Technically Personal! » Featured

10 Awesome Sites To Listen/Download Free Music Legally

Omkar Dutta — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:13:57 +0000

Most of the users download pirated music from the internet, which results in loss of million dollars to the entertainment industry every year. Now you can download and listen wide range of songs for free, and that too legally! Below are the top 10 sites where you can listen/download your favorite songs for free.

1. Amazon

You may have already purchased music from Amazon, but few of you maybe knowing that Amazon offers hundreds of songs and albums to download for free. Currently, they offer more than 1500 songs to download legally and they keep on adding new albums from time to time.

2. Last.fm

Last.fm is the one of the most popular internet streaming radio service and they too offers a wide range of MP3’s to download for free. You can also find some of the rare old songs from 60’s and 70’s at Last.fm

3. In.com Music

If you love Bollywood music, then In.com is the ultimate destination for listening latest tracks from the upcoming Bollywood movies. This site also offers various regional, traditional as well as international songs. In.com offers million of songs to listen online for free. However this site does not allows you to download or purchase any of the songs.

4. Legal Torrents

If you thought torrents are only for sharing pirated stuffs, they you are absolutely wrong since you can download torrents legally via LegalTorrents. LegalTorrents is an online digital media community that distributes high quality open-licensed (Creative Commons) digital media and art. They distribute content with the full permission of the rights holders and use the peer-2-peer file-sharing technology. You can find hundreds of free music at LegalTorrents.

5. Free Music Archive

Free Music Archive is a great site for downloading legal music. As the name says, all the music in this site are available for free. It has the widest collection of amazing songs and they keep on adding new songs from time to time.

6. MP3.com

MP3.com is one of the most famous site for downloading music, but I’m sure that most of you don’t know that it has a different section for free music. It means that you can download paid music as well as free music from MP3.com. Their collection include thousands of free tracks from small and large artists. Some of the tracks available in the free section are from extremely popular artists.

7. Jamendo

Jamendo is a community of free, legal and unlimited music published under Creative Commons licenses. Jamendo has over 31000 free albums to download. If you are an artist, you can even promote your albums via Jamendo. This site also allows you to donate some bucks to the artiste of your choice. Jamendo is one of the best site to download free music from their ever growing songs library.

8. Amie Street

Amie Street is a unique site where the price of the songs increases as it gets popular. At the starting point, a song is offered for free, once it gets popular, you need to pay a small amount to download them. So, whenever a new song is released at Amie Street, you can grab them for free before it gets popular.

9. Stereo Gum

StereoGum also offers popular songs from small and large artists for free. This site allows you to download the songs of famous artists such as Kanye West, Ben Gibbard and Ryan Adams. Stereogum regularly features unknown artists who go on to become mainstream sensations such as Vampire Weekend, Arcade Fire, and Fleet Foxes.

10. Live Music Archive

Live Music Archive is a part of the Internet Archive. It has a collection of over 60,000 concert recordings in lossless audio formats. You can also find thousands of public domain music and expired copyright tracks at Live Music Archive.

According to you, which one is the best free music downloading service from the above list? If we haven’t mentioned any of your favorite service, please let us know in the comments.

Related posts:

Download Ashampoo Music Studio 2009 for FREE!!

45 Awesome Websites to Watch Online TV for FREE!

Listen to Michael Jackson’s Songs for FREE Online!

Download Unlimited Movies and Music from Zookz! Thanks to WTO!!

Watch and Download Movies Online for Free!

© Raju PP for Technically Personal!, 2010. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |

Access Blocked Websites via Mobile Simulators

Raju — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:30:39 +0000

The schools, colleges and offices these days block many websites, especially the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter etc, video sharing websites like Youtube, Metacafe, Megavideo etc and web email clients like GMail, Yahoo mail & Hotmail. Depending upon how smart and knowledgeable the network admin is, the probability of tricks we suggest to unblock websites working or not working will vary! Some of the previously covered posts on accessing blocked websites are listed below:

In case none of the tricks given above work, here is a new innovative way to access blocked websites – using Online Mobile Simulators!

