Remove data completely from hard drive

When you delete a file, the operating system does not really remove the file from the disk; it only removes the reference of the file from the file system table. The file remains on the disk until another file is created over it, and even after that, it might be possible to recover data by studying the magnetic fields on the disk platter surface.

Before the file is overwritten, anyone can easily retrieve it with a disk maintenance or an undelete utility.

Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. 


http://eraser.heidi.ie/download.php

Capture and interactively browse the traffic running on a computer network with WIRESHARK

Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer. It lets you capture and interactively browse the traffic running on a computer network. It has a rich and powerful feature set and is world's most popular tool of its kind. It runs on most computing platforms including Windows, OS X, Linux, and UNIX. Network professionals, security experts, developers, and educators around the world use it regularly. It is freely available as open source, and is released under the GNU General Public License version 2.

It is developed and maintained by a global team of protocol experts, and it is an example of a disruptive technology.

Features


Wireshark has a rich feature set which includes the following:

Deep inspection of hundreds of protocols, with more being added all the time

Live capture and offline analysis

Standard three-pane packet browser

Multi-platform: Runs on Windows, Linux, OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and many others

Captured network data can be browsed via a GUI, or via the TTY-mode TShark utility

The most powerful display filters in the industry

Rich VoIP analysis

Read/write many different capture file formats: tcpdump (libpcap), Pcap NG, Catapult DCT2000, Cisco Secure IDS iplog, Microsoft Network Monitor, Network General Sniffer® (compressed and uncompressed), Sniffer® Pro, and NetXray®, Network Instruments Observer, NetScreen snoop, Novell LANalyzer, RADCOM WAN/LAN Analyzer, Shomiti/Finisar Surveyor, Tektronix K12xx, Visual Networks Visual UpTime, WildPackets EtherPeek/TokenPeek/AiroPeek, and many others

Capture files compressed with gzip can be decompressed on the fly

Live data can be read from Ethernet, IEEE 802.11, PPP/HDLC, ATM, Bluetooth, USB, Token Ring, Frame Relay, FDDI, and others (depending on your platform)

Decryption support for many protocols, including IPsec, ISAKMP, Kerberos, SNMPv3, SSL/TLS, WEP, and WPA/WPA2

Coloring rules can be applied to the packet list for quick, intuitive analysis

Output can be exported to XML, PostScript®, CSV, or plain text


http://wiresharkdownloads.riverbed.com/video/wireshark/introduction-to-wireshark/

Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 will only install on Windows7

Microsoft confirmed to Computerworld that this was no accident, with a spokesperson saying "Windows Vista customers have a great browsing experience with IE9, but in building IE10 we are focused on continuing to drive the kind of innovation that only happens when you take advantage of the ongoing improvements in modern operating systems and modern hardware." IE10 will only install on Windows 7, leaving Windows XP and Windows Vista users out in the cold.
Whatever the real reason, this is a pretty raw deal for Windows Vista users. Not as bad as the Ultimate Extras farce, but bad all the same. It also means that when Microsoft released Internet Explorer 10, it is likely that it will support just one operating system, with a second, Windows 8, due later in 2012. The company is already being criticized for supporting a mere two operating systems with Internet Explorer 9. Cutting back to one, leaving Windows Vista users out in the cold, is hard to defend.

Related articles

• Internet Explorer 10 Drops Vista Support (tech.slashdot.org)

5 Obscure Google Services

Google Fast Flip:

Google Fast Flip is a service that lets users browse news, blogs and popular topics in a print magazine format. As the name suggests, flipping through content is very fast, so that users can browse through multiple articles until they find something they like. Fast Flip aggregates content from many top newspapers and magazines providing a seamless browsing experience. Apart from browsing various articles, users can also search for their favorite topics to get relevant articles. Fast Flip also has a mobile version that can be accessed at (http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/mobile) and it comes with tactile page flipping. The mobile version works well across most of the Android land iPhone devices.


Google Insights for search:

Google Insights is an interesting tool for comparing search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties. It helps in comparing search interests for products, movies,sports and almost anything that people search using Google. The user enters two or more search terms, which are each represented by different colors. The search volume data for those terms is then presented in the form of a neat graph; the Y-axis representing the search volume in percentage, and the X-axis representing the years from 2004 to 2011. A rising line indicates that the popularity of that particular term has risen over time. Besides the graph format, Insights shows a small map depicting regional interest for the term. The map is useful for gathering various types of statistics be it country-wise or city-wise.

Google Panoramio:

This is a great service that was acquired by Google in 2007. Panoramio is a community-powered site for exploring places through photography. It allows users explore cities, monuments, natural wonders and almost everything picturesque. However, the site should not be confused with services like Flickr and Picasa that allow users to post all types of photos.  Registration is free and anyone can submit the pictures they take, provided it doesn't include too many people in them. A mobile version of the site is available for iPhones and Windows 7 phones (third-party).


Google Patent Search:

As the name suggests, this service lets users search for patents on different topics. Particularly useful for research, Google Patent Search also allows users to explore and download patents from a variety of fields including Technology, Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and more. Users can read and download the patents in PDF format. Non-technical users might not find this particularly useful; however, exploring interesting patents like pacifier, Monopoly, and golf club is a great way to know more about simple devices we now take for granted.


