Back to Vista!!!

For the past 6 months, i was using Windows XP as i had problems in accessing the network shares of my LAN in Vista. XP has been my favorite OS and recently i read an article that its performance has improved 10% with the service pack 3. The reason why i switched to Vista is that i downloaded a new game which would give me a better experience with the directX 10 available in Vista. And also, i wanted to check whether the bug of LAN access has been fixed with the Vista SP1. For these reasons, i installed Vista SP1 and i should say that my LAN access is very much improved. The NTLM proxy authentication software 'ntlmaps', which created problems with IE7 in Vista now works fine. And also the gaming experience is great when compared to XP. I think i should continue with Vista SP1 for some time. But the bad news is, i could not dual boot Mac OsX Leopard with Vista. :( Hoping to find a solution for this.

Mac OSX Leopard on my PC !!!

I am passionate about computers and always liked to try out different things in it, especially trying out various OSes. I have worked with many OSes, right from Win 95 to Vista and also with Ubuntu and Sun Solaris. But, i have never got a chance to work with Mac OS X and i fell in love with that OS after watching the Leopard guided tour from Apple. But, buying a Mac is out of my reach and so i wanted to try the Mac OS X Leopard on my PC. The only way i could do, is by the OSX86 project. I have downloaded almost every version of the OSX dvd and finally found Leo4All working fine for my configuration. After many failures and lot of formatting of my hard drive, i finally succeeded in dual booting Mac OS X with the same old Windows XP. Dual booting dint work for me with Vista. Once i logged in, i must say that I was like new born baby unknowing of what to do. Everything was different in Mac OS X and i couldn't even figure out the keys like option key, command key with the windows keyboard etc. The toughest of all was installing the sound driver and i installed the driver finally too. Now, i can hear to songs on iTunes. :) After many attempts i was able to connect to the internet. I can learn to use this great OS from the internet. Am yet to learn a lot of things about this Mac and am hoping that i learn quick so that i can make the Leopard, my default OS.

Diablo III - when will it be ready???

The rumors were true. Blizzard entertainment has announced Diablo III. The game is currently in development for OS X and Windows although there is no release date or price yet. The company is known for telling the public that this game will be released only when they are done. Blizzard unveiled Diablo III at a world wide invitational gaming event held in Europe, and has posted details on its website including the cinematic trailer and game play video that offers an in-depth look at some of the games new capabilities and features. Diablo II was released in the year 2000. Since then the company has turned its attention to its Warcraft franchise and is also working on Starcraft II.

Hope the game gets released soon. Any known updates on the game, please post it in the comments section. I cant wait to play this game!!!

