AdityaKar

Hey did anyone notice? In the last Google Earth database update 10+ Indian cities have been added to high resolution!! Which means if you live in one of those cities you have a great time checking out your neighborhood from 700 miles above! Also I noticed my Home in Delhi has got an even higher resolution! And generally the images are brighter and definitely newer! Enjoy Google Earth!Cities upgraded: chandigarh, bhopal, Indore, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, near Surat, near Nasik, Bhavnagar, a bit of Kolkata, and many patches in Gujarat.There are more, I haven't seen all. Anyways if your city is not in high-res don't worry, coz even smaller towns have got a better resolution now!Another significant change is that the global resolution i.e images for other parts of the world are now improved to 15 metres per pixel. Earlier it was 1Km/pixel. Which means even if your city is not in high-res you can still see buildings and all.Man I need to buy a faster internet connection now!

....You can select a custom theme to display in the chat dialog. There are five default themes. I think you can download other themes, but I'm not sure where. They are coded with CSS, so you can also create your own. However, I'm unable to find the themes folder on my computer, so I don't know what the code looks like .
....

The Themes folder is located in "C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Google Talk\themes" where C: is your Windows drive.

Installing this new version of Google talk was a little strange coz it installed over the old version automatically without even displaying a single dialog box or license agreement or anything. Considering that it is a testing version it should hv atleast displayed a warning message. Anyway the new version of Google Talk looks better than its plain vanilla predecessor. Though there is still some time before Google Talk matures to the same level as Yahoo and MSN Messenger. I hope it will have an offline message feature also soon. Currently I use Google Talk only coz of its Voice Calls feature which has a superior quality than Y! Messenger's voice calls.

Hi facc! First tell me which version of internet explorer you are using and if you are using any pop-up blocking toolbar or not? Try the following and check after every step if your problem is rectified:1.)Disable or uninstall any such toolbar(Yahoo Companion, Google toolbar, etc) if you have and then check if the problem is solved. 2.)Get the latest patches for IE from Windows Update or Enable Automatic Updates.3.)IE7 is still in beta stage and if you are using it then revert back to IE6 and then see if the problem is rectified.4.)You can also try this: Go to the Tools menu option in IE and then go to Internet Options> Advanced> Browsing> and uncheck "Reuse windows for launching shortcuts" and click Apply.5.)Go to Advanced again in Internet Options and uncheck "Enable third-party browser extensions (requires restart)". Click Apply.Hope this helps.

Ok when I say small I mean in size and not the duration of the game and here I'm not talking about old 2D DOS based game either. So tell me what do you think would be the minimum size of a 3D game with high quality detailed graphics, dynamic lighting, texture filtering, bump-mapping, etc., in short almost equivalent graphics to DOOM3! Atleast few hundred MBs you would guess, right?

Now read this: .kkrieger is a game with graphics equivalent to any new generation 3D shooter, yet with a size of only 96KB! Yes thats right, its KB not MB!

Though it comes with a catch, the official requirements are:

A 1.5GHz pentium 3 / athlon or faster.

512MB of RAM.

A GeForce4Ti (or higher) or ATI Radeon8500 (or higher) graphics card supporting pixel shaders 1.3, preferably with 128MB or more of VRAM.

Sound Card

DirectX 9.0b.

 

Which might seem absurd considering the size of the game, but thats the truth. Thought the game ran fine on my PC with 256MB RAM. But it took a hell lot of time to load.

And don't worry its not a prank or malicious program, I tried it out myself. Here's a screenshot taken on my PC:

The size of the screen shot is actual larger than the size of the game itself!!

Try it for yourself: Find out more Here

snipped 

I have a laptop and was wondering if there are any video cards that can fit into laptops. If anyone knows of any than please reply to this.Thanx

Well it is not usually possible to upgrade graphics cards in laptops. The systemboard is so tightly integrated that its prohibitavely expensive, and mostly never done, consequently the 3rd party market for laptop graphics cards never really developed. The answer usually is to upgrade. Though it might be possible to upgrade using a PCMCIA graphics card but I don't know of a graphics adapter which can run from the PCMCIA port.

Is there any program whaich can separate the data on 2 layers of a duel layer DVD and then make 2 single layer DVDs out of it? this without using any software like movie cutter etc. because using such softwares means editing / tempering with the data and is not legal.

 

You can use Elaborate Bytes CloneDVD2 or CloneDVD.net's CloneDVD (its a coincidence that both utilities have the same title )

Most of the movie DVDs available are in DVD9 format(8.4GB) and they contain movie extras such as trailers, making, etc. which nobody has any interest in watching. But its provided just to justify the overpriced DVDs. And in some other cases, like TV serial collections available on DVD, it contains upto 24 episodes on a single DVD. But presently all the Blank DVDs available are DVD5(4.7GB). But CloneDVD(both of them) lets you select which tracks or episodes and soundtracks you want to retain and even compresses it so that the resulting DVD image fits into 4.7GB. In case you want to retain the entire DVD contents, it can split it into 2 DVD5s while retaining the DVD menu. It is one of the best DVD copy utilities available out there.

 

Elaborate Bytes CloneDVD2 trial version is available here.

Get CloneDVD.net's CloneDVD here.

My system specs:AMD AthlonXP 2000+MSI KT4V Motherboard(KT400 chipset)256MB DDR RAM160GB Seagate 7200RPM HDDRealtek onboard 5.1ch SoundcardGeForceFX 5700 256MB Graphic cardLogitech RumblePad 217" LG StudioworksNEC 16x Dual-Layer DVD WriterSamsung 52x CD WriterIBM Webcam PROD-Link 502T ADSL RouterWindowsXP PRO SP2

In this tutorial I will cover :

 

1. Integrating WinXP bootable CD with SP2

2. Adding Post SP2 updates

3. Creating answer file

4. Customising WinXP setup process

5. Adding ur own programs to get installed automatically.

 

For starters these are the programs / files you will need, so go on and download them.

 

1. Your WinXP CD

2. Win XP SP2 -- get it here

3. Get all Post SP2 updates from here. I will work with the Full version of update pack.

4. Get latest version of nLite from here

5. Windows Media Player 10 (Optional)

 

These are the basic things to start with.

 

Now I will tell you about how to create a plain Windows XP Service Pack 2 bootable CD.

 

If you have WinXP SP2 bootable CD, you may skip this process and go straight to Integrating RyanVM's Post SP2 updates and Windows Media Player 10.

If you are not sure about which version of WinXP setup you have, please continue with the following steps:

You will need a lot of free space for this process. Please make sure you have around 2 GB of free space on your drive. Now copy the content of your Windows XP installation CD (all files and folders) to a new folder on the drive, which has atleast the given amount of free space.

Install nLite. You will need .NET framework to run it. You can get the .NET framework runtimes from the download page of nLite. [Link given in 1st post.

Start nLite. After welcome screen, it ill ask for tasks selection. Since we are creating a plain WinXP bootable CD with SP2 integrated, select only

 

* Integrate a Service Pack and

* Create a Bootable CD.

