A digital media organizer is a far better way to keep track of your media files. They catalog all the files according to a set criteria and you will be able to find them easily next time you need a picture, or other files from your computer. Today, we’ll be taking a look at how to organize your media collection both with specialized programs and with the integrated tools from your operating system.

Organize your files with ratings and different names

If you want to organize your media file without the need of a dedicated organizer, then you can use the integrated tools from your operating system. First of all, create your own sorting system, which will help you categorize all your files. This is the first step in making your media collection tidy.

For example, you can sort music first by genre, then by artist and then by album or year. This way, you have a tidy folder tree and recovering a certain track will be easy. If you have lots of downloaded pictures or photos that you’ve taken, then you can create a similar tree, with the type of picture (photo or downloaded), then you can group them by what they contain, so if you want to have your vacation photos easily accessible, then you can simply navigate to their folder and find the one you are looking for.

Many photographers also use the rating system, that every OS has, and it allows you to rate pictures (or other media files for that matter). The rating system is a great way to find certain photos in a folder. You can rate the best photos with the maximum number of stars and this will allow you to later sort them by rating and find the one you are looking for. In the case of photos, you can even sort them according to the camera they were taken with.

Renaming media files is a sure way to quickly find them after a while. Every operating system offers a search function, and if you know the general area where the file is, and what is its name, then you can find it easily. If you don’t want to spend countless hours on renaming 1000 photos, you can just bulk-rename them and when you search for them, you will just have to search amongst a few.

Keep in mind that for the best results, it’s best if you use all these techniques. It will be far easier for you to have a folder tree, and inside the folders, your media files which would be rated and renamed. For example, if you want a certain picture and you know that it is somewhere in the “Vacation” folder, all you need is to open the folder and search for it, either by name or by rating.

So, if you are willing to spend the time necessary to organize your media collection manually (and remember that if you have lots of files, it might take a while), then remember these tips, which will definitely help you. Here’s a quick recap of what you can do with your media files:

1. Create a folder tree / sorting system
2. Use the default rating system to rate your files
3. Rename the files and give them relevant names

Use a media organizer to keep your files in check

If you don’t want to bother with manually organizing your media collection, then you can use a dedicated service that allows you to quickly find your files. Keep in mind that these programs won’t do wonders, and if you have only one folder with all your images or music in it, you will still have a hard time finding your files. We recommend that you create a folder tree and categorize your files, so it will be easier to find with the dedicated program.

There are many media organizers available for users, and most of them only manage one or two types of media, so if you want to keep all your files organized, then you might need more than one media organizer to get the job done. Now, we’ll give you a list of such programs, and you can make your choice depending on what type you need and, of course, how much it costs.

Image  Organizers

Most likely, you will have much more photos than any other type of media on your computer, and therefore, keeping your photos organized can be a pretty hard task. The following media organizers will definitely give you some help when you want to find certain files from your computer. Also, in the recent updates, developers also added video support for most of them, making them perfect for organizing both photos and videos.

One other advantage of using a dedicated picture organizing tool is that some also offer editing features, or they are integrated with other image editors. They roughly offer the same features, and the main differences between them are the price and the platform they work on. We will provide you with a list of such programs that includes both free and paid media organizers.

• Windows Photo Gallery – Free
• Ubuntu Shotwell – Free
• Mac OS X Image Capture – Free
• Google Picasa – Free
• Nero Kwik Media – Free
• digiKam – Free
• Zoner Photo Studio – Free
• Apple iPhoto ’11 - $14.99
• CyberLink PhotoDirector 4 – €79.99
• ACDSee Pro – $59.99
• Adobe Bridge CC – Starts from $19.99/month
• Corel AfterShot Pro – $59.99

Video, Movies and DVD Organizers

Along pictures, many of us have lots of videos that we’d like to view over and over again. But many times, these files get mixed up and it’s really hard to keep track of them. Also, for those who like to collect movies and DVDs, the story is the same. Once your collection exceeds a certain number, you won’t remember what titles you own. This is why a movie/video organizer is a good tool to have on your computer.

• Delicious Library – Free Trial / $25.00
• DVD Profiler – Free Trial / $29.95
• Blu-Ray & DVD Database – Free Trial / €24.95 / €39.95
• EMDB – Free
• Griffith – Free
• Videonizer – Free

Music Organizers

Apart from pictures and videos, most of us have lots of music tracks on our computers, and we know that these are pretty hard to find. By using a music manager, you can quickly search and find the file you are looking for.

• MediaMonkey – Free / $24.95
• MusicBee – Free
• Best Music Organizer – Free
• Jaangle – Free
• foobar2000 – Free
• AIMP – Free
• Helium Music Manager – Free / $29 / $49

With these tools at your disposal, you will definitely have a clean media library, where all the files are in the right place and you will be able to find them easily. If you use other digital media organizers and you are pleased with how they work, do let us know.

© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2013. 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 |

The post 25 Tools to Keep Your Pictures, Videos and Music Collections Organized appeared first on Technology Personalized.

The question is, how important is for us to be aware of those little known features? How will it impact our daily lives? Not only that it will save us a lot of time and trouble but it may also spare us from buying a separate device for a task that could easily be done with our existing collection of gadgets.

Read memory cards with your printer

If you have bought a printer in the last 2-3 years, chances are it may have some dedicated slot for reading SD cards. It is there to give you a slot to read and print photos coming from your camera. But, it works fine as a regular memory reader as well. Also, if you happen to have a USB dongle, it may also facilitate that feature.

Charge smartphones from your TV

Running out of sockets to charge your smartphone? How about plugging it onto your TV? Most TVs bought these days come with a USB port. With that USB port you can play media files on your TV from any Flash drive or even gigantic external hard drives. It is just like a regular USB port that comes inbuilt in your laptop, so just like you can charge your gadgets from your laptop, same can be done through your TV.

Turning your Webcam into a CCTV system

Want to fortify the security system of your house and office? Have a spare webcam lying around eating dust? How about putting that vetoed piece of gadgetry to some use. Yet another web cam software (Yawcam) is a nice tool that detects your webcam and uses it as a CCTV system.

It does hold good at both capturing images as well as recording videos, additionally there is a timestamp imprinted on every image, and there is an option to get email alerts as soon as something moves in front of the camera.

Control your computer with your smartphone

Ever found yourself drowned in the laziness to move to your computer to change the movie, or just to shut the system down, or maybe to wake it up? Well, we may have good news for you. If you happen to have a smartphone (more specifically, if it is running Android OS or iOS), there are many apps which will let you perform various operations on your computer right from your smartphone.

One that we really liked is Unified Remote. With Unified Remote you can not only access and control your media players, but also browsers, and almost any app. If you purchase the full version, you can also make voice commands, support for NFC will be there and also widgets will become available.

If for some reason you want to jabber around your mobile through your system, for may be transferring files, installing or deleting applications, AirDroid is a great solution.

Transform your old computer into a media server

If you have an old computer lying around your house, which has a VGA out and a 3.5mm audio jack, you would be surprised to see how a great media server it could build out to be. A great utility named Plex will guide you all the required plugins and provide the environment that will make your system run as a media server.

One very common problem with old computers is that they can’t hold up much system resource usage, for that, you should not hesitate to try any Linux based operating system, one of our all time favorites is Ubuntu.

