Not many users know the little tricks that can be used to get more out of a simple Google search. Following are the top nine Google search tricks:

1. Use the ‘site:’ operator to limit searches to a particular site. It is particularly handy because many sites’ built-in search tools do not return the results users are looking for and some sites do not even have a search feature. If you are looking for Google related posts from UltraSpectra blog, for example, try this search: Google site:lifehacker.com.

2. Search within numerical ranges using the ‘..’ operator. Say, for example, you want to look for information about any blogs and their progress between 2009 till 2010, you could use this search: ‘Any Blogs’ 2009..2010.

3. Use Google to crunch numbers by using its built-in calculator — try entering a calculation like 110* (654/8 + 3). Yes, your computer also has a calculator, but if you spend most of your day inside a browser, typing your calculation into the browser’s search box is quicker than firing up your calculator app.

4. Get quick currency conversions through Google, simply by typing in the two currencies. For example: Type 5,000 Indian rupees in dollars to get the result. However, it only has the more mainstream currencies.

5. Use Google as a spelling aid. Entering a word into Google is a quick way to see if you have the right spelling. If it is incorrect, Google will suggest the correct spelling instead. Additionally, if you want to get a word’s definition, use the ‘define:’ operator to return definitions from various dictionaries (for example, define: blogging).

6. Use the ‘or’ operator. This can be useful when you are researching a topic but are unsure which keywords will return the information you need. It can be particularly handy in conjuction with the ‘site:’ operator. For example, Google Or ‘Google X’ site:lifehacker.com.

7. Find out what time it is any- where in the world. This one is really handy if you want to make sure that you are not phoning someone in the middle of the night. Just search for ‘time’ and then the name of the city. For example, try: time Washington.

8. Exclude specific terms with the ‘–’ operator. You can narrow your searches using this operator. For example, if you are looking for information about Lifehacker but do not want any discussion related to Google, you could try: ‘lifehacker.com’ – google.

9. Search for specific document types. Google can search the web for specific types of files using the ‘filetype:’ operator. If you are looking for PPT files about blogging, for example, you could try: ‘blogging’ filetype:ppt.

Google Translate marked its sixth birthday on Thursday with news that more than 200 million people use the free online translation service monthly. “In a given day, we translate roughly as much text as you’d find in one million books,” Google Translate engineer Franz Och said in a blog post. “We imagine a future where anyone in the world can consume and share any information, no matter what language it’s in, and no matter where it pops up.”
Och worked at US military research arm DARPA before joining California-based Google in 2003 to be part of a team of engineers ramping up the quality of computer- driven language translations. Google Translate, which lets people paste or type text in an on-screen box to have it quickly converted into a language of their choice, rolled out in 2006 with English, Chinese and Arabic. “We can now translate among any of 64 different languages, including many with a small Web presence, such as Bengali, Basque, Swahili, Yiddish… and even Esperanto,” Och said of the service at http://translate.google.com. Traffic to Translate from smartphones has been growing exponentially, and more than 92 per cent of the users are from outside the United States, according to Google. “What all the professional human translators in the world produce in a year, our system translates in roughly a single day,” Och said. “By this estimate, most of the translation on the planet is now done by Google Translate.”

We have already discussed about the various number system used in computers in previous post. Conversion between various number systems is very important in the studies of Computer. The most commonly used number system is Binary and decimal. In this post we shall discuss on how to convert Binary to Decimal and Decimal to Binary numbers.

To convert a binary number to decimal number system, perform the following steps

1. Multiply each binary digit by its base (i.e 2) with its positional weight.
2. All products are then added to get the decimal equivalent of given binary number.

Example: Convert 110011₂ into decimal equivalent.

Binary number  =  1 1 0 0 1 1

Positional notation        = 5 4 3 2 1 0

=(1×2⁵) + (1×2⁴) + (0×2³) + (0×2²) + (1×2¹) + (1×2⁰)

= (1×32) + (1×16) + (0×8) + (0×4) + (1×2) + (1×1)

= 32 + 16 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 1

Answer = 51₁₀

To convert a Decimal number system to Binary number system, perform the following steps

1. Divide decimal number by the base if binary i.e. 2 successively.
2. Make sure to keep the remainders.
3. Repeat the division process until the quotient is zero.
4. The answer is the remainders written in reverse order ie bottom-up.

