An App To Calculate Autorickshaw Fare

It happens all the time that you hire an auto rickshaw, reach your destination and spend a lot of time arguing over the total fare. The driver might trick you with wait time charges, extra night charges or new fare charts and the like, but you still will not part with your 'hard-earned money' easily. A Bengaluru-based start-up has sensed this common problem and used technology to get rid of it.

'Tuk-Tuk', an application developed by MindHelix Technologies, can calculate the due fare using Global Position Technology (GPS) and help you prevent getting robbed. It runs on Android, Blackberry and Symbian devices and is freely downloadable from www.tuktuk.mindhelix.com.

The best part is that it does not require Internet or a service provider's network to function. So it can be used in a remote or a rural area too. The interface also isn't too complex to operate as it only requires you to start and stop the application. If you're in a different city, you can also key in the fare per kilometre and save yourself from getting cheated.

Scanner + Evernote To Make The Paperless Office

In this day and age of high-tech, the notion that our offices and businesses still need to rely on paper as much as they do is just wrong.
Whether you want to use the environmentalist argument, or just the one about clutter – the reasons for going paperless are many. For me, it has more to do with the overhead and annoyance of storing paper files. Moreover, if you’ve ever experience the joy of finding a receipt or some other item out of your filing cabinet, you’ll love what I’m going to show you today.
I am currently making a transition to a paperless office. My two big tools for doing it are:
Evernote
Fujitsu Scansnap s1300 Scanner
If you don’t use Evernote, I highly invite you to check it out. To call this a “notes application” wouldn’t do it justice. Evernote is basically a big digital brain, where you can drop everything from notes, documents, audio notes, photos – everything. All of it is then archived, searchable, tagged, etc. It is synced with Evernote’s servers, so you have cloud access as well as local access. If you have multiple computers, you keep it all synced easily. You can even access your data from a mobile phone or the web.


Evernote is free, and that includes up to 40MB of upload transfer to their servers per month. 40MB might not sound like a lot, but in practice, it lasts most people a month quite easily. If you do need more bandwidth, a premium account goes for $45/year. I went ahead and upgraded my account, because it makes for PDF searching (very handy in making that paperless office), higher bandwidth, as well as SSL secure transfer of your documents.
The ScanSnap s1300 scanner is a great little scanner by Fujitsu. It is small and compact and designed to be portable. In fact, you can even power this little sucker off of your USB port (although it will be slower if you do that). But, it is a pretty good quality, full duplex document scanner. I power mine off of AC power because it works faster that way.
Making The Scanner Talk To Evernote
As part of setting up the scanner on your computer, you’ll install their ScanSnap software. This software runs all the time and is activated whenever you open the lid on the scanner to scan a document. So, here’s what you need to do to get it working with Evernote:
Go into the ScanSnap preferences and, first, turn off the “Use Quick Menu” option.
Next, go to the “Application” tab. You’ll see an application dropdown. If Evernote is not listed there, simply press the “Add or Remove” button, go find the Evernote application on your hard drive and add it to the list. Then, you’ll have Evernote selected there.
Go to the “Save” tab and choose a location on your hard drive where you want raw PDF scans of your documents archived. What this does, then, is archives your documents in one place while ALSO putting them in Evernote.
What many people do is set all scans to save to an external hard drive, while also being sent to Evernote. It is complete redundancy.
The Gorgeous Part of Going Paperless
In and of itself, going digital versus going paper isn’t really a matter of time-saving when it comes to the act of filing something. It takes me about as long to file something away as it does to scan it and file it into Evernote.
The REAL convenience is in search. With Evernote and the s1300, all your PDFs are searchable. Not only that, but you can tag and describe any document however you wish. If I need to search for a particular receipt, I don’t have to wade through a pile of receipts and scan them all until I find it. Instead, I just plug a search term into Evernote and a PDF scan of my receipt pops right up. What could sometimes take up several minutes now takes a few seconds.
Making The Transition
It takes some changes to the way we do things to go paperless.
First thing I did was log into all of my bank accounts and switched to paperless statements. So, I will no longer get bank statements in the mail, but instead get PDF documents. All I have to do, then, is print the PDF document directly into Evernote (or just drag and drop it). See, Evernote sets itself up so that, instead of printing to a printer, you can print a PDF directly into Evernote. So, now I get my statements piped right into my Evernote archive without me having to print anything, scan anything, or deal with any paper.
When I get a receipt or some other thing that should be filed, I’ll now use the scanner to put it into Evernote. Then, I can either throw it away or shred it (if the information is sensitive).
Some many wonder about the legal part of this… For example, if the IRS bothers you, will documents stored digitally satisfy the requirements of documentation? Yes, it will and the IRS has actually confirmed that.
Obviously, there are some documents I wouldn’t throw away (passports, for example). Some things require original paperwork, so you’d need to hang onto that. Most things, however, won’t have that requirements and you can just scan it and shred it.
Lastly, if you have a bunch of paper files already, you’ll have to decide how to handle that as you make the transition. You can either just make a clean break and go paperless from this time forward, or you can go on a scanning spree and start converting your old files to digital.
Definitely look into this, however. I find that most people who look down on this idea are just clinging to their old ideas. People who’ve always dealt in paper have a hard time changing. But, give this a shot. The convenience is awesome.

