Here is a quick solution to connect your home Laptop, home PC, Mobile phone and LCD TV.

There are lots of fonts available freely, just go to http://code.google.com/webfonts and view the entire collection. You could see, directory really has very good designer fonts which suit for every purpose whether you are writing a cover letter or creating a stunning looking Resume’ to impress your future employer or composing a book and trying badly to give a fresh look.

To get Web Fonts work on your word processing software, first select a font you like most. I liked Tangerine, so going with it. After clicking it, you will get full preview of it. See the preview and if you’re satisfied then go ahead and click Download tab. You’ll get download link below the page. Check below screen shot:

Downloaded file will be in zip. To use that font you should first unzip it and get the TTF file (True Type Font). To install it, follow the instructions below according to your operating system:

In Windows XP: Go to Start > Control Panel > Fonts > Install New Font > browse the directory where you saved the font after unzip and the click on the font & install it by clicking Install button.

In Windows Vista B 7: Just Right click on the TTF file and select Install. That’s all, you are ready.

Now, open your favourite word processor, e.g., Microsoft Word and select your newly installed font from font list menu and format your desired text.

Web Version (AIM Express)

Like all other messenger service, AIM also offers web client ‘AIM Express’.  Quickly point your web browser to http://www.aim.com/ and click CHAT NOW. Within seconds, web messenger window pops-up. Just enter your Facebook logins to start the session. You will notice another pop-up bubble, prompting you to sing-in to your Google Account for start your Gmail chat. Otherwise you can always click ‘Menu’ (just below your avatar) to sing-in and off from Gmail & Facebook chat.

AIM Client:

Instant Messenger (IM) Clients are always favourites for heavy users and IM addicts. If you are one of them, then you must take the client. Download the client application from aim.com and complete the setup.

Not like Yahoo! Messenger, it offers full setup file where Yahoo only gives web installer. AIM’s setup file is just around 8 MB.

Client’s interface is almost same as web version.  Only few clicks required for the setup. Once done, you are ready to go. If you had previous AIM Screen name, you can use those credentials here as well (this option is also available in web client).

IM networks are categorized as Facebook Friends, Google Friends with mentioning the total number of contacts on the that networks and out of which how many of your buddies are online. Very nice interface, we can easily navigate each networks and when required, it can be easily expanded.

Enjoy chatting with your Facebook & Google Chat friends in one place. There are many multi-protocol IM clients are available but why go for more complications if AIM solves our Facebook & Gmail chat problem.  We’ll talk about multi-protocol IM clients later so we few don’t miss our few remaining friends who are using Yahoo!, ICQ and other services.

No serious configuration, no software installation required. Your GPRS phone is enough. You only need to send an e-mail or MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) to your unique e-mail address assigned by Facebook. To get your unique e-mail address, go to http://www.facebook.com/mobile and see the Upload via Email column. Add that email address to your phone’s address book and be ready to share updates with your Facebook friends on the go.

Just not status updates, you can share pictures and videos too.  Here is how:

Update status : just write your status message on the subject field
Upload Pictures and Videos : attach pictures or videos and write description on subject field – subject matter will be sent as description of picture or video

All the pictures/videos will be stored on mobile upload folder. Later on, you can move them to different folder/album and customize its access restrictions.

Like e-mail, you can use MMS to update your status and upload pictures and videos. Go to MMS compose menu and in the recipient number field, add your unique e-mail address.

Depending upon the operator and phone model, MMS is limited by size. Keep that in mind when sending large picture or video. While sending e-mail only data transfer is charged but in case of MMS, every MMS is charged on fixed rate.

Remember the most important thing; never share your unique address with others. Facebook doesn’t verify from which e-mail address you are sending your updates. Who have that unique address can easily post updates.

A good example came few days ago. How anyone can use your Facebook profile details to get control of your e-mail account.  A computer hacker used Facebook profile information to take control of target’s email account. Quoting the press release of Department of Justice, California Sate:

Bronk targeted his victims by scanning Facebook for women who also posted their e-mail addresses there. He then contacted the woman’s e-mail service, pretending he was the legitimate customer, and claimed to have forgotten the password. Bronk was able to correctly answer security questions posed by the e-mail service by finding the answers on victims’ Facebook pages.

Some of the security questions posed by e-mail providers included, “What is your high school mascot?” “What is your father’s middle name?” “What is your favorite food?” and “What is your favorite color?”

Once Bronk gained access to the e-mail account, he changed the password and the victim was locked out.

Bronk searched the victim’s “sent mail” folder for nude or semi-nude photographs and videos, which he often sent to the victim’s entire e-mail address book. He also gained access to some victims’ Facebook accounts by clicking the “Forgot Your Password?” link and asking for a new password to be sent to the victim’s e-mail account, which he now controlled. In many cases, he posted the photographs to victims’ Facebook pages and to other Internet sites and made comments on the Facebook sites of friends.

