Neel Nirjon

While your computing is booting, you can instruct the computer to boot in 'safe mode'. Safe mode refers to secure mode. You may then ask, is our computer not secure when we boot normally. Let us see how is safe mode more secure than the normal booting.

When your computer gives problems and you want to identify where is the problem, then you can use the safe mode for this. In safe mode, only limited number of driver programs are enabled. Therefore you cannot use CD drive. You cannot use the printer. And many other unnecessary drivers are not enabled.

While in Safe Mode, you can use the ScanDisk, defrag and other utility programs to repair your computer. You may wonder how to bring the computer to safe mode. When Windows boots up, you have to press the F8 key. You should press the F8 key before the windows screen appears. Then you can choose the safe mode option to boot.

Some Anti virus software will tell you that some viruses can only be removed in safe mode, therefore the antivirus software will automatically start in safe mode or you may have to goto safe mode and then run the virus removal utility to remove the virus.

Is it safe to download skin and themes for my computer?

What is a skin? What is a Theme? Skin is s most often used word by computer users. You may wonder what can be the relation between a computer and skin? What is the meaning of Skin. Now what is the literal meaning of skin. Skin is used to cover our body. Isn't it? Similarly, the term skin in computer is used to refer to the interface or look and feel of any program or application. There are many skins available in the internet that can be downloaded freely.

For instance, some popular media players such as WinAmp, Music Match, Real One or Windows media player have many skins provided by third parties. There are many ways you can download these skins and use it in your computer. In any windows software, from the menu choose 'Options' or 'Preferences'. There you may find the option to 'Change Skin' or 'Change theme'. Not all software will have this feature. If the software has this feature to change skin or theme then you can download your favorite skin or theme and apply it on your software.

For example, if you use Netscape version 6 or higher then select 'View' and click on 'Apply theme' and 'Get New themes'. This will bring you to the 'Theme park'. Here you will see many different skins and themes that can be downloaded. Once downloaded you can apply it to your Netscape software and the whole look and feel will change to the new theme.

But beware of one thing. When you download these free skins and themes from internet, the skin developer may embed the 'spyware or adware' in these skins to spy on your activities or to steal your personal particulars. For example a company that provides skins namely hot bar, openly states in its website that if you download skins from their website they will monitor the which websites you visit, which search engines you use and other details. Just for the sake of a skin, are you willing to share your personal details. Not only that, they will also show advertisements in your computer. Another such company is Neo Planet. In their website they declare that those who download and use their skins, their emails and browsing habits will be collected and shared with their partner companies. These partner companies who get your personal data will then send you SPAM emails selling and advertising their products.

In this world nothing comes free. How can someone give you skins and themes free after spending so much of their time on programming and developing the skin. Who will pay for their programming effort. Their only way to get money is to gather your personal details and sell it to companies.

Therefore, be very cautious and careful while downloading these skins to your computer.

We use internet for many purposes. In many websites we use different login names and passwords. For example, if you use any of the free web emails such as gmail, yahoo or hotmail then you will have to login with your login name and password before accessing your email inbox.

Similarly, if you use any commercial websites for internet shopping such as Amazon or eBay then you may have to use your credit card details before buying online. Only then can you buy online. If we lose credit card related information then we may lose money. If this information falls into the hands of hackers then we are seriously at danger of losing money. This hacker can then use your credit card details to buy anything.

Worse still, if someone uses your login name and password to login to a server and carries out any destructive activities then you will be blamed for that activity. Court trial or penalties or fine may make your life miserable.

The password, credit card details can be stolen from three places.

From your computer, when you type in your browser these key strokes can be captured

Or while this information packets are transmitted from your computer to the server. This is called 'Wiretapping'. Hackers and crackers can easily accomplish this.

From the web server's database. In this database, like your data, many people's information will be stored. If the hacker gains access to these databases then he can get these data.

Of these, the first and the second method of stealing can be prevented by you. The third way of stealing from web server, is not in your hands and you can not do anything to prevent it. Let us see how you can prevent the first two methods of stealing.

The login name, password and credit card details that you type in your browser are sent as text via internet to the web servers. The hackers and crackers can easily read this text. They cannot read it if it is encrypted. This is where Secure Sockets Layers are used.

Whether the web server that you are connecting to, uses SSL to encrypt the data can be found from your browser. For example a 'closed lock' icon will be displayed in the status bar of your browser. If there is not clocl icon in the status bar then those websites do not use SSL and therefore not secure.