Check your pulse with your smartphone

Yes, you read it right. Are you feeling uneasy? Would you want to check your pulse rate and other things? Well, there is an app for that! The Instant Heart Rate app available for both Android and iOS uses the camera of your device that detects your pulse.

Noteworthy mentions

Using a laptop or tablet as a second monitor: If you have either of these device at home and you are doing nothing much with it, you could always use it as a second monitor. ZoneScreen is a freeware which once installed on both computers, lets you use that spare device as the second screen.

Connecting your tablet and laptop to your TV: Ever wondered what HDMI port is doing on your TV? Every TV these days comes with a HDMI port, through which you can connect your laptop or tablet to watch movies and other things on the big screen.

You don’t need any software for that, just bridge your laptop and TV with the HDMI cable. Depending on your manufacturer, there is an HDMI cable input for your tablet as well, again, you don’t need to run any software in the background, the TV will automatically detect and replicate your tablet ongoing activities.

Creating a Wi-Fi spot from your smartphone: You will be surprised to know the number of people who still don’t know their Android and iPhone and iPad devices can be used to create a Wi-Fi spot so as to make data available for other devices to connect to the internet.

Depending on your mobile carrier and its data policy, tethering can be enabled in Android phone by going to the Settings > Wireless& Networks > Tethering & Portable hotspot. iPhone and iPad users are supposed to go to the Settings > Personal hotspot (and slide it on)

Using your phone as an emergency torch: Light’s gone, no backup? Don’t worry, take out your Android phone, and download Tiny Flashlight, it will use the flash light of your phone as the torch. Apple users needs to download this free app called Light – LED Flashlight.

© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2013. 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 |

The post 10 Little Known Features About Your Gadgets appeared first on Technology Personalized.

Worry not, as it turns out fixing your web browser to reshape it to get the maximum out of it isn’t a tough nut to crack. Here are some add-ons and other tools that will help you fix your gateway to the internet.

Clear the cache

Before even getting into it, let’s clear your browser’s cache, shall we? Every browser that you use stores some files in your browser. Well, cache aren’t really a vestigial thing per se. It helps you save data by retrieving things off of your hard drive instead of downloading it every time you visit the same page. This way they also maintain a cordial relationship with web servers and kills the lagging time in the process.

The downside of this is, as you browse more and more web pages, the cache files just starts heaping up and starts taking too much undue memory on your hard drive. Also, at the same time, you don’t really want to keep cookies in your browser for a long period of time. Another sparkling reason of why you should make a habit of cleaning your browser’s cache is that sometimes your browser may end saving some vicious files in your hard drive, and keeping it long in your system is of course running a risk.

To clear the cache, almost every browser facilitates that option in its settings. But if you are one of those people who don’t like getting into much details, you could use a freeware utility such as CCleaner, tick the Cache and hit Run Cleaner.

Kill idle tabs wasting memory

While this sight leaves you with a good first impression, it doesn’t necessarily hold well on the memory. The more tabs you have opened in any active session, the more network as well as system resources it will share. To prevent such clumsy experience, there are many extensions that could bail you out of this. TooManyTabs for Chrome is one of the most functional ones around. It is available for Firefox users as well. It lets you stop, suspend, and freeze any page whenever you want. You can also save the page’s state and open it when you want to use it again.

Another free alternate extension for Chrome user is One-Tab. As we tested in our review, it not only lets you integrate all your tabs and manage it more efficiently, but also save upto 95% of bandwidth.

Speeding up network speed of Firefox

Firefox users can also tweak their browser settings to avail some swift benefits. Plenty of forums suggest several tedious ways that includes anything from script hacking to deleting some .dll files to codifying about:config. Since all of that sounds dapple, there is one add-on that cuts down the clumsiness and reduces your work to entering few numbers only. The aforementioned add-on is Tweak Network, once installed, all you are required to do is change default values. Change the value of “Max persistent connections per server” from 6 to 16. And also, tick the “Pipelining” square button. What it does, is allow the browser to fetch content from the websites more quickly using more number of requests and connections. For Chrome users, things are little sad as there is no way to configure such things just yet.

Preview links without clicking on them

Thanks to URL shortening tools, now anyone can shrink their ladder long URLs to a few characters. The downside of this is when you see such links, until you click on them, you won’t be able to figure the actual parent link. Additionally, in this time where cyber-crimes especially phishing have mixed itself with social media so abruptly, it is not only time and bandwidth data we should be worried about, but your privacy and security are at stake as well.

To fix this broken model, Chrome users could use an extension named SwiftPreview. SwiftPreview pop-ups a window when you hover your mouse over any shrunk link and shows you a preview of it in that popped up window. This tool could really come handy for avid social networking users. Firefox users need not to be disheartened, as there is a cool alternative of SwiftPreview, called CoolPreview, that will let you do that job just well.

Alternatively, you can also use nifty extensions like Link Revealer and Untiny which essentially do the same task.

Block the trackers

In one of my previous posts, I wrote about how advertisers are tracking people, and why it is terribly bad for your privacy. The other drawback of it, is that it hogs your network as well, resulting in slow internet connectivity.

You could use a great utility called DisconnectMe which will keep all your trackers away.

Noteworthy mentions

Apart from using above mentioned tools, there are many other tools that can help you stay more productive.

• Using Gmail with keyboard: CNET shows how you access your Gmail account and perform all the operations without having to use your mouse.

• Lazarus will save everything you write: Lazarus is one of my favorite utilities that lets its users save whatever they were typing on any form, comment section or anywhere (except password fills, of course).
• Disable Java and Flash: yes it is indeed one thing you can always look for while speeding up your browser’s speed.
• Turn off images: If you are really running short on your data, or if the internet speed is really very slow, you could also from the settings disable images for some time.
• Use mobile version of the webpage: Of course you could always opt for mobile version of any page – that will surely be render pages fast and consume less bandwidth.

© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2013. 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 |

The post [How to] Speed up Your Browser: Tools to Swift Your Browsing Experience appeared first on Technology Personalized.

For instance, what happens when you accidently remove a picture? It is lost forever or there are ways of recovering the file? Luckily, the short answer favors those careless and in the following lines we are going to explain why deleted photos can be recovered from a digital camera and most important, how.

How a digital camera actually works?

These days everybody owns a digital camera and uses it for different reasons, from capturing important family moments to just taking photos of a beautiful landscape. All in all, they represent a better solution than old cameras in many ways, such as the capability of organizing photos much better or the possibility to share pictures via social networking sites.

Practically, a digital camera stores all photos on a flash memory card which can be a SD, CF, Memory Stick, MMC card or other types. They are made by different manufacturers, have different sizes and appearances, but they have the same essence – one very similar to a floppy disk or a hard drive.

When you choose to delete a picture or a video, your digital camera will locate the space allocated and mark that space as available for future usage. The picture is not actually deleted until another image takes its place. So basically, the photo is still there and it is very important to stop taking other pictures or the chances of recovering pictures that have been accidentally deleted will be reduced.

So plug-in your camera or connect the memory card to your laptop’s card reader and use one of the tools presented below:

Asoftech Photo Recovery Software

Asoftech Photo Recovery Software is a specialized program in recovering deleted, formatted or corrupted photos and videos from your digital camera. It supports all memory card types including MMC, Memory Stick, CF Card, SDHC and several file types.

