Techy freaks

W e use our browsers daily and at a certain point, we might want to find that interesting website that we accessed a few months ago. But by using the default browser history is either too difficult or almost impossible to do that. That’s why this Chrome extension is so awesome. The All Seeing Eye add-on indexes all text in your Web history, letting you run text searches. All Seeing Eye indexes all of the text of every page you visit in Chrome and even captures a screenshot of each page you visit for a quick visual search of your Web history. The default Web history tells you only the URL and title of each Web page you have visited but with the Chrome extension All Seeing Eye, your Web history expands to include all of the text of every page you have visited along with screenshots. The moment after you install the All Seeing Eye from the Chrome Web Store, the extension starts indexing all of the text of every page you visit and capturs screenshots. So, when you select

I f you are working online most of the time and also syncing up with colleagues, it is most likely that you would come across a lot of litter which would harm the productivity. As we are already aware, Internet can be a large ocean of distraction and managing your tasks and schedule is of prime importance. I have been using a handful of task managers and calendar apps over the years, and although they do help me on utility front, it sure takes some time to get about it.

A ccording to Google , those 10 GB of free offered storage should be more than enough for an average person, who receives mails on a daily basis. Well, when one discovers that “average” is not exactly a word defining its personality, or its inbox, issues appear. Filling up 10 GB of space just with emails is not an easy task but, we’ve found that this happens, and usually to people who are unaware about why their Gmail account is getting filled up . Technically, when your Google Mail Inbox is almost full , Gmail will bounce all incoming emails and will also stop the owner from sending any new messages, while completely taking control over the situation. Thus, filled Gmail accounts become useless due to storage issues and there are only a few good suggestions to get it back in a working stage. Gmail is FULL? No problem

W indows 7 Launch is just around the corner with less than 2 days left and I am sure many of us are raring to upgrade your OS to Windows 7 very soon. Also, some of us are little skeptical of making a move right now since it is not clear if all the software they have installed on Windows XP or Windows Vista are compatible with Windows 7 as well. Not to worry, with the release of Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate editions , Microsoft is including a little utility called XP Mode . XP Mode is a virtual machine running Windows XP on Windows 7 . Microsoft is giving us XP mode (XPM) as a means to having a fully modern computing environment (via Windows 7) without having to sacrifice legacy support (of Windows XP). Below is a simple usage guide to get started with XP mode. XP Mode on Windows 7 – Usage Guide 1. Enable Hardware Virtualization First thing you need to do is, check if your CPU has hardware virtualization support enabled. This is a MUST HAVE for XP Mode to b

L ast week we had seen how to install and use XP Mode in Windows 7 . I had mentioned that one must check if the CPU has hardware virtualization support enabled or not. I had posted links to Intel and AMD’s sites to do that. Luckily, Microsoft has come out with the Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool to give the user exact information if Hardware-Assisted Virtualization is supported by the computer and if it is enabled in the Bios.

M icrosoft released a developer preview of Windows 8 last night and surprisingly made it available for general public too. Though this brand new OS is half-baked and is meant to be used by developers to build apps for Windows 8, it’s way too tempting for a non-developer to let go the opportunity to get the first taste of a hot & sexy OS. Not to worry, we have a detailed yet simple guide to help you install and test-drive Windows 8 on your existing PC using a free to use virtualization software called VirtualBox . Though there are other VM (virtual machine) software like VMware Workstation and Virtual PC, I would advice you to go with VirtualBox as I have been getting reports of failed installations on VMware and Virtual PC, possible because Windows 8 requires IO APIC enabled to run on VMs, which is available only on VirtualBox.

I have been using Windows 8 as my secondary operating system with Ubuntu for a long time now and sometimes I find Windows 8 a bit confusing in terms of finding the settings and control panel. There are many windows which are to be opened to get into the main settings area. There was the God Mode feature in Windows Vista and Windows 7 when I used to use it where I had the control over all the settings in the operating system in a single window itself. I tried this method on Windows 8 and it worked out. Well if you are using Windows 7 or Windows 8 you can use this method and have better control over your PC/Laptop.

