Apple Patent Could End iPhone Jailbreaking

Friendly Computers found this article interesting and would like to share it with you.

Apple is apparently ramping up its battle to prevent iPhone and iPod owners from jailbreaking their devices.

The company has applied for a patent, titled "Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device," that covers a series of security measures to automatically protect devices from thieves and other "unauthorized users." Unauthorized users apparently applies to those who engage in jailbreaking, which allows devices to run apps not approved by the company producing the operating system--such as Apple, the main target of such bypasses.

The application, which was filed in February 2009 and published Thursday, describes measures to identify "particular activities that may indicate suspicious behavior," so that "safety measures" can be taken to restrict the device's functions. Those activities include the "hacking, jailbreaking, unlocking, or removal of a SIM card," according to the application. Apple also intends to send warnings to owners via e-mail or text message when such activity is detected.

The application also describes a variety of measures that could be used to help identify the unauthorized user, including the activation of a camera that could capture and geotag the device's surroundings, and perhaps current user, and transmit that information to a remote device:

In some embodiments, an unauthorized user can be detected by comparing the identity of the current user to the identities of authorized users of the electronic device. For example, a photograph of the current user can be taken, a recording of the current user's voice can be recorded, the heartbeat of the current user can be recorded, or any combination of the above. The photograph, recording, or heartbeat can be compared, respectively, to a photograph, recording, or heartbeat of authorized users of the electronic device to determine whether they match. If they do not match, the current user can be detected as an unauthorized user.

When unauthorized use has been detected, "access to particular applications can be restricted, access to sensitive information can be restricted, sensitive information can be erased from the electronic device...," the application states, effectively wiping and bricking the device.

Apple representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In July, U.S. Copyright Office ruled that bypassing a manufacturer's protection mechanisms to allow "handsets to execute software applications" no longer violates federal copyright law. However, while the U.S. Copyright Office has declared the software legal, Apple has repeatedly discouraged users from loading such a bypass, reminding them that doing so will void their device's warranty.

"As we've said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones as this can violate the warranty and can cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably," Apple had said in a statement in response to the ruling.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20014356-37.html

Top 10 Facebook Fixes

Friendly Computers would like to share with you top 10 Facebook fixes.

Facebook may be the de facto social network of, frankly, almost everyone, but that doesn't mean you have to use Facebook exactly the way its creators, or your Farmville-addicted friends, want you to. Here are 10 tweaks to make Facebook better.

10. Access Facebook Chat Through Your Preferred Client

Feel free to set that little box in the lower-right hand corner of the Facebook page, the chat box, to "Go Offline." If you really want to have even more up-to-the-second chats with your Facebook contacts, you can do so through your own favorite client: Pidgin, Adium, iChat, Trillian, Digsby, whatever you'd like. Many clients have set up Facebook log-in on their own, but if not, you can do so with some simple XMPP configuration.

9. Back Up Your Account with SocialSafe

There's a whole lot of data, and photos, in your Facebook account, and getting them all out is no small feat. SocialSafe, which costs just $3, lets you save all your photos, friends, photo albums, and even friends' photos that you're tagged in, along with your status updates. It doesn't grab everything in and around your account, but enough to liberate you from feeling chained to the service.

8. Have a Plan for Your Account After Death

It could be more than a little awkward for friends, distant relatives, and others to leave you messages on your Facebook account, then find out you passed away. Even more awkward for those around you when people go digging through your account, or when your account can't be deactivated. All pause for thought, and a motivator to set up a post-mortem plan for Facebook. There are services that offer professional account-after-death services, like Entrustet and Legacy Locker, but really, just thinking through a system where somebody you trust has the keys to your account and instructions on what you want done with it. Officially, Facebook offers a "memorialized" account for relatives that can prove their loved one is deceased, but won't hand over the keys to anyone on their own part.

7. Prevent Sites from Auto-Customizing Content with Your Facebook Login

You can turn off Facebook's "Instant Personalization" service in your settings, but the reality of your Facebook login status following around the web, and occasionally allowing less scrupulous sites to glom on, is still there. Shut down access to your Facebook credentials from anyone except Facebook using Adblock Plus and custom filters.

6. Filter and Compress Your Activity Alerts

If you let Facebook dictate how it emails you about status updates, replies, "Likes," and other changes, it will overwhelm you. If you leave it to yourself to check, you can just as easily overwhelm your willpower to avoid distraction. Compress all your Facebook notifications into one or two emails per day with NutshellMail, a social media aggregator that we recommended for filtering and managing your online social life and never missing important events—that last one set up so that event invitations come through right away, but friends tagging you in old college photos waits for your end-of-day web checks.

5. Find Out When Anyone Else Logs Into Your Account

Maybe you left yourself signed in at a friend's house. Perhaps you found out too late that you should have given your old cellphone a better wiping clean. However it is that you're concerned about other people getting access to your account, you can wipe the slate clean and pin it down from your Facebook settings. As the Trouble Fixers blog explains, there are settings to get email or SMS notices whenever your account is accessed from a "new" device, be it a browser, phone, or other gizmo, once you wipe the slate clean and register your computers and phones as authorized.

