Are you drowned of the way your PC response to your request.Do not worry ,as we have numerous options to speed up the response of your Personal Computer.Watch the video to know more about speeding up the system.
Saturday 30 August 2014
5:38 pm
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While it's true that Android is a little more susceptible to
malware attacks than iOS, you can make your device impervious to even the most
dastardly of digital assaults. Here's how.
Set a lock screen
Yes, Android lock screens seem to be about as secure as Sony's Playstation Network, but they do offer at least some security against casual attacks.
Install an anti-malware programme
Just like on a Windows machine, some kind of anti-virus software is handy. It's the second line of defence and there are a number of anti-malware apps available.
Don't cache passwords
It's annoying, but true. Caching passwords, while incredibly handy, is also a godsend to anyone who steals your phone. Of course, security measures like lock screens help, but the only foolproof method of protecting those passwords is not to save them. (Oh, and turn on two-factor authentication while you're at it.)
Check your SuperUser privileges
If you've made the choice to root your Android device, you'll need to be extra careful about security. A malicious app with root access would be dangerous - able to do basically anything to your phone, without your knowledge
Ensure you only install apps from trusted sources
One of the most common methods of infection on Android is downloads of dodgy apps. Just double-check the software you install.
8:01 am
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Beyond
simple hard drive failure, your PC could fall prey to user error or all sorts
of nefarious malware. The only way to ensure that none of your personal files
or programs are lost in a catastrophe is to back up everything regularly.
While backing up your data can be as simple as dumping critical files
on a USB key or external hard drive every now and again, you'll ideally want to
make multiple backups and store them on different drives--preferably with the
drives stashed at different physical locations. Here's an easy, comprehensive
three-pronged backup method, using free tools, that can save your bacon in the
event of a catastrophic OS failure.
Creating Windows images with System Backup
The built-in Windows imaging tool--which creates a backup of all
the data on your drive, including Windows itself and your settings, programs,
and files--is nowhere near as comprehensive as some premium
solutions, and it sometimes has issues with restoring system images
from one machine to another, but for maintaining a personal computer it's
acceptable.
To use it, you'll first need to create a recovery drive. A recovery drive is a small, bootable disk that can
boot into the Windows Recovery Tool, independent of the OS. Type recovery in
the Start menu or Windows 8's Start screen, then click on the Recovery link in
the results. In the window that opens, click the link to create a recovery
drive and insert a USB flash drive into your system to use as the recovery
disk. Be warned: Any data on the drive will be destroyed when creating the recovery
disk. Follow the on-screen instructions, and Windows will create the recovery
disk in a few seconds.
Once the recovery disk is created, try booting to it.
If it works properly you're ready to create a system image. Restart Windows, go
to your Start screen, and type File History. Click on the File
History link that
appears and click on the System Image Backup link at the lower-left of the window.
Windows 7 users can find the feature at Control Panel > System and
maintenance > Backup and Restore > Create a system image.
When you click System Image Backup, a
'Create a system image' window will open. On the first screen, you'll be asked
to select the destination for your backup image. In the image above, I'm
selecting the secondary drive in my system, but you could also store the backup
image on a network location, an external drive, or burn it to DVDs. Note that
if you do the latter, you'll need a lot of discs. My image was almost 47GB.
Next, you'll be asked to confirm your backup settings.
Double-check that you're backing up your primary drive, which contains your
operating system, applications, personal files, and the like. If the correct
drive is listed, click the Start Backup button, and the Windows imaging tool
will create the system image.
Depending on the amount of data involved and the speed of the
drives, this system-image creation process could take anywhere from a few
minutes to a few hours. On my system, about 95GB of data on the OS volume was
compressed into a 47GB image, and the process took about 10 minutes. My system
uses all solid-state storage, though; the process would be much slower on a PC
using traditional hard drives.
Make a new image regularly--say, every month or two, or before
you do something drastic to your PC.
The actual restoration process is also quite easy. All you need
to do is boot to the recovery disk created earlier, and on the first screen
presented to you, select your preferred keyboard layout. Then select Troubleshoot
> Advanced Option > System Image Recovery. The tool will then
automatically scan your system for images and prompt you to restore the most
recent image. If you stored your image on an external drive, be sure it's
connected when the recovery tool scans for images.
Synchronizing with SyncBackFree
System images are great for restoring an entire system back to
its original state, but there's no need to create new images constantly when
only a few files may change on a system daily. To back up personal files, you
could use Windows 8's File History, but SyncBackFree is much more intuitive and configurable, and it'll run on Windows XP on up.
With SyncBackFree, you can create profiles for backing up,
synchronizing, or copying individual files or folders from one location into
another. You can also schedule those profiles to run at specific times, to
maintain multiple copies of your data.
Once you've installed SyncBackFree, start the program and
run through the 'New Profile' creation wizard. When it starts, you'll need to
name the profile. Afterward, click Next.
