Tips an Tricks

Useful Websites Worth a Bookmark!

2011-10-02T11:46:00.000+05:30

The sites mentioned below, well most of them, solve at least one problem really well and they all have simple web addresses (URLs) that you can easily learn by heart thus saving you a trip to Google.

01. screenr.com – record movies of your desktop and send them straight to YouTube.
02. bounceapp.com – for capturing full length screenshots of web pages.
03. goo.gl – shorten long URLs and convert URLs into QR codes.
04. untiny.me – find the original URLs that's hiding behind a short URLs.
05. localti.me – know more than just the local time of a city
06. copypastecharacter.com – copy special characters that aren't on your keyboard.
07. topsy.com – a better search engine for twitter.
08. fb.me/AppStore – search iOS app without launching iTunes.
09. iconfinder.com – the best place to find icons of all sizes.
10. office.com – download templates, clipart and images for your Office documents.
11. woorank.com – everything you wanted to know about a website.
12. virustotal.com – scan any suspicious file or email attachment for viruses.
13. wolframalpha.com – gets answers directly without searching - see more wolfram tips.
14. printwhatyoulike.com – print web pages without the clutter.
15. joliprint.com – reformats news articles and blog content as a newspaper.
16. isnsfw.com – when you wish to share a NSFW page but with a warning.
17. e.ggtimer.com – a simple online timer for your daily needs.
18. coralcdn.org – if a site is down due to heavy traffic, try accessing it through coral CDN.
19. random.org – pick random numbers, flip coins, and more.
20. mywot.com – check the trust level of any website - example.
21. viewer.zoho.com – Preview PDFs and Presentations directly in the browser.
22. tubemogul.com – simultaneously upload videos to YouTube and other video sites.
23. truveo.com – the best place for searching web videos.
24. scr.im – share you email address online without worrying about spam.
25. spypig.com – now get read receipts for your email.
26. sizeasy.com – visualize and compare the size of any product.
27. whatfontis.com – quickly determine the font name from an image.
28. fontsquirrel.com – a good collection of fonts – free for personal and commercial use.
29. regex.info – find data hidden in your photographs – see more EXIF tools.
30. tineye.com – this is like an online version of Google Googles.
31. iwantmyname.com – helps you search domains across all TLDs.
32. tabbloid.com – your favorite blogs delivered as PDFs.
33. join.me – share you screen with anyone over the web.
34. onlineocr.net – recognize text from scanned PDFs and images – see other OCR tools.
35. flightstats.com - Track flight status at airports worldwide.
36. wetransfer.com – for sharing really big files online.
37. pastebin.com – a temporary online clipboard for your text and code snippets.
38. polishmywriting.com – check your writing for spelling or grammatical errors.
39. awesomehighlighter.com – easily highlight the important parts of a web page.
40. typewith.me – work on the same document with multiple people.
41. whichdateworks.com – planning an event? find a date that works for all.
42. everytimezone.com – a less confusing view of the world time zones.
43. warrick.cs.odu.edu – you'll need this when your bookmarked web pages are deleted.
44. gtmetrix.com – the perfect tool for measuring your site performance online.
45. imo.im - chat with your buddies on Skype, Facebook, Google Talk, etc. from one place.
46. translate.google.com – translate web pages, PDFs and Office documents.
47. youtube.com/leanback – enjoy a never ending stream of YouTube videos in full-screen.
48. similarsites.com – discover new sites that are similar to what you like already.
49. wordle.net – quick summarize long pieces of text with tag clouds.
50. bubbl.us – create mind-maps, brainstorm ideas in the browser.
51. kuler.adobe.com – get color ideas, also extract colors from photographs.
52. followupthen.com – setup quick reminders via email itself.
53. lmgtfy.com – when your friends are too lazy to use Google on their own.
54. tempalias.com – generate temporary email aliases, better than disposable email.
55. pdfescape.com – lets you can quickly edit PDFs in the browser itself.
56. faxzero.com – send an online fax for free – see more fax services.
57. feedmyinbox.com – get RSS feeds as an email newsletter.
58. isendr.com – transfer files without uploading to a server.
59. tinychat.com – setup a private chat room in micro-seconds.
60. privnote.com – create text notes that will self-destruct after being read.
61. flightaware.com – live flight tracking service for airports worldwide.
62. boxoh.com – track the status of any shipment on Google Maps – alternative.
63. chipin.com – when you need to raise funds online for an event or a cause.
64. downforeveryoneorjustme.com – find if your favorite website is offline or not?
65. example.com – this website can be used as an example in documentation.
66. whoishostingthis.com – find the web host of any website.
67. google.com/history – found something on Google but can't remember it now?
68. errorlevelanalysis.com – find whether a photo is real or a photoshopped one.
69. google.com/dictionary – get word meanings, pronunciations and usage examples.
70. urbandictionary.com – find definitions of slangs and informal words.
71. seatguru.com – consult this site before choosing a seat for your next flight.
72. sxc.hu – download stock images absolutely free.
73. zoom.it – view very high-resolution images in your browser without scrolling.
74. wobzip.org – unzip your compressed files online.
75. vocaroo.com – record your voice with a click.
76. scribblemaps.com – create custom Google Maps easily.
77. buzzfeed.com – never miss another Internet meme or viral video.
78. alertful.com – quickly setup email reminders for important events.
79. encrypted.google.com – prevent your ISP and boss from reading your search queries.
80. formspring.me – you can ask or answer personal questions here.
81. snopes.com – find if that email offer you received is real or just another scam.
82. typingweb.com – master touch-typing with these practice sessions.
83. mailvu.com – send video emails to anyone using your web cam.
84. ge.tt – quickly send a file to someone, they can even preview it before downloading.
85. timerime.com – create timelines with audio, video and images.
86. stupeflix.com – make a movie out of your images, audio and video clips.
87. aviary.com/myna – an online audio editor that lets record, and remix audio clips online.
88. noteflight.com – print music sheets, write your own music online (review).
89. disposablewebpage.com – create a temporary web page that self-destruct.
90. namemytune.com – when you need to find the name of a song.
91. homestyler.com – design from scratch or re-model your home in 3d.
92. snapask.com – use email on your phone to find sports scores, read Wikipedia, etc.
93. teuxdeux.com – a beautiful to-do app that looks like your paper dairy.
94. livestream.com – broadcast events live over the web, including your desktop screen.
95. bing.com/images – automatically find perfectly-sized wallpapers for mobiles.
96. historio.us – preserve complete web pages with all the formatting.
97. dabbleboard.com – your virtual whiteboard.
98. whisperbot.com – send an email without using your own account.
99. sumopaint.com – an excellent layer-based online image editor.
100. lovelycharts.com – create flowcharts, network diagrams, sitemaps, etc.
101. nutshellmail.com – Get your Facebook and Twitter streams in your inbox.

Basics of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

2011-09-15T13:03:00.000+05:30

At my day job, we’re contacted every now and then by clients asking about search engine positioning and optimisation. Most of the time the client has been approached by an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) consultant trying to talk them into paying lots of money for search engine optimisation. The SEO firms promise “guaranteed top results” and “submission to 500 000 search engines and directories”.

Many site owners are regularly contacted by scam companies of this kind, and it’s understandable that many take the bait and start paying for “top results and submission to everything”. After all, who doesn’t want their site to be highly ranked by search engines?

In an attempt to help a few people avoid paying for unnecessary search engine optimisation, I’d like to share what I have done to achieve very good search engine rankings, for this site as well as for clients’ sites.

