Google Instant is supposed to give you instant access to results, through the magic of Ajax, and is able to save you 2-5 seconds per search.

Google Instant

How to access Google Instant even if it is not available to your country

According to Google, this feature is only available to other parts of the world if you are logged into Google’s network, Gmail, for example. However, there are always more than one way to dunk a skinned cat into your coffee, like my mother used to say.

If you’re from other parts of the world, like Malaysia, for example, instead of keying in http://www.google.com, which will automatically redirect you to the .my local site, try typing in http://www.google.com/ncr (No Country Redirect) or http://www.google.com/en (Google in English).

How Do I Know That This Is Working?
As a Demo, key in “Malaysia” in the search box. Do it NOW!
As soon as you keyed in “M” on Google’s search box on the Search page, you will immediately be taken to  Google’s “Results” page, where you can see results for “Mapquest” being generated as Google’s powerful computers begin to read your mind.
By the time you keyed in “Mal”, you will notice that the results have changed to “Malwarebytes”, as Google Instant attempts to follow your wandering thoughts. Spooky, isn’t it? :/

$%^&$ It’s Not Working! (…and I am from the US, UK or one of the supported countries)
Calm down! This probably means that you are using an older browser, which is not supported by Google Instant.
So far, Google Instant is available for: Chrome v5 or 6, Firefox v3, Safari v5 for Mac and Internet Explorer v8. For Opera users, you will need to get your browser to pretend to be any one of these browsers.

If you still cannot get it to work, try going to http://www.google.com/instant/  which will let you know if it detects incompatibility with your browser. There is also a FAQ there.

And if you still cannot, feel free vent your frustration in the comments area below. :/

To Get This To Work From Your Default Browser’s Search Bar
You will also need to set http://www.google.com/ncr as the homepage in your favorite browser so that you can have access to this feature from the browser’s Search Bar. Otherwise, you will be redirected to your country’s page when you hit the ENTER key.

Note that you will still need to hit ENTER from the Search Bar to take you to Google’s Search page, after which your Google Instant browsing experience will begin.

To have it really working from the Search Bar, you will have to wait a while longer. A working version is in the works and already available for the development version of Google Chrome.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go get myself some coffee …

How to locate explorer.exe

"Do you want to end explorer.exe?"

How To Kill Windows Explorer (Windows 7/Vista/XP):
Press Ctrl-Shift-Esc (-Ctrl-Alt-Del no longer brings up the Task Manager in Windows 7, it brings up an interim screen) to bring up the Task Manager and click on the Processes tab, then find all instances of explorer.exe and press “End Process” to kill them.
After killing Windows Explorer, you will notice that the taskbar has disappeared, and you will no longer have any access to the Start Menu. The only access you have is the Task Manager itself.

Note: If after you kill Windows Explorer, you get something like “Dr Watson (Not Responding)”, kill it as well.

Press "Enter" to restart explorer.exe

How To Restart Windows Explorer (Windows 7/Vista/XP):
Press Ctrl-Shift-Esc (/Ctrl-Alt-Del) to bring up the Windows Task Manager, then from the menu, click on File > New Task (Run …), type in “explorer” and the Windows taskbar should regenerate itself before your eyes. You will now have Start Menu access and everything is back to normal.

Homework:

You can easily practise this now by following the steps above to kill Windows Explorer, then restart it again. As a precaution, save your work before doing this but generally Windows is more resilient to explorer crashes these days compared to the days of Windows 95, so the crash itself should not take down other running applications.

Disclaimer: In a less than perfect Windows installation, killing Windows Explorer may cause system instability, and causes other applications to crash. So, try this on your system if you have a stable system that you have confidence in. You are on your own in this, be warned.

Read the disclaimer above, cross your fingers, and do this at least once as HOMEWORK, so that you can remember how to apply this when the real thing happens. Repeat as many times as necessary – especially if you are a slow learner.

This requires you to have a certain amount of Windows skill, esp Regedit knowledge for the part that calls for it.
*Note that by using Regedit – though it has been built into every Windows since Windows 95 – is not encouraged by Microsoft, which has disclaimed all responsibility if you messed up your Windows with it. If using this rendered your computer into a giant door stopper, be prepared to swear to your manufacturer’s and Microsoft’s tech support that you have never heard of or know anything about it. Don’t bug us either as we had already warned you.

Also, before you do this, check that the particular program which startup you want disabled has no options to disable auto startup anywhere within its program’s Options or Preferences, or in the system tray when you right click on its icon.

