Tech Blog › Archives › 2011

Almost everyone that you know has a profile on Facebook. This statement being true for most people is in itself testament enough that Facebook does the job of connecting people fairly well. However, there are some tips and tricks that can allow you to get more out of Facebook and this article contains a list of some of the best such Facebook tips.

Most of us shutdown our computers using the power button given in the Start menu. Some of us use the physical power button on our machines. Very few people actually use other means of shutting down a computer and even less is the number of people who use the Command Prompt to shutdown a computer.

Although Google feels the I'm feeling lucky button is not 'as useful', it can still be used to try some excellent 3rd party Easter eggs that are a direct result of Google bombing (remember miserable failure and the whole George Bush case?).

Google is the search engine of choice for most users. This is well represented by the fact that Google is the most visited website on the internet. A reason for this popularity is Google's characteristic to integrate simplicity with usability.

Mozilla Firefox is one of the most popular web browsers in the world, and for good reason. In addition to it being free, Firefox provides a reliable and secure internet surfing experience that many people prefer over other browsers. But like those other browsers, Firefox’s speed can sometimes begin to deteriorate. When this happens, it might take you longer to load certain webpages or download certain files, which can be quite frustrating. If your Firefox speed is suffering, the following tips and shortcuts will help you increase your speed and get Firefox back to normal in no time at all.

PowerPoint presentations are often used by many people as a good way to present ideas and get points across through visuals. Thankfully, there are a good amount of websites out there that will allow you to create and easily share your presentations with others whether they are in the next room or across the globe. Here are some of the best sites for making and sharing presentations quickly, effectively and at no cost at all.

With the ongoing evolution of the internet and the rigor of modern internet providers, the world has benefited from the ability to share information and learn new ideas at the tips of their fingers. This also applies to helping the world conserve energy and go green. The internet is allowing the world to take a look at our situation and make changes one individual or family at a time. It is also gradually changing how we impact the world around us. Just look at how the web (subtly) forces many of us to conserve our precious resources.

The Command Prompt is one of the most powerful tools in Windows; but sadly, it is also the most ignored one. Things were not always like this; but with the advent of GUI based operating systems, people started feeling that computing through command based tools was boring. This ultimately led the Command Prompt into obscurity.

It is no secret that professionals have used social media to attract new job opportunities for years now. Sites like LinkedIn and Facebook make it somewhat easy for candidates to increase their visibility to hiring employers. However, as the job market competition grows, candidates need to find new methods for attracting the headhunters.

Windows 7 is not a new operating system, but it is new to many users. Windows 7 has several interesting new features that make this OS better than previous Windows versions. These tips for Windows 7 may not make you an expert, but they should make your experience with Windows 7 much more fun and productive.

Whether you are just getting started with your business or you are still in the brainstorming process, it can be a pretty scary thing to venture out on your own and start a business. How do you pull it off? What risks are involved? Should you apply for small business loans? These are some things you are probably going to want to find out. Here is a list of tips that could help you as you start off on the exciting adventure of starting your own business.

Just about anyone can blog. But not everyone can blog well. There are several factors that go into setting your blog apart from the millions that are out there competing for attention. Here are 5 tips that you can use to make sure that blog stands ahead of the crowd:-

Blogging’s humble roots started with individuals basically keeping online journals they opened up to share with the world. They’ve come a long way and are now considered an excellent news source as well as a great place for reviews, previews and general reactions.

Facebook is currently the largest social media network on the Internet. Odds are your readers have a profile and can immediately start sharing your content with their friends and family. So, how can you get your readers to sing your praises without forcing them to do so? Simple. Install the Facebook “Like” button on your blog.

These days, it is not enough to use the latest and greatest technology to turn leads into clients. You can no longer just use the computer or the phone, you can’t just use lead management software. You can’t sit around hoping your maybe clients will eventually call you back or get back to you in some way. You have to hunker down and get creative.

