TechFrost

Facebook to get a new look - Be the first to try the clutter free interface

2013-03-10T09:52:00.000+05:30

With heavy competitions from Google plus and other emerging social media platforms, Facebook is constantly upgrading its system to prevent users from migration. Its introducing new features faster than ever. A few months ago it introduced the Graph Search Beta (yet to be launched) and now it has shifted its focus on the news feed.

Facebook has decided to upgrade its news feed or in other words its entire home page. The new interface is expected to be more polished, colorful, clean, clutter free and vibrant with new visuals.

Join the waiting list here http://facebook.com/newsfeed

Although this newly designed news feed will not be immediately available for all, you can still get yourself on the waiting list and be one of the first to enjoy the new design. Just head on to http://facebook.com/newsfeed, scroll to the bottom and join the waiting list.

World's Top Google Searches in 2012 - Google Zeitgeist

2012-12-27T10:21:00.001+05:30

What did the world search for in 2012? What were the hottest topics that revolved around the web? Who are those people who found a top spot in the internet world? well, all your questions are answered in this year's Google Zeitgeist release. Google has categorized these top and trending key terms as Searches, Images, Athletes, Events, People, Feature Films, TV Shows, Performing Artists, Consumer Electronics, Airlines and Google+ Hashtags.

Download the complete list of 2012 Search Trends

In the Trending searches category Whitney Houston, Gangnam Style, and Hurricane Sandy claims the top three positions respectively and this is followed by iPad3, Diablo3, Kate Middleton, Olympics 2012, Amanda Todd, Michael Clark Duncan and BBB12.

In the Consumer Electronics Category iPad 3, Samsung Galaxy S3 and iPad Mini claims the top spot followed by Nexus 7, Galaxy Note 2, Play Station, iPad 4, Microsoft Surface, Kindle Fire and Nokia Lumia 920.

Visit Google Zeitgeist for more information

NASA Explains why the World won't end in 21 December,2012

2012-12-19T17:05:00.002+05:30

With all the hype being created around the fictional assertions of unusual events taking place on 21st of December, 2012, NASA clearly states that the World is not going to end on 21st. It clarifies that these hypes are just fictional.

"...the stuff flying around through cyberspace, TV and the movies is not based on science. There is even a fake NASA news release out there..."
- Don Yeomans, NASA senior research scientist

Here's the abstract of the NASA Article - Beyond 2012: Why the World Won't End

1. Mayan Calendar Ends, but Starts again

Many people link the end of Mayan Calender to be the End of the world, but the fact is, the calender ends but starts again.
Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.

2. Total Blackout is a Rumor

Many false reports claim that some sort of "alignment of the universe" will cause a blackout on Earth on Dec. 23 to Dec. 25. These reports are false and there is no such alignments. There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. One major alignment occurred in 1962, for example, and two others happened during 1982 and 2000. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence

3. Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax

There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist.

4. A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible

There are slow movements of the continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a bait-and-switch to fool people.

5. No danger of Earth being hit by a meteor in 2012

The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Space guard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. Nasa have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA Near-Earth Object Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.

6. Solar storms are not new

Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history

Read Full article here: Beyond 2012 By NASA

Also read:

1. The best Planetarium Software for your PC, Mac and Linux Systems
2. Do you know? you can see the International Space Station with your naked eyes!

How to draw a teddy bear in 5 seconds with Picasa (Fun)

2012-12-17T10:40:00.002+05:30

Here's a Funny way to draw a Teddy Bear in just 5 seconds with Picasa. Actually you are not going to draw but you are going to reveal the hidden teddy. Google always buries some Easter eggs within its applications, search results, Android OS, and within its products and services. And this brown teddy is one of its easter eggs for Picasa.

1. Open Picasa
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+Y
3. There's the teddy - Keep on pressing the above key combination and fill you monitor with lot more teddy bears

Zoom into videos in real-time as they play

2012-12-14T16:53:00.001+05:30

You are watching an interesting movie and suddenly you come across a strange scene and out of curiosity, you like to zoom-in and take a deeper and closer look. With Videolan's VLC Media Player, you are just one step away in attaining real-time Zoom which may reveal something new in the movie.

Zoom movies in Real-time with VLC

1. Play a movie, click on the "Extended Settings Icon" in the toolbar if you don't find this icon, just click on Tools and select "Effects and Filters" or just press (Ctrl+E)

2. Now move to the "Video Effects" tab and click "Geometry" tab and enable "Interactive Zoom"

3. Now Interactive Zoom will display a small window in the top left corner and the small box within can be moved to specify which portion of the video gets Zoomed

4. You can control the Magnification level/Zoom depth by click and dragging within the triangle displayed below the Zoom control box. Thus you can Zoom any kind of videos in real-time.

This feature is lot more useful if you are watching HD Movies on your Computer

Also read

Zoom Images without Clicking them

Automatically Reduce PC Volume During Incoming or Outgoing Phone Calls

2012-12-13T11:45:00.000+05:30

Automatically reduce PC volume while you make or receive a phone call. Never miss a call while you enjoy music at high volumes. This trick works for Sony Ericsson phones with modem interface or phones with Google Android-OS (1.6 or Higher)

1. Install My Phone Explorer on your PC

Download My Phone Explorer here

2. Establish a connection between your Mobile Phone and My Phone Explorer via Bluetooth or Data Cable
3. Now, In My Phone Explorer go to File - Settings - Behavior and check the option "Decrease PC volume during calls to:" and choose how much you want to reduce, click OK. Done.

