If you have a shared or public computer you might want to allow users to use only specified programs. Today we take a look at a setting in Local Group Policy that allows you to set only specified programs to run.

Note: This process uses Local Group Policy Editor which is not available in Home versions of Windows 7.

First click on Start and enter gpedit.msc into the search box and hit Enter.

Navigate to User Configuration Administrative Templates System. Then under Setting scroll down and double click on Run only specified Windows applications.

Set it to Enabled, then under the Options section click on the Show button next to List of allowed applications.

A Show Contents dialog comes up where you can type in the apps you want to allow users to run. When finished with the list, click OK then close out of Local Group Policy Editor.

If a user tries to access an application that is not on the specified list they will receive the following error message.

This is a nice feature for limiting what programs users can or cannot access on the computer.

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There are a lot of services these days that let you store files in “the cloud” and access them from virtually anywhere. These services are extremely handy, but what if you need a mobile operating system as well? Today we take a look at a couple of online operating systems that let you store your files and work on them as well.

Online operating systems are a good solution if you have say a Mac at home and PC at work. Or maybe certain features of Windows aren’t available on different machines you work on during the day. There are a lot of different scenarios where an online operating system could come in handy. Here we take a look at two such apps which have a lot of functionality and are free to use.

G.ho.st

This is a worthy free Web OS that gives you 15GB of storage and offers an office suite (powered by Zoho), sharing and collaboration, and access to your documents on a mobile device. The OS runs in a separate window of your browser and has a lot of neat functionality. Everything you do is saved and will be exactly the same no matter what computer you use to log into your account. The Go button acts like the Start menu on Windows and gives you access to all of the available apps and other utilities.

You can upload individual files, use the bulk uploader to transfer folders and large amounts of data, and they also offer a sync feature that will keep data on all of your machines and the G.ho.st OS synchronized. Another cool feature is getting 5GB of extra storage space for each friend or colleague you get to sing up for the service.

They offer the internal G.ho.st web browser which you could use as a security tool if you want to visit less than reputable sites without affecting your actual system.

It’s not all business either. There are some fun utilities included like a music player, it’s own email system, and links to social sites and games.

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G.ho.st Lite lets you access your documents and basic features from your mobile device.

Glide OS

The next one we’ll take a look at is Glide OS which offers a free account and has 20GB of storage and up to 6 different users. It offers a lot of the same functionality of G.ho.st with their own unique interface and other features.

You can change the layout to Glide HD which allows easier navigation to the different services and features.

There are different available office features that allow you to create documents and presentations and collaborate with others as well.

Here is an example of working on a Word document inside Glide OS.

You can go through different themes and customize your desktop.

Conclusion

Other advantages of a Web OS are there is nothing to install, no Antivirus to worry with, and files and documents are available anywhere you have a web connection. Also you don’t need to worry a whole lot about a machines specs, but rather the speed of your Internet connection. There are a few other online operating systems to choose from like iCloud, and each one has different features. You might want to try each of them out to find the one that suites your needs. If you’re constantly moving from computer to computer to get work done, you may want to check out a Web OS. If nothing else, they are geeky and fun to play with.

Gh.os.t Web Operating System

Glide OS Web Operating System

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Have you been waiting to get Firefox’s Auto-Paging extension goodness in Google Chrome? Well your wait is over. Now you can enjoy skipping those Next Buttons with the AutoPager Chrome extension.Have you been waiting to get Firefox’s Auto-Paging extension goodness in Google Chrome? Well your wait is over. Now you can enjoy skipping those Next Buttons with the AutoPager Chrome extension.

Before

Usually if you are browsing you often run into those lovely little “Numbers” or “Next Buttons” at the bottom of webpages. And if you are like most people that is just irritating! You want to browse not waste all of your time “clicking numbers or next buttons”… Time to fix that problem.

Installation

Once you start installing the extension you will have to click on “Install” in the confirmation message window to finish adding it to Chrome.

Once the installation has finished you will have a new tab open with the homepage for the extension. Notice the link for the forums at the top of the page and the download links for Stable/Dev releases in Stable and Lite versions.

If you need to access the options you will have to use the “Chrome Extensions Page”.

At the moment there are few options available…mainly enabling or disabling the extension and updating/importing.

AutoPager Chrome in Action

Here is our same search from earlier…certainly no need to click on numbers or text to access the next page now.

Still looking good at the break between pages 14 and 15…

Even here at the HTG site the browsing is oh so smooth.

Conclusion

If you are tired of not having auto-paging capabilities in Google Chrome then you will really want to add this extension to your browser. This is definitely a recommended install.

Links

Download the AutoPager Chrome extension (Google Chrome Extensions)

Download the AutoPager Chrome extension (Extension Homepage)

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Are you looking for a way to monitor multiple Google Services with just one extension instead of many? Then you will definitely want to take a look at the One Number extension for Chrome.

