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How To: Install Windows 7 from a USB Key!

Norman Chan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:00:00 -0500

So after reading our review of Windows 7, you’re ready to take the plunge and upgrade to Microsoft's new OS. You’ve read our upgrade guide, decided whether you want 32- or 64-bit Windows 7, and bought your retail box. But what if you want to install Windows 7 on a netbook or other computer without an optical drive? Fortunately, you’re not out of luck, because Windows 7 (and Vista, for that matter) can be installed from a USB storage key. Not only does installing from a USB key remove the need for a DVD drive, the install time is also greatly reduced – we shaved off minutes from the total install time. Our step-by-step guide will have you rocking the new version of Windows in no time!

Time = 1 hour

What you need:

4GB USB key
$10, www.newegg.com
WinRAR
Free Evaluation Copy, www.rarlab.com
Windows 7
$99 (OEM)

Note: This guide will only work within Windows Vista or 7.

1. Format Your USB Key

Plug in your USB key and back up any existing data stored on it. You’ll need to format the key before you can make it a bootable device.

Open up a Command Prompt as an Administrator. You can do this by finding the cmd.exe in yoru Windows/System32 folder, right-clicking the executable, and selecting “Run as Administrator”. Alternatively, type CMD in the Start Menu search field and activate the Command Prompt using Ctrl + Shift + Enter.

You should be under c:\Windows\system32 (assuming your Windows partition is the C drive). Type “diskpart” in the command line to enter the Disk Partition command line tool, which lets you format and create partitions on active disks.

Type “list disk” to reveal a list of all your active disks, each of which is associated with a number. Make a note of which one is your USB key, based on the capacity. In our screenshot below, our USB drive is Disk 6 (8GB).

Next, type the following commands, one at a time:

Select Disk # (Where # is the number of your USB disk. We typed “Select Disk 6”)

Clean (removes any existing partitions from the USB disk, including any hidden sectors)

Create Partition Primary (Creates a new primary partition with default parameters)

Select Partition 1 (Focus on the newly created partition)

Active (Sets the in-focus partition to active, informing the disk firmware that this is a valid system partition)

Format FS=NTFS (Formats the partition with the NTFS file system. This may take several minutes to complete, depending on the size of your USB key.)

Assign (Gives the USB drive a Windows volume and next available drive letter, which you should write down. In our case, drive “L” was assigned.)

Exit (Quits the DiskPart tool)

2. Turn the USB Key into a Bootable Device

Insert the Windows 7 install DVD into your drive, and view the files that it contains. Copy all of the files here to a folder on your Desktop. We put the disc contents in a folder named “Windows 7”

Go back to your command prompt, running it as an Administrator. Using the “CD” command, find your way to the folder where you extracted the ISO files. Your command line path should look something like “C:\Users\USERNAMEHERE\Desktop\Windows 7\”.

Type the following commands:

CD Boot (This gets you into the “boot” directory)

Bootsect.exe /nt60 L: (where ‘L’ is the drive letter assigned to your USB key from the previous step)

Bootsect infuses boot manager compatible code into your USB key to make it a bootable device.

IMPORTANT: If you’re currently running 32-bit Windows Vista or 7, Bootsect will only work if you use the files from the 32-bit Windows 7 install disc. The Bootsect executable from the 64-bit version will not run in 32-bit Vista.

3. Load the USB Key Up with the Install Files

Copy all of the extracted ISO files into the USB drive. You don’t need to do this from the command prompt. Just drag and drop the files from the “Windows 7” folder into the drive using Windows Explorer.

Your USB key is now all ready to go! Plug it into your target system and make sure you enter the BIOS (typically with F2 or F12) to temporarily change the boot order to allow booting from the USB key before your primary hard drive or optical drive. On the next restart, your system should automatically begin speedily loading setup files off of the USB key and entering Windows 7 installation.

[Editor's Note: This article was originally posted as "How To: Install Windows 7 Beta from a USB Key!" It has been updated and reposted for the official launch of Windows 7 on Thursday.]

How To: Reclaim Digsby

Andy Salisbury — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:09:11 -0500

As some of you may or may not know, Digsby has recently come under fire for hijacking your CPU cycles while you’re away from your machine in the interest of making a quick buck. In reality, Digsby is as free as the air you’re breathing, and you can reclaim the handy IM program in a matter of minutes.

So here are the facts: Digsby’s installer comes with a pile of bloatware (Weatherbug, Yahoo Toolbar, etc.) that’s all very avoidable. Instead of hiding checkboxes somewhere in the installer, you’re simply met with “Accept” and “Decline” buttons. After a few windows filled with offers, the installer shows you exactly what you’re putting on your PC. If you decline everything, only Digsby will be installed.

It also comes with a research module that will use your computer’s recourses while you’re away. According to Digsby’s blog, “The module turns on after your computer has been completely idle for 5 minutes (no mouse or keyboard movement). It then turns off the instant you move your mouse or the press a key on the keyboard. We did this so it would have absolutely no effect on your computer’s performance and only uses processing power while your computer is not being used.”

This is where they’ve come under fire – but fear not. This, just like the bloatware, is extremely avoidable. By simply navigating to your menu and going to Help > Support Digsby, there’s a button near the bottom that allows you to disable this (pictured above).

So if you’re interested in keeping your favorite all-in-one IM program and not hopping on the hate bandagon, just do this. The Internet is angry enough as is.

Image Credit: Digsby

9 Amazing Software Mashups - Killer Free Apps that Work Better Together

Alex Castle and Norman Chan — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:00:00 -0500

There are few things we like more than apps that enhance the Windows experience at no cost. In fact, we've already shown you the 32 essential programs that you must download with every clean install of Windows. But while those apps work great on their own, some killer programs and services perform even better when combined with other software. For example, Dropbox excels as a standalone application, but when used in concert with the little-known Mklink command, its potential is exponentially expanded. We call these unions "software mashups" -- the use of two apps for utility that's greater than the sum of their parts. Yes, 1 + 1 can equal 3. And the best part: every program in this feature is free.

Dropbox + Mklink = Cloud Capability for Any App

We have to warn you; there are three reasons that this first mashup is a little weird. For one, it only works on PCs running Windows Vista or 7. Sorry XP users (Although, really, you should give the Windows 7 RC a try if you haven’t yet; we love it). Second, mklink isn’t an app—at least not like the other programs on this list are—it’s a command line command. Finally, this combo isn’t complete by itself; it needs to be combined with a third program to do anything.

That said, this is probably the most powerful combination on the list. We'll explain:

Dropbox

Dropbox is a file syncing app which acts as a folder on your computer. You install the client on as many computers as you want, and any changes you make to the contents of the Dropbox folder are automatically propagated to all computers connected to the same Dropbox account. However, there's more to DropBox than just file syncing—you can also use it to synchronize other programs, sharing configuration files and databases between multiple instances of that same program on different computers.

The only problem with using Dropbox to sync programs is that it only works with apps that allow you to change where those configuration files and databases are stored—a minority of all software. That’s where Mklink comes in.

Mklink

Mklink is a command line command short for “make link.” It’s used to create symbolic or hard links, which allow you to link files and folder. It’s sort of like creating shortcuts, except that they’re handled at the operating system level, so they work with any program. You can, for instance, use mklink to fool Steam into thinking that a game on a different hard drive is actually in your Steam games folder. You can link files on a single computer, or across a local network. You cannot, however, link files across the internet.

