0 RAID Recovery for Windows

Hello hello! We are together with yet another data recovery related post, since I noticed that I skipped something after all. I've been talking about how RAID arrays work and all the technical information, but I just noticed that I never mentioned anything about how you can recover your data from your RAID array in a real life scenario.

Hence, today's topic will be RAID Recovery for Windows, also the name of the software we will be using.

First things first, you're supposed to remove all the disks from your RAID array, and connect them to your computer as individual disks. This might require some time since you will end up having to open your computer up in order to connect the disks.

After you're done connecting the disks to your computer one by one, it's now time to download the software we are going to use. For this, we are going to use a software called RAID Recovery for Windows, which works on every Windows platform. One downside is the fact that the software costs 99$, which is pretty expensive (in my opinion). You can find more information about RAID Recovery for Windows here.

After you obtain RAID Recovery for Windows, you're simply to choose the RAID array type you're using, (only RAID 0 and RAID 5 are supported) check the disks, and let the program do your magic. As we've talked before, there's a fault tolerance of one disk in RAID 5, so you can connect one disk less and still recover all of the data. In RAID 0, even though there's no fault tolerance, the software will try to save as much data as possible provided that your computer detects the disk.

After that's done, you will be able to access your files in an explorer window where you can copy them into another disk. You can also use disk images instead of the disks itself, if you're making images regularly. That will save you from the trouble of reconnecting the disks to your computer, and you can rebuild your RAID data quickly and put your array back online with a new set of disks in the case of failure.

I personally haven't gave RAID Recovery for Windows a try myself yet, since I haven't experienced problems with my RAID array in a long time, but I've been recommended by my colleagues to use it, as they said they had success with it. Maybe in the future, if I get into a position to need to use it, (hope not!) I wrill write a more extensive review about the software itself.

That would be all, I guess. It's a pretty straight forward process that every user can follow easily in order to recover their data. The same company also offers software for NAS data recovery if you're interested, since these these things pretty much go hand in hand.

Thanks for reading folks, I hope this makes your life easier!

0 QNAP RAID Recovery & NAS

Hello everyone! I've talked about RAID 5 data recovery in one of my earlier posts. I've mentioned that if more than one drive fails in a RAID 5 array, it won't be possible to recover data, and that's the way it works. But lately, I've come accross something while I'm browsing the web. It's a service called by a company called QNAP, and they allow you to recover your RAID (works with RAID 0,1 and 6 as well) even though more than the allowed number of disks are crashed.

The reason why I give credit to this company in my post is because before looking on their website, I didn't know such a thing existed. It always makes me happy to learn new stuff that I haven't known about before. I don't know if other companies offer services like QNAP RAID recovery, but it's definitely worth taking a look. I will keep you updated if I find anything else about other companies. (maybe a comparison post)

From what I've understood, this system works with a NAS. (Network-attached storage) For those who don't know, a NAS is a data storage which is connected to a network. Although, unlike hard drives, a NAS isn't just a file server, as it has its simply a computer by itself. It has its own parts and its own Operating System, and the RAID array drives are attached in it.

Using a NAS for your RAID array has many advantages such as being able to change the hard drives in your RAID array without too much hassle, better and easier volume management, better back up options (such as a cloud back up or a NAS replica), and a higher performance than a DAS on a network.

Finally, the main reason for me to write this article, the recovery of RAID arrays. Thanks to the QNAP RAID recovery software in the NAS, you can recover your RAID array even more than the expected amount of disks crash. Note that this isn't guaranteed, but I've heard good things about QNAP RAID recovery after reading about it on the internet. I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard many people had success with it.

They offer a variety of NAS drives which you can see on their website. It would be unfair to an extent for me to recommend QNAP & QNAP raid recovery right off the bat, as I haven't done much research about other companies and see if they offer services like this & their success rates, but I can only say that I've heard good things about it. So if you're looking for a NAS drive, make sure that you check their website out. Personally, back ups are really important in my view, (I'm sure it's the same for everyone) and this can save your life one day.

I usually write about the things I know about, but today was different for me as well. I hope you enjoy the post and find something which suits your needs!

You can learn more about QNAP RAID recovery in this page.

0 VLC Media Player

Nowadays, we all watch movies and listen to music on our computers, instead of watching them or listening to them in our stereo or DVD players. That being said, everyone knows that they need to use a program in order to do this. There are many alternatives to do this such as Windows Media player and Winamp. My recommendation though, if you haven't heard about it yet, is VLC media player.

The main reason I prefer VLC player over anything else is because it supports all the media formats that I've come across so far. With another players, there would be usually the trouble of finding codecs and everything in order to play media. VLC producers must've been aware of the issue before creating VLC, hence you can play anything you want with no codecs or anything on it.

The next important thing (for me) is that you can sync audio/subtitles easily in the settings. There are many cases where I can't find synced subtitles for the movie I'm watching. Luckily, it only takes a minute to sync the subtitles in VLC by simply going to Tools -> Track Synchronization.

There are many other fancy options in the software which I'm not using, but some people might find use for such as recording a part of the video you're playing, slowing & speeding up, taking snapshots, a fully customizable video effects panel where you can change the graphical attributes of the media you're watching and many more. (cropping, rotating, color filters etc.) You can also download plugins for VLC media player which makes it fully customizable compared to other media players. (although there are media players which support plugins, they're usually very limited)

All in all, if you like playing media on your computer and you're looking for a software which you can use, then VLC media player is the right way to go. Even if you're not going to use its fancy options in any way, it's still the best media player out there just because of its extensive support of different file types.

If you are interested and want to try VLC media player out (it runs on all platforms too!), you can download it here.

0 Hard Drive Repair Software

Hello there everyone! Today, our subject is something which has really troubled me in the past, repairing my damaged hard drive. It was the days didn't know so much about this stuff so it took me a while to figure out, and there wasn't so much information in the internet about it. That's the reason I felt like sharing this with you guys today.

