Ashfame | Tech Blog » Reviews

6 Free Data Recovery Softwares

Ashfame — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:53:07 +0000

You may have been in a situation where you accidentally deleted your important data or it just got deleted due to data corruption or hard drive crash or whatever reason and your first reaction was of panic. All the work and possible non recoverable data is now gone forever. However you don’t need to worry too much about it as whenever any file is deleted, its not actually deleted from disk rather the space occupied is marked as reusable or free space. Chances are that the same space hasn’t been used and the data is still there and can be recovered. A fresh delete has more chances of recovering as compared to one after which several disk activity has possibly taken place. One good point to remember is that most of these software are more effective if you install it on a perfectly working PC and attach the affected hard drive to it as the secondary drive which ensures that no further disk activity leading to overwriting of data can happen.

Recuva

Recuva is a freeware that can recover deleted files from your explorer and even those deleted from your Recycle Bin, digital camera or MP3 player. Files can also be recovered from a formatted drive. Also you can recover deleted emails from Microsoft Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird or Windows Live Mail. Unsaved Word documents can also be recovered. In the program, the state of the file is color coded. Green files indicate files can be easily recovered, while red files indicate files which are hard to recover. Also available as a portable version.

Size: 3.6 MB | Download Link – http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download

ADRC Data Recovery Software Tools

ADRC Data Recovery Software Tools consists of several tools for data recovery and that is why a large number of file systems and drive types are supported. The user interface is very easy to work with. In fact it is so simple that data can be recovered easily and without much difficulties. You can easily undelete files, disk image back up or restore a backup image. You can even copy files from hard disk with bad sectors, clone disks, backup, edit and restore your boot parameters. It does not require any installation as it is a portable tool.

Size: 44.6 KB | Download Link – http://www.adrc.com/software/data_recovery_tools/

Avira UnErase Personal

Avira UnErase is a free data recovery software from the makers of Avira antivirus software. It can recover deleted data or lost data due to virus infection or corruption. It also supports recovering from compressed or encrypted NTFS and NTFS5 file systems. It shows files detected for recovery with a level of recoverability for each file. It has a high success rate of recovering even those poor conditioned files. Its not in development anymore but this is a fully functional version free for personal use.

Size: 403 KB | Download Link – http://www.free-av.com/en/products/10/avira_unerase_personal.html

FreeUndelete

FreeUndelete from Officerecovery.com is one of the most simplest data recovery tools to undelete files. It can recover deleted files from NTFS 1.0, NTFS 2.0, FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 file systems. It works on Windows XP, 2000, NT 4 (SP2 or higher required), Windows 2003 Server, but Windows 95/98 are not supported. It is very easy to use. The user just needs to select the drive to be scanned for deleted files and press the Scan button. After scanning is complete, the recoverable file list is displayed, from which the user can select the files to be recovered and recover them to the destination drive.

Size: 720 KB | Download Link - http://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/download.htm

Glary Undelete

Glary Undelete is a free and easy-to-use yet powerful file undelete solution for FAT and NTFS file systems. It can undelete files deleted from the Recycle Bin, DOS window, from Windows Explorer with the SHIFT key held down(deleting without moving it to Recycle Bin). It is also capable of recovering files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses just like many others on the list. It 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.

Size: 3.19 MB | Download Link - http://glarysoft.com/gun.html?tag=download

Undelete Plus (Free Trial)

Undelete Plus is not totally free but it does offer a trial version and that can work for you if you don’t want a regular solution for undeleting files. For instance you just lost a precious file and wants to recover it, you can use the trial version at once. It is one of the quickest and easiest ways to restore accidentally deleted data. It can undelete files deleted from the Recycle Bin, DOS window, from Windows Explorer with the SHIFT key held down(deleting without moving it to Recycle Bin) and from CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and Secure Digital cards. It works with all types of Windows file systems including FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and NTFS5 and works under Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7 operating systems. A portable version is also available, which requires no installation.

Size: 3.7 MB | Download Link – http://undelete-plus.com/download

I hope you never lost your precious files again. Have you ever used any such tool to recover files? Share yourself in the comments.

