Technology Made Easy

Revert to Google Chrome's Older "New Tab" Page in 3 Steps

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 21:55:00 +0530

A few days back Google released a new version of Chrome which comes with a redesigned "New Tab" page. The new tab page now sports a large Google logo along with the search box. Like its predecessor, the page displays eight thumbnails of the user's frequently visited pages.

Chrome 29's "New Tabs" Page

Many users, however, are not happy with this change as the redesign doesn't seem to bring anything new to the table. Many, who have gotten into the habit of entering search terms in the address bar, are finding the new search bar redundant and a space hog.

If you are not happy with this change, you can switch back to the old view in just three easy steps:

Step 1 : Type the following in Chrome's address bar (a.k.a the Omnibox) :

chrome://flags/#enable-instant-extended-api

Step 2 : Click on the first drop-down box from the top and set its value "Default" to "Disabled."

Step 3 : Click on the "Relaunch Now" button (present at the bottom of the page) or manually restart Chrome.

Voila! Chrome's classic tab page is back :)

Chrome's Classic Most Visited Page

Vintage App's Page

Also check :

Use Google Search to Plot 3D Graphs

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 11:31:00 +0530

In our earlier posts, we showed you how you can plot some amazing graphs (Heart Shaped Graphs, Batman Curve) in Google search. Today we are going to raise the bar of geekiness even higher by plotting a few unique graphs, and that too in 3D!

Type the following functions in Google Search bar :

Heart :

5 + (-sqrt(1-x^2-(y-abs(x))^2))*cos(30*((1-x^2-(y-abs(x))^2))), x is from -1 to 1, y is from -1 to 1.5, z is from 1 to 6


3D Heart

Rose :

100-3/(sqrt(x^2+y^2))+sin(sqrt(x^2+y^2))+sqrt(200-(x^2+y^2)+10*sin(x)+10sin(y))/1000, x is from -15 to 15, y is from -15 to 15, z is from 90 to 101

Rose 3D

Flower :

sqrt(x*x+y*y)+3*cos(sqrt(x*x+y*y))+5 from -20 to 20

3D Flower

Also check :

Hide Data Within A Text File WITHOUT using any Software

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Sat, 25 May 2013 12:00:00 +0530

Have you ever find yourself with too many passwords to remember and no idea where to keep them so that only you can find the password list? Yes, you can use software like Truecrypt, My LockBox and Wise Folder Hider for such purpose, but all these programs requires installation on your PC which is obviously visible to prying eyes.

In today's tutorial I’m going to show you a handy trick to hide textual data within a simple text file without requiring any third-party utility.

1. Click on the Start orb and in the search bar type"cmd" (without quotes). Hit [Enter] to open command prompt. (XP users: click Start, then Run and type "cmd" and hit enter).

2. Navigate to any destination [In our case : C:\Test].

3. Now type the following command in the console :

notepad PublicFile.txt:password.txt

Note: You can change PublicFile.txt and password.txt to any other name of your choice. The key point is that there can’t be any spaces between the first filename and the colon.

4. Hit [Enter] and you will be prompted to create a new file.

5. Click "Yes" and enter whatever data you want to hide.

6. Save the file and close Notepad.

7. Visit the location where you have saved the file. There you will see your non-hidden file. Notice that the main file name is “PublicFile.txt” and there are no clues from the exterior that it contains a hidden file within it.

You can even open up the file by double-clicking on it, and add whatever data you want to make the file look normal.

8. You can also hide more than one text file in the same file. Simply type the command in Step 3 but with a different name after the colon. For example :

notepad PublicFile.txt:secret.txt

notepad PublicFile.txt:confidential.txt

None of these hidden files will affect the other, or change the main file.

To view hidden data, open command prompt and navigate to the folder where the text file is located. Now type :

notepad PublicFile.txt:password.txt

change the PublicFile.txt and Secret.txt with the names that you used in Step 3 and in Step 8.

If you want to delete all the hidden files from the non-hidden file, you first need to download a small command line application called Streams.exe. Once installed, type the following command in the command window :

streams.exe -d PublicFile.txt

where PublicFile.txt is the name of your non-hidden file.

Also Check :

Clipping Magic : Best Online App To Remove Image Backgrounds

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:32:00 +0530

There are probably a bunch of different ways to remove backgrounds from an image, but if you are in hurry then try "Clipping Magic", a new web app that does it for you in seconds.

All you have to do is paint the foreground object in green, the background in red and voila! Mission accomplished. Yes, clipping image using this handy app is that easy (and fun).

Head over to the home page of Clipping Magic to try it yourself.

Clipping Magic In Action

Also Check :

Enable Facebook's Redesigned News Feed NOW

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Sun, 19 May 2013 23:29:00 +0530

A few months ago, Facebook unveiled a redesigned news feed to make its often overwhelming stream of updates feel less cluttered. The first thing you will notice about the revamped News Feed is how aesthetically pleasing it is. This UI update, however, is more than just skin deep -- underneath that design is a whole bucket of new features that are just as appealing as the visuals. The feeds now incorporates bigger images, more customization and a consistent experience on mobile and desktop versions.

Facebook's New News Feed

Sadly Facebook is taking a painstakingly slow approach to releasing this remarkably overhauled version of the feeds, as previous updates by the social network giant [such as Timeline and Ticker Feed ] have met with a mixed reception upon release from its users..

However, if you wish to enable this new design right now, simply head over to the Facebook's news feed page, scroll down till the end and click on the "Try the new look" button.

Also Check :

How to Disable Facebook Timeline

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 02:52:00 +0530

If you don't like the Timeline view, here's how you can disable\deactivate\get rid of it :

Note : The Timeline view gets disabled only in your browser, other people will continue to see your profile as the default Timeline view.

