Instant Fundas

RSS2Torrent: Convert Any RSS Feed into Torrents

2013-06-18T16:04:00.001+05:30

RSS, which stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, is a format for delivering regularly changing web content to the readers in a way that is easy to consume. If you are regular reader of this blog, there is pretty high chance that you are reading this in an RSS reader. Many news-related sites, and almost all weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it. BitTorrent search engines such as The Pirate Bay publish RSS feeds too, that can be entered into a compatible torrent client such as uTorrent and have the content automatically fetched and added to the client for download.

This is possible only for RSS feeds that directly link to the magnet or torrent file. But for a regular website that publishes information about, say, movies without actually linking to the torrent file, their RSS feeds cannot be subscribed to in a torrent client.

RSS2Torrent is a new service that changes this by converting any RSS feed from a regular site into a torrent-enabled feed that can be imported into a BitTorrent client.

If you are wondering what kind of RSS feeds you can use to take advantage of this service, Torrent Freak provides an excellent working example. They chose a page on IMDB detailing a list of films in the public domain in the United States, as demonstration.

This list publishes an RSS feed, the link to which you can get from the familiar orange RSS logo. Copy this RSS link, head over to RSS2Torrent and paste the copied URL into the site’s single input box. Click “Create” and within a few seconds get the converted torrent enabled feed.

Now open you favorite torrent client – uTorrent for me - and subscribe to this RSS feed you received from RSS2Torrent. You should see the items published by this feed appear inside the torrent client’s download queue.

The IMDB page that was used for this demonstration is static, and hence the content of the feed will not change. However, should the list be updated with fresh content, the new items will appear automatically in your torrent client.

Yahoo Will Reset Inactive Accounts to Free Up User IDs For Others to Pick Up

2013-06-18T10:51:00.001+05:30

In an exceedingly stupid move, Yahoo announced last week that the company will reset all Yahoo IDs that's been inactive for a period of 12 months, and then once again offer those usernames for public registration. Describing the decision as an exciting change, Yahoo’s vice president wrote: “we want to give our loyal users and new folks the opportunity to sign up for the Yahoo! ID they’ve always wanted.”

“If you’re like me, you want a Yahoo! ID that’s short, sweet, and memorable like albert@yahoo.com instead of albert9330399@yahoo.com. A Yahoo! ID is not only your email address, it also gives you access to content tailored to your interests – like sports scores for your favorite teams, weather in your hometown, and news that matters to you.”

In mid-July, Yahoo will start resetting IDs that haven’t been logged into for past one year. New users will then have the opportunity to reserve their ideal username. Then, in mid-August, Yahoo users who staked a claim on certain IDs will be told which one they got.

So, why this is a bad idea? Because the person who claims your defunct ID can read all your future emails, reset passwords to all web accounts associated with the Yahoo ID and perform other disruptive actions.

Just because an email address is not active doesn't mean that it is no longer important. This is especially true when it comes to old Yahoo accounts. Before Gmail became popular, almost everybody who had an email account had them on either Yahoo or AOL (or Rediff, for Indian users), which means that those Yahoo accounts were probably their first email accounts and hence still hold value, even though they are no longer used for correspondence. These Yahoo accounts are still associated with gaming portals, accounts on discussion boards, maybe even Amazon, and god forbid, your PayPal or bank account.

While its nice to have a cleaner user ID with your name, it’s going to cause serious problems for those who are unaware of the new decision.

If you haven’t logged into your Yahoo account for over a year, make sure you log in to any Yahoo product before July 15, or you will lose your entire account.

Google Starts Showing Your Recent Sign-ins

2013-06-17T23:21:00.001+05:30

Google has added a new section in the Google Account settings page called Recent Activity. The page shows a list of recent sign-ins to your Google account accompanied by related information such as browser used, device, IP address and approximate location. Unlike the Last Activity information in your Gmail inbox, the information on the Recent Activity page is for your entire Google Account, so sign-ins from any Google product such as Blogger, Gmail, or YouTube will be listed in this section. In comparison, the Last Activity is only limited to sign-ins to your Gmail account.

However, the Recent Activity page is not an exhaustive list of every sign-ins. Google explains:

“A sign-in is only listed when you’ve actually typed your username and password to sign in. For example, if you’ve been signed in to your account for several weeks on your phone, checking your email from time to time, we’ll only list the time and location of your initial sign-in.”

The company advises its users to periodically review these actions and take note of the time and location where they took place. Anything suspicious -- for example, a sign-in from a browser you've never used, or a location you've never been to, indicates a potentially unauthorized break-in. In that case, you should change the password immediately. A “Change password” button right next to this list takes you straight to the password changing place.

“If you notice a recovery option change you did not make, be sure to update the recovery option in addition to changing your password”, Google adds.

via Google Operating System

Get Linux: Download More than 100 Linux Distros Straight to the Desktop

2013-06-17T22:29:00.001+05:30

Looking to try out a new flavor of Linux? Distrowatch.com has information and daily news about tons of Linux distributions, and is a good place to start the hunt. You can also use Google to look up on distros built for special purposes and with specific functionality. Another great resource for information about Linux distros is Get Linux.

Get Linux is both a website and a desktop tool that allows access to more than 120 Linux distributions from a single, simple interface. Distributions are arranged alphabetically on the left, and details about the selected distro appear on the right. This includes a brief description of the distribution, a screenshot of the desktop, version number, the graphical environment that accompanies it and the place of origin. A click on the screenshot takes you to the developer’s website.

But Get Linux is more than just a repository of information – you can also download these distributions in both 32 and 64 bits. Simply select the preferred version and the portable application will tell you the download size. Click the Download button and the application will start downloading the ISO file straight from the developer’s website. The location where the download is saved can be configured from the program’s settings dialog box.

Get Linux is a great tool for discovering new and cool Linux distributions. But the irony is - the software is available only on Windows. The program’s author explains:

“Get Linux started out as a piece of software for windows users looking to get away from windows. It display’s over 100+ Linux distros with a desktop screen shot and a little about the os selected and provides download links. Since then we have been working on making a web based version providing the same content as the piece of software does. So here it is and the best part is you don’t have to be on windows to view a website.”

