It has only been a couple of months since I played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and I am ashamed (I just didn't get around to playing the first 3 installments) to say that it was the first Call of Duty installment I ever played. I enjoyed it very much but was determined to play World at war without comparing it to Modern Warfare.

Unlike Modern Warfare, World at War goes back to World War 2 with me playing as Pvt. Miller for US Infantry against the Japanese in some campaigns and as Pvt. Dmitri for the Russians against the Germans in the rest. The entire game can be reviewed in one word: Intense. There are very few moments in the game in which not less than ten people are shooting at you at the same time. Fight setups range from trenches, caves, historical places, libraries, offices, streets of Berlin, underground train stations to the german parliament. There is also a campaign in which I play a gunner in an aircraft shooting at other aircrafts and boats in the ocean. The layouts are well thought out and as realistic as they can get. The graphics are good but do not stand out like Crysis. The sets are massive, impressive and very engaging. This is the kind of game which justfies my investment in high end gaming hardware.

World at war does a thorough job of making one feel brutal and sadistic. There are stages in the game where you are forced to be ruthless and kill those seeking mercy. I even felt guilty at times during the game. In the end I was left with a feeling that even though the war was justified by the need to pacify the Japanese and the Germans, the battlefield reality of the situation is that the soldiers are possessed by a rage to kill with total disregard for the larger picture. War is crime under the name of justice issued out by your senior ranking officers which you follow without question. The soldiers do not know the larger picture. Knowing that so many people died is down right scary and World at war ensures you do not leave the gaming table without the feeling of sadness for the millions of lives lost.

Finishing the game reveals a special stage after the credits where you fight German zombies. It was a little fun but for the realistic game that Call of Duty is, such anomalies are uncalled for. All in all, Call of Duty 5: World at war is a must play game for any gamer who calls himself one

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Google is to launch a signifant overhaul to its search engine allowing users to modify and customize search results with options to rank the results yourself, comment about search results and remove them if you dont like the result. You can also view other's comments regarding the search result and see others search rankings. Check out the video for more details

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Apple has released the latest firmware 2.2 for the iPhone. Just power up with your phone connected and choose the option to update software.

New features in iPhone 2.2 firmware:

* Enhancements to Maps
o Google Street View*
o Public transit and walking directions
o Display address of dropped pins
o Share location via email
* Decrease in call setup failures and dropped calls

* Enhancements to Mail
o Resolved isolated issues with scheduled fetching of email
o Improved formatting of wide HTML email
* Podcasts are now available for download in iTunes application (over Wi-Fi and cellular network)

* Improved stability and performance of Safari
* Improved sound quality of Visual Voicemail messages
* Pressing Home button from any Home screen displays the first Home screen
* Preference to turn on/off auto-correction in Keyboard Settings

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Apple's current OS 10.5 codenamed Leopard claimed to have added hundreds of new features to the Mac OS. Using Leopard gave me the feeling that the OS has most of what it needs (it could do with a better replacement for finder) but for one major aspect: Speed. The OS could have definitely done good being more efficient and faster. And this is exactly what Mac OS 10.6 codenamed Snow Leopard promises to deliver. While I don't agree, apple calls Snow leopard a Quantum leap (They should have made it efficient from the word go). To quote apple:

Since 2001, Mac OS X has delivered more than a thousand innovative new features. With Snow Leopard, the next major version of the world’s most advanced operating system, Mac OS X changes more than its spots, it changes focus. Taking a break from adding new features, Snow Leopard — scheduled to ship in about a year — builds on Leopard’s enormous innovations by delivering a new generation of core software technologies that will streamline Mac OS X, enhance its performance, and set new standards for quality. Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users, and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos.

Here is what is in store with Snow Leopard:

• Full 64 bit support to take advantage of more system memory
• Microsoft Exchange support to help integrate your mac to your office mail
• Grand Central Technology to make best use of multi-core processors
• Quicktime X supporting newer Codecs for better media playback
• Faster Javascript for upto 53% better performance in Safari with SnowLeopard
• Open Computing language to harness the massive power of Graphics Processors

Snow leopard is expected to launch Mid 2009.

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Those of you who have seen the movie Minority Report were surely amazed by the hand gesture based computer interface shown in the movie. But you probably dismissed it as the heights of science fiction. 

