This blog is from our content partner Raymond
I can say that I really hate Microsoft MSI installers because sometimes the installation would screw up so bad that I cannot even uninstall or reinstall the program. Most of the time the problem can be fixed by using Windows Installer CleanUp Utility but there are times when this tool doesn't work at all and had to reinstall the whole Windows operating system because my client urgently needs to use the software.

There are some programmers that likes to use MSI installers to pack their programs when the program doesn't really installation. I don't want to have tons of program in my Program Files folder and also unnecessary registry entries. Let's take Microsoft BootVis, a performance trace visualization utility that you can use with Windows XP systems as an example. The setup file is bootvis.msi and requires installation. After installation, there are only 4 files in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Bootvis. From the looks of it, I don't really need to install the program and can actually run BootVis.exe from anywhere.

So here are some useful methods that you can use to view and extract contents of a MSI file.

When I tested Universal Extractor,  I found that it can extract files from Windows Installer Package MSI. I tried loading a MSI file in Universal Extractor and it prompt me that it supports 3 methods (MSI Administrative Installer, msi2xml extraction and MSI TC Packer extraction) of extracting MSI installer packages. The first method uses the command line method which you'll find at many other websites on how to extract MSI files. The command is: msiexec /a filepathtoMSIfile /qb TARGETDIR=filepathtotargetfolder
The second one uses an open source Windows Installer Database To XML Bi-Directional Converter created by Daniel Gehriger. The third method uses a Total Commander plugin created by Alex Gretha that extracts Windows Installer package (MSI).

Unfortunately none of methods are 100% reliable. If the default method does not seem to work, you have to rerun Universal Extractor and select an alternative method. All 3 method in Universal Extractor only extracts all the files in MSI package. It doesn't allow you to view what is inside the MSI package and pick only the file that you want to extract.

I found another free tool called Less MSIérables aka lessmsi, a small tool to extract the contents of an .msi file.

The good thing about Less MSIerables is you are able to view the contents of a MSI file. See any files that you want to extract, just put a checkmark next to the file and click Extract. Other than that, there is a table view where you get to see more geeky information such as File, Components, File Name, File Size, Version, Language, Attributes and Sequence. There's also a Summary tab for you to view a summarized information about the MSI file. The last time Less MSIérables aka lessmsi updated was on November, 10, 2005. Although it is very old but it works perfectly!
Download Less MSIérables

The following article about Portable Web Server is from our content partner Ghacks
Server2Go is a portable web server that can be run from any storage space in a Windows environment. It can be placed on USB devices, removable devices, CDs, DVDs or the hard drive of the computer. It requires no installation at all and can be run right from the location where it has been placed it.

The web server can be downloaded in various configurations. The various configurations range from a bare-bone Apache web server to a web server supporting MySQL, SQLite, Pearl and PHP. The configuration only has an effect on the type of applications that can be run on the web server. Most users will probably need at least MySQL and PHP support to run their websites locally.

The web server can be started by double-clicking on the Server2Go.exe executable file in the root directory of the server. This will load the various web server modules and display a start page in the web browser. The pms_config.ini file can be used to change various settings of the web server including the default web browser, the port and whether the modules like MySQL or PHP should be started as well.

The actual files of a website are placed in the htdocs directory of the web server. Loading them can be as easy as pointing your browser to 127.0.0.1:4001 or some subdirectory of it depending on the type of site.

MySQL comes with phpMyAdmin which is accessible from the main interface of the web server. Server2Go offers an uncomplicated way to run a web server, it is especially helpful in environments where software installations are restricted.

This blog is from our content partner Raymond
Did you know that there is a tool called Microsoft ClipBook Viewer utility in Windows XP? Maybe not all of you because it is a hidden utility that is not in Start Menu. Moreover the XP ClipBook Viewer has been removed in Vista. When you cut or copy information from a program, it is moved to the Clipboard and remains there until you clear the Clipboard or until you cut or copy another piece of information. The Clipboard window in ClipBook Viewer shows the contents of the Clipboard. You can paste the information from the Clipboard into any file as often as you like. To launch the ClipBook Viewer in XP, go to Run, type clipbrd and click OK.

There are limitations in the built-in Windows XP Clipboard utility. It can only capture text but not images. The contents of the standard Windows clipboard doesn't store your clipboard data for a long time. When you turn off the computer or just copy some other text, the data is lost.