Get Linux is a self updating tool, but I found the website to be more updated. There are several distros on Get Linux website that are missing from the desktop application.

8Smoker Pro: Optimize the Most Out of Windows 8

2013-06-17T11:52:00.001+05:30

8Smoker Pro is a free tweaking program for Windows 8 that allows power users to exploit all that the operating system has to offer, by changing the way Windows 8 functions and responds to user interaction. All improvements that 8Smoker Pro can implement in Windows 8 are made at the Registry, and there are tons of performance and security tweaks on offer. Additionally there are shell tweaks, Internet Explorer tweaks, a service manager, junk file cleaner, a tool to remove shared DLLs, among many others.

8Smoker Pro’s interface is extremely simple to use and very uncomplicated. The program displays the state of your system and resources currently being used. Next to this information, are four distinct zones where the changes are divided into. They are Tweaks, Maintenance, Security and Passwords. Each category has numerous “widgets” that further classifies the changes. For instance, under Tweaks, you’ve got Internet Explorer tweaks, performance tweaks, startup tweaks and so on. Under Maintenance, there is disk cleaner, shared DLL remover, shell browser and a Toolbox.

The Toolbox lets you remove hotfixes, create a desktop shortcut of the so called “God mode”, enable or disable hibernation, and create a shortcut to the hidden Application folder.

Under Security, you’ve got Drivefreeze, a feature to lock down your removable storage devices so nobody can use them without your permission. You can lock down USB drives, CD-ROM/DVD drives, and floppy drives. Then, there are system tweaks, desktop and explorer settings, login and UAC settings and Firewall control. The Password widget lets you create, change or remove passwords from your account.

The changes get applied immediately, but sometimes you have to click the “Save” button to save the changes you’ve made.

Bitdefender Safepay: A Secure Browser for Online Transactions

2013-06-12T11:25:00.001+05:30

Security software vendor Bitdefender is currently beta-testing a new product called Safepay. Bitdefender Safepay is a protected web browser running in a secured environment designed to protect your credit card information, account number or any other sensitive data when you enter them while accessing different online locations such as shopping sites and web portals of banks. Safepay blocks keyloggers that may steal your credentials for fraudulent purposes, prevents tempering attempts that other browsers are exposed to, provides protection against unshielded Wi-Fi hotspots, blocks phishing websites and much more.

Right after installing Bitdefender Safepay, you will be prompted to login with a MyBitdefender account. If you don’t already have a MyBitdefender account, you can create a new one in just under a minute. Alternatively, you can sign in with your Facebook, Google or Microsoft account.

On launch, SafePay scans your computer for existing malware to make sure your session doesn’t run the risk of getting compromised. If necessary, SafePay will upload suspicious files to the cloud for identification. Bitdefender says the scan uses in-the-cloud scanning to detect malware running in your system, but judging by size of the download (85 MB), I suspect there is a fair deal of malware scanning code in-built into the browser itself.

The browser is configured to run the quick scan each time it is launched, but subsequent scans are faster than the first scan and shouldn’t take longer than a minute or two. The startup scan can also be disabled from the browser settings.

Bitdefender Safepay runs in full-screen mode during which interaction with other running programs and the operating system itself is restricted. For instance, Alt+Tab switching is disabled and so is the PrintScreen function (which is why I had to take a picture of the monitor screen instead of a normal screenshot). You can’t minimize the program, but you can switch to the desktop to come out of the secure mode. Bitdefender Safepay runs as a background service and it is not possible to completely exit the program. Terminating the program by killing the process from the Task Manager is met with an “Access Denied” alert message.

The program comes with its own virtual keyboard that appears when you click inside any input field on a webpage. This is designed to bypass any keyloggers which might have infected your system.

Hotspot protection feature provides an extra layer of security. When you connect to an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot, SafePay encrypts Internet helping you maintain your privacy no matter.

Safepay is not designed for normal browsing of websites. It is practically uncustomizable, and you may encounter various problems on websites because some actions are automatically blocked
to prevent malware injection and other vulnerabilities.

Remember, Bitdefender Safepay is a beta software and unstable and can lead to data loss. It did crash on my machine once. Make sure you don’t have any unsaved work in any running program before you launch Safepay.

One Year Ago: HaoZip, YouTube Desktop Notification, Software Update Monitors and More

2013-06-08T23:58:00.001+05:30

A selection of articles containing the best tips, resources and software reviews published between June 1 and June 8 of the previous year.

Also read: One Year Ago roundup made exactly a year ago.

PopTrayU: Email Notifier For Windows

2013-06-08T15:01:00.001+05:30

Some of you may remember Poptray, an email notifier program for Windows XP, which was at that time, one of the best in class. It had support for multiple email accounts, spam management features, rules based actions, and totally customizable. After years of refinement, development of the software ceased on September 2006, the date when the last version was released. Last year, the abandoned project saw a new leash of life when another developer decided to pick up from where the original author left, and forked the project into a new one called PopTrayU.

Some of the most significant changes brought to the software by PopTrayU are better Unicode and UTF-8 support, HTML email previews, improved compatibility with Windows Vista and 7, IMAP support, more customization options, and themes.

Any email server that supports POP3 or IMAP can be added to PopTrayU for email checking and notification. The program doesn’t support webmail, as some email notifiers do, such as POP Peeper.

PopTrayU can be used both as a simple notifer or as a full fledged email program, thanks to its support for numerous advanced features such as email rules, spam filtering, black list and white list, and support for outgoing SMTP servers. In the email viewing panel, you can quickly switch view from plain text to HTML to raw text. If used as a notifier, you can restrict the program to download only a preview of the email and direct you to your default email program when clicked on a new message.

Notifications can be visual such as balloon notification, flashing icon in the notification tray or flashing Scroll Lock LED on the keyboard. Audio notification is also supported.

The interface is fully customizable – the user can pick custom fonts, change size and color. Additionally, there are 4 themes that gives you a handful of color choices.

PopTrayU is still in beta and there are stability issues that needs to ironed out before the program is ready for public use.

