So I thought, with the speed of flash drives today, it could be possible to install Windows XP onto those PCs in a much faster time than with optical media (CD/DVD). Plus with all the motherboards I use, I always make sure that the motherboards support booting from USB as it’s a very handy feature. So I decided to look into the various guides that can be found on the Internet. Originally meant for theEEEPC, I found a guide that I was able to understand. Because of the way it was written it took me longer than 10 minutes to understand the whole procedure and I’m sure the average geek would be completely confused before they had reached the second line, simply because of the total lack of explanation on the part of the guide’s creator for those who do not usually do this kind of thing.

Anyway, as with all guides, you have to realize that there is a certain amount of risk involved with the procedures I am about to give you details for and that you use this guide at your own risk; I will not be held accountable for any damages done to your hardware if something should go wrong. It will involve the use of the command prompt and it has the possibility of damaging your flash drive. Although I believe that the chances of that happening are quite slim, there is always the possibility, so I thought I would warn you before you decide if you’re going to use my guide. Now with the pleasantries out of the way, let’s get down to business. There is some preparation needed before we can start this procedure. First off you need to make sure you have the following available to you:

1. An unmodified, legal copy of Windows XP Home or XP Professional
2. USB memory stick (2 GB recommended – 1 GB minimum)
3. A motherboard that is capable of booting from a USB drive (check your motherboard manual if not sure)

As long as you have all three points above met, then you are ready to start. Just so you know, in this process your USB flash drive will be formatted, so do not use a USB that contains data vital to you. As for a motherboard that is capable of booting from a USB drive, most modern motherboards offer this as a standard feature. If your motherboard is less than two years old, chances are that the motherboard you have supports this feature.

Okay, now we have made sure that your computer is capable of installing XP from a USB disk. The next thing we need to do is to download and extract three tools that are going to help us in this procedure. You can find download links to these files below:

1. USB_Prep8
2. PEtoUSB
3. Bootsect

I suggest you download these files directly to the root of your hard drive. In other words save them to a folder on the same drive that contains your operating system — for most people this will be the C: drive. Once they are all downloaded, go ahead and extract PEtoUSB and USB_Prep8 to separate folders. Once this is done you should take the contents of the PEtoUSB folder and copy them into the USB_Prep8 folder. Once this is done, you should go back to the root of your drive and extract Bootsect to the root of the drive (program files and Windows folder is stored in this area). We do not need to worry about the Bootsect program for now, however that is simply preparation for later. And as another matter of preparation I suggest you insert your Windows XP CD, create a folder on the root of your drive, name it XP, and then copy the contents of your Windows XP CD into that folder as you will need these files soon.

Okay, now that all the preparation is out of the way, we’ll start the process. It will take on average about 20-25 minutes to complete this process depending, of course, on the speed of your PC and of the USB stick you are going to be using. I must warn you now that you should NOT close any of the windows generated by the programs I am showing you how to use until you reach the point in this guide when I tell you to do so. This is quite important because, if you happen to close any of the following windows, it is possible that you can screw up the procedure and you will have to start again. With that out of the way, as long as you follow the instructions below, everything will run smoothly.

1. Go into the folder named USB_Prep8 and double-click the following: (usb_prep8.cmd)
2. Make sure you select the newly created command prompt window and click any key to continue
3. A new program is started (PeToUSB). Do not change any of the settings; just click start and let it run
4. Once PeToUSB is finished, DO NOT CLOSE any of the windows the program created
5. Go to your start menu and click run if you’re using the classic start menu
6. Enter the following command into your run window: (CMD)]
7. Once you have run that command, a new window will appear with the words command prompt
8. Provided that you have used the file setup I suggested, input the following: ( cd \bootsect )
9. Type in the following: ( bootsect /nt52 :R ) Replace R with the drive letter of your USB drive
10. You will see the message (Bootcode was successfully updated on targeted volume) if it worked right
11. You may NOW close all the windows except for the window that was created when you ran USB_Prep8
12. Providing you closed all the right windows, the USB_Prep8 Window will now contain seven options
13. Press 1 on your keyboard — this will bring up a window. Locate your XP folder and highlight it. Click OK
14. Press 2 on your keyboard — the program will ask for a unused drive letter (example: T or Z)
15. Press 3 on your keyboard — the program will ask for your USB Stick drive letter; enter it now.
16. Press 4 on your keyboard to start the USB_Prep8 process
17. The program will ask you if it is OK to format a drive contained in the letter you gave in #14; click yes
18. The program will start to copy the needed files; be patient
19. The program will then ask you if you wish to copy these files to the USB stick; click yes.
20. Finally, once it has finished copying the files, it will ask you if you want to make the stick the preferred boot drive. Click yes, after which it will ask if you wish to un-mount the USB stick. Click yes

