Shahid Online - Tech Corner

While Adobe Reader is common for reading PDF the popular (and powerful) file format for sharing files over the Internet, it is not the only one. After every version it slowed down my system, got slower and started taking up alot of resources. Instead of wasting time in looking at ways to speed up the reader, I took into my own hands to find alternatives. Here's what I found: Sumatra PDF - A open source PDF viewer of a minimilistic design. It is very lightweight and loads up very fast. The bonus is that it has been designed for portable use. Foxit Reader - A free PDF viewer and printer also of a small size. It can convert a PDF to a text file. It also starts up quite fast. Cool PDF Reader - Going by its name, it attempts to be a cool way to view and print PDFs. It can convert Convert PDF files to BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS. PDFescape - A free online tool that can act as your PDF reader, editor, form filler and form designer PDF Hammer - Another online tool that all

You may have noticed recently a new search engine called Cuil (pronounced 'Cool'), a Irish word which means knowledge - so they claim on their website. This search engine intends on outgoogling Google themselves. Formed by former Google employees Cuil apparently 'combines the biggest Web index with content-based relevance methods, results organized by ideas, and complete user privacy' The founders boast that their 1.2 million web page index is larger than Googles and Microsoft, and that the index orders results by content as opposed to popularity (the Google way). But what really sticks it out is that Cuil does not keep any personally identifiable information, which is appealing to those who are concerned of Google's attitude to personal data. I am impressed by the method of how it lists out the results and allows you to filter them. Definitely, joining my bookmarks. Check it out at www.cuil.com