How to make a Restart tile for Windows 8

I hope you have found last week's post on making a Shutdown tile for Windows 8 useful. (Go here if you missed it.)  As a continuation to that, this week's tip on computers is on making a Restart tile for Windows 8.

As the name suggests, we are now going to make a tile that will show up on Windows 8's flagship feature, the metro user interface, that restarts your system in one click, so you don't have to drill through the settings, or use Alt+F4 on desktop (Especially helpful if your desktop app is not responding! )

To start off, go to desktop, right click anywhere and choose New→Shortcut.

In the window that shows up, type in shutdown -r (NOTE: There is a space between 'shutdown' and '-r')

Click next. The default name given should be 'shutdown.exe'. Change this into any name you like, preferably 'restart.exe' . Click finish.

Optional Step: This step is just for an aesthetic effect. Right click the newly created shortcut, and go to Properties→Shortcut→Change Icon and choose an icon of your choice. I picked an icon that resembled restarting. Click OK.

Now, right click on the newly created shortcut and choose 'Pin to start'. That's it!

The end result, alongside the shutdown tile should look like this:

Hope this helped!

How to make a 'Shutdown' tile for Windows 8

A new way of shutting down windows was one among the many bizarre changes that came with the much celebrated Windows 8 that frustrated long time users of Windows to no end.

While most of us have learned to Alt+F4 our way out of windows by now, instead of going through the multi-click procedure that hides the shutdown button the same way an mobile network provider tries to hide their USSD code for disabling all cash-leeching 'services', its always convenient to have a big fat tile sitting on the Metro UI that is a one-click solution to end your windows woes.

It's cool, it something that not everyone has, and hey-you are doing some (very simple) scripting for this!

Well to start, right click on the desktop, select new → shortcut.

In the window that pops up, type in " shutdown /p". (Don't include the quotes, and there is a space between 'shutdown' and '/p')

Click next. The name already in place now should be 'shutdown.exe'. Change it if you wish, and click 'Finish'.

Now right click on the newly created icon on the desktop, and choose 'Pin to start'.

You are essentially done, but just for an aesthetic effect you might want to change the icon of the shortcut to the shutdown picture through Properties→Shortcut tab→Change icon and choosing the shutdown icon.

And now, the end results should look like this:

Now that's definitely good addition, ain't it? See you again next week!

Splitting PDF files with Google Chrome

It's time for one of those posts that will further reduce your need to download extra softwares or rely on online converters to get something done because you had the necessary equipment in your computer all along. This post shows you how to split PDFs with Google Chrome.

Okay, I know that Google Chrome is a third party software that does not come with your PC, but when you are talking about the most used web browser in the entire world, it is only normal to expect  that you to have it installed.

PDF is one of the most popular file formats in the world, thanks to Adobe and Amazon, and there is a multitude of situations in which you will need to split such files. Huge 800-page books rendering at snail's pace in lower-end smartphones? Ripping off a section for showcasing online? Your problems have been solved. Thank the folks at Google for making such a nice web browser and read on.

The first step, is to open the PDF file in question in Google Chrome (Duh..)

Oh, and open it in the default Chrome PDF Viewer. If you have an alternate PDF viewer plugin installed, disable it by typing in "chrome://plugins/" in the omnibox and disabling every PDF viewer other than Chrome PDF Viewer.

It should look like this:

Then click the print button or hit 'Ctrl+P' on your keyboard.

In the resulting box that pops up, set the destination to 'Save as PDF' and specify the pages that you want to split. Click the save button and specify the location you want to save the file, and you are done!

Hope that helped! Cheers!

How fast can you type? Find out with Speed Typing Online

Ever envied some friends who can blitz through a huge passage in a matter of seconds, with fingers flying all over the keyboard?

Well, there are tons of different websites that offer typing test and training courses, online and offline, paid and free. In these times were nearly every field of work requires some decree of interaction with the computer, whether it be for programming, writing a blog, or simply entering data,  whether it's just a hobby or if the number on the paycheck received at the end of the month is dependent on it, a decent typing speed is essential for everyone in the current world.

Today I shall share with you a simple website that does what it says on the tin : http://www.speedtypingonline.com/typing-test .

This website is simple and efficient. The page loads a test, and just waits for you to enter a key to kick off the timer. The box that displays the passage also shows what you have typed by superimposition, and the mistakes are highlighted in red, allowing you to easily correct them.

