How To Use Whoami To See Account Information

Windows Vista has a cool new commandline tool called Whoami that shows plenty of information about the currently logged on user, including the account name, a list of group memberships, and much more as well. At any command line, type whoami, and you’ll be shown the name of the loggedon user. Type whoami/all to see a wide variety of information, including a list of groups to which the account is a member, user privileges, and much more. For a list of all parameters, type whoami /?.

The Cisco Learning Network

Three days ago learned about and visited The Cisco Learning Center website and registered an account because I know that by joining the community I would have a better chance at a Cisco certification. In this community one has a lot of chance to glean the needed knowledge in order to get the coveted Cisco certification. What with the IT professionals sharing knowledge and gaining from each other. In the community's Learning Center one is faced with a virtual library of information for extended technology and business knowledge. This virtual library is actually a repository of IT knowledge that provides a complete arsenal needed for certification know-how. The possible certification that one could have could come from good knowledge gained about advanced routing and switching, data center switching network infrastructure, data center storage networking, VPN and security and wireless LAN.

As a part of this community the IT professional will have lots of connections. Many connection could mean more knowledge to gain and more opportunities for progress in one's field. A member could explore, engage, and enjoy the benefits of being part of a thriving social learning network.

As the global demand is growing for IT professionals at all levels, the need for a community that could help the IT professional is really needed. I could see that The Cisco Learning Center is here at the right time for all of those who need to get empowered now in thie field. I want to improve my self on this field that is why I have grabbed all opportunities that could help me along the way. This community is a big help.

How to Mount your Zune as a Hard Drive

You know that by default you can't use your Zune as a hard drive because Microsoft meant it only to be used via its built-in sync. But the rule breaker in you knows that there is a hack around it, you just don't know how because if you do you won't be wasting you time reading this. Probably you know that the key to the hack is buried deep within the registry. Yes, with a tweak in the registry you would be able to treat the Zune like it’s just another hard drive in your PC, and you'd be able to drag and drop files between it and your PC. To do the hack, launch your Registry Editor and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ControlSet001\Enum\USB.Right-click on the USB folder, and select Find. Search for PortableDeviceNameSpace. Change the EnableLegacySupport DWORD value from 0 to 1, and click OK. Change the PortableDeviceNameSpaceExcludeFromShell DWORD from 1 to 0, and click OK. Change the ShowInShell DWORD value from 0 to 1, and click OK. Exit the Registry, and attach your Zune to your PC. In Windows, double-click the Zune icon, and then double-click the storage inside it.You’ll see various folders, such as those that store your Albums, Music, Pictures, Playlists, Video, and so on. Even though you can see the Zune’s hard drive, you can’t yet copy fi les to and from it. You’ll only be able to do that when the Zune lowers its built-in protection. The Zune lowers its protection whenever it performs a synchronization. So, synchronize a large fi le that takes a long time to transfer, such as a video fi le. While the fi le is transferring, you can copy fi les between your PC and the Zune using Windows Explorer.

Here Come the Dungeon Runners

I could not help but associate dungeons and dragons with neo-classical rock. I think of Yngwie Malmsteen and how his music moves like the way the characters in MMORPG's . But with Dungeon Runners we are in for a new treat. What with hip hop gnomes complete with the gangsta attitude? Dungeon Runners is a Free Fantasy MMORPG where you could explore a 3D fantasy world of dungeons and monsters and exciting battles with incredible weapons. You can choose to be a Fighter, a Mage, or a Ranger. Discover new skills along the way as you journey deep into the mysteries of the dungeon. You can fight as a pack, alone or with a team of online friends. But what gives this game a different twist is the Bling Gnome which is some sort of a helper gnome that follows your character around and pick up all the gold dropped on the groundto makethings easier for your character. The Bling Gnome can even be asked to pick up other items (anything that’s not rainbow-colored or purple) and convert it to gold. This game glued me to the computers for quiet a time, it is addicting.



To celebrate the release of Dungeon Runners NCSoft is giving a "Pimp Your Gnome" contest where anyone can have a shot at a copy of the game and a $350 Best Buy Gift Card. All you need to do if you want to join the contest is to dress your own store bought gnome with materials to bling him out or, if you have the performance artist in you, you can dress yourself up as a bling gnome. Have pictures taken of your pimp daddy bling gnome from at least two side. (Extra points will be added if you post pictures with people admiring the gnome in a public place like a mall Select pictures will make it onto BlingGnome.com.) After this go to dungeonrunners.com and download the free game. Put an entry of about 200 words in your blog about a Bling Gnome and the free game and be sure to include links to BlingGnome.com for others to learn about it.

