Why would something like this be useful? There are a couple of purposes why you may find a listing of all DNS queries your PC makes useful. You can use it for instance to find out which connections your PC makes. While you can do so in other ways as well, not all are as comfortable and easy than using this program.

Webmasters and server admins may use it to check DNS server propagation, which can be useful if a website is moved to a new server among other things. And if you are a regular Internet user, you may use it to find out if your ISP is filtering DNS queries. This can be useful if particular queries are not resolved correctly and you want proof for that.

DNSQuerySniffer is a portable application that you can run right after you have downloaded and unpacked it on your system. You may need to run it with elevated rights depending on your operating system. To do so, right-click on the program executable and select run ad administrator.

The program supports several network packet capture drivers. While you can use the RAW sockets method, it is not recommended as it may not work properly. WinPcap and other drivers are linked on the program's web page over at Nirsoft so that you can download and install them if they are not installed already on the system.

The application displays all DNS requests made in chronological order. You can change that order easily, for instance to sort by domain name, IP address or the response code. To do so, click on a column header and the results are sorted automatically based on your selection.

Tips

1. The program will analyze all DNS queries until you click on the stop button in the application window or close it completely.
2. You can enable auto-scroll under Options so that you are automatically taken to the next line when a new query is being made.
3. DNSQuerySniffer supports the usual Nirsoft exporting options. You can save selected information as txt, comma delimited or XML files, or generate HTML reports.
4. If you are looking for a particular entry, use the search. You can click on the search icon in the toolbar or use Ctrl-F to display it.

Verdict

DNSQuerySniffer is another useful program for a portable tools collection. While it is more specialized and suited especially for admins and webmasters, it can have its uses for regular Internet users as well.

The post DNSQuerySniffer records all DNS requests on your PC appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

While it is easy to switch to another profile, you will immediately notice that none of your extensions, themes, modifications, bookmarks and other data will be carried over to it.  You do have options to copy those over manually to the profile, but doing so increases the chance that you will import some of the issues back to the new profile.

Google has added a profile reset feature to Chromium today. It will be rolled out to Canary, Dev, Beta and Stable builds in the coming weeks and months. It offers two advantages over creating a new profile:

1. You can reset profile data from within the browser and do not need to modify folders on your system manually.
2. You can select data that you do not want to reset.

You need to enable the flag chrome://flags/#enable-reset-profile-settings currently to display the Reset option in the Chrome settings. Just click on the enable link and restart the browser afterwards. It is likely that the flag requirement will be removed in the future.

Open chrome://settings/resetProfileSettings, or open the browser's settings chrome://settings/ first, click on show advanced settings and there on the reset button that appears here.

reset profile setting

You can select to reset the following settings:

• Default search engine
• Homepage
• Content settings
• Cookies and site data
• Extensions, new tab page and themes

how to reset your chrome profile

Note that this will reset all data including modifications that you may have made to the browser. A restart is not required to complete the reset.

The reset feature is a welcome addition to the Chrome browser as it provides users with options to restore the browser to a pristine condition without having to create a new profile or uninstalling and installing it again.

Bonus Tip: creating a new profile in Chrome

I'm going to show you how to create a new profile for Chrome if you are using Windows. The steps are nearly identical for other operating systems:

1. Exit Chrome or Chromium or whatever version of the browser you are using.
2. Open Windows Explorer or the file browser you are using on your system.
3. Navigate to the folder %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\ (all versions of Windows except Windows XP) or %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\ (Windows XP).
4. Just paste the line into Windows Explorer's address bar.
5. You should find a folder "Default" there.
6. Rename that folder to Backup Default".
7. Open Chrome afterwards. A new profile is automatically created using a newly created default folder.

The post Google to add Profile Reset feature to Google Chrome appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

Then there is the extreme solution that I recently discovered -- Panic Button. I say "extreme" because, unlike Too Many Tabs, Panic Button does a bit more than allowing you to hide particular tabs. This extension hides everything, except for one tab, which I will explain below.

Once installed, you will find a red, circular-shaped button with an exclamation point in the middle on your menu bar, where other extensions appear.

Using the Extension

It seems dead simple at first glance -- you can click the red button and all of your tabs will disappear. And I mean all of them, including the one you are on. Perhaps the word panic in the name is apt. In my test, with 17 open tabs, it took about 30 seconds to log all the URL's and store them away in a hidden folder. It left me with only a New Tab page.

Once the process is complete the button will change from red to green and display a number over it that indicates the amount of tabs it is now storing for you. Press the button again and your tabs reappear.