The reason why most computer malware are so dangerous is because many users fail to recognize whether they have been infected or not. Had they detected the infection at an earlier stage, the damage caused could have been greatly reduced. As each virus is programmed differently, it becomes difficult to identify a virus outbreak. However, there are some general symptoms that make it easy to detect an infected computer. Here are some of them:-

Choosing a new television can be difficult and confusing. Commercials and advertisements make every TV look like the one you can’t live without. The various television brands and marketers put out lots of information, and not all of the advice out there on which TV is best for you is good. This brief introduction to the different types of televisions that are out there is a great place to start your search for a fantastic TV. So relax, take a deep breath and get ready to create your perfect home entertainment environment.

A successful email campaign is very important to making any business successful. If you want to start a business, then you need to build a client base. Of course, once you have established this list, you need to know how to best utilize it. The only way you can do that is if you get word out to people about the new product or service that you will be selling through your business.

Quick Response codes began as a novelty, but as the prevalence of QR code reading technology has increased, so has the popularity of their use. There is a short history behind QR codes but that has not held back the growing popularity of these little squares of black on white patterns.

Most people love using Windows 7. That’s because it has improved tremendously over its predecessor Windows Vista. But there can still be glitches, errors, and lags. The good thing about Windows 7 is that it has lots of tools to troubleshoot and repair a slow computer. Here is a guide to where to find them and how to use them.

There are many different ways to turn leads and potential customers into actual customers, but what are they? How do successful people do it? And which tips and tricks work the best? One answer to these questions is to use lead management software. Lead management software uses different marketing techniques to turn leads into valued customers but, that is just one piece of the puzzle.

Blackberry has just launched a new music service that will let BlackBerry users share and discover new tunes with their friends through BlackBerry Messenger. It is an attempt by Research in Motion to improve its BlackBerry Messenger service to compete against Apple and Android. BlackBerry smartphones do not offer a RIM-enabled way to buy music, although audio and other files can be loaded onto the devices from a computer.

A lot of online entrepreneurs seem to be having trouble finding potential customers who will buy their services or products nowadays. Well, the main reason behind this problem is the fact that most of these entrepreneurs do not generate a lot of leads through their blogs. Although having leads on social networking pages is good, blog leads are actually much more powerful in the online world.

Anyone who has kept a blog for some time or who writes for a living has likely experienced that feeling of no inspiration. There’s absolutely nothing left in the tank – even all the rubbish ideas have been used up and you are left feeling unmotivated. It is at this point that sometimes blogs can get abandoned, as constantly thinking up new ideas is hard work and tiring.

Many companies now have websites; be it a small website that just shows their location and contact details; or a very large information based site; or all singing and dancing shopping cart solution with thousands of items available to order online.

Lead management software is any technology that helps businesses seek out, obtain and manage sales and marketing accounts. Lead management can range from a method used to create new business to the process companies use to direct their customer relationship strategies.

Chances are if you have a wireless internet connection at your home, you have had some trouble with the speed of the connection at least once before. That being said, a slow wireless connection can be frustrating to deal with. You are probably paying good money to your internet service provider, so slow speed is something you should not have to deal with, right? Well, the truth is that wireless speed can be affected by a number of things. Luckily there are some Wi-Fi tweaks you can try that should help boost your speed and get you rolling in no time.

Gone are the days that Facebook was only available to college students. More and more people are joining daily and it seems the average age range is spanning in both directions. Users are now creating profiles at younger and older ages than ever before. So when it comes to social media, Facebook is king right? Well they are sure putting up one heck of a fight to stay on top.

Sitting most of the day is not good for your health. Experts say it is better to stand rather than sit while you go about your daily work. This usually means raising your computer monitor to eye-level, and elevating the keyboard and mouse to a height that is easy to use from a standing position. This has led to the growing trend of creating “standing office workstations.” However, there are other things bloggers can do to counteract the effects of sitting all day.

PageRank or PR is by far the most common measure of the quantity and quality of links leading to a particular website. It usually appears as a whole number from zero to 10, with all new sites starting off at zero and only the biggest of the giants getting the full score. Google.com has PR10 but Youtube.com only gets PR9.

There are many free website platforms out there and each has its own pros and cons. However, many of these platforms aren’t bad by any means of the word. Instead, chances are that some of these platforms are specialized and work best with certain types of sites. So to help you in deciding which platform to choose, I am going to break down four popular free web design platforms and tell you what type of site they would be best for.

