Fix the “programs still need to close” problem in Windows 7

One sad thing about Windows 7 is that sometimes, it gets a little confused. Especially if you have applications like Norton or any similar anti-virus programs (which Windows 7 still needs by the way) installed.  And often, when you try to restart or shut down your progam, you’ll get a window that says:

Programs still need to close – Force Restart or Cancel

Of course, the easy way out of this would be just to click Force Restart all the time. Plus, if you see an open Microsoft Word document that you forgot to save, this screen will no doubt remind you of something you’d better save before restarting. But that won’t help when you don’t have any programs that you can save data in.
The ideal solution in such cases, in my opinion, would be to wait for a couple of seconds till the notorious programs close and then restart. But if you’re running something like Norton that doesn’t seem to be the case.

However, fear not! Because Windows 7 is still Windows, there are some great tricks were discovered 10 years ago, namely registry hacks, that can still be applied to Windows 7.
So without further ado:

How to automatically force restart your Windows 7 computer for a 1-click-quick-restart experience

Okay, yes, I really am that lazy. An extra click sucks. Nevertheless, it might save you time. So here’s how you can tweak your registry to force a restart as soon as possible. Essentially, what you need to do is set the ‘WaitToKillServicesTimeout’ parameter to a very low number so that the computer will kill (in terms of code execution of course) any open programs quickly and move on.

1. Log in with an administrator account
2. Click Start (blue windows orb)
3. Type in regedit where it says search in the start menu and click on it when it shown up in the start menu
4. Then, using the columns on the left hand side, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control
5. On the right hand side, double click on WaitToKillServiceTimeout
6. Type in 1000 (this will set the time to 1000 ms (which = 1s)) in the box that pops up, under ‘Value Data’
7. 
8. Click OK
9. Close Registry Editor
10. Restart your computer (note you might still get the force restart button this time, but you won’t ever get it after you restart).

Then, simply enjoy the faster restarts/shutdowns! But make sure you remember to save your work before you click on shutdown or restart!

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How to play tetris on your Mac with Terminal

Today, I noticed that it's the 25th anniversary of Tetris, through a Google doodle (you can learn some amazing things from a Google logo as it seems). So I figured, that it was only fair that I download tetris and play it since the last time I played it was ages ago. Turns out, if you use a mac, you don't have to download tetris.

Did you know that your Mac has another game besides chess that comes pre-installed with every Mac? Yes, your mac also has tetris, as it turns out. Although its not as easy to access as chess, and you'll admin privileges to do so, it still is a great time waster as TUAW (although the instructions on TUAW are kinda wrong.. they say tetrix instead of tetris... ) puts is.

So here's how you can start playing tetris on your mac. It's harder than normal tetris though, because it doesn't really give you a lot of options, but nevertheless, it's free.. and you don't have to download anything.

So heres what you do to open it:

1. Open Terminal (Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal or Alt + Space , then type in "Terminal" and press enter)
2. Then type in:
emacs
3. Then press the enter key, and after emacs loads, press the Escape key
4. Then type in:
x
5. Your cursor will start blinking beside the blue text, after which you should type in tetris and press enter!

To control the game: Use the up and down arrow key to change the block configuration, and obviously use left right keys to change the location of block. And press the spacebar to let the blocks come down quickly. Press the p key to pause.

Pretty cool huh?

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10 Registry Hacks to Make Windows Faster, Free!

Okay, so here are some registry hacks that you can use to make windows faster. A word of caution though, I’ve used these hacks and they seem to be fine, and they seem to cause no repercussions whatsoever on Windows XP, but nonetheless if you use your Windows XP machine as your primary machine, I wouldn’t use this on that machine. Nonetheless, Here they are:

How to use these registry Hacks:

Again, if you don’t know how to use these registry hacks, then you probably shouldn’t be using them. Please back up your registry first by reading this article!!! If you’re determined to use then then this is how you do it: (obviously you'd want to back up your computer first.. I take no responsibility if you manage to "bork it" =)

1. Copy the code below. The “code” below contains modifications that you’re going to be implementing into the registry to tweak certain features of the operating system in an effort to make it faster
2. Open a new notepad file (the cool way to open notepad is pressing the Windows key + R key and typing in “Notepad” in the box that pops up and pressing enter… just thought I’d kinda point it out to you)
3. Paste the code
4. Save the file as “Hacks.reg” (type it with quotes in the notepad save as box in your desktop
5. Double click the file to add the keys to your registry
6. Delete the file as required

OK, so here are the registry keys modifications that you’d want to copy:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem] "NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction] "Enable"="Y to enable" [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] "MenuShowDelay"="100" [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] "WaitToKillAppTimeout"="1000" "HungAppTimeout"="1000" [HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop] "WaitToKillAppTimeout"="1000" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control] "WaitToKillServiceTimeout"="1000"

So as you can see, modifications are made primarily to the FileSystem, Boot Configs, Shutdown Sequence, Start Menu Delay. Use it wisely!

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Hack a Windows Password In Minutes

How to hack a Windows Password

How to hack a Windows password
I've written about securing windows passwords before, but here's a video for those who are yet unaware of how windows computers are often compromised due to lack of knowledge on the user's side. Although the video exaggerates the fact that the password can be found quickly, in reality it takes a bit more time, although ultimately the password will most likely be cracked.

The same thing can happen to your wireless network, which can compromise the security of every single computer on your network. An attacker can even steal all your private information (passwords to online banking accounts, internet chats.. you name it) if you use a computer that is not connected to the network through a cable. So take my word for it and protect your wireless network before attempting to increase the speed of your wireless network.

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Make Microsoft Windows XP Passwords more secure

We all know that Microsoft sometimes has problems in their operating systems. Sometimes they just don't do somethings correctly (like the WMF exploit that we all know about) and it's up to us to tweak our computer to make it correct. That's why today I'm going to talk a little bit about the security of Windows XP because we all care about it.

Now, you might not know this so let's start from the basics. All windows user passwords are stored as hashes... which simply mean that they are encrypted to protect it. But windows uses something called LMhash to store the passwords. Which is not good news if you want to keep your data secure. Here's how you can fix this.

Prevent your Windows PC from getting hacked

Basically what LMhash (or Lan Manager hash) does is converts the password to upper case, makes it 14 characters long, splits the 'encrypted password' into 7 pairs etc. So it sort or puts it into the same format every single time, and since hackers know this format it just makes it easier to crack because its not totally different every time. You can read more about it from Microsoft, the geniuses who created this in the first place.

So what you want to to is stop using the LMhash to convert the passwords to make it more easily accessible. And this is very simple to do using the registry. All you do is enable the noLMhash value and Windows will stop using LMhash... simple.

Here's how you do it:

• Make sure you have admin privileges before you continue
• Make sure that you back up the registry before you perform this tweak

1. Click 'Start'
2. Click 'Run'
3. Type in 'regedit' (without the quotes of course).
4. Then navigate to the following registry key using the left column : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
5. In the right column Double click on nolmhash
6. In the box that pop's up type in 1 and click 'OK'
7. Click regedit and the reboot your computer.
8. Important: Change Your Password! Or else the old hash is still going to remain there and the tweak won't do you any good. And make sure that you keep changing your password at regular intervals.
   

Congratulations, your passwords are now going to be more secure and less crackable, however you still need to take more precautions so that you don't loose any important data. I'm sure when I have more time I'm going to write up more articles on how to do this, so make sure you subscribe so that you don't miss a beat.

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