July, 2008 - Part 2

We recommend avast! anti-virus

We have been using avast! in our home computer from 2 years and its a tension free computing now, as our computer has never been infected by any virus, spyware or malware from 2 years.

Before installing avast, I use to format my Computer almost 3 to 5 times in 6 months, due to some external attacks. But after installing avast, I have not at all thought about formatting my PC. Its a kind of – “Simply install and forget”.

The impressive avast-krabice-home48 part is, avast Home edition is free to use for non-commercial, home purpose.

And avast! is offered in over 30 language versions, and you need to select the language you require before you download.

You can register avast! online, and you will get a unique, free registration key and it will only work for your computer. So, your registration key would be of no use for some one else.

After you use the FREE version of avast! for one year, all the updates will get expired and you must again register for new registration key online and you will start getting updates again till 1 year. Like this, you need to register every year.

And note that, you just have to install it, get the registration code and leave it, the updates are totally automatic(internet connection required! ).

The free version supports:-

Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows Me
Windows NT 4 (No Server)
Windows 2000 (No Server)
Windows XP (No Server)
Windows Vista

It is sad to see only the Windows OS support here.

avast-shield I have used many anti-virus programs available in the internet, and had one or the other problems…like the increase in loading time, popups, update notification etc. And the software did not work to the mark.

And in my journey of trying anti-virus programs, I got avast! , used it for almost more than 2 years now, and I am a satisfied user. And I will surly buy the paid version of avast! in the future, for commercial use.

Now I am using avast in my home computer(used for entertainment, surfing and for testing some software etc — Totally non-commercial). And on my laptop(which is used for blogging), vista firewall does all the job.

So, if you are looking for a FREE version anti-virus, with professional performance and simple to use interface, then avast! could be for you. And remember, use it on non-commercial,home computers only.

Free antivirus – avast! Home Edition features

Anti-spyware built-in	Web Shield
Anti-rootkit built-in	Automatic updates
Strong self-protection	Virus Chest
Antivirus kernel	System integration
Simple User Interface	Integrated Virus Cleaner
Resident protection	Support for 64-bit Windows
P2P and IM Shields	Internationalization
Network Shield

Tried and Trusted With over 50 million users of avast!, you can rest assured that you are using one of the most tried and trusted products in Windows security.

If you want more security, more protection and still more features, for your office or for any commercial purpose, then there is paid avast! version for it. And it would be smart to investment on buying avast! products.

Which anti-virus do you use to protect your computer ? And what do your feel about its performance, please share with us, in the comment section.

Keeping lot of things on Desktop — Not Ideal

Now a days 2GB of RAM has become the minimum requirement. And with 1GB or below RAM, if you keep lot of icons on the Desktop means the system will slow down.
Previously my desktop was also filled with many shortcut icons, many folders(which I needed frequently), and many notepad files, some games and some music files. Totally, my desktop was filled.
And I could observe that, the speed of my computer(with 512MB RAM) was getting slower. And the browser opening time also took longer time(which is the most irritating thing for me).
So I just moved all the files on my desktop to some other drives and made my desktop look clean. Now I could observe that, the speed of my computer has been restored.
So keeping many things on the desktop would slowdown performance of the computer(which has RAM below 1GB).

And having lot of icons on desktop, will make us mess up with the things and we end up not looking at many icons and forget it over time. So arrange all those important files in a folder. Learn to manage all your files in a systematic manner. It will be difficult in the beginning, but after you get used to it, you will be using all those important files without forgetting. And this practice would make you more productive.
Following such simple techniques will surly make you more productive over time and this could even save much of your time.

Keep all the image files in one folder, music files in one and the blog related files in one folder, and that too in a separate drive. This will ensure that, you won’t lose it in case you need to format your hard disk(only the drive where you have installed the OS), if there is a sudden failure in Operating System(OS).

And when you require any image for your blog, you can just search one folder and you may find a better one, than what you were looking for.

And make it clear that, there is no perfect way or one best way to organize it. It just depends on how you use and what makes you comfortable. So you think yourself rather than following some “A” grade bloggers procedures.

