If you have some broken or unwanted gold jewellery, don't sell it to a jewellers shop or car boot trader or one of those firms that advertise on TV - send direct to the dealer and get a lot more money for it! Please use this link for an honest and respectable UK Gold dealer - just get a quote, send it off via Special Delivery and they will credit your bank account or PayPal account the next day.
They offer the BEST PRICE for gold and I highly recommend them!
I was offered £80 by my local jeweller and £100 by a cash-for-gold market stall, HattonGarden gave me £120 and are very honest and open about their prices.
Do you have any gold sovereigns? You may be surprised at what they are worth! A half-sovereign weighs 4g and a full sovereign 8g. Do you have any old silver or pre-1947 silver coins - check their value on the website now - you will be surprised!
I use DropBox all the time and highly recommend it and it is free! Install a DropBox folder onto your Desktop and anything you put in the DropBox folder is automatically copied to the 'Cloud' (i.e. the DropBox company file servers). If you also have a DropBox folder on your Office PC's Desktop then everything will appear in there too when you login to your Windows desktop and also any other PC/notebook you have. No more emailing files to yourself - it's all there in your DropBox folder! Just use the folder as your 'work' folder for any documents or software you are currently working on and they will always be available wherever you are. Do you write software? Just use a DropBox folder as your work folder. Then if your hard disk accidentally gets destroyed, you hard work is still in the 'cloud' (DropBox servers) - when you re-install Windows and re-install DropBox, it will all come back! You can also restore earlier versions too.
It is ideal for sending large files to colleagues too - just email a link to the file and they can download.
Use this link to register and get an extra 250MB of storage free or watch a video to show you how useful it is. I use this every day and I highly recommend it!
Just be aware that if you use this at home, it can increase your 'download usage' significantly if you make large changes to the DropBox folder on a daily basis. This can eat into your ISP's monthly download allowance without you being aware of it!
Get £1000's worth of UK discounts and CashBackoffers by signing up with FroggyBank - please use this link and when you use FroggyBank you will support Marie Curie Cancer Care at the same time as finding the best bargains, vouchers, offers and cashback offers available!
Windows 7 ISO EI.CFG file remover - patches a Win7 Install ISO to remove the ei.cfg file so that you will be prompted for all versions (except Enterprise version) - not required if you are using Easy2Boot or LOADISO/Firadisk ISO booting.
Windows 7 Super Lite ISO- google for "Windows 7 Super Lite Edition alkalinware"
Win8.1 Install Keys (won't activate - use your Win8 key for that)
Windows 8 Core: 334NH-RXG76-64THK-C7CKG-D3VPT
Windows 8 Professional: XHQ8N-C3MCJ-RQXB6-WCHYG-C9WKB
The Windows 8 Release Preview ISOs can be found here.
Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview ISO YNB3T-VHW8P-72P6K-BQHCB-DM92V - Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview should be installed on a test machine. Following the preview period, it is not possible to upgrade to a licensed working version of Windows 8.1 Enterprise. Personal data will be kept on your test computer, but the Windows OS and your applications will need to be reinstalled when moving from the preview to production bits.
If you have an MSDN subscription then get the full RTM version(s) from here.
Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISO Downloads (2012-02-29)When you install Windows 8 Consumer Preview you’ll be asked for a product key. You can use DNJXJ-7XBW8-2378T-X22TX-BKG7J for the 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows 8 Consumer Preview. This key will most likely expire after Microsoft officially launches Windows 8 later this year.
XPSP3 Retail Technet download - search for Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3 (x86) Retail CD (English) technet
Modified XP SP3 ISO (672MB - suitable for burning as CD only - does not work from USB drive from an ISO file) - search for >> Windows_XP_SP3_2011_v11.07_CD.iso and filepost using Google.
USB support in MS-DOS
DOS2USB - Add USB driver support to DOS for USB 2.0. DOS2USB allows you to use a DOS program with a range of USB printers irrespective of their types, including USB Printers, Network Printers, Print-Servers, as well as PDF-printers too!
DOSUSB 2.0 - DOSUSB includes drivers which enable DOS applications to communicate with any USB device. Works with EHCI, UHCI and OHCI controllers. Includes DOS device drivers for USB flash drives, USB serial adapters, USB printers. Samples are included in the package.
DOSUSB 3.0 - as DOSUSB 2.0 but supports USB 3.0 xHCI controllers at 480MB/s (max).
Make a bootable USB UEFI Win7/8 install boot drive. With instructions on how to install UEFI Win7/8 to a GPT disk afterwards.
Other useful links
HIRENS BOOT CD - Want a download? Try this or Hirens Boot CD Download (Falcon4 F4UBCD) For DLCD version search for "Ultimate DLCD.2014.v2.1.iso"
WinMerge - Use the 2011 version (rename to .exe to install), later versions like 2.14 and 2.12 have a serious bug! Simply the BEST utility for comparing two folders or files and editing them! Ideal for comparing different versions of files (especially text files).
TrueCrypt password reset - Use Hirens to reset a Windows password on a TrueCrypt encrypted drive (must know TrueCrypt password).
FilExile- got a file or folder that Window refuses to delete (even in Safe Mode), for instance, a directory containing Windows 7 system files will not be deleted by Windows - this program really works! Download it now before you forget where you saw it!
