Coping with Information overdose

I read and browse a lot, especially when I am travelling. This means I have access to a lot of information, from newspapers to online articles to paper cuttings. I would love to capture all this information at one place, so that I can access it when and where I want, just like I do with my Internet bookmarks.

There are many tools that let you do this, but I think Spring Pad does it better than the others. Spring Pad is a free tool for iPhones and Android phones, and it also works on an iPad. Sadly, Symbian and Java Phones will have to wait to use the app, while others can use limited features through the mobile web browser. There is an alternate tool called Evernote, which you can use across all platforms, but it is still a bit behind Spring Pad.

So how do you use Spring Pad? Let’s say, you are walking on the road and come across an advertisement that has a number, an email address and some other information you would like to capture. The more conventional way would be to grab a piece of paper and pen to write down the relevant information, or maybe just photograph the ad. But with Spring Pad, you can photograph it, tag it and save it on your phone. When you come back home, log on to the website, and you can retrieve that information, even synchronise it with other phones.



If you are looking for a recipe, search for it online and press the Spring Pad button on your browser. The app then stores the recipe, the cooking time, and the ingredients you will need, so that when you are out shopping, you can check Spring Pad on the phone and see what all you have to buy.

That's not all. The Spring Pad can also integrate with your Gmail, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter accounts and create contacts from these accounts, get calendar events from your mail and send alerts to you on your Twitter account.

Just in case you hit upon an idea and can’t access the app for some reason, you can just email it to Spring Pad and it becomes a note, which you can mark or tag later. Spring Pad also allows you to share your information with friends. You can choose what to share, and they can also share information with you. You can also create notebooks from the apps section or add more notebooks such as your household budget calculator or manage your wine collection.
The possibilities are endless, and remember, Spring Pad is still in Beta.

Sure, there is nothing like a small diary and a pen. But then, this is so much better. So what are you waiting for, get yourself a free account at springpadit.com.

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The Above article appeared in the Indian Express on Sunday 25th July 2010

Make Your Own Robot

Making your own robot might be expensive, but not that tough

Ever since man made the first machine, he has dreamt of making a robot that will relieve him of his daily chores. Industrial robots have been around for a while, so have robotic vacuum cleaners, grass cutters and toys that know how to negotiate obstacles. But a robot that will really be at par with humans seems to be still some years away. This week, I will tell you the basics about robots and maybe inspire you to build one of your own.

The heart: Microprocessor and the project board



The project board is a printed circuit board (PCB) that comes with many cavities for the different processors. It is just like any other video game, but since this is hardcore electronics, a mistake means that you will land up with a burnt unit that the radio repair mechanic down the road will not be able to fix. After this your will need to choose a processor and get some chips and cables to hook all this up.

The mechanics: Servo motors



A servo is what makes the robot move. Like other motors, this too has some wires coming out and a gear on one end to connect the other mechanical parts with it. The difference here is that the servo understands movement in angles and if you want to turn the leg or the hand of your robot forward by 10 degrees you can send it a command through your programme to the microprocessor to change the angle. The more powerful the servo, the harder the work your robot will be able to do. If you plan to build a robot that can climb stairs, not only will you need the servo to lift the weight of the whole mechanics, but also to move in half a degree steps.

The senses: Sensors



Like a human can touch, feel, see, hear and smell, a robot too will need some kind of feedback of the environment around it. In case you want it to climb stairs, you will need to provide sensors in the foot that let it know that you are now touching the surface. In case you want it to turn its head the moment it hears a sound or sees a light, you will need to put in sound or light sensors. You can even put in ultrasonic sensors so that the robot can detect if it is going to bump into something and react accordingly. But all this will make the whole system more complex and you may end up needing more than one processor – maybe one each to handle the senses and mechanics.

Control: Wireless or wired



The cool toy robots started with a wired remote control that could make it jump or walk and then switched on to wireless. With the technology available now, you can choose to integrate a Wi-fi chip to command the robot over the home wireless, or a GSM chip so that you can just send it an SMS to get things done.

Bells and whistles

Remember R2D2 from Wall-E? Well, they all had their own bells and whistles, quite literally. An LED glowing on top of the head showing it is receiving programme to a horn that blows every time it has an obstacle in front, the possibilities are endless.

Programming
This is the difficult part. After the mechanics and the electronics are all in place, you need to be able to write a programme and then teach your robot to follow it. In fact, some robot kit manufacturers give you a simulator where you can actually test out the programme on your computer before you try it out on your expensive robot.
All this might seem a bit overwhelming, but if you have a knack for electronics or mechanics and love building things you will get over the fear. For those who don’t want to build from scratch, there are kits such as Robonova (hitecrobotics.com) or the Johnny 5 (lynxmotion.com), both with dealers in India. The kits will set you back a big amount of money, but then who said robots came cheap.

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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday 13th June 2010

SIX GOLDEN RULES FOR STRONG PASSWORDS

Waking up to someone asking you for help because their password has been hacked is an unpleasant experience. But such calls are becoming commonplace, not because hackers are becoming smarter (well they are), but because people are stupid enough to keep their passwords simple.
A recently released report from Imperva (http://tinyurl.com/iepasswords) highlights that the most common password used by people is 123456. Moreover, 30 per cent of people use passwords under or equal to six characters, only 60 per cent of them use alpha-numerics and nearly half use slang words, consecutive digits and so on. That’s why I have decided to share with you the six golden rules of a good password.

Rule 1: No personal information
Don’t use your child’s birth date, or a date from your life to make a password. If you can get a clue easily, so can a person who knows you well. Hackers can gain information to your accounts, computers and even to your Facebook page.

Rule 2: Use mixed case
Now that you know you are not allowed to use your child or spouse’s name or your anniversary as your password, try using mixed case in your password. There are some websites and programs that will require you to have one capital character and a special character, but mAkE it a HabbIt as it will make your passwords a bit difficult to crack at one go.

