Easy Way To Start Windows Explorer In The C Drive

In explorer's properties, use this path and switches in the target:
C:\windows\explorer.exe /n,/e,c:\

Easy way to remove build number from desk

Here is an very easy way to remove the build number from your desktop. Just follow the directions below to remove it.
Right click on the desktop
Expand arrange icons by
Click on lock items to desktop
The build number will be gone. However, you will loose the transparent text background but most of us can live with that.

Easy sendto menu mod

This one is super easy,
first open
X:\Documents and Settings\username\SendTo\ (it is hidden)
where X is your drive letter and username is your username
make and delete shortcuts to folders at will

Easiest way to disable Windows Picture and Fax Viewer

Right Click On image file.
Choose "open with", then "choose program"
Select your favorite image viewer program.
Check the "always use selected program" box
Click OK.
It's just that simple.

Easily Replace uxtheme.dll

The easiest way to replace uxtheme.dll, or any other dll, is to delete the backups of the dll(s) you wish to replace in the dllcache folder (in the system32 folder).
For XPsp1(pro or home), you have to check another backup folder (don't worry, it can't be in both folders, only one or the other) which is X:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386 (X being your system drive)
Once you've deleted the backups, simply right-click-move the dll from the system32 folder to your desktop, click "cancel" in the popup that asks for your Install disk, and "yes" in the popup after that. Then right-click-move your hacked (or whatever) version of the dll to the system32 folder, again, click cancel in the first popup, and yes in the second one.
Restart, and either archive the original (for restoration purposes) or simply delete it. This worked for me when I replaced a hacked version of uxtheme.dll to run a Mac OSX Jaguar Theme (very nice) to give my windows a MacOSX look.
Want more info? check out--> http://www.jonmega.com/~iceman/vs/

Easily rename the Recycle Bin

If you (like me) would like to be able to rename the Recycle Bin to something else (Trash, Waste, Shredder, etc) then this tweak will make it easy to do so.
Open up your favorite plain text editor (notepad, for example) and copy the following text into a new file:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\ShellFolder]
"Attributes"=hex:50,01,00,20
"CallForAttributes"=dword:00000000

Now save this text file as a .reg file, such as "Rename Recycle Bin.reg" and put it wherever you like. Double click on the file, and when it asks you if you want to import it into the registry, choose Yes. You'll notice a new option in the right-click menu to Rename the Recycle Bin. You can also rename it by highlighing the Bin and hitting F2, or by highlighting it and clicking on the file name (just like renaming any other file.
If you want to turn off this new feature, make another .reg file with the same content as above, but change the first number in the "Attributes"=hex: line from 50 to 40 and import that file into the registry.

Easiest way to add a link to the start menu

All you have to do is look at the links tool bar and click on the link you want to add, then drag it onto the start menu. Bam! It's as simple as that ;p

Easier way to kill microsoft tick sound

The annoying "tick" sound is microsoft's default sound for "start navigation" which can be disabled through control panel-->sounds

Easier Way to Get Rid of Search Puppy

1. Open the search dialog
2. Click "change preferences"
3. Click "without an animated screen character"
4. The puppy will walk away

Easier Way of Right-Click to go to Command Prompt

Instead of going through the registry to add a context menu option for opening cmd.exe at any folder, just download the "CMD Line Here" Windows XP PowerToy...
http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP
/EN-US/CmdHerePowertoySetup.exe

Display Windows Icons on Desktop

Below is a easy way to choose what windows icons you want to display on the desktop.
Rightclick on the desktop and select "properties".
In the new "display properties" window, click on the "desktop" tab.
Hit the "customize desktop..." button at the bottom of the window.
Now you can select the icons you want.

Display the Windows version on your desktop

It is possible to display the version of Windows in the lower right corner of your desktop. This requires a modification in the Windows Registry.
Note:
You cannot decide what text you want to appear; it's predefined, based on the version of Windows you are running. For example, the text for Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 will be along the lines of:
Windows XP Professional
Build 2600.xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158 (Service Pack 2)

Procedure:
1) Click the Start button, click Run, type regedit and click OK
2) On the left-hand side, navigate to (and highlight)
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
3) On the right-hand side, locate PaintDesktopVersion and double-click it
4) In the pop-up window, change the data to 1 and click OK
Note:
0 = Hide Windows version from desktop
1 = Show Windows version on desktop
5) Close the Windows Registry Editor as well as your other programs and reboot (or log off and log back in).

Display message on startup

If you would like to display a legal message or any other message in a pop-up window when windows starts read below:
Start regedit, if you are unfamiliar with regedit please see our FAQ.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Modify the key legalnoticecaption with what you want to name the window.
Modify the key legalnoticetext with what you want the window to say.
Restart.

Disable Picture Viewer, but have thumbnails still work

There is a tweak for preventing the picture viewer from opening your pictures by
typing "regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll" at a command prompt. This works, except
if you use it, then if you set a folder to thumbnail display mode, your thumbnails
will not work.
If you want to disable the picture viewer but would still like to have your
thumbnails, then change this in the registry:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image\
ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\
ShellImagePreview\(Default)
It should be set to {e84fda7c-1d6a-45f6-b725-cb260c236066} by default...
just erase its contents to disable the picture viewer. Your thumbnails should
still work. If you did do "regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll" at the command prompt,
you can undo it by going to the command prompt and typing "regsvr32Â shimgvw.dll"

Desktop Manager for "power users". (PowerToys)

Desktop Manager allows you to switch between multiple desktops creating more elbow room for those who like to stay organized while pushing the max thread limit.

1. First grab XP PowerToys from microsoft.com (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/
powertoys.asp)
2. Once installed right click then check: task bar > toolbars > Desktop Manager
You may now view up to four new desktops. I prefer not to have "Shared Desktops" on as it reminds me more of linux (and is cleaner).
Now you may hide the buttons etc. and use Windows key + 1-4 to switch between desktops and Windows key + v to preview.

Delete My eBooks and other special folders in My Doc..

