MERO GUFF - Blog on Information Technology,Fun,reviews,Mobiles,Computer related to NEPAL

36 hours of day on October 17, 2008

2008-10-05T23:46:00.004+05:45

With the boom of media reach and information sharing capabilities, these days people have come up with different ideas. Ideas that promotes baseless statement. If you've ever gotten any of the chain mail, where it says something which is related to our day to day concern and at the end, there is some impression which forces us to believe it or they would curse us. Funny hah?.. as soon as I scan those first lines, next milliseconds it would land on my trash folder without a further look. Naive email readers are their victims. I think these people don't have any life than sitting around, create chain mails and see it circulate around and feel glad to get one back to them.

The reason I'm writing about chain mail is because there is similar story floating across seas of emails. It's all about '36 hours of day on October 17th, 2008'. Albeit, I didn't get this news from chain mail.

What happened is the last week, I wrote a check to my Aunt, She went her bank to deposit it and in the course of dialogs she was served with so hard to believe news by one of the bank clerk whom I know too, since that bank is where my account is opened up too. Raman(clerk's name changed) told my Aunt that this coming October 17th, there is gonna be 36 hours of long day. My Aunt believed it promptly, and later back to home, she was briefing about it. When I said that's rumor then she was confused because she believed me too. She put her logic backed by Mr.Raman's that it's happening every 40,000 years. Strong point to make people believe. whao.. 40,000 years?? umm Interesting, if it's happening every 40,000 years, so be it. I got fascinated.

But, wait a minute, is Mother Earth thinking "phew.. after these gazillion times of rotation and orbiting around Mr. Hot Sun, I should take a rest and sigh for 36 hours?" Which means, Mother Earth would completely halt her rotation. For the sake of God..(sorry Science) , that's impossible unless some miracle happens across the Universes and galaxies where all planets stop revolving and state of stagnancy prevails.

Ummmm.. after few moments of thinking.. I almost forgot it until this morning, when something suddenly came into my mind after fantastic sun rise captured my attention. I thought will it gonna be the 36 hours a day very soon and see beautiful day like this for long hours? Then out of confusion, I sat in front of my computer screen, and the next moment I was reading about this news floating around the globe rapidly. My Aunt exaggerated with that 40,000 years stat while I read it was only 2,400 years on those online informations. And, it's circulating itself as chain mail. You read, I read and forward it to all in your address book. I haven't gotten that chain mail yet in my inbox but whatever, it's very hard to believe that it could happen.

My Verdict: It's just a myth. People loves to make them once in a while. Like.. like BIN LADEN IS DEAD chainmail.. do you still remember that? I think I still have that copy on my old inbox. This baseless news whose purpose was to create question mark on one's existence was shattered when all of a sudden, BIN LADEN showed up on the news channels with another of his Video footage. All the rumors and myth about him dead - busted up. This 36 hours of day is yet another crap. It's weird that well-educated people are falling over it and making good intellectual gossips during their lunch. Well, just let it be up to gossips. I'm gonna have nice gossips on this with my co-workers tomorrow. Just time pass, you know.

If you research around and use your knowledge, then you'll find out that this is totally baseless news of 36 hours day. Scientifically, it's just a mere prediction and rough estimation. Even if group of veteran scientists would come up with press release backing this hoax up, I'm still not gonna believe them. Our few hundred years of technology advancement can't cope up with the secrets and mysteries of the Universe. I couldn't find a single statement from Scientists on this regard to put some light on it. I don't understand why they are keeping mum or may be it's not much of an importance to them or may be they are accepting this fact as true. Whatever, our technology is so so infant and raw to predict things across the universe. Don't believe whatever you hear or see, that's my focus.

Thank you for reading my post.

Emily - Next Generation CG character DEMO

2008-09-24T11:59:00.003+05:45

Every time I read over-emphasized reviews on computer generated animations, I believed them. I believed what they said about it. They said career of hollywood stars would be at stake as massive use of CG character would replace them all. The gaming world would take next generation of breath-taking animation and gameplay, to some extent, that is true but whenever I watch those character animation on my brother's PS3 and XBOX360 gaming, I feel like they are no where close to what they've claimed or written before. I felt like some life-less zombie talking/walking and performing actions everytime I watched those gameplays. So, their claim on life-like character animation is baseless for me until I saw a demo video of Emily.

I agree that Movie Studios are taking great help of computer generated effects in movies but it's hard to believe that they'll replace the real actors. The gaming has taken a huge leap and it's nothing more than a visual enchantment. They still look lifeless to me no matter how much 3D Chip powers they use.

Talking about Emily, at first you gotta watch this video below to know what I'm trying to put focus on:

She's the product of the California based company called Image-Metrics. This name is not alien to me as I've seen this name keep flashing at the start every time I played some of the best 3D games available today on earth. That said, it's actively involved into creating those animations on games. But, I think they've come up with more advanced detail in facial expression and body movement of computer-generated characters. If you've just checked this video above, you wouldn't agree at first that it's not real. But reality is it's fake.

If you check their site www.image-metrics.com, you'll be greeted with another life-like animation where you'd see how sophisticated and life-like the animation is. Super facial animation, simplified - That's what they've to say about their latest breathtaking character animation.

Thank you for reading my post.