Typewith.me let multiple users work on a single document simultaneously

Ashfame — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:42:40 +0000

Typewith.me is a great service which let multiple users work on single document simultaneously.

You can create a new document and there is no need to signup for users. A URL will be created for the document, like http://typewith.me/HoDqXuyIj3 (its the one I tested with my room-mate). Just share this URL with users you want to work with.

Users get to see a present copy of the document with additional options of setting their name, text background color and chat facility on the sidebar.

As users start typing in the document, the text will appear with the background color selected. The magic is that the text is synchronized as you type so that everyone viewing the document sees the same text.

Its a great tool when you need to work on something together with other users. Everyone can participate simultaneously.

There are additional options to Import/Export, view Saved Revisions, clearing background colors and a Time slider. Time Slider view lets you see the document as per state of the document with respect to time. If you want a demo, open the test document, I created for this post and click on the Time Slider button.

I hope you can make use of this tool when collaborating with friends, colleagues or co-worker. Isn’t the service pretty useful? What do you think?

GigaTribe Private P2P Network

Ashfame — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:31:50 +0000

We all must have used Torrents at least once. Torrents, as we know work on P2P network. If you are new to torrents and P2P, I would suggest you read the post where I explained the basics of using torrents to download a file.

GigaTribe lets you transfer files among other users with ease. Its like have a private torrent network and that too with 256 bit encryption. There is no limit on the file size or transfer limits.

Its really a good alternative of sending files larger than 10 MB or 20 MB, the usual attachment limit. You can send whole movies, your entire songs collection. It works by setting up folders that you want to share. Connect with a friend on the client. Browse their shared files and download. Pretty simple!

Download and Install GigaTribe

You will be prompted for login. Create a new user account. You will get a confirmation email. Click on the activation link within the email and your account is ready.

Now click on Folders tab and add folders to share.

Make sure you take care to select subfolders so that all the contents of that folder can be shared. Just check the Enable recursive sharing option.

Ask your friend to do the same steps till this point.

Now click on Add to add your friend in your list.

Select the first option – Sending an invitation to a friend who already uses GigaTribe.

Accept the invitation by selecting the user from left sidebar and then clicking on Accept invitation.

Now select the user and open it. You would be able to view the files.

If you look under the Folders tab, then you can see the list of folders shared by that user.

Right click on the file and download it. It will be placed in your GigaTribe Downloads folder under My Documents.

Under the My Transfers you can see the transfers going on.

A friend needed to get some file and I crawled him to try out this application. As far as the application is concerned, I am pretty much satisfied with the application and the best thing is that interrupted sessions are resumed flawlessly.

Say Goodbye to traditional ways of transferring files to other users, GigaTribe is here.

Have your say in the comments.

Nokia N86 Review

Ashfame — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:30:12 +0000

Nokia N86 – 8GB | 8MP | ? awesomeness

Today I am going to review my new cell phone Nokia N86. I am so much excited that I actually wanted to do a comprehensive review of the phone but that would have to be cut down on to my opinion of the features of the phone. Before I would start, I would say “awesome” and I am sure you will say the same after reading the complete review.

Key features

2.6″ 16M-color OLED display of QVGA resolution (scratch-resistant glass)
8 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash and AF assist light
28mm wide camera lens, variable aperture, mechanical shutter, geotagging, time-lapse, camera lens cover, VGA video recording at 30fps
Symbian OS 9.3 with S60 3.2 UI
ARM 11 434 MHz CPU, 128MB RAM
Quad-band GSM support and 3G with HSDPA 3.6Mbps support
Wi-Fi with UPnP technology
Built-in GPS with A-GPS functionality and 3 months of free voice-guided navigation (Ovi Maps)
Dual slide design with dedicated gaming/audio/gallery keys
16GB microSD card slot with microSDHC support
Beefy 8GB internal storage
Built-in accelerometer for UI auto-rotation
3.5mm audio jack doubling as TV out port
Stereo FM Radio with RDS, FM transmitter
Standard microUSB port and stereo Bluetooth v2.0
N-gage support plus you get an N-gage game for free
Digital compass
Web browser has full Flash and Java support
Active kickstand
Superb Audio quality

Well that’s a lot. Isn’t it? I will get back to them one by one.

