How to Watch Satellite Subscription Programs Free Of Charge

Entertainment comes with a price. Even the very basic of home entertainment using TV is not free. In my location we pay a license to own one and another subscription to top up the free to view channels to watch decent programs. And depending on the package, it could mean a hefty chunk of the monthly budget.

But with the high speed internet already available, coupled with gadgets and brilliant apps makers, it could mean some savings to your monthly entertainment budget for some popcorn during a marathon movie night.

Here's what you need and how to set-up.

• An android tablet or mobile phone with at least OS 4.1 (Jellybean) or above. The latest is better. You can check the OS by going to Settings>General>About Device>Android Version

• Using your android mobile phone, download the application at https://www.mobdro.com/ . Do not stray away from this site as the others will lead you to a never ending link of advertising. See screenshot of the site below and click download the app.

• Once dowloaded and before hitting install, make sure that your device is authorized to install unknown applications by going to Settings>General>Security>and tick Unknown Sources

• And also make sure that the minimum requirement Android 4.1 or above is onboard your mobile or tablet.Otherwise a parse error message will display and the installation will not be complete.

• Successful installation will not ask you for additional setup and will work straight away. Now you can enjoy a wide variety of cable and satellite programs from movies to sports and other international channels for free.

• Enjoy and merry xmas to all!

CM Booster, Real Android Battery Saver

One of the persistent problems with mobiles is low battery. You can not do anything specially when you are out and do not have any chance or any way  to charge your phone. In this situation, conserving the battery for emergency use is just the only option available. And even without using the phone, normally the battery  is still trickling and discharging it's power like a timer counting down without the possibility of slowing down. But thankfully, there is a way of  retarding the discharge of  power with this "unexpected" free app.

The CM Speed Booster.

I used the word "unexpected" because conserving the battery is not it's major task. It is actually a booster to speed up the phone by releasing resources, deleting unwanted cache and tweaking the RAM. It's new feature, "the app standby", automatically lists apps that are wearing down the battery specially when the power percentage is in critical level and puts the phone into low bat mode. Although it does this  automatically, it still needs your input to "hibernate" these apps into standby mode by forcefully quitting them.

After hitting the launch button of  "hibernate idle apps" (1) and force quits all automatically chosen apps(2),

the application managed to keep the battery percentage to 12% for 8 hours(3). The figures are just impressive and for the first time I am seeing the effective conservation of battery without switching off the phone. Screenshot 4 shows the "plateau" state after the hibernate mode for idle apps is activated. Notice the steep drop when the phone is used.

Download CM Booster

CM booster can be downloaded from google play store by clicking here. This is a lightweight application compared to other similar programs and at the time of writing, it is advertisement free, meaning it will never use any of your internet connection, thus contributing to energy efficiency and saving data tariff, if you use mobile data to access the internet.

Answer Your Phone Using A PC

Mobile phones are for our convenience. They help us juggle our busy lives, organize our schedule, notify us with timely messages. They do serve us 24 hours but like us who do need tea breaks, the charging time is also their downtime. Keeping the charger close is possible but sometimes it is inevitable to miss a call because we are engage to something using our PC's.

If you have a samsung mobile with at least Android KitKat (4.4) or higher operating system, you can seamlessly connect your phone to your pc to receive notifications or make and receive calls and texts. The SideSync is compatible with windows PC (XP or  later versions).

How to set up?

 Download and install SideSync on your from

 http://www.samsung.com/uk/support/convergence/sidesync/ 

and from your mobile device, get SideSync  from Play store.

How to use it?

1. You can use SideSync straight away. Both devices should be connected to the same wi-fi access for this to work. Wi-fi has a wider coverage and more stable than other short range connections, this means there is no problem even your phone is charging upstairs and you are working on your computer downstairs, you can still receive notifications from your phone.

2. Launch SideSync on your PC(1) and mobile(2). This takes a few seconds to connect.

3. When connected, the notification window with any alert if there is will show(3). If this is the first time to connect both devices, the screen mirroring may not automatically activate, so click phone screen(3) and it will begin to output the phone screen(4) to your PC(5).

4. Once it is mirrored  on your PC, you can control your mobile from the virtual phone(5)  using mouse clicks. The phone's screen will turn off whilst it is mirrored on the PC. Pressing the home button or the power button will disconnect the mirroring and the phone's screen will become active.

