After I posted an article on how to remotely turn on computer from LAN or WAN, I’ve been getting comments and emails asking me how to remotely turn off computer in a LAN or WAN.

Actually Windows XP has a built-in shutdown Windows Remote Shutdown Tool (shutdown.exe) located at Windows\System32 directory. If you run the command shutdown, it shows you that there’s a -m command to remotely shutdown/restart/abort a computer. I tried running the command from my laptop “shutdown -s -m \\pc” to shutdown my desktop and I only get the message “Access is denied“.

Why do I get the access is denied error? To think about it logically, there should be some kind of authentication to remotely shutdown a computer but the shutdown tool didn’t list out any arguments for me to input any username or password.

The best way is NOT to use windows built-in Remote Shutdown Tool. Let’s not crack our heads on this problem when there is a much better tool to do it.

This is another email problem that my uncle has been encountering. He recently bought a new laptop with Windows Vista preloaded in it and whenever he send an email, the time received will be much faster than the current time. He uses Microsoft Outlook to send/receive his POP3 email and Internet Explorer to send/receive email for his Hotmail, Yahoo and GMail. He told me that no that the time on his email is wrong no matter if he send from his POP3 from Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo or even his GMail from Internet Explorer.

I figured since all his email is appearing the wrong time, perhaps he did not set his Windows Date and Time correctly. I asked him to check on that and he assured me that the time on his computer is correct, but when he send emails, the time is few hours ahead!

There are other settings to check if the time or date is still wrong even if the time on the computer is correct.

Registry is very important in Windows because it is a directory which stores information and settings for all the hardware, operating system software, most non-operating system software, users, preferences of the PC and etc. Problem with registry is it can become fragmented over time, occupying more space on your hard disk than necessary and decreasing overall performance. Whenever we install software and uninstall it, most of the time the registry entries being added by the software is not removed. That’s why when you reinstall the software again, you’ll notice that all the settings are still there!

Here is a free, small, popular and pretty good rated Windows registry optimizer that I found which is really easy use. Just one click and it’ll optimize your Windows’ registry.

Yesterday I wrote an article about an email notifier called POP Peeper which you can use it to send and receive webmails and POP3. It works pretty much like an email client but it lacks of some important features that is usually included in email client, that’s why it’s called an email notifier.

Some of you might still prefer to receive emails using Outlook which is more powerful. If that is the case, here is a solution on how you can receive webmails such as Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail and POP3 using your favorite email client such as Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express.

I believe many of us have Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail and other email accounts. I have all 3 (Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail) and I never use all of them. I just have it because I want all my login name to be the same. My uncle also has 3 webmails and 1 POP3 streamyx email. He finds it very troublesome to check all of his webmail because he had to manually key in the web address, his username and password every time he wants to check them. After done checking his webmail, he will need to check his pop3 streamyx email using Microsoft Outlook.

So he asked me is there any solution to automatically check all his emails from one location? 2 years ago, I wrote about ePrompter, which is able to check multiple webmails including hotmail, yahoo, gmail and pop3 but ePrompter doesn’t have email sending capability. So it’s not a good solution for my uncle.

After a little searching and testing, I’ve found a free email client that is able to send and receive emails from Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail and POP3. This is extremely useful for those who has multiple email accounts.

If the ASecurityAssurance.com website automatically loads when you launch Internet Explorer, then I’d like to inform you that you’ve been infected by a trojan called Zlob.

You might even get popup from your tray bar warning you that you’ve been infected by Win32@mx trojan.

asecurityassurance.com is a dangerous hijacker which is comes from Trojan.Zlob spyware. These kind of hijackers displays a fake warning message such as, W32.Myzor.fk@yf warning message to purchase the paid version of rogue security applications (for example; VirusProtectPro, MalwareBurn, VirusRanger and so on.,). Once the Trojan.Zlob installed, it drops many spyware applications to hijacked your homepage. Not only this, It also displays fake flashing warning alerts on your system tray.

If your computer is infected by Trojan.Zlob and hijacked by the asecurityassurance.com then your computer is in trouble because it does transfer back and forth information from the infected computer which makes it a potential for application/data theft.

Fortunately, there are free automatic removal tool to clean Zlob trojan without any effort.

Just a short post for today because I will be on the plane in a few hours leaving to my hometown for my mother’s birthday. I am no graphics designer but I do know that Paint.NET is probably the BEST free image and photo editor on the Internet. I say that because I saw many people giving 5 out of 5 ratings to Paint.NET. Of course, there are some people that gave 1 out of 5 and they got a good bashing from other reviewers. They should know better that Paint.NET is frequently updated and it might support the feature that he/she wants in future.

Don’t be confused with the Windows built-in Microsoft Paint with Paint.NET. It is different and Paint.NET is far superior than Microsoft Paint.