On the next screen, select the source of your WinXP Setup files - the folder where u put all files from XP CD. (While nLite supports files directly from CD, it will then copy all files to HDD so better why not do that beforehand?)

nLite will detect the version of XP setup files and built version. If you don't have WinXP SP2 then continue to next step. If you have SP2 but built less than 2180 then u have a WinXP SP2 beta integrated, you cant use such CD to integrate SP2 Final. If your setup is detected as WinXP SP2 built 2180 then you have a WinXP SP2 setup files, you can skip next steps and directly move on to Create ISO task.

Integrating SP2 : On next screen, browse to the WinXP SP2 file you downloaded.

It may take around 15 minutes for the integration to complete. These are the screens while integration is going on.

 

SP2 getting extracted:

 

SP2 getting integrated:

After integrating SP2 completely into your WinXP source, you will see that your source is upgraded to SP2 built 2180.

On next screen, give the proper label to your CD and click make ISO. Save the ISO on your disk. You can later burn this ISO file using CD Burning tools like Nero.

The ISO you got in previous step can be burnt to CD using any CD burner like Nero. It will be bootable CD. This WinXP SP2 built 2180 will be the base CD for all further work.

Next step will be integrating RyanVM's post SP2 update pack and Windows Media Player 10 into this source CD, so that you need not have to go to Windows update and download all those patches every time you install your OS.

 

 

Warning

Till this point, all the work done will work on all PCs. But for further work, I recommend a testing of your ISO file so that you won't end up with faulty CD. One tool that will help you to emulate a complete PC to boot and install the OS, is Microsoft Virtual PC.

you can get a 45 days trial from Microsoft Virtual PC trial download

Another popular and probable more advance tool is VMWare. Get the trial here

Or you can burn the ISO file to Re-Writable CD and test it.

 

Integrating RyanVM's Post SP2 updates and Windows Media Player 10

Now I will deal with integrating RyanVM's Post SP2 updates and Windows Media Player 10. Also some tweaking and removal of some programs.

 

This process is irreversible means once you integrate Post SP2 updates and WMP 10 in your source, there is no way to remove them. But since updates are not meant for removal, it is ok for most of us. But there may be cases where particular hotfix may cause some conflict with other programs. This is not a fault of Microsoft but of other programs but still I am warning you all.

 

Similarly, programs removed in this process cannot be brought back since they are removed from source setup files. Also it is not easy to install them afterwards if you have installed XP with CD that have programs removed.

 

We have already created the Bootable XP CD in the last post which has SP2 integrated. If you have not copied it to hard disk earlier, do it now. Make sure you have enough free space (Min 2GB). Your source files used in earlier post are also been updated to SP2 so if you have not deleted them, you can use that.

Start nLite. On next screen, select the location of your WinXP (with SP2 integrated) setup files. nLite should detect them as built 1280.

On next page select

Integrate Hotfixes

Remove Components

Unattended Setup

Options and tweaks

Added 6th June 2005 This was not given where to add Ryan's Hotfixes, though most of you must have found it out.

This will be in Integrate Hotfixes screen, add the Ryan's hotfixes file by clicking on Insert Button.

Next screen will give you some compatibility options. Select those which apply to you.

In next screen, "Remove Components", you can remove Windows XP's inbuilt softwares, which you will never be using in ages. Many such softwares are installed with default XP setup and will stay on your hard drive. Removing them from here will remove them from the setup files itself. This will result in smaller setup size, and also make the installation faster.

Spend some time in this section. You can see the description and space saved for each item.

Select the components you want to remove.

Do not remove Windows Media Player if you want to integrate Windows Media Player 10

Do not remove services from here if you are not sure, you can disable them in next steps

Next screen will give you to create an answer file, to create unattended setup. I use "DefaultHide" option because I give some details like User Name and Organization name while installing, while others are given in answer file. You can choose any of the options.

 

 

Part 1:

Give your CD-KEY and select Unattended Type. I have also disabled Hibernate.

 

 

Part 2:

If Your organization has Domain server you can give its settings directly from here. You can also set to install IIS if you need it.

 

 

Part 3:

Here you can give your personal details like name, computer name, workgroup, language and timezone.

If you don't want the network prompt while in setup, then give some workgroup name. Keeping it blank will give you a prompt.

 

 

Part 4:

Display settings: Modify it only if you know that your monitor will support those modes.

On next screen, "Options and Tweaks", you can do a lot of tweaking stuff here. This will easily save your couple of hours and installation of some tweaking programs.

 

Part1:

I have disabled SFC (System File Checker), which if not, will give me warning if I used some modified Windows System files. I have done it because i am going to change the looks of XP setup afterwards and I don't want any error at that time.

 

 

Part 2:

Here I have enabled unsigned theme support. This allows me to install lot of unsigned Visual Styles available over the net.

 

 

Part 3:

This is tweakers paradise. I will try to give some tips.

 

A. Boot and Shutdown

Select Auto End and Auto Kill for faster shutdown. But You will not get a chance to save open unsaved documents if u initiate shutdown with this tweaks enabled.

 

B. Desktop, Taskbar and Start menu

Some tweaks about removing System Icons like My Computer, My Documents.. Also Recycle Bin can be made renamable. So u can rename it to something like "कचरेका डब्बा"

 

C. Explorer Tweaks

Add CMD SHELL will add option to open Command Prompt Window with current folder. Like CMDHERE Powertoy.

Add Expand to compressed setup files: Many files in i386 have extensions like xx_ which are actually compressed files, you can open them in winrar. This tweak will add option to expand them to context menu.

Advanced Search: Makes search easier.

Disable Sticky Keys: Those annoying prompts for sticky keys.

Launch folder windows in separate process: To prevent crashing of whole explorer windows if 1 windows is crashed. (Very rare but useful).

 

D. File Open/Save File Dialog

You can change presets bar to C:, D:, E:, Desktop, and Network Neighborhood if you don't like default shortcuts.

 

E. Internet Explorer Options

Some normal tweaks but one I should mention is to allow IE to accept 10 connections at a time instead of 2. Much better for uses with fast internet.

 

F. My Computer

You can add many system folders to My Computer, add some to its context menu and remove shared documents from it (good if you have single use system).

 

G. Privacy

Disable Documents from start menu.

Disable driver update internet prompt if you install drivers from CD.

Remove Alexa Spyware: Will remove "Related" Toolbar Button in IE.

 

H. Security

Some options related to logins

Disable administrative shares: Shares created as c$ d$ etc.. You won't even know they exists.

Disable Web Open With prompt: Won't ask to look at website when you are opening an unknown file type and will take you directly to Select Program dialog.

 

I. Speed

Classic Control Panel: For those who hate new style control panel in XP

Disable automatic search for network folders and Printers: For faster LAN browsing.

Disable Optimize harddisk when idle: Good if you use other defrag utility.

Disable paging of kernel and core OS: If you have lot of RAM and don't want core files to be moved to SWAP/Pagefile.

