Worthwhile to switch from XP to VISTA

I just bought a new computer for gaming purposes

Intel Dual Core 2 E6750
Asus P5K pro
Kingston 3 gb ram
Geforce Nvidia 8800 512 MB RAm

Not high end but decent gaming machine

I had installed XP but decided to try out Vista

Gladly Vista runs far much better than 1 year before
All the programs and games ran perfectly

Some minor tweaks and changes were needed but those are easier to find on the net
Just the graphics driver I had to install Forceware 174 beta version

For those who havent hopped over to VISTA no need to wait Try it out yourself

Never seen before XP Secrets !!!!!!

Hidden Programs In Windows Xp
1) Private Character Editor
This program is for designing icons and Characters(Alphapet)
Click :start
Then :run
type :EUDCEDIT
.................................................................................................................................................
2) iExpress

This Program is for converting your files to EXECUTABLE files
Click : start
Then : run
type : iexpress
.................................................................................................................................................
3)Disk Cleanup
This program used for cleaning harddisk to offer space
Click : start
Then : run
type : cleanmgr

.................................................................................................................................................
4)Dr Watson
This program Is for repairing problems in Windows
Click : start
Then : run
type : drwtsn32
.................................................................................................................................................
5)Windows Media Player 5.1
Opens the old media player
Click : start
Then : run
type : mplay32
.................................................................................................................................................
Program ............. CODE
__________ __________
Character Map = charmap
------------------------------------
DirectX diagnosis = dxdiag
------------------------------------
Object Packager = packager
------------------------------------
System Monitor = perfmon
------------------------------------
Program Manager = progman
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Remote Access phone book = rasphone
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Registry Editor = regedt32
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File signature verification tool = sigverif
------------------------------------
Volume Control = sndvol32
------------------------------------
System Configuration Editor = sysedit
------------------------------------
Syskey = syskey
------------------------------------
Microsoft Telnet Client = telnet
------------------------------------


just tell me if u liked

Sony Cybershot DSC-T300 Camera with touchscreen

Sony Company introduced touch screen cybershot DSC-T300 camera.The Sony DSC-T300 offers excellent performance with a sophisticated design. Sony T-300 camera has a new intelligent recognition that allows the camera to automatically selects your camera's settings based on detected lighting conditions.The compact body features 10.1 megapixel resolution,3.5"wide touch screen LCD for simple operation.We can also view images in stunning 1080 HD resoluiton slide shows,just connect the camera to a compatible HDTV.

Features of Sony Cybershot DSC
10.1 MP Super HAD™ CCD
3.5" Widescreen Clear Photo LCD Plus™ Display
Carl Zeiss® 5X Optical Zoom Lens
Memory Stick Duo™ Media Convenience
15 MB Internal Memory
16:9 High-Resolution Mode
Wide Zoom Display
Super SteadyShot® Optical Image Stabilization
Stamina® Battery Power
Simple Icon Setup Controls
Smile Shutter Mode
Sony Double Anti-Blur Solution
PhotoTV HD
HD Slide Show with Music
Multi-Resizing Function
Intelligent Scene Recognition Mode
High Sensitivity (ISO 3200) Mode
In-Camera Retouching
Enhanced Paint Function
Convenient Photo Modes
In-Camera Red-Eye Reduction

A different virus and its solution

I gave my pen drive to the office boy last week. When he returned it to me it was having lot of virus . I fired him as the drive contained a lot of important documents . I cleaned the drive to the maximum with my antivirus software Virus Buster .But two virus still didn't leave .

1. The autorun of the pendrive is blocked
2. All the files in the drive can't be seen and the two options in the folder options control pannel is ticked simultaneously. ie show and do not show hidden files . When I try to select the files in the drive the system tells me to change the folder visibility option . When I gave my drive to him all these were not hidden in property .

I request all big brothers here to help me to solve this problem .Will any new antivirus software solve this problem by removing the virus. As nothing can be seen or selected I am really confused . Please give me the solution soon .