Installation & Setup

As you are installing One Number you will need to click on “Install” in the confirmation message window to finish adding it to Chrome.

As soon as the installation has finished you will see your new “Toolbar Button” and a short extension management message. Notice that there is already an “Unread Count Number” visible with the “Toolbar Button”. To make certain that you have the most accurate “Unread Count” you will need to go into the “Options” first thing.

There are two ways to access the “Options” for the extension. The first is in the drop-down window for the “Toolbar Button”…

And the second is through the “Chrome Extensions Page”.

All of the “Options” are shown here in expanded form. The first thing to check for is to see if you would like to change the “Server Query Interval”…

Note: If you decide to change any colors you will need to manually enter the new “Color Code”.

The second thing that you should definitely enable if you use “Filters” in your Gmail account is the “Check for any unread messages, not just in the Inbox” option. This one made an immediate difference in our “Unread Count”.

The same recommendation applies to Google Voice.

One Number in Action

You can see that there were two additional items added to our “Unread Count” (from 75 to 77) after modifying the “Options”. When you open the drop-down window this is how it will look. There is a small toolbar of sorts across the top and each service is nicely stacked in its’ own “section”. You can see the number of unread items and a brief view of the first item(s) for each service.

If you only want to focus on one service at a time click on the link for that service and a new tab will be opened to the appropriate Google webpage.

Want to open tabs for all of the unread items at the same time? Then click on “Open Unread”…

Three services with unread items and three new tabs opened up.

Conclusion

If you are looking for an easy way to monitor your favorite Google services then you will definitely want to try this extension.

Links

Download the One Number extension (Google Chrome Extensions)

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You’re probably wondering what the mobsyc.exe process is doing running in Task Manager or why there’s a green and yellow icon in the Notification Area. Here we will take a look at what it is, and how to disable it if you don’t use the feature.

Note: This process disables the Offline Files feature which is not available in Home versions of Vista or Windows 7

What Is It?

Mobsync.exe is a process that belongs to Microsoft Sync Center and the Offline Files feature. It’s associated with a device like a Windows Mobile phone with ActiveSync, a SQL Server installation, or if you have Internet Explorer (a feature in IE 6 not in IE7 or above) set to synchronize pages for viewing offline. The process is not a threat and shouldn’t be deleted if you’re using the feature. If you go into Control Panel, you can launch Sync Center and manage its settings.

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If it gets activated for using Offline Files, it will show up in the taskbar in Vista and Windows 7.

How Do I Turn it Off?

So you’re? not sure how the heck it got turned on, and want it off. You could go into Task Manager each time and end the process, but that is extremely annoying.

Disable mobsync.exe in Windows 7

Click on the Start Menu and enter offline files into the search box and hit Enter.

In the Offline Files window click the Disable offline files button then click Ok.

You’ll need to restart the computer for the new setting to take effect. After a reboot, the Sync Center icon should be gone and not be running in Task Manger.

Disable in Vista

Open Control Panel and select Network and Internet.

Next click on Offline Files.

In the Offline Files window, click on the Disable Offline Files button?and click Ok.

A restart is required and after that, it should be disabled and you won’t see it in the Taskbar or running in Task Manager.

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If you have a home version of Vista or Windows 7, you will see mobsync.exe running in task manager, but closing out of Sync Center should stop the process. If you were using Sync Center and ActiveSync to manage a mobile device and no longer need it, you can uninstall ActiveSync software and it should stop mobsync.exe as well.

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If you’ve got a PC infected by the Antivirus Live virus, you’ve got a tough job ahead of you to remove it. And we’ve got the instructions to help.

Antivirus Live is one of many fake antivirus applications that are really rogue viruses that take your computer hostage—then they tell you that your computer is infected by viruses, and you have to pay them to get rid of the fake viruses that aren’t really there. It’s a huge problem, and they are not easy to remove, because they block virtually everything you try and run, including real anti-malware tools.

Removing Rogue Fake Antivirus Infections

There’s a couple of steps that you can generally follow to get rid of the majority of rogue antivirus infections, and actually most malware or spyware infections of any type. Here’s the quick steps:

• Reboot your PC into safe mode with networking (use F8 right before Windows starts to load)
• Install SuperAntiSpyware and run it. (see our previous article on how to use it)
• Reboot your PC and go back into safe mode with networking.
• Install MalwareBytes and run it, doing a full system scan. (see our previous article on how to use it).
• Reboot your PC again, and run your normal Antivirus application (we recommend Microsoft Security Essentials).
• At this point your PC is usually clean.

Note that some malware will block you from using safe mode. That usually requires another set of steps that we won’t cover here.

