Resizing harddisk partition in Windows Vista or Windows 7

If we want to resize a harddisk partition in Windows XP, we have to make use of 3rd party software such as GPartEd. In Windows Vista and Windows 7, there is built-in utility for us to resize the harddisk partition.

We seldom need to resize the harddisk partition, but most new computer pre-installed with the OEM OS is partitioned as one big partition only, although the harddisk can be of terrabytes of capacity.

One practical usage of this is to split the big C: drive into two. This will make possible system backup and system imaging of C: to D: drive in another partition.

You might also want to perform partition resizing when one of your harddisk partition is almost full, while there are space in other partition to squeeze out. In this case, shrink the partition with excess storage, and extend the partition which is almost full.

Here is how to do it in Windows 7.

Open the Start Menu, right click on Computer and select Manage. Then, expand Storage on the left panel, and click on Disk Management.

Right click on the partition you want to resize.

You will be given options to extend, shrink or delete the selected partition (a.k.a. volume). Of course, you can't extend a partition if there is no empty partition space next to it, and you can't delete a primary partition with extended partition(s) unless you deleted all the extended partitions first. Beware that deleting a partition will cause total data lost in that partition.

Software update to v3.10 (2010-09) available for Sing/Mal version of Garmin Nuvi 205/205w/255w

The new software version 3.10 (2010-09) is now available for Sing/Mal version of Garmin Nuvi 205/205w/255w.

This version will:

• Improve the stability of the GPS software system.
• Synchronize to English v6.60.

The size of installation file nuvi255W_SG_v310.exe is 11,239,424 bytes.

The update process is similar to that of previous version. You can refer to this article written for earlier version here for detailed steps of upgrade.

Richest and poorest countries in the world as of 2010 based on GDP (PPP) per capita

Global Finance has come out with a report to rank out the world's richest and poorest countries in 2010, based on their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) per capita.

The top 20 ranking (richest) are:

• 1. Qatar (90,149)
• 2. Luxembourg (79,411)
• 3. Norway (52,964)
• 4. Singapore (52,840)
• 5. Brunei Darussalam (48,714)
• 6. United States (47,702)
• 7. Hong Kong (44,840)
• 8. Switzerland (43,903)
• 9. Netherlands (40,601)
• 10. Australia (39,841)
• 11. Austria (39,561)
• 12. Canada (39,037)
• 13. Ireland (39,009)
• 14. Kuwait (38,984)
• 15. Iceland (36,750)
• 16. Sweden (36,503)
• 17. Denmark (36,336)
• 18. United Arab Emirates (36,176)
• 19. Belgium (35,825)
• 20. United Kingdom (35,083)

And the bottom 20 ranking (poorest) are:

• 164. Haiti (1,212)
• 165. Rwanda (1,195)
• 166. Comoros (1,161)
• 167. Guinea-Bissau (1,081)
• 168. Ethiopia (1,004)
• 169. Afghanistan (996)
• 170. Guinea (996)
• 171. Mozambique (981)
• 172. Malawi (925)
• 173. Madagascar (905)
• 174. Togo (832)
• 175. Sierra Leone (781)
• 176. Central African Republic (764)
• 177. Niger (733)
• 178. Eritrea (676)
• 179. Liberia (434)
• 180. Burundi (410)
• 181. Zimbabwe (365)
• 182. Congo (342)

The number in brackets above is the GDP (PPP) per capita of the respective country in current international dollars (a.k.a. Geary-Khamis dollars), which compares generalized differences in living standards on the whole between them.

PPP takes into account the relative cost of living and the inflation rates of countries, rather than using just exchange rates, which may distort the real differences in income.

Under this scheme, China, which ranked the 1st in terms of GDP growth at the same period, only gets a 96th with GDP (PPP) of 7,240. This somehow shows the reality that although the economy in China is blooming, they still have a long way to go to get on top of the list.


The ranking and GDP (PPP) of the BRIC nations are:

• 52. Russian Federation (15,738)
• 73. Brazil (11,066)
• 96. China (7,240)
• 128. India (3,176)

And the ranking of ASEAN nations are:

• 4. Singapore(52,840) 
• 5. Brunei Darussalam (48,714)
• 59. Malaysia (14,275)
• 90. Thailand (8,479)
• 122. Indonesia (4,380)
• 127. Philippines (3,604)
• 129. Vietnam (3,104)
• 139. Laos (2,401)
• 146. Cambodia (2,084)
• 159. Myanmar(1,244)

The report concluded that "Poverty remains extensive throughout the world, particularly in south Asia and Africa. A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University reports that the richest 1% of adults owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000 (their most recent figures), and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. The bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth. World Bank Development Indicators reported in 2008 that in 2005 (their most recent figures) 1.4 billion people lived on $1.25 a day or less (US$ PPP); almost 15% of the world’s population, or nearly 1 billion people, lived on $1 a day or less."

Click here to read the Global Finance's report on world's richest and poorest countries. You can also see the full ranking list there.