Resize Your Desktop Icons in Windows Vista the Quick Way

Don't you know that you can resize Vista’s desktop icons by right-clicking the desktop and selecting Personalize > Adjust font size, then choosing either the default size (96 dpi) or a larger size (such as 120 dpi). If you then click Custom DPI, you can choose from a much larger range by selecting a percentage from the drop-down list. There’s an even faster way to resize your desktop icons. Click the desktop, hold down the Control key, and use your mouse’s scroll wheel to resize your icons by making them smaller (move the scroll wheel towards you) or larger (move the scroll wheel away from you).

Believe in Magic

The key to success is the ability to reinvent. Criss Angel and Cirque Du Soleil are among the few who know how to reinvent their craft. Like Harry Houdini, Criss Angel reinvented magic and has changed our way of seeing this art form. But unlike Houdini, Criss Angel has taken his art to a higher level. Houdini paved the way for modern magic, Criss Angel has taken magic's way to another world -- a surreal world floating in mysticism and illusion. What happens when Criss Angel performs with the legendary entertainment empire Cirque Du Soleil? A show that could blow all your disbelief away.

CRISS ANGEL Believe at Luxor Hotel and Casino will take you into a journey into the labyrinth of Criss Angel's mind and Cirque Du Soleil's magnificence. This show is Angel's homage to legendary magician and escape artist, Harry Houdin. Criss Angel's illusions include levitations, walking on water, causing a Lamborghini to disappear, floating between two buildings,cutting himself in half in full view of an audience and getting run over by a steamroller while lying stomach down on a bed of glass. CRISS ANGEL Believe will be a visual feast that would play with the audience's mood, reverie, and emotions. Cirque Du Soleil is perfect for setting the theatrical tableau on which the show will shine. Preview performances on September 1 through 11 will give fans a glimpse of what is to come. For those who would like to have free tickets to the show there is a current Text Message contest that could land 2 tickets in your hand. Just text 'Believe' to 22122 and who knows you'd be one of those lucky enough to be part of the audience.

A Faster Way to Shrink Video Files

To be able to watch your favorite videos in media players like iPod, Sony PSP, Zune, mobile phones and many others, you need to shrink them into a size that's small enough for the above mentioned media players to handle. There are a many ways you can do this, but the fastest and I think the best way is with Instant Video To-Go. This little thing of magic looks like a USB flash drive, and shrinks files much faster than software alone can do. Using the hardware/software combo, you can speed up the time it takes to compress the video by about 15 times. By the company’s estimates, a 100- minute two-gigabyte video in the MPEG2 format that would take around five hours to shrink down with software alone takes only 20 minutes to be transformed into the high-quality H.264 MPEG4 video used bymany portables.

Learning To Connect The World

In a world that relies on computers for almost everything, the obvious path to take is the one that leads to an IT career. Everyone knows this, that is why advancing in this field takes a lot from one's competitiveness. For a kid who grew up in the years between the late 70's and early 80's I did not see this coming so the career path I chose when I was in college was not something that led to the IT world. After college it slowly dawned on me that it should have been IT or nothing because the world is rolling towards IT with the speed of light and there's no way of stopping it.

Though my field of specialization is not related to computers, computers come my way often that I learned to love it. I did not notice that I began to pour hours and hours of my spare time learning how to make computers bend according to my will. I accumulated books and CD's that I patiently read and followed. I spent a lot of time in forums where most of the members are IT professionals, I learned their language, I learned what to learn, I learned how to learn, and I learned where to look for answers to most of my questions. It was a journey that counted years and I am still counting. Then came to a point where the IT guys in the forums where I frequent see me as an IT guy and real IT guys often PM me for answers to some of their questions. In the
workplace, some people think that I am an IT guy so every time they have trouble with their PC they go to me for help. I even got a shot at teaching (part-time) IT related subjects in one of the schools here whose name is synonymous with IT education in the Philippines. There I got the chance to mix with real IT Professionals and learn a lot first hand. There I saw how wide a field of opportunities could open for me in the IT world.

But I am not really an IT guy because I do not have any certification to show that I am legally IT. Now I am thinking of pushing it further by earning a Cisco certification. If I earn a Cisco certification more opportunities will open for me. Now I am preparing for a shot at a certification so I am again on the lookout for anything that would be of help for this endeavor. I have just signed up with The Cisco Learning Network. This is a community where IT professionals could share ideas and expand knowledge and get connected with different people in the IT world. I believe that by joining this community I would be able to enhance and advance my skills that would lead to better opportunities in the future. It is not just by browsing technical content in this community that I gain a lot, it is also through getting to connect with people and share insights, opinions, and knowledge with the community.

How to Run Incompatible programs in Windows Vista

One thing that makes Vista unlikable is that many programs, especially older ones, won't run on it. When I first tried to run Anim8or on Vista the little program refused to run. But I was able to run it after doing this : I right-clicked the program’s executable file and selected Properties. I clicked the Compatibility tab, and select Run This Program in Compatibility Mode (see image below) . From the drop-down list that appeared, I chose the operating system I used before upgrading to Vista. On other programs it is best to choose the operating system on which the program was designed to run. I then selected the option to run Anim8or as an administrator. I clicked OK, and the program now runs correctly now.

Import Real-Time Data from the Web with Excel 2007

Excel 2007's ability to import, automatically update, and refresh (live) any data from the Web is one of its coolest features. This is made possible by Web Queries. Web Queries are links that auto-update as the data they grab from the web changes. Excel 2007 takes advantage of this but this works only if the data is in a table on the web. If the data is not in a table it will not work. Here is how to do the trick :

Create a worksheet and select the cell on which you would like the data to appear. Click the data tab and from the External Data group click "From web"(See the image below) to make the Web Query dialog box appear.


Copy the URL of the page that contains the data you would like to import into your worksheet, paste it on the Address box and click "Go". The page will be loaded into the dialog box and every table on the page will have a small yellow arrow next to it. Hold your arrow over any table, and the arrow turns green, and you’ll see all the data that you can import if you select that table. Click the arrows of the table or tables whose data you want to import. The arrows will turn green.You may choose to retain the formatting of the data from the web page by clicking options button and selecting Rich Text Formatting Only. If you select Full HTML Formatting option, all the table properties will be preserved.Do not click the Options button if you do not want any formatting to happen.Click the Import button. You may select a new location in your worksheet to place the data from the Import Data dialog box that appears, or you may keep the currently selected location. Next click the OK button. After a few seconds the data will be imported into your worksheet.To have Excel automatically update the data, put your cursor inside the table you want to update, select Properties from the Connections group on the Data tab, and from the form that appears check the box next to “Refresh every…” Then select how often you want the data updated and click OK. The data will now be updated on the schedule you set.

If you import multiple tables into a single worksheet, there’s a simple way to set how often you want to update each table without having to click each one to customize it. On the Data tab, click Connections in the Connections group. The Workbook Connections dialog box appears, and lists every imported table on the page. Highlight any, click Properties, and you’ll come to the dialog box pictured in Figure 9-13. From here, you can customize how frequently the table should be updated.

Windows XP to be Kept Alive Through at least 2014

Yes Windows XP sales may finally be phased out by Microsoft but the company will be offering support for the OS through 2014.June 30 is the last day for the OS but people can still buy PC's running the OS or for those who do not want Vista, they could just ask the computer maker to downgrade the machine's OS to XP. Microsoft is also making an exception to the no-sales-beyond-June 30th rule for some low-cost, low-power devices like the Asus Eee PC. The fact that Windows Vista adoption is very slow, Microsoft naturally needs to offer extended support for an operating system that was first released in 2001.

Use Video Clips as Wallpaper in Windows XP

With Windows DreamScene, Windows Vista Ultimate users could have videos and other optimized animations to be used as their desktop wallpapers. But Windows XP users should not be left behind because with the help of a free software they could have their favorite video clip on your desktops too. VideoLAN, the cross-platform media player and streaming server that is highly portable and could play various audio and video formats has another trick in it bags that most of you do not know about. Play on VideoLAN the video you want to display as your desktop wallpaper, right-click while it’s playing, and select Wallpaper from the menu that appears. You can also create a playlist with multiple video clips and then configure VideoLAN to loop your selections by clicking Tools, Preferences, Playlist, and checking Repeat All.

Auslogics Disk Defrag

One of Windows Vista's weaknesses is its lousy defragmentation application. It is the slowest in town. It takes centuries for this application to finish its job (and I haven't seen it finish one because I usually lose patience and stop it). Thanks to Auslogics Disk Defrag a free application that was designed to remedy system sluggishness and crashes caused by disk fragmentation. This little app is very simple to use and works faster than most disk defragmentation software that are for sale. This works fine with Windows Vista and XP.

Microsoft Hopes Price Cuts will Lead to Better Sales of Vista

Microsoft is cutting down the prices of Windows Vista. Why? Because it falls short of Microsoft’s expectations? Or because the media has successfully destroyed it. Anyway, whatever is the reason for the price cuts it is worth knowing that in the United States, the price of the full version of Windows Vista Ultimate will drop from $399 to $319, while the “upgrade” version of Ultimate will drop from $259 to $219; the price for the upgrade version of Vista Home Premium will be reduced to $129 from $159.

By the way, I am using Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit at home and Windows XP Professional in the office. I have learned to like Vista. I have learned to work around its flaws and enjoy its strengths.

Citzenship For Sale? (Non-U.S. Viewpoint)

What if the United States began charging for the legal right to immigrate? Nobel Laureate Gary Becker (University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business) came up with the idea. Becker's not trying to eject illegal workers; in fact, he said, they could pay to stay. The idea is to upend the existing black market that exacts a high price for illegal immigrants -- some who pay with their lives.

Track website traffic with Google Trends

When it comes to web services that track web site traffic we think of Alexa. But we know that Alexa and other like services could not really give us accurate statistics because they just compile third party data instead of looking at your actual server data. Now Google has enters the game with Google Trends.Google gets its stats from a combination of sources like search traffic, anonymous Google Analytics figures, and other third party marketing data. This is not to say that Google Trends can give more accurate stats than Alexa and other services but at least we have another point for comparison to get us nearer to what is accurate.

Firefox 3 Vulnerability

Tipping Point DVLabs has announced a vunerability in Firefox 3. The 8 million people who downloaded the browser last three days and the millions more who will be downloading it in the next few days must be aware that the severity of the vulnerability is "High" (this is according to Zero Day). Details of about this vulnerability is still unknown but what is sure is that it works when a user clicks an infected link from a site with the malicious code. This also affects version 2 of Firefox. Mozilla has acknowledge this security issue, a patch for this is expected to be released shortly.

Despite this security issue, Firefox would still be my main browser. Users must just have to be careful about what and where they click. Setting Firefox to auto update will also help a lot.

How Control Another Windows XP PC with Remote Access

Using Windows XP's built-in features, controlling another PC over the internet is quiet easy to do. You can virtually move a remote PC's mouse or type on its keyboard or run programs without physically touching it. You can give commands to it and view what is on its screen. This is possible with Windows XP (and Windows Vista, which is what we will be talking about in my next post) because of a feature called Remote Desktop.

The computer you will control is the remote server, the computer that you will use to control the remote server is the remote client. Windows XP Professional is equipped with a remote server that works with one client at a time. This means that one computer can control your computer remotely, or your computer can control another computer remotely. Of course we would like to have the latter, we want to control another computer remotely.

This hack works only with Windows XP Professional because XP Home Edition can't act as a remote server. If you need to remotely control a PC running XP Home Edition you may use some third party software.

This is the situation: you want to control your computer at home while you are at the office, how are you going to do it? The first step is to set up your home computer as a remote server. Log in to it as administrator, go to Control Panel then double click System. In the dialog box that pops up choose the Remote tab and check the “Allow users to connect remotely to this computer” and click Select Remote Users if you want to control which user accounts can be used by remote clients.

Remote access connections are usually refused by firewalls so you need to open a port in your computer's firewall and also in your router. Remote Desktop uses port 3389. If you are using Windows XP's built-in firewall, go to Control Panel and double click the Security Center icon. In the box that appears click Windows Firewall and in the the Windows Firewall dialog box choose the Advanced tab to get to the Advanced Settings dialog box. In the Network Connection Settings section, click Settings and in the dialog box that appears click the Remote Desktop checkbox as shown in the image below. When you connect from your remote client you need to provide a domain name or IP address. If it’s a PC on your own network, type in the computer name or its local IP address when you use the client. But if you’ll be connecting over the Internet, it’s a little more complicated, because your PC’s IP address changes each time you connect, and the computer doesn’t have a domain name. This can be solved if you sign up for a dynamic DNS service, such as at www.dyndns.com or www.tzo.com. The dynamic DNS service at DynDNS.com gives you a free domain name in the form yourname.dyndns.org (they offer several dozen domain names to which you can add your name). No-IP.com offers a similar service.

When a client connects to your server via Remote Desktop, the user logs into one of the Windows XP user accounts. You can’t log into accounts that have no password. Choose which account you want remote users to log into, and give it a password.

The next step is to configure your home router to so that you can access the PC. To do this you need to configure your home router to forward all traffic from specific ports to the internal IP address of your home server. In short, the router will forward TCP ports 4125 and 443 to the internal IP address of the PC that you want to control.

The next step is to set up XP's remote client software. Connect to the internet then follow this path : Start>All Programs>Accessories>Communications>Remote Desktop Connection. A window will appear like what is shown below.



In the Remote Desktop Connection window, type the domain name or IP address of the server computer, and click Connect. If you want to control a computer over a local network type that computer’s name or if you want to connect over the internet type that computer’s IP address/ hostname.

