There are numerous reasons why your system could be reporting such alarmingly high usage. This article will help you understand high CPU problems and offer an easy solution to resolve this problem.

Exe processes consuming large amounts of CPU resources

Some exe processes, such as csrss.exe, ekrn.exe, and wdfmgr.exe are known to consume 99% or 100% of CPU resources on a computer. This generally happens when the files of a program are outdated or corrupt. You can correct this problem by updating the program that is consuming the huge amounts of system resources. To fix wdfmgr.exe error and other exe process, you can update Microsoft products using the Windows update or Automatic Update features. You can update third-party products, such as ESET NOD32 Antivirus suite, by enabling the software’s automatic update feature or by manually downloading the updates from its Website.

An attack by virus or other malware

You may also experience high CPU usage problems if your program files are infected with malware or if malware processes are running on your system.  This is why it is important for you to protect your computer from malware programs, using robust antivirus and antispyware tools. You should schedule regular system scans to remove any malicious programs present on your computer. Also, remember to update your security tool with the latest virus definitions and updates in order to protect your machine from the latest malware.

Damaged or outdated device drivers

Outdated drivers or damaged driver files may also result in high CPU usage. You may update drivers from the driver manufacturer’s website. Alternately, you may use a reliable driver scanner tool for this purpose. A driver scanner tool automatically updates the drivers when new updates are released by the vendor.

A corrupt or large Windows registry

A large, corrupt and fragmented registry may also lead to high CPU usage. The registry of a new computer is compact and contains only basic information that is required to keep it functional. With continuous usage, a lot of unwanted and redundant information creeps into the registry. To make matters worse, malware programs also deliberately inject malicious entries into the system registry. All of this junk causes the registry to bloat. Also, the information stored in the registry gets fragmented. As a result, it takes more time to obtain and process information that is stored in the registry. To maintain a clean and compact registry, it is important that you use a good registry cleaning tool to scan and remove the malicious and unnecessary information stored in it. An efficient registry cleaning tool also defrags the registry, and helps speed up the data processing time.

For those of you who love your computer, listed here are a few simple tips on how to keep it healthy and free of errors.

Tip 1: Scan and clean malware infections: If your computer was working fine and you suddenly notice the appearance of unwanted ads, computer error messages, or if your computer deteriorates in performance, then it is quite likely to be infected with some kind of malware program, such as a virus, Trojan, spyware or adware. To remove these malicious programs, you need to perform a thorough scan of your computer and detect all unwanted data planted by these programs on your PC. To do these tasks, you may seek the help of antimalware tools, such as antispyware and antivirus tools. You must keep these tools updated with the latest definitions and schedule them to run on a regular basis to keep your PC free from malware. If your computer was recently infected with a malware, it is recommended that you run the scan by starting your system in Safe Mode.

Tip 2: Clean and defrag your hard disk: Your operating system, program, files, emails, and all other information is stored on the computer hard disk. This makes the hard disk quite vulnerable to attract a large amount of unwanted data. Most of the time, this data comprises no-longer-used programs, temporary program and internet files, old program setup files, and so on. All this data unnecessarily fills up the hard disk and also causes data fragmentation. To clear this mess, the first step you need to take, is to use the Add or Remove Programs feature, or a good Program Uninstaller tool to uninstall all programs that you do not use. Next, use the Disk Cleanup utility to clear temporary files, empty Recycle Bin, and compress old files. You may also use the tool to remove old Windows XP or Vista system restore points.

Tip 3: Scan, clean and defrag your registry: The registry plays an important role in running your Windows computer because it is a database of all hardware, software, and user configuration information. This information is stored in the form of keys, subkeys, and their entries. When you perform various operations on your computer, entries are added, removed or modified within the registry. Ideally, the information that is no longer required, should be removed from the registry. However, it does not always happen like that. Quite often, empty, orphan, redundant, and outdated entries stay behind in the registry causing it to unnecessarily bloat up to a very large size and not only slow down your PC, but also generate several computer errors. If this happens, to perform Windows XP or Vista registry fix, you may need to thoroughly, scan, clean and defrag the registry. Although you will be able to perform some of these tasks using the Windows Registry Editor tool, it is best to use a good and simple-to-use third-party registry cleaner tool.

To do so, you minimize your slideshow, launch the browser, open google.com and wait for the page to load and then show the tricks. Once you are over with it, you again resume your PPT slideshow.

Well that’s a bit crappy, so why don’t we directly embed the web page into the slideshow?

Check out LiveWeb-it’s a free add-in for PowerPoint that lets you insert live webpages to your slides. LiveWeb is like embedding a normal web browser into your presentations as it allows you to interact with web pages as if they are opened in a web browser.

LiveWeb uses a wizard based approach to add websites into presentations. You can add URL’s and assign their relative positions on the slide.

Besides websites, you can even embed dynamic web graphics into your slideshows.

