India's Top 5 Natural Wonders

India Shelters some of the most exotic travel destinations. While you're out exploring the sights, sounds and smells of Incredible India, don't miss out on these 5 exquisite natural wonders of India listed out by tripcrafters.

1. Magnetic Hill, Ladakh

Can you imagine of your vehicle moving up the hill with its ignition off? Sounds impossible right? Well, this is what magnetic hill offers you experienced while you are travelling to Leh-Ladakh. Magnetic Hill is located about 30 kilometres off the gorgeous town of Leh in Kashmir. At 14,000 feet above sea level, the hill is alleged to have magnetic properties strong enough to pull stationary cars uphill at a speed of around 20 km/hr. Interestingly, aircrafts and helicopters that pass through the area have to fly at a greater speed to avoid the impact of magnetism created by the Magnetic hill.

2. The Himalayas

Himalaya's are the world's highest mountain ranges which are located at the north of Indian sub-continent; they also shelter the world's highest peaks.Himalayas are considered paradise on earth and its cenic beuty is a visual treat. Some of the world's vastest river systems arise in the Himalayas and their combined drainage basin is home to some 3 billion people (almost half of Earth's population) in 18 countries!

  

3. Chir Batti at the Rann of Kutch

The Rann of Kutch, also known as the Great Rann of Kutch is a remarkable place to visit in Gujarat. It's the world's largest salt desert, measuring over 16,000 square kilometers.At night, an unexplained phenomena known locally as Chir Batti (ghost light) occurs in the Rann. Chir Batti can be described as unexplained bright lights occurring on dark nights in colours that change from blue to red to yellow. The lights often resemble a moving sphere or pear shaped blob of fire which may move fast or stop and stay stationary. They say the lights can only be seen after 8pm on dark nights and are known to be harmless. A traveller's dream, it looks even more fantastic as the sun sets on the arid landscape.

4. The Sundarbans

Sunderbans resembles its name 'sunder' means 'beautiful' and 'bans' means 'forest', collectively 'Sunderban' in Bengali Language means 'beautiful forest'. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is the largest single block of tidal mangrove forest in the world! Sunderbans mystic beauty is augmented by the majestic 'Royal Bengal Tiger' and is the only tiger inhabited mangrove forest in the whole world.

  

5. Cherrapunji

With pristine beauty Cherrapunji is situated high above the misty valleyson East Khasi Hills in the state of Meghalaya "abode of clouds". Situated at a height of 4500ft, hidden under the rolling clouds, foaming rivers and mystical ambience, Cherrapunji, is a adorning beauty bound to keep its lovely impression on every tourist mind. It has the dubious distinction of being the wettest place of earth by sheer virtue of the amount of rainfall it receives every year.

Super Cool Enterprise Social Networks

Social Networking is the “IN” thing today and it is also a proved mantra that if you are on social networking site you get to form a network of yours both socially and professionally.  Enterprises have realized the presence of social networking and are inculcating practices like having internal social networks which will help employees manage their workflow, improve communication and foster innovation. Kristin Burnham of CIO.com in one of her article lists out some of the most potential and popular Enterprise Social Networks.

Below is the list of 10 such promising Enterprise Social Networks.

1. Clarizen

Clarizen is Project Management software which is a collaborative tool which helps you manage everything under one roof in a single environment. This social network helps in team collaboration, project execution and is an effective tool to achieve business objective. Users can easily adapt to the tool and its e-mail integration facilitates helps in keeping each other up-dated about projects and upcoming tasks. Clarizen is based on SaaS (Software-as-a-Service). Clarizen is used by some well known Global companies like NBC Universal, Southern States, Frito Lay. Pricing: Starting at $25/user per month.

2. Clearvale

Clearvale Express is a free Enterprise social networking suite which helps create a private network that introduces your company to the world of social business. Clearvale helps you build a feature rich Intranet to connect, communicate and collaborate, with anyone in the company or organization. Team members can post and share information with one another with an intuitive and easy-to-use interface. Customers: Aeroxchange, QuickLogic, Synaptics. Pricing: Freemium; for enterprise pricing contact Clearvale.

