The “U” in USB stands for “Universal”, and no other I/O port does so much for so many computer users as USB. From providing a home for keyboards and mice to driving printers, scanners, all-in-one units, and providing access to terabytes of storage and the Internet, USB ports do it all. That also means that USB-related problems can cripple your PC, leaving it unable to access storage, input, and output devices.

Tracking down the causes of USB-related woes can be difficult, but in this article, we show you the common and uncommon causes for USB problems – and their solutions.

USB Troubleshooting 101

Recent operating systems include drivers for common USB devices, such as keyboards, mice, and storage devices. If one of these devices is not recognized when you plug it into a USB port, try another USB port on the computer itself (we’ll discuss troubleshooting ports built into hubs later), preferably a USB port built into the port cluster on the rear of a desktop PC.

If the device works in some USB ports, but not others, note the ports that are not working. This information will be used to help determine if the cause is the hardware setup at the BIOS level or at the Windows driver or Device Manager level.

If the device works on another PC, but not on yours, the problem lies with your PC. However, if the device doesn’t work on any PC, it’s time to replace the cable, or the device itself.

Even if you never have a USB device that doesn’t work at all, you might see one of the following messages when you plug a USB device into your computer or into an external hub:

“This device can perform faster”

To solve this problem, we need to see how USB ports are configured in the system BIOS – and find out what type of USB hub is in use.

“Hub power exceeded”

This problem, on the other hand, requires a trip to the Windows Device Manager.

Diagnosing USB Port Problems in BIOS Setup

BIOS setup is the place to check if you have any of the following USB problems:

- Your system doesn’t recognize a mainstream USB device, such as a printer, mouse, or storage device, in any USB port.

- You get a “This device can perform faster” error message when you plug a Hi-Speed USB (aka USB 2.0) device into any port on a recent computer.

- You can use a USB drive for storage, but you can’t boot from it, and you’ve verified the drive is a bootable device.

- You can use a USB keyboard in Windows, but not for accessing the BIOS at system startup.

To check BIOS settings, restart your computer and press the appropriate key to open the BIOS setup menu.

Tip: If you are unable to access the BIOS setup menu with a USB keyboard, plug in a PS/2 (6-pin DIN) keyboard (if your system has a PS/2 keyboard port). It’s worthwhile keeping an old PS/2 keyboard around for troubleshooting. Some USB keyboards can also be adapted to PS/2.

Checking for “Missing” USB Ports in BIOS Setup

Once you have the BIOS settings menu open, what’s next? Typically, you will find USB port settings in the Integrated Ports or Integrated Peripherals menu:

If the USB controller or host controller is disabled, no USB ports will be recognized by Windows, and consequently no USB devices will be recognized either.

What if some USB ports are usable, but others are not? Some systems enable you to specify the number of USB ports in BIOS setup.

To solve problems with “missing” USB ports, make sure the following settings are enabled:

USB controller

USB 2.0 controller (aka USB EHCI controller)

USB legacy support

Save changes, exit BIOS setup, and your system will restart, providing access to USB ports.

Tip: If you are unable to use a USB keyboard in BIOS setup, but it works after Windows boots, there’s a problem with USB keyboard or legacy support. Change the setting, or contact your system or motherboard vendor for a BIOS update.

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Missing USB 2.0 Support

USB 2.0 support has been included in virtually all systems built in the last five years or so. However, it’s possible to configure a system so USB 2.0 support is disabled.

On most systems that include USB port options in the system BIOS, you can specify whether to run USB ports in 1.1 or 2.0 (Hi-Speed USB) modes. Depending upon the system, you might see separate entries for USB controller and USB 2.0 controller in BIOS setup, or BIOS setup might have a single entry for USB controller with the option to enable 1.1 support only or 1.1/2.0 support.

Make sure USB 2.0 support is enabled, save changes, exit BIOS setup, and your system will restart, providing USB 2.0 support.

Note: If you have an old system that was never updated to Windows XP SP1 or later, its USB 2.0 ports will run only in USB 1.1 mode, regardless of the BIOS setting, until SP1 or later is installed (SP1 added USB 2.0 support). So, if you’re reinstalling Windows XP original edition, make sure you install SP3 immediately, if not sooner (see our article on using the free nLite utility to do this).

Diagnosing USB Power Management Problems

Some systems cannot wake up a system from S3 (deep sleep) power management mode unless this option is enabled in the system BIOS. If you are unable to wake up your system by tapping on a USB keyboard or moving the mouse, make sure this option is enabled in the system BIOS.

Diagnosing USB Problems with Device Manager

If you’re still having problems with some USB ports after making sure that the BIOS settings are correct, the next stop for Windows users is Device Manager.

In Device Manager, USB 2.0 controllers are listed as Enhanced, while USB 1.1 are listed as OpenHCD. Note that a single USB 2.0 controller can manage all USB ports built into the motherboard, while each root hub requires its own OpenHCD controller.

Note: If your system does not have USB 2.0 support enabled in the BIOS, an Enhanced controller entry will not appear in Device Manager.

Root Hubs and Generic Hubs

You won’t find USB ports listed by that name in Device Manager. Instead, Device Manager lists USB ports by host device:

- Root hub

- Generic hub

Root hubs host USB ports connected to the computer’s motherboard or add-on USB host adapter card. A root hub typically hosts two USB ports in 1.1 mode, and the root hub on a system with USB 2.0 support hosts all of the USB ports built into the system. To determine the number of ports a root hub hosts, open a root hub’s properties sheet in Device Manager and click the Power tab.

If a root hub is disabled in Device Manager, devices connected to the hub cannot be used and are no longer displayed in Device Manager.

To enable a disabled root hub, right-click the hub and select Enable from the right-click menu. Follow any prompts displayed to complete the process.

Generic hubs are external devices that host USB ports. A generic hub plugs into a USB port, enabling the port to service multiple devices. By daisy-chaining generic hubs to a root hub, a single USB port can support up to 127 devices.

Generic hubs are available in a variety of forms, from standalone devices that include four or more USB ports to keyboards and monitors that include USB ports. Because some generic hubs are self-powered, and some are bus-powered, generic hubs can cause power problems for some USB devices.

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Hubs and USB Power Problems

One of the most poorly understood causes of USB problems is the difference between self-powered and bus-powered hubs. Self-powered hubs include root hubs (which draw current from the computer’s power supply) and generic hubs that are connected to AC power. These hubs provide 500mA of current to each USB port.

Generic hubs that do not have an AC power source are bus-powered, and provide only 100mA of current to each USB port.

Bus-powered hubs are suitable hosts for USB devices that use little power, such as keyboards, most mice, printers, and external hard disks that use AC power. However, device power requirements vary widely, and other types of popular devices, such as portable hard disks, flash memory drives and card readers, and game controllers with force feedback often cannot operate when plugged into a bus-powered hub.

To determine the power requirements for any USB device, open the Power tab for the root or generic hub the device is plugged into.

The devices shown in this example must be plugged into a self-powered USB hub, as they require more than 100mA of current.

However, the devices shown in this example can be plugged into either a bus-powered or self-powered hub, as they require less than 100mA of current.

Dangers of Exceeding Available Hub Power

If you plug a device that requires more power than the hub can provide, what happens?

If you plug a device that requires more than 100mA of current into a bus-powered hub, you will see a “Hub Power Exceeded” message.

Click the message to see a listing of other ports that you can use.

While the listing isn’t specific, keep in mind that any built-in USB port is connected to a root hub, and will therefore provide 500mA of power – enough for almost all devices.

What happens if you plug a device that requires more than 100mA of power into a self-powered hub that becomes disconnected from its AC power supply? At that point, the hub becomes a bus-powered hub, the voltage per port drops to 100mA, and, if you have a flash drive plugged into the port, you might destroy it.

To avoid disaster, consider this advice:

-    Think twice before using a bus-powered hub.

-    If you use a bus-powered hub, make sure you know the current requirements for all USB devices you plan to use with the hub. Any device that requires more than 100mA of current will not work with a bus-powered hub.

-    If you’re worried about forgetting to check current requirements before you plug in a new device, use a self-powered hub.

-    If you already have a bus-powered hub and are frustrated because some devices will not work with it, replace it or connect the hub to a compatible AC adapter.

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Hubs and USB Performance Problems

Most, but not all, USB generic hubs sold today support USB 2.0 speeds – but there are innumerable USB 1.1-only hubs still in use. If you plug a USB 2.0 device into a USB 1.1 hub, you will see the same “This device can perform faster” error message you would see if you had plugged the device into a USB 1.1 port on the computer.

How can you tell how fast a USB hub will run? There are two methods I use:

-    Check for markings on the hub

-    Check the properties sheet for the hub

Most USB 2.0 hubs are labeled as such. However, an unlabeled hub might also support USB 2.0 speeds.

To determine the speeds supported by a USB hub, follow this procedure:

1. Plug a USB 2.0 device, such as a storage device or wireless adapter, into one of the ports on the hub.

2. Open Device Manager.

3. Expand the Universal Serial Bus Controllers category.

4. Open the properties sheet for the hub.

5. Open the Power tab and look for the device you connected in Step 1.

6. Repeat steps 4-5 until you find the correct hub.

7. Open the Advanced tab and note the hub’s performance level. A hub that supports USB 2.0 speeds will run at high-speed. A hub that supports only USB 1.1 speeds will run at full-speed.

Note that some desktops with front-mounted USB ports run these ports in USB 1.1 mode only.

USB Hub and Device Power Management Problems and Solutions

By default, USB root and generic hubs are configured to enable the PC to turn off the device automatically to save power. However, USB devices are configured by default to enable the device to wake up the system.

If your system cannot be awakened from standby, check these settings, as well as the power management settings in the system BIOS.

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Cables and USB Device Compatibility

USB cables not made for high-power (over 100mA) devices can cause those devices to fail. Typically, thicker cables (such as the white cable shown below) use 28AWG cable, which is capable of carrying full power to any USB device, while thinner cables (such as the gray one shown below) use thinner cable of unspecified gauge. Smaller-gauge cable prevents full power transmission to the device.

While using an underperforming USB cable won’t cause the device to be damaged, it can be frustrating to need an extension or other cable doesn’t work with some devices.

The second factor is the rise of alternative device cable connections. At one time, virtually all USB devices, with the exception of digital cameras, used the standard B cable connector. With most current devices, except for printers, the standard B connector has been replaced by the five-pin mini-B cable. And, some devices use four-pin mini-B cables or Mini-A cables. To be prepared for any eventuality, consider keeping a universal USB 2.0 cable handy (like the one in the photo below).

