How to Translate PDF and Word Documents

Say dad bought you a digital camera from Japan but the problem is that thePDF manual that came with the camera is also written in Japanese. How do you quickly translate that PDF document into English?

Access Files on your Computer from Anywhere

The problem: You have documents, photos, music and other important files on the home computer. How can you “remotely access” these files from your office computer or, when you are travelling, from your mobile phone?

The solution: The simplest solution would be that you copy all your data from the home computer on to a portable hard drive and carry it around but this is obviously a bit cumbersome approach as it requires you to manually sync the home computer and your portable disk.

Access Files on your Computer over the Internet

There are couple of ways by which you can retrieve files stored on your home computer from anywhere else using a regular Internet connection.

Option 1: Using Online Backup

You can use an online backup service like SugarSync, Carbonite, SkyDrive or even Dropbox – they provide desktop utilities that will automatically upload files on your home computer to the Internet and you can then access these files through the web browser of any other Internet connected computer.

The upside is that your files will always be available to you even if the home computer is not running. SugarSync and Carbonite have a mobile optimized website so you can access files from any mobile phone as well.

The downside is that if you are using any of these services for the first time, you’ll to wait until they upload all your data to the cloud and this process may take long if you have too many files on the home computer.

Option 2: Using Desktop Sharing Software

There are free desktop sharing software like TeamViewer and UltraVNC that also let you remotely access your computer files from anywhere else. LogMeIn Pro is another good option for transferring files from a remote computer but these are paid services.

If all your computers are running Windows, you can use the built-in remote desktop connection feature of Windows (available in XP and later) to access your home computer from another Window computer over the Internet.

With Desktop Sharing software, you’ll always have access to all your files but one big limitation is that it requires that the remote computer stays on. Also, none of these options will help you access files on a mobile phone except LogMeIn which has an iPhone app.

Option 3: Access Files Directly through the Browser

Online backup services, discussed above, will copy files to their own servers before you can access them for anywhere else. Screen sharing services are often slow and they won’t work on most mobile devices. Let’s now explore another set of services that allow you download files directly from the home computer.

Copernic, like Google Desktop, is a popular desktop search software that you may use to find emails, documents and other files on your Windows computer. They have a paid component called myCopernic on the Go that lets you remotely search for content stored on the home or office computer. You can preview the search results and then download them to your mobile phone or remote PC.

With Opera Unite, you can easily turn your computer into a web server and instantly access files and folders on that computer from any other web browser (including that of mobile phones). Opera Unite is a standard web server and therefore you’ll be downloading files directly from the computer – they’re not uploaded anywhere else.

Another option is GBridge that lets you setup a virtual private network using your existing Google Account. Companies use VPNs to let employees access corporate data over a public network (Internet) and with GBridge, even home users can build their own VPNs to access remote files more securely.

Windows Live Sync at sync.live.com is another great choice for remotely accessing files over the Internet. Just install the Live Sync client on your computer and you can then access the entire hard drive of that computer simply through the Windows Live Sync website.

Finally, you may also want to check out HomePipe – this is an extremely easy and free service that lets you access your home files and media from any other computer or mobile phone. Install the HomePipe Agent and all files on that computer will instantly become available through the web. They also have apps for iPhone and Android phones.

Build a Wireless Home Network without a Router

Let’s say you have one internet connection at home that you want to share across all your desktop and laptop computers, your Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones, tablets, video game consoles (like the Xbox), digital photo frames and any other wireless devices that you may have at home.

How do you do this?

The easiest way to setup a wireless network, as we all know, is with the help of a router – just attach a wireless router to your modem and any Wi-Fi enabled gear, that’s located inside the signal range of your router, will be able to connect to the web using that lone Internet connection.

Setup Wireless Network without a Wireless Router

Now consider a slightly different scenario – you have all these Wi-Fi enabled devices at home but there’s no router. Well, there’s no reason to buy one because you can still easily setup a wireless network as long as your computers have a wireless network adapter*.

[*] Most new desktops and laptop computers are already equipped with internal network adapters so you are ready to go without a router.

If your computer doesn’t have built-in wireless capabilities, you can either buy aUSB network adapter that plugs into the USB port of your desktop or go for awireless adapter that directly plugs into your notebook’s PC Card slot. Desktop users can also opt for an internal wireless PCI card but you’ll have to open the computer case in order to install this network adapter.

[*] Most new desktops and laptop computers are already equipped with internal network adapters so you are ready to go without a router.

If your computer doesn’t have built-in wireless capabilities, you can either buy aUSB network adapter that plugs into the USB port of your desktop or go for awireless adapter that directly plugs into your notebook’s PC Card slot. Desktop users can also opt for an internal wireless PCI card but you’ll have to open the computer case in order to install this network adapter.

