Tips n Tricks – Shahab's Space

Reclaim the disk space after Windows 10 installation

So you went away and decided to upgrade your pc to the new shiny version of Windows and now you find your disk usage has gone up just like cost of well everything? A lot of this space is occupied by the installation files that were downloaded for the upgrade to Windows 10 and your previous version of Windows.

So if you’re feeling in love with the new version of Windows and want to to have nothing to do with the previous one, you can do so easily by doing this:

Start >Run > cleanmgr {Press Enter}

Select the drive on which Windows resides (usually C:) and click on OK.

Now click on this nifty button that says Clean up system files. You notice a shield on the button? Can you identify whose sigil is on it? *kidding* . It means you’ll need administrative access to do so. And I’m expecting you do have administrative access to this pc of yours you so want to clean.

Now the Disk Cleanup applet will run in admin mode and will show a lot more options before it was knighted by you.

One of these options will be Previous Windows Installation(s) as shown in the screenshot:

This is the one which is holding you back. These are the files which are required if you want to go back and live with your ex (i.e. Windows installation). If you scroll down, you’ll notice temporary installation files too. You can select them for good measure and click on OK.

Windows will confirm if you really want to burn the bridges :

If you click Yes, the old installation and the temporary files will be removed. It’s like deleting your ex’s number from your phonebook. But can you forget the number?

Last.fm Client for Symbian phones at last ..!

So if you are like me who checks your Last.fm profile to see if the tracks you are listening to are showing up on your profile more often than you check your scrapbook AND you listen to a lot of music on your Symbian v3phone ? Here is a good news for you, now you can scrobble whatever you listen to on your phone to Last.fm. And its a freeware too .. 🙂

So the answer to our prayers is a little application called Mobbler. Just let it run in background and listen to music on your phone and it will do what it says. You can either be online and post to Last.fm in realtime as you listen to the music or you can be offline and it will queue up your songs list and submit it when you go online. Very handy if you are listening to music in Offline profile.

I’ve been using it on my Nokia N73 for a more than a week now and I differed writing this post untill I was satisfied that it really does work. And now you can hear me say that. So if you have a compatible mobile phone, then just download and install it on your phone… And start mobbling .. 🙂

How to access blocked sites

Lemme start this post with a note to system / network administrators who blocks internet access only because they can and they themselves surf the sites unblocked : Information is free and you cannot block it .. People will find out ways to bypass in time .. Now another note to people who wants to access blocked sites : If your school has blocked Orkut, then they have done it for your own good .. Orkut is addictive and you should find better ways to utilize your energy .. And if you want to access blocked sites from office .. Try completing whatever your boss asked you to before reading on ..

And now that the sermon is over, lemme write some tricks to bypass evil administrator’s evil policies to access what they think is bad for you .. 😀 :

1: The domain that you want to access is blocked ..? No problem .. most administrators block the domains by their domain names and they forget there is something called IP Address … 😀 .. Find out the IP address of the site that you want to visit and put it in the address bar and viola .. You can access it .. How to find out IP address of a website ..?? Just Whois it .. 😀 . .. You can use services like DomainTools or NetworkSolutions , Robtex… This works for websites which are on a dedicated server .. So sites like ICICIDirect can be accessed like this ..

2: First trick not working for you ..?? Try WorkFriendly .. It will let you surf the website you want in a Microsoft Word like interface to save you from your boss’s peering eyes .. Or try these language tools :

One more site that I may recommend is Google Mobile Search .. This one is useful when you are dying to find out the score and all cricket sites are blocked ..

3: Second tip is useful for static pages but if you want to dynamic websites like Orkut, you need to use a proxy site… : These are proxy sites that I’ve used and liked :

KProxy : This is the most famous and most used proxy website .. :D.. Goto KProxy and type in the address that you want to surf and click on Surf .. 😀 ..
It wont be long before KProxy will be blocked .. So afterwards try their secure connection.. Most cocky administrators do not block secure sites as they do not know how to block them.. 😀 ..
Y11: Y11 is another secure proxy which isnt blocked by many filters .. Use it while it lasts .. 😀
Fumo2 : Fumo2 is a nice and fast proxy .. And as its url doesnt contain word “proxy” it has less chance of getting blocked .. Fumo2 has some more aliases like BakaAdmin and IpSite.net which you can find on their home page itself ..
IceKeeper : IceKeeper is another great proxy that used to help me surfing Blogspot when it was blocked in my office .. Very fast too ..
LuckyCRM : Found this one searching for proxies online .. Turned out to be a nice one ….
Melap : Recommended by one of my friend .. Nice and fast too ..
CountryCodes : Another proxy that has a deceptive name so less prone to be blocked ..

There are many more .. Believe me, I’ll tell you how to find a new proxy .. 😀 .. First check the next tip :

4: Most of these proxy sites have aliases so you can use the alias in case the main domain is blocked.Here are the aliases to KProxy .. So if KProxy is blocked, try any of their aliases such as wpc1964.amenworld.com … To find alias of proxy sites, goto Robtex , type in the web site that you want to search alias for, click on Go .. In the results page, the address that are listed as ‘a’ are aliases to this domain .. So use these aliases ..

