An easy way to pay

An easy way to pay

I know many people who found interesting stuff to buy on the Internet, but got stuck because of the payment method — the seller would accept money only through PayPal.

PayPal, which uses encryption software, allows people to make financial transfers via the computer. The software ensures that no one gets to peek into the online payments being made. It has become one of the primary methods of funds transfer and boasts of around 153 million accounts worldwide.

One may use PayPal to pay for online auctions, purchase goods and services, or make donations. You can even use it to send cash to someone. However, making transactions from your personal account to a person in India (and vice-versa) has been temporarily suspended. Despite some problems regarding India, PayPal is worth it. You needn’t reveal your secret credit card number, which could be stolen anytime if you are on an insecure computer.

A basic PayPal account is free. You can send funds to anyone with an email address, whether or not they have a PayPal account. They will get a message from PayPal about the funds, and then have to sign up for their own account. Funds transferred via PayPal reside in a PayPal account until the holder of the funds retrieves them or spends them. If the user has entered and verified his or her bank account information, the funds can be transferred directly to that account.

Currently, there is a dispute between PayPal and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Hopefully, things will get sorted out soon as there are more than 1,75,000 PayPal users in India. Till then, if you want to send funds to India or some other country. I suggest you use www.xoom.com. There are good reasons for this:

No more waiting in line. Send money any time of the day from the comfort of your house

Save money; their fees and exchange rates are lower than those of similar services

Send money in minutes for holidays, special occasions or any event back home

Xoom partners with trusted financial institutions in your home country.

Coming back to PayPal, signing up is quick and does not require any bank account information, although a credit card is required to use many of its features. On the home page, click on the “Sign Up Now” button. On the next page, you have to choose whether you want a personal, business or premier account. If you plan to use PayPal for the occasional eBay auction or online purchase, a personal account is the right choice. If you intend to use PayPal to accept payments for your own business, a business or premier account would be better. If you select a personal account, you can upgrade it in the future.

PayPal has other utilities. If you do some work for a foreign firm, you can receive the payment in your PayPal account. With the money accumulated here, you can buy goods from eBay or any other online shopping site. Professionals, businesses, freelancers and other service providers can withdraw money from PayPal to their local bank accounts as long as they submit the right purpose code at the time of the withdrawal.

Purpose codes are pre-defined by the RBI and their value varies, depending on the type of service you are offering the client. According to PayPal, the code P0805 has been fixed by RBI for “News agency services” and all freelance writers and bloggers will come in that category. The code P1007 is reserved for advertising and marketing, so social media consultants, web designers and Internet marketers should use this code. P0802 has been kept for software programmers and freelance coders.

PayPal’s personal accounts give you access to the core features, but that’s all. Customer support is mostly via email. There is a phone number, but it’s not toll free and sends users to a low-priority line with long wait times. There are no transaction fees for personal accounts, though there are fees for some other features, such as currency exchange. Personal accounts are also subject to volume limits of $500 a month. If you receive more, you will need to upgrade to a premier or business account (or deny the transfer).

Premier and business accounts are almost the same. The main difference is that a business account must be registered with a business or group name, and a premier account can be registered with a business, group or individual. Business accounts can also be set up for multiple users.

Play Chess Online

New use for old PC

New use for old PC

When you bought your first PC you must have spent a fortune. But with technology being upgraded at a rapid rate, you may have switched to a new machine. Trying to sell the old PC is useless as there are no takers. And, of course, you don’t want to sell it as scrap.

Fortunately, there are many things you can use your old PC for. For example, you can make money from it. Dismantle it and sell the working parts on eBay: hard drive, RAM, A/C adapters, motherboards, graphics and audio cards, and even an intact case.

To make a good deal, carefully select the category of item. Post a picture of the article and describe it concisely. Write short sentences or lists and try to answer probable questions. Select the title carefully. Use the right keywords. Most important, be honest.

You can also make your old machine work faster. Replace Windows with Linux. I would recommend Ubuntu. Ubuntu version 10 is out. Download the software or request a free CD from https://shipit.ubuntu.com.

