Sync With Tech - Tech which make you work more productive

Difference B/W Blogs & Websites Things People Haven't Told You

2015-11-27T12:35:00.001+05:30

Everysince I created this blog, whenever I share my blog URL to people, the first thing they ask is 'hey do you own a website?' At first, I explained the whole thing about blogs and websites and why mine is blog. Soon, I realised I have to repeat the story to every people. I was fed up with explaining things. Now I simply accept that I own a website and move on. So, in this post I'm going to give you a clearcut idea of what is a blog, what is a website and the ways by which you can discriminate a blog from a website.

I accept there are so many posts regrading this topic. But, I think there are so many points they miss to point out. I have tried my best to bridge the gap.

In the following table, I have briefly listed the difference between a blog & a website. To know more about a particular point just click on it. The first thing you must know is all blogs are websites but all websites are not blogs. Quite confusing right?? Read further you will get to know.

Properties	Blogs	Websites
Domain	Could have subdomains of free blogging platforms as well as custom domains.	Can only have custom domains.
Purpose	Knowledge-sharing, Hobby or passion of author, Updates on product or service of business, Professional blogging, Personal blogging	Selling product(s), providing service(s) or information about the organization
Contribution of Authors & Developers	Contribution of author(s) is more, developer(s) is less	Contribution of author(s) is less, developer(s) is more
Type of Web-pages	Static	Mostly dynamic, In some cases static
User credentials	There won't be any	Most of the cases, there would be
Monetizing techniques	Ads, Affiliate links, e-books etc.,	By the service(s) they provide, product(s) they sell
Visitor Comments	Usually, visitors (readers) can comment on blog posts	Visitors couldn't comment on the content of website

Note: For explaining things better I'm going to explain all the above points by taking a blog and a website as example. Blog being http://helplogger.blogspot.com/ and website, http://in.godaddy.com/

Domain Names

Domain name is nothing but the URL you see in the addressbar when you browse a web-page. You might have seen URLs like the examples given below. As you notice, every webaddress has a subdomain like .blogspot.com, .tumblr.com, etc.

http://takealookattech.blogspot.com/
http://takealookattech.wordpress.com/
http://openlettersthatmatter.tumblr.com/

These are blogs hosted on free blogging platforms so they have subdomains. It is unlikely to run a website on these free platforms hence one may conclude that URLs with these subdomains are blogs. Obviously, helplogger is a blog.

Now, for instance consider this URL https://in.godaddy.com/, this web-address also has a subdomain in but godaddy is not a free blogging platform. This address is dedicated to serve their Indian customers. So, it is not a blog, but a website.

Also, you can not say all web-addresses with custom domains are websites. Consider the following examples,

http://www.syncwithtech.org
http://www.labnol.org
http://www.lifehacker.com
http://blog.kissmetrics.com

Above examples are all blogs, they have just bought a custom domain to create creadibility & show their seriousness in blogging. Having custom domains also aid in better search rankings.

You may ask a question. If both blogs & websites could have custom domains, how one can differentiate a blog from website? Well, just read the other points on the table.

Purpose

Let's get back to our examples, as we know helplogger is a blog. Just visit the URL given above. After visiting you will get to know, they share tips to blog better using Google's Blogger. So, they share the knowledge they gained on Blogger platform obviously they earn money as they use ads on their blog. More examples:

http://blog.adversal.com/ - (1)
http://chrome.blogspot.in/ - (2)
http://www.labnol.org/ - (3)
http://shailsnest.com/ - (4)

Above blogs are some examples for the purposes I mentioned in the table. Adversal shares the monthly payment information on (1) and in (2) we can find the latest features and bug fixes of famous Chrome web-browser so both come under 'Updates on product or service of business' type blogs.

Most of the Indians might have already known about blog (3). Amit Agarwal is the first professional blogger of India. He blogs for his daily bread and butter. Hence, labnol.org falls under professional blog category.

(4) is a personal blog run by Mrs. Shail Mohan. She publishes short verses & photos daily on her blog. It has been followed by many people in India.

http://www.amazon.com/ - (a)
http://www.ox.ac.uk/ - (b)

(a) is a renowned online shopping website in the world. Loads of information about University of Oxford can be found at (b) from admission procedure to alumni information. So, (a) sells products & (b) provides information about an organisation. (a) & (b) both are websites.

Our example, godaddy provides web services. It is also a website.

Contribution of Authors & Developers

This subheading is quite self-explanatory. As you could see in any blog, all the pages are static. Oops!! I haven't covered what are static pages and dynamic pages yet right? okay, let's see that in next section.

Now getting back to the point, take a good look at both the URLs I mentioned as examples above. What you see? On helplogger, you could witness set of posts arranged in reverse chronological order (latest one first) right? Those are all written by author(s) of that blog. The design of the webpage remains the same for a long period, but author(s) will keep on writing new contents. So, for a blog contribution of author(s) will be more.

On the other hand, there are list of services which you may want to subscribe on godaddy. Here, the developers will manipulate what actions must be done behind the scences when an user click on any link to get the service they want.

Type of Web-pages

Static webpages are the one which display same content for every user (as it is stored, it will be displayed) whereas dynamic pages show different content for different users.

Let's analyse this point with our examples. If you & your friend both visit helplogger, both of you will see the same content. So, all blogs have static webpages.

In the case of godaddy, different user will subscribe for different services. One may buy a domain from godaddy, other might have paid for both domain and hosting. So, once they login with their credentials, those two will see different contents.

Wait! I said there are exceptions right? Take the University of Oxford website, it provides information about the university eventhough it is a website it's content is not going to change for different users. It is a static website.

User credentials

In case of blogs, you need not login to read contents you can just visit and read the content. But, as most of the websites on web are selling products or providing some sort of service, confidentiality is essential. Obviously credentials are provided to protect customer dealings with the company.

Getting back to our examples, you can read the contents of helplogger without logging in. But, you must have an account on godaddy to use their service.

Monetizing techniques

As long as there is quality traffic, it can be monitized. Bloggers will earn money out of their blog in the ways mentioned above. There are so many Ad programs like adsense which display most relevant ads to visitors to increase the chance of being clicked. Bloggers may also write review about some products and leave a link by which visitors can buy those products. If a reader ended up buying a product from any Affiliate link, bloggers would get a share from that sale. This type of earning is called Affiliate marketing.

Sometimes blogger may sell e-books on their blog. Their credibility will make readers to buy those books. So, websites make money by the service(s) they provide & the products they sell.

So explaining this with the examples, helplogger makes money using online ads & godaddy by their web-hosting services and domain selling.

Visitor Comments

You can always post comments on any blog post in a blog unless the author intentionally disables it. You can't just go to a website & post a comment. I think it is not necessary to explain this with the examples.

I hope the next time when you come across a URL, you can say whether it's a blog or website by catching a glimpse of it. Did I miss anything? Do you have any queries? Feel free to open your mind in comments.....:)

How to Load Ads Without Slowing down Your Blogger Blog

2015-06-09T02:53:00.000+05:30

Every blogger on this earth would like to earn some money out of their blog. So, they post ads or promote affiliate products. Coming to ads side, one has many options. There are so many ad networks available on internet to choose from. To earn anything from the ads on your blog, you must have decent traffic which in turn requires good ranking on search engines like Google.

Every blog must fulfill certain criteria to rank top on Google. One among which is pagespeed. The ads you serve may slow down your page speed eventually it affects your search rankings badly because, ad networks use javascripts to serve ads on publisher pages which is why you have to load ads asynchronously or after the document is completed loading.

I presume you know the basic things about render blocking, asynchronous script loading etc. If you don't know much about those things this guide could help.

Also see: How to increase Page load speed of Blogger Blog

If you're running Adsense, BuySell ads, Chitika you need not worry about page speed. As they have adopted asynchronous script loading techniques which doesn't hinder page loading. Adnetworks like Adversal don't provide asynchronous ad codes which on use would slow down your page terribly.

So, in this post I'm going to share tips for Blogger users to load ad codes which are not asynchronous in a manner that won't slow down your page. Also, this post is only apt for banner ads.

How to find if any ad increases page load time

Any ad code when it loads, that blocks the loading of on page content is considered to be render blocking elements. Those kind of codes can easily be found using page speed testing tools like Webpagestest & Pingdom. Still clueless? read the guide mentioned above.

Instructions to load ads on document complete

Search engines calculate page load time by considering how long it takes to fully load the on page content (texts & images). So, if we find a way to serve ads after the complete loading of on page content, we will get the following benefits.

Bounce rate will be reduced as users don't have to wait until ads load.
As a result of point #1, page speed will be improved.
As a result of point #2, your rankings will improve.
Top ranking pages will generate more traffic.
More traffic = More bucks in your pocket.

This trick can be broken down into following three steps.

Creating pages for ad codes & parsing the codes
Including customized JS in the blogger template
Including div elements to load ads

Creating pages for ad codes & parsing the codes

How we are going to derive the result what we intend? It's simple. We are going to load the ads through iframes. Iframes are HTML tags by which we can load a webpage inside a webpage. You may be a novice blogger, so you just do what I mention further.

Those iframes must be on the same domain where the ads are loaded. For instance let us take the following adcode.

<script src="http://go.adversal.com/ttj?id=2986687&size=300x250&promo_sizes=250x250,200x200,180x150"></script>

First you must parse the HTML ad code. Use this link to do the same.

After parsing the code it will look like the following code, here the example ad code given above has been parsed.

&lt;script src=&quot;http://go.adversal.com/ttj?id=2986687&amp;size=300x250&amp;promo_sizes=250x250,200x200,180x150&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

This code will be replaced by a 300 X 250 ad banner on load. Indeed, it blocks on page content. In this trick, it is loaded as an iframe. So, you have to create pages on your blog domain exclusively to load ads. Go to Pages on your blogger dashboard and click on new page enter a title like 'rectangle' or 'skyscrapper' and then publish. Note the url of the page. Let us take the following url as example

http://www.syncwithtech.org/p/rectad.html

Including customized JS & codes in the blogger template.

The first thing you must do is including the parsed ad code & page URL in your blogger template. Just post the following code above <b:skin> after replacing the URL & adcode with yours

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == &quot;http://www.syncwithtech.org/p/rectad.html&quot;'>
&lt;script src=&quot;http://go.adversal.com/ttj?id=2986687&amp;size=300x250&amp;promo_sizes=250x250,200x200,180x150&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;
</b:if>

We are half done. Now, you must include the javascript code in your template which loads the iframe containing your adcode on load. This code was taken from go4expert blog.

Paste the above code above </body>. You can modify three parameters in the above code. They are width, height & src. Change those attributes according to your needs. If you need to place more than one ad by this method add two variables for every single ad unit. For example if you want to display 3 different ad units on the page, you will need 6 variables (c1, adauth1, c2, adauth2, c3, adauth3).

So, for two ad units the code will be,

Here also replace the URL & ad dimensions accordingly. Pages dedicated for ads when loading, request the CSS rules & HTML code like regular item pages. We must prevent it from loading. Paste the below code above <b:skin> tag & below <body> tag.

<b:if cond='data:blog.url != &quot;http://www.syncwithtech.org/p/rectad.html&quot;'>

Separate if conditions must be added for distinct URLs. If you create 2 different URLs for 2 distinct ad units, there will be two if condition statements. The if tag must be properly closed. So, paste the below closing tag above </head> tag & above </body> tag.

</b:if>

The number of if conditions & closing tags must be equal.

Including div elements to load ads.

It is the last step you must do. Add the following code wherever you want to display ad.

<div id="AdAuth1"></div>
<div id="AdAuth2"></div>   //if you had added more than one ad unit

Here, you cannot use the same div tag in two different places. Every ad unit must have its own div tag. Create variables accordingly to display more ad units.

I hope this guide helped you to improve page speed. Do you have any queries? Please don't hesitate to leave a comment.

8085 & 8051 Simulators for Windows 8/7/XP and Linux

2015-03-28T02:57:00.000+05:30

Almost all Engineering students might have Microprocessors & Microcontrollers laboratory classes in the course of 4 year degree. So, one must know how to write programs and feed it into 8085 & 8051 kits to get proper output. Unfortunately, most of us won't have access to those trainer kits when we want. Here, simulators come for the rescue.

Simulators are nothing but computer programs that are capable of doing the same thing as the real devices do. So, development kits are not at all needed for gearing-up for practical exams. One can execute assembly language programs on the PC itself.

