Value Wizz

Value Wizz is Transfered to www.valuewizz.com

2010-10-12T10:39:00.003+05:00

I have just transfer my Blog from blogspot to wordpress i-e http://valuewiz.blogspot.com/ to www.valuewizz.com . Now stay tuned with Value Wizz to find out more.

How to Hide Your Important Data from Other Users?

2010-09-16T11:03:00.001+05:00

Normally when you need to secure your important data from other users, then your first choice is to burn it on CD or put it to removable drive instead of hard drive. But imagine if your data size is more than 100 GB then it is not easy to burn it on CD. No worry, you can save your full drive from other users access using this trick.

To enable this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights. First click on Start button to open "Run" and type "CMD" (without the quotes) then press Ok button to open Command Prompt.

Now type diskpart on the blinking cursor and wait for 5 seconds to appear diskpart> utility.

To show the list of volume, type list volume command after the diskpart> prompt, this command will show you all system drives detail.

Now first select the volume that you want to hide, for example,

if you need to hide F drive then first type select volume 2 (in this case) and press enter button.

After loading volume, type remove letter F (in this case) to hide F drive.

Now exit from command prompt and open My Computer to verify drives. But next time, when you want to unhide the D drive, just run assign drive F command after loading volume 2.

Twitter Announces New Website Interface with photos, video

2010-09-15T10:18:00.000+05:00

Evan Williams announced a fresh redesign to the biggest Twitter client, Twitter.com. The design draws on many of the innovations first seen in the official iPad app, and you'll see a new multi-pane view that lets you easily click between tweets, profiles, hash tags and other Twitter features.

Clicking on a tweet that contains a picture link will load the picture inline within the Twitter experience, saving you from having to jump to an additional page. Similarly, clicking tweets with video and people will load playable video and profile panes, respectively. You'll also see that much of the navigation (searches, lists, @replies) has been moved to the top of the site.

Again you'll be able to scroll endlessly through tweets and dig down into conversations, and Twitter is also adding keyboard shortcuts to help you move around within the site. Video services like YouTube, Vimeo and Ustream will be supported, and Williams announced that all major Twitter picture hosting services are supported. A small group of users will be able to access the new design, and the site will launch worldwide soon.

Find out more at Twitter.

SpeedOut: How to know USB Drive Speed

2010-09-14T10:27:00.000+05:00

USB drives have their own read and write speeds and based on this speed you can use it for specific purposes like playing a game directly from the drive etc. SpeedOut is a simple freeware tool which tells you about the read and write speeds of your USB drive. The application is completely portable and does the testing of reading and writing into the drive before arriving at the actual speed of your USB drives.

You can even use this program to get the speed of external hard disks. The testing does not effect any existing files available in the USB drive nor any data is added to it. The interface is dead simple and all you need is to select the drive and click the start button.

Download it now

5 Tips for Using Gmail Priority Inbox

2010-09-14T10:13:00.000+05:00

It’s been a week since Google launched Priority Inbox, and now that you've hopefully had a chance to try it out, Google share some tips to help you manage your email more efficiently. Here are five ways you can make Priority Inbox work even better for you.
1. Customize your Sections
By default, Priority Inbox has three sections: "Important and Unread," "Starred" and "Everything Else.” But that doesn't mean you have to leave them that way. You can make a section show messages from a particular label (like your “Action” or “To-do” label), add a fourth section, or change the maximum size of any section.

2. Train the System
If Gmail makes a mistake, you can help it learn to better categorize your messages. Select the misclassified message, then use the importance buttons at the top of your inbox to correctly mark it as important or not important.

3. See the Best of Your Filtered Messages
You can set up Priority Inbox to show you not just the best of your inbox, but also the best of messages you filter out of your inbox and might otherwise miss. Just change your Priority Inbox settings to “Override filters” and Gmail will surface any important messages that would otherwise skip your inbox.

With this option turned on, you can use filters to archive more aggressively and worry less about missing an important message.

4. Use Filters to Guarantee Certain Messages Get Marked Important (or not)
If you read and reply to a lot of messages from your mom, Gmail should automatically put incoming messages from her in the “Important and unread” section. But if you want to be 100% sure that all messages from your mom (or your boss, boyfriend, client, landlord, etc.) are marked important, you can create a filter for messages from that sender and select “Always mark as important.” Similarly, if you regularly read messages from your favorite magazine, they should automatically get marked as important.

5. Archive Unimportant Messages Quickly
One of the features that can help make you more efficient is the ability to archive all of the visible messages in the "Everything Else" section at once. Just click on the down arrow next to "Everything Else" and select the "Archive all visible items" option. If you want to be able to archive even more messages at once, you can increase the maximum number of messages that show in that section from the same drop-down.

Facebook Tests New Pages Discovery Tool

2010-09-13T10:39:00.009+05:00

Facebook began testing a new Pages discovery tool called the Pages discovery browser. The tool shows some of the most popular pages in your network as well as a list of friends who you have the most shared interests with. It’s an interesting tool,One has to wonder how this will be integrated in the future.

The page is divided into a number of categories: musicians, sports, celebrities, movies, tv shows, media, politicians, brands, and games. While the algorithm is effective at discovering those Pages the user is most likely to want to fan (through some combination of mutual interests and general friend interests), it’s not clear how a user navigates to the page without visiting the page directly. Also of interest is the ability to browse pages by country, although it’s not quite clear how these pages are being selected. While it’s definitely an interesting product, we currently have no idea how this will integrate. If you want to find new Pages though, head on over to the Facebook pages browser.

How to Monitor CPU Temperature

2010-09-09T22:51:00.002+05:00

Core Temp is a freeware tool which allows you to monitor your CPU core temperature and provides you with lots of options to customize. Core Temp is not just for displaying the temperature, it can also alert you when the processor works in too hot of an environment as well as take protective action when user-defined thresholds are reached. Core Temp works on all versions on Windows, both 32 bit and 64 bit.

The application provides over heat protection which enables you to set the temperature or monitor automatically. When overheating occurs, you can shutdown or sleep the PC. Core Temp also has a logging feature, allowing a user to easily record the temperature of his processor(s) over any period of time, then the data can be easily transferred into an excel datasheet for easy graphing.

The settings menu allows you to customize the application. The application comes with in build support for Windows 7 taskbar and displays the information. It is supported on all Intel Core and Core 2 based processors as well as the whole AMD’s Athlon64 line of CPUs.

Download Core Temp

Facebook Adds Remote Logout Feature

2010-09-07T10:20:00.001+05:00

If you're constantly forgetting to log out of Facebook when you use other people's computers or phones, Facebook's new remote logout feature is here. Under Account Settings (specifically, the Account Security section), you can now see a list of places where you're currently logged in, along with some info to help you determine whether each session is legitimate or unauthorized. And, of course, you also have the option to log any of those sessions out.

Based on the approximate location (determined via IP address), the time the session started, and the browser and OS, you should be able to tell whether you just forgot to log out at work, or whether someone else has accessed your account. You can also sign up to be alerted via email or text when someone tries to log in from a device that you haven't registered with Facebook.

The service isn't available for everyone yet, but it's rolling out now, and it should reach you soon if you don't already have it.

How to Clean up your Gmail Inbox Automatically

2010-09-05T00:44:00.000+05:00

Gmail has always had an excellent spam filter that keeps junk messages out of your Inbox. Then, earlier this week, Google added a reverse feature that is quite unique to Gmail – it’s called the Priority Inbox. Priority Inbox is like having a personal secretary whose job is to sort your incoming mail based on importance.

Priority Inbox is something similar it’s an intelligent, self-learning filter that automatically puts your most important email messages at the top of your Inbox so that you may deal with them first. The feature is now live for both Gmail and Google Apps email accounts.

Sort your Existing Emails Automatically

Priority Inbox has one limitation – it works with incoming emails only and doesn’t really care about the hundreds and thousands of messages that are lying in your Inbox unattended.

Other Inbox scans your mailbox for less-important emails and sorts them into relevant categories. For instance, email alerts from from CNN, BBC, Google News, etc. would go into the News folder while messages from Amazon, iTunes, etc. will find their place in the Shopping folder.

You just have to authorize Other Inbox to access your Gmail account once and it does the rest automatically. Other Inbox is reasonably good at categorizing your emails but you also have the option to choose your own labels (see next screenshot).

Depending up the size of your inbox, it might take anywhere between 5-10 minutes for the whole process to complete.

If you ever want to clear your inbox of all notifications from Twitter and Facebook, you can simply open the “Social Media” label and empty it with a click.

That said, a lot of us will obviously not feel very happy sharing our mailboxes with a third-party. Now they do have a privacy policy in place and you can always manually revoke access to sites that are authorized to access your Gmail and Google Account.

How to Make your Windows Start-up Faster

2010-09-03T08:59:00.000+05:00

Does your Windows computer take really long to start-up? Well, you are not alone with this problem but fortunately, you can get your Windows to start much faster without re-installing Windows or adding any new hardware. The logic is fairly simple. Your computer loads quite a few software programs and services during start-up (look at all the icons in your Windows System tray). If you can trim this list, your computer’s boot time will decrease.

There is a free utility called Soluto and it helped reduce the start-up time of my Windows computer from 3.15 minutes to around 1.25 minutes. All this with a few easy clicks and without confusing the user.

After you install Soluto, it sorts your start-up programs list into three categories:

No-brainer – remove these programs from start-up with giving a second thought.
Potentially removable – another list of start-up programs that may also be removed provided you know what these programs do.
Required – Certain programs and services are required to run Windows properly and therefore should not be removed.

Depending upon the software app, you may then either choose “Pause” to completely remove that app from the start-up queue or choose “Delay” when you want the app to run automatically but not immediately at start-up. Soluto will launch the “delayed” app once the boot up is over and your system is idle.

You can also hover the mouse over any program name and Soluto will display the number of seconds that the app adds to the start-up time. And don’t bother about making mistakes because Soluto has a useful “Undo all” feature that will restore the start-up list to the original state with a click.

Where to download Soluto?

The official site for Soluto is soluto.com but in order to download the program, you should head over to mysoluto.com.

Alternatives to Soluto

If you are tech-savvy, you can also use a utility like Sysinternals Autoruns to manually prevent all the non-essential Windows processes and programs from running at start-up.

Just uncheck all the Autorun entries and Services that you don’t wish to load at startup and reboot your system.

How to Test the Strength of Password Online

2010-09-02T10:50:00.000+05:00

Every time you wonder how strong your password should be? Now its very easy Just type your password in the input box of How Secure is my Password and this tool will tell you how long it would take for an average desktop computer to crack your password using the Brute Force method.

The tool uses the simple formula “(number of possible characters ^ password length) / calculations per second” to derive that number but it can also determine if you are using one of the common passwords (like qwerty or 123456) that can be cracked instantly.

“How Secure is my Password” runs inside your browser through JavaScript and therefore your passwords won’t be transmitted anywhere while you are checking their relative strength.

How to Check the Health of Your Hard Drive

2010-09-01T10:25:00.001+05:00

Hard disk failure is possibly the worst thing that can happen to your computer and it often occurs without giving any warning signs. You may however run certain tests on your computer beforehand to get an idea about the current condition of your hard disk. This should in turn help you decide whether a replacement drive is necessary or not.

Step 1: Check your Hard Disk for Errors

All recent versions of Windows include a utility called Chkdsk.exe that can check your hard disk for any bad sectors. You may either run Chkdsk from the command line (see details) or launch Windows Explorer, right click the drive that you wish to examine and choose Properties. Switch to the Tools tab and click the “Check Now” button under Error checking. Select “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” to perform a thorough disk check.

Step 2: Understand the Sounds of your Disk

Do you sometimes hear strange sounds coming out of the CPU box? Well, if the hard drive is making those sounds, it could be an alarming situation and your best bet would be that you turn off the computer before any further damage is done to the disk. But how do you distinguish between sounds coming from a hard disk with noise that’s made by the fans or the power supply? Here’s a useful page where you can listen to recorded sounds of various hard drives that have lead to a crash. If your disk is making a similar sound, get a replacement quickly.

Step 3: Catch Errors Before They Happen

Disk Checkup is a free hard disk monitoring utility that displays tons of diagnostic data about your disk. While the level of detail it provides may easily confuse even tech-savvy users, just ignore the numbers and keep the utility running in the background. It monitors your disk’s temperature, read and write error rate, etc. and will alert you when the values of any of these parameters approach dangerous levels. These may be signs of an impending disk failure. Disk Checkup is free for personal use.

Step 4: Thoroughly Test your Hard Disk

SeaTools is free diagnostic tool that can completely test your hard drive regardless of the OS installed on it.

To get started, you need to download the ISO image of SeaTools for DOS and create a bootable CD. Now boot the computer with the CD in the drive, accept the license agreement and run a long test (the full scan). If any defects are found, a list will be offered at the end or after aborting the disk scan.

YouTube to Launch pay-per-view Movies in Future

2010-08-31T10:45:00.001+05:00

Google’s YouTube video site is negotiating with Hollywood’s top movie studios to launch a pay-per-view movie service by the end of this year. YouTube is the dominant online destination for user-generated content. But the Google division wants to turn it into an international on-demand movie service in an effort to head off Apple in the digital distribution of film and TV shows.

