Here are the simple steps you need to perform in order to get your Product Key from the installation CD.
Do take note that this method only works on certain CD’s. It’s still worth a try though.

1. Insert the Installation CD into your CD / Drive Drive.

2. Explore the CD and navigate to the i386 folder.

3. Open the file UNATTEND.txt and scroll down to the last line.

4. You will find your Windows XP Product key there.

I was able to find the CD key on a Windows XP Professional Edition installation CD and would love to know if you were able to find it on your own installation CDs. Do let us know through your comments on how it went for you.

Did my usually searching and some say that an outdated Flash and Java should fix the problem. I tried but it doesn’t work. In fact, my Flash and Java were already up to date. The strange thing is, i can only see the upload page if i scroll all the way down and it’s like the upload page which was supposed to pop-up got messed up.

It’s definitely not some folder permission problem but a scripting problem. Things get a lot easier once you can narrow down the root of the problem.

Now that i know it’s a scripting problem, the first thing on my mind was to reinstall WordPress 3.0.1. But then again, me being me, i’m just way too lazy to do it the manual way so i did the easy way. Here’s how.

Login to your WordPress Admin Panel. Click on Dashboard. Then look for Updates. This is a new feature in the newer versions of WordPress which makes my life easier. What i did was click on Re-install Automatically and it’s fixed!

This is not a bug and it won’t happen to most users but then again, i’m always one of the few unlucky ones which always face problems. My guess is, the day i upgraded, some files were not properly uploaded and therefore causing this issue. My advice is, don’t upgrade too early, upgrade after a few weeks whenever a new WordPress version is released. Good Luck!

In Windows XP, HyperTerminal is already installed by default under START, then ACCESSORIES, then COMMUNICATIONS, then HYPERTERMINAL. So i connect the console to a PC that’s running on Windows 7, and could not find the HyperTerminal. I find it odd that Windows 7 is supposed to be the latest Windows OS, and still not have certain functions which XP has.

Then i came up with an article which says that you will need the HyperTerminal files from Windows XP in order to run HyperTerminal in Windows 7. Thanks Bill Gates for making users paying hundreds of dollars for a “so called” latest OS and not having functions in which the older OS has.

The workaround for this is very easy but the tedious part is getting the HyperTerminal files on Windows XP. As usual, i always suggest and recommend the best method for my readers and it couldn’t get any simpler than this.

First, just download the file here. If you’re wondering what’s in it, well, it’s the HyperTerminal files taken from a Windows XP machine. Yes, i just saved you the trouble of finding the files. Now all you have to do is, create a new folder, name it “Hyper Terminal” or whatever you may prefer, and just extract all the files you’ve just downloaded in there. Run the application and there you go!

Locating the pst-file

Before you can make a backup you’ll need to know what to backup first. In the case of Outlook in a home environment, all data is stored in a single file with a pst-extension. The pst-file is also known as Personal Folders and is able to store several mail, contacts, journal, notes and calendar folders.

You can locate your pst-file by using one of the following methods;

• Make sure you include hidden and system files and folders when searching for a pst-file
• By default it is located in;
  C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\
  For Windows Vista and Windows 7 the default is;
  C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\
• You can also locate the file by using;
  Right click the root folder (probably Outlook Today)-> Properties-> button Advanced-> field Filename
• If you have multiple pst-files you can get an overview via;
  File-> Data File Management…

Export pst-file

It’s a general misconception that an export of your mail is a good backup. This misconception gets even bigger if you run the export and see that the default name of the file to export to is backup.pst. The reason that it isn’t a backup is because you will lose data during an export, even if you configure the export feature to export all the folders and subfolders. Amongst others, the following data gets lost during an export;

• custom forms
• custom views
• Wizard Rules
• folder properties like AutoArchive settings

An export of your pst-file to another pst-file can be seen as a selective backup since during the export you can choose which data you want to backup. This is handy if you see no need in backing up the entire pst-file like the Sent Items folder or the Funny Forwards folder (who doesn’t have one of those?) which can get quite big over time and you might consider them as not important enough to backup.

Let’s say you only want to export your Inbox and your Contacts folder;

1. Choose File-> Import and Export…
2. Choose Export to a file
3. Choose Personal Folder File (.pst)
4. Select the Inbox and press Next (we do the Contacts folder later)
5. Set the file location to D:\My Documents\My Outlook\Backup\export.pst
6. Press Finish and you’ll be prompted to set properties for the export.pst file
7. In the Name field type a descriptive name like “Export June 2004″ (yeah, I wrote this guide a long time ago but don’t worry; I still keep it up to date!)
8. Press OK to start the export
9. To export the Contacts folder as well repeat step 1 to 4 and this time select the Contacts folder
10. If the save location is not set to the path you’ve set in step 5 browse to it
11. Press Finish to export the Contact folder
12. Close Outlook and copy the exported file to your safe location.

Import pst-file

Importing a pst-file can only be done in a working Outlook situation, like when you’ve reinstalled your machine, configured Outlook and now want to restore your Inbox and Contacts. Importing a pst-file can be done in two different ways; automatically through a wizard or manually by dragging and dropping. Before importing, restore your pst-file; Copy the file to the location where you want to work with it like; D:\My Documents\My Outlook\Temp. If you restored from CD/DVD, make sure you uncheck the “Read Only” file attribute by right clicking the file and choosing Properties.

Restore through the Import and Export Wizard

1. Choose File-> Import and Export…
2. Choose Import from another program or file
3. Choose Personal Folder File (.pst)
4. Browse to the location where you’ve restored the pst file (D:\My Documents\My Outlook\Temp)
5. Set the options to “Include subfolders” and “Import items into the same folder in:” and select the folder that is listed as your Outlook Today folder set in the dropdown list
6. Press Finish to complete the import
7. Restart Outlook and remove the export.pst file from the Temp directory if desired

Restore manually

1. Choose File-> Open-> Outlook Data File…
2. Browse to the location where you’ve restored the pst file (D:\My Documents\My Outlook\Temp)
3. You’ll now see an additional set of folders added to your folder list which you can expand. Expand the list and select the Inbox folder
4. In this folder select the messages you want to restore to the original Inbox folder
5. Drag & drop them to the default Inbox folder
6. Do the same for the Contacts folder. You might want to set your view to a list view so you can easily select and move the items. To change the view choose View-> Arrange By-> Category
7. Now that the importing is complete, right click the pst-file added in step 2 and choose Disconnect
8. Restart Outlook and remove the export.pst file from the Temp directory if desire.

I’ve recently discovered a way on how to maintain it’s white colour without the use of any expensive solvents. In fact, all you need is just an eraser. Yes that’s right! However, this should only be used on the “matt” part which is mostly the keypads and keyboard areas. Be careful when erasing the keypads as the dust might just slip underneath.

Never attempt to use an eraser on the shiny surface especially the the outer cover, the one with the mac logo. Why do i say this? Well, that’s because i’ve personally tried that and it turns the shiny coat into an ugly matt texture. I still can’t quite figure out on how to make it the way like it was before.

Also, i’m having some colour stains on the front cover of my MacBook and i can’t seem to get it out. I’m not sure what but i’ll try to find the best “home-made” remedies. Why i prefer using items that can be found at my home is simply because it’s cost effective and of course environment friendly!

Today, i’m going to introduce you another useful plugin for firefox. This plugin will make your web browsing speed much faster and it’s free.

Dynamic speed increases can be obtained with Fasterfox’s unique prefetching mechanism, which recycles idle bandwidth by silently loading and caching all of the links on the page you are browsing.

Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay. It also has a page load timer, a millisecond accurate page load timer which tests the effectiveness of your settings.

Still those understand those lines? Well it’s okay, i don’t too. But one thing’s for sure, it really sure does improve FireFox’s web browsing performance. I’m not sure why, but i found there’s quite a few versions of FasterFox out there. But the one that i’m using is working good, well i’m not sure about the others though.

The version i downloaded is Fasterfox (EladKarako Mod) which can be downloaded here. I am currently using Firefox Version 3.6.3 and it seems to be working fine. Well no harm trying because it’s free and if you don’t like it, or you don’t seem to find it useful, you can always uninstall it. I’m just sharing ^_^

The only thing about self hosted blogs is that you’ll have to maintain your site all by yourself. This is good for people who likes to be in control but provided, you must know what you’re doing. One of the most basic feature of WordPress that everyone should know are the “Plugins”.

Choosing the right plugins can do wonders but installing a wrong plugin can do more harm than good. My advice is, if the plugin cause too much trouble for you to even understand how it works, just uninstall it.

One of the most annoying things that a blogger would experience is spam. Spam these days doesn’t come only in your email inbox, but almost everywhere. Especially sites with a comment box that these spambots can spam to. The most widely used anti-spam plugin for wordpress is “Akismet”. I’ve been using that for years but recently i realized that the spambots are getting smarter.

They no longer spam their urls but they duplicate the approved comments on that particular page. I don’t get the point of these kind of spams but it’s seriously annoying. I knew i had to find a way to get rid of these spambots from spamming my comment box. After some Googling, i found a plugin called “TanTan-Spam”. Yeah i know the name’s weird but who cares because it’s really effective.

What this plugin does is actually adding a captcha when a comment contains spam words. Thankfully bots will never get to read captcha and therefore, no spams! You can download it or read more about the author’s plugin site by visiting here.

Alternatively, for those who are using the newer versions of WordPress, you can just type out “Tantan Spam” under your plugin page and install it from there for a much hassle free method. Say Goodbye to SPAM!

Many of you might have noticed that Google rolled out a new search engine layout.
This layout is clearly heading away from the old simplicity and incorporates a new sidebar.

What is this tutorial about?

This tutorial is simply for the people who want to use the old google again and have no use for the new sidebar. You will not have to delete any cookies as other sites may have suggested.

A little warning..

Google might change the the workaround sooner or later. Meaning it might not work anymore when you arrive at this site. Please use the easy approach for a quick check before attempting anything else. (It takes only some seconds) Thanks.

The easy approach

If you are using google as your homepage you can simply replace your urls.

Replace

http://www.google.com/

With

http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=all

Yes that’s it! The simplest method and it still works as per the date i posted this. Now you won’t see that annoying sidebar which is useless. If you tried this method and it doesn’t work for you, let me know and i will share with you another alternate method.

The very basics of installing Windows on a Mac, you will need Bootcamp. And to install Windows 7 on a Mac, you’ll need BootCamp 3.0 in order for all your drivers to work properly. The thing for me is, i’m using an old MacBook which is running on “Leopard” which is Mac OSX 10.5. And on “Leopard” the BootCamp version is 2.0. To get BootCamp 3.0, i will need to upgrade and get Mac OS X “Snow Leopard” which is Mac OSX 10.6.

I’ve never been interested in Mac OSX upgrades and all along i thought that it’s free. But that day, i realized that i actually have to purchase in order to upgrade to Mac OSX 10.6 “Snow Leopard”. That made me think, what difference does it make Mac? It’s the same as Windows then, but obviously Windows can run every software a Mac can, but a Mac can’t. I will definitely choose Windows over Mac OSX anytime.

Anyway, don’t worry. You can still install Windows 7 on your Mac. There are 2 ways to get around. One is of course the legal method, and the other is…well you know.

Method 1

1) Boot up using Mac OS X and install Windows 7 via BootCamp.

2) Once Windows 7 installation is done. Logon to Windows 7 and insert your Mac OS X DVD.

3) Don’t run the setup, explore the DVD and look for a folder named “Drivers”.

4) Install all the drivers in there and done!

Method 2

1) Boot up using Mac OS X and install Windows 7 via BootCamp.

2) Once Windows 7 installation is done. Relax.

3) Torrent search for Boot Camp 3.0.

4) Once done, run it and you’re done!

My conclusion is, Windows 7 on a MacBook is possible and it’s perfect. Forget about those people who teach those complicated methods. So basically, the only problem that most users who are trying to install Windows 7 on a Mac has, are driver problems. I hope my tutorial helps!

Before i found this fix, what i did was, everytime i restart my Windows 7 computer, i will have to go to “Device Manager”, look for “Network Adapters” and disable and enable it. So for those of you who are on Windows 7 and shares the same problem as me, here’s how to do it. The difficulty level of this fix is Easy and can be done by everyone.

Step 1: Start > Go to the Search Box

Step 2: Type: services.msc

Step 3: FIND: Id_String2.6844F930_1628_4223_B5CC_5BB94B87 9762 in the list

Step 4: Right Click & Select Properties

Step 5: From the drop down select Disabled

Step 6: Click STOP & Click Apply

Step 7: Reboot

* Do take note that the ID STRING alpha-numeric numbers (Step 3)  isn’t necessarily the same as what i posted here. It may be different on your PC but you get the point. You will only see one with weird alpha-numeric ID STRING, usually it’s the first one.

Out of all tricks, this is the one that worked for me and i’m pretty sure it will work for you too. If you have any doubts or questions, please do not hesitate to drop me a comment and i’ll try my best to help