There are many different hard drive repair software, also known as hard drive diagnostic software which can help you recover your hard drive. These software vary depending on the brand of your hard drive, so it's important that you choose the right one. Above is a list for the repair utilities of the brands I can think of right now.

Seagate SeaTools for Seagate & Maxtor hard drives (Available for Windows & DOS)

Hutil for Samsung hard drives (Available for DOS)

Western Digital Diagnostic Tools (Available for DOS)

Note : For the tools which are available for DOS only, you're required to burn them to a CD, since they will only work on boot. It's also recommended that you use this method rather than the Windows one as it is more effective.

I remember the time when I couldn't format my Seagate hard drive anymore, and I just happened to find a SeaTools disc which I've gotten out of a magazine by luck. It was the last thing I tried before I threw my hard drive away, and was quite shocked to see that it actually fixed my hard drive. I believe it was a MBR issue now when I think about it. (which I had no clue about at the time, so format not working scared me a lot)

Keep in mind that these software are capable of erasing/writing data on your hard drive as well as reading, so it's not recommended that you use these if you have any data which you can't afford losing at the time. You should back your data up before using any of these.

The working principle of these software is quite simple. It attempts to read all of your hard drive to start with to see if there are any bad sectors which interrupt data flow. The master boot record is also checked as there are master boot record viruses which can't be removed by ordinary format. (Low-level formatting is required for those who are interested) If the software detects anything unusual, it will report back to you so you can decide what to do. Nowadays, all the hard drive repair software are implemented with low-level formatting tools, so you can solve your problems right on the spot. Bad sectors however, are physical errors on your hard drives and there isn't much you can do about them.

All in all, make sure you run hard drive repair software on your hard drives to see what's wrong with them before throwing them away right off the bat. There's always a chance that these tools will save your life!

0 RAID 5 Data Recovery

Hello everyone! After a long break, today's topic is RAID 5 data recovery! First things first, let's start off with what RAID is. RAID (redundant array of independent disks) is a storage system where more than one disk is used. The data is distributed into those disks to prevent data loss in a case where one or more disks malfunction depending on which RAID level is used. There are different RAID levels from RAID 0 to RAID 6 (and RAID 10), each with different attributes.

Today, I will be specifically talking about RAID 5 since it's the most popularly used, (although being replaced slowly by RAID 6) and the safest RAID level.

Image from Wikipedia.

Link

First things first, let's start with how storage space works in RAID 5. Let's assume we have 4 disks for this example, and our disks are 2 TB each. In this case, we would have 6 TB of space in this array, which is calculated by the formula X * ( Y - 1 ), where X is the smallest disk in this array, and Y is the number of disks. A minimum of 3 disks are needed for a RAID 5 array.

As you can see in the picture, the data is divided into 4 disks, which allows data on the different disks to be accessed simultaneously, which is an upside of the RAID 5 array.

With all that being said, now we can talk about the main point, which is RAID 5 data recovery. In RAID 5, the data is striped between multiple disks like we have talked before, and a parity bit is added to each disk (which are calculated between the cylinders) , which is the reason why we see a decrease in total storage space in the array. For those who don't know what parity is, I will explain really quick.

Parity in RAID 5, in simplest terms, are digits which contain information (calculated by XOR of data). But how does that help in order to recover lost data incase one of the disks malfunction? The answer to this is the XOR function. Using the XOR function on the undamaged disks' parity bits give you the parity bit of the damaged drive, which can be used to reconstruct all the data on the damaged disk. Since we brought that up, let's also see how XOR works.

XOR is the principle where if there's a difference between numbers, then the result is 1, and if they're same, the result is 0. Therefore 1 xor 1 would be 0, 0 xor 0 would be 0, 1 xor 0 would be 1, and 0 xor 1 would be 1.

Since we know how XOR works now, let's see an example. 

Drive 1: 010111001

Drive 2: 110011100

---------------------

Drive 3: 100100111 is found by using the XOR function. This means the damaged drive's parity bit is 100100111, and can be used to reconstruct the data on the disk. The same method can be used over and over for each disk, given that only ONE disk in the array is damaged. If more than one disk is damaged, then the XOR function cannot be used, which means RAID 5 will be ineffective.

Of course, there are billions of numbers and calculations being made in a real life case, and this is just a stripped down example in order to learn how RAID 5 data recovery works.

According to the things we talked until now, you can see RAID 5 has a big advantage in the name of data recovery, and is also a good system if the disks are being read more than written on (which I've mentioned earlier)

RAID 5 also comes with its disadvantages like everything else, and that's no surprise. Writing on a RAID 5 system will surely be slow, since the parity data should be kept updated all the time. Therefore, RAID 5 shouldn't be used in places where constant writing to the disks is applied. RAID 5 will also require more RAM, and it makes you lose some part of your storage space.

All in all, I believe RAID 5 data recovery is one of the most miraculous things to happen in computer history, since everything is being stored in computers in this age, and losing important data could be a matter of life and death for a company or a business owner. I'm sure many of you heard the term RAID and wondered how it worked, so I hope this article made you understand it in a better way!

0 Making A Multiboot USB Stick

Hello everyone, today's topic is making a multiboot USB stick! I must say having a multiboot USB stick saved me a lot of time when I got in trouble with my current Windows installation. You can add many things to your multiboot USB stick such as a linux distro, a partition manager, MSDaRT, (this one saved my Windows so many times) hard drive utilities, rescue disks and so on depending on what you need.

Creating one is rather simple, and you're going to need the two programs above.

1) RMPrepUSB
2) SARDU

RMPrepUSB is the piece of software which prepares your USB Drive to be bootable, and SARDU adds the ISO files which contains the things you need on your USB stick.

After downloading both of them, we start by running RMPrepUSB. The settings in RMPrepUSB should be like the ones in the picture above.

After you selected these settings, click Prepare Drive and wait. Note that your drive will be wiped, so if you have anything important on the drive, make sure you get rid of them beforehand.

Now that we're done with making our USB stick boot ready, we can add the ISO files we want in it. Launch SARDU which we've downloaded beforehand.



