Hide drives in Windows XP

We can hide specific drives in Windows XP by using Group Policy Editor. Follow the simple method here and your drive is hidden from My Computer with all your secret Data & Files

Step 1: Click on Start > Run and type in GPEDIT.MSC and click OK

Step 2 : In the left pane click on ADMINISTRATIVE TEMPLATES under USER CONFIGURATION.

Step 3 : In the right pane double click on WINDOWS COMPONENTS

Step 4 : In the right pane again double click on WINDOWS EXPLORER.

Step 5 : Inside WINDOWS EXPLORER you will find a lot of options. Find "Hide these specific drives in My Computer" and double click on it.

Step 6 : Click on ENABLED radio button and in the drop down list below select the drive you want to hide.

Now click on apply > ok and you are done. No one will know except you that there is a hidden drive in your computer. To access the drive simply type in the drive letter in the windows explorer address bar and press enter. Voila !! your Hidden drive will come up.

This works in Windows 2000 also.

Disable Error Reporting in Windows XP

Every time a programm crashes Windows XP tries to send an Error Report to Microsoft. It may be useful to Microsoft but annoys us mostly. We can simply put it off. here is how to do it.

• Navigate to Start > Settings > Control Panel
• Double click on SYSTEM
• Click on Advances Tab
• Click on the ERROR REPORTING located at the bottom
• Select DISABLE radio button
• You may or may not select "But notify me when critical errors occur" check box.
• Now click OK, Again Click OK and you are done.

Create Single Click Shutdown and Reboot Shortcuts on the Desktop

Follow the steps to create Shortcut to Shutdown.

• Right click anywhere on the Desktop and navigate to NEW > SHORTCUT.
• Enter the following line in the Shortcut dialogue Box.

shutdown -s -t 03 -c "Bye Bye YourName"

• Click Next.
• Type the Name as Shutdown.
• Click Finish.

Now you can Shutdown your PC right from your Desktop.


Follow these steps to create Shortcut to Restart.

• Right click anywhere on the Desktop and navigate to NEW > SHORTCUT.
• Enter the following line in the Shortcut dialogue Box.

shutdown -r -t 01 -c "Rebooting your PC Mr. YourName"

• Click Next.
• Type the Name as Restart.
• Click Finish.

There are different switches for these purpose and you can do a lot more with the right kind of combination of the switches. The switches are describd below


-s
Shuts down the PC.

-l
Logs off the current user.

-t nn
Indicates the duration of delay, in seconds, before performing the action. ("nn" means the specified duration in seconds)

-c "messagetext"
Displays a message in the System Shutdown window. A maximum of 127 characters can be used. The message must be enclosed in quotation marks.

-f
Forces any running applications to shut down.

-r
Reboots the PC.

Changing Default Location of My Documents

Imaging a situation that all of a sudden your Windows crashed and u had to format and reinstall it. In the process you have lost all the valuable files stored in the My Documents folder. Don't you think it would be nice if we can change the default location of My Documents folder. Yes we can change the default location of "My Documents" from "C" Drive to any other partition of our Hard Disk.

Follow the lines below and your My Documents folder is moved to a different partition of your hard disk along with all your files.

• Right click on My Documents.
• In the context menu go to PROPERTIES and click.
• In the dilogue box click on MOVE and choose the location where you want to keep your files.
• Click OK and you are done.

Now even if you have to format your C drive your files will remain safe at a different location.

Add Move to & Copy to in the Right Click Context Menu

Open Registry Editor by clicking Start>Run

Then type REGEDIT and click OK

Navigate to the following key

• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
• Right click the ContextMenuHandlers key and choose New>Key.
• Name the new key as "Copy To" (do not include the quotes).
• Now select the "Copy To" key and in the right hand pane, double click "Default"
• Enter value data as {C2FBB630-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Repeat the above and create another new key named Move To.

• Now select the "Move To" key and in the right hand pane, double click default
• Enter value data as {C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Close the Registry Editor and Restart the PC


You can add the same options to the right click menu of all your folders.

Navigate to the following key
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHan dlers

• Right click ContextMenuHandlers and create a new key named Copy To.
• Now select the "Copy To" key and in the right hand pane, double click "Default"
• Enter value data as {C2FBB630-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Right click it again and create another new key named Move To.

• Now click on the right hand pane, add the same default values as you did for Files:
• Now select the "Move To" key and in the right hand pane, double click "Default"
• Enter value data as {C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Close the Registry Editor and restart the PC.

Optometry : A Career Option

Optometry is as a career option which is fast catching up in India and the rewards are more satisfying. If you are considering medical and healthcare is an option for your career, this is just right for you. Optometry is growing in India and the opportunities are vast but trained manpower is less.Optometry is basically involved in diagnosing, treating and preventing problems relating to optimal vision. It also imparts health education besides rectifying vision related problems.

However there is a basic difference between Opthalmology and Optometry. The job of Optometrists are limited to diagnosing and rectifying vision related problems whereas Ophthalmologists are licensed to prescribe medicine and perform eye related surgery. Optometrists may prescribe eye glasses and contact lenses after diagnosing problems but they can not perform surgery, only can refer to eye specialists. In India there is no regulation or restriction on their ability to prescribe medicine to eye patients but they generally don't do so.