Create a Wi-Fi Network without a Router

Now that you have everything in place to create a Wi-Fi network, let’s actually build one.

For Windows XP and Vista users

If your main computer, that is already connected to the internet, is running Windows XP, Vista or even Mac OS X, you can set up an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network and the other wireless devices can then connect to the web via this ad-hoc network (also called a computer-to-computer network).

Wired Connection In, Wireless Connection Out

It’s an easy process. To set up an ad-hoc network in Windows Vista, go to Network and Sharing Center from the control panel, select “Set up a connection or network” and choose “Set up a wireless ad hoc (computer-to-computer) network”.

Make sure you select “Save this network” option else the ad hoc network will be removed if no other computers / devices are connecting to the network.

Turn on Internet Sharing in the next screen and now your other home computers can connect to the ad hoc network just like they would connect to any regular wireless network. Setting up an ad hoc network in XP takes a couple of extra steps but also make sure the host computer is running at least XP SP2 or SP3.

For Windows 7 users

If you are on Windows 7, you can instantly turn your  computer into a personal Wi-Fi hotspot without having to configure anything. All you need is a free software called Virtual Router and the computer connected to the internet must be running Windows 7.

[*] Virtual Router works will all editions of Windows 7 except the Starter edition because Microsoft has disabled the Virtual Wifi feature in that particular edition.

Using the virtual router is simple – just run the program on any Windows 7 computer, assign a password and that’s it. In the above example, I used the Virtual Router to connect an iPod, an Ubuntu Linux laptop and a Windows desktop to the Internet via a Windows 7 notebook where that virtual router software was running.

As new devices join the Wireless network, their assigned IP and MAC addresses instantly appear in the Virtual Router window. And you can click the “Stop Router” button anytime to deactivate the hotspot and disable Internet sharing.

Virtual Wi-Fi vs Ad Hoc Wireless Networking

To set up Ad Hoc networking, your main computer needs to have an Ethernet based Internet connection as well as a Wireless (WLAN) network adapter. In the case of Virtual Wi-Fi, the Ethernet card is optional so you can turn a laptop into a hotspot even if your laptop itself is connected to a Wireless network and not to an Ethernet cable.

Computers and other wireless devices in ad hoc networks must be within 30 feet of each other but there’s no such restriction in the case of Virtual Wireless networks.

Ad-Hoc wireless networking is available on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 while Virtual WiFi, which is much easier to setup, is available on Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008.

Transfer Contacts from one Cell Phone to another

 

Did you just buy a new mobile phone? The first thing that you’ll probably is copy all the phone numbers and other contact information from the old phone to your new cell.

How to Transfer Contacts another Mobile Phone

The process may vary depending upon the phone support cloud but broadly, there are three options. I will discuss the most popular mobile platforms like BlackBerry, iPhone, HTC, Nokia, Windows Phone, Samsung and Android.

1. SIM based transfer

If the address book of your old phone is relatively small and you only want to copy the phone numbers to your new cell phone, simply use the SIM card.

Just copy the phone numbers from the old phone’s memory to your SIM card, insert this SIM card into your new phone and then copy the phone numbers in your new phone’s memory. Here’s a detailed guide on how to transfer contacts from the Nokia to an iPhone using the SIM.

2. Transfer Contacts via your Computer

The SIM card based approach is good only for transferring basic phone numbers but if your phone’s address book includes long names, email addresses, and other details of your contacts, you need some sort of software to help you with the transfer process.

For instance, if you have a Nokia phone but are shifting to a BlackBerry or an iPhone, you may use Nokia’s Ovi Suite application to copy your phone’s address book to Microsoft Outlook on your desktop computer. You can then use BlackBerry’s Desktop Manager software, or iTunes in the case of iPhone, or Kies for Samsung Galaxy, to transfer contacts from the PC (Outlook) to your new phone’s address book.

Windows Mobile users, like Samsung Omnia or HTC HD2, may again use Microsoft’s Device Center (or ActiveSync for XP) to copy their phone address book to the desktop via Outlook. If you are simply switching from one Windows Phone to another, you can transfer contacts via the cloud itself using Microsoft’sMy Phone service.

If you have an old CDMA based mobile phone from, say Samsung or LG, you can use the free BitPim utility to copy the phone book to your computer. BitPim is available for Windows, Mac and Linux machines and it can export address books in standard vCard format (.vcf) that you can easily import into Outlook and other contact managers.

3. Transfer Phone book “Over the Air”

If you have an Internet enabled phone, you can easily copy contacts from your old phone to the new phone over-the-air without even requiring a computer.

