Admission Test Prep

Any standardized test, SAT, ACT, LSAT, GMAT such as  can be difficult when you are not correctly prepared. In high school I had to take the Standardized Admission Test to get accepted to college. My score was a 1080 I believe which is not bad but If I managed to pull a 1200 or higher I could have made more money through scholarships. Knowing this, I wish I put more effort in preparing for the SAT because I just woke up one Saturday morning and took it at a local High school. Miro Advantage is the #1 test prep consultant. They offer a rigorous session to help prepare you for a variety of standardized tests. For 20 hours of help, it will cost roughly $1599 but they plan your whole session out. They tell you your Admission Probability, Application Evaluations and Enhancements, and even have a mock trial.

The cost may be somewhat high but the amount of preparation you get makes it relatively low. Some testimonials say that they improved 340 points! If I improved that much, I would have one of the top SAT scores in my class. I would also get 100% Bright futures scholarship. Wouldn’t you give yourself every advantage you can to be accepted within a top university?

How To Check A Disk For Errors

Did you know that windows has a built in disk error check utility?

Microsoft states, Chkdsk (Chkdsk.exe) is a command-line tool that checks volumes for problems. The tool then tries to repair any that it finds. For example, Chkdsk can repair problems related to bad sectors, lost clusters, cross-linked files, and directory errors.

Now to run Chkdsk, go to Start-> Run-> Type ChkDsk and hit enter. If a hard disk drive has gone bad, it could be helpful to run this utility to fix any bad sectors that it might have.

How To Remove Ctfmon.EXE

Whenever I turn on my computer I notice ctfmon.exe is running in the background. Like any tech savvy individual, I wanted to know what it is and if I needed to use my precious resources on it. According to Microsoft Ctfmon.exe monitors the active windows and provides text input service support for speech recognition, handwriting recognition, keyboard, translation, and other alternative user input technologies.

Now to disable CTFmon.exe because I do not use any of those input technologies you must just download a simple fix to remove it. CTFMON-Remover is a simple program that will edit Windows to disable it from running. The program is only 111kb big and offers an option to restore it as well. It works for 2000, XP, and Vista.

Download CTFMON-Remover

Alternative PDF Viewer

The majority of computer users have Adobe Reader as their program to read .PDF documents. I use to be one of those users until I discovered Foxit PDF Reader. It is only 2.41 megabytes big unlike Adobe PDF reader which is over 10 times that size. Foxit still maintains all the functionality of Adobe yet runs way smoother and faster. Rather then waiting a few seconds for Adobe to open your PDF document, Foxit will do it in a fraction of the time.

If you do not wish to download any programs then you can choose to view PDF documents online. One such site is this one.

Save Files In Gmail

Ok, you are most likely thinking just add a file as an attachment and voila, you saved a file. However, what happens when you try to save a .exe or a .rar file? It does not allow you. Luckily there is a easy work around that allows us to use gmail as a personal file host server. All you must do is compose new mail and attach your file. Rather then trying to send the file, just save it. Google will allow you to save .exe as an email attachment. Now you can do this as much as you like until you fill up your quota of 6 gigs. Also each attachment can only be up to 20 megabytes big. What I would do is make a fake gmail account and just store a bunch of documents, .exe and more and if your friend ever needs it, just give him or her the login.

Crack Windows Account Passwords

Many people wish to learn how to crack Windows Passwords yet think it is very difficult. Honestly, it is quite easy but this tip is for purposes of recovering your OWN password and not others. This should only be used in case you forget your password and need to get on.

Ophcrack is a cracker that uses Rainbow Tables. What you guys want is the Live CD version where you can just boot to CD and it will crack the passwords without any user interface. The Live CD can be found here. Once you open the page, just click the  ophcrack-livecd-1.2.2.iso. Once you download the .iso, burn it to a CD. Boot the computer to CD and follow the instructions and that’s it! It will begin to crack the passwords. Yes I tried this and it works very fast. There are limitations to it like it can’t crack passwords that are above 14 characters and doesn’t work on passwords that contain special characters. i.e. !@#$%^&*()_.

Auto Login In Windows XP

Now this is a easy tip that will take only seconds. Whenever you turn on your computer, you go to the login screen prompting your password and username. This is a security feature but what if you are the only one who uses that computer. This security feature then turns into a mundane task but luckily we can get rid of it.

Go to Start->Run Type control userpasswords2 . Select your Username and uncheck Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer and type your password twice in the new box.  Select OK and now you do not have to enter a password every time you turn on your computer.

Test Your Firewall

A firewall is a very important part of the security of any computer or network. A firewall can protect you from port scanners and hackers that can exploit an open port. By exploiting a port, the hacker can install malware applications and steal valuable information from your computer. I would recommend downloading another firewall if you are using Windows Firewall because this firewall is a one way firewall. In other words, it only blocks incoming connections and not connections going out of your computer.  a 2-way firewall can protect you from incoming and outgoing connections.

Now, it is important to make sure your computer’s firewall is up and running. An easy way to check this is to do a simple port scan that will notify you of any opened ports. Gibson Research Corporation offers a comprehensive port scan that can be ran right from your browser. It will notify you of hidden ports, opened ports, or blocked ports.

Create Your Own Windows XP

I stumbled upon a great piece of software called nLite.  nLite and vLite are freeware applications used to create customized installation Cd’s of Microsoft’s Windows XP, 2000, 2003, and Vista. So basically, if you have your own Windows Installation CD, you can customize it to your liking.

What Customizations are there?

You can almost fully customize it to your liking. You can add your drivers to it, delete Windows Updates, remove unnecessary applications and much more. You can reduce Windows XP consumption of resources by stopping unneeded applications.

If you wish to customize your XP use nLite and if you wish to customize Vista Use vLite. As a matter of fact, right now, I am using a customized version of XP to make it faster for gaming.

Download nLite.

Stop Annoying Windows XP Messages

I can not stand those annoying popups that tell you your firewall is off or you do not have a antivirus. Fortunately, we can disable these popups fairly easily. To do so go to Start->Control Panel->Security Center. On the left, click Change the Way Security Center Alerts Me. Uncheck the appropriate boxes that you wish to disable those annoying messages. I suggest you Update your computer manually if you uncheck the Automatic Updates Warning. To update your computer manually just go to www.update.microsoft.com and choose express or custom and update it. As I said before you just need to update your computer on the second week on Tuesday of every month.