How To Avoid Online Scams

Online Scams are rampant. Every time you surf the web you see ads for some new miracle weight loss drug, ancient medicine, or home remedy... But 99% of these are frauds. So how do we avoid them? Well that is exactly the question myself and a group of 5 other Philosophy students from my college set out to solve. We made a website which claimed to make your plants grow much faster if you followed our program. Of course this is a complete lie. The website we created is www.TheMonsterEffect.com it has pictures, videos, and testimonials all of which are completely fake... but how could you prove it??? Below is the Debunking video we made to teach you how to spot a fraud.

MusicThief.com

Looking for a great domain name? MusicThief.com is for you! With this domain name you could set up a music file sharing site, a music fan site, a anti-piracy site, the possibilities are endless. The domain is currently for sale through GoDaddy Auctions and you can place a bid by going to MusicThief.com and making an offer.

Free Homework Solution Manuals Online

Stop paying for text book solution manuals! Why pay for something you can get for free online? Cramster.com is a student’s best friend. With Cramster you can get all the solutions to your Math, Science, Engineering, Business, English, and History homework problems. The site offers free text book solutions and boards where you can ask advanced questions that aren’t directly in the book.

The process is simple. All you have to do is search for the book that your class uses and then each book is broken down by chapter. Homework and practice problems are clearly written out step by step, with the final answer being clearly labeled. Below is a screen shot of an example solution to a homework problem from my college Physics class.

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A free account gives you access to the solutions to odd numbered problems and to the discussion boards where you can receive additional assistance. If you want solutions to the even numbered questions and the ability to chat with live tutors then you’ll have to upgrade your account. The free option has plenty of features but if you really want the add-on’s it’s only a measly 5 bucks a month.

Ripped DVD's In Windows Media Center

Windows Media Center is great but it doesn’t work well with burnt DVD’s.... Until Now!!! Today’s post is a review of a freeware application called “My Movies 3” which is available to download for free from mymovies.dk My Movies 3 is an application which integrates with Windows Media Center (Windows 7, Vista, and XP media center edition).

Once installed you can then play ripped DVD’s within Windows Media Center, and better yet the program will automatically download the Album art for your DVD’s including both the front and back covers. Also, the program automatically grabs the synopsis, genre, rating, and actor list for every movie in your collection. The program has several different cover flow modes to choose from depending on how you’d like your virtual DVD collection to be displayed. You can also tweak several different settings to personalize exactly how much information you want to view about each movie in your DVD library.

Sample Cover Flow: Screen Shot

The program is 100% free, but there are some advanced features such as the ability to rip movies directly from Windows Media Center, additional cover flow views, and fan art, that require a certain number of “points” to unlock. Points are gained either by adding your own information about DVD’s to the site or by donating to the site.

Overall I’d give this a program a 10 out of 10. It’s relatively light on system resources (aka it won’t slow down your pc). It integrates seamlessly with Windows Media Center. It’s simple and fun to use. And finally you can’t beat the price… FREE!!!

Make Taskbar Skinny/Small in Windows 7

By default the taskbar in Windows 7 is twice the height that it is in previous versions of windows. To change the taskbar back to the smaller size (like it is in XP and Vista) right-click on the taskbar and then select Properties and check the box next to Use Small Icons. Finally, click Apply and then OK.

How to Play Ripped DVD’s (.VOB Files)

Let’s assume you already know how to rip DVD’s to your hard drive. The question now becomes “How do I play .VOB files on my PC”. Well fortunately a little freeware program called VLC comes in extremely handy for doing this exact thing. For those who don’t have VLC you can download it for free at http://download.cnet.com/VLC-Media-Player/3000-13632_4-10267151.html Now that you have VLC installed on your computer what you want to do is start the program and now click Media, select Open Disk under the drop down menu, and then click the Browse button to find the folder which contains your .VOB files. Once you’ve selected the folder which stores your .VOB click OK and then Play. Voila! The copy of your ripped DVD should now be playing.

Hack Windows Vista & XP Passwords

Did you forget the password to your windows Vista or XP computer? Or maybe you’re parents have parental controls enabled and you need to know the password to turn them off. Whatever you’re reason may be, hacking into windows XP and Vista is actually a relatively simple process.

Step 1: Go to ophcrack.sourceforge.net select which operating system you use (either XP or Vista; Windows 7 isn’t available yet) and download the ISO. After the download is complete burn the ISO to a CD.

Step 2: Restart your computer (with the CD in) and your computer should now boot from the live CD into a Linux environment.

Step 3: Ophcrack will automatically run as soon as the CD boots and now all you need to do is wait until Ophcrack has completely finished cracking the computer password(s). This process will take anywhere from 10 minutes to several hours depending on the strength of the password used to protect the computer.

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Step 4: Finally now that you know the computer password; reboot the computer, eject the CD and now you will have complete access.

That's it! Go ahead and try it for yourself. But as always, use this knowledge responsibly!

Give Away Of The Day

What’s better than free? How about getting something for free every day of the year! www.GiveAwayOfTheDay.com is a computer geeks dream come true. Every single day this site gives away a new piece of software for absolutely free….. What’s the catch you might ask? Well the only restriction is that you have to download and install the software within the 24 hours that it’s posted online; because once it’s gone it’s gone for good. Thus GiveAwayOfTheDay is site you’ll definitely want to bookmark and check frequently. At GiveAwayOfTheDay.com you’ll find Antivirus software, Digital Imaging tools, Computer Maintenance applications, and much much more!

MIT sketching ASSIST - Free Download

After watching the following Youtube video I decided that I had to have the software the professor in the video was using, or at least something like it. Luckily, I discovered that Microsoft has an application that is virtually the exact same thing and best of all you can download it for totally free. The application is called "Microsoft Physics Illustrator for Tablet PC" and is just one of the many cool applications available for free in the "Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP Tablet PC Edition". While the application is designed to run on an XP tablet, I had no difficulty installing it on my Vista tablet. Click Here to visit Microsoft PowerToys page where you can download "Physics Illustrator" and any other table PowerToys you want... or Click Here for the direct download link and start using this amazing application now!

Royalty Free images for Free

Finding free images that are actually high quality can be quite a difficult task. Most sites that provide free images either provide “crappy” images or the images have license restrictions that prevent you from using them on websites or redistributing them. After spending some time searching the web I was able to find a few sites that actually provide free images that are royalty free (no license restrictions). Here is a list of sites that really do provide high quality royalty free images for completely free!

• http://www.photogen.com/
• http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/
• http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/gallery/index.php

Well there is a few great sites to get you started, but if anyone happens to find any other sites that offer royalty free images for free please leave a comment below with the URL.