The interface is bright purple, easy to use and even allows a personalized search, limiting file types for better and quicker processes. Users reported that the software showed some problems in recovering movies in .mov format, but for pictures everything functioned smoothly and quick and they were all recovered.

To undelete files, simply launch the program and choose the mounted memory card. After that, specify the save path, click “Start” and all recovered data will show up. From the results page you can also choose only certain photos or videos which you want to save on the personal computer.

A big disadvantage of Asoftech is the price, because even if it’s so good at recovering pictures you will have to pay $29.95 to really use it. The demo version will only find lost pictures and videos on a memory card, but it will not offer the possibility to save them. Also, the compatibility in the demo version is limited to four major file types: JPEG, BMP, GIF and PNG.

PhotoRec

PhotoRec is a powerful application which can recover photos and videos from almost any device. Developers are saying that it recognizes over 390 different file types and it works with every memory disk, hard disk or USB stick that exists on the market.

However, the interface may represent a big disadvantage for some users because the program runs in a DOS box or from a command line, which may not appear so user-friendly. Another problem is that PhotoRec is actually a surrogate program to TestDisk and if you want to get it, you will also have to install TestDisk.

Once you have it, simply open the program and a menu will pop-up with a list of all storage devices that are connected to your computer, including hard-drives, removable drives and mounted cards. Choose the problematic memory stick and select search parameters, which can be for example “Bruteforce” that recovers more fragmented JPEG files or “Low memory” if your computer has crashed during past recoveries.

Next, select the place where you want to save all recovered pictures and wait, because everything else is automated. In case the process takes too much, the program allows you to stop the operations and to resume later.

Besides the Windows version, PhotoRec is available also for Linux and Mac OSX and can be downloaded for free from their official page.

Recuva

In case you deleted photos or videos from a digital camera, Recuva may represent a viable solution. This program is developed by Piriform, the same company which made the famous CCleaner optimization tool. Recuva has a nice interface, user-friendly and a wizard that will guide you through the process of recovering pictures. It can make personalized searches for different file types, specific drives or enable a deep scan that will find pictures even on a damaged memory stick. To do this, just follow this simple guide:

1. Start the application and click “Next” on the “Welcome to the Recuva Wizard” page.
2. Now choose the type of files you want to recover.
3. Choose the location of the memory card from the “File Location” page and click “Next”.
4. The next page allows you to select a deep search option, which is preferred in the case of a corrupted memory stick.
5. Click “Next” and wait until the search finishes. Select the desired pictures and press “Recover” to save them on the computer.

After searching finishes, a list with the found pictures is shown along with their health and other detailed information. Health refers to the fact that the picture was partly overwritten or not. Results can be also shown in a thumbnail view which will might help navigating between various results.

Besides major file types (JPEG, PNG, GIF) the program is able to recover also Nikon RAW and Canon RAW (.CRW) formats, representing a good choice even for pro consumers. The interesting thing about Recuva is that it comes also in a free portable version so that in case you don’t have internet you can move it between the laptop and computer. The free version is fully-featured, while Pro and Business Editions cost $19.95 and $24.95 and they will only add support from developers.

CardRecovery

CardRecovery is an application specially designed to recover files from memory cards used by digital cameras. It supports all main file formats and memory cards, from compact digital cameras (JPEG, PNG) used by common users to DSLR cameras (raw format) used by professionals.

The interface speaks for itself because everything is placed where it should be and the three step wizard will guide you through a very simple process. All you have to do is to enter the location of the memory card, choose the camera brand (optional) and the destination folder where to put recovered pictures.

Everything else is automated and to browse through pictures you will have to wait until the whole process is finished. Developers are saying that for an 8 GB SDHC card you will have to wait approximately 14 minutes to complete a full search. The program also offers a thumbnail preview, only for JPEG pictures and unfortunately, it will show only six pictures on a page which can be a little bit discouraging when you are searching for a particular photo between hundreds of photos.

Besides the Windows version, CardRecovery is also available for Mac OSX and can be tried before purchase. Developers offer a free version which will scan memory sticks and find lost pictures, but for the ability to save them, you will have to pay $39.

SoftAmbulance Photo Undelete

SoftAmbulance Photo Undelete is a powerful tool specialized in recovering and repairing deleted or corrupted photos / videos. It can restore images directly from a wide range of digital cameras, so that you will not need to pull out the memory card and use it through a card reader.This application is also able to recover pictures and videos from hard disk drives, DVD’s, CD’s and Blue Ray disks. Formats like JPEG, TIFF, PNG, BMP and RAW are all supported along with other dozens of different file types.

The interface of the program is very simple and light because this program has implemented an intuitive, easy-to-use wizard which will guide you through all processes. Just select the desired device, press scan and it will locate all deleted or corrupted photos and show previews of them, so that you can choose which one should be saved.

If the memory stick is corrupted or damaged, SA Photo Undelete has the option of deep scanning, sector by sector, which will find any available pictures in no-time.The program also comes with a free evaluation copy which allows only previewing search results, while recovering will cost $44.9.

EaseUS Card Recovery Wizard

Another interesting option is EaseUS Card Recovery Wizard which is a card recovery program that retrieves deleted photos, videos and audio files from any flash memory cards, USB or SD cards used by cameras and phones.

Connect the memory card to your computer and open the software which has two modes: Deleted File Recovery and Deep Scan. While the first is for recovering all deleted photos or videos from a memory card, the second is used to recover from damaged or inaccessible storage devices. When the scanning is over, you can choose which pictures or videos should be saved. Easy and reliable, EaseUS Card Recovery Wizard can be purchased for $39.95.

© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2013. 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 |

The post How to Restore Deleted Photos & Videos From a Digital Camera appeared first on Technology Personalized.

Many of you already have an Android tablet or an iPad and you cherish them every day because these gadgets that we use with every occasion have become a part of our lives, even in a short time. But what happens when that device gets lost or even worse, stolen?

Locate or Track iPad / Android tablet

As you already know, tablets are not cheap devices and large sums are paid for people to store and enjoy small things, such as timetables, documents, photos, movies and other personal stuff that you wouldn’t want to lose. Unfortunately, this sometimes happen and you need to know how to (at least try to) get it back. Below, we will present different methods or applications that might find your tablet when it is lost or stolen.

Track iPad with Find My iPad

For users of Mac OS X, Windows or Linux, iCloud comes with an interesting Find My iPhone, iPad, and Mac application that can represent a very good chance to get your iPad back if it was lost somewhere.

To use this feature, the iPad has to be previously enabled on iCloud and if it is, just follow the steps explained below:

1. First of all, go to www.icloud.com or the iCloud application from your Mac. You can also do this by accessing Find My iPhone application from any connected iOS device.
2. Once entered, choose “My Devices” and a list will appear containing all your enabled devices. Select your lost iPad and the application will search its location, but it is very important to do this as soon as possible, because your tablet needs to be functioning before it can be tracked. If that is not the case and the battery drained or the device has been switched off, it will only show its last known location.
3. For those fortunate, the application offers three different modalities of continuing: Play Sound, Lost Mode, and Erase iPad. Also, it can configure the device to ask an unlock code so that nobody can access it even if it is switched off and re-started.

This code will be activated once the device is online, so if it is shut down, the iPad will be locked only when it will be turned on again. In addition, the Apple software can send an automatically e-mail with its location and a message saying that it was found.

