Technology Bites

Search Torrents from your Desktop with TorrentFetcher

Ram — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:05:14 +0000

There are several torrent search engines and every torrent tracker provides a search engine, but it would be better to have a desktop app that can search for the torrents. Some of the torrent download clients allow this but they still redirect you to web based search engines. TorrentFetcher is a desktop app that allows you to search torrents from your desktop.

After installing the software you can search for torrents with keywords, to filter out the results select the category you want to search, like software, games and so on. You can also select how many results you want to see. You can specify the download location for the torrents in the application. Double clicking a torrent link will download .torrent file. Please note that it won’t download the files associated with the torrents, but only .torrent files, that means you need a program like uTorrent to download the actual files.

The torrent search listing is fairly useful, it will show, rating, size, date, no of seeds and peers associated with the torrents, but you can’t sort based on these criteria, sorting would have been better.

Features:

Search through multiple pages of torrents at once.
Automatically move downloaded torrents to a specified output directory (good for bittorrent clients that monitor a specific folder, like uTorrent).
Automatically launch downloaded torrents.
Know which torrent files you already have in your downloaded folder through automatic highlighting.
Results highlighting lets you know if a torrent is well or poorly seeded or if it has negative comments left about it.
Automatic detection and removal of "denis stalker" trackers using the MonoTorrent library.
Minimize-to-tray option to keep the utility handy at all times.

TorrentFetcher is a freeware for Windows and is a tiny application, just 420kb in size.

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Google Chrome Extensions

Ram — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:57:49 +0000

Some of the Firefox’s popularity can be attributed to the number of add-ons available to pimp the browser. Google Chrome doesn’t have a stable extensions capability yet but it is possible to install extensions, only thing is you need to run developer builds of Google Chrome browser. Developers are building extensions to the Google Chrome browser, although there are only handful of extensions at this time, if the extension support is well built into the Google Chrome browser then I am sure we will see valuable extensions to the platform.

How to install extensions in Google Chrome

You need to download Google Chrome Developer build for the extensions to work.

After installing the developer build right click the Chrome shortcut and click properties. After chrome.exe add this –enable-extensions

chrome.exe –enable-extensions

Now go to the extensions page and download the extensions and install them.

How to uninstall extensions in Google Chrome

For any reason if you don’t like or don’t use the extensions you can uninstall them easily.

Enter chrome://extensions to the address bar you will see the list of installed extensions with uninstall buttons. Click on the uninstall button to uninstall any extension with ease.

Delicious Chrome Extension

Firefox delicious extension is one of the popular and quite useful extension. Now the Delicious team has released the extension for Google Chrome, the extension is a light version which allows you to post bookmarks from Google Chrome to Delicious. It adds a bookmarks button to chrome omni-bar (address bar). Using the button you can bookmark stuff to delicious, you can also use Ctrl+D keyboard shortcut to bookmark. Download Delicious Chome Extension

Download Google Chrome Dev Builds Check out sample extensions.

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Windows Live Planet: Social Network from Microsoft India

Ram — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:22:17 +0000

Windows Live Planet is a social network from Microsoft India. The details about the site like when it is launched are not available at this time but Liveside readers spotted the site from MSN India pages.

You can connect to Windows Live Planet with your windows live ID or Hotmail ID. The site allows you to connect with friends instantly, find suitable match for you and what with your online live messenger buddies. Live Planet is integrated with Live messenger toolbar, you can chat using this with your live messenger friends.

You can import friends from other social networks including Facebook, My Space, LinkedIn, Hi5 and Tagged to your planet in live planet. Also you could search for friends using various criteria and add them to your network.

The social network is not only specific to India, you can register from anywhere. It is not clear when they launched it in India and couldn’t find any source related to that.

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TubeMaster++ for downloading Videos and Music

Ram — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:31:28 +0000

TubeMaster++ is a freeware for windows that allows users to capture the video and music playing in ay browser. Unlike other video download tools you don’t have copy paste the URLs, it automatically captures the media you are playing at any time, all you need to do is keep the TubeMaster++ running.

TubeMaster++ not only captures the video but it can also convert the web video to multiple file formats including AVI, MPEG, MP3, MP4, WAV, WMA, MOV, Ipod, PSP, Blackberry, Neuros, Palm etc.

TubeMaster++ has an integrated search engine for video and music search, searches most of the video sharing sites including the popular ones like Youtube, Dailymotion, Google Video, Myspace, Hulu and more.

TubeMaster++ needs Java runtime environment and WinPcap for functioning both of these are included in the download. Currently it is only available for Windows, Linux and Mac versions are under development according the TubeMaster website.

Download TubeMaster++

, Via Freewaregenius

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Firefox 3.5 Final is available with Private Browsing, Geo location features

Ram — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:21:56 +0000

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 final is released today with several improvements and new features. The most notable are new Tracemonkey Javascript engine which will make rendering heavy Javascript pages like Google Docs and others to load faster. Geo location features, and HTML 5 tags support is also included. The release also includes improvements to the Gecko layout engine.

With the HTML 5 tags web pages can be designed to include video and audio natively with out needing plugins like Adobe Flash player, although the supported video and audio formats is limited to Ogg Theora for Video and Ogg Vorbis for audio currently.

“Firefox 3.5 supports new web technologies such as: downloadable fonts, CSS media queries, new transformations and properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 local storage and offline application storage,

This release also includes “tab tearing” which allows you drag and drop tabs between browser windows. You can drag out a tab to open it as a new browser window, or drop it back to previous browser window.

Private Browsing:

Firefox 3.5 comes with a private browsing mode aka porn mode, other browsers like Chrome and IE8 already have this feature. The private browsing mode allows you to browse the web with out leaving a trace on the system.

In a Private Browsing session, Firefox won’t keep any browser history, search history, download history, web form history, cookies, or temporary internet files. However, files you download and bookmarks you make will be kept.

To start the private browsing mode go to Tools and select “Start Private Browsing”, the tabs which are already open will be closed immediately but Firefox will save them and they will return when you end the Private Browsing session or close the Firefox and reopen it. You can also use a shortcut Ctrl+Shift+P to start and stop private browsing session.

Clear History: Clear recent history got a useful feature, now you can erase history of a timeframe instead of removing the entire history. The option allows you to just remove Last Hour history or last two hours, last four hours or Today and of course everything.

Firefox 3.5 is available in more than 70 languages, Download Firefox 3.5 US English version, download other versions from here.

Updated with more details

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Map FTP drives as Windows Local Drives with NetDrive

Ram — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:37:27 +0000

Everyone who has a website or blog has to upload files to their ftp server and download files to local computer regularly. There are some great software like Filezilla to do that, but there is also a better way to use FTP with out connecting with FTP software. NetDrive is a freeware for Windows that allows you to map FTP servers as local drives in Windows.

NetDrive mounts the remote FTP servers as windows local drives, you can drag and drop files to your mounted FTP drives like normal windows local drives. You can configure it to mount the FTP drive when Windows starts, useful if you are using the FTP server as a backup drive. Not only copying back and forth but you can play video, audio files and run .exe files etc.

Using Site Manager you can easily register and connect with FTP servers you want to access. There is no limit for the number of sites that can be added. It also comes with pre loaded with a few anonymous FTP servers like KDE, GNOME, FreeBSD, Adobe, Apple, HP and Microsoft servers.

NetDrive is a free for personal use. It works with Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista.

Via Downloadsquad

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Droprecord uploads files to multiple file sharing sites

Ram — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:12:24 +0000

File sharing is a common practice among users to share files with friends or to host files elsewhere if they don’t have enough drive space to host themselves. Sometimes you may want to upload files to multiple hosting sites so that you can eliminate download counters etc.

Drop Record is a free service that allows users to upload files to multiple file sharing sites at once. Upload a file to droprecord and it will mirror your file to various sites. After uploading you can check where it was mirrored, the status page shows whether it successfully uploaded the file or not and also a link to the file on that site if it was success.

Droprecord uploads to following sites: RapidShare, MegaUpload, EasyShare, DepositFiles, ZShare, FileFactory, FlyUpload, SendSpace, ZippyShare, Badongo, Badongo, MediaFire, NetLoad, MegaShare, Loadto, HotFile, 2Shared.

Related: TinyLoad, Zoom’s file & Image Uploader is a desktop app which supports more sites.

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Read Print is an Online Library Where You Can Read Books For Free

Keshav — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:34:46 +0000

“I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book.” Said Groucho Marx. But apparently, everyone these days is too busy to read books. Of course you are excluded if you are a student and that too a ‘good’ student. People these days watch less of television and spend more time online. Spending time in the library is a far off thing for many.

Read Print is an online library, where you can read books for free. Although the books available on it’s virtual shelves are not comparable to the wealth of books found in a real library, you won’t be disappointed when it comes to reading popular literature sitting at home, clicking away novel after novel.

As per their records, they currently accommodate over 8,000 books from over 3,500 authors. If you are free this summer vacation, you can go through the entire works of Shakespeare, or spend time on some novels by Charles Dickens.

