There is no doubt that all of the security features in Windows Vista will help keep your computer secure.  However, these features become less valuable when they are not turned on by default.  One feature, known as user account auditing, is not turned on by default. With this feature is turned off, anyone with physical access or remote access to through a hole in your firewall (such an opening for Remote Desktop) can use a brute force attack against your user account for as long as they want without getting noticed at all.   How? The default audit security policy is configured to not log any account logon events, successful or failed.

This allows an attacker to try to hack your accounts for as long as it takes to break in.  There are a few ways to protect against this that I am going to go over in my next article about the Account Lockout policy.  But first, it is important to turn on this account auditing so that you can see who may be trying to break into your accounts.  After you have adjusted the auditing security policy, you will be able to see any account attacks including the account that they tried to logon with and where the request came from.

Let's get started and turn on audition for failed logon events:

1. Click on the Start Button and key in secpol.msc in the box and hit Enter.
2. Navigate through Local Policies and Audit Policy.
3. Right click on Audit account logon events policy and select Properties.
4. Check the Failure box and hit OK.
5. Right click on Audit logon events policy and select Properties.
6. Check the Failure box and hit OK. Your screen should now look like the figure below:
   
7. Close Local Security Policy editor.

Your computer has now been configured to log all failed user account logon attempts. 

Once you have turned on account auditing, you can view the logs in Event Viewer (run eventvwr.msc) under Windows Logs and Security.

In Windows Vista it is now possible to resize partitions without any data loss in the new Disk Management console.

Resizing Partitions with Windows Vista:

1. Click on the Start Button and right click on Computer and select Manage.
2. Expand the Storage section and select Disk Management.
3. Then just right click on any partition and select either Expand or Shrink to change the size of the partition.

This will allow you to safely resize your partitions without any data loss.

The indexing service in Windows Vista is responsible for making those search boxes all over the operating system lightening fast. By default Windows automatically indexes all files in your user profile folders, start menu and any files you have setup for offline access. If you have a lot of files in these locations and the files change often you can be putting a heavy load on the indexing service.  For maximum performance when using Windows Vista I recommend disabling indexing for all other locations other than the Start Menu.  This will lessen the background work that Windows Vista has to do.  It will also slow down your searches of other locations but that is the price you must pay for this performance benefit.

Follow these steps to tweak the indexing locations:

1. Click on the Start Button and key in Indexing Options and hit Enter. Indexing Options will now load. 
   
2. Hit the Modify button.
3. Next, click on Show all locations.
4. Scroll through the tree-view and uncheck any folders you do not want to be indexed.  When you are finished, click OK.
5. If you want to change advanced indexing settings such as what file types are indexed click on the Advanced button. Otherwise hit Close.

Do you have a SATA disk drive in your computer? If so, you can squeeze a little more performance out of your hard disk.  This speeds up the performance of your hard disk by enhancing write caching. However, if your computer is not connected to a battery backup and you loose power you have a increased risk for data loss or corruption. If you have a laptop your chances are data loss or corruption are dramatically less since your laptop battery will kick on if your power source is lost. Let's get started:

1. Click on the Start Button and key in Device Manager and hit Enter.
2. Expand Disk Drives.
3. Right click on your hard drive and select Properties.
4. On the Policies tab, check Enable advanced performance.
5. Hit OK and close Device Manager.

Q: What perf do you need on your device?
A: 2.5MB/sec throughput for 4K random reads and 1.75MB/sec throughput for 512K random writes
Q: My device says 12MB/sec (or 133x or something else) on the package but windows says that it isn't fast enough to use as a ReadyBoost device... why?
A: Two possible reasons:

1. The numbers measure sequential performance and we measure random. We've seen devices that have great sequential perf, but horrible random
2. The performance isn't consistantly fast across the entire device. Some devices have 128M of lightning fast flash and the rest of the device is really slow. This is fine for some applications but not ReadyBoost.