O ver the last week or so, the buzz over the blogosphere is about a mysterious functionality discovered , unearthed , excavated within Windows 7 operating system called God Mode ! When I saw the tweets going viral on Twitter, the name implied much more powerful and potentially devious capabilities, as seen in most games these days. Instead, I found out that the “God Mode” folder for Windows 7 supplies just a tidy place to find nearly everything you can do within the Windows Control Panel. Note : If you already know about Windows 7 God Mode, you can skip this post. I don’t have anything special to add here, this article is only for those who aren’t aware of Win 7 God mode . How to Enable GoD Mode in Windows 7? To access the special capabilities of the God Mode folder, create a new folder anywhere on your Windows 7 computer and name it: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} Once renamed, the icon will change to a control panel looking icon, and when opened you w

I am very sure that many a times when you try to open, delete or move a file or a folder, you get an error message saying it is already in use. Even after trying to close all the programs which you think might be using the file, it still throws up an error saying – Cannot delete file: It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again.

N ote: This is a pretty old trick. So many of you might be knowing this already. But some are still unaware of this, hence I thought of letting them know. I am very sure that many a times when you try to open, delete or move a file or a folder, you get an error message saying it is already in use. Even after trying to close all the programs which you think might be using the file, it still throws up an error saying – “ Cannot delete file: It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again. ”

A ny USB drive can suffer data loss due to several reasons like – Bad sector infected USB storage media result in data loss. Corrupted music files due to system failure. Damaged images/photos because of power surges. Recover data when pen drive is formatted accidentally . Files/folders erasure even after using (Shift+Del) keys! Virus generated data loss. Software related problem. DiskDigger USB Drive data recovery Software easily recovers all types of deleted data files including digital (image, pictures, photo, video clips) or music files (mp3, mp4, midi, wav etc). Beside the software retrieves documents like word document file, xls, DAT or .ppt file etc. USB Drive Data Recovery Software supports all major branded USB drives like Transcend, Sony, Kingmax, Kingston, Jet flash, Super Media, Super Flash, Apacer, AVB etc. Even the files/folders with long names can be recovered easily. DiskDigger can be used to recover data from any internal or extern

M any of you must have encountered situations where in you need to copy/retrieve data from those DVD’s and CD’s which are scratched. If so you might have received an error message stating that the file could not be copied because it is corrupt, but there might still be hope if you really need to access the contents. Copy Cat 2.0 is a free application designed for recovering files from media that has been partially damaged. As long as you can see the file in Windows Explorer this program can attempt to copy it over. What makes this special is that when it comes across an unreadable area it will skip over it and try to copy the remaining portion of the file. Windows Explorer, on the other hand, will stop copying the file once it receives an error. The great thing about the program is that it works for more than just CD’s or DVD’s. You can actually use it with hard drives, USB drives, floppy disks, and just about anything else you can store data on. Get Copy Cat 2.0 f

E ver encountered Damaged ZIP files? I am sure each and everyone of you has experienced getting an error like “ Cannot open file: it does not appear to be a valid archive ” when trying to open a Zip-compressed file. If you regularly download compressed files off the Internet, then you must have seen this error many times. This error comes when the compressed file is damaged or corrupted. I have tried repairing such archives with the built in WinZip repair tool, but that has never helped me. DiskInternals ZIP Repair helps repair zip structure and extract the contents of a damage or corrupted archive.

E very month I fear the day when the mailman brings the bills, and the one bill I fear the most is the electrical bill . This is the one that usually emptied my pocket, and for that reason I started looking towards ways to reduce the power drain in my house. Apart from the usual things: fridge, microwave, TV and others, the biggest power drainer is my PC.

