Minesweeper Secrets

We all love this Windows built-in games, don’t we? But sometimes, it is fun to know all tricks you can use in this game.

To Reveal Mines
With your cursor inside the minesweeper window type “XYZZY” then press Shift-Enter and Enter. A white dot should appear in the upper-left corner of the screen. If it turns black, your cursor is resting on a mine.
Note : A white dot is so smalll. This trick works best if your Windows background is black

To freeze timer
Start a new game and then hit the Windows key and the D key at the same time to minimize the game. (How quickly you press Windows+D will be your high score) Then, maximize the game again and the clock will be permanently frozen.

Source : CCG

Traffic building tips

All the webmasters need traffic first. In the hope of finding so-called magic formula, we should focus on the quality content first. Cow have got great articles about how A-listers’ bloggers are guilty. Check it out!

Google search tips you should know

Here is my compilation of all the Google search tips everyone should know about.

Search within a range : You can search in Google within a desired range. You need to type in the range as separated by “..” but make sure you specify the unit as well.
For example: LCD 21..32 inches

Synonym Search with “~”(Tilde) sign : If in case you want to search for the term as well as it’s synonym, then just add the “~” sign in front of your search term, you will see the links for the same terms synonym.
For example: ~fun~image would return fun image as well as joke image, humor image, joke pic, etc.

Omit certain word with “-”(minus) sign : If you want to omit certain word, you can add the “-” sign in front of your search term.
For example: if you search bill microsoft, you’ll get all the results relating to Bill Gates and Microsoft, but if you search bill -gate microsoft, you’ll get the real bill about microsoft.

Definition search : You can use “define:” to search definition of a word.
For example: if you search define:lcd, you will get definition of lcd all over the net, it’s more complete than Answers or Wiki.

Use of “?”(question mark) sign : If you are uncertain about the spelling of the word or you want all possible words, you can use the “?” sign.
For example: if you search sun?day, you can get results such as sun earth day, or the word sun-day.

Use of “*”(asterisk) sign : Not sure about how it’s different with “?” sign. But you can try the example and you’ll understand.
For example: if you search friend*, you will get words like friends, friend to friend, friend society. Compare the result with ordinary friend search, you’ll know how to use “*”

Search for exact phrase with quotation mark “”: If you want Google to search all the words you type, use quotation marks. This feature is available in Advance search feature too.
For example: if you search “just like that” with quotation, you will get results containing exact phrase “just like that”

These tips are worth knowing and you should try all of them, they’ll be useful for you one way or another. As Google is always tweaking their search engine and algorithm, I’m sure there’ll be more interesting tips always.

Old Microsoft Word Easter Egg

Well, it’s time to revisit that old Microsoft word easter egg. I don’t know what is the purpose of this, but this easter egg works on all version of Microsoft Word.

Try Open a New Word Document and then type below:

=rand (200, 99)

See what happened? Have fun!

Tricky way to block or tease web site on your PC

At my work, we are using this technique to map our private IP addresses with the specific domain names. But if you use it the other way around, it could block specific web site on that local PC. So, if you want your kids never go to some web sites, you could use this technique. Please note that this technique is highly ineffective to use as a parental software.

Please follow the steps below.

• Open My Computer.
• Go to C:WINDOWSsystem32driversetc
• Find the file named “HOSTS”
• Open it in notepad
• Under “127.0.0.1 localhost”
• Add 127.0.0.2 www.xxxxxxxxxxxx.com

And that site won’t be able to browse anymore.

If you want to tease your untechnical friend or spouse, you could map ip address with the name of the web site you want to tease. For example, if you add this line

66.94.234.13 www.google.com

it will always go to Yahoo! whenever you type www.google.com. Have fun teasing, no fighting please!

Explore Sky with Google Earth

Google Earth is now not limited to Earth only. It could let you explore the space also. Starting from version 4.2, Google added sky feature in the famous Google Earth program. It depends on location. So that when you are at New York and click sky button, the sky you see will be different if you click when you are at Africa.

You should download this new version and feel the different.

Reference : Google

Consult with Chitika experts at Openhouse

If you’re going to implement Chitika ads on your blog and have doubts about whether it will work or not, you can consult with Chitika experts at Chitika OpenHouse.

Chitika optimizations experts will give you advices on

• Whether or not your website is suitable with Chitika
• Which Chitika products you should consider?
• The most suitable ads placements on your web site

To get the free Chitika optimization tips, anyone can register and post your website in the Chitika Open House forum.

Safer browsing with OpenDNS

When I was looking for anti-phishing filtering software, my friend advise me to try OpenDNS.

To my suprise, after I’ve used OpenDNS, web pages seem to load faster. Even though I haven’t personally faced phishing website, OpenDNS claims they will be blocked.

Here is the snapshot example from Wiki.

If you want to give it a try, simply change your DNS setting to

* 208.67.222.222 (Resolver1.OpenDNS.com)
* 208.67.220.220 (Resolver2.OpenDNS.com)

If you are not a technical person and still have no idea how to change it, OpenDNS have got detailed instructions here.

Windows Live Mail with Outlook

If you like windows live mail, but if you don’t want to install their Live Mail Desktop Beta version, you can install Outlook Connector. Outlook Connector will let you use your Live Mail account within Outlook.

After you install, you will see extra menu “Outlook Connector” in your Outlook menu.

Reference : Windows Blog

Google Gtalk infos worth to know

After searching for infos about Gtalk, here are the things you should know about Gtalk apart from running Multiple Gtalk.

Trivia

1. Buddy – You don’t have to say YES or NO when someone adds you. Simply ignore it and the request will go away. (On the other hand, someone with whom you chat often will automatically turn to be your friend, unless you disable this in the options).
2. Conversation – A message can be 32767 characters long.
3. Display Name – You can change your Gtalk chat name in Account Page
4. Active link – Adding a web URL in custom message will result it to be clickable.

Un-trivia

1. Wumpus Game – Wumpus is an easter egg game that came with Google Talk. If you add new contact wumpus.game@gmail.com, you can play the classic text-based game.
2. Bold Text – To write something bold, you can use an asterisk before and after the word, like *this* .
3. Italic Text – To use italics, use an underscore before and after the word, like _this_ .
4. Switch windows – Hitting tab will cycle through open windows. It will select minimized conversations, to expand them just hit enter. If you just want to cycle through IM’s and don’t care about the buddy list, control-tab will do that and will automatically expand a minimized conversation if you settle on one.

Fun Begins

Below is the list of Gtalk emoticons you can use. (From Google)

Special thanks to my lovely Jennifer for this tips!