Technically Personal! » Tutorial

Download Video Files From MegaVideo

Raju — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:15:27 +0000

Megavideo is undoubtedly one of the most popular video sharing websites on the web currently. You find that most of the episodes of popular TV shows, documentaries and movies are uploaded on Megavideo. Sometime back we had seen different Megavideo Hacks which allowed users to bypass the 72 minutes restriction (which is 51 minutes now) set by Megavideo.

Though Megavideo has Download option, it isn’t Free. Only premium users who pay for the service are entitled to download the video files from Megavideo. Luckily, I came across a slick utility which lets me download video files for episodes of my favorite TV shows and loads of films on Megavideo right onto my PC for free!

How to Download video files from Megavideo?

1. Check out the list of websites which allows you to Watch TV on PC for Free. You can also browse through these Free episodes of TV shows and select the TV series you like.

2. Most of the websites will contain links to the episodes shared on Megavideo. It can be any other video sharing site as well, but don’t worry, the same method works there as well.

3. When you’ve found a good link to the video you want, click on it.

4. When the video has started to stream look for “//” on the bottom of the media player and click on it. That will provide you with the URL of the video.

5. Copy the URL. Then go to ClipNabber. Now, paste the URL into the box as shown and click ‘Nab It’.

6. For Megavideo, there is an additional step. You would need to paste the video page’s source code onto the box as shown in the screenshot below. To find the source code, simply go to the video’s page. Right-click outside of the video player and select the option to view the page’s code.

7. Select all of the code and paste it into ClipNabber. Then click ‘Nab It’ again. This will bring up a download link. Click on that to download the video.

8. Once downloaded, you will have a .FLV file which can be played on media players like VLC and Real player.

That’s it!! Enjoy!

Related posts:

© Raju PP for Technically Personal!, 2009. 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 |

Download and Install Windows 7 XP Mode + Usage Guide

Raju — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:30:03 +0000

Windows 7 Launch is just around the corner with less than 2 days left and I am sure many of us are raring to upgrade your OS to Windows 7 very soon. Also, some of us are little skeptical of making a move right now since it is not clear if all the software they have installed on Windows XP or Windows Vista are compatible with Windows 7 as well.

Not to worry, with the release of Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate editions, Microsoft is including a little utility called XP Mode. XP Mode is a virtual machine running Windows XP on Windows 7. Microsoft is giving us XP mode (XPM) as a means to having a fully modern computing environment (via Windows 7) without having to sacrifice legacy support (of Windows XP). Below is a simple usage guide to get started with XP mode.

XP Mode on Windows 7 – Usage Guide

1. Enable Hardware Virtualization

First thing you need to do is, check if your CPU has hardware virtualization support enabled. This is a MUST HAVE for XP Mode to be enabled. To check if your CPU is supported, Intel and AMD both offer utilities to identify your CPU and what features it offers. If your CPU supports virtualization, this feature needs to be enabled in the BIOS.

Check if your Intel processor has hardware virtualization support enabled
Check if your AMD processor has hardware virtualization support enabled

2. Download and Install Windows Virtual PC and XP Mode

Download Windows Virtual PC and XP Mode from Microsoft

Note that XP Mode is a 472Mb file. So make sure you have enough space for installable and the software itself.

Install ~~Virtual PC first and then the XP Mode~~XP mode first and then the Virtual PC. Both installations are straightforward.
Launch the XP Mode. Supply a password for local XP Mode user that XP Mode automatically creates on the virtual machine.

Turn ON or OFF the automatic updates option

When installation is complete XP Mode will launch in Desktop Mode. This is where you will have complete access to the XP environment. It is a completely separate desktop environment from your Windows 7 installation. Both Windows 7 and Windows XP will share a common clipboard and nothing else. This means you cannot drag and drop files/folders from one environment to another. Instead, you can share a USB device between the environments.

3. Seamless Mode

Seamless Mode lets you launch XP apps straight from your Windows 7 menus. In order to use Seamless Mode, install an app under Desktop Mode and then log out and close the virtual machine. The new app you just installed can now be found under Start Menu items of Windows 7 under All Programs –> Windows Virtual PC –> Windows XP Mode Applications.

When the app is launched from Windows 7, XP launches in the background and it appears as if the app is running natively on Windows 7 itself.