And remember, you may be having high configuration computer with you, but you must also learn the management skills, to manage the files on your computer. You may feel that, whats the big deal in managing computer files? But the real difficulty comes when you have large and very important files, that you want urgently. To get the things as soon as possible, you must learn and practice to manage the file in some self defined conventions orelse you may repent some day!

And send me( satish@technotip.org ) your desktop screen shots, after re-arranging the things. And it will be featured on Technotip.org with a linkback to your blog in the future post. And you can also write some points about, how you manage your frequently needed files(This will also be posted in the future blog, along with your desktop screen shot).

Hibernate – small feature, big use

This is a very common feature used by many people(even if you are not a geek). But I would still like to write about it, because this is a very small and potentially great feature available in almost all the Operating Systems now a days.

If you yet don’t know about this option, then we would be very happy to let you know about this…..

This option would save the time used to boot your computer, by resuming your works directly from the point where you left.

When your computer hibernates, it stores whatever it has in memory on your hard disk and then shuts down. When your computer comes out of hibernation, it returns to its previous state.

While shutting down your computer, select the option Hibernate, instead of selecting Shutdown. And that’s it, you are done.

Here are some screen shots..

Windows XP :-

windows-Shutdown-Hibernate

If hibernate option is missing means, here is a work around to get it in place.

Right click on your desktop, select properties. And then click on the Screen saver tab, now follow the below screen shot..

Set-Hibernate-windows

Now after you Enable hibernation option, click on the OK button. This should get you the option working.

UBUNTU screen shot below :-

ubuntu-hibernate

Hibernate option is useful in following cases :-

1. When there is power failure and the UPS backup is dying and you know that, the power will be back shortly. In this case, it will be frustrating to shutdown and again boot the computer, when power is back. So in such case use Hibernate option, to consume your time and mood.

2. It was reported in some studies that, IT and other professionals leave the computers as it is, without shutting it down(in office), just because they need to start it up again tomorrow morning. Now, this will simply waste lot of money(remember, its a national waste). So please use this Hibernate option in office, if you can’t shut it down.

3. While going for a nap. While going out for coffee etc.

4. This option is very helpful for those who have lot of peripherals connected to their computer. Like printer, bluetooth etc, which require you to install separate driver software. This will make your computer to boot slowly. In such case you can make use of this Hibernate option. And you can shut down your computer at the end of the day.

5. And if you are using different IM, and download manager, spywares, malwares, bla..bla..bla, then your computer needs some more time, after booting, to start working in its normal way. So in such case also you can make use of Hibernate option, and shutdown only at the end of the day.

Now this option is so good, then why should we ever shutdown our computer ? Lets all consume our time and do someother useful work in that time! Its right to get that kind of thoughts, but the reality is, your computer becomes slower, if you use this option all the time. Its advisable to shutdown your computers atleast once in a day, inorder to maintain its health.

But actually, personal computers are built to handle such things. And I am almost confirm that, there will be no problem to RAM, as it will unload all its content as usual, when you use the hibernate option. As I said earlier, it will unload all its content into hard disk and then load it back when we turn on the computer again. So there will be almost no effect on RAM. But still, as we know technology is not 100% perfect, its just the long, unending journey towards perfection. So I think Permanent use of Hibernate option may cause in the failure of some hardware parts(over time) and it may also corrupt the Operating System over time. I am talking about the personal computers and not the Super computers(which will be having high configuration and will not have any effect even after using hibernate option over years).

I have put only windows and Ubantu Hibernate screen shot here. If you use some other Operating System(OS), then please send the screen shots to me(with hibernate option) and you would be helping lot of people out there, reading this post.

Also share your thoughts about this article in the comment section.

Start early, drive slowly, reach safely

All young guys/girls get thrilled by hearing the word Speed. But we should also know some of the consequences of this thrilling speed before we try to indulge ourself in it. And we all love our vehicles ( Bike, car, bicycle anything for that matter), we take care of it like our wife or children.

You might have heard this line ” Speed thrills, but it kills”. And many of you might just don’t agree with it, as you have never met with such an killing incidents or accidents.

But before adopting the Speedster name and fame, just be aware of the following things….

