Tweaks and Tricks

Internet censorship has grown drastically over the past few years with countries like China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran taking the lead over others in blocking sources of free unbiased information. China is known to have even forced Google to filter its search results. Government censorship is not the only reason why websites are blocked. Some network administrators also prevent users from accessing certain websites which they believe are of no use in places such as schools and sometimes, even offices. In such times, you may need to access a website that is blocked. This article explains how.
Which websites are most commonly Blocked?

Access Blocked Websites at School, Work or Anywhere

Chances are if you have a wireless internet connection at your home, you have had some trouble with the speed of the connection at least once before. That being said, a slow wireless connection can be frustrating to deal with. You are probably paying good money to your internet service provider, so slow speed is something you should not have to deal with, right? Well, the truth is wireless speed can be affected by a number of things. Luckily there are some Wi-Fi tweaks you can try that should help boost your speed and get you rolling in no time.
1. Reposition Your Router

The position of your wireless router plays a major role in the speed and strength of your wireless connection. If you are having trouble, you should try to reposition your router in a centrally located area, where the signal can equally reach each wireless device in your house. If your router is near an outside wall, try to move it closer to the middle of your house. Routers that are placed near outside walls can send some of the signal outside, which can risk your wireless connection’s strength and speed. 

2. Purchase a Wireless Signal Repeater

Adding a wireless signal repeater to your home network can greatly increase the speed of your connection. A repeater works by extending your signal without having to add any additional wires. All you have to do is simply place the wireless repeater in a location that is between your router and your wireless device(s). It will instantly boost the wireless signal that is sent from the router to your devices, meaning faster speeds for you. 

3. Install a New Antenna

Most wireless routers come standard with an omnidirectional antenna, meaning it broadcasts the wireless signal in a circular radius to reach various places in your home. If your router is in a perfectly centered location between all of your wireless devices, this is probably fine. But if your router isn’t perfectly centered among devices, you should think about replacing the existing antenna with a stronger one, known as a high-gain antenna. You can usually remove your old antenna and replace it with one of these stronger antennas to boost your signal strength, therefore increasing the speed of your connection. Another perk of a high-gain antenna is its ability to focus the wireless signal in any direction you prefer.

Every one of us has watched Star Wars on television, computer or in a theater. It is the same movie with aliens fighting each other for galaxies and such stuff. There is nothing new in it. But wait, have you watched an ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) version of Star Wars and that too in Windows using telnet? A network protocol known only to computer wizards. Well if you have not, then you must do it now!

There is a complete copy of Star Wars done entirely in ASCII characters that you can watch in the Windows operating system (or any OS that supports telnet). The only thing required to watch it is an internet connection; speed does not matter.

1. Go to Start, Run. (Only for Windows users)
2. Now type "telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl" without the quotes and press Enter. Users of Mac OS X and Linux can directly execute this code in the terminal window.

1. Go to Start, Search in Windows Vista and Windows 7 and Windows 10. On Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, open the main Start page.
2. Type telnet and press Enter.
3. In the following command prompt window, type "o" without quotes and press Enter.
4. Now type "towel.blinkenlights.nl" without the quotes and press Enter.

Mozilla Firefox is one of the most popular web browsers in the world, and for good reason. In addition to it being free, Firefox provides a reliable and secure internet surfing experience that many people prefer over other browsers. But like those other browsers, Firefox’s speed can sometimes begin to deteriorate. When this happens, it might take you longer to load certain webpages or download certain files, which can be quite frustrating. If your Firefox speed is suffering, the following tips and shortcuts will help you increase your speed and get Firefox back to normal in no time at all.

Have you ever wondered how can you make your computer speak whatever you input to it like in the movies? Would it not be fun? If only it was possible! Rejoice, because now it is possible. Well, if you wish to know how to do this, then you have come to the right place. With this trick, you can create a script in Windows which will make your computer speak whatever you input to it.

To create one such talk script, follow the steps given below:-

Steps

1. Open Notepad.
2. Copy and paste the exact code given below.

          Dim Message, Speak
          Message=InputBox("Enter text","Speak")
          Set Speak=CreateObject("sapi.spvoice")
          Speak.Speak Message

    3. Click on File Menu, Save As, select All Types in Save as Type option, and save the file as Speak.vbs or "*.vbs".

    4.  Double click on the saved file, a window will open like the one in the image. Enter some text in enter text column and click OK.

Now your Computer will speak / talk what you typed in Step 4. Try it yourself.

Windows Compatibility: This VBS file can be executed on all versions of Windows including Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

Personal Experience: I personally showed this trick to many of my friends and they were literally left awestruck. You too can impress your friends by making your PC talk and be the Computer Wiz.