Rule 3: Replace characters
Replace a character with another one to make a password. A simple way is to use the hacker’s language called L33T — replace an E with a 3, an A with 4. But if everyone does the same, everyone will know how to solve the puzzle. So make your own rules and stick to them.

Rule 4: Use passphrases
Quite a few companies now do not restrict the length of the password. So use a passphrase, such as ‘I love you’. You can make it 1 l0v3 y0u, but then that’s one of the most commonly used phrases. I would really go in for something like, 1 w0uld r34lly g0 1n f0r s0m3th1ng l1k3. See how simple it is.

Rule 5: Use different passwords
Well, I agree that creating a complex password will mean, that you will want to use it across all websites you use. That is a big no. Use different passwords, maybe, use a phrase from a song you love, line one on one site, line two on the other. In case you can’t remember the various passwords, there are great free utilities like KeePass (www.keepass.info) which work on Windows, Linux and Mac.

Rule 6: Change your passwords often
A big problem with people is that they find one complicated password and use it over and over again. Eventually, everyone gets to know it and it becomes easier for an outsider to learn about it. It is not really important to go out and change your passwords every day, week or a month; just do it often and try not to use the same password again.

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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday Feb 07, 2010

Staying invincible - Big Geek Brings You a Double Whammy on the Internet Explorer

Everybody knows that Internet Explorer is unsafe. But, trust me, though there are many good options, some corporations and governments still stick to Internet Explorer as their preferred browser and many applications do not work properly on any other. Also keeping in mind that IE is fully integrated into the Windows operating system and you just can't uninstall it. So, how do you make sure you are secured and have the latest updates to avoid a cyber attack?

Stop piracy
It is important to stick to genuine software. All of us want to run the prohibitively costly Adobe Photoshop to edit our pictures. But it is better to opt for freeware applications that let you do similar functions. The same is the case with operating systems. If you feel you do not want to spend on Windows, go ahead and give Linux a try. Or else, check out cheaper Starter Editions that offer limited functions but are good for home use. Anyway, make sure your OS is genuine and not pirated.

Antivirus
A good antivirus does not mean that you got it from your friend who bought a CD, it just means you paid for the antivirus or got one free from a great company like avg.com. With companies losing revenue to pirated software vendors, more and more companies are dropping prices. So it makes more sense to buy a paid version. Check with your friends and read some reviews if you can’t decide which antivirus is better. As we spend more time online and with the threats becoming more potent, it is advisable to get an antivirus with an inbuilt firewall to protect your computer from getting hijacked. While products like Bit Defender and Kaspersky are cheaper, high-end products like McAfee and Norton Antivirus will cost more. The choice is yours; just make sure you are buying a legal version.

Updates
Having a legal version of a software itself removes a lot of bugs, but it is also important to update your system regularly. Though most OS come with a built-in auto update utility, I have seen users disable this to save their bandwidth. If you want to disable the automatic update, it is suggested that you manually check for updates every fortnight. Update your OS every 15 days and your antivirus, antispyware and firewall everyday

Storage & file transfer
With the floppy drive era over, thumb drives, memory cards and Bluetooth file transfers have become the latest way to get a virus. In case you use memory cards or pen drives it is always suggested that you scan them immediately on connect. It might seem like a waste of time, but the first five minutes is when the virus enters the system. Try not to share thumb drives and memory cards. If your friend wants a file, email it to him.

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The above article appared in the Indian Express on Sunday 24th of January 2010. The Above video was a part of the news builiten on CNN IBN

How to Grow Air - Mr. Kamal Meattle

I have always looked up to Mr. Kamal Meattle and the object of making green homes / green offices is very close to me. He has done some wonderful work with the Nehru Place Greens, and his continued research has helped me with my work of turning things Green in a lot of manner.

I had a chance to meet him in person, and pick his brains, sometime back, and he was courteous enough to not only help me with my ideas, but also spend a full hour explaning things, where I was going wrong.

I just got to know about his talk on TED, and I thought I must paste it. Though this is not one of the finest ways of projecting data, but he is good with his work, and if you think you want to grow air, he will teach you how to, in the next 4 minutes.

MUCH MORE THAN A PRINTER

A guide to help find the multi-function printer best suited to your needs

THIS week has been full of calls from friends and family on advice to buy a multi-function printer. It seems the falling prices and end of fiscal discounts are making people queue up to buy gadgets.

A year back I would have suggested home users to stay away from multi-function printers (MFP). The price per print was too high, and the units too expensive — a printer scanner combo came much cheaper. But restricted spaces and the need for privacy have prompted many to look for MFPs, though the huge variety of options leaves most of them flummoxed.

Earlier, the choice used to be easy; it was either Canon, Epson or HP. Now, with Brother, Lexmark and many other brands available in the market, things have become more complex. So, what should you look for in an MFP?

PRINTER
It is no longer about a black and white or a colour printer, as most home printers can print colour. The real choice is the cartridge: whether to buy a two cartridge (CMY + BLACK) or four cartridge (C, M, Y, Black) system. All vendors offer a four-cartridge system, though your dealer may not tell you so. If you would be taking a lot of color prints, it is best to choose the four-cartridge model which gives you the option to replace just the cartridge that runs out. (Printers use four colour inks — Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. A two-cartridge system has one cartridge for CMY and another for black. If you take more prints of a redder tone, the chances are Magenta and Yellow inks will finish first, while the cartridge will still have decent amounts of Cyan left. However, you will need to change the whole cartridge anyway.) While two-colour cartridge printers are cheaper at the outset, the cartridge cost will offset the benefit in the longrun. However, it is better to choose these printers if a majority of your prints will be black and white.

STARTUP TIME
I have seen printers that take up to five minutes to power on, and get ready. So if you needed a print in a hurry, you will have to wait for the printer to warm up and initialise.

