techGALAXY's ~ top 5 smartphones.

Smartphone! Oh God! I want one in my pocket! This is the reaction every non-smartphone user has when he reads about a smartphone on internet or watches one in his friends hands! Yeah, I agree that a smartphone is one of the best thing to have apart from Money, Home, Food and girlfriend :D 

With so many smartphone available in the market its a tough job to select which one to buy and which one to leave... the following list will surely help you out and clear all your doubts regarding Top 5 smartphones (according to me).

P.S- these phones are the Big daddies of smartphone generation and thats why these are the costliest of the lot. If you want cheaper smartphones then you can get them easily too but those are not considered in this top 5 list. 

Ok, enough introduction, here the list-

1. SAMSUNG GALAXY S II:

Probably the most awaited smartphone of the year, The successor of Samsung galaxy S, Samsung galaxy s II is

the smartest, brightest and most advanced smartphone available in stores right now. 

+ points:

• With a Super AMOLED touchscreen inhabiting 16M colors, it proves out to be the phone having the best display. 
• It includes 4.3-inch display, an 8-megapixel very powerful camera and Dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 proccessor, and still is shockingly Slim and argued to be the thinnest smartphone!
• It runs on Android OS, v2.3 (Gingerbread) and hence can be filled with millions of apps easily.
• Performance wise its one of the fastest, and this speedy performance enhances its already amazing user friendliness.
• Despite being a BIG phone, its impossibly light.
•  Along with Android v2.3 it also has some Samsung Apps which indeed is a good point, because it increases variety of apps!
• One more thing i would like to add is that its screen is completely customisable. 

- points:

• Looks a lot like Apple iphone, but who cares! its The LORD of smartphones!
• Battery life is not "great"
• Plastic made, still expensive! 

Price: ~$789

2. HTC DESIRE HD-
                                              1.5 Gb internal memory and 768MB ram makes it a monster. Surprised? I hope you are not. This beast is way ahead of all its competitors in terms of User interface, features and looks.

+ points:

• Runs on Android OS, version 2.2 (Froyo) and is up-gradable to V 2.3
• Embedded with 8MP camera, with dual-LED flash, autofocus, 3264x2448 pixels (freaking awesome)
• Its CPU has 1 GHz Scorpion processor.
• Adobe Flash player 10.1
• Supports 3G, wifi, bluetooth.

- points:

• Has a reasonable battery life ( not that bad )
• Its brightness lacks the thrills of Samsung's super AMOLED screen but still its other features make it a good smartphone. 

Price: ~ $560. 

3. Apple iphone4-

With HD video recording, a super high-res screen and ridiculously slim dimensions this phone is incredible! and deserves to be in the TOP 3 spots.

+ points:

• LED-backlit IPS TFT, capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors with Scratch-resistant oleophobic surface, makes it a phone with great display (of course not as good as Galaxy s II )
• 512Mb RAM, 16/32Gb hard disk!!
• 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
• Runs on iOS 4 the latest version of apple's iphone OS
• Its CPU is 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor.
• Huge range of APPS available.

- points:

• No FM radio ( LOL)
• Has some antenna issues with some network providers.... weird (o.O)
• No removable memory card slot.
• Its priced too high!
• Has some Bluetooth connectivity issues too..

Price: ~ $845

4. Nokia N900-

Top 5 and no NOKIA? Not possible! Here's the N900, Nokia's big Daddy in Smartphone tab. It is a powerful mobile device with excellent browsing capabilities and vast customization options. 

+Points: 

• 256Mb RAM, 32GB hard disk. 
• Wonderful camera- 5 MP, 2576x1936 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, Dual LED flash.
• Runs on Maemo 5 OS.
• Skype and GoogleTalk VoIP integration! woohooo
• Very fast and multi tasking is easy.
• Call quality is awesome.

- Points:

• The user interface of the touchscreen is not as good as that of iphone or galaxy 2 II.
• Nokia OVI store is way behind android market and apple store, in number of apps.
• Not a slim trim phone. 

Price: ~$390


5. Sony Ericson Xperia arc-

Probably the best looking phone in the world so far! Stunning display and camera quality, this magnificent gadget will win your heart in a second...

+Points:

• Great design, slim-trim and light. .
• LED-backlit LCD, capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors! WOW display! :D
• 512MB ram, 320MB storage (internal+ 8GB CARD INCLUDED) expandable upto 32GB
• Camera- 8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash with Touch focus, image stabilization, geo-tagging, face and smile detection!!!  Great HD videos!! 
• OS- Android OS, v2.3 (Gingerbread) CPU: 1GHz Scorpion processor, Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon! 
• Lots of Apps..