Click Start, then Run and type: regsvr32 /u mydocs.dll

then delete them

Delete/Repair the Windows Media Player Library

If you have moved your music around on your hard drives, Windows Media Player continues to add new entries into it's library instead of modifying the existing ones. This means that you will now have multiple entries for the same song, half of which will not work now because you have moved the files to their new location. To delete the current library and build a new one, do the following:
1. Close Windows Media Player, wait about 3 seconds for the database to close.
2. Using "My Computer", navigate to the following folder:
F (or whatever drive is appropriate for you):\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Index
3. Delete the "wmplibrary....db" file here. This is not your actual music, only the database which Windows Media Player uses as a listing.
4. Start Windows Media Player
5. Hit "F3" and enter the location where you have moved your music to. If it is on muliple drives, check "All Drives". Let it finish.
You're Done! All the old listings will now be gone, and you will only have the new accurate ones.

Delete Unwanted Screen Savers Loaded w/XP

If anyone else was wondering how to get rid of the annoying Screen Savers that Microsoft feels you have to have with XP they made it a little more difficult than normal.

1. First navigate to “C:\windows\system32\dllcache”. Cut and paste or type in your address bar to get there because it is a hidden folder . Once there, delete the Screen Savers in that folder . Otherwise, you will find that they will come back no matter how many times you delete them from your system 32 folder.
2. Then you have to go to C: \Windows\system32 and delete the Screen Savers you want to get rid of . (Answer the file protection popups with cancel and yes.)
3. Voila---no more Screen Savers!!!!

Delete/Repair the Windows Media Player Library

If you have moved your music around on your hard drives, Windows Media Player continues to add new entries into it's library instead of modifying the existing ones. This means that you will now have multiple entries for the same song, half of which will not work now because you have moved the files to their new location. To delete the current library and build a new one, do the following:
1. Close Windows Media Player, wait about 3 seconds for the database to close.
2. Using "My Computer", navigate to the following folder:
F (or whatever drive is appropriate for you):\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Index
3. Delete the "wmplibrary....db" file here. This is not your actual music, only the database which Windows Media Player uses as a listing.
4. Start Windows Media Player
5. Hit "F3" and enter the location where you have moved your music to. If it is on muliple drives, check "All Drives". Let it finish.
You're Done!
All the old listings will now be gone, and you will only have the new accurate ones.

Delete Unwanted Screen Savers Loaded w/XP

If anyone else was wondering how to get rid of the annoying Screen Savers that Microsoft feels you have to have with XP they made it a little more difficult than normal.

1. First navigate to “C:\windows\system32\dllcache”. Cut and paste or type in your address bar to get there because it is a hidden folder . Once there, delete the Screen Savers in that folder . Otherwise, you will find that they will come back no matter how many times you delete them from your system 32 folder.
2. Then you have to go to C: \Windows\system32 and delete the Screen Savers you want to get rid of . (Answer the file protection popups with cancel and yes.)
3. Voila---no more Screen Savers!!!!

Customize Desktop Icons - IE, My Computer, My..

Right click an empty area of the desktop and choose properties. Select the "Desktop" tab and click "Customize Desktop".
On the General Tab place a checkmark in the icons you wish to appear on the Desktop.

Creating 'App Paths' in Windows XP

To create an app path, so you can run an application in Windows Xp from the Run dialog box you need to:
1. Run regedit and go to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths
2. Create a new key with the what ever you want to use as your run command, ie HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\whatever.exe
3. In the key folder that you created, create a new string, call it 'Path' and modify the value to point the specific folder of your executable your running. ie C:\ProgramFiles\whatever
4. Use the default string and modify it's value to point to the executable you want to run.

Creating a Keyboard Shortcut

1. Right-click a shortcut on the desktop or in the start menu, and then click Properties .

2. On the Shortcut tab, click in the Shortcut Key box.

3. Press the key you want to use. Windows will add Ctrl+Alt to it. So if you choose U the combination will be Ctrl+Alt+U.
You can also choose one of the function keys you don't use otherwise, F7 as example. Just one button to click then.

4. Click OK .

Create SendTo menu items

Open Explorer and type the following into the address bar:
X:\Documents and Settings\username\SendTo (Where X: is your System Drive letter and "username" is your Username)
Add a shortcut to the file or program of your choice.

Copy to... and Move to... Context Options

To add Copy to... and Move to... context menu options (similar to Win95 Powertoys send to folder option) create the following registry keys
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\
ContextMenuHandlers\Copy To
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\
ContextMenuHandlers\Move To

For Copy To set the default value to {C2FBB630-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}
and for Move To set the default value to {C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}
Now when you right click on a file or folder, above the send to option are two new options: Copy to Folder and Move to Folder
You can copy or move files or directories to other folders with this.

