World is a lab

Tips to save battery power on your Smartphone

2013-01-15T18:24:00.056-08:00

We hate to see how our devices loose power. Here's few tips to save your battery power and usage cost:

Turn off Mobile data (when using WiFi at home or office). Enable it only when you need.
Set Data Saver on.
Turn off 'Allow Background data usage'.
Turn off Location Access - You can turn it ON as and when you need.
Minimize the volume for games and other media.
Switch off noisy alerts or notifications.
Brightness - Let the device decide brightness - Choose the automatic brightness. And set the automatic brightness to lower yet comfortable to your eyes.
Enable Night light on your Phone (if available). Night light tints your Phone's screen towards the warmer end of the spectrum.
Disable animations - Use static wallpaper instead of dynamic or live wallpaper (which drains your battery)
Don't daydream - Click on setting > display > daydream > default is clock (recommended), or just switch it off.∂ƒ
Prioritize which apps you need to keep sync'ed all the time. (Go to Setting - Google - Click on your email Id, and you have choose apps in the order of priority and rest keep unchecked.)
If you have a Lock screen setting, set it to lock as early as 15 seconds.
Disable features that you won't be using often. Enable on need basis.
Remove fancy apps you wont be needing.
Remove apps which you don't use often, and reinstall when you use it.
Monitor the mobile apps and services that use most of your battery power by visiting the battery setting. Find replacement to an app that hogs power.
Use wall charger to charge your smartphone, instead of USB from your laptop. Use USB only to 'top off'.
Consider buying power bank.

Insert key on Mac OSX / Microsoft Word 2011

2012-10-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

Today after few years suddenly I felt the need for the insert key on Mac, that generic keyboards have. I was filling a Microsoft Word form and the common use case was to delete all underscores and replace them with the contents requested. My first instinct was to find and replace but that would create a new mess of reformatting few pages. Hence I went in seek of my good old friend - The insert key.

On Microsoft Word 2011 for Mac OSX, there are 2 options. I chose the latter.

Add overtype option to the toolbar:
1. Go to 'View' > 'Toolbars' > 'Customize Toolbars and Menus...'
2. In the dialog window, select the 'Commands' tab.
3. Choose 'All Commands' from Categories,
4. Drag and drop 'Overtype' to the toolbar, after selecting it from Commands.

Add overtype keyboard shortcut:

1. Go to 'View' > 'Toolbars' > 'Customize Toolbars and Menus...'
2. Click the 'keyboard...' button and customize keyboard dialog window opens.
3. Choose 'All Commands' from Categories,
4. Choose 'Overtype' from Commands,
5. Place your cursor in textbox that reads 'Press new keyboard shortcut'.
NOTE: I found that combination of Command key + (keys from 7 to 9) were not assigned to any command. So, I chose 'Command' + '7'.
6. Don't forget to press the 'Assign' button.

That is all! You may also go to 'Preferences' - 'Edit' - 'Overtype mode'. But I found that option more annoying and less useful.

How to setup multiple Google Chrome profiles (on Linux/ ubuntu)?

2012-06-25T15:21:00.000-07:00

This might be a rare case that you might want to set up multiple Google Chrome profiles. It happened to me because I had 2 boxes at work and the Google Chrome was installed on NFS. Now when I try to start the Chrome browsers on both the machines (one after another), the second machine always gives me the following error - "The profile appears to be in use by process 4944 on host myname-linux1. If you are sure no other processes are using this profile, delete the file /home/myname/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock and relaunch Google Chrome." The reason is obvious that both the boxes are accessing the same NFS allocation. And hence this post:

To create a new profiles

Duplicate the google-chrome folder and delete the Singleton Lock.

cd /home/$USER/.config/
cp -R google-chrome/. profile1
mv profile1 google-chrome/
cd google-chrome/profile1
rm Singleton*
rm .nfs*

Add 'Google Chrome' shortcut link to the top panel

On the top of your screen or desktop, Go to Applications menu > Internet > and right click on 'Google Chrome' menu selection. A context menu will pop-up; select the option 'Add this launcher to panel'. This action will add a Google Chrome shortcut link to top bar called 'Panel'

[A panel is an area in the GNOME Desktop where you have access to certain actions and information, no matter what the state of your application windows. For example, in the default GNOME panels, you can launch applications, see the date and time, control the system sound volume, and more. By default, the GNOME Desktop contains a panel at the top edge of the screen, and a panel at the bottom edge of the screen]

Update the properties of the 'Google Chrome' shortcut

Right click on the 'Google Chrome' shortcut link, and select properties. In the properties dialog box,

Replace 'Google Chrome' with 'Google Chrome - profile1' in the Name textbox

Add the --user-data-dir flag to the Command textbox, as shown below : /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --user-data-dir=.config/google-chrome/profile1 %U

Repeat steps 1 - 3 to create multiple profiles (viz., profile2, profile3,...).

To use the Google chrome profiles

I had to restart my machines to sync the shortcuts on every Linux box.
On box 1, I clicked on the Google Chrome profile1 shortcut link, and on box 2, I chose Google Chrome profile2 shortcut link, and so on.

