Sky Dive? Not Really Sky Drive? Hell Yeah

Mapping Windows Sky Drive to get 25 GIG of free online storage can' t get easier but requires some voodo to pull it off.

Open your browser, and navigate to http://skydrive.live.com/.

Login and then click on a folder to get your CID
https://cid-1234567890abcdef.skydrive.live.com/.Documents

or with office live

http://cid-1234567890abcdef.office.live.com/documents.aspx?sa=895693244
Copy the UID part of the displayed URL

Sign in with your Windows Live ID.

Leave SkyDrive open, and take note of one of your folder names.
Open Windows Explorer.

On the left sidebar, right-click on Network. Choose Map network drive.
Enter the following URL:

Right Click on Network and select Map Network Drive

Note: Replace “Documents” with “^2Documents”, and “Public” with “^2Public”.
\\docs.live.net@SSL\1234567890abcdef\^2Documents

Replace “XYZ” with the folder name you noted and that you want to map.

Choose a drive letter, and submit the dialog.



You will be prompted for your Windows Live ID. Sign in.

Then, you can access all the files and subfolders within your SkyDrive folder, including copying and pasting. You can even open and edit files directly!

Don't get caught with your pants down!!!

I did an article on routers from old PC junk.

This is no Clark Kent but some might say is sexier than Lana Lang. Lets face it if your on my sight your too much a Geek and too poor to ever have a shot at her anyways so we might as well get excited about something we can have at my favorite price, FREE.



The monowall concept has evolved into a commercial product that is available free for home use. This is slightly different than the monowall approach in that is sits in front of your NAT home router. It is runs right out of a Red Hat linux distribution which brings you more features with a more power set of networking tools. How do you like the sound of virus scanning before the virus even reaches your machine.

Lets say your kids are on the internet and have infected a computer from the latest game hacker site. Now your internet traffic slows down and you internet connections and bandwidth are being used to commit crimes without your knowledge.

Maybe your just paranoid and would like to know why your connection just slowed down or why your application just locked up. The first step is to ensure your system is clean from virus and rootkit activity. And if they are smarter than you and the experts you need to know whats coming and going on the network. Maybe you just want to pinch off that Bit Torrent traffic that they say is uploading at 6kbps but you can now see is really moving at 300kbps.

	Provides core server applications - mail, web, VPN, backup, file and print services...
	Protects network and data - antivirus, antispam, firewall, intrusion prevention...
	Enforces Internet usage policies - content filter, peer-to-peer filter, bandwidth manager...
	Simplifies management and monitoring - system monitoring, software updates, mail backup.

Clarkconnect provides several very useful networking tools. Along with several daemons, you have the ability to limit bandwidth, filter traffic, etc. Listed below are some popular network services:

• Samba
• Apache
• SSH
• Squid
• mySQL
• ProFTP
• Squirrel Mail
• Snort

SAMPLE SYSTEM SPECS:
Keep is simple to save power and money.

• AMD Athlon 750 MHz
• 512 MB PC133 SDRAM
• 20 GB IDE Hard Drive
• 10/100 On-board NIC
• Intel Pro 100+ NIC <- Very compatible - since this faces the DSL 100mbs is many times more bandwidth than you DSL provider will allow up and down stream.

Download a ISO and install it to a fresh hard drive on that old junk PC.
http://www.clarkconnect.com/downloads/

Google, I love you.

Google does for phone what it did for your email. They remove the shackles and set you free.

http://www.grandcentral.com/home

I tell everyone who is nailed down to a single provider for email to get onto a online service. Yahoo and Hotmail have become unmanagable with spam. Besides that, Yahoo delays the receipt of email. When you are waiting for a email for a password code or a response you have to keep clicking the check mail button to refresh you page which forces you to refresh the ads as well. My email is delayed from 1 to 20 minutes. The same query in GMAIL I will receive the message instantly. This kind of manipulation has caused me to stop using Yahoo for anything important.

Have you ever been at the checkout of a store and forgot your discount card? They say punch in your phone number. Most of these cards have phone numbers from years ago. Imagine if you could have one number for every phone for now and in the future. Imagine if you could actually take control of and filter your calls.



http://www.grandcentral.com/home

Google has acquired GrandCentral Communications, a company that provides services for managing your voice communications. GrandCentral is a service that lets users integrate all of their existing phone numbers and voice mailboxes into one account, which can be accessed from the web. This is similiar to services provided by may VOIP companies like Vonage.

