Tricks & Software

How To Remove Facebook News Ticker & Set Up Layout?

2011-12-25T18:37:00.000-08:00

Facebook came up lot of changes in the default dashboard like adding up the news ticker in the sidebar and soon starting from September 30 they will be rolling out the new TimeLine Profile Feature (developers will be able to preview it even earlier). Honestly many of the people didn’t like the changes in the dashboard which were done by Mark Zuckerberg and are looking for the alternative ways to switch to the old layout (which is more clear, simple, robust and lovable).
Earlier we have come up with a way which helps you in changing back to old layout but that one is no longer valid, here is a brand new way which helps you in switching back (this trick is valid only for Mozilla Firefox & Google Chrome users).

How To Change Back To Old Facebook Layout (Disable News Ticker)?
Like always log in to your Facebook account.

For Google Chrome Users:
Install “Facebook News Ticker Remover” extension and it works like a charm and removes up your New Ticker which is rolling out right above in the chat sidebar.

For Mozilla Firefox Users:
Install “Facebook News Ticker Remover” user add-on and see the magic removes up your New Ticker which is rolling out right above in the chat sidebar.

Do let us know if you know any other simple ways to disable the news ticker or change back the Facebook layout to the old one.

How To Stop Websites From Tracking You On Firefox?

2011-12-24T10:47:00.000-08:00

Privacy is a growing concern in the web world. Everyday our online privacy is compromised. Many websites track our online behavior and sell that information to advertisers or other companies. Various websites track a wide range of our online activity like the websites we visit, our likes, our dislikes, online purchases etc. This information is then passed on to advertisers or companies who then serve content (or ads) based on your online preferences.

If you are using Firefox browser, then, there is a way to stop websites from tracking your online behavior. Firefox has an option called ‘Do-not-track’ that lets its users decide if they do not want to be tracked by websites. Once you turn on the Do-not-track feature, Firefox informs the websites and their advertisers not to track your online behavior. So, once you turn on the Do-not-track option, your browsing behavior is no more tracked by the websites and you need not worry that your online privacy is compromised.

How To Turn On Do-not-track Feature In Firefox
Click on the ‘FireFox’ button on the top left corner.
Now click on the ‘Options’ button and a new window opens.
In this window, click on the ‘Privacy’ tab.
You will find an option ‘Tell websites I do not want to be tracked’. Check the box.
Click ‘OK’ at the bottom of the window.

You have now enabled the Do-not-track feature in Firefox and you are now protected from online tracking. If you ever again want websites to track you, just uncheck ‘Tell websites I do not want to be tracked’ box.

Note: All websites may not stop tracking you even after turning on the Do-not-track feature.

Best Download Management Add-Ons For FireFox

2011-12-19T03:09:00.000-08:00

Everday, we download loads of content from the web. We find lots of videos, images, links etc. on the webpages we browse through and it would be convenient for us if we could directly download and manage our favorite content from our browser itself rather having a seperate download manager.

We have various download managment add-ons available for Firefox through which we can directly download videos, images, links etc from a webpage. We are listing below the best download management add-ons for the Firefox browser. These add-ons make our life easier and we are really thankful that we have them.

Best Download Management Add-Ons For FireFox

Video DownloadHelper
Video DownloadHelper is the best download management add-on for Firefox if you are looking to download videos or images from webpages. This add-on automatically detects downloadable content on the webpage and you can simply download the content with a single click. With Video DownloadHelper you can download videos from YouTube, Google Videos, MySpace, Daily Motion etc. and the best part is that you can automatically convert the downloaded videos to file format of your choice.

FlashGot
FlashGot is one of the best download management add-on you could get for Firefox. FlashGot handles multiple downloads and turns various popular download managers like Download Accelerator Plus, Internet Download Accelerator, BitComet, Internet Download Manager etc. as download managers for Firefox.

