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• How To Uninstall, Disable, and Remove Windows Defender. Also, How Turn it Off

  - by The Geek

  If you’re already running a full anti-malware suite, you might not even realize that Windows Defender is already installed with Windows, and is probably wasting precious resources. Here’s how to get rid of it. Now, just to be clear, we’re not saying that we hate Windows Defender. Some spyware protection is better than none, and it’s built in and free! But… if you are already running something that provides great anti-malware protection, there’s no need to have more than one application running at a time. Disable Windows Defender Unfortunately, Windows Defender is completely built into Windows, and you’re not going to actually uninstall it. What we can do, however, is disable it. Open up Windows Defender, go to Tools on the top menu, and then click on Options. Now click on Administrator on the left-hand pane, uncheck the box for “Use this program”, and click the Save button. You will then be told that the program is turned off. Awesome! If you really, really want to make sure that it never comes back, you can also open up the Services panel through Control Panel, or by typing services.msc into the Start Menu search or run boxes. Find Windows Defender in the list and double-click on it… And then you can change Startup type to Disabled. Now again, we’re not necessarily advocating that you get rid of Windows Defender. Make sure you keep yourself protected from malware! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Stop an Application from Running at Startup in Windows VistaRemove "Map Network Drive" Menu Item from Windows Vista or XPManually Remove Skype Extension from FirefoxUninstall, Disable, or Delete Internet Explorer 8 from Windows 7Still Useful in Vista: Startup Control Panel TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista

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• How to Add Control Panel to “My Computer” in Windows 7 or Vista

  - by The Geek

  Back in the Windows XP days, you could easily add Control Panel to My Computer with a simple checkbox in the folder view settings. Windows 7 and Vista don’t make this quite as easy, but there’s still a way to get it back. To make this tweak, we’ll be doing a quick registry hack, but there’s a downloadable version provided as well. Manual Registry Tweak to Add Control Panel Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace Now that you’re there, you’ll need to right-click and create a new key… If you want to add the regular Control Panel view, with the categories, you’ll need to use one GUID as the name of the key. If you want the icon view instead, you can use the other key. Here they are: Category View:  {26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683} Icon View: {21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} Once you’re done, it should look like this: Now over in the Computer view, just hit the F5 key to refresh the panel, and you should see the new icon pop up in the list: Now when you click on the icon you’ll be taken to Control Panel. If you didn’t know how to change the view before, you can use the drop-down box on the right-hand side to switch between Category and icon view. Downloadable Registry Hack Rather than deal with manual registry editing, you can simply download the file, extract it, and then either double-click on the AddCategoryControlPanel.reg to add the Category view icon, or AddIconControlPanel.reg to add the other icon. There’s an uninstall script provided for each. Download ControlPanelMyComputer Registry Hack from howtogeek.com Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Disable User Account Control (UAC) the Easy Way on Win 7 or VistaHow To Figure Out Your PC’s Host Name From the Command PromptRestore Missing Desktop Icons in Windows 7 or VistaNew Vista Syntax for Opening Control Panel Items from the Command-lineAdd Registry Editor to Control Panel TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause

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• How to Quickly Add Multiple IP Addresses to Windows Servers

  - by Sysadmin Geek

  If you have ever added multiple IP addresses to a single Windows server, going through the graphical interface is an incredible pain as each IP must be added manually, each in a new dialog box. Here’s a simple solution. Needless to say, this can be incredibly monotonous and time consuming if you are adding more than a few IP addresses. Thankfully, there is a much easier way which allows you to add an entire subnet (or more) in seconds. Adding an IP Address from the Command Line Windows includes the “netsh” command which allows you to configure just about any aspect of your network connections. If you view the accepted parameters using “netsh /?” you will be presented with a list of commands each which have their own list of commands (and so on). For the purpose of adding IP addresses, we are interested in this string of parameters: netsh interface ipv4 add address Note: For Windows Server 2003/XP and earlier, “ipv4″ should be replaced with just “ip” in the netsh command. If you view the help information, you can see the full list of accepted parameters but for the most part what you will be interested in is something like this: netsh interface ipv4 add address “Local Area Connection” 192.168.1.2 255.255.255.0 The above command adds the IP Address 192.168.1.2 (with Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0) to the connection titled “Local Area Network”. Adding Multiple IP Addresses at Once When we accompany a netsh command with the FOR /L loop, we can quickly add multiple IP addresses. The syntax for the FOR /L loop looks like this: FOR /L %variable IN (start,step,end) DO command So we could easily add every IP address from an entire subnet using this command: FOR /L %A IN (0,1,255) DO netsh interface ipv4 add address “Local Area Connection” 192.168.1.%A 255.255.255.0 This command takes about 20 seconds to run, where adding the same number of IP addresses manually would take significantly longer. A Quick Demonstration Here is the initial configuration on our network adapter: ipconfig /all Now run netsh from within a FOR /L loop to add IP’s 192.168.1.10-20 to this adapter: FOR /L %A IN (10,1,20) DO netsh interface ipv4 add address “Local Area Connection” 192.168.1.%A 255.255.255.0 After the above command is run, viewing the IP Configuration of the adapter now shows: Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Create Your Own Custom ASCII Art from Any Image How To Process Camera Raw Without Paying for Adobe Photoshop How Do You Block Annoying Text Message (SMS) Spam? How to Use and Master the Notoriously Difficult Pen Tool in Photoshop HTG Explains: What Are the Differences Between All Those Audio Formats? How To Use Layer Masks and Vector Masks to Remove Complex Backgrounds in Photoshop Bring Summer Back to Your Desktop with the LandscapeTheme for Chrome and Iron The Prospector – Home Dash Extension Creates a Whole New Browsing Experience in Firefox KinEmote Links Kinect to Windows Why Nobody Reads Web Site Privacy Policies [Infographic] Asian Temple in the Snow Wallpaper 10 Weird Gaming Records from the Guinness Book

