Windows comes packed with a bunch load of small shortcut key strokes that enact the same commands available in the menus of a program. They are quicker and more direct, and usually involve two or three keys depressed simultaneously.Quite a few of them are listed in the Windows Manual ,but hardly anyone refers to the manual.Here are some important shortcuts which will enhance your Windows experience.
1. WindowsKey + d = >Minimizes all applications and open windows to reveal the desktop.
2.WindowsKey + L => Logs you off and lets you switch users.
3. Ctrl+Esc immediately followed by Alt+ M =>Instantly minimizes all open windows.Its similar to shortcut 1 but then its good to know.
4.Windowskey+E =>Brings up the Windows Explorer.
5.Windowskey+R =>Brings up the Run box.
6.F6 => automatically highlights the URL in the address bar.
7.Alt+Tab =>Switches to previous window.If multiple windows are open, holding ALT while repeatedly hitting TAB, tabs through all open windows.
8.Ctrl+Tab =>Tabs through pages in a properties dialog box.
9.Alt+Print Screen =>Copies only the active application window to clipboard.
10.Switch to the TaskBar =>Press Ctrl-Esc at any time to bring up the Start Menu. Once the Start Menu appears, press Esc to close the menu while keeping the Taskbar active. Then, press Tab to switch to the row(s) of running applications on the Taskbar.
There are many reasons why Gtalk is still in Beta because it doesn't satisfy the Basic Etiquette of Instant messengers. Although Google keeps rolling out new features like Orkut Integration, Voice mail, File Transfer, Off line messaging etc but someone needs to draw Google's Attention on fixing some bugs users experience with it.
Its not a matter of how many features you have, but how they actually work. Lets have an overview of major problems and dislikes that some of users facing with Google Talk.
After the Integration of Google Talk with Orkut, sometimes it disables features like GMail Notifications, File Transfer, Voice mail and hides the mail icon absolutely. You won't find settings for Orkut and Notifications
Window Focusing and Pop Window Conversation is an annoying feature in Gtalk which works even when you disable all notifications in settings. There should be an option to disable it completely and make it stay like idle.
Automatic Integration of Gtalk Music Integration with Windows Media Player,currently you need to set the plug in WMP settings but most of them actually think that Gtalk cannot actually show tracks from WMP.
Unintuitive sorting and showing them as online status, many users have experienced this problem actually.
Hope the Google Team will make Google Talk better with consideration.
This article was sent by blog reader Harsha. Thank You Harsha.
EvilLyrics is a lyrics search software which brings song lyrics right onto your desktop. There is no need to open your browser and google for your lyrics.What makes it really cool is that you can set it up with your favourite music player and the lyrics of the song being played are automatically downloaded by the software.EvilLyrics currently supports Winamp,WMP 9,iTunes,MusicMatch,Real Player,Y!Music and a few other music players.
EvilLyrics boasts a wide database of over 15,000,000 lyrics. If you have a website dedicated to lyrics , you can add it to their database as well.
It also has a lyrics translator.You can even edit the lyrics if you think that they are wrong. Incase you want to download the lyrics for a whole album,you just have to click on a small button on the toolbar. There is also an option for Karaoke.Whats more,it lets you search for guitar chords,album covers,arts,posters and other stuff.There are loads of other features. There are several addons which can be downloaded from the EvilLyrics website which let you customize your player .One such addon, EvilTagger lets you insert lyrics into mp3 files.
Its compact installation file of 300kB makes its download easy even on a dial up modem.Its completely spyware and adware free.Also,it consumes very little memory and does not eat up on your RAM.
Speech recognition is the process of converting a speech signal to a sequence of words, by means of an algorithm implemented as a computer program. For use with computers, analog audio must be converted into digital signals. This requires analog-to-digital conversion. For a computer to decipher the signal, it must have a digital database, or vocabulary, of words or syllables,and a speedy means of comparing this data with signals. The speech patterns are stored on the hard drive and loaded into memory when the program is run. A comparator checks these stored patterns against the output of the A/D converter.
Click the image to enlarge
In practice, the size of a voice-recognition program's effective vocabulary is directly related to the random access memory capacity of the computer in which it is installed. A voice-recognition program runs many times faster if the entire vocabulary can be loaded into RAM, as compared with searching the hard drive for some of the matches. Processing speed is critical as well, because it affects how fast the computer can search the RAM for matches.
All speech-recognition softwares make errors. Loud noises in the background due to external conversations ,change of accent,broken words,fast speech can produce false input. Much of this can be avoided only by using the system in a quiet room. There is also a problem with words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings -- for example, "hear" and "here."
Below is a demo of the Speech Recognition Software that comes packed along with the new Windows Vista. Though, I must warn that the software may not be well equipped to handle speech recognition.
AMD's Athlon 64 series was one of the biggest hits before Intel Core 2 Duo. Costing at a whooping Rs. 44000+, these babies performed well.
The AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 was really great, with the new 65nm technology, this baby has a processor frequency of about 2.8 GHz.
