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What is the Registry?

The Registry is the central core registrar for Windows NT. Each NT workstation for server has its own Registry, and each one contains info on the hardware and software of the computer it resides on. For example, com port definitions, Ethernet card settings, desktop setting and profiles, and what a particular user can and cannot do are stored in the Registry. Remember those ugly system INI files in Windows 3.1? Well, they are all included with even more fun stuff into one big database called the Registry in NT.

Always make sure that you know what you are doing when changing the registry or else just one little mistake can crash the whole system. That's why it's always good to back it up!


Backup and Restore:
Even with Windows 98, and Windows 95 you can not just backup the registry when you back up files. What you would need to do is run either: regedit32.exe (for NT) or regedit.exe and then click the registry menu, then click export registry. The next step is to click all, then pick the drive to back up onto (usually a removable drive like tape, floppy, cd, zip drive, jazz drive etc.) and then hit "ok". To restore a registry from a backed up version, enter the registry program the same way, click import registry and click the drive and path where the backup is and hit "ok". It will restore it back to the previous backed up settings and may require a reboot.
Note: registry backups are saved as .reg files, and they are associated with regedit as default. This means that once you double-click a .reg file, it's contents will be inserted into your own registry.

uTorrent Complete Configuration Guide For High Speed Downloads:

The torrent configurations are always a hard part for me. Also when i use client with less configurations it takes me ages to complete the download and upload. Finally after reading a lot of forums and other guides i found the rite setting and now i get the complete speed that my ISP allots me.

First the best client i found for downloading torrents is uTorrent. I tried most of the famous names including BitComet, BitLord, Azureus etc.

Starting of… After the installation:-

1. SPEED TEST:
The ISP speed should accurately estimated, which can be found using the website Speedtest.net
-Go to Options > Speed Guide
-Select the listing closest to your upload speed result (rounding down as necessary)
-Note that the speed tests may not be 100% accurate due to factors outside of your control, so if the closest option is only a little bit higher than what your upload speed results received on the tests (perhaps by 10%), it’s generally safe to select that.
-You will notice that the “Affected Settings” further down the page have adjusted to match your selected speed. Higher settings will not give you better speed, and may in fact make speeds worse. So don’t be greedy.
-Click the “Use Selected Settings” button at the bottom of the Speed guide window.

2. UPLOAD SPEED:
Go to Options > Preferences > Connection and put your result in the “Global maximum upload speed rate” box.

3. PORT FORWARDING:
Now comes the main settings that determine the speed. At the bottom of the utorrent (status bar) you may see there is “ “. You should fix that,
-Goto Options > Preferences > Connections. Click “random port” once, and note the port number provided. This will be the port number you will be forwarding in your router. (You may also assign a port number of your choice, but dont select common ports).

After the port is selected in port settings, now we need to set the settings in the router which most people think is a very hard part. I have to agree that this is gonna turn to be a easy one once you visit PortForward.com. Where you just have to select your modem make and model and the “uTorrent” from the program list to get the directions to forward the port in your router for incoming connections.

Once the quick are right, you can see a small green tick mark

4. Using UPnP:
Using this isnt always recommended but is a good option for speed hungry people
Go to Options > Preferences > Connections, check “Enable UPnP port mapping.“

Apple Boot Camp 1.2 Beta Review

Almost exactly a year ago, I reviewed Apple's Boot Camp, an intriguing beta solution for dual booting an Intel-based Mac between Mac OS X "Tiger" and Windows XP. At the time, Apple said that Boot Camp was a publicly available beta of a future feature of Mac OS X "Leopard," the next version of Mac OS X. Since then, Apple updated the original Boot Camp a few times in minor ways, but delayed Leopard. (It's now expected in mid-2007.) Last week, the company unexpectedly released Boot Camp 1.2 Beta, adding compatibility with Windows Vista and better hardware support. I hadn't expected to see Vista support in Boot Camp until Leopard shipped.

