Notepad Tricks you must try on your PC

Notepad, the text editor that comes bundled in Windows is an excellent tool for text editing. But that is not the only thing for which notepad is famous. It is also famous for its tricks and hacks. Here is a roundup of some of the best and coolest tricks that you can try using Notepad.

Matrix Falling Code Effect - Notepad CMD (.BAT) Tricks

Inspired by the movie Matrix, this falling code trick is extremely popular on social networking websites. Copy and paste the code given below in Notepad and save the file as "Matrix.bat" or *.bat. 

@echo off
color 02
:tricks
echo %random%%random%%random%%random%%random%%random%%random%%random%
goto tricks

Matrix Falling Code Effect - Notepad Trick

Upon running the bat file, you will see the "Matrix falling code" effect.

Make Your Keyboard Type (Any) Message Continuously-VBS Trick

This VBS trick can make any of your friend's keyboard type any message continuously. Open Notepad, copy the code given below and save the file as Tricks.vbs or *.vbs. You will need to restart your computer to stop this. Try this after closing all important programs.

Set wshShell = wscript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
do
wscript.sleep 100
wshshell.sendkeys "This is a Virus. You have been infected."
loop

Send this file to your friends as an email attachment to see the fun.

Create a Harmless Funny Virus with Notepad-Continuously eject CD/DVD drives

This VBS trick will create a code which will continuously eject all your connected Optical drives. If you put them back in, it will pop them out again. Copy this code and paste it in Notepad as Virus.vbs or *.vbs.

Set oWMP = CreateObject("WMPlayer.OCX.7")
Set colCDROMs = oWMP.cdromCollection
do
if colCDROMs.Count >= 1 then
For i = 0 to colCDROMs.Count - 1
colCDROMs.Item(i).Eject
Next
For i = 0 to colCDROMs.Count - 1
colCDROMs.Item(i).Eject
Next
End If
wscript.sleep 5000
loop

Double click to open this file and you will be impressed by this awesome trick.

Make a Personal Diary(Log) with Notepad (Easter Eggs)

Notepad Diary

You can use this trick to create a personal log with Notepad which will automatically include the current date and time before your note. To do so, open Notepad and type .LOG in capital letters and press Enter. Save the file. Now, every time you open this file, notepad will automatically insert the current time and date before the note. Just enter your note and save the file each time after making an entry.

All these Notepad tricks are totally harmless and would not harm your PC in any way.  To close any of the VBS trick given, open task manager and close the wscript.exe process. These tricks work on Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.

How to avoid fake Chrome Extensions or apps

The Google Chrome Web Store is the place where Chrome users get most of their extensions, and also the place where fake and copied extensions and apps are regularly offered in.

Google has neglected the official Chrome Web Store in past years. The last redesign -- which made the store worse -- dates back to 2011. Worse, because Google decided to put apps front and center in the Chrome Web Store, and remove options for users to list new extensions.

The store has two big issues when it comes to fake apps and extensions, and both can lead to users installing these fake offerings instead of the original extension.

Apps first

The layout of search results on the store displays apps before extensions in the results. Some developers took and take advantage of this by creating applications that target the name of popular extensions.

Since apps are listed first, there is a likelihood that these apps get prime visibility on the store, and since they are displayed in the results before the extension, it is likely that they get installed by many users who use the built-in search functionality to find extensions.

This was a problem last year when apps were listed before the official uBlock Origin listing on the Chrome Web Store, and it is still an issue as of today with one fake application being listed there for months.

A search for Adblock Plus on the Chrome Web Store returned the following results.

The second apps result uses the official Adblock Plus logo, and a name that, with the exception of one additional character, is identical to the official extension name.

Avoid Fake Chrome Extensions

So what can you do to avoid fake Chrome extensions when you are using the official web store?

Whenever you run a search for Chrome extensions, use the "extensions" filter to only display extensions results. This ensures that you will only get extensions in the results and not applications.

There is unfortunately no option to enable the filter permanently. Whenever you open the Chrome Web Store to run searches, you need to enable it again.

That takes care of fake apps that are listed on search results pages, but it won't take care of fake browser extensions that may be returned when you run searches.

While it may be tempting to install the first result right away, it may not always be the original extension.

You need to use the rating and number of users who rated the extension as an indicator. This works well for popular extensions, but won't get you anywhere if the difference is just a couple of ratings, or none at all.

The Chrome Web Store offers no information about the author of an extension besides a name. While you can search for the name to list other extensions by the author, it is often not helpful as well, especially if there are none.

Since there is no author verification process, author names are no legitimacy indicator, and since authors cannot link extensions to websites to validate them, there is little you can do in this regard to find out whether an extension is real or fake.

What you can do is copy the extensions's URL, and search for it on Google or another search engine. The results may reveal a lot about it, including a project or author website, or reviews of it.

Ultimately, there is no 100% way to determine the original extension if there is a fake copy as well, and if both have about the same number of ratings.

Check if you have installed fake apps

To check whether you have installed a fake application instead of an extension, load chrome://apps/ in the browser's address bar.

If you see the name of the extension listed on the page, it is not the right one as you have just confirmed that you have installed an application instead of the extension.

Right-click on the application icon and select "remove from Chrome" to uninstall it.