Windows 7 comes with a few “ringtones” that are actually used to indicate an incoming call on VoIP, but these can still be used on your mobile phone.

The istartedsomething blog has the entire collection of ringtones uploaded and ready for download. You can get them here. The ringtones are available in convenient formats such as MP3 and even for the iPhone.

Love shortcuts on your Windows installation? Then you’ll surely love this trick. By making a few registry modifications, you can now have the Copy To and Move To options right from the context menu!

Here’s how you do it. All you need to do is download this registry file. Right click the download link and click Save Link As.

Once you’re done downloading it, double click it and add it to the registry. You will now be able to see the Move To and Copy To shortcuts when you right click any file.

[This post was originally written by me at TechnoBeta a long time back. Thought I'd share this here since I haven't written anything here in quite a while owing to work.]

Increasing productivity (or as some of us call it – becoming lazy) is always on the mind of anybody. We’ve already written about using keyboard shortcuts to launch programs, now with EscapeClose Pro you can use certain keys to do some trivial tasks like closing and minimizing windows.

EscapeClose Pro’s primary task is to close a window when the Escape key is closed. It can however, do a lot more than just that. Below is a list of shortcut keys that EscapeClose Pro has:

• Hitting the tilde (~) key will minimize the running app or all the apps. You choose.
• The ‘Escape’ key can be used to close a window.
• To select all files in Windows Explorer, the asterisk (*) key can be used.
• ‘+’ or ‘-’ can be used to select and deselect files respectively.
• Pressing ‘F11′ will make any application switch to Maximized view.

There are different “modes” for each task. For instance, selecting ‘Mode 1 (close Esc)’ will make the mouse pointer jump to the Close (X) button on the top right of a window when the Escape key is pressed. Under ‘Mode 2′, hitting the Escape key will directly close the application.

The best feature I liked about the software was that it made it easier for me to maximize and minimize applications by hitting the (~) and ‘F11′ keys respectively. Quite a time saver, given that my caption buttons are the size of an ant.

Other features include completely hiding a window (did not work with Firefox). Pressing the tilde and escape keys will completely hide a window or restore it to the system tray (based on what you choose). How’s that for hiding programs that don’t minimize to the system tray? =)

See the screenshot for more options and commands.

EscapeClose 1.5 (Free)

EscapeClose 2.1 (Trial)

(Thumbnail credits to Ukaaa’s The Great Escape)

Love downloading free iPhone apps? Here’s a way to get notified either by email or sms when a paid app is available for free.

I absolutely love downloading free iPhone apps (who doesn’t). But it’s hard to keep tab of which app goes free and when. By using Google and Feed My Inbox, you can get SMS or email alerts when an app is available for free.

Google SMS: This service has currently been made available only for Indian mobile subscribers and is still a Labs feature. So we might not really know whether this will be around few months from now. Until then, Indian users can subscribe to this SMS channel. Around 3-4 SMS are sent each day, depending upon the number of apps that become free and also the number of SMS you’ve limited Google sending you.

Feed My Inbox: This is actually an RSS-to-Email service that sends you any feed as an email. You can use this feed created by our friends at KRAPPS (based on App Shopper).

Good ol’ RSS: If you don’t want to mess up your inbox and want to know when an app goes free the good old RSS way, use this link.

Quick Links:
Google SMS Channel
RSS Feed (for both RSS readers and Email subscribers)

I’m sure you have come across instances of a task “Not Responding” right? There’s a quick way to kill all such processes without altering the registry.

Create a shortcut anywhere on your desktop [Right-click -> New -> Shortcut]. For the shortcut path, copy and paste the following line:

taskkill.exe /f /fi "status eq not responding"

You can add an icon to it if you would like to make it look pretty. =)

Going a step further, you can run the task using keyboard shortcuts. Something like your very own Ctrl + Alt+ Del. To do so, you can follow the steps I have mentioned in this previously dated article. I set it to Ctrl + Shift + End. Everytime I have a hung process that requires me to kill it, I just hit these keys.

[via Life Hacker]

Wanted to check if a particular Twitter user was following you or any other user? Here’s how. My friend Lakshman Prasad, also known as @scorpion032, has written a small application that checks whether a given user is following another specified user.

The application, hosted over at Appspot, allows you to specify a Twitter username and check if that user is following another user that you specify. Check the following screenshot to understand better.

Twitter-Follow @Appspot.

Recently, I changed my broadband plan to BSNL’s Home 500C. The advantage is of 2Mbps speeds and unlimited usage at night between 2am to 8am. Not many would want to stay awake at 2am to switch on the computer and start the downloads, not to mention (in some cases) rebooting the router or modem, and then turning off the router and computer before 8am. Here’s an easy method to automate the whole process of scheduling night unlimited downloads, right from restarting the router at 2am to switching off the computer at 8am. This is for people running Windows. I’m yet to check whether the same can be done on Linux.

Part 1: To Automatically Reboot The Router At 2.10 AM

1. Please make sure to install Firefox if you already haven’t. Not only is it the best browser, but we need it for this article.
   