Example: Convert 51₁₀ into its binary equivalent.

Answer = 110011₂

Related post under Computer Lessons

• How to convert Binary to Decimal and Decimal to Binary numbers
• Computer Number System
• Application software
• System Software
• An introduction to computer software
• Generation of Computers
• Computer Languages
• Computer's Memory types and function
• Basic computer lessons and training

Installing Windows 7 from a USB flash drive is a great way to install windows 7 into your system very fast. Just imagine small flash USB drive and its convenience over the bulky DVD. The main advantage of this process come when there are no DVD drives on the system that you are trying to install Windows 7 on. Most of the netbook and Laptops now a day exclude DVD drives because it consumes more power and increase the weight of the Laptop significantly.
In this post, I will show you how to make your USB drive bootable just like the DVD.
Things  Required:
I. Minimum capacity of 4 GB USB flash drive.
II. Windows 7 installation DVD.

1. Plug-in your USB flash drive and make sure you have taken backup of datas in USB drive.

2. Open the command prompt with administrative previlage.  Goto Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Right-click on “Command Prompt” and select “Run as Administrator”.
3. Once in command prompt, type this command:
DISKPART

This will start the Microsoft DiskPart.
Now, write this command on the prompt:
LIST DISK

This command will show the list of available disks on your system. Disk 0 is normally the hard disk. In my case, Disk 4 was the USB drive (please note that it can be different in your case). Now give following command:
SELECT DISK 4

Note that in the above command, 4 is the USB drive number on my system. In your case it might be different so replace this number accordingly.

4. Now type these commands one by one:
CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK

ASSIGN

EXIT

Minimize the command prompt and go to the next step.

5. Insert the Windows 7 installation disc and note down the “drive letter” of your DVD drive. In my computer, it is “G:”. Now type the following commands:
G: CD BOOT
CD BOOT
BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 L:(NOTE: L: is your USB drive letter)
EXIT
You are almost done. Now, final step is to copy all installation files from Windows 7 DVD into the USB flash drive.
That’s it. Enjoy your bootable USB drive and let me know if you encounter any problem following these steps.
Final Note: Before you can install Windows 7 via USB drive make sure that your computer allows USB boot. In order to boot from USB drive you might have to change some BIOS setting of the computer where you intend to install Windows 7 via Flash drive.

If you love Windows Operating System and want to use Windows upcoming OS i.e. Windows 8, here are some new things that windows 8 has to offer for us. I have been using windows 8 for a month now and it feels good and user friendly. Here is what I like about windows 8

1. The Metro User Interface is the main difference between windows 7 and windows 8. Metro UI works great and it’s exciting. The classic start menu is replaced by Metro UI and it might take some time to get used to it.
2. Another good thing about Windows 8 is its boot time. Windows 7 used to boot fast but Windows 8 is even faster. Shutdown time is also significantly reduced.
3. Calendar, Weather and Xbox Live games are pre-installed in windows 8 which makes access to these apps very easy.
4. All in one email system makes you life even easier because once you have your email setup, all account can be accessed at once and you get the notification about new email right on your desktop. You can integrate Windows Live email, Gmail and exchange account.
5. Messaging app pre installed in windows 8 will connect you to Live messenger and Facebook chat.
6. Social app displays your Facebook notification right on your desktop.
7. Finally Internet Explorer is worth using. Windows 8 comes with IE 10.
8. File copying dialog box is great with actual data on rate of transfer and graph showing the progress. And new to file copying feature is a pause button which can be used to pause the file copying process.
9. Task manager gets a new looks with lot of information on Memory usage, processor function and disk usages. There are a lot of graph which basically tells you everything about the function and usage of internal devices.
10. Other pre installed apps on metro UI includes maps, skydrive, finance, remote desktop, xbox live and reader.
11. Finally, there is app store where you can download app as you like. Some apps are free and some are not. I have downloaded a few and everything is working great and so far no problems what so ever. At this time apps are limited but I am sure once Windows 8 is officially released; number of apps available will be increased dramatically.
12. I have tried a few software and there is no compatibility issue on windows 8. Everything is running smoothly.
13.  Oh I almost forgot one very important change. Now you will get windows ribbon menu everywhere, I mean everywhere. If you have used Office 2007 you are definitely familiar with ribbons. These ribbons are now available in windows explorer so, it’s everywhere.
14. Windows 8 offer a built in disk image tool which can be used to mount ISO files on virtual drive. (How lovely is that….)

