Disabling Windows Error Reporting

It's pretty much frustrating when windows prompts you to report the errors to the microsoft website. You can stop this reporting if you like by following some simple steps.

• Open the control panel
• Double click on the System icon
• Click on the Advanced tab
• Click on the button named "Error Reporting"
• Now on the window that appears click disable error reporting as shown.

Well now you can fell free of those irritating error reporting messages and enjoy your work on the PC.

Renaming the Recycle Bin

When it comes to playing with your system settings, there is no better place than regedit to get your hands dirty on. Regedit the short for registry editor allows us to make changes in the windows settings pretty easily. Changes like changing the boot up screen, wallpapers, security related issues can easily be tackled with through the registry.
When you right click on the recycle bin unlike other icons, the rename option is not displayed in the pop-up menu. But this doesn't mean it can;t be changed. Well now it's time to open up regedit. For that go to the Start>run. Then type regedit. You will be presented with a screen as shown below :










Now go to the location "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/CLSID/{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E/ShellFolder/}" by expanding the '+' signs.
Once you reach there double click the "Attributes" icon.
Then change the value data from "40 01 00 20" to "50 01 00 20".
Now double click "CallForAttributes" icon and change the value data to 0.

Rejoice! Now you can jump back to your desktop and right click the recycle bin to see the rename option. Click it and name the recycle bin to whatever you want.

Some tweaks you can perform (Always remember to create a backup of your registry before performing any of the registry tweaks) :

• Cleaning Windows XP registry
• Breaking XP Password
• Changing the disk drive icon
• Hiding Local drives
• Shutting down windows faster
  
• Speeding up your computer
• Running Vista Legally without any activation
  

Auto shut down of the computer for firefox download

After working for hours to find the correct matter to download, surely one does get exhausted and does need some rest. But after all this if you have to wait for the download to finish, frustration is an obvious outcome.
For all you guys who work on firefox most of the time, there is a Add-on provided by firefox which allows you to turn off your computer once the list of download items finishes. It adds an icon to the status bar and the download manager, which enables you to automatically shut your computer down once the download has finished. To download this add-on click here.

Creating a Bootable Pen Drive

All of us must have encountered the situation where our very own PC refuses to boot whatever the problem may be. It is here that a USB drive containing bootable XP comes in handy. You can install a bootable XP on to the pen drive along with the safety tools such as antivirus etc. to fix the problem.
But this cool way might not shine the light equally on everyone. In order to boot from a flash drive your system should be only around two years old. An alternative to this is that you upgrade your BIOS. Also the flash drive you use should be of a minimum of 256 Mb size to hold windows XP. Also a maximum size of 2GB is permissible.
So now you have the pendrive and an approprite BIOS. So get started with creating a bootable pen drive. For that you need to have a USB Disk storage format tool which is available for free. Now you can start formatting your pen drive. Then to make it bootable copy the following files on to the pen drive : Boot.ini, NTLDR, and NTDETECT from root directory of the boot drive.
Now you will be needing a software named BartPE that helps you install windows on a minimal space. After you have downloaded it follow the steps to copy the Windows files.
After you are done with all this you are having your very own flash drive ready to boot your Windows XP2.

Associated links :

• Booting DOS from USB Drive
• USB Flash Drives
  

NTFS (New Technology File System)

Whenever you are formatting your harddisk, the option for either a NTFS or a FAT file system pops up. Fine you know NTFS is new and better but how.
A file system is a part of the operating system that determines how files are named, stored and organized on a volume. FAT (File allocation table ) was the standard file system developed by microsoft for the MS-DOS. This was used in all the windows till the Windows ME. Then came the NTFS (New Technology File System) which almost replaced the FAT file allocation.
The NTFS allows greater reliability, security, greater volume size etc. In NTFS all the characteristics of the file (like filename, date of creation) are stored as metadata. NTFS utilizes the power of B+ trees to index file system data. The master file table is used to store the metadata about every file present on the volume. In this system greater security is provided as we can restrict access of files to authorized users.
These features of NTFS sure does give them a reason to be chosen while opting for the type of file system for formatting.

Associated topics :

• Windows NT
• Enabling NTFS write in Linux
  

Rules for Creating a Relational DBMS

So all you programmer's out there think just implementing a database in the form of tables makes your database a relational Database (RDBMS). Well then E.F. Codd challanges this thought of yours. Edgar F. Codd was a british computer scientist who has given a set of 12 rules necessary for creating a relational database. Most of the database management systems like Oracle, SQL server etc. incorporate most of these rules. The rules are :

(1)Information Rule:
All information in a relational database including table names,column names are
represented explicitly by values in tables. Knowledge of only one language is necessary to
access all data such as description of the table and attribute definitions ,integrity
constraints,action to be taken when constraints are voilated,and security information.

(2)Guaranted Access Rule:
Every pieceof data in the relational database,can be accessed by using a
combination of a table name, a primary key value that identifies the row and a column
that identifies the cell.The benefit of this is that user productivity is improved
since there is no need to resort to using physical pointers addresses.Provides
data independence.

