Volumouse allows you to customize the settings as to when the wheel will be used for changing the volume. For instance, you can configure Volumouse to use your mouse wheel for volume control when the Alt key is held down, or when the left mouse button is down and so on.

I find that enabling the ‘when the mouse cursor is over the taskbar’ option is the most convenient for me as I can control the volume with a single hand.

When the conditions that you define are not satisfied, your mouse wheel will be used for the regular scrolling tasks, exactly as before.

Download Volumouse

Here are a few tips on using your mouse scroll wheel in Firefox that could save you some time.

1. Closing Tabs
To close a tab just place your mouse cursor on a tab and click with the scroll wheel. This is more convenient and faster than clicking the small cross on the tabs, especially when you want to close several tabs.

2. Opening hyperlinks in a new tab
Very often we would like to open a link in a page in a new tab. The normal way to achieve this is by right-clicking on the the link and choosing ‘Open Link in New Tab‘. Here’s a much quicker way. Just click on the link with the scroll wheel. Presto! the link will open in a new tab. You can even click on the Home button or the Forward/Back button to open the respective url in a new tab.

3. Paste URL & Go
Sometimes you would need to copy a link from another source and paste it into the address bar and hit Enter to open the link. There is an easier alternative in Firefox. You can just press the scroll button in the content area to paste, and go to the url. By default this functionality is disabled in Firefox but you can enable it with two simple tweak in about:config. Why two tweaks? Because of a bug in Firefox, the ‘Paste URL & Go’ does not work if AutoScroll is enabled. So besides enabling the paste and go feature you need to disable autoscroll. So here we go. Enter about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Look for the Preference Name middlemouse.contentLoadURL and double-click on it to change it’s value to true.

Also look for the Preference Name general.autoScroll and change its value from true to false by double-cliking on it.

That’s all to it. Here are few different ways you can use the Paste URL & Go feature after you have copied a url.

• Pressing the wheel button in the content area pastes the url and loads the page in the current tab.
• Holding down the Ctrl key and pressing the wheel button opens the url in a new tab.
• Holding down the Shift key and pressing the wheel button opens the url in an entirely new Firefox instance.

4. Scrolling through the tabs
When you have many tabs open, an arrow appears on either end of the tab bar to let you scroll through the tab bar and view the hidden tabs. There is a much easier way. Just place your mouse cursor anywhere on the tab bar and scroll your mouse wheel up and down to scroll through the tab bar.

5. Moving Forward/Back
You can use the scroll wheel as an alternative to using the Forward and Back buttons on the toolbar. Hold down the Shift key and rotate the wheel forward to view the next page or rotate backward to see the previous page.

6. Zooming
To zoom into a page, hold the Ctrl key and turn the scroll wheel away from you. Similarly, to zoom out, hold the Ctrl key and rotate the scroll wheel towards you.

More often than not, people just don’t have the patience to read the error messages. Sometimes my friends or co-worker call me for troubleshooting. First thing that I ask them is whether they saw any error message and most of the time their reply is ‘Yes, some kind of message popped up but I didn’t read it.’

‘Knowing the problem is half the battle won.’ This applies to everything in life and so to, to computers. Whenever you come across any error message, read it first and see if it makes sense to you.  Once you understand the problem, you may be able to find a solution yourself. But if you don’t understand the message or you don’t have a clue as to how to solve it, then the simplest way out is to type out the exact message into Google.

That’s what I usually do. And I find that I get better results if I enclose the message within double quotes. But it is important that if you use double-quotes, you must make sure that  you type the message exactly as it appears, including the commas, apostrophe  and little things like that. Most of the time, the search engine would lead you to one or more pages that tell what the error message means and how to get rid of it.

Typing out the message is both time consuming  and also prone to typos, besides the trouble you may have to take to switch between your browser and the message windows, in case the window is hidden.
Copying the error message and pasting it in Google is the best way to ensure that you are searching for the exact message. But unfortunately, most of these messages cannot be selected or copied in the normal way. This is where Grabtxt can come in useful.

Grabtxt is a tiny tool created by Misbah that lets you copy text from message windows.  Using it is pretty easy. It is a single exe file and so there is no installation required. You can just run the file and start using it.

What you see above is definitely not an error message. It is just to demonstrate how grabtxt works.

When you encounter an message window, just click on the large X button in Grabtxt and drag the mouse cursor over the error message. The text message appears on Grabtxt. You can then select the text and just press either the Google button or the Live.com button to search in the respective search engines. I would suggest that before you select the text, type in the double-quotes at the beginning and end of the message.