GrandCentral offers many features that complement the phone services you already use. If you have multiple phone numbers (e.g., home, work, cell), you get one phone number that you can set to ring all, some, or none of your phones, based on who's calling.

This way, your phone number is tied to you, and not your location or job. The service also gives you one central voice mailbox. You can listen to your voicemails online or from any phone, forward them to anybody, add the caller to your address book, block a caller as spam, and a lot more.

You can even listen in on voicemail messages from your phone while they are being recorded, or switch a call from your cell phone to your desk phone and back again. All in all, you'll have a lot more control over your phones.

Screen Callers
Know who's calling and screen unknown callers
ListenInTM Hear why someone is calling before taking the call
Call Record Record calls on the fly and access recordings online
Block Callers Unwanted callers won't be able to reach you anymore
Notifications Receive voicemail notifications via email or SMS

Ring Different Phones
One number that rings different phones based on who's calling
Greetings Personalize your voicemail greetings by caller or group
RingShareTM Go beyond the ring and choose ringback tones for your callers

WebCall Button
Let people call you from a web page without showing your number
CallSwitch Switch phones in the middle of a call
Click2Call Call from your addressbook and save your typing
Mobile Access Visual voicemail for your mobile phone

Ever wished you can be two places at once?

https://www.foldershare.com/

Maybe you can't be two places at once but your files can.

From my testing this application allows you to work from multiple locations on the same folder. The changes you make no matter where you are are updated everywhere. You can create shared or personal libraries. The website uses encryption and your file transfers are encrypted.

To get started click the INSTALL link at the top right of the website. This will allow you to create your account and form relationships between computers. Once this is done you select the folder you want to share and synchronize.

I created a TEST folder on 2 machines and put 2 files in each with the same name but different data. I allowed automatic synchronization and instead of randomly writing over my file the system on each end added a second extension for the duplicate file names and then synced up. So now the files from both machines are now on both machines without and random file overwrite.

I use the same terminal application on 2 machines. I have built in command folders and files to track notes. If I'm working from one machine and want to add notes it updates on both.

A word of caution! Before you synchronize 2 folders it would be best to start with a empty folder and a folder with files and let the application copy them over.

So what does a Berkeley dropout do?

I was going to write a program to replace FRAPS. This guy did just that and its free. This isn't rocket science but it is computer science. No spyware, no ads, no time limits. The utility also lets you record and post at the the same time. They claim great performance. From everything I see up front I think this is a job well done and is going in my hotpics list.

Take back control of your in game desktop

http://www.playxpert.com/

http://www.playxpert.com/web/guest/product

PLAYXPERT is a next-generation in-game community management tool set developed for PC-based and MMO games. Built around a completely unique in-game overlay technology, PLAYXPERT brings the tools that gamers use into the games they play.

Basically it is a kernel level widget that embeds itself into you directx stream. By doing this it will bypass any and all protections or restrictions that your game environment might have. It allows you to pull up web pages, communicate, take notes, or do just about anything you can think of. You can access Itunes or Winamp for example. This is possible because the developers have ported .NET functionality. We are going to see lots of game database tools.

Of course this is directx 8 - 10 compatible. It appears to be in a closed Beta and I'm not sure what this might cost if anything apon release.

http://www.playxpert.com/web/guest/press/news

Registration is open but the client download is currently disabled.

Sorry. The client download link has been temporarily removed while we prepare a new version of the product.

The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful

If you are a student or researcher I have 3 Firefox extensions that can make life much easier. The last 2 extensions I will mention are really for everyone. The last extension is simply amazing.

Zotero

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.

Lets face it we do research on the web. This extension allows you to track your research and annotate your finding. When you are ready to publish your paper it automates the process of creating a bibliography in a multitude of standard formats. This can be integrated in MS Word, various blogger software, and Open Office.