INK AVAILABILITY
Check ink pricing and availability when you buy a printer; and make sure you understand the costs involved. There is a problem of ink availability with some brands, so ensure the inks are easily available and that the company has a telephone order system.

PHOTO PRINTER
Most brands sell printers as regular small office/home printers and photo printers. Though a regular printer can print photos, they will not be as vivid as the photo printer. But photo printers will be expensive and with costlier inks. So if you plan to do a lot of photos, stick to a regular printer.

SPEED AND RESOLUTION
A resolution of 600x600 is great for documents, and a 1200x1200 resolution ideal for pictures. If you still want to buy a printer with a 3000 resolution, let me tell you that it will take longer to print, eat up a lot more ink and be expensive. So make sure you choose the resolution ideal for your nature of work — for basic photo copy and printouts a 600x600 resolution is great, a 1200x1200 should do for photo work. And don’t be bothered by the pages per minute speed if you are not going to spew out hundreds of prints every day.

SCANNER
If you are buying a multi-function printer, make sure you check the scanner. The scanning speed is of utmost importance. I have found Canon to be the fastest, scanning a colour page in less than four seconds and HP the slowest with eight seconds.

If you are going to store for online usage you only need a 150 or 300 x 300 dpi resolution. A 72 dpi scan is enough for emails. So anything above 600x600 will be a waste, unless you want to scan photos.

FLATBED OR DOCUMENT-FED
This is a complicated one. There are models that will only take documents fed as single sheets to do a photocopy or a scan. Though very fast, I would advise you to stay away from these models as they have limited use. The choice between document-fed and flatbed depends on the usage. If you run a small business from home, or are buying a printer for your office desk, the document feeder is a helpful option. But if you need to scan a stack of sheets at one go you need a flat bed.

Flatbeds come with two lid options—check if the lid is removable or expands with the book. If you are going to be scanning from fat reference books, you will need the lid to rise higher. Though there is literally no cost difference between the two options, this is an important feature buyers often overlook. Canon, Epson and Brother have expandable/removable lids on most of their MFPs. Some HP models don’t come with this option.

CONNECTIVITY
Some printers now offer either USB or wireless connectivity. Others will even offer you wired Ethernet connectivity, in the office series. The wireless option works great if a substantial chunk of your work is printing and not scanning, as most MFPs won’t support the scanner on wireless. To scan you will need to connect your MFP to a USB port. In case you have a desktop at home, buy the USB version, so that you can share the printer among your PCs and print from any laptop on the network. Remember, you will still need to pick up the print so the WiFi option may not be all that great.

MEMORY CARDS
Manufacturers still don’t allow direct prints from thumbdrives, or the option to save scans to one. But some models do come with slots for SD / MMC / MS cards. If buying such a printer, go for one which has a small LCD screen, like in cameras, to view what you are printing. Some MFPs offer PICTBridge connectivity to take prints from digital cameras.

PHOTOCOPIER
Though we buy MFPs for prints, the maximum usage will be to do photocopies. Most printers have a separate button that allows you to do a black or a colour photocopy, make sure the printer you choose has two (Color Copy /Black Copy) buttons instead of a complex menu.

WARRANTY
Most manufacturers offer at-home service — in case of a failure they will come, diagnose and repair the printer, if possible at home. Check the warranty if the service is on site or return to bench.

Since printers are used for years, check if there are options for an ex tended warranty.

TIP:Though you may be tempted to buy a photo printer, there are some online printing companies like itasveer.com, snapfish.com and zoomin.com which send home prints at cheap rates. So don’t buy a printer just for the photo prints.

Feature guide

• Will you print more in colour? Buy a model that has four cartridges


• Will you need a fax? Choose an MFP with a built-in fax


• Do you have a PC at home? Buy a USB-based device


• Will you get images to print on memory cards? Choose a printer with a card reader slot and preview screen


• Will you be printing photos? Choose a printer that can do 4”x6” borderless printing


• Will you be scanning books? Make sure the MFP has a lid that can raise itself to fit a book


• Will you be scanning a lot of single-sheet documents? An automatic document feeder will be ideal

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The above article was printed in The Indian Express, on Sunday 22nd March 2009

The rogue quartet

Last week, I told you how to save your computer from viruses. This week we will take a look at the top four viruses and malwares infecting computers in India.

Autorun malware
The most common infection is the autorun malware. Autorun is a brilliant utility built into all Windows systems, but sadly it has been causing more harm than gain in the last few years. Autorun enables designated files to run when an enabled drive (a CD or USB thumbdrive) is inserted into the computer. If your thumbdrive is infected, it will automatically run an installer infecting the PC. The autorun malware will usually download more malware, additional backdoors and password stealers, most of which also have the capability to disable your anti-virus, leaving your system vulnerable. The best way to tackle the malware is by disabling autorun.

IE start page changes
Spyware and adware often change your browser’s start and search pages. Even if you remove the malware using your anti-virus software, you will still need to reset the settings of Internet Explorer, so as to get your default pages back. For Internet Explorer 6, right-click the IE icon on the desktop, choose ‘Properties’, click the ‘Programs’ tab, then the ‘Reset Web Settings’ button and click ‘Apply’ and ‘OK’ to reset settings. In IE 7, click Tools/Internet Options in the Internet Explorer menu, click the Advanced tab and click Reset.

Downadup/Conficker
If you are on a network, or have a PC that often links to one, there are chances you may get infected by Downadup, a malicious worm that uses your computer resources to replicate, and make copies of itself. It can also include other malwares that damage both the computer as well as the network. Once executed, it disables a number of important Windows services, including automatic updates, security centre, Windows defender and Windows error reporting. After infecting and shutting down services it uses your Internet connection to download more malware. However, removal tools are available.