Oh, and if the defaults setting fail to appeal, the test time can be altered between 30 seconds and 10 minutes, and the myriad text options vary from random words to short stories that can can be enjoyed not only by typing, but also by reading. It supports multiple keyboard layouts, and shows your typing speed and some other useful information.

If your speed isn't what you expected, try the test once per day and your wpm (Words Per Minute- the unit of typing speed) will shoot up in no time.

Convert videos for free with Freemake converter

It is nearly impossible to live a year without having to convert couple of videos.....or abstain from watching movies. From converting unsupported formats to supported ones for your TV to ripping the audio track from a music video, whether it be for work or entertainment, a top-level conversion program is a must have for any computer.

But staring at your rich friend as he handles conversions with ease with Xilisoft converter is not going to get you anywhere. If you can't afford a paid one, thank the folks who make free software available and download Freemake Video Converter from http://www.freemake.com/  .

Arguably the best free converter available on the web, Freemake caters to everything you could possibly want in a converter program. It supports nearly every major video, audio and image formats and converts them into a host of popular formats like mp3, mp4, mkv, avi, wmv, swf and several phone formats as well.

It also offers neat video cutting and joining features and more. What more could you ask for?

One of the best screen recorders : Open Broadcaster Software

One of the first posts in this blog was how to record sounds with Hypercam, a simple, lightweight and popular screen recording software. Well, this posts brings to you yet another screen recording software that in my opinion is one of the best screen recording softwares you can get your hands (or rather, your mouse) on.

In this world where nearly every website and software developer just assumes their customers are going to be ready with unlimited internet to download gigabytes of data from the web, there is little love for limited internet users who have no choice but to make 2 GB last a month. Open Broadcaster Software (hereby referred to as OBS) is one of the few data friendly softwares left out there, offering a huge amount of options for a download a little above 7 MB, and for free.

It uses a variety of separate capture streams that can be layered, such as monitor, window, image and game captures. So in essence, you just toggle the streams for the whatever you want recorded, and hit that start record button. Oh, and it free, so no annoying watermarks.

As mentioned above, it has game capture mode, allowing you to capture full screen games perfectly, filling one of the primary shortcomings of most small and free screen recording softwares.

The comprehensive list of settings can be used to tweak the recording to more styles than flavors of chips, and can suit any need and overcome any situation. From an on-the-go resolution reducer that works like magic to reduce video lag to an inbuilt codec (So you don't have to spend 10 MB on Xvid like you did for Hypercam) to built in high quality sound recording (So you don't have to go through the trouble of enabling stereo mix), OBS offers everything you can expect in a free software and more.

From uploading your FIFA gameplay on YouTube to show off to your friends to screen recording a PowerPoint presentation to play on a Linux with an open office that messes up the .pptx formatting, OBS might just be the best screen recording software in its range.

You can download obs at https://obsproject.com/ .

Oh, and did I mention that it was totally free?

Know your PC specs with 'dxdiag'

If you are an avid gamer running a slightly outdated PC, you might have felt a little bit lost when checking the specs of FIFA 15 or GTA V which you were going to purchase. After all, none of us wants to dish out the bucks to buy a game that was never going to work anyways. But how exactly do we know the specs of our PC? The sticker on the palm rest only says so much, and many go for third party softwares to get the job done, all the while the solution was already loaded in your rig.

To know all your specs, open run from the start menu.

Type in 'dxdiag' (Which stands for DirectX Diagnostics) and click OK.

Wait a few seconds a window will pop up, displaying all you need.

The system tab shows details of the manufacturer, processor, RAM, BIOS version and so on. The part which will interest gamers most is the display tab, which shows the DirectX versions installed, graphics card name, video memory and more. The sound tab and the input tab also comes with several bit of useful information.

That's it, game on!

Online polls made easy with Strawpoll.me

From a simple survey to find the most popular video game genre from your circle of friends to an around the world open-to-all survey for making important decisions regarding the presentation of your company's latest product, online polls are an important utility of the web.

There are hundreds of options for conducting a successful online survey. While some websites offer what it says on the tin, some go a step further to provide extra services and options, while some advertisement-riddled websites are plain irritating to use. From among this mess, It is important to pick the right website that will do what is expected.