Only solution for all your onlines worries

2008-09-23T09:23:00.004+05:45

I still remember the saying of my elders, "Good thing comes once in a blue moon." I don't know why I'm mentioning that old saying but to me, something has turned out to be so good to be true. That's the main reason and this post is all about that 'something'.

While the world has witnessed technological boom with unprecedented interconnectivity, we are also facing the challenge of keeping ownself safe and secure. With growing interconnectivity and wired networks around the globe, distrust and anger towards it is also ever-expanding. We can't deny that we've not read/heard about the news which stated someone lost all their credibilities of getting loans/opening bank accounts etc just because some cyber-criminals/blackhats stole their identity. Horror stories of stolen credit-cards and misuse of personal informations, unsolicited intrusion of systems in the wired world and obstruction of normal operation causing millions of dollars worth loss, ... these are some of the worst case scenarios when people engulfed technology as their friend and later turned out the worst.

I'm not here to convince you about negative aspect of technology and wired world. We must always be ready for the upcoming threats and well-prepared for it. As we walk out of the home and drive for work, at some point, we are also preparing ourselves for unseen and uncertain accidents. That's why we've airbags and seatbelts buckled up on our cars. If we are involved into online activities, we must be prepared for it. You MUST train yourself how to keep your computer safe and sound. How to avoid the infiltration of malwares and virus? What's cooking up below your nose when you are working online? You've to be aware of all these things and this is not every John and Jack could do.

When you buy a computer, it's vulnerable to many online threats as soon as it gets connected to Internet unless the system is well protected. And, we all are aware of how much we've to pay for these security softwares. These online security companies are making lots of profit from people's inability to protect themselves from online threats. And more, when they don't keep up with their claims. Have you recently faced problems after installing those paid antivirus and antispywares?? Sometimes, I think they do it intentionally to keep feeding up their tech-support department, flood of problems to be heard and pretending to solve them.

That's what these companies are doing. Just my assumption which could be truth. Lets come out of these bloody distasteful experiences. Let's talk about the 'Ray of hope'. I'm talking about COMODO online security products. I'm not endorsing any of their products.

I'm driven by true ethic of blogging and thereby writing realities. I've been using comodo firewall since a year. I read it's intro review on some tech magazine outlets. I've tested many softwares that way, used them and forgotten. But COMODO left a big impression. It's damn efficient, productive and it's far better than the paid softwares. Moreover, It was and is FREE product. When I read about why it's free and how they're benefited, they had their whole press statement published on their website and pretty much convinced me 99.99 percent. Since then, I'm using many of their products and referring as well through my past blog posts and words of mouth. Why not do that if it saves you from online troubles?

I also work as parttime tech support guy. Believe me, to my experience lots of problematic computer issues got solved after uninstalling the worthless over-hyped security softwares and after installing COMODO products, it's gone. It snatches the sneakiest threats crawling the world wide web. Did you know, black-hats always scans web for unsecure systems? If you're not behind firewall, you're doomed. Comodo has wide array of free protection softwares for your computer. Try it and thank me. Here is the link

Personally, I urge you to use COMODO FIREWALL PRO.

As I wondered why they are giving it for FREE, they wrote ; to create 'TRUSTED ONLINE WORLD'. It's their venture to create TRUST ONLINE and now have become their motto. As I mentioned earlier, people are loosing trust when they are online. They are always on constant fear of loosing something. COMODO's main motto is to minimize that fear and help build the most secured world wide web. Big network attacks primarily initiated from the use of a personal computer, propagation of malwares/bad scripts originated from personal computers. If we could secure the personal computers first, 60% of 'keeping web safe' effort is accomplished.

If you are more interested, you can read their latest manifesto on their website. I'm truly amazed with what they've to say.

Definitely, you'd like to know who is the mastermind behind COMODO. Check this link to find out. He's a brilliant mind at work.

Thank you for reading my post.

Assign or Change partition's Drive letter to C:

2008-09-22T10:58:00.004+05:45

I recently got barebone computer kits. I got CPU/Casing/RAM/MOBO and other stuffs. At first, It looked so screwed up. But after assembling some internal parts here and there, it finally looked like something. The first thing left to do was to load OS on that empty 500 gig Sata drive. Took that jumper out from the SATA DRIVE for full bandwidth and the I booted up with my OS copy CD.

Everything went through good as I was supposedly thinking. Installation of Operating system was done. Now, as I double-clicked 'my computer', I saw the listing of drive letters which I didn't really like. That was something like below:

C:Removal Storage drive
D:Removal Storage drive
E:Removal Storage drive
F:Removal Storage drive
G:CD Drive
H:Local Disk <---My Actual Harddrive where Windows was Installed.

Before I proceed with driver installation, I really needed to solve this issue. I tried to name my actual hard drive as C but that didn't happen. I needed to do that because I wanted to stay away from the hassles of my regular software installations looking for C: and popping up error dialog box messages.

To find what those removal drives really are for, I checked the system thoroughly, I found there was a separate bay for all kind of SD/MICRO SD,COMPACT FLASH I/II/IIMD/SMART MEDIA/xd/MMC/RS/MS PRO DUO slots in front of the casing. SO, those slots were taking C: drive letters and so.