What are all the benefits of using Simulators

Syntax-highlighting - If the syntax you use is wrong, it will show it.
Machine code - Equivalent machine code for your assembly language can easily be obtained.
Testing - You can test the code before feeding it to Microprocessor or Microcontroller

Prerequisites for both 8085 & 8051 Simulators

To work with the simulators which I'm going to recommend you in this post, you need to install 'Java Runtime Environment' as the simulators are built using Java. Download and install JRE using the link given. JRE for Windows users

Debian, Ubuntu & Linux Mint users, run the following command on terminal to install JRM on your machine. Other Linux users use Google to find way to install JRE.

sudo apt-get install default-jre

8085 Simulator

First of all download the Java byte code of the simulator from the link - 8085 Simulator. Then, double click on the file downloaded. If you have a JRM installed machine, the simulator would have been opened. Now, you can start to work with your codes. Just follow some simple instructions given below.

The above image is the user interface of the simulator. At the bottom of this 8085 simulator topic, I would have written how to execute a program. First learn something about the interface of the simulator. It consists of 5 tabs. They are,

Editor

In this tab, you will type the assembly language code you want to run.

Assembler

Assembler tab shows you the address in which the codes are stored, machine code of instructions, number of bytes of every instruction, and the number of T-states, M-cycles of every Mnemonic. Click on the T-states cell of any mnemonic to see the timing diagram of that particular instruction.

Registers

This tab contains the register details. That is, the hex value stored in each register & its binary representation. It also show the status of flag registers. At the bottom there is a number conversion tool. Just click on any tab, input value and press enter. It will be converted into other two formats.

Memory

It shows the data stored in memory locations. There are 3 options under the tabular column. Choose anyone of the option according to your needs.

I/O port editor

This tab displays the status of I/O ports.

Check the simple following example program.


#ORG 7000H

LDA 8000H
HLT

#ORG 8000H
#DB 9FH, 81H, FFH

These ORG, DB codes are used in this assembler for certain purposes. Take a look at the following table.

Assembler directive	Example	Description
ORG (Origin)	#ORG 8000H	The next block of instruction should be stored in memory locations starting at 8000H
DB (Define Byte)	#DB FFH, BBH	Initializes an area byte by byte, in successive memory locations(Define Byte) until all values are stored.

The instruction #ORG 7000H is used to store the mnemonics from the address 7000H. We all know that LDA instruction fetch the data from memory address to accumulator. So, the memory address 8000H must contain some data.

Hence to load data to memory location 8000H, the code #ORG 8000H & #DB 9FH is used. The prior instruction implies the following instructions must be stored from the address 8000H & the latter instruction is for storing data consequently from 8000H onwards. So, hex values are stored in memory locations in following manner in the given example.


8000H → 9FH
8001H → 81H
8002H → FFH

In this way, the required hex values are stored in the desired memory addresses.

Instruction to run programs on 8085 simulator

After typing the assembly language instructions in the editor window, click on Assemble.
Now, if there is no syntax error in the codes, it will switch to Assembler window.
Here there are two options. Run all At a Time or Step By Step.
Step By Step allows you to step through your program executing the program step by step where as the other option executes all the steps at a time.
Don't forget to include HLT at the end of your program. Else, it will take time to execute the program in Run all At a Time mode.

To know more about this simulator, download the developer's documentation of this simulator.

8051 Simulator

Unlike the 8085 simulator mentioned above, 8051 simulator is versatile and it comes with numerous peripheral devices like ADC, DAC, 7 Segment & LED displays, Matrix keyboard and Motor. Link - Download 8051 simulator

After downloading that .rar file from the link given, extract it. You would see a folder named, 'edsim51di'. Inside that folder, there would be a folder and a .jar file. Double click the .jar file to run the simulator. Keep the edsim51di folder as it is. Don't delete or move anything inside the folder.

Instrution to run programs on 8051 simulator

Type the mnemonics in the white space provided.
Click on 'Assm' to check whether the program has any error.
If there is no error, either you can choose Step or Run to execute the program.
Step executes the program line by line whereas Run executes the whole program.
To stop the program execution, click on 'RST'.

Note: Represent hex values as #0FFH, #00EH. Otherwise, while assembling errors will be shown.

There are lot more things you can do with this 8051 simulator. To know more about it follow this link.

Many simulators are available online to simulate 8085 & 8051. But, I find this two more useful as it is compatible with all operating systems and more versatile than many other simulators on Internet.

Easily Find the Meaning of Words You Come across on Web

2015-01-17T17:54:00.000+05:30

'It is sine qua non to eat balanced food to stay healthy'

What will you do when you read a piece of text like the one above? Do you know the meaning of 'sine qua non'? Sure, 95% of you might have no idea and assume a meaning to that word to know what the passage conveys. It might be good for the time being, but your English vocabulary would not improve. Also, you couldn't open your dictionary app of your smart phone or similar software on desktop to know the meaning.

It is tedious and time consuming. So, what you can do about it? There are ways by which you can get the meaning, usage, examples, past & perfect forms, usage as adjective, adverb, noun forms, as well as the pronunciation of any particular word you come across on Internet easily. If you are not proficient enough in English, there is also a way to get the meaning of words in your mother tongue. Quite interesting right??

Note: This tip is applicable for chrome users only. I will find equivalent add-ons for Firefox and other browsers and update this post later.

There is an extension called, 'English dictionary translate pronunciation' on chrome web-store that makes things simple. Just go ahead and add it to your chrome.

How to configure English dictionary translate pronunciation

After installing it simply click here. You would see the options page of the extension, if you installed it properly. First of all, you must customize the 'Dictionaries' section.

Check 'show translation based on Google translator' if you need the meaning of the words in your mother tongue.
Visit Google Translate and set your mother tongue as destination language. For example, I have set Tamil as my destination language (Refer the image below).
Set the number of definitions you need for the words.
If you want to know the transcription of words, make a check on 'show phonetic' option and you can choose between British and American English.
Make a check on 'Say pronunciation', if you want the word to be spelt as soon as you start to check its meaning. You don't need to as you can click the play button to hear the pronunciation when the results are showed.
If you think it's good to see the example sentences with that word, make a check on 'show example sentences' also define the number of sentences to be showed.

Next, others section. Opt-out from 'display logos' & 'suspend working on https sites' as it provides no value. Define the max-width, max-height and pop-up visibility time.

Under usage section, check 'double click on the word', this is how you are going to find the meaning of any particular word. Also, tick 'display a search box in pop-up' to find meaning of the words come to your mind.

Now, whenever you see a new word on web, just select it and double click on it (Refer the image below). You will see a pop-up on the top right corner of chrome window.

That pop-up usually contains the things you opted for in the above configuration. If you want to check out the meaning of any word, just select and double click any random word on the browser window, and type it on the search box of the pop-up.

What if you need more information about the words

Sometimes, you may want to know more about the words you come across. For instance, you might have confusion on the past participle of a verb or the noun form of an adjective.

In this regard, I highly recommend two sites, one is vocabulary.com and the other, thefreedictionary.com. The former gives the meaning of the word in a witty way along with the examples taken from US, UK newspaper websites. It also provides the usage of that particular word and in which form it is used most. Synonyms are also provided to enrich your vocabulary.

The latter can be used to find out the past participle of a verb and the adjective, adverb, noun forms of the word.

I know, you can't bookmark these sites and visit them whenever you need some explanation of any particular words. To help you in this case, there is another extension named, Context Menu Search on chrome store. Just add it to chrome. Check the image below, you will get an idea regarding how it works.

After adding it to chrome, click here. The options menu of the extension will be opened. Select 'Add new option'. Then add the below two URLs in the link section. Also define a display label. I have set it as 'Vocabulary' & 'thefreedictionary'.

http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/TESTSEARCH
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/TESTSEARCH

Eventually, click on 'Save new config'. That's all. Now, all you need to do is select the word, right click on it then Context Menu Search → Vocabulary or thefreedictionary.

Any queries?? Let me know using the comments section.....

Hide Pop-ups and Annotations on YouTube videos

2014-12-29T01:53:00.000+05:30

We all watch YouTube videos frequently. While watching some videos, especially in full screen mode, it is annoying to see annotations and subscribe us links. It totally spoils our video watching enjoyment. You can manually close those pop-ups such as annotations and links, but it is not a permanent solution. There are two ways to hide those things in a hassle-free manner.

This problem is a big burden for most of us, because the close button can't be clicked while watching in full screen mode. Most of the time spotting the x button to close those links becomes quite difficult. when it is more than two, you will be outraged.

You can permanently hide those annotations by changing your YouTube settings as explained in this guide. The demerit of this method is you will no longer see links over the videos you watch which may include some useful links at the end of the video. Those links could be there as connecting links to other videos of the same channel or it may take you to the related blog post or transcription of the video.

There is an alternate way which you may find useful for the videos with incessant annotations and suggestions. While watching a random video of this kind on YouTube, this method is helpful.

I have coded a bookmarklet to make this happen. Just drag and drop the below link to your bookmarks tool bar. Now, whenever you are about to watch a video like the one mentioned above, just click on the bookmarklet. It will clear all annotations, channel promotions and interactive cards pop-ups on the videos. This will be in effect, until you reload the browser window.

So, once you click on the bookmarklet you can watch any number of YouTube videos without any annotations or pop-ups. In other words, you need not click on it for every video.

Clear it!

The beauty of this trick is, the changes made by the bookmarklet will perish after reloading the browser window.

What to do if this doesn't work

By default, Mozilla firefox don't use HTML5 player to play YouTube videos. But, the code has been written for HTML5 player. So in firefox or any other browsers to get things done, visit this page and click on 'Request the HTML5 player' (Refer the image below).

If you browser don't support HTML5 player, there is no other way, you should either upgrade your browser or start using Google chrome.

Technical side of this method

You can actually use this trick without caring about the following piece of writing, though I write this for the geeks who are eager to know how it works.

Every YouTube video's HTML contains the annotations, channel promotions and suggested videos in div elements which has video-annotations iv-module, annotation annotation-type-custom iv-promo iv-promo-video, branding-img-container, as classes respectively.

What I have done to make those pop-ups disappear is simply adding a class to those div elements with display: none; rule. YouTube has a class named hid in its css by default with display: none rule.

While you click on the bookmarklet, it simply adds hid class to those div elements to hide the annotations & pop-ups from the YouTube video you are watching.

Stay Offline and check Who are Online on G+ and Facebook

2014-12-20T23:31:00.000+05:30

Sometimes, you might want to be offline and check who are all online on Google+ or Facebook. You may have some reasons to do this, I'm going to show you how to do this stuff perfectly. It will be something like the list of online people will be showed, you can choose whether you must be showed online or offline to them, it's completely your choice.

UPDATE on 17/09/2015: Pidgin will no longer work for Facebook as Facebook disabled its XMPP Chat API from April 30th, 2015.

You will need a third party application named, 'Pidgin' to do this. The best part is Pidgin is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Download Pidgin. For complete guidance on which version you have to download and how Check this link.

You may ask me, 'Why should we use a third party application while there are provisions to do this on Facebook and Google+ by default'.

Good question. Here my answer, you may turn off chat on Facebook and Sign out from hangouts on G+. But, you will no longer see the online friends in both the cases. But this method will help you check the online contacts.

Also see: 10 Facebook tips you might not know about.

First of all you have to configure your accounts on Pidgin - How to setup G+ and Facebook account on Pidgin.

Now, open Pidgin. You could see a window similar to the one showed below.

Check the bottom of the window. You will see the option 'Available' selected. Just click on it and change it to 'Extended away'. That's it, from now on you will be shown offline to all of your friends at the same time you can check who are all online until you change the status from Extended away to something else.

Note: When you use Facebook on your mobile, you can put chat off at the same time check who are all online. But still, your presence on Facebook will be showed to all of your friends who use Facebook using mobile as 'Active Now'. Same is the case when you turn off chat in desktop. This trick eliminates this risk.

Do you know, anyone of your friends can check your activity on Facebook by simply visiting m.facebook.com, even if you have turned off chat for them. Then, they will come to know that you have deliberately turned off chat for them. This may impart a bad impression about you.

Sometimes, you may want to chat with some of your friends and avoid some group of people without getting caught by them. Here Pidgin comes for the rescue, you must keep the status as 'Extended away' and keep chatting with the one you want.

Now, if the people you want to avoid check messages using mobile or m.facebook.com, your activity won't be showed as 'Active Now'. So, problem solved.

