Integrate Twitter in Gmail

A widget created by Twitter Gadget for Gmail users allows integration of Tweeter inside your Gmail interface. This integration is possible via Google Labs Gmail by using the Add gadget by url functionality.
Just activate this option in Google labs. The in the tab Gadgets situated on the same Labs page, add the following url:
“http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget_gmail.xml”

The gadget cand handle smilies, lets you consult Replies, Direct messages, Favorites..

Once the gadget is added, it will be directly integrated in the left toolbar of your Gmail interface. You log in on your tweeter account, and you are ready to tweet.

Adrian

Run any applications safely on your computer

At one point, by curiosity or necessity, you need to execute a certain application you downloaded from the internet or received from a friend. Even with the presence of an antivirus on you computer, there is always the risk - the application doing something unwanted on your computer like altering a number of files or parts of registry.

The best way to protect your computer from a risk like this would be to be able to run the desired application in a virtual controlled environment that gives full access to the files on your computer but keeps changes separately, keeping the original files untouched.

Sandboxie is exactly the application you would need to do this.

The application is freeware, with the only exception that after 30 days it starts displaying a nag screen to remind you of registering it.

Browsing internet in a sandbox is also possible, you can do this by executing the preferred browser inside the sandbox, and once finish it is enough to close the browser and empty the sandbox.

To enumerate some of the functionalities of Sandboxie: install programs sandboxed, run windows services sandboxes, shell integration – right click on an executable –> Run in sandbox, protection at some extent against keyloggers.

Adrian

How will you look in 40 years

If you ever wondered how will you look over 40 year, there is a cool site that can simulate aging and a few other transformations of your face.

All you have to do is upload your photo (or your friend’s), choose the age, gender.

This tool called The Face Transformer, is accesible at this address: The Face Transformer

Have fun morphing!

Adrian

Hitler and Cloud computer security

Backup and Restore computer drivers (Windows Xp, Vista, 7)

When it comes to reinstalling your operating system, and here I am talking about windows, we all agree that it is a real pain. First of all the OS installation, process takes almost always the same amount of time, then the drivers, then your usual programs (all at once or in time as soon as you need them)

In this post I’ll just discuss how you can jump with elegance over the critical step in installing your OS which is installing the drivers.

This can be done by backing-up drivers from the old system, and then restoring them inside the freshly installed system.

From the beginning I have to mention that this migration of drivers works normally when the new installed OS is the same as the old one. Depending on the drivers, driver migration from Vista to 7 and from 7 to Vista may also work.

Double Driver is a free tool that allows you to perform this backup/restore operation for all the drivers. It is the perfect driver manager as it enables you to do a lot of things such as: list your drivers, access full driver details, export and print the list, select exactly which drivers to backup, and how to restore drivers from a previous backup.

Adrian

How to force delete files in Windows 7 & Vista

Have you ever wanted to delete files from a previous windows installation, but you couldn’t because of a permission error.

Most of the times, it is purely a problem of ownership over the files you wish to delete. If you are the administrator of the computer, than there is a quick solution of taking the ownership of the files, adding the Take Ownership in your right click context menu.

How to add this option in the context menu.
You have to download this file: InstallRemoveTakeOwnership.zip

Once you did this, extract the contents in a folder. There are two registry files insinde, one that adds the Take Ownership context menu option, the other that removes it.

Double click InstallTakeOwnershipOption.reg

Now right click the folder you want to delete, then select Take Ownership.

Once the operation is completed, you have the full ownership of the folder, and you can go further deleting the file.

To remove this option from the context menu, just click on the other registry file RemoveTakeOwnershipOption.reg

What if I still cannot delete the file

If the problem still persists, then it is not related just to permissions. We could be talking about a file blocked by the system, a damaged file…

If you are sure about what you want to do, I recommend in this case a more advanced solution, a tool that serves exactly this purpose - the Unlocker.

It can handle very well a number of special cases when it comes to deleting a file such as the Access denied, sharing violations, source in use, file in use, ..and so on.

Adrian

Set active partition in Windows XP, Vista & 7 using command line

Scenario: you have installed an OS such as Mac OS X on a secondary partition, and after restart you can no longer boot-up your system.

Solution: boot using your Windows cd/dvd; get into the command prompt and type diskpart 

 

Type list disk to see the list of disks installed in your system. Type select disk 0, assuming 0 is the number of your disk containing your partitions.

Now that we have selected the disk, type  list partitions to get the list of all partitions on the disk.



To activate the desired partition type select partition n, where n is the partition number. 
Now that we have selected the desired partition, we can mark it as active by typing active

Adrian