GuidetoTech

1. Writing and sending articles to article directories.

2. Leave comments on other blogs with a backlink to your site.

3. Answer people’s questions about answers.yahoo.com.

4. Post in forums and have a link to your site in your signature.

5. Write a press release and submit it to PRWeb:: The Company’s online visibility.

6. Advertise your website in the appropriate category on 302 Found.

7. Giving an impartial testimony about a product / service to be used in exchange for a backlink to your site.

8. Create a blog and submit it to the 100’s of free blog directories.

Well if You need any more tips please use comment form below to ask…

DI reader Suresh Telu has a Lenovo laptop that came pre-installed with Windows Vista Home edition.

He plans to install Windows XP on the computer but wiping off Vista completely may void the laptop warranty.

Suresh is therefore looking for an alternate solution where he can install and dual boot Windows XP alongside Windows Vista.

It is possible but before you install Windows XP over pre-installed Vista, here are some important points to consider:

1. You should have a licensed copy of Windows XP.

2. Read your warranty document carefully or consult the customer care to make sure that warranty remains valid when you install a second OS on your computer.

3. You’ll need to create a separate partition (or overwrite an existing one) for installing XP . Make sure there’s enough space on the hard drive.

Now head over to PronetWorks and HowToGeek for a detailed guide on installing Windows XP on your pre-installed Vista laptop. It’s a bit geeky method but nicely illustrated at both the places

The latest security threat to your Windows operating system is a computer worm called Conficker that has already infected over 9 million PCs worldwide with maximum victims in China, Brazil, Russia, and India.

Conficker first disables system services like Windows Automatic Update, Windows Error Reporting, etc. and then connects to a web server from where it downloads additional malware onto the victim’s computer. The worm also attaches itself to certain Windows processes such as svchost.exe, explorer.exe and services.exe.

Prevent Conficker on your Windows machine

To prevent Conficker virus from infecting your Windows computer, you first need to disable the AutoRun feature. This can be done by downloading and installing certain updates manually for Windows XP or Windows 2000. Windows Vista users can skip this step as this is taken care of via automatic updates.

Now click Start, Run and enter gpedit.msc and click OK.

Under Computer Configuration, expand Administrative Templates. Now for Windows XP, click System and for Windows Vista, click Windows Components then Autoplay Policies. In the Settings pane, right-click Turn off Autoplay, and then click Properties.

Click Enabled, and then select All drives in the Turn off Autoplay box to disable Autorun on all drives. Click OK and restart the computer.

Here is a list of Top 5 Images hosting services which gives you free storage space for photos and videos for your blog and website.

They are as Follows :

Flickr:
Flickr is a Yahoo owned company which it acquired 2 years back. Flickr is now one of the most preferred sites for online sharing of photos. For a free account in Flickr, you have a limit of 100 MB per month for uploading. This actually depends on the bandwidth and not on the actual size of the photos. You can also opt for a pro account which comes for $24.95 per year. Flickr provides widget which can be integrated with your blog or website. Flickr is also the award winning photo sharing site.

Photobucket:
Photobucket is another popular image and video sharing site. The free account gives you 1GB space and a monthly bandwidth of 25GB. Photobucket Pro accounts are available with no Ads, 5GB storage, Unmetered bandwidth, 2240×1680 image size, 10 min videos, FTP uploads. Premium support, Enhanced widgets and a 10% discount on prints.

Picasa Web Albums:
Picasa Web Albums is owned by Google. You can sign in to Picasa using your Google account. It offers 1GB free space and if you need more space there are lot of plans suited to your needs starting from $25 USD per year. Picasa is also available in 18 different languages. Picasa is software that makes it easy and fun to view, organize, edit and share the digital photos on your PC.

Imageshack:
Imageshack provides an easy to use image hosting service. You don’t need to have an account with Imageshack to host your images, you can upload the images and save the links to images for viewing. Regular registered accounts are also available to arrange images according to albums. Imageshack is popular because of its ease of uploading photos. Most of the major image types are supported by Imageshack.

Yahoo Photos:
Yahoo Photos is one of the oldest in image hosting services. You can log in Yahoo photos with your Yahoo account. Yahoo photos is closing down soon to make way for Flickr.

Many times we see how Poor photographic condition make a Good Photo turn bad or even worse.So…
What we have here is 11 best Free Picture/photo editors, which you can use for editing Your holiday or Party pics like a professional… Just try these Out !!