Windows Ultimate Extras Review

1995 was a golden year, both for Microsoft, and for those testing its products. The company was prepping Windows 95 (codenamed Chicago and previously known as Windows 4.0), of course, but also a slew of add-on products such as Office 95 and the initial proprietary online service MSN, the Microsoft Network. Early that summer, a surprise package appeared: The first beta of something called Plus! for Windows 95, a collection of applications that made Windows 95 more useful and fun. Some saw Plus! as a fluffy and unnecessary add-on, and while there was certainly some truth to that, I figured that anything that makes the computing experience more enjoyable has to be at least somewhat worthwhile.

In the intervening years, Microsoft has released various Plus! packs, some of which were issued alongside specific Windows versions, others that were released on their own. These Plus! packs all had certain things in common: They were generally inexpensive, certainly optional, and they usually included at least one or two gems, especially if you're the type of person who enjoys visual enhancements like themes, desktop wallpapers, and the like.

With Windows Vista, Microsoft has sadly elected to discontinue its use of Plus! packs. Instead, the company has created a new collection of downloadable add-ons for Windows Vista called Windows Ultimate Extras. As the name implies, Windows Ultimate Extras is only available to owners of Windows Vista Ultimate, the most expensive Windows Vista product edition. And that's a problem: With previous Plus! packs, any Windows user could opt-in. Now, you have to pay for the Full Meal Deal (i.e. Ultimate edition) before you even qualify. I understand the need to differentiate Vista Ultimate and justify its higher price. But it seems that you could at least make the Extras available to other Vista users at a price. Common sense.

If you can get over the requirements, however, the Ultimate Extras map pretty closely to previous Plus! packs. There are fun but pointless utilities like DreamScene, which provides an animated desktop background. And there are the truly useful utilities, like the Windows BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool, which arguably should be an integrated part of BitLocker, and not an Extra.

In any event, let's break down the available Extras into logical categories and see what we've got.

Windows Mobile 6

Product summary:

The good: Windows Mobile 6 features new shortcuts to make performing tasks easier, and there is added functionality to the Calendar and Contact apps. E-mail improvements include a new search function and HTML support, and there's good Windows Live integration. In addition, the Standard Edition (formerly Smartphone Edition) now includes Microsoft Office Mobile with editing capabilities.

The bad: Some of the improvements to e-mail and the calendar app require that you have Exchange Server 2007, and there were no notable enhancements to the multimedia capabilities.

The bottom line: Though it doesn't offer earth-shattering new features, and interface issues remain, Windows Mobile 6 brings a collection of noteworthy improvements that makes its mobile devices easier to use and equips mobile professionals with more robust productivity tools.
* Cnet editors' rating 7.0/10 Very good
* Average user rating from 16 users 7.4/10 Very good

Kaspersky Anti-Virus

Kaspersky Lab provides downloadable removal tools, product upgrades, antivirus and antispam databases, extra secure databases and product documentation on our website. You can also try any of our antivirus software products free for 30 days.

This improved easy-to-use solution provides complete antivirus protection that allows you to surf the web safely and keeps your PC free of viruses, Internet and email worms, and Trojans.

Please be aware that only one trial version of Kaspersky Lab products for home users is permitted per computer. You cannot install a trial version twice.

PC Maintenance

Maintaining a system is nothing but keeping your System Healthy, Fully Working with Fast.
To keep your system Healthy follow the below tips.....

1.Disk De-fragmentation : Do this weekly once to run system faster.By this the system will easily identify the daily using files and also the system will arrange files in an order
for this go to start menu All Programs->Accessories->System tools->Defragmentor
In this select different drives and Defrag each drive it will some time depending on your System

2.Disk Cleanup : It is use full to how much disk space is used by unnecessary files that are in temp folder, temporary internet folder, recycle bin. And you can delete them
for this go to start menu All Programs->Accessories->System tools-> Disk Cleanup
In this select different drives and cleanup each drive it will some time depending on your System

3.Scan disk : t takes average 2 min to complete do this at least once a month and better to do often.

4.Reg clean : It is done with the help of a Software offered by Microsoft's web site(http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx)
and Other. It takes about a min to check the registry. Then it asks whether you want to clean out redundant or orphan file. This usually helps your system to get rid of files that have been left behind by uninstalled programs.

5. Windows updates : Through this your system will get all the latest fixes, patches and updates
It is better to do who are using only the Original versions of Operating Systems.

These are some of the tips to maintain your System.