To find out all about Mklink, and how to use it, check out our Mklink How-To.

When the two programs are combined, however, the principle drawback of each goes away. Dropbox can now sync any two programs, because with mklink you can change the location of the programs data whether it wants you to or not. With Dropbox, you can take advantage of all of mklink’s potential, even with computers on the other side of the country.

Here's an example of how you can use this combo to cloud-ify your Firefox profile.

1. Find the directory containing your Firefox profile. A default installation places this folder in %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox

2. Copy that Firefox directory into your Dropbox folder.

3. Delete the original Firefox folder.

4. Use Mklink to create a hardlink between the new and original Firefox folders, If your Dropbox folder is in C:/ you can use the following command:

mklink /J %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox C:/dropbox/Firefox

Now any computer that you complete these steps on (and that has access to your dropbox account) will share the same Firefox profile. The same basic steps will work for almost any app.

To read about more programs that work great with Dropbox, check out our article on the subject.

StrokeIt + AutoHotkey = Lightning-Fast PC Interface

Anyone who’s a real expert knows that the fastest way to interact with a program is with the keyboard, with its quick inputs and near-endless possible key combinations. For an illustration of this fact, just watch a professional digital artist use photoshop, or a high-level Starcraft player. In either case, the pro is sure to use hotkeys as much as possible. So why wouldn't you want to control Windows the same way?

There are certainly a number of system-wide hotkeys for Windows, but you would be hard-pressed to fully control your PC from your keyboard using just these. There are hotkeys that do things like cut, copy, minimize windows and take screenshots, but you just don't have the capability to do more advanced things, for instance opening a new Firefox window with tabs for Gmail, Twitter and MaximumPC.com.

AutoHotKey

That's where AutoHotKey comes in. AutoHotKey is a free app which monitors keystrokes and executes user-defined scripts, allowing you incredibly robust control over your PC.

Did we mention it uses scripts? And ONLY scripts? Yeah. It's not the most user-friendly solution in the world, but it's not hard to learn how to write AutoHotkey scripts, and the payoff is worth it. It's outside the scope of this article to try and really explain how the scripting language works, but we'll provide a couple of example scripts, and explain what they do.

Here's an example of a one-line script:

^#g::Run www.gmail.com

This script simply opens the Gmail website in your default browser when someone presses Ctrl + Win + g. The first part, "^#g::" specifies that the following command be run when Control (^), Win (#), and the g key are pressed at the same time. It should be obvious what the "run www.gmail.com" part does.

But this isn't a very interesting example. To make it a little more complicated, let’s look at how to first minimize all open windows and then open a browser window with two tabs.

^#p::

WinMinimizeAll

Run C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe "http://www.gmail.com" "http://www.maximumpc.com"

return

In the above example, you see how one input can have multiple effects, such as manipulating windows and running a program with command line parameters. For an example of a more advanced script, with variables, conditional branches, subroutines and loops, look here. You can also check out this forum for a list of available scripts.

As you can see, there's a lot that can be accomplished with AutoHotkey, if you're willing to put in a little effort.

StrokeIt

StrokeIt is a sophisticated mouse gesture-recognition that can be used to control your computer. A lightweight client runs from the taskbar, which interprets your mouse gestures and binds them to commands.

You can pick from a wide variety of gestures, including standard shapes, letters and numbers, or you can train your own. To train a gesture, you simply draw the gesture as you want it, and the program will ask if you want to save that gesture, or if you were trying to draw something else.

StrokeIt has quite an arsenal of commands that you can bind to gestures, but it can't match the extreme flexibility of AutoHotkey. Fortunately, StrokeIt can be configured to pass keyboard events when mouse gestures are detected. That way, we can have all the gesture-y goodness of StrokeIt, with the no-nonsense scripting engine of AutoHotkey.

To create an action that passes a keyboard event from StrokeIt, simply open the program, then right click on Global Actions, and select New Action. Click on the new action and click Add Gesture to pick the gesture(s) you want to activate it. Then, rename the action to something descriptive, right click on it, and select New Command. Click on the command, and from the pulldown box select Keys - Send Keystrokes. In the box in the lower right corner, enter the keystrokes you want to send. To send a keystroke such as CTRL + WIN + P, you would enter [CTRL_DOWN][WIN_DOWN]p[WIN_UP][CTRL_UP].

Hamachi +UltraVNC = Ironclad Virtual Private Networking

Hamachi is a tiny app that lets you create a virtual private network between multiple computers. These direct links work over the internet, but is recognized by your computer as a local network connection. LAN emulation is useful for many reasons, including adding multiplayer gaming capability to games that either best support LAN games (classic games like Duke Nukem 3D) or modern games that for some reason or another just have poor internet support (Demigod at its launch comes to mind).

In addition to gaming and file transfers, Hamachi can also facility a secure remote network connection between two computers. To do this, we're going to combine Hamachi with another free networking app, UltraVNC.

Hamachi

Hamachi should be installed on both computers that you want to network together. Just download the installer from the link in the header above, and run the executable. In the install wizard, you'll come across a prompt that asks if you want to disable Windows File Sharing. Leave the checkbox empty.

Once Himachi has finished installing, launch the program and click the power button on the lower left hand corner. Windows will give you a prompt asking you if you want to block or unblock Hamachi from accessing Windows network services, and you should click 'unblock.' Hamachi, when powered up, assigns each computer a IP in the 5.0.0.0 range. For example, in the screenshot below, the local IP Hamachi has assigned is 5.18.250.56. Each computer should have a different IP.

Next, click the Networking menu that's the second from the right on bottom of Hamachi's interface. Select the "Create a new network..." option. It doesn't matter which of the two machines you do this on, but that machine will be the host. Follow the instructions to create a name and password for this network.

After you're done setting up a new Hamachi network, join that network on the second computer using the Networking Menu. If the machines successfully connect, the name of the system will pop up in the Hamachi window with a green star next to it.

At this point, the two machines think they're connected on a local network, and you can browse shared folders, play Starcraft LAN games, etc.

UltraVNC

The other component to this combo is UltraVNC, an open source remote networking frontend that uses Windows' VNC protocol to control the screen of networked computers.

Download and run the Ultra VNC installer. In the installation wizard, make sure to check the boxes that asks if you want to download specialized Windows drivers that lower remote control response times and optimizes CPU load.

On the machine you want to access remotely, the version of UltraVNC you should install is the UltraVNC Server, though you can install the entire package if you want. The installer will also ask if you want to run UltraVNC as a service, which means it launches as a part of the Windows startup, before any user even logs in. This is completely up to you. Since we're relying on Hamachi to provide the network connection, and that has to be launched after you log into Windows, we chose to install UltraVNC as just a plain application.

Once UltraVNC finishes its install, it'll automatically show you a Server Property Page. Leave most of the settings as their defaults, but input your own VNC password in the Authentication section (highlighted in the screenshot). Minimize UltraVNC to the taskbar notification area.

On the other machine, go through the UltraVNC install process again. If you're only going to be using this system for remote viewing and access, just install the UltraVNC viewer app.

When you launch the viewer, you'll be given a prompt to input the VNC server IP. This is where you want to type in the Hamachi IP of the PC you want to access (which should be running the UltraVNC server). Hit the big Connect button, and enter your VNC password in the prompt.

If everything goes smoothly, the viewer will pop up with a Window that shows you the Desktop of the host machine. Here, as long as the mouse is inside the viewer window, you can interact with the system as if you were sitting in front of it. Aero is turned off by default, and the VNC viewer renders in 256 colors, but you can max out the screen fidelity in the Viewer options.

