Computer Tips & Tricks

[wazzup]

I thought it would be kind of cool to have a central thread where people can share their computer tricks and stuff.

An example of something I would share is how to obtain a filesonic premium account without paying a cent. (In fact I'm downloading stuff right now using this method)

However, I'm not too sure if this abides by the forum rules or not. Anybody mind clarifying? And of course, if this idea sounds stupid or redundant, feel free to flame the thread or let it perish.

 

[Nunu]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

I got a second graphics card and a third screen but while my mother board has a slot for the card other cords get in the way and now i can't use my third screen because none of them have HDMI inputs!

 

[GoldBeetle]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

If you ever open a program and it becomes non-responsive, it's a hell of a lot faster to "End Process" rather than "End Task". End Task will try to wait for the program to close while End Process will kill it instantly. I find this particularly useful for me as I have a low-end pc and I often overestimate my pc's power.

 

[wazzup]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

Since Nunu didn't throw fire on me, I guess that it is cool to share this little trick.

How to obtain filesonic/wupload premium account

You can a) watch this

You must be registered to see the links

if you don't wanna read my guide.

or

b) read my guide.
This method works for both Mac and PC using firefox 7
1) make a FREE account on filesonic.com and tomtest.net
2) download and install firefox add-on

You must be registered to see the links

(and restart browser)
3) log into your FREE filesonic account and navigate My Account >> My Dashboard (I don't know if you specifically need to navigate there, but I did anyway)

You must be registered to see the links

4) Log in on tomtest.net and go to Tools >> Multi Cookie Generator Online

You must be registered to see the links

5) Choose filesonic as the filehoster and generate cookie. The Database section above it indicates how many premium accounts are available for each respective filehoster.

You must be registered to see the links

6) Go to Tools >> Cookies Manager + and search filesonic

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7) Look for filesonic.com PHPSESSID and click Edit
8) Copy and paste the cookie code from tomtest.net and paste it in Content
9) Save and close Cookies Manager +

You must be registered to see the links

10) Refresh the filesonic page and on the top right you should see a different account name from the one that you create. If this occurs, then you succeeded and you can proceed to download files from filesonic.

You must be registered to see the links

There are also Online Wupload and Filesonic Online Premium Link Generators on tomtest.net. I tried out the Wupload generator, but the speed was mad slow. I haven't tried out the filesonic link generator, so I don't know how fast or if it even works. Also, you can search on google for filesonic premium cookie codes, if tomtest.net don't have any available at that time. I have yet to try this method with other filehosters, but it should technically work.
I'll upload pics to complement the guide later.

Caution
Do not clear your cookies or, if you are like me using private mode, do not switch out of it. Otherwise once exiting private mode, firefox will automatically clear your cookies and history.

edit

Keep in mind other people are also using or competing with you for those cookie codes, so if you use the cookie codes you find online, sometimes someone else already used it, so it won't work.
egyhacks.net seems to frequently post up new cookie codes daily. You can use tomtest.net's online cookie checker to see if the cookie codes you find are working.

edit
So I tried this trick for wupload as well, and it works like magic. And I fiddled around with the tomtest.net website a bit more. So basically if there are filehoster cookies available, the website will automatically tell you to use the cookies, if no premium cookies are at hand, they will direct you to the online link generator. The premium cookie method is sometimes not available, but the download speeds are on average faster than the online link generator links.

 

[Caulder]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

If you ever open a program and it becomes non-responsive, it's a hell of a lot faster to "End Process" rather than "End Task". End Task will try to wait for the program to close while End Process will kill it instantly

I will admit, this is indeed true.

Also, another nifty trick, Winrar is free forever :trollface:

But, seriously. I've found End Process to be the greatest Task Manager feature of all time, aside from CPU monitoring.

 

[wazzup]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

Sometimes when I don't have a calculator at hand, and when my brain isn't capable of solving simple math problems, I pop open the in-built calculator using the following hoykeys and commands.

1) press win button + r, which brings up the command prompt
2) type "calc" without quotations, this executes the calculator program

 

[Kiriko]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

Windows key + M will minimize all open windows and return to your desktop. Very useful to know when needing to tab out of a fullscreen program quickly in order to look up something.

 

[noseman79]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

If you get a virus/trojan/other that your AV software can't remove, a possible quick fix is booting into safe mode with networking (reboot computer and tap F8 before windows starts to load, choose Safe Mode with Networking from the list), then get Hitman Pro from

You must be registered to see the links

, choose x86 or x64 depending on your computer.
Run it and let it remove what it finds.

Due to it being two-week nagware, after using Hitman Pro, uninstall it and delete the downloaded file afterwards. Then download it again the next time you need it.

Mind, if you have game trainers or other similar game enhancers, the program may get a false positive.

Another good and free program is Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, from

You must be registered to see the links

.

If the virus is even more persistent, Try removing it with Smitfraudfix, from

You must be registered to see the links

.
Check for updates, search and clean.

For general upkeep, get CCleaner and Defraggler from

You must be registered to see the links

.
CCleaner will remove old temporary files (which windows seems to think are supposed to be permanent).
BE AWARE, CCLEANER WILL DELETE YOUR SAVED PASSWORDS.
It can also remove redundant registry entries and do a couple of other fun things.

Defraggler can replace the windows' increasingly useless defrag. Set it up to automatically defragment your hdd(s) once or twice every month.

Trust me on this, the windows default defrag was already bad in XP and in Vista and 7 it just doesn't do it's job like it should.

These should help you in any normal situation.

