Before I begin with DropMyRights, let’s take a look at how Windows XP operates and how it can be vulnerable.

First off when you do a Windows XP install, somewhere at the end of the installation it will ask you to enter usernames to be used on that computer. You need to enter at least one username there otherwise it won’t let you pass to the next step. Well, did you know that Windows assigns Administrator rights to that users that you created?

What does that mean?

That means that these users can do a lot of System related tasks which usually allowed only to Administrator. I understand that if you are not a member of Administrator groups you will have a lot of restrictions and sometimes it’s just easy to add yourself into that group. However, this comes with a lot of responsibility. While you are surfing with Administrator rights you can easily get malware (malicious software) , viruses infect your system easier and also critical Windows system files can be at risk of modifying or even deletion.

What’s DropMyRights in this?

DropMyRights allows you to run applications with restricted rights (i.e. non-Administrator rights). This applies even if you are logged in as Administrator or if you are a member of Administrators group.

Why bother? I have AntiVirus softwares installed!

Sometimes, you are behind of patches and upgrades. Sometimes patches come only after you are infected.

How to install and use?

1. Download the application here and install it. The application will be installed in C:\Documents and Settings\%Username%\My Documents\MSDN\DropMyRights.
2. I’d like to copy the DropMyRights.exe file to somewhere else, for example C:\Downloads\DropMyRights.exe.
3. Now I can setup shortcut and type in the location of the item C:\Downloads\DropMyRights.exe “C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE” , then I give a proper name for the shortcut, let’s name it IE – Non-Admin.
4. It will create a shortcut with a default exe icon, you might want to change icon to IE icon or the application you are trying to run with DropMyRights.

Notes:

According to SANS Top-20 Internet Security Attack Targets (2006 Annual Update), Internet Explorer, Windows Libraries and MS Office are the most vulnerable.

Other alternatives:

• Alternative for Microsoft Windows XP – is Ubuntu Linux
• Alternative for Internet Explorer is – is Mozilla Firefox, very much popular these days
• Alternative for Microsoft Outlook (Express) is – Mozilla Thunderbird

I made some other queries, microsoft.com was one of them. I was surprised to see the outcome. Check out the whois information for Microsoft domain!

arstan@blacky:~$ whois microsoft.com

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.ZZZZZZ.MORE.DETAILS.AT.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM
IP Address: 203.36.226.2
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.ZZZZZ.GET.LAID.AT.WWW.SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM
IP Address: 69.41.185.194
Registrar: INNERWISE, INC. D/B/A ITSYOURDOMAIN.COM
Whois Server: whois.itsyourdomain.com
Referral URL: http://www.itsyourdomain.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.ZZZOMBIED.AND.HACKED.BY.WWW.WEB-HACK.COM
IP Address: 217.107.217.167
Registrar: ONLINENIC, INC.
Whois Server: whois.35.com
Referral URL: http://www.OnlineNIC.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.ZZZ.IS.0WNED.AND.HAX0RED.BY.SUB7.NET
IP Address: 207.44.240.96
Registrar: INNERWISE, INC. D/B/A ITSYOURDOMAIN.COM
Whois Server: whois.itsyourdomain.com
Referral URL: http://www.itsyourdomain.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.WILL.LIVE.FOREVER.BECOUSE.UNIXSUCKS.COM
IP Address: 185.3.4.7
Registrar: MELBOURNE IT, LTD. D/B/A INTERNET NAMES WORLDWIDE
Whois Server: whois.melbourneit.com
Referral URL: http://www.melbourneit.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.WILL.BE.SLAPPED.IN.THE.FACE.BY.MY.BLUE.VEINED.SPANNER.NET
IP Address: 216.127.80.46
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.WILL.BE.BEATEN.WITH.MY.SPANNER.NET
IP Address: 216.127.80.46
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.WAREZ.AT.TOPLIST.GULLI.COM
IP Address: 80.190.192.33
Registrar: KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH
Whois Server: whois.rrpproxy.net
Referral URL: http://www.key-systems.net