UltraVNC also sports a handy File Transfer option that lets you moves selected files from the remote machine to the local one. It's better than using Public and Shared Files with Windows, since you have access to every file on the remote system, not just ones marked as shared. Feel free to mess around with UltraVNC's viewer settings, since it's a pretty powerful app.

Fraps + iPodifier = Automate Transcoding of Game Video Footage for Youtube

If there's anything Halo 3 has taught us, it's that hardcore gamers are also exhibitionists. Gamers love to show off their exploits by sharing demo files, but the easiest way showcase that 20-kill streak in Call of Duty or that rare crab-walking spy to the masses is with video sharing sites like YouTube or Vimeo. But unless you have a premium account for those services, you'll likely have to wait in a long queue while your game footage is processed into a low-res flash file. But you want to show your friends NOW to earn those e-props! We give you a way to automatically optimize your video for sharing sites.

Fraps

The first thing you'll need is Fraps, which is the de-facto screenshot and video-capture utility for PC games. Fraps requires a license to unlock all of its features, but the free version will still let you capture video with a small Fraps watermark embedded in the frame.

Download, install, and open up the Fraps tool. Navigate to the Movies tab and direct Fraps to save movie files to a staging folder. Here, we called ours "to be processed". Bind a hotkey (default is F9) for video capture, and set the framerate to 30fps or 29.97. Depending on the speed of your CPU, set Fraps to record in full or half-size video. Let Fraps detect and pick the best sound input option to also record game sounds.

The next time you want to record a game video, just load up your favorite game and hit F9 to start recording. Fraps outputs a large AVI vide file in the designated folder once you hit F9 to stop the recording session. This video is uncompressed and full-resolution, making it not only massive, but impractical to upload to Youtube.

iPodifier

Sites like Vimeo recommend that you upload videos that are already encoded in H.264 compression, with AAC audio and a resolution no higher than 1280x720 for HD and 640x480 for SD streams. Here's where a nifty program called iPoifier comes in handy.

Like some of the other apps in this feature, iPodifier monitors a specified folder and automatically processes it based on your chosen settings. In this case, we want it to process full-resolution AVIs to smaller H.264 youttube-optimized videos that can also be shared on your iPod or iPhone.

After you download and install iPodifier, run through its setup wizard. The settings here can all be changed later, so don't mind what you select.

From the main window, enter the Video source parameters settings. Create a source named Fraps and direct it to the staging folder you created before, where all your full-res AVIs are held. Let iPodifier know that you want it to look for files with the *.avi extension.

Next, select h.264 as the codec, mark quality as "best", and choose "custom" for resolution. Here, you'll need to decide the dimensions of the new video. 640x480 is recommended for standard Youtube videos, but if you're playing games on a widescreen monitor and want to upload in HD, select 1280x720 or 872x480.

Make sure you choose not to delete the source video after transcoding if you want to save the original full-res video for posterity.

Here's the cool part: you can set iPodifier to only transcode at certain times of the day, and only when your CPU is idle has under low load. This way, it won't automatically start recording as soon as your're done recording and playing a game, and can just automatically run overnight or while you're at work. Modify the Transcoding options to tweak these automation settings.

QuickPar + IMGBurn + IsoBuster = Never Worry about Scratched DVDs Again

Many of us have already converted to portable hard drives of large USB keys for storage backups, but a lot of people still chooose to burn data backups on DVDs, which offer a better cost/capacity ratio. The risk here is of course scratching one of those DVDs and losing all your data. Luckily, there's a way to create resilient DVDs that even when scratched, can still be recovered.

QuickPar

QuckPar is a free app that creates parity volumes for any number of files. Parity files can be used by data recovery apps to verity and reconstruct corrected files or groups of files. Think of them as redundant puzzle pieces that can fill in holes in an incomplete picture. With QuickPar, you can create parity files of any block size and redundancy, which is useful for filling up the empty space of a DVD backup.

Let's say you want to burn a collection of movie files that total up to 3GB. You can just burn those files on a DVD, but you would leave about 1.5GB of space that is pretty much wasted. Open up QuickPar, and drop in all of those movie files in the "Source Files" section of the window. QuickPar will display the combined size of these files, which gives you an idea of how much space would still be available on your DVD. Next, move the sliders for Block Allocation and Redundancy to the right, maxing out at when the indicated Recovery Data Size matches the leftover capacity of your DVD without going over. Click the Create button once you're done.

I MGBurn

Using our favorite ISO and file-burning application, IMGBurn, we can create a disc image using our original movie files and the newly created parity recovery files. The process couldn't be simpler!

IsoBuster

Once you've burned these files to a disc, the DVD should be recoverable from light scratches that result in data loss. As long as there are enough parity files that remain intact, you can recover all of your files with a program called IsoBuster. IsoBuster isn't free, but it's trial option has the capability to piece damaged files together with the right parity files. Keep in mind that the more parity files you create (up to 100% redundancy), the better protected your data will be. That's why it's smarter to not cram as much data on a DVD as possible, so you can leave space for these sweet headache-preventing files.

Page2RSS + XFruits = Updates for Any Site, Any Way

XFruits and Page2RSS are two services that—together—allow you to keep up to date on all your favorite websites, in whatever way is convenient for you. To understand how, let’s take a look at the two programs involved:

XFruits

XFruits is a free web service that allows you to reorganize content from RSS feeds. Normally, an RSS feed is simply a means to syndicate content—a sequential list of titles, links, images and text, easily viewed with Desktop readers and web apps. XFruits lets you go much further with your feeds.

With XFruits you can, for instance, automatically convert an RSS feed into emails, into posts on your blog, or into a webpage specifically formatted for mobile phones. You can also aggregate multiple feeds into single feed, create an RSS feed from an email account, or save data from feeds into a ready-to-print PDF files.

With XFruits, as long as a page provides an RSS feed, you can view its content in whichever way is most convenient for you.

Page2RSS

Now, if only there was some way to get around that pesky “as long as a page provides an RSS feed” qualifier… Oh, that’s right—there is!

Page2RSS is a website which watches any website you want it to, and records any changes made to that page. It then saves these changes as an RSS feed which you can view with a feed reader, or reorganize with XFruits. You’re also given the URL of a page you can check at any time to see a log of recent changes to the site. Page2RSS “crawls” all the sites a couple of times every day, meaning that changes aren’t reported in real-time, but you can still get a pretty good idea of what’s gone on recently on a website.

Confused as to exactly what sorts of changes Page2RSS reports? As an example, take a look at the Page2RSS change log for www.google.com. You’ll see that the page shows all the recent times when the main Google graphic changed, or when little bits of text were added. Note that Page2RSS preserves links too, and that clicking on the Mother’s Day Google graphic will take you to a Google search for “Mother’s Day.” To see an example of how Page2RSS handles a more content-rich page, check out its log for www.cnn.com. It’s not quite as complete as you would get with the actual CNN RSS feed, but it does manage to find all the headlines, pictures, thumbnails and links.

Rocketdock + Switcher = Steal OS X Aqua's Best Features for Windows

Despite its quirks and sometimes irritating flaws, we're unabashed PC users, and prefer the Windows OS to the "fruity" alternative. But we'll admit to having dabbled in Mac OS X on occasion, whether on MacBook Pros (in which we've installed Windows 7 already) or when we built a hackintosh for kicks. We won't deny that Apple's newest OS has some attractive features, most notably in its Aqua GUI. Here, we'll show you two free apps that capture Aqua's most well-known functions for use in Windows.

