Connecting HDMI cables can be quite easy if you follow a few simple steps.

Make sure before beginning, that you do in fact have the appropriate cable. If you do not, then the process won’t work anyway. This can easily be done by consulting the manual for your devices. Once you have the HDMI cables you need, and then locate the connection ports on your equipment. Additionally, you will need to find the connectors which can be found on the HDMI cable. The ports found on your equipment are always known as female. On the other hand, the connectors found on the HDMI cables are referred to as male.

Next, you must connect your equipment by utilizing the correct port. The HDMI cable should serve to link up the ports between two different devices. You will plug into the output port on one device and the input port on the other. Be careful as to which ports you use. Often many devices will also include a set of ports for component cables. These transmit analog signals unlike the digital signals from HDMI cables. It is very easy to accidentally plug into one of these component ports. Always make sure you’ve plugged into the HDMI ports. Once you have connected the cable into the ports, check for a secure connection. Without a secure connection, the signals might not properly transmit effecting the operation of the device.

Some devices, like computers, are not built to be compatible with HDMI cables. If this is your situation, you can purchase an adaptor which can make your computer compatible with HDMI cables. Another option is to upgrade the video card within your computer. Many of the newer video cards do support HDMI technology.

If you want to view these cables or need any more information visit lindy.co.uk

Till now I have written a lot of Windows 7 Tweaking articles like What is the Windows Experience Index and How To tweak it and How To Format USB drive into NTFS format, today after a long time I am writing a Windows Security based article, First I was about to write a complete tutorial on it but than I find a screen cast at Technet which completely explains what is AppLocker and How to use it. So in this Post I have just provided a small overview of AppLocker and had attached a Screen cast at the end of post.

As the name says, AppLocker restrict/locks applications from running on Windows 7 desktops by locking them. For e.g. you can lock application like Chat Messenger, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, Notepad etc. AppLocker supports three types of rules – Path Rules, File Hash Rules, and Publisher Rules.

Path Rules enable you to restrict the execution of programs to a certain directory path.
Hash Rules use a cryptographic hash of the executable to identify a legitimate program.
Publisher Rules identify an application based on a digital signature of the application that was issued by the publisher.

Powerful, yet easy to administer

Windows 7 offers new application control policies with AppLocker, a flexible, easy-to-use mechanism that enables IT professionals to specify exactly what is allowed to run on user desktops. AppLocker restricts unauthorized software while allowing applications, installation programs, and scripts that users need. With this capability, IT professionals can realize the security, operational, and compliance benefits of application standardization.

AppLocker Screencast by Aviraj Ajgekar

This screencast provides technical guidance on how AppLocker works and how to effectively plan and deploy AppLocker policies.

AppLocker is available in Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 Ultimate, and Windows 7 Enterprise.

In computer networking, a port is an application-specific or process-specific software construct serving as a communications endpoint used by Transport Layer protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite, such as Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP). A specific port is identified by its number, commonly known as the port number, the IP address it is associated with, and the protocol used for communication. – Wikipedia

As I said these ports are used to transfer data mainly, but since you can’t see them you aren’t aware which posts are open. For eg if you are using http or in simple language if you are using internet for surfing websites than your port 80 is opened.

But what’s in it? What will happen if I let my ports open? Before answering that note this – some posts are meant to be opened for eg Port 80 for Http and Port 25  for sending and receiving mail etc, but not all. A Hacker may open some of your closed port and initiate data transfer without letting you know. So if you ever get a warning bu your AntiVirus or want to see which all ports are open than you can head up to canyouseeme.org

This page will serve as a free utility for remotely verifying a port is open or closed. It will be useful for users who wish to check to see if a server is running or a firewall or ISP is blocking certain ports. But to check the ports first you need to know thw port no and this List will help you.

Old Article Series – Till my exams are over i.e. 7th Jan

How to install Windows Server 2003 on my PC?  Before starting take a quick look on what is Virtual PC, this article gives you a detailed step by step procedure on how to install windows server on you machine by using Virtual PC 2007.

