As easy to use as a computer mouse, this device scans written materials and sends them wirelessly to your television set in real time, magnifying them up to 25X for easy viewing of fine print. The wireless magnifier’s bright 655 x 488 pixel handheld scanner picks up every detail of a picture or every letter of a word and transfers data to its base station (that plugs into your TV) which then sends it to your television screen with a bright, easy-to-read 2 1/4″ x 1 1/2″ field of view. Magnification ranges from 10X on a 14″ TV to 28X on a 32″ TV.

This device is tend to produce better result when use on screen that is no larger than 32″.

via coolest-gadgets

Sometime it hard to find the right smart phone car mount to fix on your car. This diy smart phone car mount is adjustable and easily completely moveable/removable without harming your car in any way.  It can also be adapted to hold any mobile device that weighs about one pound or less.

Note: Do not attempt to use this mount if it in any way impedes your ability to drive with total concentration on the road or if it’s use would be illegal in your location.

Some of the material you need:

1.  a 1/2″ PVC Tee coupling – make sure that the center opening is threaded.  The other two don’t matter.
2.  a 1/2″ PVC Street Elbow – it should have male threads at one end and female threads at the other.
3.  a 1/2″ PVC Nipple of whatever length will suit your car/height/posture.  This is basically a tube male threaded at both ends.
4. heavy duty plastic coated wire (I had “multipurpose wire” lying around, not marked but seems to be about 14-16 gauge)
5. adhesive backed craft foam – half a sheet or so should do it.

Alternately  – if you already have some kind of holster or other commercial cradle device feel free to use that instead of making your own from wire.  Or heat form thick plastic sheets/carve from wood/any other craft you have skills to utilize.  Fashion an appropriate way to attach it to the nipple tube.  Gravity is your friend.  So is friction.
Example: if you use a belt clip type holster already you may be able to just slip the clip into the nipple tube or put a small wire loop on the end of the nipple that can hold the clip.

My post here is just the summarize of the diy smartphone car mount. For complete guide you can follow the link below.

via instructables

After you have install the application on your computer, you will have the ability to to move them around, flip them, zoom in and out, stack on top of each other, control transparency, and more. Instead of the normal left click to minimize the windows, you just need to right click on the minimize button and it will become a 3D window. After that you can use the mouse center button to zoom in and out, left click on them to move them around or stack them on top of each other. Right click on the 3D windows and hold it then move your mouse around will change the 3D windows shape. Simply left click on the windows will restore them back to normal.

Hover your mouse pointer over the icon on the taskbar to get a view of everything that is running.

This is the main menu of the T3Desk application. From here you can manage how its start, tweaking the option to suit your preference, reading the FAQ and more. T3Desk may look like a fun application but it can be use to improve your productivity. Instead of using Alt-Tab to scroll through your windows using T3Desk provide you with a wider view of what current windows is running and in a 3D environment.

via howtogeek

Finding ways or place to hold your coffee while you search through your bad or need to do something that require both your hand. With this diy, you can just stick your coffee to any lamp post or metallic object. You can easily make your own version of this by snagging reusable coffee sleeves online, or making your own. Attach a couple of strong magnets, and you are ready to use it.

via popuplunch

Basic defense

Use a password

Go to Settings>General>Passcode Lock to set your password. Remember to enable the “Erase Data” option, this will wipe out all data on your phone after 10 failed passcode attempts.

Install Anti-theft and snoop detection alarm

This software will cost you US$0.99. It worth buying this software as you do not wish to spend another few hundred bucks to buy another iPhone. This app works based on the iPhone accelerometer. Once it is armed, any movement detected by the accelerometer will be interpreted as an attempt to swipe your iPhone. Then an alarm will sound off.

Install Motion Alarm

Price at US$1.99 and is available at crowdedroad.com. This app is similar to the previous software just that it is more sensitive and if set to stealth mode option it allows the app to secretly send its GPS coordinates to a preset e-mail address.

Advance defense

Install MobileMe

Not sure about this pricing but by looking at the features it provide, it definitely going to be expensive. Once the program is install in your iPhone you can go to MobileMe site to assign a passcode remotely or set the phone to pop up a message. It is also able to estimate your handset’s location on Google Maps. If your phone is stolen you can choose to remotely wipe out all data on your iPhone. Moreover the only way to disable MobileMe features is to do a hard reset.

via digital life

No video, sound only

If you want to just listen to the audio track of a selected video. You can do it by first playing the video as per normal, then pressing the Home button. This will turn off the screen and the video. After that press the Home button once and followed by a Home button double-click. Now you should be listening to the audio with the screen off. This help to save battery also.

Take screen shots

Press and hold the Sleep button while tapping the Home button. The picture will be added to your camera roll.

Cancel the ring!!!

To mute your iPhone ring immediately, press the home or volume button.

Precision zooming

Hold down your thumb on the screen and then swipe your index finger back and forth.

Hold the key

Hold down the “@123″ button and sliding your finger to the required symbol, then releasing it. The qwerty keyboard will reappear.

Press and hold down the “.com” button and you will see options like “.org”, “.edu” & “.edu” appear on the screen.

via digital life

Tech tips

1) Tabbing – Use Ctrl T for a new tab in both Firefox and Internet explorer. Use Ctrl W to close a tab then you can also hit Shift Ctrl T to reopen the closed tab. To go to address bar you can use Ctrl L to jump to there. For Firefox you can use Ctrl K to get into the search box. Lastly you can use the mouse center button to click on a link and it will open the site in a new tab.

2) Create a personal letterhead – Instead of keep on retyping the same on a word document (E.g contact number, name, etc) you can create a personal letterhead. Go to the template folder (look under Documents and settings in the local disk, usually the C drive). Click on a template icon (it has an orange bar across the top).

In the word template or master copy that opens, type in all the personal bits you want. For instance, name, cellphone number and e-mail at the top right corner of a header and an inspirational message in the footer. Add a visual if you like. Under file, select Save As and name the template, for example, seashell-lttrhd. Next, go back to the template in the template folder and right-click on it to Create Shortcut. Right-click on the shortcut and paste it on the desktop.

Now every time you double click on the Word icon on the desktop, your personalized letterhead pops up.

3) Never forget a task – use a sticky - Tired of seeing sticky note pasting all over your table or wall. You can download this Zhorn software. Install the program and it sits on the QuickLaunch bar. Click it once and a yellow window pops up. You are allow to create up to 32 stickies. Right-click the icon to manage the stickies, save them and lock them up if they are important so that you do not accidentally delete an important reminder. You also set a sound alarm to to alert you.

4) Create desktop shutdown icon – This is to teach you a slightly faster way to shutdown your PC. Right-click anywhere on the desktop and click on New then Shortcut. In the box, type: “shutdown -s -t 00″. Click Next. In the box called “Type a name for this shortcut”, type a brief name or leave the default “shutdown.exe” alone. Click Finish. Now you will see an icon says shutdown.exe on your desktop. If you want you can Right-click on it go to properties and change your icon. The next time you want to power down your PC it is just one double-click.

5) Exclusive search – Use a minus “-” in front of a word that you do not want it to appear in your search results. For example, you search for “Soccer news” you do not want to see Ronaldo news you can type this way “Soccer news -Ronaldo”.

6) Search for the right picture - Finding pictures that are safe for reuse or for reuse with modification can be quite difficult. One way is to go to www.google.com then go to the Advanced Image Search to narrow down the hunt and choose your preferred settings under Usage Rights.

7) Gmail shortcuts - Gmail’s have too many shortcut for one person to remember all. In fact there is just one easy-to-remember shortcut that you need to know. First, go to Settings, turn keyboard shortcuts on, save the changes and log out of Gmail. Then log in again, Hold down Shift, hit the question mark key and the entire menu of shortcuts will appear.

8 ) To control your browser - Useful shortcut key to control your browser. When you have several tabbed pages open in Firefox, Hit Ctrl+Tab to move the tab on the right or Hit Shift+Ctrl+Tab to move to the tab on the left.  To add .com to a web address press Ctrl+Enter and to add .net press Shift+Enter. Using Ctrl+D will bookmark a site.

9) Creating subsidiary ID to your Gmail address- Lazy to create multiple account when ask to register in order for you to be able to access the site and afraid that you will start to receive spam email. By adding + and a word before the @ sign, you can create a subsidiary account. For example if your default Gmail address is anything@gmail.com and you want to use it to sign up for an online newsletters. You can do it in this way; anything+newsletters@gmail.com. Then go to Gmail to setup a mail filter to store, archive, label or delete messages sent to this address. Another way i s to insert one or more full stops into your address, for example, a.nything@gmail.com or a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g@gmail.com.

10) Portable browser – Download this takeaway version of Firefox, called Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition, from Firefox_portable. Install in on external hard disk, USB flash drvie, etc. Then set it up with add-ons and saved passwords. Now this will save you a lot time when using other people PC because you will save the time finding the website and keying the password. The best part of this solution is that no personal data gets left behind in the host PC after you pull out the device.

11) To find out the song title - Make full use of the advantage of the cell phone in-built microphones and together with music identification software you can find the song title easily. You can try this popular freeware, Shazam which is very popular in Apple’s iPhone. But Shazam has also release the app for Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms.

For PC and Mac users, you all can use Tunatic but you need to have a microphone install first for the software to work.

12) Find your Blackberry PIN – Instead of going to Options>Status>PIN, users can just start a new email or SMS and type in “mypin” in the message field. Hit Enter and the PIN comes up.

13) To completely delete a file - Pressing delete and then empty your Recycle Bin does not delete the file completely. Other user can make use of some program to restore all your deleted files. To completely destroy a file you need some software such as Eraser or Permanent Eraser. This kind of software will overwrite the deleted file many time to make it almost irretrievable.