First, just let me say that not all SEO consultants out there are scam artists – there are many reputable firms in the business. However, anyone promising “guaranteed top results”, “submission to 500 000 search engines and directories”, “instant results”, or “permanent top positions” is most likely a scammer. There is no way anyone can guarantee that your site is the number one result unless they actually control the search engine results, or if the top ranking is for a word or phrase that only exists on your site, of course.

What strikes me as I think through the steps I have taken to get good search engine rankings is how much SEO has in common with accessibility, usability, and high quality markup – the principles of web standards. That actually makes it even better: by making your site more accessible and usable for humans, and by using valid, semantic markup, you also make it more attractive to search engine robots.

Consider the guidelines I describe here a basic level of SEO – try this first, and if you’re still not getting the results you want, you may want to look into getting help from a reputable search engine optimisation firm. If you contact someone regarding optimising your site, ask them what they will do for your site. If they suggest any kinds of shady methods, be very careful. They might get you penalised or even banned from search engine indexes. On the other hand, if their advice includes what I’m suggesting here, they will probably do a good job.

There are no shortcuts

I’ll start with the bad news if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to get great results. There isn’t one. Instead, expect to do some hard work, especially when it comes to the content of your site.

You will also need patience. Results do not come overnight. If you’re working on improving the search engine positioning of a client’s site, you should probably explain this to them early on.

Write good content

This is probably the single most important thing you need to do if you want to be found on the web. Even if your site is technically perfect for search engine robots, it won’t do you any good unless you also fill it with good content. Yes, really!

Good content to me is text that is factually and grammatically correct, though that is not necessarily a must for all kinds of sites. Whatever your site is about, the content needs to be unique and/or specific enough to appeal to people. More specifically, it needs to be useful to the people you want to find your site.

Good content brings return visitors. Return visitors who like your content will eventually link to your site, and having lots of inbound links is great for search engine rankings, especially if those links are from highly ranked sites.

Closely related to good content is fresh content. By adding new content regularly, you give visitors a reason to come back. Search engine robots will also visit your site more often once they notice that you update regularly, which means that any new content you add will be indexed quicker.

When doing work for clients, creating quality content is rarely the responsibility of the web designer. Often, the client wants to write their own copy, which is fine if they’re good at it and keep adding new content. In my experience, that is rarely the case. If at all possible, try to make the client realise that they should hire someone to help them write, or at least get someone to help them edit what they have written. In either case, make it clear to them that they can’t expect consistent high rankings without good content.

Think about spelling

If you write in English, you are probably aware of the differences in spelling between American and British English. Colour vs. color, optimisation vs. optimization, etc. There are also many words that are commonly misspelled (this goes for all languages).

I don’t like the idea of intentionally misspelling words, since it goes against my definition of “good content”. If words with multiple spellings or commonly misspelled words are an important part of your content, i.e. keywords, consider adding a glossary or similar to include the most common spelling variations on the page.

Write descriptive page titles

By making your page titles simple, yet descriptive and relevant, you make it easier for search engines to know what each page is about, and people scanning through search results can quickly determine whether your document contains what they are looking for. The page title is also what is used to link to your site from search result listings.

Because of this, the title element is one of the most important elements on a page. Some argue that it is the most important element.

When it comes to the order of the text in the title element, I’ve found that the following works well:

Document title | Section name | Site or company name

Based on a discussion here a while ago, that is probably one of the best formats for accessible title texts. Again, accessibility and SEO work together.

Whatever you do, don’t use the same title text for all documents. Doing so will make it much harder for search engines, people browsing through search results, and site visitors to quickly find out what the document is about.

Use real headings

Use the h1 - h6 elements for headings. Using graphics for headings may let you use any typeface you want, but search engines aren’t going to pay much attention. Even if you (as is required) use the alt attribute to specify alternate text for heading images, that text will not be anywhere near as important as real text in a heading element. In my experience, this is true even if the images are inside heading elements. If you know otherwise, please tell.

If you cannot use real text, look at the various image or Flash replacement techniques that are available. Be aware that there may be a tiny risk involved in doing so. Since image replacement techniques involve hiding text, it is theoretically possible for search engines to penalise you. Currently that risk seems very slim, but don’t say I didn’t warn you if it does happen.

Use search engine friendly URLs

Avoid dynamically generated URLs that use a query string to let the server know which data to fetch from a database. Search engine robots may have difficulties with this kind of URL – they may stop at the question mark and not even look at the query string.

Use search engine friendly, human readable URLs instead. This will help both your ranking and your users. I’ve seen incredible improvements in search engine results from just changing the URL scheme of a site.

Get linked to

There is no easy and sustainable way to solve this one except for – you guessed it – providing good content. Incoming links are very, very important for SEO. They are also possibly the hardest part of SEO to implement.

However, in my experience incoming links are less important the more specific and unique your content is. As an example, a couple of our clients are in what you may call niche businesses. They don’t have lots of sites linking to them, yet they started ranking very well in search engines after I had applied the knowledge I’m sharing here to their sites.

Use valid, semantic, lean, and accessible markup

Most web browsers have advanced functionality to decipher the tag soup mess that is used instead of HTML on most current sites. You can’t rely on search engine robots to do that to the same extent. Validate your HTML and avoid presentational markup – use as lean and clean markup as possible. By increasing your content-to-markup ratio, you make your site faster and more attractive to search engines.

High quality markup will help boost your rankings.

Accessibility is also very important. Making your site more accessible to vision impaired humans will also help search engine robots find their way around it. Remember, Google is blind, so even if you don’t care about blind people using your site (which you should), you’ll still want it to be accessible. This means that you should use real headings, paragraphs, and lists, and avoid using anything that may interfere with search engine spiders.

Flash and JavaScript are fine, as long as they aren’t required to navigate your site and to access vital information. Don’t hide your content inside Flash files or behind funky JavaScript navigation. Browse your site in Lynx, and with graphics, CSS, JavaScript, and Flash off. If that gives you problems, it is likely to cause problems for search engine spiders.

Submit carefully

Often slightly overrated, submitting a site to directories and search engines can be useful, especially if the site is new and hasn’t already been picked up by Google and others. Go ahead and submit it to Google. It won’t hurt, but most likely Google will find you anyway.

Two directories that may be worth submitting to are Yahoo! Directory and the Open Directory Project. Be patient – it will probably take several weeks for your submissions to be processed, unless you pay for them to list you.

Don’t try to fool the search engines

Don’t use cloaking, link farms, keyword stuffing, alt text spamming or other dubious methods. They may work for a short while if you’re lucky, but you risk being penalised or even banned from search engines, which you do not want.

Search engines want their results to be accurate, and they don’t like it when people try to trick them. Just don’t do it.

Avoid using frames

While it is possible to provide workarounds that allow search engine robots to crawl frame based sites, frames will still cause problems for the people who find your site through search engines.

When somebody follows the link from a search result listing to a frame based site, they will land on an orphaned document, outside of its parent frameset. This is very likely to cause confusion, since in many cases vital parts of the site, like navigational links, will be absent.

Some sites use JavaScript or server side scripting to redirect anyone trying to load a document outside of its parent frameset to the site’s home page. This is a very user hostile thing to do, and it definitely does not help the people visiting your site. Just lose the frames. They are bad for usability anyway.

Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery

2010-08-14T17:32:00.000+05:30

Accidentally deleted an important file? Lost something important when your computer crashed? No problem! Recuva recovers files deleted from your Windows computer, Recycle Bin, digital camera card, or MP3 player. And it's free!

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (Spyware Removal)

2009-11-30T13:12:00.001+05:30

Malwarebytes currently ranks among the top 10 most downloaded software on Download.com. It’s a very simple tool that does an important job, that is protecting your computer from spyware, hijackers, keyloggers and other kind of malicious craplets.

