The best and ultimate solution to Internet security and Internet censorship is the VPN services. A virtual private network (VPN) is a computer network that is layered on top of an underlying computer network. The private nature of a VPN means that the data travelling over the VPN is not generally visible to, or is encapsulated from, the underlying network traffic. A VPN connection can be envisioned as a “pipe within a pipe”, with the outer pipe being the underlying network connection.

Unfortunately, many VPN services are not free. It’s rather annoying to pay two times money for the Internet access…

In this post, I will introduce 5 free VPN services for Windows 7, Windows XP as well as other Windows NT platform systems. The list is in no particular order, hope you can appreciate it.

• Hotspot Shield

Hotspot Shield protects your entire web surfing session; securing your connection at both your home Internet network & Public Internet networks (both wired and wireless). Hotspot Shield protects your identity by ensuring that all web transactions (shopping, filling out forms, downloads) are secured through HTTPS. Hotspot Shield also makes you private online making your identity invisible to third party websites and ISP’s. Unless you choose to sign into a certain site, you will be anonymous for your entire web session with Hotspot Shield.

Hotspot Shield - You don't need to install the IE toolbar.

It is no need to register or pay for the service, but you will receive advertisements and forced URL redirect some times – just in requital

• UltraVPN
  

UltraVPN is a client/server SSL VPN solution based on OpenVPN. It encrypts and anonymizes your network connection. It has a simple user interface to connect or disconnect to its VPN servers.

UltraVPN - Free to register and free to use.

UltraVPN is free, and you just need to register a new user account in its website, then you can enjoy web surfing.

• FreeVPN
  

Similar to Hotspot Shield introduced above, it’s free and no need to register, but has forced URL redirect for ads display.

FreeVPN - Servers all around the world.

FreeVPN has servers all around the world. If you want advertisements free and higher speed, you can pay for the premium servers.

• proXPN
  

proXPN is a way to secure your internet connection for free. Your privacy and security are protected with their military-grade VPN featuring. It’s free of charge and has no ads.

proXPN - An up-rising star.

You have to register a user account in their website, and then you can download proXPN with your e-mail address and password.

• VPNTool

VPNTool provides L2TP VPN tunnel for Windows 2000 and IPSEC VPN tunnel for Windows XP/Windows 7, both are secure and reliable. You can sign up an account from VPNTool website, download the VPN client and login with the account you have registered.

VPNTool - Providing IPSEC VPN tunnel for Windows 7.

Each account will be valid for one-month, and you can register new ones after expired.

WinFS (short for Windows Future Storage) is the code name for a data storage and management system based on relational databases, designed for persistence and management of structured, semi-structured as well as unstructured data.

For example, one of your movie files can belong to “Thrill” “Horror” “Fantasy” or more categories. In FAT or NTFS filesystem, you can only create multiple Shortcuts or Symbolic Links (Junctions) to a specific file or folder. The same situation in WinFS, you can simply add tags and relationships for each file, which makes file management faster and easier.

Unfortunately, such wonderful stuff has cancelled in 2006, neither included in Windows Vista RTM nor Windows 7, although many people think the library feature in Windows 7 is more or less based on WinFS…

WinFS, merely a fairy tale?

Don’t despair, today I have another useful tool to introduce for you – Tabbles.

Tabbles allows you to organize and find files not just by folders but by tags and relationships – one of the many unfulfilled promises of WinFS.

Tabbles - Alternative to WinFS

Download Tabbles Free installer to your PC and/or Tabbles Portable Free to your USB drive, then you can manage your files and folders in your home or on the go.

* Tabbles (normal and portable) requires the .net framework 3.5sp1. The Tabbles installer will install the framework for you.

As you know, it’s not suggested to set the same password to all your personal accounts, such as passwords of bank account, E-mail account, IM (MSN, AOL, etc) account and so on. On the other side, it is recommended to change the passwords regularly, as well as keep the length and complexity of them.

Unfortunately, you may not remember all the passwords, or often mixing up specific one to another… If the same thing happened in Windows Operating System, how can you deal with the case?

At first, if you can login to your Windows user account normally, it’s better to take precautions before it is too late. I mean creating a password reset disk.

