You can access this iPhone version by pointing your iPhone browser to http://www.google.com/talk. Also you can run this in your browser sidebar as well. Just replace the below URL’s in this trick which we wrote a while ago.

For normal Google/Gmail users: http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/m

For Google Apps users: http://hostedtalkgadget.google.com/a/mydomain.com/talkgadget/m

Don’t forget to replace mydomain.com with your own domain.

For Example, If you think that you can have 3 hours of battery backup from 6-cell battery playing Fifa on your system, then you should change your thinking. Gaming with battery performance makes no sense. It requires whole computer running at its full performance or it may disrupt your gaming experience.

Following some simple steps will let you manage some extra time from your notebook’s battery. Here are some ways to fetch maximum juice out of your notebook’s battery:

1. Decrease the Screen Brightness: Dimming the screen brightness can be really helpful while you are hungry for more power.

2. Use low resolution: Low resolution means less graphics usage, thus saving a lot of power.

3. Do not use optical drives: Optical drives are the best battery juice drinkers. An optical drive such as a CD or DVD drive uses a laser to read data from the disks, which extracts maximum juice from your battery. So simply avoid using these drives and the main point “never think about writing to a disk in this condition”. It may drain your complete battery within few minutes.

4. Plug out USB sticks, pen drives or USB devices: USB devices such as pen drives use your laptops battery to power themselves. If these are kept plugged-in even when they are not in use, they will also act as slow lecher for your battery.

5. Avoid Multi-tasking: Multi-tasking means running two or more programs at once. Its good that your Operating System supports multi-tasking, but its not that good when your PC is at battery mode. Multi-tasking puts a lot of load on the Processor, thus consuming a lot of power.

6. Do not play 3D games or use 3D software: If you are gaming stud then forget about mobility. 3D games utilizes the maximum system sources. While the game is running it requires processor to work at full speed, continuously spinning of the Hard Drive & Optical Drive, thus squeezing up a lot of battery power.

7. Get lots of RAM: RAM or Random Access Memory rates have got cheaper in the past years. However the virtual memory helps the low-RAM models to work much better but it also uses the Hard Disk after every few minutes, leading to battery loss. Thus it is recommended to have more RAM than Virtual Memory for saving the battery power.

8. Setup your OS to get maximum juice from your Battery: Most of the OS are deigned with various power profiles such Power Saver, High Performance, Balanced, etc. And these profiles are smart enough to save some amount of your battery. So tune your power profile to a Power Saving mode.

9. Hibernation or Sleep Mode can save your day: If you are in place where PC is not needed for some minutes but you have quickly to resume your work when you get back, Sleep mode or Hibernation can save your time as well as power. Rather than restarting simply just put your PC to Sleep mode or in Hibernation.

10. Close the programs not in use by you: There are some programs which by default start up when the computer starts like messengers, anti-virus, updating programs, etc. These programs continuously uses a lot of computer sources draining up the battery. So its better to close them.

11. Defrag your Hard Disk regularly: Defragging the hard disk keeps it organized and also speeds it up. The better the hard disk performs, the less power it consumes.

12. Keep it Cool: The cooler is your PC, the better it will work. There are many air winds on notebooks, make sure that you don’t block them while keeping the notebook on your laps. Let air easily pass through them. Also make sure your computer’s fans are working properly.

13. Lower the Graphic Performance: New notebook models comes with an option to adjust the graphic card’s performance. Lower the performance, so the graphic card and processor will use minimum system sources.

14. Use your charged battery weekly: If you have a habit of always connecting the power cable, its good. But it is also necessary to use the juice from a charged battery to keep it healthy. So it is recommended that you should use the battery power once a week.

15. Avoid Bluetooth or Wi-fi connections: Most of the laptops today have a single switch for Bluetooth and Wi-fi. Thus when you switch on the Wi-fi or Bluetooth, the other thing automatically gets activated wasting up your power. Thus disabling the one which you don’t want to use can also help you saving the power.

16. Turn off the Aero Graphics (Vista Only): If you are using the Microsoft Windows Vista, you might be enjoying its Aero (Transparency) effect. It looks good but it don’t acts as a good practice while we are talking about Battery Saving. Turning it off can get you a little more time for your other tasks.

17. Avoid Installations & Restarting: Restarting the computer is not considered as a good habit when you are in need of more battery. Restarting waists the time and also the battery power, as the computer needs to shut down all the windows shell files and then start them again. Thus it is not considered a good practice.