(3)Systematic treatment of Nulls Rule:
The RDBMS handles that have unknown on inapplicable values in a predefined fashion.
RDBMS distinguishes between zeros,blanks and nulls in records and handles such values in
a consistent manner that produces correct answers,comparisions and calculations.

(4)Active On-Line Catalog Based on the Relational Model.
THe description of a database and its contents are database tables and therefore
can be queries online via the data language.The DBA's productivity is improved since
changes and additionsto the catalog can be done with the same commands that are
used to access any other table.All queries and reports can be done as with other tables.

(5)Comprehensive Data Sublanguage Rule:
A RDBMS may support several languages,but atleast one of them allows the user to do all
of the following:define tables view,query and update data ,set integrity constraints,
set authorization,and define transactions.

(6)View Updating Rule:
Any view that is theoretically updatable,if changes can be made to the tables that
effect the desired changes in the view.Data consistency is ensured since changes
in the underlying tables are transmittedto the view they support.Logical data
independence reduces maintenance cost.

(7)High Level Inserts,Update and Delete:
THe RDBMS supports insertion,updation and deletion at a table level.With this the
RDBMS can improveperformance by optimizing the path to be taken to execute the action
Ease of use improved since commands act on set of records.

(8)Physical data Independence :
The execution of adhoc requests and application programs is not affected by changes
in the physical data access and storage methods.Database administrators can make
the changes to physical acccess and storage methods ,which improve performance
but do not changes in the application programs or adhoc requests.This reduces
maintenance costs.

(9)Logical data Independence:
Logical changes in tables and view such asadding/deleting columns or changing
field lenghts do not necessitate modifications in application programs or in the
format of adhoc requests.

(10)Integrity Independance:
Like table/view definitions ,integrity constraints are atored in the
on-line catalog and therefore can be changed without necessitating changes
in application programs or in the format of adhoc requests .
The following two integrity constraints must be supported.
(a)Entity Integrity:
No component of primary key is allowed to have anull value.
(b)Referential integrity:
For each distinct non-null foreign key value in a relationaldatabase,
there must exist a matching primary key from the same range of data value.

(11)Distribution Independence:
Application programs and adhoc requests are not affected by changes
in the distribution of the physical data.

(12)Nonsubversion Rule:
If the RDBMS has a language change that accesses the information
of a record at a time,this language cannot be used to by-pass the
integrity constraints.Inoreder to adhere to this rule the RDBMS must have an
active catalog that containsthe constraints must have a logical data independence.

Minicomputers

Minicomputer is a computer which is having a size in between the mainframe computers and the microcomputers.
These minicomputers behave as a stand-alone computer with a number of terminals attached to it. They were small computers ( compared to the then existing mainframe computers ). This had been achieved with the introduction of transistors and core memory technologies.
The magnetic core memory or the ferrite core memory is a kind of computer memory. It stores information in magnetic ceramic rings which can store a bit(0 or 1) of information.

These rings are arranged in a grid form as shown.
But the minicomputers still had few drawbacks like large size, expensive to buy which gave way to the invention of the microcomputers which is visible in almost every household now a days.

Placing a seperate hibernate button on the shut down screen

Every time you need to hibernate your OS, you need to put one of your fingers to work in pressing the shift key. Thank god there is an alternative. We can place a hibernate button alongside the standby button by performing certain tweaks in the registry.
Open regedit ( click on start > run. Then type in regedit), create a key as shown below, "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System\Shutdown". Then under this key create a dword value "ShowHibernateButton" and set it's value to 1 as shown "ShowHibernateButton" = dword:00000001 .
Rejoice now you can just check out your work by jumping on to the shut down screen and notice the change.
Now you will see four buttons appearing on your shut down screen. Now you will not have to bother your finger ever time you put your PC on hibernation.

Working Of LED's

LED's or Light Emmitting diodes are semiconductor devices which emit light when electricity is passed through them. An LED consist of a p-n junction in which electricity is passed through it in forward biased mode as shown in the figure. Also a load resistance is applied to it so that the excess current does not harm the LED.
LED's are available in various colors to suit your need like red,blue,yellow,white etc. But the white and blue LED's are particularly costlier compared to the other colored LED's.
These LED's are tiny bulbs which can be used for various purposes like in calculators. Most significant use is the one in seven segment display, the one we see on our watches. These small bulbs are arranged in a particular pattern to create a beautiful display of a number.
There also exist the bi-colored and tri-colored LED's. So just check out the various available LED's and create something innovative out of it.

Associated Links :

• Baby's toy using LED
• Solar Lights for Walkways
  

Plasma Display

We all want to have a Flat screen, large size TV hanging in our living room. These flat screen televisions use either the LCD display or the Plasma display technology. I have already talked about the LCD display in my last post. Here I will stress on the Plasma display.
A plasma display consist of two glass panels holding an inert(that is, the gases do not react) mixture of noble gases(neon and xenon). These gases are exited by electricity converting them into plasma(ionized gas). This plasma then excites the phosphors to emit light which in turn lights up the pixels.
The pixel is a point which make up the entire screen. This pixel is in turn divided into a three subpixels. In a Plasma screen each subpixel can produce millions of colors. With the combination of all such pixels we get the so-called perfect picture quality.

Associated Links :

• USB Plasma Ball