Change User Folder and System Folder Locations
With this tip, you can change the location of the user folders such as "My Documents", "Cookies", "Desktop", "Favorites", "History", etc.
Location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
Values: Multiple, see graphic
Click to enlarge picture
Related Registry Tricks
This is a note to self while I am elsewhere:
I tried to write down the simplest instructions. Obviously, there is more depth to this and alternative solutions, but this one works. The issue is 1.You either did not enter your credential in the correct format or 2.You have corrupted/duplicate credentials. There is no sequence required. We usually think that if something works, the sequence must have mattered.
TuneUp Utilities 2012 is the latest version of one of the most popular Windows system optimization and tweaking program. Every year it is getting perfected with new unique features added to the program. TuneUp Utilities 2012 features all the functions that were present in the earlier version, viz, TuneUp Utilities 2011 (which we have reviewed earlier). Along with all those features, two notable features added to the latest version are TuneUp Economy Mode and TuneUp Program Deactivator.
TuneUp Economy Mode will extend the battery life of notebook, netbook and tablet computers by shutting off processes and hardware components that aren’t required or in use. TuneUp Economy Mode is the new introduced feature of 2012 while TuneUp Program Deactivator, introduced in 2011 version, has gone through major overhauling in 2012 edition. Both TuneUp Economy Mode and TuneUp Program Deactivator, when used in combination can boost the energy efficiency of Windows 7 systems by up to 30 percent, when compared with the Windows 7 built-in energy savings mode.
With today’s increasing computing power, multi-core processors and gigabytes of RAM, many users will argue if they need a system optimization program? But, many users will agree with us that even with so much of computation power in hand, Windows tends to become sluggish after usage. Microsoft promises to change this scenario with its upcoming Windows 8 operating system but until than we are left with trusted system optimization utilities like TuneUp Utilities.
Since we have already reviewed TuneUp Utilities 2011 and most of the tools, although improved, have remained same in TuneUp Utilities 2012, in this review we will concentrate only on the most notable two features (discussed above). You can go through the thorough review of TuneUp Utilities 2011 here to know in-depth about what it offers.
At the end of this review (after break), you will find a giveaway contest, through which you can win a free license of TuneUp Utilities 2012 worth $49.95. 5 licenses are up for the giveaway, so the total licenses worth approx $250 (exactly $249.75). More on that later. 
A quick walk-through…
The installation was very straight forward, after which, TuneUp Utilities immediately launched its 1-Click Maintenance tool. The tool quickly checks for Windows Registry errors, broken shortcuts, temporary files (but Recycle Bin), Windows startup and shutdown problems, disk fragmentation and so on. A report of everything found, is provided after the analysis and you can then fix the issues with a single click.
As we have seen earlier with 2011, the tools are divided into five tabs:
For advance users or for quickly finding a tool, you can click on “Overview of all functions” option. This option gives you a list of all functions that TuneUp Utilities offers. If you click on the wrench icon next to a tool, it opens the settings for that tool.
Many Windows programs like Microsoft Office adds services, startup programs and other tasks which slows down the system and hampers performance, even though we don’t need those services or programs to start with Windows. If uninstalling the program is not an option than the revamped version of Program Deactivator might be able to help you.
Simply launch Program Deactivator and a list of installed programs is displayed along with its performance impact on your PC. We have already seen earlier in TuneUp Utilities 2011, that it really works and improves performance of the system.
What’s new in TuneUp Utilities 2012 edition of Program Deactivator is the TuneUp Programs-on-Demand Technology, in layman terms the “Automatic” function. Simply keep the function on, and if you launch a “deactivated” program then TuneUp Utilities 2012 will automatically disable this again once you’ve closed it down. Thus it keeps your system in top performance always.
Even though your mileage may vary when using this tool. But if your system is packed up with programs (like ours), TuneUp Program Deactivator will surely help you gain performance.