In your 'Internet Explorer' choose 'Tools-Internet Options'. In this new dialog box select the 'Advanced' tab. Here, you will see many check boxes under the security section. 1. Use SSL 2.0. 2.Dont save encrypted pages to disk 3. warn if form submitted is being redirected 4. warn if changing between secure and not secure mode. 5. check for server certificated relocation 6. warn about invalid site certificates. See that all these six options are selected.

From now on, the browser will prompt your, whenever you enter/view websites whether that page is secure, and when you type any details, whether the data is encrypted or not.

In login pages, when you key in the first two or three letters of your username, Internet explorer will auto complete the username and password to make it easier for you. But this feature can be a problem if many people are using the same computer. Others may enter into your account just by typing the username and without even knowing your password. So it is better to 'TURN OFF', 'Auto Complete' feature. To do this, select 'Tools-Internet Options'. Choose the 'Content' tab and click the 'Auto complete' button. Click on the 'Clear passwords' button and delete all the stored passwords. If the 'Usernames and passwords on forms' check box is selected then de select it.

Also clear all the cache files from your browser. To do this select 'Tools-Internet Options'. Select the 'General' tab. In the 'Temporary internet files' section click the 'Delete Files' button. Now click on 'Yes' and 'OK'.

Congratulations, now you have reduced the possibility of your passwords to be stolen

VoIP - Voice Over Internet Protocol - is a very popular buzzword in the Internet world.
VoIP makes communication possible without telephone wires, telephone exchanges and even
without telephones. You can make voice calls free of charge or at a minimal charge over
internet.

If VoIP can give the same quality and standard of voice as in normal telephones then
there will not be any need for telephone exchanges any more. People will change to free
or cheaper VoIP alternative sooner or later.

The VoIP service is available in two types. Free service and cheap service. Skype is a
free VoIP service. While services such as Phonewala, HCL, sathyam provide payable VoIP
service. You can download Skype software from www.skype.com .

In payable VoIP service PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) plays a part. Therefore
you can call any other phone number through this service. The called person may have
subsribed to the VoIP service or maynot have subscribed to the VoIP service, you can
still make calls to him. Generally the subscribers of the same VoIP service provider can
talk with each other freely. The free VoIP service does not use PSTN. Therefore if you
are using the Free VoIP service then you cannot call other telephone numbers and vice
versa. But you can use the free VoIP service to talk with each other using computers
conencted to the internet.

Ok, now you have decided to try and use VoIP. What are the requirements to use VoIP?
You computer should have sound card, Microphone and speakers. If you have a headphone
then it is better. And then you should have internet connection. Broadband connection is
better.

In 1999, Internet Society, introduced the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). SIP protocol
is used to find out whether the computer that you want to call is currently connected to
the internet and is available for making a call. Even internet phones use this SIP
protocol.

Earlier I mentioned that using VoIP you can make free calls between computer to computer. You can also make phone calls from your computer to another phone but at a cheaper rate than the normal phone charges.

If you compare VoIP calls to a normal phone to phone call, it is like comparing the quality of a mobile call and a land line call. Many agree that the quality of a land line to land line call is better than the mobile to mobile call. Similarly the quality of the VoIP calls as compared to phone to phone call is slightly below standard. In VoIP, your voice is converted to digital signals and packed into small data packets and then sent over internet. There is no guarantee that these data packets will be received in the same order in which it was sent. The data packets may get mixed. Therefore in order to get all the data packets and arrange them in order it may take some time and hence there may be delay. This is called 'Jitter'.

If some data packets take too long to arrive then the routers may reject these packets. This will cause 'Packet Loss'. Therefore the speech may be intermittent and sometimes irritable.

And some argue that VoIP is crackable and crackers may evesdrop to these data packets and listen to your conversations. But even normal telephones can be tapped. The VoIP technology is fast evolving and some VoIP providers use Public Key Encryption to encrypt the data packets and hence cannot be cracked.

To read more about VoIP and to download some free VoIP software visit m-indya.com.

Have you noticed that the CDs that you buy or the CDs that comes with books runs automatically when you insert the CD into your CD drive. This is because of the 'Autorun' facility in the CDs.

But using this Auto Run feature you can only execute executable programs. Therefore the webpages and any other files cannot be opened automatically using Autorun.

Imagine that you want to copy the powerpoint presentation that you created or the Word document into a CD and pass it to your friend. Will it not be nice if the powerpoint presentation or the document opens automatically when the friend inserts the the CD into his computer?

Now every computer comes with a CD writer. You may wonder whether the CDs that you create using your CD writer can use the Autorun facility. Yes you can.