5. Whilst being mirrored, you can call(6), send text(7), access your files(8) by clicking the icons, play music and see notifications.

6. You can do file transfer(9) by clicking and selecting a file(a) holding the left click button(b) until a file transfer icon appears(c)  and dropping it at the desktop(d). The default location for the file is located at the desktop.

You can also do file management like file deletion and creation, and many more!

3 Must Have Apps For A Rooted Android

Installing apps is easy, and sometimes because it is free, we tend to install every app that catches our curiosity. It might not kill a cat but certainly can affect the phone's performance especially when there's a shortage of storage which in the long run will inevitably come when we do not scrutinize if we really need the app or not. This is more an issue when you do not have a restriction like in a rooted phone.

As the phone can do more that when it is not rooted, there are powerful programs that can be downloaded to unleash the power of the android which I've been dreaming to try, like revealing the saved wi-fi pass code, snooping on online activity of your kids in real time, and to disconnect their internet access without them knowing when they are in an inappropriate site . So here's a few list of tools for the rooted phone that I consider very useful.

1. Wi-Fi Connection Manager:  Reveals Wi-Fi Passcode

I wanted to have an app that tells me the wi-fi pass code. You just do not know when you need it. Although the best alternative is to write it down in a piece of paper or type it in the phone's note application, sometimes you just need to access it quick specially when a house guest is asking for it. Or when you yourself becomes the guest and your host types the passcode for you, you just want to know the asterisk value! In this case, wi-fi connection manager is very helpful. Non rooted devices can install this but the reveal passcode function(1) will not work.

2. IntercepterNG: Spy on your kids

The internet is a great place for information specially for school works. But not all information are suitable for everybody. They can be a threat to kids and influence their way of thinking and social upbringing. The only thing that we as parents can do is to block these sites manually using browser's preference using keyword filtering or through our ISP's. As kids are curious, we can not prevent them from their venture to sites that usually not well known that pose similar threat or could be worse. In this way, we do not know what sites they are accessing. Kids are well versed of cleaning their surfing footsteps by just cleaning internet caches and histories.

This is where InterceperNG is useful. Any device that uses the same Wi-Fi access(2) can be a target. 

It records every traffic that passes through the Wi-Fi connection in the form of numeric ip address(3). You can just type the ip address in your browser or go to the cookie icon(yellow) and tap the cookie entry to view the viewed website(4).

3. Wi-Fi Kill: Disconnect discreetly internet connection.

Sometimes it is hard to directly say stop what you are doing, specially when you find out(using IntercepterNG) that they are accessing inappropriate sites. This is where Wi-Fi Kill comes in handy. It displays all connected devices to your router(5). From there you can choose to select a device(6) by tapping it or you can select all. Once selected, you have the choice of grabbing it's traffic(7) where you can see what sites he's been or to kill it's connection(9).The target device will not lose connection but will not get data traffic because your rooted android tricks the grabbed device into thinking that your phone is the router. As your phone is not sharing internet connection the grabbed device can not access the internet.

The ElementaryOS Basics

Believe me this OS is fast. It is now installed in my previous Vista computer with this hardware specifications, Intel Pentium Dual-Core T2080 1.73GHz, 2GB of RAM, 100GB of SATA HDD and with Intel 943 graphics having a shared memory of 128MB. This is an 'ancient' specification compared to the newer laptops, specially the graphics which shares it's memory with the RAM.

I like it personally, and as a matter of fact, I use it everyday. Here's why  the 'almost extinct' laptop is again 'roaming' on table taps and laps around the house!

1. Bootup process.

The boot up process is a bit slower this time as it is starting up from the hard drive compared from USB flash drive  when I was trying it without installation, but it's time is still much better than Vista. Having said that, I am impressed that it is ready to go when the desktop appears.

...related story...

2. Necessary connections are up.

Laptops and other gadgets are 'synonymous' to internet as without it there's no point of having a laptop. ElementaryOS knows about this that the connections are ready when the desktop appears. Not like the old Vista that you need to wait for a while until wifi connectivity is ready.