Disable tracking of broken shortcuts: To prevent getting them mapped to some other program.

Disable Warn on low disk space: Won't get warning if your hard disk is getting full.

Do not cache thumbnails: Will not create thumbs.db file.

Remove Remote computer namespaces: will not search for printers and scheduled tasks on network PCs thus faster browsing in LAN.

 

J. Start Menu

Huge list to customize your start menu.

 

K. Taskbar

Disable Group similar Taskbar buttons: Good to switch between opened programs

Disable Language bar: If you don't use it

Disable Windows tour popup: If you don't want it when you start your windows for first time.

 

L. Visual Effects

You can disable them to get faster response time and free some MBs of RAM

Part 4

Services Configuration

Use this page to configure your services. Their startup types. Disable unwanted serviced etc.

 

 

 

The ultimate reference for Windows XP Services was BlackViper's site

http://www.blackviper.com/

But that site is now closed, and i don't know if it ever will be up, and I don't know any mirrors too.

But good news is that you can check out the site in google cache. And even better, I have the sites contents in PDF.

 

BlackViper's Services configuration for different users 45KB

 

BlackViper's Services 411 - Everything you need to know about services 210KB

Next screen will show the progress while updates are applied. This process may take lot of time. You may stop your antivirus, antispyware and other tools to speedup the process a little bit.

Finally, a window will show you about the space saved on your windows XP source CD.

Now that we have WinXP SP2 fully updated with latest hotfixes, we can also integrate Windows Media Player 10 in it. This is optional step.

 

A. Download Bâshrat the Sneaky's WMP10 slipstreamer script from here.

 

B. Create a new folder. Extract the WMP10_Slipstreamer_V11.cmd from downloaded zip to this folder. Also copy the Windows Media Player 10 setup file you downloaded to this folder. Rename it to MP10Setup.exe if it is not. Run the script.

 

 

C. New folder is created at C:\i386. Copy all newly created files from that folder to i386 folder of your XP Setup source you updated. Overwrite any old files if prompted.

 

D. Now open hivedef.inf under i386 folder of your CD in notepad and look for section [Addreg]. There add the line

HKCU,"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences",\	"AcceptedPrivacyStatement",0x00010003,1

It should look like

 

 

Now save the file.

 

E. Since you have WMP10 slipstreamed, updates specific to WMP9 are not required. There are 5 such updates in RyanVM's Full Update Pack 1.2.1.

You can download the WMP9-Less INF Files from this page. Just extract the 2 files in that CAB to your i386 folder, overwrite when prompted.

 

You are done. Just 1 more step remaining.

Creating bootable ISO

Start nLite. This time select only to create bootable cd. Select the XP setup folder. Make ISO. Test it with Virtual PC / VMWare, or else burn it to CD-RW and test it on a test PC. If it works then burn it to CD-R else debug your mistake. Don't compliant to me that you wasted CD-Rs with non-working setups.

Next step will be adding your own programs to install automatically. These are installed after the installation completes via registry. This is a normal setup and you can uninstall these programs as and when you like from Add Remove programs. You can install many programs like Antivirus, Firewall, Office suites etc. Only problem is that whole files should fit in 1 CD with your XP setup.

Spy Mouse

Before recalling loudly something confidential, remember that someone could be overhearing you. Here is the Spy Mouse aka CP-1 from Endoacustica. It has an in-built microphone which could hear your conversations easily after plugging it in the USB. However, its recording capabilities turns off if the PC is shut down. This seems to be a prototype as the site suggests that its looks and specs could change.

Check out Endoacustica's Website for more details.

Check out Microsoft Live!'s new Virual Earth. Its in an early development stage and currently we can tour only Seattle(Microsoft's hometown) and San Francisco. But its really amazing. They've stitched high resolution sattelite pictures along with thousands of actual photographs taken on the streets in various parts of the city. Just walk on the streets of Seattle or drive through in a sports car as if you were actually there! Its just too good!
Take a look at it:
https://www.bing.com/maps?FORM=FLREDR

Chameleon Clock

Nah! Its not named by them but for me its the Chameleon feature adapted by this clock. Called the Aurora Clock, it has twelve bright colors which changes its color every hour. The company claims that one color of this clock will surely match the décor of your room.

You can see all the colors by sitting in front of your clock which is a very boring option or you can just switch on the DEMO mode which changes the colors pretty quickly. It is available at Boysstuff for $27.

Hello again friends!

 

In my previous tutorial The FAT File System - Part 1 I had explained the internal storage structure of FAT FS. Though I was a little disappointed to see only 20 views till now. Neverthless, here I am with the next(and probably last) tutorial on this topic.

This time we are going to talk about the processing of files on FAT file system. But first let me clear any doubts you have in understanding some things.

 

Boot Sector AREA:

 

I know you must be wondering what’s this area on the disk is about and what can I get from this area. Ok first let me tell you this area is located on the floppy disk in the very first sector. Same for HDDs but on primary partition. When a computer first boots up the BIOS loads the first sector of the disk automatically into the memory and transfers control to it. This loading of the data is done at location 0x7C00 in memory. Normally a sector is 512 bytes therefore this first 512 constitutes the BOOT SECTOR.

 

A boot sector has information about the format of the disk for example the number of clusters, size of a sector and many other things but it also has a very small assembly code written to load the OS into memory. Remember since we only have 512 bytes we have to be very careful with what we want in the boot loader. The boot loader usually isn’t complete in just 1 sector and if other sectors have to be loaded also then provision has to be made in the boot sector‘s bootstrap routine to load these sectors.

 

Normally these are system files which are located on the first two clusters. The clusters are numbered after the system area so they all are actually part of the data area. However when system files are present the user data normally starts from cluster 2 (clusters are numbered from 0). The Boot Sector also provides information about the kind of files system we have on the disk. Although this can be done with the fields in which strings such as FAT12 ,FAT16, FAT32 is present but however Microsoft doesn’t pay attention to these fields and calculates the type of FAT with the number of clusters we have on the disk. I’m not going to discuss the math involved with that you people look that up somewhere. I’m just trying to provide you basic knowledge so you won’t get confused.

 

If you want to know how to create a boot loader (YES a real one) take a look at the end of this tutorial.

 

 

The Directory Entry

 

Well this one really had me confused. Because of the name I thought it was used to make entry for the directories but soon I was about to find out that this was just the beginning of the end. I had started looking for it in some C books but that was a mistake so I want to make sure that you completely understand this.

 

Directory entry is not just for the maintaining directories it’s also used for files. Remember that the directory entry is for the files /directories under the root directory. Now with this info we calculated the number of files that can be made on a standard floppy under a root directory. This number came out to be 224 files / directories under root.

 

But we have created a larger number of files than this. Its true but can’t be done without creating subdirectories. Just by toggling a bit a file can be made into a subdirectory. Subdirectories are not special yet they are in the manner they are treated by the file system driver. First of all the size of directory is left 0. It can be calculated very easily by looking at the files present in that directory since files do have a field about their size.