You have to create a file named 'autorun.inf'. You can create this file using a normal notepad. You have to copy this file in the root folder of the CD. If you want to use any icon then you can also copy an icon file into the root folder.

How to execute an executable file in a CD automatically.

For example assume that you have a myprogram.exe file and myicon.ico file. And you want to run myprogram.exe file automatically when the CD is inserted

Keep both these files in the same folder.

Open a notepad and type these three lines in the notepad

(autorun)
open=myprogram.exe
icon=myicon.ico

save this file as 'autorun.inf'.

If your executable file is not in the root folder then you have to specify the full path. (eg. open=myfoler/myprogram.exe)

To create autorun cds for non executable files

If your file is not an executable file like .xls, .doc, .htm, .html, .mp3, .wma, .wav, .mpg, .avi, .jpg, .bmp, .zip or any other file then how to write the autorun.inf file.

Let us assume that you have index.htm file as the autorun file. Then the autorun.inf file will be as follows:

(autorun)
open=start index.htm
icon=myicon.ico

In this case when you insert the CD, a small black window will open and close very fast and then you will see the index.htm file in Internet Explorer.

If you do not want the dos window to open then create the autorun.inf file as below:

(autorun)
shellexecute=index.htm
icon=myicon.ico

However the shellexecute will not work in Windows 98 or older versions. It will work in Windows XP and the newer versions of Windows. In earlier versions you can use the DOS batch file. So you will have one more file autorun.bat in addition to autorun.inf

(autorun)
open=autorun.bat index.htm
icon=myicon.ico

and the autorun.bat file will as follows:

echo off
"start % 1
"exit

How to use autorun.exe

In the above example we used two files autorun.bat and autorun.inf. However the use of autorun.bat is not a wise option. Because a batch files cannot handle errors.

Therefore you can use the free autorun.exe instead of autorun.bat

autorun.exe file is provided by Tarma software research freely. Anybody can use this software. You can download autorun.exe from www.tarma.com/products/index.htm . Download this file and copy it to the root folder of the copied CD.

The autorun.inf file should be as follows:

(autorun)
open=autorun.exe index.htm
icon=myicon.ico

These days we hear a lot about broadband Internet connection. In this article we will discuss the basics of broadband and tips to choose the right broad band plan for your home or office.

What is Broadband?

The definition of a broadband connection may differ between different countries. But generally you can say that any Internet connection with a minimum speed of 256Kbps and above can be considered as a broadband connection.

In a 'Dialup' connection, we dialup whenever we need to connect to the Internet and then close the connection when we have finished using the Internet.

But you can connect your computer to Internet 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. In other words it is 'Always On'. Broadband connection is an always on connection. Your computer will be always connected to the Internet.

While using a dialup connection the maximum speed of the connection is only 56Kbps. Moreover when you are connected to the Internet using your phone dialup line, you cannot make or receive phone calls.

Broadband may be available in your area in any of these forms, Copper, Fiber Optics, cable, ADSL, IP VPN or Wireless.

What you need to ask before choosing your broadband provider.

• Which broadband technology the provider is using
  
• What is the monthly subscription and what is the one time set up fee
  
• What is the speed of the broadband? Most of them just tell you the download speed. Ask them about the upload speed also.
  
• What is the bandwidth allowed? That means how much data can be downloaded or uploaded. If there is a limit then what is the charges for additional data usage.
  
• Is free email provided? If yes what is the storage capacity
  
• What software and hardware are required to use that broadband connection. Is the hardware proprietary or can be bought from anywhere?
  
• Is the installation free or you have to do it yourself
  
• What are other conditions such as contracts etc.
  
• What is the support provided?

We measure size of files created in computer by kilobytes, megabytes. We measure modems speed by bits. Let’s see what they denote and let’s see some difference between them.

BIT: In the computer-associated measures this is the smallest one. No file can be in the measures of bits; its value is 0 or 1.
BYTE: combinations of 8 bits are called one byte. To create a file that containing one byte of data is very hard.
KILOBYTE (KB): proximately it has 1024 bytes of combinations. While downloading a file from net we denote it by the units of kilobytes.
MEGABYTE (MB): combinations of 1,048,576 bytes (or) 1024 kilobytes are called 1 megabyte.
GIGABYTE (GB): combinations of 1024 megabytes are called 1 gigabyte. This unit denotes capacity of hard disk.
Now we can fix this unit to some more devices.

