No Its Not a Router : Cerberus INDIEGOGO - The Mini PC

The Desktop market has recently seen lot of changes. While Laptops are being replaced by Tablets, PCs are being replaced by All in one or boxes with really small form factor. Small is the new bug currently in the PC market. There is greater demand for Computers which take up less space and can be hooked to a HDTV and can also be used for editing spreadsheets if required. We have recently seen companies like Alienware and Lenovo making the shift towards smaller form factor. If you are one of those who does not have too much space at your house, you would love this device.

If you take a close look at the device, you might think that this is a router. But do not let the looks fool you. It is a fully functional Computer. This can perform any task that you throw at us, you can connect it with your TV, add a Keyboard and mouse and you have a fully functional PC. Cerberus is an all in one solution which allows you to:

• Stream movies and TV shows from the web, any source, anywhere, any time
• Access your email, your work content, run all your PC Productivity Apps such as MS Office, CAD, Web Design, Photo Editing, etc
• Read, Update and Post your Social Content, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc
• Play games with your friends, on-line or local multiplayer games, on any PC supported game platform, including Chrome Apps, Windows 8 Apps, and more
• Share your content at Gigabit speed to other TV's and devices including tablets and phones anywhere in your house
• Store and serve up content from the internal 500GB Hard Drive (expandable up to 2TBytes), or use the internal Solid State Drive (expandable up to 480GB) for Ultra-Fast Access, or both!
• Wide-spaced USB ports let you use those fat dongles that don't fit anywhere else.
• Add a Blu-ray Player/Recorder via USB3 or Network Attached Storage via Ethernet
• Add a Camera and Stereo Mic for HD Video Calling on the big screen (and show off those new bunny slippers you got for your birthday)

The rig is powered by AMD 2Ghz Quad-core processor with 4 GB of RAM. It also includes a Desktop Class 3D GPU for a solid mid-range PC gaming experience. Port selection includes  two USB 3.0, two USB 2.0, two HDMI, Ethernet, and audio jack. For Internet, it has High-Speed Network Access via 802.11AC Gigabit Wifi (backward compatible with 802.11b/g/n) along with Gigabit Wired Ethernet

It supports Linux/Windows (8.1/8/7) and Chrome OS and the size enclosure is 153mm x 110mm x 38mm (6" x 4.33" x 1.5").

Excited? They are currently holding a crowdfunding campaign to fund and market the PC. you can also be on board. The Base model costs $599 but for $999, you cna get it two months ahead of scheduled Aug 2014 delivery date. Interested? Check out their Link

Google Chrome -101 Useful Shortcuts to Boost productivity

Most of us are now using Google Chrome as our Primary Browser. In very short time it has become the most used browser overtaking Internet explorer. Most of the shortcuts of Firefox or Internet explorer work on chrome as well but chrome has certain other tricks as well. So read this to learn about all the chrome shortcuts and increase your Google Chrome's Productivity

Watch ASCII Star Wars in CMD(All windows Vesrions)

Star Wars- Whether you are a fanboy or not, no one can miss the fun of watching star Wars! Getting bored @ Office or @ home. Why not watch a Star wars movie? Well whats the fun in that? It is the same movie with aliens fighting each other for galaxies and such stuff. There is nothing new in it. But wait, have you watched an ASCII( American Standard Code for Information Interchange) version of Star Wars and that too in Windows using telnet. A word mostly linked with computer wizards. Well if you have not, then you must do it now!

There is a complete copy of Star Wars done entirely in ASCII characters that you can watch in the Windows operating system (or any OS that supports telnet). The only thing required to watch it is an internet connection; speed does not matter.

To watch it on Windows XP,

1. Go to Start, Run.
2. Now type "telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl" without the quotes and press Enter.
   

On Windows 7 and Windows Vista

Telnet is turned off by default in the latest versions of Windows. So, in order to watch star wars, you must first enable telnet by going to Control Panel › Programs › Turn Windows Feature On or Off and ticking both the telnet check boxes. After doing that, follow the steps given below:-

1. Go to Start, Search.
2. Type telnet and press Enter.
3. In the following command prompt window, type "o" without quotes and press Enter.
4. Now type "towel.blinkenlights.nl" without the quotes and press Enter.

Note: In all versions of windows, you can start any service by using the Command net start in Cmd. So, for starting Telnet you can simply write net start telnet and press Enter.
To stop the service, use net stop telnet
If you do not need telnet anymore, you can turn it off.

Protect Your Data: Best Backup Softwares

 There’s nothing worse in the computer world than losing all of your hard work – like your documents and projects – or your collection of fun – like your music and movies. You can do a lot to protect these files of course, but sometimes hard drives do fail. In those moments having a backup is crucial. Also, Viruses, Worms or Trojans can corrupt your data and in extreme cases, may cause Hard disk Crash. 