Alternatively, you can also use your keyboard to hide and display tabs by clicking the F4 button -- an option that may not work on all computers. For example, on the laptop I am writing this from the F4 button turns the display on and off. That is where the Options come in.

Options

To access these, head to the Chrome Extensions page and scroll down to find Panic Button and click "Options". These are sparse, but they cover all of the bases.

You can choose to enable or disable the keyboard option, and also decide what keys you wish to to use if you decide to enable it. You can also set password protection and choose between New Tab page, blank page and custom page for what appears when you banish your tabs.

Conclusion

As I stated earlier, this is a rather extreme option, but it does work. I found it a bit too extreme for my tastes and would prefer to stick with Too Many Tabs to simply hide tabs I know I will not need at the moment. Depending on the amount of URL's you are hiding, it can be a bit slow. However, it works as advertised and it seems to be trustworthy in bringing those tabs back. In the end it is really all about what you wish to do.

The post Panic Button hides and restores your Chrome tabs appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

Find Equal Files is on first look another duplicate file finder for Windows. The program has a few aces up its sleeve though that make it stand out of the bulk of programs.

When you first start the program, an installation is not required, you are asked to pick a directory that you want the program to crawl. It will automatically include all folders in the directory structure, unless you disable that feature in the main interface before you click on the search button.

Here you can also change the wildcard file search *.* to match specific file types or names only that you are interested in. You can use it to only include image types, e.g. *.jpg, or audio files, e.g. *.mp3 in the search.

The search may take a while depending on the number of files stored in the directory. The program starts to display duplicate files even while it is still crunching numbers.

Duplicates are automatically grouped in the lower pane. When you select a group here, all files that have been identified as equal are listed there. Depending on the file type, you may get a preview on the right. For some file types, only basic information such as the path, size and data are displayed in the interface.

You will notice right away that the program is not well suited to go through a huge list of duplicates. The main reason for that is that there is no option to deal with duplicate files automatically.

You have to go through the listing one by one to delete files manually or skip the deletion of files entirely for the group. An option to automatically delete all but one of the duplicate files would have been useful though.

What may be interesting on the other hand is the ability to create shortcuts, symbolic links or hard links to replace a duplicate file in a folder. While this may not be useful for image duplicates, it can help you save some space where applications are concerned.

The program does not explain the difference between the three options, and the help file appears to be in no working order at the time of writing.

• Shortcut: replaces the duplicate file with a shortcut pointing to the original file.
• Hard link: a mirrored copy of a target file that does not take up additional space on the hard drive. Cannot span across partitions or drives. Will still work if the original file is moved or deleted.
• Symbolic link: Like a shortcut that points to the original file, but with the difference that it automatically redirects requests to the source file. It can span across partitions, drives and even network shares. Will break if the original file is moved or deleted.

This can be an interesting alternative to deleting files outright as you may use hard or symbolic links instead to retain any functionality without keeping physical copies of the files on the drives.

Tips

1. You can right-click on files to execute actions on them instead of using the buttons on the right.
2. F10 opens the native Windows Explorer menu that you can use to open the file or display its properties among other things.

Verdict

Find Equal Files is a useful program if you want to remove a low to medium amount of duplicate files on your system, especially if you want to retain the functionality that the duplicate files have to offer. While that is usually not important for image or media files, it may come in handy where program files or important operating system files are concerned.

The post Find Equal Files: duplicate file finder with symbolic link feature appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

It should be displayed on the right side of your browser's tabbar. If it is not, do the following to display it. Press the Alt-key on your keyboard and select View > Toolbars > Customize from the context menu. An overlay window becomes visible on the screen displaying various icons that you can add to Firefox.

Locate the List all tabs icon and drag & drop it to a visible toolbar in the browser. You can click on it from that moment on to display all open tabs of that browser window.

All Tabs Helper is a browser extension for Firefox that improves the All Tab menu of the browser.

Instead of just displaying a list of open tabs, it makes available the following visible options:

• Close any open tab with the click of the mouse button.
• Navigate back and forth without leaving the menu.
• Display all duplicate tabs.
• Display recent tabs and not all tabs.
• Display a search form that you can use to find specific websites.
• Select multiple items and perform actions upon them.

Tip: To select multiple tabs hold down Ctrl-Shift to do so.