Disadvantages

Image processing isn’t very well tuned at this moment (just scope of improvement, else its good)
VGA@30fps video is no longer top of the line (could have been better)
No xenon flash (doesn’t really matter, believe me)
HSDPA only 3.6Mbps, no HSUPA
Poor display sunlight legibility

Instead of bragging the features it has got, I would first like to express my concern on the disadvantages. The camera is pretty good and the images and video are really good. I will upload the samples of both images and videos. Dual LED flash is good in performance too. Expecting it to have a Xenon flash just because its the latest offering isn’t acceptable for me and that too when the difference is not that much. It doesn’t have HSUPA but HSDPA should be enough and regarding the sunlight, the visibility is poor but how much time is one going to spend standing in the sunlight.

Retail Package

Other than the phone and battery, the retail package included the following:

Charger
USB Data Cable
Two piece Headset (Remote + Earplugs)
Nokia OVI Suite DVD
Some Redeem coupons for OVI Store

That’s pretty much of a basic packaging but it does the job for me. In fact, it will, for many of us.

Design & Construction

It is built on dual-slide form factor and is smaller in size (103.4 x 51.4 x 16.5 mm) as compared to its competitors. It has a volume of 69cc and weighs 149grams. That’s a little heavy but hardy noticeable. Its the power in your hands.

The screen is good but doesn’t match as that of its competitors. The phone has a D pad for operating it which attracts a lot of fingerprints and the same is with the metallic but is quite user friendly.

The ambient light sensor, earpiece and video-call camera are as usually up there.

Sliding up sports a alphanumeric keypad (standard 4-row 12-key layout) and sliding down reveals four multimedia keys which are used for controlling the music playback or gallery. The keypad is not something to complain about. The keys are quite comfortable and I get very decent speeds on it.

However the four multimedia keys are not soft and I guess they should be this way only.

There is an additional slider to lock/unlock the keypad which is something I like in my phone but many have questioned its use. I guess this is a personal choice for the owner.

On the other side there are comfortable keys for Camera & Volume control both of which are just right. Not too out of the design and not too in that they become hard to press.

On the top there are Power key, 3.5mm Audio jack & micro USB port which is used for connecting the Charger, Data cable and the TV out port.

On the back the 8MP wide-angle camera is covered with a lens cover which unlocks the phone and starts the camera when opened.

Around it is a kickstand which makes the phone a viewable screen by placing it on the table. One can even set the behavior that which application to start when opening the kickstand.

Thanks to GSMArena for the flash embed and the pictures of Nokia N86! I couldn’t have taken my own because my only camera is N86 8MP itself.

Camera

Its the Nokia’s first 8MP phone (3264×2448 pixels) and boasts of Carl Zeiss lens with dual LED flash. It has got many options like a digital camera and has a panorama feature too.

I will be uploading some sample pictures & a video too but till that you can have a look at the ones from GSMArena (Just click on the thumbnail to view the original size).

Download a N86 Video sample! I find them pretty much doing the job of a beginner’s digital camera (The Nokia has an aggressive noise reduction for photos and the photos end up with oily look when fully zoomed at 100%)

Processing Speed

The phone is pretty much responsive in everything. Thanks to the 434 Mhz CPU and 128MB RAM. One thing that I like the most is that viewing photos in gallery is an awesome experience. One doesn’t need to wait for the picture to process while scrolling and increasing the scrolling speed rotates the gallery in N-series style smoothly.

Audio Quality

The audio quality of loudspeaker is just enough. Its not loud but I wish it was. I am more of a headphone junky and when I listened to some of my music in the earplugs, I was impressed. It even sounds better as compared to when I plug in the headset into my PC audio jack. That means the phone’s hardware is even better than the PC’s soundcard.

Its sound quality is almost equivalent to the Nokia N97 as their frequency response graph runs very close.

It also has a FM Transmitter which enables you to transmit your playback on a set frequency and then any FM device can play the music. It adds up awesome for Car stereo.