W32/Netsky-P
Ever wondered why there is spam being generated using your email address? Most probably, you are using Peer-to-Peer Networks to share files, or to download pirated music or movies and may have infected your PC with W32/NetSky-P. The worm copies itself to your P2P shared folders and adds files such as ‘britney spears song text archive.exe’, ‘harry potter all e.book.doc.exe’, ‘microsoft office 2003 crack best.exe’ which steal data from your local files and spreads by emailling a copy to your colleagues, with subjects such as Re: Thank you for delivery, Re: Status, Re: Notify. The worm is also known to delete registry entries. Tools to remove the worm are available on the Net.

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The above story was printed in the Indian Express on Sunday 15th Feb 2009.

How to Reset Internet Explorer Settings

Malware / Viruses at times change the settings of Internet Explorer to change your start page and your search page. At times you don't notice this, and when you do, cleaning your pc using your antivirus will remove the worm, but the settings of Internet explorer remain the same, and hence your startup / search page are the ones that the worm wanted. To reset the settings, follow step by step

IE6

1. Close IE and all other applications on your PC
2. Right-click the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop
3. Choose 'Properties'
4. Click the 'Programs' tab
5. Click the 'Reset Web Settings' button
6. Click 'Apply'
7. Click 'OK'

IE7

1. From the Internet Explorer menu, click Tools | Internet Options.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Click Reset.
4. On the Reset Internet Explorer Settings window, select Reset.
5. Click OK to exit the Internet Options menu
6. Close Internet Explorer and restart it for changes to take effect.

G

How To Disable Autorun in Windows

Removable USB/thumb drives use the Autorun feature to load files when the drives are plugged into the USB port. Malware exploits the Autorun feature to spread from thumb drive to PC. Disable the autorun feature to prevent malware from spreading.

# The easiest and most effective means to truly disable autorun can be done via this simple autorun registry hack:

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\Autorun.inf]
@="@SYS:DoesNotExist"

To use this method, Open Notepad and copy/paste the following into a text file:

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\Autorun.inf]
@="@SYS:DoesNotExist"

Save the file as something.reg. (You have to be sure to change the "Save File as Type" to "All Files" before saving, or Windows will try to save it as a .txt even if you typed in .reg.

Locate the file you just saved and double-click the file to run it. You will receive a prompt asking if you want to add the data to the registry. Click yes to allow the modification.

The above method nulls any request for autorun.inf and works on XP Home or Pro, as well as Windows Vista

There are many other ways of disabling autorun, but this is by far the simplest.

G

I suck at Presentations (Read Power Point) Do you ?

Everytime someone told me, I need to make a presentation, I shook, it was stage fright, but as a Business owner, speaker, I have had to make my way around it.. This is something I have always done, get 3 Slides

Slide1: MY Name / Contact Info
Slide2: What am I speaking about (This is constantly on the screen when I am speaking)
Slide3: End, Thank you

Simple, very Zen, but does not work for all situations, situations when someone says, hey, can you email me a presentation.. NAAAA

I have always been a speaker, put me up there and let me speak, I will make sure you know what I mean, and what my story is.. but then.. making sure you have presentation skills is important.

I have been recently reading Garr Reynolds, Presentation Zen Blog, and the Video below, from a Talk at Google makes you really see how to make a presentation happen.

So if you, like me, suck at presentations, take out an hour, and see this video.



This event took place on March 21, 2008, as a part of the Authors@Google series.

Nightmare - Acer Aspire One (AAO) Not Booting / No POST

Shocked / Screwed / ***k, what the ****, why .. why,,,, mar gaya, oh sh~t

That was the expression for me Thursday night. I had to travel to Suryavilas, in the Hills for a meeting, and my AAO (Acer Aspire One), stopped Booting, Switching on at 3AM in the morning. The machine is still under warranty but hey, I had a Train at 7:40 AM in the morning, and knowing the way Acer Handles RMA / Repair, I knew they would take 7 days to even move from their ***. So, what was the option, take my macbook along, or go without a laptop.. after all it was just for a day.. but this tech junkie, could not sleep.. a few minutes of googling around, brought me to a lot of other users making posts on similar problem faced, and then, yahoo (sorry Google), a solution found.

Turns out, this is a Bug with the Firmware, but luckily our friends at Acer, built in a recovery method, not sure if this is legal / legit, and it will not hamper my warranty, but it was the only solution available to me at 3:15 AM

Thanks to *macles, here is the excerpt, of what I did

1. Get a seperate Windows Laptop
2. Get a Thumb Drive (Pen Drive / Memory Stick)
3. Format the Thumbdrive (Dos / FAT Partition)
4. Downloaded the Latest Bios from Acer Taiwan
5. Downloaded UnetBootIn and installed it
6. Ran UNETBootIn with my Thumbdrive connected to seperate (working) windows laptop and made it bootable using FreeDos (see Screenshot below) / remember drive letter maybe different in your case



7. Copied the .fd file extracted (version number will change) to Thumbdrive, and renamed it to ZG5IA32.FD
8. Copied Flashkit.exe (extracted from downloaded bios) to the Thumbdrive
9. Ejected and Inserted the Thumbdrive into Powered off Acer Aspire One
10. Connected Both battery and AC adapter (I had as usual, taken out the battery, tried to switch it on only with AC Adapter, then left everything disconnected for sometime)
11. Press Fn+Esc, keep it pressed and press the power button to turn the AAO on
12. When the power switch light started blinking after a few seconds, released Fn+ESC keys
13. Pressed Power Switch Again
14. Waited Patiently for 5 Minutes
15. Power Button Stopped Blinking (oh my god, yeh kya ho raha hai)
16. Machine Booted, thanked Google, my lucky stars, and Macles
17. Made Sure, I write this Blog Post on my return

AAO, you rock, but hey, if this bug hits, you.. you have the solution here.

