Rapidshare

RapidShare is a popular site which offers unlimited number of file uploads. To use this site click on the browse button to select the file you want to upload and then click on the upload button. The site then takes you to a page which gives you two links one to download the file and another to delete it from the site if you need to. You can download the file using the download link and delete the file by entering the delete link in the browser’s address bar. When you enter the delete link, the file is deleted and to confirm this, a message box pops up. Below, on the same page you are given the option to get a collectors account. This is the free-members area which requires you to provide your e-mail address and personal details to get and account. Alternatively you could get a free membership from the free zone menu item on the first page. If you get a membership, you get access to a space on the site in which you can see a list of your files, and you can add more files or delete those you don’t need any more. The site uses SSL encryption for uploads, so you’re assured of secure file transfers. Premium memberships require the same procedure to upload files. When you download the file, it asks you if you are a free member or a premium member. Click the appropriate button, and then choose a mirror to get faster download speeds. To prevent against robots and scripts wasting bandwidth, you are required to enter text that’s shown visually to you to confirm that you’re human. Click on the ‘download via mirror’ link, and you get your file. RapidShare has a size limit of 100 MB per file. Larger files have to be split using a utility like FileSplitter, and then individual components uploaded. Premium users, however, are allocated a 2 GB file-size limit. You can get a RapidShare premium membership for 16.99 (Euros) for 3 months and 54.99 for 1 year.

Google Doc

As most of you probably know, one needs a universal Google account that can be used across all Google services. This means that in case you use Gmail then you already possess the prerequisites. To start off with the Google Docs suite, start of by visiting the URL http://docs.google.com, and enter your user ID and password. To get a feel of how the online office suites function, start off with the word processor, also known as Documents. Just below the logo on the top left of the screen that says Google Docs Beta, you can see a drop down menu which says New. Once you click on New, you are given either of four options; namely, a new Document (Word), Spreadsheet (Excel), Presentation (PowerPoint) or Folder. I will first try out the Document Function—go to New > Document. If you have ever used Microsoft Word, you would be able to sail through effortlessly. As you would have figured out by now, the blank page with the cursor is the beginning of your document. You could continue typing in your leisure as much as you require. Similar to Gmail, Google Docs periodically saves the changes made, which comes in quite handy. In fact, keyboard shortcuts are similar to Microsoft Word, thereby giving you a feel of working on Word itself. You can adjust font sizes with the button marked “T”. Most of the functionalities here are similar to MS Word. Once your document is complete, the next step is saving. end she could invite all the students as viewers. The next important function on Google Docs is Publish. Clicking on this gives the document a unique URL, whereby anyone can view it. Google Docs also empowers you with the option of publishing your document right away as a blog! This gives a reasonably brief idea of using Google documents, the first alternative to the typical MS Word processor. One must note that this is in fact just the tip of the iceberg. Let me analyse another tool by Google which would serve as an alternative to MS Excel.

Monitor Flickers Too Much

My monitor flickers too much. I cannot run any games too? Do I need to buy a new monitor? Can Windows fix this problem?

If the monitor flickers too much, then it means that your screen refresh rate is set too low. To the screen flickering you need to increase your refresh rate. To do this,

• Right-click anywhere on your desktop and click “Properties”
• Select the “Settings” tab
• Under the “Settings” tab click the “Advanced” button
• Select the “Monitor” tab in the window that opens.
• Click the drop down box and set the refresh rate to the maximum value allowed.
• Click “OK” and wait as Windows changes the refresh rate for your monitor. Click “OK” again to close all dialog boxes.

Stop The Error Reporting Service

Why do I get the “Error Reporting” message when a program crashes? Is it compulsory for me to report errors every time such messages occur? How do I stop Windows from showing me messages?

Microsoft’s Error Reporting service is meant for improving your Windows experience. But many users find that they don’t have the time or the patience to report each and every error they encounter. The constant prompting to report errors simply becomes annoying then. It is not a must to report errors and not reporting an error will not harm your system in any way at all.

To stop Windows from running the Error Reporting Service,

• Right-click the “My Computer” icon on the desktop
• Click “Properties” and select the “Advanced” tab
• Under the “Advanced” tab, click “Error Reporting”
• Select “Disable error reporting” and check the box for “but notify me when critical errors occur

This will disable error reporting.

Blogophobia: Off The Mark

Mark Cuban is a man who is the owner of an online media company and also the owner of a basketball team. He is pretty Net savvy and he knows what a blog is. So eyebrows were raised when he banned all blogs from publishing inside scoops from the locker room in response to blistering comments about the performance of his team in a blog. Which means that no more tidbits and first hand information: everything had to be picked off from the traditional media. After getting plastered all over the Internet for a decision that at best can be described as childish, Cuban decided that he hadn’t done enough to prevent the spread of misinformation by new age media. In a next salvo he pontificated that newspapers should stop calling their blogs as blogs. He seems to think that blogs are associated with hasty and inaccurate reporting and newspapers ought to know better than to encourage this brand of journalism. In fact he sees a branding opportunity and says that blogging should be renamed as Real Time Reporting, probably because he assumes all blogs are hurriedly written without the cross checking of facts which traditional newspaper reporters do. While many blogs out there are lousy and slapdash there are an equal number of newspaper articles which are written minutes before going to press. We only assume that Cuban did not have the grace enough to admit he was wrong the first time and tried to play with words and semantics to fool people. Sorry Mark, you just have to admit you are wrong and stop being obnoxious. Is it that hard?

Vista Task Manager

The task manager under Vista has seen some good improvements, mainly in the nature of the data it exposes to the user. For example, apart from the usual processes, the task manager now also displays the list of services running on the system. Another great addition to the Task Manager can be found under the Performance tab—the Resource Monitor. The Resource Monitor is an invaluable tool to keep a tab on the health and status of the system. It displays historical data and ongoing data of the system based on several sub-systems: the CPU, the disk, the network, and the memory. For each of these sub-systems, the Resource Monitor displays which system files or processes are chewing through the same. Thus, if you were to click on the CPU section, it would list down all the processes that are currently using the processor along with data on which process or file is using the most processor time. Similarly it shows information on RAM usage, disk usage, and network usage. To start the Task Manager, press [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Esc]. You can then move to the Performance tab and click on the Resource Monitor button to launch the Resource Monitor. To exit a program which is not responding, select it under the Applications tab and click on End task