An online service called Mobical is free and it works with most mobile phones from Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and so on. You first need to setup Mobical on the old phone and it will create a backup of your phone contacts in the cloud. Now setup Mobical on the new phone using the same credentials and it will automatically download all the contacts from the cloud to your new phone.

Then there’s Google Sync, a cloud based service that works with BlackBerry, iPhone, Nokia   and most other mobile phones that are SyncML capable. Google Sync keeps your phone’s address book in sync with your Google Contacts. Therefore, if you now install Google Sync on both your old and new phone, they’ll have the same phone book entries automatically.

Android based phones can sync with Google Contacts out of the box – you can then export Google Contacts out as a CSV file and copy it to any other phone manually via the desktop tools.  HTC even offers a desktop utility called HTC Sync that you may use to synchronize Outlook contacts with your Android phone. This will be handy when you want to copy your HTC’s phone book to another phone that is not web-enabled.

PS: Previously mentioned Zyb is now part of Vodafone and is no longer accepting new users.

How Parents Can Block Certain Websites from Children

[For non-techie parents who have a computer at home and are worried about their kids safety online.]

How to Use Windows 7 Themes on XP or Vista

Mirosoft paid close attention to personalization in Windows 7, and shipped it with a gorgeous collection of desktop backgrounds and themes. Windows 7 also makes it easy for users to create their own personalized themes and then share it with other Windows 7 users.

If you are still using an older version of Windows (like Windows XP or Vista), you don’t have to feel left behind because, with some simple tricks, you can enjoy all or part of what these Windows 7 themes have to offer.

Use Windows 7 Themes with XP and Vista

First, launch the official Windows 7 themes directory and download some of the themes you like to your Windows XP or Vista desktop.

These files have a unique .themepack extension which is just another zip format containing all of the elements of a theme including the background images, Aero glass colors, sounds, cursors, icons, screen savers, etc.

To use these files on an older version of Windows, you first need to extract them as only Windows 7 can natively understand the themepack format. You can either change the file extension of the Windows 7 theme file from .themepack to .cab and then extract the files with a right-click, or install the free 7-Zip utility as 7-Zip can automatically hand the themepack file format.

Once extracted, your theme files will now be in a new folder that has the same name as your original themepack.

Aero Glass Border and Desktop Backgrounds

Now that you have all the required files, its time to activate the Windows 7 theme on your non-Windows 7 computer.

If your computer is running Windows Vista that supports Aero, simply double-click the .theme file that is present in the them folder you just extracted.   This will set your windows border glass to the color of the Windows 7 theme and your wallpaper to the default background of the theme. However, this background picture will disappear when you reboot your computer, so you need to set that as a permanent background.

Windows XP does not support Aero glass, but you can still use the background images from downloaded Windows 7 theme on your XP desktop. You can find the backgrounds inside the themepack folder itself or in a sub-folder named DesktopBackground. Pick any image, right click on it, and select “Set as Desktop Background.”

Windows 7 like Desktop Slideshows for XP and Vista

Most Windows 7 themes consist of multiple background images and Windows 7 will automatically change your desktop background at periodic intervals using one of the images from the themepack. Windows Vista and XP do not support desktop slideshows, but you can easily bring that feature use the excellent and free John’s Background Switcher program.

To create a desktop slideshow, click the add button and choose “A folder on your computer.” Now select the Windows 7 theme folder that contains all the background images. The program allows lot of tweaking but you can skip that because the default settings are very similar to what you need for simulating Windows 7 behavior on your XP or Vista computer.

However, John’s Background Switcher by default shows the name of the image in the top right hand corner of the picture.   To remove this, click the “More…” button that has a gear icon on it. Uncheck the box beside the 3rd entry which says “Show picture info on the top-right corner of the screen.” Now click Ok, and then click Ok in the main window, and your desktop slideshow is all ready.

For RSS-enabled Windows 7 Themes

Some Windows 7 themes download images from the internet (via RSS feeds) when switching desktop backgrounds.

To know if the theme you are looking to port on your Vista or XP computer uses RSS or not, open the .theme file in a text editor like Notepad. Then search for the string “RssFeed” without the quotes. If you find that string, copy the link address of the RSS feed and, you can then use the “RSS photo feed” option in John’s Background Switcher program to create an RSS powered desktop slideshow on your XP or Vista machines.

Windows 7 Sounds, Cursor, Screensavers, etc.

Most Windows 7 themes only contain a glass color and desktop backgrounds.   However, some may contain screensavers, sounds, cursors, and icons as well. The good part is that you can use the elements on your Vista / XP theme as well.

Sounds – You can copy the sound files (.wav) to the default media folder (C:\Windows\Media), and if you have set the Windows 7 theme in Windows Vista as described above, it will automatically these sounds. Else, you will have to manually change your sounds from the Control Panel.

Icons – If the Windows 7 theme that you plan to use with XP or Vista contains a different set of desktop and system icons (.ico files), you may follow the directions below to apply them on your version of Windows:

A. For Windows Vista – Right-click on the desktop, select Personalize and choose “Change Desktop Icons.” Select the items you which to change, click “Change Icons,” and browse to the location of new icons that are part of the Windows 7 theme.

B. For Windows XP – Right-click on the desktop, select Properties and choose “Customize Desktop” under the Desktop tab. Select the items you wish to change, click “Change Icon,” and browse to the location of the icons from your theme.

 

To change icons of individual programs, simply right-click on the program shortcut on your desktop, select Properties, and click the button that says “Change Icon” in the Shortcut tab. Browse to the location of the icon extract from the Windows 7 theme and select the one you want to apply.

Screensavers – For using a Windows 7 screensaver inside XP or Vista, just copy the relevant screensaver files (.scr) into your Windows system folder usually located at C:\Windows\System32.   Now, change your system screensaver using the usual method. Please remember that not all Windows 7 screensavers will work correctly on previous versions of Windows.

Cursors – You can copy the Windows 7 cursor files (.cur or .ani) to C:\Windows\Cursors on XP or Vista, and then apply the new set using the mouse settings under Control Panel. Use the [Control Panel\Cursors] of the .theme file (see example) to understand the default cursor mappings.

Capture Screenshots of your iPhone or iPad Screen

How do you save a screenshot image of your iPhone, iPad or the iPod Touch screen?
Unlike your Windows or Mac computer, there are no screen capture apps available for your iOS device and you actually don’t need one because the screen capture functionality in built right into your device.

Print Screen for your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch

To save a screenshot image of your mobile screen, press and hold the Home button that is located at the bottom center of the device (you often use this button to exit the app and return to the home screen).

While the home button is down,  press the Sleep (or Wake) button located on the opposite edge of the phone. The screen will flash momentarily,  you’ll also hear a click sound and the content of the current screen will be saved as a new image in your Photo Gallery.

Related Guide: How to Use Sleep and Home Buttons in iOS

Do remember that the same key combination will reset your iPhone if you press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time for at least 10 seconds.

Export Phone Numbers of your Facebook Friends

Wile there are workarounds that let you easily download all yourFacebook data, including email addresses of your Facebook friends, one of the important pieces that you still can’t move out of Facebook is the phone book.

Most of your Facebook friends have put their phone numbers on their profile pages and you’ll love to import them to your mobile phone’s address book but unfortunately Facebook doesn’t offer an option to let you do so. There’s however a new Chrome extension that be of immense help here.

Called Facebook Friends Exporter, this extension will let you export phone numbers, email addresses (not just the primary address but all the other email addresses as well), IM screen names and website URLs of your Facebook contacts in a standard CSV file that you can quickly import into Outlook, Gmail or any other address book.

Alternatively, you may also choose to import your Facebook friends details directly into Gmail /Google Contacts without even having to use the CSV option.

Once you install the Facebook Friends Exporter extension in Chrome, it will add a new menu option called “Export Friends” to your Facebook.com. Click that link and it will begin parsing the profile pages of all your Facebook friends one-by-one.

It takes about 10 minutes to extract details of 50 friends so you might want to take a break if you are connected with a large number of people on Facebook. Also, Facebook doesn’t like if you visit more than 60 profile pages in under 60 minutes so this extension will automatically pause after that limit is reached and then resumes from where it left off.

This is an open-source extension so you pretty much know what’s happening behind the scenes but it may not play down well with the the Facebook TOS that discourages web scraping – “You will not collect users’ content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission.”

The extension is undoubtedly useful and works as advertised but use at your own risk. Also, once details are available in a CSV file, you can import it into Google Contacts and use the the “Find Duplicates” option to merge the similar entries.

Update: As expected, Facebook has blocked the extension.

Find the Song Name Without Knowing the Lyrics

It happens all the time. You are sitting in a restaurant with friends or driving to work and there’s some beautiful music playing on the FM radio station. You would love to buy a copy of that music album for yourself but the problem is that you didn’t get the lyrics so how do you find out the name of that song.

"What the name of this song i don't rebembar  the lyrics"

Search engines like Google or Bing won’t be of much help unless you know a couple of words from the song lyrics or have some clue about the name of the artist or the band. How do you then identify the name of that lovely song?

Well, here are some of the best music recognition services that can help you discover song names without having to know the lyrics. You may use them to identify music playing from the radio, TV, Internet or that CD playing in the bar.

1. Find Music with your Mobile Phone

1a. Shazam – Shazam is a mobile application that you may use to find song names from your iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android or your Nokia S60 phone. You may also use Shazam on an iPod Touch provided you have an external microphone.

Simply install the Shazam application, hold your phone towards the audio source and hit the Tag button to let Shazam identify the playing music. Shazam works only with pre-recorded music and not with live performances.

The free version of Shazam will help you identify up to 5 different track per month while Shazam Encore, the paid version, offers unlimited tracking for $4.99. If the tune cannot be recognized, there’s no charge. If you are in the UK, you can use just about any mobile phone to recognize music with Shazam – just dial 2580 and hold your phone to the music.

1b. MusicID – Hold your iPhone up to some music and MusicID will tell you what song is playing. It’s a $3 iPhone App available worldwide but if you are on AT&T, you may also use your Blackberry, Windows Mobile or any Java phone to identify music with MusicID.

Like Shazam, MusicID works only with pre-recorded music and they also have an SMS based service for people in the US that doesn’t require any downloads – just dial a short code, hold your phone up to some music and you’ll get a text message with the result.

2. Find song names using your own voice

2a. Midomi – If you have a tune that’s stuck in your head, just grab a microphone, hum that tune yourself and Midomi will be able tell you what that song is. Alternatively, you may play a short recording of that “unknown” track for Midomi to identify its name.

Unlike Shazam which is a mobile app, Midomi offers a web interface where you can can hum or sing for about 10 seconds and the service will then show you a list of matching songs. For best results, keep the volume bar in the green and avoid background noise.

Midomi is free to use online, but it also offers mobile apps for iPhone, Android, Nokia Ovi and Windows Mobile phones. You can identify songs by holding your phone up to a speaker or by singing / humming the melody into the phone itself.

3. Record a short clip to identify the music

3a. AudioTag – If you have a short recording of a song on your computer or your mobile phone, you may use the online music recognition service at AudioTag to figure out the exact name of that song.

You can upload a short audio snippet (or even a whole song) and Audio will try to identify the track title by comparing the audio to its own music database. For best results, you should either take a slice from the middle of the song or upload the whole song and the recognition engine will choose slices randomly by itself.

This can be especially useful if you can record a portion of the song on your mobile device, and then check out the song’s information whenever you go online.

4. Identify Music with help of humans

4a. WatZatSong – When computers fail to identify the song that you are looking for, you can take the help of human being who may have an idea about that song.

WatZatSong (“What’s that song?”) is a social site where you can upload a short MP3 audio recording of the song (or record yourself by humming) and other members of the site can then help you guess the exact song name. The suggestions won’t come instantly but you can make their task a bit easier by proving more details about the song like the language in which it is sung or the music style.

You can cross-post the same WatZatSong   request to other social sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. so your entire network can help you in the search.4b. Name My Tune – Sing or hum a short clip of the song you are trying to find the name of. Once you are done recording and enter the Genre and Era that you think the song most likely fits in. They’ll send you an email when other people on that site are able to recognize your tune.

5. Use a virtual keyboard to find the song name

5a. Musipedia – With Musipedia, you can search for a song by either playing it on a virtual piano keyboard or by whistling it to the computer using any microphone.

Musipedia is styled after Wikipedia and works best at finding classical music. Unlike Shazam which can will only find songs that exactly match the recording, Musipedia can identify all music that contain a particular melody that you just recorded by humming or through the computer keyboard.

5b. MelodyCatcher – If you can play the tune on a virtual keyboard, MelodyCatcher can help you find the name of the song tune you’re looking for.

With a simple Java-based onscreen keyboard, simply use your mouse to enter the melody, click search, and MelodyCatcher will show you a list of matching songs from across the web. You do not need to enter the full melody: the first 5-7 notes will usually be sufficient to identify a melody.

Technical Tutorials & Howto Guides

1. How to Edit PDF Files without Adobe Acrobat

2. How to Secure Your Wireless (Wi-Fi) Home Network
3. How to Connect Laptop to a Television Screen
4. Find the Song Name Without Knowing the Lyrics
5. Export Phone Numbers of your Facebook Friends
6. Capture Screenshots of your iPhone or iPad Screen
7. How to Use Windows 7 Themes on XP or Vista
8. How Parents Can Block Certain Websites from Children
9. Transfer Contacts from one Cell Phone to another
10. Build a Wireless Home Network without a Router
11. Access Files on your Computer from Anywhere
12. How to Translate PDF and Word Documents