Cyber Crimes

With the explosion of the Internet the floodgates to information were opened.Educators, entrepreneurs, students, etc. all were jostling to make the most of this wonderful opportunity which broke down the barriers of geography, language, distance. These obsolete factors that prevented the free flow of information are all gone.
It is hardly surprising that the less than lawful segments of society are also having their share of 'fun'. They have found numerous uses of the Internet in order to facilitate their 'interest' taking optimum advantages that cyber space provides in order to increase their various interests.
The strangest aspect of it is that none of the most common crimes such as spamming are even illegal. This is due to the lack of a proper internationally adhered framework for international law with regards to what are Internet crimes and a practical working model of how they are to be dealt with. A real solution is needed instead of the demarcated laws that differ between countries and even their own provinces.
There are various crimes that repeatedly plague the millions of Internet users each year. The most common ones are Hacking, Virus programming, Credit card fraud, Spamming, Personal privacy rights violations and other illicit crimes. Spamming is undoubtedly the most common of all cyber crimes. There are a ludicrous number of victims estimated at 90 per cent of all Internet users being affected by it.
Spamming is when someone, who has an email account, receives a large number of emails or subscriptions from various Internet companies. The amazing thing about spamming as a crime is that it is actually encouraged by some consumers. It is basically a wide variety of pointless junk mail. The few who actually open these unwanted mails are the ones that further fuel the belief in the Internet world that spamming 'is alright'. It is seen as a proper marketing tool by most companies that operate in cyber space.
Their argument is simple: If the recipients don't want to receive any further mails they should follow the instructions at 'the end' of the email. They seem to totally discount the fact that haggard recipients must at least skim through the entire email before attempting to unsubscribe. This doesn't include the long arduous process of unsubscribing to the sender. Spamming is also the reason why children are heavily restricted in their use of the Internet. Parents are growing increasingly afraid of children opening their Internet inboxes only to discover cores of unwanted junk mail. There are also numerous instances of Pornographic emails being ferried into the mail boxes of the underage. These illicit acts are done through the use of innocuous misleading titles.
Through spamming and other Internet crimes the personal privacy rights of millions of Internet users are compromised in an instant. Spammers often use the services of each other to increasingly bombard helpless Internet users with undesired correspondence.
What happens is simple: If a cyber user logs on to an educational site and wishes to subscribe to a newsletter about birds, the site owners will often 'share' that information with a chosen few partners, who will share it with their own chosen few partners and so on.
What started of as a simple request for a particular newsletter results in a bombardment of intercontinental email bombs. It wouldn't even be surprising if the flood of emails would permanently put the person off from birds for good. This sharing of personal information is completely unjustified and in many cases illegal. However, in this case the world does not lack far behind Pakistan in apathy for these petty acts of untrustworthiness. Since people in general have a wide range of interest it is hardly surprising that inboxes are largely filled to brim with junk mail that happens to take into account the personal details entrusted by the user to another. If someone's information is online it simply isn't safe. Be it personal or business in nature the risks are the same.
That is a lesson learned by the great and the gullible. One of cyber spaces own pioneer was attacked. His name is Bill Gates. The then CEO & Chairman of Microsoft, Mr Gates' credit card details were splashed onto the Internet. The man who is quoted to be the richest man on the planet was even not able to prevent his own personal as well as credit card details from being promulgated online. Obviously most people don't share this sort of information too openly. They generally take the information, steal other people's hard earned money and live their cyber lives as if an honest 'business' dealing had just occurred. There are no real measurable figures as to how much money is stolen this way over the years as in many cases the victims either don't notice it or feel as thought they are incapable of doing anything about it.
Moreover, most of those who are robbed are generally middle aged and have little or no understanding of cyber crimes. In numerous cases confused victims say that they believe that they had 'paid' a service charge. Hmm.... I suppose in a way they did. There are a number of sites that are not appropriate for children and adults of a decent disposition. Besides this, a lot of children must beware of people who would try to lure them into doing something wrong.
Children must avoid giving personal information and meeting people, who they meet online, in person. But if meeting them is imperative it is important that they are accompanied by a grown -up. This would help children avoid unnecessary risk.Besides this, it would be best if youngsters only chat with people they know. Hacking obviously is another real cyber crime which more or less encapsulates obtaining personal information.
This crime hasn't really been made easier specially with web sites that cater to hackers. These distribute information on hacking, popular techniques, hacking programs etc. These 'helpful' sites are then used as an instrument for learning the ways of this particular cyber crime. Hacker's primary objective is to cause havoc and damage all throughout cyber space and the financial world.
Of course, Viruses like the 'I Love you' virus and the 'Blaster' virus all act as prime examples of this sort of damage. The first viruses were programming errors. Nowadays it's almost as if any viruses created without the intention of doing so is unforgivable... specially in the eyes of a web criminal. These are crimes that bring fame and generally interesting stories to mind.
Several years ago, legend has it, that a young Russian hacker on his 133 mega-hertz computer by-passed the security system of the main MSN web site. He proceeded to shut down the site for an estimated three days. After using his Internet service provider (ISP) to locate him Microsoft punished him for causing them millions of dollars of damage both in reputation and money. They gave him a job.

T-commerce (m-commerce and e-commerce)

Shorthand for television based commerce, t-commerce, is the latest buzzword to hit the digital scenario. Experts say that enhanced television viewing, in the recent years, has the potential to evolve into the platform for the next-generation of online viewers. In the United States, advertisers are closely tracking the development of this nascent market. An estimated $50 billion per year is currently spent on TV advertisements in that country.
Critics, however, caution against too much of premature excitement in this field. They are of the opinion that this fledgling market is yet to mature.
It has been seen that increasing TV viewing currently appeals to viewers who access a handful of fairly predictable applications, such as Web surfing, weather, networked games, episodic TV spots, pay-per-view movies and gambling.
Increased television watchers tend to be the early adopters who embrace new technologies. In the years to come, don't be amazed, if you see consumers interacting simultaneously with their separate (but co-located) TVs and PCs.
Researches have found out that 52 percent of the people in the 12 to 24 age group who own a computer also keep televisions in the same room as their PCs. What's more, the vast majority (69 percent) listens to music online while 25 percent watch TV as they surf the Web.
People, all over the world, are paying less and less attention to traditional TV ads. But it will take at least another three to four years before most consumers are accessing a single screen to view integrated interactive programming and advertising via broadband or advanced digital cable systems.
In the US, t-commerce is beginning to gather momentum with HyperTV entering into a 24-hour-a-day, 7-days-per-week partnership with MTV Networks and Fox to provide t-commerce services. Over time, the company expects to evolve into a broadband-single-screen-oriented experience.
Studies reveal that nowadays people watching TV only want to interact for a few types of content right now. This includes content related to information/news, entertainment and quizzes.
It will take an evolution in access devices to really spur the t-commerce business. Set-top boxes, as they exist today, are merely placeholders for next-generation enhanced/interactive devices.
The t-commerce paradigm has the potential to change your TV set into a powerful business tool enabling you to transact business over television. The concept is yet to evolve fully. We are expected to see the change in another three to four years.

Build Your Own Dotcom

Even the most attractive of websites won't serve the purpose if it has no traffic. Therefore, after uploading/publishing it, the most important task is to promote the website. Try to advertise your site in magazines and newspapers if your budget permits. Have your website registered with the world's top search engines and directories on the internet. There are more than 4000 search engines and directories available on the internet that provide promotional services. Many of them charge from $ 10 to $ 100.

It always feels good to have your presence felt on the World Wide Web, and there is nothing like having a personal homepage to express yourself. Here, in this article, we briefly look into all the necessary tools, one by one, that help you understand and master the art of creating a homepage/website.

Name availability

When you first decide to create a website, your mind is brimming with ideas. You feel like stuffing your pages with heaps of interesting information. But then you would like to name your domain (address) after a focal theme - perhaps, a name, a concept, a product or a service. Let's say we want our URL (Uniform resource locator) to be like, but for that we have to first check if the domain is available on the net.