MAKING WINDOWS XP GENUINE THE EASY WAY

Download jellybean keyfinder from this website
http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml

Now open keyfinder.exe
Click on options and click "change windows key"
Now enter this key and you're done.
*****************************
V2C47-MK7JD-3R89F-D2KXW-VPK3J
*****************************

P.S: this works on windows xp sp2 only......

ppl u can try this out...
this might sound silly but it works perfectly...

TRY INSTALLING IE7 OR MEDIA PLAYER11.

Best Free Software Suite

The Open CD site [1] offers for free a wonderful collection of just about every application software product you need to run a PC including the latest version of OpenOffice. Many of these freebies substitute admirably for expensive commercial products. There is Abi Word as an alternative for MS Word, OpenOffice for MS Office XP, Thunderbird for Outlook, The Gimp for Adobe Photoshop, 7-zip for WinZip and many more. If you then add to this collection some of the other utilities from my "46 Best-ever Utilities" collection you will have all the software you'll ever need without spending a cent. Note: All of the Open CD utilities can be downloaded for free as a CD ISO image. If you have a slow connection you can purchase the CD for a as little as $1.99.

The Open CD project was a great idea but updates have been slow coming. OpenDisc is a follow-on project with a similar objective, but it aspires to be more up-to-date and responsive to user needs. The early signs look encouraging, with an impressive download package [2] and a reasonably active blog and forum [2]. This is an extraordinary collection of software containing everything you could want to fully set up your PC. Do note, though, that the ISO download [4] is 555MB.

[1] http://theopencd.org
[2] http://theopendisc.com/programs/
[3] http://www.theopendisc.com/forum/
[4] http://theopendisc.com/latest-version/
[5] https://shipit.ubuntu.com/
[6] http://www.paulstamatiou.com/2005/10/24/how-to-ubuntu-linux-for-novices/

Best Freeware Utilities Unleashed

Best Free Registry Editor

I've used the full version of Resplendent Registry Editor for years and have never had any reason to look for an alternative. Recently a subscriber asked me what was the best free registry editor and that made me realize I've never looked at that particular product category. The first product I checked out was Registrar Lite [1], the free version of Resplendent Registry Editor and I'd have to say it's an impressive freebie. To start with, it works totally reliably - an essential feature for any registry editor. On top of that, the user interface is simple, the functionality excellent and, perhaps most importantly, it has a really fast search. I did, however, miss a "search and delete" option - that's unfortunately only available on the full product. That said, it leaves Regedit for dead. If you know a better free registry editor, drop me an email. NOTE: Locating the Lite version on the Resplendent site is tricky. Go to the download page [1] and locate the heading "Registry Tools." On the right hand side in faint gray letters there is a link "download free lite version." You can also get it though from various download sites including MajorGeeks [2].


[1] http://www.resplendence.com/downloads Freeware, All Windows versions, 2.0MB.
[2] http://www.majorgeeks.com/download469.html

Protect Yourself While Shopping Online

When you shop at crowded brick-and-mortar stores this year, you know how to protect yourself - look for well-lit parking lots, be alert, and go shopping with a buddy. But do you know how to protect yourself while shopping online?

Tony Bradley, About's guide to Internet and Network Security, provides tips on ensuring your holidays don't get hacked. Tony's advice can help you avoid phishing scams, charity scams, identity theft, and viruses, worms, and other malware. Read Don't Let Your Holidays Get Hacked for tips on safely shopping online this year.

Add a toolbar to the Vista desktop

Windows Vista gives you a new option for putting the files, folders, and shortcuts you use the most at your fingertips. Desktop toolbars are like constantly open folders that sit on your desktop. Instead of having to open the folder first, your files, subfolders, and shortcuts are immediately available. Learn how to create a Vista desktop toolbar.

Microsoft Vista's IPv6 Raises New Security Concerns:

Members of the Internet engineering community have raised several new security concerns about Teredo, a mechanism for sending IPv6 traffic over IPv4 networks that comes turned on by default in Microsoft's Vista software.

Symantec and Ericsson security experts who called attention to the issue say they are concerned that Teredo bypasses network security through such devices as firewalls. Microsoft officials could not be reached for comment.