Filed under: Windows Vista

ReadyBoost helps your computer by giving it more high-speed memory.  If your computer is running low on RAM then it has to kick a lot of applications out of high-speed physical memory to the paging file on your hard drive.  This usually results in a big hit in performance and increased activity on your hard drive. ReadyBoost helps this situation by giving Windows an alternative to having to stick data into the slow paging file on your hard drive. Instead, ReadyBoost uses a USB storage device that is faster than a hard disk. This results in a performance boost because Windows will have a high speed alternative than using the slow paging file on your hard drive.

In order for ReadyBoost to work, it requires a USB storage device that meets minimum performance and space requirements:

• The device must be at least 64 MB
• The device must be USB 2.0
• It has to be able to read at 3.5 MB/s
• It has to be able to write at 2.5 MB/s

If you are unsure if your USB storage device meets these requirements, just give it a try anyways. To get started using ReadyBoost, follow these steps:

1. Plug in USB storage device.
2. Go to Computer and right click on the removable storage device and select Properties.
3. If your device is compatible, you will see a ReadyBoost tab. Click on that.
4. Select Use this device and select the amount of space on it you want to dedicate for the ReadyBoost system file.
5. Click OK and you are finished.

The new sidebar in Windows Vista provides many opportunities to present the user with information. For those of you that like to monitor your system performance, the sidebar is the perfect place to run various performance monitoring gadgets. Windows Vista ships with a simple CPU and Memory usage gadget, however, there are many more gadgets out there that are much more useful and help you monitor almost every aspect of Windows.

1. Wireless Signal and IP Address Gadget

This gadget displays your wireless network information such as it's status, signal strength and security. This gadget also displays your internal IP and gives you a direct link to your router's / wireless gateway's web based control panel.

2. Battery Meter Gadget

Monitor the battery level of your laptop with this gadget.  This gadget provides a much more accurate level reading than the tiny system tray icon.

3. Multi-Meter Gadget

Info shown: - Cpu usage % ( 2 cores ) - Ram Usage % - Ram info ( Total, used, left size) - Status bars animated above 90% - 100 Skins + background selection

4. Uptime Gadget

This gadget allows you to see how much time has passed since you last restarted your computer.

5. Free Space Gadget

This gadget monitors your PC's drives and shows you the available space for those you've selected

For those of you have have the aero glass interface on your computer, it is possible to hold down the shift key while closing, opening, and minimizing a windows to see the animation in slow motion.  If you would like to test this out, just follow the steps below:

1. Open up Regedit.
2. Navigate thru HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software, Microsoft and Windows.
3. Create a new KEY called DWM if it is not aleady there.
4. Create a new DWORD called AnimationsShiftKey inside the DWM folder.
5. Set the new DWORD that you just created to a value of 1.
6. Run net stop uxsms at administrative rights command prompt followed by net start uxsms to restart the DWM engine.

Once you have restarted the DWM engine, just hold down the shift key to see any of the window animations in slow motion.

Tip: Hold down shift and start Flip 3D

Here are two quick reg hacks for customizing the appearance of ClearType screen font smoothing:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

FontSmoothingOrientation = 1, 2 or 3

FontSmoothingGamma = Between 1000 to 2000

In your system tray you will find the Network and Sharing Center icon that allows you to easily connect and disconnect network connections and view your connection status. With the help of a simple tweak, you can animate the icon so that it shows when your connections are actively transferring data.

It is very easy to turn on icon animation, just right click on the network icon next to the clock and select Turn on activity animation.

Overnight Microsoft released Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 to the Microsoft download center for public download.  Previously Service Pack 2 was only available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers.

In other news anti-Windows fanboys international issued a press release requesting all members trade in "Windows 7 is Vista SP2" t-shirts for updated Vista SP3 apparel.

Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista - Standalone DVD ISO

Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista - x64 Based Systems (64-bit)

Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista - x86 Based Systems (32-bit)

Service Pack 2 Changes

Nearly four hectares of land owned by the villagers of Surajpur area of Bardiya district has been taken over by the Indian side for as long as five years.