From now on, whenever you receive a call, your PC volume automatically gets reduced and once the call is finished, volume is restored.

My Phone Explorer supports the following phones

Sony Ericsson Phones with modem interface

Sony Ericsson F500i, J300i, K300i, K310i, K320i, K500i, K510i, K600i, K610i, K630i, K700i, K750i, K770i, K800i, K810i, T610, T630, T650i, T700, T715, C510, C702, C901, C902, C903, C905, S500i, S700i, W200i, W300i, W350i, W380i, W550i, W580i, W595, W600, W610i, W660i, W715i, W800i, W810i, W850i, W880i, W890i, W900i, W902, W910i, W950i, W960i, W980i, W995, P1i, G502, G700, G705, G900, Z310i, Z520i, Z530i, Z550i, Z610i, Z710i, Z750i, Z770i, Z880i, Aino, Elm, Equinox, Hazel, Jalou, Naite, Satio, Vivaz, Yari, Zylo etc.,

Phones with Google Android-OS (Android 1.6 or Higher)

Sony Ericsson: Sony Ericsson X8, X10, X10 mini, X10 mini pro,
HTC: HTC Dream, HTC Magic, HTC Desire, HTC Legend, HTC Hero, HTC Lancaster, HTC Wildfire, HTC Incrediblem
Motorola: Motorola Milestone, Motorola Backflip, Motorola Flipout, MotorolaDroid X, Motorola Droid Pro, MotorolaCLIQ
Samsung: Samsung I9000, Samsung I7500, Samsung I5700, Samsung I5801, Samsung I9000
LG: LG Optimus, LG Ally, LG LU2300, LG GT540
Acer Liquid, Stream, beTouch, Google Nexus One etc.,

Free Web Hosting with CPanel, FTP, Wordpress, PHP and more - 1500MB Space and 100GB Bandwidth - Absolutely for Zero Dollar

2012-12-13T00:48:00.002+05:30

Looking for a free web hosting service? well, here's a web hosting service that provides absolutely free hosting. This hosting includes 1500 MB of storage, 100 GB Bandwidth, CPanel, One Click Fantastico auto installer, PHPmyadmin, MySql and more.

Sign-up for free web hosting here

000webhost - Features

1. It provides a CPanel like any other paid hosting service

2. 1500 MB Storage more than enough for a starter

3. You are given access to FTP, you can use Filezilla to upload your website contents to the server.With FTP you can manually install install Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, b2evolution, phpWebSite, phpBB, SMF(Simple Machines Forum), OS Commerce, myBB, Mambo, Zencart and Coppermine.

4. You can also build your website using the new website builder.

Recommended for Beginners

Although, this free web hosting is good, this service is generally recommended for beginners, who are searching for a server to use for learning PHP, HTML etc., Recently I tried hosting a TXTweb application on 000webhost and it worked fine. If you are just a learner of some CMS like Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal, this should be your best choice. Just make a site on 000webhost, use it for testing and when your site grows up, just move over to a better paid hosting like BigRock or just upgrade to the paid version of 000webhost.

Save a Web Page as PDF for offline viewing - Google Chrome

2012-12-04T13:56:00.002+05:30

Save web pages as PDF files to your local hard drive for offline viewing and printing. Everyone surfs the web and finds some interesting articles that they wish to have even if they are offline, some people follow the time consuming copy paste method. But here is a simple way you could use, save web pages as PDF documents just in few seconds.

Saving Web Pages as PDF with Google Chrome

1. When you find an interesting article on the web, just press Ctrl+P on your Chrome Browser, this brings up Google Chrome's print dialog

2. If you see "Save as PDF" as your Destination, just go ahead and click "Save"

3. If you don't see "Save as PDF" as your Destination, click "Change" and under Local Destinations click "Save as PDF", now you can save your document as PDF.

The resulting PDF document's headers contain the date and the web page's title and the footers contain the Web Page's URL. If you don't want to include these information, just un-check "Headers and footers"

Automatically switch to an Operating system during windows startup, avoid 30 seconds count down

2012-12-04T11:28:00.003+05:30

Automatically switch to a default operating system without showing the list of operating systems in Windows Boot Manager, and save 30 seconds of your time. You can also increase or decrease this default time of 30 seconds count down.

If you have installed multiple operating systems like Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows XP, or Windows Vista on your PC or have done an improper installation, you will be shown a Windows Boot Manger that lists out the Operating Systems to choose from. This list is shown until you select an operating system or until the default 30 seconds time runs out. The choices listed depends on the operating systems you have on your Computer and sometimes the list also includes "Windows Recovery"

Automatically select an Operating System (Most people choose Windows 7)

1. Right click on "Computer" icon on desktop or Start Menu and Choose "Properties"

2. In the left pane select "Advanced system settings"

3. Under "Startup and Recovery" click "Settings"

4. Under "System startup" select the operating system from the drop down list, this selected OS will become your default.

Un-check "Time to display list of operating systems", click "OK" and you are done.

5. From now on, your default operating system loads when you start your computer without showing the list and count down timer.

If you wish to increase or decrease the timer just check the "Time to display list of operating systems" option and choose your time.

How to Remove excess leading and trailing Spaces in MS Excel

2012-11-22T17:45:00.000+05:30

Do you want to remove those spaces at the beginning and end of texts inside cells in MS Excel?, well here are two methods to remove leading and trailing extra unwanted spaces from cells in Microsoft Office Excel.

Whenever you import or copy paste data into excel from external data sources like Microsoft office word, web pages, CSV documents etc, you may notice that some additional spaces are added automatically within the cells. These additional spaces doesn't seem to be a problem until you start to process the data. Your formula wont work in an accurate manner and you cannot use the excel or CSV data with external applications like Macromania.

