Tips - Part 2

How Much Is Your Tweet Worthy ?

Some time back, I wrote about a company called TwittAd that lets you auction off ads on your Twitter profile page. Now, the company is sponsoring WhatsYourTweetWorth. A site where you enter your Twitter username, and it tells you how much your Tweets are worth based on how many followers you have and how often you participate in conversation with others in twitter.

I don’t know about its accuracy. We got a 33.41$ per month. hmm..now that’s not bad, considering the amount of time I spend on twitter. This number will go high over time, if we get more number of followers and if we participate in twitter actively.

It also seems to take into consideration, how many people we are following. So I don’t know how accurate this tool can be!

As Twittad deals with advertising on users Twitter profile, whatsyourtweetworth.com helps Twittads publishers to get a rough estimation of how much money they can expect from their twitter profile in the auction.

I wonder, what would happen if they manage to get advertisers who can pay such price to advertise on a single page i.e., Twitter profile pages.

Actually we are not writing to analyze its accuracy, but we just wanted to share with you all that such a tool also exists.

Are your tweets too costly? 🙂 Follow me and drop me a line @technotip

Using #tags[HashTags] in Twitter

For those of you who do not know twitter here is a video to explain Twitter in simple, plain English.

Now a days you might have seen bloggers around the world announcing twitter contests, wherein the person who want to participate in the contest has to follow the blogger and tweet one of the message to his followers, like:

#200giveaway Just entered the Technotip.org $200 giveaway contest. You can win by following @technotip and retweet. http://xr.com/giveaway

Ever wondered how they track your tweets?
There are two methods widely used to track them.
Hash tags and Search.

Search is simple and most of you know about it. If not, then use Tweetag to search for any keyword being discussed by twitter members. To easy the job Tweetag itself tracks and displays the 40 most frequent topics being discussed on Twitter.

What is a #Hashtag?
Tweeples using “#“signs in front of “Keywords” or “Groups” and “Locations“ [This works almost similar to the tags in flickr and other services.]
For Example: recently Thin Air Summit held a conference and called their Hashtag #TAS08 for Thin Air Summit 2008.

These so called # groups are called “Hashtags“ .

Hashtags by definition are used to create real time track records of creating groups on twitter. Placing the # sign in front of keywords or targeted groups, makes it easier to track all conversations in the twitter time line via search.
The hashtag (#hashtag) provides a way for a tweet to be directed at a group and disseminated to people in that group.

Now assume that you have created a (hashtag)group #Google. If you search for keyword Google, you will get thousands of results. But if you search for #Google, you will get the messages of your group only. So this is a big advantage in tracking the tweets of your group.

I recommend using either one tag at the very beginning or at the very end in most cases and try not to put tags in the middle of the tweet – for easy and accurate tracking.

And the popular services that help you to track hashtagged tweets are hashtags.org and twittgroups.

To get started:
Follow @hashtags on Twitter. They will follow you back automatically, and your hashtags will be tracked in Hashtags.org

Its a good feature in twitter, but if used extensively it will surly spoil the twitter environment, by making it look spamy. And some spammers can also take advantage of it, by using some automated scripts(which work using twitter API) to post frequent hashtagged tweets.

You can follow us on twitter @technotip.

Use Notepad(.bat) to Shutdown your PC(Windows Only)

Today we shall see some tricks to shutdown your computer by clicking on a file that you will be creating, using notepad or any other text editor.

Open a notepad. Save it as ILOVEU.bat (any name with file extension .bat), now copy and paste below codes into the notepad and save it again..

@echo off
c:
cls
echo hey wana be friends?
pause
echo did u say no???????????
pause
echo u r hacked
echo Type some message!
shutdown -s -t 30 -c “f*ck off”

As soon as someone clicks on this .bat file, these below popup’s will be displayed..

dos-prompt-program
shut-down-bat

Other options that you can use along with the shutdown command are :
To shutdown computer -> “shutdown -s”
To restart computer -> “shutdown -r”
To logoff computer -> “shutdown -l”
To halt a restart/shutdown –> “shutdown -a”
You can use all these commands directly in DOS prompt or in a script.

You can add some more features to this notepad by reading the help topics in your dos prompt.

Just type help after you enter the dos prompt ( C:\>help ).

Not recommended:
If you remove the pause statement from above code and put this file in the startup( C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup or C:\Documents and Settings\current user\Start Menu\Programs\Startup ) folder, then your computer will shutdown(automatically) when this file loads at startup.

This article is written to teach you the method to troubleshoot your computer yourself, if someone uses this technique and creates problem in your computer.

Solution:-
Just enter into the dos mode(pre-boot mode, using any bootable disks), and search for any file with .bat extension in Startup folder. And if found, just delete it and restart your computer and it will work normally 🙂

These type of files are being sent by some anonymous people in IMs and also as attachments in emails. This could create some irritating problem and you may loose some data on your computer that you have not saved. So be careful when you get a file with .bat file extension. Better not to click on it.