How To Use Page Breaks In HTML

When writing documents, HTML is actually not a bad choice because you have plenty of editors to choose from and it is universally compatible. Concerning editors, you could use Seamonkey (it has an HTML editor in its suite), Kompozer or even text editors like Notepad or vi.
The issue with HTML however is that it’s not exactly clear how to make a page break. This is a completely do-able thing, and all that’s required are the use of header tags and one line of CSS in the "source" view.
CSS as most of you know means Cascading Style Sheet. You can use CSS either directly in the document or as a separate file. For simplicity’s sake I’m going to instruct how to use this directly in the document using very ‘ugly’ code, but it works.
Step 1. Input one line of code in the top of your document using "source" view
You cannot type this directly in the document because it won’t work. This code is specifically for the ‘source’ view.
The code is this:

Put this at the very top of the document.
Step 2. Use the H1 tag
H1 in HTML editors is usually labeled as "Heading 1". It’s in the same drop-down menu where it shows "Paragraph". When you highlight a block of text and change it to Heading 1, the font will be bold and large; this is normal. If you make a mistake, you can change it back to Paragraph, then select the appropriate text you want to use as Heading 1.
Any time you use Heading 1 from that point forward, a page break will happen directly before it.
Step 3. Load in web browser, print
On double-click of your file ending in .html, it will load in your web browser by default. Print from there, and the browser will obey the areas where you used H1 for page breaks.
Want a table of contents (or not waste paper)? Print to PDF
Using free PDF creator software such as PDFCreator, any document you print to a PDF file will generate its own table of contents based on your use of Heading 1. This will be shown in the left sidebar of your PDF reader of choice.
If you want to get really fancy, you can make subsections by using Heading 2, Heading 3 and so on – all the way up to Heading 6. Only Heading 1 will make a page break as you put in your code, but the others will divide into subsections. These subsections will appear as collapsible/expandable tree-style menus in your PDF reader.
When your HTML document is in PDF form, it looks and acts like it would in a word processor like Word or OpenOffice.org Writer. In a browser you don’t see page breaks even if you have them in the code, but in PDF form you do.

Use Number Keys To Jump To Specific Times In YouTube Videos

Here’s how it’s done:
1. Load up any YouTube video. You have a wide selection to choose from at our YouTube channel, pcmedianet.
2. Start video playback by specifically pressing the play button at lower left:

What this does is give the Flash Player application focus, and that’s needed for this to work.
3. When the video starts playing, number keys above the letters (meaning not the number pad) now act as time markers.
Pressing 0 (zero) will jump to the beginning of the video. 1 is 10%, 2 is 20%, 3 is 30% and goes all the way to 9 for 90%. And yes this will work whether the video is completely loaded or not.
This actually comes in handy when the Flash player decides not to recognize your clicks on the progress bar (which happens from time to time). Keystrokes always work when the player is in focus.

Google Book Store: Google Editions Pros and Cons

Search giant Google is slowly and gradually taking over the internet domain. With its multitude services available, Google is becoming an essential to have computer utility for the common users. Google has been long planning to launch its own digital book store that will have a huge archive of e-books on its platform.

Mountain View California based Search giant has recently been the target of criticism from the governments around the world because of its Google Street Cars violation of privacy. According to the industry analysts, Google has been grabbing some cryptic data that eventually violated the privacy laws and rules.