Select Synchronize on the next screen, and you'll be
asked to choose the type of drive you'll be backing up, and the type of drive
that will store the backup. This is a somewhat confusing screen, because the
source location is labeled 'Left' and the destination location is labeled
'Right.' SelectInternal/External
drive, network path, etc. for
both sides.
Next, select the specific folders to synchronize. In the main
SyncBackFree window, click the folder icon next to the 'Left' button, then
browse to the folder you'd like to back up. Next, click on the folder icon by
the 'Right' button and select the backup destination drive. Ideally, you'd want
this to be an external drive or networked storage location.
Once you've set your source and destination folders,
right-clicking the profile and selecting Run will start the synchronization
process. It's best to create a schedule so the program will back up your files
automatically on a regular basis. Right-click on the profile's name and select Schedule.
When prompted, click Yes to create a new schedule. You'll also
be able to choose what time to sync your folders.
Here's where it gets a little tricky. If you really want a
disaster-proof backup, you should create multiple SyncBackFree profiles and
synchronize your source data to different folders, at different intervals, to
maintain multiple copies of your data.
Why would you want to do that? Every time SyncBackFree syncs the
two folders, it overwrites the previous version of the data in the destination
folder. Maintaining multiple profiles that back up to multiple locations
protects against losing your files to data corruption or, say, a particularly
nasty bit of ransomware that encrypts your
files and throws away the key.
Put it in the Cloud!
You may also want to sync individual files for backup or sharing
across several devices with SkyDrive (or Dropbox, or Google Drive, or...).
That's simply a matter of copying the files you'd like to back up into your
cloud-storage service of choice. Check out our comprehensive article explaining how to use
SkyDrive, and remember, its name will be changing to
OneDrive sometime
soon.
There are countless other methods
and tools available to back up a PC that may be better suited to your
particular needs--we also have articles outlining how to protect your PCs with cloud backup
services and offline hardware
alike. If you've come across other tools or have handy tips and
trips that may help fellow readers, we'd love to hear about them in the
comments below. But this is for certain: Having a comprehensive
backup plan in place
can prevent a lot of heartache. Take the time and implement a backup plan that
works for you--trust us on this one.
Thank You.
Friday 29 August 2014
4:32 pm
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Dude can you believe this an App is paying you for your exercise/fitness?? Awesome Do try this.
Will you miss your workout if you had to pay for it? If money
motivates you more than fitness, an app is here to either reward or punish you.
Pact is an app which uses money to track your fitness goals. When you set up Pact, you give your credit card or PayPal information.
You also have to set your fitness goals like a pledge to workout a certain number of times in a week or eat healthy and Pact makes it specific.
Now enter a set distance you have to run. You must also decide the penalty you are willing to pay if you miss the workout.
The minimum penalty is $5 (Rs.300). The app tracks you when you check into a known gym and monitors how long you stay.
You can also wear a fitness band or use your phone's GPS to log miles. Reward money comes from people who failed to honour their pact.
Pact is an app which uses money to track your fitness goals. When you set up Pact, you give your credit card or PayPal information.
You also have to set your fitness goals like a pledge to workout a certain number of times in a week or eat healthy and Pact makes it specific.
Now enter a set distance you have to run. You must also decide the penalty you are willing to pay if you miss the workout.
The minimum penalty is $5 (Rs.300). The app tracks you when you check into a known gym and monitors how long you stay.
You can also wear a fitness band or use your phone's GPS to log miles. Reward money comes from people who failed to honour their pact.
4:04 pm
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If you headed home from office, without logging out of
Facebook or Gmail, you can do so from anywhere using the 'remote log out'
feature.
In Facebook, click on the tiny gear sign on the top right of the page, go to 'account settings' and then to 'security' on the left pane. Under 'security settings', click on 'active sessions'.
No one else might be using your account, but you would not have logged out of Facebook, leaving the session active. Anyone can gain access to your account in such circumstances. To remote log out, click on 'end activity'.
In Gmail, at the bottom right side of the page, you will see details of your latest email access. If someone else is simultaneously using your account, you will see a notification there.
Click on the 'Details' link below it. A new window opens, with a notification on whether the account is simultaneously open elsewhere. Like in the case of FB, you might not have logged out of the account, leaving it active. If so, you will see an option to 'log out of all sessions'. It also shows you the details of your previous 10 accesses to the account.
Thank You.
3:56 pm
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In the era of Snapchat and Poke, self-destructing messages on smartphones and tablets are the new fad. However, such self-deleting messages are not limited to handheld gadgets only. You can now send self-destructing messages via good old email too. Yes, there are a number of services in the market that let you send messages to others which get deleted once they read it.
Here are three
online services that enable you to send self-destructing emails.
OneShar.es
OneShar.es
This is an easy-to-use service which actually gives you a URL for the whatever message you have typed. And once the URL is opened for the first time, it gets invalidated and no one can again use it. And this service promises that the message is deleted from their servers too, which makes it a trust worthy service.
