Well, everything is okay. No problem found from BIOS system to show that the DVD-ROM is still alright. After the Windows is started, I still couldn’t see any DVD-Rom icons. It turns out that I need some help from the internet again. After some searches, Finally I found this steps, which is requires to make some changes to the Registry.

1. Close all the entire programs
2. Run the Registry Editor (Click Start,Run and type ‘Regedit’ (without ‘ in the blank spaces)
3. Click on the plus signs (+) next to the My Computer.
4. Then, click on the following

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SYSTEM
CurrentControlSet001
Class
{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

5. This folder is the DVD/CD-ROM Drive Class Description in the registry. Look for any of the following names in the right hand column.They will be a list under Name column. Look up any name that matches the following
UpperFilters
LowerFilters
UpperFilters.bak
LowerFilters.bak

Right click if you found it and just delete it.

5. Repeat steps 4 and this time try to look for the second Control Set (it would be CurrentControlSet002) and repeat steps 5.

6. After that, reboot your computer. If there’s still a cd or dvd inside your DVD-ROM driver, you’ll noticed that it will run (like I did).

Okay, time to continue to watch one of my fav comedy movie, Dead Man On Campus. Recommended movie for you guys if you still miss those college days where there’s no need to worried about paying bills or taxes! Heheh

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As the industry of mp4 player devices evolved, more features such as fm tuner, voice recorder, email, internet browser capability and others were added to mp4 devices, making them a desired product among electronic users.

Differences between mp4 and mp3 format, relies basically that mp4 devices holds both audio and video files. As for the mp3 it only holds the audio type file. So, one could think of mp4 as being the next step in this evolution file format that started with mp3.

Due to the capability of delivering audio and video at the same time, mp4 devices can offer a wide range of interesting features, such as web browsing, email, instant messaging, video and music download, bluetooth wireless technology, digital camera and others. Also game capability and multiple language options are features that made mp4 devices so popular. Other features, such as voice recording, enabled mp4 devices to be used for professional purposes, besides entertainment.

Another important mp4 feature is the storage capacity, that can start from 256 mega bites up to 40, 60 and up giga bites. Usually a small hard disk unit is used to hold several giga bites of data. For smaller storages, an internal electronic flash memory may be used.

As a music player device, mp4 may offer a 7-band equalizer which will allow the user to change the sound category according to the music style. These sound categories are Pop, Jazz, Rock, Soft, Classic and DBB. Also mp4 player device will support various format files such as Mp3, AMV, ASF, WAV, WMA, WMV and others. As far as the supporting video formats are concerned this device proves to be able to convert file in the AVI, MPEG, Windows media format into the AMV thru the use of software.

Since mp4 devices is compact, it is safe to say that its small size, light weight and good user interface menu, make this device portable, easy to control and access no matter where one can be.

As mp4 format became more popular, several internet audio-video download sites started to offer services, so that mp4 users can download their favorite music or video at affordable prices. There are sites that offer music file download for only 99 cents each, and one has to only pick his favorite song, not the entire album.

Also available in these internet sites are files called Podcasts, which includes information programs, news broadcasts, comedy and entertainment programs. Podcasting is quickly becoming a buzz word among the techie crowd. So what is podcasting, anyway? Podcasting is online audio and video content that is delivered via an RSS feed. Although Podcasting is new, it should become a mainstream communication medium in the near future.

Being basically a container, mp4 player devices are able to provide multimedia solutions with its audio-video file format. Because of that mp4 players became very popular and as it becomes more sophisticated with new features being added in new models, people become more eager to own these device players. After all most electronic consumers do have a wish to keep up with modern time.

Roberto Sedycias
IT Consultant for PoloMercantil

This article is under GNU FDL license and can be distributed without any previous authorization from the author. However the author´s name and all the URL´s (links) mentioned in the article and biography must be kept.

About the Author:
This article can also be accessed in portuguese language from the News Article section of page PoloMercantil

Roberto Sedycias has a bachelor degree in Business Administration and over 20 years experience in systems analysis and computer programming. Currently working as IT consultant for www.PoloMercantil.com.br

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1. You shouldn’t have to be a technology virtuoso to get your business’s website up and running. Look for a web solutions provider that offers a variety of template option to help get your site online. Templates should be easy to use and customizable. A wizard interface that walks you through the template is a great way for users who are new to building websites to get comfortable and get a professional-looking website up quickly. A provider that has experience with small businesses will understand your needs and be able to guide you through the process.

2. It’s not just about having a place to park your website. Look beyond the basics to see what extras a provider offers. Your website solution provider must provide you basic web services like application development, web marketing, design great business logos & business portals or we can say B2B sites. Search Engine Optimization is another helpful feature to look for. Finally, look for a web solutions provider that can give you statistics tools. Those can help you monitor your website’s performance and find out information like where your visitors are coming from and at what times your site is busiest.