You could also transform your old PC into a workhorse with only the essential software components, including Windows File and Printer sharing. Get rid of all other software. Next, hook up all your external devices to it, such as an external hard drive or printer, and make them available to all other computers in the house through ethernet or Wi-Fi.

If parts of your laptop or desktop hardware are broken, you can salvage the working bits. So if the hard drive is still working, you can dismount it and transform it into an external and portable hard drive for your new PC. You will have to invest in a USB caddy, which can be acquired through eBay or your local hardware dealer. Be sure to get the right format and connector. For a laptop hard drive, you’ll need a 2.5-inch IDE or SATA caddy. For a regular hard drive, generally a 3.5-inch IDE or SATA caddy is in order. Caddies are enclosures for the hard drive so that it becomes USB compatible.

Your old PC can also be used for data entry, as it demands very little resources. However, one of the best uses is to convert it into an answering machine. Years ago I had software called Ashampoo that would answer my calls and even record conversations. The PC had an external 64k dial-up modem so the phone line had to be connected to it. There are several answering machine software. Google for one that fits your needs.

Best use of an old Mac

Convert your old Mac into a Wi-Fi Base station. Say the Mac is connected by ethernet to access the Internet. All you have to do to make it an access point is open up System Preferences. Click on Sharing. On the left panel just select Internet sharing (not checkmark). On the right put a checkmark on Airport and Ethernet. Click on Airport Options. Give the Network a name. Let Channel remain at Automatic. Put a checkmark against enable encryption (using WEP or wired equivalent privacy). Now put your password. If you share your Net connection with non-Apple computers, use a password with five characters and choose 40-bit as WEP key length. You need to put in a 13-character password for 128-bit WEP key. Finally, after okaying the password dialogue box put a checkmark against Internet Sharing. WEP data encryption is defined by the 802.11 standard to prevent access to networks by “intruders” using similar wireless equipment. This process is useful if you do not have Wi-Fi at home or in the office and want to use your iPod touch or the Wi-Fi on your phone.

Using the iPad in India & Windows games on Mac

Using the iPad in India

The iPad does work in India, although it has not been officially launched here. When you touch the App Store icon on the iPad you will get, “Cannot connect to the App store. The App store is not supported in your country”. This gives the mistaken impression that the iPad is not working. A similar thing happens when you tap on the iTunes store icon in the iPhone and iPod touch. That does not mean that those two devices do not work in India. The iPad will work fine here, but there are a few workarounds you will have to do. One of its best features, the iBooks app — Apple’s answer to Kindle, Nook, Sony and other e-book readers — will also work, but you will be able to download only free books.

To get your iPad working in India, you will need to open a free US account (without a credit card). Make sure you have iTunes version 9.1 installed in your computer. Open iTunes in your computer; from the left panel click on iTunes store. By default it will take you to the Indian store. On the top left look for App Store Quick Links. There you will find the link for “Change Country”. Click it and choose the US. You will be taken to the US store. Here is the crucial part. Make sure you go to the App store. Try and download a free app. This will bring up a dialog box with “Create New Account”. Keep following the instructions till you come to a dialog box for payment options (credit card). Select None.

Fill out the required name and address fields.

You will then see a screen that says “Verify your Account”. Click Done and check your email for a verification email from the iTunes Store.

Click on the link enclosed in the email to activate your account. Once you click, iTunes will prompt you to sign in with your account name and password. If you have followed the instructions correctly, you will get to see a “Congratulations” screen. Click on Done and you will be taken directly to the US store.

On your iPad, go to Settings and scroll down to store. Sign in with the US account name and password. Go back to the App Store icon and this time you will not get an error message. Your first download should be the iBooks app, which is really fantastic. Reading a book on the iPad is an exquisite experience.

If you have friends and relatives in the US ask them to send you an iTunes Gift Certificate, or iTunes Gift Card. You will then be able to download books from the US Store (using your free US account) when you redeem a Gift Card bought in the US.

You can set up you mail easily too. Just keep your Wi-Fi on. For best results, your wi-fi router should support 800.11/. Routers come in 802.11/a/b/g/. The ‘’ specification is the best as it gives you a strong signal over a large range and a higher data speed transfer. The iPad supports 802.11/a/b/g/.