Windows 7 is optimized to conserve power but it is still not fully optimized. As the number of background process, service or scheduled task increases, the impact on the power can also be felt. This prevents devices from entering low-power (or idle) modes. TuneUp Economy Mode prevents PC hardware components from delivering too much power when it’s not really needed. Once TuneUp Economy Mode is active, all non-essential background processes and services are disabled to reduce power usage. The settings are very easy to configure. In our tests, we have seen an increase in battery life.
In our tests on a laptop running Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) on Core i5, 4GB RAM, 640GB HDD, boot time fell by around 10 percent, RAM usage fell from 40 percent to 35 percent. Overall, system performance was improved and we actually found our applications launching faster.
You can test TuneUp Utilities 2012 for yourself and see the system performance improvements yourself. The software is available for Windows XP, Vista and 7 (32-bit and 64-bit editions) and can be downloaded from TuneUp Utilities official website for free.
Despite the “terrorism” justification, the new rules affect every single American. The agency now has free rein to, as the New York Times’ Charlie Savage put it, “retrieve, store and search information about Americans gathered by government agencies for purposes other than national security threats ” and expands the amount of time the government can keep private information on innocent individuals by a factor of ten.
From the New York Times :
The guidelines will lengthen to five years — from 180 days — the amount of time the center can retain private information about Americans when there is no suspicion that they are tied to terrorism, intelligence officials said. The guidelines are also expected to result in the center making more copies of entire databases and “data mining them” using complex algorithms to search for patterns that could indicate a threat. (emphasis ours)
Journalist Marcy Wheeler summed the new guidelines up nicely saying, “So…the data the government keeps to track our travel, our taxes, our benefits, our identity? It just got transformed from bureaucratic data into national security intelligence.”
The administration claims that the changes in the rules for the NCTC—as well as for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), which oversees the nation’s intelligence agencies—are in response to the government’s failure to connect the dots in the so-called “underwear bomber” case at the end of 2009, yet there was no explanation of how holding onto innocent Americans’ private data for five years would have stopped the bombing attempt.
Disturbingly, “oversight” for these expansive new guidelines is being directed by the DNI’s "Civil Liberties Protection Officer" Joel Alexander, who is so concerned about Americans’ privacy and civil liberties that he, as Marcy Wheeler notes, found no civil liberties concerns with the National Security Agency’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program when he reviewed it during President George W. Bush’s administration.
As other civil liberties organizations have noted, the new guidelines are reminiscent of the Orwellian-sounding “Total Information Awareness ” program George Bush tried but failed to get through Congress in 2003—again in the name of defending the nation from terrorists. The program, as the New York Times explained , sparked an “outcry” and partially shut down Congress because it “proposed fusing vast archives of electronic records — like travel records, credit card transactions, phone calls and more — and searching for patterns of a hidden terrorist cell.”
The New York Times reported , the new NCTC guidelines “are silent about the use of commercial data — like credit card and travel records — that may have been acquired by other agencies,” but information first obtained by private corporations has ended up in federal databases before. In one example, Wired Magazine found FBI databases contained “200 million records transferred from private data brokers like ChoicePoint, 55,000 entries on customers of Wyndham hotels, and numerous other travel and commercial records.” The FBI would be one of the agencies sharing intelligence with the NCTC.
Despite Congress’ utter rejection of the “Total Information Awareness” program (TIA) in 2003, this is the second time this month the administration has been accused of instituting the program piecemeal. In his detailed report on the NSA’s new “data center” in Utah, Wired Magazine’s James Bamford remarked that the new data storage complex is “the realization” of the TIA program, as it’s expected to store and catalog “all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches.”
Unfortunately, the new NCTC guidelines are yet another example of the government using the word “terrorism” to infringe on the rights of innocent Americans. Aside from the NSA’s aforementioned warrantless wiretapping program, we have seen the Patriot Act overwhelmingly used in criminal investigations not involving terrorism, despite its original stated purpose. As PBS Frontline’s Azmat Khan noted in response to the new guidelines, investigative journalist Dana Priest has previously reported how “many states have yet to use their vast and growing anti-terror apparatus to capture any terrorists; instead the government has built a massive database that collects, stores and analyzes information on thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing.”
