A new feature in facebook which allows for complete deletion of the existing profile account.

The only catch at this point is that the feature is only available for a select few users who have been chosen randomly for a test phase. The “Delete” option is more viable option when it comes to completely erasing your Facebook profile, rather than going for “Deactivate” option. Apparently Deactivate option keeps your profile info and the account is deactivated completely only after 14 days.

For those who are skeptical about the introduction of this new feature in Facebook, a recent update by a Facebook representative confirms this fact. So head right over to your Facebook Account Settings to see if you have the Delete option for your profile or not.

Search for Facebook Update, Social Networking, Web, Delete Facebook Account, Delete Online Account, Deactivate, Delete, Privacy Settings, Permanently delete Facebook Account, Technology

Via: slashdot/next web

The Epic Browser is the first-ever web browser for India and the first product from the software company Hidden Reflex.

Hidden Reflex is a software product startup founded by Alok Bhardwaj in 2007 and based in Bangalore. Alok, who was raised in the U.S., was inspired by the success of open source software and web 2.0 innovations. Hidden Reflex began as a team of three but soon progressed and now has dedicated teams working on two products simultaneously – the Epic Browser and NewsDrink. The company also has three patents pending related to its product innovations.

To curb Online crimes, phishing activities, password thefts or dropping malicious content onto victims PC by notorious hackers are on an all-time rise. Performing all these activities get a lot easier in the internet cloud and locating loop holes in victim’s PC is a quick job for pro hackers.

Bangalore-based software company, Hidden Reflex has come-up with the world’s first web browser with built-in Antivirus Scanner, Malicious Website Notifier and Anti-Phishing protection mechanism. Epic Browser powered by Mozilla is worth giving a try.

The company’s vision is to become the first globally recognized, consumer-oriented software product company in India. According to Alok Bhardwaj, CEO and Founder of Hidden Reflex, “We want to prove that India can be a hub for innovation in software and technology."

Our mission with the Epic browser is to create the most secure, most productive and most “Indian” browsing experience of any web browser!

Via: epicbrowser

Search results for Antivirus, Web Browser, Security, First Antivirus Web Browser, Downloads, Software, Web Browser Security, Online Security, Antivirus Scanner, Malicious Website Warning, Anti-Phishing protection, Technology

Not only home screen, you can now change your log on screen wallpaper in Windows 7.

Change and customize your log on screen with dynamic and attracting wallpapers.The process should take these things under considerations before applying any wallpaper-The background that you want to change to must be a .jpg file and smaller than 256kb. One more thing, there is different directions based on which version of Windows 7 you have, so make sure you  follow the right ones.

The steps could be followed as-

Creating a Registry Value

Click Start, type Regedit.exe and press ENTER:

Once the Registry Editor launches, locate and right-click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key and select the Find command.

When you see the Find dialog box, type OEMBackground in the text box and make sure that only the Values check box is selected,as shown-

When the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background key opens, locate and double-click the OEMBackground value. When you see the Edit DWORD dialog box, change the value data from 0 to 1 as shown-

To complete this part of the operation, click OK to close the Edit DWORD dialog box and then close the Registry Editor.

Now you need to create some folders. To begin, launch Windows Explorer. Then navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\Oobe folder. Once you access the Oobe folder, click the New Folder button in the Windows Explorer toolbar. You’ll see a confirmation dialog box, like the one shown . When you click Continue, the new folder will be created and you can name it info.

Then, open the info folder, click the New Folder button again, work through the confirmation dialog box, and then name the second new folder backgrounds.

You can use any image that you want for your new Logon screen wallpaper. However, the image has to be in JPG format and you need to name it backgroundDefault.jpg.Try it

There is the fine tuning of Windows 7 to increase the over all performance of the system.In our Daily usage,we generally don’t use many services and application in our system but they are still working in background.So,they are using large part of memory and processor and that is wastage of memory and overall degrade of system performance.Therefore,

We must disable many process in our system to increase the performance of the System. Additionally,disabling un-needed components in Laptop will extend the battery life since fewer processes will be using the CPU running in the background.

