The Crusaders

Are you having any kind difficulty or a problem with your computer? Is your computer slowing down in performance? Or is it suffering from Virus, Spywares and Trojans? Or are you finding it difficult to install a new Operating System? Or do you need any kind of help with setting up a wireless internet connection? The first suggestion that I’d like to give is to try to research and find the solution by yourself. Internet can be a great help. You can search and find virtually anything over the internet. Even I am providing tips and tweaks to my readers on a regular basis. But some people aren’t just willing to be internet geeks and some are too afraid that something disastrous might happen. So, instead they are willing to pay an expert. But these experts, they don’t come cheap. You have to be able to pay a lot of cash.

BT though is giving out £30 discount in all of its Computer Repair Home Visits before 31st March 2008. You can book an appointment easily from their site with one of their engineers and get a face to face help with all kind of PC repair and maintenance from setting up a new wireless network, cleaning up viruses & spywares, installing a new OS to more general assistance like printer setup, making the most of your home entertainment system, etc. Remember the visit is valid before 31st March 2008 only. So, must take place within the offer period. Hope this will help ease the pain of expensive home visits from experts.

written by rajit \\ tags: Computer Repair, IT visits.IT Solution, PC repair

After pictures was leaked a couple of months ago, a multimedia computer N96 is official now. Nokia made the phone available at GSMA Barcelona in Feb 11, 2008. The N96 has a 5MP camera with Carl-Zeiss lens and Xenon flash, and will come with S60 3rd feature pack, which is yet to make a release. It has brilliant 2.8” display and with superb sound. The phone is said to be come with 16GB of space built in, with an option to double that with expandable memory.

I don’t think it going to make N95 superseded. Always a company should make their old product obsolete otherwise some other company will do it. But N96 seems weak to obsolete N95. After launching N95, its looks foolish to have launch N96 with the same feature like N95 except the built in memory of 16 GB, double the memory of N95. This would be the largest inbuilt memory on a Nokia mobile phone so far but it is no better to say the successor of N95. Nokia is just increasing its storage to compete with iPhone, iPod but is completely ignoring other better Mobile Phones like LG with 5.1 Mega Pixel Camera.

“What I fell like is ……this is not good idea to launch it after N95 this could have been done very before”, one of the Nokia user said. And I completely agree with him. No one is going to pay N96 higher (600 Euros) than N95 just because it’s built in memory is double than before i.e. 16 GB. Nowadays, N-Series Nokia phones comes with features of expandable memory to 24GB using a micro/mini SD card. Now why to buy N96???

When my friend told me that N96 has been unveiled, I was expecting some extra feature than N95, like 6 to 8 Mega pixel Camera, touch screen and other features. But it seemed like Nokia don’t have any bows left to shoot in offence. They are just trying to sell the old product in a new packaging with higher prices. Anyways there are some major sites that are offering cool nokia N96 deals. Be sure to check them out before buying this phone for a high price.

written by rajit \\ tags: N96, Nokia N96, Nokia N96 deals

A week ago I had written a post about how important but still a difficult task it is to choose a right web hosting service. I got few comments on that post and it seemed that people are quite confused as there are many web hosting companies that you can find over the net just with a single click. It is indeed a tiresome job to select the one from an enormous list. So, I thought about this for a while and then I decided to help my readers towards choosing the most suitable web hosting plan from the best web hosting companies without crossing their budget.

Web Hosting Choice is your complete guide to web hosting. With it even newbies can get a clear concept about web hosting. It is basically a data center which allows you to search the right suited web hosts according to your budget and/or web space. Also they have tried to answer the most common questions about hosting. I think this will help solve most of the queries that my readers have regarding web hosting.

written by rajit \\ tags: Web Hosting, web space

NBC Direct is a web service by NBC that provides US-Americans with a way to access and view tv shows on their computer. All they need is to download and install a NBC Direct player and they have access to a number of shows including but not limited to popular tv shows such as Battlestar Galactica, Las Vegas, The Office and Heroes. Only Windows is currently supported but Apple and Linux support will be introduced in early 2008 according to the NBC Direct website.

I spotted a new process called mediaagent.exe while checking my system after installing NBC Direct. It used roughly 30 Megabytes of RAM even if NBC Direct was not running at all which is why I first thought it was not related. It turned out however that a service called Open Case Media Agent is installed during the NBC Direct setup. This service is set to run automatically with Windows which means that it uses 30 Megabytes of RAM all the time even if you do not use NBC Direct at all during your session.

Several users reported that this service was giving them CPU spikes up to 100% even without NBC Direct running. It should also be noted that other applications make use of this service as well, for example Wall Mart who offered a free movie download of Fantastic 4 if you purchased the DVD.

Although the service is being installed during the installation of NBC Direct, it is not uninstalled if you choose to uninstall NBC Direct. You have to select the service separately and uninstall it that way.

written by rajit \\ tags: mediaagent, NBC Direct

With new products launching day by day, your shopping list seem to get longer every second. Everyday we see a new gadget or a something old with a slight twist of modification. I have talked about this is my previous post too where I have also thanked Technology for all these wonderful gifts. But all these stuffs, they don’t come cheap. It’s going to cost you a lot of money. A laptop’s with a good configuration is going to cost you around 1000 bucks, an apple iPod nano around $150, and printer cartridges, they cost almost same price as printer itself.

So, you can pretty much guess that it’s not going to be easy for you to just go and shop. You have to be prepared for shopping. You can still find discount coupon codes and promotional codes over the internet which you can use while shopping online to get certain amount of discount and get the best deal for yourself. A friend of mine used a coupon code and saved $400 on the new HP Pavilion. Can you imagine this? $400 discount!!! Another friend got this cool 19” widescreen LCD monitor for just $189. Isn’t it awesome? Using coupons you can get stuffs that you like for such cheap price. It’s just great. One of such site that provides such discount coupons is OfficeDeals. It has it all…online coupons and promotion codes for Staples, 123Inkjets, Dell.com, HP Small Business and Pitney Bowes everything one needs. I use its coupons very often. Last time I think it was when I bought my iPod. Coupons save a lot when you’re shopping. Save money, use coupons.

written by rajit \\ tags: coupon codes, promotional codes

I’ve always been fascinated about technology and this was the main reason I started this technology related blog. I mean who isn’t you know, technology has given us so many thing that in the past were just in our imagination. Everyday we wake up and we turn on our LCD TV (which is again a technology gift and has replaced old fashioned CTRs) and we see new creations and innovations. Wherever we go we take our PDAs, mobile phones with touch panel (operates with just a touch in the screen) with us that are much handy than they seem to be. We surf in the internet and get the latest updates. We travel in vehicles that run on H₂O and use gadgets that can do amazing things. And the buzz about Industrial Computing and RFID readers that are being massively used in every field from hospitals, industries, shopping malls, etc are also due to technology. If we keep on just even naming the products that technology has given us, it’ll take us years.

Technology has overall made a great impact in our day to day life. It is all because of technology that our life today is easy, comfortable and luxurious. What in the past took years to do, now take only few minutes and even unimaginable things have become possible…..all thanks to technology.

written by rajit \\ tags: gadget, LCD, RFID readers, technology, touch panel

The shared software for instant messaging, emails, etc., named GroupWise and developed by Novell definitely calls for email archiving, storage and virus protection from diverse virus threats. GWAVA has taken the lead to provide such services to the Novell GroupWise community which is reflected by the fact that 52% GroupWise users are protected by GWAVA. It provides Anti Spam and Anti Virus solution for GroupWise with management solutions such as Redline, Reveal and Reload.

The GWAVA retain product is aimed to provide solutions to the email archiving needs of Novell GroupWise community. As the server platforms for Novell GroupWise include Linux, Windows and Netware, the GWAVA Retain solution also runs natively on these platforms. Here are the foremost purposes of GWAVA Retain:

1. GroupWise Archiving: Incorporating itself unswervingly with the GroupWise and using the SOAP API as it pedestal data collector, GWAVA Retain uses the SmartPurge functionality of Novell GroupWise to make possible the GroupWise archiving and retrieval to be done with the specific criteria of the administrator.
2. GroupWise Storage: SHA-1 and MD-5 technologies are used to facilitate comprehensive data storage with petite storage spaces. Basically database storage is preoccupied. For GroupWise Storage queries GWAVA is at your help.

The GWAVA Retain can be used to amass the text messages and the call records of Blackberry Smartphone used by various business professionals. It is yet to see whether the GWAVA solutions will be able to cope with the future developments of Novell GroupWise with enhancement in the end-user experiences, API’s and scalability.

written by rajit \\ tags: GroupWise, GroupWise Archiving, GroupWise community, GroupWise Storage, GWAVA

The pace in which world is moving with technology as its fuel is just furious. If you wait even a while to catch a breath, you’ll be far behind. So, to match up with the fast pace, you have to update yourself regularly with all sort of information. And the future of information technology lies in the hands of Internet. The trend nowadays to communicate, get the latest information and update yourself in any field is via internet. So, internet facility has to be accessible to everyone.

Previously, dial-ups were famous for internet connectivity but it was in the past. People always want more than they can get. They expected more even with internet connection. They wanted high speed connecting, fast browsing, heavy upload and download features. So, with its high bandwidth and high data transfer capacity broadband took over. They are fast, cheaper and you don’t even miss your calls.

A couple of days ago, I was surfing over the internet and there was a broadband provider from UK called BT broadband which was providing wireless broadband for just £8.95 a month. At such cheap price it was providing up to 8Mb download speeds, 24/7 support facility, UK evening & weekend calls were included and it was giving out wireless BT home hub for free. From this it can be imagined how competitive the broadband market is. May be it will be replaced by some other thing in future but presently broadband surely is the best choice for internet.

written by rajit \\ tags: Broadband, Broadband internet, Internet, wireless Broadband

Just check the title and homepage of your browser (IE only I guess). If any one or both have ‘sujin.com.np’ on them then congrats… you have successfully been infected by what is called the “Sujin Virus”. Most people may get frightened how this got into their computer and what does it do. Well, need to get frightened. This is not a harmful virus at all. The only thing that it does now is scare people out and that’s it. It was just some script programmed by some guy from Nepal (who thinks he’s a genius) in Visual Basic that changed some registry settings and copied itself to all drives in root directory. I can’t really understand what he really wanted to do.

We can sneak the code in the VBS file (just open it in a Notepad). I am not a VB programmer myself so I took a little help from Boyutal’s blog which says that it’s a harmless VBScript file installed in your computer which:

o Modifies registry settings (this does things such as disabling access to taskbar, setting the start page of IE to ‘sujin.com.np’ and modifies the UserInit settings to execute Virusremoval.vbs)

o Stores a copy of itself to all drives in root directory.

o Removes all .vbs files in Windows directory and Root directory and all .inf files in root directories of drives.

o Removes ravmon.exe, sxs.exe, winfile.exe and run.wsh(now we have ask him why he wanted them removed)

o Stores VirusRemoval.vbs in root and adding the autorun.inf to make sure that it auto executes if it’s installed in a removable disk (i.e. flash drives).

So, basically this script is not that harmful if we come to know it. We have to be careful not to double click the flash drive especially as they are the main carriers of this virus. You can right click though to check if there is any autorun file in you flash drives. While right clicking the flash drive if the default option is ‘Autoplay’ then be alarmed that your flash drives contains an “autorun.inf” file that may be set to execute any other harmful files in your flash drive. So, once you know that there is an autorun file try to delete it form command prompt. There may be other harmful hidden files too, to see and delete which you may have to use a combination of switches.

written by rajit \\ tags: Sujin Virus, Sujin Virus removal, Sujin Virus removal scanner

I’m always into seeking for and giving out information on freebies so that my reader can be benefited without spending a penny out of their pocket. This time its turn for some free entertainment.

People are so busy lately that they hardly got any time to catch a breath. Everyone’s running after money so madly that they’ve forgotten to live and enjoy their life to the fullest. They want to get out of their misery but time outruns them. I too fall in the category of those busy, boring people who can’t even arrange a couple hours to enjoy their life. So, how do I live? I play games. I have number of games installed in my PC (NBA Live, FIFA, NFS, Price of Persia, Age of Empires, etc) which I play when I am at my home. But usually I am at work and they don’t allow installing games in office computers. Even then, I’ve found out a way to entertain myself playing Online Games during lunch breaks and leisure time. These online games are quite fun to play and the best part is that you don’t even need any installations. You can directly play them in your browser. There are different types of online games that you can find over the internet from just fun games to more complicated puzzle games. My favorites are classic game…something like Mario and Pac-Man. I just love playing them. Oops! It’s time. I have a match right now.

written by rajit \\ tags: flash games, free games, online free games, online games

Putting up a website is very trendy nowadays. Why not be? It’s the best way to communicate in today’s world of Information and Technology. Even in places where telephone and other forms of communication can’t reach, internet is able to reach. You just host a website and the whole world is able to see it.

Easy huh? Well not quite easy as it sounds. There still is a small problem. To host a web site what you first need is web space i.e. space over the internet which you have to buy from different web hosting companies and where you’ll be hosting your site. There are different types of hosting from which you can choose from according to your need. Shared Web Hosting, Virtual Dedicated Server, Managed Hosting are just few of the popular types. Some companies are providing free web spaces but these spaces come along with banner and pop-ups. In any condition free hosting can never compete with paid hosting. Still among the paid hostings also, you have to be very selective. You have to consider different factors like reliability and uptime of the hosting, its disaster recovery planning, cost, and other stuffs before getting one for yourself. Many providers state that they aim for a 99.9% uptime but in real time it’s rarely possible. Hosting may be down due to planned or even unplanned maintenance. You have to look at your budget too. Dedicated Hosting Service may not be appropriate for a middle business organization.

written by rajit \\ tags: Managed Hosting, Shared Web Hosting, Virtual Dedicated Server, Web Hosting, web space

Once upon a time, the term web meeting invoked images of jerky video, out-of-sync audio, sky-high prices, and system crashes. Slowly but steadily, however, technology has been improving and prices falling. Then came the terrible events of September, 11. In the months since, technology that links people electronically - for example, collaboration solution or online video conferencing - has been gaining popularity, even among people who were critics just a short time ago.

Viewed in light of workers’ reluctance to travel, such technology seems like the knight on the charging white steed come to rescue companies from the dilemma of how to continue with business, while understanding people’s anxieties. Are we sure technology can rescue us? First, we must know how to use it effectively.

Online collaboration solutions allow your employees, customers, and partners to share critical business information with each other from anywhere in the world. Shared collaboration spaces allow participants to perform online collaboration by working together over the internet, sharing applications and documents and even viewing each others desktops with a full control.

So that’s how it works. The technology that saves the World. The brand-new solutions, which can rescue the tragedy. And when you feel secure, you’re ready to work hard. Now it’s clear, that online video conferencing has brought us to the whole new level of collaboration solutions.

written by rajit \\ tags: Internet, Online collaboration, technology, video conferencing, web

Printer manufacturers are very clever and cunning. They are selling printers in such cheap prices that you can hardly believe your own ears. But once you’ve bought a printer for yourself because you though it was cheap, you’ve fallen into the trap and it’s too late. You can’t escape and you have nowhere to go. Think I’m telling some story from an action movie? Well then wake up. This is reality and this is what’s happening with us-the consumer.

After we’ve bought a printer, we have to buy the cartridges. And amazingly the cartridges cost almost same price as the printer itself. We can re-fill the ink but only with the risk of damaging the printer’s head. So, the only choice you got is to buy the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) cartridges whose cost reach sky high or it alternative is compatible/remanufactured cartridges which are lot cheaper in price. There are many sites that you can find nowadays over the internet that can hook you up with terrific discounts while buying printer ink and inkjet cartridges. I have an Hp inkjet and I was looking for some cheap priced cartridges when I came across this one called EasyInkz.co.uk where you can save up to 70% on printer ink, inkjet cartridges and other printer cartridges. You may think that the cheap cartridges are not that good in quality but believe me you won’t be disappointed with the quality. I got mine for cheap dough, see if you can find for yourself.

written by rajit \\ tags: inkjet Cartridges, Printer Cartridges, Printer ink