Battery Life

It is powered by a 1200mAh Li-Ion battery and on paper it has some decent standby and talktime. However I am facing a little trouble with this one. I might need to get it checked. My cell never shows up the “Battery fully charged” message and keeps on charging but in the screensaver it shows the battery is fully charged. Still it runs for a whole day of mix usage but I believe it should run for 2 days with heavy usage & GSMArena has reported that too. I will update this section once I am done with my visit to the Nokia Priority as the fault can be anything – charger, battery or the microUSB port. If any other user can share his/her experience it would be great.

Apart from all this, the web browser is pretty good too with full flash and java support. The accelerometer is good too and responsive enough.

Final Verdict

Instead of the fact that I am having some issues with battery backup time, I love this offering of Nokia. I would recommend it to anybody looking for an all rounder phone in range of 20k. I bought it for 20.8k actually from Nokia Priority. They were asking for 21.4k but my friend managed to get the deal in 20.8k. Its totally sexy.

Cl1p.net is my Online Clipboard

Ashfame — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:42:25 +0000

Have you ever come across the situation you need to work on some article or some program code with multiple people all of which are on different computers with just internet access? Well what would you have done? Let me guess. You must have decided as which one of the contributors will be working on which portion and then mail a copy of it to everyone of them. Don’t do it anymore because you can now service like Cl1p.net to share content with your team members.

It was just today I felt its need and then I realized that I have not shared this one with my readers. Cl1p.net is one service with which you can create your own clipboard like http://cl1p.net/ashfame/ and then select its type. You can use it as a plain text clipboard, rich text clipboard or even as a message board. You can even set it readable by protecting it with a password so that people can only see what you want to share and not edit it. Of course you can provide password to people to whom you want to give the authority of editing.

I use it when I need to work on some program code with a few people(To tell the truth, when I need help to fix some bug). Do give it a try and let me know your reactions.

Check availability of your Username

Ashfame — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:31:05 +0000

Everyone one of us has a username on the sites we are a member of. And the reason why many of us have a unique online codename is just to maintain a single username as a matter of convinence. Isn’t it? Now in this Web 2.0 world, we may sometimes come across a service in which our username is already taken by someone. So today I am sharing a service named UserNameCheck which lets you know the availability of your username across several site.

So use this service to check the availablity of your username and get yourselfÂ those which are still available so as to represent yourself uniquely with a single username. Its a very important in branding yourself. Moreover you can use this to find a unique username that doesn’t exist on these services.

I loved this site. What about you?

Minilyrics – Get lyrics within your media player

Ashfame — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:35:22 +0000

I am in a habit of hunting lyrics of my favorite songs but this can be a time consuming method if you like many songs. As you are no different from me (We all love music. Don’t we?), here is a method that can save you time if you are also like me and hunt for music lyrics every now and then.

Minilyrics is one tool that can be used with your favorite media player. When you play your songs, MiniLyrics will search, download and display song lyrics automatically. You may be asked to select the best match lyrics to download. You can also search and select lyrics manually by clicking the context menu item Download Lyrics.

Minilyrics support the following media players:

Winamp
Windows Media Player
Foobar2000
Apple iTunes
RealPlayer
Quintessential Player
Musicmatch Jukebox
MediaMonkey
The KMPlayer
JetAudio
Yahoo! Music Engine
J. River Media Center
J. River Media Jukebox
XMPlay
AIMP2
Helium Music Manager
AlbumPlayer
BSPlayer

It has even got skin support and is available for Windows Mobile too.

Download Minilyrics (1.5MB)

LG Flatron L226WTQ Review

Ashfame — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:54:22 +0000

Finally I am writing a review of my lovely WideScreen. Its a LG Flatron 22inch screen (Model no: L226WTQ) which is one of the best 22″ screen available at such a price. Lets go through its technical specifications first.

Technical Specifications / Features

1680 X 1050 Resolution (16:10 Aspect Ratio)
5000 : 1 Contrast Ratio (Dynamic)
2ms Response Time (Gray to Gray)
300 cd/m² Brightness
170^o / 160^o Viewing Angle
Anti-Glare coating
45W Power Consumption
5.85 kg weight

What I have to say about it?