Here is a brief list of features:

Unlimited number of Accounts
Show number of messages directly on the TrayIcon
Different notification sound for each account
Different check interval for each account (optional)
Quickly preview a message
Delete messages from the server without downloading them
Rules that identify a message according to your criteria, then does one of these actions:
- Play different notification sound
- Delete from the server
- Ignore (don't notify)
- Run any EXE file
Wildcard support in Rule criteria
System wide hot-keys for most functions
Rotating TrayIcon to show number of messages in each account
Sort messages in any order
Optional password protection to view messages
Different message icons to quickly identify new messages
Reply using your default e-mail client

8 Podcasts That Can Bring Life Into Classrooms

2013-06-08T11:08:00.001+05:30

Think about podcasts and the first thing that will turn in your mind is music. But there is more to podcast than you may have imagined. Podcasts these days are used for education in schools and colleges to make classroom learning interesting. Podcasts register well in the minds of students, though they are not substitutes for classroom instructions. Podcasts are easy to use. Video cast of course will add an extra punch, and teachers must consider using them.

All that you need to bring podcast and video cast into the classroom is a computer (and a public display system, if you prefer) and a fast internet connection. Most schools and college have this equipment already, and therefore do not entail any fresh expenditure.

Here are some excellent resources where teachers can find the right podcasts and video casts. Some are free to use and even if you have to pay for some, they are worth every cent spent on them.

National Geographic Channel

National Geographic is something that your classroom should not miss. It is the right place for everything that is to animal life, plants and nature. Though the contents here should be particularly appealing to pupils in grade 3 through 8, others will also find it interesting, and help spring your class into liveliness.

National Geographic Channel is not just about animals, there several other topics your pupils will find interesting – photography, travel, environment, adventure, television and video are worth exploring. The other attractions include the latest news, a magazine, maps, games, events, movies, explorers and trips, and various topics on science. You can also download apps from here.

ESL Teacher Talk

If you are an English language teacher, then the resources you will find here should help your students in a really big way. It is ideal for kids whose native tongue is not English and hope to achieve considerable competence in English language usage. You should particularly consider using Teach Kids English Show. Besides the lessons, there are also several tips and tricks that teachers will find immensely helpful. Each lesson runs 3-4 minutes, and ideal to use.

There is no dearth to content or resources and they are free to use. They are very ideal for use in classrooms. There is almost no day on which the website does not come up with fresh content for students and other learners of English language.

Book Wink

Book Wink is a great place for locating ideal audio books for kids. There is virtually no subject that they don’t touch upon – adventures, animals, countries and cultures, disabilities, families, fantasy, friendship, funny, high school, sports, science fiction, scary, problems in society, natural disasters, mysteries, love and history are some of the interesting subjects you will see here.

Resources at Book Wink are graded – grade 3, 4, 5, and 6, and so on up to grade 8. You will particularly find it useful when you are at loggerheads over deciding what is best for your pupils or kids at home. You can also search for resources based on a chosen topic, author, or a title if you know beforehand.

My German Class

Teaching your students an additional language will help them take up profitable employment when they begin with a new career. It also helps them find employment in places where competence in a foreign language can greatly enhance their earning capacity in their later life. There are numerous podcasts as well as videos you should explore to teach German language.

There are many categories of lessons that range in intensity and depth. Many individuals have benefitted from the resource and My German Class is an ideal place for learning German through the use of podcasts. You can consider downloading the app from iTunes.

Science Show for Kids

The Science Show – Full program for podcast is owned by ABC Radio National of Australia. The podcast can be downloaded at iTunes, and it seeks to give answers in a very simple and easy to understand style. In the podcast you and your students will be able to find answers for things considered even as childish. Want to know why humans have five fingers? You will find answer even for this question.

All podcasts are in English and free to use. The app for using this resource is free. It can be installed on your iPad and iPhone. You can also install the app in a computer. It is a wonderful resource for classrooms. You should not miss it. We recommend that you try it.

Astronomy Cast

Astronomy is too important a subject to be ignored in classrooms. They help students to understand the origin of The Earth, The Solar system as we know and The Universe at large. Astronomy Cast brings all this and more – space stations, observatories and many other related topics in the form of podcasts. Astronomy Cast podcasts go even beyond astronomy and include topics on chemistry, history, space missions, physics and space flights. There is so much to explore here, all neatly arraigned in the form episodes.

Teachers who will want to use Astronomy Cast podcasts in their class room should consider reading the aggregator page at the website. It will help them keep track of the latest podcasts, and for picking out the most appropriate shows commensurate with the class grade.

How Stuff Works

It is not uncommon for students and learners to miss couple classes at school and their learning curve getting derailed. This can to a large extent be set right by using podcasts. There are enough podcasts to help learners recoup lost classes on a variety of topics – history, astronomy, chemistry, physics and more to explore, though teacher’s assistance may be required in some cases. Learners and teachers can explore “stuff mom never told you,” “coolest stuff on the planet” and “stuff to blow your mind”. They are worth exploring to locate podcast resources.

To use podcasts on iPhone you will have to download and install an app. You should also consider subscribing to RSS to keep you abreast of new stuff that come in frequently.

BBC

BBC is an excellent place to get podcasts for any age group or learners. There is absolute no topic that they don’t touch upon. You can select your podcasts by radio stations or genre, or even simply by using the search feature. Popular genres are children’s, comedy, drama, entertainment, factual, learning, music, news…and religion. For faster searches you can use the sort feature and locate the right sub-genre. Learning sub-genre include podcasts for kids in 5-11 age groups, adults and pre-school.

You can also subscribe for podcasts, and the advantage is you get notified the moment something new is available. Subscription is usually through iTunes, Zune, Google Reader or My Yahoo. Remember that all BBC podcasts are free.

Photo credit: Old radio by BigStockPhoto

This article is contributed by Kathryn Smith, a tech and entertainment blogger who works for a reputed online publication. She also identifies various phone locate website and helps common people improve their safety standards.

