6 Chrome Flags to Improve Your Browsing Experience

Chrome is one of the best browser till the date indeed. You get some basic features enabled by default when you install Chrome browser. Out of which, some feature may please and some may annoys you. You might also expect some more features which would improve your wholesale browsing experience. Here comes the Chrome Flags into the picture.

Chrome flags are a way to enable/disable feature in Chrome. The feature flags listed in the flag page might be fully implemented and by default available in the stable release or they might be for the experimental purpose and a little buggy. You can enable any such experimental feature flag without waiting for its release in standard Chrome version. Google Chrome offers the cutting edge browser technology through Chrome Flags for tech enthusiasts and advanced users, without ruining the average users' browsing experience.

mxHero Toolbox – Bring Extra Features and Control to Gmail

There is plethora of tools available to add extra features to your Gmail account. Though, you’ve to install separate Chrome extensions to get extra functionalities like encrypting mails, email tracking, scheduled mails, etc. Here comes the mxHero Chrome extension into the picture – a single tool to add bunch of useful extra functionalities to your Gmail account. Installing mxHero chrome extension unlocks 5 new features to your Gmail account that are Click Track, Self Destruct, Private Delivery, Send Later and Reply Timeout.

Gmail Canned Response Comprehensive Guide

Besides the basic Gmail features there are some crazy experimental features available in Gmail Labs. Canned Response is one of the crazy feature for lazy creature like me and you. It allows you to save various predefined email templates that can be used over and over again to reply number of people. It's a feature alike SMS Templates.

Canned Responses saves your time for common mails, for which you can reply with common and quick pre-written mails. For example, you are running a small scale manufacturing company - producing some sort of products. Then, you would be getting lots of product related inquiries for which you can use Canned Responses. All you need to do is select the response from the collection of Canned responses and hit the "Send" button.

At the end of this post you will master:

1. How to enable Canned Responses Gmail Lab feature
2. How to create Canned Responses
3. How to reply a mail with Canned Responses
4. How to setup Automated Canned Responses

Best Google Chrome Extensions - September 2013

This is a second post of "Best Google Chrome Extensions" theme in which each month I will share 5 useful Chrome extensions that can help you to ease up your routine internet browsing activity in Google Chrome browser. If you missed or haven't checked the first post of this theme then do also checkout Best Chrome Extensions - August 2013.

This month I have picked up another 5 useful Chrome extensions for various tasks like Tracking URLs or shortened URLs, Blocking Ads for clutter free reads, Loading web pages more faster and securely and much more.

Resync Existing Google Drive Folder After Reinstalling OS

"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. ~Oscar Wilde".

I'm not an exception here. I made a mistake with a Google Drive folder on my Windows system. And after resolving the issue I gave it a good title called "Experience". But this so called experience cost me 2+ GB waste of bandwidth and some electricity units. So, it's not always advisable to learn only from our mistakes. Below is the complete case of the Google Drive nightmare I had on my Windows system. Though the solution works also for Mac OS users.

Best Tips and Tricks for Feedly RSS Reader

Feedly gained heavy influx upon the announcement of Google Reader's shutting down. It proved itself as the next Google Reader. Undoubtedly, it is the best alternate for your RSS subscription tool. It provides even more than Google Reader was providing you.

Above all, it's free and available on two major mobile ecosystem namely iOS and Android. It's also available on cloud.feedly.com for everyone else. I can proudly say that I had switched to Feedly 5-6 months before the announcement of Google Reader shutting down just to explore something more powerful and feature rich. But, after using it for a week or so, I found it super cool and had completely switched to Feedly as my default RSS reader!

Here are some of the best tips and tricks that can help you to get most out of it.

How To Setup Realtime Home Surveillance System

Home security systems are very expensive these days. But, we can alleviate this issue by using some freely available technologies around us since many years. Skype is one of them - I will show you how to use skype as a real-time monitoring system. I will also cover how to convert web-cam or smartphone camera into a motion-detector camera that alerts you via Email whenever it senses any motion.

However, this approach requires your computer or smartphone device to be always in running mode so this may not work for you for the extended period of time. But, it would be best hack if you are just going to your work place or going on a picnic for a day or two. By setting up such real-time monitoring system allows you to keep an eye on your home, pets or kids remotely anytime, anywhere. Besides, setting up motion-detection system will add an extra layer of security from thieves. You can catch them in the action at your home and take some immediate steps to tackle the situation at your home.

