What are Startup Programs? How to view them in your Windows system

What is a Startup Program in simple words?

Starting with the point, a Startup Program is a software (yeah, we call it program too!) which is loaded into the memory of your computer whenever Window loads up. These programs are loaded just when you successfully sign in to your account and Windows starts(they are the reason your cursor shows rotations and animations).

Are Startup Programs bad guys?

No no, these are not bad things! These programs are of great utility, and help us a lot in loading required programs into the RAM before we need them, thus saving our time and increasing a user's productivity. But yes, as there are two faces of a coin, these programs also end up slowing your system's booting. Sometimes, users have to wait for some seconds before they can start using their computer because startup programs are being loaded into the memory and during this time, if a user opens any other program, it will only result in more slowdown of the system and complicate the processes.

How to Control Startup Programs?

Before you know how to control the startup programs, you should understand this line carefully: "You might end up messing up with your system if you disable/remove anything that you see!"
Nice warning, right?
There are some really crucial services and programs which load whenever Windows starts, and you really can not afford to mess up with them, or you will end up with a broken system, and in worst case, you will have to re-install windows. So, you have to be careful what programs and services are you changing.
TO view the list of programs and services which load whenever your Windows loads, follow these steps:

For Windows XP, Windows 2000 or Windows 98
1. Go to Start -> Run
2. Type "msconfig" and press enter.
3. In the window that will open, select Startup, and you have the list of startup programs in front of you!

For Windows 7
1. Click Start
2. Type "msconfig" and press Enter.
3. In the System Configuration window, click on Startup tab, and you have the list!

General Advice on Which Programs You can Safely Remove

In case your system is getting slow because of Startup Programs, I suggest you to consider removing Update Programs(like some media player updater, this updater, that updater), and programs that you know what they do, but you rarely use it. This way, the startup programs won't eat up your memory, and will instead be helpful to you.

In case you need advice on which program to keep or delete, just let me know the program name, and I will be more than happy to help you out!

How To Remove or Uninstall Babylon Toolbar from Web Browsers

Continuing the crackdown on sick toolbars that just get installed in our systems without your permission, it is Babylon's turn today. These toolbars get installed when a user installs a freeware which has bundled Babylon Toolbar with it. Most probably, the freeware software providers get paid for bundling Babylon toolbar in the packages. The thing Babylon toolbar does is it changes your default Search Engine Provider on all web browsers and your searches are then done by Babylon's own search engine, from which they might be making profits. But, why get installed in such a creepy way without user's permission?? Anyway, lets get back to our point. As Babylon doesn't get installed from Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs window, you'll have to manually remove it from anything it has infected.

Let's start with getting back our Firefox browser:

Babylon Toolbar stays as an Add-On of Firefox even after getting uninstalled from a system. Uninvited guest, right?
Follow these steps to remove it from Firefox and reset your browser:
1. Click on top-left button of Firefox.

2.Select Help > Troubleshooting Information
3. Click "Reset Firefox" on the screen.

4. Update your search preferences and you're done!


You should also delete files of the toolbar. To do this, go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\extensions\ffxtlbr@babylon.com, and delete the ffxtlbr@babylon.com folder.

Remove Babylon Toolbar from Google Chrome

1. Click on wrench menu on top-right.
2. Click on Extensions tab, and remove Babylon and any related extension from there.
3. Click on Basics tab, and change your Search Engine preferences. Make sure to delete Babylon's "Search the Web(Babylon)" from there.
4. Now change your Start up or New page settings.

If you still can't remove it, let me know and I'll be more than happy to help you.

How to Host Your Website at Cheapest / Minimum Cost

As till now, I have successfully hosted 3 websites on my own, I guess I should write about the experience and how one can easily host their website at a minimum cost. First of all, you need to have your developed website on your PC. The second process is to purchase your domain name, and then find a web host where you can host your website.

If you are developing your website on your own, then its really great thing to do. You can check my post about Web Designing here: All About Web Designing: Why I love Web Designing?.

Coming back to the point, if you're not a Web Designer, then you just have to select the cheapest Web Designing service provider. Usually, big brands charge much more than what a general web designing company will charge you. I understand that a customer just wants to ensure that he/she will get quality website, and for that trust, they only want to try big brands. But also, this is the choice which costs dearly too. So I suggest to avoid big brands and instead use services of freelancers, or other companies as they will charge you really low, and will provide the same quality. This decision can be tough, but that's where you can save really huge bucks. If you want me to suggest a company, I will say you should go for DreamingKnights.com, where you'll for sure get cheap website with really great quality.


After you're done with the website designing, lets go to the Domain purchasing part. According to your preference or needs, you can purchase .com, .in, .info, .org, and many other domain names, but here again, I will say more bigger the brand is, more it is taking up money for just a NAME! You can get the same exact domain name of your choice from other Domain Name Registrars too, and at really margin-able discount. I don't know why people go for big names in Domain Name Registrations when every other registrar offers exactly the same domain name and TLD at very less cost! (May be E-mails might be tempting for them, but if this is the case, be aware that you can have a free e-mail on gmail on your official domain name. More info in this post: How to Use Your Domain Name with Gmail to get an email like user@yourdomainname.com).

So to get a cheap domain name registrar, simply Google your required domain name by using "-" to omit big brands: e.g.: "-networksolutions.com", etc.

If you need my help to search for the cheapest price of any domain name on Web, I will be happy to help you find it out.

Now you know how to eliminate extra charges involved with registration of Domain Names and in Web Designing, its time to move on to the last step: Web Hosting Providers. About this part, most novice users end up paying way too much that what they actually needed to pay(really!). I will tell you an example about this later in this post how a novice customer might end up paying for services for no reason at all. Usually, Web Service packages have monthly costs, and summing it up for a year for a basic plan, it turns out to be near 1300 INR(usually minimum package available for a year), or near US$30. You might be amazed to know that usually you don't need to pay for your hosting! Yes, there are many free hosting providers out there! They even support PHP, E-mail services, huge monthly bandwidths(even more bandwidth than what you get in a paid package), and about 1GB of storage space for your website. I do understand that huge websites can not run in this environment. By saying huge, I mean social networks, and websites with very high activity can not work smoothly in this setup. BUT, all websites are not this much complex, and I will say about 20-30% of the websites can be easily hosted by using free hosting providers.

I have myself hosted my domains like www.dreamingknights.com, www.fire2012.in and some other websites using www.000webhost.com. I am really in love with their services, and everything!! Also, it saves my bucks as now I don't have to worry about charges related to hosting of my websites. There are many other free web hosting service providers too, but I don't have any complaints(except the unavailability of auto-installer for CMSs) with 000webhost till now, so you're free to try others if you want to. As suggestions, I would like to suggest www.byethost.com and www.heliohost.org too.


If you have any thoughts about this, or would like to share your knowledge about how you save extra bucks, you're most welcome! I would love to hear from you!! :)

How to Use Your Domain Name with Gmail like user@yourdomainname.com

As I was setting up e-mail id's for the newly developed website DreamingKnights.com, I wanted to use a means to use my own customized email address, instead of using a free name. But at the same time, I also didn't want to pay for this service, and was searching for a free alternative here and there on Internet. Another important thing I wanted to have was easy to use E-mail just like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and similar service providers do. Now, its time to share this little knowledge with everyone who might be struggling just like me to search for a free email service provider for their official email address using their own domain name, like: user@dreamingknights.com.

Finally, I found Google Apps, and it was just exactly what I wanted to have my official email address. In this, you get to use 10GB of inbox space, with 10 personalized email accounts, annd 5GB drive storage, all for free! Other services like Calendar, Docs, etc. are also there to help you and your employees to stay productive.

To get started, just visit this link and follow the steps on the website, or as always, I'm here to answer your queries.





You need to verify that you own the domain name for which you want to have your email id. For this, you will need to upload a file which Google will provide you inside your hosting space, for verification purposes.

Going further to next steps where you have to setup your MX Records on your hosting account, change the e-mail MX Records and make sure there is no forwarding in place for your emails.

After you're done, just go on to next steps as they are mostly pretty easy, and you're done! :)

Again, if you face any kind of issues, feel free to post your comment.