Posted by kglee | Filed under Software Fixes
The Microsoft Windows operating system stores all DNS look-ups in a cache to speed up the connection for future visits to previously visited websites or servers. DNS for simplifications sake turns domain names like ghacks.net into IP addresses like 96.30.22.116. To simplify it further: computer users make almost exclusive use of domain names, while computers and devices of IP addresses.
The DNS provider is queried during each connection attempt unless the information are already stored in the cache.
You may want to know why someone would want to flush the DNS cache? Lets say you have decided to switch from your provider’s DNS server to Open DNS, Google DNS or another free service that promise faster speeds and little extras like user-configured site filtering. If you switch during a session, you will be using old data from the cache if you access sites that you have already visited.
Not a big problem? You may be right, but think about the following situation. A webmaster migrates the website to a new server. It can take up to 48 hours before all DNS servers redirect users to the website on the new server and not the old server. Some webmasters change their DNS server before migrating if the ISP’s DNS server is known to be on the slow site when it comes to updating information (another option for webmasters is to edit the hosts file).
The DNS cache can have privacy implications as well, especially on public computer systems or multi-user systems. It is possible to display the contents of the cache, which in turn reveals all the websites that have been visited by the user in the session. Flushing the cache removes the entries so that the next user won’t be able to see a list of visited websites.
Flushing the DNS Cache
Posted by kglee | Filed under Cool Videos
Posted by kglee | Filed under Software Fixes
This document contains step-by-step instructions for setting up multiple copies of Windows XP Mode on a Windows 7 PC in order to run Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 simultaneously with IE9 in Windows 7. Windows XP Mode is available on Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions.
These instructions assume a moderate degree of experience working with your PC and are provided “as-is” for developers comfortable performing its steps.
Installing Windows XP Mode
1. Configure your PC’s BIOS for Hardware-Assisted Virtualization (HAV) by following the instructions here. HAV is not required but XP Mode will run much better if hardware-assisted virtualization can be enabled.
2. Navigate to the Download Windows XP Mode page. Choose your Windows 7 edition and language and then download, save, and run Windows XP Mode setup. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, this can take up to an hour.
3. Return to the Download Windows XP Mode page, if needed choose your Windows 7 edition and language again, then download, save, and run Windows Virtual PC setup. You will need to restart your PC after this installation.
4. After restart, click the Windows 7 Start button, select All Programs > Windows Virtual PC > Windows XP Mode to begin first-time setup of the Windows XP Mode virtual machine. When first-time setup completes, you’ll find yourself in an XP Mode window with IE6 pre-installed.
5. Install an anti-virus program in the XP Mode virtual machine. Microsoft Security Essentials is free and works well with Windows XP Mode.
6. Install all the important and high priority updates except IE7 or IE8 using the Custom option of Window Update (this assumes you want this first virtual machine to stay with IE6). Since Windows Update will keep pushing either IE7 or IE8 on you, you should open each of these and choose “Don’t show this update again.”
7. Install any other software or utilities that you want available in the XP Mode virtual machine.
Once you’ve configured this first virtual machine, you can move onto copying it to create two more: one for IE7 and one for IE8. To do that, close all open applications then close your Windows XP Mode virtual machine. By default, the virtual machine will hibernate but that seems to be okay for the following steps.
Create a Second XP Mode Virtual Machine for IE7
Creating a second XP Mode virtual machine for IE7 is easier than setting up the first though the steps below are longer because they’re more complete. Briefly, all you need to do is copy the virtual hard disk file, create a new virtual machine using that hard disk file, rename the virtual computer, and use Windows Update to install IE7. Here are the steps in more detail:
Posted by admin | Filed under Software Fixes
If you are one of those lucky people who can afford a good external backup solution (like the HP SimpleSave), then you might not need to read this anymore. But if you don’t want to give away your pocket money for one, there are always alternative free solutions out there.
Cobian Backup 9 is a free backup software from CobianSoft, made by Luis Cobian. It supports both automatic and manual backup to your data to a particular drive on the same computer, on the network, or online through an FTP connection.
Don’t expect a fancy looking interface though from Cobian Backup 9. Apart from it, Cobian Backup delivers what we all need; a good automated backup solution just in case one of our hard drive goes bye-bye.
What’s new in Cobian Backup 9
Support for Volume Shadow Copies.
You will be able to backup locked files
Support for 7zip compression
Now you can pause the backup in any place
The update function can now use SOCKS proxy
SMTP can now use SOCKS
SMTP can now use SSL
Autostart the interface can now be set for all users or the current user
Autostart options are now playing fair with administrator’s rights
Start a backup when autostart
The remote directories are now created from the top to the root, thus minimizing the risk for Permission problems
Downloading files shows now the percent
FTP operations can now use UTF transfers if the server supports it
FTP operations use now UNICODE for local operations Zip files can now store file names in UNICODE
Checking an archive could sometimes delete the archived files. Fixed.
Prettier about boxes
Icon in task properties for Manual AND ftp where swapped
IPC via MMF is now gone
The update server can now use MSSQL for logs or can use no logs at all
SQX is now gone.
Checking archives wrongly displayed Compressing using the verbose log
CobDeleter is now an integral part of the UI
Fixed the old “Error while connecting to :21:” error
A brand new, improved help file and tutorial
Posted by admin | Filed under Software Fixes
Windows: We’ve learned to stop worrying about antivirus software since Microsoft released their great Microsoft Security Essentials suite, but today it gets even better, improving Windows Firewall integration, network traffic inspection, and an heuristic scanning engine.
Microsoft’s next version of Security Essentials is actually a pretty great update from its already-great predecessor. Microsoft’s option has always been adequate at finding new malware without definitions, but the addition of an heuristic engine bumps its power up quite a bit.
It may be subject to a few more false positives, but you’re much less likely to get hit with malware than ever before.
It also includes some Windows Firewall integration that lets you tweak the Firewall from inside Security Essentials, as well as a network inspection feature that can inspect traffic as you browse, which is pretty neat.
All in all, if you’re using Microsoft Security Essentials (and why wouldn’t you be?), you’ll want to grab this update. Hit the link below to manually download and install the update.
Download: Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0
Source: Lifehacker
Posted by admin | Filed under Software Fixes
This case was given to me by a friend, whose sister had a virus. The virus reset the password on her Windows 7 account. I wanted to remove the virus, but before I could do that, I had to bypass her password somehow. I knew of a way to do this in XP, but that wasn’t possible in Vista/7. So, I tried a few things and this is the one that worked.
Posted by admin | Filed under Software Fixes
Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware is a high performance anti-malware application that thoroughly removes even the most advanced malware and spyware. With one of the fastest, most effective quick scans and malware removal capabilities on the market, this program is the perfect addition to your PC’s defenses.
The full version of the product includes a number of key features, including the ability to schedule updates and scans and most importantly, a real-time malware protection module that blocks malicious processes before they even start.
- Improved database loading speed by approximately 15%
- Drastically improved performance of Website Blocking on Windows Vista and 7
- Fixed various scheduler compatibility issues on Windows 2000
- Fixed issue with quotations around paths passed to /logtofile and /logtofolder
- Fixed issue with detecting certain leftover traces of an infection
- Fixed issue with freeze when adding a shared printer on the network
Posted by admin | Filed under Software Fixes
This is set to run automatically nightly on my Win 7 machine - tutorial here