All PC Tips

Using VoIP two internet uses can communicate with each other via their, computer, mobile phone, video phone etc. They can see each other face to face and chat with each other as if they are in the same room. Many companies have provided free application to enable this VoIP communication. But Skype leads them all in terms of functionalities and market share.

Now Skype has come forward to provide their Skype service via TV. Skype has agreements with LG and Panasonic TV manufacturers as they are producing TVs with internet connectivity. Now you can make video calls via internet TVs. When Panasonic introduced 2010 Viera Castenabled HDTV, they announced that using this TV skype can be used. This model will be available commercially very soon.

Similarly LG launched their ‘Netcast Entertainment Access’ TV with internet access. LG also announced that Skype can be used from their TV. Therefore these TVs will come with a microphone and a camera to enable video calls. Panasonic TVs with Skype will be available in March and LG TVs with skype will be available in April 2010.

In a recent report by McAfee, it warns that Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader maybe a likely target for the hackers this year. These hackers usually targeted Microsoft products to hack. They try to identify the security loopholes in these files and try to compromise the security by developing malwares and viruses that will exploit these applications. But recently adobe flash and adobe readers are widely in use today and therefore hackers have turned their attention towards these programs.

Another reason could be that Microsoft has continuously improved their software and applications by providing patches and upgrades that have reduced these loopholes tremendously. The CEO of Adobe has accepted that hackers have turned their attention towards their range of products.

McAfee has also identified instances where hackers have compromised Apple’s Quicktime and Mozilla’s Firefox. Additionally social networking sites such as twitter may also be a likely target.

Almost all browsers today use the tabbed browsing concept. So you only open a single browser but open multiple tabs each pointing to a different website. This is of course a good thing. But the more tabs you use, the more RAM memory the browser will be consuming.

At any point of time you can only view a single tab. However all the other tabs that are open are also consuming RAM memory. To solve this problem the TooManyTabs addon can be used in Firefox browsers. What it does is to create a waiting lounge where all unused tabs are parked. These parked tabs will appear as open but will be inactive. They will become active only when the tab is activated. This greatly reduces the RAM memory usage increasing the computer performance. This addon creates a toolbar just above the normal tabs. You can just drag and drop the tabs that you want to park, into this toolbar. Then when you want to reactivate the parked tab just drag and drop from this toolbar back to the normal tabs space.

msconfig is the Microsoft System Configuration Utility. In Windows Vista and Windows 7 it is called as ‘System Configuration’. This is a tool that comes with the Windows Operating System. For Windows 2000 users this tool can be downloaded from microsoft website. This is used to configure and maintain your Windows System. In this tutorial we can see how to use this tool.

To start this tool goto Start->Run and type ‘msconfig’. A new window with five tabs will open.

1. General Tab: This tab has three sections. Normal Startup, Diagnostic Startup and Selective Startup. When Windows functions normally we use Normal Startup. When the system doesnt function properly, we can use diagnostic startup to diagnose the issue and to troubleshoot. If we want windows to start with specific programs then we can choose Selective Startup.
2. Boot Tab: This tab shows the operating systems installed in the computer. Additionally we can choose options such as ‘safe Boot’, ‘Boot log’, ‘Time out delay’. If you are a new PC user then it is best to leave this tab without any changes.
3. Services Tab: This tab lists all the services installed in this PC with the details such as whether the service is running or stopped etc. From here you can enable or disable services. You can check the ‘Hide all Microsoft services’, to hide all essential windows services so that you don’t change them by mistake. From here you can identify unknown services that take up your memory and stop them wherever necessary.
4. Startup Tab: Startup tab shows the list of programs that starts automatically when Windows starts. All system tray programs and programs that run in background will also be listed here. You can see which of these services and programs you don’t need at startup and remove them accordingly. This will speed up your windows startup time.
5. Tools Tab: In the tools tab you can see, System Information, Programs, System Restore etc.

Have you ever wondered how to cut and and extract a portion of the video from a large video file, CD, DVD and other video formats. Video Cutter software allows you to do just that.

Free Video Cutter is a free video utility to help you to cut and split your video files into small size you can use it as a "video cutter", "video splitter" or "video clipper". Program can work with most video formats, such as MPEG 1/2, MPEG4, DivX, Xvid, AVI, WMV, Quicktime MOV, Flash video and more, the output video can have a good video quality.

You dont have to have any professional IT stills, knowledge about all kinds of video formats, it is so easy to use.

Two weeks earlier Google launched the Google Chrome for the Mac and Linux platforms. After this the uptake of Google Chrome has increased quite extensively. Google Chrome has now taken the 3rd place in the Browser rankings overtaking Safari which was the third largest browser so far. IE and Firefox is still hold first and second place with 64% and 25% of the market share respectively.

For Chrome, this is an important milestone with 4.4% of the market share today. This is especially an accomplishment considering the fact that it is just one year since it was launched. It took five years for firefox to reach its 25%.

Media files both audio and video files are available in the internet. The problem with these files is that there are many different file formats. VLC is a program that can convert video and audio files that are suitable for your IPod and IPod Touch and IPhone. VLC can also convert and split CD and DVDs into smaller files. You can download from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/.

VLC is capable of reading most audio and video formats (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, DivX, MPEG-1, mp3, ogg, aac …) as well as DVDs, Audio CDs VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

It has been a few weeks since, Office 2010 beta version is available for download. Microsoft is collecting feedback from these early beta version users to fix bugs and enhance various features. If you are interested in trying out the new Office 2010 beta version you can download from http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/default.aspx 

The download size is around 684MB (32 bit) and 750MB(64bit) version. If you would like to download and try it then it is advisible to try in a computer that is not your primary computer. It is better to try in a computer that does not store important data.