G

How to Backup your PC Online - Unpublished Indian Express Article

How to Backup your PC Online

A few days back, one of my accountants created havoc in the office, it was the next day to christmas from what I recall, the problem was, he was getting ready to file the Quarterly Tax Returns that we have to file, and he came with a sad looking face to me, I just lost all our Accounting Data, expecting that he will get a shouting from me, on how, why, aisa kyon karte ho, he was surprised to find me smiling, smiling, because everything was backed up, yes, without him having to do it, everything was automatically backed up, where, to a server outside our office, so even if he had come in, saying I burned the hard disk, we would have been covered, so how do we do it, or to be precise, how can you do it.

Well we as a company can spend resources and time to do it, and also offer this as a full featured solution to our customers to be able to do Disaster Management, but for you at home, I have a few tricks up the sleeve, that will let you do this online, without ever having to really do anything, it’s all automatic, and all for free, don’t believe me, read on.

Though if you use online office editors, such as Google Docs or Zoho, Edit Grid or one of these, your documents would be stored online, but at times you have some documents, etc that you have downloaded, and or given by a friend, that you want backed up, a very innovative jugaad, as you may call it, from my younger brother to my mother was, why don’t you email everything to yourself, but then, hey it’s all step by step, dependent manually on you, so how do we do it automatically.

So how do we do it, head on to www.mozy.com and sign up for their free plan. They have a free plan, that let’s you use 2GB of space on their servers for free. In case you need more space, you will need to depend on a paid plan. Once you have signed up, visit the email account that you used to sign up and confirm the account by clicking on the link in the email.

Once the confirmation is done, we are just steps away from ensuring that your important files are backed up. Download the Mozy client from their website, once you have the client downloaded, it will take you approximately about 3 minutes to have it setup. Then it will come up to a page to ask you to select files and folders you want to backup, select these (this is a lengthy process for it to search for files, so be paitient and let it complete it’s job)

I know most of you will just straight forward jump on to selecting everything, but remember backing up your MP3 collection may seem important, choose properly on what means a lot to you, for example, your files that you keep on your desktop, your address book, the backup of your phone data in case you have it on your PC, the documents folder.

Once the selection is made, the PC will start backing up files to Mozy’s web server, and will give you a pop up window that shows you the backup process. Now let’s setup the options so that you can have the backup done automatically. Go to the application and it’s preferences and make sure the following are setup

Goto Scheduling, and Schedule the time your Backup should be done, you need to make sure your PC is on at the time this is scheduled, I personally select a time of 11 AM daily, Also on the automatic backups, I have selected 30% in the option 1 (wait until the compute r is less than this % busy), 10 in the second option (wait until user is away from the compute for atleast these many minutes), and 24 (hours between backups)

I have also changed the option, to alert me after 2 days in case the backup has not happened. In the bandwidth let this option be, as it is set to 1 mbps, and probably the home plan you have is only 256k or 512 k, that’s it, you are all set.

Now in case you were to delete files of your computer or loose your computer, all you need to do is, goto www.mozy.com and select restore files, and it will give you 3 options, 1. To download the files using a Mozy client, 2, a web download, i.e like you download files from websites, and third to ship you a DVD (most expensive).

I personally feel Mozy is a great free service, though on the paid front, I would not really be able to comment, as I have not used it, but there are a number of other services, and a few others are coming up, so look out, and keep your data secure.

Converting VHS to DVD, the easy way

As technology advances, a lot of stuff we had grown used to gets left behind. Remember film cameras, vinyl LPs and VHS tapes? They were the rage at one time, but have now become just memories.

A lot of my readers have sent me e-mails asking how to convert VHS tapes into DVDs. But I have always shied away from this topic since it involves a lot of complexity. Then, Eureka!, one morning I just woke up with a simple idea on how to do it. And here it is, the easy way to convert VHS to DVD.

This is what do you will need:
*Pinnacle Video Transfer
*USB hard disk
*PC with a DVD writer, Windows XP or Windows Vista
*The Film Machine software
*Some patience and time

I have in the past reviewed the Pinnacle Video Transfer and if you have not bought it till now, this is another reason for you to buy it. The gadget, now available easily across India at a cool price of Rs 9,000, not only records your TV/DVD to a USB hard disk but will also record any video that you have in composite or S-Video.

So how do we get started?
*Get the Pinnacle Video Transfer connected to your VCR
*Connect an External USB hard disk to the Pinnacle
*Load the tape that you wish to transfer to DVD
*Now press the centre button on your Pinnacle Video Transfer and play the tape, the contents of the tape are now digitised and stored on the hard disk in MPEG4 format
*After the playback of the movie is finished stop recording on the Pinnacle.
*Disconnect the hard disk from the Pinnacle Video Transfer and connect it to your PC, move the file you just created to your PC
*In case you just wanted to save the file, so that your rotting VHS Tapes and VHS Player can now be history, your job is done. You can double click the file and watch it on the player of your choice.

The tricky part comes if you want to convert this file into a DVD. You should have a DVD writer in your PC and a good software like The Film Machine (TFM), which you can download from http://members.home.nl/thefilmmachine. The software is about 29 MB in size. Though it is not a fancy looking piece of software, its functionality and the fact that it’s free are great reasons to have this conversion software.

Install TFM and make sure you read the manual on the site. Fire up TFM, select the file you saved, press Next and select where the output file will be saved. Select output type MPEG2 if you are creating a DVD and MPEG1 in case you are creating a VCD.

