Clean Up your Desktop with these Helpful Programs

There was once a time, almost twenty years ago, when the desktop screen ushered in a new era of personal computing by making PC and Apple devices more visually appealing and user-friendly. But these days the desktop is in fast retreat. First, the growth of tablet and mobile devices has made it that many computing interactions take place without a desktop screen in sight. More recently, the unveiling of the Windows 8 platform suggests that this desktop-free model may soon become standard even on laptop platforms.


But it was the internet more than anything that pushed the desktop towards gradual oblivion. With the internet, people would immediately log onto their browser when turning on their computer, in the process creating a new “home” page on the web rather than on the hard drive. The growing dsl coverage map, the arrival of high speed connections such as DS3/Ocx, and the introduction of cloud computing only put people further towards the internet and farther from their desktop screens. The desktop, in the process, became home for downloads and temporary files, rarely-used icons and disorganized programs.

All this is to say that, for many of us, our desktop screens are incredibly cluttered and neglected these days. But just like an infrequently-used room of a house, we still probably want to clean up our desktop from time to time. Certainly, we can do this by going through and manually sorting each item. Yet there is a faster way, thanks to several programs that can do all the work for you.


Here are three of the best such programs:

• Zum. One of the best-reviewed cleaning programs out there, Zum is downloadable software that creates organized databases of almost everything – media, web browsers, files, music, and more. Moving major items from your desktop to the Zum database can automatically insure that they – and any subsequent additions – remain organized from that point forth.

• Deskcretary. Whenever your desktop looks too messy, running Deskcretery is basically no different from cleaning your screen manually – but it operates in a fraction of the time. Deskcretery creates an archived folder, placed onto the desktop, of all recently-added and rarely used items. What remains are those icons that you actually plan to use.

• Clean Desktop. An application for PC users, Clean Desktop weeds out all desktop items that have been added in the past month and presents you with a comprehensive list. You then can choosing to clean, delete, or restore these items.

These three programs are all great options for cleaning up your desktop and for keeping it clean. With them, you won’t have to worry about the mounting clutter that requires cleaning from time to time. Who knows you may even find yourself using your desktop more in the process.

Don’t Buy a New Computer Until You Read This

Thinking about buying a new PC? Has your once shiny, new computer deteriorated over time? Is it slow, unresponsive, or does it feature an ancient operating system? Before you junk your computer and spend a fortune on an entirely new system, consider the following tips. It is possible to have your old computer running like new again.


Upgrade Your Hardware
No one is asking you told hold onto a buggy, Windows 98 PC. But, if you have a somewhat contemporary PC, updating the hardware could have it operating like new again. Consider installing an SSD (solid-state drive), which will increase speeds and increase your storage space. SSDs turbocharge boot times, app launch times, and browsing times.

Also, consider replacing your current PC board with an industrial one. Industrial PC boards are built to be tough, rugged and long-lasting, so you can ensure your circuitry doesn’t fry anytime soon. Add a flat-screen, high-definition monitor and you’ve just rebuilt your computer’s hardware for a fraction of what it costs to buy a brand-new system. Best of all? These individual upgrades are higher-quality than what you’d find in a standard all-in-one computer system.

Before you move on to software cleanup, you need to clean your hardware. Dust bunnies are hiding in all your PC’s nooks and crannies. Using a can of computer duster, remove the side of your tower and give everything inside a good spray. Professional cleaners are available to perform this service for you, if you’re afraid of damaging one of your lesser known peripherals.


Get Rid of Spyware, Malware, and Adware
First run your computer’s antivirus. If you don’t have antivirus, AVG offers a pretty good free one. Once you’ve quarantined all viruses, go ahead and run an app that eliminates and monitors spyware, malware, and adware. These apps are slowing down your PC, and they could be spying on your private identifying information. Check out Gizmo’s list of the best free removal tools.


Delete Unwanted Programs
To free up memory, remove software you’re no longer using. Click ‘Control Panel,’ then ‘Remove Programs,’ and remove anything outdated or no longer valuable to you. Once you’ve finished this task, go ahead and run the computer’s defragging program. This is located under ‘Accessories’ in the ‘Start’ menu.


Run Cleanup Software
In the article, Clean Up your Desktop with these Helpful Programs, Tech Salsa lists three programs that will help you clean up your “cluttered and neglected” desktop. By tidying up your software, you will improve your computer’s overall functionality and speed. Before you run any of these apps, it’s a good idea to create a backup. That way, if anything goes wrong, you’re protected. The three programs recommended for cleanup are Zum, Deskcretary, and Clean Desktop.

