How to install any version (or SKU) of Windows 7 from any Windows 7 ISO

Did you happen to grab the Professional Edition of the latest build and want to install Ultimate? That?s no problem! Follow these simple steps and you will be able to install any version of Windows 7.



1) Extract all contents of the ISO to a folder on the deskop. I recommend using 7-Zip to open the ISO up.
2) Browse into the folder where you extracted all the files to and open up the /sources/ folder and locate ei.cfg.

3) At this point, you have two options:

1. Delete: If you delete this file, it will give you options on which version you want to install during installation.
2. Edit: If you edit this file, you can set which version of Windows you want it to install automatically.

If you chose to EDIT the file, just open the ei.cfg file in notepad and edit:
Change the word to Ultimate or any other version you would like to install.

• Ultimate
• Professional
• HomePremium
• HomeBasic
• Starter

It will show as following on opening the file for Windows 7 Ultimate:

Code:

[EditionID]
Ultimate
[Channel]
Retail
[VL]
0

Enjoy friends!!!!!!!

Amazon's in-cloud database gets MySQL option

Expanding its cloud-computing storage services to a higher level, Amazon.com unveiled a new option called Amazon RDS for companies that want to store information in a database on the other side of the Internet.

The suite of Amazon Web Services (AWS) already included a database option called SimpleDB, a basic database with its own interface standard for storing data and retrieving it. The Amazon Relational Database Service, in contrast, uses a more standard database interface, embodied in this case in an online implementation of the open-source MySQL software, the company said Monday.

"With Amazon RDS, you get full native access to a MySQL database," specifically, version 5.1 of the Sun Microsystems technology, the company said on its Amazon RDS site. "This means Amazon RDS works with your existing tools, applications, and drivers. You can port an existing database to Amazon RDS without changing a line of code--just point your tools or applications at your Amazon RDS DB instance, and you are ready to go."

Amazon raised minimized hassle and increased flexibility as reasons to use the service, which is currently in beta testing.

"Every hour that you don't spend fiddling with hardware, tracing cables, installing operating systems, or managing databases is an hour that you can spend on the unique and value-added aspects of your application," Jeff Barr, the company's Web services evangelist, said in a blog post. "I should point out that RDS enables a lot of really enticing development and test scenarios. You can set up a separate database instance for each developer on a project without making a big investment in hardware."

With its years-long effort, the Net retailer has built Amazon Web Services into a formidable presence in the information technology world. Competitors include Google App Engine, a computing foundation that can run Java or Python programs on Google's own BigTable database technology, and Microsoft's Azure, which is set to offer access to Windows servers in the cloud when it formally launches in November.

One potentially interesting rival is Oracle, already a giant in the database market and, if it can overcome European regulatory concerns, the future owner of MySQL assets. Because MySQL is open-source software, though, anyone may use and modify it, even without its copyright holders' permission.

The biggest competitor to this model is doing things the old way, with companies running their own computing infrastructure. Cloud computing poses security and trust issues for many companies considering whether to put their data and business applications on somebody else's computer systems. But researchers such as Gartner, an influential but not radical analyst firm, now recommend that companies look seriously at cloud computing.

Amazon is working on greater robustness for Amazon RDS. It offers automated backup, and it later plans to offer a "high-availability" option at no extra charge, with which customers can create a separate instance of a database in a different geographic region.

As with all services on AWS, Amazon RDS is priced on an as-used basis--with per-hour charges according to the server memory requirements of the database: 11 cents per hour for a small database of 1.7GB of RAM; 44 cents for large, or 7.5GB; 88 cents for extra-large, or 15GB; $1.55 for double extra-large, or 34GB; and $3.10 for quadruple extra-large, or 68GB. There also are charges for the size of data stored, the number of input-output requests, the amount of data written to the database, and the amount of data read from the database.

Facebook: Give peace a poke

One of the charts from Facebook showing friend connections across conflict zones.

