Windows Vista Product RED free downloads

It's interesting to see that Windows + Dell actually would pay $50 to needy people if you'd spend an extra $150 to buy Windows Ultimate, which pretty much has the same amount of "cool new features" with this new thing called Vista Product (RED). I mean, if you really want to help out, wouldn't you rather just get the normal "Vista Premium" operating system and then just pay the $50 or even $100 (since you'll be saving $150) on your own for the same cause?

By this interesting marketing ploy it seems that the two big companies are actually trying to leverage their profits more than they are trying to help people out. Nonetheless, I think that those who willingly pay their money to such causes, without buying the operating system, especially if they already have a Vista computer, should be entitled to receive the same kinda "cool stuff" to spread the message around. I mean, I'm a big believer in viral marketing/word of mouth and if one person supports something, its quite natural for their friends to also support the same thing. So in a way, having the Product (RED) wallpapers/screensavers around remind you of the bigger problems that need some attention apart from the infinitesimally little problems that you might be experiencing. So, I'm putting some links to the downloads on this blog. Even if you can't pay with money, please keep in mind that you can still help a person out by doing many other things (that are indeed harder to do that just give money) such as volunteering in a soup kitchen and so on.

Windows Vista Product (RED) Wallpapers

You can download Vista Product (RED) the wallpapers from this page.

Windows Vista Product (RED) Screensavers

You can download the Vista Product (RED) screensavers from this page.

Windows Vista Product (RED) DreamScene Content

Please keep in mind that in order to run the DreamScene content on your desktop, you will need DreamScene. And therefore, you'll also need Windows Vista Ultimate. Although you can read my guide here on how to get DreamScene on any Windows Vista computer. But nonetheless, you can still play the .wmv file in your Windows Media player. You can find the Vista Product (RED) dreamscene content on this page.

Windows Vista Product (RED) Sidebar Gadgets

You can download the Vista Product (RED) Sidebar Gadgets on this page.

Again, please, if you do download any of this content, remember the people that need your help and act accordingly.

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Adobe CS3 screensaver for Mac and Windows Download

Ever wanted to know how Steve Jobs felt like when he was on acid? Well, now you can! It's called the Adobe CS3 Screensaver. I call it virtual LSD. No kidding.

Okay, fine, I admit that the screensaver really does look good and I'm sure you'll agree too. It might be a bit abstract for some peoples' tastes, but I seem to like it anyway. You might want to keep in mind that if you computer is slow, it might not run the screensaver as well as a fast computer would. Also, you'll be needing QuickTime (yikes!) to run the screensaver. Quite memory intensive indeed.

So without further ado, here are the download links to the Adobe CS3 wallpaper.

Download the CS3 screensaver for Windows (about 10.1 MB)

Download the CS3 screensaver for the Mac (about 10.6 MB)

Oh and by the way if you are on Windows (if you are on a mac, you most likely won't have to worry about this) and want to use the screensaver, you'll have to first ensure that QuickTime can play flash tracks. Here's how to do that:

1. Click the Start button > QuickTime > QuickTime Player > Edit > Preferences > QuickTime Preferences...
2. Once in the preferences window, go to the 'Advanced' tab
3. Check the box that says 'Enable playback of Adobe Flash tracks'

Now, a couple screenshots to show you what virtual acid looks like (you can click on them to see the bigger version if you wish) :

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Get free MSN messenger Emoticon Smiley Packs

If you tend to use Windows Live Messenger (you might also refer to this by the name MSN messenger, or simply call it MSN), then I'm sure you'd love to add more emoticons to your collection (Psst.. if you don't already have a emoticon collection you can steal emoticons from others when they use custom emoticons). I believe these emoticons used to be paid, but then Microsoft realized that no one was buying them, and finally decided to make them free.

Getting the emoticons itself is pretty straight forward. All you need to do is head over to Free Messenger Emoticons site (notice how the url is .ca - this is because most of the people who use MSN/Live Messenger are Canadian, I think. I'm pretty sure everyone uses AIM in the states). Of course, you need to have the latest version of Windows Live Messenger installed in order to use the emoticons, so if you don't already have it installed then you can download it here. There is also another free way of getting free emoticon packs along with lots of other cool downloads for Windows Live Messengers, which you can find at Kiwee.com. All you need to is go to the emoticon section and download whatever you want!

Once you go to the website, all you need to do is click on the 'Install 30 Messenger Emoticons' button and then download the Emoticons.exe file onto your computer. Once downloaded, simply follow the prompts on the screen to finish installing the smileys.
One word of caution though. As you go through the install process, in the 3rd step, the installer is going to ask you if you want to change your homepage etc. If you don't want to change your homepage, then make sure to uncheck the check boxes.
After you are done installing the smiley pack, you can then use the free smiley pack through the Windows Live Messenger conversation window. Make sure you click on the 'Show all...' link though.
Don't forget, you can also get other smileys from your friends, when your friends use custom emoticons.

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How to find out if someone is stealing your content

Have you ever wondered if someone is stealing all your posts and other content that you've published on the internet? Well, this post is all about finding out if someone is copying and pasting your content word for word. Plagiarism is not a great thing for your website because you might be loosing a lot of visitors and or revenue when someone else who has a higher pagerank/gets more visitors steals your content and posts it on their website. Even worse, someone else might be making money from the content that you worked hard to write and publish.

Here are a couple of tips on how to find the content stealing culprits!

Use Copyscape. Copyscape is a great little tool that auto-magically searches for content similiar to that of your website on other websites. All you need to do is mention the url of the website, after which copyscape will search the web for similar articles.