2. Install it in C:\Software\Firefox. (choose “custom” while installing and give the directory I mentioned). This is for convenience. If not, don’t worry, we’ll do the required modifications later.
3. Download this file: [right-click link -> Save As..] Reboot.bat
4. Move it to C:\
5. Add a new Scheduled Task (learn how to here). When it asks you to choose a program, choose the “reboot.bat” file under C:\ that you just downloaded. Give it a name (say “reboot”), assign it to run everyday, specify the time (maybe 2.10am), enter your password (if any), and specify it to open the advanced tasks.
6. Under the “Start In” box, type: C:\Software\Firefox



7. Follow steps 5 and 6 to create ANOTHER task with the run time as 7.49 AM. This is more of a precaution than a necessity.

Part 2: To Automatically Shutdown The Computer Before 8 AM:

1. Create a new Scheduled Task, only this time do it by the File -> New method.
2. Rename it if you’d like, to maybe “shutdown”. Open it.
   Copy and paste the following into the RUN box:

   C:\WINDOWS\system32\shutdown.exe -s

   Copy and paste the following into the Start In box:

   C:\WINDOWS\system32

3. Set the password (if any).
4. Under the “Schedule” tab, change the time to 7.50 AM.

Additional Points

• Firefox HAS to be running prior to the 2 AM mark AND you need to be logged in to your router’s admin page (http://192.168.1.1). This is because Firefox has an annoying security feature where it asks you to confirm logging in to the site. If you know any work around to this, please leave a comment and you’ll get credit.
• Don’t forget to create a Scheduled Task for uTorrent to start! I’d suggest running it at 2.12 AM. Also, learn how to make uTorrent download only between 2am and 8am. So even if the computer fails to shutdown for some reason, uTorrent won’t download past the 8 AM mark.
• If you installed Firefox in it’s default directory, change the path in Part 1: Step 6 to C:\Progra~1\Mozilla or what ever it is. Also, edit the reboot.bat file (right-click -> edit) that you downloaded in Step 3 to highlight the necessary changes.
• The reboot.bat file contains the default password of most routers (ie. “admin” as username and password). If yours has a different username/password combination, don’t forget to edit the file. Example, admin:password instead of admin:admin.
• If Windows does not shutdown automatically because of an annoying “End Task” alert, you might want to read this article on how you can disable that.
• P.S. – I’ve been following this method for about 3 weeks now. It’s never failed. BUT, I am not to be held responsible if anything goes wrong, you get billed for excess usage, or ANY other incidence. This is just a guide, and is not definitive. Do so at your own risk. (I stayed up 3 nights to see if this works, and for me, it did work.)

A week ago I finally decided that it was time to jailbreak my iPod Touch 2G v2.2.1. Using redsn0w, I was able to jailbreak it in just under 10 minutes. I had Cydia up and running, downloading all the great new packages that aren’t available on the Apple App Store. However, after re-connecting my iPod to the computer, iTunes would not recognize my iPod.

A few searches online revealed nothing informative. Most of the sites suggested that iTunes be uninstalled and reinstalled. This is a real pain, taking up a lot of time. However, the iTunes Repair option was something that worked like a charm.

Open up Add/Remove Programs under the Windows Control Panel, and hit ‘Change’ for iTunes instead of ‘Uninstall’. Select the first option to “Repair” iTunes. Unplug your iPod/iPhone. The uninstaller should ask you to reboot. Do so. When Windows boots up again, plug your iPod in and iTunes should recognize it and pop-up automatically. This way, all your settings and library are still intact, and yet you have a new-ish installation of iTunes.

If you need to re-install Windows, or move your Outlook profile to a different computer, then you would want to backup all your Outlook 2007 profile and settings into one place first. Here’s how.

Close Outlook 2007 first before proceeding any further.

Backup settings for Windows XP/NT users:

1. Run the following command in Start -> Run:

   %USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Microsoft\

2. Copy the folder called Outlook.
3. Now run the following command:

   %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\

4. Again, copy the folder Outlook.
5. Now open Regedit [Start -> Run -> type regedit].
6. Navigate to the following key:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows
   Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\

7. Here you would see a key called “Outlook” or the name of your profile used in Outlook. For me, it was “Outlook”.
8. Right-click on it. Click on Export. Save it under a name in a safe place, mostly other than the operating system’s drive so that you don’t lose the file when it is formatted.
9. That’s it!

Restoring the backups is as simple as pasting everything you backed up into the same folders once the reinstallation is done.

For Windows Vista users:

1. Run the following command in Start -> Run:

   %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\

2. Copy the folder called Outlook and paste it in a safe location.
3. Now run the following command:

   %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft

4. Again, copy the folder called Outlook and paste it in a safe location.
5. That’s it!

Restoring the backups is as simple as pasting everything you backed up into the same folders once the reinstallation is done.

If you ever wanted to view the contents of a compressed file before downloading it, there’s now a simple way to do it.

This may come in handy if you suspect the file of not having what it claims (a bogus, or suspicious file). Using Google, we can now view the compressed file without installing any additional plugins or software.

Simply add the following before the URL to view the content.

http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=

In this example, we’ve used Google Transcoder to view the contents of a theme file.

The URL should look like this:

http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.woothemes.com%2Ffree-downloads%2Fsnapshot.zip

A quick way to view the contents may be to bookmark the following link in the Bookmarks Toolbar, under a convenient name such as “View ZIP”. Give the address (URL) of the bookmark as:

javascript:location.href='http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u='+document.location.href;

Open the download link in a new tab. Cancel the download. Click the bookmark to view the contents. You can then download it by clicking on the ‘View in HTML’ link at the bottom of the page.