Category: Useful Applications & Tips

  • The list of best screen capture tools for Ubuntu and Windows

    The list of best screen capture tools for Ubuntu and Windows

    It’s hard to imagine life without screen capture tools especially if you are into writing manuals and tutorials. Whether you wish to capture a small section of your device or a video for your tutorial, you need to utilize screen capture tools which can help you in this process. The screencasts and screenshots can be used for demonstration purposes while offering a preview of a new software to the users. There are several screen capturing apps for Windows and Ubuntu. These can be downloaded easily and can be used right away for recording purposes. Here is a list of finest apps that are available for screen capturing for Windows and Ubuntu (Linux).

    Windows

    ShareX

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    This is one of the most recommended, Open Source, Screen Capture tool that boasts all the advanced features that a premium package would offer at a hefty price. It has everything to offer from a single screen grab to a more advanced ‘scrolling window’ capture and gif animated screen recording.

    ShareX is mainly advertised as a tool for capturing and uploading screenshots, which can be coined as an advanced replacement of ‘GreenShot‘ that lack many essential features of ShareX, including screen recorder. That’s understandable because it offers some very unique capturing options. ShareX supports uploading to services like TinyPic, Imgur, Flickr, Photobucket, Pastebin, Dropbox, SendSpace, and many more. Encountering an issue related to downtime while using ShareX is practically unrealistic because of how many options are offered. In most cases this free tool is all you need for your personal and professional needs. It is highly recommended by DigitFreak.

    Download it at $0 from Github

    Greenshot

    Greenshot best sceenshot tool for windows

    Greenshot is very similar to ShareX, and one of the smallest application on this list. The executable file required to install this application was less than 2MB. Don’t be deceived by it’s a small package, it still packs advanced features and tools that you’d find on ShareX with few exclusions; You can carry out basic actions with very small resource footprint. Greenshot can be configured to upload your images to ‘Imgur,’ which can be later used to host your screenshots for online sharing.

    Greenshot is inferior in terms of features and tools compared to ShareX; it lacks the scrolling window capture, video recording and ability to customize various image/file hosting websites to store your images.

    Download GreenShot

    Screenshot Captor

    ScreenShot Captor opensource tool

    Screenshot Captor is the most advanced OpenSource tool you’ll find for Windows powered PC (As far as we know). It has everything you’d need to capture a screenshot, or record the video instructions. It has all the features that you’d find on ShareX with additional advanced tools. Great special effects, including automatic active window enhancement & blur effect, ragged edge splicing, pixelation, smart text removal, Smart auto naming of files, easy renaming and format conversion, ability to embed textual comments in files or add attractive captions to images unsurpassed multi-monitor support, scrolling windows capture and much more.

    It is, however, lacks the visual appeal and user-friendly UI. It follows the design language of its own, which resembles the Windows XP era. The icons and buttons are very small, which seems a little hard to get used to.

    Download Screenshot Captor

    PicPick

    z z digitfreak 000074

    This app works on Windows platform and helps the users capture their screen for a variety of purposes. A ton of various options is offered by this app for editing the images. Screenshot can be taken in 7 different ways. This is available for free and offers unique features to the users.

    • The users can take screenshots of active window or of the entire screen
    • Tons of customizable hotkeys can be setup
    • The screenshots can be annotated with text, arrows and ribbon style editor which is built-in
    • Resize, rotate and crop the images
    • Effects such as color balance, sharpen and blur can be added
    • The screen can be magnified while capturing screenshots
    • After snapping, the images can be uploaded to an FTP server

    FastStone Capture

    z z digitfreak 000075

    This tool can be accessed for $20 and also offers few extra features while capturing screenshots. The screenshots can be incorporated in PowerPoint presentation or in the word. These can also be saved in several formats. This is a good alternative for users who do not wish to work with PicPick.

    Shelr

    There are many screens capturing applications available today with the prime focus on capturing the entire screen. It becomes hard to capture tutorials which lay emphasis on explaining the content on the command line. For instance, if you are explaining programming concepts to your audience, then you can incorporate screen captures to make everything clear. This free application lets you deal with such problems. This helps you record activity over the command line. This is available for Ubuntu platform.