That's however not all of the add-on's functionality. It also makes available features that are not visible right away:

• Unload tabs by holding down Alt before you left-click on them.
• Use drag and drop to change the order of tabs in the browser's tabbar.
• Type automatically to search all open tabs. This feature needs to be activated in the options.
• Use Page Up /Down and Home/End keys for faster navigation.
• Hide Firefox items displayed in the menu such as the Tab Groups feature.

All Tabs Helper displays unloaded tabs in a lighter gray so that you can distinguish them easily from active tabs.

The post All Tabs Helper improves Firefox’s All Tabs menu appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

It displayed a button in the web browser that you could click on to display an overlay window displaying all open tabs of the browser as thumbnail previews.  It furthermore displays a search on top that you could use to quickly find a tab you wanted to open at that time.

Mozilla removed the All Tabs panel code from Firefox 21 which means that the feature is no longer available from that browser version on.

Let me show you how to fix the issue so that you can get the All Tabs preview feature back in Firefox:

1. Download and install the All Tabs Restorer extensions for the Firefox browser.
2. Once you have done that and restarted the web browser, you have two options to invoke the menu displaying all open tabs in the browser.
3. Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Shift-Tab.
4. Through a new menu icon.

To add the menu icon to Firefox do the following:

1. Press the Alt-key on your keyboard.
2. Select View > Toolbars > Customize from the top menu.
3. Find the All Tabs icon in the Customize Toolbar window that opens up.
4. Drag and drop the icon to a place in one of the browser's toolbars.

You can now display the All Tabs overlay in Firefox either with a tap on the shortcut Ctrl-Shift-Tab, or with a click on the All Tabs button that you have added to a toolbar.

The overlay stays in place until you make a selection or click on a location outside of it. A click on a tab focuses the tab in the browser right away.

If you have many tabs open, you may find the search helpful as it will filter all open tabs based on what you enter in it. So, if you enter Firefox into the search field, all matching tabs are displayed in the overlay while all others are hidden from view.

The post Restore Firefox’s All Tabs preview feature appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

The mouse ships with a start screen button which Microsoft calls the Windows touch tab that has been designed specifically for the Windows 8 operating system.

What it does? You are taken straight to the Windows 8 start screen if you tap on it. That's not really this spectacular but that is not all the Windows touch tab has to offer.

If you swipe up the blue stripe on its side, it cycles through all open Windows Store apps, while a swipe down reveals all open apps that are normally displayed on the left sidebar if you move your mouse to the hot corner there.

The Sculpt Mobile Mouse on the other hand ships only with a Windows button that you can click to open the start screen or the start menu, depending on which Microsoft operating system you are using.

The Sculpt Comfort Mouse will retail for $39.95 and the Sculpt Mobile Mouse for $29.95.

How to map the Windows button to your mouse right now

You do not really need a new mouse to add part of that functionality to your current mouse right away.  Here is how you set it up for your current mouse:

• Download and install the free software X-Mouse Button Control.
• Open it and locate the mouse button in the interface that you want to use for the functionality. I recommend you use mouse button 4 or higher for it, and not the left, right or middle mouse button.
• Select Simulated Keys from the list of available commands that you can map to the mouse.
• Enter {LWIN} and click apply.
• Et voila, you have mapped the Windows-key to the selected mouse button.

Bonus: You may even add the app browsing feature of the mouse as well. I could not try it on my Windows 8 system as the Windows-Tab shortcut that is powering the feature is not working on it.

Just repeat the steps above and add {TAB} after {LWIN} in step 4. This simulates a Left-Windows-Tab shortcut, which displays all open apps in a small overlay on the screen that you can go through.

Bonus 2: The difference between Alt-Tab and Windows-Tab on Windows 8? Alt-Tab cycles through Windows Store apps and desktop programs whereas Windows-Tab only through Store apps.

The post Microsoft’s newest mouse has a start screen button appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

Especially Neowin is causing the errors lately, even when I'm already browsing the forum. I'm not sure what is causing it though but it could be the auto-updater (mini spy).

The reason for this is that a click on the reload button a second later loaded the website that refused to be loaded just fine. While this can be a big coincidence, it is likely that the issue is related to other things.

If you are experiencing Aw, Snap! errors in Chrome regularly, you may be interested in resolving those errors so that they go away completely.

Aw, Snap!

Something went wrong while displaying this webpage. To continue, reload or go to another page.

Reload.

If you're seeing this frequently, try these suggestions.

Temporary Fixes

Before I look at permanent fixes for the issue, I'd like to provide you with temporary fixes that may help you out right away in case you receive that message only occasionally.