So, the next time you see an error message, don’t panic. With a little effort, you may be able to troubleshoot yourself.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

Anyone who has a computer has time saved information that they may consider important; and if it is lost then they would have a hard time getting it back.

You might say, ‘Oh, I don’t need to worry, I always have all my important data backed up on a CD’. But you can never be 100% sure that the CD would be readable when you actually need it. And there is always a possibility of losing your data before you take a backup.

Ultimately, it boils down to one thing. You need to be able to recover lost data if and when the situation demands.

Enter Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a complete data recovery solution that helps you to search, locate and recover your lost, missing, inaccessible or deleted data. This non-destructive and read-only utility helps you to recover your data lost due to accidental format, virus problems, software malfunction, file/directory deletion, unexpected shutdown, or even sabotage.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery  has a very simple and intuitive interface.  With the software’s fully automated wizard using it is a breeze. The interface includes Find File, File Mask and File Filter options to help you search, view and recover any specific file type.

The recovery of your data involves three simple steps.

1. Evaluate - Phoenix identifies the device, locates all partition on the inaccessible drive and list them.
2. Analyze - It examines the remains of file structure (boot sector, FAT copies or MFT and root directory) and the data area of the inaccessible drive and works the best path out to recover your files and directories.
3. Recover - All recoverable files and folders are presented in a tree structure. You can select your data files and directories and move the data to a safe location.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery can help you recover lost data in most situations. Here is a short list of what the software can do for you.

• Recover deleted files after recycle bin has been emptied or use of Shift+Delete key
• Recover missing and lost logical drives (volumes)
• Recover formatted hard drives (even after reinstalling operating system)
• Recover re-partitioned hard drives (even after file system has been changed)
• Recover lost files and folders

Stellar Phoenix recovers data from Windows Vista partitions and also supports partition recovery from Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98 and older operating system hard drives. It recognizes & recovers more than 300 file types including documents, spreadsheets, web content & images.

You can download the demo software from http://www.stellarinfo.com/spwdr.exe

Learn more about Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery.

According to the speed-reading gurus, one of the main reason people tend to read slowly is that, they read one word at a  time or very small blocks of words. Added to that, our eyes frequently go back to the previously read block of words and we reread them,which slows down our speed significantly.

Spreeder is a free online reading tool that can help increase your reading speed.

Using spreeder is easy. Just copy the text you want to read and paste it in the text box in spreeder and click use. The spreeder player is now ready. Click on the play button to start reading. What spreeder does is that, instead of showing you the full text, it flashes blocks of text and you just need to keep reading the text that appears. Since the text appear and disappear fast, you wouldn’t have time to read each word separately. You will be forced to read the entire block at one go. Also, your eyes can’t wander back to the text you have already read.

Spreeder offers quite a few ways to customize how you want to read the text. You can control the number of words that appear in each block; the default is one word. You might find that it is difficult to understand the content if you read one word at a time. So to start with you can set the number of words to 3 or 4. As you gain practice you can increase it to higher numbers. Spreeder lets you change the speed ( words per minute), the font size, the window size and so on.

While copying the text, opening up spreeder.com  and pasting it into the text box is not difficult, there is a much easier way to use spreeder. Spreeder Bookmarklet.

Just add the spreeder bookmarklet to your browser bookmarks toolbar. Now any time you want to spreed read, just select the text and click on the spreeder bookmarklet. A new windows instantly opens with spreeder preloaded with your selected text.

Infinitube is a free service that lets you keep YouTube going on forever. Just type in a keyword for the type of videos you want to watch and the site will create a virtually endless playlist of videos from YouTube. What this means is that, once you get Infinitube to start playing the videos, you can sit back and enjoy one video after another just like you would with your TV.

This should be of great use to people who like to get their music from YouTube. Just type in your favorite band’s name and you’ll be on your way to listening to all the music they have on the popular video sharing site.

When you try to download a file from Rapidshare you would encounter the following message:

Massive RapidShare hack attempts detected. IP block 59.90.0.0 - 59.99.255.255 blocked. Please call your internet provider.

This is definitely very frustrating, especially for those who have paid for Rapidshare Premium accounts. But believe me, every problem has a solution.

Method 1 - Using a proxy server
Go to youhide.com. Enter the rapidshare file link in the text box and click the Submit button. That’s it. After this, you just follow the usual steps to download a file from Rapidshare.

Do note that this method will only work with small files and not with large files. While I don’t know upto what file size you can download, I could download a 2MB file but I could not download a 60MB file. The advantage is that you don’t have to download any additional software. If this method fails for you, check out Method 2.