For further support for your iPad, write to info@systematixmedia .com

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Windows games on Mac

I want to be able to play Windows games on my Mac.

First, you need to buy a genuine version of Windows 7. Then you will need a virtualisation program for OS X, which will enable you to run other operating systems like Windows on your Mac. If you want the best results when you play the games, you will need to spend about $80 and get Parallels Desktop 5 (build 9308). If you want just basic 3D graphics for your games then get VirtualBox 3.1.2. This is free and made by Sun Microsystems. The third option is called Boot Camp. Also, make sure you buy a good Internet Security Suite.

Dell Adamo XPS

If you’re looking for sheer flaunt value, the new Dell Adamo XPS is your baby.

A bold sliver of design ingenuity, a modern engineering marvel. Once you get past the initial confusion — “where did the rest of this thing go?” — the Dell Adamo XPS wows with its impossibly slim profile. At 9.9mm, the Adamo XPS really is the world’s thinnest notebook, and by far slimmer than the VAIOs, the Macs and the HP Envys. Heck, this is slimmer than a CD jewel case. The feeling is one of holding a thin aluminum tray that has somehow magically managed to fit in most computer internals.

Open it up by sliding your finger over the heat-sensitive latch (more wows ensue), and Dell’s secret to the ultimate laptop slimming package reveals itself. The keyboard fits into a recess the size of the 13.4-in screen, which means that the hinge swings up to become the rear support , slightly elevating the keyboard in the process.

And while it helps with heat dissipation, it’s especially tricky considering the quandary — this is a Rs 1.5 lakh laptop, after all. Do I let the hinge rest against my knees, or rest its slim edges on my legs, hoping I don’t do anything sudden that’ll throw this off? Despite its slim appearances, it’s sturdily built and feels solid — very reassuring if you’ve just spent that aforementioned one-and-a-half-lakh.

Now, to run Windows 7 smoothly, Dell’s packed in as much power as they could — a low-voltage energy-efficient processor, 4GB of RAM, a 256GB solid state hard-disk, and a bright 16:9 13.4 in high definition display. An integrated graphics card means that movies and videos will chug along nicely, but games are a strict no-no. Everyday tasks are a breeze, and that’s about the most you should expect from the pared-down internals. Ports are conveniently located on the sides, and Dell includes two slick-looking accessories — a 500GB external hard disk and an external DVD writer — in the price. About fair.

Where the Adamo XPS suffers more than anything else is battery life, and it’s a big Achilles Heel. Depending on how you use it, the battery lasts between 1.5 to a little over 2 hours. Bit of a pity considering 4+ hours of battery life are a netbook standard, and they’re one- seventh the price at best. The only redeeming factor — you can swap it out for a larger 40WHr battery, which is twice the current capacity, but it kind of kills the form factor. Not a good idea, since the form factor is pretty much why you’re buying this, right?

Obvious comparisons to the MacBook Air abound, not surprising given both share the all-aluminum looks and the desire to be the thinnest ever. The MacBook Air is a little thicker, but for approximately 30 grand less gives you a far faster processor, better NVIDIA graphics, and much better battery life, and you can run both Windows and the MacOS on it.

It’s difficult to recommend the Adamo XPS to everyone, not that it is meant to be either. It’s beautiful yet purely impractical, but there’s nothing else like it for now. If your laptop is intended to impress everyone around you, this is your best bet.

• Rating: 7/10
• Price: Rs 1.5 lakh
• URL: http://dell.co.in

Acer Notebooks

With the first ever 3D laptop and a multi-touch notebook, Acer gets ahead of the competition, says Tushar Kanwar

ACER 5738D

Even if you have a passing interest in the consumer electronics space, chances are that you would have heard the terms “3D” and “multi-touch” being ballyhooed all over the place over the past couple of months! While the third dimension has found its champions in Avatar and the slew of 3D TVs launched in CES ’10, multi-touch has the weight of Apple —everything from its iPhones, Macs, Magic Mouse to the iPad support it — behind it! So when Acer added 3D and multi-touch to their latest range of laptops, we had to take them out for a spin! Gimmick or path-breaking USP? Read on!