5: Actually this is combination of first and third trick .. Find out the IP address of the proxy website and then use it for surfing .. Simple .. 😛

Now the last one .. How did I get all these proxy websites ..?? 😀 .. I used a simple query on Google which does not include any keywords that will make your system administrator think that you are searching for proxy sites .. 😀 .. But you will get a list of proxy sites that are using PHProxy which is the most common proxy software used on web servers .. and do not worry .. this list is huge .. and will keep on increasing .. 😀 ..

.. .. . . ..

Now that I’ve found a way to vent my anger on evil system administrators I feel relaxed .. I dont see logic behind blocking Hotmail or Gmail or Yahoo which are default email address for most people .. To my readers, I’ll like to request .. : If you are benefited by this write up and / or you know some more proxies or tricks that you use, please leave your comment so that others can benefit .. And book mark this page so that you can find out more updated content .. .. And if you are one of those evil administrators whose job I just made a bit more difficult, how about sharing some tips on how you are going to stop users from accessing blocked sites ..? This will improve both of us .. …

Over and all .. !

Windows Live Mail reveiwed

Lately I’ve been beta testing Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta (what’s with Microsoft and long names ..? And DOS didn’t use to support long filenames .. 😛 ) .. It is an email client which is supposed to replace Outlook Express and shouldnt be confused with Windows Live Mail which is now Windows Live Hotmail (phew … ). Last week Microsoft released a new version of WLMD and renamed it Windows Live Mail . Its still in beta and still I am using it as my default email client. Here is a short review of my experience with WLM:

Some great things about Windows Live Mail:

Interface : First impression is the last(ing) impression .. And WLM scores huge here .. Right from its splash screen, the interface rocks. Outlook 2003 like interface combined with a Vista like look and feel makes it look very appealing. It seems like Microsoft have now understood the value of eye candy plus ease of use in their applications. Filters like Unread Mails, Unread Mails from my contacts makes life so easy.

Supports Hotmail: Now you can check Hotmail (ugh .. Windows Live Hotmail ) using Windows Live Mail. If you are like me who lost the email client support on your Hotmail account some years ago, here is a good news for you .. WLM lets you check your Hotmail account without any subscription involved. I think Microsoft has now changed the strategy and allowed httpmail access to WLH because every other email service is offering it. Before using WLM,I was logging into Hotmail account in three or four weeks .. Now I check it daily ..

Lightweight : Although it sports Outlook like looks and Thunderbird like spam catching capabilities, its very light weight on system. It boots in 2 3 seconds and doesnt put any load on memory.

Integrated Feed reader: This is another feature that hooked me onto this proggy .. I usually check my feeds after I check my email and my email client having RSS capabilities stopped me looking for another RSS clients. The feed reader fits seamlessly in the interface and have all the options that I look for : When I click on links, my default browser opens ( I hate those rss readers which show the link in their own integrated browser).

Security features: Microsoft have improved so much on this front. The spam filter works great and catches most of the spam that I receive. It also checks for phishing messages and alerts when a suspect phishing messages is received. WLM is better in catching phishing messages in comparison to Thunderbird which use to think every mail I receive is a phishing scam.

Integrated blogging and contacts : If you have Live Space account, you can directly post entries to your Live Space from inside WLM. The contacts are synchronized with your MSN / Live contacts and you can choose to receive contact updates (great feature) ..

No nagware : One thing I used to hate about Outlook express was it combined Windows Messenger, MSN Messenger with it . .. And whenever I check my mail, I am automatically signed in to messenger service. And you couldnt exit messenger when Outlook Express was running as it would say “Other programs are using it “. Windows Live Messenger is supported in WLM but it doesnt start by itself nor it is needed when you have to check your contacts. There are no advertisements in the client also .. and it wont add any signature in your outgoing mail like other free / adware email clients. It is reported that the final version will also be advertisement free ..

Some not so great things about Windows Live Mail :

Feed Management : Definitely needs improvement. When you click on Add a Feed, it doesnt automatically pastes the link from your clipboard to add link textbox. Another thing is I dont see any option to make this program my default rss reader.

Blogging : I cant change my blogging platform from Live Spaces to any other services .. So this blogging link is practically useless to me as I dont use Live Spaces…

Cant Import Export Contacts : Thats the worst of things I didnt like .. As contacts are stored on Live server, you cannot directly import or export them .. Too bad if you want to import your Outlook contacts to WLM ..

Cant Import Export Message rules : So if you are going to format your system, you are going to lose all your email filters as there is no option to import or export them .. Blah ..

Cant define my own Search Folders : There are some predefined Search Folders and you cannot edit them .. Either you create some filters and redirect your mails to a folder and then use Search Folders with them .. duh .. Improvement needed here too ..

Conclusion :

Windows Live Mails looks like a very promising application to me .. If they take care of some quirks here and there, and include support for other blogging platforms, this is going to become the best free email client over there..

How never to get lost in Mumbai anymore..

