Home Networks

If you manage a home or personal network, automating your software updates can help you save time and system resources. If every computer takes the time to download patches, security fixes, and similar updates, this may lead to a bandwidth bottleneck. Additionally, if some of your computers at home are not connected to the internet, you may need to set up an offline solution to get updates to these machines.

A program called Personal Software Inspector is a fully featured software updater for home users. This application undertakes a deep scan of your system to let you know when you have out-of-date software or titles that may be a risk to security. It works by looking at any executable files on your computer and comparing them to their own database.

Something else you might consider is RadarSync Updater. This little program will inspect your device drivers to let you know when they are out of date. When you find one that needs replacing, you can download it directly (from the premium version) or type it into Google (with the free version).

Enterprise Solutions

While these programs are good fixes for home users, IT professionals who work for both large and small businesses will likely need a solution that is a little more robust. In this case, Dell KACE’s software distribution appliances are a good option.

This appliance allows IT managers to effectively deploy software and operating systems across large networks. The technology offers a huge amount of control over when and where applications are deployed, and it also provides regular BIOS and device driver updates for Dell client and server systems. Deployment time can be drastically reduced, giving IT professionals more time to work on other projects.

Keeping software current does not have to be a completely arduous task. Whether you manage 10 computers or 10,000, managing software updates across multiple systems is a matter of choosing the right tools to assist in your task.

This is a guest post from David Malmborg. David works with Dell Kace. He also enjoys writing about technology, computers and saving money. Hoping to post an article on this blog? Check out the guest posting guidelines and contact us right away.

Image Credit - Kevin Zollman

Effectively Manage Software Updates on Multiple Computers originally published on Ampercent

The biggest problem with Android is that the operating system does not support browser plugins and extensions. There are so many Google Chrome extensions, userscripts and Firefox adds-ons available for downloading YouTube videos but sadly, none of them can be installed on your Android device.

Hence, Android users are always on the lookout for a free app that would let them download YouTube videos in a preferred format or download only the audio of a YouTube video as an MP3 file.

Here are two easy ways to download YouTube videos on your Android phone, without having to use a computer:

WonTube: The Best YouTube Client For Android That Supports Free Video Downloads

If you need a single app that can act as a video browsing client and a download manager for YouTube videos, try Wontube’s free YouTube downloader.

When you start the app, you will be redirected to the lightweight mobile version of the YouTube website. The home screen lists a queue of currently popular videos and featured YouTube videos for today. You can also sign in to your Google or YouTube account and watch a customized stream of video activity that includes subscriptions, favorites, artists and so forth. Pretty sleek and works really fast!

When you want to download or play a YouTube video, simply hit the “Play” button on the video player and the app will show you two options – play/download. Hit the “Download” button and the video will be added to the download queue of Wontube. Works like a charm!

There are advanced filters to sort videos by today, this week, this month or anytime. You can also sort search results into “channels only” or choose an entire playlist. While you are watching a YouTube playlist from your Android, hit the “Download” button on the first video of the playlist and continue watching the playlist on Wontube’s video player. Unfortunately, there is no way to download the entire YouTube playlist on your Android; you have to hit the “Download” button on each individual video and download it separately.

The app houses a download manager which can be used to pause a download or cancel it completely. All the videos are downloaded in standard MP4 format, so you have the highest quality preserved and less space consumed.

This app is completely free, absolutely no strings attached.

Tubemate: Download YouTube Videos In A Preferred Screen Resolution

Not all Android phones and tablets have the same screen resolution. Some phones are small, some are quite big while some have extra large screens. On rare occasions, you might encounter errors while trying to play an FLV or MP4 video file :”This format is not supported / This screen resolution is not supported”.

Hence, it becomes really important to download YouTube videos in a resolution that is supported on your phone or tablet. Tubemate is another third party Android app (not available in the market) which can be used to download YouTube videos in a preferred screen resolution or format.

Tubemate works the same way as WonTube does, but there are a couple of more features which makes this app my personal favorite.

• You can choose the fast download mode from app preferences and the app will use multiple connections for speeding up the file download process.
• You can toggle between the mobile and desktop version of YouTube website.
• There is an option to download YouTube video as MP3 audio file, so you can browse through random YouTube videos and download an MP3 copy from the app itself.
• Supported resolutions: 320X240, 640 X360, 1280 X 720 (high end devices), 1080 p full hd, 1920 X 1080 full HD (for tablets).