So how to check? Simply, just go online; open your browser and type the desired address and press Enter. If this site already exists it would appear in the browser canvas, if not then a "Site Not Found" message pops up. Another way to find is by visiting a domain registration authority's website, such as, formerly . Visit this site and use whose link to check the name availability. Whose search is more useful because it provides details about registrant, technical person, billing contact as well as details about hosting servers? Usually a name registration body offers ".com", ".net", ".org", ".edu", ".mil", ".gov" suffixes. If you want a ".pk" website, visit. So if the site record is not present on these websites, it would show a "not found message" and invite you to register for it.

Hiring the webspace

Before you decide how much space is required to build a site, you need to do your homework thoroughly. Work out all the needs and wants for the desired site. Various services are being offered by web hosting companies, some of these are offered in different packages. The cheapest may only have some basic services. However, If you are designing the website yourself, you must carefully choose the services from the ones mentioned below:

1. E-mail accounts

2. Auto responders

3. Multiple FTP accounts

4. Access history/log

5. True FTP

6. No hidden charges

7. Web-based FTP

8. Dedicated IP address

9. Frontpage extensions

10. PHP support

11. Cold fusion support

12. ASP support

13. JSP support

14. CGI support/ own cgi-bin directory

15. Shell account

16. Reselling space

17. SSL

18. SSI

19. Real audio/video support

But if you are hiring some professional developers' services, you should still straighten out all the necessary details to avoid any future hitches. Web space rent range from $1 to $250 per month, depending on the services included in the package. Today $10 per month package is enough for most static sites which fulfils almost all requirements of a client. A good $10 service is offered by Softcomca providing most services, with fastest access. You may find about other web hosting companies through any search engine.

Webspace and domain name

Today, most hosting companies offer both services at a single spot, for example softcomca. However, you are not under any obligation to use both, webspace and domain name, services from the one company. You may also use domain name and web space individually. In some cases, you do not have any plans to build a website and just want to reserve the domain name for the future use; or you may already have registered a domain name with insufficient space and want to buy some space for that domain; or you want to change the hosting company of your existing domain name.

Purchasing domain and webspace has never been so easier as it is now. All you need to do is just fill up a form, and pay through credit card and you're done!

Planning the design

You should plan to design your site before registration process. Even the testing phase comes before the site is formally launched. Due to advancement in web designing we have divided it in two parts for more convenience:

Front-end tools: There are several useful tools available to create web pages, like Frontpage 2000, Dreamweaver, Flash (interactive animation purpose only) and many others used to create front-end documents.

Back-end tools:<>

Serious website development is not a joke of jeddy and also not a single handed job. It is a team work; at least three members must be in the team to run and create a "website mix" and publish it to the dot com.

• Website developer/webmaster

• Website designer

• Website programmer

Website developer/webmaster: A key person who handles all the website related matters. He is responsible for web page layout design (front-end), he should command have over using control panel of the site. He should also know how to handle SSI and SSL (server side includes and secure server layer). Most professional webmaster are perfect in running all kinds of CGI applications, different web servers, fault tolerance, etc.

Website designer: It is basically a designer's job who is responsible for creatively design graphics, illustrations and animations. He also develops graphical layout of website, creating buttons and themes for the entire site and assist webmasters.

Website programmer: Must be a qualified programmer with good skills in at least one of the server side programming, such as ASP or JSP, etc. He should also be able to handle all the server side requirements like creating search engine for the website; hit counter, manipulate with text or graphics; submit form applications; control database connectivity; develop e-commerce applications like credit card handling and shopping cart, etc.

Website promotion

Even the most attractive of websites won't serve the purpose if it has no traffic. Therefore, after uploading/publishing the website, the most important task is to promote the website. Try to advertise your site in magazines and newspapers if your budget permits have your website registered with the world's top search engines and directories on the internet. There are more than 4000 search engines and directories available on the internet that provides promotional services. Many of them charge from $ 10 to $ 100. It is also suggested that you should visit download.cnet.com and search using "promotional software" as keyword, you will find useful software and you may not need to visit or get help from any site like www.submit-it.com which would save you money and time. Now it is your choice which way you want to promote your website.

How to Design a Website

It seems as if anyonecan make a web page these days, but to create something extraordinary requires creative thinking, loads of time, hard work and knowledge of the art of development. Interestingly, there is no hard and fast rule as to how you go about creating your websites. However, few useful tips and guidelines always come in handy.

Gone are the days when people thought of attracting millions of people to their websites without any additional advertisements; web was young back then. It's all together a different ball game now. Today the web is all about competition and marketing. This medium has emerged as a best source for promoting your brand and products. It is no longer about just building a business website, rather it is about providing people a reason to visit your web page frequently.

A business website is a passive form of marketing, providing you with a signboard on which you can market your products and/or services. For that purpose a website should be used in conjunction with several active forms of marketing. So before you put yourself to task, read through theseguidelines that will help you a long way in building a good business site.

Purpose for development: The concept and the purpose of creating a website should always be very clear in your mind.A business website can be created with the motive of attracting a new business or service customers, or to share specialized knowledge; to pursue personal interests, or promote a viewpoint, project, candidate, etc. In fact a website can simply be created to make a connection with other people or networks.

Define your goals: Goals are more measurable than purpose, and will give you a clearer target. Write out a "mission statement". Until you clearly know your destination, you can't develop a good road map, and you'll end up all over the place.

Identify your target audience: Understanding your goals and your audience will form the foundation for all your design decisions, the tone of your site, its structure, its graphic design, its content. You need to know what your visitors would be doing on your site and what your site has in store for them. In order to attract them you need to know about their interests by collecting visotors' personal data, such as age, culture, education, etc. If you have have all this, you are already ahead of 80 per cent of the mishmash out there!

Setting tone for site: For a most effective website you should decide on an overall tone for your pages. This will not only guide the style of your content, but also your design and graphic decisions as well. You should expect a search engine to look different from Disney World's website. Not only content wise but also in terms of animation, interactivity and the tone of the site which should be determined by your purpose (sell, convince, entertain, inform, etc.), your subject (serious, fun, technological, etc.), and your audience.

This mission statement, in other words, will help you determine the following important components which will serve your designing purpose effectively:

- Colour scheme: Should it shout or whisper? Reflect liveliness, prestige, serenity? Wild psychedelics or conservative monotones?