If you don’t have any faith that you will recover it, you can erase all data from it as a last resort. There’s no turning back, but it is better than having all the personal data compromised.

Track tablets with Android Lost

Android Lost is an application which can find your tablet in case it was lost and as the name hints, it’s only available for Android devices. Besides its main feature, it has a lot of different and interesting capabilities and it can be installed even after the tablet was lost or stolen using Google Play Store, remotely via web.

Furthermore, you can use it even when you misplaced the device because it offers support for remotely controlling the alarm. If it is lost in a public place you can make your device speak through the text-to-speech feature and hope that somebody will hear it.

The great benefits of this application are that in case of losing your tablet which has a SIM installed, you can forward all calls to a phone nearby. You can also read incoming messages and send replies through the computer from the Android Lost website and, in addition, it even has a feature to hide all your messages when the tablet is lost.

The most useful feature is the capability of making pictures in case of theft. Although available only for Android devices that run at least Gingerbread, Android Lost can basically take photos with the front camera and sends them to a pre-configured e-mail address. If you think that you will not get your device back, wipe the entire tablet including SMS, contacts and Google settings with all your passwords. The great thing about it is that developers offer all these good features for free.

Where’s My Droid

Where’s My Droid is one of the most popular free applications available in Google Play Store of its kind. It is used to recover lost Android devices by giving exact location on the map of your lost or misplaced device.

It offers remote control to your tablet and has lots of other different features, such as notification of changed SIM card or tablet number, remote lock, wipe data and much more. Once installed, you have to set-up your white / black listed numbers and the passcode which locks the main menu of the application. Doing this will assure that nobody will have unauthorized access and nobody will change important settings.

Unfortunately, all features containing remotely control are only for the Pro version which can be bought through the free one. The Pro version is not available directly on Google Play Store and costs $3.99.

Please note that the latest updates of the application are reported as a virus or malware by anti-virus apps, but developers are assuring all users that their application is clean and that they are working along with anti-virus developers to resolve this as soon as possible.

Cerberus anti-theft

Cerberus anti-theft is a complete security application which can find your lost, misplaced or stolen Android tablet. It is available on Google Play Store as free-to-try and after a week of evaluation you have to pay $2.99 for a lifetime license. Its main features are: remote control via the web portal or text messages and SIM checker. The application can also remotely activate your GPS for a quicker localization and, in case of a theft you can lock it with a 4 pin number code.

Cerberus is a powerful piece of software that can be remotely set to take photos and e-mail them automatically, when somebody introduces a wrong unlock code. In addition, it is capable of recording audio events and video for merely 5 minutes, which can be considered evidence of the perpetrator that stolen your device.

This application also works through text messages in case mobile data or Wi-Fi are not available and interesting enough, owners can activate certain features by sending SMS. In case the SIM was changed, Cerberus will send text messages to multiple contacts letting them know the location of the tablet.

The web portal is user-friendly and you will manage quickly to interact with its main features by pressing only some clicks. Once you enter the official site, you will be asked to create a new account if you don’t have it. Hopefully you will not need to use it, but if you are in this unkindly position you know that Cerberus backs you up.

Lookout Security & Antivirus

Lookout is one of the first companies that developed security solutions for mobile devices and tablets. Lookout Security & Antivirus for Android or Lookout for iOS devices is a security application that offers anti-virus protection, a feature to recover lost devices through internet and GPS, and a feature to back-up personal data.

Lookout’s interface is slick, light and user-friendly, letting owners access all major settings with only a few clicks. The web portal from where you can remotely control the lost or miss-placed device is astonishing and offers a lot of different features. Once entered, pressing the Locate button will begin the haunt.

From the website users can also make it “Scream”, namely to start an alarm for 60 seconds which can be stopped immediately when the tablet is found, by pressing the “Stop Screaming” button. Furthermore, when you initiate a “Locate” or “Scream” action, Lookout is able to turn ON the GPS for better results and shut it down when the process is done.

By far the most interesting features are Signal Flare, which actually saves your device’s location right before it runs out of battery, and the capability of taking a photo and send it via e-mail when the unlock code was wrongly entered for three times in a row. Unfortunately, Lookout has a big drawback, because it’s not able to alert owners via e-mail when the SIM card was changed.

The Android application comes in two versions: paid and free. The paid one unlocks other different features that normally aren’t available in the free version, such as lock the screen and wipe all data, for a price of $29.99 per year.

GadgetTrak

GadgetTrak is an application specialized in mobile security which won a lot of different awards. It will track a lost Android or iOS device being able to tell its location in every moment, even if it is miss-placed somewhere in your home. All of these just by pressing a Start Alarm button remotely.

The whole process of localization can also be done on a tablet without GPS because it can use cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots mapping to find your device with great accuracy.

GadgetTrak has the ability to completely wipe all data from tablets in case it was stolen and for this, developers also came with a backup feature. You can copy all contacts and photos to GadgetTrak’s server to make an online backup. To prevent wiping your device by mistake developers implemented a code-confirming feature that works via e-mail.

Also, the application has the possibility to automatically take photos with the front camera and send them by e-mail. Unfortunately, this feature is not available in the basic version and you will have to pay extra to unlock it. When it comes to pricing, Android users have the advantage of a free-to-try seven-day period that can only be continued after paying $19.95. On the other hand, iPad users can buy the software right-away for just $3.99.

Track iPad with FoneHome

FoneHome is another popular service to track and recover lost iPad (or Android tablet/iPhone/iPod Touch). It comes with some amazing features like locating the iPad/android tablet on a map, leaving a message for someone who has your tablet to contact you, remotely activating a siren, remotely locking your android tablet, remotely taking a photo of the thief with the front camera and more. A great utility which comes at a decent price of $2.99. Download FoneHome for iPad or Android tablet.

Alternatively, you may also think of trying Latitude from Google, because it keeps track of device’s location. The big disadvantage is that it had to be activated before, so this cannot be done remotely when you already lost your tablet. If you want to do it, it’s very simple, just launch Google Maps on your tablet and under settings select and activate Latitude Location Sharing. It may help you one day.

P.S: those who wish to monitor their Android phones or iPhones, we also have a round-up of best tools for that.

© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2013. 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 |

The post How to Track & Find Lost iPads and Android Tablets appeared first on Technology Personalized.

Computers have become the place where you hold pictures, documents, favorite music and everything else in the same place. While storing may include regular data, random and even useless information, people may also keep important stuff, such as wedding photos, work documents, projects and others.

Have you ever thought about protecting critical data with a password? Taking into consideration that all information could be vulnerable to hackers or to unauthorized persons, this is a rather obvious procedure. Another reason to encrypt data can appear in case somebody else also uses that computer and you don’t want them to have access to private pictures, videos or documents.

Keeping files protected is important

So, if you have confidential data or just personal photos that you want to be locked with a password on your Windows or Mac computer, you should add an additional layer of protection by following these tactics:

On a Mac

For Mac users, it’s very simple to lock-down confidential data by encrypting a folder without any additional tools. How to do it? Just follow the five steps guide and your private data will be protected.

1. Open Disk Utility by going to the Applications Folder and then through Utilities.
2. Once inside, go under “File” and select “New”.
3. Here, choose “Disk Image From Folder” and browse for the preferred folder which you want to be encrypted. 
4. After choosing it, click “Image” and a new menu will pop-up with three possible options: to read/write the image, only to read it or to encode it. If you choose only “read”, you will not be able to add other files into that image. 
5. Choose “Save” and type your password. It is very important to let unchecked the “Remember password in my keychain” option to be sure that other people that use that computer will not be able to open it.

