Free software for creating and editing pdf files

By Ajith | Published: September 25, 2008

Foxit Software LogoFoxit software corporation is the makers of Foxit PDF tools. It includes PDF readers and editors both for the PC and mobile platforms. Although it is a payed product a free trial version can be obtained from Foxit. The trial version is as good as a full version except that in the trial version a water mark is added to the files you write.

Foxit PDF reader is one of the best available PDF readers. It is much lighter that Acrobat reader and also very much faster. You can download Foxit PDF reader here. To try the free PDF editor from Foxit go to the PDF editor Download page. If you want a full fledged PDF creator (not editor) you can try these methods

1. How to print and save as PDF files.

2. Save web pages as PDF files.

3. Free Online Files converter.

Posted in Software | Tagged Free, PDF, Review | 2 Comments

Download the free software to shred files

By Ajith | Published: September 17, 2008

There was a small introduction on how files are recovered from magnetic media in the last post. In that post I had said about using repeated overwrites to render a file unrecoverable. Sdelete is a command line utility that can wipe off a file and its traces completely from your hard disk without leaving a chance for recovery. If you have some data that you don”t want others to know about, you can “securely delete” it using sdelete.

sdelete is a tool from sysinternals to erase data from Disk drives completely. It can delete data from USB drives, floppy drives, or hard disk drives. sdelete can also cleanup the freespace avilable on any drive with zeros and delete directories recursively.

You need to download the zip file from sysinternals site, extract it to C:WINDOWS or C:WINDOWSsystem32 folder (or you can add the folder you are extracting to the PATH variable in Windows environment). so that it can be directly accessed from command prompt.

Usage :

sdelete [-p passes] [-s] [-q] <file or directory>
sdelete [-p passes] [-z|-c] [drive letter]

-cZero free space (good for virtual disk optimization).
-p passesSpecifies number of overwrite passes.
-sRecurse subdirectories.
-qDon’t print errors (quiet).
-zCleanse free space.

sdelete is free, light and installation free. You can control the number of passes (overwritings) that has to be done and moreover previously deleted file data can also be cleaned using the free space cleaning facility.

Download sdelete(free) (47Kb) , Visit sdelete webpage on Sysinternals

Posted in Software | Tagged Delete, File, Free, Security, Windows | 2 Comments

Securely wiping off data from a drive

By Ajith | Published: September 15, 2008

In the previous post we discussed why deleted files are recoverable from a drive? So lets look at how we can actually remove the file contents from the hard disk which may be needed if you have got confidential data. In any of the present filesystems, the OS doesn’t actually wipe the data contained in a file when it is deleted. But rather the metadata of the file is deleted. In order for a file to be unrecoverable it should be overwritten with some random data. To save processing and other system resources, the OS will simply delete it from corresponding indexes.

Peter Gutmann of Auckland University presented a paper that explained recovering data that has been overwritten by other data on a Magnetic storage media. Theoretically this could mean anybody can recover data aging back to any time from a drive, but practically this is very hard (forget about the any date part). Even recovering data with just a single pass overwrite is difficult.

The number of passes used during an overwrite of a file to render it unrecoverable doesn’t need to be given much importance for normal uses. A 4 pass would be sufficient if you have the time. If your disk fills up easily you may need to use just a single pass and save time.Here a pass means writing the file using pseudo random data in order to render it unusable.

If you have anything confidential on your harddisk, consider deleting it using a file shredder like Window Washer, sdelete, or using a degausser.

Posted in Hardware | Tagged Answer, Delete, File, Recovery, Tutorial | Leave a comment

What are the hidden files and folders

By Ajith | Published: September 4, 2008

This is a small list of folders and files which were displayed by the method mentioned on the previous post in this series.

Hidden folders and files in C drive of Windows

Hidden folders and files in C drive of Windows

Recycler : Recycler is aanother form of Recycle Bin. The Recycler folder contains a Recycle Bin for each user that logs on to the computer, sorted by their security identifier (SID).

System Volume Information : This contains the log files and backups of important System Files that are used for System Restore in Windows. (System Restore allows you to roll back all the settings and System Files to a previous time)

MSOCache : MSOCache is the folder that contains cached Office installation files. The folder is safe to delete.

NTLDR : This is the Windows NT boot loader. This is replaced by winload and Windows Boot Manager in Windows Vista

NTDETECT.COM : This file is used by Windows NT during startup to detect basic hardware required to boot the OS. This is used for Systems having BIOS.