While Facebook's inbuilt polling system is ample for conducting surveys among your friends, it is arguably Google Forms that offer the best survey conducting on the web. These two are friendly to use and require little introduction. But in this post I will show you a plain, easy, simple and straightforward (Not to mention aesthetically pleasing) program for one-question polls.

Just go to http://strawpoll.me/ and you will be immediately struck by the simpleness. No ads, no fancy carousal showing off it's features, no log-in required. A yellow notebook page shows up, and all you do is enter your question followed by the options. You can enable multiple poll choices or the aptly named "Permissive vote duplication checking" (Just click the "Huh?" button nearby if you don't get what this means.) and create your poll. You will immediately be given a URL that leads to your poll. Now you can share this URL with anyone to give them access to your poll. The results show up as number of votes, the percent of votes, and a neat pie chart.

This is a good website that can come in handy on multiple occasions.

Hope that helped!

Download video soundtracks with video2mp3

Everyone who loves songs (Who doesn't?) but doesn't want to pay for it has innumerable free mp3 search and download engines such as mp3skull and mp3clans to toy with. But often we will find ourselves having to go to a suspicious looking website filled with gibberish and multiple download buttons and a ton of ads to download a song, or throwing your hands up in frustration after turning Google inside out and still finding nothing but YouTube videos......yes that's right, YouTube videos.

These days, everything of interest seems to get on YouTube in a few minutes.
The massive video sharing website also has virtually all songs, instrumental versions, multiple remixes uploaded by a wide variety of users and official accounts.

Whether it be the instrumental version of Summer of 69 or the DJ Earworm's mind-boggling remixes, or a nice BGM accompanying a totally random video, you name it, and it's in YouTube. Trouble is, it's an online video and not a downloadable mp3 soundtrack. While nothing stops you from downloading the video and converting it using any mp3 converter, the prospect of doing so bores some, and for many of us living on 2GB of data for 30 days, the very idea of downloading an HD video just to extract it's soundtrack is unthinkable.

That's where http://www.video2mp3.net/ comes in. This simple, fast, efficient and reliable tool is simply the best YouTube video to mp3 converting tool available online. All you need to do is copy the URL of the video with the soundtrack you require and paste it into the box, and hit that convert button. In a matter of seconds, the conversion is completed and the file is available for download instantly.

The website operates 24 X 7, converts videos to mp3 for free at lightning fast speed, and does not require you to sign up or do any other irritating stuff. The quality of the converted mp3 file peaks at a nice 256kbps.

www.video2mp3.net is a website really worthy of a Ctrl+D, especially for music lovers.

How to resize pictures with MS Paint

Whether it be uploading a picture in an application form, or embedding a picture in a webpage, the resolution and size of a picture is an eternal horror for most of us.

Making a user load a full-HD picture that is embedded in small a 100 X 80 box in your website is a sheer waste of megabytes. Over sized pictures blow up the size of each webpage, increase loading time and gives your users a big reason to stop visiting your website altogether.

Most of us have also have experienced the irritating 'picture is too big' message when we try to upload out photo for competitive exams and application forms for a myriad of purposes. 

Most users are usually stumped in such a situation, and often has to rely on 3rd party software and online conversion tools to get the job done.....all the while the solution was right in front of them, in good old MS Paint.

This extremely familiar software has went from a random graffiti wall to a powerful yet simple picture processing software over the years. And now, I shall show you how to resize pictures easily with paint. What I'm about to show you is really a no-brainer, but there are a large number of people (Probably including you, if you came to this post and read this far.) that doesn't realize this method exists.

NOTE:The following screenshots have been taken in Windows 8.

So I have a picture of size 186kb here, that I would like to reduce to below 100kb.

1)Open your picture in paint. Right clicking and choosing 'edit' will do the job.

2)Now choose 'Resize'.

3)Now you can enter the the new size in percentage or in pixels under the 'resize' box. I'm going to set the vertical and horizontal percentage to 50, to half it's size.

4)Now click ok, and save the picture. You're done! Now my picture is down to just 49kb:

That's it! Hope it helped!

Debug your Javascript code easily with JSHint

This one is for the rising Javascript coders and webpage develeopers.

While most of us is bound to have a IDE at hand to help us in sorting through the multitude of errors and warnings bound to turn up in any script, small and large, there is still a vast amount of programmers who code in notepad. They get pretty much no help on detecting errors in their program.

This is were http://www.jshint.com/ comes in.

This user friendly tool detects every error in your code with the efficiency and accuracy of any professional IDE. In fact, even if you have an IDE, you may still want to use this because of it's easy and friendly interface.

