With various DTH and Broadband providers available in the Indian market right now, often it gets very tough to decide on the best plan for your needs. This is exactly the problem which Trimbill tries to solve with their website.

As per Raghuram K Belur of Trimbill, their system keeps track of new plans, offers and updates them in its database, thereby helping the prospective buyer by saving him or her a lot of time and energy. The prospective buyer can then easily view the comparison all the plans at one place, rather than going to each provider’s site and then comparing them manually.

To the question of what’s new about the comparison product, Raghuram says

“Yes, there are a few sites who do compare. But, the algorithm we use is a mile ahead. Trimbill can compare the plans at ‘channels’ level, which nobody has been able to do. Yes, Nobody, Not only in India, but elsewhere too.
The closest somebody has been able to do is at the group level – like ‘Sports Channels’, ‘Infotainment Channels’, ‘Regional-Kannada’ and so on…
It is difficult, rather very difficult to do since it involves complex mathematics related to ‘Weighted-sets Packing problem’.”

Trimbill expects to generate revenue using the Affiliate marketing on Pay-per-lead model. The developers of the service also plan to launch their own API soon. Using the API other popular online portals will be able to show relevant data from Trimbill’s database.

Developed by a bunch of engineers from NIT, Trimbill might soon be expanding their services into other verticals like Cellphone Plans, Credit Card Plans etc..

Checkout Trimbill at www.trimbill.com

As we all know that none of the video sharing sites provide a link to download their videos. So we will have to do some tweaking and play around to download the videos. Here are some ways to download any video from the internet , they are based on the common hack (Right-click -> “Save Target As” OR copy the link into your download manager, but change the file extension to .flv)

Method 1: For Firefox Users – Install the VideoDownloader Extension from Mozilla Add-ons website – It downloads all embedded objects on a webpage including the video clips. This is very easy for beginners.

Method 2: One of the easiest ways is to copy your video URL and paste it on KeepVid Lite. When you click submit, you will be provided with a link to save the video as an FLV file.
Using these tricks you can easily download videos from Youtube or Google Videos or Metacafe.

Now some more questions that arise are:

How do I play FLV files on my computer – They dont open with windows media player or winamp or itunes or real player ?

You can download free FLV players to watch FLV files locally. A good FLV player has a simple and easy-to-remember name – FLV Player. Another nice alternative is the Riva FLV player. Try them out.

How do I split a large FLV file into smaller playable video clips?

This is the most common question among video enthusiasts – they want to split a large FLV video file into smaller chunks for editing or resharing only the interesting tidbits on the internet. To break an FLV file, get the free FLV Parser – a tiny command-line tool to split FLVs into pieces. Its intended use is to convert a large FLV into a series of shorter FLVs based on a series of millisecond-based timecodes. Using the -s switch will split the audio and video of the outputted files; the audio track will be extracted as a series of MP3 files, and the short FLVs produced will have no audio track at all.

How to convert FLV videos to Windows AVI or Quicktime MOV or 3GP formats ?

The free Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer software from Super can convert FLV files to practically any other video format including MP4, MOV H.264, AVI, ASF or Flash SWF animations. Super video convertor.

How do I convert my AVI, MPEG, MOV, 3GP movie clips back to FLV format ?

Say you complete editing your movie in Windows Movie Maker or Avid and now left with an MOV file that you want to convert to FLV. Just get the free Riva FLV encoder and relax. The Riva encoder even lets you select parts of the video that you want to convert to FLV and crop the rest.

I have three small video clips that I download from Google Videos and now want to join them into one single video -How do I merge FLV files ?
There is no free software that lets you join FLV files other than the expensive Macromedia Flash Professional. However, here’s a simple trick to join several flv video files – convert individual flv files to avi using Super [as mentioned above], then join the multiple Avi files into a single avi file using free VirtualDub and finally convert this avi back to FLV using Riva FLV encoder.Its done.

How do I watch Youtube Video on my iPod, PSP or Television ?

Again we’ll make use of the Super Video Encoder mentioned above. Just convert the FLV file into a corresponding format (like Apple iPod or Sony PSP or MPG) and transfer it to your gadget

Yes, you are reading it correctly, its not a prank or joke, now you can easily avoid the waiting time or usually we say time limit when you download as a free user from the file sharing services such as rapidshare, megaupload, deposifiles, hotfile. Normally you have to wait for 20-60 minutes to download the second file after downloading the first one. They implement ways to invite users to purchase a premium service. But this way of limiting Free download limit and asking free users to wait for long time to start another download can be annoying one.

Skipscreen is an extension to browser to by pass waiting time on download. Unfortunately it can only be used with Firefox browsers to avoid waiting time while downloading files from some popular File hosting services like:

* Rapidshare.com
* zShare.net
* MediaFire.com
* Megaupload.com
* Sharebee.com
* Depositfiles.com
* Sendspace.com
* Divshare.com
* Linkbucks.com
* Uploaded.to
* Hotfiles.com
* 4shared.com
* Limelinx.com
* Link-Protector.com

Its use is very simple and does not require any configuration, just go to the addon page of the extension and install it, restart your browser and enter one of thesedownload sites and you will no longer have to wait.

Download Skip Screen Firefox Extention

Alternative Methods or Hacks to Beat Rapidshare Download Limits and Waiting Time

Method 1:  Using Java Script:

1. Goto the page you want to download
2. Select FREE button
3. In the address bar put the following: javascript:alert(c=0)
4. Click OK
5. Click OK to the pop-up box
6. Enter the captcha
7. Download Your File

Method 2:  Request a new IP address from your ISP server

Here’s how to do it in windows:
1. Click Start
2. Click run
3. In the run box type cmd.exe and click OK
4. When the command prompt opens type the following.

ENTER after each new line.
ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
exit

Note: This might only work for DSL/Modem Internet Connection, not for Cable Internet users

Disclaimer: Some call this as hacking trick or Hacking Rapidshare, but its in no way related to hacking. All information mentioned above is not created by technosmart.info

When you download photos from your digital camera, they often have unrecognizable names. You can rename several similar files at once with the following procedure. This also works for renaming other types of files.

1.Open the My Pictures folder. (Click Start, and then click My Pictures.) Or open another folder containing files that you want to rename.
2.Select the files you want to rename. If the files you want are not adjacent in the file list, press and hold CTRL, and then click each item to select it.
3.On the File menu, click Rename.
4.Type the new name, and then press ENTER.

All of the files in the series will be named in sequence using the new name you type. For example, if you type Birthday, the first will be named Birthday and subsequent files in the series will be named Birthday (1), Birthday (2), and so on. To specify the starting number for the series, type the starting number in parentheses after the new file name. The files in the series will be numbered in sequence starting with the number you type. For example, if you type Birthday (10), the other files will be named Birthday (11), Birthday (12), and so on.

Often when an employee departs, they take important Excel passwords with them. This guide outlines how to use a simple Excel password recovery application to crack lost or forgotten passwords, allowing you to unlock password-encrypted Microsoft Excel documents quickly as possible.

Step 1: Download and Install the Office Password Recovery Utility

To perform the following recovery steps, you’ll need to grab the download of Office Password Recovery Pro, available directly here. (2.1Mb)

Once you’ve downloaded the program, run the install with the default options.

Step 2: Navigate to the Protected File and Begin the Recovery Process

Click the Open button on the top left, navigate to the protected spreadsheet file:

The Open button launches the Recovery Wizard.

The Wizard gives you the option of simply decrypting the spreadsheet (aka. removing the password protection entirely) or displaying the original document password:

Recovery Option 1: 100% Instant Document Decryption

This option is the quickest way to access your file, but strips all password protection from the document, so you’ll need to setup password protection on the file again if you want to lock it down in the future.

With this option, the application securely pings the Password Solutions’ server to determine the type of encryption used on the file and determines the best decryption method for removing the password from the Excel workbook:

When prompted, choose where you’d like to save the unlocked, decrypted version and hit OK.

Success! The program now offers to automatically open your unlocked document.

Recovery Option 2: ‘Recover the Password to Open’

If the document is password-protected and you’d like to recover the original password (perhaps for use in opening other Office documents) select Recover the Password to Open.

You’ll then be asked a couple questions to aid in determining the password schema. These are geared at narrowing the applications search for possible matches, but are not required.

If you don’t have any idea, simply leave all default selections, press the Next button twice and then click Finish.

Office Password Recovery then starts attempting to crack the password using a number of built-in ‘attack schemes’ and millions of unique password combinations.

Once your password has been recovered, the program clearly notifies you of the results:

Note: Even the passwords on individual sheets within your Excel workbook are recovered, giving you complete access across the entire workbook.

If you’re stuck and just can’t find that password, we highly recommend downloading Office Password Recovery Pro and running through these steps.

These steps are for a clean install of XP. Read this article for steps on upgrading your current system to XP.

First, you’re going to need to change your BIOS boot order to boot from CD-ROM. Once you do this you’ll then be able to boot your computer from the Installation CD.

After changing the boot order in BIOS, save the changes, and then reboot your computer. Make sure your Installation CD is in your CD-ROM. If it is you’ll be prompted to press your space bar to directly boot from CD-ROM emulation. Press your space bar as soon as you see this message.

Wait a few minutes while the installation begins to copy the preliminary setup files to your computer. After this completes you’ll be ready to start directing the install process.

You will be asked if you want to perform a new installation, repair an existing installation, or quit. In this case, you will be performing a new install. Press the correct key to perform a new installation.

Read the terms of the end user license agreement, and press F8 to agree.

The next phase of the installation is real similar to that of Windows 2000. So, if you’re familiar with the Windows 2000 installation process this should be a cinch.
Basically, you need to decide which partition of your hard drive you will install Windows XP on. You will have the opportunity to create and/or delete partitions or just allocate the available disk space to one partition. However, try to keep your partitions within reasonable size.

We recommend using multiple partitions of 4-8GB, preferably on more than one hard drive. This will help you back up your data and optimize system performance later on down the road. Once you have figured out which partition XP will be installed on it’s time to format it.

Choose to format the partition to either FAT32 or NTFS (recommended for single OS install). You’ll also see two additional choices to perform a quick format of each option. Stick with doing a full format of either option instead. After you’ve determined which option is right for you, press the correct key to format the partition.

This would be a good time to take a break and come back in a few minutes. The setup program will automatically start copying files after the partition is formatted.
From this point on, you’re going to see each and every file name that’s being copied over to your hard drive appear in the lower left corner. As the file names go from A to Z, the installation completion percentage will increase.

Choose the region and language.

Type in your name and organization.

Enter your product license key.

Name the computer, and enter an Admin password. Don’t forget to write down your Administrator password. After the installation is complete it would be extremely wise to create a password restore disk in the event you forget your Administrator password someday.

Enter the correct date and time.

Choose your network settings. Leave on automatic if you use a dhcp server to assign IP addresses. If you have static IP address for broadband access, enter the settings that your ISP has provided you.

Choose workgroup or domain name.

Register this copy of Windows XP if you’ve installed all the current hardware on your machine. Otherwise, wait until you’ve finished installing any additional hardware so you don’t have to activate your copy of XP again.

Add users that will sign on to this computer.

Log in, and update drivers.

Driver install

XP found drivers for all of the hardware in our test machines, with the exception of a wireless network adapter that was added. Update all drivers that had updates available for download.

It takes about 30 minutes to perform this installation. After that, you will be a few personalized settings away from getting started on your XP-experience. With a little use, the GUI even starts to grow on you.

1) How to make your Desktop Icons Transparent

Go to ontrol Panel > System, > Advanced > Performance area > Settings button Visual Effects tab “Use drop shadows for icon labels on the Desktop”

2) How to Rename the Recycle Bin

To change the name of the Recycle Bin desktop icon, open Regedit and go to:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/CLSID/{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

and change the name “Recycle Bin” to whatever you want (don’t type any quotes).

3) How to use Windows Update Properly

If you want to save your files to your hard drive, so after a format you dont have to download them all again, here’s How:

- Logon to Windows Update

- Choose Windows Update Catalogue (left hand pane)

- Choose Find updates for Microsoft Windows operating systems (right hand pane)

- Choose your version and language then Search

- Choose one the following:

- Critical Updates and Service Packs
- Service Packs and Recommended Downloads
- Multi-Language Features (0)

- Once chosen simply click on what you want to download and then back at the top click Review Download Basket

- You are taken to the next page where at the top you can specify where the downloads are to be saved.

- Click Download now. Each patch will make a directory under the root of the folder you saved them to.
Once finished you need to go to where you saved the file (s) to and then simply install all your patches.

4) Get rid of Windows Messenger

Start->Run->”gpedit.msc”"
-Computer Configuration
-Administrative Templates
-Windows Components
-Windows Messenger

Here you can enable
“Do not allow Windows Messenger to be run”
and
“Do not automatically start Windows Messenger initially

5) Make Your Folders Private

•Open My Computer
•Double-click the drive where Windows is installed (usually drive (C:), unless you have more than one drive on your computer).
•If the contents of the drive are hidden, under System Tasks, click Show the contents of this drive.
•Double-click the Documents and Settings folder.
•Double-click your user folder.
•Right-click any folder in your user profile, and then click Properties.
•On the Sharing tab, select the Make this folder private so that only I have access to it check box.

Note

•To open My Computer, click Start, and then click My Computer.
•This option is only available for folders included in your user profile. Folders in your user profile include My Documents and its subfolders, Desktop, Start Menu, Cookies, and Favorites. If you do not make these folders private, they are available to everyone who uses your computer.
•When you make a folder private, all of its subfolders are private as well. For example, when you make My Documents private, you also make My Music and My Pictures private. When you share a folder, you also share all of its subfolders unless you make them private.
•You cannot make your folders private if your drive is not formatted as NTFS For information about converting your drive to NTFS

Currently I am Using 3 emails i.e of Rediffmail, Yahoo and Gmail among them G-mail powerful email account that I have to date.

If you too have a bunch of email accounts with different email service provider nd would like to check all of your email in one place Gmail is your best bet.

Procedure :-

1) Click on “Settings”

2) Click on the Accounts and Import option.

3) Then click on “Import from another address”.

The first page asks “What account do you want to import from?“, enter in the email address you want to import your email from, not your gmail account as you are already logged into the account.  Then click on next, which will take you to a page that asks you to enter your password.  Again, enter in the password for the email account that you want to import, not your gmail account.

The next page asks you to “Select the import options for” the account in question.  You can leave everything checked, one thing to take note of though is the option “Add label to all imported mail:”; if you leave that filled out as the computer did so you will notice that when you check your inbox there will be a folder with the name of the email address you are importing as an additional folder underneath your inbox.  If you decide to change that option and type something in, you need to remember what you named the folder.  It is easier just to leave it filled in with the default tag.

Click on “Start Import”, and Gmail will begin the process of importing the email.  You will get a message that states “It may take several hours (sometimes up to 2 days) before you start to see imported messages.”, just click ok and close out of that window.  As stated it can take up to two days for this to take effect. The only side effect I noticed from doing this is that one of folders set up in an account I imported was replenished with email that I have already read, which was strange, but I just deleted all of that email.

When everything is over and done with you will see a folder for each email address to the left.

Does your Windows machine take a long time to boot up? Well a company has developed a remedy to improve Windows boot time, and it is called Soluto.

The way the application works is simple. It installs, then it asks you to reboot and then it watches your boot time and tells you what is taking up the majority of that time. It allows you to pause the item (does not start up again until un-paused) or you can delay its startup. It will wait until the initial set of applications is loaded before attempting to start your delayed applications.
This program works well for techies and entry level computer users alike. If you are an expert user you can take action on all your items and have a great list to work from on speeding up your boot up. A novice would be able to pause the items that they know they do not use or have already uninstalled.

For instance Roxio’s burning suite starts up automatically but do we need it to? Photoshop and Acrobat also start processes automatically and don’t forget all the applications that call out to see if there are new versions available. Everything starting up at once causes your machine to act slow.

Soluto wants to remove the frustration from computing. You can also enable a Frustration Detection mode that will analyze your machine at any given time and it will tell you what is wrong.

To begin just follow this link here.

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If you are reading this, then you have already taken the first step.

You are thinking about how you can stop smoking! The decision to stop smoking can seem overwhelming, but with help and support from your family and friends, you can do it! Half of all the people who have ever smoked have quit, and so can you. If you’ve tried to quit smoking before and it didn’t work, you can use what you learned before so you can be successful this time. It can be very difficult to quit, but once you do, you’ll look better, smell better, feel better, and be healthier!

Every time you inhale smoke from a cigarette, small amounts of chemicals get into your blood through your lungs. They travel to all the parts of your body and cause harm.

Okay, I’ve decided to quit… What can I do so I will succeed this time?

That’s great! This is a very positive step.

There are some things you can do before you stop smoking to help increase your chances of success:

• If you’ve tried to quit before, think about why it didn’t work. What can you do this time to help yourself succeed?
• Tell your family and friends that you are quitting. Ask them to not tease you about it, because you are serious. Ask them to support you by not smoking around you and not offering you cigarettes.
• Throw out all your cigarettes, lighters, and ashtrays. If you’re going to be a non-smoker, you won’t need these things again.
• Talk to your doctor about nicotine replacement methods. Nicotine gum, patches, spray, and some new medications can really help people to stop smoking. However, for these products to work, it is important to use them the right way. Make sure someone explains to you how to use them correctly.
• Join a support group at your school or in your community.
• Find someone you can call for those times when you feel like you are having a weak moment and might smoke a cigarette. This person should know that you are trying to quit and can remind you of all the reasons why you decided to give up cigarettes.

What can I do so I won’t smoke again?

The hardest part about quitting is breaking the habits that go along with it. For example, if you are used to smoking with your friends when you are hanging out together, it will be hard to hang around with them and not smoke. The best way to keep from smoking is to not put yourself in situations with people who smoke and to stay away from places where you are used to smoking.

• Avoid places and situations where you normally smoke.
• Spend a few days or a week away from your friends who smoke.
• Go to non-smoking places with your friends, like the mall or the movies.
• Don’t drink alcohol. Alcohol will likely lower your willpower and increase your chances of having a cigarette.
• If your family smokes, ask them to not smoke in your room.
• Exercise. It will take your mind off smoking, make you feel better, and keep you healthy.
• Plan activities during the first couple of weeks to take your mind off smoking. It will be easier to quit if you keep yourself busy.