But if you think this is good, wait till you hear what AMD has in store for its high paying customers this mid-July.
To complete the brand new Quad FX platform AMD is introducing three new processors: the Athlon 64 FX-74, FX-72 and FX-70, running at 3.0GHz, 2.8GHz and 2.6GHz respectively. Each physical processor features two cores and a 1MB L2 cache per core, much like previous dual core FX processors, but what sets these CPUs apart from previous FX chips is that they are sold in bundles of two. So when you buy an Athlon 64 FX-74, you are actually buying two dual-core CPUs in a single box. It's not the most elegant way of getting four cores, but it gets the job done and AMD manages to do so at a competitive price. Note that these CPUs are effectively Opterons but with the memory controller configured to support un-buffered DDR2. The FX-74 is the first LGA desktop CPU made by AMD.
AMD Athlon 64 FX-74
These are the new competetive pricings for this year.
CPU
Clock Speed
L2 Cache
Price
AMD Athlon 64 FX-74*
3.0GHz
1MB per core
$999
AMD Athlon 64 FX-72*
2.8GHz
1MB per core
$799
AMD Athlon 64 FX-70*
2.6GHz
1MB per core
$599
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62
2.8GHz
1MB per core
$713
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+
2.6GHz
1MB per core
$403
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700
2.66GHz
4MB per 2 cores
$999
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600**
2.40GHz
4MB per 2 cores
$851
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800
2.93GHz
4MB
$999
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700
2.66GHz
4MB
$530
Intel Core 2 Duo vs AMD Athlon 64 FX-74
The left one is Core 2 Duo and the right one is AMD Athlon 64 FX-74
This article was sent by blog reader Harsha. Thank You Harsha.
YouTube is a popular free video sharing website which lets users upload, view, and share video clips. Videos can be rated, and the average rating and the number of times a video has been watched are both published.The wide variety of site content includes movie and TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as videoblogging and short original videos.
YouTube does not allow its videos to be downloaded from its website. So everytime you want to view a video,you have to visit YouTube and view the video online.This is a tiresome process as you need to let the video stream completely before you can view it in one smooth flow.
So incase you like a video and want to view it again and again wouldn't it be nice if YouTube allowed you to download the videos.Unfortunately YouTube does not allow that.
Now, KISS is a really innovative way of downloading YouTube Videos.Follow these simple steps to download your video.
1. Navigate to the page on which the video to be downloaded is situated. 2. Have a look at the address bar.The URL of page would look something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIwiPsgRrOs
3.Now place the cursor in the address bar and add the word "kiss" before "youtube",so that the URL would look like this:
http://www.kissyoutube.com/watch?v=uIwiPsgRrOs
4.Hit enter.You will be taken to the download page.Click on "Download Now" to get your video.
Remember to save the video with ".flv" extention.
In order to play your downloaded YouTube video,you will need a flv player.A free flv player can be downloaded from HERE.
So,what does KISS stand for? Keep It Super Simple.
Using Gmail is simple, but Gmail is also powerful. Make sure you make the best use of your Gmail account? Here are some tips, tricks, secrets and how tos for getting the most efficiency, comfort, power and fun out of Gmail.
1.Get notified in your browser: Google’s nifty Gmail Notifier utility sits in your system tray and checks for new mail at regular intervals. But if your system tray runneth over and you are using Firefox, you can receive notifications right in the browser’s status bar through Doron Rosenberg's identically named Gmail Notifier add-on software; see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Get new Gmail notifications right in your Firefox statusbar instead of using Google's own system tray-based notifier.
2.Filter messages with custom addresses and aliases: Like any decent email system, Gmail lets you set up filters that act on incoming mail based on criteria you set up. For example, you can create a filter that stars all messages from jrmuggins@frostbitefiord.co.nz and forwards them to every other email account you use. Click Settings->Filters->Create a new filter and follow the instructions. For more information on filters, click Help and choose Filters under ‘Common mail tasks and features’ to get a quick, complete tutorial.
3.Start using those gigabytes:Gmail continuously informs you that you have lots of storage space available —but most of us will probably never use even half that space for messages. Several tools let you use a Gmail account for web-based file storage or backup. Bjarke Viksoe’s Gmail Drive adds Gmail to Windows Explorer as a storage device, permitting you to drag and drop files to and from Google’s servers, where they are stored as email attachments.
Rahul Jonna’s Gmail Space(or GSpace) is similar, but it works as a Firefox extension that converts the browser into a file-transfer utility to shuttle documents between your hard disk and Gmail (see Figure 2). When you create a filter that sends Gmail Space files to a specific Gmail folder (every file that Gmail Space uploads is attached to a message whose subject is prefixed with ‘GSPACE’), you keep your inbox clear of your stored files automatically. Note that the current version of Gmail Space conflicts with the NoScript Firefox extension.
Figure 2: Use those Gmail gigabytes for storing copies of your files online, with the free Gmail Space add-on program for Firefox.