1. Navigate your browser to SocialReviver.net

2. Install the add-on\extension for your browser by clicking on the "Install now" button.
(SocialReviver is available for Firefox, Chrome and Opera)

3. Once installed, head to Facebook.com.

(Optional) 4. Click on the ▼ button present at the top of the page, to the right of the "Home" button and select "SocialReviver Settings" [see screenshot below]

(Optional) 5. You will find a lot of useful features in there, but for now, disable them all as we are only interested in disabling the Timeline view. For that, uncheck every box you see. Also set "Chat Style" as "With Sidebar" and "Chat Tabs Style" as "Classic Style". Click on the "close" button once you are done.

Thats it! Now enjoy browsing Facebook profiles just like you used to.

Result :

Before (Timeline)

After (Timeline disabled)

Also Check :

How to Restore Old Gawker Commenting System [Lifehacker, Kotaku, io9]

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 16:17:00 +0530

Over the past few weeks, Gawker Media has begun rolling out a new commenting system, called Kinja, on its network of websites (Kotaku, Jalopnik, Deadspin, Jezebel, Gizmodo, io9, Gawker and Lifehacker). Rather than showing all comments on a given article, Kinja shows only the most interesting thread of comments and replies. Now instead of a long stream of comments, users can choose which threads to read. Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton hopes that this will finally erase the traditional distinctions between writers, editors, readers, subject, and sources.

Although the logic behind Kinja is sound, the implementation is not. The new commenting system is so minimalistic that nothing is intuitive to use. For example, suppose you want to read the comments. Instead of scrolling down, you now have to click through all the replies in a thread.

To counter the new commenting system, one dissatisfied Kotaku commenter has come up with a browser extension\add-on that one can install to restore the commenting system to its former glory.

Download Link :

Once installed, visit any of the Gawker site and click on the "SHOW ALL (Go Classic!)" link to view all the comments in the good old fashioned way.

Result :

Before

After

Also Check :

How to Add Support for the exFAT File System in Windows XP

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 10:56:00 +0530

Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT), first introduced with Windows Vista SP1 is a file system designed especially for flash drives. Advantages of exFAT in comparison to FAT32 are the removal of the 4 GB file size limit and support for storage devices with large capacities. A major advantage of exFAT is that it's a file system that's both readable and writable on Mac OS X Snow Leopard (starting from 10.6.5) and Mac OS X Lion (Windows' NTFS is only readable on OS X, not writable).

Although not supported in the default installation of Windows XP, you can install this update from Microsoft (KB955704) to bring exFAT file system support parity to XP.

Check this article to know how to re-format a flash drive to exFAT.

How to Enable Hidden Disk Cleanup Features in Windows

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Sun, 1 Jul 2012 14:10:00 +0530

The Disk Cleanup tool that comes bundled with Windows is a nice basic junk cleaner, but it’s full set of features are hidden by default. It’s capable of much more if you know about the “enhanced” setting that can turn it into a more powerful version of itself.

Windows Disk Cleanup

To access these extended disk cleanup features, you will need to create a special shortcut. Here’s how:

1. Right-click anywhere on your desktop and select “New” followed by “Shortcut”

2. Paste the following :

%SystemRoot%\System32\cmd.exe /c Cleanmgr /sageset:65535&Cleanmgr /sagerun:65535

3. Click "Next"

4. Enter any name you wish to give to this shortcut (For example : Disk Cleanup PRO) and then click "Finish"

5. Now double-click on the shortcut to launch Disk Cleanup with a greater number of options available to you. Select the options you want to clean up and then click "OK" to begin the cleanup process.

Disk Cleanup with Hidden Options

Note : If you’re unsure what the options mean, simply click on the one and read the description below it.

Also Check :

Enable Secret "God Mode" in Windows Vista/7

How to Turn any Image into Large Facebook Chat Emoticon

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 16:44:00 +0530

"Tired of sending the old boring Facebook chat emoticons? Want to send your friend a message with a cool smiley that Facebook doesn’t have?"

After my last post on this topic, a friend of mine informed me about smileyti.me, a site where you can create your own emoticons from any image in just three easy steps and then you can use them in your chats to amaze your friends.

Here's how :

1. Head to the site smileyti.me

2. Click on the “Choose File” button and select the image that you wish to turn into emoticon from your computer.

3. Hit the "Upload Now" button and wait a few seconds for the code to generate.

4. To use the custom made smiley in your chat, simply copy the generated code and paste it in the Facebook chat box and hit [Enter]

Thats it! Enjoy the reactions from your friends

Also check :

XBMC : Best Media Center Application for your HTPC

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:30:00 +0530

If you've wanted to build a HTPC (Home Theater PC), you won't find a better media center application than the open-source XBMC. XBMC is free and cross platform software that is released for Windows, OS X, Linux, AppleTV, and as a live image that can be run directly from a CD/USB drive or installed to turn any decent computer into a true HTPC appliance. XBMC is a fantastic media center application and you won’t regret installing it. It's attractive, powerful, and highly customizable. Check the screenshots below:

Download and Install XBMC :

You can download XBMC from here: http://xbmc.org/download/

Windows :
Click the Windows-Logo to get the newest stable Windows-Build for your machine. Download the Setup-File and install it.

Mac OS :
Download the current Mac-Version by clicking on the OSX-Logo (or – if you run a PPC – on the OSX-PPC-Link beneath the logo) and save the DMG-File to your drive. Install the DMG by clicking on it. Drag XBMC to your application folder as usual. You can delete the DMG-File after installation.

For complete installation guide of XBMC in Mac OS, check this link:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Installing_XBMC_for_Mac

Linux :
The installation varies between the different distributions of Linux. You may want to take a look at the XBMC-Wiki; you’ll find instructions for the various distributions:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Installing_XBMC_for_Linux

Configuring the Sources:

Before you start adding your files to your XBMC, you should make sure that the files are named properly. Ideally you have your movie-files all in one folder. It does not matter if there are subfolders and/or single files in this directory. The best way however is to use subfolders for each movie you have. The folder should then be named like the following Layout: “Movie Name (Release-Year)”. The part “Release Year” is technically not necessary but it will make sure that XBMC scrapes the right information (Check the screenshot below).