I tried changing those letters as usual from Window's Disk Management but It wouldn't let me change that of the active partition. I was left with no hope. At first I thought hacking through registry but thought It might not work and what if it became waste of time. So, instead of fiddling around with the registry. I thought to re-installation of OS one more time.

BUT, this time, I needed to detach those cables of media card reader from the motherboard and hit the re-installation.

Everything went fine again and this time, it picked up the C: letter correctly without much of a hassles. So what, next up , I plugged in those left-out cables of Media card reader and Windows assigned them drive letters respectively.

Problem fixed, took 2 hours of my time.

Thank you for reading my post.

Switzerland Experiment and Universe

2008-09-18T12:42:00.005+05:45

Humankind hasn't reached that level of the knowledge where it says how Universe is created. It's beyond our imagination. As said, ignorance is bliss, we often time tend to take help of fantasy,engulf ourselves into beliefs which are totally baseless. But to some extent, when Science doesn't answer every bit of queries, personally I also rely on such beliefs.

One thing, when I used to gaze upon the creepy starry night sky lying my house rooftop, I always wondered what's beyond that black curtain of night sky. To find the answer, I read many books and asked many times to my science teacher about this. It was really disappointing that they didn't have answers either.

But there is a theory, which later on, I think that I'm enlightened with, says Universe is started with dense form of atom. I don't have the in-depth idea but this term was coined as big bang. Big Bang happened and ever since, Universe is growing, ever expanding itself. Scientists don't have answer how and where that started, they just give vague explanation as somewhere in infinite time in past.

Based on this scientific time-tested theories, a week ago Scientists in Switzerland passed on an experiment. This experiment was set to simulate how Universe is created. Personally, I think they are mad scientists trying to act as god or say universe creator. Whatever they've got in their mind, they just want to test how stuff works ignoring the outcomes on which they're not well-prepared and they don't even know what to do if consequences turn negative. I'm reading their press conference news online which says nothing is gonna happen, it's just come and go thing.

These two images above show how big the underground tunnel is and what those scientists are really cooking up. The beams collided at massive speed and the experiment is still on: CERN,Switzerland

They've put years to build these machines called Large Hadron Collider, where beams are collided, particles are de-atomized and simulates the theory on how Universe was once created. What if this experiment went wrong, their press report says, it went successful but some of the critics says the bi-product of the experiment already has dug a hole into the earth's core. Black hole has formed. May be it's my ignorance to write like this without knowing what went there on the scene but It really freaked me out when I learned about the fact that they've put United States and some other countries into 'observer status' to avoid any kind of interference.

These words that I've written here could make many of you think that I lost my mind but seeing so many strange things happening and reading leaked materials online, which I believe is not a hoax are enough for me to believe strange and out of understanding forces of nature and this galactic universe.

When I read this news, I promptly recalled the villain of Spider-man 2 where the mad scientist conducts a fusion experiment to create a new form of energy, which goes unstable and creates havoc. Then all of sudden, Superhero Spiderman solves the problem before it could engulf the entire Earth. For God sake, we don't have super heroes like that in real life to save planet from disaster.

If black hole engulfs everything, our brain and sense of thinking would be traumatized with the extreme gravitational pull that in the matter of seconds, we would be vanished without any pain as if nothing happened

But this is happening in real. Some mad scientists who believe that everything is in control and in their hands are putting effort on creating universe on Earth's surface. If it's as true as Big Bang theory, it's gonna suck up the whole Earth. They are taking it as fun, damn maddies. They are creating black holes by destroying small form of stars into their experimenting tubes. The experiment is ongoing since more than a week. Their research could lead to the destruction of human kind. They should be stopped immediately. If this black hole things happened for real, we won't be able to figure out a second earlier to it that we really existed.

Government is silent and as oblivious as always. They don't really want to create a mass panic by disclosing all real truths. But, at least we should be readied for what's coming and what's going on.

I'm really worried when I read this news on papers. Technology is becoming more curse than boon.

Check this video below to find out how those people have made this thing to simulate the creation of UNIVERSE.

Thank you for reading my post.

Tech Related Funny pictures

2008-09-17T20:39:00.005+05:45

Time to chuckle. These are some of the addition to my series of FUN related section of my blog.

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°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø, ¸ °º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

Thank you for reading my post.

Recover Forgotten Windows XP password easily

2008-09-14T12:35:00.005+05:45

Yesterday, I was presented with a computer packed with crucial pharmaceutical database and informations. I was to get the crucial data back to the new computer. This was the biggest challenge for me, because, they didn't want to mess with the configuration and I had zero idea about all those pharmaceutical softwares and so. Being counted as a trusted Tech-consultant, I had to solve that problem and I had to port the softwares/data from old system to new system intact. They don't know where all those installation CDS are and the company from where they bought their softwares, for some reason, is not helping them at all. Okay, I took the job and something floated when I okayed.

I was thinking I would simply clone the system, then no fuss at all. But the next moment, I was thinking 'darn, it's a total new system that I would be porting image of old computer loaded with previous configuration with their own set of drivers etc'.(It would've been easy to re-image the clone if it was the bare image of fresh XP install prior to driver installation)
What on earth was I thinking when I okayed. The very next moment, my mind started working pretty fast. I resolved within 10 seconds. Well, while you think... you finish doing things in minutes, don't ya?? but while you try to finish that up putting your body into work..it takes heck of a time. That's the reality.

