Packages of Different companies for freshers(Updated)

For more reference you can visit:http://technoworld4u.blogspot.com/

What is average salary for fresh software engineers? Well depends on your college/degree, salaries can vary from private colleges to NITs/BITs/IITs with the highest range being for IITs (offcourse!!). Do IITians work better than other guys? Well in some cases, may be not because they are capable of, but to prove that they are better. Nature of work in software companies does not give ample scope to those with more gray cells.

Salary also varies from non-computer science to computer science, MCA to B.Tech to M.Tech. The following figures give an indication of the fresh engineer salary; there is no way to compare the exact in-hand salary as the salary component also varies from company to company. If you take into account the purchasing power parity, a high salary in Mumbai may not be equal to a much lower salary in Hyderabad.

Companies Packages

Accenture 3.1 lacs p.a

Adobe 6 - 8 lacs p.a

Airvana Networks 4.2 lacs p.a

Alstom 3.4 lacs per annum

Amazon 6 lacs p.a

AOL 6 lacs p.a

Applied Materials 5.5 per annum

Aricent 4.2 lacs p.a

Ashok Leyland 4.0 lacs p.a

Attrenta 4.8 lacs p.a

Amdocs 3.9lacs p.a

Avaya 4 lacs

BHEL 4.2 lacs p.a

BirlaSoft 2.2 lacs p.a

C-Dot 4.9 lacs pa(before applying pay commission)

CISCO 5.6 - 6.0 lacs p.a

Computer Associates 5 lacs p.a

CTS 3 lacs p.a

Capgemini 3 lacs p.a

CSC 3.8 lacs p.a

Cybage 2.9 lacs pa

DE Shaw 11.0 lacs p.a

Deloitte 4.25 lacs p.a

Mphasis 3 lacs p.a

Ericsson 3.5 lacs p.a

Fiorano 5.0 lacs p.a

Freescale 5 lacs p.a

Futures First 6.5 lacs p.a

Globalogic 4 lacs p.a

Google 12 lacs p.a

GE 3.5 lacs p.a

Grail Research 6 lacs p.a

Grapecity 5 lacs p.a

HCL 3 lacs p.a

Honeywell 4 lacs p.a

HP Labs 4 lacs p.a

HP (R&D) 4.75 lacs p.a

IBM GBS 3.5 lacs p.a

IBM ISL 5 lacs p.a

I-flex 2.5 lacs p.a

Impulsesoft 4 lacs p.a

Interra Systems 4.5 lacs p.a

Intergraph 2.8 lacs p.a

Integra 6 lacs p.a

Infogain 2.5 lacs p.a

Infosys 3.5 lacs p.a

Ivy Comptech 5 lacs p.a

Kanbay 2.8 lacs p.a

Kritical 5.5 lacs p.a

Kotak Mahindra 4.5 lacs p.a

L&T 3.2 lacs p.a

Logica 3.6 lacs p.a

Mckinsey and Co 7.5 lacs p.a

Microsoft 8.8 - 9.2 lacs p.a

MindTree 3 lacs p.a

Misys 4.35 lacs p.a

Morgan Stanley 7 lacs p.a (Update: 9.8 lacs p.a)

Motorola 5 lacs p.a

Nokia 3.5 lacs p.a

NTPC 7.0 lacs p.a

Nucleus 3.0 lacs pa

Onmobile 4.5 lacs p.a

Oracle 6.2 p.a

Oracle SSI 5.5 lacs p.a

Oracle ST 8.31 lacs p.a

Patni 3.2 lacs p.a

Perot Systems 2.8 lacs p.a

Persistent System 3.7 lacs p.a

Polaris 2.5 lacs p.a

Redpine Signals 4.5 lacs p.a

Rocsearch 5.2 lacs p.a

SAP Labs 4.2 lacs p.a

Samsung 4.5 lacs p.a

Sapient Technologies ( 3.57 during training and 4 lacs p.a after training)