4. Get Back the Basic Privacy You Signed Up For

If you'd wanted everything you posted to be public, you'd use Twitter. If you wanted all your co-workers to see it, you'd send it over email. You signed up for Facebook to give a select group of friends access to the more private side of your life and thoughts, and you can get back to that kind of small-circle feeling. We've previously posted guides to Facebook's simpler privacy controls, as well as getting back to what you first signed up for. Even with Facebook's latest round of comprehension improvements, it's still worth looking at what you might not know you're sharing.

3. "Quit" Facebook While Still Staying in Touch

Facebook can be more trouble than it's worth, especially for those who have anything approaching privacy concerns. Still, it's becoming the world's phonebook replacement, and some people still want to get messages and sign in for events when necessary. So go ahead and quit Facebook without actually quitting Facebook, by wiping out one account and building another with very limited access to prying eyes.

2. Strip Out Annoying Facebook "Games," Quizzes, and Other Cruft

Sure, you can click on every single one of your friends' indulgences to hide them, but there will always be another questionnaire, turn-based addiction machine, or other viral thing right around the corner. Wipe them all clean from your account with F.B. Purity (technically "Fluff Busting Purity"), a user script that installs on nearly every major browser and cleans away all those status updates you never want to see again.

1. Stop Your Friends from Revealing Your Location

Facebook's new Places feature? Yeah, it's a lot like Foursquare, Gowalla, and other I'm-here-right-now apps. The big difference is that your Facebook friends can, by default, check you in somewhere without your knowledge. To prevent letting everyone else publish your social calendar, you can disable Facebook Places, or just disable your friends' ability to geo-tag you.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5616928/top-10-facebook-privacy-and-usability-fixes

Apple May Use Heartbeat Analysis to Detect Unauthorized iPhone Users

Friendly Computers found this article interesting and would like to share it with you.

Apple new patent application describes methods that may enable the iPhone and iPad to "sense" the user, detecting voice prints, faces, activity patterns and even heartbeats. If unauthorized use is detected, many security measures could be activated.

If the iOS device detects that the user is not authorized, it can start taking photos and sending them to an email account, along with GPS coordinates, keystroke logs, phone calls, and other activity. The owner would also be able to save any data remotely, and wipe out the device after that.

The patent application seems like a supercharged version of the Find My iPhone feature now available in MobileMe, coupled with new hardware and software features. While these patents may never get their way into real products, it makes sense for Apple to increase the security, especially for their increasing number of corporate clients.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5617867/apple-may-use-heartbeat-analysis-to-detect-unauthorized-iphone-users

15 Things Every PC User Should Know

Friendly Computers would like to share with you 15 things every PC user should know.

Think you know tech? If you don't have a handle on every single one of these 15 tech facts, habits, and efficiency tricks, you're not living up to your potential.

1. Don't double-click everything. Windows 101: Double-clicking is how you open items in Windows. It's not how you open links in your Web browser, click buttons in dialog boxes, or do pretty much anything else--and if you reflexively double-click, you might accidentally zip right past something important or submit a form twice. If you don't need this reminder yourself, chances are you know someone who does.

2. Use slashes and backslashes in the appropriate situations. Let's get it straight: / is a slash (or forward slash, if you must), and \ is a backslash. Backslashes are conventionally used for Windows file paths (C:\Program Files\Whatever), while slashes are used for Internet addresses (http://www.pcworld.com/howto.html).

3. Record the exact error message. When your PC crashes, it'll usually try to tell you why it is doing so--albeit with a string of numbers and letters that you won't understand. Write the message down in its entirety (or take a screenshot, if possible) so you can later plug it into Google or give it to your tech support agent. If your PC didn't provide an error message, go to Action Center (in the Control Panel) and see if it shows up under 'View archived messages' or 'View problems to report'.

4. Bring deleted files back from the dead. When you delete a file from your PC or memory card, you're not wiping it off the actual hard drive. Instead, you're simply removing the index information that tells your PC where the file is, at which point the PC is free to treat the part of your disk that contain that file as empty space that it can write something else to. If you've accidentally deleted something, undelete utilities such as Recuva can help you find those files again as long as you haven't already written over that file with something new.

Don't leave your personal data on your old PC's hard drive. Nuke it completely with Darik's Boot and Nuke.

5. Wipe your hard drive before getting rid of it.Because your PC doesn't immediately get rid of the files you delete, you can't just reformat your hard drive before recycling or selling your old computer--because someone might be able to use an undelete app to recover your sensitive data. We have all kinds of tips for completely erasing an old drive, but the short version is: grab Darik's Boot and Nuke.

Want a totally worthless toolbar added to your browser? No? Then uncheck the box for that option before you install updates.

6. Uncheck the boxes before you install. Lots of helpful apps out there give you the option of installing search toolbars and other add-ons--and some of them are so pushy about being helpful that their installers are configured to install the uninvited extras unless you check a box saying you don't want them. Not only is each add-on another thing that your PC needs to load, but you have no idea what kind of data it could be sending out. They come bundled with the app because they make money for the app developer, not because they're particularly useful. So take a close look at what you're installing before you click Install--and in return, the installer won't change your search engine or install apps you don't need.

7. Beware of viruses living in Office docs. Experienced Microsoft Office users can take advantage of its built-in Visual Basic for Applications support to automate complex tasks with macros. However, malicious coders can use those same tools to design viruses that may interfere with your work and that of your colleagues. By default, Office is set to disable all macros and notify you when a doc you're reading contains them (to toggle this setting, in Word, select Word Options, Trust Center, Trust Center Settings, Macro Settings), so you should already be safe on this score.