IPv6 is a long-anticipated upgrade to IPv4, the Internet's primary communications protocol.
IPv6 fixes the lack of IP addresses found in IPv4. IPv6 has a virtually unlimited number of IP addresses, while IPv4 has 4.3 billion IP addresses, the majority of which have been handed out.

Teredo is a tunneling technique used to send IPv6 traffic through IPv4 network address translators (NAT). Because of the lack of IPv4 addresses, NATs are commonly used in enterprise networks to mask many private IPv4 addresses behind a single public IPv4 address.

With Teredo, IPv6 packets are sent as IPv4-based User Datagram Protocol messages to go through IPv4 NATs. Teredo provides IPv6 traffic with address assignment and host-to-host automatic tunneling. A network using Teredo requires Teredo clients, Teredo host-specific relays, Teredo servers and Teredo relays.

Teredo is enabled by default in Windows Vista, but it won't be enabled by default in Windows Server Code Name 2008, according to Microsoft.
In a 20-page document titled "Teredo Security Concerns," James Hoagland of Symantec and Suresh Krishnan of Ericsson, outline several new security concerns about running Teredo in managed, corporate network environments. The document is the result of an independent analysis of Teredo's security implications that was conducted by Symantec.

"Teredo is not recommended as a solution for managed networks," the document states. "Administrators of such networks may wish to filter all Teredo traffic at the boundaries of their networks. . . . The easiest mechanism for this would be to filter out incoming traffic with Source Port 3544 and outgoing traffic with Destination Port 3544."

The Hoagland/Krishnan document was discussed at a meeting of the IETF's IPv6 Operations Working Group held here this week. It is in draft form and has not been approved yet by the group.
Because of the new security concerns about Teredo, the authors recommend that network managers turn off Teredo. "Security administrators should disable Teredo functionality unless their network-based security controls adequately recognize the tunneled traffic," the document says. The IETF previously cited security concerns about Teredo in the original Teredo RFC 4380, which was published by the IETF in February 2006.

The Symantec and Ericsson engineers now write: "IPv6 traffic tunneled with Teredo will not receive the intended level of inspection or policy application by network-based security devices, unless the devices are specifically Teredo-aware and capable.This reduces defense in depth and may cause some security gaps. This applies to all network-located devices and to end-host based firewalls whose hooking mechanisms would not show them the IP packet stream after the Teredo client does decapsulation."

The authors say that vendors of firewalls, intrusion-detection systems, intrusion-prevention systems and routers must add support for the Teredo protocol to ensure they can inspect Teredo packets. A network device that's unaware of Teredo will inspect only the IPv4 layer of a Teredo packet but won't recognize there is an IPv6 packet hidden inside to inspect or to apply a security policy.

Another concern of the authors is that the Teredo tunnel is open-ended and supports bidirectional traffic. To make sure networks are secure when sending IPv6 traffic via Teredo, network managers need to bolster the security of client hosts sending Teredo traffic. "One implication of the security control bypass is that defense-in-depth has been reduced, perhaps down to zero unless a local firewall is in use," the authors say. "However, even if there are host-based security controls that recognize Teredo, security administrators may not have configured them with full security-control parity even if all the controls that were maintained by the network are available on the host. Thus there may be some gaps in desired coverage."

Yet another problem is that network managers may not be aware that some of their hosts are using IPv6 through Vista and are now globally addressable. "Unlike what would be the case for native IPv6, some network administrators will not even be aware that their hosts are globally addressable," the authors say. They add that "it may not be efficient to find all Teredo traffic for network devices to examine."

The document lists the following additional security problems with Teredo and offers these recommendations:
-- Teredo bypasses inbound-destination-address and outbound-source-address filtering unless "extraordinary" measures are taken. In this situation, either routers or clients need to be upgraded to handle this filtering for Teredo-tunneled IPv6 addresses.
-- Teredo clients may forward IPv6 packets to another destination, thereby bypassing network-based source-routing controls. One solution is to have Teredo clients by default discard IPv6 packets that specify additional routing.
-- No mechanism exists to filter all Teredo packets efficiently or immediately. One suggestion is for network administrators to block all Teredo use.
-- There's no efficient mechanism for deep packet-inspection of Teredo traffic as there is for native IPv6 traffic. This is one reason the authors do not recommend Teredo as a transition mechanism for network administrators who want to monitor IPv6 traffic.
-- The opening created in a NAT device by Teredo can be used by network attackers. The recommendation here is to minimize Teredo use.
-- It may be easier for network attackers to guess Teredo addresses because these addresses reveal some information about the corresponding clients. The document suggests randomizing the server settings or Teredo client ports in use to alleviate this concern.