Satyam Computers 3.5 lacs p.a

Siemens 3.8 lacs p.a

Sonata 2.5 lacs p.a

STM 4.5 lacs p.a

Sun Microsystems 5.6 lacs p.a

Syntel 3 lacs p.a

SSA Global 3.5 lacs p.a

Texas Instruments 5.5 lacs p.a

TATA Steel 4.5 lacs p.a

Tata Elxsi 3.2 lacs p.a

Tavant 3.6 lacs p.a

TCS 3.2 lacs p.a

T-Mobile 8.0 lacs p.a

ThoughtWorks 5.2 lacs p.a

Trilogy 8 lacs p.a

Tech Mahindra 3 lacs p.a

Teradata 3 lacs p.a

Torry Harris 3 lacs p.a

Verizon 4.2 lacs p.a

Virtusa 2.4 lacs p.a

Xilinx 6 lacs p.a

Yasu Technologies 3.5 lacs p.a

Yahoo 7 lacs p.a (Latest figure: 8.76 lacs p.a)

Wipro 3.2 lacs p.a

Zensar Technologies 2.9 lacs pa

Hope you found this list useful.If you found any company missing or you having any updated data,then please post in your comment.So,that I can update the list.
Thanks for visiting.

For more reference you can visit:http://technoworld4u.blogspot.com/

Avoid Temp folders wasting space

The Temporary Internet Files folder on your system takes more hard drive than specified in the configuration.Amongst,other things because leftovers of files remain there even though you have emptied all the contents via the 'Internet Options' dialog box.You can quickly solve the problem described above by moving the Temporary Internet Files directory to the original location.First step is create a new folder and in "Internet Explorer" open 'Tools/Internet Options'.In the 'General' tab click 'Settings' and 'Move Folder' under 'Temporary Internet Files'.Open the newly created folder and click OK.When windows ask you to log off,click 'Yes'.Then log on to the system again and close all dialog fields with OK.In the 'Windows Explorer',now delete the old folder 'Temporary Internet Files' and at the same time storage location create a new folder with the same name.Then repeat the steps described in the beginning and shift the storage location for 'Temporary Internet Files' back to the old location.

The problem that I described above can occur due to variety of reasons.For example,you may have downloaded the contents of website only partially.This happens when you click Stop when site is loading or when you open another site before a site opens completely.This also happens when you download streaming videos with the ActiveX control element "Axis CamControl".And last but not the least,some files can be hidden in the "Temporary Internet Files" folder which are used by other processes or are protected in some way.

How Linux Boots Part-2

There are several different actions in addition to initdefault and wait, especially pertaining to power management, and the inittab(5) manual page tells you all about them. The ones that you're most likely to encounter are explained in the following sections.

respawn:The respawn action causes init to run the command that follows, and if the command finishes executing, to run it again. You're likely to see something similar to this line in your inittab file:

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1

The getty programs provide login prompts. The preceding line is for the first virtual console (/dev/tty1), the one you see when you press ALT-F1 or CONTROL-ALT-F1. The respawn action brings the login prompt back after you log out.

ctrlaltdel:The ctrlaltdel action controls what the system does when you press CONTROL-ALT-DELETE on a virtual console. On most systems, this is some sort of reboot command using the shutdown command.

sysinit:The sysinit action is the very first thing that init should run when it starts up, before entering any runlevels.

How processes in runlevels start

You are now ready to learn how init starts the system services, just before it lets you log in. Recall this inittab line from earlier:

l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5

This small line triggers many other programs. rc stands for run commands, and you will hear people refer to the commands as scripts, programs, or services. So, where are these commands, anyway?

For runlevel 5, in this example, the commands are probably either in /etc/rc.d/rc5.d or /etc/rc5.d. Runlevel 1 uses rc1.d, runlevel 2 uses rc2.d, and so on. You might find the following items in the rc5.d directory:

S10sysklogd S20ppp S99gpm
S12kerneld S25netstd_nfs S99httpd
S15netstd_init S30netstd_misc S99rmnologin
S18netbase S45pcmcia S99sshd
S20acct S89atd
S20logoutd S89cron

The rc 5 command starts programs in this runlevel directory by running the following commands:

S10sysklogd start
S12kerneld start
S15netstd_init start
S18netbase start
...
S99sshd start

Notice the start argument in each command. The S in a command name means that the command should run in start mode, and the number (00 through 99) determines where in the sequence rc starts the command.