The third factor is the need to exceed 500mA at startup with some portable USB hard disk drives. Some onboard USB ports are capable of proving more current to spin up these drives, while others are not. Keep in mind that self-powered generic hubs typically cannot provide additional power for these drives.

If you cannot use a single USB cable to provide sufficient power with some systems, use a double-headed cable. One connector provides power and data services from a single USB port, while the other provides additional power from a second USB port. Some portable hard disk vendors supply this type of cable, while others make it an extra-cost option.

USB Driver Problems and Solutions

Because recent versions of Windows recognize standard USB devices such as mice, keyboards, and storage devices without the need to install drivers, it’s easy to forget that a plug-and-play installation is possible only when the computer has the appropriate driver already installed.

If you plug a USB device into a computer that does not already have the appropriate drivers installed, you will be prompted to run the Found New Hardware Wizard.

Continue only if the installation instructions for the device recommend doing so. In most cases, however, you need to run the device installation program provided on the device’s driver CD before Windows can install the device. In such cases, click Cancel, disconnect the device, and install the driver for the device first.

Once the device is installed, you might be able to update the drivers with the device’s Driver tab on the properties sheet in Device Manager.

Conclusion

Want to avoid having USB problems at all? Here are some best practices that you should follow to get your ports in order.

-    Make sure your computer is configured to run USB ports in USB 2.0 mode

-    Upgrade systems running original Windows XP to SP1 or greater

-    Avoid using bus-powered USB hubs with most bus-powered peripherals other than mice, keyboards, and some types of game controllers

-    Avoid using USB 1.1-compatible hubs with USB 2.0 devices such as storage, printer, scanner, and multifunction devices

-    Use the Device Manager properties sheets for USB ports and devices to solve problems

-    Make sure you install driver software for new USB devices before you connect them to your system

-    Replace USB cables not designed for high-powered devices with thicker USB 2.0-compliant cables

-    Check power management settings in BIOS and Device Manager for USB ports and devices

Mark Edward Soper is the co-author of the new book CompTIA A+ 220-701 220-702 Cert Guide, with Scott Mueller and David L. Prowse (Pearson).

Sourced from: Maximum PC Features RSS Feed

The Muslim world spans far and wide with majority Muslim countries nestled around the equator and concentrated in many parts of North Africa, the Middle East, South and South East Asia. An estimated 22% of the world’s population is Muslim—spanning approximately 50 countries as a majority and speaking around 60 different first languages.

Region	Country	Population	Islam
			%	Total
Central Asia	Afghanistan	28,226,000	97.890	27,630,431
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Albania	3,208,000	38.790	1,244,383
Middle East and North Africa	Algeria	34,373,000	96.680	33,231,816
South Pacific	American Samoa	68,000	0.000	0
Western Europe	Andorra	75,000	0.630	473
East and Southern Africa	Angola	17,499,000	0.000	0
North America and Caribbean	Anguilla	13,000	0.550	72
North America and Caribbean	Antigua and Barbuda	86,000	0.400	344
Central and South America	Argentina	39,934,000	1.950	778,713
Central Asia	Armenia	2,996,000	1.200	35,952
North America and Caribbean	Aruba	104,000	0.280	291
South Pacific	Australia	20,951,000	1.330	278,648
Western Europe	Austria	8,391,000	2.230	187,119
Central Asia	Azerbaijan	8,534,000	83.670	7,140,398
North America and Caribbean	Bahamas	335,000	0.000	0
Middle East and North Africa	Bahrain	766,000	82.370	630,954
South Asia	Bangladesh	161,318,000	85.600	138,088,208
North America and Caribbean	Barbados	295,000	0.750	2,213
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Belarus	9,635,000	0.100	9,635
Western Europe	Belgium	10,480,000	3.600	377,280
Central and South America	Belize	294,000	0.580	1,705
West and Central Africa	Benin	9,309,000	20.030	1,864,593
North America and Caribbean	Bermuda	65,000	0.000	0
South Asia	Bhutan	667,000	4.000	26,680
Central and South America	Bolivia	9,694,000	0.020	1,939
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Bosnia-Herzegovina	3,940,000	60.060	2,366,364
East and Southern Africa	Botswana	1,906,000	0.200	3,812
Central and South America	Brazil	194,228,000	0.100	194,228

Region	Country	Population	Islam
			%	Total
South Asia	British Indian Ocean Territory	2,000	0.200	4
North America and Caribbean	British Virgin Islands	23,000	0.400	92
Southeast Asia	Brunei	398,000	64.370	256,193
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Bulgaria	7,584,000	11.870	900,221
West and Central Africa	Burkina Faso	15,213,000	50.000	7,606,500
East and Southern Africa	Burundi	8,856,000	3.000	265,680
Southeast Asia	Cambodia	14,697,000	3.900	573,183
West and Central Africa	Cameroon	18,920,000	25.000	4,730,000
North America and Caribbean	Canada	33,170,000	1.600	530,720
West and Central Africa	Cape Verde	542,000	2.770	15,013
North America and Caribbean	Cayman Islands	48,000	0.190	91
West and Central Africa	Central African Republic	4,424,000	15.600	690,144
West and Central Africa	Chad	11,088,000	55.000	6,098,400
Central and South America	Chile	16,803,000	0.030	5,041
Northeast Asia	China	1,336,311,000	2.000	26,726,220
Northeast Asia	China, Hong Kong	7,279,000	1.500	109,185
Northeast Asia	China, Macao	484,000	0.000	0
South Pacific	Christmas Island	1,560	27.000	421
South Pacific	Cocos (Keeling) Islands	660	51.300	339
Central and South America	Colombia	46,741,000	0.110	51,415
East and Southern Africa	Comoros	860,000	98.070	843,402
West and Central Africa	Congo, Democratic Republic Of	64,704,000	1.100	711,744
West and Central Africa	Congo, The Republic Of	3,847,000	1.300	50,011
South Pacific	Cook Islands	13,000	0.000	0
Central and South America	Costa Rica	4,534,000	0.000	0
West and Central Africa	Cote d’Ivoire	19,624,000	38.600	7,574,864
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Croatia	4,550,000	3.000	136,500
North America and Caribbean	Cuba	11,265,000	0.080	9,012
Western Europe	Cyprus	864,000	23.000	198,720
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Czech Republic	10,183,000	0.200	20,366
Western Europe	Denmark	5,453,000	3.020	164,681
East and Southern Africa	Djibouti	848,000	93.900	796,272
North America and Caribbean	Dominica	67,000	0.200	134

Region	Country	Population	Islam
			%	Total
North America and Caribbean	Dominican Republic	9,904,000	0.020	1,981
Southeast Asia	East Timor	1,193,000	2.100	25,053
Central and South America	Ecuador	13,481,000	0.020	2,696
Middle East and North Africa	Egypt	76,840,000	86.520	66,481,968
Central and South America	El Salvador	6,953,000	0.000	0
West and Central Africa	Equatorial Guinea	520,000	0.600	3,120
East and Southern Africa	Eritrea	5,006,000	50.000	2,503,000
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Estonia	1,331,000	0.700	9,317
East and Southern Africa	Ethiopia	85,219,000	31.000	26,417,890
Central and South America	Falkland Islands	3,000	0.000	0
Western Europe	Faroe Islands	49,000	0.000	0
South Pacific	Fiji	844,000	7.000	59,080
Western Europe	Finland	5,293,000	0.180	9,527
Western Europe	France	61,946,000	10.000	6,194,600
Central and South America	French Guiana	207,000	1.900	3,933
South Pacific	French Polynesia	266,000	0.000	0
West and Central Africa	Gabon	1,350,000	6.500	87,750
West and Central Africa	Gambia	1,754,000	88.800	1,557,552
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Georgia	4,361,000	20.000	872,200
Western Europe	Germany	82,534,000	3.700	3,053,758
West and Central Africa	Ghana	23,947,000	21.000	5,028,870
Western Europe	Gibraltar	29,000	8.500	2,465
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Greece	11,172,000	3.300	368,676
North America and Caribbean	Greenland	58,000	0.000	0
North America and Caribbean	Grenada	106,000	0.300	318
North America and Caribbean	Guadeloupe	448,000	0.400	1,792
South Pacific	Guam	176,000	0.000	0
Central and South America	Guatemala	13,686,000	0.000	0
West and Central Africa	Guinea	9,572,000	85.410	8,175,445
West and Central Africa	Guinea-Bissau	1,746,000	43.000	750,780
Central and South America	Honduras	7,246,000	0.160	11,594
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Hungary	10,000,000	0.100	10,000
Western Europe	Iceland	303,000	0.040	121
South Asia	India	1,186,186,000	12.500	148,273,250
Southeast Asia	Indonesia	234,342,000	80.300	188,176,626
Central Asia	Iran	72,212,000	99.020	71,504,322
Middle East and North Africa	Iraq	29,492,000	96.850	28,563,002
Western Europe	Ireland	4,380,000	0.010	438

Region	Country	Population	Islam
			%	Total
Western Europe	Monaco	33,000	0.500	165
Northeast Asia	Mongolia	2,654,000	4.000	106,160
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Montenegro	598,000	16.200	96,876
North America and Caribbean	Montserrat	6,000	0.000	0
Middle East and North Africa	Morocco	31,606,000	99.850	31,558,591
East and Southern Africa	Mozambique	21,813,000	18.100	3,948,153
Southeast Asia	Myanmar (Burma)	49,221,000	3.800	1,870,398
East and Southern Africa	Namibia	2,102,000	0.000	0
South Pacific	Nauru	10,000	0.000	0
South Asia	Nepal	28,757,000	5.000	1,437,850
Western Europe	Netherlands	16,450,000	5.400	888,300
North America and Caribbean	Netherlands Antilles	194,000	0.310	601
South Pacific	New Caledonia	245,000	3.500	8,575
South Pacific	New Zealand	4,215,000	0.460	19,389
Central and South America	Nicaragua	5,676,000	0.000	0
West and Central Africa	Niger	14,731,000	97.590	14,375,983
West and Central Africa	Nigeria	149,229,090	50.000	74,615,000
South Pacific	Niue	2,000	0.000	0
South Pacific	Norfolk Island	2,200	0.000	0
South Pacific	Northern Mariana Islands	85,000	0.000	0
Western Europe	Norway	4,727,000	1.040	49,161
Middle East and North Africa	Oman	3,418,000	92.660	3,167,119
Central Asia	Pakistan	166,961,000	96.080	160,416,129
South Pacific	Palau	20,000	0.000	0
Middle East and North Africa	Palestine (West Bank / Gaza)	4,147,000	86.560	3,589,643
Central and South America	Panama	3,399,000	3.500	118,965
South Pacific	Papua New Guinea	6,458,000	0.000	0
Central and South America	Paraguay	6,238,000	0.050	3,119
Central and South America	Peru	28,221,000	0.000	0
Southeast Asia	Philippines	89,651,000	5.000	4,482,550
South Pacific	Pitcairn Islands	50	0.000	0
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Poland	38,022,000	0.010	3,802
Western Europe	Portugal	10,662,000	0.500	53,310
North America and Caribbean	Puerto Rico	4,012,000	0.130	5,216
Middle East and North Africa	Qatar	856,000	79.430	679,921
East and Southern Africa	Reunion	817,000	2.150	17,566