Scan And Update Windows Drivers With Driver Booster

2013-06-07T17:38:00.001+05:30

Updating drivers is fairly easy in comparison to updating software, because there are only a handful of devices that needs manufacture specific drivers to function. You need drivers for the display card (also called graphics card), the motherboard, network, Wi-Fi, sound, and probably one or two peripherals you may have. The rest of the devices/peripherals are mostly plug-n-play, meaning you can plug the device and play with it. Forget drivers.

Often, all you need to do is open the optical disk drive, pop-in the DVD and run the installer. The installer file on the DVD takes care of everything. If there is no DVD or if the drivers on the DVD are old, simply go to the manufacturer’s website and download the latest package. Of course, you need to know the model number or device ID of the hardware who’s drivers you wish to update.

This may sound scary for some, which is where automated driver-updating programs drop in.

In the past, I wrote about DriverZone and even earlier, a tool called Driver Magician which is no longer free, unfortunately. There is a new one from IOBit called Driver Booster.

The program scans the user’s system for devices and the drivers that are installed. It then checks the internet to find out whether the hardware vendor provides newer version of the driver currently present on the system. If the program finds new drivers, it tells the user which ones need updating using classifications such as old, very old and ancient.

The user can then click on the Update button next to each new driver found, and the program will automatically download the said driver and proceed to install it on the system.

Note: There is an old adage, which I’m sure you’ve heard a thousand times before: “Do not fix what is not broken”. This is true for device drivers. An old hardware doesn’t necessarily need new drivers, and new drivers won’t necessarily improve performance of an old hardware. Most driver updates contain nothing but bug fixes with no new feature. If the old ones are stable and not causing you troubles, updating drivers to the most recent version is certainly not going to fix problems you don’t have.

Now Read: 8 Software Update Monitors That Keep Your Programs Updated

Amazon Launches Marketplace in India

2013-06-05T16:24:00.001+05:30

Amazon has quietly launched an online marketplace in India that allows sellers to list and sell their products directly to consumers. Initially the service will offer books, movies and TV shows for sale, but plans are on to introduce mobile phones and cameras in the coming weeks.

India is the tenth country where Amazon Marketplace is available, however, unlike Amazon sites in other countries, Amazon India is strictly for third-party sellers. Amazon will not be selling its own merchandise to customers as restrictions on foreign direct investment prohibit web-based foreign companies from selling direct to consumers in the country.

However, this is not another eBay. Amazon will act as a fulfillment agent for the sellers across India, who will need to have their merchandise sent to a fulfillment center on the outskirts of Mumbai, from where Amazon will package and ship the order to customers. At the first day of launch, Amazon.in lists more than 7 million print books, as well as 12,000 movies and TV shows on DVD and Blu-ray. As an initial offer, customers will get free home delivery and cash on delivery for a limited time. After the offer expires, orders above Rs 499 will be eligible for free delivery.

There is no word about how many sellers are currently in the marketplace. The official press release has also not been released yet. But the company did issue a statement in which it said:

"Our vision, at Amazon, is to be Earth's most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover virtually anything they want to buy online," Greg Greeley, vice president of International Expansion at Amazon.com, said in a statement. "With Amazon.in, we endeavor to build that same destination in India by giving customers more of what they want - vast selection, low prices, fast and reliable delivery, and a trusted and convenient experience."

This is Amazon’s second attempt to enter the Indian consumer space. Last year, the company launched Junglee.com, a site that functioned as an aggregator for deals from retailers across India as well as from abroad, and sent visitors to respective sites for purchases.

via The Next Web

Best Tools to Delete Stubborn Files and Directories

2013-06-05T15:55:00.001+05:30

Sometimes a file or a directory gets locked and simply refuse to get deleted. This might happen due to several reasons. In most cases the file is in use by the operating system or by a program. Until the program relinquishes possession of the file, it cannot be deleted. Incorrect file permissions is another reason why a file may become difficult to delete. The file might be created by another user or might be marked read-only. Files with long filenames also tend to be difficult to delete.

When trying to delete such a file, Windows displays one of the following error messages:

Cannot delete file: Access is denied.
There has been a sharing violation.
Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.
The source or destination file may be in use.
The file is in use by another program or user.

The first three error message usually indicate errors in file permissions or file attributes. In this case, it’s possible to delete the file by taking ownership of the files or by making the correct changes to the file attributes.

In case of “file in use" errors, this is more difficult as you have to identify which process is using the file and then terminate the process to free the file from its grip.

The easier way out is to use a file deletion tool.

FilExile

This is a simple program intended to delete and remove stubborn directories and files that cannot be removed by other means either because the path is too long, the name is invalid, or any of other errors that can be incurred upon file or directory deletion.

To delete a locked file, you can either right-click on the file in Windows Explorer and choose the “Delete with FilExile” option from the context menu. Or, you can open FilExile and from the simple interface click the Browse button to the open the file/browser selector dialog box.

Other features include:

Safety features to prevent deletion of important directories
Logging
Multi-threading
Command-line Arguments
Drag and Drop

FileASSASSIN

FileASSASSIN is a program by Malwarebytes Corporation. To delete a file, you can drag any file onto the main window of the program or browse and pick the file that you want to delete. FileASSASSIN uses techniques such as unload modules, close remote handles, and terminate processes in order to remove the particular locked file. The user can decide which file processing methods they want the program to use. Even if you are unsure, you should check all the boxes - your goal is to delete the file, anyway.

You can also select the Windows delete on reboot method which would delete the file upon reboot.

Unlocker

This tiny program can close handle, unload DLL files, kill processes, delete files with invalid names, delete the index.dat file and can delete files with or without reboot. Unlocker not only deletes undeletable files but also tells you why the file cannot be deleted by normal procedure.

Simply right-click a file or folder which is locked, and select Unlocker from the context menu. You will see the processes or programs that are locking the file or folder. Then you can choose to kill or unlock the processes, with optional actions such as delete, rename, move or copy.

LockHunter

This is another resourceful program that lets you delete files and folders locked in by processes. You can access the program from its shortcut or from the Explorer context menu. Simply right-click on a file and choose “What's locking this file?”.

