Reduce Email Spam by Changing your Name

Reduce Email Spam by Changing your Name

If you are a email use who gets huge amount of SPAM regularly then its time you need to find out of the most important reason behind it. If you have read the title of the post it clearly indicates one of the best solution for controlling SPAM which is delivered to your email address.

According to a latest report the spammers start spamming people using mailing lists and these generally are hosted on Alphabetical formats because of which the email address starting with ‘A’ would get 15% more email spams when compared to the spams recieved by emails started with the letter ‘Z’. This is the reason i was recommending you to change your names if you need a better email box.

Its also recommended to use a ‘DOT’ or ‘Underscore’ in your email name because this can also add some less chances of email spams which are sent on dictionary attack.Try out with 2 new emails starting with ‘A’ & ‘Z’ and check out which gets more SPAM.

How to Convert HTML file to PDF

You must be wondering how it is possible. I was thinking the same until I came across this helpful little site.

First of all you download the software from Print driver. Then you will have what is known as a “Universal Document Converter.” It is the technology of virtual printing. It is cutting edge software which is able to change the format just like that. Simply follow the 9 quick steps to convert the HTML file to PDF and boom – you’re done. You will hardly have to use your brain. It does everything for you.

Recovering Deleted Files on Computer

It happens to even the best of us. No matter how careful we may be with managing stored in our laptops and desktop PCs, there is always that inevitable day when we hit the ‘Delete’ button by accident and realize that all of your files have already been erased. Whether it is due to your hard disk crashing because of a computer virus or just plain bad luck, there is no need to panic!

Contrary the belief of most people, deleted files from your computer are not completely deleted and can, in fact, be retrieved for as long as you know how. In case this does happen to you, here are some tips you can follow to recover those important deleted files from your laptop or desktop PC.

Check the Recycle Bin
If you had hit the ‘Delete’ button by accident while browsing through the files in your folders, the file or files are first stored into the Recycle Bin located on your desktop. Simply double click on the ‘Recycle Bin’ icon in order to view the contents. Once you have located the file that you have accidentally deleted, right click the icon and select the ‘Restore’ option for the file to be reverted back into the original folder.

Don’t Store Everything in One Place
When a computer virus corrupts your hard disk, oftentimes the only remaining option for you is to reformat your entire hard disk drive. Unfortunately, by doing so, all your files would eventually be deleted and would not be retrievable. As such, it is highly advisable to make duplicate copies of your files and store them either in another computer or better yet in a CD. So, while your computer may need some professional help and repair to be done by an experience technician, you would still be able to retrieve these important files using any other PCs. Another option would be to back up these files on online storage websites that are available over the Internet. Apart from backing up and storing copies of important files that could be later retrieved using any laptop or desktop PC, these sites provide additional perks such as virus scanning and cleaning for your files which will protect your computer especially if you are not sure if the files have been corrupted by the virus that caused your hard disk to crash in the first place.

Invest on a File-Recovery Software Program
There are now a number of file-recovery software programs that are available in most computer stores and over the Internet. While these programs may be rather expensive, the long term benefits of being able to recover deleted files would make purchasing these programs worth every cent.

Ideas to Increase Business and Reduce Expenses

• For every niche there are many smart ideas which really work out and are at the lowest costs.

• Offering Discounts on Totals

  
  If you are selling products/services either online or offline and are fed up with the lowering sales you should try out offering discounts on all your products. Its obvious that a small discount wont make you lose or close down your business because you are just parting with some of your profits share. Iam not recommending you to offer discounts on specific products but you should go with a total discount option which means that you should offer your customers a discount on the total bill, which can be calculated like this :
  Bill Amount About Rs 10000 – 5% CashBack Discount
  Bill Amount About Rs 25000 – 10% CashBack Discount
  If you feel that you are going to make less profits with this idea then you are wrong because its a known point that whenever customers find discounts on a total amount they try to buy lot more things than they really need and also end up buying even the stock which you would have considered as dead stock. This means that overall you are in a better scene with these total cashback discounts and you can also consider offering the customers with a voucher instead of cash to again save up some money from the offered discount.