I am sure you are aware that Windows programs NORMALLY start up automatically by having:
a) their program shortcuts in Start > Programs > Startup folder OR
b) a String Value in the Registry, especially under the “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run” keys

So for:
Program which has its startup shortcut in the Startup folder:
1. Create a “Startup_Disabled” folder.
2. Go to Start > All Programs, right click “Explore All Users”.
3. On the right pane, right click and select “New Folder”. Name it “Startup_Disabled” or anything you want.
4. To prevent programs from starting up: From the Start Menu, just navigate to
Start > All Programs > Startup, left click and hold the link of the program-to-be-disabled, and drag the it over to the Startup_Disabled folder and then release the mouse button.

Program which has its startup string value in the Run registry keys:
1. In the registry, Create a Run_Disabled key for where you can find its startup string:
Depending on your Windows version, the keys below will be different; but generally the idea is to create a “_Disabled key” for each string you want to disable. No need to create the “_Disabled” keys for all the Run folders, just create on-demand for the key where the string you want to disable resides in, whether in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run OR
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce OR
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce OR
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce OR

eg. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run_Disabled

2. Put all the links you want to disable inside this key.
Windows will only check the Run key for auto startup programs and will be unaware of the existence of the Run_Disabled key.

Why I don’t use msconfig to do this, you asked?
Cause it requires a restart and your computer will be eternally on “Selective Startup” after this, which slows down the system.
Also, it is designed to be a troubleshooting tool, not for permanent use. There are programs out there that make doing this easier but this is my quick fix method without installing any program to do this.

Personally, I have Gladinet and Bluetooth as permanent residents here in my _Disabled folder as I rarely use them but for the one or two times when I really need to use them, I just re-enable them here. And when you get used to doing things this way, you’ll find that you can also copy a registry autostart string, make it into a shortcut in Startup_Disabled folder, and then move or even delete the original registry key. To enable it, just move it the to Startup folder. It’s easier to check Startup_Disabled folder than to go through all the registry keys.

The official music for this article is here, courtesy of The Rolling Stones. No, I am not really a big fan but strangely this great proggie by the name of Taskbar Shuffle reminds me of this long forgotten song. So turn up the volume and let Mick Jagger and gang take you back to a point in time when TVs rule and the internet was unheard of, while you read this short review.

Taskbar Shuffle v2.5
Type: Freeware
OS: Windows Vista/XP/2000/NT/9x
Note: Not for Windows 7, as taskbar shuffling is already a feature.
Homepage: http://nerdcave.webs.com/
Download: http://nerdcave.webs.com/
Size: 505KB (taskbar_shuffle_2.5.zip, portable version)

This program has 2 functions actually – shuffle the taskbar and rearrange the icons in the system tray.
The portable (non-installer) version’s  zipped file is just 505KB, so it gets extra points for being small.

Do The Taskbar Shuffle: “You move it to the right, yeah!”
If you’re on Windows XP or Vista (Why?), and you are jealous of Ubuntu users who can switch programs on the taskbar at will while yours are stuck into place like a nail in the wood, then you should really have a look at this nifty thingie.
I’d been using it for a while now and it does its job well, doesn’t crash, doesn’t use much resources and doesn’t need a system tray icon to announce itself. All the signs of a very well written program.

It’s especially useful after a Windows Explorer crash when you notice that programs aren’t in the sequence you opened them. Don’t you just hate that? At least, I do. Which is why I got hold of this thing – to have it enforce a pecking order in my taskbar and make Windows Explorer crashes tolerable.

And it also makes my Windows XP a bit like Windows 7.

How to use it? Easy!
You click and hold the mouse button on the program you want to move in the taskbar, and then you move it to the left or right as Mick Jagger sang in the song. That’s why we have his song playing in the background.

Pros:
-It has non-installer version, ie it’s portable! (One extra Kong for this!)
-It is tiny
-It can also rearrange icons in your system tray (which I’d just notice, while writing this!)

Cons:
-It does not auto play Harlem Shuffle in the background.

Final Score:

Rating: 4.5 Little Kongs

Sometimes, you really need to keep things simple. You don’t really want the full power of a Microsoft Outlook, Windows Mail, Outlook Express or Mozilla Thunderbird to handle the simple job of shooting an email as these programs tend to be overloaded.