Fine Tune Visual Settings in Windows 7

The Windows 7 eye candy is the main cause of GUI slowness.Follow the steps given below to improve the performance of the interface:

Click on the Start Button and type in adjust the appearance and hit Enter. This will open the Visual Effects performance options.

On this screen I suggest disabling the following settings by removing the check:

• 1. Animate controls and elements inside windows
• 2. Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing
• 3. Enable transparent glass
• 4. Fade or slide menus into view
• 5. Fade or slide ToolTips into view
• 6. Fade out menu items after clicking
• 7. Show shadows under windows (this may be worth the performance hit for some)
• 8. Show thumbnails instead of icons
• 9. Show translucent selection rectangle
• 10. Show window contents while dragging
• 11. Slide open combo boxes

Click OK when you are finished.

Remove Startup Programs in Windows 7

The startup programs that we generally don’t need. Click on the Start Button and type in msconfig and hit Enter.

When the System Configuration utility is loaded click on the Startup tab.

Remove the check next to any applications you don’t need and click OK.

Disable Services in Windows 7

Now it’s time to trim the Windows services running in the background of our computer.

Click on the Start Button and type in services.msc and hit Enter.

You can stop and disable services by selecting the service, right clicking and selecting Properties. Then change the Startup type to Disabled and hit the Stop button. Finally click OK to return to the Services management console.

The recommended disabling of following services in Windows 7:

• 1. Block Level Backup Engine Service
• 2. Bonjour Service (from iTunes)
• 3. Certificate Propagation
• 4. Group Policy Client (if not on domain)
• 5. HomeGroup Listener
• 6. HomeGroup Provider
• 7. Offline Files
• 8. Portable Device Enumerator Service
• 9. Security Center*
• 10. Software Protection (make sure you activate Windows first)
• 11. SSDP Discovery
• 12. Windows Defender*
• 13. Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
• 14. Windows Search

Keep in mind that if you use any of these services or applications that depend on them they will no longer function. E.g. if you are a homegroup user don’t disable the Homegroup Provider.

* Make sure you use other security software if you disable these services.

So,enjoy the speedy performance of your Windows 7

Their is a Black view of Windows Media Center skin which give it a nice look.

Many of users are changing the look of the new Windows Media Center in Windows 7. Australian Media Center Community member Astrotoy7 created a sharp looking black theme for Media Center in Windows 7.

To install the black theme we will need to download a replacement resource file that contains the the new bitmaps.

Download the new resource DLL for Windows 7:

Download 32-bit version and 64-bit version for Windows 7

Next, take ownership of c:\windows\ehome\ehres.dll and rename the ehres.dll to ehres_old.dll so you have a backup to revert the change if needed.

Then just copy the downloaded ehres.dll file to c:\windows\ehome\ and then start your Media Center.

You have a nice Black looking Media Center as shown above.

Generally any icon that is visible on your dekstop can be renamed except the Recycle Bin.Ever thought of changing its name.Its time to think as the technology can make you do anything now.You may have realized that in Windows NT/2000 and various versions of Win9x, you absolutely cannot change the name of the recycle bin. The closest thing you can do is make a shortcut to the recycle bin and name the shortcut something else. That’s not quite the same as physically changing the name.

You can do this by editing the resistry but make sure that messing with the registry can really mess up your computer if you do thew wrong thing. Back up your data before attempting any registry hacks.

Here is the way you rename your recyle bin.Follow these steps-

1.Run RegEdit. You’ll find it in your Windows folder or go to the Start menu, select Run, and type REGEDIT.EXE.

2.Select "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT"                                                             3.Choose CLSID

4.Select "{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}"

5.Double click on (Default)                                                       6.You’ll see the current name of your "Recycle Bin." Simple change it to whatever you want and close the Registry SPAMEditor.