Mgestyk is here to prove you wrong with their gesture-based control system. Mgestyk combines powerful software for hand-gesture language processing with an affordable 3D camera. The technology makes it possible to capture small hand movements and translate them into useful commands for controlling practically any Windows application - Itunes, games, photo slideshow softwares etc.

The Mgestyk control system is not available for sale yet but you can sign up in their waiting list for purchase. The system is expected to be priced at the cost of a high end webcam which should be around $200-$300. It will work with Windows XP and Vista. 

Check out this amazing demo video Mgestyk at work.

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How many times has copying in windows crashed on you? You end up with part of the files copied to destination and part of the files remaining in source. You do not have the option to pause files while copying just incase copying is slowing your system. Copying files from one location to another is generally a nightmare in windows. This is where Teracopy comes to the rescue.

Teracopy beautifully integrates into windows explorer and provides you with options to copy and paste from a simple right click on files you want to copy or move to a destination of your choice. The snapshots below clearly indicate the ease of use of this software





Teracopy features as mentioned in their website:

Copy files faster. TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives.

• Pause and resume file transfers. Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click.
  
• Error recovery. In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer.
• Interactive file list. TeraCopy shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.
• Shell integration. TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy and move functions, allowing you work with files as usual.
• Full Unicode support.

You can download teracopy here. A portable version for USB Flash drives is available here.

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Image Source: Wikipedia

3D Printers are machines that build mechanical parts given a design as input. You can now build physical objects by printing them in a 3D printer. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't? It is all real and quite impressive. Not only is it real, it is slowly becoming affordable. A day will come when we build common household items by clicking on the file menu and choosing Print 3D.

RepRap is one such 3D Printer. Founded by Dr Adrian Bowyer, a Senior Lecturer in mechanical engineering at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom, Reprap is an universal constructor that can build itself besides other things. The RepRap project is published under the GNU General Public License, a free software license, at no cost, allowing other investigators to work on the same idea and improve it. The device itself costs around 400$ to build.

RepRap has been used to build items like hanging hooks, fly swat, shoes, water filter, door handle and many more items. See images below:

Visit RepRap website for more interesting details and how you can build your own RepRap.

If you think the RepRap looks like an unprofessional project (Wait for it to grow!!), you might want to consider the 3D Printer from Desktop Factory. Coming in at $5000, the Desktopfactory 125 Ci 3D Printer is not as cheap as the RepRap but the finished products are of higher quality. You can check out the amazing finish 3D produts at their homepage.



If you liked this article, you should check out the article from Replicator about 10 things 3D Printers can build now including action figures, jewellery and functional objects like hearing aids.

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There is a ton of money to be made programming for the Apple iPhone. iPhone applications can be hosted by developers at the Apple App Store. If you are giving away your application for free, then apple does not charge you for hosting the application. If however you charge for your software, you have to pay a small percentage to apple for every sale besides a one time fee.

From a 1000$ application called I am rich which displays a red gem on the screen just to prove that you are rich because you paid for the application (6 people actually bought the application before it was taken off the app store) to useful applications like note takers, games, text editors, eBook readers and much more, the iphone is the a great development platform because of its wide availability and popularity. Most not-free applications sell for around 99 cents making developers a good deal of money by selling in large volumes. It is not so difficult to make $250,000 in 2 months with a simple application developed as a side project.

So what do you need to take the plunge? Previously, the only information available for iPhone development came exclusively from apple and developers had to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to get access to technical details to assist them. The NDA prohibited iPhone developers from writing tutorials, guides, blogs, books, and even wikis about the iPhone SDK. Recently, they dropped the NDA and have opened up the freedom to publish books and articles for the iphone.

Apple has made available a software development kit for the iPhone with which programmers can develop applications for the iPhone.

If you are an amateur programmer, Stanford university provides course materials for the iPhone programming class which can be accessed here.

There are a ton of other links on the internet which elaborate on the entire process of developing applications for the iPhone to getting it to the apple store. Check out some of these here:

• Learn how to develop for the iphone
• Develop iPhone applications using ruby on rails
  
• iPhone development in 22 not so easy steps
  
  

If you are not motivated enough to develop for the iphone, check out these articles:

• Tap Tap Tap 1 week sales
• Part-time Apps developers getting rich
  
• iPhone developers go from rags to riches

Still thinking if its worthwhile??