Quake-Type iPhone Games Coming

More news on the developers working on a version of Quake 3 for the iPhone and iPod touch - they have many more games in the pipeline.

HermitWorks Entertainment has been confirmed as the development team behind the unofficial Quake 3 port. As widely reported this week, the port uses the built-in motion sensors to control action in the game, and offers the capability for two player play using Wi-Fi.

What wasn't known until GameCyte did some digging is that the port took only "a matter of hours" to conduct.

Speaking with the site, developer Cameron Tofer also revealed the studio is also porting its original game, Space Trader, to the iPhone, that game is also built on a modified Quake 3 engine.

HermitWorks is also working on a casual iPhone RPG tentatively called Quest which also uses that engine. The developers are using two jail-broken iPhones

Stupid IPhone Tricks

It's spring in San Francisco, and that means it's time for Stupid iPhone Tricks.
This video covers the following tips:
-- Clever uses for your iPhone camera
-- Saving reference material as web pages
-- Making "fake podcasts" of audio and video material
-- Using "fake contacts" to sync notes with your Mac
-- Using the iPhone's backlight as a flashlight
And it may be more fun than humans should be allowed to have.
Download Macworld Video #46
-- Format: MPEG-4/H.264
-- Resolution: 320 x 240 (iPhone & iPod compatible)
-- Size: 10.4 MB
-- Length: 4 minutes, 27 seconds
Show Notes
Thanks to Macworld's Jonathan Seff, Dan Moren, and Sue Krenek for suggesting additions to these tips.
I realize that my mention of saving web pages for use on your iPhone might have gone by a bit too fast. Here's the short version: If you make web pages with basic info you'd like on your phone (like my bus schedule), you can then access them with your phone's Web browser. Then you can add those pages to your home screen, making them even more easily accessible.
To make a custom icon, the code you need to insert in the header of your web page is . The image itself should be a 57x57 pixel PNG. You can make a different one for each page you make, if you like. For more info, see Apple's iPhone developer pages.
Red Sweater Software's Typecast is a free download. You can also see more about syncing different parts of your iPhone library with different Macs, and read about my discovery of Typecast and how it works.
I now realize I made two separate late-night talk show references in this video. My note on my "fake contact" screen refers to Johnny Carson's famous "Art Fern" routine. ("Take Highway 101 till you get to the Slauson Cutoff. Get out of the car, cut off your slauson, get back in the car.") And of course, this being Stupid iPhone Tricks, we owe a large debt to Stupid Pet Tricks. Please, I beg you--no wagering.
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DENVER (Billboard) - If a ringback tone launches on a network and nobody hears it, did it ever really exist?

Samsung Electronics has unveiled its first cell phone to support faster upload speeds using HSUPA (high-speed uplink packet access) technololgy.
The SCH-M470 is a slider-type handset that can send data at up to 2M bps (bits per second) when on an HSUPA network.
Conventional WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) offers upload and download speeds of around 384k bps but cellular carriers are now deploying new technology to enable faster data transmission. The first enhancements to be added target the download rate, which is now 3.6M bps or 7.2M bps on some networks, using a technology called HSDPA, and now increasing the upload speed with HSUPA.
For consumers this adds up to less time spent waiting for pictures, video or music attachments on messages to be sent. As an example Samsung said using HSUPA means it takes just 30 seconds to send an average MP3 song file.
The Samsung phone also features WiFi, Bluetooth and a 2 megapixel camera. It is available in South Korea only and costs about 600,000 won (US$615).

What's the Future of Mobile Music?