• Offering Ultimate After Sales Services :

  
  In today’s world 90% of the business which are in the top are only because of the seriously good after sales services they offer, if the companies have a bad/no after sales service they are not going to expect more returning clients and no word-of-mouth publicity. The point here is that if you are selling some products like lets say gifts, cakes etc then you should contact the buyer after the delivery about the quality, time of delivery, feedback and also take some suggestions. If the customer complaints about some problem they came through you should try to quickly get it solved by sending your staff or helping them out via phone/email support. You can also apologize instantly and offer the customer with some discount for the next purchase which would not be available for any other customers. Dont worry you are again not losing up profits but you are building a better customers base who would always recommend your store to everyone in their network and also would keep returning to you for buying more stuff in short it helps you in increasing the clients base and help you in growing your business.

Protect Data in USB Flash Drive with Passwords

have a small USB drive which has very important documents along with my personal photos which i dont want anyone else to access it. Is it possible to hide these files on my USB along with a password protection feature?

Generally if you are using a PC/Laptop you can install secured applications like FolderLock to protect your files but if you are using a USB drive then you cannot install a application easily. But now another option is that FolderLock software allows you to even lock the data stored within your USB drives.

Just plug-in your USB drive into your computer and access the files stored in the USB drive and select them, following which you need to click on the ‘Encrypt Now’ option. This 3Mb small application can help you to protect data in Flash Drive / External drives with Folder Lock.

Once you select the files from your computer or the external USB drive, you need to click on the Encrypt Option to encrypt all the files. After which you need to install the folder lock software whenever you want to extract and view the files. The password saved while encrypting the files is really secured and cannot be easily broken so you dont have to worry about security problems. The same process is used for locking the files which can be accessible after entering the passwords.

easily find Music Videos & Applications on RAPIDSHARE

RapidShare is the biggest File hosting company where you can find almost anything you need because users keep sharing everything using it and at times when you need something you can easily find it. RapidShare.com does not offer any search feature but its very easy because you can use google search for this.

Just go to google and search using some of these commands and you will get your job done :

Search Mp3 Music Files on RapidShare : Click Here
Search Mp4 Music Files on RapidShare : Click Here
Search 3gp Video Files on RapidShare : Click Here
Search avi Video Files on RapidShare : Click Here
Search Mpg Video Files on RapidShare : Click Here

Searching for any other file or application based on its name? Just give the command google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Arapidshare.com+seobook and you will generally able to find it instantly. Generally its not always recommended to use any applications downloaded from rapidshare because most of these are files which are hosted by warez websites and are not recommended to be used unless you already have a licence of the same products.

Dual Boot Windows XP Vista OSX Post Installation Bootup Settings

If i have two Windows (xp) operating systems in two different drives (one in C drive, other in D drive) in my pc. I choose from the start-up screen which windows to enter. In case of any problem, If i format and re-install the windows of C drive, how will it be possible for me to get it again on the startup screen as was before? After formatting and re-installing Windows, will both windows automatically appear on start-up screen? or I have to manually do something to get it there?

Why do you need another computer when you are looking for a alternative to windows vista? There is always a option to install two operating systems in one computer and its called Dual-Boot using which you can run full fledged more than 1 operating system in the same computer which are going to be installed on different hard disk drives. If you are running apple macbook laptop then you have a preinstalled called ‘Bootcamp’ which you can use and install a windows based operating system in the same OSX/Leopard based system. You dont need any special hardware like RAM or processor to run a dual-boot operating system based computer because any PC would work great if it has the minimum configuration to handle these operating systems.

