Computer Tricks and Secrets

Go long. Go wide. Go big. Google recommends that AdSense publishers switch to wider ad formats as more Adwords advertisers target these ad sizes, more competition among advertisers leads to higher eCPMs thus translating into increased earnings for the website owner. The statistics suggest that the best performing banner sizes are the 336×280 Large Rectangle and the 300×250 Medium Rectangle. In addition to standard IAB units, the AdSense program now supports custom-sized ads which may serve even bigger rectangular ads. Will they perform better than the standard ads? There’s no one-size-fits-all solution and what is working on my site may or may not be the most optimized solution for some other website. As a publisher, you need to run A/B tests on your site for about a week and only then you can you reach a conclusion based on the CTRs and CPMs of individual AdSense ad units. Split Testing isn’t a new concept for most AdSense publishers but with the introduction of asynchronous responsiv...

Your mobile phone has a globally unique number associated with it, called the IMEI number, that uniquely identifies your device within the mobile network. If your phone gets lost or is stolen, you would need to provide this IMEI number to the law enforcement agencies and the telecom operator for them to blacklist your device and prevent anyone else from using your phone on their wireless network. As you probably know, it is relatively easy to find the IMEI number of your mobile phone. While there are apps that will help you retrieve this number with a tap, you don’t really need one. Just open the phone dialer, call *#06# and the IMEI number will be displayed on the phone’s screen. Alternatively, you can open device Settings – About Phone – Status and long-press the IMEI number to copy it to the clipboard. If you have however lost your phone but did not record the IMEI number beforehand, you can still retrieve the number from your Google Account. Just go to google.com/settings , sign-i...

You can now use the WhatsApp messenger on your Mac or Windows PC provided you have the WhatsApp app running on a mobile phone that is not an iPhone. Go to web.whatsapp.com on your desktop, scan the QR code on the screen with WhatsApp on your phone and you can instantly send or receive messages to any of your WhatsApp contacts from the computer. WhatsApp supports desktop notifications in Google Chrome so you can read your messages even if the WhatsApp web app is open in some background tab. The other benefit is that you can send pictures from your desktop or the DSLR SD card without having to transfer the bulky file to your mobile. There’s no support for sending audio or video files though. The other limitation is that your mobile phone should be connected to the Internet for you to use WhatsApp on the web. If you right-click on the profile picture of any WhatsApp contact, you’ll get a link that looks something like this; https://web.whatsapp.com/pp?t=s&u=919760008596 Here the blue ...

If you need to make changes in an existing PDF file, you need to get hold of the original document that was used to create the PDF, make the edits in the source document and export it as a PDF again. This is the best option since the document’s layout and formatting will be preserved in the new PDF file and you don’t even need an external PDF editor like Adobe Acrobat. However, if you do not have access to the source document, you can still edit your PDF files in the browser using the free Word app. It may not be able to handle PDF files with complex layouts, or PDFs that are mostly comprised of charts and images but for text based PDF, Word is a probably a good options for fixing typos or manipulating text and images in PDFs. See example . Edit PDF Files with Word Online Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can edit the content of PDF files inside the Word web app. Go to onedrive.com and sign-in with your Microsoft account. While you are logged in, drag a PDF file from the deskto...

What do you do when your mobile phone has limited storage and there’s no option to add an external SD card? How do you carry all your videos and documents where there’s not an iota of space left on the device? Yes, you do have cloud-based services like Dropbox or Google Drive that add virtually unlimited storage to your phone but you’ve to be connected to the Internet to access your files. A Wireless USB Stick that Expands your Phone’s Storage This week I’ve been testing a wireless USB stick from Sandisk that adds storage to your phones and tablets much like a regular USB drive. To get started, you plug the USB device into your laptop or desktop computer and let it charge for about an hour or two. You can also transfer the files to the stick from the computer through Windows Explorer or Finder on Mac. Once the device is charged, you tap the little power button on the stick to turn it on. Now install the Sandisk Connect app on your mobile phone, go to WiFi settings on your phone and con...

When you have nothing interesting to watch on TV, you can always switch to the Internet for an unlimited supply of videos ranging from television shows, podcasts, music, full-length movies, news and even live concerts. Your computer screen is not always the best option to watch web videos, especially if the whole family wants to join in so let’s look at some devices that will let you enjoy Internet TV on your widescreen television without requiring any complicated setup. Bring The Web To Your Living Room Enjoy Internet Videos on your TV [caption id="" align="alignright" width="120"] Bring The Web To Your Living Room[/caption] Apple TV  – Connect the device to your TV using a HDMI or component video cable and you’ll be able to download movies, TV shows, podcasts and music from iTunes’ vast library directly through your TV. You can also use Apple TV for watching YouTube videos, for listening to Internet radio stations and for viewing photos that are on your...

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 from Anywhere 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...

Amazon’s Kindle store has more than a million books that you can download and read on your Kindle e-book reader. Download Free Books for your Amazon Kindle While most eBooks available on the Amazon Kindle store are paid, here are some simple ways by which you can find and download free Kindle books for your reading pleasure. #1. Sources for Downloading Free Kindle Books Project Gutenberg ,  Open Library ,  Google Books ,  ManyBooks  and  FeedBooks are some popular websites that offer a large collection of classics and public domain (copyright expired) books in standard formats like MOBI that you can easily transfer to your Kindle over USB or Wi-Fi. Google Books are available in  ePUB format  which is incompatible with the Kindle but you can use the free Calibre software to easily convert Google ebooks from  .epub to .mobi , a format that Kindle can understand. Calibre does not however support conversion of DRM protected ePUB files to Kindle format. Also, the  Internet Archive  website ...

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.    Capture Screenshots of your iPhone or iPad Screen 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. 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. Although, th...

While there are workarounds that let you easily download all your  Facebook 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. Export Phone Numbers of your Facebook Friends 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 Contact...

Wireless Networking (Wi-Fi) has made it so easy for anyone to use Internet on your computer, mobile phones, tablets and other wireless devices anywhere in the house without the clutter of  cables . With traditional wired networks, it is extremely difficult for someone to steal your bandwidth but the big problem with wireless signals is that others can access the Internet using your broadband connection even while they are in a neighboring building or sitting in a car that’s parked outside your apartment. This practice, also known as piggybacking, is bad for three reasons: It will increase your monthly Internet bill especially when you have to pay per byte of data transfer. It will decrease your Internet access speed since you are now sharing the same internet connection with other users. It can create a security hazard* as others may hack your computers and access your personal files through your own wireless network. [*] What do the bad guys use  – There have been quite a few in...