The expensive cost of hardware and software drives up infrastructure and operation (I&O) expenses for most businesses. Many businesses are thus looking for different strategies to help cut down the I&O expenses. One of the fastest growing technology trends that can potentially reduce I&O expenses for businesses is cloud computing.

Bloggers by their nature sit in front of a computer screen for large parts of the day and blog. Most people would at least have some idea that spending excessive amounts of time staring a computer screen is not exactly ideal for your eyes! OK, so just how true is this and is there anything that can be done to at least minimize the effects of spending so much time glued to the screen?

Keyword research is one of the fundamental parts of any search engine optimization strategy. Before you start trying to get to the top of the search rankings, you have to decide which search terms you want to rank well for. Ideally they should be relevant to your topic, so searchers find what they were looking for, popular enough to bring in a good stream of traffic, but not so competitive that ranking well is impossible.

Computers and telephones have proven to be very useful in many different ways over the years. Now, computers and telephones are joining forces to coordinate with each other and provide different kinds of interactions.

There was a time when Twitter wasn't a popular form of social media. Quite a few people would have had a Twitter account prior to it being popular, and perhaps they too never used it. Its popularity these days as a form of social media has seen more users than ever before jump on the Twitter bandwagon.

Google+ is not the first attempt by Google to break into Facebook’s share of the social networking market. After Google Wave fizzled out while it was still in a nascent stage, Google managed to get something right this time. Google has realized its greatest strength is search, and therefore this time care has been taken to merge social networking with search results.

Protecting your business starts with protecting your data. Whether you’re a small business who has customer credit card data stored on a computer or whether you’re a large corporation with a database containing thousands of security numbers, the risk is the same. Even at home, if you have important electronic documents, you should have storage security concerns.

Freelance writing is yet another opportunity created by the Internet and it has indeed opened up a new window of potential for people with writing skills. One important thing about writing is that it can be indulged by people involved in many other professions. This is the reason for the growth of freelance writers, because people who love to write will do so even while pursuing other professions and jobs.

Latest trending tweets from Twitter would now not be accessible in Google search results. Google states in its Twitter profile, "We've temporarily disabled google.com/realtime. We're exploring how to incorporate Google+ into this functionality, so stay tuned."

Anyone who has a smartphone knows that battery life is an issue. At the moment, the smartphone industry tends to favor performance over battery life when developing specifications for their new devices. To be perfectly honest, I am all for this. I would argue that it's better to have a zippy phone that acts quickly when I need it to rather than a slow, less sleek device that can withstand a few days of use without charging.

WordPress is a popular choice for bloggers as it is highly customizable and can be easily incorporated into existing websites. But before you start your own blog, take the time to consider which of the many hosting options is best for you.

When you first set up your website, you'll need to choose a server to host the pages. Though shared servers are typically the most economical choice, more businesses are choosing to use virtual private servers or dedicated servers because they offer greater protection and more speed. To determine which server is best for your website, it's important to understand the benefits and features you'll receive with each type.

IT specialists are a mysterious sort. They slip through the void almost completely unnoticed. All hours through the day, they work at maintaining the invisible field of energy that passes between the networks of electronic devices in any given business. They are the pinnacles of knowledge and practical office know-how, and their work sometimes goes unappreciated.

Windows Task Manager is used to view details about processes running on your computer. Since it can be used to terminate programs that are misbehaving or are viruses disguised in the form of harmless programs, most spyware and viruses disable it to prevent themselves from being closed through it. Some administrators also disable Task Manager to prevent users from closing important security programs like antiviruses and anti-malwares.

One of the disadvantages for those of us who had MP3 collections before the trend of iTunes is that many of the files lack album art. It’s annoying to browse through CoverFlow and see half your library with pretty pictures and the other half with a generic icon. Here’s a step-by-step guide to make iTunes search for album art for you.

As great as smart phones have become when it comes to handling our digital lives, there are still a few tiresome concessions we make for their use. One is having to plug our device into our computer in order to transfer files. Some manufacturers such as Apple have launched new services to alleviate that using cloud computing but most services come at a price. Here is one way you can send files to your Android based phone completely free without the help of a USB cable.

