It does have the downside that files have to meet a particular Sky Drive criteria that they can not be larger than 50MB. To get around this, have a look at SDExplorer tool (windows XP and later), which integrates Microsoft SkyDrive into Windows.

The two biggest differences between the free version and the Pro version (apart from the price) are:
* the Pro version lets you open directly files from the SDExplorer drive
* the Pro version does away with the SKyDrive limitation of 50MB per file.

I’ve just been reminded (via Hack Your Day) of the simplest, safest, way to mount an .iso image. The program, supplied by Microsoft, is only 23K program, and comes with a 9K sys file driver.

The one downside is that this file is not actively supported by Microsoft, meaning they are not developing it, and probably won’t accept any support requests for it. However, I’ve used it extensively on Windows XP (SP 3) and Daniel Pataki of Hack Your Day is using it on 32bit Windows 7 and it works perfectly for him.

First of all, download winxpvirtualcdcontrolpanel from the Microsoft servers. It is a self extracting zip file, so just execute it, and tell it to place the files in a folder. I stored them in a folder in my Program Files folder, as if it were a normal application.

To install the program and it’s driver:
1. Execute VCdControlTool.exe
2. Click “Driver control”
3. If the driver is in the same directory as VCdControlTool.exe, it will be found automatically. Otherwise click the “Install Driver” button is available, navigate to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and Open it, then click “Start”.
4. Click OK.

5. Click “Add Drive” to add a drive to the drive list. Ensure that the drive added is not a local drive. If it is, continue to click “Add Drive” until an unused drive letter is available.
6. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click “Mount”.
7. Navigate to the image file, select it, and click “OK”. It works OK with mapped network drives, as well.

You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM device. You can close the application as soon as the image has been mounted, but if you want to unmount the image, just restart the exe and click unmount, or stop the service in the device manager. That’s it, task done, no memory footprint, not bloatware, nothing, just a mounted disk, wonderful!

While the initial installation may seem more technical, it is quicker than Daemon Tools or Power Iso or something like that. Furthermore, the light weight means there’s much less impact on your system.

Thanks, Microsoft!

If you want to create or verify MD5 or SHA-1 checksums on windows, have a look at Microsoft’s FCIV tool.

The File Checksum Integrity Verifier (FCIV) is a command-prompt utility that computes and verifies cryptographic hash values of files. FCIV can compute MD5 or SHA-1 cryptographic hash values. These values can be displayed on the screen or saved in an XML file database for later use and verification.

The FCIV utility has the following features:
* Supports MD5 or SHA1 hash algorithms (The default is MD5.)
* Can output hash values to the console or store the hash value and file name in an XML file
* Can recursively generate hash values for all files in a directory and in all subdirectories (for example, fciv.exe c:\ -r)
* Supplies an exception list to specify files or directories to hash
* Can store hash values for a file with or without the full path of the file

The official release of Windows 7 is only a few weeks away, and if you’re anything like me, you’re probably asking yourself what effect this will have on your lives. Will the gates of Heaven open up and a consort of large breasted angels descend to guide you into computing heaven? Or will it be more of a low key affair, maybe involving the cast of Friends and a degrading video?

via A Review of the Pirated Copy of Windows 7 I Bought On eBay | Cracked.com.

Microsoft will also continue providing free security-related hotfixes to non-subscribing customers. So unless you frequently make calls to Microsoft support, the April 14th deadline might not really affect you.

via April deadlines loom for Windows XP, Office 2003 product support.

It looks like FireFox has grabbed the lion’s share of users from Microsoft’s browser, with a gain of just under 4% to 21.5% (FireFox first went over 20% in November). Safari has also gained on Internet Explorer, with a 2% increase (to 8.3%).

Google’s new addition to the ‘browser wars’ has just over 1% of the market, with Opera’s share dropping to .7%.

For what its worth, Internet Explorer, FireFox and Safari still command over 97% of the browser share.

It is the destiny of one browser to serve as the nemesis of web developers everywhere. At the birth of the Web Standards movement, that role was played by Netscape Navigator 4; an outdated browser that refused to die. Its tenacious existence hampered the adoption of modern standards. Today that role is played by Internet Explorer 6.

………

JavaScript genius Dean Edwards wrote a script called IE7. This amazing piece of code uses JavaScript to make Internet Explorer 5 and 6 behave like a standards-compliant browser. Dean used JavaScript to bootstrap IE’s CSS support.

Because the script is specifically targeted at Internet Explorer, there’s no point in serving it up to other browsers. Conditional comments to the rescue:

<!--[if lt IE 7]>
<script src="http://ie7-js.googlecode.com/svn/version/2.0(beta3)/IE7.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<![endif]-->

Standards-compliant browsers won’t fetch the script. Users of IE6, on the hand, will pay a kind of bad browser tax by having to download the JavaScript file.

The point to draw from it is that software piracy, while not giving cash to the software company, still provides support for them. The example used in the Adobe Photoshop range of products.

…even if something better becomes available, people will still be using Adobe, because it’s the industry’s standard. Most of my student friends were using pirated versions of Photoshop at home because they couldn’t afford the real thing, and because it was what they were learning to use in class. I showed a few of them the benefits of using GIMP instead, and the response was total rejection of GIMP. It was unfamiliar, it had no perceived benefits over Photoshop, and most of all, it wasn’t even any cheaper than a pirated version of Photoshop.

Bluntly, if you download a pirated copy of MS-Office instead of Open Office, then OOo’s developers have lost a user, lost a supporter (and possibly, lost a contributor), and you are reinforcing the Microsoft hold on Office Software.

To do it the easy way, download the Resource Hacker program. This will help you find what you are looking for and making sure you do not mess up along the way. After you have downloaded it, run the .exe file, so that we may begin tweaking.

Using Resource Hacker, open the explorer.exe file (located at C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe ). You should now be able to see a list of different folders on the side that are made up of numbers in the “String Table” directory. The one we are looking for is folder 37 with the other sub-directory option being 1033. Inside that file there are multiple lines of text – we want to change the “start” text. You can change it to whatever you want, but keep under 20 characters as the tab becomes too large after that. Also, make sure you do not change any of the text on the other lines.

When you have changed it to whatever you want, click “File,” “Save” and save the Resource you have just ‘hacked’.

Exit the Resource Hacker, logout and log back in.You should now see your start button changed to whatever you typed in!

1. DriverMax. Running DriverMax before the format lets you back up all the drivers on a system. It even loads drivers for non-present devices, which means you don’t have to fight a printer or webcam install CD later on.
2. Migwiz is the standard Microsoft file and settings transfer utility, which works extremely well, but it is critical to use the exact same version of the executable to avoid problems. Copy the USMT folder from the computer’s c:\windows\system32\ and save it to a USB drive, or do what the wizard wants you do and create a wizard disk. Run the exe from there both before and after the reformat.
3. Nlite (or VLite for Vista) enables a silent Windows install!. Extract your CD’s contents to a folder, run N/VLite on it, fill in the blanks, and grab some application addons from Winaddons. Burn your disc and presto, you’ve got a silent Windows install!
4. WPI – Windows Post-Install. This makes post-reformat installs a breeze. Throw your favorite apps in a folder and set up their silent switches in the WPI configuration page. Reinstalling them is as easy as checking some boxes and clicking a button. There is an excellent tutorial at the WPIW site, which will guide you through setting up your first Wizard.
5. PING (Parition Image is Not Ghost). Once you have a nice clean install, create an image so you don’t have to go through it all again !!! Imaging saves all kinds of hassles and the image itself can reside on an external hard drive until it’s required again. Pick up a reliable mdoel of external drive and store an image on, instead of reformatting again next time.