Google has been emphasizing its advantage of having the world’s most popular search engine and YouTube, the FT said, citing unnamed sources.

“Google and YouTube are a global phenomenon with a hell of a lot of eyeballs more than any cable or satellite service,” one executive with knowledge of the plans told the FT.

Negotiations have been taking place for a few months, but they have taken on more urgency because Apple could be launching its own counter-move this week. Rumors suggest that Apple will upgrade its ailing Apple TV service this week at a press conference in San Francisco on Sept. 1. Google will likely have to compete with Netflix and Hulu as well.

The Hollywood studios, meanwhile, want to launch new movie services to make up for the decline of DVD movie sales and rentals. The FT said viewers of the Google movie service would stream rather than download movies at a rate of $5 for new films. YouTube has been beta-testing a film rental service since January.

Calendar's Event Scheduling Feature is Back on Google

2010-08-30T12:03:00.000+05:00

Last year, Google Calendar tested a feature that made it easier to schedule events with guests. The "sneak preview" was only available for a few months, but now it's back. Google calls it "find a time" and you can use it when you create an event. "If you're able to view your guests' calendars (via sharing, Google Apps shared access, or because they've made their calendars public), you'll be able to compare schedules and pick a time that works for everyone.

Google Calendar redesigned the page that lets you create events and added a more intuitive dialog for repeating events. "The old interface for creating recurring events was clumsy and took up too much space on the screen," admits Google. "Now you'll see only a summary of your recurring event on the main event page; if you want to edit it, you can use a window that opens when you select the 'Repeats' checkbox."

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Google Adds more Official Themes for Chrome

2010-08-30T11:56:00.000+05:00

Google has introduced half a dozen new official Chrome themes, but you won't find them if you click the get themes link on your Personal Stuff menu. No, like the scores of user-created themes out there these new themes from Google have been dropped into the Extensions Gallery. The plan is to list everything in the Gallery at some point (possibly once it's re-branded as the Web Store?), but it really shouldn't be hard to give themes their own section on the existing Gallery.

The new themes are called Modern, Adaptive, Vibrant, Inventive, Fresh, and Orkut_Hudson. They're artist-created, and generally not for those of you who like Chrome's interface to be as unobtrusive as possible -- some are downright loud.

Hotmail Users Can Receive SMS Alerts

2010-08-25T09:56:00.000+05:00

Hotmail can notify you when an important email has been received by issuing a mobile alert to your phone via SMS. You can receive alerts for all new messages By using mobile alert filters, you can specify what emails are to trigger the alert.

1. Go to Windows Live Hotmail and login to your account.

2. Go to the upper-right corner and mouseover your name.

3. Select Options.

4. Using the menu on the left side of the page, select Mail.

5. Go to Customize your mail and select Mobile alerts for new messages.

6. If you haven’t validated your phone with Hotmail, you will need to do so to proceed. Follow the directions (simply inputting your phone number, waiting for a text message and then inputting the validation code).

7. Under Which Hotmail messages do you want to receive mobile alerts for?, select the Messages I specify using mobile alert filters radio button.

8. Click the Save button.

9. You will then be taken to the Manage rules page. Click the New button to create a new filter.

10. Under Step 1, use the first drop-down to select what field you want Hotmail to check. Options are Sender’s address, Sender’s name, To/cc address, Subject, or Message has attachments.

11. Use the second dropdown to select the proper value (is, contains, contains word, does not contain, begins with, or ends with).

12. Input the proper value (an email address, person’s name, etc.) into the textbox.

13. Under Step 2, select the Mobile alert radio button.

14. Click the Save button.

Repeat the Create Rule steps from above to add additional filters. When you receive an email that meets the proper criteria, Hotmail will send you a mobile alert stating who the message is from and the subject of the email.

How to Avoid Surprises on Twitter

2010-08-20T10:36:00.000+05:00

If you would like to prevent apps from fiddling with your Twitter stream without asking, the easiest solution would be to not use them at all. That’s however an extreme approach as you’ll then miss a whole lot of other apps that are both nice and useful. The solution is however simple. When you add an app to your Twitter account, you’ll see an authorization page where you can either allow or deny the app access to your Twitter data.

Read the language carefully. If it read something like “the app would like to access and update your data on Twitter,” you are granting the app permission to post to your Twitter stream. Majority of the Twitter apps won’t misuse that privilege but some may.

Therefore, if you are trying out a new app on Twitter that you have never heard of before, it may be a good idea to authorize only the ones that require read-only access to your Twitter data as seen in the screenshot below.

How to Analyze Your Facebook Friends with Docs.com

2010-08-16T15:58:00.000+05:00

Docs.com is a place where you can easily create new office documents in the browser or upload your existing documents and share them with your circle of Facebook friends as well as the outside web. The service is exactly like Office Web Apps except that it uses your Facebook account and not your Windows Live ID.The FUSE Labs team at Microsoft, that is responsible for Docs.com is busy adding new mashups to Docs.com to make the service even more appealing to Facebook users.

For instance, they have created a template called Friends Chart that automatically pulls information of all your Facebook friends and presents them as editable charts inside a spreadsheet. You get to visualize your friend mix by gender, by their age group and their current location (city).

Then there’s the Slideshow template that will help you turn any of your Facebook photo albums into a nice and animated photo slideshow in PowerPoint format.

These are some built-in samples but going forward, I hope the FUSE Labs team can provide some sort of Google Apps Script like functionality that will let anyone write simple mashups around Facebook using the Docs.com platform. That would be very interesting!

10 Myths about Twitter

2010-08-15T15:43:00.000+05:00

Twitter is Launching his Own Tweet Button

2010-08-13T15:56:00.000+05:00

If you are familiar with StumbleUpon and TweetMeme, a service which lets users share web content directly from the webpage they are visiting itself and not logging in to any separate pages, then we’ve got good news for you. Twitter is introducing its own button feature which will allow users to post and share their favorite web pages or URLs directly to Twitter without using StumbleUpon or any other third party source like TweetMeme etc.

This service is in the pipeline and may be in active soon. There is a problem however with this early launch: the service may not be available to the entire Twitter subscriber base and may be only a few test accounts get the chance to use the service and then subsequently the service would be expanded.

The official tweet button comes in at three different sizes measuring in at 10 x 20, 55 x 20, and 55 x 63. It also features the Twitter bird alongside the button. The twitter button will make other add-ons pretty useless once it arrives since it will be the best and most optimal piece of utility to use. The creation of an official Twitter button follows similar decisions by Twitter taken in the past where they have presented their own solutions thereby curbing third party Twitter app developers like Atebits for its Tweetie mobile apps or Cloudhopper for its SMS programs in the past.

Free Microsoft Money Plus is Now Available

2010-08-12T14:50:00.001+05:00

Last year, Microsoft stopped making new versions of Microsoft Money, their personal money management software package and now they’ve made it available for everybody for free. The new “Sunset” versions were created so that existing customers could continue to install MS Money without requiring activation, but that also means anybody can download and install it.

The Microsoft Money Plus Sunset versions are replacements for expired versions of Microsoft Money Essentials, Deluxe, Premium, and Home and Business. They allow existing customers to use MoneyPlus to continue accessing their data. Changes to the new versions include file conversions from older versions of Money, no required activation, no online services and no assisted support. Microsoft Money Plus Sunset is available now.

Microsoft Money Plus Sunset

Google Chrome's Upcoming in-tab Options Menu

2010-08-12T12:52:00.000+05:00

Preview releases of Chrome demonstrate some Firefox 4-like functionality by placing options inside the browser window instead of in a popup.Google moved the Chrome bookmarks manager from a separate application window into a tab. Recently, work began on into a tab as well. While it's still not totally functional, chrome://options has come a long way in a short amount of time.moving Chrome's options menuFor the most part, all the UI elements are now active. Certain sub-menus have yet to be activated (like font settings and sync).

So why move everything into tabs, anyway? Once Google has everything sorted out and running in-tabs, future changes to Chrome's UI should be easier to implement across different platforms. Since it's Chrome itself rendering things, developers won't have to worry as much about a change looking good on Windows while breaking something on Mac, for example. The switch should also lead to a more consistent experience across Chrome's entire user base.

How to Zoom Facebook Photos with Facebook Photo Zoom

2010-08-10T15:59:00.014+05:00

Facebook is today’s one of the most popular social networking website. Millions of people interact with their friends and family members and share their thoughts, pictures and videos with each other. The photo viewing aspect of Facebook is one of the most loved features by its users. This is why Facebook is constantly making improvements in this section.

However, with all the improvements, there remain some flaws which need to be solved by the Facebook team like the inability to view more than one picture at a time and the photo zoo feature. Thankfully, add-ons are now available for Chrome and Firefox which add useful feature to the Facebook Photos.

Facebook Photo Zoom is a Google Chrome extension which lets user enlarge the Facebook photos once they hover the mouse button over the image. When the plugin is installed, clicking the thumbnail image of the photo in an album will enlarge it to its original size without the user having to actually click on the photo. The same extension exists for the Firefox web browser as well and lets user enlarge Facebook photos in Firefox as well.

Both the Chrome and the Firefox variants of the Facebook Photo Zoom are available at the Extensions Gallery and the Add-ons portal for those two web browsers respectively.

How To Enable Notepad Status Bar In Windows 7

2010-08-07T00:48:00.000+05:00

By default, Windows 7 build-in Notepad does not show the status bar. However, it is necessary at times to know basic statistics of the document like number of lines consumed and current column location. By doing a little tweaking in Windows Registry, you can easily make the status bar apparent in Notepad. In this post we will let you know how to enable the status bar of Notepad. This is useful for users who cannot enable Status Bar from View menu as shown in the screenshot below. Status bar can’t be enabled when Word Wrap is enabled.

Enabling Status Bar of Notepad requires modifying the registry, before you begin with the process, make sure that you have ample knowledge of backing up the registry files to prevent any erratic system behavior.

To start out with, from taskbar click Windows Start Orb button, type regedit and hit Enter. This will bring up Windows Registry Editor dialog.

Now look for the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Notepad

Once Notepad registry keys are opened, double-click the StatusBar key. This will bring up a small registry key editor, now change the value from 0 to 1. Click OK to save the changes.

Now close down the registry editor and open a text file in Notepad. At the lower part of the window, you will see a Status bar showing Line and Column number.

Google Stops selling Nexus One

2010-08-03T22:44:00.000+05:00

Search giant Google's experiments in smartphone retailing is officially over. Some six month sfter the company launched its first "superphone" (as google called it) the HTC designed Nexus One, it has stopped selling the device through its online strore. "Sorry folks the Nexus One is no longer available for purchase directly from Google" the company announced on its website.

Google had warned users a month back about its plan to shut down the web store, but has promised that it will make the device available to registered developers through a partner.

The company acknowledge that its Nexus One retailing model failed to catch on with customers, but refused to give any figure of the numbers of phones it sold during its brief stint as a phone retailer.

Google Earth Now Shows Real-Time Weather

2010-08-03T16:56:00.002+05:00

Google Earth has always been a great way to explore the globe, but now you can use it to explore real-time rain and snow patterns, too. By enabling the new cloud layer and radar layer in Google Earth 5.2, you can track clouds and also see precipitation on a constantly updating radar. These features are only available in the latest version of the Google Earth desktop app; they are not in the iPhone app or other mobile versions. You can also see your heart rate and cadence if your GPS records that information.

To see it, you must first enable the clouds layer, and then zoom in to a location where it’s raining or snowing. Google Earth displays rain and snow only in certain parts of North America and Europe; to see where exactly the new feature is available, enable the radar layer.

The weather simulation adds another layer of coolness to the already mesmerizing Google Earth application. Since it displays rain and snow in real time, the feature can actually be useful as a precise visualization of what weather is like in a certain places.

Is Your Computer Takes a Long Time to Boot

2010-07-31T02:50:00.000+05:00

There is a common problem that when ever you turn your computer on and log in, computer takes a long time to load the desktop and system tray icons? Here is the Solution Your windows takes long time to load because of so many reasons like Virus,Damaged Registry, Fragmented Hard Disk, too many start-up items, less memory space. Firstly Removing Unwanted start-up Items then Fixing HDD Errors.

1. Remove Unwanted Start-up Items

Goto Start-->Run.
Type msconfig and hit Enter.
Navigate to Startup tab.
Keep Antivirus,Instant messenger, and other important applications to load in system tray.
Remove unwanted application.It will pull down your PC performance.

2. Fixing Hard Disk Errors

Hard disk error occurs mainly due to improper shutdown.Its also one of the main reason which makes windows to take long time to load.

Go to Start --> Run.
Type CMD and hit enter.
Type chkdsk and hit enter.

It Check disk command checks error in HDD and fixes it. Now fix errors in other drives. D,E,F,G,H,...Type CHKDSK /F for drives other than C and fix HDD error.

Get 180 Days License Key of Ashampoo Anti Malware Free

2010-07-29T14:54:00.001+05:00

The Ashampoo Anti-Malware is a combination of both Ashampoo AntiSpyWare and Ashampoo AntiVirus technologies.Ashampoo Anti-malware is now offering 180 days free genuine license key for new users.Ashampoo Anti-Malware protects your PC from external threats and blocks viruses, trojans, worms, malware, rootkits, bots, spyware efficiently without putting so much as a strain on your computer’s performance.