Guest Blogging has many advantages. I think that accepting guest posts on your blog is a great way to connect with new webmasters and offer fresh perspective to your blog's readers. However, guest blogging has some risks and disadvantages that cannot be overlooked. Here are some ways in which guest blogging can actually harm your website:-

"Wilder than the West!" is how someone once described the internet to me. There are so many web threats out there that can harm your network, be it viruses, trojans, or any other malicious software. Maintaining web security should therefore not be regarded as a kind of low priority optional extra, but should be a critical part of any business’s continuity plans.

Facebook is, undoubtedly, the most popular social networking website with nearly 3 billion monthly active users. Due to its popularity, many hackers (or should I say crackers?) are actively involved in hacking Facebook accounts of unsuspecting users. This article outlines the many strategies that such hackers use to gain access to Facebook accounts of hundreds of users each day and how you can stop them from hacking your account.

Normally, Windows is installed using optical media like DVDs and CDs but there are times when it is not possible to boot into the windows setup using disks probably because your DVD drive is not working or, if you are using one of those ultra-portable laptops, it is not there at all.

Most of us use Facebook to interact with some of our long separated friends but that does not mean we cannot have fun on Facebook. Here is a collection of tricks, tips and Easter eggs you can use to enjoy your experience on Facebook.

Note: Facebook layout is liable to change without notice. As a result, the steps described in this article may change but the essence of the article will remain the same.

Registry Editor is a useful utility in Windows which allows users to easily change advanced Windows settings by altering registry keys present in a hierarchical arrangement called the Windows Registry. Despite being such a powerful tool, Registry Editor is not totally error-proof.

More than 72 hours of video content is uploaded to the internet per minute. With so much video content being uploaded, people have felt the need to download videos but most users don't have the tools to download Flash videos. So what does a user do?

Spy gadgets are usually designed for police investigations or for the private investigation business. Usually, users of these spy gadgets are retired law enforcers or ex – military officials and sometimes, civilians that undergo a special training for this type of investigation. They are the ones who become Private Investigators.

Imagine a world where you are a God and have ultimate control on what happens and more importantly, how it happens. Seems too good a dream? Now, it has come true; at least for the online world.

More than 72 hours of video content is uploaded to the internet per minute. With so much video content being uploaded, people have felt the need to download videos but most users don't have the tools to download Flash videos. So what does a user do?

Notepad, the text editor that comes bundled in Windows is an excellent tool for text editing. However, that is not the only thing which Notepad is famous for. It is also famous for its tricks and hacks. Here is a roundup of some of the best and coolest tricks that you can try using the Windows Notepad.

The internet has proven to be one of the best means of marketing. There are numerous methods by which you can market your products online. The advantage of internet marketing or online marketing is that the cost involved is lower as compared to other methods of marketing.

A day in the life of India, a campaign started by Times of India daily, has been more or less a satirical approach to all the suffering and problems in India. This video submitted for the contest shows the real state of things in India and silently passes the message that we must be the change we desire.

Just after I published an article regarding the "related-content.g?q=" 404 error, a lot of webmasters have been asking questions about it both at the Google Webmaster forums and Blogger Help Forums to know if there was a solution.

The internet isn't just a great way to shop without leaving your home, it's also a great way to save money without the tedious, old-fashioned task of clipping coupons. With a little smart shopping and a few extra resources, the internet's vast stretches can save your budget and even give you a little extra room to "splurge" after you've got all of the essentials covered.

The new Blogger Search is still in development stages and Google as always is absolutely quiet on this. However, going by the source of code of the JavaScript inserted in all Blogspot blogs, one can conclusively find a sure shot way of getting included in the Blogger related content Search and benefit from the traffic received.

After a lot of speculation over what "related-content.g?q=" was, I have finally come to know why a new piece of JavaScript was added to all the blogs hosted on Blogger. Amazingly, it turned out to be much bigger a feature than I had initially expected.

Social networking has become one of the best methods of building a strong customer and fan base. Popular social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, are helping online marketers take their products to customers. As a result, many marketers are focusing a large amount of their marketing efforts on exploiting the power of social media.