LiveWeb is a freeware and is available for all versions of PowerPoint (97-2007). Installation is simple and steps regarding the same are provided at their site. [via Digital Inspiration]

[.ShellClassInfo]

ICONFILE=Drive:\Path\Icon.ico

Replace the ICONFILE path to your own icon’s path and save this text file as ‘desktop.ini‘ in the folder whose icon you want to replace. Now since this file will be displayed each time you open that folder, there is a chance that it can be deleted by mistake. To prevent this, change it’s attributes to ‘Hidden and Read Only’ by using the ATTRIB command through CMD or by properties menu.

You can also give your drives new icons. To change a drive’s icon, add the following lines to notepad:

[Autorun]

ICON=Drive:\Path\Icon_name.extension

Save this file as ‘autorun.inf‘ in the root of the drive whose icon you want to change.
For Example, if you want to change the icon of your D:\ drive with an icon located at ‘D:\icon_name.ico’,  then save the ‘autorun.inf’ file in root i.e. D:\ with the icon path being the location of your icon.

This trick of changing a folder’s icon is pretty simple and fast as you don’t have to right click each folder and then change it’s icon from the properties menu. You can mass copy the ‘desktop.ini’ file you created above to as many folders as you want and change their icons.

Gmail is surely one of the best e-mail services. Personally I love Gmail for it’s simplicity and features. The Gmail interface is pretty neat and clean. Despite this, you might get bored looking at the same interface day after day.

Well you can change the look of your account, thanks to Google Redesigned. Basically, Google Redesigned is a Firefox extension developed by Globex Designs. It skins your Gmail account and gives it a complete makeover just like the one shown above.

To change your Gmail account’s look, follow these steps:

Note: Google Redesigned is built for Mozilla based browsers (Firefox, Flock, IceWeasel, and such). The extension will not work with any other browser.

1. Download and install the Google Redesigned extension.
2. After the installation finishes, restart your browser.
3. Thats it! Everything has been set up. Just open Gmail and you’ll see the difference.

This extension also changes the interface of another Google service ie. Google Calendar.

After the install, you will also notice a small Google Redesigned icon in the bottom right corner of your screen. To check for new updates to styles manually you can click on the icon and press the “Check for Style Updates” button. From the menu you can also enable and disable the individual styles which are available.

This extension gives Gmail a pretty cool look. There is no harm in trying it as it’ll just be visible on the browser which has this extension installed. Hope you like it!

Shortcut keys Action

1.    Video Playback

ALT+1                       Adjust zoom to 50 percent
ALT+2                       Adjust zoom to 100 percent
ALT+3                       Adjust zoom to 200 percent
ALT+ENTER               Display the video in full mode

2.    Accessing the menus

ALT+F                        Go to media player File Menu
ALT+T                        Go to media player Tools Menu
ALT+V                        Go to media player View Menu
ALT+P                        Go to media player Play Menu
ALT+F4                      Use to close media player

3.    Switching between display mode

CTRL+1                      Display media player in full mode
CTRL+2                      Display media player in skin mode

4.    Player controls

ENTER or SPACEBAR        Use to play an item
CTRL+B                      Use to play the previous item in media player
CTRL+F                      Use to play the next item in media player
CTRL+E                      Use to Eject CD or DVD from CD or DVD drive
CTRL+P                      Use to Play or Pause the item in media player
CTRL+T                      Use to Repeat the items in media player
CTRL+SHIFT+B           Use to Rewind a file in media player
CTRL+SHIFT+F           Use to Fast Forward a file in media player
CTRL+SHIFT+S           Use to play items slower than a normal speed
CTRL+SHIFT+ G         Use to play items faster than a normal speed
CTRL+SHIFT+ N         Use to play items at normal speed in media player
F8                             Use to mute the volume in media player
F9                             Use to decrease the volume in media player
F10                           Use to increase the volume in media player

Initially, you’ll have to look up for some of these shortcuts but once you get well versed with them, you’ll be a lot quicker at controlling the Media Player.

Follow these steps:
1. Click on Start Menu | Run and type ‘SYSEDIT.EXE‘.
2. Expand the system.ini file window and locate a line called ‘[386enh]‘.
3. Press Enter to make a blank line after this one.
4. Type ‘Irq14=4096‘ (without quotes) in the blank line.
Note: This line is CASE sensitive !!
5. Click on the File menu and save it.
6. Close SYSEDIT and reboot your computer.
7. That’s it. Done.

You’ll notice speed improvement after you restart your machine. The most speed improvement is visible with IDE drives, however there are reports that this tweak also works well with SCSI disks. In any case, it won’t harm your system, so why not try it yourself and do let me know what you experience.

Code 39 Error

The following message with error code 39 may be displayed on your computer screen due to the existence of a missing, corrupt, or incomplete CD-ROM driver.

"Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)"

When this problem occurs, you may not be able to view your CD drive in Windows Explorer. This error can be resolved by updating the CD-ROM driver on the system. To do this, follow the steps listed below:

1. Open the Start menu, select Run , type sysdm.cpl , and select OK .
2. In the System Properties dialog box, open the Hardware tab, and then select the Device Manager button.
3. Browse through the Device Manager window and locate the faulty CD device—or any other device that is generating the errors, and double-click on it.

Note : The faulty device is marked by a yellow triangle with black exclamation mark within it.

