But that is not even the best part about Flickr. The best part is the awesome community that the site has and the knowledge that one can gather by just ‘lurking’ around the various photography groups and the forums.

Despite all this, one feature that I really wish Flickr would provide on its own is to let users take a backup of their Flickr photos from the site itself. While Flickr refuses to give this feature on their site, a number of third party tools have sprung up to fill the void and in this post, we’ll be taking you through 3 such tools.

All Flickr applications require you to allow them access to your photos. The application, when launched, will ask for your permission and if you want to try out the application, grant it the required access. You can, of course, revoke the permission later if you’re not interested in using that particular application anymore.

Flump

Flump is an Adobe Air based application that is designed to be as simple to use as is possible. Use it only if you intend to make a backup of all the photos in your Flickr account since Flump doesn’t give the user any option to select which photos/sets they want to download.

As far as the user interface goes the developer couldn’t have made it any simpler. Login using your Flickr account, select the folder that you want to download your pics to, and click the Start Flump button. That’s it !

Flickr Backup

Flickr Backup is a cross platform Java application that lets you backup individual photos as well as complete sets. This is definitely one of my favorite tools for the job. The only thing that I have to do is wait for it to load all my sets/pics, select the ones that I want to download and then click the backup button.

Flickr Backup also gives you an option to burn the backed up pics directly to a CD/DVD using an external application but I didn’t try that option myself. If you only want to make a local copy you can either download the pics to a folder on your computer or create a zip archive.

Flickrtouchr

This one is for all you command line enthusiasts. Flickrtoucher is a simple python script and if, like me, you prefer the command line, also the easiest to get going with.

Just download the script, flicktouchr.py, create a directory where you want it to store all the downloaded files to and launch the script.

python flickrtouchr.py <directory name>

Flickrtouchr will start downloading all the pictures from your account and store them neatly in directories named after the set in which they exist.

How do you guys manage your Flickr photos? Do you backup your Flickr photos or just let Flickr manage all your pics?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Working as a code churner by day and a writer by night hardly leaves me with any time to exercise those (lazy) muscles, so the only other thing that I can do is limit the number of calories I take in.

That, as you all know, is easier said than done. For example, how are you going to stop yourself from eating that Big Mac (with extra cheese!) for lunch or the Chicken Tikka Masala with Cheese Naan for dinner unless you know how many calories it has before ordering it. Nothing better to lose your appetite than a guilt trip!

That is exactly what Lose It! will help you with.

Lose It! is an iPhone calorie intake calculator that acts as your personal guilt trip service by telling you exactly how many calories each of your meals has and how much you need to exercise to reach your weight loss goals.

When you run Lose It! for the first time the application asks you a couple of questions like your current weight, your goal weight, your height, and how much do want to lose per week. Lose It! will then set a daily calorie budget for you.

Now, as you go through the day, you need to either Add Food or Add Exercise to Lose It!. The goal is to remain below the daily calories budget that you’ve been assigned. Easy enough for you ?

Lose It! has a pretty large database of the common types of food that we eat and the calories that they add. For example, I ate a Big Mac for lunch today. Let’s add that bit of info to the Lose It! calorie intake calculator.

Tap on Add Food and select Lunch. Since McDonalds is a pretty famous name, we’ll just search for it under Brand Name Foods -> Restaurant Foods. Type in McDonalds.

Select what you ate from the list and Lose It! will show you the number of calories that your meal contained, and ask you to enter the quantity that you ate.

As you can see, I’m not doing too well with my diet plans. The Big Mac for lunch and the Burger King Whopper for dinner really doesn’t help me with my goal of losing 1lb a week.

So, let’s exercise a bit and add my workout to Lose It!. I love playing squash and since I have a squash court close to where I live, that’s what I’ll play. Of course, with my current fitness levels, an hour of squash is all that I can last for!

Click on the ‘+’ sign and select Exercise. Browse for the extensive list of sports available, select Squash and move the counter to 1 hour.

Ha! I’m still under 1685 calories for the day! I guess I can reward myself with that dessert!

So, you see, Lose It! is not only a very good application to help you track what you’ve eaten, it’ll also tell you just how much you can afford to splurge on yourself and still be on track to losing those extra pounds.

How do you guys plan your diet? Do you like to keep track of the calories you’re consuming?

Image credit: bensonkua

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Have you ever wondered how those EXE files are created ?

Well, there are a lot of software that can help you create install packages to distribute your software, and today we’ll walk you through using one that has been been there on your Windows system all along. This unassuming utility is called iExpress and is (probably) the easiest utility you’ll ever find to make an EXE file for your software.

So, if you’ve ever wondered how those installation programs are created, how the “magic” happens during the installation wizard and how a simple single executable spits out hundreds of real useable program files, we’ll answer that question for you today.

Since Microsoft doesn’t create an icon for iExpress in the Programs menu, we’ll have to run it manually. If you’re using Windows XP, go to the Start menu and click the Run button. In the dialogue box that pops up, type iexpress.exe and press Enter. If, like me, you use Windows Vista, just click the Start menu and start typing iexpress and you’ll see the icon popup in the search results.

iExpress runs as a simple wizard and will ask you a couple of questions and based on your choices will generate the installer for you. The first question that you have to answer is if you want to create a new Installer or open an existing one. Since, this is (presumably) your first time using iexpress, we’ll select the first option and click Next.

The next screen will ask you the type of package you want it to create.

iExpress can create a package that runs a command after it unpacks all files to a temporary location, or only extract the files to a location that the user specifies. The first option is useful if you want to, for example, run a script to make changes to the registry before the user runs your program for the first time.

There is a third option to create compressed files only but that is only applicable if you’re distributing Active-X controls. iExpress displays a handy description below each option so you can read that if you’re still not sure which about which option to select.

The next step is to give a name to the package that you’ll create. Enter the name in the text box and move to the next screen.

This step will let you display a confirmation message to the user installing the application. If you want to display a message to your user asking for confirmation if he/she wants to go ahead with the installation, then type in a message in the text box provided and when you’re done click Next.

Now, you will be able to select a license agreement which the installer will ask the user to adhere to. If you have a license agreement for your application, then type it in a text file and provide that here or else select the “Do not display a license” option and move on.

This is where you actually select the files that will be installed by the installer that you’re creating. You can select as many files as you want here. Add files to the list by clicking on the Add button.

Now, you can safely move forward a few steps and keep clicking on the next button till you come across the Package name and options screen. This is where you select a name for the actual EXE file that gets generated and decide whether you want to hide the extraction process from your users or let them see all the gory details. You can also generate a log files for the installation process.