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All right, now you have a bootable USB pendrive as well as some of the best data recovery & drive partitioning utilities on your pendrive. How about adding some of the best applications for your day-to-day usage, like browsers, office apps, e-mail, etc. Let's get on with it then.

Just launch your favorite browser and go to PortableApps.com which provides a truly open platform that works with any hardware you like (USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, etc). It's open source built around an open format that any hardware vendor or software developer can use. It's convenient. Now you can carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any Windows computer. All without leaving any personal data behind. The PortableApps.com Suite and Platform is free. It contains no spyware. There are no advertisements. It isn't a limited or trial version. There is no additional hardware or software to buy. You don't even have to give out your email address. It's 100% free to use, free to copy and free to share. Hey! it's also available in lots of languages.

What is a Portable app? Here are some answers to your questions directly from their website. There are a lot of applications for you on PortableApps.com. In fact, they have divided the download into 3 types. You can download the package of your choice depending on the amount of space you want to allocate on your pen drive or you can just download the "Main Platform" for portable applications and then customise to your whims and fancies. Given below are the options from their website:
Platform Only: which is basically the "Launcher" for Portable applications. It looks and works like the the Windows Start Menu.
Light Suite: This one is a 35MB download and takes up approx. 100MB of space after installation. This, according to them, is meant for pendrives with 256MB+ free space.
Standard Suite: This is a 113MB download and will eat up around 350MB. If you have a pen drive with 512MB+ capacity, this is a must have. It contains OpenOffice.org suite of office applications which are compatible with Microsoft Office and have almost all the features of Microsoft Office.

Hmmm, I have a feeling you want to customise this. oh! well. Let's start. If you want to, you can also download and install the Light Suite or the Standard Suite and then customise it according to your liking.

1) Download the Portable Apps "Platform". Click on the Download link under Platform Only. Please do not Right Click and try to download. It does not work.
2) Once the download is complete, I recommend that you install this directly to your pendrive. Insert the pendrive into a free USB port, launch the installer & follow the instructions. You will be asked to select the destination. Just hit Browse and select your pendrive from the list the pops up.
3) After the install completes, you will have an option to Launch the PortableApps Menu. Click Finish to see the Menu. You can also access this Menu by clicking on the Taskbar Icon which just got added to your taskbar. You should also know that this Menu will be launched automatically when you insert this pendrive into any USB Port. Absolutely brilliant.
4) I'll give you an example of adding one of the applications. Then you can add how many ever you want using the same steps that we follow here. Please note that there may be some changes depending on the application. Just read the notes section for that application for instructions.
5) Click on this Applications Link and under the Internet section, click on Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition. Please read the entire page regarding features and other important notes and then click on the download link to download the file.
6) Please close the PortableApps Menu now. When the download is done, double-click the file and follow the instructions to install it. Please install it to the same pendrive where you installed the Menu earlier. These files are known as "Portable Application Format" files or PAF, in short. After the installation is over, launch the PortableApps Menu by browsing to your pendrive and double-clicking on StartPortableApps. You should now see Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition listed in the menu.
7) Phew! That's it for now. You can go ahead, download and install the applications of your choice.

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Most people know that linux distributions are available for free download. Most people also think that linux is for the geeks and not for the common man. While this might have been true a few years back, linux is slowly ramping up its adoption with a better user interface that makes it user friendly for average users who don't want to deal with the complications of remembering commands for the shell. Of the existing linux distributions out there, Ubuntu is the most popular one amongst those looking for an easy-to-use version of linux. Ubuntu is now being commonly distributed with the Asus Eee PC and is an option for some of the Dell Desktops. There is also an unofficial version of Ubuntu that works with Playstation 3.

Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I am because of who we all are'. The Ubuntu distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world. Ubuntu is a community developed operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. Whether you use it at home, at school or at work Ubuntu contains all the applications you'll ever need, from word processing and email applications, to web server software and programming tools.

Ubuntu is available for free download and is sponsored by Canonical Limited, a company owned by Mark shuttleworth - the second space tourist ever and the first South African. Canonical makes its money from the paid support service it provides for ubuntu. There are various flavors of Ubuntu that you can choose based on your requirements though there is a priamry version which is simply called Ubuntu. The other distributions are:

Edubuntu, a distribution designed for classrooms using GNOME
Gobuntu, a free software distribution
Kubuntu, a desktop distribution using KDE rather than GNOME
Xubuntu, a "lightweight" distribution based on the Xfce desktop environment instead of GNOME
Ubuntu Studio, a multimedia-creation form of Ubuntu
Ubuntu JeOS (pronounced as "juice"), is described as "an efficient variant ... configured specifically for virtual appliances".
Ubuntu Mobile, an Ubuntu edition that targets mobile Internet devices.
Ubuntu Netbook Remix, designed for ultra-portables such as the ASUS Eee PC.

