Tadej's computing homepage

The website's introduction: There is only one intro.html page in this first website's section (if I may call it that way) and it's simply an introduction and information page, which contains only very basic information on my involvement with computers (I first pursued computing strictly as a hobby, then I decided to get some "official" computing knowledge and so I graduated from Informatics in 2015), the reason for existance of the website in the first place (basically, the main reason is to share my ideas/discoveries and interesting things that I find on the Internet regarding computers, so that they don't go into the "oblivion" by not writing about them), various other site-related information, and lists two of the payware programs (Cheetah DVD Burner and Cryptainer PE which are the only non-freeware programs that I use), as well as it contains a list of my website's partners and affiliates.
My computing rules section: This is the "computing rules" section consisting of pages rules1.html and rules2.html, which contains my various personal computing-related rules, separated into 9x/NT rules (including two "do not this" rules etc.), rules for all versions of Windows no. 1 (with monitor related rules like the one regarding the use of "blank screen" screen-saver or the one regarding display settings/screen-resolution, various general system rules like the Power On/Off and Hibernation "power saving" mode rules, a booting rule describing how to get into the so-called "safe-mode" and how into the computer's BIOS) and rules for all versions of Windows no. 2 (containing my personal recommendations regarding the best way of closing files, and software locations, two rules regarding e-mail, and a rule related to proper execution of programs), file-management rules (like file size and file naming rules, file-extensions rule, rules regarding identical file names and the use of space character etc.), general performance rules, various installation rules (like upgrading software, drivers installation, empty directory etc. rules), and hard-disk drive rules (like two precaution measures rule, optimization of MFT zone rule, a rule regarding DMA/PIO modes, defragmentation rules etc.) sections/parts. Well, and there's this one particular computing-related rule that beats all the others saying: "Don't fix it, if it is not broken", which has made me to add this section to this website in the first place.
My own computing principles: Then follows one very important section consisting of pages principles1.html and principles2.html, and listing my numerous computing principles like for instance my original form and even numbers principles, my principle of using the so-called no-setup applications, context-menu principle, my directory-structuring principle (and there's much more), my minimalism principle (I hope this one is self-explanatory), my principle of using the so-called RAM-drive/disk program for storing various temp files (mainly I do this to reduce hard-disk writes, and not for gaining the performance, which is a bit ambiguous) and so forth. It was back then in 2003 that I noticed that I am more interested in the operating system itself (e.g. to discover how things work etc.) and its usage in general rather than in actual programming. But more than that, I started to discover useful things that I can do to help my computer (to make it faster, more stable etc.), I could even say that my "mission" is to make the use of my computer easier and more reasonable, as well as faster and more efficient so I sometimes tinker with my computer to the extreme, or better yet, to its limits. So once again in one sentence: I am enthusiastic about various computing principles, then I like to discover various ways of automation of tasks (mostly with the use of batch-files and scripting in general), customize the various aspects of an operating system, and discovering the limits and capabilities of it. Of course, through this process I got a lot of knowledge on how to cope with various common (and not-so-common) errors/issues, a knowledge of basic programming/scripting concepts etc.
The necessary tweaks page: Another section which I could call "tweaks and hacks" section that's basically only one tweaks.html page, and it contains the registry and other tweaks, including (but not limited to) to various crucial performance, e.g. "content.interrupt.parsing", "content.max.tokenizing.time", "content.notify.interval", "nglayout.initialpaint.delay", "network.http.max-connections", "network.http.max-connections-per-server" (both also for "per-proxy" and "per-server"), and "network.http.pipelining", "network.http.proxy.pipelining", "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", and other related lines, e.g. a pref that "Shows Pictures As They are Loading" (i.e. IE style), a pref that "Sets disabling New Windows", that are used in Mozilla Firefox prefs.js and/or "user.js" files, as well as various registry hacks, like for example a trick for setting Windows Classic Logon, setting Windows to not to clear pagefile at shutdown, directing the OS to keep kernel in RAM etc., then further, hack related to Windows memory management in general (these I got from Sysinternals website, so you can be sure they are safe/they work), "Start Menu speed/delay", "Disabling User Tracking", "Kill unresponsive apps/service timeouts" etc., then a whole section dedicated to optimized settings for TCP/IP parameters in Windows registry. Note that I first couldn't decide between posting them as .reg files (so you could download them and apply the "tweak" by simply double-clicking on it), and posting only their "code" (actual .reg file content), and I finally decided to post only the "pure" code.