Online Mobile Simulators are meant to help webmasters and web designers to test their websites and blogs for mobile compatibility. One can use these tools to optimize their websites for mobile viewers. As the name suggests, they simulate the mobile browser experience on a desktop browser. And here is a cool way to use them for unblocking blocked websites!

How to Access Blocked Websites via Mobile Simulators?

There are different types of mobile simulators (or emulators as they are called) – Device emulators, Browser emulators, OS emulators. In this case we will only be using browser emulators.

1. Opera Mini Simulator

Opera has provided a live demo page for Opera Mini 5 beta that functions as it would when installed on a mobile device. This simulator is powered by MicroEmulator which mandates you to have Java installed on your PC. Just open the simulator and enter the URL of the blocked website in the address bar and press Enter.

Voila!! You can now access the blocked website! I see that the request is being routed through the Opera servers somewhere in Poland, so this acts like a VPN and hence the restrictions set by your network admin might not hold good for this!

2. dotMobi Online Emulator

dotMobi’s online emulator lets you to quickly see what your site will look like on a common phone. This is very similar to Opera Mini simulator, which “emulates” a real mobile phone Web browser. Even for this to work, you need to have the latest version of Java installed on your PC.

You have couple of skins to choose from – Nokia N70 skin or Sony K750 skin. Choose any of the two and enter the URL of the blocked website on the right hand side address bar and press Submit. Your request gets routed through the dotMobi servers in UK and you can browse through your favorite websites at ease.

I tried few other mobile simulators/emulators, but none of them worked as expected. In case you know of any similar simulator which can be used to access blocked websites, let me know via comment forum and I can include them in the list above.

Do let me know if you liked the article and if it worked for you. A stumble/digg or any bookmarking is appreciated!

Related posts:

8 Innovative Ways to Access Blocked Websites

Access Blocked Websites by Bypassing URL Filtering

UltraSurf – Access Any Blocked Site

Download Opera Mobile 10 beta for Nokia and Other Symbian Phones

View Private Websites Safely at School/Work

Convert Photos to Sketches Online for Free

Raju — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:46:57 +0000

Some people just can’t get enough of meddling with their pictures every now and then. If you are one of them, here are some cool web tools to convert your digital photo to an artistic sketch on click of a mouse button. The sketch can be a simple pencil sketch, which can naturally enhance a photo, be it a portrait, people, building, scenery or other memorable moments.

Go ahead and check out these free online tools to create a sketch of your photo and impress your friends on various social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook and Myspace!

Tools to convert Photos to Sketches online for free

1. Dumpr – Photo Pencil Sketch

Dumpr is a simple tool to create digital photo sketch on click of a button. Just upload a picture from your PC or from your Flickr album or any web URL and get the sketch version instantly.

2. tjshome – Online Image converter

TJShome is an online image converter engine which can transform your photos to thumbnails, convert any photo to Black and White, or apply other cool effects. Look for “Sketch” option when selecting a process, then choose a picture to convert and click on Submit. Your pencil sketch image will be ready instantly!

3. BeFunky

BeFunky goes beyond a free & quick photo to pencil sketch solution, it’s an online experience. BeFunky gives you so many other options to manipulate your photos & pictures like inkifying them, stenciling them or charcolize them.

4. KusoCartoon – Photo to cartoon tool

Frankly speaking, KusoCartoon is here just to make up the numbers. It’s not a bad tool as such, a simple alternative to all the 3 web tools above.

Know any other online tools? Which one you like the most? Just in case you are looking for an offline (PC) version, FotoSketcher is a nice option.

Related posts:

How to Watermark Your Photos?

Top 10 Free Online PDF Creators

Photos and Videos Sharing with Memeo Share

Top 10 Websites to Take Online Backup of Data for FREE!