And that’s all! Now you have a password protected .dmg file which you can access with only a double click. The image will be mounted in Finder and after that, you will just have to write down your password to explore the files. When you are done, don’t forget to unmount the encrypted folder to be protected again.

On Windows

In contrast to Mac operating system, Windows lacks features to encrypt or password protect files. The single possibility to make this happen is by installing third-party applications specialized in the matter. Whether it’s an archiving application or an encryption one, there are some good options to choose from.

The simplest way is to use a free archiving program, such as 7-ZIP or WinRAR which gives options to password protect any zipped files and folders, but the time lost by decompressing and compressing again it may represent a big disadvantage. So, we are going to suggest some other third-party applications that can protect files and folders in a much easier way.

TrueCrypt

The first suggestion is TrueCrypt, which creates virtual encrypted disks within files and mounts them as real disks. It seems like random binary data for other software when it’s not mounted and it cannot be accessed without the TrueCrypt program and password. Developers have put security on top by implementing a lot of interesting features in TrueCrypt, such as plausibly deniable encryption, on-the-fly encryption/decryption, hidden volume, hardware acceleration and others.

One of the most interesting features is on-the-fly encryption/decryption which basically uses RAM to decrypt files while they are copied or read. Practically, when you want to open a video from your encrypted disk, you double click on it and the media player begins loading a small portion of the video. While the small portion is playing, another one is loaded into RAM to be decrypted so that you will not have to wait until the whole process is finished.

Another interesting feature is the plausibly deniable encryption which may help when you are constrained to tell somebody the password to your TrueCrypt volume. Basically, this application permits you to set two different passwords for two different versions of a volume. Both will decrypt the same volume, but if you enter the first one it will show a dummy set of files while entering the second one will show the real package. This may seem an extreme feature, but for security fans may represent a well-founded reason when they are choosing an application of this type.

All in all, TrueCrypt is free and has lots of interesting options combined with a user-friendly interface.

Hot to use TrueCrypt

For starters, we will create a TrueCrypt container that can encrypt any files moved inside it. In general, the container could also be used for entire partitions or drives.

1. Launch the application and from TrueCrypt’s main window, click on the Create Volume button.
2. Choose the first option to “Create an encrypted file container”.
3. Now pick if you want to create a standard encryption volume which only applies a password on top of files or, go for a hidden container.
4. Using the “Select File” button, browse to a desired location where you want to save this container. Assign it a name and then click Save. Pay caution, as selecting an individual file will cause TrueCrypt to erase that file and save a container instead.
5. Now that we managed to create a container, move all files that need encryption inside it.

Protected Folder

Protected Folder is created by IObit and serves to protect your favorite files and folders by making them inaccessible and completely invisible to others. This application has a simple interface because it has all options and settings placed in plain sight. The program also supports drag and drop features which may come in handy when adding files to your encrypted volume.

For protection measures, this software has three big options when encrypting folders and files: hiding data in every Windows file manager, deny read and deny write access. For example, if you choose to deny write access, nobody will be able to copy, delete and change its name or even to move it to another location.

The program uses Windows Kernel level protection that works even in Safe Mode, which gives a fully secured way to protect files on Windows. Furthermore, every file can be automatically encrypted with just one right click directly from Windows Explorer and without the need of starting the program manually. Another good thing about Protected Folder is that it cannot be uninstalled without a proper password.

A major step back of Protected Folder is the price, $19.99, which may seem a little bit too much for some users. The good thing is that the developers are letting you try it for free and the evaluation is not restricted to a certain period of time, but you will have only 20 tries to use it.

Folder Lock

Folder Lock is one of the best options of encryption applications that are on the market. The word simplicity characterizes this application, because its developers tried and succeeded to make it so user-friendly and intuitive that everybody could use it.

Once installed, it will ask for a master password which will be used from now on to access your favorite data. The application has two main features: Encrypt and Lock, which are useful for power users and also for casual ones. While the encryption solution is more secure, the lock solution is quicker, so that all depends of the users and what they really want.

Security is very important for this program so that your personal files will be encrypted with a 256-bit AES Encryption. This algorithm is one of the best solutions used nowadays for protection because it offers maximum security.

Folder Lock also offers portability so that lockers can even be burn on a CD or copied on a USB stick. Lockers can be emailed as attachments and the person who you are sending them will not be able to open them without your password. If you want your files to be untouchable, you can choose the option “Locked & Hidden” which will not allow to rename, delete, move or to access those files without a password.

Two interesting options of this program are Auto Protect and Auto Shutdown. These permits you to set a number of five incorrect password tries until the program will lock or shut down for preventing unauthorized access.

The good thing is that Folder Lock is also available for iPhone and iPad for $3.99 while the Windows application costs $39.95. It’s a big price, but developers have included a free 5-days trial (or 24 opens). Moreover, there’s a dedicated section on the website that shows you how to use the program.

AxCrypt

Another application you should take a look at is AxCrypt because it is a free program that offers password protection and strong encryption features. The nice thing of it is that it is integrated with Windows so that when you want to encrypt a file, just right-click and select “Encrypton” under AxCrypt sub-menu.

Also, for AxCrypt the security is very important because it offers a 128-bit AES Encryption which will protect all data and use unique data encryption keys for every file. In addition, when you modify a file or a folder, it will re-encrypt by itself saving a lot of time.

© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2013. 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 |

The post How to Password Protect & Encrypt Files [Mac/Windows] appeared first on Technology Personalized.

Usually, that USB limit is not so friendly. Even though conventional desktop PCs come with a sufficient number of ports for a casual user, in most cases ranging from four to six, laptops or notebooks seem to have clear disadvantages. In order to preserve space so that the end product becomes smaller and more portable, some manufacturers have come up with the brilliant idea of reducing the USB ports number to three or, in some cases, just two. My HP, for example, only has three.

Adding more USB power

Considering some usual cases, when you have to add an external mouse and a cooling stand to a laptop, that leaves only one USB slot remaining for a phone or possibly an additional keyboard. Now, if you were to plug a stick to transfer a movie, something already connected must be pulled out. That’s not so user-friendly. Fortunately, you have the possibility of adding additional USB ports, through several methods:

USB Hubs

Also known as splitters, an USB hub is a device capable of creating new slots (usually four, or six) by just taking the space of one. It’s a simple device with no computational power of its own that gathers the signal from multiple units and transmits them towards the computer using a single port. They go from $9 to $100 on Amazon, depending on form and builder.

Although an USB hub brings solid flexibility options, there are some downsides of the system. First of all, a single USB slot can deliver a certain amount of power. When a splitter is used, this power is entirely transmitted to the external device and then split amongst all given slots. So, if you were to charge four smartphones directly from a hub, they would actually charge four times slower. To avoid this from happening you can opt for a powered USB hub, which comes with an AC charger. They are usually pricier but also more stable.