18. Keep it clean: Do you remember when was the last time you took your battery out from its chamber from the notebook? Well check now that is there any dust in that place. Keeping the battery connecting points clean can also help you in achieving the above target.

19. Say NO to auto-save & spell-check: Imagine you are working on a document in MS Office. You love its auto-save & spell-check feature. But did you ever thought that these features forced the hard disk to spin again & again in every few minutes. This consumes power each time the Hard disk has to spin to auto-save the data. Also spell-check causes the processor to work continuously as you are typing. Thus turning off these two features can help you a lot.

20. Disconnect an extra USB mouse or disable the touch-pad: Many notebook users have an external USB mouse. It is recommended to use only one thing for controlling pointer, either the mouse or the touch-pad.

Got some more points? Do leave a comment below I’l add them in this list!

1. Mobile View – m.orkut.com:
Finally the orkut mobile version is here, but Google didn’t officially launched as it has some bugs in it. Mobile version allows you to check your scraps, view your friends profile, scrap to your friends, accept or reject a friend request, see updates, etc.

To open orkut mobile site simply visit m.orkut.com. Orkut Mobile View may be used as another way to bypass restrictions to orkut, but only if *.orkut.com has not been blocked by your provider.

It also has some keypad shortcuts that let you browse quickly like 3 for (F)riends, 7 for (S)crapbook, etc. however this may not work on every handset or every browser.

Credits for discovering Orkut Mobile are via labnol via Rahul, InsideOrkut and Haochi.

2. Low Bandwidth Mode:
This mode is like general orkut but the difference is it loads without images. Only your own image will load while browsing orkut. However when you open a scrapbook, instead of showing images of the scrap authors it shows an option to display image of the author of that scrap. If you click on it, the image will be fetched from the server using AJAX.

Also the birthday updates are shown in a calendar form. Well I don’t think that this feature can reduce bandwidth, instead if these updates in simple text form might have been useful.

To enable this mode follow the steps mentioned below:

• Login to your orkut account.
• Click on “Settings” in the left Column.
• Then under low bandwidth section, select the option “show the low bandwidth version of orkut”.
• Click on “Update”.
• Done!

This view is suitable for those who are using dial-up or who have limited bandwidth.

Related: How to access orkut from office or college, where orkut is blocked?

This feature comes inbuilt in Firefox but has not gained popularity yet. Many people still don’t know about this and that is why we have written this post. Additionally starting the YDT podcast today as promised by us a month back, there is a video below do check it out.

How to quickly open multiple tabs?
Just follow the simple steps below or watch the video at the bottom of this post:

1. Create a new folder in Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox.
2. Create bookmarks of the sites you want to use on daily basis.
3. Now just click on that folder & then click on “Open all in Tabs”.
4. That’s it, now see the magic!

Keeping our promise, here is the first podcast ever from Yogtec’s Digital Technology. The first one is quite small but still it is quite useful. It has no sound just a plain trick to speed up your daily work.

We will continuously bring more videos for you. Your comments to our first podcast are really appreciated.

WordPress recently started support for tag which Windows Live Write adopted very quickly.

So all you have to do is to just update your copy of WordPress to the latest version. Here ia the complete way of making your Windows Live Writer support tag for your WordPress.

1. Download & update your WordPress to the latest version available. (Must be 2.3.1 or higher)
2. After your WordPress is updated, open windows live writer. Go to your weblog settings & update your template style.
3. Now you will see a field name as “Keywords” in the more section.
4. Enter your tags there (separate multiple tags with commas: cats, pet food, dogs).

Recently many new offline blogging options have been set up. I took a quick roundup on these, compared them & finally here is conclusion with a comparison table.

1. Windows Live Writer – Link
The most convenient way of blogging offline comes from Microsoft. A free tool with an WYSIWYG editor, spell checker, etc. It supports almost all popular blogging platforms & comes with a bunch of settings pre-installed. It supports video embedding, HTML, picture resizing, paste special, etc.

It not only supports drafts but also saves draft to the weblog. Overall product to blow off the offline blogging limits.

2. Zoho Writer – Link
Zoho Writer is not just another blogging tool but it is just a web application not a software. It is powered by Google Gears to make it available for offline use. The major plus(+) point of it is its simple & eye-catching interface.

It is not made for writing & publishing post but its mainly a Word Processor. However it can be used for publishing posts also.