In fact, there is no interface. All you do is paste your code on the left, and the errors are shown immediately on the right side.
It also shows a few useful metrics that can't be seen on most IDEs.

Once you load this page, there is no need of the internet again. The page can process your code and display the errors offline as well.

As a result, this is something all devs should know, and use.

2048 : Casual gaming rejuvenated

The viral game 2048, created by Gabriele Cirulli,  should already be known to most of you through Android and iOS apps. While casual gaming is not exactly done on PC, giving the game a go at http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/ is a perfect way to turn boring hours into a fun mental exercise.

This game creates the deception of a slow and relaxing game where you tap away at your arrow keys carelessly to see the blocks slide into one another with grace, as higher powers of 2 pop out at their place. However, as the tempo builds and the numbers climb into higher powers, you will find yourself digging into the annals of your cerebral cortex and think several moves ahead to find that perfect move that will ultimately display the number 2048 on the screen, winning the game.

But the best part is that despite the fact that you will find yourself glued to the game all the time you try it, never taking your eyes of screen for the fear of interrupting the process of calculating the long chains to proceed to the next power of 2 happening in your brain, your brain will never end up feeling burnt out and exhausted. Nope. Instead, it will scream for more.

In essence, you get a nice brain workout, a time-killer, and an epic casual puzzle game with an incredible replay value all in one go.

And the feeling you get when you finally do beat the game (And take a screenshot of it to show off to your pals) is unmatched.

The magic of Alt Codes

Ever thought how company names in the ever-boring license agreements and 'Terms and Conditions' that show up while you install your favorite game come with a '©' copyright symbol?

Well, that's the magic of alt codes. Ever heard of it ?

Simply put, alt codes are codes that you enter in the numpad of your keyboard while holding down the alt key to print certain characters. The code of the © symbol is 0169. So to get the symbol, you have to hold down the alt key, and enter '0169' in your numpad.

NOTE: Alt codes only work on your numpad. The numpad refers to the numbers arranged in a 3 X 3 grid on the right side of a standard keyboard.

There are thousands of printable characters using alt codes, including all the alphabets, copyright symbol, stuff like ☺, ╬, ♣, ¼ and much more. Memorizing a few useful alt codes will allow you to create patterns and symbols to customize plain .txt files to an extent you've never known before.

A few useful alt codes are shown below. If you want a complete list, go to http://www.alt-codes.net/ .

Symbol	Code
☺	1
½	171
¼	172
Æ	146
Ä	142
è	138
Σ	228
√	251
∞	236
™	0153
®	0174
•	7
©	0169

Create cool ASCII text with ASCII generator

Have you ever wondered how all those video game walkthroughs on gamefaqs.com start with the name of the game written in a cool stylized way using keyboard characters only?
Did you think that the person who wrote the guide is so good at computers that they are able to make graffiti out of keyboard characters?

Well, while it is possible for some to make such text using their keyboard only, most people just use an ASCII generator to do it for them, such as www.network-science.de/ascii/

This website gives you a simple user interface, where you have to type in the text, select a font from a huge batch varying from a few basic fonts to ultra-uber cool graffiti and out-of-this-world futuristic fonts, and hit the "do it!" button to generate your ASCII 'text image' in the text field below, ready for being pasted onto anywhere you desire.

Many of these fonts also go beyond the stuff printed using your keyboard, and uses ASCII characters to posh up the resulting text even more.

Oh, and as a bonus, you can change the stretch, width, adjustment and enable text reflection. Pretty cool, huh?

Samples:

_|_| _|_|_| _|_|_|_|_| _| _| _| _| _|_|_|_| _| _|_| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _|_|_| _|_|_|_|_| __ ___ ____ /__\ / __)(_ ) /(__)\( (_-. / /_ (__)(__)\___/(____) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _(_)_ _ (_)(_)(_) _ (_)(_)(_)(_)(_) _(_) (_)_ (_) (_) _(_) _(_) (_)_ (_) _ _ _ _(_) (_) _ _ _ (_)(_) (_)(_)(_) _(_) (_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_) (_) _(_) (_) (_)(_) _ _ _ (_) _ (_) _ _ _ (_) (_) (_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)

Create your personal favicon with favicon.cc

If you're not exactly a tech savvy teenager or a computer loving bloke, you are unlikely to know what a favicon is.
Well, a favicon is an integral part of a website, and is one of the many things that linger long in our minds, even when we leave a website. In essence, they are a major part of a website's 'face'.
To be exact, a favicon is the small little icon thingy that shows up on the left side of the tab when you open a website.
The favicon of this blog is "AGZ" written in black, diagonally.