Unlike Wontube, Tubemate is ad supported and available as a free download from the author’s website.

How To Download YouTube Videos On Your Android Phone Or Tablet Device originally published on Ampercent

There are quite a good number of third party tools and browser extensions which claim to provide Adsense earning reports from desktop. While their claims may be true, I never tried them for one obvious reason.

Your Adsense account is an asset and it is, in some ways, very risky to trust an unknown publisher and enter your Google account credentials in their program preferences. If things go wrong, you might lose access to your Google account and the worst clause is that Adsense publishers can create only one Adsense account in their entire lifetime, makes the situation even more perilous.  Agree that there are some workarounds to get over this situation but why take a chance?

Coming back to the Adsense publisher toolbar for Google Chrome, here is how earnings are displayed, once you click the extension button on the right top corner of the page:

The overlay window provides a brief summary of your Adsense account which includes, daily, weekly and monthly reports. The section on the bottom shows a list of top performing custom channels and the top URL channels for the entire month. There is another feature called “Insite overlay” which provides an instant summary and performance report of individual ad unitd for the current day, yesterday and the last 7 days.Pretty handy!

I am a security freak and maintain separate Google accounts for work, email, social services and Google Adsense. As you can imply, logging in and out from one account and signing into another is very painful. Thanks to this extension, I can keep an eye on my Adsense earnings, without having to manually sign into my Adsense account, over and over again.

Now if Google could release an Android or iPhone app for monitoring Adsense earnings from mobile, that would be awesome too.

Thanks: Digital Inspiration.

Check Google Adsense Earnings From Google Chrome With Adsense Publisher Toolbar originally published on Ampercent

Logging into your Google account on a public computer is a risky affair, thanks to keyloggers and scripts that can track every keystroke when you type in the username and password of your Google account in a web browser. We have earlier discussed some ways to bypass this problem but here is a simple solution which requires only an Android phone to get the job done.

If you have an Android smartphone, you can use a simple QR code to login to your Google account on any computer, directly from your Android phone. You don’t have to use the computer’s keyboard at all, as you can type your Gmail account credentials from the phone itself and Google’s QR code login system will log you in the computer’s web browser.

Here is how it works.

1. Go to the Android market and install a barcode scanner application. I use this one, its free!

2. When you want to login to your Gmail, Google Reader or the generic Google account from a public computer, refrain from using the regular sign in page. Go to http://goto.google.com/login instead

4. You will see a simple webpage containing only a QR code. Now open up the barcode scanner application on your Android phone and scan the QR code

5. When the app has scanned the QR code from the computer’s web browser, hit the “Open Browser” button. This will open up the Google account sign in page on your Android device, where all you have to do is type in the username and password of your Google account and hit “Sign in”.

6. The web browser of your Android device will show a big notification

“Stop! Only proceed if you arrived at this page by scanning a login barcode at Google.com”

Ignore this message and hit the “Start with Gmail” button.

As soon as you hit the “Start with Gmail” button, the web browser of your computer will refresh and you will be signed into your Google account. Turns out, this is a really smart way to bypass typing the username and password of your Google account on a public computer which you don’t trust. Pull out your Android, scan the QR code and you’re signed into your Google account on the computer’s web browser.

There are other geeky workarounds e.g the two step Google authentication system is ideal for low end phones which do not have a barcode scanner application installed. Thank you Martin.

Use Google’s QR Code Login System For Logging Into Your Google Account On Public Computers [Android] originally published on Ampercent

It is almost impossible to check the official websites of each and every organization manually, every single day.  Subscribing to news sources or blogs is an option but sometimes, they spread wrong information about the release dates, just  to attract eyeballs.

In this tutorial, we will discuss some ways to know the release dates of an upcoming movie, book, music album, DVD’s and games. This applies not only to upcoming releases but to the already released stuff as well.

Use Google To Know The Release Date Of a Movie

Google does a neat job in accumulating the sources which claim that they have the information when a movie or a music album is going to be released. Most of the times, the result is pretty accurate.

Use the name of the movie followed by the words “release date” (without quotes) and Google should have the answer.

The above method is useful when you are enquiring about a specific movie. But there can be situations when you don’t know the exact name of the movie or want to know which movies are going to hit the theatres this month or the next month. That’s when you need the release date section of comingsoon.net.

This site does a pretty decent job in organizing the names of all movies that are scheduled to release in the current calendar year. You can click through the months and see which movies are releasing the next month, the month after and so on. [see example]

The ImDb website is again another trusted source to find information regarding upcoming movies and know their release date. The good thing regarding IMDb is that you can watch a small trailer and read a brief preview of the story before you make up your mind that this is the movie you are going to watch on the weekend.

IMDb has a large collection (1.5 Million) of previous movie titles and TV shows and you can sign in with your Facebook account to add movies to your “watch list”. Android users might want to install the free IMDb app, which sends instant notifications when the release date of a movie is changed [see example].

Know The Release Dates Of DVD’s, Music Albums And Videos

Just a simple search at YouTube and you will find a dozen trailer videos of upcoming music albums or a DVD, which is not available in the market or out of sale. On most occasions, these pre – release videos are either captured from Television advertisements or they are downloaded from pirated websites, torrent and are not official in nature.

To know when a particular DVD or music album is going to hit your nearest retail store, use VideoETA.com.

VideoETA houses a wealth of information about release dates of music albums, music videos, blu ray discs and DVD’s. You can read a brief synopsis of the product before buying it and can also subscribe to email alerts when an upcoming DVD is about to get released for sale. Movie insider is a similar website but not as comprehensive as Video ETA, which has information about all kinds of videos, not limited to only movies.

This article would be incomplete if I don’t mention Whatsoutt.com.

Whatsoutt is a really fun way to explore all the recent movies, videos, books, games and albums that is going to release in a couple of weeks. Everything is shown in a single page and it is an ideal match for someone, who wants to find new stuff, be it a book, a computer game or a movie.

Whatoutt provides web links to purchase or pre-order an item from Amazon or iTunes store, the moment it is released to the market. You can subscribe to email notifications and the site will alert you when a movie, music album, game or a book has just been released by its publisher. Compared to other sites, Whatsoutt provides a really clean and clutter free interface but then, it is limited for releases up to two weeks only.

How To Know The Release Dates Of Movies, Music Albums And DVDs originally published on Ampercent

Why?

The simple reason is that search engines are sometimes clueless on detecting the original content curator and might rank spam sites higher on search result pages. In those circumstances, you neither get any credit for writing that long blog post, nor you get any conversions. Worst part: search engines may consider you as a scraper and permanently remove your site from their index.

This is one of the reasons why I take duplicate content very seriously. I have set up Google Alerts for this domain and use a couple of online plagiarism checker to get email notification when someone rips off content from this website.

Check For Plagiarism In Word Documents, PDF’s And Text Files

But what about text files, word documents, PDF’s and other content which is not available under a website but as a file on your computer? How do you check for duplicate content in office documents, PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets?

One easy way to cross check a document for plagiarism issues is to copy a portion of the text and search for the same in Google or Yahoo. After completing your search, you will be able to quickly figure out whether the same text was directly lifted from another source.

This method, though universal in nature, has one disadvantage. You have to repeatedly copy text from the document and search it on Google. This can get really boring and hectic, considering the size and volume of documents you have to check on a regular basis.

A better alternative is to use Desktop Plagiarism checker – a free utility which can be used to find duplicate content in word document, PDF files, PowerPoint presentations and text files, without having to copy content from the document and paste it on Google, over and over again.

This is a great tool for students and teachers who have to frequently check project reports, homeworks, assignments and other textual material for duplicate content issues.

Once you have installed the desktop plagiarism checker on your computer (Windows only), remember to register a free account or the document import feature won’t work. Hit Control + O and drop the document you want to check in the program window. Next, choose the search engine (Google, Yahoo Or Bing) which you want to use and that will be all.

I must say that the results are pretty accurate and better than a usual Google search, which sometimes, depend on your Google account preferences (if you are not using an incognito window to search). The program will quickly find all the closest possible matches and will list them one by one, acording to the number of matching words, freshness and number of links.

You can export the list of all URL’s as an HTML file, so this will be handy when you want to keep a backup of all the plagiarized versions. The next step is to send a DMCA notice with their hosting provider or use the Google Adsense complaint form or the DMCA complaint form at Blogger (if the concerned website is using Blogger.com as its content management system).

Overall, this is surely one of the best duplicate content checker for Windows, which can be used to bulk check duplicate content in Word Documents, text files, Excel spreadsheets and PDF’s. If you run an educational organization and need an easy way to cross check research work, assignments or essays of students, who sometimes, copy paste all the stuff from Wikipedia and other websites.

Note: In order to make the maximum out of this tool, remember to use all the three search engines and select the “exact match” option.

Desktop Plagiarism Checker Lets You Cross Check Text Files, Word Documents And PDF’s For Copied Content originally published on Ampercent

Wouldn’t it be great if you can create a “kid friendly section” on your Android device which will prevent kids from surfing the web, use Facebook, Twitter and other social sites , make calls, send text messages and use applications which you don’t want them to use? Your customized and blocked section would only allow them to play and use specific games and applications that are considered “safe”. In short, you need a custom partition on your Android phone where you child can play and learn in a safe environment, without making calls, texting or getting online.

Famigo Sandbox lets you do just that.

Famigo sandbox is an ideal solution for parents, who want to let their kids use their Android smartphone or tablet device, provided their children can use only specific applications or games that they approve. Your children won’t be able to open the browser, surf the web, look up contacts and neither they would be able to make or receive any calls, once they are inside the Famigo Sandbox.

Once you have downloaded and installed the application from the Android market, follow the instructions of the wizard and choose a pattern passcode. This is important, as you don’t want your kid to disable the sandbox from the task manager or uninstall it right away.

Before choosing the applications which your children can use while they are in the Sandbox, go the application preferences and choose the following options one by one:

• Block In-App purchases: This would prevent your kids from buying and installing applications from the Android market. It goes without saying that they won’t be able to install third party applications using a .apk file.
• Block Social gaming: Choosing this option would ensure that social gaming networks are blocked on your Android phone, while the Sandbox is running.
• Block Incoming phone calls: This would make sure that your kids can not receive phone calls on your behalf, while you are not present in front of your phone. Dialing random numbers or making calls to people in your contact list can also be prohibited, provided you block the “Contacts” and “Phone” app through Sandbox preferences.

Now head over to the Sandbox home screen and hand pick the apps you want your kids to use. For example, you can let them use the Gallery the camera application so they will be able to take photos and videos but since you have blocked the “browser”, they won’t be able to share those pics on Facebook or other social networking sites.

So when you are giving away the Android to your 8 year old son, just start the Famigo application and forget about it. No more spying over the shoulders of your kid, while he is busy playing games or listening to jingle bells.

The neat thing regarding Famigo is besides acting as an internal firewall for Android, it is a great app discovery engine. You can browse the Famigo gallery and find thousand of educational, informative, funny as well as useful app your children might love using. All the Famigo applications are not free but they are certainly “Child Safe” and free from third party advertising.

Famigo Sandbox is a free download for Android but as of now, iOS users are out of luck. Watch the following video to learn how Famigo works:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmX1gtRERYU

Create a Kid Friendly Section On Your Android Device With Famigo Sandbox originally published on Ampercent

Here are some free Android apps which lets you check data usage on Android and monitor how much bandwidth is consumed by different applications or games that you use frequently. If you don’t monitor download and upload usage of your 3G network, there is a high chance that your monthly internet plan will get finished within a week or two.

Note: All the following applications works as advertised, but you have to manually run these apps / services, each time you switch on your Android phone. If these applications are not running while you are using the 3G internet connection on your Android, they won’t be able to track data usage and hence the reporting would be faulty.

1. 3G Watchdog 

3G watchdog is my favorite app for tracking 3G internet usage of my mobile internet service provider, as it allows me to specify weekly and monthly bandwidth usage limits. 3G watchdog shows an “Always ON” notification on the left top side, so I always have a rough idea how much bandwidth usage I have

Using 3G watchdog is simple and straight forward. Here is what I do:

The day I recharge my mobile plan with a 2GB monthly data usage top up card , I create a new tracking profile and enter the start date, quota and switch on the “Alerts’ feature. The following alerts can be chosen, depending upon your requirements:

• Get a notification alert when your monthly data usage crosses 75% of the total quota.
• Automatically disable the 3G connection while a Wi-Fi connection is in range – this saves a lot of data transfers and the best thing is that 3G connection is disabled automatically, without any monitoring required from my side.
• Automatically re enable 3G usage when your monthly quota is back under limit.
• Show a data usage counter on your Android’s home screen [ see example ].

3G Watchdog is extremely accurate and provides a daily log of all upload and download usages, so you can quickly find the days when your internet usage was high or low. One downside is that there is no way to track how much data was downloaded using a Wi-Fi connection or a wireless access point, but that’s acceptable as Wi-Fi internet plans are either open for public use or are equipped with an affordable unlimited broadband plan.

This app is free to download and ad free.

2. Opera Mobile

Opera mobile is a generic web browser for mobile devices and not a full featured data usage tracking application for Android, iPhone, Symbian or any other mobile operating systems. However, the latest version of Opera Mobile for Android has added a nifty feature under Menu > Help > Data Usage, which lets you find out how much bandwidth was consumed during your current or last browsing session.

Unlike other data usage trackers, Opera mobile won’t be able to track data download or upload usage for applications, games and third party services, hence the usage reports might not match with other monitoring applications. Opera Mini and Opera Mobile is ideally suited for users who are out of 3G coverage area and need a faster way to download webpages on their mobile browsers.

Opera Mobile fetches a request URL, compresses the web page and sends the mobile optimized copy to the user’s end, so webpages will load way  faster with fewer kilobytes of data being downloaded at the clients end.

3. Droidstats

Droidstats lets you track incoming and outgoing call minutes, number of sms messages sent or received and the amount of data usage transfer within a specific date range. Unlike 3G Watchdog, Droidstats can track the exact amount of data transfer through your Wi-Fi connection, so you can compare how much data was downloaded using your home Wi-Fi connection and how much data was downloaded using your mobile’s 3G internet connection.

One additional advantage of using Droidstats over other data monitoring applications is that this one lets you export your calls and sms event information into an excel CSV file. This is extremely useful, when you want to check a detailed log of incoming and outgoing calls for the last three months.

You can control and set limits on the outgoing call minutes, number of sms messages and control the billing cycle as per your requirements. Droidstats is the best app if you want to monitor incoming and outgoing calls, sms messages and mobile internet usage – all from a single and non intuitive interface.

Other Applications worth trying: On any day, I would use 3G watchdog or Droidstats but here are some alternatives you may want to try out.

Data Counter widget, for example, is another free application which lets you monitor network traffic on Android.  Drop the data couter widget on your Android’s home screen and keep an eye on wlan network usage, Wi-Fi, 3G and GPRS traffic . [see example]

Onavo is another free data monitoring app which lets you track which applications are consuming more internet data, when your phone is connected to a 3G or a GPRS connection. This app will let you save money on mobile internet usage bills because you will be able to track which applications consume a good amount of upload/download data usage. I tested this app and found that Facebook and Google Reader consume the maximum amount of data usages. [see example]

Track Internet Data Usage On Your Android Phone With These Free Apps originally published on Ampercent

Most Adsense publishers are too lazy to experiment with font types and font sizes, due to the myth that the selection of a font hardly affects its CTR. In general, Adsense publishers choose a specific font style for their Adsense units so that the text on the advertisement completely blends with the font style of their website’s HTML template. This is a safe practice and a good idea; the ads and the content compliment each other but here is another good option worth exploring.

If you are not sure about which font family you should use for an Adsense unit, the Adsense team offers some useful advice – use the default Adsense font family and stick to the default font size.

The Adsense team has rolled out a few improvements on how Adsense ads are shown to users, provided you have selected the default Adsense font family and font size for a specific Ad unit. Google says that their system will now automatically show the best performing font style and font size, which depends on a variety of factors such as operating system of the user, screen resolution, language, size of an ad unit and number of advertisements on any given page. Google says that they have thoroughly tested the new system and the goal of this update is to improve the performance of your ad units, without you having to do anything on your side.

This change will only affect those ad units where you have selected the default Adsense font family and the default Adsense font size. While it is always a good idea to split test ad units and see what works, you should give the default font family another chance to prove its worth.

From my own experiments, I have observed the following trends:

1. Bigger is better: Bigger font sizes always outperform their smaller counterparts. Never shy away to showcase your ad units with large fonts, there is no harm if the text size of your ads appear slightly bigger than the text size of your content.

2. Arial or Verdana, Times is not as good: Arial works great, Verdana is also good but the Times new roman font performs very poorly. The difference is not very large but you will hardly notice any Adsense publisher using the Times font.

3. Cycle:  It is a good idea to cycle through your color pallets and change the finer details every 3-4 months. This removes ad blindness for loyal readers who frequently pay a visit to your blog.

I am not very sure how much difference  it would make, should you switch to the default Adsense font family for some (if not all) of your Adsense ad units. But using this option would ensure a better user experience as the Adsense system will automatically gauge the visitors reading environment and deliver a matching ad style.

Tip: Improve the performance of Adsense link units.

Google’s Advice: Stick With The Default Font Family For Adsense Ads originally published on Ampercent

If you are using Facebook for the last three years, the situation is even alarmic. There is a high chance that some of your old photos or status updates are marked as “Public” and anyone can access that information, provided they know the profile URL of your Facebook account. On rare occasions, this can lead to severe consequences such as profile impersonification, spam and social embarrassment.

Another problem is that you have to invest a lot of time in checking the privacy settings of old Facebook posts, photos and status updates. Cleaning up your Facebook timeline, which has been living for the last 5 years, is certainly not that easy or straight forward.

Here are some ways to clean up your Facebook profile from junk status updates, links, tagged photos, videos and control who can view your profile information and specific posts on your Facebook profile.

Use Facebook Activity Log to View All Your Facebook Posts In One Page

Thankfully, Facebook has released an activity log feature which allows you to view all your Facebook posts in a single page. The activity log feature in Facebook is enabled by default and it works for newer Facebook profiles ( aka Timelines) as well as the older ones.

To view all your Facebook updates in one page, go to your Facebook profile and click the “Activity log” button on the top right corner.

This will open the Facebook activity log page where you can control the privacy and visibility of old Facebook posts, videos, photos as well as find hidden posts on your Facebook timeline.

The activity log page is record of your entire Facebook activity, which includes the following things

• Your status updates.
• The links you have posted, including YouTube videos or Facebook videos.
• Your photo uploads and photos where you have been tagged.
• Your comments.
• Posts on your timeline.
• Posts from Facebook applications, games and other third party websites which you are using with Facebook connect.

Please note that only you can view your entire Facebook activity log and there is no way anyone else can view all your Facebook activity. Here is how the activity log of your Facebook profile should look like:

Filter Status Updates, Links, Videos And Photos On Your Facebook Profile

Similar to Facebook news feed, the activity log has a “Filter updates” feature, which can be used to find all the status updates, photos uploads, links and videos that have been posted by you. Hit the tiny drop down menu at the top right corner and you can filter the following items on your Facebook timeline:

• Your posts along with their privacy settings.
• The date when you added someone as your Facebook friend.
• Your Facebook updates which have a “Location” tag attached to them, this is handy when you want to find out updates that were sent from a specific location.
• A complete record of all your Facebook comments, this is useful when you want to remove older comments.
• Groups joined, Likes made, Subscriptions and Events where you have been involved or invited to.
• Application specific updates. For example: Filter all the updates of Foursquare and mass delete all of them, in case you do not want to share your location with anyone on Facebook.

Manage The Privacy And Visibility Of Older Facebook Updates

To control the privacy setting of older Facebook posts, hit the dropdown menu on right and select whether the update should be publicly available or whether you want only specific people to see it. Past status messages and posts, that are archived on your Facebook timeline may be embarrassing sometimes and you definitely don’t want your boss or Employer to have a peak within your life.

The general rule of the thumb is to hit the “Feature” button on posts that you want to keep while hide older posts from all friends and contacts on Facebook. Your friends are more interested in the events and happening stories of your life ( e.g birthday, engagement, marriage, education, promotion and so forth).

While it is a trend and common posture to share YouTube videos, FourSquare checkins, Tweets and other random stuff on your Facebook timeline, there is no point in archiving them and keeping them stagnant on your timeline.

The sad part is that there is no way to bulk delete old stuff and clean up everything. Manually deleting old status messages and links is the only way around, but you can also hide them from your timeline, change the visibility to specific friend lists or choose “Only Me”.

Clean Up Your Facebook Timeline Using Facebook Activity Log originally published on Ampercent