DENVER (Billboard) - If a ringback tone launches on a network and nobody hears it, did it ever really exist?
With the exception of ringtones, no single mobile music application has yet to score an obvious home run with mobile users, even though the number of mobile music products has exploded in recent years.
And while there's been much discussion about how ease of use, need for innovation, pricing and so on contribute to the problem, one of the overlooked issues is that of marketing. Talk to any mobile industry executive or major-label representative, and they'll tell you all about how excited they are over ringback tones, mobile video, full-song downloads and such. But ask them to take out their checkbook and pay for some advertising around these services and you'll soon be facing empty air.
Mobile music is the bastard child of mobile and music industry parents, and neither wants to take full responsibility. Both want to make money on mobile music, but both want the other to pay for advertising and marketing needed to generate consumer interest.
Each has its own "legitimate" child that dominates their attention. Both industries make far more money on other products and as such direct their marketing dollars there.
The wireless industry, for instance, is overwhelmingly dominated by voice minutes. Take a look at your mobile phone bill. Unless you're a teenage text-message fanatic, the bulk of that bill is covering your talk time, not for content and services.
CTIA-The Wireless Assn. revealed at its annual conference earlier this month that what it calls "data revenue" now makes up 17% of carrier revenue. That's an impressive 53% increase over the year before. But data revenue to a wireless operator is any cash earned from something other than voice minutes. That includes text messages, corporate e-mail applications, photo messaging, etc. According to data from research firm M:Metrics, only about 15% of mobile users even buy ringtones, and far less buy full songs, ringback tones and other products.
Record labels to a degree are in the same boat. This is an industry built on selling records, and as such its marketing core competencies are based on promoting new music and selling albums, not educating fans on a new technology. Digital music revenue in total contributes roughly 30% to labels' overall revenue pie. Mobile makes up about half that total, with ringtones making up about 75% of the mobile figure. So at best, all other mobile music applications combined contribute maybe 3% to a label's bottom line.
Spending more on marketing may bump these figures for both industries, but how much can you justify spending on such a niche product?
The argument could be made that mobile music is more important for the music industry -- which desperately needs new revenue channels -- than it is to the wireless industry -- which is making loads of cash of voice minutes. And therefore, the music industry should shoulder the brunt of the marketing effort.
But wireless operators don't make it easy to do so. Take ringback tones. With ringtone sales sliding, ringback tones have been pegged by the music and mobile industries as the next growth area.
First, there's pricing. A ringback tone costs about $2 a pop, of which the label gets a cut. But operators charge an additional $1 per month to maintain the service, of which labels don't see a cent. Why, labels argue, should they spend their dwindling revenue marketing a service in which they don't share in all the proceeds?
Then there's branding challenges. Each operator calls its ringback tones service something different -- AT&T has Answer Tones, T-Mobile uses CallerTunes, and Sprint likes CallTones. Only Verizon Wireless simply calls them Ringback Tones. The same situation occurred with master ringtones (TrueTones, RealTones, etc.), but labels could simply refer to them using the familiar "ringtone" moniker. Ringback tones take longer to explain.
Finally, ringback tones are a network service, not a device download like ringtones and games. Because ringback tones operate within the network, only the network provider can sell them. That means labels can't work with third-party content providers like Thumbplay or Jamster to market and sell them, nor can labels sell them from artists' Web sites directly, like they do with ringtones.
"Everybody calls it something different, and the only way to get it is on the deck," RCA Records director of mobile marketing Sean Rosenberg says. "How do we message this to our fans?"
Fortunately, ringbacks are a viral application that in a way market themselves. Call a friend with one and you immediately get the idea. Other mobile music services aren't so lucky. For them to thrive in a digital entertainment market growing increasingly more competitive, mommy and daddy are going to have to start providing a bit more nurturing to their neglected love child.