Select the AC3 Encoder you want to use, stick with 4:3 as the aspect ratio and leave other options on default. Press Next, and make sure you select “don’t burn DVD” as I don’t’ really like this part of the software. Fire up, and let it convert the file from MPEG4 to DVD format.
Now all you need to do is, fire up the DVD burner software that came with your DVD writer. In case you don’t have one, you can download a free version from http://www.deepburner.com/ and use it to burn this file into a DVD. You can now enjoy your favourite classics on DVD and relive old celluloid memories.
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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday 2nd November 2008

HOW TO CUT DOWN ON YOUR INTERNATIONAL PHONE BILL WITH SKYPE

I don’t think there are a lot of people who have not heard of Skype. But they don’t use it either because they don’t really want to switch on their computer to make a phone call or because they don’t realise how much money it can save them.
So how does a person like you save money on calls without having to keep your PC on always, then hunt for a microphone and speakers and to make sure they are all fine-tuned so that your call can go through.

Alternative 1: Get yourself a Windows smart phone with Wifi built in. Browse to www.skype.com and download the version for your smartphone, login to Skype and get the Skype ids of those you want to call. I would not suggest using Skype on GPRS, but if you have Wifi at home and a Windows Mobile, this is the best and the fastest method to go online. Remember that when you are making a Skype call, you can either use the Bluetooth hands-free or use the set of speakers and microphone built into your phone.

Alternative 2: Get yourself a Skype phone. Netgear, Linksys and Belkin sell it across India now. The cheapest is a Belkin phone priced at about Rs 8000; Linksys and Netgear retail at about Rs 12,000—in the US, these cost just half as much. Buy the wireless variety; the wired one will require you to switch on your PC. Your phone will use the wireless access point you have at home for the Wifi network, and logon to the inbuilt Skype so that you can make Skype-to-Skype calls.

So what happens in case the person you are calling does not have Skype? Skype offers two great services, Skype Out and Skype In. The Skype Out service is the cheapest and the most reliable VoIP provider I have come across. It enables you to make a call to the US for as little as 2 Cents a minute, or Re 1 per minute, if the person you are calling does not have Skype. You can call a landline or a cell phone, but do not use this to call someone in India and do read the tariff sheet on skype.com for more details. With Skype Out, you can make free Skype-to-Skype calls and call regular numbers. There are also plans that will let make unlimited calls to a specific country for a fixed monthly plan. The Skype In service allows you to take up a number in the US, the UK, Hong Kong or 18 other countries. For the person -calling from that country, your phone is a local call. So you are in effect just a local call away from your siblings or children living in the US. And it’s all legal.
Enjoy the flat world with Skype. ...

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The above article appeared in the Indian Express dated October 5th 2008

The clean-up drive : How to rid your PC of viruses in seven steps

How to rid your PC of viruses in seven steps

OUR computers are a lot like our body, they also go down with virus attacks, and are often tormented by zombies and trojans. Not surprisingly, a bulk of the mail that I receive in reference to my article each Sunday is related to virus infections, malware, badware, bots and what-nots.

A lot of us techies will advice you to format your system, forget about your data, and start afresh. Others will genuinely want to help you out. But the truth is, it takes a lot of time to clean a virus mess. So this week, let me tell you how to do it.

Assumption 1: I am going to do this article around Windows XP, the most penetrated platform in India. It can also work with Vista, but not as successfully.
Assumption 2: You already have some kind of antivirus installed. In case you don’t, then we will install it, but you will need to skip steps 1 and 2.
Assumption 3: You have an antivirus software on a CD—not the pirated kind. If you don’t, ask a PC enthusiast to send you one, or maybe buy one of those computer magazines and use its CD.
Step1: Close all programs, except Windows.
Step2: Fire up whatever antivirus you have installed. If you don’t have any, skip to step 3. Go into antivirus settings and enable deep mode scanning—some antivirus scanners will warn you that this is slow, ignore the warning. Now, look for the action option—what to do if a virus is found. Change this to ‘quarantine’ (do not set it to delete, not yet). Run the scan. Shut off the monitor, just the monitor. Leave your PC alone for anywhere between one to three hours, depending on the size of your hard disk.
Step 3: Turn on the monitor. If it’s still scanning, leave the PC alone for some more time. But if it’s done, open up the quarantine report, and see how many files have been moved. These are the dangerous ones. If nothing comes out of this scan, well you are lucky.
Step 4: Shutdown your PC, and restart. When the PC is starting, press the F5 key to boot the PC in safe mode. Once in safe mode, it will give you a warning that some things will not work. Now go to Add/Remove Programs, and uninstall your antivirus; this is an important step. After you remove the antivirus, you need to restart your PC in safe mode, remember to keep the F5 key pressed.
Step 5: Once restarted, put in the antivirus CD—please don’t use a thumbdrive/pen drive for this—and install the antivirus, preferably one of the free ones like AVG Free, Bit Defender Free Edition, or CA Antivirus Free Edition. Once installed, run deep scan again. Since your PC is in safe mode, and most of the old files are already in quarantine, this will be faster than the last time.
Step 6: You will see some results, move all of them to quarantine, and then shutdown your PC. Reboot it in normal mode.
Step 7: In normal mode, connect to the Internet and update antivirus. Once updated, run a full scan again. Sometimes it will find more threats, but this is unlikely if you have used the latest CDs.
Done. Your PC is now clean. In case you still have some viruses, or are getting too many errors, you will either need to format the PC or get an expert to clean it for you. But if you do the above steps, scan your PC regularly, stay away from downloading unnecessary utilities and backup often, you will not lose much data.
Happy computing.
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The Above Article appeared in the Indian Express, on the 3rd August, 2008.

THEM CLONES

Statutory warning: This article is not to be taken to mean the column is encouraging piracy.

That said, let me add that there are times when you do need to back up those DVDs of your favourite movies in case your careless niece leaves it to the mercy of the dog.

Happily for us, DVD writers don’t cost much these days and with writable DVDs available for as little as Rs 7 per disc, making a duplicate copy of a movie can be an easy home project.

But did you know you can’t really copy a DVD directly as they are protected? That is a problem of sorts. However, there are ways to bend the system, so to say.