Key features of Ashampoo Anti-Malware

Two integrated engines of renowned software producers offer advanced protection from viruses, trojans, worms, malware, rootkits, bots, spyware and adware

During file execution and file copying, the onAccess guard offers maximum protection against all kind of threats before they can affect the entire system

Heuristic analysis designed to detect unknown threats

Protection against more than 3.000.000 potential threats from the web

Rootkit Detector

Get Free Ashampoo Anti-Malware 1.2 Licence For 3 Months

Goto Ashampoo Promo Page. Just install and enter the activation key.
Download Ashampoo Anti-Malware.

How to Uninstall Apps in Windows Safe Mode

2010-07-27T15:56:00.000+05:00

One thing that's always irritates about cleaning up and repairing systems, is the fact that the Windows Installer Service doesn't run in Safe Mode not by default, anyways. That means there's additional tinkering involved before you remove any number of annoying and useless applications and installing useful programs which require the Installer service to be running. There is a handy little application which solves this problem easily. It's called SafeMSI, and it's beautifully simple.

Download the app, slap it on your USB flash drive (it's totally portable) and run it on a system that you've booted into safe mode. Within seconds, you'll see the window above. On my bench, SafeMSI worked on XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

You may have heard about SafeMSI and well worth sharing. Now hoping some of you can put this to good use on your friends and family members' systems.

Download SafeMSI on WindowsITPro

Google Announces Improved Image Search

2010-07-27T15:31:00.000+05:00

Google announced huge changes to its image search, aimed both at refining search results for users and introducing a new advertising unit to the mix. There are some major changes: a new layout displays larger images with far less white space, leaving room for up to 1,000 results on a single page, while hovering over an image brings up a larger, more detailed image containing more information. But that's not all hear about the rest of the impressive new features and when to expect the update when you read more.

Clicking on an image result takes you to the website location with a blown-up version of the image floating above the page, no more clunky frame at the top of the page. You can easily refine your image search results using the left-hand navigation; sort by type of image (clip art, photo, line drawing), color, and size.

Users of Microsoft's Bing Image Search will find the interface familiar. Bing also uses its version of an "infinite scroll" to let users scroll through images without clicking through any number of search results pages, and offers up some background information in a thumbnail preview.

In addition to running traditional ads on the page, advertisers will be able to include image and text ads targeted toward specific search terms. The landing page when you decide to follow a particular photo has also been changed. Currently, Google adds a frame on top of the regular page which features the thumbnail image and some info on it. But you still have to search through the page to find the image you’re looking for.

How to Open DOCX Formate File in Simple Ways

2010-07-26T16:57:00.003+05:00

Recently Microsoft released Ms Office 2010, but most of them are still using MS Office 2003.They have not even upgraded to Ms Office 2007. Ms Office 2007 default file format are .pptx .xlsx .docx files. Ms office 2003 or other earlier versions doesn't support this file format. Now there are 3 easy Ways to open docx file format.

1. Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack
Microsoft released a tool named “Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack” ,Using this tool you can convert office 2007 files to the compactable file format for older versions.

2. OpenOffice
OpenOffice is a multi-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) and multi-lingual office suite which is compatible with all major office suites (i.e. Microsoft Office). It includes Writer (word processing), Impress (presentation), Math, Draw, Calc Base applications.You can open and edit MS Office 2007 Docx file format in OpenOffice. (spreadsheet), and

3. DevVicky Word 2010
DevVicky Word 2010 is another freeware application that can also open DOCX formats. It is a lightweight application when compared to OpenOffice.org, and is much lighter when compared to MS Office as well. This is another cool way of opening Docx file format.

Its better you switch over to Ms Office 2007 or Ms Office 2010.

How To Extract Windows and Microsoft Office 2010 Product Key?

2010-07-26T11:13:00.004+05:00

If you have lost your product key or CD key of Windows Os or Microsoft office.Then here is a solution to recover your Ms Office 2010 Product Key with ProduKey. Produkey is small freeware utility to extract the product keys of Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office 2010 as well as product keys of Windows 7, Vista, and XP with a single click. It works smoothly on Windows 7, Vista, XP, Exchange Server and SQL Server.

Its a portable application and no need any installations.
You can find Windows and Micosoft Office Product Keys.
Just right click on Ms Office and click Properties.
From here you can copy the Product key.

Download and run Productkey.

How to Share Videos Privately With Friends & Family

2010-07-21T17:54:00.001+05:00

Today’s web is all about open social networking. Even then, some information should ideally remain out of bounds from the public gaze. Most photos and videos are actually private memories and some of us may balk at sharing it with the World Wide Web. But video hosting websites which let you have a say on who gets to view the shared videos are sprouting up.

The choice of the right private video sharing website will ultimately boil down to the file size allowed and the ease of sharing with the right kind of privacy features. So try out the five below and let us in your preference (or none) to share videos with your friends and family.

Gabble

Gabble is a beta web service from Hewlett Packard which allows you to safely and securely share private videos. Notice the encrypted connection (HTTPS) in your address bar. All you need to get started is an Internet connection, a web browser and a video camera such as a webcam or mobile phone.

Gabble allows you to record and upload your videos for sharing. You also get a unique email address for your account which can be used to send videos directly from your mobile phone. Videos posted via email are limited to 10MB in size.

VidMe

VidMe is another online video sharing site which places all privacy controls in your hands. Videos can be uploaded or recorded directly using a webcam. Videos uploaded on VidMe can only be sent to the recipients you want to. The videos cannot be downloaded by the recipients or forwarded to anyone else. If recipients want to share the videos with anyone else, they have to ‘suggest an additional recipient’ and get your approval.

VidMe even has an iPhone app for uploading and sharing videos directly from your iPhone. Recipients are notified with an email and they get a little snapshot of the video in the email. To watch the complete video, the recipient will have to sign-in to VidMe.

Also catch our previous mention of VidMe.

Video Sprout

Video Sprout is as simple as it gets in sharing private videos. Simply upload your video, and share access to it with the people whom you email. The videos can be shared via the unique URLs too. The online video sharing web service allows 100MB of storage and 500 monthly views. It’s a nice solution for sharing those little video clips.

Also catch our previous mention of Video Sprout.

Viddler

Viddler is a free video sharing service which comes with three privacy controls. By default all videos uploaded are set to private (only you can see it). With the shared setting, the people you select will be able to view it. And thirdly, videos can be made public too and is viewable by others. Viddler is free for personal use.

What’s good about Viddler is that right now the size limit per video is 500MB (2GB monthly limit) and you can upload as many videos as you want. After an upload, Viddler encodes the files. The free account is ad-supported. If you don’t mind that, you can set it up with friends to mutually share videos.

Mejuba

Mejuba gives you ‘unmetered’ traffic and unlimited storage or your photos and videos. And the website if completely free to boot. Mejuba allows photo and video uploads from the computer, mobile, and iPhone. Upload size is limited to 1GB per upload and that’s more than enough for a lot of things.

The useful thing is that you can upload entire folders and the folder arrangement gets retained online. Folders are called Albums on Mejuba and can be accessed via the Explorer like interface. Mejuba allows you to create public and private albums. Private albums can be viewed by invitation only. You can share your album with specific contacts and/or your Mejuba contacts.

How do you share your private videos? Let us know the site of your choice.

How to Fix a Corrupted Recycle Bin

2010-07-20T22:49:00.000+05:00

Normally, when you delete a file or folder, it goes automatically to the recycle bin. You can review the contents of your Recycle Bin before deleting the files or folders permanently from it. In the case in which you have accidentally deleted a file, you can go to recycle bin and un-delete it to recover the file again.

Sometimes, when you perform the delete operation on your files or folders, you may receive an error message saying that your "Recycle Bin has been corrupted". Windows will ask you if you want to empty your Recycle Bin for that particular drive. If the Recycle Bin is not showing the files that have already been deleted by you or shows an incorrect icon, then you need to reset it.

Every drive has a protected and hidden folder called "$Recycle.bin. Here the Recycle Bin stores all the files and folders that have been deleted by you or any other users on the PC. Reset that folder and Windows will automatically create a fresh "$Recycle.bin folder for your PC. However, keep in mind that the files that you will delete while resetting will not be recovered again as they will get permanently deleted from your PC.

To fix a corrupted Recycle Bin in Windows XP, all you have to do is to get rid of the hidden recycle folder by using rd/s c:\recylcer command in the Windows Command prompt. By doing this, all the contents of the Recycle Bin will be deleted and thus the error will be fixed. Sometimes by doing this your Recycle Bin will show its icon in filled state. To fix this, all you have to do is to just disable and re–enable the Recycle Bin. To do this, you have to right click on the Recycle Bin icon –> properties -> Do not move files to Recycle Bin –> click apply and then deselect the check box to enable Recycle Bin again. At that point, your Recycle Bin should be normal again.

Whenever you try to attempt to fix the corrupted Recycle Bin, always keep in mind that all the files and folders in the Recycle Bin are going to be permanently deleted. Another way to fix this problem is to search for cmd.exe at the command prompt and click on it. Then press "Run as Administrator". Then enter the command: "rd/s/q C:\$ Recycle.bin". By doing this the Recycle Bin gets cleared. You can use this method in Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

So, windows can be a mystery sometimes. The Recycle Bin has a lot of dependencies in a PC just like your Internet Explorer. There are many different causes for the Recycle Bin to get corrupted like a registry error or a dependency error. There are different ways to repair them too. Some ways may not be able to fix your problem as it all depends on the cause of the corruption. But once the problem is fixed, your recycle should be as good as new.

Google Tests Signing in With Multiple Accounts

2010-07-19T17:30:00.001+05:00

Google tests a feature that allows you to sign in to multiple Google accounts in the same browser. Multiple sign-in only works for Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Code, but it's likely that other Google services will be added when this feature will be publicly available.If you use a service that doesn't support multiple sign-in, it will default to the first account that you signed in using your browser.
Google suggests to use a different browser, but you can also use Chrome's incognito mode to sign in to an additional Google account. Another limitation is that Gmail's offline mode is disabled if you turn on multiple sign-in.

Multiple sign-in will let you open Gmail in multiple tabs, log in using different accounts and read the messages from all your accounts without opening another browser. Right now, you have to log out before logging in to a different account.

How to Block Virus/Trojans Being Transferred to USB

2010-07-18T00:52:00.004+05:00

Viruses spread fastly through pendrives when we use in schools, colleges and office. In order to prevent some files on your pen drive like Autorun.inf file and which will later prevent the virus infection as these files being already created and cannot be deleted, so that virus or trojan cannot copy files and folders or create them on your USB Drive when you connect your drive to virus infected PC. USB Drive some other files from getting infected, you will need to There some freeware to vaccinate your USB drives from virus infection. Today I came across a similar tool called USB Defender.

Features of "USB Defender"
USB Defender is a simple tool which extremely easy to use.
You can see just two buttons on it: "Protect" and "Un-protect". First button you are using to vaccinate your drive,

Second button to remove protection.

When you insert any pendrive USB defender program automatically detects it, if there is any protection active and only one button will be available for you.
USB Defender is fully portable - so you can take it with you wherever you want. Get USB Defender and take it for a spin to see what it can actually do for you!
I inserted pendrive and found USB defender added Autorun.inf and vaccinated it.

Give it a try today Download USB Defender

How to Change Windows 7 Taskbar to Work like Vista?

2010-07-15T22:44:00.002+05:00

A lot of people don’t like the new taskbar feature of Windows 7. Others prefer the old Vista taskbar over the Windows 7 taskbar. You can change Windows 7 taskbar to work like Vista taskbar. It takes some time before you get accustomed to your Windows 7 taskbar. But if you don’t have time to get used to the new version and want your computer to work the same way like before, here is a way to change Windows 7 taskbar to work like Vista.

Right-click the empty area on the Taskbar, Select Properties

The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties windows will open. Under the box called “Use small icons” and “Taskbar location on screen”, select the option “Combine when taskbar is full” from the drop down of Taskbar buttons.

Click on the Apply button.

You have successfully changed the Windows 7 taskbar to work like Vista. Now the Taskbar look similar to how it did in Vista. It will not appear very much alike to Vista taskbar, but the functions will be the same.

A different way to achieve the same is by unpinning all the programs from the Windows 7 taskbar.

Add a quick launch bar to Windows 7. This will change the Windows 7 taskbar to work like Vista after the Quick Launch Bar is enabled.

I hope these tips will be helpful for people who want to use Windows 7 but still prefer Vista’s taskbar. The people who are very busy and can’t spent time on learning how to use the Windows 7 taskbar can follow these simple steps.

How to Password Protect a Folder

2010-07-14T14:20:00.002+05:00

Modern operating systems still don’t make it easy for the average user to password protect a folder. Its not even about encrypting a folder, just a simple password to keep prying eyes out.A lot of families who share a computer and even share a single user account, and therefore they all have access to the same files. That makes it pretty easy for someone to accidentally overwrite another user’s files without much thought.

