Tech Guru - Daily updated news of advanced computer tips & tricks

BrowserMob Launches Monitoring Tool For Website Health

2009-09-10T10:02:00.001-07:00

BrowserMob, an on-demand performance and load testing software service, is launching a new monitoring tool that lets you measure the performance of your website over time, and alert you of problems. BroswerMob, which is a cloud-based service, is designed to help lower-trafficked websites (i.e. websites with less than one million visitors each month) prepare for potentially high traffic situations, such as a launch. BrowserMob presented its sites testing product at TechCrunch’s Cloud Computing Roundtable in February.

The monitoring tool checks your website from multiple locations in the cloud, using ta variety of browsers, captures screen shots of your website whenever it detects an error and notifies you immediately when these problems take place. The technology also detects problems outside of your firewall (ad vendor problems, issues with external widgets, etc.).

Patrick Lightbody, the founder of BrowserMob, says that he started the business because he found that there wasn’t a low-cost alternative for startups and SMBs which wanted to test out their sites for traffic and track performance. BrowserMob’s monitoring service is free for low-volume monitoring (the tool will check the site every hour) and starts at $30 per month for more in-depth coverage.

Though BrowserMob is focused on the smaller sites, the startup, which launched in 2008, has some big-name clients, such as Evite. Competitors to BrowserMob include Keynote Systems and AlertSite.

Steve Jobs Back

2009-09-09T10:02:00.000-07:00

Yes guys you heard me right, Steve Jobs is back. Wait a minute even i am back blogging after a long break.

Well anyhow lets go back to the topic, When the Apple event started today, its CEO Steve Jobs took the stage to a really long standing ovation. In his opening remark he talked about the importance of organ donation. He noted that he now has the liver of a person in their mid - 20s who died in a car crash. Since organ donation was the reason that Jobs is alive today, he urged everyone to think about organ donation.

After that jobs thanked Tim Cook and the Apple's executive team who kept the Apple's ship sailing in his absence. Then it was time for Jobs to quickly move into some impressive statistics. Here are a handful of them:

iPhone

30 million iPhone have now been sold worldwide in a little over 2 years.
There are now over 75,000 apps in the App Store
There have now been some 1.8 billion App Store downlaods
The 3.1 update for iPhone and iPod touch is launching today.

iTunes

iTunes is now the #1 music retailer in the world
8.5 billion songs have been downloaded from iTunes
There are now 100,000,000 accounts on iTunes, making it one of the largest stores on the web.

Chatbots try to impersonate humans - and fail

2008-10-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

Alan Turing once said that “if, during text-based conversation, a machine is indistinguishable from a human, then it could be said to be ‘thinking’, and therefore could be attributed with intelligence”. This became known as the Turing test and yesterday five chatbots tried to pass the test. They failed spectacularly.

Every year since 1990, the Loebner Prize has been held to determine if there is a computer bot out there which is indistinguishable from a human being. The top prize of a gold medal and $100,000 is still waiting for the inventor of a computer bot which is indistinguishable from that of a human. So far, no one has won but people have won the bronze medal and $2000 for the prize of most human-like.

The winner yesterday was Elbot and I’ve been trying him out. He answered my questions quite well. When I asked him if he had feelings, he responded : “I think I have feelings. I cried when they killed the robot in Terminator“!

There’s no sound card in the website so everything is text-based. The Loebner judges decided though that he was only 25% accurate. So he didn’t even come remotely close to passing Turing’s test.

I think we can safely say that the possibility of something like Skynet, Terminator and cyborgs are probably a long way off. I don’t see Elbot taking over the world, do you?

iPhone 3G will be launched in India on August 18

2008-07-27T05:34:00.000-07:00

Oh Finally we get the news that iPhone 3G will released in Indian on August 18. Vodafone will launch the iPhone 3G first on the 18th of August. And after 15 days you can also get it from Airtel too.
Pricing and other essentials are still unknown. But will update you ASAP.........

Email large files using Docstoc OneClick

2008-06-12T05:19:00.000-07:00

DocStoc OneClick, the new app allows you to right click any documents on your desktop have them automatically uploaded to Docstoc, where a link is generated and inserted into a new message in your default email client (Gmail my case). OneClick also lets you simultaneously upload multiple files, grab embed code, and add other meta data your documents.

How to Use:

Step 1: Download Docstoc OneClick and Create a Profile on Docstoc

Step 2: Select the documents (.doc, .pdf, .xls, .ppt) you want to send in an email (you can select multiple documents). The documents can be up to 50MBs each.

