Tech Junky

Nowadays, surfing the web can be dangerous if you do not take necessary steps to protect yourself. Privacy is the biggest worry while you are online. Websites can secretly gather information about you and there is this fear of being hacked. All this is possible because of your I.P. address, which is your machine’s online identity. Each user connected to the net has a unique I.P address and thus can be traced through it easily.

So how do you mantain your online privacy? A simple and effective solution can be the use of a software like IP Hider which masks your I.P. address and prevents your surfing habits and your browsing activity from being tracked.

Actually, IP Hider is a privacy protection tool that lets you surf the web anonymously. It can come handy if you live in a country which restricts access to certain websites and internet resources. In such a case, IP Hider will mask your I.P. address and you will be able to access those websites without any difficulty. In another situation, you might be banned from posting to some online forum or community. This tool can help you here also as your I.P will be masked and you will be visiting that forum from another address. It can also hide your I.P. while you are chatting.

IP Hider is available only for the Windows platform. It’s easy to install and requires minimum system requirements. It works with IE, Firefox and also with Google Chrome.

Try the fully functional version of IP Hider now. Try it at your own risk cause once you use it, you’ll die to buy the full version!

After the price cuts in the US, Microsoft has officially announced that it will bring down the price of all the Xbox 360 units in the European region.

From this Friday onwards, the basic Arcade unit will go for £129.99, while the 120GB Elite model at the higher end will retail at £229.99. Lastly, the standard 60GB model will now retail at £169.99. These figures represent between 10% to 18% price cuts.

The price cut makes the Xbox 360 claim the title of the cheapest current generation console, undercutting both Sony’s PS3 and Nintendo’s Wii. It’s a part of Microsoft’s strategy to open up the Xbox 360 to an even wider audience. MS also clearly has a “sell more in the upcoming season” strategy.

We’ll get to know about the console sales in the time to come. Let’s see if the 360 does any magic!

If you have edited a Windows system file for some mod or customisation, you may have come across a Windows File Protection (WFP) dialog box. Windows XP has this feature as a part of the System File Checker, which is intended to prevent some common DLL file issues. The WFP notifies you whenever there’s an attemp to change a system file. This feature may also block valid attempts to change system files. You can therefore disable it using this tweak if you are tired of seeing that box.

Note: To perform this tweak, you need to have your Windows XP CD-Rom and a hex editor. If you do not have a hex editor, you can use BinEdit, which is freeware. Also make sure that you backup the DLL file being used in this tweak to a safe location.

Follow the steps below:

Part one:
1. Open the ‘Run’ dialog box.
2. Type in ‘regedit’ and click OK.
3. Locate this string:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

4. In the right pane, right-click on the ‘SFCDisable’ string.
5. Select Modify and type in ‘ffffff9d‘ in the Value Data box.
6. Click OK and close regedit.

Part two:
1. Go to C:\Windows\System32.
2. Search for the file ‘SFC_OS.dll‘.
3. Copy the file and paste it on the desktop.
4. Rename the copied file as ‘SFC_OS1.dll’.
5. Now move this ‘SFC_OS1.dll’ file to the C:\Windows\System32 folder.
6. Start your hex editor and open the file ‘SFC_OS1.dll’.
7. Click on ‘Edit’ and select ‘Write Mode Enabled’.
8. On the left side look for ‘0000e2b0′.
9. This line contains the 8B and C6 bytes.
10. Change these bytes to 90 and 90.
11. Save the file and exit the program.

Part 3:
1. Insert your Windows XP CD-Rom.
2. Restart your PC.
3. Make sure that your PC is set to boot from the CD-Rom first.
4. Boot from the Windows XP CD.
5. Wait for the CD to load the files.
6. After it’s over, press the ‘R’ button on your keyboard to start the Windows XP Recovery Console.
7. Follow the prompts on the screen.
8. Once you are through, type in the following line exactly as it appears:
copy C:\Windows\System32\sfc_os1.dll C:\Windows\System32\sfc_os.dll

9. Hit Enter. Type in Yes (Y) if asked to overwrite the file.
10. Eject the Windows XP CD.
11. Type ‘Exit’ and press Enter to reboot.

Now you won’t see the Windows File Protection (WFP) dialog box again. This trick is really useful if you modify files very often and want to get rid of the WFP.

The PlayStation 3 is an amazing multimedia and gaming machine. The PS3 XBM interface looks pretty cool and is easy to navigate. With Firmware update 2.0, you can create and install new themes on the PS3.

Instructions to install a theme:
1. Download the theme you want to install.
2. Copy it to a USB device.
3. Make a folder in the device named as ‘PS3 ‘. (All CAPS required)
4. In the ‘PS3′ folder, make another folder named as ‘THEME ‘. (All CAPS required)
5. Move the theme file into this folder.
6. Plug the USB device into your PS3.
7. Go to the themes option.
8. Click on install and select the USB device.
9. Enjoy your new theme!

There are a whole lot of themes available on the internet. Here are a few cool ones:

> This Is Living

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The latest PSP 3000 will have a brighter LCD screen and 5 times the contrast ratio of the PSP 2000. Apart from that, it will offer a resolution of 480*272 pixel with a wider colour gamut and anti-reflection technology and will also incorporate an in-built microphone. The inclusion of these pretty features will cost the PSP a certain amount of it’s battery life. The new PSP will lose around 20-30 minutes of it’s battery life compared to the old PSP, putting it’s playtime between 3.5 to 4 hours. But to overcome this problem, Sony will again bring out it’s just-discontinued PSP extended battery to the market, which will provide the handheld 8-10 hours of play.