What makes Malwarebytes standout from the pack is its huge library of threats to protect against. That’s exactly what it makes so effective when it comes to detecting spyware that other spyware scanners miss. This same library made the earlier recommended Security 360 a powerful tool.

Malwarebytes may not be as feature-laden as say Spybot Search and Destroy (another good spyware removal tool), which has a ridiculous number of tools, but it is a very lightweight alternative with good spyware coverage.

Download MalwareBytes (Free): www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
Download MalwareBytes (Premium): https://store.malwarebytes.org
(Platform: Windows only)

There are both free and premium versions. The only difference between the two is real time protection. With real-time protection, Malwarebytes will alert you about the spyware before it’s even able to install itself on your system.

IZArc (Universal Archiver / Extractor)

2009-11-29T11:09:00.001+05:30

One archive utility to rule them all. This archiver suppots both popular (ZIP, RAR, ACE, 7-ZIP, TAR etc.) and less popular (IMG, ACE, TZ, GZ, TAZ etc.) archive formats.

Basically this unpacker/archiver gives you everything you get with other popular archivers (ex. Winzip, Winrar etc.) but with additional features and support for a huge number of archive formats. It can decompress archived folders in over 40 formats.

7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CDI, CAB, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MBF, MDF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO

That is to say, it supports pretty much every format you’re likely to come across.

There is something else, you can also use the IZArc utility to open CD image files like ISO, BIN, CDI and NRG. Do you know of any other free archiver that can do that?

Note: When installing IZArc make sure to uncheck the “recommended” option to install PalTalk.

Download: http://www.izarc.org/download.html
(Platform: Windows only)

Digsby (Multi-protocol Instant Messenger)

2009-11-28T22:03:00.000+05:30

If you chat on a regular basis and are active on social networks then this is a must-have program for you. There is so much this app does that it’s hard to explain it all in a few lines. Firstly, it’s a universal instant messenger that allows you to chat with your friends on MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Google Talk, Facebook, Myspace, ICQ and Jabber, all from a single messenger.

Secondly, it allows you to read and reply to your emails. That’s right folks, whether you have a Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail account you can receive and reply to emails all from Digsby’s slick interface. Currently Disgby works with Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, AOL/AIM Mail, POP Email, IMAP Mail accounts.

And that’s not all, you may also monitor alerts and set status message notifications for Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and LinkedIN accounts. Pretty cool, huh!

Other less important but still noteworthy features include:

chat history (with search option)
file transfer history to keep a log of sent/received files
a widget for site owners to chat with visitors

(Note: Pay close attention when installing Digsby on your computer and make sure to deselect (selected on default) the additional components you don’t need. Plus, once the app is installed go to the preferences window and disable Digsby research.)

Download: www.digsby.com
(Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux)

Mozy ( Backup )

2009-11-28T09:59:00.000+05:30

Backups are very important! Here on MakeUseOf we have published dozens of articles explaining why you should always keep a fresh backup of important data. And Mozy is the perfect program for that. It’s an online backup and recovery service that allows you to select files and folders on your computer and safely back them up online.

It’s fully automated, just set it once and it will do the backups without bothering you again. What’s even better, whenever you make changes to individual documents or files within selected folders, your changes will be replicated on your backup copy as well. So your backup always stays up-to-date.

In the case of file corruption, accidental deletion or hardware failure, you may easily restore your backed up files from the web to the original computer or any another computer, be it a Windows or Mac.

Mozy offers both free and premium accounts (only $4.95/month). The only difference between those two is that free account comes only with 2GBs of storage space. It should be more than enough for backing up important files and documents. On the other hand, if you want to backup your music library, photos, videos or maybe an entire drive then we recommend signing up for a premium account.

(Note: Discount for MakeUseOf users. When signing up for premium account use ‘ MAKEUSEOF’ (all caps) promo code to get 10% off.)

Download Mozy (Free): https://mozy.com/registration/free/
Download Mozy (Unlimited): https://mozy.com/registration/unlimited/
(Platform: Windows / Mac)

xVideoServiceThief (YouTube Video Downloader)

2009-11-27T10:00:00.001+05:30

Almost everyone is on Youtube these days. And the fact that Youtube has more searches than Yahoo is good indication of this. The only issue with Youtube is that there is no option to download videos so that you can watch them on your computer, PSP, iPhone, mobile phone, iPod etc.

Fortunately there are lots of free software for that, and my favorite is xVideoServiceThief. Apart from downloading videos, it can automatically convert the downloaded video file to another format.

xVideoServiceThief can convert videos to several formats, including AVI, MOV, MPEG, DIVX, MP4 and several others.

Moreover, xVideoServiceThief works with other sites as well, not only Youtube. It can also download videos from Yahoo Video, Google Videos, Metacafe, Dailymotion, CollegeHumor etc.

Download: http://xviservicethief.sourceforge.net/index.php?action=downloads
(Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux)

doPDF (PDF Printer)

2009-11-26T13:49:00.002+05:30

Almost everyone once in a while needs to convert documents to PDF. The doPDF is the easiest tool that does exactly that. It installs a virtual printer on your computer that you can select using the print option from any program on Windows.

Whenever you need to convert a web page, Word document, Excel spreadsheet, photo or pretty much anything else to a PDF file just go to the print option in your program and select doPDF from the ‘Printer’ drop-down menu.

You can set the resolution to anything from 72 dpi to 2400 dpi, and the “printed” files are text searchable.

Download: www.dopdf.com
(Platform: Windows only)

Glary Utilities

2009-11-25T23:44:00.001+05:30

Glary Utilities is a free system maintenance tool for protecting, cleaning, repairing, and speeding up your PC. It comes with a one-click maintenance option that automatically runs all optimizations and repair jobs with a click of a button.

But the best thing about Glary Utilities is that it integrates over 15 other useful tools that nearly every computer user is likely to make use of. These are:

Uninstall Manager
Startup Manager
Memory Optimizer
Context Menu Manager
Registry Defrag Tool
Track Eraser
File Shredder
File Undelete
File Encrypt/Decrypt Tool
Disk Space Usage Analysis
Duplicate File Finder
Empty Folder Finder
File Splitter and Joiner

Highly recommended!

Please note, it’s highly recommended that you create a System Restore point when using system maintenance tools like Glary Utilities. This is a precaution to ensure that you can always revert your PC to an earlier state in case something goes wrong unexpectedly.

Note: During the installation process make sure to uncheck the Ask Search toolbar.
Download: www.glaryutilities.com/gu.html?tag=download

(Platform: Windows only)

AVG Anti-Virus

2009-11-24T21:39:00.000+05:30

AVG Free Anti-Virus is the most popular free anti-virus software in the world. It’s also the most downloaded software program according to Download.com.

Most of the MakeUseOf authors use AVG and we highly recommend it to others. It’s easy to use, consumes a relatively small amount of system resources and auto-updates itself with virus definitions on a daily basis. Install it once and it will keep your system secure without your intervention.

For those of you who frequently shop online and do regular online banking, AVG recommends AVG Internet Security. While it’s not free, it does offer complete Internet Protection that will keep you safe even from advanced online threats.

Download AVG Free: http://free.avg.com/gb-en/homepage
Download AVG Internet Security (Free Trial): www.avg.com/gb-en/download
(Platform: Windows only)

Making Money Through Blogging

2009-10-21T19:27:00.000+05:30

Blogging for profit has been around since the early part of this decade but for some bloggers, blog monetization is often taken for granted. Especially when the global financial markets started crashing one by one last year, the diversification of how blogs can earn money became a must.

