by Kush Sharma

How To: Edit default location for installing Apps permanently

change-default-directory

Fed up of changing the location of directory where your game or application should be installed? Then this solution is for you, as the size of hard drives increase, more people are using partitions to separate and store groups of files.

Windows uses the C:\Program Files directory as the default base directory into which new programs are installed. However, you can change the default installation drive and/ or directory by using a Registry hack.

Run the Registry Editor (regedit)and go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

change-default-installation-dir

Look for the value named ProgramFilesDir. by default,this value will be C:\Program Files.

change-default-installation-dir

Edit the value to any valid drive or folder and XP will use that new location as the default installation directory for new programs.

Don’t forget to take backup of registry first in case you messed up.

 

by Kush Sharma

What is Bandwidth? How Much Bandwidth Is Enough?

bandwidth-explained

This is well written explanation about bandwidth, hopefully you will find it useful.

BandWidth Explained

Most hosting companies offer a variety of bandwidth options in their plans. So exactly what is bandwidth as it relates to web hosting? Put simply, bandwidth is the amount of traffic that is allowed to occur between your web site and the rest of the internet. The amount of bandwidth a hosting company can provide is determined by their network connections, both internal to their data center and external to the public internet.

Network Connectivity

bandwidth-explainedThe internet, in the most simplest of terms, is a group of millions of computers connected by networks. These connections within the internet can be large or small depending upon the cabling and equipment that is used at a particular internet location. It is the size of each network connection that determines how much bandwidth is available. For example, if you use a DSL connection to connect to the internet, you have 1.54 Mega bits (Mb) of bandwidth. Bandwidth therefore is measured in bits (a single 0 or 1). Bits are grouped in bytes which form words, text, and other information that is transferred between your computer and the internet.

If you have a DSL connection to the internet, you have dedicated bandwidth between your computer and your internet provider. But your internet provider may have thousands of DSL connections to their location. All of these connection aggregate at your internet provider who then has their own dedicated connection to the internet (or multiple connections) which is much larger than your single connection. They must have enough bandwidth to serve your computing needs as well as all of their other customers. So while you have a 1.54Mb connection to your internet provider, your internet provider may have a 255Mb connection to the internet so it can accommodate your needs and up to 166 other users (255/1.54).

Traffic

A very simple analogy to use to understand bandwidth and traffic is to think of highways and cars. Bandwidth is the number of lanes on the highway and traffic is the number of cars on the highway. If you are the only car on a highway, you can travel very quickly. If you are stuck in the middle of rush hour, you may travel very slowly since all of the lanes are being used up.

Traffic is simply the number of bits that are transferred on network connections. It is easiest to understand traffic using examples. One Gigabyte is 2 to the 30th power (1,073,741,824) bytes. One gigabyte is equal to 1,024 megabytes. To put this in perspective, it takes one byte to store one character. Imagine 100 file cabinets in a building, each of these cabinets holds 1000 folders. Each folder has 100 papers. Each paper contains 100 characters – A GB is all the characters in the building. An MP3 song is about 4MB, the same song in wav format is about 40MB, a full length movie can be 800MB to 1000MB (1000MB = 1GB).

If you were to transfer this MP3 song from a web site to your computer, you would create 4MB of traffic between the web site you are downloading from and your computer. Depending upon the network connection between the web site and the internet, the transfer may occur very quickly, or it could take time if other people are also downloading files at the same time. If, for example, the web site you download from has a 10MB connection to the internet, and you are the only person accessing that web site to download your MP3, your 4MB file will be the only traffic on that web site. However, if three people are all downloading that same MP at the same time, 12MB (3 x 4MB) of traffic has been created. Because in this example, the host only has 10MB of bandwidth, someone will have to wait. The network equipment at the hosting company will cycle through each person downloading the file and transfer a small portion at a time so each person’s file transfer can take place, but the transfer for everyone downloading the file will be slower. If 100 people all came to the site and downloaded the MP3 at the same time, the transfers would be extremely slow. If the host wanted to decrease the time it took to download files simultaneously, it could increase the bandwidth of their internet connection (at a cost due to upgrading equipment).