Here's a simple way to fix the issue as a whole. Just download and install the add-in, and in one or two steps you will be able to get rid of extra spaces.

1. Trim Spaces - Free Add-in to remove unnecessary spaces

The Trim Spaces Add-in from Ablebits is free and as the name suggests, trim spaces trims away all unnecessary spaces from all selected cells, columns or rows in a single click. Download Trim Spaces from here.

2. Kutools

Kutools is more flexible and offers you some options. With the options you can remove trailing space, leading space or both trailing and leading spaces and you can also remove all excess spaces or all spaces. You can try Kutools for thirty days without any limitations. Download Kutools from here.

Also See:

1. How to Password Protect Microsoft Office Documents to prevent unauthorized access to your confidential data

2. How to Password Protect PDF documents with MS Word or Acrobat Pro

How to Password Protect PDF Documents - 3 Methods

2012-11-20T23:49:00.000+05:30

Add password protection to your important PDF documents and add up security to your confidential data. You can either password protect the PDF file before creating the file or after the file creation. Password protecting a PDF document is simple. Here are three methods to lock PDF document.

1. Add Password during PDF Creation in Microsoft Word

If you are creating a new PDF document with Microsoft word, you can add password before rendering it to a PDF document.

1. Once you created a file, just click "Save as", put a file name and select "PDF" from the save as type drop down menu.
2. Now click Options and select the checkbox Encrypt the document with a password

3. Type Password twice and hit OK, and click save
4. Done, the document is now locked, now try to open the password protected PDF file, you will be prompted to enter the password.

2. Add a Password to already existing PDF Document using Adobe Acrobat

If you already have a PDF file and want to password protect it, then Adobe Acrobat Pro comes handy. Using Adobe Acrobat Pro you can also create password protected PDF documents from scratch.

1. Open your PDF File with Adobe Acrobat
2. Click File and then select Properties, now under the Security tab, select Password Security as security method.
3. Select your compatibility level, Encryption level depends on the compatibiliy
4. Now select the Checkbox that says Require a password to open the document, enter the password twice and click OK

5. Done, now your PDF document locked and is password protected.

3. Password Protect PDF Files using Online tools

You can also try online tools like PDF PRIME, and PDF PROTECT

Also see:

1. How to Password Protect Microsoft Office Documents
2. How to use WINRAR as Folder lock, to password protest folders and files

3. Hide a Partition or Local Disk from My Computer

How to Explore Facebook without Internet - Via SMS

2012-11-11T02:05:00.001+05:30

Struck with a basic phone and trying to figure out a way to use Facebook without internet? well, here's the perfect way. Use your non-GPRS phone to explore your Facebook via SMS. You can update your status, read latest updates from your friends, send them birtday wishes, read notifications, like a post, write a comment and more all via SMS. TXTWEB in India has got a nice SMS app that bring your Facebook world into your mobile phone.

Explore FB through SMS

1. Give a one time authorization to the Facebook SMS app here

2. Once authorized, you are now ready to use FB through SMS

3. Send @fb to the txtweb number 92665 92665, and enjoy Facebook on SMS

Here are the commands

Send @fb to get started and access wall feeds
Send @fb your status update to update status
Send @fb.bday to know about friends birthdays
Send @fb.notify to get notifications.
Send @fb.wall to access your profile feeds
Send @fb.wall john to get john's post in your news feed
Send @fb.help for help.

How to hide a drive or partition in My Computer - Make the local disk invisible

2012-10-20T12:23:00.001+05:30

Make a drive invisible to others, hide them from My computer and explorer.

You may want to hide a drive in the following circumstances,

1. If someone keeps on deleting or modifying files on the windows Installation drive (usually Local Disk C:) and makes your system unstable, hide the drive so that they don't touch it.

2. If you have some confidential or sensitive data on a local disk and don't want others to access it, simply hide it so that other will not even know that the drive exists.

3. If the system reserved partition (usually 100 MB in Windows 7) shows up in My computer as separate drive due to improper partitioning procedure during Windows Installation.

So whatever the circumstance, its very simple to hide a volume, just follow the below steps

Also see: 1. How to completely disable windows automatic updates

2. Get windows 8 homescreen functional tiles in Windows 7, Vista and XP

Steps to hide the drive from explorer and My Computer

1. Open the Run window (Windows key + R), type “gpedit.msc” without quotes and press enter

2. After a few seconds you will see a window named “Local Group Policy Editor”

3. Click User Configuration - Administrative Templates - Windows Component - Windows Explorer

4. Now find “Hide these specified drives in My Computer”, double click it, select enabled, and from the drop down menu pick the drives you wish to hide and at last click Apply and OK. Done.

The settings will take immediate effect and the drive(s) will become invisible, if not just restart your computer to apply these changes.

Note: The drive will be invisible in “My computer” and “Explorer”, but it will be still accessible by typing the drive letter in the address bar or in Run. For example if you are hiding D drive, it is still accessible by typing D: , either in the address bar or in Run window.

How to improve browsing speed on a dead slow connection with Chrome

2012-09-17T16:36:00.001+05:30

We are in the age of high speed internet connection that could seamlessly stream multiple HD videos, all at a time. Even though this remains as an undeniable fact, there are still situations where we are forced to depend on a dial-up modem that can practically deliver speeds no more than 100 or 200 kbps.