Privnote
It's a pretty interesting concept on which it works. All you are supposed to do is go the website, type in the content that you wish to share, and click on Create Note button. Once done, it would give you a link which can be used in your email. The reader would click on this URL to read the message and once he/she reads it, the URL will get expired.
Self Destructing Message
This service lets you send mails anonymously as well as generate links for the messages. Then you need to click on the drop down and choose the seconds (number of seconds till which the reader can have the message open), type your message and click on Create Message button. Your self-destructing message is now ready.
Thank You.
10:34 am
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Emails are the most common thing vulnerable to spying.
Adam Levin, founder of Credit.com and Identity Theft 911, has given 11 steps not to do with email and doing which will make us vulnerable to hackers, ABC News reported.
Firstly, he said that a person should never check their e-mail on an unsafe network, as a computer in an internet cafe, library or any other business may be infected with malware to steal your passwords.
Secondly, people should log off from their e-mails as soon as their work is over, as by staying signed up a hacker can gain immediate access.
Thirdly, Levin said that email login name and password should not be repeated.
Fourthly, another problem is that people do not delete their old-emails properly, which could contain addresses, account usernames and passwords, contact information for all your pals, financial data and may other sensitive information.
Fifthly, if an email comes to you that promises a loan or credit card that is worth a guaranteed amount of money at a low interest rate, beware that it is a scam, as nobody will give you credit without checking your credit report.
Sixthly, people should not click on seemingly ambiguous emails from their pals, as they could be vectors of attack. Cyber criminals often pose as pals stuck penniless in Europe or Asia and in need of an immediate wire transfer.
Seventhly, if you get a mail from your bank or credit card company asking to verify your account information beware that it can be from cyber criminals, as an institute that handles important things like money or packages, don't use email for communication, and definitely not to confirm personal information.
Eighthly, many scams involve sending money to people that you have never met for e.g there is the "Wall Street insider" with the hot investment tip or the foreign company, which needs you to cash a check or process transactions. Beware.
Ninthly, people should not fall for the trick that makes them think that their credit card has been stolen.
Tenthly, after Hurricane Sandy and the giant tornado in Oklahoma, cyber criminals sent emails requesting donations for relief efforts.
Lastly, do not click on emails that show too good to be true travel deals.
Thank You.
10:27 am
No comments
I lost my tablet
somewhere in my house and have been searching for hours. It's an Android
device, which seems to have Wi-Fi-enabled (responds to pings), but doesn't seem
to react to cloud-based messages. Furthermore, I have Cerberus installed on it,
but cannot connect to it. Is there a way of physically finding the device by
measuring the signal strength from different locations in my flat? I know it's
theoretically also possible to triangulate a Wi-Fi signal, and even though I
have four Linux based Wi-Fi receivers, I don't know any non-commercial software
that is capable of doing so.
Plan B
Not a direct answer to your question, but Plan B app is specifically for situations where you've lost track of your Android device and didn't have any sort of "finder" app on it. Note: Plan B only works with Android 2.0-2.3.
airodump-ng
I know you can get the signal reception using airodump-ng (part of the aircrack-ng tool suite) if you have a compatible Wi-Fi card and a Linux distro up and running. You'll see something like this with the signal reception listed as PWR (in decibels). If you keep pinging the device throughout this, you should see the airodump-ng screen update much quicker with the MAC address of the device. You should then be able to move around with your laptop, trying to increase the PWR until you find the device.
Homing Cone
Something that may work: Go to the hardware store and buy some brass mesh and build a cone. You'll probably need to layer the mesh, then hold your phone in the middle of the cone. The brass mesh should block all radio signals, so if you get a signal, it's coming from the direction of the open area of the cone. In theory, you can use this to home in on the device. FYI, the brass mesh is one component in building a SCIF.
Ethernet & More
Some Wi-Fi routers have a signal strength measurement on them. I know DD-WRT has this. If yours does, then you can do something like this:
*Get a long Ethernet cord.
*Plug one end into the router and one into your cable modem, internet connection, etc.
*Move the router around your apartment and see where you get the strongest signal. (Keep in mind, water pipes, metal studs etc can all distort Wi-Fi signals.)
*Another option would be to make your own directional antenna, kind of like this. You could also check out this page for some useful command line Linux Wi-Fi commands.
Triangulate
One-storied home? You can sort-of triangulate using signal strength alone. You have to assume that signal strength is proportional to distance from the transmitter, which isn't very accurate, but it could be accurate enough to help narrow down the search space. How to measure signal strength from 3 points in your house:
On a floor plan of the home, mark your three points, and with a drawing compass, swing an arc across the flat with a radius proportional to the signal strength so that the arcs enclose a fairly small space within the home.
If the assumption we made were true (and your measurements and drawing were accurate), your tablet should be within the space between the arcs. It's not quite true but hopefully not too far off either.
Start your search near that space. Hopefully its location will remind you of where you actually left the tablet. If not, search out from there, possibly repeating the above steps at a shorter distance from this location.
Multi-storied house? Same idea, only now plotting is more complicated by the third dimension. Easier would be to repeat the above for each floor. Now you have two or three more spaces to search but that'll be more information than you had before.
