Keyboard Shortcuts

Bypass CD or CD-ROM autoplay [SHIFT] while inserting the disc

Delete an item with no undelete [SHIFT][DEL]

Rename an item [F2]

View an item's Properties [ALT][ENTER]

View an item's Properties [ALT][MOUSE R][MOUSE R]

Paste Special (Microsoft Word) [ALT][e][s][u][ENTER]

When browsing through files, start typing the name of a file or folder to find it.
(Works in explorer, open, and save dialog boxes)

Create a new folder [MOUSE R], [W], [F]

Copy a file [CTRL] drag the file

Arrange icons in alphabetical order [ALT]V, [I], [N]

Arrange icons in alphabetical order [MOUSE R], [I], [N]

Arrange icons by size [ALT][V], [I], [S]

Arrange icons by size [MOUSE R], [I], [S]

Arrange icons by type [ALT][V], [I], [T]

Arrange icons by type [MOUSE R], [I], [T]

Convert Fat32 hard drive to NTFS

To convert a volume to NTFS from the command prompt

1.	Open Command Prompt. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
2.	In the command prompt window, type: convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs

For example, typing convert D: /fs:ntfs would format drive D: with the ntfs format. You can convert FAT or FAT32 volumes to NTFS with this command.

Important Once you convert a drive or partition to NTFS, you cannot simply convert it back to FAT or FAT32. You will need to reformat the drive or partition which will erase all data, including programs and personal files, on the partition.

Software List

List of Great FREE Software

AVI2DVD - Burn a DVD to play in your DVD player from an AVI movie file on your hard drive.

CD Burner XP - Burn music CDs, computer files, and more with this free CD burning application

CutePDF Writer - create PDFs from Microsoft Word, Exel, Powerpoint, and any program that can print. Create PDFs for free!

Daemon Tools - creates a virutal CD/DVD Drive so that you can load Game files/discs that are disc images or ISO files, it also lets you watch DVD ISO files on your hard drive. Definitely a Gamer's Choice program! (You don't have to have the disc in your drive, or hear it spinning!)

DVD Decrypter - Remove most DVD copy protections, and copy DVD movie files to your hard drive, or create an ISO file to burn/ watch on your computer without the DVD disc.

DVDFab Decrypter - rips DVD video files to a hard drive and removes all the newest copy protections

DVD Shrink - this DVD burning program will shrink DVD video files, discs, or ISO files to fit on a 4.7GB disc. It's compression technology creates/burns files that will fit on a standard 4.7GB disc and still look great like the original. It also allows you to remove DVD video clips/extras that you don't need/want.

Irfanview - view images quickly, resize images, automatically resize, rotate, or rename many images.

MPlayer - simple, easy to use video player that includes many popular video codecs pre-installed. Simply drag your video file to the shortcut and watch it. Mplayer is great for watching stubborn video files or files that won't open with Quicktime or Windows Media player.

Printfolders (alt. Download link)- print a list of files/folders (saves to a text file)

Quintessential Player - clean, fast, and free music/video player, and CD Ripper

Source Edit - edit HTML, PHP, and other source code, and FTP server uploads can be set to run every time you save the file.

Videora iPod Converter - converts DVD video files to the iPod video format (requires DVD Decrypter)

WASTE - create a private P2P network on your College Campus to share music, movies, and software, users can only see the network when connected by a friend already on WASTE.

Wink - record flash video demos of computer tasks (can record audio)

Yamipod - copy files from your iPod to your friend's computer, or copy files from his iPod to yours. Yamipod allows you to manage the files on your iPod without using iTunes!

ZipFree 2000 - create ZIP files for FREE! Uses a right click send-to menu in explorer

Prevent Reboots

(Found article on pcmag.com on 10-24-06)

Prevent Reboots
ARTICLE DATE: 10.11.06

Many people leave their PCs on all of the time. That often means dozens of open windows, and information that hasn't been saved as recently as possible. There's nothing worse than going back to your PC and seeing a message that says "Windows recently downloaded and installed an important security update to help protect your computer. This update required an automatic restart." Or, while you are working, you may grow tired of the nagging little pop-up window with a countdown that tries to reboot your computer in 15 seconds. A simple edit to the system Registry will end this annoyance and save you from losing potentially hours of work if a reboot occurs when you aren't there to prevent it.