C onsumer technology is growing at an incredible pace; we now have smartphones that can do pretty much everything what a computer 10-15 years ago used to do and even much more than that. An advanced phone or tablet can replace your video and photo camera, GPS device, gaming console and with the help of hundreds of applications you can have all the information that you need. However, these devices are not that good for production, they are more suitable for consumption. As versatile as a tablet or smartphone couldn’t get, it can’t yet match the comfort and the safety of working from your desktop PC . Of course, a laptop or netbook can be equally good, since their main contribution is that you can take your office everywhere with you. Nevertheless, most of your available time is being spent in front of your stationary personal computer . That is, if your job consists in doing so. But, let’s face it, who doesn’t spend hours in their office, working in front of a comput

A fter using a computer for a while, you will start noticing that it will start showing signs of stress, particularly after you’ve installed lots of programs and stored many files. This all to true with Windows users, which have to work with an operating system that hoards tons of useless data with no purpose. Of course, the blame is not only with the operating system, as users tend to hold on to lots of files that have no use. If you’ve reached the point when your C drive is so full that you can’t even load a web page, then it’s time to start thinking of ways to declutter your PC and make it run like it once did. Apart from the files that the users save themselves, there a lot of other information that needs to be deleted from the hard drive. There are specialized software that can wipe a hard drive in seconds, but before we get to those, let’s look a little closer to home. Learn the default tools Although Windows isn’t particularly good at maintaining a clean wo

W indows 8 is up and running. It has lots and lots of new features, new user interface and an overall new feel. If you think “Well, this is awesome and I like Windows 8”, then the following tutorial won’t be of much help to you. On the other hand, if you think that Microsoft’s “new and improved” operating system is not the one for you (and I can honestly understand why not), then you might want to go back to Windows 7 (or Vista, which is a bad idea). Recently, this became a problem for those who have bought computers or laptops produced by HP that came with the Windows 8 OEM installed. At that time, HP declared that they will not offer support for anyone who will downgrade to Windows 7 from Windows 8, thus creating quite a stir among the owners of HP computers. Much to their relief, HP has updated their policy and now users can downgrade to Windows 7 without voiding their warranty. Maybe other OEMs will follow HP’s example. Downgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 7 Mi

A re you bugged up regarding the useless stuff residing in your PC and eating up all your free space? Then you should definitely try the REVO Uninstaller , since it is a cool program which does not require you to do anything, but all the useless files residing in your PC are cleaned up within a few seconds right in front of your eyes. Even if you are having some problems regarding the uninstallation of some crappy software and you are not able to uninstall it from the Windows Add or Remove Programs in the control panel section, Revo Uninstaller will help you to remove the complete trace of that software from your PC. Revo Uninstaller is an amazingly powerful alternate to the Windows Add or Remove Programs . Installation and Usage: You just need to download and install the setup file and that’s it. You are done with the installation. As we go on to the main window of the program it shows all the stuffs which are installed in the your PC with each and every detail. For

W indows 8 is out in the wild for quite a while now, but not all companies have been prompt with the release of optimized drivers for Windows 8 . I personally experienced this issue and I can tell you how frustrating it is. I think every company should prepare much better for such an important like the Windows 8 launch was. Everything should be ready to go when the OS sees the sunlight. However, things weren’t like that and users, in many cases, should search on their own for Windows 8 compatible drivers . That’s why we’ve decided to come up with a list that will surely help you out. We’ll try to put here as many drivers as we can find so you can find what you’re look for. Update your drivers from within Windows 8 Before jumping to the list below, you should know that there are a few ways to update your drivers to Windows 8. Microsoft has thought about this, as well, and they’ve included some very easy ways to update your drivers. Here are two basic, automatic driver up

W indows 7 has just been released all over the world and I am sure many of you are gearing up to upgrade the OS of your PC to Windows 7. One thing which comes to my mind immediately when I think of upgrading my OS, is about the compatible drivers.

