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Search and Download Subtitles for Movies right from Desktop

Shivaranjan — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:59:40 +0000

Movie buffs like me who often search for subtitles from the Internet. Then I can say life has just become more easy with Sublight which is a freeware utility that allows you search for movie subtitles from your desktop.

Here are some of the features of the Sublight:

1. There are two ways in which you can search for the subtitles one is the automatic mode in which you just need to point the movie file for which you intend to find the subtitle and the software will do rest for you. In the manual mode you would need to enter the movie name for which you intend to the subtitle search in the search box that is provided.

2. The application can be integrated to Windows explorer for quick access.

3. The best part is that if you can play the video immediately that is downloaded using this application the popular media players supported are VLC, BS.Player, Media Player Classic,
KMPlayer and GOM player.

4. Got a subtitle that you intend to publish then you can do this right from the application.

Here is a youtube video which you can see sublight in action:

Download Sublight

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USB Optical Mouse that cools your Sweaty Palm

Shivaranjan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:20:18 +0000

Thanko has introduced a unique optical mouse that features 3 button with scroll wheel layout. The unique feature that sets apart this mouse is a 2 inch fan that is present beneath. The 2 inch fan helps cool palm while you are using the mouse. If you are person who has got sweaty palms like mine then you really love this mouse. The fan can be switched ON or switched OFF using a switch that is present in the side panel of the mouse.

This mouse uses USB interface for connectivity, measures 6 x 12.6 x 4 cm and works with Windows XP, Vista. You can get this mouse in Japan for around USD $18.

Via Fareastgizmos

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How to Find Hard Disk Drive Activity even without HDD indicator LED in the Cabinet from Windows Task bar

Shivaranjan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:58:53 +0000

There may be occasions when the Hard disk drive activity LED present in the computer case may blow out. Then it becomes very difficult to know if your hard disk drive is active or not active. HardDriveIndicator is a freeware application that will come to your rescue this scenario. Just download this small utility and run, it will sit quietly in your task bar indicating the Hard disk drive activity.

Earlier this week my HDD indicator LED went off and this tool was really handy to keep track on my hard drive’s activity. The best part was that I did not need to look down at my cabinet at all. All the information that I needed could be found out from the Windows task bar.

This utility runs flawlessly in Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Download HardDriveIndicator

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How to Fix Dead / Stuck Pixels in LCD or TFT Monitors

Shivaranjan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:15:51 +0000

These days LCD or TFT monitors have become the mainstream displays that are shipped with computers. There are chances that you may end up with a Dead pixel or Stuck pixel in your LCD or TFT monitor. Before we go to the fixing part let us get know what is Dead pixel and Stuck Pixel.

What is Dead Pixel?

A dead pixel is a defective pixel that remains unlit.Dead pixels are usually best seen against a white background.

What is a Stuck Pixel?

A stuck pixel will usually be most visible against a black background, where it will appear red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, or yellow, although stuck red, green, or blue pixels are most common. Each pixel on an LC monitor is composed of three subpixels, one red, one green, and one blue, which produce the visible color of the pixel by their relative brightness. A stuck pixel results from a manufacturing defect, which leaves one or more of these sub-pixels permanently turned on or off.

What is a Hot Pixel?

A permanently lit (white) pixel is called a hot pixel. Hot pixels are usually best seen against a dark background.

Difference between Stuck and Dead Pixel?

Stuck pixels are often incorrectly referred to as dead pixels, which have a similar appearance. In a dead pixel, all three sub-pixels are permanently off, producing a permanently black pixel. Dead pixels can result from similar manufacturing anomalies as stuck pixels, but may also occur from a non-functioning transistor resulting in complete lack of power to the pixel. Dead pixels are much less likely to correct themselves over time.

Before you proceed with the steps make sure you have disabled monitor standby mode from Windows control and disable the screensaver mode.

Method 1:

1. Download UDPixel from here.

2. Install the software and run the application.

3. Now you can find out the Dead pixel by using the Dead pixel locater located in the left side of the screen. Once you have located the dead pixel, now choose the number and the size of the flashing area and flash time interval. Now the hit the start the button to start the flashing process.

4. Now depending upon the number of the flashing windows you will see the flashing pixels on your screen, move the flashing window or pixel to the area where dead pixels found in the step 3.

5. Run the flashing pixels or windows over the dead pixel for a couple of hours and now check if the dead pixel was fixed.

Method 2:

1. Head over to JScreenFix java applet launch webpage from here.

2. Launch JscreenFix java applet and you should see a window with multiple flashing pixels as shown below. Move the pixel fix screen to area that is affected by stuck pixel or dead pixel.

3. Leave the java applet running for around one hour and then check if the problem is corrected.

The same steps can be repeated from the website Dead Pixel Beta where you can similarly launch a java applet that flashes pixels which is similar to JScreenfix.

Also check out Killdeadpixel.com that also serves the same purpose.