Region	Country	Population	Islam
			%	Total
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Romania	21,344,000	1.000	213,440
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Russia	141,780,000	10.200	14,461,560
East and Southern Africa	Rwanda	10,009,000	10.500	1,050,945
East and Southern Africa	Saint Helena	7,000	0.000	0
North America and Caribbean	Saint Kitts and Nevis	51,000	0.000	0
North America and Caribbean	Saint Lucia	167,000	0.500	835
North America and Caribbean	Saint Pierre and Miquelon	6,000	0.000	0
South Pacific	Samoa	189,000	0.000	0
Western Europe	San Marino	31,000	0.000	0
West and Central Africa	Sao Tome and Principe	160,000	0.300	480
Middle East and North Africa	Saudi Arabia	25,293,000	92.830	23,479,492
West and Central Africa	Senegal	12,688,000	92.070	11,681,842
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Serbia	8,032,300	2.500	200,808
East and Southern Africa	Seychelles	87,000	0.210	183
West and Central Africa	Sierra Leone	5,969,000	70.000	4,178,300
Southeast Asia	Singapore	4,490,000	14.900	669,010
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Slovakia	5,392,000	0.020	1,078
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Slovenia	2,002,000	1.550	31,031
South Pacific	Solomon Islands	507,000	0.000	0
East and Southern Africa	Somalia	8,956,000	99.950	8,951,522
East and Southern Africa	South Africa	48,832,000	1.450	708,064
Western Europe	Spain	44,593,000	1.200	535,116
South Asia	Sri Lanka	19,394,000	8.000	1,551,520
North America and Caribbean	St Vincent and Grenadines	121,000	1.000	1,210
East and Southern Africa	Sudan	39,445,000	65.000	25,639,250
Central and South America	Suriname	461,000	19.400	89,434
Western Europe	Svalbard	3,980	0.000	0
East and Southern Africa	Swaziland	1,148,000	0.950	10,906
Western Europe	Sweden	9,160,000	3.100	283,960
Western Europe	Switzerland	7,512,000	3.100	232,872
Middle East and North Africa	Syria	20,447,000	90.320	18,467,730
Northeast Asia	Taiwan	23,308,370	0.350	81,579
Central Asia	Tajikistan	6,839,000	89.500	6,120,905
East and Southern Africa	Tanzania	41,464,000	31.800	13,185,552
Southeast Asia	Thailand	64,316,000	5.240	3,370,158
West and Central Africa	Togo	6,762,000	24.000	1,622,880
South Pacific	Tokelau	1,000	0.000	0

Region	Country		Population		Islam
					%		Total
South Pacific	Tonga		101,000		0.000		0
North America and Caribbean	Trinidad and Tobago		1,338,000		5.700		76,266
Middle East and North Africa	Tunisia		10,440,000		99.660		10,404,504
Central Asia	Turkey		71,500,000		99.640		71,242,600
Central Asia	Turkmenistan		5,031,000		91.840		4,620,470
North America and Caribbean	Turks and Caicos Islands		26,000		0.000		0
South Pacific	Tuvalu		11,000		0.000		0
East and Southern Africa	Uganda		31,903,000		6.000		1,914,180
Eastern Europe and Eurasia	Ukraine		45,859,000		0.450		206,366
Middle East and North Africa	United Arab Emirates		4,503,000		65.450		2,947,214
Western Europe	United Kingdom		61,019,000		2.000		1,220,380
North America and Caribbean	United States		308,798,000		1.490		4,601,090
Central and South America	Uruguay		3,350,000		0.000		0
Central Asia	Uzbekistan		27,769,000		83.500		23,187,115
South Pacific	Vanuatu		232,000		0.000		0
Western Europe	Vatican City		1,000		0.000		0
Central and South America	Venezuela		28,122,000		0.350		98,427
Southeast Asia	Vietnam		88,537,000		0.700		619,759
North America and Caribbean	Virgin Islands (US)		111,000		0.000		0
South Pacific	Wallis and Futuna Islands		15,000		0.000		0
Middle East and North Africa	Western Sahara		497,000		99.900		496,503
Middle East and North Africa	Yemen		23,066,000		99.940		23,052,160
East and Southern Africa	Zambia		12,154,000		1.400		170,156
East and Southern Africa	Zimbabwe		13,481,000		1.000		134,810
T O T A L	6,773,254,236	21.839		1,479,200,275

COMPILED BY MOHAMMAD HUSNI NAGHAWI – 2008

From The 500 most influential muslims in the world 2009

Al Fatiha: Meaning ‘the opening’, this is the title for the first chapter of the Holy Qur’an which is recited as a fundamental part of Muslims’ daily prayers.

Allah: The Arabic Name for God.

Aqida: Creed; this refers to the theological and doctrinal beliefs of Muslims.

Ash’ari: The school of Sunni Orthodoxy named after the followers of the 9th century scholar Abu al Hasan al Ash’ari (874-936 CE).

Azaan/Adhan: The call to prayer.

Bid’a: Literally ‘innovation’; this refers to the act of creating superfluous, or non-prescribed traditions in the practice of Islam. It is used in common speech as a denunciation toward those not acting in accordance with the prescriptions of Islam. The prescriptions of Islam are however open to scholarly interpretation due to perceived ambiguities in the Qur’an, or to scientific or technological innovations which present new questions to scholars.

Caliph: The head of the entire community of Muslims, either current or in the past. Is also used by certain sects to refer to their own leader.

Chador: A loose cloth traditionally worn by Muslim women which usually covers the body from head to foot.

Da’i/ Da’ee: Missionary.

Da’wa: Islamic missionary work; literally ‘making an invitation’ to the religion.

Emir/Ameer: A title accorded to a leader, prince, or commander-in-chief.

Fatwa : Islamic legal ruling, or legal pronouncement. It is not synonymous with a death sentence as is sometimes thought in the West.

Fiqh: Islamic jurisprudence (the philosophy of law). This is the scholarly pursuit that enables individuals to have an educated understanding of Islamic law.

Hadith: Literally ‘sayings’. These are a set of references to the life of the Prophet Muhammad. There are numerous Hadith, and the practice of verifying them is an Islamic scholarly practice of its own that has been carried out since the life of the Prophet.

Hafiz (or Hafiza) al Qur’an: A person who has committed the entire Qur’an to memory, and can recite the Qur’an at will. This is important in Islam because the Qur’an was originally revealed as an oral text.

Hajj: The pilgrimage to Mecca. It is mandatory for every Muslim who is able to do it, and can afford to do so. It is one of the five pillars of Islam. The pilgrimage occurs from the 8th to 12th day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the 12th month of the Islamic calendar.

Haram: Sanctuary.

Hijab : Headscarf worn traditionally by Muslim women.

Hijaz: The region along the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula.

Ibadi: The Ibadi school has origins in and is linked to the Kharijites, but the modern day community is distinct from the 7th century Islamic sect. It was founded after the death of Prophet Muhammad and is currently practiced by a majority of Oman’s Muslim population. Also found across parts of Africa.

Ihsan : Virtue through constant regard to, and awareness of God.

Ijaza: Certification.

Ijtihad: Independent reasoning.

Imam: (1) In both Sunni and Shi‘a Islam this the leader of congregational prayers who may also deliver the Friday prayer (Jum’a) sermon; more generally, a person of authority within the community. (2) In Shi‘a Islam this exclusively refers to a series of people, descended from the Prophet Muhammad, who by lineage are considered divinely guided spiritual leaders.

Imamate: The position or institution, in Shi‘a Islam, that is comprised of a series of divinely guided Imams.

Iman: Faith in God.

Islam: Submission to God’s will.

Ka’ba: The large cubic building in the Grand Mosque in Mecca, adorned in gold embroidered black fabric, referred to by Muslims as the ‘House of God’. This structure marks the direction in which Muslims pray and is central to the Hajj pilgrimage when it is circumambulated, a practice rooted in pre-Islamic Arabia when it contained idols subsequently removed by the Prophet Muhammad.

Khateeb: One who traditionally delivers a sermon; orator.

Khawerij : A group of Muslims in early Islamic history who went against the larger community and became outsiders. A term used to describe political deviants.

Khums: Literally, 1/5 in Arabic; a religious tax of 1/5 of one’s income owed by followers of Usuli Twelver Shi‘a to a very senior cleric.

Madhabs: Traditional schools of Islamic legal methodology (e.g. Hanbali, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanafi, Jafari), that draw on the teachings and followers of four highly regarded scholars.

Madrassa: The Arabic word for ‘school’. Can refer to a religious school.

Marja/Marjaiyya: The highest position of authority in the Usuli school of Twelver Shi’i fiqh. Also referred to as marja taqlid, meaning literally one who is worthy of being imitated.

Masjid: Arabic word for ‘mosque’.

Maturidi: The school of Sunni Orthodoxy named after the followers of the 9th century scholar Muhammad Abu Mansur al Maturidi (853-944 CE).

Mufti: A Muslim legal expert who is empowered to give rulings on religious matters.

Muqri: A reciter of Qur’an.

Murid: Follower of a Sufi guide or order.

Mutabarrik: Supporter or affiliate of a Sufi guide or order.

Mu’tazili: An almost obsolete school of Sunni Islam, popular in the 8th century, that advocates the belief that the Qur’an was created—as opposed to the Orthodox Sunni view that it is eternal and uncreated.

Nasheed: Religious song traditionally performed without musical instruments.

Qibla: The direction in which Muslims make their five daily prayers; the direction of the Ka’ba in Mecca.

Ramadan: Holy month of fasting.

Salafi: A movement of Sunni Muslims that places great emphasis on literal interpretation of the Qur’an and Hadith, with skepticism towards the role of human.

Shahadatayn: Testimony of faith.

Sharia: Literally, ‘the way to the source’, this refers to Islamic law. Islamic law is not, as is widely perceived, a standard set of written rules, but is rather an unwritten text that is interpreted by legal scholars in specific instances, drawing on the Qur’an and other reliable religious sources relevant to the tradition followed.