Create a Password Reset Disk in Windows 7

In another way, you can contact system manager to use the built-in Administrator account for changing your account’s password.

There is no directly way to solve the issue if you lost Administrator password of Windows Operating System. Here I recommend 3 powerful freeware tools to help you achieve the goal, restore or crack Windows login passwords.

• PCLoginNow

PCLoginNow is a free, open-source tool to reset local accounts’ passwords on Windows system. It can also help you to upgrade a general account to administrator, as well as lock or unlock accounts. PCLoginNow supports Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista with syskey, but no clear description about supporting Windows 7.

PCLoginNow

Download the program from SourceForge, and burn the ISO image to CD or DVD disc (Rewritable media is recommended). Then you can boot PC from the disc and recover passwords of Windows User Accounts.

• Offline NT Password & Registry Editor

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor is one of the fastest account password recovery tools for Windows platforms. It has tested in almost all versions of Windows, which means Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and perhaps Windows Server 2008. All variants including 32-bit and 64-bit version.

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor

You have to download and burn the program to CD or DVD disc in order to use it. The only disadvantage with Offline NT is that program interface uses command prompt, which may not easy to use, and made some users puzzling…

• Ophcrack

Ophcrack is one of the best and top rated password recovery tools for Windows. It uses standard Windows interface for users to operate. It supports all mainstream versions of Windows including Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.

Ophcrack

Ophcrack runs on Windows, Linux/Unix and even Mac OS X, without requiring any installation. The only downside is you have to download a large ISO image to burn the disc.

Finally, it is better to write down your passwords, or at least the hints of them, to a safe place. Thus, you can deal the cases quicker and easier

Several months ago, I wrote a post Use XP Mode on ALL EDITIONS of Windows 7 and even Windows XP, which was based on VirtualBox platform, lacked of specific USB devices support, and you have to find a genuine or even (0day) cracked version of Windows XP…

Now the great news for Windows 7 Ultimate, Enterprise or Professional edition users is that, you can run “Windows XP Mode” in Windows 7 even if your system doesn’t have Hardware Virtualization Technology. 

If you are using the “advanced editions” of Windows 7, you can have more choices, get free genuine license of Windows XP and better USB devices support under Windows XP Mode.

You can find more information and download the update which will go live later today here.

Now, you may meet the problem, although system installed more than 4GB RAM, you’ll notice that only about 3.25GB is being recognized. Where is the remaining?

That’s one of the limitations of 32-bit Windows 7, and there is no official way to use more than 3.25GB RAM. Microsoft recommends you to install Windows 7 x64, which is the 64-bit Windows 7.

But you may find the problems again: Currently, there are many applications still cannot run under x64 environment, and WoW64 (Windows-on-Windows 64-bit, a subsystem of the Windows operating system that is capable of running 32-bit applications) is not always effective; Windows 64-bit does not accept unsigned drivers by default, either.

In fact, Microsoft introduced Physical Address Extension (PAE), a feature of some x86 and x86-64 processors that enables the use of more than 4 gigabytes of physical memory, to Windows Server 2003 and 2008. So there must be a way to transplant the technology to Windows 7.

Fortunately, Russian group Staforce Dosage had done this for us. You can use the patch to enable system recognize more than 4GB memory. Download the patch from HERE.

After downloading, extract and run the file 4GB.exe, press the central button, wait for a while, then press Y to remove the watermark or N to avoid it (this step is optional).

Ready for 4GB RAM in Windows 7

Restart your PC, and you will find the newly built Windows 7 boot menu, select Microsoft Windows … >128GB Memory and it’s all done!

Use more than 4GB RAM in Windows 7

The disadvantage of the solution listed above is, it modified system files, and it may lead unwanted results. A safer way is, use Windows Virtual Memory together with RAM Disk software.

First of all, use diagnostic software like EVEREST to ensure if your hardware supports PAE. If so, click Start -> All Programs -> Accessories, then right click Command Prompt and choose Run as Administrator, enter the command bcdedit /set pae forceenable

Download RamDisk4G from HERE, extract the pack, import ram4g.reg and launch ramdisk.exe. Click Install Ramdisk and ignore the system security warning.