10 Facebook Tips You can't Afford to Ignore

2014-12-20T23:27:00.000+05:30

With 1.3 billion active users, Facebook is the most successful social network among world people. Day by day, the number of users joining Facebook increases steadily. Most of us know how to utilize the features of Facebook to make the most out of it. In this post, I share the most basic and important 10 features of it which I guess you don't know. Also, please don't blame me if you already know some of the tips mentioned.

#1. Get post & comment links

Often, you would come across a stunning post in Facebook which you couldn't share explicitly or you are too lazy to share it in custom. Sometimes, you may want your friend to check out a particular comment. You can get the link of any particular post or any particular comment by clicking on the timestamp (Refer below images). Else, you can simply right click the link and select 'Copy link address' and send it to your friend.

#2. Download Facebook videos

If you know how to download a YouTube video, you will easily download any video on Facebook which is posted from YouTube. Sometimes, it will not be the case, the uploader would have directly uploaded it on Facebook. It is also easy to download this kind of videos. Just drag and drop the below bookmarklet to your addressbar.

Just click on the link you dragged, while playing a Facebook video. You will be given a link to download that particular video. This trick is also applicable to YouTube videos.

Download Video!

#3. Unfollow friend & pages

We all have that one friend who get on our nerves posting something stupid and lame. It is unfair to unfriend him. But, there is a trick to hide his posts from your newsfeed. However, you could visit his timeline and check his posts. This is also simple, just click the downfacing arrow in the top right corner of any of the posts of your friend and select 'Unfollow'. After this, you won't see his posts on your newsfeed. To revert this action, just visit his profile, and select 'follow' (refer image below).

Sometimes, the photos or status updates of some pages may bug you continuously, even if you mightn't have liked those pages. You occasionaly come across those kind of updates, this usually happens when any of your friends like the posts of those pages. You can also permanently hide those updates of those pages. Just click the downfacing arrow on the top right corner of the post and select 'Hide all from <PAGE NAME>'.

Also see: How to find the online people on Facebook and G+ being offline.

#4. Control what must appear on your timline

Some of our friends might tag us in their lame profile picture or any of their photos to increase the number of likes and comments. The worst part is it will stay on your timeline forever and be showed to anyone visiting your profile unless you tweak some settings.

You have to enable 'Timeline review' in order to have better control over the things appearing on your timeline. You can enable it by visiting 'active log' page of your profile. Just go to your profile and select 'View Activity Log'. In the left side panel select 'Timeline Review'. Now, click on the wrench and change 'Disabled' to 'Enabled'.

Here after, whenever a friend tags you in a photo, it won't appear on your timeline. You can manually allow any photo by selecting 'Add to Timeline' in Timeline Review page. You might also turn on notifications to get notified, when someone tags you in a photo.

Even, if you hide those post from your timeline, notifications won't stop hauting you. To get rid of those never stopping notifications, just open the post you're tagged in and click on 'Stop notifications' (refer below image).

#5. Hide disgusting game posts

Sometimes you could see game posts on your newsfeed. For instance, you may see 'Mr. XXX investigated a murder case in Criminal Case' and this list goes on. Why should you care about what others do in a game. So, you can hide those posts in Facebook. Just click the down facing arrow in any of this posts and select 'Hide all from <APP NAME>' (refer below image).

#6. Activity log

Activity log is like a store room of your all activities in Facebook. Here, you can find the stuff you liked, commented, the questions you answered, things you searched in Facebook, the posts you are tagged in, the day you became friend with someone and this list extends.

With the help of Activity log, you can do some cool stuff. For instance, you can check the very first post you liked or commented after joining Facebook, you can also find out the first friend you added. Just select the appropriate option in the sidebar (see left image) and use the links given in the top right corner (see right image).

#7. Follow posts without posting any comments

Sometimes you may want to know what are all the comments people post in a particular post and you might not want to get yourself involved in that post. One way you can do is bookmark that post link and checking it often. But, it is the hard way of doing it. Actually it will be good, if you can get notifications, when someone post any comments on that particular post.

In this case, what you need to do is just simply click the downfacing arrow of any post you want to stalk and select 'More options' then select 'Turn On Notifications'. Later if you feel uncomfortable with those notifications, you can turn it off the similar way (refer the image below).

This also works in the other way, means when you post a single comment in a post of your friend and his friends start to comment continuously, you can turn off notifications in similar way.

#8. Get notifications

You won't want to miss single update of some person or page. In this regard, just go to that page or friend's profile and click on the 'Liked' for pages and 'Friends' for people and then select 'Get Notifications'. Afterwards, whenever that page or person updates their status or upload any photos on Facebook, you will get a notification.

#9. Newsfeed preferences

It is similar to that of third point, but all in one place. Newsfeed preferences will give you the list of all pages you like and the friends you have at one place. You can unfollow any pages or friends with a click. Just hover your mouse over 'newsfeed' in the left sidebar and click on the wrench to access 'Newsfeed preferences'. With this, you could also checkout which page or which friend posted more stories in a week time.

#10. Blocking

It is frustrating to receive game requests on Facebook, when we hate playing games on Facebook. There is a fix for this issue. You can block app invites by two means. One way, you can block invites from one particular friend. It is useful when your friend is a game freak. The other one, blocking a particular app request irrespective of who sends you. This can be used when you tend to get a particular app invite from different friends.

This can be done using the blocking section of settings. You can use 'Block app invites' for former method and 'Block apps' for the latter.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Is there any other important thing I have missed to mention, if yes please open your mind in comments section...

How to drive Flickr traffic Without any Manual effort

2014-12-11T01:48:00.000+05:30

All bloggers are interested in Google traffic, because it is highly targeted and lucrative. It is also good to get referaal traffic from other sites. Flickr is an image hosting site owned by Yahoo. It is famous among bloggers for its CC licensed images. We can use CC images in our blog straightaway, depending on the type of the license. For instance, for CC BY-SA license, all we need to do is just giving credit to the owner.

So, like Google, Flickr will also be searched for images. Also, Google often returns Flickr images if you filter the results under 'Usage rights'. Bloggers always filter the results under 'Labeled for reuse with modification'. So, they can use those images in their blog without any license problem. One can witness many Flickr images with this filter for any search query. So, it is good to have those kind of images in your Flickr channel to get traffic to your blog.

It is easy to drive Flickr traffic to your blog. Also, if your image is good, it will be reused by others in their own blogs and you will get a link back to your blog. You can manually upload your photos to Flickr, but it is time-consuming. There is a workaround to upload photos automatically to Filckr as soon as a blog post is published in your blog. To successfully do this stuff, you must know about IFTTT and how it works.

What is IFTTT and how it works

IFTTT can be expanded as IF This Then That. It is a service which interconnects two webapps you use and if you do a particular thing in a webapp (called as 'trigger'), it will perform a desired action in another webapp as a consequence. Both of the actions can be selected by you. The combination of a Trigger and an Action is called as receipe. First create an account in IFTTT.

Instructions

First, you have to authorize Flickr channel in IFTTT. Use this link.
Now, you must activate the appropriate channel for your blogging platform. Do this: Blogger or Wordpress.
Then, we must create a receipe. Here, your blogging platform is Trigger and Flickr channel is the action. Click here and select 'this'.
Select your blogging platform as Trigger channel and choose 'Any new post' as Trigger and select 'create Trigger'.
Now, select 'that' and choose Flickr as your action channel and select 'Upload public photo from URL'.
Then, edit the fields as you wish and select 'Create Action' and eventually 'Create Recipe'.

Note: All your blog URLs are shrunk by IFTTT and posted in Flickr. It is good to disable it. You can do this in the preferences section of IFTTT.

After completing all the tasks mentioned above, whenever you publish a blog post the first image of the post will be shared automatically on your Flickr account with post title as photo title and post URL as description. So, the photo in Flickr will be a keyword optimized one (i.e. Keywords in the post title).

The most important thing you must do after completing the above steps is to define some privacy settings for your Flickr account. Visit Flickr Privacy & Permissions page.

Preferred settings for better discovery of images and backlinks

Under 'Global settings' the preference must be Anyone for 'Who can access your original image files?' and NO for 'Hide your stuff from public searches' for better discovery of your images by people via search engines.
Under 'Defaults for new uploads' always select 'Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons' for 'What license will your content have'. It is selected by default, if not change it to ShareAlike. So that whenever anyone uses your images would give you a backlink as a credit.

I hope this post helped you in driving some image traffic as well as getting some backlinks to your blog. You could ask your doubts in comments section.

How to continue torrent download on any os on a dualboot

2014-10-03T23:52:00.000+05:30

Are you a torrent freak and do you have a dual-booted system? I hope you understand what I'm going to teach you by taking a glimpse of the title. For instance, say you use Windows for Microsoft word and Linux for other purposes. Lets say, in Windows, You initiated a torrent download which is 75% completed. When you switch back to Linux, you could not continue the download from where you left.

You have to begin all from the scratch otherwise you must boot into Windows to finish things. It's not at all necessay. You can continue the left off in your other OS too. You may have Windows + Windows, Windows + Linux, Windows + Mac, whatever this trick is going to work in all.

Things you need

Deluge - Torrent client.
Two folders to store your .torrent files. (For example: win & lin)
A common place for your downloads. (For example: container)

Instructions

Install Deluge bittorrent client in all OSs of your system. As said earlier, create three folders in your hard drive. Your OSs must have read and write permissions for those three folders. Now, do the following things in Deluge in both operating systems.

Open Deluge → Edit → Preferences → Downloads. Select folder 'container' for 'Download to'. So, folder 'container' is going to accomodate the files you download.

After completing the above step, your bittorrent client will use that location to save downloaded files in both operating systems. For better understanding, say I have a dual booted system with Windows & Linux. I must use two distinct folders to save .torrent files. So that, the software could automatically fetch the torrent and begin the download process. So, create two folders (say win - for Windows, lin - for Linux).

Now, make a check in 'Copy of torrent files to'. If you're in Linux, select 'win' folder, if you're in Windows, select 'lin' folder. This'll successfully make a copy of your .torrent files in those two folders. Check - Linux Screenshot.

We're almost done. The copied torrent files must be loaded automatically when the client starts. Select 'Plugins' in the side pane. Check the first plugin - AutoAdd. It would have been added to the side pane. Check - Linux screenshot

Select AutoAdd → Add. Under Watch folder choose the folder from where you are going to retrieve .torrent files to initiate the download. Choose 'win' if you're in Windows. Choose 'lin' if you're in Linux. You can select anything in 'Torrent File Action'. Choose 'Append extension after adding' to keep the torrent files. So that you can use that file after removing the extension '.added'. Don't forget to make a check in 'Enable watch folder'. Then select Add. Check - Linux Screenshot.

Now, in the Preference window Select Apply → OK.

Hereafter, whenever you download files in any OS. If you open deluge in the other OS, it will initiate the download from where it was left.

How to Generate Direct links of Google Drive, Dropbox files

2014-09-23T20:53:00.001+05:30

You might have used Google drive, Dropbox or Onedrive to save your files and share them with your friends or public. Whenever you want to share some files, you will be given a URL Obviously, they are not direct links in the sense, those allow other users to visit one gateway page which contains a download link for any particular file. The user must use that to download files.

Some of us would want to share the direct links for the files, so that any user can initiate the download just by clicking that hyperlink. You could do that easily. You just need to edit the share URL to make this happen. To make things a lot easier, I have created a tool by which you can generate direct download links for your files in Google drive, Dropbox and Onedrive.

What you have to do is just copy the share URL of any file. Go to this page - Direct Download link generator for Google drive, Dropbox, Onedrive. Paste the share URL in the text box under "Enter Share link" and press Enter. Now, if you have entered a correct URL. A direct link would have been generated and selected. Press Ctrl + C to copy that URL. Just check the following image to know how it works.

First of all, you must know how to obtain the share URL of your files from one particular web-app. Just use below links.

Note: You can't create direct download URLs for the folders you have in Google drive and Onedrive. Instead, you can compress the folders as .rar or .zip archive and you can create direct URLs for those files.

Google drive

As Google has updated the user interface of Google drive recently, I'm going to give instructions to obtain the share links in the new interface. To get the new drive just click the wrench in the top right corner of drive window and select 'Experience the new drive'.

Right click the file you want to create download link, then select share.
Now, click on 'Copy link' or select and copy the link shown on the popup window.
Go to the page mentioned above, and paste the link you have copied.
Direct download link would be created without any problem.

Dropbox

Unlike Google drive & onedrive you can create direct URLs for folders too.

Login to Dropbox.
Hover over the file you want to share directly and click 'Share' and then click on 'Copy link...'
Use the link copied to create download link.

