Teaching How to use PC, Tablet, Mobile and Internet

Record a message to be posted on your Facebook profile after your death

Manav Mishra — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:40:43 +0000

Facebook is becoming more and more popular every day, developers all across the globe keep on developing several Facebook apps. You might have seen several Facebook apps but this one which I came across recently is little different. Let us have a look at what this app is all about. This app actually is related to a bitter truth we all keep running away from, and that is ‘Death’. This app allows you to say it all that you ever wanted to tell to your loved ones, spouse, siblings, your lover, or whole of the world. This app allows you to say it all after your death, sounds interesting, isn’t it?

This Facebook app named as ‘If I Die’ is an attempt by the developers to speak your heart and mind after your Death, i.e. this app allows you to say something when you actually aren’t there to speak it on your own. Here are the steps which are to be followed for using ‘If I Die’ –

Go to the official homepage of ‘If I Die’ and allow the app (by clicking the ‘The App’ tab) to access your Facebook profile, this will take you to the app page as shown below.

Here you can decide what type of message do you want to leave, i.e. a Video Message or a Text Message, choose one and move ahead.

If you click on adding a text message, you get a simple editor appear in front of you, which allows you to make a choice on your favorite font and size, etc. In case you opt for a video message, you again get two options, you can either upload a video or you can record a message right away using your webcam.

Once done with this, you can select the trustees. Let us see how ‘If I Die’ defines Trustees -

Trustees: A selection of your closest Facebook friends whom you choose and trust. Trustees are the only ones who can report your passing.
Once 3 of your verified trustees report, your message will be posted on your wall
Pending Trustee: A Facebook friend who was invited to be your trustee, but haven’t approved yet he is willing to take the honour.
Verified Trustee: A facebook friend who accepted your invitation to be a trustee. Remember – only verified trustees can report your passing.

Simple enough, isn’t it? You need to be very careful while choosing the Trustees, I am saying so for the reason because, suppose the your Trustees are pranksters and one fine day they decide to announce you as Dead, as a resultant something which you didn’t want to tell the world before you actually depart, might come in front of people while you are alive, and this can land you in some very unwanted scenarios, so beware!!

More about ‘If I Die’ –

You can leave only one message, the feature to post more than one message might arrive soon.
At any given moment you may delete the old message and record a new one.
The message which will be posted on your Facebook after your death can be seen by anyone who has the access to your status updates.
You can record up to 5 minutes of video.

So, if you too think, there is something you would like to share with your Facebook friends after your death, go ahead and use ‘If I Die’ and feel relaxed, at least someone is there who is ready to be your voice after you.

Visit If I Die homepage

Record a message to be posted on your Facebook profile after your death by Manav Mishra originally appeared on Technospot.Net on 2012/01/25. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Shutdown Windows without installing updates ( Hibernate it )

Ashish Mohta — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:02:59 +0000

Many a times it happens that when you go to shutdown your computer at the end of the day, it asks you to install updates without giving any option to skip it. Though its a good thing to do that but then if you are in a hurry you cannot wait for the update to complete for next 20 minutes and its even more annoying when you have a weak battery so you cannot jusy unplug and put it in your bag pack to let it to.

So now the question is how you going to skip the update and still shutdown your computer. Below are some methods you would love to use :

Hibernate :

This is the simplest and most easiest option you can choose for and it has its own advantages. First its is one click solution your computer shuts down, all your current state is saved and updates are skipped. I do it most of the time and reboot my computer and shutdown it properly only when I reach home.

To make sure you have hibernation enabled, look into your power settings.

Use the Lock Screen :

Second tip comes from WithinWindows, who points to a very obvious option which most of use might never see. There is a shutdown option when you are on lock screen but it only shows up when you are logged off. So once you save all your work, log off and look for the dropdown in the power down button which has option to shutdown along with Shutdown after installing updates.

Force from Command line

If you are an Admin on your computer, do this to skip updates :

Type CMD on your start menu, CMD will appear and right-click to run with Admin privilege.
Next type in shutdown -s -t 000 where 000 is the time after which shutdown takes place, you can also use shutdown -s -f -t 000 to close all apps if they are open but I will not recommend it.

This both will result in instant shutdown without asking you anything on the update.