For example, all my media (Movies, TV-shows, Music) are stored in following directory structure:

Media
|
-----------> Movies--------------> Hollywood
| |
| ---------------> Foreign
|
-----------> TV Shows------> <Name of the show> ----- > Season 'X'
|
|
-----------> Music

If you have a movie that is split in two or more files, then you should name those files like “<Movie Name>.CD1.FileExtension” (without quotes), “<Movie Name>.CD2.FileExtension” (without quotes) and so on. Doing so will inform XBMC that this is supposed to be one movie and will index all the files only as one movie in your library. If you then play this movie via the library in your XBMC all files will be played – the CD2 after CD1 ends obviously. You won’t even notice the cut between those two.

For those of you who may have your entire collection of videos dumped individually in a single folder (or a few folders for some organization), it may appear to be a monumental task creating a folder for each movie and then moving the files accordingly. That is where Files 2 Folder comes into play. Files 2 Folder is a right-click shell extension that will automatically create a folder based on the selected filename and move that file into that folder.

For all your music files, XBMC needs your music to be tagged. XBMC also supports embedded album art in files with ID3 tags. If you have never taken the time to tag your music properly, the time is now! Today most media applications and players organize your music by this ID tag information. I would recommend MediaMonkey for this purpose.

For many categories, such as genres and artists, XBMC supports multiple values in the one field. By default it uses the character sequence " / " to divide the entry into multiple values. That is, multiple artists for either a track or album artist can be specified in "Artist1 / Artist2 / Artist3" format.

XBMC First Run :

Start up XBMC and you'll find yourself at the Home menu. On the screen you'll find a series of main headings, including Videos, Weather, Pictures and Music. Use your keyboard or Mouse to hit the "VIDEOS" button. You will find a Button “Add Videos..” – hit it in order to bring up the "Add Video source" menu as shown :

Hit the “Browse” button and locate your movie location (in my case : D:\media\movies). Click “OK”. The "Set Content" window will open up :

Select "This directory contains" as "(Movies)" and check "Scan recursively". If your collection is organized as separate folder for each movie in your main movie-folder, then you should also check “Movies are in separate folders that match the movie title”.

Finally hit "OK" and let XBMC to search movie information for your stored movies and add the contents to its database (XBMC will flash the message, "Scanning for new content"). This will take a while, depending on the size of your collection and your internet speed.

Once your movie files have been scanned, you can navigate into your collection directly by clicking on your main-movie folder and opening sub-folders, just as if you were using your computer's file system. However, far more powerful is the XBMC's "Library Mode". To enable it, press the [escape] key to return back to the main menu, hit "VIDEOS" using your keyboard or mouse and press [backspace] to explore the "Library Mode".

Library Mode allows you to browse your video content by things such as; Genre, Title, Year, Actors and Directors. I suggest you to explore the library mode yourself. Just a few tips:

1.You can perform various actions on your video files using the Context Menu. You can bring the context menu by right clicking on the video.

2.To view Media Information of any Movie/TV Show/Episode/Song/Artist, bring the context menu by right clicking on the media and then hit "Movie information". You can also use the keyboard shortcut "i" to achieve the same.

3. To return back to the parent directory, that is, to step back, hit backspace on the keyboard.

4. During playback, "tab" can be used to toggle between the library and video playback.

5. Press "\" to toggle between full-screen and windowed mode.

6. To change the look and feel, move your mouse pointer to extreme left of the screen. Change the view (the first menu item) to whichever one you enjoy the most.

TV-Shows :

To add TV-Shows, return back to the Home menu by pressing the [Escape] key, navigate to "VIDEOS" using your keyboard or mouse and hit the sub-menu button "Files".

Press the “Add Videos..” Button and select your TV-Show-Directory. Hit OK to continue. In the “Set Content” screen select “TV Shows”. XBMC will now scrape all your Shows to your library.

Music:

Press [Escape] to return back to the home screen of XBMC. Use your keyboard or Mouse to hit the "MUSIC" button. Now hit the “Add Source” Button and add your music directory. Right-click on the newly added folder and select "Scan item to library". Once the scan is complete, enjoy the music library by activating the "Library Mode". XBMC can list all the artists, albums, tracks, genres and so on in your collection. It automatically builds up lists of most recently played and most recently added music for quick access, and it charts your preferences to produce Top 100 lists of both tracks and albums. All of these choices are on offer from the root menu, and of course you can always run a text search as before from this screen.

Useful Keyboards Bindings in XBMC:

In order to control XBMC properly, you should know a few keyboard and mouse bindings. This will help you navigating through the XBMC and using its functions. It is important to know that the XBMC uses different mappings for different views. So if you are playing a video in full-screen the button-mapping might change.

During Playback:

Key	Action
P	Play
Space	Pause
X	Stop
F	Fast Forward
R	Rewind
T	Toggle Subtitles on and off
L	Cycle subtitles
M	Activate OSD Player Controls
I	Media Info
Plus (+)	Volume Up
Minus (-)	Volume Down
Tab	Toggles fullscreen modes
O	Displays CPU usage & video diagnostic information

.
Menu Navigation :

Key	Action
Left-arrow	Left / Library Menu
Right-arrow	Right
Up-arrow	Up
Down-arrow	Down
Return	Select
Backspace	Up one level
Q	Add to queue
W	Mark as watched/Unwatched
A	Activate Shutdown Menu
Esc	Home Menu (remembering the last menu-position when you return to it)
I	Media Info
Application key	Context Menu
C	Context Menu
Print Screen	Sceenshot
Backslash (\)	Toggle Application Full Screen / Windowed mode
End	Shutdown XBMC

.
You can redefine all keys as you like by editing the keyboard.xml file. In XBMC 9.11 (and higher), keyboard.xml file (and other keymap configuration files) are located in the following directories:

Linux : (installation directory)/system/keymaps/

Windows : (installation directory)\system\keymaps\

Example :

Linux : /usr/share/xbmc/system/keymaps/

Windows : C:\Program Files\XBMC\userdata\keymaps\

For a detailed guide about redefining key mappings in XBMC, check this article :
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Modifying_keyboard.xml

Use an External Player for Playback :

While the built in DVD player and Music Player are capable of handling a number of formats, depending on your preference, you may want to use a different playback software. Well for that XBMC have a powerful tool : the external player option.