Its a brilliant screen, definately the best in its price category. The contrast ratio is great. It sparks on colors. Even being a 22″screen, it offers 2ms response time (all other offers 5ms response time) which is good for gaming. I havn’t observed any ghosting effect on it. The viewing angle is great. I can watch movies on it while lying on bed and just tilting the screen 5^o in front. It has a cool rotation mechanism that allows you to swivel it with just a pressure of finger. Inputs include VGA and DVI-D. The latter is HDCP-enabled, so you can connect the screen to a Blu-ray or HD DVD player and enjoy copy-protected movies. There’s no HDMI socket, but you can buy a DVI-to-HDMI adaptor if the need arises.

While I was looking for a good screen that can serve all my needs, I came to know that the best screens are by Dell only but they are a little expensive option in India and moreover there best 22″ screen was available in white color and I wanted one in black color. Considering the price of LG L226WTQ (MRP: 15k INR, I got it in 13k INR), its the best value for your money. You will not regret buying it. The only thing it lacks is that it can’t be switched to potrait mode (not much of a con) like some Dell monitors can.

However, I have a little problem in dismantling the screen both in showroom and in home but thats something one will rarely do. It was free from any dead pixels when I checked it. If you are looking for 22inch screen, then you can blindly go for this one.

Do you own a widescreen? How is it?

Zoho : Quick & Easy Online Invoicing

Ashfame — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:21:53 +0000

As I will be starting as a freelancer, I was looking for a free way of invoicing my clients but I was not able to find any good free service. All of them were paid and since I don’t have much time, I will be opting only for a few projects. I needed a service that is good enough and free at the same time. My search ended when I landed on Zoho service page. Zoho offers online invoicing service that just suits my needs. They both have free and paid options.

Zoho Dashboard

Zoho Invoices

Features & Benefits

Elegant invoices and quotes
Quickly, easily send elegantly formatted invoices and quotes to your clients.
Manage invoices and payments
Track invoices, send reminders, accept payments online and acknowledge receipts.
Multi currency
Expand your business overseas, send invoices and quotes in different currencies.
Data Security and backup
24×7 monitoring, automated replication, back-up and protection of the data.
Invoice Templates
Select from our pre-defined set of templates or create your own custom template.
Recurring Invoices
Automate repeated billing via recurring invoices.
Import and Export data
Freedom to move data import and export data to/from the system whenever you want in standard formats.
Customer Product Invoice Reports
Powerful reports to help you visualize how your business is doing

Pricing

They offer a free plan that let you bill 5 invoices per month and above that they have paid plans from $5 (Basic), $15 (Standard), $25 (Premium) and $35 (Elite) per month. The free plan is just perfect for me as I don’t do much of freelancing and only takes up small to medium size projects.

My Opinion

If you are a freelancer who needs good quality free online invoicing service, then Zoho’s free plan is the best for you (5 Invoices free per month). If you want to opt for a paid option, then you should also consider other paid services to know what other services offer in the same price package. You can use your existing Google or Yahoo account to login in Zoho.

Visit : ZOHO Online Invoicing

Zoho also offers other services, you can check them out at ZOHO Homepage.

Have your say in the comments and let me know what you use to bill your client (free or paid).

Compiz Fusion – Unmatched 3D Environment in Linux

Ashfame — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:30:26 +0000

Compiz Fusion : Unmatched 3D Environment in Linux

Think Aqua interface in Mac OSX and 3D Flip in Windows Vista was the best looking Operating system? Ever thought that the 3D effects on hacker’s desktop shown in movies are not for real? No need to think again, just read on because the freedom and flexibility Compiz Fusion provides is beyond imagination.

Compiz fusion is the result of a merge between the well-known Beryl composite window manager and Compiz Extras, a community set of improvements to the Compiz composite window manager. You don’t even need a high performance hardware for this, it will work fine with 256MB RAM and a decent processor. Many distros such as Ubuntu , openSUSE, Mandriva, Fedora, Sabayon etc comes with out of the box Compiz Fusion and for others distros it can be added as an add-on. This article is aimed at encouraging users to try linux if they want the best rather than using Windows and refraining themself to try something new and better.

Here are screenshots of various effects that can be accomplished in Compiz Fusion and all for free, for which you would have to pay in Windows (even if someone develops them). Open Source is the way to go as it leads to faster development times and better than anything else.