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• Stop YouTube Videos from Automatically Playing in Chrome

  - by The Geek

  If you’ve actually used the internet before, you’ve probably come across a page with an auto-playing YouTube clip, and chances are good it was a rather annoying one. Here’s how to stop them from starting automatically in Chrome. We’ve already told you how to stop them from automatically playing if you’re a Firefox user (best answer: use Flashblock!), but now it’s time for Chrome users to get their turn. Use the Stop Autoplay for YouTube Extension The great thing about this extension is that it stops the video from playing, but it allows it to continue buffering, so when you do feel like playing the video, it’ll already be downloaded—really useful for people with slower internet connections. There’s no UI or anything fancy, just head to the extension page and click the Install button. If you want to get rid of it later, use the Tools –> Extensions menu (or you can type chrome://extensions/ into your address bar), and then click the Uninstall link for that add-on.   Download Stop Autoplay for YouTube [Google Chrome Extensions] Using FlashBlock for Chrome If you really wanted to, you could just disable Flash across the board using FlashBlock for Chrome. Once you’ve installed the extension, you won’t see any Flash elements anywhere, and you’ll have to move your mouse over them and click to enable them each time. When I installed the extension the first time, I noticed that YouTube was already in the allow list. I’m not sure if that’s the default setting or not, but you can use the icon in the address bar, or the Options from the Extensions panel to get to the settings page, and from there you can remove anything from the White List that you wouldn’t want. Another nice feature about Flash Block is that it can also block Silverlight, or you could simply uninstall or remove unnecessary Chrome plug-ins. Download FlashBlock for Chrome Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Stop YouTube Videos from Automatically Playing in FirefoxDisable YouTube Comments while using ChromeApologies About An Awful Audio AdvertisementImprove YouTube Video Viewing in Google ChromeWatch YouTube Videos in Cinema Style in Firefox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites

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• How To Disable Individual Plug-ins in Google Chrome

  - by The Geek

  Have you ever wondered how to disable useless or insecure browser plug-ins in Google Chrome? Here’s the lowdown on how to get rid of Java, Acrobat, Silverlight, and the rest of the plugins you probably want to get rid of. Disabling Plugins in Google Chrome If you head to about:plugins in your address bar, you’ll probably see a list of plugins, but won’t be able to disable them yet. What you’ll need to do is switch over to the Dev channel of Chrome, which gives you access to all the latest features—though you might be warned that sometimes the dev channel might be less stable than the release or beta channels. Ready to proceed? Head to the Dev Channel page, and then click the link to run the installer. You’ll be prompted to restart Chrome when you’re done. Note that Mac and Windows users can both run an installer to switch. Linux users will have to install a package. Note: Once you’ve switched to the Dev channel, you can’t really switch to the stable channel. You’ll have to uninstall Chrome and then reinstall the regular version. Now that you’ve switched to the dev channel and restarted your browser, head to about:plugins in the address bar, and then just disable each plugin you really don’t need. Plugins you can generally live without?  Java, Acrobat, Microsoft Office, Windows Presentation Foundation, Silverlight. These will be on a case-by-case basis, of course, but the vast majority of large websites don’t require any of those. When it comes right down to it, the only plugin that most people require is Flash… and leave the “Default Plug-in” alone too. Special thanks to @jordanconway for pointing out the solution. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Disable YouTube Comments while using ChromeHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default BrowserSubscribe to RSS Feeds in Chrome with a Single ClickAdd Notes to Google Notebook from ChromeAccess Google Chrome’s Special Pages the Easy Way TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi LocPDF is a Visual PDF Search Tool Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar

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• How To Completely Disable Subtitles in VLC

