Yearly Archives: 2012

30 New Hotkeys For Windows 8

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Hotkeys allow you to save time by quickly accessing menus and performing different tasks, which may take more time when done with mouse. Windows 8 Consumer Preview was launched some days ago, and along with the new user interface, also came new hotkeys to access the new menus included in Windows 8. We thought it would be nice to compile a list of shortcuts that you will find very useful while using Windows 8. Some of the shortcuts are same as Windows 7, but a lot have changed, too. Keep reading to find out some easy access hotkeys for Windows 8. Read More

The Complete Guide To Windows 8 Explorer; New Ribbon Tools And Options

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If you’ve been following news regarding improvements and additions in Windows 8, you must have heard about the revamped ribbon-based Windows Explorer. Windows 8 File Explorer clones the user interface of MS Office 2010 applications, bringing all the necessary options and tools right in the ribbon, so that you don't have to find options from menus in menu bar and from right-click context menu. Just like MS Office applications, it includes a dynamic ribbon at the top of file explorer window, which shows special tools and options for certain types of files. For instance, you will see a a separate Picture Tool Manage tab when you select image(s), similarly, you can access all the respective tools for a selected application from Application tab. Read More

Charm For Android Suggests Gifts, Calls & Text Reminders For Contacts

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We all care about our relationships but our busy routine might distract us from contacting and/or expressing our sentiments towards the ones we love the most. What if your Android device could lend some assistance in this regard? Say hello to Charm – a special Android app for your special contacts. Charm for Android vows to become your personal assistant when it comes to reminding you of interactions with your contacts. Using Charm, you can specify a relationship status for each individual contact, and decide whom you wish to contact via calls, texts and mails, and exactly how often. Read More

Split, Merge And Index Chrome Tabs & Windows With Chromie [Extension]

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Chromie splits, merges and indexes multiple chrome windows and tabs with only a click on the button in the toolbar. With it, you can toggle between one and many windows and split or merge windows to occupy the whole screen, with different workspaces. A double-click creates two workspaces, a triple click creates three workspaces, and so on. A single click merges all windows into a single window. Layouts are created from right to left, so users should try getting used to the fact that the main window will always move to the top right of the screen. Moreover, this Chrome extension also offers users with a tab indexing feature. Read More

Collusion: Visualize Online Tracking & Cookies In Real Time [Firefox]

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If you’ve enabled cookies on your browser, the online activity undertaken is usually sent from websites to third-party tracking websites. This creates a network of company-tracker linked list, which can be used to construct your long-term usage history. Although this is a major privacy concern by some, Collusion, an experimental Firefox add-on, lets you access this information for better and safer activity. Moreover, understanding the concept of intricate dependencies within websites has been simplified by the user-friendly animated layout coupled with relevant information displayed on the sidebar. Using this add-on, you can easily identify websites using third-party cookies, to track your activity while monitoring a spider-web of data dependencies, which motivates you to further pursue your online interests. Read More

X-Link: Transfer Files Between Multiple Android Devices & PC via Wi-Fi

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The methods to wirelessly transfer data between an Android device and computer keeps getting better, quicker and expansive. Just yesterday, we reviewed an Android app called DropSpot that happens to be one of the very first solutions which allow transferring data back and forth between a computer and an Android device over a local network. Superb concept, especially considering that it frees you from the the hassle of carrying data cables, or setting up extensive remote desktop clients. Based on more or less the same concept, X-Link (beta) by an XDA member, joschi70, is yet another handy tool that brings additional functionality of letting users remotely share files with other Android devices that are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. The dual file sharing mechanism of X-Link allows you to share files from your computer to an Android device of your choice via a Java-based desktop client, or from your Android device to another Android device that is hooked to the same network. File sharing from your Android via X-Link is made simple courtesy of an additional option that you can find in the file sharing menu of the OS. All you need to do is navigate to the required file from within your device’s gallery or a file explorer, and share it via X-Link. Sharing from the desktop client can be done via simple drag-and-drop. It’s all too simple, and way to fast than any other alternative remote file sharing solution. Read More

MyFitnessPal For WP7: Lose Weight By Tracking Your Calorie Intake

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A smartphone is meant to help you in  just about all areas of your routine life. This is why there are so many apps for iOS, Android and even Windows Phone 7. When it comes to health and fitness, WP7 has got a pretty impressive array of apps, designed to let you shed those extra pounds. Some of the best fitness apps for WP7 include Live Strong’s Calorie Tracker and Nokia’s Sports Tracker, but now you can add another app to this list; MyFitnessPal. It is a great fitness-oriented app which lets you log all your food consumption, and using the app you can also find out your target calorie intake, as well as the amount of calories you are gaining and burning each day. Read More

