SG OwnBlog

If you find the latest version of  Firefox is not up to the mark, you may as well try out the new Pale Moon Browser. Now for all the Firefox purists out there, I must mention here that this is actually Firefox on steroids, as per speed that is. Firefox is an open source project, meaning which, you can actually change the code any way you want and release it. This allows for more customization. You can keep the features you like and trash the rest. Actually when Mozilla releases a version of Firefox, they keep maximum compatibility in their mind. Which means it is made to work on very low end machines, thus sacrificing speed and efficiency.Pale Moon tries a slightly different approach. Instead of trying to create a browser for everyone, they try to build a Windows optimized browser. At this point of time, Pale Moon has completely discontinued the Firefox 4.x and 5.x versions because they were largely similar any way. Their main development centers around the Fire...

Introduction This is a quick step by step guide to help all .Net developers to take advantage of the new features of Windows 7. What you will Need   Visual Studio 2008 or 2010 Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .NET Framework Can be downloaded from http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WindowsAPICodePack Minimum .NET Framework version required is 3.5 SP1. A Windows 7 machine. Getting Ready   You will need to compile the Windows API Code Pack Dlls, after extracting the WindowsAPICodePack.zip file open the WindowsAPICodePack.sln located inside the WindowsAPICodePack folder and Build the solution this will produce the following Dlls * Core * Shell (Note : it depends on the Core project ) you will need to add a Reference to them in your applications. Compatibility with Different Versions of Windows   the application will crash and exit if for example a feature exclusive to windows 7 was called and it was running under a windows vista or a windows XP environment. so to p...

Dream to test your ‘photoshopping’ skills? Or may be wondering how to get hold of Free CAD software legally, or may be burn discs without resorting to piracy? Some of the answers are here. I will list top 10 free or open source software that are good alternatives to paid software.   Adobe PhotoShop to GIMP It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything.   WinZip to 7-Zip Open source Windows utility for manipulating archives. Formats 7z , ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR are supported fully, other formats can be unpacked. Internet Explorer to Google Chrome I need not say anything about this. CuteFTP to Filezilla This free, open-source FTP application is handy if you're looking for a solid tool to handle FTP transfers ...

Some of the lesser known things you can do with the new Windows Problem Steps Recorder As the local PC guru you're probably very used to friends and family asking for help with their computer problems, yet having no idea how to clearly describe what's going on. It's frustrating, but Microsoft feels your pain, and Windows 7 will include an excellent new solution in the Problem Steps Recorder. When any app starts misbehaving under Windows 7 then all your friends need do is click Start, type PSR and press Enter, then click Start Record. If they then work through whatever they're doing then the Problem Steps Recorder will record every click and keypress, take screen grabs, and package everything up into a single zipped MHTML file when they're finished, ready for emailing to you. It's quick, easy and effective, and will save you hours of troubleshooting time. Burn images Windows 7 finally introduces a feature that other operating systems have had for years - the...

You can enable “God-Mode,” a term devised by the Microsoft development team, which provides a single place to access all Windows settings without needing to browse options and folders in the Control Panel. To use it: Create a New Folder Rename the folder to God-Mode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} Note that you can change the “God-Mode” text, but the following period and code number are essential. The folder icon will change — double click it to show the God-Mode window: The window shows nearly 50 sections with quick links to configuration options. Strictly speaking, it’s not a God Mode since all the options are available elsewhere. It’s more akin to an “all tasks” list — but you may find it easier than stumbling through Windows numerous screens and panels.   Warning The trick appears to work on both the 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows 7. Vista 32-bit and Windows Server 2008 32-bit should also work. However, it is known to crash 64-bit versions of Vista — an...

If you browse the internet often you know what I am talking about. Ads are everywhere. And necessary for paying for hosting bills and like but sometimes they are just plain annoying and useless distraction. Besides heavy and bad ads even take up a lot of bandwidth. In the end you might just say, Enough, now I will call the shots. I will decide what I see and not. So here I will brief you about the Do’s and Don’t in blocking unnecessary advertisements. Chrome AdBlock Simplicity is the key. A must have. Get it here : http://chromeadblock.com/   Firefox   AdBlock Plus Very useful, works great and ultra light. You can find it here. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/ IE 9   Simple AdBlock Go here : http://simple-adblock.com/ Download the Installer, install and you are done! One thing though, it is important to know that some ads are good and even useful, remember the nice ad that caught your attention (in a ...

Mozilla 4 launched on 22nd March, 2011 Need I say more? Now let’s take a look at Mozilla’s flagship site : http://glow.mozilla.org Let’s look at some screenshots : - http://glow.mozilla.org The counter shows the number of downloads. Reaching 10 million now!!! The guys at Firefox even managed to keep tabs(literally) of vertical bars to denote number of downloads per minute! They are visible in the bottom of the page, yes those piano button like controls. Insane! Click on the Semi Circle in the bottom left of the first screen and here you come /\ Click on the links on your right bar and see the magic, I could not believe it!!! Stats, just stats!!! They ran so deep, really this hierarchical pie chart control is excellent. I was really impressed! What did I do? Just clicked the ‘Download Firefox’ link. :)

  Yesterday I had a frightening experience settling disputes between Avast Antivirus Free 6.0.0.24 and Daemon Tools Lite 4.40. In the end I admit, it was horrible experience for me. The problem remained. I had Daemon Tools Lite installed on my machine. I was using Avast Antivirus Free 5.x. I had no problems. Avast released their latest upgrade as 6 series and I downloaded it and installed it. An additional bonus in this was the Sandbox and Auto Sandbox mode which isolates programs to prevent the spread of infection to the rest of the machine. Expecting rock solid integration of Avast I installed it, updated it and restarted it. The problems I faced were as follows: - Blue Screen of Death – Just before the logon screen is displayed, the BSOD popped. The error code was 00000x7f( in hexadecimal). On the BSOD it said some problem with the ahcix86.sys file. I was speptical. If that indeed was the case, safe mode would not work either So first I restarted it and logged into my s...

  Many times you will require a text editor that looks good, runs on XP, is reasonably fast and feature rich but most importantly light weight. Besides even if you like an editor there will be something not to your liking, say the looks, or the lack of a feature. Wish you could add a feature or two of your choice. Yet you would not like top pay hefty sum of money to the software developing companies. In that case your search should end here. Bringing to you my own open source text editor supporting multiple formats that will fulfill all your needs. In case it doesn’t, just add the feature you want or request me. The best part is that it is free and requires no Herculean configuration. A screenshot of my iNote in action : - Yes this is a screenshot taken in Windows XP Service Pack 2. All you have to do to get this running is to have a Windows OS(at least XP) and .NET Framework 3.0 Some Features : Ribbon UI like the Wordpad in Windows Seven Skinnable Interface Spell Checker...