Conky (with personal conky configuration)

If you have seen any Linux desktop screenshots, there is high probability that you have come across the very geeky looking system monitor on the side. That is conky.

Conky
Conky is a free system monitoring software for Linux and BSD. One of its most attractive feature is that its highly configurable. There are hundreds of parameters and graphic layouts you can choose, to be displayed on your desktop.
If you are using Ubuntu just search for conky in their software center.
or CLICK HERE to download and get other installation instruction.

Configuring Conky Layout
But the most fun part about conky is its configuration. Some people spend hours trying out different layouts to suit their personal needs. You can access the conky config file by typing "gedit .conkyrc" in the terminal. To get more information about conky configuration and parameters, visit the above download link.
If you like the conky layout in the image of this post CLICK HERE to download its config file.

Block Flash Content

Day by day the Internet is getting more complex and dynamic. Earlier mostly all the websites contained only text and images. But today whole world's garbage is dumped onto the website, like annoying widgets, banners, toolbars, flash content etc. From them one of the most disturbing is the flash content. The flash videos and ads start playing automatically without the users permission therefore wasting valuable bandwidth and CPU power. Due to the the flash content websites take longer to load and put unnecessary load on your CPU, frequently crashing the entire browser. So here is a FireFox addon which can help you block the flash contents and make your online time more productive.

 Flashblock
   
Flashblock Is a firefox addon which blocks Flash content on a website. It currently blocks the following type of contents.

• Macromedia Flash
• Macromedia Shockwave 
• Macromedia Authorware

Instead of the flash content it provides you with a arrow button, which you can press to allow the flash content.
And don't be afraid that it will block the Youtube videos. There is whitelist option in the addon to add exceptions for sites like Youtube. So enjoy the flash free world!
Click here to get the addon

Checking Whether a Website is Down for you Alone

Have you ever tried to access a website, but instead sat there like for hours getting hypnotized by the revolving loading button?. Most of the time the reason for this is that the website is down (means the browser is not able to retrieve the information from the web server, due to some technical malfunction on the server side). Now most of the web administrators provide you with a message when the site is down due to some maintenance work or other up-gradation, but many times there is no telling why the site is not loading. So here is a website, which you can use to check whether a particular site is down for everybody or whether it is some internal problem from your part, like the website is not compatible with your browser, your ISP has blocked that particular site, the site is down for users from a particular region etc.

www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com

Block specific words from the internet on firefox

As the internet is growing, so are the risk factors associated with it. A very innocent search term can lead the user to pornographic and other offensive material. Today if you browse through some popular websites you will most probably come across offensive words and other abuses in the comment section. If you are a youtube fan profanities is the standard language in their comments. Now parents can't actually stop their children from visiting all these sites. There are many parent control software available to avoid this exposure but they are mostly very limited, like you can block some sites on it or block pornographic contents but you never get the full control of the software to make your desired change suitable for your pupil. An excellent solution for this problem is to block specific words from the internet. Here is a Firefox addon which can accomplish this perfectly.


ProCon Latte Content Filter
ProCon latte is a very popular content filtering addon for the Firefox browser. It has wide range of features and is very customizable according to the users personal needs. Here are some of its most important features

• It has a blacklisted word section where you can provide the words you want to block. When the user tries to open a website it first quickly scans the website for occurrence of the blacklisted words. If it comes across such words it does not allow the browser to open the page and redirects the user to a website which has been provided by the admin.
• There is a profanity blocker where the admin provides a list of profanities to block or you can just subscribe to standard profanity lists provided by other users. While scanning the website if the addon comes across a profanity, it will substitute it with a string provided by the admin like" XXXX " etc.
• You can set a password for the addon to restrict the pupil from disabling the addon.
• All the lists are editable to give the admin total control. Specific features can be quickly disabled if the admin feels no need for them.

DOWNLOAD

View hardware and software info on ubuntu using hardinfo

There are hundreds of occasions when you need to check some information about the hardware or software installed on your computer. On windows this can be easily done by typing "dxdiag" in run. On ubuntu you can get this information using "sysinfo" but it it is very limited. To get detailed information about all the components installed on your computer and getting other software related information you can use hardinfo.

hardinfo
hardinfo provides the user with detailed information of the user's computer. Currently it shows information of PCI, ISA PnP, USB, IDE, SCSI, Serial and parallel port devices. It also carry outs benchmark test for your CPU. It can also generate reports in html and plain text for later reference.

