tips-to-keep-your-notebook-safe-when-traveling/

Confession time – I just bought a new iPhone. One of the Aussie 3G models which is much sleeker than the hacked 2G US model I tried once before.

So far I am very happy with it. Not only is it a good phone with some unique features it is of course geek to the extreme!

One of the Apple tricks is to try to get you to pay for ringtones – you can download them from the iTunes store. But us crafty geeks know better. A quick search revealed Audiko.net

At Audiko you can download ringtones for old phones or for the new iPhone – completely free! You don’t even need the songs/sound on your PC. Just do a search and they will have it for you. Just find the ringtone you want and hit download for iPhone. When the download option comes up click “open with iTunes” and you are done. Awesome and so easy. Thanks Audiko.

Here’s my new ringtone:

by audiko.net — ringtones.

At Mullies we have recently discussed RSS feeds as a way to keep up to date with websites and articles of interest. Here’s the link to the last item RSS - It's really simple

For those who prefer their news in an email/newsletter format below is a way to subscribe to feeds and have them delivered to you via email. I know some of you like to hoard, I mean archive, all your articles and storing the pdfs would be a great way to do that.

To use this service you will need to copy the url/address for the feed and paste it into the service at the Tabbloid site.

So if Google Reader or another RSS reader application doesn’t float your boat you might prefer this – give Tabbloid a go

 

RSS Feeds are probably the best way of receiving updates from favorite websites and services. They are however still more of a thing for the technical inclined Internet users and largely ignored by the average users. They do have a few other limitations like only being viewable in applications that support RSS News Feeds.

One option that has become popular in recent months is to create pdf documents out of RSS News Feeds which solves the accessibility problem. Tabbloid is a relatively new Internet service that can turn RSS News Feeds into pdf documents and send those news digest right to the user’s inbox.

This is done by pasting RSS News Feed urls into the form on the main Tabbloid website. The service will check the feed, display a preview of the last news items that have been posted and ask the user to accept or reject it. If the user accepts the feed it gets added to the list of feeds that will be processed.

It is possible to add multiple feeds which would then all be used to fill the pdf document. Options exist to generate the pdf right at the website or set delivery options to receive the pdf document in the inbox. The possible intervals are hourly, daily or weekly.

Source: Get Magazine Style RSS News Feeds Delivered To Your Inbox
Site: http://www.ghacks.net/2008/11/04/get-magazine-style-rss-news-feeds-delivered-to-your-inbox/

Here’s a couple of lists and links to some free stuff available on the internet

The 150 Best Online Flash Games

Source: http://www.techcult.com/

Here is a list of 150 free Flash based games you can play online. They are divided by type like Arcade or Action and feature some very simple and some very complex games.

Give Throw Paper a go for 10 minutes of mindless entertainment or Fantastic Contraption (pictured) for some real thought provoking fun

55 Free Online Tools

Source: http://www.emmaalvarez.com

This list of some free resources available on the internet is from a girl named Emma. Rather than the games above these are useful tools to help you achieve something. Just like the specific programs you might have on your computer except these are accessible for free from anywhere via the web.

Warning: if you use these sort of online apps to do stuff be very careful about your privacy. Be conscious of what data you are sending out into the unknown.

I think Emma missed a few I would have included like:
Gmail (or Google Apps if you own a domain)
Google Reader
Auctiva for creating those eBay auction listings
AuctionStealer for winning the eBay auctions you bid on
Delicious.com for storing your bookmarks on line and sharing them
Blogger for creating and hosting a web blog
Flickr or Picasa Web Albums for hosting photos online
Last.fm for tracking and sharing your musical tastes
Online file storage like Box.net or there are heaps of others
and of course YouTube the world’s favourite online video sharing site

What online applications do you use or games do you play. Let us know so we can all check them out.

Apparently we Aussies love the old Facebook – no surprise there. Seem to me that MySpace is mostly for the teens these days.

Source: World Map of Top Social Networks
Address : http://www.labnol.org/internet/world-map-of-top-social-networks/5049/

This world map courtesy Oxyweb should help you visualize the popularity of various social networks across different parts of the globe.

You may find this site interesting too

Social Networking Sites That Are Not Facebook or MySpace

Both articles from the excellent site/blog Digital Inspiration

Don’t know what RSS is? It stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and it lets you read all your favourite blogs and news sites from one place by pulling content from them. That means you don’t need to keep visiting tons of websites to check for new content.