Aardvark:

Aardvark is a social search service that helps people get their questions answered by connecting them to their friends or friends-of-friends via live chat. The user posts his or her question, and then Aardvark finds the perfect person to answer the question in the user's social network. Questions can be submitted via email or instant messaging. The Mechanical Zoo, a San Fransisco-based startup, originally owned aardvark before being acquired by Google for $50 million in 2010. The service appears very much similar to Quora; however, Aardvark, unlike Quora, works bests for subjective questions for which human judgment or recommendation is required.

SQL Azure : Import & Export data easily

SQL Azure database users have a simpler way to archive SQL Azure and SQL Server databases, or to migrate on-premises SQL Server databases to SQL Azure. Import and export services through the Data-tier Application (DAC) framework make archival and migration much easier.

The import and export features provide the ability to retrieve and restore an entire database, including schema and data, in a single operation. If you want to archive or move your database between SQL Server versions (including SQL Azure), you can export a target database to a local export file which contains both database schema and data in a single file. Once a database has been exported to an export file, you can import the file with the new import feature. Refer to the FAQ at the end of this article for more information on supported SQL Server versions.

A DAC, introduced in the Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 data management software and the Microsoft Visual Studio® 2010 development system, is a self-contained unit of deployment that defines and bundles database objects, SQL Server instance objects that are associated with the database, and deployment requirements of an application. Using DACs, developers and database administrators can automate and facilitate common operations and practices in the lifecycle of database systems.
Importing and exporting data between on-premises SQL Server and SQL Azure just got a lot easier, and you can get started today with the availability of the Microsoft SQL Server "Denali" Data-tier Application (DAC) Framework v2.0 Feature Pack CTP.

There are 3 important things about the update to the DAC framework:

1. New import & export feature: This DAC CTP introduces an import and export feature that lets you store both database schema and data into a single file with a ".bacpac" file extension, radically simplifying data import and export between SQL Server and SQL Azure databases with the use of easy commands.
2. Free: This functionality will be shipping in all editions of the next version of SQL Server "Denali"-including free SKUs-and everyone will be able to download it.
3. The Future = Hybrid Applications Using SQL Server + SQL Azure: Freeing information to move back and forth from on-premises SQL Server and SQL Azure to create hybrid applications is the future of data. The tools that ship with SQL Server "Denali" will use the DAC framework to enable data movement as part of normal management tasks.
The Data-tier Application (DAC) framework is a collection of database schema and data management libraries that are strategic to database management in SQL Server and SQL Azure. In this CTP, the new import and export feature allow for the retrieval and restoration of a full database, including schema and data, in a single operation.

Convert mp4 to mp3 ... Extract Audio from a Video file or a part of it

Pazera Free Video to 3GP Converter is the freeware application which converts the most popular videos (AVI, DivX, XviD, MPEG, MPG, WMV, ASF, MOV, QT, FLV, SWF, MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, MKV, VOB, DAT) into mobile phone video format (3GP or 3G2). The application allows you to convert full movie or selected range only. You can limit output file size and set many parameters used by encoder: audio and video BitRate, fps, resolution, sampling Frequency and other.

The most important features: 

Conversion from AVI, DivX, XviD, MPEG, MPG, WMV, ASF, MOV, QT, FLV, SWF, MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, MKV, VOB, VCD DAT to 3GP or 3G2. 
Supported video codecs: H.263, MPEG-4 AVC, XviD. 
Supported audio codecs: AMR-NB (AMR Narrowband) and AAC. 
Large number of options. 
2-pass encoding which will Improve the video qaulity. 
Saving and restoring encoder settings. 
Don't need any installation. Just Extract ZIP archive and click videoto3gp.exe. 
Portability. This program can be run from portable devices. 
Supported languages: english, polish. 
100% freeware! - for private and commercial use. No limitations, no watermarks, no adware, no spyware. 

Application to efficiently manage your iPod :Floola.com

Floola supports almost all features offered by iPods including photos, artwork, podcasts and smart playlists!

It automatically converts any incompatible audio or video file so that you can copy almost any file to it. It allows adding youtube and myspace videos with a single click. Now it even makes it possible to keep your Google calendars synched!

Manage Music, Videos, Podcast and Photos all in one simple app, anywhere on any computer.

Midomi : Use your voice to instantly search & connect to your favorite music

Midomi is a  really cool app to put a name to that tune that's been stuck in your head buzzing round and round, to figure out the unknown song or earworm bugging you which you can't get out of your mind, why not try midomi. Even if you can't remember the whole song, you can simply feed it the few notes you can remember. It's able to identify a song from a fragment of the melody, from just a few bars or lines..

It lets you search online for songs and other music in any of 6 languages, free. Just sing, hum, whistle, play etc the tune into your computer microphone or headset (or, in future, pick it out on an on-screen piano keyboard). And it actually works! What's more, it's a classic Web 2.0 service with user generated content and social networking for singers and music fans. Their searchable database of music (which their music recognition search engine uses for matching voice search queries) is 100% user-generated - it's been built up entirely by their registered members recording and submitting the music of their choice. And registered users can rate and comment on other members' renditions, share recordings they like, add recordings to their playlists etc, too. It also serves as a digital music store, if you want to buy the music that you've found through your search.
http://www.midomi.com