How To Close All Open Programs At Once

I came across this small utility today while browsing through different blogs on the net.  Its called CloseAll and it closes all open programs in Windows at once. There isn't much to it. Its a simple program that requires no install. Also you can easily point it out to the quick launch bar so you access it anytime using just a single click. 

Why Should I Use It?


Although it doesn't do anything spectacular, I still recommend that everyone should have it. Why?? Here are some situations where you may find it useful.

• You try to install a program and it asks you to close all open programs. So you could just close all programs one by one or you could just click on this program and all open programs will be closed in less than a second.

• You have a lot of programs open at the same time and your windows starts to slow down. So much so that you could hardly move your mouse to the close button. Pretty rare but believe me this happens So you click on this program and within an instant your windows is up and running again.

• You have opened up a lot of programs at once and you just want to shut down your PC. So you are not really in the mood to close all those programs using the taskbar or clicking the cross button one by one so you click on this and task completed.

I could go on and on with this list but I hope you get my point. 

Click here to download Close All(36 Kb)

How To Point Close All To Quick Launch Bar

• Right Click on the zip file you downloaded earlier and extract it

• Open the folder where you extracted the file

• Now just drag and drop the close all file to the quick launch bar. To drag it click on it and move your mouse to the quick launch bar as shown below.

             

Note 1: If you run a 64 bit windows operating system, make sure to choose the file present in the x64 folder

Note 2: If you can't see the quick launch bar in the taskbar, right click on the taskbar, click on toolbars and select quick launch from there

Advanced Options:

So what if you want to close all open programs except your browser(or anything else). You can manually add the programs you want to exclude. To do this follow these steps:

• First create a shortcut to the CloseAll program. Right click on the file and click on create shortcut

• Now right click on the shortcut you made and click on properties

• In the target window add the following commands at the end (-x="app-to-exclude.exe") without the brackets. Here "app-to exclude" should be replaced by the program you want excluded. For ex: type -x="chrome.exe" to exclude Google Chrome. Also you could add more than one program using the '|' seperator. For ex: -x="chrome.exe|notepad.exe|iexplore.exe"

Final Verdict:

To test how good this program is, I opened more than 20 applications at once with Close All setup in the quick launch. And I clicked on the program. It took 1-2 secs to close all the open programs. Pretty effective.

 

Note that it closes only the programs that are there on the taskbar. Tasks running in the background are not effected in any way. I highly recommend it to all of you. So did you try it out?? I would love to hear from you.

All Credit goes to Alexander Avdonin. from Ntwind

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How To Get Mac Like Behavior On Windows

You must be familiar with the Alt+Tab feature in windows that allows you to switch between different open windows. Do you use it a lot?? Well if you do then you will love this. Even if you don't, give this a try. Instead of the simple Alt+Tab feature in windows, Mac provides a completely different switching option. It visually brings in focus all the open windows from where you can choose which one to switch to.

In this post i will show you how you can get this functionality in windows. Have a look below

How to get mac Like behavior in windows

• First download this free software, Smallwindows(468kb)

• Once downloaded install it, installation is pretty simple and fast

• Once installed you will see the small windows icon in the taskabar, double click on it to launch the settings menu

• Now you will see three different options in the settings menu i.e Hot-zone, Hotkey Activation, Advanced features. Lets try to understand them one by one.

Hotkey Activation

In Hotkey activation you can assign shortcuts for three different tasks

• Miniature All - Bring to focus all open windows
• Miniature Realted - Bring to focus all related windows
• Show/Hide desktop - Show desktop or hide desktop

Now to set the shortcuts click on the button corresponding to the task you want to perform. Then you will see a windows like the one below:

Here you can either choose a key as a shortcut or a combination of a key with shift, alt, ctrl, windows key modifiers. I recommend you choose the 'alt' modifier and 'Q' key as the shortcut. Then click on OK. Now close the settings menu and press 'Alt' + 'Q'. And see for yourself. Now set shortcuts for other tasks too if you want

Hot-zones

Hot zones represent the four corners of your monitor. You can select what should happen when you move your mouse to any of the corner points. Just select the corresponding task from the drop down menu when you move to one of the corners. Notice below that i selected 'All' for the top left hot zone. This means that when i move my mouse to the top left corner all my open windows will come to focus.

Advanced features

Here you can set some advanced features like excluding windows based on the title, which i found pretty useless. So ignore it for now, you can play with it later on. Lastly there is an option to auto launch this application on windows startup. I would recommend to turn that on. 