 

[wazzup]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

If you get a virus/trojan/other that your AV software can't remove, a possible quick fix is booting into safe mode with networking (reboot computer and tap F8 before windows starts to load, choose Safe Mode with Networking from the list), then get Hitman Pro from

You must be registered to see the links

, choose x86 or x64 depending on your computer.
Run it and let it remove what it finds.

Due to it being two-week nagware, after using Hitman Pro, uninstall it and delete the downloaded file afterwards. Then download it again the next time you need it.

Mind, if you have game trainers or other similar game enhancers, the program may get a false positive.

Another good and free program is Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, from

You must be registered to see the links

.

If the virus is even more persistent, Try removing it with Smitfraudfix, from

You must be registered to see the links

.
Check for updates, search and clean.

For general upkeep, get CCleaner and Defraggler from

You must be registered to see the links

.
CCleaner will remove old temporary files (which windows seems to think are supposed to be permanent).
BE AWARE, CCLEANER WILL DELETE YOUR SAVED PASSWORDS.
It can also remove redundant registry entries and do a couple of other fun things.

Defraggler can replace the windows' increasingly useless defrag. Set it up to automatically defragment your hdd(s) once or twice every month.

Trust me on this, the windows default defrag was already bad in XP and in Vista and 7 it just doesn't do it's job like it should.

These should help you in any normal situation.

Just a quick caution: never defrag your hard drive if it is a SSD. Probably common knowledge by now, but I'll throw it out there anyway.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

If you get a virus/trojan/other that your AV software can't remove, a possible quick fix is booting into safe mode with networking (reboot computer and tap F8 before windows starts to load, choose Safe Mode with Networking from the list), then get Hitman Pro from

You must be registered to see the links

, choose x86 or x64 depending on your computer.
Run it and let it remove what it finds.

If your computer is messed up to that degree, it would probably be best to just back up and do a fresh install.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

Just a quick caution: never defrag your hard drive if it is a SSD. Probably common knowledge by now, but I'll throw it out there anyway.

Not as common as you may think, apparently. What is an SSD, and why shouldn't it be defragged?

 

[Host]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

Super Star Destroyer. Defrag one of those and you might lose life support, which is generally-

Okay, okay, it's a

You must be registered to see the links

. Effectively, it's a drive with no moving parts. All HDD's generally have spinning parts while in operation; SSD's don't. A Flash drive, USB stick, whatever it's being called these days, is solid state. As for why you can't defrag it, though, I'm not actually sure, although my instinct is to agree with the sentiment.

 

[DeMatt]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

Not as common as you may think, apparently. What is an SSD, and why shouldn't it be defragged?

Okay, okay, it's a

You must be registered to see the links

. Effectively, it's a drive with no moving parts. All HDD's generally have spinning parts while in operation; SSD's don't. A Flash drive, USB stick, whatever it's being called these days, is solid state. As for why you can't defrag it, though, I'm not actually sure, although my instinct is to agree with the sentiment.

It digs into just how the drive stores and accesses data. Hard drives (with the magnetic platters) store data by spinning their platters under a read head - think like the old vinyl record players. SSD's store data in specialized circuitry.

"Defragmenting" works by moving all the chunks, or "fragments", of a file next to each other so they're not all over the place. This improves hard drive performance because then the hard drive doesn't have to spin its platter around to find the next chunk of a file.

But SSD's don't need to physically move. Accessing any particular bit of memory doesn't depend on where the read head is, because there's no read head - so it's really really fast. SSD's, therefore, don't get any benefit from defragmenting.

What's worse is that the "specialized circuitry" in SSD's can only be rewritten so many times. It's a large number - any given bit can be changed, oh, something like ten or a hundred thousand times - but it's still orders of magnitude lower than for a magnetic hard drive. Running a defragment cycle on a SSD involves a lot of write cycles, wearing out the circuitry faster.

TL;DR: defragging an SSD wears it out faster and doesn't help it work any better.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

Ah okay. I knew the difference, i just couldn't remember what SSD stood for. Once I was told that, the rest came back to me. Thanks!

 

[wazzup]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

A little cool trick I used back when I happen to have a external HDD that was in FAT format. For those that do not know, HDD can come in two formats: FAT and NTFS. NTFS is pretty much the default format that most HDD are used for computers. FAT format is pretty much archaic, but it is still used in consoles (ie PS3). One drawback for FAT format is that it has a maximum file transfer cap. Meaning, files over a certain size (around 4gb) will automatically be reject during transfer to a FAT format HDD.

One way to solve this problem is to simply change the format of the HDD from FAT to NTFS (or vice versa if you intend on sticking the HDD into a console).

1) press windows + r (or execute run)
2) type cmd (this launches the command prompt window)
3) type "convert _drive_:/ fs:ntfs" without quotations (ie convert G:/ fs:ntfs)
4) type "exit" without quotations to exit cmd

this method doesn't require a third party program and does not erase the existing files on the drive. However, just for safety's sake, back them up before running the command

 

[bellend078]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

Hi cheers for the filesonic trick, anyone got one for WUPLOAD? cheers x

 

[Amalgam]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

A more comprehensive alternative to the task manager is a program called "procexp.exe" that can be found on the Microsoft website with a simple google search. It has all the functions of the task list, except for the users tab, but you can also find the root file and dlls affected by each process, and you can also view running stats and privileges by using the properties option in the right click menu.

 

[wazzup]

Re: Computer Tips & Tricks

You can use vtunnel.com (or other similar sites) to bypass internet filters. Simply put, the website downloads the information from the page and presents them to you in an acceptable manner. However, sometimes java script and other information is lost through the transfer.

Viewing the webpage cache can also sometimes get you past the filter, but viewing subsequent links in the cache page might be caught by the filter.