How long does it take to download movies?

It will always help if you have a fast Internet connection, but your download speed also depends on the speed of the server/source you are downloading a movie from. The following table should give you an idea of how long it would take to download a 700MB file (typical movie download) using your Internet connection under perfect circumstances.

Connection speed 56Kbps 128Kbps 256Kbps 512Kbps 1Mbps 2Mbps 10Mbps

Transfer speed 7 KB/s 16 KB/s 32 KB/s 64 KB/s 128 KB/s 256 KB/s 1.25 MB/s

Transfer time 28 hours, 27 mins 12 hours, 27 mins 6 hours, 13 mins 3 hours, 7 mins 1 hours, 33 mins 47 mins 12 mins

1Mbps is equivalent to 1000Kbps.

Please note that the transfer speeds and times quoted above are based on the maximum speed of your Internet connection. If you're downloading movies from a fast server/source then you might be able to achieve these transfer times, but in general your downloads will most likely take longer.

Protect your computer from Virus or Trojans

1. Use a good anti-virus software:  There are several free anti-virus softwares available which provide good protection to your computer. Some such anti-virus are AVG free edition , Avast , Kaspersky etc.
2. Update Anti-virus virus definitions regularly : Most of users just install the anti-virus and they feel that that's all what is needed to keep the computer safe. But that may not be sufficient. You need to regularly update the Virus-definitions of the anti-virus software to keep them up-to-date so that your computer is safe from even the latest viruses.
3. Run full system scan every week: This is a good practice to run a full system scan using your anti-virus software at-least once in a week. This ensures that nothing goes un-noticed.
4. Scan removable drives for viruses before using: Scan your pen-drives and CDs / DVDs before opening them. 
5. Disable Auto-Play functionality for removable media: 
6. Run Internet Explorer /Firefox in limited mode : If you run Internet Explorer / Firefox with default settings, it has capability to install anything including viruses and Trojans on your computer. 
7. Don't open e-mail attachments from unknown people: This is one of the most common way of virus spreading. Not opening such attachments will save you from a lot of mess.
8. Disable preview mode in outlook / other email clients: We advice to disable the preview mode for Outlook / Thunderbird or other mail clients because of safety reasons. Let me put in simple words, when you open the preview, it will try to show all the content in preview, not even that, it will also try to execute any executable file if it is present as any attachment. So disabling preview mode can save you from such problems.
   

Quickly Launch Windows Control Panel Applets Like Add/Remove Programs, Date & Time, Display Properties

Power users like keyboard shortcuts and commands to quickly access many things in Windows. They save lot of mouse clicks and time. In this post let us see how to quickly launch Control Panel Applets using Run Command window.

Just like any executable program, Control Panel applets can be launched from Run Command window. Each Control Panel applet is a .cpl file located in the folder %systemroot%\system32.

To launch Add/Remove Programs( Programs and Features in Vista ) type appwiz.cpl in Run Window and hit enter.

As the list of Control Panel Applets are very exhaustive we are listing down only few important applets. For full list of applets look for .cpl files in the folder %systemroot%\system32

1. access.cpl - Accessibility Controls
2. appwiz.cpl - Add/Remove Programs
3. bthprops.cpl - Bluetooth Devices
4. desk.cpl - Display Properties
5. firewall.cpl - Windows Firewall Settings
6. hdwwiz.cpl - Add Hardware Wizard
7. inetcpl.cpl - Configure Internet Explorer and Internet properties
8. intl.cpl - Regional Settings
9. javacpl.cpl - Java Control Panel
10. joy.cpl - Game Controllers
11. main.cpl - Mouse Properties and Settings
12. main.cpl,@1 - Keyboard Properties
13. mmsys.cpl - Sounds and Audio
14. ncpa.cpl - Network Properties
15. nusrmgr.cpl - User Accounts
16. powercfg.cpl - Power Configuration
17. sysdm.cpl - System Properties
18. wscui.cpl - Windows Security Center
19. powercfg.cpl - Power Configuration Settings
20. telephon.cpl - Phone and Modem Options
21. timedate.cpl - Date and Time Properties

Note: Few of the above listed control panel applets are available only on Windows Vista Operating system. So few may not execute on your Windows XP.

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How To Quickly Create A Desktop Shortcut Of A Website In IE & Firefox

Creating a desktop shortcut of a frequently visited web site saves you lot of time. In Firefox there is no direction menu option to create a desktop short but Internet Explorer 7.0 allows you to create one by following the menu path File->Send To-> Shortcut to Desktop. This is a traditional way. Now lets see another quick option that works in both IE and Firefox to create the desktop short cut.

