StandBy and Hibernate

What's the difference between putting your PC in Hibernate or Standby mode? Yeah, we weren't sure either. Luckily the Productivity Portfolio weblog schools us on the finer details of Windows XP power schemes.

Using Standby:

Your machine recovers quickly as your data is stored in RAM. The slower part is waking up the peripherals. Although your machine is in "standby" the power has been cut to items such as your hard drive and monitor. You're running your machine in a very low power mode, but it is still on. This mode can be useful if you're on a notebook and need to conserve your battery while you step away.

With Hibernate:

The big difference is that your PC has shut down and is not pulling power. Another difference is that your data is saved to your hard disk and not RAM. This makes it a safer, but slower option for shut down and resume.

Not all PCs have the capability and are configured to Hibernate. If yours is, to see the Hibernate option on your XP shutdown screen, hold down the Shift key when you shut down .

Thanks : lifehacker

Test if any app makes secret connections in Internet

If you are worried that some programs on your PC are secretly making connections to websites in the background, here's a quick tip that uses a simple DOS command to detect and prevent such suspicious activity:

1. Type cmd in your Windows Run box.
2. Type "netstat -b 5 > activity.txt" and press enter. After say 2 minutes, press Ctrl+C.
3. Type "activity.txt" on the command line to open the log file

The file activity.txt will have a log of all process that made a connection to the Internet in the last two minutes. It will also show which process connected to which website in this time. And not just the web browsers (like iexplore.exe or opera.exe), the log will also show your IM clients, download managers, email programs or any software that requires a net connection.

Scroll though the activity.txt file and look for any process names or website addresses that you are not aware of. If you track one , go to the task manager (or Process Explorer) to find the location of the executable on your computer and eliminate it.

Thanks : lifehacker

Read ebooks in your i-pod or mp3 player

Convert Ebooks to portable-friendly images with freeware application Ebook to Images. After you import an Ebook into the program, you can customize the image size and other output options, making it perfect for converting Ebooks for any portable device that can display images, from your smartphone to your MP3 player.

http://www.merlinsoftware.com/ebook/index.htm

Get access to Linux files from Windows!

Get access to Linux files from Windows!

DiskInternals Linux Reader is a new easy way to do this. This program plays the role of a bridge between your Windows and Ext2/Ext3 Linux file systems. This easy-to-use tool runs under Windows and allows you to browse Ext2/Ext3 Linux file systems and extract files from there.

it gives you an opportunity to use common Windows Explorer for extracting data. A preview option for pictures is one more pleasant point, which is worth mentioning.

Linux Reader is a free download for Windows 98 and later.

Get it here ...

Tryphone --- Try this !!

One of the major problems with buying a cell phone is that you usually don’t really know what the interface on the phone looks like and you have no idea how the menus work and so on.

New web site TryPhone aims to help phone buyers go beyond looks and see how a phone operates when you, say, pull up recent calls or start typing a new text message. The site only carries four popular models at the moment—the iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl, Verizon Juke and Sprint Muziq—but claims it will be adding phones weekly


http://www.tryphone.com/home.seam

Bluetooth stereo Headset

JayBird Bear - stereo Bluetooth solutions for portable audio devices.

This product makes a fine companion for any cell phones using A2DP Bluetooth, or for the small handful of MP3 players with that wireless capability (the Samsung T10 and Insignia Pilot, for example). However, for most other MP3 players--including the iPod--you'll need a little more help with cutting the headphone cord. Enter the JayBird Bluetooth Adapters.

The company offers two different $50 models: the JBA-100m offers a standard 3.5mm plug for connecting to any audio device, while the JBA100i comes with a 30-pin connector that allows it to be snapped onto the bottom of any docking iPod. The iPod version is about half the size of the standard MP3 version, so it's quite a bit more compact, but neither one will add a ridiculous amount of bulk.

http://www.jaybirdgear.com/JB-100-JayBird-Bluetooth-stereo-headset.php

thanks : crave

The Best 'Best of lists' of 2007

Here’s a quick compilation of some of the most interesting ‘Best of 2007′ lists I’ve come across during the frantic media recap of ‘What Was in 07′, before the post-holiday crash into 2008:

Best of 2007 Lists (the definitive meta-list by Fimoculous)
Master List of Online “Best of 2007″ Music Lists (a meta-music list by LargeheartedBoy)
Updates to the Master List of Online “Best of 2007″ Music Lists (updates to #2 by LargeheartedBoy)
40 Best Raps of 2007 (top hip-hop tracks by CocaineBlunts)
15 Best Candies of 2007 (delish sugar treats by CandyAddict)
50 Best Websites of 2007 (multiple categories list by Time & - oh look - who’s a top news site?)
30 Best Albums of 2007 (top rated by the critics and aggregated by Metacritic)
25 Best Careers of 2007 (so choose wisely, my friends, by BizTech)
Most Hated Companies of 2007 (the most widely & heavily criticized, by BloggingStocks)
100 Best Products of 2007 (because there can never be enough products, a list by PC World)
22 Best Music Videos (some silly choices by MusicForKidsWhoCan’tReadGood)
25 Best Books of the Year (fiction, non-fiction and more by Publishers Weekly)
100 Best Films of 2007 (a mix of new and re-releases by TimesOnline)
Best Global Brands of 2007 (aka the biggest brands in the world, by Interbrand)
Best Parks of 2007 (for the adventure seekers, by National Geographic)
Best Industrial Design Products of 2007 (with slick imagery by RedDot)
Top 10 Depression Blogs of 2007 (a useful, if sombre, list by PsychCentral)
Top 100 Luxury Blogs of 2007 (an elite assortment by International Listings)
Best of What’s New in 2007 (products, inventions, and gadgetry compiled by PopularScience)
For additional comments and posts also check out: NowPublic.com

Thanks : Culturite

Personas for Firefox

Personas for Firefox is a firefox extension that adds lightweight theming to your browser. It is a fun way to personalize your browser further, and is based on the premise that graphic designers should be able to style the browser without having to code…

After you install Personas and select a theme from the over 50+ themes that the firefox presently gives u , the theme background changes instantly in both the upper panel and lower status bar. Note that the icons do not change like in a full theme change, only the background does. You have nothing to download or install, and no restart is required. You can always switch back to the default Firefox theme.

So , why wait .... get funky,colorful with the themes ..

https://addons.mozilla.org/services/install.php?addon_id=personas

MyHeritage.com

This is a real cooooool one !! U need to just upload ur photo and surprisingly it discovers which celebrities you look like and even moreeee .
Yeah... !!!

MyHeritage face recognition technology discovers which celebrities you look like.
MyHeritage is more than just another pretty face...In addition to the remarkable face recognition technology, you can create your own family site on MyHeritage! This is great for building your family tree.

Who does u look like? ur Mom or ur dad? This has millions of parents puzzled all over the world.The MyHeritage Look-alike Meter settles the debate once and for all!
Upload photos of a baby/child and both parents and the Look-alike Meter utilizes state-of-the-art face recognition technology to determine the resemblance.

Must try !!!

Pour in ur comments after seeing the results of ur myheritage.com trial ...

http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/face-recognition.php

G.ho.st your free online Operating System!

How about accessing your own Operating System from any where you go? I never thought that technology can go so far until I saw this online Operating system called G.ho.st. It is the short for Global Hosted Operating SysTem and also the Internet address to access the Operating system. It is a Virtual Computer (VC) which can be launched with the help of s standard web browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Go here

There's another option as well;there is Eyeos too which works in a very similar fashion to GHOST.

GO HERE

FireTorrent : Firefox Extension for Downloading Torrents Without any external torrent client!

FireTorrent is Firefox Extension for all Torrent Lovers! While there are few extensions already out there on similar lines what makes this kool is its easy interface!

Can you imagine it is so easy that you don’t need any external application like µTorrent or bittorrent??

Just click on a torrent link and the downloading will start immediately.

#Features

* Nice Integration: This extension adds a separate Torrent tab to the Firefox’s built-in download manager. (see screenshot)

* Options: Provides option for selecting port nos, download/upload limit, location to save files, security & encryption configuration, etc! you can configure parameters like no. of connection, port no. to accept incoming connection, proxy settings, default folder, download/upload limit, etc! Everything like a standalone torrent client!

* Need More Info: If you like to see more info like no. of peers you are downloading from just click on more info link!

*Easy Access: Just click on folder name next to Downloaded to as highlighted in above screenshot and it will open the folder where downloaded files are saved!


In their own words…

The FireTorrent extension strives to offer the most user-friendly BitTorrent experience. We’ve integrated the torrents manager as a separate tab in your browser’s download manager, and torrents can be downloaded from any website with a single click.

This results in a great user experience and should be attractive to both people that are new to downloading torrents and advanced users.
click here to install FireTorrent Extension!

#Bonus: Just check out this start page from wyzo guys (developrers of above extension). It lets you search 33 engines with minimal effort. Just select your category (web, torrents, images, video, news, blogs or shopping) and you’ll find the top search engines in the dropdown menu. Conveniently, the most popular search engine is automatically selected for each category. May be its time to change your homepage! ;-)

So is this end of debate over superiority of different Torrent clients?

Get friendly URL for Your Orkut Profile & Community!

If you are annoyed with unfriendly Orkut URL for profile and community, you can try locaworld...

LocaWorld is a service for easy to remember personalized Orkut URLs. All you have to do is paste your Orkut URL and choose a keyword to get your own shortcut to your profile or community.

So all it takes two things:

1. an orkut URL (either your profile URL or community URL)
2. a keyword of your choice (you can put your nick name or community name here)

and returns a user friendly URL with keyword as subdomain under locaworld.com.

Here is an xample…
Ex :
Orkut Profile URL
I gave:http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=6086206142874173719
and praveengem2005
I got: http://PRAVEENGEM2005.locaworld.com/ and direct links to my friends, album, videos and other pages.