The rc*.d commands are usually shell scripts that start programs in /sbin or /usr/sbin. Normally, you can figure out what one of the commands actually does by looking at the script with less or another pager program.

You can start one of these services by hand. For example, if you want to start the httpd Web server program manually, run S99httpd start. Similarly, if you ever need to kill one of the services when the machine is on, you can run the command in the rc*.d directory with the stop argument (S99httpd stop, for instance).

Some rc*.d directories contain commands that start with K (for "kill," or stop mode). In this case, rc runs the command with the stop argument instead of start. You are most likely to encounter K commands in runlevels that shut the system down.

Adding and removing services

If you want to add, delete, or modify services in the rc*.d directories, you need to take a closer look at the files inside. A long listing reveals a structure like this:

lrwxrwxrwx . . . S10sysklogd -> ../init.d/sysklogd
lrwxrwxrwx . . . S12kerneld -> ../init.d/kerneld
lrwxrwxrwx . . . S15netstd_init -> ../init.d/netstd_init
lrwxrwxrwx . . . S18netbase -> ../init.d/netbase
...

The commands in an rc*.d directory are actually symbolic links to files in an init.d directory, usually in /etc or /etc/rc.d. Linux distributions contain these links so that they can use the same startup scripts for all runlevels. This convention is by no means a requirement, but it often makes organization a little easier.

How Linux Boots Part-1

Hello friends in this post and in the next two post i will tell you how Linux operating system boots and also tell you the whole processes that are connected during its booting.

As it turns out, there isn't much to the boot process:

1. A boot loader finds the kernel image on the disk, loads it into memory, and starts it.
2. The kernel initializes the devices and its drivers.
3. The kernel mounts the root filesystem.
4. The kernel starts a program called init.
5. init sets the rest of the processes in motion.
6. The last processes that init starts as part of the boot sequence allow you to log in.

Identifying each stage of the boot process is invaluable in fixing boot problems and understanding the system as a whole. To start, zero in on the boot loader, which is the initial screen or prompt you get after the computer does its power-on self-test, asking which operating system to run. After you make a choice, the boot loader runs the Linux kernel, handing control of the system to the kernel.

There is a detailed discussion of the kernel elsewhere in this book from which this article is excerpted. This article covers the kernel initialization stage, the stage when the kernel prints a bunch of messages about the hardware present on the system. The kernel starts init just after it displays a message proclaiming that the kernel has mounted the root filesystem:

VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.

Soon after, you will see a message about init starting, followed by system service startup messages, and finally you get a login prompt of some sort.

NOTE On Red Hat Linux, the init note is especially obvious, because it "welcomes" you to "Red Hat Linux." All messages thereafter show success or failure in brackets at the right-hand side of the screen.

Most of this chapter deals with init, because it is the part of the boot sequence where you have the most control.
init

There is nothing special about init. It is a program just like any other on the Linux system, and you'll find it in /sbin along with other system binaries. The main purpose of init is to start and stop other programs in a particular sequence. All you have to know is how this sequence works.

There are a few different variations, but most Linux distributions use the System V style discussed here. Some distributions use a simpler version that resembles the BSD init, but you are unlikely to encounter this.

Runlevels

At any given time on a Linux system, a certain base set of processes is running. This state of the machine is called its runlevel, and it is denoted with a number from 0 through 6. The system spends most of its time in a single runlevel. However, when you shut the machine down, init switches to a different runlevel in order to terminate the system services in an orderly fashion and to tell the kernel to stop. Yet another runlevel is for single-user mode, discussed later.

The easiest way to get a handle on runlevels is to examine the init configuration file, /etc/inittab. Look for a line like the following:

id:5:initdefault:
This line means that the default runlevel on the system is 5. All lines in the inittab file take this form, with four fields separated by colons occurring in the following order:
# A unique identifier (a short string, such as id in the preceding example)
# The applicable runlevel number(s)
# The action that init should take (in the preceding example, the action is to set the default runlevel to 5)
# A command to execute (optional)

There is no command to execute in the preceding initdefault example because a command doesn't make sense in the context of setting the default runlevel. Look a little further down in inittab, until you see a line like this:

l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5

This line triggers most of the system configuration and services through the rc*.d and init.d directories. You can see that init is set to execute a command called /etc/rc.d/rc 5 when in runlevel 5. The wait action tells when and how init runs the command: run rc 5 once when entering runlevel 5, and then wait for this command to finish before doing anything else.