As simple as this process is they have screen cast tutorials to guide you if needed.

http://www.zotero.org/documentation/screencast_tutorials

-------------------------------------------------------------

BugMeNot

http://erichamiter.com/firefox/bugmenot/

This little plugin looks at the current URL and gives you UserName and Passwords to use so you don't have to register your own. There are other very useful features offered that are not part of this plugin:

Hate opening PDF Files?
Check out our latest tool:
http://www.pdfmenot.com/
Disposable Email Addresses
Tired of disclosing your real email address to anyone who asks?
Introducing free, disposable email addresses from bugmenot:
http://email.bugmenot.com/
Wikileaks won't be censored
Have documents the world needs to see?
http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks
Share Coupon Codes
Online coupon codes from sister site RetailMeNot.com include:
Turbo Tax Coupons
ShopBop Coupons
Target Coupons
Adobe Coupons
Zappos Coupons

------------------------------------------------------
Finally the most insanely genius plugin I've seen in a very long time. This is not only useful but is fun to play with. I would think the Google people would buy this up fast.

PicLens



Think beyond the browserPicLens instantly transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for viewing images on the web. Photos will come to life via a cinematic presentation that goes well beyond the confines of the traditional browser window. With PicLens, browsing and viewing images on the web will never be the same again.

Bundys on Joost ... I'm almost happy

http://www.joost.com/

What's Joost?
It's video – more than 20,000 shows, with more added daily.
It's online – all you need is a broadband internet connection.
And it's free. So what are you waiting for?

Peg: Al, I want sex.
Al: Well, so do I. But I don't see the need to bring you into it.

Its a Bird, Its a Plane, No its Super

SUPER © Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer. - FREE
This really is a sweet front end for media conversion




Here we go again. Why yet another media encoder front end? Simple, this GUI allows us to take those FLV flash files and convert them to whatever format we want.

Not really, I wanted WMV which it wouldn't convert for me without generating a error. But who cares. I made a MPEG from a FLV that was nearly perfect and the converstion was insanely simple and fast. It uses a combination of ffmpeg and mplayer codecs to get the job done.

Finding the download link isn't so simple and fast, so here it is.
http://www.erightsoft.net/Superdc.html
From the eRightSoft main page it actually is simple to locate.



A GUI to ffmpeg, MEncoder, mplayer, x264, mppenc, ffmpeg2theora & the theora/vorbis RealProducer plugIn. If you need a simple, yet very efficient tool to convert (encode) or play any Multimedia file, without reading manuals or spending long hours training, then SUPER © is all you need. It is a Multimedia Encoder and a Multimedia Player, easy-to-use with 1 simple click.

Here is the list from the Super site, it almost seems like a bad infomercial:

SUPER © IS UNIVERSAL as it supports a wide variety of input/source file format to playor encode (to & from) without any additional third party software. Supported input source file formats are:

- Video format: 3gp/3g2(Nokia,Siemens,Sony,Ericsson) asf, avi (DivX,H263,H263+,H264,XviD,MPEG4,MSmpeg4 etc..), dat, fli, flc, flv (used in Flash), mkv, mpg (Mpeg I,Mpeg II), mov(H263,H263+,H264,MPEG4 etc..), mp4(H263,H263+,H264,MPEG4), ogg, qt, rm, ram, rmvb, str (Play Station), swf (Flash), ts (HDTV), viv, vob, wmv

- Audio format: aac, ac3, amr, mmf, mp2, mp3, mp4, mpc, ogg, ra, wav, wma- AviSynth Script Files: avs. Let you specify advanced encoding commands using AviSynth scripts!
SUPER © supports the conversion (encoding both ways, to & from ) of ALL the listed formats.

To list few examples:
drag & drop any Audio file or even any VIDEO file and EXTRACT the AUDIO part by converting it toaac, ac3, amr_nb (for ring tones), amr_wb, mmf (for ring tones), mp2, mp3, mpc (MusePack), ogg, wav, wma formats.
* Mobile phone 3GP converter Convert any input video format to 3GP. Convert a 3GP file to any other video format.
* Mobile phone 3G2 converter Convert any input video format to 3G2. Convert a 3G2 file to any other video format.
* PocketPC converter Convert any input video format to a PocketPC file. Convert a PocketPC file to any other video format.
* iPod & iPod 5.5G converter Convert any input video format to an iPod/5.5G file. Convert an iPod/5.5G file to any other video format.The rendered iPod/5.5G files are created using the most advanced video codecs H.264/AVC and MPEG-4 format.To copy a DVD (that you legally purchased) into a valid iPod/5.5G format, we recommend that you also use the bestavailable DVDDecrypter to decrypt the entire DVD and copy the VOB files to your HardDisk in order to encodethem with SUPER ©. Note that DVDDecrypter is also a Freeware.
* PS3 & PSP converter Convert any input video format to a PS3/PSP file. Convert a PS3/PSP file to any other video format.The rendered PS3/PSP files are created using the most advanced video codecs H.264/AVC and MPEG-4 format.To copy a DVD (that you legally purchased) into a valid PS3/PSP format, we recommend that you also use the bestavailable DVDDecrypter to decrypt the entire DVD and copy the VOB files to your HardDisk in order to encodethem with SUPER ©. Note that DVDDecrypter is also a Freeware.
* Zune converter Convert any input video format to a Zune file. Convert a Zune file to any other video format.The rendered Zune files are created using a fully compatible WMV7/8 and WMA format.To copy a DVD (that you legally purchased) into a valid Zune format, we recommend that you also use the bestavailable DVDDecrypter to decrypt the entire DVD and copy the VOB files to your HardDisk in order to encodethem with SUPER ©. Note that DVDDecrypter is also a Freeware.
* Nintendo DS converter Convert any input video format to a Nintendo DS file. (.dpg)The rendered Nintendo DS files are created using a fully compatible DPG format.To copy a DVD (that you legally purchased) into a valid Nintendo DS format, we recommend that you also use the bestavailable DVDDecrypter to decrypt the entire DVD and copy the VOB files to your HardDisk in order to encodethem with SUPER ©. Note that DVDDecrypter is also a Freeware.
* VCD converter Convert any input video format to MPG-VCD. Convert an MPG-VCD file to any other video format.The rendered MPG files are VCD-standard strictly compliant and "NERO burning" compatible. They are seamlesslyaccepted by NERO to burn without any additional process and produce a CD playable on most stand alone players.
* SVCD converter Convert any input video format to MPG-SVCD. Convert an MPG-SVCD file to any other video format.The rendered MPG files are SVCD-standard strictly compliant and "NERO burning" compatible. They are seamlesslyaccepted by NERO to burn without any additional process and produce a CD playable on most stand alone players.
* DVD converter
Convert any input video format to VOB-DVD. Convert a VOB-DVD file to any other video format.The rendered VOB files are DVD-standard strictly compliant and "TMPGEnc DVD Author" compatible. They areseamlessly accepted by the "TMPGEnc DVD Author" which will add the necessary Menu, create theadditional .bup and .ifo files, rename/split the rendered VOB file to Vts_xx_x.vob before burning to DVD.
* AVI converter
Convert any input video format to AVI. Convert an AVI file to any other video format.The rendered AVI files are created using a wide variety of codecs H.264/MPEG-4/DivX/XviD/H.263... togetherwith AAC, ac3, mp3, mp2 or wav audio.
MP4 converter Convert any input video format to MP4. Convert an MP4 file to any other video format.The rendered MP4 files are created using a wide variety of codecs H.264/MPEG-4/DivX/XviD/H.263... togetherwith AAC, AMR, wav audio. They are fully playable on QuickTime7.
* MOV converter Convert any input video format to MOV. Convert a MOV file to any other video format.The rendered MOV files are created using a wide variety of codecs H.264/MPEG-4/DivX/XviD/H.263... togetherwith AAC, AMR, wav audio. They are fully playable on QuickTime7.
* ASF converter Convert any input video format to ASF. Convert an ASF file to any other video format.
* FLV converter Convert any input video format to FLV. Convert an FLV file to any other video format.
* MPG converter Convert any input video format to MPG. Convert an MPG file to any other video format.
* OGG converter Convert any input video format to OGG. Convert an OGG file to any other video format.
* WMV converter Convert any input video format to WMV. Convert a WMV file to any other video format.
* GIF converter Convert any input video format to Animated GIF format.
convert AviSynth script files (.AVS) to any other video format.
convert VCD (.DAT) files to any other format. (Also with Lossless Direct Conversion to MPG VCD-Compliant )
* convert Flash (.FLV) files (similar to Google/YouTube video) to any other format.
* convert Matroska (.MKV) files to any other format.
* convert QuickTime (.QT) files to any other format.
* convert RealMedia (.RM .RAM .RMVB .RA) files to any other format.
* convert Old.Play.Station (.STR) files to any other format.
* convert ShockWave Flash (.SWF) files containing FLV video codec to any other format.
* convert HDTV (.TS) files to any other format. (Also with Lossless Direct Conversion To VOB)
* convert VivoActive (.VIV) files to any other format.
* AutoMode to convert any type of video to VCD, SVCD, DVD.
* "Direct Stream Copy" mode to render exact quality when the same video/audio codecs of the source file are to be used in the output file.
* Play all of the above file formats with SUPER ©
* Play or Save on your Disk the Internet Media Streams like: mms:// rtsp:// http://
* Play Images (bmp, dib, fax, jpg, png, rle, tif, wmf) using Win2K/XP Microsoft(R) resources.