So, I planned and quickly put forward my opinions into paper. It was like this:
-clone the old system
-load the image into new one
-repair windows installation
-reload the drivers for new system
That's it.

The Real Challenge

But as soon as, I turned on the system.. I was welcomed by GUI asking me for password to log in. I was told on phone that the system not being used for a while has also the forgotten password. Darn... now, my plan changed. I really didn't want to screw up system by resetting it's password using third-party tools like locksmith.
Last time, I screwed up the whole XP's password database using some quickie-like password resetting tools and that ended up with system completely not bootable after login screen. I didn't want to happen same thing again. There is always two ways to do a thing. Believe me, quickest way is riskier, It might work or might not work but slowest way works most of the time and risk free too.

If you are depending upon some password resetting tools, you are taking risk. They are faster and can save lots of your time if it's a success. But, I've another way, which is timetaking and works all the time.

Instead of cracking password for that XP, I thought to take clone of that old system first.. before I mess up with it. So, I took the clone of the system using Acronis cloning tool.

Took me some 20 minutes to take clone of 20 GB data,and it was 5 GB when compressed as an image file. Image was saved on my external 1 Terabyte behemoth Freeagent Seagate drive(which is filled with back ups of my customers file and movies/songs/etc).

The new system also came with preloaded operating system. I cloned it too and saved it's image to my external drive, just in case you know.

The very next moment, I was re-imaging the clone image from old computer to new computer. It took me another 20 minutes. The challenge to break down the XP password was still there. I chose the slowest way to crack the XP password.

It's Time to Crack the password

I had my own copy of Windows XP with it's own key. The re-imaged new system has got it's already applied CD-key on it. I was really messing up things here with what I was going to do. But after all, it was the same thing with different label. Since I'd to repair XP installation as per the new hardware and crack the password , I did the following things.

-Pushed my XP CD on it's DVD drive and started computer. Meaningless to say, drive was set to boot up from within BIOS.

-As soon as I saw 'Press any key to boot from cd', I pressed on one of the keys

-Windows XP setup CD was inspecting all new hardwares and was busy loading drivers.

-After it was done, I agreed their License agreement and pressed F8 key.

-On next screen, I saw an option for repairing windows installation. I selected the windows partition and clicked 'R' to begin the repair process.

-Afterwards, it felt like if it's a new setup but it's not actually. Because, it was checking my disk for hardware details and copying all necessary setup files,took some 10 minutes for all these and rebooted itself.

-When the system rebooted, I was just staring at 'Press any key to boot from CD..'(if you are doing what I'm doing, don't ever touch any key at this time)I let it start by itself.

-Now, all the normal installation procedures was taking place, copying files.. 30 minutes left. blah blah blah...

-BUT, as soon as I saw 'Installing Devices' progress bar on the lower left side of the screen, I tapped in 'SHIFT + F10' key. I don't know if it's Microsoft's Easter egg or software bug, but it's really helpful to reset your XP password(Didn't I tell you the longest way to crack your password?? This is it and this was the moment I was waiting for.)

-After you tapped in 'SHIFT + F10', you'll get a command prompt or console out of nowhere.

-Type there this command 'NUSRMGR.CPL' . (To make it memorization friendly, take it as full form of 'NET USER MANAGER. CONTROL PANEL APPLET'.) and hit the Enter Key.

-You would now get the access to USER ACCOUNTs in the CONTROL PANEL with full adminitrative rights to delete user/change passwords and stuff like that. Do whatever you like, but I had to change my password. So, I changed the password to my preference after selecting that account which was asking for my passwords.I set it to Administrator user too. Pheww....

-Job was not done yet, so as soon as I closed the console/user account windows after changing the passwords, I let it go with the installation procedures. I was looking for XP PRODUCT KEY of the CD that was in the drive tray. I knew that this cloned-XP had it's own different PRODUCT KEY. So, I was taking risk of mixing up two product keys. But who cared, it was re-imaged OS on new hardware afterall.

-I was asked for the Product key, I entered them(it was of the XP CD on the CD DRIVE TRAY) and the system restarted.

-After reboot, I saw the ugliest windows screen that I've ever seen since ages. It didn't have graphics card driver loaded. So, I quickly logged in using the new password, looked into device manage and found lots of yellow icons.

-Next moment, I was searching for my UNIVERSAL XP DRIVER CD(you can find ISO of this CD all over the net) from my CD book. I rolled it in as soon as I found it and quickly searched for the drivers. Found em all and worked like charm.

-Now, What I saw was real nagging. I saw that yellow star on taskbar bugging me that Windows Validation didn't work. It's not genuine windows and some other intimidating Windows messages. 'Resolve now' or 'Resolve later' was what I saw when I logged in next time. I clicked 'Resolve Later' then and now it was appearing as small yellow star nagging thing. I clicked down there and brought me to new internet page I've never seen before. It was Microsoft's windows validation page. Since, I was hooked up to net through my ethernet cable, it was easy for me to download the tool to verify if the product is legit or not. I was confident, I ran the tool and after few secs, I was greeted with message ' The product looks legitimate, please enter your product key'.

At Last, the 'SUCCESS'

Now, to my full consciousness, I dared not to put the product key of the XP CD that was in drive but the product key of the old system from where Image was taken. I checked the old system, on top, there was a label stuck with the product key printed on it. I took a note of that and typed it in the product key form on new machine. The very next moment was a huge Success.