3. The desktop.

The desktop is very clean, and there is no way you can mess it up. Although this may not appeal to everyone, the EOS doesn't allow you to create any shortcut on it, unless you install an advance system tweak, but for me I do not need it, as this is a good thing to help create a more organized file as there is no way in creating a temporary folder to put in the desktop when you are in a rush. You need to dig into the applications button and better to create a permanent one. This way, you minimise the chances of duplicate files and misplaced items.

4. Streamlined buttons and menus.

There's only one menu at the left upper corner (Applications), and this button is where all of the menu's and submenus are located. From applications to files, from connected devices to system settings and tweaks. You just need this one button to access everything.

At the upper right side corner, you have the system's necessary functions, like the speaker, network connection, mail, empathy chat, user and the power off button. You can make changes with these by simply clicking(right or left click) a menu. Another clever thing I noticed is, after clicking one of the functions, all of them becomes active, meaning you can just hover your cursor to see the submenus of each without clicking the functions first.

The dock at the lower middle resembles an apple computer. You can dock anything from applications,  system settings and tools. Adding more items is easy as well as removing what is not useful to you. Putting them in order of preference is just a matter of dragging it to desired position.

Having experienced the positive side of it, this OS has it's shortcomings as well. But these are not permanent as it can be rectified and improved by downloading an appropriate software. The only downside is, you need a bit of a research to do it and if you want to fix it quicker, you need to access the terminal command line.

And here's a list of reasons of what  I miss from windows and apple.

A. Basic software.

Midori browser brings webpages in a flash, but unfortunately it doesn't come with addons like  flash. This means contents with flash media will not play. Although there is a tweak to this on forums which I have not tried yet, I installed chrome browser instead.

The built in media player and photo viewer are very basic. Not all video codecs are supported and you need to download add ons to use it. The same with the photo viewer, it does not have a 'resizer' which I always use to reduce file size. So you do need to install additional software from the built in software centre like a photo editor, media player and word processor to add more functionality. Although the choices are not that much, almost all of them are free and they function very well.  I've chosen Pinta for the basic photo editor and VLC media player.

B. Not straight forward to uninstall software

Not like windows that you just need to hit the uninstall button if you want to get rid of a program or just simply clearing out space, EOS needs you  to go to software center, search for the name of the application you want to uninstall, then click remove. There might be a simpler way which I have not explored yet that could make it easier to uninstall unwanted softwares.

Last  Words.

The EOS is the best alternative to Windows as per my experience. It is easy to install and easy to use. In fact this is my first time to install a new operating system in a laptop that no longer start's up. I have also tried this OS to a Windows 7 using a USB edition without installing. It worked very well as well and in fact it was faster to load. This might be because it is running in a flash drive rather than from a hard disk, or might be because, the Windows 7 laptop is far way better equipped in terms of RAM and processor. Overall, it saved me money as it is free, and saved my old laptop from being binned!

Switch Vista to ElementaryOS

I have been trying to revive the old Vista laptop, primarily not to recover any files in it, but to find  other use of it aside from gathering dust in a corner. And I have second thoughts that ditching it in the bin, to charity or recycling centres might create more trouble if somebody can recover private details from passwords to emails and financial institution that might contain in there.

Desperate solutions.

After my failed attempts of using the recovery disks that was made during it's maiden voyage many years ago,  the elementaryOS on a USB not loading because of 'no configuration file found: No Default or UI configuration directive found' error ,  and I am still having a problem with my other laptop's DVD (windows 7) drive (could not burn an ISO image of the EOS), a streak of light suddenly has revived my hope when I saw the old desktop's XP recovery disk. At this point, my main goal is to know if the laptop's hard drive is still functioning and can install programs on it. And if it accept's the XP disk, this means there's still a chance of reviving it.

Successful installation.

The installation was successful. Windows XP has been restarting fine in the old machine. I was ecstatic for a while after witnessing the windows XP set up screen. Everything was alright until errors about 'not found drivers ' were appearing. I thought I can live with those but when the driver for the sound card is missing that rendered the laptop not to output any sound except bleeps, got me thinking for a second.

What happened?

I just realised that because the rescue disk was meant for the other machine, it did not have the correct drivers necessary to make the laptop's component work, particularly to the laptop's sound hardware.  If the sound card would have worked, I should be contented with the XP and take no more further steps.

No other choice.