Step 3: Right click and select “Email as Private” or “Email as Public”. “Email as Private” stores your files privately on Docstoc so no other users can access them without the secret URL link. “Email as Public” will publically display the document you send via email, and they can be accessed via docstoc and search engines.

Step 4: An email is auto-generated using your default email client. You can simply add the recipient(s) e-mail address(es).

Step 5: Your documents will be uploaded and processed in the background. Make sure not to close the OneClick application in your system tray.

Step 6: You will have a backup copy of your documents that you can access anytime by visiting your “my documents” on Docstoc.

Monitor the uptime of your websites with Uptime Scout

2008-05-05T10:45:00.000-07:00

Uptime Scout is a new windows Utitlity which helps you ti monitors the Uptime of your website or Blog. Integrio Uptime Scout is a small tray application that allows you to monitor the availability of your website(s) and immediately notifies you if the website (or the server) goes down. The Integrio Uptime Scout monitors your websites in an interval that can be specified between 30 seconds to 30 minutes and logs any failure to connect to it. The log can be useful to create a uptime statistic for your website which can be used to decided if it is time to change the hoster.
Uptime Scout supports different notification methods, such as popup messages, sound alerts and email. Alert notifications can also trigger execution of user defined commands or a third-party application.

[Download Uptime Scout]

Free anti-spyware tool

2008-04-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

FreeFixer is an anti-spyware tool helping you to delete potentially unwanted software, such as trojans, adware, spyware, worms and rootkits. It can also help you to remove home page hijacking and detect programs that use hiding techniques. FreeFixer scans your machine where unwanted software has a record of appearing or leaving traces. The scan locations include the your home page setting, your browser plug-in, the HOSTS file, processes, etc.
FreeFixer does not know which the bad files and settings are, so the scan result will contain many items you want to keep and perhaps some that you want to delete. It is up to you to decide. Please be careful! If you remove a legitimate file you may damage your computer.

Download Freefixer

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Improve your PC's performance

2008-04-15T06:09:00.001-07:00

1. Defragment.

Defragmenting is a process that organizes contents of a hard drive to store files closer together. It also attempts to create more free space. After completing, you should notice immediate improvements in your computer’s speed and start up time. Defragmenting is free and can be done very easily using the following steps on an XP computer.

For Windows XP; Go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragment.

2. Anti – Virus

There are a lot of viruses on the internet and internet users need to protect themselves. Viruses can do harm to your computer and data, and they can slow down your system. This is why it’s important to regularly update your anti-virus program, and perform regular scans. However you must keep in mind it is not beneficial to install too many anti-virus programs. These programs can be helpful but the main problem is they take a lot of power to run, and you will be slowing down your PC unnecessarily. Always try to stay with one program at a time, and uninstall any others you are not using.

3. Delete Unnecessary Files

Freeing up space can improve the speed of your PC. Delete all the files you have downloaded and no longer want. Then remember to empty the recycle bin. Try a disk cleanup, which is located in system tools (same place as defragment). This will delete temporary internet files, empty the recycle bin for you etc. Lastly, you may want to download and install a program called CCleaner, it is free and is great for clearing internet history etc.

4. Uninstall Unused Programs

Most people install a lot of programs over time. If not used, these become a waste of space. Scroll through these often and uninstall the ones you do not plan to use in the near future.

For Windows XP; Go to Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs.

5. Disable Auto-Starting Programs

Disabling automatic opening of programs on startup will assist in a smoother startup of your PC. Nobody likes to turn on their computer and have to wait for it to open up programs and start doing virus scans. It is best to go into the options of a particular program and disable it to open at startup.

Graphics.h in C++ in Vista

2008-04-12T07:35:00.000-07:00

Download the file from the links below ( Zipped file splitted in 2 parts ) :

Part 1 : Dev-Cpp with Graphics in Vista (9.86 MB)

Part 2 : Dev-Cpp with Graphics in Vista (9.89 MB)

After downloading the 2 files , double click on .zip file and extract the folder to "C:\" . The folder will consist of Dev C++ Complier.

Follow the steps below :

1. Go to the “File” menu and select “New”, “Project”, Choose “Empty Project” and make sure “C++ project” is selected.Give your project suitable name and click on “Ok”.

OR

1. You can create individual C++” source file” instead of “project”.Go to the “File” menu and select “New Source File” OR Go to the “Project” menu and select “New File”.

2. Go to “Project” menu and choose “Project Options”.

3. Go to the “Parameters” tab.

4. In the “Linker” field, enter the following text:

-lbgi

-lgdi32

-lcomdlg32

-luuid

-loleaut32

-lole32

5. Click “Ok” to save settings.

Now you’ve done with the configuration for WinBGIm. Please make sure you’ve done these step properly otherwise compiler will flag error.