The latest version of Ubuntu is version 8.10 and is codenamed Intrepid Ibex - Ubuntu has had a history of interesting codenames pairing adjectives with wild animals like Warty Warthog, Hoary Hedgehog, Breezy Badger, Dapper Drake, Edgy Eft, Hardy Heron, Gutsy Gibbon etc.

You can get your free CD copy of Ubuntu or download it from their website.

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Swype is a new way to input text into mobile phones based on touch screens which are all the rage now. Traditional T9 dictionaries in phones auto guess words from the keys you have pressed. But most new touch screen based phones have individual character keys and consequently you have to move fingers across more keys to input your text. Swype is a technique for making the process of typing into touchscreens easier.

Check out this video to get the idea.

To quote the swype website:


Swype provides a faster and easier way to input text on any screen. With one continuous finger or stylus motion across the screen keyboard, the patented technology enables users to input words faster and easier than other data input methods—at over 50 words per minute. The application is designed to work across a variety of devices such as phones, tablets, game consoles, kiosks, televisions, virtual screens and more.




Simply Trace a Path

The word “quick” was generated from tracing the path shown above in a fraction of a second, by roughly aiming to pass through the letters of the word. A key advantage to Swype is that there is no need to be very accurate, enabling very rapid text entry.

Swype is not yet available in production phones and is expected to launch soon on all touch screen mobile phones.

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Have you been showing off your new bootable pen drive to your friends? You must be having a halo behind your head right now. Wanna make that halo stay there for a longer time? Ok, here are a few utilities and links to their official pages.



I will say this again and again, please back up all your important data on your PC or anybody else's PC before doing anything that involves Disk partitioning, formatting, recovery etc. You get the idea.

Before you proceed, please download & install the following software to extract files from a compressed archive. We are assuming that you know about compressed files and folders and how to work with them - 7zip and/or Universal Extractor.

Utilities to be copied to your Pen Drive:

1) TestDisk
TestDisk is a powerful free data recovery software! It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy. TestDisk has features for both novices and experts. For those who know little or nothing about data recovery techniques, TestDisk can be used to collect detailed information about a non-booting drive which can then be sent to a tech for further analysis. Those more familiar with such procedures should find TestDisk a handy tool in performing onsite recovery. We recommend using the DOS version of this utility if you are not able to boot into Windows. Just download it, extract it and copy it to a folder on your pen drive. Remember to rename the folder to TestDisk as Long File Names are not supported in DOS.

2) Super Fdisk
Super Fdisk is the free DOS Partition Manager. With Super Fdisk you can quickly and easily create, delete, format partitions in DOS. There is a free Windows version also available at the website. Download, extract and copy to a folder of your choice on the pen drive. If necessary, rename the folder. A detailed FAQ and step-by-step screenshots are available on the author's website.

3) Undelete Plus
Undelete Plus is a quick and effective way to restore accidentally deleted files. It can also recover files that have been emptied from the Recycle Bin, permanently deleted files within Windows using the Shift + Delete, and files that have been deleted from within a Command Prompt. Undelete Plus works under Win 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista operating systems. The program supports all Windows file systems for hard and floppy drives including FAT12/16/32,NTFS/NTFS5 and image recovery from CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and Secure Digital cards. This utility does not have a DOS version. Download the version without the installer. Just one single file. Copy it to your pen drive and you are ready to go. To launch this utility, just double-click on the file.

4) Recuva
Recuva (pronounced "recover") is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses! Runs on Microsoft Windows Vista, XP, 2003, 2000 and 98.

These are some of the best free recovery/disk utilities I have come across. Please use these with care. In our next part, we will come up with some Windows based applications & utilities which will make you a "Portable" guru.

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This is the first part of a series of articles about maintaing your windows PC using a USB flashdrive (also called USB pen drives, USB thumb drives and USB Keys). The first part explains the usefulness of the USB flash drives as well as how to turn it into a bootable one. Later in the series we will add utilities and applications to the pen drive to make it useful.