Microsoft Virtual PC (renamed Windows Virtual PC for the Windows 7 release) is a visualization program for Microsoft Windows operating systems – Wikipedia

In this tutorial I will tell you how to install Windows Server 2003 on a Host PC by using Microsoft Virtual PC 2007.

Pre-Requisites-

• Microsoft Virtual PC 2007
• Windows Server 2003 Bootable CD or ISO image
• 65536 MB of free space
• 256 MB of Memory

How To:
1. First open Microsoft Virtual PC 2007.

2. Click on New

3. A New Virtual Machine Wizard dialog box will appear click Next

4.Under Options menu select Create a Virtual Machine and click Next

5. Under Virtual Machine Name and Location menu Give your Virtual machine a neame say Server 2003 and than click on Browse to save the vierual machine, when done click Next

6. Now from drop down menu select Windows Server 2003 and click Next

7. Select Using the Recommended memory and click Next

8. Selcet a new Virtual Hard Disk and click Next

9. Under Name and Location tab keep the default settings as it is and click Next and than click Finish

Till now you have created Basic settings for Virual Machine, now its time to install the Virtual machine which in this case is Windows Server 2003.
To install Server 2003 follow the given steps-

1. After doing all the above steps you will get the following screen

2. Now click on your newly created Virtual machine i.e. Server 2003 and click on Start

3. Now the following screen will appear

4. Now you have got 2 options either use Bootable CD/DVD or use ISO image
In case you have got CD, Click on CD menu and choose the Physical Drive (your CD/DVD drive) else choose ISO image and Browse and choose the ISO file.

5. As soon as the console detect the CD or ISO image the following screen will appear on your screen. Click on F8 key to boot in Text mode

6. Now select 1, as in my CD choosing option 1 will insatll Server 2003

7. Now when you see EULA click F8, if F8 don’t work try CTRL+ALT+F8, if this too don’t work than look for Function key in you Keyboard, turn it On and than click F8.

8. Now in next screen you can either partition your Virtual Hard Disk or simply install it on the default C: drive without partioning. If you don’t want to partition go to step 10

9. For partioning click press C

• Give the amount of space to new partion and hit enter

10. Click on the partion you want to install your Server and hit Enter

11. Now select Format Format the partition using NTFS system

12. Now setup will start Formatting the system

13. After setup format the system and installed necessary files it will again Reboot, now again you have press F8 to boot in Text mode.

14. This time press ESC to boot from Hard Disk

15. Server 2003 will begin installing on the Virtual HD

16. Setup the following dialog boxes as they occur.

Regional and Language option

Personalize your Software

Your product key

Licensing Mode

Computer name and Administrator password

Date and Time settings

Network Settings

Now wait for 30 minutes so that server will install,

Now here are the final screenshots

I hope you understand how to install Windows Server 2003 by using Virtual PC 2007, similarly you can install any other Operating System (Linux or any other Windows OS) by using the same procedure, as you all know how to install an OS. If you need any kind of support feel free to ask your queries.

Got Confused…Ok let me explain this is in simple non technical terms (as far as I can). You use Internet right. So how do you access any website, by entering its domain name like www.beingpc.com in any of your favorite browser and hitting enter. But the inside story is different.

When you try to access any webpage in our case www.beingpc.com your computer resolves this domain name (website URL) into IP Address with the help of the Domain Name Server. By default, Windows uses your ISP’s DNS server.

So in short, to open a website Windows need to resolve the domain name to IP Address by looking it in Domain Server provided by your ISP. So the faster your PC resolve the faster you get connected. So this is where Google Public DNS helps, it helps you resolves the domain names into IP Address faster than other.

More Detailed Explanation

Performance comparison of OpenDNS and Google DNS

Setup Google DNS on your Computer

If you would like to setup Google DNS on your Computer than follow the steps below:

Go to Start > Control Panel

Select Network And Internet > Network & Sharing Center

In the left pane click on Change Adapter Settings

Right Click on Local Area Connections and select properties

Adapter setting

Select Internet Protocol Version 4 and click on Properties

Now set the Ip Addresses as below

Preferred DNS Server: 8.8.8.8.

Alternate DNS Server: 8.8.4.4

So what were your results did you got any speed?? Share your thoughts