    Ashampoo Snap

    ashampoo snap

    Ashampoo Snap is another premium screen capture tool that I have been personally using since a long time. It is one of the most advanced screen capture tools out there, with the ability to record the screen as a video. Ashampoo Snap enables users to capture with pixel perfect accuracy, edit and share screen contents either as single images or videos. The application comes with powerful image editing capabilities.

    Skitch

    5

    This is another cool app for capturing screen shots on Windows platform. This offers PicPick a strong competition in its features. This tool is simple to use. Capturing the screen, annotating and saving it as an image can be done in no time. The annotation can be done prettily and much easily.

    Ubuntu

    Shutter

    This is another application offered for free and works perfectly if you have an Ubuntu desktop. This fits aptly in the indicator menu. This app doesn’t just allow the users to capture screenshots of the desktop screen but also lets then annotate and edit them. After the installation process has been completed, this application lets the users capture screenshots of windows, parts of desktops and menus. The users can make use of the edit tool with which the screenshots can be easily annotated. Few parts of the screenshots captured can also be buried to protect the user privacy.

    GNOME screenshot tool

    z z digitfreak 000076

    This is a staple tool if the users wish to capture simple screenshots and wish to do nothing else. This is installed in Ubuntu by default. This can be easily accessed by pressing the PrintScreen button from the keyboard of the device. This will capture a screenshot and a pop-up will appear prompting the users to indicate the location where the file needs to be saved.

  • Editor’s Pick: Golden Frog’s VyprVPN – review

    Editor’s Pick: Golden Frog’s VyprVPN – review

    Everything you do over the internet is being monitored, believe it or not, your VPN provider can only do so much to keep your identity private. Many of us think that using a VPN will make you an anonymous ghost on the internet, and untraceable with the click of a button — you’ll be surprised by the fact that everything you’re being told by popular VPN companies is a lie. Yes, it is true that VPNs can hide you from direct tracking/tracing by analytic codes on websites, and it hardens the network security, but it has its limitation. When a VPN company claims that they can give a degree of anonymity and privacy that any VPN service is virtually incapable of, you’re better off without it.

    I was able to trace one such example few days ago, where I warned my VPN readers to immediately disable WebRTC on the web browser they’re using on the computer. Google Chrome is your privacy nightmare, because it doesn’t officially allow you to disable WebRTC feature on the browser, and third-party extensions/scripts are not trustworthy. If you are a privacy freak and a guy with ‘tin foil,’ I would immediately suggest you to start using Firefox and remove anything that says “Google” on your computer. Their products and user privacy are shady, and they became data hungry lately – so much for “Don’t be evil.” While there are no evidence or data to back up my opinions, but if you’re privacy freak, I would recommend to stay clear of Google.

    See Also: Soon Google Will Search Your hard Drive For Data

    Let’s not make this article all about why you shouldn’t rely on VPN, rather we should focus on why we chose VyprVPN and recommending it to our readers. One of the most obvious reason would be the transparency in their terms of service, and trust me there are very few of them who do provide what’s been advertised. Almost all VPN providers would claim at some point that they are capable of providing 100% anonymous internet presence while keeping 0% user data on their server. When they have no control how a simple browser exploit can reveal original IP address, how come they claim to make anyone using their service 100% anonymous? – VyprVPN makes no such claim.

    While VPN service providers are competing each others with massive outreach with “anonymous service” they can provide, but the fine print in their privacy policy suggests they log a significant amount of customer data. VyprVPN stands out as a purple cow by informing users what actually a VPN service can truly do for you.

    We tested several other VPNs before, and none of them actually proved to be as robust, reliable and transparent as VyprVPN. During 1 months extensive test, we found some uniquely engineered features one can rely on.

    The features and state of reliability offered by VyprVPN might change over a period of time, and we can only vouch for the service offered during DigitFreak’s testing phase*. VyprVPN and its parent company GoldenFrog is not associated with DigitFreak and its services. This review is independent, and DigitFreak cannot be held responsible for any personal loss or influence of user decision to purchase their service.