Install RAM Disk in Windows 7

At last, specify the RAM Disk Size and Driver Letter, select Media Type as Fixed Media, press OK.

Configure RAM Disk in Windows 7

This time, Windows 7 RTM 32-bit received full 4GB (or more) RAM, you can set system virtual memory to the RAM Disk.

Click Start, then right click Computer, select Properties. In System window, click Advanced system settings, then click Settings button in Performance section, switch to Advanced tab. Click Change button in Virtual memory section, uncheck Automatically manage paging file size for all drives, give the RAM Disk a proper value, then click set and restart Windows.

Set RAM Disk as Virtual Memory in Windows 7

Now, it’s really high time for you to enjoy the high performance Windows PC!

In the New Year, do you want to make any changes for your Windows Operating System? You may have used Windows for many years, from Windows 98 (or even Windows 95), to later Windows 2000, Windows XP, and now Windows 7. It is interesting and exciting to upgrade, customize, or even tweak the Windows OS, and on the other hand, it is quite necessary to do the job.

As a shining star in Windows family, there are many tools supported and optimized for Windows 7. Tired to see the Windows logon and “lock computer” screen? There are many solutions for you.

Windows 7 to officially support logon UI background customization.

First of all, create a DWORD value named OEMBackground in the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background key, and set its value to 1 (You can delete the value if you want to restore the settings). Then, create a folder named backgrounds in the path %windir%\system32\oobe\info.

At last, copy the JPG files according to your monitor’s resolution. For example,

backgroundDefault.jpg (MUST-HAVE)

background1024×1280.jpg

background1280×1024.jpg

background1024×768.jpg

background1280×960.jpg

background1600×1200.jpg

background1440×900.jpg

background1920×1200.jpg

background1280×768.jpg

background1360×768.jpg

…

All the images must be less than 256kb in size. If you are using a resolution that is not provided in the image file, system will display backgroundDefault.jpg.

If you are not satisfied with the complicated manual process (modify Windows Registry may cause system failure), there are many tools can do more for you.

If you want to simply change logon screen, Windows 7 LogonUI Changer will be your best choice. Download and launch it, select Enable, then specify a resolution and an image under 256 kb, it’s OK!

Windows 7 LogonUI Changer

More than logon screen, the Windows 7 Logon Screen Editor also provides few extra customization tricks. Click on the “+” button, and you can change the shadow and button transparency settings.

Windows 7 Logon Screen Editor

Still want more? Here is another cool utility, Windows 7 Logon Screen Rotator, which lets you to rotate Windows 7 Logon background screen randomly.

Windows 7 Logon Screen Rotator

You can set multiple images as logon screen background, interchanging them at a desired interval.

“Wait… How about my Lock Computer Background? The tools and utilities listed above seem not including the feature…”

Don’t worry, the last tool I want to introduce aims to solve the problem. Windows 7 Logon Controller lets you to set any jpeg image file as logon background, lock computer, and has the ability reset to default background.

Windows 7 Logon Controller

Enough yet? Welcome to pay more attention to my further posts

Say old legacy games like StarCraft, Diablo and Age of Empires, which are developed by Blizzard or Microsoft, have more than 10 years’ history. They’ve done great job for game players in Windows 9x and XP era. Unfortunately, the earlier versions of them cannot work properly in Windows 7 or Windows Vista.

The games may lunch in messed-up and bright turquoise color in the menu system, and graphics are glitched in random places, effectively rendering themselves unplayable.

Here are a few tricks for you to avoid or fix the issues.

• Method 1: Use 16-bit Colors display

First of all, you can set color to 16-bit instead of 32-bit to concern the problem.

Right click on desktop, select Desktop -> Screen Resolution -> Display Settings (in Windows Vista: Desktop -> Personalize -> Display Settings), choose Advanced Settings, then switch to Monitor tab.

Set Colors in Windows 7

Select High Color (16 bit) and then apply.

• Method 2: Use Compatibility Settings

If method 1 offered above cannot fix the problem, you can use the Windows system built-in function then.

Right click the shortcut icon of application, then switch to Compatibility, tick the check boxes of “Run in 256 color”, “Run in 640×480 screen resolution”, “Disable visual themes”, “Disable desktop composition” and “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings”.