Vista Security Is Annoying by Design

If you're running Windows Vista, you're familiar with User Access Control (UAC). It's the security subsystem that pops up those irritating dialog boxes asking whether you really want to install software, or modify system files, or write to the Registry.
UAC may be Vista's most-hated feature, but as it turns out, it may also be its best-designed. As reported by Ars Technica, UAC was created with a very specific purpose in mind: to annoy you.
Ars picked up this tidbit at the recent RSA 2008 security conference in San Francisco, where David Cross, Microsoft's product unit manager for Windows security, discussed the company's security directions post-Vista. "The reason we put UAC into the platform was to annoy users. I'm serious," Cross is quoted as saying.
More cynical observers will note that this is a longstanding Microsoft business strategy. But in this case, believe it or not, it actually makes some sense.
Before Vista, most Windows users did their day-to-day computing with full Administrator access to their PCs. This gave them -- and by extension, the software they used -- total control over the system, including the ability to modify critical system files.
That degree of freedom grants a lot of power, but it leads to unpleasant side effects. Most importantly, when you're logged in as an Administrator, any Trojan horses, viruses, or other malware you unwittingly download will have free reign to attack your system with impunity.
Vista attempts to correct this legacy of bad behavior by only granting Administrator privileges to applications in situations where it's absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, developers have been spoiled by the old-style security model. Too often, they write their software in such a way that it actually requires Administrator privileges, even if there might be another (albeit more complicated) way to do the same work.
That's where UAC comes in. When a program tries to gain Administrator privilege, UAC pops up a dialog box, forcing the user to click a button. As Cross pointed out, that's annoying, and intentionally so. The idea is that users will shy away from programs that cause too many UAC dialogs to pop up, out of sheer irritation. If developers don't want to scare users away from their software, they're forced to rewrite it so that it plays nice under the new security rules.
Microsoft is onto a whole new paradigm here: modifying user behavior via reverse psychology. By making users click "OK" in a bunch of security dialogs, Microsoft is actually discouraging them from continuing.
Of course, so far this strategy has only met with limited success. Many users have preferred to disable UAC, rather than participate in Microsoft's social-engineering experiment. But isn't it nice to know that the good folks in Redmond are thinking outside the box?

iPhone Has Hurt Palm, BlackBerry

Palm's facing deep challenges to compete with Apple's iPhone, while Research In Motion's BlackBerry also seems set to lose market share to the device, at least in the consumer market, an analyst reports.
Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf has commenced coverage of Palm and RIM, and notes both companies face challenges as iPhone wins hearts and minds in the consumer and enterprise markets.
Palm faces the deepest challenge. Wolf warns the company has "lost its way". The lack of a new OS release in five years means the company is increasingly reliant on in-development products to regain its lost market lead.
"Neither is likely to be introduced until late in the year. Even then, it's an open question whether they'll be successful. We're initiating coverage with an under perform rating," Needham & Co. said.
Wolf also believes that Apple's iPhone may take market share from both competing firms once it introduces new enterprise-friendly features in June. RIM will see some impact in its core enterprise markets, while the expected diversity of third-party iPhone applications will hammer Palm's place in the consumer market.
"We believe BlackBerry's supercharged growth in this [consumer] market could slow materially when far more versatile applications developed for the iPhone begin to appear in the second half of the year," Wolf warned.
The analyst does note that this triptych of smartphone developers still hold a great lead on most competitors, because other firms (such as Motorola or Samsung) are tied to Microsoft's Windows Mobile system, which Needham & Co. calls "a non-starter in the consumer world".
The introduction of Google's Android platform for mobile phones may change the game once again, the analyst said, as it will offer a more extendible base OS than Windows Mobile to competing firms.
Despite it all, Wolf notes that Apple changed the smartphone industry when it chose to launch iPhone, describing the market as "totally disrupted" by the product's introduction.
"The iPhone is a game changer, weaving together a wide array of computer-like functions," he explained. "Given the choice between a BlackBerry and iPhone, we believe a material percentage of consumers will opt for the iPhone once exciting applications for the phone begin to proliferate in the second half of the year. BlackBerry sales should continue to grow but at a materially slower rate than they would have in the absence of the iPhone."
Research In Motion's market leadership is based entirely on the incompetence of the competition, the analyst also said: "RIM's competitors until quite recently were simply inept. Their failure stemmed less from their ability to design sleek phones than in their choice of an operating system on which to run them," he explained.
The analyst rates Palm shares as under-perform, while RIM takes a hold rating pending the effects of June's release of iPhone Software 2.0.