    Registration & Price

    VyprVPN has incorporated an interesting business model, which allows you to start a free trial of any existing plans they offer. You’ll not find “buy now” button anywhere on their pricing model, rather there is a “Start Free Trial” option that allows you to test the service before making the purchase. However, due to spams and invalid attempts to use their service for free, they need you to attach a payment information during the signup, which includes credit card or Paypal account. It is little limited to the payment options, as you cannot pay by bitcoin, Alipay or any other third party payment gateway, which is little weird considering they have been targeting Chinese market with their proprietary Chameleon encryption technology.

    vyprvpn price

    The company is offering a wide range of plans to choose, which includes – VyprVPN Free($0), Basic($6.67 to $9.99), Pro ($8.33 to $14.99) and Premier ($10 to $19.99) — which bends slightly toward the heavy budget for the premium service. We were surprised to see that Free plan is way better than their ‘VyprVPN Basic’ Plan, which only has an advantage of the unlimited bandwidth. If you don’t need high bandwidth, Free option is something that can help you stay anonymous, but again there are plenty of other Free VPNs available for casual users with minimum restrictions, and unlimited bandwidth. One reason you’d probably want to use “VyprVPN Free” plan is to test their service without revealing your credit card information.

    vyprvpn premier test account registrationWe wanted to test their service with full capability, hence, we registered a “VyprVPN Premier” test account. The only difference with their pro and premier plans is the number of concurrent devices you can simultaneously use on a single account. We filled the registration form with required information and credit card details, and before hitting the “start Free Trial” button we were informed that we’ll be charged US$119.99 if we fail to cancel our subscription within the trial period of 3 days. That’s fair, and it is a good thing that they are making it clear that we might get charged automatically if we don’t cancel the subscription.

    Dashboard

    Once we received the login information and account details, we jumped directly into the ‘Control Panel’ or, the Dashboard. The moment you log into the ‘Client Area,’ you’d know they’re very serious about positive customer experience, everything is so neat and well oriented that it feels like you’re special to them. While most of the VPN providers use similar backend design,

    vyprvpn dashboard

    Infrastructure

    Golden Frog’s founders are Internet veterans who have owned and operated Internet businesses since the dawn of the public Internet in 1994. Although incorporated in Switzerland, Golden Frog, GmbH, is a global service provider committed to preserving an open and secure Internet experience while respecting user privacy throughout the world.

    VyprVPN is one of the few options available right now which has total control over their network; you can literally count the number of services that owns their own tier-1 network — Only other service that I personally know would be IPVanish. This means that no part of the service is outsourced to 3rd parties. Other VPN providers use 3rd parties to host their servers. Golden Frog even owns and operate their own DNS service, VyprDNS, to add further privacy and security for their users. Golden Frog offers a 100% private, no-logging DNS service to complement VyprVPN. VyprDNS is Golden Frog’s 100% owned and operated DNS service available exclusively for VyprVPN users.

    server locations and IP acquisition

    VyprVPN doesn’t only boast their Tier-1 network and fully private DNS service, but they also excel in server location availability and IP acquisition. This is something you won’t find by services provided by some of the best VPN service providers.

    vyprvpn server locations

    Some VPN services limit user bandwidth, speed, and server switching. VyprVPN does not. Switching between server clusters is easy and effective with over 200,000 IP addresses for its users. It even has a Fastest Server setting so you can automatically be connected to the fastest server available for your location. At the time of Writing this review, VyprVPN offers servers in North America, Europe, Oceania, Central America, South America, Asia and Middle East.

    Logging and user data retention can be an issue for those who are involved in illegal activities, and VyprVPN does strictly follow DMCA notices. They claim not to disclose user information to the third party requests, how they do take actions to mitigate the crimes on their network by suspending or terminating the user account under the 3 strike rule.

    Software

    The software client of VyprVPN is easy to use, and mostly flawless on all platforms. We used it on 2 smartphones and a computer, running Android and Windows 10 respectively. We had few hiccups on Windows 10 powered device, which was quickly mitigated by the support team, more on in later.

