Web source reveals supposed TDP, SP count, clock speeds and pricing for the upcoming Nvidia “Fermi” graphics cards.
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GeForce GTX 480, GTX 470 Prices, Details Leaked?
LSI looks to provide fast data access for enterprise servers while keeping latency and CPU burdens low.
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LSI Sampling 1,500MB/s PCIe SSS Cards
Adobe's Photoshop is industry-standard software, used by creative professionals all over the world. It's a serious tool, with serious uses. But don't let all that fool you—it's also a ton of fun. That's why we're starting a new series of how-tos, where we'll show you how even photoshop-beginners can use the program to achieve lots of cool and fun effects. To kick it off, we'll show you how to do this:
Yep, you can clone yourself, using just a DSLR camera, a tripod, and Adobe Photoshop. The steps involved in this tutorial will act as a crash course in manual DSLR shooting, the use of a stable tripod, and the fundamental applications of ‘layers’ in Photoshop. As with any other creative hobby, learning these basic ideas will serve you well as you journey further down the complex path of photo editing and illustration.
A DSLR Camera
A wide-angle lens
A Tripod
Photoshop CS2 or higher
About 45 minutes
I’ll say this up front so the question doesn’t come up later: This cannot be done without a DSLR camera, do don’t bother screwing your digital point and shoot into a tripod. A point and shoot camera is convenient and portable. It’s quick and easy, but it thinks on its own. It changes its shutter speeds and f-stops without permission or consent, stifling creative freedom by making critical decisions for you. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re looking to heighten the quality of your images beyond the realm of under-lit and out of focus Facebook group portraits, you’re going to have to make the jump into manual photography.
Many DSLR cameras have an ‘automatic’ mode, which essentially recreates what a point and shoot camera does. It compensates for available light, automatically makes changes, and fires at the settings it chooses. Like a typical house cat, it does what it wants, when it wants, with or without your consent. Manual SLR photography is much more akin to owning a big, loyal, obedient dog. Sure he’s bigger and heavier, but under the proper guidance he’ll do exactly as he’s told, and pick up and learn new tricks along the way. Dogs rule.
Now, for the shoot! You’ll have the best luck pulling this off the first time if you keep things as simple as possible. Pick a wide open space with plenty of room within the frame. If this is your first time, make sure and shoot during broad daylight, as shifting light is far less noticeable during the day than it is at dawn or dusk. Shifting light can throw the effect off, so remember, once you plant that camera and take the first shot, move quickly and with purpose. Also, remember that the goal of this shoot is to take as many separate photos of ‘you’ occupying the same physical space as possible. In other words, once you’ve planted that camera and taken the first shot, the camera shouldn’t move an inch until the shoot is over.
Think you’ve found a nice spot to begin your shoot? Hold that thought! An important distinction: What you see with your own two eyes is not what your camera sees through its viewfinder. Fire a couple of test shots to make sure you’re comfortable with the available light. Tinker with your light meter and ISO settings until your test shots are clear and well lit, with a broad depth of field. If you’re shooting in daylight, keep your ISO between 200 and 300 in order to maintain a nice, snappy shutter.
Above: A photo that's too dim.
Below: One that'sjust right.
Once you’ve got the proper settings dialed in, low and behold, they’ll STAY that way! Ah, the joys of owning a manual DSLR camera.
Grab a sturdy tripod (preferably one with a leveler, so you know it’s planted on even ground) and latch your camera into the locking mechanism. Make SURE the legs are planted sturdily, as even the slightest movement can throw off the whole effect. Now that you’re comfortable with your test shots and have acquired the peace of mind that your camera won’t radically shift or alter any of your settings, you are ready to shoot!
For this tutorial, we’re going to make an image with six clones. Set your cameras self timer and position yourself for the first shot. Positioning is critical to nailing this effect; you must make sure that each of your clones won’t overlap with one another but also that each of your clones stay in frame. After firing your first picture, head back to your camera and gently (you don't want to move the camera) press the playback button to make sure you're in frame. If you are, move to another location within frame and keep shooting! Keep in mind, you’re moving around, but your camera must remain stationary. After you've got six images of yourself placed in different spots, you’re ready to start cloning! Here are the six images I shot in about five minutes.
Next up, Photoshop!
So how do we turn six images of the same person into one? To make things simple, we’ll focus only on two images at first. Open your first two images in Photoshop. They will be separated by tabs on the upper left hand corner.
On the second image (the one where you're slightly to the right of your original self) go to 'Edit' and 'Select All' (Ctrl+A). You’ll know the image is selected when a large square is sketched around the photo. With the image selected, go to 'Edit' then 'Copy' (Ctrl+C). Now switch back over to your original image. Click 'Edit' then 'Paste' (Ctrl+V). You have now pasted your second image directly on top of your first one. In other words, you have successfully created two separate layers.
Direct your attention to your ‘layers tab’ located at the bottom right corner of your screen. You should see both images, one on top of the other. When photos begin stacking on top of one another, they become layers. The top layer, in this instance, is the only visible layer. The layer below is almost identical to the one above it; the only difference is that ‘you’ are standing in a different place. Keep in mind that all six images you shot have an identical backdrop, because your camera never moved. Your location in relation to that backdrop is what should change from image to image. Grab the eraser tool, and make sure your top layer is selected.
Above: The eraser tool
Below: Select the top layer
Begin brushing the eraser along the left side of the image, where ‘you are’ in the picture underneath. If you forgot where you are in the picture below, simply click the ‘eye’ on the top layer to make it disappear. Once you see yourself below, click the eye icon again to erase yourself in.
Keep erasing until your new clone is fully visible. Since the back ground below is exactly the same as it is above, you don't have to worry about erasing too much.
Now it’s time to combine these two layers into one solid picture. Remember your layers tab? Right click one of your layers and scroll down to “Merge Visible”.
Congratulations! You now have two identical versions of ‘you’ in a single photograph! Repeating the process is simply a matter of copying additional images and ‘erasing’ yourself in again, but just to be on the safe side, we’ll go through bringing in your third clone.
So now, we have a single layered picture, with two clones.
Open another image of yourself in Photoshop. Once again, you will have two tabs.
Click over to the right tab (or whichever image only has a single person in it) and repeat the prior steps. Hit Ctrl+A to select the image, then hit Ctrl+C to copy the image. Click over to your original image and hit Ctrl+V to paste over it. Now, just like before, you have to ‘erase’ the two copies of yourself back into the photo.
Keep erasing until all three of your clones appear in the image. Then, just like before, right click on the top layer and click on ‘merge visible’. You now have a single image populated with three clones.