Note: You can simply create direct URLs for your Dropbox files by changing the '0' into '1' in the share URL.

Onedrive

Right click the file, for which you want to create download URL, then select share.
Then, click on 'Get a link'.
Under 'Choose an option' select 'Public'.
Click on 'Create link'.
Now, you will be given a link. Use that to create direct link.

That's all. How's my work???'

How to use Bigrock free Email service efficiently

2014-07-30T00:39:00.001+05:30

If you land in this page, then you must be a blogger. If you have registered your domain name with Bigrock (As I did), then you would have known about their free email service. Every domain name can have a maximum of 2 custom email addresses. Are you still using your gmail address in your contact page? This's the perfect time to look more professional.

How awesome it would be if your email address look like the following one?

vignesh@syncwithtech.org

It's the email address I use in my contact page. Looks professional nah? Sure, it do. You can also have a custom email address like the one mentioned above. If you don't even know how to create a custom email address with Bigrock, refer this guide.

This post is all about how to manage your custom email more easily without messing things up. Let's say you have created an email, from your Bigrock account. How will you use it? What are all you must do to get the most out of it? all of the above questions are answered in this post.

How to check your mails online?

A mail will be sent to the alternate address given by you while creating a custom email address in Bigrock. That mail will barely contain the email address that you created and the password for that. Just go to the web-site mentioned below, after replacing example.com with your domain name.

webmail.example.com

Now, login with your credentials you received through the mail. You would see your custom mail dashboard. There you can sent, delete, star mails, use address book, save mails as draft. Almost, it has everything you have with Gmail.

Also see: How to increase page load speed of Blogger blog

Integrate it with your existing Gmail account

By doing this, you can receive mails from your custom email address to your Gmail address. In other words, you don't need to check two mails. All mails you get in your custom mail will be forwarded to your Gmail account. You can also reply from the address to which the mail is sent. You can also sent mail from your custom email using Gmail account. It's all easy to setup. Just follow my words. There are two ways to implement this,

POP method
Mail forwarding

Note: I strongly recommend you to read the first paragraph of each method and go with the one which seems to suit your needs.

POP method

If you use this method, mails won't be stored in Bigrock's server (If you choose to). It means after receiving mails within minutes it will be sent to your Gmail address and it'll be permanetly deleted from Bigrock's storage. The best part of this method is you won't hit the 100MB quota and you need not check your usage details in Bigrock's dashboard.

First login to your Gmail account.
Select settings after clicking on the wrench icon in the top right corner.
Then select 'Accounts and Import'.
In 'Check mail from other accounts (using POP3):' section, select 'Add a POP3 mail account you own'.
In the pop-up window enter your custom Bigrock mail address then select Next step.
Again enter the custom mail address in username and enter your password.
In POP server text area, enter pop.example.com (replace example.com with your domain name).
Set port as 110 (default) and select Add Account, that's all.

Now, all message sent to your Bigrock's custom mail will be redirected to your Gmail account.

Note: Don't check 'Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server' while adding your custom email as a POP account as it will blow your email quota.

Mail forwarding

While using this method, all of the mails sent to your custom mail will be forwarded to your Gmail account. In other words, you will have the mail in two places, one in the Bigrock's server and the other in your Gmail. The worst part of using this method is you are likely to reach your 100MB free mail quota after which your free mail account will be disabled without any notice. To prevent that from happening, you must delete the mails in Bigrock's server using this method in regular interval of time.

First login to your Bigrock account, then select the domain name.
Then select Email → Manage Email → Manage Users / Accounts.
Select the mail you want to integrate with Gmail.
Under Mail Forward(s), select Add Forward(s).
Enter the Gmail Id in the text box and select add.
That's all. Now, close the popup window.

Now, you could comfortably receive forwarded mails in your Gmail account .

How to send mail as your custom address from Gmail

I hope you're all set to receive your mails in Gmail. Now, how could you send mail from Gmail as your custom mail address. It's also possible. Follow the below steps.

Login to your Gmail account.
Select settings after clicking on the wrench icon in the top right corner.
Then select 'Accounts and Import'.
In 'Send mail as' section, select 'Add another email address you own'.
In the pop up window, enter your Name and custom email address and select Next step.
Now, select 'Send through Gmail (easier to set up)' and advance to Next step.
You have to select 'Send Verification' in order to verify your mail address.
A verification mail with a link and confirmation code will be sent to your custom mail.
You can either enter the verification code in the popup window or simply click on the link.

Now, you can select your custom address as your from address when you send any mails. Refer below image.

To reply as your custom address to the mails that are sent to it, you have to do one more tweak. In 'Send mail as' section', under 'When replying to a message' select 'Reply from the same address the message was sent to'.

You can also add a 'To address filter' to filter out the mails send to your custom mail.

Using Desktop mail clients

If you are familiar with desktop mail clients, (for example Mozilla thunderbird), refer this guide.

I hope you like this guide. Is there any other tip to get the most out of Bigrock's mail service?

6 tips to Reduce Load time of your Blogger Blog

2014-07-01T17:37:00.000+05:30

Sure, load time of any web-page makes an impact in its search rankings. Who needs a slow web? Even Google says "The web should be fast". Will you revisit a website which takes more than 5 seconds to load? I will not. Moreover, fast loading web pages enhance user experience. Visitors are the pillars of any successful blog. So, every blogger must take steps to speed up their blog load time. In this post, I have given some tips which would help you to load your Blogger blog faster.

Guidelines provided in this article were tested many times and is used by me in this blog. I have provided 2 URLs at the end of this post. Both of the URL contains the same content. One is optimized to load fast using the tips below and the other one is left as it is.

Eliminate render blocking Javascripts and CSS

This one is the major factor which could degrade your page speed. Render blocking is nothing but hindering the render of the page that means the main content of the page will be prevented from loading until Javascripts and CSS files are fully loaded.

In other words, visitors of the particular page will only see a blank page until those files are loaded. To graphically illustrate what I have explained above, take a look at the below image. Image files (.png, .jpg, .gif) are the content of the page and Javascript, CSS files are the render blocking elements.

The appearance of colored bar in the timeline expresses the element is started to load in your browser. You won't see .js & .css files in your browser. All you could see is the content and the images. As you see in the above example, there are render-blocking elements in the page.

So, how to find the render blocking elements of any page? Head to Google's Pagespeed Insights and enter the URL you want to check, then click Analyse.

It will list all of the render blocking JS and CSS files of that page.

Note: Home page results may vary from Item page (content page). So, test both your home page and content page.

How to remove the render blocking elements?

If we can load the elements of the content along side with JS and CSS files, the problem is solved. Technically this method is called as Asynchronous loading aka Async.

Depending on the template you use and the widgets you load, this list may enlarge. But, the elements mentioned above are common for all. The most common blocking elements are Javascripts which has the following syntax.

<script src="LOCATION OF THE SCRIPT FILE" type="text/javascript"></script>

So to reduce the load time, all script files must be loaded Async. To load script files async use the following syntax.

<script src="LOCATION OF THE SCRIPT FILE" type="text/javascript" async></script>

As your CSS files are loaded with the template, you won't have any render blocking stylesheets other than default Blogger CSS.

Also see: How to improve pagespeed while displaying ads

Note: This method will work for all HTML 5 supported browsers. For wide range of compatibility you must optimize the code. Here are some pointers.

This method won't work for JS having callbacks. Eg: Recent posts, Related posts widgets and some ads.

Remove unwanted default Blogger CSS and JS

As you are using Blogger, you must see the following render blocking elements when you check your item page with PageSpeed Insights.

https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/widgets/3841957138-widget_css_bundle.css
https://www.blogger.com/…&zx=e35e54c0-dccd-405f-aae8-731de51ebc0e
https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/widgets/3401484092-widgets.js
https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js
https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/jsbin/313381681-comment_from_post_iframe.js

If your are using a custom Blogger template, then the first 2 CSS files are unwanted. If you don't use Google plus comments in your blog then, you don't need the 3rd and 4th Javascript files. Last JS file is not needed, if you don't default blogger comments in your blog.

However I believe you are not using default Blogger template. So, you don't need the first two CSS files. There's no way you can remove that two CSS files as it is loaded default by Blogger. But, there is a workaround.

How to remove the unwanted CSS files

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you apply the following trick your layout will collapse and all gadgets will be listed in a single row when you check your layout using Blogger dashboard. But, nothing will happen to your overall site design. It will look like as it looked before you applied the trick. Later, I'll also tell you how to fix this.

Go to template → Edit HTML. Search for <b:skin>. Cut the CSS rules (everything) between <b:skin> and </b:skin>. Now paste it between <style type='text/css'> and </style>. That's all. Now copy the below code and paste it between <head> and </head> and save your template.


&lt;style type=&quot;text/css&quot;&gt;
&lt;!-- /*
<b:skin><![CDATA[*/]]></b:skin>

After executing the above steps, go to layout in Blogger dashboard, you would see a one row collapsed set of gadgets. Sure you can get it back. Just undo what we did above. That is delete the above code between <head> and </head>.

Cut the CSS rules you pasted between <style type='text/css'> and </style> and paste it between <b:skin> and </b:skin>. Go back to layout refresh one time. Gadgets would have been aligned properly.

How to remove widgets.js

If you don't use G+ comments, then you can also remove widgets.js from loading. All you have to do is search for </body> and replace it with the below code.


&lt;!--</body>
--&gt; &lt;/body&gt;

I found the above tricks somewhere in Google's product forums. So, I can't give proper credits for this trick.

Remove default wrench and quickedit Blogger icons from loading

You know that no of requests is directly proportional to the load time. Let's reduce some unwanted requests from our page. Go to pingdom, enter any URL of your blog post and select Test Now. After loading, search for wrench by pressing ctrl + F. If you could find wrench, it is loaded whenever a item page is requested. It might have been hidden using CSS styles when you view the web-page.

I know that many bloggers try to alt - tag their default blogger images which is a waste of time. Using this trick you could right away remove those images from your site.

But, a request is a request it could slow down your site a bit. How to cut it down? It's also an easy task. Just delete the following codes in your template no matter where it occurs.

After a quick Google search, I found that many sites instruct people to hide those wrench and quickedit icons using display: none css rule which is also useless. To successfully prevent those images from loading, simply remove the following codes from your template.

Note: Whenever you add a new widget, the first line of the following code is included. So, delete it from your template when you create a new widget from layout.


<b:include name='quickedit'/>
<b:include data='post' name='postQuickEdit'/>

Reduce the number and size of the images as much as possible

Site speed also depends on page size. The greater the size of image you use in your contents the greater is the page size. So, reducing image size would help. I use the open source application GIMP to reduce the size of images. If you are going to use GIMP. This guide must help.

Also, define the height and width of the image in the image tag to increase the speed of image rendering. Assume, you have 100s of comments in a post, then 100 requests are made to load the photos (of commentators). So, you can even consider disabling commentator's image in your Blogger template.

Don't use Custom fonts

Custom fonts may look good, but they are also render blocking elements. Custom fonts also causes FOUT problem. Use simple fonts like Arial, Helvetica, Georgia, Verdana, serif, sans-serif in your blog. The fonts listed above renders quick in browsers and don't need any stylesheets or JS.

If you want to use custom fonts, take a look at the guide on tips to make Google fonts load faster.

Load scripts on required pages only

Loading unwanted scripts in a page is useless. You can use Blogger conditional tags to load the scripts on appropriate pages.

For example, you need not load page navigation script in item pages. So, you can use the following code to block it from loading when an item page or static page loads. Hence the script runs only when home page is requested.


<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != &quot;item&quot;'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != &quot;static_page&quot;'>
<script>YOUR PAGE NAVIGATION SCRIPT</script>
</b:if>
</b:if>

Here a detailed post about how to use Blogger conditional tags.

Results

After applying all the above tricks, now the waterfall chart becomes,

The above image clearly explains that all the render blocking elements are eliminated and they are made to load async.

Explanation: Take a closer look at the image, the image files (png, jpg) are loaded along side with the other JS. Look at the table below, for the results.