Source: Lifehacker India
Thursday 28 August 2014
10:43 pm
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Data loss - whether from hardware failure, digital
corruption, or even accidental deletion - is a hard, yet inevitable truth in
this age of computers. But you can take simple precautions to protect important
documents and e-mails, photographs, music files and videos. Your Windows OS
comes with tools that will help you take a backup; your external hard drive
comes with backup software. Yet, despite best intentions we fail to create
copies of our files. It's probably because the process might seem daunting.
Well, its not...
Local storage
Local storage
The quickest place
to save a backup of your data is on the hard disk in your PC. Here, however,
you will first need to ensure that your copies are stored on a separate
physical drive in your machine. A note of caution: different partitions do not
mean different drives. In the event of a hard drive failure, you will lose all
your data if your files were stored on the same disk, even though it might show
as a different drive letter on your system.
Now, given current drive capacities, most PCs come with just a single hard drive. In this case, it would be best to invest in an external hard disk. As mentioned earlier, each brand comes with its own backup utility. Follow the simple steps to back up your files at regular intervals. Tip: Till you get into an 'automatic' habit, create a reminder on your phone that will prompt you to backup every weekend.
Personal cloud storage
While a local backup is a good idea, an online repository for your documents, music and pictures will give you the freedom to access them from any web-enabled device. Besides, many cloud services come with mobile apps, allowing you to access, synchronize and share files on the go.
Dropbox (www.dropbox.com)
This service gives you 2GB of free storage. If you suggest it to friends, you can earn up to 18GB of space. Dropbox also has software for Windows, Mac and Linux PCs, and apps for Android, BlackBerry, and iOS devices. To back up a file, place it in the local Dropbox folder on your PC and it will be pushed online, showing up on your smartphone as well.
Google Drive (drive.google.com)
Google Drive offers up to 15GB of free space which is shared across Gmail and Google+ services. While Drive is not ideal for multimedia file storage, it is perfect for documents, with support for over thirty formats that can be opened within the mobile app - available for Android and iOS - or the web browser.
Box (www.box.com)
With 10GB of storage space, you will have more than enough room for backing up personal and work-related documents. If you are not into taking your photographs public on Flickr and Picasa, you can store them on Box. Entire folders can be shared with friends and family, turning the backup process into an advantage. Just make sure you don't give write access to those with whom you share the folder. Besides mobile apps for Android and iOS devices, Box also works on Windows Phone.
SkyDrive (skydrive.live.com)
With SkyDrive, you get 7GB of free space and the ability to work on documents within a web browser or its app that's available for Android, iOS and Windows Phone. This service works well with photos too: it comes with a slideshow function and supports sharing on social networks.
Mega (mega.co.nz)
Mega tops ours charts with a whopping 50GB of free storage space. It is a pure-bred digital locker with AES-128 encryption for all your data. As of now, the service can be accessed via your PC and through an app for Android. iOS and Windows Phone offerings are in the works.
Backing up with Windows
You can also use the built-in backup and restore utility in Windows. The best part is that you can schedule and automate the entire process with the help of a simple wizard.
In Windows 7
Click Start > Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Backup and Restore. Here, you are presented with two options 1 Make a full backup of the system: In the left pane, click Create new, full backup. 2 Customize the archival: Click Set up backup and then follow the wizard to configure what you want to make a copy of. After that first time, whenever you bring up Back and Restore, just click Back up now. To restore your data, double-click the backup file to start the process. Alternatively, open Backup and Restore > Restore my files. Browse through the backup and choose the files and folders you want to restore; select the destination and click Restore.
In Windows 8.1
Connect an external hard drive to your PC. Then, using your cursor, point to the upper right corner of the screen. In the 'charms' bar that appears, click on the Search option and type File History to access it. Enable the File History option and follow the instructions to select the folders you want to backup. You can restore files from earlier copies with the same utility.
Now, given current drive capacities, most PCs come with just a single hard drive. In this case, it would be best to invest in an external hard disk. As mentioned earlier, each brand comes with its own backup utility. Follow the simple steps to back up your files at regular intervals. Tip: Till you get into an 'automatic' habit, create a reminder on your phone that will prompt you to backup every weekend.
Personal cloud storage
While a local backup is a good idea, an online repository for your documents, music and pictures will give you the freedom to access them from any web-enabled device. Besides, many cloud services come with mobile apps, allowing you to access, synchronize and share files on the go.
Dropbox (www.dropbox.com)
This service gives you 2GB of free storage. If you suggest it to friends, you can earn up to 18GB of space. Dropbox also has software for Windows, Mac and Linux PCs, and apps for Android, BlackBerry, and iOS devices. To back up a file, place it in the local Dropbox folder on your PC and it will be pushed online, showing up on your smartphone as well.
Google Drive (drive.google.com)
Google Drive offers up to 15GB of free space which is shared across Gmail and Google+ services. While Drive is not ideal for multimedia file storage, it is perfect for documents, with support for over thirty formats that can be opened within the mobile app - available for Android and iOS - or the web browser.