Rocketdock

While this is less applicable for Windows 7 - which has seriously overhauled the taskbar - Vista and XP's quicklaunch toolbars are pretty inadequate for launching and managing open applications. Enter Rocketdock, a taskbar complement (or replacement) that latches to any side of your Windows desktop and stores any configuration of application shortcuts and custom widgets.

Rocketdock's stock settings already give you OS X's Dock-like functionality like movable icons, mouse-over effects, and even the ability to minimize programs to its shortcut. But its real power comes when you start browsing through the vast library of Rocketdock addons, called docklets. Our favorite docket is Stacks, which emulates the "stack" feature of OS X.

Just download the docklet, double-click it, and it'll automatically be installed into Rocketdock. Enable it by right-clicking Rocketdock, and open its docklet settings to direct it to any document folder. Clicking on the docklet icon (which itself is customizable) pops open a stack that shows you its entire contents, represented by their thumbnails.

Switcher

The other half of our Mac OS emulation is a program called Switcher, which gives Vista users an Expose-like way of switching between open program windows. Just bind the app to any keyboard command or mouse activity -- we recommend hitting the top left corner of the screen -- and Switcher tiles all open windows in an graphical overlay that's easier to parse than Windows' alt-tab or even Aero Flip 3D (which seriously, have you ever used?)

Like Expose, Switcher tiles the windows while retaining their aspect ratio, and shows all windows, even if they're minimized. With the combination of Switcher and Rocketdock, you can stick it to Mac fanboys to love to gloat over OS X's intuitive GUI features.

CookiePie + Gmail Manager + Better Gmail 2 = Access and Awesomeize Multiple Gmail Accounts and Google Services

We absolutely adore Gmail and Google's other free web services, but the one thing that bothers us is how all these services are tied to one Gmail account. This becomes inconvenient when you're using a Gmail account for personal use, but also using or sharing a separate one for business. Luckily, there are a few Firefox plug-ins, that when combined, will not only let you manage multiple Gmail accounts at the same time, but also improve Gmail's overall functionality with some of the best user-made Greasemonkey scripts.

Gmail Manager

We've given praise to Gmail Manager before as a great way to monitor multiple Gmail accounts. This Firefox plug-in lets you add as many accounts to its database and alerts you when you receive new mail to any of those accounts. The number of new messages is displayed on the bottom right corner of the Firefox window, and you can click the account to log-in and check your inbox.

The problem with Gmail Manager, however, is that it doesn't let you actually use all your accounts simultaneously. While it monitors incoming mail, you have to sign out of one account to use another.

CookiePie

To tackle the issue of running multiple accounts at once, we're going to use an awesome plug-in called CookiePie, which was created by Nektra software to solve their own problems of managing multiple web services with different accounts.

CookiePie hacks and handles Firefox's cooke management to fool Firefox into letting you log into multiple accounts with the same service. This actually works for more than just Gmail -- we've had success using CookiePie with Flickr and Yahoo mail as well.

Install the plug-in, restart Firefox, and open a new browser window. Then, log into what you would consider your primary Gmail account. After you're logged in, right-click the Firefox tab and select the "Turn on/off CookiePie" option. A small cookie icon should appear next to the name of the tab. This effectively locks this tab to the existing set of Firefox cookies.

Now you can open new tabs and log into a new Gmail acocunt or Google Service, locking into that account with the same right-click tab action.

CookiePie is a bit hit and miss for some users, which is why we only enable it one one tab, and use Gmail Manager to manage our secondary accounts on "unlocked" tabs.

Better Gmail 2

The only thing better than running multiple Gmail accounts is to run multiple Gmail accounts that have been optimized with Better Gmail 2. This is a plug-in created and maintained by Lifehacker that compiles the best GreaseMonkey scripts for Gmail.

When installed, little features like Inbox row highlighting and keyboard macros are at your disposal to customize Gmail in ways that Google neglected.

For example, we use Better Gmail to hide the Chat block in Gmail's left sidebar, hide the Spam Count listing, and automatically position the cursor after quoted text in our reply-emails (saving us many mouse clicks in the long term).

Lifehacker does a great job explaining all the features of Better Gmail 2, so head over to their version changelog to get the full scoop.

The Magic Folder + uTorrent = Instant Sorting and Organization of Your Downloads

If you're like us, you probably keep all of your web downloads cluttered in one communal download folder, whether it's direct downloads with Firefox or legal downloads with Bittorrent. Eventually, your downloads folder grows to several gigabytes, and sorting through all those pictures, videos, and songs takes the better part of a day. Here's a way to automate the sorting of all your downloads and keep torrent-ed files organized with just a single click.

The Magic Folder

The Magic Folder is a widget for Windows Vista and 7 that can automatically sort files based on their extension. With the way it's meant to be used, you assign file types to any folder, and just drag files to The Magic Folder widget icon for automated sorting. This feature is enabled by clicking the check-box when you first install the widget.

But The Magic Folder also has a feature that enables it to monitor a folder and automatically sort any files that are downloaded or moved to it. Enable this ability by going to the widget's General settings tab and clicking the "Turn on the Watched Folder" option.

This "Watched Folder" is actually named "The Magic Folder" and resides next to your other document folders in your Windows User directory. Unfortunately, you can't rename or move the location of this watched folder.

What we're going to do next is set all our Firefox downloads to go to this watched folder, which would include.torrent files.

The Magic Folder has presets to recognize commonly downloaded file types, like JPEGS and MP3s, but it doesn't recognize .torrent files... yet. Hit the Folders tab in The Magic Folder settings menu and create a torrent folder location. This is where you want Magic Folder to drop all downloaded torrent files. We created a folder nested inside our default downloads folder to store these torrents.

Next, hit the Extensions tab and add a .torrent extension, directing these files to the previously created torrent folder location.

uTorrent

Here's the tricky part. We're going to use uTorrent - our preferred torrent manager - to automatically start downloading files based on torrents found in the newly created torrent storage folder. We can do this because uTorrent has its own folder monitoring feature!

Enter the uTorrent preferences, and click on the "Directories" menu. Near the bottom of the menu, enable the "Automatically load .torrents from:" feature and direct it to the torrents folder.

Next -- and this is important -- set the "Put new downloads in" option to a temporary folder anywhere on your hard drive. This is where uTorrent stores partially downloaded files.

Finally, set the "Move completed downloads to" option to The Magic Folder watched folder we mentioned earlier.

Complicated enough? Here's a breakdown of what happens when you download a file after all of this is done:

You use Firefox to download a .torrent file. It downloads to the Watched Folder.
The Magic Folder automatically moves it to your torrent storage folder, which uTorrent is monitoring.
uTorrent automatically starts the file download, setting partially downloads aside in a temporary folder and putting completed downloads back into the Watched Folder.
The Magic Folder sees the new downloaded file, whether it's an AVI, MP3, or JPEG (or anything else), and sorts it to whereever you want!

Have any great software combos or mash-ups that use can't live without? Post them in the comments below!

How-To: Optimize Your Windows Profile and Media Storage with a SSD

Will Smith — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:30:29 -0500

SSDs are all the rage for performance-oriented builders these days, but they aren’t without problems. Even the largest solid state drive is too small to hold all the stuff we need to store on the C: drive—games, photos, music, videos, etc.—and the inexpensive models max out at around 64GB of capacity. And there’s the performance problem, to boot. All but the most expensive SSDs suffer from very slow write speeds, which can have a significant impact on your real-world performance.

