The Windows Fix » Tutorials

Problems Ejecting USB Drive ??? Use EjectUSB

T.J. Mininday — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:08:28 +0000

USB flash drives are a must these days. Now that floppy drives have gone out the backdoor, a flash drive is required to transfer any kind of data between PCs. This is of course unless you do it via the web. Although security is always an issue.

Unfortunatley one of the flaws with the USB drives with Windows, is that when you pull them from the machine, the system highly recommends using the eject function in Windows. They say if you don’t your system can become unstable, which I’ve seen first hand. Windows provides a handy eject utlity in the system tray that is supposed to ‘safely’ eject the drive from the machine before pulling it out. A lot of times though, you’ll get a warning that the drive is in use and it can’t be safely ejected. Which brings me to today’s post.

EjectUSB is a replacement solution to the built-in function, that will quickly close all running applications on the drive, and allow for safe removal from your PC. It closes all files, removes created shortcuts and cleans up registry entries. It’s nice handy utility that you should have on all of your Windows machines.

Checkout EjectUSB

via

Fix SVCHOST Errors and Problems with SVCHOST Viewer Whenever your PC begins problems, most people try the infamous...
TrueCrypt is the Easiest way to Encrypt Your Hard Drive Keeping your data safe from the outside can prove difficult...
Encrypt Your Keystrokes with KeyScrambler One of the scariest malware applications that people rarely seem...

Hide Your E-Mail Address From Spam with HTMLEncoder

T.J. Mininday — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:17:14 +0000

Spam, spam, spam…the more the internet grows, the more spam grows. Anyone that doesn’t get spam into their mailbox doesn’t really don’t have a true mailbox. Over time and your e-mail address gets spread across the web, you never really know where it starts, but it begins to happen.

There protective measure put in place for many ‘spam starters’, but unfortunately very few work perfectly. One that appears to be perfect is what I’m here to describe today. It’s called HTML Encoder from SiteUp Networks.

HTML Encoder takes your e-mail address and converts it to what almost appears as an encrypted address. It will display properly on a website, but in the source code, where spam bots search, you’ll only see the encrypted text.

After inserting your e-mail address, you’ll receive the encrypted html text in the e-mail address that you inserted.

via

Recover Permanently Deleted Outlook E-Mail – Microsoft Quick Tip So I ran across one of those, “Why the h*ll...
Convert YouTube Video to MP3 Audio Find an incredible cover songs on YouTube that you’d like...

View your WEP or WPA Wireless Key with WirelessKeyView

T.J. Mininday — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 22:10:59 +0000

So many times this happens to me. You’ve gone through the process of setting up a new laptop or computer on the network with your new wireless router. You apply the appropriate security, typically with WEP or WPA, and you enter it without ever thinking you’ll need to remember it again. Later, someone else wants to join the wireless network, but you have no idea what that key is, because you didn’t write it down. You could access the router and reset it, but that in turn would require you to reset all the rest of the PCs as well. Well, WirelessKeyView is here to be your savior.

With Wireless Key View, you can display all of the WEP or WPA security stored on your Windows PC. They must however be stored in the Wireless Zero Configuration utility, and not in another tool that may or may not have been included with the system. It’s a handy tool, especially for small or large IT departments.

System Requirements

Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
You must login to windows with admin user.

XP Syspad – All your Windows tools in one place A big problem with Windows XP, is the spaced out...

Update – The Windows Fix.com

T.J. Mininday — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:42:52 +0000

First of all, happy belated holidays to everyone. I have been pretty much dedicating myself to my new endeavors over at MakeUseOf.com. I became a Staff Writer over there last week, so I’m putting up a couple of posts every week.

The Windows Fix will continue to bring you lots of great content, but will begin to be more pointed towards covering newly discovered freeware more the anything. There will be news update from time to time as well. So, please keep on reading…The Windows Fix is still going strong.