HybridShell, VideoShell Cases for IPhone Debut

Digital Lifestyle Outfitters (DLO) has introduced two new cases for the iPhone -- the HybridShell and the VideoShell. They're available for US$24.99 and $19.99, respectively.
The HybridShell combines a clear polycarbonate front with a textured, silicone back, making it easy to grip. The clear back features raised, black rubber "dots." All iPhone controls remain accessible, and DLO includes a "Surface Shield" to protect the iPhone display from smudges and scratches.
The VideoShell integrates a kickstand so you can use the iPhone to watch videos or other content from any flat surface. It provides you with access to the headphone port, hold switch, side controls and dock connector. It also includes a Surface Shield.

5 Gadgets That Make You Seem Artistic

You may have never been trained as a painter or musician, but today's tech tools make faking it easy. Here's our favorite gear for the creatively minded.Part 1 of a special five-part series. -->
Emru Townsend, PC World


"Everyone is an artist." Those are the words of the controversial German artist Joseph Beuys, and I happen to agree with him.
The statement is especially true in our modern age of techno toys. With off-the-shelf hardware and software breaking the world down into so many ones and zeroes, it's getting a lot easier to experiment with things that used to be expensive or time-consuming (digital photography eliminates the money and time required for film and processing, for instance), or to unleash brand-new creative ideas (hello, Pikapika).
If you're itching to create sublime, meaningful works of art--or at least something with a good beat you can dance to--consider the following five gadgets. Oh, and one disclaimer: Remember that no tool automatically makes you a good artist. Don't blame me if none of these items get you into MoMA.
1. Wanna See My Etchings?

It's been said that everyone has a few thousand bad drawings in them, and that the key to becoming a good artist is to get those out of your system as fast as possible.
I know from first-hand experience that working through all that awful art can make your house a fire hazard--and while paper is cheap, buying a steady supply of pens, pencils, paints, and other materials quickly adds up. Wacom's graphic tablets handily eliminate both problems.
Wacom tablets range from the budget-friendly Bamboo series (starting at $79) to the more checkbook-breaking but drool-inducing Cintiq line (which tops out at $2499).
They all operate on the same basic principle: Drawing with a stylus on the tablet translates directly to your pointer's movements on the screen, providing the most natural way to draw on a computer. (How natural? There's a working eraser on the end of the stylus that functions just the way you'd expect.) The stylus is pressure-sensitive, which can lead to thicker or thinner lines as you press down--or it can do whatever you customize it to do, depending on your software.
2. Move It Like Wallace and Gromit

Stop-motion animation is the art of animating using real-world objects instead of drawings. People often refer to it as claymation, but as fans of Robot Chicken and Oedipus the Movie know, anything and everything can be fair game for stop motion, from your collection of Smurfs to fresh produce.
The principle is easy: Take a picture of something, move it a little, take another picture, repeat. Play the still frames back, and your object comes to life. (Just for fun, you can use people instead of objects--the technique is called pixillation--as in the film Neighbours.)
That's the idea, anyway. If you're just starting out (or if you're doing ambitious Taras Bulba-like scenes), you quickly discover how hard it is to keep track of exactly how you moved something in the previous frame.
Nikon to the rescue: Many of the company's budget-friendly Coolpix digital cameras, as well as its feature-laden (but pricier, at $749 with lens) D60 digital SLR, have a little-heralded stop-motion feature. Once activated, the camera overlays faint versions of the previous images on your LCD preview, allowing you to line up your next shot accurately.
Once you're done shooting your masterpiece, the camera will automatically assemble the images into a QuickTime file, but if you prefer more control over editing your shots, you can use the $29 QuickTime Pro for the task.