To clear any of the profiles

Go to the profile in question, (for example: profile1)

cd /home/$USER/.config/google-chrome/profile1
rm -R *

Resources:

To improve the performance of your Windows XP (besides buying / adding RAM)

2009-08-17T17:39:00.001-07:00

Here are some quick tips, I compiled, to improve the performance of your computer / laptop:

For quicker bootup time, in the BIOS setup, (a) enable Quick Boot Mode, (b) set boot device priority to hard disk instead of CDROM drive, (c) disable floppy drive seek
Uninstall all the softwares that either are unnecessary, or rarely used. Start > control panel > add or remove programs. If you have a install CD of any software that you use rarely, i suggest you remove such softwares from your system, and install it when needed.
Run disk cleanup regularly. Start > run > type cleanmgr.exe.
Free up as much space as possible from your laptop's HDD. Tip: To free up space, move all (or at least downsize) the data, videos, photos, songs to an external HDD or copy them into CD/DVDs.
Run scandisk / checkdisk in SAFE MODE. This repairs anything on disk that is at fault. start > run > type chkdsk
Run disk defragmentor. Schedule it to run periodically. Start > run > type dfrg.msc
Remove or stop the startup programs which are less or not important. Go to start > run> type msconfig. Select 'startup' tab - uncheck any program you don't want to run when you start windows. Here's an exhaustive list of start up programs with explanation.
Similarly convert all automatic services to manual. Note: do not use "msconfig" to disable services, type "services.msc" instead. Here's how you can manage the services.
Change the virtual memory page. go to control panel - system - advanced - advanced - virtual memory. At the bottom of that dialog, you will see recommended sizes. Suggest you to increase the 'initial size' to 1023*4 and maximum size to 1023*8. This allocation depends on the capacity on the HDD. Make sure you have more than 8GB of free space for this allocation.
I never realized this, but to keep the system from heating up to abnormal temperatures, we need to keep the orifices of the laptops clean (for example, by spraying cleaning duster from office depot into the orifices and forcing the dust/dirt out - Be careful while spraying for the solution is harmful). This improves the laptop performance.
Use an antivirus.
Move all the fonts from the fonts folder to a different location except for the ones that are commonly or regularly used, because fonts take a while during boot up. NOTE: in the event that you ever want to use one of those fonts again, you just have to copy it back to the fonts folder.
Download Tweak UI from Microsoft and run to configure your microsoft provided apps and services to an optimal level.
Create a guest account with limited privileges so that you prevent virus or spywares installing themselves. The user of that laptop should be logging (into windows) using guest account. use normal login account for administrative purposes only.
If required, use some tools to manage the memory usage: (RamCleaner, RamOptimizer, MemMonster, Free Up Ram, SuperRam, RamSmash, MemZilla, MemoryWasher). I have not tried any of these, though.
After all these steps, if your laptop still crawls, you may want to upgrade RAM. Note: if you are adding RAM, add no more than 3.25GB, for, 32 bit windows uses only that much.
Finally, consider buying new cheaper laptops

To improve performance during runtime or while using the laptop,

Minimize all windows, except for the one that you are using. that way, the memory usage for minimized windows goes down automagically.
Close or exit all the applications that you see in your 'system tray' that are of lesser use. (like you dont need logitech app running, when you dont use your web cam).
Disk cleanup as mentioned earlier (above).

Cool knowledge resources :

Reduce the belly fat

2009-07-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

Stop consuming carbohydrates and replace it with vegetables and fruits
Choose from cruciferous (cabbage, brocolli, etc.), fibrous (brussels sprouts, carrots, celery, etc) vegetables
Eat steamed or boiled vegetables.
Choose fruits like apples, avacadoes, blue-berries, dried figs, gooseberries, prunes, raspberries
Eat whole fruit and not the juices extracted from these.
Consume button mushrooms and fish (cod, shrimp, tuna, halibut, and salmon) for they contain Selenium which fights obesity, and fixes a lot other health related issues.
Adding protien (such as lean meat, fish, and poultry) to your diet keeps you full but not fat.
Monounsaturated fatty acids are fats which are healthy and they target belly fat. MUFA oils like canola and olive are the best. Also nuts which contains MUFA are almonds, cashewnuts, pistachios to name few.
Eat olives as they help in reducing belly fat as well.
Do not just exercise your belly (like doing crunches) instead consider exercising your whole body for an hour minimum each day, by dancing, jogging, skipping, and/or swimming.

World is a lab...

2009-06-29T11:31:00.000-07:00

I just created this blog hoping to write some useful solutions to day to day problems. world is a lab, so come lets start experimenting...

Installing SQL Server Management Studio 2008

2008-11-25T16:29:00.000-08:00

Pre-requisites :
1. Uninstall all previous SQL Server express editions.
2. Download and install Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5 SP1.
3. Download and install Windows Installer 4.5 (important of you have pre-Vista OS).
4. Download and install Windows PowerShell 1.0.

1. Go to microsoft downloads
Download "SQL Server 2008 Express with Tools" which contains the following features:
* SQL Server database engine - create, store, update and retrieve your data
* SQL Server Management Studio Basic - visual database management tool for creating, editing and managing databases

2. Download the files most appropriate for you
SQLEXPRWT_x64_ENU.exe
SQLEXPRWT_x86_ENU.exe

3. Execute the installation package (Start the wizard).

4. Once the "SQL Server Installation Center" wizard shows up, you will see links on the right :
Planning
Installation
Maintenance ...

5. Select Maintenance > Edition Upgrade ;and install features which upgrades your SQL Server to Enterprise edition.

6. Close and Restart the wizard.

7. Now select Installation > New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add feature to an existing installation; and follow the instructions. (Check Management Studio / Tools in the Features lists )

You are done with installing SQL Server Management Studio 2008