So what’s the solution? We’re going to show you how to set up your Windows install like a Linux setup—with the OS and primary apps on the SSD, and your user profile and space-hogging games on a traditional hard disk. This gives us the best of both worlds—the folders we write to most frequently are on a traditional disk, while our boot and app load times can benefit greatly from the fast read speed and low random-access time of an SSD. Best of all, you can use even a tiny 64GB SSD without having to constantly manage disk space—picking and choosing which apps and media will be stored on the small drive.

Step 1: Install Windows on Your SSD

While you can change the default path of your user profile using the Windows Pre-Install Kit, it’s more trouble than it’s worth to do it that way. Instead, we’re going to tweak Windows after it’s already in place. The first thing you’ll need to do is install Windows on your SSD, which is essentially no different than any other time you’ve installed Windows. When you’re prompted to create an account at the end of the install, don’t use the account name you actually want; use a temporary placeholder instead. You’ll create the actual account you’ll use later. Don’t install any applications until after you’ve moved your user profile.

Once Windows is installed, you should create the user account you intend to use. Go to the Control Panel and search for Add User. Create your account, but don’t log in yet.

We’ve tested our procedure with Windows Vista and Windows 7 Beta 1, but it should work with XP as well if you adjust the paths yourself (Vista and Windows 7 store user profile in C:\Users by default, XP is C:\Documents and Settings). Once Windows is installed and updated with drivers and security patches, you’ll need to set up the partitions on your hard disk.

We created two partitions on our hard disk, one for the user profile and one for games and other large applications. To access the partitioning tools, right-click Computer in the Start Menu and click Manage. Go to Disk Management. Then, right-click your hard disk and create a new partition. We made each partition roughly half of the drive, but if you have a lot of media files, you may want to make your user profile partition larger than your game partition. Once the two partitions have been formatted as NTFS, you can continue to the next step.

Step 2: Copy Your Profiles

Next, you’ll want to assign a drive letter to your user profile drive. We chose U:\, but you can use whatever letter you prefer. In U:\, you’ll need to create a folder called Users. Now, reboot your computer and go into Safe Mode by pressing F8 as it boots. Once you’re in Safe Mode, go to C:\Users and copy the Default and Public folders to U:\Users\Default and U:\Users\Public. You’ll likely find some *.tmp files that simply won’t copy; it’s OK to skip them.

After that’s done, you should open the registry editor (press the Windows key on your keyboard and type regedit). Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList. In that folder, you need to change the value of the Default key to U:\Users\Default, the Public key to U:\Users\Public, and the ProfilesDirectory to U:\Users. Reboot your PC and log in using the account you created in step 1. During the login, Windows will create your new user account, which should be in U:\Users.

Step 3: Wrapping up Loose Ends

If you didn’t take our advice in step 1 and start with a clean install, this is the point at which you should copy the contents of your old user profile into your new directory. Rather than doing a wholesale copy/paste of the whole directory, it’s safer to only pull the files you need.

You’ll also want to open the registry and do a Find for C:\Users. We found about 20 instances on our test machines, even in a fresh account. While there are some tools that will do an automatic find and replace on the registry, we chose to manually use regedit so we could verify each change ourselves. Open regedit (type regedit after pressing the Windows key), click Computer at the top of the left pane, and then go to the Edit menu and click Find. Type C:\Users and click Find. Then manually change each key to U:\Users. Press F3 to find the next instance, and keep at it until you've changed all the entries. Reboot your PC, then restart regedit and search one final time to ensure you didn't miss any entries.

If you're doing this on a machine that's been used, there will likely be a massive number of registry changes necessary. In that case, download Registry Finder (www.acelogix.com/regfinder.html, 30-day trial) to automate some of the process. While it’s not perfect, Registry Finder will find and change many of the entries for you. You'll still want to do a manual search with regedit, but Registry Finder could save you an hour of copy/pasting.

At this point, you could delete C:\Users if you so desire. We find that it's better to leave the folder, so that even poorly behaved apps that use a hardcoded profile path will continue to work. You should, however, occasionally check the C:\Users folder to see if any files have popped up there.

At this point, your Windows install is ready to go. However, before you install any big apps, you should mount your games partition so you don't waste precious space on the SSD for games.

Step 4: Create a Place for Games

Now, we're going to mount your games partition in the file system. First, you create a folder in your C:\Program Files directory (or C:\Program Files (x86) on 64-bit Windows) called Games. Go back to the Computer Management console and click Disk Management. Right-click the Games partition and select Change Drive Letter and Paths. Select any drive letters that are currently being used and click Remove, then click Add. Select "Mount in the following empty NTFS folder", and browse to the Games folder you just created. Now anything you install at C:\Program Files\Games will actually be stored on your hard disk, and not your SSD. Paths and permissions will also be inherited. Be sure not to mount your Games folder to any additional drives.

How-To: Use Symbolic Links to Master Vista's File System

Alex Castle — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:45:00 -0500

With Windows Vista, Microsoft introduced a new capability into its operating system: the ability to create symbolic links. Accessible only from the command line, symbolic links aren’t something the average user would need to be familiar with to use Windows, but they are a powerful way to manipulate the file system. In this article, we’ll provide a little background info about symbolic links and hard links, and show you how to use the mklink command to create them. We’ll also show you a couple of examples, including how to use mklink to manage your Steam games and music files. so read on, and find out how you could be taking full advantage of symbolic links!

What is a symbolic link?

A symbolic link is very much like what you would normally call a “shortcut.” it creates a pointer to a different part of the file system, redirecting your computer to that location when accessed. What makes a symbolic link different from a shortcut is that it is handled at the operating system level, rather than at the application level. This means that whereas only a few programs (such as explorer.exe) know how to handle a shortcut file, a symbolic link can be used with almost any program that deals with the file system.

With a symbolic link, if the target directory or file is deleted, the link becomes non-functioning, as it points to a file that no longer exists. In a way, this gives symbolic links extra flexibility, as you can create a symbolic link to a file or folder that doesn’t actually exist, but will later. Symbolic links take up no space, and if you delete a symbolic link, nothing happens to the original data.

It's actually considerably more complicated than what's shown in the above graph, but this gives you an idea of the structure a symbolic link creates.

What is a hard link?

A hard link is functionally very similar to a symbolic link, but is fundamentally different. Rather than pointing to a part of the file system, a hardlink points to data in memory. In other words, when you create a hard link, you’re not merely creating a link or a shortcut to another file—you’re creating a new file which points to already extant data.

This is best illustrated by mentioning that if you delete the original file, any hard links to that file will still work normally, as the data they pointed to is still there. The data will remain until every hard link pointing to it is deleted.

