Saturday, December 31, 2011

Seagate, Western Digital slash hard drive warranties


If you don’t have an account with a cloud backup service, now might be a good time to get on board:hard drive warranties just got a whole lot shorter, with both Seagate and Western Digital announcing deep cuts.
Seagate’s are the most shocking, dropping from as many as five years to one year. The changes only affect consumer product lines — enterprise-class drives like the Cheetah will continue to carry longer warranties. Seagate downplays the significance of the move, saying it brings their hard drives in line with other consumer-grade electronics parts and gadgets. Cash the company saves from doing this will be used to boost product development and innovation.
Western Digital is being a little more generous, lopping off a single year and reducing the total coverage to two years on its Caviar Blue, Green, and Scorpio drives. Higher-end kit like the Caviar and Scorpio Black and VelociRaptor will still carry five-year warranties. Unlike Seagate, WD didn’t offer an explanation for the change — a spokesperson said only that the company is always looking how to best meld features and service to meet customers’ needs.
Both companies’ policy changes affect only drives that have yet to be manufactured. Seagate drives built after December 31 and Western Digital drives built  after January 2 will carry the reduced warranties. You’ve got a few more days to pick up a lower-cost drive with extended coverage, though that’s relative right now anyways. Hard drive prices are still way, way up as a result of the flooding in Thailand. Once they come back down, you might be able to pick up one of those high-end drives anyway.

The 10 most funny, inappropriate, and perplexing CAPTCHAs


Most people have a love-hate relationship with the CAPTCHA. We love them because they keep people from spamming our sites (for the most part), but sometimes the make our eyes hurt and frustrate us as we try to figure out what exactly the garbled words say. Sometimes, you can’t even make them out and have try, time and again, to prove that you are human.
Today it might seem hard to remember what life was like before CAPTCHAs started being used by AltaVista and Yahoo in 2000. Back then, CAPTCHAs were designed to prevent automated chat bots and URL submissions. Despite their popularity today not many people know that CAPTCHA isn’t just a something that sounds cool (and kind of like “gotcha”). It’s actually is an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turning test to tell Computer and Humans Apart”.
Here is something even more interesting than acronyms (yes, such a thing exists). With the billions of CAPTCHAs being jumbled around the web, you’re more than likely to come across one that’s either inappropriate, laugh-out-loud hilarious, or just down right confusing. We’ve compiled a list of the craziest ones we could find. Read on, and be thankful that your email wasn’t stuck behind one of these.
Facebook is always trying to assure us that it’s tough about it’s security, but maybe it’s being a little too tough with this CAPTCHA. (via Sophos)
The other day I was trying to post something for sale on Craigslist but could not get past the CAPTCHA on the final page. I just couldn’t unscramble it for the life of me. I had to click the refresh button three times before I stopped in my tracks to see a CAPTCHA in Hebrew. I suppose, not matching the alphabet of the site you are using is one way to thwart bots.
We move from religious profiling to the White House with the next CAPTCHA. The official White House website unfortunately pictured the above CAPTCHA which one Cisco engineer found while trying to send President Obama a message. A CAPTCHA creator explained that they do “heavy filtering to prevent offensive combinations,” but sometimes “things slip through.” This caption goes right from confusion to treason.
captcha Disqus - boing