 

Note that this size is different from the one on the disk, this is because if you create a file and put a character in it its size will be 1 byte. Now when you store this file on the disk the size on the disk will be 512 bytes!! That’s a waste of 511 bytes! This is because the OS allocated a full cluster to it regardless of the size of the file. If the file can’t be allocated on a single cluster than more clusters are allocated for it. This is done to increase efficiency of the disk and to avoid a read every time something is needed from the disk. Also in case of floppy this is 511 bytes since 1 sector / cluster. In case of HDD more than 1 sectors are present / cluster and this can lead to a major waste of space. Also this feature allows the file to grow freely as long as it doesn’t need another cluster so FAT entries need not be changed every time a modification to the file is made.

 

Now what happens to files present in subdirectories? Well they act as FAT entries for the files / data present under them. That is if we created a subdirectory mydir under root (i.e. now we have c:\mydir) and now we create a file named myfile under this directory then the entry for this file will NOT be recorded in the system DIRECTORY ENTRY ( the one for root) instead its entry will be recorded as contents of the cluster allocated to the directory mydir. When we need to read a file from this directory the system will search in the contents of this directory to load the file (FAT will be needed to locate the cluster where this directory‘s contents are present). Since contents of the file can be spread over the clusters therefore more entries can be recorded than in the directory entry itself.

 

However it must be noted that now the clusters are being used for data as well as directory entries therefore you can create a large number of small files but can’t create large number of large files. So if are having any bright ideas of using this way to store data on disk well just forget it.

 

 

User DATA AREA

 

This area appears right after the Directory Entry. The first two clusters contain the OS files needed for system startup. Therefore user data begins from cluster number 2. Every cluster has a corresponding entry in the FAT. Remember that a FAT is just a linked list which points to the next cluster or indicates the EOF. There are various values assigned to FAT entries for each cluster when they are free, contain some data, erased. These values are 0, some other cluster number, and 0xE5.

 

When a file/ directory is erased its contents are not actually erased they are present on the disk. So it’s possible to recover them but before any write operation is performed on the disk. The first byte of the name of file / directory is marked with a special value 0xE5. This value is seen by the driver of the file system and it interprets that the cluster entry in FAT is erased. Therefore since it’s a linked list if we lose 1 entry the whole file / directory. To again recover the file / directory we just need to change the value of this byte to something else and WALAH! We have a file recovery utility!! Its not easy though getting hands on the HDD with XP watching over you. Try out some functions of bios.h like the one named biosdisk you will know what I’m talking about.

 

1 more thing it seems to me that VPC uses a rather strange kind of BOOT SECTOR we tried to read its contents but couldn’t get anything everything was just so something else. If you can get the same info as the BOOT SECTOR described above please let me know.

A very small BOOT LOADER

 

Ok let’s try our hands on writing a boot loader. Well this boot loader will print a character on the screen when the system starts up and then sits idle doing nothing.( REBOOT to your OS fun is OVER ha ha ). You can extend this to anything you want to do.

 

The Basics

The boot loader is exactly 512 bytes. No more no less. Now creating our boot loader you must be wondering how we fill up 512 bytes! Well its easy just pad it up with Zeros when you are done. The last 2 bytes i.e. boot sector [510]=0x55 and boot sector[511]=0xAA. Actually since all PCs are Little Endian architecture based therefore the actual signature of boot loader is 0xAA55. Time for the CODE u will need nasm to assemble this code into pure binary file.(no obj /exe)

 

[bITS 16] ;We are in real mode which is 16 bits when system starts up.

 

[ORG 0x7c00] ; since BIOS loads the first sector at location 0x7C00 we assemble according to it.

 

mov ah,0eh ; setting up registers for interrupt 0x10(print in text mode)

mov al,'P' ;character to print.

mov bh,0fh ;Color of the Character

mov bl,0

int 10h ; generate interrupt

 

hang:

jmp hang

 

times 510-($-$$) db 0 ; pad up the rest of bytes uptil 510 to zero

dw 55aah ; define word 0xAA55 in reverse order boot loader signature

assemble this using this command on the command prompt

nasm –f bin boot.asm –o boot.bin

 

boot is the asm file we created and –o specifies the output bin file.

 

There are various options take a look at them. Now write this bin file on the first sector of the floppy or u can create a virtual floppy (that day isn’t far when people will have virtual notebooks!!) and boot from it.

 

You can try to jump continuously to the print section and print the same or some different character such as your name etc. This was just an attempt to give you an idea of what exactly goes behind the scenes which we take for granted!!

 

There’s way too much in boot sector writing itself I only know this much about it.

Review of Dr. DivX 1.0.6

 

All of us know that how big the DVD files can be and to store them, we require a huge capacity Hard disk.

So the best way is to convert such files to avi format to have no video quality loss but getting lower file size.

 

There are many tools for converting video files to lower sizes.

This tool in particular can convert following files to avi format in a very simple way and at a fast speed :-

avi, vob, ts, mpg, dat, mov and avs.

 

While the output will be in only avi.

 

Dr. divx bundle is a small exe file of only 9 MB, the installation is nice and the setup has all the required utilities such as:

 

Divx pro codec v 5.2.1

Divx player v 2.6

ofcourse with the Dr.Divx itself

 

Other than encoding, its features include live capture from TV (if you have a TV-tuner) and also it can import files from a digital camera.

 

While the best feature remains Encoding.

 

Select the input video file and then you can keep the audio with it or use some other audio track from the other file. The audio can also be previewed in the same window.

 

Next are the output file settings.

Novice users can directly encode from here, and advanced users can select the various options as per the requirement.

The default settings are good enough for encoding but they can be easily changed.

The settings are divided into 2 sections as Basic and advanced.

The new features added in this version were the option between VBR and CBR audio and the video quantization type.

 

If you are done with the settings, Just click on the encode button and wait till it does its job.

 

Specifications:

PIII 500, 128MB RAM, 8 MB Video Card, Minimum 24-bit color, DirectX 8 or later

 

Price: $49.99

 

Link to download the 15 day trial : http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

 

Not available on the official site, as the newer version is under production.

 

 

For:

Easy to use, Fast and Enough features.

Best for converting a vob file.

 

 

Against:

Output only in avi.

Converts single file at a time.

Though DVD's default settings were good but for VCD's they are just not enough.

Can require a dvd decrypting software if the dvds are protected.

I personally feel that the older version (1.0.4) was better.

 

Author: Amol Sarode

I have a Realtek onboard 'sound card'. When I installed the driver, configuration utility, and other such odds and ends, it also installed something called "AvRack", with some shortcuts. I have no idea what it is, and by running it I only get the impression that it's some kind of audio player.
Could someone give me some more detail as to what it's supposed to be and do?

AvRack comes with the RealTek AC97 audio driver(that is the onboard sound card on most motherboards). You can use AvRack as a media player but as suggested by ponies, there are much better alternatives available. You should also remove AvRack from Windows Startup as its of no use at all.

So you are tired of the boring old windows logo and the 3 boxes scrolling left to right under it? Want to see something different while windows boots up? It time to change the boot screen!