- Points:

• Not a great battery life.
• Slows a down a bit while multi tasking...

Price: ~$619

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Convert USB to bootable flashdrive to boot windows XP!

Step 1: Download the File from the link given below:

Size: 499KB

Name:  usb_boot_prep_xp.zip

DOWNLOAD FILE HERE

Password: techrena.net

Step 2: Extract the usb_boot_prep_xp.zip file in your C drive. It will give you two folders named bootsect and usb_prep8. Plug in your USB drive to your computer and put the Windows XP CD also.

Step 3: Go to the usb-prep8 folder and double click usb_prep8.cmd file. Press any key to continue.

Step 4: Now it will open PeToUSB. Format your USB drive using it. Select the options as in the image below. Note that after formatting do not close the PeToUSB or the cmd console.

Step 5: Now open a new cmd console manually (press Start+L, type cmd and enter). And type the following command in the commands prompt. Note that you should type your own USB drive letter instead of ‘h’.

Sl. No.	Command:	Action:
1	cd	Enter
2	cd bootsect	Enter
3	bootsect.exe /nt52 h:	Enter

I had copied the folder in D drive. So the image will be somewhat different with the actual display of your console. Don’t worry copy the folder in your C drive only. Now close this cmd console but not the other one.

Step 6. Close PeToUSB. Now the usb_prep8.cmd console will continue. Select 1 to set the source location. Select the CD ROM containing the XP CD.

Step 7: If you have a drive called T in your computer then check option 2 to change it to any letter which is not present. Otherwise no need to change. Select 3 to set the destination drive. Enter your USB Drive letter as shown below:

Step 8: Now select choice 4 as we don’t have any Tempimage previously. It may ask you to delete the existing tempimage. select Yes.

Step 9: It will ask you to format the T drive. Enter y and it will format your temp drive. Press any key to continue. Now it will start copying the XP files to the tempdrive.

Step 10: After the completion of the file copy process Press any key to continue. Now it will ask you to copy the files to your USB drive or not. Select Yes.

Step 11: During the copy process it will ask whether to change migrate.inf file or not. Is you are using a USB stick then Select Yes. If you are using a USB hard drive then Select No. 

                                        

Step 12: After the successful completion of copying the files to your USB drive it will ask whether to unmount the Virtual temp drive or not. As you do not need it Select Yes.

Step 13: After the successful completion of the process close the cmd console. Now your pen drive is ready for the installation process.

Step 14: Plug in the USB drive to the computer you want to install XP. While start up make sure that you set the first boot choice as your USB drive. To do this you have to enter to the bios and change the boot order to USB Disk as the first choice. For entering to BIOS  press the BIOS setup key while start up. This key is usually seen in the screen in the boot screen. For most of the systems it is DEL key. For HP and Compaq it is F10 etc. Go to the boot configuration tab and change the boot order.

Step 15: While booting up from the USB it will ask you to choose between GUI and TXT mode of setup. Select TXT mode for now.

Step 16: Follow the onscreen instructions. It is same as the usual setup process. In the partition selection screen do not select you USB drive for install. And if you are installing in a new RAW hard disk then your USB Drive will be the C drive. Now first create a new partition and format your HDD using the setup. And again restart the process from step 15 by Quitting the current Install(Press F3). Then you should get your HDD partition as C drive. Continue your installation.

Step 17: Now it will copy a set of files to the hard disk. It usually takes lesser time than a CD ROM installation. After the process it will ask for reboot. Press Enter to reboot immediately.

Step 18: Now while start up select the GUI mode of setup to continue setup.

Now you can continue your usual setup process. Follow the onscreen instructions carefully. After the setup process which usually takes 39 minutes, it will restart. Now boot from your Hard drive not the USB drive. Again use BIOS settings to make this happen.

Congratulations you have successfully installed Windows XP via a USB Drive.

Important:

1. You can copy the contents of your pen drive if you want for future use. To use in future just format your USB drive with FAT, run the commands given in Step 5 and simply copy paste the files you had saved earlier. No need to run the whole process again.

2. While unmounting the Virtual Temp Drive T, it may fail and ask you to try again. Select No. And  when it asks you to Force unmount select yes.