This problem has been well documented for years, yet Congress and both the Bush and Obama administrations have continued to use terrorism as a justification for expansive laws, and Americans’ constitutional rights have become collateral damage.
As we said last year, this deal is tilted against subscribers . That's not surprising, given that no one solicited subscriber input in advance. In fact, some online commenters have expressed concern that the agreement runs afoul of antitrust law .
One key problem is the arrangement shifts the burden of proof: rather than accusers proving infringement before the graduated response process starts against a subscriber, the subscriber must disprove the accusation in order to call a halt to it. Worse, accused subscribers have to defend themselves on an uneven playing field. For example, they have only ten days to prepare a defense, and with only six pre-set options available. Of course, there's no assurance that those who review the cases are neutral, and the plan sorely lacks consequences for an accuser who makes mistaken or fraudulent claims.
There are still more problems. The plan calls for "education" after the first accusations, but based on the information now available on the website launched last year by the Center for Copyright Information (the entity charged with administering the system), it's likely to be both deceptive and scare-mongering. And the whole system lacks in transparency: while it includes some minimal reporting requirements, those reports need not be made public.
The final rub: subscribers will doubtless be paying for their own "re-education," as ISPs pass on their portions of the administration costs in the form of higher fees.
What can users do at this point? In some cases, they can vote with their feet. This agreement is voluntary for now, and while the participating ISPs include many major companies — AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner Cable — there are other options. Users lucky enough to have a choice of providers for their Internet service should consider switching to a service that opted not to "cooperate." For example, companies like Sonic and Cox Communications have a history of fighting for their users where they can, and are notably absent from this arrangement.
Otherwise, users have little choice for now but to watch their ISP roll out this new system against their interests, and maybe familiarize themselves with the six pre-approved responses available to them after an accusation. EFF will continue to follow developments in this agreement closely, and will be offering users a way to speak out against it soon. Stay tuned to updates about these actions on our EFFector mailing list , or by following EFF on Identi.ca or Twitter .
1. Right click on a empty area on desktop, and click on New and Shortcut.2. Copy and paste the location below into the location area, and click on the Next button. (see screenshot below)
%windir%\System32\SndVol.exe -r 49490633
3. Type Volume Mixer for the name, and click on the Finish button. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: You can name this anything you would like though.
4. You can now Pin to Taskbar or Pin to Start Menu this shortcut, assign a keyboard shortcut to it, or move it where you like for easy use.
That's it,
Shawn
There is no denying Facebook's popularity in the online arena. It is consistently ranked in the top five websites visited in the world. In the month of December 2011 alone, users spent more than 9.7 billion minutes per day on Facebook on personal computers, while in the mobile sphere the Facebook app is one of the most downloaded applications across the smartphone ecosystem.1 Facebook is apt to translate this popularity into effective advertising, which is fundamental to its revenue stream. Facebook said as much in its IPO documents, where it stated: "We generate substantially all of our revenue from advertising and payment processing fees."2 Facebook also provided explicit figures. In 2011, they made $3.15 billion of $3.71 billion solely from advertising.3 In combination with Facebook's dominance in social media and its engagement with both Facebook and non-Facebook users outside of Facebook.com, Facebook's reliance on advertising as a major revenue stream is a reason that Facebook should be involved in current W3C discussions about the future of online advertising.
Facebook has a complex relationship with users—sometimes it acts like a social network, but other times it acts more like an online tracking company. This tracking takes place without a user ever having to interact with the Facebook "like" or "social plugin" buttons: just seeing the "like" button is enough for Facebook to collect a record of your reading habits. It was third party tracking practices similar to this that inspired the Do Not Track movement. Like other companies that engage in cross-site tracking, Facebook needs to commit to respecting the Do Not Track header.
Facebook's interaction with users is further complicated by Instant Personalization , a system that allows non-Facebook sites to embed interactive Facebook widgets and conversations. Instant Personalization inherently requires tracking. When an individual has "instant personalization" enabled in her Facebook settings and then sets the Do Not Track header, we recommend that Facebook clarify whether or not she is agreeing to opt back in to being tracked while using instant personalization. This could be done with an interstitial explaining the tracking inherent to instant personalization and asking her whether, given her preference to not be tracked, she would still like to see and use instant personalization widgets. This type of transparent privacy control can ensure that Facebook users better understand how Facebook collects data on them. These complications are all reasons for Facebook to further engage in Do Not Track discussions and the Do Not Track mechanism.
It's clear that Facebook wants to be a part of the conversation around advertising and privacy. According to AdAge , when the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act (PDF) was introduced last year, Facebook sent an “army of lawyers” to Washington to convince Senators Kerry and McCain to carve out exceptions to their privacy bill so that Facebook could track its users via social widgets on other sites (dubbed the "Facebook loophole" ). Facebook currently retains two lobbying firms, and it nearly quadrupled its lobbying budget last year to $1.35 million.4 The best Internet policy arises from collaborative efforts with users, advocacy groups, and other technology companies—not backroom deals on Capitol Hill. This is especially true when many policymakers and the public are watching online advertisers closely to see if they can improve their poor track record when it comes to self-regulation.
Currently, the W3C's Tracking Protection Working Group involves stakeholders that include privacy organizations, tracking companies, the DAA, and academics to refine what Do Not Track means and how it is implemented. Facebook's prominence in the online advertising world, its reliance on advertising as a revenue model, and its activity in Washington make it clear that Facebook should be more involved in the negotiations on advertisers' responsibilities to respect Do Not Track.
After a privacy agreement was reached with the FTC in November 2011, Mark Zuckerburg wrote : "I'm committed to making Facebook the leader in transparency and control around privacy." Do Not Track is the next step for users to control how they can be tracked and what data can be collected. It's time Facebook engage with the larger Internet community and respect the rights of users who opt out of tracking.
Hot on the heels of the slightly delayed official unveiling of Firefox 11 FINAL comes Waterfox 11.0 , an optimized build of the Firefox source code for Windows 64-bit users.
Waterfox 11.0 contains exactly the same updates as Firefox 11 (see below), plus one major change of its own, a switch from AMD’s Core Math Library (ACML) to the AMD LibM library, which is optimized for 64-bit processors.
Aside from the change to AMD LibM library, Waterfox 11.0 has also been compiled with a new set of flags from the original Firefox 11.0 source code, which should help improve performance further. Other changes, as expected, simply mirror what are already present in Firefox 11.
These include limited support for importing data from Google Chrome, the ability to synchronize add-ons via Firefox Sync, updated support for various HTML5 and CSS standards and redesigned media controls for HTML5 video. Waterfox 11 also includes the two enhancements for developers: a CSS Style Inspector and Tilt (3D) view for HTML pages.
64-bit users wishing to switch to Waterfox 11.0 will need to install 64-bit versions of Java , Adobe Flash Player and, if required, Microsoft Silverlight .
Note that Waterfox uses exactly the same preferences and user files as Firefox, which makes switching painless on the one hand, but does mean you should uninstall the program with care should you wish to revert back to the 32-bit version of Firefox: make sure you deselect any option to delete your personal preferences and files before proceeding to remove the program.
Waterfox 11.0 is a free download for PCs running 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Vista and 7. Other users looking for a version of Firefox that has been optimized for speed and performance should check out Pale Moon 9.2 instead. Although not as updated as frequently as Firefox itself, Pale Moon’s developer has hinted that a new build based on Firefox 11 may surface this month.
By David Gewirtz | March 14, 2012, 11:15pm PDT
Summary: I’m on your side, kids. It’s time for some truth. Let’s shut down that reality distortion field and save you some money. Let’s get started.
To be fair, most of the lessons my mom tried to teach me didn’t stick. To her credit, she tried, oh, did she try. But I was something of a problem child. All these years later, I can simply respect and honor her effort. It’s not my mom’s fault I turned out the way I did. Mama tried.