RSS Feeds have rapidly replaced the old ‘email newsletter’ as a way to communicate with people who are interested in your website. And they work as an update announcement every time you add or change something on a site – For that reason they work particularly well with sites that have content in small chunks like blogs etc

Here is a short video that explains RSS in plain English and helps you get started:

RSS Feeds have rapidly replaced the old ‘email newsletter’ as a way to communicate with people who are interested in your website. And they work as an update announcement every time you add or change something on a site – For that reason they work particularly well with sites that have content in small chunks like blogs etc. Really savvy operators, like say the Mulligrubs website, offer a way to subscribe to updates via either RSS or email

Subscribing to RSS feeds will be discussed at this weeks Mullies meeting along with lots of other items of interest plus the usual Q&A - See you there :)

Notes:
Idea for the post and initial text and video link found at the Digsby Blog

A more technical description of RSS from Wikipedia

RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works – such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video – in a standardized format.^[2] An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed",^[3] or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content quickly and automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favoured websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based or desktop-based. A standardized XML file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's URI into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.

The initials "RSS" are used to refer to the following formats: "Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)", "RDF Site Summary (RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.90)", or "Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91)".

RSS formats are specified using XML, a generic specification for the creation of data formats. Although RSS formats have evolved since March 1999,^[4] the RSS icon ("") first gained widespread use in 2005–2006.

I use Google apps for the hosting of domains and email for my Domains. Considering it is completely free (there is a paid Pro version) it is amazing functionality. As we have a fair few subscribers to emails for a small list I was wondering how many emails I can send per day. Most email hosts have some limits in force – mostly to stop abuse by spammers and the like.

Below is details of what Google Apps allows. Again for a free service I think this is excellent.

Details from this Google Group Page

Here is a list of some of the sending limits in place on your account:

- 500 messages per day (i.e., you can hit 'Send' a maximum of 500
times)
- 500 unique recipients
- 2000 total emails (for example, you could send one message to a
group of 500 people four times)

Please note that there may be additional factors which slightly raise
or lower these limits, but this should be a good general guideline.

Sincerely,

Joanna
The Google Apps Team

Reading ebooks is a fantastic way to save money. You can find text/ebook copies of even current bestsellers online. For ‘official’ versions of new books you need to pay but there are lots of copies available free if you know where to look – torrents, filesharing sites such as Rapidshare and the like. Of course some of these are of questionable legality and maybe associated with virus/spyware so check you moral compass and check your security.

These texts can be read on your computer screen, on your phone or PDA or even on one of the new generation fancy ebook readers like the Amazon Kindle (pictured)

Personally I probably spend too much time in front of a computer already. But I do have a bunch of Computer ebooks I use for reference material. 
Just think if you took out the pictures and maps the text of say the Encyclopedia Britannica would probably fit on a floppy drive AND be searchable! Amazing really

This post was found at Make Use Of

You might be surprised by how many good free ebook sites there are out there. Nowadays, you can find pretty much any popular (and not) book online. You just need to know where to look. Here are my favourite free ebook sites.

1. Ebook Search Engines

These are simple Google-like search engines but for PDF files. I usually start my ebook search using one of these sites. Type in the title of the document or book name you’re looking for and click on the search button. Find your book in the search results and click on download link. Done.

So far my top 3 ebook search sites are:

www.pdfgeni.com (MakeUseOf review)
www.pdf-search-engine.com (MakeUseOf review)
www.data-sheet.net (MakeUseOf review)

2. Scribd.com

In case you have never heard of this one before, the simplest way to define Scribd would be to call it Youtube for documents. People can upload whatever text documents they want and easily share them with others.

You’ll find lots and lots of free ebooks here. You only need to know what to look for. For instance try searching for George Orwell, Leo Tolstoi, etc.

And obviously it gets copyrighted ebooks much like YouTube gets copyrighted videos. I am not sure if they are doing anything to deal with them, but the fact is there are plenty of them on Scribd.

Oh and as we have mentioned before, Scribd is also an excellent resource for free document templates.

3. Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg (aka PG) has the largest collection of public domain books. These are the books that out of copyright and available for anyone to use for any purpose. Lots of books from the world’s greatest fiction authors such as Dickens, Joyce, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Anton Chekov and Edgar Allan Poe fall into this category.

This site is the oldest producer of free ebooks on the Internet. PG is an extremely popular site and now has over 20,000 works. If you’re not sure where to start check out their Top 100 page.

4. Free Ebooks For Your iPod, PDA, Smartphone, Blackberry etc.

For those of you who like to have ebooks on their portabe device we got some sites as well. Below are what I believe the best websites for books that can be read on mobile devices.

www.gutenberg.org
www.manybooks.net (MakeUseOf Review)
www.feedbooks.com (MakeUseOf Review)
www.booksinmyphone.com (MakeUseOf Review)

For iPhone users in particular there is a website called TextOnPhne. It’s a great ebook site that comes with its own ebook reader app. There are over 30,000 free books for your Apple device. Check out the demo video here.

5. Free Tech Ebooks

These sites are mainly for tech books, covering everything from computer science, engineering and mathematics to programming and web development.

www.freecomputerbooks.com
www.freetechbooks.com
www.onlinecomputerbooks.com

(Bonus) DailyLit

DailyLit is a bit different from the rest but I really like what they’re doing there. DailyLit can deliver a small excerpt from the book of your choice to your email on a daily basis. One excerpt per day, and so untill the book is finished.

