Author: Swadesh Parasher

Top 5 funky digital Accessories you can buy with your extra money you saved this weekend

If you have some extra money to spare this weekend, you’ll sure like some of these supercool accesssories to choose from. In no way I am telling you that you should go out and spend all your money on these stuffs, make sure first that you have paid your bills and you got your savings with you, because these might be irresistable.

Lets have a look at some cool stuffs I stumbled upon this weekend

1. Han Solo Frozen iPhone Case

Now you can pay homage to the best non-force wielding Star Wars character as well as add to your growing collection of Stars Wars memorabilia with the Han Solo frozen iPhone case. This fun themed case shows the great captain Solo when he’s trapped in carbonite. The case is specifically designed for the iPhone 4 and composed of rubber silicone for added protection and has a nice gloss finish that would satisfy any Star Wars fan whether their loyalties lie on the dark or light side of the force.

[ It is available on Amazon and This is why I’m Broke website for $15.99. ]

2. USB wall outlet

Do you own an iPhone and tired or connecting it through your laptop or charger? Well, there is an specially designed wall outlet which might come handy.

I see this, and I feel like I should immediately replace all of the outlets in my house. Homes should be build with this from now on. It’s so genius; I wish I thought of it.

[ The wall outlet is available on Think Geek or This is why I’m broke for $27.95. ]

3. Duracell PowerMat

Duracell tries wireless charging again with its PowerMat, and this time it’s a hit. Extensively updated from three years ago, this wireless charging system is stylish and easy to use. Here’s how it works: Put a shiny sleeve on your iPhone 4, iPhone 4S or iPod, and then you can place your device on a matching mat that wirelessly charges it up like magic.

[ Duracell Official website ]

4. Western Digital My Net N900

Well, If you still have those old buggy router, it is the time to replace it. Western Digital ventures out of the hard drive space and into wireless routers, and we tried out its new $180 My Net N900 router here at our Midwest Test Facility.
A router? Why should you care? Sure, routers are geeky as they can be, but if your router flakes out on you, it’s enough to ruin your day, or maybe even your week.

[ Western Digital Official Website ]

5. Mini Ballista Launcher

Yes. Yes. Yes. Wage war on the other people in your office with this little desk ballista. Comes with mini wood ammo that shoots up to 30 feet. Who will challenge your office might when you’re armed with this? Sure, it might get you fired, or even sued if you shoot someone’s eye out. But Rome wasn’t build in a day, you can’t handle the truth, and there is no ‘i’ in ‘t-e-a-m.’ And your coworkers might not have an eye if you have a good aim.

[ The Mini Ballista launcher is available on This is why I’m broke or Think Geek at $24.95 ]

July 7, 2012
[How To] find temporary cache folder of Internet download manager (idm) for incomplete download files

It is sure a very helpful software and makes our work easier and comfortably simple. Sometimes you might have been wondering, where IDM is storing all your files before presenting the final output you get after the finished download. Well, it is simple – Your files are unfinished and it should be in the temporary folder. Once you Know where to look, You are almost there.

IDM saves your cache files of incomplete downloads at this location:

C:\Users\digitfreak\AppData\Roaming\IDM\DwnlData

Replace digitfreak with your computer username.

You will find folders which are indexed by the names of your current unfinished downloads. This is what we were looking for. One thing that we notice is that these files have no extension.

If you are downloading multiple files at once, like a music album, you’ll find that there are exactly the same number of files without extensions. To get the preview of the files, you can copy one of them to other location and add an extension at the end.

Play or open the file with the software which can run it.

Warning

*Never rename the folder or file you are download in the temp folder of IDM or you might end up with the non-resumable download.

June 30, 2012
E-book libraries are gaining popularity very slowly

The latest trend that has taken its turn in the field of digitized education is the starting of new learning methods including the education through eBooks. The latest thing implemented is the borrowing or lending of eBooks from the e-library. But according to a new study it has been said that E-book reading has been quite slow these days as it has proved to be really slow than the manual method of borrowing and reading books from the libraries.

When asked in detail few of the problems came out in light. Users complain that the limited supply or say choices available in the case of books has been a real pain in the ass, resulting in the frustration of their kind. Another reported trouble is the uncertainty in knowing whether their local branch offers E-releases or not.

This new survey was released by the Pew research center centered mostly on the Present status of E-book lending/ Borrowing. The report says that around 12% of E-book users of the teenage group or older downloaded a text from the library over the past year, whereas around 20% of the adults read an E-book recently.