Sheikh: (1) A position of authority granted to people who are respected in society. (2) A religious official.

Shi‘a: The second-largest denomination of Muslims referred to as Shi‘atu ‘Ali or ‘the party of ‘Ali,’ the fourth caliph of Islam and first Imam in Shi’ism.

Sunna: Literally ‘the trodden path’; this refers to the ways and practices of the Prophet Muhammad. Reference to these practices can be found in the Qur’an and in the Hadith.

Sunni: The largest denomination of Muslims referred to as Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jama‘h or ‘people of the prophetic tradition and community’—with emphasis on emulating the life of the last Prophet, Muhammad.

Tafsir: Interpretation of the Qur’an, either by commentary or exegesis.

Taqlid: The practice of following rulings without questioning the religious authority. This is a core tenet of the Usuli school of Islamic law.

Velayat-e Faqih: A position of both spiritual and temporal powers in the Republic of Iran. Literally, Guardianship of the Jurists, referring to the fact that while the Mahdi (awaited one) is in occultation, the jurists should have guardianship over the earth.

Waqf: A religious endowment or charitable trust.

Zakat: Alms-giving that amounts to one-fortieth of one’s income and savings designated for the poor and destitute.

From The 500 most influential muslims in the world 2009

A new, government-sponsored, awards scheme is helping to showcase the UK’s innovation in science and green technology

Designing traffic lights to be more energy efficient may not seem the hardest thing to do. Change the energy-wasting incandescent bulbs for modern light sources and you’re done, right? Not quite.

“We’ve reinvented the humble traffic light,” says Matthew Vincent, deputy director of sales and marketing at Siemens Mobility Traffic Solutions. “Previously they used very energy-inefficient [50W] tungsten-halogen lights, which only have a lifespan of six months or so, which means you have lots of maintenance issues with people visiting site to replace them.” The company replaced the bulbs with a cluster of modern LEDs, redesigned the electrical control systems from scratch and lowered the operating voltage from 240V to 48V.

The result is a new set of lights that uses less than a quarter of the electricity of standard traffic lights. There are around half a million tungsten-based traffic lights in operation around the UK and, considering the CO₂ emissions saved by preventing fleets of vans driving around replacing blown tungsten lights, the cumulative benefits to the environment become apparent. Which is perhaps one of the reasons that the Siemens traffic lights won first prize this week in the energy and environment category of the inaugural iAwards.

Showcasing a shift-change

The iAwards, set up by the government’s Business, Innovation and Skills department, are designed to help showcase British science and technology, in big and small companies: a Bafta-style award to give prominence to a field that is sometimes overlooked in the UK. Fighting it out for prizes in 10 categories, small startup firms were pitted directly against multinationals such as Unilever and Siemens.

And environment was a strong theme in the shortlist. “There is a huge amount of interest in sustainability and environment,” says entrepreneur James Caan, chair of the iAwards judging panels and a star of BBC2’s Dragon’s Den. “We are seeing more and more people coming forward with business ideas, entrepreneurs developing that space. There is a shift-change in people recognising its value and importance.”

At Solargorilla, which won the iAward for digital communication, chief executive Jerry Ranger says his company’s invention is all about allowing people to use off-grid technology in everyday life.

The device has two solar panels, each the size of an A4 sheet. A proprietary circuit board stabilises the voltage coming in and a super-efficient battery stores the electrical power generated from the sun. In the northern hemisphere the Solargorilla will charge a standard laptop in around six hours or a mobile phone in under an hour. “We had a guy on Madagascar who ran a laptop for four weeks completely grid-free,” says Ranger.

Other shortlisted companies included AMEE, a company aiming to track and connect the world’s energy and consumption data, and map its environmental impact. AlertMe offered up a smart meter that it says could save consumers 25% of their energy bills, while the radical-looking QR5 wind turbine from Quiet Revolution is designed to fit discreetly to buildings, generating decentralised power in the urban environment. Diverse Energy had its PowerCube – a fuel cell that runs on ammonia and that could replace diesel generators to power mobile phone towers in developing countries – shortlisted for the “next big thing” category.

Paul Drayson, the UK science minister, and a technology-company entrepreneur himself with vaccine company Powderject, says that climate change is a massive market opportunity because the world has no choice but to respond to the problems. But, because it is such a new sector, there are many unknowns for small companies. “The industrial structures haven’t settled down yet,” he says. “In life sciences you have an established structure whereby a startup from university will form the biotech company and have a route to commercialisation, either through licensing or acquisition to a large pharmaceutical company. In clean tech, that route to market has not been well established. That’s all being built and that what’s makes this market area exciting.”

And he says there is no better time for British companies to get moving on green technology. “We’re coming out of a nasty recession; market shares change more rapidly at this stage in the economic cycle than any other time. It’s the companies that are bold now and invest in new technologies that are going to win market share as the economy grows over the next five years.”

Protect your investment

Building a company from scratch may not be the specific expertise of those coming up with ideas, but Drayson has some tips. Anyone thinking of starting up a business should ensure their technology idea is protected, he says. “You have patents and registered designs. Then go and talk to companies operating in that space; don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re unique, don’t make the mistake of thinking you have no competition, you do.”

For small business startups, even in the green technology space where Caan says specific investment funds are increasingly becoming available, would-be entrepreneurs also need to understand that the initial idea is only a part of the business. “The one thing I come across time and time again is that entrepreneurs believe the idea is 95% and execution is 5% and there lies the problem,” says Caan. “Success lies in your ability to execute a journey – it is the development, patent, logistics, manufacturing, distribution, pricing, branding and marketing. People, for some reason, forget all those things.”

Sourced from: Environment news, comment and analysis from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

A police offensive and the global economic crisis have combined to produce the largest fall in more than 20 years

The Brazilian government yesterday announced a “historic” drop in the deforestation of the Amazon, weeks before world leaders meet in Copenhagen for climate change talks.

Brazilian authorities said that between August 2008 and July this year, deforestation in the world’s largest tropical rainforest fell by the largest amount in more than 20 years, dropping by 45% from nearly 13,000 square kilometres to around 7,000 square kilometres (5,000 square miles to 2,700 square miles).

“It is an excellent figure – a historic result,” the environment minister, Carlos Minc, said in the capital, Brasilia.

“It is a substantial drop,” said the head of Brazil’s Space Institute, Gilberto Câmara, according to the government news provider Agência Brasil. He claimed it was the most significant cut in deforestation since his institute started monitoring rainforest destruction with satellite technology in 1988.

“This is a very happy moment – to note that the efforts of Brazilian society to contain the deforestation of the Amazon have reached a very satisfactory level.”

The new figures, reportedly rushed out before the Copenhagen talks, come days after Brazil announced ambitious plans to cut carbon emissions by 2020, partly by continuing to battle illegal deforestation.

This week, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, said her country would take proposals for voluntary reductions of 38-42% by 2020 to the Copenhagen summit. Britain’s prime-minister, Gordon Brown, wrote to Brazil’s president this week to congratulate him on the move.

Environmentalists welcomed the news of a drop in rainforest destruction, with Greenpeace’s Amazon director, Paulo Adario, claiming that, “whenever the government followed the law, deforestation fell”. But he warned: “We must stay alert so that this falling trend becomes consolidated and allows us to achieve the dream of zero deforestation in the Amazon. It is an important drop – but a lot of forest is still coming down.”

Rousseff said the figures showed the government had “done its homework” in order to combat illegal rainforest destruction. She pointed to federal police raids on illegal logging operations across the Amazon region, and government attempts to provide economic alternatives to destruction. Since February 2008 the government has been waging an “unprecedented” campaign against the loggers, dispatching hundreds of heavily armed agents to remote rainforest towns where destruction was out of control.

But, in a statement, Greenpeace activists in Brazil said the world financial crisis had also played a part in silencing the chainsaws. “The crisis … has contributed to helping put the breaks on the rhythm of destruction, with a fall in the demand for Amazon products linked to deforestation such as meat, soy and timber,” Greenpeace said.

Tellingly, Mato Grosso, a soy producing Amazonian state that has seen its forests ravished in recent years largely as a result of the Chinese demand for soy, saw a 65% drop in deforestation.

• For news and analysis of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen sign up for the Guardian’s environment email newsletter Greenlight

Sourced from: Environment news, comment and analysis from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

Every week, we’re going to spotlight a popular program or service and show you how to grab hold of the reigns and get the most out of what you’re doing. We already kicked off the series with guides to tweaking Outlook and Firefox, and today we turn our attention to BitTorrent.

BitTorrent, as you’re probably already aware, is a decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing protocol ideal for transferring large files (and if you didn’t know that, don’t worry, we also include some lightweight tips to get you started). In a nutshell, the way it works is when you’re downloading a massive file — like a Linux distribution, for example –bits and pieces of the file will be uploaded at the same time. Typically BitTorrent allows for a more efficient and faster transfer method than traditional, Direct Connect P2P software.

To get started, you need a desktop client. We recommend using uTorrent, or uT for short. We prefer uTorrent based on its combination of advanced features, performance, and small footprint — in other words, it has all the makings of a power user program.

On the following pages, we’ll not only show you how to get the most out of uTorrent, but out of BitTorrent in general. We’ll cover both basic and advanced tips, and then toss in some of our favorite third-party add-ons for good measure. Whether you’re new to BitTorrent or a seasoned vet, there’s something in this guide for you.

Know the Lingo

Before diving head first into the world of BitTorrent, take some time to familiarize yourself with the protocol’s language. For example, do you know the difference between a tracker and a leecher? Why are leechers frowned upon, and how can you avoid becoming one? These are just some of the terms you’ll need to know as you traverse the BitTorrent universe. Here’s your handy cheat sheet:

Image Credit: lili.org

Torrent: Lazy linguists sometimes substitute Torrent in place of BitTorrent, but it actually has a definition all its own. A torrent is a small metadata file usually just a few kilobytes in size. It contains information about the file(s) you’re trying to download, such as file names, file sizes, where to download, and so forth. The torrent file (.torrent) is not the actual data you’re trying to retrieve.

Peer: Any other computer on the Internet which is both downloading and uploading portions of a file at the same time.

Leech(er): There are two meanings for this one. The most common definition of a leech is someone who disconnects and stops sharing a file as soon as they’ve obtained a complete copy. The fewer people there are sharing a file, the longer it takes to download, and for this reason, leeching is highly discouraged.

Peers who haven’t finished downloading a file are also referred to as leechers, but not necessarily in a derogatory way.

