VLC latest version -- review at a glance

Media players now have a neck-to-neck competition too! If you are always in search of best things, you would probably have already tried several players. VLC Media Player is an open-source media player (absolutely free of cost) bundled with a variety of features. It is one of the best media players available. Moreover, its features are dynamic, i.e. they are constantly upgraded to accommodate the needs of the users. It is much faster as compared to majority of other players.

Whats new?

We already know what a normal Media player contains. :) Lets check out what is new.

Users can now easily surf a video frame by frame using shortcut keys. Also, there is an improved granular navigation control that makes it easier to run the video faster or slower as needed. Menus can be easily customized according to one's own choice. So you can have only the buttons you need in the interface, there's AirTunes streaming, and there's better integration in Gtk environments. Along with the improvements, VLC continues to offer robust support for a wide range of video and audio formats, including OGG, MP2, MP3, MP4, DivX, HD codecs like AES3, Raw Dirac, and even support for playing back zipped files.

Default view of VLC is still a very simple one, suitable for even beginner users. VLC's open-source foundation and community ensures that it evolves quickly and often, with new features and fixes released frequently. Overall, VLC Media Player is a must-have application for its ability to open just about any type of video file you want it to play.

Official Description

VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats, including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, MP3, and OGG, as well as for DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It also can be used as a server for unicast or multicast streams in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.


What's new in this version: Version 2.0.1 includes fixes for HTTP Live Streaming, CDDB, UDP/RTP support, Support for MxPEG files and streams, and fix for splitted RAR files playback. 

Make your Windows 7 upto 10x faster! (Including Video Tutorial)

Understand the causes of system Windows 7 and solve

them easily... 

* Too many temporary or obsolete files

- Most of the actions being done on our system are logged (noted) in log files. Over time, this would cause a heap of text files containing information that no one would ever use, adding clutter.
- Temporary process files or installations would create intermediate files which remain orphaned.
- Browsers store files which are not frequently changed. This improves your browsing experience but too many of such files adds to clutter.
- Too many of these files waste your system's resources over obsolete work.

* Cluttered registry and fragmentation

Registry is a place where windows and its programs save information about settings, locations etc. It is a vital part of the Windows. It becomes a clutter due to installations and with working of windows and other programs. This fills up the registry. During uninstallation or removal of programs or even by running of programs, registry entries get deleted. Due to this unorganized addition and deletion not all registry entries are properly linked and are required leaving orphaned/incorrect registry entries. This increases the workload of your system, wastes computing power over incorrect/non-existent data, finally leading to fragmentation of the registry. By fragmentation, we mean additions/deletion of registry entries resulting empty spaces. Due to fragmentation, reading and locating needed registry entries becomes difficult. Reading processes have to jump over empty spaces. This finally results in slower and inefficient operation of your system

* Fragmented Disk

In simple language, too much addition/deletion of files causes it. Due to fragmentation of files, reading and locating needed files becomes difficult. Hence, reading process has to jump over empty spaces that results slower and inefficient operation of your system.

* Low Virtual Memory

When your system's RAM runs out, there is a part of disk that acts as RAM (pagefile.sys). known as SWAP. Setting the size of Virtual memory or SWAP too low makes your system slow.

* Autorun applications

These are the applications which start along with Windows startup. Obbsolete applications consume processing power during start up.  Even after they start once and run in background, they continue to occupy RAM and wastes processing power.

* Visual Effects

For sure visual effects seem cool. :) But they consume processing power of your system and occupy RAM. You have to make a compromise on how much of visual dynamism you want.Solving all these problems is now very easy with the amazing freeware software called Toolwiz Care. This program comes with a single click tuneup for everything!

Download NOW 

Official Facebook Messenger App for Desktop/Laptop!

I have seen a lot of Facebook messenger/chat apps programmed using Facebook's API. But those had some or the other flaws that always forced me to uninstall them off my Computer.

Today, when I opened Facebook, I was delighted to see a popup announcing official messenger app for Facebook!

What is it?

Your Facebook Sidebar would be your Desktop's Sidebar! 

Facebook is for sure known for its efficiency (from users' point of view as well as from their own backend). Now, the Messenger app will provide you even more efficient and functional interface for:
Online/Offline Friends - Know instantly who is online/offline using the already familiar interface!
Chat - Super efficient and decent look of Chat makes the experience lovable! When you click on any of your friends from list, it will open up a separate movable chat area like any other messenger.
Updates - Instant updates as you have always been getting - now using the Desktop app!
Friend requests - Easy popups for friend requests
Messages - Messages popup automatically also alerts you visibly and audibly.

Making the already loved look amazingly easy and highly functional

When you click on 'Dock to right' button in your Facebook messenger app (located in bottom-right corner), Facebook messenger will always remain along side your screen no matter what other things you open.

Clicking on the settings button along Search would present you options to make popups and sounds on/off. You can also easily go offline or logout from your account.

If you click on your profile thumbnail in the top right corner, it will open up your Facebook Wall in your default browser.

In simpler words, Facebook knows how to remain being loved...

Download Now! 