There are tons of new things in Windows 8 but this is as much as I can remember. One bad thing about windows 8 is a missing start menu while Metro UI is active. It will take some time to get used to this lack of start menu which we were addicted to use. But you can switch back to classic start menu style with registry hack but by doing so you will also lose the Metro UI.

Everything was working great and all of a sudden I looked at my battery indicator and bam, it went to 1% and I had just finished recharging my battery. The battery was new so, I thought the problem must be with the windows 7 battery manager. After digging around for a while I managed to solve the windows 7 battery manager malfunctioning problem with these simple steps. I was sure that my battery was fine, power supply was good, and the motherboard was doing its work.

After searching on the internet for a while I found this solution that worked for me. There are many solutions out there but here are the steps that fixed my problem:

1. Disconnect laptop from AC supply
2. Shutdown your laptop
3. Remove battery from your laptop
4. Connect AC again
5. Start your laptop
6. Got to device manager (Right click on my computer, select manage and you should see device manager there). Under the Batteries category situated at the top, right-click on the Microsoft ACPI Compliant Control Method Battery listings, and select Uninstall.
7. Shutdown your laptop
8. Disconnect AC supply
9. Insert battery back
10. Connect AC supply
11. Start you laptop

Please leave a comment if this steps fixes your problem with battery indicator so that others can solve their problem sooner.  Have a nice day !!

Razer Blade

Binary number system: Binary number system is a system which has base of two that is only two numbers (0 and 1) are used in this system. It is the most effective number system for computers because it is very easy to implement this on digital electronics.

Decimal number system: Decimal number system is a system which has a base of 10 that is it used ten digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9). It is also referred to as a denary number system.

Octal number system: Octal number system have a base of 8 ie it uses digits from 0 to 7. Octal number system is used in computing as a simple means of expressing binary quantities.

Hexadecimal number system: Hexadecimal number system has a base of 16. It uses numeric decimal digits from 0 to 9 and an additional six alphabetic digits which are represented by A, B, C, D, E and F.

This is a short introduction to the number system in computers. In next post we will discuss about converting number among various number systems.

Related post under Computer Lessons

• How to convert Binary to Decimal and Decimal to Binary numbers
• Computer Number System
• Application software
• System Software
• An introduction to computer software
• Generation of Computers
• Computer Languages
• Computer's Memory types and function
• Basic computer lessons and training

Application software is self contained and complete set of programs designed to perform a specific task. The main use of application software is to automate time consuming tasks and make work as easy as possible. This types of software makes sure that all required information are readily available. At this time there are thousand upon thousands of application software available in the market. Application software can further be divided into two categories: packaged software and customized software.

Packaged Software: Packaged software is an application designed to carry out specific tasks. Package software can be a single programs or a set of programs for various purposes.They are designed to be user friendly and are made to satisfy the need of many organization or individuals. The most popular packaged software available in the market are Microsoft office (Microsoft office word, Microsoft office Excel, Microsoft office Powerpoint, Microsoft Access etc) and Adobe products (Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Acrobat reader etc).   

Customized software: Customized software are designed to meet the requirement of an individual or an organization. It is created to tackle specific tasks. Customized software are more expensive to make. These software are created on the demand of individual’s need and serves the purpose of an individual or an organization only. For example, if you want to make a record of all transaction happening in your office than you will have to go for a customized software because no other software system available on the market will work well with your office setup and system.