Hosting Bandwidth

In the example above, we discussed traffic in terms of downloading an MP3 file. However, each time you visit a web site, you are creating traffic, because in order to view that web page on your computer, the web page is first downloaded to your computer (between the web site and you) which is then displayed using your browser software (Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.) . The page itself is simply a file that creates traffic just like the MP3 file in the example above (however, a web page is usually much smaller than a music file).

A web page may be very small or large depending upon the amount of text and the number and quality of images integrated within the web page. For example, the home page for CNN.com is about 200KB (200 Kilobytes = 200,000 bytes = 1,600,000 bits). This is typically large for a web page. In comparison, Yahoo’s home page is about 70KB.

How Much Bandwidth Is Enough?

It depends (don’t you hate that answer). But in truth, it does. Since bandwidth is a significant determinant of hosting plan prices, you should take time to determine just how much is right for you. Almost all hosting plans have bandwidth requirements measured in months, so you need to estimate the amount of bandwidth that will be required by your site on a monthly basis

If you do not intend to provide file download capability from your site, the formula for calculating bandwidth is fairly straightforward:

Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size x 31 x Fudge Factor

If you intend to allow people to download files from your site, your bandwidth calculation should be:

[(Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size) + (Average Daily File Downloads x Average File Size)] x 31 x Fudge Factor

Let us examine each item in the formula:

Average Daily Visitors – The number of people you expect to visit your site, on average, each day. Depending upon how you market your site, this number could be from 1 to 1,000,000.

Average Page Views – On average, the number of web pages you expect a person to view. If you have 50 web pages in your web site, an average person may only view 5 of those pages each time they visit.

Average Page Size – The average size of your web pages, in Kilobytes (KB). If you have already designed your site, you can calculate this directly.

Average Daily File Downloads – The number of downloads you expect to occur on your site. This is a function of the numbers of visitors and how many times a visitor downloads a file, on average, each day.

Average File Size – Average file size of files that are downloadable from your site. Similar to your web pages, if you already know which files can be downloaded, you can calculate this directly.

Fudge Factor – A number greater than 1. Using 1.5 would be safe, which assumes that your estimate is off by 50%. However, if you were very unsure, you could use 2 or 3 to ensure that your bandwidth requirements are more than met.

Usually, hosting plans offer bandwidth in terms of Gigabytes (GB) per month. This is why our formula takes daily averages and multiplies them by 31.

Summary

Most personal or small business sites will not need more than 1GB of bandwidth per month. If you have a web site that is composed of static web pages and you expect little traffic to your site on a daily basis, go with a low bandwidth plan. If you go over the amount of bandwidth allocated in your plan, your hosting company could charge you over usage fees, so if you think the traffic to your site will be significant, you may want to go through the calculations above to estimate the amount of bandwidth required in a hosting plan.

by Kush Sharma

How to: Create & Share your very own QR code

Recently, the QR Code system has become popular outside the automotive industry due to its fast readability and greater storage capacity compared to standard UPC barcodes. The code consists of black modules (square dots) arranged in a square grid on a white background.

QR_Code_Structure

QR codes can be used in Google’s Android operating system and iOS devices (iPhone/iPod/iPad), as well as by using Google Goggles, 3rd party barcode scanners, and the Nintendo 3DS. The browser supports URI redirection, which allows QR codes to send metadata to existing applications on the device.

QR Codes are an incredibly useful mobile marketing tool. Simply scanning a text is way easier than typing it on a tiny on-screen keyboard. Save your visitors time and thus increase your click rates!

qr-code-create

QR Codes make it possible to directly transfer a link to a mobile device. This greatly lowers the barrier to visit a website with such a device. But there’s more: You can also transfer your slogans, phone numbers or even complete business cards in the vCard format can be encoded with our QR Code generator and transferred to mobile devices. We are using goqr.me to demonstrate in this tutorial. Some other useful sites are : kaywa,  QR Code Generator, qrstuff.