Major book companies and publishers have made this very clear in their statements that they are gonna make the books available in the form of e-books in a very limited way and some have even refused to do so. The companies feel like they are gonna loose the profit and value merchandise if they start letting other people read their books online. Some big names are Simon and schuster, the hachette book group etc and when you honestly ask me about it i feel its more because of the lack of proper awareness.

The survey conducted was actually done on about 3000 respondents in the period of almost a month , suggesting the fact that there patrons who are in charge of the libraries are also not comfortable with the E-book processing as they are unable to provide the users what they need. Same thing goes with the users as they complain that they can’t get a particular title on their devices just because the device is unable to receive any digital text from outside.

The users replied or better yet advised that they would surely be more interested in this project if they would be provided with a device with the E-book they are looking for already downloaded in it. This seems to be a better alternative for them rather than sharing just the digital content! Now this changes everything as this whole program is now turned into a E-book device lending thing. Over half of the Patrons say that most of the time it turns out that that the book they were looking for was not with them from the very start.

The American library association has been arranging meetings with publishers quite frequently nowadays since they also understand the gravity of this situation and they are looking for ways to satisfy both the sides. Recently the Penguin group (USA) announced a different pilot program or better say that as an oncoming experiment just to support this new initiative. The group has declared that they will make every book they publish available as E-books in the coming six months after the book is published. This program is going to be active only for the New York and Brooklyn library systems. But who knows if this one is going to be stable or not because they also declared some kind of a program last year also but it was later suspended, and we hope that it doesn’t happens this time around also.

“I applaud Penguin’s decision today to re-start e-book sales to libraries so that we may again meet our mutual goals of connecting authors and readers,” library association president Molly Raphael said in a statement.

On the bright side a new statistic that was lost in all the negativity found in this survey was this little fact that seems to strengthen our faith in this new digitization of library thing. The data is :- Those who borrow E-books from libraries tend to read 29 more books per year than their average usage data showed. This is still greater than those who don’t read e-books by 23 books. And the experts thing that this is good even for the book groups because ultimately the users who don’t have a library card are gonna get more comfortable buying an e-book rather than first getting a library card and then borrowing the book.

Take a look at the bigger picture here if you have trouble understanding the usefulness of this new initiative. Around half of those who were surveyed said that they bought their most recent books and only 15 percent said that they borrowed an E-book from a library!

So what do you choose? Thick and heavy books, long lines of borrowers or just a digital copy of your book on your pda or laptop or your smartphone!

June 24, 2012
Top 10 digital tech gifts you should consider on father’s day

Father’s day is here and we all are searching for something very unique. There are lots of gifts that can be wrapped up and handed over to your father, but some unique and tech gadgets can change the scenario.

Of course! most of the people across the world still finds traditional gifts as one of the best proven method to make your loved ones happy, but getting something unique and techy is something which can get you to the next level. Why not make this day more greener and tech friendly?

There are so many gadgets and technologies which can bring a new smile on someone’s face in a digital world. Picking a very few of the best gadgets available for the occasion is very difficult, but we succeeded to get it done.

Let’s have a look at the top 10 tech gadgets which can make this fathers day special.

1. Self Making Bed

With everyday passing by people need more comfort to their ageing body – why waste it on doing some work what you don’t like to do. You can gift a brand new “Self making bed” to your father and get a little burden off their sholder. Made by Spanish furniture maker OAGA, it can straighten up those sheets and pillows in a mere 50 seconds, using a mechanical arm with two rollers. You can even set it to automatic, where it starts making the bed if no one is in it for 3 seconds. That might be a bit dicey, in my estimation.

2. c1 Electrik Bike

Why not make this fathers day greener? You can get a brand new Green c1 Electric bike which can bring some comfort and greener world together. It’s a two-wheeler with a gyroscope holding it upright — reminiscent of the gyroscopically stabilized Segway. To me, the C-1 looks like the love child of a motorcycle and a pint-sized electric car.

3. iXoost iPhone dock

This has got to be one of the most outlandish iPhone/iPod docks I’ve ever seen. The iXoost Manifold Dock has a series of tubes with tweeters or woofers at the business end, and the whole thing is decked out in leather trim, carved out of a solid block of aluminum. Guess what? It’s all made up of spare car parts. Dad would love to have this.

4. NuForce Cube 3

You will be surprised to see how much such a tiny 2-inch (2.3″ x 2.3″ x 2.36″, to be exact) box could accomplish when it comes to the sound. Once I plugged in my iPhone, I was astonished at the sheer amount of sound emanating from this minuscule device. It is great tool for your Laptops and other portable devices.