7.Click on the "Desktop" and press F5 to refresh shortcuts.

Boot XP is by using a USB Pen drive.

Almost everyone who has worked with computers for any length of time at all has run into at least one situation in which a problem left a PC unbootable. What if you could return the machine to a bootable state just by inserting a USB flash drive though? Believe it or not, it is actually possible to install a bootable copy of Windows XP onto a flash drive and then boot a PC off of the flash drive. From there, you can use applications that you have installed on the flash drive (anti virus, anti spyware, disk repair, etc.) to fix the PC’s problem. In this article, I will show you how.

What’s the catch?

As with most cool new techniques, there are a few catches. For starters, not every PC is capable of booting from a USB flash drive. For the most part, computers manufactured within the last two years are generally able to boot from a flash drive. Older systems may require a BIOS update, or might not be able to boot from a flash drive at all.Another catch is that not every flash drive will get the job done. The primary factors that limit your use of a particular flash drive are capacity and speed. Technically, speed isn’t really a limiting factor, but booting Windows will be painfully slow unless you use a flash drive that supports USB 2.0.The flash drive’s capacity is actually a limiting factor though. Surprisingly though, there are size limits on both the upper and lower end. Your flash drive can’t be too large or too small. There isn’t really a documented minimal size for a flash drive. You just need something large enough to hold Windows XP and a few applications. As you probably know, Windows XP normally consumes over a gigabyte of disk space. Later I will show you how to use a free utility to trim the excess fat off of Windows XP and make it a whole lot smaller. Even so, I still recommend that your flash drive be at least a minimum of 256 MB in size.As I mentioned, there is a maximum size for the USB flash drive that you can use. Currently, USB flash drives exist in sizes of up to 4 GB, and 8 GB flash drives are expected to be available by the end of the year. As nice as it would be to have 8 GB to play with, the flash drive that you use for this project can be no larger than 2 GB. The reason for this is because you will have to format the flash drive using the FAT-16 file system, which has a 2 GB limit. Presently, you are stuck using FAT-16 because most computers will not recognize a flash drive as being bootable if the drive is formatted with anything other than FAT-16

Preparing your Windows installation CD

One of the requirements for creating our bootable USB flash drive is a Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installation CD. If your Windows XP installation CD doesn’t already include Service Pack 2, then you will have to make a CD that includes Service Pack 2 through a technique called slipstreaming

Other requirements

In addition to your Windows XP installation CD, there are a couple of other things that you are going to need. For starters, you will need the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. You can download this tool for freeAnother utility that you are going to need is Bart’s Preinstalled Environment Bootable Live Windows CD / DVD, or BartPE for short. You can download this utility for free from the BartPE Web site

In addition to the software requirements, you must verify that the PC that you will be using to create the Windows deployment has 1.5 GB of free hard disk space (minimum) and supports booting from a USB device. I also strongly recommend that the PC be running Windows XP Service Pack 2. Prior to Service Pack 2, Windows XP sometimes had trouble interacting with USB storage devices.

Formatting the flash drive

Now that you have all of the prerequisites taken care of, it’s time to actually start setting up our flash drive. The first step in doing so, as strange as it sounds, is to format the flash drive. Windows will actually let you format a flash drive in the same way that you format a floppy disk. However, formatting a flash drive in this way will not work for this project. Furthermore, using Windows to format a flash drive directly has been known to destroy some types of flash drives.Instead, you must format the flash drive by using the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool that you downloaded earlier. To do so, simply open the utility, select the device followed by the FAT file system option and click Start.Once the device has been formatted, you must make it bootable. To do so, you must copy the BOOT.INI, NTLDR, and NTDETECT from the root directory of your PC’s boot drive to the flash drive. These files are hidden by default, so you will either have to configure Windows Explorer to show hidden files (including protected operating system files) or you will have to open a Command Prompt window and use the COPY command to copy the files.

