Is it really possible to track a Cell Phone on internet? Many of us think that this is not possible or we have to spend some money for such services but believe me that we don’t have to spend any money for getting this done.  Yes, PhoneOnMap makes it possible, which provides a free application that has to be installed in GPS cell phone and you are ready to track the phone from anywhere on the Internet. 

This application can be useful for office work as well as family members. You can track your child as well as your girlfrend/wife too (LOL) . This PhoneOnMap can be used worldwide and you can use it while travelling too. The data is stored on the company’s server for a period of one month. This can be an invaluable source for sales and marketting department of an organization to track the marketing agents.  If you are worried about the security and privacy of the service, let me tell that it is very secure and your cell phone can not be monitored by any Unauthorized User as in order to access the tracking system, you have to authenticate yourself through a personal code which was used as identification while installing application on cell phone.

Features of  GPS cell phone tracking system :-

1. GPS cell phone tracker and locater will not work in the underground transportation .

2. The application does not work when the phone is turned off.

3. The data transmission outside provider’s coverage area will add roaming charges like any other phone service charge us .

4. Once application is uninstalled from cell phone than you can’t do anything .

5. On internet tracking system will show cell phone location between every 10 seconds to 10 minutes , which is depend on setting .

Accordng to me this kind of service is very important for parents to track their children and from a business usage point of view an invaluable part of companies involved in supply and delvery system like Courrier and Home delivery system. This will help them to get a realtime location of the object and provide an accurate timeframe for the delivery.

As of now this service does not provide the exact pin point location but the location determined s in the range of 10-20 meters. However with little intelligence the exact location can be easily determined especially when you wish to track your children or the cheating girlfrend…(again LOL)…

Biometric fingerprint reader has become an essential component of many security devices today because it can be used to prevent identity frauds. With the passage of time, when it has become quite easy to tamper ID’s and make fake ones, you cannot rely on simple paper identification for strategic business applications.

Employees who are working on critical databases ought to have identity verification based on biometric fingerprints. It is a far more enhanced version of identity authentication and involves a higher aspect of matching a person’s fingerprints. It seeks to mitigate the effects of paper identification in which a person can dupe a company by using fake photographs and signatures on the ID. This reader could be developed because of the development of biometric technology, which made it possible to carry out fingerprint verification.

This solution is quite innovative and therefore allows restricting a person to a single identity. It protects an organization because a person will not be able to indulge in identity frauds of any kind. It is highly useful because sometimes people possessing fake ID’s try to enter an organization for data and property thefts. Biometric security can be incorporated in the form of finger print as well as retinal scan. If you watch a sci-fi Hollywood flick you can see quite a number of example of this biometric security being used. The idea behind this technology is that fingerprint/retina images of an individual are recorded and used for purposes like law enforcement. If the fingerprints do not match, then definitely the accused can be held for prosecution.

This Biometric technology has the following advantages, which make it far more superior to the conventional paper identification methods:

•    This technology is highly useful in situations where a high amount of security is required for identity confirmation and hence it cannot be restricted to just paper identification. For example, biometric fingerprint reader is an absolute necessity in banks when it is desired to open a locker or any other valuable account.

•    Biometric fingerprint readers can also be successfully employed in biometric passports to prevent any thefts and any illegal immigration. Today, many companies are making use of this technology to record employee’s attendances. In this way, they can actually check whether an employee has come to the office because without fingerprints it would not be possible for the employee to record his attendance.

•    Unlike the system of punching cards or any computer time recording applications, an employee needs to be physically present to give an evidence of his attendance.  In this scenario, nobody else, like your friends can mark the attendance on your behalf. This system is highly successful in offices but some employees might have hesitation about getting their fingerprints recorded.

However, there are flaws too like f some one wants to intrude into the restricted area, he can point a gun and make some one having access to the zone to authenticate him/herself. But if we see the advantages of this technology, one or two disadvantages can be nullified.

These devices are definitely very reasonable security gadgets because of their low  costs and minimal, maintenance charges. Undoubtedly, they are the security devices of the future.