Box (www.box.com)
With 10GB of storage space, you will have more than enough room for backing up personal and work-related documents. If you are not into taking your photographs public on Flickr and Picasa, you can store them on Box. Entire folders can be shared with friends and family, turning the backup process into an advantage. Just make sure you don't give write access to those with whom you share the folder. Besides mobile apps for Android and iOS devices, Box also works on Windows Phone.
SkyDrive (skydrive.live.com)
With SkyDrive, you get 7GB of free space and the ability to work on documents within a web browser or its app that's available for Android, iOS and Windows Phone. This service works well with photos too: it comes with a slideshow function and supports sharing on social networks.
Mega (mega.co.nz)
Mega tops ours charts with a whopping 50GB of free storage space. It is a pure-bred digital locker with AES-128 encryption for all your data. As of now, the service can be accessed via your PC and through an app for Android. iOS and Windows Phone offerings are in the works.
Backing up with Windows
You can also use the built-in backup and restore utility in Windows. The best part is that you can schedule and automate the entire process with the help of a simple wizard.
In Windows 7
Click Start > Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Backup and Restore. Here, you are presented with two options 1 Make a full backup of the system: In the left pane, click Create new, full backup. 2 Customize the archival: Click Set up backup and then follow the wizard to configure what you want to make a copy of. After that first time, whenever you bring up Back and Restore, just click Back up now. To restore your data, double-click the backup file to start the process. Alternatively, open Backup and Restore > Restore my files. Browse through the backup and choose the files and folders you want to restore; select the destination and click Restore.
In Windows 8.1
Connect an external hard drive to your PC. Then, using your cursor, point to the upper right corner of the screen. In the 'charms' bar that appears, click on the Search option and type File History to access it. Enable the File History option and follow the instructions to select the folders you want to backup. You can restore files from earlier copies with the same utility.
Thank You.
10:21 pm
No comments
External drives — either USB flash drives or external hard
drives — should be easy to use. In some cases, you may connect your drive to a
Windows PC or another device with a USB port and find that it's not recognized.
This problem can be caused by partition issues on your external drive, using
the wrong file system, dead USB ports, driver issues in Windows, or other
problems. In a worst case scenario, the drive itself may simply be dead.
The steps below will be the same for both USB flash drives and larger external hard drives, which work similarly.
Does the drive show up in disk management?
The steps below will be the same for both USB flash drives and larger external hard drives, which work similarly.
Does the drive show up in disk management?
First, let's check whether Windows detects the drive when you plug it in. Plug your removable drive into your computer. If it's an external hard drive, you may have to flip a power switch on the hard drive to activate it. Some heavy-duty removable hard drives may even have to be plugged in with a separate power cable before they'll work.
Next, open the Disk Management tool. To do so, press Windows Key + R, type diskmgmt.msc into the Run dialog, and press Enter.
You should see your external drive listed in the Disk Management window. Even if it doesn't appear in your Computer window because it doesn't contain any partitions, it should show up here.
If you do see the drive here, you can continue to the last section where we'll format it properly so Windows or your other devices can access and recognize it.If you don't see the drive here, continue to the next section where we'll try to determine why your drive isn't recognized.
Making Windows recognize the drive
If Windows doesn't see your drive at all, it's possible there's a hardware issue with your computer's USB port, a driver problem with your Windows computer, or you may just have a dead drive.
First, unplug the drive from your USB port and try plugging it into another USB port on your computer. If it works in one USB port but not another, you may have a dead USB port. If you've plugged the drive into a USB hub, try connecting it to the computer instead. Some USB hubs won't provide enough power for your external drive to function.
If the drive doesn't show up in Disk Management even after you skip the USB hub and connect it to another USB port on your computer, it's tough to know for certain whether the drive itself is bad or the computer is having a problem. If you have another computer nearby, try plugging the drive in there to check whether it's detected. If the drive doesn't work on any computer you plug it into — be sure to check whether it appears in the computer's Disk Management window — the drive itself is likely dead and will need to be replaced.
If the drive does work on other computers — or you don't have another computer around to test this with — Windows may be having a driver problem with the drive. You can check for this using the Device Manager.
To open it, press Windows Key + R, type "devmgmt.msc" into the Run dialog, and press Enter.
Look under Disk drives and check for any devices with a yellow exclamation mark next to them. If you see a yellow exclamation mark, you have a driver problem. Right-click the device with a yellow exclamation mark, select Properties, and look at the error message. This error message can help you fix the problem — you may want to perform a Google search for the error message you find.
Such problems can be tricky to fix. If the problem started recently, you may want to run System Restore. You may want to use the Update Driver button to install an updated driver, use the Roll Back Driver button to revert any changes, or use the Uninstall button to uninstall the device from your system and hope that Windows will reinstall the driver and configure it correctly when you reconnect the drive.
