software

Getting CRC Error While Extracting Files?

Have you ever experienced the pain and frustration because you spent literally days to download some software, songs or a documentary movie and to your disappointment got a lot of CRC errors while extracting?

Well I am not sure about what’s the cause for CRC Errors, but there is a solution which works most of the times. You better give it a try before trying to re-download the beast and get the same CRC Errors!

Possible Solution
If you are using winrar, then right click on the file to be extracted and then select Extract files.. option. Once you select this option, you will be presented with a window with whole lot of options. Most of the times people don’t have time to look at all these optional options, so they hit Ok. This process is fast and fine if your files don’t have CRC Errors.

If you do have CRC Errors, then, as shown in below image; check the Keep Broken Files option and then hit Ok. Now don’t be surprised when you get the same errors which you got previously. Be patient and look at the extracted files. Most of the times it shows the errors but it successfully extracts all the files.

Now the trick is: if its some sort of video files, then it may not play in your regular player. Some players might strip the audio because of small errors in the extracted file. With out breaking your heart, just play these files in different media players and you will get the video and audio in one or the other media player. Try VLC player, Media Player Classic or there are many other commercial media players which have the capacity for error detection and correction(if its minor).

Same technique works with WinZip software. In the options select Keep Broken Files and then extract.

This simple process will save hours and hours of your precious time and bandwidth. There are some rar or zip file repair software, but will talk about it in another blog post. For now, keep this simple technique in mind and save yourself from repeated downloads.

Tip: In winrar, if you are extracting files which has a long file name, it starts giving errors. To solve this problem, you can simply rename the .rar file and give some short name before trying to extract it or use 7zip software. 7zip is open source and is highly efficient.

Use Mobile Phone as a Webcam

This is a guest post by Keith Palmer. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

If you want to use your camera phone as a web camera, I assume that you are advanced enough to follow below instructions.

Webcams themselves can be expensive, at least for a high quality one, and wireless webcams can be even more expensive (not to mention rare). Most of us already own several cameras and don’t really want to invest more for a webcam. If you have a cameraphone running WindowsMobile 6.x, Symbian, or Java (I’ve used a new Nokia c6), as well as a Bluetooth enabled computer or laptop, and you can use some nifty software to turn your phone into a wireless webcam.

You can download the PC software at sourceforge, and the phone software here. Install both pieces of software on their respective hardware, and then pair your phone with your computer over the Bluetooth connection. You will need to make sure that both are set to be publically visible, and that you know the password for both Bluetooth connections (if applicable).

Running the actual software and connecting it to your phone is pretty easy. Run the SmartCam software on both your computer and your phone. On the computer side, go to the Settings dialogue under the File menu, and then choose Bluetooth as the method of connection. On the cell phone, simply choose the computer from the list of visible devices (do make sure that your computer is visible as a Bluetooth device).

Assuming that everything above has been done properly, you should now see your phone as a webcam and be able to use it with video chat applications, as well as record and save video streams from it. This is really great because having the wireless feature makes it a lot more versatile than traditional webcams, and having the camera in a small, lightweight phone makes it easy to move around, and set up in different locations. Nowadays, more and more phones have video chat features built-in, but not all of them do, and so this is a great way to get around that limitation. Even though phone camera quality isn’t that great, webcams generally aren’t high quality, and don’t need to be, because of the limitations of most people’s bandwidth. The one thing about this kind of setup that might limit the quality is the Bluetooth connection, as it is not made for streaming large amounts of data. However this is a great way to add an extra feature to your phone, and it does work pretty well.

Keith Palmer is a student at technology science class. He writes tutorials and reviews for warious magazines and websites. At this point he writes tutorials for mobicity

Save Self Hosted Email Accounts from the Spam Monster

This is a guest post by Selena Narayanasamy. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

At the bane of any business’ existence is the dreadful spam email that crowds its inbox and seems to multiply exponentially, even after it’s deleted. The annoyance of receiving unwanted emails and their accompanying links makes any business owner (or even someone who is using hosted email for personal use) almost desperate to find software mechanisms to help avoid dealing with this time-consuming task. Of course, there’s the problem of real mail getting lost in spam too… but that’s a story for another day.

Avoiding Spam Mail
Self-hosted email accounts are especially vulnerable to viruses and attacks, because they often lack the applications and software that larger companies use for security purposes. Whether that’s due to budgeting or personal preferences, self-hosted accounts should take the same precautions to guard against spam as any other.

One of the first things a business should do at its setup is to install anti-spam software on all its systems. Anti-spam software acts proactively by preventing unwanted spam mail and junk email from getting to the email inbox. Most software includes preset filters for tracking and deleting spam, and they also send reports to the sender’s Internet provider. This action should discourage those annoying emails at best while filtering through what is and what isn’t relevant to the business.