In fact, the U.K. publication The Register recently reported that a computer consultant in the U.K. has invoiced Bill Gates for £1,200 for "sabotaging" his work, left open during a critical system update reboot. Even if you tell Windows Update that you wish to perform a custom manual installation of new software, updates can still be pushed down to your system. Most of these critical updates are system-level files that require a reboot to fix problems properly, but you can still make Windows work the way you want it to.

Click Start, then Run. Then type regedit and press Enter. Be careful in the Registry, following the directions slowly and reading twice before clicking once. With the Registry Editor opened, click and expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies and finally Microsoft\Windows. Right-click on Windows and select New\Key with your left mouse. Type WindowsUpdate and press Enter. This will create a new folder.

Now right-click on that folder and create another new key, this one named AU, and press Enter. AU stands for Auto Update. Turn to the right-hand pane, where an entry reads (Default); right-click on the white space and select New DWORD Value. Enter the string NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers, and press Enter. Now double-click that entry and change the Value Data to a 1, with the Base button of Hexadecimal selected.

Click on File | Exit, after which the Registry autosaves (just as other applications ought to but don't), and reboot. Once Windows loads this value it should never force a reboot when you are not present. It's a small price to pay for regaining control of your computer.

Copy Playstation 2 disc screenshot

Screenshot from Alcohol 120% for copying a Playstation 2 disc to the hard drive.

Full DVD Burning Guide

If you're new to DVD Burning this guide with screenshots should help get you on the right track.

If you're burning a movie that was released by Sony, including any of the following, You need to look at the Burning Sony and new DVDs guide.

- Batman Begins
- Fun with Dick and Jane
- Howl's Moving Castle
- Legend of Zorro
- Madagascar
- Memoirs of Geisha
- Transporter 2
- Underworld 2 - Evolution
- Walk the Line

For other movies, read below:

Commercial programs and technology companies have to abide by copyright laws, so that's why you can't burn DVDs with Windows Media Player.

Copying Movies can be a slightly complicated process if you're not familiar with the programs used to do it. However, once you're accustomed to using the software, it's much easier.

So here's how to get started:

Burning DVDs with DVD Decrypter, DVD Shrink, and Nero.

Before you start, you’ll need to have the following programs installed on your computer:

DVD Decrypter
http://www.mrbass.org/dvdrip/

DVD Shrink
http://www.mrbass.org/dvdshrink/

Nero (version 6.3 or higher recommended, which you can download from oldversion.com)
http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=nero

serial number for Nero 6.3
http://computer-tricks.blogspot.com/2006/05/nero-63.html


(Note: DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink are free online.)

(Note: Always try to use a new, unscratched DVD movie disc whenever making copies, as discs in poor condition may not copy, or will likely pass on glitches to the copy.)

It’s also recommended that you don’t run other programs while burning DVDs unless you have over 1GB of RAM or more.

Insert the disc you wish to copy.

Close any DVD player program that opens.

Phase 1

Open DVD Decrypter.

Click on Mode > ISO > Read




Now click on the folder icon that shows where the DVD file will be saved. Choose a folder.

Now click on File > Decrypt.

The process of making an exact copy of the disc to the hard drive should take approx. 30-40min. depending on the length of the movie and extra features.

When DVD Decrypter is finished creating the file, you can close the program and eject the disc.

Phase 2

Now open DVD Shrink.

Click on File > Open Disc Image




Browse for the file that you saved when copying with DVD Decrypter.

DVD Shrink will now analyze the movie for a minute or two.

Uncheck boxes for extra audio Languages that you don't need on the DVD

Click on the plus + sign by the Extras folder.
(This is where the bonus materials are on the disc)

To have higher movie quality, remove the extras by clicking on the individual files and selecting Still image/still images from the dropdown menu. (You can preview the extras if you want to see the clips before removing them.)





If you'd like to keep the extra features on the DVD, select the clip and change the dropdown menu to custom compression and lower it to about 50 or 60 percent for each extra.

Click on the main movie folder. If you've removed enough extras, or compressed them, the movie quality should be around 60-70%, the HIGHER THE BETTER.

Note: Target quality is about 65-70%, anything higher than 65%, and on regular size
TV's you won't be able to tell the difference between the copy and the original.

I personally either remove the extras or compress them to achieve the best quality.

If a movie is not too much over two hours, or doesn't have many extras, it will copy
closer to 100% quality.

Insert a blank DVD disc.

When you’ve achieved the quality setting on the main movie that you’d like, click on the Backup! icon.

Before clicking OK to start the burning, click on the Burn Settings tab and change the speed to 1 or 2 speeds lower than the highest available.