I successfully ported XP image loaded with drivers of different computer to totally new PC with different hardwares and driver requirements. On top of that, I cracked the forgotten XP passwords too. It was a success.

What I usually do is I keep an XP image after the fresh install without any hardware driver installation. I've a CD/DVD of universal XP drivers consisting above 100,000 drivers for hardwares. I re-image the XP clone, install the driver and change the product key to my customer's product key using third-party softwares. So, it's no way illegal cloning XP system as some of you might be guessing. They'll will be using their own license after all. I'm just speeding things up and It usually took not more than 30 minutes. But this time, this whole thing took more than 3 hours.

Some of the default message that I've written above is purely based upon my memory from yesterday. I couldn't take snap shot of those installation procedures because, I broke my camera. Read here about my camera breaking news if you care and how I'm coping with it. But whatever, the default messages written above are more than 85% accurate and should give you enough idea on what to do next.

Thank you for reading my post.

How to set up Multiple homepages in Firefox and IE

2008-09-12T20:54:00.005+05:45

This was the incident of couple of weeks ago, I came across a client who wanted to have her own business site and her personalized web mail to be come up as soon as she double-clicks her browser. It was to start two home pages at once in Firefox.

I never had to deal with it. And, after fiddling a bit, using the common sense while sending mails, I tried ';' or ':' as soon as after one home page is typed in. Didn't work. Then, I tried for this separator key '|' which is just above the slash key living in unity or say above the ENTER key. That worked. What else, on the homepage setting menu, I first typed in those homepages like this.. for eg: firsthomepage.com|Secondhomepage.com and hit OK. She was happy.

Okay, here is how we do it in FIREFOX and Internet Explorer.

I know you guys know how to change the internet settings in browsers. It's slightly different in Firefox than in Internet Explorer but that shouldn't cause anyone much problem.

In FIREFOX, go to Tools->Options
You'll see something like this below(I've set here 3 pages to start simultaneously as soon as I hit that FIREFOX icon on my desktop):

In Internet Explorer(precisely in IE7), go to Tools->Internet Options
And you'll see something like this below.
NOTE: In IE7, you don't need to type that separate '|' key. Just hit the Enter key once you're done with the first homepage and so. Finally click hit OK button.

That's it. You're all done. Now, you've multiple pages coming up at once. Be warned, though, it'll consume your PCs memory or may be you might end up thinking why your Browser is loading slow than before if you are trying to fire up 10 sites at once.

Just in case, if you are suffering from IE7's welcome page or popularly known as RUNONCE annoyance, you wouldn't be seeing any of the effects that I've shown you here in above paragraphs. How to get rid of that thing(I've heard that IE8 does have option to disable this though,good job Microsoft.)

Normally what happens is when you first install your IE7, you'll be presented with screen like above. What the heck, there is no homepage set for this page on Internet Options menu either. So, How do I get rid of this page coming up on and on(There is always an another way for things to do).
(From what I've learned, usually we are to tamper only with the USER section of 5 registry KEY HIVES. This will cause changes on for that user, not for other user on the system)
Follow your registry key(Start->Run->RegEdit) like below:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
and create new Dword values:

RunOnceHasShown
RunOnceComplete

Set it's values to 1.

Or If you don't want to go through this hassle, download this registry update
Save it, Run it and when asked, click OK-OK.

You might wanna restart your computer after this.
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But there is a geeky way to restart your system without restarting your computer. I do this all the time but if you are not that adventurous, just restart the computer. There is nothing to read below this.

Actually, there is a very important thing to read here(Just kidding ;):
-Launch your Windows Task Manager (Press Ctrl+Shift+ESC at once)
-End process called Explorer.exe
-Give it a moment to restart everything, all it's dependencies, once thing became silent. From the same Task Manager, Click File->New Task and type in "explorer.exe"

That's it. You restarted your system without restarting your computer.
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Thank you for reading my post.

Powerful and Free online Photo-editing application

2008-09-10T11:31:00.005+05:45

Google is so right about Internet slowly being the massive collection of web application. Take this for example, Image Editing. We can't do much without Image Editing in our computers. Every here and there, we try to retouch our photos that we took from our possessed digital cameras or say mobile cam phones. Forget Photoshop for now, lets give a try on picnik.com

Don't be fooled with that 'hand' cursor when you don't see it on 'picnik'. It's my windows cursor ;)

This thing is the vibrant example of what visionary internet Giant like Google has been mentioning all the time. picnik.com is all about editing your photos online without any need for third-party photo softwares like photoshop etc. If you've been wondering what is web application all about, then try 'picnik' and you'll get what it is.

This site doesn't require you to register. If you are in a hurry and not bothered to give away your email address to register and then use their service, this site will let you do your business right away. It is quick, it's innovative and it's productive.

I'm compelled to write this post when one of my client was so amazed to see that her photo was retouched sooo fine without any photo-editing software on her computer. It surprised her even more when she learned that this was actually done by online thingy. After witnessing her zeal, I thought to write a post about this, hope this neglected portion of what I've been using could be useful or say surprising for others.

People still think internet is only about email and information. Common folk, wake up, where are you?? helllloooooooooooooo.. wake uppppppppp..