Getting hardinfo
To get and install hardinfo, open your terminal (Alt + Ctrl + T) and type "sudo apt-get install hardinfo"
or just go to the "Ubuntu software center" and search  for "System Profiler and Benchmark".

To open it type "hardinfo" in the terminal or just open it through the dashboard by searching "System Profiler and Benchmark".

For more information, CLICK HERE to visit their website. 

Virtual or on-screen keyboard for Ubuntu

If you are a lazy web surfer like me, you will surely know how useful on-screen keyboards are when you are sitting or reclining in unusual positions. They are also very useful for the people with some physical disability, where physical keyboard becomes inconvenient to use. In windows the inbuilt keyboard can be easily accessed from the start menu. But on Ubuntu its a bit tough. So here are some methods, to use on-screen keyboard on Ubuntu.

1) You can use the inbuilt keyboard. For that open the terminal (Alt+Ctrl+T) and type "onboard". The virtual keyboard will instantly start.

2) You can also install other on-screen keyboards. One of the popular choice is Florence virtual keyboard. To install it just go to the "Ubuntu Software Center" and search "florence virtual keyboard" install it and it will be ready to use. To open it from the terminal type "florence".

Load next page on a website automatically (Firefox addon)

Today a average Internet user browses through hundreds of webpages each day. Due to high speed Internet and browsers with very fast javascript engines it has become possible to browse the net at lightening speeds. But one thing which slows down the user is the loading of next pages on a website. Now-a-days websites are providing very limited content per page, a single article is divided between many pages. This are techniques websites use to increase their page views. But this has a negative effect on the user's browsing speed, as you have to finish reading the page, then search the next page button, click it and then wait for the next page to load. Some may not care about this so much but a user who spends 5-6 hours browsing daily gets really frustrated with it. So here is a Firefox addon which won't actually cure the problem totally but will surely make it much more easy to live with.

AutoPager

AutoPager is a free Firefox addon which loads the next page of a website when you reach at the end of the webpage. Some of it's important features are

• It supports mostly all the important websites and search engines, a normal web user visits eg. Google, Yahoo, Bing, Blogspot, Cnet, wordpress etc.
• It works perfectly well with your other Firefox addons like Adblock WOT and greasemonkey scritps.
• It actually doesn't take you to the next page but loads the next page under the original page, so you can scroll down to view the next page. This feature is very useful when you have to refer something on the previous page. 
• It also has a light version for devices with less memory or low processing power.

To use it, first download it from HERE and then install it. After installing, every time you visit a website it will popup a window asking you permission to enable the rules to make AutoPager work on the particular site. This done, now every time you open the website and reach the end of the page a loading bar will appear which will load the next page without you doing a single thing.   

Copy Paste Text without Formatting and Hyperlinks

One of the most irritating things we across while copy-pasting text from online sources like Wikipedia is the hyperlinks and formatting it consists. When you paste the text in your word processor all this formatting is retained by the word processor. I have seen some people reformatting the text one word at a time. If you are a information gatherer like me, the reformatting of the text one word at a time will soon become a headache, so here are some of the popular solutions which you can use to prevent the unnecessary hardship. I have arranged the solutions, starting with solutions for occasional use to regular use.

1) One of the simplest method is to copy the online text, paste it first in your notepad. Then copy the text again from the notepad and paste it in your word processor.

2) If you are using Microsoft office, just select the text and pres Ctrl + Space bar.

3) Copy Plain Text (Firefox addon)
Copy Plain Text is a firefox addon which helps you to copy the online text without the hyperlinks and formatting. DOWNLOAD(out of date)

UPDATE:- Looks Like the above addon is out of date, here is a latest addon which works same as the above DOWNLOAD

4) PureText (Windows utility)

PureText is a small and free windows utility program to remove the hyperlinks and formatting of the online text. To use it, first Download and install the program. When you start, its icon will appear in the taskbar. Now copy the text you want and to paste it use "Windows button + v key". You can change this shortcut and set other preferences by right-clicking on the icon in the taskbar.
DOWNLOAD

Free Android IRC client

Internet Relay Chat has been one of the most important mode of communication on the Internet from the beginning. The basic technology has seen very little change through all this years but the its importance has never declined. I personally am a big fan of irc and my irc client is always on, mostly taking logs of the channels i like. But sometimes it gets tiring siting in front of the screen for hours while some interesting discussions are going on. This is where your android phone can be very useful. Laying back with your android irc client running you can follow the discussions for hours. So here is one of the popular irc client for android phones.

