All PC Tips

If you are an Internet user, then you may have already used Google search engine. Google is not a mere search engine any more. Google provides many services free of charge to its users. In addition to being a search engine it provides many solutions and answers to many questions. One such value added service is the calculator in google.

You may have used your windows calculator from ‘Accessories’ for your calculations. This windows calculator can be used to solve simple arithmetic problems. In this calculator you can select ‘View->Scientific’ option to perform more complex operations such as log, sin, sum etc. But if you have questions such as 1 mile equals how many kilometers, 10 KG equals how many pounds or what is the celcius value of 18.6 Farenheit then, even this scientific calculator will not be of any help.

You can use google’s calculator to answer these questions mentioned above as well as any other similar questions. Google’s calculator can be used for simple, scientific calculations as well as for convertions.

Here are some examples and tips on how to use the google’s calculator. First of all open the homepage of google.http://www.google.com . You can get the answers for your mathematical equations in the search box.

1. Type 3+4 in the search box and click on ‘Search’ button. Immediately you will see a calculator icon and the answer 3+4=7
2. +,-,/ and * keys represent addition, subtraction, division and multiplication respectively. For example you can key in 5+2*3 and click on search button to get the answer as 11.
3. You can also use the ^ key as the power symbol and the % symbol for percentage. If you type 2^10 then the answer will be 1024 which is number 2 multiplied ten times.
4. You can also use sqrt, sin, cos, tan, log, lm etc in google calculator search box. For example try the following log(200),sqrt(4),sin(45 degrees) etc.
5. You can also convert a number from one numbering format to another. Some of the the numbering formats are binary, decimal, octal and hexadecimal. As far as google is concerned binary is represented by 0b, octal is represented by 0o and hexa decimal is represented by 0x. If you remember these then you can easily convert from one format to another. You can test this using the following examples. 54 to binary, 123 to hex, 0b110010 to octal,0×789 to binary, 0×1234 in roman numerals.
6. You can also do conversions. For example, try the following phrases. 5 kilometers in miles, “2 miles in kilometers”,”100 degrees f in celcius”, “One hour in seconds”, “One decade in minutes”.

You can get more details about google’s calculator at http://www.google.com.sg/help/features.html#calculator

With the invent of Television, the popularity of the Radio was reduced. But with FM radio , people are again getting addicted to Radios. Furthermore if you have a computer and internet connection then you can hear Radio through your computer. There are many internet radio stations which broadcasts news, weather and songs. You can connect to these radio stations via internet browser and hear the radio in your computer.

Difference between conventional radio and internet radio

Radio waves are used to transmit radio programmes over the air. You can then tune into your favorite stations and hear them. Whether you can hear a particular radio station depends on the distance between your radio station and your radio. Therefore you are limited to hearing only a few radio stations.

In contrast you can hear hundreds of radio stations through internet. The distance doesn’t matter any more. Just by a click you can change from one station to another station and you can hear 24 hours.

Types of internet radio

There are two types of internet radio.

1. Radio Station which requires a Player
2. Radio station which doesn’t require a player.

Player is nothing but an audio software and many players are available. Among them there are a few which can download the programmes from the radio station and play it in your computer. You have to download these players and install them. Then you can start these players and goto the URL of the radio station and hear it.

There are also a few radio stations that do not require a player to listen to it. In these stations you just goto their website and then click on the link to star hearing the radio.

Free Internet Radio Player softwares download

If you are keen to hear radio through internet then download windows media player and real player and install them in your computer.

1. Generally, windows media player comes together with your Windows OS. Therefore most probably it will be in your computer already. You can also download it fromhttp://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp
   
2. You can download Real player from www.real.com .
3. WinAmp is another popular player and it is available at www.winamp.com

   Most of the radio stations broadcast using real audio, windows media or mp3 formats and hence the above two players are sufficient to access any radio station in the internet.

   Some radio stations use proprietary audio formats. To hear such radios you need to download their players and install in order to hear them.