DownThemAll!
DownThemAll! add-on for Firefox lets you download links and images in a webpage. This add-on also accelerates the download speed by upto 4 times. You can also pause and resume downloads and also you can manually add mirrors to download a file from different servers at the same time.

Easy YouTube Video Downloader
Easy YouTube Video Downloader, as the name suggests is a add-on used to download YouTube videos. Easy YouTube Video Downloader provides the best audio quality and downloads the videos at a very fast pace. You can also directly convert the downloaded videos to MP4, MP3, AAC and FLV video formats.

ScrapBook
ScrapBook is an awesome add-on if you are looking to save webpages. With ScrapBook you can save webpages, part of webpages or websites. You can organize your collection in a simple manner and also you can search through your collection. You can also edit your saved webpages with this add-on for Firefox.

GoDaddy $1 Christmas Coupon Code For December 2011

2011-12-19T02:52:00.000-08:00

GoDaddy is generous again, they are offering a Dollar One Coupon code even before the Christmas and making the festive season more profitable. GoDaddy is the only domain registrar who have crossed over 50 million domain registrations and is more famous for offering special crazy discount coupons for its customers, Bob Parsons the CEO of GoDaddy says that special marketing drives and campaigns made GoDaddy the #1 in domain registration industry.

The Special Coupon code allows you to register all the domain names of the following extensions .COM, .US, .MOBI, .BIZ, .NET, .ORG, .CA, .CO.UK and .IN domain for just $1.00 ($0.18 as ICANN fee) and in total you can grab the new domain for just $1.18.

Here are the limitations for the domain registrations, Applies to the first year only of new registrations. This offer may not be used for renewals, transfers, bulk registrations, premium domains or Sunrise/Landrush domain registrations. Limited to one order per customer, expiring after 10,000 redemptions or at 11:59 PM on January 31, 2012 (whichever comes first). Discount will be reflected in your shopping cart; cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or promotion. Customers may not use gift cards, PayPal® or AliPay to redeem this offer. * Plus ICANN fee of 18 cents per domain year when applicable. Your discount will be applied in your shopping cart.

GoDaddy $1 Coupon Code: GIFT1
If you are looking at buying new domains, this is the best offer you can make use of & of-course GoDaddy is the most trusted and the best domain registrar in the world and availing domains at $1 from them is the best you can do for this Christmas festival season.

5 Best Places To Check Your Internet Speed

2011-12-18T01:31:00.000-08:00

Are you vexed up with a slow internet connection and impatient about the service provided by your ISP? Or, if you are the one curious to know about the speed of your broadband connection, checking the internet speed is easy and free and there are several tools available online which helps you in checking your connections upload and download speeds.

Here are the top 5 tools which help you in checking the internet speed:

SpeedTest: Speedtest.net, Probably is the best one and stands first in the list. Using this you can check the speed of your connection consistently by pinging to the nearest available servers.

McAFee SpeedoMeter: This tool comes from the Security giant McAfee, and this one gives you the results in no time. (This is the fastest when compared to the rest)

BandWidthPlace: Bandwidth Place is a price and compare online shopping place for bandwidth related services like DSL, Cable and Satellite Internet which gives actual broadband connection speeds in the results.

BroadbandSpeedChecker: With BroadbandSpeedChecker, you can measure your download & upload speeds.

BBC iPlayer: BBC has launched iPlayer which helps you in determining the speeds. With iPlayer you can enjoy watching TV and Listening Radio. BBC iPlayer even has an iPad App.

Users are suggested to note that internet speeds are measured in kbps (kilobits per second), don’t get confused with kBps (which is kilo BYTES per second), for your quick calculation 1kBps = 8kbps.

How To Hide Your email Address From Facebook App/Game Developers

2011-12-18T01:20:00.000-08:00

Facebook is becoming more and more popular with the kind of apps it provides. Right now, Facebook serves more than half a million apps and many of these apps will access your personal information in order to access them. Although accessing the personal information couldn’t be avoided, you can avoid providing your actual email address to the app you access.