Show Hidden Files And Folders Not Working

2008-04-07T19:06:00.000-07:00

A few days back, a friend came to me and told me that he was having trouble with his Windows XP. The show hidden files and folders was not working at all. If he selected the radio button “Show hidden files and folders”, and then press Ok .. the changes would just disappear upon opening the dialog again. It was probably some virus attack after which the Windows registry was not being updated properly. So here is what I did to restore it back.

Solution 1:

Go to registry editor ( Start >> Run >> "regedit" )
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced
In the right hand area, double click hidden and change the value to 1.
Check it in your tools menu if the changes have taken effect.

Solution 2:

Go to registry editor ( Start >> Run >> "regedit" )
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced \ Folder \ Hidden \ SHOWALL
Look at the “CheckedValue” key… This should be a DWORD key. If it isn’t, delete the key.
Create a new key called “CheckedValue” as a DWORD (hexadecimal) with a value of 1.
The “Show hidden files & folders” check box should now work normally. Njoy!!!

Rip websites for offline browsing

2008-04-04T04:15:00.001-07:00

Ever wanted to browse your favorite website without actually being connected to Internet? Using HTTrack you can rip any website and browse it locally on your computer. You can download complete websites from Internet to a folder of your choice. Download web pages, images, and other files to your computer from any website.
You can update the local copy of the website, pause or resume the download. It follows the links of the original website, and downloads the files recursively to a local directory, rearranges the hyper-links structure of the local copy.

It runs on Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP and on Linux, BSD as well. It uses a web crawler to download the files from the website. However, some parts of the website may not be downloaded due to robots exclusion protocol. You can disable the option to follow the robots exclusion protocol if you want to download the complete website even if the website follows the robots exclusion protocol.

Download WinHTTrack

Advanced Task Managing with ProcX

2008-03-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

ProcX is an advanced manager for managing lots of things about processes. It shows all the processes running on your system. It shows the modules which are currently loaded in memory and which process is using which module. Unlike Task Manager which most viruses can disable, so that you cannot shut down the virus application, it shows the running processes and you can shut down the virus application.
If anything malicious process is running, you can close it by using ProcX. It allows you to perform various operations on processes and DLLs. It seems to be quite useful for administrators who need to manage processes and Task Manager is not up for the job.

It even shows the processes which are accessing the network. If any process tries to access use any system process's name, it alerts the user. You can even set any process to be deleted on the next reboot.

You can suspend, resume or terminate a process, or dump the memory of a process on disk. You can search for the process name on Google, or view the properties of the process.

If you want to know more about what is running on your system, ProcX is a must.

Download ProcX

Opening multiple links at once with Snap Links

2008-03-18T09:16:00.000-07:00

Snap Links is a Firefox extension which allows you to open multiple links in new tabs by drawing a box around them. You can copy the links, open the links in a new window, in new tabs, or download the links as files on your desktop.
Gone are the days when you had to click on each link in the Google result page to open them. Just drag the mouse over the links while pressing the right mouse click.

You can move the selection area by holding the Alt key, while moving the mouse over the links. By pressing Shift key, while holding so will select all the links with the selected area. You can deselect the area by pressing the Escape key.

So, if you're lazy like me, you sure gonna love this. :)

Download Snap Links

Encoding, Editing Videos on Fast Lane

2008-03-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

Avidemux is a free video editor designed to do cutting, editing and encoding of various files. Recently I wanted to convert some vides files to a resolution of 640x240, reduce the framerate to 24 fps, and compress the files to a format that is playable by a 200MHz ARM processor. With Avidemux I was able to do all that once I played a little with it.
It has a lot of features but not so intuitive interface. It supports many file formats including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. It runs on Windows, Linux, BSD, Mac OS-X.

It supports a variety of input formats such as AVI, MPEG, ASF, images, OGM, QuickTime, Mp4, 3GP etc. and it able to get the output in these formats. You can crop, resize, add borders, darken borders, rotate, change fps, add noise and do lots of the other stuff without much hassle.

You can even add subtitles, select font of the text, color of the text, set its position.

Record, Share and Help friends using uTipu

2008-03-09T11:34:00.000-07:00

uTipu (you-help-you) is community where you can record videos, and share the tips, and help the community . It has a new screen cast application (TipCam) which seems pretty easy to use. Download the application, record the movie from the desktop and share the video online. If you want to share some tips with your friends, this seems like the neat service to use.

It also includes a facabook application for sharing your videos with your friends on facebook. You can use it for various purposes such as record and show how to solve a computer problem, or record and share an online game which you're playing, etc.