14) Windows 7: create power consumption report -In Windows 7, click start and type “cmd”. Right-click the menu item and click “Run as Administrator” Next type in “powercfg -energy”. A file called energy-report.html will be created with details of your device’s power usage.

15) Gadget galore – In Windows 7, you can enhance your desktop with mini-apps called gadgets. Simply right-click on the desktop and select Gadgets. In the new pop-up window, click “Get more gadgets online” at the bottom right-hand side of the window. Example of gadgets are Full Moon, AccuWeather, wireless network meter, etc. There are now more than 3600 gadgets available for download.

16) Make Windows 7 key work harder – Press it together with the left or right arrow key to automatically resize the current window to fully occupy the left or right half of the computer screen. Or press the Windows key and the down arrow to minimize an open window. Press the Windows key together with the up arrow to get the window to fill up the whole screen.

17) Make the monitor look better - Windows 7 now come with a new monitor calibration tool. This save you the money and time to install a calibration software. This tool is found in Control Panel then click on the Display icon. There you will see the Calibrate Color button. Take your time to adjust it until you find it comfortable to look at the screen.

18) Web searches from Start - To perform Internet searches in Windows 7, go to the Start Menu and enter “gpedit.msc” in the Start Menu search box to access the Group Policy Editor. Then double-click on User Configuration in the right pane and select Administrative Templates followed by Start Menu and Taskbar. In the list of settings, double-click and enable “Add search Internet link to Start Menu”.

19) Problem recorder - If you have problems installing or uninstalling software or removing a virus, here is an additional tool. The problem steps recorder documents all the steps performed on the computer and creates a zip file so that every detail can be shared and studied. Click Start and type in “psr.exe”, press Record to start the process and end the recording before creating the zip file.

20) Write in a new Gmail window - In order to write a new email message without moving away from the e-mail message you are currently reading. Hold down Shift C while clicking on Compose. A new window will open and you can start writing a new email.

21) Use camera as copier - Place the magazine or book as flat as possible on the table. Then set the camera lens at the middle of the zoom range this will move lens away from the wide angle which carries some distortion. Hold the camera above the center of the page and as flat as possible. Turn on the macro mode (the flower symbol). Off the flash, you do not want to over expose the page.

via Digital Life, Nov 18, 2009.

Last August a Dutch court ruled that Mininova had to remove all links to ‘infringing’ torrent files. Starting Nov 26 2009, only approved publishers are able to upload files to Mininova site. I know it sad to read this news, consider many of us have been visiting this site for reliable torrent file. Sp it now time to visit other bittorrent site for reliable torrent files. Below i list down a list of well reputable bittorrent site which i took from torrentfreak.

1. Torrentzap – Some of the torrent come with preview and used thumb up and down to judge how reliable this torrent file is.

2. Fenopy – Allow comment and has a verification button to rate this torrent file.

3. ExtraTorrent – My personal favourite now. Contain lot of comments by other so that u can check whether this is a true or fake torrent and also come with screen shot for most movie torrent.

4. KickassTorrents – Very simple user interface and make use of tagging to show you the most popular torrent file.

5. BTjunkie – Have verification tool also to check for reliability.

6. Monova – You can send an email to Monova to request use of your old account name. Great torrent site but find it containing too much ads but it is still worth searching for torrent you cannot find.

7. isoHunt – Good torrent search engine in it.

8. yourBitTorrent – Seen like a new torrent site. Not sure about it.

9. The Pirate Bay – Need me to say anything here. Should be the best torrent site now.

10. ShareReactor – Very easy to navigate website.

11. EZTV (Included by me) – Very good source for those who love english television series.

There are of course a lot more torrent site in there internet. I believe the site list here should satisfy your appetite and plus most of them produce good torrent file.

via torrentfreak

TorrentFetcher

If you find it troublesome to search for torrent from different torrent site now you can save all the trouble by just using torrent fetcher. Torrent Fetcher comes with a comfortable interface to perform the search for Bittorrent files from the local computer system without firing up a web browser first. This method has several advantages including the ability to search multiple torrent indexers at once, the display of all discovered torrents on the same page in the same interface and a comfortable option to download torrents without having to switch pages. If you want to read more information about the torrent then you still have to go to the site to read. Currently torrent fetcher only allow you to search for torrent file and open it straight to your torrent client. Hopefully then will implement this feature in their next release. At the moment now torrent fetcher is available for Windows only.

via ghack

Windows 7 classic start menu

Classic start menu – For those prefer to use the old classic start menu, you guys can choose to install this little application called CSmenu.

Gmail Notifier Plus

Access gmail from Gmail from the taskbar – This is a good software for those using gmail, Gmail Notifier. It will alert you at your desktop, each time you receive a new email.

7Stacks

Stack your icon and folder neatly – Another great piece of software that allow you to stack up your folder neatly. StandaloneStack and 7stacks

Ninite easy pc set up

Install all your prefer application at once – Head over to this site ninite choose the appplication you want and then download the installer to your computer. This will save you a lot of time in installing each application individually.

via lifehacker