No Fuss, No Muss, or should I say mess.

(potentially not work safe!!!)


http://www.videocodezone.com/

(potentially not work safe!!!)


Online Tools Convert And Download Your Favorite Videos (For Free!!!)


VideoCodeZone and other similiar services (some listed below) work by entering a URL for the FLASH or MEDIA or browsing to a file on you PC. Then like your toaster you simply push the button and wait. Some of these services notify you by email when they are done with the conversion process.

Home Video Conversion and Download
Convert and download videos from popular websites without installing any software.

These services allows you to download and convert videos to many popular formats available today. Some of these sites also allow you to browse videos converted by other which could be in conflict with your employers code of conduct.

This is a online flash video converter where you copy and paste the URL of the video, select the output format and click the Convert/Download button.

You can also convert any flash video from your own files as well. Select the file and click the Convert/Download button.

Other sites:
http://online.movavi.com/
http://vixy.net/
http://www.flvix.com/ - not work safe
http://media-convert.com/
http://www.zamzar.com/

http://www.all2convert.com/index.html - choose your poison (very simple interface)

http://mux.am/

http://heywatch.com/page/home - registration required (supports Adobe Flash 9 H.264)

Life comes full circle - ORB personal media broadcasting - FREE

Broadcast your movies, TV, and other media content anywhere for FREE.

What VLC does ORB does well and is easy to setup. ORB is dependent on a Streaming media source to make it work.

The Orb application is free. There are no fees for MyCasting. You need a home pc to get setup, and can use any web-enabled media player with streaming capabilities to remotely play the media. VLC is a good start.

Your computer broadcasts the media you choose that is stored on your PC. You can stream content through any internet device. This works with mobile phones, PDAs, laptops or any other computer.

There is no software installation required on the receiving web device. You can broadcast photos, music, videos, and even live TV. You can use this to view documents as well.

ORB instructions and recommendations.

Download:
http://corp.orb.com/download_orb

Get Down with Download Manager

DownloadHelper
http://www.downloadhelper.net/index.php

DownloadHelper is a free Firefox extension for downloading flash videos and images from many sites with minimum effort.

You can save videos from sites where there is no option to download the movie to your hard disk. DownloadHelper works on YouTube, MySpace, Google videos, DailyMotion, Porkolt, iFilm, DreamHost and many others: check here for a longer list of supported sites.

It is also possible to capture all the images from a gallery in a single operation.


Play your newly captured flash file with mplayer or IrfanView.

Here is a post with stand alone FLV players:
http://thinkbiggar.blogspot.com/2007/12/wimpy-yes-flashy-no-free-flv-players.html

Finally a DIRECTX 10 card worth buying

ASUS Radeon HD 3870 512MB G-DDR4

This is under $200 and goes head to head with the big boys.
It also consumes 1/3 less power which means less heat, longer life, and a smaller utility bill.

Check out the reviews.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2217044,00.asp
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1222/asus_radeon_hd_3870_512mb_g_ddr4/index.html

Do you want to get High End

This looks like a great system for the money but its not really for those on a budget. I get asked all the time what system to buy for a gamer under $2000. I know what your thinking but I love my parents none the less. I was browsing NewEgg and found this Gem. You can put together a system yourself for less but for those of you who aren't so inclined, here it is.