3. Microsoft Word – Link
Well I hope almost all the persons reading this article knows about the software I’m talking about. Yes, its the MS Word only which can also be used to publish posts also. So you can use all the features of MS Word to write a post. But still it is not recommended to blog with MS Word because it causes problems while exporting HTML. This may lead to improper designing of your post on weblog or in feed readers.

4. blog.gears – Link
Just another writer which uses Google Gears to go offline. It has no WYSIWYG editor, nor any additional features also it only supports blogger. You need to grant access to blog gears from Google accounts to to let it access your current posts or publish new posts. Currently its just a plain offline post writer however its still in beta so it may become one of the popular tool for blogger in future.

I have figured out a comparison table of the features of these great products. Have a look at it!

Offline Blogging Tools Comparison Table

	Windows Live Writer	Zoho Writer	Microsoft Word	blog.gears
Spell Checker
Saving Drafts
WYSIWYG editor
Support for Categories/Tags
Import Pictures, Videos, etc.
Edit/Insert HTML
Requires Google Gears
Requires Browser
Supported Platforms	Blogger, WordPress, Movable Type, etc.	Blogger, WordPress, Movable Type, etc.	N/A	Only Blogger
Post Draft to site
Publish Post to site
Other Features	Plug-in Support, Glossary Entry	Very easy interface	All the features of MS Word	Capability of syncing content
In Beta
Recommended	(Highest)	(High)	(Low)	(Lowest)

Its the time when you are beating your head because you haven’t created any backup of your files on it. You connect it to a PC or a mac but iTunes is requesting to restore your iPod which means loss of your important data. Well, before restoring or formatting your iPod, do consider reading this article. This method will not erase any data on your iPod.

Difference between a Corrupted iPod & a Hanged iPod:
Before we get started, it is very important to know th difference between a Hanged iPod & a Corrupted iPod. An iPod gets hanged up when it has been working since hours or it has not been safely ejected from a computer or a corrupted mp3 file has been played on it. While iPod corruption is mainly caused by a corrupted mp3 file or not ejecting the iPod safely from computer.

How would I know that my iPod is corrupted or hanged up?
Its simple, if your iPod is hanged it will just not react, not even switching it on or off is possible. But if your iPod is corrupted it will be not be totally frozen up but it be will continuously restarting itself or it may act very unusual. However, if you connect either a hanged or corrupted iPod to a mac or a PC, iTunes will always show it as a corrupted iPod & will ask you to restore it.

How to repair a hanged iPod?
Well repairing a hanged iPod is very simple & easy. Its just a one step process. Unplug the iPod from a PC, mac or an iPod charger. Then just press the Center & the Menu button simultaneously for 10 seconds. Yes that’s it The magic combination key. Well there is no magic here, its just a simple trick to restart an iPod.

Well a hanged iPod can be repaired by this way but if your iPod is corrupted, then you are in trouble! But don’t worry there is still some hope!

How to repair a corrupted iPod?
Note: Chances are very low that your iPod data can be safely recovered from a corrupted iPod!
In this case, first try connecting your iPod to a Mac or PC. If windows or Mac OS is able to detect & read data from your drive (It will be available in My Computer & windows will show it as a Removable Drive). Then simply copy all folders & files into a folder on your PC hard drive (Remember: Don’t forget to copy all hidden files & folders).

Now restore your iPod using iTunes & also if an upgrade is available for your iPod so upgrade it. Now when your iPod has been restored or formatted. Copy the hidden folder back to iPod (Note: Do not copy the corrupted files back to your iPod as it may again corrupt your iPod) & your iPod is ready.

But if the drive is not detected, take your iPod to a your nearest recovery center.

UPDATE: If you don’t have any important data on your ipod & your ipod is corrupted then simply format your ipod with Windows Format utility & then connect it to latest version of iTunes. Let the iTunes restore or update your iPod. Your ipod will be ready by this time with new firmware files.

Sometimes, iTunes cannot restore or update the iPod. In this condition you should opt for the following measures:

1. Update iTunes to the latest version and attempt to restore your iPod.
2. Try connecting your iPod to a different USB port and restore.
3. Remove any third-party USB devices you have connected to your computer (it is not necessary to remove your keyboard or mouse).
4. If you use Windows, re-register .dll files as described in article #304996.
5. For Windows users, update or reinstall your Windows USB drivers.
6. Try connecting your iPod to another computer and then try restoring or formating your iPod.

Note: If you have an iPod shuffle you may need to use the iPod Reset Utility to restore the iPod. © Yogtec’s Digital Technology