Think about your loving parents who don’t want to see you dead on the road.
Think about their efforts to bring you up to the stage you are in now.
Think about the pain you get when you get into troubles after an accident.
Just visit and see some of the patients in the hospitals who are suffering from the accidents.
And remember that, while you are driving fast, you may also kill some innocent people(it may even include aged or new born) on the road.
Think about anyone who really loves you very much. And never think that, nobody in this world loves you. In case there are no one in this world who loves you, you should develop such a character(good) that, whoever meets you should fall in love with you and everyone should aspire to be your friend.
And think about your girl / boy friend. They will be having worst time in their life, if something happens to you. And if you don’t care for it, then you are not a perfect one for your girl/boy.
Care for all those who care for you.
Vehicles are to be used to get maximum benefits from it, and your speed must not trouble anyone.
You may get fined by cops.
You may get jailed. And it may cause unwanted troubles for all those who belong to you.
High speed is even bad for engine of your vehicle.
You may become a permanent handicap and a permanent burden to your family people. And may lose the hope in your life and your ambitions.
Fuel burns more when you drive very speed. Remember, don’t use any methods which consumes more petrol or diesel, even if you feel your life isn’t worth anything, petrol certainly is. Without fuel, almost all factories, companies will have to suffer a lot and will surly affect its economical position. And this will surly be a great problem to the next generation(or may be to our generation itself, who knows what exactly is the future? ). The only alternate is to find an alternate to petrol and diesel. Anyway, we can also contribute to the solution by driving slowly and consuming the extra unnecessary burning of fuel.
You may think that, you are looking cool while driving fast, but the reality is…..wise people will really be having a big negative impression about you.
And those who are sitting with you inside your vehicle, while you are driving, will surly don’t like your speed. And you should be caring about their safety, as they have come with you, believing you.
While driving fast, small accidents may cause big impact and big damages.
You won’t get anything after reaching a place too early. You may just endup wasting all the time that you might have spent, if you had not met with an accident.
Think about your Career plans. Will you just leave all your career and life plans, just for the sake of speed driving.
Those who drive fast will not be able to take correct decisions as soon as they come from a fast drive. This is a psychological fact and will surly affect your business.
Trying to be cool among friends and relatives, you may endup looking like a fool in any of the hospital or may be in any of the jail.

Speedster-cars-vehicles If you are participating in any legal racing competition then its an exceptional case, as there will be lot of precautions taken well in advance.

And most of the youngsters get influenced by the speedsters in films and advertisements. But bare in mind that, they will be having all sorts of training and precautionary steps and lots and lots of rehearsals and retakes(re-shootings) and more importantly they will be having a very good camera man and technicians.

Another thing that may influence us is the Games. Hope almost all of us have played games like Need For Speed Most Wanted. Yes, its a nice game. Getting inspired by any game is a common thing, as it involves lot of graphics. But you should also remember, how many times you have been caught by cops in the game and hope you can’t even remember the number of times you have met with accident in that game. Its a game and speed is OK there, but please don’t play with your and especially others life in real life by showing your craze for Speed.

You might be a perfect rider and may be best in controlling your vehicle at any speed. But remember, there are always almost endless reasons for an accident to occur when we drive fast.

Someone else on the road may get scared seeing your speed. And may come on your way by mistake.
Some dust particles may go into your eyes suddenly and you may create disaster, if you drive fast.
Humps or speed breakers may also contribute to accidents when you ride fast.
Some innocent animals like Dog, pig, cat etc may come on your way suddenly.
Small children and old people or handicap people may come on your way by mistake.

like this, there is a long list, where someone else may contribute for an accident, when you are driving fast.

If you drive slowly, you can almost control your vehicles in most of the cases. And even if you met with an accident while driving slowly, the damages caused will be comparatively lesser.

If you believe that, when death is written in a persons fate, then he will die anyhow, so lets don’t care about driving fast. This would just be a foolish excuse.

You might have heard the saying:

With effort and prayers, destiny can be attained. Start the effort.

Like wise, we should not give any excuses, we should just put our 100% effort. And the rest leave it to fate.