Block Adservers and enjoy

If you wanna remove those nasty ads from the pages which waste lot of time and bandwidth then here is something for you I believe it will help you a lot.

How it works:It's possible to set up a name server as authoritative for any domain you choose, allowing you to specify the DNS records for that domain. You can also configure most computers to be sort of mini-nameservers for themselves, so that they check their own DNS records before asking a nameserver. Either way, you get to say what hostname points to what IP address. If you haven't guessed already, the way you block ads it to provide bogus information about the domains we don't want to see - ie, all those servers out there that dedicate their existence to spewing out banner ads.

The hosts file:Probably the most common way people block ads like this is with something called the "hosts file". The hosts file is a simple list of hostnames and their corresponding IP addresses, which your computer looks at every time you try and contact a previously unknown hostname. If it finds an entry for the computer you're trying to reach, it sets the IP address for that computer to be whatever's in the hosts file.

127.0.0.1 is a special IP address which, to a computer, always means that computer. Any time a machine sends a network request to 127.0.0.1, it is talking to itself. This is very useful when it comes to blocking ads, because all we have to do is specify the IP address of any ad server to be 127.0.0.1. And to do that, all we have to do is edit the hosts file. What will happen then is something like this:

1. you visit a web page
2. the web page contains a banner ad stored on the server "ads.example.com"
3. your computer says "ads.example.com? never heard of it. wait a second, let's see if I've got the number on me..."
4. your computer finds its hosts file and checks to see if ads.example.com is listed
5. it finds the hostname, which points to 127.0.0.1
6. "great", says the computer, and sends off a request to 127.0.0.1 for the banner ad that's supposed to be on the page
7. "oh", says the computer, and fails to show anything because it just sent a request to itself for a banner ad

Where's my hosts file?

* Windows 95 / 98 / ME: C:\Windows (I think)
* Windows NT: C:\WinNT\hosts
* Windows 2000: C:\WinNT\system32\drivers\etc\
* Windows XP: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
* FreeBSD / Linux / Mac OS X / Unixish operating systems: /etc/hosts
* Classic Mac OS: please read this helpful information submitted by David "iNerd" B
* Mac OS 9: Marcia Skidmore sent in details that hopefully explain what you need to know.

The format of the hosts file is very simple - IP address, whitespace, then a list of hostnames (except for older Macs; please see above). However, you don't need to know anything about the format if you don't want to as you can just view the list hosts file.

Of course, that's not the only way to use the list, but it's probably the most simple for most people.

Here is the hosts list which are serving you the ads just append it to your hosts file and enjoy ad free surfing makes things faster. if you want ad from certain site then just remove it from the list below.

QUOTE
127.0.0.1 007arcadegames.com
127.0.0.1 101order.com
127.0.0.1 123banners.com
127.0.0.1 123found.com
127.0.0.1 180searchassistant.com
127.0.0.1 180solutions.com
127.0.0.1 247media.com
127.0.0.1 247realmedia.com
127.0.0.1 24pm-affiliation.com
127.0.0.1 2log.com
127.0.0.1 2o7.net
127.0.0.1 4affiliate.net
127.0.0.1 4d5.net
127.0.0.1 7adpower.com
127.0.0.1 911promotion.com
127.0.0.1 a-counter.kiev.ua
127.0.0.1 a.consumer.net

For more list you can post a comment.

Windows XP Tips Part-3

19.Unload DLLs:To prevent Windows from caching DLLs after the program using them has closed, follow this procedure: Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ then left-click on Explorer. Right-click (as above) and create the DWORD. AlwaysUnload DLL with a value of 1. This requires a reboot to take effect. This will allow memory to be used more efficiently.