And that’s all there is to it. The USB flash drive is now ready to install XP to any hardware that is supported by theWindows XP CD. However there are some minor differences to installing Windows XP this way than if you would with anoptical drive, which I am going to go into. Of course, as I have said before, the speed at which Windows XP installs is MUCH faster when installing using a USB stick than if you were using an optical drive (CD/DVD). But the speed comes at the price of you needing to pay a little more attention to the install itself. Now from this point on, I am going to assume that your motherboard does in fact support booting from USB and that you have gone into your BIOS and have set the USB flash drive as the first drive to be booted from (make sure the flash drive is connected before you turn power on — it helps). I cannot give a generic answer to where that option is in your BIOS; I suggest you look up in your motherboard’s documentation.

Providing it boots from the USB flash drive, you will now be shown two options. One with the words GUI and one with the words Text Mode. Choose the Text Mode option first. Now you will see what you normally would see during a CD install of XP. Just follow the on-screen instructions as always. One note is that, if you need to create a new partition for your newWindows XP installation, once the partition is fully formatted, instantly turn off the PC as the install will need to be restarted so the flash drive can recognize the layout of your partitions correctly. Follow the instructions below:

1. Create a new partition and format it as normal
2. Once the partition is formatted, restart your PC and when the options come up again choose Text Mode
3. Highlight the newly formatted partition, press enter, move down to make no changes, and press enter

Okay, now after that all goes through and the PC restarts, simply chose the GUI option on the menu and let the Windows XP install go along as it would normally do. I must advise that you DO NOT REMOVE the USB stick until you’re actually past the setup stage. Once you have just booted into Windows XP for the first time, you can go ahead and remove the USB stick. Congratulations! You have just installed Windows XP without the need for a CD/DVD drive.

The benefits of installing from USB are plentiful and, providing you take the time to follow the instructions above, you need never worry about scratching your Windows XP CD again. I hope that the time I spent writing this guide will help you all to decrease the amount of time you spend having to install Windows XP when you have to. Peace!

“Collaboration is an important part of translation,” says Kartik Singh, Software Engineer for the Translator Toolkit. “Whether you work with editors to translate documents, customers to clarify terms or project managers to meet deadlines, working with other translators is key to making high-quality translations.”

“Just like chat in Gmail, you can send instant messages to colleagues, friends, family and groups directly from within Translator Toolkit,” explains Singh. “All the features and settings of chat are the same as what you’re used to, including going on the record to save your translation chats in Gmail. If you don’t want to be interrupted as you work on a translation, you can simply go invisible or turn off chat through the Translator Toolkit settings.”

Google has also made some other updates to the toolkit. Users can now change their display language and set the toolkit tabs to open or close by default. In addition, Google has expanded entries in the dictionary tab to include useful information, such as parts of speech and alternate definitions.

If you’re translating a word in a certain language, you will find alternate translations for that word for different definitions.

Step 2:
Click on Create Collector’s account and fill in your details

Step 3:
Click on Free Zone Then Click on Collector’s Zone Login and fill in the info in step2

Step 4:
So whenever you upload something make sure you log in first and upload the files from the collector’s zone that way the files won’t get deleted after 10 download’s

Step 5:
And you can also use Rapiduploader to upload files to your account.

Just click on

• Settings
• Login
• Click on Collector’s Account
• Fill in your details and your done

Download now – Download the Ubuntu, Edubuntu or Kubuntu CD installer to your computer now.

Buy on CD or DVD – Buy a CD or DVD with Ubuntu, Edubuntu or Kubuntu, or a large number of CDs from a distributor near you. If you are in North America you can get Ubuntu and Kubuntu on DVD from Amazon.com.

Request a free CD- Request a free Ubuntu, Edubuntu or Kubuntu CD from Canonical.

• Delivery typically takes 6-10 weeks
• Use each CD as many times as you like – you are free to use it on as many computers as you wish and to pass on to others
• Learn more by visiting the Shipit Questions page.

I live in Mumbai, and I booked my Free Kubuntu CD on 8/11/2009 and I received on 30/11/2009 so that was pretty fast. I  will soon give you a insight into Kubuntu 9.10 in my next post.