I am just a few hours away from welcoming the first year of the new decade. Somehow I have a feeling that the year 2009 did not go pretty well for me. This was quite apparent from the fact that the new year eve and the days following new year were quite pathetic for me in the last year. I do not want to repeat those things again and that’s the reason I am so excited this time. I had a lot of ups and downs in pursuing my interest this year and did not achieve anything except the page rank of my site going down and down and down and all my good domains still sitting idle. Similar things happened in my personal life as well. However in professional front I feel I achieved something to cherish in the year 2009. Let’s not discuss more about my personal or professional life here, as this is not a personal blog. Here I want to jot down a few points, rather I should say a few mistakes I did, which I do not want other aspiring bloggers/webmasters to repeat.

If you are a regular visitor of Techie Zone, you must have noticed that this site has become like an orphan and almost no activities. The visitors count has reduced drastically and so does the page rank and back links. In these days I have received quite a few emails from my readers asking why I am no longer paying attention to this site but I have been unable to reply to them too as whatever I will say I know those are all lame excuses.

- In the year 2009 I posted a meager 49 articles which gives me roughly 4 articles a month. Which is far too less considering the kind of topics I cover. If I further drill down the post count, I find almost 35 articles were posted in the first half of the year before tragedy struck to the Internet. Yes I am talking about the hacking of lakhs of webservers.

- In the month of June (precisely on 8th June 09) Webmasters saw the worst attack from hackers which wiped out harddrives of lakhs of webservers running HyperVM(lxadmn). Companies like VAserv were hit the most. Till then I had my server with Vaserv and I was the unlucky few to loose all my sites. Luckily I had a 15 days old backup of this website minus the images. So you will still find images in my older posts pointing to 404 errors. This happened at the most crucial moment and the popularity of the site was rising by that time. The visitor counts were also increasing. It took me almost 15 days to find another reliable service provider and bring back this website live, however I have not yet been able to recuperate my other sites.

- The reason the site being neglected in the second half of the year is primarily due to the above plus me taking a daunting task in my professional life and handling that all alone. So I could hardly give time to pursue one of my best hobbies.

- Now a days I am hardly been able to interact with my readers through comments or replying to the emails I receive.

Learning from My mistake in 2009:

- If you really want to make it big in blogosphere you need to be as regular as you take your breath.

- Make it a practice to post atleast once in a day.

- Always try to reply to the comments posted in your articles, it makes the reader feel that there opinion really counts.

- Never forget to take a back up of your website with all images at a regular interval. I will cover this point in detail in one of my other blog primarily aimed for bloggers and webmasters called BLOGADDA.

My Promises/Plans for 2010:

In the year 2010, I will surely take this website to what it was during the early days of 2009 and let it reach to more and more users. For this I have carved out a few points:

1. To take the number of articles to 500+, which means I have to post atleast once in a day. (From 1st Jan)

2. To take the subscribers count to 5000+, currently it is roughly at 500+.

3. Giving proper importance to all sections/topics depending upon the popularity of the category.

4. Taking regular back up of the site myself, althoughthe onsite staff of my Data Center claims that they do regular backup.

5. Have to dedicate atleast 3 hours daily for my online ventures. (This will be done after January)

6. Formation of the company Qlogix and re branding all my websites under Qlogix. (Will be done during March)

7. Might consider redesigning of the website and make it a multi author blog with revenue sharing option.

8. Actively participate in talks in different similar sites and social networking sites. Mainly have to promote my page in Facebook to woo some more fans. Also I will be active in Twitter once again.

9. Will attend all possible meets happening near my location and this time not gonna miss Google Webmasters meet for sure.

I think it’s a very very long post, so I would like to stop here and request you guys to add your opinions. I will really be glad to see a few lines of advice.

Wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

It must be known to every Windows users that Microsoft has divorced Quick Launch bar in Windows 7. However with the help of a little tweak we can bring back the much easier to use Quick Launch bar in Windows 7. The following steps are very easy to follow and will take hardly a minute to complete and you will be all smiling seeing that much touted Quick Launch bar:

1. If the Task bar is locked, please unlock it by right clicking on the Task Bar and unchecking the option Lock Taskbar.

2. Now right click on an empty area of taskbar and select Toolbars > New toolbar..

3. This will open a new window as shown in the image. Please copy and paste the following line in the text box near folder and click on Select Folder.

%appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

4. The quick launch bar will now be visible towards the right side of the taskbar. 

But we are used to seeing only the icons in the quick launch bar, alright, to do that, just right click on the quicklaunch bar and uncheck the options Show Text and Show Title 

Also, our old quick launch bar in earlier Windows version was in the left side, Do not worry, just put the mouse on the separator near Start button and drag it towards rght. (see the pic).

Now you are all done.

I hope the above steps were easy to follow and you are using the quick launch bar in windows 7 now.

Gone are the days when we used to take photograph with a film roll and used to keep the photos in an album. In this new Digital age those paper photos are replaced by digital pictures. People keep stuffing their hard drive with GigaByte of digital pictures that might either be their personal pictures, wallpaper or scanned images. As days goes you become unaware of the photos you have and finally ends up with keeping multiple copies of same photos. This not only consumes space on your hard drive but also deteriorate the appeal of the sideshow you make.

At times it becomes quite difficult to manually sort the photos to find and delete the duplicate photos. But how about a software that will perform the task for you with same accuracy like a human does. Yes, that’s possible by a very innovative software called  Visual Similarity Duplicate Image Finder . This is the most sought after utility on the web to come to your rescue. The key part in it is that it performs a true image analysis in order to find duplicates even if they are stored in different formats, sizes etc. It can recognize even similar objects on different photos.

Basically when we look into a human perspective and identify the duplicate images, it is much easier to compare them in our eyes and get hold of them. But looking at a database of thousands of pictures it is not an easier task. This Visual Similarity Duplicate Image Finder uses advances algorithm to find duplicate images in the same way that a human does. It will will find fast all similar and duplicate pictures and photos in a folder and its sub folders.

Some of the features of the utility:

- It can find all similar and duplicate images in specified folders and sub folders using visual compare
- Can do a comparative search using a user specified sample image using visual compare
- Can find exact duplicate image files using CRC32 checksum
- Can find rotated at 90°, 180°, 270°, flipped horizontal and/or vertical and grayscale duplicates
- User can specify the percentage of image similarity to get the search result depending upon requirement.
- Smaller resolution and smaller file size  duplicates can be automatically marked for deletion
- Older files can be automatically marked for deletion
- Can show preview for original and duplicate images
- User has the choice to select images for deletion
- Supports many image file formats and RAW camera images (only in Pro and Corporate versions)

The PRO version provides support for more than 300 digital camera RAW formats.

The corporate version of Visual Similarity Duplicate Image Finder has a feature by which it can scan and compare several folders against each other instead of just finding all duplicates in certain locations. For example, you add several folders and set the required option and the application will compare the images inside a folder tree against the images inside the other folder trees, instead of comparing all images against each other. As this feature is in much demand and Corporate version is priced high, there is a plan to include this feature in  in the next release of the PRO version.

You can download the Free version of Visual Similarity Duplicate Image Finder and test almost all the features before you decide to buy.

Now I have upgraded my laptop to Windows 7 Ultimate by doing a clean install over my existing Windows Vista Ultimate. By far I am very happy with the performance of Windows 7. My copy of Windows 7 is an MSDN version and is same as the retail copy released on 22nd October. So definitely we expect little or no bugs at all.

However today when I restarted my laptop, which I hardly do, I saw a strange thing. I heard the startup sound but the speaker icon on the system tray had a red X mark indicating the speaker is muted. When I hover my mouse over that speaker icon it showed that Audio service is not running. What the hell, I can hear sound from my lappy speaker as I tested it coz I heard the startup sound. Still I went ahead and checked the status of Audio service and you know Audio Service was running. So I took a screen capture of that and posting that here:

After the beta launch of Google wave on 30th September, it has become a craze among netizens. But only a privileged few got access to Wave as Google initially invited only 100, 000 people that includes developers, Apps customer and general public. Like any net crazy person, even I was waiting to be lucky on 30th September to get the invitation from google as I requested for Wave invite in the very early days, but I got lucky only a few days back when I saw that much awaited email from wave-noreply@google.com in my gmail inbox. This is the email I received from Google.