Source : Macworld US

AMD's Revenge

For nearly two years, the only GPUs I recommended were made by Nvidia. After the AMD-led acquisition, ATI was simply no longer competitive in the graphics business. The ATI that obliterated Nvidia with its Radeon 9700 was long forgotten, and Nvidia had been doing so well that we didn’t even really notice. Nvidia’s product releases were good enough that we didn’t even pick up on the fact that we were suffering because of a lack of competition (more on that in a bit).
The first sign of competition from ATI came with the RV670, the basis for the Radeon HD 3850 and 3870. Nvidia preempted the RV670’s launch by releasing one of the best values in PC graphics I’ve ever seen: the GeForce 8800 GT. Nvidia rained on ATI’s parade, and although the RV670 was competitive, it merely got an honorable mention as it was good but not great. Our review on Anand Tech of the 8800 GT was aptly titled, “The Only Card That Matters.” ATI really hated that.
During Nvidia’s launch of its successor to the G80 (the GPU that was the basis for the GeForce 8800 GTX), we began to get the feeling that something may be wrong. While Nvidia’s GT200 is a tremendously impressive GPU, it is simply priced too high. The GeForce GTX 280 carries a $650 price tag and is generally outperformed by Nvidia’s own $500 GeForce 9800 GX2. The GT200 is also a strictly high-end GPU, leaving the 8800 GT and the new 9800 GTX to occupy the $200 and $300 price points, respectively.
Then came AMD’s revenge.
The RV770 is a much larger, faster, and improved version of the RV670. But speed alone doesn’t tell the whole story here; the RV770 launched as the Radeon HD 4850 and 4870, priced at $199 and $299, respectively. The main differences between the two are clock speeds and memory bandwidth, but at these prices AMD as completely reset performance expectations—even more than Nvidia did with the 8800 GT last year.
The $199 Radeon HD 4850 is generally faster than Nvidia’s GeForce 9800 GTX. It is so fast, in fact, that Nvidia had to drop the price of its 9800 GTX from $299 down to $199 to remain competitive. But even with the 9800 GTX’s lower price, the Radeon HD 4850 is still the better overall buy.
The Radeon HD 4870, at $299, now finds itself without a competitor from Nvidia. It is clearly faster than the 9800 GTX and in many cases out performs the GTX 260, priced at $399.
Herein lies the benefit of competition that we were missing with AMD/ATI not putting much pressure on Nvidia for the past couple years. While Nvidia continued to advance technology, the only reason the GeForce 9800 GTX moved to $199 when it did was pressure from RV770. And I suspect that the GeForce GTX 260 is going to have to move down to $299 very quickly.
At the end of last year, AMD saw a hole in Nvidia’s product line and went after it with the Radeon HD 3850 and 3870. Fortunately for Nvidia, it had a flexible enough chip at the time that it could scale, target, and respond to the AMD threat with the GeForce 8800 GT. This time around, Nvidia is caught in the middle of a couple transitions: First, GT200 just started shipping and it will be a while before it can be cost-reduced, and second, Nvidia just began shipping 55nm GPUs. While it’s completely within Nvidia’s ability to respond to the threat posed by RV770, AMD’s timing has ensured that any response will be after the Radeon HD 4800 series has had a chance to do well in the market.
If you need a new graphics card and plan on spending either $199 or $299, the Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 are the best you can get.

Source : Computer Power User

Most Useful shortcut keys for Microsoft Word

Though there are lots of shortcuts available in Microsoft Word, most people know onl a few. So, here are some more useful shortcut keys for Microsoft Word.
ALT + F10 – Maximize / Minimize the Word document.
ALT + F5 – Minimize the Word document.
CTRL + SHIFT + A or SHIFT + F3– Convert the selected text into Upper case / lower case.
SHIFT + F2 – Copy the selected text without placing it in the clipboard. Place the cursor where you want to paste the copied text and simply hit enter. Your text will be pasted.
CTRL + BACKSPACE – To delete the previous word.
CTRL + W or CTRL + F4 – Save and close the active document.
ALT + CTRL + S – Split horizontally the active window into two with the actual content in them.
CTRL + SHIFT + D - Double underline the selected text. Use the same keys to remove the underline.
F5 or CTLT + G – To go to a particular page, section of the document.
CTRL + H – To search and replace a word.
CTRL + F2 – Print Preview.
ALT F, I – To go to word options.
SHIFT + F5 – Brings your cursor to the point where you inserted the text lastly. This is a helpful tool when you open a saved document and want to continue from the point where you previously left.
CTRL + SHIFT + > or CTRL + ] - To increase the font size of the selected text.
CTRL + SHIFT + < - To decrease the font size of the selected text.
ALT + SHIFT + D – To insert present date at the location of the cursor.
ALT + SHIFT + T – To insert current time at the location of the cursor.
CTRL + SHIFT + H – To hide a selected text.
CTRL + SHIFT + W – If you use CTRL + U for underlining a selected set of words, blank spaces are also underlined. To avoid it and to underline only the words, this shortcut is used.
ALT + F11 – To switch to visual basic environment.
ALT V, H – To edit the header.
SHIFT + F7 – To view the thesaurus of the selected word.
I hope these shortcut keys will help you in saving your time and faster working in word.