You can repeat these steps to add as many clones as you’d like, just so long as they don’t overlap with one another. After adding all six of my clones into the image and added a simple monochrome filter I came away with this:
Welcome to this month’s BestConfigs update, where you can find recommended parts for office PCs, gaming rigs, a workstation, or a home theater setup.
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Build Your Own: Tom’s Hardware’s BestConfigs, Updated!
Whether you are preparing to reuse a hard disk for another operating system, clear off your junk shelves by passing along outdated drives to a friend or relative, donate an old PC to a charity or school, discard a too-small USB drive or flash memory card, or repurpose an SSD, you don’t want to leave any information on the storage device. With stories abounding of identity theft aided by information lifted from discarded storage devices, you want devices you no longer plan to use to have no usable information when they head out the door.
Sure, you could erase the contents of the drive, but keep this in mind: the act of erasing a file does not remove it from a storage device.
When you erase/delete a file from your computer, it’s not really gone until the areas of the disk it used are overwritten by new information. If you use the normal Windows delete function, the “deleted” file is sent to the Recycle Bin until the space it uses is required by other files. If you use Shift-Delete to bypass the Recycle Bin, the space occupied by the file is marked as available for other files. However, the file could be recovered days or even weeks later with third-party data recovery software. As long as the operating system does not reuse the space occupied by a file with another file, the “deleted” file can be recovered.
With SSDs, the erased file situation is even more complex. SSDs store data in blocks rather than in sectors as with magnetic storage. Overwriting a block was previously used involves copying the contents of the block to cache, wiping the block’s contents, delete the block to be overwritten from cache, writing the new data to cache, and rewriting the block with the new data. As an SSD is used with files that are deleted or changed frequently, the performance can drop unless the drive (and operating system) support a technology called TRIM that wipes out deleted data blocks as soon as the file using the blocks is deleted. TRIM is supported by Windows 7 and by some late model SSDs, but not by older Windows versions. So, disk wiping can be both a security feature and a performance improvement strategy.
While erasing files simply marks file space as available for reuse, data wiping overwrites all data space on a storage device, replacing useful data with garbage data. Depending upon the method used, the overwrite data could be zeros (also known as “zero-fill”) or could be various random patterns.
Products that can be used for wiping hard disks might not be suitable for wiping other types of drives. In this article, we will look at methods for securely wiping hard disks, USB flash memory devices, flash memory cards, and SSDs.
Time Needed: several hours (varies with size and speed of drive)
Software: Hard disk utility software from your drive vendor
Media: blank CD or floppy disk
Although writing zeroes across the entire hard disk surface (aka “zero-filling”) is not sufficient to meet government data sanitation (disk wiping) standards such as DoD 5220.22-M or the more comprehensive Standards and Technologies (NIST) Special Publication 800-88, overwriting the entire hard disk prevents most types of data recovery from being successful.
Here’s where to get zero-fill software from hard disk vendors:
Hitachi
Drive Fitness Test (see website for specific models supported)
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#DFT
Select the Erase Drive feature to zero-fill your hard disk
Samsung
HUtil (see website for specific models supported)
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/support/utilities/Support_HUTIL.html
Use Tool, Erase HDD to zero-fill your hard disk
Seagate (including Maxtor)
SeaTools for DOS (see website for specific models supported)
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools
Use Full Erase to zero-fill your hard disk
Western Digital
Data Lifeguard Diagnostics (select drive model for specific version recommended)
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?lang=en
Use Write Zeros to drive to zero-fill your hard disk
1. Determine the brand and model of hard disk you want to overwrite.
2. Download a CD ISO image or a floppy disk image (depending upon your equipment) and use the image to create bootable media. The floppy disk image is self-contained: run it, insert a blank floppy disk when prompted, and the image is created on the disk. You will need to use a CD burning program that works with ISO images to convert the ISO image into a bootable CD.
3. Restart your computer with the bootable media you created in Step 2.
4. Select the hard disk to zero-fill when prompted.
5. Choose the option to zero-fill the hard disk.
6. When the program is finished, follow the on-screen instructions to shut down or restart your computer.
7. Remove the wiped hard disk; you can now reuse or recycle the hard disk.
Secure wiping goes beyond zero-fill operations, and provides an extra level of security. Most secure wiping programs are designed to meet DoD 5220 standards, which require three passes of overwriting with a special numeric pattern and verification. More information about this and other secure standards are available from the DataErasure website.
(Note that the 2007 revision of the Defense Security Service, Updated DSS Clearing and Sanitization Matrix (June 28, 2007) now recommends degaussing or drive destruction for maximum protection.
Stanford University's Disk and Data Sanitization Policy and Guidelines, a must-read for understanding data wiping issues, recommends Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) for secure hard disk wiping.
Time Needed: several hours (varies with size and speed of drive)
Software: Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN); available from http://www.dban.org/
Media: blank CD (all versions) or floppy disk (version 1.0.7 and older versions)
1. Download the DBAN boot image ZIP file (we used version 1.0.7 and beta version 2.0 for this article); we downloaded the ISO image for CD burning, but a floppy disk builder is also available
2. Extract the contents of the compressed file.
3. Burn the ISO image file extracted in Step 2 to CD; see our article on how to do this, or use the built-in ISO CD image burning support in Windows 7. If you downloaded the floppy image builder, run the program to create a bootable floppy disk.
4. Restart the computer using the CD or floppy disk created in Step 3.
5. Press Enter to run DBAN in interactive mode.
6. Use up and down arrow keys to highlight the drive to wipe.
7. Press the space bar to select the drive.
8. Press M to select the wiping method.
9. Press F10 to begin the wipe process.
10. At the end of the process, shut down the system. You can reuse or recycle the wiped hard disk.
Note: if DBAN is unable to recognize your SATA hard disks, configure your system BIOS to use IDE mode rather than AHCI mode.
Programs such as DBAN or vendor-supplied hard disk utilities are limited in the devices they support: they are designed to work with internal ATA/IDE or SATA hard disks only. Programs that work with flash memory cards and USB flash drives often support hard disks as well, enabling you to use a single program for all disk wiping processes. Roadkil's DataWipe can be used with any hard disk, floppy disk, or flash drive that has a drive letter.
Time Needed: Varies; from a few minutes to several hours, depending upon size and speed of drive and computer
Software: Roadkil's DiskWipe, available from http://www.roadkil.net/
Media: Can be run from Windows desktop
1. Download Roadkil's DiskWipe.
2. Extract the contents of the compressed file.
3. Open DiskWipe. If you are running Windows Vista or Windows 7, right-click the program icon and select Run as Administrator.
4. Select the drive to wipe.
5. Select the type of wipe to perform; DiskWipe can zero-fill the disk or write random data.
6. Enter the number of passes.
7. Click Erase to start the process.
8. At the end of the process, close the program. You can reuse the wiped disk.
To solve write performance problems on drives that don't support TRIM (check with your drive vendor for firmware upgrades) is to use wiper.exe (included with some SSDs) or to run the Secure Erase feature supported in most recent ATA/IDE and SATA drives. The Secure Erase feature can be activated on many systems by running Secure Erase 4.0 (HDDerase.exe), available from http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml. Version 4.0 works with most recent ATA/IDE and SATA hard disks and SSDs, but if you use an Intel X-25M, X-25E, or X-18M SSD, follow this link to download Secure Erase 3.3 http://www.iishacks.com/index.php/2009/06/30/how-to-secure-erase-reset-an-intel-solid-state-drive-ssd/. Note that it is no longer being developed, and we were unable to use it on a system running an AMD 690 chipset.
SDelete is a free program from Microsoft’s TechNet Sysinternals collection. It runs from the command line, and can be used to wipe drives, wipe files, or wipe free space.
Time Needed: Varies; from a few minutes to several hours, depending upon size and speed of drive and computer
Software: TechNet Sysinternal's SDelete, available from http://technet.microsoft.com
Media: Can be run from Windows desktop
1. Download SDelete.
2. Extract the contents of the compressed file.
3. Copy sdelete.exe to c:\windows\system32\ (this will enable you to run it from any location)
4. Open a command prompt session with Administrator rights.
5. To wipe all files on drive X: and its subdirectories and to wipe free space, enter Sdelete -p 2 –s -z X:\*.* (to see all command-line switches, enter Sdelete with no options)
6. Wait; the program displays status messages as it runs. When the program is finished, you can reuse or dispose of the drive.
We used demo versions of two popular data recovery programs to evaluate some of the disk wiping programs discussed in this article. To determine whether a typical data recovery program could recover files on a SD card wipe with Roadkil’s DiskWipe, we first of all formatted the card using a card reader. Ontrack's EasyRecovery Data Recovery (available from http://www.ontrack.com) had no difficulty finding folders and files to retrieve.
However, when we used DiskWipe to wipe the drive using a one-pass blank disk (zero fill) operation, EasyRecovery DataRecovery was unable to find the file system, let alone any files or folders.
After reformatting the card, taking a few photos, and deleting the photos, EasyRecovery Data Recovery was able to find the new photos, but the contents of the card before running WipeDisk were unrecoverable.
To evaluate SDelete, we used SDelete to wipe all of the files on a hard disk, but omitted the –z switch; when –z is not used, SDelete deletes files and renames them, but does not clear free space. To determine what might be visible, we used a demo version of Disk Doctors NTFS Data Recovery software, available from http://www.diskdoctors.net.
Disk Doctors were able to locate the deleted folder and Outlook Express message folders, but SDelete had renamed them from their original names and DBX extensions (Outlook Express message folders). If you use SDelete, it’s very important that you take time to use the –z switch to clear free space on the disk (once a file is deleted, the space it occupies is free space).
We also used Disk Doctors to evaluate the effectiveness of a freeware program called Eraser, which can delete and overwrite files and folders from the right-click menu. We created a documents folder with a subfolder called Figures and used Eraser to overwrite the folder and subfolder using its default settings.
Disk Doctors was able to locate the folders, but the contents are files with garbage names and are zero bytes in size – except for leftover word processing temporary files (files that begin with $). These filenames were not changed, which could enable a snooper to figure out the names of the files in the folder – although the files themselves were destroyed. By using more overwrites or different methods available with Eraser, a more thorough wiping may be possible
We’ve highlighted a variety of free ways to protect data on castoff drives from being retrieved. As you can see, your best bet is to overwrite data directly, but you also might want to consider using a program such as SDelete to scramble filenames first and then use a disk wiper such as Eraser or WipeDisk to finish the job.
Use demo versions of data recovery programs such as Ontrack Easy Recovery Data Recovery, Disk Doctors Data Recovery (various editions for NTFS, FAT, and flash media), and others to evaluate the effectiveness of your data wiping procedures. Remember, the full versions of these and other data recovery programs can save your data if you accidentally format or partition a disk because, until the data is overwritten, it’s still there.
Google Maps is great—it’s got tons of convenient, frequently updated information about pretty much everywhere in the world. There’s just one problem: It’s stuck on the internet. Or at least it was, because now, with Google Map Buddy, you can print Google Maps out at any size, whether you want to put together your own old-fashioned roadmap or make a giant geographical mural for you wall.
In addition, you can use Google Map Buddy to create large, continuous digital images from Google Maps, which make excellent desktop wallpapers. We'll show you how to do both in our Google Map Buddy how-to.
To use Google Map Buddy, follow these three steps:
To get started, download Google Map Buddy at http://www.augmentedrealitysoftware.co.uk/gmb.html. You don’t need to install it, just unzip it and run the progam.
The first thing you'll see is a toolbar that prompts you to go to Google Maps. Click this button, then hit "Go" after selecting your country, and Google Map Buddy will open Google Maps in its own browser.
Using this browser, find an area you would like to map, and hit the "Select Area” button. This will allow you to draw a rectangle around the area you would like to include in your map. If, after you've already select an area, you decided you'd like to move around the map again, click on the New Location button, which will allow you to start over.
Once you’ve selected your map’s area, a drop down menu will appear, prompting you to select a zoom level. In the upper right corner of the program, you’ll see an additional zoom level number that corresponds with how zoomed in you are in Google maps. The zoom number that you pick must be larger than the zoom number displayed in the upper right, and the greater the difference between the two, the larger your printable map will be.
More specifically, the number you specify in the dropdown menu, is the zoom level that you want map buddy to capture it's images at. Thus, if you make your selection at zoom level 10, and you tell it to capture images at zoom level 12, it will capture all the images from two zoom levels in that are required to fill up the area you selected. If you're still a little fuzzy about how that works, you can hit the Draw Helper button, which will draw a grid, showing you each of the zoomed-in images that Google Map Buddy will stitch together. In practical terms, the number of printed pages goes up exponentially as the difference in zoom levels increases, so start small and work your way up.
Finally, select "Create Map Image." Map Buddy will prompt you to save the map image as a series of map tile .png files, and one large, stitched-together composite image. Be sure to create a folder for your map, because depending on the zoom level, you may end up with a lot of map tiles.
Once you've named and saved your file, Map Buddy will prompt you to select the maps you wish to download. You can choose Road Map, Satellite, Terrain, or Hybrid.
If you’re planning to print out a map for your car, for instance, a road map will suffice. So, check "will be downloaded" next to road map, and select "ok." Map Buddy will ask if you want to delete the individual map tiles in your output folder. If you want to print out the individual images and tape them together, select no. If you want to create a large digital image, for a wallpaper for instance, you can select yes.
Finally, you’re ready to print out all the individual map tiles. (Image 3) Since most printers can’t print all the way to the edge of the page, you’ll need some way to trim off the white borders around the side before you tape the sheets together, such as a paper cutter or razor blade and a straight edge.
Still not convinced of the merits of Google Map Buddy? We've captured some example images from all around the globe. Check them out, and get inspired!
Australia, Terrain View
The Great Pyramids, Satellite View
Hawaii, Terrain View
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last year, you know that 3D is this year’s entertainment buzzword. With 3D blockbusters like Avatar scoring megabucks in the theaters, 3D cinema’s jump to the living room is all but a foregone conclusion. But where does that leave all your old 2D files and DVDs?
Thanks to a couple of very cool programs and some clever scripting, there’s hope for them yet. In this article, we’re going to show you how to use AviSynth and VirtualDub, along with a script from the 3D Vision Blog to give any 2D film the 3D treatment.
To convert our movies to 3D, we’re going to start with a program called AviSynth, so point your browser at bit.ly/2EO5A2 and download the newest version, then run the installer. You’re probably used to running most new programs after you install them, but don’t bother trying with AviSynth—it doesn’t have a user interface. Instead, it functions as a codec, allowing media viewers such as Windows Media Player to understand AviSynth scripts, in the form of AVS files.
As you may have guessed, we’re going to use one such AVS script to upconvert our 2D file to 3D. It’s not magic—the script simply exploits some common visual cues to take a decent stab at applying a 3D effect to a 2D movie, but it’s certainly better than nothing. The script was written by the author at the 3D Vision Blog, and is available here. Go to the site, copy the script (it’s the first big chunk of code) and paste it into notepad.
Before we can use the script it needs a little customization. First, change the filename at the beginning of the script from “Avatar_Trailer_HD.avi” to the filename of the video you want to upconvert.
Save the script with a .AVS filename extension to the same directory as the video file.
At this point, you’re all set to view your movie in 3D. To do so, simply open a media player that works with AVS scripts (such as Windows Media Player) and tell it to open your freshly created .AVS file. Assuming you’ve done everything right so far, you should see an extra-wide version of your video, with two slightly different frames playing side by side. This is the 3D file, formatted to play with Nvidia’s 3D Vision technology. If you would prefer anaglyph (red/cyan) 3D, for use with a pair of filter glasses, you need to make a quick modification to your script. Comment out (by adding a # to the beginning of the line) the line that says StackHorizontal(f2, f1). Then, uncomment (by removing the #) the line that says # MergeRGB(f2.ShowRed, f1.ShowGreen, f1.ShowBlue).
So, we’re looking at our video in 3D. Now we’re done, right? Not quite. AviSynth works in real-time, synthesizing an AVI (get it?) from a source file and a script, frame by frame, as the media player requests those frames. This is hard on your CPU, and means that if you want to view the file on any other computer, you’ll need to install AviSynth first. Instead, we’ll now show you how to permanently save the 3D video to your hard drive.
To save the movie, you’ll need a program called VirtualDub. VirtualDub is a lightweight, open source video editor which is especially good at quickly reencoding videos. Go to the VirtualDub site and download and extract the program.
The next step of the process is to make sure that VirtualDub has the tools it needs to make a high quality copy of the 3D movie. More specifically, it needs codecs—one for video and one for audio. The Xvid MP4 and LAME MP3 codecs are excellent, open source examples of each. If you don’t already have these codecs installed for use with some other media program, you’ll need to get them now. The Xvid codec can be found here, and the LAME codec can be downloaded here. Once you’ve downloaded both, run the installers to registers the Codecs in Windows.
Set VirtualDub to use Xvid by clicking Video -> Compression… and then selecting Xvid MPEG-4 Codec. Set it up for audio by first clicking Audio -> Full processing mode and then clicking Audio -> Compression… and selecting MPEG Layer 3.
Finally, open the .AVS file for your 3D video, and click File -> Save as AVI. Give your file a name, and you’re done.
Trying to fix a badly infected PC without HijackThis is sort of like going into surgery without a scalpel; it’s the only tool for the job when all other measures fail. New spyware strains and increasingly complex viruses emerge every day, and your PC’s immune system (i.e, antivirus software) isn’t always able to keep up. And if you’re performing emergency surgery on someone else’s PC, you may find that they didn’t have any AV software installed to begin with.
No matter how bad the infection, HijackThis gives you the means to dig deep into Windows to root out whatever it is that’s wreaking havoc. It’s not a cure-all, however, or even a cure-little. In fact, HijackThis doesn’t cure anything on its own. What HijackThis does do is give you a snapshot of the system’s registry and file settings, putting particular emphasis on the browser. It doesn’t discern between safe and malicious settings, so it’s possible to unintentionally inflict real harm if you don’t know what you’re doing. Follow along as we show you how to properly wield HijackThis.
Originally developed by Dutch programmer Merijn Bellekom, HijackThis has since been sold to Trend Micro, a security firm better equipped to maintain and update the program. But don’t worry, HijackThis is still free and you can download it at http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/ where you’ll find both a stable and beta version. We haven’t run into much trouble using the beta, but it’s currently only available as an installer. With the stable version, you have the option of downloading just the executable and plopping it on your USB thumb drive.
Once installed, fire up the program and choose ‘Do a system scan and save a logfile.’
After you do this, you should see a bunch of seemingly obscure settings in the program’s main window, (Image 2) which will also be listed out in a separate text file generated on the fly. If the text file that appears is empty, try using the stable release instead of the beta.
Keep in mind what we said earlier, in that HijackThis doesn’t discern between safe and malicious entries. Even on a badly infected system, many, if not most, of the settings will be legit and altering them could affect the functionality of your PC.
If you consider yourself a savvy user, you can scroll through the settings on your own and look for any suspicious or harmful settings. In some cases, this will be obvious, but not always, so you want to be sure to Google (or Bing) any entries you’re unsure about before nuking them.
No matter what your level of expertise, it never hurts to get a second opinion. One way to do this by posting your log contents on your favorite PC tech support forum. Mash the AnalyzeThis button to see a list of forums to choose from, or just hop over to Maximum PC’s board.
If you strike out on a bulletin board or need instantaneous feedback, German Website www.hijackthis.de will oblige. Just copy your entire log contents to the clipboard (right-click>select all>copy), paste it into the site’s textbox, and press the Analyze button. Within a few moments, the site will spit out the results and alert you to any potential problem areas. Anything with a green checkmark is most likely safe, while the opposite holds true for any red Xs that are displayed. You may also see orange question marks, which are unknown files or entries that require further investigation.
Rather than toss all your eggs in one basket, double-check these results by heading over to http://hjt.networktechs.com. Just like before, you’ll paste your log file’s contents and press the Parse button. All the results are color coded so you can see any potential pitfalls at a glance. Hover your mouse cursor over these to learn why they’re being flagged and what the recommended course of action is.
The problem with relying on a Website to sift through your HijackThis log is that an infected PC doesn’t always let you have access to the Internet. In some cases, you may be able to hop online, but your Web browsing attempts either gets constantly rerouted, or pages load too slow to be of any help.
In this case, arm yourself with HijackReader , another free third-party app which works in conjunction with HijackThis. There’s no installation necessary – just unzip the archive to your hard drive or portable flash drive and run HijackReader.exe. Copy the HijackThis log file to your clipboard and mash ‘Paste log,’ followed by the ‘Check!’ button.
When HijackReader finishes, it will save the results as an HTML file and prompt you to give it a name. Open this file to see the results. HijackReader tends to know less about individual entries than the online sites do, but for the ones it does recognize, it tends to be a bit more informative. No matter which method you use (or combination thereof), it’s a good idea to double-check any iffy entries with Google before you go blasting away registry and system settings.
Show of hands - how many of you are still clinging to Firefox not because it's the perfect browser, but because it's the best alternative out there to Internet Explorer? Probably a good many of you, and the reason why Firefox has been so hard to supplant as the No. 2 gateway to the Web is because Mozilla had the foresight to make it extensible. Thousands of add-ons exist allowing users to custom tailor the open- source browser however they see fit, and it only takes a few mouse clicks to do so.
Well move over Mozilla, and make room for Google Chrome. Why is that? To start with, Google recently added extension support to Chrome, which was previously only available in beta builds. Now that Google has given users the green light to install third-party add-ons, it's a brand new ballgame in the browser world. And in case you haven't heard, Chrome also supports Greasemonkey scripts, of which there are over 40,000 to choose from.
But those aren't the only reasons to give Chrome a second look. Google continues to tweak the underlying code and add features to what's already a fast, lean, and intelligent browser. Chrome is also highly tweakable, though you wouldn't know it by glancing at the sparse interface.
On the following pages, we'll show you how to soup up Chrome so you can leave Firefox in the rear view mirror and never look back!
Don't fret if you've spent years learning Firefox's shortcut keys, most of the basic ones are retained in Chrome, such as opening a new window or tab. This makes transitioning to Chrome a piece of cake, though there are more than a handful that are specific to Chrome only. Whether Chrome- specific or cross-browser, here's a list of some of our favorites:
Address Bar Shorcuts
Webpage Shortcuts
Other Shortcut Tips
To quickly delete a specific entry from your browsing history that shows up in the drop-down menu of your address bar, highlight the entry and press Shift+Delete. And to select the first or last entry in the drop-down menu, press the Page Up or Page Down key.
These are just some of the shortcuts you can use in Chrome (and Windows). For a full list, see Google's support page here, which also lists shortcuts applicable to Mac and Linux users.
Once you've mastered a few handy keyboard shortcuts, it's time to shift focus to your other input peripheral, the computer mouse. Learn these as well and you'll be surfing the Web at record speed.
One of our favorite tricks involves navigating back or forth through our page history. We often find ourselves venturing several links deep on a webpage. If you're like most users, you probably think that going back to the beginning means mashing the back button repeatedly and hoping you don't overshoot your target, but there's a much easier way. Simply click and hold on the Back or Forward button to see a list of links you've navigated. You can also right-click to bring up this drop-down menu of links.
Another handy feature in Chrome, and that one that isn't duplicated in Firefox (not out of the box, anyway) is the ability to paste a link and go directly to it without ever hitting the Enter key. Just right-click the address bar and select 'Paste and go'.
Particularly handy for bloggers but also useful for forum posts, Webmail, and other online forms, you can resize any text area in Chrome. All you need to do is click and drag the lower right corner.
If you need to quickly resize an entire webpage, hold down the CTRL key and scroll up (enlarge) or down (decrease) with your mouse's scroll wheel. To reset the page back to normal, either scroll back to the appropriate size, or press CTRL+0.
Maybe you always want to hide your tracks when surfing the Web and are only interested in Chrome's Incognito mode. Or perhaps you're trying to speed things up by disabling Java, Flash, plugins, and other features. By utilizing startup switches, you can manipulate how Chrome loads up. Here's how.
Right-click the Chrome shortcut on your desktop or Taskbar and select Properties. Navigate to the Shortcut tab and pay attention to the Target field. This is where you'll be entering in command line switches. Depending on which OS you're using and where you installed Chrome, you should see something like this:
C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
When you find a switch you want to use, append it to the end, making sure to leave a space in between chrome.exe and the switch.
There are a lot of things you can accomplish with switches, and we're going to share some of them here. To add a Bookmarks button Chrome's toolbar, you would use the command line switch -bookmark- menu. The full path in the Target field would then read:
C:\Users \[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Applications\chrome.exe -bookmark-menu
We don't necessarily recommend using all of these, but if you want to try speeding up Chrome, you can disable a handful of functions with these switches (separate each one with a space when entering them in):
-disable-dev-tools
-disable-hang- monitor
-disable-images
-disable-java
-disable-javascript
-disable- metrics
-disable-metrics- reporting
-disable-plugins
-disable-popup- blocking
-disable-prompt-on- repost
See here for a list of more switches you can experiment with. And remember, if you don't like the effect, all you have to do is remove them!
You probably have a handful of sites you visit every morning, right after you finish checking your email and before getting down to business. Maybe you surf to ESPN for your sports news, Maximum PC for all things tech, and The New York Times for world events. So which one takes precedence as your browser's home page?
In Chrome, it can be all of them! It doesn't matter how many pages you surf to when you first fire up your browser, Chrome will happily open each one, whether you regularly visit just a couple of sites, or a dozen or more.
To take advantage of this feature, click on the Tools button (wrench icon) and select Options. Under the Basics tab, click the 'Open the following pages' radio button where it says 'On startup.' Mash the Add button to select from a list of recently visited Websites, or manually enter the URL.
Quick, how many search engines can you rattle off? Most of you probably came up with 5 or 6, and a few of you may be able to recite 10 more. But the number of search engines you can configure with Chrome is pretty close to endless. More on that in a minute, let's first look at how to change the default option.
It should come as no big surprise that Chrome ships with Google as its default search engine, but maybe you'd rather use Bing. No problem, just navigate to Tools>Options and click on the Basics tab. Towards the bottom third of the window is where you can select from a list of search engines. Just choose the one you want from the pull-down menu and click Close.
Pretty basic, right? Now here's where things start to get a little more fun. With Chrome, search is made super easy for any site Chrome recognizes has a search engine. Want to search for Die Antwoord videos on YouTube? Start typing YouTube's address in the Omnibar and a message will appear on the right- hand side saying 'Press tab to search youtube.com.' Do as it says (hit the tab key) and type in your search term.
To speed things up even more, you can customize your search engines with keywords. To create a keyword for MaximumPC.com, for example, you would click on Tools>Options. Bring up the Basics tab and press the Manage button located next to Default Search. This brings up a window showing all the search engines Chrome currently recognizes. Scroll down and see if MaximumPC.com is already there. If so, highlight it and click on Edit. If not, mash the Add button instead.
We want to create a keyword that tells Chrome to search MaximumPC.com with Google. There are three fields we need to fill in, the first being the name. We can name this Maximum PC, or if we want to be more specific, we can name it Maximum PC Google. For the keyword, we'll use the letters 'mpc.' And for the search URL, here's what it should read:
http://google.com/search?q=%s+site:maximumpc.com
Now whenever you want to perform a Google search for content only on MaximumPC.com, you would type mpc into the Omnibar and press tab, followed by your search term.
But wait, there's more! We can use a similar trick to setup a custom search engine that's already integrated onto a Website. We'll again use MaximumPC.com for our example, but this will work with any site that has a search function. What we're after is the URL that pops up when performing a search, so in this example, perform a search on Maximum PC for 'Intel' or any other term. Hit return and notice the URL. It should read:
http://www.maximumpc.com/search/node/Intel
Copy the above URL to your clipboard. Next, right-click the Omnibar and select Edit Search Engines. Press the Add button and fill out the fields like you did above (Name, Keyword, URL), only this time, replace the search term ('Intel') with %s. Your fields should look similar to this:
Name: Maximum PC Search
Keywords: max
URL: http://www.maximumpc.com/search/node/%s
If you often search through Google Images, this little trick can be a huge time saver. Just use the following URL when creating a custom search engine:
http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=%s&btnG=Search+Images
Nobody can accuse Google of standing still, and one of the coolest things about Chrome -- and all Google products, really -- is that it's constantly being developed. We're not talking about lame additions either (though some forgettable features inevitably pass Q&A), but useful, and sometimes unique additions. You can especially see this with Gmail, where a ton of experimental add-ons exist under the Labs tab, but Chrome keeps moving forward as well.
Unfortunately, Google has also built a reputation for being content to let coveted features sit in beta for far too long. We supposed this is a better alternative than playing with a half-baked product, but never was the frustration higher than when we sat waiting patiently for Chrome to add support for extensions.
But here's something you may not have known. While extensions and other features are relatively new additions to Chrome, beta users have been enjoying them for months. Ready for some good news? There's no requirement to meet or registration form to fill out in order to be a beta tester, you just have to be willing to put up with potentially buggy code. And if that doesn't scare you off in the slightest, you may want to consider joining the Dev channel, which is sort of like paying with alpha code. Let's break these down.
Chrome Dev Channel
Dev, as you probably guessed, is short for developer, and that's who this channel is really targeted towards. However, there's nothing stopping you or anyone else from joining Chrome's Dev channel and playing with freshly baked features. Just be warned that these are often not yet fully cooked, so they may be broken, unstable, or ultimately destined for the dust bin.
Chrome Beta Channel
As any frequent beta can attest, beta software can range from horribly unstable to surprisingly refined. Google's beta products tend to lean towards the latter, and Chrome is no exception. That doesn't mean you won't ever experience crashes or other quirky behavior with a Chrome beta build, but we've found these incidents to be pretty few and far between. Plus, Google only promotes complete and stable features from the Dev channel to the Beta channel, so it's a great way to get a jump on upcoming functionality before they go public.
Where to Join
Joining one of these channels entails installing the appropriate version of Chrome (developer or beta build), and once you do, you'll automatically be updated to later versions as they become available. Use these links:
More Info: http://dev.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel
Dev Channel: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=devchannel
Beta Channel: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html? extra=betachannel
There are few different reasons for wanting to create separate profiles in Chrome. For one, maybe you have a hankering for, um, 'entertaining' sites, but you don't want the URLs to show up as search suggestions when someone else is using the PC. Yes, that's what Incognito mode is for (well, one of the things), but not everyone wants to load up a stealthy browser just for certain sites. On top of that, once you exit Incognito, all your history for that session is gone, not just the illicit variety.
Another reason for separate profiles is simply to stay organized. If your kids use your PC, do you really want Chrome suggesting Sponge Bob and Twilight links when you're surfing the Web? Probably not, and the more people you let use your PC, the harder it is to sift through your history when you want to find a specific link.
Ready to create a profile? You'll need to navigate to Chrome's User Data folder on your hard drive. Depending on which OS you own, you'll find this folder by navigating to:
Windows XP*
C:\Document and Settings\[USERNAME]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data
Windows Vista and Windows 7*
C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data
*Note that you may need to enable viewing hidden files and folders. Open up My Computer, press Alt, and select Tools>Folder Options. Select the View tab and check the 'Show hidden files, folders, and drives' radio button.
Next, make a copy of the Default folder in the above location. Just right-click and select copy, and then paste it into the same directory. To save space, and to give the new profile a fresh start, it's a good idea to clear your browser cache before doing this.
When you paste the copied folder, Windows will name it Default - Copy, or something similar. Go ahead and rename this to whatever you want to call your new profile (right-click, rename). When you're finished, navigate back to Chrome's Application Data folder (or Application on Vista and Windows 7). Right-click chrome.exe and select Create Shortcut.
Right-click the new shortcut you just created and select Properties. Bring up the Shortcut tab, and in the Target field, cut/paste the following:
Windows XP
C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe –user-data-dir="..\User Data\[PROFILE NAME] "
Windows Vista and Windows 7
C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application \chrome.exe –user-data-dir="..\User Data\[PROFILE NAME] "
Save the changes and then drag the new shortcut to your desktop, and be sure to rename it so you can keep track of which shortcut launches your profile.
If you don't want to go through all that trouble of creating a new profile, there's a free program called Google Chrome Backup (not affiliated with Google) that streamlines the process. You can also use this to backup and restore profiles, and all with just a few self-explanatory mouse clicks. You can download the program here.
Special About pages are nothing new when it comes to browsers, and while Chrome doesn't have a tweakable about:config page like Firefox does, there are plenty of other commands recognized by Chrome. To access them, you type the command in the Ominbar just like you would a Web address. Here are some of the more useful ones.
About:DNS
One of the things that helps give Chrome its zip is a feature called DSN prefetching, or otherwise known as pre-resolving. The idea here is that rather than wait for DNS to resolve domain names, Chrome takes a proactive approach by resolving domain names while a user views a webpage. According to Google, this can result in an average of 250ms faster load times when first visiting a domain than with traditional browser.
Type about:dns into the Omnibar allows you see data about which sites are cached and how many of them have benefited from this technique.
About:Cache
This one lists all the items contained in Chrome's cache, with each one hyperlinked.
About:Memory
Need proof that Firefox's well-documented memory leak still exists? There are several ways to get it, including typing about:memory in Chromes Omnibar. Doing so brings up a page displaying all kinds of memory stats, such as how much total RAM Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers are chewing up, as well as breaks down Chrome's individual processes and tabs.
About:Plugins
Displays a list of installed plugins, like Silverlight, QuickTime, Winamp, Hulu Desktop, and any others. Also tells you which ones are enabled, and some of them include short descriptions.
About:Version
Just like the 'About Google Chrome' link accessible via the Tools menu, only more detailed. In addition to the overall browser version, this also displays the WebKit version and V8 engine info.
There are a handful of other About pages to play around with, including:
About:Stats
About:Network
About:Crash
About:Internets (Windows XP only)
Probably one of the biggest complaints (or benefits, depending on who you ask) with Chrome is the browser's minimalistic interface. There just isn't much to look at, and quite frankly, it's bland. That might be okay in some circumstances, but if you've taken the time to deck out your desktop (like we showed you in our Rainmeter guide), then why not spend some time getting your browser to match?
Applying a theme couldn't be easier. Just head over to Chrome's Themes Gallery, browser around, and mash whichever 'Apply theme' suits you.
Don't be bashful about trying out different looks. If you don't like, just hit the Undo button that appears immediately after installing a theme. If you've already closed the box and/or want to revert back to the default look, navigate to Tools>Options, select the Personal Stuff tab, and press 'Reset to default theme.'
While you're browsing themes, be sure to also check out www.chromethemes.org for even more great looks.
Whenever your system starts to feel sluggish, one of the first things you do is hit up the Task manager (CTRL+ALT+DEL) so you can audit every process and piece of software that's running. But did you know that Chrome comes with its own Task Manager?
It does, and it's pretty informative. To access it, just press Shift+Esc. By default, you'll be shown a basic view of running Chrome processes and how much memory and CPU percentage each one is using, as well some network stats. If you run into a problematic plugin or tab that's simply taking up too much memory, just press the End process button.
While pretty basic at first glance, Chrome's built-in Task Manager contains a few hidden monitors that can come in handy. Right-click anywhere in the Task Manager window and choose to display or hide Image Cache, Script Cache, JavaScript Memory, and a handful of others.
For even more details, press the 'Stats for nerds' URL in the lower left corner, which brings up an about:memory page.
Don't worry, we're not about to toss our morals off the Golden Gate Bridge and show you how to hack someone else's site, at least not in the way you might think. We are, however, going to show you how to edit any website in cyberspace, whether you're the rightful owner or not, except the changes will only be visible on your end.
To edit someone's website locally, simply right-click any part of the page you want to alter and select Inspect Element. This brings up a window in which you're then able to inspect, edit, and debug various components, such as HTML code, CSS, or JavaScript. Anyone experienced with Web design will feel right at home, but the interface can be more than a little overwhelming if you're not a code junkie.
What's cool about the Elements tab is that any changes you make appear on the webpage in real time. But developers and webmasters will also find loads of value in the Resources tab, which reveals the resource consumption of each element.
One of Chrome's unique features is the ability to create site-specific shortcuts to your favorite sites, web apps, or bookmarks. By using Chrome as a site-specific browser, you can open up Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, or any other site or service in its own window with a shortcut installed to your desktop, Start menu, or quick launch bar (or all three). Here's how.
Open up the site in a separate window. For this example, we'll use Facebook. To open a new Chrome window, press CTRL+N, or find the option in the Tools menu.
Once you've loaded up the site you want to make a shortcut for, open up the Page menu and select 'Create application shortcuts...' In some cases, you'll a short description of the site, along with three options for creating shortcuts. Choose as many as you want and press Create.
Whenever you use your newly created shortcut(s), the site will launch in its own window, but without the browser controls, bookmarks, and any other browser-related clutter.
Not that long ago, it was a pretty big hassle setting up Chrome to synchronize your bookmarks. It involved downloading the developer build, creating a shortcut, and adding a line of code. Once you did all that (and assuming you did it correctly), the option would then appear in Chrome.
What a difference a few months make. Chrome's developers got on the ball and made it super easy for anyone to sync up their bookmarks, not just those who like to play with experimental code. No matter which browser you're using (stable, beta, or developer), open up the Tools menu and select 'Synchronize my bookmarks...' You'll need a Google account for this, which you most likely already have (if not, click the link the create one).
Once you fill in your credentials, Google will sync up your bookmarks to Google Docs. To sync and access them on another PC, just repeat the above step. Easy, right?
If you ever want Google to stop syncing your bookmarks, just head back into Tools>Bookmarks synced... and bring up the Personal Stuff tab. At the very top you'll find an option to 'Stop syncing this account.'
This is one of our favorite tricks. Why? Well, you only have so much screen real estate to work with, and even less when working in your browser. If you're a heavy Web surfer, it's not uncommon to have several tabs open at once. We're not talking about 3 or 4, but a dozen or more.
It quickly adds up to a lot of clutter, but do all those tabs really need to take up so much space? Even worse, there are some sites you're likely to always keep open, like Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, and any other persistent destinations. It doesn't take long to fill up your browser, but with Chrome, you can shrink one or more tabs down to just their favicon, freeing up a ton of space in the process.
To organize your tabs into tiny thumbnails, just right-click on it and select Pin Tab. It will then be whisked over to the left side of the browser identifiable by its favicon.
Whenever you type in Chrome's Omnibar, the browser 'suggests' sites that are similar to what it thinks you're typing, which is based partially on your search history. It's not hard to see how this could turn into an awkward situation if someone else is sitting next to you while you surf the Web. To disable Chrome's Search Suggestion feature, click on Tools>Options. Bring up the Under the Hood tab and deselect the 'Use a suggestion service...' checkbox.
On the other end of the spectrum, you may feel that Chrome doesn't serve up enough suggestions. There's no integrated way to change this, but you can take matters into your own hands using a startup switch (see the section about startup switches earlier in this guide).
Find Chrome's startup icon on your desktop or taskbar, and then right-click and select Properties. Make sure the Shortcut tab is selected. In the target box, append -ominibox-popup-count=xx, replacing xx with the number of suggestions you want to appear. The final result should look something like this:
C:\Users\Paul\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\ -omnibox-popup-count=35
We don't know why it took so long for Google to add official extensions support for Chrome, but now that they have, we couldn't be happier. Mozilla? Probably not so much. The lack of extensions is a major reason why many users just couldn't bring themselves to make the switch, but now that the door has been opened, expect a flood of add-ons, just like what happened with Firefox. And the coolest part about all this is you don't even need to restart Chrome for extensions to take effect - groovy! Here are some we just can't live without.
Chrome Gestures
Better known as 'mouse gestures,' Chrome gestures is Chrome's equivalent, and it's just as awesome here as it is on any other browser. This should be on everyone's install list.
IE Tab
As much we like Chrome, there are still some webpages that will only work correctly in Internet Explorer. But rather than resort to loading up IE, this extension allows you to load the page with IE, but in a separate tab within Chrome. In other words, you're getting the best of worlds!
Tab Sync
Sometimes 5 o'clock rolls around way too early. Maybe you're waist deep in a super important project for work, or perhaps you were in the middle of an entertaining article, but it's time to go. One solution is to bookmark all of your open tabs, enable bookmark syncing, and then load them up one-by-one when you get home. Or you could install Tab Sync. Just as the name implies, this handy add-on syncs all of your open tabs. Just click the button and you're good to go.
The Camelizer
Shop more intelligently with the Camelizer add-on. Camelizer tracks product price changes and works a variety of popular e-tailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, Overstock, and a few others. It will tell you what the lowest price for a product was, how recently it was marked that low, and other helpful stats to make sure you're not overpaying.
Tab Menu
Extremely handy for anyone who often loads more than 10 tabs at a time, and the more tabs you have open, the more use you'll get out of this one. Easily perform functions like select, close, rearrange, find, and more, and do it with a convenient pull-down menu.
Move over Mozilla, your Firefox browser isn't the only one to support Greasemonkey anymore. As of February 1, 2010, so does Google Chrome. This is such a huge development, that we might someday look back and rank this as one of the most critical moments in Chrome's history.
To give you a little background information, Greasemonkey started off as a Firefox extension. More than just another add-on, however, Greasemonkey makes it possible for users to install scripts and integrate on-the-fly Javascript changes to websites. Put more plainly, Greasemonkey gives users access to a ton of additional extensions, over 40,000 of which can be found on userscripts.org. Not all of them work correctly, but a good many do, and that number will only increase with time.
There's no plug-in to install here, Greasemonkey works natively with the latest version of Chrome. Just click the above link and start experimenting. Here are a couple to get you started.
Facebook Purity
Hey, we love racking up trillions of dollars and wiping out our enemies in Mafia Wars just as much as the next virtual mafioso, but we could care less about your mafia. We also wouldn't be sad if an asteroid landied on your farm and decimated your crops, and while it might sound callous, we also have no interest in how you fared in whatever quiz you decided to participate in.
We're not haters in general, we just hate the crap that floods Facebook. Luckily for us, we're not the only ones, and someone had the good sense to make Facebook Purity. This script does what your so-called friends should be doing - it removes all the quiz and application messages, letting you enjoy Facebook the way it was designed to be enjoyed before the whole MySpace crowd migrated over.
Ebay Hacks
Attention Ebay shoppers, you need to install this script. Ebay has made more than a few changes to its Feedback system over the years, but one thing the online auction hasn't done is make it easy to see a user's negative or neutral remarks. The only way to do that is to scroll through someone's entire feedback profile, and when dealing with a PowerSeller, that can be pretty time consuming. It's also necessary, because do you really want to take a chance on a seller who has a history of selling counterfeit goods?
Ebay Hacks adds a pair of tabs to Feedback profiles allowing you to quickly sort through all "Complaints Received" and "Complaints Left."
Want more? Be sure to check out our '11 Best Greasemonkey Scripts that Actually Work with Chrome' article.
It probably seems silly to talk about NoScript without mentioning AdBlock, so we we'll the give popular ad blocking service a shout out. And while we're at it, let us clear the air. In general, we don't condone running AdBlock, and with good reason. If all of our readers blocked the ads on our site, we wouldn't be able to exist, plain and simple. We also realize that there are some sites that make malicious use of ads, bombarding you with popups at every turn. That's also bunk. So our stance is this: If you must, go ahead and install AdBlock (it's now available for Chrome right here), but disable it for sites you trust and support, which we hope includes MaximumPC.com. You can do so by installing the Browser Button for AdBlock extension (available here), and then clicking on the icon and selecting 'Don't run on this domain.'
All rright, now that we've stepped down from our soapbox, let us turn our attention to NoScript. NoScript is somewhat of a different beast as it provides an extra layer of protection against potentially malicious (or just annoying) JavaScript code. It's become a favorite among Firefox users, but isn't available on Chrome.
That's the bad news. The good news is you can still get NoScript-like behavior in Chrome, though you'll have to run the developer build (currently 5.0.xxx.x). It also isn't as slick, but it works. After you've installed the developer build (download it here) and restarted your browser, go to Tools>Options and load up the 'Under the Hood' tab. Right under Privacy, click the Content settings... button.
Head over to the JavaScript tab and click the 'Do not allow any site to run JavaScript' radio button. This will block all JavaScript from executing, but if there are certain sites you want to allow, mash the Exceptions... button and manually enter them in. Alternately, you can allow JavaScript to run and set up a blacklist but typing in sites and selecting 'Disable' from the pull-down menu.
While you're in there, you can also control images, plug-ins, pop-ups, and cookies by diving into each one's tab and adjusting the settings.
Tabbed browsing is the greatest thing since, well, tabbed browsing, but if you want to view two websites at the same time, you need to open another window. Or you can rapid-fire switch between tabs. Neither of these is ideal.
We don't know why split-screen browsing hasn't yet been adopted by every major browser maker, especially with widescreen monitors now commonplace. But while browser makers drag their feet, you can take matters into your own hands by bookmarking http://www.podobne.pl/splitscreen/. This URL splits your browser in half with separate URL bars. It's not a perfect solution -- some sites, like Newegg, hijack the entire screen -- but until browser makers get on the ball, it's the best we've got.
There are three main ways to take Chrome with you:
1. Build a LAN box
2. Buy a notebook/netbook
Door number 3 is the only one that will fit in your pocket, at least without looking silly. It doesn't take much room on your USB key either, consuming about 35MB.
Just click the link above to download and 'install' the app. This really just unpacks the files, and you can choose to do this to your desktop and then move the folder over to your USB key, or unpack directly to your thumb drive. Once you're finished, just fire up Chrome Portable and start browsing!
The small SSD Tweak Utility application makes it easy to optimize your SSD in Windows XP, Vista, and 7.
Read more here:
Small Utility Helps Tweak SSD Performance
