How to Start and Shut Down My Computer Automatically on a Schedule?

On Windows

To automatically start your computer up at a specific time of day, you'll actually need to edit your BIOS settings. To do this:

• Boot up your computer and enter your BIOS setup. Usually this involves pressing the Delete key as your computer boots (your computer should say Press DEL to Enter Setup or something similar as you turn it on).
• Navigate to the Power Options. If your BIOS supports it, there should be a function for automatically starting up your computer at a certain time of day. Mine was called "Resume by Alarm", but yours might be called something different.
• Enable that setting and set the time you want your computer to start every day. Save and Exit the BIOS, and your computer should follow that schedule from now on.

You probably shut down your computer when you're done using it at the end of the day, but if not, you can set it to shut itself down on a schedule. This is easy to do with Windows Task Scheduler:

1. Hit the Start menu and type in "task scheduler". Open up Task Scheduler from your results.
2. In the right pane, hit Create Task. Give it a name, and under the General tab, check "Run with highest privileges". Also check "Run whether user is logged on or not", if you ever leave your computer logged out.
3. Head to the Settings tab and check "Stop the task if it runs longer than" and set it to "1 hour". This won't stop your computer from sleeping, but will stop your computer from thinking a task is still running.
4. Head to the Actions tab, hit New, and choose "Start a Program" as your action. Set the Program to shutdown and the arguments to -s.
5. Lastly, head to the Triggers tab and click New. Change the schedule to fit whatever you want (say, Daily at 12:00AM), and hit OK. Hit OK again at the next window and your task should be saved in Task Scheduler.

That's it. Now your computer should shut down and wake up on your own schedule.

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How to Transfer Music from My iPod or iPhone to My Computer

Step One: Find Your Device's Music Folder

If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, you'll need a free program called iPhone Explorerto do this. Just download it, install it, and start it up. Look under User > Media > iTunes_Control > Music in the left sidebar. This is where your music is stored.

If you're on an older iPod, plug it in and start up iTunes. Click on the iPod in the left sidebar and check the box that says "Enable Disk Mode". Then, open up Windows Explorer and click on the iPod in the sidebar. If you don't see the iPod_Control folder, go to Organize > Folder and Search Options and hit the View tab. Click the "Show Hidden Files, Folders, and Drives" radio button and hit OK. You should see a folder called iPod_Control show up, in which you'll find all your music.

Step Two: Open Up iTunes

Full size

The iPod_Control folder houses all your music, but its in a cryptic and hard-to-understand file structure. This doesn't matter, since we're just going to transfer all of it directly into iTunes, and iTunes will sort it out for us. Open up iTunes and head to Edit > Preferences (or, on a Mac, iTunes > Preferences). Click the Advanced tab and make sure both boxes are checked on this page—both to Keep the iTunes Media Folder Organized and to Copy Files to iTunes Media Folder. This will ensure that iTunes copies all that music to your computer and renames all your songs for you.

Step Three: Drag, Drop, and Wait

Lastly, just click on "Music" in iTunes' sidebar, select the "iPod_Control" folder inside iPhone Explorer, and drag the "Music" folder from the right pane into the main iTunes window. It should start copying all of your music over into your library, and when it's done, you should have everything restored. Note that this method does notrestore playlists, videos, or podcasts; you'd need one of the $20 or so programs to do that (though you can always just re-subscribe to podcasts manually, they're free anyways).

It isn't the perfect method, but it's the easiest, most consistent method we've found, and it's completely free. If this doesn't give you everything you want, try out one of the programs we mentioned in our guide to copying music from your iPod, just know that you may have to pay for most of them. Good luck!

Sincerely,

Step One: Find Your Device's Music Folder

If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, you'll need a free program called iPhone Explorerto do this. Just download it, install it, and start it up. Look under User > Media > iTunes_Control > Music in the left sidebar. This is where your music is stored.

