The latest version of Google Chrome, build 5.0.317.2, brings a new feature to improve the browsing experience when visiting foreign websites. It includes an automatic page translation tool which detects the page language and, if it differs from your browser language, offers to translate it to your language using Google Translate.
When Chrome offers you to translate a site, a blue bar will show up in your Chrome window:
When you click the Translate button, it takes a few seconds, and your page should appear in another language. I tried this on several websites with several languages, but it never really worked. Always some parts, like links and headlines were translated, but most of the text stayed in its original language.
Other languages are working, though:
As you can see, this feature is still very experimental, but since I’m using the alpha (dev) version of Google Chrome, I can’t expect every new feature to work perfectly. Google will surely fix this issue until the release of Google Chrome 5 final, and it will make browsing easier, as you will be able to view a lot more websites in languages you don’t understand, without having to mess with pasting the text to your favorite translation tool or guessing what it may say.
Yesterday evening, the Closed Beta of Battlefield Bad Company 2 started. I managed to secure a beta key and get the game installer and immediately started testing. First of all, a few screenshots and performance information, but more information and a video will follow! There is a torrent download for Battlefield Bad Company 2 that’s working quite well in contrast to the official EA servers or other mirrors that are really overloaded and keep crashing all the time.
The beta supports multiplayer and includes only the gamemode “Rush” with the map “Port Valdez”. Official sources say:
The Battlefield: Bad Company 2 PC beta will feature Port Valdez, a new vehicle focused map where up to 32 players will compete against each other as either the US or Russian armies in the game’s Rush multiplayer mode. Players will have access to five land and three air vehicles where the Russian side can use everything in their arsenal including Main Battle Tanks as well as the fast-moving Quad Bikes and Mobile Armored AA. The fight will also be packed with plenty of infantry combat fought alongside the waterline towards a great oil industrial landscape in the Alaskan mountains.
Being based on the new Frostbite Engine, the game has quite high system requirements:
Recommended Frostbite PC Specifications for BFBC2 & BF1943: Processor: Quadcore Main memory: 2GB Graphics card: GeForce GTX 260 Graphics memory: 512MB
Especially explosions are really nice in this game, thus I created a “flip-book” of pictures (click to enlarge):
If you forgot your your Windows account password, it got hacked or some virus changed it so you’re not able to access your computer any more, you can use the following tutorial to restore and reset the password. This method will also work for Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP and Windows Vista!
WARNING: Please do not use this method for illegal activity such as hacking passwords without the other user’s consent!
Your Windows passwords are stored in the Windows registry. In order to reset them, you need access to this registry without running Windows. Luckily, there is a tool called “Offline NT Password & Registry Editor” which contains a small Linux kernel and drivers for your hard drives. Download the tool from this server or the official website.
Extract the RAR archive. Now you need to create a bootable device in order to run the tool: Using a CD: Just burn the ISO file to any empty CD and proceed. Using a USB memory stick: Format the memory stick in FAT32 format (rightclick it and choose “Format”) and enable “Quick Format”. WARNING: When formatting, all data in the memory stick will be lost! Open the ISO file with WinRAR (or any similar program) and extract all files onto the memory stick. Start the console (Press WINDOWS + R and type cmd, press ENTER), enter the drive letter of your memory stick (e.g. L: ), then enter “SYSLINUX.EXE -ma L:” (replace L: with your drive letter). This will set the boot record for your memory stick, enabling your computer to use it as boot device.
Now plug in the USB memory stick or insert the CD into the drive of the password-locked computer and switch it on.
When the BIOS image is showing up, make sure you enter the “Boot Menu”, usually by pressing F12.
A window should pop up asking you to choose the device to boot from. Select CD or USB HDD.
After a few seconds, this screen will show up. Just press enter to boot normally.
Now a lot of text will appear on your screen while the system is loading drivers for your hardware. Just wait until it comes to a stop and waits for your input. Now the tool is asking on which partition your Windows registry files are located. Usually, this would be the first partition, but since there is a small (100MB) backup drive in Windows 7, you should take the next one, enter the number below and press enter.
Next, it asks for the path to your registry files on the drive. These are usually fine, just press enter to continue. When the files are located, you can choose what to do. Enter 1 and hit return for “Password reset”.
Then you have to select “Edit user data and passwords” by entering 1 again and pressing Enter
Enter your account name from the list and press Enter
On the next screen, enter 1 to “Clear (blank) user password”. You may also select 4 to “Unlock and enable user account” if you have entered the password too often and it is locked. If that’s all you wanted to do, enter ! and press return to quit.
Enter q again to leave the next menu and write the files by typing “y” in Step 4.