* We can store 1.44 MB of data’s into a 3.25 inch floppy.
* In a compact disk we can store 650 to 700 MB data’s. But we won’t completely utilize the space available in cd.one cd contains the space equals to 450 3.25 inch floppy.
* A 20 gigabyte hard disk contains the space equal to 31 cd’s.(i.e.)14,222 floppy’s data.
* In an ordinary dial up connection .it takes 7 to 10 min’s for download a 1 Mega byte file.
* A normal single text page will be in 4 KB when it is changed as a file.

To find the size of a file, just right click on it .now you got a menu and then select the “PROPERTIES” from it. Now you got the size of that particular file.

With the invent of Television, the popularity of the Radio was reduced. But with FM radio , people are again getting addicted to Radios. Furthermore if you have a computer and internet connection then you can hear Radio through your computer. There are many internet radio stations which broadcasts news, weather and songs. You can connect to these radio stations via internet browser and hear the radio in your computer.

Difference between conventional radio and internet radio

Radio waves are used to transmit radio programmes over the air. You can then tune into your favorite stations and hear them. Whether you can hear a particular radio station depends on the distance between your radio station and your radio. Therefore you are limited to hearing only a few radio stations.

In contrast you can hear hundreds of radio stations through internet. The distance doesn't matter any more. Just by a click you can change from one station to another station and you can hear 24 hours.

Types of internet radio

There are two types of internet radio.

1. Radio Station which requires a Player
2. Radio station which doesn't require a player.

Player is nothing but an audio software and many players are available. Among them there are a few which can download the programmes from the radio station and play it in your computer. You have to download these players and install them. Then you can start these players and goto the URL of the radio station and hear it.

There are also a few radio stations that do not require a player to listen to it. In these stations you just goto their website and then click on the link to star hearing the radio.

Free Internet Radio Player softwares download

If you are keen to hear radio through internet then download windows media player and real player and install them in your computer.

1. Generally, windows media player comes together with your Windows OS. Therefore most probably it will be in your computer already. You can also download it from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp
   
2. You can download Real player from www.real.com .
   
3. WinAmp is another popular player and it is available at www.winamp.com
   
   Most of the radio stations broadcast using real audio, windows media or mp3 formats and hence the above two players are sufficient to access any radio station in the internet.
   
   Some radio stations use proprietary audio formats. To hear such radios you need to download their players and install in order to hear them.
   
4. You can download Live 365 player from www.live365.com
   
5. You can download vtuner player from www.vtuner.com
   
6. Radio Netscape plus is another popular player and it is available at http://radio.netscape.com

How to access radio stations from audio players

1. In Windows media player select 'Media guide' and 'Radio Tuner'.Use these options to tune into different radio stations.
   
2. In Real Player, choose the 'Radio' menu and the 'Radio Tuner' to choose and access many radio stations.
   
3. In 'Radio Netscape Plus' you will see a list of radio stations under many categories. Just click on the preferred radio and listen to it.

To listen to free internet radio stations from websites

1. To get thousands of internet radio stations goto http://www.shoutcast.com . From this website you can listen to radio stations using WinAmp player.
   
   To access many free internet radio stations you can goto the following websites.
   
2. www.internetradioindex.com/iprobe/ipradio2.html
   
3. www.internetradioplaza.com
   
4. www.radiotower.com
   
5. www.webradios.com
   
6. http://launch.yahoom.com/launchcast/stations

Special internet radio stations.

1. BBC www.bbc.co.uk/radio
2. Beethoven www.beethoven.com
3. CNN www.cnn.com/audio

We search for lots of information on the internet. But it is not necessary that others know about this. Whenever you visit any website this information is captured and stored in your computer in the form of 'cache', 'cookie', 'history', and 'windows registry'. There is a danger due to this. Whoever uses the same computer after you have used can find out which websites you have been visiting. If you have a personal computer that no one else will ever use, then you don't have to worry much about this. But if your home or office computer is shared then you better clear this history. In this tutorial let us see how to completely remove the recently visited websites from your computer.

1. Cache Folder
   
   Every time you visit a website, every browser has the functionality to store the images, websites, urls etc in your hard disk somewhere in the temporary folders. This is useful to save bandwidth. When you visit the same website again, instead of downloading all the images again, the browser will retrieve them from the temporary folders from your hard disks and therefore increasing the speed and saving internet bandwidth. So when you finish browsing you can clear these temporary folders. This temporary folder is usually referred to as Cache. The exact location of this folder will differ based on the browser you are using. For instance if you use Internet explorer then this cache is located in the 'Temporary Internet Files' folder under your c:\Windows folder.
   You can either delete from this folder or you can delete it from your browser. Goto Tools-> Internet Options. Under the General tab click 'Delete Files' button.
   