LockHunter identifies the programs that is causing the lock-in. You then have the option to either manually terminate the process or allow LockHunter to do it for you. Other functions include unloading DLL files, renaming locked files, remove locking processes from hard drive. LockHunter deletes files into the recycle bin, so you may restore them if deleted by mistake.

9 New Windows 8 Themes [June 2013 Edition]

2013-06-03T23:55:00.001+05:30

In our latest edition of Windows 8 themes, we’ve rounded up 9 best looking visual styles designed by the creative minds at DeviantArt.com during the months of April and May 2013. These third-party visual styles are different from “themes” that Microsoft releases for Windows 8 and Windows 7 from time to time, but they are still sometimes referred to as themes. Installing third-party visual styles is not as straightforward as installing official themes. Please read this guide to learn how to install them. Also, follow any instructions that comes from the theme author regarding how to achieve the look depicted in the example screenshot.

Checkout the Windows 8 themes page for more themes.

Clarity Test Visual Style

Different Touch 8

FOURFX 13

Metro+ Luna

Tampoyak

Vista8Mix

White Update

Win 8 - Thrives

Windows Classic

7GIF: Animated GIF Player for Windows with Playback Controls

2013-06-03T13:13:00.001+05:30

For reasons unknown, Microsoft decided to drop support for animated GIF files in Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8, and it’s unlikely that this feature will ever make a return to the operating system. Previously in Windows XP, you could watch animated GIF images in the default image viewer program. This is simply not possible starting Windows Vista. Now animated GIF images are displayed as static images with only the first frame of the animation visible in Windows Photo Viewer.

7GIF is a GIF image viewing program for Windows that can playback animated GIF images. Additionally, the program offers the user some options that allows them to control the playback of the animation.

Playback controls include Play and Stop buttons, increase or decrease playback speed, and view next or previous frames. You can also extract the current frame or all frames of the animated GIF file and save them as a collection of JPG images.

There are other controls such as image zoom, load next or previous image in the folder, pin window to top etc.

Drawbacks:

Supports only GIF images. Had this program supported all image files, it could have easily replaced the default Windows Photo Viewer.
Will extract images only to JPG. The program should have extracted images to the lossless PNG or even GIF.

One Year Ago: Multi Threaded Video Converters, Audio Converters, Cloud Encryption and More

2013-06-02T19:51:00.001+05:30

A selection of articles containing the best tips, resources and software reviews published between May 1 and May 31 of last year.

Fargo: An Online Outliner That Saves to Dropbox

2013-05-31T16:14:00.001+05:30

An outliner is a text editor that allows text to be organized into discrete sections in a tree structure or hierarchy, allowing users to control the level of detail that is displayed. Text may be collapsed into a node to get a quick overview, or expanded to full detail. Outliners are a great way to collect and organize ideas, take notes, brainstorm and even make presentations.

Fargo is an outliner program based on HTML5 that runs in the cloud inside a browser. While there are many web-based outliner applications, Fargo is only the second one in existence that uses cloud-based storage (the other is The Outliner of Giants that uses Google Drive to store files). Many online outliners use local storage, often the browser’s cache to store files, which is the worst possible place to store anything. The browser’s cache is temporary and can be accidentally deleted by the browser, as a part of scheduled cleaning or by any third-party file cleaning software. Being tied to the browser also means that you are tied to a particular machine, essentially defeating the whole purpose of an online outliner program.

Fargo files are stored in Dropbox, and the user's data is always fully available to them in an open format, OPML, at all times, in their Dropbox folder. Since most outliner program can read and write OPML files, your data is entirely portable. Anytime you want to leave Fargo, you can pack and go.

Files are stored in a folder called Fargo, named after the app. The preferences are stored in a sub-folder named #prefs. Every time you change a pref or open or close a tab, Fargo saves the status in the #prefs folder. Any other instances of Fargo that you have running observe the changes in this folder and automatically make the appropriate changes. All your Dropbox files remain private, until you choose to make them public, which you can do by creating a public link. Then whoever you give that link to has read-only access to the file.

Fargo is currently free to use, and hopefully will remain so in future. The company does have plans to introduce paid services to Fargo users sometime later.

One Program Downloads Music From 24 Different Sites

2013-05-31T13:31:00.001+05:30

Free Music Downloader is a modest name for an extremely powerful program that lets you download music from practically all over the Internet. Initially the program was written to download tracks from Last.fm, but over several releases the program started adding support for more and more music sites. The current version supports 24 music websites including some of the most popular ones on the web today.

Free Music Downloader is a portable application. Simply double-click on the single executable file to launch the program. At the top of the program window are three tabs – the first one is the search and download section, the next one has the login form for Last.fm accounts and the last tab has various settings for customization.

To search for music use the provided search bar. There is a small arrow on the extreme left of the search box. Clicking on this opens a long menu where you can select the websites on which you want to limit your searches to.

Results of the search are displayed within the program. An icon next to each item indicates the site of origin. You can filter the search results, or search within the results by pressing F3 and typing the filter keywords in the search box that opens in the bottom of the results.

To download a song, select it and then click the “Download” button. You can download a number of tracks at the same time. You can also have the files automatically converted to MP3 after it finishes downloading, but there is no option to adjust bitrate so you better leave conversion to a dedicated audio converter.

Other options include the ability to download covert art, and automatically save music files using a folder structure such as '\Artist\Album\Artist - Title.mp3'.

Here are the sites Free Music Downloader supports:

Last.fm
vkontakte.ru
goear.com
youtube.com
GrooveShark.com
SoundCloud.com
mixcloud.com
BandCamp.com
Hypem.com
Xiami.com
Music.Baidu.com
Hulkshare.com
MP3Fusion.net
MP3Skull.com
QQMusic
SkyRock.com
Sogou.com
Top100.cn
YYmp3.com
Muzebra.com
XMusic.me
FanMuz.com
ProstoPleer.com
8Tracks.com

Howard: Outlook.com Email Notifier

2013-05-30T16:51:00.001+05:30

Email notifiers are usually small programs that runs in the background, polling a remote mail server for new emails, and as soon as one is found, it alerted the recipient through a notification either visual or aural. We have seen numerous Gmail notifiers before but have rarely come across an Outlook.com or Hotmail.com notifier. Lack of demand or lack of interest could have been a cause. The thing is, almost everyone who actively use an Outlook.com (previously Hotmail.com and Live.com) email address also use either Microsoft Outlook email program or Windows Live Messenger.