Now your password has been reset, just restart your computer normally and you should be able to log in to Windows again!
If your computer crashes or is somehow malfunctioning, a BIOS update may help. I tried to run Microsoft Virtual PC on my Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P mainboard with AMD Phenom II X4 955 processor, but it refused to start due to lack of Hardware Virtualization support although I enabled it in the BIOS setup. Updating my BIOS to the latest version with Q-Flash using an USB memory stick helped, so this tutorial will show you how to do it.
Extract the 7-zip archive to some folder, e.g. C:\bios_flash\
Plug in your USB memory stick and format it using the FAT32 file system (enable Quick Format).WARNING: When formatting, all data on the memory stick will be lost!
Go to the directory with the extracted BIOS update files and locate the actual BIOS data file, called something like M79XTUD4.F7, where the .F7 stands for version 7 and the stuff before for my mainboard model. Copy this file onto the freshly formatted memory stick
Restart your computer. When you see the BIOS image, press END to enter Q-Flash mode
A blue box will show up asking you what to do. First of all, backup your original BIOS to your USB thumbdrive. Select “Save BIOS to Drive”, then your USB memory stick and type in a name for your backup. Once you press enter, it will start backing up your data which may take up to 5 minues.
Once you are done backing up, return to the previous menu and select “Update BIOS from Drive” and locate the BIOS file you downloaded. Press enter to start flashing. WARNING: Do not switch off your computer while flashing your BIOS. This may permanently corrupt your mainboard!
When the flashing is finished, restart your computer, enter BIOS setup (press DEL when seeing the mainboard image) and “Load Optimized Defaults”.
After loading the default settings, “Save and Exit Setup”. Your computer should start normally with the latest BIOS version, hopefully solving the problems you encountered before!
If you did any adjustments to the BIOS before (enabling Virtualization, memory timings, CPU clock, etc.) you will have to set it again.
If you have problems following this guide, please comment! You can take good pictures of your computer screen using the Xshot! camera stabilizer!
The new version 4.0 of Google Chrome (currently Beta) enables the use of plugins and extensions in your browser. Extensions are a long requested feature for Chrome and one of the only reasons why many users still favored Firefox over Chrome.
In the Google Chrome Extension Directory you will find many interesting extension, but the one I waited for a long time is one that blocks annoying advertisements on websites. With AdThwart, there finally is such an extension and I will show how to use it. There was a trick to do block ads with earlier versions of Chrome, but using the official extensions is much more comfortable.
Make sure you have Chrome 4.0 or later. Click at the tool button (top right corner) and “About Google Chrome” to see your version. If it’s not 4.0 or later, download the Chrome Beta here.
Once installed, you will see the options page. By default, the filters EasyList and Extra filters are enabled. You may choose another filter for your country.
Now most ads on websites should be gone.
If there are still some remaining, you can use the Easy Filter function to block them as well. Click on the devil-button on the right side of your address bar and select “Easy create filter”. Then click on the element you want to block or hover over it and press CTRL + Shift + E. Return to the popup and confirm that you want to block that element.
If you for some reason don’t like AdThwart, there is another ad blocking extension called simply AdBlock. I didn’t try it, but looking at its rating of 4.5/5 stars, it seems to be quite good as well.
Have you heard about Google’s upcoming operating system ChromeOS and are willing to test it on your computer? Then follow this guide to make it working! ChromeOS is intended to include only the Chrome browser and is only able to run web applications, thus targeting users who spend most of their time in the internet.
Test and use ChromeOS without installing it:
Download a compiled release of ChromeOS. This is the easiest way, you may of course compile it on your own, but that is not part of this tutorial. Use the torrent mirror for fastest downloads. Once it’s done, unpack the image file (ChromeOS-Cherry.img)
Connect a USB memory stick (at least 1GB) to your computer
Download and unpack Win32DiskImager and launch Win32DiskImager.exe. Click on the little folder symbol and select your image file unpacked in step 1. Select the proper drive letter of your USB memory stick in the Device section. Then click Write and confirm the window warning your about a potential physical corruption on your device.
Once it finished writing, unplug your USB device and plug it into the computer you want to test ChromeOS on. Make sure your computer is configured to boot from USB devices as first priority. If your computer is a netbook (e.g. Asus Eee PC), try the steps under Prepare the Asus Eee PC to boot from USB devices in my tutorial on Windows 7 on the Eee PC. Most other computers will have a similar BIOS configuration, though.
Boot from the USB device and wait a few seconds. ChromeOS shouldn’t take long to boot (around 5 seconds on my Eee PC 900).
Login using facepunch as both username and password.
