Friday, May 11, 2012

Get Google Voice from Outside the U.S.


google voiceWith Google Voice, you can send text messages and place calls to regular phone numbers from the computer or your mobile phone.
Visit the YouTube channel of Google Voice to learn about all the other cool things that you may do with your Google Voice account.
While Google Voice is no longer an invitation-only service, you need to be in the United States (that is, your computer must have a U.S. IP Address) and you must also have a local US phone number in order to activate your Google Voice phone number.

How to Get Google Voice outside the U.S.?

There are however some simple workarounds that will help you enable Google Voice from anywhere outside the USA. I activated Google Voice from India but the same procedure should work with other countries as well.
Step 1: Get a US Phone Number. This process should not take more than five minutes.
Step 2: Download and install Hotspot Shield (make sure you decline the optional toolbar). This is required because you can’t sign-in to Google Voice from a non-US I.P. address.
[*] Hotspot Shield may insert audio ads in websites which are annoying but the reason I recommend it is because the software requires no configuration and you can easily disable it with a simple right click.
Step 3: Start Hotspot Shield, if it’s not already running on your system, and then visitIP2Location to confirm that your location is listed as “United States.” If not, disconnect your current Hotspot Shield session and reconnect to get yourself a new IP Address.
Step 4: Launch the Express Talk softphone software (you may have previously downloaded this software for activating your local US phone number).
Step 5: Open voice.google.com in your web browser and sign-in with your Google account. If you get an error message saying – “Google Voice is not available in your country” – clear your browser cookies and try again.
  
5a. It’s time to pick a Google Voice phone number. You may enter a US area code and some word to get a memorable phone number or pick one from the available choices.
5b. Enter a four digit pin for voicemail, accept the Terms and continue.
5c. In the next screen, input your local US number that will ring when someone dials your Google Voice number.
5d. Click Call Me Now. Google Voice will call your local number and this should ring the Express Talk software. Enter the confirmation code using the dial pad of Express Talk and once it is verified, your Google Voice phone number is ready for use.
Next steps – You may download the Google Voice App on your iPhone /Android or access it directly via m.google.com/voice if you have an unsupported mobile phone.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Find out your Income Tax Circle / Ward


With the increasing usage of Internet for Income Tax related work including tasks such as applying for PAN / TAN or filing Income Tax return, the common problem being faced by many taxpayers/ assessees is how to find out their particular Circle/ Ward/ Range in which they need to file return with or are assessed with.
Normally, this information is provided by your advocate or CA, however the same details can be easily found out on the official websites.
Application of PAN – the link used is https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/pan/servlet/AOSearch In this link, applicants can find the Assessing Officer code on the basis of their city and the address.
In case of TAN, https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/tan/servlet/TanAOSearch is used for finding out the AO Code.
For further details regarding finding out the assessing officer, an interactive guide is athttp://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/ao/firstlevel.asp Here one can find their exact details on the basis of their address, income level, sources of income and other parameters.
However, many of the details found on above link are not exhaustive and are incomplete. As such in most likelihood, you will need to visit your local Income Tax Office or your financial adviser.

How to find out where a picture was taken?

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where the pictures were taken?
Say you are exploring interesting places on the Internet and come across a gorgeous destination that you would like to visit sometime in future. The only problem is that the web photograph carries no text caption and you therefore have no clue of the location where that picture was possible taken.

Where was a picture taken?

Sometimes the EXIF data embedded in an image file can help you determine the location but there’s another alternative that is more likely to work.
You probably know that Google offers Similar Image search to help discover images that are visually similar to your source image. The same feature of Google Images can sometimes help you uncover the location of a photograph as well. Here’s how:
find photograph location
Go to images.google.com and drag* any image – either from your desktop or another web page – to the search box (see video for a quick demo).
If that photograph is of some popular destination, Google will mention the possible location of that image above the search results (see screenshot). In all other cases, you will at least know the original source of that image and that could offer enough hints for you to guess the actual location on your own.
[*] IE may not support drag and drop but in that case, you can click the “camera icon” in the Google search box to manually upload a picture to Google Images for analysis.

Video Demo – Finding a Photograph’s location


Wednesday, May 9, 2012

How to Free-up Disk Space on your Windows PC

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disk cleanupThe cost of digital storage is going down and most newer computers ship with 500 GB to 1 TB of hard disks that are big enough to store all your files. However, if you are using Windows on an old computer with limited disk space, here is a list of things you should do to instantly recover some free space.

1. The Obvious Methods to Free Disk Space

a. Use CCleaner to quickly clear your Windows recycle bin, temporary Internet files, log files, memory dumps and other stubborn files that don’t show up in Windows Explorer. CClean also provides an option to clean your unused Windows Registry keys and your browser cookies but that won’t save any disk space.
b. Use Revo Uninstaller (the free version) to remove software programs, game demos and other stuff that you no longer use. Revo has a useful “hunter mode” to help you uninstall programs that are not listed in the “Add/Remove Programs” section of the Control Panel.
c. Use either WinDirStat or Space Sniffer to locate files that are taking the maximum amount of space on your hard disk and either erase the unnecessary ones or move them to another partition. You may also use Windows Desktop Search to easily find the largest files on your system from Windows Explorer.
d. Use Duplicate Cleaner to find duplicate files on your hard disk. These may include videos, documents, MP3s, zip archives, images and all other types of files. Duplicate Cleaner compares the MD5 hash of files – not just the file names or their byte size – and is thus pretty accurate at identifying duplicates. Another good alternative for removing duplicates is Duplicate File Finder – this is more suitable for novice users.
e. Check your downloads folder and get rid of all the program installers, driver packages, ISO files, IPSW files, virtual machines, and other bulky files that you may have downloaded from the Internet.
f. If you enjoy watching video podcasts, it may be a good idea to delete old episodes from the disk. iTunes, Zune and most other podcasting software offer easy options to automatically delete podcast episodes that either too old or have been watched.
g. iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users should consider deleting device backups from the computer to reclaim space. Open iTunes –> Preferences –> Devices and delete all backups of your iOS devices but for the most recent one.
h. If you have been an Outlook user all your life and only recently migrated to Gmail, you can backup Outlook’s bulky PST files to Gmail and then move them to another drive for safekeeping. All your old emails can be easily access from Gmail itself.

2. The Not-So-Obvious Ways to Recover Free Space

a. Get Rid of the Shadow Copies

When you install new software program, update device drivers or apply patches and hot-fixes on your computer, Windows will automatically store a snapshot of your system before making the changes. This helps because if something stops working after the installation, you can easily restore your system to the last working state.
Other than system files, Windows also stores backup copies of data files (like documents, pictures, etc.) on your computer which may come really handy if you accidentally modify or delete the original files. Technically, these are known as shadow copies and the feature is available in all editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7.
If you have been using your computer for some time, the disk space consumed by these restore points and shadow copies may easily run in gigabytes. You can either remove all the restore points from your system or, if you would like to play extra safe, you can keep the new restore points and just get rid of the old ones.
Click the Windows Start button and type cmd in the search box (not the Run dialog). Now press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open the command prompt with Administrator privileges. Click Yes if you are shown the User Access Control Window.
Now type the following command to remove only the old shadow copies:
c:\>vssadmin delete shadows /for=c: /oldest
Or, if your system is working normally, use this command to remove all the shadow copies.
c:\>vssadmin delete shadows /for=c: /all
Command Line is quicker but if you prefer the visual option, launch Disk Cleanup from the Start Menu and choose Clean up System Files. Switch to the “More Options” tab and choose “Clean up” under System Restore and Shadow Copies to delete all but the most recent restore point on the hard disk.

b. Make the Service Pack Permanent

When you installed Service Pack 1 (SP1) on a Windows 7 machine, it saves the installer packages in c:\WINDOWS\WinSxS folder. These would be required in case you want to uninstall SP1 later but if that is unlikely to happen, you can remove the SP1 backup files and reclaim some lost space.
Launch Disk Cleanup, choose Clean up System Files, select “Service Pack Backup Files” and delete. Alternatively, you may run the following command as an admin:
c:\>dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded
You may have to reboot the machine after the dism command. If you are on Windows Vista, you may also use the Vista Cleaner utility to clean the Service Pack installer files.

c. Reserve Less Space for Restore Points

Windows will continue to save new restore points until all the disk space reserved for saving restore points is filled up. That means if you have less reserved space, the old ones will get deleted more quickly to make room for new restore points.
Go to Windows Start –> Run and type sysdm.cpl to open the System Properties dialog. Click the “System Protection” tab, choose your current drive (C:) and click Configure. Set the Max Usage anywhere between 3% and 5% of the total disk size. Apply the changes.
Now that you have recovered some important space, go back to the “System Protection” tab and click Create to to capture of snapshot of your system in its current working state – just to be on the safe side of things.

The Kindle Best Sellers that are currently Free


Meet Zero Dollar Books, a Pinterest style page that offers a visual listing of best-sellers that you can download on your Kindle, Windows PC, Mac or any mobile phone for free. You can also download and read these Kindle books in your browser without requiring any software or mobile apps. All you need is a free Amazon.com account.
The page is updated every hour and you can use TwitterFacebook or RSS to get notified whenever new books are added to this list.
free kindle books
This list is generated using Amazon’s sales data itself. Amazon offers a best sellers list of Kindle titles though the list is split across five pages. The tool uses web scraping to download the entire list, filters out ebooks which are no longer free (the prices on Amazon can change every hour) and then puts everything in one Pinterest style page.

Win FREE shopping of Rs.5,000 Plus lots of prizes at HushBabies!

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  • One entry allowed per household. In case of multiple entries, all entries from that household could be deemed invalid
  • A participant who has been a contest winner at least once cannot be a winner again
  • Winners will be decided by an electronic draw of lots
  • Winners will be intimated directly via email and Facebook page of Hushbabies


Monday, May 7, 2012

How to Make 720p High Definition Screencast Videos for YouTube



youtube hd videosThis tutorial will show you to how record and produce 720p High Definition (HD) screencast videos (Widescreen) for YouTube using Camtasia Studio, the best screencasting tool for Windows that will soon be available on Mac.
HD video mostly refers to web video with display resolution of either 1280×720 (720p) or 1920×1080 (1080i or 1080p – full HD). YouTube, at the moment, only supports 720p HD resolution with a 16:9 (non-square pixels) aspect ratio and 24fps frame rate. Watch the clip to know how a 16:9 widescreen video is different from the 640×480 4:3 standard definition video.
Ok, so let’s get started. You need the following software to make 720p HD videos for YouTube with any fake black border around the video:
1. Camtasia Studio – download a 30 day trial for free. This will act like a virtual high definition video camcorder for your computer screen.
2. Apple QuickTime – for encoding with the H.264 video codec for HD quality on YouTube.
3. Any computer with a decent processor – long HD videos may take some time to render on a slow machine.
When you begin the screen recording process, make sure that the recording dimensions are set to 1280 pixels x 720 pixels.
From the Camtasia Recorder, go to Tools -> Options, change video configuration to manual and set the screen capture rate to 30 frames per second. Under audio format, use PCM with 44.100 kHz 16 bit Stereo. Save these settings and record your screencast video.
Once you are done with the recording and editing process, it’s time to produce your screencast video in HD format for YouTube. You may either use the MP4 or MOV formats for the output video as they both use the same MPEG-4 / H.264 codec.
HD Using .MOV format
Open the Production wizard in Camtasia (choose "Produce video as") and select "custom production settings". Use Quicktime Movie (mov) as the output format and under QuickTime options, use the following settings:
  • Frame Rate: 30 fps; Quality: Best; Key frames: Automatic
  • Export Size Settings (dimensions): 1280 x 720 HD
  • Sound: 44.1 kHz, 16 bit Stereo
HD using MP4 format
Select Flash Output (MP4/SWF)  in the Production wizard and use a template with no controls. Under video, select MP4 with a frame rate of 30 fps and change the audio options to at least 96 kbps. Manually set the video dimensions to 1280 (width) x 720 (height). The MP4 settings are courtesy Matt Pierce.
Upload HD to YouTube
Now that your HD screencast is ready, upload the file to YouTube. Once the video is uploaded and available for viewing, you may not immediately see the "Watch in HD" link as it can take anywhere between 5-15 minutes for YouTube to provide an alternate HD format.
If you see a green bar on the video page that says "this video is still being processed. Video quality may improve once processing is complete," it means that YouTube could recognize your recently uploaded screencast video as HD.

How to Embed HD YouTube Videos

If you like to embed HD videos from YouTube into a web page such that readers can directly watch the high definition version of the video without having to click the "HD" button in the YouTube player, just add &ap=%2526fmt%3D22 to the YouTube embed code in two places:
<object width="480" height="295">
<param name="movie"
value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Q1l&amp;fs=1&ap=%2526fmt%3D22">
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true">
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always">
<embed
 src="http://youtube.com/v/Q1l&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&ap=%2526fmt%3D22"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always"
   allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295">
</object>    
If that was a bit confusing, view the source code of this page that also includes an HD screencast created with Camtasia.

Linking to HD 720p YouTube Videos 

You now know how to embed an HD video clip on a web page but consider another scenario where you have to link to an HD video on YouTube.
If you use the default video link provided by YouTube, it would only show the standard quality video unless someone hits the HD button on the YouTube player.
To directly link to the high-definition version of the video, simply add &hd=1 to the video URL and anyone who clicks that link can watch your screencast video in widescreen and full HD quality. See example:
Standard Qualityhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lsbA8RhiI
Full HDhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lsbA8RhiI&hd=1

YouTube HD Alternatives

Other than YouTube, you may upload HD screencast videos to other sites like Vimeo,blip.tvMotion Box or even Daily Motion which is not just free but imposes no limits on the video duration and file size. Feeling confused? Check this detailed comparison of HD video sites on CNET by Josh Lowensohn to understand which site would suit your requirement best.
I am quite happy with the HD quality of YouTube videos and best of all, the service is absolutely free with no bandwidth limits. If you are looking to further widen the reach of your HD video clips, check other services that may help you upload videos to multiple sites at once.

Extend the Range of your Wireless Network


Setting up a wireless home network is pretty simple now. Get a wireless router, connect the Internet port of the router to your broadband modem and then connect any of the numbered LAN ports to the desktop computer through an Ethernet cable.
Wireless G (or 802.11g) routers offer fairly good Wi-Fi signal strength but if you plan to transfer large files or stream videos around the house, you may well consider switching to a slightly more expensive Wireless N (or 802.11n) router – these offer better signal strength and higher data transfer speeds than Wireless G routers.
There’s however one problem with Wi-Fi signals emanating from your wireless router – they only have a limited range. The wireless signal strength will degrade as the distance between the router and your laptop increases and it will further weaken if you have too many brick walls in the house or if your computer is located on a different floor than the router.

Ways to Boost the WiFi Signal Strength

If you too have a problem getting Wi-Fi signals in every corner of your house, here are some tips (and accessories) to help you extend the range of your wireless network.
#1. Install the DD-WRT* firmware on your wireless router – this might help increase the range of your Wi-Fi router by a few meters if not more.
To increase the signal strength, you can increase the router’s transmit power and also disable both frame burst and afterburner (the settings can be accessed from the router’s web dashboard). If DD-WRT firmware is not available for your router, try the Tomato firmwareon your router.
wifi alumnium reflector#2. Most routers have omni-directional antennas so they emit wireless signals in all directions (just like a light bulb).
That’s fine if you have placed the router in a central location but if the router is in some corner of your room or against a wall, consider adding a home-made reflectorbehind the antennas of your router.
#3. InSSIDer is a free utility that can help you detect the presence and strength of wireless networks. Install InSSIDer on your laptop, walk around the house with your laptop to determine the wireless signal strength at various places and, based on this information, you can quickly find a more suitable location for the router.
WiFi Booster Antenna #4. Ideally, you should place the router at a height in some central location and away from other cordless devices. Make sure that the router is not placed near something metallic (like an almirah or window grills) as that will weaken the wireless signals. Avoid mirrors as they can reflect the wireless signals away from the desired direction.
#5. Wireless routers generally ship with omni-directional antennas but you can replace them with more powerful uni-directional antennas and that will keep the signal from getting broadcast in all directions.
If you can’t find a compatible directional antenna for your router model, consider a booster antenna that’s omni-directional but will still boost both the range and strength of wireless signals.

Extend the range of WiFi signals with Hardware

If your router is placed on the ground floor of your home, the Wi-Fi signals will be very weak or may not even reach the basement computer or the printer upstairs. The situation will be no different if you work in a fairly large premises or if there are too many walls in the area.
In that case, here are some hardware device that you can consider to extend the reach of your Wi-Fi network:
WiFi Repeater (Range Extender)Option #1. You can attach a WiFi Repeater (also known as Wireless Range Expander) to your router and quickly expand the coverage of your wireless network without using any cables.
The Repeater should be placed within the range of your existing router and it will reflect the signals to other areas where the wireless reception was earlier poor (or totally absent). The Repeater can connect wirelessly to both routers and access points (see #3 below).
Option #2. (This is my current setup) You can get another wireless router and connect  it to your existing router using an Ethernet cable. The advantage is that this setup comes pretty cheap and the Internet speed stays almost the same even for computers that are accessing the web via the new router.
You can get a 100 feet long Ethernet Cable (also known as Cat5 or LAN or RJ45 cable) for less than $10 and wireless routers start at $20.  Here’s a detailed guide on how you canconnect two routers together.
Wireless Access PointOption #3. You also have the option to use an Access Point instead of a router to extend the WiFi range but that’s often not required because Wireless Access Points can be more expensive than equivalent routers.
The other advantage with a router is that is has extra LAN ports so, in future, you can connect more wired computers for sharing files or you Internet connection.
Option #4. If you have an old desktop or laptop computer, you should consider adding  an external (USB based) wireless adapter or upgrade the internal network card to improve the wireless reception (and thus Internet speed).
More tips on Home Networking:
Update: Eugene Dimarsky says that option #2 can be amended with a more expensive, but prettier option. Instead of running a cat5 cable, consider a homeplug bridge – also known aspowerline network adapters – allowing you to use the power lines in the house to connect the two routers. I’ve done this about a dozen times in different places and it works very reliably with no cable mess. It does cost an extra $80 or so, but for many it is worth the expense to keep things neat and ‘wireless’.