New CD/DVD drives can burn data at lightning fast speeds and can probably copy data from optical discs with startling quickness, but these sure can make a lot of noise. While the crackles and whirs of a noisy drive can be easily tolerated when burning an important backup disc, it can sure put a lid on the experience of listening to one’s favorite tracks or catching up on a weekend movie. Well, not any more. There are software tools available which can successfully bring down the racket caused by your optical drive to a fraction of the actual volume.

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The name “Malware” applies to a lot of different types of malicious software. A malware can have various undesirable effects, such as slowing down your PC, sending unsolicited e-mails to everyone in your address book, etc. What’s more, malwares can tap into critical system resources and shut down your PC or worst of all, scan through your hard disk and look for sensitive data, especially credit card information.

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You can take quite a few seconds off your boot up time in Windows® XP by automating the Windows log on process. Windows XP can store your login information in the registry, so that you do not have to type it every time you boot your PC. Be aware of the fact that, while the process is quite convenient, it will pose substantial security risk, especially if your PC is connected to a network. Anyone will be able to access your PC from the network, without even having to type in any password or user ID.

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Microsoft Cabinet (CAB) files are widely used in Microsoft Windows operating system, and also on various software installations designed for Windows operating system. These files are compressed using a specific compression technology designed by Microsoft, and are usually part of self extracting installation archives. When the archive is run, the CAB files are extracted automatically and put in specific folders. Apart from the standard CAB format created by Microsoft, CAB files can also be of several other standard formats. All CAB formats usually keep some space in the file header, in order to store important information, such as tag markers. For instance, Microsoft CAB files have a tag marker in the form MSCF.

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If you have ever purchased music from the iTunes store, you must have noticed that the files are in M4P format (with an extension of .m4p). These files are protected using the “Fairplay” DRM protection developed by Apple Computers, Inc. You cannot play these files using any other player, like mp3 players or any other portable players which were not made by Apple. You cannot even transfer the files to Windows Media Player.

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In the good old days of DOS, backing up your whole hard drive was a simple task. All you had to do was to insert a floppy disk into your disk drive and run the command “format /s” at the command prompt. The data files could be backed up by simply copying those manually into another floppy. However, those are things of the past now. These days, the most basic hard disks have around 80 GB of storage space.

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A boot disk can save you in case your PC refuses to boot up one fine morning. You can boot your PC using the disk and try to fix the problems, either by formatting the hard disk, or by running a System Restore (in case of Windows XP). System administrators and system engineers always carry a set of boot disks with them in order to manage emergency situations, where the malfunctioning PC needs to be up and running as soon as possible.

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