At Sankara Netralaya, Chennai, The Elite School of Optometry (ESO) was the first college to start a course in Optometry in 1985. Slowly other institutions also started giving course in Optometry as part of their curriculum. The well known institutes are Bausch & Lomb School of Optometry, Hyderabad; All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi; College of Allied Health Science, Manipal; Elite School of Optometry, Chennai; Lotus School of Optometry, Mumbai; Bharti Vidyapeeth Medical College, Pune. The number of seats in most of these colleges are limited. Around 40 premium colleges across India are offering Optometry course.

The eligibility criteria is a combination of Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Mathamatics with atleast 50% marks to apply for Optometry. Students needs to appear in admission tests and interviews to get admission in most of the colleges. It is a four year course and at the end students get B. Sc. degree in optometry. Some colleges offer Masters degree also apart from MPhil and PhD.

Job prospects are immense in this field since it is relatively new in India. Optometrists can start private practice if they don't want a regular job. At multinational companies (MNC) the job prospects are more bright. MNCs like Bausch & Lomb, Johnson & Johnson and Lawrence & Mayo, fresh graduates can earn 12,000 to 15,000 monthly as startup package. There is no limit for those who wants to start their own business.

It is a career with immense job satisfaction. What can make you bring more satisfaction than being able to make a person see this colorful world clearly.

New HTC Touch Mobile Phone with Touch Screen

Full Specifications of HTC TouchPhone

• Processor : TI's OMAP 850, 201 MHz
• OS : Windows Mobile 6 Proferssional with Direct Push Email and HTML email support
• Memory : ROM- 128MB, SDRAM- 64MB DDR
• Dimensions : 99.9 mm(L) x 58mm(W) x 13.9mm(T)
• Network : GSM/GPRS/EDGE Tri-Band: 900, 1800, 1900
• Device Control : HTC TouchFLO 5-way navigation control
• Connectivity : Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth® 2.0, HTC ExtUSB (11 pin mini USB and audio jack in one)
• Display : 2.8'’ LCD touch screen with backlight, 240 x 320 dots resolution with 65,536 colors
• Camera : 2.0 mega-pixel CMOS color camera
• Battery : Rechargeable Li-Ion battery with a capacity of 1100 mAh
• Standby time : Up to 200
• Talk time : Up to 5 hours
• Audio : Built in microphone and 3-in-1 speaker, Windows media player supported formats - AAC, eAAC, MP3, WMA, WAV, QCELP, MPEG4, AMR-NB, AMR-WB
• Expansion slot : Micro SD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)

HTC launches new HTC Touch Phone. The phone comes in two colors. alluring wasabi green and elegant soft black. The phone responds to the touch of a finger across the screen. It can differentiate between a finger touch and stylus input, and responds accordingly. Touch FLO is the technology called by the HTC found only in HTC phones. A simple move of finger over the display results an animated 3-dimensional interface of three screens, which are contacts, media & application comes up.

HTC phone has both the functions of professional and entertainment facilities. It uses Windows Mobile 6 Professionsl Operating System which allows users to use Internet Explorer, Messenger, Office Mobile, Outlook Mobile etc. The Onboard 2.0 megapixel CMOS color camera takes pictures briliantly.

The phone has only three buttons and the rest of the space is covered by the giant 2.8 inch LCD touchscreen with 240 x 320 resolution and 65K color screen with backlight. The three buttons on the phone are - a call, a hangup and a d-pad for moving around.

The built quality is nice and fits well in the palm of your hand. Its smaller than the iPhone.

The overall impression is good. But it forces you to swap to landscape mode if you intend to use QWERTY keyboard and still endup using your fingernail, for best result use the stylus tucked away at the back.

http://www.htctouch.com/

Ensure Proper Windows Shutdown

Most of the time when we try to shutdown windows, a non responsive programme or something running in the background refuses to close and delays the process. Its really frustrating. We can remove the delay by tweaking the registry for a smooth shutdown.

(Backup your REGISTRY FILE before implementing the following tips. Use the tips at your own risk. I will not be responsible for any mistake that may occur)

1. Copy the following lines written in between the horizontal lines and paste in notepad by saving the file with filename as "regtweak.reg"
2. After that double click on the file to import it into the registry file.
3. Restart your computer and you are done.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"ClearPageFileAtShutdown"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop]
"AutoEndTasks"="1"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control]
"WaitToKillServiceTimeout"="1000"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note : Some antivirus may detect the registry edit which is normal.

Unattended WIndows XP Installation Disk

Installing Windows and all the required softwares is a complete pain in itself !! I hope most of the persons who needs to install Windows frequently will agree with me.

Imagine a Windows installation disk which has all the requisite settings predefined and you don't need to put your name, product key, timezone, regional settings etc and have the latest Service Packs also. After that it will also install silently all your favourite applications along with DirectX, .NET framework etc. Shocked !!

Yes it is possible and i have tried in on WIndows XP that worked fine for me. They say it works on Windows 2003 also. Click here and try is out.

Source http://unattended.msfn.org

I will not be Responsible For any Damage and Crash To Your System Or Anything Else After Reading the Tips,Tricks and Tutorials. Try This At Your Own Risk ...

Computer, Technology and Educational Information

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