3. This Method is for informational purpose only and should not be used for Software Piracy and illegal practices.

4. We are not responsible for any loss or damage resulting from this information.

5. This method will not work if your motherboard or your BIOS does not support USB booting.

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How to see the list of PAGES you LIKE / ADMIN in facebook

This is a simple tutorial for those people who have problem finding the list of pages they LIKE in Facebook. Many friends of mine are confused after the makeover of Facebook- "WHERE IS MY LIST OF LIKED PAGES!!!" Here's the answer----

1. Goto EDIT MY PROFILE.
2. Select ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS.
3. At the bottom, click SHOW OTHER PAGES
4. Boooozzzziiiinnnngaaaaaa!! This list is the list of your LIKED pages :D
   
   

* if you want to check all the pages that you ADMIN, then type FACEBOOK PAGES I ADMIN in the search bar.

Have fun!!!  

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Chameleon Folder.. amazing software!

Time is money, and to earn money we need to save time. Time saving is the need of the hour and the software I talking about will save your time definitely. 

CHAMELEON FOLDER not only allows you to access your favorite and recent folders from one simple click, but also makes the navigation much MUCH faster... 

Here are its basic features and my own personal reviews along with them ( DOWNLOAD link is at the end of the post ) :-

• The software is just 1.80MB ( so I recommend you all to atleast try it once... you'll love it. )
• After downloading it, you can find its shortcut in the quick launch bar or from the installed location. You can also open it by pressing MIDDLE MOUSE BUTTON (the scroll button) also anywhere in on the screen or you can use the predefined hotkey i.e. [Win key + Z]
  You can open it even when you are browsing / surfing on internet by simply pressing the hotkey or middle button! Thats cool!
• After you open it you will see an menu like this-
  
                               
• Here you can see all you listed folders starting from the top and then you have OPTIONS tab.
  Options tab enables you to select Folders you want to select as shortcuts, preferences and filters (the GUI is simple and you can do all these stuff easily once you install it) Here's how the options window looks like-
                         
                               
• It runs on all the versions of Windows, I tested this software on Windows 7 64-bit and it worked fine.
• This software is really a time saver, and I recommend everyone to atleast try it once.

DOWNLOAD / BUY HERE ( To get full version for free, download it using torrentz )

 Share your experience in the comments section below :) 

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Colorful Folders in Windows!!

Bored of YELLOW folders? I am, and I guess you all are too. Today I am going to introduce you to a software I came to know about recently. Before giving you its download link, here are its basic features-

• Its just 1.6MB
  
• Its trial version is free for 1 month, its full version will cost you 9.95$ or you can download it for free using torrentz ill-legally :D
  

• Its really useful because you can highlight (give a different color) an important folder and it can be located within a blink of an eye!
  
• You can get colorful folders :D its a treat in itself!
  

Here is a sample of colorful folders- 
                                       
* After installing the software, Right Click on the folder you want to highlight, and you will notice a tab FOLDER HIGHLIGHT... use it to proceed, and then Refresh your screen to see the result :)

See this image for help > 
                                                


DOWNLOAD / BUY NOW!               


Hope you found this post useful, share you thoughts in comment section.. Thank you. 

                                                

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WinXP tips and tricks...

1. Speeding up menus-


Go to Start > Run > Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Locate the key called "MenuShowDelay" and it is probably set to 400.
Change that value to 0.
Reboot your computer.
You should notice a slight increase in the speed of your menus (although its in microseconds :P still its usefull when you are working with several menus at a time. Seriously )

2. Burn quicker-


Win xp has burning software built in which can cause problems sometimes when burning with other programs.
You can turn windows xp burning tool off like this:
Go to "administrative tools" in the control panel.
In the "services" list, disable the "IMAPI CD-Burning COM" service, if its not dissabled.


3. Increase Xp folder settings-


Windows remembers 400 folder settings. When that number is reached some settings aren't retained any longer. You can change this to 8000 by adding this edit to the registry.

a) Copy the following into notepad.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00


[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\BagMRU]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\Bags]


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell]
"BagMRU Size"=dword:00001f40


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam]
"BagMRU Size"=dword:00001f40


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoSaveSettings"=dword:00000000


b) Save the file as folder8000.reg
c) Double click the file to import into your registry.

4. Speed up XP-


 Services You Can Disable

There are quite a few services you can disable from starting automatically.
This would be to speed up your boot time and free resources.
They are only suggestions so I suggest you read the description of each one when you run Services
and that you turn them off one at a time.

Some possibilities are:
Alerter
Application Management
Clipbook
Fast UserSwitching
Human Interface Devices
Indexing Service
Messenger
Net Logon
NetMeeting
QOS RSVP
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Routing & Remote Access
SSDP Discovery Service
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Web Client


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cleaning the Prefetch Directory

WindowsXP has a new feature called Prefetch. This keeps a shortcut to recently used programs.
However it can fill up with old and obsolete programs.