This is when promoting Gmail to the lofty position of default email client seems to be an attractive alternative as it opens up pretty fast for a web application. Unless, you really have a slow connection, or heaven forbid, a dial up connection – which is a relic of the last millenium in this time and age.

How to make Gmail your default email client?

For Google Talk users:
Double click on the Google Talk icon in the system tray and click on the Settings link, then check the “Open Gmail when I click on email links” box in the Settings window. “OK” and done!

For Gmail Notifier users (Not compatible with Google Toolbar):
Right click on its system tray icon, select the Options menu and tick the box next to “Use Gmail for internet mailto: links”.
Select your favorite browser in the drop down menu. Done!

TIP: You may get an error stating “Cannot connect to your mailbox. Service temporarily unavailable.” which is caused by a bug in the Gmail Notifier for those of you who have “Browser connection: Always use https” selected under “Gmail > Settings > General (tab)”.

IF so,
1. Download this registry patch from Google support.
2. Unzip and double click on the file called notifier_https.reg to install it. Or, right click and select “Merge”.
4. Click ‘yes’ to confirm that you want to add the information to the registry.
5. Close and restart the Gmail Notifier.
The other file, notifier_https_undo.reg is to delete the registry key if you ever need to uninstall it.
Done!

For Mozilla Firefox users

If you don’t have the programs above, and for some reasons don’t want to install them either, you can still try the mod below, but only if you use Firefox.

1. Type ‘javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(“mailto”,”https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s”,”Gmail”)‘ minus the outermost quotation marks into the address bar.
Take out the ‘s’ from ‘https’ if you don’t use https for Gmail.
Press Enter.

2. If you see “Add Gmail (mail.google.com) as an application for mailto links” at top of your browser below the address bar, click on the “Add Application” button.

If you don’t: From the top menu, go into “Tools” > “Options” (or “Firefox” > “Preferences” for Mac users), select the “Applications” tab. Find “mailto” and select “Use Gmail”.
Done!

A Final Word

Personally, I am a Google Talk user, so the choice was easy for me; but if I don’t have either Google proggies installed, I would go for the Firefox option. I would also choose Gmail Notifier last as it always have an unnecessary pop-up to prompt me for connection to Gmail during startup.

PDF is a great format for computers, but on the limited screen of a phone, they are hopeless and very hard to navigate, requiring lots of panning around and waiting for the phone to ‘redraw’ every time you pan the view. I started my quest to hunt for the best ebook readers for smartphones and this is the results.

If you are on the iPhone OS platform (ala iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone), things are extremely simple for you. Simply download the Stanza app, which includes a desktop client. From here on, everytime you turn on your iPhone and connect to your home network, launch Stanza on your phone and computer and they will connect to each other automagically. After that, just click and drop your favourite books from your desktop and it will automatically upload them to your iPhone. It’s  a really genius interface and makes transferring books a painless and near foolproof process.

Stanza is able to convert almost any text medium, including PDF, RTF, MS Office, ePub and a host of other formats.

If you are on Android, things are a bit tougher. Currently my favourite eBook reader app for Android is Aldiko, which performs pretty much the same functions as Stanza on the iPhone. However, Aldiko lacks a desktop client, so you can only get books either through the Aldiko store or by copying it into your phone memory. Aldiko only supports the ePub format, so if you have any other formats, you will need to find a converter for it.

For other smartphones such as Blackberry and Symbian, there are also plenty of ePub readers out there and it should be no problems getting one.

One reason why I prefer the ePub format is because this format will be the future de facto standard for electronic books. It is currently supported by most, if not all, major eBook readers such as the Amazon Kindle, Hanlin and its clones, the Barnes & Noble Nook and so on. Converting your collection over to ePub now ensures future compatibility and less hassle.

Which brings the topic to ePub converters. Stanza does a wonderful job converting all sorts of format into ePub for its iPhone software and the ease of use makes it the top choice converter if you are on the iPhone platform. For Android and other platforms, your best bet is Calibre, an open source Ebook Manager which comes with a powerful converter. Fans say the conversion from Calibre is of higher quality than Stanza, and supports graphics.

Using Calibre is pretty simple, you just install it and start adding books into its database. There is a Convert button which you can click to convert from almost any format to ePub. Once conversion is done, you can choose to transfer it to your phone’s memory. On the iPhone, unless you have jailbroken it, copying is not so easily done as the computer does not detect the iPhone as a Mass Storage device, so you are better off using Stanza’s automated functions.