Indian TV Channel Schedules

Now-a-days i don't view that much of television due to the Internet, as most of the channels can be easily streamed online. Most of the daily shows can be viewed on YouTube without ads and other unnecessary distractions. But nothing compares with the joy of sitting in front of the TV with your family and enjoying a occasional comedy show or sitcom. One of the problems i faced during my TV viewing days was that of the TV channel schedule. There used to be a printed booklet for it, but they were very limited and many times inaccurate. But now you can easily check any channel's schedule online. But it is very boring and time consuming to visit the websites of each channel for their individual schedule. So here is a website where you can get all the schedules at one place with many other extra features.

Burrp!

It is primarily a social media type of site, but i use it mostly to check TV schedules. It has a TV guide option where you can find all the channel's schedules and other important things. Here are some of its important features

• All the channels are well categorized, displaying the channel symbol for quick search.
• You can check all the movie schedules filtering them according to genre, time, language etc.
• Shows the schedule for coming 7 days for the each channel.
• You can set a SMS reminder to remind you about you favorite show or movie.

To visit the site CLICK HERE

Wattpad - ebook community intel app

I am a book fanatic and a inspiring writer. My cravings of reading were mostly satisfied by the local library but it was very limited. As a budding writer i was very much interested in the modern literature but i was unable to buy new books without financial support. The area i live in is a bit isolated with very scarce population so we don't have things like book clubs or literature communities etc these made me feel very isolated and far from the literature culture. Whenever i read a good book i wanted to discuss it with somebody or debate it. So i was looking for a good book community where i can read books and give feedback, discuss it etc. Thats when i came across Wattpad.

Manage kindle collections via computer (Tutorial)

I bought my kindle some days back and i can't express how happy i am with it. All its features are too good. But one thing i find a bit difficult is managing the collections in kindle. In the beginning it was not that much a problem as the number of books were less. But as the number started increasing managing the books and sorting them into collections started becoming very difficult and boring. I don't understand why amazon has not made any provisions for managing the collections from the computer. Anyway, so i was looking around for some trick to manage the collections from the computer when i came across the Kindle collection manager.

Kindle Collection Manager
Kindle collection manager is a small utility program to manage kindle collections from the computer in windows. It is free and easy to use. Here is a tutorial for it.

Step 1) Click here to download it.

Free online accounts and data backup with backupify

If you are a social networking addict, the scenario of losing ones online data is comparable to a nuclear attack. Many of you may argue that you can't loose your online accounts and data because you take adequate security measures but in the cyberworld no amount of security is adequate, if somebody like a hacker wants your data he will get it no matter how much time it takes. Now the only damage control method you can use is to backup all the online data. To  do this you can use a online service called Backupify.

Making a Folder Invisible in Windows

There are hundreds of reason why you would like to make a folder invisible, like playing a prank, security reasons or hiding something. Some of you may have special reasons to hide the folder ;-) . Well you could just password protect it, but it becomes very inconvenient to provide password every time you want to open the folder, especially if the folder is used very frequently. Making the folder invisible provides adequate security without to much hassle. So just thought of sharing this tutorial. So here we go

 
 Step 1) Right click on the folder --> Properties --> Customize --> "Change Icon" option.

Foobar2000 - Free alternative to Winamp and windows media player.

The software world is filled with different audio players. Most of you must be using Windows media player or Winamp because they are popular and most widely used. But popular doesn't always mean better. There are many audio players with better features and usability. One such audio player is Foobar2000.

Foobar2000

Foobar2000 is a free audio player. One of its main feature is the easy to use, user interface. It has all the basic features of a good audio player like

• It supports a wide range of audio formats like MP1 MP2 MP3 MPC AAC Ogg Vorbis FLAC / Ogg FLAC WavPack WAV AIFF AU SND CD
• Easily customizable user interface.
• Ability to read archive files without decompressing them.
• Open architecture supporting third party components.
• Windows media streaming support.

DOWNLOAD

BetterPrivacy - Security against long term tracking cookies.

According to me, today Internet is the biggest commercial platform in the world and information like user browsing habits, user's personal info etc are much valued here. Due to which a new variety of cookies called Local Shared Objects or commonly called 'Flash cookies' are used to gather this information. Flash cookies are a type of never expiring cookie which are stored on the users computer. Originally sites having flash content used the flash cookies to store the user's preferences on the site but in recent times there have been privacy concerns about them. Some of the security issues of the flash cookies are

• They do not expire.
• They are cross-browser meaning it doesn't matter which ever browser you are using till it supports flash content.
• The cookies do not need user or browser permission to send the information to its relative server.
• They are very well hidden and it is rather difficult to be aware of them.