It is important to note that XP mode is resource intensive. Running a virtual OS on top of your real OS takes up lots of CPU cycles and memory. Running on a 8GB of RAM, it works with great aplomb. Even 4GB RAM is Manageable. However, running with 1GB of RAM will prove to be somewhat frustrating.

Let me know if you have any doubts or if you have some tips regarding XP Mode.

Related posts:

[How to] Turn Your Old PC Into a Media Server

Raju — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:17:41 +0000

This is a Guest post by Uttoran Sen

Considering the fact that it’s the 21st century and you more than likely haven’t been living in a cave for the past few years, you’ve more than likely stockpiled and amassed a huge variety of digital media that stays stuck on your desktop PC. But at one point or another you wish it was just a little easier to get the files that are stuck on that computer over to your wife’s laptop or your son’s gaming machine. Well today we’re going to take a look at a very cool trick that lets you configure an old computer lying around the house (I’m sure you have one!) into a media server that helps everyone in the house have access to the same files.

Get an old computer: Now, don’t go and buy something ancient! You’ll probably want something fairly new that can handle the load of a normal computer. So, assuming you already have a computer lying around the house that isn’t more than a few years old, you’re good to go.
Load up on hard drives: Whether or not you use an old laptop or desktop is entirely up to you. In my opinion, if you use a desktop computer for the task, it’s a lot easier to manage. But a laptop is just as effective in performing the task. Because you probably have a lot of DVDs and music backed up on your computer, you’ll want to have lots of space on your media server machine. Terabyte drives are dirt cheap these days and you can easily pick one or two of them up to store all of that digital content.
Operating system: The next step is to make a decision as to what type of operating system you want to run on your machine. The two most popular options are either Windows XP or some version of Linux. If you decide to go with Linux, you may have to do some background reading to familiarize yourself with it. So for ease of use, we’ll stick with XP.
Get your media: We’re just going to assume that you have a large pile of media already ripped and configured just the way you like it on your personal computer. How do you get it transferred over to the new machine? Easy. On the new server you’ve just set up you’ll want to go into Start>My Computer>Right Click on My Computer> Properties> Computer Name Tab> Workgroup. Whatever workgroup the server is in is what workgroup you need to change all of the other computers in the house to. It’s as simple as going into the same tab on your other machines and typing in the new workgroup name. It will prompt you to restart.
Share the folder: So, now you’re in the same workgroup. The last step is to set up a share folder on the server. The best way to do it is to just find some empty space on the desktop and create a folder called “Share.” Right click on the folder and go to properties. Choose the sharing tab and check the box entitled “Share this folder on the network.” Do another quick restart and you’re almost there.
On the other machines in the house, go to Start>My Network Places and wait for the list to load. A folder called “Share” should pop up. Now all you have to do is drag and drop any existing media you have into that folder and it will automatically copy itself over to your new server.

Congratulations, your media is now accessible to everyone!

This is a guest post by Uttoran Sen. Uttoran is a full time professional blogger and you can follow him on Twitter as well. You can also share your tips by writing a guest article on TechPP.

Related posts:

5 Hacks to Bypass Megavideo 72 minutes Limitation

Raju — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:15:22 +0000

Megavideo is one of the most popular video sharing websites on the web currently. The basic service is free but comes with a catch. If you watch video for more than 72 minutes, you will be shown this message -

You have watched 72 minutes of video today. Please wait 54 minutes or Click here to enjoy unlimited use of Megavideo

ARGH! How can you watch an episode of anything or a movie when this annoying popup keeps appearing? Below are few ways to bypass megavideo 72 minutes limitation

Megavideo Hack 1

Step 1: Click PLAY button of Megavideo episode, click PAUSE and wait for the video to buffer to 100%.
Step 2: After the video is done buffering, go to your menu bar on your browser, and click on File > Work Offline.
Step 3: Watch the episode.
Step 4: Unclick the “Work Offline” button and do the same with other episodes.

Megavideo Hack 2 – Download Megavideo Videos

In both IE and Firefox, videos are stored in Temporary Internet Files Folder and so you can hack from there by copying the file and renaming the extension to FLV. Load up the video so its 100% buffered. In Internet Explorer click Tools –> Settings (under the “Browsing History”) then “View Files“. Sort the folder by file size. Your video should be the largest file in that folder and named something like “73efd837a90c290b80aa0f55b82455j8″. Copy and Paste the file onto the desktop and rename the file extension to .flv. You can now watch it on your FLV player or in VLC.

Megavideo Hack 3

Simply add +++ at the end of the megavideo url and type enter. Many users have complained that this hack doesn’t work always. So use it with discretion.

Megavideo Hack 4

If you have dynamic IP, block all cookies from Megavideo and disconnect your modem from your line and reconnect it!

Megavideo Hack 5

Use any of the Free VPN services and follow the below steps -

Step 1: Before video start: Right click > settings > local storage > set to: 0
Step 2: Clear browser’s cookies
Step 3: Run VPN > click disconnect & connect to get a new ip
Step 4: If still not working, restart your computer then run the Free VPN.

Enjoy watching unlimited online TV episodes and movies on Megavideo!

Related posts:

Download Yahoo Messenger 10 Beta [with Direct Download Link]

Raju — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:48:13 +0000

Yahoo Messenger 10 alpha has been spotted in the wild for a few months and now, Yahoo! finally decided to release the Beta version for public use and it comes with a lot of new and exciting features.

Video Calls – New high-quality video calling enables full-screen, face-to-face chats at no cost, using the familiar and easy-to-use Yahoo! Messenger environment.
Updates Tab – A new tab helps people easily discover Updates from friends and family, including status updates, recent Flickr uploads, Yahoo! Buzz stories, Twitter updates and more.
New Yahoo! Insider – Now customizable by zip code, this re-designed welcome window provides Messenger users with easy access to localized news and weather, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Buzz and Yahoo! Search.
Language Selector – Yahoo! Messenger now lets people choose from more than 16 languages without having to download a different version.
Improved iPhone App – People can now receive messages from Yahoo! Messenger contacts even when they are using a different app on their iPhone.

Messenger is also more getting social as we roll out new features to help you stay in closer contact with friends and family. A new “Updates” tab gives you a quick glimpse of what your contacts are up to – including status updates, Flickr uploads, Yahoo! Buzz stories, Tweets and more.

Download Yahoo Messenger 10 Beta

With this beta release, Yahoo! is expecting back some feedback on Yahoo! Messenger 10. Try this out and let Yahoo! know what you think of it. You can download ! Messenger 10 from here-

Download Yahoo! Messenger 10 Beta

Download Yahoo Messenger 10 beta – Direct Download link

Here is the direct download link for Yahoo messenger 10 beta from the official Yahoo website

Download Yahoo Messenger 10 beta – Direct Download

Related posts:

[How to] Use Windows 7 Free for 4 Months?

Raju — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 12:03:12 +0000

With the release date of Microsoft Windows 7 just around the corner (October 22nd 2009), it has now emerged that the promised 30-day trial period during which users can run the OS without paying for it can easily be stretched to a full four months.

Typing in some simple commands is all it takes to extend the trial period in order to make Windows 7 Free for 4 months. What this command does is that, it resets the timer back to zero when executed and this can be done 3 times, which effectively means 4 full months of free trial period of Windows 7. Interesting thing is that this trick works for all versions of Windows 7 – Basic to Ultimate versions.

Even though the initial reviews of this popular Windows OS has been quite positive, some surveys carried out a couple of months back showed that the companies across the world are NOT planning to upgrade their systems to Windows 7 till the end of 2010. So, this trick of extending the trial period by 3 more months would mean adding salt to the wound of Microsoft.

How to use Windows 7 Free for 4 months?

Microsoft allows anyone to install and use any version of Windows 7 for 30 days without having to enter an activation key. There are no strings attached, and the operating system’s performance is not degraded or defaced during the trial. This trial can be extended for 4 months by using a Microsoft-supplied utility called the Software License Manager (slmgr). This tool conveniently ships with Windows 7.

To see how many days you have left, click Start, right-click Computer, and choose Properties. At the bottom of the dialog under Windows Activation, you’ll see the number of days left in your trial period.

When that number gets perilously close to zero, you can extend the free period another 30 days via the following steps:

Step 1: Click Start, All Programs, Accessories. Right-click Command Prompt and choose Run As Administrator. Enter your administrator password.