Seed(er): It’s good etiquette to continue sharing a file even after you’ve finished downloading the entire torrent, if only for a short while. This practice is known as seeding.

Reseed: When no more seeds exist for a particular file, then anyone who was actively trying to download it will be unable to finish. A reseeder is someone who has the completed torrent, reconnects to the swarm, and saves the day.

Swarm: Any group of users connected to each other for downloading and/or sharing a particular file.This includes peers, seeds, and leeches.

Tracker: A central server which stores the torrents, coordinates the action of all the seeders, peers, and leechers, and manages the connections. The Pirate Bay (TPB) is the largest tracker on the Internet and often the center of media attention due to ongoing legal issues. Not all trackers are public; there are several private trackers which require a membership.

Share Rating / Ratio: This refers to the ratio of uploaded data divided by downloaded data and is applicable only for the current session. A share rating of 1.0 means you’ve uploaded the same amount of data as you’ve downloaded.

Where to Find Torrents

Let’s address the 900lb gorilla right off the bat. Not everyone uses BitTorrent for, ahem, legitimate reasons, and for them, there are plenty of less scrupulous tracking sites littered all over the Web. You know the ones, because they’re usually tangled in high-profile legal proceedings. Let us be clear: We don’t condone software piracy, even if we don’t’ always agree with the DRM measures paying customers have to put up with.

So where you can find legal torrents? As it turns out, there are a handful of resources serving up free and unrestricted content. These include:

•    www.legaltorrents.com – specializes in “high quality open-licensed (Creative Commons) digital media and art.”  Several membership tiers are available, including one that’s free and comes with unlimited access to all content and custom feeds by email and RSS.

•    www.legittorrents.info – a no fuss tracking site serving up a variety of free and legal torrents ranging from Podcasts to Release Candidate software.

•    http://linuxtracker.org – just like it sounds, this is the go-to tracker for all things Linux.

•    www.publicdomaintorrents.com – deals entirely with films that are no longer copyrighted, many of which come optimized for mobile devices.

•    http://bt.etree.org – an awesome resource for music lovers, bt.etree includes a ton of live concert recordings from trade friendly artists.

In addition to dedicated torrent sites, many software publishers — especially in the Linux community – include torrents in their downloads section. In many cases, you’ll find it’s much faster to download a Linux distro or mammoth game demo by downloading via BitTorrent instead of HTTP.

Manage Torrents Remotely

One way to access uTorrent from a remote location is to install a desktop login client like LogMeIn, which gives you access to your PC through a Web interface. But if you’re only interested in controlling uTorrent while away from home and not your desktop, there’s a way you can do that. After installing and configuring uTorrent’s WebUI, you’ll have access to all of your BT downloads along with the ability to add or remove torrents. Here’s how to set it up.

Download the latest version of WebUI from here (see here if the download link is broken). Bear in mind that this is a beta release, meaning instability could rear its ugly head, although we never ran into any problems. Rename the downloaded file to webui.zip.

We need to place the webui.zip file in the same location as uTorrent’s settings.dat file. In Windows 7, navigate to C:Users [USERNAME]AppDataRoaminguTorrent. In earlier versions of Windows, the correct path should be C:Documents and Settings[USERNAME]Application DatauTorrent. If you can’t find it, or the directory doesn’t exist, perform a search for settings.dat.

If you’re running a portable version of uTorrent (and we’ll show you how do that later), you’ll find the settings.dat file in the uTorrent.exe folder.

The next step is to enable WebUI in the uTorrent client. Go to Options>Preferences and you should now see a WebUI entry. Click on it, then put a check in the Enable WebUI checkbox. Enter in a username and password and check Enable Guest account with username. Hit Apply, but don’t exit out just yet.

If you don’t remember the port number you used to configure port forwarding earlier, go back into the Connection tab and make note of it once again. We’re going to need this in the next step.

Let’s test out if you followed the steps correctly. Open up your browser and type http://localhost:PORT/gui/ and substitute the port number from above where it says PORT. Once you enter in your username and password, you should be in the WebU’s interface.

Of course, the whole point of this is to manage your BT downloads from a remote location and not from the same PC you installed uTorrent on. You’ll need to know your IP address, which you can retrieve from sites like WhatIsMyIP.com and myIPaddress.com. Use your IP address to login remotely, substituting it in place of localhost. So for example if your IP address is 12.34.56.789 and the port you recorded earlier was 12121, you would type in http://12.34.56.789:12121/gui/.

Note that this isn’t likely to work by trying to access your client PC from within your home network. Instead, you’ll need the IP address assigned by your router. For example, http:192.168.1.133:12121/gui/. You can find your PC’s internal IP by opening up the Command Prompt (Start>Run>CMD) and typing ipconfig. Make note of the IPv4 Address.

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Make Your Own Torrents

Wondering how you’re going to send that HD video you took of your vacation to family and friends? Or what about all those pictures you snapped at the LAN party last week? For these and other situations where you’re dealing with large files, or a large collection of files, BitTorrent can be the best way to distribute them to others, provided you’re dealing with an at least a semi computer-savvy bunch (in other words, you may want to just burn and send Aunt Mabel and Uncle Fred a DVD).

Creating a torrent isn’t at all complicated and is probably much easier than you think. If you’re using uTorrent — and we recommend you do — go to File>Create new Torrent, or mash CTRL+N.

In the pop-up window that appears, click the Add File button if you’re dealing with a single file, or Add Directory if you have a folder full of files you want to share. Next you need to pick out an active tracker. A website called the Beehive maintains a list of active trackers that have been checked every 24 hours, and you can reference that list here. Once you have a tracker picked out, copy and past the URL into the Trackers box. Next, click the Start seeding checkbox, and press the “Create and save as…” button.

Before you can share your torrent with anyone, you first need to upload it to whatever torrent tracking site you picked out earlier. Most tracking sites require that you register with them before you’re allowed to upload. Once you’ve done that, navigate to the site’s upload section and add your torrent.

Now all that’s left is to share your torrent with your friends and family. You can use the link provided by the tracking site, or just email the ultra-small torrent file, which should only be between 10KB to 20KB. Don’t forget to seed!

Hire Others to do Your Heavy Lifting

BT downloads put a heavy strain on your Internet connection and can saturate both your upstream and downstream bandwidth. But there’s an alternative to using BitTorrent the traditionally way.

There are several sites wiling do the dirty work for you and download the torrent data right to their servers, at which point you can access it just like any other HTTP download. Furk.net is one such example and offers free access to several already-hosted torrents. For a fee, Furk.net will let you upload torrent, download multiple files at the same time, uncap your download speed, and some other perks. If a BitTorrent client isn’t an option, this is the next best thing.

Prioritize BitTorrent Traffic

With BitTorrent downloads and uploads barreling through your Internet connection at full bore, you may find that your speedy broadband connection has been saturated, reminding you of what it was like surfing the Web on a 56K modem. Ideally, BT traffic would run blazing fast when nothing else is going on, but yield to everything else. That’s where your router’s QoS (Quality of Service) settings come in.

Image Credit: techimo.com

Open up your browser and type 192.168.1.1 in the address bar. Enter your username and password when prompted (consult your router’s manual if you don’t know what this is). Once inside your router’s GUI, click on Applications & Gaming>QOS. Click the Enable radio button , and then scroll down to the first blank box titled Application Name. Type uTorrent, Azureus, or whatever BT client you’re running. Set the Priority to Low or Lowest and enter in the port number as configured in your BT client. HIt save and exit.

Some routers offer more fine grain QoS control than others, and certain third party firmware — like Tomato — offers a plethora of tweaking options. Getting into the intricacies of QoS settings goes beyond the scope of this guide, but if the options are there to play with, try experimenting with different settings.

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Kickstart Downloads that Stall at 99 Percent Finished

Remember that scene in Happy Gilmore where Adam Sandler yells at his golf ball, “Why don’ you just go home? That’s your home! Are you too good for your home?,” right after narrowly missing a putt? That’s the same frustration you’ll feel after investing an afternoon to downloading a mega-sized torrent, only to have it hang at 99 percent complete. So close, and so maddening!

Image Credit: D-Link

There are a few reasons why this might happen. If you own a router with a Game Mode, it could be scrambling the packets so that your torrent fails the hash check. It’s a bit more technical than that, and it’s pretty rare for this to happen, but it does occur. Try disabling your router’s Game Mode and see if the download is able to finish.

The person who created the torrent may have inadvertently included a hidden system file — thumbs.db, for example –which can prevent your download from reaching 100 percent. In other cases, the stubborn file could be corrupt, and it may be something you can do without, such as a readme.txt file. To see which file is causing all the commotion, click on the Files tab on bottom portion of uTorrent. Right-click the problematic file and select Don’t Download.

Some hard-to-finish downloads are simply the result of not enough seeds or peers. In this case, your only options are to wait in hopes that a seeder will sign on, or find a more popular torrent and start over. Your torrent could also be corrupt, in which case you’ll also need to find an alternative source.

Is that uTorrent in Your Pocket, or Are You…Oh, it is uTorrent!

There’s an easy way to add uTorrent to your repertoire of portable apps so you can lug the client around on your USB key or any number of portable devices (like your iPod). The first thing you need to do is download the latest client (here) and copy it to your USB thumb drive or other storage device.

Next, create a new notepad file and save it as settings.dat. If you’re unable to change the file extension from .txt to .dat, open up My Computer, press ALT+T, and select Folder Options. Click the View tab and uncheck ‘Hide empty drives in the Computer folder.’ Copy the settings.dat file over to the same directory on your USB drive as uTorrent and you’re good to go!

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Open Up Access Through Your Router and Firewall

Don’t despair if you can’t seem to connect to any seeders or peers, or if your downloads always trudge along at a snail’s pace even when there are a ton of seeders. You probably just need to configure port forwarding for your uTorrent client, or whatever BitTorrent client you’re using.

In a nutshell, port forwarding is a way for your router to forward IP addresses from an external location — in this case, seeders and peers — to an internal address, which is your PC. To find out which port uTorrent is trying to use, click on Options>Preferences>Connection. Make sure that both the ‘Enable UPnP port mapping’ and ‘Enable NAT-PMP port mapping’ checkboxes are marked. While you’re in there, you can also check ‘Add Windows firewall exception,’ or we can do this manually later. Take note of the number next to the ‘Random Port’ button.

Now that you know the port number, it’s time to configure your router. Access your router’s administrative controls by firing up your Web browser and typing 192.167.1.1 into the address bar and hit enter.You’ll be prompted for your username and password, which will vary depending on your router make and model. Try typing admin in both fields, or leaving the password field blank. If that doesn’t work, you’ll need to consult your router’s manual or online support site for specific instructions.

You should now be in your router’s control panel. We’re using the customized Tomato firmware for our Linksys router, so yours will probably look different than our screen grab above. If you’re using a Linksys router, click on Applications & Gaming>Port Range Forward (once again, if you’re using a different router, consult your documentation on how to find the port forwarding section). Choose a blank row and type uTorrent in the Application field. Type the port number number you recorded earlier in both the Start and End fields. Change the protocol to Both (TCP and UDP), and be sure to check the Enable box. Save and exit.

Slow or non-existent connections could also mean your firewall is blocking access. To manually create an exception for uTorrent, click on the Start menu and type in Firewall. Click on Action and select New Rule, which will bring up the New Rule Wizard. Select Program as the Rule Type and hit Next, then click the Browse button to find and enter the path to your uTorrent client (C:Program Files (x86)uTorrent uTorrent.exe by default). Keep the default settings as you click through the Wizard.

Set Bandwidth Limits and Maintain a Reasonable Ratio

Left unchecked, uTorrent and every other BitTorrent client will consume all the bandwidth it can and bog down your Internet connection in the process. That’s okay if you’re heading off to bed, but during the day, you’ll feel as though you traveled back in time to the days of dial-up.To prevent this happening, we need to set bandwidth limits.

Select Preferences from the Options menu, or press CTRL+P, and then click on Bandwidth. Everything is laid out pretty logically, so it’s just a matter of filling in the blanks. Uploads and downloads are measured in kilobytes per second (kB/s), and if you want to leave these at unlimited, choose 0. Otherwise, set limits that work for your Internet connection.

To help take into account overhead, we recommend measuring your real-world broadband speed at SpeedTest.net. Use your SpeedTest results to help determine how much bandwidth you want to fork over to BitTorrent.

You may be tempted to allocate very little upload bandwidth to BitTorrent, but this isn’t necessarily a good idea. Remember how your mother always told you it’s better to give than it is to receive? The same concept applies to BitTorrent, at least in part. The whole concept of BitTorrent is built around the idea that everyone shares and you should strive to upload as much as you download.

Rather than constantly keep an eye on your share ratio, you can configure uTorrent to automatically adjust the amount of bandwidth to allocate to a file once a set ratio has been met. To do this, go back into Preferences and click on Queuing. In the Seed While section, set whatever ratio you’re comfortable with. Check the ‘Limit the upload rate to’ box and choose 0 if you want to stop seeding once you’ve reached your goal.

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Use RSS Feeds with BitTorrent

Several BT clients now come with integrated RSS support. That’s great news, because BitTorrent and RSS makes keeping up with your favorite TV shows or Podcasts super easy. Once again, we’re going to assume you’re using uTorrent.

First, you need to figure out which RSS feed(s) you want to subscribe to. There are a lot of resources out there, including ezRSS.it and LegalTorrents.com. Once you’ve picked out a (legal) feed, open up uTorrent and right-click the RSS icon next to All Feeds in the left-hand column. Select ‘Add RSS Feed…’ and enter in the feed’s URL. Under Subscription, you can choose whether or not to automatically download all items published in the feed. We’re going to leave this unchecked.

Depending on the feed you subscribed to, you may have signed up to much more than you bargained for. We’re not interested in all of these, and luckily, there’s a way to fix this and cut back the cruft. Right-click an episode you are interested in watching and select Add to Favorites.

Click on Options>RSS Downloader, or press CTRL+R. Under the Favorites tab, click on your RSS feed. This brings up the RSS Downloader window. Click on the RSS feed under the Favorites tab. In the Quality drop-down menu, select whichever formats you’re interested in, keeping in mind that you can choose more than one. Click the Smart ep. filter checkbox to make sure you don’t end up downloading duplicate copies, and if applicable, check the Episode Number box to define which seasons and episodes you’re interested in.

Any new episodes in your feed should now start downloading automatically.

Circumvent ISP Throttling with SSH

Do you suspect your ISP is putting the brakes on Bittorrent traffic? You can avoid this practice by making an end-run around your ISP and connecting with a Secure Shell (SSH) connection. Be warned that this most likely isn’t a permanent solution, which we’ll get to in a just a moment.

You’re going to need an SSH account to start things off, and that’s going to be the trickiest part. There are a lot of free shell providers out there, but most of them place strict restrictions on what you can do with them. You’re going to have to do some digging to find one that won’t frown on tunneling BitTorrent traffic, they may require a donation, and you could end up waiting several days for your account to be approved. You can start your search here.

Once you have an SSH account, download and install Putty, and then run the app. Make sure the SSH radio button is selected. Type in your SSH account information (Host name or IP addy and port).

Next, expand the Connection tree and select SSH>Tunnels. Enter in any available port number. Mash the Open button and enter in the username and password given to your by your SSH provider.

Open up uTorrent and navigate to Options>Preferences>Connection. Under Proxy Server, select Socks4 from the pull-down menu. Type localhost in the Proxy field and enter in your port number from above. Click Apply and then restart uTorrent.

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Transfer Torrents to another Location

Maybe you’re running out of space on your hard drive, or perhaps you’re wanting to do some spring cleaning and organize your data. Whatever the reason might be, transferring your torrents from one spot to another is pretty quick and painless, once you know how.

Stop any downloads that are in progress by right-clicking and selecting Stop, or hitting the big red Stop button in uTorrent’s menu bar. Next, right-click the torrent(s) and select Advanced>Set Download Location… Navigate to the new download spot and click Save, but don’t change the file name.

See how easy that was? All that’s left is to highlight the torrent(s) and mash the green Play button. uTorrent will check the files to see how much is left to be downloaded, so just be patient whie it does its thing.

Transfer Torrents to uTorrent

So you decided to take our advice and ditch your current BT client for uTorrent. The only problem is, you’ve already invested a ton of time into downloading a bunch of large Linux distros, and the last thing you want to do is start from scratch. You’re in luck, because you can have your cake and eat it too (what else would you do with it?).

In this example, we’re going to show you how to migrate one or more partial BT downloads from Vuze (formerly Azureus) to uTorrent. The first thing you need to do is figure out where Vuze is storing the downloaded data. By default, this will be C:UsersUSERNAMEDocuments Azureus Downloads. If that directory doesn’t exist, go to Tools>Options>Files to find out where Vuze is hiding your data.

Stop any downloads that are currently in progress and close out Vuze. Open up uTorrent and select Options>Preferences>Directories and follow these steps:

1. Check the ‘Put new downloads in’ checkbox and create or select a folder to store downloads in progress (we created a directed called ‘Downloads’ on our Desktop).
2. Check the ‘Move completed downloads to’ checkbox and create or select a folder to store your finished downloads (we created a folder called ‘Completed’ inside the Downloads folder).
3. Check the ‘Automatically load .torrents from’ checkbox and create or select a folder to store your torrent files (we created a folder called ‘Autoload’ on our Desktop).
4. Click Apply and close out uTorrent.

Next, navigate to C:UsersUSERNAMEDocumentsAzureus Downloads or wherever it is Vuze was storing your partial downloads. Move (don’t copy) the data to the directory you specified in Step 1 above. Note that some clients, including Vuze, will sometimes add an extension to unfinished downloads. If that’s the case, you’ll need to remove it or else it could trip up uTorrent.

If you still have the original .torrent file that was used to initiate the download, move it (don’t copy) to the Autoload folder you created in Step 3 above. If you don’t have it, you’ll need tor re- download the original .torrent and put it in the Autoload folder. Once the .torrent file is in place, fire up uTorrent, and after a few seconds, your download(s) will initialize and pick up where they left off in Vuze.

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Setup an Automated Throttling Schedule

We’re not too keen on having our ISP choke our BitTorrent bandwidth, but that doesn’t mean we’re entirely opposed to throttling. We just want it to occur on our own terms, not someone else’s. Fortunately for us, uTorrent’s built-in Scheduler makes this super easy. With the Scheduler, we can configure uTorrent to automatically kick on at night when we’re fast asleep. That way, we’ll have all the bandwidth we need during the day, and still wake up to a finished download in the morning.

To set up a schedule, go to Options>Preferences>Scheduler. Click the ‘Enable Scheduler’ checkbox, which will light up the grid in green. There’s a handy legend right below the grid that tells you what the colors mean, but to reiterate, dark green boxes tell uTorrent to download and upload at full speed, light green boxes tell uTorrent to only use a set amount of bandwidth (which you can configure), the white box is used to indicate when you want uTorrent to remain idle, and the light gray box tells uTorrent to seed (upload) only.

Because we work during the day and do a ton of Web surfing to research awesome stories and features for our homepage, we want to uTorrent to go into a state of comatose during working hours. We also like to unwind and frag our friends after a full day of work, and that can sometimes last until late at night. So to play it safe, we’re giving uTorrent the green light (literally) to do its thing from 1AM until 8AM, but not during any other hours.

As you highlight a square, it will tell you what 1-hour time slot it is for. To save time, you can click and drag multiple squares rather than clicking each one individually. Once you’re finished, you should have something that resembles the above.

Add One-Click BitTorrent Downloads to Firefox’s Reportoire

Don’t feel like fussing with BitTorrent clients every time you want to download a BT file? You don’t have to! One of the coolest extensions for Firefox is FireTorrent.

With FireTorrent installed, just click on a .torrent file and Firefox will download the related data files just like a normal download and even show you the progress in the Download Manger. And if you’d rather let a third-party handle a particular .torrent, just right-click and select Save Link As.

FireTorrent isn’t nearly as robust as most third-party BT clients, but you are afforded some basic options, including which port to use, download and upload bandwidth allocation, the ability to encrypt BT connections, and a few other light-weight customizations. It’s barebones, but it gets the job done!

Update uTorrent Remotely with a Single Click

The BitTorrent WebUI add-on for Firefox combines the one-click sex appeal of FireTorrent with the WebUI capabilities we set up earlier. Once configured, all you need to do is click on a torrent and this add-on will update your BT client at a remote location, provided you’re using either uTorrent or Vuze.

Follow our instructions earlier on how to setup uTorrent with WebUI. Next, install the BitTorrent WebUI add-on available here and configure it with the same settings you used to setup uTorrent’s WebUI.

Now all you need to do is find some torrents and start clicking!

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Block Malicious IPs

Tinfoil hats tend to chaffe our head and freak out our co-workers, which are pretty big trade-offs for a little bit of peace of mind. But there’s a better way to protect our privacy from prying IPs. PeerGuardian 2 is an IP blocker for Windows that integrates support for mulitple lists, automatic updates, and blocks a bunch of protocols. It keeps a constantly updated list of blacklisted IPs known to track your P2P activity.