  - by The Geek

  If you watch a lot of videos using VLC, you might have noticed that it enables subtitles by default if they are there, which can be pretty annoying at times. Here’s the quick tip to disable them entirely. Of course, you can always turn them back on if you want on an individual video basis. Disable Subtitles Head into the VLC preferences, and then click the All button at the bottom of the screen. On the left-hand side, choose Video –> Subtitles/OSD, and then uncheck the boxes for “Autodetect subtitle files”, Enable sub-pictures, and On Screen Display. That should do it, unless the subtitles are forced in the video for some reason. Note: Certain video formats like MKV can sometimes have subtitles enabled even though there isn’t a separate subtitles file. This is why you need to remove “Enable sub-pictures” as well, which totally disables the on-screen text. You can choose to only uncheck the autodetecting of subtitles instead if you’d prefer. And of course, you can simply right-click on the video, head to Video –> Subtitles Track and then choose the subtitles if you still wanted them. Note: this only works if the “enable sub-pictures” option is still enabled. And thus ends the tale of disabling those fracking subtitles. Starbuck approves. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips You Really Want to Completely Disable Tabs in Firefox?Disable ProFTP on CentOSDisable Notification Balloons in XPHow To (Really) Completely Disable UAC on Windows 7Disable User Account Control (UAC) the Easy Way on Win 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Quickly Schedule Meetings With NeedtoMeet Share Flickr Photos On Facebook Automatically Are You Blocked On Gtalk? Find out Discover Latest Android Apps On AppBrain The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers Will it Blend? iPad Edition

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• Do you feel underappreciated or resent the geek/nerd stigma?

  - by dotnetdev

  At work we have a piece of A4 paper with the number of everyone in the office. The structure of this document is laid out in rectangles, by department. I work for the department that does all the technical stuff. That includes support—bear in mind that the support staff isn't educated in IT but just has experience in PC maintenance and providing support to a system we resell but don't have source code access to, project manager, team leader, a network administrator, a product manager, and me, a programmer. Anyway, on this paper, we are labelled as nerds and geeks. I did take a little offence to this, as much as it is light hearted (but annoying and old) humour. I have a vivid image that a geek is someone who doesn't go out but codes all day. I code all day at home and at work (when I have something to code...), but I keep balance by going out. I don't know why it is only people who work with computers that get such a stigma. No other profession really gets the same stigma—skilled, technical, or whatever. An account manager (and this is hardly a skilled job) says, "Perhaps [MY NAME HERE] could write some geeky code tomorrow to add this functionality to the website." It is funny how I get such an unfair stigma but I am so pivotal. In fact, if it wasn't for me, the company would have nothing to sell so the account managers would be redundant! I make systems, they get sold, and this is what pays the wages. It's funny how the account managers get a commission for how many systems they sell, or manage to make clients resubscribe to. Yet I built the thing in the first place! On top of that, my brother says all I do is type stuff on a keyboard all day. Surely if I did, I'd be typing at my normal typing speed of 100wpm+ as if I am writing a blog entry. Instead, I plan as I code along on the fly if commercial pressures and time prohibit proper planning. I never type as if I'm writing normal English. There is more to our jobs than just typing code. And my brother is a pipe fitter with no formal qualifications in his name. I could easily, and perhaps more justifiably, say he just manipulates a spanner or something. Does you feel underappreciated or that a geek/nerd stigma is undeserved or unfair?

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• What Is .recently-used.xbel and How Do I Delete It for Good?

  - by The Geek

  If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably noticed the .recently-used.xbel file in the root of your User folder, and you’re wondering why it keeps constantly coming back even though you repeatedly delete it. So What Is It? The quick answer is that it’s part of the GTK+ library used by a number of cross-platform applications, perhaps the most well-known of which is the Pidgin instant messenger client. As the name implies, the file is used to store a list of the most recently used files. In the case of Pidgin, this comes into play when you are transferring files over IM, and that’s when the file will appear again. Note: this is actually a known and reported bug in Pidgin, but sadly the developers aren’t terribly responsive when it comes to annoyances. Pidgin seems to go for long periods of time without any updates, but we still use it because it’s open-source, cross-platform, and works well. How Do I Get Rid of It? Unfortunately, there’s no way to easily get rid of it, apart from using a different application. If you need to transfer files over Pidgin, the file is going to re-appear… but there’s a quick workaround! The general idea is to set the file properties to Hidden and Read-only. You’d think you could just set it to Hidden and be done with it, but Pidgin will re-create the file every time, so instead we’re leaving the file there and preventing it from being accessed. You could also totally remove access through the Security tab if you wanted to, but this worked fine for me… as you can see, no more file in the folder. Of course, you can’t have the show hidden files and folders option turned on, or the file will continue to show up. Want to get really geeky? You can toggle hidden files with a shortcut key. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Hide Recently Used Documents/Programs From the Windows Vista Start MenuQuick Tip: Windows Vista Temp Files DirectoryDelete Wrong AutoComplete Entries in Windows Vista MailDisable Delete Confirmation Dialog in Windows 7 or VistaHow to Delete a System File in Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Enable DreamScene in Windows 7 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause Check Your IMAP Mail Offline In Thunderbird Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily

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• What is hiberfil.sys and How Do I Delete It?