Here what you need to do to access this functionality :

1. Windows users :
     Go to (User)\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\userdata
   Note : Appdata is a hidden folder

     Linux users :
      Go to $HOME/.xbmc/userdata

2. Look for playercorefactory.xml file. If the file doesn't exist then create it using any text editor.

3. Open playercorefactory.xml in any text editor (such as "Notepad") and paste the following :

<playercorefactory>
<players>
   <player name="PLAYER'S NAME" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
     <filename>PATH OF PLAYER</filename>
     <args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>
     <hidexbmc>true</hidexbmc>
     <hideconsole>false</hideconsole>
     <warpcursor>none</warpcursor>
     <playcountminimumtime>600</playcountminimumtime>
   </player>
</players>
</playercorefactory>

Replace PLAYER'S NAME with the external player's name. Replace PATH OF PLAYER with the full path where the player is present. Above player will only be available when a video is selected (As audio=false and video=true) To enable this player for all files, set audio="true" video="true". To enable this player for only audio files, set audio="true" video="false"

For example, to add VLC Player (present in C:\Program Files\VLCPortable\App\vlc\vlc.exe") for video playback and Windows Media Player (present in C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe) for audio playback in Windows, this is what I wrote in "playercorefactory.xml" :

<playercorefactory>

 <players>

   <player name="VLC Player" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">

     <filename>C:\Program Files\VLCPortable\App\vlc\vlc.exe</filename>

     <args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>

     <hidexbmc>true</hidexbmc>

     <hideconsole>false</hideconsole>

     <warpcursor>none</warpcursor>

     <playcountminimumtime>600</playcountminimumtime>

   </player>

   <player name="Windows Media Player" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="true" video="false">

     <filename>C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe</filename>

     <args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>

     <hidexbmc>true</hidexbmc>

     <hideconsole>false</hideconsole>

     <warpcursor>none</warpcursor>

     <playcountminimumtime>600</playcountminimumtime>

   </player>

</players>
</playercorefactory>

3. Save the file

To play any audio\video file with your preferred media player, right click on that file and select "Play Using...". Then select your desired player.

Help!! :

If you find that XBMC have pulled up incorrect movie data for a flick or a TV-Show, press "i" to bring the media information screen, select Refresh and then Manual. You will get the on screen keyboard to refine your search.

In case a movie\TV-Show is not at all recognized by XBMC, you can do a manual lookup by switching back to file mode and then going to its folder in XBMC. Right click on the folder to activate the context menu and then select "Movie Information" (for Movies) / "TV Show Information" (for TV Shows). Here too you will get the on screen keyboard to refine your search.

Whenever you add a new movie to your Video source, bring the context menu and select “Update Library”. I do not recommend configuring XBMC to scan for new content at startup as this generally goes into an endless loop of searching. While scanning for new information, the use of ‘Movie Information’ in the context menu is disabled.

Backup :

XBMC stores the data it scrapes locally. That means that if you have to reinstall XBMC, all that data has to be re-scraped. Want to install XBMC elsewhere in the house? Time to re-scrape again! Scraping can take hours on a large media collection. On top of waiting for the media collection to scrape you then have to go through and correct the errors all over again. It’s tedious and there’s no reason you should do it.

The solution: Export all the data that XBMC has scraped for you and corrected by you. In the main page of XBMC, hit "SYSTEM" button. Select "Video". Highlight the "Library" tab and hit "Export video library". When asked "Export to a single file or separate files per entry" choose "Separate". Hit yes a number of times and you are done.

Similarly, to export all the music information, select the "Music" button in "SYSTEM". Highlight the "Library" tab and hit "Export music library". When asked "Export to a single file or separate files per entry" choose "Separate". Hit "yes" three times.

When you export library all that information is stored with the movies, albums and television shows. Do remember that XBMC first search media information locally and if it finds nothing, then queries from internet.

Also Check :

Covergence : Highly Customizable, Great looking Skin for XBMC

Block Websites in Windows WITHOUT using any Software

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:35:00 +0530

Internet is so vast that any information you need is just a mouse click away. Yet the technology that helps us explore and use the web also makes it easy to expose our personal information to others. Hackers and spammers often use this phenomenon to their advantage, creating malicious websites, that when visited, can track your browsing habits, steal your passwords and credit card information, or can infect your computer with malicious softwares such as Viruses, Worms and Trojans.

The easiest way to protect ourselves or our family members from accessing such dangerous websites is to BLOCK them altogether. There are actually many softwares available on the internet which are pretty good in blocking websites on your computer, but they cost money and are sometimes difficult to operate.

In this article I will show you how to block unsafe websites on your Windows PC without investing in any additional software.

Note : Blocking harmful websites is not a complete security solution. It is still recommended that you run anti-virus software on your computer and be careful of the websites you visit.

Here’s the trick :

1. Run Notepad as Administrator : For this go to Start > All Programs > Accessories, right-click "Notepad" and select "Run as administrator"

Note : If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click "Allow" or "Yes"

2. Within Notepad go to File > Open and select "All Files" from the drop-down menu present near the bottom right corner of the window (check the screenshot).

3. Now type the following text in the "File name" field and click "Open" :

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

5. The "hosts" file will open up. Go to the last line of the file and press the [Enter] key. Type 127.0.0.1 followed by the address of the website that you wish to block. For example, to block facebook.com, type :

Never add “http://” at the start of the URL. Doing so will make the entry invalid. Also note that writing "www" is optional.