One BoingBoing reader’s patience was put to the test when he tried to post using the site’s DISQUS commenting system (the same one we use on Geek.com). The result was a slew of incredibly indecipherable CAPTCHAs. How many normal keyboards out there have a lambda key?
Beastie Boys fans may be wondering why exactly this CAPTCHA didn’t work. The computer is telling the user that it’s incorrect, but clearly, there is no better answer than the one provided. Perhaps Mix Master Mike can figure it out what went wrong?
Something is seriously wrong with the White House’s CAPTCHA system. Not only was there the troublesome “Baracks” message above, but this one is also quite inappropriate. I suppose that if you make enough two word phrases you are eventually going to get some less-than-ideal ones, but this is just plain gross. Keep this up and some people might start writing to the President by hand, as the site suggests, rather than type the messages in. (via Huff Post)
Sometimes, we get a CAPTCHA that’s not wrong in the way that we can’t decipher it, but is instead insanely and unquestionable morally corrupt. Yes, one surprised Facebook user was greeted with this illegal and unfortunate CAPTCHA. Of course the case can be made questioning whether it’s talking about grandchildren who hump or vice versa but, regardless, this is not something we need to see while trying to post a status update. (via CAPTCHAFail Tumblr)
Tee hee! This CAPTCHA from Google makes us giggle like we are 10 years old again. Though cleaner than the last one, it’s still one of those CAPTCHAs that make us stop and think “huh?” Where the heck are these messages being pulled from? (via FunLobby)
Some CAPTCHAs really want to make sure you’re human and not a spambot, but this one may be taking things a little too far. True, most spambots won’t be able to do the equation, but anyone who isn’t a math whiz will be left scratching their head after seeing this one. Amusingly enough this was the challenge placed in front of the Quantum Random Bit Generator Service sign-up page, so maybe they really are trying to keep non-math geeks out.
This one takes CAPTCHA to a whole different level entirely, yet still manages to be insanely frustrating. Having tried it ourselves, it seems that Guy Abbott, the man behind the website Geee.net in which this CAPTCHA resides on his “contact” page, doesn’t actually want to be contacted at all.
If you have any of your own strange CAPTCHAs, please share them with us below!

How much gasoline does it take to charge an iPhone?


How much gas to charge an iPhone
Of all the pressing energy questions facing the world today, probably the most perplexing is the problem of providing enough energy to power the roughly 78 million iPhones that exist in the world today (OK, not really, but it’s up there). Energy researchers can breathe a sigh of relief however, as ExxonMobile Vice President Bill Colton has provided the solution to this issue. In a blog post on his company’s website, Colton is quoted saying that one gallon of gasoline packs enough energy to fully charge an iPhone daily for 20 years. With one simple statement Colton has put to ease all the Angry Birds addicts out there that were worried about being able to maintain their high scores.
Energy Density
In an effort to prove that gasoline is going to remain the main source of energy for the world by the year 2040, Colton uses this factoid to enlighten the masses to the fact that petrol is the lightest and most energy dense fuel in the world. While it’s obvious that the iPhone doesn’t use gasoline as a power source, Colton is talking about the energy potential in the fossil fuel.
By doing some simple math using ExxonMobil’s numbers, and assuming that an iPhone user is charging the device once a day, it takes 0.018 ounces of gasoline every 24 hours to keep the device powered constantly. This comes out to just one drop of gas a day. Pretty amazing, especially when you do some additional calculations to figure the monetary cost of the gasoline as opposed to the price of charging the devices using electricity. By multiplying .018 by 78 million, then dividing that number by 128 (the number of ounces in a gallon) we end up with a figure of 10,968.75 gallons of gas that would be needed each and every day to power all of those devices, assuming they are all still operating.
Multiply that by $3.50 for a gallon of gasoline, a reasonable cost here in the US, it would cost the world roughly $38,388 in gasoline daily. This figure is actually less that it costs for a consumer to charge their iPhone using electricity. It costs roughly half-a-cent to charge a mobile phone each day at home. Multiplying that number by the same 78 million iPhones then dividing by 100, and we find that the daily electricity cost is around $39,000.
Of course, this still doesn’t solve the fact that gasoline is a non-renewable energy source, and the fact that gasoline can’t be used to charge an iPhone (unless you use a generator and then there are whole sheets of efficiency figures we would have throw into the mix). Math aside, the post from ExxonMobil is nothing more than a PR effort to make the public feel better about spending money on the consumption of natural resources, thus putting money into its pockets.

Access Gmail Offline !! Read Mail Without Internet Connection !!!


Gmail is the most preffered email service these days.The reason being that they have been consistently improving their services.Gmail offers more than 7.6 Gigabyte of space which is increasing every second.So, you don’t have to delete even a single email due to lack of space .Now you can get the ability to access Gmail in offline mode which can be really useful if you don’t have internet connection but are in need of urgent access to your mailbox. Although in offline mode  you can’t send an email but can read, manage your emails. This trick will work only on Google Chrome browser.
How to Access GMAIL Offline:-
  • Open your Chrome browser and download Offline Gmail Extension from here.
  • Install this extension by clicking on Add to Chrome and select offline Google Mail.
  • After this select Allow offline Mail option  and click on Continue button.(Don’t use it on public computer or any network computer because it will store all your data on it)

 Your Gmail account will automatically get synchronized whenever you run chrome browser in availability of internet connection.