Click the button which says ISO, and navigate to the folder where all the ISO files you want to add your usb stick are. (gather all the ISOs you want in one folder if you haven't done that yet)

Now you're ready to make your multiboot USB stick! Click the USB button on the right hand side, and wait until SARDU is done preparing your USB. (If SARDU has problems detecting your USB stick, use the Search USB button first)

And we're done! Now you have a multiboot USB stick with all the emergency system tools instead of having different CDs for them. When you're using the stick, make sure that your USB is the first boot option instead of your hard drives, cause then it's not going to work.

I hope this tutorial helped you, see you next time!

0 Cloud Computing

I'm sure many of you heard the term cloud computing a lot of times lately. Cloud computing is getting more popular every day and it's slowly taking over physical computing.. But what is cloud computing? That's probably the question all of you are asking if you're reading this right now.

Cloud computing, in most basic definition, is the usage of computer resources over a network, which includes internet. The computer resources could be anything depending on the type of the cloud computing, as there are many types of it.

Image from Wikipedia, created by Sam Johnston.

The most basic type of cloud computing is infrastructure as a service (IaaS). In this cloud computing type, you're basically given a computer which you can access via internet. These computers can either be physical computers or just virtual machines running on physical computers. IaaS is mainly used for the storage space, the ability to use different operating systems without altering your computer, being able to use an IP address of an another country, (for instance to be able to watch Netflix without living in US) and many more things you can do with a usual computer. In IaaS, you're only given the hardware and it's your responsibility to install the operating system, the software you need, to keep it updated and so on. Google Compute Engine is an example to this type of cloud computing.

The next type of cloud computing is platform as a service (PaaS). In PaaS, unlike IaaS, the operating system  and the features to test applications such as an execution environment is included. PaaS is used by application developers in order to test their software easily, instead of buying a new set of physical hardware to do so. Note that different PaaS providers support different programming languages, so you're supposed to find one which supports the language you are developing your software in. An example to PaaS is Google App Engine.

The ones who are familiar with gaming will know this one, which goes by the name software as a service (SaaS). In SaaS, a software is hosted on the cloud and it's accessed by people via a web browser. The upside of this system is that the software you're running via SaaS won't take any resources on your computer, since the computers in the cloud will be providing it. The first example I think of for this is certainly  Quake Live, as a gaming fan. OnLive is also a different example of SaaS cloud computing, and is considered as the future of gaming lately. SaaS is also used in different areas such as accounting.

STaaS must be the one that everyone is familiar with, unlike the others, because STaaS is being used by many home users. STaaS stands for Storage as a service, and is the principle behind many popular storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud and more. In this model, you're only given a storage space which you can access by using the internet wherever you have to.

There are many more types of cloud computing such as security as a service, database as a service, data as a service etc, which I won't be talking about right now, but maybe in the future.

I hope this helped you clear the question marks in your head about cloud computing!

Let's move on to the advantages of cloud computing now.

First things first, mobility is what makes cloud computing an amazing thing. You can't really have access to a physical thing all the time, but you can access your cloud wherever you want just with an internet connection. This plays a major role in the SaaS/STaaS system.

Second advantage would be cost, as it is cheaper than buying a physical computer to buy a cloud instead. IaaS and PaaS are the examples to this advantage.

Third advantage, in my eyes, is performance. You can always rely on big companies' cloud systems more than you can rely on your own home computer.

That being said, the only disadvantage which comes with cloud computing is the fact that if you don't have internet connection, you won't be able to access anything. But in the world we are living right now where even mobile phones are connected to internet 24/7 via 3G, where cities are covered in Wi-Fi coverage, I really doubt this would be a problem.

All in all, cloud computing has an answer for each one of your needs, if you are a home user, if you are a gamer, if you are a software developer, or if you are the owner of a business. I really believe it's the start of a new era in computing as it is growing so rapidly.

That would conclude everything I wanted to say about cloud computing for now, so see you all later in a different post!

0 Small But Powerful Software

Hello there! Today, instead of talking about a single thing, I decided to make a small compilation of software which I think would be really handy to have installed. You can pick whichever you want from the list and try it out to your likings. You might or might not have heard of these software, but I'm sure you wont leave them out of your toolkit once you got them.

Our first software is TeraCopy. TeraCopy is a file copying software which replaces the usual Windows one.

I don't know if it ever occured to you, but most of the times when you copy high amounts of files, or large files, the copying process either freezes or goes really slow. I've experienced freezing with Windows' own integrated copying software so many times, which made me look for an alternative. After using TeraCopy, I've noticed an increase in my copying speed, and also the freezing was gone. It's a great tool which should be installed right after formatting your computer, since it swaps itself with Windows' own copying software so you don't even have to run it. TeraCopy also features pausing/resuming which I personally haven't used so much, but I'm sure some people will find it useful.

You can download or find more about TeraCopy here.

Next up is Connectify, a software which saved my life many times. This one goes to the laptop users who don't have access to a wireless network. With Connectify, you or any of your friends who has a 3g/4g modem can turn the laptop into a wireless hotspot, and share the connection. I've experienced this problem many times when I went to holiday, and I was the only one who had a 3g modem. Luckily, I managed to share the connection with my family using Connectify.

Using Connectify is pretty simple and straight forward. All you have to do is choose a network name, a network password, and choose the connection which you want to share. Note that you will need the Pro version in order to share your connection, which I think is well worth for the money you're paying. Without Pro, you can only relay a WiFi connection, which is sort of useless if you have a router in the house.

You can find more about Connectify here.

I'm sure all of you know about Daemon Tools, but I'm sure I should mention it here. For those who don't know, Daemon Tools is a virtual cd/dvd-rom software, where you can mount CD/DVD files such as .iso or .cue in order to use them. Daemon Tools also lets you make images of the CDs or DVDs you own already, which you can use later on with Daemon Tools.