So this completes the setup of this awesome software. Now you can use the assigned shortcuts to navigate to different open windows faster and smarter. And don't forget the eye candy it provides. Hope you find it useful.

If you have any doubts or have something to share with others then you can do it by leaving a comment below.

Thanks for reading

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Cool Interesting Stuff On The Web – Week 1

A word from the author

I spend a lot of my time everyday, trying to discover new interesting things on the web. And though I would love to write a post about all these things but the truth is I can’t. Why?? Because they don’t fit in the niche of this blog. This blog is about technology, computer tips and tricks and some other interesting stuff. Now lets say I find something really interesting, a video, a list of inspirational quotes or a cool website. It wouldn’t make sense to write about all these things in here. Who would like to read motivational quotes on a technology blog..

So to share all these interesting things I come across everyday, I am starting this weekly feature whereby I would write a list of cool stuff that you may find interesting every SUNDAY. This is a type of an experiment for me, you may like it or you may feel its ridiculous. So help me here by providing your reviews whether you like to read such things or not. Also I am not concentrating on search traffic here, this is for all those people who visit this blog daily.

Without wasting any more time, lets start.

5 Cool Things For This Week:

Totally random stuff ahead of you. Some of these may be related to technology, some may be completely off topic.

Hope you like it.

1. Suspend water in air without a glass – Magic

Yes I love magic tricks. Who doesn’t?? I remember the first time I saw this video I was completely blown away. Have a look

Although the trick looks real but I suggest you not to try this. Why?? Because its something which the laws of physics don’t allow. This guy must have used some cool editing effects to perform this trick. But nonetheless full marks to this guy for the creativity..

 

2. Drive your car using just your thoughts-Technology

How could I miss to write something about technology. Now this is an ongoing research where a team of researchers are trying to build a mechanism through which we would be able to drive our cars using just our thoughts.  Have a look at this video

How is that possible?? Basically this technique is based on commercially available sensors for recording electroencephalograms (EEGs), which are basically the electrical outputs your brain produces while it thinks coupled with a software which could transform these signal into directions.

As I said earlier this is an ongoing research and it may take years before something like this gets good enough, so that we can use it in actual traffic..

 

3. Some interesting quotes- Quotes

There are millions of quotes you can find on the internet so its no less than a category itself. Have a look at these lovely quotes, who knows, it may just make your day.

http://thumbpress.com/sometimes-all-you-need-is-a-little-inspiration-to-keep-rolling/

 

4. Giant water balloon explosion in slow motion- Fun

This a video by HowStuffWorks on Giant Water Balloon Explosion in ultra slow motion. Anything shown in slow motion is always fun to watch. And this is no exception. Have a look:

 

5. People are awesome 2011 – Awesomeness

Last in the list is a video which shows what crazy things people do around the world, every year. Sure these people are awesome. If you are too lazy to finish your homework or to do something you love, this may just inspire you.

 

Final Words

I am going to prepare one such list every Sunday from today onwards. This week’s list was full of videos. And most of these were quite old actually. From next week I assure you I would give newly uploaded content a preference.

Note that I don’t own any of the videos used above. This is just a platform for me to share these things with you guys.

 

Also please share your views about this new Sunday Special list. This is my first post in this category and I would absolutely love to have your feedback on this. What are your interests? Which one of these did you like the most.?? Your reviews are important to me..

Thanks for reading…

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Google Graph Search Tricks

Last year back in Dec 2011, Google announced a new feature with which you could draw graphs of complicated functions using just the google search. Just type any mathematical function a click on search and google will draw a graph for it. That's a great feature but is actually quite useless for someone like me. But nonetheless you can do some crazy things by using this new feature. Now try this out:

Draw Heart Shape Graph using Google search:

• Go to Google

• Type sqrt(cos(x))*cos(200 x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(9-x^2), -sqrt(9-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5 in the search box, and

• Click on Search

Heart Shape Graph Using Google Search

So what did you see? If you did everything right which I am sure you did, you will see a heart shape graph in the search results. You can zoom in and zoom out of the graph or even move the graph around. Also if you have some free time to spare, try modifying the values in the function to get different results.