Using Tuneup Utilities(availabe at download.com) is the easiest method to change the boot screen and safe too (coz it adds an extra entry in Boot loader for the new boot screen and keeps the default entry too).

 

So here we go through the step by step procedure:

 

1.) Open Tuneup Utilities 2006:

 

 

2.) Click on Tuneup Styler2:

 

 

3.) It'll open a new windows, where u can change many things, like Icons, Logind screen, Visual Styles and boot screen.

Click on "Change the windows XP boot screen, and create or download new boot screens".

 

 

4.) It'll open a new window, where u can add existing boot screens if u hv stored on ur computer or u can d/l from net:

 

 

5.) Or u can create new boot screens:

 

 

6.) To create new ones using stored images on ur comp, click on "Search Local Drives" and give the path for the image.

 

 

7.) It'll show the preview of the boot screen, U can select the Alignment of the image. It'll also suggest u the background color, simply accept the suggestion:

 

 

8.) U can also select the Progress Bar Position:

 

 

9.) At last click on "Save Boot Screen" button:

 

 

10.) And give the name to ur boot screen:

 

Click here to see how

 

11.) U can see the preview of the boot screen by clicking on "Show Large Preview" or simply click on the image in Preview pane:

 

Click here to see how

 

12.) And finally U'll hv ur new boot screen:

 

Click here to see how

 

13.) To set it as ur Boot screen click on "Install Boot Screen" button:

 

Click here to see how

 

 

Thats the whole procedure to change the Boot screen using this great s/w!

 

PS: The screenshots after step 11 were not apppearing in the post so I had to give them as links.

This is the new 80GB Jukebox from Sony! Its can easily hold your entire music collection.. Actually much more than that.. I know only very few people who have such a huge music collection. This Hi-Fi can recieve songs from CD, memory sticks, USB and even Ethernet!

Sony announced a 40GB hi-fi jukebox earlier this month, and now they’ve got an even bigger one out on the market: the new NAS-M7HDS has 80GB of storage onboard, which translates to being able to hold about 40,000 songs. It plays and records the ATRAC and MP3 formats (no AAC love for you, Apple), and can receive songs from the built-in CD and MiniDisk players, a Memory Stick slot, and via USB (to your PSP, even) and Ethernet. If you’ve got it online, you can purchase cds through Sony’s online store via the 4.3 inch color screen. ¥84,800, currently only in Japan.

Source: Gizmodo
Technical Specs: Sonystyle Japan(Translated)

It's nice, but probably very expensive, and there is no use of this gadget. I mean, sure, it's a clock, but do you really need this. It's OK if you have a lot of money, but if you don't, it's a waste of cash.

No doubt its way too expensive but then its just for showing off ur geekiness to ur friends..

Yuppie food. heh. I like magnetic equilibrium and all, but I bet it costs way more than it needs to. If it costed like 10 bucks I'd buy it though. I'm suprised the magnetism doesn't mess up the screen.

The clock has an LCD screen, magnetism has no effect on it. Magnetic fields only mess up Cathode Ray Tube(CRT) based displays..

Anyway this post was just to make u drool over this gadget for a while and then forget it coz no one's gonna buy it anyway.. So no use discussing it further..

Microsoft Codename Max is your opportunity to try a new, exciting and constantly evolving experience from Microsoft. Today Max lets you make beautiful photo slideshows to share with your family and friends. And it recently began showing you the latest news updates from around the world. What will Max do next? Stay tuned!You can try out Microsoft Max if you have Windows XP SP2.

Features currently provided by Max:
1.Catchup on the news
2.Create beautiful albums(including 3D mantle view)
3.Share your photos

Source: Microsoft Max

Note: Pls remember that Microsoft Max is currently a preview release(beta).

King of Mobiles: N70 Reviewed

 

Nokia has been positioning itself as a mobile manufacturer producing sturdy and user-friendly phones ever since its first phone. Lately symbian OS has helped leverage this strategy. Nokia symbian phones have become the order of day with the introduction of 6600 though it was not the first of its kind. N series are the talk of the town because they were introduced as specialized phone. N90 as special camera, N91 as special music and media phone. N70 is a specialized smartphone with multimedia capabilities.

It incorporates all the features of symbian smart-phone and also proves that it is a special multimedia phone.

Let us see what are the improvements compared to previous smart phones like 6670, 6630 and 7610

 

* 2 MP camera, beter video resolution

* FM radio

* The device is thinner and the design is more attractive

* Extra keys (rhombus and camera shutter)

* Series 60 new version - Symbian OS 8.1a , Series 60 UI

* More classical design

* Active slider and a flash

* Active Standby application

* 262 K screen

Though these changes apear to be attractive, they are mainly marketing moves. 262k screen doesnt show any visual improvement. Rhombus is defunct and many times useless. But the FM radio is amazing and so is the 2Meg camera. Active slider and active standby screen was introduced in 6681 and 6680. But the slider is more robust and the spring action enhances its style.

 

Bluetooth 2.0

If u see the nokia website, they boast bluetooth 2.0. But what they mean is the second version of bluetooth, which is 1.2. So Bluetooth v2 basically points to 1.2.

Bluetooth version 2.0 is a notable improvement when compared to all the mobiles present in the market. Bluetooth 2 spec has been designed to provide 65% faster connection times in comparison with 1.1. V2.0 has Adaptive Frequency Hopping. this will improve the transmission. And frequencies that are already covered by other applications, like for example W-LAN, can be avoided.

So you can get better sound clarity. But V2.0 will be fwd and bwd compatible..so u can still use ur 1.1,1.2 devices with 2.0 phones/devices. But i still dont understand why nokia has stopped having infrared in its models.

 

Design and ergonomics

The shape of the mobile has less rounds and the design is appreciated by many people. The body apears to be silver, but it is high quality plastic smooth to touch and feel. The finishing is fantastic and you will be definitely noted with this phone around. The screen and keypad is surrounded by a metal insertion which adds to the style. Keypad is small but comfortable. It is backlit with blue and it is very much easy to use in dark.

5 Directional joystick is a bit tough to get used to, if you have been using 6670, 6630 or 6680. But generally it is a noteworthy feature with better ergonomics.

The dimensions are typical of Nokia symbian phones (108.8x53x21.8 mm), the weight forms 126 g. Visually, it is a bit smaller than the Nokia 6680. It can be easily carried in hand or in pant pocket. But a bit discomforting to carry in shirt pocket. Size doesnt fit into women's category. But for a elegant business model, well it definitely pulls some attention.

 

Screen

The screen boasts a 176x208 pixels, 2.13" in diagonal (41x35 mm - active space). The screen is completely alike the one of the Nokia 6680/6681 with announced 262K support. But still, i cant find any difference with the display of my previous mobile 6670. Yet it is one of the best display screen in the recent smartphones i have seen.

 

 

Backlighting apears to be dull, but the reason is the sensor which automatically adjust to the ambient lighting. This adjustment doesnt improve battery life and it cannot be disabled. So it can be irritating at times.