Even more alarming to the document's authors is that Teredo's original RFC 4380 specification argues that Teredo improves security for IPv6. "This misleading or inaccurate claim can be taken out of context and used to downplay Teredo security implications," the new document states.
The Hoagland/Krishnan document does not address the use of Teredo in unmanaged networks.

Die, Spyware, Die!

Spyware remains a continuing hassle and a potentially serious intrusion on your privacy. We tested the top antispyware programs to see which ones do the best job.

In the beginning, antivirus software fought viruses and worms, and antispyware software fought spyware and adware. That clean distinction has largely disappeared. The decline of the macro virus and the e-mail worm sent antivirus companies looking for something else to fight, and the complexity of spyware makes it a formidable foe. (See "The Italian Job," for an example of how sneaky spyware can get.)
As we discussed in our recent antivirus roundup, "Virus Stoppers," several antivirus products are effective at fighting Trojan horses and backdoor programs--typically classified as spyware--as well as adware. So the question arises: Are specialized antispyware tools particularly effective at fighting today's threats?

The Contenders:

To find out, we looked at six well-known programs. We tested five--Grisoft's AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5, Microsoft's Windows Defender 1.1, PC Tools' Spyware Doctor 5.0, Safer Networking's Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4, and Webroot's Spy Sweeper 5.5--on Windows Vista systems.

The sixth program, Lavasoft's Ad-Aware 2007 Plus, wasn't available in a Vista version during our testing period, so we evaluated its performance on a Windows XP SP2 PC; for this reason, its results are not directly comparable with those for the other apps.

German research company AV-Test.org conducted the malware portion of our tests, bombarding the applications with samples of current adware and spyware. AV-Test.org gauged the products' ability to recognize about 110,000 inactive adware, spyware, and rootkit samples. An inactive sample is like an application you've downloaded and haven't yet installed. You'll want your antispyware product to recognize it--based on a match to a signature database of known threats--before the sample unpacks itself and activates in various areas of your PC.

To learn how the tools would react in such a case, AV-Test also measured each product's ability to recognize the behavior of and subsequently clean up 20 active pieces of adware and spyware. Since each threat can break down into more than 100 components, disinfection can be a tough job. We looked for the programs to clean up major file and Registry changes.

We also looked at the programs' behavior-based capabilities for detecting and blocking changes to key areas of an infected system without having to recognize anything about a specific invader. Spyware writers are continually releasing new threats, and security companies typically take some time to release signatures to catch those threats. An antispyware product's behavior-based detection protects the user during this critical window. We also tested for false positives and for speed; and we evaluated each software's design, price, and ease of use.

The Results:

PC Tools' Spyware Doctor 5.0 outperformed its Vista competitors. Grisoft's AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5 and Webroot's Spy Sweeper 5.5 finished some distance behind. Neither Spybot Search & Destroy nor Windows Defender adequately protects against today's threats. And on Windows XP, Lavasoft Ad-Aware, in several performance areas, did not impress us.
For comparative results of the five Vista programs, see our chart, "Best Vista Antispyware." And for further discussion of the results we obtained, see our video, also titled "Die, Spyware, Die!"

Products Reviewed:

 PC Tools Spyware Doctor 5.0
 Grisoft AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5
 Webroot SpySweeper 5.5
 Microsoft Windows Defender 1.1
 Safer Networking Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4
 Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2007 Plus 7.0 (XP version)

Myspace Features

MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos internationally. It is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California, USA,where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, Fox Interactive Media; in turn, the owner of Fox Interactive and therefore MySpace, News Corporation, is headquartered in New York City.

According to Alexa Internet, MySpace is currently the world's sixth most popular English-language website and the sixth most popular website in any language,and the third most popular website in the United States, though it has topped the chart on various weeks.The service has gradually gained more popularity than similar websites to achieve nearly 80 percent of visits to online social networking websites.