In the next step you can choose to create what iExpress calls a Self Extraction Directive file. This is needed if you want to later change some of the options that you chose and create another modified installer. Since, we don’t want that right now, we’ll choose not to create an SED file.

That’s it.  iExpress will now go ahead and create an EXE file for you. Wasn’t that easy?

What other tools do you prefer to make exe files?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Proxy servers can also be configured to store (cache) webpages which the client machines frequently request. So when a client requests a webpage for the first time, the proxy downloads and caches the webpage and when a second request comes for the same page,the proxy serves it up from its cache instead of downloading it from the Internet, thus saving the user a hefty download bill and the agonizing wait. Such servers are called caching proxies.

Proxy servers also serve another very important purpose – they act as the first line of defense between the bad guys on the other side and the client machines.

The threat becomes even greater when you replace the network on the other side with the Internet and the client machines with a couple of non-technical home users. Broadband connections and multiple computers accessing the Internet in every home have only increased the threat. Setting up a secure caching proxy server for free is an easy way to mitigate the threat and also save some money in the process.

I’ll be using a popular windows based software, Win Proxy, to tell you how you can setup your very own free caching proxy server.

Download Win Proxy to the computer that you want to act as a proxy and run the setup executable. The only question that you have to answer during the setup is to select the way you want to install Win Proxy as (as a normal application or as a service). Unless you’re using Windows NT, you should choose the option titled common application.

The setup program for Win Proxy is one of the simplest that I’ve seen and I’m sure you won’t have a problem getting Win Proxy installed on your computer. When the setup completes, run Win Proxy from the Programs menu and your server is all set.

Congratulations. You’ve just setup your first free proxy server.

Win Proxy comes, by default, all set up to start acting as a proxy for your network. To take advantage of its caching capabilities though, you’ll have to instruct your browser to use it as a proxy.

If you use Firefox, go to the Tools menu and click on the Options link. Now, Under the Advanced options, select the Network tab and click on Settings.

Enter the IP address or hostname of the machine where you installed Win Proxy in the HTTP Proxy text field and set the port to 3128. That’s all. Firefox is now set up to access the Internet through Win Proxy.

The default set of options that Win Proxy installs with are good enough for most users but if you want to tweak it for even more performance, launch your browser from any computer on the network and point it to http://PROXY_MACHINE:3129, where PROXY_MACHINE is the IP address of the machine running the proxy server. This will bring up the web based configuration panel for Win Proxy. Most users will never need to use it, but it’s there if you want to.

As you can see, Win Proxy has a number of advanced features built in that you can configure through the admin panel. For example, if you connect to the Internet using a dial-up account, you can configure Win Proxy to dial up your ISP automatically every time it receives a request from a client for a webpage which is not present in its cache.

You can also configure Win Proxy to give access to only a few websites and/or restrict access to a couple of individuals by creating accounts for each user.

The MUO Network manual also talks about Internet connection sharing which is the name given to the simple proxy functionality built in to Windows.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Fans of horror movies aren’t exactly treated well  – around the Internet as well as in the offline world. Reviews and mentions of horror movies are few and far between in the mainstream media and while there are plenty of torrent sites to download or watch free horror movies online, the movies are usually (mostly) pirated and their quality and source is questionable.

On a particularly boring weekday night, when I was out of my stash of movies to watch, I decided to explore the underbelly of the Internet and was (pleasantly) surprised with what I saw. Not only is the horror genre alive and kicking in the underworld, it actually even has fans who, like me, would give up anything to watch a really nice monster on screen devour the damsel in distress.

Here is my list of the best places to catch free horror movies online.

FEARNet

FEARNet has been featured on the MakeUseOf directory before and they make this list again.

FEARNet is one of the best horror movie portals, as I’d like to describe it. They have free horror movies, shows, videos, blogs and even a pretty vibrant community with an active message board to boot.

So, the next time you really crave to chat with someone after watching the ultimate chainsaw wielding dude, hit up FEARNet.

Public Domain Torrents

Public Domain Torrents hosts torrent files for public domain movies and has about 113 (and growing) horror movies in it’s collection right now.

Since, they only host public domain movies, their collection mostly consists of older movies. But, don’t make that stop you from visiting the site and getting your fix of the gore from yore.

With titles like A Bucket of Blood, Carnival of Souls and Drive-in Massacre, in their collection, you really won’t be complaining for a long time.

Fancast

Fancast is another site which, like Hulu, streams movies to your living room via your browser.

Their collection is nice, if a bit dated, but then with movies like Cry of the Banshee, Horror Express and Night of the Living Dead, who’s to blame me for the hours and hours that I’ve spent on Fancast?

Jimmy did an in-depth article on Fancast here.

Jaman

Jaman has a really slick site and one that I really like, which is unusual because I’ve never actually read or heard about Jaman anywhere else.

I came across Jaman some time back while searching for new sites to watch horror movies for free and I haven’t been disappointed till now.

They not only host English movies, they also have a good collection of movies in languages such as Hindi, Spanish and Swedish, to name a few. That and their fresh collection is what has prompted me to stick to them.

Asian Horror Movies

I’ve long believed that Asian horror movies were a genre in themselves. If you’re a fan of the Asian horror movies scene, this is one site you have to check out.

They’ve got more movies than all the above sites combined and feature collections from China, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and a couple of other Asian countries.

Hulu

While Hulu is not strictly a horror movie site, it is still one of the best streaming video sites on the Internet.

They have a good collection of movies and if it’s one of those days when you’re too creeped out to actually watch a horror movie, you can always sit back and catch The Simpsons.

We have done loads of Hulu stories but here is a small selection :

How to watch movies & shows on Hulu & Sling from abroad.

Hulu Desktop: Instant TV Shows and Movies on Large Screen.

Best sites to watch TV on your computer over the internet.

How to download free Hulu movies to your computer.

Never again do I have to worry about a dull evening anymore. Which other sites do you guys visit to get your daily dose of horror flicks ?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Most videos uploaded to YouTube are made by amateurs like you and I, usually with modest video making equipment. It’s not a surprise that you’d find a lot of the videos lacking in quality and/or content.

Now, quality is something that you can’t do much about but if it is the content that is bothering you and you have the inclination and enthusiasm to make some changes, we’ll tell you how to go about it.  Maybe one particular scene in a video really bothers you and you want to take it out.   Well here’s one way to go about it.

If you want to know how to copy Youtube videos and edit them, it typically involves three steps. Since you can’t edit the videos on YouTube online, the first step is to actually download a copy of the video locally to your computer.