Though I received it 2 days back, I am posting t only now as I am completely stuck with so many works at this moment (Hopefully everything will be fine and I can start my normal blogging again).

And as I have become lucky to get the wave invite, and all of you know that a person receiving direct invitation from google for Google Wave can invite upto 8 of his friends in order to test this system better by collaborating with them in realtime. Right now I have a few invitations left with me and I am sure many of the millions of netizens including the readers of Techie Zone are still looking for a google wave invite, I take this privileged to share 3 Google Wave invites with the esteemed readers of Techie Zone.

In order to be eligible for the invite, you just need to do a simple task:

1. Twit this Post link from your twitter account or Publish it in Facebook and write a comment pointing to your twitter/facebook page link where you posted and leave your gmail ID in the email field of the comment form. Also write whay you want wave in a few words.

2. Share this link in any of the social bookmark sites like Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Mixx, Furl. You can find the share link at the bottom of the post.  Once you share it, please provide your social bookmark account name in the comment section and put your gmail ID in the email field of the comment form. Also write whay you want wave in a few words.

This will be open for 6 days and I will choose 3 winners on Next Thursday ( 22nd Oct which is my Birth day as well launch date for Windows 7) and publish the names. Afterward I will send them the invite.

So do not make delay and get ready with action to join the league of Extra Ordinary Wave users.

Update:

As promised, today on 22nd October, I am announcing the list of 3 readers who will be getting wave invite from me. And the readers are:

Donnie

Ricardo

Mathdelane

I will be sending the invite to you guys today and hopefully you will receive it by Friday. The invites as you know do not go instantly. Happy waving guys…

The iPhone has set about reinventing the smartphone market over the last couple of years and one of the most innovative functions it offers is the App store. iPhone owners can browse and download tens of thousands of different applications for free or for a small fee. Some apps are fun, others are useful and some are plain bizarre and these are the best apps available at the moment.

Twitter Vision

The microblogging phenomenon that is Twitter has been widely accepted as a powerful tool of communication and comment. With this app you can turn the twittersphere into a work of art. This utilizes the internet connectivity of the iPhone and allows you to view random tweets in real time as they pop up. It will also place these tweets on a map of the globe so that you know where they are coming from. Both soothing and addictive, this is one of the best Twitter based applications for the iPhone.

Shazam

This has been a must have app for a while, but it is easy to see why when you think about the potential it offers. Shazam will let you hold up your iPhone to a speaker and then provide you with information about whatever song is playing. You will never have to scratch your head in bewilderment again when a famous song you just cannot place comes on the radio.

WordPress

From the microblogging of Twitter we move on to the fully fledge publishing platform that is WordPress. If you already have a blog with WordPress and you want to keep it updated on the go then this is the only application that you will need. You can access all of the same features with this app as you would if you were using a PC or laptop, including tagging and categorizing your posts and of course you can do all this wherever you are in the world.

The iPhone is packed full of multimedia functionality and this is largely responsible for the innovative and entertaining range of applications that are available. It is the built in motion sensitive controls that make applications which can be manipulated with a flick of the wrist a possibility. The iPhone is also the perfect app and media playing platform thanks to the large internal storage. The latest version, the iPhone 3Gs, is available with up to 32GB of internal hard drive space, which is more than enough for all your apps and videos. The iPhone is particularly popular because of its range of connectivity options. If you are in range of a wireless network you can connect to the internet via the built in Wi-Fi, which means you can give your 3G connection a rest. You can also use the iPhone to help you plan journeys and find out where you are, thanks to built in GPS. In conjunction with various mapping applications you can scope out the surroundings and also find out more about the local sights and eateries. With all these capabilities combined with a drop dead gorgeous design, it is easy to see why the iPhone is such a popular gadget.

Recently you shifted to a different country and you suddenly finds that the new cartridge you purchased for your lovely HP printer does not print at all. What the Hell, you always believe in genuine products so you get only genuine accessories by selling out huge money ( HP ink is the costliest liquid in the world), but this insane printer does not print.  Do not get surprised in such a scenario as both the printer as well as your new cartridge are fine. The reason it is not printing is because of a technology called pen regionalization used by HP to prevent piracy.