Log on with the Windows XP user account and password for the remote server. When you make a Remote Desktop Connection, you’re logging onto a remote PC using your account on it. If someone on the PC logs on, your remote connection will be terminated. Your computer screen now shows what’s on the screen of the server computer. A connection bar appears as a button on the screen, showing the IP address of the remote server, along withMinimize, Restore, and Maximize buttons you can use to resize the remote client window. You can remotely connect not only to Windows XP PCs, but Windows Vista PCs as well. Once you’re connected, you can cut and paste information from the remote client window to other windows. You can also use local fi les in your remote session; your local disk drives appear in My Computer (Windows Explorer). When you print from the remote client, the print job goes to your default local printer, not to the printer on the server. To end the connection, close the window in which the connection is being made.

How Private is your Privacy?

Every time you surf the web you expose yourself to snoopy websites that could endanger you privacy. Websites can see your history list, they can sniff and follow your online track like hound dogs and uncover the sites you've been to. They are even capable of knowing your operating system, find out your machine name, and even know what kind of browser you are using. With your IP address they learn about your location and other basic information about you.

There are many techniques used by different websites to gather information but the most common are examining your IP address and placing cookies on your PC. Your personal profile is easier to create by matching your IP address with your cookies.

Are you really curious about how deep websites could stick their nose into your privacy? Then try Privacy.net Analyzer, it will peer into your browser and tell you what it sees, such as your operating system, general system setup, what site you last visited before going to their site, and even your screen resolution. Want something scarier? Try BrowserSpy, it could stick its nose deeper into your system and tell you what software are installed in your computer, including the version of the software.

To keep your privacy you do not need to spend a fortune for it because there is a great free software that can insure that you remain anonymous while you surf the web. This software is Tor. When you use Tor, all your communications, (not just Web surfi ng, but also instant messaging and other applications) is in essence bounced around a giant network of Tor servers called “onion routers,” until it’s impossible for sites or people to be able to track your activities.

Tor is very easy to set up because it configures itself, there is no need for you to dirty your hands with port settings and things that could confuse the average computer user. Just download the package from their site and install. The package contains Tor and another software, Privoxy (a proxy program) which is designed to work in tandem with Tor. After installing Tor you will see its icon in your system tray. Right-click that icon and click Start to start Tor. You can stop the program by right-clicking the icon and choosing Stop. Once Tor has started everything is safe so just use the internet like the way you normally use it. If you are still fearful about being snooped by websites and some talented hacker, you can regularly change your Tor “identity” to make it even harder for anyone to track your travels. Right-click the Tor icon and select “New Identity”. It's as easy as that. If you are a Firefox user like me, you should download Torbutton, this lets you turn Tor on or off within Firefox.

How to Kill Annoying Items on the Internet Explorer Tools Menu

Some toolbars and add-ins have annoying behavior. These addins and toolbars install entries for themselves on the Tools menu that can’t be removed even after you have uninstalled the toolbar or add-in itself. You know about this if you are the kind of computer user who likes trying out things that you find in the internet. The most common example of this is that annoying way PartyPoker.com listing remains on you Tools menu long after you've uninstalled the add-on.

The only way I know to tame these kinds of bad-behaving toolbars and add-ins is through the Registry. After uninstalling the add-on launch the Registry editor. You can use the command prompt or the Start Search box to do this, just type regedit in the box and hit Enter. In the Registry Editor go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Extensions. What you'll see there are some keys named with what appear to be random letters and numbers, enclosed in brackets. Examine each of these key values and look for the name of the add-in whose trace in your toolbar you would like to get rid of. You will also see here the location of the file and other related information. When you find the offending key, highlight it, and click Delete to remove it from the Registry. Make sure to delete the entire key and not individual strings and values. Exit the Registry editor and restart your computer.

Risk-free Desktop Memory Upgrade

When we think about upgrading computer, we think about how much it is going to cost us, whether it's cost-effective or not. We measure cost-effectiveness in two ways. Some would think buying a whole new computer is cost-effective while others would think that upgrading only parts of the computer is more practical. I belong to the latter group, I see cost-effectiveness in upgrading parts.

The average computer user sees that adding computer RAM is the obvious route to upgrading. Adding Computer RAM is easy but many computer users are daunted by the idea of replacing or adding memory modules. They are afraid that adding memory can lead to problems especially if the wrong kind of RAM or size of memory module is used. Going to just any computer parts store sounds a gamble for many computer users because most if not all computer retailers will just recommend compatible memory upgrades if the same exact memory as that originally installed in your computer is not available in their store. What if you would like to double your DDR PC2700 Memory and the computer parts store you are in just recommends something that ostensibly would work compatibly with it, would you gamble on it? Of course the adventurous ones would think it's worth giving a try but if you mean business you will demand for the same exact memory that you would like to have. A friend of mine wants to add IMAC memory to her Apple iMac but most of the retailers she found could just give her something that is "compatible" with what she has. She did not take the risk of trying out the compatible but not exact memory.

