Downloadable Computer Repair CDs

Downloadable Computer Repair CDs:

Antivirus Boot Disks
Avira AntiVir Rescue System	Download
BitDefender Rescue CD	Download
Dr Web LIVE CD	Download
Fsecure Live Cd	Download
Kaspersky Antivirus Live CD	Download
PcTools Alternate Operating System Scanner (AOSS)	Download
Avast BART CD	Download
GData (British)	Download
AVG Rescue CD	Download
Open Diagnostics Live CD	Download
General Purpose Recovery Disks
FREE UBCD4win Ultimate Boot CD for Windows	Download
FREE UBCD Ultimate Boot CD	Download
FREE Trinity Rescue CD	Download
FREE System Rescue CD x86	Download
FREE System Rescue CD (sun sparc)	Download
FREE System Rescue CD (power PC/mac)	Download
FREE Windows Vista Recovery Disk (32 bit/ Microsoft)	Download
FREE Windows Vista Recovery Disk (64 bit / Microsoft)	Download
FREE Windows 7 Recovery Disk (Microsoft)	Download
FREE INSERT (inside security rescue toolkit)	Download
FREE Microsoft ERD/DART 2009	Download
FREE Bootzilla for Windows	Download
Hardware Diagnostic Boot CD’s
FREE Inquisitor (hardware testing software)	Download
FREE Inquisitor 64	Download
FREE Microsoft Memory Diagnostic	Download
Network Security Testing / Monitoring
FREE Network Security Toolkit	Download
FREE BackTrack network penetration testing	Download
FREE nUbuntu network penetration testing	Download
Data Recovery Boot CD’s
FREE RIP (Recovery Is Possible)	Download
Helix (computer forensics / electronic discovery / incident response)	Download
Caine Computer Aided Investigative Environment	Download
Macquisition CF forensics for macs	Download
The Farmer’s Boot CD	Download
Puppy Linux	Download
Special Purpose Boot CD’s
KON-BOOT	Download
FREE Samurai Web Application Testing	Download
FREE Offline NT Password & Registry Editor	Download
FREE PC CMOS Cleaner	Download
FREE Parted Magic	Download
FREE Partition Wizard contrib IISJMAN	Download
FREE Ping (backup / restore hd images across network)	Download
FREE Incognito (completely anonymous web everything)	Download
Other CD’s of Interest:
VistaPE	Download

Some CDs have been purposely left out of this list as they contain illegal software.

Fundamentals of Garbage Collection

Fundamentals of Garbage Collection:

In the common language runtime (CLR), the garbage collector serves as an automatic memory manager. It provides the following benefits:

• Enables you to develop your application without having to free memory.
• Allocates objects on the managed heap efficiently.
• Reclaims objects that are no longer being used, clears their memory, and keeps the memory available for future allocations. Managed objects automatically get clean content to start with, so their constructors do not have to initialize every data field.
• Provides memory safety by making sure that an object cannot use the content of another object.

Fundamentals of Memory

The following list summarizes important CLR memory concepts.

• Each process has its own, separate virtual address space. All processes on the same computer share the same physical memory, and share the page file if there is one.
• By default, on 32-bit computers, each process has a 2-GB user-mode virtual address space.
• As an application developer, you work only with virtual address space and never manipulate physical memory directly. The garbage collector allocates and frees virtual memory for you on the managed heap.
• If you are writing native code, you use Win32 functions to work with the virtual address space. These functions allocate and free virtual memory for you on native heaps.
• Virtual memory can be in three states:
• Free. The block of memory has no references to it and is available for allocation.
• Reserved. The block of memory is available for your use and cannot be used for any other allocation request. However, you cannot store data to this memory block until it is committed.
• Committed. The block of memory is assigned to physical storage.
• Virtual address space can get fragmented. This means that there are free blocks, also known as holes, in the address space. When a virtual memory allocation is requested, the virtual memory manager has to find a single free block that is large enough to satisfy that allocation request. Even if you have 2 GB of free space, the allocation that requires 2 GB will be unsuccessful unless all of that space is in a single address block.
• You can run out of memory if you run out of virtual address space to reserve or physical space to commit.

Few important points:

Generations

• The heap is organized into generations so it can handle long-lived and short-lived objects. Garbage collection primarily occurs with the reclamation of short-lived objects that typically occupy only a small part of the heap. There are three generations of objects on the heap:
• Generation 0. This is the youngest generation and contains short-lived objects. An example of a short-lived object is a temporary variable. Garbage collection occurs most frequently in this generation.
• Newly allocated objects form a new generation of objects and are implicitly generation 0 collections, unless they are large objects, in which case they go on the large object heap in a generation 2 collection.
• Most objects are reclaimed for garbage collection in generation 0 and do not survive to the next generation.
• Generation 1. This generation contains short-lived objects and serves as a buffer between short-lived objects and long-lived objects.
• Generation 2. This generation contains long-lived objects. An example of a long-lived object is an object in a server application that contains static data that is live for the duration of the process.
• Configuring Garbage Collection
• You can use the element of the runtime configuration schema to specify the type of garbage collection you want the CLR to perform. When this element's enabled attribute is set to false (the default), the CLR performs workstation garbage collection. When you set the enabled attribute to true, the CLR performs server garbage collection.
• Concurrent garbage collection is specified with the element of the runtime configuration schema. The default setting is enabled. Concurrent garbage collection is available only for workstation garbage collection and has no effect on server garbage collection.
• Concurrent Garbage Collection
• In workstation or server garbage collection, you can enable concurrent garbage collection, which enables threads to run concurrently with a dedicated thread that performs the garbage collection for most of the duration of the collection. This option affects only garbage collections in generation 2; generations 0 and 1 are always non-concurrent because they finish very fast.
• Concurrent garbage collection enables interactive applications to be more responsive by minimizing pauses for a collection. Managed threads can continue to run most of the time while the concurrent garbage collection thread is running. This results in shorter pauses while a garbage collection is occurring.

AGENT Smart Watch Emulator and managed .NET code

The AGENT Smart Watch Emulator and managed .NET code:

A Kickstarter campaign for the Agent smartwatch kicked off today, promising to deliver a device with better battery life than its competitors and a developer-friendly environment to attract some all-important apps (it's using the .NET Micro Framework, with apps able to be written in in C# using Visual Studio 2012).

What is AGENT Smart Watch: The next generation smartwatch with brand-new technology. World-class developer tools, unparalleled battery life, Qi wireless charging.

What is .Net Micro Framework: The .NET Micro Framework is the smallest version of .NET for very resource-constrained devices. It offers a complete and innovative development and execution environment that brings the productivity of modern computing tools to embedded programming. Even though it’s offered under an Open Source License (Apache 2.0) it is still under active development inside Microsoft in coordination with active community contributions.

• Easily develop powerful, interactive, and complex embedded applications.
• Securely connect devices over wired or wireless protocols.
• Develop reliable solutions faster at lower cost.
• Develop the endpoints of your solution for connected devices using the same tools that are used on the servers and in the cloud.

Guide to Symbolic Links (symlinks) on Windows

Complete Guide to Symbolic Links (symlinks) on Windows or Linux:

Symbolic links are known as advanced shortcuts. You can create symbolic links to individual files or folders, and then these will appear like they are stored in the folder with the symbolic link even though the symbolic link only points to their real location.

Syntax:

mklink /prefix link_path file/folder_path

Mklink can create several types of links, including the following:

/D – creates a soft symbolic link, which is similar to a standard folder or file shortcut in Windows.  This is the default option, and mklink will use it if you do not enter a prefix.

/H – creates a hard link to a file

/J – creates a hard link to a directory or folder

What is Computer Museums?

What is Computer Museums?:

There are dozens of computer museums around the world that help everyone learn and relive the past. Below is a short list of all the computer museums and centers available online and around the world that you can visit to learn more about the history of computers.

Museum	Location
Computer History Museum	1401 N Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94043
Intel Museum	2200 Mission College Boulevard Santa Clara, CA 95054
Microsoft's Visitor Center	15010 NE 36th Street Microsoft Campus Building 92 Redmond, WA 98052
IBM Archives	Virtual
Living Computer Museum	2245 1st Ave S Seattle, WA 98134
Museum of Computing	6-7 Theatre Square Swindon SN1 1QN
The National Museum of Computing	Block H Bletchley Park MILTON KEYNES MK3 6EB
American Computer & Robotics Museum	2023 Stadium Dr Bozeman, MT 59715
Personal Computer Museum	13 Alma Street, Brantford, ON N3R 2G1
Video card Virtual Museum	Virtual
DigiBarn Computer Museum	Virtual
Rhode Island Computer Museum (RICM)	Bldg. 310 Compass Circle North Kingstown, Rhode Island 02852
Analog Computer Museum	Virtual
InfoAge	2201 Marconi Road Wall, NJ 07719
iMusée	1691, Pie-IX blvd. Montreal, Quebec, H1V 2C3
Old Computer Museum	Virtual
The Virtual Museum of Computing (VMoC)	Virtual
University of Amsterdam Computer Museum	University of Amsterdam Science Park 904, Room B0157a 1098XH Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Charles Babbage Institute (CBI)	Virtual
Columbia University Computer History	Virtual
Computermuseum der Fakultat Informatik	In room 0.148 of the computer science building Universitaetsstr. 38 70569 Stuttgart-Vaihingen
University of Pennsylvania ENIAC Museum	Virtual
Museum of Business History and Technology	Virtual
Early Office Museum	Virtual
IPSJ Computer Museum	Virtual
Computermuseum Müchen	Virtual
Russian Virtual Computer Museum	Virtual
History of Computing in Learning and Education (HCLE)	Virtual

Enterprise Library 6.0 released

Enterprise Library 6.0

What's New

This major release of this Enterprise Library contains many compelling new features and updates that will make developers and IT professionals more productive. Two new application blocks are:

• Semantic Logging Application Block.
• Transient Fault Handling Application Block (this application block was previously a part of the Enterprise Library Integration Pack for Windows Azure; in this release it has been generalized and updated to the latest technologies).

Other major new features include:

• New programmatic configuration that doesn’t require a container.
• AsynchronousTraceListenerWrapper for the Logging Application Block, which enables existing listeners to write messages asynchronously.
• JSON formatter for the Logging Application Block.

The new Unity Application Block includes improvements like:

• Registration by convention.
• Support for NetCore (Windows Store apps).
• Resolving objects of type Lazy.
• The Unity assembly is now Security Transparent.
• Support for ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET Web API.

Note, this release of Enterprise Library retired the following application blocks:

• Caching Application Block
• Cryptography Application Block
• Security Application Block