The company employs 300 staff and does not disclose revenues or profits separately from News Corporation. With the 100 millionth account being created on August 9, 2006,in the Netherlands and a news story claiming 106 million accounts on September 8, 2006,the site reportedly attracts new registrations at a rate of 230,000 per day. As of September 7, 2007, there are over 200 million accounts.

MySpace features:

Bulletins:
Bulletins are posts that are posted on to a "bulletin board" for everyone on a MySpace user's friends list to see. Bulletins can be useful for notifying an entire, but usually a portion of the friends list (depending on how many friends are added), without resorting to messaging users individually. Some users choose to use Bulletins as a service for delivering chain messages about politics, religion, or anything else and sometimes these chain messages are considered threatening to the users, especially the ones that mention bad luck, death, or topics similar to that.[16] They have also become the primary attack point for phishing. Bulletins are deleted after ten days.

Groups:
MySpace has a Groups feature which allows a group of users to share a common page and message board. Groups can be created by anybody, and the moderator of the group can choose for anyone to join, or to approve or deny requests to join.

MySpaceIM:
Main article: MySpaceIM
In early 2006, MySpace introduced MySpaceIM, an instant messenger that uses one's MySpace account as a screen name. A MySpace user logs in to the client using the same e-mail associated with his or her MySpace account. Unlike other parts of MySpace, MySpaceIM is stand-alone software for Microsoft Windows. Users who use MySpaceIM get instant notification of new MySpace messages, friend requests, and comments.

MySpaceTV:
In early 2007, MySpace introduced MySpaceTV, a YouTube look-alike video sharing website.

MySpace Mobile:
There are a variety of environments in which users can access MySpace content on their mobile phone. American mobile phone provider Helio released a series of mobile phones in early 2006 that can utilise a service known as MySpace Mobile to access and edit one's profile and communicate with, and view the profiles of, other members.[17] Additionally, UIEvolution and MySpace developed a mobile version of MySpace for a wider range of carriers, including AT&T[18], Vodafone[19] and Rogers Wireless[20].

MySpace News:
In the month of April 2007, MySpace launched a news service called MySpace News which displays news from RSS feeds that users submit. It also allows users to rank each news story by voting for it. The more votes a story gets, the higher the story moves up the page.

MySpace Classifieds:
Full service classifieds listing offered beginning in August 2006. Has grown by 33 percent in one year since inception.

Europe's Hottest Tech: iPod, iPhone

Apple's wares are the most sought on holiday shopping lists in the U.K., France and Germany, ComScore says.
As the holiday shopping season kicks into high gear, Apple's iPod and iPhone product lines find themselves among the most sought after items in the U.K., France and Germany this Christmas.
The report by digital market research firm comScore tracks the frequency of online search inquiries. When combining the three countries, the Nintendo Wii comes out on top, followed by the iPod, Nintendo DS Lite, Playstation PSP and the iPhone.
"We know that music players, game consoles, and mobile phones are very popular with consumers this year," said Bob Ivins, comScore EVP of European Markets. "The interesting aspect of this study is identifying which products are generating the most consumer searches, which can provide retailers and manufacturers with important insight into the underlying consumer demand for each specific product."
Looking at the specific countries, Apple had three products in the U.K.'s top 10 list - iPod (3), iPhone (5) and the iPod nano (7)
France had the same three products in the top 10 list - iPod (2), iPhone (5) and the iPod nano (9). Rounding out the list is Germany, which had the iPod (1), iPhone (3), iPod touch (7) and the iPod nano (8).

Top 10 Windows Tools

1. Cain & Abel - Cain & Abel is a password recovery tool for the Microsoft Windows Operating System. It allows easy recovery of various kind of passwords by sniffing the network, cracking encrypted passwords using Dictionary, Brute-Force and Cryptanalysis attacks, recording VoIP conversations, decoding scrambled passwords, revealing password boxes, uncovering cached passwords and analyzing routing protocols.

2. SuperScan - SuperScan is a powerful TCP port scanner, pinger, resolver. SuperScan 4 (Current Version) is a completely-rewritten update of the highly popular Windows port scanning tool, SuperScan.

