Kiran Upadhyay

If there was ever a great website to stream series and documentaries, it isn’t YouTube . No offense. MegaVideo , from the same minds of file-sharing website MegaUpload, gets a slightly better shot. It’s fun and easy to browse, has an incredible array of videos and sports one of the best web players I’ve ever seen. The whole shebang is integrated by default; dimming the lights, different aspect ratios and even downloading those videos to your computer. Here’s the catch; it isn’t free. Not that it should come as a surprise to those of you who are already familiar with MegaUpload. Everything works fine at the start, but after exactly 72 minutes of viewing pleasure, the dreaded pop-up appears. The 72 Minute Lock The 72 minute mark seems to be a crucial point in many documentaries and TV series. It might be me, but the MegaVideo time limit seems to appear when it’s least wanted. You have watched 72 minutes of video today. It means you’re not about to finish that show. You

With multiple devices syncing your contacts this way and that, with changes, additions, and deletions from all over the place, it's pretty easy to end up with a muddle mess of data. Thankfully, if you sync your contacts with Google, you've now got a backup plan should everything hit the fan. Google has introduced a restore feature for Google Contacts that allows you to undo any mistakes you've made up with up to 30 days backup. Working a bit like System Restore for Windows, Google takes snapshots of your contacts and restore them to back to the way they were 10 minutes ago, 1 hour ago, yesterday, 1 week ago, or any custom time up to 30 days ago. So next time your iPhone decides to wipe your contacts, or Outlook takes issue with your friend's new address, you can just hop on over to your Google Contacts and hit restore. Brilliant.

Google acquired YouTube in 2006 and subsequently retired its own video upload service in 2009. Google Videos now serves as a sub-search engine for videos. However, material previously uploaded to what used to be Google Video, will continue to be hosted. Not long after incorporating YouTube, Google discontinued development of the Google Video Player in 2007. It also removed the option to download its hosted videos. As a consequence, the GVI format will slowly die out. Do you still have videos in GVI format sticking around and wondering what to do with them? Would you like to know how you can download the remaining Google Video files? If you answered yes, continue reading as this article holds the answers to these questions. What Are Google Video Files Anyways? Essentially, Google Video (.gvi) files are RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format) files of the subtype AVI (Audio Video Interleave). Compared to regular .avi files, they contain an extra list with the FourCC “go

For a long time now, I’ve been dying to finally cut the cord with my cable company. We’ve subscribed to Netflix, I have my Hulu account configured and ready to go, but it’s really hard to take the plunge. My kids love watching live Nick programming. I can’t get enough of Ghost Hunters and Paranormal State. The fact is, we’re hooked on live programming and watching recorded shows just isn’t the same. There are plenty of sites where you can watch live television, and we’ve covered a whole lot of them here at MakeUseOf. A while back, Aibek posted a list of 7 sites where you could find TV shows and Mark covered the popular desktop app Livestation , where you can find just about any news channel you’d want. More recently, I reviewed a few more tools you can use to watch TV on your computer, and then of course there’s the popular Boxee option that Justin recently wrote about. Now with all of those options to choose from, you would think that letting go of cable would be easy.

Most of us search daily and some of us (like myself) even hourly. We rely on Google when doing research for school, looking for seasonal discounts and sales or just finding an answer to any question we keep wondering about. Google is actively experimenting with different interfaces and features to let us try new search experiences. But what it has always missed is a set of good keyboard shortcuts that would make navigating through Google search results much easier. This article attempts to collect and organize various ways to add and use keyboard shortcuts with Google search. 1. Google Instant Keyboard Shortcuts While You Are Typing: Tab / Right arrow — Auto-complete the search term using the top suggestion (to continue typing the next search term) Up / Down keys — Navigate through search suggestions Navigating Search Results: Down arrow + Right arrow — Navigate to the result line you need and preview the page with Google Instant preview Down arrow action pictured below

Your Internet connection is a portal to a world of information, but it is a portal that can work both ways. Just as you can find information through it, others can use it to find information about you. Trojans and keyloggers can monitor your computer usage and transmit sensitive information, such as credit card numbers and passwords, to a third party. Using a wireless connection makes security even more important because anyone who gains access to your network can use it to conduct illegal activities without your knowledge. There are, however, some methods that can be used to keep tabs on the security of your Internet connection. Some are simple, while others are very complex, and no single practice covers all possible security problems. Taking the right steps will reduce the risk of your Internet connection being compromised, however. Install A Firewall The worm, a common security threat, typically replicates itself by randomly spamming information at other computers

With Christmas just around the corner, it’s that time of year again, when advent calendars start popping up, filled with lots of fabulous free giveaways. Giving you the opportunity to snag free applications for just one day, be sure to bookmark your favourite calendars, and start each morning with a free app or prize, available for only 24 hours. Advent calendars aren’t just limited to iPhone or Android apps, but also includes discount vouchers, books, mugs, and even fonts. We’ve put together a list of Advent calendars that have been running for a few days now, but there’s still 3 weeks worth of prizes and apps to snag, so hurry over to these calendars and start stocking up on lots of freebies. AdFont Typography buffs will be delighted to know that FontDeck is giving away one free font a day in their 2010 Advent Calendar giveaway . While it requires a free signup on the site in order to download the fonts, you’ll get one premium font for free per day to use for your po

Google Docs has long been my preferred collaboration and note taking tool. I did try some alternatives but I always came back to Google Docs. There are plenty of reasons to love Google Docs: the tool is quick and reliable. It has a set of features that allows you to play with it for multiple purposes: I for one found it great for collaboration. Its comparatively new and improved features (including real-time collaboration and chat) are awesome! Google Docs as a note taking tool works well as well. I found the tool really useful for easy organizing and accessing the information you come across online. What’s more, Google Docs can improve your browsing experience a lot by allowing you to preview and open documents without having to download anything locally. Here are my favorite tools that make it easier to open doc, docx, pdf, ppt, pps and xls files in Google docs in Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera 11.00. Firefox Firefox has quite a few addons that integrate with

We all long to be recognized as individuals. Consequently, we find ever more ways to express our uniqueness. As a result, fashion and design have extended their reach into all corners of our lives, making everyday items not only nice to look at, but also easier to use. Windows 7 provides plenty of internal options to change the look and feel of your computer. It’s easy to give the operating system a unique style and at the same time enhance your experience as a user. For most of the coolest ways to customize Windows 7, you don’t even have to mess with hacks or additional software. Let me show you how you can dress up your installation of Windows 7 and make using your computer a visual and functional joy. 1. Change The Welcome Screen There are two basic things you can change that will affect the welcome screen. First of all, you can change your profile picture. Secondly, you can apply a hack or software to change the background image. To change your profile picture, go t

As a computer geek who loves to feast his eyes with beautiful images, it’s only natural that I also love to customize my desktop background with stunning wallpapers. While I’m sure that there are many others who belong in this category, and while there are sources of free and beautiful desktop wallpapers in abundance in the virtual world, most people I know settle for the default collection that came along with their computer. During my personal quest for beautiful photos to adorn my desktop background, I came across these four great places. Even though one or two of them should be pretty obvious to some of our readers, I’m sure the list could be useful to many others. Let The Hunt Begin If you are willing to pay a little bit more attention to your surroundings, beauty is all around us. I guess we should learn how to see our world from a photographer’s eyes. They have the knack to see beautiful images within everyday scenes that we tend to ignore.  Here are some places