Get Your Free Computer Online – iCloud

Invisible Browsing via ibVPN – Free Licenses Giveaway

Raju — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:26:18 +0000

Update: The Giveaway is now closed.

Invisible Browsing VPN (or ibVPN) is a brand new addition to the ever growing list of premium VPN services on the internet and here at TechPP, you get a chance to get a free license of ibVPN without having to do much!

ibVPN allows Internet users to surf the Web invisibly and securely without leaving a trace and without being tracked. All the programs installed on your computer will automatically work via VPN so that the highest level of security and anonymity is provided.

According to the developers, here are a few reasons to use ibVPN

Reasons to use ibVPN

Access country specific sites like Hulu, Pandora, BBC iPlayer even while travelling
Hide your tracks from internet monitoring or web filtering applications
Protects your computer and network from hackers
Great for streaming and downloading
Unblock the web from anywhere
Bypass Internet censorship

ibVPN has servers located in US and UK, and very soon, they will have Netherlands based IPs as well. When I test drove their service, I was quite impressed with the speed. The setup was simple and straight-forward (they have some nice tutorials if you want). I tried accessing Hulu and ABC, and the video streaming via these sites were pretty fast. The UK based VPN service was considerably faster than the US one, but that might be dependent on load/distance and other factors.

Setting up an account was fast and easy as well. The prices start from $7.95 per month for both US and UK based VPN services and comes with 100% money-back guarantee. ibVPN is compatible with Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.2 and higher, Linux, IPhone, WM Smartphones, any PPTP compatible device/software! Now this is what differentiates a quality premium VPN service from other Free VPN services.

ibVPN – Free Licenses Giveaway

As Readers of TechPP, you guys get an exclusive chance to get a free license of ibVPN. There are 50 licenses up for grabs each valid for 3 months and worth $20 each. You will be free to use US as well as UK based service with this license. All you need to do is follow the simple steps below

1. Leave a comment below to register for the giveaway [AND]

2. Tweet this post. You can simply click on the retweet button below.
OR
Share this post on Facebook

In case you are not on Twitter or Facebook, you can let us know why you need a free license.

You can subscribe to the RSS feed or email newsletter to keep track of the results of this giveaway and many others coming up in near future.

Note: Your comment needs to be moderated and it might take some time to moderate the comments, so kindly make sure you submit your comment only once. Thanks.

Winners: my_immortalize, Xphoid, Ban, Sonu Meena, a_ejazz, vibe666, Suresh, universal007, Raghul, Karthik Urs, django, Chris Jones, omar layachi, iguelgin, inaki, hideipuser, Sunil Jain, kingpin, Lorenzo, Atlee, paf, xantzaras, C.F., Lucifer, westernplumber, MNARAYAN, stranger, techno2001, Rohit Sane, shubh, Christian, kotti, kimly, miou, Hameed, OutEarth, eny_X, harsha, Sagar Gholap, A.X.L. Pendergst, faucon11, Sandro Mancini, Paul, Dharmesh, Kayce Crews, air france, Jeff, tarzan, ekreddy, Prasad

Related posts:

IP Privacy Pro Free Licenses Giveaway – Winners

Anonymous Browsing via IP Privacy – Free License Giveaway

New Year Contest – Free Genuine Licenses Giveaway!!

TechPP and 4Free Community Shared Giveaway – Glary Utilities Pro Licenses

10 More Free VPN Services for Anonymous Browsing

Apple iPad or iBad? What it Lacks?

Raju — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:17:46 +0000

Now that the Apple Tablet storm has settled, it is important to set aside the rumors, expectations and wishes and look at the reality of what Apple iPad actually has to offer and more importantly, what it lacks.