Useful shortcut keys for Windows Media Player

When we are interestingly watching a movie in windows media player, a slight movement of the mouse cursor would make the menu bar appear on the screen thereby creating disturbances. So, to avoid such disturbances and also perform some useful tasks, you can make use of the shortcut keys available in windows media player. Here is a list of useful shortcut keys in windows media player.
ALT + 1 – 50:50 Zoom.
ALT + 2 - Zoom to 100 percent.
ALT +3 – Zoom to 200 percent.
ALT + ENTER – Full Screen.
ALT + F – Go to Windows media player File Menu.
ALT + T – Go to Tools menu.
ALT + P - Go to Play menu.
CTRL + 1 – Switch to default mode from skin mode.
CTRL + 2 – Switch to Skin mode from Default mode.
CTRL + B – Play the previous file.
CTRL + F – Play the next file.
CTRL + P – Play/Pause the current file.
CTRL + SHIFT + B – Rewind a file.
CTRL + SHIFT + F – Fast forward a file.
CTRL + SHIFT + S – Slowdown the track speed.
CTRL + SHIFT + G – Speedup the track speed.
CTRL + SHIFT + N - Play the track at normal speed.
F7 – Mute.
F8 - Reduce the volume.
F9 – Increase the volume.

Top 5 computer problems

If you have a PC, then you have most likely suffered from computer problems. Most people have accepted that there PC will eventually crash due to a virus or some massive error. However this is a myth. Your PC is built to last more than a decade. However you must keep well tuned for it to make its third birthday. Nevertheless, most people would rather buy a shiny new PC rather than spend an hour trying to fix computer problems on there 2 year lap top or desktop. After another two year after their purchase lack of maintenance will cause their new PC to lose its performance speed. Whats next you guess, $3000 Windows Vista Ready PC. This is known as the consumer vicious cycle.

Why have does your computer have problems?

Well, the biggest problem that your computer has is its owner. More than 80% of computer problems stem from neglecting to perform simple maintenance task such as cleaning your registry, emptying your cache files and updating software regularly. If these task a perform diligently. You would be reading this article from a five year old machine running on Windows 98 operating system. So, lets take a look at the top five computer problems and how to avoid them.

1. Computer's performance has slowed.

This is the number one complaint from most users. There are several reason why this has occurred. However, most can attributed to lack of maintenance. Fragmented data, corrupted registry, spyware, and load of unnecessary programs and services running can all eat away at your PC speed and performance. Manage your programs and cleaning your registry would easily award you a 30% gain in performance speed. Check out The 4 ways to speed up my computer 

2. Lockup, freezes, and blue screens of death.

This is a another common computer problem. However, this particular issue is a bit more serious; therefore, it needs a few diagnostic steps. In most cases this problems are caused by spyware. To avoid this problem update your anti-spyware program daily. Having the most up to date signatures will help you avoid having a serious spyware problem. However, if you have concluded that your PC is spyware free. You should update your hardware drivers. The computer cannot communicate with various hardware components without an up to date driver. When it cannot find a driver, the CPU locks up. Also, increasing your virtual memory can also help to avoid freezes. Virtual Memory will allow to you get more use out your computer's RAM. Check the resource box for more info on the subject.

3. The computer spontaneously reboots or turn itself off.

This computer problem can be usually attributed to a hardware issue. Usually its the power supply is dying or in most cases a dirty or defective cooling fan. The computer trying to cool itself by automatically switching off. So, if you feel a bit of extra heat coming out the computer. Clean the fan and make sure it running properly. If your fan is functional, check your power supply. Also, you will be surprised how many people fail to make sure the cables are attached tightly. This be the cause of this particular computer problem

4. Strange noises and vibrations.

This is almost totally a hardware issue. You computer is made up of thousands of parts. Its not unheard of that one of them can become unhinged. Overheating can cause expansion of wires and melt some sensitive. High pitch noises such as squealing or whining sounds can be cause electronic components. Whatever the reason, you conduct a small investigation. Remove the case and run the computer to discover the origin of the computer problem. If its not a simple matter such as a loose wire or fan issue, it may be time to call a computer tech.

5. Your home page, default search engine, or web browser has changed itself.

This is also known as "high-jacking". Spyware has been installed on your computer via social networking or from email link. This action has allowed spyware to install a java script into your web browser. The spyware then sends a message to your browser to change your user settings. For example change your home page to another web page.

As you have discovered from reading the article, the most common computer problems can be handle quite easily by simple maintenance of your PC. Next time you are suffering from computer problems, take a few minutes to run some diagnostic test before rushing out to computer technical center claiming your PC is broken. What all you need to do was just make sure it was plugged in. 