PayPal Teaching Security Measures to Its Customers

Many days ago we had received an email from paypal@something.com, which said to click on a link and enter my credit card information by loging into PayPal account. We knew that the email was not from PayPal(by looking at the from address of the email), but still we clicked it to test(not recommended), and the link took us to a fake website resembling PayPal. And to our astonishment, the fake website was almost an exact clone of PayPal website. Newbies and ignorant people would just do everything the email had stated them to do and you know what will happen next!

What I did was, just entered some wrong username and password(to loginto that fake PayPal like website), guess what? Any random, wrong username and password will longinto such websites. The next thing was, it prompted us to enter our Credit Card number. There also I entered some nonsense numbers. And finally it poped up a hearty message saying “Thank you”.

We do not recommend anybody to try what we did with the phishing email link. We did all those things at our own risk.

And as this was our first experience with such phishing email, we just informed about the email and the fake website to PayPal team. And got this reply email from PayPal:

Dear Satish,

Thanks for taking an active role by reporting suspicious-looking
emails.
The email you forwarded to us is a phishing email, and our security
team is working to disable it.

————————-
What is a phishing email?
————————-
Phishing emails attempt to steal your identity and will often ask you to
reveal your password or other personal or financial information. PayPal
will never ask for your password over the phone or in an email and will
always address you by your first and last name.

Take our Fight Phishing Challenge at https://www.paypal.com/fightphishing to learn 5 things you should know about phishing. You’ll also see what we’re doing to help fight fraud
every day.

————————-
You’ve made a difference.
————————-
Every email counts. By forwarding a suspicious-looking email to
spoof@paypal.com, you’ve helped keep yourself and others safe from
identity theft.

Thanks,

The PayPal Team

——————————————————————————–

That email really made me think PayPal as more secure. As the secure feeling was still in my mind, another email was spotted in my email. Now I forwarded it to spoof@paypal.com. Now, this time I got still better reply from PayPal, which was more informative:-

Dear Satish,

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

At PayPal, we care about the security of your account. Therefore, we
would like to offer you a number of Security Tips.

The tips will help you protect yourself against various types of
Internet fraud, such as ‘spoofing’ and ‘phishing’: the act of collecting
personal and financial information through fake emails, websites and
phone calls.

Using this sensitive information, the perpetrators will try to commit
identity theft, credit card fraud and various other illegal activities.

So please read the tips below, for your own sake, and in the interest
of all PayPal users.

Emails – Make sure they are sent from PayPal

1. Always check the greeting. We will never address you with Dear
PayPal User or Dear PayPal Member. Instead, we will address you by your
first and last name, or the business name associated with your PayPal
account – except in some automatic responses.

2. Look for strange links. When you’re asked to click on a link in
an e-mail that looks like it’s from PayPal, be extremely cautious.

3. Does the e-mail ask you to enter sensitive information? If it
does, it’s not from us. PayPal will never ask to you enter:
o Bank account numbers
o Credit and debit card numbers
o Drivers license number
o Email addresses
o Your full name

4. Check for attachments. PayPal will never send an attachment or
software update to install on your computer.

5. Take your time, don’t be rushed. Spoof emails can contain a
threat: You must take action, and do it now. If you feel undue
pressure, don’t respond. Simply log in to your account, and check your Resolution Center.

Website pages – make sure that they are hosted by PayPal

1. Check the URL when you log in. When you use the PayPal service,
make sure that the URL at the top of the browser is
https://www.paypal.com/. This means the website is secure. If you see a different URL, close your browser – even if it contains the word
PayPal.

2. Look for the lock. The lock symbol that appears in the bottom
right hand corner of your browser means it is a secure site.

Passwords – keep it on PayPal

1. Last but not least, create a unique password for your
PayPal-account. Don’t use this password on any other site and don’t
share it with anyone else.

2. Change your password every month.

If you think you have received a fraudulent email, forward the entire
email, including the header information to spoof@paypal.com and then
delete the email from your mailbox.

Click the “Security Center” link on any PayPal webpage for additional
tips and tools for staying safe online.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us
again.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey
PayPal, an eBay Company
————————————————————————————————–

I was very much happy that PayPal is concerned about its customers.
Now PayPal has taken yet another step to teach its customers, to make them authority of online fraud detection and prevention techniques.

Now you can see an ad on the HomePage of PayPal and which will take you to https://www.paypal-promo.com/safety/ when clicked.

paypal-security-measure
This site is made of flash and its visually appealing and gives full information about online fraud detection and prevention techniques.
It involves “Training Center”, where it tells about online theft and protection measures etc. And next is, it has an “Safety Exam” section where you will be presented with some questions and answers(in the form of options) to test your levels of understanding about online fraud detection and prevention techniques. Next is the “Safely Calculator”, calculates “How safe your PayPal account Is?”, by determining your answers to some of the questions.
And there is also a section called “Safety Products”, which lists some of the safety products developed at PayPal Lab — Take a look at it, they may be for you.

