Opening An Elevated Command Prompt Window

There are many parts of Windows that are useful for the power user, but none so useful and important as opening an elevated privilege command prompt window!

Windows, by default, does not run programs as administrator in Vista and 7. This is for the user's protection, and is controlled by User Account Control. You can, fortunately, bypass these restrictions via several different methods:

Method 1

1. Click on Vista Start button.
2. Locate the Command Prompt menu item (buried deep inside Accessories under All Programs or appear on program access history).
3. Right click on Command Prompt.
4. On the pop-up right click context menu, select “Run as Administrator”.

Method 2

1. Click on Vista Start button.
2. Click on Run.
3. Type in “Cmd” (without quotes) in the Open textbox.
4. You should see “This task will be created with administrative privileges”.
5. Click on OK or press Enter.

Method 3

1. Press the Win keyboard key or click on Vista Start button.
2. Type cmd into the Start Search textbox.
3. Press Ctrl+Shift+Enter keyboard shortcut. Ctrl-Shift-Enter is the general keyboard shortcut that triggers elevation to “Run as Administrator”.
4. Press Alt+C or press Continue to confirm the UAC elevation warning prompt.

[via mydigitallife.info]

Use Trillian Astra to Simplify Messaging

Oh, Trillian. I remember when you were just a wee toddler, now you're all big and grown up now! Trillian has always been one of the popular choices for instant messaging clients, however with the advent of Trillian Astra in late 2009, Cerulean Studios has nearly reinvented the game once more and provided a better client that we all needed.

Supporting a metric character-map ton of protocols (Astra, AIM, Yahoo!, ICQ, Windows Live (MSN), MySpaceIM, GoogleTalk, Jabber/XMPP, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Bonjour, IRC, POP/IMAP, etc,) Trillian is no little client. This newer version offers better looks, better reliability, and a host of features that would take forever to list.

If you are currently using multiple clients to connect to your various messaging networks, Trillian just might convince you to consolidate into one, simple client.

Oh, and did I mention Trillian supports Web and iPhone? Windows client is default, and Mac OS X is on the way.

Check out Trillian.

Save Power with Windows 7 Power Management Diagnostics

Have you been wondering if your laptop or desktop uses more power than it needs to? Well, wonder no more! Windows 7 includes a utility for generating a report of potential energy hogging systems within your computer.

Simply open a Command Prompt window as Administrator, and enter the following command:

powercfg -energy

Windows 7 will take about a minute and a half to analyze power usage and provide an HTML report of possible issues that could be drawing more power than necessary. By default, the report is placed in C:\Windows\System32\energy-report.html, however you can change the output location with the flag -output on the command above, no carats.

Koobface Virus Resurges, Threatens Facebook Users

The Koobface virus hit the internet a few years back, but has already started rebounding with new vigilance. Short story: Don't click links you don't trust!

The virus operates by hijacking people's Facebook accounts and sending a message to all of their friends with a fake video link. The link is often encoded by a short URL service, such as bit.ly.

Upon clicking the link, the web browser informs you that you must download a player to play the movie. The download isn't actually a player at all, but the main part of the virus. Once a user is infected, the computer is watched by the Koobface botnet. Keyloggers check key inputs for credit card numbers, sending the data back to the central server. Additionally, web search loggers are also installed.

The virus installs repropagation code that will silently message all of your Facebook contacts a new link to become infected.

Koobface may be able to be removed by Malwarebytes or SuperAntiSpyware, however many of the newer viruses will not allow those programs to run. If this is happening, only a specially coded program will be able to remove the virus.

The moral of this story is not to click links you don't trust online! Always ask if the link is legitimate before clicking it.

Google Chrome Releases Themes; They Look Hot!

Google Chrome has represented a great browser so far: fast startup times, modern features, and a great task-based backend render engine. We've even commented before just how much we love it. Now it has themes! What better way to make your favorite browser look just how you want?


If you have Google Chrome, go and check out their theme library at http://bit.ly/bxw1E. And if you don't have Google Chrome yet, why not give it a try at http://chrome.google.com?

Windows 7 ready for Windows XP mode

Microsoft announced yesterday that their new Windows XP mode is ready to hit manufacturing now, and will come about online via an update on October 22.

Windows XP Mode for Windows 7 helps people who run software that was designed for XP run on Windows 7 in its original shell. Microsoft reports that any software that ran on Windows Vista will run correctly on 7, but Windows XP mode is provided as a last resort type of option for customers that must retain compatibility at all costs.

Windows XP mode utilizes some of the old Connectix Virtual PC technology that Microsoft acquired to include a Virtual Machine at the core of Windows 7.

[via ArsTechnica]

Salem State Censorship: It was all a mistake

Salem State Chief Information Officer Patricia Ainsworth released a statement that "the blocking experienced was due to an error in our firewall configuration. It was not intentional. I was glad students brought it to our attention. We fixed it today. I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused." This is responding to events where Salem State's network had inadvertently widely blocked all mature content sites, including websites with only a mild rating, such as fmylife.com.

I'm sure people will be relieved to know the situation has come to a close. Testing hasn't been done to confirm that the fixes are in place, so if you find that mature content sites work, please leave us a comment so others know how this turned out!