One of the best ways of keeping your data secure and safe from Trojans and Malwares is installing good Anti-virus. But what to do if your computer is affected and your free antivirus is not able to remove it, then only one option lefts i.e. formatting your hard disk. Before formatting you should take complete backup of you hard disk. 

• Software to Backup UR PC

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Why do you need backup software? If you ever have a hard drive fail, or are hit with an impossible-to-remove virus, a complete backup of your files, drives, and operating system is the simplest way to return things to normal. Not having backups is like flying in a combat zone without a parachute.You can use Freeware backup software to automatically take back up of your computer without the need to worry about the manual ways of doing it. These Backup Programs takes the backup of Files or any Drive or whole Computer and restore it back to its original place. Here are some of the best Backup software reviews We Recommend:

Norton Ghost: 

The Hassle free Software. Norton Ghost helps you back up your whole hard drive – or just selected folders – to another partition, a networked drive or an external storage device. Creating backup copies in Norton Ghost is really easy. The program runs a step-by-step wizard the first time you launch it, which walks you through the process and provides you with all the available options.Norton Ghost can also create an exact copy of your hard drive (with all the existing files, programs and settings). When backing up the whole drive, Norton Ghost will also create a restoration point that will enable you to recover your system in case something goes horribly wrong. As efficient and easy to use as it is, Norton Ghost requires just one thing: patience. Backup copies can take a long time, so you should probably leave the program running in the background while doing something else – or even better, schedule backups to take place when you don't need to use the PC.

Comodo Time Machine

Comodo’s got a pretty sweet collection of free software out there, from antivirus to firewalls to backup software. In the backup space they have two main offerings: Comodo Backup, a sync based solution to the problem, and Comodo Time Machine, which offers an all-encompassing solution similar to Time Machine on a Mac.

Which of these solutions you want depends largely on whether you want a single backup of your files – in which case you should go with Comodo Backup, or an all-encompassing backup of your system including software, in which case Time Machine would be the better fit for you.

DropBox

While not strictly intended to be a piece of backup software, Dropbox does a pretty good job at making sure all your current projects are safe. Here’s how: keep all the projects you are currently working on in your Dropbox. These files will not only be synced to every computer you’ve installed Dropbox on, it will also be synced to the Dropbox servers. This means your current work is instantly backed up to all your machines as well as to the cloud the second you save it.

So while Dropbox may not be a complete backup solution, it can make a great supplement to an old-fashioned hard-drive backup

Macrium Reflect

An award winning disk cloning and imaging solution for free. Protect your personal documents, photos, music and e-mails. Backing up your computer shouldn't be a tedious task. Macrium Reflect Free Edition makes file backup incredibly easy thanks to its intuitive user interface and helpful wizards. Recommended if you want no trouble at all. It also has a nice Freeware version which is also great.

Create Invisible Folders in Windows

Here is one interesting Trick for all version of Windows(Xp and Later). By this trick you can create true Invisible folders on windows- Folders which neither have image nor icon. And remember, we are not talking about simply hiding the folders. No need to hide folders here. Here is step by step instruction on how to do it.

Invisible Folder in Windows

Step 1 : Select any folder (or file) from your hard Disk that you want to rename. Best effect would be if you select one folder from Desktop.

Step 2 :For Next step make sure your computer has a NumPad. All Desktops an Most modern laptops have them. In case you don't have them, make sure you use Onscreen Keyboard. You can use Windows+U key combination and activate onscreen Keyboard

Step 3 : Now right click on the folder(or file)  and choose Rename option. You can also use F2 to quickly do so.

Step 4: Now on the  Rename screen Enter Alt + Nupad 255. This means keep holding down alt key and press Numbers 2,5,5 from the number Pad. A blank space will be created.

Step 5 :Now just hit Enter and the nameless file or folder will be created. The file or folder that seems nameless is actually named with a single space as '255' is the Ascii value of a blank space.

Step 6:Now, till now we have an Folder but no Name but still an Icon. Next stip would be to hide even that!

Hide your Folder's Icon

Select the folder and right click on Properties. Select the Tab Customize.

Step 7. On the Customize tab, Select change Icon. You'll see number of Icons. Scroll to your right and you will see a few blank icons. Select on the Blank icon and click ok.

 

Voila! Now you have an Invisible Folder on your PC.

Note: If you want to access that folder, you can do so by selecting Ctrl+A. It will make the folder visible. However, what i prefer is keeping the folder on desktop and remember its position. Then if you hover your mouse over that position, you can access that file. Here is a screen shot of my desktop with the invisible folder. One picture shows the complete invisible folder while other shows how you can access it with Ctrl+A option. Enjoy!

Invisible Folder on Desktop