Full press release can be accessed at http://oag.ca.gov/news/press_release?id=2026

Be careful about what details you are sharing on your profile and who can access those details.  Social networking sites offer plenty of privacy options and allow you to control your details. Check them carefully and use them wisely.

When I was checking my voice mails and other messages there, I found a new listing under added phone numbers. The new entrant is Google Chat. Correct, we have this option to make calls directly from Gmail Chat. But looking forward, I got the more interesting thing.

Tried to make a call and saw another option inside Phones to call with and it is mentioned as Google Talk. Twist is that, I was unsuccessful to get call to Google Talk. Tried many times but result was same.

Later on, I logged out from Google Talk client and signed into Gmail Chat and initiated another call but kept the phones to call with to Google Talk. Within few seconds, Gmail Chat started notifying for an incoming call.

May be it is just an error, Googlers did a typo and made ‘Google Talk’ instead of ‘Gmail Chat’ or they did it for purpose to give a hint what they going to do.  Like you, I would  also like to take my Google Voice calls from Google Talk client.

You can download this application free from NDTV’s mobile webpage at http://m.ndtv.com or get it on your desktop from http://www.ndtv.com/page/blackberry-web and then install using data cable or Bluetooth.

First impression

Start the application from your download folder and wait for few minutes if you are on GPRS/EDGE connection to load or it will be quite shorter if you are on 3G/WiFi.  App menus are very well organized and main screen appears very good, menus can be selected easily and you can navigate where you wish. You will see top stories first. Headlines come first then the time and date of when it added or updated. There is a sub-category menu of main news section; which is divided into sub-sections as Recent, India, World, Business, etc. Tapping the category will bring news articles of that sub-category.

Reading the news

Individual news article comes just tapping it. But if you are on the bottom of the page and want to go to top of the page by hitting ‘T’ key as we do in browser, email pages and it go to top of the page but here shortcuts keys ‘T’ for top and ‘B’for going to bottom of the page – don’t work.

As we expected, at the end of every news page there are previous & next buttons for navigating articles. Below that we got links to share the page on Facebook and Twitter. I tried to click both the buttons but sadly both failed to work properly.

Viewing photos

Going further, tapped Photos from the main menu and it worked perfectly. Tapping the gallery, slide-show type interface appeared and we were able to browse available images without any zoom function to view larger version of the image. Photos section is also sub-categorized into Entertainment, Cities, Technology and Trending. If you have unlimited BlackBerry data plan then go ahead and get latest images on the move or else be careful in case you have limited data plan.

Watching Videos

Getting streaming videos on a BlackBerry phones are still a tedious task. Let’s proceed to Video section and see what’s there. After a minute of loading; the loading circle goes away and featured section appeared in default view. This section is also sub-categorized into Features, News, Business, Prime Shows, Entertainment, Exclusive, Environment and Sports. When we clicked an item to see a video, it opens browser to download video file in 3gp format. It’s better as any phone model of BlackBerry phone can download and later can be viewed any time.

NDTV Social is the next. It shows NDTV’s Anchors and how many friends joined them. Went further and clicked on the anchors names but except the name of that anchors nothing fetched. This section also has another sub-menu Shows where you can see details of NDTV shows.

Tapping the More tab will present you more available categories, namely iWitness, Favouries, Cricket, Popular, Top Comments, Weather, Market and About. Taking each menu will open more details about that subject.

We tried to click three most interested subjects, first is cricket and then second is market and final third is weather.

Cricket section contains Live, Upcoming & Recent sub-categories. We were lucky to see the live scores of the match going live at that time. Later, No Live Matches appeared there. Upcoming tab shows schedules of coming matches. While Recent tab presents results of last few matches.

Market tab opens BSE sub-category graph in default view with BSE Sensex graph and below further we got current, open, high and low Sensex points of the day. This section in another sub-section, covers NSE details as well with similar graph and information.

Weather is Hot!

Our last interest was to check weather section. NDTV is the only national news channel which carries many cities, including state capitals it; covers major cities of India. Plus, they never forget to show weather updates between news bulletins. Here alsol they did good job and added many cities possible. In this way, they covered entire India. May be, my city is not in the list but I can easily see the neighbouring city and find how is the weather there to guess it’s surrounding areas. At the time when we were checking details, few cities were showing as under update. Later on they got updated. This section also contains sub-section of World Cities. It will be good for those people who frequently need weather updates from cities around the world, no need to lookup for other sources.

Finally…

At the end we finally clicked About and thought that it will have app version, settings, refresh time interval settings and other similar details as there is no option menu in the application instead history of NDTV & the details about the developer of this application July Systems appeared.

Total size of the installer is about 550 KB and it’s their first version. Expecting more features, customizations and notification options in the next release. Overall a good experience for BlackBerry owners. It’ll be great to see a N on Blackberry’s notification area when a news update comes. Surely NDTV’s this effort will inspire other players & we’ll witness more applications writter for different smartphones and our phones will be a real smart to get every thing done.