At the end of this article you will have:

1. A smart real-time monitoring system using skype that will give you a live view of your home from anywhere in the globe.
2. A motion-detector camera using web-cam or smartphone camera that will instantly alert you via Email.

Best Google Chrome Extensions - August 2013

Google Chrome is far ahead among its competitor browsers when it comes to speed and reliability. Though, it is not limited to speed and reliability -- on top of that it is best known for its user experience and plug-able features known as extensions.

Chrome WebStore provides tons of incredible extensions that could make your life more of ease and manageable. It's difficult and cumbersome to find out best extensions when you have thousands of options available. So, let me save you some time by suggesting you some of the best (Yes, only best ones which could be really useful) Chrome extensions available.

Get More From Your Google Drive

Google Drive is among the best cloud service where you can store and create documents, spreadsheets, presentations. Though, it is not limited to create, store and share documents. Drive provides a platform to use third party apps like Video editing, Diagram creation, Project Management and much more.

Here are some useful tips and applications that will give you more precise control and advantage over Google Drive.

Still Liking Facebook Pages? Try Facebook Interest Lists

If you are still liking Facebook pages and had never heard about Facebook Interest Lists before then this post is surely for you. Liking every pages will clutter your news feed. Your news feed could get flooded with lots of posts from the pages you liked. Besides, your friends can see all the pages you follow - not a good sign for secret pleasures ;-). Considering all these points I would recommend a lesser known approach - Facebook Interest Lists.

Hmm.. So what exactly Facebook Interest Lists does mean?

Interests Lists allows you to create lists based on the content you are interested in. You create your own interest lists based on various categories to check them in an organised way. You can also subscribe other people's public interest lists. For example, you can subscribe Tech Stuff interest list created by me to receive technology updates from different technology pages.

Visibility of your interest list can be Private, Friends or Public. If you don't want to let other know some specific pages you follow then add those pages to private list. Your lists with Friends visibility can be seen and followed by your friends only. While your public lists can be seen and followed by all Facebook users.

How To Add Twitter Cards On Your WebSite or Blogger Blog

Have you ever been come across such content rich tweets? If yes, then you are already knowing twitter cards!

Linkedin's tweet in a Twitter Card format

Basically Twitter Cards make your tweets more content rich by adding extra media and information to your tweet, which is known as a card. Twitter Card gives your followers more insights on the content you tweet and in turn it results more visitors to your site and more interaction on your tweets!

Although to make it possible to add more media rich experience to your tweets you have to add some meta tags to your website or blog.

There was a time where meta tags were being used only for SEO purposes but some smart social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ have optimally used them to add more richness to the data being shared over their respective social media platforms.

Host Your Website on Google Drive

Plenty of things you can do while you do have one Google account. Having Google account gives you a complete cloud infrastructure, known as Google Drive. The core advantages of using such cloud services are anywhere accessibility of your stored documents and media, collaborative work, cross platform availability and easy sharing to the world.

 

Google Drive offers one exciting feature called, web hosting! Yes, you read it right. You can store your complete a web site or an HTML page built using javascript and css files. Above all, it's free!

This is useful for web developers like me who frequently need to demo to their clients. However, it should not be considered as a comprehensive web solution to host a website. It is useful for the "short lived" events like invitations and prototype presentations of the projects on which you are working. Check this live demo page I created and hosted on Google Drive.

Learning how to host a website over Google Drive requires 3 easy steps. The steps can be summarized in 3Ps - Prepare, Put & Publish.

Defraggler - Best Defragmenter for Windows

In fragmentation, your files physically scatters over the hard-disk in separate and different sized chucks. This can reduce your computer performance, as your hard-disk's read/write head has to continuously jump over the different physical disk locations to read the fragmented files. Hence, reading fragmented files is slower as compared to defragmented files.

Defragmentation process rearranges such fragmented files in a sequential manner. So, your hard-disk can work more effectively and efficiently. The effect of defragmentation may not be visible to you naked-eye. But, it doesn't mean that it has no impact on your computer performance. Such small tasks keep your computer robust and responsive. If you use your computer heavily for downloading music, movies, install/uninstall tools and softwares then you should (at least once a month) defragment your hard-disk.

