Shahid Online - Tech Corner

A whole year without a blog post! Now that I've changed job, I'm hoping that I can settle down and push more useful tips on my blog. So, to get back to form I have one about web browser productivity. Web browsers have come a long way since it's inception in the early days of the World Wide Web. But if you've just been using it to browse the Web, you are really missing out on a ton of stuff. Productivity is just the start of it. Let's take a look at some of the hidden gems that a browser has to offer. I will mostly be focusing on Chrome and Firefox, but a lot (if not all) the tips may apply to your favourite browser. Pin Tabs First up is the ability to pin a tab. You do this by right-clicking on a tab and selecting Pin Tab . Did you just see how it react? It resize and just shows the icon. If you have a lot of tabs this is a real space saver. Using Keywords Firefox has keyword bookmarking, which is an absolute essential for many. This allows you to call a...

Yeah. I'm not gonna leave you alone about this. I want to drive another point to you about social networking. After chatting to a few "savvy" Facebook users, I can't help but notice how much they don't realise that the social network has grown. Looking back in time, in 2012 Facebook announced they had a billion monthly active users. Fast forward to August 2015, they broke news that a billion people visited Facebook on a particular Monday. Then in September it was announced that the service averages over 1 billion users per day. While that paints a nice pretty picture there's more to it than posting onto your Facebook wall. They have made some pretty big and newsworthy acquisitions like WhatsApp , Oculus VR and Instagram . See where I'm going? It gets so addictive to make "friends" online. They may not be real friends you see and share life with everyday, but just someone you choose to bloat to about something. Sorry if I come across rud...

It has been waaayy too long without any sort of update and I did not want anyone to think that I left the world unexpectedly. But I just wanted to get something off of my chest... social networking. Okay, okay. I'm not trying to be a soothsayer and to get you to stop using social networking (like Facebook, MySpace, etc). There are indeed many uses where social networking helps businesses reach out to a wider audience and for individuals to regularly keep in contact with family around the world. However, if not used right it can turn your world upside down which is what this article is all about. The following article describes a number of factors to consider so that your safety and well-being are not compromised. Personal Safety You should pay particular attention to the public/private settings of your account. Keeping your whole profile public would leave you open to potential predators. Now these very naughty people disguise themselves under fake profiles so may realise it...

The much loved game on iOS was recently released on the Android platform. And, boy, did it take a long time. While waiting, I had to fill the missing gap with clones such as Jetpack Soldier and Run Run Bear (which for some reason is no longer available on the Market). Now I can enjoy the real deal. Though, there is one caveat. Amazon App Store , which has been restricted to the US for a while. Yesterday I received an email from Amazon to download the app and did not need to fiddle around to get it running. This is assuming that you are already downloading apps from outside of Google Play, where your device would be enabled to install from 'Unknown sources'. If not: On your device settings, tap Security . If you don't see that then tap Applications Confirm Unknown Sources is checked. If not, tap the Unknown Sources checkbox. Tap OK on the Attention alert that displays. Now you can install Android apps from outside of Google Play. Once you have downloaded Amazo...

A while back I mentioned about The GIMP being a worth open source alternative to Photoshop. Yes, it is very good and I have used it even for video production. There will be doubters who will still sing praises of Photoshop and not understand that they are encouraging software piracy. So on with the show of encouraging users to pick up free/open source alternatives. The one issue I have (which I consider a limitation) is native Mac OS support, or rather the lack of it. In order to use it you are required to install X11 to utilise this app. However, I did not find it stable and often it crashed out for me on my MacBook Pro quite regularly - a problem which I never faced when using on Linux or Windows. However, it has come to my attention that some Samaritans have saved the day for me and published McGIMP 2.8, which is GIMP 2.8 ported natively for Mac OS X. I have had the pleasure of playing around with it and using it in single window mode. Head over to Partha's Place ( www.pa...

Alright. Here's the deal. Who needs a feature bloated application when you know that you will not need it all and that it's possibly confusing? All hands shot up in my work place when it comes to project management. Some swear by using spreadsheets for everything including PM. Yet, there's the frustration with Microsoft Project. MS Project is an excellent tool but far too complicated for my liking. So I had to search around for project management tools and, as usual, open source was the keyword (especially Windows). Here's a list of notable ones that I found: Achievo ( www.achievo.org ) BORG Calende r ( borg-calendar.sourceforge.net ) - More of a PIM but it's got some nice project management features dotProject ( dotproject.net ) - While being ugly it uses a server backend for enterprise delivery making it a selling point for this package eHour ( www.ehour.nl ) - time management and project management with a slick interface, especially handy for consu...

Yes, you heard me. To celebrate this festive season, SoftMaker has made their excellent alternative to Microsoft Office freely available. On top of this they will donate to charity with every download. With such a commendable act, why not contribute towards a good cause and try out an Office alternative. So head over to Load and Help ( http://www.loadandhelp.de/home-en.html ).