Dual Booting is a feature where in you install two separate operating systems in the same computer, which may be on two partitions on the same hard drive or two different hard disk drives on the same computer. In this specific case there were two operating systems already installed on the computer on different partitions ie C Drive & D Drive with both being Windows XP. In this case we need to work out on the post installation options where we want to setup the dual boot option in the boot.ini file because once the hard disk was formatted the file would contain only the freshly installed operating system details and the other ones boot statement would be missing.

The first step would be to right click on your ‘My Computer’ icon on the desktop and going to ‘Properties’ and after that in the ‘System Properties’ box select the settings option under ‘Startup and Recovery’ menu.

Once you click on this you will be shown a list of Booting options which you can select as default while the booting lists appear on the first computer start up screen. Click on the ‘Edit’ button in the ‘Startup and Recovery’box and you will find a new notepad opened with this kind of information :

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)WINDOWS=”Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition” /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Now the above startup code appears on PC’s with just 1 operating system with C Drive being the default drive for bootup, but you can add another extra line like this to the above code and try to detect the another operating system which is also installed on your computer, in this case another Windows XP.

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS=”Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Old” /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

You can give any name to the other operating system because the code allows us to give any kind of display names for these operating systems and you can save the file after adding the above line of code. Then in the drop down menu you can select the default boot up operating system and also change the operating system selection’s list display time and display recovery options time from 30seconds to anything you wish.

Its always important to take a backup of this specific boot.ini file and make sure to restore it in case any problem arises. You always need to take care of the codes because these are the most important data of your computer without which it would not load and you may need to format the hard disk drive and reinstall the operating system in case of problems.

How to Add Google Image search to Website

Google offers you to add their search box directly into your website/blog using adsense search option and also pays you for the same but if you are running a website which is dedicated for images/wallpapers then you would be interested in adding a Google Images Search Box rather than a normal content search box which comes by default.

If you are making a search in Google search engine the URL would be like this :

http://www.google.com/search?q=india

Similarly if you are making a search in Google Images the search query page would be :

http://images.google.com/images?q=india

which clearly shows that the search result pages are very easy to understand and can be easily integrated into a search box.

Now the next option is to create a Search Box using basic html tricks and here is the code to get started :

The above code is very easy and pure html basics and you can change the Submit Value from ‘Google Images Search’ to any display key phrase which appears on the submit button.

The same above process can be tweaked a bit in order to add MSN.com Image Search, Yahoo.com Images Search and Live.com Images Search in your websites or blog.

Here are the codes for the search result pages which can be added to the Action URL :
http://search.live.com/images/results.aspx?q=India : Live.com Images Search
http://search.msn.com/images/results.aspx?q=India : MSN.com Images Search
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=India : yahoo.com Images Search

You can try the same with any other major search engines and iam sure you can easily create custom image search boxes for your websites easily.

Online Shares Trading Guide Made Easy

Online Shares Trading Guide Made Easy

Shares trading in the stocks markets is now very easy with the online facilities available for the traders. Now you just need a online trading account with a Demat account linked with your online banking account.

First step to start up is to signup with any of these Online trading Account websites and link them with your Demat accounts which can be opened with any online banks like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank etc.

• ShareKhan.com Shares Trading Portal
• Indiainfoline.com Equities
• HDFC Bank Online Trading Account
• ICICIDirect.com Online Share Trading
• India Bulls
• Reliance Money
• KotakSecurities
• JV Capital Services and many more..

Once you signup you will be offered with a link to the trading account panel and you need to discuss with your account manager in advance regarding the brokerage charges so you end up paying the lowest brokerages.

Trading depends on your budgets because if you are ready to play seriously in this game you need to invest a minimum of 10 Lakh rupees to your trading account and get started. Shares once bought will be completely recieved in your account by 3 working days and again all these time and brokerage charges depend on the brokerage company you are dealing with.

You need to daily track the quote of the best stocks by searching using their scrip codes and you can sell your shares the same day you purchased to save some money in brokerage charges. Additional research on the stocks can be made by finding the history, complete company portfolio on websites like moneycontrol.com because you need to have a good amount of information on the company you are going to invest.

