Tag: Flash

How Do You Reformat a USB Flash Drive?

March 02, 2009 by Jason

USB flash drives have become really handy in storing different files of various sizes including, backups, personal documents, music, pictures, portable applications and more. Flash drives turned out to be so convenient that people start pouring in files of any kind without sorting them.

Because of these habits, flash drives end up getting real messy quickly and it becomes difficult to figure out how to clear up disk space to accommodate more files.

Deleting unnecessary files is a good solution, but can be tough to do when files aren’t properly organized. If you want to clear up disk space the fastest way possible, the best problem solver to this is by formatting your USB flash drive directly.

The advantages of doing this is that your flash drive is wiped completely clean, removing all files regardless of their attributes (including hidden files). Here are the basic steps in reformatting your USB flash drive: Read More»

Hardware Support for Windows 7

February 01, 2009 by Jason

Even though Windows 7 is essentially the evolution of Windows Vista, as the operating system is available in public Beta, users of the development milestone will inherently come across glitches, including hardware incompatibility problems. Furthermore, some Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 testers are bound to run into incompatibility issues even with Microsoft’s own hardware products, namely the peripherals that the company is building through its hardware division. However, the software giant already has software in place designed to make its hardware products play nice with Windows 7 Beta.

According to Microsoft, the Habu Laser Gaming Mouse and the Reclusa Gaming Keyboard do not have Beta software available for Windows 7 Beta. “Habu Laser Gaming Mouse will continue to have basic functionality without an additional software download. Reclusa Gaming Keyboard will continue to have basic functionality without an additional software download,†the company informed. Read More»

Top 10 – January 2009 Popular Tips

February 01, 2009 by Jason

1. Booting Windows XP with USB Flash Drive

2. How to Get another activation for Windows XP or Windows Vista

3. Download Windows 7 Beta right now

4. Resolve Occasional XP SP3 Stop Errors on Restart

5. Delete Index.dat files on Windows

6. Windows 7 Beta Language Interface Packs

7. Windows 7 Beta Download and Install Guide

8. TOP10 – December 2008 Popular Tips

9. How to Dual Boot Windows Vista And Windows 7

10. Ten Tips for Windows 7

Read More»

IE zero-day flaws cry out for switch to Firefox

December 17, 2008 by Jason

There’s no easy way to secure IE against similar flaws that will inevitably be discovered and used by hackers to their advantage in the future. For this reason and in response to pleas for help by many Pctipsbox readers here’s my recommendation on the best way to surf the Web more securely:

Step 1: Switch to Firefox, Opera, Chrome, or another contender and configure it to be your default browser. Use IE only to visit sites that require Microsoft-specific technology probably because they rely on ActiveX to function. (For example, you need to use IE to download patches at the Windows Update site.) I recommend Firefox because of the numerous add-ons available for that browser, some of which I describe in Steps 2 and 3.

Step 2: Install the Firefox add-ons known as User Agent Switcher (see UAS’s download page) and IE Tab (download page).

User Agent Switcher lets you change your browser’s identity. If a Web site demands the use of IE but actually works fine with other browsers, you can change the name of the operating system and browser the site thinks you’re using. Many “IE only” sites render perfectly well in Firefox and other browsers. Read More»

Double your Firefox speed in just five minutes

November 26, 2008 by Jason

Firefox has been outperforming IE in every department for years, and version 3 is speedier than ever.

But tweak the right settings and you could make it faster still, more than doubling your speed in some situations, all for about five minutes work and for the cost of precisely nothing at all. Here’s what you need to do.

1. Enable pipelining

Browsers are normally very polite, sending a request to a server then waiting for a response before continuing. Pipelining is a more aggressive technique that lets them send multiple requests before any responses are received, often reducing page download times. To enable it, type about:config in the address bar, double-click network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining so their values are set to true, then double-click network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and set this to 8.

Keep in mind that some servers don’t support pipelining, though, and if you regularly visit a lot of these then the tweak can actually reduce performance. Set network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining to false again if you have any problems. Read More»

How to Make a Bootable USB Flash Disk Windows Vista Installer

November 20, 2008 by Jason

Mr Dave Glover of Blogs.MSDN.com wrote a guide on how to create a USB Thumb Drive Vista Installer. The article is interesting because recently a friend of mine wishes to install Windows Vista onto a laptop in which DVD drive is not working anymore (it’s already dead).

BTW, this is really useful for all DVD less laptops. So, I wrote a Complete Step-by-Step Beginner’s Style Guide on how to do it easily, Not Just For the Geeks But For All.

1. Format the USB Stick as NTFS: Open Windows Explorer and Right-Click the Drive > Choose the Format Option

2. In the File System Combo box, Choose NTFS and Click the Start Button to begin.

3. Afterwards, Open the Command Prompt as Administrator: In Start Search type, cmd > Press CTRL + Shift + Enter

or you will get… “Access is denied” Message after launching diskpart command. Read More»