Nerd's Quarter

Hide 'User Accounts' from users

2008-01-02T11:51:00.000-08:00

Go to Start/Run, and type:

GPEDIT.MSC

Open the path

User Config > Admin Templates > Control Panel

doubleclick "Hide specified Control Panel applets"

put a dot in 'enabled', then click 'Show"

click Add button,

type "nusrmgt.cpl" into the add box

(Windows XP Professional Only)

How to create a boot disk

2008-01-02T11:48:00.000-08:00

Go into MY COMPUTER

Have a floppy disk in your drive and then RIGHT click on on the floppy drive and then click on FORMAT

You will be greeted with a number of options. The one you need to select is "Create an MS-DOS start up disk".

Click ok

NTFS vs FAT

2008-01-02T11:40:00.000-08:00

NTFS vs. FAT

To NTFS or not to NTFS—that is the question. But unlike the deeper questions of life, this one isn't really all that hard to answer. For most users running Windows XP, NTFS is the obvious choice. It's more powerful and offers security advantages not found in the other file systems. But let's go over the differences among the files systems so we're all clear about the choice. There are essentially three different file systems available in Windows XP: FAT16, short for File Allocation Table, FAT32, and NTFS, short for NT File System.

FAT16
The FAT16 file system was introduced way back with MS–DOS in 1981, and it's showing its age. It was designed originally to handle files on a floppy drive, and has had minor modifications over the years so it can handle hard disks, and even file names longer than the original limitation of 8.3 characters, but it's still the lowest common denominator. The biggest advantage of FAT16 is that it is compatible across a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows 95/98/Me, OS/2, Linux, and some versions of UNIX. The biggest problem of FAT16 is that it has a fixed maximum number of clusters per partition, so as hard disks get bigger and bigger, the size of each cluster has to get larger. In a 2–GB partition, each cluster is 32 kilobytes, meaning that even the smallest file on the partition will take up 32 KB of space. FAT16 also doesn't support compression, encryption, or advanced security using access control lists.

FAT32
The FAT32 file system, originally introduced in Windows 95 Service Pack 2, is really just an extension of the original FAT16 file system that provides for a much larger number of clusters per partition. As such, it greatly improves the overall disk utilization when compared to a FAT16 file system. However, FAT32 shares all of the other limitations of FAT16, and adds an important additional limitation—many operating systems that can recognize FAT16 will not work with FAT32—most notably Windows NT, but also Linux and UNIX as well. Now this isn't a problem if you're running FAT32 on a Windows XP computer and sharing your drive out to other computers on your network—they don't need to know (and generally don't really care) what your underlying file system is.

The Advantages of NTFS
The NTFS file system, introduced with first version of Windows NT, is a completely different file system from FAT. It provides for greatly increased security, file–by–file compression, quotas, and even encryption. It is the default file system for new installations of Windows XP, and if you're doing an upgrade from a previous version of Windows, you'll be asked if you want to convert your existing file systems to NTFS. Don't worry. If you've already upgraded to Windows XP and didn't do the conversion then, it's not a problem. You can convert FAT16 or FAT32 volumes to NTFS at any point. Just remember that you can't easily go back to FAT or FAT32 (without reformatting the drive or partition), not that I think you'll want to.

The NTFS file system is generally not compatible with other operating systems installed on the same computer, nor is it available when you've booted a computer from a floppy disk. For this reason, many system administrators, myself included, used to recommend that users format at least a small partition at the beginning of their main hard disk as FAT. This partition provided a place to store emergency recovery tools or special drivers needed for reinstallation, and was a mechanism for digging yourself out of the hole you'd just dug into. But with the enhanced recovery abilities built into Windows XP (more on that in a future column), I don't think it's necessary or desirable to create that initial FAT partition.

When to Use FAT or FAT32
If you're running more than one operating system on a single computer, you will definitely need to format some of your volumes as FAT. Any programs or data that need to be accessed by more than one operating system on that computer should be stored on a FAT16 or possibly FAT32 volume. But keep in mind that you have no security for data on a FAT16 or FAT32 volume—any one with access to the computer can read, change, or even delete any file that is stored on a FAT16 or FAT32 partition. In many cases, this is even possible over a network. So do not store sensitive files on drives or partitions formatted with FAT file systems.