The first step is the arm ourselves with a software called DVD Shrink. It’s available for free on the Internet, so all one has to do is to go to http://tinyurl.com/dvdshrink and download it. We need some utilities. So, go to http://tinyurl.com/vobtool and http://tinyurl.com/dvddecrypt. While downloading and installing them, remember to instal DVD Shrink the last. Once installed, set a few preferences. For this, you will need to press Edit and Preferences.
Set target DVD size to DVD 5 (4.7GB).
Check Hide Audio and Subpicture Streams of Insignificant Size.
Check Automatically Open VIDEO_TS subfolders.

Now move on to the Preview Tab, and make sure you select Stereo Stream, not 5.1. Next go to the Output Files tab and put a check mark in Remove Macrovision Protection. Leave the rest of the options as Default and press OK

Once this is done, you can start work on backing up the DVD. Click on Open Disk and you will get a list of available DVD drives on your PC. Select the one that has the movie. Press OK, click on the Open Files button. This will open the Video_TS directory. Select the file that you see. The software will then run some quick analysis. Just let it do its work, which is not a long process.

Once the analysis is complete, we can go ahead and select the movie subtitles that we want to save as well as the sound tracks. DVDs can store data in more than one language on its sound track, but when you want a back up it is possible that you don’t want the French or the Chinese versions. Since all you may want is the version in English, why clog up the disc unnecessarily? The screen is split into five parts. On the left, you can see the disc structure, Menu/Movie/Extras. If you don’t want to the Menu and Extras in the back-up, you can deselect them on the right by unchecking the boxes on the file details. Similarly in the main movie, you can uncheck languages that you feel you don’t require.

On the lower left you will see the preview of the movie, and on the bottom a bar that shows you the disk capacity. If the bar is red, it means you have more content than the blank DVD can hold. You could try deselecting some unneeded options to bring down the size of the file. It it’s green, it’s time to go to the next step

Click on the Backup Button at the top and it will start to make a copy of the DVD’s content. And soon enough, you have the clone of the original disc.

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The Article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday, July 6, 2008

Virtual access: Using Logmein To Access your PC

Access a file on a computer from one that is some place else
I work in a technology services company and the most essential part of my daily routine is to be able to access data from wherever I am. Since most of this is work-related, I end up spending quite a lot of time on the computer. But then I can also remember those days—and I think most people do have those days—when I have a file that I need at work on my home computer. It is that important presentation I have worked on all night and, dang it, I even forgot to copy it to my pen drive.

In such a situation, what do you do? I think there are two options:

Call wife / sister / parents at home, ask them to go to your PC, look for the file and email it to you. This is the most simple solution, but it often does not work. Most of the time, the file cannot be located. And then they find something that they should not be looking at, and the conversation takes a different angle. There is also the possibility that the folks at home are tech savvy at all and operate a computer.

Take a cab/ train back home, go pick up the file in your pen drive and head back to office. In the old days, this was a feasible option, but with distances between work and home increasing, and commute times logging over an hour or so for most of the people, this option could be out of the question

If this is a situation that you often find yourself in because of forgetfulness or because you work on more than one computer, there is a third option to getting the required file—and best of all it’s free. Though there are paid versions of the software that facilitates this, for a home user I think the free version—admittedly with less features—works pretty well.

Head to www.logmein.com. There are a number of softwares available on that site. The one we need is Log Me In Free. To get this click on “Products”, and the select “Log Me in Free”. Note: Download this on the PC that you will want to control remotely, not on the PC from which you will be controlling.

For the downloaded, you need to sign up first. Click on the download link and it will take you to a form. Fill in your email address (this is going to be your user name), then type in a password (make sure this is secure). Select your country, and then fill the other two boxes, and click on create account. Once done, this will bring you to a new screen, which will give you the option of adding a computer. Click on “Add computer” and it will start to download a software on your PC. Download this, double click and install, and you are all set up for a hassle free future.

Whenever you need to access the PC on which you downloaded the software from your office computer, open www.logmein.com using your favourite Internet browser, log in with the email ID and password that you had entered earlier—and you will see your computer. If your home computer is switched off, you will not be able to access it. So ensure it is on—either keep it on or ask someone to switch it on for you. Click on to your computer, select “Remote Desktop”, and voila, you have the home desktop on your office computer.

Go ahead, transfer files, or maybe browse a website, that your corporate LAN does not allow you to do from the office or check on the status of the downloads you had programmed your PC to do.
Happy virtual desking.

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The Above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday, June 1, 2008.

How to record streaming audios: Reader Query Answered

Now record favourite songs from MP3, radio or podcast sites

I remember the days when two-in-one audio systems allowed you to record your favourite music and listen to it over and over again. It was a time when kids worked hard at their song compilations and people with two-cassette decks were considered fortunate. Then came the CDs, people moved to recorded songs on MP3 players, and today, listening to radio on cell phones has become a fad.

When I recently switched to a Mac, I not only fell in love with it but also with the Internet radio channel while listening to iTunes. I, of course, had iTunes on Windows, and similar programs on Linux, but with over 200 channels beaming my favourite hits from the 1950s through the ’80s, I wanted to grab my two-in-one and record the songs. So this week, I shall tell you how to record streaming audios from MP3 sites, radio sites or podcast sites that don’t let you download—all without spending a dime.

Since most people these days are Windows users, I shall target this piece at them. The first thing you need to do is get your hands on a nifty little software called Freecorder. To do so, go to www.freecorder.com. The download is free, without the risk of viruses and without limitations. Click on the “get it free” button and once you have downloaded it, open the file. Then select the option to install all your browsers (I selected both Internet Explorer and Firefox and suggest you do the same).

