Notes

I want to disable internet connection for Steam in Windows 7. How can I do this? (Steam offline mode is not an option for me) After change firewall rules, Steam is automatically adding his own firewall rule, for private and public connections. With both, allowing and blocking rule on the list, firewall is allowing Steam to connect. Is there any other way to block internet connection for application in Windows? I dont want to install any other firewalls. It would be great to enable and disable this connection via command line. Answer You can use the Windows hosts file to redirect any requests to the Steam service to your local machine ( localhost or 127.0.0.1 ). Those requests will be going straight into the void and Steam will not have any way to work around this issue, except for changing the servers they connect to (which you can block then, as well). You can find out which servers to block using Wireshark, or you can just google and try to find a list of Steam service IPs. This ...

I try to change my desktop wallpaper and I cannot choose a different folder from the one I chose at first... When I first installed W7 I changed the wallpaper by right-clicking in the desktop and choosing Customize (maybe it's not correct because I use the italian version) and then Change Wallpaper in the bottom and finally I browsed for a folder with some images in and chose the wallpaper. When I do the same exact things now, the folder I select in the final pass is not selected: I mean its pictures are not shown and it doesn't appear in the drop-down list. I can put a specific picture as a wallpaper by selecting it through Explorer, and some times (not always) the folder shows in the drop-down list. Is there any possible solution to this? Answer Had the same problem with not being able to browse for a different folder for background images. Turns out it happened after I removed the Pictures library. Simply using the 'Restore default libraries' command seemed to solv...

I would like to block some websites to improve my productivity. Is there any way to block some sites in Google Chrome, preferably an extension or so? It doesn't have to be "airtight" blocking (hey, it is for myself), but just deny access when I find myself accessing that page. Note that editing my host files is not possible. This seems to be the only solution that comes up when googleing for it.

I know it is possible to create a sofware AP in windows 7 using command prompt: netsh wlan set hostednetwork ... But is it possible to set such a network not to broadcast its SSID? I realize that this does not gain any security - or may even make the system more secure, but I am not asking about security here. I want to know if it is possible, through the netsh command interface, to hide the SSID. If my client wants to hide the SSID, then I will make them aware of security implications, but in the end it is their decision. Answer The question of Goro is NOT about security. To answer the question I'd add that when you read the documentation , you can't see any mean to hide the SSID. It's not a functionality which seems to be implemented.

Assuming I have a machine with Windows / Mac / Linux OS installed that's connected via Ethernet to an unknown device (e.g.: router, another computer, LAN printer), how can I figure out that device's MAC address?

I've got both Windows 7 and Ubuntu (finally) installed on my laptop. For the sake of comfort, I usually hibernate Windows instead of shutting it down. And I think when using Ubuntu regularly, there will be times when I do that to quickly switch from Windows to Ubuntu to check or do something quickly and then want to continue my work on Windows. 1) Are there any problems with hibernating both Windows and Ubuntu at the same time? I should probably also mention that I created an extra partition which I use to access from both Windows and Ubuntu. I would like to put my www directory of my test web servers on that drive, so that I can work on that stuff both from Windows and from Ubuntu. 2) So - is this a good idea and what do I have to be careful with? EDIT: One important sidenote I forgot: I want to share a Mozilla Thunderbird profile directory on a shared drive. Does that change anything?

I've downloaded an application that is a command-line application, and want to put it somewhere where I can run it from the command-line without having to type the path explicitly. What are the conventional paths used for something like this? /usr/bin ? Are there different options, one if I want it for all users, and one if I want it for just a particular user, like my administrator account? Or should I put it in its own directory under the Applications directory, and add it to the path? If so, which file controls where the path is set? Answer Core answer: you probably want /usr/local/bin . Depending on how recent your macOS is, you may need to update your default $PATH . See below for further details. UPDATE 12-01-2018 At some point since I wrote my original answer, Apple changed its default $PATH . As a result, a lot of what I say below is irrelevant to recent Macs. If you type echo $PATH in a terminal, and /usr/local/bin is first, then you can ignore everything below about ...

