Two More Alternatives to Your iGoogle Home Page

Last week I told you about the impending demise of iGoogle -- and suggested three iGoogle alternatives. The response was great, with many readers sharing my dismay over Google's decision and others offering their own recommendations for replacements.

With that in mind, I thought I'd share two more home-page options worth considering. One comes pretty close to replicating the iGoogle experience, while the other takes a totally different tack.

16 PC Mysteries Solved!

Why does my Windows desktop look weird on my HDTV?
It can be terribly frustrating to run a cable from a good HDTV to a PC graphics board and get skewed proportions, faded colors, and slightly blurry images.

Your HDTV might not perform well as a monitor for several reasons. First, many HDTVs aren't designed to display fine details (such as text and lines) at close distances, but to display smooth motion and vibrant colors from distances of up to 5 feet away. Some HDTVs are configurable for use as PC monitors, however, so check to see whether your HDTV has an 'Alternate Monitor' display setting, or something similar.

Three Alternatives to Your iGoogle Home Page

For as long as I can remember, iGoogle has been my home page. I've used it for everything from monitoring my favorite blogs and news sites to tracking the number of days since I last added salt to my water softener.
So it came as something of a shock to read that iGoogle is going away on November 1, 2013. That's only 16 months from now, barely enough time to vet a replacement.
I kid, I kid -- that's more than enough time. The question is, where should you hang your home-page hat? What should be the first thing that appears when you open your browser? I've got three suggestions:

MSN or Yahoo
Like to scan news headlines? Then you can't go wrong with MSN or Yahoo, which bring you the latest stories followed by sections like sports, entertainment, local news, and money.

Sync Mail, Contacts, Calendar with Your iOS Device

SuPaw asked the Networking forum how best to sync multiple email accounts, plus contacts and a calendar, so that it's all accessible on both a Windows PC and an iPad.
A lot of this depends on what email service and/or local email client software, and what calendar program, you're using. I'm going to concentrate here on Gmail, because many people use it, you can easily channel multiple email accounts through it, and, since it's cloud-based, syncing comes naturally (well, sometimes).
I'm also assuming here that you're using Google Calendar.

View Only Your (Important) Unread Messages in Gmail

A couple months back I wrote about how to filter your Gmail inbox so it shows only unread messages.
A while later, reader Patrick wrote to ask if one could further filter the inbox to show only those unread messages marked as "important."
Yes. Yes, there is. I know this because Patrick followed up a day later with the solution. (I love it when readers do my job for me. The rest of you are slackers.)

Access Your Gmail Contacts Offline

Robert Conner keeps his friends' phone numbers and snailmail addresses in Gmail. He asked me how he can access this information offline.
The trick is to sync Gmail's contacts with another contact manager--one that stores its information locally. Not surprisingly, this is a no-brainer on an Android device. You just give the phone or tablet your Gmail account name and password, and it syncs.
It's also reasonably easy on an iOS device, such as an iPad--once you know the not-very-obvious trick. You can learn that trick at Sync Mail, Contacts, Calendar with Your iOS Device.

Windows Icons Suddenly Looking Generic? Here's the Fix

Reader Barry is running Windows 7 Professional. Out of the blue, his system started displaying generic icons for various files and folders.

Thankfully, he was kind enough to include a screenshot, which is invaluable in troubleshooting problems like this:

Although some icons are still rendering correctly, like those representing Windows' Libraries, others -- for things like drives and documents -- obviously aren't right.

What's the problem? Most likely, Windows' icon cache has somehow gotten corrupted.

What's the solution? You can fix this with a series of command-line instructions, but over at The Windows Club, there's a simple batch file that automatically rebuilds the Windows icon cache.

Word of warning: that page is rife with ads, making it darn near impossible to know where to click to actually download the utility. In fact, be sure not to click the big blue Download button. The one you do want to click looks like this:

Once you've unzipped and run the file, it couldn't be easier to use:

Just click Rebuild, wait for the tool to finish, then reboot. All your icons should be back to normal.
View the original article here

Bookmark Any Web Page with a Single Keystroke

How do you bookmark a Web site? Most users venture into the Bookmarks menu, click Add to Favorites (or something similar), and so on. It can add up to a lot of clicking.
There's a faster, easier, smarter way: Just use the keyboard shortcut. Here's the keystroke for all popular browsers:
Chrome: Ctrl-D
Firefox: Ctrl-D
Internet Explorer: Ctrl-D
Opera: Ctrl-D
Safari: Ctrl-D

What Do These Words Actually Mean? Add-ins, Add-ons, Plug-ins, Apps, Applications, and Utilities

Robert Conner asked me to define the various words for different types of programs.

Tech proliferates words like flies proliferate eggs. And they can be just as hard to track.
Here's a quick refresher on common terms for the larger program categories:

Configure Windows XP Professional to be a VPN server

For the Small Office/Home Office (SOHO), Windows XP Professional VPN features are a real boon.
Traveling users with laptops or handheld computers will inevitably want files on the home network; you just can't bring everything with you. This is where the beauty of the Windows XP Professional computer connected to an always-on connection, such as DSL or cable modem, shines. That always-on link can be used to accept incoming VPN connections and allow your mobile users to access shared folders and files on your private network.
In this article, I’ll explain how to configure a Windows XP Professional computer to accept incoming VPN connections and discuss some tips on improving the remote access experience for the VPN client computer user.

Download Facebook Photo Album Dalam Bentuk PDF & Zip

Berbagi foto di situs jaringan sosial adalah cara terbaik untuk menjaga hubungan dengan teman-teman, kerabat jauh, kenalan, dan rekan-rekan anda. Facebook sebagai platform yang paling diminati dan jaringan sosial terkemuka tidak memiliki opsi untuk langsung mendownload album secara lengkap. PicknZip adalah sebuah tool untuk para pengguna yang menghabiskan banyak waktu dalam menjelajahi seluruh album foto dan gambar lainnya di Facebook dan men-downloadnya secara manual. Hal ini juga memungkinkan para pengguna men-download gambar mereka yang telah ditandai dan juga galeri foto teman-teman mereka langsung dalam bentuk Zip dan PDF.

Mengubah Base Score di Windows Vista

Jika anda adalah pengguna Windows Vista maka anda mungkin sangat akrab dengan fitur Base Score. Skor ini dihitung berdasarkan spesifikasi hardware komputer dan konfigurasi perangkat lunak. Skor ini digunakan sebagai acuan peringkat di PC anda. Jika anda memiliki skor dasar terlalu rendah, maka jangan khawatir. Dengan sedikit trik, skor dasar dari Windows Vista dapat diubah dengan sangat mudah sekali dan tanpa membuang banyak waktu.

Blind SQL Injection Tutorial

Let's start with advanced stuff.

I will be using our example

http://www.site.com/news.php?id=5

when we execute this, we see some page and articles on that page, pictures etc...

then when we want to test it for blind sql injection attack

http://www.site.com/news.php?id=5 and 1=1 <--- this is always true

and the page loads normally, that's ok.

Dota Map 6.68 Preview #2 - CM, Item & Tiny

The new update is very close to being ready. There will be new heroes, items and lots of balance improvements. Here is the second preview:


1- Captains Mode: There is a new ban and pick system for CM in 6.68. Instead of 4 bans and then 5 picks, now it is 3 bans and then 3 picks followed by 2 bans and 2 picks. Information about the exact drafting order will be detailed in the changelog.

Dota Map 6.68 Preview #1 - Aggression

I've confirmed that there were new heroes coming in 6.68, but there are also some new features coming. Here is a preview of a new gold mechanic that introduces the concept of Reliable vs Unreliable Gold.

"Reliable Gold" - Any bounty you get from hero kills or from the extra "aoe kill gold" bonus (feature from few patches ago) is added to your Reliable Gold pool.

"Unreliable Gold" - It is everything else (creep kills, neutrals, etc).