Category: Reviews

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MyToday – Free RSS Feed to SMS / Email Service!

MyToday offers RSS Feed updates via Email / SMS. The SMS updates are limited to Indian cellphone users. The service is free, so do not expect instant updates.

I read this first on Pavan’s blog. Being online around the clock, personally I don’t need a service like this. But tested it on request of few orkutfeeds users and so posting how I used it!

Following is with reference to mobile version of MyToday…

#Register with MyToday (Its free)

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  • To register, sms REG to 098452 98452. Only for Indian cellphone users.
  • They send back a password to the mobile.

#Login to MyToday

  • Use your mobile number and password to login.

For convenience, your all setting at MyToday can be reached from My World Link.

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#Adding a RSS Feed

  1. Go to My World >> feeds >> manage feeds option. [Direct Link]
  2. You will see a list of folders there as well as option to create a new one. For time being select SMS. [Direct Link]
  3. Now put anything in Name, enter feed URL and check Send SMS option and click create. Thats it!

You can add as many feeds you want. But only time I received updates is around 10PM IST. So I guess they check all feeds only once per day!

#Useful MyToday Link –

  • MyAccount – You can add email address/ change password and perform other tasks.
  • Sitemap – In case you want to explore more!

Link: MyToday [via TechPavan]

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NetMeter – Free Bandwidth Manager To Keep Track of Internet Usage! [Windows Download]

One of our reader, Pranav wanted a tool to keep track of his Internet usage. Many broadband Internet users have monthly data transfer limit so such tools help them not to get over-billed at the end of month.

After lots of search and testing few, we found NetMeter to work best for all kind of users. Not to mention separately its free and no registration is needed. Just download and install.

For the first time you need to setup few thing like your data-transfer limit, notification settings, etc. Actually it has too many options to confuse a home user but its really worth using. Still for your help I will show minimum important setting you need to configure before using NetMeter.

 

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 # Setting Traffic Limit

This is only thing you need to do to get started. On starting, NetMeter sits in system-tray. To see NetMeter options as shown below, right-click on NetMeter icon in system tray select options from context-menu. Then go to Notifications tab.

Only things you need to change are reach(es) and during current fields. Both highlighted in screenshot below. Its better to set limits less than actual limits so that you can get notified before crossing data transfer limits!

 

 # Checking your actual usage and projected usage

From same NetMeter context menu mentioned above select Totals option. You will see following details.

Also check projected tab for more info!

Link Summary: NetMeter Home | Download Page (Alternate Link)

Update: Alternate download link for NetMeter added as follow-up to Adis comment.

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3 Free E-Mail Image-Signature Generators To Style Your Email Address!

Editor’s Note: In this post the second image signature Generator reviewed is redirecting to a unrelated website. Will update the link and when the reviewed URL is up.

Do you like to sign your emails in style? Or just like the way many bloggers put their email address in image format on contact pages like this…

If yes we have 3 tools to share with you. All these tools are similar to use except few differences as mentioned below. Here are some general instructions…

  • Go to any tools site
  • Put your ID part only and select service from drop-down menu.
  • Click submit and you will see images like above.
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#1: E-Mail Icon Generator

Unique features…

  • It supports maximum number of email service providers
  • It supports domains like co.in for yahoo.co.in email addresses, co.uk for hotmail.co.uk, and so on.
  • Provides link to image which you can use all over the web.
  • Advance options like changing foreground, background color, fonts.
  • You can specify any email provider in advance options.

Samples:

Links: Email Icon Generator | Advance Options

#2: E-Mail Signature Generator

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Unique features…

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  • Allow to choose custom color for id part only. Good if you don’t like to loose email services’ logo while changing color.
  • You can directly email image to your email account.
  • Provides link to image which you can use all over the web.

Samples:

Link: E-Mail Signature Generator* (check editor’s note at the top)

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#3: GMAIL Only Signature Generator

This is only for Gmail users. If you are looking for samples like below then this is for you…

The site is in a foreign language which I can’t understand. Anyway just change rahul286 in following link with your Gmail username part. Then open up modified link in browser and you will get a page containing images like above. There are no advance options here! Here comes my link…

http://www.hkwebs.net/catalog/tools/gmail/index.php?main_action=show&user=rahul286

Thats it! If possible upload final image you want to use on your server if possible.

