The Blue Screen of death has been a geeks favorite template for screensavers, websites, photos, software, and more.

Get this great screensaver made by Sysinternals (Microsoft) and enjoy the geekyness.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897558.aspx

This one has some added features that you won’t find in any other theme!

http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,23343.0.html

I also have another theme that I released some time ago.

 http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,15640.0.html

Cobian Backup

After recommending SyncBack SE in our last app roundup, our readers turned us onto Cobian, an independently-developed backup utility that is as elegant as it is powerful. Cobian lets you schedule backups of folders and drives (yes, even networked ones) to encrypted archives. You can select the frequency of backups, the type of backups (incremental or differential), encryption algorithm, and compression format (Zip and 7z are supported). Backups can be stored onto physical disks, USB keys, or networked drives. The best part is that retrieving files is a cinch—just browse the backup with your preferred archiving program, like 7-Zip.

CCleaner

It’s easily the most popular registry-cleaning utility; though CCleaner will also purge your system of unwanted temporary files, memory dumps, and even system restore points. The latest version will let you manage start-up programs and services as well.

Dropbox

Since its introduction last year, Dropbox has been  a perennial addition to our must-have software lists. So why does it always make the cut? Because it’s a utility that’s simultaneously intuitive, simple, and absolutely kick-ass.

Dropbox monitors a folder on your system, and syncs it with a folder on any other system you have Dropbox installed on, keeping all your important files everywhere you might need them.  Even if you don’t have a second computer you want to sync, Dropbox is a worthy download thanks to its powerful browser interface, which lets you download or upload a file anywhere, and saves a revision history, in case you screw up an important document.

WinDirStat

WinDirStat is a powerful hard drive visualization tool which goes way beyond that tired old disk space pie graph, and gives you a complete, graphical breakdown of what’s eating up all the space on your disk.

You can choose to view this information in tree view form, which shows all your folders in a drill-down format, with bar graphs illustrating how much of each folders total space is comprised by each of its subfolders and files. You can also view your disk as a treemap, which uses colorful, metallic squares to illustrate how every single file on your drive contributes to the overall disk usage figure.

WinRar

Remember WinZip? Well if you do forget it. WinRar is everything you need. You think 7-Zip is cool? Hah.

SpeedFan

It’s 2:30PM, do you know how hot your CPU is? Because your computer does, or it should, anyway—there are sensors built into your motherboard keeping track of various important temperatures, voltages and fan speeds, but good luck getting Windows to tell you what they say. That’s why you need SpeedFan, a free program which tells you all your system temperatures and lets you manage your fan speeds, either manually or in response to temperature changes. It can also display S.M.A.R.T. data, so you can make sure your hard disks aren’t about to break on you. You can receive alerts via email if any of your components are in danger of failure.

ImgBurn

With the release of Windows 7, Microsoft finally addressed a long-standing flaw in their operating system by including an ISO burning program to handle the simple task of creating a physical disc from an image on your hard drive. Unfortunately, Windows XP and Vista users are still left out in the cold if they want to do something as simple as burn their freshly-purchased digital copy of Windows 7 to disc in order to install it.

Enter ImgBurn, a free, powerful program which can burn and image to disc, or make an image from a disc.

Fraps

People who care about gaming hardware care about frames per second. It’s a convenient, practical way to get a quantitative measure of just how much ass you system is kicking. But it’s not always easy to find out what fps you’re getting in games–sometimes it’s in an options menu, sometimes it’s a console commands, and sometimes it’s just not possible. That’s why you need Fraps.

Fraps is a utility which runs in the background and adds a discrete frames per second overlay to any OpenGL or DirectX game you run. It also serves as a convenient video and screenshot tool, although it adds a watermark unless you pay for the full version.

It can be hard to recommend antivirus software, since everyone has different needs. Power-users might need nothing at all, or just a powerful spyware remover to run once in a while, while a total neophyte needs the protection of a full-on paid antivirus suite to keep them from slowing their machine to a crawl. Microsoft Security Essentials is sort of a compromise—it provides decent virus protection in an unintrusive, easy-to-use container at an unbeatable pricepoint: zero dollars.