If you choose to use the Windows Explorer method, then open Internet Explorer and enter C: into the address bar so that you are looking at your local hard drive. Next, select the Folder Options command from the Tools menu. When the Folder Options properties sheet opens, select the View tab. Now, just select the Show Hidden Files and Folders and deselect the Hide Extensions for Known File Types and the Hide Protected Operating System Files check boxes. Click OK to continue.

Booting from the USB flash drive

Now that you have formatted your USB flash drive and installed the boot files onto it, the next thing that you must do is to configure your PC to allow you to boot from the flash drive. This is all done through the computer’s BIOS Setup. I can’t give you specific instructions for this part, because every computer is different. I can give you a few pointers though.You can access your computer’s BIOS by pressing a specific key immediately after you turn the PC on. The key varies, but it is usually either [F1], [F2], or [Delete]. Once you are in the BIOS Setup, you should verify that all of your computer’s USB options are enabled. This might include things like support for legacy USB devices or support for USB 2.0. If there is a time out setting for USB devices, you should set it to the max to insure that the system doesn’t time out while waiting on the USB device to boot.Next, find the section on boot device priority. Normally, a USB flash drive (which is usually listed as USB-HDD, but may be listed as a removable device) will have a very low boot priority. If the USB flash drive’s boot priority is lower than the hard disk (listed as HDD) then the only time the computer would ever boot off of the USB flash drive is if the system were to fail to boot from the hard disk. You must therefore rearrange the boot device priority so that the flash drive has a higher priority than the hard drive.

Configuring Windows

Now that we have finally made it through all of the prep work, it’s time to start setting up Windows. As you have probably already guessed, the process of installing Windows to a flash drive is quite a bit different from your normal, run of the mill installation. There are a couple of reasons for this. For starters, a full blown Windows XP deployment takes up over a Gigabyte of hard disk space. When you are installing to a flash drive, disk space is a scarce commodity. Even if you have over a Gigabyte of space on your flash drive, you probably don’t want to use it all on Windows. It would be nice to have room to install a few applications. Therefore, you need to trim the excess fat off of Windows.

The other reason why the installation process is so different from the usual Windows installation is because Windows Setup is not designed to install Windows to a flash drive. You therefore have to configure Windows using an alternate method.The PEBuilder utility that you downloaded earlier can take care of both of these issues. PEBuilder is designed to create a build of Windows XP (or Windows Server 2003) that does not take up as much space as a full blown installation. Once you create this new build, you can copy it to the flash drive. For right now, I will show you how to create a basic Windows build and copy it to the memory stick. Unfortunately, it’s rather difficult to install applications once Windows is up and running. Therefore, after I show you how to create a basic Windows build, I will show you how to create a build that includes some applications.Begin the process by opening PEBuilder. When you open PEBuilder, you will see a screen similar to the one that’s shown in Figure A. Simply enter the path to the Windows installation files (the ones from your Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installation CD). Next, verify that the Create ISO Image and the Burn to CD check boxes are not selected and then click the Build button. PEBuilder will now create the new Windows build.

Figure A

You must use PEBuilder to create a Windows build that will work with a flash drive.

Now, it’s time to copy Windows to the flash drive. To do so, you will have to use a special batch file that’s included with PEBuilder. Open a Command Prompt window and navigate to c:\pebuilder313\plugin\peinst. Now, insert an empty flash drive into the computer’s USB port and then execute the file PEINST.CMD. You will now see a menu appear as shown in Figure B.

Figure B

PEBuilder uses a batch file to install Windows onto a flash drive.

Type 1 and press [Enter] and you will be prompted to enter the path to the build that you have created. Enter C:\pebuilder313\BartPE. Now, type 2, press [Enter], and you will be prompted for the target path. Enter the drive letter that Windows has assigned to your USB flash drive. After doing so, the menu is updated as shown in Figure C. The menu now displays the source path and the destination drive. Type 5 and press [Enter] to install Windows to the flash drive.