For example, if you would like to play CityVille or Mafia Wars or any of the app/game on Facebook, you will be required (yeah it is mandatory) to share your email address with the developer. Sharing your personal email can be avoided by changing the settings. When you click to sign-up for the app, click on “change” which is under “send me email” and Facebook will offer you a new anonymous proxy email to share with the app developer.

Although all messages sent to that anonymous email will still reach your personal email inbox, your real email address will stay hidden and safe. In case you stop using the app/game and remove the app from your Facebook profile, the proxy email address provided by Facebook will be deleted.

Top 10 Social Game Developers

2011-12-18T01:14:00.000-08:00

AppData has recently published a list of the top 10 social game developers based on the number of monthly active users. Zynga tops the chart and Wooga, the German social game developer stands at a surprising second, beating the likes of EA.

1. Zynga – 249,535,306

2. wooga – 34,912,129

3. Electronic Arts – 30,859,235

4. Playdom – 29,785,083

5. CrowdStar – 22,288,327

6. Digital Chocolate – 21,382,140

7. Social Point – 20,764,775

8. Popcap Games – 17,467,269

9. Gaia Online – 15,075,702

10. King.com – 14,689,048

How To Add SkyDrive As Network Drive in Windows 7

2011-12-18T00:18:00.000-08:00

SkyDrive is the service from Microsoft where you will be getting 25GB of space for free and all you need to get that space is a hotmail account or a live mail account. The traditional way to access SkyDrive is logging into the mail and browsing it through the browser. SkyDrive can also be added as a Network drive in your windows machine (This tutorial is for Windows 7) by using SSL connection and an unique ID (for this we need to use WebDAV access tool) for connecting.

Before going forward we need to get the WebDAV access address which can be obtained through a tool named “SkyDrive Simple Viewer” for your SkyDrive account. Download & Run that tool and login to your SkyDrive account and after logging select the folder which you wish to map as a network drive.

Copy the URL, In my case it is https://rfejv8.docs.live.net/663c088156b7351d/^.Documents

In the next step change the URL to file structure.

Original URL: https://rfejv8.docs.live.net/663c088156b7351d/^.Documents

Modified URL: \rfejv8.docs.live.net@SSL663c088156b7351dDocuments

Note: Mind the changes which are blocked in the modified URL.

Open windows Explorer, in the left pane Select & Right Click on Network and then select Map Network Drive

Enter the Modified URL as mentioned above in the Folder path.

It will prompt you to enter your SkyDrive credentials and now you will able to see your network drive connected in your Windows Explorer.

How To Get Google+ User Posts in RSS Reader?

2011-12-17T23:58:00.000-08:00

Google+ is the most trending social network since its launch and has over 10 million users in 2 weeks from its launch & now a new app has been launched which will help you in reading your friends Google+ posts in your favorite RSS reader. This new app is called “Google Plus User Feed”, Here is the way you convert your Google+ user feed URL.

How To Add Google+ User Feed To Your RSS Reader?

Identify your Google+ profile ID and copy that number, say for instance https://plus.google.com/110035173959614890900/ is my profile URL and Google+ for my profile is 110035173959614890900

Open your RSS reader and add the link http://plusfeed.appspot.com/110035173959614890900 the app will automatically identify your feeds and will show up them in your RSS reader.

That’s it, It’s simple right..!

Google Mobile OS Android Now Seeing 550,000 Activations Per Day

2011-12-17T23:47:00.000-08:00

Google has announced its financial results for Q2 2011. While disclosing the figures, the company’s CEO, Larry Page has told that Google Mobile Operating System Android is now seeing more than 550,000 activations per day.