6. To block more websites, type 127.0.0.1 followed by the website address in every new line. You can block as many websites as you like.

7. Save and close the file.

Thats it ! Now try to access the offending site(s) from your Web Browser. You’ll see that those specific website(s) will no longer be accessible.

In case you wish to undo the changes, follow Step 1-3 and delete the lines you had typed. You will again be able to open those sites.

Where to find Malicious Websites List ?

You can download customized "Hosts" file from Winhelp2002 (contains a comprehensive list of sites responsible for displaying ads, banners, 3rd party Cookies, 3rd party page counters, web bugs, and other parasites), Peter Lowe’s Ad-server list (contains a list of ad and banner sites) and Technology Made Easy's Malicious Site List (our very own Hosts file).

Direct Links :

You can also use the software HostsMan to effectively manage your Hosts files

Also Check :

Play "Wolfenstein 3D" Game for FREE in Your Web Browser

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:42:00 +0530

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Wolfenstein 3D, Bethesda Software on Wednesday released a free to play, in-browser version of this iconic game to the masses.

Created by "id Software" and published by "Apogee Software", Wolfenstein 3D triggered the shift away from side-scrolling shooters and towards first-person shooters. It is regarded as the first game to provide a "3D" view of the world, with 2D sprites that were mapped from eight perspectives, to produce the illusion of a 3D object.

In Wolfenstein 3D, the player assumes the role of an American soldier of Polish descent, named William "B.J." Blazkowicz, who was trapped in a Nazi castle and forced to fight his way out. Along the way, he had to overpower an army of German troops, attack dogs, and even Adolf Hitler himself wearing a mechanical battle-suit and carrying four mini-guns !

Final Boss Battle

The browser version of the game is available free to play at the Bethesda site and supports most modern browsers. This version of Wolfenstein 3D is not just a demo of the game; It is the entire game, from beginning to end.

Bethesda Software has also announced that for a limited time, the iOS version of Wolfenstein 3D can be downloaded for free to commemorate the anniversary.

Also Check :

Add Firefox-Style Live Bookmarks (RSS Feeds) in Google Chrome

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Wed, 9 May 2012 16:49:00 +0530

Google’s Chrome browser is slowly, but surely becoming the most popular web browser, continuing to eat into the market share of Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. However, an important feature that Chrome lacks, despite being released three and a half years ago, is its lack of support for RSS feeds.

If you love Google Chrome, but miss Firefox-style RSS feeds in your bookmark toolbar and menus, then try "Foxish Live RSS". Foxish Live RSS is an extension for Chrome that lets you put your feeds right in your bookmarks toolbar. It does this by syncing RSS feeds with bookmark folders and refreshing them at a configured interval.

Head to Chrome Web Store to install Foxish for Chrome. Once installed, a distinct red icon will appear in the browser's addressbar whenever you visit a site that offers RSS feed(s).

To subscribe to the RSS feed of the site, click on the red Foxish icon and select the appropriate link.

This will bring up the Foxish Live RSS page. Provide a custom name for the feed, the location where you wish to put it and a maximum limit for the feed items. The "Feed URL" and "Site URL" fields will be filled automatically. Once done, click on the "Subscribe" button and bingo! The Live feeds will appear in the bookmark bar / desired bookmark folder location.

If you want to adjust the polling time (frequency at which the feeds are checked for updates) or wish to delete feeds you no longer need, simply head to the extension's "Options" panel (click on the wrench icon, select Settings>Extensions and click on the "Options" link of Foxish live RSS) to do so.

You can add new feeds by clicking the green "add feed" button, and can delete a particular feed using the (-) red button.

Using Foxish Live RSS, you can even export all of your RSS feeds as an OPML file to Chrome's Bookmark folder. In the "Options" page, click "Choose File" to browse for the OPML file to import, and it will list down all the RSS feed items.

UPDATE : Google has come up with its own RSS subscription extension which the author believes is a better alternative to the mentioned Foxish Live RSS extension. You can download RSS Subscription Extension (by Google) from HERE

Also check :

View any Web Page in 3D with Firefox 11

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Sun, 6 May 2012 23:31:00 +0530

The latest versions of Mozilla Firefox (version 11 and onwards) comes with a web developers tool that can be used to visualize any website's structure in 3D !

The 3D feature, known as Tilt, is a way of visualizing a website’s Document Object Model (DOM). The 3D view stacks elements as they are nested in the DOM and lets you see elements that are hidden or off the page. You can zoom in, zoom out, rotate and pan the view by dragging the page at any angle that is helpful to you.

Technology Made Easy in 3D

To get started, click on the orange Firefox button and select Page Inspector by clicking “Inspect” from the "Web Developer" menu. Alternatively you can press Ctrl+Shift+I in Windows to bring the Page Inspector toolbar.

Now click the "3D View" on the Inspector toolbar and try rotating the page by left clicking and dragging to see the page in 3D!

3D View Button

Right click to move the image around. Use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out.

Note : In case you don’t see the 3D button, it is likely that either you have an older version of Firefox running or have a blocked Graphics driver. In case of latter, a graphics driver update may be all you need!

Also check :

How to Revert to Gmail's Old Look

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Sat, 5 May 2012 10:32:00 +0530

[UPDATE] Following workaround is not working anymore

Gmail’s new look is here to stay and now its mandatory — the opt-out option is gone. However, like me, if you prefer the old Gmail interface, you can keep it a little while longer with a simple Bookmarklet created by Qwerjik that can bring back the “Revert to old look temporarily” option in your Gmail settings.

Here's how :

1.Click on the "gear" icon and go to Settings > General. Change the language to "English (US)"

2. Make sure your browser's "Bookmarks Toolbar" is visible. Now, drag and drop the following link to your Bookmark Toolbar region :

[[ revert gmail ]]

3. Sign into your Gmail account and wait for it to load completely

4. Click the "Revert Gmail" bookmarklet from your Bookmarks menu while staying on your Gmail window/tab

5. A window will appear saying "Settings menu probably updated. Click "revert to old look temporarily" in the settings menu to complete". Click "OK"

6. Click the Gear icon and if the above steps are followed correctly, you will find “Revert to old look Temporarily” option there. Click on it to revert back to the good old Gmail interface!

