Anas Ismail Khan

The React OS project is an operating system written from scratch that follows the design and architecture of Windows NT. The idea behind it was to launch a free and open-source operating system that would enable windows programs and drivers to run on your PC.

Now, what you must be thinking is: “Why the hell would one want to go for such an OS when we already have got Windows?” Well, that’s cause ReactOS is free and open-source, means that you are free to customize it to suit your needs. It’s not just an alternative, but a free alternative to Microsoft Windows.

It’s pretty light actually. You can download it from the reactOS site, though i’d advise you to try it on a VM first, cause you might not find it as interesting as it sounds.

An error i faced while trying to install Linux XP 2006 on a VirtualBox VM. The error is known to have been faced while installing Red Hat too, and the reason behind it is that neither of the two OS support SATA hard-drives, i.e.  at least the older versions didn’t, so I just unmounted the HDD from the SATA controller, and mounted the same HDD on the IDE controller. To do so in VBox,

1. Power off the machine
2. Go to the machine’s settings>Storage
3. Right-Click on the HDD(under SATA in the storage tree), and click Remove attachment
4. Add a hard-disk to the IDE controller and in the box that pops up, click “choose existing disk” 
5. Now all you gotta do is browse to the HDD you just unmounted and select it.

That’s it. Start the VM, it ought to work fine now.

Often users face this problem, after uninstalling Linux, and re-partitioning the un-allocated space. What actually happens is that they keep on getting stupid errors saying “Not enough space on the disk to complete this operation,” whenever they try to create new partitions using the Disk Management tool in Windows.

The reason behind being that the Windows Disk Manager is not… Ah capable of creating partitions in the middle of the disk, and thus, it displays the error. Users who created the Linux partitions at the end of the HDD, wont face any such difficulties.

Anyways, the solution is to go for some advanced partitioning tool e.g. GParted which is for Linux. There might be a Windows compatible version, but I never was successful with my searches, so you might wanna go for the Ease Us Partition Master, which comes with a lot of advanced features, and would certainly get you across this error.

Ubuntu, based on Linux  though is free and open-source, not everyone would be satisfied with it, as an average user would get pissed off in a week, because there arent many of the desired apps available for Ubuntu  and those that are, people get a hard time installing them. I haven’t got anything against Ubuntu, and I’m not asking anyone to stop using it, but those that regret installing it in the first place, here’s how you can uninstall it.

Often when you’ve got updates on, there comes a time when your desktop background disappears, and you keep on getting errors and popups saying that your copy of windows is not genuine, and stuff like “you might be a victim of software counterfeiting.” The reason behind is that you are using a pirated version of Windows which you didn’t obtain the legal way. Now the point is that these errors and popups can be annoying, and people would always welcome a cure, and well here’s one. I’m not encouraging anyone to go for pirated software, but i’m still posting the solution cause not everyone can afford to buy their own licensed copy of windows.;-)

So getting rid of the error is quick, simple and clean though a bit annoying as you need to restart twice in a row.

1. Go to Windows update and click on the link on the bottom left corner, saying “installed updates.”
2. Look for the update KB971033, and uninstall it (right-click>uninstall,) and reboot.
3. Run Command Prompt as Administrator. To do so, just press start, type cmd, and on the first link, right-click>Run As Administrator.
4. In the CMD window, type the following command: slmgr.vbs -rearm, and press enter.  At first, nothing would happpen, but this is normal, but after a few seconds, a box would pop up, saying that you need to reboot for the changes to take effect. Well, do as it says.

Note: This would only rid you of the WGA notifications and popups, but remember, this wont fool it into believing that you are using genuine windows, means that you’d still be unable to use the Security Essentials.

Dunno about the older versions, guess you have no choice but to download some app that provides this feature, but since 4.0, android comes with a built-in screenshot taking utility, and all you need to do is press and hold the power + volume down button.

Komodo edit is a code editor and an alternative to notepad++, in fact, its even better, and runs in all 3 i.e. Linux, Mac and Windows. Installing it in linux can be a bit tricky for newbies, so here’s what you need to do.

Download the archive, and extract it wherever you wish, but if you dont wanna complicate things for yourself, just extract them into the home folder.

Open a terminal windows by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T, and navigate to the directory where you extracted the archive. To do so, type:

cd your_directory.

If you extracted it into the home folder, just copy and paste this code:

cd Komodo-Edit-8.0.0-12188-linux-x86_64

Once in the directory, type:

./install.sh, and press enter. Now it’ll prompt you for the install directory, which doesnt honestly make much difference, so just leave it blank and press enter. That’s it!

A swap partition is simply the place from which your computer borrows some memory if it runs out of RAM. The RAM is way faster than the hard disk, but in case you do run out of memory, and are in real need of it, the computer resorts to paging, and borrows some “virtual-memory” from the hard-disk, and in computers running linux, it borrows from the swap partition.

While installing ubuntu 12.10, when i got to the partition-ing part, i kept on receiving an error saying something like “no root file system is defined.” After countless attempts, i figured out  a solution to this.

Firstly, make sure that the partition where you are installing ubuntu is an ext4 partition, and  dont leave mount point empty. To do so, just double click the partition, and in the box that pops up, select the ext4 journalling file system, and in mount point, just add a single “/”

That’s it! you should be able to proceed now.

There are several such services on the cloud that enable you to build a website for free. Some, like my3gb, offer you some hosting space and a subdomain (like domain.my3gb.com), and some also offer a site builder. Webs.com is an example, that offers a free subdomain, and an awesome site builder.

But most of these services have several limitations, e.g. you cant add more than 10 static pages to a free web made using Webs, and this wont work. To make a proper website, you need some hosting space, and a domain name.

What if i told you that you can get 1500mb, and a custom.tk domain name, for FREE?

It is possible. 000webhost.com is one of those sites that offer you 1500mb hosting space + a subdomain + a site-buillder, and the best thing about it is that they also allow you to associate your exisitng domain name with your 000webhost account,  with a fully featured cpanel, webmail, subdomains e.t.c. it is the closest you can get to real webhosting.

So, hosting, we’l take from 000webhost, and that leaves the domain. Dot.tk offers you a proper free *.tk domain name, for e.g. domain.tk, and yes, this is where we are gonna get a domain name.

Now all you need to do is:

1. First check whether your desired domain name is available or not, and if it is, register it immediately. Dont worry about the DNS, redirect thing, you can change that later, just complete the signup process.
2. Sign up for an account on 000webhost, and in the box titled “i want to use my own domain,” write the .tk domain name you just registered.
3. Once your account is set up, go to the cpanel of your site, and there you’l get a message, asking you to update the nameservers of your domain to something.000webhost.com. To do so, just login to your my dot tk account and go to the domain panel. There you’ll see a list of all the domains you registered on the site, or rather, the only domain youve registered there. 😀
4. Just click modify, and in the box that pops up, check “Custom DNS.”
5. Leave the IP addresses empty, and in the host name boxes, write down the nameservers of your 000webhost account. Save the changes, and thats it! you are done.

The process may take a day or so, but once it has completed, this is what you will see when you go to your .tk domain.