I was left with no other option but to find a fix to my other laptop's DVD drive, burn an ISO image of EOS and try to install it there.  Fortunately I found a fix online for the DVD.

..see the solution to 'fix DVD not recognised' here..

Restore the drivers.

As the laptop's problem is the soundcard gone with XP installation,  I need to reinstall the particular driver by using the same Windows Vista recovery disk again, before trying the EOS.  Although Vista is showing a missing 'Bootmgr' after installation, I was hoping that the driver for the particular hardware has been  installed, as I can not test the laptop with the error during start up. The good thing is I also know that the hard disk is not in failure as it did installed the XP earlier.

Successful EOS installation.

As I hoped for, the laptop accepted the EOS disk and installed it wihout any errors. And the drivers were all installed with the Vista disk as there were no error messages, and the sound card working. I was happy everything went very well!

With the the clean interface and the fast to load system, I am beginning to like it! I compare it to like a Mac in speed and neatly packed menus and buttons, but totally free.

I am now using the old laptop with the EOS installed, and I can say that it is fast to boot, open applications, and shut down. Having said that there are also 'limitations' of this pretty and able operating system, which I will discuss on the next post.

Post by Prakticality.

An Operating System Worth Trying

My old VIsta laptop has died, literally. I suspected a hard disk failure as it is making all these "never heard before" noises. It just would not load the operating system. Could not repair it as I could not find  the rescue disk made during it's first start up. Thinking that if I have an operating system in a thumb drive, I may be able to run it and rescue my files within it! Using the other laptop, google pointed me to try elementaryOS, a linux based operating system with Luna as code name. Downloaded it and put it on a USB drive using UNetbootin. Unfortunately, it did not work with the old Vista and I am convinced that the laptop can no longer be revived.

Intrigued about the OS, I tried it in the other laptop running Windows 7, I was very impressed with it's performance, and here are the reasons why!

Very fast boot time.

After changing the boot sequence (F12>boot>then choose USB drive) to start with the USB drive, I restarted the laptop with the elementaryOS attached to one of the USB ports. Then at the selection menu, I have chosen to run without installing it. This is booting much faster comparing to windows, It came to life and ready to use without installing  it in seconds! As this is booting from a USB drive, this makes it  very portable and handy that it can be carried and tried anywhere.

 Very clean interface.

I could not stop saying 'wow' at the interface. It is very minimal and clean. Not the usual clutter of folders, icons and other shortcuts. The application dock at the bottom of the screen behaves like apple's OS. The usual icons for speaker, wifi and other available connections, battery and power off is handily available at the right upper corner of the screen whilst the  rest of the application can be  accessed at the opposite corner of the screen. The layout is a bit confusing if you are used to windows but could be straight forward if you've used apple before.

Easy internet set up and fast browser.

There's no other thing to set up but the internet connection, the WiFi icon at the upper right is very handy for setting up. Just right click on it and search for your home wi-fi ID.  The Midori browser is fast and minimal looking. It is defaulted to run under it's VPN network and Duckduckgo search engine which is known for it's no ad and no track policy. This means your searches will be invisible so that you will not be bombarded with targeted unwanted ads, which can slow down browsing.

As this is basic to surfing the web, you might need plug ins to download when it encounters files that might need additional softwares to play or render. This can be a good thing as it could block potential threats from rogue flash contents but could also be frustrating specially when playing unsupported video files. This shortcoming is compensated by it's lightning fast render of web pages.

No known viruses.

Safety online is usually compromised with threats from viruses, malwares, adwares, pup ups and other nasty web elements from programmers  driven by greed. This OS has no known virus that can infect it, making it one of the safest OS at the time of writing. You can be confident using it with online banking and shopping.

Improved touch pad functions.

I am also amazed for the first time that the touch pad is behaving like an apple's touchpad. When using the built in browser(Midori) you can scroll the active window up and down with the touch pad, also it allows you to scroll from left to right using the same.

Shutting it down takes seconds as well.

Improved battery life.

My laptop is already 5 years old and the capacity of it's battery has dropped to disappointing 1 hour to atmost about 1 hour and 30 minutes when using windows 7, but using  with elementaryOS dramatically extends it's battery life to at least 3 times, again owing to the very basic software.

Additional applications.