Shutdown Windows without installing updates ( Hibernate it ) by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on 2012/01/24. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Bitcasa Invites : Sync hardrive to cloud and use it without plugging it back

Ashish Mohta — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:17:55 +0000

One of the major problem of users carrying a hard drive everywhere you go seems to be getting resolved soon with the upcoming service, Bitcasa which is like Dropbox but still has differences with huge selling point which I have discussed next. ( Beta Invites included in the post “Look” for it )

Three selling points and really makes it stand out from other services.

One it allows you to have unlimited storage
Keeps everything on cloud i.e. Does not take space on your computer which means you can cloudify your entire external storage and remove it off and still keep using it.
and last is encryption i.e. all the files which you upload are encrypted so nobody can read it and encryption takes place on your computer using the app and special file system techniques.

And this all comes with $10 per month.

Looking at the video above I can figure out following things :

Bitcasa is basically backing up your hard drives and turn them into cloud-based drives which is integrated inside your computer.
User cache is maintained on your computer so even when you remove it from cloud data stays
It streams data in real-time to your computer and is based on your pattern apart from stream on demand.
Move any folder instantly to your Bitcasa account
While Uploading Files, Bitcasa figures what you don’t use regularly and move them first so if there is a new file you have dropped in but you are editing it it doesn’t create any problem.
When you are traveling when you don’t have access to real-time data, you can pin folders to your local computer and it will download all the files back to your computer.
Data Encryption makes sure nobody at the Bitcasa can even see the file names of your files.

Once you install Bitcasa you get a Sample Video Folder of 14GB which you can try out to test it. It has a lot of videos, documents from the team so you can test it for everything. However you will be limited over your Internet Speed.

Overall I do not have lot of concern because look at the slides, videos and so and with lot of funding these guys are not there to grab your data but give you service.

Done that here are your invites, hope you did not have to look around too much.!! And here is the FAQ for you.

Bitcasa Invites : Sync hardrive to cloud and use it without plugging it back by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on 2012/01/23. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Volume 2 Changes Audio Level when you switch change audio output

Ashish Mohta — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:21:07 +0000

It so happens many a time that you switch from Speakers to headphones and then you just rush to lower the volume because it’s too loud or when you are playing loud music on your laptop which already has low volume but you connect to 5.1 Channel Speakers and wake your family up because you had no control on the volume.

Volume 2 is a portable application which lets you control your windows volume in such situations automatically so you don’t have to worry about blowing your ears or waking anybody in middle of the night. First take a look at this feature and then rest of them.

Volume Scheduler :

Comes with an inbuilt controller which can increase or decrease your speakers volume when

You change audio device, very useful on laptop when you switch between headphone and portable speaker. In case it does not work make sure to use the troubleshooter
On a particular time and days of the week ( Pretty Odd Choice here )
On computer startup and Shutdown ( So you can keep some heads away turning towards you )

Other Features :

Control Audio level using your mouse or even use the mouse wheel at screen edges or using your keyboard
Keyboard Shortcuts are very enhanced you can define keyboard shortcuts for opening volume options, reducing volume to 10% , open playback devices ( You can even switch from command line using this tool )

This tool supports Multiple Monitor, find this option under OSD > Position > Select Display
You can change options for Windows Sound settings like playback devices etc from here.
Disables Volume Control in full screen useful for games but you need to tell the app for which window you want that or select the program for which you dont want it.
There are other fancy options also to change volume icon, taskbar notification, skins etc.

Video walk-through ( Watch on YouTube )

Download

Download from this page under the downloads section. | Via Nirmal

Volume 2 Changes Audio Level when you switch change audio output by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on 2012/01/23. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Create Temporary Email from your iPhone, iPad, iPod : Melt Mail

Ashish Mohta — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:54:29 +0000

There are lot many reasons why anybody will love to use temporary email than real one unless they can trust them. This is specially useful for new services which users want to try but since many online services has misused people stay off from revealing their real email id.

Now coming back to topic, There is a new service name as Melt Mail which allows you to create temporary emails ranging which works from, 3Hrs to 24 hours and forwards any email that is sent to that email to any of your email id. Once you get a email id ( random ) which you can use it anywhere. Make sure to note it down somewhere else it will be lost.

Now there are many services like this but what I found interesting about this is that it comes with an iOS app for iPhone, iPod and works on iPad which lets you create temporary email id on the go specially useful when you don’t want to go to your computer for creating a new one or you want to use this inside an app.

Drawbacks :

Like any temporary email service it has its own drawback which results when an email id is over used and abused. For example services like Facebook has banned use of this particular domain. So there is nothing wrong with the service but if somebody abuses it, it will have the problem.

ON the parallel thought, this service should set up authentication method like confirmation email or twitter login or Facebook so the service is less used by spammers and can live longer. Since they did the investment for the iOS App, I am sure they might have more ways of connecting.

Create Temporary Email from your iPhone, iPad, iPod : Melt Mail by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on 2012/01/23. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Nike announces FuelBand : The Stylish Calorie Tracker

Ashish Mohta — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:12:18 +0000

Its not you see something amazing everyday but Today Nike announced something which sounds futuristic but its here and its called as Nike Plus Fuelband which measures your daily activity using a band ( which has a built-in accelerometer ) on your wrist and an app which keeps logging your data of what you do all day.

In simple words it will measure your everyday activity and turns it into NikeFuel which includes Tracks calories burned, steps taken and more and yeah It’s watch if you keep track of your time.!! Check the video at the end of the post.

This is a terrific idea like when the watch was invented and its the only thing which sticks to your body all the time, you know what I mean. Right from College students to Boxers to Runners will have no issues wearing it and it makes a stylish watch for sure.

Using this band you will be able to set your daily goal and it keeps tracking and once you reach that goal of calorie bar, it goes green. This band connects with your computer via USB port or Syncs over WIFI. If you use the App which seems to be for iOS you get more details and they say is a good motivator.

App for Desktop or your phone basically breaks down your daily activity into graph with sharing feature inbuilt, ability to set goals right from the app, syncing over wifi and son on.

This band is not ye up for sale but it seems it will open for preorder by 5 PM EST as the sales page says and it is only available in US.

It costs 149$ and Pre-orders available in limited sizes and quantities from 1/19 to 2/19. Arrives in-home on launch day, Feb 22.

Thanks Mark

Nike announces FuelBand : The Stylish Calorie Tracker by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on 2012/01/19. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Review : Official Wikipedia App for Android

Ashish Mohta — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:53:20 +0000

Looks like Wikipedia was already ready for SOPA with finally its mobile app for Android making its appearance in the marketplace few days back but only noticed by few of its fan so even when it was all blackout today, All mobile fans had its access to the website using the mobile apps.

So finally available for Android, the app is pretty similar to iPhone version which comes with a some awesome set of must have wikipedian feature like you can Save article to read later or offline, Search articles nearby, You can share via Email, Facebook etc which uses the Android’s default share action, switch languages instantly.

A search bar on top makes it easy to find articles and supports full screen mode making it easy for you to find things. Also the app also supports History and option to change font size making it easy to read text.

Drawbacks :

There is no support to move between sections of pages and since scroll bar is also missing you will never know what is the length of the article.
There is an option to select text for copying paragraphs from the posts but I find it almost not working where selecting the mode or even double tapping resulted in nothing.
The nearby search result is limited to 4 to 5 which changes when you search again. This should improve in terms of count.
Lacks Its integration with Google search app/widget which is supported by popular third part apps like Wapedia.
A small Bug in Saved Pages section will make you off because it appears blank when you are offline and sometimes you dont even get option to save pages.
All the links open right inside here which makes sense but if you want to open in browser you don’t have an option yet.
Seems like GPS stays on even when you exit the app so make sure you force kill it untill an update rolls in.

Download from Marketplace | Via Redmondpie

Review : Official Wikipedia App for Android by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on 2012/01/19. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Best desktop app to perform onscreen OCR [Works offline and Free for limited time]

Manav Mishra — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:58:30 +0000

There are so many ways which allow you to perform OCR (Optical Character Recognition), in case you are not familiar with OCR, have a look at this definition –

“Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping system in an office, or to publish the text on a website. OCR makes it possible to edit the text, search for a word or phrase.” Read more…

Why is OCR required?

OCR can be useful in so many scenarios, let me enlist some of them –

You are reading a PDF file, and want to copy the text from it.
You come across an image file which has some text on it, and you want to use that text in some of your other word/text file.
You are attending a lecture, and you want to keep the stuff written on whiteboard, simply use your mobile phone camera to take a picture of it, and later perform the OCR on it to get the text.

Mentioned above are simple examples where this OCR technology can be useful. And as I said earlier as well, there are so many Free tools to do this job for you. However suppose you are reading a PDF file which has a table in it, the OCR tools already available will help you to get the text from that table, but if you want to export the same table in MS Excel, these tools might not be very useful. Here comes in picture the Desktop application we are talking about, ABBYY Screenshot Reader. This awesome Desktop application is available for free (for a limited time, as a free gift on the Christmas, yeah I am late, so grab your free copy soon).