Partitioning and formatting the drive
We can use the Windows Disk Management tool to fix partition and file system issues with the drive. If you see that the drive is unpartitioned and is full of "unallocated space," you'll want to create a new partition on it. This will allow Windows and other operating systems to use it.
To do so, right-click inside the unallocated space, select New Simple Volume, and go through the wizard to create a new partition.
If your drive is partitioned and you still can't see it, ensure you've set a drive letter so you can access it in Windows. This should happen automatically, but if you've manually unset the drive letter, the drive may not show up and be accessible in Windows.
To do this, right-click the removable drive's partition, select Change Drive Letter and Paths, and add a drive letter. For example, add the letter G: and the removable drive will be accessible at drive G.
If the drive does appear to be partitioned, it may be partitioned with the wrong file system. For example, you may have formatted the drive with the ext4 file system from Linux or the HFS Plus file system from a Mac. Windows can't read these file systems. Reformat the drive with the newer NTFS file system or older FAT32 file system so Windows will be able to recognize it.
To reformat a partition, right-click it, select Format, and select your desired file system.
Note that this will erase all the files on your drive, so you'll want to copy any important files off of it first — for example, if you formatted the drive on a Linux or Mac computer, take it back to a computer running Linux or Mac and copy your important files off of it before continuing.
If you can't access the drive from another device, such as a DVD player, smart TV, game console, or media center device, it may be formatted as NTFS. Many devices, even Microsoft's own Xbox 360, can't read the Windows NTFS file system. They can only access drives formatted with the older FAT32 file system. To fix this problem, simply reformat the NTFS partition as FAT32. The drive should then be recognized by other devices when you connect it to them.
Note that this process will erase the files on your external drive. Copy the files off the drive to back them up first, if necessary.format-removable-drive-as-fat32Following this process should solve most of the disk recognition issues you'll encounter. If a drive isn't recognized by any computer you connect it to and never shows up in the Disk Management window, it's probably dead.
Source: Chris Hoffman, makeuseof.com
10:16 pm
No comments
Did you plug a USB drive into your computer yesterday, but
today it doesn't show up? Yet that drive works in the other USB ports on your
computer. The problem may be the port! This is one of those computer issues
that happens so rarely, we tend to blame the USB drive itself; just plug it in
somewhere else and carry on.
However, USB devices are still on the rise in popularity and show no signs of slowing down. USB flash drives, USB chargers for your phone, USB to connect your iPod, USB coffee warmers, USB is everywhere! So you NEED all your ports working. Here's what you can do to check out your USB port and some tips on fixing it.
*Physical examination
The first thing that you want to do is to see if the USB port is physically damaged. A simple test is to put your USB Flash Drive into the port and see if it wiggles up and down really easily. Be gentle doing this! You don't want to create a hardware problem if you don't already have one. If you're not sure how sturdy the USB port should be, do the same thing in a port that you know works and compare the two. If it is definitely loose, you'll probably want to move right to the end of this article where we talk about dealing with USB port hardware issues. If not, follow the steps we have here.
*Restart computer
Before you get carried away with Device Manager, try the old tech support standby - turn it off and turn it on again. Sometimes that works by forcing the operating system to scan for hardware, like the USB port, and makes it work again. If that doesn't work, then it's time to get into Device Manager.
However, USB devices are still on the rise in popularity and show no signs of slowing down. USB flash drives, USB chargers for your phone, USB to connect your iPod, USB coffee warmers, USB is everywhere! So you NEED all your ports working. Here's what you can do to check out your USB port and some tips on fixing it.
*Physical examination
The first thing that you want to do is to see if the USB port is physically damaged. A simple test is to put your USB Flash Drive into the port and see if it wiggles up and down really easily. Be gentle doing this! You don't want to create a hardware problem if you don't already have one. If you're not sure how sturdy the USB port should be, do the same thing in a port that you know works and compare the two. If it is definitely loose, you'll probably want to move right to the end of this article where we talk about dealing with USB port hardware issues. If not, follow the steps we have here.
*Restart computer
Before you get carried away with Device Manager, try the old tech support standby - turn it off and turn it on again. Sometimes that works by forcing the operating system to scan for hardware, like the USB port, and makes it work again. If that doesn't work, then it's time to get into Device Manager.
Check Device
Manager
You can launch the
Device Manager in a few different ways, but here's the quickest one: Click on
the Start menu and type devmgmt.msc then hit Enter. Device Manager should start
up right away. You'll see the following window:
*Device Manager: Device Manager shows all the categories of devices that can be installed in your computer. At this point in time, you want to look at the Universal Serial Bus controllers entries. Click on the arrow head to expand the selection. You will see something like the window below:
*USB controllers: This might not make much sense to you, but there is some useful information here. See where it says Intel(R) 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller? That is the specific type of USB Host Controller for my computer. The key words are USB Host Controller. Find those in your Device Manager. If you cannot find any, this may be our problem.