There should be three symbols at the top right corner. The first is showing your battery status (in running ChromeOS on a laptop), the second your WiFi and Ethernet configuration and the third some menus. Click the second one and connect to your WiFi/Ethernet network. This is really necessary since all applications in ChromeOS are web-based!
Enjoy ChromeOS!
Troubleshooting:
I am connected via WiFi/Ethernet but can’t open websites. This may be due to a misconfiguration in your network settings. Sadly, ChromeOS currently has no GUI to configure it, but you can try to do it with the terminal. Press CTRL + ALT + T to open terminal, and go on using Linux commands (e.g. ip addr to see your network configuration, ping to ping other network devices, sudo bash for root user, …)
My screen resolution is not at its maximum. I had this problem a few times and there was no way of fixing it (xrandr in terminal didn’t work and told me that VGA1 was disconnected). Probably ChromeOS has some problems with the display drivers, but restarting the computer always helped.
Flash/YouTube videos are lagging. This happens probably also due to bad/missing video drivers. I don’t think there is a solution for it except finding and installing fitting display drivers for your device and Linux on your own. Hopefully Google will fix this in the final release.
Have you got an iPod touch or iPhone and want to play cool games like FIFA10 or Assassin’s Creed, but don’t want to spend money on buying them? Then this tutorial will definitely help you.
Warning: Jailbreaking your iPod/iPhone will void your warranty. Downloading cracked applications is illegal and may have legal consequences. It is not my intention to motivate people to do illegal things, everything you do will be on your own risk!
Notice: This will only work with the latest generation of iPods/iPhones with Firmware 3.1.2 or higher! The blackra1n jailbreak will probably not work with the MC models (iPod touch 3G with 8GB).
1. Jailbreak your iPod/iPhone
Before you will be able to install applications other than the ones from iTunes Store, you must jailbreak your iPod. Please consider the warning above before jailbreaking your iPod.
The easiest jailbreak for the 3.1.2 firmware is blackra1n. This tutorial will only focus on blackra1n.
Warning: blackra1n is a so-called “tethered jailbreak”, meaning that everytime you reboot your iPod (e.g. due to empty battery or after switching it completely off) you will have to run blackra1n again. Running blackra1n again won’t install or uninstall any applications but just enable the iPod to start again.
Make sure you have installed at least firmware version 3.1.2 in iTunes.
Close iTunes but keep the iPod connected to your computer via USB.
Open the downloaded blackra1n.exe file and click the “make it ra1n” button
Your iPod will go into recovery mode now and reboot. You should see this on your computer: And this image on your iPod:
Now wait for the iPod to reboot, shouldn’t take longer than a few seconds. Once done, launch the “blackra1n” application that appeared and install Cydia and Rock.
2. Enable the installation of cracked application
Open Rock, the application you just installed with blackra1n.
Go to Manage -> Manage Sources -> Edit -> Add and enter http://cydia.hackulo.us to enable downloads from hackulo.us, then click Add Source
Go to Search, search for AppSync and install “AppSync for OS 3.1″
That’s it, your iPod is now able to install cracked applications. For the case that cracked apps won’t work, try installing AppSync again with Cydia instead of Rock.
3. Download and install cracked applications
The biggest cracked application repository out there is Appulo.us, so you should try getting your desired application there first. The website is quite slow and sometimes offline, so be patient.
If Appulo.us doesn’t find the application you want or is offline, you may use downloadipa.info, apps.su or search torrents and rapidshare for “<app name> ipa” (ipa is the extension of cracked apps).
If the downloaded app came in a zip file (which is the case with most apps downloaded from Appulo.us), rename it to .ipa
Double-click your ipa files to add them to iTunes
Sync the iTunes applications with your iPod
Launch the application on your iPod!
I hope this tutorial was helpful. If you encounter any errors, please comment to tell me about it!
Today I tested and installed the Technical Preview of the upcoming office suite Microsoft Office 2010. It seems to be version v14.0.4417.1000 (according to the About tab) or Beta 1 (according to the shortcuts created). If you want to try it yourself, you may download it from here (torrent) and select the 32bit or 64bit version. Warning: If you have already installed a 32bit version of Office 2007 or earlier, you won’t be able to install Office 2010 64bit. Uninstall the old Office in this case.
The installation was as smooth as 2007’s, just agree to the license and click “Install now”. After a few minutes, you will be able to enjoy your Office 2010!
At first startup, you will see a screen like this for a few secods. The second startup is already that fast that I wasn’t able to take a screenshot of Word.