In most of the cases your dead pixels should be fixed but if it does fix then you may have to try out the Pressure method or Tapping Method that most people use to fix it but it is a bit risky so do it at your own risk.

The pressure and tapping method work for some people in our case we ended up damaging the LCD monitor. Hence we don’t recommend this method.

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BatteryBar the Battery Meter for Windows

Shivaranjan — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:07:35 +0000

BatteryBar is a freeware Windows utility that places a good looking battery meter to your Windows task bar. It gives you the status of your laptop’s battery charge and expected duration that your battery will last in Hours:Minutes, in a visually appealing way. There are three colour codes that the author has used to indicate the left battery charge:

Green (> 40% remaining of battery charge)
Yellow (25-40% of remaining battery charge)
Red (< 25% of remaining battery charge)
Blue ( When the battery is getting recharged in AC power mode)
Black ( When the battery is fully charged and on AC power mode)

BatteryBar runs on Windows Vista and requires .NET Framework 2.0. We could not test this in Windows XP, it would be appreciated if any of you can give feedback on BatteryBar running on Windows XP.

Download BatteryBar

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How to Extract or Rip Icons from Directory as PNG File from Windows Command Line

Shivaranjan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:31:13 +0000

Tab icon ripper is a command line utility that will extract the icons from a specified directory and output it as a PNG file. The PNG files that are extracted support gradient transparency.

This would very useful if you want to extract an icon that is rarely available but would need it for some use. T@B icon ripper extracts icons from *.exe, *.dll, *.cpl files and etc.

Input the below mentioned command in command line:

tabiripp.exe input_directory_path output_directory_path

Download T@B Icon Ripper

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How to Unclutter Windows Task bar with TrayWindows

Shivaranjan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:22:39 +0000

If you got habit of minimizing open or active windows to Windows task bar or system tray then you end up with lot of clutter in your task bar. TrayWindows is an freeware utility that you can use to hide the currently active window or all windows matching a specified criteria to single task bar icon.

The current active window that is open can be hidden to TrayWindows using the Windows hot key Win+H. If you wish to hide all the open Windows then hit Win+Alt+H and all the open windows would get hidden under the TrayWindows icon in the system tray.

To bring back all you need to do is hit Win+Alt+S and all the hidden windows are restored. This utility is immensely useful if you happen to work with lot of open windows then it will give you some relief from your clutter.

Apart from hiding the open windows you can access your favourites and browse through your documents quickly. If the author can add auto startup option to this useful utility then it would be much more useful. You can add this utility to run from your startup folder to start up automatically every time you start your Windows.

This piece of software works flawlessly in Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Download TrayWindows 1.0

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Replace Windows Standard Run Dialog with runXT

Shivaranjan — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:17:26 +0000

runXT is a replacement for the standard windows run dialog. It features Hotkey and Tray Icon support, an built in calculator and time display when in standby mode. This is a nifty tool that will allow you to create your own custom command using the built in GUI interface or manually via xml. The commands that you create are stored in a xml file that is created in directory where the runXT program is stored. If you want to have a look at the commands that you have created just open up the xml file and you can go through all the commands that you have created.

All the features of this useful utility can be accessed through GUI interface or by issuing commands in the dialog box. Find below the list of commands:

Command	Function
#new	Create a new command
#create	same as above
#edit	Edit your existing commands
#clock	Displays clock in the dialog box
#settings	Brings settings dialog
#refresh	Refresh the command list
#calc	start the calculator (e.g.: #calc 6*8)
#exit	Exit runXT

This utility can be greatly tuned to your requirement as it offers lot of options.

runXT runs on Windows 2000 above but requires .NET framework. You can get runXT from here.

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Battery Tracker for Windows Vista

Shivaranjan — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:06:43 +0000

Battery Tracker is free software that allows you to get as much information about your laptops battery under Windows Vista. The program gives you the following information about your laptop’s battery and various features of Windows Vista:

1. Laptop Manufacturer and Laptop Model

2. DWM support and DWM status

3. Brightness Control support status

4. Sidebar and displays your current power plan under Windows Vista

5. Battery information like Manufacturer, model, charging or discharging state, current realtime remaining capacity, estimated remaining time and rate of discharge in watts.

Screenshot of Battery Tracker:

Though this software works on Windows XP but it is mostly designed to take into the account the Windows Vista features. Battery Tracker can be downloaded from here.

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RAID1 Support from USB to SATA Adapter

Shivaranjan — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:53:31 +0000

Brando USB 2.0 to Dual SATA HDD Adapter lets you connect two 2.5″ / 3.5″ SATA hard disk drives to your computer via USB port and the best of all it supports RAID1 functionality. The USB 2.0 to SATA adapter contains a Silicon Image Sil5744 storage processor that operates it with one USB 2.0 and two SATA HDD simultaneously. The SATA drives are connected to the adapter using the eSATA ports that are present in the adapter.