If you're on an older iPod, plug it in and start up iTunes. Click on the iPod in the left sidebar and check the box that says "Enable Disk Mode". Then, open up Windows Explorer and click on the iPod in the sidebar. If you don't see the iPod_Control folder, go to Organize > Folder and Search Options and hit the View tab. Click the "Show Hidden Files, Folders, and Drives" radio button and hit OK. You should see a folder called iPod_Control show up, in which you'll find all your music.

Step Two: Open Up iTunes

Full size

The iPod_Control folder houses all your music, but its in a cryptic and hard-to-understand file structure. This doesn't matter, since we're just going to transfer all of it directly into iTunes, and iTunes will sort it out for us. Open up iTunes and head to Edit > Preferences (or, on a Mac, iTunes > Preferences). Click the Advanced tab and make sure both boxes are checked on this page—both to Keep the iTunes Media Folder Organized and to Copy Files to iTunes Media Folder. This will ensure that iTunes copies all that music to your computer and renames all your songs for you.

Step Three: Drag, Drop, and Wait

Lastly, just click on "Music" in iTunes' sidebar, select the "iPod_Control" folder inside iPhone Explorer, and drag the "Music" folder from the right pane into the main iTunes window. It should start copying all of your music over into your library, and when it's done, you should have everything restored. Note that this method does notrestore playlists, videos, or podcasts; you'd need one of the $20 or so programs to do that (though you can always just re-subscribe to podcasts manually, they're free anyways).

It isn't the perfect method, but it's the easiest, most consistent method we've found, and it's completely free. If this doesn't give you everything you want, try out one of the programs we mentioned in our guide to copying music from your iPod, just know that you may have to pay for most of them. Good luck!

Tq http://lifehacker.com

How to Universal USB Installer – Easy as 1 2 3

Universal USB Installer is a Live Linux USB Creatorthat allows you to choose from a selection of Linux Distributions to put on your USB Flash Drive. The Universal USB Installer is easy to use. Simply choose a Live Linux Distribution, the ISO file, your Flash Drive and, Click Install. Other features include; Persistence (if available), and the ability to fat32 format the flash drive (recommended) to ensure a clean install. Upon completion, you should have a ready to run bootable USB Flash Drive with your select Linux version installed.

Universal USB Installer (UUI) Screenshots

Universal-USB-Installer-1.8.6.3.exe – September 7, 2011 – Changes

Updated to use newer syslinux for UBCD, Added Leenux, Uberstudent, and OpenSUSE 11.4 LXDE entries.

Universal-USB-Installer-1.8.6.3.exeSource Code

Tq http://www.pendrivelinux.com

Top 5 emergency antivirus recovery live CDs

Data recovery live CD

If a computer has been infected with a virus and refuses to boot or when it does malware kicks in stopping you from running a virus scanner,using an antivirus live CD will bypass the need to boot the operating system helping you to remove any callous rootkit. There are various Linux based live CDs that allow for data recovery, the antivirus live CDs below have specifically been designed to remove persistent viruses and they are user friendly, meant to be used as a last resort when everything else fails or to save you time if you are a computer administrator.

To use an emergency recovery disk all you have to do is to burn the .iso to blank media, insert the CD rom inside the optical drive, reboot your computer making sure CD-drive is the first booting device in the BIOS and you are in, the live CD will scan your computer for viruses once it boots.

Dr Web live CD: When you boot the CD it detects all disk drives automatically without the need to mount them, you can select a folder or disk to be scanned, the included Midnight Commander file browser allows you to copy any file to an external device and help is available from Dr. Web by email. This live CD lets you check your RAM memory for errors with the Memtest86+ utility making sure that your problem is not a hardware fault.

AVG Rescue CD: It comes with antivirus and antispyware, it defines itself as a portable version of AVG antivirus inside a Linux distribution, you can use it to move files to an external device, test RAM memory, edit registry keys and ping network devices to see if they are reachable, everything is free and it comes with the latest virus signatures database.

AVG antivirus live CD

PCTools live CD: Officially named Alternate Operating System Scanner, this antivirus live CD will detect and remove rootkits and other difficult to delete malware, it uses the Spyware Doctor antivirus engine to scan your files and Windows registry, if it finds something it cleans it up warning you of the location and the virus name.