Click on the Scan for hardware changes button in the toolbar. You can see it highlighted in the image below. This will force your computer to check all of your hardware again. If you're lucky, this will pick up the USB port, and you'll see a USB Host Controller in the list. If not, then the problem isn't fixed yet.
*Scan for hardware changes: From here, things get a little tougher. You'll still be working in Device Manager for now. If you are working with a desktop computer, with your mouse and keyboard plugged into USB ports, you may need to manually force a restart with the following steps. Uninstalling the USB Host Controllers will disable your USB devices.
Under the Universal Serial Bus controllers heading, you will right-click on the first USB Host Controller. That will bring up a small menu like this one:
*Uninstall USB host controllers: Click on Uninstall. Repeat that process for any remaining USB Host Controller. Now restart the computer. This will force the computer to poll for these controllers and, hopefully, pick up the one that isn't responding.
While you're in the Device Manager, did it seem like there were an awful lot of devices installed that might no longer be in your computer? Sometimes the drivers stay lingering on your computer, long after the device is gone. This is a good time to clean those out, and we have just the article on easily removing old drivers from Windows.
Did that work for you? No? Let's go deeper then.
*Disable Selective Suspend feature: The USB Selective Suspend Feature is a power saving setting in Windows. What it does is suspend power being sent to a USB device, in order to save battery life of the computer. This is a good feature in theory, but on rare occasions the feature does not wake up the USB Device. If that's the case, then it would appear that your port is dead. You can disable the USB Selective Suspend Feature through a registry key. It's a good idea to do this on any computer that always has power to it, such as a server or desktop computer. You might not want to do this with your laptop, but if you do, you'll be able to turn it on again easily.
To get to the Registry Editor, click on Start and then enter regedit in the Search box and hit your Enter key. The Registry Editor window will open. It looks like this, if you haven't seen it before:
*Registry Editor: Navigate to the Disable Selective Suspend key by clicking on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, then SYSTEM, then Current Control Set, then services, then USB. Where it says Disable Selective Suspend in the right-hand window, right-click and click Modify. In the Value Data field enter the number 1. This will disable the selective suspend feature and power will go to your USB ports constantly.
If the USB key doesn't exist in your registry, it's easy to create it. Just navigate to the services key, and in the toolbar click on Edit > New > Key. Call it USB.
*Edit New Key: In the USB key, right-click in the right-hand window. You'll only have the New option. Click on that and select DWORD (32-bit) Value. It may just be called DWORD Value on your system. Name the new value Disable Selective Suspend. Just like above, right-click and click Modify. In the Value Data field enter the number
1. There! You have disabled the selective suspend feature. You may need to restart your computer for the setting to be applied.
This is a good time to mention that if you ever feel the need to block your USB ports from working, there is a tool to help with that. It's called USB Manager and we have a short article on how it works.
*Device Manager: Device Manager shows all the categories of devices that can be installed in your computer. At this point in time, you want to look at the Universal Serial Bus controllers entries. Click on the arrow head to expand the selection. You will see something like the window below:
*USB controllers: This might not make much sense to you, but there is some useful information here. See where it says Intel(R) 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller? That is the specific type of USB Host Controller for my computer. The key words are USB Host Controller. Find those in your Device Manager. If you cannot find any, this may be our problem.
Click on the Scan for hardware changes button in the toolbar. You can see it highlighted in the image below. This will force your computer to check all of your hardware again. If you're lucky, this will pick up the USB port, and you'll see a USB Host Controller in the list. If not, then the problem isn't fixed yet.
*Scan for hardware changes: From here, things get a little tougher. You'll still be working in Device Manager for now. If you are working with a desktop computer, with your mouse and keyboard plugged into USB ports, you may need to manually force a restart with the following steps. Uninstalling the USB Host Controllers will disable your USB devices.
Under the Universal Serial Bus controllers heading, you will right-click on the first USB Host Controller. That will bring up a small menu like this one:
*Uninstall USB host controllers: Click on Uninstall. Repeat that process for any remaining USB Host Controller. Now restart the computer. This will force the computer to poll for these controllers and, hopefully, pick up the one that isn't responding.
While you're in the Device Manager, did it seem like there were an awful lot of devices installed that might no longer be in your computer? Sometimes the drivers stay lingering on your computer, long after the device is gone. This is a good time to clean those out, and we have just the article on easily removing old drivers from Windows.
Did that work for you? No? Let's go deeper then.
*Disable Selective Suspend feature: The USB Selective Suspend Feature is a power saving setting in Windows. What it does is suspend power being sent to a USB device, in order to save battery life of the computer. This is a good feature in theory, but on rare occasions the feature does not wake up the USB Device. If that's the case, then it would appear that your port is dead. You can disable the USB Selective Suspend Feature through a registry key. It's a good idea to do this on any computer that always has power to it, such as a server or desktop computer. You might not want to do this with your laptop, but if you do, you'll be able to turn it on again easily.
