Instant Fundas

I don’t search very often, but whenever I do, I find the Windows 7’s default search tool inadequate. It’s slow, it doesn’t have many options to filter results, and it requires the file indexing service to be running in the background, which is a big performance hit as it keeps grinding my hard drive incessantly. Microsoft did a good job integrating search throughout the operating system – on the start menu, on explorer, on the Control Panel. It’s a pity, it doesn’t work as it should, which is why I’m on a look out for the right tool that could replace the default search tool on Windows. Here is what I found.

At its Ideas Summit presentation in New York, Google unveiled a new technology called uProxy that allows users to bypass internet censorship imposed by ISPs and governments by creating peer-to-peer connection. Unlike regular proxies that route a user’s internet traffic via remote servers that could be compromised or be under surveillance without the user’s knowledge, uProxy relies on trusted connections between friends to create a pathway that’s safe and more private.

Technology has become a part of our lives long ago. It has leaked into our social lives, it helps us work and assists us in education process. Smartphones and tablets are not longer considered knickknacks distracting students from the hard fate of grinding away at studies. Technology novices are actively implemented in schools and universities all over the world. So if you are a student and you still haven't used your Android smartphone for nothing better than Facebook procrastination during lectures, here is the list of top choice free Android apps which will bring more sense into your studying process and will make it flow faster and easier.

Web browsers use different colors to differentiate between hyperlinks that were clicked or visited before, and hyperlinks that were never clicked, at least, as far in time as the browsing history goes. Traditionally, fresh links are shown in blue and links to visited pages are shown in purple. However, if the web page contains a custom color scheme by the way of CSS styling, the defaults are overridden. In today’s web, you seldom come across a website that doesn’t use their own design and colors, which makes the blue-purple color scheme a rare sight.

People generally are obsessed with wealth. We are curious how much movie stars make or how much a company is worth, and eagerly pour over the annual “richest people” list. The other day, the Credit Suisse Research Institute released their Global Wealth Report for 2013, that reveals the global wealth distribution pattern together with some fascinating facts. Take the following for example: the wealthiest 32 million individuals (just 0.7% of the world's population) together hold 41% of global wealth. In contrast, only 3% of global riches belong to the poorest 3.2 billion, despite representing 68.7% of the world population.

A selection of articles containing the best tips, resources and software reviews published between September 29 and October 12 of the previous year. How to Increase the No. of Simultaneous File Downloads in Internet Explorer How to Find Which Program is Accessing Your Hard Disk? How to Replace Audio Track of a Video File

Google displays the molecular structure of many organize compounds and amino acids in 3 dimension when you search for the name of the compound on Google search. This little feature, which could be very useful to students, was possibly added around the same time Google started showing snippets of information extracted from Wikipedia and other websites, on the right of the search results page. Unless you look very keenly, the tiny gem is easy to miss.

In an effort to clean up the notoriously awful commentary that appears under nearly every successful video, Google has been pestering YouTube users who are logged into their respective accounts to use their real name. This has been going on for more than a year, long enough for some people to start losing their nerves. The “real name" is taken from the person’s Google+ account since Google requires anybody signing up for an account on Google’s social network to use their real name. This name then appears whenever the person uploads a video or writes a comment on YouTube.

There is a new Chrome extension called Signal, that allows Gmail users to edit messages directly in their inbox, replacing subject lines as well as the body with custom text to improve visibility of those messages in your inbox. The idea is to convert messages that call for action, into a sort of reminder or a to-do list, without leaving Gmail. This is especially useful for those who do a lot of scheduling over email.

In Chrome, when you want to control which website can set cookies or display contents such as images and Javascript, you use the “Content Settings” dialog to make the changes. This can be reached via the Chrome menu on the browser toolbar, under Advanced settings and then under the Privacy section. Any changes you make here will affect all websites you visit. To make changes that affect only a particular website or websites, you click on “Manage exceptions”, type the website’s URL and set your preferred permission.

Pixel Kit is offering the chance at winning three amazing annual memberships to our lucky readers. PixelKit.com will provide three readers a full PixelKit Annual Membership account that provides free access to their web design resources, including graphics and tools for UK kits for one full year. These kits include navigation tools, special app screens, sliders, icons, buttons and more. Whatever you need, you'll get it for free. All you need to do to enter is:

On its 16th anniversary, Yahoo Mail got a fresh coat of paint along with several new features that is sure to entice a lot of users, especially those using Yahoo’s free email service. Among the new features that was announced a few hours ago, are POP3 access, conversation view, automatic mail forwarding, and advanced filters that were previously available only to Yahoo Mail Plus users. Above all, the storage space has been pumped up all the way to 1,000 GBs.

Do you want to be reminded of certain things when you visit a particular website? Maybe you need a reminder to email someone when you open your webmail inbox, or display a list of items to order when you visit Amazon, or the summary of a long article. Instead of keeping a long to-do list or lots of sticky notes that are visible at all times, you can attach relevant notes to different websites, that are only displayed when you visit that site.

Want to revisit websites on your browser without incurring additional bandwidth charges? Yes, you can. When you instruct the browser to open a webpage, the browser fetches the files needed to render the page on your screen, including external files the page refer to such as the stylesheets, Javascripts and embedded images. These are stored on your hard disk, and reused when you open another page (from the same website) that use the same stylesheet, images and other stuff. Not only this saves bandwidth, it enables the browser to render the page faster.

Here are the winners of the Protect My Folders giveaway contest that was organized last week. Those who had taken part must be waiting for the results, so without further delay, here is the announcement you were expecting.

When authorities shutdown Megaupload and arrested Kim Dotcom for abetting copyright infringement last year, they didn’t realize they were stirring up the hornet’s nest. Within weeks, Dotcom’s file sharing service was up in a new avatar. Simply called MEGA, the new cloud storage company’s primary focus is on user’s privacy and security of their data. MEGA has always been in the news ever since, and Dotcom saw to it, never missing an opportunity to speak out against those who brought down his previous company.

In a startling disclosure, Microsoft has finally admitted that their security software “Microsoft Security Essentials” is not sufficient to protect users from high-level threats, and advised Windows users to install anti-virus software manufactured by third party vendors to offer reliable defense against malware. Microsoft Security Essentials was launched back in 2009 as a free solution for users looking to protect their computers from malware on the cheap. Shortly after launch, it quickly rose in antivirus software rankings beating established brands in performance, and since then has become the most used anti-virus software for Windows. Microsoft has actively supported this software and has also integrated it with Windows 8 as part of Windows Defender.

For years, people have regularly predicted that laptops were on their way out, bound to get replaced by increasingly smaller gadgets and inventions that do all the work in a smaller package. While laptops are excellent for some things, they're not always practical for browsing or gaming on-the-go, especially when you're hanging out in a coffee shop or traveling on vacation. Instead of relying on your laptop for everything, it's time to think about a smaller, faster, trendier alternative.

BitTorrent, the company behind the revolutionary BitTorrent peer-to-peer data transfer protocol, has announced a new project – a secure, server-less instant messaging client based on distributed technology, the same that drives BitTorrent network. Called BitTorrent Chat , the messaging application doesn’t store any conversation on any servers, unlike most popular messaging services such as Facebook and Whats Up, which means they are protected from third-party access and data breaches.

Google today announced the launch of Web Designer, a new tool that lets designers build interactive HTML5 advertisements, animations and other Web content using an integrated visual and code interface. The tool which the company spoke about in June, is now in public beta and is available for download for Windows and Mac.