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.TOTALLY.SUCKS.S3U.NET
IP Address: 207.208.13.22
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.enom.com
Referral URL: http://www.enom.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.SMELLS.SIMPLECODES.COM
IP Address: 207.44.234.34
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.SHOULD.GIVE.UP.BECAUSE.LINUXISGOD.COM
IP Address: 65.160.248.13
Registrar: GKG.NET, INC.
Whois Server: whois.gkg.net
Referral URL: http://www.gkg.net

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.RAWKZ.MUH.WERLD.MENTALFLOSS.CA
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.OHMYGODITBURNS.COM
IP Address: 216.158.63.6
Registrar: DOTSTER, INC.
Whois Server: whois.dotster.com
Referral URL: http://www.dotster.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.MORE.INFO.AT.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM
IP Address: 203.36.226.2
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.LOVES.ME.KOSMAL.NET
IP Address: 65.75.198.123
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.LIVES.AT.SHAUNEWING.COM
IP Address: 216.40.250.172
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.enom.com
Referral URL: http://www.enom.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.IS.NOT.YEPPA.ORG
Registrar: OVH
Whois Server: whois.ovh.com
Referral URL: http://www.ovh.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.IS.NOT.HOSTED.BY.ACTIVEDOMAINDNS.NET
IP Address: 217.148.161.5
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.enom.com
Referral URL: http://www.enom.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.IS.NOT.AS.COOL.AS.SIMPLECODES.COM
IP Address: 207.44.234.232
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.IS.IN.BED.WITH.CURTYV.COM
IP Address: 216.55.187.193
Registrar: ABACUS AMERICA, INC. DBA NAMES4EVER
Whois Server: whois.names4ever.com
Referral URL: http://www.names4ever.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.IS.HOSTED.ON.PROFITHOSTING.NET
IP Address: 66.49.213.213
Registrar: COMPUTER SERVICES LANGENBACH GMBH DBA JOKER.COM
Whois Server: whois.joker.com
Referral URL: http://www.joker.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.IS.GOD.BECOUSE.UNIXSUCKS.COM
IP Address: 161.16.56.24
Registrar: MELBOURNE IT, LTD. D/B/A INTERNET NAMES WORLDWIDE
Whois Server: whois.melbourneit.com
Referral URL: http://www.melbourneit.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.IS.A.SUBSITE.OF.SWEETCOUPLE.NET
IP Address: 208.109.8.2
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.IS.A.STEAMING.HEAP.OF.FUCKING-BULLSHIT.NET
IP Address: 63.99.165.11
Registrar: THE NAME IT CORPORATION DBA NAMESERVICES.NET
Whois Server: whois.aitdomains.com
Referral URL: http://www.aitdomains.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.IS.A.MESS.TIMPORTER.CO.UK
Registrar: MELBOURNE IT, LTD. D/B/A INTERNET NAMES WORLDWIDE
Whois Server: whois.melbourneit.com
Referral URL: http://www.melbourneit.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.HAS.ITS.OWN.CRACKLAB.COM
IP Address: 209.26.95.44
Registrar: DOTSTER, INC.
Whois Server: whois.dotster.com
Referral URL: http://www.dotster.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.HAS.A.PRESENT.COMING.FROM.HUGHESMISSILES.COM
IP Address: 66.154.11.27
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.FILLS.ME.WITH.BELLIGERENCE.NET
IP Address: 130.58.82.232
Registrar: CRONON AG BERLIN, NIEDERLASSUNG REGENSBURG
Whois Server: whois.tmagnic.net
Referral URL: http://nsi-robo.tmag.de

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.DRINKS.LISTERINE.NET
IP Address: 66.33.206.206
Registrar: SPOT DOMAIN LLC DBA DOMAINSITE.COM
Whois Server: whois.domainsite.com
Referral URL: http://www.domainsite.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.CAN.GO.FUCK.ITSELF.AT.SECZY.COM
IP Address: 209.187.114.147
Registrar: INNERWISE, INC. D/B/A ITSYOURDOMAIN.COM
Whois Server: whois.itsyourdomain.com
Referral URL: http://www.itsyourdomain.com

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.ARE.GODDAMN.PIGFUCKERS.NET.NS-NOT-IN-SERVICE.COM
IP Address: 216.127.80.46
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net

Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.AND.MINDSUCK.BOTH.SUCK.HUGE.ONES.AT.EXEGETE.NET
IP Address: 63.241.136.53
Registrar: DOTSTER, INC.
Whois Server: whois.dotster.com
Referral URL: http://www.dotster.com

Domain Name: MICROSOFT.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net
Name Server: NS1.MSFT.NET
Name Server: NS2.MSFT.NET
Name Server: NS3.MSFT.NET
Name Server: NS4.MSFT.NET
Name Server: NS5.MSFT.NET
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 10-oct-2006
Creation Date: 02-may-1991
Expiration Date: 03-may-2014

>>> Last update of whois database: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:38:28 UTC <<<

NOTICE: The expiration date displayed in this record is the date the
registrar’s sponsorship of the domain name registration in the registry is
currently set to expire. This date does not necessarily reflect the expiration
date of the domain name registrant’s agreement with the sponsoring
registrar.  Users may consult the sponsoring registrar’s Whois database to
view the registrar’s reported date of expiration for this registration.

TERMS OF USE: You are not authorized to access or query our Whois
database through the use of electronic processes that are high-volume and
automated except as reasonably necessary to register domain names or
modify existing registrations; the Data in VeriSign Global Registry
Services’ (“VeriSign”) Whois database is provided by VeriSign for
information purposes only, and to assist persons in obtaining information
about or related to a domain name registration record. VeriSign does not
guarantee its accuracy. By submitting a Whois query, you agree to abide
by the following terms of use: You agree that you may use this Data only
for lawful purposes and that under no circumstances will you use this Data
to: (1) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission of mass
unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations via e-mail, telephone,
or facsimile; or (2) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes
that apply to VeriSign (or its computer systems). The compilation,
repackaging, dissemination or other use of this Data is expressly
prohibited without the prior written consent of VeriSign. You agree not to
use electronic processes that are automated and high-volume to access or
query the Whois database except as reasonably necessary to register
domain names or modify existing registrations. VeriSign reserves the right
to restrict your access to the Whois database in its sole discretion to ensure
operational stability.  VeriSign may restrict or terminate your access to the
Whois database for failure to abide by these terms of use. VeriSign
reserves the right to modify these terms at any time.

The Registry database contains ONLY .COM, .NET, .EDU domains and
Registrars.
Registrant:
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US

Domain name: MICROSOFT.COM

Administrative Contact:
Administrator, Domain  domains@microsoft.com
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US
+1.4258828080
Technical Contact:
Hostmaster, MSN  msnhst@microsoft.com
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US
+1.4258828080

Registration Service Provider:
DBMS VeriSign, dbms-support@verisign.com
800-579-2848 x4
Please contact DBMS VeriSign for domain updates, DNS/Nameserver
changes, and general domain support questions.

Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
Record last updated on 01-Feb-2007.
Record expires on 03-May-2014.
Record created on 02-May-1991.

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MSFT.NET
NS2.MSFT.NET
NS3.MSFT.NET
NS4.MSFT.NET
NS5.MSFT.NET

Domain status: clientDeleteProhibited
clientTransferProhibited
clientUpdateProhibited

The Data in the Tucows Registrar WHOIS database is provided to you by Tucows
for information purposes only, and may be used to assist you in obtaining
information about or related to a domain name’s registration record.

Tucows makes this information available “as is,” and does not guarantee its
accuracy.

By submitting a WHOIS query, you agree that you will use this data only for
lawful purposes and that, under no circumstances will you use this data to:
a) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission by e-mail,
telephone, or facsimile of mass, unsolicited, commercial advertising or
solicitations to entities other than the data recipient’s own existing
customers; or (b) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes that
send queries or data to the systems of any Registry Operator or
ICANN-Accredited registrar, except as reasonably necessary to register
domain names or modify existing registrations.

The compilation, repackaging, dissemination or other use of this Data is
expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Tucows.

Tucows reserves the right to terminate your access to the Tucows WHOIS
database in its sole discretion, including without limitation, for excessive
querying of the WHOIS database or for failure to otherwise abide by this
policy.

Tucows reserves the right to modify these terms at any time.

By submitting this query, you agree to abide by these terms.

NOTE: THE WHOIS DATABASE IS A CONTACT DATABASE ONLY.  LACK OF A DOMAIN
RECORD DOES NOT SIGNIFY DOMAIN AVAILABILITY.

Anyways, this post isn’t about Vista, it’s about XP. Let’s take a look how we can speed up working XP machine by tweaking the OS and settings.

1. The default theme and visual effects that XP has, uses more memory then the standard classic theme. So by right clicking My Computer on the desktop, clicking Properties, Advanced tab and going for Performance \ Settings, pick Adjust for best Performance. You can also increase the Paging file size. This can be done by selecting Advanced tab. You can set the Paging file size somewhere between 512MB and 1GB depending on your RAM installed.

2. Access and browse files faster. Make the default view List or Details by opening My Computer and in View select List or Details.

Open My Computer, go to Tools\ Folder Options\ View uncheck “Automatically search for network folders and printers.”, apply the default view type by clicking Apply to All Folders.

3. Make sure your Windows uses NTFS file system.

4. Empty Windows prefetch folder, you can delete the contents of %systemroot%\prefetch periodically once in a month or so.

5. Do a disk clean up once in a month or so.

6. Remove the unnecessary start up services, click Start\Run type MSCONFIG click OK, in StartUp tab remove the unwanted services.

7. Update Windows periodically, follow the announcements from Microsoft.

8. Empty Temp folders, installation folders in C:\Windows

9. Using regedit open
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\
CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\
MemoryManagement\PrefetchParameters

On the EnablePrefetcher value, change the setting from 3 to 5.

Basically, there are other ways to make your Windows run, boot and shutdown faster. This is just a compilation of my own experience.

The best tip is to switch to Mac OS or Linux!

Just like that, I’d like to share another of my favorite application – PowerMenu.

This tiny application(consists of 3 files) allows you to have transparency, minimize to systray, prioritize and put the window on top of all others. You can download here, it is only 48.9 K!

I would suggest to copy the files from PowerMenu_1_5_1.zip into C:\Windows folder and create a shortcut in the Startup. This will help you to start PowerMenu with Windows login.

Here some more screenshots taken by me:

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Apis Ceratina is a nice Win32 application that will help office workers, secretaries, students and application testers do their boring jobs in less time and automate them.

• Intelligent software to record, replay and schedule keyboard and mouse activities. With Apis you don’t need to learn any programming language. Apis system monitors such activities as creating and showing windows and drop-down menus, starting applications. It also monitors position of the windows on the screen. Intelligent kernel suspends macro replay until necessary objects are absent.
• Auto fill of hundreds of business forms and dialog boxes. Relax while Apis logs on to your mail server, fills out repetitive parts of business forms, fills out dialog boxes involving any Windows application, copies current playing song to your mobile device, generates report, renames a group of files, or performs cross application macro. In fact, once you start using Apis , you discover hundreds of new ways to use it in your daily work.

Some additional Apis features include:

• Define hotkey and launch your macro from anywhere instantly.
• Define hotkey scope (Substring of a window title) and launch your macro from a certain application.
• Use Repeat option, which allows you to replay macros the repeatedly given number of times.
• Use Schedule, which allows you to schedule macros for any time, any day of week, and which offers many other schedule options.
• Use Turbo speed options, which allow you to run your macro faster.
• Use Fast access Apis Menu, which allows you to start macro faster from a drop-down menu.
• Create shortcut to macros in Start Menu, Quick Launch panel or on the Desktop.
• Also select only mouse or only keyboard replay.

I think it’s a great life-saver for office workers using Windows, in Linux you can do this kind of things via the good old bash scripting. I think I will blog about it separately.

You can have a free trial before you make up your mind and buy it for merely $29.95.

You can read more about Apis Ceratina application here.

This would be a challenge for Google, and at the same time a bigger challenge would be to Microsoft to manage two big IT giant companies together. After all, there are rumors going on that Microsoft has management problems internally. At the same time Yahoo! is not at its best shape these few years.

Csv Reader is an extremely fast and stable .Net class for stream based parsing of virtually any commonly found delimited data format, CSV files, tab delimited files, etc. It’s usable from C#, VB.Net, ASP.Net, or any other .Net language. It’s compatible with the 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0 .Net frameworks.

The methods are designed for ease of use, while the inner architecture is designed purely for speed and efficiency. Parsing is done using the de facto standard CSV file specifications. It handles quoted fields, delimiters in the data, and even data that spans across multiple lines. This gives you the ability to open csv files, edit csv files, and save csv files all directly from code.

Data can be parsed in less than half of the time of any other parser it has been benchmarked against. Rough benchmarks on a 2 Ghz processor, parsing common comma separated columns is 20 MB, or 390,000 rows with 5 columns each, almost 2,000,000 cells total, of data parsing per second. Virtually no garbage collection is needed from the framework because of object reuse internally while parsing.

All development is thoroughly unit tested to guarantee fewer bugs and to insure proper handling of extreme cases, currently using 195 test cases and 1308 asserts across 4800 lines of test code. Pricing is extremely cheap and licensing is amazingly open. One license is good across all machines enterprise wide.
I think DataStreams is a handy tool to have for application developers, especially for those who use .NET, Java or Mono.

The website provides sample codes to see how the code is used. Documentation is very critical in any kind of software, you can read documentation online or download zipped compiled help documentation. And hey, they provide full Java version for free and .NET demo version as downloads!
Special Features:

• Stream based file parsing allowing for parsing of large files without storing the entire file contents in memory
• Simple reader pattern movement through file
• Simple access to field data by index or by field name
• Internal parsing using arrays instead of strings for fast looping over large files
• Uses built in framework functionality to handle most encoding issues instead of guessing or hardcoding
• Includes a CSV writer to ease the worries while creating CSV data. No more needing to worry about what to replace with what to match up with delimiters, text qualifiers, etc

Website: http://www.csvreader.com/

clever move. http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=business6_april24_2007. he gets it. free software is a far better platform for education than the $3 offer.

• far more applications, means you can teach many more things with technology, not just word processing and spreadsheets. for example, databases, programming languages, art apps, music, astronomy, statistics… you name it
• source code, means you can learn far more about how that technology works, important for super-star students who will rocket ahead of even their teachers
• localisations, means you can teach in your n indigenous languages

in short, education departments that really care about education have lots of reasons to choose free software rather than the cheap (and usage-limited) windows offer

I think this is very true, I would add that students will learn a lot more then just learning how to use softwares like Windows OS,MS Office and solitaire. Choosing Open Source they will have chance not only to learn how to use softwares that rock, but also they have the chance to see and may be some of them will learn how to make one! This is something like teaching how to fish instead of giving one for free!

Here are some screenshots from their website:

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This software helps you to have features that are not included in the original Windows OS. It consist of features which was previously available in Linux and Mac OS X with additional features and better quality.

Still, it is good for people who are just forced to use Windows for whatever reason. This software helps you to organise your work and divide your multi-tasking operations into groups.