Apart from styling, email addresses published in image formats are unreadable by spam bots. So you get spam protection as well!

If you know any similar tools please let us know… 🙂

Related: Insert HTML Signature in Gmail

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Best Free and Paid Web Hosting Service On Internet! [Review]

In this post I am writing about a free and a paid web hosting service. They are best in their own categories.

Also, as computer hardware is getting cheaper everyday just disk space and bandwidth should not be your parameters for choosing the right webhost. Of course, paid webhosts will anytime offer you much more disk space, bandwidth & other features.

 

110MB – Best Free Web Hosting Service

I used it for more than a year. I still maintain my account there.

Here are few things to notice:

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  • No Ads. Not even text-links! In fact I am there for more than a year and still its ad-free.
  • Nice support which is rare with free webhosts.
  • You will be offered a subdomain. You can register one domain with extra cost! I guess that’s fair too.
  • An affiliate program to give more traffic to your site.
  • Nice uptime. Ever better than some paid hosts out there!

Features – just for sake of mentioning…

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  • Disk Space – 5 GB
  • Bandwidth – 300 GB per month
  • PHP, MySQL, One-Click Installer, etc..
  • Complete list is here

Also some function like sendmail and database support costs one time payment of around $5-$10. This small payment is nothing to consider as its just one time.

Business Model…

Yep. You should ask about it! As there are always catches with free things. Anyway don’t worry 110MB is exception.

  • They make money by showing ads in control/admin panel. Note that they show ad to you, not to your visitors!
  • Showing ads on 404 error pages. Its ok for personal as well as small websites.
  • Direct payments made for small upgrades. Like $5 to enable sendmail function.
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#Links: 110MB.COM | Features List | My Site (which is not functional now…)

 

Dreamhost – Best Paid Web Hosting Service

Yep. Dreamhost is the best webhost and that’s the reason we are using it! Its cheap price was never a catch for me personally as when searching for good paid webbost I was all concern about features and support. In fact I was not aware of promo codes so I missed $97 discount which I could avail that time 🙁

Anyway my thinking was, if you can afford $100 per year what’s the problem with $200 per year! After all worst sites on internet with few hundred hits daily makes more than $200 per annum by using just Google Adsense!

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So here comes few things I loved about Dreamhost

  • Really nice and fast support!
  • All features are explained in details with examples at Dreamhost wikis. This means anyone with little knowledge about web based technology can create websites.
  • Nice support forum with large number of active members.
  • Affiliate Program to free your hosting bills.

Features – just for sake of mentioning…

  • Storage: 500GB (+2GB will be added every week)
  • Bandwidth: 5TB (+40GB will be added every week)
  • Free 1-Domain registration. You can register more with any registrar.
  • Unlimited MySQL databases, Web Sites, Email, FTP, User Accounts
  • Complete list of features is here

How to get best DEAL…

  • As Dreamhost supports unlimited user accounts you can share cost of hosting among your friends. We are hosting seven websites here as of now and more will be added soon…
  • Paying for atleast one year. You can pay for 10 years in advance.
  • Using Dreamhost promo codes you can get $50 discount. Thats max you can get. Also if you use DW50 as promo code you will get $50 discount from DreamHost and lifetime free telephonic support by our highly experienced  webmaster team.
  • So just for calculation,  if you are going for 10 years payment then $5.95/month x 12 month x 10 year – $50 discount = $664 for 10 years. Thats $66.4 per annum!

#Links: Dreamhost | Features List | List of Sites we are hosting here

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Best Sites To Compare Blogs, Forums, Wikis, CMS, Messengers and more!

If you are hearing term Comparison Matrix for the first time, then it is a analytical way to describe and compare various attributes and characteristics of different items. In simple words, for a particular goal comparison matrix helps you choose best option!