The usage is pretty simple again. All you need to do is to create virtual drives by clicking the DT plus sign in the main window, drag your iso files into the empty screen, and then mount them to the drives you want to by right clicking and selecting mount. The biggest advantage of this software is that you can create virtual copies of your CDs or DVDs, and keep as much of them as you want mounted with Daemon Tools instead of replacing a physical disk in your rom every single time. I personally find it such big of a hassle to replace a physical disk every single time I need to use something different.

To learn more about Daemon Tools, you can click this link.

This would be it for now, but I will be returning with a part 2 of this post after a while. I hope you enjoyed the read and found something which will make your life easier!

0 Spotify - Music anywhere

Spotify is a music streaming software which is a must have for any music fan. (at least in my opinion!) With Spotify, you have access to millions of songs anytime you want, (provided you have an internet connection) without downloading them.

There are many great features about Spotify, but let's look at the subscription plans since the features change depending on which one you have.

Spotify Free - You have access to the songs, but you can listen to a song only five times until it gets disabled. You will also have ads inbetween some songs.

Spotify Unlimited - The ads will be gone, and the five time limit will be lifted compared to Spotify Free.

Spotify Premium - You will have offline mode, where you can add songs to your offline playlist which Spotify will let you listen to even without an internet connection. You will also be able to use Spotify on your mobile phone.

In Spotify, you have the ability to make as many playlist as you want, so you won't have to worry about categorizing. Talking about playlists, there's also a function called "collaborative playlist", where you can link your playlist to your friends and they can add songs into them as well, making it a great function for sharing music with friends.

There's also a pretty interesting thing called the Radio, which actually isn't a radio, but better. You simply choose a genre (or more than one genre), and Spotify starts streaming music which belong to those genres. The reason why I said it's better than a radio is because that you can actually skip the songs you don't like. It's a great way of discovering new songs and making new additions to your playlists.

The next interesting thing about Spotify is the App Finder, where you can download "apps" for your Spotify. There are many different apps for many different purposes, such as Moodagent, (my favorite one) TuneWiki,  and so on. These apps serve purposes like finding playlists you like, giving you lyrics of the songs you are listen to, and lots of different things.

Spotify also serves as a local music player. It will detect the local music files you have under a category called Local Files where you can play them, making it a great place to collect all of your music. You can also download the tracks you like off Spotify in exchange for a little bit of money.

Spotify also supports iPhone/Android sync through WiFi, which is an easy way to update the songs on your phone. Facebook integration is also supported in Spotify for the ones who are interested. (personally I'm not really a big fan of this, but I'm sure there are people who would like it.)

Lastly, you can always take a look at the Top Lists, where Spotify shows you the hit tracks, albums, and artist at the time. It's also a great way of finding new songs to listen to.

I've been using Spotify since the beta, and it's truly an amazing software. It's adding more features day by day, (there was no app finder, no Spotify Mobile, no top lists or anything similar back in the day) which surely looks promising. So if you like listening to music, if you like sharing music with your friends and family, and you want to have a big archive of music under your hand, then Spotify is the right choice for you!

I hope you enjoyed the read!

0 Dummy File Creator

Hello everyone! I wasn't planning on writing something today, but I felt the need to share a really interesting software which I've just stumbled upon a few hours ago. There's not much to say about it, as you will notice that it's a pretty simple software to use.

This one is called Dummy File Creator. You can download this software here in its official page.

As it is obvious from the name, this software creates dummy files, which basically aren't anything, but just things which take up space. All you need to do is fill the size box, and the software will create you dummy file(s) of that size.

I'm sure everyone has the same question right now. "What could be possibly a good use of this software?" That's exactly what I asked myself when I saw it, and then I started thinking to myself if I can do anything useful with this piece of software.

When you think about it, there are actually many great uses for this software. I remember the days I didn't do my projects in high school, so I just downloaded a random file and named it myproject.ppt, then told my teacher that the file was corrupted and I will bring my project the next day. 90% of the time, it earned me another day to finish my project. That's probably the best purpose I can think of for this program!

Putting the jokes aside, you can do things such as filling your hard drive to see if there are any problems in your hard drive's sectors, (you'll experience errors at some point if you have bad sectors) you can check the writing speed of your hard drive, you can make dummy files after you deleted something so that they become unrecoverable, (since the dummy files will be written on those sectors) and many more things that I can't think of right now, or that I shouldn't be speaking about here.

All in all, using this software and deciding what you're gonna do with it is totally up to your creativity. This is what I would call a simple, but a powerful tool.

I hope you enjoyed the read!

0 CCleaner

Ever wished there was a software which would clean your computer from every single obsolete thing in one click? Then CCleaner is the software you are looking for! With one click, CCleaner will clean your computer and make it ready for daily use.

As you can see, the software cleans things like browser cache, Windows Explorer cache, and system cache which we are usually too lazy to clean by ourselves one by one. But of course, there's no reason to waste your computer's performance by not cleaning them since this can't get simpler.

CCleaner also supports cleaning cache of the applications you have such as Skype and such, which makes it a quite good bundle overall. You won't ever have to clean any cache manually anymore after you start using CCleaner.

It also has the option to analyze and tell you what you should clean by giving statistics about the software you are using in the right pane. You can see which cache is taking how much space by looking at the right pane and clean the ones you want, and leave the others.

CCleaner also offers registry cleaning, which is kind of a sweet feature. Registry entries tend to get messed up and stay there for long time even if they aren't used anymore, so it can't hurt to scan for registry issues every now and then and clean it.

Lastly, there are some extra tools in the software such as a built-in uninstaller, a startup manager similar to msconfig, a system restore utility, and a drive wiper. The drive wiper is also quite useful, since it deletes the files that are deleted before, (similar to Revo Uninstaller, which I covered in one of my posts) opening up more space and making them unrecoverable. The drive wiper also gives you the option of deleting the whole drive, also known as formatting. 

My recommendation would be to run CCleaner's Cleaner & Registry tools once per day right before you close your computer, so you can start fresh the next day. That's what I personally do and I can say I'm satisfied with the results.

I hope you enjoyed the read!