- Graphics: You will find out whether your graphics, typography, and "gimmicks," should follow goofy entertaining style or a nature retreat?

- Mood: Make your site a visual metaphor for your message and audience mood"funky" or "conservative."

- Design elements: It also helps you determine your consistent design elements, such as logo, background, navigation buttons, etc.

Page layout and design: People read web pages differently from hardcopy print material. They "scan" and take "bites" they don't like to scroll. A designer should make sure to provide bite-sized sections prominently marked and separated, and the sections should be consistent across the site (that is on each page, a consistent design and layout format should be followed with similar items at the relevant place.)

It is rather suggested to develop each web page just a few screens long with white spaces, and decent graphics to put across important ideas. The paragraphs should designed be explicitly with lists or tables on suitable positions. It is recommended to design for 640x480 monitors so it doesn't scroll sideways.

Backgrounds: A white background increases readability and makes the page elements stand out. Coloured and patterned backgrounds can enhance a moods. For serious website which is aimed at larger group of audience, make sure you don't compromise on readability factor, even at lower resolutions.

If you use a background image, and have changed text colour to be seen against it, set the background colour to match the image, to assure that "no image loading" users can still see your text.

Logo: Design a logo for your site, which is an identifying graphic that symbolizes your company or message. On the main page, try a larger version of this logo, maybe as part of a title banner across the top. On sub-pages, try a smaller version, let the pervasive presence of the logo integrates your site.

Navigation aids: This includes elements, such as buttons, bars, image maps, etc. These should be identical in look and placement across all the pages, and provide users a way to get around your site with out being confusing or getting lost, and at least go up to the home or index page, back to the previous page when appropriate, ahead to the next page, perhaps to other "main" pages.

Place anavigation bar of buttons or text links on every page in the same place, or put it in an unchanging frame. This might be one of the few valid uses for frames. Perhaps you can also use an image map. Don't forget to provide text alternatives for "no image loading" users.

Always provide a way out for users to know where they are. Navigation bars, maps, logo and title size all can indicate the level of the page and how it relates to others.

Web publishing: This differs from writing for print. Web publishing allows you to conveniently andcheaply make widely available accurate, up-to-date, dynamic information, in an entertaining as well as informative way. But you can not just translate printed material directly to effective web pages.

Inverted pyramid structure: Provide links to allow the user to choose if they want more background or detail. Novices will want links to basic explanations, advanced users might want more complex background. Remember if you have a multi-page site that visitors may not start at the beginning, make sure your pages can stand alone, and that you provide easy navigation and links.

Put as much content towards the top of a hierarchy as is possible and provide useful content on each page seen by your audience (with the possible exception of an opening 'splash' screen.)

The Web is dynamic: Keeping your material up-to-date is a must. Highlight new stuff, and/or feature it on your home page in a "What's new" area.

Links: Write as if there were no links, but just meaningful text. Not "click here for info on our training programs," but "our training programs have something for everyone" with the words "our training programs" a link to your catalogue of programs.

Use standard link colours when possible; if you change the colours or use complicated tricks to avoid underlining, you'll confuse users. Make it easy for your visitors to send you comments, with "mail-to" links and/or a "feedback" form. Listen to them. Then always respond!

All About Broadband Technologies

By Prof B.S. Chowdhry & Khalil-ur-Rehman Laghari
The major characteristics of a telecommunication system is unquestionably its information carrying capacity. The explosive growth of internet traffic, deregulation and the increasing demand of user/industry are putting pressure on our customers to increase the capacity of their network. The internet is getting more elaborate by the day. Web pages are swarming with animation, downloadable movies and music abound. The phone modems used by most people to get internet access have reached the limits of their performance, necessitating new technologies to allow users to surf the internet without having to wait minutes (or hours) for a page or file to download.

These new technologies are collectively known as broadband. They comprise a variety of different systems, but they all have one major goal: to increase the rate a user can send and receive data, and thus make the internet (and other online activities, like videoconferencing) easier and faster to use. . In this article, we'll explain a few of the more important bits of jargon, but for the most part, we'll concentrate on making sure that you know exactly what you need to choose the broadband service that's right for you.

If you access the net from home, you've probably been using what's known as a dial-up connection; in other words, you dial a telephone number on your computer, hear a series of weird sounds, and end up surfing the net about a minute later. Sometimes you get busy signals, or the connection speed suddenly drops to a snail's pace, or somebody in the house picks up the phone and cuts your connection right in the middle of an important download. Depending on your service provider, you might even have to carefully limit the amount of time you spend online, or else pay extra hourly fees.

The first advantage of broadband is that it generally avoids the hassles associated with dia-lup connections. With most forms of broadband, you can surf the 'net freely, without worrying about tying up your phone line or using up a precious allotment of hours.

The second and for many, the more important advantage of broadband is speed: lots of it. If you've sat around twiddling your thumbs while waiting for a web page to download, you know how annoying a slow connection is. With broadband, those aggravations are reduced or even eliminated. Not only will web surfing be faster in general, allowing you to hop from web page to web page almost as fast as you can click your mouse, but the speed of broadband opens up a host of other possibilities for both home and business users.

Streaming media are movies and music that can be viewed on your computer without first saving them to your hard drive, much like the way you've always been able to watch a television show without having to record it on a VCR first. Downloading a streaming video on a antenna; the signal can fade in and out, and even at its optimal performance, it's not the best. But a broadband connection, being fast and steady, can play streaming videos with much better video quality. Computer gamers can also play online against opponents around the world, without lag or slowdown, or the worry that a family member's important phone call will interrupt a vital shoot'em-up tournament.

Some broadband connections allow video conferencing. While video conferencing is now possible using multiple ISDN lines and costly equipment, the expense is far out of the budget of most small-business and home users. The speed and cost of broadband brings this once-rare capability within reach of the average consumer.

Broadband types

There exist five major categories of broadband service. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages, and some are notably better overall than others. Here we cover each technology briefly:

Cable modem: Currently, the most popular form of broadband, cable modem service, uses the same cables that carry cable TV signals to carry data. You can get cable modem service as a stand-alone service or as an add-on to your current cable TV service. You can watch cable TV and use your cable broadband connection at the same time with no loss of quality. Cable modem system is easy to set up and maintain. This service is certainly agood choice for LAN setup with a small number of users.