	Before Optimization	After Optimization
URL	http://81zz.blogspot.in/2014/06/test-post-before-optimization.html	http://80zz.blogspot.in/2014/06/test-post-after-optimization.html
PageSpeed Insights	Mobile: 69 Desktop: 85	Mobile: 94 Desktop: 86 (Blogger comments enabled) 93 (Blogger comments disabled)
Pingdom	Grade: 80 Requests: 54 Load time: 1.83s Page Size: 673.3KB	Grade: 82 Requests: 45 Load time: 1.19s Page Size: 585.8KB
GTmetrix	Page Speed Grade: 92% YSlow Grade: 78% Page load time: 2.61s Total page size: 1.2MB Total # of requests: 52	Page Speed Grade: 95% YSlow Grade: 82% Page load time: 1.46s Total page size: 900KB Total # of requests: 39
WebPagetest (Tested using Chrome)	Load time: 3.358s	Load time: 2.611s

It's the perfect time to tell my story. I used to get 1000 visitors (95% from Google) per day to this blog. Before a month, I started to serve Adversal ads. I used their codes right above every blog post. It was not made to load async. So, every time when an user visit my blog their ad took about 2 seconds to load and in that mean time all everyone could see was the title of the post.

Day by day no of visitors coming to my blog reduced. After a week, it became 600/day (same 95% from Google). Then, I worked on the ad code. I made it load in an iframe (after all the page elements are loaded). After someday, my Google traffic became what it was before serving ads. So, page load time is mandatory at least for all new blogs. For perfect optimization, consider everything (i.e) No of requests, Page size, Size and no of images used..etc.

I shared my work. If you have doubts, test it on your own using the URLs provided above. Do read the content inside that article too. What are all the tricks you do to make your blog faster?

How to share Webpages instantly on any Social Network

2014-06-21T03:17:00.000+05:30

Everyday we browse Internet to find something we need. Usually, we tend to come across a well-written article or blog post which we can't wait to share it with our friends. Obviously, this sharing happens online by means of Social networking sites. You are blessed, if you find Social sharing buttons on that site. Otherwise, you have to copy the address of that page and to share it manually which is a tedious task. Because of the above reason, sometimes you refuse to share the awesome webpage you found.

It is no longer a problem while there is a solution to solve this. AddToAny is what you need to solve this problem. They provide a nice platform to share the content you see online to 90+ webservices like Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Linkedin and many more across the Internet. You could also save your article to Pocket, Instapaper, Evernote or bookmark it in Reddit.

There is also provision to send the link as an email to your friend. If you are a Chrome user, then there is an extension which solves your problem instantly. If you are a Firefox, IE, Opera or Safari lover, then their Bookmarklets come in handy. Check the following image to see the list of services AddToAny currently supports.

Using Chrome extension

Head to their homepage using the link in the above paragraph. Scroll down you would see a link to download the chrome extension. After installing it to Chrome browser, you could see a plus icon right next to the address bar.

Now, whenever you want to share any web article, click that plus icon. The list of services you have enabled will be listed, simply select one to share or save. You can also add or delete the services you want by selecting options.

Using Bookmarklets

While using Bookmarklets, you have to select the services you want to use. Just go to the services page of AddToAny. Click on the service you are going to use. On the right of the page, you will see "Bookmarklet for Users". Right below it, the Bookmarklet for the requested service can be found. Just drag and drop it to the Bookmarks Bar of your browser.

To enable Bookmarks Bar in Firefox, Select View → Toolbars → Bookmarks Toolbar.
To enable Bookmarks Bar in Internet Explorer, Select View → Toolbars → Favorites Toolbar.

Now, all you need to do is, when you want to share any link just click on the Bookmarklet you dropped on the Bookmarks Bar. One thing must be taken into account when you use Bookmarklet, that is when you use it to share things it loads on the same page of the content which is annoying.

You need to hit the back button whenever you want to share it on different site. So, I worked on the javascript code to fix things. Don't panic I will explain you what I did and how it could help you.

You may continue to read if you want to load the sharing window as a pop-up. That is when you hit the bookmark it will be loaded as a pop-up (small window over the current window). So, the content window will be left as it is and you can share the webpage to other services.

Just right click the Bookmarklet then select properties. Copy the entire thing in the location dialog box and paste it into notepad. Lets take Facebook Bookmarklet as an example. So, your code will look like the code given below.

javascript:location.href='http://www.addtoany.com/add_to/facebook?linkurl='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&linkname='+encodeURIComponent(document.title)

Just replace the whole thing with the following code (edited by me).

javascript:window.open("http://www.addtoany.com/add_to/facebook?linkurl="+location.href+"&linkname="+document.title+"","mywindow", "width=600, height=347, top=200, left=400");

For any other services use the code above to load the sharing window as a pop-up. What you have to do is just copy what is between add_to/ and ?linkurl and replace facebook with it in the above code. That's all.

AddToAny would be very helpful to bloggers, because they have to share the content they produce in various Social networks to drive more traffic to their blog. What are all the services you use to share the things you like???

5 uses of VirtualBox you might not know about

2014-06-19T16:52:00.000+05:30

All savvy computer users know what is VirtualBox, how and why it is used. But rather than just virtualizing, you can use it for other purposes too. The following things can also be done using VirtualBox in my point of view. For the one who don't even know what is VirtualBox, I recommend you to read the Lifehacker's guide to VirtualBox.

Hide your personal files

Tired of searching applications to hide your personal files? VirtualBox can give you real solution. You must have used Shared folders in VirtualBox. You could hide files, if the size of your Virtual hard disk is large enough to accommodate your files. Now all you need to do is, just cut and paste the files you want to hide from the Shared folders to the Virtual hard drive. You can retrieve the files from the VirtualBox whenever you need it.

Note: One thing must be taken care in this method, if your Virtual hard disk is "Dynamically allocated". This type of hard drive will grow in size, when it is used.

(i.e) When you store a 700MB mp4 file in VirtualBox guest OS, the size of the Virtual hard disk will be increased by 700MB, if it is "Dynamically allocated". Don't overuse this method. If you do, it may exhaust your disk space.

Learn partitioning

Do you want to partition your hard disk as you wish? You may fear of losing your data or breaking the system. I'm sure you are not the only one in the world to do so. VirtualBox could help you in this regard.

Just install the OS you have in VirtualBox and the software you want to use to partition the system. Try whatever you want with that software. Add, delete, resize, shrink, extend partitions and learn all things with that VirtualBox guest OS.

The partitions you see inside the guest OS are in Virtual hard drive. So, don't worry about anything. Then implement that in your system, you would not cause any harm to your system, as you have mastered partitioning using VirtualBox. You may also use Snapshots to revert the changes you made in guest OS in case if anything go wrong.

Surf Internet without any hesitation

Are you worrying about the possible malware, phishing attacks from Internet which may cause the functionality of your system? If you don't have any Internet security programs in your PC, the risks are high.

You can use a browser inside VirtualBox to browse the web. Don't bother about anything. Open the browser inside the guest OS and start browsing. No Internet securities or anti-virus is needed. Download whatever you want, have fun.

Check whether an iso image is bootable

Sometimes the downloaded iso files may have some errors and it won't boot because of those errors. You could check it with md5 checksum. You can also manually check the iso file by burning it in a CD or by making a bootable USB. The former needs a checksum utility and the latter consumes some time. You could check the iso image easily. Open the guest OS in the VirtualBox and select Devices → CD/DVD Devices → choose the iso file to be tested.

Then Machine → Reset. If the system booted as usual into the guest OS, then there is a problem with the iso file.

Run Android in VirtualBox

Believe it or not, you can even run Android inside VirtualBox. Refer Chris Hoffman's guide for more details.

Resuming files from last played position in VLC and KMplayer

2014-06-14T01:00:00.000+05:30

Last Friday, I was watching the animation movie "The turbo". At that time, My friend called and invited me to play cricket. I closed the movie window and was ready to leave home. When I returned to see the movie again, I can't remember the last played position. Sure, it would be awesome, if we could resume movies from the last played position.

It is a default setting in the GNU application SMplayer. You can make this possible by changing a default setting in the popular KMplayer. World's most popular media player VLC doesn't seem to have any provisions by default to make it possible. So, in this post I have shared a way to play media files from where we left it in the most popular media players KM & VLC.

KMplayer

It's simple in KMplayer. Just open KMplayer. Right click inside it's window. Select Playback → Remember Played Position. That's all now whenever you play a file. It will be resumed from the last played position.

VLC media player

This plugin remembers the played position of the last 100 files. I personally tested it in the version 2.1.3. As it is the latest version available, It must work in all versions.

Windows users

You have to paste some dll files into the plugins folder of the player to get this preference in VLC. It's not a big task. First download the zip file from srpos plugin page.

Extract the downloaded zip file and copy all extracted files.
Now, paste that files into the plugins folder of VLC.
Plugins folder must be present in any one of the below locations.

C:/Program Files/VideoLAN/VLC/plugins
C:/Program Files (x86)/VideoLAN/VLC/plugins

Now, you have to do one thing to get things done. Open VLC. Go to Preferences window by pressing Ctrl + P or by Tools → Preferences. Then select All in Show settings. In the left side list, under Interface Select Control interfaces. (Refer to the following image)

Make a tick in "Save/Restore position of the last played files". Then Select Save. That's all. Now, you can resume files from the last played state.

Linux users

As I am a ubuntu user, I share how to install srpos plugin in ubuntu. First you have to install libvlc-dev and libvlccore-dev packages in your system. Install them by executing the following command.

sudo apt-get install libvlc-dev libvlccore-dev

Now, download the plugin's tar.gz archive and extract it. Then, change your present working directory to the directory of the extracted tar.gz archive. Eg: If I downloaded and extracted the tar.gz archive in Downloads folders, I would execute the following command.

cd Download/libsrpos_plugin-0.3

Where libsrpos_plugin-0.3 is the folder name. Now, execute the following command to install the plugin.

./configure && make && make install

That's all now you have to make a preference in VLC to apply the changes. Do what I have mentioned above in the Windows users section. Scroll up and see or simply click here.

Do you find this useful? Please share it.

How to Increase the Volume of any Media file using VLC

2014-06-09T20:20:00.000+05:30

Do you have any mp3 file or video file which has very low volume while you play it? You can easily fix it with the renowned VLC media player. You just need to customize a default preference of VLC. So, you can play the file with high volume.

This will not resolve the problem permanently. It's a temporary fix. If you play the file with a different application, the sound would be low. As long as you keep the settings as instructed, you will hear a decent volume. This preference is available only in newer versions of VLC (I tested this with 2.1.3 and it was not available in 2.0.8).

Instructions

First open the VLC media player.
Press Ctrl+P or Select Tools → Preferences.
Select 'All' radio button under Show settings at the bottom of the preferences window. Just refer the image given below.

Next select Audio.
In the right side of preference window, you would see the Audio gain set to 1. Check the following screenshot.

You could increase it up to 8. Set a value according to your needs. The more you set the more will be the volume.
Press Save and close VLC.

Now, open the file with less volume. The volume must have been increased. If you want to increase the volume permanently, you have to use some software. You can also use ffmpeg to increase the sound. However, to increase the sound instantly, you can use this method. VLC media player is available for all platforms. Hence, this tips is also applicable for all Operating Systems.

With this method, I didn't hear distorted sound. Do you hear any distortion? Just let me know by dropping a comment. Hope you find this useful. Kindly share this on Social networks....

The Ultimate guide to Hard drive partitioning

2014-05-08T03:34:00.000+05:30

What we ever want to do when we grab a new PC or laptop? The first and foremost preference is given to partitioning. Whatever the memory of the hard disk, we tend to partition it according to our own needs. 100GB for education, 250GB for entertainment it depends on the person who owns the device.

The most general question is could I do partitioning without losing any data or harming the operating system? Answer from my side is yes, you could do partitioning on your own without any risk. So, in this post I have explained how to do partitioning in a PC or laptop.

Before you read further: If you don't know anything about booting, partitioning and related stuffs, don't worry. Everything is new to all at the beginning. Just keep at the stream of content flow, I am sure, you will get to know what you need to know to successfully perform the required task..

Partitioning methods

MBR - Master Boot Record

It's an antique method of partitioning. In this method, you can have a partition up to 2TB. You can allocate a maximum of 4 primary partitions. Using some techniques, you can have more than 4 partitions in a MBR partitioned system.

GPT - GUID Partition Table

GUID Partition table is a part of UEFI, which was invented by IT giant Intel to get rid of the limitation of 4 partitions and maximum limit of 2TB.

With this method you can have more than 100 partitions depending upon the operating system you use and The maximum size of one partition being 9.4ZB (1ZB = 1024 x 1024 x 1024GB).

How to find how your disk is partitioned

Press Windows key + R, then type diskmgmt.msc. Hit enter.
In the Disk management window, Below the list of partitions, Right click the hard disk you use and select properties.
In properties window, select volumes tab.
Under partition style, you may notice what you need.