You can get protection against this cookies by using a popular Firefox addon called "Better Privacy"


BetterPrivacy

BetterPrivacy is a popular and one of the most recommended Firefox addon, because it is easy to use and very effective. With one click it displays all the Flash cookies stored on the computer. Using its easy to use manager you can select which cookies to delete and which to keep. You can also select the automatic clean up option where it cleans all the cookies after the browser is closed. You can protect some of the cookies which you think necessary from the automatic cleanup.
To download and know more about the addon CLICK HERE

 

Downloading websites to view offline using HTTrack

If you live where you regularly face Internet connection problems it is always a good idea to download the website which you refer to regularly. You can save the pages using the browsers default save page options but it can get tiresome to save all the pages of the website one-by-one and there is no definite structure to it which can make it very confusing. But using a free utility program called HTTrack you can do all the above tasks very easily.

HTTrack Website Copier

HTTrack is a free utility program which helps the user to download webpages or entire websites including all the the linked webpages for offline browsing. You can browse the downloaded pages link to link giving you the experience of browsing the website online. Actually its just like creating a mirror of the website on your local drive. It also allows you to create filters if you don't want to download some specific type of files.

DOWNLOAD

Change mp3 Player's Firmware to Open Source Rockbox

Are you bored with your mp3 player's outdated firmware and want to try something new? Are you not satisfied with the sound quality of the mp3 player or are you bored by the same themes and looks of the screen of the mp3 player ?. If yes then Rockbox is the solution to all of the above problems.

Rockbox

Rockbox is a open source alternative for your default mp3 player firmware. You can add rockbox without actually removing the original firmware. Here are some the main features of Rockbox

•  Rockbox supports a wide range of audio formats like  MPEG-4 AAC(-LC/HE/HEv2 profiles) AC3 (raw or RM container) WMA Standard WMA Professional Speex Cook ATRAC3 WavPack hybrid files Ogg Vorbis MPEG audio layers I-III (MP3/MP2/MP1) Musepack FLAC WavPack Shorten Apple Lossless Monkey's Audio TTAwav AIFF
•  It provides many playback enhancement features like Gapless playback Crossfading ReplayGain 5 band fully parametric equalizer Variable speed decoding CrossfeedOTF playlists True random shuffle Custom UI themes Dynamic PlaylistsStereo recording FM radio, including FM recording Remote control Digital S/PDIF input/output Last.fm support Cue sheet support Changeable selector bar Album artSleep timer
•  It provides many additional Plug-ins like  JPEG viewer Rockboy Game Boy emulatorZXBox ZX Spectrum emulatorDoom WAV to MP3 encoderWAV to WavPack encoderMPEG video playerPictureFlow, an album art viewerVarious gamesMusical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI)

To view the list of supported devices and to download it CLICK HERE

Search subtitles using firefox addon

If you are a movie buff and like to see all the critically acclaimed movies irrespective of the nationality and language, then subtitles are a very important element of this movie watching process. All movies may not include subtitles, due to which you may sometimes have to get the subtitles externally for the movie. At times this can be a headache because the subtitle's frame-rate should perfectly match with that of the movie or the voice and text will not appear in sync. So here is a Firefox addon which helps you to find the subtitles without worrying about the frame-rate and other things.

Subtitle matcher 
Subtitle matcher helps you to find subtitle of any language perfectly matched with the movie, using the unique movie hash code.

• To use,  DOWNLOAD and install it.

•  In the Browser go to "Tools" --> Subtitle matcher. There you will find many options (refer to the image to find the uses.)

 

Script to run Internet Explorer on Linux

Many users who switch to Linux from windows sometimes miss their beloved Internet Explorer, as IE does not support any OS accept windows. But there is a way to make IE work on Linux using a script and wine.

IEs4Linux
It is a free and open source script that allows the user to use Internet Explorer on Linux using Wine. 
To download IEs4Linux and get the installation procedure CLICK HERE. 

Note:-  It only supports IE till IE7. The developers are working to make it compilable with IE9 so keep a watch for it.

BSNL GPRS Settings (West Zone for all handsets)

Sometimes configuring Internet GPRS settings on a handset can be a real headache.
I came across a good manual which gives procedure to enable GPRS on mostly all mobile, so thought of sharing it with everybody. Here it is.