My diverse computing hints: Yet another in my opinion crucial "computing hints" section consisting of hints1.html and hints2.html pages with my own computing hints mainly relating to Windows operating system, which are separated into hints for all Windows versions, hints for Windows XP, and hints for Windows 98 sections/parts, but also to various applications that I use. And yeah, one of the reason for writing this section was that I hate all those additional/extra features, meaning that I prefer to run just the "pure core" (be it a program or an operating system); well, there is nothing wrong with programs that have features that are optional (i.e. you can disable them through program's interface), or if they are available as extensions, plugins, addons, so if you so that if you don't want to use them, you simply do not download/install them. But in many cases these features are sadly deeply integrated into application (or operating system, graphic card's driver and other software) that it's quite annoying to do this (i.e. disable such features) but I do it anyway if it's possible, even if it takes hours of low-level hacking.
My own computing articles: Further, there is another very important section consisting of two pages articles1.html, articles2.html (and it's quite large section), with my various computing-related articles like the article on process base-priorities, the article about the question whether to run computer non-stop or not, the article on the need to defragment the hard-disk often, the article on defragmenting/moving the pagefile, the article on a question if partitioning of the drive is needed at all, the article on how are computers identified on the Internet, and finally the article on various strategies on coping with BSODs, and a third myths.html page that debunks the various computing-related myths (that can be found around on forums/websites), like for example the myth regarding caching/disabling of the pagefile, the prefetch folder cleaning myth, and finally the very popular myths regarding using the registry cleaning, and memory-freeing programs.
The site's software section: Then there's the section dedicated to software consisting of pages software1.html and software2.html with descriptions of my favorite programs (sorted in various categories like non-setups ones, Internet-enabled ones, those that are running non-stop and those that I just use to perform some task and then exit them etc.) and links to their websites, a third cmdline.html page which lists my favorite commandline programs sorted by their authors, and where I write about my obsession with commandline programs, various in-built shell-commands, script-processing in general (be it batch-files or .vbs scripts) and other automation-related things that make common tasks easier and faster. For example batch scripts for deleting log-files, temp-location directories, executing programs with "START" command, and finally to backup all my programs' *.ini or *.cfg files to some safe location (optionally directory-recursive) with one simple click on a .bat file etc.
The site's security section: This section dedicated to security and privacy concerns, consisting of two security1.html and security2.html pages, was created just recently (somehow in the same time when I've drastically changed the design of this "index.html" page, that was on 23.02.2009), while previously it was part of the above software section. One page contains descriptions of my security-related programs (and there're a special sections/articles dedicated to anti-virus programs), while the other is about my experiences when I was dealing with various infections that I (or well, mostly my friends) had a chance to be exposed to through these years, including the infamous Bagle.AF worm, the Dust.exe virus (which deeply integrated itself into the operating system's shell, namely, it attached itself to Explorer with a very obvious "/dust.exe" parameter added into the "HCLM\...\Run" registry key), bot.exe worm (this one was even nastier than any other that I came accross; firstly it used so many TCP endpoints, i.e. certainly much more than normal port scanning, that I couldn't even see the IPs to which it was connecting, and secondly, if you attempted to terminate the running process it somehow managed to restart the process, and all this even if you delete the executable file in between), and the Haxdoor trojan (which also installed a that works "rootkit"; especially note the detailed descriptions of various interesting techniques that I used to get rid of it), and finally, there's also a copy of my so-called "PREVENTION SPEECH" (on how to prevent future re-infections etc.) that I used as a "1st Responder" trainee on CastleCops forum.
The necessary links section: And then there are finally the two relatively huge pages links1.html and links2.html (I wrote "finally" because all these sections/pages above are located under root directory on the 50webs server; the ones below, starting with "configuration settings" section are located under /other/ sub-directory) with a very long list of diverse links like for example links to various software websites with various useful and crucial software that I currently use (also sorted in various categories like multimedia players, file-managers), various on-line services (security/privacy related and others, including my favorite internet security/privacy related websites with engines/tests/scans, like various scanning engines, sites for getting IP/domain info, anti spyware/virus engines, web-features/web-proxies etc.), general computing-related websites, Newsletters websites and similar.