  - by The Geek

  You’re no doubt reading this article because there’s a gigantic hiberfil.sys file sitting in the root of your drive, and you want to get rid of it to free up some space… but you can’t! Luckily, you actually can delete it, and today we’ll show you how. The more memory you have in your PC, the bigger the file will be. So What is hiberfil.sys Anyway? Windows has two power management modes that you can choose from: one is Sleep Mode, which keeps the PC running in a low power state so you can almost instantly get back to what you were working on. The other is Hibernate mode, which completely writes the memory out to the hard drive, and then powers the PC down entirely, so you can even take the battery out, put it back in, start back up, and be right back where you were. Hibernate mode uses the hiberfil.sys file to store the the current state (memory) of the PC, and since it’s managed by Windows, you can’t delete the file. So if you never use it, and want to disable Hibernate mode, keep reading. Personally I stick with Sleep Mode the vast majority of the time, but I do use Hibernate quite often. Disable Hibernate (and Delete hiberfil.sys) in Windows 7 or Vista You’ll need to open an administrator mode command prompt by right-clicking on the command prompt in the start menu, and then choosing Run as Administrator. Once you’re there, type in the following command: powercfg -h off You should immediately notice that the Hibernate option is gone from the Shut down menu. You’ll also notice that the file is magically gone! For more about dealing with Hibernate like setting how long it takes to head into Hibernate mode, you can check out our article on How to Manage Hibernate Mode in Windows 7. Disabling Hibernate Mode in Windows XP It’s a lot easier in Windows XP to get rid of Hibernate mode… in fact, we’ve already covered it before, but we’ll cover it again. Just head into Control Panel –> Power Options, and then find the Hibernate tab. Uncheck the box, reboot your PC, and then you can delete the hiberfil.sys file. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How to Delete a System File in Windows 7 or VistaDisable Delete Confirmation Dialog in Windows 7 or VistaClear IE7 Browsing History From the Command LineHide, Delete, or Destroy the Recycle Bin Icon in Windows 7 or VistaClear the Auto-Complete Email Address Cache in Outlook TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Whoa ! Use Printflush to Solve Printing Problems Icelandic Volcano Webcams Open Multiple Links At One Go NachoFoto Searches Images in Real-time Office 2010 Product Guides

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• HTG Explains: Do You Really Need to Defrag Your PC?

  - by The Geek

  Ask any PC tech person how to make your computer faster, and almost every one of them will tell you to defrag your PC. But do you really need to manually trigger a defrag these days? The quick answer: You don’t need to manually defragment a modern operating system. The longer answer: let’s go through a couple scenarios and explain so you can understand why you probably don’t need to defrag. HTG Explains: Do You Really Need to Defrag Your PC? Use Amazon’s Barcode Scanner to Easily Buy Anything from Your Phone How To Migrate Windows 7 to a Solid State Drive

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• Myths: Does Deleting the Cache Actually Speed Up Your PC?

  - by The Geek

  Every time you ask somebody with a reasonable level of tech skills what you should do to speed up your PC, they start jabbering on about running ccleaner and clearing the cache. But does the act of clearing a cache really speed things up? Nope. Most people assume that all temporary files are just clutter created by lousy applications, but that isn’t actually the truth. Cache files are created by apps to store commonly used information so it doesn’t have to be generated or downloaded again.    

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• Are there any applications that allow us to ask/answer stack exchange questions from the desktop?

  - by Sklivvz

  Hi, I am looking for an application that acts as a stack exchange client, typically on the desktop. Features: Can ask/edit questions Can answer questions Can comment Supports MathJax Nice to have's: Support for close/open/delete/flag questions User stats page Moderator tools Offline support I am interested in applications that run on any of the following systems: Windows 7 Mac OS X iPhone iPad Ubuntu

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• Is there a way to automatically keep Chrome/Ask Tool Bar from installing?

  - by hydroparadise

  So of lately, I've had to warn my users to watch out for unwanted programs that are coming in with Adobe Flash and Java updates. Adobe seems to be pushing Google's Chrome and Java with the Ask.com Toolbar. I admit that it could be much worse because both instance simply require an uncheck during some point of the update process, but on a large scale, prevention is better than confrontation. Any suggestions?

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• Is there a website to ask for people to make script for you?

  - by matmat07

  I don't have enought knowledge to make something that would do what I want. I there somewhere I could ask someone else to do the job? I think I already stumble upon something like this, each post was like a contest to the programmer.

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• Quel cadeau Hi-Tech ou « Geek » espérez-vous pour Noël ? Et quels produits attendus pour 2011 vous font rêver ?

  Quel cadeau Hi-Tech ou « Geek » allez-vous offrir à Noël ? Et quels produits attendus pour 2011 vous font rêver ? Ecrit en collaboration avec Gordon Fowler Noël. J-1. Les parents retardataires se pressent dans les magasins. Les enfants ont des sourires jusqu'aux oreilles. Et les commerçants travaillent d'arrache-pied pour assurer leur chiffre d'affaires annuels. Noël, la fête des petits. Mais aussi la fête des grands. Surtout pour les « Geeks », toujours prêts à s'émerveiller pour les objets insolites, les nouveautés de tout poil et la technologie. Un iPad sous le sapin, un NAS, un T-Shirt Wifi, le CD des meilleures musiqu...