8. Be skeptical of "cleaning" apps. Apps that make vague claims about improving your PC's performance and clearing out its clutter (Registry cleaners, I'm looking at you) will generally do more harm than good (if they do anything at all). To clean up your system, simply run Disk Cleanup (to reach it, select Start Menu, All programs, Accessories, System Tools); it comes with every Windows installation and it won't mess up your PC.

9. Uninstall your old apps. If you regularly download and install new apps from the Internet, you should get in the habit of pruning your collection every now and then. To do so, open the Programs and Features control panel, scroll through the list, and click Uninstall to ditch items you no longer want. You may need to take a trip into your C:/Program Files/ folder to hunt down a few additional unused apps. The less stuff you have on your PC, the less things are to go wrong.

10. Don't let a spilled drink ruin your laptop. If you keep your cool when a spill occurs, you may be able to prevent your data from disappearing and your motherboard from frying. Instead of panicking, quickly but methodically unplug the power cord and yank out the battery--don't wait for Windows to power off. Next, detach anything connected to the PC (network cables, USB devices) and pull out any readily removable components such as an optical drive. Tilt the laptop to try to drain the liquid in the direction that it spilled onto your PC, but be careful--you don't want to tilt the laptop in a direction that would allow the liquid to seep even deeper in. If you see liquid on the surface of the laptop, dab it off with a towel. At this point, unless you're comfortable disassembling your PC and cleaning it with electronics cleaner, you'll probably want to take it to a tech.

11. Turn down UAC. Both Windows 7 and Windows Vista include a security function called User Account Control, which dims the screen and flashes a dialog box whenever you install an app or change your system settings. Though this arrangement can be useful for catching sneaky apps that are trying to install or change things without your knowledge, it can also be annoying. If you use Vista, grab TweakUAC to make it less annoying without turning it off. If you use Windows 7, the default settings aren't too bad, but I recommend that you go into the User Accounts control panel, click User Account Control settings, and change the setting to the third notch down, so UAC will still warn you but it won't dim the screen.

12. Don't work in your admin account. Many PC users are accustomed to doing their everyday work while logged in to their PC's administrator account--especially in Windows XP. Doing so can save you the hassle of having to log in and out when you want to install apps or make changes, but it also leaves you much more vulnerable to viruses and malware--so don't do it.

The Control Panel is far easier to navigate when you can see all the icons at a glance.

13. Keep your Control Panel in Icon View. The Control Panel's Categories view can be useful if you're intimidated by the many different options available, but it can also make finding what you're looking for more difficult (especially if you're following detailed instructions that refer to the control panels by name). Click Classic view on the left (in Vista) or choose Large Icons from the View bydropdown menu in the upper right (in Windows 7), and you'll have ready access to all of the control panels.

Limit the clutter in your system tray by paring down the list of icons that occupy it.

14. Clear your system tray.Apps often park themselves in the system tray (the row of icons on the right side of your taskbar) and stay open without your realizing it. Take the time to clear it out occasionally. Open the Notification Area Icons control panel, and check the box on the bottom that says Always show all icons and notifications on the taskbar to get a sense of how cluttered your system tray is; then right-click each one you don't need and choose Close. Your RAM will thank you.

15. Manage your power settings. If you're using a laptop, you'll want to know how to change your power settings so your PC doesn't waste battery when you need to conserve it, doesn't slow down when you need to go fast, and doesn't go to sleep at an inopportune moment. Open the Power Options control panel, and choose from among several presets containing different configurations for when you're plugged in and when you're mobile--or feel free to create your own. To access the advanced settings, click Change plan settings, Change advanced settings; there you'll find detailed options related to your battery, Wi-Fi radio, graphics card, and more.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/203395/15_things_every_pc_user_should_know.html

Snow Transformation Pack Makes Your Windows Desktop Look Like Mac OS X

Friendly Computers found this article useful to make your Windows desktop look like Mac OS X.

Windows: If you like the look and feel of Mac OS X but prefer to stick with Windows (whether it be for gaming, or because you just don't like Apple), freeware Snow Transformation Pack will make Windows looks like OS X.

Snow Transformation Pack will change the appearance of your whole system, including the login screen, icons, wallpapers, sounds, dock, dialog boxes, and other UI elements. You'll need to disable User Account Control to install it, so you may have to run the installer twice—once to disable UAC and then again (after restarting) to install the package. On installing, you'll get a few choices as to whether you want to install a few extra background apps that add extra graphics, which is nice if your computer isn't necessarily a powerhouse (so you can turn them off to keep performance up).

It looks surprisingly like OS X, with a few exceptions in usability. There are a few manual tweaks you can make to make even look more Mac-like (such right clicking on the Taskbar, hitting Properties, and checking "Use Small Icons" in the Taskbar tab), but overall it looks pretty good. If you're tired of the usual Windows GUI and want to get a Mac-like experience for a while, it's a neat and easy tool to help you do so.

Snow Transformation Pack is a free download, Windows Vista/7 only.

Snow Transformation Pack [via Life Rocks 2.0]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5613494/snow-transformation-pack-makes-your-windows-desktop-look-like-mac-os-x

Upload Documents to Google Docs With One Click

Friendly Computers found this article useful for Google Doc users and would like to share it with you.