3. IGLOO

Igloo is a social business software which has a enables you to transition to a more open style of collaboration, quickly, easily and securely, without abandoning the productivity tools you already use. Customers: ATP World Tour, BlackBerry, Manufacturing Innovation Network. Pricing: Starts at $4/user per month.

4. JIve

The innovative social business tool from Jive is a tool which brings consumer web to Enterprises. The tool helps you break the barriers separating employees, customers, and partners. Customers: Alcatel-Lucent, EMC, Hitachi Data Systems. Pricing: Starts at $59/user per month.

5. Liferay

Liferay Portal is a free and open source enterprise portal written in Java and distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License and proprietary licenses. It is primarily used to power corporate intranets and extranets. Customers: French Ministry of Defense, Cisco Developer Network , Lufthansa etc.

5 Cyber Threats: World's Biggest Concern

Today the world has become completely dependant on the web. From buying a kitchen set to concluding a multi-million deal is done over the internet, there is always this mounting fear of what could happen if all this gazillions of classified and private information goes into wrong hands.

The world isn’t just under the threat of hacking attacks on the data centers or endemic computer viruses but there is always a creeping concern about the further generations getting crippled due to overdependence on the internet.

Let’s take a closer look at those perilous threats that cyber crime and internet as a whole poses at us.

1. The Dark Hour

There is hardly any organization which is not connected to the great web, either directly or indirectly. To an extent it is possible for any individual to access data stored in any server across the globe. Even though organizations boast about being fool proofed, there is always some or the other loop hole that gets overlooked. And then there is electricity and power plant, the back-bone of a country’s economy, even those are connected to the web. For instance, an attack on the power controllers or major power stations of a country can hamper its whole economy; force the country into darkness and a virtual paralysis for days together. It is a terrible thing to imagine.

2. Moving the Mass

With more and more social networking sites and blogging applications gaining popularity it is getting easier for people to reach the mass and present their thoughts. Thoughts and voices get viral over the internet pretty quickly. Protest groups use the network to the fullest extent in provoking the mass and encompassing more and more supporters. Remember the London Riots of 2011, how messages sent through the Blackberry Messengers had brought millions of protestors on road and caused a real chaos for the city authorities.

3. Children of the Web Age

Technology, otherwise a boon, can often go hideously adverse to cripple the society and rip it from its roots. It is already apparent that the present generation is extremely dependant on the internet and its conveniences; hence the generations to come would be further dependant. Under certain circumstances, something like politics or democracy face a grave danger. People will deny voting, unless there is a fully functioning web ballot.

4. Hack Attack 

Intrusion and interception is not an alien to any paradigm of communication. Computers, business machines and cell phone networks, everything has been attacked by hackers already. Apple, which had always been certain about its imperceptible security, also faced reality when recently more than 600,000 Apple computers were infected with the Flashback Trojan. An average hacker earns about $1,000 to $5,000 per day and a single attack can cause an equivalent loss to an individual victim, reports Digg. Hence it is strongly recommended to have effective security tools installed on the devices which are used over the network.

5.  Dying Privacy

With all those vehicles of Google taking pictures of street and houses and all your personal information available on your bank portal and Facebook, there is barely any room for privacy or confidentiality over the internet. CISPA, a cyber security act proposed by the US House of Representative declares that the information available to the internet companies will be freely accessible to the federal agencies to prevent cyber crime. Though the intentions of the government might be genuine, but there goes your privacy. Imagine all this information about billions of people, if gone into wrong hands can cause indescribable threat to the society.

Gmail - Keyboard Shortcuts

Gmail can perform much like, a desktop software, provides bunch of keyboard shortcuts to save time. These small combination of keystrokes can be a real productivity booster and help you to avoid having to move your hand from keyboard to mouse as frequently. Here are some of the most useful and time saving keyboard shortcuts that helps to increase your efficiency when using Google mail.