Apple iPad seems to offer almost everything you hoped for in a tablet – let me list them down for better reading

Rich user interface,
multi-touch computing,
high speed processor,
eBook and eReader capabilities,
rich web browsing & mail reading,
high quality photo & video playback,
ability to download and use millions of applications,
Word processing, spreadsheet and slideshow functionality,
Calendar, contact and data syncing

Sounds like a complete package. Isn’t it? If we dig further, we find so many things missing from the final package.

Apple iPad: What it lacks?

1. No Multi-tasking

Being someone who graduated from Apple’s school of iPhone and iPod Touch, I know exactly how important this feature is. With a 1GHz processor and something which Steve Jobs commented as ‘better than netbooks’, unavailability of Muti-tasking is a BIG FAIL.

2. No Flash support

I feel like I am writing an extension post of iPhone limitations. Everyone except Steve Jobs fail to comprehend the reason behind snubbing Adobe Flash support in Apple devices! With the screen size this big, seeing no flash plugin block in every other web page sucks big time. The above snapshot was taken during the presentation yesterday by engadget. Isn’t it embarrassing yet, Mr. Steve? Rich Web browsing – yeah right!

3. No Full GPS

There were lots of articles written about how Apple iPad is a perfect companion for travelers! Are you sure? The Wi-Fi-only versions flat out have no GPS support whatsoever. The 3G versions though, have Assisted GPS, which makes use of the cellular connection to help pinpoint your location. This would mean that, if you are somewhere with zero or poor connectivity, don’t even bother to use your iPad GPS.

4. No USB Port

Even those useless netbooks which Steve was referring to have USB support. Instead, this ultimate entertainment device mandates us to use a special custom dock connector to connect our cameras and other gadgets. In simple terms, this means you won’t be able to plug in an external USB keyboard you already own without buying a separate USB adapter.

5. No built-in Camera

The iPhone has a camera, the MacBook has a camera and heck, even the new iPod Nano has a camera. So, what about the iPad? Hell NO, don’t bother to try video chat, video conference or even grabbing a quick pic to upload to your Facebook profile. You just can’t.

6. No User-Replaceable Battery

Steve Jobs claims that the iPad will come with an impressive 10 hours of battery life and a full month of stand-by time. Pretty cool, but as with the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and the latest MacBooks, the iPad battery comes sealed in the case, and there’s no way to swap in a new one yourself.

7. No HDMI Out

This one though, will not be a shock for many. Apple has failed to support HDMI in any of its other products and same holds good for iPad, a device meant to be an ultimate entertainment gadget! Even to get video out at all, you’ll need a proprietary Dock to VGA adapter, which obviously limits you to VGA resolutions!

8. No widescreen

You can double tap during a movie to see it in either fullscreen or widescreen. But this widescreen is not wide enough! The tablet’s resolution tops out at 1024 x 768, which falls into the 4:3 standard definition range and not the glorious, widescreen 16:9 high definition aspect ratio we’ve come to know and love.

9. AT&T only for 3G

Steve Jobs announced that the tablet will be sold unlocked and got a huge cheer from the gathering. Soon after he announced an exclusive deal with AT&T for the 3G service. AT&T is already being unable to cope with the 3G data usage of the iPhone. This sure isn’t going to help things. The iPad’s 3G modem supports UMTS/HSDPA 850/1900/2100MHz and GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz bands which rules out T-Mobile’s 3G band which runs on 1700MHz.

10. Apple iPad – the Name

iPad? Of all the possible names, I had really hoped this wouldn’t be it. iPad is already the butt of many jokes, specially hygiene ones.

Related posts:

Apple iPad- Specs, Features, Pricing

What’s Next for Apple After iPad?

Apple iPad [Wi-Fi] Coming on April 3

HP & Adobe Take a Dig at Apple iPad with Flash Demo

[How to] Buy Apple iPad Outside US

Apple iPad- Specs, Features, Pricing

Raju — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:29:05 +0000

It’s official guys! Steve Jobs has just announced the launch of the Apple tablet – It’s named Apple iPad! The jokes on the name ‘iPad’ have already started pouring in. iPad looks like a bigger version of iPhone. Good that we stayed away from all those leaked pics. It looks quite different from them all!

