Kiran Upadhyay

Sometimes you might find yourself not being able to access a particular website, and you may be wondering why. One reason for not being able to access the site is that the site may just be down – check out Down For Everyone Or Just Me to see if the site is down or not. Another reason for a website not working is that the website’s firewall may be preventing you from accessing it. If you are unsure what a firewall is and how it works, have a read of Wikipedia’s explanation and if you’re looking for a firewall recommendation, have a look to see what the MakeUseOf readers use . If “Down For Everyone Or Just Me” says the site is down for just you, and you have asked your friends if they can access the site, which they can, here are a few tips on how to unblock a web page from behind a firewall. 1. Wait – And Wait Some More After a certain amount of time (depending on the server’s configuration) the firewall may automatically unblock your IP address. This may take anywhere from one h

Ever since I wrote the VZOChat article , which covered how to embed your own personal videochat room into your blog, I’ve been obsessed with trying to find new uses for my new webcam. I’ve covered ways you can have some fun with video , and how to use wi-fi webcams to configure a wireless security system . So what’s left? Well, one area I would like to cover is how to turn your webcam into an IP phone. Almost everyone has used some form of VoIP communication that makes use of some configuration of voice, video, PC-to-PC calling or PC-to-Landline calling. Depending what software you download, you may discover that it doesn’t always offer all of these features. You might be able to utilize video-chat in an IM app, but you can’t call a landline. You might be able to make PC-to-Landline calls, but there’s no option to video conference. Therefore, in this post I’d like to offer a roundup of both new and old applications that have one important thing in common – they incorporate your we

Christmas is coming. There is no doubt about it. Stores stocked up on Christmas treats as early as September, and meanwhile the matching decorations followed throughout town. It seems like every corner of our environment is blinking and shining in Christmas colors. Every corner? Maybe not yet! Do you have a Christmas theme desktop yet? Here is your chance! I found wallpapers, screensavers, Christmas trees, lights, critters, and a Windows Christmas theme for you. All free and 100% Christmas originals. Dig in! Christmas Wallpapers A Christmas wallpaper is a must! WallpaperStock has a great selection of images in resolutions up to 2560×1920 pixel. Vladstudio provides many more seasonal wallpapers . Christmas Screensavers Giveaway of the Day offers some great seasonal screensavers for free. I fell in love with this 3D Christmas fireside. It’s an animated screensaver with lovely fire and bell sounds. You will find many more holiday screensavers at the bottom of the page. Natur

A lot of people use USB MP3 players these days, but why not the other way around? Using a standard USB stick (often way cheaper), we can have our music on the go as well. With the lack of headphone support, you won’t be able to use it on the bus, or in the queue at the supermarket, but if you often use different computers – at home, at work, at school and at a friend’s place – it really pays to carry your collection with you. By loading the Winamp portable media playing software on a USB stick, as well as your music library, you can listen to your tunes everywhere, as if you were at home. Winamp The Winamp music player is still something of a phenomenon. It eats memory like a vegan (which is: nearly nothing) but can play almost any type of file. Even a lot of ‘newer’ media players are based on Winamp. This all comes to show how powerful and influential Winamp really is. Best yet, we can easily take a regular Winamp install and adapt it to our portable drive. Start out by downlo

Japanese calligraphy is an artistic writing style of the Japanese language. Its Chinese origins can be traced back to the twenty-eighth century BCE. Calligraphy found its way into Japanese culture in 600 CE and is known as the karayo tradition. For Westerners, calligraphy is forever fascinating. However, it takes years to learn how to properly draw the signs. Two basic principles must be known to understand Japanese writing: there are different writing styles and different alphabets. Kaisho for example, is a writing style most commonly used in print media. Tensho on the other hand is used in signatures. Other writing styles are Reisho, Gyosho and Sousho. The alphabets include Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Katakana is used for writing foreign words. It can also serve to highlight words, in analogy to capital letters as we know them from the Roman / Latin alphabet (Romaji in Japanese). Each Kanji character has a meaning of its own, while Hiragana or Katakana characters merely repres

Most Windows users know about the utility of the Ctrl + Alt + Del keys when dealing with an unresponsive application. A program is said to be unresponsive when it doesn’t respond to any user interaction and neither does it perform its intended actions. There are plenty of jokes surrounding the whole Ctrl + Alt + Del combination that brings up the task manager in Windows and allows you to end unresponsive applications. Things seldom go this far in the Linux world, however claiming that such Linux unresponsiveness doesn’t occur would be a plain lie. The good thing about Linux is that you almost never have to hit the reset button due to unresponsive or hung applications. There are so many ways you can gain back control that you never have to resort to such extreme measures. In this article, we take a look at some of the ways you can deal with unresponsive applications on your Linux box. Dealing with Linux Unresponsiveness – Using System Monitor First and foremost you can use the famili

In the past, we here at MakeUseOf have covered sites that you can learn how to repair your own computer , but what happens when you need that one on one computer advice as you have no idea why your computer does not work? The first thing most people go and do is to Google it, but when you can’t find a solution, the next thing to do is ask someone to help you. That is why I present to you a list of websites and forums where people are willing to help you get your computer fixed. 1. Crossloop I am a regular using of Crossloop. If any of my friends need help with their computer, I will always tell them to install Crossloop so I can control their computer and show them how to do something, rather than having them try to explain it over the phone. But for those who aren’t my friends yet, you can get computer help and advice from someone else. They will help you guide you through your problem by connecting to your computer to control it. You can find more information on how Cross Loop