This 'picnik' is unbelievably easy to use, play with it and you'll be cussing why you've been ignorant of things like this.

Though, there are few features only limited to paid users. You gotta be there to learn about it. But for all other purposes, it suffice our need without the need for spending a penny.

Thank you for reading my post.

Dissecting Google CHROME

2008-09-08T21:55:00.012+05:45

Recently I've read lots of hurried posts(to be precise at least 11 posts) regarding Google Chrome BETA. Few days ago, when Google released it's beta version of the upcoming Internet Web browser, it seemed to me all the communities in the blogosphere were breathing Google Chrome in and out. Most of them did the review without knowing what really Google Chrome is about. That's how I felt after I'm into this Chrome thing for few days now. Because, they didn't have that time to research.

Google released it's beta Chrome, one downloaded it, and within next five minutes he/she posted a blog review on it regarding this and that. I really got nothing in my head after reading those reviews. It was too vague to understand, different people and different perspectives.

This is a yet another blog review on Google Chrome BETA in the blogosphere. BETA is in CAPITAL because this is still not a flawless and expect to get variable ups and downs during the course of it's usage. If so, immediately report to those dudes working on it.

According to Google, CHROME is an open-source Internet Browser inviting thousands of developers from around the globe to participate in making/improving of it. When I went through their comic book pages describing why CHROME is developed, I got the clear cut message. CHROME is the next generation web browser. It's their witty attempt(even those who hate reading would end up reading comics) to showcase their manual on CHROME in comic book form. They've a perception; which is focused towards the change, change in a way we surf pages and this is the first step towards the evolution of web browser. That's what they say. They also say old web browsers are designed for surfing pages, but today people are using applications over the internet. A need for separate browser which is designed not just for surfing page but for much more multimedia stuffs is imminent. I don't know if it's their way of marketing their product to draw attention but one thing I can rest upon is whatever they do, their products are amazingly so good to be true.

Let me show you what I've to say about this new browser called Google CHROME.

I've a sandbox OS setup on Virtualization software where I test all new softwares(even malicious scripts/virus),etc. I tested it on Windows XP SP3 Sandbox.

1. I typed in www.google.com and on the very page, there was a link for downloading Google Chrome BETA. I downloaded it on the desktop.

The file size of the setup file was just 474 KiloBytes. As suspected, it was the small setup-file drop requiring you to have server side installation.

2. Once the Installation is completed, I followed it's cave where it was located.

Without helping it build any browser/cookies cache, I quickly checked it's file size and it was about 47 MegaBytes.

3. Next on, I started playing with it, noticing new things every here and there. Interface is totally improved, lots of new concepts are incorporated which I shall be discussing on following paragraphs. Thank god they've blue title bar by default and it's my best color.

Their history page is very intuitive and easy to use. Click this image above and you'll know what I meant.

4. Next on, I tried downloading something(IrfanView). Gracefully, it was a zip-zap and found that the download details were on the down-left of the browser. From where, You can execute the downloaded one or just open the location where it was stored.

This embedded download log on the down-right of the browser is very neat idea. I truly liked it.

5. One very handy feature of this browser is Incognito Mode. I looked on the dictionary for it's meaning and it was something related with 'stealth, concealed'.

As soon as I clicked the 'New Incognito Window' from the option drop-down located next to address bar, I was brought to new window page. When I read their first lines of brief intro on what this 'New Incognito Window' would do, I was momentarily excited if Google has made anonymous surfing possible with zero effort from user side. But as I kept reading, I found it's not to anonymize the online surfing but to uninstall all the websites history/cookies/caches as soon as I would close this tab.

I would recommend this feature if you are on your friends computer(if they have CHROME installed) or if you don't want your family member to figure out what you did online. This is the automated feature because you don't need to manually clear up your traces. Google made life easier.

One thing that I noticed was that top-left invisible man image on 'New Incognito Window'. That was another reason I ended up thinking if it's the invisibility from server side. I was wrong. It's bit tricky out there. Google could have come up with different image for that purpose rather than using the same image type which has been used by IP-Hiding softwares all over the internet. They are for invisibility or say complete anonymity from server-side perspective unless someone really bothers to dig in about the whereabouts. Whatever, this Incognito mode saves time.

6. Another neat feature is 'Create Application Shortcut'. You would access it just like you would access the Incognito mode. You just need to make selection on 'Create Application Shortcut' menu

The purpose of this 'Application shortcut' is the faster launch of your favorite sites. If you've a special sites like gmail,hotmail,youtube or any other sites, that you think is important to you, you can make shortcut to those sites and when you do that it'll be saved on your desktop like other application shortcut.

I wanted to create shortcut to my blog www.navinlama.com. I opened up that in the CHROME, and selected the 'Create Application ShortCut'. Next screen was something like below:

Since, I wanted it only on Desktop, I selected the Desktop Option and clicked OK.
Now, I don't even have to bother opening CHROME. Just double click that shortcut and it'll promptly open up giving you full view without any of those toolbars and any other bars.

7. Another addition is it's own TASK MANAGER. I'm not talking about Window's Task Manager but Chrome's Task Manager. When I was playing around with it, I discovered that there was a TASK MANAGER on the shortcut menu as I right-clicked on the Title bar of the CHROME.