 

Battery

The removable Li-Ion battery BL-5C is capacious of 900 mAh. It is the same battery used since 6230 by Nokia. It stayed awake for almost 1.5 days with me using it for 1 to 2 hours of calls (inc 30 min continous calls) plus some camera action, gaming and little bit of music.

 

Radio

The radio is a comeback for nokia models. First introduced in 7250, radio was absent in recent versions of Nokia models. N70 uses the same radio software used in 3230. Its called Visual Radio, and the visual part has no use in India. Its supposed to show the track name and artist of the song played or the program names played by the radio stations. Reception quality is good.

 

Loudspeaker

Speaker can be activated for active calls, MP3 playback and FM radio. It is quite loud and has acceptable sound quality. Voice clarity for active calls is very clear and reciever can pick up our voice very clearly. I had the mobile in my car's back seat and still i can converse quite comfortably.

 

Camera

The most waited section, lets talk about the camera...sorry..Cameras..Ya it has 2 cameras. Incidently, the front camera's is for video calls, in 3G enabled service. 3G service is not yet available in India. But still, i use it for self pictures or self timer photos.

 

The main camera is 2 Mega pixels and it is really good. The camera has various programmed options like

 

* portrait

* nightmode

* landscape

* sports

* automatic

* daylight

* cloudy

* tungsten

* florescent

* sepia

* BW

* Negative

 

Dont you get a feel of reading a review of a digital camera. No! this is just the starting of the N series.

 

Click here to view the review with some actual pictures taken in indian conditions

 

Phone

Well, its time we talk about the actual purpose of a cellphone. The phone! has a very clear reception quality and the speakers are really good. At once instance, the reciever could actually hear the chattering noise of women speaking in the ground floor, while i was talking to him from the my 3rd floor apartment.

 

Music player

The phone's software 'Music' is a very good alternative for the music player in the former symbian phones. Mp3 playback quality is amazing. Though there is no jack to fit the normal headphones, the ear phones supplied with the phone are good enough. Stereo sound! finally nokia wakes up to hear the cries of Nokians like me. The phone come with 64Mb card and i have got the 512mb card to replace it, to store nearly 50 songs. It cant replace my Ipod, but still it is good to have this convergant device.

 

User-Friendly functions

I found it really surprising to see the auto voice tags added to each contacts and menu options. In the previous models, we have to store our voice to point to each contact or menu option. But in this phone, defaults voice tags are added and it works!

Red button closes applications! but the way around it to press the menu button and exit the menu to keep the application running in the background.

The messaging feature has plenty of options and the personal organiser is quite robust and effective. Office applications like word, powerpoint and excel sheets canbe viewed but not edited.

King of Mobiles

In-toto, this mobile can be called the king of smart phones in this price range. Total value for money and its an amazing entertainer. Great phone for both work and play. I had to choose between 6681 and N70, but N70 had more innovations so this was my choice and i would recommend it to anyone who wants to have a brilliant phone.

Green House, Japan has launched a USB flash drive, called the PICO Finger which has fingerprint recognition. To access the contents of the drive, a user has to place his finger on the drive (black area) with a certain amount of uniform pressure. It's a good way to keep your confidential data. It will come in storage capacities of 128MB, 256MB, 512MB and 1GB.

When youâre setting up a site using CSS, itâs a good idea to do a little planning ahead and think how youâll be using your styles, otherwise you could end up spending much more time later.

 

As a case in point â for a site Iâve recently built, a basic style sheet was put together, with entries for matters like headlines, section headings, item headings and so on. When it came to forms on the site that needed headings next to the data entry boxes, the logical choice was the item headings style. It helped maintain a consistent look across the site, but it came back to bite me later. The reason? After some feedback from the beta testers, a left margin was added, so that text didnât butt up against the left-side of a browser window. You might think that is fairly straightforward. And it would be, but for the fact that simply adding a margin to all the CSS styles would do the same wherever a style was used, making the headings on some of the forms look a little odd.

 

So, the solution was to duplicate the appropriate style â before adding the margin to it â and call the new duplicate something useful like âformItemHeadingâ. Then, amend the original item heading style to add the margin and, finally, go through the entire site changing headings in forms to the new style. Itâs tedious work and something that could have been avoided had I done the thing that Iâm always urging other people to do â plan, plan and plan. Even if you first imagine that two types of element on your page â in my case item headings, and form box headings â will look the same, remember that they are separate items and, though it might feel tedious at the time, create a separate CSS style for each type of item. It will save you a lot of time if you need Building a community Add a forum to your site and planning ahead with CSS to make changes to the style sheet later . Youâll just need to alter the style sheet â which is best saved as a separate file, rather than included in each document, for large sites â instead of having to manually edit every page and reassign styles later. Itâs far better to end up with a few extra styles in your style sheet than to have too few. The amount of data in a style sheet is trivial, so itâs really not going to make any difference to the download time of your site.

 

Attracting visitors One of the things that most web designers would like is for their site to be visited by lots of people. You can promote it â but not by using junk mail â and mention it elsewhere on the Internet, put it in your email signature and arrange reciprocal links with similar sites. But none of that is much use unless thereâs a compelling reason for people to keep coming back. So, how do you tackle that sort of thing? It was one of the issues facing the site on which I had my style sheet tribulations. Itâs a site thatâs intended to be a resource for users of a digital video recorder, which can be enhanced via software downloads.

 

But a site that simply lists things you can download isnât terribly exciting, so we needed something to try and draw people back. The obvious answer to that is forums.

 

Discussion forums can help provide a community and draw people back to your site to see the answers to questions theyâve posed. Obviously, theyâre not relevant to every site, but for the site in question, it seemed a logical idea. And one that immediately raises the question â how do I add a forum? There are several packages that you can use to provide forums. In some cases, the type of forum that you can install will depend on your web host. Two of the most popular and well known are phpBB and YaBB. The former is actually a component of the PHP Nuke (https://www.phpnuke.org/) open source portal system, though you can install it separately, if you donât want all the other portal functions.

 

As you can guess from the name, you need PHP on your web server to run phpBB. Youâll also need the MySQL database, which is used as the back-end of the system â donât worry if you donât have the two on the main part of your site. If you have a site like http://www.nigelwhitfield.com/v2/, it wonât look odd if you use a separate site like forum.nigelwhitfield.com to host your discussions, but obviously youâll also need to be able to manage the DNS entries to set that up. YaBB is written in Perl, which is also a very popular scripting language and available on many web servers. Rather than use a database, it stores its information in text files, so all you need is the ability to run Perl scripts on your web host, rather than PHP scripting, MySQL and full access to a database. On the downside, the file structure might store up problems for the future if youâre running a very busy site.

