Guest post by Elisabeta Ghidiu.
Time trackers have been more and more popular these days in different ways if you choose to use them on your computer at home or at work. These applications allow you to have a general view over the activities performed in a specific day and see the achievement level. Here is a list with the most used time trackers -

Image by Temari 09 under CC

Paid Time Tracking Applications

1. Achive Palnner – is a Windows time management software that capture, organize and manage all your projects and tasks in one central place. After you organize the projects, you have the possibility to prioritize them using ABCD priority system.

2. Cyclope Employee Monitoring Software – is a time tracking software that records your activity without needing you to introduce dates. It provides information about how much time you (or your team) have spent on different activities in a specific day or a specific period of time (week, month or period defined by you). You can find out total active hours, overtime periods, total time spent online, idle time and the top of the most used application. The application can also generate productivity reports, which allow you to check how much time you spend on a productive/unproductive application. This time tracking software helps you refocus on important tasks. Online demo available here.

3. Chrometa – is a great time tracking software that captures every second and you don’t even have to enter dates. The application allows you to view activities from days, weeks or months before. You can set reminders, organize your work and export the dates into a Microsoft Excel workbook. A nice feature is the possibility to organize your time by dragging records into client or project categories. Online video available here.

4. Dovico – time tracking software is not just another time tracking software. This application can help you can increase project profitability allowing you to compare budge vs actual time and costs. It’s a complex application but even so it’s easy to use and it takes only 15 minutes to learn improving your time management skills. Online video available here.

Free Time Tracking Applications

5. Klok – is an easy-to-use personal time tracking software with a very nice interface. The application will let you know how much time you spend on past projects and allows you to better estimate future projects.

6. Maniac Time – is not just tracking your time spent on a specific project but tracks which applications you use and presents them in an easy to understand way. More than that it is tracking your computer usage showing you how much time you were idle or active.

7. ProjectHamster – works like an agenda, allowing you to schedule your day and to track the time spent on a specific activity. The application provides some statistics of how many hours you have spent on what and the reports can be exported to some suitable format or printed out.

8. Rachota – is a time tracking software developed having in mind 3 ideas: planning work, work your plan and analyze your time data. Compared to other free time tracking software, this one seems more complex providing beside the standard features – HTML report generating, history view of activity, tasks prioritizing and compared view for specific users.

Web-based online time tracking software

9. 1TimeTracking – is a paid web based time tracking software that provides a wide range of features. The application is perfect for managers to track costs for specific projects and to find out which employees are maximizing their billings and track the profitability of each. What makes this application different from others is that users can now update and view their timesheets while out of the office via their mobile phone or cell phone.

10. ClickTime – is a simple time tracking software but its great advantage is the compatibility with Mac, Windows, or Linux. More that that, the time tracking software has a Mobile Edition for PDAs & Smartphones in order to keep you up to date with your tasks even when you are not at your computer.

11. My intervals – is a paid web-based project management software that combines the time tracking with task management providing data reporting. A specific characteristic of this software is the Theme feature. This will enable you to personalize the intervals so they can match your palette and workflow.

12. SlimTimer – is free and easy to use. It is so easy that all you have to do is to enter your name and tasks for a specific day. After the task is completed, you can click the checkbox to mark it off. Even if the application does not provide many features, it allows you to run reports or to export any report to CSV (Excel), subscribe to its RSS feed or email it to a colleague.

13. Toggl – is a web based time tracking software that can be embedded into a specific Internet application like iGoogle, Netvibes, Gmail, or in your own company intranet. The application provides both paid and free versions, depending on chosen functionalities and number of users. The application has nothing special compared to other applications but it provides real-time performance charts and reports for the whole team.

14. Time-Assistant – time tracking software has so many features embedded that will provide detailed information about a project or about the person working on a project. Beside the time tracking features, the application includes calculation of expenses and multilanguage support (English, French, German). Time-Assistant is web based timesheet software with time track and payroll automation. Online demo available here.

Beside the fact that all time tracking software are design to track your activity, each of them has its specific features trying to make you more productive and to better suit your needs.

This guest post was written by Elisabeta Ghidiu, who is interested in online privacy and security solutions. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite web services.