3. GFI LANguard Network Security Scanner - GFI LANguard N.S.S. is a network vulnerability management solution that scans your network and performs over 15,000 vulnerability assessments. It identifies all possible security threats and provides you with tools to patch and secure your network. GFI LANguard N.S.S. was voted Favorite Commercial Security Tool by NMAP users for 2 years running and has been sold over 200,000 times!

4. Retina - Retina Network Security Scanner, recognised as the industry standard for vulnerability assessment, identifies known security vulnerabilities and assists in prioritising threats for remediation. Featuring fast, accurate, and non-intrusive scanning, users are able to secure their networks against even the most recent of discovered vulnerabilities.

5. SamSpade - SamSpade provides a consistent GUI and implementation for many handy network query tasks. It was designed with tracking down spammers in mind, but can be useful for many other network exploration, administration, and security tasks. It includes tools such as ping, nslookup, whois, dig, traceroute, finger, raw HTTP web browser, DNS zone transfer, SMTP relay check, website search, and more.

6. N-Stealth - N-Stealth is a commercial web server security scanner. It is generally updated more frequently than free web scanners such as whisker and nikto, but you have to pay for the privilege.

7. Solarwinds - Solarwinds contains many network monitoring, discovery and attack tools. The advanced security tools not only test internet security with the SNMP Brute Force Attack and Dictionary Attack utilities but also validate the security on Cisco Routers with the Router Security Check. The Remote TCP Reset remotely display all active sessions on a device and the Password Decryption can decrypt Type 7 Cisco Passwords. The Port Scanner allows testing for open TCP ports across IP Address and port ranges or selection of specific machines and ports.

8. Achilles - The first publicly released general-purpose web application security assessment tool. Achilles acts as a HTTP/HTTPS proxy that allows a user to intercept, log, and modify web traffic on the fly. Due to a cyber squatter, Achilles is no longer online at its original home of www.Digizen-Security.com...OOPS!

9. CookieDigger - CookieDigger helps identify weak cookie generation and insecure implementations of session management by web applications. The tool works by collecting and analyzing cookies issued by a web application for multiple users. The tool reports on the predictability and entropy of the cookie and whether critical information, such as user name and password, are included in the cookie values.

10. Netcat(The Network SwissArmy Knife) - Netcat was originally a Unix utility which reads and writes data across network connections, using TCP or UDP protocol. It is designed to be a reliable "back-end" tool that can be used directly or easily driven by other programs and scripts. At the same time, it is a feature-rich network debugging and exploration tool, since it can create almost any kind of connection you would need and has several interesting built-in capabilities.

Everything You wanted to know about FIREWALLS..!!

A firewall is basically something that protects the network from the Internet. It is derived from the concept of firewalls used in vehicles which is a barrier made of fire resistant material protecting the vehicle in case of fire. Anyway a firewall is best described as a software or hardware or both Hardware and Software packet filter that allows only selected packets to pass through from the Internet to your private internal network. A firewall is a system or a group of systems which guard a trusted network( The Internal Private Network from the untrusted network (the Internet.) To understand how a firewall works, firstly we need to understand how exactly data is transferred on the Internet.

The TCP\IP suite is responsible for successful transfer of data across a network both the Internet and the Intranet. The TCP\IP suite is a collection of protocols which are inter-related and interdependent and act as a set of rules according to which data is transferred across the network. A protocol can be defined as a language or a standard which is followed while transfer of data takes place.

A firewall relies on the source and destination IP and also the ports to control the packet transfer between the untrusted network and the trusted network. Firewalls can be classified into 3 types:

1. Packet Filter Firewalls
2. Application proxy Firewalls
3. Packet Inspection Firewalls

Packet Filter Firewalls
They are the earliest and the most criticized firewalls, which nowadays are not easily found. They are usually Hardware based i.e. Router Based (a router is a piece of device which connects two
networks together.) Whenever a Packet Filter Firewall receives a packet for permission to pass through, it compares the header information i.e. the source and destination IP address, and port number with a table of predefined access control rules If the header information matches, then the packet is allowed to pass else the packet is direct contact between the untrusted system and the trusted private system.
Such Firewalls can be fooled by using techniques like IP Spoofing in which we can change the source IP such that the firewall thinks that the packet has come from a trusted system which is among the list of systems which have access through the firewall.