1. The most obvious option is the reload button that Google Chrome displays on the error page. Just click on it to try a reload of the page in question.
2. You may also want to try Ctrl-F5 to reload the site by bypassing the local cache.
3. Use a site checker such as Down for Me or Everyone to find out if others can connect to the site. If the site cannot be accessed by other users it is likely a server issue.
4. Clear your browser cache.
5. Try a different browser to see if it resolves the connectivity issue.

Troubleshooting the Aw, Snap! error

Google has created a support page that lists four solutions to resolve the site loading error when you receive it frequently in the browser.

1. Check Anti-virus and firewall.
2. Check your extensions and user scripts
3. Check for malware.
4. Create a new user profile.

The first thing you may want to do is check if you can connect to other websites. First unrelated websites, for instance bing.com and if that is possible to another page on the same domain you tried to connect to. If you wanted to open a page on it, try the homepage instead to see if it is available.

If you can open other websites but not this one, check your user scripts and extensions to see if they may block access to the site in question. One of the easiest options to find out is start the browser in incognito mode. Why? Because extensions and scripts do not run in it by default.

Open a new Incognito window with Ctrl-Shift-N and try to load the web page that threw the Aw, Snap error to see if you can load it. If you can, try to load it again in your normal browser window. If you can load it in private browsing mode but not in the normal mode, then an extension or script is likely interfering with the connection.

I suggest you disable extensions one by one then to see which is causing the issue. Open chrome://extensions/ to do so.

Another option is a corrupt profile. You can create a new profile, but if you do, custom data won't be available by default. This includes bookmarks, extensions and settings that you may have changed in Chrome.

To create a new user profile, close Chrome and open the profile folder on your local system. Rename the default folder to default.backup and restart Chrome afterwards. It creates a new default profile folder that is used from that moment on.

You can move data back into the default folder but need to understand that this may bring back the issue that you are experiencing.

Connection errors may also be caused by Chrome's DNS prefetching. I have covered the topic previously, check out the link for detailed instructions:

• Open the settings in chrome chrome://settings/.
• Click on show advanced settings.
• Uncheck "predict network actions to improve page load performance".

Have another solution? Be so kind and post it in the comments so that all users can benefit from it.

The post How to fix Google Chrome’s Aw, Snap! error message when loading websites appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

Math-o-mir is different as it provides you with the means to easily jot down math equations in the program interface. While it may still take ten or so minutes before you grow accustomed to the program, it is not difficult to use. Just keep in mind that it won't solve equations for you, it only lets you write them down in its interface.

Before we look at how this is done in detail, I'd like to discuss why you may want to use a PC program at all.

While there are many reasons for that, I'd like to mention some that seem practicable:

1. You can use it for your math homework. The benefits are plenty. First, you can undo and delete symbols, lines or the entire equation with ease. If you are using pen and paper, you either have to start anew or correct the error on the same paper which does not look good or professional. You can also print out the finished equation which again looks cleaner and more professional.
2. To transfer what you have been taught in class or in learn groups to the PC. This is not only helpful in memorizing what you have learned, but also to have all information on your PC. You can sync the data and have it readily available wherever you go which cannot be said for paper.

The program opens up with an empty screen. You find various elements on the left that you can use to write down your equations. You will use a mixture of keyboard input, including numbers and letters, and mouse input to create equations in the application. The small rectangular shaped parts of each sidebar element display alternatives for that item on the screen.

A click on the plus icon's rectangle displays more than 20 different elements that you can add instead of the plus sign. This includes minus, modulo, Boolean operators and other symbols that you can use in your equations. It will take some time to get accustomed to that layout and you will likely spend some time in search of a symbol in the beginning.

The program uses a grid-based system to automatically align elements on the screen. As you can see from the example above, it is possible to add text to the paper as well which can be useful if you want to add explanations to an equation or other important information.

Tips

1. I suggest you load the example file first as it offers helpful tips to get started.
2. You can draw freehand as well using the program. This can be useful if you cannot find a symbol for what you want to write on the paper.
3. The program supports basic symbolic computations. Right-click at the edge of a equation to get the result displayed in the opening popup.
4. You can map keyboard shortcuts to symbols so that you can add them to the paper without using the mouse at all. To do so, right-click on the symbol and pick one of the available keyboard shortcuts to do so.

Verdict

Math-o-mir is an easy to use program to write mathematical equations on your PC (or Linux with Wine). It is not as complex as LaTeX, Microsoft Office or Open Office and that is a good thing as you can use it right away without having to learn to use the program's functionality first.