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Here are some best tips, tricks, tactics and strategy moves for playing the Monopoly City Streets game. Follow these practical tactics and rise on the Monopoly City Streets Leaderboard quickly. I have been addicted to the game since it started.  Here are some quick tips to succeed….

1. Buy extra long streets - Buy super long streets above M$5 million as they are the best way to make more money on Monopoly City Streets. Longer streets are expensive, but have higher rents values. Moreover, you can build a huge amount of property than smaller streets, and earn a really huge rental. Buy the longest streets you can afford, get lots of real estate on the street and see the rent accumulate rapidly. There are many $10 Million streets out on the highways, find them now – zoom out and look for the red “for sale” signs.

2. Small buildings earn more rent - How do you decide which building to build? Have you seen why so many players build so many small houses instead of big buildings? Firstly, the multiple small  houses pay a better rent than one building of the same value e.g. the smallest house costs $50000 and also earns a rent of $50000, while  a huge million dollar building will cost much more and give much lesser rental. Secondly, many people try to block all placements on their street so no one can put hazard buildings on their street. So what is the disadvantage? Your streets earning potential is limited as smaller buildings give less rent. As you grow richer, sell these houses and replace with more expensive buildings to increase rent.

3. Don’t sell sabotaged streets - So you login and find your street is sabotaged with a hazard building. Don’t worry and keep expanding your network, maybe even build more. Don’t panic and sell the street for a really low price, just because it makes no rent. Just by chance, a demolish chance card may come along , and make your street high rental back again, or simply place a bonus building and the effect is nullified.

4. Buy 5 streets – Don’t just stick with very few streets. If you have 1-2 long streets, with hundreds of buildings which earn a huge rental, and you get a hazard building, all your rental stops. If you have several high paying streets, at least most of the rental continues, and you have  a better chance to stay active and get chance cards, till you free the street. But dont buy more than 5 streets as tax starts after that at rate of 3% per street. So if you buy 38 streets, your rental is zero! Buy upto 5 streets and pay no tax.

5. Put more bonus buildings on special streets – Instead of scattering all your bonus buildings on multiple streets, secure your highest earning street with multiple bonus buildings. Players will never waste their demolish cards destroying multiple bonus buildings, and then getting a sabotage building in place, unless you have made real enemies with them. More bonus buildings discourages people and send them finding some other street.

6. Keep low profile - No one cares you build your empire in the heart of the most populated city or on the outskirts of a lonely city no one ever heard about. Its the long streets and properties which matter. And if you can quietly develop your empire, and save it with bonus buildings, and keep getting the huge rents without getting sabotaged with hazard buildings you will rise very fast. So keep a low profile and don’t fight for that street in front of your house. Its great to rise on the local leaderboard with only a few players, and while you make it to the national leaderboard, you are way ahead.

6. Don’t make enemies – How will you react if someone sabotaged your most pricey rent street with a hazard building? I am sure you would retaliate and sabotage all their streets given the first chance. You have  an option to discard (not use) a sabotage card if you get one. So think twice before using a hazard card – don’t make unnecessary enemies. Just as you got this card, they will too. But if you are going to do it, spot your competitors on the leaderboard and get them. Why not make friends and rise together.

7. Build more houses – If you observe closely, the huge rental income comes from the property you build on it. Simply buying a street does not give you any great income. The more you property you build, the more the property value rises, more rent  you get and more your net worth becomes. As space on you street gets limited, you can sell cheaper buildings and put  more expensive buildings to increase street rental. So the longer street you have, the more it can earn.

8. Pay no tax -  There is no sense in accumulating needless streets. Only keep and build on your select great streets. Once you cross 5 streets, you have to pay 3% tax per street. So if you have 38 streets, you pay 100% tax which makes you no rental income. Stick to 5 streets and pay no tax.

9. Follow top players - Learn what the top players on the winners ladders are doing and how they make those millions so easily. See how they have so few streets, so much property, all the Chance cards they need, and how they keep rising on the charts. Follow them and learn from them. See which streets they just sold and which players they are spying – you could get a good deal.

10. Login every day – You get rent only if you login daily. No login, no rent for the day. So losing the precious millions of monopoly dollars simply because you did not login, is a total waste of money and a sure chance to fall from the leaderboard. Even if you dont play, but simply keep logging in, your streets will keep earning huge rental. Be warned that if you forget to login for 2 weeks, all your streets are gone!

11. Fill up streets – Don’t leave any empty space on your street, instead fill it up with houses. People with hazard cards, will first need a demolish card to remove  a building to create space, then place a hazard building. If your street is full, they will go elsewhere. If you have a long street, you can fill with cheaper houses.

12. Find inactive players – Find players who have low activity and bid to buy their expensive streets. The rule is if they do not respond to your request in 7 days, you win the street however ridiculous the price! Once you find low activity players with long streets, send your request – and you might just get them. Add them to your spy list. There are many players losing interest and the smart players are watching.

13.  Add bonus buildings on sabotaged streets -  So your street is sabotaged with a hazard building and stops earning rent. Don’t keep waiting for a demolish card to remove the hazard! Instead place a bonus building on the sabotaged street, and the the rent starts even with the hazard building still there!

14. Get more chance cards - Although it is still not clear how Monopoly City players get more chance cards, here are a few things which worked for me -  Place buildings at streets ends, place lots of buildings on streets, place clustered buildings at intersections, show lots of activity which increases your chances of getting chance cards.

15 Demolish competitors bonus buildings -  So you want to stop your competitor, but they have bonus buildings on the street. Did you know you can demolish these bonus buildings too and make their  most costly street vulnerable to hazards. Once any street is vulnerable, anyone can sabotage it. So do they have multiple bonus buildings? Keep reducing their number, and eventually you or some other competitor might sabotage it eventually.

And here is the most important tip -

16. Have fun - Don’t be afraid to sell your worse streets and bid to buy better streets. The game of monopoly is  not about sitting on long streets and grabbing rent, its about trading and playing the game to have fun. If you are earning millions, but not enjoying the game – then you need to sit up, trade, make friends, sabotage streets, spy more and get more active and actually enjoy the game – after thats what it is all about – FUN!

What are your favorite strategies in Monopoly City Streets? Post in comments.

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Guest post by Elisabeta Ghidiu.
How to unblock websites? These days, Internet filtering and controlled access is the new trend. More business owners are implementing filters within their companies with the purpose of blocking websites. Their intention is understandable but, on the other side, people love freedom and sometimes they feel mistreated. However, here are some things you can do that will help you bypass filters and unblock websites.

Image by kirl lau under CC

How to Unblock Websites

1. Use web proxies.
Many free online services allow you to access blocked websites through a proxy server. A proxy server is an intermediary between the user and the server where the request was send. Here is a list with the most known resources of web proxies: Proxy.org, HideMyAss.com, Kortaz.com, KProxy.com and Anonymouse.org

2. Use VPN connections.
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is like a tunnel over the public network. The advantage of using VPNs over web proxies is that VPNs are more secure because they are using advanced encryption and allow you to access all the applications (mail, chat, browser etc) in complete anonymity and not only the web sites. The most known free VPN is Hotspot Shield.

3. Use Hide IP software.
These are easy to use and even if the main functionality is to hide IP address and unblock websites, there are applications that can provide you more than that – like cleaning online tracks, testing proxies, manually adding proxy etc. Usually if you choose a free software, then this will provide you a minimal number of proxies and no other features than hiding IP address. Not My IP is one of the latest free hide IP address software that has already gained a large market followed by the old UltraSurf which is already very popular. Regarding paid applications that provide more features and have a complex structure, my recommendations are IP Privacy and Hide My IP.

4. Use Toolbars and Firefox add-ons.
Toolbars and Firefox add-ons are in fact software applications that work on specific browsers and with a simple click you can enable or disable online anonymity.

5. Use translation services.
Introduce the link of the blocked website in the translation field (for example in Google Translator) and choose a random language to translate from because translation from English to English is not supported.

6. Use Google cache.
In the Google search field type cache: before the URL of the blocked website. For example type cache:http://www.domain.com

7. Use Internet Archive.
Internet Archive allows you to view blocked websites through the Wayback Machine. This will retrieve all pages of a specific website indifferent if the website is blocked.

8. Use Web2Mail service.
Web2Mail it is a free email service that can sent to your email address specific web pages. You sign up for an account and get set to receive specific websites by email.

9. Change the http of an URL into https
This is the  easiest way to access blocked websites. Of course, this might not work every time but you have many other solutions also. This is the fastest one.