Your friend calls you and tells you that he needs your help in recovering some important data he just deleted. If your friend has internet connectivity, it’s fine. You could download one of the many data recovery software freely available on the net and get his data back for him. What if he didn’t have an internet connection? What if his Microsoft Windows Operating System has crashed or failed due to some unknown reason? How do you get your data back for him? There are lots of other situations like these where you wish you had your own set of utilities and applications you have come to trust over the years and would like to have them in a CD/DVD for instant gratification. You would also like to have them updated regularly or at the least manually update them so that you don’t leave yourself fretting and fuming at the last moment. Again, CD’s & DVD’s have this problem of not being read in particular drives, or scratches can cause them not to work properly. You may even loan it to a friend and forget to take it back from him or your friend may pass it on to his friend!

This is where a USB thumb drive or pen drive or flash drive or anything else that you may want to call it, comes in handy. You will not only carry your important data in it, it’s possible to use it as a Swiss Army Knife for the Personal Computer. You can update the software in it regularly. You can make it bootable. We will show you how to create one. We will also tell you where to find some of the best free applications & utilities that you can copy to this pen drive and take it along with you.

No, you will not be installing applications. Just copy some of the files of a particular application and run it off the drive. You will ask “how does this matter?”. It does matter. All Microsoft Windows compatible applications and software write settings to a master database in the Operating System called the “Registry”. This Registry, over a period of time is filled with unwanted data, especially if you keep installing new applications, games, utilities and then uninstalling them too. Uninstalling software is pretty easy. But, are the registry settings & files that this software used been removed? I would say NO. This is where a new and fast growing concept of “Portable Software” comes in. No installations. No registry entries. Just download the software and run it.

All right then. Get your pen drive ready so that we can make it bootable. You will need an active internet connection to download all the software listed in this article. You will also need to make a back up of all your existing data in the pen drive before continuing. We will not be held responsible for any data loss occurring because of the content published in this article.

A few points that need to be considered before proceeding:

1. The PC has to support booting from a USB flash drive. There may be anywhere from 1-3 items to change in the BIOS to make this possible assuming your BIOS supports it. Some BIOS’s may refer to your flash drive as a USB floppy or USB zip drive or show it to you as a Hard Disk Drive too.
2. The USB flash drive must support booting from it in general.
3. The flash drive must contain the boot/system files.
4. The flash drive must have a boot sector area. This is done with special utilities as shown below.
5. Before you proceed, please download & install 7zip and/or UniExtract to extract files from a compressed archive. We are assuming that you know about compressed files and folders and how to work with them.
6. You will need important DOS files to make the pen drive bootable. You can download them from this link. Extract the files to a directory of your choice. I recommend C:\DOSfiles or wherever you like. Just remember the location of these extracted files.

Steps to create a bootable pen drive:

1) Download the file SP27213.exe from either here or here.

2) This utility is provided by HP to make USB pen drives bootable. Just go ahead and install this software in Windows. This works on both Windows XP and Windows Vista.

3) After you are done installing this, insert the pen drive you want to make as bootable into one of the free USB ports of your PC. Warning: Please back up the data in the USB flash drive before proceeding to the next step.

4) Click on Start -> All Programs -> Hewlett-Packard Company -> HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool.

5) You should see a screen similar to the one shown below.

• Under Device, select the Pen Drive that you want to make bootable.
• Under File system, select FAT32.
• Under Volume label, click in the blank space & type in the name you want to give to this pen drive.
• Under Format options, place a check mark on Quick Format and Create a DOS startup disk.
• Once you have checked Create a DOS startup disk, the options below it will get activated.
• Select using DOS system files located at:, and then browse to the drive/folder where you extracted the Win98 Boot Files.
• Click on Start and follow the instructions.
  

6) Voila! You now have a very handy bootable pen drive. Go ahead and check to see if you can boot through this pen drive.

7) If you know how to boot using a pen drive, great. If you don’t, just refer the manual of your motherboard to see how to boot using a USB drive. Usually, this involves pressing the DEL key to enter the BIOS Setup Options and setting the First Boot Device to Removable.

Note1: The key required to enter the BIOS may be different depending on the make and model of your PC.

Note2: All or most of the recently manufactured/assembled systems have the option of pressing a key like ESC or F11 or F1 to access the Quick Boot menu. Just keep pressing any of these keys as soon as you have switched on your PC and check if you can get a Quick Boot menu. Select your pen drive from the list and hit Enter. You should be able to boot using your pen drive.