Working of ABBYY Screenshot Reader –

Once installed on your computer ABBYY Screenshot Reader can be accessed from the system tray.

Now, simply click on the system tray icon and you come across an interface as shown below –

The above screenshot clearly indicates the drop down menu for Type of Capture, Language, and Send (i.e. in what for do you want to extract the text), have a look at the image below, this has different screenshots which show every drop down menu individually.

Select the type of ‘Capture’ and the type of ‘Send’ and extract the way you want the text. This application works perfectly fine, most of the features here are generic types, and however the one which says ‘Table to Microsoft Excel’ is awesome. All the options work perfectly fine. Other available tools generally force you to download an individual file depending upon your choice (.txt, .rtf or .doc), but this one gives you option and allows you to instantly get what you want.

List of features for ABBYY Screenshot Reader (also the reasons why I call it best) –

Completely offline application, no internet connection required to work, generally the well-performing OCR tools are online.
Supports text extraction in multiple languages.
Allows you to extract text in different ways, and make it ready to use by copying it on the clipboard.
People who need to do lot of OCR pretty often, this is the best tool one can have, as wide range of options to import text allow saving loads of clicks and time, makes you more productive.

Talking about the program size, which is pretty huge, around 150 MBs to download, in my opinion, 150 MBs is justified to a great extent looking at the way the tool works and number of options it provides. So, if you too want to try ABBYY Screenshot Reader, download it as soon as possible before the Free offer ends. Try it out and share your views about it with us. In case you don’t want to download a huge program and your OCR usage are less, you can select a tool from this list of Free OCR tools.

Visit the ABBYY Screenshot Reader official page

Download the ABBYY Screenshot Reader for Free

Best desktop app to perform onscreen OCR [Works offline and Free for limited time] by Manav Mishra originally appeared on Technospot.Net on 2012/01/17. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Send Multiple Documents from Windows to Kindle Devices

Ashish Mohta — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:12:14 +0000

If you are a windows guy reading books and Kindle and have always found it tedious to send a document on your computer to your Kindle device, Amazon has released a software, Send to Kindle for PC, just to make you to smile. Mac Users will have to wait a bit.

You will have to download this application from here and once installed on your computer, you will need to signin with your Kindle Account.

The software integrates with the right click menu so if you have a document to send to your Kindle, all you need is to right click and choose Send to Kindle. You can also send multiple document using the same method.

The next interesting point is it registers a Kindle Printer linked to your account, So if software allows you to print, you can directly print to your device and it will be there in no time but they will be converted into PDF format. However you dont have any print options right here to change anything basic.

Now when you select Send to Kindle, It opens up the software where you can

Edit document name and author,
Send it over WiFi or using Whispernet where you might be charged
Select which Kindle device you want to send across
Option to Archive in your Kindle Library
View Upload Size.

On your kindle you will need to download all archived personal documents from your Kindle Library to start reading those documents. In case you dont find your device listed it is possible that either you had added it like right now or you might have unregistered it. Check the list of devices under your account.

Send Multiple Documents from Windows to Kindle Devices by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on 2012/01/13. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Facebook Launches “Listen to Music” With Your Friends

Ashish Mohta — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:29:18 +0000

Finally Facebook has given one more reason to stay and connect with your friends on Facebook and this time the reason is pretty sweet, MUSIC. Facebook just announced that soon you will see “Listen With ” if your friend is lsieting to a music which is connected with it Facebook account.

So your Friend will be your DJ as you discover the music with him but hey he has complete control over who he shares music with him and so do you. This can be changed under Privacy Settings and App settings where you can set the listening activity once the feature is rolled in for your account. Also since the songs will be logged into your timeline, if you want you can always go ahead and remove it from your private activity. Learn more

As of now the feature is not enabled for all the accounts as it is rolling but if you want that “Listen to Music” with your friends like right now, I will suggest you to add music apps to your account and try it couple of friends who have the service installed in their app settings. Since this is two way both should have to see it.

Another thing which is not clear is if the music is coming from a service which same for both of us i.e. Like if me and my friend both listen to spotify then will you be able to to add that station to your spotify by clicking a link there because that will be very cool as I can add the stations or albums I like so I can listen even when my friend is not there.

Facebook Launches “Listen to Music” With Your Friends by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on 2012/01/13. Please see our terms for use of feeds.