If you are getting "usb device not recognized" errors and after all your attempts to fix this problem by going through various Windows settings you still can't use your usb devices, these solutions might work for you:

1-First you need to completely power off your computer (unplug the power - or if you are using a laptop unplug the battery) not just closing it down (it may have something with residual current on the motherboard or with stray capacitance discharge).
2-If this doesn't work for you go into control panel and uninstall any driver that used for USB.
(They will be reinstalled again by Windows)
3-Delete INFCACHE.1 file (you can find it in Windows/Inf folder)

Hopefully some of these will work for you.

Nice guys use good old Internet Explorer, geeks use Opera and NSFW addicts use Firefox.
According to DownloadSquad, there is some truth in that joke:

In fact, I'd go as far to suggest that porn surfers -- or at least the search for naughty, illicit, adult-only material -- account for Firefox's biggest market demographic. The 'young' Internet -- blogs, social networks, porn -- is predominantly ruled by the spotty teenagers of the browser world: Firefox and Chrome. Internet Explorer's total market share is larger, but corporations, geriatrics and aging family computers -- i.e. the non-porn world -- account for most of that.

Finding adult-only material is not quite easy for everyone, but if you are using Firefox as your default browser that means you have at least some basic knowledge about the internet.

One of the biggest effects caused by dropping hard drive prices and faster internet speeds is that we have more files on our computers. You may probably just randomly copied or downloaded tons of files to couple of default folders like "downloads". Then the question is how to sort them all? Digital Janitor presents an easy solution for this problem:

You select the folder you want to sort, then define the file types and the destination folder for these file types, and all there is left for you to do is clicking the “Auto-Sort” button, the program moves all the specified file types to your desired destination folder. Like all mp3 files to /music folder, all doc files to /documents folder and etc.

You can download the program from here

We have SHARP AR M165 printer in our office, and since we upgraded our computers from XP to Vista, we were having problems with network printing. We contacted SHARP service, but they couldn't find a solution either. Then after Google introduced its DNS service I set it to my computer and also to the main computer printer is attached I realized that my printer problem was gone.

So if you have a slow network printer connection like we had, you can just change the DNS address to Google DNS, which is 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4. and see if it helps.

Also for a general rule, make sure that all the computers on the network have the same workgroup name.

Uruguayan producer Fede Alvarez made this short film with a budget of just $300 and he get a $30 million deal from Hollywood afterwards.
Some of you may remember the "Blair Witch Project" which initially cost only around 20.000-25.000 $. After editing its cost rose to 750.000$. But its gross revenue was nearly 250 million dollars.
You can add to this list found via Youtube artists like Marie Digby and Esmee Denters.
Thanks to the enormous advances in technology and information sharing today we can access to top quality education and with the help of freeware or open source programs we can further improve our talents. All it takes is motivation and effort. If you have these you don't have to remain poor, you just have to find a passion, learn its requirements and advertise yourself. And it is all for free.

I've recently updated my winamp to version 5,5 but now when I try to open it, it crashes. To understand the cause of the crash I fired up task manager and looked at my opened processes and as you can see from the snapshot there is an aplication named elevator.exe. It starts with winamp.

First thing I did was to kill the process. Then I deleted the elevatorps.dll and elevator.exe files. (I made an archive of these files before deleting).
That solved my problem.

Related:

ITunes Installation Problems

Free Full Featured Task Manager

I've always liked vampires in fiction but ever since playing Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines my interest grew even further. To day I've watched all the episodes of The Kindred, Blade: The Series, Blood Ties, The Gates, first two movies of Twilight series and I am watching the Vampire Diaries too. And off course I also watch True Blood. 
The product (!) on the left should be very familiar with True Blood fans. In series mankind (and vampires) finally was able to create the synthetic blood and therefore eliminating the need for human blood. 
This is for the hidden vampires among you. Now you can finally satisfy your thirst for blood without killing anybody, not even rabbits. And it is not just for vampires even ordinary people can benefit from this life energy. It contains iron, protein, and electrolytes which can energize you for 4 hours. You can pre order it for just $5.99 a pack.
via

Online installers became a trend in program distribution where you download a small installer around 1mb of size and then use this installer to pull the actual installer from the distributor's servers. There are a couple of annoyances with this method; it's hard to transfer the installer from one computer to another computer (you may need this if you have a slow internet connection),  if you encounter a problem with your installation you are required to download the whole program again, you can't backup your installer etc.
So to remedy this problem here are standalone offline installers for some of the most popular programs that show only the online installers on their website.