Another recommendation is to avoid chaining two or more USB hubs, pretty much from the same reason described above. If you made up your mind, here’s a short list of our best options:

• Belkin High Speed 7 – $28.75
• Trip Lite U222-007 – $27.16
• Belkin USB 4 Ultra-Mini – $9.02
• Satechi 12 Port -$27.99 
• Anker USB 3.0 – $30

USB Expansion cards

The second variant unfortunately works just for desktop stations and it’s a more reliable option, as well as space-effective one. Through an USB expansion card, users can usually add five or more ports by fitting the board in a free PCI slot on the computer’s motherboard. Besides, by purchasing an evolved USB expansion card filled with USB 3.0 slots users can also enjoy higher transfer speeds.

The price for such a unit ranges from $15 to $40, depending on the manufacturer chosen:

• Anker Uspeed Superspeed 3.0 with 4 ports – $20 
• StarTech 7 port – $14.65
• IOGEAR 5-Port – $15
• Renesas SuperSpeed 3.0 with 2 ports – $20

Check for any spares

A lot of mainboards come with spare USB connections that are not revealed on the outside. Simply open the protective case and see if there’s any out there. If so, use an USB-to-USB extension cord ($4 on Amazon) to bring the port outside of the box.

© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2013. 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 |

The post How to Add more USB Ports to Your Computer appeared first on Technology Personalized.

Google was launched thirteen years ago and since then a lot of different techniques and features were implemented by its developers. Unfortunately, not many people know that Google can interpret a wide range of searching tricks to improve results and that there’s more to searching than simply inserting words.

How can you search Google better?

There is a wide range of things you can do with Google and with our help, you will be able to use them and improve every search. The following search tips can be applied for every instance of the famous search engine, meaning every country and every language.
In the beginning, I want to point some different facts that are important to be known before you go Googling:

• Punctuation doesn’t matter.
• Uppercase and lowercase letters are the same for Google.
• The limit is set to ten words and everything after that is truncated and ignored.
• Word order matters to Google.
• Small words such as “the”, “and”, “or”, etc. will be ignored unless they are specific operators and, capitalized.

Operators and distinguishers

If you are looking for certain content on internet you should use the quotation marks “ “ for better and more exact results. For example, instead of just writing experience miraculous Sri Lanka which will provide all results containing those words, put the whole construction between quotation marks into Google’s search box and it will show only the ones that contain that full sentence.

Google also has the ability to search for a particular phrase on a specific site. Say you want to buy a new car of a special brand on a specific site which hasn’t got a built-in search service. Just type site:nameofthesite.com in the search field and Google will do the job for you; for example:

If you want to add a word in the search box and to find websites which include similar words or synonyms for it, you only need to add the tilde operator ~ in front of that particular word. For example:

• “installing thermostats” ~professional

If you are not sure about the information you are looking for, you can use the OR operator between two keywords. Google will show results that have either the first keyword or the second one, whereas if you will omit OR it will show results containing both keywords. Try searching la galaxy league winners 2011 or 2002 with the operator and without it to see the differences. This trick also applies for the AND operator, telling Google that the terms on either side of AND should be included in search results.

Searching for a certain document of a particular file type? Google can easily find results that are of a specific type; just use the filetype feature after the name of your query (for example: “World War II” filetype:ppt) and it will provide the expected results.

We all know that some results are better than other so when you are trying to find an authority page, which receives a lot of links for a certain term, use the allinanchor parameter, followed by your keyword. This will find sources regularly linked with that keyword. Moreover, the allintitle operator will filter results only to sites that have your keyword in the title.

This is a very useful tip because it helps you limit the results to a particular number range. It can be used for ranging years, prices and everything else. All you have to do is use the A..B modifier after your query, like in this example (between A and B are only two points). The A and B limitations can also be used for time ranges, allowing people to search for certain terms between two periods. A simple example could be:

• Manchester United 2012..2013

You don’t know what a word means and you have to search it? Type it directly into Google search box after the define: command and it will show its definition automatically on the result page.

If you want to exclude results that contain particular words, just write the minus sign after your query and the word you want to be excluded. For example, if you want to search particular content about travel to Greece and you are not interested in what the tourist agencies are saying, type into the search box: “travel to Greece”-agency.

The Wildcard is another interesting Google operator which was visually interpreted as the asterisks symbol. Using it in any types of query, Google will automatically replace the wildcard with any other word, or phrase. This can help users search for ambiguous terms and reveal exactly what they want. A simple example could be:

• “weight * diets”

Google’s smart functions

Search weather followed by any city in the world or even directly by the US zip code to get information about weather conditions. It will show a detailed weather report, information about precipitations and the forecast for the next days.

If you are called on your mobile and you don’t know the person who is calling, you can try the phonebook feature from Google. Type into the search bar phonebook and after it the number, like this:

• Phonebook: 000-555-1111

Next time when you are browsing and you have to do a quick calculation, don’t open the Windows application. Use Google instead, because it’s able to do complex operations directly into the search field.

If you need to look-up an area code for a phone number that you don’t recognize, just type the 3-digit code from the beginning of the number and Google will directly show the result. For example, if you have the number 320-111-8888 you will only have to type into the search box the 320 code as shown into the picture.

It’s very simple to convert units using Google. Just type the number and the unit of measurement, for instance: A [units] in [units], and the calculator feature will automatically do the conversion. It also works with the currency, so enter A [currency 1] in [currency 2] into the search bar and Google will convert it at the daily rate.

To check the time anywhere in the world, search time followed by any country or city you want.  You can also track shipping packages by typing the tracking number directly into Google’s search box and the status of shipment will be shown in results page. Note that it only works with FedEx, UPS and USPS tracking numbers.

Say that you are looking for a good restaurant in a certain area of the city; type the zip code at the end of any query and Google will show location-specific results (these queries may also include certain products, such as “Italian food”, “red wine”, “hotdogs”, etc.). Also, Google will show a map, phone numbers and reviews about all the places found. If it’s not added, the search engine will automatically calculate your location and show results that are nearby.

Public information can also be extracted by searching the name of a certain city or country. Google will intelligently display important information in the right-hand side of the screen, such as the population, minimum wage, important cities and other stuff like that.

To find out at which time the sun rises or sets use Google’s features. You will only have to type the words sunrise and sunset followed by the city you are searching for and Google will show the exact time in your results.

To see timetables of movies that are running in your city, just type movie and the name of the city and Google will show directly the best options. In addition, it shows trailers via YouTube which can be accessed with only a tap of a button.

With Google it’s possible to search flight schedules and prices from a particular airport or city. Type flights to or flights from followed by the desired destination to show all flights that are coming to or leaving that point. Also, you can add another destination with to, like this: flights from London to Barcelona.

To search information about a common disease, symptom or even a generic medicine, just enter its name in the search box and Google will provide expert summary and description in the left-hand side of the screen. For medication it will also show side effects, dosage and important data which is delivered by the National Institute of Health. In both cases, you can click through to read a more detailed article about it.

Are you eager to know what your favorite team did last night or which is the next match? Type its name in the Google search bar and information provided by STATS, Inc. will automatically appear. You will receive the most recent result, a schedule for next matches, the team’s logo and essential information about the crew.

