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27Feb/091

Firefox and User Agent Switcher

Download and install the User Agent Switcher from here

Read popular magazines for free as a IPhone

Zinio is a company that is providing popular magazines like Reader's Digest, CosmoGirl, Elle, Macworld, Men's Health, National Geographic, Playboy, Penthouse and books in a digital format for free. These magazines are served as high resolution images and are the exact replica of the real magazines.

To read these magazines inside Firefox, first download User Agent switcher addon for Firefox. Go to Tools>User Agent Switcher>Options >Options. Click on User Agents and then click on Add. Now fill in the fields as follows:

Description: iPhone
User Agent: Mobile Safari 1.1.3 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en)
App Name: AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko)
App Version: Version/3.0
Platform: Mobile/1A542a Safari/419.3

So we have added iPhone as a user agent. Then click on Tools>User Agent Switcher and click iPhone to set the user agent to iPhone. We are now ready to begin.

Proceed to http://imgs.zinio.com/iphone/ and read all your favorite magazines for free!

Walk in google shoes

Well, the googlebot is allowed access to webpages that are normally restricted to registered users (members-only sites). This is mainly because the site owners want their websites to be searchable via google but at the same time preventing non-members from accessing.

Go to Tools>User Agent Switcher>Options >Options. Click on User Agents and then click on Add. Now fill in the fields as follows:

Description: Googlebot
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
App Name: Googlebot
App Version: 2.1

You are done, congrats, your browser will now be recognised as a googlebot!
To revert back, click on Tools–>User Agent Switcher–>Default

27Feb/091

Stream movies and music directly from torrents

RARPlayer is a multimedia torrent player that allows you to watch movies and listen to audio without downloading the torrent. It streams movies and music directly from the torrent file so that you can start watching it just like any streaming video without having to wait for it to complete downloading.

rarplayer4 Stream movies and music directly from torrents

So, if you have a good download speed and a torrent with enough seeders, you will like this. You can even use it at your office icon razz Stream movies and music directly from torrents

27Feb/091

View hidden files with a keyboard shortcut

HowToGeek has come up with an absolutely marvelous solution to quickly toggle the display of hidden files on your Windows computer. Often you have to view hidden files when making changes to system files or configuration files of softwares. Enabling the "show hidden files" option in Windows is a long process. The author of HowToGeek has coded a simple application in AutoHotkey script that runs in the background and toggles the status of the "show hidden files" option with a shortcut key combination - Win+H. There is no user interface to keep memory usage at a minimum, but you can customize with by editing the script which is provided on the site.

Once the application is running, all you have to do is hit the Win+H shortcut key.

togglehidden1 thumb2 View hidden files with a keyboard shortcut

And immediately any hidden files will become visible. Hit the same shortcut key and the folders become hidden again.

togglehidden2 thumb2 View hidden files with a keyboard shortcut

To make this application auto start, copy it to your startup folder C:\Documents and Settings\%username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. Since there is no GUI, the only way to close the application is by killing the process through the task manager.

This application is going to make my life a lot easier. I wish it was available earlier. Download ToggleHiddenFiles.

27Feb/090

Group your desktop icons by putting a Fence around them

Stardock Fences is a free program that allows you to draw “fences” around groups of desktop icons which then become movable and resizable containers for your desktop icons. The fenced area becomes shaded in color and can be resized and moved around easily.

To use the program, simply hold down the right mouse button and draw a box around the icons you want to group. Once you release the button you will get an option to create a Fence and label it. The label either appears at the top of the Fence, always visible, or you can make it show up as a tooltip. The colors and transparency of the shaded area can be customized.

stardock fences thumb1 Group your desktop icons by putting a Fence around them

Additionally, when you double click on the desktop all the icons vanish. Double click again to reveal them. This “helps you finally appreciate the wallpaper you have hiding behind all that clutter.” Fences integrate with the context menu allowing you edit, rename and lock a Fence directly by right clicking on it. You can also exclude a fence and individual icons from the hide feature.

StarDock says, “We think this feature is so useful, we’re applying for a patent on it.” And it's true. You'll love this tool and it is real usefull

27Feb/090

Access all files on your hard disk from the system tray

Hawkscope is an incredibly useful program that allows you to access your hard disk’s content right from your system tray. Forget about My Computer or the desktop because Hawkscope does not simply show you the hard drives but the entire contents on it through pop open menus. The best part is Hawkscope is available for all the three major platforms – Windows, Linux and Mac and it’s open source.

hs 040 win 285x300 Access all files on your hard disk from the system tray

The program allows you to add custom locations through the Quick Access tab on the settings window. You can also set to view hidden files or even blacklist certain locations from showing. This application is going to save anybody who works on a computer precious amount of time. I’m totally sold.