To clean this periodically go to:

Star / Run / Prefetch
Press Ctrl-A to highlight all the shorcuts
Delete them

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Not Displaying Logon, Logoff, Startup and Shutdown Status Messages

To turn these off:

Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionpoliciessystem
If it is not already there, create a DWORD value named DisableStatusMessages
Give it a value of 1

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Clearing the Page File on Shutdown

Click on the Start button
Go to the Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Local Security Policy
Local Policies
Click on Security Options
Right hand menu - right click on "Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile"
Select "Enable"
Reboot

For regedit users.....
If you want to clear the page file on each shutdown:

Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementClearPageFileAtShutdown
Set the value to 1

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No GUI Boot

If you don't need to see the XP boot logo,

Run MSCONFIG
Click on the BOOT.INI tab
Check the box for /NOGUIBOOT

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Getting Rid of Unread Email Messages

To remove the Unread Email message by user's login names:

Start Regedit
For a single user: Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUnreadMail
For all users: Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUnreadMail
Create a DWORD key called MessageExpiryDays
Give it a value of 0

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Decreasing Boot Time

Microsoft has made available a program to analyze and decrease the time it takes to boot to WindowsXP
The program is called BootVis

Uncompress the file.
Run BOOTVIS.EXE
For a starting point, run Trace / Next Boot + Driver Delays
This will reboot your computer and provide a benchmark
After the reboot, BootVis will take a minute or two to show graphs of your system startup.
Note how much time it takes for your system to load (click on the red vertical line)
Then run Trace / Optimize System
Re-Run the Next Boot + Drive Delays
Note how much the time has decreased
Mine went from approximately 33 to 25 seconds.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Increasing Graphics Performance

By default, WindowsXP turns on a lot of shadows, fades, slides etc to menu items.
Most simply slow down their display.

To turn these off selectively:

Right click on the My Computer icon
Select Properties
Click on the Advanced tab
Under Performance, click on the Settings button
To turn them all of, select Adjust for best performance
My preference is to leave them all off except for Show shadows under mouse pointer and Show window contents while dragging

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Increasing System Performance

If you have 512 mb or more of memory, you can increase system performance
by having the core system kept in memory.

Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementDisablePagingExecutive
Set the value to be 1
Reboot the computer

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Increasing File System Caching

To increase the amount of memory Windows will locked for I/O operations:

Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management
Edit the key IoPageLockLimit

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IE9 : the most secure browser!

According to the latest tests performed by NSS labs (Europe) Internet Explorer 9 proved to be the best browser to offer best protection from Socially Engineering Malware!
The test was performed among the following browsers-

• Mozzilla Firefox 4.0
• Google Chrome 10.0.648.204
• Windows Internet Explorer 8 (build 8.0.7600.16385)
• Windows Internet Explorer 9 (build 9.0.8112.16421)
• Opera 11.01 Build 1190
• Safari 5.0.5(7533.21.1)

NSS Labs revealed in it's FINAL REPORT (pdf) that, "With SmartScreen enabled and Application Reputation disabled, IE9 achieved a unique URL blocking score of 89% and over-time protection rating of 92%. Enabling Application Reputation on top of SmartScreen increased the unique URL block rate of Internet Explorer 9 by 11% (to 100%) at zero hour as well as the over-time protection by 8% (to 100%)."

NSS labs concluded -


Firefox 4 achieved a 13% protection rating, on par with protection offered by Chrome and Safari —86% less protection than Internet Explorer 9 and 77% less than Internet Explorer 8. Firefox exhibited deterioration in protection compared with our Q3 2010 global test that can be attributed to either the implementation of Safe Browsing API v2 or new tactics being used by cybercriminals that Safe Browsing has not yet adapted to. There was a slight 1% improvement between zero-hour protection (16%) and eventual protection at the 19 day mark (17%).

Safari 5 achieved a 13% protection rating on par with Firefox and Chrome converging at a roughly 17% block rate after 19 days. However, Safari presented a notable lag in protection vs. Firefox with zero-hour protection of 11% (vs. Firefox’s 16%).

With a protection rating of 13%, Chrome 10 offered nearly identical protection to Safari and Firefox. Browser Security Comparative Test: Socially-Engineered Malware

Opera 10’s overall blocking rate of 5% was consistently the lowest in the group... SURPRISED? :D

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