How to Copy YouTube Videos to your computer

There are a couple of different ways that you can copy YouTube videos to your computer and we’ve talked about a few in the past, see 18 Free Ways To Download Videos. So we won’t dwell too much on this part. Searching MakeUseOf for "download youtube videos" will bring you plenty of options.

Which brings us to the second step in the process.

Converting FLV files to Windows Media Video Files (WMV)

There are dozens of software available all around the web that could potentially help you do this conversion, but why bother with all that searching when we have the coolest open source solution for the job, ffmpeg. If you’re comfortable with the command line, you can use ffmpeg directly or download and install the excellent WinFF utility, which is basically a graphical wrap-around for the app.

Launch WinFF and click on the add button to add the FLV file you just downloaded. Select “Microsoft” from the Convert To drop down and select the WMV2 Generic option from the Device Presets drop down. Choose a location to save the converted file to and click on convert. WinFF will launch ffmpeg which will do the conversion for you without you having to use any command line kung fu.

Editing Videos using Windows Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker is a free software bundled with Windows which can be used to edit and enhance videos and it has built-in support to read WMV files. Mark has previously written two excellent articles on editing movies using Windows Movie Maker and those should be enough to get you started.

Use WMM to remove the offending scene(s). Use the preview window to view the results of your artistry as soon as you’re ready.

When you’re done with editing the video, click the Publish Movie button and export the movie using one of the many choices given, including burning the movie to a DVD or writing a new WMV file to the disk for playing on a computer.

Do you know of any better ways how to copy and edit a YouTube video?  If so, let us know.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Tell me, where’s the fun in not having to deal with himem.sys and esoteric commands to make the sound blaster mode work ? I’m sure none of us really miss those days. But, for an old timer like me, DOS will always hold a special place in my heart.

I still remember all those fun filled afternoons when I’d come back from school, drop the schoolbag and sit and play Digger on our state-of-the-art IBM PC. Haven’t heard of digger ? How about Invaders ?

When Microsoft released Windows XP in 2001, they effectively ended an era of DOS based games and applications. All Microsoft operating systems before XP, had DOS at their heart and could run DOS applications pretty well, but XP was based on an all new architecture which was supposed to be more secure, faster and free of the legacy of DOS.

Security and a spiffy new architecture is all well and good but if you’re like me and you crave good ol’ games of yore, there is still hope for you. What to know how to play DOS games under Windows XP?  DOSBox is here to the rescue.

How to Play DOS Games Under Windows XP With DOSBox

DOSBox is an open source DOS emulator. What that means is that it creates and emulates a DOS based environment for your application. To the application, it appears as if it’s running on it’s own under DOS. So, while DOSBox manages the show behind the scenes, the user really doesn’t need to bother about compatibility, memory management and other stuff which only the old timers amongst us would recognise.

DOSBox is also really easy to get started with. All you need to do is download DOSBox and execute the installer. The installer will create a shortcut to DOSBox on the desktop. Double click the shortcut to run DOSBox for the first time.

Does that Z:\> prompt look familiar ? How about C:\>?  Well, DOSBox, by default, does not create a C: drive for you. Instead, it lets the user select a directory on his/her computer and mount that inside the emulator as the C:\. This is the directory which we’ll use to store all our old DOS utilities and time wasters games.

Create a directory named DOSApps under c: on your windows computer. The name of the folder or the drive on which it is created does not matter as long as you can remember it.

Copy all the DOS apps that you want to run under DOSBox to this folder. I’m going to use DOSBox to run Digger, my favorite DOS game.

Now, get back to DOSBox and at the Z:\ prompt, type in the following command:

mount c c:\DOSApps

As you can, DOSBox has mounted Drive C and mapped it to the local directory c:\DOSApps that you created earlier. Now, switch to the c:\ drive and enter the dir command to see a list of all the files in it. You should see a listing of all the DOS applications that you copied to the directory earlier.

That’s all. I’m all set now to play my favorite DOS game of all time. I give the command digger at the prompt and, lo-and-behold, digger it is, in all its (former) glory.

What are your favorite DOS games ? Try running them in DOSBox and let us know how you fare. Do you have your methods to play DOS games under Windows XP? Share them in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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When was the last time you were in a brick and mortar store checking out a book (or a video game) and wondering if it’ll be cheaper to get it online ?

I don’t know about you guys, but this happens with all the time when I’m out shopping.

Just last week, I was at this cool bookshop near my house browsing the shelf looking for a copy of Shantaram (which by the way, is an awesome read). I found it alright but for some reason, I thought the price was a bit more than I thought it should cost. I had my iPhone with me and I could Google the price up but seriously, what’s cool about that?

Instead, armed with my iPhone, I used Snaptell (iTunes Store link).

Snaptell is a cool and free application for the iPhone which uses image recognition to identify photos of books, CD/DVDs and video game covers and tells you their price at various online retailers.

So in my case, using Snaptell, I took a picture of the front cover of Shantaram in the store. Snaptell then uploaded the image to its servers and within a couple of seconds, told me that the book was available at more or less the same price at Amazon and Barnes & Noble as the bookstore I was at. Obviously, I decided to purchase it there and then, saving me a couple of days and shipping costs.

Of course, this is not the only use of Snaptell. Along with a comparison of products’ prices, Snaptell also displays other useful information: it also links to the Wikipedia entry for the product, if it exists; Google Product search results, results from eBay, Half.com and Yahoo search. If you can’t find the product you’re looking for in all those places, I’m not sure you’ll ever find it online.

So, books aren’t really your scene, eh ? Snaptell is an excellent app to have even if you’re searching the back alleys for DVDs of the latest blockbuster or yesteryears’ hits.

Snap a pic and let Snaptell work its magic. Snaptell also helpfully includes links to reviews from IMDB and RottenTomatoes and search results from YouTube. How’s that for convenience ?

Since Snaptell uploads a photo each time to its servers, the application obviously works best over WIFI but the speed is quite acceptable over cellular networks. Also, since you’ll need to take a photo, this will not work on the iPod Touch.

If books, DVDs and games are your thing AND you’re an online junkie like I am, give Snaptell a try and you won’t be dissappointed. Oh, and the Geek cred that you get will definitely be priceless.

Another good article to help you find good buys online is “5 Online Shopping Sites That Will Actually SAVE You Money” which I wrote not long ago.

How do you normally research about the product you plan to buy? Online or physical store? Share with us in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Tough times like these call for tough measures and while we at MakeUseOf cannot fund a rescue package to revive the economy (yet!), we do try and help you guys in whatever little way that we can.