Related post under Computer Lessons

• How to convert Binary to Decimal and Decimal to Binary numbers
• Computer Number System
• Application software
• System Software
• An introduction to computer software
• Generation of Computers
• Computer Languages
• Computer's Memory types and function
• Basic computer lessons and training

Once we think about computer games we think about the bulky desktop PC with huge graphics cards and high power CPU casing. There is no doubt that desktop is perfect for gaming and nothing can match its power but now, we have few system that seems to match up with the power of desktop PC and one added advantage of portability. Here are few laptops that are worth a shot as a gaming laptop

1. Acer Aspire TimelineX AS3830TG-6431: Please don’t get scared by the name. What’s in the name?? This laptop is one of the most powerful laptop out there. Powered by an Intel i5 processor and weight less than five pounds, it is a good choice. One downside is its screen which is just 13 inches but it’s not so bad comparing its price of $800.
2. Dell Inspiron: This laptop not especially designed for gaming purposes but it will do just fine with extra cash. This laptop is powered with second generation Intel core processor. Screen comes in various sizes like 17 inches, 15 inches and 14 inches which you can choose. Starting at just $499 it’s a good deal but you will have to spend some more to make it a good gaming machine. Spending around $900 on Dell Inspiron will definitely make this machine cope with the most demanding games available today.
3. Orion PC EON17-S: This laptop is well known for its excellent graphics and easier over clocking capabilities. Orion EON17-S is a bit heavier on pocket as its costs about $1700 and may get as high as $3600.
4. Alienware M18X: Even though the name is Alien, it’s not that Alien among gaming fans as it is one of the most popular brand. M18X has 18 inch screen and Intel core i7 chip which is the fastest on the market today. The cons are its bulky and not that pleasingly designed for eyes. The starting price for this monster is $1999 and can go as high as $5000.
5. Razer Blade: Razer Blade was displayed at CES this year and looks promising. Razer has replaced the touchpad with a screen and eight LED keys which can be configured by user. This system lacks an optical drive but it comes with 256 GB SSD hard drive and costs around $2700.

So, here you go the top five gaming laptop for heavy gamers. One thing that should be well thought is the portability of these devices. Laptops are supposed to be portable and easily carried around. If you are planning to buy one of these laptops make sure that they have a descent display and low weight. Have fun!

Razer Blade

In earlier post we have discussed about the types of computer software and in this post we shall discuss about the System Software in details. System software is one of the most essential part of the computer system. It  is a set of programs that controls, organizes and utilizes the hardware in a computer and deals with the environmental requirement to execute application software. System software consists of four main kind of programs namely Operating system software, utility software, device driver and language translators.

1. Operating System Software

Operating system software is a master among the system software because it controls all the activities that takes place within a computer. It is used to direct input and output of data, keeping track of files and also controlling the processing of computer. Every OS software performs three basic tasks running application, managing resources and providing user interface. It should be noted that modern OS are more machine independent and are capable of running on any hardware platform. Example of OS software are Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Sun Solaris and some more.

2. Utility Program System Software

Utility software are designed to perform special tasks related to the management of computer functions, file compression,  virus protection, computer files and resources, memory management and password protection. Many utility programs are built directly in the operating system for ease and some other utility programs are to be bought separately. Some main categories of utility programs are disk toolkits, backup utility, data compression utilities and virus protection.

3. Device Driver

Device driver is a set of programs that allows other programs to interact with the hardware. These drivers interact with the device through computer bus or communication system. Drivers are OS dependent so driver for Windows OS in almost all cases will not work with the Linux OS.

4. Translator Program

Translator programs are computer programs that converts human convenient programming code to machine readable language. There is one translator program for each programming language. The three basic kinds of translator programs are assembler, compiler and interpreter.

1. Assembler: Assembler is a translator that converts assembly language into machine readable form. The program written in assembly language is called the source program and the machine language program is called object program.
2. Compiler: Compiler is a program that converts high level language into machine code in a single operation. It generally reports all error of the program at once. After we debug the program, it is recompiled and compiler is no linger needed in memory because the object program is available. Some language that uses compiler are C, C++ and FORTRAN.
3. interpreter:  Interpreter is a computer program that translates high level language to machine language line by line. If there is any error in the program in any line, user is notified about the error and program execution is stopped. Interpreter is considered and easy to user translator and uses less memory. BASIC programming language uses interpreter.

So, this is all about system software and if you are confused about the computer languages, please check out my earlier post.

System Software – Related post under Computer Lessons

• How to convert Binary to Decimal and Decimal to Binary numbers
• Computer Number System
• Application software
• System Software
• An introduction to computer software
• Generation of Computers
• Computer Languages
• Computer's Memory types and function
• Basic computer lessons and training