This is useful for every stock exchange player that wants real time information about his quotes. Google needs only the ticker symbol (a unique code assigned for each company) and it will show current listing for stocks. Furthermore, for a detailed analysis, Google offers the possibility to go to the Finances section with only one click of a button. The same applies for the stocks: operator, followed by the company’s name:

• stocks: Apple

Advanced Searching Class

Whenever operators and other tricks seem to be a bit unfriendly to remember and to use, Google has a “Search tools” menu implemented in every results page. As it can be seen from the image above, after pressing this button three important sub-menus appear. Here are their specific use and functions:

• Search the web - from this tab users can choose what type of sites can appear in search results. The default option will include all languages, while pressing the drop-down arrow will display an option for recently used languages (usually it’s English and your native language). By choosing the secondary, results will be filtered to sites that provide content only in those specific languages. 
• Any time – this second menu gives a simple mechanism that can change the time range of results shown. Users can choose to filter results and only show sources written or updated in the last hour, day, week, month, year or, include a custom range.
• All results – the last menu targets can filter results based on various criteria. For instance, users can choose to show only sources that have images included, the reading level desired or only articles from sites already visited. Each of these sub-menus can narrow down the search so it’s worth giving them a shot.

Another trick that is worth using is the Cached menu. This works extremely well for when a website is down or has been intentionally deleted, because it shows a copy of the website saved in Google’s cache. With Google supplying the snapshot directly, this can also be used when the user has a slow internet connection and cannot load the desired source. Unfortunately, cached pages are downloaded by Google at random moments so the original information may have changed in time. To activate a cache version of any certain page, just press the down arrow near the website name, like in the picture above.

Searching Images

Searching images can be easily done with Google. As with the regular search option, the Image section comes with a wide range of options and of course, the Search tools menu. From here, you can choose the resolution of displayed results from the Size menu. They can either be large, medium, small, icon or an exact choice.

Right next to the Size option there is a Color section, that allows users to filter results after certain coloring schemes. For instance, you can easily choose to obtain black and white images or go for full transparency.

From the file type section users can choose to find faces, pictures, line drawings, clip arts or animated pictures of their query.

By far the best trick Google Image is capable of pulling is to actually search relevant images, by any given source. For instance, you can manually drag and drop a picture into the search bar and the engine will find related results.

Searching Videos

The classic Video searching engine still exists in Google, even though YouTube has replaced it in the casual search bar. To access Video searches just navigate to http://www.google.com/videohp and use the regular Search Tools menu to tweak results after your liking. As usual, you can manually pick the duration of the clip, its source, quality and other stuff like that.

Another interesting thing would be to search videos directly on YouTube, the primary resource for plenty users. Searching here can sometimes be tricky, because there are tons of spammers trying to get the first hit on an important keyword. The first thing that can filter results is the actual Filter menu, situated right under your keyword. By pressing that button you will gain access to four important sorting options:

• Relevancy – matches results that have a relevant title / description to your query. This is the default option in YouTube, and usually the best.
• Upload date – can find the most recent videos, especially useful if you are looking for sports highlights.
• View count – can be used to display the most viewed videos at the top.
• Rating – a tricky little parameter, than can offer mixed results. Usually, awful videos receive many dislikes but depending on your query, it may become less relevant.

There is more to searching videos on YouTube than these obvious options. For instance, just like in the regular Google search box, YouTube allows the use of quotes to force an exact match.

Using the plus sign between two or more terms will make sure that results will absolutely contain those words. As you may have already experience, YouTube has the habit of dropping certain words if the result is not so relevant. Moreover, by adding the intitle: operator at the end of a query (followed by a keyword of course) will force YouTube to show results that contain that word in the title.

© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2013. 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 |

The post Search on Google Like a Pro: Collection of Best Tips & Tricks appeared first on Technology Personalized.

So at last, it all comes down to this: how secure is your internet browser? What kind of hidden things it shares? As much as we love to use free services, is there any dark side of this coin we are not aware of? How can we use some little unknown services to prevent ourselves from these brutal hacks? And, what changes you could make to strengthen the security of your browser?

Stop websites from tracking you

There is an old saying, “If you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product, not the customer.” In one of my old posts I wrote about the little prices you have to pay to use free services such as Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. The advertising in recent years has come to be very targeted and personalized. One of the things that enables them achieve this sits silently under your browser and is called a cookie. Cookies track your web activity – records the kind of sites you visit, the kind of products you buy, thanks to laptop and portable mobile devices, they can even track the places you go. While it has its own benefit – getting relevant advertisement, just the idea of anyone knowing so much about you is scary.

If you are among those people who don’t like being watched, the good news is we have lots of services to avert this. Let’s start things with your browser settings. Almost every popular browser features “Do Not Track “, an option to prevent the tracking. Chrome users can go to the settings (through the hot dog bar). Now one of the easiest way to bring all relevant results is by searching for “Do not” in the search box, locate “Send a ‘Do Not Track’ request with your browsing traffic” and make sure it is ticked. You can also disable many other features, but this much is enough.

Firefox users need to go to the settings (options), and under the Privacy tab, click on the radio button which says “Do not tell sites anything about my tracking preferences.”

Alternatively you could also try its extension Do Not Track Me , or use Ghostery, an extension that does that same job. Disconnect me takes it to a whole new level by saving your bandwidth data in the process. We have previously written about how you can enable do not track on any browser.

Remove Flash Cookies

Cookies, as you know, store your information, Flash cookies are no different. To set restrictions on it, visit its settings page, navigate  to the left most tab named “Global Storage Settings”, under that, untick ‘Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer‘. You can also check on other tabs to see how it integrates with other components of your system.

Enable 2-step authentication in your Gmail

This feature strengthens your account security by, as the name suggests, getting two factors, one the password, and the other is need to receiving a message on your mobile device to get access to your account. So suppose, even if some vicious mind figured your password, they will still be requiring physical access to your mobile device as Google sends you code without which you can’t access your account. To enable 2-step authentication in your account, go to the Account Settings from your Gmail account (or simply, head to this link.

Under 2-Step verification pane, click on Settings, and Getting Started in the page that follows. Google now will ask you to enter your phone number, and you will have to verify it by entering the code that you just received from Google as a text (or call) on your mobile device. Recently DropBox too added 2-Step authentication.

Get notifications from Facebook

Facebook is the home of notifications, but not all the notifications are important, or so to speak, require your attention right at the moment. But notifications about someone else trying to access your account are very essential. With social network hack becoming so mainstream recently, Facebook has rolled out this new feature where they send you a text message and email or both, whenever there is an unusual activity in your account.

To enable this feature, go to the ‘Account Settings’ and go to the Security tab. Click on the Notification key and tick your mobile or email or both depending where you want the notifications to arrive.

Stop Chrome extensions from knowing too much

If you use many extensions in your Chrome browser, you may want to know the kind of things your extensions are sharing with the world. For this go to the settings, and click on “Extensions” tab. Or, Just hit chrome://extensions/ in the address bar. If you are using the most recent version of Chrome you will need to click on each individual extensions, and there you will find the instructions to disable it. However, if you are using an older version of Chrome, click on permission or if required, disable the extension itself.

Another interesting way to opt out of these web tracking technologies would be to use any proxy tools. Using such tools will change your geographic location, IP address and many other basic information that comes along with it. This makes a deceptive image of yours, filling up all wrong, still encrypted information. Here is our guide on how to surf internet anonymously without being tracked.

Because your online life is just as permanent as a tattoo

In his TED Talk “Your online life, permanent as a tattoo” Juan Enriquez made some sparkling analogy of physical body tattoos with our life at virtual world. He says, the day has arrived when you can retrieve all the information about anyone without their consent. Take their picture, and services like Face.com will help you gather all their information.

The things we share on the internet, all the data we produce and the other data we are part of, will live longer than our bodies. Once you post something on the interwebs, it could be used again and again for or against you and it may end up defining you. It is high time you realize how important your privacy is.

© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2013. 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 |

The post Strengthen your Online Privacy: 5 Important Things to do appeared first on Technology Personalized.

There are two types of software: the first one is made up by specially designed applications for syncing different devices while the second, cloud services, has an ampler scope but can also be used for our purpose. The main difference between these two solutions is that with a cloud you will also have a backup copy kept online. On the other hand, those choosing the cloud solution will probably have to buy a premium account if they have a lot of files that need to be transferred.

Syncing files between computers

Today we will present some titles from each category, while showing how to tweak important settings of each. At the end of the day, you should be able to use these applications to synchronize your favorite files between two or more devices.

SyncToy

SyncToy is a free PowerToy application from Microsoft that synchronizes files between computers connected to the same network. It is compatible with all versions of the Windows platform but unfortunately, it doesn’t offer support for Mac OS. The application is highly customizable, easy to use and helps users to do most processes in just a few steps, including copying, moving, and synchronization.

Here’s how to benefit from these features:

1. Download SyncToy from the official Microsoft site.
2. Click on “Create New Folder Pair” button.
3. Now choose the path of the “left folder” and the “right folder”. The left folder represents the path to the folder that you want to be synchronized, while the right folder represents the path to the folder on the target machine.
4. A new screen will appear, offering three possible actions: Synchronize, Echo, Contribute. The last two only copy the new and updated files from the left folder to the right folder and, as a plus, Echo will also clone every delete actions from left to right. In our case, we will choose the “Synchronize” action.
5. Now, type a name for the synced folders and click “Finish”.
6. Lastly, click on “Run” to begin the synchronization.

Each time you want to synchronize files you will either have to push the “Run” button or to schedule an automatic task via Microsoft’s Task Scheduler. A very nice feature of this little program is that it has the capability of showing all the files that were involved in the synchronization process with a simple push of the “Preview” button.

FreeFileSync

FreeFileSync is a basic and simple to use application for syncing all types of files. The app comes with a folder comparison and synchronization tool that will do the entire job, as soon as the user completes these following steps:

1. Download FreeFileSync from here.
2. Open the application and a folder you want to clone information from and its destination.
3. Now, “Compare” the files and select synchronization settings, after your liking.
4. After that, press the “Synchronize” button.

The “Compare” and “Synchronize” buttons pretty much speak for themselves and the whole process of comparing and syncing is very quick. Some other interesting features of FreeFileSync include detecting moved and renamed files and folders, cross-platform compatibility between Windows and Linux, processing multiple folder pairs and case sensitive synchronization.

BitTorrent Sync

BitTorrent Sync is a free tool from the creators of the well-known torrent client, which allows syncing files easily and securely between computers using the peer-to-peer protocol. The advantage of this application is that none of your files are going to cloud, but directly to the other computer. Note that both computers must be connected to internet so that the syncing operation can be done.

A big disadvantage is that the whole operation is seen as torrenting, so it could be blocked by certain internet providers or local firewalls. Here’s how to configure the software:

1. First of all, download BitTorrent Sync from here.
2. When you start the application for the first time you have to choose the location for the synced folder and BitTorrent gives you a “secret” number. This code will be used further on the other computer to link the two synced folders.
3. Once all details are introduced, the syncing process will automatically begin.

GoodSync

GoodSync has innovative syncing algorithms that allow the program to sync files between computers, USB drives, FTP servers and different online data storage. The GoodSync Connect feature allows to directly connect two different computers in a peer to peer style, without using intermediates.

This application has a lot of features and many settings that can be automated, such as syncing files between different computers based on a schedule. Other interesting things are that the transfer is is encrypted and that uploads and downloads can be resumed from any point. The free version has a limited amount of available features, but the Pro version has them all and it costs $29.95. For our today’s purpose, we’re going to show how to synchronize two computers with GoodSync:

1. Download and install the standalone client from here.
2. Select the “Yes, connect my computers using GoodSync Connect”.
3. After that, log in with your existing account or simply create one if you don’t have. Note that it is very important to remember your username and password because they will be required on the other side, when syncing.
4. Select New under Job menu to choose the folder.
5. After doing so, name the job and select the job type: Synchyronize.
6. Choose the directories you want to share and click on “Analyze” to see the files. Next, just press the “Sync” button.
7. From the other computer, just install the program and choose the same option from the second step and enter the password for your Windows account.

On the local network

Nowadays, it’s very common to have more than one computer in a home, so transferring files between them becomes essential. Sharing a folder is a simple process, but not everybody knows how to do it. That’s why, we’re going to show you how to properly share a folder on Windows:

1. Go to the desired folder and right click on it. This can be any video found on the local computer.
2. Choose “Share with…” and select to share it with “Specific People“.
3. Now using the drop-down arrow, choose a specific user or, everyone. Practically, the second choice permits access to shared files to everybody connected to the network.
4. Finally click on “Share” and wait until the process ends.
5. To access the newly shared folder from other places in the workgroup, just search your computer’s name in the Network section and the files will be at your disposal.

Dropbox

Moving onto the cloud section, we begin with Dropbox, which is a famous cloud based service that lets users access digital files (photos, docs, videos) from anywhere on the planet. It’s a free-to-use service that also comes with synchronization capabilities. Here’s how to configure the client:

1. First of all, you will have to download the Dropbox application from here.
2. Secondly, if you don’t already have an account you will be able to create one in the provided software. Regardless of how many devices you have, a single account is needed.
3. Once the application is installed, a new folder will appear on your hard drive called “Dropbox”. Now, you will just have to copy or drag and drop the files that you want to be synchronized.
4. To have access on other computers, just download the program on those too and your Dropbox folder will automatically sync. Dropbox can also be used offline because it works in the background and will automatically sync any new changes when internet access is once again active.

Another interesting feature of Dropbox is that it can sync even mobile phones. So, if you also want Dropbox on your phone, you can download it on Android or iOS. When it comes to other cloud services, installation steps remain pretty much the same: download the main application, move the files inside the newly created folder and then let the software sync automatically. Here are some interesting alternatives, if you want more:

Google Drive

Google Drive is the search engine giant’s own cloud built on the former Docs service that offers free storage for all Gmail users. It comes with special applications for most desktop platforms (Windows, Mac, Chrome OS) and for some mobile platforms (Android and iOS) – which can be download from here.

The most interesting feature of Drive allows simultaneous collaboration on a project, instant messaging between collaborators and a “time machine”, that permits the user to keep, view and revise multiple versions of the same file. Free accounts get 5 GB of cloud storage and even more, if you pay. More details here.

Box

Box is an online storage service that deserves proper consideration. It’s exclusively online and can be used for creating and editing documents directly in the browser. It has a desktop application which can be used only to sync files. All files contained by the sync folder will become accessible to every computer with the app installed. Synchronization can also be done directly from the web browser.

Box is great when it comes to compatibility, having dedicated apps for Windows or Mac computers, and Android, Blackberry, iOS and Windows Phone.

Yet another good alternative is Space Monkey, as the KickStarter project has already been properly founded. We’ve taken a look upon its concept two weeks ago, but to sum it up in a few words, it gives users 1TB of online storage space for free. Of course, the same syncing methods apply.

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