Since I’ve got Lost fever again, I wanted to write something about it but seems I m gonna write something else .. 😛 .. Anyway, here I am going to talk about people who get lost time and again in Mumbai because they are new to the city and / or never remember the stations or bus numbers and / or too lazy to find out .. All the above mentioned qualities are present in me .. 😀

So necessity is the mother in law of plagiarism ( Heheh … that was a good one ) .. I wanted to goto Lamington road to get some computer parts .. But Lamington road is so far from here as Andaman n Nicobar are far from New Delhi .. Some desperate calls to my longtime friend Ashish yeilded some results but that included changing trains or taking train to CST and then coming back by bus .. So much for a lazy brat like me .. Continue reading How never to get lost in Mumbai anymore..

Make the best use of Yahoo!

Are you using Yahoo just for chatting and emailing ..? You are sure missing many nice features provided by Yahoo!. .. This article is an assorted list of tricks I learnt using Yahoo for so many years .. .. Some of them might be known to you, but I’ve found many people who dont know about these features .. This tutorial is for them .. So here it goes . . ..

1: Multiple Profiles:
Did you know you can create as many as 6 profiles of your Yahoo Id ..? This is like having 6 aliases of your one Yahoo Id.. So, for different people, you can use different profiles for communication and nobody can find out your Yahoo email address if you use a different profile.
So, to create a new profile, you have to goto this link…Sign in if you arent already Signed in to Yahoo. ..Now click on Create New Public Proflie link and you’ll be taken to a profile creation page where you can enter the details .. You can create profiles of different genders too .. So if you wanna fool your friend, you can create a girl’s id and chat with him .. 😀 .. When you sign in to Yahoo Messenger, You’ll see a drop down list of your profiles with which you can send the messege ..
Yahoo Messenger Send as
You can login with any of these profiles with your Yahoo password.. (helpful when using a webinterface like Ebuddy or Meebo ) .. Cool na .. ?

2: Extra Mail address:
You can add another email address to your default Yahoo email address.. Consider this case : you created a profile say shahrukh_khan and now if someone sends email to this profile, the email will bounce because there is no Inbox of that address. So if you want to receive email on this address, you can just create another email address within your default Yahoo email address. (You can create only one extra email address on one Yahoo ID) .. To do this, Click on this link
Or
-> Sign in to Yahoo Mail, Click on Options on the top right.
-> Under the Mail Management header, Click on Mail Addresses.
-> Now in the next screen, Click on Get Started link under Extra Email Address header.
-> Choose whatever address you want and click on Check availabilty.
-> If its available, you’ll be taken to an Image verification and then you will have another email address to your Yahoo Id.

You can send emails from this address… Whenever you compose a mail, you’ll get a dropdown list from where you can select the From address. .
Yahoo Mail Compose

3: AddressGuard:
Now this is one feature I love .. ! AddressGuard is a disposable email feature for you to combat spams .. Earlier I used Mailinator for this purpose but Mailinator can be checked by anyone so I stopped using it .. With AddressGuard you can create upto 500 disposable email addresses which you can use for signing up at sites that you consider suspicious .. When you start getting spam on a disposable email address,just delete it and thats the end of it .. 🙂 .. You can even send messages through this disposable email address .. !
To create disposable address, login to Yahoo Mail and click on Options. Under the Spam header, click on AddressGuard link and then follow the simple procedure to create disposable email address ..
(!) AddressGuard feature isnt there in US version of Yahoo mail … so if you want to use this feature, change your Preferred Content to Yahoo India .. To do so:
Yahoo Mail > Options > Account Information { Enter password } > Under the Member Information header, click on Edit and select the Preferred Content to Yahoo India.. Sign out and then sign in again .. .. You should see AddressGuard in the mail options now .. so start using it .. !!

4: Yahoo Search:
Before Google, Yahoo was considered the best search engine .. (well . . atleast I considered it .. but anyways .. ) .. Although overshadowed by Google, Yahoo still provides some great searching options .. Apart from regular Yahoo Search, there is this Yahoo Mindset which is quite inituitive ..
The concept behind Yahoo Mindset is that it will show you results according to your mindset (cant find another word :P) .. It will categorize the search results in two types: Shopping and Researching.. So if you search for Nokia and move the slider to Shopping, you’ll find links where you can buy Nokia cellphones .. and if you move the slider to Researching, you’ll get Wikipedia page on Nokia . .. If you move the slider to the center, you’ll get the normal Yahoo search result … Very innovative .. !
And when we are at it, There is another search utility by Yahoo .. Its AllTheWeb LiveSearch .. It will show search results as you type … very cool indeed .. !
Then there is MyWeb .. You can save your search and share it with your contacts .. I dont feel very comfortable using it .. But you might wanna try … 😀 ..

5: Flickr
Now this is for those who dont know what Flickr is .. Those using it must be knowing that you can login to Flickr with your Yahoo Id … Now to the others .. Flickr is one of the best photo sharing websites and it was taken over by Yahoo a while ago .. So now you can sign in to Flickr using your Yahoo Id and merge your Flickr account with your Yahoo id … Those who havent ever used Flickr should try it .. You’ll love it …

Now I am really tired writing all the stuff .. I hope it will be usefull to you ……. .. Keep visiting . !