How to recover data from usb flash drive?

Have you ever found your USB flash drive inaccessible, or even the message that it needs formatting though it already contains precious data? If not you are lucky. If yes and you want to recover your data there is hope. You can use the freeware program PC Inspector file recovery which is available for download at filehippo.com and it is in  fact as it's name sais a file recovery program. You can do it the following way after starting PC Inspector file recovery program.

1) From the menu select Object -> Drive

2) Select the drive components of your flash drive (in my case it was one of e: which contained the files I saved later to my pc ). You can give even preview to view the folder structure of a drive. You can give okay if  you have found your files.

3) At this step you are given a window with two panels: the left one contains the tree structure of the folders for the drive and in the right one are listed the files and folders of the selected folder. In the right panel you have to right click on the selected file or folder and save it to your computer. The image below is the right panel containing the files and folders.

This is a German quality software made by CONVAR, similar file recovery programs would have cost me around 70$ and they even do not perform better. You can try out also PC inspector smart recovery which recovers data from Flash Card™, Smart Media™, SONY Memory Stick™, IBM™ Micro Drive, Multimedia Card, Secure Digital Card or any other data carrier for digital cameras.

Google checkout, paypal and 3-D secure

I have used at paypal with no problem with a Mastercard debit card, but after activating 3-D secure on it I could no more use paypal with that card. This is true for Google checkout too. Also after it I could use my card online at other merchants who did not process the card only by Paypal or Google checkout. I mention here Jaguar Pc and Packt Publishing.
I had to get a new card for which I have not activated 3-D secure in order to able to use Paypal and Google checkout. From my experience Paypal and Google checkout have some problem with 3-D secure cards. Why is that?

Camstasia Error: No codec available to render this file

If you get this error when you are trying to import a mp3 file in Camstasia the solution on Windows Xp is to install a different codec. If you have installed it go to Control Panel -> Administrativ Toos -> Computer Management -> Device Manager -> Sound, video and game controllers -> Click on Audio Codecs. It will bring up a window with three tabs. Select properties and change the priority of your newly installed codec by clicking on it and change the priority number to be lower or equal to the old one. Set the old one a greater number. This solved my problem like a charm. In my case I used Fraunhofer IIS  MPEG Layer 3 codec professional instead of the simple one. Also you can use LAME ACM MP3 Codec. I hope this will solve your problem with Camstasia.

Ebook converters for Kindle

If you own a Kindle you will need programs to convert documents to formats that Kindle can handle, formats like prc and mobi. Calibre, Mobipocket Creator and Hamster free Ebook converter. All of these are freewares. Below you'll find some youtube videos that will help you using these applications.
A tip: Calibre does not Ms Doc files. In Word you have to save your document as  webpage filtered (or html filtered) and then convert the html file to your chosen ebook format. 

Face recognition at myheritage.com

An interesting  family tree webpage which bosts that has the best face recognition. I thought of putting it to test by using it's Celebrity Collage function which calculates to what celebrities does your face resemble. Maybe you will consider this as a narcism, but it just a cunning curiosity on my part. The first day in July 2011 I made 3 photos and run their recognition. Below are the 3 result sets for this pictures.

It can be noted that Oded Fehr comes up in each set. The second day I made three other pictures in other light condition. The three result sets are the following. It can be seen the results are different.

To further test I run it on a 2010 smiling autumn foto of me which subjectively I don't consider to be the best or the most accurate of me. 

The results of course all are smiling and Heat Ledger comes up again.

Morever I made a check on my 2010 passport photo which I don't publish here for security reasons.

For a 2011 march photo

it gives me the following results with Oded Fehr and a Finnish singer Lauri Ylönen coming up again:

For a 1996 photo when my age was 19

a surprising result

Tom Cruise comes up and also Sarah Mitchell Gellar like in the 2011 photo. Also Oded Fehr is among the results of 2011 march photo. My conclusion is that the results pretty much depend on the light condition used in making the photos, on face position and on your facial expression. Smiling photo gets smiling results. Of course statistically these examples does not let you to draw a solid conclusion. But to be fair with myheritage.com  regarding face recognition it can be said that at least they have a hunch and scored some little points with me.  Because of this torrid summer I end with a photo from Turkey, Istanbul, Topkapı palace enjoying a cold drink. If you have recognized me or just enjoyed the post give me a feedback by commenting. If  not you can try out The Young Turks.

Dvd region and VLC media player

I have wanted to see the movie Road to perdition and guess what: Windows media player commented that the Dvd Rom firmware is for region 2 and not 5 required by the dvd disk. Also commented that I have the chance for only 4 times to the change the system region even if I reinstall Windows or even if I move the Dvd Rom to another computer. VLC media player saved me from the hassle playing the movie without any problem. You can donwload VLC media at filehippo.com

Moodbook the desktop background software

Moodbook is one of my favorite freeware program which allows you to set randomly the desktop background with  jpg images from  zip archives. You can use the images the program comes with or you can create your own archives. Really it's simple: create a zip archive with jpg images and add the following comment to it:

 [Pack]
Name=Pack Name

Substitute Pack Name with the name you choose for the pack. Before and after = don't leave any spaces! In the end some screenshots from the program. You can notice that there are options for your "mood" and according to the MoodBook site : "Additionally, MoodBook is designed to help you control your sense and mind, set a tone for your mood, and adjust your mental state. First, an abstract art has a major impact on your perception. Second, the desktop background itself sets a tone and mood, influencing deeply with the color."