If you’re a real conspiracy theorist, PG 2 gives you plenty of options to keep the establishment from building a database about your online activity. Checking the P2P box should be enough for most users, but if you’re convinced you’re the center of the BT universe, go ahead and mash your mouse button on every checkbox.

You can also configure an update schedule for PG 2 to make sure you’re always one step ahead of the man. And for more than you ever wanted to know about this program, reference the extensive Wiki here.

Supercharge Windows XP for Faster Uploads

If you decided to stick with XP for a little while longer, you’re not just missing out on what Windows 7 has to offer, but you could be hamstringing your download speeds. That’s because Windows XP limits the number of TCP connections to no more than 10, which could prevent you from hooking up with a larger number of peers. So should you upgrade to Windows 7? Yes, but not because of the TCP limit.

A German programmer developed a nifty little patch that removes the 10 TCP limitation so you can set it at whatever number you want. Download the patch here, then fire up uTorrent and navigate to Options>Preferences>Advanced and look for net.max_halfopen.

Trick Out uTorrent with Skins

For all of its functionality, uTorrent isn’t much to look. And maybe that’s right up your alley, but if not, there’s a wealth of skins to experiment with until you find one that look that’s just right. And you can skin different parts of uTorrent individually, inculding toolbars, status icons, tab icons, and program icons.

Download your skin(s) from here and place them in C:Users[USERNAME]AppDataRoaminguTorrent. Restart uTorrent and enjoy your new look!

Sourced from: Maximum PC Features RSS Feed

The social blog scene is getting pretty crowded these days and we cannot just stand here without releasing a new list. So give it up for the coolest social media & social marketing blogs out there! Please leave some suggestions & feedback in the comments area.

Mashable

Mashable is the most prolific blog reviewing new Web sites and services, publishing breaking news on what’s new on the web and offering social media resources and guides

Read Write Web

ReadWriteWeb is a blog that provides analysis of web products and trends. One of the world’s top 20 blogs, ReadWriteWeb speaks to an intelligent audience of web enthusiasts, early adopters and innovators

PR 2.0

PR 2.0 is among the top 1.5% of all blogs tracked by Technorati and is ranked as one of the leading voices in the Ad Age Power 150 index of worldwide marketing bloggers

Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency, and home of the Inbound Marketing Summit conferences and Inbound Marketing Bootcamp educational events

Social Media Examiner

Social Media Examiner is a free online magazine designed to help businesses discover how to best use social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to find leads, increase sales and generate more brand awareness

180360720

On this blog I try to discuss stuff that fits into or will/should effect the realm of advertising and marketing to this extent

Social Media Explorer

Social Media Explorer is the online home and blog of Social Media Explorer LLC, of which Jason Falls serves as principal. Falls has established himself as one of the leading thinkers in the social media, public relations and communications industries

Digital Buzz

Get your daily fix of digital honey with the new Digital Buzz Blog! Featuring the latest digital ad campaigns, hot new websites, interactive marketing ideas, virals, industry news, social media, insights, and other great digital trends from all over the world

Neville Hobson

NevilleHobson.com is at the intersection of business, communication and technology. In July 2009, Cision UK’s Top UK PR Blogs list ranked NevilleHobson.com as the #1 PR blog in the UK

The Future Buzz

The Future Buzz is a blog about web marketing/PR strategies, spreading buzz in the blogosphere and building long-term visibility for your brand, business, and art on the web

Sourced from: Inspired Magazine

As a part of Google’s quest to be the undisputed overlords of the Internet, they’ve made a lot of quality services available for free. Gmail, Google maps and Google Docs are all famous examples, but one of the search giant’s coolest free offerings, Sketchup, flies under a lot of peoples’ radars.

Sketchup is a free 3D modelling tool developed based on the philosophy that by giving people a small set of powerful, intuitive tools, you can lower the barrier of entry to 3D modelling, so that almost anyone can make quality 3D models with just a couple of sessions of practice.

Still not conviced to give Sketchup a try? We’ve compiled a list of 7 awesome things you can do with Sketchup that you probably didn’t know were possible. Did you know, for instance, that you can create a Left 4 Dead map in Sketchup? How about that you can design your own papercraft models? Read on to find out more!

Build a Model of Your House from a Floorplan

There’s something oddly rewarding about seeing a tiny version of your house. And beyond just the “Oh, neat!” value of seeing your living quarters in miniature, there’s real utility in being able to rearrange your furniture and try out different wall- and floor-coverings without actually having to do any heavy lifting. Fortunately, with Sketchup it’s surprisingly easy to make a model of a building interior. To do so is essentially a three step process:

1)    Obtain a floorplan of the building. If you live in a rented property, you might be able to ask your landlord for a floorplan, or you can simply take measurements of your rooms and draw your own floorplan in your preferred graphics program.

2)    Make a 2D replica of the floorplan in Sketchup. This step is easier than you might imagine. Simply click File > Import to import the image of your floorplan into Sketchup, and place it flat. Then, using the Rectangle, Line, and Offset tool, trace over the walls, drawing directly onto the floorplan. When you’re done, make sure to delete any extraneous lines.

3)    Finally, use the “Push/Pull” tool to extrude the walls you’ve drawn up. Click the surface, and type “10’” and press enter to manually select a height of 10 feet for the walls. Next, to make doors, simply draw a rectangle on the wall where the door should be, and use the “Push/Pull” tool to push the door through the wall, making a hole. You can copy/paste the door-shaped rectangle around the house, so you don’t have to individually draw each door. Repeat the same process for windows.

And that’s it! Now you’ve got a model of your house, ready to be furnished.

If you’d like more in-depth instructions about how to do this, Google has an excellent video tutorial here.

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Design Your own Papercraft Schematics

You know about papercraft, right? It’s the art of making models out of paper and glue, generally from plans downloaded from the internet (and also one of our 50 things every geek should know). With Sketchup, and a program called “Pepakura Designer,” you can create your own papercraft plans.

Here’s how it works:

First, you create a model in Sketchup. Simpler is better, particularly if you’re new to papercraft. Models with lots of rounded surfaces will produce difficult-to-follow plans, and won’t look as good when complete.

Next, you export your model as a Google Earth 4 kmz file. Unfortunately: Sketchup 7 is not able to export in the Google Earth 4 kmz format. Fortunately, it’s still easy to find older versions of Sketchup with a Google search, so you’ll need to install one of those to make your Papercraft model, and export it as a Google Earth 4 kmz.

Finally, open the kmz file with Pepakura Designer, which is shareware. The full version costs 40 bucks, but with the trial version you can still create papercraft plans and print them, you just can’t save your projects for later.

Now you’re ready to cut, fold and glue your papercraft model.

Design custom furniture

Alongside architects and designers, woodworkers have been one of the groups of professionals to embrace Sketchup in a big way. And why not? It’s quick, allows you to work in real-world measurements, and there are plugins to add all sorts of woodworking-specific functionality. For instance, here’s a free plugin that takes a Sketchup model, and creates a cutlist and layout. That means it shows you exactly how much of each type of wood you need to buy, and shows you how to cut it so that you get all the pieces you need, while wasting as little wood as possible.

If you’re interested in woodworking, or would like to try your hand at making furniture in Sketchup, check out Design Click Build, a site with tons of helpful guides about woodworking in Sketchup.

Image Credit: Tim Killen

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Make a Left 4 Dead Level!

For a lot of computer users, their first experience with 3D modeling was in building levels for one of the classic 3D shooters, like Quake. In terms of sheer fun value and sense of accomplishment, it’s hard to do better than getting to run around and gun down your friends in your newly created model. While Sketchup was not originally meant for making game levels, Google’s been making efforts to move in the direction, starting with a plugin that allows you to use Sketchup to make levels for Hammer—the level editor that powers Source engine games like Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress.

Making a Left 4 Dead level in Sketchup is a pretty simple affair with the Hammer Sketchup plugin. First, install the plugin by downloading the Left 4 Dead Authoring tools in Steam (requires a purchased copy of Left 4 Dead) and finding the plugin in Steamsteamappscommonleft 4 deadsdk_toolsplugins. Extract all files in the plugins folder to Sketchup’s plugin directory. Once you’ve done that, two new items will be in the “Plugins” menu next time you start: Export SMD and Export VMF.

By allowing you to export as VMF, the Hammer plugin lets you to save your Sketchup models in a format that the Left 4 Dead version of the Hammer level editor understands. This means you can use Sketchup to quickly model props for Left 4 Dead models, or even entire level geometries, then use the Hammer editor to add the finishing touches, like scripting and AI pathing.

A word of warning: the Hammer editor is finicky, and this affects how you have to model in Sketchup. The primary concern is that Hammer requires that all brushes(objects to be placed in the level) have a convex topography, which is means no straight line can intersect a brush at more than two points. This means that any components you wish to use must be composed of simple, convex blocks, which themselves have to be made into components (by selecting them and pressing G in Sketchup). This can be a tricky process, so if you want to learn more, check out this link and keep your eyes on MaximumPC.com—we plan to offer a more detailed guide to Sketchup and Hammer in the future.

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Use a Raytracing Renderer to Make Photorealistic Images

Once you’ve modeled something in Sketchup, it’s hard to resist the temptation to show it off to anyone who’ll look. But even with a wealth of style and lighting options, it’s hard to really make an object in Sketchup look great, or anywhere near photorealistic. Fortunately, there are 3rd party renderers that make up for this deficit.

For a free option, you can try Kerkythea. It’s a freeware renderer with a Sketchup plugin available and can put together some pretty decent renders. For more information about how to setup and use Kerkythea with Sketchup, check out this blog post.

If you’re ready to move onto something a little bit more powerful, there are some relatively affordable renderers available, such as SU Podium, which has a free evaluation, and sells for $180. Unlike the previous renderer, SU Podium works directly within Sketchup, so you don’t have to start up a separate program, then export and import a sketchup model to make a quality render.

Of course there are also more advanced, general purpose renderers such as V-Ray that can be used to make photo-realistic images of your models, but these carry an industrial-strength price tag, sometimes running into the thousands of dollars.

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Make Custom Logos and Icons

Although Sketchup’s primary purpose is as a 3D editor, it can also be useful for making 2D images. For instance, for a quick 3D effect on a logo, import an image of the logo into Sketchup, then trace over it and extrude. Then paint the logo with the right colors using the texture tool, select a style, and export it as an image (File > Export > Image).

If you want a transparent background, you’ll have to do a little post-processing using your photo editor of choice. Just pick a style that uses a flat white background before you export, then use a color-select tool (such as the “magic wand” in Photoshop) to select and delete the background.