Figure C

Use menu option 5 to install Windows to the flash drive.

Installing applications

Now that I have shown you how to create and install a basic Windows build, I want to talk for a moment about how you can add an application to the build (prior to creating it). The PEBuilder program comes pre-configured to support a number of common Windows applications, but does not come with the applications themselves.The reason why installing applications can be a little bit tricky is because most Windows applications modify the Windows registry. The build that you are creating is basically a collection of installation files, and the build itself does not contain a registry (the registry gets created when Windows is installed onto the flash drive). As such, PEBuilder uses a sort of registry emulator. If you go to the C:\PEBUILDER313\PLUGIN folder, you will see sub folders for a number of different applications. If you open one of these application folders, you will see that the folder contains an INF file and a FILES folder. The INF file contains all of the information that would normally go into the registry, and the FILES folder stores all of the program’s files. To see how this works, let’s install an application that I’m sure most of you are familiar with; Nero. Begin by installing Nero onto the machine that’s running PEBuilder, as if you planned to run Nero locally on that machine. When the installation completes, copy all of the files from C:\Program Files\ahead\Nero to C:\pebuilder313\plugin\nero burning rom\files. In this particular case, the Nero burning rom folder is the folder that has been set aside for the Nero application. The Files sub folder is intended to store Nero’s system files.Now, you must take care of Nero’s registry entries. To do so, go to the C:\pebuilder313\plugin\nero burning rom folder and open the PENERO.INF file using Notepad. As I explained earlier, the INF file in an application’s folder is used to store the application’s registry entries. For Nero and all of the other applications that PEBuilder predefines, the INF file is pre-configured. You just have to make a few changes that are specific to your system.In this particular case, the PENERO.INF file is designed to support both Nero versions 5.x and 6.x. Initially, the lines for both versions are commented out. You must therefore determine which version you have and then remove the semi colon from the beginning of the lines that apply to that version. If you look at Figure D, you can see how the two versions are separated.

Figure D

An application’s registry entries are stored in an INF file.

Once you uncomment the appropriate lines, just replace “Your Name”, “Your Company Name” and “Your Serial Number” with your name, your company’s name, and your Nero product key. Save the file, and your set to go. The next time that you click the Build button, Nero will be included in the build.

Putting XP in your pocket

Running Windows from a flash drive isn’t an exact science. Sometimes the process just doesn’t work and there is no good reason why. As more PCs start to support booting from USB devices though, USB boots should become more standardized, and the technique should become more reliable.

Here are the Game Cheat for some of the windows game.

Minesweeper

Secret – Reveal Mines

Instructions – Minimize or close all running applications. Launch Minesweeper, then type xyzzy. Next hold down either shift key for one second. Now when you move the mouse cursor over a Minesweeper square you will see a tiny white pixel in the top left corner of your desktop screen. This pixel will change to black when your mouse moves over a mine. You may need to change you desktop background to a solid color other then white or black to see the pixel.

Pinball

Secret – Extra Balls
Instructions – Type 1max at the start of a new ball to get extra balls.

Secret – Gravity Well
Instructions – Type gmax at the start of a new game to activate the Gravity Well.

Secret – Instant Promotion
Instructions – Type rmax at the start of a new game to go up in ranks.

Secret – Skill Shot
Instructions – Launch the ball partially up the chute past the third yellow light bar so it falls back down to get 75,000 points. There are six yellow light bars that are worth a varying amount of points:

First: 15,000 points
Second: 30,000 points
Third: 75,000 points
Fourth: 30,000 points
Fifth: 15,000 points
Sixth: 7,500 points

Secret – Test Mode
Instructions – Type hidden test at the start of a new ball to activate Test Mode. No notification will be given that this is activated but you can now left-click the mouse button and drag the ball around.