0 Revo Uninstaller Pro

Many times when I uninstall something off my computer, the things I uninstall usually leave lots of unneeded files and registry entries. It becomes pretty annoying when all this stuff stack up and take unneeded space or create conflicts. Icing on the cake, sometimes the uninstallers don't even work and you have to manually clean out a whole program...

After being annoyed at stuff like this, I started a research to see if there's any software which would help me to get rid of all these problems, and I found Revo Uninstaller Pro. You can find more information about Revo Uninstaller Pro here.

The main function of the software, as you will appreciate, is to uninstall software. In order to do this, the software follows a 3 step process which consists of making a system restore point, uninstalling with the integrated uninstaller, and cleaning the leftovers by scanning.

This way, if you uninstalled something which will cause a problem, you can just system restore without any problems, (I disabled the feature cause I doubt I need it) and you won't have any leftover files which will annoy you later on.

It also has extra features like cleaning your browsers' caches, cleaning the recent documents history of your Microsoft Office, and cleaning things in Windows such as the clipboard, temporary files and many more which I will be showing in the picture.

The Evidence Remover tool is also a quite nice tool in my opinion. It makes sure that the stuff you delete from your hard drive is totally unrecoverable by recovery softwares which I covered in one of my older posts. Note that this will only works for the deleted files, so you can safely use this to make sure noone digs out information off your hard drive.

Unrecoverable Delete tool is the alternative for Evidence Remover tool, where you can select files on your hard drive which will be deleted completely like the Evidence Remover does to your deleted files. It's better than deleting files by using Windows' own deleting tool since it won't give any room for recovery.

Junk Files Cleaner is a scanning utility which scans for the leftover files from the previous uninstalls you've done without Revo Uninstaller Pro. It is a good idea to run it once in a while just to make sure that every leftover file is cleaned and gone.

Autorun Manager is something that I don't really use since I'm used to using msconfig and it works just good for me, but it's simply a Startup manager where you can add/remove programs to/from your startup.

Lastly, there's the Hunter Mode, which is sort of an interesting feature. When you click Hunter Mode, you will get a crosshair which you can drag on the items on your desktop. After you successfully drag the crosshair on one of the windows (I use chrome for this example), it will give you choices such as uninstalling it, killing it, or removing it from the startup. I can't say I used it, but it looks like a really interesting feature which I might be using later on.

That would be all the features of Revo Uninstaller Pro. It's a really good software to have in your after-format software package, since I'm sure you will need something like this one day or another.

I hope you enjoyed the read!

0 Notepad++

Are you still using the original Notepad in Windows? It's time for a change! Notepad++ is an advanced version of Notepad which comes with many more features, and I promise it will make your life easier. It's especially good for people who are coding, but it's still an amazing upgrade for a home user nonetheless.

Notepad++ comes with great features such as highlighting / folding, opening your notepad documents in tabs instead of windows, making macros, (it records the things you do and you can recall it later) launching the notepad file in different browsers, (good for web programming) auto completion, customizable GUI, document map, plugin support for anything you might possibly need in Notepad, and many more.

The plugins include various things such as spell checking, exporting your file, quick translation, automatic saving, and the list goes on. There are too much plugins for me to actually talk about one by one here!

There are a few popular Notepad++ plugins which everyone using Notepad++ should have in my opinion. My recommendations in this case would be having Compare, Explorer, Multi-Clipboard, CharM, TopMost, AutoSave, and SpellChecker. Let's see what these plugins do one by one.

Compare : Shows you the changes between the saved document and the one you are working on at that moment.

Explorer : Think of it as an integrated Windows Explorer. It allows you to open any files on your system via Notepad++.

Multi-Clipboard : This one is pretty straight forward. It gives you more than one clipboard where you can see all your copies stored.

CharM : A special character map for the things you can't insert via your keyboard.

TopMost : Allows Notepad++ to be always on top.

AutoSave : Saves your document every X seconds where you choose the value for X.

SpellChecker : It's a spelilng checker!

You can find more information about Notepad++ here. I doubt you will look back to the original Notepad after using Notepad++, with all these great features.

I hope you enjoyed the read!

1 Recuva - Free File Recovery

Ever regretted deleting a file and wanted it back? I sure did! Infact, it happened many times to me and I just let it go until one day I lost a really important file which made me get to work. I'm sure this has happened to many of you as well, and I'm glad to say that today I will be writing about a software which will help you out!

When I was browsing the internet to find a way to get my file back, I tested many programs and I decided to stick with a file recovery software called Recuva. If you're interested, you can find more information about Recuva here.

With this piece of software, you will most likely be able to return the files that you have deleted, unless a long time has passed until you deleted them, or you filled the clusters of the hard drive which contained those files before with something else. In that case, you will end up getting corrupt or wrong files.

Using Recuva is quite simple. All you have to do is to scan the drive where you want to return the files from to start with.

After the scanning part is done, find the file(s)/folder(s) you want to recover and check them.

After you checked the files you want to recover, click the recover button at the bottom right corner. It will ask you to choose the destination folder. Note the important part here is that you should not choose the hard drive you're recovering files from as the destination, since it will reduce the chance your files will be recovered.

If all goes well, you will succesfully recover your files within moments depending their size. This worked 90% of the time for me, except for a few instances where I tried to recover files which I deleted months ago. Then again, it's a great example of file recovery and that deleting a file isn't the end of everything.

This software is the one I had most success with, but feel free to try other softwares since they all work in a different way and you might have luck with an another one if you didn't have luck with this one.

I hope you enjoyed the read, and I hope this helps you out!

0 Network Monitoring For Home Users

Network monitoring is the technique which is used to see what's happening in a computer network. In business, a network monitoring system monitors many things such as incoming threats to the network, components which slow the network down, data transfer, crashed servers and many things.

For a home user though, network monitoring simply means monitoring the download and upload rates of the computers in a network, usually in order to see what's taking up too much bandwidth. Today, I will be talking about network monitoring for home users.