20.Registry Hacks:Editing the Windows Registry, while much more common now than in years past, is still not to be entered into lightly. You can break Windows, cause boot failure. I know you're gonna do it anyway; why else would you be reading this. Just be careful, OK?

These are few because, for the most part WinXP can be customized through the interlace or with third-party freeware (as above).All of the tips below require running regedit. To do so, hit 'Start/Run' then type 'regedit' and follow the instructions.

Naturally, I take no responsibility for any damage or loss of data incurred in the remote possibility that something goes terribly wrong.

21:The Ultimate Appearance Tweak:Microsoft said: "You can connect up to 10 monitors to your Windows XP-based computer and display numerous programs or windows at one time. You can use your mouse to move items from one monitor to another. You can open a different file on each monitor. Or several. Or you can stretch one item across several monitors; so for example, you can see more columns in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, or the entire layout of a Web page, without scrolling." Consider it. Monitors and PCI video cards are pretty cheap now. Windows recognizes the addition & allows easy adjustments on the 'Display Properties/Settings' menu.

23.Save Streaming Media:It's cool to listen to MP3s (or watch movies) over the Internet. Often, saving this media, however, seems impossible. Hey, if it plays on your computer, it's on your hard drive. Once the file is fully loaded and with folder view set to show hidden and systems folders, searches for the media (.mp3 or .mpg). There it is!

23.Securing the Paging File:If you're truly concerned about the possibility of your computer falling into the wrong hands, you should be sure that you don't leave any tracks in the paging file. By default, when you shut down your system, the paging file remains intact. People who've access to your computer could conceivably look through the unencrypted paging file to find information they shouldn't have.

24.Assign a Keyboard Shortcut:Click in the Shortcut Key field and press a keyboard combination that you want to use for launching or switching to this program. The shortcut key you assign must consist of one character key (a letter, number, or symbol) plus at least two of the following three keys: Ctrl, Alt, and Shift. (If you press a character key only, Windows automatically adds Ctrl+Alt.)

Shortcut keys work only when assigned to a program shortcut on the Start menu, the Programs menu, or the Desktop. The shortcuts you define will not work if it conflicts with a combination used in the program whose window has the focus.

Please remember, I cannot accept responsibility with what you decide to do with these tips. These tips act as a guide to tweaking and changing Windows XP from the default settings. If you are unsure about how to make these changes then don't meddle !.

Windows XP Tips Part-2

11.Display Hibernate Option on the Shut Down dialog:For some reason, Hibernate isn't available from the default Shut Down dialog. But you can enable it simply enough, by holding down the SHIFT key while the dialog is visible. Now you see it, now you don't!

12.Enable ClearType on the Welcome Screen!:
As laptop users and other LCD owners are quickly realizing, Microsoft's ClearType technology in Windows XP really makes a big difference for readability. But the this feature is enabled on a per-user basis in Windows XP, so you can't see the effect on the Welcome screen; it only appears after you logon.

But you can fix that. Fire up the Registry Editor and look for the following keys:

(default user) HKEY_USERS \ .Default \ Control Panel \ Desktop \
FontSmoothing (String Value)
HKEY_USERS \ .Default \ Control Panel \ Desktop \
FontSmoothingType (Hexadecimal DWORD Value)

Make sure both of these values are set to 2 and you'll have ClearType enabled on the Welcome screen and on each new user by default.

13.Change User Picture:Click on the Icon at the top of the start menu. Select desired picture from resulting screen Windows 2000 style logon. To revert back to the Win2k style logon so you can log on as the administrator and other options, press ctrl+alt+delete twice at the logon screen. Change the location of the My Music or My Pictures folders:

In Windows 2000, Microsoft added the ability to right-click the My Documents folder and choose a new location for that folder in the shell. With Windows XP, Microsoft has elevated the My Music and My Pictures folders to the same "special shell folder" status of My Documents, but they never added a similar (and simple) method for changing those folder's locations. However, it is actually pretty easy to change the location of these folders, using the following method.

Open a My Computer window and navigate to the location where you'd like My Music (or My Pictures) to reside. Then, open the My Documents folder in a different window. Drag the My Music (or My Pictures) folder to the other window, and Windows XP will update all of the references to that folder to the new location, including the Start menu.