Bootice - edit PBR/MBR/BCD (in WinPE or Windows). BOOTICE is a powerful boot-related utility. To manipulate (install, backup, restore) the MBR and PBR of disks (or disk images), to partition and format disks, to edit disk sectors in hexadecimal, to erase all the data on your disk or logical drive (by filling with customizable characters), to edit Grub4DOS boot menu, and to edit BCD file of Windows NT 6.x.
FlashBoot - if you have some older systems which don't boot properly from USB when prepared with RMPrepUSB, try FlashBoot (trial version - try before you buy s/w).
Get IDs of Unknown Devices - this hand utility looks at the Unknown Devices in Device Manager (XP to Win7 64-bit) and attempts to identify what they are from a database of PCI IDs. This is very handy for obtaining the correct drivers when installing a fresh copy of Windows. Download Dec 2012 version - or see forum for latest download version.
Bootit.exe - utility that can 'Flip the bit' on some USB Flash drives (e.g. Lexar) and change it so that it will always appear as a Fixed Disk rather than a Removable Disk. This can make a UFD more bootable.
Use ChipGenius to identify which controller you have in your UFD - download here - WARNING! Check for viruses using an Online Scanner like VirusTotal before you run it!
Use iFlash list to find which Mass production Tool you need.
Then choose the correct USB Mass Production (factory) tool to reprogram your UFD from here (russian site - use Google Chrome translation feature)
More Flash utilities and tool downloads here. Tip: Use FireFox if having trouble viewing Captcha download images!
UFDisk 1.0.0.2.exe - utility to make a U3 type flash drive containing a bootable CD/DVD in a separate partition (only works on USB drives with a Silicon Motion SM or SMI controller, e.g. Lexar drives and some Netac drives). Use the AutoRun button and adjust the size of the CD partition to be slightly bigger than the ISO, then pick the ISO you want to use to populate the CD device partition.
RW - Windows 7 utility to access h/w PCI registers, SMBUS, ACPI tables, SMBIOS, memory, I/O, USB device registers, etc. - very useful http://jacky5488.myweb.hinet.net/
Produkey - displays MS Product Keys (e.g. Office or Windows 7/Vista/XP) used on your system. Shows OEM/Retail Product Keys - may not display Volume Licence product keys.
Magical Jelly Bean Key Finder - similar to produkey - latest free versio DOES find Win 7 Product Keys (even though it says it doesn't!)
NSIS - Nullsoft Scriptable Install System - open source installer.
DPINST - install a driver from an INF file using the command line (xml flags and command line switches)
PhotoRec - recover your photos from a trashed UFD or SD card. This can be a life-saver!
DiskView - view free clusters (FAT+NTFS), clusters used by a file (FAT+NTFS), etc. Some other functions only work on NTFS volumes.
Prey - free Open Source based laptop tracker. This software reported my position (my house!) and emailed me my photo taken by my laptop webcam and even gave a picture of my front door and garage via google street maps as well as my house number and postcode! It works by looking at WiFi access points near your laptop when you report it as stolen. Why not install it now. You can track your laptop by logging in to the website. Just make sure you leave a limited user guest account with no password on your laptop so that the thief can log in, as it only tracks once someone logs in.
ISORecorder - makes ISO files (including bootable ones)
For a book on using DOS 6.22 (Using MS-DOS 6.22 by Jim Cooper) see here.
Codec Pack - Use if Windows Media Player (WMP) won't play WAV files or some other format.
K-Lite codec MegaPack - these codecs are wicked! Choose the Mega Pack - For instance, I can record the screen using CamStudio lossless compression and then import the avi files into MS Movie Maker and they will just work!
RW Everything - Windows Hardware Tweak tool - examine/edit PCI registers and SMBUS (DIMM SPD contents) under Windows. Very powerful tool for hardware register tinkering!
Backup and Restore Windows Vista and Win 7 Activation - this allows you to backup the OEM files from an OEM Windows OS, wipe the disk and install a nice, clean MS (same) version and then restore the OEM files so you can use the OEM activation. Also works is you want to switch from a 32-bit version to a 64-bit version but don't have the 64-bit OEM media. See also reboot.pro post for a manual way to do this.
GeGeek - contains loads of useful geeky info and the Toolkit download (2GB of portable apps, complete with menu and auto-updater!) - see here for forum post
Multibooters - lots of info on how Vista (and 7 and 8) can be multi-booted and how multi-boot works!
USB stuff
What is USB and how does it work?- a good introduction can be foundhere.
Simple USB Logger - captures live USB traffic to/from a USB device under Windows from Incentives Pro
Hitachi Microdrive cfa Windows driver to allow USB Flash drives to appear as fixed disks in Windows (and thus show all partitions in Explorer) - Hitachi_Microdrive.zip
64-bit driver Windows driver to allow USB Flash drives to appear as fixed disks in Windows (and thus show all partitions in Explorer)x64_DenkiHonpo_F2Dx1.zip
Web stuff
Get a free www.xxxxx.tk domain redirection (free setup so that anyone using www.xxxxxx.tk will get redirected to your site - just choose any name for xxxx that you want!)
Hardware
Lookupmanufacturer from UL number - fill in the E number from the label to reveal the manufacturer and address of mfr - useful for PSUs, etc.
PSU manufacturers - useful PSU mfr tables from Toms Hardware - A to Z
Having trouble finding a Win7 64-bit Driver for this webcam? I did! Also known as TriCom, DHTC, ZSMC, ViMicro, Intex Night Vision IT-305WC Drivers (5.0 mega pixels),ZS211 etc.
Mainboard Sockets, Ports, DIMM chart - identify that part or port!
