Remove Write Protection from Thumb Drive

My aging, 3-year old thumb drive failed me last night. After serving without any hitch or hick-ups for that period, it finally failed to respond to even simple commands, like adding a new file to it or delete existing files. It also failed to follow my instruction to re-format itself (not automatically done by itself though).

Seen here is the same model as mine, the Kingston 2GB DataTraveler 100 USB 2.0 Flash Drive. The condition of the outer portion (casing) of my aging thumb drive was so poor that I felt not worthy to get its picture taken for everyone to see ;). Some 3 years ago, it will cost you nearly RM45 to get it, but now cost you only around RM17, and hard to find (impossible at many PC stores) because there are much more bigger capacity flash drives out there. Thumb drive, flash drive, USB drive, USB stick, or pen drive - call it what you want, we are talking about the same thing here. For me, i like to call it a thumb drive. It reminds me of thumbellina - the girl so small I can't even see with my naked eyes hehee...

Bear in mind, this type of drive come with a 5-year warranty. Meaning it was tested thoroughly by Kingston to operate for at least 5 years. So why failed before that??? I never subject the drive to any kind of physical abuse - throwing it to the wall, dropping it to the floor or even suffocating it in my bathroom's pail. The only harsh punishment I gave to it were the endless tasks of copying and deleting humongous amount of data from my PC to my brother's PC and vice-versa and also reformating it should my PC (or the destination PC) got infected with nasty viruses and it also got infected in the process.

So, it was heavily used to do continous tasks like reading, writing, copying, deleting, transfering a large sum of data. Is'nt that's a job description for a thumb drive??? ;) The name " Data Traveller" is indeed so precise. A very good job by Kingston in branding their products and also keeping their quality and reliability.

What to do when your thumb drive suddenly stop functioning?

I'm not a computer hardware expert to begin with. My PC-related knowledge is some what limited. I learn through experiences, trial and error and also from a huge free library of knowledge ever created by mankind - the Internet. In my case, the thumb drive can still be detected by Windows XP. The icon still showed in My Computer folder, but when I want to add new files or deleting existing files on the drive, this error showed up:

Error Deleting File or Folder - Cannot delete (file name): The disk is write-protected. Remove the write-protection or use another disk.

To begin with, these steps are to be taken if you use Windows XP and have administrative rights to your PC.

First, remove the thumb drive properly - left click the USB drive icon at the bottom of your PC and choose Safely remove USB Mass storage Device. If got problem, your PC might already got attacked by virus. Do a complete virus scanning with updated virus patterns later. If cannot dismount properly, you have no other way - just remove your thumb drive.

Click START -> Run... then type REGEDIT. You'll get an error if you don't have the adminstrative rights to the PC you are working on.

Hightlight My Computer (inside the REGEDIT not on your desktop) Click Edit -> Find... then type WriteProtect. Make sure you have a tick on each Keys, Value and Data boxes. Click Find Next. After a while, you should have something like this appears:


Now double click the WriteProtect and change the value from 1 to 0 (zero). Click OK.

Then press F3 on your keyboard to repeat the search for more WriteProtect data. Do the same for every WriteProtect data you found - change the value from 1 to 0 (zero). Press F3 again until a pop-up appears which notify you the search for WriteProtect is finished.

After that, close the regedit and plug in your USB drives and it should work normally - try adding a new file or deleting an existing file to the thumb drive. Else just reboot the machine and try plug in the device again.

Enjoy!!!

Aku Dan Software - Firefox

Portable Mozilla Firefox 3.0.7 Final Multilanguage | 10.14 Mb

Terbaru dan terhangat !!!

Mozilla Firefox - faster, more secure, easier to use and sporting a new look, this latest Firefox release sets a new standard for web browser innovation. Mozilla Firefox project (formerly Firebird, which was formerly Phoenix) is a redesign of Mozilla's browser component, written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform. It is small, fast and easy to use, and offers many advantages over other web browsers, such as the tabbed browsing and the ability to block pop-up windows.

Mozilla Firefox 3 is focused on improved memory handling, performance, and stability, improved XUL, and new core components such as application data stored in SQLite. Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 34 months. This new platform includes more than 15,000 changes to improve performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 is been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers.

Secure:
* One-click site info: Click the site favicon in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if your connection is protected from eavesdropping. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand. When a site uses Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company you're connected to. (Try it here!)
* Malware Protection: malware protection warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware. (Try it here!)
* New Web Forgery Protection page: the content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown. (Try it here!)
* New SSL error pages: clearer and stricter error pages are used when Firefox encounters an invalid SSL certificate. (Try it here!)
* Add-ons and Plugin version check: Firefox now automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and will disable older, insecure versions.
* Secure add-on updates: to improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled.
* Anti-virus integration: Firefox will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables.
* Vista Parental Controls: Firefox now respects the Vista system-wide parental control setting for disabling file downloads.
* Effective top-level domain (eTLD) service better restricts cookies and other restricted content to a single domain.
* Better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks.

Easy to Use:
* Easier password management: an information bar replaces the old password dialog so you can now save passwords after a successful login.
* Simplified add-on installation: the add-ons whitelist has been removed making it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks.
* New Download Manager: the revised download manager makes it much easier to locate downloaded files, and you can see and search on the name of the website where a file came from. Your active downloads and time remaining are always shown in the status bar as your files download.
* Resumable downloading: users can now resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting your network connection.
* Full page zoom: from the View menu and via keyboard shortcuts, the new zooming feature lets you zoom in and out of entire pages, scaling the layout, text and images, or optionally only the text size. Your settings will be remembered whenever you return to the site.
* Podcasts and Videocasts can be associated with your media playback tools.
* Tab scrolling and quickmenu: tabs are easier to locate with the new tab scrolling and tab quickmenu.
* Save what you were doing: Firefox will prompt users to save tabs on exit.
* Optimized Open in Tabs behavior: opening a folder of bookmarks in tabs now appends the new tabs rather than overwriting.
* Location and Search bar size can now be customized with a simple resizer item.
* Text selection improvements: multiple text selections can be made with Ctrl/Cmd; double-click drag selects in "word-by-word" mode; triple-clicking selects a paragraph.
* Find toolbar: the Find toolbar now opens with the current selection.
* Plugin management: users can disable individual plugins in the Add-on Manager.
* Integration with Windows: Firefox now has improved Windows icons, and uses native user interface widgets in the browser and in web forms.
* Integration with the Mac: the new Firefox theme makes toolbars, icons, and other user interface elements look like a native OS X application. Firefox also uses OS X widgets and supports Growl for notifications of completed downloads and available updates. A combined back and forward control make it even easier to move between web pages.
* Integration with Linux: Firefox's default icons, buttons, and menu styles now use the native GTK theme.

Personal:
* Star button: quickly add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click; a second click lets you file and tag them.
* Tags: associate keywords with your bookmarks to sort them by topic.
* Smart Location Bar: type in all or part of the title, tag or address of a page to see a list of matches from your history and bookmarks; a new display makes it easier to scan through the matching results and find that page you're looking for. Results are returned according to their a combination of frequency, and recency of visits to that page, ensuring that you're seeing the most relevant matches. An adaptive learning algorithm further tunes the results to your patterns!
* Library: view, organize and search through your bookmarks, tags and browsing history using the new Library window. Create or restore full backups of this data whenever with a few clicks.
* Smart Bookmark Folders: quickly access your most visited bookmarks from the toolbar, or recently bookmarked and tagged pages from the bookmark menu. Create your own Smart Bookmark Folders by saving a search query in the Library.
* Web-based protocol handlers: web applications, such as your favorite webmail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications for handling mailto: links from other sites. Similar support is available for other protocols (Web applications will have to first enable this by registering as handlers with Firefox).
* Download & Install Add-ons: the Add-ons Manager (Tools > Add-ons) can now be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of Add-ons available from our community add-ons website. When you first open the Add-ons Manager, a list of recommended Add-ons is shown.
* Easy to use Download Actions: a new Applications preferences pane provides a better UI for configuring handlers for various file types and protocol schemes.

Platform for Developers:
* New graphics and font handling: new graphics and text rendering architectures in Gecko 1.9 provides rendering improvements in CSS, SVG as well as improved display of fonts with ligatures and complex scripts.
* Color management: (set gfx.color_management.enabled on in about:config and restart the browser to enable.) Firefox can now adjust images with embedded color profiles.
* Offline support: enables web applications to provide offline functionality (website authors must add support for offline browsing to their site for this feature to be available to users).
* A more complete overview of Firefox 3 for developers is available for website and add-on developers.

Performance:
* Speed: improvements to our javascript engine as well as profile guided optimizations have resulted in continued improvements in performance. Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases.
* Memory usage: Several new technologies work together to reduce the amount of memory used by Firefox 3 over a web browsing session. Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator reduces fragmentation, hundreds of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned.
* Reliability: A user's bookmarks, history, cookies, and preferences are now stored in a transactionally secure database format which will prevent data loss even if their system crashes.

Home page - http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

>>> Dapatkannya di sini >>> http://rapidshare.com/files/205441385/Portable_Mozilla_Firefox_3.0.7_Final_Multilanguage.www.dl4all.com.rar

Aku Dan Travian - Diserang !!!

Kampungku diserang!!!

Hehehe... sepatutnya kita tidak panik jika diserang sewaktu bermain Travian. Ini adalah kerana ianya telah menjadi lumrah setiap pemain di sini. Sekalipun anda mahu menjadi seorang pemain dan jiran yang baik dalam Travian, anda akan diserang juga oleh pemain-pemain lain. Tujuan utama mereka menyerang kampung anda ialah untuk mendapatkan (merampas) sumber-sumber dari kampung anda yang tidak berada dalam gua-gua anda. Gua adalah tempat untuk anda menyorokkan sumber-sumber anda dari dirampas. Setelah gua anda mencapai tahap maksima, iaitu di peringkat 10, anda boleh membina gua-gua yang berikutnya.
Kesimpulan mudahnya...

Anda mesti menyerang, kerana anda pasti akan diserang ;)

Ini adalah contoh laporan aktiviti serangan oleh 'jiran terdekat a.k.a musuh ketat' saya tu... Walaupun saya telah berjaya membunuh kesemua 61 askar perompak tersebut, saya telah kehilangan 15 Kesatria Santo (askar berkuda) saya yang gagah lagi mahal untuk di sediakan.

Sebenarnya serangan ini dapat dielakkan - gua-gua saya masih mampu untuk menyorokkan sumber-sumber saya, tetapi ianya berlaku ketika saya 'offline a.ka. tidur' jadi ianya tidak dapat dielakkan. Apakan daya. Tidak ada butang simpan atau 'save' dalam Travian. Tidak ada juga butang semula atau 'undo'. Ianya berlaku dalam masa sebenar - 'in real time'. Sedikit kelekaan telah membawa kerugian besar kepada saya. Asalnya saya memang bercadang untuk menghantar kuda-kuda saya untuk menyerang perkampungan yang jauh dari kampung saya, tetapi ini tidak dapat dilaksanakan gara-gara saya ter zZZ...

Aku dan Travian - Pengenalan

Yup, masih bercerita tentang Travian... jangan marah ek... hehhe... mungkin saya patut namakan blog ini "Aku dan Travian" tapi saya mahukan sesuatu yang lebih bersifat universal... sebab itulah saya namakan blog ini "Aku dan X". Bukan apa, cuma nanti kalau dah kering idea nak tulis apa tentang Travian, sayaboleh tukar tajuk lain pula... itulah gunanya pemboleh ubah "X" kan... hehehe...

Travian bukanlah suatu permainan yang memerlukan perkakasan komputer (hardware) yang tingi kerana ia bukanlah bersifat visual/grafik, animasi pun tidak ada... Ia lebih kepada permainan bercorak data dan statistik (tapi tidak statik) kerana akan ada banyak "aksi" serang-menyerang pasti berlaku. Jika kampung anda tidak menyerang, kampung anda sudah hampir pasti akan diserang !!! Ini adalah kenyataan yang harus anda terima dalam dunia Travian ini. Sekalipun anda menyertai mana-mana Persekutuan (ally/guild), ianya hanya akan mengurangkan sedikit "musuh" anda, tetapi tidak akan menjamin kampung anda tidak akan diserang. Perlu diingat, penyertaan dalam mana-mana Persekutuan hanyalah bersifat sementara - anda boleh masuk atau keluar dari Persekutuan itu jika mahu dan menyertai lain-lain Persekutuan (mmm...macam katak pulak, boleh lompat-lompat) , atau anda boleh memilih untuk menjadi calon bebas seperti saya... hehehe...

Saya sudah daftar menyertai Travian - adakah saya keseorangan???

TIDAK!!! Anda tidak keseorangan di dunia Travian. Pada waktu artikel ini ditulis, sudah terdapat 28 589 pemain yang telah berdaftar untuk ketiga-tiga server di Malaysia sahaja. Ramai lagi pemain di seluruh dunia. Anda boleh pilih untuk menyertai mana-mana server yang anda suka, sama ada server 1, 2 atau 3, ataupun server-server diluar negara sekalipun. Yang pasti, hanya satu akaun email dibenarkan mendaftar untuk satu akaun di satu-satu server, dan anda akan dikira "menipu" jika mendaftarkan akaun di Travian menggunakan banyak email. Aku tidak pasti bagaimana mereka mengesan penipu-penipu ini, tapi jika terkantoi, akaun anda akan dibatalkan.

Untuk melihat "jiran-jiran" sekeliling anda, anda bolehlah menekan butang "Peta" atau butang ketiga di atas gambarajah kampung anda. Berikut adalah paparan jiran-jiran terdekat saya :

Lihatlah kedudukan yang begitu dekat antara saya dengan musuh ketat saya itu... Sungguh memilukan. Hehehe... Hanya mengambil masa dalam 10 minit untuk menyerang kampung saya. Jika anda menyertai komuniti Travian ini, kedudukan kampung anda akan ditentukan secara rambang. Anda boleh memilih posisi anda (utara, selatan dll) tapi anda tidak boleh memilih kordinat anda.

Nasib anda agak malang jika berada di lokasi yang pemain-pemainnya aktif membangunkan kampung masing-masing. Tetapi, jika anda yang aktif, tidak mustahil anda akan "menguasai" kawasan anda. Harus diiingat, ini adalah sebahagian kecil kampung-kampung yang ada di dunia Travian ini. Anda boleh melihat kampung-kampung lain dengan menekan anak panah hijau di tepi peta atau memasukkan kordinat kampung di kotak X dan Y...

"Lubuk emas" adalah istilah yang saya gunakan untuk merujuk kepada kampung-kampung "terpilih" yang tidak mempunyai askar pertahanan dan/atau belum menyertai mana-mana Persekutuan, tetapi mempunyai sumber-sumber yang agak banyak untuk dirampas. Dirampas??? Ya, sekarang saya sedang menggiatkan usaha untuk merampas sumber-sumber untuk membangunkan kampung saya.

Harus diingat, Travian adalah permainan bercorak peperangan, dan selain menyerang untuk memusnahkan musuh dan sumber, kita juga boleh merampas sumber-sumber (bukan anak dara atau bini orang yer...) untuk membangunkan kampung kita. Berapa sumber yang mampu dirampas bergantung kepada kuantiti sumber yang tidak disimpan di gua-gua kampung musuh, bilangan askar perampas , jenis askar penyerang dan juga berapa askar penyerang yang terselamat.

Sekian dulu, jumpa lagi...

Aku dan Travian - Suatu Permulaan

Assalamualaikum...

Hye... Kenalkan 'X' pertama saya... namanya Travian. Banyak rasanya yang akan di sentuh dalam hal ini. Hanya masa dan kesempatan yang akan membataskannya... Apa itu Travian ??? Ia adalah sebuah laman permainan dalam talian (online gaming website) yang mana pemain-pemain dari serata dunia berkumpul, membina dan membangunkan kampung masing. Kalau anda tidak berpeluang untuk jadi ketua kampung di kampung anda, mari ke sini dan bangunkan kampung anda sendiri. Dan sebagai ketua kampung, anda berkuasa penuh menentukan cara kampung anda dibangunkan... keutamaan pembangunan... dan juga kawan dan lawan. Perlu diingatkan, permainan maya ini terus berjalan meskipun anda tidur atau tidak login (offline). Jadi, janganlah hairan jika anda kehilangan banyak sumber, hasil atau tentera anda jika anda tidak online yer.... Apa kata anda layari laman Travian untuk lihat dan alami sendiri. Kunjungi http://www.travian.com.my/?uc=my3_822 sekarang!!!

Oh... lupa saya nak sebutkan di sini... laman Travian juga telah membuka 3 server untuk pemain-pemain dari Malaysia berkampung. Jadi jika anda mendaftar di server #1, anda tidak boleh menyerang kampung-kampung di server #2 dan #3. Sebenarnya saya dah sertai Travian di server 1 dan server 2 dulu, tapi kini lebih menumpukan perhatian pada kampungku di server 3. Banyak kenangan pahit manis di sever 1 dan 2 dahulu... tapi kini di server 3, saya lebih ke arah melihat kemampuan untuk bertahan di alam Travian selama yang boleh TANPA menyertai mana-mana gabungan (ally). Jika dah tahap kritikal, mungkin akan berubah polisi saya nih... heheheeh... tiada yang kekal di dunia ini.

Berikut adalah profil saya di Travian (server 3):

Setakat artikel ini ditulis (jam 12.30pm), seramai 9 728 pemain telah berdaftar di server 3 sahaja!!! Jadi, anda dijemput menyertai kami dan alami sendiri kesusahan dan keseronokan memimpin sebuah kampung - jangan asyik nak kutuk ketua kampung anda sendiri jer yerr... hehehehee...

Mungkin di lain kali saya akan ceritakan perihal "musuh" saya di server 3 nih pula ;) Walaupun belum berutus-surat (iya - anda boleh kirim surat kepada pemain-pemain lain) dengan "musuh" saya ini... tapi kehadirannya memberi sedikit cabaran menempuhi liku-liku perjalanan di server 3 ini. Manakan tidak, dia sebahagian dari Persekutuan yang sekarang berada di tangga ke 4 di server 3!!! Bayangkan, bagaimana sukarnya saya yang serba kekurangan dan bersendirian menghadapi serangan-serangan tidak putus-putus "beliau" setiap hari. Cuma saya berharap dia tidak menggunakan mesin-mesin pemusnah dia jer kat kampung... Kes buli nih... huhuhu.

Apa itu 'X' ...

X ialah suatu pemboleh ubah atau variable (pronounced /ˈvɛərɪəbl/) (sebut betul-betul...)

A symbol x is usually defined to be a variable as it may denote any member of a set of objects.

Secara dasarnya... blog ini hanyalah sekadar sebuah coretan untuk dikongsi bersama anda. Oh ya, terlupa kenalkan siapa 'Saya' ... Anda boleh panggil saya "mykupang". Apa dan siapa itu mykupang ??? Hehehe... mungkin jawapannya bukan di sini. Mungkin belum masa dan ketikanya lagi...
Misteri adalah suatu elemen yang penting dalam kehidupan... Tanpanya hidup terlalu normal, skema dan membosankan.

Oh maaf... blog ini tiada XXX (gantikan dengan 3 huruf tertentu) dan/atau bahan-bahan x-rated.

;)