This technique is also great for creating large custom icons for use on a website or in Windows Vista or 7. Just model an object in SketchUp (or download one from the 3D Warehouse), export an image, and then use a photo editor to remove the background and scale it down to icon size. Here’s a set of Moleskine icons made in Sketchup by Max Brown:

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Turn Your Building Model into a Blueprint

An architectural or design model is great for visualizing an object or space, but sometimes you want a more old-fashioned, formal view of an object. Here’s how to turn your model into a printable plan, like this:

First you’ll need to annotate your model with dimension lines. To do this, select the Dimension tool from the Tools dropdown menu. If you’d like quicker access to the all the tools in Sketchup, and not just the essentials, enable the larger toolset by checking View > Toolbars > Large Toolset and unchecking View > Toolbars > Getting Started. To draw a dimension with the dimension tool, simply click on two points of your model, then move the mouse to one side or the other to “pull” a dimension line out. Depending on which direction you “drag” the line, it’ll measure different distances. For instance, if you pull to the right, it’ll measure the vertical distance between the two points, and if you pull up it’ll measure the horizontal distance.

Next, we’ll change the view to a straight-on side view. For this, first click on the Camera dropdown menu and uncheck Perspective. This will make your model look weird if you look at it from any sort of angle, but is the only way to get a perfect side-on view. Next, open the Camera menu again, then select Standard Views and select the side you want to view your model from.

Now you should have a nice, straight-on side view with labeled dimensions. If you want to take it a step further, you can give it a simulated blueprint style by opening the Styles window and then choosing Assorted Styles > Blueprint.

Sourced from: Maximum PC Features RSS Feed

If you’ve ever been in a situation when you absolutely, positively, need to share a network connection wirelessly, and you have a PC with a wireless adapter that runs Windows 7, Connectify (from wireless mesh networking company Nomadio, Inc.) is the answer. Connectify (currently in beta) turns almost any Windows 7 PC with a working wireless network adapter into a fast and secure wireless access point.

What You Need

• A PC running Windows 7*
• A working wireless adapter**
• Software from the Connectify Me website
• About 15 minutes of your time

*Connectify works with Windows 7 final and Windows 7 RC

**Update – some Intel network adapters might not work with Connectify – see Paul Lilly’s comment below

Getting Started

1. Navigate to the Connectify Me website and click either the Download Beta button or Beta Test Now shield.
2. Enter registration information and click Submit.
3. Click the Click Here to Download Connectify link to download it immediately (instead of waiting for the promised email link which you might, or might not, receive on a timely basis).
4. Run the 1.41MB installer, and provide UAC information if prompted.
5. After you sign off on the license agreement, the installer does its work.
6. Click Next to continue, and click Finish. By default, Connectify will start, and a readme will open in your browser.

Setting Up Connectify

If you don’t see the Connectify icon in the notification area, click the up arrow pointer to display additional icons. Click the Connectify icon.

The first time you start Connectify, you will see an error message. That’s because Connectify needs you to provide a passphrase. Click the passphrase field and enter the text you want to use. You must enter at least eight characters (up to 32) for your passphrase text (you can display or hide the text as desired). Connectify uses WPA2 AES encryption for maximum security.

By default, Connectify uses Connectify as its SSID. To change the SSID, enter the name you prefer in the WiFi Name field.

If you have more than one connection you can share, select the connection to share from the Internet pull-down menu. You can use Connectify to share a wired connection (which is what I used for this article), or a wireless connection.  You need only one wireless adapter to make sharing work, even if you’re sharing a wireless connection wirelessly.

Click the Hotspot Off button to turn on the Connectify access point.

Connecting to a Connectify Access Point

Whether you use Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, MacOS, or Linux, connecting to the Connectify software access point uses the same procedures you use to connect to any secure wireless access point that broadcasts its SSID:

• Select the SSID used by the network
• Enter the passphrase when prompted
• Make the connection
• Make any firewall or other configuration changes requested by your wireless network client

Once other PCs have connected to the Connectify software access point, Connectify lists the computer(s) connected to it by their network names and IP addresses.

When you shut down the connection, Connectify ”remembers” who was connected to the network, listing them as “disconnected clients.”

Conclusion

Connectify works – and works well – because it relies upon new networking features built into Windows 7. Right now, Connectify costs nothing to try – and it provides a solid, secure, and fast connection. Whether you’re looking for a quick way to share a wired connection in a hotel room or conference center, add wireless capability with Internet access to a home or office wired network, or set up a quick, easy LAN party without fiddling around with your normal network configuration settings, Connectify looks like a winner. It’s one of the coolest reasons to move up to Windows 7.

Sourced from: Maximum PC How-Tos RSS Feed

Every computer collects dust over time. When the computer is running, it creates a field of static electricity, which in turn attracts clumps of dust and hair. These cluttering particles can easily collect around your processor, power supply, and case fans, and can block airflow and lead to overheating. This is why an important part of taking care of a computer is making sure that it’s clean.

To that end, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide on how to clean your computer hardware and peripherals to make your rig look as good as new. We took a 4-year-old computer and thoroughly cleaned it using a few household supplies. All it took was a little bit of patience and a few hours and we managed to get some impressive results. Follow along below to achieve the same cleanliness Zen with your own machine.

And once you’re done, read our guide to giving your PC a professional wiring job!

What you need:

• Compressed air
• Isopropyl rubbing alcohol
• Lint-free or microfiber cloths
• Paper towels
• Q-tips
• Scissors
• Swiffer Dry Refill sheet
• Masking tape
• Vacuum with a removable handle and crevice tool

1. Start with Cord Management

First, let’s start with the external cables. Begin by untangling any that have become entwined. Now, grab a soft, microfiber cloth and dampen it with a bit of isopropyl rubbing alcohol, then run it along the length of all of your cords to remove any dust that may have built up (image A). Then, grab a few zip ties and begin organizing your cables in terms of their location in your machine: For example, the wires connecting peripherals reside toward the top; the DVI connector and power supply cord are toward the bottom, and so on. This will prevent your cables from getting tangled over time. Don’t group any power cables with speaker wire. Make sure to put on the zip ties toward the middle of the cords to give yourself some flexibility when you disconnect or connect devices (image B). Now, unplug your cable bundles so they’re out of the way while we clean the inside of your machine.

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2. Cleaning Your Case

Now, make sure the power supply is turned off, lay your case on its side, and remove the side door. First, you want to inspect the internal data and power cables to make sure they’re all connected and well-fastened (image A). If there are any damaged cables, consider replacing them entirely—do not attempt to fix them with electrical tape. Generally, electrical tape is only used for insulation purposes, not to patch-up wires, and this rule is especially crucial when dealing with the inside of a computer.

Next, you want to get rid of the dust bunnies around your motherboard. Grab a can of compressed air and make sure that the straw is securely inserted. Stand the case upright—when you shoot at it, make sure the can of compressed air stays upright as well (image B). Do not tilt the can on its side or shoot at the computer sideways.

Squeeze the trigger to blast air in the direction of the key components in your case: the crevices in between your fans, the drive bays, connection ports, and any other areas that are plagued by dust and tiny hairs. If you find that you have excess grime or stray dust balls rolling around, you can actually use your vacuum cleaner to deal with them, provided that it’s equipped with a removable handle and a crevice tool. Vacuum away from the motherboard and use it only to eliminate giant dust bunnies that fall to the bottom of the case. Additionally, if you have an air filter in your case, remove it and run it under warm water to remove the dust. Be certain it’s completely dry before re-inserting.

3. Wipe Down Fans

With a different piece of lint-free cloth, wipe down your fan blades, then sprinkle the cloth with a few droplets of 90 or 99 percent rubbing alcohol solution and run it along the inside of your case (image A). Use a Q-tip to clean tight spots like your CPU cooler’s fan blades (image B). When you’re finished and everything has dried, feel free to close up the case.

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4. Make Your Own Filter

A great way to keep dust from infiltrating your PC is to create your own air filter using a Swiffer Dry Refill sheet. All you need to do is cut the sheet to fit the grill on the outside frame of your case and affix it with a few pieces of masking tape. In this instance, we pasted it between the outside of the case chassis and the front-frame. Be sure to place this filter only where air is being sucked in and remember to replace it every few months (or as it visibly accumulates dust).

5. Clean Your Mouse

Assuming your cords are still unplugged, dampen a lint-free cloth with rubbing alcohol and clean the outside shell of the mouse, paying attention to any residue on the buttons.  It’s important that you exercise caution while cleaning peripherals like an optical mouse—cleaning solutions should never come in contact with the optical sensor at the bottom of the mouse—it could ruin it. Also, avoid using paper towels; stick to lint-free materials so that you don’t risk leaving behind any fluff that could stick to the sensor.

6. Clean Your Keyboard

One easy way to clean gunk out of your keyboard is to turn it upside down over a sink and smack the bottom to knock out the colony of crumbs that have undoubtedly settled in. Run through the keyboard’s spaces with a can of compressed air to get loose crumbs and hairs out of the way, and then use rubbing alcohol and Q-tips to clean grease off the surfaces and in between each key.

For a more thorough wipe-down, you could even stick your keyboard in the dishwasher, though we warn you that this is NOT a solution for expensive keyboards with LCD displays and USB slots—there is also a very real chance that it will destroy your keyboard. Before placing it inside the machine, bundle the cord and put a plastic bag over it, making sure it covers the USB/PS2 plug and that it is securely sealed with a rubber band.

Situate the keyboard on the top rack of the dishwasher so that it is facing down—we want the jets to hit up against the keys and wash off the residue. If your dishwasher has a speed dry cycle, turn it off—if you let the inside get too warm it could warp the plastic or crack the circuit board from thermal expansion. For the first run, we suggest omitting soap altogether, but to remove tougher stains, a pea-size amount of soap is also OK, but use at your own risk. After running it through a light cycle, let the keyboard dry for several days or until all the water has dried before reconnecting it.

7. Clean Your Monitor

Grab a microfiber cloth and gently wipe your screen to free it of dust, fingerprints, and any other smudges. You can make your own screen cleaning solution using a half-and-half mix of 70 percent isopropyl alcohol and distilled water, or you can pick up a premixed solution from any computer store or office supply retailer. Under no circumstances should you use Windex or paper towels to clean an LCD screens, especially those with anti-glare surfaces. If you’re using a CRT, use a few dabs of rubbing alcohol to gently wipe away greasy spots from the screen.

Next: Give your PC a professional wiring job!

Have any PC cleaning tips or dusty PC horror stories? Share in the comments section below!

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