2. History
   
   All the browsers also store the urls of every website you visit. This is used to show the address of the site on the 'Address Bar' when you start typing the first few letters of the websited address, the browser will take from the history and prompt you for the full address. This makes your job easier so that you need not type the full address every time. But if you want to hide the sites you visit then you have to remove this history also. Internet explorer stores this history in a folder called 'History' under c:\Windows folder.
   
   Or you can delete history from your browser. Goto Tools-> Internet OPtions. Select the 'General' tab and click on 'Clear History' button. In the confirmation dialog box select 'OK'. This will clear your history.
   

3. Cookies
   
   Whenever you visit websites, some information about you and some information about that website is stored in your computer's hard disk. When you visit the same site again, the information stored in this cookie file will be read to identify you. This is especially useful for sites that can personlize the site for you and displays messages such as 'welcome your_name' etc. But this cookie also stores the name of the site you visit so you should also delete these cookies if you want to hide the sites you visited.
   
   To delete cookies, goto Tools->Internet Options. And click on 'Delete Cookies' button. Or you can choose the security tab and click on 'Custom Level' button to disable or enable cookies.
   

4. Registry
   
   Another place in which the websites you visited are stored is the windows registry. It is not advisible to modify registries if you are not sure how to use them. Only those who are confident and willing to take risk should touch the registry. Click on 'Start->Run' and type 'regedit' and press enter. The windows registry will open. Now click on 'Edit->find' and type 'URL History'. In the right hand side you can see a list of website addresses that you visited. You can select them one by one and delete them. programs, viruses and hackers.

Transferring files in Internet is one of the many facilities Internet provides us. You may be aware that files can be downloaded using HTTP or FTP. Now you can use the 'Bit Torrent' protocol to send and receive files.

Bit Torrent protocol functions in a peer-to-peer method. One person can enter into another person's computer and send are receive files. That is why this type of computers are called 'Peer's. But there is a server required to make all these computers work together. This server is called 'Tracker'.

The tracker just monitors the connections between the peers. Other than that the tracker does not know which files are being transferred between peer computers. Therefore the tracker needs a very little bandwidth to monitor a huge number of peers.

When someone uploads a file from his computer to another computer, he can also download a file from another computer simultaneously.

How Bit Torrent works?

Let us see how Bit Torrent works with an example. A few people are seated in a room. Let us consider that all these people need a complete copy of all the pages in a book. Person A says that he has pages 1-15, 29, 36-40, 55, 74-89 and 94-100. Let us assume that these pages are not with persons B, C, D, E and F. Immediately they contact A and get a copy of all these pages. Now person B announces that he has pages 17-24,32,34,41-50,57,60-70 and 90-93. Then the rest of the persons will get copies of these pages from B.

Likewise all the persons announce the pages each of them have. Those who do not have a page they will get the page from the respective persons

Very soon, all the persons in the room will have all the pages of the book. In that group a person named 'K' will be present. He will have all pages of the book. You may ask why not all A,B,C,D and E get all pages for K directly. But if all of them connect to K at the same time then they can just be receivers not senders.

Instead, if A,B,C,D and E share pages from each other then they can be both senders and receivers.

Therefore if everyone needs everything then everyone should be both receivers and senders. This is exactly the method used by Bit Torrent.

K is called 'Seed' in Bit Torrent.

What is special about Bit Torrent?

Generally, HTTP and FTP protocols in Internet use the client-server architecture. Here the client computer will just connect to the server computer. One client will not connect to another client. When many clients connect to the server the speed of the server will slow down. Both installation and usage of client-server is very easy.

Peer-to-peer method was introduced as an alternative to Client-server architecture. Grutella, eDonkey, Kazaa etc used peer-to-peer architecture. Whoever is connected to the network can send or receive files from any computer in the network. When a computer sends some files to another computer it functions as a server and when it receives a file from another computer it functions as a client.

Since a file can be shared between any file and not shared from a central server there is no way to track which files are being transferred. Therefore many started sharing illegal audio and video files using these peer-to-peer software. Peer to Peer software enables speedy transfer of files.

Bit Torrent method uses the best features of Peer-to-Peer and Client-server architectures. Computers get the different parts of a file from the 'seed' and then the computers share these parts of the file from other computers and completes the file.

How to get Bit Torrent software?

Bit Torrent is an open source software. Many versions of Bit Torrent which can run on Windows, Linux, Unix or Mac are available.

In Windows there are many Bit Torrent software such as The shadow's experimental client, burst, ABC (Another BitTorrent Client), Simple BT are some of them.

You can download bit torrent software from www.bitconjuver.org/BitTorrent or www.bittorrent.com