A lot of times these families don’t need completely separate user accounts, but rather just need a single folder where they can safely store their precious files that they’d hate to lose. My Lockbox is a free.Windows app that comes close to that. The free version lets you protect one folder on your computer with a password, and can be locked/unlocked as you deem necessary. You can even specify certain processes (such as an antivirus programs) that get unrestricted access to the folder regardless of whether it is locked or unlocked.

Here are some highlights of what My Lockbox has to offer:

Hotkey to open Control Panel with a simple keystroke.
Effective password protection.
FAT, FAT32, NTFS volumes are supported.
Supports all modern Windows operating systems (XP, Vista, 7) including 64-bit editions.
Almost any folder on your computer can be password protected.
Prevents you from locking system-critical folders, e.g. C:\Windows.
Instant protection – no file scrambling or moving to another place.
Trusted processes feature lets backup, antivirus or similar software backup or scan your protected folder.
Protects folders even in Windows safe mode.

Ultimately this doesn’t solve the issue for the average user largely because apps like this will never reach mass adoption. There is an option built-in to Windows that gives users the ability to right-click on any non-system folder and specify a password for it. One that I can think of is at work where your boss might be able to get access to your computer account, but with this tool you can at the very least keep him out of a specific folder.

My Lockbox Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

How to set a custom background for Google?

2010-07-11T18:28:00.000+05:00

Are you bored with same old Google home page ? Do you want to add background image to Google home page that looks like Bing?Google just made there home page just like its tough competitor Bing.You just want to know how to make this Google tweak, right?
Go to the Google home page and you can see on the bottom left corner where it says "Change background image" Click on it...

You can find different images, including those you can grab from your own computer, those from your Picasa album or even from a large set of photos that are already available.

Here I have just uploaded a Wallpaper and set it as Google Home page background images.

5 Way to Have Fun With Google Search

2010-07-11T17:12:00.001+05:00

Google search engine got lots of fun oriented search results and easter eggs. Impress your friends with these fun search and have a nice time in using Google search engine.Lets now play with Google,

1. Go to Google.com, type in "Lol limewire" and click "I'm Feeling Lucky"
Just see whta happens.
2. Type "world cup" in Google Search box and hit google search.
On search result page you will see GOOOOOOOOOOAL instead of gooOOOgle at bottom of page!!

3. Type "Who Is The Cutest" in Google Search and hit search.
Biggest Lie Ever waiting in first result.

4. Type in "Ewmew Fudd". Click "I'm feeling lucky"

5. Make Google Dance

Type "google loco" and Click "I'm feeling lucky"

The google loco starts dancing!

Check out more Google fun by typing the follwing things and click "I'm Feeling Lucky"

Google 133t
Google gothic
xx~klingon
xx~piglatin
Google easter egg
Google Bearshare

China Renewed Google’s Internet Content Provider

2010-07-10T20:16:00.000+05:00

The Chinese government doesn’t like Google. This is why China’s internet is barred from everything which is Google. China is probably the only place on earth where Google is struggling to do well. Recently however, there was good news for Google that despite their grievances, the Chinese internet regulatory authority has renewed Google’s license (as an Internet Content Provider (ICP)) which will allow the search giant to continue its operation in China as a search engine.

Because of the censorship problems faced by Google on its China based domain (Google.cn), Google was redirecting traffic from its .cn domain to its Hong Kong based uncensored domain (google.com.hk) which allegedly wasn’t appreciated by the Chinese government and threatened Google its ICP license at the time of renewal if Google didn’t stop the practice. Google adopted a new way of coming out of the situation and placed a link on its China search page which would allow users to manually redirect their search queries to Google Hong Kong. This link, as reported by the Google Blog worked its magic and had Google its ICP license renewed.

“We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP license and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China,” wrote Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond.

YouTube Hacked : Justin Bieber a Target?

2010-07-06T08:39:00.002+05:00

YouTube has been the attention for all lately. This also includes hackers and problem creators over the web who spread mischief through their wrong doings. There have been several attempts in the past from hackers to gain unauthorized access to YouTube and tamper with its services. A recent example of such an attack took place when today hacker(s) targeted YouTube again, attempting to exploit a security loophole and mingle with the Justin Bieber videos present on YouTube. This is not a one of its kind attack, as hackers have also picked up on Justin Bieber videos over the internet before as well.

This time, a security exploit has led YouTube users to receive annoying popups, redirections to explicit content websites like “One Man, One Jar” and spam comments on Justin Bieber videos announcing that Justin Bieber has died.

The responsibility of the attack on YouTube has been taken up by a group of hackers from the infamous website 4chan who claim that, “Today is a reminder that we can still shake the foundation of the Internet.”

Google and YouTube management has taken actions and patched the exploit and sent an official word of confirmation that the loophole has been sealed off. The message read:
”We took swift action to fix a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on youtube.com that was discovered several hours ago. Comments were temporarily hidden by default within an hour, and we released a complete fix for the issue in about two hours. We’re continuing to study the vulnerability to help prevent similar issues in the future.”

Download 60 days Trial of MS Office 2010

2010-06-16T10:50:00.000+05:00

The versions of other Office 2010 editions are now available and can be downloaded and used Free for 60-days Trial period. Try them now.To get a 60 day Trial license, visit this Office 2010 Trial page and click the ‘Try it now’ button of your desired Office product. Sign in with your Windows Live ID to get the license code/key and activate Office as fully-functional product for 60 days.

Microsoft Office Home and Business 2010 [English]

Includes: Word / Excel / PowerPoint / Outlook/ OneNote

Download Here

Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010 [English]

Includes: Word / Excel / PowerPoint / OneNote

Download Here

Microsoft Office Professional 2010 [English]

Includes: Word / Excel / PowerPoint / Outlook / OneNote / Publisher / Access

Download Here

How to Customize Your Mouse Buttons

2010-06-14T12:18:00.001+05:00

Now mouse lovers can enjoy their own kind of shortcuts. X-Mouse Button Control is a free Windows app that lets you customize all the various buttons on your mouse so that they are a bit more useful, and the best part is that you can customize it on a per-app basis. For example, in your web browser you may want to use the extra buttons on your mouse to navigate back/forward through your browsing history, but maybe in Microsoft Word you want those buttons to perform copy/paste operations.

This app will let you do all of that and more. Here’s a rundown of the more useful operations you can choose from:

Copy/Cut/Paste
Volume Up/Down/Mute
Media Player control
Send a custom keystroke sequence
Launch your email (or any other) application.
Capture screen (or active window) image to clipboard.
Click-Drag [Sticky Buttons].
Save and restore desktop icon positions.
Vista (and Windows 7) support including some Vista/7 only features such as ‘Flip 3D’.

The “layer” support I didn’t quite get at first, but then realized how it could actually be useful. How it works is you can designate different actions on each layer, and you can then choose which layer is active from the System Tray. It’s almost like having profiles for your mouse buttons.

Note: If you make a mistake in your mouse button configuration, you can disable X-Mouse Button Control any time it is running by holding Ctrl+Alt and double-clicking the right mouse button. To re-enable after this, right-click the icon in the System Tray and unchecked Disable X-Mouse Button Control.

X-Mouse Button Control Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

New Chrome stable release: Welcome, Mac and Linux!

2010-06-03T13:14:00.002+05:00

In most recent beta release, Google fired up all engines to bring to life his fastest version of Chrome to date. Today, Google bringing all this beta goodness to the stable channel so that it’s available to all Chrome users. Google particularly excited to bring Chrome for Mac and Linux out of beta, and introduce Chrome’s first stable release for Mac and Linux users.
Today’s stable release also comes with a host of new features. You’ll be able to synchronize not only bookmarks across multiple computers, but also browser preferences including themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, preferred languages, and even page zoom settings. Meanwhile, for avid extensions users, you can enable each extension to work in incognito mode through the extensions manager. Google stable release also incorporates HTML5 features such as Geolocation APIs, App Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop. For a taste of HTML5’s powerful features, try browsing through websites developed in HTML5 such as scribd.com, dragging and dropping attachments in Gmail, or by enabling the geolocation functionality in Google Maps. We’ve also given Chrome’s bookmark manager a facelift with HTML5
In recent weeks, Google been beta-testing Adobe Flash Player integration into Chrome. While Flash Player integration in the browser is not included by default in today’s stable release, we’re excited to enable this feature with the full release of Flash Player (version 10.1) soon.

If you’re already using Chrome for Windows, Mac or Linux, you’ll be auto-updated to this latest release soon. You can also try out these new features on our speedy browser now, by downloading Chrome from google.com/chrome.

How to Create Custom Hotkeys for Windows

2010-05-20T22:09:00.001+05:00

Keyboard shortcuts are something I’ve always try to make the most of, and doing so has served me well over the years. One thing that Windows has seemingly lacked was a way to let me make my own keyboard shortcuts, but with Clavier+ I am one step closer to eternal keyboard bliss.

What makes it so great? Well, for starters it is a system-wide keyboard shortcut application. That means it will work inside of any app. The other thing that really won me over was the fact that it takes up a mere 1.7MB of memory when running, which is so little that I don’t have to think twice about leaving it run in the background.

Here are a few things worth pointing out:

You can restrict shortcuts to certain applications, and this is really simple. There is a “target” icon that you can drag onto the window you want to include/exclude.
When creating keyboard shortcuts you can specify whether the Caps Lock, Num Lock, and/or Scroll Lock keys have to be on or off for the activation to be successful.
You can set up a shortcut to launch a program/website, or output some text to the field currently selected on the screen.

Grab Clavier+ if you’ve been eager to create some keyboard shortcuts you can call your very own.

Bulk Ping Test Tool for Windows

2010-05-19T22:04:00.000+05:00

If you’re reading this site there is a pretty good chance that you already know how to use the ping and trace-route commands from the command prompt. If you only have to do these once in awhile I’m sure you don’t mind opening up the command prompt, but if you’re anything more than a casual pinger you may find the free PingMaster app to be useful.

PingMaster isn’t something that’s so great it will blow your mind. Instead it’s one of those utilities that will help keep your mind (and sanity) in tact… especially if you want an easy way to monitor site response times.

As you can see in the screen-shot above you can have up to five different domains/IPs being monitored at any given time. Each tab will show the real-time results, and at the bottom will provide a summary of how many packets have been lost.

One thing I found to be kinda nice was the System Tray icon. When you hover over it you’ll quickly see the last two response times for each of the five sites you are monitoring. This is really helpful if you manage several domains and want to check in periodically on the response times, which may help you identify issues before they happen.

How to Download and Convert Online Videos (YouTube, CollegeHumor, Metacafe, etc…)

2010-05-18T20:44:00.001+05:00

Sometimes it’s nice to download a video from a site so that you can watch it at your leisure without needing to be connected to the Internet. There are online services that will automatically do the video download/conversion for you, but sometimes the turnaround can be a little slow (or there just isn’t the level of customization you want).

xVideoServiceThief is a free cross-platform (and open source) app that can handle downloading videos from over 70 different online video sources. You can also configure it so that all downloads are automatically converted to one of seven different formats.

Here’s an overview of the features:

Download Videos from a lot of Web Video Services: YouTube, Yahoo, Google Videos, Metacafe, etc…
Convert videos to AVI, MPEG1, MPEG2, WMV, MP4, 3GP, MP3.
Download almost any video from internet via HTTP and RTMP protocols.
Configure your own download schedules and let the xVST to download your videos when you are not using your computer!
Download more than one video at the same time.
Pause, resume or cancel your downloads.
Search videos inside the xVST and download (or play) them!
Drop video links directly to the xVideoServiceThief.
Save and Restore your download lists automatically.

For most casual video watchers this will probably be overkill, but this may be right up your alley if you like to have your own personal library of movie clips.

How to Batch Compress/Resize Images with RIOT

2010-05-16T19:56:00.001+05:00

The free and portable Radical Image Optimization Tool (RIOT) has been an app I’ve recommended for a few years now (I think I’ve been using it since about 2008). As the name suggests it focuses on doing one thing, and doing it well optimizing images. It can compress, re-size, adjust, and convert your images in a way that leaves you in control of the end result.

The thing I like the most about riot is how easily I can manipulate multiple photos in just a few clicks. Thanks to the “batch” button on the toolbar I can select an entire folder of images that I want to re-size and/or compress, and the speed at which it can process the images is rather incredible. This is great for emailing off a slew of photos when you’re concerned about the attachment size.

Most of the time I use RIOT for batch optimizations, but this regularly-updated app is equipped with all kinds of other features:

Open many image types including rare/scientific types
Save and optimize JPEG, GIF and PNG with a simple, clean user interface
Works in dual view: (original – optimized image) or single view (optimized image).
Automatic preview of resulting image
In-place compare function (alternativelly display the original image over the optimized image to notice small pixel changes)
Compress files to desired file-size threshold
Fast processing (all is done in memory);
See instant results including resulting file-size
Batch support (process multiple files at once)
Transparency handling options
Decide if you want to keep meta-data (comments, IPTC, Adobe XMP, EXIF profiles, ICC profiles).
Transfer meta-data between image formats (destination format must support them)
Common tools: pan and zoom, rotate, flip
Basic image adjustments: brightness, contrast, gamma, invert
Visually reduce number of unique colors for PNG and GIF images in order to reduce file-size
Re-size image by using well known re-sample filters (ex: Lanczos3, Catmull Rom, Bicubic, and others)
Compression and the results are comparable to those of commercial products, even higher.
Adaptive logarithmic tone mapping algorithm (Drago) used for HDR images

Seeing that RIOT is free and portable you can give it a try without much worry. I highly recommend keeping this one in your toolbox.