Let’s Remove Antivirus Live

The first thing you’ll want to do is reboot your computer, and hit the F8 key right before Windows starts loading (you can hit it a bunch of times). Then select the Safe Mode with Networking option.

Before you do anything else, you’re going to need to fix the internet connection to work, because Antivirus Live changes IE to use a fake proxy server that prevents you from getting to anything else—and will also prevent you from installing and updating a real anti-malware software.

Now you’ll want to install SuperAntiSpyware (linked above), which you have hopefully downloaded via another computer already, but safe mode with networking should allow you to download and install it.

Once you load it up, it’s going to do some analysis…

Then you’ll see the full application screen, where you’ll want to use the Check for Updates button to make sure you have the latest definitions. Once you’ve done that, click the Scan your Computer button.

Select your primary drive at least, though you should pick all the drives, and then click the Perform Complete Scan button.?

It’ll run for a long time, detect a bunch of stuff, and then you can proceed through the wizard to actually removing it all…

Once it’s all done, you can reboot the PC again (just make sure to go back into Safe Mode again).

Next you’ll want to install Malwarebytes, make sure to check the Update tab for the latest definitions, and then perform a full scan of your system.

Malwarebytes will find even more malware that SuperAntiSpyware missed (seems like you always need more than one util to get it all). Just be sure to click the Remove Selected button to get rid of the rest.

At this point you’ll want to reboot your system, and then install Microsoft Security Essentials and run another full scan. Can’t hurt to be too cautious!

Note: If you used a thumb drive at any point during this process, you should make sure and scan that as well—I’ve had viruses hop over to the thumb drive, ready to infect the next machine.

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Are you looking for a good alternative to the New Tab Page in Google Chrome? Then you will definitely want to take a closer look at the Speed Dial extension.

Installation

The only thing that you will need to do during the installation process is click on “Install” in the confirmation message window to finish adding Speed Dial to Chrome.

Note: Speed Dial automatically replaces the default New Tab Page.

Once installation has been finished you will be presented with an “Information Tab” for the extension.

A closer look at the details for using the Speed Dial extension…

Note that you can not access the options for Speed Dial through the “Chrome Extensions Page” at this time. Access is through the main Speed Dial page itself.

Speed Dial in Action

When you open a new tab for the first time this is how Speed Dial will look. Notice that you can easily access the options, use a Google Search Box, have 12 “starter” dial-boxes, and a Recently Closed Tabs Bar.

You should go ahead and take a look at the options first. You will be able to make quite a few changes such as the number of rows (maximum of 6), number of columns (maximum of 6), add a background image (web based only at the moment), choose a background color, and/or deactivate the “Search Box, Recently Closed Tabs Bar, & Page Titles for the dial-boxes”.

To set a color for the background all that you have to do is click on the color that you like best.

If you prefer to have a background image all that you will need is the URL for the image and to click on the “Set Button”.

Here is the Speed Dial Page on our example browser right after a few tweaks…already starting to look very nice.

Whenever you find a webpage that you want to add to Speed Dial simply click on the “Address Bar Icon” to access the drop-down menu. Click on “Add Current Page” to add that particular webpage. Clicking on “Open” will open up the Speed Dial page itself.

Here is the “Right Click Menu” for the dial-boxes…

Note: You can also “drag and drop” the dial-boxes to switch them around to best suit your personal needs.

Here is our example browser’s Speed Dial page all filled up. Definitely looking good.

Conclusion

If you have been less than happy with the default New Tab Page in Google Chrome then you should definitely give this extension a try. You will not be sorry that you did.

Links

Download the Speed Dial extension (Google Chrome Extensions)

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Tired of the multiple actions required just to set up a proper link while writing articles or your blog? Now you can super simplify the process with the Copy as HTML Link extension for Firefox.

Before

If you have ever wanted to link to something great that you have found on the web you have to go through a lot of hassle to do it. Copy the text part, copy the webpage address, then start pasting everything into the new link you are formatting/creating. Once in a while is not bad but it can be frustrating if you have to do that a lot every day while writing your blog or articles. What if you could super simplify the entire process and save valuable time throughout the day?

After

Once you have installed the extension you are ready to go. For our first example we decided to copy the title of this article by highlighting the text, right clicking, and selecting ”Copy as HTML Link”.

Note: This does not work for images.

Followed by pasting into Notepad. There is the article title and webpage link already fixed into a pre-formatted link setup.

What if you are interested in a small section of the text (or a quote)? The extension works just as nicely for this too. Select, copy…

And paste. It really does not get much simpler than that for setting up links.

Conclusion

If you have a lot of links to set up each day for your writing, then the Copy as HTML Link extension will certainly make the process as pain-free as possible.