Here's a guide to survive with a dead slow internet connection using the ultra-fast browser "Google Chrome". This guide will be of great use If you are using your mobile phone as modem to connect to the internet on your PC or Laptop or If you are in a low network coverage area or if you are in travel or if your home Wi-Fi network is shared with multiple users.

To post this article I kept aside my 3.1 Mbps broadband connection and used my Sony Ericsson GPRS phone with Reliance GSM as modem. The maximum speed I used to get with this GPRS only device is 9 KBPS (72 kbps), that's really slow isn't it? On an EDGE phone my Reliance connection gives me speeds upto 32 KBPS (256 kbps) but I preferred to experiment with the slow one. So, here we go.

Surviving with a slow internet connection with Google Chrome

Google chrome is my default and favorite browser and I have used it with very slow connections, with simple tweaks you can get most out of it.

1. Use Mobile versions

Use mobile versions of websites for faster browsing. Many popular services like Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook and Gmail have Mobile versions that are optimized for slow connections. Example: m.facebook.com, m.gmail.com, m.twitter.com, m.yahoo.com, m.lifehacker.com, i.getclicky.com etc.

Gmail users can click the basic HTML version on slow connections and Yahoo mail users sign-in into m.yahoo.com and then click on "Mail" to enter into Yahoo Mail.

Try this: You may also try an interesting feature in Chrome called "User Agent", press CTRL + SHIFT + I and pull out the "Developer tools", now click the "Settings Gear Icon" at the bottom right and select "User agent" tab. Now enable "Override User Agent" and select devices between MeeGo-Nokia N9, Android or iPhone or iPad. Uncheck "Override device metrics" and type any URL in the address bar, well, you will be automatically redirected to mobile version of sites if available. Don't close the "Developer tools", continue browsing virtually with any mobile device.

Feel The Difference: Try searching for an image on Google Image Search with and without "User Agent", and discover the speed difference.

2. Text only Google Cache of websites

If you don't even need images and other media contents on a website, you can switch to the text only version using Google Cache. Type the following URL in the address bar and replace the text in red with your favorite website address.

www.google.com/search?strip=1&q=cache:www.techfrost.blogspot.com

Take a look at the date and make sure that the text version shown is the recent snapshot of the website.

3. Create a new user profile

Before you start tweaking your browser settings, create a new user profile in Chrome and name it as "Slow Internet" or whatever name comes on your mind related slow connection. To add a new user, just click on the "wrench" icon and go into "settings" and scroll a bit lower and click "Add User", now you can rename the user and change the picture. This is important because, you can always switch back to original profile whenever needed. Once a new user is created, its time to start tweaking

4. Switch off Images

This may sound bitter, but disabling graphics can improve your dial-up speed 2 to 3 times. Some times you just need the text content like when you are looking for a product review, reading a troubleshooting guide, reading e-mails, going through bank statements, reading how-to guides and more. In all these situations images are almost unnecessary and they overload your modem resulting in frequent disconnections.

To turn off images, type chrome://chrome/settings/content in address bar and click :Do no show images" under "Images" option

Now if you need to view an image, just right click on the image container and copy the image URL and paste it in your original user profile to view it or enable it from image blocked notification icon on the address bar.

5. Disable Flash

Flash banners and flash video ads clog up your bandwidth. In chrome you no need to use any third party extension to block flash content, instead just type chrome://chrome/settings/content in address bar and scroll down to plug-ins and select "Click to Play". Now you have more control over flash contents, they start to play only when you click on the content.

6. Disable JavaScript

Type chrome://chrome/settings/content in address bar and scroll down to JavaScript and select "Do not allow any site to run JavaScript". When a site demands JavaScript, just click on the "JavaScript disabled" notification icon on the address bar and enable it on the specific site.

Google searches will be faster with JavaScript disabled on slow connections. This is because Google Instant predictions get auto turned off and search results page will be in plain HTML without any frills.

7. Disable Plugins

Type chrome://plugins on address bar, click "Details" and disable plugins you feel unnecessary on low bandwidth. If you find more than one flash plugin, keep the latest flash plugin version and disable older versions. I just disabled all Quiktime plugins, VLC web plugins, Picasa, tool bars, Microsoft office and other extensions. This will also make your browser more stable and always responsive.

8. Block Ads

Ads consume a considerable amount of bandwidth and for slow connections it is recommended to switch off ads. Install Adblock extension, this extension blocks ads from downloading and therefore speed up page loading.

Important Note: Since websites and Blogs depend on ad revenue to survive, it is highly recommended that you don't use Adblock when you are on a high speed connection. You may also miss some latest offers and products by blocking ads.

9. Monitor your Bandwidth

Keep an eye on programs consuming your precious bandwidth. If you are on Windows 7 or Windows 8, its easy to monitor network usage of individual programs without any additional third party application. Just right click on your task bar and start "Task Manager" and under "Performance" tab click "Resource Monitor" and click "Network" tab. If you find any unnecessary program using the bandwidth, right click on the process and click "End Process" if it bother again and again, just uninstall the program.

Warning: Never end system processes and processes that are related to your Antivirus programs

10. Turn off Automatic Windows Update

Windows Updates at times become more annoying by eating up bandwidth in the background. Switch off automatic windows updates completely from services.msc and make sure it doesn't interrupt with your connection again.

Type service.msc in the start menu, and scroll down and find "Windows Update" right click and "Stop" the process and again right click and select properties and select Start Up type as "Disabled" and click apply and OK.

11. Use a DNS Service

Using a DNS will speed up lookups and therefore can facilitate faster browsing. I personally recommend OpenDNS and Google Public DNS. Also read a detailed article on how to setup DNS on your computer to increase browsing speed and how to use DNS for blocking unwanted sites.

