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Recover deleted files with Handy Recovery™
144 years ago
Handy Recovery is data recovery tool created by SoftLogica for recovering lost or deleted files under Windows platform. Handy Recovery comes in with nifty features for recovery and proves it is a worthy choice for data recovery.
Have you ever bothered to backup files? If not then Handy Recovery is a handy tool for you that helps you to recover accidentally deleted files. However, I personally encourage everyone to backup their important and sensitive data in timely manner.
There are plenty of tools available both freeware and commercial when it comes to file recovery. Handy Recovery stands out from most the rest just for ease of use. Earlier, file recovery can be done only by a computer expert. This has been proven wrong again by Handy Recovery, allowing any novice user to restore their files safely.
Key Features
- Support most of the Windows file system
- Very extensive scanning for deleted files
- Ability to create disk image for recovery
- Search option for deleted files
- Explorer style interface for ease navigation
- Preview for recoverable items
- Supports recovery from memory cards
Handy Recovery works great for most of the file recovery. Handy Recovery also provides you the probability of recovering data. In addition to cool features, Handy Recovery has also got Windows VISTA certified logo for its reliability.
Setbacks
Here are few drawbacks which I have observed so far with Handy Recovery.
- No support for Linux partitions
- Not a free ware
Bottom line, Handy Recovery would have been more attractive if it was provided as freeware. Handy Recovery is priced in the higher side and it costs 39$. But if you’re the one looking for an easy way to recover your deleted files go for Handy Recovery.
If you like to try Handy Recovery, you can download the trial version from their download page. The trial has limitation of one recovery per day; sometimes good things doesn’t comes for free
Have anyone tried anything similar to Handy Recovery for file recovery? Share your views.
This is a sponsored post.
4 tools to integrate Flickr photos into your website
364 years ago
by Benedict Herold
in tools
Flickr is a great and best photo-sharing site, no second thoughts about it. But the inability Flickr to allow their users to brand their own photoset is notable. Flickr API’s comes in handy for the rescue. Flickr tools built over Flickr API allow the user to brand their photo into their own site.
I have been using Gallery2 till now, since I wanted to brand my photos under my banner. But when you have bunch of photos trust me managing it with a self-hosted solution is a pain. That why I decided to move to hosted photo-sharing solution. Flickr sounded like the solution for me with plenty of flickr tools.
Here is the bunch of flickr tools that I discovered recently. If you are looking methods to brand your Flickr photos under your banner this list would be great help.
Flogr is a photoblog application that works great with Flickr. Flogr written on PHP over MySQL database and off course uses Flickr API. Flogr allows you to customize your template. It uses Slimbox implementation for slideshow. Flogr grabs EXIF data and comments from Flickr for each image. Moreover Flogr is easy to install and configure!
Satellite is a photo gallery application that allows you to use Flicks for hosting. The installation is simple; all you need is Flickr account, Flickr API key and a PHP supported host. Satellite uses MooTools framework and Slimbox implementation.
Chasr is another similar mini application that allows to display Flickr images in own website. Chasr is very simple implementation that allows you to customize it to you own theme. Chasr allows you to view / add comments to the images.
FlickrViewer ( Demo | Download )
FlickrViewer is a simple script written over SimpleViewer, which allows viewing Flickr photoset. SimpleViewer is a popular Flash app that allows to views self hosted photos. FlickrViewer needs Flickr API Key to read the images from you blog. This is simple flash gallery application.
Also if you like to integrate Flickr into your WordPress blog there are several plugins for it.
BTW, I have recently purchased Panasonic Lumix FZ50 camera and now I’m thinking of creating new photoblog. If you guys have better suggestion for photoblog, please suggest me.
Are you running photoblog using Flickr? If not do you plan to do so?
Update:- Moses over WPThemesPlugin.com has listed all flickr related plugins used with WordPress.
Update (08/30) :- Ram over TeknoBites did a favour for me listing all the photoblog themes available for WordPress. Thank you gentleman.
Web log analysis software and top 5
274 years ago
by Benedict Herold
in tools
Every blogger or site owners would be aware of advantage and importance of Web Analytics. Which tool to use? It is one of the important decisions everyone should take before starting up a blog or a site.
Web Analytics widely has two approaches log file analysis and page tagging. The later is more popular these days and huge number of people tends to ignore the former. Tagging approach would add some JavaScript snippet into your blog/ site to collect the visitor data. There are several 3-rd party tools available today to facilitate tagging methodology, like Google Analytics, StatsCounter, etc.
Log file analysis approach is normally in-house and they reside within the web server itself. The analysis is based on the web server log file.
Here I’m going to brief down the advantage of log file analysis method
Advantages of log file analysis
Fast. You don’t have a burden of executing extra JavaScript code on your site; web server logs every possible transaction related to the site.
Reliable. You don’t have to rely upon user’s browser to collect their data. JavaScript may not work in some browsers or it can be disabled.
Error Information. Web server log files captures every error message and failed requests which tagging method fails and technically impossible to achieve with page tagging. Also you would be able to track hot linking information.
Spider Details. Log files also captures the spider information. It would give you the idea about how many pages were indexed and how much bandwidth it consumed etc. This might give you an idea of spider that eats your bandwidth and you can block them using robots.txt if you want.
Privacy. The log file details are kept within your server and not shared to 3-rd party.
Ease. You don’t have burden of installing a script in each and every page / blog.
Limitation
Less Analysis. It doesn’t give you more detailed analysis; you have mostly do analysis manually.
Here is the list of web log file analysis software.
AWStats is one of the well-known open source web analytics-reporting tools. AWStats parses and analyzes the server log files and produces tables and bar graph output. The web reporting is done through a CGI script. AWStats would with most of the web server log format.
Webalizer is a fast and free web server log file analysis program. It produces HTML reports using tables. It has more detailed reporting.
Analog is pretty old web log analysis software among others. The data reports are made mostly using text formats.
W3Perl is more advanced free log file analyzer that allows you to gather HTTP, FTP and Email log files. It is written in Perl language and would work in any server with Perl support.
Visitors is a very fast web log analyzer for Linux, Windows, and other Unix-like operating systems. It takes as input a web server log file, and outputs statistics in form of different reports
Special Addition
FeedStater is an only available feed statistics tool for self hosted feeds. FeedStater is written in CGI and it will read the log file to report the feed statistics.
Also you should be aware of the fact Urchin is one the popular log file analyzer software and latter it was acquired by Google for its analytics.
Bottom line, I would say log file analyzer would be the best methodology but it should be used along with more advanced page tagging method to gain more insight on Web Analytics.
Have you ever used any log file analyzer before? Share your thoughts.
VLC Media Player, play everything anywhere
624 years ago
by Benedict Herold
in tools
VLC media player is a free cross-platform media player for various audio and video formats available today. VLC media player support streaming protocols and also can be a streaming sever with Ipv6 support. VLC comes with built-in support for most of the video and audio codec as well. In other terms, VLC media player can play any format, play any codec, play any media and stream any protocol from any platform (Windows, MAC, Linux)
I discovered VLC media player few years back when I was researching for an alternative player to play my media file that refused to play in most popular players. VLC Media Player alone helped me that situation. I didn’t have to install any extra codec to play the media file. I believe everyone here might have already discovered VLC player. If not, make sure you give a try today. VLC Media player can be downloaded from VideoLAN VLC Homepage.
Another main feature I love with VLC player is the ability to play any broken media file (say partially downloaded file). I use this feature to preview the media before downloading the entire content and save my effort 
Few Interesting Facts about VLC Media Player
Here are few interesting facts I found about VLC Media Player.
- VLC (VideoLAN Client) was initially client for Video LAN project; Later they combined both server and client into VLC media player.
- Google’s Video search uses browser plugin based on VLC player.
- Democracy Player, an Internet player uses VLC media player as a back-end on Windows
- The code name of VLC Media player is based on character name from the movie golden eye
- There are bunch of project that uses VLC; see complete list here.
- VideoLAN enhancement projects are featured in Google Code.
Key Features
- Play Anything – As said this is the main feature of this player you can play whatever you want. Be it any format or any codec no bar; they got to play in VLC. They have ability to read disk images (iso) and play directly.
- Simple – It can be used by any novice without any hitch.
- Network Streaming – It can stream internet video over HTTP, UTP protocol more over it support IPv6.
- Steaming Server – you can broadcast video using unicast or mutlicast in high bandwidth network.
- Equalizer -VLC has an equalizer for both audio and image.
- Filters -VLC comes in with dozens of audio and video filter that you can apply to alter the output.
- Skins – This is not much attractive, but yes you can change the default skins.
- Portability – This works with all operating system, which include Windows, MAC, Linux, BEOS, Win CE. etc. The latest version is compatible with Windows VISTA as well.
Possible Improvements
I have couple of suggestions probably here for VLC Player. VLC also doesn’t have support for real format, which they can add in feature version.
1. Interface
Sadly, this needs some serious attention. They have easy to use interface though their interface and not that attractive. They have skin support but it is not effective too.
2. Playlist
VLC provides you the ability to manage your play list. I think that can be improved a bit to allow option to effectively manage and have some tagging and rating features. Also the play list is not integrated well with the main area.
3. Real Format support
Unfortunately, VLC player doesn’t have support to Real format till now. It would be great if they add support to them as well. Thanks to CyBer$|x for pointing this out.
Other than this I really don’t see much on improvement track. VLC almost rocks already!
Bottom line, VLC Media Player might not be my favorite media player but I use it really extensively.
Have you tried VLC? Share your experience with VLC.
Update : Haris has compiled a list of best skins for VLC player. Deepak has his own list of beautiful skins.
Top 5 Free Notepad replacements
834 years ago
by Benedict Herold
in tools
Notepad is one of the few tools that is been a part of Windows operating system and which have not been evolved since its initial release. Notepad is simple to use and lacks many features / enhancement. So it is always better to look for a replacement, which will overcome all known issues of Notepad.
Why Replacement?
Notepad has some disadvantages, which is known to everyone who uses it frequently. Here is a quick list of them.
- Doesn’t have support for multiple document interface
- Doesn’t display line number (this is harder part for programmer / debugger)
- Doesn’t support syntax highlighting
- Doesn’t support larger files
- It is after all Microsoft product
To overcome these and other disadvantages many programmers looked into developing better tools that will be as simple to use as Notepad, yet offer additional features and enhancements that were left out of the original Notepad.
Couple of weeks back I wrote about my favorite notepad alternative and I asked my readers about their favorite too. Thanks to the readers who have given their views about their notepad alternative.
Top 5 Notepad Replacement
Here is the top 5 list of notepad replacement. I bet you will love at least one 
Notepad++ is a free source code editor and an effective Notepad replacement. Notepad++ supports several programming languages. The features include syntax highlighting, code folding, auto-completion, multi-document, drag and drop, full regular search support etc., It also has include advanced macro recording and playback feature. Moreover Notepad++ has most of my readers vote and it is the well-know replacement for Notepad.
Programmer’s Notepad is free, open source, text editor with special enhancements for Programmers. Programmer’s Notepad is a project featured in Source Forge, which comes in as one of the best notepad replacement for programmers. The main features include book marking, code highlighting / folding, no limit to file size, tabbed document support, project management feature and much more. Programmer’s notepad is my favorite choice for Notepad replacement.
PSPad is freeware code editor and wonderful notepad replacement. PSPad offers main features like rich text formatting, mighty code editing features, project management, syntax highlighting, auto-correction, HEX editor, text difference, spell checker, macro recorder and many more. PSPad also has inbuilt FTP functionality which is a plus for Web developers and Bloggers. PSPad is more advanced of all editors mentioned here. If you are looking for full functional and feature rich editor then PSPad should be your choice.
Notepad2 is a lightweight, free and open source text editor. Notepad2 is a full functional Notepad like editor with syntax highlighting. It is also based on Scintilla source code editing component similar to Notepad++. The features also include drag and drop feature, regular expression search, syntax highlighting for most of the languages. Notepad2 is best suited for persons who need simplicity like Notepad and Code highlighting feature for fun programming.
MetaPad is a small, fast and completely free text editor. It was designed to completely replace Notepad since it includes all of Notepad’s features and few extra features. The features include tool bar functionality, WYSIWYG printing, auto indenting etc., It is also been said it consumes less amount of memory than Notepad. So even if you like to stick with the simplicity of Notepad; you can very well try MetaPad.
I have complied the list with the help of my readers feedback and my thanks everyone.
Are you able to spot your Notepad replacement?
Programmer’s Notepad, simply powerful text editor
324 years ago
by Benedict Herold
in tools
Programmer’s Notepad is for people who don’t prefer to code in either large IDE’s or just windows Notepad. Programmer’s Notepad is handy tool and good replacement for Notepad users. Programmer’s Notepad comes with lot of enriched features and is highly customizable.
I have to agree that I’m one among the people who extensively use Windows Notepad either to take notes or little debugging / code editing etc. Windows Notepad can’t be much efficient choice when it comes to coding / debugging. Notepad does lack features that will increase the productivity of programmer / debugger.
Consider a case where you’re trying to fix an error in multi-nested loop. Notepad does fail here and it would consume few extra time than the time intended if we use good productivity tool. One among such tool is Programmer’s Notepad. It would increase your productivity by reducing the time taken.
PNotepad’s Code Folding feature comes in handy here. Code Folding is a feature that allows user to selectively display and hide section of currently edited file. The section can be either a fragment of code or function etc. This feature is available in most powerful text editor and IDE’s
See the screen shot below with code folding done for function second_page(). Also have a look at Text Clips in notepad area.
Programmer’s Notepad offers syntax highlighting for wide range of programming and markup language. Also it has Text-clips option to insert the predefined code-snippets for various languages. Programmer’s Notepad also has a simple project management interface to manage the files related to the projects.
Key Features -
- Code Folding
- Code / Syntax Highlighting
- Project Management / Grouping
- Regular expression search
- Code Snippets
- Tabbed multi-file support
- Bookmarking
- Export feature
- Addon Support
- and lot more…
Programmer’s Notepad is an open source project that is featured in SourceForce Programmer’s Notepad is a free to distribute under GPL license. Thanks to Simon Steele for Programmer’s Notepad
Bottom line, Programmer’s Notepad can’t be a replacement in high-end IDE’s but it can be a good replacement for Windows Notepad.
What is your choice?
Joost – a free on demand internet TV
325 years ago
by Benedict Herold
in tools
Joost is a new way of watching TV online. Joost is Web TV that combines both Television and Internet moreover it is a Free TV. Joost shows more than 150 channels and more programs in full screen quality. Joost also has the complete control of the internet; you can watch whenever you want. To add to this points Joost powers social networking too.
Joost is still in their beta stage and expecting commercial release very soon. Joost is available now through Invite and has release the Friends Edition. I have been looking for an invite to try out Joost; Thanks for Marsie from RotorBlog.com who invited me to Joost beta.
I was really amazed by Joost, the quality of the video was superb. Joost works on seamless Peer to Peer (P2P) networking. Joost provides selectable programs on over 150 channels, ranging from cartoons, movies, music, sports and documentary using peer-to-peer TV (P2PTV) technology. The original content is stored on main server owned by Joost and then distributed by users to other users watching the same program.
Joost is signing up deals with major video content providers which would help them to gain more programs and viewer ship. Latest in the list was CNN and Sony; Viacom was already in the list. Joost is also building up a social network around their viewer. Joost has channel chats, where users watching the same programs can interact. This is just a base for their social networking model.
Joost Screenshot
This service remains free since it is been paid by advertising which are shown intermittently. The Joost interface is fairly simple and easy to use. The viewing experience is also great as it suffers not much of streaming problems. To add to the value, Joost is the venture of founders of Skype and Kaaza which were most successful. You need to aware of this; since Joost runs on P2PTV technology it will consume lot of your bandwidth for both uploading and downloading.
If you are looking for a Joost invite and didn’t have one till now; drop me a comment. I have Joost invites left out; you must try this service for sure.
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