PING command

It has been months since i posted a technical post. So, here is one about the PING command. I came across this command when my internet connection was lost. When i called the service agent, he came and tested the connection with this command. When i asked him about this command, he gave me these valuable information. The PING command is the basic network troubleshooting command. Ping shows the status of the other computer whether it is on the network or not. Let’s say you have three computers in your computer network computer A (IP Address, 10.10.10.1), computer B (IP address 10.10.10.2) and computer C (IP address 10.10.10.3). You are on computer A and you want to check the connectivity of the computer B then you will need to go the Start > Run > type CMD > DOS screen will appear. Now type there ping 10.10.10.2 if you get the reply this means the computer B is connected on the network and if you get the timed out message then there is some problem in the connectivity. This can be due to different reasons like check both the ends of the network cables in the computer and in the Router/Switch, check if the green LED light is blinking in the network card of the computer also check if any software application blocking the network communication such as firewall or antivirus etc.

The future RAM

HP RESEARCHERS have developed a working unit of a once-theoretical memory circuit called a memristor, which may someday re place RAM and make PCs smarter. Memristor technology could enable PCs to make decisions by understanding patterns of collected data, much as ahuman brain collects and understands data on a series of events.For example, a memristor could adjust a microwave’s heating time for a potato based on whether the oven overcooked a potato the last time, says HP senior fellow Stanley Williams. Memristors could reach the commercial semiconductor market in five years, he says.A memristor circuit uses lower voltage and turns on faster than memory types such as DRAM and flash. Denser cells allow memristor circuits to store more data than flash memory, too. The memristor is the fourth basic circuitry element, joining three, the resistor, the capacitor, and the inductor. That science has known about for 150 years,Williams says.

Useful Google tips - 2

I have posted some useful google tips in my blog already. You can very well find it out here. Since i was bored to type, dint continue with it and now i thought of continuing it. So, here are the other useful google tips.

Get your day's schedule in Mobile
For this, you have to set up your mobile with google calendar. This can be found under Settings -> Mobile. Once you have set your mobile, just send a message "day" to the number 48368 and you will be notified with your day's schedule.

More Reading Space
If you feel the left sidebar of gmail annoying or feel like need space, just press the U key and you will see the sidebar removed. To bring back the sidebar on, just press the U key again.

Send EXE files
Google has always been concerned about protecting its users computer from viruses. Sometimes this cautionary approach of google surely annoys us especially if we want to mail a friend some .exe files, .dll files etc. Even if we zip it and send google finds it out. To avoid this, just change the extension of the filename to something like .txt, attach and send the file. And ask your email receiver to change it back to .exe or whatever after downloading the attachment.

Search your emails
With a huge mail space provided by Gmail, a lots of email gets cluttered in our inbox and if we want a specific email to look up on, then you can use the search option in gmail. You can narrow down your search by specifying "to:, from:, subject:" etc. And also using "labels:, after:, before: " if you want to search between certain dates.

Google presentations
If you work on presentations in Google docs, then you can directly publish it on webpages using the code generated to embed in the webpage. You can also save it as a pdf file to send it to others.

How much do you read?
Are you having the habit of reading news from RSS? Then find out how much you have read with the help of Google Reader which provides info on RSS subscriptions, what all you have read, shared, emailed etc.

Advanced Search
Google's advanced search spells out all operators, wildcards, restrictions and more you can use while searching.

Alright, hope this is enough for now. Just few tips remaining and i'll post them later. If you want some other Gmail Tips, check it out here.

Upgrading your computer

Everyone of us might have undergone the feeling that after few months of buying a new computer, we would feel unsatisfied with its performance and so wanna upgrade in a short time after buying a new computer. And the scenario gets more worse if you like to switch to Vista from XP. With Microsoft announcing that it would stop providing support for XP in few months, every PC user is forced to use Vista. But buying a new Vista compatible CPU is too costly and the better option is to upgrade your old PC. So, here are the things you should do for upgrading.

Back up your data : First of all, if you plan for an upgrade back up all your important data onto an DVD or external harddisk.