Ubuntu

Wanted to try Linux? Many of your friends doing so but you don’t like to create a mess with you system. What happens if your Windows get lost with all your files? You knew using virtual machines you can test Linux but you’ll not feel the real taste without full hardware. We’ll tell you a quick way to make dual boot system keeping your windows system intact. At the time of starting system, you’ll select Linux OS or Windows. Of course, you can remove Linux installation in just few clicks from Add/Remove Programs from Control Panel inside windows. Not even a single line of command needed.

We’re taking Ubuntu, just not for the most popular Linux distribution because of its excellent hardware support, bundle software and built-in security features. Its installation disk of around 700 MB has Open Office, Firefox browser, GIMP (Image Editor), Multiprotocol Instant Messenger and many more. In other words, everything you need to get you work done and all these coming out of the box.

To taste Ubuntu, first of all you need its installation disk. Download your copy from http://www.ubuntu.com for free. Please make sure you are downloading the correct version and it satisfies all the hardware requirements. Installation disk comes as an ISO image. After downloading; you can burn ISO to an empty disc or mount it with virtual drive [use MagicDisc from http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-overview.htm, it’s free and light weight mounting utility].

We’re going to install it under existing Windows environment so don’t boot your system using Ubuntu disc instead just insert the disc on your drive or mount the ISO image. Disc will automatically start and you’ll see following screen. If disc doesn’t load automatically then browse the disc and run wubi.exe. Then click Install inside Windows.

Starting Ubuntu installer inside Windows Vista

In next screen, supply all required details, add your username & password and then click next. You can’t proceed further if you are not providing username & password. It’s mandatory for all Linux OSes.

Overview installation details & supply required information to begin setup

Setup program will check system requirements, available disc space and then begins the installation. Wait for few minutes to setup completes. When setup completes, system will prompt you to do a reboot (restart). Do so and carefully check the monitor screen when it comes up. Just after BIOS screen, Windows boot loader will show you available to operating system now. Your old installation (Windows Vista in our test system) and newly installed Ubuntu. Let’s take the Ubuntu to boot this time. Now onwards, at the time of starting your system , every time this screen will come. You have to take any one depending upon your need.

Ubuntu & Windows Vista listed on Windows Boot Manager

Wait few more minutes, till Ubuntu configures with your hardware & finalizes the installation.

Finalizing Unbuntu Installation

Within few minutes after a reboot (don’t forget to select Ubuntu from boot screen if system restarts during finalization) your system will appear with all new makeup & presents you the Ubuntu Desktop.  It seems that wait is now over, login with your username & password added during setup and we’ll find a new desktop environment; waiting for you to explore.

Ubuntu Desktop

There are many difference and many similarities to existing Windows desktop. Go ahead to try Ubuntu.

Remove Ubuntu:

Just like setup process mentioned above, you can completely remove Ubuntu installation within few click after booting with Windows. All you need to do, go to Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Program (or similar menu on your system) > select Ubuntu and click Uninstall / Remove and follow the prompts.  After Windows confirms the uninstallation, a reboot is necessary. After reboot you will not notice any boot loader screen. Your default Windows will load automatically.

Remove Ubuntu using Windows Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs

We’ve take extreme care to prepare this article but due to many customizations, different hardware/software issues etc. data lose, system crash may possible. It is strongly advised to take proper backup before proceeding.

All digital files contain many parameters. We know many of these parameters e.g., size, permission, date of creation/modification. There is another hidden parameter; we call it File Hash Value. There are many methods to calculate Hash Values. Exciting thing, every hash value is unique. So if you copy same file to multiple locations; all files will have same hash values, so you can compare these. If they match then both files are same & if not then you’ve to initiate the transfer again. This is our main idea to compare files using a hash value and find its integrity.

Not going into much depth, let’s see how we can use it to check integrity between two or more files copied at multiple locations. There is very tiny utility available for free for all Operating Systems; the name is ‘HashTab’. As name suggests, it makes a tab on file property dialogue box and shows selected hash values of the file in just a right click.

You can download HashTab 3.0 from http://beeblebrox.org/ link and after installation, you can see an additional HashTab – tab on your file property dialogue box.

HashTab 3.0 Interface

To get the hash values of your file, just right click, select properties and within few seconds hash values will be there in HashTab. To compare, you must get all the hash values of the same file from multiple location then paste it to comparison box in the original file’s HashTab dialogue.

HashTab - hash value comparison

There are many different type of hash value system, most used are MD5, CRC32, SHA-1  etc.,. Take only one system like MD5 at a time. MD5 is the most used and works best.

While sending file using e-mail, online file hosting, FTP or physical media don’t forget to notify its hash values e.g., MD5 value also. You may notice many download sites mentions MD5 values with their download links.

Next time when your friend calls you to say that the video you have sent doesn’t have sound but its MD5 values are matching. Now, you can confidently reply him/her that video file is okay, why don’t you check you play and installed audio codecs once again.