I t seems like no matter how big a hard drive is, it always gets full in no time and you are left wondering where did all that space go. If you start to look around, you will be surprised to see how many unwanted things you hold on your disk, but if you want to find those space hogs that occupy the bulk of your hard drive, then you will need some help. If you don’t know for sure where all of your space went, then you might want to use a dedicated software that will sniff out any space hog on your hard drive and show you exactly how much space each folder takes. This is very helpful, as Windows doesn’t show how much a folder occupies unless you view the properties. Check out the usual suspects first

I f you have used Windows Vista, you must be knowing about the in-built option to partition hard drives . Similar to that, Windows 7 too come with a built-in facility to create, resize and delete partitions from a HDD , which means you can shrink or extend the partitions. The Disk Management utility is capable of shrinking and expanding partitions and it does not require any 3rd party utilities. This step-by-step tutorial helps you create, resize or delete a partition in Windows 7. Step-by-Step Guide to Partition HDD in Windows 7 1. Go to Start -> Right Click on Computer -> Manage

C leaning your house should no longer be an insufferable chore if you make use of some high-tech gadgets and tools to help you around. New cleaning gadgets and smart tech tools appear every year on the market, but how do you know what’s good and what’s rotten? Most consumers will look for cleaning gadgets that are very easy to use and maintain but in the same time not cost an exorbitant price. In order to save time and energy, tech-savvy persons should not only have at least one cleaning gadget in their house, whether we’re talking about a dishwasher, a smart vacuum cleaner or whatnot. Our professional and personal life is often very busy and we don’t manage to clean our house as we’d like to and hiring professional cleaners isn’t always the cheapest solution. So maybe investing in a house cleaning gadget is the solution you are looking for. Here are some of the best that we’ve managed to find. iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaners

I n the age of smartphones and speed , webmasters are forced to score a point when it comes to website loading speed and that’s where CDN Services ( Content Delivery Network/Content Distribution Network ) come in. These services provide users with faster loading times for their web sites and blogs. Webmasters have been dreaming of this for a long time now. CDNs store all your images and videos on dedicated servers (nods) around the world, and users load media files from the nearest server to them. CDN services can greatly improve the loading time on websites and keep your readers fresh and content. As far as CDN services go, you have three options when choosing the best one for you:

P rotection is a rule of gold, I have always heard. Right after we format a standard computer, the first thing after installing the drivers is the anti-malware and spam protection solutions, to ensure that the equipment is kept out of the harms way, right from the start. This is what probably most people should do, to avoid infections and the flood of emails, but before relying on protection software, you must first know the best alternatives. So, today we will present the best anti-spam and malware software that you can install on a regular PC, be it powered by the good old Windows or, by the fancy Mac OS X. The programs listed below are believed to bring the best level of security for an affordable price (most of them are completely free, the only cost is for the pro version) so after taking a quick look on the list below, you will surely find the ones best-suited.

D irect Download all versions of iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad firmware (ipsw) files, along with the links to jailbreaking and unlocking guides for that particular version. Even though we extensively cover the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad jailbreaking & unlocking scene, many newbies who are late to join the party find it really tough to find the right firmware version and the related guides to help them jailbreak their iDevice. Hence, we decided to make it easier for everyone to have a one stop shop to find, download and jailbreak their iPhones, iPod Touch and iPads. We suggest you to first read the accompanying jailbreaking guide before downloading the firmware versions. Below are some important information you need to know before you jailbreak your iDevice.

I n our guide on how to build your own computer , we talked about how to choose a hard drive and how to mount it in your rig. After the computer is done, you need to take care of your hard drive, so that it can work for a long time, but also perform like it should. Sometimes this is overlooked and the hard drive loses its speed and can crash in some cases, making the data inaccessible. Also, owners of SSD (solid state drives) have to keep an eye on their drives, although they are much more reliable and have fewer problems than the old HDDs. The SSD must be carefully chosen and its better to go for the very best if you want to have it along for a long time, but even the very best solid state drive will need your attention from time to time.