Google Docs is a great solution for saving and sharing documents online, but browsing to the site every time is time consuming. Here we look at a Desktop Gadget that lets you upload files with a simple drag & drop.

Install and Upload Docs with the Cloud Drive Gadget

Head to the Cloud Drive gadget download site (link below), and click Download to get started.

This is a 3rd party gadget, so you’ll be asked to verify you want to download it.  Click Installto go ahead and download it.

Once the Gadget is downloaded, run and install it as normal.

The gadget should appear on your desktop as soon as you install it and you can add it from the gadget gallery as well.

You’ll need to add your Google account info before you can upload files.  Click the gear button to open the Options pane.

Now enter your Google account info, and click Ok.  You can also enter an Advanced Key for more features such as previewing your recently uploaded files and one-click access to the document you just uploaded; to get one, you’ll need to make a donation at the developer’s site.

You’re now ready to add files to Google Docs.  Simply drag any document you want to upload and drop it on the gadget.

The gadget will now change to show that it’s uploading your file.

The Gadget will let you know when the upload is finished.  Uploading most documents only took a few seconds in our tests.  Since you can just drag and drop the documents into the gadget, it’s almost as easy as saving a file on your computer or putting it in your Dropbox.

You’ll be able to see your document in Google Docs ready for you to edit online or share with others.  As usual, Google docs will lose some formatting from Word, but this is the same regardless of how you upload documents.

Conclusion

This little desktop gadget makes it very simple to add your documents to Google Docs.  It’s much quicker and easier than logging in to the Google Docs dashboard to upload files, so it should make it easier to keep your files online if you prefer Google’s web apps.  Since it’s just a desktop gadget, it’s also less resource intensive than many other desktop Google Docs solutions.

Links

Download the Cloud Drive gadget

Source:

10 Top Tips to Save Space on Your Hard Drive

Friendly Computers would like to share with you these 10 tips to save space on your hard drive.

With multi-terabyte drives gaining prevalence in the bays of our PCs, a lack of hard drive space is less of an issue these days; however, it seems no matter how big the drives get, we still manage to eventually fill them. In this guide, you’ll learn ten top tips to save space on your hard drive.

1. Uninstall Unneccessary Software Programs

Although it’s an obvious tip to start with, some serious space can be saved by uninstalling unneccessary applications. You have three options:

1. Scan the list of installed programs manually (Click the Start button, click Control Panel, and click Add/Remove programs — Uninstall a program.)
2. Use Revo Uninstaller to completely remove software and its traces.
3. Use the PC Decrapifier to remove typical “bloatware” applications from your PC (works best with new brand-name PCs.)

2. Search for Duplicate Files

Over time, you may accumulate duplicate files on your PC. Use a program like Easy Duplicate Finder to locate and remove these files.

3. Clear up old System Restore Points

System restore points are very useful but can take a lot of space on your drive. If you want to save space in a pinch, read this guide and learn how to remove all but the last system restore point.

4. Turn off Memory Dump Files

If you maintain your own PC, and don’t need to take it to a store when something goes wrong, you can turn off memory dump files. If you have system problems and need to analyze dump files, you can always turn them back on again.

5. Change Personal Folder Locations

All recent versions of Windows utilize the (My) Documents file structure. This means that all your personal files are:

• Saved on your operating system’s drive and can be lost if your PC is infected with malware.
• Taking up space on your operating system’s drive and can fill it quickly.

You can change the location of your personal files in (my) documents to a different drive (or partition of a drive); due to the issues listed above, this is something I highly recommend.

6. Backup Files Remotely or on Alternative Storage Media

I highly recommend you back up your files on an automated schedule. I also recommend you back up files that are used less on alternative storage media (Optical media, external hard drives, off site servers etc.) I recommend any of the following programs:

• Mozy Online Backup
• GFI Backup
• EASEUS Todo Backup
• Ashampoo Burning Studio

7. Use the Disk Clean Up Tool

The disk cleanup tool that comes with Windows is a useful tool that searches for junk files, unused installation files, temporary files etc. To get to the Disk Clean up tool:

1. Go to Computer.
2. Right click and drive and click Properties.
3. Click the Disk Cleanup button.
4. Select what you want to clean up and click OK.

8. Use NTFS Compression to Compress a Complete Drive/Partition

NTFS is the name of a file system used in Microsoft Windows and is, for now, the standard file system for modern drives. Microsoft has a tool that compresses less used files on an entire drive.

Note: I don’t recommend you compress the drive (usually C:\) on which your operating system is stored.

Note 2: To find out the file system of your drive:

1. Go to Computer.
2. Right click and drive and click Properties.
3. Look for NTFS next to the File system label.

9. Compress (Zip) Less-frequently Used Files

You can compress files on a file-by-file (or folder-by-folder basis.) If you’re looking for a good compression program, check this Winzip alternatives post.

Note: some files compress better than others. For example: an MP3 or JPEG file is already highly compressed and wont reduce, in size, much (if at all) when zipped.

10. Take your Time During Program Installation

When you install software, take time to see exactly what you’re installing. A lot of the time, you can save a ton of space by selectively installing only the components you’ll need.

For example, when installing Microsoft Office, you can Customize your installation:

Now you have the option to only install the programs you really need (you can always install the other programs later.)