One thing which we never knew and came to know from this website are:
PAYPAL SECURITY KEY
All agents need gadgets. Customers in the US, Germany and Australia can use the PayPal Security Key, a small electronic device that generates a unique security code every 30 seconds.
You use this security code when you log in to your PayPal account, giving you an extra layer of protection against identity theft and account takeover. Hope this feature will be available soon in all countries where PayPal transactions are allowed. And for those who are deprived of this feature presently can make use of one of their Plug-In which offers an array of security features by generating a single-use MasterCard credit card numbers to help keep your financial information’s secure.

In India RelianceMoney demat account holders have been using such Security Key to generate new password for their account every 30 seconds. PayPal taking such measures creates an healthy, secure feeling in its customers.

Update:-
Please do not even click on the suspicious links found in your phishing emails. Because now a days the scripting(script programming) has become so powerful that, if you click on such links, a worm can be placed inside your computer(which may track your activities later). Clicking on such links is just like permitting the script to access your information.

Simple Mathematical Trick — logical thinking

maths-problems Simple Mathematical Trick to write multiplication table of 9.
I have a friend who is intelligent, but he doesn’t like maths, and he is not able to learn many basic things in mathematics, So I shared many of my schooldays tricks with him and he was very happy. In all those tricks I found this one as the most simple and interesting trick. This might be an old trick for many of you, if you already know such tricks then please share it with us in the comment section. Many people who are scared about mathematics will get a lot of help from your knowledge, so please share it in the comment section.

Go through this article, if you are a computer programmer. You can use this logic to implement in your programs. And by going through this type of tricks your logical thinking ability will be enhanced and you can write better programs with minimum coding. I have already written C, C++ and Java programs implementing such simple mathematical tricks and they have very little coding and many people get stuck in understanding the logic behind those programs, but to their wonder the program will be working fine.

Here is the trick…

9 x 1 = 9

9 x 2 = 18

9 x 3 = 27

9 x 4 = 36

9 x 5 = 45

9 x 6 = 54

9 x 7 = 63

9 x 8 = 72

9 x 9 = 81

9 x 10 = 90

Now observe the results of multiplication… there are 2 digits in the resulting numbers, i.e.,

I II

———

09 = 0|9

18 = 1|8

27 = 2|7

36 = 3|6

45 = 4|5

54 = 5|4

63 = 6|3

72 = 7|2

81 = 8|1

90 = 9|0

like this it continues till infinity.

Observe the like colors above. The numbers in “blue” color are ascending numbers(arranged from the smallest to the largest number) and the numbers in “gray” are descending numbers(arranged from the largest to the smallest number) and the combination would be the multiplication table for 9, till infinity.

Above mentioned method is easier than:-

9 + 0 = 9

9 + 9 = 18

9 + 18 = 27

9 + 27 = 36

9 + 36 = 45

9 + 45 = 54

9 + 54 = 63

9 + 63 = 72

9 + 72 = 81

9 + 81 = 90

9 + 90 = 99

till infinity.

There are many such mathematical tricks to learn the basics, but I thought multiplication table of 9 is more interesting, so just shared it with you..Please share your knowledge in the comment section and you could be helping a lot of people to get through their school or/and college exams.

Tips to Optimize your Computer

optimize-ur-system
These tips may seem to be silly to many geeks, but most of the geeks also neglect these small things and frustrate later, due to degraded performance of their computer.

All these tips are applicable for the computers with 1GB or less RAM and running with single processors.

But it may help computers with any configurations over time, when there is lot of things loaded in your hard disk and RAM.

1. Don’t install unnecessary driver software….this will increase the boot time.
Ex:- Installing printer drive software, when there is no printer with you.

2. Do not keep more things on your desktop.

3. Remove unwanted software from loading as soon as your computer is started.
For windows users, goto Run -> type “msconfig“-> goto Startup tab -> there properly read the Command lists and uncheck the unnecessary applications running.

4. Select the best and install only required software.

Ex:- Do not use 15 to 20 music player software. Just use 2 or 3 good featured software.

5. Use good anti-virus, which does not slow down your PC speed. We highly recommend using Avast, its free non-commercial Home us and costs some money for commercial use.

6. Do not install the software that comes in internet as a popup. These software will usually slowdown your PC and its effect can’t be removed unless formatting your PC, if its a malware or spyware. As we can never guess exactly, what that software has done to your PC.

7. Do not leave your pen drive, card reader etc in the PC after you have finished using it.

Do not leave any CD or DVD in the drive after the use.

8. If you have put any animated background image to your desktop background, then remove it first. This will be loaded into the memory and will surly contribute for performance degrading of your system.

9. If you are a programmer, don’t forget to close the editors like C/C++, JCreator etc editors before using some other applications. This will slowdown the PC and in some cases, the system any hang.

10. Restart and shutdown your computers at least once in a day. This tip might be surprising for some of you. But remember, many geeks use the option called Hibernate instead of shutdown, so that, they can resume their work from the point where they had left.

This is a great feature, but restarting or shutting down the PC at least once in a day may help in maintaining the health of your Personal Computers.

These are some of the 10 simple tips for optimizing your computers.

But this is not the end. Now I would like to leave it to you. Please share your knowledge in the comment section and let all of us know your tip for optimizing Personal computers. And the list will grow as and when we get some interesting tip by anyone of you.

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).