3. Your business is growing, and your web solutions provider needs to be able to grow with you. Your website might start out as a basic informational site, but you could decide you want to sell your products online or want to offer more advanced services to your customers. Check out what packages and services a provider offers. You should be able to move up to more sophisticated packages as your business needs increase. Look for e-commerce services and more advanced e-mail services that can handle your customer and employee growth as needed.

4. Make sure you find a web solutions provider that knows how important reliability is when it comes to dealing with your customers. Uptime, the amount of time your website is up and running and viewable online, is a great measure of reliability. Don’t settle for anything less than 99.9 percent uptime. Also, ask what your potential provider does to protect your website data. Regular data backups are an absolute necessity.

5. In an online world of bits and bytes, its still people who make things happen. Customer service should be a top priority for a web solutions provider. Whether you’re just looking for more information on product offerings or have a question about your site, find a provider that has actual people there to help. Cogniter Technologies goes beyond e-mail support to offer free 24/7 phone support that connects its customers to a real, live and understanding customer service consultant. Having over 4 years of experience in providing internet services and solutions and having completed hundreds of projects in different domains Cogniter Technologies has built a large database of knowledge that enables us to deliver the “right” solutions that address the needs of clients. Businessman can’t afford to wait hours on hold or days for an e-mail response. When it comes to your business, you need to be able to handle your web solutions on your own schedule.

You are just one step beyond to see your online business growth, go to www.cogniter.com & see your business in growing shape.

Sponsored by Cogniter Technologies Inc, Chandigarh, India

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It is possible that you have a virus that is causing your entire system to become slower because it is screwing up vital files that your computer needs to run properly, but all in all, there are many things that can cause your computer to slow down and there are many things you can do to improve the situation.

Solution 1

One way to address the problem of your computer becoming slower is to clean out your temporary files. Over time, your temporary files can really add up, especially if you surf the net a lot. Windows writes temporary files for everything. If you are using XP, it is easy to clean out your temporary files folder.

Go to the start menu, then choose programs. After that, click on accessories, then choose disk clean up. This will help to remove all your temporary files and plenty of other junk files that may be hiding in your hard drive.

Alternative method: Click computer – right click your hard drive – select disk cleanup

Solution 2

You will want to keep your desktop free from shortcuts and icons. To clean up your desktop, you can delete the icons manually or you can clean it up through windows which is safer.

Begin by going to the start menu, and then to the control panel. Double click on display, and then click on the desktop tab. Click on the customize desktop button near the bottom. Next, click on the general tab, then choose clean desktop button, and this will get rid of the icons Windows feels you no longer use.

An even better solution would be to use a good registry cleaner, these programs will backup and then proceed to clean your desktop and registry for harmful junk files, the cleaning can have a dramatic effect on system performance.

Read our registry cleaner reviews by following the link at the bottom of this article.

Solution 3

Another problem of a sluggish computer is corrupt files within your Windows registry. The registry is a database that contains information for multiple users and contains all the settings for all of your software and hardware.

To clean this up, you can buy some registry cleaning software, always do a bit of research first. Lots of spyware programs mask themselves as registry cleaners, so it pays to find the best program on the market. On the other hand, you can try to clean your registry yourself, but you should only attempt this if you’re tech savvy, be sure to make a backup copy first.

As mentioned above a good registry cleaner will quickly scan, detect and clean the registry within minutes, attempting this procedure manually can take hours and hours.

Solution 4

The easiest thing you can do when you begin to ask the “Why is my computer getting slower?” question is to increase the speed of your computer by defragmenting your hard drive. When your computer saves a file, it saves it to first free spot it finds, and when that fills up, it saves the rest of the file somewhere else. This is a fragmented file, and your hard disk is full of them. If your computer has lots of fragmented files, then it takes longer to retrieve your data.

To fix this, go to my computer, and right click on your main drive. Choose properties. When the next window pops up, click on the tools tab up at the top, and then click on defragment now. Even if Windows tells you that you don’t need to run this application, it is still a good idea to do so. Keep in mind, though, that it does take some time, so do it before bed or before you go out for a while.

Solution 5

If you go online a lot, then your computer might contain malicious spyware and adware, and that alone can be the answer to the question of “Why is my computer getting slower?” It just seems to be the norm when surfing online these days that spyware and adware products make themselves at home on your machine.

There is software you can purchase to try and combat the onslaught of ads and spam you get while on the Internet. Spyware and adware can be hard to get rid of, and you almost need to purchase some software just to eliminate and prevent the problem. While you’re at it, you should also purchase a good anti-virus program to keep your computer free of nasty viruses that can rob your system of precious resources.