Here in Format, select NTFS File System instead of FAT32

FAT32 has the following limitations(Last point is really the one restricting you)

The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams and is an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it conceals. Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online which are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.These applications are broadly divided into the following categories: Software as a Service (SaaS), Utility Computing, Web Services, Platform as a Service (PaaS), Managed Service Providers (MSP), Service Commerce, and Internet Integration. The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that is often used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams.
Characteristics
In general, cloud computing customers do not own the physical infrastructure, instead avoiding capital expenditure by renting usage from a third-party provider. They consume resources as a service and pay only for resources that they use. Many cloud-computing offerings employ the utility computing model, which is analogous to how traditional utility services (such as electricity) are consumed, whereas others bill on a subscription basis. Sharing “perishable and intangible” computing power among multiple tenants can improve utilization rates, as servers are not unnecessarily left idle (which can reduce costs significantly while increasing the speed of application development). A side-effect of this approach is that overall computer usage rises dramatically, as customers do not have to engineer for peak load limits. In addition, “increased high-speed bandwidth” makes it possible to receive the same response times from centralized infrastructure at other sites.
Economics
Diagram showing economics of cloud computing versus traditional IT, including capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx)Cloud computing users can avoid capital expenditure (CapEx) on hardware, software, and services when they pay a provider only for what they use. Consumption is usually billed on a utility (e.g., resources consumed, like electricity) or subscription (e.g., time-based, like a newspaper) basis with little or no upfront cost. A few cloud providers are now beginning to offer the service for a flat monthly fee as opposed to on a utility billing basis. Other benefits of this time sharing-style approach are low barriers to entry, shared infrastructure and costs, low management overhead, and immediate access to a broad range of applications. In general, users can terminate the contract at any time (thereby avoiding return on investment risk and uncertainty), and the services are often covered by service level agreements (SLAs) with financial penalties.According to Nicholas Carr, the strategic importance of information technology is diminishing as it becomes standardized and less expensive. He argues that the cloud computing paradigm shift is similar to the displacement of electricity generators by electricity grids early in the 20th century.Although companies might be able to save on upfront capital expenditures, they might not save much and might actually pay more for operating expenses. In situations where the capital expense would be relatively small, or where the organization has more flexibility in their capital budget than their operating budget, the cloud model might not make great fiscal sense. Other factors impacting the scale of any potential cost savings include the efficiency of a company’s data center as compared to the cloud vendor’s, the company’s existing operating costs, the level of adoption of cloud computing, and the type of functionality being hosted in the cloud.

Architecture

The majority of cloud computing infrastructure, as of 2009, consists of reliable services delivered through data centers and built on servers with different levels of virtualization technologies. The services are accessible anywhere that provides access to networking infrastructure. Clouds often appear as single points of access for all consumers’ computing needs. Commercial offerings are generally expected to meet quality of service (QoS) requirements of customers and typically offer SLAs. Open standards are critical to the growth of cloud computing, and open source software has provided the foundation for many cloud computing implementations.
Cloud architecture, the systems architecture of the software systems involved in the delivery of cloud computing, comprises hardware and software designed by a cloud architect who typically works for a cloud integrator. It typically involves multiple cloud components communicating with each other over application programming interfaces, usually web services.This closely resembles the Unix philosophy of having multiple programs each doing one thing well and working together over universal interfaces. Complexity is controlled and the resulting systems are more manageable than their monolithic counterparts.Cloud architecture extends to the client, where web browsers and/or software applications access cloud applications.Cloud storage architecture is loosely coupled, where metadata operations are centralized enabling the data nodes to scale into the hundreds, each independently delivering data to applications or users.
Public cloudPublic cloud or external cloud describes cloud computing in the traditional mainstream sense, whereby resources are dynamically provisioned on a fine-grained, self-service basis over the Internet, via web applications/web services, from an off-site third-party provider who shares resources and bills on a fine-grained utility computing basis.

Hybrid cloudA hybrid cloud environment consisting of multiple internal and/or external providers “will be typical for most enterprises”. A hybrid cloud can describe configuration combining a local device, such as a Plug computer with cloud services. It can also describe configurations combining virtual and physical, colocated assets—for example, a mostly virtualized environment that requires physical servers, routers, or other hardware such as a network appliance acting as a firewall or spam filter.

