Battery Bar a must have utility for all laptop user

imageIf you are a Laptop user than the Battery bar is the must have utility for you. Apart from showing the estimated time remaining and percentage available it also shows the charge/discharge rate. But One thing I really liked is the Battery Wear. This really helps you to know how much your battery has deteriorated. You can see you battery wear status and be alerted at advance and start using your laptop battery wisely.

The Battery Bar comes with the two version free and the pro. For general purpose the free version should be enough to give the necessary details. You can check the software from this link http://osirisdevelopment.com/BatteryBar/index.html

If you are using the windows 7 or vista then you may get the message ?Consider replacing your battery?. This is usually due to the maximum wear percentage of your battery. If your windows is not showing the time remaining when you are on battery backup then this tool is the must have. This tool even shows the time remaining when the windows stop showing the available time remaining. So have it installed on your laptop or notebooks or netbook before you know its too late.

You can visit the following link to know more about battery. This site gives you clear idea to handle lithium ion battery properly.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

Have a long life battery. Open-mouthed smile

Hidden Tetris Game in uTorrent

Recently when I was surfing internet, I found that we can play a small Tetris game that?s hidden in uTorrent. All you need to do is open the uTorrent client. Go to the help tab on the top menu bar and click on ?About uTorrent?

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When the About uTorrent windows opens. Press T.

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You should now be able to play the Tetris game.

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ENJOY!!

Network error caused by Kaspersky [Solved]

Many of you might be having the same problem that I faced. I don?t know about the other antivirus software but the Kaspersky was the one that was causing the network trouble. My problem was that whenever I tried to create a ad-hoc network or when I was in my home network through wireless, I could not access my laptop through other computers but other computers were accessible through mine . Of course it was secure but it was frustrating when I could not access my shared folder or file from another PC. All other computer was on the network and file transfer could be done both ways in other computer except my laptop. But I was not having the problem when I connected my laptop through cable. I double checked windows firewall setting manually and allowed all those file sharing and remote connect protocol but that would not solve my problem.

Later I finally figured out what the problem was. When I am at home I connect to my router through wireless. Other computer at my home are connected with cable. So I had my Kaspersky antivirus on automatic settings i.e it would decide what was better for my computer. When I was going through the Kaspersky I found the Kaspersky has a firewall of it?s own that monitors my network apart from my windows 7 firewall. So no matter what was allowed through the windows firewall it was blocked through the Kaspersky firewall.

So what was happened was the Kaspersky antivirus would automatically assign all the wireless network to a public network regardless of windows 7 firewall settings. If you set your wireless network to Homegroup in network and sharing center and the wireless network is in pubic profile in Kaspersky your computer would not be accessible through other computer. So if you are using Kaspersky antivirus and Using wireless devices to connect to each other here?s what you need to do for your computer to be accessible for others.

Step 1

Open up your Kaspersky antivirus. Click on the settings

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Step 2

Click on the firewall on the left hand side. And click the settings on the right hand side.

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Step 3

Click on the Networks tab.

This lists all your networks. So in order for your computer to be accessible for file sharing or remote connect purpose the network you are connected must either be a local network or a trusted network. My wireless device ?Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card? connects to a network. In the figure it is now connected to a Network named SUREN. There you can see its status as local network. So be sure to change your network to local or trusted network for a file sharing.

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This can be done by right clicking the connected network whose profile you want to change.

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Note: You do not want to change other wireless network to local network. i.e school network or other public network. Doing So can make your computer vulnerable in public areas where others can easily access your shared files.

So that?s all of it. Now all you need to do is make sure that your windows firewall setting are ok for file and printer sharing. If everything is fine you will have a complete networking. Hope this was helpful. Any comments and queries are welcome.

Use FACEBOOK CHAT from the desktop

These days more and more people are into facebook chat. Instead of msn or yahoo or gtalk people are using the facebook chat because most of the people are online on the facebook instead of the other im clients. Though many of you may already have known this I would write it anyway.

Facebook chat can be boring sometimes if you have one too many friends in your chat list. You might use the facebook pop out chat to open the separate window of the facebook chat. But I tell you nothing is better than using a facebook chat from your desktop. You don?t have to go all the way to your browser to open facebook and then use the facebook chat. You can minimize the program and stay online without opening the browser.

I am using PIDGIN for the facebook chat these days. But you can use any other messenger program that support xmpp(Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol). I like the pidgin as it is simple, free and easy to use.

STEP 1

All you need is the program at first. You can download the program from the pidgin site http://www.pidgin.im/

If you download normally than Pidgin downloads an appropriate version of GTK+ at the time of installation if you don?t have GTK+ installed previously.

But I rather you prefer downloading the offline installation for the link below.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pidgin/files/Pidgin/pidgin-2.7.3-offline.exe

STEP 2

After you installed the program you need to configure the PIDGIN in order to be able to chat on facebook. Strictly follow the instruction below. This information is provided by the facebook itself.

Open the PIDGIN.

  1. Go to "Accounts" and select "Manage Account."
  2. Create a new account with the following settings:

     Under Basic:
     Protocol: XMPP
     Username: your Facebook username
     Domain: "chat.facebook.com"
     Resource: "pidgin"
     Password: your facebook password
     Local alias: "Facebook Chat"

     Under Advanced:
     Uncheck Require SSL/TLS
     Connect port: 5222
     Connect server: chat.facebook.com
     File transfer Proxies: proxy.eu.jabber.org

To give you the idea this is what it looks like when filled.

UNDER BASIC

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UNDER ADVANCED

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If you don?t know what is your username then log on to your facebook. Go to http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/chat.php

Click on the PIDGIN and it will show you all the settings needed.

STEP 3

Now click on account and enable account, the one you newly created. Now you can use this program to chat with the facebook friends. If you like one messenger for all then you can add account for all other services like msn, yahoo, gtalk etc.

If you like to use other programs like ichat or Adium then here are the settings.

iChat

   1. Go to the iChat menu and select "Preferences."
   2. From the "Accounts" tab, click the "+" and select the following settings:
      ? Account Type: Jabber
      ? Account Name: your Facebook [email protected]
      ? Password: your Facebook password
   3. Click down to server options and select the following settings:
      ? Server: chat.facebook.com
      ? Port: 5222
      ? Uncheck "Use SSL"

Adium

   1. Go to the Adium menu and select "Preferences."
   2. From the "Accounts" tab, click the "+" and select "Jabber" from the drop-down menu. Fill in the following information:
      ? Jabber ID: your Facebook [email protected]
      ? Password: your Facebook password

Facebook chat issue(An error occurred)

Recently I was having really frustrating issue with the facebook. Every time I opend the facebook chat either it wouldn’t open or when it opened and I tried to chat with a friend it would give a message,

An error occurred. Please try logging in again.

I couldn?t figure what was the problem. I searched through the help and faq section of the facebook. I couldn?t find my problem listed on it either.

Also I was having problem viewing my friends profiles. Facebook would would prompt me for the ?add as friend? option even though the person was already on my friends list.

Finally What I did to resolve my problem was deactivate my account temporarily in a thought that it might resolve whatever was wrong. And I got lucky with that. Now I am able to use my facebook chat normally. So if you are having similar problem do not hesitate to deactivate the facebook account. Then try logging in moment later. Well whatever the problem was, that surely helped me.

Cheers!!