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• How to Restore the Real Internet Explorer Desktop Icon in Windows 7

  - by The Geek

  Remember how previous versions of Windows had an Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, and you could right-click it to quickly access the Internet Options screen? It’s completely gone in Windows 7, but a geeky hack can bring it back. Microsoft removed this feature to comply with all those murky legal battles they’ve had, and their alternate suggestion is to create a standard shortcut to iexplore.exe on the Desktop, but it’s not the same thing. We’ve got a registry hack to bring it back. This guest article was written by Ramesh from the WinHelpOnline blog, where he’s got loads of really geeky registry hacks. Bring Back the Internet Explorer Namespace Icon in Windows 7 the Easy Way If you just want the IE icon back, all you need to do is download the RealInternetExplorerIcon.zip file, extract the contents, and then double-click on the w7_ie_icon_restore.reg file. That’s all you have to do. There’s also an undo registry file there if you want to get rid of it. Download the Real Internet Explorer Icon Registry Hack Manual Registry Hack If you prefer doing things the manual way, or just really want to understand how this hack works, you can follow through the manual steps below to learn how it was done, but we’ll have to warn you that it’s a lot of steps. Launch Regedit.exe using the Start Menu search box, and then navigate to the following location: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ CLSID \ {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} Right-click on the key on the left-hand pane, choose Export, and save it to a .REG file (say, ie-guid.reg) Open up the REG file using Notepad… From the Edit menu, click Replace, and replace every occurrence of the following GUID string {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} … with a custom GUID string, such as: {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D} Save the REG file and close Notepad, and then double-click on the file to merge the contents to the registry. Either re-open the registry editor, or use the F5 key to reload everything with the new changes (this step is important). Now you can navigate downto the following registry key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ CLSID \ {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D} \ Shellex \ ContextMenuHandlers \ ieframe Double-click on the (default) key in the right-hand pane and set its data as: {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} With this done, press F5 on the desktop and you’ll see the Internet Explorer icon that looks like this: The icon appears incomplete without the Properties command in right click menu, so keep reading. Final Registry Hack Adjustments Click on the following key, which should still be viewable in your Registry editor window from the last step. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D} Double-click LocalizedString in the right-hand pane and type the following data to rename the icon. Internet Explorer Select the following key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D}\shell Add a subkey and name it as Properties, then select the Properties key, double-click the (default) value and type the following: P&roperties Create a String value named Position, and type the following data bottom At this point the window should look something like this: Under Properties, create a subkey and name it as Command, and then set its (default) value as follows: control.exe inetcpl.cpl Navigate down to the following key, and then delete the value named LegacyDisable HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ CLSID \ {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D} \ shell \ OpenHomePage Now head to the this key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Desktop \ NameSpace Create a subkey named {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D} (which is the custom GUID that we used earlier in this article.) Press F5 to refresh the Desktop, and here is how the Internet Explorer icon would look like, finally. That’s it! It only took 24 steps, but you made it through to the end—of course, you could just download the registry hack and get the icon back with a double-click. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Quick Help: Restore Show Desktop Icon in Windows VistaQuick Help: Restore Flip3D Icon in Windows VistaAdd Internet Explorer Icon to Windows XP / Vista DesktopHide, Delete, or Destroy the Recycle Bin Icon in Windows 7 or VistaBuilt-in Quick Launch Hotkeys in Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Looking for Good Windows Media Player 12 Plug-ins? Find Out the Celebrity You Resemble With FaceDouble Whoa ! Use Printflush to Solve Printing Problems Icelandic Volcano Webcams Open Multiple Links At One Go

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• Wipe, Delete, and Securely Destroy Your Hard Drive’s Data the Easy Way

  - by The Geek

  Giving a computer to somebody else? Maybe you’re putting it out on Craigslist to sell to a stranger—either way, you’ll want to make sure that your drive is completely wiped, scrubbed, and clean of any personal data. Here’s the easy way to do it. If you only have access to an Ubuntu Live CD or thumb drive, you can actually use that instead if you prefer, and we’ve got you covered with a full guide to securely wiping your PC’s hard drive. Otherwise, keep reading. Wipe the Drive with DBAN Darik’s Boot and Nuke CD is the easiest way to permanently and totally destroy every bit of personal information on that drive—nobody is going to recover a thing once this is done. The first thing you’ll need to do is download a copy of the ISO image, and then burn it to a blank CD with something really useful like Imgburn. Just choose Burn image to Disc at the start screen, select the little file icon, grab the downloaded ISO, and then go. If you need a little more help, we’ve got you covered with a beginner’s guide to burning an ISO image. Once you’re done, stick the disc into the drive, start the PC up, and then once you boot to the DBAN prompt you’ll see a menu. You can pretty much ignore everything on here, and just type… autonuke And there you are, your disk is now being securely wiped. Once it’s all done, you can remove the CD, and then either pack the PC up to sell, or re-install Windows on there if you feel like it. More Advanced Method If you’re really paranoid, want to run a different type of wipe, or just like fiddling with the options, you can choose F3 or hit Enter at the prompt to head to the advanced selection screen. Here you can choose exactly which drive to wipe, or hit the M key to change the method. You’ll be able to choose between a bunch of different wipe options. The Quick Erase is all you really need though.   So there you are, easy PC wiping in one package. What about you? Do you make sure to wipe your old PCs before giving them away? Personally I’ve always just yanked out the hard drives before I got rid of an old PC, but that’s just me. Download DBAN from dban.org Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Use an Ubuntu Live CD to Securely Wipe Your PC’s Hard DriveHow to Dispose of Old Computers ResponsiblyHow To Delete a VHD in Windows 7Speed up External USB Hard Drives in Windows VistaSpeed Up SATA Hard Drives in Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites

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• How To Delete Built-in Windows 7 Power Plans (and Why You Probably Shouldn’t)

  - by The Geek

  Do you actually use the Windows 7 power management features? If so, have you ever wanted to just delete one of the built-in power plans? Here’s how you can do so, and why you probably should leave it alone. Just in case you’re new to the party, we’re talking about the power plans that you see when you click on the battery/plug icon in the system tray. The problem is that one of the built-in plans always shows up there, even if you only use custom plans. When you go to “More power options” on the menu there, you’ll be taken to a list of them, but you’ll be unable to get rid of any of the built-in ones, even if you have your own. You can actually delete the power plans, but it will probably cause problems, so we highly recommend against it. If you still want to proceed, keep reading. Delete Built-in Power Plans in Windows 7 Open up an Administrator mod command prompt by right-clicking on the command prompt and choosing “Run as Administrator”, then type in the following command, which will show you a whole list of the plans. powercfg list Do you see that really long GUID code in the middle of each listing? That’s what we’re going to need for the next step. To make it easier, we’ll provide the codes here, just in case you don’t know how to copy to the clipboard from the command prompt. Power Scheme GUID: 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e  (Balanced) Power Scheme GUID: 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c  (High performance)Power Scheme GUID: a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a  (Power saver) Before you do any deleting, what you’re going to want to do is export the plan to a file using the –export parameter. For some unknown reason, I used the .xml extension when I did this, though the file isn’t in XML format. Moving on… here’s the syntax of the command: powercfg –export balanced.xml 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e This will export the Balanced plan to the file balanced.xml. And now, we can delete the plan by using the –delete parameter, and the same GUID.  powercfg –delete 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e If you want to import the plan again, you can use the -import parameter, though it has one weirdness—you have to specify the full path to the file, like this: powercfg –import c:\balanced.xml Using what you’ve learned, you can export each of the plans to a file, and then delete the ones you want to delete. Why Shouldn’t You Do This? Very simple. Stuff will break. On my test machine, for example, I removed all of the built-in plans, and then imported them all back in, but I’m still getting this error anytime I try to access the panel to choose what the power buttons do: There’s a lot more error messages, but I’m not going to waste your time with all of them. So if you want to delete the plans, do so at your own peril. At least you’ve been warned! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Learning Windows 7: Manage Power SettingsCreate a Shortcut or Hotkey to Switch Power PlansDisable Power Management on Windows 7 or VistaChange the Windows 7 or Vista Power Buttons to Shut Down/Sleep/HibernateDisable Windows Vista’s Built-in CD/DVD Burning Features TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause Check Your IMAP Mail Offline In Thunderbird Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow

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• Install a Wii Game Loader for Easy Backups and Fast Load Times

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  We’ve shown you how to hack your Wii for homebrew software and DVD playback as well as how to safeguard and supercharge your Wii. Now we’re taking a peek at Wii game loaders so you can backup and play your Wii games from an external HDD. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Lord of the Rings Movie Parody Double Feature [Video] Turn a Webpage into an Asteroids-Styled Shooting Game in Opera Dolphin Browser Mini Leaves Beta; Sports New GUI, Easy Bookmarking, and More Updated Google Goggles Scans Faster; Solves Sudoku Puzzles Snowy Castle Retreat in the Mountains Wallpaper Fix TV Show Sorting Issues on iOS Devices

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• Interviewer question: What is the greatest strength and weakness of your development team? Any downside to ask?

  - by epignosisx

  I was wondering if this was a good question to ask a possible employer: What is the greatest strength and weakness of your development team? We all get this question when we are in an interview. So why not ask them? It's not just to annoy them. I think it is a very good question. By asking this question to future employers we could find out about the team and how this strength or weakness could affect us. What do you think? Do you see any downside to asking this question?

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• Xobni Plus for Outlook [Review]

  - by The Geek

  Overview Xobni Plus is an addin that will bring a sidebar to Outlook which allows you to search through your inbox and contacts a lot easier. It provides the ability to search and keep track of your favorite social networks. Searching with Xobni is a lot more powerful than the default search feature in Outlook. It let’s you drill down your searches to conversations, email, links, and attachments. It now supports Outlook 2010 both 32 & 64-bit versions. Installation & Setup Installation is easy following the wizard. After completing the wizard you can tell you’re friends on Facebook and Twitter that you are now using it. You can also decide to join their Product Improvement Program if you want. After installation when you open Outlook, Xobni appears as a sidebar on the right side. Don’t worry about it always being in the way, as you can hide it if you need more room for other Outlook functions. After Xobni free is installed, you can upgrade to the Plus version at any time. A new window will open up and you can use your Credit Card, PayPal, or redeem a code if you have one. Features & Use Where to begin with the amount of features available in Xobni Plus? It really has an amazing amount of cool features. Of course you’ll have all of the features of the Free Version which we previously covered…and a lot more. After Xobni is installed you’ll notice a section for it on the Ribbon. From here you can search Xobni, show or hide the Sidebar, and change other options. It allows you to easily keep up with various social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn… Check out email analytics and contact ranks. Click on the Files Exchanged tab to search for specific attachments. Quickly search links exchanged with your contacts. Hover over a link to get a preview of what it entails. It gives you the ability to index all of your Yahoo mail as well, without the need for purchasing Yahoo Plus! Then your Yahoo messages appear in the Xobni sidebar. When you select a contact you can see related messages from you Yahoo account. Easily index all of your mail…including Yahoo mail for better organization and faster search results. There are several options you can select to change the way Xobni works. From setting up your Yahoo email, Indexing options, and much more. Additional Features of Xobni Plus Advanced Search Capabilities – Filter results, Boolean & Phrase Search, Ability to search Appointments & Tasks, Advanced Search Builder Search unlimited PST data files Xobni contacts in the compose screen Find links exchanged with your contacts View calendar appointments One year premium tech support No Ads! Performance We ran Xobni Plus on Outlook 2010 32-bit on a Dual-Core AMD Athlon system with 4GB of RAM and found it to run quite smoothly. However, we did notice it would sometimes slow down launching Outlook, especially if other apps are running at the same time. Product Support When you buy a license for Xobni Plus you get a full year of premium tech support. They provide a Questions and Answers page on their site where you can run a search query and answers appear instantly. You can contact support directly as a Plus member through their web form and they advise the turn around time is 2 business days. However, when we tested it, we received a response within 24 hours. They also provide FAQ, Community forum, and you can download the Owners Manual in PDF format from the support page. Conclusion Xobni Plus is a very powerful addin for Outlook and includes a lot more features that we didn’t cover in this review. You can download Xobni free edition which includes an 8 day free trial of the Plus version. This provides a good way to start getting familiar with it. Then upgrade to Xobni Plus at any time for $29.95. Once you get started, you’ll find the sidebar is nicely laid out and intuitive to use. If you live out of Outlook during the day, Xobni Plus is a great addition for fast and powerful searches. It provides an easy way to keep all of your contacts and messages well organized and easy to find. Xobni Plus works with XP, Vista, and Windows 7 (32 & 64-bit editions) Outlook 2003, 2007 and both 32 & 64-bit editions of Outlook 2010. Download Xobni Plus Download Xobni Free Edition Rating Installation: 8 Ease of Use: 8 Features: 9 Performance: 8 Product Support: 8 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Xobni Free Powers Up Outlook’s Search and ContactsCreate an Email Template in Outlook 2003Add Social Elements to Your Gmail Contacts with RapportiveChange Outlook Startup FolderClear Outlook Searches and MRU (Most Recently Used) Lists TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 10 Superb Firefox Wallpapers OpenDNS Guide Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides

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• Use BGInfo to Build a Database of System Information of Your Network Computers

  - by Sysadmin Geek

  One of the more popular tools of the Sysinternals suite among system administrators is BGInfo which tacks real-time system information to your desktop wallpaper when you first login. For obvious reasons, having information such as system memory, available hard drive space and system up time (among others) right in front of you is very convenient when you are managing several systems. A little known feature about this handy utility is the ability to have system information automatically saved to a SQL database or some other data file. With a few minutes of setup work you can easily configure BGInfo to record system information of all your network computers in a centralized storage location. You can then use this data to monitor or report on these systems however you see fit. BGInfo Setup If you are familiar with BGInfo, you can skip this section. However, if you have never used this tool, it takes just a few minutes to setup in order to capture the data you are looking for. When you first open BGInfo, a timer will be counting down in the upper right corner. Click the countdown button to keep the interface up so we can edit the settings. Now edit the information you want to capture from the available fields on the right. Since all the output will be redirected to a central location, don’t worry about configuring the layout or formatting. Configuring the Storage Database BGInfo supports the ability to store information in several database formats: SQL Server Database, Access Database, Excel and Text File. To configure this option, open File > Database. Using a Text File The simplest, and perhaps most practical, option is to store the BGInfo data in a comma separated text file. This format allows for the file to be opened in Excel or imported into a database. To use a text file or any other file system type (Excel or MS Access), simply provide the UNC to the respective file. The account running the task to write to this file will need read/write access to both the share and NTFS file permissions. When using a text file, the only option is to have BGInfo create a new entry each time the capture process is run which will add a new line to the respective CSV text file. Using a SQL Database If you prefer to have the data dropped straight into a SQL Server database, BGInfo support this as well. This requires a bit of additional configuration, but overall it is very easy. The first step is to create a database where the information will be stored. Additionally, you will want to create a user account to fill data into this table (and this table only). For your convenience, this script creates a new database and user account (run this as Administrator on your SQL Server machine): @SET Server=%ComputerName%.@SET Database=BGInfo@SET UserName=BGInfo@SET Password=passwordSQLCMD -S “%Server%” -E -Q “Create Database [%Database%]“SQLCMD -S “%Server%” -E -Q “Create Login [%UserName%] With Password=N’%Password%’, DEFAULT_DATABASE=[%Database%], CHECK_EXPIRATION=OFF, CHECK_POLICY=OFF”SQLCMD -S “%Server%” -E -d “%Database%” -Q “Create User [%UserName%] For Login [%UserName%]“SQLCMD -S “%Server%” -E -d “%Database%” -Q “EXEC sp_addrolemember N’db_owner’, N’%UserName%’” Note the SQL user account must have ‘db_owner’ permissions on the database in order for BGInfo to work correctly. This is why you should have a SQL user account specifically for this database. Next, configure BGInfo to connect to this database by clicking on the SQL button. Fill out the connection properties according to your database settings. Select the option of whether or not to only have one entry per computer or keep a history of each system. The data will then be dropped directly into a table named “BGInfoTable” in the respective database.   Configure User Desktop Options While the primary function of BGInfo is to alter the user’s desktop by adding system info as part of the wallpaper, for our use here we want to leave the user’s wallpaper alone so this process runs without altering any of the user’s settings. Click the Desktops button. Configure the Wallpaper modifications to not alter anything.   Preparing the Deployment Now we are all set for deploying the configuration to the individual machines so we can start capturing the system data. If you have not done so already, click the Apply button to create the first entry in your data repository. If all is configured correctly, you should be able to open your data file or database and see the entry for the respective machine. Now click the File > Save As menu option and save the configuration as “BGInfoCapture.bgi”.   Deploying to Client Machines Deployment to the respective client machines is pretty straightforward. No installation is required as you just need to copy the BGInfo.exe and the BGInfoCapture.bgi to each machine and place them in the same directory. Once in place, just run the command: BGInfo.exe BGInfoCapture.bgi /Timer:0 /Silent /NoLicPrompt Of course, you probably want to schedule the capture process to run on a schedule. This command creates a Scheduled Task to run the capture process at 8 AM every morning and assumes you copied the required files to the root of your C drive: SCHTASKS /Create /SC DAILY /ST 08:00 /TN “System Info” /TR “C:\BGInfo.exe C:\BGInfoCapture.bgi /Timer:0 /Silent /NoLicPrompt” Adjust as needed, but the end result is the scheduled task command should look something like this:   Download BGInfo from Sysinternals Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Create Your Own Custom ASCII Art from Any Image How To Process Camera Raw Without Paying for Adobe Photoshop How Do You Block Annoying Text Message (SMS) Spam? How to Use and Master the Notoriously Difficult Pen Tool in Photoshop HTG Explains: What Are the Differences Between All Those Audio Formats? 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• How to force WinXP to ask for password before software installation/uninstall?

  - by crosenblum

  I really like some of the linux security measures it uses. So what i'd like to do is have WinXP Pro SP3 ask for my user password everytime i try to install/remove software. I know I can't make windows be as secure as linux, but i'd love to adopt some of the great ideas and measures used, as possible, to make windows more secure. Any suggestions? P.S. Are there other people out there, who try to make their windows feel more linux like? Just curious.

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• Automation of software installation - should I ask for text or file?

  - by Denis

  I am preparing a software installation in Windows environment for my application. During installation it asks for Subscriber ID which should be entered into text field. I am wondering if it is a best solution for mass installations. I know that for mass installations IT teams use systems like Microsoft System Center which allow automate deployment. But I do not know much about capabilities of such systems. Can such system automate data entry into the text fields? Will it be better to change installation process and ask not a text but a file which contains Subscriber ID? By the way, I am looking for beta testers for my software. This software let user view Microsoft Project files without having Microsoft Project installed.

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• How to ask Debian not to check last mount time of its file system?

  - by Landy

  I'm using Debian 6.0.5. To test a feature of my product, I need to modify the system date&time back and forth frequently. Once a time I set the system date back to one month ago, then I reboot the system, and it reported the last mount time of the file system is in the future and enter the maintenance mode automatically. I had to run the fsck to make sure the file system is not broken to boot into Debian. Is there any way to ask Debian stop checking the last mount time of its file system when booting? Thanks.

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