Activating Gmail keyboard shortcuts
To turn on/off keyboard shortcuts, click the gear icon  from the top right corner and then click Mail Settings. Choose the option next to "Keyboard shortcuts" to turn them on. 

ifferent set of operations like navigation, selection, management and general.
Top level view navigation shortcuts
These combinations of keystrokes are used within a specific view such as inbox, all mail, sent mail, starred mail, contacts, and tasks. All combinations are case insensitive for e.g. g, i means press g(or G) and then press i(or I) will open up inbox view.

• g, i - open the inbox
• g, t - open the sent mail
• g, s - open all starred mail
• g, c - open contacts
• g, a - open all mail
• g, d - open drafts
• g, k - open tasks

Navigation shortcuts

These combinations of keystrokes can be used to navigate within conversations lists or views. The small black arrow on left side of conversation list shows your current position (focus) in the list.

• o or - Open selected conversation; black arrow indicates selection.
• + o or + - Open selected conversation in new window.
• u - Return to conversation list view from current opened conversation view
• j - Move down or Move to older conversation
• k - Move up or Move to newer conversation
• p - Read previous message within a conversation
• n - Read next message within a conversation
• r - Reply to the sender only. (only works when you've opened the message)
• + r - Reply to the sender from new window
• a - Reply to all. (only works when you've opened the message)
• + a - Open Reply to all in a new window. (only works when you've opened the message)
• f - Forward current conversation. (only works when you've opened the message)
• + f - Forward current conversation from new window.
• + s - Save a new or edited message in drafts. Cursor must be in text field to use this shortcut.
• [ - Archive the current conversation and move to the previous message.
• ] - Archive the current conversation and move to the next message.

Selection & Management shortcuts

These keystrokes combinations can be used in inbox or All Mail to quickly manage messages and conversations.

• x - select/deselect current message; it will put/remove a check in/from checkbox.
• s - puts/removes star to a selected message.
• . - opens/closes more options dropdown list
• e - Archive the current conversation and moves that message to All mail
• m - Mutes & Archives the conversation, and all future messages skip the Inbox unless sent or cc'd directly to you. Learn more.
• l - Open the Labels dropdown list to allow you to apply a label to the message.
• ! - Report spam.
• v - Moves the conversation from the inbox to a different label, Spam or Trash.
• # - Move the selected message to the Trash(Bin).
• *, a - Select all conversation from list.
• *, n - Deselect all conversation from list.
• *, r - Select read only conversations.
• *, u - Select only unread conversations.
• *, s - Select only starred conversations.
• *, t - Select only non starred conversations.
• + i - Mark selected message as read.
• + u - Mark selected message as unread.

Gmail general shortcuts

• c - Compose a new mail
• + c - Open compose a new mail in a separate window
• / - Puts your cursor in the search box.
• z - Undoes your previous action, if possible (works for actions with an 'undo' link).
• - Removes the cursor from the current input field.
• - scroll down a page.
• + - scroll up a page.

Hope you like this article and utilize these shortcuts in your routine mail activity. Though this is not a thorough list of shortcuts, you can have complete gmail shortcuts list from Gmail Help Center.

The source behind this article is Gmail itself, just press + ?. I am pretty sure you'll utter only one word after pressing (?) key, wowww!

Speed up your Windows 7 PC

Lets look at the rest over here.

1. Use CCleaner

For this, instead of explaining anything, I would like to share an article written by Manaday on Tech Beats itself, which explains everything regarding CC Cleaner and its benefits. 

2. Your system is running low on virtual memory

This message might only come if your machine is as slow as if its dead!
But in case you get this message sometime, you don't need to worry! 
Let me give you a brief explanation on why such a problem occur.
A computer has two types of memory, namely RAM and Virtual Memory.
Now, when due to some reasons, the computer is loaded or majority of its RAM is in use, the computer moves some of its programs to some file on the Hard Disk called the page file. And the size of this page file is called virtual memory.


So, the best solution for this kind of problem is to install more RAM to your machine.
But for a faster solution, you may do away with this error by increasing the page file size or the Virtual Memory of your machine.


To increase the page file size manually, please follow the below steps:

• Click Start->Control Panel->System and Security->System
• In the left pane, click Advanced system Settings. [This is an administrator level activity, so it may ask you for admin password if you are not an admin for your machine. Please provide the password if asked to continue with this activity.]

• On the Advanced Tab, under Performance, click Settings.

• Click the Advanced Tab, and then under Virtual Memory, click Change.

• Clear the Automatically Manage Page File Size for all Drives checkbox.

 

• You will be able to see a section below in this virtual Memory Window, which says Total Paging file size for all drives. In here, check the recommended size.
• Now, Under Drive[Label] click the drive that contains the paging file you want to change.

 

• Click Custom Size, and then type in the new size (which is the size mentioned as a Recommended size) of the Page File in MB for both Initial Size(MB) and Maximum Size(MB)  box, and click Set and then click Ok.

[For Advanced users Only]

Friends, this section I have mentioned for advanced users only, the reason is as much harmful a Low Page File Size is for a computer, equally harmful is a High Page File Size. And if you are a computer guy, or know much more about computer, you may surely go ahead with this step. Otherwise this step is inadvisable.

• Click Custom Size, and then type in the new size (you calculate the Page File size on your own, which you think is good for your machine) of the Page File in MB for both Initial Size(MB) and Maximum Size(MB)  box, and click Set and then click Ok.

3. Turn off Search Indexing

First lets try to understand what happens in Search Indexing. The Search Indexing service is a windows service, which keeps track of the files on your machine so that they are available easily and fast when searched for. It scans for all the files and folders and records info about them in an Index File. And the next time you search, it searches in this Index File and provides you with the results and hence the results are faster.
But along with this faster provision of search results, it has some negative effects too.. Yes, it consumes your machine resources all the time in background. 


Also, majority of the Windows 7 users do very less search for files on their machine. You only think, how many times do you search for files, when you use your machine? Very less rite? And in that case, this service makes a total waste of your resources -- CPU, Memory as well as the Hard Disk.

So why not turn it off and use those wasted resources!
You can turn it off by following the steps below:

• Click Start and type services.msc in the searchbar.

• Click Services that appears in the Start Search
• This opens the Service Dialog Box.

• Now locate Windows Search service in the list of services.
• Right-click and Stop the Service.

• Then, right-click on it and select Properties

• In the Startup Type Dropdown box, select the option Disabled.

Its actually not required but very much advisable if you reboot your machine after this.

4. Performance Troubleshooter

Well actually it wont happen, but in a very special case of yours, wherein none of the above points mentioned here, or in the previous articles in this Series worked out for you, then you should surely give a try to the Performance Troubleshooter.
In my case, I did this first but writing this as one of the last step in this series, the reason being we all are adventurous and obviously want to try doing it ourselves... rather than the Operating System doing it for its own self!
Briefing you about the Performance Troubleshooter,  what it does is it automatically finds and fixes problems. It checks for the issues that might be slowing down your computer's performance, and tries to resolve them.


To run the Performance Troubleshooter, please follow the steps below:

• Click Start->Control Panel
• Search troubleshooter in the search bar.

• Click Troubleshooting, under System and Security and click Check Performance Issues.

• Go through the wizard, your system will detect and solve all the issues.

5. Turn off some services that are unwanted -- For Advanced users only,

Don't try this if you are not very sure, else you may end up with some different problem with your machine.

You may have started some Extra Windows Services like say the SMTP service, if you are a developer, for checking a code to send mail.
Now, in case you have already checked it, better you stop it instead of you keep it running which keeps on consuming the resources.

Which all services need to be stopped, you are the best person to decide that.  Just a word of caution, please do not mess it up!

So Friends, here, at the end of this 4th post on Quick Tips to Speed up Windows 7 PC, let me tell you one thing, as far as these small tips are concerned, I have myself tried these on my own machine and then have penned then down here!

I had a pathetically slow Windows 7 PC, which I had literally thought of throwing away in a Dustbin and get a new one!

But, after applying all these, its working too good folks.. And I am so happy with its performance now, that I have dropped the plan of taking a new one at the moment!

In case you want to refer to the Complete Series again, please click here.

May all these points help you make your PC go wroooooom!
Happy Speeding up!