Another option is to run a PC optimizer, such as UPCleaner. It’s free, and will fully optimize your computer by cleaning up RAM and enhancing performance.


Upgrade to a New OS
Once your memory has been increased and your RAM’s performance improved, you’re ready to upgrade to a new OS (operating system). Be careful not to upgrade to an OS your system can’t handle. Carefully read the OS’s computer requirements before making the switch. When you find one your PC can handle, go ahead and install it.

Just like that you’ve got yourself a newish computer, which is better than no new computer at all and cheaper than an actual new computer. Go ahead, pat yourself on the back.

Analyze Amazon Product Reviews before Buying

As we covered in our previous article, that how you can track and monitor amazon prices before buying in case of a price drop, today we have another helpful article based on amazon products. Reviews are any day helpful when you are looking to buy a new product that you don’t know much about. But how trustworthy are those reviews?


These days, companies are spending money in all sorts of advertisement that also includes writing positive reviews. So how would you determine if the review that you are reading is genuine and not fake? Or if it is a paid review or not? Let this free web service called as Fakespot do it for you.
Fakespot is a free online service that can help you in analyzing the fake reviews of any product that is listed in Amazon (this currently includes Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.au). Based on their algorithms that includes checking for too many reviews posted on same day, reviews by someone who hadn’t bought the product, reviews by someone who had posted fake reviews on other products or repeated words in reviews, Fakespot is here to help.







I tried the service for me and was impressed by the results that generated. We would advise you to use Fakespot as indication of the product to help you decide whether to buy the product or not, and you should not completely trust it. Anyway, a good service to try it out.


Just copy and paste the entire link of the amazon product in Fakespot and let it suggest you. Go ahead, give it a try and let me know if it helped you at all.


Visit Fakespot

3 Interesting Gmail Tricks you are Least Aware of

Gmail is the widely used email service today and is used by almost each of us. But did you know 1 Gmail ID = Unlimited Gmail IDs?
Yes that’s true, and with the following tips that I have for you today you can have 1 Gmail ID but still enjoy the benefits of having unlimited Gmail IDs with you. How? Read on.


Trick #1
Google ignores dots and Upper cases in usernames







xyz@gmail.com
x.y.z@gmail.com
xyz….@gmail.com
This means, all the above (and more permutations and combinations of dots and upper cases) will send out the email to the same user id (here xyz@gmail.com) no matter where the dot is.


Trick #2
Google ignores anything after + sign
Xyz+1@gmail.com
Xyz+anything@gmail.com
This means, all the above user IDs will again send the email to the same address xyz@gmail.com as google doesn’t consider anything after the + sign.
You can use this feature to give safeguard your original email address by giving random IDs to others and still receive the email.


Trick #3
Gmail and googlemail can be used interchangeably
xyz@gmail.com
xyz@googlemail.com
This means that you can interchangeably use any of the domain gmail or googlemail with your user ID to keep receiving the emails.


So what’s the big deal here? How might I use these tricks?
Well, google considers these email IDs as one email address whereas rest of the world does not. This implies, you can enjoy all the benefits of the free software or the trial versions by re-registering with as many fake gmail addresses as you like and never get to buy it again.


OMG! Now what to do?
Be a Villain and exploit this functionality or
Be a Hero and educate people/organization around you to patch this functionality, and get appreciated.
I leave the choice on you.
Disclaimer: This post was for educational purpose only.

After a long wait of 17 months, the new EMUs (commonly called local trains) for Mumbai having Bombardier electricals are finally in the service of public! The first ever passenger run with these rakes was operated on 18th March 2015. Rake number 5005 worked on 11.32 am Churchgate – Borivali service. I appreciate the decision of WR authorities to press the rakes into service immediately after getting clearance, without wasting any time in waiting for VIP to flag off the rake. I travelled in inaugural run from Churchgate to Andheri.

https://mrvcmania.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/img_2298.jpg

Here is my review based on that journey, along with a few photos from the trip.

What you will like:
– Interior gets a fresh new look
– Quality of materials used for interior furnishing has improved
– Fit & finish of interior has improved a lot
– Ride quality seemed to be better than the older Siemens rakes
– Motorcoaches are very silent
– Jerk free ride. There are absolutely no jerks while accelerating or braking
– Legroom is very good (at the cost of slightly narrower door-ways)
– LED displays inside coach are dual sided now. They have display on both sides, as opposed to single sided displays in Siemens rakes
– Forced ventilation was working effectively
– Lights and fans did not switch off at neutral section