Autoexec.bat : is most often used to set environment variables such as keyboard, soundcard, printer, and temporary file locations. It is also used to initiate low level system utilities.
These are the main folders and files in XP.

pagefile.sys : This is the actual pagefile, as the name indicates, of Windows. This file is used as virtual memory on your system.

hiberfil.sys : As the name indicates this is the file used for Hibernation. While hibernating the system stores all the content of the RAM to this file and shuts down. The next time you start your system the RAM contents are restored from this file.

Posted in Windows | Tagged Admin, File, Permissions, Tutorial | 1 Comment

Get access to all folders in Windows like Linux

By Ajith | Published: September 3, 2008

On the last article we have discussed about seeing all the files that are part of Windows. Now lets see whether we can directly access these folders. As it turns out Windows by default will not grant you permission to the folder System Volume Information.

Denied access to C:System Volume Information

Thats because the folder contains important System Restore Point informations. So what do you do when you can’t touch your own property. well it is there that the Windows file sharing comes into play. It may sound a little weird at first but it is true. Lets see how.

Step 1 : Go to Tools>>Folder Options and select View tab.

Folder options View Simple File Sharing

Here scroll down to the bottom, you can see a check box named Use Simple File Sharing (Recommended), UNCHECK the box, click APPLY and OK. Now you are done with the settings part. So just take the Properties (ALT+ENTER) or RIGHT CLICK>>PROPERTIES) of System volume Information you can see a new tab named Security here. You can see that there will be a user named SYSTEM there and it has full permission (refer picture).

System user account permission

You need to add your User account as a user here and give full permission to your self in order to gain access. Click Add button and type in your user name and click Check Names your user name will be filled along with the computer name automatically.

Add new user to security access permission

Click OK. now just click on user name of yours and check Full control. Click Apply, OK and you are done.

Allow full control

You can get access to files that return an “Access Denied” error by using this method. are some Files and Folders which need some more work to open I’ll discuss it in next post. Till then try this and figure out what all were hidden from you.

Posted in Windows | Tagged Admin, Customize, File, Security, Windows | Leave a comment

View system files (super hidden) in Explorer

By Ajith | Published: August 26, 2008

This is the first among a series of posts on administering Windows . It starts with how to see the files and folders that were hidden by Windows for some reason. The series is actually inspired from the one done by Samanathon on Starting your Day with a fresh Computer. He did a good job and I am a regular visitor of Saman’s Blog.

A Super Hidden or a Protected Syetem File is a file that is normally not shown in the Windows Explorer even if you have enabled Show Hidden files (Tools>>Folder Options>>View>>Show Hidden Files and Folders) in Windows Explorer). This is because if some of these files are deleted or changed Windows may encounter a fatal error. Some of such folders are :

  • C:Windowssystem32dllcache
  • System Volume Information – this is in all the drives
  • Recycler – which is also in all the drives

Super Hidden Files in C drive

So the first step involved is to make Windows show all the Super Hidden files. This can be done in two ways. One is directly through Windows Explorer Tools>>Folder Options and the other is through registry. So the former being easier and straight forward I’ll discuss it first.

1 . Through Windows Explorer

In Windows Explorer from Tools (Alt+T) menu take “View” tab in “Folder Options”.Make sure that you have selected Show Hidden Files and Folders and that you have unchecked Hide Protected operating system files options. Click Apply and then OK. This will enable you to see system files that had previously been hidden from your view.

Showing Super Hidden Files in Tools Menu

2 . Through Registry Editing

This is a little more complex.(It is recommended that you read the following posts before you go into the registry. Try this if you know Registry editing. Make a backup of the registry before you proceed.( The Introduction to Windows Registry , Know how to backup your registry )

Follow these steps..

1 . Run ( WIN+R ) regedit and open registry editor.

Super Hidden Dword in registry

Go to the Key HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindows
CurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced.

2 . In there you will see a Registry DWORD named ShowSuperHidden Make the value 1 instead of 0.

Dword Edit

3 . Now all you need to do is to restart Windows Explorer. to do so you can goto Start>>Shut Down and Click Cancel while holding down SHIFT+CTRL+ALT. Now press ALT+CTRL+DEL this will bring Task Manager. Take File>>New Task and type explorer and press Enter.