Steve Jobs said, iPad is the middle device between the smartphones and laptop, it surely is!

Apple iPad Pictures

via GDGT, more coming soon

Apple iPad Features

App Store
iTunes
Safari
Mail
Photos
Videos
Youtube
iPod
iBooks
Maps
Notes
Calendar
Contacts
Home screen
Spotlight Search

Apple iPad Specifications

It’s a half-inch thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds, with a 9.7-inch capacitive touchscreen IPS LCD display, and it’s running a custom 1GHz Apple “A4″ chip developed by P.A. Semi, with a 10-hour battery life and a month of standby. It’ll come in 16, 32, and 64GB sizes, and it’s got the expected connectivity: very little. There’s a 30-pin Dock connector, a speaker, a microphone, Bluetooth, and 802.11n WiFi. As expected, it can run iPhone apps – either pixel-for-pixel in a window, or pixel-doubled fullscreen — but developers can also target the new screen size using the updated iPhone OS SDK, which is available today.

Half inch thin
1.5 pound in weight (approx 600 gm)
Slimmest Tablet
9.7 inch diagonal screen IPS type
Capacitive multi-touch
16 to 64 GB Flash storage
1 Ghz A4 Processor
WiFi 802.11n
Built In Speaker
Built In Microphone
Accelerometer
Compass
10 Hours Battery with One Month Standby
Eco Friendly Manufacturing process

Apple iPad Pricing List

It starts at $499!!! Wi-Fi models shipping in late March. 3G models shipping in April.

iPad 16 GB Model Pricing: With 3G – $629, without 3G – $499

iPad 32 GB Model Pricing: With 3G – $729, without 3G – $599

iPad 64 GB Model Pricing: With 3G – $829, without 3G – $699

Apple iPad Videos

To be updated…

Related posts:

Sony Ericsson Vivaz – Features, Specs & Pricing

Apple iPad [Wi-Fi] Coming on April 3

What’s Next for Apple After iPad?

Apple iPad or iBad? What it Lacks?

[How to] Buy Apple iPad Outside US

10 Most Essential Windows Explorer Add-ons

Omkar Dutta — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:02:17 +0000

Windows Explorer seems to be absolutely fine for normal users, but power users will find something missing in it. Here are 10 most essential windows explorer add-ons that will help you to use windows explorer like a pro.

1. QT Tab Bar

QT Tab Bar is a tiny app that adds the tab feature in your Windows Explorer. This will help you to open multiple folders under single window. This is one of the most useful app that will definitely save your valuable time. Once installed, right-click on the Explorer toolbar and select the QT Tab Bar toolbars. This will enable tabs and other features in your Windows Explorer. This app works on Windows XP/Vista and requires .Net Framework 2.0 or later.

2. Folder Size

In windows explorer, it is not possible to view the size of a particular folder. Folder Size is an useful application that will help you to view the size of any folder, right inside the Windows Explorer. This program adds a column next to the folder name, that clearly displays the size of that folder. You will easily come to know which folder is eating up your hard disk space. This app works only on Windows XP.

3. Drive Icon

Drive Icon is a tiny utility that helps you to change your old-fashioned Windows XP drive icons into cool new icons that are much similar to that of Windows Vista. This app also shows the drive’s free space with a smooth colored horizontal bar. This icons will lets you know how much space is remaining in a particular drive. This app works with Windows XP.

4. QT Breadcrumb Address bar

QT Breadcrumb adds the Vista’s breadcrumb feature right inside Windows XP. This app helps to easily navigate from one folder to another. QT Address bar will add a new toolbar to your windows explorer. To remove the default address bar in Windows XP, just right click the address bar and hide it. This app works with Windows XP.