We need a service that eliminates the potential risks of memory upgrades by insuring that what we purchase and use are the same exact memory as what is originally installed in our machine. The wise computer user knows that factory original memory upgrades is the only way to insure optimal computer performance. To help my friend add memory to her iMac I searched the net and I found an online store that provides customers the exact same RAM modules computer OEMs install at the factory. I hope she has checked it out already because this online store provides genuine factory original memory modules.

SocialSpark is Live!

Yes, SocialSpark has finally gone live! I joined the community last month and now I have around 50 friends. Though I have been active in online communities for many years now, I am somewhat new to this kind of thing. The way the community makes it possible for a certain degree of intimate connection between bloggers and advertisers is something that is so newand exciting. This is a social network where everything is transparent, bloggers and advertisers could deal directly with each other, everything is laid on the table for everyone to see. The community is alive with activities where every member could take part. Members come from different walks of life so when you join you could expect to learn a lot from different people. Here is an example profile. You will see in it that Felicity joined the community last June 14 and now she has 114 friends and 77 props. What is a prop? It is something that you can give a member or an advertiser which would help prop up a profile owner's reputation. It can also be given to blogs and opportunities. So you see that the number of props one receives could equate to the kind of reputation one has in the community.

This post is sponsored by SocialSpark but I need to write about some things that remind us that nothing is perfect. The idea behind the site is really good but the dynamic pricing could mean stiff competition among members. Members who are new in this kind of thing must learn fast or they will never be able to compete with others. It is almost as soon an opportunity comes out that all slots for it are taken, members are so quick that I would always end up requesting for a slot to be opened for me or wait in queue. So far I have only taken one opportunity and that opportunity is always open for everyone, it's about Socialspark itself. Probably I am just quiet slow in watching for and taking opportunities. I see some members who could boast about at least an opp or two a week. How I wish I could be like them in the coming days :)

Grand Theft Childhood : Video Games Don't Breed Killers

A husband and wife team from Harvard released a book last April that attempts to erase some years old concerns about violent video games' effect on the psyche of children. The book "Grand theft Childhood : The Surprising Truth About Video Games and What Parents cans Do" was the result of a two years study conducted by Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson. The dou claimed to have spent two years with more than 1,200 junior high-aged students actually, uhm, talking to them. Their study also found that M-rated games are also popular with girls. The actually is trying to say that there is no data to support the simple-minded concerns that video games cause violence. But one gets to doubt the book when one knows that Grand Theft Auto IV was released shortly after the book was released.

Make History with Firefox Today

Be part of history. Be part of a world record. Today is Download Day. To become part of the official Guinness World Record you must download Firefox 3 by 17:00 UTC on June 18, 2008.

YouTube Videos for Toddlers

Yes, you've read it right and I've typed it correctly, YouTube videos for toddlers or “those between the ages of 6 months and 6 years.” Totlol is a brand new community-moderated video website that is still in its early testing phases. If you are a mommy or a daddy who wants your toddler to start early with computers and internet probably it would be nice to check this site out. Totlol’s About page says : “Online video is a great new experience, and new parents discovered that showing their tots videos on the computer screen is a great way to spend time together. So they head to the leading video websites.” Used in moderation this site could be a great way to recover some sanity.

When You Search, Don’t Log into Google

Google is the best and most powerful search engine in the world. I love Google and its entire ecosystem of services like Gmail, Blogger, and its online office software. But I never use Google to search after I have logged on to it. Why? Because if you log into Google before you search, you make it easy for it to build a comprehensive profile about you because it knows your identity as you search. But of course it is difficult to not use Google to search. And it is also not easy not to log into it. The solution is to use two browsers. I use Opera to log into my Gmail account and this Blogger account. I use Firefox to search and do other stuff. In this way it would be harder for the search engine to correlate my identity with my searches. But some people find it too cumbersome to use two different browsers at the same time so another solution is to set up different profiles in the same browser- one is for using Gmail and the other is for doing actual searches. You need to have two instances of the browser (one for each profile) so that Google won’t be able to correlate your searches with your identity. This is not for IE users because IE does not support this stunt. Use Firefox to do this. To do this open command prompt and navigate to the directory in which Firefox is installed. Type firefox.exe -ProfileManager, and press Enter. The Profi le Manager will appear. Click Create Profile and follow the wizard to create your profi le. Create as many profiles as you like and then use different profiles for searching and for using mail and other search engine services.