(Credit: Facebook)

Facebook's executives have been saying for a long time that they believe they've built something that can make the world a better place. And now they've launched a hub for that, called "Peace on Facebook."

"Facebook is proud to play a part in promoting peace by building technology that helps people better understand each other," the site explains. "By enabling people from diverse backgrounds to easily connect and share their ideas, we can decrease world conflict in the short and long term."

It appears to be part of something launching from a group affiliated with Stanford University on Tuesday night, called "Peace Dot," and other Web companies will be announced as partners soon.

Right now, it consists primarily of some links to anti-violence activist groups, charts showing Facebook friend connections made between people across ethnic and religious groups with a history of conflict, polls about the viability of world peace, and a "Share Your Thoughts" widget--basically, one of the status update widgets that Facebook rolled out a few months ago.

There's also a link back to Facebook for Good, the nonprofit initiative that the social network launched when it hit 200 million active users around the world this spring.

Facebook's promotes its role in global affairs regularly: it launched a variety of media and voter-registration partnerships during the 2008 presidential elections, for example, and rushed out a translated version of its site in the Farsi language amid reports that it had become an organizing point for activists in the Iranian political crisis this summer.

Hands-on: Google Voice's new voice mail service

Setting up Google Voice voice mail online.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

On Tuesday, Google took another step toward bringing Google Voice to the masses, fulfilling the wishes of those who are curious enough to try Google's brand of visual voice mail, but either too jealous of their mobile number to give it up for a Google Voice number, or too weary to go through the hassle of training family and friends on a new number.

Google now lets you access some key features in the Google Voice service using the number you've always had, and no longer forces you to sign up for a new Google Voice phone number. How? Google Voice can now take advantage of what's called conditional call forwarding. I tried out the new feature today with success, and have some tips to share.

With Google Voice in charge of your missed calls, callers are directed to your Google Voice in-box instead of to the voice mail box that your carrier operates. There, friends can leave a message after hearing the greeting you recorded online. You, for your part, can listen to messages online or from your phone--in any order you'd like.

As promised, set-up was easy for this existing Google Voice user. In the Settings menu, under the Phone tab, click "Activate Google voice mail for this phone" next to any phone that you've associated with your account. Then, select your carrier (US-only for now) and dial the string of numbers and symbols you see into your phone. Then dial the number. This sets up call forwarding. While many high-end feature phones and smartphones do have separate menu settings for call forwarding, Google's method of entering the forwarding code is faster and removes the guesswork.

New users have slightly more set-up involved. You'll first choose if you want to use your own number or sign up for a new Google Voice account. Then you'll need to enter your Google Account credentials or register an account before setting up your phone.

Using the conditional forwarding service is brainless--whomever calls you hears your Google Voice recording, which you can set up online. You may want to tinker in the settings to forward calls straight to voice mail, or else you could annoy callers with a full ring-through to your mobile voice mail and another ring through to the recorded number. However, leave the setting in its default mode and friends may be able to track you down on other numbers associated with your Google Voice number--if you use Google's number and not your own mobile number.

Forwarding options can cut the time it takes for a caller to get to voice mail, or maybe track you down.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

To send a call straight to voice mail, go to the Phone tab in the Settings menu of your online Google Voice account. Click Edit, then click to see advanced settings. At the bottom is a call forwarding option that you can switch to send straight to your recording.

Using Google's call forwarding is an obvious draw for new users, but existing Google Voice users can also benefit. Turning on voice mail for associated phone joins voice messages left on your cell phone to the Google Voice messages in your in-box online if a friend slips up and calls the old number instead of the new Google Voice number.

New users opting to keep their number should know that they'll lose access to some key Google Voice features--including call forwarding to multiple cell phones and landlines, call screening, call recording, call blocking, and conference calling. Google doesn't allowing upgrading from an account that uses your own phone to a Google voice number yet, but being able to make the switch is in Google's plans. So is the ability to one day port over your own mobile number to Google Voice's full-fledged service.