 

In the end, though, we went with YaBB (http://www.yabbforum.com/), which is very easy to set up. Itâs a simple matter of downloading a zip file, unpacking it and then uploading the files to your web server. You need to edit the Settings.pl file to tell the scripts where your files are stored, both in terms of the URL and of the directory on the server, and then make sure the script is set so that it can be executed. Then log in to the web page with the default admin user name and password, and fill in a few simple web forms to set up your forums. It really is extremely easy to do. If you want to tweak the design a little, for instance, to match the colour scheme of your website, itâs easy â just click on the Admin link, and you can alter the template file, with its CSS definitions from within your browser. That really is just about all it took â certainly less than half an hour. Even if youâre not familiar with Perl, itâs not exactly difficult to edit the settings file and get up and running. If you want a forum on your site, itâs well worth taking a look at. A forum isnât necessarily the only thing that youâll need.

 

On the site I was setting up, we decided that it would be a good idea to have a function that allowed users to build up a personal page with information and quick links to the things they want to download. Itâs a handy tool that might help bring people back â especially since you can then email people when a new version of a product in their list appears, providing you seek their consent. And to help tie it in with the forums, and give an incentive to register, the functions restricted only to those who have signed up for the forums. That might sound complicated, but itâs a lot simpler to do than you might imagine. All you do is check for the cookie thatâs set when a user logs in to the forums, and only allow the personalisation scripts to run when thatâs set. In the case of YaBB, the default cookie is called YaBBusername, though you can change it if you like. You can check for the presence of the cookie with some PHP code like this, which, if before the HTML section of a document, will redirect to the forum home page if the cookie is not there.

 

<?php if ( ! isset($HTTP_COOKIEd _VARS[âYaBBusernameâ]) )

 

{ header(âLocation: d http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ bin/yabb/YaBB.cgiâ) ; exit ; }

 

(Key: d code string continues)

 

 

 

You may want to redirect to a different page, explaining why people need to sign into the forums. Linking functions of the site like this can help to encourage people to sign up, since thereâs a tangible benefit to doing so. But donât do it just for the sake of it â think of how people might want to use your site and work around that. Pointlessly restricting functions or sections of your site is likely to turn people away, rather than encourage them. Reader queries David Boswell asks: âis it possible to reduce the size of an Excel spreadsheet saved as a web page, other than by printing out, scanning and reducing it as an object? Printing out in Excel does not reproduce the macro buttons and I also need the very best definition I can get. Using the zoom factor on the spreadsheet before saving it as a web page does not seem to work.â The answer is, sort of. When you save a web page as Excel, either on a Mac or PC, whatâs created â unless you use embedded objects inWindows â is simply an HTML table, with formulas changed to the results they use. (Actually, strictly speaking, the formulas are still there, in XML, so the spreadsheet could be recreated from the HTML file). At the top of the file, youâll find an embedded stylesheet. You can edit that â you could set up a global search and replace if you do this often â to alter the options, including font sizes, so that you end up with the desired effect. If you have the last twoWeb Development columns, you can now marvel at the forethought of including a crash course on CSS in them. Alternatively, depending on the browser youâre using, you have a few different options. In Internet Explorer, the View/Text Size menu options wonât work because there are sizes specified in the document. But if you choose Accessibility from the Internet Options, you can override text sizes and styles in the document, which will then allow the menu options to increase or decrease text size to work. You could even create your own style sheet to apply, though that would only be worth the effort if you used an almost identical spreadsheet template a lot. If youâre using Opera, you can zoom in and out of a page, regardless of the style sheet thatâs been applied, so you can easily fit more of a spreadsheet into theWindows. And you can also click the drop-down view mode menu at the right to switch to User mode, which will use your own default styles, instead of the ones specified in the file.

Author: Pranay

You've read the reviews and digested the key feature enhancements and operational changes. Now it's time to delve a bit deeper and uncover some of Windows XP's secrets..

 

1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type 'systeminfo'. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type 'systeminfo > info.txt'. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).

 

2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run... and type 'gpedit.msc'; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care -- some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only).

 

3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter 'rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation' in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That's it -- just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that's not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.

 

4. XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word 'hide' and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

 

5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include 'eventcreate' and 'eventtriggers' for creating and watching system events, 'typeperf' for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and 'schtasks' for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options -- they're all far too baroque to go into here.

 

6. XP has IP version 6 support -- the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type 'ipv6 install' into Run... (it's OK, it won't ruin your existing network setup) and then 'ipv6 /?' at the command line to find out more. If you don't know what IPv6 is, don't worry and don't bother.

 

7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using 'taskkill /pid' and the task number, or just 'tskill' and the process number. Find that out by typing 'tasklist', which will also tell you a lot about what's going on in your system.

 

8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you've got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files well alone by typing 'regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll' at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can put things back as they were by typing 'regsvr32 zipfldr.dll'.

 

9. XP has ClearType -- Microsoft's anti-aliasing font display technology -- but doesn't have it enabled by default. It's well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.

10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who's using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your chum's real IP address -- they can find this out by going to https://www.whatismyip.com/ -- and get them to make sure that they've got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.

11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As... and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.

12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might slip the bonds of sanity before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.