Source: http://mintywhite.com/windows-7/7maintenance/10-top-tips-save-space-hard-drive-hdd/

How to Watch Netflix Instant Streaming on Your Jailbroken iPhone

Friendly Computers would like to share with you this article.

If you're fed up with waiting for the official Netflix app to make it to your iPhone, here's a way you can hack the Netflix iPad app to work on your jailbroken iPhone.

The process is fairly simple but takes a bit of work. In a nutshell, you're going to be downloading the iPad version of the Netflix application and manually copying it to your iPhone. Check out the video and step-by-step written instructions below.

Thanks to NoorBigTime for the tip! Our instructions below are adapted from the modmyi forums.

1. Download the Netflix app for iPad to iTunes.
2. Right click on the Netflix app you just downloaded and select ‘Show in Windows Explorer' if you're on a PC, or ‘Show in Finder' if you're on a Mac.
3. Rename Netflix 1.0.4.ipa to Netflix 1.0.4.zip and extract the zip file to your desktop.
4. Look for the Payload folder inside the extracted folder. Inthere you will find the Netflix.app folder.
5. SSH into your iPhone and copy the Netflix.app folder to either /Applications/ or /private/var/stash/Applications/.
6. Change the permission on the Netflix.app folder to 755. You can do this by typingchmod 755 Netflix.app, which worked for me, but it looks like some are having trouble. If that doesn't work for you, try: chmod -r 755 Netflx.app instead.
7. Reboot your iPhone.
8. Now go to the App Store from your iPhone and download a non-Safari browser with identification options, such as Atomic Web ($0.99) or Perfect Browser ($1.99). In Atomic Web, go to Settings and select Safari - iPad under Identify Browser As. In Perfect Browser, go to Settings and select Safari iPad under Desktop Rendering.
9. Still in Atomic Web or Perfect Browser, navigate to Netflix.com, login, and find a movie to watch instantly. Perfect Browser will close and Netflix.app will start playing your movie.

That's it! Enjoy Netflix on your iPhone.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5606699/watch-netflix-instant-streaming-on-your-jailbroken-iphone

How To Maximize Battery Life On Windows 7

Friendly Computers thought this article can help you to maximize battery life on Windows 7.

Windows 7 has been touted as a great power saver and several reports have revealed that it can help large organizations save a fair bit off their electricity bill. However Windows 7 also had its fair share of minor battery complaints. Now it wasn’t that it was draining the batteries, more that it didn’t appear to understand the health of the battery and would tell users to replace it. These complaints have all dissipated now, so let’s have a look at how you can maximize the battery life of your Windows 7 laptop.

First things first, let’s identify what the biggest battery hog is. Could it be your processor? Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radio? Speakers? No, it is in fact your display.

Windows Vista was continually slammed for it’s battery life, so Microsoft have really worked hard on improving it in Windows 7. But to be honest, if you’ve got a really old laptop battery, that sees it’s life draining in just a couple of minutes after its been charged, its probably seen better days and it’s time to invest in a new one. But if your battery is fairly healthy, these tips should extend its life a bit.

Windows 7 has a great power plan control panel built into it, it allows you to quickly adjust your screen brightness and choose a preset power plan. You can access it quickly by pressing Win+ X and this will allow you to change the brightness or select a pre-determined power plan. If you want more advanced options, you can click on the battery icon in your task-bar and go to more power options.

Now here you can change all sorts of things like when you want the display to dim, when to go to sleep mode, your screen brightness for when your laptop is plugged in and unplugged. Once unplugged it will automatically revert to these settings for you.

Of course the most important setting here is to reduce the brightness of your display right down, you will see a dramatic improvement in your battery life if you do this.

But there’s more settings that we can play around with. If you go to change advanced power plan settings you can change things like your processor speed,system cooling and set what your power button does as well as many more settings.

Play around with these and set things like the hard drive to turn off quickly, the wireless adapter into low power mode and reduce your processors maximum state. Some systems will have a “System Cooling Policy” and this will allow you to select whether or not you want your system to cool with fans, or to let it cool naturally and reduce processor power to prevent it from getting to hot.

Play around with all these settings, they’re fairly simple and straight forward and you should know how to optimize for the best battery performance.

Another big drainer on the battery is your wireless and Bluetooth radios. These use a fair bit of battery life, particularly Wi-Fi. Even when your not connected to anetwork, it’s constantly scanning and looking for one to connect to. If you’re just typing a word document or something, and don’t need Wi-Fi, be sure to turn off your wireless.

Some laptops have a switch for this, others have a keyboard shortcut, but you can also do it via your Control Panel.

An important thing to remember is kill any unnecessary programs and process that may be running in the background. You’ll find with more and more programs these days, just because you “X” out of them, doesn’t mean their closed. If you go to your system tray notification area, you will often find their icon, which means they’re still up and running. Right click and exit these to make sure they’ve closed. Of course you can also go to your task manager Ctrl+Alt+Delete and have a look at what’s going on there as well.

If your system is low on RAM, and your running a couple of programs, your machine will have to keep switching around programs from your harddrive, which causes unnecessary usage of it, therefore using more power, so make sure you have plenty of RAM, it’s not that expensive to get hold of these days anyway.

So there’s a couple of tips that if you follow, will definitly result in better battery life.