You also get 250MB of free storage space for uploading your videos. The whole thing is free right now, and of course it’s in beta. You can record movies up to 20 minutes. The current version of the application is 1.5

It shows a minibar when the movie is being recorded. Definitely worth a look.

Save Time When Copying Mutiple Files

2008-03-06T08:47:00.000-08:00

When copying files if they are located at different folders (places), going to each folder, copying files and then pasting in the destination is one hefty task. Piky Basket is one handy utility which extends the default copy paste functionalities of Windows.

Using Piky Basket, you can put the files in a virtual basket, and then paste them in the destination. It makes organizing the files easier, you can just right click on the files, add them to the virtual basket, and then paste them in one go. This is a great time saver when you're selecting files for backup, or sharing or to burn them on CD etc.

It reduces the repetitive tasks when copying or moving files and folders in Windows. You can also copy folders/files path on the clipboard and paste them in text file. You can even launch the command prompt from any folder. Since it gets integrated within Windows and works from the shell, it doesn't use any resources.

In fact, you don't even need to run it as a separate program. It is a must for everyone.

Listen FM Radio And Call Yahoo / IM Friends From Gtalk

2008-03-03T08:26:00.000-08:00

Yes , it's possible to hear FM radio and also call your yahoo and IM friends for free by Gtalk2Voip.com For this u need to follow these steps :

1) Add this id in your GTalk: service@gtalk2voip.com by clicking on add button.
2) Type radio in this ID's window, to get list of all running radio stations.
3) Type radio and receive the call from this ID.
4) Pick up and enjoy the music .

More services offered by Gtalk2Voip.com :

(1) Free voice services available for all major IM clients:

Voice calls between Google Talk, MSN/Live Messenger and Yahoo!
Voice mail service, interoparable between major IM clients.
Voice conferencing: with any number of participants of any IM type.
Sending off-line messages and notifications.
Calling SIP phones and SIP services.
Receiving calls to your IM from any SIP phone.
Receiving calls to your IM from mobile or landline phones using SIP Broker.
Receiving calls to your IM from web users.
Free toll-free calling to 1-800, 1-866, 1-877 and 1-888 numbers via SIP Broker.
Read more...

(2) Paid voice services:

Outgoing calls from your IM to any telephone numbers throgh a number of VoIP carriers.
Incoming calls to your IM from any phone number (PSTN DID assignment).
Sending SMS messages from your IM to any mobile phone number.
Read more...

(3) Information for VoIP service providers:

We do offer a number of colaboration services for VoIP businesses, like:

PSTN termination to your equipment.
VoIM termination from your equipment to our users.
Read more...

TechGuru's Privacy Policy & Disclosure

2008-03-03T05:29:00.000-08:00

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This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact punisher.arv@gmail.com.

This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.

The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post may not always be identified as paid or sponsored content.

The owner this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner of this blog receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers' own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

This blog does contain content which might present a conflict of interest. This content may not always be identified.

Power up & Replace the Recent Documents feature in Windows

2008-02-29T04:51:00.000-08:00

If you have used or do use the Recent Documents in Windows, then you would surely like the ActualDoc Recent Documents Manager. It replaces the default recent documents feature in Windows with a more powerful and efficient manager.

Windows only shows you the last 15 items which you've used and that is even not sorted by file type or name. You can't even search the recent documents. ActualDoc adds more power and many features using which you can do more.

You can minimize it to your system tray and by right clicking on it you get a superpowered version of the Recent Documents. It also includes a document explorer using which you can view the content of supported file types. You can see all of the most recently used files. It comes in two versions, Standard and Pro.

The pro version adds more power such as protecting your Recent Documents list, adding password protection to your history, PDF viewer, Graphics Editor, and HTML.

[Download ActualDoc]

Convert any file into another format online!

2008-02-26T08:54:00.000-08:00

Everyone needs a good file converter, for example if you got that file via email in a .gz format and you thought why don’t they send it in a zip format, or that important document that was sent in PDF format and you wanted it to be in a doc format in short it good to have a file converter.

I have just got the perfect web-app for you it can convert almost any given file format to another, Best of all its FREE to use and you don’t need to install anything on your computer to use it!

This online app can convert video, music, documents, pictures, compressed files etc… you name it and this application should be able to convert the file into the format you want, say hello to http://www.youconvertit.com/
As I have mentioned earlier this is an web application so you don’t need to install anything on your computer, just go to youconvertit.com and using the simple interface enter the file and select the format that you want it to be converted to, enter your email address, the app sends the converted file link to your email address for you to download, after the conversion is completed. The converted file stays on the server for 7 days after conversion.