Send Password Protected Email !! Free-Secure-Encrypted !!!



If you have to send some confidential information like credit card numbers,Bank details etc it may not be secure to send it without any encryption and password protection.Hackers can use sniffers to intercept your email messages or they can retrieve the data after hacking email accounts.To protect yourself from such situations you can use Lockibin which provides password protection and AES-256 bit encryption to your emails.

How to Send Password Protected Email Messages:

  • Click here to go LockBin online service.
  • Fill the form with your desired password.
  • In the text filled write your message. You can also attach a file if you want

  • After this, click on Submit button.

  • Now your password protected mail will be sent. (Receiver will only get a link to your password protected and encrypted email)
When receiver clicks on that link  it will prompt to enter the password otherwise it will not be open.


That’s it! But you have to send password to your friend which can be sent on Mobile number or you can send a normal Email for it.The password protected email is stored in lockbin server itself.


Read more: http://www.allindiantricks.com/2011/12/send-password-protected-email-free.html#ixzz1i6mMLouC

Download Video Players for Android Devices(Phones)


Android, the most popular os from google.inc, is widely using in mobile phones and other electronic devices. The best feature of android is reported is its great flexibility and efficiency to load multiple tasks at same time. Due to this reason various mobile phone companies have changed their default os to android. The latest phones of samsung and nokia use this OS too. Today I have some links to download free video players for android devices,especially mobile devices. 

1. VPlayer
This is my personal favorite from available video players. I am using pro version of the VPlayer. VPlayer is the best video player for Android phones.  Video formats: divx/xvid, wmv, m4v, flv, rmvb, avi, mkv, mov, mp4, 3gp, ts, tp and so on.  Streaming: http, rtsp, mms and m3u(apple http stream, m3u8). If you’re going after a relevant video player using the best consumer experience and interface then VPlayer Professional will probably be your ultimate choice.
RockPlayer is high performance, almost all formats media player with a lot of functions. It saves your time and disk space to transcoding or format converting. Just put your video on sdcard or click the URL in browser to watch it.
MX Video Player – The best way to enjoy your movies.  It plays almost every video files with multi-core decoding capability. HD Playback, Simple UI,Remembers playback position, Software/Hardware Decoder, Subtitles (with custom font, color, size).
Mobo Player is one of the best video player available for android phones. You can watch any of your videos on a phone without conversion, anytime and anywhere.  You will get the best playback experience and quality.  Video player supports: All video formats and Popular subtitle formats such as SRT, ASS, and SAA Subtitles built in MKV, MPV, MOV, and others Multi-audio streams and multi-subtitles Playlists and continuous play on same type files Videos streamed through HTTP, RTSP protocols Media libraries and sort videos by type Thumbnail displays of videos.
mVideoPlayer is the best video player replacement application available for Android, with a lot of useful and handy features and a nice and clean interface it greatly improves on Android’s built-in video player.  The application is freely available here on the Android market.
BSPlayer for Android is a versatile media player for Android smartphones and tablet PCs.  Main features: Support for almost all media files (video and audio player), such as: avi, divx, flv, mkv, mov, mp4, m4v, rmvb, wmv, 3gp, mp3… and streaming content such as http and rtsp. Multiple audio streams and subtitles. Playlist support and various playback modes.
7. Meridian Media Player Revolute
The most functional and customizable player for your video and music in phone.  The video and music player with most customizable space. Convenient gestures to control. Advanced media folder settings, you can set including and excluding folders — in ANY DEPTH. Not only one level under /sdcard now.

8. VitalPlayer
VitalPlayer supports almost all video and audio codecs. This powerful software codecs provide smooth quality video. System mode play(hardware codec use) , SMI,SRT support – Brightness control , Resume play previously , Gray screen(software codec only) , Various font size & color & type and so on.
9. RealPlayer
Entertainment on your Android. RealPlayer is one of the best Android apps to enjoy your music, videos, and photos. More user-friendly than ever, RealPlayer includes an intuitive user interface, playlist editor, widgets, searching, content folder selection, fast scrolling, and a ton of other features to make your media experience more enjoyable.
10. DicePlayer
Diceplayer is a HW accelerated Media player for android. It use HW video decoder at various containers and audio codecs combination. Dual Core/High end devices ( Sensation , Galaxy S/S2 , Nexus-S ) can play 720p MKV/AVI. Diceplayer drains less bettery than SW based players.