Result :


Before

After

Bear in mind that this workaround can stop anytime as Google updates Gmail.

Also check :

50 Most Useful Bookmarklets

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 00:34:00 +0530

A Bookmarklet or Favelet is a snippet of JavaScript program that you can place as bookmark in your web browser and when clicked, performs a specific function, depending on what it is coded for.

Bookmarklets are efficient, are extremely easy to install and are browser independent. Moreover, they are cross browser compatible. For example, a bookmarklet written for Firefox is very likely to work with Google Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer.

In this article, we’ll show you 50 most useful bookmarklets to get all sorts of things done as you surf the web.

How to Install Bookmarklets :

The following link will help you understand how to install a Bookmarklet in your browser's "bookmarks toolbar" – just drag and drop the links to your Bookmark Toolbar region, thats all.

Step by Step Instructions to Install a Bookmarklet

The above instructions are for the "Save Page to PDF" bookmarklet but the method is the same for other bookmarklets as well.

Note : Before installing a Bookmarklet, make sure your browser's bookmarks toolbar is visible.

To remove a Bookmarklet, simply right click on it and hit delete.

50 Most Useful Bookmarklets :

50. Capture Screenshot - Capture screenshot of a web page directly in the web browser that you can directly upload to Flickr, Blogger, Evernote and other online services.

49. Edit Website - Allows you to edit a webpage. Note that original display will be restored upon refresh

48. URL Scanner - Scan a URL and show general information including website technologies, webpage components, file security etc.

47. To English - Automatically detect the source language of that page and translate the full page (or specific words) into English using Google Translate

46. Better Readability - This bookmarklet cleans up the page, leaving you with nothing but clean content for better readability.

45. Remove Bloat - Remove all occurrences of Flash, Java,and other third-party iframes from the current page.

44. Page Freshness - Tells you when the webpage was last updated

43. Display Images - Displays all the images on the page in a centered column.

42. Show Password - Shows the actual characters of an auto-fill password that are otherwise hidden behind asterisks in the password field. Only works if the password associated with that site is saved in the browser.

41. Gmail This - Quickly paste a link in Gmail

40. Alexa Ranking - Shows you the Alexa Ranking of the site

39. Delicious - Shows you who and how many people bookmarked the site in delicious

38. Google Trends - This bookmarklet will help you quickly determine the relative popularity (web traffic) of any web site using the Google Trends for websites service

37. Aardvark - Once clicked, click any element of a web page (paragraph, image, table etc.) to determine it’s HTML source, image dimensions and other properties

36. Show Cookies - Check out all the cookies a site has set for you with this bookmarklet.

35. Facebook Share - Share link on Facebook.

34. Share on Google Plus - Share link on Google Plus

33. Google +1 - +1 the current page\website

32. Tumbler - Share images on Tumbler

31. Share on Twitter - Share link on Twitter

30. Urban Dictionary lookup - This bookmarklet will look up the selected text on a web page in the Urban Dictionary, the collaboratively-edited slang dictionary

29. Acronym lookup

28. Like Everything on Facebook - Automatically "like" ALL the posts and comments on the page you’re on

27. Duplicate Tab - Opens the current site in a new tab

26. Linkify - Make all plain-text URL’s into hyperlinks.

25. Highlight Search Term -Prompts for a search term that you would like to highlight on the current page

24. Subscribe with Google Reader - One click bookmarklet to subscribe with Google Reader

23. Scroll by Dragging - Executing this bookmarklet will turn the cursor into a scroller and executing it again will return it back to normal.

22. Color Code Links- Makes all internal links on a site red, external links blue, and links pointing to the current page (internal bookmarks) orange.

21. Hide All Images - Hide all images from the current page

20. Google News Search - Performs Google News Search

19.Google Image Search - Performs a Google Image Search

18. PageZipper - PageZipper automatically merges all the "Next" pages into one. Check this link for details

17. Google Cache -View the Google cache for the current web page

16. Extract Link in a New Page - Extracts all the links present in the page in a new page

15. Long URL Please - Sometimes you want to see what’s behind that shortened URL before clicking. This bookmarklet will decode any shortened link for you

14. Rollyo RollBar - Allows you to search easily within a site, even when there is no search box to be found

13. Wikipedia Lookup : This bookmarklet will perform a Wikipedia search of the selected text

12 Stumble Upon? - Check if a site/page has been Stumble Uponed

11. Tiny Read - Reformats the current web page into a more readable and easy on eyes format

10. SoundCloud Download - Navigate to a Soundcloud page of a song and click on the bookmarklet : a red download link will appear. Click on the link, and the song will download.

9. Discard Cookies - Removes cookies set by the site, including cookies with paths and domains

8. Save Page to PDF - Lets you convert any webpage to pdf file for free.

7. Show RSS Feed - Shows the full content of the RSS feed associated with the website. It even provide you with options to subscribe in your favorite newsreader.

6. BugMeNot -Whenever you're at a page that require registration to continue, just click this bookmark and it will pop-up a window with user-submitted username and password for the site that you're currently looking at.

5. Dictionary Lookup - Quickly and Easily find the dictionary meaning of the selected text.

4. Downforeveryoneorjustme - Check if a website is down for everyone or just you

3. PrintWhatYouLike – Format web pages for printing.

2. Download TouTube Video - Save a YouTube video as an MP3 file, iPod file, FLV file, MP4 file, AVI file, and more. This bookmarklet also supports Google Video, DailyMotion.com, Facebook.com, MegaVideo.com, Break.com, MetaCafe.com, FunnyOrDie.com, Vimeo.com, and many other video sites.