DOWNLOAD MANUAL

Search securely on Google over SSL

Are you afraid that your search terms and results on google are being intercepted by your company, ISP or any third party?. This can be easily prevented by using encrypted Google service.

Google SSL search
Google SSL search uses SSL to establish a end-to-end encrypted connection between your browser and Google, this prevents the third parties from intercepting your communication.
SSL (Secure Sockets layer) is a protocol which helps to establish a encrypted and secure channel between the user and the host. This makes the information intercepted by third parties unreadable.
Here is the link to encrypted Google service.
https://encrypted.google.com/

Note:- To make sure you are browsing securely check that in the URL there is https instead of http.
          Remember this is only for securely searching on Google, the third parties will know about the
          website you click from the search results.

Revealing saved passwords in Firefox

Many times you may have access to others computer and like all the tech geeks you too would be itching to know all their saved passwords. So here is how you can do it in Firefox.

Click on "Edit" in the menu bar. Then "Preferences ". Then "Security" tab. Then "Saved Passwords". Then click "Show Passwords".

Easy as that. Enjoy!!!

Exif data - Security measures

All the professional photographers are familiar with the term "Exif data". But general public most probably must have never heard of this term. so here is bit information to get you started with.
Exif (Exchangeable image file format) is a specification used to store data in a image. This data contains very important information about the image like the model of the camera used to take the image, date and time at which the image was taken, location of where the image was taken (if the camera or smartphone is GPS enabled) etc. This can be very helpful for photographers to later study the images and find optimal camera settings for the best images.To view exif data you need a exif viewer. here is one OPanda Iexif.

But this also has a bad side. Here are security issues that can be presented due to Exif data.

• Many times people take their embarrassing images covering their face, which they post online in the spur of the moment. But it should be noted that exif data can provide information which can be used to identify the person in the image. People with bad intentions may take advantages of such situations by black mailing the person in the image.
• Many times the time and date of the image is intended to be kept secret, for many personal reason but exif data can reveal this information very easily.
• Exif information can be used wrongly to bully people on sites like 4chan.

Now you can avoid all this inconveniences due to exif data by taking some simple security measures.

• Select the option "for web" while saving the image.
• You can easily remove exif data from a image using software like Exif Tag Remover

Google Search by Image (Firefox Addon)

Most of you must be familiar with the Google search by image service. If not, then Google search by image is a service which enables the user to search the web using image, by either uploading image or by providing it's URL. For more information visit www.images.google.com.
But sometimes it can become a bit boring to open the website every time you want to search. This is where the Google search by image addon can be very useful. The addon adds a context menu item, so that you can right click on any image and search the image without going to the website. This can save significant time if you are regular user of the Google service.
DOWNLOAD

Get all your tech problems solved

I don't know whether you have ever visited the imageboard "4Chan". If you have just heard about it from some place else, i am sure it won't be a good opinion. Most probably you must have heard that it is imageboard where all the fat bellied geeks high on drugs hang out or that it is used as a trading place for porn. But this is not entirely true.
Ignoring the bad elements, 4Chan is a treasure trove of knowledge. It is divided in sections and one of its most useful section is the technology or /g/ section. All of your tech related problems can be solved easily if you follow the correct netiquettes of the imageboard. You can ask any tech related questions and it may be instantly answered but you have to keep some things in mind before asking the questions like

Monitor text for updates automatically with Check4Change (Firefox Addon)

Today most of the people get their daily doses of news and information from the Internet, as the latest news and information are constantly updated. Things changes in seconds, but you can't always wait for them to change, but you would also not like to miss them. Here is were the Firefox addon Check4Change comes into the scene.

Free ebook management and conversion software (CALIBRE)

There is no greater teacher then books. So in today's multimedia dreamland, books will never loose their presence. But it does not mean that they have not changed with time. Today like music, books too have adopted to the digital world. The PDF format has greatly helped in this process. Devices like amazon's kindle with the e-ink technology have marked the beginning of a new era. But unlike other forms of multimedia, there are very less software related to Ebooks. Not many of them are famous or widely used, but from them the software which stands out is the ebook management software "CALIBRE".