Sunday Links 11.02.08 – The Windows Fix Weekly Link Finds Another week gone by, another week of stellar stories and...
Sunday Links 10.26.08 – The Windows Fix Weekly Link Finds So, these don’t seem to be as popular anymore, but...
Sunday Links 11.09.08 – The Windows Fix Weekly Finds Monitor Bandwidth Usage with Shaplus Bandwidth Meter – WhoisMadur –...

How blogs can last…

T.J. Mininday — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:11:33 +0000

So, it’s been well over a year since I wrote on my original blog, Listikal.com, but yet it still continues to garner several hundred page views/day and still is the money maker in my own personal blogs. I continue to slowly grow with TheWindowsFix.com, and do make just a small amount of money on the side, but Listikal continues to make some spending cash on the side.

Whom do I have to thank for that? Google of course…both for their search engine and for their Adsense. I kind of regret that I stopped posting there, but I wanted to get more free time and wanted to try something new. However, I still have no plans of letting the domain expire, because it easily pays for itself in few months for all of my web hosting, and all of my domains.

It’s just a reminder how far, just a few good posts, and a very good search engine can get you.

Minefield – Faster then IE, Faster then Chrome, Faster then Firefox According to some, we aren’t even looking at the fastest...

Sunday Finds 11.23.08 – The Best Websites, Software and Blog Links of The Week

T.J. Mininday — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:41:23 +0000

Another edition of Sunday Finds, released on day later, because I was to busy playing with my new iPhone yesterday. You can expect me to begin posting about it very soon. Anyway, here we go:

the iPhone Blog – Beings I just made the purchase yesterday, I feel it’s only fitting to post the most popular iPhone blog on the net. Apps, updates, reviews and more on this great blog.

Signal Map – A user submitted cell phone coverage map. Users submit cell phone strength in their particular area, and post it on a Google Maps Mashup. I did a quick review on it over at MakeUseOf.

Crystal Disk Info – Ghacks: I have been looking for a free Hard Disk Diagnostic tool for a longtime. Could this be the one?

KillerStartups.com: A great blog that merges all of the various Web 2.0 blogs into a much larger blog that shows newly discovered Web 2.0 sites.

Alefo: Allows you take any portion of any website, and place it on your own blog or website. Very handy for displaying continually updated ‘stats and number’ websites.

Sunday Finds 11.16.08 – Links, Websites and Blogs Mixing it up a little bit this week for Sunday...
Sunday Links 11.02.08 – The Windows Fix Weekly Link Finds Another week gone by, another week of stellar stories and...
Sunday Links 11.09.08 – The Windows Fix Weekly Finds Monitor Bandwidth Usage with Shaplus Bandwidth Meter – WhoisMadur –...

Where Else I’m Writing

T.J. Mininday — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 14:32:18 +0000

So, I just thought I would make it aware, that I’m not only writing here, but at both ConnectedInternet and MakeUseOf.com, as well. I’m not only trying to reach out for more readers, but also to meet more people and learn much more about the business behind a bigger blog as well. Check me out:

Sunday Finds 11.16.08 – Links, Websites and Blogs Mixing it up a little bit this week for Sunday...
Sunday Links 11.02.08 – The Windows Fix Weekly Link Finds Another week gone by, another week of stellar stories and...
Links Connected Internet Directory Info Listings Directory Ldmstudio Directory GeekySpeaky: Submit...

Sunday Links 11.09.08 – The Windows Fix Weekly Finds

T.J. Mininday — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:33:02 +0000

Monitor Bandwidth Usage with Shaplus Bandwidth Meter – WhoisMadur – A great way to monitor your bandwidth usage. Might be handy if your ISP allows only limited bandwidth.

Amazing Pocket Projector – Teckitech – An awesome mini credit card sized pocket projector. A great gadget for travelers.

Demonoid.com – Sizzled Core – An update on Demonoid.com, the semi-private torrent tracker, and the fact that it has opened it’s doors once again to registration.