There are two other points new users should know. First, Google isn't the only service offering free visual voice mail with custom recordings and online management. You Mail has been doing this for some time, and it also has native in-box applications for smartphones like BlackBerry, Android, and iPhone (Google Voice has a native app for Android, plus third-party developer apps for some mobile platforms, like Palm WebOS). In addition, YouMail is already generally available, whereas Google Voice is invite-only. Google will undoubtedly get native management apps for mobile phones in the future, and will scale its service for the giddy multitudes, but if you're not ready to take the plunge with a Google Voice number now, you can still shop around.

Google makes Similar Images part of image search

Google on Tuesday announced that its similar-images feature is now a standard part of the company's image search technology.

The feature was originally launched in late April, alongside the visual-news timeline, as a way for users to find images that share certain visual similarities with those in Google Images search results. This means that you could do a search for "ice cube" and very quickly fork out Google's results between images of the frozen chunks of water and the popular West Coast rapper, all without having to change your original search term.

Which 'ice cube' did you mean? Google's image search can now offer suggestions for images that may be similar.

(Credit: Screenshot by Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

Google continues to host a dedicated Similar Images search page that provides identical results to what's now found in the standard version of Google Images search. This is likely to remain, as has been the case for sites of other Google Labs graduates, such as Google Transit (now a part of Maps) and Google Suggest.

Google has also created a standalone Google Product Ideas page to grab user feedback for other features or changes to the image search service. This operates the same way as other product idea pages by letting users suggest new ideas to Google's engineers, as well as giving others the chance to vote ideas up or down.

AVG Windows 7 Resident Shield *Fix*

This is a description how to fix the AVG (a very common security tool) resident shield when it’s disabled, inactive or not loaded.

Security is a hot topic. Windows 7 greatly reduced the UAC warnings, because beginners were completely clueless what to do about those “annoying” warnings. Because some paranoia is good when it comes to security, you should be aware of the best security tools for Windows 7 and how to run them properly.

AVG Resident Shield Disabled, Inactive or Not Loaded Error

The “AVG Internet Security Suite” includes a great security tool for Windows 7, the so called resident shield. Many people reported problems that they can’t activate this feature properly. In order to fix this “bug”, simply follow my instructions:

1. Go to “Tools” – “Advanced Settings”
2. Uncollapse “Resident Shield”
3. Uncheck “Enable Resident Shield”

4. Click on “Apply”.
5. Check “Enable Resident Shield”
6. Click on “Apply again”.
7. Now you should be able to enable it again. Simply go to the “AVG Security Overview” and double-click on “Resident Shield”

8. Enable the Shield:

Windows 7 Firewall

The AVG suite also includes a firewall, you can find a review here.

Resident Shield

What’s the idea behind a resident shield? It actively scans files whenever they are copied, opened or saved. It also prevents infected files to be executed.

Free Alternatives to AVG

A great free alternative to the AVG resident shield is the Spybot S&D:

Download Spybot

Asked about selling search, Barry Diller says yes

Ask.com could soon be up for sale, judging by the comments of IAC CEO Barry Diller.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Ask.com could be on the block, judging by the comments of the CEO of its parent company.

Reuters reported on IAC's third-quarter earnings conference call Tuesday, where CEO Barry Diller all but opened the bidding for the struggling search engine. Despite a novel promotional deal with Nascar, Ask.com has failed to make much headway against the great powers of search in Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

"We've been asked a lot whether we're open to consolidating transactions in the area of search. The answer is yes," Diller was quoted by Reuters as saying. "And, it is unlikely that we would be the consolidator."

Search consolidation is already in full swing in 2009, with the government reviewing a pending deal between Microsoft and Yahoo that would see Microsoft installed as the exclusive provider of search technology on Yahoo's Web sites. That government scrutiny could make it more difficult for IAC to sell Ask.com to Google or Microsoft, assuming they would be interested.