8) If you have booted successfully, you will see the DOS prompt C :\>

You have now learnt how to make pen drives bootable. In the next article, we will add useful utilities to your pen drive for day to day use.

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ImgBurn is a free CD, DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Burning Software. With a file size of 2 MB this is a lightweight application that goes easy on system resources unlike some of its paid counter parts. You can burn any of the aforementioned type of media besides being able to directly burn disc images, create disc images from disc in the drive and also verify burned data.  There is also graph data available to measure burning performance. Click on the image to go to the download page.

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1) What are Torrents?

BitTorrent (torrents in short) is a method of downloading files on the internet. Instead of downloading a file from one single location (a specific server), BitTorrent helps download files from multiple sources while at the same time sharing the downloaded portion with other people who are downloading the same file. It is a mutual system where you share what you are downloading.

2) Why use Torrents?

Dowloading with torrents doesn't require the file we are downloading to be at a single location. If the server having the file has issues we wouldn't be able to download the file. But distributing it across many people gives multiple sources to download from.  Different parts of the files you are downloading are taken from different sources. Also, transferring from multiple sources is generally much faster than otherwise. Popularly shared files download much faster using torrents as there are multiple sources to download them from. Downloading using torrents can be conveniently paused to be resumed later. This is helpful if you are downloading a large file and would like to shut your system down over night.

3) What do I need to download using torrents?

a) You will need a BitTorrent client to download files using torrents. Some of the popular ones are: uTorrent, BitTorrent, Azureus and Bittornado.

b) A .torrent file:  Files ending in .torrent have information regarding the files you are trying to download. 

4) Is downloading torrents illegal?

Downloading copyrighted content like movies and music is illegal unless the producer wishes to distribute the content in BitTorrent format. Using BitTorrent as a method to share information you have created is not illegal.

5) Where can I find .torrent files?

.torrent files are normally provided by the creator of the information you want to download. For instance, if you want to download the latest version of Fedora Linux from RedHat, you will find the .torrent file for it in their download page. Popular sources for illegal file distribution are Pirate bay, BtJunkie are Mininova.

6) How do I start downloading?

Just open the .torrent file with the BitTorrent client and the download should begin.

7) There are many torrent files for the content I want to download. How do I choose the right one?

Choose the torrent file which has the highest number of seeds are peers. Seeds are the number of systems having a complete copy of the files you are trying to download and presently sharing. Peers are the number of systems having a partial copy of the files you are trying to download.

8) My downloads are slow using torrents. Is there anything I can do to speed it up?

Make sure you are using .torrent files which have many sources and peers. BitTorrent does not work properly if your ISP blocks outbound content on ports that are being used by the Torrent protocol. This is very common if your ISP is providing a static IP address. Torrent download speeds are very bad with ISP like Hathway which blocks outbound on non-http ports. Airtel has open outbound ports.

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I have been using Avira Antivir for about 6 months now and of all the antivirus softwares I have sampled this has been the best. It has caught atleast 4 viruses (for someone whose systems almost never have viruses) in this time frame. It checks for virus signature updates very frequently ensuring that you have protection from the latest viruses floating around. It is low on system resources and does not slow the system down like Norton and McAffee. The only downside I have come across is the occasional pop-up suggesting us to upgrade to the paid version. It is not very intrusive but we could definitely live without it. If you have the money (20 Euros) to spare, the software is definitely worth buying.

Avira offers some neat tools to download for free:

Avira AntiVir Removal Tool: Portable virus scanner and remover that you can keep in your USB flash drive(make sure you check your flash drive first)to check for viruses in any system.

Avira AntiRootkit Tool: A rootkit is malware which consists of a program (or combination of several programs) designed to take fundamental control (in Unix terms "root" access, in Windows terms, "Administrator" access) of a computer system, without authorization by the system's owners and legitimate managers. This tool helps detect and remove Root kits while keeping in mind the false detection of genuine software that interact with the system at kernal level.

Avira Boot Sector Repair Tool: Bootsector of the computer is the part of the hard drive where the Operating system (Windows) keeps the files needed for it load when you power on the computer. If there is a boot sector virus in the computer, you cannot remove the virus from inside of windows. This tool helps create a CD from which you can remove the virus from outside of windows.