To get to the Registry Editor, click on Start and then enter regedit in the Search box and hit your Enter key. The Registry Editor window will open. It looks like this, if you haven't seen it before:
*Registry Editor: Navigate to the Disable Selective Suspend key by clicking on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, then SYSTEM, then Current Control Set, then services, then USB. Where it says Disable Selective Suspend in the right-hand window, right-click and click Modify. In the Value Data field enter the number 1. This will disable the selective suspend feature and power will go to your USB ports constantly.
If the USB key doesn't exist in your registry, it's easy to create it. Just navigate to the services key, and in the toolbar click on Edit > New > Key. Call it USB.
*Edit New Key: In the USB key, right-click in the right-hand window. You'll only have the New option. Click on that and select DWORD (32-bit) Value. It may just be called DWORD Value on your system. Name the new value Disable Selective Suspend. Just like above, right-click and click Modify. In the Value Data field enter the number
1. There! You have disabled the selective suspend feature. You may need to restart your computer for the setting to be applied.
This is a good time to mention that if you ever feel the need to block your USB ports from working, there is a tool to help with that. It's called USB Manager and we have a short article on how it works.
Is your dead USB port working now? No? Then you might well consider that the USB port is physically damaged.
*Fix damaged hardware: If it's still not working, it may very well be a hardware issue. USB ports are pretty fragile and USB Flash Drives can act as levers on them, wreaking havoc on the electrical connectors inside. This is seen very often in laptops, where the user will pack up the laptop and not disconnect the USB Flash Drive. It can usually be fixed.
*The takeaway
There are several ways to try to repair your USB port. Hopefully, it's just operating system or driver related as that's the easiest and cheapest fix. Don't dismay if it is a hardware problem - those can be fixed fairly simply and inexpensively too. The point is, it can be fixed.
Source: Guy McDowell, Makeuseof.com
10:07 pm
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Targeted ads can be extremely distracting, not least of which because it's a reminder that the big G is scanning your email.
You can't stop it from doing that, and you can't stop it from serving up ads altogether, but you can stop it from giving you targeted ads in your email. And you can even stop it from giving you that annoying banner text ad at the top of each email.
You can't stop it from doing that, and you can't stop it from serving up ads altogether, but you can stop it from giving you targeted ads in your email. And you can even stop it from giving you that annoying banner text ad at the top of each email.
Here's how to stop Gmail from serving your targeted ads:
First go to the Ad Settings page. Scroll down until you find where it says "Opt-out settings."
A box will appear, warning you of all the things you'll miss
out on by opting out of what Google calls "interest-based ads."
You'll still be getting ads, but they won't be based on your interests. If
you'd still like to go ahead, click "Opt out."
There's also a text-based banner ad at the top of your Gmail
inbox. It looks like this:
It's hardly noticeable, but there is a way to get rid of it.
Click on the gear icon and go to Settings.
Click on the "Web clips" tab, and then uncheck the box that says "Show my web clips above my inbox."
Now the top of your inbox looks fresh and clean.
9:36 pm
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If you plug in a USB 3.0 hard drive into a USB 2.0 port, it just functions as a regular USB 2.0 drive.
On paper, USB 3.0 is capable of a transfer speed of 5Gbps (gigabits per second) — roughly 10 times faster than the 480Mbps (megabits per second) speed offered by USB 2.0. Realistically speaking, you may not get this speed owing to a variety of factors, but you can always expect it to be 4 to 5 times faster at the very least.
Therefore, if it takes you about 10 minutes to transfer 5GB of data using USB 2.0, it will take less than 3 minutes to transfer the same data with USB 3.0. If you regularly transfer lots of data between devices, USB 3.0 can save you a lot of time.
Note that you can recognise USB 3.0 ports easily because they are usually blue or have the 'SS' (Super Speed) logo on them.
9:31 pm
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Social networking giant Facebook has rolled out a new
"bandwidth targeting" feature globally for advertisers to help them
reach people based on the type of network.The move is especially relevant in emerging countries like
India, where limited data plans and feature phones are common.The US-based firm, which has over 1.32 billion users
globally, already offers advertisers to reach people based on the type of
device they use (smartphones, feature phones and tablets) as well as device
model and operating system.India, which is Facebook's second largest market in terms of
user-base, has nine lakh SMBs leveraging its platform.
9:22 pm
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Indian government has launched the .bharat domain name in
devanagari script covering eight languages including Hindi, Konkani and Marathi.
With the launch, individuals of companies who are interested
in owning a website with domain name in Hindi language would be able to book
the name in Hindi script.
The name would have '.bharat' in Hindi script as its extension instead of commonly top level domains such as .com, .net or .in.
The name would have '.bharat' in Hindi script as its extension instead of commonly top level domains such as .com, .net or .in.
The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) will soon also
launch the Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) in other Indian languages like
Bangla, Urdu, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil and Gujarati.
The project is worth around Rs 35,000 crore which aims to
provide high-speed broadband connectivity to 2.50 lakh gram panchayats in India
by March 2017.
Wednesday 27 August 2014
5:06 pm
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Watch this video to control your Android using your computer's mouse and keyboard.
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