Quillpad - Typing in Gujarati has never been easier

QuillPad is an application developed to be a text and code editor built in Java 1.4.

It has standard text editor features including open, save, cut, copy, paste, print and help. Plus advanced find & replace and support for pluggable tools. You can use QuillPad to write HTML, XML, JavaScript and other interpreted web languages as well as source code for C, C++, Java and other compilable languages.

Here are some key features of "QuillPad":

· Multiple Document Interface, 

· Open and Save platform default, Unicode including UTF-8 (QuillPad Default), Latin 1, ASCII        and other document formats using UNIX, Windows or Macintosh line endings, 

· Document modified indicator ( *), 

· File Read-Only detection and handling support (indicator: (!) ), 

· File filters include text, PHP, JSP, ColdFusion, vCard, vCalender, HTML, XML, RDF, OWL,           SGML, JavaScript, CSS, SQL, Java source code, C/C++ source code, C# source code, Python         and TCL source code

· 14 Languages out of the box including English, French, German, Greek and Chinese, 

· Java Look And Feel, native Operating System Look And Feel (when available) and a list of            other available Look And Feels, 

· Everaldo's Crystal SVG & Crystal Clear Icons, 

· Change text box background colour and font name, colour and size, 

· Save window size & position, 

· Lowercase, Uppercase, Inverse Case, Title Case and Sentance Case functionality, 

· Go to Line goes to line and column, 

· Find and Replace (supporting Regular Expressions and a Multiple-Document Find & Replace       mode), 

· Help Browser displaying help from LSM/RDF format, 

· Support for QuillPad Plugin Tools, 

· Check for updates feature, 

· Settings in User Home Folder (default) or locally using -local command line switch, 

· RDF Powered: settings, language files, help files

10 Quick Fixes to Make your Windows Computer Faster

Your computer running Windows isn’t running in the same speed that it used to run when you first used it. It’s slower, crappy, takes a while to start and tests your patience like anything. There are many reasons for this, let’s try fixing up a few things on your slow Windows PC:

Slow Start Up

There can be a variety of reasons to Windows loading slow during start up. Go to Run, type msconfig and hit enter. Under the ‘Start Up’ tab, uncheck the unwanted programs and press OK. Things should be a bit fine the next time Windows boots.

Another program worth mentioning here is StartUp Delayer which will help in setting after how much time programs should be loaded after Windows boots. For instance, you could set your instant messenger program to load 50 seconds after Windows starts up.

Slow Loading Start Menu

If the Start Menu items are loading slowly, you can open the Registry Editor by typing in the Run menu ‘regedit.exe’ and pressing Enter. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. Look for MenuShowDelay, and double click to edit the value. The lower the number specified, the faster the Start Menu will load.

Slow Right Click Context Menu

Probably the Windows Right Click menu on your computer is loading slow because too many programs added unwanted entries there. Just download this program called Mmm, install it and then modify your context menu to remove unwanted items to speed it up.

Slow Send To Menu

If the Send To menu loads slowly, you can type ’sendto’ in the Run Dialog, and remove unwanted items in the Explorer Window that appears. This should add some speed to it.

Slow Defragmentation

The Windows Defragmenter can’t get any slower. You need to have an alternative to the Windows Defragmenter, and Defraggler is just one of the best ones available in the market. It’s free, and works like a charm and can speed up defragmentation manifold. For some alternatives, see Five Free Programs to Defragment your PC.

Slow loading My Computer Window

If the My Computer Window loads slowly, in the Explorer Window, go to Tools >> Folder Options >> View and uncheck ‘Automatically search for network folders and printers”

Slow loading Add or Remove Programs Applet

This is one of the most annoying piece of programs present in Windows, it takes ages to load if you have a considerable number of programs installed on your computer. You can either use the all-in-one CCleaner for this purpose, or get MyUninstaller that comes as a speedy replacement for Add or Remove Programs.

Slow Ending of Unresponsive Programs

If you’ve clicked on ‘End Task’ if any program is running unresponsive, you might have noticed that the program is not terminated immediately. You can alter this by going to Run >> regedit.exe >> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ and change this value to 1000

Disable Animations and Appearance Overhauls to maximize performanceIf you’re a serious performance junkie, you probably won’t bother about eyecandy. Go to System Properties in the Control Panel. Click ‘Advanced’, then ‘Performance’ and click ‘Adjust for best performance’. This might boost your PC’s performance up a bit.

Additional Tips:

- Always keep your computer clean. Remove Junk and Unnecessary registry entries. Use CCleaner for this purpose, one excellent tool that just does what it says.

- Don’t keep installing software. Install a program only if it really serves you a purpose.