Ultimate Boot CD A Windows bootable recovery Live CD

Ubuntu when released offered a free copy of Live CD which can first be used to try out the demo version and check out the add-on’s , utilities, plugin’s, antivirus scanning , file recovery etc kind of tools and now there is a bootable recovery CD exclusively for windows which can help you in recovering your windows based PC from the virus attacks, hacker attacks and system failures.

The Ultimate Bootup CD can be used for repairing, restoring, or diagnosing almost any computer problem. Some information from the official website UBCD4win.com

UBCD4Win is a bootable recovery CD that contains software used for repairing, restoring, or diagnosing almost any computer problem. Our goal is to be the most complete and easy to use free computer diagnostic tool. Almost all software included in UBCD4Win are freeware utilities for Windows®. Some of the tools inlcuded are “free for personal use” copies so users need to respect these licenses. A few of the tools included in UBCD4Win are paid for and licensed software owned by UBCD4win.

The requirement for this disk creation is a genuine windows operating installer CD and ultimate Boot CD. This tool has many free ware utilities which can help you out and they can also be downloaded online from the UBCD4win website.

Paypal offers Withdraw Funds directly into Indian Banks

another excellent feature to become a leading payment processor in india by adding directly funds withdrawal option in indian banks which previously was just limited to US banks. Currently only 2 countries ie US and India are allowed to use this feature as far as i know from the withdrawal page of paypal.

this new service credits the funds in most reputed private banks within 5-7 business days which saves every paypal user’s time.

You also need IFSC

Indian Financial System Code (IFSC) : The Indian Financial System Code (IFSC) is an alpha-numeric code designed to uniquely identify bank branches in India. This is an 11 -digit code with the first four characters representing the bank code, the next character is a control character, and the last 6 characters identify the branch.

The Reserve Bank of India publishes the IFSC and MICR codes, but only IFSC codes should be used. Please contact your bank in India for this code.

Managing unlimited Email Newsletters

Just Sign up with Aweber which offers a excellent service in terms of sending and managing newsletters for services you offer. Though the pricing looks a bit high but when you compare it with the other service providers, Aweber just rocks because you get excellent HTML templates for creating email newsletters which are sent using their servers and its generally considered that Aweber offers the highest email sending services with all emails delivered on time because of the double opt-in feature.

Some of the services which are offered by Aweber are :

Autoresponders by AWeber" align="baseline" border="1" vspace="5" width="125" height="125" hspace="5">Send Email Newsletters
Publish a Signup Form To Your Website
Create Autoresponders
Manage Unlimited Email Campaigns
Email Templates Ready For The Big Time
Top Notch Email Deliverability
Free Expert Customer Support
Send Blog Newsletters
Email Web Analytics
Easy Shopping Cart Integration

Pricing of Aweber :
Subscribers : Monthly Pricing
0 – 500 : 19$
501 – 2,500 : $29
2,501 – 5,000 : $49
5,001 – 10,000 : $69
10,001 – 25,000 : $149
The pricing is worth the services and you can check out Aweber for some special offers/discounts if available.

Batch Convert CSV to Excel XLS

A CSV is Comma Delimited File which contains all the data which can be easily viewed in notepad and have the data in a simple format with ‘comma’ used a eliminator to distinguish the data. It allows saying the data in a organized fashion in rows format with each row handling one record of information and a single character used to divide them which is a ‘comma’ or ‘|’.

If you are looking to open the CSV data in MS Excel you need a software which can convert the CSV Format data file into Excel with/without MS Excel. The software supports batch Conversion of CSV Files to/from XLS, XLSX, HTML, Fixed Width Text, XML etc.