12. Disable Start up programs

Disable programs like torrent and download managers from start up or at least exit them from system tray before you start browsing to guarantee maximum available bandwidth to your browser. Use tools like Ccleaner to control your start up programs.

13. Clear Cache and Cookies

Clear cache and Cookies regularly but not too often. To clear the cache and cookies, press Ctrl + SHIFT + DEL, select from when you have to clear and check appropriate boxes and press "Clear browsing data". You can also use Ccleaner to clear cache and cookies for the whole system.

14. Don't use too may extensions or apps

Only use extensions that are more essential and productive. The more extensions you install the more memory they consume and sometimes these extensions become a major slow down.

15. Learn some useful Shortcuts:

This doesn't directly impact the browsing speed of your browser but plays an important role in how you can be kept cool on a slow connection. Click on a link with your middle mouse button to open them in a new tab. Let the new link load in the background while you continue reading the existing page. By this way you can avoid frustrations of waiting. Learn more shortcuts here.

Please Comment: Please feel free to share any tricks and your experiences on how you handled a slow internet connection.

Share this article with your friends who are still stuck with dial-ups and who accidentally bought a wireless broadband connection that is as fast as a dial-up modem.

Make Google Chrome Crash Free by Disabling Multiple Flash Player Plugins

2012-09-15T23:35:00.001+05:30

Multiple Flash player plugin installation is the major cause for Google Chrome crashes and its slow performance. Google chrome comes with a pre-bundled flash player plugin but many of us install new flash plugins on top of the existing one, this causes conflicts and thereby makes the browser unstable and causes crashes and various other performance issues.

So, the solution is simple, just disable extra flash player plugin binaries, preferably older versions and avoid conflicts and avoid crashes.

1. Type about:plugins or chrome://plugins in the Google Chrome address bar and click details to expand plugin details.

2. Now if you find more than 1 flash player plugins enabled, leave the new version untouched and disable the older versions.

3. Also, disable other plugins which you feel of less or no use.

You can also Make Chrome more stable by disabling all plugins in one go, and it is advised that you create multiple user profiles like a separate profile for plugin disabled browser so that you can easily switch over to any version whenever needed.

Microsoft unveils new logo, first change in 25 Years

2012-08-23T22:48:00.002+05:30

Microsoft has replaced its wavy windows logo with a much squared off version. This is the first logo change in 25 years. The color of the wavy boxes remains the same and the order too remains same, but the wavy units has been replace by perfect squares boxes. The logo also includes the name Microsoft in the Segoe font which is used in products and marketing communications, along with the new squares.

It’s been 25 years since we’ve updated the Microsoft logo and now is the perfect time for a change. This is an incredibly exciting year for Microsoft as we prepare to release new versions of nearly all of our products. From Windows 8 to Windows Phone 8 to Xbox services to the next version of Office, you will see a common look and feel across these products providing a familiar and seamless experience on PCs, phones, tablets and TVs. This wave of new releases is not only a reimagining of our most popular products, but also represents a new era for Microsoft, so our logo should evolve to visually accentuate this new beginning.

The logo has two components: the logotype and the symbol. For the logotype, we are using the Segoe font which is the same font we use in our products as well as our marketing communications. The symbol is important in a world of digital motion (as demonstrated in the video above.) The symbol’s squares of color are intended to express the company’s diverse portfolio of products.

Starting today, you’ll see the new Microsoft logo being used prominently. It will be used on Microsoft.com – the 10th most visited website in the world. It is in three of our Microsoft retail stores today (Boston, Seattle’s University Village and Bellevue, Wash.) and will shine brightly in all our stores over the next few months. It will sign off all of our television ads globally. And it will support our products across various forms of marketing. Fully implementing a change like this takes time, so there may be other instances where you will see the old logo being used for some time.

We’re excited about the new logo, but more importantly about this new era in which we’re reimagining how our products can help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.

Drupal becomes the fastest growing Content Management System

2012-08-23T20:37:00.001+05:30

If your have a question like, which is the fastest growing content management system among Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla and various others, then here is the answer. According to W3Techs, a company that collects information about the usage of various types of technologies used for building and running websites, the fastest growing CMS is Drupal.

Also Read: How to find, what content management system a website uses

W3Techs report says: Drupal is used by 7.0% of all the websites whose content management system we know. This is 2.2% of all websites.

Below you can see the historical trend of the usage of Drupal. The diagram shows the historical trend in the percentage of websites using Drupal.

When it comes to market position, Drupal is used by fewer sites than Wordpress and Joomla but its noticeable that sites built on Drupal has considerably higher traffic than Wordpress, Joomla and Blogger.

The below diagram shows the market position of Drupal in terms of popularity and traffic compared to the most popular content management systems.

Popular Sites Using Drupal

Some of popular sites using Drupal as its CMS include Whitehouse.gov, data.gov.uk, World Bank, Symbian Foundation, MTV UK, BBC - Music Magazine, Grammy Awards, Emmy Awards, Warner Bros. Records (WBR), Google - Measurement Lab, Yahoo - Research, AOL - Corporation, AT&T - Apps Beta, Nokia - Research Center, nVidia - Developers, Sony Ericsson - Labs, SourceForge.com, Capgemini, Barack Obama, Ubuntu etc., (Click here for more sites using Drupal)

A Brief Intro on Drupal (Source: Wikipedia)

Drupal is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) and content management framework (CMF) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for at least 2.1% of all websites worldwide ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political, and government sites includingwhitehouse.gov and data.gov.uk. It is also used for knowledge management and business collaboration. Read more in Wikipedia Entry

Top 12 Cool Facebook Tricks and Hacks

2012-08-21T20:31:00.003+05:30

Using Facebook is cool, make it more cool with these amazing tricks, tips, hacks and apps. Have more fun and make your Facebook experience more enjoyable.