The configuration settings: Then, a very important "configuration settings" section with pages config1.html, config2.html with my various configuration settings recommendations, like for instance a list of a few special locations where you can change security and various other settings with Local Group Policy Editor (or "gpedit.msc", which is an MMC type of Windows in-built program), various custom and/or optional Environment Variables that I use, then my personal recommendation to disable the hard-disk's write-caching function, then how to setup you computer to "Never dial a connection" (and especially to "Show terminal window"), a whole DNS and Network configuration section (and how to use a free alternative DNS service called OpenDNS), which you can use instead of my ISP's name-servers, firewall configuration rules, on how to customize the level of security for Internet Explorer (and Internet access in general)
The computing-related terms: The next page that follows is the one that I've conveniently named glossary.html contains important computing-related terms (like a list of short computing-related terms and abbreviations that I collected from various help-files, articles, MS knowledge-bases etc.), definitions, information, and also short explanations of each of them. Then there is a section dedicated to basic explanation of different parts of URL, and after that, there are only listed links to the most crucial explanations of computing terms from some Explanation Guide website. Same as in other similar pages on my website this page contains the "personal" ones (terms, definitions, and info that I've wrote), as well as others that I've found browsing the web and reading articles written by others, however, note that in case of each of these there's a note on the source (be it a link or whatever) of the respective information. But note that the non-personal ones at least contain a bit modified text (i.e. the text that I wrote in my own words and not just copied and pasted the text written by someone else), while usually the general point remains the same as in the original article. And finally at the bottom there are a few other a bit longer explanations of various computing-related terms, which were also collected from various help-files, articles, knowledge-bases etc.
My own DC & other projects: A thing that I needed to mention sooner or later is described on projects.html page with my various DC projects (DC stands for "Distributed Computing" project) that I am or was running on my computer (namely, SETI@Home, GIMPS/Prime, and Folding@Home) listed and described, while it's sub-page certs.html contains my my DC projects' certificates. Just so you know: the phrase Distributed computing refers to a technique which tries to solve problems by splitting the task between different computers (usually its volunteer-based); when each such sub-task is solved, the results/solutions are gathered and compiled together to provide the answer to the original problem. The thing is that most computers use only between 5% and 10% of their CPU capacity with the rest of the time CPU sitting idle, and then is the time when DC projects step in. Finally, at the page's last section at the bottom I also list various forums (like Ars OpenForum, CastleCops, Broadband Reports, Wilderssecurity etc. where I am a member and where I freqently participate, and also a few other websites/portals like SWikipedia, IMDb, Kuro5hin, Slashdot and so on.
The website's diverse section: And then there is the many times renamed page diverse.html with stuff that doesn't belong anywhere else (including on-line features/engines like Furl social-bookmarking, ImageShack free image hosting, Yousendit file e-mailing service, FreezePage website with "freeze page" feature, egoSurf website-popularity ranking, OpenDNS, free DNS-resolution service, and finally BabelFish translation-engine), and its sub-page screens.html with my computer desktop's screenshots, mainly these are screenshots of my desktop when I was already running (one of the three variants) of "Blackbox for Windows" shell-replacement or alternative-shell. This is basically a section of my website which was made in an attempt to collect my various unrelated favorite stuff in one single place, meaning that it is supposed to (like a few other pages do too though) contain links to websites that I've discovered lately on the Internet and thought they are worth mentioning (for instance websites with interesting articles/information etc.), list websites with useful features, engines, and other online services etc. And regarding other things, you'll also find The "drop-down box" menu with my various important files (colletions of bookmarks, configurations files etc.), a few samples of JavaScript, links to my friends' websites, links to a few funny websites, on-line animations, games, and similar.
The blog-alike events section: This page was originally meant as s some kind of a blog or in other words, it is an ever-growing computing-related set of pages with important current news and events (things such as online features, interesting sites in general, various other stuff etc.) that I passionately discover on day-to-day basis and write about them on forums on the Internet. In other words, these pages contain current important personal computing-related events (I call them simply "event-entries"), e.g. completely new things that I have recently discovered, information about my current system state (i.e. tune-ups, hacks, tricks, un-installations, re-installations of my operating systems, any errors I am coping with lately, software updates and similar), information about website outlook updates, interesting coding changes (for example changes in site's layout using new techniques) and so on. Currently the last/current page is events16.html page, while the first "event-entry" in year 2009 is located on page events14.html, the first "event-entry" in year 2008 on events12.html page, the first "event-entry" in year 2007 on events10.html page, the first "event-entry" in year 2006 on events5.html page, and finally, the first "event-entry" in year 2005 and at the same time the first was on page events1.html, which was also the first/initial "event-entry" written on 19.2.2005, describing the file-caching problem that lead me to completely un-install my Windows XP/Pro SP1 and its basic description and solution. For a full list of all the events-pages visit one of the linked pages or open the "sitemap.html" page (see at the bottom of this page for the link).
The website's about section: The website isn't complete without an obligatory about.html page (or in this site's case a section of three pages) and mine is no exception. On first section's page linked above I am starting with a few words about me (mostly just biographical stuff), my other hobbies beside computing etc., then secondly there's a sub-page website.html with various website's information (like for example stuff directly related to website coding, important milestones, then everything related to website's design and its usability and SEO stuff etc.), and finally it also explains (once again!) the main reasons for making it in the first place. And there is also another rants.html about page's sub-page with a few rants of mine, be it the computing-related things that I hate the most (those that I in fact passionately hate) or simply things related to life in general.

Index