Following are the types of conversions this software can process :
Convert CSV to XLS File
Convert CSV to XLSX File
Convert CSV to HTML
Convert CSV to Fixed Width Text File
Convert CSV to XML
Convert CSV to PDF
Convert from CSV To Any file MS Excel
Convert XLS to CSV
Convert XLSX to CSV
Convert Fixed Width Text File To CSV
Convert Any file MS Excel can open to CSV

Convertor Software Website Link

Finding Rapid Share Happy Hours

the hours when rapidshare servers are not in heavy usage and the visitors are allowed to directly download with out any wait time nor any cats crazy captcha. But the main question was how to find when these Happy hours are activated and its obvious anyone would not just open rapidshare every other hour just to check if Happy hours are activated.

Here is a new HappyChecker : A Firefox plugin which can help you out in finding the RapidShare Happy Hours. This new firefox application would check rapidshare on scheduled intervals and notify you whenever the Happy Hours are activated. This can help you out in getting rid of those captcha cats. The schedule of checking rapidshare is every 30mins and it works with the latest firefox version.

Firefox Addon Download
Plugin Developers Website

Warning Nokia BL-5C battery Exploding Check

This is a friendly warning to everyone who are using Nokia Mobile phones where in we Warn Nokia BL-5C battery users for a Batter check. This is to make sure that you guys are not carrying a minimum bomb in your pockets which is just inches away from your heart.

Here are the list of the mobile phones which are possibly dangerous for you.
Nokia 1100, Nokia 1100c, Nokia 1101, Nokia 1108, Nokia 1110, Nokia 1112, Nokia 1255, Nokia 1315, Nokia 1600, Nokia 2112, Nokia 2118, Nokia 2255, Nokia 2272, Nokia 2275, Nokia 2300, Nokia 2300c, Nokia 2310, Nokia 2355, Nokia 2600, Nokia 2610, Nokia 2610b, Nokia 2626, Nokia 3100, Nokia 3105, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3125, Nokia 6030, Nokia 6085, Nokia 6086, Nokia 6108, Nokia 6175i, Nokia 6178i, Nokia 6230, Nokia 6230i, Nokia 6270, Nokia 6600, Nokia 6620, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6631, Nokia 6670, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681, Nokia 6682, Nokia 6820, Nokia 6822, Nokia 7610, Nokia N70, Nokia N71, Nokia N72, Nokia N91, Nokia E50, Nokia E60.

You can check the status of your battery online at Nokia BL-5C battery

Email Etiquette for Students – 10 Tips

Here are few ground basics to be kept in mind before you hit the send button after composing an email.

1. Use a proper subject:
   This is the most common complaint about a bad email. Never write an email with a subject such as “Hi…”, “Hello…”, “Help” etc,. Instead write an appropriate subject with sufficient information that gives a gist of your email. Such as “Job application for Junior developer by XYZ university graduate”, “Request for assistance in application for XYZ college”, “Regarding a correction in science assignment” , etc. Emails with subjects that give little or no information are more likely to be ignored by the reader. Any fairly busy recruiter or professor would receive no less than a hundred emails daily. They usually scan their inbox using the subject to answer the emails that sound important first.
2. Use a new subject for a new mail:
   Do not abuse the “reply email” unless the purpose of your new email is relevant to the old one that you are replying to. If you wish to ask a new question or about something else other than you asked in earlier mails, consider writing a new email with a fresh subject using guidelines given above.
3. Avoid SMS lingo:
   This is the second frequently committed error by students. How often do you send email such as these?

   “Cn u plz consider my profile for d job?”

   Such instant messaging shortcuts and sms shortcuts make you sound like a semi literate. Always write full words and complete sentences.

4. Avoid funky email addresses:
   Before you send any formal email to an important person, be sure that your email id sounds formal. Never ever write to HR Managers with fancy email ids such as “angelforyou@gmail.com” or “hunkydude.rocks@gmail.com”. Best bet would be to create an email id which includes your first name and last name. If you don’t have one, consider creating an email that sounds decent and formal.
5. Furnish complete information:
   Ensure that your email has complete information about who you are and clear explanation about the problem that you would like to bring to the notice of the person that you are emailing. It is a good practice to mention your full name, your college name and its location, years of education in college, college registration number. Proofread your email and ensure that your email gives sufficient information for the person reading your email to be able to take action.
6. Use ‘please’ and ‘thank you’:
   Ensure that your tone is formal and humble. Use the magical words “please” and “thank you” where ever possible. As a rule of thumb use “please” to request for action on your problem and thank the reader when they reply back or take action on your problem.

   “Please consider my profile.”
   “Thank you for your response/action.”
   “I’m afraid I won’t be able submit it on time owing to xyz reason.”

7. Follow up promptly:
   Don’t take more than a day to respond to an email response from an important person. If you happened to miss reading that person’s email owing to lack of internet access or any other valid reason, promptly apologize for the late reply stating the reason if appropriate.
8. Don’t abuse font:
   Always prefer a plain salted email to a colorful and gaudy email filled with fonts of different colors and sizes. Colorful font and design may look juvenile to the reader.
9. Check your spelling & grammar:
   Run a basic spell check, manually proof read for misuse of similar sounding words such as their and there, it’s and its. Check your grammar, avoid major grammatical mistakes. Remember that email is a recorded conversation, it can’t be undone once you send it across.
10. Leftovers:
    Don’t type text in all upper case. Upper case is considered shouting in email. Try not to forget attaching the necessary attachments whenever you mention about the attachment that you are going to send along with your email.

What Are The Best Fonts for Making PowerPoint Presentation Slides

The fonts that you use in PowerPoint slides do play some role in making your presentations successful. The typeface should be readable and font size should be large enough so that people at the back have no problem reading the text.

Here’s some expert advice on selecting the right fonts (font family + size) for using in PowerPoint (or Keynote) presentations:

Guy Kawasaki: Guy says that your PowerPoint presentation slides should contain no font smaller than thirty points or just find out the age of the oldest person in your audience and divide it by two. That’s your optimal font size.

"Force yourself to use no font smaller than thirty points. I guarantee it will make your presentations better because it requires you to find the most salient points and to know how to explain them well."

Seth Godin: He recommends picking up a font other than Arial for presentations.

"Hire a pro, get a font you love and stick with it. Don’t change fonts over time (at least not often)… The right font becomes your handwriting."

Scott Hanselman: Scott, a great presenter and geek, recommends Lucida Console font, 14 to 18pt in bold for PowerPoint presentations.

"This [Lucida Console] is the most readable, mono-spaced font out there. Courier of any flavor or Arial (or any other proportionally spaced font) is NOT appropriate for code demonstrations, period, full stop. "

Garr Reynolds: The world’s best know presentation expert says that san-serif fonts are generally best for PowerPoint presentations, but try to avoid the ubiquitous Helvetica.

"Use the same font set throughout your entire slide presentation, and use no more than two complementary fonts (e.g., Arial and Arial Bold). Serif font are said to be easier to read at small point sizes, but for on screen presentations the serifs tend to get lost due to the relatively low resolution of projectors."

Flash Video Editing Made Simple - Learn Everything about FLV Videos

Flash Video (flv) has become the default video format on the web and almost every video sharing site uses FLV to stream videos online. And its not just the YouTube clones, even media properties like CNN have switched to Adobe Flash Video.

Other than viewing Flash videos in your browser, some of download FLV files locally to enjoy web videos offline.

Everything You Wanted to Know about Editing FLV Flash Videos

Watching videos in an FLV player is half the fun - you can do so many other things like split FLV videos into multiple clips, trim the introductory part, convert flv videos to MP3 songs, extract image frames from the video, etc. Lets get started:

Q: How to Edit FLV Videos with expensive video editors ?

There are no standalone FLV editors around but if you have Adobe AIR, I highly recommend RichFLV - a lightweight flv editor that lets you do almost everything with FLV video clips.

With RichFLV, you can split flv files by adding cue-points, join two or more FLV video clips by stitching or add new MP3 sound tracks over your existing FLV video. Perfect if you want to edit YouTube videos on the computer.

Mac users have another good option - download Perian that turns Quick Time Pro into a FLV editor.

Q. How to convert FLV videos into MP3 audio files ?

To extract audio from flv files, get the free FLV Extract utility from moitah.net - the video is saved as an MP3 file and the quality of sound in the original video is maintained as there’s no encoding done to save the audio.

Alternatively, you can extract MP3 from FLV files only using Vixy.net - an online service.

Q. Which media players can play Flash Videos on the desktop ?

To play FLV video files on the desktop, you can use Adobe Media Player, VLC Media Player or this standalone player which I think is the best flv player around for XP or Vista.

If you are on a Mac, you can play FLV videos downloaded from YouTube in your QuickTime player using the free Perian component discussed above.

Q. How to extract image frames from FLV Videos ?

You can export any image frame out of the FLV video using either the RichFLV editor or through VLC Media Player.

Open the .flv file in VLC, navigate to the frame that you want to save as an image and press Ctrl+Alt+S (or Video -> Snapshot). Note that the regular Print Screen key will not work for capturing screenshot from FLV file.

Q. Where can you upload FLV Video files on the web ?

Blip.TV - none of the other video sharing sites accept FLV format files.

Q. How to Embed FLV video clips in web pages ?

Read this guide on how to embed flv files in web pages. Alternatively, you could upload the file to Blip.TV and use the embed code provided by Blip.TV.

Q. How to Convert FLV videos to other video formats like WMV, AVI, etc ?

Use SUPER - the program may look complex at first glance but don’t worry, it’s very easy. I think it even lets you convert SWF movies into FLV videos.

Q. How to create new FLV movies files from scratch ?

VideoSpin is the only free video editing software I know of that can export movies into Flash Video format. An alternate trick is export your video into Windows Media or AVI and convert it into FLV using a converter program like SUPER .

CD Health - Clean your CD'S/DVD's with Toothpaste!

Now this may sound crazy but trust me it works!, forget all these fancy CD cleaning devices and drive cleaning CD’s all you need is a good old tube of toothpaste.

Just squeeze a blob about the same amount as you would normally put on your toothbrush. Now run it under the hot tap and start to gently rub the toothpaste all over the CD’s surface and it should do its magic on removing the scratches.

Anyway as the water gets luke-warm it will start to get easier but I guess don’t let the water get too hot as we all know CD’s and DVD’s don’t like high temperatures and you may end up doing more harm than good.

This even worked on a CD i'd had lying around for about 5 years and probably has more scratches than a dog with fleas and it would never load. But would you believe it after trying this toothpaste thing it actually loaded just enough for me to get some files off , woohoo!

Share Your News Tips and Photographs with Mainstream Media

Have you witnessed a news story in your area that could interest mainstream media ? Did you capture the scene on a mobile phone or a camera ?

If yes, here are some prominent websites where you can send in those news photos and video clips:

Reuters - You can share your news photographs and videos to Reuters by sending them to pics@reuters.com or upload here. Reuters is not just looking for news events, they are also very interested in offbeat news like a model falling over her huge heels on the catwalk or fans cheering inside the sports stadium.

Related: Nokia Reporter Toolkit for Citizen Journalists

BBC News - You can send pictures or news video clips to BBC at yourpics@bbc.co.uk. Web cam users can directly record and send a video message to BBC editors here. Other than news images, BBC also accepts images related to both local and global issues as well as just great pictures of your daily lives.

CNN.com - You can send your news videos, audio tips and photos to CNN at ireport@cnn.com. Like Reuters, CNN also accepts non-news events. CNN has an excellent toolkit for amateur citizen journalists to help them quickly learn tricks of the trade - how to capture good video and photographs.

CNN IBN - This is only applicable to events and issues related to India. This popular TV channel airs a separate program featuring content that’s supplied by citizen journalists across the country. You can either upload the media files on the CNN IBN website or send your news reports via SMS and MMS messages (CJ to 2622).