No, we aren’t going to suggest some tough measures to tide over the bad times. Instead, we’re going to make it easier for you to stretch the reach of your dollar with our selection of 5 online sites which will not only allow you shop from the convenience of your couch, but also help you find good deals online and the most bang for your buck.

CheapStingyBargains.com

A recession is not the best time to upgrade your computer and the good folks here at MakeUseOf have been showing you ways to prolong the life of your computer all this time. However, if you’re really in need of new hardware, make sure you visit CheapStingyBargains to get a good deal.

CheapStingyBargains catalogues and lists discount coupons and special deals from hundreds of computer manufacturers and dealers. The site offers the best deals and coupons for everything from computers to electronics and apparel to home goods.

FreeShipping.org

Don’t you hate it when you checkout an item from an online store only to find out that the shipping costs are more than the total price of your goods !

This is why I always make sure I give Freeshipping does one thing and does it well. It keeps a track of any free shipping offers going on at the 1500 stores on its list.

The next time you’re shopping online, be sure to check out all the free shipping deals that Freeshipping.org tracks.

DealCatcher.com

Dealcatcher is another coupon site that you should visit before making any online purchase. They have a long list of ready to use coupons and track more than 2000 online stores.

The kind of products that you can search for on DealCatcher varies from the usual computer and electronic stuff to apparels, auto accessories, shoes, flowers, cell phones, DVDs and so on. In short, if you’ve got a product in mind, they probably have an online store on their list that can give you a discount for it.

FatWallet.com

The greatest thing about FatWallet.com are the thousands of users who try out the coupons and let everyone else know which coupons are valid and where. The FatWallet community hangs out in the Forum where they share even more coupons and deals which were found elsewhere and generally help each other make the most of their money.

If you’re the cashback kind, there’s good news for you too. FatWallet is one of the few coupon sites that actually gives a cashback to users for using coupons found on their site.

Coupons.com

If you’re the kind who is always on the lookout for a bargain, I’m sure you know how cumbersome it is to go through newspaper coupons, clip and file them. Coupons.com aims to simplify that for you.

On this site, you’ll find electronic equivalent of newspaper coupons that you can print and take to your nearest grocery store for an instant discount.

Are there any other websites that you visit to get the best deals? Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Installing the latest patch or Hot fix is highly recommended if you want to keep your installation in tip-top shape.

These patches are mostly harmless but there are times when your current configuration, hardware or software might not be compatible with a particular patch and you find that out only when your system starts misbehaving after you’ve applied the patch.

The new patch might not be compatible with your current hardware. An ancient software that you still use and love might stop working with the new patch. In times like these, one really wishes that Microsoft had a built in patch rollback mechanism. Are you one of those wishing for such a feature ?

Well, the good news is that Microsoft already has mechanisms to roll back patches. The bad news is that the roll back procedure is just not that obvious.

Roll back a patch on Windows XP

If you’re using Windows XP, browse to the Windows install directory, typically c:\WINDOWS and enable the hidden files view using the Tools -> Folder Options menu option.

You should now be able to see a bunch of hidden folders under the main c:\WINDOWS folder. All the folders which have names of the form of $NTServicePackxxxx, $NTUninstallxxxx and $NTUninstallKBxxxx are folders corresponding to the different patches that you’ve installed.

The folders with KB in their name followed by a 5 or 6 digit number are hot fixes which Microsoft has released in response to a bug and the number denotes the corresponding Microsoft knowledge base article associated with that hot fix.

Now, to uninstall a particular patch, go inside the folder corresponding to that patch. You will see another folder named spuninst. Inside this folder will be a Windows setup executable of the same name.

This is the Uninstaller program for the particular patch that you’re browsing right now. Just run the program and the patch will be rolled back and your system will be as pristine as it was before you applied the patch.

Roll back a patch on Windows Vista

I am using Windows Vista on my primary work machine these days and on this machine, I couldn’t find the $NTUninstall folders but I found another way to roll back patches on Vista – System Restore.

Windows Vista, by default, takes a snapshot of a system before applying any patches using a feature called System Restore.

To roll back a patch using System Restore, click on the Start menu and start System Restore using the All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools menu item.

System Restore is a wizard based utility which lets you chose the restore point and brings the system back to the chosen state.

If you want to restore your system to a point earlier than the recommended restore point, then select the second radio button and you will be able to see a list of the restore points Vista has available for you to roll back to.

This is definitely the easiest method to roll back a wayward patch or hotfix.

Have you guys ever had to roll back a patch ? How did you do it ? Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• The Ultimate ‘Upgrade To Windows 7′ Guide (24)
• Vista Utilities Makes Configuring Windows Vista Easier (19)
• Vista Switcher – Replace Windows’ Alt-Tab With Something Cooler (9)
• Tweak Your Windows OS With Portable Ultimate Windows Tweaker (18)
• Tweak Your Windows Operating System With Xpy (10)

If you’ve been a regular Make Use Of reader, I’m sure you have your Windows system configured exactly to your liking.

But what happens when you reinstall the operating system because you needed to ?

The answer is you lose all those custom settings. Sure, you can browse through our archives and enable those tweaks again or you can get used to Windows looking the way Microsoft intended it to.

Not anymore !

Ultimate Windows Tweaker is a Tweak UI application that does exactly what it’s name says it should. It is a collection of hundreds of esoteric Windows tweaks available in one application so that you don’t have to hunt for them when you really need them.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker classifies the tweaks under different categories like Personalization, System Performance, Network tweaks, User accounts, UAC and so on and presents them to the user in the simplest way possible, hiding all the gory registry editing that goes on behind the scenes.

So, suppose I’m really irritated with the time it takes Windows to kill a non-responding application and I’d like a way to make Windows kill such applications faster.

I have two ways to go about changing the default Windows behaviour. Google my heart out and find a solution by hit and miss. OR launch Ultimate Windows Tweaker (UWT).

I open up UWT, click on the System Performance category in the left sidebar and I get a number of options that I can change to improve the operating system’s performance including, lo and behold, a slider that lets me reduce the time Windows waits before killing a non-responding application.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker also includes a number of other useful and popular tweaks like changing the appearance of the start menu by adding or removing entries from it (Personalization category), turning on RSS feed discovery in IE (Internet Explorer category), disabling remote desktop sharing within the domain and network (Network Tweaks category), and so on.

The best part about this application is that it’s portable. Ultimate Windows Tweaker is a self contained executable so you can carry it with you on a thumb drive and use it as and when you want to without installing it.