The packaged application with the download is very basic but it is already sufficient for browsing and most of the things you will do with a computer. There is also an application center where you can freely download other apps if you like a bit more like other browsers, aside from the native Midori, more powerful photo editor and more.

Download the OS at   http://elementaryos.org/   and to create a bootable USB disk at 

http://appnr.com/install/unetbootin

Improve Browsing Speed Using Hola

There are several ways to speed up browsing experience, like adding more RAM, upgrading to a more powerful machine or trying the latest internet connections like fibre optics and 4G. No doubt these ways can improve the way you access the web but this also means an extra money out from your wallet. Here's a way you can improve your browsing speed without spending anything!

Use Hola

This is a "social caching"site that speeds up browser by saving web contents from it's users in one location. Instead of your computer doing the "caching" of web pages, Hola's servers does this. As it involves all of it's users, this means the web pages "saved" from one particular site is on a massive scale compared to the pages saved by one user on a particular computer. This means loading of pages is faster as well.

Get it!

I use google chrome for this demo.

• Just go to http://hola.org/    and download(2) the extension.
• The downloaded file(3) is automatically added to Chrome's browser extension.
• The Hola icon appears(4) at the top right after successful Chrome integration
• If the extension is not added for unknown reasons, as long as it is already downloaded(3) click "Start using Hola, it's free" one more time (5). Click Add(6) at the pop up dialogue.
• 
  

Use It!

• You have the option of signing up(7) with social network or google account (8), or choose to register with existing email.
• Move your mouse to the browser picture area and from there an address bar window(10) appears where you can type the website you want to go.
• You can also change your location (proxy server) by going to the flag's(9) drop down menu.

Enjoy it!

This is an additional feature of the site that can "change" the location of your access so that you can "unblock" (11) restricted contents according to region like the US exclusive(12) Hulu.  To see which region restricted popular sites that can be accessed to your location, go to https://hola.org/access/popular

Note

There are some sites that do not work with proxy servers like gaming sites or even website hosts. So if you are having a problem doing financial transactions or editing a website or a blog, click the power button(13) to  shutdown Hola.

Free up Android Smartphone's Storage

Smartphones are mini computers. And similarly, they accumulate "dirt and grime" from everyday use, like by browsing the web, downloading applications, making calls, sending messages and others. These remnants of smartphone activities are not necessarily deleted automatically and need the users intervention to erase these. Why erase them in the first place?  Because they are just taking up space and contributes to cpu usage strain!

If your smartphone is loaded with unnecessary items, this makes it slower to respond to every command, applications launch sluggishly and are just wasting memory space. 

The problem is, most of the clutters are hidden to folders users do not know where they are, or they do not realise that they are just unnecessary "leftovers". There are also files that are worth keeping like downloads, bluetooth transfer files but sometimes it is also  hard to decide which of these files are considered junk, and which one is worth keeping.

To help users automate the detection and deletion of these junks easily, a free utility is available from the play store.

Ccleaner

Download Ccleaner for Android

How to use it.

• Launch the application and click clean(1)
• The software will analyse the smartphone's content and calculate how much space can be saved after removal of the recommended files. 
• The list of  folders where unnecessary files are kept comes up.

Not all files in the download folder are junks. There might be some that you want to keep up. To pick which one to keep just tap to open it up and select from the list.  Application's installation files are usually huge and these can be deleted because you won't need them again. And also, these installation files are available at play store when you choose an application to download.

• Tap the folder's name to see the content of each folder(2)
• Tick the name of the contents that you want to delete and leave the one you want to keep.(3)
• Or go back to the folder list if you want to delete all content of a folder and just tick the box or boxes of the folder/s
• Press clean

• There are entries for phone calls and text messages(5,6) as well. It can show you how many messages you have kept in the phone's memory. As a safety feature, there is no box to tick at the SMS(6) entry, this is to prevent accidental deletion of an important message, the SMS needs to be previewed before deleting. The call logs(5) on the other hand can be deleted completely or open(7) it up to select an entry to delete.

Stretch Your Data Bundle Upto 50% For Free

Here comes 4G, capable of delivering  an unbelievable 100Mbit/s speed data transfer. This is a good news to internet users as this means waiting time is a thing of the past. The information is just a tap away. How I love to try it on VOIP applications to make video calls!

