I don’t own a new computer so I have to use an old tecra A3 with an old HDD but a very good screen 15″ with a huge resolution: 1400×1050.

Because the hard drive is so slow Adobe Reader 9 starts in several seconds after I double click the pdf file.
So, if you have to read docs this a little bit annoying to have to wait a lot just to start Adobe.
After Reader is loaded the pdf file is loaded quite faster…

So I have googled a bit and I have found a few software apps to speed up adobe reader at start up.
But. Why to install another piece of software when you can do it yourself?!?

Here is how if you only want to read docs, no search, no other stuff:

Go to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\ and create a directory “old” or “backup”.
Move the following directories in it: plug_ins, plug_ins3d and SPPlugins.

Start Adobe Reader. How is it? Mine it starts in lass than a second.

Here is how if you want to read docs and you want “Comment and markup” toolbar to be available:
Move all plugin dirs as you read before, but, keep in the plug_ins dir the following files:
AcroForm.api
AcroSign.prc
Annots.api
EScript.api
IA32.api
Search.api
Search5.api
weblink.api

Start Adobe Reader, read your books, educate yourself.

HTH and enjoy.

Later edit:
You can use PDF-XChange Viewer to view, markup text or add comments to your pdf files.

I use three tools to keep my windows patched/updated:
- apup[1], faster than windows update;
- sumo[2], to have latest versions of your installed programs;
- secunia PSI[3], personal security inspector, to know if your programs are exosed to risk(s).

Your default installation should include an Antivirus, antispyware and a sandbox (sandboxie[4]) to play with untrusted applications.

Links:
[1] – http://www.autopatcher.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=89
[2] – http://www.kcsoftwares.com/?sumo
[3] – http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/
[4] – http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?DownloadSandboxie

Have fun!

This can be a bullshit. It might not work for you, but it worth to try this.

When you are in a hurry and you don’t have time, or simply you don’t want to buy a DVI-VGA adapter, just try to use the on board card. It could work.

Here is how.

Go to BIOS and try to enable the on board video card. Some motherboards can do this, some not. Try to allocate some memory to it.
Connect a second monitor or a video projector to it, just to be sure you get some image on it.
Reboot in windows and check what you can get.
Verify in Device Manager and if you have two video cards you are close to get some image on both displays.
I got both there but i got an “Error 10″ regarding missing IRQ.
One of my colleagues suggested to set it as primary display in BIOS.
After it was set as primary it worked just fine.

The bad:
- the driver in use is the driver from the on board video card
- you cannot span the image over displays

Tested with an asrock motherboard (intel based video card) and a nvidia based video card.

Just try it and give me some feedback.

If you cannot access your favorite antivirus/antispyware site you probably are infected with one of the variants of Conficker/Downup/Downadup virus.

Now, if you want to install antivirus software you need to access the internet which won’t work because the DNS requests are blocked by the virus.

One solution is to download the software and the updates on another computer and copy them to a pen drive and install it on the infected computer.
This is classic.

But, if you want be the hero of the day you can do like this:
- open Start->Run, enter cmd, hit Enter
- type nslookup themightysite, hit Enter
- type nslookup www.themightysite, hit Enter
- open c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts with your favorite text editor
- copy the IP and the hostname of the site at the end of the file, like this:

#localhost should be aeready there
127.0.0.1 localhost

1.2.3.4 antivirussite
1.2.3.4 www.antivirussite

Repeat this steps for every site you cannot access, even for microsoft.com (’cause you can’t get MS updates if you are infected).

Enjoy.

Later edit:
Visit this site to download the cleaning solution from Bitdefender: http://www.downadup.org/

Let’s assume you have a network with a dhcp service (on linux) distributing IPs for your computers.
Suddenly, nobody gets IP from the DHCP.
Probably, you’ll check logs to see whats wrong.
In the logs everything looks normal, except the high number of requests from every computer using dhcp in the network.

dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:00:00:00:00:00 via eth0
dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.x.x to 00:00:00:00:00:00 via eth0
dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST
dhcpd: DHCPACK

Static IP computers are working as expected.

The next thing you should do is to start wireshark or tcpdump (or any similar application).
Check for errors and odd messages.
In my case it was a second dhcpd service running for the same subnet on another server.