Now according to a news report released by Wall Street Journal, the internet giant much anticipated online Book store, which the company has been promoting since last summer, is set to release before the end of the year 2010. Google has named this latest online book store as Google Editions. According to the initial reports released by Google, the company’s online book store Google Editions will be having a different marked sales and business model as compared to its competitors: online store giant Amazon’s Kindle store and the Cupertino based tech giant Apple’s iBookstore.

The good thing about this latest Google online book store Google Editions is that users are not bound to purchase books through a single online book account. Google will allow them to buy these books either from Google website or from any independent bookstores anywhere on the internet. Once a book is bought, the user can tie it to any of his Google Account. This thing will enable users to read any kind of books anywhere on any portable or desktop device. Originally, this Google Edition service was supposed to launch somewhere earlier in the year 2010, but because of some reasons that didn’t happen. The company’s Manager for Strategic Development said that the launch was planned somewhere in between June and July 2010.

But a recent statement by the Google’s Product Manager indicates that everything is very much set to be launched by the end of this year and Google Editions will be available for users worldwide in the beginning of the year 2011.

The Product Manager Dougall said in a statement that because of the huge complexity of the project, Google was not planning to release it until it is in some finalized shape. Till this point, Google’s partner for the launching of Google Edition is still not clear and it is also vague what Google will offer to its publishers and independent online bookstores.

Top Web Tools of the Week

Internet domain is expanding day by day with the inclusion of the latest web earmarks and websites that render different kinds of services to users worldwide. All of the below listed websites and tools are either totally FREE or they come along with a very decent FREE account opening option. You can make use all of these amazing tools without spending a buck and can utilize them to your full potential. Here is a brief review of these amazing websites and tools:

Tracking Hurricanes and Storms Online: My Hurricane

Well, hurricanes and storms are nature’s constantly going on events causing widespread damages. So if a news channel or a website reports a hurricane or a storm near your area, it should definitely concern you and you desire to get more information about the track of the storm. In this case, MyHurricane will definitely answer all of your queries. MyHurricane is a very helpful storm and hurricane tracking tool and is totally free of cost. The users are provided with an array of world maps that clearly illustrate and display their predicted paths. Users can also search for different kinds of hurricanes. Moreover, the tool also provides the option of zooming in and out of the map for a clear better view of the storms and hurricanes paths. The displayed and illustrated information of the hurricane or the storm includes its maximum wind speed, position, maximum pressure and also the most important of all, its position. The user can also enable different kinds of options on the map such as the horizontal tracking option on the map or even the tracking option on the forecast domain.

Special features included in this useful web service are: displaying current information about the storms or the hurricanes on the illustrated map, freedom of choosing the information that users want to see and omitting the info that is not required and many more. The most interesting thing, I found on this web tool is that it allows users to map the hurricane or storm. You can view this amazing web service by visiting the following link. [ MyHurricane ]

Drop it To

Well, all the internet users who are always eager for uploading files, they must be very conversant with Drop box. It is a great utility that allows moving and saving files and the tool DropitTo makes it far better than it is right now. Using this Drop it To web utility, users can create their own personal web based utility that other users can use to send any type of file. Once the registration process is done, the user gets a unique URL like www.dropitto.me/JohnBlog.

Now anyone who wants to send a file to you would go to the created URL and simply upload the file. That particular file will be precisely uploaded to the account at DropBox and is effortlessly approachable. For all the privacy conscious people and in order to avoid abuse, users are also provided with a dedicated password. This means, all the users have Drop it To password protected page and the person who would know the password will be able to upload the files. The maximum allowed file size is 75MB. By uploading the files directly to your Drop Box account, this Drop it To service also reduces the transferring time and bandwidth total cost by almost half. Users can access this amazing web service by following this link. [ DropitTo ]

Calculating Carbon Footprint: Be Green Carbon

Today, Global Powers are emphasizing on the matter of Global Warming; we all should work out some plan to reduce global warming and one great way is through lessening the carbon emissions. For all environment friendly people who are eager to work for endangered environment, BeGreen Carbon calculator is the site that you should definitely log in to. If you are eager to know, how much personal carbon emissions you are spreading then you should definitely visit BeGreen Carbon calculator. This simple web based tool allows users to see their carbon footprints annually inference from the comprehensive database of the total emission quality that includes electricity, natural gas, vehicles and even the flight travels. When you would first open up the calculator you have to choose an option in the form and fill up almost all the required information in the fields. For example, if you click on the vehicle tab, the calculator will ask for the make and model, and the year of manufacturing accompanied with the annual miles you have traveled on the vehicle. After getting all the information, BeGreen automatically shows off the carbon emissions in a total of metric tons from the automobile and also shows emission compared to an average value. By filling up the rest of the fields, you can also get to know about the total annual emissions of a single person. Good thing about this tool is that it also shows users some very interesting links that teach them how to reduce their carbon footprints. This is one great web tool indeed to know how much a particular person contributing in the preservation of the environment as compared to many of the other households. You can access this amazing service from the following link [ Be Green Carbon Calculator ]

4 Troubleshooting Tips to Solve Email sending Problems

For all the business and corporate users, email is a common thing and normally these people deal with loads of email issues which sometime painstakingly take a lot of time. Normally, people confront lot of problems in the sending and receiving of emails. It has been noticed that many of the email problems can be very easily fixed and these problems normally fall under a very specific group of categories. In some instances, email problems can only be rectified from the system administrator side, but a major chunk of these problems are one that can be easily solved by the end user, by following few simple steps.

Here are some quick tips that will help you to solve email sending and receiving issues:

1. Double Check Spelling of Email Address

Well, this is the most common error that users come across or that I have confronted on a lot of occasions. So the first thing every user should do is: double check the email address. Make sure that the email address is real and there is no spell error. This particular problem is further divided into two different categories: the first is the incorrect entry of the username that is the part before “@” and the other part of this error is the entry of incorrect domain name, which is the part of email address after “@” sign.

Now when you enter an incorrect username part of the email address and that does not exist on the remote email system, then two distinct things are gonna happen. In the first instance, you will not get any kind of reply or you will get a return message stating that “the particular ‘username’ does not exist”.

Similarly, if the domain name is not real, you will get a typical message “DNS Error: Domain name not found”.

2. The Error Message from the Returning Mail

Normally, when an email message gets rejected because of some reason, a detailed error message is sent back into your email inbox that contains the technical details of the reason behind failed sending of email. Usually, majority of these returned technical messages are for technical system administrators, so they can further troubleshoot the issue. So if you get these kinds of messages, then do search for a “Core” problem as well.

Generally, these problems fall under the following categories:

Full Mailbox Error

This particular type of error message pops-up when the user to whom you are sending email, is out of disk space on the official email server. The most typical kind of message is, your mailbox is full or more precisely “Quota has been exceeded”. When this kind of error messages comes, there is nothing you can do and the best remedy is to call the recipient to free up some space by deleting previous messages.

IP on a BlockList,

This is basically an anti-spam measure but if you are not sending any kind of spam, then it means, either your computer has been compromised or you are without any prior knowledge scuffed into a spam war. These kinds of error messages are normally brimming with technical details and they become very hard to decode at some instances.

The name for these particular spam lists varies but they are commonly called as Blacklists, or blackholes. Good thing is, users can see whether their local computer IP address is on a typical blacklist or not, by visiting website like Blacklist tracer. Most of email servers usually do not use any kind of RBL (real time block). If a user is using a consumer internet service provider connection, then 80% chances are that his IP will be on one of these IP tracers of blacklist. Moreover, user can also check the IP address of the outgoing email server if he has the knowledge of it. Otherwise, user has to inform to the email system administrator to check the server.

Another thing you must ensure on your end is installing antivirus software onto your system, because if your computer gets hacked and a particular bot is running, chances are that your Computer’s IP is on that list.

3. No Particular Error message

Now coming over to another reason, if there is no error message at all and you have double checked the email address of the recipient, it means that some anti-spam requirements, implemented by mail server administer, are filtering your particular email. Unfortunately, this error is very hard to trace because you don’t get to know about the error details and you have to ultimately contact your email service provider for rectification.

4. Error still persists inspite of all Check-ups

If you have scrutinized all the possibilities and checked everything, and you are still unable to send email, then it’s time for level 2 troubleshooting. If you are on a consumer internet connection and having email sending issues, contact to their customer care service. They might request for a specimen of any electronic mail that you are attempting to dispatch together with the associated error note. Make sure that you provide them with all the stuff they require to trace and troubleshoot the problem.