- Keep as less programs as possible running on the System Tray. This essentially means reducing the number of programs that start during Windows start up.

10 Essential Cheat Sheets To Download

Ever wanted to master the keyboard shortcuts and get more productive on the web? Here is everything you need - 10 quick cheat sheets for some of the most widely used tools on the web. Download, print and stick them somewhere near your desk.

(1)Google Cheat Sheet (2) Windows Cheat Sheet (3) Mac OS X Cheat Sheet



(4) Gmail Cheat Sheet (5) Firefox Cheat Sheet Firefox (for Mac)



(6)Google Reader Shortcuts (7)Linux Cheat Sheet (8) Linux Command Line Ref.



(9)Thunderbird Cheat Sheet (10)Internet Explorer Shortcuts

How To Create Strong Passwords That You Can Remember Easily

Creating strong passwords for all your online accounts is not a thing you should do. It is a thing you must do. Two months ago, my Google account was hacked into. The hackers changed my password and blocked my access to the account. Luckily, I discovered this early and got Google to change my password via my secon dary email account.

Last week, the MakeUseOf Google account was also hacked into and the hacker had the audacity to transfer the MakeUseOf domain out and blackmail the owner. In case you are still thinking that your password is strong and safe, maybe it’s time to wake up.

What makes a strong password?

I shall not elaborate on this since many sites have already discussed this in great detail. In a nutshell, a strong password must constitute the following:

• It needs to contain special characters such as @#$%^&
• It must be at least 8 characters long.
• It must not have any common words such as 123, password, your birth date, your login name and any words that can be found in the dictionary.
• a variation of capitalization and small letters

In my opinion, even if your password consists of the above, it is still not enough. Your password needs to be totally unique and different for each and every one of your online accounts. This is to make sure that in the event that one account is hacked into, your other accounts will not be affected.

You must be wondering how you are going to remember so many passwords when you have a problem remembering your existing one. Here are some steps that I have used and they are very powerful. Here it is:

1. First, think of a thing, date, phrase, event, place or anything that is unique only to you. It must be at least 8 characters long. I call this the salt term. For demonstration purposes, I will use my name Damien Oh as the salt term throughout this article. Note that the capital letters and the space in between the name are part of the salt term. For your own account, please select a salt term that is difficult for other to guess.

2. I used the following rules to replace the regular characters with special characters. You can form your own rule.

• Replace all the ‘a’ with @
• Replace all the ’s’ with $
• Repalce any space with %
• Replace any ‘o’ with 0
• Replace any ‘i’ with !

In this case, the simple term Damien Oh becomes D@m!en%Oh.

3. Now go to Password Meter (see MakeUseOf review here) and test the strength of your salt term. This is the result of the above term. If your salt term is not strong enough, you will see a list of items that you can improve on.

4. Once you are happy with your salt term and are sure that only you can decipher it, go to any of your online accounts now. To set a password for that account, append the name of the site, or the URL of the site to the end of your salt term.

For example, for a MakeUseOf account, I will use D@m!en%OhM@keU$e0f as my password and use D@m!en%OhG00glem@!l for my Gmail account.   If you do this for each and every one of your sites, you will be surprised to find that you have just created tens, hundreds, or even thousands of different passwords that you can remember easily.

Instead of the site name or the URL, you can also a variation of the site names or any other names that are related to the site.

Is that enough?

That is only the beginning. To really make it secure and hard for others to guess, you will need to change your password every few months. Some of you may find it a chore to come up with new passwords every month. Here is what you can do:

Instead of appending the site name to the end, you can now append it to the front, in the middle or even split the site name out into few parts. For example:

• M@keD@m!enU$e0h0f
• M@keU$eD@m!en%0h

You can also change the replacement characters such as @ for ~ and whatsoever. You can also do a complete changeover of your salt term to come up with a totally different password.

Conclusion

Generating and using a strong password is only your first line of defense against hackers. The most important thing that you should take note of is your internet browsing habits. When you are using a public terminal, make sure that it has the proper firewall and anti-virus installed, make sure your network is secure, log out when you are done with your session and clear the cache once you are done.

What other methods do you use to generate your passwords?

How To Speed Up The Shutdown Of Your Windows

The Windows shutdown process may be as slow as the start up unfortunately. But, due to Windows amazing ability of user managed settings, you can change that! So, how can you speed up your Windows Shutdown process ?

WARNING : BEFORE making any changes to the Windows registry, it is highly recommended to make a backup in case anything goes wrong. To backup your Windows registry, tap your Windows key on the keyboard and “R”. When the Run box comes up, type regedit. When the Registry box comes up, go to ‘File’ then ‘Export’. Save the resulting file to your hard drive.

