SG OwnBlog

I bought my PC a couple of years back.Recently I upgraded to Windows 7, bought it off a local retailer. Recently my Windows 7 (build 7600 OEM) began to "troll" me in the most irritating way. The foremost thing I do after installing windows is enabling the Windows Update service from the Services Microsoft Service Console window. After that my system remains "safe" from the pirates; until recently when an astonishing behavior caught my eye as I saw Windows was constantly updating. I went back to check if things were right and saw that the Update service was running in Automatic(Delayed Start) mode. Today morning as I logged in I saw That Infamous watermark saying "This copy of windows is not genuine". After a brief online troubleshooting I came to know about a few tools to remove such watermarks and make the copy validated again. I downloaded one such tool (watermark remover). Though it did remove the watermark, the next session proved more irritatin...

Windows 7 Taskbar Basics The following graphic shows the taskbar elements in Windows 7. Feature Description Taskbar button When you click a Pinned Site button on the taskbar, the website launches in a new browser window that has been customized specifically for the site. The site icon is visible on the taskbar button. Overlay icons A 16x16 pixel notification icon that appears on top of the normal site icon. This notification indicates that something has changed in the website, such as new mail arriving, receiving a chat request, or being outbid in an auction. The notification is visible only when the site is running. Jump List The Jump List can contain static and dynamic tasks that act as shortcuts into the Pinned Site. A user can further customize their experience by pinning these items to the Jump List. Jump List category A Pinned Site can create and fill a single custom Jump List category by using script in the webp...

We love Macs. We adore the Apple logo. We know it's not just  "some kind of fruit company" ! So now, as I test my PC for some Mac Mac-king, I will provide you the list of sites that I found very useful.  [Photo Courtesy : wired.com] Oh! I forgot to give an Introduction Introduction Hackintosh  is a term used in the  Apple Macintosh  user community to mean different things throughout that platform's lifespan, but now generally referring to the use of  Mac OSX  on non-Apple hardware. Currently, the most common Hackintoshes are  Intel  based, although some programmers have made  kernel  patches to work on  AMD -based computers. Prior to the  Apple-Intel transition , the term most often referred to an Apple-manufactured Macintosh computer that its owner had performed various  hardware hacks  on. The alt.hackintosh  Usenet  newsgroup gives its description as "Clever programming on Apple's Maci...

Windows 7 by default has only few themes available for customization. But you can themes for Windows 7 which are actually hidden. These themes are available for certain regional countries such as Australia, Canada, Great Britain, United States and South Africa. You can unveil them easily. 1. Open Windows Explorer and click Organize 2. Select Folder and Search Options and navigate to the View tab. 3. Select Show hidden files, folders and drivers and uncheck Hide protected operating system files (Recommended). Click Yes, if prompted for confirmation. 4. Click OK and now browse to the folder: C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT Considering C: to be your Windows Drive. 5. There are five folders here with the name with format MCT-XX (where XX is AU, CA, GB, US, or ZA ) which represents globalization settings for each region. Go into the folder that you want to activate its theme. Note that AU, CA and ZA regions have the same themes. 6. Open the Theme folder inside the selected re...

Some of the lesser known things you can do with the new Windows Problem Steps Recorder As the local PC guru you're probably very used to friends and family asking for help with their computer problems, yet having no idea how to clearly describe what's going on. It's frustrating, but Microsoft feels your pain, and Windows 7 will include an excellent new solution in the Problem Steps Recorder. When any app starts misbehaving under Windows 7 then all your friends need do is click Start, type PSR and press Enter, then click Start Record. If they then work through whatever they're doing then the Problem Steps Recorder will record every click and keypress, take screen grabs, and package everything up into a single zipped MHTML file when they're finished, ready for emailing to you. It's quick, easy and effective, and will save you hours of troubleshooting time. Burn images Windows 7 finally introduces a feature that other operating systems have had for years - the...

You can enable “God-Mode,” a term devised by the Microsoft development team, which provides a single place to access all Windows settings without needing to browse options and folders in the Control Panel. To use it: Create a New Folder Rename the folder to God-Mode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} Note that you can change the “God-Mode” text, but the following period and code number are essential. The folder icon will change — double click it to show the God-Mode window: The window shows nearly 50 sections with quick links to configuration options. Strictly speaking, it’s not a God Mode since all the options are available elsewhere. It’s more akin to an “all tasks” list — but you may find it easier than stumbling through Windows numerous screens and panels.   Warning The trick appears to work on both the 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows 7. Vista 32-bit and Windows Server 2008 32-bit should also work. However, it is known to crash 64-bit versions of Vista — an...

The Best Command Line Tricks : - Save A List of Files to a Text File by Extension dir *.ext /s /b > files.txt This command line will create a file called files.txt . When you open this file, there will be a complete list of all the files in that directory and all subdirectories with the .ext extension. You can then open up this text file in any text editor and work this the information.By changing the ext part, you can select different files. For example, if you wanted to list all of the PDF documents, you would type: dir *.pdf /s /b > files.txt Get Your IP Address Information ipconfig /all This will retrieve a pile of information about your network connection and IP information. From this command, you can get: Host Name Primary DNS Suffix Node Type IP Routing Enabled WINS Proxy Enabled DNS Suffix Search List Connection-specific DNS Suffix Network Adapter Description Physical (MAC) Address DHCP Enabled IP Address Subnet Mask Default Gateway DNS Servers G...