Both Microsoft Outlook and Windows Live Messenger have an email notifier built in, so a standalone Outlook.com notifeir was not needed. After Windows Live Messenger was discontinued early this year, the need for an email notifier program was felt.

Howard is a simple desktop program for Windows and Mac that notifies you about a new Outlook.com email with a tooltip and/or sound alert. The tooltip shows you the sender and email subject. Just click the tooltip or icon to open your inbox in your browser or Windows Mail.

The few options that the program includes are:

Change email check interval from as short as 30 seconds to a maximum of 120 minutes.
Change tooltip display duration.
Change tooltip icon.
Set default email program
Change audio alert
Specify folders you want the program to check for new messages.

Make Slow Motion Videos With YouTube Video Editor

2013-05-30T13:22:00.001+05:30

Google has added a new feature to YouTube Video Editor that lets anybody create slow-motion videos out of regular videos with “normal” frame rates. Ideally, slow motion videos are shot using cameras that are capable of recording videos at frame rates higher than 25 fps or 30 fps. When this video is played back at the normal playback speed of 25/30 fps, the video appears to slow down in time. The higher the recording frame rate of the original video, the slower it could be play backed without introducing stutters and jerky motions between frames. So, if the video was shot at 60 fps, you could slow the video by half and thus elongate its duration by a factor of two. Similarly, if the video is shot at 120 fps, you could slow it down by a factor of 4.

Some consumer grade cameras today can record in 60 fps and higher, by compromising on quality and resolution, but true high speed, high definition cameras are expensive. One way to produce high speed videos without a high speed camera is to ramp up the frame rate in post-production. (It’s amusing to note that the terms “high speed videos” and “slow motion videos” denote the same thing, even though semantically they are the exact opposite.)

YouTube has added such a post-production trick to its built-in video editor that allows anyone to produce slow motion videos out of any regular-speed videos. To do this, open YouTube Video Editor (make sure you are signed in to your Google account), and select any one of your existing videos to try this on. Alternatively, you can upload a new video or search from among thousands of creative common videos already present on YouTube.

Once you’ve found a video, drag it to the timeline editor, and then click on the Edit icon. In the editor window that open, check the box “Slow motion” and from the drop-down menu select a speed. Available ones are 50%, 25% and 12.5%.

Using frame analysis and extrapolation, YouTube will attempt to create a smooth slow motion video out of it.

Before:

After:

As you can notice, there appears some weird artifacts around the guy walking. The moving cars on the other hand appears extremely smooth. Apparently, as long as the video doesn’t contain fast moving objects, the results can quite good.

Automatically Pause YouTube Videos When You Leave the Page [Firefox]

2013-05-29T15:12:00.001+05:30

As you may already know, YouTube starts playing videos as soon as click on a video link. This is such a nuisance for people who open multiple videos on new tabs, with the intention of watching them later, before the first one is finished watching. Usually, you need to pause the video you are watching, then go to the new video that has already begun playing, pause it and then return back to the original video.

To tackle this problem, I’ve had my browsers configured to load plug-ins on demand. This feature is available on practically all browsers – Chrome, Opera and Firefox. When you turn this feature on, any embedded flash content including videos stops auto-playing. You have to click on the video area to enable Flash, and only then the video starts streaming.

This approach has one drawback. You can’t have your videos buffered and ready to play once you are done watching the first video, because the video hasn’t even started steaming yet.

The problem can be solved by YouTube Smart Pause - a Firefox add-on that automatically pauses the currently playing video once you leave the page, and then resumes playback as soon as you return. The favicon on the tab changes to indicate the status of the playing video.

There is an option to set a time delay to wait before YouTube Smart Pause pauses the playing video. If a delay is set, the favicon displays a countdown.

YouTube Smart Pause can function in two modes. In the “Visibility” mode, which is the default mode of operation, the add-on reacts when the active tab gets hidden or minimized. In the “Focus” mode, the add-on comes into play as soon as the Firefox window loses focus to another window, enabling you to move out of the browser into another application window. The video pauses automatically.

YouTube Smart Pause can be toggled for every page separately, from the right-click context menu. You can also press a specific hotkey (Ctrl+Shift+Y) to do that.

Preview of Opera 15 Based on Chromium Released

2013-05-28T13:37:00.001+05:30

Opera Software has just released the first build of the new Opera for desktop computers based on Chromium 28, turning over a new leaf in the browser’s nearly two decades of existence. Being based on the latest Chromium build means that it includes Blink, a new rendering engine developed by Google for use with their Chrome browser, forked from Webkit. Opera had initially announced the move to WebKit in February, but after Google themselves moved to Blink in April, Opera followed suit.

The first build of Opera 15 has been released in Opera Next, a development channel where early adopters could test new features in the upcoming version of the browser before they go mainstream. Opera calls this build “Stable”, so it’s good enough to replace your primary web browser.

What’s new in Opera 15?

Speed Dial

Opera’s popular shortcuts start page has been refreshed to make exploring web content easier and smarter. Speed Dial shortcuts can now be gathered in folders and easily filtered. Drag and drop one Speed Dial entry on top of another to create a folder, or use the new Speed Dial search field to experience the power of visual Speed Dial entries combined with the flexibility and organization of a classic bookmark folder.

Discover

Get hot, new content, with no browsing necessary. The new Discover feature allows you to lean back and get fed with new articles from your country, or whatever region you want to get inspiration from, right in your browser - all in one place. Pick and choose your category: news, food, technology or something else you are more interested in. Opera brings you a selection of relevant global and regional sources to discover web content more easily.

Stash

Imagine that, after hours of shopping at your mall for new shoes, you find a single shelf with all the pairs you have tried on so far, so you can sit down, compare, and pick the winner. That’s what Opera's new Stash feature does for you with websites. Simply hit the heart icon in the address bar to collect the websites you want to compare easily while shopping, or to keep your travel research on hotels, sights and flights at your fingertips. Scan your Stash by resizable page preview, or search what you've saved, with keywords.