  • Just type your text, URL, an SMS or your contact data here on goqr.me—the QR Code is created automatically.
  • You will see 5 Tabs from which you can select, say we choose TEXT.
  • Input whatever you want to generate at the time of scan.
  • And you are done, you can customize its color & style by clicking OPTION Button.

Now share it with your friends and family through social networks. Application that can be used to scan these QR/BAR codes is here [Barcode Scanner]. This app can also create some useful QR code inside your smartphone.

by Kush Sharma

Web: Split Screen in your Google Chrome

split-screen-chrome

Split Screen does exactly what the name suggests. It creates a new chrome tab that will let you browse two different sites at once. If 40 open tabs weren’t enough, you can now literally double the number of sites you view simultaneously. Just imagine a boring spreadsheet on one page, YouTube on the other. Work and play at the same time, what more could you ask for ?

Get it from here

Prompts the user for two URL addresses and then displays both in one window!

Opens a new tab and prompts the user for two URL’s, then displays both sites on one page. Great for cross-reference studying and surfing the web in general! Watch a video, (or wait for it to buffer) while you surf another webpage.

split-screen-chrome

Now has a fully customizable options page… Choose your default webpages to load on opening the extension…

Equipped with a notepad which saves whatever you write for the next time you use the extension… great for studying!!!

Click and drag a bookmark into the URL field…

TURN ON AUTOCOMPLETE to make typing in URL’s faster! : Go to tools – options – personal stuff – and enable “form autofill”…

Press F11 for full screen.

by Kush Sharma

DIY : Create Self-Destruct Messages with Google Docs in Mission Impossible Style

TopSecret-message

It’s a clever technology, as well as a manifestation of an interesting argument that some legal and internet scholars have begun to make: All information should have an expiration date.  This means, once they read the message they will no longer be able to read it again after the timer has reached zero. This ensures your message is read by no one but the reader and all evidence of the message is erased.

You can send passwords and other private information as self-destructing messages in Google Docs that will vanish after being read.Would you like to send a confidential note to a friend that self-destructs after it has been read so that no one else (including your friend) can ever see that secret note again?

There are web apps – like OneShar.es and Burn Note – that offer an easy solution. They essentially create a temporary web page/link that auto-expires after it has been viewed once.

Alternatively, you can even use Google Docs to send self-destructing messages to anyone through Google Apps Script.

Creating Messages in Google Docs

This message will self-destruct in ten seconds. It takes a minute to convert a Google Docs sheet into a self-destructing one. Just follow this :

  • Open your Google Docs account and create new spreadsheet.

self-destruct-google-docs

  •  Input your data that you will be sharing with your friend. Then go to Tools > Script Manager, a new tab will be popped.

self-destruct-google-docs-script-manager

  • Select Blank Project in the title menu. An editor will be available in your browser, copy-paste Script to this editor from below this page and save it.

self-destruct-google-docs-script

  • Don’t forget to change value of time variable according to your need (seconds to wait before cleanup). Hit Save icon.
  • Now close Script editor window, Open again script manager by going to Tools or hit Reload if it is already opened. You will find your script listed there.
  • Lastly, Click on Share button available in top-right corner of the screen. Change Access from CAN VIEW to CAN EDIT. Then Share it.

self-destruct-google-docs-sharingMake sure the permission is set to “Can Edit” in the sharing window.

Your friend opens the sheet, reads the message and after 10 seconds, the entire sheet on his screen will clear itself. If you wish to send another self-destructing message, create a copy of the original sheet and repeat the steps.

How does it work?

The trick is simple. We have an onOpen trigger attached to the Google sheet that becomes active as soon as the sheet is opened. This trigger waits for 10 seconds (Utilities.sleep) and then runs the clear() command to empty all the cells of the sheet.