5. FileMenu Tools

File Menu Tools is an amazing program that allows you to customise the context menu of Windows Explorer. Using this program, you can easily add some built-in utilities that perform operations on files and folders. You can even enable/disable commands which are added by other applications to the context menu. This program works with Windows XP and Vista.

6. TeraCopy

The default file transfer utility in Windows is inefficient and it transfers your files at a slower rate. Tera copy is an amazing utility that helps you to copy or move your files and folders at a lightning fast speed. TeraCopy completely replaces your explorer’s copy and move functions. You can even pause and resume files transfer whenever you want. This utility works with Windows 7, Vista and XP.

7. InfoTag Magic

InfoTag Magic is a tiny utility that displays metadata of various file types. These metadata will be displayed as soon as you hover your mouse pointer over the file. This utility also displays quick preview for txt, dll and exe files types. It works with Windows 7, Vista and XP.

8. Direct Folders

Direct Folders allows you to access your favorite and recent folders quickly. With the help of this amazing utility, you can get quick and customizable access to all your favorite & recent folders. You can easily access Direct Folders by double clicking in the empty area of the desktop, Explorer or File Open/Save dialog box, which brings up a menu. This program is free for home users.

9. FolderBox

Folder Box is an tiny application that displays an additional folders in the lower part of Explorer, which enables your to display the contents of two folders at once. This program is quite useful as you can view multiple folders, right inside your Windows Explorer. You can even use FolderBox inside Internet Explorer.

10. Desktop Restore

Sometimes, your friends changes the layout of your desktop or add and delete some icons. At that time, restore desktop will helps you to save the layout and positions of icons and programs on the Windows Desktop. You can restore your complete desktop layout wherever the need arises. This program is quite useful for those who share their computer with many users. This program works with Windows 2000, XP and Vista.

Have we missed your favorite windows explorer add-ons? Which one is the best app from the above list? Please let us know in the comments.

Related posts:

iPhone Explorer – Copy and Move Files from iPhone

Repair and Fix Common Windows 7 Problems with FixWin Utility

Fix Windows 7 Updates Error with Fix WU Utility

Ultimate Resources of Windows 7 Gadgets

Get the Official MP3 Corruption Patch for Windows 7 Beta

Slow Internet Speed? Here is a Trick to Surf Faster!

SaurabhStar — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:43:00 +0000

What do you do when your internet speed is at its worst? You want to check your mails, check your adsense income or complete some important research work and you are not able to do any of them? This will be a day-to-day affair if you are using dial-up connection or a slow broadband connection. This post is especially intended for those power users of internet who don’t want to miss their web experience even when connections speed sucks. Using this trick, you can carry out your web surfing easily and swiftly as if you were on a proper broadband line. We will see about a way/alternative to surf internet when your internet speed is frequently irregular and slow at times.

Trick to Browse web faster when Internet connection Sucks

Opera Mini is a mobile browser based on java platform used on most cellphones to surf internet on mobile in a pc-friendly navigation style. Opera Mini 5 (the latest version) is faster, easier and features pc-friendly internet/web-surfing. Browsing through opera mini is faster because opera mini uses its own proxy server to fetch websites for you. Opera Mini squeeze webpages and present to you your desired content at a reasonable speed.

Steps to surf on PC using mobile browser opera mini to experience speed even when actual internet speed is low:

1. First, we need to make sure that Java runtime is installed on our PC, because to run mobile java applications, we need an emulator and to run emulator, java runtime class is required.

Download the latest Java runtime environment for windows pc.

After downloading, install it and then proceed to next step.

2. Now we need an emulator to emulate mobile java application on pc. The emulator should be able to use network and should support full-screen view of mobile application. Here we choose MicroEmulator.

Download MicroEmulator

After downloading, open microemulator.jar

3. Now we need to fit/resize microemulator to our PC screen so that we can surf web on PC in full screen mode. For this we need to add a device to microemulator.