1. URL Shortener - This bookmarklet lets you create short URLs for any site using bit.ly service

Related Post :

Bookmarklet to Integrate Results from Facebook and Twitter in Google Search

Redirect Back Blogger Blogs from .in and .com.au to .com Domain

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Tue, 6 Mar 2012 09:58:00 +0530

If you access any of the Blogger hosted blogs from India, Australia or from a host of other countries, Google will automatically redirect you to the corresponding country specific domain.

For instance, if a blog’s address is xyz.blogspot.com and you try opening that page from an IP address in India, you will be automatically redirected to xyz.blogspot.in. A similar redirection will occur for individual article pages as well.

How to Prevent Blogger Blogs from Redirecting to Country Specific Domain :

I have come up with a javascript code that will always serve the .com address to your visitors irrespective of their geographic location

Here’s how you do it.

1. Go to Template > Edit HTML (For old interface : Go to Design > Edit HTML)

2. Search for <head>

3. Paste the following code just below the the <head> tag :

<script>
if ((window.location.href.toString().indexOf('.com/'))=='-1')
{
window.location.href = window.location.href.toString().replace('.blogspot.in/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.com.au/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.co.uk/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.jp/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.co.nz/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.ca/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.de/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.it/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.fr/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.se/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.com.es/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.pt/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.com.br/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.com.ar/','.blogspot.com/ncr/').replace('.blogspot.mx/','.blogspot.com/ncr/');
}
</script>

4. Save your template.

Thats it! Now your blog is free from country specific redirection :)

Download Mari0, a Super Mario Bros. and Portal Mashup for FREE

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Tue, 6 Mar 2012 00:03:00 +0530

Ever wondered what would happen if Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. had Valve's Portal gun? An entertaining and pretty innovative mashup that’s what! Fortunately, that’s just what the folks over at Stabyourself have done with Mari0.

Mari0 is an open-source platformer that takes the Super Mario Bros. and arms them with portal guns. So now, instead of running and throwing fireballs at enemies, players can take a more puzzle-like approach. Equipped with the portal gun, Mario can now deftly move enemies out of the way or hurl himself over large distances with an exquisitely aimed jump.

In addition to all the platformer/puzzle fun, Mari0 supports up to 4 players online multiplayer, comes with a built-in level editor to create your own map packs, 33 different hats and a host of other extras.

You can download Mari0 from the following link :

Download Latest Version of Mari0

Also Check :

"Microsoft Flight" Game Now Available for FREE

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Sat, 3 Mar 2012 23:48:00 +0530

The latest installment in Microsoft’ popular Flight Simulator series, "Microsoft Flight", is now completely free to download and play. The latest incarnation of Microsoft Flight is packed with new features including new gameplay elements, new mission types, state-of-the-art aircrafts, and gorgeous locations.

The new game takes place in beautiful Hawaii. You can choose from a variety of aircraft, from historical planes to cutting edge personal aircrafts. Players will also have access to the amphibious monoplane ICON A5. The ICON A5 can be flown with an exterior or cockpit view.

You can download Microsoft Flight from the following link:

Download Microsoft Flight [Direct Download Link]

The free model of the title will only be limited to certain offerings. If gamers wish to explore new territories and access fresh aircrafts, they are required to purchase these contents separately.

Minimum hardware requirements:

CPU: Dual Core 2.0 GHz
GPU: 256 MB card capable of shader 3.0(DX 9.0c compliant)
HD: 10 GB Hard Drive space
OS: Windows XP SP3 or newer
RAM: 2.0GB

Recommended hardware requirements:

CPU: Dual Core 3.0 GHz
GPU: 1024 MB ATI Radeon HD 5670 or 1024 MB NVidia GeForce 9800 GT or equivalent
HD: 30 GB Hard Drive space
OS: Windows 7 SP1 64-bit
RAM: 6.0GB

Also Check :

Download Windows Server 8 Beta

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Thu, 1 Mar 2012 10:56:00 +0530

In addition to the Consumer Preview of Windows 8, Microsoft has also released a public beta build of "Windows Server 8" a few hours ago.

The official Windows Server 8 web page offers more information about what users can expect from this beta release. There's a lot of emphasis on multitenant virtualization, simplified multi-server architecture, cloud computing, and cross-platform access in this newest release of Windows Server.

According to Microsoft, "Windows Server 8" offers businesses and hosting providers a scalable, dynamic, and multitenant-aware, cloud-optimized infrastructure.

Minimum System Requirements:

1.4 GHz 64-bit processor

512 MB RAM

32 GB Available Disk Space

DVD drive

Super VGA (800x600) or higher-resolution monitor

Note: 32 GB should be considered an absolute minimum value for successful installation.

You can download it using any of following links:

Download Windows Server 8 Beta (TechNet)

Download Windows Server 8 Beta (TechNet)

Also Check :

Download Windows 8 Beta (Consumer Preview)

Download Original, Official, Legal Windows 7 with SP1 ISO

Download Windows 8 Beta (Consumer Preview)

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Thu, 1 Mar 2012 00:13:00 +0530

Microsoft has released Windows 8 Consumer Preview build to public which can be downloaded using the following link:

Download Windows 8 Beta (Consumer Preview) NOW

Simply download and run the "Windows8-ConsumerPreview-setup.exe" from the page above, and it will decide which version of Windows 8 is right for your system. It'll inform you which of your programs are compatible with Windows 8, grab you a product key, and automatically download tools that you may need to create an ISO or bootable flash drive.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview is the beta version of Windows 8. The download include pre-release software that may or may not appear in the final version of Windows 8.

Following are the official system requirements for Windows 8 Consumer Preview build released by Microsoft:

Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64)

RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)

HDD: 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch

To run Metro style Apps, you need a screen resolution of 1024 X 768 or greater

To snap apps, you need a screen resolution of at least 1366 x 768

You can upgrade to Windows 8 Consumer Preview from Windows 8 Developer Preview, Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP, but you might not be able to keep all of your files, programs, and settings.