TrueCrypt

If you want to keep something on your computer secure and/or hidden, there’s no better way to do it than TrueCrypt. TrueCrypt is a lightweight, free utility that can create or mount an encrypted, virtual drive, which your computer treats like a removable hard disk. The encryption on a TrueCrypt drive is as strong as you can get, and the contents of a drive or completely unknowable without the passkey or passfile. The program itself is very small, and can be run without installation, meaning that you can store sensitive files, encrypted on a thumb drive, along with the software necessary to decrypt them.

KeePass

As more and more webservices require us to login every day, password security is becoming a bigger issue than ever. Do you really want to trust your bank account password to all of the latest fad websites? A data breach at one site would mean that all your accounts could be compromised. And if you don’t want to use the same password, how are you going to remember all those passwords without writing them down, which is also dangerous?

Use KeePass. KeePass is a password safe, which generates random, unique passwords for as many sites and programs as you want. When it comes time to login, you just provide keypass with your master password (the only one you have to remember) and it fills in the username and password for you. The whole thing is kept strongly encrypted, so you’re free to keep your password database on your USB drive, without worrying about somebody else decyphering it.

Input Director

A two-monitor setup is great for productivity, but two computers are even better. The only problem is that you have to switch back and forth between two keyboard and two mice, unless you have a KVM switch, which slows you down and adds clutter to your desk. To get the most out of your dual-box setup, consider a virtual KVM, such as Input Director, which allows you to control two computers with one mouse and keyboard, as though it were a normal two-monitor setup. You simply run a client on each of the networked computers, and Input Director makes it so that moving the pointer off the right side of one screen moves it onto the left side of the other. Keyboard input goes to whichever computer currently has the cursor.

Input Director only works on Windows, but if you want to link up computers with different OSes, there’s the also awesome Synergy, which works on Windows, OSX and Linux.

Display Fusion

So you’ve got two monitors—great! Nothing can help out your productivity like a little extra desktop real estate. Except, you’re second screen is really just that—extra space. There’s no taskbar, no way to control the windows currently residing on that screen. You’d think that by now Windows would have addressed this, but they haven’t, and as a result there’s a need for programs like Display Fusion.

Display Fusion lets you manage two computers, with a taskbar and different wallpapers on each. If you use two monitors, this utility is a must.

If you’re the kind of computer user that tries out a lot of apps (and, as you’re reading a best utilities list right now, we’re going to have to assume that you are) you know that every once in a while you just get a stinker—an app that doesn’t do what you thought it would, or anything at all. And what’s worst of all is when that app doesn’t want to leave your system. To take care of those tenacious programs, there’s Revo Uninstaller, which can root out and eliminate all traces of almost any app. Don’t know the name of the app you want to remove? Just set Revo Uninstaller to “Hunter Mode” and click on an app’s GUI to get rid of it.

uTorrent

Sure, BitTorrent gets kind of a bad rap as a transfer protocol for digital pirates, only used for transferring illegal copies of movies, music and games, but there’s really more to it than that. More and more, people are using BitTorrent to make things like game demos, podcasts, and Linux ISOs available, and that means everyone should have a BitTorrent client
We recommend uTorrent, for its small footprint, its exceptional featureset, and its ease-of-use.

Strokeit

Mouse gesture recognition, which allows you to give commands to your computer by moving your mouse in pre-determined patterns, was once only a feature of the few apps that support it natively, such as the Opera browser. With the unfortunately-named Strokeit, you can add that functionality to any of your programs, and to your desktop generally. Strokeit allows you to bind certain gestures to commands within any program, and to define your own gestures. For maximum control, combine Strokeit with autohotkey.

Secunia PSI

Secunia is a program manager, which scans all the programs on your computers, and tells you which ones are out of date and need patching. Not only does this ensure that you’re always using the latest, most powerful version of all of your programs, it’s also an essential security consideration. A major vector for malicious software is older, vulnerable versions of software, such as Adobe’s Acrobat reader. Using Secunia PSI, you can make sure you’re not leaving your front door wide open for cybercrooks.

Process Hacker

Are you still using the old fashioned ctrl-shift-escape Windows task manager? If you are you’re missing out. Process Hacker is an open-source task manager which gives you much more granular control over your system’s processes, allowing you to start, stop, resume and delete services. The default process viewer is color-coded, so you can quickly focus on the processes that are causing problems for your computer, and it can find processes hidden by some rootkits. It also gives you complete control over processes that you normally can’t touch, like those protected by security software or rootkits.