We know that, every living being born on this earth will surly die one or the other day. This is a universal truth. And the Irony of life is: “Everybody wants to goto heaven, but nobody wants to die”.

I can just put some horrible pictures and videos of accidents here, but I am not here just to scare you with this post. But I want to convey that, driving your vehicles fast is not good. And I will be very happy, if you adopt the mantra ” Start Early, Drive Slowly, Reach Safely”.

There will be no necessity to drive faster, if you start early. And by driving slowly there is more chances of reaching the destiny safely.

Always remember your responsibility towards the society. Following these small responsibilities will really make a country safe to lead a happy life.

You must see the people suffering from accidents live in any hospitals, until then you can’t really know the value of this post.

“Please forward this article to all those people, about whom you really care. You could be saving some of them, by making them read this article. By forwarding this article, atleast, let them know that, there is someone who care about them.”

Add Language Translation to your Website

It is notable that, the majority of internet users are from non-English speaking community. Thus, its important to take care of non-English speaking visitors.

The most popular free Web-based language translation tools are offered by Google, AltaVista Babelfish and WorldLingo and some other wordpress plugins.

But all these services may not provoid 100% perfect translation. But we can relay on Google Translator, as there is an option where anybody can suggest the correct translations, in case Google Translator has translated wrongly. So we can say that, Google Translator is a constantly improving service.

Implementing Google Translator:

Just copy and paste the code to your wordpress blog, wherever you want the translator tool to appear.


<table id=webtable><tr><td>
<img src="http://technotip.org/wp-content/themes/NewsDen/images/translate.gif" border="0" alt="Translate" /></td>
<td>
<form action="http://209.85.171.104/translate_c?="><input type=hidden name=u id=url value="<?php the_permalink() ?>" dir=ltr> <select size="4" name=langpair>
<option value="en|ar">Arabic</option>
<option value="en|bg">Bulgarian</option>
<option value="en|zh-TW">Chinese-Traditional</option>
<option value="en|hr">Croatian</option>
<option value="en|cs">Czech</option>
<option value="en|da">Danish</option>
<option value="en|nl">Dutch</option>
<option value="en|fi">Finnish</option>
<option value="en|fr">French</option>
<option value="en|de">German</option>
<option value="en|el">Greek</option>
<option value="en|hi">Hindi</option>
<option value="en|it">Italian</option>
<option value="en|pt">Portuguese</option>
<option value="en|zh-CN">Chinese-Simplified</option>
<option value="en|ja" selected>Japanese</option>
<option value="en|ru">Russian</option>
<option value="en|es">Spanish</option>
<option value="en|ko">Korean</option>
<option value="en|no">Norwegian</option>
<option value="en|pl">Polish</option>
<option value="en|ro">Romanian</option>
<option value="en|sv">Swedish</option>
</select></td><td>
<input type=hidden name=hl value="en"><input type=hidden name=ie value="UTF8"><input type=submit value="Translate"></form></td></tr></table>

If you are using blogspot.com then just replace < ?php the_permalink() ?> with < $BlogItemPermalinkUrl$> from the code and it should work fine with blogspot.

Google Translator can translate English to / from Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese-Traditional, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese-Simplified, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Swedish.
The above list and the above code will be updated, as and when Google adds some new languages into its language translation tool.

We have implemented this tool in our blog too, and its working fine. And there are many visitors to this blog, from non-English speaking countries(as per Google-analytics report).
You can test this tool in our blog. We have placed it in the right side sidebar, with the heading “TRANSLATOR”. Below is a screen shot….

Translator-tool

Note the changes that occurs after you add this translation tool to your blog/website. And please share your research and opinions about adding translation tools to your blogs / websites.

And if you have any problem implementing this tool, then please let us know about the problem in the comment section of this article, and we shall try our best to help you implement it.