Banner Advertising – The granddaddy of online business model still works today, despite the ad spend slowdown. Of course, advertisers are attracted to popular, high-traffic blogs.
Pay Per Click Advertising – A democratized method since this requires more focused niches, this is perhaps the most common way bloggers earn. Ad networks like Google AdSense, BlogAds, and AdBrite provide relatively easy way to monetize blogs.
Paid posts/reviews – An ethical grey area for most bloggers, this will surely be affected by the recent FTC announcement about blog reviews and testimonials. This type of regulation is not new, but may blaze the trail for other governments to implement their own version.
Getting hired as a Blogger – Bloggers can also take the “Professional Blogger” route by getting hired to blog or join a blog publishing network. This is most stable ways of making money but the most restrictive if you ask me.

For some people, this is obvious but new bloggers who have just entered into the fold must be reminded that there’s more to earning online than just Google AdSense.

Making Money Online with Google Adsense

2009-09-11T17:39:00.000+05:30

Website owners are continually on the lookout for ideas to assist pay the expense of their website. One widespread technique is to make use of Google AdSense. Website owners apply for an account that authorizes them to add text, or image advertisements to their sites. When a visitor comes to the website and clicks on one of the Google Adsense ads, the account earns money. Hence, pay-per-click is one method to produce money with Google AdSense.

Great content is important for the site owner who hopes to make money on the Internet with Google AdSense. The better the content, the more users a site generates, as a result the AdSense advertiser pays more.

SEO or search engine optimization is an important factor if a website owner hopes to make money with AdSense. Search engines like excellent quality content; appropriate content produces a higher place on the search engine return page. Organic or algorithmic SEOs compose content that engages both user and search engine spiders. In turn, this makes the site more appealing to AdSense customers.

Growing the visitors to your site enhances the probability that you will generate money online with Google AdSense. Use social media tools such as Facebook to drive users to your site. Do not be scared to post about your own business! Sign up for forums that are related to your business. Link to your site in your signature line; this will demonstrate every time you write a forum post.

Consider blogging. An additional way to make money with Google AdSense is to associate the content of your website with the content on your blog and publish advertisements on both. It is influential to connect with other bloggers — the leapfrog effect (clicking on a link on one blog to read something on a different blog) can drive additional users to your site.

It can be simple to earn money with Google AdSense but a site owner has to be inclined to carry through a determined, consistent effort.

We offers cutting edge facts and internet marketing strategies to help you succeed and make money online with your own website. You can createyour own website and start earning money online fast!

How do I clear my search history from the Google search box?”

2008-12-17T22:13:00.000+05:30

One of the most common questions I see about Google is “How do I clear my search history from the Google search box?”

Keeping your searches private is very time consuming (and confusing) these days.
I highly recommend using this more complete guide to how-to delete search history instead.

What’s everybody guilty of :)? If you’re one of the many it seems that have search terms you’d prefer to hide from other users of your computer, or feel the need to protect your privacy for bigger reasons, this article is for you. When you key into either the Google home page search box, the Google Toolbar search box or the Firefox Googlebar extension, the the search terms you keyed are stored unless disabled. Then, on subsequent uses of the search box, it suggests what it is you might want to search for by showing a drop down list filled with previously keyed search terms whose initial characters match what you are keying. For example, if you in the past searched for “hot pictures” and your spouse, kids or boss sit down and start to key in “hot tamales,” the words “hot pictures” will be in the drop down box as a suggestion for them. If this situation doesn’t thrill you, you need to tell the browser, and Google Toolbar or Firefox Googlebar to cut it out!

Deleting search history from the Google home page search box

In Internet Explorer

The search history that displays in the search box on the Google homepage is stored by your browser, not by Google. You can clear the history or disable this feature entirely by following these steps:

Go to the “Tools” menu
Select “Internet Options”
Select the “Content” tab
Within the “Personal Information” area, select “AutoComplete”
- To clear the current history, click on “Clear Forms”
- To disable this feature entirely, uncheck the “Forms” box

You can also delete individual entries from your search history by using the Down arrow key to highlight a previous search and then pressing the Delete key.

In Firefox

As with Internet Explorer, you can also clear the search history or disable the feature in Firefox.

Go to the “Tools” menu
Select “Options”
Select the “Privacy” tab
Within the “Saved Form Information” area:
- To clear the current history, click on “Clear”
- To disable this feature entirely, uncheck the “Save information I enter in web page forms and the search bar”

Another way to very quickly clear the search history is to place your cursor in the search box, right click and select “clear search history.” This is faster for on-the-fly clearing.

You can also delete individual entries from your search history by using the Down arrow key to highlight a previous search and then pressing the Shift-Delete key.

Deleting search history from the Google Toolbar

The Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer also retains the search history if you let it. Clearing the current search history or disabling the feature in the browser does not affect the Google Toolbar. You have to do it in the Toolbar separately.

To completely disable your Toolbar’s search history

Select the “Options” button on the Toolbar
Un-check the box next to “Drop-down search history”

To simply clear the current search history:

Click the Google logo to access the drop-down menu
Select the “Clear Search History” option

Deleting search history from the Googlebar Firefox extension

The Google Toolbar has not yet been written for Firefox, but there is an extension called Googlebar that provides a similar function. It also retains the search history. The difference is that it does not automatically place everything in a drop down list for the user to see. But, it is there to view with the click of a check mark at the right of the search box.

To completely disable Googlebar’s search history:

Click on the Googlebar logo at the left side of the bar
Select “Googlebar Options”
Select the Miscellaneous tab
In the “Save History” section, uncheck “Preserve the search history across browser sessions”

To simply clear the current search history:

Click the Googlebar logo
Select the “Clear Search History” option

Keeping your searches private is very time consuming (and confusing) these days.

14 Awesome Google Tricks You May Not Be Using

2008-12-17T22:11:00.000+05:30

If you ask your average Internet surfer what Google does, they’ll tell you that “it helps you find stuff, silly.” Some may even mention that it’s good for email, maps, and maybe a couple of other things. What many do not realize is that Google has some excellent functions that aren’t always easy to find. Here is a guide to 14 of the most innovative functions that many will find useful and most will find cool.

1. Weather updates from the Google search box

Visiting a place and want to know what’s the weather there like? Open up Google and type in “weather+Your place” for a live update. Simple and easy.

Example: Vienna Weather

2. Get Local Time For Anywhere

If you want to know the time local time at anyplace worldwide all you have to do is type “What’s the time in ______”. Fill the blank with the city’s name and the local time there will be displayed.

Example: What’s the time in London?

3. When is the plane arriving or departing?

Just enter the name of airline and the flight number and Google will show you the arrival and departure times. A snappy way to check the status.

Example: American Airlines 293

4. Book your flight

Type in “city1+city2” to get links for booking your flight.

Example: Atlanta+Chicago

5. How many feet in a meter?

Trust Google to know. It will not only convert metrics, but you can get currency conversions, your bytes and bits right, among others. All you have to do is, type in the question.

Example: How many feet in a meter?

6. Google’s proxy

You can’t use Google as a proxy server but you can use Google’s cache to look at websites that are not available due to traffic congestion or blocked. Type in “cache:thewebsitetoview.com” to have a look what’s on the site.

7. Interested in music?

You can use Google as a personal music search engine. Though a bit longer to type, but considering the results it gives, you can type -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(mp3) “Your Band” to get the search results for music.

Example: Music Search for Radio Head

8. Google for searching faces?

If you are searching for images of celebrities or famous persons whose name can have other meanings, you can try adding &imgtype=face at the end of your URL. Note: for this to work you will need to add that at the end of URL instead of putting it in your actual search.