In this post I am sharing list of such comparison matrix sites which I have bookmarked and using from long time…

#1. Blogging Softwares – WeblogMatrix can be used to compare many self-hosted as well as downloadable blogging software at once. Do not forget to check its search feature if you want to find a solution as per your requirement.

Check one of the hottest comparison – WordPress v/s Blogger.

#2. Forum Software – ForumMatrix can be used to compare various forums aka bulletin board softwares. It also have a search feature but most important is its choice wizard feature which I think every comparison matrix site should provide.

Have a look at phpBB v/s bbPress – comparison of two free and open source forum softwares. One of these will be soon used for Devils Workshop forum!

#3. Wiki Softwares – Wiki Matrix can be used to find best wiki software. In terms of options, it beats all other comparison matrix sites with search option, choice wizard and markup comparison facility.

Check comparison of MediaWiki v/s Midgard-Wiki v/s TikiWiki v/s WackoWiki.

#4. CMS Software – There are many CMS (Content Management System) comparison sites but CMS Matrix is the best and only place I use. You can compare more than 850 CMS here. It have a search feature also but no choice wizard interface.

With 850+ CMS there you may find its hard to find best.Try comparison of Drupal, Joomla & Mambo – best 3 free & open-source CMS softwares. Also please share your finding as I am confused between these three CMS from long time.

# 5. Instant Messengers – Compare IM let you compare & search various instant messengers. It also have a search feature.

You can test comparison of Pidgin, Trillian & Miranda or read our review on them.

This is one my most favorite topic so I often write about them in messenger channel.

#Bonus – More Compare Sites…

Let me know if something is missing… 🙂

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PopUrls – best place to know what’s happening in the world!

PopUrls is a single page aggregator that encapsulates up-to-the-minute headlines from the most popular sites on the internet launched by Thomas Marban with the intention to get a quick glance on what’s happening on the web while keeping the common newsreader clean from short-term headlines.

The list of sites it aggregates includes most visited social news sites and portals including but not limited to Digg, Reddit, Delicious, Furl, Slashdot, BoingBoing, Flickr, YouTube, Google News,  Yahoo News, Twitter, Wired, Slashdot, Last.fm. So you get all popular news, images, videos, blog posts all on one page.

Its elegant design let you not only change the way how it looks but also let you customize what should it serve and how, in ‘a-la-carte’ manner!

Other options includes changing font size, taking note of items without leaving the page itself, hiding summary of headlines which pop-ups whenever you hover mouse on any headline, image & other content.

The site have a mobile friendly version popurls.mobi. Also there is popurls.tv in Popurls Network in case you get curious about what’s popular on popurls.com itself! 😉

 

Links: popurls.com | popurls.mobi | Popurls Network

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Portable Applications for Windows User – Download & Run without Installation!

If you…

  • access computer from more than one physical location like home & college
  • have flash/pen/USB  drive, iPod or any sort of portable storage device
  • using storage device to carry data like bookmarks and other setting which is common to various computers

Then using a portable application is right solution for you!

As defined on wikipedia,

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A portable application, or portable app for short, is a software program that does not require any kind of formal installation onto a computer’s permanent storage device to be executed, and can be stored on a removable storage device such as a CD-ROM, USB flash drive, flash card, or even a floppy disk, enabling it to be used on multiple computers

Now after going through many alternatives & directories the most impressive solution in this genre we found is PortableApps.com!

Below are link to few apps hosted on PortableApps.com. Complete list is here…

Beside this you may consider using PortableApps Suite – a program which will make you fall in love with your USB Drives! 😉

PortableApps.com Suite™ is a collection of portable apps including a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, antivirus, sudoku game, backup utility and integrated menu, all preconfigured to work portably. Most impressive is backup/restore feature so that you can synchronize settings, bookmarks, data across various computers! Read support page for more information and usage guide.

Please note that applications are portable between various windows PC and in some cases on Linux if used with Wine. Check application compatibility page for most accurate information.