Each author page not only has his/her writings but also a plethora of quotations and a detailed biography. Plays and dramas are categorized into acts and scenes which can be browsed as one finds time.

If books seem alien to you and you’re confused over where to start, you can check out the top authors section on the site and go through their writings. Similarly, a top books section has also been created. One the other hand, books can be browsed by categories of fiction, non fiction, essays, plays, poetry and short stories.

Read Print makes up for a pretty site to read books. Reading stuff on the monitor may not be your thing. But when you have to read a book and got no library nearby, this is the website you open first. Moreover, it would be more advantageous for the people behind Read Print to release an iPhone App for the service, as it could, to some extent compete with Amazon Kindle.

If reading stuff in one go is not your thing, DailyLit is a similar service that will email you small editions of books so that you can read it in installments. DailyLit has free books, as well paid ones so you can purchase the ones that you don’t find in Read Print’s belly.

Check out » Read Print

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Windows 7 pricing announced, pre order upgrade for half the price

Ram — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:06:25 +0000

Microsoft’s new operating system Windows 7 will ship on October 22, 2009. Today Microsoft announced the pricing details for windows 7, interestingly the prices are slightly lower when compared to the Windows Vista prices. Along with the pricing Microsoft is also allowing users to pre-order upgrade packages for half the price in select markets.

The Home Premium upgrade has been reduced to around 10% (varies based on the market). In the US it is available for $119, Vista is available for $129, a drop of $10. The price of the full version of Home premium is dropped from $240 to $200, Vista home premium ships for $240.

Here’s the low-down on pricing for Windows 7.

Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99
Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99
Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99

And the estimated retail prices for full packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:

Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99
Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99
Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99

For the users who want to pre-order Windows 7, Microsoft is offering a limited time offer. In select markets you can pre-order Windows 7 at more than 50/ discount. “In the US, this will mean you can pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium for USD $49.99 or Windows 7 Professional for USD $99.99. You can take advantage of this special offer online via select retail partners such as Best Buy or Amazon, or the online Microsoft Store (in participating markets).” Microsoft Says. More information on this offer can be found here.

This program begins tomorrow in the U.S., Canada and Japan. The offer ends July 11th in the U.S. and Canada and on July 5th for Japan or while supplies last. Customers in the UK, France and Germany, can pre-order their copy of Windows 7 starting July 15th and will run until August 14th (or supplies last) to ensure folks don’t miss out on this. Act fast if you want to be the first in line to get Windows 7 at this screaming deal! Note: The special low pre-order price will vary per country.

“On October 22nd, Windows 7 will be available in the following 14 languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Chinese (Hong Kong).”

“Then on October 31st, the remaining 21 languages will become available: Turkish, Czech, Portuguese, Hungarian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Greek, Ukrainian, Romanian, Arabic, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Estonian, Slovenian, Hebrew, Thai, Croatian, Serbian Latin, and Latvian.” according to Microsoft.

Microsoft is also offering a free upgrade to users who wants to purchase a PC in bteween June 26th and October 22nd.

But, you don’t have to wait until GA to get a new Windows PC. In fact, we know many people need that new PC sooner – for back to school specifically. And we have the answer for people who need a new PC now but still want to get Windows 7 and that’s the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program, which kicks off tomorrow, June 26th! Anyone who buys a PC from a participating OEM or retailer with Windows Vista Home Premium, Business or Ultimate on it will all receive an upgrade to the corresponding version of Windows 7 at little or no cost to customers. The Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program will be available until January 31st, 2010 – and is global! For more information on taking advantage of the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program, visit www.windows.com/upgradeoffer.

Via Windows Team blog

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Yahoo new home pages and how to get back to the old home page

Ram — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:34:45 +0000

Yahoo is testing new home pages for quite some time, these new home pages are not enabled for all Yahoo user, but only a small percentage of users will see these designs. There are two variations of the new Yahoo designs, one that is released in Sep 2008 and the other that is released in May 2009.

Both the new designs offer clean interface and some customization to add apps, social activities etc. But some users really hate these new home pages.

How to get back your old Yahoo home page

Delete the cookies, delete cache, files and restart your browser. That’s all you need to do to get back your old Yahoo home page. If you are using IE go to Internet Options and delete browsing history that will erase, history, cookies, temporary internet files etc. If you are using Firefox go to Tools > Options > Privacy tab, click settings in Private Data and set what ever you want to remove and save, then clear private data. If this doesn’t help check here for instructions to use another method.

For the curious these are the new home pages that are being tested. The first screenshot is the latest and the second is the previous.

Latest home page

Previous home page

Screenshots via YodelAnecdotal

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