Precautions to be made

First of all you have to label all the visible partitions in your system to identify it later.
Open Windows explorer by pressing Windows key + E.
Select partitions one by one and press F2.
Name that drive so that, you can recognize it later.
Example: Name your Local Disk C as Windows as it have the Windows operating system. Likewise name all the partitions.

GParted, the hard disk saviour

Believe it or not no matter how your disk is partitioned when it comes to partitioning many experts go for a GPL Linux based program GParted instead of any other Windows utilities. As, it provides the most safest environment to divide a hard disk into usable chunk of LocalDisks (Windows slang). I even have tried most of the Windows utilities like EaseUS, Minitool, Parted Magic.

Nothing works finer than GParted. Once, I lost my valuable data while partitioning with one of the Windows utilities mentioned above. Until then, I experimented a lot more things. Eventually, I'm using GParted which I like most when it comes to partitioning and I have done this in more than 20 times in different devices. So, you need to have GParted to get more from this article.

Where can you get GParted

GParted can be booted from a CD or USB. GParted live iso files are available in the internet or you can even use the iso file of any Linux distribution.

If you don't have any Linux distribution CD or iso file, then you can download GParted live (Size: near to 180MB). There are three versions available for you.

Go for i486, if your PC is old and it has only one core processor. Download i686 if your system can support 64bit operating systems. GPT users must use amd64 version.

If you are going to use a live Linux, after booting into the desktop, you could be able to open GParted using menu.

If you are using GParted live iso, follow the below steps.

Initially, you will go through a command prompt like environment. But after completing several steps, you would end up in a Graphical interface.
First, press enter after highlighting default settings.
Press tab, and hit OK for Don't touch keymap.
Choose your language by entering the appropriate number. Then hit enter.
Then, you will be asked "Which mode do you prefer?".
You must choose "Continue to start X to use GParted automatically". To do so press 0 and hit enter.
Now, you will see the GParted main window.

Use this guide to create bootable USB: How to create bootable USB drive

GPT users must have UEFI enabled machine. You might not able to boot your PC using an external media. This guide must help you (Read the content inside green color bar).

Important Note: All screenshots in this articles are the windows of the program GParted. Screenshots are provided for the sake of understanding. First the nature of different partitioning types are explained. Later, the stuff needed to do partitioning on your own will be explained. It doesn't matter whether you have GPT or MBR. Read the content explained under your section with utter care.

Now, go with what you need,

I have GPT
I have MBR

I have GPT

All modern 64-bit systems come with this type of partition table. It is the versatile and easy to use method comparing to MBR. It eliminates the limitations of MBR systems. If your disk is partitioned in this method, It will be more easy to explain needed things. See the image given below, It is the partition table of one GPT partitioned system.

Take a closer look at the image, It has more than 4 primary partitions. So, you can create partitions as you wish.

You can directly skip the following section and go to Add, Delete, Resize partitions using GParted as you have a GPT system.

I have MBR

Despite being the oldest way of partitioning, still this method is followed in many places. As stated earlier, strictly, you can have 4 primary partitions. But, you can even create 128 partitions using a simple workaround. There are three type of partitions in MBR method. They are,

Primary partition
Extended partition
Secondary partition

You need to remember just two things when you work with MBR partitions that is,

4 primary partitions
Extended partition = Sum of all secondary partitions

You would become a professional in MBR partitioning if you ever remember the above two magical phrases. I can say your MBR lessons are finished with those two phrases. To make things clear I explain it further. Remember one thing extended partition itself a primary partition.

So, to have many partitions you must have 3 primary partition and one extended partition. One extended partition can be divided into a maximum of 128 secondary/logical partitions.

First, take look at the picture given below.

It is a simple partition table of a MBR partitioned system. Yes, It has 4 primary partitions. But, It doesn't have any extended partition. It is clear that you can't have more than 4 partitions in a MBR partitioned system. To make it clear I am going to create a new partition using GParted.

Lets see what GParted throw at us, when we try to create a new partition. To create a new partition I shrunk the 184GB to yield 8GB unallocated space.

Please don't be confused about how I shrunk the partition and how I'm going to create a new one. I have explained all necessary things in the later part of this article. So, be patient.

Now, when I try to create a new partition, an error occurs. See the image below to know what GParted comments about the operation.

So, there is no way you can create one another partition in the partition table of example. The only way to create more partitions in that partition table is to create an extended partition. You know that extended partition is also a primary partition.

To create an extended partition, you must delete any one of the partition to make room for an extended partition. Before deleting that 184GB partition, I have backed up all the data required.

I delete the 184GB partition to create an extended partition. See the below image, there are only three partitions. Now, you can create a primary partition and that one must be an extended one.

An extended partition is created to make more partitions.

Under the extended partition, you can see that the memory equivalent to the space allocated to extended partition appears as unallocated space. That unallocated space could be used to create as much as partitions you like to have.

Extended partition acts as a container of all secondary/logical partitions.

Note: Extended partition is just an imaginary one and It couldn't be used to save or store any data. Only the secondary or logical ones created using the unallocated space under extended partition, can be used to save data.

Now, I create 3 partitions in that unallocated space provided by the extended partition. You must understand the basic knowledge fed to you. I have created a ntfs partition, a Linux swap and an ext4 partition for my own needs.

With that unallocated space, I could create 18 ten GB ntfs partitions or 9 twenty GB ntfs partitions and it totally depends upon the need of the system owner. You can do whatever you want.

After creating the 18 ten GB or 9 twenty GB partitions, a 4GB memory is left as unallocated. You can't utilize any unallocated space in your partition table. To make it usable, that unallocated space must be included in a partition or it must be created as a new partition.

Now, I hope you have basic knowledge about everything you have to know about MBR. It's the perfect time for you to do partitioning in your MBR system on your own. Continue with this:

Add, Delete, Resize partitions using GParted

The very first thing you see, when you open GParted is your partition table. You have opened it to manipulate your partitions for your own needs. To add, delete or resize partitions is up to you. I will show you how to do all the operations mentioned.

Note: In GParted no changes will take effect, unless or until you select Edit → Apply All Operations → Apply. You can also revert any changes you made, if you didn't apply any operations. Refer to the following gif animation.

Warning: Check the whole table, before hitting Apply button. Lost data might not be brought back. Double check the label to confirm that, you are working with the correct partition.

Adding

First adding, you must have unallocated space in your hard disk to add a new partitions. If you don't have unallocated space in your table first scroll down and read resizing and deleting section and come back to here.

When you add partitions, don't forget to set ntfs as filesystem. Else, it will not be recognized by your Windows system.

For MBR users: To create extended partition same procedure can be applied, new → Create as → Extended Partition. (Refer to the above animation). For your reference, after adding an extended partition your partition table will look like the below screenshot. Now, you can add as much partitions as you want with the unallocated space below the extended partition.

Deleting

Be sure, you don't have any needed data in a partition before deleting it. After deleting a partition, it would be converted into an unallocated space which can be utilized to extend existing (comes under resizing category) partition or to create new partition.

Just right click the partition you need to delete and then select delete. Select Edit → Apply All Operations to save changes.

Resizing

Resizing is not a big deal, it is about shrinking or extending an existing partition that's all. You might want to shrink the size of any local disk to extend the partition following it or preceding it or simply you would like to have a new partition. It's confusing correct?

To explain you what I told above, I have given a gif animation below, watch it carefully.

Look at the gif image there are two partitions one labelled Windows (150GB) and other labelled Data (336GB)
Eventually, Windows is resized to 100GB to extend Data to 386GB
While resizing, you can also enter the correct numerical value of the new size. Instead of dragging the bar to left or right.
Ex: I want to shrink Windows by 50GB, initial size of Windows is 150GB. Hence, new size would be 150-50 = 100GB (100 x 1024 = 102400MB).
You must note that I dragged the block (102400MB) to extreme left. So as to get the unallocated space in extreme right of the 100GB partition.
If I drag and leave the block to the middle of the bar, then unallocated space will be created in both left and right of 100GB which is unwanted in my case.
I need to add the spared 50GB to the Data partition. So only I dragged the block to extreme left.
Now, as you see in the animation, Data partition is successfully extended to 386GB.

Note: During resizing the partition you may come across some warning like "moving partitions may cause the operating system fail to boot" Just ignore this warning and press OK. You might wonder that ignoring the warning could cause a boot problem. It rarely occurs. If it occurs, it can also be solved easily by startup repair.

Sometimes for the sake of proper alignment of partitions, GParted will automatically create some unallocated space (say 1MB) between partitions. If you can't add that unallocated space to any partition both above and below, leave it as it is.

Warning: Moving partitions may take time, and it totally depends upon the size of the partition you move. Be patient. It will not take for ever.

Don't forget to apply changes after performing required changes. You have just finished reading a 2000 word article. Cheer me up with your valuable comments that will make me do some good work...:)

It is my pleasure to answer you. So, please don't hesitate to comment your question. If you have followed this article to do partitioning in your device, comment the results as it may encourage the future readers to follow this article.

If you find this useful, kindly share this article in social networks....

Tutorial to create bootable USB

2014-05-03T18:35:00.000+05:30

We are in a world where most of the file transfers are being made using USBs. Still, installation of operating systems and drivers are done with CDs and DVDs. Those disks can't be taken everywhere and they are not re-writable. To install operating systems, USB devices can also be used. We can erase the operating system files and use it for other purposes whenever needed.

Bootable USBs are which takes control over booting when our system starts for the installation of OS, recovery purpose, or trying Linux distributions. Copying operating system files and pasting it to USBs will not make it bootable. To make a USB device bootable, we must use some applications. They are all simple and easy to use. Though many people find it difficult to do so. So, in this post I'm going to explain how to make bootable USBs of Windows, Linux and other utility tools like Gparted, SystemRescueCd etc..,

Note: To boot your system using a removable media, first you must correctly configure your BIOS settings. Access your BIOS and go to boot section and turn on removable storage booting or you can temporarily boot to USB by accessing boot devices options when your system starts.

P.S: If you have bought a new PC or laptop and if it comes with Windows 8 or 8.1 (64-bit), you won't able to boot via USB. You have to disable secure boot in BIOS settings (UEFI in your case) to boot from your USB. Latest versions of some Linux distributions like Ubuntu and Fedora has the required signature in its boot loader to bypass the secure boot. Though, it does not work in some devices. So, disable secure boot if it's not working for you.

Windows Bootable USB
Linux Bootable USB
Bootable USBs of other utilities

Windows Bootable USB

Making windows bootable usb is simpler than it really seems. Most of the applications available in Internet will format your USB to NTFS before making it bootable. Frequent formatting of USB device will degrade its performance and why should you format your USB when you have more than enough space to make room for operating system files. There is a workaround to make your USB bootable without formatting it. If you don't bother about formatting it, you can go with the former step. Try any of the two steps given below.

Without formatting USB
I don't bother about formatting

I don't bother about formatting

There are many applications available to create Windows bootable USB, I suggest you to use WiNToBootic. Download and open it. You can use WiNToBootic even also if you don't have the .iso files of Windows OS but, you must have the files of your Windows DVD. Just put all the files into a folder then follow the instructions below.

Select the correct USB drive letter.
Drag and drop your .iso file or your source folder to the window or select it by browsing.
Make a tick in Quick Format, if the format of your USB device is not NTFS. (In the image given below, I have used OS files folder as my source you can also use .iso file).

Select Do it. That's all.

Without formatting USB

You need to Download EasyBCD, a 2MB sized application to make this possible. Install it in your system.

Open EasyBCD and select BCD deployment in the home screen of EasyBCD.
Right next to partition, select your USB device it will be categorized under drive 1, if you have only one hard disk in your pc. You can also identify it by format (usually FAT32).

Now, extract the OS.iso file to your USB or copy all OS files to USB.
Then, open EasyBCD, select Add New Entry.
Under Portable/External Media, select WinPE tab and Type be WIM Image (Ramdisk).
You may edit the Name to whatever you want.
In Path, you must load BOOT.WIM from your USB device.

You can get it from your USB device. Press browse button select your device and open SOURCES folder.
Then, select BOOT and press open. Now, select Add Entry in EasyBCD window.

That's all. You are all done. Now, you can boot from your USB.

Credit: Youtube

Linux Bootable USB

You must download a renowned application called, unetbootin. With this utility, it is easy to do what we want. Open unetbootin.

First select the Diskimage radio button.
Select ISO in drop down menu, click browse button and select your .iso file.
Select USB drive as Type and select correct Drive letter.

Then, leave other things as it is and select OK.