Know IP address of any site

We know that any web site's name eg. google.com is just a human readable name. Actual address is its corresponding IP address.

Using ping to know IP address

1. Press Win + R to open Run dialog.
2. Type 'cmd' or 'command' (without quotes of course)
3. Press Enter (or Return key)

This will open a command prompt like shown in the picture

Suppose we wish to know IP address of Google.com

Type:
ping google.com

Press Enter.

This will print something like in the image

The required lines are shown as

Reply from IP bytes=32 time=NNNms TTL=NNN

Where IP is Google's IP address that serves your location.

Using the above method, you can get IP address of any site by replacing 'google.com' to some other site. 

Restrict a particular site in Windows

Why you would need it?

Sometimes we wish that a particular site should not be accessed from our PC in conditions like:

• You want to block Facebook/Orkut etc. for the employees 
• You are a parent and want your children not to be able to access specific bad sites
• You want to prevent an application on your PC from contacting a particular site

How to block sites?

There are many ways you can do it. eg. by adding filters in your firewall software, using a proxy and then blocking sites from proxy control directly, preventing a site from being resolved etc.

Here, we will learn how to block a site using ip resolution block method. It is very simple and you do not need any external tools for it either.

Overview of what we wish to do

You may already know that when a web site is opened, it is first resolved from its host name (eg. yahoo.com, gmail.com etc.) into its corresponding IP address by Windows's resolving mechanism. This is called host name resolution.Then the real transaction of data takes place and we use the site.

So, now if we somehow prevent the host name of a site from being resolved into its IP address, we can can consider it blocked. In other words, no one can be able to access the site from any browser or service from your computer.

How to do it?

We now have to somehow override the default host name resolution in Windows. There is a file located at

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

that contains overridden entries for host names to ips like

IP HOSTNAME

in each line.

Now, go to

[Start] > All Programs > Accessories

Right Click on Notepad. Click on Run as Administrator

Windows will now ask for permission. Allow it.

Once notepad is opened in Admin mode,  click on File > Open

Navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

At the end of this file, add a line:

127.0.0.1 sitename.com

Where sitename.com is the site you wish to block.

Save this file by pressing Ctrl+S

Voila! We have set the blocking!

Now try to open the site we just now blocked in any of your browsers; It will not work. :) 

Delete/Deactivate your Facebook account

Sometimes you may want to get rid of your Facebook account using following ways:

1. Deactivating it
2. Deleting it (beyond recovery)

Video tutorials:

Deactivate:  When you deactivate your Facebook account, it will go invisible to everyone instantly. But everything belonging to your account will still be preserved on Facebook servers. You can reactivate your account after 24 hours of deactivation.

 

To deactivate your account, click on the down arrow icon beside Home link as shown in the picture.

 

Go to Security tab on the left side.

  

Then you can find the option to deactivate your account.

After clicking on Deactivate your account option, you will be presented with a confirmation message along with a Captcha code.

After confirmation and entering Captcha code, you will be redirected to Facebook page along with ack that your account was deactivated.

_________________

Delete it: To delete your account beyond recovery, you can go to the URL: 

https://ssl.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

You will be asked to enter your password and a Captcha code. Then confirm your action.

Once you are done with it, your account will be deleted in around 14 days. Avoid logging into your account after that.

* WARNING: if you choose to delete your account, it cannot be recovered by any means afterwards! 

Best 2 browsers for 2012!!!

The question is of course impossible to answer. Which browser is the best would depend on your choice. A normal person would love Apple's Safari for its speed and neat look. On the other hand, a geek would love Mozilla Firefox with loads of add-ons :) Let us discuss about some of the top browsers, considering their most conspicuous features from a normal user's point of view.

Well, right now there is a big competition in browser trends. Google seems to be really serious about spreading Google Chrome regularly with frequently updated versions. Mozilla Firefox too is launching newer and newer versions frequently. Microsoft too is pressing hard to make their once worthless browser the best.

1. Mozilla Firefox

I consider Firefox the undisputed king of browsers. It has a simple interface. It is fast and secure. The design is quite friendly. Mozilla Firefox is the only browser with highest compatibility with Windows and the normal day to day needs of a user. Some awesome features I would love to discuss are:

Awesome bar (the navigation bar) is really awesome in terms of usability! It is Navigation bar, URL suggestion by URLs and even by titles! Also it acts as a search bar too.

Add-ons make it highly functional. If you are Facebook addict, a Tweeting bird, an Email Guy, a programmer, a geek or any thing else, Firefox add-ons are available for you! There are thousands of add-ons available which can be easily integrated to extend the functionality of the browser.

Stability of Firefox is very nice too! You can open big number of tabs and windows and the browser would work fine.

Private Browsing option would delete all your information like: cookies, history, cache etc. when you close your browser.

2. Opera

Opera has a vast empire in browsers world! Opera is fast, easy, secure and functional.

It has Opera Turbo option that makes your browsing much more fast for heavy pages when your internet connection is slow.

Session restore is very smooth. Even browsing experience overall is efficient.

Opera also has an in-built torrent support and mail client.