Compatibility Settings in Windows 7

Optionally, you can also enable “Run as Administrator” and set “Compatibility Mode” to “Windows XP SP3” for troubleshooting.

• Method 3: Use Specific Fixes

Some specific fixes provided by official or folk (even 0day organizations) may solve the problems.

Take StarCraft as an example, you can find a fix HERE. Extract the RAR file to the game folder and lunch the StarCraft with StarCraftFix.exe, that’s OK.

You can use Google, Bing, Yahoo or more search engines to find if there are fixes for your game.

• Method 4: Use Virtual Machine

“Virtual Machine? You mean Windows XP mode?”

Absolutely NO. Windows XP mode cannot offer any 3D acceleration for applications, you can use Virtual Box for free, or purchase more powerful VMWare, then install Windows XP into it (remember to enable 3D Acceleration and 2D Video Acceleration). You can play the games in the virtual system environment.

3D Acceleration configuration in Virtual Box

The method will undoubtedly fix the issue, but it may be a bit cumbersome, and you must have high performance hardware to achieve the goal.

12 tips for safe online shopping

Nowadays many people prefer to shop online, which is more convenient and quick. Then online shopping provides malware a paradise to live in, hackers have diverted their attention to online shopping. Approximately ten million Americans have their identity stolen each year.

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New Koobface Worm Employs Anti-Koobface Warning

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1.    Windows Virtual PC Blog

The Virtual PC blog from Microsoft official, it provides detailed information of virtualization technologies, related tips & tricks, and more. The website is a good reference for Windows Virtual PC and VHD image file.

2.    VMToolkit

Provides two useful tools, VMDK(VMWare) to VHD Converter and VHD Resizer, to help you manage and maintain virtual hard disk files created by VMWare or Windows Virtual PC. The website also contains some resources on virtual machine that you can refer to.

3.    How to Configure Windows Virtual PC Settings

If your computer and operation system meets all the requirements to lunch Windows XP Mode, congratulations! Then you can read this article to learn the configurations of Windows Virtual PC, the foundation of Windows XP Mode.

In order to solve these troublesome compatibility problems, Windows 7 added a new feature – XP Mode. The concept of XP Mode is to build a virtual environment (Windows Virtual PC), then install Windows XP into this virtual machine.

You may think this is good news, but in fact, there are many limitations on it.

First of all, this feature requires Ultimate, Enterprise or Professional edition of Windows 7, which is expensive for you to purchase. Many new computers had Windows 7 pre-installed does not provide such “advanced” editions, either.

Then, for the purpose of using XP Mode, you must have a CPU with AMD-V or Intel VT-x support. You can download Microsoft Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool from Microsoft Download Center, lunch the application and you will get the test result.

You can use XP Mode in Windows 7 only when this screen is shown

Not using required editions of Windows 7 or failed the CPU test? Don’t worry, now you have another chance to use XP Mode, which was provided by VMLite.

VMLite is a virtual machine software, it can mount XP Mode images for Windows host system, without any additional requirements.

VMLite in Windows Host System

To download VMLite, you have to register an account HERE, and login to download VMLiteWorkstationSetup.exe binary file. Install and lunch the program, click Install when Windows Security dialog pops up.

Windows Security Dialog

In the first run, you can choose VMLite Wizard from programs section of Windows Start Menu, then specify XP Mode package provided by Microsoft, agree the end-user license and finish the rest steps. Wait for a while and the installation of VMLite XP Mode will be done and ready to use.

Specify XP Mode Package in VMLite

You can maximize the virtual machine into Fullscreen Mode, or combine virtual and host systems with Seamless Mode, both options are from Machine menu of virtual system. You can also share folders, CD/DVD drive and network connections between host and virtual systems. By taking snapshots of VMLite XP Mode, you can quickly recover the earlier state of virtual machine…

VMLite Seamless Mode

What’s more, VMLite does SUPPORT Winodws XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003/2008. It means you can take all the advantages of VMLite XP Mode, regardless what Windows systems you are using.

More exciting functions are waiting for you to explore, click HERE to download the how-to document (PDF) published by VMLite.

Interesting, isn’t it? You can read the following article, a collection of Virtual Machine website, hope that can help you more.