4. You can download Live 365 player from www.live365.com
   
5. You can download vtuner player from www.vtuner.com
6. Radio Netscape plus is another popular player and it is available at http://radio.netscape.com

How to access radio stations from audio players

1. In Windows media player select ‘Media guide’ and ‘Radio Tuner’.Use these options to tune into different radio stations.
2. In Real Player, choose the ‘Radio’ menu and the ‘Radio Tuner’ to choose and access many radio stations.
3. In ‘Radio Netscape Plus’ you will see a list of radio stations under many categories. Just click on the preferred radio and listen to it.

To listen to free internet radio stations from websites

1. To get thousands of internet radio stations goto http://www.shoutcast.com . From this website you can listen to radio stations using WinAmp player.

   To access many free internet radio stations you can goto the following websites.

2. www.internetradioindex.com/iprobe/ipradio2.html
   
3. www.internetradioplaza.com
   
4. www.radiotower.com
   
5. www.webradios.com
   
6. http://launch.yahoom.com/launchcast/stations

Special internet radio stations.

1. BBC         www.bbc.co.uk/radio
2. Beethoven www.beethoven.com
3. CNN        www.cnn.com/audio

Internet has become part and parcel of our lives. Not only for individuals but even for a country’s economic growth, scientific growth, organizations’ success, Internet is very essential. The companies that offer these internet connections are called ISPs (Internet Service Providers). These ISPs offer many different internet connection plans. How to select the best connection plan for home use or for offices? The following tips will give you an overview of different types of internet connections, their advantages and disadvantages.

PSTN Dialup

Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) dialup uses your phone connection to connect your computer to the internet. You need a modem, phone line and a computer for a PSTN dial up connection.

Advantages of PSTN dial up

1. This is the basic internet connection and all the ISPs provide this type of dial up.
2. To install PSTN dialup and to use it is very cheap and affordable.

Disadvantages of PSTN dial up

1. The speed of a typical PSTN modem is 56KBPS. Therefore the speed of the internet connection will be slower than this.
2. During the time you are connected to the internet, you have to pay the telephone charges.
3. While you are connected to the internet you cannot use your telephone to call anyone because you are using that phone line for connecting to the internet. You also will not receive any calls from outside during this time.

ISDN dialup

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) dialup uses a higher end digital telephone line to dial up. To use this type of connection you need ISDN telephone line, computer and a ‘Terminal Adapter’.

Advantages of an ISDN dialup

1. While you are connected to internet using ISDN dialup connection you can use your ISDN phone to make phone calls simultaneously.
2. When you are making phone calls while connected to the internet then the speed of internet will be 64KBPS.
3. If you are using the ISDN phone line just for internet then the speed of internet will be 128KBPS.

Disadvantages of ISDN dialup

1. Not every place has ISDN connection.
2. Even if your place has this facility, it is expensive to get an ISDN dialup connection from your ISP.
3. Not all the ISPs provide ISDN dialup plan.

Leased Line Internet Plan

In both ISDN dialup and PSTN dialup you need to dial up from your computer before getting connected to the internet. And you close this connection when you no longer need internet connection. If you need a continuous connection 24 hours of the day and 7 days a week then you need a ‘Leased Line’ also known as ‘dedicated line’. This type of permanent connection is called ‘Always On’.

Advantages of Leased Line

1. You get ‘Always on’ connection 24 hours every day.
2. The speed of the internet ranges from 2.4 KBPS to 2G based on your subscription.

Disadvantages of Leased Line

1. The disadvantages of a leased line is that it is very expensive.
2. Since your computer is always connected to the internet your computer is exposed to many vulnerabilities such as viruses and spywares. So you may need to secure your computer using firewall and Antivirus software

DSL

1. Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) also uses a normal PSTN phone line. But using DSL you can use both internet and phone simultaneously. Therefore many prefer DSL to PSTN dial up.

Advantages of DSL

1. The speed of DSL connection is fast. 64 KBPS, 512 KBPS, 1.5MBPS and higher speed can be achieved in DSL connections.
2. DSL also provides ‘Always On’ connection 24 hours a day always.
3. You can also use your phone while using internet

Disadvantages of DSL

1. More expensive
2. You need an ADSL modem to connect but the distance between this modem and your computer cannot be more than 18,000 feet.

When you are browsing the internet, you stumble upon a program, shareware or freeware that you would like to download and install on your computer. Just follow these steps to do that.

1. First bring the cursor on top of the file or program that you wish to download. The arrow cursor will turn from ‘arrow’ to a ‘hand’. Then click on that place.
2. Then, click on ‘Save’ or ‘Save to disk’. You will be prompted to select the location in your computer harddisk where you would like to store this file. A good practice is to make a folder in your C drive with the name ‘downloads’ and then use this folder for all your downloaded files and programs. Otherwise, you can choose your desktop as the destination, so that when the download is finished you can easily locate the file from your desktop.
3. Now the file will start downloading. While it is being downloaded a small dialog box with the title ‘Saving Location’ will show the % of the file that is already downloaded. Once it is fully downloaded the dialog box will show ‘Download completed’. You will also get a ‘Beep’ sound.
4. Once the download is complete, you can click on the ‘open’ button on the ‘download competed’ dialog box.

   4.1 If the file you downloaded is an .EXE (Executable) file then the application will install itself on the computer.
   4.1 If it is a .zip file then the WinZip program will open the file with its contents. In this case you can extract all these files to any of your local folders and then look for an .EXE program such as install.exe or setup.exe and double click on it install the application.

For one computer to connect to another computer and transfer information, the IP address of that computer should be known. This IP Address is made of numbers. The 32 Bit IP address is divided into 4 sections of 8 bits each separted by a ‘.’ (dot). Each 8 bit is called an Octet. The value of each Octet will vary between 0 to 255.

For example, 203.116.56.34 is an IP address. As you can see there are four sections each separated by a dot.

Name Vs Number

If someone asks you whose phone number is 98343453 you may not know it. But instead if someone asks you whether you know ‘John peters’ immediately you will remember your friend. The reason is names are easier to remember than numbers. This is human nature.

In internet, there is a need to connect to a lot of different computers daily. If you have to remember the IP address of each computer in the internet, it is impossible. Because IP Address is made of numbers.

That’s why, computer scientists decided to give a name to each of these IP addresses. These computer names that represent IP addresses are called ‘Domain Names’. For example, www.yahoo.com is a domain name. It is easy to remember a name. Isn’t it?

Every computer that connects to the internet has a unique IP Address. Most of the computers especially servers will have a domain name.

DNS – Domain Name System

If you need to connect to a computer in the internet, you can use the IP address of that computer or the Domain Name of that computer.

But the computers need just the IP addresses. For our own convenience we use domain names. Therefore when we use the domain name, for example www.yahoo.com, our computer will first find out the IP address of this domain name and then uses the IP address to connect to it.

Let us assume that the IP address of the computer that you want to connect to is 123.232.231.132 and the domain name of this computer is www.xyz.com .

Now you connect to Internet, open your browser and key in the IP address 123.232.231.132 in the address bar and ‘Enter’. The browser will immediately connect to the computer because the computer knows how to use the IP address.

Now imagine that you typed the domain name www.xyz.com instead of the IP address in the browser. What the computer needs is the IP address not the domain name. Therefore the browser will try to find the IP address for the domain www.xyz.com . For this purpose it will contact the DNS (Domain Name System) server. The DNS server will find the IP address of that domain and will return the IP address to your browser. Then your computer will use that IP address to connect to that computer.

If you type the IP address, the browser will access that site immediately. If you type the domain name, there will be slight delay because the browser has to connect to DNS server first to determine the IP address. If for some reasons this DNS server is down or there is not DNS entry for that domain, then that domain name or website address will not be accessible.

Downloading, uploading and installing are some of the frequently used terms in computers and Internet. For computer and Internet newbie, these terms are puzzling and intrigues them. Here we will see what these terms mean.

Downloading

Downloading refers to bringing a file from a computer in the Internet to your own computer and copying it there. Many websites have this facility. When you are viewing websites in your browser, just bring your cursor on top of links (usually links are in blue color underlined text) , the cursor will now transform into a hand. If this link is pointing to another webpage then clicking on this link will bring you to the page the link is poiting to. But instead of pointing to another webpage if that link is pointing to a file in that server then by clicking on it, you will see a ‘Save As’ dialog box. In this dialog box, you can select the folder in your computer where you want to save the file and click on ‘OK’. Now a small ‘File Download’ box will open and you can see a progress bar showing the file you selected being downloaded to the selected folder. Once the file is fully downloaded to your computer you can start using that file.

Uploading

Uploading is just the opposite of downloading. Uploading refers to the transfer of a file from your computer’s hard disk to another computer in the internet or network. Generally this is done using an FTP client (File Transfer Protocol). But some websites allow you to upload using the internet browser. For example when you send emails using webmails such as yahoo or gmail, if you want to attach a file to the email then this is done using the browser. This is also called uploading.

Installing

Some get confused with the term Installing with Downloading. Take for instance you want to use a free software that is available somewhere in Internet. In order to use that software, you need to download the program file from internet and store it locally in your computer. But just saving to you computer is not enough. You will have to install it in your computer by running the setup.exe or install.exe file that you downloaded. Once you double click on the exe file that you downloaded the installation wizard will start and you can follow the instructions provided in the wizard to install the program and then start using it.

Literally, a ‘Cookie‘ is referred to biscuits. But in computers, a Cookie has a different meaning. Even those who know about it, think that cookies cause damage to the computer. In this article let us learn about cookies and their usage.

What is a Cookie?

Cookie is a text file created by the webserver and stored in our computer. Let us see what is the purpose of this text file.

Generally when a client computer connects to a server they both get introduced and start sharing information. The server will identify the computer and this relationship will continue until the connection gets discontinued.

But the connection between the web server and a client computer is ‘stateless’. After serving the information that the web client requested, if the same client sends another request, then the web server will not know that it is the same person. Instead it will treat is as a new person and serve the information. Cookie is used to change this ‘statelessness’ in the web server.

With the use of cookies, when a web client connects to a web server, the web server will create a cookie file and write some information about the web client and store it in the web client computer itself. When the same web client connects to the web server next time, the web server will see the cookie file in that computer and will know about the client.

Why to use a cookie?

Personally there is no use of storing the cookie in our computer. But it helps the web server a lot. Web servers creates cookies for two main reasons.

• To identify the visitors

  A server will normally write details like when did the visitor visit the website, which are the pages he viewed, what is his name etc in a cookie. When the same person visits the same website again, the server will display his name and welcome him, and show those webpages related to his previous visit and also show the changes since his last visit to the website. In short, cookies are used to personalize the website for the visitors.

• To record activities

  Cookie is also used to record the activities between the web client and the web server and used to rectify problems that may occur during the session. For example, imagine that you are filling out a form with many fields. After filling the first page and moving to the second page if the computer hangs and you had to restart the computer. Then if you restart and go back to the same webpage, the webserver will know the details that you already entered from the cookie and hence will just show the second page directly. If there was no cookie then you will have to type from the first page again.

Common Myths about cookies.

1. Cookies spread viruses. This is a false statement. Cookie is a text file, therefore virus cannot spread through viruses.
2. Cookies get stored in any folder in the computer. This is also false. Cookies are also stored in a specific folder only. For example in c:\windows\profiles\yourname\cookies  folder, Internet Explorer creates one text file for each cookie. Netscape navigator will store all cookies in c:\Program files\netscape\users 50\default\cookies.txt file.
3. Using cookies, the other files in your computer can be read. This also is false. Websites just read their own cookies and do not read other cookies or other files.
4. From other cookies webserver will know which websites you visit. This is also false. A website will only open its own cookies. It will not read other cookies.
5. You can’t read a cookie. This is also false. Cookie is just a text file. You can read cookies using any text editor like notepad.

How to read a cookie file?

You can use a software like ‘Cookies Cruncher’ to read cookies. You can download cookies cruncher fromwww.rbaworld.com

In Netscape navigator all the cookies are stored in a single file. You can read it using Netscape navigator. Select ‘Edit->Preferences’ and click on ‘Privacy & Security’ and select ‘Cookies’. Now click on ‘Manage Stored Cookies’.

Internet is full of free and quality information. But the main problem that internet users face is in finding the right and relevant information. The search engines are meant for just that. To find the information we want based on our search terms. You can goto www.goole.com or www.yahoo.com and key in your key words to search.

Why to enter into a search engine website? What if you can bring the search engine into your browser and keep it there permanently and you can use it whenever you want. In order to bring the search engine as part of the browsers, many search engines provide toolbars. You can download any of these toolbars and install it in your browser.

If you are viewing any webpages in your browser and you want to search for some information, then you can just type your search term in the toolbar in your browser and directly start the search.

Toolbars are available almost for all browsers. Here will see some of the toolbars available for Internet Explorer.

• Google Toolbar

  When you talk about search engines, the first thing that comes to your mind is www.google.com . You can download the google toolbar from http://toolbar.google.com

  In Google toolbar, you can type the search term or keyword and click on ‘Search web’ button or just press ‘Enter’ to star the search. The results page will be shown in a new window. Therefore it will not affect the page that you are currently viewing.

• Yahoo Toolbar

  Next to Google, everyone prefers Yahoo. You can download yahoo toolbar fromhttp://companion.yahoo.com .

  In this yahoo toolbar you can type the keyword and click the ‘search’ button to star the search. You can also select search in ‘Theasarus, Stock, Address Book, Yellow Pages, Shopping, Pictures etc and limit your search to these sections.

  You can also view your yahoo mails directly in your yahoo toolbar

• Ask Jeeves Toolbar

  Ask Jeeves website is suitable for searching for information based on simple and easy questions.

  Even children can use the ‘Ask Jeeves’ site to search. You can download the Ask Jeeves toolbar fromwww.ask.com

  The Ask Jeeves toolbar can also be used to find the meanings of words or phrases. If your search term appears in the web pages that you are viewing those words will be highlighted.

• Alexa Toolbar

  You can download Alexa toolbar from www.alexa.com

  The specially of the alexa toolbar is the traffic ranking. When you visit any website, the alexa toolbar will display the traffic rank of that website.

  The Alexa toolbar will also display the links to websites related to the website you are currently viewing.

Transferring files in Internet is one of the many facilities Internet provides us. You may be aware that files can be downloaded using HTTP or FTP. Now you can use the ‘Bit Torrent’ protocol to send and receive files.

Bit Torrent protocol functions in a peer-to-peer method. One person can enter into another person’s computer and send are receive files. That is why this type of computers are called ‘Peer’s. But there is a server required to make all these computers work together. This server is called ‘Tracker’.

The tracker just monitors the connections between the peers. Other than that the tracker does not know which files are being transferred between peer computers. Therefore the tracker needs a very little bandwidth to monitor a huge number of peers.

When someone uploads a file from his computer to another computer, he can also download a file from another computer simultaneously.

How Bit Torrent works?

Let us see how Bit Torrent works with an example. A few people are seated in a room. Let us consider that all these people need a complete copy of all the pages in a book. Person A says that he has pages 1-15, 29, 36-40, 55, 74-89 and 94-100. Let us assume that these pages are not with persons B, C, D, E and F. Immediately they contact A and get a copy of all these pages. Now person B announces that he has pages 17-24,32,34,41-50,57,60-70 and 90-93. Then the rest of the persons will get copies of these pages from B.