1. Be a part of a Movie, be the victim

Take This Lollipop is a short film and an interactive Facebook app. When you play this game you can see yourself in the short film as a "Wanted" and you and your location will be searched by a creepy, thin fellow. This app is the world's fastest growing Facebook app.

2. Go offline to selected friends on Facebook

Are you annoyed of some people disturbing you through Facebook Chat again and again, here's a way to blacklist them. Just click the "Settings Gear Icon" on the chat bar, and click "Advanced Settings" and select the first option and type your friends' names for whom you wish to appear offline.

3. Automatically log-out of Facebook

Do you often forget to log-out before handing your PC to some others in your family or friend's, just use this Firefox add-on to automatically log you out of Facebook when you close your browser. This extensions also triggers the log out process whenever it detects in-activity for a configurable amount of time. Google Chrome users have better option, you can create multiple users in Google Chrome to safeguard your privacy.

4. Inserting Special Symbols in Chat, Status and Comments

If you wish your comment to shine out in the crowd you have write something catchy other than a simple plain text, inserting special symbols like hearts, music etc will draw extra attention to your comment. Use appropriate symbols and shapes whenever necessary to make your conversation more fun and more live. And this is easy, just hold down the "Alt key" and press any number. Example: Alt+3 shows a ♥, Alt+14 shows ♫, Alt+1 shows up ☺, etc., Find more Alt codes and symbols here

5. Make some real money while you share something

Share some videos with your friends and get paid based on number of views, sign-up here on Wingsplay, the Viral Video Advertising Platform. Other than Facebook, the videos can also be shared on your Twitter and Blog Page.

6. Inserting Profile Pictures on Facebook Chat

Other than inserting smileys and emoticons and symbols and various shapes in Facebook chat, you can also insert any Facebook profile picture in the chat. Its simple, put your's or anyone's or any Facebook Page's username or user id within double pairs of braces like this, [[techfrostblog]] or [[1000001551xxxx]]. You can find the username or user-id by simply visiting a Facebook profile and copying it from the URL in the adress bar

7. Download your Friend's Photo album including comments

So, your friend has uploaded a nice album and you wish to have all photos for offline viewing. Instead of saving those images one by one, you can use Photo Grabber to download the entire album, and the highlight of this application is that it downloads images and also comments. If you don't want comments you can use another application called Pic&Zip this app can also download Facebook Videos.

Also read: How to Print, Save as PDF or Export Facebook Contacts

8. Auto Zoom Images on Mouse over

Explore Facebook faster, never click on images just to view it in full size. Hover your mouse on any image and get a glimpse of the full sized picture. This should save you hundreds of clicks and probably your precious time. Chrome user can install the Hover Zoom extension and Firefox users please use Thumbnail Zoom add-on.

9. Schedule your Facebook Posts throughout the day

So, you got a blog and you find it difficult to post throughout the day on various times on your Facebook page. Well, here's an app for you, schedule Facebook Posts to be posted at various times of the day using buffer. By doing so, you will have a consistent social media presence all day round, all week long. Just keep your buffer topped up with posts.

10. Play a prank by posting via Blackberry or iPhone without owning them

You don't own an iPhone or Blackberry but still you can prank your friends that you have got one. You post your status from a PC of Laptop, but your friends will see something like you have "Posted via Blackberry" or "Posted via iPhone" you can also post via various devices like Android, MacBook Pro, and even a Calculator. To start your pranks use this app http://adf.ly/2671402/apps.facebook.com/viabberry/ and choose whatever devices you wish.

11. Start a Group Chat

You can Group chat on Facebook and this is similar to a conference call on phone. Open the Chat box for any of your online friend, Click the “Gears” icon on the Chat box and click on “Add friends”, Now type any of your friend’s name you want to add to group chat, When you are finished adding friends, just click Done, and have fun as a group.

12. Get an SMS Notification, each time you login into Facebook

Enabling SMS login notification in Facebook adds an extra layer of security, say, for example, someone have compromised your Facebook account and logs-in, once you get the notification, you can suspect a security breach and immediately change your password and tweak your security settings before it gets too late. This is useful if you are using "Remember Password" browser feature on a public computer. Every time you Login into your Facebook account, you can get an SMS, containing the Date, time and device information. Here are the steps, Login into your Facebook Account, Go to “Account Settings”, Now Click “Security Settings” and under “Login Notifications” check the “Text Message” check Box, Before you Enable Text Message Notification, make sure you have registered your mobile number under the “Mobile Settings”.

Also read: 8 tips to secure your Facebook account from Hackers

Facebook finally deletes your deleted images

2012-08-21T13:24:00.003+05:30

For years, the social network had been unable to remove deleted photos from its servers, meaning that even though such a photo wouldn't be viewable on users' profiles, it would still be accessible on the Web via direct URLs to the image. However, that seems to have been resolved.

Also read: How to Go offline or invisible to selected Facebook Friends

Facebook says its new photo-storage systems are in place, allowing for images to be permanently removed from its content delivery network (CDN) in a timely fashion. Images will not stick around on servers any longer than 30 day after users delete them, according to Facebook.