AutoHotkey

Anyone who’s ever seriously played a strategy game know that if you’re actually using your mouse to click on icons, you’re wasting time. For any action that you repeat frequently, learning to use a hotkey instead of opening a menu or clicking on an icon can save you a lot of time in the long run. You can get even more out of your keystrokes by using AutoHotkey, a hotkey manager which lets you map any key to custom functions, macros and scripts.

CPU-Z

If you haven’t used CPU-Z, you’re not an enthusiast. This tiny CPU interrogator has become the standard tool of anyone who thinks they’re a PC expert and wants to, say, query your cousin’s PC to find out what the hell is actually installed in the machine. CPU Z will tell you the model, code name, process, core voltage, stepping and revision number as well as the core speed, FSB and multiplier the PC is running. You can also find out what speed your DRAM is running at and check the SPDs on some machines too.

GPU-Z

Sure, you know you have a Radeon 5970 card, but what do you know about it? If you want something that’ll brace the card for all of its specs, GPU-Z (no relation to CPU-Z) will do the dirty work for you. Offered for free by techpowerup.com, this handy utility will tell you the clocks, the card revision, the number of transistors on the card as well as the process technology used to build the card.

SUPERAntiSpyware / Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

There is no silver bullet when it comes to malware—no one program can purge your computer of every single bit of potentially harmful software. We recommend the one-two punch of SUPErAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. The first has a high detection rate and will run during safe mode, while the latter will run in 64-bit operating systems and clean out anything the first missed.

UDPixel

There’s no downer worse than finding a dead pixel on your desktop monitor or notebook screen. No matter how much you try to ignore or forget about it, it sticks outs like a sore thumb every time you look at the screen. The most you can hope is that the pixel isn’t truly dead, but just stuck. UDPixel is your best chance to reclaiming LCD perfection – it’ll help you detect dead pixels and run rapid color changes to attempt a fix. But we won’t judge you if you’d rather just not know about a dead pixel.

vLite / Ninite

vLite lets you put Windows Vista and 7 on a diet by creating a customized install disc for the OS. You can integrate drivers, hot fixes, and language packs, remove unwanted components, and even include tweaks with your custom install disc. vLite even lets you automate the install process, so you can run the whole setup unattended.

After you’ve in installed your custom build of Windows, Ninite delivers an easy solution to downloading all your favorite programs. Go to the website and click on the apps that you ultimately want to install. When you’re done, Ninite creates a customized executable that downloads and installs these apps for you. Each app is installed with its default settings to its default location–a boon for those who just want a “set it and forget it” dump of all their favorite applications, although picky purists who prefer to tweak an app’s advanced installation options might find themselves slightly disappointed.

FileZilla

It can be tough coming up with a recommendation for something as basic as an FTP client. There are tons of options, they all do what you want them to do (upload and download to an FTP server) , and you don’t really want them to do too much else.

Fortunately, FileZilla is exactly what the doctor ordered: a lightweight, secure FTP client, with just the features you want (such as a list of saved servers) and not bloated with anything else. All that, and it’s an open source project, meaning that it’s free, frequently upgraded, and community-supported.

Windows stop hating. Error….     Um.. SUDO Windows stop hating……

sudo grub

find /boot/grub/stage1

root (hd?,?)

setup (hd0)

quit

If you have any problems let me know, or find this quit tot on ubuntuforums.

Boot Kernel Online

Boot to Ubuntu Live via the internet!!!? No! Its impossible!

Not really. http://boot.kernel.org/ will let you boot to Debian Live, Ubuntu 9.04, Damn Small Linux, Knoppix 5.0.1, and Fedora 11 Live all Online.

Yes hackers, this is a new way to take over the world.

• Ubuntu live CD
• Internet Connection
• Broken Windows MBR
• Hard rock and Dr. Pepper

Download ms-sys from http://packages.debian.org/etch/ms-sys and install

run fdisk –l to get a list of HDD’s

/dev/sda1 * 1 3647 29294496 7 HPFS/NTFS

fix with ms-sys –m /dev/sda

Now smash that Dr. Pepper can on your head!