The reason it wroks so well is that it only takes around 3-5 minutes to read each excerpt. If you feel like reading more you can request a next excerpt with a click of a button.

While more than a half of all books cost about $4.95 per book others are free. There are plenty of good titles among the free ones as well, some of my favorites include My Life and Work (by Henry Ford), Siddhartha (by Herman Hesse) and Random Reminiscences of Men and Events (by John D. Rockefeller). Check it out.

We have discussed web searching tricks in the past here. All good search engines and Google in particular offer lots of ways to customise your searches to filter out irrelevant information and hone in on just what you want to know.

I found a YouTube video today (via Digital Inspiration) that explains some of the basics.
(Being YouTube it should work with any connection but will  be slow on Dial Up)

Joe asked me a question at the Mullies meeting this week.

Hi Matt

Further to our conversation at Mulligrubs, I have forwarded the email in question.

It was sent to me via Outlook Express and as you suggested this may not be suitable to on forward via Thunderbird. When I have sent this particular message previously in the same circumstances, the message follows the text as well as being sent as an attachment.

Joe’s email has an animated picture attached to it which is the punchline to a joke. The email is sent as html which is the same language that webpages are written in.  So just like webpages can have embedded graphics, animations and the like the email can too.

The problem comes when the person opening the email has a different program than the person who sent it. As I discussed with Joe in some instances Thunderbird doesn’t show the email the same as Outlook Express or Outlook would. This is the same sort of program difference that causes poorly written webpages to look different in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

One solution to Joe’s problem is to save the email as an external file and then attach that file to an email for forwarding. This is often a good idea as it gives you a brand new clean email to write in without forwarding all those friends addresses, maybe to a spammer or infected computer.

To get the file and details out of a html email the easy way is to save it as a html file. Just open the email - the original one maybe attached if it has been ‘forwarded as attachment’. Drill down to the message with the joke and then:

in Thunderbird click File Menu - Save as - File – Html

In Outlook or Outlook Express Click File – Save As – Choose HTML under the File type pull down

Now you can send the html file you saved to your computer as an attachment to an email or view it in your browser (Internet Explorer / Firefox)

One of the problems with the email Joe received is that the image is an animated GIF. It's like a cartoon - a few different frames slightly changed that give the impression of movement/animation See more about GIFs here.

A lot of picture viewer programs won't show the image moving even if you save/extract it right. If you extract it right you should always see it moving if you open it in your browser (Internet Explorer / Firefox)

Hope this was helpful

Oh and here is Joe’s picture for you 

OK – this isn’t really about technology but I though you might enjoy the photos on the following website.

Sports Illustrated - Beijing Paralympics

Earlier this year, Oscar Pistorius (a.k.a. the Blade Runner) came within a hair’s breadth of making South Africa’s Olympic team. The achievement was a clear demonstration that in time, double amputees may well outpace able-bodied competitors. And meanwhile, it’s worth remembering that there’s more than one games in town.

Earlier this month, SI Online posted a remarkable photo essay from the just-wrapped Paralympics in Beijing. Four thousand disabled athletes competed in the same Olympic venues we saw this August: the Indoor Stadium, the Bird’s Nest, the Water Cube. There were soccer games between teams of visually impaired players — all of whom wore blindfolds to even things out — and a shot-put event in which the athletes strapped themselves into wheelchairs before rolling onto the pitch. Army 1st Lieut. Melissa Stockwell, who lost her left leg to an IED in Baghdad in 2004, was a special favourite of the Americans. And Oscar Pistorius won three golds, setting three Paralympic records. As for the photographs — they’re as extraordinary as the athletes themselves.

Found via VeryShortList

Here are some interesting articles/links from around the Internet

Web's Best 50 Free Downloads

Here’s a list of 50 free programs for you to download. In truth many of these you will  already have or have heard of but you may find something new here. If anyone on dial-up would like some of these programs downloaded and burned to CD just let me know

The Cyber Crime Hall of Fame

Rules are made to be broken the same way networks are made to be hacked into. These are nine of the most infamous criminal hackers to ever see the inside of a jail cell.

Top 10 Amazing Physics Videos

There are 10 good videos on science type topics at this site. Videos best viewed with broadband but may work (eventually) with dial-up.

I like this one – water droplets in space!

Brain Games

Some Flash games to play on the net but these ones have a purpose. To sharpen your mind!

I like Split Words - This game requires you to form words from fragments. The words are compiled using a theme and may have two or three parts.

If anyone finds anything cool on the net send us through a link.