Ten years back, if you needed some information you would have asked an expert in the neighborhood or you would have made a trip to the local library to search for a related printed book.  But today everything has changed.  Now we are able to do everything by just a click of a button. Be it from mobile phones, handheld devices or computers. Here is a list of most important technologies and milestones that changed our lives forever and helped make this information age a reality, listed in Alphabetical order.

1. Blackberry: Research In Motion introduced this handheld device in 2002. Blackberry combined the features of Email, Web Browsing, Mobile Telephone, Text Messaging, Internet faxing and so on. The introduction of Blackberry was a turning point in the mobile information industry.
2. Blogs: Peter Merholz founded this new word BLOG in 1999. It was a short form of weblog. Even though there were thoughts about blogs ten years earlier, it only took off after 1999. In countries were freedom of expression is a given, even government bodies have their own dedicated blogs to keep in touch with their people.
3. Bluetooth: Bluetooth is a technology used to transfer and share information between various devices including mobile phones, computers and other electronic devices. This enables easy exchange of information between peers and friends.
4. Camera Phone: These days every mobile phone has inbuilt digital camera. This enables camera phone users to easily take pictures and videos wherever they are and share it with the rest of the world. Some websites and blogs allow easy upload of these user generated content which has resulted in huge amount of information that are end user generated.
5. Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook in 2004 at the age of 20. Today millions of active users use facebook to share information and network with their friends, colleagues and family. It is an interesting fact that more than 20 percent of these facebook users are using their mobile phones to share information.
6. File Sharing: File sharing has a long history. In fact its origins date back to as early as 1980. However with introduction of bit torrent technology the file sharing took off fast. Though media industry still has objections of these technologies, people still use these to share files, songs, pictures and even movies.
7. Firefox, Chrome: When IE was the defacto browser that totally removed Netscape’s Mozilla browser from the market, Firefox came with a bang and slowly took some market share from IE. Tabbed browsing, increased speed, live bookmarking, multiple home pages, security, robustness etc are some of the features that firefox had which propelled its uptake. Google introduced Chrome recently and is the third most popular browser in the market today.
8. GMail: Today you can safely say that anyone who used email, has at least one gmail account. Even though email had been around for quite a while before gmail was introduced, GMAIL took everyone by surprise when it was launched in 2004 with 1GB free space. The free space has been increasing ever since and gmail users too have increased ever since and is set to overtake all other email providers.
9. Google: There is no doubt that in the last ten years Google is the most visited website. Larry Page and Sergie Brin invented Google searc engine in 1998. It will take very many years to beat Google’s dominance in the Internet (If at all it happens).
10. IM (Instant Messaging): Today we can see people messaging using IM whether from home, office, train, bus and anywhere, anytime. Google Talk, Skype, Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live messenger are some of the popular IMs.
11. IPod, IPhone: Apple introduced IPod in 2001. This revolutionized the way we used to hear music and songs. It started with 5GB, 10GB and so on and today 160GB memory is available with IPod. The IPhone which was launched in 2007 with a touch screen phone features, push email, browsing and millions of downloadable IPhone applications free and paid has reduced the gap between man and machines.
12. Memory stick and Blueray: In 2000 8GB flash drive was available commercially. 256 GB thumb drives are available today.  Similarly in 2006 Blueray disks were introduced which may soon replace DVDs. In a similar size as DVD, blueray disks have 10 times more storage capacity.
13. Youtube: What Shakespeare said has come true today. When he said the whole worlds a stage, probably he was thinking of Youtube. Today Youtube has become part and parcel of internet life. From 2005 until now it has grown tremendously and its importance in future information sharing became evident when google bought it over for 1.6 billion.
14. Wikipedia: Jimmy Wales started Wikipedia in 2001 and from day one it has been a hit. Today millions of articles in various languages are available freely for anyone to read. It is contributed by volunteers worldwide and anyone can contribute to this knowledgebase which will be a HUGE encyclopedia for coming generations.
15. Twitter et all: Last but not the least, web 2.0 technologies and user generated content, social bookmarking sites, networking sites are mushrooming and taking this information age to a new level.

CTRL+B : To make the words bold.
CTRL+I : To italicize the words
CTRL+U: To underline the words
CTRL+DEL: To delete the word on the right of the cursor
CTRL+BACKSPACE:  To delete the word on the left of the cursor 
CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR: To create equal spacing. 
CTRL+C:  To copy the selected text  
CTRL+X:  To cut the selected text 
CTRL+V:  To paste the copied or cut text. 
CTRL+ALT+V:  To paste special  
CTRL+SHIFT+< : To reduce the font size 
CTRL+SHIFT+>: To increase the font size 
CTRL+[ : To reduce the font size
CTRL+]:  To increase the font size 
CTRL+HYPHEN:  To create continuous hiphen 
CTRL+SPACEBAR: To remove paragraph or character formatting 
CTRL+SHIFT+V: To paste the previously used format 
CTRL+Z : To undo the last action 
CTRL+Y:  To redo the last action that was undone. 
CTRL+SHIFT+G: To bring the word count dialog box. 
CTRL+L:  To align text to the left 
CTRL+E:  To centralize the text 
CTRL+R: To alogin the text to the right of the screen. 
CTRL+M:  To make the paragraph or the selected text in the margin.
CTRL+1:  To make the spacing between lines as 1 
CTRL+5:  To make the spacing between lines as 1.5 
CTRL+2:  To make the spacing between lines as double 
F7: :  To check spelling and grammer 
SHIFT+F7 : : To show thesaurus options 
CTRL+SPACE : To enable/disable auto correct 
CTRL+SHIFT+8:  To show/hide hidden characters.