Source: http://www.windows7news.com/2010/08/04/maximize-battery-life-windows-7/

Checklist Guide for Reinstalling Windows

Friendly Computers found this checklist guide for reinstalling Windows very useful and would like to share it with you.

Do you need to reinstall Windows on your computer?  Here’s a checklist of the things you should do before you make the leap and reinstall.

Whether you’re replacing a dying hard drive in your computer or want to upgrade from XP to Windows 7, there are many reasons you may want to reinstall Windows.  Vista and Windows 7 are much less prone to major OS issues that require you to reinstall Windows, but there are many things that can make a reinstall needed.  Many people are worried about losing data when reinstalling Windows.  However, if you make sure you cover all the things in this list, you should be certain to have your new install of Windows running great with all of your data and programs running as before.

Back up Your Files

As more and more of our lives and memories are stored on computers, losing your files is not an option.  We strongly urge everyone to always have complete backups of their data, but even still, you may have many files you need to move when installing Windows.  You’ll want to have a copy of your documents, music, videos, pictures, and more copied to another hard drive or disk before you reinstall.  If you’ve never changed the default storage locations, most of your files should be stored in your User folder, which you can access by entering%UserProfile% in the address bar in Explorer.

You can copy the files to an external hard drive, flash drive, DVD, Cloud Storage, or even another partition on your primary hard drive; just make sure not to delete the files during the upgrade.

Backup Email

Many programs such as Outlook save data on your computer as well, and if you forget to backup Outlook data you can lose years of work.  Here’s how you can copy your PST files from Outlook to your backup drive so you can easily add them to Outlook again once you reinstall Windows.

Find Your Programs to Reinstall

Windows without programs doesn’t let you do much with your computer, so you’ll want to make sure you can easily install all of your programs again once you’ve reinstalled.  You could make a list of all your installed programs from your All Programs menu in the Start menu, or you could look through your Program files folders to see what you currently have installed.  Then, you’ll need to locate product keys for commercial programs.

This can be difficult and time consuming, so thankfully there’s easier tools to help you find all your programs.  System Information for Windows is free for personal use and a great tool that will list the programs you have installed on your computer, as well as the product keys you’ve used to activate them.  It will also list all of your hardware, so you can download drivers if Windows doesn’t automatically find them with Windows update.

Check out our article on how to get detailed information about your PC.

If you have lost the installer disks for your programs, a quick web search can often turn up trial downloads that you can activate with your existing product keys that you may have found with SIW.  Or, you could try out some alternates to the programs you’ve been using for years.

Great Free Alternatives to Popular Programs

If you’ve been using your computer for many years, you may have a variety of old for-pay and shareware programs installed on your computer.  When you look through your list of applications, you might want to consider trying out some newer, free alternatives to other programs.  Here’s some we like:

• Antivirus – Microsoft Security Essentials is a great, free antivirus and antimalware application, which you can use instead of Norton, MacAfee, or other expensive antivirus solutions.  Check our overview of the new MSE 2.0 beta, too.
• Archiving Files – Were you using an older version of WinZip or WinRAR before?  Try out 7-zip; it’s an excellent free alternative that works with most file archival formats such as zip, rar, cab, and more.
• CD/DVD Burning – Windows 7 can burn ISO files to disks without extra software, but if you need extra features, try out the free ImgBurn instead of reinstalling the copy of Roxio or Nero that came with your computer.
• Windows Live Essentials includes Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Messenger, and Writer, all of which are great tools that can replace many other for-pay programs.  The new Beta edition includes even more features, including advanced photo merge and touchup tools in Photo Gallery that previously were only available in tools like Photoshop Elements.  For more photo tools, try out Paint.NET or Picasa.
• Music and Video Tools – Most of us don’t pay for media player programs, but while you’re reinstalling, why not try out new programs such as Zune for Windows or the fully customizable Foobar2000 music player.
• If you’re looking for replacements for other applications, check out the Alternatives website.  This site lists for-pay and free alternatives to many popular programs, and you might even discover some you’ve never heard of.

Cloud Applications

This could also be a good opportunity to try out more online applications.  From Google Apps and the new Office Web Apps to Mint.com and Picnik, there are web apps that can replace many standard desktop applications today.  If you have broadband internet connection, web apps can often be a great way to use newer applications for free.

You may still want to keep Microsoft Office installed for the times you need to work offline, the service goes down, or you lose your web connection. Even if you use an older version of Office, you might want to keep it incase you’re not comfortable putting all your documents online.

Installing Windows

When you’ve got all your data and programs backed up, you’re ready to install Windows.  You can install it from a DVD as normal, or if you have USB flash drive you could install Windows directly from it.  We’ve recently installed Windows 7 on a new hard drive in only 15 minutes from a flash drive; it’s amazingly quick. 

Once you’ve got Windows installed again, you’ve got 30 days to activate it.  But, if you’d like more time to make sure everything’s working properly, here’s yow you can extend the trial to 120 days so you can use it for nearly 4 months without activating.  That should be more than enough time to make sure everything’s working perfectly!

Quickly and Automatically Reinstall Apps

You can now copy your files back from your backups and get your programs reinstalled.  No one likes clicking through dozens of installers, so we recommend you try out Ninite, a great tool that makes it a snap to install a lot of free and trial programs in a couple clicks.  Check out our review of Ninite for more info.