Hi!In this tutorial I will tell you about the internal storing structure of the FAT file system. Mostly we will talk about the 12 bit FAT system but some insights to FAT 16 bit will also be given wherever relevant. In order to try this information through use of a program I will suggest that you do it on a floppy rather than screwing up your hard disk. This tutorial doesn’t give every detail on the FAT system but enough so that you can work yourself out the leftovers. So here we go.The Disk StructureThe diskettes are two sided and hard disks contain a number of two sided diskettes on a single spindle. The disks are managed by the controller that handles the operations on the disk surface.CylindersA cylinder is a vertical set of all tracks with same number on each surface of the disk. Thus cylinder 0 is the set of all tracks numbered 0 on either side of the disk. For example cylinder 0 consists of side 0, track0 and side 1, track 0.Similarly for other cylinders.SectorsSectors are the minimal amount of data that can be accessed. Several bytes make up a sector. For diskettes and hard drives its usually 512 bytes while it may differ for RAM drives. Every track is divided into these fragment units sectors .Sectors numbering starts from 1 unlike tracks which starts from 0.Physical SectorsPhysical sectors are numbered relative to a track. To access any location on the disk the side number, track number and sector uniquely identifies the data. The sector numbering is done relative to the track under consideration.Relative SectorRelative Sectors are numbered relative to the start of the disk. The disk starts at the outermost with cylinder 0, track 0. This sector is numbered as relative sector 0 the next sector 1 up to last sector on the disk.Any of the above two methods can be used by the system for accessing the data.ClusterCluster is a group of sectors. A cluster is always a power of two for example 1, 2, 4 or 8 sectors. For a 1.44MB floppy the cluster size is 1. That is 1 sector/cluster. This is usually done for accessing a bigger amount of data and avoiding too many read operations. However it also has a disadvantage as we shall soon see.The Disk System AreaThe disk system area for a preformatted disk starts from the start of the disk. That is cylinder 0, track 0, Sector 1.When the computer starts up the BIOS loads this area only. Since its just 1 sector (512 bytes) only the most important things are done in this part of the disk. This area of the disk contains 3 main partsa) BOOT RECORD also called MBR:o FAT (Both Entries)c) Directory Entry Now we take a look at what these things meanBoot RecordThe boot record contains information about what to do after the POST (Power on Self Test) operation and it also contain information about the general layout of the disk for example the number of clusters, sectors per cluster number of root directories entry etc. The whole thing looks like this on the sectorBoot Record FAT Directory entry System Files User Data---------------System Area--------------------- ------Data----The System files are copied to the data area at the time of formatting the diskette. In any case they are also treated the same as any other ordinary file and is kept in the same area as the user files, however since OS uses these files so they are kept at the very beginning and also with their attributes set to system files just to be safe from the user corrupting them.The Location of each of these entries is as shown below in the table Device Boot FAT Directory Sectors/Clusters3.5” 720 Kb 0 1-6 7-13 23.5” 1.44MB 0 1-19 19-32 1The above table shows the position of the sectors (relative). This shows that the boot sector is located in sector 0, the FAT is spread in next 18 sectors the Directory Entry in next 14 sectors for a 1.44MB diskette. Since 1 sector per cluster is allocated we can use the term cluster and sector interchangeably In this case however we are not going to so cluster is not equal to sector unless specified explicitly.The following table shows the contents of the first sector that is the boot sector Offset Description00h jump to bootstrap routine at 3E h03h Name / dos version number0Bh Bytes / sector usually 200h(512)0Dh sectors / cluster0Eh Number of reserved sectors10h Number of copies of FAT (1 or 2)11h Number of root directories13h Number of disk sectors if volume < 32MB15h Media descriptor byte same as first byte in Fat16h Number of sectors for FAT18h Number of sectors / track1Ah Number of R/W heads (sides)1Ch Number of hidden sectors1Eh Reserved by system20h Total number of sectors if volume > 32 MB24h Physical drive number (00h for A, for HDD C:=80h)25h Reserved By the System26h Extended Boot Sector Signature contains 29h27h Volume ID2Bh Volume Label36h Reserved by system3Eh-1FFh Bootstrap Loader begins HereThe Directory EntryAll files are stored on a cluster boundary. That means that although the smallest amount of accessible data is a sector, since the files are normally much bigger than 512 bytes therefore the OS uses clusters to hold files. This is just providing a larger space to a file and it is more efficient. The cluster is considered as an atomic unit that means that it is not possible to assign some amount of cluster to a file either a cluster is allocated or it is not. This also has a disadvantage in the form that if the file size is considerably smaller than the cluster size then the free space will be wasted. For each file that is created a 32 byte entry is created in the directory. The contents of the directory are shown belowOffset (hex) Description00-07 Filename. The first byte can also contain00h File is never used05h First Character of filename is E5h2Eh File is subdirectoryE5h File has been deleted08-0A File Extension0B File attribute00h normal file01h read only02h hidden04h system file08h volume label10h subdirectory20h archive file, wether file was rewritten Since last update.If for example: the attribute is 07h it means01h + 02h + 04h (read only +hidden +system)0C-15 Reserved by system16-17 Time of day when last modified / created Stored as hhhhh_mmmmmm_sssss i.e. 16 bits18-19 Date when the file was last modified / created Stored as yyyyyyy_mmmm_ddddd i.e. 16 bits1A-1B Starting cluster of file1C-1F Size of file in bytes. System calculates and writes size of file in this field.PS: For the fields whose data exceeds 1 byte, data is stored in reversed format i.e. Lower order byte followed by higher order byte.The File Allocation TableThe purpose of the FAT is to allocate disk space as a sequence of clusters. There is a FAT entry for each cluster on the disk. Its like linked list of pointers through which we can follow every byte in the file. There are 2 copies of FAT maintained in case one gets corrupted the other is used for accessing the files.The first entry in the FAT indicates the media type. This describes wether it’s a diskette or hard drive or some other disk type. The following describes the contents of 1st byte F0h 3.5” 2 sided 18sectors / track(1.44MB) or 36 sectors /track(2.88MB)F8h Hard DiskF9h 3.5” 2 sided 9sectors / track(720 kb)Second entry in FAT describes wether the FAT is 12 bit or 16 bitThe second entry contains FFFFh for 12 bit and FFFFFFh for 16 bit FAT. The FAT looks like this for above two12-BIT F0 FF FF 16-BIT F8 FF FF FF Working of the whole SystemThe FAT file system works in accordance with the directory entry and the File Allocation Table. The directory entry is used for both maintaining files and directories. The directory entry provides the entry point for a file since it has the field for starting cluster of the file. The rest of the clusters are obtained from the allocation table. The whole file allocation table is actually just pointer entries as to where to find the next cluster. The entries are relative to previous cluster. For example if we have a file that starts on cluster 2 and then continues on to 3rd cluster and finishes off at 4th cluster then the corresponding FAT entry at for cluster 2 will contain 3 , FAT entry for cluster 3 will contain 4. The EOF is marked with an FFF for a 12 bit FAT and FFFF for 16 bit FAT. Therefore entry 4-5 will have FFFF to mark EOF.Trick for Reading the FAT entriesA) If 12 bit FAT is being used multiply the current cluster number with 1.5. Access the FAT entry for this cluster number thus obtained also next to this one.C) Reverse the digits obtained from these two. Use first 3 digits if the cluster number that was multiplied was odd and last three if it was even.D) Repeat the process until you find the cluster with contents FFFh which will mark EOF.E) For 16 Bit FAT step C need not be done and EOF is marked with FFFFh.Total Files and Directories that can be made on 1.44MB disk with 12 bit FATNow since for each file allocated there is a directory entry of 32 bytes therefore total number of files / directories for the root directory can be calculated as followsSectors available for Directory Entry = 32-19+1= 14 Total Bytes available for Directory Entry = 14 * 512Total files / directories that can be made in root directory 512*14 / 32 = 224Now even if you make a file with nothing on it, after creating 224 files / directories you won’t be able to make any file or directories in the root directory.However you may still make some files in the subdirectory if there is enough space left on the FAT. Since a FAT is 18 sectors wide that means 18*512 bytes and we have a 12 bit entry for each cluster therefore maximum available FAT will be18*512/1.5 = 6Kb.So unless all these are filled up its possible to create files / directories in the subdirectory.PS: We did try this on Virtual PC. You can write a C/C++ program to write to floppy as many files/ directories as you can. Compare the results with above.

It seems to be magic when you see this clock hanging in the air with no support. But its the magnetic force which plays a major role. Just plug the base (which has to be bought alongwith the clock) and adjust the clock in between until there is a beep indicating the right place.

The levitating clock uses the magnetic force to float an LCD clock inside a funny looking base. It also features an auto-rotate mechanism to spin objects clockwise, or counter-clockwise (as well as the clock you can buy an optional floating space shuttle).

I think this is probably best used as a cool executive desk toy rather than an alarm clock, as I can imagine sleepy fingers moving the clock a bit too much when going for that snooze button (then again the crashing noise may really wake you up).

It is available at Think Geek.

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