Digsby (found via tmsnetwork )
Google Earth
Google Chrome 
Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) - EN-Vista/7
Picasa 3.8
Skype
AVG Free 
Adobe Flash for IE (32bit)
Adobe Flash for Other Browsers (32bit)
Yahoo Messenger
3DVIA Shape 4.0


for other software visit filehippo.com 

Since we can reset timers of trial games and play as long as we like, it’s time to find some good time wasters :)

Mortimer Beckett and the secrets of Spooky Manor
Search a spine-tingling setting for scattered secrets, broken objects, and the key component of a mysterious machine in this innovative and immersive investigation! Hunt the halls of Spooky Manor for broken objects, return the items to their rightful places, and solve a series of puzzles to get to the bottom of this eerie mystery. download trial





Burger Rush
Help Heidi on her quest to create the perfect burger! Swap and slide burgers, cheese, tomatoes and other essential fixings to fill your customers' mouth-watering orders. Between levels, visit the Burger Shop to get new recipes, upgrade your equipment, or stock up on treats to keep your patrons patient. download






Sources for trial game downloads:
Playfirst, BigFishGames, Reflexive, Oberon

No, i am not talking about cracks or serials. This is (i hope) legal way to do.

Tired of dealing with rogue software, spyware and malware? Spent too many hours removing unsolicited software? Worried about clicking unfamiliar Web links? And dont want to pay for software :)

Answer for this: Sandboxie

Sandboxie is a sandbox-type isolation software for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It creates a "container" in which programs can be safely launched without modifying the host's OS.

Sandboxie runs your programs in an isolated space which prevents them from making permanent changes to other programs and data in your computer.

Ok, how to use it with trial software?

I will try it with a game (1 hour trial), Parking Dash

First create new sandbox.

I named mine as Parking Dash.

Right click on installer and select “run sandboxed”

Install the game.

Play as long as you like (or till key expires). When the key expire, copy save files of the game from sandboxie explorer. Delete the contents of the old sandboxed game.

Install the game again, past your copied save files, continue playing. (Or you can just delete everything except game folder and save folder - , then continue playing).

Keep:

C:\Sandbox\Tahsin\ParkingDash\drive\C\Program Files\Parking Dash

and (save folder)

C:\Sandbox\Tahsin\ParkingDash\user\current\Application Data\PlayFirst\parking-dash

Delete everything else

Note: Sandboxie can be used free of charge for as long as desired, with an option to pay a one-time charge for upgraded features.

Note2: Some software may not be compatible with sandboxie.

Note3:Sandboxie does not run under the 64-bit editions of Windows Vista

Note4: There is also an old trick for trial softwares. Change the system date before installing to some future time.

This is a summary of Bold Fortune’s excellent guide.

1. Delete temp files. You can use RegToy Disk Cleaner for this purpose.

2. Disabled Services. You can see which services are running and which programs are using them with System Explorer.

3. Documents and Settings – deletable folders:

Default User/LocalService and NetworkService folders with all of their contents.

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\HTML Help

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Index

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM

If you dont purchase DRM mp3s you can delete this folder. After you delete DRM folder you can also delete these files from C:\WINDOWS\system32:

drmstor.dll, drmupgds.exe, drmv2clt.dll, msnetobj.dll, mssap.dll, WMDRMdev.dll, WMDRMNet.dll, wmdrmsdk.dll

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents (or Documents)\Shared Music

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents (or Documents)\Shared Pictures

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents (or Documents)\Shared Videos

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Help

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Identities

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\CryptnetUrl

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Media

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Music

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Pictures

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Videos

4. Program Files Folders

C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\Connection Wizard

Then delete these files from C:\WINDOWS\system32:

icfgnt5.dll....Internet Connection Wizard
icwdial.dll....Internet Connection Wizard Autodialer
icwphbk.dll....Internet Connection Wizard
inetcfg.dll....Internet Connection Wizard Library

C:\Program Files\microsoft frontpage

C:\Program Files\MSN

C:\Program Files\MSN Gaming Zone

C:\Program Files\Netmeeting

Then delete these files from C:\WINDOWS\system32:

ils.dll.........User Location Services Component Module mnmdd.dll.......Application Sharing Display Driver MNMSRVC.EXE.....(NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing)msconf.dll......Conferencing Utility Dll msg723.acm......Microsoft G.723.1 CODEC for MSACM
msh261.drv......Microsoft H.261 ICM Driver
msh263.drv......Microsoft H.263 ICM Driver nmevtmsg.dll....NetMeeting Event Logging DLL
nmmkcert.dll....NetMeeting Event Logging DLL

C:\Program Files\Online Services

C:\Program Files\Uninstall Information

C:\Program Files\Windows Media Connect 2 (you can use Windows Media Connect to stream music, movies, and even pictures from your computer throughout a home network.)

C:\Program Files\WindowsUpdate

C:\Program Files\xerox

5. Windows Folders.

C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKBxxxxxx$

C:\WINDOWS\Config

C:\WINDOWS\Connection Wizard

C:\WINDOWS\Downloaded Installations

C:\WINDOWS\Help

C:\WINDOWS\java (the Sun Java installation will create its own folders and subfolders it will need.)