For testing purposes, I just created a short document with text copied from Wikipedia to try the new features. At first glance, nothing much seems to have changed. Office 2010 now includes the Aero interface, enabling you to see through the top bar of the window, but since this style of Aero is different from all the others used in Windows 7 or Vista, it looks quite odd and ugly. Ribbon is still there, but the Office-button disappeared and was replaced by a big blue File-button.
The File tab shows information about the document you’re just writing and contains buttons to upgrade, protect or share the document.
The printing window shows a preview of the pages that are going to be printed, but at least in this version, changes to the layout won’t be shown immediately in the preview. So when I select “2 Pages Per Sheet”, the preview will still show only one. I hope the guys at Microsoft are going to change that.
There are a few new features, but I’m not going to write much about them. Just to show an example, there is a feature enabling you to directly paste screenshots of other windows into your word document.
I didn’t test any of the other products included in this Office 2010 release, but looking at the variety of applications (Access, Excel, InfoPath Designer, InfoPath Filler, SharePoint Designer, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Publisher, SharePoint Workspace, Visio and Word), there are probably many features to be explored. Check it out yourself!
Risen is a single-player fantasy-themed action role-playing game released just a week ago. While the graphics is quite good in some parts (lighting, shadows, weather effects and environment), the developers didn’t manage to integrate Anti-Aliasing due to the HDR (High Dynamic Range) effects. Here is a way how you can enable Anti-Aliasing anyway, working only for nVidia graphics card though.
1. Download and install nHancer
nHancer is an Advanced Control Panel and Profile Editor for nVidia graphics cards, enabling you to optimize the display of games and customizing driver settings. This will allow you to force the nVidia driver to activate Anti-Aliasing, no matter what the game wants. Download and install the latest version of nHancer from the official website or from the local server.
2. Rename the Risen executable to Vanguard
Go to the binary folder of your Risen installation, probably C:\Program Files (x86)\Deep Silver\Risen\bin and rename Risen.exe to Vanguard.exe. This will force the nVidia driver to apply Anti-Aliasing settings usually applied for the game Vanguard which are also working for Risen.
3. Enable Anti-Aliasing settings with nHancer
Now launch nHancer and let it search for all profiles if this is the first time you start the application. Once the list in on the left side is populated, search for Vanguard and select the according profile. Once you selected it, tick “Anti-Aliasing” in the “Enhancements” tab on the right side and select the Anti-Aliasing mode you prefer. You will probably have to do some experimenting to find the right setting for your hardware, but I suggest to use “Multisampling” and then the 8x or 16x setting.
My GTX 260 can easily run Multisampling 8x and 16x without big performance losses, but using Supersampling or Combined 16x will kill the performance to around 2-3 FPS. Try various options for your graphics card and select the one which looks best without losing too many FPS.
Then make sure “Anti-Aliasing compability” is checked under the “Compability” tab and “Vanguard” is selected in the drop-down menu below.
4. Launch Risen and have fun with smoother edges and less aliasing
Now you can just launch Vanguard.exe (your Desktop shortcut may not be working any more) and enjoy the better graphics! I took some comparison screenshots for you to see which Anti-Aliasing setting has which effect and how big the performance losses are. Graphics settings:
Resolution: 1920×1080 Details: Everything “High”, Depth of Field deactivated (looks ugly), Config tweaks: ViewRange set to 16000
Anti-Aliasing off, 55 FPS
Multisampling 8x, 35 FPS
Combined 16xS, 3 FPS
As you can see, there is not much difference in the image quality between Multisampling 8x and Combined 16xS, but the performance differences are huge. I recommend to use Multisampling and not Supersampling or Combined.
Adblock scripts for Firefox, Opera and even Internet Explorer have been around for a while, but until now, there was no easy-to-install extension for Google Chrome with a similar  functionality. The latest release of Google Chrome, version 3, has added easy support for extensions, and a nice guy called gg3po has developed an extension to disable advertisements on websites.
Step 2: Update Google Chrome In Chrome, click on the settings button (on the right side) and select About Google Chrome. The appearing window will check for updates and download them, if available. After the download finished, close Chrome.
Step 3: Enable extensions Now right-click on your Chrome shortcut, select Properties. Add “–enable-extensions” (without the quotes) as launch parameter to your Target path.
Step 4: Download AdSweep Launch Chrome, now extensions should be enabled (although you won’t see any change yet). Go to http://www.adsweep.org/ and download the Extension for Chrome (not the User Script!) (alternative download). A window will pop up asking you whether to install the extension, click OK.
Step 5: Restart Chrome & start surfing ad-free! Now most ads on websites shouldn’t show up any more!
This is how a website looked before and after enabling the AdSweep extension:
