To understand what it is and how does it work, Check out the video below in which the developers of this protocol explain the concept to us in the layman’s language in metaphorical terms (in form of a small skit).

PubSubBubHub Presentation:

If you prefer slides, you can check out this neat presentation created by the Google Developers, to better understand the working of this concept.

© VikiTech.com, 2010. | Permalink: What is Google’s PubSubHubbub and How does it work?
Read more about:: PubSubHubbub, Video

Once you lock a specific file the original file can be deleted and the new locked file will have small lock symbol on it, indicating that its been locked.

Locking and Encrypting Files with All File Locker:

All File Locker Pro gives a couple of standard options for you to lock and protect your files. Once you select the file you want to lock, you can either Lock the file with a Key File or a simple password as shown below. Its similar to KeepPass Password Protect which Encrypts and protects your passwords.

A key file is nothing special. It can be a text file or a picture file. Since you are the only one who knows which file you used to lock the target file, you are the only one who can use that specific file and open the protected file.

Options in All File Locker Pro:

ALF Pro gives a couple of options for security of the locked files.

1) Encrypt Options – You can either choose to encrypt the files you are locking or just password protect them.

2) What to do with the Locked Files – Keep the original or delete it and just keep the locked file.

All locked files have a small lock symbol on them and they cant be opened until either the key file or the password is provided. When you try to open a locked file, you would get a popup that asks you to input the password.

Once you input the password, files open without any glitch. I have tested this program with Text, Doc, Picture and Video files (avi). All worked seamlessly. If you want to retrieve the original file. you need to use the save option and save the original file at any desired location.

All File Locker Pro attaches itself with the locked file, hence every file locked will have an extra 1 MB size. It may seem much on text files, but the advantage is that you can carry these files anywhere and AFL would be there to open the locked files. You don’t need AFL on other systems. So I think its a much better approach.

So what do you think about this app? Useful, something you would use? Let us know your thoughts.

Download All File Locker Pro.

© VikiTech.com, 2010. | Permalink: Password Protect and Encrypt Files With Any Extension On Your Computer With All File Locker
Read more about:: Encrypt, Password Protect, Privacy, Security

With Windows 7 Codec Pack installed, you can play all types of media files seamlessly. Although the Windows Media Player has native support for popular Media Formats like mp4 and divx, there are still some media types that can not be played.

Details about Windows 7 Codec Pack:

With Windows 7 Codec Pack, you won’t need to make any adjustments or tweaks to enjoy your media content immediately. Windows Media Player and Media Center will instantly recognize all your files as playable. This Codec Pack does not contain a media player and it does not associate any file-types. With this package installed you will be able to use any media player.

Streaming video is supported in several formats in all popular web browsers. Users of the Win7codecs have the ability to choose what is installed and where to install it during the setup in installing the codecs. If you are an advanced user, you can specify which codecs you need, if you are not too familiar with all the codecs, you can install all of the provided codecs.

The codec pack is quite flexible and after installation, you can choose whether to use codecs provided by Microsoft or the one’s in this pack. If the media does not play with the default Microsoft codecs, you can switch to codecs provided by the Windows 7 codec pack.

If there is any conflict or issue, you can always run the Windows 7 Codecs settings are as Administrator and Reset everything back to default. The Windows 7 Codec Pack doesn’t bypass the User Account Control (UAC) and is safe to use.

Download Windows 7 Codec Pack

© VikiTech.com, 2009. | Permalink: Download Latest Windows 7 Codec Pack To Play All Types Of Media Files
Read more about:: Codecs, Video, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Media Player, Windows Utilities

Google has just jumped the bandwagon and stated its own URL Shortening service at Goo.gl.

Is there any area on the Internet where Google isn’t present? You never know what projects go on in the office at Mountain View, CA, but with each new project they push the web towards better innovation.

This new service Goo.gl, isn’t available for broader consumer use, but just for Google Products. Currently, Google URL Shortener is only available from the Google Toolbar and FeedBurner.Google promises 3 benefits of using Goo.gl:

• Stability – ensuring that the service has very good uptime
• Security – protecting users from malware and phishing pages
• Speed – fast resolution of short URLs

Using Goo.gl with Google Toolbar is easy. Since its the default URL Shortner for Google, the toolbar uses Goo.gl by default.

Setting up and Customizing Goo.gl to work with Feedburner:

Now you can connect your RSS feed to the real-time social web!

With the Socialize feature in FeedBurner (under the Publicize option) all updates from your blog would be automatically posted to your Social Media Profiles. Currently in the Feedburner dashboard only Twitter is supported,  but more would be added soon.

You need to add your Twitter Account, where you would like updates from your blog to be published.

The appearance of the “Tweet” can be configured. Some of the Options are:

• Title only – Only the Title of the Post will be tweeted.
• Title and Body – Title and initial part of the post would be tweeted.
• Body only – No title, only the initial part of the post is tweeted, the first sentence.

You can select if the “goo.gl” short url should be added to the tweet by checking the include link option. If its unchecked no link for the post would be shown.

If you leave room for Re-Tweets, the original Tweet would have about 110 -120 characters, leaving some room for a Re-Tweet comment.

Adding #Hash Tags:

The tags you add to your post can be published along with the Tweet Update via Goo.gl. If your post titles are generally long, you should avoid using them.

Additional Text:

You can either add a Prefix or add text at the end of the Tweet. Something like “New at the Blog:” as a Prefix or your Twitter handle @VikiTech at the end of the Tweet.

Item Selection:

The Item selection option lets you exclude posts with certain keywords from being Tweeted. For Eg, A Maintainance related posts can be excluded by adding that Keyword.

You can also, specify, number of posts that are tweeted simultaneously – There is an option to select and tweet, anywhere between 1 to 8 posts in one go.

Item Preview:

Not sure how your tweets would look ? Don’t worry, we get the preview of how our links would look like at the bottom of the section. Customize it according to your needs and Fire away.

There is huge scope for the URL Shortening service considering the number of Google services present online. It would be fun where and how Google uses this Newly launched service!

© VikiTech.com, 2009. | Permalink: Google’s Own URL Shortening Service Goo.gl – Set it up with Feedburner and Google Toolbar
Read more about:: Goo.gl, Google, URL Shortner

However, sometimes, UAC can really be annoying, when you are running a Trusted Program, and it prompts you to let it run. Against better advice you can Turn off UAC, but then we would be missing a crucial security feature in Windows. So in order to make our trusted programs run without any hindrance, we can create shortcuts that bypass the UAC.

The trick is quite simple really. Among the several programs in Windows, Task Scheduler can run unhindered. So we create a shortcut for our Favorite program via the Task Scheduler and bypass the UAC. Lets see how that is done.

Creating a New task In Task Scheduler:

Click on Start and Type Task Scheduler in “Search Programs and Files” box. Click on task Scheduler.

In the Task Scheduler window  – Click on Create Task on the Right Sidebar.

In the Create Task Window, Type the name of the Program you want to Run without UAC block. Preferably a small name as we need to use the same name in the Shortcut.

I need a shortcut for the Revo Uninstaller Program – since its a trusted program, I use often and I would rather have it bypass the UAC. So accordingly I have named the Shortcut “RevoUAC”

At the bottom Make sure you Check the option – “Run with Highest Privileges”. Select Configure for “Windows 7” if you are currently using Windows 7. You can select Windows Vista , if you are on Vista.

Once the above steps are done, Go to the Third tab – “Actions”. We need to define, what would this task do. Once we are there, Click on the New… button.

When we click on new we get an option to specify an action. Select the action – “Start a Program”

Now we need to select which program we need to start. Click on browse next to the “ Program/script” text-box. Browse to the Program that you want to start and select the correct executable file.
In case of Revo Uninstaller – We went to Program files > VS Revo Group > Revo Uninstaller > revouninstaller.exe

After selecting the exe, you would see the path of selection in the New Action Window.

Click on Ok after selecting the required program. We see the details regarding the action, in the “Create Task” window, as shown below.

Click on ok, and our task has been defined.

Creating a Desktop Shortcut for the Task in Task Scheduler:

Now that we have the task ready, we need to create a shortcut to run it on the desktop. Right click anywhere on the Desktop > Go to “New” and Select > Shortcut.

In the create shortcut window Type in or Paste the command shown below:

C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe /run /tn "MyProgramExe"

Now, in place of the “MyProgramExe” – Type the name of the shortcut. In this case we had named the Task “RevoUAC”. So we type that in. Make sure that the Task Name is within quotation marks.

Click on Next and give a familiar name the shortcut and click Finish.

That’s about it, now you have a shortcut on the desktop for your trusted program and its not blocked by the UAC every time you start it.

You can select a different Icon for the shortcut if you wish, or just use the default icon, wither way, it gets the job done!

© VikiTech.com, 2009. | Permalink: Create Shortcuts For Trusted Programs To Bypass Windows 7 UAC Check
Read more about:: Hacks, How To, Scheduled Tasks, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 7 Tips

But its difficult to track conversations if you are working on some other application and need to manually check for new notifications yourself. Now, we have Google wave Notifier-  a handy little app that lets us keep tab on latest waves.

Its a simple, easy to use application designed to alert you whenever you receive a new Wave.

After you download the Notifier, an icon will appear in your system tray to let you know if you have any unread waves.

Using Google Wave Notifier:

After you download and install Google Wave Notifier, it asks you to login to your Google Wave account.

Once you are logged in, it sits in the system tray and notifies you of any new wave.

Although the notifier automatically checks for new waves every 2 minutes, You can manually check for new waves by right clicking on the Google Wave Notifier icon. Clicking on the Inbox option takes you to the Google Wave Inbox by opening it in your default browser.

If there aren’t any new waves when you check them, it lets you know that the notifier is upto date.

If you left click on the icon and there are no new waves it lets you know.

And if there are new waves it displays the Unread Wave. You can click on this notification and it directly takes you to the respective Wave.

It works quite well and after every couple of minutes checks for new waves and reports them immediately.

Key Features of Google Wave Notifier:

• Automatically check for new Waves every two minutes
• See the last reply to an unread Wave
• Quick access to your last five unread Waves
• You are informed when a new version is available
• Easily browse to an unread Wave or your inbox

You can download Google Wave Notifier from Sourceforge here.

© VikiTech.com, 2009. | Permalink: Get Notifications About New Waves In System Tray With Google Wave Notifier
Read more about:: Google, Google Wave, Google Wave Notifier

Windows 7 has an option to pin any program to the taskbar, but I prefer to have multiple small shortcuts, handy, even though I don’t use them very often.

Pinning them to task bar, would just clutter it, and I prefer it to remain clean, and keep the shortcuts in the Quick Launch Bar instead. So here’s how a Quick Launch Toolbar looks in windows 7.

Now, lets see how we can add it Quick Launch Toolbar in Windows 7 as well:

Right click on the Task bar > Go to Toolbars and select “New Toolbar”

In the window that opens up, we see a text field labeled “Folder” at the bottom of that window.
We need to type in the command shown below into the folder text area.  To understand better, look how its done in the image below.

Click the Select Folder button once you have pasted it this command:

%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

Once you click on Select Folder button, you will immediately see the Quick Launch Toolbar on the Taskbar to the left of Notification icons.

But these shortcuts are shown with full text and are on the right side. Now we need to bring it to its original location i.e to the right of the Start Button. So,we Right click on the Taskbar and uncheck the Lock the taskbar option.

Once we unlock the Taskbar, Right click on the dotted area that acts as a slider, just left of the Quick Launch text and uncheck “Show Title”, “Show Text” and also make sure the icons used are of small size.

Once this is done we get the original Quick Launch Toolbar, but its currently on the right side of the Taskbar.

To get it to its original location like in Windows XP and Vista we drag it with the same dotted area towards right side of the Start button. In case your pinned programs move to the right you can drag them back to the left just next to the Quick Launch Toolbar.
Here is how they look.

Once you have the Toolbar where you want it, just right click on the taskbar and check the option “Lock the taskbar”.

Once the Taskbar is locked we see the Quick Launch Toolbar back in its right location.

Quite easy to implement isn’t it and we now have our beloved Quick Launch Toolbar right where we want it. From here on you can drag any program shortcuts to this bar and they would be added in.

© VikiTech.com, 2009. | Permalink: How To Add A Quick Launch Toolbar To The Windows 7 Taskbar
Read more about:: How To, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 7 Tips

I looked around the web for any tools that would let me compare the performance of various DNS servers. Incidentally it seems one of Google’s developers has developed a program to just that, called NameBench. Its a result of Google’s generous program for its developers called “20 Percent Time” – which lets the developers work on development projects of their liking. Now Lets see how NameBench helps you find the DNS Servers suited for your location.

The image above shows the NameBench Startup window.

How to use NameBench to get the fastest DNS Server for your location:

The process is quite easy. When you are on the startup screen above you have to select a couple of options, which isn’t really necessary. The default options are good enough to start the test from the word go. However, if you would like to mix it up. here are few things which can be changed and what they mean.

1) Nameservers:  the current DNS Servers that you are using are listed here – No need to change this.

2) Include global DNS Providers:  This will include well-known DNS providers with global coverage into your benchmark – This helps test against present and possibly new DNS Servers.

3) Include best available regional DNS services: Selecting this will include the fastest regional DNS servers in your test. This works by quickly testing the health of over 1,000 DNS servers around the world, and selecting only the fastest servers that provide correct responses.

4) Benchmark Data Source: NameBench works by requesting website addresses from each DNS server. This dialog allows you to select where this list of host names are generated from. The most accurate data source is your browser history, though for smaller histories, the benchmark may bias toward your currently configured primary DNS server. This list contains each browser that NameBench was able to find a history for, along with how many records it found in the history file (in parenthesis) as shown in the image below. I selected Firefox as it has maximum history files.

5) BenchMark Data Selection: This option affects how records from your browser history or Alexa data are selected. For most users, weighted is the best option.

• Weighted: For a dataset that has no duplicates, bias the selection toward the front of the list. If the dataset has duplicates, this algorithm automatically falls back to random mode. This mode was written primarily to support the Alexa dataset, which lists domains in order of popularity. If the data source is large enough, it will limit repeats to 3 per domain name.
• Random: A mostly random selection of hosts from the data source. If the data source is large enough, it will limit repeats to 3 per host name.
• Chunk: Selects a random sequential chunk from the data source. This option is good for replaying a browser session.

6) Number of tests: This option selects how many requests should be tested for each DNS server. The more tests, the more the results should reflect real-world usage. By default we send 125 requests for each name server.

7) Number of Runs: How many times the test is run. By default, we only run the test once.. Since each run repeats the same list of requests, each subsequent run should serve cached data. Running the test more than once can be useful to measure the performance difference between non-cached requests and cached requests.

Results of the DNS Benchmark Test:

After NameBench runs the test, it displays detailed results for the DNS Servers it tested.

It seems Ultra DNS gives a better performance than the Google DNS Server for me – So I would switch to this server and check how it works for me.

NameBench also recommends the best combination of DNS Servers for your computer for a faster browsing experience. Found that the results were quite accurate and have improved the browsing speed even further.

The Results of the tested DNS Servers, including your present DNS Server are listed as shown above. We see that there are 3 DNS Servers that perform better than my primary DNS Server, with Ultra DNS topping the list.

The performance of the various DNS Servers are displayed in a Graph to help you get an idea of the response time for your requests from each server. Smaller the time for response, faster the browsing speed – in this case ultra DNS wins.

As we can see from the graphs and images shown above – NameBench helps you find the best DNS Server close to your location, so that you can get fastest browsing experience possible.

Click here Download NameBench.

Related reading: Google Launches Public DNS Service – Helps Improve Internet Browsing Speed.

© VikiTech.com, 2009. | Permalink: NameBench Helps You Identify The Fastest DNS Server In Your Region And Improves Internet Browsing Speed
Read more about:: DNS Server Speed, DNS Servers, Fastest DNS Server, Google DNS, Google Public DNS

Google has launched a new DNS Service, named Google Public DNS, which is free for everyone to use. This initiative is a part of Google’s efforts to make the web faster.

DNS lookup is the first thing that happens when you type in a website address in the browser – Its the way computers communicate while fetching information from the servers. If you are interested in an in-depth explanation – You can learn more about “How DNS Works” here.

But in Google’s own words:

The DNS protocol is an important part of the web’s infrastructure, serving as the Internet’s “phone book”. Every time you visit a website, your computer performs a DNS lookup. Complex pages often require multiple DNS lookups before they complete loading. As a result, the average Internet user performs hundreds of DNS lookups each day, that collectively can slow down his or her browsing experience.

Each ISP (Internet Service Provider) has their own DNS Servers and Google is hoping to provide a DNS Server which better in terms of both speed and security for people surfing the web.

Why does DNS matter?

The DNS protocol is an important part of the web’s infrastructure, serving as the Internet’s phone book: every time you visit a website, your computer performs a DNS lookup. Complex pages often require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading, so your computer may be performing hundreds of lookups a day. Google hopes to leverage its reach on the Web through its huge number of data-centres around the web and speed up the browsing for individual users.

Why should you try Google Public DNS?

By using Google Public DNS you can:

• Speed up your browsing experience. (Google explains How its DNS Service helps to increase browsing speed)
• Improve your security. (How Google DNS provides a Secure browsing Experience)
• Get the results you expect with absolutely no redirection.

Privacy Considerations for Google Public DNS:

There has always been a concern regarding Google having too much information about its users and whether the use of this service would be more invasive. We need to look at “How DNS Works” to understand this better.

Whenever you type in an address in the address bar of the browser Google DNS would only lookup the Primary domain name for the website, so they wouldn’t know – what exactly are you doing on the website. For Eg: If you are on EBay and looking a a specific product – all Google DNS Service would do is pull up “ebay.com” and wouldn’t  check the entire URL like “ebay.com/i-like-ipods.html”. So Google would not know that you are shopping for iPods – all it will do is call the website much faster leveraging their reach on the web.

Also, Google does not store an information about your browsing and the logs are deleted after 24-48 hours!

Detailed information about How Google Protects your Privacy in this service can be found here.

Improvement in Browsing Speed after using Google DNS:

I have been using Google DNS from a couple of days and having tested on a few websites, Google DNS outperforms my DNS Service. Manu writes a detailed comparison between Google Public DNS and other well known DNS Services like Level3 and OpenDNS on his blog TechSutra. The results definitely show that Google DNS would be a better option for International users, but for users in US – OpenDNS would be the way to go.

How to Setup Google Public DNS on your Computer?

The Google DNS IP Address are : 8.8.8.8 – Primary and 8.8.4.4 – Secondary. All you have to so is replace your current DNS Server address with these and voila – Fater Browsing Speed!

If you want detailed information regarding setting up Google Public DNS on your PC – Its explained in the post : [Video & Screenshots] How to Setup Google DNS on your Computer.

© VikiTech.com, 2009. | Permalink: Google Launches Public DNS – Helps You Speed Up Your Internet Browsing
Read more about:: Google, Google DNS, Google Public DNS

Zone Alarm is know to run some cool promotions and today we have a great new offer from them. For a period of 24 hours, 6am PST 10/13/09 to 6am PST 10/14/09, users can download the Zone Alarm Pro 2010 for free with a 1 year license. You can avail this offer here. (UPDATE: If you have missed the promotion, visit the link provided to get an update about the next 24 hours promotion, which happens once in every few months)

ZoneAlarm is a high performance firewall, which provides excellent protection and works well with any security software, like any anti virus or anti spyware, that you might have already installed on your computer. ZoneAlarm’s wizard makes firewall configuration and maintenance incredibly easy, with a stylish interface and simple slider controls. The Zones feature allows you to assign different security levels for local networks and the Internet. You can read about the various features and benefits of Zone Alarm here.

ZoneAlarm Pro has multiple layers of protection:

1. Advanced Download Protection
   Analyzes browser downloads in three unique ways before they can infect your PC and warns if they are malicious.
2. Complimentary and Compatible
   Works well with other free and paid (non-firewall) security products, such as AVG and Norton Antivirus.
3. Automatic Program Control
   See less alerts than with ZoneAlarm Free Firewall.
4. OSFirewall™
   Monitors changes within your computer to spot and stop new attacks that bypass traditional anti-virus protection.
5. Anti-phishing and Site Status
   Blocks fraudulent websites including “phishing” sites that trick you into entering personal data.
6. Two-way Firewall
   Keeps hackers out by making your PC invisible online and blocking intrusions.

© VikiTech.com, 2009. | Permalink: Get ZoneAlarm Pro 2010 Free license for 1 Year – New Promotion from Zone Alarm
Read more about:: Promotions