Step 2: Type the following command and press Enter:

slmgr -rearm

[Note the space after slmgr and the hyphen in front of rearm.]

Step 3: Restart Windows 7

Once the OS restarts, the Properties dialog described above will indicate that Windows 7’s activation grace period has been reset to a full 30 days. You can run the -rearm trick a total of three times. If you perform a -rearm at the end of each 30-day period, you end up with 120 days of full, unfettered Windows 7 use without having to supply an activation key in the interim.

Microsoft is aware of this bug as it was present even in Windows Vista, and they say thay are pretty cool with it. So, there are no legal implications as such in using this trick to extend your trial period.

Related posts:

How to “Upgrade” Windows XP to Windows 7? All the Info you Need!

Raju — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:56:03 +0000

Back in Feb 2009, I had warned about upgrading to Windows 7 from Windows XP. This was because, initially Microsoft had not explicitly mentioned about inability of “upgrading” Windows XP to Windows 7. Later, they released a statement saying Windows XP users need to do a clean install which would effectively mean all the data, settings, software installed would be lost during the process.

Not to worry anymore! Just a few days after announcing Free Windows 7 RTM for all TechNet beta testers, another good news flowing in the form of ability to upgrade (or rather MIGRATE) from Windows XP to Windows 7.

Migrate XP to Windows 7 with Easy Transfer Over the Network

Below are some resources which give a step-by-step guide on using Microsoft’s Windows Easy Transfer program to help you transfer your files and settings from Windows XP to Windows 7.

Mind you!! All of them basically explain the same method, but in their own ways. Please note that this process will not back up applications installed on XP to Windows 7. You will need to install all your applications again on Windows 7.

Related posts:

What is Google Wave?

Raju — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:38:34 +0000

It’s almost 2 months since Google announced the launch of Google Wave. But many of us are still not aware about the capabilities of Google Wave. Why everyone in tech world is so much excited about it? Is it something which is path-breaking? Is it something which will change the way Internet works today? So, what exactly is Google Wave?

What is Google Wave?

Google Wave is a new in-browser communication and collaboration tool that is already being hailed by some as the next evolution of email. So basically, Google Wave is a real-time communication platform. t combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking, and project management to build one elegant, in-browser communication client. You can bring a group of friends or business partners together to discuss how your day has been or share files.

Google Wave is supposed to replace traditional email systems and improve them by using more interactive, live, on-the-fly methods to deliver information. Traditional emails work on a basis of typing a message, potentially styling the message, and hitting “send” and off it goes to the recipient. Traditional instant messaging systems work by typing a message, hitting enter and automatically sending to the recipient for instant delivery. Wave offers a hybrid of the two. If both people are logged on, they can open a conversation (called a wave) and send a message to the recipient which will not only instantly send to the recipient, but the recipient can (optionally) see every letter when you type it and write back instantaneously. This speeds up conversation drastically instead of having to wait for others to reply to press enter to start writing your response. Given that the recipient is offline, they will receive the wave in their inbox in bolded.

How Google Wave works?

Wave – A wave is the highest entity in the Google Wave hierarchy. Each wave can be thought of as a separate thread in a Forum. They are like topics.
Wavelet – A wavelet is a sub entity of a Google Wave. It is like an individual conversation you would have amidst a larger discussion. Kind of like whispering to your best friend in the middle of an AA meeting about how the Red Sox are doing. Not that I would know of course.
Blip – A blip is like a single comment within a wavelet. To go back to our AA example, it’s like saying to your friend “David Ortiz might actually get some hits in tonight’s game.” It’s just one comment.

Google Wave Features

1. Real-time functionality : You can see what someone else is typing, character-by-character. It gives the impression of a conversation where everyone is actually in the room with you. This property also applies to real-time changes to multimedia such as images, documents and programs.

2. Embeddability : Waves can be embedded on any blog or website. There is no need for the Google Wave client to be on your desktop in this situation. Visitors to your web page can manipulate the wave straight from the site itself. I see potential in this replacing comments as we know it in blogs.

3. Extensions : An extension is a mini-application within a wave. This is similar to what we have in Facebook or iGoogle. Developers can build their own apps within waves.

4. Open Source : The Google Wave code will be open source, so expect hundreds and thousands of innovative applications using Wave API.