Top Useful Websites


It's our first post after our migration to a new TLD. Thanks Sreejan of nextgenhack.com for his support for making this site.

Let's move on. There are tons and tons of websites around us which are hidden under our knowledge. But knowing some the top useful sites will help you to save time of internet searching. Here I bring top 50 websites that you must know about. These are not ranked well in search engines. So just try it and and if found it's helpful,do a bookmark. I tried to cover various areas such as photography,tech-newses,blogging etc.

01. screenr.com – record movies of your desktop and send them straight to YouTube. 
02. bounceapp.com – for capturing full length screenshots of web pages. 
03. goo.gl – shorten long URLs and convert URLs into QR codes
04. untiny.me – find the original URLs that's hiding behind a short URLs. 
05. qClock – find the local time of a city using a Google Map
06. copypastecharacter.com – copy special characters that aren't on your keyboard. 
07. postpost.com – a better search engine for twitter. 
08. lovelycharts.com – create flowcharts, network diagrams, sitemaps, etc. 
09. iconfinder.com – the best place to find icons of all sizes. 
10. office.com – download templates, clipart and images for your Office documents. 
11. followupthen.com – the easiest way to setup email reminders
12. jotti.org – scan any suspicious file or email attachment for viruses. 
13. wolframalpha.com – gets answers directly without searching  - see more wolfram tips
14. printwhatyoulike.com – print web pages without the clutter. 
15. joliprint.com – reformats news articles and blog content as a newspaper. 
16. ctrql.org – a search engine for RSS feeds. 
17. e.ggtimer.com – a simple online timer for your daily needs. 
18. coralcdn.org – if a site is down due to heavy traffic, try accessing it through coral CDN. 
19. random.org – pick random numbers, flip coins, and more. 
20. pdfescape.com – lets you can quickly edit PDFs in the browser itself. 
21. viewer.zoho.com – Preview PDFs and Presentations directly in the browser. 
22. tubemogul.com – simultaneously upload videos to YouTube and other video sites
23. dabbleboard.com – your virtual whiteboard. 
24. scr.im – share you email address online without worrying about spam. 
25. spypig.com – now get read receipts for your email. 
26. sizeasy.com – visualize and compare the size of any product. 
27. myfonts.com/WhatTheFont – quickly determine the font name from an image. 
28. google.com/webfonts – a good collection of open source fonts
29. regex.info – find data hidden in your photographs – see more EXIF tools
30. livestream.com – broadcast events live over the web, including your desktop screen
31. iwantmyname.com – helps you search domains across all TLDs. 
32. homestyler.com – design from scratch or re-model your home in 3d
33. join.me – share you screen with anyone over the web. 
34. onlineocr.net – recognize text from scanned PDFs - see other OCR tools
35. flightstats.com - Track flight status at airports worldwide. 
36. wetransfer.com – for sharing really big files online. 
37. pastebin.com – a temporary online clipboard for your text and code snippets
38. polishmywriting.com – check your writing for spelling or grammatical errors. 
39. marker.to – easily highlight the important parts of a web page for sharing. 
40. typewith.me – work on the same document with multiple people. 
41. whichdateworks.com – planning an event? find a date that works for all. 
42. everytimezone.com – a less confusing view of the world time zones
43. gtmetrix.com – the perfect tool for measuring your site performance online. 
44. noteflight.com – print music sheets, write your own music online (review). 
45. imo.im - chat with your buddies on Skype, Facebook, Google Talk, etc. from one place. 
46. translate.google.com – translate web pages, PDFs and Office documents. 
47. kleki.com – create paintings and sketches with a wide variety of brushes. 
48. similarsites.com – discover new sites that are similar to what you like already. 
49. wordle.net – quick summarize long pieces of text with tag clouds. 
50. bubbl.us – create mind-maps, brainstorm ideas in the browser.