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Are you bored with your old processor? Do you want a new processor with a breath-stopping name but are not going to upgrade any time soon? No need to worry. You can still have that new processor's name displayed in your computer. Well not only that, you can also have a better one than the one you are planning to buy. Just follow this trick.

With this trick, you can change the name of your processor to a personalized one like My Processor or something extreme like Decacore Processor 50 GHz .  These are just a few examples. You can change the name of your processor to anything you like.

To have one such cool processor name displayed in your computer, follow these steps:-

1. Click on Start.
2. Click on Run.
3. Type "regedit" without quotes.
4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/HARDWARE/
5. From HARDWARE, navigate to DESCRIPTION/System/CentralProcessor/.
6. In the work area, double click on ProcessorNameString, and change its value according to your choice.
7. Click OK

Right click on the Computer icon and select properties.The final outcome would be something like the one in the image.

Try it on your PC and show it to your friends to see the fun.

P.S.: Personally, I have recently changed the name of my processor to "iLife Processor 7, Alien Technologies". Tell me what you change yours to.

Note: This article changes the processor name temporarily. To permanently change processor name, visit change processor name permanently.

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While most of us are already aware of obvious keyboard shortcuts like “Alt+F4” and “Ctrl+C”, there are some obscure shortcuts which most of us tend to overlook. These keyboard shortcuts are not only useful for the average PC user but for advanced users as well. This article contains many such amazing keyboard shortcuts which if used properly could save a lot of time and effort. So let's get started.

Windows key+D: This shortcut is the keyboard equivalent of “Show the Desktop”. It is useful for quickly minimizing every open window when someone walks in and you are doing some private work.

If your mouse is not working and you don't wish to wait till you get a new mouse, you would definitely like to know how you can use your keyboard as mouse. It is easy to use your mouse as keyboard in Windows using the On Screen Keyboard utility, but it is also possible to do the reverse.

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Then click on Switch to Classic View.
3. Then Click on Accessibility Options.
4. Then Click on the Mouse Tab.
5. Select Use MouseKeys.
6. Click on OK.
7. Then activate NumberLock (by pressing the NumLk key).
8. You should hear a beep sound.
9. Now you can control the mouse pointer using the arrow keys on the numeric keypad.

Windows 8, Windows 7 and Vista Users:

1. Open Ease of Access Center by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking Ease of Access, and then clicking Ease of Access Center.
2. Click Make the mouse easier to use.
3. Under Control the mouse with the keyboard, select the Turn on Mouse Keys check box.

You can also increase the acceleration and speed of your mouse movements according to your needs.

You can alternately press the Alt+Shift+Num Lock combination to instantly activate Mouse keys.

For laptops, this will only work if your keyboard has a numeric keypad or alternate keys which you can enable by pressing the Number Lock or the Function key.

On my laptop, number 6 key of the numeric keypad moves the mouse pointer left, number 4 key moves the mouse pointer right, number 2 key moves it down, number 8 key moves the mouse pointer up, number 5 and + key serve as right click while the number 0 key works as left click.

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Most of us shutdown our computers using the power button given in the Start menu. Some of us use the physical power button on our machines. Very few people actually use other means of shutting down a computer and even less is the number of people who use the command prompt to shutdown a computer.

A reason for this is that most of us don't know that the command prompt can be used to not only shutdown, restart or log off our computer instantly but also to shutdown a remote computer provided you have administrative access. It can also be used to hibernate a computer and give a comment containing the reason for shutdown. This post will show you how to do all this.

Have you ever wondered how you can make a folder which neither can be deleted nor be renamed. Well, if you have, then you have come to the right place. With this trick, you will be able to create folders in Windows which cannot be renamed or deleted.
Basic Concept
The basic concept behind this trick is the use of Keywords. Keywords are reserved words in any programming language that cannot be used as names of variables. Windows also uses certain keywords in its programming. Some of them are con, aux, lpt1, lpt2, lpt3, lpt4, lpt5, lpt6, lpt7, lpt8 and lpt9.

1. Click on Start.
2. Click on Run. Type in "cmd" without quotes.
3. In the Command Prompt Window that opens, type the name of the drive you wish to create your folder in the format <drive-name>: and press Enter. e.g. If you wish to create the undeletable folder in D drive, type "D:" without the quotes. Note that the folder cannot be created in the root of C: drive (if C: is your system drive).
4. Type this command- "md con\" or "md lpt1\" without the quotes and press Enter. You can choose any of the keywords given above as the name of your folder.