Once installed, it will automatically launch your default browser (Firefox or Internet Explorer), and take you to a survey page. If you want to, you can fill it, otherwise click on the link that says “quick start”. Press “continue” at the bottom of the page, go through the page that comes up, and if you want, read the Toolbar FAQ.

Now head to your favourite online radio site. If you don’t know of any, a good place to start is www.live365.com (though some stations require membership, they have a lot of free stations too). Browse through the stations and when you press the play button, you will see options like Record/ Stop/Pause/Play and settings come up on your browser. These buttons will help you record. (As some stations are added by default, you can add your station to the browser toolbar).

A normal user doesn’t need to change the settings. But if you are like me, you will want to do it. In this case, press the settings button and you can play around with the way Freecorder records and saves your files. Once you are ready to record, all you need to do is press the red record button. If all goes well, you will see a VU meter with a wave form. If you don’t, go back to settings and make sure the option “Record from freecorder input audio driver” is selected. If you hadn’t done it, select it and record again.

The file will be saved to the directory in the settings. To know how well you fared with your recording, press the stop button on the station you are listening to, and then press the stop button in the Freecorder toolbar.

Pressing the play button in the freecorder toolbar will take you to the directory where your recording is saved. Double click and listen to the song you just recorded.

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The Above Article was Printed in the Indian Express, on Sunday, May 4, 2008

How to fix a laptop that’s run out of juice

I tried to Answer the question that has bothered a lot of Laptop users, how to squeeze, more Battery time, out of your laptop

Every laptop owner I know of has asked me this question: why does a laptop begin to lose steam after six to nine months of use? With reducing battery time and no back-up, some prefer to swap the old battery for a new one. While in some cases the battery may actually be dead, there are ways to maximise the usage time, especially if the laptop is not more than a couple of years old. The following tips are designed for a Windows XP user, but even if you are using Linux, Windows Vista or a Mac laptop, you can implement them. Here’s how:

Use the Power Management software. Every Windows copy has one installed in it, but some OEMs also bundle it in their utilities. Though these work, I don’t find them very useful. A good utility is the Speed SwitchXP, which you can download from http://tinyurl.com/28ngz. It works only on Windows XP and will let you choose multiple profiles, from Dynamic Switching to Maximum Performance, and will help you drive up your battery time.

Dim the screen. If you are watching a movie in a lounge, it might be a little difficult, but if you are working on a machine, a 10 per cent or a 100 per cent brightness is not going to alter how a spreadsheet or a Word document looks like. This is one of the best battery time savers, and all laptops have a smart function key to increase or reduce the screen’s brightness. On my IBM laptop, I squeeze in an extra 20-30 minutes with a dimly lit screen.

Unplug all extra attachments. Remember that the data card or USB dongle to connect your cell phone through Bluetooth eats up battery power. If you are offline and don’t need the Internet, then eject the data card. This will increase your battery time by 5-10 per cent. Also, if you disable the optical drive (CDROM / DVD ROM) in the PC (go to My Computer, right click, move to Properties, Device Manager, expand the CD-DVD ROM section, right click and click Disable), it will save you another 5-10 per cent of power.

Every few months, take the battery out of the socket and clean the contacts using a plain tissue paper. Make sure you don’t use wet tissues or one sprinkled with perfume when you clean the connectors.

Charge and discharge your battery frequently. Most users keep their laptops plugged in all the time, which causes the battery to remember its minimum discharge position, also called Memory Affect. If you are a casual or a heavy user, try to use the laptop without the adaptor till the battery runs down to about 10 per cent of its capacity. Then plug it in again and it will help maximise the battery life.

These steps will not increase the battery time from one hour to a 20-hour backup, but it will ensure at least two extra hours of usage time.
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This article appeared in the Indian Express on Sunday, 2nd March 2008

How to download videos from YouTube

Youtube has changed the way we perceive entertainment. The videos on the site are funny, intelligent and wonderful enough to share with friends. But there’s a problem: every time you want to view the videos or show them around, you need to be online. And Internet connections are neither reliable in terms of speed or uptime, nor are they cheap if you are on a pay-per-use plan. So what do you do to download the videos to your PC?

The new iPods, including the iPod Touch, can play these videos, but it’s unlikely you will buy an iPod for that reason alone. Besides, what if you want to watch a video which is not on YouTube, but on Google Video or MySpace, or any of the other video-sharing sites. If you, like me, have faced this problem, here’s a practical solution. And no, you don’t need to spend money on it. Here’s how you can download the videos:

First, you need the Firefox Web browser from Mozilla. If you don’t have it yet, this is one more reason to do so, besides the fact that it is fast and efficient to download. Just go to www.mozilla.com and download it for free. If you already have Firefox, make sure it is Version 2, or just go ahead and download the update.

Once you have the Firefox on your PC, download a tool (or an add-on) called the DownloadHelper. To do so, go to http://tinyurl.com/2zj6z5 and click on the ‘Install Now’ button. A window will pop up, warning you to install softwares that you trust. Don’t worry, there is no virus here. After installation, which should take about a minute, Firefox will have to be restarted. Do so by clicking on the Restart Firefox button.

Once the Firefox has restarted, you are more or less ready. You now need to download a player that will allow you to play the FLV files (YouTube and other flash videos). You can play them on your regular Media Player, but it will require a Codec. I suggest you use a free player like the FLV Player for which you have to open the page in http://tinyurl.com/j54bt. After downloading the player, set it up.

To get the video from YouTube, go to www.youtube.com and browse to the video you want. Once you are on the page that has the video, go to the top of the screen where you will see the three balls of DownloadHelper change from grey to some other colour (see image). Click on the down arrow next to the coloured balls, select the file and download it.

Save it on your desktop or any other folder. Remember that each video file is about 5 MB or more, so it will take time to download. Once this is done, double click on the video and it will open in the FLV player downloaded earlier.

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The Above Article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday, Feb 3, 2008