MediaShield-Raidtool installation guide:

Source
The easiest way to get the Raidtool installed is by running the SETUP.EXE of the associated nForce chipset driver package, but by doing this all nForce IDE drivers of the package will be installed too (and maybe replace the better and currently working ones).
In these cases you have to use an other way to get full access to the MediaShield/RAID software (NVIDIA Control Panel) after having completed the Vista installation.

The guide for the manually installation of the nForce Raidtool (on the basis of posts from nForcersHQ members TheMaxx32000 and Tweak_addict):

• Run Vista.
• Install the latest version of nTune.
• Search for the RAIDTOOL folder of the actual Vista x86/x64 nForce chipset driver package.
• Extract the content (all files) of the RAIDTOOL.CAB file into the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder.
• Search for the file "RegRaidSedona.bat" (formerly named "RegRaid.bat") within C:\Windows\System32, right click on it, choose "Run as Administrator" and run the BAT file to get the Raidtool Services registered.
• Search for the file "nvCplUI.exe" (formerly named "nvRaidman.exe") within the same folder and run it.

That should bring up the Nvidia Control Panel and the "Storage" item should be listed on the left window task list.
Suggestions:
1. It is a good idea to create a shortcut to the NVCPLUI.EXE (formerly NVRAIDMAN.EXE) onto the Desktop or into the Startmenu. This way you will get an easy access to the NVIDIA MediaShield Control Panel.
2. Additionally you should put a shortcut to the NVRAIDSERVICE.EXE into the Startup folder, if you want a continuous monitoring of the Raid health.

The AMD FX Bulldozer overclocking

8,42 GHz with Nitrogen cooling
AMD recently broke the overclocking Guinness World Record at 8.429 GHz with the new 8 core AMD FX-8150 processor.

Of Passwords and People

Tips for Creating a Strong Password
Measuring the Effect of Password-Composition Policies

812 KB | 3 files | 

PDF

Requiring users to set strong passwords shores up one aspect of your network security, but it also may encourage other bad password management practices. This research report details the findings of a survey of 5,000 users who were asked to create passwords in various strength and application scenarios.

From National Institute of Standards and Technology | Sep 19, 2011

Passwords remain one of the most important, and yet most mismanaged, of IT security measures. No matter how many times you tell them not to, users share their passwords with other people, post them on sticky notes next to their monitors, or just set them to be so obvious that hackers can easily guess them.

In this paper, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Carnegie Mellon University present their findings from a survey-based study of 5,000 online users who were asked to create passwords based on a variety of composition models and use scenarios. The researchers then go on to evaluate the results by various criteria, including entropy (the number of brute-force guesses it would take to break the password) and where users are likely to store passwords created for various scenarios.

Included in this zip file are:

• Of Passwords and People.pdf
• Intro Doc.pdf
• Terms and Conditions.pdf

Improved Security Features in Windows 7

Source

10 top mistakes of Bill

Source
Bill Gates is considered as a great man. Many people look up to him. And a lot of people are inspired by his life. But then again like any other human being he also has his own mistakes. Here are the top 10 mistakes of Bill Gates.

1. The man created a software monopoly and in return he got so many lawsuits for it.Bill Gates is still fighting with lawsuits.The source on wikipedia clearly stated that
   

   United States v. Microsoft was a set of consolidated civil actions filed against Microsoft Corporation on May 18, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and 20 U.S. states. Joel I. Klein was the lead prosecutor.The trial started on May 18, 1998 with the U.S. Justice Department and the Attorneys General of twenty U.S. states suing Microsoft for illegally thwarting competition in order to protect and extend its software monopoly.

2. Bill Gates did not consider opensource. His business strategies always counter opensource principles and paradigm.You may be interested in his open-source debate In a Fortune magazine he clearly says that
   

   It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not.

3. The Windows OS made Mr. Gates the richest man in the world. But its latest iteration is bombarded with lots of negative criticisms.
4. He allowed Windows Mobile to happen. Did he run out of innovative ideas so he settled for a miniature Windows OS for mobile phone. He could have put up a team to design the OS from ground up.
5. He let DOS die. It was a promising OS and a very stable one.
6. Bill Gates did not think of cloud computing probably because of his proprietary Windows OS. But this is definitely one of his biggest mistakes.
7. He allowed Windows Millennium edition to be released. The OS was definitely a reflection of the lack of talents from Microsoft. It failed the expectation of the people. It was premature.
8. He ignored search. Look what happened to Google now. Bill Gates already made some moves about search in the end of the 90s and it was definitely a mistake to trash it.Scobleizer once revealed in his post thatLook at my last post. Now read this one over on LiveSide. It’s a short report that Microsoft executives are bragging to MVPs that “we’re in it to win.”
   

   I don’t think Microsoft is. The words are empty. Microsoft’s Internet execution sucks (on whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks (look at that last post again). If that’s “in it to win” then I don’t get it. I saw a bunch of posts similar to the one on LiveSide coming out of the MVP Summit. I didn’t post any of them to my link blog for a reason: All were air, no real demonstrations of how Microsoft is going to lead.

9. The Microsoft Zune is a mistake. A lot of money poured into its development but yet it did not yield enough profit.John Biggs from Crunchgear had a poetic post on “Who killed Microsoft?”.Some of the extract are as follows:
   

   Who killed Microsoft? Why did all those jobs get lost?

   “Not I,” said the Zune fanboy, “I got Zune, I’m no iToy Sure it didn’t do too much and too bad my girlfriend bought a Touch now we’re iTunes all the way what else do I have to say?”

10. The Xbox on the other hand is too pricey for a gaming console and because of this; people go for other brands- the cheaper ones.This is only reason why Xbox price set to drop in war with  Sony’s PS3 and Nintendo’s top-selling Wii. Those are the top 10 mistakes of Bill Gates. These might be some of the negative side of the guy but these will never take away his greatness.

free RAID recovery

ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery works with

• hard drives (internal and external),
• disk image files,
• hardware and software RAIDs.

Note: ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery needs Windows to run. It does not run on Apple Mac or Linux environment.
Our free RAID recovery software performs

• RAID 0 recovery, including RAID 0+1 and 1+0,
• RAID 5 recovery, including RAID 5E, and RAID 5 with delayed parity,
• RAID 1E recovery, near and interleaved layouts
• Experimental RAID 6 recovery,

and recovers the following RAID parameters:

• Start offset and block size,
• Number of member disks,
• Member disks and data order,
• Parity position and rotation,

Once you recovered the parameters using ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery, you can:

• Run ReclaiMe data recovery software to recover data from the array;
• Create the array image file;
• Write the array to disk;
• Save layout to the XML file;
• Get the instructions and recover data using other data recovery software
  majorgeeks.com/ReclaiMe_Free_RAID_Recovery
  
  

USB ports disabler

Source
USB Disabler is a small, simple yet powerfull program designed to enable or disable USB storage access on your Windows computer. This program come with a very simple interface which allow you to do the following action:
1) Disable any USB storage / PenDrive access to your laptop or pc.
2) Set Read-Only access to USB storage / Pendrive, which means nobody can copy your personal documents over their removable storage.
3) Reset everything back to Normal so your own USB Storage / Pendrive will be functioning as usual.
With this small utility in hand, you will able to secure your machine from viruses coming from external USB drive. Also, it will keep you away from data thief and computer misused.
Feature:
Lightweight & Portable. Only 1MB (zipped) in size . [You need to extract it before use]
Simple interface. Few click and you are done!
Compatible with Vista/7 UAC feature
Royalty-free for personal or company usage

Download at:

• MajorGeeks