It's rather easy to monitor your network lately, thanks to the variety of network monitoring software around the internet. With the help of a software, you can dynamically see the data transfer in your network, you can prioritize or limit the things you want to, you can balance the traffic for different computers in the network if you are sharing the connection, (You can split the connection equally between two computers for instance in order to prevent one person's downloads interfering with the other's internet experience) you can set rules such as assigning different volumes of traffic to different applications for different times of a day, week, or month. It's totally up to you how you want to customize your network.

If you are interested in this, I would recommend using NetBalancer, since it's a fairly easy and effective network monitoring software to use. You can find more information about NetBalancer here. Note that there are many alternatives to NetBalancer, but you can trust me on this one! After downloading and setting the software up, you will see a screen similar to this.

This is the main window, which you will be spending most of your time in. You can see all the processes which are running on your computer in this window. It shows you the download & upload rates for the specific processes here. You can simply right click a process, and change priority, block, or limit the download/upload speed of this particular process. As a real life example, let's assume I'm playing an online game and downloading something at the time. Apparently, it makes my game lag so that I can't play. In this scenario, I can just push my game's priority to high, and the software will make sure that the download isn't interfering with my gameplay.

There are also two graphs at left and right bottom, total internet usage and connections of the process you selected respectively. You can see which IPs a process is connected to, which can sometimes help you see if something dodgy is happening.

On the picture above, I just pushed Heroes of Newerth to high, and let BitComet at normal, so I can play my game without any problems! Let's take a quick look at the traffic rule setting as well.

I right clicked BitComet on the main window and added a rule for it. You can see on the picture that I chose the days Saturday and Sunday, and changed the Upload setting to Blocked. With this rule, BitComet won't be able to do any uploading at weekends. I'm sure many people will find use for this great feature, since if some time is put into it, it can make it a lot easier to use your internet connection effectively. Next up is the level severity option.

Remember the priorities we set earlier for our processes? This is the tool where you can choose how low your "low"s, and how high your "high"s will be. You can optimize this according to how fast your download and update rates are.

This would be network monitoring for home users in a nutshell. It's simple, isn't it? No more fighting with your girlfriend cause she's downloading and slowing your game down, no more problems with loading pictures while downloading and many more examples you can think of!

0 File Management Software

File management software are surely the biggest part of our computer lives. I'm sure everyone is familiar with Windows Explorer, the implemented file manager of Windows OS. Whenever you open a folder on your computer, it is Windows Explorer which makes you able to see your files and such.

That being said, Windows Explorer isn't the only one which you can use on your computer. Infact, there are many file management software which are far more advanced than Windows Explorer, or perhaps, more suitable for different users. Today, I will be talking about different types of these software and recommend you my personal favorites.

If we are to categorize, the categories would be:

• Orthodox
• Navigational
• Spatial

Let's start with Orthodox!

Orthodox file managers are the oldest ones between these three categories. They were used to make it easier to manage files back in the DOS days when there was no Windows where you can assign your files easily. An orthodox file manager consists of three panels. One of the panels is called the active panel, where you can navigate through your folders and files in the current working directory. The second panel is the passive panel, and it is used to see the content of an another directory at will. Lastly the third panel is a shell/command line where you can input commands as if you are in DOS. In the time of DOS, these were really popular since it made everything so much easier. Instead of inputting hours of commands, you could copy,paste,read,modify files and many more things with the help of shortcuts. The most famous orthodox file management software is surely Norton Commander. Even though these aren't used anymore (for obvious reasons), if you want to take a look at it, I'd suggest using Norton Commander.

The second type is, which everyone must be familiar with, is Navigational.

Navigational file managers are the ones we use every day. The greatest example to these would be Windows Explorer for Windows and Finder(has spatial mode too) for Mac. A navigational file manager consists of two panes, where one pane shows the system tree, and the other pane shows the active working directory. What seperates navigational from orthodox is the fact that navigational file managers have a graphical user interface, and orthodox file managers don't.  That being said, the GUI brings lots of advantages such as being able to go back & forward with a click of a mouse, and expanding folders without going into them (The arrows to the left of folders in Windows Explorer), drag & drop, and clipboard. WinSCP is a great alternative to Windows Explorer if you are willing to try something different.

Our last type file managers is Spatial.

Spatial file managers are completely different from the ones I have listed above. In a spatial file manager, every window represents a different folder. Basically, every time you double click a folder, a new window will be opened to show the contents of it. It's totally a different concept compared to the other two, and in my opinion, it's really hard and time consuming to use. That being said, some people prefer spatial over navigational because they like to know what is where instead of going around folders all the time. It's totally a matter of choice, but navigational is a lot more popular compared to spatial. Konqueror is a good spatial file management software (it has a navigational mode too) which you can try and see.

These three would be all the file management software types, all with their advantages and disadvantages.. Choose the one you feel comfortable with and stick to that one. You don't have to be forced to using Windows Explorer / Finder if you don't like it. We are living in a world of alternatives and technology :) If you asked my opinion though, I would say get used to navigational as it will make your life a lot easier.

I hope you enjoyed this, see you next time!

1 Virtual Machines & How to set one up with Virtualbox

Virtual Machines are guest operating systems which are installed in a host operating system. Think of it as a secondary operating system in your computer, and you can run it at the same time with your operating system. The biggest function of virtual machines is the fact that they're isolated from the host (primary OS), which means they are in no means related.

The reason why everyone uses virtual machines is simply because you can have different operating systems on your computer without changing your preferred operating system. This comes handy for people who have programs which aren't compatible with Windows 7, people who need to use Linux for programming, people who want to test software/settings without altering their original operating system and many more things that I can't think of right now.

The only disadvantage of using virtual machines is that it runs slower compared to a host operating system. Since it accesses the hardware indirectly, the performance will be poorer compared to the main system. It might also end up slowing down your host operating system if you don't have enough resources to run them.

Setting virtual machines up are fairly easy. First things first, let's list the things you need to set your own virtual machine.

