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0 GOOGLE’S FREE MOBILE JAVA APPS – GMAIL, ORKUT AND GOOGLE MAPS

Did you know that Google also provides some java (j2me) applications for mobiles which include Gmail app, Orkut (Google’s social networking site) app and Google Maps app:

1. Gmail app – You can access all the Gmail functionality (Read, compose and send mails etc) via this app. It has an easy to use interface and “Menu” provides all the desktop functions. There are many keypad shortcuts provided for easy navigation and more than one account can be added and accessed at a time. You can download the Gmail app via your mobiles browser (Or Opera Mini) from m.google.com/mail or gmail.com/app.

2. Orkut app – A ‘Must try app’ if you are an Orkut addict. It will satisfy all your Orkuting needs (Scraping, messaging, add a friend etc) plus it is fun to use. A bit buggy though (In beta) as of now. Visit m.google.com/orkut via mobiles browser to know whether your phone supports the app (If supported, a link with title “Install now” will be shown otherwise the link will show “Visit now” title). It seems that this app is supported by phones having 240x320 or higher resolution screens.

3. Google Maps app – It can be considered as the mobile counterpart of Google earth. Not as good though but fun to use. Maps are not latest in case of cities of developing countries like India. Many options (Along with keypad shortcuts) are provided in the app like location search, zoom, traffic view, favorites etc. Get Google Maps by visiting m.google.com/maps (Via your mobiles browser or Opera Mini).

0 MAKING A BOOTABLE WINDOWS 7/VISTA PEN DRIVE USING DISKPART

Did you know that installation of Windows 7/Vista is a lot quicker (5 to 15 minutes) when done from a pen drive in comparison to a DVD. Here is how you can easily make your pen drive bootable with a Windows 7/Vista installation.
First up you will need a pen drive (At least 4 GB, 8 GB recommended), Windows 7/Vista DVD (Or its ISO image) and a computer running Windows Vista/7. Now follow the steps exactly as described below:

1. Backup your pen drive data as everything will be erased from it during the process
2. Connect the pen drive with computer and Go to Start Menu. Type cmd in the search box and press “Ctrl” plus “Shift” plus “Enter” (To run Command prompt as an administrator). Confirm if prompted.
3. At the opened command prompt type diskpart (Diskpart is a useful utility in Windows to manage the Disk drives of computer) and press enter
4. Now type the following commands exactly one by one (Press “Enter” after each command)

list disk
select disk 1
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=ntfs
assign
exit

Format command will take some time. Minimize the command prompt window
5. Insert the Windows DVD into computers CD/DVD drive, go to “My Computer” and note the DVD drive letter (It is G: in my case) and USB pen drive letter (J: in my case)
6. Open the command prompt window that you minimized in step 4 above and type the following commands (Press “Enter” after each command)

G: cd boot
cd boot
bootsect.exe /nt60 J:

(Where G is the CD/DVD drive letter and J is the USB pen drive letter)
This will copy the boot code from Windows DVD to pen drive. Now your pen drive is bootable, just one more steps left.
7. Go to “My Computer” and open the “Windows DVD”. Copy the entire DVD contents and paste in the pen drive. That’s it now you are ready to install Windows by this pen drive!

To install Windows just plug in the pen drive and restart the computer. Now change the “Boot order/priority” in BIOS to make the USB drive as the first choice before HDD or CD ROM (To access BIOS, press “Del” or F2 key repeatedly at computers startup). Also enable the “Boot from USB” option in BIOS settings if the option is present. Save the Settings and proceed as usual. When the Windows setup completes the first step (Loading and copying files etc) and restarts the computer first time you will have to again change the Boot order/priority in BIOS to make the USB drive after/below HDD and CD ROM otherwise the Windows setup will start over once again.
That’s it folks….

0 OPERA MINI 4 SECRET URLS/CODES

Here are some secret commands/URLs/Cheat codes (or whatever you may call them) that execute certain functions in Opera Mini 4.1 and 4.2 (May or may not work in other versions). I don’t know whether these URLs are bugs or are normal functions built into Mini by developers (If it is so then why there is no official description of these in Mini’s feature list or shortcuts) but what I know is that they work. Here goes the list (Enter the code in URL bar/Enter Address and press Go to):

1. o:, (Alphabetic “O” then “:” then ,) - Opens the page “To add a search engine” to the list of already present
2. o:. – Opens a blank screen showing options Yes and No. Press Yes to search text in the web page (The “Find in Page” function).
3. o:/ - Opens the page “To add a search engine”
4. o:! – Opens the page of “To clear cookies”
5. o:$ - Shows the page “Failed to connect to the internet”
6. o:~ - Shows blank screen with yes/no option.
7. o:d – Opens the page to “Add a bookmark”
8. o:h – Opens the page of “About Opera”
9. o:m – Opens the page of “Search engines” to manage (edit/delete/add)
10. o: - Hangs Opera Mini
All the other possible combination (Like o:a or o:1) either shows a blank screen or hangs the app). Strangely the above codes do not work in Opera Mini 5 or 3. What do you think about these?
For universal Opera Mini codes you may read the post “Some advanced Opera Mini commands and settings”.