DVD Shrink will now compress the file that DVD Decrypter made and create DVD video files. Afterwards, it will automatically burn those files and the disc will be completed.

This will take about 20-30 min. to create the DVD video files and approx. 10-15 min. to burn onto the blank disc.

Burning new DVDs

NOTICE: THIS GUIDE IS TO HELP YOU BACKUP MOVIES THAT ARE GENERALLY HARD TO COPY. YOU SHOULD ONLY COPY MOVIES THAT YOU ALREADY OWN; IT IS ILLEGAL TO COPY ANYTHING ELSE.

If you've had problems copying movies in good condition with DVD Shrink, this guide should help you work around any problems. DVD Decrypter is also no longer updated, so it cannot break copy protections on movies released since about Dec. 2005 / Jan. 2006, including a few other movies that have been re-released to include new content.

You'll want to use DVDFab Decrypter, because it is updated so it can break new copy protections, such as Sony's new Arccos.

This guide will help you “backup” the following DVD movies:

- The Aviator
- Batman Begins
- Fun with Dick and Jane
- Howl's Moving Castle
- Legend of Zorro
- Madagascar
- Memoirs of Geisha
- Transporter 2
- Underworld 2 - Evolution
- Walk the Line

You can find a full list of the movies that need to be copied with DVDFab Decrypter at the Wikipedia article below:

ARccOS Protection - Wikipedia Article

Note: If the movie fails to complete in DVDFab Decrypter, and the disc has little or no scratches, the movie most likely has a new copy protection scheme.

You can download DVD Fab Decrypter here:

http://www.dvdidle.com/free.htm

After downloading the program, also download a copy of DVD Shrink, so that you can fit the movie on a standard 4.7GB blank DVD disc.

DVD Shrink download and Guide here:

http://www.mrbass.org/dvdshrink/

And finally, you'll also need Nero (version 6.3 or higher recommended, which you can download from oldversion.com)

http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=nero

serial number for Nero 6.3

http://computer-tricks.blogspot.com/2006/05/nero-63.html

Install all three programs before beginning.

Insert the DVD movie that you’d like to copy, and press down the shift key for about 30 seconds immediately after you insert the DVD into the drive. This helps prevent some copy protection schemes from loading automatically.

If you were pressing down the shift key long enough, no DVD playing program should appear. Otherwise, close any DVD player that open.

Open DVDFab Decrypter.

Click on the button to the right of the “Target” that shows a folder.

Select a folder to save the DVD files, and create a new folder.

If DVDFab warns about deleting files, don’t worry as long as you either created a new folder, or if the selected folder is empty.

Now click on the Start button.

DVDFab will now copy all of the DVD files to your computer and this will take approx. 20-40 min. depending on the length of the disc and the maximum reading speed on your DVD Burner.

When DVDFab has finished successfully, you’ll get a confirmation message.

Close DVDFab.

Open DVD Shrink.

In DVD Shrink, click on File > Open

(Locate the files that you saved with DVDFab Decrypter).

DVD Shrink will now analyze the movie for a minute or two.

Uncheck boxes for extra audio Languages that you don't need on the DVD

Click on the plus + sign by the Extras folder.

(This is where the bonus materials are on the disc)

To have higher movie quality, remove the extras by clicking on the individual files and selecting Still image/still images from the dropdown menu. (You can preview the extras if you want to see the clips before removing them.)

If you'd like to keep the extra features on the DVD, select the clip and change the dropdown menu to custom compression and lower it to about 50 or 60 percent for each extra.

Click on the main movie folder. If you've removed enough extras, or compressed them, the movie quality should be around 60-70%, the HIGHER THE BETTER.

Note: Target quality is about 65-70%, anything higher than 65%, and on regular size

TV's you won't be able to tell the difference between the copy and the original.

I personally either remove the extras or compress them to achieve the best quality.

If a movie is not too much over two hours, or doesn't have many extras, it will copy

closer to 100% quality.

When you’ve achieved the quality setting on the main movie that you’d like, click on the Backup! icon.

Insert a blank DVD disc.

Before clicking OK to start the burning, click on the Burn Settings tab and change the speed to 1 or 2 speeds lower than the highest available.

DVD Shrink will now compress the files that DVDFab Decrypter created. Nero will finish burning the DVD Automatically.

This will take about 20-30 min. to create the DVD video files and approx. 10-15 min. to burn onto the blank disc.