Here’s the Google Apps Script code that actually makes your “secret message” vanish.

function onOpen() {

var time = 10; /* Wait Time (in seconds) */

var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet(); ss.toast(“This message will disappear after ” + time + ” seconds. So read fast !!!”);

Utilities.sleep(time*1000); ss.toast(“We are now sending this private note to the shredder. Bye :)”);

ss.getActiveSheet() .getRange(1, 1, ss.getLastRow(), ss.getLastColumn()).clear(); }

by Kush Sharma

Victorinox Presentation Master : Swiss Army Knife

victorinox-presentation-master-flash-drive

This is one Swiss Army Knife and USB drive combo that is perfect for James Bond. However, if you aren’t the famed MI6 agent, but a salesman who travels a lot and cares an awful lot about your data’s security, you can think of buying the Victorinox Presentation Master, too. Apart from a small knife, nail file and scissors, this Victorinox tool comes with a 32GB USB drive that enjoys AES 256-bit hardware and software encryption. It also supports plug-in-play Powerpoint presentation slides. If your presentation skills don’t blow away your audience, may be the act of plugging in a Swiss army knife into a PC or projector port will.

The explanation for the Presentation Master name is that there’s built-in Bluetooth so you can control PowerPoint presentations with the forward and back buttons. A button on the opposite side controls a handy laser pointer.Write speeds of 5.6MB/s aren’t great, but read speeds of just over 20MB/sec are impressive.

Test Notes

  • Setting up the drive for the first time can be daunting—you’ll have to capture images of all five fingers on one hand and the drive seems a bit finicky about what constitutes a “good” image of the digit—but once you do, it will reliably unlock with a quick finger swipe.
  • The Demolition Man hack—cutting off a finger or an eye—won’t work on this. The fingerprint scanner checks the oxygenation level of the blood flowing through your finger as you swipe. No living tissue, no access.
  • The drive also recognizes brute force attacks—and responds by feigning being cracked, displaying dummy folders filled with innocuous files—as well as increases in voltage or current.
  • The only way I could make this more secure is to handcuff it to my wrist.

The fingerprint reader is a tad fussy. It took about eight tries before our swipe was accepted. Were we done yet? Nope. The software asks for a second, backup fingerprint to be recognized, and it has to be from your other hand. (In case of emergency field amputations, one assumes.) Again it took no less than eight swipes for the print to be accepted.

The final, and possibly most mind blowing feature is an actual self destruct feature. If the drive detects someone trying to hack their way into your files, it will physically blow itself up. Obviously, this doesn’t involve explosives, but the developer of the Swiss Presenter had a unit with him that had deliberately been blown up, and the memory chip really is blow to pieces inside its case.

Victorinox are so confident that they have developed the most secure USB drive in the world, that they were offering a $100,000 prize to anyone that could access the data stored on a drive at their CES booth. As the show came to an end, nobody had succeeded in hacking their way into the drive.

by Kush Sharma

Control your pointer with WiFi Mouse App

wifi-mouse-wide

No need to use your old tech mouse in this era where Android/iOS is making its mark of gadgets. Transform your phone/tablet into a wireless mouse, keyboard and trackpad using WiFi Mouse. WiFi Mouse supports speech-to-text as well as multi-finger trackpad gestures. WiFi Mouse enables you to control your PC, MAC or HTPC effortlessly through a local network connection.

XDA Senior Member Williams Joe offers up computer control app. In the above video XDA Developer TV Producer TK reviews Wi-Fi Mouse. TK shows off the application and gives us his thoughts, so check out this app review.

Features:
* Mouse curser movement
* left and right click support
* Middle mouse button scroll
* Remote keyboard input
* PC/Mac hot keys and combination key
* Speech-to-text input for all languages
* Mouse & keyboard full screen
* Auto-connect on application startup
* Compatible with XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8/Mac OSX.

Gestures:
* Tap-to-click
* Two finger tap for right click
* Two finger scroll
* Pinch to zoom
* Three finger drag & drop or highlight
* Four finger swipe down to show desktop
* Four finger swipe up to maximise current window
* Four finger swipe sideways to change current window focus
* Left handed mouse support (swap left and right mouse click)

How It Works

For an app this advanced it’s fairly easy to set up, all you’ve got to do is install the app from the Play Store and then install the Server software. I can’t speak for Mac Users but the installation on Windows was pain-free and more importantly – safe and unobtrusive.