14.Protect Your Files From Unauthorized Users:Other users with permission to delete a file (users with Modify or Full Control permission) can't use your encrypted files-but they can make them difficult for you to use. Any such user can rename your files, which can make them difficult to find, and can also delete your files. (Even if the user merely deletes them to the Recycle Bin and doesn't remove them altogether, the deleted files are unavailable to you because you don't have access to any other user's Recycle Bin.) Therefore, if you're concerned about protecting your files from other authorized users as well as from a thief who steals your computer, you should modify the NTFS permissions to prevent any type of modification by other users.

15.Shutdown Your System in a Hurry:If you need to shut down in a hurry-or if a frozen application prevents you from shutting down in the normal ways-you can use the following procedure. Be aware, however, that you won't get an opportunity to save open documents. To perform an emergency shutdown, press Ctrl+Alt+Del to display Task Manager. Open the Shut down menu and hold down the Ctrl key as you click the Turn Off command. Poof! If your computer is part of a domain, the procedure is similar. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del and then hold down Ctrl when you click Shut Down. In this situation, you'll get a warning message pointing out-quite correctly-that this should be used only as a last resort.

16.Provide Personal Support:It never fails: when friends, co-workers, or family members discover that you're a Windows expert, you get pressed into service as an unpaid support technician. If the party asking for help is running any edition of Windows XP and has an active Internet connection, your job is much easier. Have the other person send you a Remote Assistance request; when you accept the request, you connect directly to their computer and can edit Registry settings, fix file associations, set System options, and perform just about any other troubleshooting or repair task, just as if you were sitting at the other person's desk.

17.Quickly Fix Connectivity Problems:Are you having trouble connecting to other computers on your local area network? If your network uses a hardware firewall that assigns IP addresses to each machine and you're certain you've configured all other components correctly, check to see whether the Internet Connection Firewall is enabled. That component can effectively block communication between PCs on the network.

18.Hack IE Title Bar:This can be an impressive bit of personalization. Use your name or moniker to brand Internet Explorer. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ and left-click on Main to change the string "Window Title" to whatever you wish.

Windows XP Tips Part-1

Hello friends in this and in the next few posts I am going to tell you some interesting Windows XP tips with the help of which you can you customize your Windows XP.

1.Lock XP Workstation:You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter 'rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation' in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That's it -- just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that's not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.

2.Remove Windows XP system software:XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word 'hide' and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

3.New commands:For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include 'eventcreate' and 'eventtriggers' for creating and watching system events, 'typeperf' for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and 'schtasks' for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options -- they're all far too baroque to go into here.

4.Windows XP supports IPv6:XP has IP version 6 support -- the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type 'ipv6 install' into Run... (it's OK, it won't ruin your existing network setup) and then 'ipv6 /?' at the command line to find out more. If you don't know what IPv6 is, don't worry and don't bother.

5.Kill tasks from the command line:You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using 'taskkill /pid' and the task number, or just 'tskill' and the process number. Find that out by typing 'tasklist', which will also tell you a lot about what's going on in your system.

6.Enable ClearType by default:XP has ClearType -- Microsoft's anti-aliasing font display technology-- but doesn't have it enabled by default. It's well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry

HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/ControlPanel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.

7.Run program as different user:You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As... and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.

8.Speed up the Start Menu:The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.

9.Rename multiple files at once:You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetized groups by View, Arrange Icon By... Show In-Groups.

10.Show cover art in Media Player:Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks -- if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn't, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.

In the next post I will tell you some more Windows XP tips.

Batch File Programming Part-8

PIPING:Piping is a feature which combines both Input and Output Redirection. It uses the Pipe operator, which is the | symbol. This command captures the Output of one command and sends it as the Input of the other command. Say for example, when you give the command del *.* then you need to confirm that you mean to delete all files by pressing y. Instead we can simply do the same without any User Interaction by giving the command:

c:\windows> echo y | del *.*
This command is pretty self explanatory, y is sent to the command del *.*
Batch File Programming can be very easy and quite useful. The only thing that one needs to be able to become a Batch File Programming nerd, is adequate knowledge of DOS commands. I suggest you surf the net or get a book on DOS commands and really lick the pages off the book, only then can you become an expert.