The main disadvantage of the cable is that the speed of the system is dependent on the number of people who are online at the same time. It is to say that if a large number of people in your neighbourhood are using the services at the same time, your connection speed may drop considerably. Cable modem performance can undergo significant fluctuations. At its best, it's the fastest of all consumer-level broadband services; but at its worst, it's almost as slow as a dialup service.

DSL: It stands for Digital Subscriber Line. It's fast, reliable, and uses standard copper phone lines to carry data. You don't need a second phone line to use most consumer DSL services, and you can talk on your phone while using DSL connection to access the internet. There are many varieties, but the most important are ADSL and SDSL. ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is designed for residential and small-business use. Most home internet users receive (download) far more information from the internet than they send (upload). ADSL provides a higher download speed than upload speed; therefore, it is ideal for home internet users. In most cases, the upload speed of ADSL is still faster than a regular analog (phone) modem.

SDSL (Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is designed for business users who need to both upload and download large amounts of data, as in the case of video conferencing or running a web server.

The main disadvantage of DSL is that its speed is dependent on your physical distance from the phone company's nearest central switch known as a Central Office. The farther you are from the switch, the slower your average connection speed will be. Your home or business will have to pass a loop qualification test run by your phone company before you can have DSL installed. Also, DSL setup can be complex; in many cases, separate visits from the broadband provider and your phone company will be required.

DSL is a good choice if you're close to the phone company's central switch, the phone lines are up to the specifications, and you have a reliable high-speed connection. While it is not yet as widely available as cable modem service, DSL is often a viable alternative often preferable to cable modem.

Satellite: Satellite broadband uses a dish on your roof to send and receive data from satellites orbiting the Earth. The same dish may be used for satellite TV. The main advantage of satellite internet access over the other forms of broadband technology is its immediate availability. Thus, in places where cable modem, DSL and ISDN connections may be unavailable, you can still get a broadband connection, literally from out of the clear blue sky.

There are downsides, though. The performance of a satellite broadband connection is degraded by bad weather, local interference, or a misaligned dish. Also, because of the way the satellite data transfer works, satellite service is not well suited to applications that require constant transmission of small data packets; these include online gaming, web page hosting, video conferencing, and multiple small file downloads.

Some satellite providers who have not upgraded to two-way satellite communication equipment also require the use of a phone modem connection to send data to the broadband provider; this results in additional costs and slower speed. However, the monthly costs are usually reasonable, the equipment is often discounted or free, and most importantly, you can get satellite almost anywhere. Satellite isn't as fast or reliable as DSL or cable, but if it's your only choice, it's definitely better than dial-up.

ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network is relatively old technology whose main advantages are wide availability and reliability. ISDN uses standard copper phone lines to transmit data. ISDN for the home user essentially splits your existing phone line into two channels, which can be used to make a phone call and surf the internet at 64kbps, or the channels can be combined for internet access at twice the speed of one channel at 128kbps.

ISDN is slower than the other newer forms of broadband. However, it is often the only choice for many users whose cable and phone companies haven't yet implemented local cable or DSL service.

ISDN also offers some advantages over satellite. For instance, ISDN is good for use by networked computers, online gamers, and web-page hosts; these are areas in which satellite's performance lags. ISDN lines are often used by businesses because their speed is reliable and constant. Its speed doesn't fluctuate as a result of bad weather, location, or cable modem activity in nearby buildings.

ISDN hardware is often complex and not easy for the novice to set up, and even basic ISDN service is more expensive than other forms of broadband. However, if neither cable nor DSL are available and suitable, ISDN is a viable, butexpensive alternative to get a broadband connection.

Wireless: Wireless broadband (also known as fixed wireless to distinguish it from the mobile wireless system used by some pagers and mobile phones) is a new technology that uses an antenna placed on or in your building to send and receive data. The data is transmitted via your city's wireless network, which consists of antenna towers placed three to five miles apart. No phone or copper wire is required for implementing this technology. It's the fastest internet connectivity solution in the world. It's speed can range from 64kbps to 100Mbps. It is bi-directional unlike satellite and eliminates the need for dedicated phone line, thereby reducing your cost while providing high speed data rate.

As you might have guessed, this means that if your home or building isn't in a city with wireless service, you won't be able to get fixed wireless broadband. Currently, fixed wireless broadband service is very limited; however, the service areas are expanding quickly. If you can get wireless, you're getting an excellent broadband connection. The connection speed is not limited by your distance from the wireless antenna or by the number of wireless users in your area. Wireless is a little more expensive than ADSL or cable, but the advantages are probably worth it.

Availability of service

Some broadband services aren't yet widely available. Since broadband systems use new technology, some providers haven't gotten around to implementing service in small towns and rural areas. If you live in a large metropolis, you have a good chance of having several choices for broadband service. In less-populated areas, you may be more limited, but even if you're alone out in the middle of a desert, you can still get a broadband connection via satellite.

Installation ease

Once it's working, broadband is refreshingly easy to use; in most cases, if your computer and modem are on, so is your internet connection. However, actually getting the broadband equipment set up can be difficult for casual computer users, and almost impossible for novices. Luckily, many providers lower or even waive the cost of a professional installation, but if you do find yourself having to install a network card (a small circuit board with a phone-jack-like plug) in your computer, you can always get help from your provider's technical support line. It's uncommon for a provider not to offer 24x7 support for users with problems; after all, an unhappy customer often becomes a competitor's customer.

Your computer doesn't need to be the latest and greatest to run broadband; most computers sold within the last five years should be quite capable of supporting a broadband connection. You will definitely want to check your system specifications, though, just to be sure. If you are not sure what the differences are between USB, PCI and a loaf of sliced bread, most broadband providers and support sites have customer service reps as well as quick online tutorials that will get you up to speed on the basic attributes of your computer.

Reliability

Current broadband systems are mostly "piggybacked" on existing technology; that is, they aren't so much a whole new car as they are a set of new tires on some old wheels. As such, they do sometimes run into problems related to the basic structure they're built on. Also, keep in mind that sometimes, popular websites can get bogged down, making even the fastest connection run like molasses. Still, broadband at its worst is still usually better than dial-up at its best.