With the 5738D, Acer’s foray into the market of one — at least as far as 3D laptops go — has been nothing short of a great big technological move forward. Previously, if you wanted 3D hardware on your desk, you’d need special powered 3D glasses, not to mention a screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and a specialised graphics card. At Rs 43,500 + taxes, this is a far cheaper solution to living the world of Pandora on your desk than ever before.

Sure, so the laptop itself isn’t the slimmest or the sleekest model out there, and the power under the hood is capable, not awe-inspiring, but that’s not why you’re reading this, are you? The real attraction is the screen, which at 1366x768 pixels is a little on the lower side, but it’s 3D, so that makes it all worth your while, right?

Almost. There’s still no escaping the glasses, no matter how comfy Acer’s made them. The screen is covered with a thin layer of polarising filters, which when combined with Acer’s stylish polarised specs works the 3D magic. A piece of software — TriDef 3D — sends the left and right images to the correct parts of the screen for the corresponding eye, and with the glasses blocking out alternate pixels to each eye, your brain tells you it’s 3D.

Much like the Fujifilm 3D camera that was here not too long ago, you will have to tilt the screen and focus till you see the sweet spot for all that 3D goodness! Once that’s done, fire up the demo content provided on the TriDef media player, and the stuff quite literally leaps out of the screen at you!

ACER 5738PZG

It tweaks your images too for a nice 3D effect, and better still, the TriDef 3D software can add a 3D effect to any game that uses DirectX 9 rendering. The effect is insane — games render really well in 3D, but it’s a pity that the graphics card is not upto snuff for many modern games. Your mileage may vary.

Movie watching is a bit of a miss than a hit, with the 3D effect working intermittently and forcing you to keep switching your physical position ever so often. Plus 3D rendering adds to the processing load on your system, which means really high def content (should this system have featured a Blu-ray) would crawl. And before I forget, do yourself a favour and don’t watch 3D content over a sustained period of time — you’ll just be lining yourself up for a massive headache.

But as a proof of concept, the 5738D really works, and it does so without charging a massive premium. If you’re the early adopter who needs the latest tech on your table, this would a good point to dive in!

Acer’s 5738PzG multi-touch notebook is a whole different kettle of fish, although it does have one thing in common with the 5738D — unique screens. Kitted with a 15.6-in HD CineCrystal display with 16:9 aspect ratio and 1,366x768 pixel resolution, the 5738PzG features a multi-touch screen, which lets you use two fingers to zoom in and out on Web sites, create handwritten notes, not to mention other mundane tasks such as starting your favourite media apps and editing photos and videos. In addition, it also features a multi-gesture touchpad a la the Apple notebooks that will allow you to use gestures to navigate, such as pinching, flicking and swirling.

ACER 5738D

So with the new multi-touch capabilities built in with Windows 7 (included), it promised a refreshing take on what are otherwise reasonably good but ultimately bog-standard components. So how well does the multi-touch work on this screen? Well, for starters, it is responsive, which is always a good sign with touch screens. You can quite easily flick back and forth between pictures, your internet history etc, though I did find tasks like minimising windows and others that require a degree of precision to be better left to the trackpad. At Rs 45,204 (MRP), it is well priced, and the multi-touch capability gives it the edge over similarly specced laptops.

Acer 3D laptop 5738D
Rating: 8/10
Price: Rs 43,500 plus taxes
Acer multi-touch 5738PzG
Rating: 8/10
Price: Rs 45,204
URL: http://www.acer.co.in

Playstation 3

Sony’s given the Playstation 3 a ‘slim’ and smart makeover, says Tushar Kanwar

Come to think of it, the PlayStation 3 was a utopian game-console designer’s imagination gone wild, when it first launched in 2006. Chock-full with the latest tech, its glossy appearance screamed vanity, arrogance and the kind of excess that can only come thanks to the monumental successes of its predecessors, the PlayStation 2 and the original PlayStation. The price tag was monumental too, a fact that gamers found hard to digest, and the PlayStation 3 trailed cheaper consoles. This despite the fact that it was far and away the best home entertainment console, thanks to Sony’s inclusion of a Blu-ray drive.

Come 2010, and Sony’s remodelled PlayStation 3 ‘Slim’ has lost some serious weight, in virtually every department. It isn’t called the Slim without reason — it’s significantly thinner and narrower than the original PS3. You’ll see numbers everywhere that describe the size reduction Sony has achieved with the PS3 Slim, to the tune of 33 per cent less space and 36 per cent less weight.

But these numbers can’t convey just how much smaller it’s gotten — it’s like comparing a laptop to a desktop, it’s that much smaller. Also gone is the fingerprint-friendly glossy exterior, with a new matte finish that is more contemporary and understated. The annoying touch sensitive power and eject controls have been replaced with actual buttons, and the hard disk has been upgraded to a 120GB variant, at the same price point as the entry-level previous-gen ‘fat’ model.

Sony’s also improved power consumption with the new Slim, and the unit consumes about 50 per cent of the power the original 2006 model consumed. Also down are the noise levels of the PS3, something that is really bothersome when you’re watching a Blu-ray movie.

With the weight loss regime, not everything made the cut in the transition from the fat PS3 to the ‘Slim’. In fact, if you pick up a current gen fat model, the only difference is that the Slim loses the ability to install a third-party platform like Linux. Not that I’d imagine the average consumer to care about this, but just so you know.

The two additional USB ports, the memory card readers were gone from the previous generation fat model as well but nothing hurts more than the loss of backward compatibility for PlayStation2 games. It not making a reappearance in the Slim wasn’t a surprise, but it still remains an anti- consumer decision. With one of the most impressive line-ups of game titles in the industry, continuing to ignore PS2 compatibility in the PS3 Slim doesn’t earn Sony any brownie points.

So here’s the good news, and the bad news — apart from the cosmetics and the power consumption, the fat and slim are basically the same. The same beast of a monster gaming console, but Sony didn’t add new features to the Slim. You still get the built-in Wi-Fi connectivity (it’s extra on other consoles), the excellent DualShock3 Bluetooth wireless controller, and the same built-in Profile 2.0 Blu-ray player with BD-Live capabilities.

The PS3 can act as a digital media hub as well, with the ability to stream content from any DLNA-compatible network device, including PCs and network attached hard drives. And you also get a built-in web browser, which is good enough for the occasional couch surfing, though not as good as any of the major browsers available for PCs.

As hardware goes, the PS3 still can run circles around the competition, and the Blu-ray abilities only help its case further. Where it lacks is the fully developed social gaming platform — you do get the PlayStation Network, but it still needs a lot of work to challenge competing platforms on the Internet gaming experience. Though, as a powerful gaming console with Blu-ray capabilities to match your full-HD TV, this is the console to pick up.

Quick Specs:

Model Number: CECH-2000A
Processor/Graphics: Cell Broadband Engine with nVidia RSX graphics
Memory: 256MB XDR Main RAM/ 256MB GDDR3 VRAM
Hard Disk: 2.5 Serial ATA 120GB
Communication: Ethernet (10/100/1000), Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR), 2 x USB
AV Output: Resolutions (480i/ 480p/ 576i/ 576p/ 720p/ 1080i/ 1080p), 1 x HDMI out, 1 x AV Multiout, 1 x Digital out
Sound Output: Dolby Digital Plus/ Dolby Digital 5.1ch/ DTS 5.1ch/ LPCM 7.1ch/ AAC
Optical Drive: Blu-ray Disc/DVD/CD Drive
Included: 1 A/V cable , 1 USB cable, 1 DualShock 3 wireless controller
Colour: Charcoal black, matte finish
Dimensions (in inches): 2.6 x 11.4 x 11.4
Weight: 3.22kg
Rating: 8/10
Price: Rs 19,990 all inclusive
URL: http://www.sony.co.in/product/playstation+3+120gbU

high definition media players

Three top brands vie for attention with their high definition media players.

Spot Quiz: What’s the #1 cause of disappointment for most new LCD TV owners? I’d hazard a safe guess — most programmes don’t look as good as the demo content that wowed you back in the showroom. And with service providers not looking any more likely to provide high definition (HD) anytime soon, companies like Western Digital, Asus and Amkette are looking to tap consumers who have multimedia files stored on their computers and hard disks and want to bring them to their TVs without the hassle of complicated cabling and unsightly computer boxes in the living room! Let’s have a quick look at what’s on offer.