Enjoy carrying your library in your pocket! And not just your music library, but books as well.

Truth or lie?

And If you have time to kill, they are pretty interesting read.

Explanation:

Conclusion:

But, YOU, my dear reader, is more savvy than that. You know that emails that

-ask to be forwarded to as many people as possible (esp when they are religious in nature)

NEVER send them to your friends if you don’t want them recommending you for vacancies at POS Malaysia. This habit of deleting emails alone, practiced often, will make you appear more internet savvy among your friends!

For those payware apologists who want to argue that paid ones work better, note that 2 of the biggest Antiviruses – N**ton and Syman*** are hated by lots of IT people, including yours truly, for hogging resources on our computers. They were good back in 1998 but a couple of years back, lots of IT people find that removing them from Vista machines helped make Vista usable.

Just recently, I’d discovered that AVG has been doing a lot of unnecessary read/write in my computer.

Avgchsvx.exe is AVG’s Cache Server Process and as far as I know (after checking online), it is not necessary at all to catch viruses. It is supposed to be used to help speed up the AVG virus scanning but since it is a new addition in AVG ver 9, you can think of it as a BETA addition being tested out on the unsuspecting masses.

Which is why I decided to remove AVG from my Windows partition for the time being. So for now, for my main OS, I’ll be using Avira.

Avira's highest read/write io

And this brings me to the reason why Avira was not in my main OS – I REALLY HATE that once-a-day ad! If that and its splash screen are the reasons why you don’t use it too, here’s how to get rid of them:

To disable the once-a-day pop-up surprise:

For Windows XP Pro, Vista Business/Ultimate/Enterprise and Windows 7:

-Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative tools > Local security policy.

-Right click “Software Restriction Policies”, choose “New Software Restriction Policies.”

(Skip if there are sub folders in “Software Restriction Policies” already).

-Right-click “Additional Rules” > “New Path Rule …”.

-Click “Browse” and find “C:\Program Files\Avira\AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic\” (or wherever you have it installed), and select avnotify.exe.

-Set the security level to “Disallowed” > “Apply” > “Ok”.

(I do not have space for other Windows versions, search Google for “disable Avira ad + [your Windows version]” if yours is not covered here, esp if you are using Home or Starter editions)

To disable the splash screen:

-Open Regedit* and navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run].

-In the right pane double-click avgnt and add /ns at the end of the path (ex. /min /ns).

(This was /nosplash prior to version 9).

*Regedit is Microsoft’s Registry Editor and just running this thing means that your computer will not be supported by Microsoft in the event of booting problems or whatever. If you have not heard of it and have to ask how to run it , I suggest that you get someone more knowledgeable to help you – like your 13 year old – for example.

ClamWin (Windows version of ClamAV)

While we’re still on the subject of antiviruses, you may also want to try out:

-I liked it for its portability. I have it on USB and also synchronized across the internet (between work and home) as it does not need to be installed; the only antivirus I know which have this characteristic.

-I also use it (ClamAV) in Linux servers to prevent Windows clients computers from getting infected.

-It’s scanning is probably not as good as the rest but it is open source (FREE!); and though it used to lack (a usable) on-access scanner, it has one now, developed for it by a third party. Check it out here, it’s called Clam Sentinel.

If you’re a Windows user who occasionally (pretends to) dabble in Linux, and has forgotten how to upgrade, here it is for you in a concise and easy-to-follow manner.

Firstly, this article is only about how to upgrade from within Ubuntu, and it’s only for the DESKTOP (NOT Server!) version. If you have a version prior to 9.10; you will need to progressively upgrade to the next higher version before upgrading to 10.04. You really can’t jump versions here.

Example: Upgrade 8.10 > 9.04 > 9.10 > 10.04 (No jumps allowed!)
*(Note that 10 [in 10.04] means 2010 and 04 means month 4. Ubuntu has always been designed to be released on a 6-month development cycle).

If you have slow internet connection OR cannot free at least 1488MB of hard disk space and need to do an offline upgrade, there is a good article here on this subject.

Also, you should realize that this is Beta software, so only upgrade now if you know how to save yourself in case something go wrong. Otherwise, wait for the stable release in 3 weeks time.