Example: Paris

9. Is your stock up or down?

If you want to keep up with the latest stock market conditions, type “stocks:+nameofcompany” for the results.

Example: stock goog

10. Movie Ratings

And if you are interested in finding reviews about movies just type “movie:+your movie“. Google provides a meta parameter “movie” for finding details of movies. For example, if you want to search for the details of the movie The Matrix then you would have to use “movie:The Matrix”.

This would give you the information on the release year of the movie and also would show you the ratings which the movie has got from well known critic web sites. The interesting part of these reviews is that it even shows the number of positive reviews, neutral reviews and negative reviews, sorting by relevance, date and rating.

Example: movie:The Matrix

11. Find Free Stuff from Large Sites

If you want to find free stuff life wallpapers, website templates and images, Google search box gives you access to do it quickly through social bookmarking sites.

Example 1: site:delicious.com free “wallpaper”.

Example 2: site:digg.com free “wordpress templates”

12. Where’s the phonebook?

If you want to look up phonebook listing all you have to do is phonebook:CompanyName+Place or for personal listing rphonebook:NameofPerson+Place

Example for Business Phonebook: Disney CA

13. Range Search

You can search for terms withing a range by using “SearchTerm+2000..2008“.

14. Get some statistics

You can find some statistics like population of a place by just typing “population of Your Country“.

Example: Population of United States

Best Sites for Windows Tips, Tricks and Tweaking

2008-12-02T11:10:00.000+05:30

Windows Tips Galore
Active Windows offers a first rate combination of tips and tutorials along with some useful reviews. The PCStats site features an excellent collection of Windows tips taken from the PCStats forums. I particularly liked the registry patch for removing those annoying entries in the "Add/Remove programs" menu that hang around long after the program has been uninstalled.
http://www.activewin.com
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1190&page=3

Tweaks for XP Freaks
We've mentioned this excellent collection of free Windows XP registry tweaks before but on a recent visit I noticed that it's now bigger and better than ever. Each tweak can be downloaded as a .reg file to save you the task of editing your registry.
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Windows XP Tips from Microsoft
Dozens of XP Pro tips including a sneaky way to bulk rename files. I didn't know you could do that in Windows. Guess you learn something every day.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/tips/default.asp

How Fast do you Really Surf?
The high data rate you get when downloading a big file is not a
reliable measure of how quickly you can surf. This site offers a
free test that measures your connection speed to 40 different
sites worldwide. Be prepared to have your ego deflated ;>)
http://www.numion.com/

Mysterious Startup Programs Explained
If you've ever looked at your Windows startup folder you're bound to find a number of odd-named executables. Check out exactly what each program does at this valuable resource site:
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_full.htm

Find Email Addresses
If you are looking for someone's email address, the bad news is there's no central directory. However this site offers a meta search engine that will search many possible sources. Quite to my surprise, I found my own personal email address.
http://mesa.rrzn.uni-hannover.de/

Commercial Software for Free
Many commercial software products started life as freeware. You can still locate many of these original free versions at the Internet Archive, which has captured snapshots of the web at different points of time for research purposes. Just enter the software vendor's web site address and with a bit of luck, you may be able to locate and download a free version.
http://www.archive.org/

BIOS Optimization Guide
Want to tweak your BIOS for maximum speed or stability? Like to understand the meaning of some of the obscure settings in your BIOS setup? If so, head straight to this site.
http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=1

Organize Your Partitions Correctly
What's the best way to organize the partitions on your hard disk? Now that's a question that would take a long dinner and two bottles of red wine to sort out. For those who don't like wine or simply want a quick introduction to the issues, check out the following article.
http://aumha.org/win4/a/parts.htm

Optimizing the Windows XP Paging File
This is one of the best articles I've yet seen on this subject. It dispels many myths including setting the max and min sizes the same and setting the maximum size at 2.5 times the memory size.
http://aumha.org/a/xpvm.htm

Free Windows Networking Help
Got a networking problem? Want a networking tutorial? Need some background on Windows networking technology? Then head straight for this excellent resource site. The content quality is a bit variable but hey, it's free.
http://www.wown.com/

XP Questions Answered
This site offers an excellent collection of Windows XP tips including answers to some of the most common only encountered problems.
http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/all-tips.html

How to Make Windows XP Run Faster
This site lists a step-by-step procedure for optimizing the performance of Windows XP. Most of it is good advice but comes at a cost in the form of slightly downgraded appearance and the loss of little-used features and services.
http://www.techreviewer.com/viewpage.cfm/pi/9

Impressive Windows Tips and Tricks Site
More performance enhancing and behavior modification tweaks than you ever imagined.
http://www.mdgx.com

More Networking Help
A couple of issues back I mentioned the excellent wireless networking resources offered by the Practically Networked site. This prompted subscriber Richard Cowper to write in about the Home Net Help site. Nice find Richard. The coverage is wider than just wireless networking too. Well worth visiting.
http://www.homenethelp.com/

Windows XP Tips Galore
The first link is to a site offering a nice list of 101 tips covering ways you can improve performance, increase privacy and more. The second link is another site which, rather cleverly, lists its tips in popularity order. Backing up/restoring/disabling XP activation topped the popularity list.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1494
http://is-it-true.org/nt/xp/index.shtml

Windows XP Myths Exposed
This is a well researched list that debunks dozens of commonly held Windows beliefs such as "Periodically cleaning the pre- fetch folder speeds up boot time." While visiting, check out other sections of the site; they are first class.
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html

Windows XP Fix Zone
Another useful tech support site with a large collection of how-to articles, troubleshooting guides and customization tips. The site organization is a bit strange but that doesn't detract from the value of the content.
http://www.winxpfix.com/

50 Places for Free Books Online

2008-12-01T18:33:00.000+05:30

I recently went looking for some free Ebooks and was surprised to find that there are many resources for this. I decided to put together this list of sites that offer free Ebooks as a reference. Since there are so many, I was not able to check each one out thoroughly. So comments from you on any of these sites would be appreciated. I did verify that these all are active and working.

Since this article has proven popular, I decided to go looking for additional sites and found a few worth checking out. I did not change the number in the title as I was uncertain how that would affect searches. These are listed at the end (until I have the time to add in to the list and re-number).

Putting this together was exhausting, but the list is not exhaustive, so I encourage you to post any sites that you know of that are not listed here. They are listed in alphabetical order. Enjoy.

1. 4eBooks - Thousands of free eBooks in every computer programing field with reviews and descriptions.

2. Alive and Free - Links to free ebooks of living authors

3. Arthur's Classic Novels - Over 4000 novels from the early 20th century

4. Ask Sam - A small collection of classics, including Shakespeare, and legal, resource and government texts.

5. Baen Free Library - A small library of downloadable science fiction novels in a variety of formats.

6. Bartelby - Harvard classics and encyclopedias. HTML only.

7. Berkely SunSite Classics - A small collection of classics. HTML only.

8. Bibliomania - Over 2,000 classic novels, study guides, biographies and more. HTML only.

9. BookRags - Small collection of free with many paid. Hard to find the free ones. Available in Word or PDF.

10. BookYards - 16,000+ books, videos, educational material.

11. DailyLit - Read books online by daily email or RSS feed. Over 700 titles.

12. Diesel eBooks - Offers 750+ ebooks formatted for Microsoft Reader and MobiPocket

13 eLibrary - Thousand of free eBooks

14. eServer - Over 30,000 works covering a variety of interests

15. FeedBooks - Thousand of eBooks downloadable in a variety of formats

16. Franklin - Thousands of free titles available in text and HTML format

17. FreeBookSpot - 5,000 free eBooks downloadable in 96 categories

18. FreeComputer Books - Free computer, math, technical books and lecture notes

19. Free eBooks - Smaller collection divided into categories

20. Free eBooks Net - Free books and resources for authors. Also magazines

21. FreeTechBooks - Computer science and programming books, textbooks and lecture notes.

22. FullBooks - Thousand of free full text books.

23. GetFreeEbooks - Smaller collection of all free ebooks.

24. Globusz - A place for new authors to post their work and for readers to check them out for free.

25. Google Book Search - Good selection of free ebooks available in a variety of categories.

26. GrtBooks - A large collection of great books and classics.

27. Gutenberg - Over 25,000 books for download there and over 100,000 available through their affiliates.

28. Infomotions - 14,000 listings from full classic novels to Western philosophy. HTML only.

29. InternetArchive - Over 500,000 texts available for download

30. ManyBooks - 22,000 books available for download in a variety of formats

31. Mary Jo's E Texts - Small collection has not been updated in a while, but links still work. Palm.

32. MemoWare - Free books for PDA

33. MIT Internet Classics Archive - Over 400 works of clasical literature available for download.

34. MobileRead - Forum listing thousands of free ebooks.

35. Munsey's - Over 18,000 ebooks available in a variety of formats

36. NetLibrary - Small selection of free. But annual membership is only $8.95 for over 500,000 works.

37. OnlineComputerBooks - Good selection of free computer books.

38. OnlineFreeeBooks - links to various ebooks (mostly pdf) in 9 categories

39. OxfordTextArchive - Over 2,000 classical texts downloadable as ASCII or DOC

40. PDFBooks - 4,700 pdf ebooks

41. PerseusDigitalLibrary - A large collection of classical texts broken down to time period written.

42. PlaneteBook - Free classical literature

43. PlanetPDFeBooks - Small collection of classical works.

44. ReadEasily - Small collection of works that has option for larger print. HTML only.

45. ReadPrint - Thousands of books, poems and short stories.

46. RealTime - Free media for IT professionals

47. Scribd - Open library to download or publish documents.

48. SnipFiles - Small collection of free ebooks and software.

49. WitGuides - Small collection of free ebooks in a variety of categories.

50. Wowio - Good size collection of novels and also comic books.

Best Free Web Browser

2008-12-01T18:31:00.000+05:30

Back in the early 1990's when the World Wide Web was young, there was only one web browser worth using: Netscape, which evolved from Mosaic. Then Microsoft gave us Internet Explorer and subsequently started including it with their OS. Thus began the browser wars, and IE eventually emerged as the clear winner.

Today Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) is a competent browser with enough features to meet the needs of most users, but it's difficult to recommend due to on-going security concerns. In the past IE has been a focus for security attacks, and there is little to suggest that this will change with newer releases of IE. Additionally, Microsoft has a poor track record for speedily fixing IE defects, and this has left users open to drive-by attacks and other forms of zero-day exploits. This has opened the door for a new set of browsers that are feature rich, very secure, and super fast.

When it comes to web browsers, everyone has an opinion. Every web browser will have a specific feature set that appeals to some while not appealing to others. The criteria used for selecting browsers in this review are the following:

Browser speed - How fast it can load a page. Important in any browser, but not the only criterion for judgement.
Security - How well the browser can handle exploits in web coding as well as keeping your online information safe.
Ease of use - How intuitive and easy to use is the browser?
Feature set - What kind of features are available to enhance the browsing experience (Example: Tabbed browsing, handling of bookmarks, etc.)?
Flexibility and Expandability - Can the browser handle non-compliant HTML pages? Is it expandable through add-on programs? Does it display included content (such as flash video) properly?

When it comes right down to it, the best web browser is one that allows you to view the Web the way that YOU want. The browsers listed below are, in this editor's opinion, some of the best at doing this by offereing ease of use, flexibility, expandability, security, and great feature sets, while simultaneously doing their prime function of displaying HTML pages.

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 is my first choice. It's safer than IE, so safe in fact that many users have reported no spyware infections since they started using the product. It also browses a tad faster than IE, is very stable and is more standards compliant. Firefox 3.0 has fixed a whole slew of issues that its predecessor suffered. Firefox 3.0 now starts up much faster than 2.0, handles memory better, and is the first official release of a Mozilla browser to pass the Acid 2 Web Standards test. With tabbed browsing and over 2000 free extensions (add-ons) that allow you to customize your experience, it provides the most flexibility, expanibility, and features of any browser to date. Firefox is now my everyday browser, though I still leave IE7 on my PC for the occasional web site that's designed around IE's non-standard features. If you need any further convincing then check out Gizmo's IE to Firefox migration guide.

An equal first choice is Opera. It's a speed demon; probably the fastest of all the common browsers. But it's much more than that; it's full featured, standards compliant and safe. Just as Firefox is extensible through add-ons, Opera can be enhanced using Widgets, though there are not nearly as many of these available as there are Firefox extensions. Then again, it doesn't need as many extensions because a lot of the features added by Firefox add-ons are already built into the standard Opera browser. There's just so much to like about Opera V9 that you could easily create a case that it's better than Firefox. Indeed, Opera used to be my first choice, and if I could get an Opera replacement for some of my key Firefox add-ons, I'd probably switch back.

For awhile I have been looking at Apple's Safari Browser. I have to admit I was hesitant to try this at first because of rumors that, while it ran great on Apple's OS X, it was unstable on Windows PC's. I also heard that its ability to render web pages correctly was not quite up to scratch. I could not have been more wrong. Safari is a very capable browser that is incredibly fast at loading pages. It was easy to install and use and of the browsers listed here, it scored the best on the Acid 3 Web Standards test. My only criticisms are that the interface is too "Mac" looking, which for long time Windows users may not be their cup of tea, but could be a plus for those moving from a Mac to a Windows XP or Vista PC. Also, there is no way to add plug-ins to enhance the browser, and weighing in at over 18 Mb, it is a large download for a web browser, but these are minor points. Safari is an excellent browser which will only get better with time.

Users who don't want to drift too far from the Microsoft stable can get some of the feature advantages of Firefox and Opera by using one of the many customized shells for Internet Explorer, such as Maxthon and Avant. The main selling point for these products used to be tabbed browsing, but now that this is available in IE7 it's hard to create a case for their general recommendation. Still, if you need a specialized feature they are worth considering. On the downside, these shells share most of the same security problems as IE because they utilize the IE engine.

Last but not least is K-Meleon, a slimmed down cousin of Firefox that's optimized for Windows. Of the four browsers reviewed here, K-Meleon is the quickest loading and, along with Opera, the fastest for surfing. There are only a limited number of add-ons and plug-ins available, so you are pretty well limited to the features available in the standard product. If you're the type of person who prefers performance to bells and whistles, then you should definitely try K-Meleon.

Product Specifications:

Mozilla Firefox
Website: http://www.mozilla.org/
Download link: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
Author: Mozilla Corp.
Current version: 3.0.4
Version date:11/13/2008
License: Free - Mozilla Public License
Download File size: 7.14 MB
Operating systems supported: Windows 98-Vista, OS-X, Various Linux Distros
Additional software required: None
64 Bit version available: No
Portable version Available: Yes - Available here
Non-English languages supported: Many; Available via downloadable language packs
Other relevant information:
Firefox Extensions: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:1
Gizmo's IE to Firefox Migration Guide: http://www.techsupportalert.com/firefox.htm
Changing the Language Pack: http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Changing+the+language+pack

Opera
Website: http://www.opera.com/
Download page: http://www.opera.com/download/
Author: Opera Software
Current version: 9.6.2
Version date: 10/30/2008
License: Free
Download file size: 5.39 MB
Operating systems supported: Windows 95-Vista, Mac OS 7.5-OS X, Various Linux Distros, OS/2, QNX, Various Mobile Phones, and Palm OS 5
Additional software required: None
64 Bit version available: Unknown
Portable version available: Yes - Available here
Non-English languages supported: Many - Available via downloadable language files
Other relevant information:
Opera Language Files: http://www.opera.com/download/languagefiles/

Safari
Website: http://www.apple.com/
Download page: http://www.apple.com/safari/download/
Author: Apple
Current version: 3.1.2
Version date: 6/17/2008
License: Free
Download file size: 18.6 Mb
Operating systems supported: Windows XP,Vista, Mac OS X
Additional software required: None
64 Bit version available: Unknown
Portable version available: No
Non-English languages supported: None

Maxthon
Website: http://www.maxthon.com/
Download page: http://www.maxthon.com/download.htm
Author: Maxthon (Beijing) Ltd.
Current version: 2.07
Version date: 12/28/2007
License: Free
Download file size: 2.9 MB
Operating systems supported: Windows 98-Vista
Additional software required: At least MS Internet Explorer 6
64 Bit version available: No
Portable version available: Yes - Available here
Non-English languages supported: Many - Available via downloadable language packs

Avant
Website: http://www.avantbrowser.com/
Download page: http://www.download.com/Avant-Browser/3000-2356_4-10150342.html
Author: Avant Force
Current version: 11.7 build 12
Version date: 9/20/2008
License: Free
Download file size: 1.95 MB
Operating systems supported: Windows 95-Vista
Additional software required: At least MS Internet Explorer 5.5
64 Bit version available: No
Portable version available: Yes - Available here
Non-English languages supported: Many

KMeleon
Website: http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/
Download page: http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/download.php
Author: amutch, boisso, kkohler, ron_aegis, ulferikson
Current version: 1.5.1
Version date: 10/16/2008
License: free GNU General Public License
Download file size: 5.2 MB
Operating systems supported: Windows 95-Vista
Additional software required: None
64 Bit capable: No
Portable version available: Yes - Available here
Non-English languages supported: German, French, Spanish, Russian

Best Free Antivirus Software

2008-12-01T14:39:00.000+05:30

Antivirus software provide a good layer of protection from a multitude of virus, trojan and rootkit threats. With the huge increase in malware, anti-viruses cannot fully keep up with all the viruses and other malware. This is why it's so important to use other security programs as well. Using more than one real-time antivirus can cause conflicts and uses much system resources, so in most cases it is recommended you only choose one antivirus software for real-time protection.

Avast! 4 Home Edition is my top pick for average users, although its funky media player style interface is not to everyone's taste. Avast is the least restricted product out of the three, with both anti-rootkit and anti-spyware capabilities. It also has full real-time capabilities, including a web scanner, an e-mail scanner and IM and P2P protection. In my usage of it, Avast was fairly light on resources. Avast is also the only one out of these three to continue support for older Windows platforms. However, Avast has a relatively high rate of false postives. It also requires periodic re-registration, whereas AVG Free does not. The sharware version also includes a script blocker, PUSH updates and various other features.

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition has been continuously refined since it was initially released in 1991. The latest version makes further improvements to an already solid product. It now includes spyware, phishing, and email scam protection. Its detection rate is still very good. Regular automatic updates come quickly as before and, despite rumors, the new email scanning feature is not trial limited to 30 days. It has grown considerably in size, is heavy on resources and has very slow scan speeds. The automatic updates occasionally did not work on my computer. By default, it installs the AVG Security Toolbar with Yahoo search. Free and paid versions are available; the differences are that the free version has anti-rootkit disabled, provides Linkscanner Lite instead of Linkscanner Pro and has no technical support other than a free user forum.

Avira AntiVir Personal Edition is my top recommendation if you're looking for the best protection against viruses. It is very light on resources and the detection rate of viruses and rootkits is outstanding, however, there are some reservations. First, it does not include antispyware protection or e-mail scanning, they are only available in the paid version. The lack of an e-mail scanner means that AntiVir won't warn you of infected emails before you open them. However, should you open an infected email, AntiVir will still spring into action, so it doesn't mean that you're not protected from email-based infections. Second, AntiVir's updates are usually slower than Avast and AVG, and occasionally stops updating for short periods of time due to server problems. Although AntiVir has advertisements that appear with every update, these ads can be disabled. Finally, AntiVir Personal Edition Classic has a time-limited license. It is renewable, but be aware that you'll have to periodically go through the hoops. Neither Avast or AVG is as effective in detection of viruses as AntiVir, but both are more complete products, and less intrusive in use.

These are excellent free antivirus that provide a real alternative to the major antivirus software.

You can increase your protection if you run on demand scans with another antivirus. On demand scans can be run regularly to check for viruses and other malware that may have been missed by your main scanner. If you have a good preventive security strategy in place, however, the extra protection this offers is minimal.

AntiVir or Avast can be used as an on demand scanner by choosing custom install when you are installin the product and disabling the real-time. AVG can be used as an on demand scanner by disabling the the real-time protection.

Another good option for on demand scanning is BitDefender 10 Free Edition, the free version of the commercial BitDefender Antivirus. It has good detection rates, but because the free version lacks an email scanner and a resident virus guard, it's only suitable for use as an on-demand scanner, not as your main AV program. There are some other limitations as well. It has an annoying habit of detecting malware products that have been quarantined by other security products, and you can't exclude these areas from subsequent scans. The program itself is using an old version of the engine, so the detection is weaker. And it's only available with a one year non-renewable license.

Dr.Web CureIt! or the Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool can also be used as on demand scanners. Both of these are portable applications, and are also excellent for cleaning computers that are already infected with malware. However, they both require you downloading the whole file again if you want to update it. In recent tests, Dr.Web has not been scoring very high. Kaspersky AVP Tool uses version 7 of the Kaspersky engine, not the newer version 8, so the detection will be lower. Nevertheless, they are still good choices as a secondary on demand scanner.

Avast! 4 Home Edition
Website: www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
Download link: www.download.com/Avast-Home-Edition/3000-2239_4-10019223.html
Author: Alwil Software
Version: 4.8.1296
Date: November 28, 2008
Download file size: 27.88MB
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista
64 bit capable: Yes
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: Yes
Additional software required: None

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
Website: free.avg.com/ww.download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition
Download link: www.download.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html
Author: Grisoft
Version: 8.0.176
Date: November 28, 2008
Download file size: 51.20MB
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: 2000/XP/Vista
64 bit capable: Yes
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: No
Additional software required: None

Avira AntiVir Personal Edition
Website: www.free-av.com/en/products/1/avira_antivir_personal__free_antivirus.html
Download link: www.download.com/Avira-AntiVir-Personal-Free-Antivirus/3000-2239_4-10322935.html
Author: Avira
Version: 8.2.00.337
Date: November 28, 2008
Download file size: 21.04MB
License: Free for personal use
Operating systems supported: 2000/XP/Vista
64 bit capable: Yes
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: German
Additional software required: None

BitDefender 10 Free Edition
Website: www.bitdefender.com/PRODUCT-14-en--BitDefender-Free-Edition.html
Download link: filehippo.com/download_bitdefender/
Author: SOFTWIN
Date: August 23, 2007
Version: 10
Download file size: 21.08MB
License: Free for one year, requires registration
Operating systems supported: 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista
64 bit capable: Yes
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: Yes
Additional software required: None

