find is an elaborate search program with a number of features. Unlike the Google Desktop Search and locate, it doesn’t index anything but processes the request on the fly. Thus it is slower.
find is one of the most useful commands when you also have to search within unknown files and make further operations on the result set. It does a recursive search, looking in all subdirectories.
The first set of arguments is always the paths where the search should initiate. $ find /home /tmp <remaining arguments> would search based on the remaining arguments in /home, /tmp and all their subdirectories. If …read more

Microsoft offers a suite of utilities called Sysinternals for free for troubleshooting your PC. The suite is far superior to many of the alternate freewares that are available.
Mark Russinovich, now a Fellow in Microsoft, originally developed them along with Bryce Cogswell when they were in the company Winternals Software. The company subsequently was acquired by Microsoft in mid 2006. Initially, many of the tools were not just freeware but were also accompanied with the source code. No longer, of course.
The utilities are categorized under File and Disk utilities, Networking utilities, Process utilities, Security utilities, System information, etc. The Windows Sysinternals …read more

A couple of weeks ago, the Microsoft Windows 7 Beta Demo got leaked. One week ago, Jason wrote on the Microsoft Weblog that Windows 7 Beta is now available to Microsoft Partner Program.
On Jan 9, 2009, Microsoft Windows 7 Beta became available to all beta testers of the world with a catch that only 2.5 million complete downloads will be allowed (or something of that kind).
But now, unlimited number of people can download Windows 7 Beta from their website until 24th Jan, 2009 according to the Windows 7 Team blog.
If you want to try the beta software, be warned about the risks. …read more

Previously, I wrote that Cygwin provides an alternative to the windows shell, makes Unix-lovers feel more at home with Windows and vice-versa. That is only the partial truth.
The truth is Cygwin emulates Linux on Windows. If you replace the Windows background with any of the open-source wallpapers, hide the Windows task bar, and only run the cygwin terminal, you can almost cheat yourself that you’re running a Unix-based OS. This is thanks to a DLL named cygwin1.dll which is the actual Linux API emulation layer.
Cygwin is different from other utility packages providing Unix-like functionality like, say, UnxUtils because of the …read more

The Windows operating system is very different from most other operating systems. Red Hat Linux, GNU/Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE share some core philosophies with UNIX, and are thus called Unix-based OSs. In that way, they all follow a common set of standards which are very unlike Windows’ own and that is one of the reasons for the wide-spread anti-Windows sentiment.
Windows is primarily popular for its apparent user-friendliness. Unix-based OSs are chosen for their open and active communities. Windows is sufficient for ‘general purposes’ like listening to songs, playing games, making documents, sending mail, browsing the Internet. Unix-based OSs may seem more …read more

You might be wondering what is the difference between SATA and traditional IDE hard drives? The first thing you’ll notice is the interface/connectors of the drive itself. SATA drives have a single cable with a small connector, while an IDE drive will have a wider flat ribbon cable. SATA drives also boast faster data transfer rate but read your motherboard’s manual if it does support SATA drives. Otherwise, you’re stuck with an IDE drive.

In case you havent noticed, We’re living in a high-definition world. From games to movies and with a new generation of affordable, high-quality HD components flooding into the world of PCs, it’s about time your very own PC gets into the world of High Definition.
Unfortunately, great HD systems still cost a fortune. However, if you’ve got the skills to assemble your own machine, you can save a bundle by building an HD-capable Media Center PC that can bring you pristine video plus amazing gaming.

Some of you may have, unfortunately, experienced this on your older system that have been working fine for a long time. One day, it just randomly locks up, requiring a hard reboot. You hit the reset button, and things go smoothly for another few hours (or even days), then it locks up again. The system “hangs” become more frequent over time. You may be having heat management issues due to, yes, dust in your chassis and parts.

DLL errors are some of the most common, frustrating, and complicated windows errors to troubleshoot and resolve. Fixing a DLL error is rarely as easy as replacing the DLL, something that I don’t recommend doing even if it does fix the problem.

It is a scary thought but your hard drive could stop functioning at any moment. Will you be ready? If you’ve got a drive image, you’ll save not only your data but your apps, drivers, and all the settings that make your machine personal.
You may never have experienced a drive failure or become so corrupted that your data was beyond retrieval, but that doesn’t mean you never will. And think of this: If your system ever fails in a hardware or software disaster, will you really have time to reinstall Windows and all your applications and tweak all your OS …read more