Clearing Your Firefox Cache

2008-01-02T11:35:00.000-08:00

open Firefox.

On the menu bar select TOOLS, click on OPTIONS from the pull down menu.

Click Options dialogue box, click on the PRIVACY icon and then click on the CACHE tab.

You have the option of changing the amount of disk space Firefox uses for its cache, the value is in MB (Megabytes). The default value is 50MB, this is about right for most users, change if required.

Click the CLEAR CACHE NOW button to delete any files that are in the cache.

Then click the OK button.

Clearing Your Firefox History

2008-01-02T11:31:00.000-08:00

Start the Mozilla Firefox program.

Click on TOOLS on the menu bar, then click on OPTIONS.

You will then see the Firefox Options dialogue box, click on the PRIVACY icon and you will be presented with the Firefox Privacy settings.

You can change the amount of days that Firefox will remember your browsing history, alter if required.

To clear your history click the CLEAR BROWSING HISTORY NOW button.

When done, click the OK button.

Add "My Computer" To Your Vista Taskbar

2007-12-29T03:14:00.000-08:00

If you like to have the quickest access possible to folders on your desktop, which usually means putting something onto the taskbar if possible. You can add the Computer menu as a folder on the taskbar for the easiest access to your drives. You could also use this tip for any folder you want.

To add a folder to the taskbar, just right-click on the taskbar and choose the Toolbars menu, and then click on New Toolbar.

Just find the folder that you want… in this instance we'll select the Computer icon and then click on Select Folder.

Now you can see the Computer folder right there on the taskbar. If you click the little arrows it will pop up and let you browse through all your drives.

Make Your Safari Web Browsing Private

2007-12-29T03:05:00.000-08:00

With all of the problems of identity theft, advertisers tracking your every move through cookies and problems with privacy these days, finding a way to keep your web browsing more private has become important for everybody.

The new Safari beta has an option called Private Browsing that will keep all pages from being added to the history, items from saving in the downloads window and the auto fill for searches.

Turning this mode on is simple, just open Safari and click on Edit and select Private Browsing.

You will get a confirmation screen with a general overview of the Private Browsing feature. Click OK.

Delete Files Older Than x Days on Linux

2007-12-29T02:23:00.000-08:00

The find utility on Linux allows you to pass in a bunch of interesting arguments, including one to execute another command on each file. We'll use this in order to figure out what files are older than a certain number of days, and then use the rm command to delete them.

Command and Syntax

find /path/to/files* -mtime +5 -exec rm {} \;

Note that there are spaces between rm, {}, and \;

Explanation:

The first argument is the path to the files. This can be a path, a directory, or a wildcard as in the example above. I would recommend using the full path, and make sure that you run the command without the exec rm to make sure you are getting the right results.

The second argument, -mtime, is used to specify the number of days old that the file is. If you enter +5, it will find files older than 5 days.

The third argument, -exec, allows you to pass in a command such as rm. The {} \; at the end is required to end the command.

This should work on Ubuntu, Suse, Redhat, or pretty much any version of linux.

Fix for Firefox memory leak on Windows

2007-12-29T00:05:00.000-08:00

This seems to help out with the memory usage quite a bit. Generally, when you minimize a window the memory usage goes way down because that application isn't active. Unfortunately, Firefox by default doesn't adhere to this behavior. Here's how to force it to.

Type the following into your address bar in Firefox:

about:config

You will want to right click anywhere in the window, choose New, Boolean, and enter in the following text:

config.trim_on_minimize

To change the value you can either doubleclick, or right-click and choose Toggle. You will have to restart Firefox, but after you do, you should notice the memory usage go way down whenever you have Firefox minimized.

Display Hidden Folders in XP

2007-12-28T23:54:00.000-08:00

By default, Windows XP keeps important system files and folders hidden to keep people from deleting files they shouldn't.

To show hidden files, open My Computer then Tools and click on Folder Options.

Click on the View tab, and then click the radio button for "Show hidden files and folders"

Now when you go back into explorer you will see additional folders you were not able to see previously.