Let me google that for you

I don't know whether you have heard of this service earlier but "let me google that for you" will definitely bring a smile to your face. Many times you must have gotten frustrated with people who ask silly questions on the forums and other websites, this questions can be easily resolved using a simple google query, but no, the dumbos have to pest you with this stupid questions, you may reply harshly to them and suggest that they google it but you can use a more fun and sarcastic method to make them aware of the thing called Google which can solve all their problems with just one search query.
according to "Let me Google that for you", it is for all those people who find it more convenient to bother you with their question rather than google it for themselves. What you have to do is go to the website enter a query and search it. This will be recorded and a link will be provided to you, then you can share this link with the person who asked the question. When the person uses the link, it will play the recorded procedure of the query you did on "Let me google that for you" and then he will be redirected to the real google search results. This will definitely teach him a thing or two. Enjoy!!!
GO TO "Let me Google that for you"

Free mind mapping software ( FreeMind )

I know this is a bit off the blog's subject, but i could not resist myself from telling people of this great software. Many of you must be familiar with the mind mapping techniques. If you don't, in general mind mapping means to arrange information in visually structured manner which can be used to organize ideas and information to make it easier to study and make decision based on them. If you want to know more about it click here to see the article on Wikipedia. It is a bit less known concept, but is very popular with people in managerial jobs, but this doesn't mean that the general public has no use of it. We can also use it in our daily lives to organize things, like a housewife can use it to remember where all the important things are placed in the house etc this is just a general example the real use of mind mapping is only limited by your own imagination. There are many fancy mind mapping softwares, but most of them are expensive, true they offer some unique features, but frankly i think general people like you and me would not need them. A great freeware like FreeMind will be more than enough for learning and using the mind mapping technique.

Extract images from PDF files

Many times you may feel the need to extract images from a PDF file. But you will need adobe products to do so, which are very costly. But you can do the same task using a freeware. here it is,

Some PDF Image Extract
It is a small utility program which extracts images from a PDF file. You can choose the output format from a wide range of options.

DOWNLOAD

Note :- Don't expect it to be a PDF editor or something. It does what it says, nothing fancy.

Live streaming for mobile phones using QIK

Today mostly everybody owns a mobile phone and most of them have video recording facility. But sharing videos taken from mobile have always been difficult. You could record them and then send them to whom you want, but till then it loses its charm. But what if you could stream the video live from your mobile itself ?. Many of you may think its a joke. Frankly it can be done very easily using a service called QIK.

Get emails resent to you - HitMeLater

In this competitive world everybody is busy in work and don't even have the time to check their mails, or may get very less time to do so. On that you may be getting hundreds of them daily. Few of them may be really important and worth reading, but you may no be able to read them at that time. To help you with it you can use a free service called HitMeLater.
All you have to do is just forward the important mail to 24@hitmelater.com and it will resend the mail to you in 24 hours. You can use any number instead of 24 and it will send the email after that much hours. For more option like specifying day or date for the mail to be sent, please refer to this link. Hitmelater_Guide

NoScript - Security against active contents (Firefox Addon)

As the Internet is getting more popular, different types of security vulnerabilities are exploited everyday. One such security threat is presented by the active content on  the web like javascript , flash, silverlight etc. The user may not even know, when he or she fell victim to it. Now there are many security measures you can take against it and one of the best is NoScript Firefox addon.

NoScript
NoScript is a very popular Firefox addon. It is one of the most recommended security addon on the net. What it basically does is stop any active content from executing in your browser without permission. You can choose the websites you trust and allow active contents from them to execute. Some of its important features are

• It protects the user from harmful server-side active content and scripts.
• It provides client-side protection against cross site scripting attack.
• It protects the user from Clickjacking attacks.
• It can force the browser to always use HTTPS.

DOWNLOAD

Boost your system performance with Advanced SystemCare Free utility

Today computers are under lot of pressure to perform consistently and fast. When they are new they give excellent performance, but as the time passes, the computer starts slowing down mainly due to registry problems, fragmentation, malwares etc. Many user think that a good antivirus will keep the computer safe from this problem. But antivirus's job is to mostly keep the computer safe from the viruses and other malwares, they may be ineffective against this other problems. There are many special softwares which help the users to take care of such problems. Here is one such free software.

Audacity - free alternative to Adobe Soundbooth, Audition and WaveLab

Sound editing is a very important part of any multimedia project. Now-a-days sound editing has become very easy and frustration free, thanks to the sophisticated sound editing softwares, which makes the work of the sound editor lot easier and productive. But most of the commercial sound editing software are costly. They may be a better option for professional sound editors but for normal multimedia geeks who just need to do some tweaking of sound, it is not worth the money. But don't be upset there are lots of free sound editors for normal users who just need to do some tweaking and sound enhancing. Here is one such software.