Pre-Upgrade:
-Ensure that you have at least 1488MB of free space in your “File System” folder.
Clean up your system to free up some space especially if you don’t have much space available.
To remove old installation setup packages and dependencies, in a Terminal window (From the top menu, Applications > Accessories > Terminal), type in:
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get autoremove
-Empty the trash.
(If you can’t find the space and especially if yours is a Windows (WUBI) installation of Ubuntu, consider doing the Offline Upgrade mentioned above which requires only about 800 MB of space as you will be saving a 650MB chunk of ISO file elsewhere on your hard drive).

Update Manager

-Update your 9.10 to the latest available updates.
-Run Update Manager (From the top menu, System > Administration > Update Manager) and press “Check” to check for Updates, followed by “Install Updates” to get your system up-to-date.

Next, take a deep breath, cross your fingers, touch wood and proceed to:

Upgrading to Stable version (after April 29, 2010):
(At the time of writing this article, the Stable version is not out yet; it will only be out on April 29, 2010; so skip this and go to the Beta version below).

"New distribution release '10.04' is available"

Stay on Update Manager, press “Check” again and you should see “New distribution release ’10.04′ is available”. Click “Upgrade” and proceed according to instructions on the screen.
OR
Upgrading to Beta version:

Run Application pop-up

1. Press Alt + F2 to open the Run Application pop-up window.
2. Type “update-manager -d” (without the quotes) to enable Beta version upgrade.

3. Update Manager will now run and do some checking and then display: “New distribution release ’10.04′ is available”. Click “Upgrade” and follow the on-screen instructions.

So far so good ...

Aaaaaaargh!!!!!

4. If you don’t hit upon any show stopper, you should be able to upgrade easily.

Finally, pat yourself on the back. You’d just upgraded to the latest and greatest version of a very good OS and did not even have to go out and buy the (pirated?) CD.
Among other improvements, you should expect faster boot-up times and more exciting colors than brown. And some bugs too! Enjoy!

New desktop but same old boring brown

PS: I was forced to abort this and do the Offline Upgrade as I can only free about 1200 MB of space after trying out all sorts of things including removing Open Office files, and deleting foreign language files and fonts. This is because I only have about 3.5 GB of space on my hard disk for Ubuntu.
PPS: Upon the first boot-up, the first color I see is still brown.

I changed this to a much nicer and lighter shade of brown, IMMHO

This particular problem is quite nasty. It only happened to me recently and here are some tips to overcome it, although it cannot be 100% solved.

Your computer may be suffering from this malaise without you being aware of it.

Recently I noticed that my computer has slowed down considerably. The problem was particularly acute when I was playing a certain Facebook Flash game in Google Chrome. Blaming the problem on an unoptimized Flash game running on Google Chrome, I did not bother fixing it until it got more severe. Okay – until a cute female friend asked for my help…. that’s when I decided that it’s really a problem worth looking into

The Cause

So I ran the game in Firefox and Internet Explorer and found out that the problem is not any fault of Google’s. Investigating further, I finally followed the trail to some sites where people congregated and compared notes on Adobe Flash 9 and 10, like this one here.

And I found out that there are so many tormented souls like me out there!

Others have noticed this sluggishness running Youtube videos. These people have 3 GHz cpus and 4 GB memory but they have the same problem. Youtube is known to work fine in mobile devices running Firefox in only 256MB of available memory space – try googling Nokia N900 – so it cannot be due to people’s computer being old and unable to deal with Adobe’s Flash requirements.

Many have speculated that Adobe Flash’s resource hogging is due to Adobe Flash being a poorly written program, with unoptimized code. Some even say that this is a new version of the Microsoft-Intel conspiracy theory where these giant corporations worked together, to get us to fork out more of our hard-earned money so that we have to buy more computers and help the IT industry prosper.

The Fix:

1. Uninstall Adobe Flash

Really important! You can skip step 2 but not this!

2. Get the beta version, Adobe Flash 10.1 Beta.

If you don’t want to run this beta version, then reinstall the current version at http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/. Just remember NOT to get the free McAfee security app.

After the uninstalling and reinstalling, I find that my Facebook game is more responsive now – my friend says hers is playable now and my Facebook gaming life has improved – I get to spend as little time on it as possible

I won’t say that it’s 100% solved – I still notice that Adobe Flash leaks memory frequently in Firefox and Google Chrome. To resolve this, feel free to restart the slow responding browser or wait for my next article on how to identify and close the memory leak.

Hopefully, this short guide here can solve your problem. If not, then your problem may be a different one or is more severe than this and I can’t really help you but direct you to this article and see for yourself that you are not alone in this.

Happy gaming!