However this is not all good news to all, specially to low data tariff subscribers. The reason is, the speed of the connection can easily eat up the remaining data balance and leaves you with skyrocket excess data charge!

How to avoid being overcharged?

The simplest thing not to have a shocking bill is to avoid using it. Anyway only the newest smartphones like HTC One, Galaxy 4 or 5, iPhone 5 and among others can accommodate this speed. But if you already have a compatible device, the best you can do is to buy additional  data allowance. Or just mind your usage if budget is a problem. Use android's built in data monitoring that can be set to alert you in a usage level before exceeding the allowance. 

The other way is to stretch your data up to 50% more by just downloading a program for free.

The Opera Max

Download Here

The Opera Max is only available on android devices at the moment. What it does is it monitors the apps that you use everyday. And not only
that, it also compresses webpages and multimedia traffic so that videos and photos are shrunk in size saving your data allowance up to 50%. A 10MB video can be watched as a 3MB file, saving you 70% of data. 

Get the application at play store. Just type and search Opera Max. Once installed, it is ready to save you bandwidth traffic. It will be active  by showing a key(1) sign at the top of the screen. When you are out of the wi-fi area and switch to data tariff(2), the application starts compressing the data from any application that uses the internet. The savings can be seen at the right top(3) of the screen and the applications you use that consume data are shown(4). Now you have the idea what application you need to open up only when you are in the Wi-Fi coverage. 

You can also tweak the video resolution to make it clearer  by selecting low, as the video setting is in high(5) default to save the most data. You can do this by tapping the left soft key(key to the left of the phone's home button) to access the preference!

Watch video below!

Realistically Speed Up Your Home Internet

Internet could be frustrating when the loading of pages takes ages. Though there are many factors that affect the bandwidth speed the most common cause is actually from the infrastracture, or your ISP provider. So before you hire an IT expert to investigate, you can do this simple tips to establish who or what the culprit is!

Test ISP Speed

There are many testing websites that determine the speed of an internet connection. You can use any of them. I usually use http://www.speedtest.net to check my connection. Just be careful in clicking the links in it as there are links that do something else(2). To be safe, just click the begin test(1)!

What to do?

If the connection shows a very slow speed, you can not do anything but to let your ISP know. You can also email a screenshot of your test.

During the first week of my new internet provider, the speed I am getting is only up to 1.5Mbps. I have contacted my provider and they checked remotely my line and their exchange. They said it will take at least 5 days to get a faster and more stable connection. 

After 5 days, the result improved. Below shows the speed I am getting(4.55Mbps) whilst my ISP's test on my line said it can go from 7Mbps up to 14.3Mbps speed(3). As there is a significant difference of the minimum speed, I have booked an engineer to check the line inside my house. I will update this post once they get down and see what's causing the problem.

Poor Wi-Fi Reception

Radio waves transmission and reception can be affected by physical barriers like solid walls, distance and other devices using the same frequency as the router in transmitting the Wi-Fi signal. The result would be dropping connection, disconnection or can not connect at all. If your internet connection is better with a wire on your laptop rather than wi-fi connection elsewhere around the house(blackspots), then the problem could be the Wi-Fi transmission because of the barriers mentioned.

What To Do?

It is more sensible to use wire on devices that are a meter away from your router to take advantage of the wired and faster data transfer. It could be your apple TV,  games console or a desktop located very near to the router.

Try to identify the blackspots around the house and use a powerline networking adaptor at that spot. Do not forget to buy RJ45 connector(ethernet cable) if it's not included in the package. Or you can also use a wi-fi extender if you will be using a wireless only devices like mobile phones and tablets.

Use Bandwidth Effectively

Most gadgets today are internet connected, but not all of us are aware that when we are using our home wi-fi, we are actually dividing the bandwidth from our ISP equally to the connected  devices. If the bandwidth is low and there are several equipments sharing it, expect that the speed gets slower. So it may not be suitable to do extensive internet activity like downloading a whole length film or streaming movies. VOIP's like skype can also be frustrating to use.

What To Do?

If the streaming movie keeps on buffering, the most provable reason is insufficient bandwidth. If the movie is downloadable, then it is better to download it fully before playing. Of you can choose to play it with a lower resolution, if there is such an option. 