Security issues

Broadband is relatively new technology, and like most new technologies, it brings along a whole new set of problems. These days, most information sent to and from your computer is encrypted using special security codes that make it very hard for someone to read your personal messages. However, even if someone can't intercept your love letters, they can use your broadband connection to break into your computer and play havoc with your files and even your hardware. This vulnerability is inherent to the always-on nature of many broadband systems, and has been a problem for businesses for some time.

However, don't let this scare you off, though; when properly set up and used, broadband is just as safe as talking to someone on the phone. Most businesses use a kind of software program called a firewall to protect their computers; much like a physical firewall, a computer firewall is a sturdy barrier against outside attack. Firewall software is available for home use, and in fact, many providers include or suggest specific firewalls when you install their software. Take some time to learn about security requirements and protection; a few hours during the learning stages can save you a lot of headaches later on.

As with any new product, competition is fierce. As more broadband choices become available, prices may drop, and more promotions and free extras will be offered. You'll have more providers to choose from, and you'll probably even be able to upgrade your current broadband service to something newer and better later on.

The growth of the internet demands high-speed connections. Many flashy web sites with complex graphics are designed with broadband connection speeds in mind. Consumers are demanding faster ways to get the data they need, whether it's for personal entertainment or for work. Broadband technologies are the best way to get the most mileage out of the information superhighway.-Dawn

Prof B. S. Chowdhry is chairman, department of electronic & telecommunication engineering, MUET, Jamshoro, and Khalil-ur-Rehman Laghari is a freelance writer doing a project on "wireless broadband networks" under the supervision of Prof Chowdhry.

ASP.NET Introduction

ASP .NET Introduction
ASP .NET is the latest version of Microsoft's Active Server Pages technology (ASP),containing the new and Enhanced features in order to strengthen the programmers and Developers ,which they dont find in classic ASP.

What you should already know

Before you continue you should have a basic understanding of the following:

(i) WWW, HTML and the basics of building Web pages
(ii) Scripting languages like JavaScript or VBScript
(iii) The basics of server side scripting

What is ASP?

ASP is a server side scripting technology that enables scripts (embedded in web pages) to be executed by an Internet server.

· ASP is a Microsoft Technology
· ASP stands for Active Server Pages
· ASP is a program that runs inside IIS
· IIS stands for Internet Information Server
· IIS comes as a free component with Windows 2000
· IIS is also a part of the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack
· The Option Pack can be downloaded from Microsoft
· PWS is a smaller - but fully functional - version of IIS
· PWS can be found on your Windows 95/98 CD

What is an ASP File?

· An ASP file is just the same as an HTML file
· An ASP file can contain text, HTML, XML and scripts
· Scripts in an ASP file are executed on the server
· An ASP file has the file extension ".asp"

How Does it Work?

· When a browser requests an HTML file, the server returns the file
· When a browser requests an ASP file, IIS passes the request to ASP
· ASP engine reads the file, line by line, and executes the scripts in the file
· Finally, the ASP file is returned to the browser as plain HTML
Before you study ASP .NET, it would help to have a basic understanding of Microsoft's ASP technology.

What is ASP+?

ASP+ is the same as ASP .NET.
ASP+ is just an early name used by Microsoft when they developed ASP .NET.

What is ASP .NET?

ASP 3.0 is the latest version of ASP, but there will never be an ASP 4.0 version. ASP .NET is the next generation ASP, but it's not an upgraded version of ASP. ASP .NET is an entirely new paradigm for server-side ASP scripting. ASP .NET is a part of the new .NET (dot net) Framework. Microsoft spent three years rewriting ASP .NET from the ground up, and ASP .NET is not fully backward compatible with ASP 3.0. You can read more about the differences between ASP and ASP

.NET Framework

The .NET Framework is the infrastructure for the new Microsoft .NET Platform.
The .NET Framework is a common environment for building, deploying, and running Web applications and Web Services.
The .NET Framework contains a common language runtime and common class libraries - like ADO .NET, ASP .NET and Windows Forms - to provide advanced standard services that can be integrated into a variety of computer systems.
The .NET Framework provides a feature-rich application environment, simplified development and easy integration between a number of different development languages.
The .NET Framework is language neutral. Currently it supports C++, C#, Visual Basic, and Java Script (The Microsoft version of JavaScript).
Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET is a common development environment for the new .NET Framework.

Making Your Email Secure

When people think of the Internet they normally refer to the Web, but studies suggest that the percentage of people using e-mail is much larger than the ones surfing the web.

E-mail is infiltrating all parts of our society, replacing paper office memos, helping colleagues keep in touch, and letting people share their thoughts and emotions around the globe. As more and more people are relying on e-mail as a means of communication, more e-mail content is requiring privacy. There always have been propriety ways to encrypt and secure electronic communication, but until recently there has been no standard solution that can work with a variety of e-mail clients. The S/MIME (Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension) in one program that aims to answer these queries.

Why vulnerable?

S/MIME is not Internet specific standards, but it is most useful for Internet e-mail. On a private network, the sender connects directly to the sever. On the Internet, message bounces from place to place until they reach their destination. This means there are many more opportunities to temper with an Internet e-mail message.

Not all Internet communications has this characteristic. When you browse the Web, you directly connect to each server you visit. Because of this, Web communication can be made secure by securing the channel, the connection between your computer and the server. But Internet e-mail can pass through several severs before reaching its destination; so securing the channel is impossible. Instead, the message itself must be secured.

There are three types of e-mail security violations, snooping, tampering and forgery. Encryption techniques are used to protect against all these. Snooping means reading your private e-mail without authorization. Traditional single-key encryption can't stop snoopers. In single key encryption the same key is used both to encrypt the message and to decrypt it. This is unworkable for e-mail communication, because there is no safe way to transmit the key. It's unsafe to send the key unencrypted, and it's inconvenient to deliver keys manually to e-mail recipients who might be halfway around the world. One way to transmit a key safely is to use a technique called dual-key or asymmetric encryption, which has separate keys for encryption and decrypting. People's public keys are used to encrypt the message send to them, and they use their private keys to decrypt these messages. The two keys are mathematically related, but the private key cannot be derived from the public key, so the public key can be freely distributed. The private key need never leave the owner's computer. To send an encrypted message, you obtain the recipient's public key and encrypt the message using this key. Since decryption requires the associated private key, only the recipient will be able to read the message.