Auto-Kill All Programs at Shutdown

This tweak can speed up the process a lot by killing tasks quickly and not requiring user input for closing them, e.g. the repetitive Firefox pop-up asking if you really want to quit. Here it is:

Step 1: Go to “Start,” “Run,” and type regedit..

Step 2: Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Step 3: Find the Registry Key called AutoEndTasks and right-click then select Modify. Change the value to 1.

able Clearing of Paging File
We previously talked about the paging article in another article on speeding up Windows, but today we are talking about how to speed up the use of the Paging File even more.
On shutdown, Windows automatically removes the contents of the Paging File for security, because it may run as a temporary file, holding information such as unencrypted passwords, etc. (If you believe the security of your system will be too far out of control due to the absence of removal of such information, then it is not necessary that you use this hack.)
Let’s do it!

Step 1: Go to “Start,” “Run,” and type regedit.

Step 2: Navigate to:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management.

Step 3: Find the Registry Key labeled ClearPageFileOnShutdown and right-click it, then selectModify. Change the value to 0.

Hope this helps you get into your tweaking mood! Have fun hacking tweaking! More next time on WinHack!

How To Create Custom Themes For Firefox With Personas

There’s no doubt that Firefox is the rising star of web browsers and one of the main reasons for its success is the sheer level of customization possible by way of add-ons and extensions.

Given this, it’s no surprise that Mozilla Labs has released Personas; a creative and fun extension that aims to customize the look of Firefox’s interface by letting you create custom Firefox themes.

Why Personas?

What separates Personas from the usual add-on themes available is that it eliminates the need to incessantly download new themes just to make simple changes to the look of Firefox every now and again. It allows for seamless transformations to the browser without constantly installing new themes and having to restart the browser over and over again.

How Does It Work?

Personas let users change the top and bottom grey backgrounds of the browser window in favor of colorful designs or images. Getting Personas up and running is also easy; simply download the add-on (compatible with Firefox 2.0 and above) and you’ll be presented with a small icon in the bottom-left of the browser on start-up. From here you can select your desired design from dozens of preset themes or you can opt to use the newest or most popular user-submitted Personas as well.

Create Your Own Persona

If you want to take Firefox customization to the next level, you could consider making your very own Persona. Header images should be 3000 pixels wide and 200 pixels long, while footer images should be 3000 x 100 pixels in dimension. Next, upload the images, apply your Persona and you’re good to go.

Keep in mind that .png images work best and that you should try and position the objects in your Persona so that they don’t distract from important areas in the browser, like the Home or Refresh buttons.

The folks at Mozilla Labs also promise that Personas will soon allow for wider content support, including HTML and Javascript, which should make the extension all the more fun.

Personas is currently available for Windows®, Mac and Linux, so go ahead and spice up that boring browser.Have a question or suggestions? Drop a line in the comments section and share your thoughts with fellow MUO readers. Any other alternative ways to create custom Firefox theme?

Set Firefox To Clear Temp Files, History etc. On Shut Down

There’s a running joke in my family that (as far as security is concerned) knows no bounds.

On the computer, my passwords are at least 30 characters long, I try to surf on as many secure webpages (https) as I can, I keep everything in encrypted folders behind firewalls, and when I close my Firefox browser, all my personal browsing information is automatically dumped and deleted so no nefarious devil can get their hands on it. Yep, you can call me Captain Paranoia.

This is one of the reasons why I like Firefox. If you go to Tools>Options–>Privacy, there is a section there called “Private Data” :

Now, by clicking “clear now”, you can wipe all your private data immediately but you can set it up so it wipes your browsing history, temp files and other stuff automatically everytime Firefox closes. You can obviously achieve this by ticking “Always clear my private data when I close Firefox”.

If you want to be asked first, tick the second box “Ask me before clearing private data” but personally I found it really irritating always having a pop-up box jump out at me. So I turned it off. But I guess it all comes down to personal preference.

But you may not want ALL the private data cleared. For example, I decided to keep my cookies as I didn’t want to log in and out of certain sites all the time (preferring to manually delete them once a week instead). So by clicking on the “settings” button, you can tell Firefox what you want wiped when your browser closes and what you want kept.

Some of them, such as cookies and cache, are fairly straight-forward. But if you would like explanations of the others, Firefox Facts has a nice article explaining what they mean and what they save exactly.

This is a feature that everyone should have enabled by default. As I said, you may find it inconvenient to always have your cookies wiped but you should always have everything else wiped and dumped everytime your browser closes.

Otherwise who knows who will be looking at that information behind your back? Your partner? Your boss? Your roommate? Law enforcement without a warrant? These days, in the era of the Patriot Act, it pays to dump your internet data when you’re finished with it.