 

PortableApps.com Links – Homepage | Apps Directory | PortableApps Suite

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Unlocker – No More "Error Deleting File or Folder" [Windows Downloads]

If you are Windows user then you might have seen something like below in past:

There are other similar error alerts like…

  • Cannot delete file: Access is denied
  • The source or destination file may be in use.
  • The file is in use by another program or user.
  • Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.
  • etc…
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Most of the times files/folders are locked by some applications you may not know. So even closing application in doubt doesn’t solves problem.

I often get this error so was wondering if there any way to unlock the file/folder I want to move/delete. Thanks to Google, I found this nice application named Unlocker…

#How-To Use

  1. Click here to download Unlocker (size: 190KB). Setup is simple and quick. After installing…

  2. Just right click on file/folder and select Unlocker from context menu as shown in following screenshot…

  1. A window with list of applications having lock on file/folder will appear

  1. Select Unlock All  or any other option. Its your choice!

 

More info, FAQ and a comparison chart with other similar softwares is on official Unlocker webpage!

Hope you will find this useful at some point in time… 🙂

Unlocker Links: Download | Homepage

[Credit Note: All screenshots in this post are via Unlocker Website]

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Free Symbian s60 Bluetooth Remote Control for Windows PC

Few days back I have published a post about anyRemote – a mobile software using which you can control any application running on Linux PC. I got few email asking similar software for Windows PC. After lots of search I got many alternatives but only free & working I found is Remotud. Its quite limited in terms of features compared to anyRemote but its too simple to configure just like most Windows softwares.

Remotud will work with Symbian s60 series devices. Which means most Nokia smart-phones user can use this. I tested this using Nokia N70 and 6600 with Windows XP. It just worked great.

Here is the list of media players and applications which works with Remotud…

  • BSPlayer 2.0
  • Windows Media Player 10
  • VLC 0.8.4a
  • Winamp 5.24
  • PowerDVD 7
  • ZoomPlayer 4.57
  • Media Player Classic 6.4.9.0
  • Media Portal 0.2.2.0
  • Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
  • ShowShifter 3.12.2945
  • ArcSoft TotalMedia 2.0.4
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You can not configure other apps as there is no option to do this. But above list includes all notable media players except Mplayer which happen to be my most favorite 🙁

Any as this list keep on updating with every version I hope in next version I will see support for Mplayer!

Downloads Links:

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Send mobile part (Remotud.SIS file) to mobile handset and install it there. The other file meant for PC doesn’t require any installation. Just click and run it. Only thing you need to give is COM port number. Which you can find in Bluetooth configuration on your PC.

For detailed installation and usage instructions visit official documentation page.

Remotud Links: Homepage | Documentation | Screenshots | Downloads

Related Apps: anyRemote – Control Linux PC Using Bluetooth Mobile as Remote

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anyRemote – Control Linux PC Using Bluetooth Mobile as Remote!

This is something that makes Linux much smarter than Windows. With little bit of work you will be ready to mock at Windows Media Center PCs. There are many remote software for Windows platform, but all combined together can not beat this open-source project named – anyRemote!

It works with Nokia, SonyEricsson, Motorola, Samsung and with virtually every Java enabled cell phone which can connect to PC using any medium (Bluetooth, InfraRed, Cable, Wi-Fi, GPRS)

You can use it via command-line as well as GUI. Moreover separate KDE and GNOME frontend available with bonus web interface!

Not to mention, you can be configure it to use with any application on PC.

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I have tested this on my Fedore Core 7 64-bit PC with Nokia N-70 cell phone. I used KDE interface. What I loved most and missed in every other application like this is ability to browse entire file-system from cell phone. This helps me changing songs, videos without ever going to my PC!

This is open-source and completely free project with many packages available for download. You atleast needs two package, one for PC & one for mobile!

Do not forget to read introductory guide and official FAQ.

Also note one common mistake I still keep on repeating while using this software. I forget to turn on Bluetooth before starting mobile client. Being written in JAVA, client on your handset, starting can not turn your Bluetooth automatically. You have to turn it on explicitly.

anyRemote Links: Homepage | Download | Documentation | FAQ