Secret – Unlimited Balls
Instructions – Type bmax at the start of a new ball. No notification will be given that this is activated but when a ball is lost a new ball will appear from the yellow wormhole indefinitely. Once this is activated you will be unable to activate other secrets without restarting

FreeCell

Secret – Instant Win
Instructions – Hold down Ctrl + Shift + F10 during game play. Then you will be asked if you want to Abort, Retry or Ignore. Choose Abort, then move any card to instantly win.

Secret – Hidden Game Modes
Instructions – In the “Game” menu choose “Select Game”. Enter -1 or -2 to activate the hidden game modes.

Solitaire

Secret – Instant Win

Instructions – Press Alt + Shift + 2 during game play to instantly win.

Secret – Draw single cards in a Draw Three game

Instructions – Hold down CTRL + ALT + SHIFT while drawing a new card. Instead of drawing three cards you will only draw one.

Infinite Points

In the Windows XP version of solitaire, draw from the deck at least twice. Hold control and drag a card down from the deck. Click the “A” key and then let go of the left mouse key. You will get 10 points for this. Continue doing this for infinite points!

Infinite points trick II

To do this trick, finish a game of solitaire with the time bonus option on. The cards will start bouncing. Click on the solitaire screen and the play again box will pop up. Select no, so the solitaire screen is just blank green. Use the instant win cheat (Alt+Shift+2) and you will recieve the time bonus you got last game will be added to your last game’s score. For example, if your time bonus was 5000, and your final score was 6000, after using this glitch, you will have a score of 11000. This glitch can be used as many times as you want.

Registry hack which will allow you to see your opponents’ cards

Launch REGEDIT.EXE and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Hearts.

NOTE: You may have to create the Hearts key under Applets In the right-hand pane, create a new String Value. Immediately rename it to “ZB” (without the quotes); give it a value of “42″ (again, sans quotes).

The next time you are in a game of Hearts, press CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + F12.

Remove shutdown from start menu and also from all other possible options Or hide shutdown from start menu.

This tool is a inbuilt tool present in windows XP, just like msconfig. So you got to execute this command using run.

1 . Start ->run and type gpedit.msc.

The gpedit stands for group policy and you can do wonders using this.

2. User configuration -> administrative Templates -> start menu and taskbar –>

3. This option opens up a pane on the right hand side. Identify the option named- Remove SHUT DOWN on the start menu .

4. Double click Remove SHUT DOWN on the start menu option.

5. A small screen pops up and you may like to read about the explanation in the EXPLAIN TAB before you change the settings.

6. Just change the radio button TO ENABLED and say apply.

7. DONE. No need to log off or restart the system. (You may however have to find a way to restart your system.)

8. This option disables the log off option from the system. From the start menu, also from the life saver – three buttons CTRL – ALT – DEL options.

This option goes well with the HIDING THE LOG OFF FROM START MENU… (To shut down your system:-without using shut down menu) The solution is that you can switch user through task manager (alt+ctrl+del) or by pressing win key+L where you get the option to turn off your computer /restart/standby.

Or you may create a shortcut using this shortcut location:

To shutdown your system %windir%\system32\shutdown.exe –s

To restart, you can use this shortcut %windir%\system32\shutdown.exe -r

Many of us are really fond of videos and watch videos at YouTube or Google Videos.  Of course you prefer to watch good quality videos at YouTube than those worse videos.

There is a small trick that will do all the wonders, and now you can always get good quality YouTube videos.

Step1: Click to video that you want to see, the link will display on Address bar.
Example:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne1l6VNkuLM

Step2: Add &fmt=6 to the end of that string.
That address like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne1l6VNkuLM&fmt=6

Optional Step: To get more quality YouTube video
.Add   &fmt=18 to the end of that string, you will have the best quality video with direct download link !

Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne1l6VNkuLM&fmt=18
Note: Appending &fmt=6 to the URL delivers a 448×336 resolution version of the video and appending &fmt=18 delivers a even better 480×360 resolution version.