- VirtualBox for Windows (Note that there are alternatives to VirtualBox, but in all honesty, it's the easiest one to use and it covers everything you need.)
- ISO file of the Operating System you wish to use (Backtrack 5 in my example)

That's pretty much all we need! Start with downloading and installing VirtualBox. After that, we'll see the main window of VirtualBox. To create our Virtual Machine, we simply click the "New" button, give it a name, and select its version.

When we are done with that, the software will ask how much memory we want to allocate to our Virtual Machine. (this can be changed later, so don't worry about misconfiguring it) I have 6 gigabytes of RAM installed in my computer, so I will just give 2 gigabytes of RAM to it. This is totally optional and you should configure it according to your needs.

The next step is making a "hard disk". Select the Create new hard disk option, and check the Start-up Disk option to proceed. Leave the file type at default. (VDI - VirtualBox Disk Image)

It's going to ask you if you want to have a fixed or dynamic hard drive. Dynamically allocated is usually a better choice since it will save you from using unneeded space on your hard drive. I'll select dynamically allocated for this example. After that's done, we are supposed to allocate a starting space for our hard drive (it ll expand after you fill this space up, that's how dynamic works)

Now, we have an empty Virtual Machine in our hands. It's time to load our Operating System in it! But first things first, click Settings in the main window, and assign more Video Memory and Cores to it, so it runs optimally. (You can do this by going to System-> Processor / Display -> Video)

To install the OS, we need to import the ISO file we wish to use into Virtualbox. This can by starting the VM up, going to Devices -> CD/DVD -> IDE/SATA (doesn't really matter) -> Choose a Virtual CD/DVD file. After the DVD is loaded, you will see the installation screen of your Operating System. (In a Windows 7 example, you will see the screen as if you re installing a fresh Windows 7 copy on your computer.)

After the installing part is done, your virtual machine will restart, and you will be seeing a fresh installed operating system of your choice! You might want to install Guest Additions as it's needed to fix some driver issues. (This can be done in the Devices menu again) Congratulations! You just successfully created your own virtual machine.

Now you can tweak it the way you want to and make use of it. You can also share things like your folders, your network, or your clipboard between your host and guest system, which makes it quite versatile to use.

I hope you liked this tutorial! I'm glad if I could have been any help :)

1 Spyware Protection

I guess everyone knows what a spyware is more or less, but for those who don't; spywares are malicious software which monitor your computer without your will. This monitoring process can be something simple such as checking which websites you've been surfing, or something critical such as your personal or bank information. Spywares can also slow your computer down, change your computer settings, create unwanted pop-ups to appear and such things which will harm your computer experience. Spywares, unlike viruses are a lot more likely to infect your computer due to their nature, and they are a lot more common than viruses. Therefore, even though virus protection isn't crucial in my eyes, spyware protection surely is.

Nowadays, spyware protection is fairly easy. There are many software from different companies which offer spyware protection. All you have to do is to download one of the software, let it scan your computer, and it will most likely remove every piece of spyware it can find. I will now, share the software that I've been using for spyware protection.

I use two different spyware protection software to keep my computer clean from spyware. You can safely use both of them at the same time as they won't cause any conflicts in your operating system.

First software is Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, which you can get more information about (and download a free trial) here. It's fairly easy to use and user friendly as all the other spyware protection software. All you have to do is install it, let it update, and then run it.

The software lets you choose one of the three options to scan your computer. I recommend using full scan once in a while (a monthly-two monthly basis would be fine), and quick scan every week or two weeks depending how cautious you want to be about spyware protection.

The software also offers a real-time protection (which will delete spyware as soon as you're infected with it while you're wandering around the internet) if you wish to use. I've never been a big fan of real-time protection, (anti-viruses/firewalls use this) so personally I just keep it off.

Our second recommended software for today is SUPERAntiSpyware, which can be found here. It works the same way with MBAM pretty much. All you need to do is install it and update, and then you're ready to roll.

SuperAntiSpyware offers a more extended variety tools compared to MBAM as you can see. I suggest quick scanning every one or two weeks with this one as well, and complete scan once in a while like we talked before. Critical Point Scan, for those who wonder, is a faster Quick Scan, (it's not so thorough - not recommended) and Rescue Scan is an option which you should use when you can't run a normal scan because of infections. SuperAntiSpyware also offers custom scan, where you can tweak everything about the scan you will be running. This is only recommended for advanced users, so if you don't know what you are doing, stay away from it!

The software also offers real-time protection similar to MBAM, and you can use both of them at the same time if you want to without any problems.

The reason I use two different spyware protection software at once is because that they both have different databases and one of them might catch something the other didn't. With two of them, we simply increase the chance to find the spyware and successfully remove it.

All being said, even though we have powerful  tools in our computers to protect us from spywares, it doesn't hurt to be cautious. Stay away from dodgy links and don't go into websites that you don't trust without researching them.

Stay on the safe side folks, I'm out!

1 Dropbox - For all your online storage needs

Online storage plays a big role in our daily lives nowadays. We all have files that we have to carry around, we have files that we want to share with our friends and family, we have many things that we need instant access to when we need it. For all your online storage needs, I present you Dropbox.

Dropbox, in simple words, is an online storage service which allows you to upload files on a server which you can access on any computer you like later on. There are many services which provide online storage, but the reason I chose Dropbox is the fact that it outperforms other services in every single way.

First things first, we all love free stuff, don't we? (at least I do!) Well, good news for all the free stuff lovers, because Dropbox offers 2 gigabytes of online storage space for every single person who makes an account. 

If you are interested in a bigger storage place, Dropbox also offers 100, 250, and 500 gigabytes of spaces with the price of 10$, 20$, and 50$ a month respectively. They also offer online storage services up to 5 terabytes for businesses.

Now that we got the price part straight, it's time to learn to use Dropbox! It's probably the simplest piece of software you will ever stumble upon. All you need to do is installing the software, and making an account. (just follow the steps) After that, you will have a Dropbox folder in a place of your choice, where everything you put in the Dropbox folder will be uploaded to Dropbox online storage servers. When the upload is complete, the file will have a small green check mark instead of the arrows. 