How to use the mklink command

To create a symbolic link with mklink, use the following syntax:

mklink <link> <target>

The parameter <link> is the name you want to give to the newly created link. The <target> parameter is where you specify the location that you want to link to. The location can be an absolute path (such as “C:\Documents and Settings\acastle\My Documents\Articles”), a relative path (such as “Articles\October 08”), or the address of a network share (such as 192.168.1.3). The target can be a single file or an entire folder, depending on which command line options are specified. These options are as follows:

Default

If you use mklink without any command line flags, it will default to creating a file symbolic link. Thus, the specified target must be a single file. For example, to link a game save file to a mounted network drive, you could enter

mklink D:\Games \civilization iv\game1.sav M:\Games\civilization iv\game1.sav

/D

With the /D flag, mklink creates a directory symbolic link. This is just a symbolic link that points to a whole directory rather than a file. You would generally use such a link the same way you would use a shortcut to a directory. As an example, it could look like this:

mklink D:\Photos \\192.168.1.4\photos

/H

With the /H flag, mklink creates a hard link, rather than a soft link, as described at the beginning of this article. It must point to a file, not a directory. It would look like this:

mklink /H C:\app\config.ini E:\apps\exampleapp\config.ini

/J

The /J flag is the hard link equivalent of the /D flag. It creates a hard link to a directory, rather than a single file. For example, if you wanted to create a hard link to a folder, you could use this command:

mklink /J D:\Articles C:\Users\username\Documents\Articles

If at any time you simply enter "mklink" into the command prompt, you'll be shown a brief reminder of what the command line options are.

Sample Uses

Alright, so that was a whole lot of theory about symbolic links, but what are they actually good for? As a basic tool for manipulating the file system, they’ve got potentially endless uses, but most of the ways we’ve used the in the past involve using hard links to provide extra flexibility for applications that don’t normally allow you to change where certain data is stored. For example:

Storing Steam Games Outside the Steam Folder

Steam is an excellent example of a application which is not entirely flexible in the way it uses the file system. When you first install Steam, you can choose where you want games saved, but after that point, every new game you download is installed to the same place. With hard links, we can fix that.

Why would we want to have Steam games installed in different places? Let’s look at the following example. Say we have a computer with two hard drives: a 300GB WD Velociraptor and a 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda. We use the faster-accessing Velociraptor for gaming, so we install Steam on one of its partitions. Eventually, the Velociraptor begins to fill up, so we have to start evaluating how we’re using the space. For a game like Crysis, which will be accessing tons of data off the disk—fast—we definitely want to use the faster hard drive. However, for a game like Civilization 4, which is older and loads quickly pretty much no matter what, we could afford to move the game’s data over to the slower drive, clearing up a couple of gigabytes on the Velociraptor.

So how would we go about doing it? All we need to do is find the files we want to move. In our example, they’re located in D:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization iv. We’ll move that folder somewhere on the 2TB drive, for instance to E:\Games\sid meier's civilization iv. Now, before starting up Steam again, we need to create a hard link to fill in the hole we left when we moved the folder. The command we’ll use to do that is:

mklink /J D:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization iv E:\Games\sid meier's civilization iv

Now, when Steam looks for the Civilization 4 files, it will find them right where it’s expecting. However, the hard link is pointing it to data that’s actually on the 2TB drive. Using this technique, we can store our games wherever we like.

Managing Media Files Stored on a Network

One useful feature of symbolic links, as they are implemented in Windows Vista and later, is that they can point to other locations on a local network, as long as the other computer is also running a post-XP Windows operating system. This opens up a whole new set of uses for symbolic links.

For example, say you’ve got a home server set up to store all your media files, and you want to use iTunes to access your music from any other computer on your local network. iTunes allows you to choose where music is stored, allowing you to select your media server, but that’s not everything you need. You see, iTunes stores all the data it uses to make its big track index run smoothly in an XML file called a “library.” This library file is created automatically by iTunes; you cannot normally choose to access a library on a network drive. However, with mklink, this is easy.

Say you’ve mapped your media server’s music folder to drive letter M. All you would have to do to make your music library much more flexible is follow these steps:

1. Locate the folder containing the XML library files. By default, it’s usually found in username\music\iTunes.

2. Now, much like we did with the Steam game, we’re going to swap this file out with a mklink folder. So, first copy the contents of this folder to a folder on the network drive. You can name it whatever, we chose M:\shared music libraries.

3. Next, delete the folder from your local machine.

4. Finally, create the symbolic link. For iTunes, we don’t need a hardlink, so we’ll use the following command:

Mklink /D C:\Users\Username\Music\iTunes M:\shared music libraries

And that’s it. Now your music index files are saved on the server alongside the music files themselves. This allows you to get instant access to all these files from any computer on the network, by simply running the above mklink command on those computers.

How-To: Install Windows 7 RC as a Dual Boot, Over Vista, or From Scratch

Justin Kerr — Mon, 11 May 2009 11:30:00 -0500

The May 5th launch date for the Windows 7 RC has come and gone, and amazingly, it went off without a hitch. The download servers held up, product keys have been free flowing, and Microsoft is once again proving to the world that they have what it takes to be the number one OS. To veteran Maximum PC readers, downloading and installing the new Windows 7 RC is a piece of cake, and they have probably been up and running for days. For newcomers however, the process can be a bit overwhelming. In the following guide, we will review the steps from start to finish on how to get the Windows 7 Release Candidate up and running in less than an hour. The entire process is free, and the only risk involved is your time, and the possibility of developing an unnatural love affair with an operating system that you’re wife probably won’t understand.

Read on to learn how to setup a dual boot with your old OS, upgrade from Vista, or even just make a plain old clean install.

What You Will Need

A PC with the following Minimum Specs:

1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
DVD-R / RW Drive & a Blank DVD

CDBurnerXP (Works in XP or Vista) or other DVD ISO burning software (Free)

Windows 7 RC 32 Bit or 64 Bit (Free)

A Windows Live Account (Free)

1.) Download The RC

The first thing you will need to do is navigate on over to the Windows 7 RC download page, and grab yourself the updated ISO. You will notice that it will give the option of picking either the 32 or 64 Bit version of the OS. As with Vista x64, the future is in 64 Bit computing, but you need to have compatible hardware, and the advantages don’t amount to much if you have less than 4 gigs of ram. If your not sure if your processor is 64 bit or not, feel free to take the test by downloading and running GRC’s SecureAble.

Navigate to the bottom of the page, select your edition, then hit GO.

Next you will be asked to enter your Windows Live account information, if you don’t have one, not to worry, you can create it for free. After signing up, or signing in, you will be presented with your Windows 7 product key. If you planning on installing more than one copy of Windows 7, or even a mixture of 32 bit and 64 bit, don’t worry about trying to scam yourself additional product keys. As of right now, you can activate as many copies as you want with a single key, and both editions will work with either key.

Next all you need to do is hit Download Now to start the downloader.

Next we will look at the post download process.

2.) Burn The ISO to a DVD

If you haven’t done so already, you will need to download and install an ISO burning software utility which will turn the file you downloaded, into a bootable install disk. If you don’t have Nero or another CD burning utility already, I suggest CDBurnerXP. It works in both Windows XP & Vista, despite the name, and is a free, full featured burning utility.

Just select Burn ISO from the main menu, insert a blank DVD, and hit Burn.

3.) Upgrade Windows Vista to Windows 7 (Windows XP Users Need Not Apply!)

Windows XP isn’t elegable for an in place upgrade, and I’m not so sure that a bad thing. The in place upgrade transfers settings, and files, but given the drastically different architecture of the two OS’s, even if Windows 7 tried, the result probably wouldn’t be what you were hoping for. It is possible to use the Windows XP file and settings transfer wizard, but this will need to be backed up manually, and you will need to skip ahead to the clean install step.

Upgrading a Windows Vista installation on the other hand is ridiculously simple. Just insert you new DVD, click Install Now, then sit back and let Windows 7 will do the rest. A three click OS install? Take that Steve Jobs! It might be worth pulling out a mighty mouse if you can find one for this step just to rub it in.