If you own a blog or a website, it is imperative to create your own favicon. It adds to the amount of personalisation, and makes your blog/website unique.
But not all of us are great artists or Photoshop experts to create a proper favicon for your website. And using a favicon you take off the net is like permanently borrowing someone's hat. You just can't do it and feel right.

This is were www.favicon.cc, a very useful online tool comes in. This website immediately loads up a plain canvas divided into a 16X16 grid. Pick a color from the color picker on the right, and click on any position on the grid to add the color there.
A very simple, yet informative and useful interface allows you to pick the color of choice with ease. A preview below instantly shows how your favicon will look on a browser.
Moreover, if you have an image for your favicon in your device, simply upload it with the "import image" option and it is processed and converted into the favicon grid with remarkable accuracy.
When you're all done, you can download your favicon as a .icon file, and use it on your website/blog.

But perhaps the best part is that, you can animate your favicon in multiple frames, and download  and use an animated favicon!

As you might have guessed, the "AGZ" favicon of this blog is created using www.favicon.cc.

That's another piece of information that will really come in handy. Hope it helps!

No crossword is impossible with The Crossword Solver

Solving crosswords was one of the most popular time-killers years ago, and even today, despite the onslaught of casual gaming, crosswords remain one the best ways to spent your leisure hours. Besides keeping you occupied, it also expands your English vocabulary.

Most newspapers daily publish a crossword, and several online databases make thousands of them available at your disposal 24X7. Tempting crosswords on every topic under the sun (And some beyond it) can be easily found in such databases.

But, given that you are doing a good quality crossword that isn't made for 10 year olds, tempting as they may be, there are always questions that leave you stumped, and leave them white spaces empty, much to the frustration of true crossword lovers.

While the method I'm going to suggest to get around such issues may not appeal much to "true crossword lovers", I'm very sure there are many who would either do this, or just leave the white spaces blank.

Googling, of course , is the first thought that jumps to one's mind. But even with the efficiency of Google, you'll either get nothing, or a link to a crossword solving website, such as http://www.the-crossword-solver.com .

This website is the ultimate search engine to find the evasive final word from the mocking clues to fill the white spaces and your heart. While this can be considered as cheating, well, desperate times call for desperate measures, and there may not be a better alternative to solve a crossword if you are desperate.

The description at the homepage of the website says:

"Crossword Solver uses a database of over 350,000 words, 118,000 definitions, 2.5 million thesaurus entries and an ever expanding database of clues to provide you with the answers to your unsolved crossword puzzles and clues. Our universal search will check for definitions, synonyms, clues and missing letters giving you all of the help you could ever need to solve your puzzle."

Pretty good, huh?

Never stop the gaming with Flash Games

Admit it, everyone loves playing games on the computer. Even the most grumpy nerd will enjoy managing farms on Farmville, or destroying rival empires on AoE.

But as much as we hate it, there are times when we don't have professional-quality hardcore games to turn boring hours of being home-alone into a adrenaline pumping action filled roller coaster rides.

But, there are always alternatives available to make up for such times. And nothing covers up a lack of hardcore games than flash games. These low-size games may not exactly give you the same adrenaline shot you get when flinging fireballs at dragons while trying to dodge a hail of arrows in Skyrim, but hey, it's better than staring at an empty games folder....

These small games come in all sorts of types and sizes. You can play a professional assassin in Stealth Hunter 2, or crush gummy bears (literally) in Burrito Bison, defend your realm against dark forces in the super hit Kingdom Rush, build and manage your own shopping complex in Shop Empire, Join an international elite military unit in Strike Force Heroes, test your IQ, dazzle through puzzles, mutate creatures, and more, and more and more and more.......

From the the lighthearted balloon-enemies of Bloon Tower Defense to the bloodcurdling Zombies of 13 days in hell, these games suit to any need, any person, and any situation.

There are hundreds of websites that allow you to play and publish flash games on the web. But a few, like http://www.notdoppler.com/ and http://www.kongregate.com/ gives you the absolute cream of the crop.

Cheers, and Happy gaming!