The Complete Guide To Windows 8 Task Manager; New Features And Options

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Windows Task Manager is one Windows feature which hasn’t seen a lot of improvements and additions in a long time. Even though Windows 7 Task Manager does provide the facility to filter processes by User and System initiated processes, manage currently active and passive services, and view logged in users, network utilization, many users find themselves in the labyrinth of running system and user threads when a specific process of an application is to be dealt with. Despite being a complete rewrite of Windows 7 Task Manager, Windows 8 Task Manager classifies the Windows tasks related information into separate groups, which help users easily navigate through user and system initiated processes. For example, one of the feature of Windows 8 Taskbar is the auto-classification of processes into Applications, Background processes, and Windows processes categories; these categories reduce significant amount of time that users would have spent finding threads of certain applications. Read More

Where Is The Start Menu In Windows 8?

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Ever since the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 became available, the complaint that most users daring enough to test the new OS have come up with is that there is no Start Orb (or menu, or button, whichever you prefer). This aspect of the new OS became even more erratic than before, since the Developer builds of Windows 8 did come with a Start Menu of sorts, but with the Consumer Preview (Microsoft’s terminology for a beta), it got stripped out completely. Instead, what you now get is a beautiful, alive and convenient – yes, very convenient – Start Screen that forms a major portion of Windows 8's new look and feel. Read More

How To Refresh Or Reset Your Windows 8 PC [Complete Guide]

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Last year, we wrote a detailed guide on how to reset Windows 7 back to original factory settings; which involved a long list of procedures to be followed in defined sequence, such as, uninstalling application from third party developers, removing application cache, MRU lists, invalid Windows registry entries, and deleting all user profiles and data. We also discussed that Windows 8 will include an one-click option to reset PC without having to follow long and tiring system cleaning steps. Apart with Windows Reset option, Windows 8 also includes Refresh your PC option for situations where your PC frequently becomes unstable and starts behaving in an erratic manner. In this post, we will shed some light on both Windows 8 system repair options; Refresh your PC and Reset your PC. Read More

Bring Back The Start Orb/ Menu To Windows 8 Using ViStart

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If you have downloaded and started using Windows 8 Consumer Preview, you must have noticed and greatly missed the Start Orb of Windows 7. Microsoft has decided to make the infamous Windows Start Menu a thing of the past and replace it with the flashy and colorful Start Screen. But as they say, old habits die hard, and while using Windows 8, more than once have we longed for the Start Orb. Getting used to the new Start Screen will surely take some time. Till you get used to working with the Start Screen, you can use a useful little tool called ViStart that adds a Start Orb and brings the Start Menu to Windows 8. Originally, this application was meant for Windows 7, so it has some issues on Windows 8. Read on to find out about the pros and cons that ViStart brings to Windows 8. Read More

Auto-Launch An Android App Of Choice Upon System Reboot via Auto Start

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Wouldn’t it be cool if your Facebook, Twitter or even Google+ app launched automatically upon your Android’s system reboot so that you can take a sneak peek into your social world before continuing with the routine mobile usage? Well, as far as the last candidate from the above list is concerned, one can expect Google to serve the favor with, may be, their next OS (presumably Jellybean), but what about the others, in fact, any other app that you want to see right before your eyes each time your Android is rebooted? Well, let’s put all the speculations aside for now, and say hello to Auto Start – a brand new Android app that lets you pick that one favorite app of yours that you want to be automatically initiated upon system/device startup. It could be anything; your social media client, a privacy/protection tool, a screenshot grabber, a file explorer, a task manager, a web browser, the Android Market, an alarm/siren triggering app (handy in a burglary situation), or perhaps, even your favorite game. Yes, the possibilities are endless, and what’s the best part about Auto Start is that it works perfectly fine on rooted as well as non-rooted devices. Read More

Set Default Browser In Windows 8 For Links From 3rd Party/Desktop Apps

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If you’ve decided to take Windows 8 for a spin, but aren’t up for using Internet Explorer as your default web browser, then you can download whichever browser you were using in Windows 7, set it as your default browser and all should be right with the world. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, as Internet Explorer will remain the default browser for links opened via external applications. If you receive a new email notification on Gtalk, clicking it will open Gmail in Internet Explorer. Although whichever browser you set as the default browser will appear so in its own settings, the default behavior will be limited to all actions done within the browser. This post looks at how you can set a browser as the default program when opening links from external applications. Read More

