Control Startup Programs in Windows XP

Windows has an inbuilt tool which allows you to control startup programs.

1. Go to Start
2. Click on Run
3. Type msconfig
4. Press Enter

Once you have the program opened, go to the Startup tab at the top (the last tab). Here you’ll find a list of programs that are set to start with Windows. The ones that are checked are currently the ones that start with Windows. Un-tick any programs in the list you do not wish to have run when Windows boots.

If you are not sure what a program is in the list, you should probably leave it checked.

How To Show Your Name in Windows Taskbar

Though there are thousands of Windows XP tips and tricks but some of them are very easy to implement and at the same time very fun to do. Today I have a sweet Windows XP trick for you that will give your Windows a personal touch and will also let you show off your name branding in front of your non-geek friends. Basically this trick will let you display a name of your choice (preferably your own name) in the Windows Taskbar just beside the digital time clock.

Show Your Name in Taskbar near Digital Time

Follow the steps and see the sweet magic

1. Open Start Menu and then open Control Panel
2. Double click Regional and Language Options
3. Click Customize (besides English U.S drop down menu)
4. Go to Time tab and change AM/PM symbols to the name of your choice

and you are done. Now that was fast and easy wasn’t it? Enjoy. Here is what I came up with

How to Capture Screenshots from Windows Media Player

Yesterday I tried to use the extremely useful screen capture by ‘Print Screen Key’ to try to capture a wmv running file on my Windows media player 11. But whenever I tried to use the print screen, a blank image was captured from the windows media player. So grabing a screenshot from Window Media Player is not so easy as it seems.

Then I thought maybe the running video was posing a problem with capturing a frame. So I paused the movie and tried the print screen technique. But still got a blank screen.

Then I tried to capture paused and running movies in full screen (Full screen shortcut – using Alt+Enter). But again no luck.

So I decided to tweak some advanced options of Window media player.

So here is the free and simple way to capture Images from Windows Media Player

• Open Window Media Player
• Then go to Tools | Options
• In Options, select the Performance Tab
• Way below you click on the Advanced Button
• Uncheck “Use Overlays’
• Click Ok
• And you are ready.

Now run your movie in any size or screen resolution. Use the standard ‘Print Screen Key’ Method and you have captured a snapshot from your favourite movie on windows media player without using any special multimedia software. Enjoy!

How to Speed up your Torrents

Help! BitTorrent is slow… This is probably one of the most frequently asked questions I get about BitTorrent. Unfortunately there’s not some kind of magic trick that makes your torrents go through the roof. But you could take some simple steps to optimize your speeds.

1. Cap your upload

Limit your upload speed to approximately 80 percent of your maximum upload rate. You can check your upload speed over here (never trust your isp). Once you know your maximum upload speed, change the max upload (to 80%) speed in your torrent client’s preferences.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone should share as much as possible, but if your upload rate reached it’s max, your download rate suffers significantly.

2. Hack the max TCP connections

If you’re on XP sp2, your TCP connections are limited to a maximum of 10. This seriously hurts your downloading speed because it wont let you connect to a high amount of ip numbers. It is supposed to slow down viruses because their spreading strategy is to connect to a high amount of ip numbers, but it also cripples your torrent downloads.
A nice way to fix this is to download this patch, it allows you to set the maximum allowed connections to any number you want. Any number between 50 and 100 is ok (more on this).

3. Check seeds and peers

A simple tip, but o so important. Always look for torrents with the best seed/peer ratio. The more seeds (compared to peers) the better (in general). So 50 seeds and 50 peers is better than 500 seeds and 1000 peers. So, be selective.

4. Change the default port.

By default, BitTorrent uses a port 6881-6999. BitTorrent accounts for a lot of the total internet traffic (1/3), so isp’s like to limit the connection offered on the these ports. So, you should change these to another range. Good clients allow you to do this, just choose anything you like. If you’re behind a router, make sure you have the ports forwarded or UPnP enabled.

5. Disable Windows Firewall

It sucks. Windows Firewall hates P2P and often leads a life of it’s own. So disable it and get yourself a decent firewall, Kerio or Zone Alarm for example. Configure it for your needs and off you go.

Using Bookmarks in Word 2007

If you’re working on a long Word document, navigating through it can be a hassle. This makes it difficult if you need to return to a specific location for further editing.

But Word 2007 lets you bookmark specific parts of your document. Then, you can easily return to the location.

Adding Bookmarks in a Word 2007 document

To insert a bookmark in Word 2007, follow these steps:

1. Select the portion of your document you’d like to bookmark

2. On the ribbon, click the Insert tab

3. Click Bookmark in the Links section

4. Type a name under Bookmark name. Bookmark names must begin with a letter and cannot contain spaces

5. Click Add

Opening Bookmarks in a document

Once you insert bookmarks in your Word 2007 documents, you can open them easily. This makes navigating through long documents a breeze.

1. Click the Insert tab on the ribbon

2. Click Bookmark in the Links section

3. Select the name of the bookmark you would like to open

4. Click Go To

Deleting Bookmarks

After you’re done editing your document, you’ll probably want to delete any bookmarks you’ve created. Or, you may wish to delete the bookmarks after you’re done editing the bookmarked locations.

1. Click the Insert tab on the Office ribbon

2. In the Links section, click Bookmark

3. Select the bookmark you’d like to delete

4. Click Delete

Create virtual drives for most accessed folders

Which folder do you access the most? For most of you, it will be ‘My Music’. So just to save you a little time, you can create a virtual drive which shows up in My Computer and Windows Explorer. Follow these steps to do so:

Lets suppose the folder is D:\My Music

Now to create a virtual drive that leads to this folder:

1. Go to Start menu and click on Run.

2. Type cmd and press Enter. This will open the command prompt.

3. Now type subst <virual drive:> <space> <path of the folder> and press Enter

For the folder above, the command will be as below:

subst k: d:\my music

Thats all. The drive will show up in My Computer.

Note: If you want to remove a virtual drive, just type /d giving a space after subst <drive name> and press Enter.

For example: subst k: /d