CNN Holograms, Behind the Scenes – Digital Inspiration – If you watched CNNs coverage of election night, then you saw the holograms they displayed. Very Star Wars like. Here’s a behind the scenes look.

The Political Machine Express – Elite Freeware – A quick review of the free version of popular political game, ‘The Political Machine.

Sunday Links 11.02.08 – The Windows Fix Weekly Link Finds Another week gone by, another week of stellar stories and...
Sunday Links 10.26.08 – The Windows Fix Weekly Link Finds So, these don’t seem to be as popular anymore, but...
Defraggler – The Best Alternative to Windows Defragmenter One of the most popular complaints of Windows users over...

Recover Permanently Deleted Outlook E-Mail – Microsoft Quick Tip

T.J. Mininday — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:08:28 +0000

So I ran across one of those, “Why the h*ll didn’t Microsoft put this in?” this morning and thought I would share it with all of you Microsoft Outlook users out there. It’s the ability of adding a ‘Recover Deleted Items’ to the Tools menu in Microsoft Outlook. What this allows you to do, is retrieve permanently deleted items and restoring them back to your stored e-mail.

It’s just a simple registry hack for Windows Vista or XP, and appears to work with Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007.

1. Browse to your registry, going to Start>Run in XP, or simply going to Start in Vista and typing in ‘Regedit.

2. Browse to HKEY_Local_Machine and select Software, then Microsoft, then Exchange and finally client.

3. Within client, you will see ‘Options’. Create a New D Word by right clicking in the right-hand panel and selecting

3. You will find Microsoft there. Expand Microsoft.

4. Expand exchange and then client.

5. You will find Options there. Right click on Options, choose New and
click on D Word Value.

6. Rename the Dword value to ‘DumpsterAlwaysOn. (Case Sensitive)

7. Modify the DumpsterAlwaysOn by double-clicking on it and changing the value to 1.

8. Test the new feature by going to Outlook and choosing Tools and seeing if ‘Recover Deleted Items’ is there.

via Crankup

Using Web Outlook Forms Based Authentication Without SSL One of the annoyances of enabling Microsoft Exchange Web Outlook...
Jump to Registry Key via Right-Click Context Menu The image below, pretty much tells it all, but the...
XP Syspad – All your Windows tools in one place A big problem with Windows XP, is the spaced out...

Sunday Links 11.02.08 – The Windows Fix Weekly Link Finds

T.J. Mininday — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:59:03 +0000

Another week gone by, another week of stellar stories and link finds. Here’s my top five this past week:

What Movie should I watch next? – MakeUseOf – I can’t deny it, I am a huge fan of movies. I own way to many DVDs and probably have spent way more then I should have in the past few years at the theater, but I guess the costs of loving them. One of the MakeUseOf writers came up with a few online movie recommendation engines to check out. They are all great.

HTTP File Server – GHacks – GHacks does it again, and finds a small, excellent HTTP utility for hosting local computer files via the internet…quickly and easily. Looks slick..I haven’t tried it yet.

Watermark Images – Techie Buzz – Retaining copyright of images you produce on your blog, can be very important. You don’t want people taking advantage of quality screenshots or images that you’ve taken the time to produce. Techie Buzz has provided a quick and easy application to put a watermark on each and every image.

Windows 7 Information – Paul Thurott’s Supersite for Windows and Windows 7 News – A couple of great places to find information on Microsoft’s next release of Windows. Lots of screenshots, lots of feature news and lots of updates. Bookmark both of them.
Undelete Plus – TechnoBuzz – A great, free application for recovering those permanently deleted files off of your computer.

Sunday Links 10.26.08 – The Windows Fix Weekly Link Finds So, these don’t seem to be as popular anymore, but...
Huge Collection of Windows 7 Screenshots With the BIG annoucment(s) of Windows 7 this week, I...
Google – Still the Best Place To Work Another great set of images of the great work environment...