To access your files, you are simply supposed to go to Dropbox website, and sign in! You can view photos directly if you wish, or download them to your computer. You can also make different folders to organize your stuff, and you don't even have to be on your main computer to delete or change stuff. You have access to everything via the web panel which you can access on any computer.

You can also share folders with your other friends who also have Dropbox by right clicking a folder and "inviting them" to your folder by typing their name or e-mail address. This way, they will have access to all the contents in the folder. It's a great way of sharing your pictures with your friends!

Dropbox also gives you the option of sharing files with people who don't have a Dropbox account. All you have to do is to move the file you wish to share in your Public folder, and then generate a public link by right clicking the file you wish to share in your Public folder.

That would be all features of Dropbox. It provides all you expect from an online storage and more. The best part is the fact that not all of the files are publicly accessible even if the link is leaked out, unless many other free online storage services. It also saves you from the trouble of going to a website to upload things to the storage.

I think Dropbox is one of the best software I've ever used and I can't see myself living without it! Hope you enjoyed the read, see you next time!

1 Windows 8 tablets to be 600-800$

I must say I'm quite shocked about the price range of Windows 8 tablets! 600$-800$ for a Windows 8 tablet with an Atom processor, a processor which is used in netbooks, which will cost you hundreds less to have one if you decide to buy a netbook instead of a Windows 8 tablet, and use Windows 8 on the netbook.

Fun fact, these tablets also come with keyboards which actually, in my eyes, make them no different than a usual laptop/netbook with the exception of having a worse processor, limited things you can do compared to an usual laptop, and high price. Of course we can't just say netbooks are the same as tablets just because they share the same processor, but the price difference is too great to choose a tablet just for the sake of mobility.

The only good side of having a Windows 8 tablet is the fact that it has Windows as an operating system, which makes your life easier compared to the other tablets if you are using Windows in general. Then again, you can remotely access your home computer on a cheaper Android tablet and get your work done. If this isn't an alternative for you, you can always use cloud services such as Google Docs to get your work done.

Now that we are done comparing the Windows 8 tablets to netbooks which have similar processors with the fact netbooks costing less, let's make a quick comparison between different tablets this time and see if it's worth it this way. (prices are without keyboard, extra ~200$ for keyboard)

Asus Vivo Tab - 600$ (Windows 8)

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 - 600$ (Windows 8)

Microsoft Surface - 800$ (Windows 8)

Acer Iconia - 700$ (Windows 8)

iPad 64GB Wifi & Cellular - 830$ (iOS)

I didn't mention any Android tablets since they are in a lower price range (Nexus 7 for instance, around 300$~), but I think I made my point. In a world where everyone either buys iOS or Android based products for their mobile needs, it will be impossible for Windows 8 tablets to enter the scene with such high prices.

I'm definitely not the biggest fan of Apple, but Apple has a really big community, and given that Windows 8 tablets have nearly the same price as the iPads, there's no chance for Windows 8 tablets to get attention from the Apple base.

As an Android user, I would really love to have a Windows 8 tablet since I believe that it's the most complete operating system for a tablet so far. It's really superior compared to the iOS and Android operating systems, but it's just not worth to spend that money when it's the same price as an iPad.

All in all, I'm not saying that Windows 8 is a bad operating system, but the things it offers for its price just doesn't cut the mustard. Guess I will have to stick to my Nexus 7 for a longer time!

0 What is a FTP Server & How to make one

A File Transfer Protocol server, or FTP server is a protocol which allows you to transfer files between computers over the internet. In order to do this, the server administrator should upload/enable files to his FTP server, and other users can connect this server in order to download files. It's a really good way to keep your files in your hand wherever you go, since as long as your computer is open and connected to the internet, you will be able to access your server. It's also a great way of sharing files with your friends, your family, and your co-workers at will.

There are many ways to access a FTP server, and accessing one can be as easy as typing its URL to your browser. (for example ftp.computerrepository.com) Even though it's easy to connect to a FTP server with a browser, the recommended way is to use a software such as WinSCP (assuming that you're running Windows). The more uncommon/outdated way would be using the ftp command at the command line prompt.

Now we know what a FTP server is, and we know how to access one, let's learn how to make our own FTP server!

With Serv-U

First of all, we will need a software which is called Serv-U FTP Server. You can download the software here. After you download and install the software, you will see this screen.

Simply click yes to proceed. It will ask you to name your domain and put a description for it. Fill the boxes in and click next. Note that the domain box should be either filled with your IP address or an IP redirect. In the next menu you will see ports in boxes. You can leave this as it is since they're default and proceed. In the next window, the software will ask you for your IP, which will later be used to access the server. Just keep the IPv4 one checked and leave it blank.

After we are done with this setup, it's time to configure how secure our server will be. The default setting is just fine for simple purposes, so we can leave it at that. When that's done, we are done with setting our domain up.

Now it's time to create users!. The software will ask you to fill in a Login ID, which will be the username for logging on the server, and a password afterwards. Next up, you're supposed to set where that specific user will be redirected to when he/she accesses the FTP server. For this example, I used "/C:" which is root.

Finally, we are going to decide if this user is going to have Read Only Access, or Full Access. A Full Access user can delete/move/rename/access files while a Read Only Access user can only access the files. 

Afterwards, you will see the user screen. Click the user you made and click Edit. Go to the Directory Access tab and add the locations where the user is permitted to access. You can see my example right below.

All done! You can simply type ftp://youripaddress to your browser (or use your preferred FTP client) and try to login with your username and password. You can create more users with different permissions and access to different paths according to who you will be sharing the user with. If you want to share the FTP server with lots of people, you can make groups with certain permissions and put the users in the groups. The customization part is totally up to you!

Note that the Serv-U software should be up and running in your tray in order to keep your server up. Your server won't be running if the service is stopped or closed.

This is the simplest and most straight forward way to make your own home FTP server. I hope you enjoyed the read!