The only downside to this method is that if someone has rephrased some of the words in the article, copyscape might not be able to find it (you'll have to use the google method mentioned below). Another thing is that the free version will only show you a couple of websites that have plagarized content from your website, and not all the websites on the internet that have copied your content.Use Google. Yup, that's right, this wonderful search engine can also be utilized to search for copies of your posts. Here's how you can find out if someone else has similar posts. Take one of your post titles, or key sentences in posts that you might think are plagiarized and search for them on google. The trick here is to enclose the title or key phrases in quotations, so Google will only show those phrases and not phrases/titles related to the query. Here's an example:

Yes, in case you are wondering... that website pictured in the screenshot above stole my post =( !

Use digg.com/slashdot.com/shoutwire.com search. You'll be surprised how many websites out there copy your posts, submit it to digg, and get more visitors than you do. Many people have websites for the only one reason - making money. If a website gets dugg, it usually gets lot of visitors.

Even if it doesn't make it to the homepage of digg, there is a good chance that when someone searches for that particular phrase, they land up on the digg.com submission page and eventually visit the website (that stole your content) to see what the post is about. So, all you need to do is search for your title on digg, and if you find a website that has copied your post... bingo! You've found the content thief!

Check your web-analytics logs. Often you might have put a link to a post in your own website in one of your posts. Many you simply copy and paste also copy all the links in that post. This means that when a user clicks on one of your links, they'll be coming to your website. Most of the time all web statistic softwares will record this incoming link, and add the incoming entries to your log. So once in a while, simply browse through your logs and check for any websites that might have reposted your content.

If you use wordpress or any other CMS software, check any trackbacks, or incoming links that might help you find the website that is stealing your posts.

I'm sure, if you use these tips, it should be enough to catch anyone who is stealing your content and republishing it on their website. Once you've found out who is stealing your content... dealing with them is another long story, which I'll try to cover in some other post.

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Firefox Tip: Navigate through Firefox Tabs Faster

Ever wanted to be able to cycle through your tabs really quickly instead of using your mouse? Well, guess what! You can! All you need to do is use these keyboard shortcuts in order to go to the tab you want. No Firefox extensions needed!

Just press Ctrl and 1 (the number 1 key) together to go to the first tab. Press Ctrl + 2 to go to the second tab and so on. Of course, if you're on a Mac, its Cmd + 1 and so on.

It's that simple!

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How to find out if a .exe process is spyware or virus

Windows XP has thousands and thousands of .exe files, and usually a lot of those executables are running at any given time. But are all of those .exe files legit or are they spyware/malware/viruses that are bad for your computer... I recommend you follow these instructions

First get the usual spyware finding stuff (if you don't have it already - DOWNLOAD IT!) like:

1. Spybot Search and Destroy
2. AdAware (the free version works fine...)
   
3. Windows Defender

Any one or more (more = better) of the programs listed below should be downloaded and run in order to search for any viruses. If the programs above find something then bingo! You've found the culprit! If not you'll have to do more digging....

Download Process Explorer from Microsoft's website and unzip the stuff and open up procexp.exe. There look for the .EXE file that you had your doubts about and click on the entry corresponding that bears the name of the executable. If you don't know what that entry means just right click on it and click on 'Search Online...'

Now it's time time to see if there are any suspicious DLLs associated with it. So just press Ctrl+L and then Ctrl + D to take a look at all the DLLs that don't have 'Microsoft Corporation' under the company name. If you aren't sure about the DLL then you'll have to search for it online and see what you get.

You'll also want to double click on the process, go to the 'Performance Graph tab' and see how much memory it takes up. It its taking too much memory or hogging up all the resources in your computer, then its probably a virus and should be dealt with accordingly.

If it doesn't show any of the symptoms mentioned above then it's probably supposed to be there, so just let it be there. Remember to run AntiVirus and spyware checks all the time though, because only those checks will tell you if something is bad or not.

Another tip that I can offer is to use your AntiVirus scanner to scan the specific .exe file you are suspicious about. To figure out where the .exe file is stored on your computer - double click the process in Process Explorer > Under the 'Image' tab you should see the 'Path:' box which is going to tell you where the .exe file is stored. Just point your AntiVirus to that location so that it can figure out if the file is a virus or not.

If you find anything suspicious using the methods above (yes, using the methods above is a requirement) then please post about it in the comments. If you need help in figuring out if a process is malicious, feel free to email me, and I'll try to help.

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Follow cricket scores online for free

Here's a tip for all my brown buddies out there with a slower internet connection. It's not as exiting as watching free cricket online, but its just as good to be able to follow the scores online.


It's pretty simple actually. Whenever a cricket game is going on, all you need to do is head on over to http://www.cricinfo.com/ and then just click the live scorecard link under the title of the game.

TipIf you want to a quick way to find out scores, just type cricket [name of the team] into Google. Of course, you'll have to replace '[name of team]' with the name of the team you want to follow. Example: cricket India. This will show you the score of the latest game india played.

For every live game that's going, it's going to show a link where you can access the live scorecard. Simply click on that link and the scorecard should open up.

By default it just shows a basic scorecard. I on the other hand prefer the full score card, so too might want to click on the full scorecard link in order to see the full scorecard. All scorecards refresh automatically, so there is not need to keep clicking refresh, unless you have ADHD or something.

And there you have it. - instant updatification. If you have high speed internet though, you might want to watch the game online, instead of just staring at the scores.

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