W e previously featured a list of tips for  keeping your hard drive healthy and running for a long time, and as promised, we will now feature some of the best tools for analyzing and, if needed, repairing your drive . Although SSD drives don’t have as many problems as traditional HDDs, they can still benefit from some level of optimization . We will not go into defragmentation utilities, as we already featured the best tools for this , and today we will be taking a look at hard drive managers, benchmarking tools, health analyzers and repair tools. These utilities will help you monitor your drives on a software level and they will let you know when something is wrong. Monitoring and Benchmark

W e have consistently stressed the importance of backing up your PC data either online or offline. Even if you are not serious enough to backup all your data, it is very important to backup your Windows drivers at-least. If a Driver is mistakenly deleted or if it gets corrupted, you can easily restore it from the backup. Windows Driver backup software enable you to copy, backup and extract the computer hardware device drivers whenever you want. Hardware drivers are important to any computer as the drivers provide detailed instructions to the OS on how the hardware should work.

O ne of the many advantages of having an Android smartphone is that you can mount an SD card and navigate through it and through the internal storage of your phone. Of course, for this, you need a file explorer app. Some phones, like the Samsung Galaxy S or some custom ROMs come with this app pre-installed, but what about the others? There are lots of file manager apps available on the Play Store, each with its own features and UI, but how to choose the best one? In this article, we will try to cover the best android file manager apps available on the market. They offer users the possibility not only to navigate through their files, but also to move and organize them. Keep in mind that some of them need root permissions, if this is the case, you might want to refer first to our rooting guide . Top Android File Manager Apps 7. Root Browser (File Manager)

I f you are a fan of all things vintage and like the retro atmosphere, why not give your laptop a retro look ? If you think that this process can only be completed by professionals, then you are wrong. There are some easy ways to give your laptop “new old look”. Here are some easy tips on how to make your laptop look like something that came out of Bioshock. Retro Theme A theme is the a good way to start your customization process. Apart from the external aspect of the laptop, the theme is the biggest modification you can make. Modifying a theme implies changing the color scheme and wallpaper. There are lots of utilities that let you change specific aspects of your theme, such as boot screen, logon screen, icons and wallpapers.

With the increased usage of internet, it is now becoming important for all computer users to keep their system secure from spyware and malware on the web. Big companies like Kaspersky and BitDefender have developed different security software to protect users’ computers from network attacks, malware, adware and so on. However an antivirus or internet security might not always protect and secure you computer system, since there are hundreds of new virus and trojans being created everyday. You need to follow a few more tips to fully secure your system from any kind of harm or dangerous activities.

T echnology has greatly advanced in the last years, and as we all know, many major advances has come from the military. For example,  GPS satellites , they were developed by the US military and now they can be used by everyone. This is just one example, but there have been hundreds of inventions that now take part in everyday life that have their roots in the military. And that is why we look at today’s gadgets used by the military to see tomorrow’s gadgets that will be in our houses, making our lives easier. Top 10 Military Gadgets 10. C4OPS Hybrid Headset

C leaning your house should no longer be an insufferable chore if you make use of some high-tech gadgets and tools to help you around. New cleaning gadgets and smart tech tools appear every year on the market, but how do you know what’s good and what’s rotten? Most consumers will look for cleaning gadgets that are very easy to use and maintain but in the same time not cost an exorbitant price. In order to save time and energy, tech-savvy persons should not only have at least one cleaning gadget in their house, whether we’re talking about a dishwasher, a smart vacuum cleaner or whatnot. Our professional and personal life is often very busy and we don’t manage to clean our house as we’d like to and hiring professional cleaners isn’t always the cheapest solution. So maybe investing in a house cleaning gadget is the solution you are looking for. Here are some of the best that we’ve managed to find. iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaners

T he hard drive is without a doubt one of the most iconic computer components ever. It has seen major upgrades in the last years, going from a storage space of a few MBs to over 1 TB. Nowadays, the hard drive has reached, some say, its ultimate form: the Solid State Drive (SSD). This device offers amazing speeds, but it has the downside of having (at least for now) a very high price. But the SSD gives more than speed, it does not need constant maintenance as a regular HDD. HDDs need a lot of maintaining to work properly: defragmentation, partitioning, regular cleaning and so on. And, still, they have pretty low speeds. Of course, there are some methods of hard drive optimization that could give your hard drive some extra speed, and this is what we will be covering today. Also, we will feature some SSD optimization tips , but these are more maintenance tricks, as they do not affect the speed of the drive so much, but they can extend the overall life of the drive.