Method 2 - Using Tor
What’s Tor? Tor is a free tool that protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location.

Go to the Tor download page. You have two options. You can either download just the Tor tool or you can download the Windows Browser Bundle (Contains Tor, Torbutton, Polipo, and Firefox). Tor works best with Firefox. If you already use Firefox you may just want to download the tool alone. Else, you can download the browser bundle which includes a portable version of Firefox.

Installation is pretty easy. Using it couldn’t be any easier. Once you have downloaded and installed it, just open Firefox (restart Firefox if already open) and start browsing normally. Try downloading from Rapidshare and you will be surprised that you can download files as you would normally do. The BSNL IP blocking does not apply to you any more. Enjoy.

In method 1, instead of youhide.com, you could try using other proxy servers too. But when I tried some, including hidemyass.com, I encountered some kind of javascript error.

Try the methods and let me know in the comments if they worked for you.

• It instantly doubles your desktop space with buying a larger monitor.
• You can work with two maximised windows at the same time.
• If you are working on a tool like Photoshop, which has lots of toolbars and panels, you could move the tools to the second monitor and have a large work area on your main monitor.
• If you need to compare two documents, you can open each of the documents in a different monitor.
• When browsing your picture library, you can view the thumbnails on one monitor, and use the second monitor to view the pictures full screen.
• If you need to stay on top of your e-mail while working, you can keep your inbox open on one monitor and work on the other.

These are just a few suggestion but actually how you use the dual monitors is only limited by your imagination. Now lets see how to set up the secondary monitor. Make sure that both your Laptop and the monitor are switched off. Connect the monitor to your Laptop by connecting it to the VGA or DVI connector, typically found on the rear of your laptop computer. Now switch on your laptop and the monitor. You will notice that initially, only one of the two monitors is activated. You can usually switch between the monitors by pressing the hotkeys in your laptop. Normally, it is a combination of the Fn key with another key with an image of a monitor on it (normally found on one of the function keys). To bring on the display on both the monitors you’ll need to adjust your display settings by following these steps:

1. Right-Click on an empty area on your desktop. On the context menu that pops-up click on Properties and on the resulting ‘Display Properties‘ window, go to the Settings tab.



2. Click the monitor icon labeled 2, and then select the Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor checkbox.
3. If necessary, drag the monitor icons so that they are arranged in the same way as the monitors on your desk. Clicking on the Identify button will help you know which monitor is 1 and which monitor is 2.



4. If need be, change the resolution of your secondary monitor to the most appropriate settings. You change the resolution of both the monitors independently.
5. Click Apply. Windows XP will activate your new monitor.
6. Finaly, click OK.

Once your monitor is set up, you can use your mouse to grab the title bar of a window and drag it to your new display. Make sure that the window your are trying to drag is not maximised, in which case you will not be able to drag it. To be able to drag it, first double-click on the title bar and then drag it. It may take you a while to get used to working on dual monitors, but once you do, it will forever change the way you work with your computer. Be creative and experiment with the sizing of application windows and what information you can keep in constant view while doing multiple tasks.

Cuil has been founded by the husband-wife duo of Stanford professor Tom Costello and former Google search architect Anna Patterson. Originally called Cuill (Irish for knowledge), pronounced as cool, has now been named Cuil. Summary of Cuil’s features as claimed by Cuil: • Biggest Internet search engine—Cuil has indexed 120 billion Web pages, 3x more than any other search engine • Organized results—Cuil’s magazine-style layout separates results by subject and allows further search by concept or category • Different results—Unlike other search engines, Cuil ranks results by the content on each page, not its popularity • Complete privacy protection—Cuil does not keep any personally identifiable information on users or their search histories Cuil does have some interesting feature to offer. A search for dogs, for example, will return category results for “water dogs,” “crossbreed”, “cocker spaniel” and so on. Some of these related terms do not include the term “dog”. Similarly by clicking on New York, one would get tabbed results for recommended refinements like New York Times, New York City, New York Yankees and so on. Cuil works to understand how words are related to get more relevant results and it tries to categorize and file a web page, even if the category name doesn’t appear on the site.

Will Cuil overtake Google? Though Cuil has the potential to compete with Google, in it’s present form, it lacks certain important features that we have become used to in Google, like the advanced search for one. In Google, you can create queries to search by file types, restrict your search to a particular website and stuff like that.  Cuil lacks any kind of advance search at present. But, Cuil will probably come up with similar or even better features in the future. Anyway, you can expect some good competition in the coming days. Remember, it took Google quite some time to surpass Alta Vista and Yahoo in the search wars.