G'day all

Have been a bit on the busy side with Apex and other community activities so the posts/emails haven’t been coming out

If anyone has anything interesting to share or questions to ask please send through as usual. In the meantime I thought I would send through this offer

We have talked about Acronis True Image before (see here)and Ian has even demonstrated it a couple of times

Right now at the Acronis site you can buy the full program for download for US$9.99 – about $13 Aussie. This program usually goes for over $60

Sometimes you can cheap offers for older or cut-down versions of programs but not here. This is the new full version 11 and is great value. The new version even includes a ‘sandbox’ feature – similar to Sandboxie I demonstrated at Mullies a couple of meetings ago

Here’s a link to a review of Acronis 11 at PC Authority.
Price says A$63 so we are saving $50!

If you aren’t doing full image back-ups of your PC now – buy this
If you don’t know if you are backing up your machine – you aren’t – buy this
If you have a less than legal copy of this program (like I used to) – buy this

Really it’s a good deal
And no I don’t get a commission or anything – wish I did :)

See you at the next Mullies meeting or if I see you on the internet be sure to wave and say hi

Hi Matt

Can you help me with "grounding" I wish to add RAM to my computer but whilst reading up noticed numerous references to "grounding" I don’t want to stuff it up, what's the easy way to eliminate the chance of a spike? Cheers Brian   

Hi Brian – good question! Whenever we stick our hands (or heads) inside a computer case we should be very cautious about the possibility of zapping the components with a static electricity discharge. Static electricity can cause quite a lot of damage to sensitive parts, such as ram, inside your computer.

Professional repair shops probably have specialised equipment for grounding themselves and the simplest of these is an ‘earthing strap’ which is basically a little wrist strap you put on your wrist and attach to the computer case. This basically levels out the static charge between you and the components so you don’t zap them. Really professional operations might have grounding mats and all sorts of other devices including temperature and dust controlled environments.

I have been fiddling with PC bits for years. I have never used a strap or other device and to my knowledge I have never stuffed anything. Just be aware of course that once you open your computer case you do need to be cautious. No only could you damage the components but there could be residual current and you could injure yourself. I have scratched and cut myself on sharp corners in there and your blood will do nothing to lubricate the performance of your PC!

The only precautions I ever take is to have clean hands and to touch the case and power supply before touching any other parts like the ram or motherboard. Unless you have been running on the carpet and rubbing a balloon on your tummy this should discharge any static electricity difference between you and the PC.

Below I have linked a couple of articles that may give you some more information on the topic. The first link is the Google search I did to find the other sites.

Of course you know that upgrading your ram will probably be like getting a whole new computer. Win XP struggles with less than 512mb of ram but will really fly with 1G or more. Vista needs at least 2Gb but that's progress for you! Let us know how you go Brian

Google Search

What is the best way to ground myself to discharge static electricity?

Avoid Static Damage to Your PC

How To Upgrade Your RAM

How to Add Memory Modules To Your Computer To Boost Speed

This article at Atomic suggests that there will be more WGA fun coming to your Windows machine – particularly if you are running Windows XP Pro. If someone is running a pirated version of Windows then they deserve these problems I guess but usually these sort of initiatives stop some perfectly legal PCs working too. Time will tell whether this is as annoying as the last WGA patch.

Any bets on how long it takes the internet hackers to circumvent the patch? My bet is a reliable workaround widely available in less than a week. I don’t know why Microsoft don’t work harder on making the system better and cheaper rather than wasting their efforts trying to stop it being stolen.

FOR THOSE OF YOU who come online to escape the nagging wife, bad news is ahead – Microsoft is introducing what can only be described as 'nagware' in an attempt to stamp out piracy of its beloved operating system.
The new Windows Genuine notification software will aim to stop the stolen and pirated versions of software being circulated using new Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) which comes into effect this week.
The WGA notifications will be delivered via Windows Update and will default the users background to black if the copy is deemed counterfeit.
A spokeswoman for Microsoft said that, "the update simply reconfigures the notifications experience to mirror notifications in Windows Vista SP1."
This annoying piece of inspiration will make it easier for Microsoft to detect stolen and pirated software as well as fake product keys.
The spokeswoman continued to say that, "Microsoft is making these changes to simplify the installation process (making it easy for customers to stay up-to-date), to increase the effectiveness of these notifications, and to align experiences across Windows XP and Windows Vista." – hmmm.
The nagware will be aimed specifically at XP Professional users for now, as Microsoft believes this is the most pirated edition.
XP users who don't have WGA notifications will be asked to accept an End User License Agreement which gives the users consent for the anti-piracy validation control to auto-update itself with fewer releases.
Microsoft thinks this irritant will take a couple of months to roll out – you have been warned.

http://www.languagetrainersgroup.com/accent_game.html

This is an online game made by a language training company. It shows short videos of people from all around the world reading part of the poem “If” by Kipling. You then have to pick via multiple choice where they are from. It is quite surprising and fun and very timely given the Olympics are on. Give it a go (sorry - may not work or will at least be slow on dial-up)

I just read this article at LifeHacker.com It’s about the myths around what works and what doesn’t  work when trying to speed up Windows. You should check it out

http://lifehacker.com/5033518/debunking-common-windows-performance-tweaking-myths

Windows XP and Vista do a fair job of self maintenance, etc. A lot of these techniques originated back in the Win 95 & 98 days when users could squeeze a little more performance out of Windows with a few behind the scenes tricks. They simply don’t work much anymore.