I am running Windows 10 Pro 64 bit with Hyper-V and Intel VT-x virtualization technology enabled. When I try to run VirtualBox 64bit, Windows goes into a BSOD. When I run VMware it shows an error. Why can't VirtualBox and VMware run with Hyper-V enabled? Please explain with all details you have including hardware and software. I want to know the internal cause of this error. Here are some findings of mine. Most sites suggest adding a boot entry with BCDedit or to disable Hyper-V with BCDedit. e.g. Creating a "no hypervisor" boot entry , Run Hyper-V and VirtualBox on the same machine . But I can run QEMU with Hyper-V . Qemu does not show any error with Hyper-V and runs smoothly. Answer VirtualBox and VMware Workstation (and VMware Player) are "level 2 hypervisors." Hyper-V and VMware ESXi are "level 1 hypervisors." The main difference is that a level 2 hypervisor is an application running inside an existing OS, while a level 1 hypervisor is the OS it...

What is the best way to convert from an EPS formatted vector graphic to an SVG formatted graphic using only freely available tools? Answer You should be able to open the EPS in inkscape and save as SVG from there. Make sure to save as Plain SVG not inkscape SVG for better comparability. Adobe illustrator can do the same thing, its not free, but the trial version is.

I know that an application is a program that you interact with on the desktop, but what exactly are processes and services? Are services classified as processes or is it the other way round? Answer Application: Application software, also known as an application or an app, is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. So, you are right. An application is something that the user interacts with. Process: A computer program is a passive collection of instructions; a process is the actual execution of those instructions. Several processes may be associated with the same program; for example, opening up several instances of the same program often means more than one process is being executed. Processes then, is what is actually making the application do something. Service: Local implementations in software. Basically, a service is something that is usually built into the OS itself, and is designed to not have any user interaction. Examples This is really how...

The reason I am asking this is because I am curious if there can exist a virus in the computer without me ever being able to know it exists. To be more specific, a virus that emits no signs of any sort. Answer There is a class of malware that can hide itself completely from the operating system known as a rootkit . Rootkits are used to hide the evidence of other malware at work and are embedded very deeply in the operating system. Because of their deep embedding they are able to manipulate process lists, filesystem tables and other important structures on-the-fly. By manipulating filesystem structures in memory they can return false or misleading results for directories, specifically not showing files related to the main malware itself. The files are there, and booting into an uninfected operating system such as a Linux LiveCD will show the files though, as they have to be stored somewhere. Similarly, rootkits can simply drop certain processes from being reported to programs such as ...

I am specifying a custom user agent in Google Chrome in order to access a legacy web site on my company's intranet (the site is needlessly requiring IE). I created an application shortcut for the site and added the --user-agent parameter to the shortcut. If I launch this shortcut without Chrome already running, things work fine. However, if I launch the application shortcut when another Chrome window is already open, the --user-agent parameter is ignored and the normal user-agent is used. So, it appears that whatever user agent string is used when the first Chrome window is opened is what will be used for all future windows or application shortcuts. Is there any way to get around this behavior? Answer What you can do is create multiple profiles. This means that windows will not be shared, and likewise with favorites, cache, home-screen content, cookies, etc., but you'll be able to make your shortcut work the way you wanted it to. First, follow the steps in this article here...

I have 1 long column in an excel sheet. I want to split that 1 column into multiple columns. The multiple column split should happen after every 10 entries. So if there are a total 80 cells in my original column I want them to be split into 8 columns each having 10 cells. I am not well-versed in VBA so I won't be able to follow hints, but I might me able to modify a sample code. My Question Begins Now I have searched SU and found this topic How to Split one column in Excel into multiple columns of 55 rows It has the following command =INDIRECT("Sheet1!R" & (COLUMN()-1)*55+MOD(ROW()-1,55)+1 & "C1", FALSE) I modified it to =INDIRECT("Sheet1!R" & (COLUMN()-1)*10+MOD(ROW()-1,10)+1 & "C1", FALSE) I understand the first parameter to INDIRECT should be the source where I want to pick the value from so it should be of the format "Sheet1!RnnnCnnn" where 'nnn' are the row and column numbers. Can someone please explain ...