How to Find and Remove Duplicate Music Files

2010-05-15T18:46:00.002+05:00

Similarity is a pretty awesome app for anyone who doesn’t keep their music library organized. I don’t have a very large music library (just a few hundred songs), but I know people who have tens of thousands of songs. Once it starts getting that big I could see some duplicate songs sneaking in there… maybe because you’ve got two albums by the same artist that overlap a bit, which is very much possible once you start diving into “best of” albums. Similarity can try to take care of that for you.

Once you run the app you can point it to the location that needs to be scanned. It will start going through the music looking at the actual content of the song as well as the tags used. It can recognize duplicates even if the durations are off from each other, or if they are different formats/filetypes.

Here’s a full breakdown of the features:

Three powerful comparing algorithms (content based, tags based and experimental).
Support lossy formats: MP3, MP2, OGG, WMA, ASF.
Support lossless formats: FLAC, APE(Monkey Audio), WV(WavePack), MPC(MusePack), WMA.
Support ID3v1, ID3v2, APEv2, WMA, Vorbis tags.
Find files with same sound content (not byte to byte comparison, using sound analyzing).
Tag editor (support MP3,WMA).
Tag/file renaming tool.
Very fast sound content scanning.
Support Windows 7 Libraries.
Works with removable media devices like USB, etc.
Search local PC and over network.
Find duplicate from a selected set of folders.
Show files tags and properties.
Results can be exported to playlist.

Google China's Partners Cutting ties

2010-05-04T22:25:00.000+05:00

Google China finally started to feel the impact of its departure from mainland china after many of its partners ended their relationship with the American search engine giant. Some of the search engines Research and Development (R&D) personal have jumped ship and its traffic and market share have decline substantially.

Baidu, China's largest search engine, confirmed that Wang Jin, former vice director of Google china Engineering Research Institute, has been named Baidu's vice president, and will be in charge of the company;s technology department.

Up until last month Google China's staff was reported to be relatively stable with personnel charges in sales and marketing department, but some competitors from market intent on luring the R&D personnel of Google China to join their companies.

Google currently contribute around 15 % of the traffic for domestic small and medium sized websites. The figure was 35% in January and February, 2010. By contrast Baidu's share of the search market soared from 50% to 75% in the first two month of 2010, confirmed Su Daode head of VPSite.org

Tweetie 2 releases 2.1.2 Final Update with a Slot Game

2010-04-30T19:51:00.000+05:00

Anyway Today Tweetie 2 has released an update which is free for current users and probably is the Final update for Tweetie 2 before it’s officially launched as ‘ Twitter for iPhone ‘.

The latest updates has minor bug fixes for Foursquare and a surprise. Yes! Just pull the screen to update your timeline and It would show you a slot machine spinning and If you are lucky to win it, it would display you a simple message,

“Coming Soon! Tweetie will be Twitter for iPhone (Look for the next app update)“

As we covered before, Twitter has already acquired the Tweetie App and It will be available for Free in the next Update, However I could not help buying it :-} So If you can wait for the Next update you might save on some bucks for you

Twanslate: Translator for Twitter

2010-04-28T20:45:00.000+05:00

Most of the people I am following on Twitter write their Tweets in English, However sometimes non-English speaking friends talk in their native language too like Italian, French etc and obviously I can not understand them. Today We are featuring a recently launched Firefox addon Twanslate which translates the Tweets on the go using Google Translation service.

It’s pretty handy addon for anyone having friends who speak language different than you. Once you have installed the addon, It would add a tiny Globe icon in the user tweet and clicking it will result in translation of the Tweet from user language to your language. Pretty cool isn’t ?

Here you can download this Addon for your Firefox browser.

How to get Easy Access to Run Dialog Window

2010-04-23T19:53:00.000+05:00

There are so many Windows programs can accessed through Run dialog box. For example Registry Editor, Group Policy, Command Prompt, etc.. For you who often work with Run command, perhaps accessed it more then ten times a day. It gonna be a long way when you should click Start then click on Run to display Run dialog window. So, to enable quick access to Run dialog window, there some ways you can use.

To access Run command quickly you can use a keyboard shortcut. You can press the combination of Windows key and R key on your keyboard. Now, press the Windows key and R key at the same time to test it. Does the Run appear? If it doesn’t appear, make sure you have press both key exactly at a same times.

The second way to make an easy access to Run is by creating Run shortcut icon on your desktop. With a shortcut icon on the desktop, you just make a single click to open Run dialog. Here are steps to create run shortcut on your desktop:

Click on Start the point to Run.
Click and hold the Run icon and drag it to your desktop.

Everything finished. Now you have the Run shortcut icon on your desktop. It will be easier to access the Run dialog now. Enjoy it!

AVG Offers Free Rescue CD to Repair Infected Machines

2010-04-15T20:43:00.000+05:00

During that time AVG Rescue CD is not free and it cost a whopping $149.95 for 1 user license with 1 year subscription. I wonder if anyone really purchased it because it is so expensive when there are more than 10 other rescue CD. AVG has recently changed their shareware Rescue CD into freeware, meaning anyone can use it to scan and clean virus infected machines without owning an AVG license. If you don’t know what is a rescue CD, it is a Live CD mostly used to recover a computer when the system cannot be loaded normally or will not allow normal operation, such as after an extensive or deep-rooted virus infection.

AVG Rescue CD allows you to either install it on a CD with the ISO image file or to USB which uses grub boot loader. To install to USB, you will need to extract all the files into the root of your USB flash drive, and then run makeboot.bat file to make the USB flash drive bootable. Insert the CD or USB to the infected computer and go to BIOS and set the boot priority to CD/USB.

Upon successfully booting up the AVG Rescue CD, it will auto mount the windows partition on the system and then checks for active internet connection. You will be prompted to update the program if an active internet connection is detected. There are 3 options, Online, Office and Download. Online lets you directly download the latest virus definitions and program updates to use only for this time. As for Offline, if you have previously used the Download option, then you can specify where should AVG look for the definition file. Finally, the Download option allows you to download and save the definition to your USB flash drive or computer hard drive for future Offline use.

When you are done updating, go back to the main menu and select the first option Scan. You won’t have a nice graphical user interface on this AVG Rescue CD. During scanning, you will only see a black command prompt screen with a lot of text. To abort the scan, you can press Ctrl+C

AVG Rescue CD contains other utilities such as a Linux File Manager called Midnight Commander, a Registry Editor that allows you to load the Windows registry, Ping to test network connectivity and TestDisk for data recovery. I’ve tested a full scan on a Windows XP partition that contains 20288 files and 2341 folders with 3.58GB in total. It took 14 minutes and 45 seconds to complete scanning which in my humble opinion is quite slow. This is a clean Windows XP without anything on it. If the computer contains a lot of files, it will surely take hours to scan.

AVG might be a bloatware in Windows but when it comes to a Rescue CD, this is no longer a factor to stop us from using it. Lets not forget that AVG Rescue CD used to cost a lot of money before and is now free. You can use it when you want to and it doesn’t need to be installed in Windows.

[ Download AVG Rescue CD ]

How to Remove Action Center from Tray Icon Windows 7

2010-04-15T20:35:00.000+05:00

Windows 7 has new feature called action center. Action Center is a central place to view alerts and take actions that can help keep Windows running smoothly. Action Center lists important messages about security and maintenance settings that need your attention by giving a pop-up balloon tips. However, some people think that this pop-up balloon is very annoying and want to remove it.

This tips are for you who think the action center is not very important and want to remove it from tray icon Windows 7. To remove action center from tray icon Windows 7 follow these steps:

Click on Start »» Run. Type in “gpedit.msc” (without quotes) and hit Enter.
On the Group Policy window, expand User Configuration »» Administrative Template »» Start Menu and Taskbar.
On the right side of the Window, find the “Remove the Action Center icon” item and double click on it to open it’s setting windows.
Next, on the “Remove the Action Center icon” setting windows. Check the Enabled options and click OK.
Close the Group Policy window and restart your computer.

When the computer has restarted and you login to your Windows, the Action Center will disappear from the tray icon. That’s a simple tricks to remove the Action Center icon from tray icon Windows 7.

How to Resize the Desktop Icons

2010-03-27T15:54:00.000+05:00

Most of application put their icon on the desktop when they have installed on our computer. When we have installed a lot of applications, our desktop have a lot of icon too. It makes we can see the wallpaper anymore. Some of us might be remove some of them to make extra space in your desktop. But, before you start to removing some icon on your desktop, there is a trick that we can use to make some extra space on our desktop. You can change the desktop icon size to smaller size. By resizing the desktop icon to smaller size, our desktop can hold more icons on it.
This tip is also can be used to resize the desktop icon to bigger size. It will be helpful if you have a problem with your eyes. This tips only works on windows 7 and vista. For Windows XP user, you can find an application which help you to resize the desktop icons. You only do 2 steps to rezise the desktop icons, you can follow this tips:

To resize the desktop icon to smaller or bigger size. Press and hold the Ctrl (Control) key on your keyboard the scroll the mouse scroll button up or down. If you scroll the button up. The desktop icons will resized to bigger size. And if you scroll the button down, the desktop icon will be resized to smaller size.

You can see the result of the actions on the following figures:

That's the simple trick how to resize the Desktop icons. Enjoy it!

How to Import Facebook Contacts to Yahoo Mail

2010-03-09T20:14:00.001+05:00

Now you can import your Facebook contacts to your Yahoo! Mail and access them from there. Last year, Yahoo! announced Facebook Connect integration and some other plans to improve Mail, so before they add that, you can now import contacts from Facebook.

Along with importing your contacts from sites like Gmail and Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail now allows you to connect with your Facebook friends and easily add their email addresses to your Yahoo! Contacts list.

This will make it easy to communicate and share with the people you care about – wherever you are in Yahoo!

How to Import Facebook Contacts to Yahoo Mail

Just follow the steps below to import your Facebook contacts to Yahoo! Mail.

Go to the Import Contacts landing page and select Facebook.
Authorize your account.
Importing will now begin

Watch Oscars 2010 Live Online Free

2010-03-05T17:31:00.000+05:00

Oscars 2010, 82nd Annual Academy awards, are almost here which will go live on 7th March 2010 (8PM ET) and will be held at the Kodak Theater (Hollywood), Los Angeles, California.Oscars will be aired on TV, but just in case you miss it there or are not able to watch, you can always watch them online for free.

I have collected a few links from where you can watch Oscars 2010 live online and that also for free without having to move yourself to TV to watch them. I will keep updating the list as Oscars get near because many other sources will put up live streaming video links.

Watch Oscars 2010 Live on Oscar.com

Watch Oscars 2010 Live Online on Hulu

Watch Oscars 2010 Live Online on TV.com

Watch Oscars 2010 Live Streaming on UStream.tv

Watch Oscars 2010 Live Streaming on LifeStream – AP

Watch Oscars 2010 Clips on YouTube

These are just the links that I was able to find right now. More will be added as the event gets near.

Another Way to Empty Recycle Bin

2010-03-02T01:30:00.001+05:00

Sometimes, we often empty the recycle bin to get more space in our hard drive. To empty the recycle bin we usually right clicking on the recycle bin and select Empty Recycle bin. I think most of you have been familiar with this way. But, did you that there is another way to empty recycle bin? You can empty he recycle bin by right clicking on a drive and select empty recycle bin.

How it works? We will create a new context menu on our drives which functioned to empty the recycle bin. This context menu will appears on all drives on the PC when we right click on it. To create the context menu, we should add new keys on the registry.
Here's the steps:

Open Notepad by click on Start »» Accessories »» Notepad.

On the Notepad windows type the following codes:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}]

Save it with .reg extension by clicking File »» Save As. On the save as dialog box, select All Files on the Save as type drop-down box and named the file with .reg extension, for example EmptyRecycleBin.reg. Then click the save button.

Now, merge the new Registration Entries file by right click on it then select Merge. When a dialog box appears click yes.

Everything is done. Try to right click on one of your drive through Windows Explorer. Is there a new menu named Empty Recycle bin? If there is it, congratulation! You have another way to empty recycle bin. This tips works on Windows XP Professional.

How to Create Shutdown, Reboot and Log Off Icon on Desktop

2010-02-28T20:05:00.001+05:00

On this article, i will show how to create shutdown, reboot and log off icon on your desktop. By creating those icon, you have an alternative way to shutdown, reboot, and log off your computer. How it works? Windows has a program called SHUTDOWN.EXE. The function of this program is to turn off your computer. Not only to turn off the computer, shutdown.exe also used to bring the computer in standby mode or log off an active user. Therefore, to create shutdown, reboot and log off icon on your desktop, we will use this program.

This tip works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Here's the steps:

Right click on an open area of the desktop and select New »» Shortcut

Enter in "shutdown -s -t 00" - no quotes then press the Next button

Named your shortcut on the next windows. E.g: Shutdown.

Click on Finish button to close it and your Shutdown icon is complete.

Now, you have a shutdown button on your desktop. You can also create reboot icon on the desktop with the same steps. To do so, enter "shutdown -r -t 00" on create shortcut windows. And for a log off icon, enter "shutdown -l -t 00"

Here's the parameters you can use to change the way of those icon work:
Shutdown [{-l|-s|-r|-a}] [-f] [-m [\\Computer Name]] [-t xx] [-c "message"] [-d[u][p]:xx:yy]

Parameters:

-l - Logs off the current user, this is also the default. -m Computer Name takes precedence.

-s - Shuts down the local computer.

-r - Reboots after shutdown.

-a - Aborts shutdown. Ignores other parameters, except -l and Computer Name. You can only use -a during the time-out period.

-f - Forces running applications to close.

-m [\\Computer Name] - Specifies the computer that you want to shut down.

-t xx - Sets the timer for system shutdown in xx seconds. The default is 20 seconds.

-c "message" - Specifies a message to be displayed in the Message area of the System Shutdown window. You can use a maximum of 127 characters. You must enclose the message in quotation marks.

How to Open Exe files in Computer when Virus Attack

2010-02-17T00:05:00.000+05:00

Whenever your computer gets infected by viruses, apart from main system programs like Registry editor , Task Manger and Folder options gets disabled, you may also unable to open or run executable files in your computer.Reason viruses have modified extensions files settings. Exe files association changed means you may no longer able to run programs you are running till now , you may get openwith dialog window to choose options to open to programs.Fix to this is bringing Exe file associations to its default.This can be done easily through registry editor.
1.Open registry editor by typing regedit in Start Menu.
2.Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\exefile\Shell\Open in the left pane and on the right pane double click default registry entry and give its value as “%1” %*.

3.Close registry editor , the problem will be solved.
From now you can be able to open exe files without any problems.

YouTube gets Safety Mode

2010-02-11T15:23:00.006+05:00

In YouTube people can able to watch all kind of videos including mature content that may not suitable to children.Now Google announced Safety mode for YouTube users which user can enable by opt-in that settings which does not show objectionable content that you don’t want your family members or kids to see.

User can easily opt-in to safety mode by just clicking the link at the bottom of the YouTube page.User can even lock the choice on that browser with his YouTube account password.

Check out the video below how to opt-in Safety mode in YouTube

Create Your Free Photo Effects Online by PhotoFunia

2010-02-04T19:51:00.002+05:00

PhotoFunia is worderful web tool that lets you to apply 70 special effects to your photo.It uses Face Detection technology to superimpose the photos that you have uploaded.
The website is deadly simple to use.All you have to do is to select an effect of your choice out of 70 special effects and then upload the photo.

Here are the some samples of photo effect created by using PhotoFunia

Go to PhotoFunia and have fun....

Revolution in Cricket Games by Cricket Revolution, Pakistan’s First 3D Multi-player game

2010-02-04T19:18:00.003+05:00

In the current decade we have seen few conventional cricket games but they never really excelled as much as other sports games. The reason was their limited features and unrealistic game play. Then finally on 30th October 2009 Mindstorm studios released a cricket game named as Cricket Revolution. It is claimed to be quite innovative and different from other games with rich features and realistic game play. It has single and multiplayer mode as well as online internet gaming support.

This is the first for Pakistan in 3D gaming industry and before the game was released there was lot of demand of boxed version of the game as well. Although this game has not created much hype as compared to other cricket games but still this game is lot better than what you think.

Official Trailor

Lets talk about the Gameplay:

Well most cricket games have been criticized for their unrealistic gameplay but it is not the case with CR because you really can't come on the pitch and start hitting big sixes unrealistically.
There are almost 35 different shots or combos as the game says with 3 special keys push , slog and loft. In bowling there are some extra special deliveries and different ways of deceiving the batsman.
The artificial intelligence of the game is too good. Your shot selection , your timing and positioning in the crease really matters while batting. Unlike other games when you play across the line of the ball, you can edge the ball to slips or loft it, if your settled meter is empty.
Multi-player games are on the hype these days therefore CR's Multi-player mode will really increase the game's ranking much higher.
Very interesting feature of the game is its online gaming support because playing online is a real fun. You can play play matches as well as ranked matches. Ranked matches are used in ranking the leaderboard of the game.
There are three different game modes. Exhibition mode, Revolution Cup and Revolution League.

How to Create System Restore Points Quickly

2010-01-29T01:44:00.001+05:00

I’m sure all Windows users know how important is to create System Restore points and how it could help us when trouble hits our computer.

To create a System Restore point, usually we have to go through all the way from the Start Menu to Accessories and from there to System Tools where we find the System Restore tool. And even after that we have to go through a few more clicks.

Quick Restore Maker is a smart 1-click freeware application for creating a System Restore Point in Windows 7 and Vista.

This handy tool allows you to create one in a single click. The restore point so generated is named as ‘QuickRestoreMaker Generated‘ point and you can easily restore to the saved point whenever you need to.

Download Quick Restore Maker

You can download this tool from here: Download Quick Restore Maker

How to Speed up your Broadband internet connection

2010-01-26T23:28:00.001+05:00

You can increase the speed of your broadband internet connection, if you are using windows XP on your computer. This is built-in feature of windows XP to reserve the 20 percent of bandwidth of your internet connection, but you can override of this default setting. By enabling these setting, you can use this reserve bandwidth and enjoy your speedy broadband internet connection. You can set reserve able limit from 0 to 100 percent, but if you want to enjoy 100 percent bandwidth of internet connection, you should configure bandwidth limit 0 percent.

First click on Start button then type "GPedit.msc" in Run option and press Enter.

Under "Local Computer Policy" expand the "administrative templates".

Here in right side window expand the "Network" then highlight the "QoS Packet Scheduler"

Now again in right side window, double click on "limit reserve-able bandwidth".

Under the "Limit reserve-able bandwidth properties" dialog box check "enabled"™ then change the "Bandwidth limit %" to zero.

Now close the Group Policy editor and restart your compute, after any changes to go into effect.

How to Cut MP3 Files Online with MP3Cut

2010-01-25T15:46:00.001+05:00

I’ve once again started with sharing the cool web services and useful online tools I come across. A while ago I shared an online service to identify unknown music details.

Just for simple trimming/cutting of a MP3 file, I would certainly never go for a freeware or any install any application in my PC when I can easily find an online service to do the job for me.

MP3Cut is a free online service that allows you to cut MP3 files online. Creating ringtones of your favourite music could never be this easy without the need of installing anything extra on your computer.

All this process just three simple steps. Upload the MP3 file, select the duration to cut and start the trim process then download it.

Try out Mp3Cut.net!

How to Create Pages in Blogspot or Blogger Blogs

2010-01-25T02:54:00.001+05:00

After rolling out most requested feature, Read more for blogger blogs, now yet another useful feature to create pages in blogger blogs which helps bloggers to place information about their blog, contacting details of author like that.Pages feature now available for bloggers in Blogger in Draft.After testing this feature by Blogger team, it will be rolled out to all users in Blogger platform.

If you are a Blogspot Blogger want to create pages like About Me, Contact Me and Advertise like them, here is detailed info.Any blogger can add up to 10 stand-alone pages presently.Login to Blogger in draft with your blogger username and password. From Dashboard click layout, click Posting| Edit Pages, click New Page.

In that post type the information you want readers to read and hit publish button.After publishing the post blogger has 3 ways to show the Pages widget on his blog, one at the blog sidebar with links to pages, other as horizontal tabs(only classic templates may support this). Another way is blogger has to insert links for pages manually at prominent location in his blog.

Adding Pages Gadget to blog
Now to add pages Gadget which already available in Blogger in Draft click Layout, Page Elements |add a Gadget, under Basics Section Click + sign next to pages, you can configure page list widget the way you want, rearrange pages finally save changes to show Pages Gadget on blog.

Download 7 Up Theme for Windows 7

2010-01-21T21:26:00.001+05:00

The official 7 Up theme is now up for download. You can download 7 Up theme from Microsoft.

Microsoft has been updating the official Windows 7 themes gallery with lots of cool new themes since the launch of Windows 7.

The theme features some really nice wallpapers that you must check out.

Download 7 Up theme for Windows 7

Find eBooks, PDF Files with OpenPDF

2010-01-21T21:17:00.002+05:00

Finding PDF files using Google is not a new trick and many people use that to look for PDF files they want. But a search engine specifically for this job is always better.

OpenPDF is a search engine for finding/searching PDF files available publicly online. There is nothing much to explain in as you just have to type in your query in the search box and hit Enter.

They also have a toolbar for Firefox from where you could quickly search for PDF files without going to the website.

Find PDF files with OpenPDF.com!

How to Create Fake Progress Bar

2010-01-21T21:02:00.000+05:00

This fun app I’m sharing now won’t help you in your productivity in any way other than fooling some people.

Fake Progress Bar is a fully configurable spoof progress bar for your desktop.

This app won’t do much, but you can easily make it look like your PC is busy with something while you do some other work.

As featured in the Wall Street Journal!
Features include fully customizable titles, icons, buttons, speed and progress messages.
Disable the screen-saver

Download Fake Progress Bar

You can download this app from here: Download Fake Progress Bar

Twitter Briefly Blocked by Hackers

2010-01-08T23:34:00.001+05:00

Hackers briefly blocked the access to the most popular internet messaging service, Twitter, steering traffic to another website last month, where a group reportedly calling itself the "Iranian Cyber Army" claimed responsibility.

Users trying to reach Twitter on that day were redirected to a webpage that had a picture of green flag and a message that said, " This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army". There was no evidence that the hackers are actuallly linked to Iran. Websites like Twitter and facebook bring attention to the Iranian opposition during the country's cracked down after its June election, with users posting minute-by-minute updates and amateur videos.

Later that day, Twitter posted a message on its blog saying that its 'Domain Name System records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed saying it will update more details "once we've investigation more fully".

Twitter Launches Mini Credit Card

2010-01-07T23:59:00.000+05:00

Micro-blogging services, Twitter branched into the marketing for electronic payments, unveiling a mini credit card swiper that plug into iphone. Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, said that the device, the Square is aimed particularly to enable small transactions for paying"people like babysitter, the car Parker,the golf instructor". The small black Square plugs into the phone's microphone, turning the iphone into a card reader like the swipe machine widely in US shops and restaurants

Compress or Zip your Files Online Free

2009-12-31T17:13:00.000+05:00

FileStomp is a very handy Web utility tool to compress or zip your files online. You can select either one file or a set of file there is no limit of the number files to be zipped in one session. Once you have chosen your desired files, Just press the Zip it button and you will be provided with a Link to download the Zip archive of the files that you have chosen that you can store either online or on your hard-drive, this is particularly very useful to back up your data and compress them in zip file for future use.

Best Windows 7 Classic Start Menu

2009-12-31T02:46:00.002+05:00

The first thing that Windows 7 users would notice is that they can no longer change their start menu to a classic start menu. We could still do that on Vista but Microsoft has decided to remove it once and for all starting from Windows 7. Microsoft made a right move on that because a lot of times I had to first ask the person that I am helping if he/she is using the classic or standard start menu.

1. Classic Shell
Classic Shell is free and takes up only 1.3MB of memory. It changes the Windows 7 start menu to classic and it looks exactly the same like what you see in XP. You can navigate around the classic start menu with the arrow keys and also hitting any of the first letter brings you to the menu. Other than that, it also adds a toolbar like in XP.

[ Download Classic Shell ]

2. Seven Classic Start
It takes up a whopping 10MB from your memory and it only replaces the Windows 7 start menu to look like the classic one. This software cost $24.95 just for this feature alone. You can use the arrow keys to navigate around the start menu but it won’t bring you to the menu if you hit the first letter on your keyboard.
[ Download Seven Classic Start ]

3. Classic Windows Start Menu
This is another free software that can turn Windows 7 start menu to classic. There is no setup and all you need to do is just run the executable file. Takes up 2.5MB of memory. It is possible to navigate around the Start Menu with arrow keys and also first letter from keyboard. Tested the latest beta version and it turns the menu into green color (new visual appearance).
[ Download Classic Windows Start Menu ]

4. CSMenu
This is free too but it takes up 12MB of memory. You cannot navigate around the start menu using keyboard as both arrow keys and hitting any letters won’t do a thing. During installation you have to be very careful or you will end up with an extra Ask toolbar on your web browser. I encountered a bug when selecting the Run from the start menu. An error window appeared with the message “when select run, i get a Microsoft .NET Framework error that says “Unhandled exception has occurred in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will close immediately. Object reference not set to an instance of an object.”
[ Download CSMenu ]

5. Classic Start Menu
This is like the commercial version of the CSMenu above. It cost $19.99 and the program takes up 10MB of memory. It doesn’t look exactly like the original XP classic start menu. Arrow keys work but not the first letters. Run command didn’t crash like what happened on CSMenu.
[ Download Classic Start Menu ]

Download Facebook Themes

2009-12-30T20:16:00.008+05:00

If Orkut users can get third-party themes, then why can’t Facebook users? I’ve compiled a list of the best Facebook themes currently available for download on the Internet. The life-span of these themes is not much as Facebook keeps changing their code. The themes given below have been hand-picked by me and were all working fine. They are also being regularly updated by the original designers.