I bet you must have experienced the need of the text that you copied 30 minutes or an hour ago. Maybe your computer hung and the program hasn't saved the data, or maybe you copied some interesting information from a web page, but got distracted and forgot to paste it where you wanted? Or you may simply want to recall what you were doing at the computer a month or a year ago. There are many cases in which you might want to review your clipboard content. So here are 10 free XP ClipBook Viewer replacement.

1. Ditto
Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, custom formats and etc.
Download Ditto

2. ClipX
ClipX is a tiny clipboard history manager, it can be recalled via a hotkey and supports both bitmap and text clipboards. ClipX is very unobstrusive and will change the way you think about clipboard operations. Takes up only 0.6MB memory. Press Ctrl + Shift + V to bring up the clipboard history and enter the number to paste them directly inside your favorite editor.
Download ClipX Read the rest of this entry »

The Windows 7 Beta which was distributed by Microsoft to selected testers only in the last days was leaked by one MSDN tester to various P2P networks. The beta 1 of Windows 7 with the build number 7000 is now a highly traded item on various platforms including the Bittorrent network. Various popular Bittorrent sites provide access to the torrent of the Windows 7 Beta release, the biggest with thousands of seeders and leechers.

The version that has been leaked is the official Windows 7 Beta that Microsoft intended to release to selected testers in December and to the general public in January 2009. The leak confirms that build 7000 of Windows 7 is indeed the beta 1 release.

The full build name is 7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD. The Windows 7 Beta 1 build that is circulating around is a 32-bit edition of Windows 7 Ultimate. The release has a size of 2.44 Gigabytes and is not supplied with a beta key as this would obviously blow the cover of the leaker of the build.

Users who have already downloaded and tested previous builds of Windows 7 will find that there are not many noticeable changes in the beta build in comparison to those builds that leaked at WinHec Beijing last month.

The good news for those users is that an upgrade from Windows 7 build 6956 to build 7000 should work flawlessly unlike previous updates who did not seem to work that well.

It has to be noted that the new build of Windows 7 is an evaluation copy just like the other builds were. This means that the version will expire on 2009/7/2 if a product key has been used to activate the version. Not supplying a product key will enable a test version that can be evaluated for 30 days before it will stop working.

Password managers add a new level of security to web browsers. The default way of handling passwords in web browsers is to let the user pick the username and password for a website. It is up to the user to pick a secure password so that his account cannot be brute-forced by hackers. We all know that many users like to pick passwords that they can remember easily.

Password Managers take the burden away by offering password generators that can generate a secure password in the form Bg6gX5!gff4 for the user. That's not all that they can do though and this article will review one of the popular Firefox password managers.

LastPass is an add-on for Firefox that provides password manager functionality after installation. What makes it special is the ability to import all passwords that have been saved in Firefox during setup. This means that all your old passwords will be stored in the password manager. Import is not only available for Firefox passwords but also for Internet Explorer, RoboForm or KeePass passwords.

This takes one of the burdens away from the user as all of his old passwords will still be working as usual after switching from the Firefox password manager to LastPass.

One of the main new features of the password manager is the password generator.

A link to the password generator will show up on top of the browser window on every registration page that you encounter. Another option is to access the secure password generator with a hotkey. It can be configured to use a specific password length and to include upper case, lower case, numbers and special chars. It is important that the choices are available as some websites restrict the characters of passwords. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article about Windows XP Aero is from our content partner Ghacks
One of the most talked design changes - or additions - in Windows Vista is Windows Aero. Microsoft calls it a more dynamic user-interface system compared to the basic interface system known from Windows XP. Windows Aero is actually a set of interface enhancements in Windows Vista. One of these is called Windows Aero Glass. Glass adds translucency to all windows of the operating system.

This Windows Aero Glass feature is now available in Windows XP thanks to Fast Aero. Fast Aero, a portable software, is a work in progress with the ultimate goal to provide the Aero Glass feature for all Windows XP users. The current version of Fast Aero provides the Glass effect on most - if not all - windows that are open in Windows XP. Please keep in mind that only new windows will display the Windows Aero Glass effect. Some can be minimized and maximized again while others need to be closed and reopened.

The default language of the software is Polish but it can easily be changed in the config.ini to English so that the language line looks like this: language=english. The only options provided by the interface are to enable or disable the blur effect. Version 1.3 which is supposed to come out in December will offer additional features like finetuning the blur intensity and refresh interval.

The Windows XP Aero Glass effect looks pretty solid in this version. Users who like to add some special bling to their operating system will surely love Fast Aero. Other users might feel that its resource usage does not justify the visual gain. It comes down to personal choice and preference in the end.