"As a result of work on our policies and infrastructure, we have instituted a 'max-age' of 30 days for our CDN links," Facebook spokesperson Frederic Wolens said in a statement. "However, in some cases the content will expire on the CDN much more quickly, based on a number of factors."

As with before, images will vanish from Facebook pages immediately upon users deleting them, he said.

"To be clear, the photos stop being shown to other users on Facebook immediately when the photo is first deleted by the user," he said. "The 30-day window only applies to the cached images on the CDN."

A test of the new system conducted by Ars Technica showed that photos were removed from servers within two days of deletion.

How to Go offline or invisible to selected Facebook Friends

2012-08-19T18:57:00.001+05:30

So, you wish to use your Facebook chat but want to appear offline for selected friends. You can hide your online status for a single specific person or a group of people altogether. And this is pretty simple, here we go

Click the "Settings Gear Icon" on the Facebook chat bar and Click "Advanced Settings", now you will see a "Advanced Chat Settings" layer window

Select the first option and enter your Friends' names to whom you wish to appear offline even when you are online. You can also go offline to a specific friend, just by clicking a friend's name on the chat bar and click "Gear Icon" and select "Go offline..."

The second option allows you to be visible or online only to selected friends, other people will not see you online on their chat bar.

The third option, gets you completely offline, no one will see you online anymore unless you opt to go online again.

Auto Zoom FB Images on Mouseover Download FB Albums with Comments

Add search bar on Page not found page in blogger - Cutomize the 404 Error Page

2012-08-04T18:06:00.003+05:30

Usually when a 404 error is encountered on a blogger blog, your visitor get a message like "Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist"

but, this is of no use for the visitor and most of them leave the page, to avoid this you can create and customize your "404 Page not found" Error Page. Just add a search bar and give some links and there is more chance that your visitor remains in your site.

1. Go to your blogger dashboard and choose your blog

2. Go to Settings -> Search Preferences -> Errors and Redirection -> Custom Page Not Found

3. Copy and paste the below code into the box and save changes

<style>
#search-button-links {
position: relative;
top: 0;
right: 0;
height: 60px;
width: 580px;
font-size: 18px;

color: #000;
text-align: center;
text-decoration:none;
line-height: 42px;
border-width: 0;
background-color: #5caddf;
margin:5px;
cursor: pointer;
}
#search-box {
position: relative;
width: 100%;
margin: 0;
}
#search-form {
height: 40px;
border: 1px solid #999;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
border-radius: 5px;
background-color: #fff;
overflow: hidden;
}
#search-text {
font-size: 14px;
color: #ddd;
border-width: 0;
background: transparent;
}
#search-box input[type="text"] {
width: 90%;
padding: 11px 0 12px 1em;
color: #333;
outline: none;
}
#search-button {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
right: 0;
height: 42px;
width: 80px;
font-size: 14px;
color: #fff;
text-align: center;
line-height: 42px;
border-width: 0;
background-color: #4d90fe;
-webkit-border-radius: 0px 5px 5px 0px;
-moz-border-radius: 0px 5px 5px 0px;
border-radius: 0px 5px 5px 0px;
cursor: pointer;
}
</style>
<div id='search-box'>
<form action='/search' id='search-form' method='get' target='_top'>
<input id='search-text' name='q' placeholder='Search TechFrost' type='text'/>
<button id='search-button' type='submit'><span>Search</span></button>
</form>
</div>
<p style="color:#e33633; font-family:verdana, sans serif; font-size:16px; padding:24px; text-decoration:none">The page has moved please use the
search bar above or go to <a href="http://techfrost.blogspot.com">HOMEPAGE</a> or go to <a
href="http://techfrost.blogspot.in/p/sitemap">SITEMAP</a></p>

Replace the codes in color to suite you blog

How to Redirect old Blogger URLs to New URLs

2012-08-04T17:48:00.002+05:30

Blogger posts sometimes show a 404 Page not found error and this may be due to one of the following reasons

1. You have deleted your blog post

2. Since you got too messy with your blog theme edit, you deleted your blog and created new blog with same name and imported your posts

3. You have saved the published post as draft and republished it with a new date setting and etc

So whatever reason it maybe, both people and search engines hate a "Page not found 404 error" , if there are lots of 404 errors, there is a chance that search engines de-promote your page ranking thus your traffic falls.

To avoid this, you can use the custom re-direct feature present in the new updated blogger interface

1. Go to your blogger dashboard and choose your blog

2. Go to Settings -> Search Preferences -> Errors and Redirection -> Custom Redirects

3. Click "Edit" -> "New redirect" and enter your old URL and new URL and click save and again save everything

Don't enter the entire URL just enter the part that comes after your blog's homepage URL i.e, after .com

RSS, Twitter and Facebook Subscribe Widget for Blogger

2012-08-04T16:17:00.003+05:30

The below widget features Subscribe to RSS feeds button, Twitter Follow button and a Facebook Like button.