Not so many years ago, we had to excuse ourselves for the red eyes, vampire style, everybody had in their photos. Do you remember how we had to wait in front of a great cathedral, in order to take a photo without embarrassing tourist heads at the bottom? Photo editors were then expensive, so not everybody afforded one. The situation changed lately, with more and more open source programs and other freeware things made available online. I’m presenting you a few choices of free photo editors which can help you improve your pictures and make them look more stylish:

1. GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)

GIMP is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages, and their official site contains a lot of tutorials and a list of books.

What you can do with GIMP (these are only a few of its capabilities):

• Change the size of an image
• Make jpegs smaller
• Crop images
• Transform images: flip, rotate, apply a perspective
• Remove red eyes (there’s a special tool only for that)
• Transform your photo into a pen and ink watercolor like image
• Make simple animations

2. PhotoPlus 6
Offered by FreeSerifSoftware, PhotoPlus 6 is an easy to use photo editor, with a nice interface. It has a number of built in functions which will make it very convenient for people who don’t know anything about photography editing:
Creative tools for enhancing your images: paintbrush, airbrush, clone, smudge and erase, plus adjustable brush settings (size, shape, softness and fade).

Layer Effects: by using the layer manager, you’ll make changes to your images without affecting the originals.

Digital Darkroom: this function allows you to adjust brightness, contrast, sharpness, color hue, saturation and will also help you remove the annoying red eyes.

The Deform tool: rotate, resize, skew, reshape and add perspective to any selection or layer.

Text: add your editable, deformable text to images and further enhance it with drop shadows and bevel effects (if you are a fan of these effects).

Animation: you can create animated GIFs

Web Images: you can divide images into individual sections that can be clicked on to link to other web pages and websites, just like text hyperlinks. PhotoPlus 6 creates also the HTML code you need to insert to have your web page working.

Export Optimizer: you can simultaneously view up to four previews that display the relationship between image file size and quality, making it easy to decide how to save and export images for every purpose.

Quick Shapes: big range of speech bubbles, starbursts and spirals, all customizable.

3. VicMan’s Photo Editor

Using Photoshop compatible filters, VicMan’s Photo Editor is a good choice if you think that at a later stage, you’ll want to go into professional details and tricks. The software offers a wide range of filters and effects, handy tools for color selection and management, and even the possibility to create caricatures, or to refine your images using gamma correction tools.

Amongst the effects you can apply to an image (or to a part of it at your choice) there are: Twirl, Seawave, Fingerprints, Fish Eye, or built-in distortions like skew, slant, twist, slice or dice.

4. Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition 3.2

Both photo organizer and editor, Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition offers all the functions required for fixing the flaws of your photos. Using its organizer features, you can find any photo in a snap with automatic organization that lets you view all of your digital photos in one place using a familiar calendar view. However, this would not be my choice of software, because of its aggresivity: I did not pay too much attention at installation, and I have activated a feature which attempts to collect and organize picture files from any CD of USB key I insert into my computer. Not being able to spot at once how to deactivate this thing, I uninstalled the whole application, because I want to be the one who decides when and where and how to import pictures into my computer (which is quite old and has limited storage capacities).

5. Picasa

Free photo editor and organizer from Google, Picasa offers pretty much the same function as other free photo editors do, plus the capability to share your photos with others through email, prints and on the web. Picasa’s Basic Fixes are buttons which allow you to crop, remove red eye, or fix the contrast and colour. 12 new visual effects are available, plus, you can fine-tune your photos with Picasa’s EXIF display. This window shows you all the camera data that is stored in a picture’s original file – such as camera model, date the photo was taken, even if a flash was used. The EXIF display also has a RGB histogram, a real-time graph that shows the intensity of colours in your picture and how they change when you make edits in Picasa.

6. Paint.net

Open source and free, Paint.net has all features of a good photo editor. Many special effects are included, from blurring, sharpening, red-eye removal, distortion, to noise and embossing are. The 3D Rotate/Zoom effect makes it very easy to add perspective and tilting. Paint.NET includes a curve tool for drawing splines or Bezier curves, a Gradient tool, the popular Magic Wand for selecting regions of similar color and the Clone Stamp, which allows you to duplicate areas of an image at your choice (this is how you can get rid of electricity wires on your beautiful skies, for example).