Search

Now, you can search directly from the new combined address and search bar. Simply start typing a webpage address to go directly to your favorite site, or enter a search term and choose one of several search engines to look for suggested websites.

New look

Rest your eyes on the new, refined user interface. It is modern, sleek, deeply integrated with the platform and built from the ground up. Browse more easily with new elegant icons, tab bar and more.

What’s gone from Opera 15?

Absolutely Everything. Opera is no longer the browser you knew, it’s now just another Chrome clone.

If you love Opera, this is the mother of all disasters. I’ve been a fan of this browser, and have been using it for more than a decade, and have grown to love everything about the browser and the unique way of doing things with it. Now all is lost.

There are no bookmarks, no Notes (and Copy to Note Feature, which I use like an alternative to Evernote), no sidebar and all sidebar features like tab grouping, links etc. There is no RSS reader, no option to customize the UI and buttons, no personalized shortcuts and mouse gestures, no auto-fill personal information manager, no cached images browsing, no per-site preferences, and no tab thumbnails. The Mail client has also been removed and made into a standalone program.

You also lose all the clever shortcut and tricks that made interacting with the browser and webpages easier such as Shift+click to open in new tab and Ctrl+click to open in new background tab, Ctrl+click on image to save, right-click+mouse wheel to switch tabs. All your speed dial customizations are lost, not to mention speed dial extensions.

The extensions framework has been reworked, which means old Opera extensions are no longer supported. At this point, Opera 15 supports only a subset of the Chromium extension APIs.

The developers attempt to assure users that “features missing from the first release of Opera based on Chromium will be evaluated and potentially re-instated in future releases”, but I wouldn’t hold my breadth.

If you want to get a taste of the disappointment, head over to Opera Next.

Top Notch Android Apps for Smart Stock Traders

2013-05-27T20:26:00.001+05:30

Smart stock traders are increasingly using mobile phones to carry out most stock exchange transactions these days. In the recent past it has also come to notice that stock traders prefer handheld devices over personal computers due to the convenience it offers. They are versatile and easy to carry and let you make transactions even while traveling. They are almost an office away from office.

The advent of Android OS for mobile and the vast base of apps for Android are further driving stock traders toward it in a big way. Sensing these developments, stock broking firms all over the world have developed apps that can carry out most transactions transparently and in a fraction of time that it takes normally. However, the apps from stock broking firms are specific to their company, and some of them lack features that typical traders may want in them.

Not a day goes without a new Android app being launched, and more so for stock trading. Not all trading apps will fit every user needs – most are specific for a particular purpose and before you install them, you will have to assess their utility in detail.

Here are 7 top notch Android Apps that smart traders use to successfully trade in company stocks. You are welcome to try them. They help to save time and arrive at smart decisions. Your success in stock trading depends on timely actions, and these apps will help you achieve your goals.

Stocks – Realtime Stock Quotes

Realtime stock quotes is an integral part of taking any major decision to buy or sell stock options and that is what Realtime Stock Quotes Android app does by streaming information straight to your mobile phone. It synchronizes with Google Finance and helps you by giving instant access to charts with information on the latest news and company performance.

Since the app syncs with Google Finance, your data remains safe and you can access it anytime anywhere. The other advantages are you can scroll and switch portfolios instantly, get instant stock details and get access to stock performance details. It supports stock operations in the US, UK, Canada and Hong Kong.

E*Trade Mobile

E*Trade Mobile works well for traders who want instant quotes through streaming sources. Users can order buy and sell operations instantly and manage their accounts as well.

Features include streaming quotes, place instant buy/sell orders, simple to complex trading options, and mutual funds; all by just tapping a few keys. You can setup preferred accounts to help place orders in seconds. If you have an open order, you can also check the current status instantly. The app is also capable of tracking market changes, researching, managing cash, and for watching trade related videos aired on CNBC.

Google Finance

Google Finance is an ideal Android App for getting streaming quotes on stocks traded across different stock exchanges worldwide. If you have a Google Finance portfolio you can synchronize it and get access to your data anywhere where you have internet connectivity. The other benefits of the app include instant access to stock prices, charts and analysis. You will also be able to access the latest stock performance details. The app also has a very helpful interface.

Google Finance is one of the most highly rated apps in the finance apps market. It has been positively reviewed by many users with a high number of people giving it a 5-star review in Google Play.

Stock Quote

Stock Quote is a feature-rich Android App. It is perfect for both pre-market quotes, after hour and for getting real time streaming information on stock prices. When you install it in your Android mobile phone you will be able to access technical charts, and be able to track prices across different stocks, get a list of stock options for trading, and get access to indexes overviews, funds, news and other information.

You can also use the included widgets for stocks, portfolio, commodity features and many others. Stock Quote is rated 4.2 (average of all those who reviewed the app) on a scale of 5 at Google Play. Approximately 50% of those who reviewed the app rated it 5-star.

Stock Ticker Widget

This is a widget that will help you create a portfolio of stocks you monitor and trade frequently. You can include it in your home screen. Once installed you will be able to control your portfolio from the home screen itself and keep track of price changes, and get instant quotes. You will particularly love the eye-catching look of the interface with its brilliant display and colors.

Stock Ticker Widget is customizable and compatible with many devices, including Android run devices and tablets. The widget can be upgraded once you are comfortable with using its features. Stock Ticker is a must-have widget for serious stock traders. It is rated 5.0 in Google Play by users, and is also free to use.

Ministocks – Stocks Widget

Ministocks – Stocks Widget is perfect for those who want a simple resource for stock trading. Though simple to use, the widget offers many powerful features not found in widgets of this class. You can choose between 4 different widget sizes. You can also add unlimited widgets to your Android phone. Other notable features are stock symbol searches, price change information on day-to-day basis, profit and loss accounting based on current prices, alerts for high/low price during trading and foreign exchange value information. This widget is also customizable, and can be scheduled.

Stock Alert

Stock Alert is yet another stock trading Android App that is simple to use yet powerful enough to give you instant information on changes in stock prices. Once installed on your Android phone you will be able to get information on stock prices and currencies from across different stock exchanges worldwide. You can set it to send you alerts based on a threshold limit. Features include multiple widgets and a commodities tab.

It is generally advised that you read the permissions part of the apps before you install them on your mobile phones, especially those relating to privacy issues. You must understand that apps constantly send out information about you to give you updated information.

Photo credit: Stock Market on Smartphone from BigStockPhoto

This post is contributed by Kathryn Smith, a tech and entertainment blogger, who works for a reputed online publication. She also identifies various distance learning options in order to help the younger generation fulfill their career goals and dreams.

4 Tools to Convert WebM Videos to Other Formats

2013-05-27T17:57:00.001+05:30

Shortly after Google introduced the open source WebM video format, they started transcoding all videos uploaded to YouTube to WebM, in addition to making them available in MP4, FLV and other formats that use the h.264 codec. Some videos are exclusively WebM, so when you download those videos from YouTube, you get a WebM file. Being a new video format, WebM support is not very good among media players. Many video editors too do not support this format. If you want the video clips to be accessible on all applications and devices, the only solution is to convert WebM videos to a format that is supported by your device or application.

Unfortunately, support for the WebM format among video converter applications themselves is rare. If your favorite video converter fails to recognize WebM files, try these following converter tools.

Free WebM Video Converter from DVDVideoSoft is a basic video conversion utility that supports, among several different file formats, WebM files as input. The tools lets you convert WebM video files to different video formats such as AVI, MP4, 3GP and others. You can also convert any video format back to WebM and also extract audio MP3 from WebM.

Miro Video Converter: The advantage of Miro Video Converter is the availability of various presets for a large number of popular devices such as phones, tablets and music players. Add the WebM files you want to convert and then choose a conversion profile. Miro Video Converter can only convert videos to MP4, WebM and Ogg Theroa.

Pazera WebM to AVI Converter converts WebM videos to either AVI or MPG. The application allows you to choose a codec and set many parameters used by the encoder, such as audio and video bitrate, fps, sampling frequency, resolution and other. Pazera WebM to AVI Converter also supports original stream copy and 2-pass encoding.

XMedia Recode is the only full fledged video converter utility that supports WebM, and can output to a variety of video formats. XMedia Recode is one of the most powerful video converter tool that allows you to change almost every aspect of the encoder. If you do not understand things like B-Frame, Motion estimation, and Quantizer, you may feel utterly at lost. Fortunately, there are many built in profiles that you can choose depending on your target device and leave the rest to XMedia Recode.

xVideoServiceThief Downloads Videos from Over 100 Sites

2013-05-27T11:51:00.001+05:30

xVideoServiceThief is a video download utility that lets you download videos from several popular video hosting websites. At the time of this writing, this utility supports more than a hundred sites, which is by far the largest we have seen among video downloading tools. xVideoServiceThief can also automatically convert the downloaded video to the desired format.

The program is pretty straightforward to use. Click the Add video button and then copy and paste the URL of the page where the video is embedded. The program will immediately start downloading the video and save it on your hard drive at a location you define. The video URL needs to be from one of the supporting sites, which means you cannot download videos embedded in blog posts or discussion boards, because xVideoServiceThief is not a video URL sniffer program.

You can also search all supported websites for videos using the search function built-into the program, and then download videos from the results displayed within the program.

As already mentioned, xVideoServiceThief can detect and download videos from a huge number of video sharing websites and communities including a number of heavily trafficked adult websites. It’s possible to prevent users from downloading videos from certain websites by adding them to a block websites list. If you wish to block adult websites, you can disable support for all adult websites at once by clicking on the appropriate checkbox in the Options window. This setting can be password protected to prevent children from overriding the block.

If you wish, you can let xVideoServiceThief convert the downloaded video file to a format you specify. The support for output formats is not that great, but adequate for most purposes. The program can convert videos to AVI, WMV, MPG, MP4, 3GP and MP3. The last option – MP3 – will convert the video to an audio file, in other words, extract the audio out of the video and save it as MP3. Some basic video conversion settings that are provided includes the ability to choose video resolution, video frame rate, audio sampling frequency, and video quality from a few presets.

Like any decent video downloader, xVideoServiceThief can pause a video download midway and resume later, provided the server supports this feature. It can also save a download session containing several files in queue. A download scheduler is also present.

xVideoServiceThief is an open source program and available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Now Read: How to save images and videos from online flash galleries by monitoring HTTP requests

Extract Images from Documents and EXE Files With deJpeg

2013-05-25T11:14:00.001+05:30

deJpeg is a simple Windows program that lets you extract embedded images from data files, mainly Microsoft Word (.Doc, .Docx) and EXE files. It may work with other types of files as well, since the developer says so, but is extremely unlikely as I tried several different types with no luck. Mostly, I hoped it would support PDF, but it didn’t.

deJpeg’s interface is very spartan. You click the Analyze button and then use the explorer file picker to locate the file you want to extract images from. As soon as you click OK, the status bar indicating the progress of the extraction process will shoot across the window and a message will announce the number of JPEG files successfully extracted.

And then you will wonder where the hell the images got extracted to. Well, it’s in the same folder as the source file, and thanks to the lack of hindsight by the developer, it’s not contained neatly inside a sub-folder but spread out, intermixed with all other files the source folder may contain. It would have been real nice if users could choose where they want the images to end up in. The images are also renamed during extraction and saved as image1, image2, etc. If the original filenames were important, than tough luck.

Another problem with deJpeg is that it can extract only JPEG images. So if the original embedded images are in any other format such as PNG or GIF, deJpeg will fail to detect them.

While there are certainly better applications to extract images from Microsoft Word documents (Office Image Extraction Wizard is a nice one that supports batch extraction), deJpeg’s saving grace is the support for EXE files.

Extracting images from EXE files is a bit tricky. You need a resource hacking tool to poke and prod the file until you discover the hidden images. deJpeg makes this easier and should be a handy alternative and time saver for all reverse engineers and file hackers.

And if everything else fails, you can still manually extract images, videos and audio files from Word documents.