10. Use IP address of the website instead of URL.
To use the IP address of a website instead of URL, you must first find its IP. To do this open command prompt and type: “ping domain.com”.

WARNING: Now, that you have so many methods to choose from, it is up to you for the purpose you use them for. Please remember that ONLY YOU are responsible for your activities and we take no responsibility for the same.

This guest post was written by Elisabeta Ghidiu, who is interested in online privacy and security solutions. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite web services.

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I present to you my list of 10 most useful free Twitter tools for bloggers that we use daily and find of the most practical use in our blogging routine. I am sure you too would want to grab all these tools for your blog. Check them out.

Best Twitter Tools for Bloggers

1. Twitterfeed – This amazing tool will let you publish updates from any RSS feed to your Twitter account. You can decide how frequently you want Twitterfeed to check your feed updates and how many updated articles to post to Twitter so that you dont overwhelm your twitter followers with tweets. If you follow us on Twitter, you know we direct our blog feed, photoblog  feed,  new jobs feed, delicious feed all via Twitter feed and keep updating our Twitter account automatically.

2. Tweetdeck - I know there are lots of Twitter desktop clients out there. For one fact, Twitstats says Tweetdeck is the most popular Twitter client in the market. Next it allows you to keep control of multiple Twitter profiles and keep regular track of your tweets, profile mentions, replies and direct messages – all on one screen. For me, it is the best way to keep using Twitter like a pro. Another popular alternative is Twhirl.

3. Twitpic – Simply put, TwitPic lets you share photos on Twitter.  Now most popular Twitter clients have inbuilt support for Twitpic. This a valuable addition to make your tweets interesting. If you want to share videos, its worth taking a look at Twiddeo or Vidly.

4. Tweetmeme Button – this nifty button has emerged as the most popular way to get your articles retweeted. Supporting various blogging platforms and websites, a Tweetmeme button is the best way to get retweeted and make your article go viral across Twitter for extra site traffic. We use the Tweetmeme Wordpress plugin on our blog and you can spot the green retweet button on this page and our feed.

5. Twitter Counter - is a statistics tools which allows you to show off your Twitter followers count on your blog. It will also show you how rapidly your followers are increasing (or decreasing!) over the week or months. See how our Twitter follower counts looks like. You can also add their Twitter Remote widget to your blog sidebar for more interaction. If you really want to look for the most popular twitter users, catch them Twitterholic.

6. Wickett Twitter Widget – As seen on many blogs on WordPress.com, it displays tweets from a Twitter account in the sidebar of your blog.  It is by far the easiest, lightest and best way to add Tweets to Wordpress. Here are more tools to integrate Twitter with Wordpress.

7. Twitter Search Widget -  Official Twitter widget which provides a cool custom interface to display your own profile search results in your sidebar. An excellent way to show how popular you are on Twitter as hundreds of your profile mentions and replies scroll across your blog every second. There is an official profile widget also if that suits your need better. Here is an official Twitter badge for Blogger.

8. Twibbon – lets you add a logo of your website or a cause you support to your twitter profile avatar. This also enables your supporters to add the same logo to their profiles and show support for your blog or cause and is great to develop a community of supporters and get lots of publicity.

9. Twitterberry – is a popular Twitter client for Blackberry mobile phones. It helps me stay connected with my Twitter account anywhere in the world and on the move. I can access my Twitter followers, get replies and post tweets without my computer. My friends with Iphone and ipod Touch will like  Twitterific or Twitterfon. Other mobile phone users can check the official mobile version of Twitter.

10. Twitbin – is a firefox extension that allows you to keep up with all of your Twitter conversations right from your browser sidebar. This really helps you stay connected with your followers while you are busy blogging. Or open Twitter 100 in a tab and keep following latest tweets from 100 followers on one screen.

What are your most useful tools which you use on a daily basis? Post in comments and I will add to the article. Image by mark.benton

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Guest post by Ishan.
Download Size: 35 MB! Does this line make you think twice before downloading a software? These days, many softwares have grown large and people on slow internet connections have to spend a lot of time to download them. For example, OpenOffice.org is a good alternative to MS Office but it is 300 MB + in size! It will take around 6-7 hours on a normal dial-up connection to download it.

Free Small Light Software

In this post, I will introduce you to 10 softwares that are small, lightweight (in terms of download size as well as system requirements) and Free!

1. XMPlay Audio Player: XMPlay does not have fancy skins like Winamp! It does not support loads of audio formats. So, why am I mentioning it here? Because of its download size! It’s just a 305 KB (Yes, that’s “KB”). There is no setup, just unzip and play. It can remember last played song, playlists and equalizer settings. It also supports plugins and skins that you can get from official site. Download XMPlay.
2. Opera: Opera is not just a browser, it’s a complete web suite. In just 6.6 MB download, you get a full fledged Web Browser, Mail Client, RSS Feed Reader, Chat Client, Download Manager, Notes Manager, Opera Link (Online Synchronizing Tool for Bookmarks, Notes and Speed Dial) and a lot more. For slow connections, Opera 10 also has Turbo feature. It can speed up loading of web pages by compressing the images and scripts. Download Opera.
3. Free Download Manager: As name suggests, FDM is a Free Download Manager! It uses multiple connections to download files faster and has support for BitTorrent, YouTube video downloading and FTP. Download size is 6.39 MB.Download FDM.
4. Miranda IM – Miranda is a multi protocol chat client that supports most major services like GTalk, Yahoo! Chat and MSN among many others. You can extend it easily with add-ons. Download size is 2 MB. Download Miranda
5. AbiWord: AbiWord is a small and lightweight text processor. It is a good alternative to Microsoft Word and supports .doc (MS Word) and .odf (Open Office) formats among many others. The download size is 5.6 MB. Download AbiWord.
6. IrfanView: IrfanView is a light image editor that is only 1.3 MB download. You can easily convert images to different formats, perform basic fixes to photographs and crop and resize them. Download IrfanView.
7. BlogDesk: BlogDesk is a free offline blog editor that supports most major blog platforms (except Blogger.com). It also supports basic image editing. For more, you can read BlogDesk review by me. Download BlogDesk.
8. Foxit PDF Reader: Foxit Reader is a great alternative to Adobe Reader. It also uses less resources. Download Size is 5 MB. Download Foxit Reader.
9. CCleaner: CCleaner helps in keeping your computer clean by removing useless Registery Keys. It also lets you manage Start Up programs. It is just 3.2 MB download. Download CCleaner.
10. IOBit Smart Defrag: This software automatically defragments regularly used files when your computer is idle. You can also manually defrag your files and folders. Download Size is 2.98 MB. Download IOBit Smart Defrag.

These were 10 small softwares that can help you a lot. If you have any suggestions or similar softwares that can be easily downloaded on slow connections – Please tell us through comments.

Guest post by Ishan Sharma, who blogs about blogging tips and resources on Blogging With Success blog. If you liked this post, check out 101 Free Tools And Resources for Bloggers on his blog. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite software.

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Guest post by Srikanth
Convert your favorite audio file or an mp3 to iPhone ringtones? Here are some handy applications which enable you to create iPhone ringtones from different audio formats MP3, WAV, WMA and MP4 etc., for free.

Create Your Own iPhone Ringtones

iRinger: Free iphone Ringtone Maker Software. It allows any iPhone user to customize their iphone ringtones. It’s a handy ringtone maker solution that does not require any ” jailbreak” for your iphone. You can customize the ringtones with a variety of features supported by iRinger. It runs on all the versions of Microsoft Windows including Windows Vista. It requires iphone firmware 1.1.2 or newer, iTunes software 7.5 or newer, also works with the new iphone 3G.

ToneShop: Free iPhone ringtones maker (Windows). ToneShop is an free software utility which allows us to make ringtones from MP3, WAV, WMA and MP4 audio formats. It’s very simple to use, just we need to select the input file, define the audio snippet you want ringtone of and select the desired output format according to your cellphone. Using ToneShop you can create ringtones in MP3, WAV and AAC formats. The Apple iphone M4R (AAC) format is the latest addition to it. ToneShop Works on Windows 2000, XP and Vista PCs (32 bit and 64 bit)

imTOO: iPhone Ringtone Maker for Mac. It provides an easy way to create iPhone ringtones from video or music and transfer it to iPhone directly. This Mac iPhone ringtone maker software supports converting almost all video/audio formats and trimming video/audio to make the most colorful clip as your iPhone ringtone.

Xilisoft: iPhone Ringtone Maker for MAC. Xilisoft allows us to convert music files like WMA, RA, WAV, M4A, MP3 formats to M4R iPhone Ringtones. It even allows you to convert file formats like AVI, WMV, DivX, MP4, AVCHD, MKV, RM, MOV and MPEG to M4R for making background music as your iPhone ringtone. You can also create ringtone clip from any video/audio and turn it into iPhone ringtone. It allows you to transfer ringtones to iPhone directly and set as iPhone ringtone after iPhone ringtone creation is done. This ringtone software provides several interface languages to choose like English, German, Japanese and Chinese.

Garage Band: Create free iPhone ringtones using Mac. Apple introduced a simple and free way to create and sync your own custom ringtones to the iPhone using GarageBand. Download and install the latest update of GarageBand. If you’re using a song from your iTunes library, just open GarageBand, open iTunes, and simply drag and drop the song from iTunes to a new track in GarageBand.

Fission: Create iPhone ringtones. Using Fission, you can crop audio down to your desired snippet, fade the ends in and out and save all in just a few clicks. Add the files to any phone that accepts MP3 or AAC audio files for ringtones. Fission can edit AAC and MP3 files without any loss in clarity. It’s always been great for creating ringtones.

Guest blogger Srikanth writes on Tech Inspiration blog about tips, gadgets, and technology. You can write a guest article and share your favorite tools too.

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Guest Post by Srikanth
Many applications allow you to share desktop and remotely access your computer. Using these applications you can control your computer from anywhere via the web. These applications work well over the system firewall enabling you to control your computer securely. Remote access applications are very useful to share files and hardware. You can even control your computer from your mobile using some of these applications.

If you hold all your business files, presentations, photos and music files in your computer and you are staying away from home – You do not have to carry your computer with you, just install any of these applications and you are sure to see the things that are present on your computer as if you are sitting right in front of your computer. Here are some of the coolest remote access applications that allow you to do just what you want.

Best Remote PC Access Software

1. GoToMyPc - This is one of the popular remote access applications. It automatically configures itself to your computer and you can access your computer from anywhere in the world with a computer running on Windows, Linux or even Macintosh, you can also control your computer with a Windows enabled mobile device giving you the freedom of access and control. Data transfer between the computers is encrypted with AES using 128-bit keys and password protection giving you maximum security.

You can even use hardware like printers and other hardware devices to print documents. To share files and folders between systems, just drag and drop the files or folders across the screen to share them.

2. LogMeIn - You can try this application if you are looking for a free remote access application to control your computer or remote desktop viewing. Using this application, you can access your computer from virtually any browser or from any wireless devices that can access internet. LogMeIn free version does not support file sharing and hardware sharing or remote printing but LogMeIn Pro does support all these functions.

Using this application you can organize a mini meeting with group of friends, business meetings or office meetings on the net. You can listen to the songs saved on your computer and synchronize clipboard with the remote computer. It has the feature to chat between connected computers. You can even reboot or reconnect your computer, and it works even in the safe mode. All the data is encrypted for maximum security and detects any intrusion via SSL/TSL. Works on Windows and Macintosh systems.

3. TeamViewer – This is another application for remote accessing your computer. This application allows you to control any computer through web – all you have to do is run the application on both the systems. You can use this application to give business presentations to your partners or customers. By drag and drop, you can easily transfer files between computers. This application will work just fine with any kind of firewall and you need not make any changes like port forwarding. Security is no longer an issue using this application, since all the data is encrypted and has standard SSL. From the web, you can access a remote computer with ease.

4. PCnow – If you are looking for a remote control application and online backup service then pcnow is for you. This application works on any Windows and Mac systems and you can also remote access computers through web from Windows and Mac systems and even from your mobile. You can also invite a friend to assist you with the computer or to share your desktop remotely. Now you can control your hardware’s like web cams and printers using this application so that you can see what is happening at your home or print documents remotely. High security features like SSL, TSL and data encryption are available. It supports file transfer and sync computers. You can also listen to music on your local PC from the remote computer.

5. Radmin - This application is completely compatible with Windows Vista. It has high-level security using 2048-bit key size. Your data is securely transferred between the computers giving hackers no chance. It works at high speeds, it automatically adjusts with change in the internet speeds. It supports text and voice chat so you can stay in touch with the people on your network. Just drag and drop files to transfer files between computers. Using this application, you can have multiple connections at a time and control remote computers in real time.

6. Anyplace Control – This utility gives you the freedom of controlling any computer from virtually anywhere in the world with a computer that has internet access. You can view the desktop of the remote computer on the local computer using this application. It’s very easy to use and install. Supports file transfer by drag and drop method and you can even print documents using printer on the remote computer. It works even on the systems running on a dynamic IP address. Using this application, you can even turn on a remote computer using Wake-On-LAN technology.

7. Remote Computer Access - This software allows you to access and control your computer from any other computer that is connected to the web or you can control computer on local network. This application supports multiple connections at a time and you can access remote computers in real time.

You can also set different work modes like view only, which allows users only to view the contents on the computer. It has a high-level security. You can even shutdown remote computer or reboot and even log off remote computer from any local computer. This application works through the firewalls and gives you a high resolution view with detailed color.

Guest blogger Srikanth writes on Tech Inspiration blog about tips, gadgets, and technology. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite web services with our readers. Photo by momentmedia (under CC)

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Guest post by Elisabeta Ghidiu.
How can you access blocked sites and cross web filters? Many people deal with controlled access to specific websites. This happens especially in some countries where Internet censorship is applied and people’s access to specific websites is restricted. Also, these days more and more institutions, schools and companies are implementing this type of software on their computers. But Internet filtering is not a problem because there are many tools and methods that enable you to bypass filters and to unblock websites.

Anonymous Web Proxy

One of the most popular methods is using a web proxy. An anonymous proxy server is an intermediate between your computer and the server you are requesting the information. Although this is an easy way it’s not the safest one. Even if the server does not have your information, the intermediate has it so you are not completely anonymous. The advantage of this method is that there are many free web proxies available over the Internet.

The most known resource for web proxies is Proxy.org. The list contains proxies all over the world, it’s periodically updated and provides link to specific web proxies in a random order. Due to the fact that the proxies are listed randomly, the chance of getting an over used proxy is considerably decreased. Other important resources of free web proxies are: Hide My Ass, Anonymouse.org, and Proxify.co.uk.

Hide IP address software

The second option is to use hide IP address applications. There are simple applications where with a simple click you can enable anonymity, or complex application that allows you to add manually proxies into the list, which will allow you to test proxies in advance and even clean cookies and temporary internet files. To be sure that the application suites your needs you should test the trial first and see how many proxies they have and from which countries.

The most known free hide IP address application is TOR Project. The application suits best to advanced Internet users because the configuration is not very simple. Other applications that are easy to use by anyone are: Ultra Surf, Anonymous Surfing, IP Privacy and Not My IP.

VPN connections

A third way used to unblock web sites is through a VPN. A VPN is a Virtual Private Network that is constructed by using public wires to connect nodes. A great advantage of these systems is that they use encryption and other security systems so only authorized users can access the network and the data cannot be tracked. Hotspot Shield is the most used these days and it’s 100% free. It creates a virtual private network (VPN) between your laptop or iPhone and our Internet gateway blocking snoopers, hackers, ISP’s, or other person from viewing your web browsing activities.

An important aspect that users must take in consideration is that before changing the IP address you must know what type of address your computer has. If you have a static IP address than you have to call your ISP and ask them to change it while if you have a dynamic IP address than you can apply any of the methods above.

This guest post was written by Elisabeta Ghidiu, who is interested in online privacy and security solutions. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite web services. Photo credit like oh so zen.

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Guest Post by Srikanth
Looking for common chat acronyms, smileys and emoticons? Micro-blogging and text messaging are the hottest trends now a days with the up come of websites like Twitter, Facebook, etc., which allows you to post short messages limited in number of characters. To make the most of the available characters, using short forms of words, acronyms and emoticons is a brilliant idea and most of the people use these short forms in chatting and IM’s.

While you are chatting online using an instant messenger or via SMS you need to work out your fingers really fast on the keyboard to keep up with the chat. By using short forms and symbols this task is really easy but most of the users do not know the meaning or which short forms to use. Online gamers also use these short forms to stay in contact with their friends.

SMS & Chat: Acronyms, Smileys, Emoticons

Herein are the most used short forms and symbols in chatting.

Guest blogger Srikanth writes on Tech Inspiration blog about tips, gadgets, and technology. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite tips.