Alternate to AdSense public service ads

This post has been taken from one of the Google’s official website. We have just tried to explain it in more simpler way. We just wanted to put some light on this topic and wanted to spread the message.So here we go…

Today we shall see how we can replace or redirect Public Service Ad ( PSA ) of AdSense effectively. By specifying a color, image, HTML page, or ad server of your choice, you can make sure that your advertising space is always being used effectively.
PSA are shown because, there are no relevant advertisements to be shown on your blog or you are violating certain rules set by Google Adsense.
Lets believe that we all have good contents, keywords and following all rules in our blog, but still there are chances of PSA being shown on our blog, in some other country. Because, there may not be any ads configured to show in some regions. Lets say that, some ads may work in United States, but may show Public Service Ads in India. This is because, Google AdWord players can select certain regions to display their ads. This is called Geo-targeting.
So lets see, what we can do to make sure that there are no PSA displayed in our blog, in any country.

Alternate Ads Guide

Log into your AdSense account, click on setup tab. Choose AdSense for Content. There choose either Ad Unit or Link Unit and click Continue. Now you will get the option to show alternate Ads for PSA.

Alternate_AdSense

1. Color: Choose a color from the color picker(or enter any hexadecimal color code) and it will show the solid color when there are no ads to serve. Best practice would be, to choose the same color as the background of your website, so that the ad block seem to disappear.

2. Image or non- clickable image ad: If you’d like to use an image as your alternate ad, click the Show non-Google Ad from another URL radio button and enter the fully defined URL of the image in the Alternate ad text box. A fully defined URL is one that includes the http:// and ends with the image file name. Make sure that the image has the same dimensions as that of your ad slot.or else the images would be croped to the right and bottom edges.

For example:

http://www.google.com/logos/Logo_60wht.gif

For an ad with 250X250 dimension, choose an image exactly of 250X250.

Using this method, we can show some messages like “Subscribe to Technotip.org” in image format and we can encourage them to comeback again.

3. HTML page or clickable image ad: Below image is a self explanatory tutorial….

Open a text editor (Ex:- notepad) and follow below image for coding your own HTML page.

html-demo

Use absolute URLs: Use absolute URLs when you’re coding this HTML page. An absolute URL is one that includes the entire, fully-defined path. This ensures that you won’t run into any errors when placing the code on various pages of your site.
Use target="_top": this code tells your browser which window to use when loading the destination page of your clickable image.Specifying the HTML page as your alternate ad

Now save the code with the extension .html (Ex:- alternate_250x150.html) and upload it to your server or to anywhere which is accessible from internet.(But for faster access upload it to the server where your website is hosted).

In the alternate ads text box, simply enter the fully defined path of the saved HTML page.

For example:
http://www.yoursitename.com/folder-name-if-any/alternate_250x150.html

Click Continue to add your alternate ad selection to the code in your publisher account.

Using this technique we can show some referral ads or affiliate ads or we can even generate some image ads and connect it to some of the popular articles inside our site itself.

4. Collapsing ad units:

Collapsing ad units are an optional advanced feature of alternate ads — the collapsing ad unit code will ‘collapse’ your ad unit so that it takes up no page space if there are no targeted ads available. This allows you to minimize any blank space that would otherwise occur through the use of alternate colors, as the content around the ad unit will shift up to fill the empty space.

Below are the steps to implement this:

Download the collapsing ad units file by right-clicking the link below and selecting Save Target as.. http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/google_adsense_script.html
Copy this file to any location on your domain. Important: if you are running ads on multiple domains or subdomains, you will need to host this file on each of your domains and subdomains in order to use the collapsing ad units feature.
In the Alternate Ads URL text box, enter the fully defined path to the collapsing ad units HTML file on your domain. For example: http://www.yoursitename.com/folder-name-if-any/google_adsense_script.html
Click Continue.

Remember that, if you are using the ad codes in more than one website, then you need to upload this google_adsense_script.html file to all the servers, in order to use it.

Ex:- The file

google_adsense_script.html is at

http://www.yoursitename1.com/folder-name-if-any/google_adsense_script.html

can not be used at

http://www.yoursitename2.com/folder-name-if-any/google_adsense_script.html

you should upload it to http://www.yoursitename2.com/ before using it there.

This would solve and make use of each of your adspace(filled with AdSense) effectively.

And at Technotip.org, we have left one big 300×250 adSpot without any alternate ads.Because we would like to show our support to Public Service Ads.