5. LiquiGlide Super-Slippery Coating

Tired of waiting for that ketchup to finally come out of the bottle, or digging around for the last mini-dollop of mayonnaise? Thanks to the brain trust at MIT, now there’s LiquiGlide, a magic new coating that makes the inside of containers super-slippery. Made of proven-safe substances that are already used in foods, it’s completely non-toxic and can be applied to glass, metal, ceramics or plastic. This can definitely help out your dad while he’s eating.

6. Medisana VitaDock Scale
It would seem sinful to call this gorgeous electronic device a bathroom scale, but that’s just what it is. Step on this $200 TargetScale Body Analysis Scale with Target Function, and it precisely measures your weight, body mass index (BMI), body fat and a lot of other things you might not want to know. It transmits all that data via Bluetooth to a VitaDock app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

7. Nikon D800

We could write volumes about this magnificent Nikon D800 digital SLR camera — we’ve been testing it all week — but what you really want to know is, why is this better than a smartphone camera? The answer: spectacular low-light performance. It has an enormous image sensor (it’s full-frame, about the size of 35mm film) compared to that of smartphone cameras (slightly smaller than your pinky fingernail), giving it the ability to almost see in the dark.

8. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultrabook

We’re keeping an eye on the pack of Ultrabooks currently in mid-explosion, and now Lenovo surprises us with its claim of the lightest Ultrabook ever: It’s the impressively named ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultrabook, a 14-inch laptop touted as “amazingly thin and extremely powerful.” Packed with one of those prodigious new Intel Ivy Bridge processors, this one presses all the right buttons, with a backlit keyboard, high-definition display, a RapidCharge battery that reaches a “near-full” battery charge in a half an hour and an under-3-pound weight.

9. Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad

If your dad owns an iPad, here’s a lovely ultrathin keyboard from Logitech that perfectly matches your iPad 2 or new iPad. It magnetically attaches to the iPad just like Apple’s super-cool iPad covers, and when you’re ready to type, you just place the iPad in a slot and you have what looks like a tiny laptop.

10. Super-Convenient USB Reader for Android
One advantage Android phones have over their competitors is their ability to connect to USB devices, and this USB reader uses that advantage to give those already versatile phones even more capabilities. On board this $40 Sanwa USB reader is a plethora of slots, accommodating microSD, SD and miniSD cards, and it can even accommodate a mouse or a game pad. It works with a variety of Samsung, Sony and Toshiba Android devices.

June 17, 2012
Firefox 13 is here – new homepage, speed dial and more

Firefox 13 is out now! You can download the latest version of Firefox web browser from their official website, which will bring the most anticipated improvements and features to enhance your experience.

Finally, Firefox 13 brings some visual improvements and features to the browser. If you have already upgraded to the newest version, you will immediately notice the – new sleek start page with “common settings” shortcuts.

You can find the speed dial in the “new tab”, where you can keep your most frequently visited web pages in a tile, to get zippy access to them.

Then there comes some internal CSS and script optimization which makes the browser more stable and ready for the future web.

Firefox can now prove to be good asset for those, who uses greater number of multiple tabs in the single session. Also When loading a previous session’s tabs, Firefox will not load each tabs contents in the background, but only when you ‘switched’ to it. This is aimed at speeding up browser performance for users of tab-heavy sessions.

Firefox has improved their “In page Element Inspector“, which now included “inspect elements” feature. It is found that the default element inspector works flawlessly, which may get some attention of web page developers – who prefer to use chrome to do the similar work.

June 7, 2012
Motoczysz E1pc e-bike can easily break 100MPH barrier

If you are an actual speed freak, you might hate the tradition e-bikes laying around these days – which can’t get past the moped at it’s maximum peak.

The MotoCzysz E1pc can get you stunned, when the fearsome looking electronic-motorbike smashes potential speed limits, even if it didn’t completely rock the two-wheeled establishment.

The company revealed the first Motoczysz back in 2010 at the Isle of Man TT. Comparing the 2010 release, we can see the futuristic improvements of the technology used on the bike. The updated E1pc’s most conspicuous changes are on the outside: it tackles the problem of the wind resistance at high speeds by bringing on aerodynamic ducts and fins. Inside, torque looks to be down to 162 foot-pounds, but the equivalent to 200 horsepower (twice of 2010’s model).

Motoczysz paid a minute attention to the battery cooling system, which keeps Motoczysz creation running at full bore for considerably longer than before. The team won $15,369 for breaking a 100 MPH average speed barrier for electric bikes last year by Isle of Man.

There is no doubt – a substantial tweak can make this little giant go massive speed freak.

June 2, 2012