What you won’t:
– Seats in first class have insufficient depth
– Lack of rain gutters will create a problem during monsoon
– The cab face has an dull, uninspiring & boring design.
– In spite of the improvements, there are still some very obvious shortcomings in the finishing. Eg: luggage racks, door locks.
– Poorly painted lettering spoils the appearance of the rake’s exterior

Exterior:

The rake sports an all new design. Face of driving cab gets smaller lookout glasses. This is definitely based on feedback from motormen. Destination boards get their own small glasses. A black band resides below lookout glasses. The aesthetics of cab face are nothing to write home about. It looks unattractive. Moving to the sides of the coach, the first thing which will strike you is its shape. The coaches have flat side walls, as opposed to the slightly curved ones found in older rakes. The sides too sport a revised colour scheme. Orange band above doors is replaced by a violet one. The violet band below windows has lost some height. A slanting violet band surrounds a few some of the doors. The exterior surface has improved a lot in terms of finishing. There is very less waviness in sidewalls as compared to Siemens rakes. Poorly finished welding can be seen near the floor level. It is here that the paint has started chipping off at some places. The letters “WR” look shabby & out of proportion on the sides. Lack of rain gutters will be a problem during the monsoon.

Interior:

Immediately on stepping inside the rake, I was pleasantly surprised with the interiors. It had a fresh new look, and felt very nice. Most of the interior panels & other components felt well screwed together. Importantly, the design of interior appears as a cohesive one. All the components and parts collectively gel into each other nicely, giving a classy feel to the interior. This is a big improvement over the Siemens rakes which felt like a mix and match of various components from many different designs, which did not go well with each other when combined into a single design. Attention to details in the interior has increased. Fit & finish of the interior too is a few notches above Siemens rakes. Having said that, there are a few issues as well. Seats in first class are too narrow & offer less under thigh support. Increasing the width by a few centimeters would be great. There still are bits & pieces here and there which are very poorly finished. Luggage racks & door locks are the best examples.

Performance:

The rake starts off without any jerks. Acceleration and braking, both are jerk free. Ride quality is very smooth. Siemens rakes had the tendency to jerk while negotiating neutral sections. That did not seem to be the case here. Everything is very smooth. Sound of motors cannot be heard inside motor coach; they are very silent. I will not comment on acceleration as there was insufficient scope to observe it. Secondly, I observed that the tube lights & fans in the rake did not switch off even momentarily while negotiating neutral section. It is another important improvement in my opinion. In short, the rake excels in this department. Thumbs up to Bombardier engineers!

Now, I will let the photos do the talking!

The bombardier rake pulls into Churchgate for its first ever commercial run.

Getting ready to depart from Churchgate. The face of cab looks very boring & plain jane.

The interior feels well put together compared to Siemens rakes. The materials used too are better than the white plastic interior of Siemens rakes. Some second class interior photos:





The motorcoach does not have luggage racks at one end, near the HT equipment compartment. This flaw should be fixed.

Mechanism to close the doors is a new design. There is a lever inside this cover which has to be pushed towards the door, which unlocks the door and it can then be closed. The cover is unpainted and looks as if it is an afterthought.

Forced ventilation air outlets sport a new design. It looks very good!

Seats in first class. Notice the misalignment in height of seats at the place where 2 parts of the seat meet. This is a problem which has been carried over from Siemens rakes.

Sufficient legroom in first class. Under thigh support is very poor due to insufficient depth of seats.

Luggage racks have extremely poor finishing. This is supposed to be in a straight line but is all twisted.

View from the doorway while the train speeds through Central Mumbai. The door frame (border around doors) now uses metal components instead of plastic. This is a welcome change as plastic tends to break frequently in Siemens rakes. In an empty train the hexagonal grab pole didn’t pose any problem. Will need to check whether it poses any issue in peak hours.

Flat side wall – something new being tried out. Practically it doesn’t make any impact though, apart from giving a new look to the rake.


A view of the door from inside when closed. Looks neat!


The new design of grab handles. Plastic looks good but it’s long term durability needs to be seen.


WR painted on motorcoach. Lettering looks very shabby. Huge scope for improvement here


In a year and half, Paint has started chipping off at many places near the bottom part of the rake.


Signing off with a shot of the rake departing from Andheri…

Summing it up:
This rake is a right step forward from the Siemens rakes. Though there are some niggles still present, the improvement is significant. Even if this level of finishing and quality is maintained throughout the 72 rakes, it would be sufficient. ICF has made a good start & I would love to see this continuing till all 72 rakes are manufactured. Some of the negatives can even be fixed by minor design changes.

There are only two things I would watch out for now – whether they can maintain this level of finishing, and secondly the durability of the rake.

Your feedback about this post is most welcome. Do leae your opinions in the comments section!