I’ve found the tweaks included in UWT very useful for customizing my Windows setup and I am sure you all will also find them useful.

Do you use something different to tweak your Windows system?   If so, tell us about it.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Tweak Your Windows Operating System With Xpy (10)
• Recover Your Lost XP, Vista & Office Serial Numbers (22)
• How To Troubleshoot Your Windows With The MSconfig Utility (6)
• How To Prevent A USB Drive From Running Anything Automatically In Windows (27)
• How To Install Linux With Ease Using UNetbootin (17)

Too Dramatic, was it ?

Well, the reason that I’m being so dramatic is that the feature that Google has released this time is one that I’ve been personally waiting for ages and definitely deserves this attention.

The big deal is that you can now access and use Gmail offline, that is without Internet connection. Obviously, you will not be able to send any emails while you’re offline, but atleast you can read them, and any emails that you send during this time will be queued up and delivered the moment you get back online. Anyway you look at it, this is an incredible feature to have.

To be able to access Gmail account offline, you’ll need to first download and install Google Gears. If you’re using Google’s Chrome browser, though, you can relax since Chrome comes with Gears installed by default.

After you have Gears installed, just go to Settings->Labs and enable the Offline feature.

Gmail should now reload and you will see a new link titled “Offline” right next to the “Settings” link in the top right corner of the Gmail window.

Click on Offline and Google Gears will throw a warning at you that some website named http://mail.google.com is trying to access Gears. Since I was quite sure that it’d harmless, I let the website access Gears and you should probably do the same.

At this point, Gmail will begin downloading what it thinks are the most important emails to you. I’m saying “what it thinks” because the Gmail team has a pretty nifty algorithm to determine the emails that it downloads. For me that figure came to “about 3 years” worth of my emails and you might get a different figure, depending on the amount of email that you get.

At any rate, Gears will download about 10000 of your latest emails, not counting the Trash and Spam folder so this should be enough for most of us.

Depending on the speed of your link, this actual process of downloading and syncing emails might take a while and this is probably a good time to have a cup of coffee (or a mug of beer, if that’s what you prefer).

Gears will also offer to create a shortcut for Gmail on the desktop. With this shortcut, you can login Gmail in offline mode right from your desktop.

The Offline Gmail feature also includes a very cool Flaky Connection Mode. In this mode, you can continue using Gmail as you normally would and Gmail will automatically determine if you are online or offline, without the user ever knowing about it.

If you send any emails in this mode and you’re offline, Gmail will keep them in the outbox and send them as soon as you come back online, and you’ll never even come to know about your connection status. In my opinion, you should always keep this option checked. To enable the flaky connection mode, click on the Offline Gmail icon next to the Settings link.

This is without any doubt, one of the best things to happen to webmail. With our ever increasing dependence on services based “in the cloud”, the Gmail team has taken the lead in letting the users have access to their data, whether they’re connected to the cloud or not. This, in my opinion, can only be a good thing.

Do you think you ever going to use Gmail in offline mode? Let us know what you guys think of this new feature in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Detach Google Services From your Browser With GMDesk (7)
• 5 Gmail Labs Apps Worth Enabling (11)
• [Google Picasa 101] – Saving, Exporting & Uploading To Picasa Web Albums (6)
• What’s new in Gmail: Imports, Images, Previews, Translations and more (11)
• Ultimate GMail Collection: over 80 Tools and Tips (80)

The internal hard disks available in the market, on the other hand, require to be prepared before use. By preparing a hard drive, I mean that the hard drive needs to be formatted. And no, it isn’t as tough as it sounds.

So, how do you format a nwe internal hard drive and make the hard drive useable by your operating system? The answer depends on which operating system you are using. I use both Windows XP and Linux for my work and I will be explaining the steps needed to format new disks under both these operating systems.

Of course, I’m assuming that you have already attached your disk to your computer and the computer is able to boot up with the older hard disk.

So, once you’ve logged into the administrator account under Windows XP, what you need to do is right click on the “My computer” icon and click on Manage.

This should open the Computer Management tool. Now to view the newly attached disk go to the Disk Management service.

As soon as you click on disk management, a wizard should pop up which will help you to initialize your new disk. At this point, you can just let the wizard do its job and when its done, you should be able to see your new disk in an unallocated state.This does not mean that the disk is bad, but it means that you have successfuly completed the first part of the process and can proceed to the second part.

This is where you need to create a partition, and give your new disk a drive name, like c:, d: etc, so that you can use it under Windows.

The new partition wizard will take you through a series of steps and let you specify the size of the partition (if you don’t want the whole disk to be allocated to a single drive), the drive letter and the file system type. In almost all cases, you can simply chose the default options and let the wizard work its magic.

In the end, you should have a shiny new drive available for storing your MP3 collection important documents.

In case you are using Linux then the process is a little more involved. I’m assuming that you are familiar with the Linux command prompt as most of these steps have to be performed on the command prompt. So, login as root and fire up the command prompt application before starting.

You will have to first use the fdisk command to find the name of the newly attached drive and then use the same command to create a partition on the disk.

As you can see, the “fdisk -l” command lists two drives attached to the system, /dev/sda and /dev/sdb.

The /dev/sda drive has a Linux partition and is your main operating system drive. So, the newly attached drive is /dev/sdb and it doesn’t have any partitions on it, yet. To create a new partition on the drive, use the interactive form of the fdisk command.

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk /dev/sdb
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won’t be recoverable.

Warning: invalid flag 0×0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e   extended
p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-100, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-100, default 100):
Using default value 100

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
[root@localhost ~]#

Now, to format this partition, use the mkfs command on partition number 1 of /dev/sdb that we created above.

mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdb1

That should be enough to make the new drive visible to your operating system and you should be able to mount and use the drive.

mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb /mount_point

So, as you you don’t have to be a computer genuis to format an internal hard drive. It is not as complicated as it sounds and you all can do it. If you guys have any more questions, please let us know in the comments and we’ll be glad to help.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• How To Protect Sensitive Information by Erasing Your Hard Disk Completely (13)
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• Your Computer, Your World – How to Keep Out the Mindless (51)
• WinHack – Speed Up Your Windows XP Computer (Part 1) (21)

For people like me who had hundreds of emails in our Yahoo inboxes (and no money in our pockets) that was a sad day. Letting Yahoo take care of our emails and not having access to important emails when we wanted them was a big disappointment. I lived with the fear of losing my emails for a long time and then one day I came across this wonderful utility called YahooPOPs!

YPOPs lets you use an offline email client to download and send emails from your Yahoo account, just as it used to be. In other words, YPOPs acts as a POP3 and SMTP proxy for your Yahoo mail account.

To get started, download the YPOPs installer and install it on your Windows machine. The installer will ask you if you want YPOPs to start automatically when Windows starts. If you want that option, say yes or leave it alone. I like to leave programs out of the start up routine, so I’ll pass on this one. I’ll manually start YPOPs when I want to.

Now, comes the configuration part.

YPOPs, when started, will quietly settle down in the task bar and to configure it, you’ll just have to right click the icon and click on “configure”.

You can leave pretty much all the settings as it is except the Network settings.

The only thing in the Network settings that I had to change for YPOPs to work on my box were the POP3 and SMTP ports. For some reason, YPOPs refused to work with the default POP and SMTP ports, so I changed the POP3 port to 5110 and the SMTP port to 5125. That’s it!

To read emails offline, I use the excellent open source program called Thunderbird.

When you start Thunderbird for the first time, it’ll ask you to set up an email account to work with. Move along, enter your name and the email address that you want to work with <username@yahoo.com> and enter localhost as the POP server and localhost as the SMTP server name. Click next and finish.

When you’re finished, Thunderbird will offer to download emails from the account that you just started. If you let it download emails right now, Thunderbird will fail with an error saying it couldn’t connect to the server or something to that effect. This is normal since, by default, Thunderbird would have chosen port 110 for POP3 and port 25 for SMTP, which is not what we set in YPOPs.

To change the port settings for Thunderbird, go to Tools -> Account Settings, and under Server Settings, change the port to 5110 from the default of 110.

To change the SMTP port, on the same window, go to Outgoing Server (SMTP) and click on Edit and change the SMTP port to 5125 from the default of 25.

That’s it. Go back to the main Thunderbird window and click on Send/Receive. You should now be able to send and receive all your Yahoo email from within Thunderbird and no one will ever come to know the difference. Plus, you never have to see those ugly advertisements on the Yahoo mail website

You don’t even have to use Thunderbird to use YPOPs. You can continue using your favorite emailing client and add a second account to be used for Yahoo mail. Just make sure that you change the POP3 and SMTP ports to match the ones you set in the YPOPs configuration window.

If you have any problems setting it up, leave a question in the comments and we’ll try and help you out.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• Technology Explained: How Does An Email Server Work? (14)
• IncrediMail – Have Some Fun With This Email Client (Windows) (24)
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On one such journey across the web, I came across this wonderful utility called TED – Torrent Episode Downloader, which promises to solve this very problem that I’ve been having.

TED is basically a tool which scours the internet for torrents of TV shows that you ask it to and then lets you download them using a torrent client. TED does not download the files itself, nor does it host the files. It only searches for them. In a way, it’s an alternative tool to torrent clients that can automatically download latest episodes using RSS feed for that TV show (see tvRSS).

There are separate versions of TED available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X and the Windows version is the one that I tried.

Once you have TED up and running, click on the “Add show” button and you will be presented with a list of shows that have been filled in by the creators of TED. The list is quite long and includes most famous shows running right now on TV. You should definitely be able to find the show that you’re looking for in this list.

Click on the name of the show, or search for it using the search box at the top of the window, and TED will give you some nice details about the the show, including the time it last aired and the time it is expected to air next.

Click on the “Add” button and this show will be added to the list of shows that TED will continuously watch the internet for. TED resides in the Windows taskbar and runs in the background all the time, checking back every hour till it has found the shows in its list and has the torrent ready for you. The hourly interval can be be adjusted using the Preferences menu item under the Edit menu.

Once TED finds a particular show, all it does is launch your default torrent client and hand over the actual downloading to that client, and then goes back to quietly looking for more downloads from the list of shows.

If you’re looking for an episode that has already been shown, right click on the show’s name and click Edit. From this window, you can tell TED to download a particular show by letting it know the season and the episode that you’re looking for.

Even though TED comes with a pretty exhaustive list of shows, if you still find that your favorite show is not on the list, its easy to add it to the list. Just go to the “Add Show” window and click on the “Add a custom show” button. Enter the show’s name and click on “Select from available episodes”. Now, sit back and relax while TED does its thing.

If the show is out there, TED will probably be able to get it for you.

I’m sure you will all love this awesome utility. How do you guys catch up with your daily TV viewing ?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• How To Use RSS Feeds To Download Torrents Automatically (8)
• FeedMyTorrents Keeps TV Shows Downloading Automatically (17)
• 7 Apps to Make Most of TORRENTs (31)
• Wyzo Beta – The Web Browser for Downloaders (12)
• Who Needs The Amazon Kindle When You Have A Netbook? (26)

Don’t worry though. Gmail now has you covered on that front also. The Gmail Labs team has just released a new widget for just this purpose. This handy widget lets you convert email conversations to text documents that can be downloaded and saved to your PC in different formats.

To enable this new functionality, login to Gmail and click on “settings”. Now go to the “Labs” sub-tab and scroll down till you see the “Create a Document” widget. Enable it and save the settings.

Now, to make use of this great new function, open the email conversation that you’ve been dreading to make notes from. On the right hand side of the page, you should see a link titled “Create a Document” just above the sponsored links. Click on this link, a new window will open, Gmail will place the full text of the email conversation in a new Google Docs document and put you in charge.

One nice touch that the engineers at Google have put in is that the email signatures and quoted text is not a part of this conversion. So, that’s one less headache for you while cleaning up the document for sharing with your colleagues.

Once the document is in Google Docs, its just a matter of a couple of clicks and you can easily edit out whatever you want and then save or share the document with your peers for a review. Making a task list or a TODO from an email has never been this easy.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• How To Use Gmail & Google Docs Instead of Adobe Reader (16)
• Add Google Calendar, Docs and Gadgets to Gmail (8)
• 5 Contacts to SUPERCHARGE Your eMail (6)
• [Google Picasa 101] – Saving, Exporting & Uploading To Picasa Web Albums (6)
• What’s new in Gmail: Imports, Images, Previews, Translations and more (11)

It turns out that .docx is the new default file format for Microsoft Word 2007 and they even have xlsx and pptx for Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 respectively. Microsoft probably thought that by making these the default formats, everyone would actually be upgrading to the new version of Office as soon as it was released. Well, I haven’t upgraded till now and have no inclination to upgrade for the next couple of months also.

That said, a lot of my friends have slowly moved over to the dark side and are sending me docx and pptx files all the time. In my quest to find the ultimate docx viewer online, I have come across a couple of resources that I’d like to share with you guys today.

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack

To be fair, Microsoft didn’t leave us poor souls all alone. They did release the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for users of older versions of Office, to let them view and edit Office 2007 formats like docx, pptx and xlsx. If you’re one of those who owns a previous version of MS Office, this is probably the easiest way to go. The compatibility pack is a free and small (30MB) download from Microsoft.

On the other hand, If you’re as lazy as I am and only want to open docx file then Word viewer (docx viewer), PowerPoint viewer or the Excel viewer are perfect for the task. You don’t need the full version of Office installed to use any of the above viewers.

OpenOffice 3

OpenOffice is a free and open source alternative to Microsoft’s Office suite and the latest version of the product, version 3, includes native support for Office 2007 formats.

OpenOffice only can be used as a viewer for docx right now so editing the file and saving in the same format is not possible. You can only open office docx files and view them. Saving in the older office .doc format is possible though, for those who want to go that route.

Use Zamzar to Convert from docx to doc

Zamzar is an online service to convert files between various formats, docx (and pptx and xlsx) being one of them.

The website is free of advertisements and the service speedy. What more can you ask for ? All that Zamzar asks for is your email address to send over a link to the converted document, and of course the original document.

Just point your browser to the website, upload your document, give your email address and you’re done. No need to download any docx viewer.

You might also want to check out Docx Converter – site that lets you convert docx file to html. And as you may know html documents can be opened with any web browser.

You should receive an email from Zamzar within a couple of minutes with a link to the converted document.

Firefox Plugin to open docx files

Microsoft has also been working on a plugin for Firefox called the OpenXML viewer which is a viewer for docx files and can open docx file inside the Firefox browser as if it were an HTML file. Of course, you can’t edit the file but if viewing the file is all you want, this is probably the easiest solution.

To install the plugin, download it from this site and unzip it. Now, using Firefox, open the .xpi file (File->Open) and install the plugin. You will be asked to restart Firefox and once you restart, the new plugin should be there for you to view all your docx files.

Are there any other tools that you guys use to view/edit Office 2007 files ? Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Online Word Processor: A Closer Look at Adobe’s Buzzword (7)
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But the best feature of Notify.Me is being updated about specific keyword articles – more on that later though.

To get started with Notify.Me, head on over to the website and click on ‘Register’. Give them a username, password and an arm and a leg … oh sorry, your email address. That should do it. You’ll get an email from Notify.Me with an embedded link. Click on the link to verify your email address and you’re good to go.

Once you’re logged in, you’ll have to set up your Notify.Me account. From here on, the process involves following a simple wizard and giving the website some information.

The first screen asks you for your mobile number so that Notify.Me can send you notifications over SMS. I don’t know if you’d like to be SMS’ed every time Techcrunch posts a new article but for news and similar stuff, I can definitely see the use.

Did I tell you that you can also configure Notify.Me to send you updates over IM ? The next step in the account setup wizard shows you how to do exactly that. They have instructions for working with Pidgin, Google Talk, Adium and Jabber, so they’ve got pretty much all operating systems covered, although personally I’d love to see MSN and Yahoo messenger also on that list.

The next screen asks will let you enter all the feeds that you’d like notify.me to keep a track of.

The best part is that you can even filter the kind of notifications that you want to be, well, notified about.

For example, suppose you only want to hear about Gmail related articles on MakeUseOf. Just head over here to MakeUseOf. In the search box, type Gmail and press enter. Now, copy the URL from the address bar and paste it in the Notify.Me text box marked ‘Feed’. That’s it.

Now, every time there is an article mentioning Gmail on Make Use Of, you’ll get a notification. You can even filter the source further by specifying keywords in the filter text box. Click on the IM, SMS or email icon to set the method by which you want to get your fix … err, feed.

This can also obviously be done for any other blogs too where you would like to only be notified about articles on particular subjects.   Just go to that site, enter the subject into the blog’s search engine and copy the URL into Notify.Me’s text box.

So, you’re all set now? What if one day you’re surfing your blues away and come across a really interesting site and would like to see that added to your notify list?  Well, Notify.Me has you covered there too. With the bookmarklets that they provide, you can add new sources to your account as fast as you can click the bookmark button.

I can definitely see myself using this service to keep myself abreast of the latest news and blog posts. Are there any other similar services that you guys use ? I’d love to hear about them.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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If you’ve ever used a desktop image editing software, like Gimp or Photoshop, you’d be right at home with Pixlr. While it doesn’t have all the features of Photoshop yet, it is definitely a better alternative to using MS Paint. The website doesn’t even require a signup. To use the editor, click on the appropriately named button, “Jump In”, and well….jump right in!

The main window resembles a desktop image editing solution and reminded me of the excellent open source image editor, Gimp.

To start using Pixlr, use the File menu (or use the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+O) to open an image file and let Pixlr load the image. Cut, copy and paste your way around the application and if you make a mistake, don’t worry, Pixlr has multiple levels of “Undo”. Just click on the Edit->Undo menu item or press the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl + Z.

Talking about keyboard shortcuts, the good thing about Pixlr is that it uses all regular keyboard shortcuts and so the learning curve is minimum. For example, the shortcut to copy a part of an image is Ctrl + c, the shortcup to paste is Ctrl + v and so on.

The files created using Pixlr can be saved in either the JPEG or PNG format. Excellent for images that are to be used online.

What really makes Pixlr shine over other similar web applications is its support for filters and layers.

Anyone familiar with desktop image editing solutions would know how important and useful the concept of layers is and from what I’ve seen, Pixlr is the only online image editing solution which offers this feature.

Pixlr also supports a number of image filters and while the number of filters available right now is limited, I’m sure the Pixlr team is working on a number of useful filters and will be adding them to the application as they’re ready, making life easier for us non pros.

Pixlr is an awesome application with a feature set that should appeal to the non pros among us. While it is low on features right now, if the initial reaction is any indication, I’m sure we’ll be seeing great things from the Pixlr team in the future. It might not replace your favorite desktop application, but it should definitely find a place in your web toolbox.

Give it a go then let us know what you think about it in the comments.

MakeUseOf authors covered some other online image editors as well, check out Flauntr, Splashup and several others.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Now, contrary to what most people think, I actually believe that Microsoft must have given at least some thought to building all these supposedly great features into Windows Vista. Then, why is it that no one is using them?

I don’t know about the others, but I’ll tell you my reason. I don’t use half of these features because Microsoft has made them too damn hard to find! I find easier to configure and use my favorite Linux distribution than use Windows Vista.

But even I have to use Vista at times. It doesn’t matter that I can never make it work the way I want to, that the most useful tools are almost always hidden away in a menu thirty clicks away.

And that is the biggest reason why I really like Vista Utilities. It collects main Windows Vista features in one place.

Windows Vista Utilities is a free tool which provides the user with direct and easy access to all Windows Vista utilities and tools. That is what the description says and the software doesn’t disappoint.

The sidebar neatly categorizes the type of tools available under each button. Click on any button in the sidebar and you can access all the tools available under that category in the window pane.

As you can see, there are a ton of options and possibly every utility bundled with Windows Vista has a place in one of the categories. Here is a screenshot of showing contents of ‘Security’ category

Vista Utilities not only saves you time but also makes the Control Panel redundant, which has always been a mess anyway. I’ve always found the Control Panel difficult to navigate and have stopped using it altogether now.

Vista Utilities can be launched at startup and told to sit in the sidebar until needed. Once in the sidebar, a simple right-click brings up a menu giving you easy access to all the great tools, and saves the user the burden of switching applications.

I agree this isn’t one of those tools that you’ll use everyday, but it really does a good job of presenting all the options that a user has and you’ll be thankful that it’s there, the day you need to use it.

Are there any other must-have tools that you guys use to spice up your Vista experience? Share with us your favourite time-savers in the comments.

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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But, as with all software, there is room for improvement and although Google has been adding features to Gmail at a dizzying pace, there’s only so much they can do, without breaking up the thing for a whole bunch of users.

And that is where Gmail Labs come in. My guess is that the Gmail team at Google got tired of deciding if a feature was good enough to be in Gmail and so have designed Gmail Labs to let the users decide, which is an awesome idea if you ask me!

According to the Gmail team,

Gmail Labs is a way for us to take lots of the ideas we wouldn’t normally pick and let you all (who use Gmail) decide whether they’re good or not.

To enable the Labs features, log-in to your Gmail account and click on “Settings”. There you should see the Labs tab. Click on that for a list of all the available features.

Right Side Labels/Right Side Chat

This is one of my favorite extensions. All it does is take the list of labels and the chat box from the bottom-left of the page and places it at the top-right of the page. What a huge difference that makes.

The problem with the labels/chat box at the default location is that one has to do a bit of scrolling and clicking to reach there. This extension takes the pain out of using the labels.

Signature Tweaks

This is one of those things that has been, in my opinion, broken in Gmail since day one. I’m glad that the team has finally got around to providing a solution to the problem. The signature tweaks extension lets you place your signature before the quoted text when replying to an email. It also removes the ‘–’ before the signature.

Quoted Text

This extension is definite proof that God exists. Gone are the days of selecting and deleting irrelevant text when replying to a message. A huge time-saver if ever there was one.

Vacation Time

This is another useful extension that lets you specify the start and end dates for your vacation, so that the auto-responder can stop auto-responding to emails when you’re back.

Now, I can see that grin on your faces, I know all of you have at some time forgot to disable the auto-responder

Forgotten Attachment Detector

We’re all guilty of forgetting to attach a file while sending an email. Hell, I’ve even sent job applications without attaching my resume This extension is definitely a God-send for people like me … and I use it all the time.

Do you guys have any favourite Gmail Labs extensions ? Are there any extensions you would like Gmail Labs to invent? Please leave a comment and tell us your dream Gmail extension!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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I’ve been using Vista since it came with my notebook and actually find it to be better than Windows XP. Although I have the benefit of using a fairly recent machine and, even then, I have had to customize Vista quite a bit to save on some memory and speed up daily tasks.

In this post, I’ll share 4 tips to help you speed up Vista PC and live with that bloated beast.

1. Disable Aero

Aero is the fancy marketing term for the not-so-fancy graphics that you see in Windows Vista. Sure, some of those effects look pretty and might even impress your girlfriend (or boyfriend) but Aero is a resource hog. If you are running Vista on an older computer, there is no reason to torture the poor machine and stress yourself in the process.

To disable the Windows Aero look, right click anywhere on the desktop and click Personalize -> Window Color and Appearance. This will open a window like the one shown here.

Now chose one of the color schemes in the list. Windows Aero will enable all effects, Windows Vista Basic will disable the snazzy effects you see while switching between Windows using alt-tab, or the window preview that you see if you hover your mouse over the taskbar. The Basic setting is a nice compromise between speed and usability, though. You can try the Windows Standard and Windows Classic settings too if you want to.

You can get some more juice out of Vista by disabling some window effects. Right click on ‘My Computer’ and then click on >Advanced System Settings -> Settings (under the Advanced tab and performance section) and then choosing whether you want Windows to adjust itself for best performance or best appearance.

2. Disable the Vista Sidebar

The Windows Vista Sidebar is a nice looking but mostly useless piece of bloat that most Vista installations can live without. Whatever stroke of genius led Microsoft to let the sidebar be switched on by default, you can actually get rid of it, and save some precious memory in the process.

To remove the Sidebar, right click on the Sidebar and select ‘Close Sidebar’. In the dialogue box that you get, uncheck “Start Sidebar when Windows starts”, and click OK.

3. ReadyBoost

ReadyBoost was one big hyped up feature of Windows Vista. The feature supposedly lets Windows use a flash drive connected to the PC as a memory cache and since most flash drives are faster than regular hard drives, this apparently helped Windows perform faster. The reality is that most people don’t use this feature and for them, it is only slowing down the system. To disable this service, go to ControlPanel -> Administrative Tools -> Services. Double-click on the ReadyBoost service and select ‘disable’ from the drop down box.

4. Disable User Account Control

This tip will not really speed up the computer as such, but will definitely let you use the computer faster. User Account Control (UAC) is one of the most talked about features of Windows. Talked not by Microsoft, but by people who like to hate Vista, for whatever reason. If you’ve Vista used for any amount of time, I’m sure you’ve come across this feature. This is the feature with which Vista prompts you with dire consequences if you chose to ignore its warning. The screen goes dark and a pop-up….well….pops up and asks for permission to perform the said task. It is not only annoying, but it essentially serves no purpose, since most people become immune to the warning in just a couple of days.

For those people, it is best to disable this feature altogether. Here’s how :

Click on Start – > Control Panel -> User Account. In the User account window, click on the link named “Turn User Account Control on or off”. In the dialogue box that follows you can disable UAC altogether. Click OK, reboot and move on.

If you guys have any more tips to help speed up Vista, please share them with us in the comments. Have you tried the tips I have mentioned here? Do they work for you?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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