Maintenance Summary

1) Clean out Temporary files
2) Cleanup your desktop
3) Clean the Registry
4) Defragment your hard drive
5) Check for Viruses – Spyware and Adware

To keep you computer running quickly after many years can be difficult. However regular maintenance can really help prevent your system from slowing down. If you do feel your computer is running slower, start with the easiest tasks before moving on to something more difficult.

By: Gary Barrow

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Credit card fraud has become pervasive on the Internet. According to MasterCard International, account takeover fraud has increased by 369% since 1995. It has become one of the fastest growing types of fraud, and one of the more difficult to combat. More than $700 million in online sales were lost to fraud in 2001, representing 1.14 percent of total annual online sales of $61.8 billion, according to GartnerG2.

Even if the credit card company has given the authorization as to the validity of the card, there are several ways fraudulent cards can be used on your site. The card may have been lost or stolen, but the card owner is yet to report its loss. Or the number on the card (and not the card itself) may have been lifted without the knowledge of the owner. There is also a scam called identity theft, where the card has been issued under false pretenses using someone else’s identity and data.

As an online merchant, you need to have a system to check the authenticity of orders placed to safeguard your business. While the effort may require additional time and money, it can save you the cost and stress caused by charge-backs for fraudulent orders. You lost your physical products; you lose the sale price; you lose another business opportunity; and you will be fined an additional $15-$50 charge-back fee.

If you have a high percentage of charge-backs, your card services company can even blacklist you and cancel your merchant account. You will also spend time looking up the order and provide the requested information to your card services company. All of these hassles are things you can surely do without.

How can you protect your business from credit card frauds? Here are a few steps that can be taken to ensure that the transaction is being requested by the real cardholder.

* Suspect shipping address. According to ClearCommerce Corporation, a provider of payment processing and fraud protection software for e-commerce, orders from Ukraine, Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Russia and Pakistan have a very high incidence of fraud, and often have unverifiable addresses.
* Untraceable email address. In many fraudulent orders, the customer’s email address is often at one of the free email services, like hotmail.com and yahoo.com, which are relatively untraceable.
* Expensive items. Be wary of expensive orders, especially for expensive brand-name items.
* Multiple items. It can be a bad sign, for example, if someone orders three X-Box or three DVD players at once, especially where the items have a high resale value.
* Express shipping. Most fraudulent orders specify overnight or 1-day shipping without hesitation.
* Shipping address differs from billing address. Receiving point and billing address are different in fraud orders. If you are selling valuable items, it can be a good policy only to ship to the billing address of the card’s holder.
* Suspicious billing address. The address looks too simple or invalid. If the billing address is 123 Main St, New York, the order is probably fraud. You can use or online location tool to see if the address can be verified.
* Leave at door or post office box. If the courier service cannot guarantee delivery of goods, the risk of fraud is very high.

The advancement of geo-targeting in the Internet allows us to pinpoint the geographical region for an order. The information can be used to reduce the fraud by verifying it with the billing address and delivery address. This method can identify the scenario where someone from country X has stolen the credit card data from country Y. The IP address lookup service will reveal the real country instead of relying on the country filled in the order form.

IP2Location™ provides technology to translate IP address to country origin. The lookup table is available in several formats such as database and COM. It is the perfect solution to automate the fraud detection using client side programming languages like C++ & Visual Basic; or service side programming languages like ASP, PHP, JSP and CFML.

For example, company XYZ received a credit-card order from IP address 161.139.12.3. The order details are as following:

Name: John Ma
Address: 123 Main St
City: New York
ZIP Code: 1111
Country: United States
Tel: (503) 111-1111
Credit Card No: 1234 5678 9012 3456
Expired Date: December 2010

Credit card merchant processor will authorize this order if the billing address matches the order details. Unluckily, the credit card data has been stolen earlier by Mr. ABC from another country through the Internet. Later, he made a purchase of digital products from company XYZ using the information. His order approved by the merchant because all the details matched John’s record in the bank’s database. IP2Location™ technology can filter the difference between order’s country and record’s country upfront to protect your business. You can classify this kind of order for manual inspection before delivering the goods. You will be surprise how much this method will help in identifying fraud orders.

For the implementation, we use a fully functional IP2Location™ ActiveX component available at http://www.ip2location.com/ip2location-country.zip to query country by visitor’s IP address. The unregistered version has a 5-second delay in each query.

First, install the ActiveX component in IIS web server. It could be as simple as running a command in DOS prompt.

C:\> regsvr32 ip2location.dll

We create a script to compare the lookup country and data given in the order authorization flow. It serves as a filter to reduce fraud. All rejected orders will be manual verify by merchants.

verify.asp

<% ‘ Country info filled in the form (US is only an example) BillingCountry = “US” ‘ Create server-side object Set ipObj = Server.CreateObject(“IP2Location.Country”) ‘ Initialize IP2Location object If ipObj.Initialize(“demo”) <> “OK” Then
response.write “IP2Location Initialization Failed.
End If
‘ Get visitor’s IP address
IPaddr = Request.ServerVariables(“REMOTE_ADDR”)
‘ Detect visitor’s country of origin by IP address
CountryName = ipObj.LookUpShortName(IPaddr)
‘ Free IP2Location object
Set ipObj = nothing
If CountryName = BillingCountry Then
‘ IP address originates from country in billing address
‘ Low Fraud Risk
Else
‘ IP address different from country in billing address
‘ High Fraud Risk
End If
%>

This article is courtesy of:
Hexa Software Development Team
sales@ip2location.com
http://www.devarticles.com

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Preventing PC Errors

One of the primary causes of PC problems and irritating errors is deleting files. For many of us, when we see a program we don’t recall or see a file we deem unimportant, we’re quick to delete and erase it. What many of us don’t realize is: these seemingly harmless actions can result in headaches and errors further down the line.

Windows registry errors are a result of broken file paths, missing extensions and basically any interruption in our operating system. Downloading free trials and new software is a common practice for any computer owner. But, erasing unwanted programs isn’t as easy as the install process. There are plenty of things to keep in mind before we click ‘delete.’

• The best place to uninstall a program is through the Control Panel’s ‘Add/Remove’ Program List.

• Always double check you clicked on the right program box before you choose to remove it. At times, several programs are checked as a default. You wouldn’t want to delete your anti-virus software or anything like that.

• If you’re prompted to delete a ‘shared drive,’ don’t delete it! This was help prevent future error messages, in case you remove a file another software program relies on.

• If the program you want to delete isn’t listed under ‘Add/Remove,’ go to Programs and look for the specific software folder. Most have a folder called ‘Manual Uninstall’ which will help you removed the program.

• If you don’t recognize a program in your ‘Add/Remove’ folder, don’t jump and get rid of it. It may have a strange name (leaving you fearful of some virus or worm) but chances are, it’s meant to be there. Consult with someone who knows PC’s or browse the Help database.

Though these bits of advice are one way to prevent crashes and error messages, there are plenty of other Windows registry errors that are more of a challenge to fix. One solution is utilizing registry cleaners to help eliminate headaches.

6StarReviews.com reports that Registry Mechanic doesn’t simply delete broken file paths, but repairs what is causing the malfunction. For a limited time only exclusively on the site, they’re even offering 15% off the software product. If you haven’t mastered the ‘Add-Remove Issue’ and are bombarded with countless errors and slow PC speeds, registry errors may currently be the culprit.

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1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from  the All Programs start button option, and then type ‘systeminfo’. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type ‘systeminfo info.txt’. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad.  (Professional Edition only).

2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run… And type ‘ gpedit.msc’; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it.  Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many  interface and system options, but take care — some may stop your computer behaving as you wish.(Professional Edition only).

3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using  a right mouse click, and enter ‘rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation’ in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That’s it — just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that’s not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.

4. XP hides some system  software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf,  search for the word ‘hide’ and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel,  select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include ‘eventcreate’ and ‘eventtriggers’ for creating and watching system events, ‘typeperf’ for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and ‘schtasks’ for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? Will give a list of options –  they’re all far too baroque to go into here.

6. XP has IP version 6 support — the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment  with this on your LAN. Type  ‘ipv6 install’ into Run… (it’s OK, it won’t ruin  your existing network setup) and then ‘ipv6 /?’ at the command line to find out more. If you don’t know what IPv6 is, don’t worry and don’t bother.

7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using ‘taskkill /pid’ and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’, which will also  tell you a lot about what’s going on in your system.

8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you’ve got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files well alone by typing
‘regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll’ at the command line. If you  change your mind later, you can put things back as they were by typing ‘regsvr32 zipfldr.dll’.

9. XP has ClearType — Microsoft’s anti-aliasing font display technology — but doesn’t have it enabled by default. It’s well  worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login  screen as well, set the registry entry
HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/ControlPanel/Desktop/FontSmoothing Type to 2.

10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who’s using network address translation (NAT) on a  home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10 . Replace this with your chum’s real IP address — they can find this out by  going to www.whatismyip.com — and get them to make sure that they’ve got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.

11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As… And enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have  administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.

12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might slip the  bonds of sanity before that point, run Regedit, go  to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD valuecalled EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.

13. You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run… from the start menu  and type ‘control userpasswords2′, which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and  password for the account you want to use.

14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options… and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.

15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can’t see the  LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop,  then select Properties. Right click on the description  for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You’ll now see a tiny network icon on  the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic.

16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.

17. You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by  View, Arrange Icon By… Show In Groups.

18. Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks — if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn’t, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.

19. Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.

20. The next release of Windows XP, codenamed Longhorn, is due out late next year or early 2006 and won’t be much to write home about. The next big release is codenamed Blackcomb and will be out in  2003/2007.

.

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