Download devices.zip containing resizable.jar and opera mini 5.jad for microemulator

Extract the downloaded folder.

4. Now click on options button in Microemulator. Check Midlet Network Access. Then click on Select Device, then click on ADD button. Locate the downloaded resizable.jar and click open

5. Now select resizable.jar – Click on set as default – hit OK.

6. Now click on File menu, locate opera-mini.jad in the downloaded folder above. Click on Start. Opera Mini will configure itself. Now just open your desired website and surf the web swiftly with a few limitation.

Click on thumbnail above to see how techpp.com looks in full screen on opera mini browser on pc.

Using the method, mentioned above, you can browse the web fastly and swiftly while some websites doesn’t render fully but this method is particularly useful for dial-up users to get their web-task done in a minute.

Comments and Questions are welcome!!

Related posts:

Make your Windows XP / Vista Faster with this Simple Trick

Check Your Internet Speed with Speed.io

[Firefox Friday] Speed up Your Internet with Just 3 Simple Hacks

Free internet on Airtel Live without GPRS

[How to] Boost Bit-Torrent Download Speed

Guide to Improve and Extend Your Wi-Fi Coverage

Raju — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:09:11 +0000

If you are someone who has a Wi-Fi setup at home, ask yourself these questions -

Are the signals from your Wi-Fi router dropping out every now and then?
Do you wish for more coverage?
Does your Windows notifies you about a weak signal?

If your answer for any one of the questions above is an Yes, you have come to the right place. This article provides some tips to improve the signal of your wireless network and possibly extend its coverage area.

Guide to improve and extend Wi-Fi coverage at home

1. Position your wireless router & modem in a central location

See if you can place your wireless router in a central location in your home. Say if you have a two-storeyed building placing the router in first floor makes sense. Don’t worry if you can’t move your wireless router, because there are many other ways to improve your connection.

2. Check for any Interference

Make sure interference from other Wi-Fi networks or other transmitting devices aren’t hindering your signal. Metal, walls, and floors can also interfere with your Wi-Fi signals. Devices such as Bluetooth adapters, cordless phones, wireless cameras, wireless keyboards or mice, and wireless speakers or even microwaves can hinder the signal strength. Download and use NetStumbler to check for all the networks in the area.

3. Replace your router’s antenna

Normally, the WiFi routers come with omni-directional antenna, which means that they broadcast in all directions around the router. In case your router is near an outside wall, most of the signals will get transmitted outside the home, so the best thing in that case would be to go buy a hi-gain antenna that focuses the wireless signals in only one direction. You can aim the signal in the direction you need it most.

4. Check and Replace your computer’s wireless network adapter

Sometimes, your router can broadcast strongly enough to reach your computer, but your computer can’t send signals back to your router. In order to improve this, you can try replacing your PC’s wireless network adapter that uses an external antenna. Note that laptops usually come with excellent antennas and hence won’t need to have their network adapters changed.

5. Upgrade to Wireless N

If you think there is no issue with the router’s positioning or interference or the network adapter, you can consider upgrading your devices to 802.11n. But this would involve buying brand new equipment as the older 802.11g or b isn’t upgradable with latest firmware. Wireless N uses multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO), a smart antenna technology, and other improvements that make for much larger coverage areas and faster connections. To get full improvement, you also need to use both Wireless N for the router and the wireless adapters.

6. Add a wireless repeater

This is a very common suggestion you would come across everywhere. Wireless repeaters extend your wireless network range without requiring you to add any wiring. Just place the wireless repeater halfway between your wireless access point and your computer, and you’ll get an instant boost to your wireless signal strength. They don’t even cost more, so it surely makes sense to go for quality wireless repeaters.

7. Update your firmware or your network adapter driver

Router manufacturers regularly make free improvements to their routers. Sometimes, these improvements increase performance. To get the latest firmware updates for your router, visit your router manufacturer’s Web site. The same holds good with network adapters as well.