1. Open the browser (IE/Firefox) and browse to the page that you want to create a short cut
2. Resize the browser so that you can see both desktop and browser
3. Drag and drop the small icon on the left of the address bar on your desktop. The shortcut will be created.

Now all you need to go to favourite website is to double click the desktop icon. You can even consider assigning a keyboard shortcut to the desktop shortcut icon to launch the favourite in much faster way.

Happy browsing!!

http://www.techdreams.org/

Reclaim Your Hard Disk Space By Deleting Garbage Using CCleaner. I Reclaimed 6 GB+

The amount of garbage accumulated on the computer keeps growing as we install/uninstall applications, updates and browse the Internet. Few application un-installers does not remove all the files properly, application crashes leaves memory dumps, browsing Internet adds media files, cookies and other junk to cache folders. The garbage not only eats up our valuable Hard Disk space but also slows computer performance.

Here comes CCleaner, a free application to rescue our computers by deleting all the unwanted files. CCleaner scans the computer for unnecessary files like temporary logs, memory dumps, thumbnail cache, Internet and other useless files and deletes them permanently with a single click.

When I executed this application first time, I was surprised by the amount of garbage CCleaner identified on my personal laptop. It is 6 GB +. Yes, garbage on my laptop eaten up 7.5% of valuable 80 GB hard disk space. Here is the proof

Apart from deleting garbage from hard disk drive, CCleaner can also clean the registry by removing the unwanted entries.

Very quickly CC Cleaner occupied my list of most frequently used maintenance utilities. I often run this application to make sure that my computer is clean.

With very good intelligence of identifying useful files and very easy to use user interface, CC cleaner makes it a perfect cleaner.

Download CCleaner

Tip: By default CCleaner removes your web browser history, saved passwords, cookies and auto-completion settings. If you would like to keep all your web browser related settings and history, uncheck Internet Explorer from Windows tab and Firefox & Opera from Application Tab of CCleaner.

Note: While installing CCleaner make sure that Yahoo Tool Bar installation is unchecked if you don't like to install Yahoo Toolbar along with CCleaner.

http://www.techdreams.org/

Automate Your Desktop Wallpaper Switching With Latest Flickr Photos

It's probably the most important image on your computer, so do it justice… Here is the very tiny and powerful tool to take your simple desktop wallpaper to the next level!

According to Hitwise, Photo sharing site Flickr is now the 2nd largest photo site behind Photobucket. No surprise then that it's an excellent resource for beautiful wallpapers.

So, we've gathered you up a free tool that can automate the whole process of fetching and decorating your desktop with latest online photos from Flickr.

Settings can be for just about every time setting you can think of.You can pick where you want to choose photos from using the buttons on the left side buttons of the settings window.The tray icon also lets you to pause switching, view all downloaded photos.

Your background can show one image, four images in a 2×2 grid, or hundreds of thumbnails at once. Images can change after a specified number of minutes, hours or days, or even at a specific time of day. And if you have multiple monitors, it can show different images on each display.

Download the Application

http://www.techdreams.org/

Deleted Files Accidentally? Here Are 4 Best FREE Tools To Recover Them.

How many times have you deleted important files permanently or emptied recycle bin, and then had a sinking feeling? I bet we all have done that at one time or other. And I've done that today at work.

But before hitting the panic button, I Googled few minutes and recovered the deleted files. There are many number of free applications that recover the deleted files. But here are the four notable applications that do the job very easily

1. Undelete Plus

Out of all the freeware application that recovers deleted files, Undelete Plus is my choice. The user interface is very simple and straight forward. The excellent grouping and filters provided in the left side panel allows us to easily locate the beloved file to recover.

Download and Install Undelete Plus

2. Restoration

Restoration is an easy to use application that does not even required installation. You can download it and launch the executable file to scan and recover the deleted files.

Download Restoration

3. PC Inspector File Recovery

Even though the user interface of PC Inspector File Recovery is not straight forward and friendly, it is very powerful in detecting and recovering the deleted files. After scanning the drive it presents the deleted files organised as folder structure for easy navigation. From the tree structure you can navigate and choose the deleted file/folder and click on the save icon ( the second icon in the left panel) to recover them.

Download and Install PC Inspector File Recovery

4. Recuva

Recuva pronounced as "Recover" has a step by step wizard user interface to guide the users to locate and recover the deleted files. The basic mode interface is very simple that shows the list of deleted files that can be recovered. When you switch to advanced mode you get options to view information of the delete files and re launch the scanning operation.

Download and Install Recuva

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