Dr.Web CureIt!
Website: www.freedrweb.com/cureit/
Download link: www.freedrweb.com/cureit/
Author: Dr.Web
Date: April 11, 2008
Version: 4.44
Download file size: ~11MB
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista/2003 Server
64 bit capable: Unknown
Portable version available: Program is portable - does not require installation
Other languages supported: Arabic, Armenian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Persian (Farsi), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
Additional software required: None

Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool
Website: avptool.virusinfo.info/en/
Download link: devbuilds.kaspersky-labs.com/devbuilds/AVPTool/
Author: Kaspersky
Date: April 11, 2008
Version: 7
Download file size: ~27MB
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: 2000/XP/Vista
64 bit capable: Unknown
Portable version available: Program is portable - does not require installation
Other languages supported: Unknown
Additional software required: None

Golden Oldies

2008-11-12T11:36:00.000+05:30

This site hosts old versions for those who wish to try to avoid bloatware:

http://www.oldversion.com/

You can also find some gems on ---

http://www.oldapps.com

http://www.oldware.org

http://www.filehippo.com

Best Free Technical Support Sites

2008-10-22T10:34:00.000+05:30

When compiling this list I only looked at free third-party support sites. If you are looking specifically for vendor support sites, then click here.

Most of the sites in this category have volunteer staffing and that means the quality of answers to your questions can very widely - it all depends on the individual you get. So don't take the following site rankings too literally as your experience may well differ from mine.

Outstanding Sites

Tech Support Guy Free help for users of Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, XP and Linux. This is a volunteer run site with a very active forum area covering a good range of subject areas. You can also search past forum messages, which can be a little slow but may still be the quickest way to get the answer to your problems.

The site layout has been recently revamped and this has greatly improved usability. On the down-side advertising is now more prominent, though not yet intrusive.

When we tested the service, we got the answer to one of our questions immediately by searching the past forum database. Our two remaining questions were posed on the live forums in the appropriate categories and got answers to both, very promptly indeed. Impressive.

5 Star Support
This free site offers a variety of tech support services. First there is an excellent on-line FAQ which provides quick answers to many common problems. Second, they offer some excellent technical guides which cover a wide range of topics from installing a network card to cleaning your mouse. Finally there is an web form where you can pose a specific problem and receive the answer by email.

We got the answer to one of our questions from the FAQ. The other two trickier questions we posed by filling in the web form. We immediately received an email saying that our questions had been sent to all the volunteers and we may receive more an answer from more than one volunteer.

That's exactly what happened, we got two responses to each question from different individuals. Quickly too, all responses came within 12 hours. The solutions posed were both sound and logical but didn't solve the problems. We then replied to the emails and asked for other solutions. After a couple of emails the volunteers came up with perfectly acceptable solutions though not necessarily the most technically insightful.

This service is free though donations for successful solutions are suggested. Overall an impressive service particularly for more straightforward problems.

Highly Recommended Sites

Protonic This is an online community that provides free computer technical support for Windows, Mac, Unix and Palm by email. The site is exceptionally well laid out and easily navigated. All you need do is , register for free then pose your question. The answer will be emailed to you very promptly.

Since last reviewed the site has gone from strength to strength. The already excellent layout has been improved further and response time to our questions was very speedy indeed.

Clean, straightforward and effective. I liked it!

AskMeHelpDesk is a Web site that pairs experts and novices to answer and ask questions. There are hundreds of topics, including many computer-related ones. The computer sections are quite active and I got answers to our test questions within a few hours. Take the strain off your help desk and get your users to check out this excellent free resource.

D-A-L Computer Help This a forum based Windows help service. It's quite active with responses to questions often posted within a few hours. The "Spyware, Adware, Viruses and HijackThis Logs" section is particularly active and the answers posted both helpful and sound. The "Hand Held" and "Web Design" sections are currently a bit thin but that does not distract from the overall excellence of this free site for general Windows support. Registration is required to post a question but this is a simple and speedy procedure. Well worth trying.

Help.com is a free tech support service from CNet. There are plenty of online resources to help you, drawn from a variety of sources. Some of these are on the help.com site, some are elsewhere. Included in the latter is a question and answer service that links to gives you an easy interface for the Usenet support newsgroups, although to use this service you must register.

Suggest A Fix This is a free forum where users can post problems in the hope that another forum member can help. The available forums cover operating systems, general computing, the Internet and security with many subdivisions under each category.

The forums are not the busiest we've seen but almost all questions attract good quality answers. Our 3 test questions were answered very promptly indeed the solutions provided and were of high quality.

Like many other forums, a few dedicated individuals seem to provide the bulk of the answers so you might find the quality of the answers varying day to day according to who's available. This reservation notwithstanding, we couldn't fault the service we received.

About Guide on PC Support Here you'll find an excellent portal site for all PC support issues. The information presented is thorough and comprehensive. They have a forum area where, after registration, you can post messages to other users free of charge. It's not a particularly active forum, with only a dozen or so messages a day, so you may have to wait a while for a response. We did however, get answers to our problems and the correct answers at that.

Virtual Dr This site forms just part of the huge Internet.com group of sites. They offer a pretty good set of online resources plus a well-used forum area where you can pose questions to fellow users. Registration is required but is free.

PC Crave A nice clean site offering free online and email tech support for all kinds of computer problems. Windows, Mac, Internet, Hardware etc. Just fill in the simple form on the site - no special registration needed.

Best Windows Freeware/Shareware Download Sites

2008-10-02T10:13:00.000+05:30

Outstanding Sites

ZDNetand CNet DownloadsThese two sites are just different faces of the same site. That site, however, offers the biggest collection of software on the web. Finding what you want is easy, because they have the best file search engine of them all. The user comments are useful but, beware, they are often stacked by comments made by the product developers pretending to be mere users.

MajorGeeks This site carries only tech tools and utilities and there's not a lot of guidance to help you select wisely. However, if you are looking for tech tools this is THE place to go. One of my favorites.

No-Nags One of the best freeware-download site on the web though they will try to up-sell you to their premium service. The shareware side is slowly being added and is not yet as impressive.

SnapFiles / WebAttack Offers a huge collection, great organization and a refreshingly clean presentation. A drawback is its somewhat unhelpful file-search facility.

FileForum-Betanews Not the largest download collection, but if you're looking for the very latest products you'll find them here long before other download sites.

Highly Recommended Sites

SoftPedia A large commercial site with a good collection of user reviews, but it's marred by lots of ads and general screen clutter.

Tucows Huge collection with world-wide mirrors for fast downloading. The Classic "cow ratings" for products are as reliable as ever. This once class-leading site has lost its way a little in recent times.

ServerFiles.com This is the old 32bit.com site re-launched as a site specializing in server software for network administrators and IT professionals. Quite a few products have ratings, some with full reviews. It's a unique offering and highly recommended if you fit the target market.

5 Star Shareware This quality UK site claims to feature only the best products in each category. And it does...almost.

VoodooFiles A specialist download site for gaming, multi-media and performance tweaking. Lots of quality reviews.

topshareware.com A good general interest download site that's competent

Other Sites

Shareware Junkies Every product here is independently reviewed, though many of the reviews are becoming dated. Can be helpful when you are trying to decide what you need.

Allen's WinApps List A fast and well organized site with a huge selection of software, but the search engine is woeful and there is little in the way of guidance as well.

WinPlanet
The aging remnant of the once excellent Stroud's CWS Apps site, it's now part of the Internet.com mega-site. It's still a useful site with many product ratings and some reviews. Overall, though, it is but a pale shadow of its former self.

Pass The Shareware A limited and somewhat aging collection but refreshingly free of advertising.