Do a Clean Install or Dual Boot of Windows 7

If your doing a clean install of Windows 7, make sure that you have backed up all the information on your primary drive, and restart with the DVD in your optical drive. A clean install will be required if you are a Windows XP user, or if the computer doesn’t have a primary OS. Even if your running Vista however, I would still recommend going with a clean install. It’s a well-known fact that upgrades, rarely work as well as a fresh install.

During the boot up press any key to continue when prompted.

When you reach the first options screen select Custom

The next screen will give you a summary of your hard drive and partitions. Here you can select one of two options.

1.) Select your primary partition then click Format then Next

2.) Select a secondary partition or drive then click Format then Next.

The advantage of going with option number two is that you can run Windows 7 in a dual boot setup. Windows 7 will automatically configure a boot manager and will allow you to pick from your old OS, or Windows 7 at each startup. You can select either a secondary hard drive, or make another partition to go with the dual boot approach. Want to know how to make a new partition from your existing hard drive, without destroying your existing data? We’ve got a guide for that too. Also keep in mind, if you select a secondary drive that doesn’t contain an OS, you don’t need to click format. In this example, Windows 7 will simply be installed on the drive alongside your data.

Windows 7 will now install itself, and you won’t need to make any other choices. Just sit back, and enjoy the ride.

After you’re reboot you will be prompted to enter your CD key which you obtained during step one.

After you’re reboot you will be prompted to enter your CD key which you obtained during step one.
You can optionally uncheck the box next to Automatically activate Windows when I’m online if you plan on wiping this installation out in less than 30 days. This will save you having to activate or look around for the key before getting yourself up and running. That’s about the only advantage however, since activations aren’t limited at this point.

Install Windows 7 From a USB Key

Want to learn how to install Windows 7 from a USB key? Find our guide here.

Conclusion

Microsoft has done an amazing job of using the beta, and RC of Windows 7 to create awareness for its new OS. As a result, many of the major hardware manufacturers have already developed very mature and stable Windows 7 drivers to satisfy the early demand. We strongly encourage anybody who is interested in a sneak peek of the future to give the RC a try, and we are hoping this guide will remove the barrier of entry for even the most modest of users. The RC will be available for download until at least June 2009, and you won’t need to worry about it expiring until March 2010.

What are your impressions of the Windows 7 RC?

How to Hack Your Dropbox: Five Amazing Mashups

Alex Castle — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:30:00 -0500

As any PC power-user knows, getting files from one place to another is one of the oldest tasks in the book. Since way back when people have used floppies, ZIP disks, CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, thumb drives, email and more to get the files you need from point A to point B. But now there’s DropBox, which has—in the half year or so since it came out of beta—become our very favorite way of making sure that we always have our most important files at hand.

If you’re not familiar with how DropBox works, it’s simple: You create a free account with DropBox, and install a small app on your computer. This app creates a folder on your computer (wherever you choose) and monitors that folder at all times. Whenever you change the contents of this folder, by adding, modifying or deleting files, DropBox automatically syncs these changes to your account’s folder on their servers. Additionally, any other computer logged into that same account will have their DropBox folder synced as well. There’s nothing earthshaking about this capability, but the whole process is amazingly simple and makes collaboration an absolute breeze.

Still, with a little creativity, DropBox can be a lot more than just a way to move files from one computer to another. We’ve compiled a list of five of the coolest DropBox tricks we’ve heard of so far, so read on to find out how you can use DropBox and other free software to recover a stolen laptop, organize your Torrents, keep your passwords safe, and more.

1. Keep all your passwords safe

Everyone knows that good password security requires that you use passwords that are A) long, B) complicated, and C) different for every website and service you use. Of course, these three requirements also make it a total pain to memorize all the passwords you need, meaning that most people don’t follow the rules, either using one password across many services (a security risk) or writing their passwords down near the computer (also a security risk).

That’s where KeePass comes in. KeePass is a free, open source password safe. It allows you to generate a unique, totally random password for every site or service you use, while only requiring you to remember a single master passphrase. Whenever you attempt to log into a service, KeePass asks for your master passphrase, then automatically enters the appropriate password from your safe.

That’s all well and good, but what do you do if you frequently use two different computers (say, a desktop and a laptop)? You could use a USB drive to keep your KeePass password archive with you at all times, but that’s one more little bit of hardware you have to keep track of. Instead, use DropBox to keep an up-to-date copy of your password file on both computers, at all times. Just tell KeePass to save your password archive somewhere in your DropBox synced folder.

Worried about security? Fuhgeddaboutit. KeePass saves your password in an archive encrypted with nigh-unbreakable AES 256-hit encryption. That means that as long as you pick a strong, long password, getting a hold of your KeePass file won’t do a hacker a bit of good.

2. Catch Laptop Thieves

As PC enthusiasts, nothing gets our blood boiling like tales of stolen laptop computers. With DropBox, though, there’s a chance for sweet, sweet revenge. The trick is to set up a keylogger on your own machine, and set it to save its log files into the Dropbox shared folder. If anyone ever steals your laptop, your Dropbox folder will give you a detailed look at what the thief is doing with it. If the cretin connects to a service such as MySpace (and our personal research indicates that cretins just love MySpace) then you’ll know exactly who stole your notebook.

By letting Dropbox handle the syncing, you don’t have to let an internet-enabled keylogger through your firewall (because who knows who it could be sending data too). Of course, keyloggers are pretty sketchy business, so if you want to try this trick out you’ll have to track one down on your own.

3. Access an Encrypted Drive, Anywhere

We like Dropbox. We like TrueCrypt. So what if… What if, we were to use the two together? Crazy, we know, but by combining the top-notch encryption of TrueCrypt with the easy syncing of Dropbox, you can create an encrypted drive accessible from any computer.

To do this, just download the TrueCrypt executable, run it, and choose to Extract it (rather than install it) to your Dropbox folder. From there, make an encrypted volume, as described in this article. This will allow you to run TrueCrypt and mount your encrypted volume straight off of the Dropbox folder, on any machine.

There’s one thing you should note about this method: First, Whenever Dropbox updates a file, it first compares the old file and the new, then only uploads or download only the bits that have changed. On the one hand, this is good because it means that you don’t have to re-upload your entire 500MB encrypted volume every time you add something to it. On the other hand, a hacker could (theoretically) see how the encrypted data is changing as you add or change files in the volume; an encryption no-no. Still, this definitely not something you have to worry about if you’re just looking for a little extra security for your Dropbox files.

Read on to find out how you can use Dropbox to control a BitTorrent and sync up all your instant messaging logs!

4. Control a BitTorrent Client Remotely

How often have you found yourself sitting at work, only to find out that a file you’re interested (a demo for a game you’re excited about, for instance) has just become available online. Sure, you could sit there patiently, and wait until you get home to download it; but why bother waiting when you could have it ready for you as soon as you get there. Most of the big BitTorrent clients have some sort of web-based control, but those can be tricky to set up, and require that you have a static IP (or set up a DynDNS account). Using DropBox, it’s much easier.

Here’s what you’ll need to do: First, make sure you have a BitTorrent client capable of automatically loading .torrent files from a folder. All the big ones are capable of this, including uTorrent, Vuze, and the standard BitTorrent client. Next, set it up to monitor your DropBox, or a folder in your DropBox (My Documents/My Dropbox/Torrents for instance) and automatically open any .torrent file added to that folder.