Now I don’t agree with everything in the article. Here’s my thoughts:

Disabling QoS to Free Up 20% of Bandwidth

Yep – this has little to no effect for most people. Your connection rarely runs at 100%

Clean, Defrag and Boost Your RAM With SnakeOil Memory Optimizer

I absolutely agree. In every case I have seen these programs used they have made the situation worse not better. I think they may have had a use back in Windows 95 but even by Windows 98 they were useless

Cleaning the Registry Improves Performance

I disagree with this one. I think a good registry cleaner can make a noticeable difference. Just make sure you use a reputable program that makes registry back-ups. For a free product I find CCleaner very good.

Disabling Services to Speed Up the Computer

I disagree. Some services can be disabled and DO make a difference. Some programs install their services that don’t offer much functionality and can be disabled. For example iTunes installs a number of services including 1 to check for software updates, 1 to launch iTunes when you plug in your iPod, 1 to communicate across a network with iPods and iPhones and others. You don’t need all these processes running in the background and if you have a lot of unnecessary ones it will slow you down. So check out your running processes and carefully and selectively disable the ones you don’t need.

Refer this site for detailed information on each service BlackViper.com

OK so now we know how NOT to speed up our PC. Tomorrow I will send you my suggestions on what you can do that WILL speed up your PC.

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas please email me or leave them in the comments.

As we have discussed here in the past AVG Antivirus is an excellent and free Anti Virus program. In fact because of the price (did I mention free!) and the small footprint (AVG doesn’t eat up much system resources and memory) it is one of the most popular AV programs around.

I have read recently (in the Windows Secrets newsletter) that the AVG can make a mess of some emails you receive. You see AVG has an email scanner built in – which is good. It checks emails and attachments for nasties like a virus or trojan when you send and receive an email. Great!

By default though what it also does is to add a little ‘certification’ to the bottom of each email to attest to the fact that it has been scanned. A few years ago this was pretty common practice for AV programs but it is rarely seen today. Here’s an example of what it puts on:

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com 
Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.5.0/1556 - Release Date: 7/16/2008 4:56 PM

Frankly I find this pretty annoying but other people may like it, who knows?

Anyway it seems the adding of this text to emails you receive (and maybe send too) can garble the HTML code and mess up the email, even to the point it is unreadable.

But never fear I have a solution. From Windows Secrets:

To disable e-mail certification in AVG, click Tools, Advanced settings, choose E-mail Scanner on the left side of the window, and disable Certify e-mail for incoming messages. The steps are described in the AVG FAQ (scroll down the page to number 1376).

You may also want to disable “certify email for outgoing messages” too.

Please note – this does not turn off virus scanning of emails, it just turns off the last step of putting the certification on the bottom of each message.

So if you find some messages are coming in a little strange or, like me, you don’t want the little note on all your messages then just follow the steps to remove the certification. Easy!

If you go to this page you (click the image) you can download a free internet security suite suite.

The offer is made thanks to Westpac Bank and you don’t need to prove you are their customer to download. I have taken advantage of a similar offer from ANZ in the past.

The banks take the attitude that if they can help you stay safe on the net then you are less likely to have your password stolen and your bank account details misused. A cynic might say that by offering this free they are giving themselves an escape clause when a customer sues and says their site doesn’t offer enough protection

Anyway what you get is a free 12 months license for PC Tools Internet Security Suite which includes:
1. Spyware Doctor with Antivirus 6 for Windows
2. Privacy Guardian 4.1 for Windows
3. PC Tools Firewall Plus for Windows

I have not personally used any of these programs so I cannot recommend them one way or the other. But at this price they may be worth a trial

Looks like common sense has won out in the eBay drama we discussed at our last meeting. Alternate payment methods like Bank Deposit and COD will still be allowed on eBay Australia. Every auction must include PayPal but can include the other methods too.

This makes sense to me. PayPal is a useful and convenient way to buy stuff all over the internet. A lot of stores allow or even encourage PayPal. And using PayPal on eBay gives you some level of buyer protection too. I just think that it shouldn’t be restricted to PayPal only. What if I find something locally I want to buy and go round to pick it up - I want to pay cash not have to do it all online.

The outcome achieved here is the best for buyers and sellers alike. Sellers can still nominate PayPal as their only allowed payment method if they want to and buyers can use PayPal to pay if they choose to. But there is no monopolisation of the process to feed eBay revenues.