Firefox addon to protect against homepage and search hijacking

Today Internet is flooded with new softwares and apps. Thousands are uploaded everyday and most of them are free. Due to this the user can't overcome the temptation to download and try the new softwares. But one should always be careful while using new software, because they can posses many security threats. One of such threats is browser homepage and search hijacking, where the software changes the configuration setting of the browser and resets your homepage and search options. There are special software to prevent this from happening but instead of using this software you can just use a Firefox addon.

 BrowserProtect


 BrowserProtect is a small Firefox addon that protects the browser against homepage and search hijacking. It monitors the browser's configuration against malwares which hijack your homepage and search configuration.
If it detects any suspicious change in the configuration it blocks it and reports it to the user.

DOWNLOAD

Free Open-Source screenshot tool

Screenshots are very important in articles and tutorials to show practical uses. The most common method for taking screenshot is by pressing the print screen button and then pasting it in Ms-paint. This is ok if you need the screenshot of the full screen, but many times you may just want to take screenshot of  a region or part of the screen. To accomplice this you may have to have a image editing software. Now this can be very tiresome if there are too  many screenshots, lot of productive time is wasted. This problem can be easily solved using a professional screenshot tool. Here is one such open source tool.

Greenshot
Greenshot is a free and opensource utility software to quickly take screenshots of the screen or part of the screen. It is optimised for maximum productivity. You can later add text or crop the image.Greenhost can be also used to easily annotate, highlight or obfuscate parts of the screenshot. Its a boon to the technology writers and bloggers.

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Searching and playing subtitles of any movie.

Today in the age of globalization, the Internet has played a major role in connecting different parts of the world to each other. Due to this movies from different parts of the world are getting acknowledged on a international platform. But the fans have a hard time following movies, which are in language they are not fluent in.  Now here subtitles play a major role in helping this movie fans. But many of the fans think that subtitles have to be integrated in the movies before hand, but this is not true. This tutorial will explain to you how you can download subtitle files and play them with the movies. So lets get started.

Create Wi-Fi Hotspot on Windows 7 using Connectify

Today mostly everybody owns a PC or laptop and majority of them own more than one PC or laptop. Now one of the main problems with multiple computing devices is sharing the Internet connection. One of the excellent solution to this problem is to create a Wi-Fi Hotspot, which can enable the multiple computing devices to share Internet without mess of wires and routers. So here is a small and very useful software which can be used to create a Wi-Fi hotspot on Windows 7 in no time.

Facebook Video Spam

This is a warning to all Facebook users. A video spam is getting very popular and spreading like a wild fire. Basically you will receive a post from your  friends on your wall with a video player saying that you are there in the video or you are tagged in the video. But when you click on it will tell you to select the the address bar and press ctrl+v and and then enter. when you do that it will post the same post on your friends wall. So please beware of this spam and keep your shelf safe from falling for such a idiotic spam.

Bypass Compulsory Web Registration

Are you fed up of sites which force you to register to access their information or to get extra privileges?. The web is supposed to be a symbol of freedom., were every information is available to the users without any restriction. But today websites are promoting a closed system where only people registered with them are granted information and privileges. Many netizens won't mind registering but the thing like spams, unwanted newsletters etc which show themselves in the users inbox after registering is simply a headache. But every lock has its key. So here are some sites and addon which may solve your problem.

Video Chat On Multiple Clients Simultaneously using ManyCam Virtual Webcam

If you are a Hardcore Internet addict and waste most of your time video chatting here is a software that might interest you. One of the problem faced by video chat users is that they can't video chat on multiple clients simultaneously. But this problem can be easily solved using  Virtual Webcams. Here is a free Virtual Webcam software.

Beat Clicking Games by Automating Mouse-clicks

Now-a-days game making has become very easy and thousands of small flash and other games are uploaded every day on the Internet. Most of this games are mouse controlled and use mouse clicks for actions like shooting, jumping etc. after sometime the mouse clicking gets very boring or the fingers start aching. But this problem can be easily solved by automating the mouse clicks. So here is a software which automates mouse clicks.