3D Cube	3D Cylinder
3D Sphere	3D Windows
3D Flip	Alt+Tab Switch
Cover Stitcher	Explode
Expo	Group Tabbing
Razr	Ring Switcher
Skewer	Tabbed Windows
Unfold	Annotate

Compiz Fusion is not limited to just these effects. Just install additional plugins for more effects. If you want to develop one for that effect in mind, then go for it and contribute to the community. Its all Open. Have your say in the comments and help in promoting linux by promoting this post.

SOURCE : A Big Thanks to Dark Star of Technenclave for spreading the word about it and letting me know.

Nokia 5310 Xpressmusic Review

Ashfame — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:13:18 +0000

Keeping this review of Nokia 5310 XpressMusic straight to the point. Lets take a quick look at the technical specifications of this phone.

Specifications of Nokia 5310 XpressMusic

Download Factsheet of Nokia 5310 XpressMusic.

Almost all the details can be found in the factsheet. To make it quick, I would like to point out a few features of this phone myself. It is a sleek music phone which comes with a awesome 2″ TFT Million color screen. It has a 2MP camera without flash, supports Micro SD card of upto 4GB capacity and also supports Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR with many features like audio video remote, object push, SIM access etc.

Lets have a look at what comes bundled with the phone

BL-4CT Battery
AC-3 Charger
HS-45 Headset
512MB Micro SD Card
CA-101 Micro USB Data Cable

It comes with a decent processor and 32MB RAM that makes it a good performer but the camera is sluggish in performance. This is surely a disappointment for camera lovers. Phone memory is around 33MB. It has small keys that can make it a little difficult to operate unless you yourself are slim. It takes upto 2hrs 30minute to charge completely with the bundled AC-3 charger. Music quality is pretty good, thanks to the dedicated audio chip and has a 3.5mm audio jack so that you can even hook up your headphones but its loudspeaker is located at the back side of the phone and you won’t be able to hear it ringing if its lying on a soft surface. It also don’t have Infrared and 3G support. And to my surprise, the antenna is at the bottom of the handset. So don’t touch the bottom of the handset while making calls so as to reduce the radiation exposure and increase battery time.

Considering all the features, here are my two cents:

Phone is really sexy in looks. Infact it looks like it is made for gals rather than guys as it fits in gal’s palm easily. Its music player rocks at the price tag but camera definately sucks. If you are not much in clicking photographs every now and then and want a good music phone then it can be a good choice. Support of 4GB Micro SD card makes it ideal to carry a lot of songs.

Summary

PROS

Brilliant Screen, Good speed, Decent Music Quality, Looks

CONS:

Camera performance, No 3G support, Small keys (not much of a CON though)

WordPress Plugins to use WordPress as the ultimate CMS

Ashfame — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:04:54 +0000

WordPress is one of the best CMS as it can be tailored to suit any needs and the best part is that it is good enough for SEO and hosts a large database of plugins that enhance its functioning. Here I have listed some plugins that can make WordPress to act more as a CMS rather than being blog-centric.

HeadSpace 2

Its a powerful all-in-one plugin to manage a wide range of SEO tasks, option to add Google section targeting, add tracking codes for Google analytics and like services, welcome first time visitors and a hell more. If you haven’t check out this plugin, then you are missing something you shouldn’t. If you still think you don’t need it, then visit the plugin’s homepage.

Ryans Simple CMS

This plugin re-designs the dashboard using CSS so that your client only gets to see what he needs to see and all others things are hidden so that he might not mess up with something or the other. To download or login into a demo blog, visit Pixopoint Simple CMS

WordPress Database Backup

With this you can schedule backup of WordPress database and backups will automatically be mailed to the email specified. This plugin only features backup of your database and not your files you may have uploaded. Plugins that provide database backup along with files can be find here and a beta version of another plugin here.
I myself use the WordPress Database Backup plugin because the backups are mailed everyday and I prefer to take backup of other files myself. No hassles. If you still want a mix, then you can go for Skippy’s plugin.

WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin

Whenever a new version of WordPress is launched, this awesome plugin by Keith does the job of upgrading the WordPress installation in a matter of clicks. Although I check for updates on his plugin as soon as WordPress changes the way it work and then use this plugin to update my installation. You can download it from here.