To run separate instances of Firefox use this command : firefox.exe -no-remote -P profilename
You may use any name for the "profilename" after the P, for example : firefox.exe -no-remote -P pastilan or firefox.exe -no-remote -P ninja.

How to Instantly Compress Files You Send via Email

Many of us have encountered this problem ; you want to send a large file or a group of files via e-mail but your ISP or corporate e-mail system or the recipient's email system won't cooperate. The solution in sight is obviously the use of a compression tool before sending the files via email as attachment. But most average users find this a tiring process: first finding the files, then zipping them, then opening Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Mail, then sending the attachment. It takes alot of precious time. But don't you know thatthere’s a way to zip them in a single stop, right from within Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Mail, or your email program. This hack works in Windows XP as well as Windows Vista. Open your mail and type your message as you would normally do. Click the "Attachment" icon then highlight all the files you want to send. Right-click the group of files you've highlighted. In case you are sending a single file only, just right-click on that single file. From the drop down menu that appears choose "Send To→Compressed (zipped) Folder".The files will be zipped, and the ZIP file will be given the name of the fi rst file in the group. You may rename the zip file if you want. Click insert. You're done.

How To Automatically Build Any Vista Gadget from the Web

Have you come across a widget or gadget from the web that you would like to run in your Windows Vista sidebar but you do not know how to do it? The internet is replete with thousands of widgets and gadgets from sites like Google and Yahoo. These gadgets are built in many different ways that is why it is quiet hard for an average computer user to make these things run on operating systems as deep and mysterious as Windows Vista. But here's a little hack that would make it possible for you to run on your Vista that cute little gadget you've stumbled upon yesterday from some site. The first step is to download and install a free app, Amnesty Generator. This cool software will enable you to take gadgets and widgets you find on the Web and transforms them so that they would run as Windows Vista gadgets, right on your Sidebar. When you run the app you will be prompted to choose a web site whose gadgets or widgets you want to browse. When you have chosen a site, say for example Google Gadget site , it will open in your browser. Find a gadget you want to transform, then click Add to Your Web Page. A page will appear with a preview of the gadget, as well as information about it. Next thing to do is click "Get the Code" at the bottom of the page. The code will appear on the page. Copy the code and paste it into Amnesty Generator in the appropriate box then press the TAB key. Here you may change the name of the gadget but do not tamper with the dimensions especially if you are not into the deeper technical side of things because it might not work properly. You then proceed to choose an image of your liking to use as the display of the gadget on your sidebar. To do it just click "Browse" in Amnesty Generator and select the image from your hard drive. When you’re done, click "Generate". The gadget won’t show up yet in the Sidebar because it’s been saved in
the Gadget Gallery. Click the + sign at the top of the Sidebar to open the Gadget Gallery, and you’ll see your new gadget. Cool ha. You can use the gadget in the same way as you can any other. If the gadget you have converted causes problems then uninstall it. Go to the Gadget Gallery, right-click the gadget, and select "Uninstall". Of course not every gadget or widget you like would be converted successfully. There’s no way to know ahead of time which will work and which won’t, so you’ll have to fi nd out by trial and error.

I signed up for PPP!

For some reasons many people are intimidated with writing that is why they shun it. But there are also those who, for some reasons also, see writing as a necessary part of their lives and it comes to them second nature, just like talking or breathing or eating, they need to do it or die. I do not belong to any of the two groups of people I have mentioned above because I am not exactly intimidated by writing but I do not see it as something that is as easy as breathing or eating to do. I see writing as an outlet, a form of recreation that is always there for me whenever I have the need to enjoy it. Writing for me is like playing PC games, it is not easy but i enjoy the process of doing it. Today there are many ways in which one can share one's writing to the world. One of these ways is blogging. I have known about blogging years ago but I did not really see it then as a necessary part of my life that is why i did not start any blog at all. For years I was contented with just reading blog entries here and there that interest me. But early this year I started two blogs and got somewhat addicted to it. A month later I added two more blogs.