Having owned a previous iteration of the Western Digital WD TV Live HD, I had a head start on this one. It’s by far the most pleasing looking of all the high definition media players we looked at, and had no problems reading every storage device we threw at it — USB flash drives, portable hard drives, even card readers.

The user interface to choose what to play is very slick, very suited to big screen viewing with large icons and fonts. You plug in your storage, and the WD TV Live HD plays back pretty much any format under the sun — videos, photos and music.

Just remember that whether you’re connecting to your TV via the standard composite (yellow, red, white) cables or HDMI, you’re limited by the quality of the file you are playing.

The less compressed, high-resolution files will obviously look better — that’s true for all players. Performance is top notch, with never a stutter even when it was playing back full 1080p content. And its ‘Live’ features — the ability to play back content over your home network or from the YouTube channel and Pandora Internet Radio were a cinch to configure.

The only downer — its price. At Rs 10,500, it’s a pretty packet to shell out, and I’d have expected at least wireless capabilities or some free HDMI cables thrown in for good value.

With the Asus !Play HDP-R1 (yeah, wrap you mind around that name!), the larger bulk gives it a sturdy feel, but the heavy use of plastic does tend to take the premium sheen away from the player.

The two blue status LEDs up front are bright, and mildly distracting when you’re viewing them straight on in a dark room. You get two USB ports, one of which doubles as an eSATA port as well. Around the back, you get a network port, along with stereo analogue audio, composite video, optical digital audio and HDMI.

Like the WD offering, this lacks component video, so if you have an older TV which supports only this, you’re out of luck. Switch it on, and you’re presented with an interface that’s nice and intuitive but not as refined as the WD.

Performance is at par with the best in class, save for a niggling video preview while browsing videos. I quite liked the File Copy feature, which lets you copy files between USB/eSATA devices and network locations without booting a PC. Again, there’s no wireless option, which makes this about okay at Rs 9,000 — but the !Play Air, due to be out soon, has wireless support and a memory card reader as well.

And then there’s Amkette. Find the name familiar? Those of us who’ve seen computers through the ’80s and early ’90s will remember Amkette to be a leader in the floppy disk market, which thankfully are a thing of the past today.

The Amkette Flash TV takes a very different approach to the media player business. So, it doesn’t support Full HD playback — it upscales all content to a reasonable 720p resolution. Inputs are via the single USB slot or the SD/MMC card slot, and output via coaxial audio, component and composite video.

No HDMI, as you’d notice. The user interface is basic but clean, and I like the Go to function which lets you skip to a particular point in a video file by just entering the time. Performance is good, with no frame skipping for all the content I threw at it, but it doesn’t support HD MKV file formats.

You’d be very critical of the somewhat low tech approach Amkette has followed until you see the price. At Rs 2,995, the Flash TV is a good 1/3rd the price of the other players, so while you do get what you pay for, it’s not half as bad if you’re not obsessed with getting the highest possible resolution that your TV supports!

Cut your PC power bill

Cut your PC power bill

Did you know that if you used your PC for five hours a day, you have to pay almost Rs 90 extra in your monthly electricity bill? This might not bother till you realise that it is well over Rs 1,000 a year.

I arrived at this figure by studying the CESC website. I found that the charges are over Rs 5 per unit. This “unit” is called a kilowatt hour (kWh) and is a measure of how much electricity is consumed. A 100-watt (W) light bulb used for 10 hours consumes 1 kWh of power.

You too can find out how much power your appliances consume by going to http://www.cescltd.com/cescyou/powerconsumption/powercosumpnet.php.

Typically most desktop PCs consume around 300W, and that is why your power charges average to around to a little over Rs 5 per unit. Add to this the cost of running your printer, scanner, modem, router and any other accessories you have. Hence it very important to find out the power consumption of the new desktop you are going to buy. Ask your vendor to look at the technical specifications of the PC you want to buy, paying special attention to power consumption.

The table below will give you an idea of how much electricity some PCs consume.