I ran past my storage allocation with Dropbox yesterday. After cleaning-up my folder, I have plenty of space again. However, Dropbox shows that it cannot sync a file because there is no space, yet when I check the website or other machines linked, I see the file there - with a green check. Is there a way to clear this message? Can't sync "7linux_tuning.mp3": out of space in your Dropbox But I am only using: 93.6% of 6.2 GB used The file in question is only 30MB, and should fit fine (and, in fact, does). Answer This may sound like a stupid question, but do you have enough space on your physical drive? Since Dropbox acts as a folder on your physical drive there has to be enough space on that drive as well for it to sync. It sounds like you're saying the file does fit on your physical drive by your saying "The file in question is only 30MB, and should fit fine (and, in fact, does)." but I wanted to just throw this first easy solution out there for you. Edit: ...

My brand-new install of Word 2007, which had been working just fine, suddenly refused to save any files. I'd hit Ctrl-S, and it wouldn't complain but it wasn't saving. Then upon exiting, Word would ask if I wanted to save. I'd click on Yes, and the same pop-up would appear, endlessly, until I chose Cancel. Also, on opening files, Word gave an error message about not being able to access a TEMP file. Exact wording: "word could not create the work file - check the temp environment variable". Answer A look at the folder C:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office (where of course MyUserName is my user name), showed that the folder was encrypted. I decrypted it, and -- bingo! -- Word worked perfectly again. This was on a 3-year-old laptop with a fresh disk re-image (OS=Win7) from the helpdesk at work. Weirdly, that folder is encrypted on my desktop at work, and everything works fine there.

How can I know what software is used in authoring, generating the result PDF document? For example MS Word, latex/dvipdf, PDF Creator, etc. Can PDF hold such information? Answer There are Producer and Creator fields in the PDF metadata, but they aren't required to be populated, or accurate.

I have a series of PNG image files that I want to convert into animation. What is the best way to convert them into a GIF? Also I have tried various tools to convert them into a video file (like ffmpeg), however they produce a poor quality video. Using the Video Sequence Editor in Blender produces the desired quality however I do not know how to automate this. (Using ImageMagick's convert takes too long, is there a way to speed it up?)

I am using µTorrent v2. Is it possible to remove a file from µTorrent when a download has finished automatically? I want to keep µTorrent open rather then closing it down. Answer Instead of just stopping at the point of completing a download, here are a few options (which I think uTorrent will also support) -- they are torrent friendly. Limit upload rate Stop seeding after a specific seeding ratio (like say 100%? or, 10% if you are not friendly). Setup alternate upload rate when not downloading (meaning when you have probably completed all your downloads)

I have a list of mp4 files which are of kb's or of at max 4 MB (they were actually gifs but downloaded as mp4).So when I concatenate them using a list of them the video don't work as all of them are of different sizes (resolution wise ) and all of not are in vertical order.So any help with that matter and also I f someone would be kind enough to tell me the FFmpeg command to convert this mp4 list to gif 's without losing quality.Thanks in advance

Is there a way to look up patterns inside an MS Word document instead of an exact match? I have a document where all decimals have been written as / instead of . . For example, 1.02 has been written as 1/02 , because Persian typography uses / instead of . for the decimal point. As / is not only used for decimals, and it has other applications, for example, fractions, percentage, etc., is there a way to find a pattern like N/M within a word document, where N denotes a decimal and M also shows another decimal number? Answer like 'N/M' within a word document, where N denotes a decimal and M also shows another decimal number Just for a search you can use ^#/^# as your search parameter. Under the more options, and find Special , there are some other options that can be helpfull. Nb: ^# , is one decimal place so if you are looking specifically for x/yy then it would be ^#/^#^# etc. to Replace, This is a better option , perform search with ([0-9])/([0-9]) and replace wi...