Verify Authenticity of a Website with Comodo Verification Engine

Because we use many online services for our day to day needs like Paypal, ebay, banking services, etc, we need to be given prime importance to the authenticity of the service and of course our online security also. Even though the majority of web sites will be offered legitimate businesses, some sites exist to deceive you, by convincing you that they are legitimate. You need to know how to recognize what is real on the Internet and what is false. You need Comodo VerificationEngine.

VerificationEngine is a browser plug-in that lets you identify the legitimacy of a website. The software is compatible with all Windows versions (Windows 2000/XP/Vista) and supports Internet Explorer, Firefox and AOL browsers (unfortunately, currently there is no support for Chrome, Opera and Safari)

You don't need to do anything else after installing VEngine. When you browse the Internet simply move your mouse over the websites main logo and if it's verified as authentic, then you'll see a visible 'trust indicator' in the form of a green border around the outside of your display. Also note that the logo in the task bar will also display a green border.

VerificationEngine conveniently provides a pop-up indicator each time you move from a non-secure http session to a secure https session. For High Assurance web sites you will see the name of the Certification Authority who issued the SSL certificate and the name of the entity owning the web site. Conversely for Low Assurance certificates you will be presented with a warning to remind you that the web site cannot be authenticated.[via]

How to remove a USB drive when failed to eject it safely?

EjectUSB is a free, portable program that lets you remove your USB drive from your computer when failed to eject it safely. This is a common problem; many of you might have got the message “The device ‘generic volume’ cannot be stopped right now……..” when trying to eject a USB drive.

This is because some process or applications (probably rogue programs) is accessing your USB drive. Windows will not allow it to remove because of the possible data corruption.

EjectUSB is designed to be a simple utility to close all running programs or process from a specified drive or folder. So that you can remove the drive with out any fear of losing data.

Moreover, EjectUSB could flush the file cache, close Explorer windows and remove registry entries and Recent Document shortcuts of the specified drive or folder.

Alternatively you can do this as follows: Open My computer and right click on the USB drive icon.

Now click on Properties – Hardware and select your USB drive then click ‘Properties’. Under ‘Policy’ tab select ‘Optimize for quick removal’ and click OK to save settings.

This setting disables write caching on the disk and in Windows. So you can disconnect this drive without using the Safely Remove Hardware icon.

Search Google quickly for the text in clipboard

Clipboard to Google is a useful, little system tray utility for Windows XP, Vista and Windows Seven. You can use this tool to search Google for the text in your clipboard very quickly and just with a click.

Using the tool is quite simple. Run the program, it will sits on your system tray. Select a text from any program or web application as usual, either by mouse or using keyboard shortcut key Ctrl+C. Then click on the Clipboard to Google tray icon or just use Ctrl+G shortcut key to open a Google search for the text from the clipboard.

However, the program open search results in Internet Explorer only. There is no option to change this. This is the main drawback of this tool. You can download Clipboard to Google from here.

Windows 7 RC is available for free download to all (Use it free for one year)

Windows 7 is the next operating system from Microsoft that comes with lots of new feature. Microsoft has just announced the public availability of Windows 7 Release Candidate, now you can download and use it for free. It is said that Windows 7 RC will expire only on June 1, 2010. That is you can use this pre-release version more than a year for free.

Following are the requirements to download and install Windows 7 on your computer

1. Internet access (to download Windows 7 RC and get updates)
2. 1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
3. 1 GB RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
4. 16 GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)
5. DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
You can download Windows 7 RC1 (32bit /64bit) from the following location www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

How to remove useless, expired cookies from Internet Explorer?

Unlike other browsers, Internet Explorer stores cookies in different files on your hard disk. There is no option provided on Internet Explorer to remove expired cookies from your computer. It left behind traces even if the cookies are expired and will be never used. The result is that your hard drive stores several hundreds or even thousands unused and useless files.

Expired Cookies Cleaner is a tiny (27Kb zip) portable software that scans your computer and removes expired cookie files. Thus it speeds up your PC and free up some disk space (especially on FAT32 file systems).

Expired Cookie Cleaner can also optimize the files that stores cookies by removing useless cookies from it. One file may contain more than one cookie. If some cookies from this file are expired, then the program deletes those cookies from that file and reports the file as optimized.

The program is compatible with Windows 98/2000/XP and Vista and supports Internet Explorer 4 and above.[Via]

Appetizer: Lets you launch applications and short cuts quickly

Appetizer is a simple and intuitive application launcher for Windows XP and Vista. This open source program allows organizing and launching your applications and other shortcuts into a convenient dock. You can import all shortcuts from Windows quick launch toolbar and start menu program by clicking the ‘Import Shortcut’ button.

You can add new short cuts by right-clicking anywhere on the icon panel or by directly dragging and dropping a file onto the dock.

The app is sinkable and entirely customizable. Appetizer is available for download as a standalone installer as well as a portable version.

How to select multiple files without using keyboard in Windows Seven and Vista?

Of course you can select several files from a directory by keeping the ‘Ctrl’ key pressed and click with the mouse. But what do you do when one hand is free? This is possible if we can put a small checkbox against each files and folders.

Windows Seven and Vista have this feature. To enable this feature open Windows Explorer with the short-cut key ‘Win + E’.

Click on ‘Organize’ and select ‘Folder and Search Option’. Now from this ‘Folder and Search option’ dialog, go to ‘View’ tab.

Under ‘Advanced settings’ check the option ‘Use Checkboxes to Select Elements’ and click OK to confirm the settings.

Now when you move the mouse over a file or folder, a checkbox appears in the top left corner, check this box to select files or folders