The AMD platform clearly requires more power when idle and the power requirement difference is even larger when it is hard at work. At 210W vs 163.5W, there’s a 28 per cent difference between Intel and AMD. Remember that the results cover all other system components, including motherboards’ voltage regulators and graphic cards and every moveable part.

Clearly, the Mac consumes the least energy although it comes with a very high configuration.

Our PCs, especially the powerful Windows–based PC workstations and ordinary desktops, consume a lot of power even when they are idle (which means the monitor is on screensaver mode and a lot of background work, like indexing, is going on).

Power management

A little known fact is that a computer draws almost as much power when it is on standby with a screensaver on as it does when in use. By turning off your PC and peripherals when they’re idle, and by employing the little used power management applet, you can cut energy consumption dramatically — 75 per cent or more (if you use your computer six hours a day). And even if you keep your PC on as a server, you’ll save energy by turning off the monitor when you do not need it.

Offices — with over 100 computers — keen on cutting costs, should following the power management scheme and save thousands of rupees in electricity bills.

To get to your computer’s power-management settings in Windows XP, right-click the Desktop and choose Properties—Screensaver. Click the Power button near the Energy Star icon, and select the Power Schemes tab of the Power Options Properties dialog box. For desktop PCs, choose the Home/Office Desk power scheme.

Even if you mean to leave your desk for 5 minutes, I suggest you insert 15 minutes under ‘Turn off monitor’, and for ‘Turn off hard disks’ select 30 minutes. Let’s face it, you will never be back at your desk in 5 minutes!

The Standby and Hibernate options under the Power Schemes tab too are useful for cutting your system’s energy use.

Here are some of my recommendations to save power:

If you use a desktop, use an LCD monitor. They use lot less energy than CRTs.

Turn your computer off when you're done for the day.

Use a Mac. As I mentioned earlier, Macs use much less energy than most Dell or HP or even assembled computers.

Use a power strip, also known as spike buster, so you can easily turn off all your computer accessories at once.

More power savers:

More and more builders are shifting to LED (light emitting diode) lamps from regular bulbs and tubelights. Unlike incandescent bulbs or even fluorescent lamps, almost all of the energy used by LEDs is converted to light, rather than heat. LED fixtures still cost more than conventional ones, but the energy savings can help commercial projects pay for themselves in as little as two years.

Even televisions and monitors are shifting to LED displays primarily because of the low power consumption, yet are also giving you the bright lights and vibrant colours you require.

Moving to Windows 7

Moving to Windows 7

Hundreds of millions of people use Windows XP. Also, those who have bought Netbooks have preferred to go along with it. But how do you get the much better Windows 7 on your computer?

Migrating to Windows 7 from Vista is easier. All your programs are preserved, files intact, and the computer runs faster. But this is not going to be the case with Windows XP. In fact, it may even be frustrating, tedious and painful.

Microsoft is not allowing any upgrades from Windows XP. They want you to do a clean install. This means even before you upgrade your computer to Windows 7 you have to perform a step that wipes off your hard disk. All your programs, files, settings have to go. This can be done manually or through the wizard on the Windows 7 installation disk. Although Microsoft has provided a saving grace whereby you can preserve your photos, music, documents and other files, it can be quite clumsy. You have to offload them from the PC to an external hard disk. Then when Windows 7 has been loaded on your PC, you have to reload them. You can do this manually or through Easy Transfer, a program Microsoft will give you. But even this will not preserve your earlier programs.

Microsoft asks you to gather those installation files of your old programs and reload them again onto your Windows 7 PC. But who keeps all these files? Most of us delete them after the program has been loaded. Also, the programs have upgrades from time to time.

So what is the solution? Microsoft recommends you buy a new computer with Windows 7 preloaded. Even if the configuration of your old computer qualifies for Windows 7, it is not a great candidate for the new operating system. There have been several hardware changes and Windows 7 must be able to work seamlessly with the new hardware.

Now if you insist on keeping your old PC with Windows XP and moving to Windows 7, you will have to spend about $20 to buy Laplink’s PCmover. PCmover essentially provides the upgrade option that Microsoft does not. With it you can preserve your old programs, photos, songs and other files. It creates a package of all your applications and data and bundles them up on your existing disk or an external hard disk. After you have installed Windows 7, run the PCmover program and it reinstalls all your old programs and restores photos, songs and other files.