Customizing Spam Software
Self-hosted email accounts can also easily customize anti-spam software to filter information based on the email subject, words, or even domain name. This should make it easier for a company to receive the emails it needs and delete those that it doesn’t. This is important to ensure the system doesn’t delete emails that come from clients or prospects. You’ll have some pretty irate clients on the other end, and you may lose out on some good business as well. A business can program the software to initiate at the computer’s startup, which will essentially prepare your email communications on a daily basis using a clean slate.

Email filtering software works in the same way as anti-spam software by organizing its features according to a pre-set list of criteria. When an email arrives, the software will categorize it and send it to the proper folder, eliminating the need to have to go through each piece of mail and manually file it. Depending on the sophistication of the software, the program used can perform certain functions to ease the transition of dealing with particular emails. Some programs will do the following things:

1. Automatically delete the email or file it according to certain keywords or domain names.
2. Instantly reject any emails that originate from a particular sender.
3. Redirect, filter, or edit the message during processing, eliminating the need for it to ever arrive in the recipient’s inbox.

When setting up the account filters, check that there is not too much protection installed. While spam protection is very important in a business’ setup, too much email filtering can cause a business to miss important emails. A company should ensure the software is as generic as possible in filtering keywords so the system will not eliminate important information.

Usually, the email hosting company a business uses will offer anti-spam features to attract customers. When a business installs anti-spam systems and software alerts, it should have an efficient way to eliminate and avoid spam emails while allowing important information through. Make sure you do your research and find out exactly what self-hosted email accounts offer you. It will save you time and keep you from banging your head against the wall when you have piles of spam to sort through.

Selena Narayanasamy loves everything technology, productivity, blogging, social media, caffeine and being sarcastic. You can find her blogging on her social/tech site, Esvienne, or listen to her musings on Twitter- @SelenaVidya

20 Years of Partnership Ends: Oracle & Sun Microsystems

Oracle Corporation and Sun Microsystems Inc were business partners from over 20 years and now they have entered a definitive agreement and Oracle is standing on its toes to acquire Sun Microsystems.
We had previously seen many acquisition by Oracle. It use to purchase other small data base related companies and now it has targeted a really big deal.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Oracle Corporation announced on Monday April 20, 2009, that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt.
Source: Sun.com
Oracle-SunMicrosystem-deal

Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database. With this acquisition, Oracle can work to further optimize its database for Solaris, with continued support to other open source Operating Systems.

With this acquisition, Java would be the asset of Oracle, and thus we can now see Oracle in almost all the new devices like mobile phones, micro ovens etc.

This deal is almost a confirmed one, but it still has some pending formalities. And the most important factor now is the approval from Sun stockholders. With this acquisition Sun stockholders will also be benefited, so things may just run smoothly.

We expect Oracle’s support, innovation and investment in Java technology for the benefit of customers and the Java community.

Now the big question comes for bloggers:
An excerpt from Matt Mullenweg’s blog:

A number of people have contacted me with questions to the effect of “Oracle is evil, they now own MySQL, WordPress runs on MySQL, OMG! What’s next?” In addition to the millions of WordPress blogs all using MySQL, all of the projects Automattic contributes to are MySQL-based and we run more than 250 servers dedicated to MySQL.

Here is what Matt Mullenweg has to say about it:

Today our servers are running various versions of MySQL, tomorrow they’ll be running the same thing, and if need be ten years from now they can run the exact same software. Because of the GPL every WordPress user in the world is protected — we’re not beholden to any one company, only to what works best for us. Today that’s MySQL, tomorrow that’s MySQL, a year from now we’ll see. read more at ma.tt

3 Mobile Apps that I use and recommend

rw_nokia6630_keypadcloseup I am currently using Nokia 6630 and 3 applications that I most use on my cell phone are:

1. Opera mini — The fastest and the powerful browser for Symbian 60 serious.

2. FS Caller.

3. Nimbuzz / free download — This is an ultimate software for mobile phones(which has internet connection). This software is an all in one package. You can stay connected to your friends using its Orkut, Facebook, yahoo! messenger, Skype, Windows live messenger, Gtalk, AIM, ICQ, Jabber etc. And you can call, chat from mobile to PC with anyone(who has this apps on PC) and anywhere. Its camera(webcam) feature is an ultimate thing I have seen so far, in a mobile software. If you have a mobile with internet connection, then do not miss installing this software. And happily it costs nothing. yes its a free to use software.

And I use some more common software like FileMan, SmartMoviePlayer, and very few games. And I am not a big fan of music players, as the music files work perfectly in my default player of Nokia 6630.

I will be online most of the times using my mobile, using Opera-mini. I usually visit many blogs and read articles regularly using my mobile. When I am in front of my Computer, I concentrate only on writing articles. And I visit and read a few, selective blogs from my computer.

These are some minimum things I use in my mobile.

I know that, there are people who make use of many applications in their mobiles. If you are one among them or if you know any application, that you think will be useful for others, if you share it here, then please share the information and the link to get the application in the comment section. It would be appreciable, if you also share, how you make use of those applications..