Private cloudPrivate cloud and internal cloud are neologisms that some vendors have recently used to describe offerings that emulate cloud computing on private networks. These (typically virtualisation automation) products claim to “deliver some benefits of cloud computing without the pitfalls”, capitalising on data security, corporate governance, and reliability concerns. They have been criticized on the basis that users “still have to buy, build, and manage them” and as such do not benefit from lower up-front capital costs and less hands-on management, essentially “[lacking] the economic model that makes cloud computing such an intriguing concept”.While an analyst predicted in 2008 that private cloud networks would be the future of corporate IT, there is some uncertainty whether they are a reality even within the same firm. Analysts also claim that within five years a “huge percentage” of small and medium enterprises will get most of their computing resources from external cloud computing providers as they “will not have economies of scale to make it worth staying in the IT business” or be able to afford private clouds. Analysts have reported on Platform’s view that private clouds are a stepping stone to external clouds, particularly for the financial services, and that future datacenters will look like internal clouds.The term has also been used in the logical rather than physical sense, for example in reference to platform as a service offerings, though such offerings including Microsoft’s Azure Services Platform are not available for on-premises deployment.

Key Characteristics
Agility improves with users able to rapidly and inexpensively re-provision technological infrastructure resources.
Cost is claimed to be greatly reduced and capital expenditure is converted to operational expenditure. This ostensibly lowers barriers to entry, as infrastructure is typically provided by a third-party and does not need to be purchased for one-time or infrequent intensive computing tasks.
Pricing on a utility computing basis is fine-grained with usage-based options and fewer IT skills are required for implementation (in-house).
Device and location independence enable users to access systems using a web browser regardless of their location or what device they are using (e.g., PC, mobile). As infrastructure is off-site (typically provided by a third-party) and accessed via the Internet, users can connect from anywhere.
Multi-tenancy enables sharing of resources and costs across a large pool of users thus allowing for:
Centralization of infrastructure in locations with lower costs (such as real estate, electricity, etc.)
Peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer for highest possible load-levels)
Utilization and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 10–20% utilized.
Reliability improves through the use of multiple redundant sites, which makes cloud computing suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery. Nonetheless, many major cloud computing services have suffered outages, and IT and business managers can at times do little when they are affected.
Scalability via dynamic (“on-demand”) provisioning of resources on a fine-grained, self-service basis near real-time, without users having to engineer for peak loads. Performance is monitored, and consistent and loosely-coupled architectures are constructed using web services as the system interface.
Security typically improves due to centralization of data, increased security-focused resources, etc., but concerns can persist about loss of control over certain sensitive data, and the lack of security for stored kernels. Security is often as good as or better than under traditional systems, in part because providers are able to devote resources to solving security issues that many customers cannot afford. Providers typically log accesses, but accessing the audit logs themselves can be difficult or impossible. Furthermore, the complexity of security is greatly increased when data is distributed over a wider area and / or number of devices.
Sustainability comes about through improved resource utilization, more efficient systems, and carbon neutrality. Nonetheless, computers and associated infrastructure are major consumers of energy.

Layers
Clients : A cloud client consists of computer hardware and/or computer software that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or that is specifically designed for delivery of cloud services and that, in either case, is essentially useless without it. Mobile (Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile) Thin client (CherryPal, Wyse, Zonbu, gOS-based systems) Thick client / Web browser (Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, WebKit)
Application : A cloud application leverages cloud computing in software architecture, often eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer’s own computer, thus alleviating the burden of software maintenance, ongoing operation, and support.  Peer-to-peer / volunteer computing (BOINC, Skype) Web applications (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) Security as a service (MessageLabs, Purewire, ScanSafe, Zscaler) Software as a service (A2Zapps.com, Google Apps, Salesforce) Software plus services (Microsoft Online Services) Storage [Distributed] Content distribution (BitTorrent, Amazon CloudFront) Synchronisation (Dropbox, Live Mesh, SpiderOak, ZumoDrive)
Platform : A cloud platform (PaaS) delivers a computing platform and/or solution stack as a service, generally consuming cloud infrastructure and supporting cloud applications. It facilitates deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers.
Services Identity (OAuth, OpenID) Payments (Amazon Flexible Payments Service, Google Checkout, PayPal) Search (Alexa, Google Custom Search, Yahoo! BOSS) Real-world (Amazon Mechanical Turk)
Solution stacks Java (Google App Engine) PHP (Rackspace Cloud Sites) Python Django (Google App Engine) Ruby on Rails (Heroku) .NET (Azure Services Platform, Rackspace Cloud Sites) Proprietary (Force.com, WorkXpress, Wolf Frameworks)
Storage [Structured] Databases (Amazon SimpleDB, BigTable) File storage (Amazon S3, Nirvanix, Rackspace Cloud Files) Queues (Amazon SQS)