Requirements

There are two basic requirements before you can use the themes.

Mozilla Firefox
Greasemonkey/Stylish add-on for Firefox

After installing styles, you can turn them off by clicking the icon in the status bar in the bottom right of the Firefox window, then choosing Manage Styles. This icon with become coloured if you have styles installed for the site you're on.

If you already meet all the requirements, then let the themes begin!

Summer Theme

Download this from here

Facebook Black

Download this from here.

Pink Theme

Download this from here.

Click here for more Themes

Download Windows 7 Theme for XP

2009-12-24T18:02:00.001+05:00

Windows 7 is the next upcoming OS from Microsoft. And for some reason, they are not letting out much details about this OS. So I don’t think we’ll be able to get our hands on it any time soon. But what if we get to enjoy its look and feel on Windows XP and Vista, eh? Since not much is known about the OS, this theme looks more like Windows Vista, but its nice to see some refreshing changes to the same old look. Before you jump to the Windows 7 theme for XP, Windows Vista users might also like to check out Windows 7 theme for Vista that I had posted later.

FREE Windows 7 Themes, Tips and Tricks and Mods

How To Install Windows 7 Theme In Window 7

Download the Windows 7 theme from here.
Install “UXTheme Multi-Patcher 6.0.exe” from “UX Theme Patcher” folder. Or download from here for XP SP3.
Double-click “Windows 7 M1 VS.msstyles” in “ThemeWindows 7 M1 VS” folder to install and enjoy!

[Via MegaLeecher]

How to Remove Facebook Priavcy Option Profile from Google

2009-12-23T01:45:00.001+05:00

Facebook introduced new and much improved Privacy settings page and gave more control on what content is seen by public and friends.

Almost six months ago, Facebook allowed indexing of profiles in Google which included private profiles as well. Many users with publicly hidden profiles raised questions about this feature, but no positive reply was given by Facebook.

How to Remove Facebook Profile from Google

The new Facebook privacy options also lets you allow or disallow indexing of your profile in Google search results. Follow the steps below to set this option:

Go to Privacy Settings in Facebook
Click on Search section link.
Uncheck the Allow box for Public Search Results option.
Confirm the selection and you’re all done!

Find Direct URLs to Streaming Audio Files

2009-12-23T01:35:00.002+05:00

Many links to streaming audio and video that you come across on the web are hidden behind Javascript or ActiveX scripts. Because of this, it is sometimes very difficult to figure out the actual URLs that correspond to the streams being played. URL Snooper was written to help users locate the URLs of audio and video files so that they can be recorded.

This freeware provides an easy solution to finding the URLs for all streams by by watching network traffic and identifying potential URLs, especially streaming media.

URL Snooper Features

Totally revamped and cleaner user interface.
Smart packet spanning – rebuilds packet streams to eliminate split-urls.
Improved identification of protocols, duplicates, and url arguments.
New dynamic url filtering keywords.
Improved context menu support, drag and drop file searching.
User customizable browser selection and favorites menu.

Download URL Snooper

You can download this freeware from here: Download URL Snooper

Remove Backgrounds from Images with InstantMask

2009-12-23T01:28:00.001+05:00

I’ve always been in search of small and useful applications that could replace the use of big and heavy applications. For instance, simple photo editing can also be done with lighter tools rather than having Adobe Photoshop.

InstantMask is a free tool to remove background from images. It provides an easy way to crop out the foreground elements and use them with another background.

This free application comes in hardly 5MB of size, much smaller than professional tools Adobe Photoshop.

Download InstantMask

You can download this app for free from here: Download InstantMask

Windows Live Messenger 2010 Screenshots

2009-12-11T00:38:00.003+05:00

The Windows Live team is back on work and yes, the Windows Live Messenger 2010 is coming out soon and is in works too.

Neowin has posted some screen-shots of the upcoming Windows Live Messenger 2010. They are the first ones to appear online.

It looks like the 2010 version will bring some nice features that IM addicts and average users have been requesting for years. According to the screenshot, tabbed-browsing will be finally coming to WLM.

And for social network junkies, Windows Live Messenger will have in-built features and support for Twitter and Facebook – cool, isn’t it?

Now I can’t wait for the first beta version to come out and give it a spin!

Find Icons Easily with IconFinder.net

2009-12-10T21:38:00.005+05:00

Recently, I came across a great website, Icon Finder, which allows you to search for icon for almost every application. IconFinder.com allows you to search through a huge database of almost 124,176 icons.

All you need to do is type the name of the application or a web service and it will show you all the available icons available in there database.

The site has a very clean and uncluttered interface that makes it easy to find anything you want. It’s my favourite icon finder and so far I’ve been able to find every icon I ever needed.

Try Icon Finder!

Youtube Introduces Automatic Caption for Hearing Imparied

2009-12-10T14:44:00.006+05:00

Youtube's parents company Google has announced on its blog that automatic caption are to begin to roll out across the site. The machine-generated captions will initially be generated in English. At first they will only found on 13 channels. These include National geographic, Columbia, as well as most Google and Youtube channels. The software engineer behind the technology Ken Harrentier, is deaf.

Currently, Youtube offers a manual captioning services but video makers tend not to use it. The current step aims to combining automatic speech recognization with the recent current caption system.

The translation is not always perfect, but the technology will comtinue to improve with time. Alternatively users can upload a transcript of their video and auto-timing algorithms will match the text to the words as they are spoken.

Googlepedia: Search Google and Wikipedia at a time

2009-12-04T01:38:00.004+05:00

Did you now how to search with Google and Wikipedia at a time ? If you don’t know about this then this post probable helps you. In our previous post we have covered “searching Google and Bing at a time” if you don’t know about this then you can refer that post. Now it’s time to know about searching Google and Wikipedia at a time.

For searching with Google and Wikipedia at a time know as “Googlepedia“. To search Google and Wiki at a time we need a browser called Firefox or Google Chrome browser. After installing any of the browser install add-on called “Googlepedia” for Firefox browser or for Google chrome browser. After installing this addon to your browser just visit Google site i.e “www.google.com” in search box enter your keyword and click search button. In the result filed you will find the Google search result and Wikipedia result for the given keyword at a time.

Features of Googlepedia:

Turns internal Wikipedia links into Google search links
Uses Google’s I’m Feeling Lucky(tm) feature to find relevant articles
Links images directly to their full-sized versions
Removes Google AdWords
Can be expanded to take the full width of the page
Uses your local language Wikipedia based on the Google language
Hide button to disable Googlepedia

Download Goolgepedia For firefox

Download Goolgepedia For Googlechrome

Google Search Tricks and Tips

2009-12-02T19:00:00.002+05:00

How to Unlock Hidden Windows 7 Themes

2009-12-02T18:34:00.003+05:00

How to Use Windows 7 Themes on Windows XP and Vista

2009-12-01T21:14:00.000+05:00

Microsoft paid close attention to personalization in Windows 7, and shipped it with a gorgeous collection of desktop backgrounds and themes. Windows 7 also makes it easy for users to create their own personalized themes and then share it with other Windows 7 users.

If you are still using an older version of Windows (like Windows XP or Vista), you don’t have to feel left behind because, with some simple tricks, you can enjoy all or part of what these Windows 7 themes have to offer.

Use Windows 7 Themes with XP and Vista

First, launch the official Windows 7 themes directory and download some of the themes you like to your Windows XP or Vista desktop.

These files have a unique .themepack extension which is just another zip format containing all of the elements of a theme including the background images, Aero glass colors, sounds, cursors, icons, screen savers, etc.

To use these files on an older version of Windows, you first need to extract them as only Windows 7 can natively understand the themepack format. You can either change the file extension of the Windows 7 theme file from .themepack to .cab and then extract the files with a right-click, or install the free 7-Zip utility as 7-Zip can automatically hand the themepack file format.

Once extracted, your theme files will now be in a new folder that has the same name as your original themepack.

Aero Glass Border and Desktop Backgrounds

Now that you have all the required files, its time to activate the Windows 7 theme on your non-Windows 7 computer.

If your computer is running Windows Vista that supports Aero, simply double-click the .theme file that is present in the them folder you just extracted. This will set your windows border glass to the color of the Windows 7 theme and your wallpaper to the default background of the theme. However, this background picture will disappear when you reboot your computer, so you need to set that as a permanent background.

Windows XP does not support Aero glass, but you can still use the background images from downloaded Windows 7 theme on your XP desktop. You can find the backgrounds inside the theme-pack folder itself or in a sub-folder named Desktop-background. Pick any image, right click on it, and select “Set as Desktop Background.”

Windows 7 like Desktop Slide-shows for XP and Vista

Most Windows 7 themes consist of multiple background images and Windows 7 will automatically change your desktop background at periodic intervals using one of the images from the theme-pack. Windows Vista and XP do not support desktop slideshows, but you can easily bring that feature use the excellent and free John’s Background Switcher program.

To create a desktop slideshow, click the add button and choose “A folder on your computer.” Now select the Windows 7 theme folder that contains all the background images. The program allows lot of tweaking but you can skip that because the default settings are very similar to what you need for simulating Windows 7 behavior on your XP or Vista computer.

However, John’s Background Switcher by default shows the name of the image in the top right hand corner of the picture. To remove this, click the “More…” button that has a gear icon on it. Unchecked the box beside the 3rd entry which says “Show picture info on the top-right corner of the screen.” Now click Ok, and then click Ok in the main window, and your desktop slide show is all ready.

For RSS-enabled Windows 7 Themes

Some Windows 7 themes download images from the internet (via RSS feeds) when switching desktop backgrounds.

To know if the theme you are looking to port on your Vista or XP computer uses RSS or not, open the .theme file in a text editor like Notepad. Then search for the string “RssFeed” without the quotes. If you find that string, copy the link address of the RSS feed and, you can then use the “RSS photo feed” option in John’s Background Switcher program to create an RSS powered desktop slideshow on your XP or Vista machines.

Windows 7 Sounds, Cursor, Screen savers, etc.

Most Windows 7 themes only contain a glass color and desktop backgrounds. However, some may contain screen-savers, sounds, cursors, and icons as well. The good part is that you can use the elements on your Vista / XP theme as well.

Sounds - You can copy the sound files (.wav) to the default media folder (C:\Windows\Media), and if you have set the Windows 7 theme in Windows Vista as described above, it will automatically these sounds. Else, you will have to manually change your sounds from the Control Panel.

Icons - If the Windows 7 theme that you plan to use with XP or Vista contains a different set of desktop and system icons (.ico files), you may follow the directions below to apply them on your version of Windows:For Windows Vista – Right-click on the desktop, select Personalize and choose “Change Desktop Icons.” Select the items you which to change, click “Change Icons,” and browse to the location of new icons that are part of the Windows 7 theme.For Windows XP – Right-click on the desktop, select Properties and choose "Customize Desktop" under the Desktop tab. Select the items you wish to change, click “Change Icon,” and browse to the location of the icons from your theme.

To change icons of individual programs, simply right-click on the program shortcut on your desktop, select Properties, and click the button that says "Change Icon" in the Shortcut tab. Browse to the location of the icon extract from the Windows 7 theme and select the one you want to apply.

Screensavers – For using a Windows 7 screensaver inside XP or Vista, just copy the relevant screensaver files (.scr) into your Windows system folder usually located at C:\Windows\System32. Now, change your system screensaver using the usual method. Please remember that not all Windows 7 screensavers will work correctly on previous versions of Windows.

Cursors – You can copy the Windows 7 cursor files (.cur or .ani) to C:\Windows\Cursors on XP or Vista, and then apply the new set using the mouse settings under Control Panel. Use the [Control Panel\Cursors] of the .theme file (see example) to understand the default cursor mappings.

Search in Google and Bing at Same time

2009-11-26T19:15:00.004+05:00

I think you all know about Microsoft new search engine called Bing now a days this search engine is really getting popular search engine but even though most of the people like Google search engine. So without loosing Google search engine we can able to search Bing search engine. Means we can search both search engine at a time.
Do you know we can search in two search engine at a time in a single web page? yes it is possible but we can search only Google and Bing at a time and not other search engine.

Searching Google and Bing at a time

1.To search Google and Bing at a time we need a browser called Firefox if you don’t have you can download it from here

2.Now it’s time to install a addon called Bing and Google from here;

3.Now your done restart your browser and start using it. It will be available in Top right corner side of your browser.

Alternative:

If your not a Firefox user then you can search both search engine at a time by visiting http://www.bing-vs-google.com/ this link to make easier you can set it to Home page.

No time waste for searching because you will get two search engine results at the same time. Gives you more search results without wasting all that white space. You can compare results of Google and Bing search engine.

How to Access on Blocked Websites

2009-11-19T22:34:00.002+05:00

There are various reasons that many popular Websites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and others could be blocked in your country, at your work or at your school college. Recently i noticed that Facebook, Twitter and Youtube were blocked in Iran amid the political chaos. However Iran is not the only country to block access to certain websites, Internet users of China and Middle East also often report blockage of certain popular websites time to time.

However luckily there are several tool available on the internet such as Proxy servers which would let you access banned or Prohibited Websites despite being blocked in your country, work or school.

What is a Proxy Server ?

Here is the Brief definition of a proxy server from Wikipedia.