Choose your hardware : Then, choose your hardware for your requirements such as a tv tuner card if you wish to watch tv in your computer etc. You aren't going to buy things for your computer frequently, so do thorough analysis of your requirements and select the suitable hardware

DVD Drive : If you are upgrading to vista, you need an DVD drive for sure because vista comes in dvd only. So get a good dvd drive for your system. Upto my knowledge, the better dvd writers are liteon, sony and asus.

RAM : Vista needs a mininum of 1GB RAM to perform to a satisfactory level. So a RAM of 1GB or more is required for Vista.

Drivers : When you buy any hardware, do check whether the drivers for the same are available for vista. If you donot have driver for the hardware, the chances of your hardware not working are high.

New BIOS : If you are planning to upgrade your Motherboard, then check out for the Motherboard with latest bios. A crash free bios would be good.

Graphics Card : Are you mad about gaming? Then you really need a good graphics card for the latest games to be played. Choose a latest graphic card with a suitable memory and according to your budget. The power requirements for your graphic card also should be met. So, choose a graphic card that suits your motherboard and power supply. And do go for a graphic card that supports DirectX 10.

IDE to SATA : If you are going to upgrade your harddisk, optical drive etc, then go for SATA drives because they are much faster than IDE.

Software Compatability : Be sure that you have your softwares updated or upgraded to make them work in your new environment. If you donot find any upgrades for your softwares, then run the software in compatibility mode.

USB Upgrade : If you have been using USB 1.1 in your old system, upgrade them to USB 2 as they provide a much more faster data transfer.

Above all, if you plan to run vista in your system, then run the vista upgrade advisor to get a rough idea about the hardware requirements for your PC.

Apple Macbook Air

" THE WORLD'S THINNEST LAPTOP". The Macbook Air comes out with this title. But how does this mac prerform? is it worth for the money? Here is a sneak peak on to the Macbook Air.
First thing, you notice in the Macbook Air, is its sleek design having a tapering design at the base. No wonder it is the ultimate thinnest lappy. It is light weight weighing around 3 pounds. The full size keyboard with backlight make is easier to work with even in the dark. The touch pad is also quite large and apple has integrated the iphone's gesture based commands to the Air. The processor found in the mac book air is Intel dual core 1.6Ghz processor with 2Gigs of RAM.

But looking at the hype created for Air, the output was a bit disappointing. The Air has got its own limitations such as only one USB port, no card reader, no embedded optical drive, no upgradable RAM etc. And also the battery standby time of the Air is around 3 hours and like the iphone it is also not user serviceable.

Although the mac book air has certain shortcomings, it is certainly the cutest lappy found today. Hope Apple compensates the shortcomings and release a better model in the years to come.

Safari

I have been blogging for over a month and in the past few posts it has been my personal experiences. So, i thought of giving my visitors a techie perhaps an useful info that could help 'em a lil bit. While i was searching for some interesting topic to post on my page, a bulb glowed in my mind that why don't i introduce the Apple's browser SAFARI for WINDOWS to my webistors.

I have already said about this browser to my friend but it was under BETA stage. If i had asked him to install and use it, it would have crashed quite a number of times and would have given him the chance to damage me. I don't want that to happen and waited for my time. And here comes my time. APPLE SAFARI stable version has been released.

What really made me to use this browser is that its aesthetics, looking simple and sleek layout in aluminum color. The fonts looks soothing. And about its performance, apple claims that it is 2x faster than IE and Firefox and i don't know how far those stats are true. But compared to IE, it is faster and stands a good competition for Firefox too. Speed is also good when compared to untweaked Firefox. Moreover, it consumes less memory compared to Firefox and slightly higher than IE. Safari takes less time to start when compared to Firefox.

So, I hope this browser might earn a name for itself as other Apple products did. So, why are you waiting for ? Give Apple Safari a try and post in your comments.

Download Safari

Internet Security Tips - Part 1

ENCRYPT YOUR E-MAIL

Nowadays, Information theft has been increasing at an alarming rate and many softwares which can automatically interrupt mails or information and divert to hackers are available freely on net. Even if the a mail sender's server was equipped with security techniques, if the recipient's server is not well protected, there is a chance of information being stolen. To avoid these kinds of information loss, Encryption techniques are becoming popular and many websites have taken it to the next level by making it available to the public.

One such site is LOCKBIN. Here is the procedure to send a encrypted message.