It will take some time to extract all boot files. Be patient. You will be prompted to Reboot Now or Exit. Select Reboot Now to boot from your device.

But, you couldn't use unetbootin for openSUSE. See: How to create live USB of openSUSE

Bootable USB of utilities

This method is applicable for utilities like GParted, Parted Magic, Clonezilla, Kaspersky Rescue Disk and others. You can use unetbootin for this also. So, follow the method explained for Linux Bootable USB or click here.

Do you find this useful? Please don't hesitate to share this......

How to use Pidgin IM to chat with Gtalk, Facebook friends

2014-03-30T23:25:00.000+05:30

So, you use Gtalk and Yahoo messenger to chat with your gmail and ymail contact lists and signing in to Facebook to chat with your Facebook friends. You can have all of your Gtalk, Yahoo, Facebook, Myspace friends at single place and can chat with them whenever they come ON in the web. This can be made possible by using any of the Instant Messenging application like Pidgin. All you need to do is configuring those softwares correctly.

UPDATE on 17/09/2015: Pidgin will no longer work for Facebook as Facebook disabled its XMPP Chat API from April 30th, 2015.

What is an Instant Messenger aka IM

Instant messenger is an application which lets you chat with your friends of different social networking sites and alike services whenever they are online.

Pidgin

Pidgin is one of the best IMs available in the internet. It supports AIM, ICQ, Facebook, GTalk, Yahoo, Myspace and many more. You need to add the required account that's all. Pidgin will do the rest. You can sign-in to multiple accounts. If any friends in your account comes online, their list will be shown in the main windows. Now, you can chat with them. At the same time, you also would be online in your friend's account. So, they can also initiate the chat.

Pidgin is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and it's size is just 10MB (Excluding the online GTK download during installation). Though you can download it's offline installer (near to 32MB) for Windows here (Select the latest version there and then click pidgin-2.xx.xx-offline.exe). Also, It takes less RAM memory than many other messengers.

Features you get with Pidgin

Tabbed chatting

Your chat windows are tabbed. so, hassle free window management is assured.

Custom Smileys

You can save custom smileys to use in a particular protocol.

Preferences

In preferences, you get all to customise your chat, you can set away time, set sounds, change the font and many more.

Multiple accounts

You can have multiple accounts of different services like Yahoo, Facebook, Gtalk, MySpace etc..,

Accounts manager

With the accounts manager, you can enable or disable an account temporarily. You can add or delete accounts easily.

Plugins and Buddy Pounces

Read more to know about this completely.

How to configure Pidgin

Install and open Pidgin in your system.
Select Account → Manage Accounts
Choose the required protocol and enter your Username and Password of that particular account

Gtalk: Just enter your gmail id without @gmail.com in username leave resource and enter your password.
Facebook: Enter your Facebook user name if you don't know your Username, login to facebook account and you can find it in account settings. If you don't have an username, set it and enter it as your Facebook username in Pidgin and enter your password.
Yahoo: Same as Gtalk just enter your yahoo id without @yahoo.com

Then, select Add that's all. Now, you could see all online friends of your Gmail, Yahoo, Facebook accounts in the Pidgin window. Just double click any person to chat with him/her.

Buddy pounces

How pleasant it would be if someone alerts you when your crush comes ON? It can be made possible using Buddy Pounces. It automates a desired process for you.

See the image below, I have set a pounce to send a 'Hi buddy' message whenever that person comes online. You could also set that notification to popup window, play a sound or open that person's IM window to chat.

To set Buddy pounce right click the name of the friend in the Pidgin window and select 'Add Buddy Pounce' or you can select Tools → Buddy Pounces in Pidgin windows. A window similar to the below image will be opened. Now, command Pidgin what you expect it to do.

Plugins

Plugins can make Pidgin more powerful. Select Tools → Plugins to enable and configure Plugins. You can also add more third party Plugins you like. Here I list out some of the Plugins I like in Pidgin.

Psychic mode

There is a Plugin for Pidgin called 'Psychic Mode'. It will pop-up a chat window whenever your friend try to chat with you. If you are fast enough you can surprise them by texting them first.

History

It saves the last conversation you did with a particular person and retrives it when you start a new session with the same person.

Transparency

With transparency, you can set the opacity of the Pidgin main window or IM conversation window. You can also set any of the two windows to be always on top so that you can keep an eye on who's online and what your friend send without switching windows.

Text replacement

With this, you can replace texts with predefined texts. Example: You can replace 'tc' with 'Take Care' using this Plugin

Also see: How to replace texts in Windows system

Windows Pidgin options

Using this Plugin, you can start Pidgin automatically on startup. You can also dock the Pidgin window to left or right.

Pidgin portable

You can have a portable version of Pidgin to use it in a browsing center or in your friend's home. Once you logged in to your account in portable app you can copy that into your USB and use it wherever you go.
Download Pidgin Portable (Select the latest version to download)

Note: After logging in to your accounts in portable version, don't share the portable folder with anyone. It would become worse if you selected remember password in account settings.

Unfortunately, We miss Pidgin in both IOS and Android. Lets hope developers may develop apps for those platforms in future. Have you started to use Pidgin? Feel free to Share your experience with me.

How to find alternatives to any software and website

2014-03-09T18:25:00.001+05:30

Recently, I have been searching for an alternative to KMplayer as it became sluggish to play any media files thrown to it. When I browse the web to find a different program to cater my needs I came across a site called alternativeto that suggests alternative to whatever the thing you have or you want to have. So, in this post I am going to give a quick review about the site alternativeto.

I searched for an alternative to KMplayer and endup downloading SMplayer which is an opensource multimedia player and I already used to it in Ubuntu. Following is what I got when I search for KMplayer.

Right behind the software I search for, there was a set of alternatives with a scrolling filter tab on the top the browser window. I selected Windows as a platform and chose free or opensource as license to find a perfect software for my needs.

Possible situations to find an alternative

When the applications or sites you used no longer updated or they stopped their services.
Application for a different platform (i.e You want to work with a Mac software in windows that has no Windows version)
The software you use became a paid one.
The quality of service becomes worst.
An application becomes slow in your system.
You want to try a different thing.

What kind of alternative you can search for

All Windows, Mac, Linux softwares.
Android and IOS applications.
Websites Eg: If you search for Facebook other social networking sites will be listed.
Plugins for browsers and various softwares.

What you get with alternativeto

A bunch of useful alternatives for what you search for.
You can filter the alternatives based on the platforms, License type and You can sort results according to popularity or newest first.
Screenshots are given for each alternative
Top right search box which predicts faster than Google you need not type the full software name.
If you search for a software, supported operating systems will be listed.
Likebox under each services which indicates the popularity of the service.
Link to the official website and social networking links will be provided for that particular alternative.
User comments and reviews will be given.
You can simply select any category in their homepage to know about popular softwares and websites.
Tags related to that particular service.

Instead of using a search engine, you can use alternativeto which is created for the purpose of finding alternatives. You can also contribute to their site by suggesting an alternative or by liking the software or website you use. I like their service very much and I have suggested them some alternatives.

Don't forget to share about the site to your friends it will be helpful to make that site popular.....

Websites to find and download the software you want

2014-02-23T23:44:00.000+05:30

Want to download any software? Where will you go? Probably, you would google the name of the software and go to the first site returned by Google. But, you can actually bookmark some sites and search directly in that site for the softwares you wish to have. So, in this post I am sharing some Websites where you can find and download the softwares you wish. Websites mentioned below provide standalone installers rather than online installers.

Softpedia

I always use Softpedia while I am in need of any software. As in their description, It's worth saying Softpedia will be updated every minute. You could find the latest version of any software you want to download. From Linux .iso files to small games you can find it all. In the download page of every software, Softpedia's editorial team would have written a long review about that software with needed screenshots. Details of that application will be provided in the download page (Size of the sofware & whether it is freeware or not). If it's not a freeware price of that software will also be given.

You can also perform a platform wise search. They have separate subdomain for each sections. Windows, Mac, Mobile, Linux are such an example of those sections. If you have any problem with downloading a software you could try a different mirror site. You can keep track of the latest version of the software you like. Simply, press follow link at the download page of any sofware you like. An email will be sent to you when the newversion of the software comes alive in the web.

Linux users could find software packages for their favourite distributions in the linux section. Presently, tar.bz2 archive and deb and rpm packages are available for all linux softwares.

Techspot

It is akin to Softpedia. But in Techspot you need not browse in a seperate platform section to find your favourite software for other OS. At the download page of every software, separate links will be provided for every supported platforms. You can read the features of the particular software at download page. All features are given in bullet points which make it easier to gather informations about any software. Similar softwares will also be shown if you select similar tab. If there exist a portable version of any particular software, you can download it using the portable link.

You can browse their categories to know about the latest trending software of any particular genre.

Filehippo

“With FileHippo.com our aim is to provide you with the simplest method of downloading the newest versions of the best software - without the usual excessive popups or spyware and without the low quality software.”

This was taken from Filehippo site's about page. They care about the quality of software not about quantity. If you find the software you wish in Filehippo's directory, no doubt it must be useful and good.They have very fast servers. So, your download will be fast. Softwares downloaded from their site are 100% free from spyware and virus. They keep the older versions of the softwares they have so, you can download them if the latest version you download doesn't support your machine. They also have categories you can browse those to find new applications which would be useful to you.

Sourceforge

Sourceforge is a library of opensource project where you can find freewares licensed under GPL. Opensource lovers can opt for the softwares in this site. With over 430,000 projects sourceforge is nurtured by Slashdot Media. You can subscribe for the softwares you like, you will be notified through an email when a new version is released.

download.cnet

Popularly known as download.com they host over 150,000 softwares. It was my favourite download directory some years ago. At least, you can use this site to find the most popular softwares in the world as it is the most popular software directory.

Have I changed your way of searching softwares on web? Share if you find this useful.

Select multiple files without holding ctrl key

2014-02-10T01:24:00.001+05:30

Assume, you have to select multiple files from your PC in random to fill your USB flash drive. As we all know, you must press and hold ctrl to select multiple files. That was little bit irritating to me. I wanted to get rid of it. I have found a cool trick to eliminate the problem. So, in this post I will explain you how to select multiple files without holding ctrl.

There are two different ways to achieve it. They are

Using Windows default settings
Using third party tool AutoHotkey

Using Windows default settings

It's just simple. You just need to change one setting. After that all files will have a check box in the top left corner. To select files, you must make a tick in every individual file. As a result of this, ticked files will be selected. To make this work just do the following.

Windows 8 users: Open Windows Explorer then select view Tab and make a tick in Item Check Box
Windows 7 users: Open Windows Explorer then Organise → folder options → Use tick boxes

Still, I was not convinced. Because I need to take my mouse pointer to the top left corner of every file. I was too lazy to do that. To make things work I wrote a AutoHotkey script for that. Read further to know about that trick.

Using third party tool AutoHotkey

You will need a simple utility download it from the link given below. The utility you download was written using AutoHotkey and it is a portable app so that you can run directly after downloading it. Just run that utility. Now what you must do is while you need to select multiple files just click the middle Button of your mouse (Scroll Button) and simply select the files (Left click). After pressing the middle button of your mouse ctrl will be held until you press the middle mouse button again. So, don't forget to press the middle button after the selection of files.

Download
Ctrl elimination tool
Size: 336KB

You would like to change the way of the triggering the action from middle mouse click to something else if you don't have a mouse with middle button or if you use a Laptop. To make this possible you need to do a simple workaround. I will explain this in the next part of this post. You will need an utility called AutoHotkey to complete the task. Download and install it in your system. Now right click anywhere in your system and select New then select AutoHotkey Script.


#IfWinActive ahk_class CabinetWClass
MButton:: KeyWait MButton, U
Send {Ctrl down}
KeyWait MButton, D
Send {Ctrl up}
^WheelUp:: Send {Up}
^WheelDown:: Send {Down}

Above code is the source code of the utility that I gave above. Delete any existing codes in the newly created AutoHotkey script and copy paste the above code into the script file created by you. To trigger it with a different key you need to replace MButton with some other keys. You need not be a geek to edit this little script. Just follow the steps given. So, to edit an AutoHotkey script You must know how to express a key in AutoHotkey. Just make use of this AutoHotkey tutorial.

Lets say, you have a laptop with no external USB mouse. You will use touchpad instead of a mouse. To make the above script work for youjust replace the first MButton with some other hotkeys like #s (Windowskey + S). Then you can assign "S" to replace the second and third MButton. If I replace second and third MButton with "S" . After pressing Windowskey + S, Control key will be held and the script will wait infinitely for "S" .