Avira UnErase Personal: Ever wished that you hadn't deleted the file accidentally? This tool helps recover deleted files from a hard drive. This is possible because when you actually delete a file, you just remove the link between the actual content and the file listing. The data remains on the hard drive until the location on the hard drive is overwritten with another content. Until, then tools like this can help you recover deleted data.

Avira AntiVir Rescue System: Avira AntiVir Rescue System is a Linux-based application that allows accessing computers that cannot be booted anymore. It can help repair a damaged system, rescue data and scan the system for virus infections.

AVG Antivirus is another free alternative which is quite popular especially because it does not pop-up any windows. However, I have found it not catching some common viruses. You can download it here if you want to check the alternative.

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Have a picture you got from the web but don't know where you got it or who the creator is? Want a picture similar to the picture you already have? Your typical image search engines like Google image search just cannot help you with your problem. This is where TinEye Image search shines. Using TinEye you can input to the website the picture whose details you want and TinEye gives you the location of this picture across the web. I tried some pictures and got some some positive results thought not all. For a website in beta, TinEye results are fantastic and I hope they accuracy gets better. You need to sign up for an account and once you login, you see this:

You can search for images either by:

1) Uploading and image from the computer

2) Proving the link to an image already on the web

3) Use the TinEye Images bookmarklet to choose from several images on a web page

4) Install the TinEye browser plugin to right-click any web image from Firefox or IE

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Ever wished movies you watched on your PC had better quality? Ever wished for all the decoder related error messages and media player not able to play the video file to go away? Follow instructions below and configure your PC for enhanced video playing experience and compatibility with almost all commonly used video formats.

1) Uninstall all existing video playing software (you cannot uninstall windows media player) including real player and quick time player.

2) Download and Install the following:
a) Codec Pack (install all except AC3 Filter)
b) Real Alternative
c) Quick Time Alternative
d) Media player Classic (Extract to C:\Program Files and create a shortcut to the desktop)


3) Now to configure your video decoders (you should find the decoder configuration utility in Start Menu> Program Files):
a) DivX Decoder
- Under decoder - uncheck ‘support decoding of generic mpeg4 video’
- Under playback, set post processing level to ‘Full deblocking with sharpening’
b) XVid Decoder
- Under post processing options, check all ‘de-blocking’ and ‘de-ring’ options
- All option under ‘FourCC support’ should remain unchecked
c) Quick Time Decoder
Under AUDIO Config, choose the speakers (2.1,5.1 or 7.1 as appropriate) and decoding bit depth/rate (I use 24bit, 96KHz)
d) CoreAVC Decoder
Check the "Preferred Decoder" box
e) Mplayer Configuration
-Under Playback > Output, select directshow renderer as ‘Haali renderer’, under VMR settings – select ‘use texture surfaces and render in 2D’, and check ‘VMR9 mixing mode’
-Select “DirectX9” under both Quicktime and RealMedia.
-Under DirectShow Audio> select “default directsound device”
-Under internal filters, check ALL options under both ‘internal filters’ and ‘transform filters’
-Go the AC3 filter/Mpeg audio properties > Change output sample rate to 24bit, AC3/DTS decoder option to Speakers (according to the speakers you have 2.1, 5.1, 7.1, etc); Check the LFE ; Dynamic range control options.

Use Media Player Classic as your video player. Though it doesn't look fancy, it is light weight, has a lot of customizable features and does not slow the system down. Enjoy!

Thanks to Vivek Ramchander for these tips.

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It is told that the best things in life are free and software isn't any different. There are a plethora of softwares out there that you can use in Windows which are free and provide functionalities as good as paid softwares. Being an anti-pirate, I have sampled many free /open-source softwares and found these to be the best in their respective categories.


Web Browser (replacement for Internet Explorer)


OPERA



Image Editor (replacement for Adobe photoshop)



GIMP



Image Viewer (replacement for windows picture viewer)



PICASA




RSS feed reader


FEED READER



Instant Messaging Client (replacement for Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger and more)
PIDGIN




Music player (replacement for Windows Media Player)
WINAMP

Video player (replacement for windows media player)
VLC



PDF reader (replacement for Adobe Acrobat Reader)
FOXIT


Office packages (replacement for Microsoft Office)
Open Office

Windows Cleaning utility
CCleaner


DVD/CD Burning utility
IMGBURN

Programming IDE

DEV C++

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