C:\WINDOWS\mui

C:\WINDOWS\Offline Web Pages

C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS

C:\WINDOWS\PeerNet

C:\WINDOWS\PIF

C:\WINDOWS\Profiles

C:\WINDOWS\pss

C:\WINDOWS\RegisteredPackages

C:\WINDOWS\repair

6. System 32 Folders

C:\WINDOWS\system32\3com_dmi

*C:\WINDOWS\system32\config*

You can delete files in this folders except:

AppEvent.Evt
default
default.LOG
SAM
SAM.LOG
SecEvent.Evt
SECURITY
SECURITY.LOG
software
software.LOG
SysEvent.Evt
system
system.LOG

C:\WINDOWS\system32\dhcp

C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache

Renaming a couple of files is not a problem; select the file to be renamed click F2 and you are good to go, but when it comes renaming dozens of files, it becomes really burdensome. That's where comes RegToy FileRenamer for our help. It's a small but powerful program with lots of features.

RegToy FileRenamer is an advanced renamer tool for Windows. Some of its capabilities:

Batch file rename, full name, name without extension, rename just the extension, replace some characters, case renaming (all in lower case, upper case, random case, sentence case, tOOgLE case), substring (at beginning, at ending, at position; lenght), remove (at beginning, at ending, at position; lenght), reverse.

If you have multiple files needed renaming this is just the tool you need.
RegToy - Disk Cleaner
Batch file to replace file extensions
How to quickly replace the file extensions of several files

Free Windows maintenance tool RegToy is a free suite of utilities : tweaking, window manager, shell context menu extension, disk cleaner, file renamer, file spliter, memory cleaner, registry cleaner, registry backup, screen capture, services manager, shutdown scheduler, startup manager, wallpaper changer, and more.
How to use Disk Cleaner utility:

 
1. Find and clean unnecessary files. Select the drive(s) or folder(s) you want to clean and click scan. After it finishes scanning it will list the files, you can either select the ones you want to delete one by one or you can select them all by clicking “select all”.
2. Find empty folders. Some programs will leave empty folders even if you uninstall them. This option will scan your drives for empty folders and afterwards will list them for you to delete them selectively or all.
3. Find duplicate files. You may download same file twice to different folders. This option will list every duplicate file for you and afterwards you may delete the second file.
4. Find broken shortcuts. Some programs will leave shortcuts even you uninstall them. This option will find them for you to clean.

If you encounter error messages while installing iTunes with/or Quicktime such as “"the installer encountered errors before…" here is a solution for you:
Open iTunes installation file with an archiver program such as 7zip. (File / Open Inside, choose iTunes.exe)


Extract two files from the iTunesSetup file; QuickTime.msi and iTunes.msi, and save them in a local folder.

Open a command prompt window (Win + R -> cmd), navigate to that folder, and run the following command:




”Quicktime.msi /passive“

After you completed installing quicktime, open command prompt again, navigate to the folder where  iTunes.msi is and run
“iTunes.msi /passive”
command.

That also will save your time from uninstalling AppleSoftwareUpdate, AppleMobileDeviceSupport, Bonjour and MobileMe.

Update: You can get the latest itunes only installer from here.

Related posts:
How to Save Streaming Real Audio Files 

MP3 Tagging – The Easy Way 
Winamp Installation Problem

I have over 4000 mp3s on my hard disk. And I don't like burning mp3s to DVD with missing tags.
Most of my mp3s come from offline satellite download and they came named similar as below:
193.251.135.116_08C9A07485__66477.mp3
You have to rename them one by one according to their tags. This is the easy part since most of the media players can consolidate your library automatically.

* You can consolidate your music library with Windows Media Player by going to options and then enabling the rename and rearrange music using media information.

Main problem is with files without tags or with incorrect tags. This is where MusicBrainz Picard comes to rescue. By matching acoustic fingerprint of your files with its database, it correctly identifies and tags your mp3s. You can also set it to rename your files too in the process.
How to use it:
First adjust the program to your needs.
I enabled embedding cover images to tags and renaming file names.
Under 'View' enable 'File Browser'.
Select a folder which your files reside. Drag the folder under to the Unmatched Files in the center. You can drag the entire folder or choose files individually.

The tagger will read the metadata from each of the files and unless they have been tagged before, the files will be deposited into the "Unmatched files" folder. Files that have been tagged before and contain the MusicBrainz track identifier will be opened up as releases in the right-hand pane.
Once the tagger finishes processing the files, press the "Cluster" button (white square with 'clusters' on them). This will cause the tagger to attempt to group the files into album clusters by examining the metadata read from the files and clustering files that appear to belong to the same album. Files that are not matched into album clusters will remain in the "Unmatched files" folder. In future the tagger will automatically cluster the files when it has finished reading the metadata from the files.
If your existing files do not have an album tag, click on unmatched files to select all remaining files then click scan. All the matching tags will be shown on right pane. You only have to select the matching files and click save.
How to tags files with picard
Advanced tutorial
Musicbrainz server currently has info of 7138615 tracks.
You can also use album art plugin to add album arts in tags.
As an alternative you can also use Winamp for identifying your music files, it has a auto-tag feature which uses Gracenote database to find track information. You can access it by right clicking on any track / send to / auto tag.