Now, if you see a file you want to grab, just download the .torrent file to your Dropbox/Torrents folder, and your home PC will start the download as soon as DropBox syncs. It’s as simple as that.

Of course, this method requires that you leave you computer on all day long, a decidedly environmentally-unfriendly practice that we don't recommend. But If you're anticipating the need to download something (a beta test for a new MMO, maybe?) we won't fault you for making a one-day exception.

5. Access your IM logs from any computer

A lot of people use instant messaging to keep in touch with their coworkers during the day. We certainly do here at the Maximum PC office, but we’re sure the same can be said for many less-technically-forward offices as well. Because of that, there are times when, while you’re at home, you want to remember something from a conversation you had while you were at work, but you can’t, because your IM logs are stored on your work computer.

That doesn’t have to be the case, though. If you use Pidgin, a free, open source multi-protocol IM client, you can tell it to save its logs in a folder in your Dropbox. As long as Pidgin is set up that way on all of your computers, they will all share access to the same logs.

Actually setting it up so that Pidgin saves your logs somewhere other than the default location is a little trickier than you might imagine, though. You’ll need to change the PURPLEHOME environment variable on your system, which defines where Pidgin will save its configuration files and logs. To do this, open the control panel and select System. Then select the Advanced tab, and click on Environment Variables. Now, click New under the System Variables box. In the Variable Name field, enter PURPLEHOME and in the Variable Value field, enter the location of your Dropbox folder. Now Pidgin will use a folder inside your Dropbox called .purple to save its data.

If you’re ok working from a fresh install of Pidgin, that's all you’ll need to do. If you have existing settings and logs that you want to keep using, just copy the .purple folder from its default directory (Application Data) to your Dropbox directory.

What did we miss?

So that's five of the coolest Dropbox trick's we've found, but we're sure there's a whole lot more out there. Do you know any clever ways to use file syncing? Let us know in the comments!

How-To: Keep Your Files Secure

Alex Castle — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:30:00 -0500

These days, privacy is getting pretty hard to come by. Your boss checks your Facebook, your mom sees what you’re looking at on YouTube, and anyone who Googles your name can find out about that embarrassing incident at the IHOP.

That’s why we think you should at least be able to find some peace of mind on your own PC. With that in mind, we’ve prepared a quick guide for keeping files and folders on your computer hidden from prying eyes. We’ll cover four different ways to accomplish this, from the mundane to the nigh-unbreakable.

Method 1: Hide Folders

Alright, the first and easiest method for hiding files is the one that’s built into Windows. You’re almost certainly already familiar with it: The good old fashioned “Hide Folder” option. To hide a folder this way, all you do is right click on it, then click on the Hidden checkbox in the properties.

This will make the folder invisible to the file explorer, as long as the “”Do not show hidden files and folders” setting is selected in the folder options. If this option is not selected, the folder will still be visible, but slightly ghosted. Because it’s so easy to find folder hidden this way, it’s a technique that should only be used against someone who isn’t actually trying to snoop through your files.

Who this is going to fool: Your Mom, a small child

Method 2: Locked Archive

Method number two is definitely more secure, and not much more difficult to do than the first method. Here, we’ll hide sensitive files or folders by stashing them inside an encrypted (password locked) archive file. Almost any file archiver as the ability to encrypt a .ZIP archive, but the default encryption algorithm for many programs, called ZIPCrypto, is not terribly secure and can be cracked using programs available on the internet. Instead, make sure you use a program that can use very secure AES 256 bit encryption. Example of these include 7-Zip, PeaZip, and WinZIP. Windows’ built-in ZIP app does NOT do AES 256 b it encryption.

There are two issues to consider with locked archives. First, the encryption is only as strong as the password you choose, so pick a password that’s at least 10 characters long and has a mix of letters (upper and lower case), numbers and symbols. Even if it’s fairly long, a password that is a word is susceptible to a quick dictionary attack. Second, although the archive hides the contained files from peeping Toms, the archive itself is plainly visible. You can try to disguise the file as something else, but a big, encrypted archive is always suspicious.

Who this is going to fool: Probably nobody, but they’re going to have to waterboard you if they want to know what’s inside

Method 3: Steganography

Alright, enough of the boring methods, let’s get down to the James Bond stuff. Steganography is like cryptography, in that its goal is to hide a message from 3rd parties, but it goes a step further, demanding that the 3rd party not be able to tell that the hidden data even exists. Commonly, this is done by disguising one sort of file as another sort of file, or hiding it in a big pile of random data.

How can you get started with steganography? If you just want to impress your (easily impressed) friends, you can use one of a couple of web apps. Mozaiq is a site which allows you to hide a secret message inside a .png or .jpeg. It’s very limited (128kb image, 1024 characters max for your secret message) but it couldn’t be any easier: Just upload your image (or choose one of their stock photos), enter your message and an optional password, then click Hide Your Message! You can give the picture and password to anyone you want, and they can read the hidden message by going to the mozaiq decryption page.

If you want to hide one whole file, and not just a secret message inside another file, the maxant Steganography app has you covered. This is good for hiding single files, but if you’re looking to conceal a whole bunch of data, you’re going to need a more heavy duty solution. For that, read on.

Who this is going to fool: Anyone but a data forensics expert

Method 4: TrueCrypt

Finally, it’s time for the big guns: TrueCrypt. We’ve mentioned TrueCrypt several times before (as a means to secure a USB thumb drive, for instance) and with good reason; it’s simply the best solution for encrypting your data. However, it has another, sneakier feature that we haven’t yet covered, which allows you to place a hidden volume inside another encrypted volume.

How does it work? To understand that, you need to know how a standard TrueCrypt volume works. When you create an encrypted volume with TrueCrypt, you specify its size, like you would when creating a disk partition. The hidden volume will always occupy exactly this much space, regardless of how many files you put into it. Any space in the volume not occupied by encrypted data is filled with random data. To anyone without the passphrase, the encrypted data is completely indistinguishable from the random data. To anyone with the passphrase, the encrypted data can be decrypted, but the unused space remains totally random.

This creates an opportunity to hide more data. By encrypting additional data with a different passphrase and inserting it among the random data at the end of a volume, TrueCrypt creates an encrypted volume with two different Passphrases, each of which provides access to a different set of data. You can fill one of these volumes with decoy data, so that even if you ever need to give away a password you can give up the decoy password, and nobody will ever be able to prove that another volume even exists.

The process to create a hidden TrueCrypt volume is pretty simple. Just follow these steps:

Download TrueCrypt—which is free and open source—from its website. Run the executable; it doesn’t matter whether you choose to extract or install it. Go to where you extracted the files and run truecrypt.exe.

Next, click the Create Volume button.

Choose Create an encrypted file container, then Hidden TrueCrypt Volume, then Normal Mode.

You will now be guided through the necessary steps to create an outer volume. Choose a filename for the volume, a size and a password. Don’t worry about messing with the encryption. When given the opportunity, shake the mouse around in the window and press Format (don’t worry, this won’t format your hard drive).

Once the first (outer) volume is completed, you’ll repeat the process for the hidden volume. Choose a size that gives you enough room to plant decoy data in the outer volume, and pick a significantly different passphrase.

There! Now you’ve created your hidden volume. Now you can access it at any time by clicking Select file, browsing to the volume, then clicking on Mount from the main TrueCrypt screen and entering either the decoy or real passphrase.

Who this is going to fool: The KG-freakin’-B