Conclusion: I have personally used this app and it works 90% of the time in converting the file, it just failed me once in one video conversion. I wanted to convert a swf video file to fla, it converted the file but it had only audio in it the video was missing, overall a great web-application to have in your bookmarks for file conversions.

Power up Windows clipboard with CLCL

2008-02-25T07:43:00.000-08:00

Everyone and their grand mothers know that Windows clipboard captures only piece of text or any data at a time. CLCL is a clipboard monitoring utility which lets you monitor all clipboard activity and automatically save all data transferred through it. It is quite compact (100 KB) and doesn't even needs installation. Just unzip and run.
Supports All Formats (text, images ...)

It supports all clipboard formats from just plain text to OLE objects (an image, word documents formats etc). It also provides support for Unicode Text format through a plug-in. Various plug-ins extend its functionality such as uppercase/lowercase conversion, Word Wrap, Always on Top, etc.

It actually runs in as two applications: the monitor itself, which resides in the system tray, captures the clipboards' content automatically, and lets you view the last few captured items right from the context menu, and the configuration utility.

It is free, lightweight and extremely easy to use. If you copy and paste a lot more than usual, and need to reuse clipboard's content, then this utility is for you.

Convert Your HD DVDs to Blu-Ray

2008-02-23T04:25:00.000-08:00

If you're an early adopter who got burned by Blu-Ray's victory over HD DVD, Wired's How-To Wiki details how to convert your old-and-busted HD DVDs to the victorious Blu-Ray format. The catch is that the process, from start to finish, is a major pain, and you'll need both an HD DVD drive and a Blu-Ray burner on your PC. In all the conversion is probably more of a hassle and just as expensive as re-purchasing your HD DVDs in Blu-Ray or buying a dual-format player, so if you're really considering going through this process, you may want to take that into account that before diving in. If you were stung by the demise of the HD DVD, let's hear how you plan to cope in the comments.

Protecting Sensitive Data using Eraser

2008-02-22T10:07:00.000-08:00

Eraser is an advanced utility which protects your sensitive data when the files are deleted. Being a freeware it does the job quite efficiently.
Most people have some sensitive data which is needed to be protected so that it doesn’t gets in other’s hands even after deletion. Passwords, personal information, office documents, and any financial information can come under this category.

You may have saved the data on your computer, but by simply deleting the data cannot ensure that the data is wiped off the disk. If you don’t know, whenever you delete a file, the content of the file is actually not deleted; only the file location is removed from the index.

Before the file is overwritten, anyone can easily retrieve it with a disk maintenance or an undelete utility. So, the file can be accessed even after it is deleted. That is how most of the data recovering software work and make it possible to recover a file even if it is deleted.

It runs from MS-DOS to Windows 2003. Sorry for Vista user, the software doesn’t provide support for it.

Download Eraser

An Award For Me

2008-02-21T05:25:00.000-08:00

Yes guys i am sharing an award for Best blogs in the Digital World along with freelanceIT, software4You and the who decided to share his award with us the one and only our Denz.

See here for more information : Best Blog Award...

I Thank Denz for sharing his award with me. I hope that you guys will be happy to hear about this and I hope in future I will receive many awards like these........

I once again thank Denz and the readers without whom I may not have won this award.............Thanks Guys................!!!!

How to download Visual Studio 2008 Professional, SQL Server 2005 from Microsoft for Free?

2008-02-21T05:14:00.000-08:00

Yes you did hear me right!! FREE!!

Well, Microsoft has recently started a program called - DreamSpark. It is simple, it's all about giving students Microsoft professional-level developer and design tools at no charge so that they can chase their dreams and create the next big breakthrough in technology - or just get a head start in their career.

Please note that the program is open only for Students!! Also the program is open for students from the following countries only: United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium.

The list of softwares that they can download for free are as follows:

Expression Studio
Sql Server 2005 Express
Sql Server Developer Edition
Virtual PC 2007
Visual Basic 2005
Visual C++ 2005
Visual C# 2005
Visual J# 2005
Visual Studio 2008 Professional
Visual Web Developer 2005
Visual Studio 2005 Professional
Windows Server 2003
XNA Game Studio

This is how you can download:

Sign In with your Windows Live ID. If you don't have one, go get one. Pretty basic stuff.
Get verified as a student. The system is linked to schools and organizations around the world that can confirm student status. Simply choose your country and school, enter your info and hit submit.
Download your products. Now remember these are professional tools. This means they are pretty big files so make sure you have the bandwidth and space to bring them to your machine.

Source