    The software and mobile apps are streamlined, and you’d find similar options and UI experience on any platform you use it on. It is nice to see that they worked with the developer closely to make sure we get the same features and UI design on all platforms, which makes you feel at home anywhere you go.

    We had a little hiccup on both mobile and desktop software, as the connection was automatically dropped without any interference, but it was occasional and didn’t bother us much. Everything else worked as it should, and we couldn’t stress much to point out how much we loved their consistent cross-platform software and apps.

    vyprvpn software

    Feature Highlights:

    • Autologin/Autoconnect
    • Choose Autoconnect server
    • Sort servers by ping time, city or country
    • Choose server from map view
    • Check IP address to verify the VPN connection
    • Visual system tray indicator (Blue when disconnected/Red when connected)
    • Network Speed Graph
    • Manual Port/Protocol Selection Option (PPTP, L2TP, OpenVPN)
    • Smart Server Selection by desired use: (Speed, Video Streaming, Gaming, etc)
    • DNS Leak Protection
    • VPN Kill Switch/ Auto-disconnect on dropped VPN connection

    While all of these features are amazing and really effective to ensure a good user experience, I would like to discuss some of them.

    Kill Switch

    Usually, our internet connection works pretty solid and stable. However, you cannot deny the times when you loose the internet connection simply because your router would restart automatically, or someone turns it off unknowingly. It happens to best connections. Sometimes, we forget to turn on the VPN before surfing the internet and regret doing so when we finally realise that we have been sharing sensitive data without the protection.

    The ‘Kill Switch’ is a switch that automatically kills or blocks your internet connection whenever VyprVPN is disconnected. Except for network communications related to running VyprVPN services, Kill Switch will block all other Internet and network communications. The kill switch can be enabled in VyprVPN for Windows and Mac.

    vyprvpn killswitch

    Encryption Protocol

    VyprVPN offers multiple encryption protocols so one can choose their preferred level of encryption. Each of them varies according to their strength of security and interference with original internet speed. It includes OpenVPN, L2TP, PPTP and Chameleon (proprietary technology).

    encryption tech vyprvpn

    VyprDNS

    Golden Frog doesn’t only boast their Tier-1 Network, but they also offer a private secure DNS server to protect from any DNS leaks and third party reliability. When you’re trusting them for your online security, then it only makes sense that you’d want a single company to handle all your traffic. If you don’t know what is DNS, simply head over to this wiki. In short, DNS (Domain Name System) is a service that translates hostnames (such as http://digitfreak.com) into computer-readable IP address (178.220.123.121), so your computer can communicate with the desired host. It is actually very effective since it protects you from DNS leak over the network. We had a positive test result, which showed VyprVPN is pretty solid service.

    dnsleak test

    VyprDNS is Golden Frog’s 100% owned and operated DNS service available exclusively for VyprVPN users. They developed a zero-knowledge VyprDNS service to increase user privacy and defeat censorship across the world. VyprDNS is built into VyprVPN and when you connect, you will automatically use VyprDNS. Please note, VyprDNS cannot be used separately from VyprVPN.

    VyprVPN DNS

    Speed

    GoldenFrog (The company that owns VyprVPN) maintains all their own server infrastructure and utilizes high-speed server clusters. The benefit of all this? Faster speeds and fewer dropped connections.

    Vypr is one of the fastest VPN’s we’ve tested. In fact, nearly all the servers we tested maxed out our ISP connection or revoked the throttles put by our ISP. It’s no wonder that VyprVPN made our list of the fastest VPN providers. If you have a faster internet connection than we do, you will actually experience faster speeds than our test shows.

    However, When connected to our local nearest server (India), we experience greater latency or ping time that we did with the USA or other server locations we tested, which is little weird as servers in India should’ve had better latency. Other than that, we could easily stream youtube videos and unblock geo-blocked websites without any hiccups.

    Without VPN

    Without VPN

    USA server

    US server

    UK Server

    We were surprised too. UK server test returned false speed test result, reporting higher download speed that our ISP’s restriction. We did experience faster connections while connected to UK & Australia location.

