Restore and Reset File Association in Windows Vista Back to Original Default

Windows Vista allows user to change and set default program association for most kind of file extension type via Control Panel’s “Set Associations” or “Set Default Programs” under “Default Programs” link.

Unless user remembers and knows the original file association and change the default program for the kind of file type accordingly using the graphical user interface (GUI) in Control Panel, else here’s another workaround to restore and reset the file association to the default Windows Vista version of file association.

Click Start Menu, and then type regedit in the Start Search and press ENTER.
Navigate to the following registry branch:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\FileExts\[ext]

Replace the [exe] with the actual file extension that you want to restore its file type association to revert back to original Windows Vista default. If you unsure, simply browse through all the sub-key under FileExts.
Delete the sub-key named UserChoice.
Exit from Registry Editor.

Source : My Digital Life

Written by ShaDow on June 21st, 2008 with no comments.
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PcPrivacyCleaner (PC Privacy Cleaner) Removal Instructions

PcPrivacyCleaner Descriptions: PcPrivacyCleaner, also known as Pc Privacy Cleaner by a lot of people, is the latest counterfeit anti-spyware software that endangers the world of computers. PcPrivacyCleaner usually installed itself onto your PC without your permission, through Vundo Trojan, Virus or fake software. PcPrivacyCleaner will display fake system alerts or fake security alerts to trick user [...]

Written by Alex on June 21st, 2008 with no comments.
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How To Select Multiple Areas Of Text for Firefox 3

One big improvement with Firefox 3 compared to previous versions, is with selecting multiple areas of text on a web page. In previous versions, if you wanted to select multiple text areas, you needed to find an add-on or deal with the limited built in functionality.

Now with Firefox 3, you can easily select multiple discontinuous areas at once, select an entire paragraph, or select multiple words.

Selecting Multiple Areas Of Text

With this new option you can make an initial selection as usual and keep adding text chunks by pressing the CTRL key (Command key on Macs) while making additional selections.

Just highlight an area, then move your mouse to another area of text that you want to select, press the CTRL key and drag the mouse over the area of text.

After selecting the text areas, right click on an area and select copy (or press CTRL+C) and the text will be copied to the clip board where you can paste it in a text file, document, etc…

Select An Entire Paragraph

When you have a need to select an entire paragragh, just move your mouse pointer to the beginning of the paragraph and triple-click. The entire paragraph will be selected.

Unfortuanatly you can not continue to select other paragraphs using the CTRL key.

As a work around, what you can do, is select the largest paragraph by triple-clicking, then use the CTRL key (and drag over the paragraph) to select other paragraphs.

Selecting Multiple Words

While you can single click and drag to select multiple words or an area of text, double-clicking and dragging will select each word, one at a time.

At first you may not realize why you would ever need to use this functionality when you can just single click and drag over an area text.

But it will come in handy when you just need to select text at the end of a line, where single-click and dragging has the tendency to continue selecting text on the next line when you don’t want it to. Double-clicking and selecting word by word gives you greater control in those situations.

While Firefox 3 main features will over shadow small improvements made to the browser, you will find the new functionality with selecting multiple text areas, a big improvement for every day usage.

Tags:Browser, command, Firefox, firefox 3, functionality, how to, improvement, Limit, mouse, Multiple, paragragh, Shadow, Unfortuanatly, Web

Keyboard shortcut of the week: a few for Firefox

Here are a few keyboard shortcuts for Firefox to mark the release of version 3 of that browser (which I express my initial opinions about at the bottom of this post). These should all work in Windows and Linux, for Apple Macs simply substitute the Ctrl key with the Cmd key.

Full screen mode
To hide the menus, toolbars and status bar press the F11 key, press it again to go back to windowed mode.

Text Size
To increase the size of text on a page, either hold down the Ctrl and press the + key or, if you have a wheel mouse, hold down Ctrl and roll the wheel upwards. Unsurprisingly, to decrease the size of text on a page, either hold down the Ctrl and press the - key or, if you have a wheel mouse, hold down Ctrl and roll the wheel downwards. To restore the text size to normal hold down Ctrl and press 0 (zero).

Select the search box
To move the cursor to the search box, either the built in one or the first one on a toolbar, hold down Ctrl and press K (I am not sure of the significance of K here - so probably not that easy to remember)

I have already published posts that detailed other keyboard shortcuts for Firefox:

Quickly open link in a new tab - without losing focus on current tab
Opening the Find box - near the bottom of this general post
A previous selection of shortcuts - for navigating between tabs, opening new tabs, closing tabs, opening bookmarks and selecting the address bar.
How to refresh the page

My initial feelings about version 3

I have been using Firefox v3 for a few days now and don't have much to report. It has crashed twice in that time, but the 'Restore last session' feature means that this is not such a disaster. It does not seem particularly quicker and I have yet to find any new features that have excited me. On the downside it still seems to 'Not respond' a little too often and memory management is still far from perfect.

For Entrecard users there is a problem with the way that it handles cookies. If you switch between Entrecard accounts you will keep being told to login again. I have posted a workaround solution on the Entrecard forums here - rest assured the boffins at ecard are working on it.

Written by Stepterix on June 21st, 2008 with no comments.
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Keep It Clean!

We all know that when you use a PC you leave a trail, half a mile long, in ‘log’ and ‘dat’ files and Registry entries detailing everything you’ve been doing, from the files and programs you’ve opened, to the websites you’ve visited. It’s no small concern as it can include sensitive and personal information, like passwords and PINs for example. It’s not too difficult to keep your own PC’s record keeping in check, with a free utility like CrapCleaner (see Software section) but what happens when you’ve been using someone else’s computer?

This little program, called CleanAfterMe is what you need to tidy up after you. It’s a small freeware application that you can keep handy on a USB memory stick and when you run it you have the option to delete all of the data and changes you may have left behind during the session. If you are a regular user of other people’s computers and value you privacy and security then don’t leave home without this really handy utility.

Tags:application, Clean, CleanAfterMe, Computer, CrapCleaner, freeware, freeware application, memory, privacy, program, registry, Security, Software, usb, usb memory stick, utility

Vista SP1 Release Follows XP SP3 to WSUS

Microsoft is closing in on the final stage of Windows Vista SP1's availability. In this context, the service pack is being wrapped up for delivery through Windows Server Update Services. Windows Vista
SP1 was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and to the general public on March 18. In addition, the automatic distribution of Vista SP1 debuted on April 23. Ahead the gold bits of the service pack being served through Automatic Updates, the company also published Vista SP1 on the Microsoft Update catalog on March 25, from where WSUS users could grab them. Now the software giant is preparing to make Vista SP1 RTM available through WSUS.

But before that, users running WSUS on Windows 2003 servers are advised to deploy the WinVerifyTrust update. Without it, servers in the scenarios described above will continually re-download Vista SP1 binaries once the service pack has been approved.

"We’d like to let you know that, in order to make sure all customers are well protected, we will be marking this particular update as mandatory, which means it will appear in the Updates/WSUS Updates node of the Admin console, and will be auto-approved by default (since the 'Advanced/WSUS Updates' checkbox is checked by default in Options/Automatic Approvals)," revealed Cecilia Cole, WSUS Program Manager.

Windows XP SP3 was published to WSUS on May 3, 2008, but the third and last service pack for XP did not come across the same problems as Windows Vista SP1. With the focus now on the WinVerifyTrust update, Microsoft failed to pin point the release date of Vista SP1 to WSUS.

"After this update has been marked as mandatory to WSUS for a short period of time, we will release Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to WSUS. We believe that this change will help make sure all customers have a good experience once SP1 is released to WSUS, and will also ensure that WSUS can be used to deploy other large updates we may release in the future," Cole revealed.

Windows Vista SP1 is available for download here.

Source : Softpedia News

Written by ShaDow on June 21st, 2008 with no comments.
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