7. MyImager.com

The difference between this photo editor and the previously presented ones is that myImager is an online tool. This means you don’t have to download and install anything on your computer, in order to get your photos fixed. It has a lot of predefined effects which you can apply to your pictures, but I found it rather uncomfortable, because when I did my first wrong move, it took me some time to figure out how to undo it (it’s simple after you see where the button is). Besides, all those moving advertising banners managed to distract me. However, I see myImager.com suitable for situations in which I cannot use my own computer, such as from hotel lobbys or from internet cafes. If you want to blog about yout travels while you are taking them, this is a good choice to get your photos adjusted before you publish them on your blog. The maximum size of the photo files is 500kB.

8.

Auto-Photo-Editor
This is a shareware software for your batch photo editing converter. It allows you to convert multiple photo/image files at the click of a button. You can batch resize, rotate, stamp text on your images and convert format to others. You can set up your computer to run the batch file on a schedule and leave the routine image processing tasks to Auto Photo Editor. This is very useful for people who like to send their photos by email and see themselves in the situation to work hours to reduce the size of those photos one by one.

Auto Phto Editor works only with Windows 98/ME/2K/2K3/XP/Vista. If after the trial period you decide to buy it, the basic version costs $49.59, which the PRO version costs $69.95.

9. IrfanView
IrfanView is a very fast, small, and compact freeware (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista. Some of its features are:

• Slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD)
• Show EXIF/IPTC/Comment text in Slideshow/Fullscreen etc.
• Support for Adobe Photoshop Filters
• Fast directory view (moving through directory)
• Batch conversion (with image processing)
• Multipage TIF editing
• File search
• Email option
• Multimedia player
• Print option
• Change color depth
• Scan (batch scan) support
• Photo editing and effects (sharpen, blur, Adobe 8BF, Filter Factory, Filters Unlimited, etc.)
• Capturing
• Extract icons from EXE/DLL/ICLs
• Lossless JPG rotation
• Many hotkeys
• Many command line options
• Many PlugIns
• Only one EXE-File, no DLLs, no Shareware messages like “I Agree” or “Evaluation expired”
• No registry changes without user action/permission

10. PhotoFiltre Studio
PhotoFiltre Studio is an image retouching program which allows you to do simple or advanced adjustments to an image and apply a vast range of filters on it. The toolbar, giving you access to the standard filters with just a few clicks, makes PhotoFiltre Studio quite intuitive and easy to use. PhotoFiltre Studio also has layer manager (with Alpha channel), advanced brushes, nozzles (or tubes), red eye corrector, batch module and lot of other tools.

11. Cellsea

This is an online photo editor which lets you edit pictures with the file size up to 10MB. Very easy to use, providing a tabs-based menu, Cellsea has all it takes to fix your photos and share them with your friends (the email send and the Flickr upload built-in options save you precious time).

Whatever you choose, if you think that later on you could advance to professional photo editing, it would be better to buy your professional photo editing software from the very beginning. Do you know why? Because once you get used to the menus of a particular software, you’ll find it very difficult to accomodate with the new ones. This happened to me when I switched from Macromedia Fireworks to Photoshop: although basic commands are the same, the differences are enough to drive me crazy. I wish I started directly with Photoshop (if you can’t afford it, you could consider Photoshop Elements, which costs less than $200).

What photo editor do you use and how did you choose it?

ImproveYourImages.Com does just what the name says. If you’ve got photos that look less than fantastic, fix them up on ImproveYourImages. It’s a simple tool which gives you several options. You can restore colors, correct color temperature and adjust for poor lighting. To get started, upload an image from your computer or open an image from the web by entering in the URL.

ImproveYourImages will automatically fix your Image — you don’t have to do anything. Once your picture has been improved upon you’ll be given the option to download it. It’s that simple and it’s absolutely free too.

ImproveYourImages is an automatic quick fix. And it really does work. All those poorly light, obscure, off color pictures of yours can now be fixed in thirty seconds. It’s extremely easy to use and it doesn’t cost you a cent.

Links : Go to ImproveYourImages.com

Are you using Firefox browser? There are many ways to make Firefox work faster; perhaps you have ever read many tips on the internet to make Firefox faster. Well, now i will share a tip to make your Firefox faster; that is with installing Tweak Network Add-on. It is very easy to get Tweak Network Add-on; you just need to download it here.