The post Math-o-mir: write mathematical equations on your PC appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

It can happen that you may want to change the handler for a file type, for instance when you have installed a new app that you'd like to use instead of the old one.

I'm going to show you two ways to reset and change default apps on Android devices.

Manual way

This should work in all recent Android versions. Note that the terminology may be different depending on the phone or tablet you are using.

1. Open the settings of your device and there the application manager.
2. Switch to the All listing here by swiping to the right.
3. Scroll down until you see the app that you no longer want to use as the default handler for a specific file types or protocols.
4. Tap on the app to open its settings.
5. Scroll down here until you see Launch by default.
6. The clear defaults button is active if the app is set as a default handler on Android.
7. Tap on the button to clear this privilege so that no app is set as the default handler right now.

Next time you try to open a file or protocol without association, you may pick another one. You can launch the file only once with a select application, or make it the new default handler for this file type. Select an app from the list and tap on always to make it the default app for the file type or protocol, or just once so that the complete action using menu opens up the next time again on the screen.

Using Default App Manager

The free app (also available as a paid app without ads) Default App Manager Lite improves the management of default apps in Android significantly. It can display all defaults on a single screen so that you can clear defaults right away without having to go manually through the list of installed and stock apps on your phone.

Just tap on the clear button to start the process. You are taken to the apps profile page where you can click on the clear defaults button to disassociate it with all file types and protocols.

You can then switch to the category listing that displays a list of categories such as audio, browser or calendar and whether they have a default app associated with them or not.

A tap on a category enables you to change the default handler for it. This is only possible if you have at least two apps installed on your system that can be set as default handlers for the selected type.

It takes three taps to change the default app for a selected type which makes this process more comfortable than if you would have to make the changes using the manual approach listed above.

The post How to clear and change default apps on Android appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

Depending on the connection used, some users may try and power off their modem or router straight away for 30 seconds or so to resolve things, while others may simply wait and do nothing or try to dial in again if they are using a dial-up connection.

Powering off the modem or router works in many cases, especially if the issue is on your end and not the provider's fault. Then again, there are other possibilities why your Internet may not be working right now.

NetChecker provides you with the means to check the status and health of your Internet connection, and repair or fix connectivity issues that it discovers during the connectivity tests.

The application uses Windows Shell utilities for that and no third party tools, and since it is using a command line script to display things, it is pretty fast and stable as well.

The program displays options to you on start. If English is not your language of choice, press 4 to switch to a different interface language.

You can press 1 to check the status of your Internet connection, or 2 to check the Internet connectivity health. The difference? The status checks if you are connected to the Internet and returns either yes or no. The health check on the other hand tests if the Internet connection itself is reliable or causing issues like packet loss.

If issues are discovered, NetChecker offers to resolve them for you right away. How depends entirely on the issue that is experienced:

• If your computer is disconnected from the Internet, it will run additional tests to find out why that is the case.
• Depending on the outcome of that check, it may detect issues with the computer's network connection or come to the conclusion that the services of your Internet Service Provider are down.
• The health check provides additional information that you may find useful. It may suggest for instance to update your router's firmware or replace it if packet loss is detected between hop 0 (network card) and hop 1 (the router).

It should be clear that the program cannot resolve all Internet connectivity issues that you may experience.  It may however be helpful to you if you are experiencing issues that you cannot fix on your own. Note that it is able to resolve issues that you have with wireless and wired broadband connections, but that it cannot be used to text and repair dial-up or mobile Internet connections.

The program is compatible with all versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system starting with Windows XP up to the latest version.

The post NetChecker: repair Internet connection issues appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

Twitter has been working on adding login verification to its service for some time now. Today, the company has started to roll out the feature to all of its users.

Twitter uses a SMS-based system that the company sends to verified phones during the login process. This is different from many other services that use authenticator apps, hardware devices or email to generate codes.

Take a look at the following video to see how the new login verification is activated on Twitter.

Here is how to set it up for your account:

• You need to verify an email address and a phone number before you can start to enable two-factor authentication for your account.
• To do so, visit your account's settings page and scroll down until you find the account security listing there.
• Twitter displays whether you need to verify the email address or phone number, or if that has been done previously already.
• Check the "Require a verification code when I sign in" box next to Account security once you have verified the email address and phone.
• A test message is send to the phone and you need to confirm that you have received it.
• You are asked to enter your account password for verification purposes.

Twitter two-factor login verification

• Next time you log in to Twitter you enter your username and password like usual, and the verification code that Twitter sent to your phone on the second page. You can only sign in successfully if both checks are correct.

You can authorize third party applications on the applications page that do not support the two-factor authentication scheme yet.

The service is not working yet in some countries. It is not working in Germany and France for example, and maybe other countries as well. Some users may not see the option yet at all.

Two-factor authentication is an important step in improving the overall security of Twitter accounts. What feels a bit strange is that you cannot use Twitter's apps to verify your phone.

The post Twitter starts to roll out two-factor login verification appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

MediaFire is one of the remaining big players that seems to have not been hit that hard in the last year than other providers such as Rapidshare. While it still lost users according to Alexa, which may have been partially caused by the removal of the guest user upload option, business seems to have stabilized recently.

The company announced today that the service's registered user count crossed the 30 million mark, and while that includes free and paying account owners, it is certainly an important milestone.

As part of the celebration, it pushed out an update that brings native music and video streaming support to MediaFire's web and mobile apps.

How it works? A file action prompt is displayed when you click on a video or audio file on MediaFire. You get options to share or download the file just like before, and the new watch option.

If you click on watch you are taken to a new page where the music or video is streamed on.

I was able to play songs and videos while I was logged in and as an anonymous guest of the service. You can check out a sample files that are publicly accessible here. The very same streaming options are available for users of the MediaFire iOS and Android apps.

Free MediaFire users can store up to 50 Gigabytes of data on the company servers. That's a lot of storage space but the 200 Megabyte per file limit makes it less than practicable for many video files. While it is certainly possible to split larger videos into parts, it is not really that comfortable when it comes to watch those multi-part videos then.

The company is currently running a 50% off promotion for its Pro and Business accounts that do not have this limitation. The pro account, available for $2.49 per month during the promotion and the business account, available for $24.99 per month during the promotion have a maximum file size limit of 10 Gigabytes.

The introduction of a streaming feature is certainly a smart move by MediaFire considering that it not only has to compete with other file hosting services but also with file synchronization services. Especially the latter add new viewing and watching features to their services on a regular basis.

Supported media files

• HTML5 video formats: m4v, ogv, webmv.
• Flash video formats: m4v and flv.
• HTML5 audio formats: mp3, ogg, oga, m4a, wav.
• Flash audio formats: mp3 and m4A.

Update:

Both free and subscription holders can upload, play and store copyrighted content that is uploaded to their drive. MediaFire limits the sharing as it only allows users to share non-copyrighted video and music files. The only exception to that rule is a one-time download link to individual files.

MediaFire is using Audible Magic as a partner for determining copyrighted content.

The post MediaFire update introduces music and video streaming appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

Dropbox's Alex Allain announces that "as of today, SSO is officially available and ready to help you fit Dropbox into your existing systems, seamlessly".

What does this mean for customers? For business users it means quite a lot, especially for IT departments -- my former profession. There are two key components involved in this upgrade to Dropbox for Business.

First is Streamlined management. SSO helps admins securely manage access to all company applications in one centralized place. In addition, SSO will help admins to easily add and remove account access for team members.

Second is the promise of increased security. Any password policies that admins have established for the corporate network (change passwords every month, set password requirements to a certain length, and the like) will also be in effect for Dropbox through SSO. These are all common practices in many corporations.

Finally, Dropbox also promises that SSO will make life easier for users by limiting the number of passwords that a customer needs to remember. Users now only have to enter their login credentials once, which the cloud service promises will provide a more unified experience.

Dropbox for Business pricing begins at $795 per year for five users, with storage space described as "as much as you need". There is free trial period for potential customers who wish to test out the service.

The new Single Sign-on should be a big draw for corporate customers. IT departments love to set restrictions on user passwords -- number of characters, mix of letters and numbers, must be changed every six weeks (or similar span) and more. With an increasing number of these companies moving more to the cloud, this was a move Dropbox had to make in order to be competitive.

The post Dropbox finally rolls out Single Sign-on appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

Sumatra PDF 2.3 has just been released introducing several interesting features to the program. It is a major release that is different from previous releases that just fixed a thing or two, or added support for a new format type.

Probably the biggest feature addition is the new advanced settings option which you find under Settings > Advanced Settings in the program or by editing the text file SumatraPDF-settings.txt directly (the link in the program opens the text document as well so that you do not need to locate it manually on your system).

A summary page with descriptions for each configuration item is available here on the author's website.

Here are a couple of things that you can modify:

• The font type, size and colors used by the program.
• The main window background color.
• The Zoom levels.
• Printer defaults.
• Whether toolbars such as the top toolbar or the favorites sidebar are shown in the program.
• Set a default display mode.

As you can see when you open the configuration file or the author's website containing the descriptions, it is a lot that you can customize here.

The inclusion of advanced configuration options is however no the only new feature introduced in Sumatra 2.3. The View menu offers a new Manga Mode that is available when you are reading Comic Book files (CBZ or CBR) in Sumatra. This enables right to left reading in the reader which can be useful if you are reading Japanese manga or manga published in languages that use a right to left system. Sumatra supports Deflate64 in Comic Book files now, as well as OpenXPS documents which it did not support previously.

The developer of the program has added two new keyboard shortcuts to it as well. You can now go up or down a page with the hotkeys Ctrl-Up and Ctrl-Down.

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The main idea here is to create a personalized calendar based on photos that you like or have taken yourself. You can create it for your own, for work, or maybe even as a personalized small gift for someone.

The program displays the twelve months in the upper half of the program window on start. It is now up to you to click on the select picture buttons to pick a photo or image from your hard drive that you want to be associated with the selected month.

Each photo that you add is automatically displayed as a thumbnail in the interface so that you get a good overview of how the calendar will look like.

To replace a photo, double-click on it. This opens the same file browser that you can use to pick a different photo. The file browser supports a preview feature to help you pick the right photo.

You can generate the calendar right away at the bottom of the screen - after selecting the appropriate year - or, add events to it.

Events can be anything, from birthdays to anniversaries or holidays so that they show up in the calendar. You can import an iCal file here to add events from another calendar app right into the program. This is useful if you use Google Calendar, Outlook or any other calendar supporting the iCal format.

Once you are satisfied with your selection, click on the generate button. You need to enter a file name in the opening file browser to save the calendar to your computer system.

The calendar is saved as a pdf document that you can then open in a compatible reader to use it on the computer or to print it out. The program displays a donation request after the generation of the calendar.

The application is compatible with all recent Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems provided that Java is installed on the system.

Verdict

Pically is an easy to use program to create personal calendars in little time. The option to add custom events to the calendar manually or by iCal support is an excellent addition that improves the value of it significantly. If there is something missing it is a preview feature to verify that everything is to your liking, but that is not really such a problem as you can simply generate the calendar a second time if something is amiss.

The post Create and print your own photo calendar appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

It is likely that most users simply skim over the permissions listing or hit the install button right away without ever looking at it, just like many ignore what is being displayed to them during software installations on Windows.

The issue here is that apps may request permissions that they do not use for their core functionality, or that they use permissions in a way that may invade your privacy or worse.

Clueful, a new application created by security specialist Bitdefender, scans all apps on an Android device it is running on for privacy risks. It divides apps into high, moderate and low security apps and displays a score to you based on that.

The app is not the first to do that. We have reviewed G Data's Antivirus Free and Lookout's Ad Network Detector in the past which offer similar features.

You can tap on a risk level to take a closer look at apps filed into it or display all apps in a list instead. This list view displays each app with its score, and permissions that may be a privacy risk. You can tap on any app here to display all high, moderate or low risk permissions identified by Clueful.

What may be interesting is the option to uninstall apps right away from that screen which can save you some time getting rid of apps that you do not want to use any longer.

You may sometimes run into app identification issues as you only find an apps' name listed by the application and nothing else. While it should not be problematic to identify Firefox, Messenger or WordPress, you may have problems identifying what SC, Arcus or Elixir are doing if you are not working with the apps regularly.

You can tap on the filter icon in the lower right corner of the screen to display app group listings. Clueful sorts apps into groups such as "can cost you money", "send your private data to strangers" or "track your location" so that you can go through the list this way as well based on what you deem the most problematic permission.

The post Clueful scans your Android phone for privacy risks appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

If you have ever read through a tweaking guide you know that you are usually asked to navigate to a specific key in the Registry by following a path that leads to it. This involves launching the Registry Editor or a third party replacement manually, before you can navigate the folder structure displayed in the left sidebar to get to the key you are asked to manipulate.

There are ways to speed up things. You can write Registry scripts that you can run right from your desktop just like any other software to automatically modify keys in the Registry.

Registry Key Jumper offers another alternative. The free program lets you jump straight to any key in the Registry. Even better, it opens the Registry Editor automatically during the process.

The portable program ships with a set of favorite keys that you can jump to right away or modify as you see fit. You have a lot of options to open a selected key in the Registry:

1. Double-click on the key.
2. Left-click on it and select Jump.
3. Press the enter key when it is selected.
4. Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-J.
5. Use the Windows System Tray quick jump menu it makes available.

A list of favorite keys is handy without doubt, but what makes this program quite useful is how you use it to display new Registry keys in the Windows Registry.

Probably the easiest way to do so is to copy the Registry key, for example HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, to the Windows Clipboard. You can paste any key using the Ctrl-V shortcut when the Registry Key Jumper window is active. It is automatically displayed here and all you have to do to open it is to use one of the available options displayed above, for example enter.

But, it gets even better than that. You can also jump to any key directly using the Ctrl-Alt-X shortcut the program makes available. It is a global shortcut that works for as long as the program is running. So, copy the Registry key to the clipboard and use Ctrl-Alt-X to open it afterwards. It does not get faster than that.

You can add, edit or remove any key from the favorites list. This can be useful if you work with the same set of keys regularly.

Tips

1. You can import and export lists, for example to use the same set of keys on multiple devices or for backup purposes.
2. Any favorite key can be turned into a desktop shortcut so that you can click on it to open its location in the Windows Registry.
3. The program uses the default Windows Registry Editor by default for its functionality. You can change that to a third party editor easily under Settings > Options. Here you can also change the hotkey if you like.
4. You can add Registry keys to the .ini file the app ships with. The main advantage here is that you can add multiple keys in a fast way to it.

The post Registry Key Jumper lets you jump straight to Registry keys appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

You can access the page by loading chrome://flags in the browser. Here you find a large list of features that you can enable, disable or modify. Not all flags are available for all operating systems, and the page indicates a flag's compatibility by listing the supporting operating systems behind its name.

A short description is displayed underneath each experiment to provide you with basic information about it.

If you wanted to modify a specific feature on the page, you had to either browse the page to find it listed on it, or use the on-page search (F3) to find it. Both options are not really that comfortable to work with.

That's probably the same line of though that Google had, as the company modified the chrome://flags page in the latest Chrome Canary version to include permanent links to features.

When you open the page in supported versions of Chrome, you will see a link after the description of each experimental feature. This link points to the selected feature directly. That's useful for webmasters who write about these features.

Before, instructions usually asked users to open the chrome://flags page, press F3 to open the search and enter the preference name to find it on the page. With the direct links included on the page, it is now possible to link directly to preferences on the page to safe all those steps.

All that is left to do is modify the preference, but that is about it.

The feature is currently available in Chrome Canary, and maybe also in Chrome Dev. It may take a while before it makes its way to other versions of the browser.

The post Chrome’s experimental flags are now accessible via direct links appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.

The Android app WeatherBomb does all that, but adds to it large scale weather trend maps. The first thing you need to do after installation is to add at least one location that you want to retrieve weather information for.

To do so click on the menu button and then places in the context menu. Tap on default location to modify it. You can either enter longitude and latitude here, or use the search to find a place that you are interested in.

Make sure you add additional data packs to that location. By default, only rain, wind and cloud cover are included. You can add a pro pack (free) that adds temperature, pressure and humidity, and a waves pack (free) which adds wave height information on top of it.

The application divides the data into two main parts. The lower part is made up of  a weather map that is showing the currently selected data. You can swipe to the left or right to see how it changes over time. The map is powered by Google Maps so that you can easily zoom in or out a specific location.

A tap on the current data (rain in the above screenshot) displays all other data types that you can select based on the packs that you have added to the location during setup. The explanation at the bottom helps you understand what is shown on the screen.

The top displays the temperature, precipitation and wind strength, as well as a rain, cloud and wind graph for every hour of the next seven days.

You can use your finger to go through the data to pick a specific point in time that you want to look up weather information for.

Weather data comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. While it is often precise, it turns out to be not at other times. The author has plans to introduce other weather data sources to the app in the near future to improve the overall accuracy of the application.

Tips

1. You can change formats and units, e.g. temperature from Celsius to Fahrenheit or  the time format from 12 hour to 24 hour, in the apps' settings.
2. Here you can also enable high resolution maps. The author notes that low performance devices may run out of memory if the feature is enabled, so use with care.

Verdict

If you like to access weather trends on a map then WeatherBomb is the right application for you. It could use a couple of extra options here and there, like weather alerts or severe weather notifications.

The post WeatherBomb is a fancy weather app for Android that highlights weather trends appeared first on gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials.