PortableApps.com Suite is a complete collection of portable apps including a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar, instant messaging client, antivirus, audio player, PDF reader, etc., all pre-configured to work portably.  Notable programs included are Firefox, OpenOffice, Pidgin, GIMP and VLC Media Player.

If you want to explore more individual portable apps, you can find a large collection on Portable Freeware or Wikipedia’s Portable Apps List.

So now you don’t need to carry your heavy laptop just because it contains all your pre-installed programs required to view documents, photos, music or videos. Just carry your powerful portable drive instead.

Before you choose a new theme for your blog, you need to make some choices based on your individual requirements and preferences:

• Two Column or Three Column
• Fixed Width or Fluid Width
• Blog or Magazine

WordPress Themes: Features Checklist

Once you have decided upon the basic structure of the theme you want based on the above options, try to find a theme which provides you with the following features:

• W3C Valid XHTML & CSS
• Sidebar Widget Support
• No Sponsored Links or Encrypted footers
• GPL Compatible License
• Gravatar Support
• Adsense Ready
• Feedburner & FeedCounter Support
• Theme Options Page
• SEO Friendly
• Multi Browser Compatibility
• Compatibility with latest WordPress version

Sources For WordPress Themes:

Following a discussion on the WordPress ideas forum and a post on their blog, the WordPress founders announced that the official WordPress theme directory at http://themes.wordpress.net would no longer host themes containing sponsored links. This theme directory was later discontinued and subsequently a new revamped theme directory opened at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/.  This should be your first stop while searching a theme for your blog/website.

Other sources to get good free WordPress themes include Weblog Tools Collection and Smashing Magazine.

If you want to create your own custom theme, you can also try the Custom WordPress Theme Generator. But the features on offer here are quite basic.

The market for premium WordPress themes is taking a hit with the launch of Revolution Two as a free theme, and other theme designers will be stepping up and releasing premium quality themes for free as well.

Do you know a good source for clean & light free WordPress themes? Post it in the comments below and we will update this post with your links.

Disk Cleanup

Clean up temporary files, internet cache, recycle bin and excessive system restore points using the Windows Disk Cleanup tool. Advanced users can use third party tools like Window Washer to clean up their system on a regular basis.
Also ensure that there is atleast 2 GB of free space available on your windows partition (C:)

Eliminate Unnecessary Programs from Loading into Memory

When your computer boots up, it loads all kinds of applications into memory. If you have lots of icons in your system tray, then it’s a clear indicator that too many programs are running in the background. Disable the programs you do not need to load at startup. You can always start them manually when needed.
To do this, go to ‘Run’, type ‘msconfig’ and hit enter. Under the ‘Start Up’ tab, uncheck the unwanted programs and press OK. Windows should be faster the next time it reboots.

Check for Virus … and Anti-virus

Various malware in the form of viruses, trojan horses, adware & spyware can slow down your system. Scan your system for malware thoroughly after ensuring that your anti-virus definitions are updated.
Also remember that a bloated anti-virus program can make your system slower than even viruses themselves! Use an anti-virus program which is light on the system.

Defragment

Over time, the data stored on your hard drive gets fragmented. Defrag your hard drive to put your data back into sequential order, making it easier for Windows to access it.
Warning: Defragging can take a lot of time (especially with the Windows’ built in defragmenter), and if the process gets interrupted, it could cause severe problems to Windows. Hence we recommend that instead of defragging the entire hard drive, only defrag the swap file (virtual memory) created by Windows.

Turn off visual effects

Go to System Properties in the Control Panel. Click ‘Advanced’, then ‘Performance’ and click ‘Adjust for best performance’. This might boost your PC’s performance up a bit.

Disclaimer:
Remember, using these techniques will not make your computer speed as fast as a RAM upgrade would. So if you really want to speed up your computer, do consider adding on some memory.

1. Google Accounts and Google Apps Accounts

A Google Apps account created using Google Apps for Your Domain is currently separate from a regular Google Account resulting in Google Apps users being treated as second-class Google citizens. Since Google Apps users usually have at least one regular Google account, they cannot identify themselves with a single Google identity on the internet and it becomes difficult to manage two separate identities while using Google’s services.

Google’s various services such as Blogger, Picasa, Reader, Groups, Adwords, Analytics and Webmaster Tools are still not offered from within Google Apps.

2. Non-Gmail Google Accounts and Gmail based Google Accounts

If you were using Google services such as Google Groups or Orkut using a non-Gmail email address and later on you signed up for a Gmail address separately, there is no way to integrate the new Gmail based Google account with your older non-Gmail Google account.

Google only provides you the option of upgrading a non-Gmail Google account to a completely new Gmail based Google account. But if you have already created those two accounts separately, then there is no option to integrate both the accounts.

3. Conflict of Blogger with Google Sites

Since Google Sites (provided as a part of Google Apps) is too basic to be of any good use, many users prefer to use Blogger. Google Apps and Blogger use the same ghs.google.com nameserver. So when Google Apps users who have Google Sites enabled decide to sign up for Blogger’s Custom Domain feature, Blogger sees another file hosted in Google Apps and produces an error “Another blog is already hosted at this address.”

Conclusion:

Google is promoting integration of various services and a single sign on system across the internet through initiatives such as OpenSocial, OpenID and DataPortability. However, a closer look back home shows that integration within Google’s own accounts and services is in so much chaos that Google needs to clean up its home beforehand.

Facebook as a Social Network

Facebook continues to hold the honour of being the largest and the fastest growing social network in the world. As of June this year, they had 132 million unique visitors, having grown by 153% in the last year. It does what all other social networking services do: building online communities of people who share interests and activities and provide a variety of ways to find your friends and interact with them.

Facebook as a Photo Sharing Site

Facebook, recently announced that it hosts a total of 10 billion photos which makes it the largest photo sharing site in the world. So now its not Flickr or Picasa or Photobucket, but Facebook which hosts the maximum photos on the internet.

This is a worrying sign for plain vanilla photo sharing social networks such as Flickr and Picasa. Of course,  Flickr & Picasa have many additional features which Facebook lacks but Facebook becomes much more convenient to share photos with your friends. It’ll be interesting to see what photo sharing social networks will do to differentiate from Facebook.

Facebook as a Lifestreaming App

You can now aggregate your social content into Facebook from several services such as Flickr, Picasa, del.icio.us, Digg, YouTube, StumbleUpon, Pandora, Last.fm, Google Reader and your blog. Even though bloggers constantly comment about FriendFreed, Facebook looks like the one to take lifestreaming mainstream. It may not support the number of serrvices as Profilactic, but for the majority of Facebook’s users, the site’s own lifestreaming functionality will definitely suffice.

Facebook as a Microblogging App

Facebook’s ‘What are you doing right now?’ feature providing status updates about your friends is extremely similar to Twitter. Similar to lifestreaming, Facebook also seems likely to take microblogging mainstream.

Facebook as an Application Platform

Facebook has more than 24,000 applications hosted developed by more than 400,000 developers and entrepreneurs.

Conclusion

It is no secret that Facebook has been pushing its microblogging and lifestreaming services to the forefront of its site recently. Its competitors such as Orkut are also trying to play catchup by introducing status updates and photo sharing features similar to Facebook. But with the user scale and the geographical spread available to it, Facebook could turn out to be the real leader in social networking services.

We know that Nokia does not believe in making a perfect phone in order to maintain its sales. But from the earlier strategy of not providing all the features in one phone, there seems to be a shift by now packing all the features but messing up the design in various ways.

1.  Uncomfortable Keypad

This is by far Nokia’s sickest way of spoiling a good mobile. Just look at the Nokia N82 and you will understand why. One of the best feature packed mobile from Nokia has a very uncomfortable keypad which takes some time to get used to. Other recent example is the Nokia N78 whose keypad cannot be seen when the backlights are off. Old timers will also remember the infamous Nokia N91 keypad.

2. Uninspiring looks

It all started with the Nokia N81. A design which was regarded by many as a one off mistake by Nokia soon became the defacto design for all new Nokia N-Series mobiles. The most annoying part is its multimedia key which spoils the symmetry of the looks of the device. Thus followed the N78, N85, N96… all very high end phones, but spoiled by its design & the multimedia key.

And as if asymmetrical keys were not enough, Nokia decided to make a completely asymmetrical mobile with the Nokia 5220 XpressMusic!

3. Poor Build Quality

You would expect Nokia to provide excellent build quality for its high end mobiles. But for some reason, Nokia has decided to provide solid build quality to only its E-Series range. For all its other mobiles, the build quality is questionable. Best example being the Nokia 6220 classic which uses cheap plastic to ensure pathetic build quality.

4. Beauty Marks

Is Nokia getting too superstitious? Have a look at the power on/off switch of the new Nokia E66 & E71. Why would anyone want to spoil such good looking business smartphones in black colour and stainless steel finishing by a red coloured power key?

Nokia, can we have a new design team in place now?

If you have noticed domains such as del.icio.us and blo.gs, then you are already familiar with domain hacks.

A domain hack is an unconventional domain name that combines domain levels, especially the top-level domain (TLD), to spell out the full name or title of the domain.

A simple implementation of a top level domain hack is blo.gs and ma.tt

Then there are some like del.icio.us which make use of a sub-domain, also known as a second level domain (SLD), in conjunction with a TLD to spell out their name. For example, del.icio.us is created using a sub-domain del, and the US ccTLD .us = del + icio + us.

Click here for a comprehensive list of famous and active domain hacks.

Want to come up with such tricky domain names? Simply use services such as Xona or Domainfinder to find a domain hack for your website or blog.

What is BitTorrent and How does it work?

BitTorrent is a protocol for downloading files using a distributed peer-to-peer file sharing system. It breaks up and distributes files in hundreds of small chunks so that your BitTorrent client starts sharing as soon as it downloads one chunk of the file instead of waiting for the entire file to be downloaded.

To share a file, peers who have already downloaded the entire file (known as ’seeders’) first creates a small file called a ‘torrent’ (which uses the .torrent file extension). This file contains metadata about the files to be shared and about the ‘tracker’ server that coordinates the file distribution. Peers that want to download the file must find and download the torrent file and then open it with a BitTorrent client which then proceeds to download the file.

The more the number of seeders, the faster your download will be. Some clients also provide you with a health meter, which is generally a measure of seeders versus active downloaders.

Which is the most popular BitTorrent client?

While the word ‘BitTorrent’ usually refers to the BitTorrent protocol, there is also a BitTorrent client available by the same name. Besides this, uTorrent is one of the most popular Windows client for the BitTorrent protocol. If you are on Linux, then you can use Azureus or KTorrent.

How does BitTorrent compare with other forms of file transfer?

The http and FTP protocols use a central server which is always on and connected to the internet to send an entire file to each client that requests it. On the other hand P2P programs use the distributed and decentralised server system to transfer files.

However, there is a difference between BitTorrent and older P2P programs such as Kazaa, Limewire & Napster. First, unlike older P2P programs which offer an integrated search facility to find files available on its network, a BitTorrent user must find the initial torrent file by other means such as a web search. Secondly, as mentioned earlier, BitTorrent peers with even small parts of a file can upload those parts unlike older P2P programs where users can only upload files which they have finished downloading.

Maintaining Upload Download Ratio

In order to ensure you stay in good standing in the world of BitTorrent, you should always try to upload as much as you download. Most BitTorrent clients keep track of your upload / download ratio, and could ban you if you are a ‘leecher’ (i.e., don’t keep your ratio above a certain point)

Is BitTorrent Legal?

This is as good as asking “Is downloading legal?”. The protocol is completely legal; it is only the content that you download which could be legal or illegal. So you need to be sure that the music, videos or softwares you download is legal and authorised.

Is BitTorrent safe?

You need to be careful about what you are downloading, otherwise you could end up downloading a virus or a trojan horse. Moreover BitTorrent does not offer its users anonymity, so it is possible for anyone to obtain your IP address thereby exposing you to attacks
We also suggest that you use an IP blocking application such as PeerGuardian2 to prevent blacklisted IP addresses from connecting to your computer.

Multiple Tools

Domaintools - A collection of network tools such as Ping, Traceroute, Whois, Reverse IP. Certain services like Whois history are paid services.

YouGetSignal - Another collection of network tools providing Whois, Reverse IP, Traceroute services.

Specialised Tools

Just-Ping - Finds out whether your website or blog is accessible from different parts of the world by running the ping command on your website from about 34 different locations across the world.

WhoIsTheOwner - Queries the whois database of all popular domain registrars such as Network Solutions & Godaddy. Unlike other whois services, this one is not tied to any particular domain registrars.

WhoIsHostingThis - Shows you the name of the webhost where a website is actually hosted.

AboutUs - Tells you more about a company behind a website or a domain name. AboutUs is a wiki for and about businesses and organizations typically including a summary of the website & its contact information.

BuiltWith - A web site profiler tool which tells you about all the technologies used to power a website. You can find out whether a site is running on Apache or Windows Servers, or if a blog is powered by Wordpress or MovableType.

SocialMeter - Helps you determine the popularity of a website on social sites like Digg, delicious, Stumbleupon, etc.

Popuri.us - Checks the link popularity of any site based on its ranking (Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Technorati etc.), social bookmarks (del.icio.us, etc), subscribers (Bloglines, etc) and more!

Wayback Machine - A phenomenal search engine that contains over 100 terabytes and 10 billion web pages archived from 1996 to the present. It allows you to see archived versions of websites as they looked in the past.

When Apple announced its iPhone 3G for a subsidised price of $199 in the US earlier this year, there were expectations that it would be made available in markets like India at a fairly cheap unsubsidised price as well; which would have forced other manufacturers like Nokia to drop their prices to compete with the iPhone. However that was not to be as Apple decided to price its unsubsidised iPhone 3G very expensively. Now its an opportunity for Nokia to lead the price war by announcing a touchscreen phone at a relatively cheap price!

So far Nokia has not done great with touchscreen models with its only two releases, the 7710 and the 6708 disappointing to say the least and it was only the iPhone which prompted Nokia to relaunch touchscreen phones in the market.

Nokia 5800: Complete in Features

The Nokia 5800 comes equipped with an impressive 3.2-inch TFT touchscreen which supports touch as well as stylus input. It comes loaded with a 3.15 MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, flash, autofocus and VGA video recording at 30 fps. Its Music player and FM radio is well complemented with Stereo Loudspeakers.

Other features include GPS, Wi-fi connectivity, Accelerometer, 3.5 mm audio jack & TV-Out port. Battery life is also sufficient with up to 9 hours of talktime and 35 hours of music playback. A 8GB memory card comes in the box with support for extendable memory.

Comparison with Other Touchscreen Phones: The Price Factor

* Estimated price based on announced price of 279 Euro

Instead of going through complicated & lengthy comparison tables, it would suffice to say that there is no feature present in any of the competitors which is absent in the Nokia 5800. You might miss a few things here and there like the 5 MP camera on the Samsung Omnia, the slide out QWERTY keypad on the SE Xperia X1 and the capacitative touch implementation of the iPhone; but that’s about it.

And at an unbelievably low pricing of 279 Euro, the Nokia 5800 just blows the competition away by being real value for money.

Comparison with Nokia N-Series: An Internal War

We fail to understand how Nokia will sustain its own products, especially its N-Series range of mobiles once the Nokia 5800 is introduced in the market.

* Estimated price based on announced price

Again, it would suffice to say that if there is any feature in the Nokia 5800 which is lower in comparison to its N-Series brethren, it is just the 3.15 MP camera. All the N-Series phones mentioned above have 5 MP cameras loaded.

We see no reason why anybody would want to spend much more than the price of the Nokia 5800 on a comparatively inferior product unless someone really prefers a phone with a physical keypad instead of touchscreen; or if a 5 MP camera is absolutely necessary.

Even the recently announced Nokia N79 and N85 will have their job cut out against the Nokia 5800. Either Nokia will have to drastically reduce the prices of its N-Series phones, or hope that there are enough number of customers in that bracket who do not like touchscreen phones.

Conclusion

Nokia isn’t willing to call the Nokia 5800 its flagship product and is instead preferring to call it as a mid-end device. As far as we can see, the 3.15 MP camera is the only component of the phone which can be considered as mid-end. All other features of the Nokia 5800 are absolute top-end, make no mistake about it.  What more can they put into their flagship touchscreen besides a 5 MP camera with xenon flash?

In all likelihood, this phone will sell like hot cakes once its available so better buy one when it is released before Nokia runs out of stock!