Likewise all the persons announce the pages each of them have. Those who do not have a page they will get the page from the respective persons

Very soon, all the persons in the room will have all the pages of the book. In that group a person named ‘K’ will be present. He will have all pages of the book. You may ask why not all A,B,C,D and E get all pages for K directly. But if all of them connect to K at the same time then they can just be receivers not senders.

Instead, if A,B,C,D and E share pages from each other then they can be both senders and receivers.

Therefore if everyone needs everything then everyone should be both receivers and senders. This is exactly the method used by Bit Torrent.

K is called ‘Seed‘ in Bit Torrent.

What is special about Bit Torrent?

Generally, HTTP and FTP protocols in Internet use the client-server architecture. Here the client computer will just connect to the server computer. One client will not connect to another client. When many clients connect to the server the speed of the server will slow down. Both installation and usage of client-server is very easy.

Peer-to-peer method was introduced as an alternative to Client-server architecture. Grutella, eDonkey, Kazaa etc used peer-to-peer architecture. Whoever is connected to the network can send or receive files from any computer in the network. When a computer sends some files to another computer it functions as a server and when it receives a file from another computer it functions as a client.

Since a file can be shared between any file and not shared from a central server there is no way to track which files are being transferred. Therefore many started sharing illegal audio and video files using these peer-to-peer software. Peer to Peer software enables speedy transfer of files.

Bit Torrent method uses the best features of Peer-to-Peer and Client-server architectures. Computers get the different parts of a file from the ‘seed’ and then the computers share these parts of the file from other computers and completes the file.

How to get Bit Torrent software?

Bit Torrent is an open source software. Many versions of Bit Torrent which can run on Windows, Linux, Unix or Mac are available.

In Windows there are many Bit Torrent software such as The shadow’s experimental client, burst, ABC (Another BitTorrent Client), Simple BT are some of them.

You can download bit torrent software from www.bitconjuver.org/BitTorrent or www.bittorrent.com

While surfing Internet many unwanted popup windows will automatically open. Though a few popup windows may display useful information, majority of them are irritating. There are many software available to block these popup windows. We will see some free popup blockers here

1. Popup Exterminator
   
   When an unwanted popup window appears it is very irritating. Even worse is when you try to close these popup windows even more pop up windows will popup. If you have the popup exterminator software in your computer, you don’t have to close these popups the software itself will close them.

   Sometimes you may want to keep a popup window open. In that case you will have to press the control key when this popup window opens.

   JMS solutions’ popup exterminator has the following features:

   * You can set rules based on your preferences

   * A key is given to allow the history window

   * Audio / video warning is given

   * you can also get statistics

   You can download Popup exterminator from www.jmssolutions.com

2. Popup Stopper
   
   If you are using Netscape navigator, Internet explorer or Mozilla browser then you can use the Popup Stopper software provided by Panicware Inc. The speed of the browser will not be affected by the popup stopper. You can download popup stopper from www.popupstopper.net
3. Popup blocker-Spam Filter.

   Not only popup windows even viruses, Trojen horses, Spyware, Adware, monitoring cookies and SPAM are all irritating problems for Internet users. To prevent, detect and protect against all these you can use ‘Ad Nuker popup blocker & spam filter’. You can download Ad Nuker software from www.adnuker.com

4. POW

   When POW software is running any popup window that opens will be automatically closed by POW. You can configure POW based on your preferences. POW can be downloaded fromwww.analogx.com/contents/download/network/pow.htm

5. Smart Stopper

   This intelligent Smart Stopper decides on which popup window has to be closed and which popup window has to be allowed. Smart stopper also prevents spyware and adware.

6. Popup Vanish

   Popup Vanish also is a free popup blocker and can be downloaded from www.kalavath.co.uk

7. No Ads

   If you use ‘No Ads’ you will have to configure which websites can allow popup windows and which websites popup windows should be blocked. You can download NO ADS from www.southbaypc.com/noads/

In addition to the popup blocker software listed above, there are other popup blockers available such as Sip, Web Washer, Free surfer, KillAdd, Internet security tweak etc. All these are also free software.