VMWare connects at 10Mbps

Problem: After the weekend, my VMWare's XP(AMD PCNET Family PCI Ethernet Adapter) connects to the network at 10Mbps, while it was connecting at 1Gbps before the weekend.


Solution: Check the VMWare's MAC address, let your administrator know if the address has been updated. Secondly, reinstall/repair VMWare Tools.

Disabling hotmail ads

Problem; Hotmail's ads on the side sometimes has the semi-porn like graphics, which isn't very appropriate at work, especially when the supervisor just walked by and thought the employee is surfing porn sites.

Solution: edit the \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file, add the following lines(or whatever domains that host the ads)

127.0.0.1 ads1.live.com
127.0.0.1 rad.live.com
127.0.0.1 live.rads.live.com
127.0.0.1 ads1.msn.com
127.0.0.1 rad.msn.com
127.0.0.1 live.rads.msn.com
127.0.0.1 view.atdmt.com