Application proxy Firewalls
The shortcomings of the packet filter firewalls are addressed by the new type of firewalls developed by the DARPA. It was widely believed that the earlier type of firewalls were not secure enough as they allowed the untrusted systems to have a direct connection with the trusted systems. This problem was solved with the use of Proxy servers as firewalls. A proxy server which is used as a firewall are called application proxy servers. This kind of a proxy firewall examines what application or service (running on ports) a packet is meant for and if that particular service is available only then is the packet allowed to pass through and if the service is unavailable then the packet is discarded or dropped by the firewall.

Packet Inspection Firewalls
It can be also known as an extension of the Packet Filter Firewall. It not only verifies the source and
destination IP's and ports, it also takes into consideration or verifies that content of the data before passing it through. There are two ways in which this kind of a firewall verifies the data to
be passed:
State and Session.
In case of state inspection, an incoming packet is allowed to pass through only if there is a matching outward bound request for this packet. This means that the incoming packet is allowed to pass through only if the trusted server had requested for it or had sent an invitation for it.
In case of session filtering, the data of the incoming is not verified, but instead the network activity is traced and once a trusted system ends the session, no further packets from that system pertaining to that session are allowed to pass through.


All along you will come across many Firewalls on various systems, basically a
firewall can be established
or setup in two ways:

1. Dual-homed gateway
2. Demilitarized zone (DMZ)

In a dual homed gateway firewall, there is a single firewall with 2 connections, one for the trusted network and the other for the untrusted network.
In the case of a Demilitarized Firewall or a DMZ there are two firewalls, each with two connections, but there is a slight difference in the case of a DMZ setup.
In the case of a DMZ setup, there are two firewalls, the first having two connections, one leading to the untrusted network and the other leading to the host systems like the email server or the FTP server etc.
In the case of a Dual Homed Gateway the untrusted network is connected to the host systems (email and FTP servers etc) through a firewall and these host systems are connected to the internal private network. There is no second firewall between the host systems and the internal
private trusted network.
The basic structure of the DMZ setup declares it to be a more secure system as even if an attacker gets through the first firewall, he just reaches the host systems, while the internal network is protected by another firewall.

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Removing the Shortcut arrow from Desktop Icons:

Removing the Shortcut arrow from Desktop Icons:

Goto Start then Run and Enter regedit.
Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTlnkfile.
Delete the IsShortcut registry value.
You may need to restart Windows XP.

What is a Cookie?

A Cookie is a very small text file placed on your hard drive by a Web Page server. It is essentially your identification card, and cannot be executed as code or deliver viruses. It is uniquely yours and can only be read by the server that gave it to you.A Cookie's Purpose is to tell the server that you've returned to that Web page. It can save you time. If you personalize pages, or register for products or services, a cookie helps that company remember who you are. So, the next time that you visit, they will have a good idea of what to show you. Or, for your convenience, you would not have to re-register as the cookies would provide this information from your previous visit.
WARNING: You are always in control of what information that you provide to anyone while online. You need to be cautious of some web sites that request too much information about you.If You Want to Control Which Cookies You Accept:You can order your browser to accept all cookies or to alert you every time a cookie is offered. Then you can decide whether to accept one or not.

If you're using Internet Explorer 6.0:
1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options.
3. Click the Privacy tab
4. Default setting is medium.

Move the slider to determine which setting you prefer.
5. You can also click on Advanced for specialized cookie treatment.

Show Windows Vista "super hidden" Files

To show Windows Vista "super hidden" files, that is, those files that are normally hidden from the user, you'll need to accesss the registry editor.

To turn on (or off) super hidden files: (make sure you backup the registry before making changes)

* Click the Start Button, type "regedit" (Registry Editor) in the search box, and press Enter
* Click Continue to get past the User Account Control hurdle
* On the left panel, double-click to navigate to the key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
* On the right panel, double-click on Superhidden
* In the Value Data box, change the value to "1"
* Click OK
* Exit the Registry Editor
* Restart your machine for the changes to take effect.