HP has divided its marketing into four regions or zones. New Zealand is under Zone 1 whereas London is under Zone 2. The All-in-Ones purchased in zone 1 would also work fine in zone 2 till the pre-shipped ink cartridges of the All-in-One run. Once they ran out of ink, and you buy a new cartridge in a different zone, you will have issues with printing or the printer will not response even if you have a full cartridge. To make the All-in-One work with the regional (zone 2) cartridges it needs to be regionalized. The process is called as “Pen Regionalization”. Another thing, let me inform you that the All-in-One can be regionalized for only three times. The third time you regionalize the All-in-One, it will accustomed to that particular region.

So if you buy a HP 338 catridge in London which comes in Zone 2, you will require to do pen initialization in order to be able to use this catridge with the All in One purchased in Zone 1.

Remember: We can regionalize the printer only 3 times in it’s whole lifetime.

Steps to regionalize:

Do the following steps to regionalize your All in One:

To regionalize the printer we need to keep both the cartridges of any one zone. We cannot use a mix of cartridges from both the zone. So, it is suggested you replace both the zone 1 cartridges with two new Zone 2 cartridges.

For example:

Black inkjet print cartridge: HP 338 or HP 336 ( They differ only in content of ink )

Tri-color inkjet print cartridge: HP 342 or HP 343 ( They differ only in content of ink )

Please, perform the following steps to to print a 10-Tap test page.

1. Press and hold the Cancel / Resume button, then press the Start Copy Color button.
2. Release the buttons. The 10-Tap test prints. You should be seeing a printed page with following type of information:

PX values from line 16
PX values from line 53
PX values from line 63
RX value from line 25 in the page.
Line 11 SN,
Line 21 PG,
Line 52 ID,
Line 62 ID,
Line 26 RC value.

Please contact HP support with the details of the 10 tap test page and they will do the rest of the things to reset it.

It feels so irritating when your PC with GHz of processor and Gigs of RAM runs at a snail’s pace.  You think that you spent so much money and got a garbage which does not live upto your expectation. But never get disheartened it is only you who is responsible for this behavior of your PC and if you want to blame any one you should do it to yourself.  Let me tell that following a proper maintenance schedule for your PC and performing couple of steps I will be discussing below will always run your PC faster.

Close all open programs not being used:

Only use necessary software programs. Minimizing a software program may not stop it from using the computer processor and memory. Being connected to the Internet, listening to music and running virus scans all use large amounts of system resources. Operate virus scans and other system tools when away from the computer for extended periods. Work offline when convenient. Closing software programs that are not necessary helps Windows perform more efficiently.

Prevent back ground programs from starting:

As software programs start, small icons display on the system tray (usually these icons are in the lower-right corner of the screen, next to the date/time). Each of these small icons represents a program operating in the background, and each one uses system resources. Follow these steps to close them:

- Click Start, and then click Run.

- Type the following into the Open field: msconfig and click on OK.

- The System Configuration Utility opens

- Next, click the General tab and then click Selective Startup.

- Click the Startup tab and remove the check marks from any unwanted tasks. If unsure about a task, write the name down and research it on the Internet later.

Do not remove a checkmark if you do not know what the task is (if possible, do not close Backweb, MotiveMonitor, or Vshield).

- Click OK to accept the changes. Restart the computer.

- If Windows or other software programs stop working after removing a checkmark, from a task you were unsure about, restart the computer in Safe Mode and reverse these procedures to replace the checkmark.

Press F8 after the blue HP startup screen (after the computer has been turned on) to enter Safe mode.

By completing these steps, Windows will use Selective Startup. This means that Windows prevents the selected software programs from starting. All of the selected software programs will start if Selective Startup is disabled.

Remove icons from the Startup folder:

Use the following steps to prevent unwanted software programs from starting:

- With all applications closed, right-click in the Windows desktop, and select New and Folder. Name the folder notstartup. This folder will store the unused icons and make them available if required later.