Web CEO 7.7
License - Shareware
Publisher - Web CEO, LTD

This new version of Web CEO brings more professional features of Web CEO into focus. You can enjoy our enhanced Dashboard—a combined report giving you a digest of your web site progress—and a new version of Report Viewer (3.0), which is a significant part of our White Label Report Sharing System that equips professional web marketers with great tools to provide SEO/SEM services in a highly professional manner but with minimum effort on report obtaining and delivery.

Key Features
1 - Find best keywords
2 - Optimize your site
3 - Submit your URLs to search engines
4 - Manage paid search campaigns
5 - Check your rankings with search engines
6 - Track and analyze your visitors



Features-★★★★★
Operation-★★★★
Security-★★★★
User Interface-★★★★★
CPU/Mem usage-★★★★

Download Web CEO NOW! Read the rest of this entry »

The following article about Load Websites With Hotkeys In Firefox is from our content partner Ghacks.
Web browsers usually offer several ways on how to access websites quickly. Users can type in the url, assign keywords to urls or use their bookmarks to do that. Something that has not been on the radar yet is the ability to use hotkeys to launch websites. It is actually a very good question why no web browser is offering that feature yet. What's easier and faster than opening a website with a keyboard shortcut?

Site Launcher is a Firefox add-on that adds this functionality to the web browser. It does that in two ways. The first is by proving access [via CTRL SPACE] to an overlay menu which displays the configured websites that can be launched from there. Each website is assigned a single key on the keyboard which has to be pressed to launch it.

The second method [via ALT SHIFT KEY] is there for keyboard junkies who prefer to press one hotkey for the same effect. Adding websites to the Firefox extension is easy. It is possible to open the Site Launcher Manager right away and add websites manually or add websites directly when they are loaded in the active tab.

It is furthermore possible to change the default hotkeys if other combinations suite you better.

It does not really matter which way you choose as you can modify all parameters afterwards. You have to enter a key, a title and an url to add a new website to the application. Each key can only be added once to Site Launcher. There is also only room for lower case characters.

Each website that is opened this way will be opened in a new tab by default. This behavior can be changed in the extensive options. It is possible to change the appearance of the menu and other functionality in there.

Create Ringtone 4.99
License - Shareware
Publisher - Excode Software

Create-Ringtone is designed for you to easily create and send customized Free Ringtones to your mobile phone. With Create-Ringtone, you make Ringtones from any digital audio file, including MP3, WAV, WMA and OGG files. The Ringtones you create are sent to your WAV and/or MP3 format supported mobile phone and set as your Ringtone.
Using Create-Ringtone you open your favorite song (in MP3, WMA, OGG or WAV format), select a section of the song to make as your Ringtone, and transfer it to your mobile phone as a Ringtone.

Key Features
1 - Read MP3, VMA, OGG, WAV audio files
2 - Preview your ringtone by listening to the selection, or listen to the entire audio file
3 - Send the ringtone to your mobile phone
4 - Read JPG, PNG, BMP, EMF, WMF digital images
5 - Get images from windows clipboard
6 - Change the image resolution to fit your phone screen size
7 - Send any file supported by your mobile phone
8 - Send SMS with a link to your file for download



Features-★★★★★
Operation-★★★★★
Security-★★★★★
User Interface-★★★★
CPU/Mem usage-★★★★

Download Create Ringtone NOW! Read the rest of this entry »

Apis Ceratina 2.2.4
License - Shareware
Publisher - Mavrsoft

Automate your repetitive tasks to a single mouse click or a keystroke.
Apis Ceratina is a Windows application for recording and replaying macros. Save millions of clicks and keystrokes with Apis . Reduce you repetitive tasks to a single mouse click or a keystroke.  Intelligent software to record, replay and schedule keyboard and mouse activities, and auto fill of hundreds of business forms and dialog boxes.

Key Features
1 - Define hotkey and launch your macro from anywhere instantly.
2 - Define hotkey scope (Substring of a window title) and launch your macro from a certain application.
3 - Use Repeat option, which allows you to replay macros the repeatedly given number of times.
4 - Use Schedule, which allows you to schedule macros for any time, any day of week, and which offers many other schedule options.



Features-★★★★★
Operation-★★★★
Security-★★★★
User Interface-★★★★
CPU/Mem usage-★★★★

Download Apis Ceratina NOW! Read the rest of this entry »