Links

Download the Copy as HTML Link extension (Mozilla Add-ons)

Download the Copy as HTML Link extension (Extension Homepage)

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Are you looking looking for an “Alt+Tab” replacement that adds functionality, cool eye candy, and isn’t the annoying Windows Flip 3D? Today we take a look at T3Desk, which is a free utility for managing application windows on your desktop.

Using T3Desk

This is a very cool free app that lets you manage applications on your desktop in 3D. You have the ability to to move them around, flip them, zoom in and out, stack on top of each other, control transparency, and more.

From the main menu you can go through and change options, manage how it starts, read FAQ, and more.

To make an application window 3D, right-click on the Minimize button. Here we show Firefox open in its normal 2D look.

Now the 3D window after right-clicking on Minimize.

You can move the 3D application windows around and stack them on top of each other.

Using the scroll wheel on your mouse allows you to zoom in and zoom out on different windows.

Here you can see several windows apps that are open and stacked on top of each other. One the Cakewalk app is maximized a bit, with medium transparency all on top of Internet Explorer.

Hover your mouse pointer over the icon on the taskbar to get a view of everything that is running.

Right-click on the app on the desktop to get the option to restore to full screen, close, or change the T3 Desk options.

It will run on all versions of Windows, but running it on Vista or Windows 7 will allow it to take advantage of Aero. Here is an example of it running on an XP machine.

Right-click on the icon in the Taskbar for a menu to restore all to their 2D state or make them all 3D and access other items.

There are several options you can change to customize the look and feel of T3 Desk. There are also some nice Hot Key combinations for the Keyboard Ninja.

Conclusion

T3 Desk is an fun and interesting way to manage multiple applications on your screen. It’s also more than just eye candy as it can actually be functional in easily increasing productivity. It will run on XP, Vista, and Windows 7 and takes up few system resources. If you’re annoyed by Aero Flip 3D or looking for an Alt+Tab replacement, T3 Desk is worth a try.

Download T3Desk

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You’re probably reading this article because you’re frustrated with that CCC.exe process running in Task Manager, and you’d like to know how to get rid of it, or at least understand what it’s there for.

For example, you’ll see the process here wasting memory in Task Manager…

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So What Is It?

CCC stands for Catalyst Control Center, and it’s part of your ATI video card driver package—or to be more specific, it’s part of the utilities bundled along with the drivers, and adds features like customizing your display, or setting hotkeys for different display profiles. As long as the ccc.exe utility is installed into your Program FilesATI Technology directory, it’s a legit process that can be left alone.

It’s also responsible for that icon cluttering up your system tray:

Once you’ve launched the full Control Center, you’ll see a screen similar to this one (depending on your driver version).

On my test system, there was no startup item anywhere for this process. Depending on your driver version, it’s possible that it would be included in startup and could be removed.

Get Rid of the Tray Icon

You can remove the icon easily by clicking Options –> Preferences –> Enable System Tray Menu to turn it off. Sadly, this won’t usually get rid of the process that’s running, but at least it’ll save a few resources and keep your system tray cleaner.

Note that depending on your driver version, this setting might be in a different place, but it should definitely be in there.?

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Depending on your driver version, it’s possible this might remove the process—it didn’t on my laptop, however.

Totally Uninstall CCC.exe (and the ATI Control Panel)

You can completely get rid of the whole thing by simply going to Uninstall programs in Control Panel, and just removing it from there using the wizard—you’ll want to make sure to keep the display driver installed, and just remove the ATI Catalyst Control Panel.

You can also totally uninstall the entire package, and then reinstall without selecting the control panel. It’s up to you.

Install ATI Drivers Manually

Depending on how you removed the ATI components, you might need to re-install your drivers (without installing Catalyst). You can do so in Device Manager by right-clicking on the display driver and choosing Update Driver Software.

Once the wizard has opened, you can allow Windows to search automatically (if you aren’t a gamer this usually works pretty well). Otherwise, you can download the drivers manually, extract them to a folder, and then click the ‘Browse my computer for driver software”.

Then choose the location you uninstalled the software to, and make sure to click “Include subfolders” when checking for the driver.

Temporarily Kill CCC.exe the Easy Way

If you’d rather keep the ATI utilities installed because you use them, you can setup a shortcut to automatically kill CCC.exe whenever you want… just create a new shortcut to the following:

taskkill /f /im ccc.exe

You could even try putting this into your startup folder… or create a scheduled task instead. This is the safest and easiest method to get rid of the process without breaking anything else.

Drastic Steps You Shouldn’t Take

If you want to keep all the ATI stuff installed, but want to get rid of CCC.exe, you could simply rename the file to CCC.bak instead. This will keep the process from running, but obviously is going to break anything that would be trying to use it. Keep this as the last resort, and you should probably disable the tray item before you do this.

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