The system works with two PCs. One will connect to the VPN and the other will download torrent data. Once a download is finished the VPN client system will move the data over to your NAS. This will only work if you have setup a VPN client already and shared out the connection with ICS. If you are not sure then check out my blog entry on Forcing Traffic though a VPN. This example network is very secure and very easy to setup.

In a previous post I showed you how to force traffic via VPN, well based on that I created a virtual segmented network just for torrent downloading. Here is what I did.

Create a Server that will connect to the VPN server. This server needs at least 2 NICs because it will be on the boarder of two networks. For an example I will say NIC 0 is on 192.168.1.0 and NIC 1 is on 192.168.0.0. This box will need internet access to keep a live connection to the VPN server.

You can create a simple service to auto connect to the VPN.

@ECHO OFF

RASDIAL “the_name_of_your_VPN_connection” User Pass

NET STOP “The name of the service running this batch”

This will run as a service and auto connect to your VPN. Once it connects to the VPN it will kill the service to save RAM. I suggest delaying the start of this service by at least 2 mins to let the network on the box come up other wise you will have errors and the VPN connection will not start. Also run the service under your credentials to avoid other problems.

Now my VPN client is also the box that will collect complete torrent data and move it to a central server, my NAS. It will move the complete torrent data from the isolated network (VPN) to the other network with direct internet access, as an example.

A python script will run a batch file to complete high level file manipulation. I used python for the loop:

import os, time, sys

while(True):

os.system(“Windows_batch_file”)

time.sleep(300)

And the windows batch file will move data, here is a simple example:

delete_files_by_extension_script

xcopy “source\*.*” “\\dest\to\NAS” /E /C /F /R /Y

del /F /S /Q “source”

rmdir /S /Q “source”

mkdir “source”

This will copy it over and then delete all directories recursively and then recreate the source. Now the delete_files_by_extension is a simple way to remove extra data that is not needed. Take a look at this simple vbs file that will remove files by extension:

OPTION EXPLICIT

DIM strExtensionToDelete,strFolder

DIM objFSO, MaxAge, IncludeSubFolders

srtFolder = “Source”

includeSubfodlers = true

strExtensionToDelete = “torrent”

maxAge  = 1

set objFSO = createobject(Scripting.FileSystemObject”)

DeleteFiles strFolder,strExtensionsToDelete, maxAge, includeSubFolders

wscript.echo “Finished”

sub DeleteFiles(byval strDirectory,byval strExtensionsToDelete,byval maxAge,includeSubFolders)

DIM objFolder, objSubFolder, objFile

DIM strExt

set objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(strDirectory)

for each objFile in objFolder.Files

for each strExt in SPLIT(UCASE(strExtensionToDelete),”,”)

if RIGHT(UCASE(objFile.Path),LEN(strExt)+1) = “.” & strExt then

if ObjFile.DateLastModified < (Now – MaxAge) THEN

wscript.echo “Deleting:” & objFile.Path

objFile.Delete

exit for

END IF

end if

next

next

if includeSubFolders = true then

for each objSubFolder in objFolder.SubFolders

DeleteFiles objSubFolder.Path,StrExtensionsToDelete,maxAge, includeSubFolders

next

end if

end sub

If you run the script as a service take out the msgBoxes or have them close after a couple seconds.

Now on the second box setup your favorite torrent client. Have the client move completed torrent data to a share on the VPN client, the box that connects to the VPN. That way the data will be moved from network to the other. I would also run peer guardian as a service on the torrent downloader.

CONCLUSION

You have now used two computers to securely download torrents. The reason why you use two PCs and two networks is to ensure that your torrent traffic doesn’t bleed over to a network with direct access. One is dedicated to downloading files and the other is responsible for connecting to the VPN and move your complete downloads to your NAS for you.

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We leave lights on and fans on all day but we don’t get to benefit 100 percent of the energy being used. So why not automate lights and fans to only be on when you are present in a room? I present the Motion Detector.

Now my fans turn on when I enter and turn off when I leave. This particular model found at Home Depot will check for your presence every 15 seconds till 15 minutes. You can even force it on and off like a regular switch.  Parts will cost about the same as the yearly operation cost, from there its all savings.

I wonder if I can do the same thing for my for my desktop….