Its has a great motherboard, very good power supply, nice case, and everything else is just about perfect. This is built and ready to go. The brand name in this case has nothing to do with the great choice of components for the money. I would get a DVD Burner but if he doesn't burn DVDs its not necessary.

PC:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229012

Monitor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009102

Synergy in the workplace, not what you think?

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

Synergy allows you to share the same keyboard and mouse across multiple PCs across a network connection.

The process is actually quite simple but Synergy also does it quite well. The program works cross platform with any OS. You can even share the clip board. You tell the application which machine is the server. That machine is the one that has the keyboard and mouse attached. Then you tell the program what machine you will be taking over the contols when your mouse passes the edge of your screen.

Does this replace a KVM switch?

Not really, you still need a keyboard and mouse attached to each computer. Secondly it doesn't support multibox gaming. I have a program I'm working on that will support multibox if I can generate enough interest in it. Right now it can run a macro that controls keystrokes and mouse movements. Synergy sometimes has issues connecting to the server where I find a reboot of one or both systems is required.

Download for Windows - SynergyInstaller-1.3.1.exe

Hit a Home Run with HostDepartment Web Hosting

Here is the pitch:
I currently use HostDepartment after extensive research while looking for a web hosting provider that offered unlimited service. This provider was ranked 11 out of hundreds for up time and customer satisfaction. So you ask, why not use one of the other 10?

Simple, they don't come close to offering what Hostdepartment offers for half the price. First of all in the top 10, the margins were tight. Secondly, hostdepartment offers the greatest range of services. Non of the others offered ASP and .NET.

I used 1&1 for 3 horrifying years. They gave away the full package. Most of the time it didn't work. When it did I never found out what went wrong. Customer service was non-existent. When I did get them online or the phone they acted like they were doing me a favor.

Go Daddy is almost impossible to navigate. In one case the GoDaddy support couldn't direct me to a link to find the FTP hostname (he was trying to be helpful and friendly though). I won't manage a GoDaddy site just out of past frustration. Also much of what GoDaddy advertises HostDepartment does cheaper or free without the severe limits. From the GoDaddy ads we see that big breasts sell web hosting and it seems like the same girl in the ads designed their user interface.

So why don't I host my own web server? What's the point, Hostdepartment can do anything I need and gives me features that are too time consuming to manage on my own. If you want to do it, you may as well do it right.

Unlimited Bandwidth - I have software free for download, I don't have to worry about getting billed extra or having my site blocked. Besides, run a good sized web site and watch how much bandwidth you consume just managing it. Also they have huge pipes out to the Internet.

Unlimited Space - I host photo sites and historical software archives with no worries. You can't use this as personal file storage. Basically you can't expect to store your entire DVD collection on your site. Just about anything else I'm sure you can get away with.

Unlimited URLs - I host many websites for fun and business. My Dad, the church, my sons, and friends all have their own space to develop pages. I pay the same monthly fee. There is a $13 charge to register the URL with DNS. But after that its free for life.

7/24 Support - They provide online and by phone support and they usually are assisting me in seconds. When the problem gets technical they have support engineers working with me to solve my problem. In many cases the problems were related to my code and compatibility with the web server. They would assist me in each case to make sure I could achieve my goals. Sometimes it was a matter of pointing out bugs in my code.

The SHIFT guarantee:
excerpt from a letter sent to HostDepartment customers:
What the SHIFT Guarantee basically offers is that if you eventually decide to move to another web host, which mean we have been unsuccessful in convincing you to keep using our services, we will pay your first month hosting fee at your new web host, in CASH. Payable immediately after you sign up with your new web host via PayPal or a credit directly to your credit card account.

They have various packages that offer different levels of service. If you manage a bunch of sites for family or business you can also be your own re-seller. This is a offered as a seperate package. For your personal and your business use you can host as many sites you want. Read the fine print for details.

I did the ground work for you. I tested this service for a year with very little growing pains. Click one of the banner ads and Hostdepartment will give me a finders fee if you purchase a package. If you have questions that their support can't help you with I likely can. I have lots of friends and developers with accounts that can help me to answer your questions also.

The amazing / powerful - mojopac - FREE

Free virtual desktop for mobile storage.

http://www.mojopac.com/portal/content/download.jsp
I bought 2 licenses and it was well worth the money. Since it's now free what do you have to loose. I loaded it on a 1gig USB and a 100gig harddrive.