To draw Heart Shape Graph without the circle type this in Google and click on Search:

sqrt(cos(x))*cos(200 x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(9-x^2)

Draw Batman Shape Graph Using Google Search:

As you may have thought, the heart shape graph isn't the only one in the list. Practically you can make any graph you want using this graph feature given that you know how to deal with graphs and functions. But for the time being try these out. Search for this function in google:

• 2sqrt(-abs(abs(x)-1)*abs(3-abs(x))/((abs(x)-1)*(3-abs(x))))(1+abs(abs(x)-3)/(abs(x)-3))sqrt(1-(x/7)^2)+(5+0.97(abs(x-.5)+abs(x+.5))-3(abs(x-.75)+abs(x+.75)))(1+abs(1-abs(x))/(1-abs(x))),-3sqrt(1-(x/7)^2)sqrt(abs(abs(x)-4)/(abs(x)-4)),abs(x/2)-0.0913722(x^2)-3+sqrt(1-(abs(abs(x)-2)-1)^2),(2.71052+(1.5-.5abs(x))-1.35526sqrt(4-(abs(x)-1)^2))sqrt(abs(abs(x)-1)/(abs(x)-1))+0.9

This is what you should get as a result for that function. That's the graph for batman. I had some problem getting this at times. So if you don't get this the first time try refreshing the page.

Lastly I had some spare time so I tried to make one of these myself. Apparently I am not really good at it but nonetheless I did make something(or did I?). Try this out:

• 2sqrt(-abs(abs(x)-1)*abs(3-abs(x))/((abs(x)-1)*(1-abs(x))))(8+abs(abs(x)-3)/(abs(x)-3))sqrt(1-(x/7)^2)+(5+0.97(abs(x-.5)+abs(x+.5))-3(abs(x-.75)+abs(x+.75)))(1+abs(1-abs(x))/(1-abs(x))),-3sqrt(1-(x/7)^2)sqrt(abs(abs(x)-1)/(abs(x)-5)),abs(x/80)-1.9913722(x^2)+21+sqrt(0.1-(abs(abs(x)-2)-1.5)^2), abs(x/2)-3.9913722(x^2)+9+sqrt(0.35-(abs(abs(x)-1.8)-1.3)^2)

Please don't zoom out of it, you will be dissapointed. If you understood what that was, you should be proud of yourself. If you didn't its not your mistake, I said I am not really good at it:D

Have fun sharing this trick with your friends. Also if you liked this have a look at:

Cool Google Im Feeling Lucky Tricks

So what do you think about it? I would love to hear from you. Also if you were able to make some of your own fun graphs, please share them in the comment section below. I am up for surprises. 

Thanks for reading..

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Wikipedia Goes Dark, Reddit Down. What next??

SOPA is creating a lot of buzz lately. Or should I say the SOPA protesters are. Well If you dont know what SOPA is all about see this:

Stop Online Piracy Act - Wikipedia

Wait this is a Wikipedia link and I just said that wikipedia goes dark today. Apparently this is the only page thats working  fine today and won't go dark after some seconds. Smart move by wikipedia isn't it?

Image credit: Watblog

What is SOPA??

SOPA( Stop Online Piracy Act) is a bill which if passed would change the way internet works. And when I say change I don't mean in a good way. It would give the US government right to take down any site infringing copyright material. That doesn't sound bad isn't it?? Well it is. Its not in what SOPA aims for but how it works. I dont want to write a lot about how SOPA is dangerous because a lot has already been written about it.

Have a look at this: Why is SOPA Dangerous
You can read the bill here: SOPA


What's Next??

What's next. That's the main concern I have. With popular sites like google, wikipedia, reddit protesting actively against SOPA and more joining the protest soon, SOPA seems unlikely to happen:

1. People: In the coming days we will see that more and more people would get aware of how dangerous SOPA is for the internet and would join the revolution.  According to me, the people would show there protest by sharing there views on various social networking sites, changing there profile pictures to oppose SOPA and participating in various discussion forums.

2. Websites: 18th Jan is the anti SOPA protest day. But I don't see this protest getting extended. I believe we won't see another blackout by these sites in the future. That means all sites would get back to normal by tomorrow.

3. Government: Eventually we will see the US government backing out of the bill. We may see another version of SOPA introduced. But with giants like Google opposing SOPA, there is no way that such a bill will get passed. Just imagine if SOPA gets passed and we see the end of pouplar sites like wikileaks, people would go crazy and we may see a worldwide protest. So I say again SOPA seems very unlikely to get passed.


Sites Protesting Against SOPA:


These are some of the popular sites protesting against SOPA as on 18th Jan 2012.