Plugin Central

You don’t need to visit the plugin page anymore to check if you need to upgrade any plugin. Plugin Central will notify you on the dashboard itself. You can have a look at the screenshot to get a idea. If you don’t want to update a plugin, there is a option of adding that plugin to Ignore list too. There is no need of updating the plugins one by one, you can update them all with a single click and the coolest part is it can even install the plugin by just its name (if found on the WordPress repository, of course). You can save time while setting up CMS for a client as you only need to give this plugin the list of plugins to install and expect the rest to be done by it. Get it from Prelovac.

Login Lockdown

Provide brute force protection to your client’s site. This plugin does the job of locking the login after a number of unsuccessful attempts to login from a specific IP address. Good plugin for sure. You can download it for WordPress 2.5+ and older versions from Bad Neighborhood.

Branded Login Screen

A custom login screen will look cool and will give the client a feeling that they really have what they wished for. You still need to design a image on your own as this plugin only does the job of displaying them and not creating it. More instructions can be found on Kerry’s site.

If you know of any WordPress plugin that can enhance its capability to act as the ultimate CMS, then share with us.

Opera Mini v4.1 beta launched

Ashfame — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:52:27 +0000

My all time favorite mobile browser Opera Mini has launched the beta of their next version which offers feature that can blow you off. Earlier Opera Mini v4 was lacking certain features that have been implemented in this version. If you are unaware of Opera Mini, it is a phone browser which is capable of bringing the power of whole internet into your cell phone. It is also faster and delivers pre-compressed pages so that you are charged less for your data usage plan and pages are loaded faster.

New features of Opera Mini v4.1 are:

Faster Speed

Opera servers have been upgraded so that their response time is increased by 50%. Pages are now delivered faster. Feel the difference yourself.

Find things faster

It lets you search for text within a Web page so you can get to the information you need. Just like you can search for text within a page in your desktop browser.

Get to your Web sites faster

Now Opera Mini will suggest you the URL address as you type in the address bar by tracking URLs from the history and bookmarks. Pretty smart feature in a mobile browser.

Download and upload files

On phones with JSR-75, users can now even upload or download without being directed to the phone’s native browser. Download without leaving the Opera mini browser interface.

Save pages for later viewing

On phones with JSR-75, users can now save pages on their memory so that they can view them later when they are offline. Like you will be out of cellular reception, as in planes, so you can save pages.

Existing features of Opera Mini v4 are :

Sync bookmarks and Speed Dial

You can sync your bookmarks and speed dials between Opera mini (mobile browser) and Opera browser (desktop browser). You will need a account with them in order to do so. Just select Sync feature from the browser and it will be updated with the latest copy of your bookmarks. This makes work easier when you you use internet sometime on computer and sometime on mobile. One of the coolest feature of Opera Mini so far.

View pages in Landscape mode

You have the option of viewing pages either in portrait or landscape mode. Press * # to change viewing mode. It would be better if this can be integrated with accelerometer feature in Nokia N95, Apple iphone etc.

Give your phone a mouse

Yes you have a cursor on your mobile browser too. You can move it and click on any link as you do on desktop browsers. Just push your joystick in any direction and it will run in that direction. It’s the best option that you can have other than having a mouse itself.

Power scrolling shortcuts

You can scroll faster by pressing the shortcuts i.e. 2 for down, 4 for left, 6 for right and 8 for up respectively. Pressing these shortcut keys you can scroll as much as you can see on screen at a time. Very useful on mobiles that don’t have large screens like blackberry phones. Very easy to use even on phones with small screens.

Create custom search shortcuts

You can grab search option on a Web page and then choose â€œCreate searchâ€ within your menu alternatives. Then you can enjoy making frequent searches without having to type in the site link again.

Tools and support for Web designers

Opera developers support web designers who want to make their Web sites look even better to those browsing with Opera Mini. They will assist web designers to look their sites pixel perfect in Opera Mini browser. So, if you are a web designer and your visitors are mobile users then you might want to contact them.