S/MIME protects against tampering, the second type of security violation, with a technique similar to a checksum. A harsh algorithm condenses the message contents into a unique digest, and then the digest is encrypted and sent along with the message. The recipient's S/MIME program decrypts the message and does its own computation of the digest. If the two match, then the message has arrived intact. If they don't, someone has tempered with the message and the S/MIME program will alert the recipient of this.

Signing and Trust

S/MIME protects against the third type of security violation, forgery. By signing or encrypting with a private key. A single public key is called a certificate and is sent along with the message. The simplest example of this is a self-signed certificate, a public signed by its associated private key. If the recipient can successfully decrypt the certificate with the sender's public key that confirms that the sender's private key was used to create the certificate.

But anyone can create a key pair, so this doesn't prove much. If this is the first time you have received a message from a certain person, then the public key is not your database and you can't verify it. So how do you know that the e-mail address isn't spoofed and the person really is who he or she claims to be?

A more secure type of certificate is one signed by a third party. But anyone can sign a public key, so simply having a certificate signed by a third party isn't proof of identity unless the signer is known and trusted. To this end, there are companies that set themselves up as certificate authorities, verifying the identity of the person holding the public key before signing it.

Even this isn't a perfect solution, however, lets say I work for a small company called XYZ. It has an internal e-mail system and acts as a certificate authority for its employees. But when I send you e-mail, how do you know that XYZ can be trusted to verify my identity, and how do you know that it really is XYZ that signed my public key if you don't have XYZ's public key in your database?

S/MIME addresses this problem by means of a trust hierarchy, also called a chain of trust. To reassure you, I also included XYZ's certificate, the public key of XYZ signed by yet another certificate authority. If the second signer is a service that you know and that you trust, then you can accept my certificate as valid. If the highest level of the chain of trust is known and trusted, then the certificate can be trusted.

The most prominent certificate authority today is VeriSign. A VeriSign public key is readily available and is preloaded into most S/MIME programs, so its easy to verify a VeriSign signature. It offers two classes of individual certificate. The class 1 certificate verifies only the applicant's e-mail address. Class 2 certificate cost more and verifies the applicants mailing address as well as the e-mail address. You must enter private information to enable VeriSign to verify your identity, so the information must be transmitted over s secure connection. It cannot be sent through unsecured e-mail.

Portability

When using S/MIME, you need a means of securely transporting your private key between different computers or e-mail programs. Otherwise, the key pair that you use at work won't be usable on your notebook or home computer, and encrypted e-mail that you pick up from another machine will be unreadable. Also, if you change e-mail programs, you will have to get a new key pair and make sure everyone sending you e-mail uses it unless you have a way to export your private key from the old program and import the key into the new one.

The solution to this problem will eventually be Microsoft's PFX standard, which the company submitted as PKCS#12, or the 12th standard in the PKCS (Public Key Cryptography Standards) suite. So far only two vendors, Microsoft and Netscape have implemented PFX for importing and exporting private key.

Design consideration

The S/MIME specification is limited to consideration such as which hash algorithm to use and which symmetric cipher must be supported. It does not address design considerations. Because such issues are not spelled out, products can conform with the S/MIME specification but not meet the security goals of S/MIME.

For example, for the chain of trust method to work, as S/MIME program must have some sort of certificate management system that can set the trust level for certification and certificate authorities. If a certificate is compromised, you must have a way to mark it as not trusted. If a certificate authority is compromised, the certificate management system must be able to cascade the not trusted status down to all certificates signed by the authority. Thus a certificate management system is crucial for implementing S/MIME's chain of trust features, but not all S/MIME products have one.

Another important design consideration is the ability to associate multiple certificates with an e-mail address. Its common for people using S/MIME today to have multiple certificates. For example, a consultant may have a separate certificate for each company she works for. Not every S/MIME program offers the basic capability. Netscape Messenger allows only one certificate per person. It is also common to have multiple aliases for the same e-mail address, for example, scender@ud.com and scender@mail.ud.com. S/MIME programs, including Messenger and Outlook Express, accept only the e-mail address in the certificate as valid. You can explicitly accept a certificate that's invalid because of a name mismatch, but you can't encrypt a reply to the message unless you edit the address to match the certificate. The authors of the S/MIME specification are working on a solution that will allow multiple e-mail addresses to be associated with a certificate.

Interoperability

As mentioned earlier, S/MIME uses a hybrid approach for message encryption. The message is encrypted with a symmetric cipher, and then the symmetric key is encrypted with an asymmetric cipher for secure transmission. The strength of any encryption method is determined by the length of the key, the longer the key, the stronger the encryption.

The S/MIME specification mandates that all vendors must support at least one common symmetric encryption method. In version1 of the S/MIME specifications, this method was the RC2 algorithm with a 40-bit key. In Version 2 of the S/MIME specification, finalized later, the common encryption to Triple Des, an algorithm that uses a 178-bit key.

Vendors are free to use encryption even stronger then Triple DES if they want, and this creates a challenge for S/MIME products: how to know what type of encryption to use with a given recipient. A fairly recent addition to the S/MIME specification, called authenticated attributes, provides a way to exchange this information automatically. Only the Microsoft and Netscape products implement this method.

All S/MIME products available today support RC2-40 encryption, but not all products default to RC2-40. So even if all the products perfectly implemented every encryption algorithm, confusion over which algorithm to use could itself cause interoperability problems. Infect, not all S/MIME programs implement every encryption algorithm perfectly.

The spinning wheel

With its strong vendor backing, S/MIME will eventually deliver on its promise of broad scale e-mail security. But the specification itself is still very much in flux, and that creates interoperability problems. Also, vendors are still learning what features are necessary in a good S/MIME product. Many of the S/MIME products available today lack crucial features or suffer from design flaws. Once the S/MIME specification is finalized and the system is better understood, the market should start to see easy-to-use products that interoperate flawlessly.

Clear Unwanted Entries from the Start Menu's Run..

Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT).
1)Open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Explorer\ RunMRU\.
2)Delete all of the values that you dont want in this key (everything in the right pane, except for (Default)).
3)Close the Registry Editor when finished. You'll probably have to refresh the Desktop or restart Windows for this change to take effect.