The land located in the middle of Nepal-India border pillar no. 62/63 was reportedly encroached by Indian Forest Department and Indian Survey Department of bordering Nanapara, prohibiting the owners from earning their own land. The encroached land is owned by 86 people of Surajpur. The landowners have said that the Indian authority have set up a camp for its border security force Seema Surakshya Bal (SSB) close to the encroached land.

"SSB men have threatened to gun us down if we try to till our own land," said Krishna Gopal Gupta, one of the victims. "The Indian side claims that the land belongs to them."

The victims say that the encroachment of Nepali soil by the Indain began in 2001. As the most part of the border area is covered with forest, the encroachment of land from the Indian side has gone unnoticed so far.

Sahadad Ali Dhobi, local of Gulariya Municipality-9, claims that more than 1.3 hectares of his land at Surajpur is under the Indian occupation since past five years. "I reached out to the District Administration Office and local political parties asking them to free my land but they did not hear my plight."

Other claimants also say that the local administration did not take any initiative to free the encroached land.

Current Chief District Officer (CDO) of Bardiya Bed Bahadur Karki said that he had no idea about the encroachment issue.

"The complaints must have been made to the previous officer. As far as I am concerned I have not received such reports whatsoever."

Former CDO Keshav Sharma had told the victims that talks are underway with the Indian side on the matter but no step has been taken as of now to free the encroached land.

Two years ago, a joint survey team from Nepal and India had inspected the area along border pillar no. 62/63 and concluded that the area was disputed but no action was initiated to sort out the issue.   

The district-based political parties have appealed the government to look into the matter immediately and find out a solution.

Posted on: 2009-06-14 08:38:54 (Server Time)

FINANCE ko exam thyo khattam grade aauncha, C aauncha bore bhayo….

Its already 3 AM and still I'm not able to finish my theory parts of finance. 10:00 AM ma exam cha. Felt bored and now I'm hanging in my notebook posting a blog. WOW what a way..

New Nepal referred as ‘Naya Nepal’. People’s desire to out throw a monarchy and create a new Nepal naming as Democratic Republic Nepal aka loktantra Nepal something like that, excuse me actually I also don’t know the proper meaning of loktantra.

New Nepal, new government and every new commitments made by our new government. Has any of those commitments been fulfilled by our new government? Past government also couldn’t fulfill and how can current government fulfill it. Violence is spurring everywhere, peoples are been kidnapped and killed for simple reason and our new government says we’ve established peace in the country. What a joke?

It seems that we’ve forgotten our past, our culture and our nationality. People those used respect and pray monarchy have gone against it. Today is loktantra day but I think we should remember those who died and spilled blood for our country not those who just sat in road saying murdabad. I’m not against loktantra but, they are not the real heroes. Ok let all Nepalese people sit in the road and say murdabad, we’ll die saying murdabad and next day we’ll be declared as martyr.

Does our new government aka naya sarkar know the meaning of martyr? Instead of going to shaid gate and paying respect to our 4 brave heroes, every Nepalese say\w our new PM was paying respect to 7000 new and unknown martyr.

Tried to look at myself from different angle. Asked myself why am i comparing with others?, why am i putting myself into trouble and in a deep sorrow? These questions still hurts and haunts me whole night and I'm not able to sleep the whole night. Maybe I'm overreacting I'm afraid what i might lose the one i love and care the most, besides her no one and nothing is important to me. Am i being too much possessive? I hate her friends because they are the one who started but from the other side i also blame myself as i made it complicated. Again don’t want to blame them, but i do. I don’t want to compare me with anybody but sometimes i do.

Whole day and night i think about her and i feel like my life is like a drama and a shit. Sometimes she scolds me but i convince myself. Am i only a guy who is being hatred or what? Sometimes i even feel that I'm being betrayed by my friends because they can’t keep their word. I want to do my work by myself but I’m not able to do it. Feels like that whole world is against me…