W hen it comes to hard drives, the choice is much more easier. Basically, apart from a few tech specs, the only thing you are looking for in a HDD is size: the bigger, the better . The hard drive is the physical component that stores all your data, from OS to pics and music. All the information you have on your computer is stored on the HDD. You also have to be sure your HDD provides good security features. Hard drives are pretty simple to buy, you only need to know a few things about them and what the specs mean. They are much simple than, let’s say, a video card, or a motherboard, which have lots of specs that you have to take into consideration. However, follow our tips to be sure your choice will be as good as possible!

I s your computer or laptop running slow? The reason for this might be the fragmentation of the files on your hard disk. This is where a defragmentation software kicks in and takes care of the clumps of data that have formed. Fragmentation usually occurs when data is deleted or kept in the same place for a long period of time. This effect causes the reading head of the hard disk to take a longer time finding each sector of data. A scheduled defragmentation can make a huge difference on how your computer behaves and it can make it run faster and access files much more quickly. Defragmentation Makes Your Hard Drive Faster? In short: YES! Defragmenting your HDD once in a while can help it run faster and it helps with the overall health of your drive. Also, preventing fragmentation helps you keep the response time of your HDD at a minimum. How often do you have to defragment? There is no magic formula to this. Depending on how often you delete or add files to your com

H ow frustrating is it to not find that important document, software or any other file you are supposed to email to someone? No matter what you search for – what extension you put, the computer won’t just find it. About 65 years ago, Edward Aloysius Murphy known for his sarcastically adage axioms, “Murphy’s Law” said, “ If you need 6 buttons, you will find 5 in your button box. ” Of course it holds true even when those buttons are digital. Sometimes you even remember the sentence you wrote in that document, but not the name with what you saved it. Is there any way to use that information to find your file? Yes, there is. Here is a list of some freeware tools that will help you not only pinpoint your files but also the content that is inside those files.

How many times have you deleted something from your hard-disk and immediately realized you made a mistake How many times have you shift-deleted something really important, only to bang your head on the keyboard later? How many times have you wished you could un-delete a file from USB drive? I am sure many of you know about File recovery software available in the market. But do you realize the concept behind File recovery tools? Gizmo ‘s explain this beautifully. Any data on Windows system is written to the hard-disk and once you decide to delete it, all the space occupied by the data is marked for re-use. File recovery relies on the fact that when a user deletes a file the contents of the file aren’t physically wiped out on the disk, but rather the file is simply flagged as deleted. On simpler terms, the space is simply marked for reuse. This means that the older the file, the less chance there is of successful recovery because it’s more likely to have been overwritt

I am damn sure that GMail freaks (like me) will adore this post! I have always tried different ways to backup the data in my GMail account, since it is my primary email account. I had tried configuring Microsoft outlook and Outlook Express for GMail, so that I can download those important mails to my PC. But they turned out to be pretty slow. But now, Jan Švec & Filip Jurčíček have developed a small utility called Gmail-Backup which can be used to backup and archive GMail account in a single click. It basically uses the IMAP feature in Gmail to save and restore the complete archives.

P roductivity , productivity, productivity – the most important three words when it comes to success, and three words that cannot be left apart in an efficient mailing experience. Considering the fact that Google’s mail solution is one of the most utilized nowadays, we’ve gathered a collection of the best 12 tools for Gmail , which are bound to improve your mailing efficiency and also, spare time in the meanwhile. As an avid Gmail user myself, I have sometimes wished for more customization and when officials lack implementation, third party options have always worked . So, in the list presented below, we are going to show you how to tweak the inbox in order to save space, time and link it with other services as well. The Best 12 Productivity tools for Gmail The list below has been compiled from our personal experience, and from those of some of our readers. If you feel that a relevant tool should be amongst the mentioned, don’t be shy and mention it in a comment. We m