Before you start, the mail recipient must know the SECRET CODE which is used to encrypt and decrypt the message. So, let him know about the secret code in prior to sending the mail.

1. Click the above link and get started
2. In the next page accept the license agreement
3. Type the security code so that the site could confirm that you are not Shankar's ROBOT or a spam softie
4. On typing the correct security code, the site allows you to compose your message with all common formatting options.
5. After composing your message proceed to the next stage, where the secret code is asked. Type in the secret code and click continue
6. In the next window, the details about the sender and receiver are presented and the message is sent.

The receiver will receive a LINK in his inbox which he has to click and follow the same procedure as stated in 2, 3 and 5 respectively in order to read the message.

Though the procedure seems to be bit boring, it is a better option compared to losing your confidential data to some unknown person.


HIDE YOUR E-MAIL ID

If you want to receive mails from a community or group, say for example you ask for a solution for a problem in one of the orkut community and give your email address to mail you the solution. At such instances, spammers grab your mail id and start spamming your inboxes. What you want is to receive mails from the website and still avoid spam mails. A remedy for this problem is found at CONTACTIFY.

All you have to do is this. Go to this website and just give your email address and register in it.
The website will create a link specially for your id. Eg. www.contactify.com\your name
So you can use this link in places where your email address are prone to public view. So when a person clicks on the link, a new page gets opened and in that the person types his reply and sends it to you. He never gets to know what your mail id is. Cool isn't it????


KNOW ABOUT UNKNOWN FILES

Are you a person who always download stuffs from internet and yet has no idea whether the downloaded file is a virus or not?? Are you doubtful of a certain file in your system? In that case all you need is to check out what is that file meant for from this website.

Visit the website and give the file name you are not aware of and get information about the file. The database of this site is regularly updated by internet users.

Speeding up your computer - Part 1

Well, this has been a great problem for every one of us who use their PC for many hours and complain to their buddies that their computer has slowed down and need to upgrade theirs.

There is no need to get into upgrade kinda stuff unless if you wished to go for a hardware hungry OS like Vista. If you are using Windows XP as your OS, then here are few tips to make it yield a optimum performance continuously.

Speed Start up:

After a few days of buying a PC, after you install some of the softwares which you use, your PC seems to take a lot more time to start than before. The reason for this is these newly installed softwares set themselves to start automatically on system start up and the loading of these programs consumes quite some time thereby increasing the start up time.

So forcing these kind of programs from running automatically during system start up is the only solution for this problem. How could be this done? Read on.....

• Click the START button of your taskbar and click on RUN. [ Shortcut: WINDOWS key + R button ]
  
• Type 'msconfig' [ without quotes ] and press enter
• In the newly opened window, search for the START UP tab and click it
• Under start up tab, you will see a lot of things with check boxes. The ticked or selected checkboxes contain those programs which are set to run on system start up. DESELECT those programs which you donot wish to run automatically and click APPLY and then OK
• Restart your system
  

P.S : This start up menu contains the drivers and other essential programs which are necessary to run your system. If you have no knowledge on what a program is meant for then please do not mess with it.


Delete Temporary Files :

Temporary files are those which gets clustered in your system when you visit a webpage or you click on 'Open' on downloading something from the internet. As days pass by, these temporary files occupy hundreds of MB's of spaces or GB's at times which will degrade your system performance. So to keep your system for optimum performance and to protect your privacy you need to delete these temporary files.

How can this be done?

Well for this, you need to download a software named C Cleaner, formerly known as Crap Cleaner and whats more advantage is that it is FREE.

To download this software, Click here

What you have to do is to download, install and run this software. At the first page of the software click 'Run CCleaner' and there you go your system is free from crap.

Other features of this software are

Registry Cleaner - Delete unwanted registry keys of softwares from the system memory

Start up Manager - Disable unwanted programs from running on system start up. This seems to be a better option than the previously mentioned method.

Uninstall Manager - Uninstall programs that are no longer required or not installed properly. Add or Remove programs from control panel takes a hell of a time to load the installed softwares and this software has them preloaded and you need not to wait.

This software is compatible with Vista too and hence Vista users can also use this software to free up system space.

Other optimization techniques will be posted later. So keep checking.