I don’t believe for a moment that eBay changed their mind '”to end confusion” or because of the complaints of users. They were prepared to bully buyers and sellers however they want. It was the ACCC forcing their hand that sorted it out.

So strike up a win for our tax dollars at work – you don’t say that every day do you!

eBay Australia ditches controversial payment policy.

Giving in to unrelenting pressure from sellers and the competition regulator, eBay Australia has officially called off its effort to force members to use its PayPal subsidiary for transactions on its e-commerce site.

The announcement came a week after eBay said it would postpone enacting the policy until the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) had its final say.

"eBay has withdrawn its notification to the [ACCC] about removing other payment methods. Instead eBay will continue to allow all existing payment methods on eBay.com.au," the statement reads. "We have decided to withdraw the notification to stop any further confusion and disruption among the eBay Community."

eBay said it will continue to look for ways to foster a safer online environment for its users, but will do that "while still offering a variety of payment choices."

Sellers on eBay.com.au are still required to offer PayPal as at least one payment option, a requirement that took effect in May. Associated changes to PayPal Seller Protection and increased PayPal Buyer Protection remain in place.

Auctiva Article link

I swiped this post from Jeff Alexander’s blog. Jeff is married to my cousin and is a top bloke. He works for Microsoft and this is a post about the new Windows search software. As I mentioned at our last meeting I have found the upgrade to version 4 has noticeably sped up my Vista machine. If you use Vista then you should definitely download this update.

One of the great features of Windows Vista is it’s integrated search engine which allows you to find all those bits and bytes on your computer.  But in the last week I found this interesting little tidbit.  Windows Search 4.0 was quietly released for free download for Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003.  This one kind of came under the radar a bit so I thought I would give it a go and install.  Well to my surprise my machine seems to be faster!  And of course search is a whole lot faster.  But in a nutshell this is what the new version has to offer.

• Improvements in performance and stability of the indexer
• Fuller complement of Group Policy settings, available on all supported operating systems
• Fast sorting and grouping of results in Windows Explorer
• Indexing improvements in online e-mail
• Ability to index delegate mailboxes for online e-mail
• Support for indexing (local file system) encrypted documents
• Expanded ability to perform fast remote queries of file shares, including those on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. This includes automatic indexing of shared folders.
• Item previews in Windows Explorer for Windows XP

So this is one of those things that kind of sits under the covers quietly plugging away but it’s nice to see the search team has made such an improvement.

Check out the download today!  I’ve put it on all my machines!

As promised last week here is a link to download the article I compiled on eBay

Click here to download the file

It includes

• General details on eBay and it’s origin
• General details on PayPal
• A description of how they both work
• A schedule of fees and charges from eBay and PayPal
• Articles discussing the current ‘discussions’ between eBay and the ACCC over eBay’s intention to limit the method for auction payments to only be through PayPal
• Tips for buyers using eBay including discussion of bidding strategies and a link to an Auction Sniping tool, and
• Tips for sellers including details on using Auctiva to create and promote your sales on eBay

Some of this is my own work and opinions but some is from other sites – please refer to the links for more information and details of the original authors

I plan to expand on the buying and selling tips again in future and will post this as a separate item here on the blog. So look out for updated details sometime soon.

But for now I hope you find this useful

Details found care of Gizmo’s TechSupportAlert.com newsletter

Subscriber Richard Dent writes " Gizmo, here's a website that your subscribers might find useful. It allows anyone to send an email from any "From:" address without registering or logging on."
http://send.arrowmail.co.uk

This could be very useful if you were away from your home computer and wanted to send an email ‘from’ your own address and didn’t have access to your own email. Gmail users have the ability to send from multiple accounts from within Gmail itself although in my experience the email still arrives as being From: ’Other Address’ via ‘Gmail Address’ which is not so useful if you were trying not to show your Gmail address. Anyway – this site may be of use to some.

Have you ever lost a user manual or instructions for an item? Of course you have – I know I have!

It could be a TV or a DVD player, a food processor, an air conditioner or some other complicated piece of equipment. Or maybe you bought it second hand and the booklet didn’t come with it. And the frustration mounts!

There are a number of places on the web you can look for a copy of the user manual. An educated Google search can often turn one up and of course try the manufacturers own site too. But there are also some places on the net that accumulate the manuals for you and one of these is SafeManuals.com. Apparently they have over 800,000 guides saved and growing.

I have included their search function in this post – click the buttons below and give it a try. You might just find something you are missing!

As discussed in the past I highly recommend Mozilla Firefox as the browser of choice. It has so many features over the standard Internet Explorer browser in windows to make it more secure plus countless extensions which make it more useable. I find the user interface – toolbars, etc – awkward on IE 7 after they updated and I don’t like using it. Firefox just makes more ‘sense’ to me plus has all the bonuses too

If you aren’t using Firefox yet then now is the time to switch. It has just updated to version 3 which is faster, slicker and just generally awesome. If you are using but haven’t updated yet then hop to it – you will be surprised how great the new version is

I participated in the ‘Download day’ for Firefox and helped set a new world record for downloads. Here’s my certificate :)

So give Firefox a whirl – you won’t be sorry :)

I thought this was very interesting – especially the way the phones ‘morph’ into one another. The video perspective doesn’t really show you the changing scale of phones though. Those early phones were over 1kg – we have whole laptops that are lighter now.

I also noticed the time lag – we must get our mobiles here in Oz a lot slower than their release in the US, etc.

Check out the stats on the number of phones sold and messages and stuff. Amazing really.

Following is an article from WindowsSecrets.com regarding Win XP and how to keep using it for a while. Personally I like Vista and I won’t be going back to XP but then my laptop is new and fast and came with Vista pre-installed. Anyone who like me is buying a new PC or laptop should get a version of Vista on it and be good to go. But for your current machine I don’t recommend updating to Vista – stick with XP and follow these tips to keep it running sweetly.

In addition to these tips I recommend using a disk image program (like Acronis) which we have discussed previously and which Ian has demonstrated at our meetings. With Win XP SP3 out now it would be a good time to do a fresh install of Windows with an install of SP3 and then imaging it for archive purposes – you will never have to do a reinstall of Windows again!

When Windows XP was released, wireless routers were rare, few cell phones supported e-mail, and YouTube was just a gleam in some PayPal employees' eyes.
But like a fabled perpetual motion machine, XP keeps on going and going — and if you follow some simple guidelines, the OS will keep running in top condition until Vista's successor is ready in 2010.

XP is an operating system with serious legs

Microsoft may not have planned it this way, but XP could end up rivaling NT and 2000 as the version of Windows with the longest lifespan. According to recent news reports, Dell, Lenovo, and other computer manufacturers will continue to sell new PCs running Windows XP well past Microsoft's June 30 cutoff date.

PC vendors will do so by invoking a downgrade plan that lets them ship a system with Windows XP installed as long as the customer is also paying for an upgrade to Vista Business or Ultimate editions, either of which is included in each box.

Of course, computer manufacturers aren't the only ones looking for ways to extend XP's usefulness. One pundit has predicted that Microsoft itself is going to fast-track Windows 7 to get customers to leapfrog over the unpopular Vista and go directly from XP to the next version. In fact, according to the technology site Ars Technica, one major American corporation, General Motors, is considering doing just that.

Eight simple rules for keeping XP rejuvenated

If you're one of the many people who plan to stick with XP as long as possible, you need to take a few relatively painless steps to keep that aging OS perky. Here are my eight rules for extending XP's usefulness to 2010 and beyond.

Rule 1: The latest ain't always the greatest. As a rule, older operating systems were designed to work with older software. Unless you need some utterly indispensable feature found only in the latest Adobe Creative Suite or Microsoft Office 2007, stick to the preceding releases. Not only will the senior apps run faster, most of the kinks and bugs have already been worked out of them.

If your hardware and software work fine as is, don't bother upgrading any drivers, either. At the same time, driver upgrades often smooth out minor problems that you've just grown used to.

One way to check for out-of-date device drivers is to use the online scanner from Driver Updates. (Note that using this service requires running an ActiveX component in Internet Explorer.)

MATT’S note – don’t join this paid site – it’s a rip off! Just use the information they provide to work out what drivers need replacing

Should you discover that one of your drivers is out of date, go to the manufacturer's site to find and download the latest version available (but skip any beta releases). Remember to back up your system before installing the new driver in case it causes problems.

Rule 2: Make an exception for security. Set Rule 1 aside when it comes to your security software and services. Update your virus and spyware definitions frequently. Get the latest security updates for your browser and for QuickTime, Flash, and other media players as well. Some of the dangers of unpatched software are explained in the April 17 Top Story.

Rule 3: Stay young and beautiful. The last exception to Rule 1 is to make a cautious investment in a handful of utilities that improve and modernize XP. You'll find a number of free and low-cost programs that approximate or even duplicate Vista's best new features without having to invest in a whole new operating system.

For a guide to applications that give XP handy features of Vista's Business edition, see my July 12, 2007, column. To read about ways to add features from Vista Enterprise or Ultimate editions to XP, check out my July 19, 2007, column.

Rule 4: Shop carefully for new hardware. If your XP system needs a processor, memory, or other hardware upgrade to keep it from bogging down on your applications, there is no reason why you can't swap out an aging component or add some RAM.

However, since some new components are designed with Vista in mind, make sure the products you buy work as advertised under XP. Check the manufacturers' site for XP driver downloads before you make your purchase, and look for online reviews that mention the products' XP compatibility.

Rule 5: Don't let startup stuff slow you down. It seems like every program you install these days wants to start along with Windows. These auto-start apps are usually represented by an icon in your system tray (the area near your clock). Even if your system has oodles of memory, these little doodads can slow you down without offering any real value.

An excellent tool for finding what gizmos are starting up each time you log into Windows is Autoruns, available from Microsoft (originally from Sysinternals). Simply uncheck the item to disable it from starting, or select an entry and delete it to effect a more permanent removal.
If you can't figure out what a particular startup app does, right-click its entry in the Autoruns window and choose Search Online. This performs a Google search (rather than a Live search, which you might expect). Scour the results to find out whether the program has a legitimate reason for needing to run all the time.

If the Web search isn't helpful in rooting out a program's purpose, check the list of common startup applications maintained by Paul Collins to figure out what's getting started with Windows.
Finally, the free version of WinPatrol can warn you whenever a program attempts to add an item to your startup list.

Clear the clutter from XP's many cubbyholes

Rule 6: Save on disk space. A problem that plagues nearly all aging systems is the pack-rat syndrome. Just using a PC day to day causes an ever-increasing amount of data to be stored in ever-shrinking disk space. These tips will help you recover some of that precious drive capacity.

• Eliminate hibernation files. XP's hibernation feature stores everything currently in RAM onto your hard disk, which allows you to return to your session more quickly after a period of inactivity. Unfortunately, hibernation needs about the same amount of disk space as your current amount of RAM (for example, 1GB of disk space if you have 1GB of RAM).
  If you don't use XP's hibernate feature very often, you can save the space occupied by the hiberfil.sys file: choose Start, Run; type powercfg.cpl; click the Hibernate tab; uncheck Enable hibernation; and click OK.
  
• Don't let iTunes make you hear double. If you use Windows Media Player to rip CDs to your computer in the Windows Media Audio (.wma) format and then decide to give iTunes a try, beware! iTunes will convert those songs into its Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format, resulting in duplicate files for every song iTunes manages. To avoid that, use a single music format (such as .mp3) that all media players can handle.
  
• Store stuff online. Another way to save on disk space is to transfer files to an online storage service. You may already store your e-mail and photos online. Yahoo's Flickr service lets you store as many photos as you like, but unless you upgrade to a paid account, you'll never be able to see more than the last 100.
  Google's Picasa Web albums provide 1GB of free storage. And if you're willing to pay, you can get a whole lot more storage space than that.
  Of course, you don't need to limit yourself to mail and photos. A number of sites offer free or low-cost online storage. For example, Mozy gives you 2GB of free storage through its MozyHome service. MozyPro accounts start at U.S. $4.50 per gigabyte per month.
  Many sites, including ElephantDrive, Omnidrive, and Box, provide only 1GB of free storage. Each service offers larger storage options at varying prices.
  Finally, IBackup has economy plans that charge only $1 per gigabyte per month (and less for annual rates). By comparison, the popular Data Deposit Box charges $2 monthly for each gigabyte you use.

MATT’S NOTE – Box.net is great and free, has lots of features and is easy to use. Microsoft Live Skydrive is also good and offers a whooping 5Gb of free online storage

• Offload files to a new drive. Even if you've purchased a new hard drive to expand your storage space, you may still be running out of room on your Windows drive. Fortunately, you can move your virtual memory paging file, Internet Explorer cache files, My Documents, and other system files to another drive or partition. For step-by-step information, see my column from the Feb. 28 issue.

Rule 7: Keep it clean. It makes no sense to hang onto useless junk files that Windows uses for its own purposes. Fortunately, Windows' own Disk Cleanup tool can clear out this system clutter. For details on how to customize Disk Cleanup for maximum efficiency, see Fred Langa's Mar. 13 column in the paid portion of the newsletter.
Disk Cleanup also removes the outdated restore points created by System Restore that you no longer need. In the Disk Cleanup window, click the More Options tab. Under System Restore, click Clean up and confirm that you want to delete all but the current restore point.

Unfortunately, Disk Cleanup misses certain temp files. To make a little batch file that clears these folders, open Notepad and type the following:
del /s /q "C:\Documents and Settings\yourname\Local Settings\Temp\*.*"
Replace yourname with the name of the account you've logged into and adjust the drive letter or path as needed. Save the file with a .cmd or .bat extension (for example, killtemp.bat) and put the file or a shortcut to it in your Startup group (Start, All Programs, Startup). This way, it will run each time you log in to your Windows account.

Rule 8. Do your chores. Joan Rivers described my attitude to PC maintenance when she said, "I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later you have to start all over again."

Odious as PC housekeeping can be, get into the disk-maintenance habit: make backups, defrag your hard disks, and check them for errors. Fortunately, you can use XP's Scheduled Tasks utility (Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Scheduled Tasks) to automate or partially automate these chores by setting the program to give you a gentle reminder.

Link to the original article at Windows Secrets