F-Secure Rescue CD: A customized Knoppix Linux distribution made by F-Secure to remove persistent malware, any virus you have in your operating system will be useless against F-Secure Rescue CD, first of all because it runs on Linux and secondly because the operating system in your main hard drive will not be active, the live CD can be used for data recovery too.

F-Secure emergency recovery live CD

Avira Rescue System: Linux based live CD to scan your computer for viruses, Avira antivirus database is updated several times a day, this is a good live antivirus CD to catch the latest exploit, once malware has been detected the live CD will automatically remove it saving yourself time reinstalling the whole operating system.

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How to obtain a digital certificate for free

About digital certificates

A digital or SSL certificate consists of two encryption keys, one public and one private, a very common use for digital certificates is to encrypt data exchanges in between a user Internet browser and any e-commerce website but it can also be used to sign documents, encrypt and digitally sign email messages and identify yourself online. Once a digital certificate has been installed in your Internet browser or email client, it is easier to use than encryption software, many users are not even aware they are using it, if the SSL certificate is personalized a password might be asked before using it.

Typical digital certificates will contain a serial number, signature algorithm, issuing authority, valid from and expiry date, public key and a hashed number to guarantee that the key has not been tampered with.

Places to obtain a free digital certificate

CAcert: To be issued an SSL X.509 standard certificate you are asked you to join the CAcert community filling in an online form, in between others you can use CAcert certificates to secure websites, digitally signing or encrypting emails and files.

GetaCert: Not a Certificate Authority (CA), GetaCert appears to be a website using OpenSSL to create a digital certificates online, they can be issued for use with email and websites, all of their certificates are valid for 10 years and wildcards are supported.

StartSSL: Issuing free Class 1 (for individuals) SSL certificates valid for one year, renewable after expiration, security is as good as StartSSL paid for digital certificates but with some limitations like no wildcards allowed and it doesn’t hold identification details.

If you only need a digital certificate to sign and encrypt email you can get Comodo email SSL certificate.

Types of basic digital certificates

• Personal certificate: It works as a digital ID guaranteeing that the person is not someone else, a personal certificate can be used to identify yourself over the Internet with a company or Government agency, digitally sign an email message or a PDF file, a password will normally be asked when carrying out these tasks, using the something you have and something you know security model.

Diagram digital certificate encryption

• Server certificate: It identifies a user when establishing a connection before transmitting any information, email and Usenet servers use a server certificate when authentication takes place via SSL.

• Software certificate: It verifies software before installing it in your computer by checking the code digital signature making sure the program has not been replaced by malware having been signed by a genuine developer, useful when downloading software from the Internet.

Unrecognised digital certificates warnings

All Internet browsers come with digital certificates installed, these are issued by certification authorities like VeriSign or GeoTrust, when the browser comes across a website using a digital certificate which public key is not found in the browser you will get a not recognised certificate warning, this does not mean the site is not safe, it only means one of the key pairs has not been stored in the browser.

It is impossible to have every single company SSL certificate stored in the browser, when you get this kind of warning you should check the digital certificate making sure it is not a man in the middle attack by looking at its properties, when satisfied that everything looks correct, install it, after that you will not get any more security warnings when visiting that site.

Digital certificate security warning

When you install software you could find Windows warning you that the driver has not been digitally signed, Microsoft charges a huge amount for this ‘”privilege” and not all developers can’t afford it, it doesn’t necessarily mean the software is dangerous, it only means it has not been approved by Microsoft.

How to make your own SSL certificate

An alternative to companies issuing free SSL certificates is to create your own Certificate Authority or self-signed digital certificate using OpenSSL, an open source implementation of SSL and TLS, any decent Linux distribution will come with OpenSSL installed, you will need some basic Unix knowledge, go to the command line generate an RSA private key, generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) and generate a self-signed certificate, for the necessary commands to do this type man openssl at the Linux command prompt.

You can use OpenSSL and other Unix utilities in Windows using Cygwin, a Unix framework for Windows, it is beyond the scope of this article to explain how Cygwin works.

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