This is up by 200,000 from 350,000 activations per day in Q1 2011. Android is now recording over 44% growth according to the company, which is really huge. On the other hand, Google Mobile OS Android is On Over 130 Million Devices

Features To Be Added in Google+ To Make it Facebook Killer

2011-12-17T23:42:00.000-08:00

Google+ is all in the news since its launch and even the interest showered by the people on Google+ is incredibly high and this time Google seems to be in a position to compete with Facebook, although it is too early to judge a service which is just 2 weeks old but the figures (yeah Google+ crossed 10 million user base in less than 2 weeks) suggest us to believe.

Everything is fine with the service but Google+ still lacks few things which needs to be included in order to compete neck-to-neck with Facebook, here is the list which needs to be added to Google+ in no time.

Google+ still haven’t released an iPhone & iPad App, it needs to be released.
The Google+ service is not clear for the businesses. They need to figure it out soon and should be rolled out.
Google+ should be integrated with Google App Accounts (one of the Google’s most used service).
Huddle should be available from any service, shouldn’t be limited to mobiles.
Nested circles, we can call this as an enhanced circles concept.
Ability to stream across all social networking platforms, which helps Google in engaging the users more on Google+.
Private Messaging, which should be different from email.
Can think about integrating Wave with Google+. Wave, the collaborating tool does have potential.
Tight integration with other Google products like YouTube, Docs..,
Should allow users to pick their own usernames.
Should rethink about the URL structure, plus.google.com is still lengthy. something like plus.com would be really nice.

These are my view points in restructuring Google+. Will share more thoughts in the coming posts. In the mean time do let us know what you think about Google+ and what needs to be done to make it a real FB killer.

Download Windows 7 Theme For Angry Birds Fans

2011-12-17T23:37:00.000-08:00

If are you an avid Angry Birds fan and Windows user, then here is the new user theme of Angry Birds for your Windows desktop. This theme is a collection of six desktop wallpapers which features Angry Birds pigs, birds and the most interesting feature of this theme is the sound effects. Yeah, they are the same ones which the Angry Birds sports. The pig grunts sound will be played when you get a new message and the tweeping sounds of the birds were played when you log on and off the windows.

This theme is officially released by Microsoft for Windows 7, you can download theme from Windows Theme Gallery.

How To Remove Run Utility in Windows 7 From Start Menu

2011-12-17T23:30:00.000-08:00

The Run utility is a quite useful tool for windows administrators to access commands and applications over the command prompt and helps them in solving problems quickly and efficiently. However, generic users of Windows 7 won’t use this tool in their daily computing and hence it is a wise idea to remove “Run” from the start menu which discourages the users from accessing sensible areas of Windows 7 and restricts them in troubleshooting computer.

How To Disable Run Utility in Windows 7?
Click on Start>Run (simply Windows Key + R)
Type gpedit.msc in the Run dialogue box, Enter to open Local Group Policy Editor.
In the left hand pane, identify User Configuration>Administrative Templates>Start Menu and Taskbar.

In the right hand panel, identify “Remove Run Menu from Start Menu”, Double click to open the policy options.
You ll be able to see the following options in dialog box
Not Configured
Enabled
Disabled
By default “Not Configured” will be selected, Select “Enabled” and click on Apply to save the changes.

Close the Local Group Policy window, and check out the changes.
When it’s done, the windows run utility will no longer work in Windows 7 and henceforth users wont be able to access run command utility.

How To Remove Black Bar on Google

2011-12-17T11:32:00.000-08:00

Google has revamped the homepage of Google with a black bar sitting on the top. If you have Googled recently, you would have noticed this change by now. Most of the people (IMO) didn’t like the black as it deviating and causes eye-popping (on the other hand there are people who even love this change). So in case if you are one who doesn’t like this change there are two ways available now to remove the “Google Black Bar”.

GreaseMonkey Script

You just need to run this greasemonkey script, which is created by author Keith Dsouza

Stylish

The other way to remove this black bar is by using user created style sheet. But at this point of time, Stylish is available only for Firefox and Chrome. You need to install “Stylish” and can create your own styling for the Google.

3 Ways to Access Blocked Sites

2011-09-22T22:22:00.000-07:00

Businesses are much more clever now: they see how popular the web and social networking is and often block those sites from employee access. Not only are work places doing this, but so are schools, colleges, even some libraries and churches. If you want to access your social networking profiles, email or blogs from one of these locations, it can be frustrating. At a company that does live chat customer support software that I work for we needed to access our tools from all over the world and it was very difficult. Also we all know that it’s really hard to stay away from these sites for 8-9 hours a day while at work or school; so here are 8 methods you can use to access these blocked sites.

Proxy Servers

Proxies are the most popular method of accessing blocked websites because they can bypass network restrictions. They help protect your privacy by letting you surf anonymously and securely. The connections are encrypted and help to prevent monitoring on your network, so it will never be traced back to you. Best of all they’re very simple to use: enter your URL and check/uncheck a few specifications and you’ll be surfing within seconds.

Examples: Hide My Ass, Proxify, Rocketsurf, Web Proxy, Orkut.pk, BackFox.

Short URL

Sometimes converting the domain you’re trying to access to a short URL might work. More than likely the short URL service will not banned or blocked from your network and you’ll have no problems accessing it. However, if the short URL redirects back to the domain you’re trying to access, then you still won’t be able to access it.

Examples: bit.ly, TinyURL, is.gd, SnipURL.

Google Cache

Most search engines have a cached version of a web page. These are stored versions from the past. What Google does is take a snapshot of each web page and then stores it as a backup. It won’t be the most recent version, but it should be good enough until you can access the actual page later from your own personal computer.

You can access a cached version by clicking on the “cached” link from search results, or using the Google cache search operator (cache:www.domain.com) – where domain.com is the actual blocked domain that you want to access.

Add Google +1 Button to blogger Blog

2011-09-22T20:32:00.000-07:00

Google launched the +1 button yesterday for websites. In this post we will tell you how to add the +1 Google button to your Blogger blog. Google has made the process of adding this button to your blog very easy as the code needed to add the button is very simple. Just follow the steps that we have given in this post.

Before you add the button to your blog, here is some information about the +1 button. In March, Google had introduced the +1 feature for Google.com results. With this feature, you could +1 a search result that you liked to your friends. Yesterday Google increased the scope of the +1 button by launching it for websites. With this button you can +1 the posts that you like to your friends. Whenever your friends are searching Google result that you had recommended with +1, they will see the +1 button with your name.

Here is a video from Google explaining the +1 button.

You can add this button to your blogger blog by visiting the Page Elements option in the Design section of your blog and click on the edit option for Blog Posts.

However this feature doesnt appear on some blogger blogs even when you select the option shown above. For the other blogs, we have to add the +1 code to the blogspot template. But this is very easy to do.

Visit the Edit HTML option in Design section and select the Expand Widget Templates option. Now search </body> in the template and add the following code just above it

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script>

Now you will have to add the button code to your blog. search data:post.body in the blog template and add the following code above or below it.

<div style='float:left'><g:plusone expr:href='data:post.url' size='medium'/></div>

There are four types of buttons available. We have used the medium sized button. If you want different types of buttons then you have to replace medium with code of other buttons. Here are all the 4 types of buttons.

If you want the 1st button, then replace medium with small in the above code. We have already given the code for the second button. If you want the 3rd button, remove size='medium' from the code given above. If you want the 4th and the biggest button, replace medium with tall.

Now you have added all the code to the template. Its time to check the Google +1 button on your blogger blog. Click on the Save Template option and check your blog.

Download Panda Antivirus Pro 2012 Includes 3 Months Free Services

2011-09-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

Celebrate 20th anniversary of Panda security, Panda offering free Panda antivirus pro 2010 includes 3 month free services from Panda security. To grab this free offer no registration required and no need any license key because the license code has integrated on the file installer of Panda Antivirus Pro 2010. This free offer available for Microsoft users (Windows users) only.

The Panda Antivirus Pro 2010 is the easiest-to-use and most intuitive protection for your computer ant it’s compatible with windows 7 and also can be used on windows XP and Windows Vista (32 bit and 64 bit).

Main benefits of the Panda Antivirus Pro 2010 are: Anti-Malware Protection (Anti-Malware, Advanced Proactive Protection, personal firewall) and Identity Theft Protection (Anti-Root kit, Anti-Phishing, and Anti-Banking Trojan Engine).

Simply, Go to panda promotion page –>here <– then click the “Download Free” Button to download the installer of Panda Antivirus Pro 2010.

Install the Panda Antivirus Pro 2010 software and forget about viruses, spyware, rootkits, hackers, online fraud and identity theft.

Show Fox YouTube Downloader HD License Key

2011-09-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, Jodie from SnowFox Software emailed me about giveaway “SnowFox YouTube Downloader HD License Key” in the SnowFox Facebook. It’s a cheap software, price the software is $19 for one license. From August.17th, 2011 to August. 24th, 2011 SnowFox giving away this software for free for their Facebook fan.

SnowFox YouTube Downloader HD is a professional YouTube videos downloaded this software can download directly HD video from YouTube website. This software allow you to download one or multiple videos from YouTube at high speed. This software support for Windows 7, Vista, Windows XP and Win 2000.

How to obtain SnowFox YouTube Downloader HD Licens

Open SnowFox Facebook SnowFox Facebook

Enter your valid email in the email form on the page then submit to obtain a license key
Click Download button to download software installer SnowFox YouTube Downloader HD
You must hurry to obtain the software because the giveaway will ended on August 24th, 2011. On the giveaway page, you can also obtain 15% discount off for other SnowFox software.

20 top tips and tweaks

2011-09-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

Get a power efficiency report

A laptop's power efficiency report.
Click to view larger image.

Have a laptop and want to get more battery life out of it? Windows 7 includes a hidden built-in tool that will examine your laptop's energy use and make recommendations on how to improve it. To use it:

1. Run a command prompt as an administrator. To do this, type cmd in the search box, and when the cmd icon appears, right-click it and choose "Run as administrator."

2. At the command line, type in the following:

powercfg -energy -output \Folder\Energy_Report.html

where \Folder represents the folder where you want the report to be placed.

3. For about a minute, Windows 7 will examine the behavior of your laptop. It will then analyze it and create a report in HTML format in the folder you specified. Double-click the file, and you'll get a report -- follow its recommendations for ways to improve power performance.

Modify UAC

The User Account Control security feature was one of the most reviled additions to Windows Vista, with good reason -- its constant warning messages asking for permission to continue many operations drove users around the bend.

UAC has been significantly improved in Windows 7 so that it's not as intrusive as in Vista, but you can still tweak it if you like.

Here's how to turn UAC on or off, and make it less or more intrusive than the default:

1. Go to the Control Panel --> User Accounts and Family Safety.

2. Click User Accounts, then click Change User Account Control settings.

3. From the screen that appears, use the slider to select the level of protection you want. Here are the four levels and what they mean:

Modifying UAC. Click to view larger image.

Always notify me.Think of this as UAC Classic. It works like Vista's UAC: When you make changes to your system, when software is installed or when a program tries to make a change to your system, an annoying prompt appears.

Default -- Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer. This is, obviously, the default; make a change yourself and UAC leaves you alone. When a program makes a change, a prompt appears and your desktop goes dark, just like it does in Vista. Otherwise, UAC sits there silently.

Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer (do not dim my desktop). This setting is identical to the default setting, with one difference: It won't dim your desktop so that you only see the UAC prompt asking you to take action. This presents a slightly elevated security risk over the default setting, because theoretically a program could allow a malicious program to interfere with the UAC prompt.

Never notify me when: In this one, UAC is completely turned off. This is, of course, an insecure option and not recommended for most users.

After you make the selection, click OK. Depending on the selection you made, you may need to restart your system for it to take effect.