8. Pick equipment from a single vendor

Now this might look weird, but it really works. You often get better performance if you pick a router and network adapter from the same vendor. Some vendors offer a performance boost of up to twice the performance when you choose their hardware.

9. Extend Coverage Using Access Points

Another way to boost your Wi-Fi signals is by using additional access points to your network. This method uses Ethernet cables to connect these additional access points back to your router. You might need to hide those additional cables!

Hope you find this article useful. Share your experiences!

[Ref]Microsoft

Related posts:

How to Build a Wireless Home Network Without a Router?

Ultimate Guide to Secure Your GMail Account

[How to] Improve Windows Vista and Windows 7 Boot Speed

Download and Install Windows 7 XP Mode + Usage Guide

Guide to Follow & Watch Apple Event Live Online on January 27th

TechPP Mega Christmas Giveaway : A Round-up

Raju — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 09:40:57 +0000

As you might already know, TechPP Mega Christmas Giveaway came to an end on the last day on 2009 and boy! it was a resounding success with over 31 popular and quality software were given away for Free to the lucky lot, few of the software were given away free for everyone!

There was lots of hard-work which went into this campaign. Contacting the software developers, putting up a catalog describing the giveaway, explaining what’s in it for every stakeholder, deciding the order and dates for each giveaway, moderating the entries, validating the entries, choosing the winners, contacting the winners for additional details, mailing the winners details to the software developers and making sure the licenses are sent to the winners. Phew! it was tough, but worthy in the end!

This post is a roundup of what happened over the past month and a half -

1. November 17th 2009 : Christmas Giveaway was announced.
2. November 26th 2009 : The first giveaway post under this campaign.
3. December 31st 2009 : The last giveaway ended.
4. 30 days of Giveaway – 30 different and popular software reviewed + free licenses given away
5. A whopping 5300+ comments made during this campaign! That means almost 175 comments (entries) made per post on an average.
6. The worth of software given away during these 30 days exceeds $40k, yes, USD 40,000! I am yet to calculate the exact worth, but it will be near to this $40k mark for sure!

I would like to thank all my wonderful readers (both old and new) for making this campaign a grand success. Also, I would like to thank the software developers (listed below) for generously sponsoring the free licenses. Most of the PR guys I interacted with were absolutely wonderful to work with. I would also love to thank Martin from Ghacks.net who was not only my inspiration behind this giveaway but also helped me promote it through his blog everyday. Take a bow Martin! There were many fellow bloggers and friends who did their bit in promoting the giveaway on Twitter, Facebook, forums and other social networking sites! Last, but not the least, Dnyanesh Mankar, the talented designer who worked on the banner templates for the giveaway.

Our lovely sponsors – TechSmith, Rising, GlarySoft, iSkysoft, SUPERAntiSpyware, IDM, MediaMonkey, Keynesis, Freedur, CyberLink, CuteFTP, EASEUS, TuneUP Media, Speedbit, Returnil, Sothink, Codeweavers, Axialis, WinAutomation, Antamedia, Daemon Tools, Uniblue, Macecraft, HideIPVpn, Safely Remove, WinRAR, Corel and ESET

We are in the process of choosing winners of the last few giveaways, that will be completed by this weekend!

Feedback

All the efforts go waste if you don’t like it. I would love to know if you liked the reviews and the giveaways? Anything you like to comment about the 30 day long giveaway, just leave a comment below. I would love to get any suggestion, feedback or appreciation from your side.

Related posts:

TechPP Mega Christmas Giveaway : Coming Soon!

TechPP Mega Christmas Giveaway Starts Tomorrow

TechPP Mega Christmas Giveaway : SUPERAntiSpyware Professional

TechPP Mega Christmas Giveaway : IDM 5.18

TechPP Mega Christmas Giveaway : iSkysoft Video Converter for Windows