This app lets you launch a Windows desktop and run your own apps without in any way changing the host desktop. I've used it on Games, MMOs, and to surf the web. At work I can tell you that your IT department will be able to read the contents of the drive like any USB drive but I don't think they can tell you have it running. Of course your internet traffic will always be visible by packet snifers.

This is great when at a friend's house or web surfing from work. It also makes a great application test environment. For all practical purposes its a virtual PC. You can easily switch from your virtual desktop to your host.

How to recover a lost flash partition for free

Ok before you say anything, I'm not the only idiot out there.
I left my flash drive in a machine I was re-installing windows to. I wasn't paying attention as I was speed deleting partitions and I thought the 1 gig from my flash drive was left over space and I deleted it so I could add it back to the whole.

Take your time and read this. The DiskInternals program doesn't do the recovery work, I use it to identify the type of partition you have. On a flash drive it is usually FAT32. On a harddrive it can be anything.

1.)The first thing I needed to do was find out what type of partition I have.
I downloaded the not so free program:

DiskInternals Partition Recovery 1.9 An expert at recovering lost partition.
http://www.diskinternals.com/download.shtml

ALT DOWNLOAD:
http://rampart-ssh.com/downloads/partition_recovery.zip

It wasn't such an expert as recovering partitions but I was tempted to buy it anyways considering the files I really needed back were possible to recover, but a lot of my data was still lost according to the program.

Ok now that I know I had a FAT16 partition based on the info Disk Internals provided (I would have thought it was a FAT32).

2.)I downloaded an open source app to do the repair work.

TestDisk & PhotoRec 6.8 (13 August 2007), Data Recovery
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

ALT DOWNLOAD:
http://rampart-ssh.com/downloads/TestDisk.zip

The analyze feature didn't work in my case. That's why I mentioned using the DiskInternals software.

3.)From the advanced (file system) menu I selected the type option entered my matching type number, (FAT16) in this case, then clicked proceed.

Then I selected boot (for boot sector recovery), then Rebuild BS.

Once that was done I tried Repair FAT. The software said the FAT was ok and I was done.

Remove and reseat the USB drive and .....

EVERYTHING WAS PERFECT

Ok I'm a bigger idiot than I though. I had to go through this again and it worker on a FAT32 partition this time.

___________

I haven't tried this FREE APP but what to you have to loose:
http://findandmount.com/
This has a Partition and Master boot record recovery components. These guys seem like they know what they are doing based on my experience with other commercial data recovery products.

FindAndMount Also lets you create a disk image. How nice is that.
_____________

For un-deleting files try:
http://www.ntfsundelete.com/

Turn Windows Movie Maker into the best HD video production software for free.

Links:

Microsoft Posts Windows XP Movie Maker 1.2.1
Update
http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/bonuspack/default.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx

Good writeup on Windows Movie Maker

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/expert/bridgman_02february4.mspx

**************************************

Here is how to make it work:

Creating your own Windows Movie Maker custom export profile:
You need the free Windows Media Profile Editor, which is installed as part of the Windows Media Encoder download.
Get Windows Media 9 Series codecs.

You can download the encoder from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx

From Windows Media Encoder:
open Profile Editor from Start > All Programs > Windows Media > Utilities > Windows Media Profile Editor. You are going to create a custom profile.
Name your profile and give it a description. It will be easier to identify in the Windows Movie Maker Save Movie wizard.
Check off Audio and Video boxes and use the default Windows Media Audio 9.1 and Windows Media Video 9 for the codecs.

You now need to set a target bit rate. Click the Add button to get started. Select a target bit rate type of either K (kilobits), M (megabits) or G (gigabits).
Kilobits would be used for portable devices or Web downloads.
I set video at 30fps, 15fps is the default. Change the keyframe interval to 3-4 seconds from the default of 8.

Click the Save and Close. Name your profile and be sure to save it in the :\Program Files\Movie Maker\shared\profiles folder. The next time you step through Save Movie Wizard, select your new custom profile from the Other Settings drop down menu before saving the final project.

Windows Media Encoder has pre-built profiles you can use as a guide, click the Import button and select a profile from the listing in:
:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\Settings