As soon as, "S" is pressed control button will be released. So, you will select the required files after pressing Windowskey + S and you would again press "S" after selecting the required files.

Note: You can also use a single key to replace all MButton which you don't use like Insert.

When you use combination of keys, the second and third MButton must be replaced with the one already used in first. Eg: If First MButton is replaced by #B then the second and third one must be replaced by "B"

It is recommended not to use "A" as it is used to select all files.

After editing the script as per your requirement save it and run (Double click). If you did it correct, the script would work perfectly.

Is the utility useful to you? Did you create your own shortcut keys? or Do you have any queries about editing the script? Open your mind in comments. If you find this useful please share this article on your favourite social network.

Create your own shortcut keys with Autohotkey (tutorial)

2014-02-10T01:24:00.000+05:30

How will you open your Web browser? Are you using a Desktop shortcut? You don't need to. You can simply assign keys to do whatever you need. You can assign alt + C to open Chrome browser or you can set that combination to open your Movies folder or to shutdown your pc.

AutoHotkey is a small handy utility used to create Hotkeys for anything that we would like to do in our pc from creating shortcut keys to open programs to Muting your speaker with a single keystroke. It can be used to do some cool things like creating multimedia keys (if your keyboard don't have any), remapping keys (making a key to work as another key) it would be useful if you have damaged any important keys in your keyboard. So, in this post I will explain you how to use AutoHotkey in a productive way.

First, You must have installed AutoHotkey in your pc. Download AutoHotkey.
After installing it, right click anywhere in your desktop or in Windows Explorer.
Then select New and then AutoHotkey script.
Name that file and open it using notepad. Delete any existing codes in the newly created AutoHotKey script.
Now, you are all set to use this utility. Just copy paste and save some of the codes given below into that notepad file. save and run (Double click) that notepad file.
By using the respected keys check how it's working. Before running every code don't forget to read the descriptions.

Hotkey is a key or combination of keys used to trigger some actions in our pc. To use AutoHotkey you need to know howto represent keyboard keys as a hotkey in this software. Ctrl,Shift and Alt keys are called as modifier keys. To use these keys as a hotkey we must represent those keys as follows,

Key	AutoHotkey representation
Control	^
Alt	!
Shift	+
Windows Key	#

Note: Don't use separate notepad files for each codes you can use single file for all of your favourite codes.

Hotkeys set by you will work until you close the script. To close the script right click the green AutoHotkey iconin the notification area and select Exit.

The combination keys before two colons could be replaced by the hotkeys you prefer. Remember one thing you can use a single key in place of those combination keys you want and this is not recommended as the actions will be executed with single keystrokes. Still, you can replace it with a single key. I assume you won't use Insert key often so, you can use that kind of keys.

To create shortcut keys

Yes, you can use this utility to make shortcuts keys not only for your favourite programs but also for the folders frequently accessed by you. Just check the following codes.

^+c:: run chrome
^+m:: run D:/Movies

Enter your hotkey followed by two colons and a space. Now type run followed by the program you want to run. To find the name of your program simply right click the desktop icon of that program and select properties. In target dialog box you can see your program's name.

Eg: " C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe "
Just type firefox after run to create a shortcut key for firefox.

If you want to open a specific folder/file type the path of that folder/file instead of software name. To find the path of the specific file/folder right click that file and select properties. Under general tab, after location you could find the complete path of that file. Just copy paste that into your script. That's all.

To create Multimedia keys

Do you want to turn off you speakers with a single press? Obviously, you can do it with AutoHotkey. All you have to do is insert some simple codes into your script file. That's all. You're all done.

^+u::send {Volume_Up}
^+d::send {Volume_Down}
^+m::send {Volume_Mute}

Using this code, You could increase the volume by pressing Ctrl + Shift + U and decrease the volume bypressing Ctrl + Shift + D and you can even mute the speakers by pressing Ctrl + Shift + M.

Eliminate holding shift

Programmers may find it difficult to hold shift while they code programs. A single script in AutoHotkey can solve that problem too. Check the following code

1::!
3::#
7::&

The above code will replace 1 with "!" 3 with "#" and 7 with "&" number keys mentioned here are the one above your qwerty keys and this wouldn't affect your numpad number keys.

Texts manipulation and signature

::afaik::as far as I know

By using the above code, whenever you type "afaik" and a space it will be replaced by "as far as I know". Edit the above code and create one as per your needs.

^+s:: Send Regards,{Enter}Ganapathy Vignesh

This one can be used to put your signature by pressing Ctrl + Shift + S. Here the text marked with yellow is replacable and "{Enter}" is used to automate the press of Enter key.

Shutdown, Logoff shortcuts

^#s:: Shutdown, 0

The code above can be used to logoff your system when you press Ctrl + WindowsKey + S. Use 1 instead to shutdown and 2 to restart.

Always on top

^SPACE:: Winset, Alwaysontop, , A

What'll you do when you want to watch a video and browse the web simultaneously. If you select one window, the other one will disappear to prevent this use the above code. Select the window you want to be on top and press Ctrl + Space. Now, it'll be on top until you press Ctrl + space after selecting that window. This trick was taken from the world's famous tech blog labnol.

Set your numlock be always ON

SetNumLockState, AlwaysOn
setCapsLockState, AlwaysOff

You can use AutoHotkey to set your num/caps lock key state. If you use the first code in your script numlock will be set to always ON. You can't OFF it until you stop the script. Second code will set your capslock OFF. You can't ON it either, until you stop the script.

Make everything portable

If you are familiar with the shortcut keys, you can make it portable by compiling the script you run. Just right click the script and select compile script that's all. One .exe file will be generated by this action. You can use that .exe file in others pc without installing AutoHotkey. Check this one I have created a .exe file to select multiple files without holding ctrl.

Autorun it!

You need to rerun the script or .exe file after every restart to use the hotkeys. I know You'd not want to rerun the script after every restart. So, autostarting your script would be a better option. To autostart your script create shortcut (Right click → Create shortcut) of your script and move it into your windows statup folder. You can access starup folder by selecting start → all programs → startup. Don't search for startup it won't showup.

Some random tips

Do you hate the H icon in the notifications area? No problem you can remove it by adding #NoTrayIcon to the top of your script file. After adding that code that green H icon will disappear. You can assign a hotkey to even quit your script. Use the following code.

^+e:: ExitApp

If you can't quit your script by any explicit methods close it by opening your taskmanager. You must end AutoHotkey.exe process to quit the script.

You can create similar codes by reading the tutorial file provided with AutoHotkey. To access it right click the AutoHotkey icon in the notificationbar and click help while you run any script.

I hope you like this utility and use it everyday. If you find this useful please share this article on your favourite social network. If you have any doubts regarding this utility let me know with your comment....

Fix your not working Windows Control panel

2014-01-14T02:41:00.000+05:30

In Windows system, sometimes control panel will not work due to some reasons. Possible reasons are malwares, infected files, etc. If you try to open control panel, simply there will no response or the control panel window will be opened and you could find nothing in it. So, in this post I willtry to give you a definite guide to fix your not working control panel.

Ways to fix control panel

Following steps are needed to be executed. Your control panel may start to work after implementing any one of the steps below. If it's not, try other steps.

Using command prompt - System File Checker (SFC)
Utilizing Windows default system restore
Using third party malware remover tool - Combofix

Using command prompt - System File Checker (SFC)

Search for cmd, right click cmd and select Run as administrator. (xp users open command prompt using run by typing cmd in run dialogbox)
Type
```
sfc /scannow
```
Then, press enter. This command will check all .dll files and if it finds any corrupted files it will replace that with proper cached file. So, your problem may be fixed.
If you find anything like the one in the image below your system don't have any errors. Try next step.

Else, check this guide from Microsoft's official site and act accordingly.
if control panel is working, else try the next step.

Utilizing Windows default system restore

I assume you know what system restore is and how it will work. If you are not familiar with system restore, kindly read the brief note below.

System restore is a default utility in Windows systems. It will help you to fix your system when something bad happens. It will revert your system back to some other predefined date. Data stored by user will not be affected but the programsyou installed will be uninstalled also the registry changes will be reverted back. So, your problem may be fixed.

Just do the following steps carefully.

Windows 7 & 8 users search for system restore, and run it.
xp users open system restore using run by typing
```
%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\restore\rstrui.exe
```
in run dialog box.
Select the appropriate restore point, considering from when the problem exists.
You can also choose different restore points by selecting Show more restore points.
You can also check the affected program by selecting Scan for affected program.
Select next then select finish ignore the warning and select yes.
Your system will be restarted and it may take some minutes.
Eventually, Your system will be reverted back as it was on the selected date.

If this step didn't fix your problem try the next step.

Using third party malware remover tool - Combofix

I.M.H.O, it is the most powerful step which fixed my long-lasted problem. I wish this step would jeopardize your problem. Don't loose your hope proceed implementing this step.

First download the simple utility called Combofix. Just install it. You can learn further about Combofix here.

Combofix doesn't support Windows 8.1 and it's strongly recommended not to use Combofix in Windows 8.1 as it may harm your system. Though, you can use it in a Windows 8 system. You must take some precautions to run Combofix.

Turn off your antivirus program as it may interfere in program execution.
Stop all working programs.
All temporary files and the files in the recycle bin will be deleted So, backup all of the needed data.

Run Combofix by double clicking it. It may inform you if any program interfere in it's operation. If needed quit that program and rerun Combofix.At first all the registry files are backed up and a system restore point is created for safety. It wouldn't take more than 10mins unless your systemis badly infected. Combofix complete it's action stage by stage. Totally 50 stages must be completed. Be patient.

Eventually, a log file will be created and displayed and saved in localdisk C. Restart is must before you check the control panel. I hope you will get your control panel back.

Conclusion

I'm glad if your problem is fixed using this guide. If your problem is fixed by some other method please let me know by leaving a comment.

Download and Play Subway Surfers on PC using keyboard

2013-11-16T12:37:00.000+05:30

Subway Surfers is a one of the most popular games in android app store. It has been rated 4.5/5 and has more than 2 million votes. It's an interesting game where we run to evade from a cop. While running we have to dodge obstacles without failing. We also have to collect gold coins along our long run to complete missions. Most of the android & ios users have this game in their devices. So, to play this game in pc many of us will use Bluestacks App installer or other android emulators which requires graphic cards if you don't have one it will suck your RAM and physical memory and will result in a system hang.
In this post, I'm going to share a link to download the standalone .exe version of Subway Surfers game.

It's not Bluestacks or any other android emulator. You can directly run it in any Windows system without installing it. Just run the .exe file to start the game. It will be difficult to play the game using mouse. So, I have added an AutoHotkey script to play using keyboard.

Unlocking all characters in this game will take years. The file you download will also let you unlock all characters. Just read the instructions below carefully.

Download links

Download the rar game file (18MB) from Onedrive or Google Drive. In case if the drive links don't work use this Dropbox link.

Instructions

Extract the downloaded .rar archive.
First run Keyboard_controls (Double click Keyboard_controls).
Now, you can play Subway Surfers using keyboard (Double click Subway Surfers).
Read the important note given below.

Game controls

Up	To make a Jump
Down	To roll along tracks
Left	To move the character left
Right	To move the character right
Space	To launch hoverboard
ESC	To quit the game

Not Working?

If the game is not working for you, then you have to install Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package (5MB). After installing it, the game will work for you. This tip was suggested by Jyothi Swaoop. He had commented this solution in comments section. Download Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package

To unlock all characters

You will lose your existing saved game. So, back up your saved data file from
C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Kiloo Games\
Just keep a copy of the Subway Surf folder.

Note: AppData is a hidden folder. So, to make it visible do the following
Windows 7 & 8 users : My computer → Organize → Folder and search options → view → Hidden files and folders → Show hidden files, folders, and drives → OK
Windows XP users : My computer → Tools → Folder options → view → Hidden files and folders → Show hidden files, folders, and drives → OK

To unlock all characters just replace the Subway Surf folder in the above path with the one in the Unlock All Characters folder.
You will also get 10000 coins, 1600 hoverboards, 240 headstarts (250), 150 headstarts (1000) and full status for all upgrades.
Replace the folder with your backup folder to go back to your previously saved state.

Important note

After playing the game, don't forget to quit the script.
To quit the script right click the Subway Surfers icon in the notification area then select exit or simply press ctrl+shift+E.

Conclusion

Hope you enjoy the game. What's your highscore in this game? Mine is 1.23M.
Do you find this article useful? Please share this article on your favourite social networks...