1. Open the Driver tab and select the Update Driver button to update the driver of your device and resolve the error.

Error 126

Error messages with error code 126 may be displayed due to one of the following reasons:

* Missing, corrupt, or damaged DLLs.
* Failure of an application to connect to a database because an essential client-side DLL, such as WinSQL Oracle Driver, Oracle ODBC Driver, and Microsoft Oracle Driver is not specified in PATH variable of your system.

Discussed here are a few error 126 messages and their resolution methods.

“ Specified driver could not be loaded due to system error 126 (SQL Server)”

Missing or corrupt client-side SQL Server ODBC driver from the computer causes this error. This driver is usually shipped with your Microsoft Windows operating system. However, if you receive the error, you can resolve it by downloading and installing the latest Microsoft Data Access Component from the Microsoft Support Website .

“Error 126: The specified module cannot be found”

This error 126 message is displayed due to a missing or corrupt Srvsvc.dll file. You can resolve the error by replacing the DLL with its original file. To do this, perform the steps listed below:

1. Insert the Windows XP installation disk in the CD-drive.
2. At Start > Run , type CMD , and press Enter .
3. At Command Prompt, type the following command and press Enter .

expand E:\i386\srvsvc.dl_ C:\Windows\system32\srvsvc.dll

Note: Here E: represents your CD drive and C: represents system root.

1. At Start > Run , type Services.msc , and press Enter .
2. Locate the Server service, right-click and select Start .

Application errors such as the ones discussed above may also occur if you do not take proper care of your system and are not vigilant about how you use your computer. Some of the tasks that you can perform to maintain an error-free PC are:

* Regularly update it with service packs, security releases, and patches released by software and device driver manufacturers.
* Get your system a reliable registry cleaner tool so as to maintain a healthy and optimized registry.
* Install a good antivirus program to perform regular full system scans to make sure that your system is free from viruses and spyware.
* Use Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter tools to maintain a healthy hard disk.
* Avoid opening unsolicited e-mails and visiting dubious Websites.

Now it’s time to protect yourself through online virus scanners. Yep, you heard it right – ‘online virus scanners’. These scanners use varied scanning mechanisms and possess the latest virus signature databases. The virus definitions are updated quite frequently and thus protect you from the latest threats.

Many of the big anti-virus companies nowadays provide users access to an online scanner. Here’s a look at the best free online virus scanner:

1. Microsoft Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner: The OneCare Safety Scanner is an online service from Microsoft. This easy-to-use scanner will search your PC to detect all that malware and sytem vulnerabilities. It even assists you in removing them. It might not be that effective against the latest threats but still helps. It can also help you improve upon your system performance by curing certain system issues.

2. Avast! Online Scanner: The Avast! Online scanner is a free and fast scanner. While it limits you to just scan one file at a particular time, it’s good if you want to check a few of your suspicious files. It also doesn’t scan files which are more than 512kb in size. So make sure you got the file size right.

3. F-Secure Online Virus Scanner: To proceed with F-Secure, you’ll firstly need to download it’s 22MB update database. After you get hold of the updates, you can begin with the scan and removal process. It works only with IE 6 or higher and makes use of ActiveX and JavaScript. Basically, the primary version is for Windows XP and 2000 users. Vista users can scan their systems using the recently released F-Secure Online Scanner 3.3 Beta.

4. BitDefender Online Scanner: The BitDefender Online scanner will scan your hard drive and boot sectors. Scanning with the defaults will even enable it to remove the infections automatically. If you want, you can even limit the scan to certain folders. You also have the option to save the scan reports for a later analysis. This program too works with only Internet Explorer.

5. Kaspersky, Mcaffee Free Scan & Panda ActiveScan: Wondering why I’ve categorizing these three scanners under one roof? It’s so because these programs scan your computer perfectly but when the time comes for removal of threats, they’ll not be so helpful. You may try these for getting reports on the infections your PC persists. They might even give you certain tips on how to deal with these. Maybe they’ll be useful? – LoL!

Although you can scan your computer for threats using these programs but remember that these are not an alternative for your regular anti-virus software. These can be a sort of second line for defense. You need to install a good anti-virus to stay protected.

http://images.google.co.in/images?q=images&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&

client=&rls=:en-US:official&hs=pZY&start=180&sa=N&ndsp=20

Such long links might even be a problem for webmasters who try to keep their website links short, sweet and clean. You might want to shorten your URL’s.

It is very well possible to crop your links. You can find a lot of sites offering you such a service. They make your link look like a page on their site but when you open it, it redirects you to your own page.

As an example, this is the shorter version of the above mentioned URL: http://tinyurl.com/25hnpj

Isn’t this one a lot better than what you witnessed previously?

There are many sites which can cut down your links. I’ve collected a list of services which can do this task for you.
Check ‘em out:

1. AZQQ
2. Doiop
3. Hop2
4. hURL.to
5. Mem URL
6. Not Long
7. Shortless
8. Snip URL
9. Tiny URL
10. URL Beach
11. XADDR
12. Xil.in

These services can definitely make your links shorter and attractive.
Know about more such services ? Then please tell us about them in your comments.