Posts Tagged “Tips”

Tuesday, February 24, 2009 Categorized under Windows

How to Disable Autoplay/Autorun

As we discussed in the in the series, the best way to prevent infection by a Virus is to Disable Autorun. So how do you disable Autorun? The easiest way to do this is using Group Policy Editor which is a . To Turn Off AutoPlay/ AutoRun follow these steps :
Watch this step by step Flash Tutorial

1. Goto START»RUN gpedit.msc

2. Browse to the folder Computer Configuration»Administrative Template»System.

 

goto Computer Configuration»Administrative Template»System


3. Scroll down and Open Turn Off Autoplay option.

4. Enable it and select All Drives

Select All Drives


This will be a system wide change. Instead if you need to turn Off Autorun just for your user account do the same in the folder -

User Configuration»Administrative Template»System

Please read the previous post in the series for some more useful tips on preventing Viruses.You might want to use the Address bar tip give at the end of last post in this series too.

Saturday, January 3, 2009 Categorized under Software

Setting the correct aspect ratio for a video

Many a people still don’t understand what the correct aspect ratio of an image or a video is. It is the correct ratio between its width and height which will make the image look normal to the eyes and not like a print on a stretched balloon.

Wrong aspect ratio

wrong aspect ratio can destroy the beauty

 

Correct aspect ratio

CBR 1000 RR correct aspect ratio

How do you correct if a video has wrong aspect ratio.

Video :

If the aspect ratio of a video is not correct then play it in VLC media player. Goto full screen mode and press “A” on the keyboard. This will change the aspect ratio. Repeatedly press the key until the aspect ratio is OK. Alternatively you can right click the screen and goto Video>>Aspect Ratio and select an aspect ratio from the list.

o adjust the aspect ratio of an image could be done using more than one tool. I will explain this in a later post.

Saturday, December 27, 2008 Categorized under Internet

Setting a preferred domain for your blog

The preferred domain means the address you want your visitors to see when they come to your site. That is http://exnol.com or http://www.exnol.com in my case. you can do this easily if you are on Apache. edit the .htaccess file as follows :

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^YOURDOMAIN.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/$1 [R=301,L]

If an htaccess file doesn’t exist, add the above code to a text file, name it .htaccess and save it at your root directory.If “ReWriteEngine On“ is already in your htaccess file the ignore the first line.  Replace YOURDOMAIN with your sites domain name. There can be problems if you use this along with

RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

If you use them together some problems may occur during file access.

RewriteEngine on
This line starts the mod_rewrite module
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
If the request is for a real directory (one that exists on the server), index.php isn’t served.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
If the request is for a file that exists already on the server, index.php isn’t served.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php

So there can be errors. I faced them while rewriting my .htaccess file but doesn’t remember the error correctly.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008 Categorized under Internet

Setting a FAVorite ICON for your site

This post is an Answer to the comment posted by Carol A Ranney on “How to make custom icons”.

A favourite icon commonly known as a favicon is the small image shown near the URL in the address field of the browser. Now a days these icons are also used for bookmarks. You can easily create one for your web site too. Here are the steps involved :

1. Create a favicon.ico file

Use the method mentioned in How to make a custom icon. Create an icon with a size of 128×128 or larger dimension which you can work easily on. Now scale it down to 16×16px. It is better to use 256 colors only. Save his as favicon.ico

2. Upload the icon

If you are the admin then upload the icon to the root directory of your web site. This is normally public_html or where the index.html file lies.

You will be able to see the icon for all the pages from your web site now.

3. Adding a <link> field

If you want to use a different icon for a particular page add

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="ICON" type="image/x-icon" />

in between the <head></head> tags of the page where icon location refers to PATH/favicon.ico the place where you saved the icon.

4. More on favicons

Most of the current browsers also support GIF files as favicons. Use the name favicon.gif if you are using one. You can use animated icons by saving the animation as a GIF file and then use it as your favicon. Firefox even supports png file to be used as favourite icon.

If you have any further doubts please feel free to comment here.

Saturday, November 1, 2008 Categorized under Internet

Add free online contact form to your web site

A Contact form is an essential form for any website. But if you are on blogger or a free host you wont be able to create one on yourself even if you know PHP. Although if you are running WP you can get plugin’s specific for that application. I use cForms for my contact forms.

So if you just need a frills free contact form you can place on your website you may try Contactify . It offers free contact forms as well as spam protection (word verification) for the service. You just need to copy paste the JavaScript they provide after you register.

Here is my sample contact form : Contact me

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008 Categorized under Buyers guide

Points to note while upgrading to an LCD flat panel display

An LCD flat panel display is much better for your eyes if you spend a lot of time in front of a computer. If you spend a little more money than a CRT monitor you can get a sleek ,light and less power hungry LCD TFT display. I was recently searching for an LCD monitor and finally bought the HP 1908w 19″. So I was forced to do a little research (lol) in the area. I am sharing it because some of you may get some benefit from it.

HP 1908w TFT screen

Size :

If you are using the LCD for daily work and not for group entertainment (like a movie) you will not need much larger than a 19″ screen (or may be 22″ if you go that far).

Aspect ration :

Aspect ratio is the ratio of width and height of your screen. 4:3 means for 4 units of width 3 units of height is taken (like 1024x 768 is 256x4 and 256x3). If you like to use your monitor mainly to watch movies go for a 16:10 wide screen aspect ratio. You can get 16:9 also on some Samsung models. If you plan to use it mainly for document editing and office work it would be better to go for an aspect ratio of 5:4 (10280×1024).

Response time :

Response time would not be much of a concern to you unless you are a die hard gamer. If you are then go for something like 5ms or faster (3ms). The Gray to Gray response time is more of a use to the customer actualy.

Contrast :

To put it in simple terms contrast is the intensity difference between Black and White pixels. Go for higher contrast.

Brightness :

Here also the higher the better. but never settle for anything lower than approximately 280cd/m^2.

Connectors :

VGA the 15 pin connector is a standard. Go for DVI or even HDMI ports. Here even if you don’t have a graphics card that supports DVI you can use the monitor with the VGA cable. (VGA is th 12 pin connector – normally blue that you can connect to the onboard graphics of any computer).

Price :

Here in India you can get a decent 19″ LCD screen for upward of 220 US dollars. If you need more features you got to spend more.

Bottom Line

Go for LCD monitors as they provide you with maximum screen size(viewable) in any size class. If you are a professional designer or something there are only very few LCD TFT screens that can compete with CRTs as of now. Search for more than three manufacturers and in more as many shops as you can. Always ask for a demo of the product if you haven’t seen one of the models before. Use the monitor in a dark room also if possible. Play a movie and also ask for the warranty details.

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