- Right-click Start, and then click Open. Windows should open the Start Menu folder.

- Double-click Programs.

- Locate and double-click Startup.
- Any software programs with icons in Startup start when Windows starts. Right-click any of these icons and select Properties to reveal more information about the software program.

- While holding down the CTRL key, click the icons to be removed from the startup folder.

- Click Edit, and then click Cut.

- Close the open windows to return to the Windows desktop.

- Double-click the Notstartup folder created in Step 1.
- From the Edit menu, click Paste to insert the icons into this folder.

- Restart the computer.

Emptying the Recycle Bin:

- From the Windows desktop, double-click Recycle Bin.

- Restore any mistakenly deleted items by highlighting each file, and then from the File menu, click Restore.
- From the File menu, click Empty Recycle Bin. Windows will remove the contents of the Recycle Bin from the hard disk (C: is most common). Click Yes to confirm.

- Close the Recycle Bin.

Deleting temporary files and directories:

- Click Start, click Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup.
- Place a check next to Temporary Files and then click OK.

Running CheckDisk and Disk Defragmenter:

- Click Start, and then click My Computer.

- Right-click on the hard drive’s icon (usually C:\).

- Click Properties, and then click the Tools tab.

- Click Check Now.

- Place checkmarks in all checkboxes.

- Click OK, and then click Yes to schedule a full disk scan when the computer restarts.

- Restart the computer. The disk scan can take a long time to complete.

Follow these steps to perform Disk Defragmenter:

- Close all software programs. This includes background software programs such as virus scanners.
- Click Start, click Programs or All Programs, click Accessories, and then click System Tools.

- Click Disk Defragmenter. Follow the onscreen instructions. If Disk Defragmenter starts itself repeatedly, then a hidden background program is still accessing the hard drive. Restart the computer in Safe mode run Disk Defragmenter again.

Memory leaks and restarting Windows:

A memory leak is unused memory that cannot be used by any software program. Over time, unused memory builds up, causing Windows to slow down and use the hard drive more. Memory leaks are occurring if the HP Pavilion runs well when first turned on, but performs noticeably slower after opening and closing several software programs.

Memory leaks can occur if a software program is closed before it has fully opened. Always allow programs to load completely. As a rule, wait 10 to 20 seconds after a software program starts before closing it again, even if the program was opened unintentionally.

To immediately repair memory leaks, restart the computer. To resolve the problem permanently, isolate the software program causing the leaks by using the following steps:

- Start a fresh session of Windows by shutting down, then turning on the computer.

- Right-click the My Computer icon on the desktop and then click Properties. In Windows XP press CTR + ALT + DELETE.

- Click the Performance tab. Note the percentage next to System Resources. In Windows XP, this is the amount of available physical memory.

- Open a software program suspected of causing the computer to run more slowly.

- View the System Resources percentage or the amount of physical memory again and write it down.
- Close and re-open a suspected software program repeatedly, comparing this number to the one recorded. Each time, wait about 10 seconds before opening again.

- If the system resources percentage or available physical memory continues to decrease, then a memory leak is occurring. Contact the vendor for the software program for available patches or solutions.

- If the System Resource percentage or available physical memory returns to the same numbers each time, then the suspected software program is probably not creating a memory leak.

Free space on the hard drive:

Windows uses the free space on the main (usually C:\) hard drive for different types of operations such as caching data and holding virtual memory. The computer may not run reliably if the free disk space drops below five percent of the total disk space.

- To see how much free space is available on the hard drive, double-click My Computer, located on the desktop. Right-click the hard drive (C:\ is most common), and select Properties.

Use the following steps to remove unwanted software programs and increase hard drive space:

- Click Start, click Settings, and then click ControlPanel.

- Double-click Add/Remove Programs.

- Click the Install/Uninstall tab. Select unused software programs.

- Click the program name, click the Add/Remove or Change/Remove button, and then click OK.

- When done, a prompt may appear to restart Windows. After Windows removes the unwanted software programs, restart the computer system.

- You can also delete any unwanted files from harddrive like music and videos as they take large amount of space.