Saturday, February 6, 2010

EASEUS Partition Utility

EASEUS Magic Partition Manager Software is a free partition utility for home use.

http://www.partition-tool.com/

Friday, February 5, 2010

Nslookup Information

The Nslookup command can be used to troubleshoot DNS issues.

The server parameter can specify another DNS server.

nslookup1

The set type= parameter can specify different DNS record types.

nslookup2

Enter an IP address to determine the host name.

nslookup3

Examples of sites that allow performing a DNS query online would be:

http://network-tools.com/nslook/

http://centralops.net/co/NsLookup.aspx

http://www.dnsstuff.com/

http://emailstuff.org/

Firewall testing sites

The sites below attempt to check a local firewall’s configuration.

https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

http://www.hackerwatch.org/probe/

https://www.securitymetrics.com/portscan.adp

http://www.pcflank.com/scanner1.htm

Windows 7 Library Tool

This application allows an individual to add NAS locations to Windows 7 Libraries.

http://zornsoftware.talsit.info/?p=3

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Thumbcache files with Vista and Windows 7

Vista and Windows 7 creates small thumbnail images of graphic files, and these are stored in the following path:

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

thumbcache

Currently one application claims to have the ability to view the contents of these files.

http://www.thumbnailexpert.com/

Determine battery health with Windows 7

Windows 7 includes an utility to offer details concerning a battery with a laptop.  Verify that your battery is connected.  Open a command prompt with administrative authority and enter:

powercfg –energy –output filepath\report.html

powercfg

Within the report.html file, a section should be present that contains details about the battery.

powercfg_2

The laptop above was new, so the capacity and last full charge values are the same. 

Ad Blocking Plug-in for Internet Explorer

This plug-in adds an ad-blocking component to Internet Explorer.

http://simple-adblock.com/

Using netstat to determine listening ports

The netstat command can be used to determine listening ports with different operating systems.  The command for Windows would be:

netstat –na | find /i “Listening”

netstat_windows

Newer versions of Windows include a –b parameter to determine executables:

netstat_windows_2

The syntax is similar with Linux:

netstat –na | grep –i listen

netstat_linux

With the Windows platform, a nice utility for determining listening ports is CurrPorts found at

 http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/cports.html.

PDF Print Queue Software

The software applications below add a print queue to Windows to allow the creation of PDF files.

http://www.dopdf.com/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

http://www.cutepdf.com/

Disk Change Monitoring Software

Below are two applications that can monitor disk changes within Windows.

http://www.diskpulse.com/

http://www.deventerprise.net/

Winmerge

Winmerge is a free application that can compare two files or folders.

http://winmerge.org/

DVD Flick

DVD Flick is a free DVD Authoring tool.

http://www.dvdflick.net/

Panopticlick

This web site checks what information is being provided by a web browser.

http://panopticlick.eff.org/