Servers : The servers layer consists of computer hardware and/or computer software products that are specifically designed for the delivery of cloud services. Fabric computing (Cisco UCS)
Infrastructure : Cloud infrastructure (IaaS) is the delivery of computer infrastructure, typically a platform virtualization environment, as a service. Compute (Amazon CloudWatch, RightScale) Physical machines) Virtual machines (Amazon EC2, GoGrid, Rackspace Cloud Servers) OS-level virtualisation Network (Amazon VPC) Storage [Raw] (Amazon EBS)

Certainly feel there is lot more to do to bring this over hyped giant out of slumber. Being an engineering student and having worked fairly enough with different messengers and group communicators I really could not find something that appealed to me. I infact was waiting for some kind of software and tool, but Wave has turned out to be like another online Inbox.

However it is new and should be given its fair chance and space to grow, so here is a description.

Google Wave starts out to be completely like your GMAIL inbox, your enter your email username and password & login. It takes fair bit of time to load with 230Kb/s connection.

Once you login your screen is split up into 3 panes

The first pane having the Navigation & Contacts one below the other

The second pane having your Wave Inbox

The third pane displays the Wave you select in your Inbox

Pane 1

Navigation holds the different categories of waves those you created, Requests,Spam Trash and so on.

Contacts is nothing Different from gmail contacts

Pane 2

Has options to create a new wave,Follow,Not follow,Trash,Read,Unread and so on

Pane 3

This pane is the where all the action lies, when you create a wave you can Add a gadget by URL, and type stuff and so on.

Once you are done creating the wave, you can go ahead and add people who are permitted to view your wave.

When you create a new wave you are permitted to add video,text,Goggle Search,Google Gadgets,Map Gadget,Attachments,links,Poll and it is also with basic text formatting options.

In the preview the wave is not editable once you create it and move to another wave, I believe the problem will certainly be solved in the future

At the bottom of the 3rd pane , there is a browse all,download all option (currently deactivated), I am clueless to how it will be used.

Now my friend & professor in America Ms. Divya Kamath apparently came up with something very intresting to try out with the wave,called Zoney. It is more like a gadget she had  developed and loaded it into her wave. Now if i enter “zoney(space) Las Vegas”  in the wave, the wave by means of the gadget will generate the time at that location using latitude and longitude location. Pretty intresting and definately was relieving that google wave was just more than a new inbox.

Thats is all for now looking foward to a more promising final version.

It eliminates

• Hidden File Not visible Problem
• Problem which does not allow you to open your local drives or Pen Drives directly

Flash Disinfector is free autorun.inf trojans and USB/Flash disks trojans remover. This is a program designed and developed by sUBs (author of combofix) to clean autorun.inf trojans that are running on the system.

Simple 3 steps and your problems are solved

• Download Flash Disinfector from here and save it to your Desktop. When Flash Disinfector has finished downloading you will now see an icon on your desktop similar to the one below in the first figure.

• Double-click Flash_Disinfector.exe icon to run it and you will see a prompt similar to the 2nd  figure below.Please insert your flash drive and/or other removable drives including your mobile phone and click OK button.Please do so and allow the utility to clean up those drives as well. Wait until it has finished scanning.

• When Flash Disinfector has finished running, you will see a prompt as shown in 3rd figure above.

For further details refer

http://www.myantispyware.com/2009/01/08/flash-disinfector-free-autoruninf-trojans-removal-tool

Click here to  DOWNLOAD

Flash Disinfector will target the following Flash malwares(in general):

W32/Perlovga (copy.exe | host.exe)
VBS_RESULOWS.A (Hacked by Godzilla, Hacked by Moozilla)
Bha.dll.vbs
w32automa worm (Autorun.vbs)
Trojan.Win32.VB.atg | Win32/Dzan | Worm_vb.bnr (tel.xls.exe | mmc.exe)
W32/RJump.worm (RavMonE)
Worm.Win32.Delf.bf | W32.Fujacks (spoclsv.exe)
W32.Fujacks.BH (Fucker.vbs)
WORM_AGENT.PGV (soundmix.exe)
W32/Hakaglan.worm (RVHost.exe)
Trojan.Win32.VB.ayo [AVP] (Macromedia_Setup.exe)
Trojan.VBS.DeltreeY.b#1 (Destrukto!!! | destrukto.vbs)