Defraggler Home Screen

Windows already provides a built-in disk-defragmenter, yet one should give a try to Defraggler. You can consider it as an advanced version of a built-in defragmenter. While built-in windows tool simply rearranges your files in a possible sequential manner, Defraggler gives you more advanced control over the built-in tool. Above all, it's FREE!

Lets see some advanced features Defraggler provides but built-in windows tool does not.

Master the mailto: Command

The mailto: URI scheme defines the structure for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (aka, SMTP) email addresses. In the early days, the mailto: URI scheme was limited to the web pages to display clickable email links in web pages. Such links, upon click, opens up your default mail client with a compose window.

Nowadays, some latest browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera has augmented this basic functionality. These browsers facilitate to enter mailto: command in the browser address-bar, to directly load default mail site/client.

You might be knowing about how to use mailto: command for a single mail recipient. However, mailto: command offers lot more fields that can be used with like multiple recipients, Subject, cc, bcc and so on. The complete list of values are listed in RFC-6068.

How to Compose Quick Email Using mailto: Command

Composing a mail in a smart-way will save you some time as well some internet bandwidth. Generally people launch the mail site/program, wait till inbox loaded and then hit the Compose button to load Compose window. Composing mail this way takes extra time and extra internet bandwidth to load all inbox messages first even you don't wish so.

+Ilya Grigorik, Software Engineer from Google, shared a smart way to quickly compose a mail and skip aforementioned time consuming steps. This trick works across all browsers and desktop clients.

Load mail compose window using mailto: command

How To Safeguard Your Debit And Credit Cards Information

Online Shopping has evolved over the years. It is time saving, easy and fast. You can almost buy anything online and you don't need to stand in long lines to pay your shopping amount. All you need to do is few button clicks and filling up your virtual carts with items from your wish-list.

Identify Whether Your Processor Is x86 (32-Bit) Or x64 (64-Bit)

Well, this question haunts each one of us right from the time when Windows Vista was launched. And when does the above question come? It comes up each time, we are to install a new software, or even during installation of our Device Drivers. Right? 

We never had any problems to check such things for our machine, as life was too simple at the time of Windows XP. But with the gradual inventions in the direction of faster and better performing processors resulted in two different type of processors, one is the normal 32-bit and the other is 64-bit processor.

So firstly, lets understand a bit of technical information about this topic, what does it mean by 32-bit and 64-bit. These numbers represent the width of the Data Bus between the Processor and the Memory (RAM). In simple terms, there are two roads with equal distances connecting a source (your residence) and destination (your office) is 2-Lane (32-bit) and the other one is 4-Lane (64-bit).

Migrate Google Reader To Feedly and Set Feedly as Default RSS Reader

Lately, Google announced shutting down of Google Reader service. It's no doubt that Google Reader is the most used RSS reader as of now. However, there are good alternates available in the market. Feedly is one of the strong contender. Let's see how to migrate from Google Reader to Feedly.

Importing your Google Reader account

Feedly has already seen an influx of over 500000 Google Reader users just in 48 hours of shutting down announcement of Google Reader by Google.

The last 48 hours remind me of the night @louisgray helped us launch feedly. It is great to get so much feedback from users. Let’s improve.
— feedly (@feedly) March 17, 2013

Importing your Google Reader feeds to feedly is straight simple. All you need to do is, login to your feedly using your Google Account. Rest of the importing process will be manipulated by Feedly itself.

Google Announces 'Keep' - The Note Taking and List Making Tool

Keep - Google's own version of note taking and list-making tool has been announced officially by Google today. It has been launched officially for both Android and Web on the Google Blog.

You can found this tool at http://google.drive.com/keep or at PlayStore for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and above. You can access, edit and create new notes from the above url, as of now, but in the coming weeks Google will integrate the Keep tool directly into the Google Drive.

Add Calendar Events Received In Gmail As Attachment Directly Into Google Calendar

Gmail team has released a very cool feature, today. Now, when you receive an attachment with calendar events in .ics format, you can add these events to your Google Calendar right from you Gmail Inbox with a single mouse click! This cool feature will save you much time from downloading and importing them manually to your calendar.