When I clicked 'TASK MANAGER' from the shortcut menu, I was shown the following screen. It looked like CHROME was eating altogether 52 MB of the TOTAL RAM.

I fired up Windows Task Manager to find the real deal. Windows task manager was telling different story. It was showing figure larger than the Chrome's Task Manager. Since, Windows Task Manager handles all Microsoft Windows Processes, I believed it's Task Manager than Chrome's Task Manager.

Even if it's faster in browsing, it was consuming lots of memory. May be it's a bug or needs some tweak around, but considering computer with loads of memory packed in these day, it could be excused. What about old system, people coping with 256 MB or 512 MB RAM, it's better for them to understand, this next generation browser is definitely not for old generation system.

If you are discoverer by nature, you would discover bottom left link called 'Stat for nerd' on CHROME's Task Manager. Click there and you'll see something like this below:

Extensive view on memory usage, but still I don't believe this stat for some reason, umm till the time they release the final version.

8. I liked one cool feature of this browser. As soon as you press CTRL + T combo or launch new tab, you'll see the most visited sites listed on that new page instead of blank one which we are used to of. Isn't that cool?

9. If you've bookmarks/favorites from other browsers alike, you can easily import them.

Click on the far right drop down(with tools icon) and select the 'Import Bookmarks and settings' and rest is easy as 1-2-3.

10. Writing about this bookmark thing in CHROME, it's quite intuitive.

As you visit some sites, you'll see the transparent small bookmark icon usually represented by 'Star' icon in open source browsers. This time, it's just next to where FAVICON sits.

Click the Bookmark 'star' icon, it'll turn into fabulous yellow, type in your customized Bookmark Title or you can leave as it is, and hit the CLOSE button. That's it, your bookmark is saved.

Now accessing those bookmarks are even easy. Google Chrome has completely taken over the concept of BOOKMARKLETS and implemented it on their new browser. Bookmarks are just below the web address bar in Chrome. The concept is same but this is the most smartest way. Just click those visible bookmarks and you're right there on your favorite site instantaneously.

Hence, these are my experiences with Google Chrome BETA. I didn't want to compare it neck-to-neck with other browsers because that would be shameful act since we've come so far surfing net on those browsers and now diminishing their usefulness wouldn't be ruthful.

These are the reasons to step over to new Internet browser called CHROME. But CHROME still has few bugs. Like when I tried to access the blogger page, It gave me the error message something like below:

It had all cookies/JAVASCRIPT set to ON but still for some unknown reason, it didn't work at one go. I had to shut it down and on next restart of the browser, it worked.

During your CHROME experience, if you see something like this below:

Forgive them, it's still in BETA.

There are many sites, which weren't rendered properly. Hopefully, final release will solve all these problem. CHROME BETA is forgiven on this regard.

Also, there are some multimedia sites, it didn't work with. I've not yet experienced any crash and very eager to see their claim that each tab has it's own process running, and killing one tab wouldn't affect the entire browser. Which means, for some reason, if the browser crashed(I mean if the specific site caused the crash), only the tab would shut down, not other tabs opened. This is one dynamic approach and this really proves genius-at-work.

I highly recommend CHROME for next level of internet browsing experience. One more thing, it supports plugins/extensions. This was just a barebone review on CHROME BETA.

Thank you for reading my post.

Wipe your harddrive files permanently

2008-08-23T09:06:00.004+05:45

ND Data Wiper is one hellava light-weight but very efficient software to delete data permanently from windows. I've reviewed many softwares like this. This one is awesome addition to the list.

Give a try to this software. Select drive and scan it, you'll see zombie files that you thought were deleted. What the heck?

You know, this is really helpful if you are disposing your old computer and getting new one. Even if you format your old harddrive, with professional tools it's still possible for someone to take a peek onto your old files and stuffs.

Look at the screenshot above? It just found the files that were deleted permanently. Now, with this software you can actually delete them permanently in real. I don't want to limit you with this only piece of software, make sure to search for efficient tool in coming days, when you think of disposing your old computer and it's data for real. If that's a whole lotta hassles, destroy your working old harddrive. That's it.

One more thing to look out for, it's also a recovery tool. As soon as you scan for deleted files, it'll also give you the option to recover them. Just in case, you know? Check this image above, those are the deleted files on my computer and there is an option to restore and it worked.

I don't have any intuition to get rid of my computer for now but if I've, then definitely tools like this is my first option.

To my understanding, technically one can never delete things that's been written magnetically on the platters of the drive. What these tools all over the online claiming for deleting things permanently is nothing but a advertisement hype. The reality is it overwrites those sector with dump data leaving someone trying to recover with useless crap/garbled contents. So, this is how it works.

To download this full working software, click the link below:
Download NT Data Wiper

Thank you for reading.

Highway to speedy computing experience

2008-08-17T13:09:00.007+05:45

Unarguably, today's world is hooked up. Every computer that is sold gets connected to super information highway instantaneously. Gone are the days, when someone bought one and put it as a showcase putting not much into use except some gaming,office printing and stuff like that.

World is changing, everything is dynamic. Now, even small electronic devices are hooked up to vague network of information galaxy. GPS,gaming devices,cellphones are just the mere examples. Now, nothing is left disconnected.