Brando has also provided a power supply so that you can power your SATA hard disk drives. When the drive is connected to computer it gets recognized as USB mass storage device under Windows there by making it plug and play compatible. Brando USB 2.0 to SATA adapter can be used under Windows 2000/XP/Vista. The adapter is compliant with SATA 1.0a specification, USB 2.0 specification and USB & SATA Mass Storage. This entire package weighs only 41gms and the dimensions are 85 x 50 x 16mm. Two 3.5″ silicon cover is also provided so that hard disk drives can be safely used with out causing any accidental damage to their sensitive electronics that are exposed.

Package Contents:

USB 2.0 to Dual SATA HDD Adapter

Universal AC Adapter

Power Cable

USB Cable

eSATA to SATA Cable x 2

3.5″ Silicon Cover

CD Driver

User’s Manual

Gallery:

The Brando USB to SATA adapter retails for around USD $69.00 which we feel is quite worth for the features and functionality this gadget offers. You can get Brando USB to SATA adapter from here.

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Top CD / DVD Burning Tips and Tricks to Avoid Coasters

Shivaranjan — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:01:26 +0000

Today CD / DVD burners are a standard component in every computer be it a Desktop or a Laptop. The CD / DVD media is the most affordable and most easily available backup options that we have today. But many times we end up creating discs that are either not readable, fail to read after a period of time and ofcourse the dreaded coaster. Well now you would be wondering what this term coaster is that I keep referring.

What is a CD / DVD Coaster?

Well coaster can be defined as a unreadable disc, a badly burnt disc or a disc with lot of errors.

CD / DVD Burning Tips and Tricks to Avoid Coasters:

1. Check if your CD /DVD writer has the latest firmware: Always make sure that your CD/ DVD burner has got the latest firmware. The latest firmware offered by manufacturer of your drive would have support for latest blank CD / DVD medias and bug fixes if they were present in the earlier version of firmware.

2. Always use good quality media: Those nameless flashy cheap CD / DVD are no good. The quality of these cheap media is very poor so if you use those then you are risking your backup data. It is recommended that you buy branded media that can offer good results.

3. Take care of your Media: Buying good quality media alone is not sufficient, you must also take precautions that these media don’t get damaged. Keep the blank CD / DVD media away from sunlight and dust. Before you put the blank CD / DVD media into your burner make sure that they are clean.

4. Burn at lower speed: Burn at lower speed to get the best quality burning rather than burning at max speed or using overspeeding than the rated speed. I have noticed that the slower I burn the better quality of burns I get when compared to the max rates speed. I don’t mean that you have to burn you media at 1x speed, if you have 16x rated media try to burn at 12x which is quite optimal and you also don’t loose lot of precious time.

5. Defragment your hard drive: To get the best quality burns your CD / DVD writer needs to get data at the desired speed at required rate. To achieve this the hard disk drive would need to transfer the data at that rate hence it is advisable to have your data defragmented so that hard disk drive can transfer the data without any hiccups. Even if you set the max burning speed the burn rate will slower if the data is highly fragmented.

6. Close the programs that you do not use: The CD / DVD burning is more of hard drive taxing job rather than the CPU, close all those hard disk hogging programs that you don’t intend to use. To make the burning smoother the CD / DVD burning program uses quite some RAM if you are running low on RAM close all the unwanted programs that would free up more memory to the burning application.

7. Enable DMA for CD / DVD drives: The DMA mode allows the CPU to transfer huge chunks of data to the drive thereby reducing the CPU utilization. If this mode is enabled then high speed and high quality burning can be performed. You can read here further on how to enable DMA in Windows XP.

8. Make your CD /DVD drive as Master: If you are using IDE or PATA based CD / DVD burner then it is a wise decision to make that drive as master drive to get better performance.

9. Opt for SATA based DVD drive: Planning to buy a new drive? If yes then it is better that you a SATA interface based drives as it offers better performance over its PATA counter part.

8. Enable buffer under-run protection: Enable the buffer under-run-protection in your burning application before you burn your data.

What is buffer underrun?

A buffer underrun occurs during recording if the recorder runs out of data in the recording buffer. Once the laser is on, it cannot stop and resume flawlessly; thus the pause necessitated by the underrun can cause the data on the disc to become invalid. Since the buffer is generally being filled from a relatively slow source, such as a hard disk or another CD/DVD, a heavy CPU or memory load from other concurrent tasks can easily exhaust the capacity of a small buffer. Therefore, buffer underrun protection was implemented by various individual CD/DVD writer vendors. With this technique, the laser is indeed able to stop writing for any amount of time and resume when the buffer is full again. The gap between successive writes is extremely small.

Modern burners and burning applications by default enable the buffer underrun protection but it is always better to double check it before you start your backup or burning project.

9. Use Ultra DMA (80-Conductor) IDE/ATA Cables: If you are using a PATA or IDE CD / DVD drive use the 80 pin ultra DMA IDE/ATA cable over the 40 pin cable as it offers better performance.

Image courtesy: Seagate

If you got any more tips then do let us know we will update those here.

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