    UK server

    and it was same when connected to Perth, Australia

    australia perth server

    India Server

    india server

    Support & Customer Care

    usually, we don’t actually contact the support team, unless there are some serious issues that we couldn’t fix on our own. All our systems at the office and my personal computer have been upgraded to Windows 10, that leaves us with some software refusing to cope with the new environment — VyprVPN is no exception. We didn’t face the specific issue right away, but it was only triggered when we used “Connect on Start” features — “Connect VyprVPN when Windows starts up” and “Connect VyprVPN on application launch.”

    vyprvpn options start system startup

    When these options were turned on, it would throw the error which reads “The VyprVPN Service could not be contacted. Would you like to attempt to start the service?” Even when we choose “Yes,” it didn’t work for several attempts before it would trigger the VyprVPN client.  It interfered with our computer default functions, and it wouldn’t let our computer to shutdown.

    vyprvpn error startup

    However, we were able to solve this issue by starting the VyprVpn service manually from “service manager,” but it wasn’t a proper solution. So we pinged the support team without letting them know that it can be easily fixed manually. It could be a great help for them as it would minimize the time required to pinpoint the cause of this error.

    golden frog support

    We were expecting the delay in response, so the review team shifted the focus on different tasks. When we checked back after few hours, we were surprised to see a response from their side within 3 minutes of our query submission.support response time vyprvpn

    They finally pinpoint the error, ensured us that they informed the developers and told us that we should expect the update within few days. We received the update after 2 days, and it solved the issue. 10/10 for support.

    What do we think?

    vyprVPN reviewVyprVPN is pretty reliable and professional service that will provide top-notch online security and premium quality if you can afford its above-average prices. Their Teir-1 network acquisition and a large number of shared IP address pool are going to capture a huge percentage of the VPN market because it ensures better internet speed than most of the competitor providers. We heard poor reviews about their support team, but we were satisfied with their pleasant customer support. Their limited payment method, keeping logs for a questionable period of time (30 days), DMCA compliance and geo-IP workaround keeps us from recommending it to everyone. However, they do certain things the way that no other competitor really does. The fact that VYPRVPN was recently elected the best VPN for France by VPNmag, just makes it superior to most of its competitors.

    The secure protocols, encryption levels, and additional service will keep your data safe and with a widespread server location, your identity will remain secure and private. If you need a VPN service provider that can keep you safe and secure while still delivering the actual Internet speed, you should definitely go for this service.

  • BlueStacks – The best Android emulator for Windows

    BlueStacks – The best Android emulator for Windows

    Android emulators have been around for a while now and BlueStacks has always led the pack with its easy installation process, simple and intuitive interface and high performance. For those who are not aware what an Android emulator is; it is a simple application that can be easily downloaded and installed on your computer. Android emulators are available for Windows and Mac operating systems.

    Android Emulator

    Once installed, an Android emulator functions as a platform allowing searching, downloading, installation and operating Android apps on your Windows or Mac personal computer. The interface of an Android emulator is similar to an Android device thereby enabling you to convert your PC into a fully functional Android device.

    Android emulators have several practical applications. They allow you to operate an Android app on the bigger screen of your PC as compared to your Android mobile phone or tablet. You also do not have to invest in an Android phone simply because you want to play a game or use an application. Therefore, cost efficiency is another important benefit of using an Android emulator. If you have a Windows PC, you can simply install an Android emulator and further install the Android apps or games you want instead of buying an Android phone.

    bluestacks android apps windows 8

    You can also enjoy your favourite Android games on a much larger screen and use the keyboard and mouse of your computer as gaming controllers. Android emulators have several benefits as they allow easy cross platform access to Android apps.

    There have been several Android emulators that have been released over the years and quite a few of them are pretty efficient. BlueStacks however still rules over the rest and it continues to hold its position as the best Android emulator around even for Windows 10 platform.

    BlueStacks app playerBlueStacks is the most popular emulator and app player due to the convenience of use and several unique features. The BlueStacks application has a very simple and easy installation process. It has an offline installer as well as a split online installer. Once the installation process is complete, users can easily download Android APK files of their favourite apps and games from sources such as Google Play Store and install them on their computer. It is a simple double click installation process. The installed apps and games can be accessed through the BlueStacks menu that has an architecture similar to an Android operating system.

    Bluestacks For Windows 10

    However, BlueStacks is a power guzzling application and requires significant RAM and processing power. You need to ensure that you have sufficient system resources to install and run BlueStacks. Even with sufficient RAM and processing power, running BlueStacks on your computer slows it down and you may find it difficult to concurrently use other software.

    Despite this, BlueStacks gives a simple and easy access to Android apps on your Windows PC. If you have recently upgraded to Windows 10 and want to access Android apps on it, you can download the executable file of BlueStacks from its website for free and start using it right away.

  • Windows 10 is spying on you! – Fix 35+ Privacy issues with a single click

    Windows 10 is spying on you! – Fix 35+ Privacy issues with a single click

    Windows 10 has been installed on more than 70 Million computers, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Microsoft is aiming to upgrade 1 billion computers within a year or two — these numbers seems insignificant now as they have already crossed 7% of their target within 2 weeks of launch. With seamless multi-device support, Windows 10 is slated to appear on plethora of Windows-powered devices, which will only boost the numbers of active windows, 10 users.

    See Also: Here’s how to force Download Windows 10 update on your computer

    There is a reason everyone is recommending Windows 10 over the current OS — it is packed with amazing features, yet so familiar with the previous version of Windows OS. Microsoft finally decided to bring back start menu and similar UI functions that we are all accustomed to since windows 7, which is trying convince users who fear to use new OS simply because it is time-consuming to learn new functions.

    Recently, when the news broke that Microsoft, by default, is monitoring everything you do on Windows 10 – it quickly added to the list of reasons not to fall into the trap of free upgrades offered by Microsoft to existing Windows 7 or 8.1 users. We cannot deny that Microsoft has rigged the new OS to get the automated feedback and user interaction with the computer, and they expect us to understand that it is only to help them make our experience better.This isn’t entirely unusual: recent versions of Windows, unless you explicitly say otherwise, have reported some kind of data back to Microsoft.

    can i spy on you?

     

    While Installation, a click through “Express Settings” allows Windows 10 operating system to gather up your contacts, text and touch input, calendar details, and a lot more, including:

    • Location Data
    • Biometrics and Handwriting data
    • Advertisement and its Tracking Code
    • Apps access to your personal information
    • Windows Defender and Sample submissions
    • Microsoft OneDrive
    • Cortana & Web search
    • Telemetry services
    • Webcam and Microphone Access
    • Sync Data with other Devices
    • Using Microsoft account, Instead of local account
    • Sending Feedback & diagnostics reports to Microsoft
    • and many more…

    Fortunately, for the privacy freaks (I am the one myself), there is a free tool which can help you disable these settings that send your personal data to Microsoft. You can do it manually if you don’t want to install third party application to tinker with the privacy settings, but it is a painful process to go through all of these sections and turn off 35+ options one-by-one – just follow this handy guide.

    Simple tool to fix privacy Issue

    A german developer pXc-coding, released a software dubbed DoNotSpy10 which allows you to disable a total of 37 Windows 10 privacy issue with just one click.

    donotspy10

    It is a centralized interface that features a list of options that might be tracking your activity on the Windows 10 PC. Clicking on any item will populate the description of the feature at the right side of the window. You can select the one you’d want to disable based on your preference, and click Apply.

    Note: Your Antivirus may detect this tool as adware or malicious in nature, but you can safely ignore it.

  • The Cross Platform Microsoft Office 2016

    The Cross Platform Microsoft Office 2016

    Microsoft has changed its strategies drastically with the release of Windows 10 and has shown the intent of developing products that are more customer centric and more convenient to operate. Windows 10, as announced by Microsoft is the last version of Windows that will receive frequent updates and is claimed by Microsoft to run efficiently on both desktop as well as mobile devices. What Microsoft has tried to do with this version of Windows is to pose a tough challenge for Android and iOS.