I tell you this because about 55 million of your fellow tech consumers have been lining up like lemmings, getting ready to jump off the iPad cliff, once again. Don’t get me wrong. I acknowledge that there is some value to an iPad. But just because all your friends are buying the latest and greatest “new” iPad (what we previously thought would be the iPad 3), that doesn’t mean you have to, as well.
Every other tech pundit and reviewer in the business will be out there trying to tell you why you should buy an iPad. They figure that if they suck up to Apple enough, perhaps, some day, a 20-something, wet-behind-the-ears Apple PR droid will bless them with a returned call or email. At that point, that lucky reviewer will be able to check off the most elusive of bucket list items.
Not me. I’ve had my fill of Apple PR reps, back when I headed up some Apple projects and later as a member of the press. I went through the foggy-late-night-outside-the-garage-Foster-City-swap-of-useless-press-materials-with-cute-PR-women phase, and I’m long over it. I’m here to speak truth to you. If that means I get yelled at again by yet another Apple enforcer, so be it.
I’m on your side, kids. It’s time for some truth. Let’s get started.
Reason 1: You already have an iPad
Let’s face the elephant in the room first. The odds are, you already have an iPad. And, if you’re reading this, you’re either an iPad phanboi just looking for something to get steamed about, or you’re an iPad user who already upgraded once from the first iPad to the iPad 2. Either way, you have an iPad.
The iPad 2 adds a few interesting features: a higher-resolution display (we’ll get to that in a minute) and 4G/LTE wireless (we’ll get to that in a minute, too). The bottom line is that you really can’t do very much more with the new iPad than you can with the iPad 2, so save your sheckles and just use the iPad 2.
Reason 2: The retina display is mostly marketing hype
If you want to see the phanbois erupt, it’ll be over this. But hear me out. Yes, I know there are more pixels on this beast than on HDTVs. And yes, I know there are more pixels on this display than most 24″ computer displays.
But. The. Screen. Is. Still. Only. Nine. Inches.
Just how many photographs are you really going to look at and ooh and ah about? Is it really worth dumping your older iPad just so you can show off the exciting new display? You’re probably not doing advanced scientific work, where the high resolution will be important. And sure, you might find text slightly crisper, but is that worth throwing out your existing iPad?
Even worse, many applications won’t support the higher-resolution display, so you’re likely to actually see images that look worse on the retina display than they did on the iPad 2.
So, yes, the iPad’s retina display is an amazing technological achievement. But so is being able chunk punkins 5,545.43 feet across a field. Not everyone needs to do that, either.
Reason 3: High-res apps will take more memory
Fine, if you’re still not convinced, make sure you buy the bigger, more expensive iPad, because all those high-res images in apps (and magazines and books) are going to take a boatload more storage. And sure, some of that storage will be in iCloud, but a lot of it will need to be stored right on the device.
If you bought a 16GB machine back in the day, you’re probably now going to want a 64GB machine. That starts to get quite expensive, quite quickly.
Reason 4: 4G/LTE is expensive
Speaking of expensive, wait until you get a-load of those 4G/LTE bills. Sure, you can stream 1080p Netflix over the 4G/LTE networks, but you do know you’re paying for your data, right? When you wake up at the end of the month with a ginormous data bill because you decided to use the 4G/LTE on your new iPad, you’ll wonder why you didn’t listen to my recommendation to stay away.
Keep in mind that if you have 4G/LTE on your non-Apple smartphone, you’re moving a lot less data than you would on a new iPad. Because the screen resolution is so much higher on the new iPad, if you want to take full advantage of it, you’ll be eating 4-8 times the data load each month than you would have on a 4G/LTE phone — if not a lot more than that, especially if you get it into your head that the iPad is a laptop replacement.
Reason 5: 4G/LTE doesn’t work in a lot of places
For those living in a major metropolitan area, 4G/LTE is all the rage. But if you happen to stray outside these districts, you’re in a wireless wasteland. All that money you spent on a 4G/LTE iPad won’t do you a lick of good. You’d be just as successful stringing twine between two iPads and shouting into the microphone icon.
