Ben and Emily at the Santa Run

Emily and Ben looking real cuties in their Santa outfits.......

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All about Pop-Ups

There at least three major ways that your computer will receive pop-up ads.

The first is the traditional scripting that is embedded into Web sites that can be easily stopped with many of the free pop-up killers. The one that I have used for some time with a great amount of success is called EMS Free Surfer mk II. You can download the free version here.

The second that appeared about a year ago takes advantage of the Windows Messenger utility that is built into Windows NT, 2000, and XP (but not 95,98 or ME). This utility is intended for use by network administrators to alert users that the server is being shut down or for sending general information to everyone on a local area network. This type of pop-up is why some high-speed Internet customers are experiencing pop-ups even when they are not surfing the Internet. Unless you are on a corporate network, you can turn this feature off. In Windows NT, go to the Control Panel, then to Services. Highlight "Messenger" and click on "Stop."

In Windows 2000 and XP, go to the Control Panel, then to Administrative Tools, and then to Services. Highlight "Messenger" and click on "Stop." You must also set the "Startup Type" to "Disabled."

The third and most intrusive pop-ups are delivered by secretly installing software that is known as adware. If you have ever downloaded a free program from the Internet or you notice that an extra toolbar has appeared in your browser window, there is a good chance that an adware program has been installed in your system at some point. Once these adware programs get installed, they constantly run in the background of your computer and monitor your Internet access so it can pop-up ads specific to your surfing habits.

Some of the less scrupulous companies (mainly porn vendors) go a step further and pop-up ads constantly, whether you are surfing the Web or not.

If you seem to have extra toolbars in your browser window, start by going to the Add/Remove programs section of the Control Panel and look for anything that has the word "toolbar" in the description.

There are a couple of excellent free programs that will look for and remove adware & spyware programs from your computer. For non-technical users I recommend using Ad-aware, and more technical users may find SpyBot Search and Destroy more full featured.

These are the most common ways of getting pop-ups, but they are not the only methods. Instant messaging, file sharing utilities and a host of other programs are also incorporating pop-ups as a revenue source, so the battle will rage on!

DOWNLOAD: Set Name To Time

• [496k]
• W98/ME/2K/XP
• FREE

http://www.webattack.com/get/setnametotime.html

{Rename digital camera files} Most digital cameras output files as img001.jpg or something with a number. Taking as many pictures as I do because I take so many bad ones, it takes too much time to rename all the files. SetNameToTime converts the file names to date and time format. The Exif View Tab provides detailed information on each photo such as the camera make and model, orientation, exposure, and software (if it's been edited). After selecting the files to rename, the program immediately displays the new names and it won't make the changes permanent until Rename is clicked or if Autosave is selected.

DOWNLOAD: PowerBullet Presenter

• [2451K]
• Win98/2k/XP
• FREE

http://www.mywebattack.com/gnomeapp.php?id=107381

{Create Flash presentations} Powerbullet Presenter allows you to create slick, multi-page Flash presentations using a simple drag and drop interface and no technical expertise required. You can easily insert sounds or voice recordings (mp3 or WAV files), images (PNG, GIF, JPEG) or other Flash files, create page transitions, animations, and more. The program comes with various ready-to-use animation effects that can be attributed to any object or text, allowing you to let objects move into position (with optional delay), fade out images, and much more. Additional features include support for hyperlinks, source editing (html), tables, integrated voice recording and more. The result can be published as a Web page or exported as a stand-alone EXE file that can be played on any Windows computer.

Improve XP performance

Second level Datacache(L2Cache) is very important for the performance of your CPU. Normally, winXP should recognize your CPU and the value of the L2Cache. However, sometimes XP can't do this, so you must tweak it by yourself to improve the performance:

run "regedit";
goto "[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\SecondLevelDataCache";
modify its value by decimalism:
AMD Duron: 64(kb);
CeleronA/celeron2:128;
PII mobile/PIII E(EB)/P4/AMD K6-3/AMD THUNDERBird/Cyrix III:256;
AMD K6-2/PII/PIII katmai/AMD Athlon:512;
PII Xeon/PIII Xeon:1024;
reboot.

Increase Speed By Tweaking Prefetcher Settings

This is a unique technique for XP, which could improve the performance significantly by tweaking the prefetcher. Recommended hardware: PIII 800 or higher, 512M RAM or more.

run "regedit";
goto [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher];
Set the value to either 0-Disable, 1-App launch prefetch, 2-Boot Prefetch, 3-Both ("3" is recommended).
reboot.

It will decrease the boot time, but double and increase the performance of your XP. Try it!

Clean Your Prefetch To Improve Performance

This is an unique technique for WinXP. We know that it is necessary to wash registry and TEMP files for Win9X/ME/2000 periodically. Prefetch is a new and very useful technique in Windows XP. However, after using XP some time, the prefetch directory can get full of junk and obsolete links in the Prefetch catalog, which can slow down your computer notably. My suggestion is:

open C(system drive):/windows/prefetch;
delete those junk and obsolete files;
reboot.

It is recommended that you do this every month.

Total Hardware 1999

{Devices} This site has jumper settings for almost 19,000 devices, a useful source especially for those working with older equipment or don't have the documentation that accompanied the device. The devices include hard drives, I/O memory cards, modems, motherboards, graphic cards, network cards, and much more. If you have or are considering another hard drive, look up the hard drive to get its settings as odds are you'll need it if you want the new hard drive on the same controller card as the current hard drive. Those who have old 386s or other old computers for toying with will appreciate the resource.

RECOMMENDATION: Anti Spam toolz

SpamBayes
http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/

The SpamBayes project is working on developing a Bayesian anti-spam filter, initially based on the work of Paul Graham. The major difference between this and other, similar projects is the emphasis on testing newer approaches to scoring messages. While most anti-spam projects are still working with the original graham algorithm, we found that a number of alternate methods yielded a more useful response.

K9 Win32
http://www.keir.net/k9.html

K9 is an email filtering application that works in conjunction with your regular POP3 email program and automatically classifies incoming emails as spam (junk email) or non-spam without the need for maintaining dozens of rules or constant updates to be downloaded. It uses intelligent statistical analysis that can result in extremely high accuracy over time.

SpamPal
http://www.spampal.org/

SpamPal works as a POP3/IMAP4 mail proxy server, in other words, SpamPal sits between your email program and your ISP's server. When your receive an email, SpamPal processes the email you receive, works out if these messages are spam and then marks them as spam by adding **SPAM** to the Subject line and by adding a header, X-SpamPal: SPAM.

SpamAssassin
http://spamassassin.org/

SpamAssassin is a mail filter that attempts to identify spam using text analysis and several internet-based realtime blacklists. Using its rule base, it uses a wide range of heuristic tests on mail headers and body text to identify 'spam,' also known as unsolicited commercial email. Once identified, the mail can then be optionally tagged as spam for later filtering using the user's own mail user-agent application. SpamAssassin typically differentiates successfully between spam and non-spam in between 95% and 99% of cases, depending on what kind of mail you get.

XP Unnatended Install

Windows XP / 2003 Unnatended Install howto

Quoting Homer

God bless those pagans! If God had wanted me to go to church for an hour a week, he would have made the week an hour longer. No offense, Apu, but when they were handing out religions you must have been out taking a whizz. Dear Lord, thank you for this microwave bounty, even though we don't deserve it. I mean, our kids are uncontrollable Hellions, pardon my French, but they act like savages! Did you see them at the picnic? Oh, of course you did, you're everywhere, you're omnivorous. This gun had a hold on me. I felt this incredible surge of power, like God must feel when he's holding a gun.