Screenshots of NFS Pro-Street on my PC…..

And more pics…..

Need For Speed; Pro-Street takes us back to the NFS 5 Porsche Unleashed days, which also featured better simulation, gameplay and damage model compared to later titles. And NFS-PS also features all the bling bling, which allows us to customize and tune cars found on versions after NFS Underground. Except cops, coz this time we have to race on tracks not on streets, so its legal racing now.

Graphics powered by my Nvidia 7600GS

Defending your computer, from internet-based threats has turned into a (difficult) part of netiquette lately. Threats from internet come in various forms like spyware, viruses, trojans, hackers …etc.

 My conception is, if we’d be careful enough, to not to roam around insecure sites (or verify suspicious sites), like sites related to warez, porn …etc, we’d be far from Internet threats. And definitely, we should keep our pc’s operating system updated with the latest updates, Updates for Windows OS could dowloaded manually or set to be done automatically by the OS. If we’d be using a proper email client with online virus scanning of mails, it’d be an added advantage.

We must have a proper Anti-virus software on a system, for data to survive. AVG, AntiVir, AOL AV Shield, Avast are some popular freeware antivirus softwares. Some anti virus applications have integrated spyware detection for some extent. Still we should have some spy-ware detection software.

Currently, am using Ad-Aware to run spyware scans (monthly) and I update its definitions using its update feature, before making a scan. And also am using Spybot - Search & destroy, a freeware application used to track spyware. It also has a feature called Immunize. A bad url blocking tweak for browsers, similar to JavaCool’s SpywareBlaster, this allows you to tweak some internal Internet Explorer settings to block the installation of known spyware, installers and similar threats. Spybot-S&D is able to set all entries to be blocked, for those that are in its database, which could be updated through the application.

Well, if you cant resist visiting insecure sites use Sandboxie, an intresting solution which works as a secure layer between your computer and the browser. Stealth plugin for Firefox, is one of the best available privacy tools for almost ‘anonymous’ surfing. Which allows a Stealth mode in which the browser doesn’t keep track of browsing history, cache data, cookies, form information, downloads …etc. You can use online virus scanning services to scan files, there are services like VirusTotal, Jotti Scanner …etc. Else if you want to scan a file for viruses by providing a url over the web, use - Dr.Web.

Also you can use a web based proxy tool like Google Translate to browse suspicious pages (not the securest method though). Still, if you’re feeling insecure, get Zone Alarm, firewall solution, a well reputed freeware application to keep your ports clean of unwanted intruders.

After a series of troubles just recovered a bit of my Xp.

1. ’windows/system32/config/system missing or corrupted’

The file windows/system32/config/system was corrupted, which is the file that stores the system hive of registry. Cause was bad sectors on hard disk, which made it worse after repairing. My solution was just replacing the system file from windows/repair folder. Then I booted and I had an exported Reg file of the System hive at an earlier time. I just ran it over the system. Worked at first.

2. Conflict between IRQ resources

Cause was corrupted registry values overlapping due to multiple devices to same resources. Some devices such as sound card didn’t work. Solution this time was installing Xp straight away. Which worked at last. Just an update installation.

For all these work Knoppix, a bootable Linux live cd version that doesn’t have to be installed helped me a lot to sort things out without booting up Windows.