• Wikipedia: The english desktop version of WIKIPEDIA is down for 24 hrs. It will blackout within seconds of  loading any page

• Reddit: The popular Social sharing site would be down for 12 hrs today 

• Google: Google US shows protest against SOPA on its homepage. Being in India I can't see the US version of google. So curious to find how google US homepage looks today I used a US proxy site to access google. So if you are someone living outside US and want to see how Google US homepage looks go to the site UsWebProxy and enter google.com in the url field and click on proxy now.

• Other Sites: Other popular sites like Wordpress, Craigslist, Boingboing and some others are also down today informing people how bad SOPA is for the internet

So what are your views about SOPA??? Are you one of those rare people who happen to support it? Also what do you think will happen in the coming days. Share your views in the comments section below.


Thanks for reading

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5 Coolest Facebook Tricks Ever

With over 750 million active users using facebook everyday, I though it would be a nice idea to share some secret tricks about facebook. Some of them may appear a bit familiar, some may be completely new to you. So read on and get ready to amaze your friends..

1. Use Pictures in Facebook Chat:

Yes you can use profile pictures in facebook chat.This feature was launched recently by facebook and not many people are aware of it. Just imagine how cool it would be to post your friends pictures while chatting with someone. And it isn't limited to profile pictures only. Actually you can post any picture you want using some specific codes. More on that later. I may sound a bit confusing to you so here is an example. Look at the picture below:

So how did I do it. Here are the steps:

1. First go to the person's profile whose picture you want to use in the facebook chat. Look at the url of the profile. The url may look like either:
http://www.facebook.com/name.xyz or
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=10000211917593&ref=ffa

2. Note the profile ID: In the first case the Profile ID=name.xyz and in the second case the profile ID=10000211917593. Copy this or note it somewhere.

3. Use it: Now open up the chat and start chatting with any of your friends. To use the profile pic just type [[profileID]] where profile ID was the one you noted down earlier for ex: [[name.xyz]] or [[10000211917593]]. Close your eyes and get ready to be surprised. I am sure your friend will immediately ask you how did you do that:D

As I said earlier this isn't limited to profile pictures only. Interestingly a generator was made following the announcement of this new feature. By using this generator you can type any text in facebook chat using pictures. Have a look below:

To do this go to this link Blocks.org and type anything in the 'type here' box. Corresponding to this text, some code will be generated which you can then paste in your facebook chat. There is also a preview section where you can see how will it look.


Some other cool codes you can use in facebook chat:

Poker face - [[129627277060203]]

Forever Alone - [[227644903931785]]

OK guy - [[100002752520227]]

Me Gusta - [[164413893600463]]

Lol guy - [[189637151067601]]

Fuck Yeah -  [[105387672833401]]

Problem?  - [[171108522930776]]

Troll Face:

[[293943390640881]] [[293944357307451]] [[293944767307410]]
[[293945010640719]] [[293945623973991]] [[293945800640640]]
[[293946030640617]] [[293946127307274]] [[293946297307257]]

Here's a video tutorial for using pictures in facebook chat:

2. Use Flipped Text in your Status:

This one is quite popular and easy to do. Ever wondered how can you use flipped text in your status update. It ain't of much use but can be quite fun to do and may surprise your friends.

Here are the steps:

1. Go to the site FlipText and enter any text you want to get flipped.

2. Click on the 'flip' button.

3. Paste the flipped text as your facebook status.

Also try Text Generator to try out some other features.

3. Use Special Symbols in Status:

You must have seen people using special symbols in there status update. How do they do that? Well most of them just copy paste it from a list. If you want to use them too here is the list:

Facebook Symbols

Just copy your favorite one and paste it in the status.

But it can get quite irritating to copy paste these symbols everytime you feel like using them. So here's an alternative. You can use Alt numbers to type these symbols instead. Here's a list of Alt codes with there corresponding symbols:

Alt Codes

How to use these Alt codes? Follow these steps: 

1. Turn Num Lock on.

2. Press and hold the Alt key

3. While holding the Alt key type any number between 1-255 using your NUMPAD 

4. Now release the Alt key and you will see your special symbol ♥

You can use these Alt codes anywhere you want.

4. Post an Empty Status Update:

By default you can't update a empty status on facebook. Using the space key wont work either. But there is one way you can do it. Here's how. Follow these steps:

1. Press and hold Alt key and just type 0173 using your numpad

2. Release the Alt key

3. Click on Post

If you did everything right you will see your status update with nothing in it. Quite useful when you don't have anything to share with your friends. Facebook asks what's on your mind and you have nothing on your mind. See not all these tricks are completely useless:D

5. Insult your Friends:

What better way to have some fun on facebook than to insult your friends. This clever link “http://facebook.com/profile.php?=73322363″ looks like it could be a URL for anyone’s Facebook profile, actually takes anyone logged into Facebook to their own profile page.

