Kiran Upadhyay

Quite frankly, I wish I knew about this simple way to use freely available OCR software back in my school days. Of course, we didn’t have camera mobile phones or inexpensive Digicams, but wouldn’t it have saved hours of copying notes! Ah, modern technology is wonderful; take a scanned image (or take a snap using a mobile camera/Digicam) and presto – OCR software extracts all the information from the image into easily editable text format. Optical character recognition (OCR) is a system of converting scanned printed/handwritten image files into its machine readable text format. OCR software works by analyzing a document and comparing it with fonts stored in its database and/or by noting features typical to characters. Some OCR software also puts it through a spell checker to “guess” unrecognized words. 100% accuracy is difficult to achieve, but close approximation is what most software strive for. Maybe you have already come across our previous How to Extract Text from Images (OCR) ...

Tabbed browsing might be the greatest thing since sliced bread. In fact, after having tabs for so long, it's frustrating to try using an older browser that doesn't support them. We still deal with it in our office applications, though. Granted, it's rare to have as many Word documents open as we do webpages, but even 4 or 5 can turn into a mess. OfficeTab helps out by adding tabs to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, so you can save screen real estate and switch between docs more easily. You can choose to add tabs to some or all of the apps OfficeTab supports, in case you want them in Word, but not in PowerPoint, for example. OfficeTab doesn't take up much space, it just keeps your tabs in a standard-sized toolbar. You can even view your documents side-by-side in the same window, which is handy for comparing drafts. OfficeTab works in Office 2003 and 2007 on Windows XP, Vista or 7. It's made by a Chinese developer, so both Chinese and English versions are available.

Many websites just like this one, and sites like Wikipedia, utilize the power of PHP programming to create dynamic sites. Wow you think. How do I create a website like that for myself? I now want to learn about programming in PHP, but where do I start? If you don’t know where to start, here are 6 great sites to learn PHP programming online for free. PHP.net The first place to look at is PHP.net. This is PHP’s official website. This site has everything you need to know about PHP. So when you definitely know that you want to create a website in PHP, start the tutorial and get busy. Once you have learned the basic introductory concepts to creating a PHP based website, it is time to look at the user manual . Everything you need to know is there. Once you have finished reading, you should now be a PHP expert. If not, here are some other site links which provide you with the PHP scripting basics. w3 Schools w3 Schools offers tutorials for programming inPHP and other scripting langua...

Torrents are one of the greatest branches of file sharing today, but they can be quite a bother at times as well. When using torrents, aside from your webbrowser, you’ll need a torrent file and a separate application. In the end, all of this is superfluous next to the vast advantages, but sometimes we still dream about torrent files – or the rest of the internet – being more flexible. If you’re looking for added flexibility, or simply secrecy for your torrents, do read on. hid.im With hid.im, you can encode your torrents to an image file – this allows you to hide torrent files inside pictures beyond recognition. Simply surf to the website, upload your torrent file and wait for your png. You can save the image to your harddisk, or temporarily reach them on the website. The png file will look like a rectangle of electronic noise, as you can see below (ubuntu-9.04-desktop-amd64.iso.torrent). So what’s the use of this technology? Besides being able to ‘hide’ your torrent files ins...

Two months ago I got fed up with my network provider. I was being charged outrageous rates per minute to other networks and their customer service wasn’t exactly the best I’ve ever heard. So I decided to switch to their main competitor so I could get free calls and texts to my friends. There was one problem; my phone was locked to the wretched network. First of all I Googled ‘How to Unlock a Phone’. I got back millions of results telling me to ‘do this’ and ‘do that’. Very tiring work indeed, but in the end I got there. Browsing Google to try to find free sites could take you hours (I should know, I did it to write this article). There are load of them that scream “FREE UNLOCKING” but will then tell you that it actually costs $6.50. Below are the top three sites I managed to find to unlock your cell phone for free. Unlock It Free This site is pretty basic and does exactly what it says on the tin. It started out small and hasn’t really grown much. However, it does offer a good unloc...

BLIND Martin Jones has seen his wife for the first time after surgeons restored his sight using one of his TEETH. Martin, 42, was blinded when a tub of molten aluminium exploded in his face while he was working in a scrapyard 12 years ago. He married care worker Gill, 50, eight years later so he has never seen her - until surgeons performed the incredible op. Overjoyed Martin said: "I met my wife when I was blind and when I found out there was a chance I would get my sight back the first person I wanted to see was her. "The doctors took the bandages off and it was like looking through water and then I saw this figure and it was her. It was unbelievable. "She looked so beautiful. If felt fantastic getting my sight back. I can't describe it, it is beyond words." Martin suffered 37 per cent burns when he was covered in the 600C liquid. He had to wear a body stocking for 23 hours a day as doctors treated his horrific burns. His left eye was so badly damaged it had t...

Check out the CASID G555+, it is a watchphone that comes with 1.2 inch display screen, 1.3-megapixel camera, integrated audio and video player, FM radio, Bluetooth, microSD slot and a compass. The watch is removable from the band. It also has the basic functions such as calculator, calendar, memo and alarm. The CASID G555+ is running on GSM 900 / 1800 MHz and it is available at $145.28. More pictures after the break

So you have heard of all the advantages and geeky babble about how Linux is better and you have finally decided to try it? Just one thing, you don’t know an awful lot about Linux to get you started. How about some free downloadable ebooks to teach yourself Linux, that you can download today? Would that help? Free – you ask? Yes, free. Welcome to the world of Linux where things are free both as in free speech and also as in free beer (mostly)! If you are starting out on your journey towards Linux awesomeness, here are a few free downloadable ebooks to teach yourself Linux that should help you along nicely: Newbie’s Getting Started Guide to Linux (Download) MakeUseOf’s very own Newbie’s Guide to Linux, tells you how to choose a distribution and then teaches you how to perform a basic Linux install. You can then use the guide to familiarize yourself with the Linux desktop and some basic commands. Stefan did a great job in keeping it simple and to the point, the way beginners want i...