Opera Mini can be downloaded via many options but I would suggest you to download it directly from your mobile. Completely hassle free procedure. Its just a little above 100KB in size.

To Download Opera Mini 4.1 beta, visit mini.opera.com/beta using your phoneâ€™s existing Web browser and click on one of the links to download Opera Mini.

Opera Mini Stimulator
To see Opera Mini in action, use the Opera Mini live demo.

UnFREEz – Tool for creating animated gifs

Ashfame — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 05:25:46 +0000

You must have seen those images that keeps on changing and looks like an animation but in reality they are animated gifs which holds the information of showing multiple images after a pre-specified time interval. There are many online tools for creating animated gifs but today I am going to share a simple freeware portable tool named UnFREEz that you can use to create animated gifs in 30 seconds.

You need to have multiple gif images of same size before you can use UnFREEz to unfreeze the static character in them and make a live animated gif in a few seconds.

I recommend reading this post on Batch File Conversion / Rename so that you can convert rename multiple images in bulk. After you have read that post and ready to play with image files in bulk, I assume that you have images in gif format all of same size.

Create animated gifs in 30 seconds

Well cut 20 seconds out of that for batch processing of files that you just learnt. If you are having any kind of trouble, then feel free to ask me in the comments. After you are done with batch processing. Select and drag drop all the gifs on the unfreeze and set the time interval and click on “Make animated gif”. Save the file where you want and check that file by opeing it. You can vary the time interval according to your needs. I hope that will be done in 10 seconds.

Now you have your freeware portable tool for creating animated gifs. Here is a animated gif I created using UnFREEz:

Download UnFREEz (19.5 KB) and do share your thoughts on the subject.
MD5 Hash: 9f691b203fd37254107b7b359df7d5b1

VirusTotal – Scan files from different anti viruses online

Ashfame — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:54:23 +0000

Almost every computer user uses some or the other anti virus on their computer for protecting their computer from malicious codes (virus, trojans, spywares etc) and many of them also use online on demand scanner of different anti viruses when they are suspicious about a particular file.The reason of using anti virus other than you already use is that no anti virus is 100% effective in detecting malicious codes. Effectiveness of anti viruses depends on virus definitions and the algorithm of heuristic check. Then again how many different online anti virus you can use if you want to scan a file. Here comes the role of VirusTotal in play.

VirusTotal is a online service that allows you to scan your file by multiple anti viruses which improves the chances of detecting any malicious code, if present. It uses 30+ different anti viruses engine (updated with the latest virus definitions) for scanning files.

Scanning engines of following anti viruses are used by VirusTotal

AhnLab (V3)
Aladdin (eSafe)
ALWIL (Avast! Antivirus)
Authentium (Command Antivirus)
Avira (AntiVir)
Bit9 (FileAdvisor)
Cat Computer Services (Quick Heal)
ClamAV (ClamAV)
CA Inc. (Vet)
Doctor Web, Ltd. (DrWeb)
Eset Software (ESET NOD32)
ewido networks (ewido anti-malware)
Fortinet (Fortinet)
FRISK Software (F-Prot)
F-Secure (F-Secure)
AVG Technologies (AVG)
Hacksoft (The Hacker)
Ikarus Software (Ikarus)
Kaspersky Lab (AVP)
McAfee (VirusScan)
Microsoft (Malware Protection)
Norman (Norman Antivirus)
Panda Security (Panda Platinum)
Prevx (Prevx1)
Rising Antivirus (Rising)
Secure Computing (Webwasher)
Softwin (BitDefender)
Sophos (SAV)
Sunbelt Software (Antivirus)
Symantec (Norton Antivirus)
VirusBlokAda (VBA32)
VirusBuster (VirusBuster)

How to Scan file using VirusTotal?

You have 3 options.

#1 Upload the file and then scan it

#2 Send a mail to scan@virustotal with the subject scan and it will scan the email attachments for any malicious codes. You will receive an email containing report of the file analysis. Response time will depend on the load on their server.

#3 You can download and install their tool (80KB) that lets you send a file to them by right click and selecting the Send To feature.

Best of all they keep all the anti viruses updated with the latest virus definitions. It can’t get better than this. Try VirusTotal, I am sure you all are going to love it.