After that all you have to do is open up the app on your phone and then either click auto-connect and wait for the magic to happen. I manually entered the IP address because I really don’t trust Windows and networking but in testing both worked fine.

Conclusion

To control a PC off in the distance or just use touch for a change through your smartphone is brilliant. Its execution is good as well, a solid application that serves it’s purpose almost flawlessly. These apps were all the rage some years ago and whilst you could say this app is trying to revive a trend I’d disagree because the app changes the rules and gives you an experience that touchpad manufacturers have struggled to deliver in laptops for years – through your smartphone.

Get the app from Play Store.

by Kush Sharma

Create shortcut to modify registry files and add custom context menu

registry-shortcut-image

Have you ever wanted to create a shortcut which would speed up your registry editing skills ? or do you modify registry more frequently ? Here is a solution which will perform any task in less than 5 seconds. We will explain this tutorial by adding a custom option in windows Right Click Context Menu of a file. [Not Folder]

  • First, we’d launch Notepad or another text editor.
  • Next add this line at the top of file.

“Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00”

  •  After it add a blank line.
  • To create a key Directory in registry, add full path of it.

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Open with Softnuke\command]

  • Now add name of key and its value in this format “”=”value”, value could be path of any file with which you want to open.

@=”notepad.exe %1”

  • %1 is used here to provide path of the specified file on which Right click is to be done and @ means default key in directory.

registry-shortcut-open-with-softnuke

  • Now save it as “softnuke.reg”. Always Save the file with the .reg file extension. You can double-click it to add the information to your registry.

A single .reg file can contain multiple entries, so you could have one .reg file that installs all your favorite shortcuts.

registry-shortcut-save

Now can use it the way you like, here is another example : Enable/Disable access of USB

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\USBSTOR\] “Start”=dword:4
  • Finally, to delete the folder and all its continents create a .reg file similar with (-)minus sign in front of its directory.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\USBSTOR\] “Start”=-

For any Queries please comment below.

registry-shortcut-context

Note: Users running earlier versions of Windows may want to substitute Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 with REGEDIT4.

by Kush Sharma

How to : Use Google Drive to Sync User Data in more than one PC

Google Drive is a great service no doubt, but simply installing the application, and synchronizing your files is just the first step. (The option for downloading and installing is available on the homepage of your online Google Drive at the bottom of the sidebar)

You can move your user data folders (Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos and Downloads) by right-clicking the folder and changing the destination path under ‘Location’ tab in the Properties menu.

  • Windows 7 users need to go to the Explorer panel to the left, Expend the collapsible Library folder, and right-click the “My Documents” or similar folder to get the properties menu.
  • Click on “Include a Folder”, Browse to Google Drive Sync Folder. Select “Set Save location”.

document-properties

  • Change the location of one of these folders to your Google drive folder to synchronize it between computers. Do this on each computer you use and you’ll have the same files in your Documents, Downloads, and all other folders on all your computers.

Note: If the amount of data you have exceeds the storage capacity of Google Drive (that is, if the data if more than 5 GB), then the above method will fail to completely transfer all the files. Once the storage limit of Google Drive is reached, you will unable to add any more folders/files to it, and in this case, to your user data folders as well.

by Kush Sharma

Howto : Use USB Drive as a Hardware key for computer

syskey-icon

Windows has an inbuilt system utility called SysKey that can help you use a normal pen drive as an access device instead of a regular text based password. To do this

  • First step is to assign A: as your removable disk drive. This is because the utility was designed to work with floppy drives.

change-drive-letter

  • To do this hit [Window] key and type “disk management” and press enter. Right click the relevant drive name of USB and change drive letter.
  • Now hit the [Window] key again and type Syskey and press Enter.

syskey-store-usb

  • Click update –> Store key on Floppy Disk. Click OK

After this a file called Startkey.key will be created on your pendrive and your PC won’t boot into your desktop unless the pen-drive is plugged into your system.

To revert back , just follow above procedure again and set STORE STARTUP KEY LOCALLY.