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Guest post by Srikanth.
Which is the best RSS feed reader? With the ever advancement in the internet technology, every day many new blogs, newspapers, magazines and others sites are coming up with latest news and articles. It is very difficult for anyone to follow each and every favorite site individually to know the latest updates in respective sites.

But, with the introduction of the Feed readers, you can know easily when a site updates its contents or adds any new article in it. All that you have to do is subscribe to the feed of the website using any of the Feed readers and get updates of all your favorite websites at one place. These applications are known as feed readers, RSS readers or feed aggregators and there are varieties of feed readers are available like the Web-based and client software which are desktop applications.

Herein is the comparison of popular desktop feed readers and web-based feed readers and their analysis.

Comparison of Web-based Feed Readers

Google Reader is a popular feed reader. If you are using Gmail service which is also from Google then you would like the Google Reader since you can login to it using your Google account. Google reader interface is very simple and all the features are easily understandable. With the folders option you can read and group your subscriptions easily and the keyboard shortcuts enable you to browse through the reader on the fly. If you have come across some interesting article in the feeds, then you can easily share it or email the article to your friend via Google Reader. It’s simple yet powerful interface makes it one of the best feed readers.

Bloglines is another popular feed reader with the support to publish any of the clippings or posts to your blog. You can create a blog directly from this service and manage your feeds and blog at the same time. The user interface is simple with all the useful tools available at hand. With handy keyboard shortcuts you can browse through all of your feeds without even using the mouse. You can group all of your favorite feeds under playlist options such that you can get to the desired feed easily. If you would like to comment on an article, click on the comment link that is present at the bottom such that you will be redirected to the comments page of the article. Bloglines can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection and it is compatible with all modern web browsers.

NewsGator Online - is another popular but simple feed reader that is web based. If you are using some another feed reader and want to migrate to NewsGator you can do this easily with all of your old subscriptions by importing the OPML file. By clipping any of the posts in any of the feeds you can add tags or send the post to your friend easily within the browser. You can also rate the articles or posts such that NewsGator will bring back more related posts to you. There is also a desktop edition of NewsGator so you can sync the web edition with the desktop edition such that the changes you have made will be saved on both. [Note: Newsgator is discontinuing use of NewsGator Online at end of August and you'll need to transition your subscriptions to Google Reader].

Netvibes - is a simple feed reader and you can choose this service if you are looking for a basic feed reader. It brings you the latest updates or popular posts across the web. You can also see your friend’s subscriptions and share your favorites with your friends easily. With the help of the widgets you can do more than just viewing your feeds.

Comparison of Desktop Feed Readers

Desktop feed readers offer much more functionality than web based feed readers. Using these clients you can easily view your feeds and know the latest updates from your favorite websites. You can also get alerts when a website that you have subscribed has an update and view the update immediately. Although you cannot read the posts directly in the client, they will be opened in the browser when you click on the link of the respective post.

Blogbridge - is one of the popular desktop feed readers which allows you to manage all your favorite feeds. It is developed using Java, such that you can run this application on any platform that supports Java. This feed reader allows you to easily manage hundreds of feeds and it is very useful for you if you are a journalist or you are interested to know what is happening in the world of internet.

FeedDemon - is the client from NewsGator which allows you to use the account created on NewsGator. This is a windows only feed reader, so you can use this application when you are working on your computer and you can use the web version when you are working on other computers such that your account details will be in sync always; so you do not lose any changes that you have made.

RSSOwl - is another cross platform feed reader that can run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux computers. This is one of the special feed readers that allows you to search for the related posts across the web and you can also search using the keywords in your feeds. You can also generate PDF/RTF/HTML files of the documents of the posts in your feed easily. Easily email a post to your friend directly from this application and you can translate RSSOwl into many languages.

Feedreader – is one of the oldest feed reader application that is present from around 2001. You can create smart feeds in this application such that it will bring back all the related posts to them. If any of your feed item contains attachments or podcasts it will automatically download them such that you can view them offline. The interface of this application is very simple and you can add subscriptions easily and it also supports drag and drop. This application is fully customizable such that you can change the view or change the way feeds are displayed to meet your requirement.

Guest blogger Srikanth writes on Tech Inspiration blog about tips, gadgets, and technology. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite tools and services.

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