5. Drag-and-drop file sharing : No attachments; just drag your file and drop it inside Google Wave and everyone will have access.

6. Mobile support : Google Wave can be viewed on a mobile device.

These are just some of the many features of Google Wave and the possibilities are endless.

No wonder so many people, geeks and non-techies alike, are so excited about this new wave on the web!

Update: Signup for a Free Invite to Google Wave.

Resources: Mashable, Google Wave, Semnook

Related posts:

[How to] Fix – PHP Fatal Error: Out Of Memory

Raju — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:17:49 +0000

Last night when I was moderating some comments on TechPP, I was shocked to see an error page instead of the admin panel dashboard. The error read something like this -

PHP Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 49545216) (tried to allocate 77824 bytes) in /home/xxxxx/public_html/xyz/admin.php(1758) on line 40

The first thing I could think of was to restart the Apache httpd service. This immediately solved the issue. but I knew this is not a permanent fix for the issue. When I researched further, I got to know that the error comes when certain PHP scripts require more memory than PHP was allowed by default.

So the solution is to increase the memory allocated for PHP. How to do that? There are 4 possible ways -

1. Try looking for the php.ini file. You might find some redundant php.ini files, so make sure you have got the one which is actually being read by PHP. o be sure, create a new php file in your root folder, say “check.php” and have phpInfo(); within the php open and close tags. Execute this file to get the information on where the php.ini is residing. Normally it will be in /usr/local/lib/php.ini

Open the php.ini file in a text editor like TextPad (not in Notepad) and change the values for memory_limit. By default you should see memory_limit = 8M. Try changing it to 12M. If it doesn’t work, increase it to 16M or even 24M and so on.

2. In case you can’t find the php.ini file or do not have access to it, then open up the file which was throwing the error (admin.php in my case) and add a line below just after ini_set(’memory_limit’, ‘12M’);

3. You can even consider adding a line in .htaccess file which will resolve the issue.
php_value memory_limit 32M

4. Or else, Try adding this line to your wp-config.php file:
Increasing memory allocated to PHP
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '32M');

If none of the above things solve your issue, then talk to you host. If you have a host like Knownhost who is fast and knows what needs to be done, you do not have to worry much.

Note: I am now worrying on which PHP script required an increase in memory allocation. The analysis won’t be so easy though.

Image Courtesy: Clarkandransom

Related posts:

[How to] Fight Plagiarism on Wordpress.com?

Raju — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:21:39 +0000

Wordpress, as we know is arguably the most popular blogging platform currently. One can either download the open source blog publishing application and self-host it on their server and domain or sign-up for an account on Wordpress.com to get started with a pre-hosted / pre-installed blog publishing application.

What this means is, anyone with a bare minimum knowledge on hosting/domain registration etc can signup for an account and get started within few minutes. And many a times, people grossly misuse this facility by indulging in illegal and unethical activities. One of them is PLAGIARISM.

Plagiarism refers to “use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work”

There has been a steep increase in number of blogs hosted on Wordpress.com and Blogger directly copying the posts in recent times. Last month I bumped across atleast 3 blogs (2 of them hosted on Wordpress.com) who were copying the articles “as-is”. They were even hot-linking to the images hosted on my website.

How to handle Plagiarism on Wordpress.com hosted blogs?

1. First of all, try to contact the blog author and let him know that you are aware of him copying your blog posts and warn him to either remove the posts or give a proper link back to the original posts. Many a times this works out.

2. If the author is stubborn or too dumb to understand the warnings, then contact Wordpress.com directly. You can either open a thread in Wordpress.com support forums or contact the support team directly. The forum moderators are pretty active and generally start replying within a day.

3. In my case, one of the blogs was copying almost every post. This was getting out of my hands and just when I was thinking about filing a DMCA complaint, I got to know about this page on Automattic. Yes! You can directly go ahead and file a DMCA complaint by mailing to dmca@automattic.com with relevant details as given in the article. I was pleasantly surprised to get a response from the Wordpress team within half a day, informing me that the blog has been suspended from immediate effect.

Wonderful support and quick response from the Automattic (Wordpress) team. I believe even Google has this provision of filing online DMCAs, but their response time is known to be pretty bad.

Image Courtesy: ericstoller & unsw

Related posts: