Save Web Sites Offline

Saving just a page, even with images, is easy. (I'll get to saving a whole site in a moment.) In Firefox, for example, you select File**Save Page As. In the ‘Save as type' field, select Web Page, complete, then save the file. Firefox will save the page as an HTML file, but will also save all the supporting files in a local folder.

Even this doesn't work perfectly, however. Complex formatting may not get properly reproduced.

I recommend HTTrack for saving an entire site. This free program will save all the pages within a domain, including images, while maintaining the link structure. It does not save the pages from external links like those in advertising.

The user interface is a bit ugly, and it throws up some techy terminology that not everyone will be comfortable with. But if you just stick with the default settings, everything should be fine.

Downloading a whole site can take some time, of course (I gave up on downloading pcworld.com while testing HTTrack). Luckily, once you've downloaded a site, HTTrack can also update it with new pages.

Should You Use Standby or Hibernate?

It's an age-old question: When you're done using your laptop, or just taking a break from work, should you put it to sleep, let it hibernate, or turn it all the way off?

Allow me to answer by way of a mnemonic: hibernate is great. You see, sleep mode (a.k.a. standby) puts your system into an off-like state, allowing you to pick up where you left off after just a few seconds (unlike rebooting, which can take minutes). But a PC in standby mode continues to consume battery power, so it's not uncommon to return to a "sleeping" PC to find that it's just plain dead.

Hibernate, on the other hand, writes your machine's current state to a temporary hard-drive file, then shuts down completely (much like "off"). When you start it up again, it loads that file and returns you to where you left off--no booting required.

Both ends of the hibernate process take a little longer than standby (usually 10-20 seconds, in my experience), but you avoid any of the issues that can arise when Windows suddenly loses power. What's more, standby is a notoriously flaky mode. I've encountered plenty of systems that refuse to wake up properly, so you end up losing whatever work you were trying to preserve.

Consequently, unless you're running your laptop on AC power, I recommend using hibernate most of the time.

Windows 7 Themes for XP

SevenVG Black Theme

This theme is a Black version of "SevenVG" theme for Windows XP which is the first Windows 7 look-a-like theme for Windows XP and almost all other themes available on net are based on it.




Download SevenVG Black Theme for Windows XP

Apple Kills Hackintosh Netbooks with Snow Leopard Update

Apple is reportedly breaking Hackintoshes -- meaning netbooks illegimately installed with Mac Oapple osx hackintoshS X -- with its latest update to Leopard.

The current developer build of OS X -- 10.6.2 -- will not run on the Intel Atom processor commonly used in netbooks that ship with Windows or Linux, according to an account in Wired, attributing the report to a hacker named Stellarola.

"Apple appears to have changed around a lot of CPU-related information" in the build, says Stellarola. "One of the effects of this is Apple killing off Intel's Atom chip."

Stellarola suggests that while most Hackintosh users should stick with 10.6 for now, they might try upgrading to 10.6.2 if they're running an older or modified kernel, according to OS X Daily.

The software in question is only a developer build, and it still might change before Apple releases a real update.

But Apple has already drawn fire lately for actions such as blocking Palm Pre users from iTunes aapplend banning Google Voice users from its App Store.

With Apple refusing to release an affordable low-end mobile PC of its own, hacked netbooks from Dell and other manufacturers have been turning into an increasing popular alternative in the Macintosh community.