Most people are still not happy with the ways how they are connected to this information highway. The war of Internet browsers and ever-speeding changing in Operating Systems, need for upgrades and the cost that it comes with while tackling these new things are hard to manage and sometimes, we've to live with it. Few weeks ago, I posted a video which is satirical on how rapidly a consumer has to face a computer upgrades. It's only consumer who suffers most. That was that point of that video post and indirectly advising consumers to be smart, not fall into such tricks.

Whatever, today I've come up with some tweak utilities that I researched for a week,tested it onto my computer and learned about it's efficacy. And, I'm surprisingly happy with the performance of these freewares. This post is the outcome of that.

The two main things are concerned when it's to connect to internet;your Operating system and Internet browsers.
(I'm a diehard fan of Microsoft Windows and I never needed a chance to look up into another OSes at all. One statistic shows Windows as a Operating system covers over 90% of the market share than the pathetically most bragged about other operating systems.)

Vista is gaining slow but steady reputation in Operating System Market and managed to grab Second Largest Operating System in Use after Windows XP. Sure enough, it's a good omen that Vista will be a number one very soon.

I'm using Vista Home Premium and it doesn't come with Group Policy Editing. Basically, to get things done, I had to do everything through Registry(which is not safe at all for any newbie). There are hundreds of Registry tweaks for Vista and it's almost same if you are familiar with XP's registry structure except few. But it's heck of time to figure out which settings does what and what are it's side effects. This was bit eerie unless I found this wonderful tool especially made for Vista. If you've used TweakXP for XP which integrates all the popular registry hacks for system performance, then, WinBubble v1.74 (Download WinBubble v1.74) is the galore of all the registry tweaks and hacks to improve the Windows Vista's performance and yes..exponentially.

This tweaking tool will take you to the next level of Windows Vista experience. If you've been hating Vista for all the rumors that people spread, you'll definitely be forced to change your perception.

You can learn about what this tool can do by visiting the authors blog here else the utility itself is easy to understand and self-explanatory to use.

Now, to talk about Internet Browser, latest incarnation of Firefox is the champion. Despite my support for Microsoft, I can't endorse Microsoft Internet Explorer as a good internet browser. The sluggishness and crash issues,ever growing vulnerabilities and some other weak keypoints are keeping me away from making it default browser in my system.

Firefox 3 wins in this case. Even if Firefox comes with all bells and whistles, it further needs tweaks to suit this browser to one's need. The 'about:config' doesn't give you any clue unless you know what you are doing. So, another excellent freeware to optimize Firefox comes in handy i.e FireTune v1.20 Freeware(Download it). You don't need to know any hacks or tweaks. Just fire up this tool, make some selections and the next Firefox restart will give you entirely new and blazing fast browsing experience.

These two tools are so easy to use that I didn't see much importance to write any walkthrough or How-to's on them. It's because even a 9-years could figure out what to do as soon as they see these two utilities running on their screen.

More on next time.

Thank you for reading my post.

Experience Tabbed Windows Explorer

2008-08-09T06:54:00.008+05:45

We've seen tabbed browser windows. So far I remember, Opera started the concept and later on other browsers like Firefox,IE and their variants followed the same. Firefox did surely proliferated the easiness of tabbed browsing.

QTTabBar is one dynamic software for every window user using Windows Explorer. Sure enough it is influenced from tabbed browsing concept. But QTTabBar is all about the tabbed exploring of your files and folders within Windows Environment.

QTTabBar works exactly the same way like those tabs in Firefox. You can close Tab,duplicate tab and more. This simple freeware tool when installed will definitely increase your efficiency. No more separate windows and cluttered taskbar. Windows has it's 'Group Similar Icon' feature to unclutter the taskbar but that's pathetic in front of QTTabBar in terms of usuability.

Lets discuss how to use QTTabBar and what it can do for you.
(You can download freeware QTTabBar from here.)

After you've downloaded and installed, it's not gonna work right away. You've to do some minor settings first. I've Windows Vista and in Vista Windows Explorer toolbar is not easily visible. Either, I've to press 'Alt' to activate those Toolbar or you can show explorer toolbar in following ways(in Windows Vista). Click on Organize->Layout->MenuBar. This will set Toolbar On. But, if you ask me, I don't really like people to come and see those toolbars on my computer. So, personally I prefer to turn it off. If you've Windows XP, don't really bother about whatever you've read on this paragraph.

Now that you've Toolbar ON. Right-click on the toolbar. Select QTTabBar. That's it. QTTabBar should be in effect.

Try opening several windows and play with your new User Interface.

With this, you've to use 'Alt+M' to turn Toolbar On or Off. Alt key or any other combo won't work to access your toolbar in Windows Vista. So, use 'Alt+M' to access your toolbar.

One thing you would notice is the Small Down-Arrow Icon on every folder's right hand side(see image below). That has a special purpose.

With this small icon, you don't have to traverse through folders to folders. This will give you a quick overview of what folders and files are residing inside without actually going back and forth. This will greatly save your time and increase your efficiency(see image below).

In addition to that, it'll quickly give you a quick thumbnail view of images without loading them first in any image viewing softwares. This will save your computer's Memory because, you don't have to preview them by opening them separately in image viewing program.

That's it. Enjoy Tabbed Exploring your files and folders.

Thank you for reading.