How To Disable SuperFetch In Windows 8

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Whenever we open an application in Windows, it loads in to the system memory before it gets presented to us. All the applications that we use don't have an equal priority, for instance, you'd rarely use sound recorder than you'd do Windows Media Player. Obviously its just an example to make it a bit clear for you, but this is how it works. Instead of reloading commonly used programs again and again, Microsoft came up with Prefetcher fuction in Windows XP, and then SuperFetch in Vista and above OS versions. SuperFetch is a technology in Windows operating systems that automatically preloads commonly used application into the computer memory which in return greatly reduces their loading times. The purpose of SuperFetch is to increase the performance of the PC during regular tasks performed by the user. SuperFetch was introduced in Windows Vista and is a step ahead from prefetcher function of Windows XP. Superfetch is also present in Windows 8. If you got the chance to get your hands on Windows 8 and you don’t need SuperFetch for some reason, Windows allows you to disable it. In this post, we will explain how to disable SuperFetch in Windows 8. Please keep in mind though, it is not advisable for the common users to disable SuperFetch as it might cause lag when loading applications and other slowdowns. Read More

Official Babylon Translator App Makes Its Way Into The Android Market

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Computer users have been benefitting from the comprehensive dictionary and translation-based application of Babylon for quite some time now. To help mobile users find translations regarding the selected text bits/terms on the go, the official Babylon Translator app was released for Windows Phone 7 almost a month ago, and now it’s time for Android users to get their hands on this mighty helpful tool. Resembling the looks and, for the most part, the functionality of its WP7 counterpart, the official Babylon Translator client for Android also brings an additional functionality of clipboard monitoring. What this means is that apart from providing you with its multilingual translation services natively, the app keeps helps you instantly find translation of copied/selected texts in your preferred language. Said feature, when coupled with a well-designed interface, makes Babylon Translator a handy tool to have on your Android device, especially if you’re frequently required to work with various global languages. The only caveat to accessing the app’s translation services is that your device must have an internet connection. Read More

Windows 8 File Sharing: How To Share Users & System Folders On Network

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The Windows 8 ribbon-based Windows Explorer has certainly changed the way of organizing files and folders, as one can easily find all the basic and advance file management options without having to search through Organize and Windows Explorer right-click context menus. Apart from ribbon-based Explorer and extra tools to manage files and folders within a directory, Windows 8 comes with simple, yet more secure file sharing feature, allowing users to share files and folders with users on public network, as well as Homegroup and Work network groups. Just like previous Windows versions, including Windows 7 and Windows Vista, you can easily establish connection with PCs running Windows 8, and start transferring data without having to manually set IP addresses. Since Windows 8 File Sharing feature is an improved version of Window 7 Sharing, it includes some additional file sharing parameters to make shared files secure from external attacks. In this post, we will guide you through the process of sharing Users and System folders across the network, so that you can easily transfer files to network PCs, and share your system folders with Homegroup users. Read More

DropSpot: 2-Way Remote File Transfer Between Android & PC Over Wi-Fi

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Just last week, we covered an Android app called EZ Drop that allowed users to remotely/wirelessly transfer files from a desktop browser (computer) to an Android device over the internet without involving any connectivity cables or remote desktop clients in between. Quite a useful concept, but certainly with a significant restriction; it only lets you send files from the computer to Android, and not in the opposite direction. Fresh to the Android Market, DropSpot is an app that fills said void quite nicely. DropSpot sports two-way wireless file sharing between computer and Android device, and vice versa, over a shared Wi-Fi network. All you need to do in order to start sharing data is open the app on your device, feed in the IP address provided on the app’s homescreen in any contemporary web browser on your desktop, log in using the passcode (if any), and you’re good to go. The web interface of the app supports sending files in batch from computer to device via simple drag-and-drop. Similarly, you can use said feature to move your device's locally stored files to required directories with utmost ease.  Using the DropSpot mobile client, you can configure and even remove the authentication code. Read More

Screen DIY: Get Free Themes & Icon Skins For Non-Jailbroken iPhone

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Usually you can differentiate between a jailbroken and non-jailbroken iOS device by merely looking at its Springboard. The amount of theming capabilities on offer via the Cydia store is pretty impressive, and the major portion of updates in the jailbreak store consists of themes and other cosmetic stuff for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. So, to quell the jealousy of all such iOS users who don’t have access to the Cydia store, there are many apps which can act as an alternative to applying custom themes to your iDevice. One such app is Screen DIY, which brings a lot of themes, icon skins and icon shelves to your non-jailbroken iDevice. Read More

SiriNBA: Ask iPhone 4S’ Siri For NBA Scores [Cydia Tweak]

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When it was first launched, Siri might have been a bit limited in the topics it can handle, but with the passage of time and with a lot of useful contributions from Cydia developers, iOS’s talking personal assistant is becoming more and more smart. Now, with the latest Siri tweak, named SiriNBA, you can even discuss basketball with Siri. Via SiriNBA, Siri gains comprehension of NBA terminology, and you can inquire about latest (or even older) score in the fixtures of your favorite teams. The tweak is smart enough to understand the nicknames of teams, and even understands if you inquire about the scores indirectly. Read More