Reason 6: The porn issue
Look, someone had to say this, so it might as well be me. Apple has a major thing against porn, wanting its devices to be family friendly. What does that mean for you pervs out there?
Well, if you thought that oh-so-wonderful retina display could be used to render naughty images in super-duper-pervo-vision, you’re wrong. Apple is blocking all the potential apps that would take advantage of the retina display, so go on back down to your Mom’s basement and wait until Samsung brings out a high-res display for one of their Android tablets.
Ewww.
Reason 7: The size
There’s another factor here, and that’s size. The iPad isn’t necessarily the optimum size for reading books or consuming content. It’s far bigger than most pocket books and considerably smaller than most magazines. Further, the new iPad is 7% thicker than the iPad 2 and 8% heavier.
There is a reason that Amazon brought out the Kindle Fire in a 7-inch form-factor. It’s a lot easier to read books using a smaller, lighter display.
Reason 8: iPad 2 accessories won’t necessarily work
Because the new iPad is just slightly bigger than the iPad 2, you’ll need to be very careful when selecting accessories to buy with it, in particular sleek cases and sleeves. Not everything you get will fit — and beware unscrupulous vendors trying to dump old inventory by simply relabeling it as “new iPad compatible”.
Reason 9: It’s still not 16×9
Amazingly, the new iPad, with it’s oh-so-revolutionary retina display, still presents information in an obsolete 4×3 format. Virtually no TV, and no monitor (and certainly no movie) is presented in 4×3 format anymore. That stuff went out years ago.
That means that if you want to use the super-sexy retina display to watch a 1080p movie, you’re either going to be forced to watch the movie in letterbox form, using the incredible capability of the retina display to display black bars — or you’ll have to crop off the sides of the movie to see the detail in full screen.
Either way, the 4×3 format of the iPad’s display is disturbingly anachronistic.
Reasons 10-16: Still limited after all these years
Many of the iPad’s limitations still exist, even three revisions into what’s clearly a highly successful design. As much mainstream adoption of the iPad as there’s been, the device is still spectacularly limited in some important areas:
Yes, I’ve ordered one
We’re big on disclosures here at ZDNet, so I’ll disclose that I did order a new iPad. I didn’t buy the iPad 2 and although I have very little use for my old iPad 1 (I use it in the teleprompter, and that’s all), I bought the new model because I felt that if I’m going to write about it, I need to have one here.
But I’ll be honest. If I didn’t have an editorial need to cover the thing, I never would have bought one. I much prefer real computers that can be used to do real work.
Whenever you read your email, or update your Facebook page, or check your bank statement, there are dozens of points at which potential adversaries can intercept your Internet traffic. By using Tor to anonymize your traffic and HTTPS to encrypt it, you gain considerable protection, most notably against eavesdroppers on your wifi network and eavesdroppers on the network between you and the site you are accessing. But these tools have important limitations: your ISP and the website you are visiting still see some identifying information about you, which could be made available to a lawyer with a subpoena or a policeman with a warrant.
Protecting your security and anonymity against real-time government wiretapping is considerably more difficult. In a country where ISPs are controlled by the government or vulnerable to government bullying, Internet users should be especially aware of what kinds of information is still visible to ISPs and may be subject to government surveillance. To a lesser degree, websites may be subject to the same kinds of government bullying and may be compelled to give up information about their customers.
Finally, government agencies with particularly vast resources, such as the NSA, may be able to circumvent the protection provided by Tor through what is known as the “Global Network Adversary” attack. If the Global Network Adversary (GNA) controls the relay through which you enter the Tor network and the relay through which you exit, the GNA can correlate the size and timing of your traffic to identify you on the Tor network. In this scenario, the GNA will have the origin and destination of your traffic, but if you are using HTTPS, they will not be able to read the content. You can help combat the GNA by running a Tor relay, adding to the strength and diversity of the Tor network.
EFF has put together an interactive graphic to explain the ways in which HTTPS and Tor work together to provide you with certain kinds of protection against a variety of potential adversaries. Click on the image to try it out.