PCmover comes in three versions. The $20 option allows you to migrate to Windows 7 on a single computer. Then there is the $40 version that allows you to do almost any thing like moving programs and files from an old PC to a new one. Finally, there is the $50 special version that gives you more control on what is moved. If you are going to be moving your programs to a new computer, the $50 special version is a bargain because it comes with a cable. These cables otherwise cost around $40.

I don’t know why Microsoft makes upgrades so difficult. Apple has had a Migration Assistant for years. If you get a new Mac it will find the old Mac on the same network and move over all your programs, logins and passwords, settings and data.

However, to be fair to Microsoft, moving Windows programs is more difficult than moving Mac programs. Windows programs are scattered all over your file system. Windows has to gather all these pieces and put them together before it can start moving them. So there is a high chance of things going wrong.

New white magic MacBook

Over the last two weeks I have been overwhelmed by queries on how to perform simple tasks on a MacBook. It’s obvious many took advantage of the student discount. The decision to buy a Mac is going to change your digital life forever.

Here are tips to make things easier. First, change your operating system to Snow Leopard. The current version is OS X 10.6.2. Go to any Apple Premium Reseller and get the DVD for Rs 1,800.

Installation is easy. It takes barely 25

minutes and all your programs and files are intact. Also, many people will advise you to partition your MacBook and load Windows 7. Take my word for it: you do not need it. All the software is available for a Mac.

The current entry-level white MacBook, which has a maximum retail price of Rs 56,900, is worth every paise. If you buy from an Apple Premium Reseller (the shops are called Imagine whether you are in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai or Calcutta) you may get it at a lower price.

The configuration? It has 2GB memory, 250GB hard disk and an NVIDIA GeForce 9400 processor. It’s great for games.

The beauty of this new white MacBook is that it gives you a battery life of over seven hours. This means you can recharge it over 1,000 times, whereas other laptops allow only 300 charges. According to my calculations, the battery will last you five years. Not only that, the trackpad is also magical. Here’s how to use it:

One-finger click: The entire trackpad is the glass button, so you have lots of space to click

Right-click: Perform right-click functions by clicking a corner of your trackpad or by pressing two fingers anywhere

Scroll: Use two fingers to scroll up and down or across a page — perfect for long documents and large images

Pinch: Pinch to zoom in and out of photos, change font size on web pages, and more

Swipe: Swipe with three fingers to move forward and back in your web browser or move through your photos

Rotate: Rotate with two fingers to quickly make a photo or PDF horizontal or vertical.

Applications

Swipe down with four fingers to find open applications. Move four fingers to the top to see what is on your desktop. Move your fingers to the left or right to get the application switcher. Then with one finger choose the application you want.

Create PDFs easily

A PDF file is a great way to share documents with your friends and colleagues. In OS X all you have to do is open the print command and save them as .pdf documents. You will find this option in the lower left-hand corner. You can even choose to mail the PDF file or send it to the Web Receipts folder. You will find the web receipts under documents.

Dragging files

When you drag a file to a new location you expect it to be moved. However, if you press the Option key and drag, it will be copied. If you press Option+Command and drag it, an alias will be created. Aliases are created to make it easier to access a disk, application, file or folder. You can create an alias for it and place it in an easy-to-find location. For example, if you use Get Lyrical frequently, you can place an alias to it on your desktop instead of navigating to it each time you need it. When you double-click the alias, the original item opens.

To create an alias: Select the item and choose File > Make Alias. Select the item and press Command+L. You can create as many aliases as you need for a single item, and you can move the aliases to folders or to the desktop.

To create an alias and move it to a specific place: Press the Command and Option keys while you drag the item’s icon to another folder or to the desktop. Release the mouse button before releasing the Command and Option keys.

To find the original item for an alias: Select the alias, and choose File > Show Original or press Command+R. The items you see in the Finder window sidebar are aliases. For example, the Documents folder icon in the sidebar is an alias for the Documents folder located inside your home folder. When you click an item in the sidebar, the original opens. When you drag an item to the Places section of the sidebar, an alias to the item is automatically created and added to the list.