The same when using VOIP applications for video calls. If that's the case, you can try to use a lower resolution, or turn off videocall and just use voicecall instead. OOVOO is one of VOIP's that you can change the video resolution on the go. See how to do it at http://prakticality.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/oovoo-tips-and-tricks.html

You can also limit the devices using the connection by turning off other equipment's wi-fi buttons.  If simultaneous internet use can not be avoided then do not do extensive internet activity at the same time.

And lastly, you can use google's user agent switcher to render all websites into mobile sites when you are using a desktop or laptop. This does not only save bandwidth  but to render the pages appear faster as well. See how to do it at http://prakticality.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/how-to-maximise-low-bandwith.html.

A "Ninite" Solution In Installing Softwares

After a software upgrade to Firefox, it became unstable and crashes often. My next move was to uninstall it. When I tried to re-install again, I failed all the time. The installation doesn't go too far. After clicking the run(1) button, it can only go until the run as(2) window. No matter what option I tick, the installation process stops.

One post at a mozilla forum suggests to use Ninite to install it. I followed the link at http://ninite.com/firefox/ and an installer(3)  is downloaded for Firefox. After clicking the installer, Firefox is installed in a flash and without the annoyance of the User Account Control. 

Why Use Ninite Rather Than The Official and Mirror Download  Sites?

• Other benefits of using Ninite installer is you do not need to stay infront of your computer after you have clicked the install button. There is no "next" button to click as it installs the software straight away. 
• If you have been very cautious not to install annoying bundled software like toolbars, with Ninite, you are rest assured there are no excess apps included, just the specific program itself.
• It also skips any reboot request from the usual installers. This means it can save you time.
• You can also download multiple installations and run in with one click by selecting several applications (4) included in the list. 

 Though this is an excellent utility, it also has it's own let down. One of which  is it only supports Windows and Ubuntu versions of a program. The other one is only a handful of programs are included in their lists. You can see the list and try Ninite at http://ninite.com/ .

The Quickest Way To Back Up Android Mobiles

My mobile phone contains almost all of my important files like contacts, messages, photos, videos, and music. Backing up these data is the best way not to loss them in case disaster strikes, like losing the phone, or a break beyond repair. There are backup softwares available there that can offer free online storage but usually are limited in service and in space. Here's something that let's you back up your mobile phone's content via cloud storage, direct to your PC or to a removable memory device.

In this post, I used Galaxy Note 2 as a source, PC as a backup location and the Nero BackItUp application. Here's the free, quickest and easiest way to backup your android device.

1. Download and install the application Nero Back It Up.

• In your PC, go to https://www.nerobackitup.com/eng/downloads/ and install the application.

• In your Android device, go to play store, search for NeroBackItUp and install it.

The good thing about this application is you do not need to create an account to use it unless you use the online storage as a target.

2. How to Back Up

In order for this application to work, both the android smart phone and the target storage laptop should be on the same wi-fi network.

• Open the application in your computer and mobile backup(1).
• A new window will pop up(2), a QR code(2a), and the path of the back up file(2b).

• Open NeroBackItUp on your mobile device and select target(3). This time I like to back it up using my computer(4). Then press scan now(5) and scan the QR code from the computer(2a).

This might be the trickiest part of the procedure specially when this is the first time for you to scan a QR code. One tip is to keep the phone steady by resting your hand holding your phone on a flat surface.

• Now you are ready to back up. Just press back up now(6) and it will start the back up process. This will take from few minutes up to an hour or more during the first back up. 

3. How To Specify Files To Back Up

The time to back up is determined by the amount of data you have in your phone. Photos and videos usually make the back up process a pain when there are too many and the files are large. You may want to leave the videos to make things easier. You can do this selecting files before selecting the target(3).

• Choose mobile(8) then untick the source file(9) you do not want to back up. Click next and proceed back up.

4. Where's the Back Up Files?

On your computer, your back up files(10) will be on this path(2b).

c://Users\Richard(username)\Documents\Nero BackItUp Device Backup

How Not To Get Infected With Malwares

One of my posts, Removal of Registry Helper, is driving traffic to this site which is a good news to me, but on the other hand worries me that more internet users are getting this kind of infection. This post will help in how not  to be infected with the said program or other programs that you do not really want to install on your computer. This will also discuss how you end up getting it even though you did not remember  installing it.