Generate TinyUrl Links with a right-click (Firefox Addons)

Most of you must be familiar with TinyUrl URL shortening service. If you don't  "TinyUrl is a website which allows the user to shorten a long URL into a simple short URL in the form 'www.TinyUrl.com /some number & alphabet' when you use this link it just redirects you to the original link. This comes in real handy if you want to open the link on a mobile phone where it is impossible to type such lenghty URLs. It is also very useful when creating long lists of URLs. But sometimes it becomes boring and time wasting to go to the TinyUrl site every time you want to create a short URL. But don't worry there is a popular Firefox addon which can make this task as easy as right clicking the URL. Here is the addon,

Overwrite data to make it unrecoverable

After reading the title many reader will think why take so much trouble to overwrite data to delete it permanently and will suggest that just empty the recycle bin after deleting the file. But permanently deleting the file does not actually delete the file permanently, the data is till there on the hard-drive and will remain there till other files are not overwritten on them, so if somebody gets access to your hard-drive he can easily recover the data using data recovery softwares. This problem can be easily solved by using data overwriting softwares, this softwares overwrite the data and then delete it which makes the file useless even if it is recovered. Here is one such free software.

Protect Your Files From Getting Deleted

We see lots of computer users who delete their important files and then cry over it and if the file was job related or some project or assignment then god save them. This problem mostly occurs where there are more then one users on a single computer like in colleges or work places, one of the user may not know the particular file is very important to the other user and he may casually delete it. Many will futilely try to get it back by using data-recovery software but chances of getting back the file are very slim. This all unnecessary trouble can be easily avoided by anti-delete protecting your important files. Here is one such software to protect the files

View Wikipedia Offline Using Kiwix (Tutorial)

Imagine humanity is ending and you can preserve just one thing for your future generation, what will it be? i would surely answer Wikipedia. According to me the most important thing on the Internet after Google is Wikipedia. Can you even imagine completing projects and assignments without Wikipedia, atleast not me. But think for some reason you get cutoff from the internet and are not able use Wikipedia, nightmare isn't it. You have to be satisfied with Encyclopedia or Encarta whose scope is very restricted. Wikipedia must have also considered this dooms day scenario, so they provide dumps or compressed files containing all the articles on Wikipedia to use offline. So here is the way to view Wikipedia offline using the software Kiwix.

Know The Latest Scams And Rumors On The Internet.

The number of Internet users has been increasing exponentially and due to this the fraudsters are seeing a whole new playground to play their tricks. Thousands of new scams are created everyday, most of them are foolish and very less people may fall prey to it but some are very complicated and well constructed. Even a very precautious and well informed Internet user may fall prey to it. So every netizen should have some knowledge of the latest scams and rumours even if it doesn't concern them. Here is a site which informs the people of the latest threats and scams.

WWW.SNOPES.COM

Snopes is a very popular site for knowing the latest threats and scams making rounds of the cyberspace. Every scam and rumor is studied and checked for authenticity. The users can also suggest or inform about the scams and rumors.

Faster Fox (Make your Firefox work faster on XP)

While searching for ways to increase the Firefox page load speed, i came across this great Firefox addon.

FasterFox

Fasterfox Lite allows you to easily tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache and initial paint delay. Unique to this Lite version are included options for SSL Pipelining, timer-based content reflows, UI Responsiveness, Link Prefetching, IPv6 DNS lookups, and by default the Page Load Timer is disabled. If you want to manually change the "about:config" settings, then the Fasterfox Lite preset must first be saved to the "Custom" setting. This is to prevent the configurations from being different from a selected preset's settings.
Fasterfox Lite comes with pre-configured tweaks to improve the browsing speed of Firefox when using most broadband internet connections. Fasterfox Lite will speed up your web browsing right out of the box with no assembly required.
To change the settings go to the addons option in your Firefox browser and select the options button of FasterFox there you can manually tweak the Firefox settings or use the pre-defined tweaks.

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NOTE :- This addon only works on Windows XP. Many user have reported that it doesn't work on Win 7 and instead makes the page load slow.

DOWNLOADING VIDEOS FROM METACAFE (ONLINE)

Every Internet user at some point has downloaded videos from Youtube. Downloading from youtube is very easy as many sites are dedicated for downloading videos from Youtube but many users have difficulty downloading videos from other  popular video streaming sites like Metacafe. Here i am providing a method to quickly downlaod videos from Metacafe online.

STEP 1) Go to the Metacafe video which you want to download and copy its URL.

NOTEPAD++ (Source code editing tool)

Don't be fooled by the name. Based on powerful editing component scintilla, Notepad++ is a powerful source code editing tool and also functions as a notepad enhancement. It supports mostly all the major programming language like c, c++, java, perl, html, css etc.

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