So if you post something as shown above, the link “http://facebook.com/profile.php?=73322363″ will appear to each one of your friend as there own profile link. Don't forget to remove the preview from the status.

I don't take any responsibility for what your friends may do in response to that:D

So what are you waiting for, go try these tricks out and surprise your friends.  


If you find these tricks useful and interesting promote this post by sharing it on Facebook and Twitter with your friends. You can find a link below. I am sure they are gonna love this. 

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What's A Good Password And How To Be Secure??

I agree this isn't the best way to start a post. But I had no other way to present to you about how unsecure your password may be. The above table shows how long it will take for a computer to crack your password depending on how long it is, how many uppercase characters it contains and how many symbols or numbers it contains. Self explanatory I guess. So what's a good password to use?? You may find one looking at the table above.

Also this is a just rough view. If you want to know exactly how much time will it take to crack the password you use just visit this link and enter your password there.

HowSecurIsMyPassword.net

And yes the site is 100% secure, recommended by many bloggers and recommended by me only after reading a lot of reviews about it. So the first thing I did was that i typed my passwords there to see how secure they were. For one it says it will take 106 years, for other it says it will take 778 thousand years. 106 years is a long time isn't it. I dont think I m gonna live for that long.

Such a relief. I hope by this time you have tested your password and you know if its SECURE or NOT. So if it is pretty much secure you can leave now, feel proud and visit some of my other blog entries. But if you find out that it isn't safe I highly recommend that you read on and change your password to a much secure one today only. Better to be safe than sorry isn't it??

How to Choose a Good Password??? 

You may think that choosing a strong password isn't that difficult. If you use a password 8 characters long with a combination of letters and numbers you assume that it will be safe. That's normal I used to think like that too. Surprisingly the password karan12x would take just 3 hrs to be cracked. So there are some minimum requirements that you should follow when choosing a password. 

1. Password Length: 

A good password should be atleast 8 characters long. Preferably 10. The longer the better. For ex: the password karan123karan though looks really stupid and easy to crack it would take a thousand years to be cracked by a computer using brute force. So its a good password. Is it???

2. Combination of Characters, Letters and Numbers:

Make sure you have atleast one uppercase character, one lowercase character, 1 symbol, and 1 number in your password. That doesnt mean the pass 1#sQ is secure. The point is that the karaN123@ is 10 times more secure than the password karaN1234

3. Unguessable:

Lastly and this one is very important don't use a password that can be guessed by anyone. For ex: the password karan123karan although would take a thousand years to be cracked it can easily be guessed by someone who knows my name. So this password is actually stupid. I should also point if you follow point 2, honestly your password becomes almost unguessable. How on earth could someone guess a password like karAn9%a. Chances are pretty rare.

So a good password should be one which follows all the above points. And by all I do mean all. 

Top 500 Most Common Passwords:

Now moving on here is a small part from the 500 most common passwords researched by WhatsMyPass.com. These represent the worst passwords you could choose. So a good password shouldn't be something that's in this list.

To view the complete list head on to Top 500 worst passwords of all time

If your password is among these 500 passwords, you aren't safe. Even a kid can crack your password. And its surprising to know that 1 out of 10 people use one of the password from this list. Sad to know that. I hope it reaches some of these people.

So my one recommendation would be to avoid any such pass shown in this list atleast. Notice that most of these passwords are just a combination of lowercase letters or numbers which is never safe. I hope you do realize what would be the consequences if someone steals your password. You may loose your privacy, someone may put malicious content on it, or in worst cases you can get into legal troubles too.

Make sure you have a safe password for all your important accounts.

Am I Safe Now?

You now have a pretty good password and you wonder am I safe now.? Yes you are but only partially. Much more secure than you were earlier this day. But windows isn't a secure operating system. Viruses and malwares are waiting to attack you. I want you to know that even if you are using a 100 digit password that would take trillion years to crack you still aren't safe. Why?? Because some guy could just send you an email with a Keylogger attached to it which would record all your key presses and send it to the hacker. 

But that's a big topic in itself and I would talk about it some other day. For now all I can say is that use a good Antivirus and be cautious.

So how secure is your password? How many seconds or years would it take it to be cracked. I would love to hear from you:D 

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