Usually the culprit is the way we install free softwares. And here are tips on installing them without getting tricked into getting something else.

Choose The Source

These malwares, scarewares and other annoying programs are coming from many sources. Even from downloading legitimate and popular free programs can infect your machine. How? Resellers of these free programs include bundle of other applications that install themselves together when downloaded. The makers of these bundled programs usually pay an advertising fee to the resellers for the attachment.

To avoid these bundles, try downloading the free program from it's official website and not from other mirror sites.

Choose How To Install

Another problem when installing softwares is users fall for the typical/default/recommended/express installation selection rather than the advance/custom. In order to see which software you are installing, always choose the advance/custom selection. This will show which one to install and you can weed out by un ticking any unwanted bundled software. Most unwanted  software appear to be harmless like toolbars, but once active can become a floodgate for other malwares to gain access to your computer. Choosing advance installation will let you avoid installing other add ons.

Choose Which Button To Click

Not all buttons are created with the same purpose. Some websites that are hosting internet utilities like speed checker are visually "tricking" their users on clicking a wrong button other than the utility they are serving. They make the button of the software in question so prominent(1) and "hide" the legit (2) that users do not notice until it's late. Although a note is written, it is tempting to click this button(1) first than the other one(2).

Beware that there are also video contents that are asking you to download an update to your player in order to view or a play button that actually let's you download a piece of software that does nothing to the video.

Easily Reclaim Wasted Space in an Android Phone

One problem of having a smartphone is running out of available space, specially with the built in memory. Although the newer Androids are coming with bigger memories nowadays (32GB for the new Note), it never seem to be enough in the long run. With more very tempting application and games to download, the seem like a gigantic capacity memory space is easily filled up with them. And not only with the downloaded applications, which are definite in size, but the additional data that you do not know that are collected and stashed away by these apps inside the built in memory. This decreases the available space, increases the read time of data, and in effect, takes the phone longer to launch an application or becomes less responsive to touch input. 

As much as possible, limit number of apps you download, uninstall the apps you barely use and clear your cache. 

What's the cache?

The cache is just a temporary storage, and the data inside the cache are temporary as well. With this in mind we can say that we can delete them without causing any changes in any program or application. 

Why delete them? 

For the purpose of clearing up some storage area, and for a program that is not responding well, clearing it's "cache" can solve it.

How to clear it?

It is easy to clear the cache, for the Android 4.2 and below users, just go to settings, applications manager, click the application, and you can clear the cache on the next window. For 4.3 and above users, click settings, more, then the applications manager. This step is okey, when you just have a few programs installed. However, if you have, say at least twenty programs installed, it is not practical to do it manually. And also, even the programs you do not use but is opened in the background can accumulate a stash of data. Opening the programs one by one in the application manager is a tedious work!

However, there is a way of clearing all the caches in one click and you can set it also to clear it in a given time. This is by using AVG Cleaner.

Installing and Using the  AVG Cleaner

Click here to download!

Get the cleaner by typing "AVG Cleaner" google play's search(or if you are accessing this post with an android phone, just click the link above), then follow the step by step procedure.  The moment you launch the application, it already asking you if you want to set the frequency of cleaning schedule. The default is every one week. 

Click continue(1) and the cleaner will start calculate how much temporary data are there stored from the history, calls, and program cache. You might notice that the bulk comes from the cache. The remaining free space is shown at the bottom. 

If you want to specify which one will be automatically deleted after a week, tap auto clean(2). You can tick or untick (3)other locations like calls and messages. Do not forget to save the settings to take effect.

Now you are ready regain wasted space occupied by temporary files. You can see that the programs cache(a) is where the bulk of the temporary files is when you compare it's size to the total MB of memory(b) that can be regained.

Touch cache(a) and it will show you the applications that are hoarding data within your memory. In this example, Instagram(c) hides the most. I also noticed that applications I do not use frequently (d) or do not remember using is somehow collecting unnecessary data as well. Now press Clean All Cache(4) to start removal.

The application also saves a record on how much space you reclaimed.

You can also clear the history of your calls and messages from here. But this is not necessary in this example as they just occupy a small amount of space.