Conclusion

Don’t forget to keep your clean install of Windows up to date with Microsoft Update and protected with Security Essentials!  Also, make sure to setup a good backup solution such as Windows Backup and Restore to make sure you don’t lose any of your data if your new hard drive suddenly dies.

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/23890/checklist-guide-for-reinstalling-windows/

Turn Any Action into a Keyboard Shortcut

Friendly Computers thought that this article can help you to increase your productivity by using keyboard shortcuts for any action.

Open source scripting language AutoHotkey may not be one of the most powerful or popular programming languages on the planet, but that's okay—it's not just made for programmers. That's because AutoHotkey is well within the grasp of regular folks like you or me—people who have a fair understanding of computers and are willing to learn just a little to make major strides in productivity. Today I'll show you how to use AutoHotkey to turn almost any action into a keyboard shortcut.

NOTE: I'm not a computer programmer by trade. In fact, I graduated from college a few years ago with a degree in Philosophy of Religion, Arts, and Science (a liberal arts degree I made up). My point is, even if you have absolutely no programming experience, creating simple keyboard shortcuts with AutoHotkey is well within your grasp.

Before You Get Started

First things first: You're an amateur programmer now, so you need to go download and install AutoHotkey. Once you've got that done, open a folder, right-click, and select New -> AutoHotkey Script. Give it whatever name you like, then open it up with your favorite text editor (I recommend Notepad++).

You can also grab a script of all the examples I discuss below here if you'd like to use it as a starting point.

What is a Hotkey?

In AutoHotkey, you can create keyboard shortcuts or remap keys easily in more than one way, but today we're going to focus on one method: Hotkey labels. The syntax of creating a hotkey is very simple, and can be used in two ways.

First, if you want to do something very simple—like remap a key—it looks like this:

hotkey::remapped key

...where hotkey is the keyboard shortcut that will activate the second part—in this case, a remapped key. That may seem rather vague, so let's look at a concrete example. I don't like the Capslock key as is, preferring instead to remap it to my Control key. With AutoHotkey, all it takes is:

Capslock::Control

If you add that small snippet of code to the AHK file you created above and then run the file (just double-click it), you'll notice that your Capslock key now works as a control key instead. Now not only have you got your control key at a much closer, less stressful range for your pinky, but you're not likely to accidentally fire the Capslock key when you don't want it. However, if you don't want to lose the Capslock key altogether—as there are times it can come in handy—you can add the following to your AutoHotkey script (Thanks mc_spanky_mcgee):

+Capslock::Capslock

With this hotkey, the plus sign (+) stands for Shift, so hitting Shift+Capslock will turn on and off the Capslock key so that turning on Capslock requires a much more deliberate process. For a full list of modifiers you can use to create hotkeys, check out this page. For a better idea of which symbols you can use, from Capslock to Tab to the Spacebar, check out the full AutoHotkey key list.

So far so good, right? You can actually remap almost any key in this way—including regular, non-modifier keys. So if you wanted to turn your "k" key into an "i", it'd be as simple as:

k::i

Not that remapping k to i would be terribly useful, but you get the idea. It is terribly simple.

Taking Hotkeys a Step Further

Now that you've got an idea of how to create hotkeys the simple way, we'll move on to slightly more advanced hotkey creation. First, we'll create a simple hotkey that will open Lifehacker when we press Windows-l (who wouldn't rather read Lifehacker than lock their desktop?). Quite simply, it looks like this:

#l::Run, http://lifehacker.com/

In this example, we're using the Run command, which can take any target—from web URLs to files on your hard drive—and, quite simply, open them.

As a result, creating a keyboard shortcut to launch anything at all is a breeze. You can launch any program, document, or web page with a simple shortcut of your choosing. If you were creating an iTunes shortcut with Windows-i (where the Windows key equals the pound sign [#]), for example, it might look something like this:

#i::Run,%A_ProgramFiles%\iTunes\iTunes.exe

You'll noticed I introduced another concept here: variables. The variable %A_ProgramFiles%tells AutoHotkey to look in my default Program Files directory—in my case, "C:\Program Files". I could have just made the command Run, C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe, but using the variable means that—assuming I've got iTunes installed—the same shortcut will work on other computers that have iTunes installed to the default directory, even if their home drive is D:\ or F:\. For more on variables, check out AutoHotkey's introduction to variables, along with their list of built-in variables (like%A_ProgramFiles%).

Creating More Complex Hotkeys

So far our hotkeys have been very simple, one-line affairs, but sometimes you need more than that. In those instances, you can create multi-line actions that you want to occur when your hotkey is triggered. This requires a slightly different syntax.

hotkey::
Do one thing
Do more things...
return

Basically, as you can see, it starts out the same way with the hotkey followed by two colons. Then, however, you break to a new line and write your first action, followed by however many you want, and it ends with "return" (which signifies that the hotkey is done executing). So let's put it into practice.

The following keyboard shortcut, Windows-t, will automatically empty the Recycle Bin when I press it. When it's finished, it will show me a message telling me that the trash has been taken out.

#t::
FileRecycleEmpty, C:\
MsgBox, The trash has been taken out.
return

In the hotkey created above, I used AutoHotkey's FileRecycleEmpty command, which takes the drive letter where the bin is located as a parameter. I also used another new concept: the MsgBox command, which displays the text after the command in a window. As you can see, I used it to confirm that the command was run and the trash was taken out.

Restrict Your Hotkey to a Specific Application

Sometimes you want to create a hotkey that will only be applicable to one specific application. In those cases, you need to use the #IfWinActive directive. To use it, you need to place #IfWinActive WindowType (where WindowType is the window or app you want the shortcut to apply to) followed by the hotkey, then followed again by #IfWinActivewithout any WindowType (so that all following hotkeys won't be restricted to one window or application). In the example below, I've set the Windows-o hotkey to open the Options in Firefox.

#IfWinActive ahk_class MozillaUIWindowClass
#o::
Send {Alt}t
Sleep 100
Send o
return
#IfWinActive

So let's dive in and examine this bit of code. First, you'll notice theahk_class MozillaUIWindowClass bit. That may seem intimidating, but all it does is tell AutoHotkey that this shortcut will only work when a program using the MozillaUIWindowClass (like Firefox or Thunderbird) is active. You can grab the ahk_class using the AutoIt3 Window Spy, which you'll find in your AutoHotkey install directory. Just run it and click on the window you want to restrict a hotkey to grab the window class and that's a good starting point.

Next, we've used the Send command, which sends literal keystrokes to your window. The first one I sent was Send, {Alt}t, meaning that the bracketed text, Alt, indicates a modifier (again, go to the Send page for a closer look at modifiers)). If you were to press Alt-t in Firefox right now, you'll notice that the Tools menu drops down.

Then I sent the command Sleep 100, which tells the script to wait 100 milliseconds before going to the next command. I do this just to make sure the computer has time to react to my first command and the Tools menu is open. Then I sent the "o" key to select Options from the Tools drop-down menu. Finally, I ended the hotkey with the return followed by#IfWinActive to ensure any other hotkeys beyond this one aren't limited just to Firefox or Thunderbird (unless that's what you wanted).

Take Your Tweaks with You

The great thing about AutoHotkey is that you can compile your scripts to portable executables that can run anywhere by simply right-clicking the file and selecting Compile. Drop the resultant EXE on your thumb drive and take it with you wherever you go.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/316589/turn-any-action-into-a-keyboard-shortcut

What's Useful in the Safari Extensions Gallery

Friendly Computers would like to help you to choose some useful Safari Extensions.

Safari's Extensions Gallery has gone live, and there's quite a bit to look through and add to your browser at launch. We took a gander through the offerings and picked out some of the extensions worth noting. Here's the list.

To use these extensions, you'll need to have Safari installed, and have it updated to the latest version. Both Macs and Windows installations have Apple's updating software you can use to grab the 5.0.1 copy, but if you've disabled Apple's Software Update on Windows, you'll need to grab a fresh copy manually.

We've provided links to the extension maker and a direct installation link for each extension we picked out, with each link coming from the extension maker. You may be asked whether you want to Open or Save the file we're linking to (choose "Open"), and if you're sure you want to install that extension ("Install," we presume). To manage these extensions once you've got them installed, head to your Safari preferences and look for the newly-enabled Extensions menu.

Social Networking

Better Facebook: Automatically hides posts you've already read, removes some of the cruft from the site, notifies you of new comments and un-friendings, and more. [Install in Safari]

Shut Up: Kills comments on many sites where you might get sick of them. [Install in Safari]

Bookmarking

Procrastinate: Adds text articles to bookmarking and reading services like Instapaper, Read it Later, and Delicious from an all-in-one toolbar button. [Install in Safari]

Twitter Tools

Twitter for Safari: Twitter's official client for sending tweets, but also reading tweets and seeing Twitter profiles related to the page you're on. You can easily tweet about a page you're looking at, too, with a pre-shortened URL. [Install in Safari]

E-mail

GmailThis: Sends an email through Gmail's compose window, with the page you're on pre-loaded in the subject and body text. Basically, a fancy bookmarklet, but with a nice button. [Install in Safari]

TrueNew Count for Gmail and Google Apps: More than just providing a count of the messages marked unread, TrueNew's counter shows you how many messages are unread since the last time you looked at Gmail or Google Apps. [Install in Safari]

Shopping

InvisibleHand: Like the Firefox and (slightly scandalous) Chrome extensions, InvisibleHand checks the shopping item pages you're looking at to see if the item is offered elsewhere—Amazon, Buy.com, and the like—at a cheaper price. [Install in Safari]

Entertainment

A Cleaner YouTube: Claims to transform YouTube into a "quiet and peaceful place" by cutting out most of everything except the video itself. [Install in Safari]

Turn Off the Lights: As with its nifty Chrome counterpart, this little button throws a shade over everything except the video you're watching on YouTube, Vimeo, or embedded clips. [Install in Safari]

Security

LastPass: One of our favorite universal password systems, LastPass is an elegant little plug-in for storing your passwords, filling them in automatically, and yet keeping them encrypted and available anywhere you go. [Install in Safari]

Web of Trust: Reads out everything the very excellent Web of Trust community knows about the site you're on—encryption, trustworthiness, vendor reliability for various components, and so on. [Install in Safari]

Photos

Awesome Screenshot: Like its Chrome counterpart, Awesome Screenshot handles the capture, annotation, sensitive data blurring, and upload/sharing aspects of grabbing web pages, no extra software needed. [Install in Safari]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5598524/whats-useful-in-the-safari-extensions-gallery