Kiran Upadhyay

Both at work and at home, I often find that I have a need to check the status of my PCs, printers, servers or other network devices. These days, with so many devices making use of home networks, this is something that more homeowners need to do. A while back, Karl reviewed different things you can do to  diagnose network problems . Karl listed all of the commands – like ping, netstat and ipconfig, that you can use to troubleshoot your network devices. Not long ago, I also gave you some Windows Scripts that you could use to automatically  ping various devices  on a regular schedule. However, what if you aren’t really accustomed to networking or all of the commands that go along with pinging or otherwise verifying network connectivity? If that describes you, then you may find it useful to use an application with a nice GUI that will do all of the heavy lifting for you. One such application is  Ping Manager , a free utility provided by the makers of the commercial product MyLanView

Instagram has been in the news non-stop these past two weeks. It started with the launch of its much anticipated  Android app , and continued with the subsequent acquisition by Facebook. Both moves created heated reactions from Instagram users, which were not always positive. I only recently got to try Instagram, and although it’s a fun little app, I wasn’t blown away. The one thing that’s really going for Instagram is its immense popularity, but many apps out there do the same thing, sometimes even better. So whether you’re not sure about Instagram’s Facebook-ish future, or are just curious about the alternatives that exist out there, check out this list of 6 awesome Instagram alternatives. PicPlz  [Android 2.1+ & iOS] PicPlz has actually been around longer than Instagram, and boasts a rich network of users who use it to share photos. PicPlz relies heavily on geo-tagging, and lets users browse photos from all over the world, organized by location. PicPlz has a web inter

Watch out Dropbox, Amazon Cloud and Microsoft SkyDrive! Google introduced today its free, 5GB cloud storage service,  Google Drive . Available to anyone with the Google account, Google Drive enables users to upload, share, collaborate on files stored in their Google Drive account. If you’re familiar with Dropbox, you’ll be right at home with Google Drive. In addition to accessing the service from within your Google Docs account, you can also download the PC and Mac Google Drive client that launches as a folder on your computer. All files, including videos, photos, PDFs, and Google Docs, dropped into the Drive folder get synchronized to your account. You can also opt to not sync selected folders to one or more of your computers. Google Drive is also available for Android devices, with iPhone and iPad support to follow soon. If you’re Google Chrome user, you will also able to access your Google Drive account when you’re  not connected to the Internet . Google Drive can essenti

Gaming on a Mac is becoming better with time, thanks to Steam and the Mac App Store, but finding the best games is still more of a chore than it should be. I’ve already handled  action games  and  strategy games  for Mac owners, but that still leaves out role-playing, which is my favorite genre. Let’s see what is available for a computer running  OS X . Deathspank This indie cross-platform RPG takes an irreverent look at the genre. The main character, Deathspank, is your typical brawny action hero infused with a generous dose of irony. Don’t expect much in the way of character development or a story, but do expect lots of witty dialogue. Even if the comedic value of this game doesn’t tickle your fancy you’ll likely find something to love in the gameplay. It’s typical action-RPG fare, but solidly executed and overlaid with colorful graphics. The light-hearted tone of the game makes this an easy title to jump in and play. Dragon Age: Origins I  love  this game. It’s es

Google continues to add more and more titles to its Google Play and YouTube rentals movie libraries. After striking deals with five of the major film studios, the newest one to join the fun is Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) which will be adding more than 600 titles to the Google movie libraries. Less than two weeks ago, we told you about the  Google-Paramount deal , which brought nearly 500 new titles to the rental library. Together with movie companies such as Sony Pictures, Universal, Disney, and other smaller studios, Google Play now includes thousands of movies to choose from. MGM, which are famous for their roaring lion movie intro, are responsible for many older and newer classics such as “Rain Man”, “Robocop”, “West Side Story” and “Thelma & Louise”, all of which users will now be able to rent through Google Play or YouTube. In addition to these 600 titles, MGM will rolling out more titles in the weeks ahead. Movies on Google Play cost between $1.99 to $3.99 to rent, a

Is Draw Something getting kind of boring? Cheer up, a new update is available! The immensely popular game has just received an update on both  iOS  and  Android , which brings to the game some new, much-needed features such as social sharing, comments and an undo button. If you’ve managed to miss it, Draw Something is a smash hit game which resembles Pictionary, in which opponents have to create drawings of words for the other player to guess. The game has become very popular in both the iTunes App Store and Google Play, which brought on the recent acquisition of its developer, OMGPOP, by Zynga. So what’s new in Draw Something? To start, you can now add comments to your drawings after finishing them and before sending them. You can also add comments to your opponents drawings after guessing. If you were in the habit of taking a screenshot of your masterpiece to share on Facebook on Twitter, that option is now also built in, as well as the option to save your drawing to your ph

No matter what most Americans might have to say,  soccer is still the most popular sport in the world. With popular sports come popular games, especially for mobile devices. But before you go out into the Play Store and look at the rather large selection of soccer games, which ones are worth trying out? Why not try out Pocket Soccer for your  Android  device? About Pocket Soccer Pocket Soccer is a fun, easy-to-understand game that allows you to pick the country you’d like to play as and face off against the world. It’s not quite like a game you might expect with a full-fledged gaming console, as the game has a slight ping pong feel, but I’ll talk more about that later. In any case, it’s very fun to play and has plenty of features to test your skills and kill some time. Installation You can install this game by searching for Pocket Soccer in the Play Store or by following  this link  with your device’s browser. Once installation completes, you can go ahead by launching the ga