Microsoft has released Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) Beta and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2) Beta as an update to Windows Server and Windows Vista. Now testers can try the new software update to see the difference.

Microsoft has released these through a Customer Preview Program (CPP) launched on TechNet and is intended for technology enthusiasts, developers, and IT Pros. For most customers, they advise waiting for the final release. Remember Windows Server 2008 SP2 Beta and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Beta is a prerelease software and provided for testing only. Microsoft will collect information about the installation process, even if the installation is not completed.

Download Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Beta now and see what goodies are in store. Since Service Pack 1 is a prerequisite for installing Service Pack 2, ensure your system is running Service Pack 1 before you install Service Pack 2. Download Windows Vista SP1 (which you should have got by now anyway) if you want to try SP2.

Windows Vista SP2 Beta fixes specific reliability, performance, and compatibility issues and has some new features like

• Adds Windows Search 4.0 for faster and relevant searches.
• Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack supporting recent Bluetooth Technology.
• Ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively.
• Adds Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify Wi-Fi Configuration.
• Enables exFAT file system to support UTC timestamps, which allows correct file synchronization across time zones.

You can check the new hotfixes and security updates in Windows Server 2008 SP2 Beta and Windows Vista SP2 Beta before downloading the update. For support issues you can visit the TechNet forum.

Now everyone can download Windows 7 software. Though you can install this full featured version of Windows 7, it carries the beta tag and is recommended for testers and developers who experiment with new software, test new features and give feedback to improve the software.

Install Windows 7

Firstly they recommend you don’t install the Beta if you cannot troubleshoot your own PC problems and Microsoft will not not provide technical support for the Windows 7 Beta. Also if you have only one main computer, don’t install the Beta on your primary home or work computer. You might be interested to take a Windows 7 tour before you get started.

Before you start, you should be prepared that the beta tag is for a purpose. You will need technical skills to install Windows 7 and should know hot to burn an ISO file to make an install DVD, install Windows, backup and restore your PC and set up a network.

Once you are sure you have those technical skills, check your computer specifications to know if your computer can install Windows 7. You will need a 1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor, 1 GB of system memory, 16 GB of available disk space, support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128 MB memory, DVD-R/W Drive, and internet access. Here is a quick guide to install Windows 7 easily. You might also want to take a look at how to dual boot Windows 7 with XP or Vista. You can also install Windows 7 on Macbook Pro using Boot Camp.

Remember the Windows 7 Beta software expires on August 1, 2009. To continue using your PC, be prepared to reinstall a prior version of Windows or a subsequent release of Windows 7 before the expiration date. As new bugs are fixed, new beta versions will be released and setting your PC to automatically check for updates through Windows Update, will help to keep your version current and bug free. Read the release notes.

Download Windows 7

Download Windows 7 Beta now and experience the next generation of Microsoft Windows. The 32-bit version of Windows 7 Beta is available in five languages: English, German, Japanese, Hindi, and Arabic. The 64-bit version is available in English, German, Japanese, and Arabic. When you download the Beta you’ll be given a product key to activate the Beta within 30 days and this product key will work on three separate computers.

Though the Windows 7 Beta was available for a limited time to the first 2.5 million people who download the software only, the overwhelming response forced them to remove the download limit, and now anyone can download Windows 7 Beta inspite of the number of downloads they clock till January 24, 2009.

Windows 7 beta is available for download, but you must install antivirus software to protect and secure windows 7 from viruses, worms, trojans and malware. 3 popular software companies have release Windows 7 compatible antivirus software for immediate download.

Kaspersky Lab has released a technical preview of Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Windows 7. The technical preview is a complex solution for securing computers running under Windows 7 and the prototype includes an antivirus component with a fully functional firewall and anti-spam filter. Its also includes a heuristic analyzer, which detects and blocks as yet unknown malicious programs. There is a direct software link out there.

Symantec has released Norton 360 Version 3.0 Beta, which claims to be compatible with Windows 7. It is free to try out after you fill a form with your country name, email and accept the terms of usage; a product key reaches your email inbox instantly.

AVG has released special antivirus versions for Windows 7 for both AVG Internet Security ($54.99) and AVG Anti-virus ($34.99), but both cost money. I prefer AVG free, but it still does not support Windows 7, but I hope it will soon.

If you downloaded Windows 7, download antivirus software too to keep your computer free from viruses.