    Moving another step in this direction is the latest version of Office. Office 2016 will be a cross platform application with versions for Mobile devices and computers. Microsoft Office is still one of the most preferred office suite in the world irrespective of the availability of other open source alternatives that are available for free.

    apertura microsoft office 2016 2015

    What Microsoft seems to have got right this time is the fact that they have understood well is that though they are still the current market leaders, it will not be long before they may lose their leadership position to someone else. In the world of technology that is getting more inclined towards mobile devices and where users use multiple devices with different operating systems, Microsoft can no longer afford to keep its applications limited to function only on one particular platform or one particular device.

    office 2016 announced 640x400

    Microsoft therefore announced the launch of Office 2016 for Mac in the second week of July and the Android version will be available soon. After the release of these two versions, the company will release the mobile version of Microsoft Office 2016 for Windows devices. By the end of the year, the version for desktop will be launched.

    Currently Office 2016 for Mac is available as an update to Office 365 users and the one time subscription option will be available from September. Though there have been previous versions of Office like Office for Mac 2011, by giving precedence to the Mac and Android versions by announcing their release before the version for Windows, Microsoft has displayed to have adopted a more flexible strategy this time.

    microsoft corporation releases office 2016 for consumer preview and rolls o

    Microsoft has termed this version of Office as a mobile first and Cloud first version as it is targeted primarily for mobile users. It seems to be going in the right direction with this version of Office with a more flexible approach that might turn the fortunes of the company that has just written off US$ 7.6 billion from its deal with Nokia and has decided to fire 7,800 of its staff.

  • How to Create Windows 10 Bootable USB drive

    How to Create Windows 10 Bootable USB drive

    The latest operating system from Microsoft is out and the company is offering updates for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. These existing versions can either directly be updated or users can download Windows 10 and create a bootable disk for a fresh installation. Let’s look at the process that helps easily create bootable device for Windows 10 installation.

    The final release of the much awaited Windows 10 finally out and is available for download and installation. While Microsoft claims that this version of Windows is far ahead of anything that we have seen so far, it will be a while before any such claims by the company can be validated. In the meantime it isn’t a bad idea to install and use Windows 10 since the operating system looks indeed promising and so far has received good feedbacks.

    If you didn’t receive the automated update from Micrsoft, head over to our post where we explained how you can force download the Windows 10 upgrade on your Windows 7 or 8.1 computer.

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    If you are using a licenced version of Windows 8.x and Windows 7, these ones can directly be upgraded to the latest version of Windows. However if you are unwilling to directly update your exiting version of Windows and want to have a separate installation on your computer of Windows 10 along with your existing OS, you can make a bootable USD drive of your copy of Windows 10.

    Instructions

    The process is very simple and involves few easy steps. For this purpose you need a USB drive free of any data on it. Even if there is any data stored on your drive, it will be formatted at the time of creating a bootable device. Windows 10 installation file and setup process requires you to have at least 3 GB of space on your drive, therefore use a USB drive of minimum 4 GB. For creating a bootable drive, download Windows 10 media creation tool. It can be downloaded from the website of Microsoft.

    media creation tool

    Before you download the media creation tool, first check if you have a 32-bit or a 64-bit version. To check it, follow the path Start> Control Panel> System and Security> System> System Type. You will get the information about the version from here.

    Once these prerequisites are in place, run “Media creation tool” that you downloaded from Microsoft website and select “create installation media for another PC.” z 00035

    Select Language, architecture, and Edition of Windows 10 you’d like to make the bootable USB and press next.

    z 00036

    In the next window, you will be prompted to choose installation media which can either be a USB flash drive or iso file to make a bootable DVD.

    z 00037

    Select USB flash drive and press next.

    Once the computer boots from the USB drive, you will view the Install Windows page. Click Next on it and Install the Windows 10 OS. If your computer already has a licenced Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 or a Windows 10 OS, you do not have to enter the product key. Select the option ‘Upgrade this PC now’ and then you may choose either to upgrade the current installation or select another drive and install Windows 10 in which case the selected drive will be formatted. Selection of the drive can be done when you will view the prompt ‘Where do you want to install Windows’.

    Creating a bootable USB drive is a simple process and anyone can easily create a bootable device. The same process can be followed to make a bootable DVD but a USB is faster.