You can have Windows 8 on your computer in three ways – you can install Windows 8 side-by-side, as a virtual machine (so that it runs inside your existing Windows just like any other software) or Windows 8 can be your main OS (there’s no going back then).

Windows 8 Consumer Preview comes with an expiry date and it'll expire on January 15th, 2013

Also Check :

Download Windows Server 8 Beta

Download Original, Official, Legal Windows 7 with SP1 ISO

Download Original, Official, Legal Windows 7 with SP1 ISO

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 02:42:00 +0530

Situation 1 : You own a branded PC or Laptop that has Windows 7 pre-installed. Rather than giving you a regular Windows 7 CD, you are provided with a recovery disc, using which you can restore your system to its factory configuration -- Windows 7 along with a number of pre-installed junk software.

Situation 2 : Your PC or Laptop came with 32-bit Windows and you want to upgrade to 64-bit, or it came with 64-bit and you need to downgrade to 32-bit for compatibility reasons.

Situation 3 : You have Genuine Windows 7 activation key but lost the DVD to install it from.

If you ﬁnd yourself in any of the aforementioned situations, we have just the right thing to bring a smile to your face.

Here are links to the various Windows 7 versions from Digital River, Microsoft’s official download partner :

These are legitimate downloads and its completely LEGAL to use them as they don't come with a product key.

Once you finish downloading the ISO file, you can burn the image to a DVD using any DVD burning software and then install Windows 7 using it. Use your own product key to activate Windows.

Note that the product keys don’t distinguish between 32-bit and 64-bit but they do distinguish between editions, so make sure you install whatever edition of Windows 7 your computer has.

Note : These ISO image have Service Pack 1 (SP1) integrated into the installation setup, so there is no need to separately install SP1 after the initial install of Windows 7

Also Check :

Download PDFZilla Worth $49.95 Absolutely FREE

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:28:00 +0530

PDF is an extremely popular document format, but it come with the caveat that you can't edit PDF documents without an expensive program like Adobe Acrobat Writer. If you find that this is a major drawback, you can convert them to other editable formats with PDFZilla.

PDFZilla is a simple program which help users to quickly convert PDF files into editable MS Word Documents, Rich Text Documents, Plain Text Files, Images, HTML Files, and Shockwave Flash SWF Files. The program has a very simple and nice-looking interface that will take a moment or two to get used to.

Formats supported by PDFZilla : DOC, RTF, TXT, BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, TIF, HTML, SWF

Generally the software costs $49.95 but you can grab it for free right now using the following link :

~~Download PDFZilla Absolutely FREE~~ (Offer Expired)

Once installed, right-click on its icon and select "Run as Administrator" option to launch it. Once installed, use the free registration code given at the above link to activate your copy.

PDFZilla is for Windows only.

10 Clever Uses of Wolfram Alpha

firoagni@gmail.com (Agni Chattopadhyay & Srijan Choudhary) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:49:00 +0530

Wolfram Alpha, the "computational knowledge engine" is an online service that provides answers to your queries not by searching the web, but by doing dynamic computations based on a vast collection of built-in data, algorithms, and methods. Ask it any question or phrase, from the Southwest vs American Airlines to the population Madrid, and you’ll get an answer.

Unlike Google, which searches the entire web for the keywords contained within a search query and then returns thousands of web pages, what Wolfram Alpha intends to do is answer complex search queries by returning a single result. Don’t expect it to replace Google, but rather, let it become a part of your research companion.

Let’s take a look at 10 clever uses of the Wolfram Alpha search engine :

1. Generate Strong Passwords

If you don't use a password generating application, you can turn to Wolfram Alpha to generate unique, random passwords. Simply enter a natural-language query like password of 8 characters into the search box to get your password.

In addition to the random password, Wolfram Alpha offers a phonetic help to make it easier for you to memorize that complex string. It also shows the time it would take for a computer to break that particular password.

2. Open Files with Unknown File-Types (Extensions)

If you come upon a file that have an unknown extension, you can use Wolfram Alpha to determine the associated application that is required to open the file.

Just head to Wolfram Alpha, type the file extension you're looking for with a dot preceding it (e.g: .txt), and hit enter. It'll show you what type of file it corresponds to, as well as give you some supporting applications that you can use to open it

3. Find Scrabble Words

Wolfram Alpha can take a jumbled set of letters and suggest you different words that you can create from those letters, including how many points they'd be worth.

Simply, search Scrabble, click on “a computation” and then enter the jumbled letters (include any spaces for blank tiles) in the input box.

4. Body Mass Index (BMI)

Are you overweight or underweight as judged by body mass index? Wolfram Alpha does this math for you as well. Type Body Mass Index into the search box, enter your weight and height and get the answer straight away. You’ll even get a chart showing you how healthy your body mass index is, as well as a comparison to the national average of United States.

5. Too Drunk to Drive?

Wondering if you’re too drunk to drive? Use Wolfram Alpha to find out. Just type am I drunk into the search field and press enter. Enter the number of drinks you have had, gender, how long you’ve been drinking, and your body weight to find out your current blood alcohol content and the legal limit for driving

6. Movie Information

Query any movie in Wolfram Alpha and it will show you basic information as well as cover art, box office performance, brief cast listing and awards.

7. Find What Flight is Flying Overhead

Wolfram Alpha has the ability to tell you what airplanes are cruising above you based on your position and its knowledge of where various airline and charter flights are located at any point in time. Simply search flight overhead

8. Weather Reporter

To see the weather for many worldwide cities, type weather followed by the city and state or city and country.

9. Blood Relation

Wolfram Alpha has a Genealogy engine that can trace your family relationships. To make it easier, you also get a tree diagram.

10. Solve Crossword Puzzles

While Wolfram Alpha may not be able to do much in guessing the words from the clues, it sure can help when you know some of the letters in a word. Just type in the known letters and fill in the unknown letters with underscores. (e.g. an_g_a_)