I started to blog because of three reasons. First, I saw that it is not really necessary to be a very good writer to be a good blogger. I see many mediocre writers making great blogs, what is important is one's keeness when it comes to knowing what goes in a blog. Second reason, I am envious of some bloggers I know ( and who have become my friends) who are raving about how they earn money because of their blogs. The third reason, I want to put my writing to the test and see if it could fetch me some money on the sides. Of course I study other people's blogs- the layout, the way they choose to topics, where they put the ads, and everything along this line. I got Adsense, AdBrite and some smaller ones invade two of the three columns in three of my Blogs to see if I could earn good money with them. But after three months of blogging I only averaged about $1 a day income from all my four blogs with all the ads in them from four different ads companies. This is not good news so I looked for other better means of monitizing my blogs. I learned about PayPerPost from one of the many blogs I frequent, BerryBlitz's blog. I got quiet excited with the idea of earning money directly from my writing. Earning directly from what I write is quiet different from earning from the traffic that comes into one's blog, it gives the blogger a taste of the kind of fulfillment professional freelance journalists feel every time they sell an article. Isn't it nice for a regular dude like me to get paid because of what I write? Isn't it wonderful to get paid to blog? It is exciting. So I signed up for PayPerPost the day I signed up for SocialSpark. Two weeks and a few days is a long wait but the day I read the email from PayPerPost that my blog was approved finally came. I put some office works aside (I'm boss in my department so nobody's gonna say "hey, on to work and stop blogging") and dived into looking around PayPerPost, you know, the usual necessary stuff like reading FAQ's and rules. Now that my blog is already approved I am into this exciting game of competing with other bloggers in getting opportunities.

Enjoy Collaborative Searching with Microsoft SearchTogether IE7 plugin

I am not an IE user because this browser is a pain as far as I am concerned. Or am i just so used to Firefox's reliability that other browsers look like failures to me. But anyway i know a lot of people who still use IE so this is for them. Microsoft has come up with a new plugin for their IE7, it is called SearchTogether. This plugin lets you share your search history with others and it also provides tools for leaving comments and voting on search listings. You need a Windows Live ID to run SearchTogether but you are not required to use Windows Live Search as your search engine. Any search engine will do, Google, Yahoo, or whatever. But the question is, why would somebody want to share his search history with others? People have varied reasons for doing things, probably Microsoft just wants to make those who have reasons to share their search history happier. As of now I could not think of a reason why I would have the need to share my search history with others so this plugin won't have any use for me.

Sending a Song to a friend? SoundCloud it!

I know that sending music to someone over the net is quiet troublesome for some users. The most common method of sending a song is by e-mail. But this is not always reliable for many of us especially if you would like to send many songs. Have you heard about SoundCloud? Well, this thingy allows you to send and recieve music without much fuzz. You may send tracks to one or 1000 people; any size, any format, super fast and flexible. SoundCloud claims to be "made for the music professionals". Sounds great huh? But there is one sour note here: if you want to sign up you need to have an invitation because SoundCloud wants to "make sure the pro’s have enough time and comfort to try out SoundCloud" they’ve decided to keep the sign-ups closed for the public. Any new users will need get an invite to before joining.

Acrobat 9 Released

Do you want to watch YouTube Videos or play a little Flash game in a PDF file? Well, the newest version of Acrobat will make this possible because Acrobat 9 has support for embedded Flash. You can use Acrobat 9 to create polished PDF files, present multiple documents in a PDF Portfolio, and even add multimedia. And all in a single file.

I Am Happy That I Signed up For Social Spark!

Like every blogger, i see and understand the power of the web. I have been using the internet for many years now and I know that we now have more than a billion people on the Internet, a few hundred million of whom are online at any given moment. I have known about blogs and somewhat understood its power years ago but i never cared to dip my fingers into it. I don't know what took me too long to start blogging. Probably it was because i was so much into forums. Yes i read blogs but i was more into being active in forums (especially share forums). But this year i finally got into starting a blog. I understand that some bloggers now have more traffic and higher search engine rating than media companies that have been around for years. I also understand that people earn through blogging so i got AdBrite and Adsense into my blogs. But after a month of having the ads in my pages I saw that money flowed into my blogs at around $0.76 a day, too slow compared to what i have heard from people bragging about their blogging income. Then I stumbled upon BerryBlog . In this blog i read about SocialSpark and got somewhat interested. So i visited SocialSpark and signed up and forgot about it for about two weeks. Then after being frustrated by the same slow flow of income from the ads in my blogs i remebered SocialSpark and how Berry raved about it in her blog. So i logged into my account in SocialSpark and started exploring the community and began learning. The learning process was pleasing because i made a lot of friends along the way. I also like the community's code of ethics, it spells fairness as far as i am concerned. See this :

-100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure
-100% Transparency
-100% Real Opinions
-100% Search Engine Friendly

Now I am very much part of the community. I like the thrill that comes from having to compete with fellow bloggers in getting the opportunities. The competition is stiff but very friendly. I like it here, I am glad that i stumbled upon Berry's blog and learned about SocialSpark. But most of all I am happy with the knowledge that i would be soon earning some money out of what i love doing--writing. This is the good part, I get paid every time i get to write about something I like writing about.