Google Code University

Google Code University is a very nice effort to share information about latest tools in software development with everyone. Distributed systems design tutorial looks really interesting.

Xylitol

I have just discovered Xylitol. This is an amazing artificial sweetener that isn't controversial like the other sweeteners (hint, aspartame). In addition it is has almost half the calories of sugar and has a protective effect on teeth!

There are chewing gums available that mention using xylitol but those like Orbit's and other brands still have aspartame... so you need to confirm, if it is just xylitol or does it have aspartame.

Flossing

The importance of flossing regularly cannot be over-stated. It may even prevent heart disease and high blood pressure.

Check Google and these links here and here.

Online lectures

There a very nice set of lectures videos available over the internet, nowadays. Different universities have started offering these for free. The most popular example is OpenCourseWare by MIT but there are many alternatives, check this!

For free ebooks and courseware same blog as well as for research.

Also worth checking letcurefox.

Remap your keyboard

Todays keyboards have many legacy keys that are of little or no use. Take for example the scroll-lock key or the caps lock key. It is possible to remap the keyboard keys with SharpKeys.

Sharpkeys is a very small utility that allows you to remap any key on your keyboard to another key. It does not stay resident in memory, instead it writes to the registry and then you can just exit it.

The only downside is that you have to reboot your system.

Disabling Autorun in Windows XP

Many of the common viruses, nowadays, transmit themselves using usb-drives. One thing required to protect from getting infected as soon as you plug in an infected usb-drive/CD is to disable the autorun feature.

You will need to run the following reg file to disable it:
http://ali.jan.googlepages.com/noautorun.reg

Faster Windows XP Boot

The single thing you can do to drastically decrease Windows XP startup times is to download TuneXP and then select Ultra fast booting option as shown below. Wait for some time as it rearranges the boot file and then a command window will open p to de-fragment the files. Wait till it's gone and then restart your computer. Feel the difference!

Faster Windows Shutdown

If you are getting bogged down by long windows shutdown times, you can do some registry edits to get this process snappier. Details can be found in this CNet Article.

However, in short you need to do the following registry entries:









To make things easier, you can download and double click on this reg file that I have created to do those entries.

In addition to this, you need Microsoft User Profile Hive Service installed. This link however was not working, so you can try the one below:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/uphcservice.html

This will make your system shutdown noticeably faster.

Next time: How to drastically improve startup times.

Measuring distance, route on Google Maps

WikiMapia is a Web 2.0 project to describe the whole planet Earth. The underlying map that it uses is the same as Google's but there is a wealth of additional information.

Clicking on the red link Wikimapia on the site will open a menu on which clicking Geotools will allow you to measure distances and areas.

The same functionality is available in Google maps by going to My Maps within the Google site, however, I find wikipedia more functional and easier to use.

An example of G-6 area Islamabad in wikimapia:
Move your mouse on the rectangles to view information about each place.

What's it all about?

This is going to be a repository of tips relating to computing, useful software, gadgets, health and life in general. It is supposed to serve as a public journal.