In computer networks, a proxy server is a server (a computer system or an application program) that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. For example, it may filter traffic by IP address or protocol. If the request is validated by the filter, the proxy provides the resource by connecting to the relevant server and requesting the service on behalf of the client. A proxy server may optionally alter the client’s request or the server’s response, and sometimes it may serve the request without contacting the specified server.

And Here we are listing some of the popular Internet Proxies which would let you access your favorite Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Orkut etc despite being blocked in your respective territory.

If a certain websites are blocked at your work or school then you must take cautious measure before using any of these proxy sites, I guess no one would want to do that at the cost being fired from the Job or kicked out from his or her school or college.

How to change Shut Down button in Windows Vista

2009-11-19T01:38:00.005+05:00

Are you using windows vista O.S ? and tired of clicking small shout down button in vista ? If the answer is yes for the above question then this post is for you anyway if the answer may be NO but knowing this trick is not bad so come let’s see how can we change default shut down button in windows vista.

Windows vista has enhanced feature has compared to windows xp some of them are display property, great security for online user and graphics and some other. Even though having a positive feature it also contains some drawback i.e shut down button, refresh option etc.

So in this post i am talking about shut down button. In vista by default the shut down button placement is not so good see the below image;

The above image is the default shut down button i.e to shut down we to click small arrow > (no 1) and then we need to select Shut down (no 2) isn’t boring to do such process ? yes, defiantly it is not a good placement so i am going to explain how can we change that shut down button.

To change shut down button of vista just follow the simple steps:

In the first step we need a software called Tuneup-utilities 2009 if you don’t have you can download it here

After installing open it and navigate to Customize windows > Tuneup system control > Adjust Start Menu and Taskbar as shown below

After completing the above steps a new menu will opens. In that select General tab(by default it will come no worry about it) see power off button option

In power off button click on Drop down menu see the image

select shut down computer option and click Apply and Ok.

Now you are done you shut down button is now changed see the below image;

How to Recover MS Word files

2009-11-15T20:27:00.008+05:00

There is a common problem related to the MS Word, whenever ones try to open the Word file after generating an error, it opens in an unreadable format.

Here is the solution,
The first step that one you should take is to ensure that the Word file(s) you should trying to access have not bee displayed by the program. The MS Office program usually adds a file to this list, if the list file causes a serious error, such as causing the program to crash when two or more unsuccessful attempts have been made to open the file. To remove the file from the disable list

Click ‘About Microsoft Word’ from the help menu and click disable item button.
From the item list, select file(s) and click enable.

Close the MS Word file and open the file again. If you still unable to access the file, download and install any of the file recovery tools that are available online, and run the file(s) through that software. Example of such tools includes Nucleus Data Recovery (www.wordfilerecovery.com) or eRepair.

How to Fix Windows Task Manager With Missing Tabs & Menu

2009-11-05T20:21:00.007+05:00

Many of you should be familiar with Windows Task Manager. Since Windows 98, the combination of Control+Alt+Delete key is the probably only thing to do when a program hung. You are presented with a “Close Program” window to terminate the application that is not responding or you can just hit the same combination again to soft reboot the computer. The Task Manager is a program used to provide information about the processes and programs running on a computer, as well as the general status of the computer. It can also be used to terminate processes and programs, as well as change the processes’ priority.

There’s a very strange feature built-in to the Windows Task Manager and it makes some users thinks that their Task Manager has an error or corrupted. The normal Windows Task Manager comes with a few tabs such as Applications, Processes, Performance, Networking. If you’re not careful, you could end up with a Task Manager WITHOUT the tabs and menu bar.

Normally when you press the Alt key it should highlight/select the File menu which shows the menu bar. An example is the latest Windows Live Messenger 2009 which by default the menu bar is not shown and you can make the menu bar appear by pressing the Alt key. However, this won’t work in Windows Task Manager when the menu bar and tabs are missing.

To fix this problem, all you need to do is to double click at the edge of the Task Manager and the menu bar with tabs will re-appear.

This is a really good feature of the Task manager and I bet many users don’t even know about this.

How to Find Local Twitter Users

2009-11-04T18:55:00.002+05:00

Twitter which was merely launched as a Micro-blogging platform has evolved into a vast Social Networking portal. While you update your status and tell the World what you have been up to, It also provides an opportunity to people to network and befriend with other fabulous people on the Internet.

A Web app which would help you find Local Twitter users in your city. LocalFollow is one of the newest discoveries by us and It lets you search the Twitter users based on their Bio and Location.

For Instance I live in Lahore, and quick search revealed that are hundreds of Twitter users from Lahore that I have not heard of them before. Additionally you can search the Twitter users based on their Bio or Who they are, for instance Bloggers, Entrepreneurs etc. You can even ‘Bulk Follow’ the people using this Web app, means you don’t have to follow each user one by one, Just click the Bulk Follow button and all of the listed Twitter users would be added to your following list automatically. So If you are looking to find New friends in your Local Area or city Here I would suggest you to find them through LocalFollow.

How to Block Websites in Your PC without Using Software

2009-11-04T16:56:00.001+05:00

Some times it is necessary to block a particular website in our system but we can block a particular site in particular browser easily but blocking a site in all browser is some what skilly but it is easy by using this trick we can able to block the site in all browsers. To block site in all browsers we need to add the site to be block to the windows HOSTS file. Once you added site to this file the website will never opens it gives error like “Failed to Connect”.

The steps to block website in all browser by manually as follows :

Go to “RUN“

Type the following address in that (this is the address for the “HOST” file where it is located)C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC {for Windows XP and Windows Vista}
C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC
{for Win 2000}
C:\WINDOWS
{for Windows 98 and ME}
Open it in NOTEPAD The default windows Host look like this———————— # Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a ‘#’ symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host
127.0.0.1       localhost
—————————
To block a website in all browser add one more line below the line 127.0.0.1 as follows127.0.0.1 site to block ex: 127.0.0.1 www.youtube.com
127.0.0.1 http://www.youtube.com
This blocks the website youtube.com you can add any number of website to this list to block in all browsers

Save and exit

Open that website in any browser it will not open it will displays the error

Cannot find server or DNS Error saying: “The page cannot be displayed” or some other error as displayed in the image

How To Skip a YouTube Video Clip and Advance to a Specific Playback Point

2009-10-31T22:37:00.002+06:00

No doubt YouTube is one of the largest and most widely used video sharing platform on this planet. You can find almost any type of video you want on YouTube. However, sometimes there are instances where you want to skip some part of the video.

For instance if the video is too long or you are interested in only a small part in that video. What would you do? Will you wait for the whole video to load and then watch it? What if the video is 10 minutes long and to make the matters worse you are using a slow dial up connection which takes hell to load the whole video.

Luckily, I have just the solution for you and the best part is that you won’t have to install any software on your system, neither do you have to wait for the whole video to launch.

By implementing a small snippet at the end of each videos URL you can jump to the next part of the video instantly. Here’s what you have to do;

Simply add #t=NumberOfSeconds at the end of each URL of Youtube and the play back will start automatically. For instance if you want to skip the first 85 seconds (or 1min and 25sec) of the video, simply append #t=85s or #t=1m25s at the end of the URL and hit enter. The video will start loading from the specified time onwards.

This is what your final URL will look like; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FX_NFOgQEU&feature=related#t=85s

Its a wonderful way to save time and bandwidth. Don’t thank me, thank YouTube!

How To Enable ‘Undo Send’ Feature in Gmail?

2009-10-31T02:54:00.000+06:00

There are moments in your life when you feel very angry at some one, may be because he or she has hurt your feelings or any other reason. If you are in a bad mood and don’t want to face that person and still want to express yourself, you would probably send him/her email, expressing all your angry and telling him how much you hate him/her after that incident.

But once you click that ‘Send‘ button, you realize that you were too hard/rude to that person and wished that you shouldn’t have sent that mail earlier. Moreover there is nothing you can do to prevent it.

Not any more! With Gmail’s Undo feature you can take back everything that you said. With just a push of a ‘Undo’ button (see screen shot), the mail that you sent couple of moments ago can be retrieved back to your inbox!

In the past couple of months, many new features have been added to Gmail, such as Voice and Video feature, Smileys and Gmail themes etc, but Undo Sent is something out of the box. There are so many other instances where this feature can be very helpful, for instance, if you have mistakenly sent an email to the wrong person or you have misspelled something in the context etc. etc.

However, this feature doesn’t come by default, you’ll need to set it yourself manually. In order to activate the Undo Send option;

1. Log-in to your Gmail account

2. Click on “Settings” in Gmail and then the “Labs” tab.

3. You will find the ‘Undo Send’ feature somewhere at the bottom of the page.

4. Enable it and click on ‘Save Changes’.

Now you won’t have to regret about it any more. But remember that you have only 5 seconds take make the decision, or else that mail will be delivered to its destination and then there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. Although, Gmail have plans to extend this ‘delay time’ to 10 seconds, however nothing can be said about the future at this moment.

How to Multiple Login for Gmail account

2009-10-28T18:25:00.006+06:00

We all know that Google Gmail service is the better mail service but unfortunately we cannot able to Log In Multiple account at a time . We can access only one Gmail account at a time, but most of the people are using more that one Gmail account it is necessary also.

To check mail we need to Log In each account at a time and need to Log out and Log in the same procedure continues… isn’t difficult for you ? so today I am going to show a add-on which can able to Login multiple Gmail account at a time!!

How can we Login multiple Gmail account ?

To Login multiple Gmail account

We need Firefox browser if you don’t have get it here

After that install Gmail manager add-on from here

You’re done now you can manage multiple Gmail accounts..

Features of Gmail Manager:

You can Login more than one Gmail account at a time(not in browser only in that addon)

Receive new mail notification without Log in(browser) but you need to Log in in that add-on

No need to enter password again and again it having remember option

You can access Gmail account with one click

The above screen shot is the Gmail manager you will get it in bottom tab of the Firefox browser.

How To Make Hidden/Unsearchable Folders in Windows XP and Vista

2009-10-26T23:47:00.004+06:00

There were generally two downsides to this trick. First was that you can only hide the folder on the desktop, the reason behind it was that users can easily change the background color of the desktop in order to merge with the folders surrounding, but it was almost impossible to hide a folder in any directory or folder.

Secondly, the hidden folder was still search-able and any one who was looking for that folder could easily type the folder name in Windows Search box and steal any confidential stuff from within it. Certainly no one wants this to ever happen. Luckily, there is another more powerful technique that not only works within the directory or folders, but its also un-searchable. If you want to provide maximum security to your confidential files and folders, read on…

Create Hidden and Unsearchable Folder in Windows

Step #1. Go to Start->Run or use WindowsKey+R keys combination,

Step #2. Open Command Prompt by typing cmd

Step #3. Inside the window go to that folder that you wish to hide. In our case for instance, we’ll be hiding a folder name Private that is residing in Drive E, inside another folder named DCIM. The final path would be, E:DCIM

Notice the commands we have used to reach the destination of that folder,

Step #4. Once you are there, type in the following command in DOS

attrib +s +h MyFolder

where attrib stands for ‘attribute’, +h means ‘hide folder‘ while +s means ‘unsearchable‘

For example, we’ll replace MyFolder with Private, since our folder name is Private, and hit Enter. Reference screen-shot above,

Now if you go to that path where the target folder was residing, you no longer will see that folder. Try searching this as well and surprising it won’t appear in the search results. Your friends or clients won’t even know the folder ever existed!

You can easily make this folder visible and searchable again, simply repeat the process up till Step #3, then use the following command to unhide the folder,

attrib -s -h MyFolder

where -h means ‘Unhide folder‘ while -s means ‘Make the folder searchable‘. Notice we have used minus (-) sign instead of plus (+) to un-hide the folder,

Tip: If the folder that you want to hide contains a space, simply enclose the folder name in double quotes, as shown below.

Have you tried any of these methods? Which method do you prefer the most and why?

How To Lock your Computer to Prevent Data Theft

2009-10-26T14:22:00.004+06:00

If you are conscious about your personal stuff, before leaving your computer, use any of the three tips as mentioned below.

First up is to add a custom shortcut to your desktop. This will help you instantly lock your PC with a click. Here is how you create a desktop shortcut,

1. Right click on your desktop ->New->Shortcut – see screen-shot below,

2. A window will pop up, prompting you to type the location of the item.

3. Enter the following, %windir%\system32\rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation and click next.

4. Give a name to the shortcut, such as; LOCK-PC etc. Hit the finish button.

Now a new shortcut icon will appear on your desktop. If you double click on it, your computer will be locked instantly.

If you feel that you are as lazy as I am and can’t create a simple shortcut, then use the following procedure below to lock your PC automatically.

1. Right click on your desktop, click ‘Personalize‘ or ‘Properties‘ (in Windows XP).

2. Click on Screen Saver.

3. Check the box which says; ‘On resume, display log-on screen‘ or ‘On resume, password protect‘ (for Windows XP).

4. Set the time in minutes and screen saver accordingly.

5. Click OK when you are done.

The next time you’ll leave your system unattended, Windows will automatically take care of locking your PC.

By far the most easiest method is that you use a keyboard shortcut combination. Simply lock it by using WindowKey+L.