Add this widget to your blog's sidebar by adding a HTML element and pasting the below code into it

<table border="0"><tbody>
<tr><td><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQL18tPOVfsO15agdVrH-aG6b-W9d2Hoop4R8oc3FD-nOdNnRg9JmcQkgXffTML64DlHftu-CIqbUZDCWvC6_V7E6Q9RV94uTFQV9SZhzBPQENDer9meHbEYLbZBcua9OmGj5uMDRcjhRO/s1600/stay+connected.png" /></td><td>
<a target="_blank" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/NwLhW" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw0OfJTE78b95l39mTAF81C1n5UESEwdHf-BTcbZ2HM7wMQrQuX-gXjRyL9jAyFSJd1nQxMWMILz0PlCNybQ60dx9r46Ql8J8L5mJ-G7Qq5Tt2J2li23zmg2ozDENy45Ah8hY4pZWMxD8/s1600/connect-rss-feed.png" /></a></td><td>
<a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/techfrost" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcdTmU4oVd1CrJ7NjE-No0jbLdf5TlC1nyDhoDiT5kcdCWG80xCV9rTlcAnyTqhfBLqTYAQuuTHcsZbhfgKFbnlW3Nk3-E4ixRl0W4Eh9s25WSKfWa2QoIwlqGQd10bZWt9e3itMfueXo/s1600/connect-twitter-follow.png" /></a></td><td>
<a target="_blank" href="http://facebook.com/techfrostblog" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYDSSYdxr16dwQUywXoeWlVW1gYcQs_aKR2ym4rEy3g7KVFcZ2ZGTypyKuqBloG2R082-c6BzeKM4KLzdrZuauS3YpphUFn3myp05To-ZfDhC21EpOEY5FFXLSoZ_lvnXRnNGnB4qizQ4/s1600/connect-facebook-follow.png" /></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a style="color:#dedede; text-decoration:none" href="http://techfrost.blogspot.com/">Grab This Widget</a>

http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/NwLhW - Change this to your blog's RSS feed URL

http://twitter.com/techfrost - Change this to your Twitter page URL

http://facebook.com/techfrostblog - Change this to your Facebook page URL

Beautiful Search Box Widget for Blogger

2012-08-04T15:25:00.009+05:30

If you need RSS, Facebook and Twitter Subscribe widget for blogger click here

also see How to add search bar in Page Not Found Pages in Blogger

Search Boxes are the most essential element of a blog, allowing visitors to dig and find contents. Here is a beautiful, functional and fluid adaptive width search box for blogger blogs.

Just copy the below code and add it as a HTML element. Width of the search box is fluid and it gets automatically adjusted to the sidebar width or wherever it is placed

<style>
#search-box {
position: relative;
width: 100%;
margin: 0;
}
#search-form {
height: 40px;
border: 1px solid #999;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
border-radius: 5px;
background-color: #fff;
overflow: hidden;
}
#search-text {
font-size: 14px;
color: #ddd;
border-width: 0;
background: transparent;
}
#search-box input[type="text"] {
width: 90%;
padding: 11px 0 12px 1em;
color: #333;
outline: none;
}
#search-button {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
right: 0;
height: 42px;
width: 80px;
font-size: 14px;
color: #fff;
text-align: center;
line-height: 42px;
border-width: 0;
background-color: #4d90fe;
-webkit-border-radius: 0px 5px 5px 0px;
-moz-border-radius: 0px 5px 5px 0px;
border-radius: 0px 5px 5px 0px;
cursor: pointer;
}
</style>
<div id='search-box'>
<form action='/search' id='search-form' method='get' target='_top'>
<input id='search-text' name='q' placeholder='Search TechFrost' type='text'/>
<button id='search-button' type='submit'><span>Search</span></button>
</form>
</div>

100% - This is for fluid width of the search bar, to change it to fixed width, just enter appropriate pixel value example: 200px

#4d90fe - Change this hex code to the change the color

Search TechFrost - Change this to more appropriate word for your blog

Search - Change this to something like "GO' or "Submit" or anything but its better to leave it as "Search"

Firefox Addons to detect CMS of a Website

2012-08-03T03:31:00.003+05:30

Find whether a website is using Wordpress or blogger or Joomla or any other Content Management Systems with these Firefox Add-ons. The platform or the CMS of the website is displayed as you browse through web pages.

If you need a website tool for finding CMS of a website Click Here

Find CMS Detector Chrome Extensions Here

CMS Detector Add-ons for Mozilla Firefox

W3Techs

This extension is probably the best one to analyze various aspects of a website. W3Techs gives the complete detail of a website. The details include Website background, Content Management System, Server side programming languages, Client side programming languages, Javascript library, Mark-up language, Character Encoding, Image file formats, Site elements, SSL Certificate authorities, Social Widgets, Web server, Traffic Analysis tools, Advertising network, Domain, Language and Technology Score. The tool gives ultimate in-depth data of a website which is extremely useful for a programmer. Additionally, you get background information and warnings on potential quality problems of the site.

Wappalyzer

Wappalyzer for Firefox gives more details of the website you visit. Wappalyzer uncovers the technologies used on websites. It detects content management systems, web shops, web servers, JavaScript frameworks, analytics tools and many more.

TechFrost

Facebook to get a new look - Be the first to try the clutter free interface

World's Top Google Searches in 2012 - Google Zeitgeist

NASA Explains why the World won't end in 21 December,2012

1. Mayan Calendar Ends, but Starts again

2. Total Blackout is a Rumor

3. Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax

4. A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible

5. No danger of Earth being hit by a meteor in 2012

6. Solar storms are not new

Also read:

How to draw a teddy bear in 5 seconds with Picasa (Fun)

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Also read

Automatically Reduce PC Volume During Incoming or Outgoing Phone Calls

My Phone Explorer supports the following phones

Sony Ericsson Phones with modem interface

Phones with Google Android-OS (Android 1.6 or Higher)

Free Web Hosting with CPanel, FTP, Wordpress, PHP and more - 1500MB Space and 100GB Bandwidth - Absolutely for Zero Dollar

000webhost - Features

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Add search bar on Page not found page in blogger - Cutomize the 404 Error Page

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Beautiful Search Box Widget for Blogger

Firefox Addons to detect CMS of a Website