Making your own Syslog Daemon:We can easily combine the power of batch file programs and the customizable Windows Interface to make our own small but efficient System Logging Daemon.Basically this Syslog Daemon can keep a track of the files opened(any kind of files), the time at which the files were opened also actually post the log of the User's activities on to the web, so that the System Administrator can keep a eye on things.

Simply follow the following steps to make the daemon-:
NOTE: In the following example, I am making a syslog daemon which keeps an eye on what text files were opened by the User. You can easily change what files you want it to keep an eye on by simply following the same steps.

1. ASSOCIATING THE FILES TO BE MONITORED TO THE LOGGER:Actually this step is not the first, but being the easiest, I have mentioned it earlier. The first thing to do is to
associate the text files(*.txt) files to our batch file which contains the code to log the User's activities. You can of course keep an eye on other files as well, the procedure is almost similar. Anyway, we associate .txt files to our batch program so that each time a .txt file is opened, the batch file is also executed. To do this, we need to change the File Associations of .txt files.
For more information on Changing File Associations, refer to the Windows Help Files, simply type Associations and search. Anyway to change the associations of .txt files and to point them to our batch file, simply do the below:

Locate any .txt file on your system, select it(click once) and Press the SHIFT key. Keeping the SHIFT key pressed, right click on the .txt file to bring up the OPEN WITH... option. Clicking on the OPEN WITH... option will bring up OPEN WITH dialog box. Now click on the OTHER button and locate the batch file program which contains the logging code and click on OPEN and OK.
Now each time a .txt file is opened, the batch file is also executed, hence logging all interactions of the User with .txt files.

2. Creating the Log File:Now you need to create a text file, which actually will act like a log file and will log the activities of the User. This log file will contain the filename and the time at which the .txt file was opened. Create a new blank text file in the same directory as the batch file. Now change the attributes of this log file and make it hidden by changing it's attributes by issuing the ATTRIB command.

C:\windows>attrib xyz.txt +h
This will ensure that a lamer will not know as to where the log file is located.

3. CODING THE LOGGING BATCH FILE:The coding of the actual batch file which will log the User's activities and post it on the web is quite simple. If you have read this tutorial properly till now, then you would easily be able to understand it, although I still have inserted comments for novices.

echo %1 >> xyz.txt /* Send the file name of the file opened to the log file, xyz.txt */
notepad %1 /* Launch Notepad so that the lamer does not know something is wrong. */

This logging file will only log the filename of the text file which was opened by the unsuspecting lamer, say you want to also log the time at which a particular file was opened, then you simply make use of the 'time' command. The only thing that one needs to keep in mind is that after giving the TIME command , we need to press enter too, which in turn has to entered in the batch file too.Say you, who are the system administrator does not have physical access or have gone on a business trip, but have access to the net and need to keep in touch with the server log file, then you easily link the log file to a HTML file and easily view it on the click of a button. You could also make this part of the site password protected or even better form a public security watch contest where the person who spots something fishy wins a prize or something, anyway the linking can easily be done by creating an .htm or. html file and inserting the following snippet of code:

4. Enhancing the logging Batch file to escape the eyes of the Lamer:To enhance the functioning of our logging daemon, we need to first know it's normal functioning.Normally, if you have followed the above steps properly, then each time a .txt file is opened, the batch file is launched(in a new window, which is maximized) and which in turn launches Notepad. Once the filename and time have been logged, the batch file Window does not close automatically and the User has to exit from the Window manually. So maybe someone even remotely intelligent will suspect something fishy. We can configure our batch file to work minimized and to close itself after the logging process has been completed.

To do this simply follow the following steps-:
a) Right Click on the Batch File.
b) Click on properties from the Pop up menu.
c) In the Program tab click on the Close on Exit option.
d) Under the same tab, under the RUN Input box select Minimized.
e) Click on Apply and voila the batch file is now more intelligent

This was just an example of a simple batch file program. You can easily create a more intelligent and more useful program using batch code.