Now if you go to any drive you can see the previously Hidden files there. Note that you will still need to enable Show Hidden files option in Folder Option.

Posted in Windows | Tagged Admin, Customize, File, Registry | 2 Comments

Free online image editor

By Ajith | Published: August 22, 2008

Resizr is a free online image editing site. I will allow you to use almost all the basic photo editing features. “RESIZR was conceived in July 2006 by Matt Miller, after trying to help a user upload an image to the Urban Pug Forums. After suggesting some tools, it became apparent that there might be a need for a brutally simple online image resizer.”

Image in Resizr canvas

With Resizr you can Crop, Resize, Change filetype (GIF,PNG,JPG), sharpen, adjust levels, change the tone of the image (to B/W &&; sepia), adjust brightness and contrast and even control the quality of output file. Resizr is equivalent to a photo editing software. It is free and also saves your file for a specific amount of time before which you can download it.

Posted in Internet | Tagged Free, Image, Web | Leave a comment

Download files from esnips.com without flash player

By Ajith | Published: August 22, 2008

eSnips logo eSnips is a social content-sharing site, where you can publish and share any media type. You will get 5Gb of storage space on the servers when you signup for eSnips.

You can find lots and lots of books, music files, photos etc on eSnips. But if you want to download them you will need flash player. Here is the workaround if you do not have flash player installed but still want to download a file from eSnips.

This is the screen shown if you do not have flash installed.

Flash install

View the source of the web page by pressing CTRL+U – firefox, opera, IE ; Find the section with the text “var scribd_doc = scribd.Document.getDocFromUrl” (do a search). Now select the URL of the file you need from inside the brackets. More details can be found in the image below.

Source of the webpage and finding the URL of file.

Paste this URL to the address bar and you will get the file you searched for.

Posted in Internet | Tagged File, Free, Hacks, Trick, website | 2 Comments

Points to note while upgrading to an LCD flat panel display

By Ajith | Published: August 19, 2008

An LCD flat panel display is much better for your eyes if you spend a lot of time in front of a computer. If you spend a little more money than a CRT monitor you can get a sleek ,light and less power hungry LCD TFT display. I was recently searching for an LCD monitor and finally bought the HP 1908w 19″. So I was forced to do a little research (lol) in the area. I am sharing it because some of you may get some benefit from it.

HP 1908w TFT screen

Size :

If you are using the LCD for daily work and not for group entertainment (like a movie) you will not need much larger than a 19″ screen (or may be 22″ if you go that far).

Aspect ration :

Aspect ratio is the ratio of width and height of your screen. 4:3 means for 4 units of width 3 units of height is taken (like 1024x 768 is 256x4 and 256x3). If you like to use your monitor mainly to watch movies go for a 16:10 wide screen aspect ratio. You can get 16:9 also on some Samsung models. If you plan to use it mainly for document editing and office work it would be better to go for an aspect ratio of 5:4 (10280×1024).

Response time :

Response time would not be much of a concern to you unless you are a die hard gamer. If you are then go for something like 5ms or faster (3ms). The Gray to Gray response time is more of a use to the customer actualy.

Contrast :

To put it in simple terms contrast is the intensity difference between Black and White pixels. Go for higher contrast.

Brightness :

Here also the higher the better. but never settle for anything lower than approximately 280cd/m^2.

Connectors :

VGA the 15 pin connector is a standard. Go for DVI or even HDMI ports. Here even if you don’t have a graphics card that supports DVI you can use the monitor with the VGA cable. (VGA is th 12 pin connector – normally blue that you can connect to the onboard graphics of any computer).

Price :

Here in India you can get a decent 19″ LCD screen for upward of 220 US dollars. If you need more features you got to spend more.

Bottom Line

Go for LCD monitors as they provide you with maximum screen size(viewable) in any size class. If you are a professional designer or something there are only very few LCD TFT screens that can compete with CRTs as of now. Search for more than three manufacturers and in more as many shops as you can. Always ask for a demo of the product if you haven’t seen one of the models before. Use the monitor in a dark room also if possible. Play a movie and also ask for the warranty details.

Posted in Buyers guide | Tagged Tips, Tutorial | Leave a comment

Beware of Ebay feed back exchange

By Ajith | Published: August 18, 2008

The post was a mistake from my part in understanding the context of the statement. I apologize for the error.

Thanks goes to Nirmal for pointing it out.

Posted in Buyers guide | Tagged eBay, Report | 2 Comments