How to: Remotely access your PC with a smartphone

There may have been several occasions when you are at home, on a holiday or travelling and urgently need to access your office PC for some important document you forgot to take with you. What do you do? How do you gain access to your PC?  Well, there is a way to gain access to your PC via the Internet using the Remote Desktop Protocol or RDP. But this involves setting up a live IP address, which is visible all around the world. You can possibly do this for home, but what about your office PC, which is behind a firewall or a proxy server? You would not be able to gain access as easily. In this workshop, we shall show you how simple it is to gain access to your PC at home or office from your Android smartphone or tablet as well as the iPhone or the iPad. All you need is an internet-enabled device with a free-to-use app called TeamViewer. Configuring TeamViewer is easy and you can get it working in a matter of minutes. At the same time, the utility is safe and secure. Once you have your setup working, you can also connect to your desktop PC from any Internet cybercafé using the Web login. Download and install TeamViewer TeamViewer is an all-in-one solution for remote access over the Internet. It is free for personal use and is compatible with desktop operating systems such as Windows, Mac, Linux and also with mobile operating systems such as Android and iOS. Download TeamViewer for your desktop PC from www.teamviewer.com. We recommend the portable version which can be run from a USB drive or a CD. The app for the smartphone and tablets can be downloaded from their respective online app stores. Download and install TeamViewer Once downloaded, you'll have to configure it at both ends once, but before you do this, you might need to register with TeamViewer for a free user account. You can do so by signing up athttps://login.teamviewer.com/ and creating a free account. The Desktop PC Configuration Start TeamViewer and proceed with the installation as you would usually do with any other software. Once the installation is done, start TeamViewer and it will sync with its online servers and allocate a unique ID and password for your computer. Note down these details and keep them safe. Every time you restart the application, you will receive a new password, while the ID will remain static for your PC. This ID and password is a one-time security pass to give the invitation for a remote login to your PC. You can use this ID and password to connect to your desktop PC from a remote location. But if you restart your PC very often, it will be difficult to keep track of the changing passwords. For this reason, you need to set up an unattended access to TeamViewer. Click on ‘Connection’ and then on ‘Setup unattended access’. This will bring up a wizard wherein details such as the PC name and password needs to be specified. Give the desktop PC a name and password of your choice. The next screen will then ask you to enter the details that you registered online. If you did not do it earlier, you can create one now too. After entering the details, your system will now be available to you online with the same password every time. Your desktop PC is now available for remote access. You can now choose to lock the desktop or turn off the monitor. After starting the TeamViewer app on the smartphone or tablet, enter the login details, connect to the partner and gain remote access within minutes. The Client Side After installing TeamViewer on your phone, start the app. You will be welcomed by an initial introduction screen, which can be skipped by pressing the back button. The next screen will be ready on the ‘Connection’ tab, where you can type in the details of the ID and the password of the computer you would like to connect to. Simply skip this and click on the ‘Partner list’ tab. Here, you can log in using your username and password you created on the TeamViewer website. Once you do this, you will see a button called ‘My Partners’. Click on this button and you will now see the desktop PC available online. Click on the PC name and you can gain access to your desktop PC. And you’re done! Simple, isn’t it? Once you've logged in, you can try out a number of features that TeamViewer has to offer. You can change resolutions, switch monitors, tweak the performance by optimizing it for quality or speed, remove wallpapers for better speeds, disable remote cursor, use the keyboard, use the mouse right-clicks, enable function buttons, and the list goes on. So, enjoy your remote access.

How To: Pause Live TV with a Standard Set-Top-Box

New Set-top boxes that can record, pause and play live TV broadcasts are flooding the market, but I'm sure some of you are still stuck with your older set-top box designed to just receive satellite TV signals and display them on your TV. In order to record and pause live TV broadcast signals, you need to upgrade your older set-top box to a newer one which has the facility to record and pause live TV. These set-top boxes are available only with the satellite TV broadcast companies such as Tata Sky, Dish TV, Airtel, Reliance Big TV and others. The older set-top box won’t fetch you anything and you would have to pay for the newer one which can set you back almost Rs 5,000 or more (plus taxes and installation charges applicable in certain cases). These set-top boxes have a built-in hard drive (approximately a 160 GB or a 250 GB SATA hard drive) which can record up to 200 hours of television videos and pause up to 30 minutes of live TV. The drawback of these recording-capable set-top boxes is that you can only record them and watch them on that particular set-top box. You can't transfer these recorded videos to any other media player and you can't burn them on a DVD and store them. So what if you want to record a good classic movie on HBO or a particular documentary on the Discovery Science or an animated series on Cartoon Network? We have a solution you could consider - Here we shall show you how you can pause and record live TV broadcasts by using your existing set-top box, be it from a well-known satellite TV service provider, free-to-air Doordarshan STB or your local cable operator’s CAS STB. Well, you do have an option to install a TV tuner card on a PC or a laptop and get the same environment, but you would be restricted in certain ways—dedicating a computer for TV viewing and wasting unnecessary electricity by using it. Rear Connections on an STB and DVR I recommend using a DVR. The DVR we used in the test is an Ellion Digital product and the model is the HMR-350H. You can find some more updated products on ‘www.elliondigital.com’. The HMR-350H is an HD multimedia player which can house a desktop SATA hard drive of up to 1 TB capacity and can play music, videos and photos in addition to recording videos from an external source. But this one can only record standard definition videos (576p) via the composite video input. There are no video recorders presently that can record in full 1080p or 1080i using the HDMI interface for general use.  So basically the method involves a few connections that crisscross between the set-top box, the DVR and the television set. Once you have the connections fixed, you can go right ahead and enjoy the pleasure of pausing and recording live television broadcasts and viewing them at your convenience. A simple upgrade of the firmware for the HMR-350H gave us the possibility of scheduled recording and now I can record videos when I am not at home. A drawback of course—I have to keep the set-top box switched on and the DVR on standby mode whenever I have a scheduled recording setup. Also, as other set-top boxes with recording features from satellite TV companies have the option of recording from one channel while you are watching another, you cannot do this here because there is only one tuner on your set-top box. If you want that feature too, you can use another set-top box and connect it accordingly. This can help you watch one channel while the other channel is recording at the same time. Take a good look at the wiring diagram given in this article and set your connections accordingly. There are options given in the diagram which enable you to watch TV without recording too. These are as follows: Various connectibity options Option A HDMI from DVR to TV. This will output the signals from your DVR to the TV in full HD. You can watch, record and pause TV and playback your stored videos and music from the internal DRV’s storage without making any connection changes. Option B Component video from DVR to TV. Same as Option A for TVs and monitors that does not feature the HDMI port. Option C Composite video from DVR to TV. Same as Option B for TVs that do not feature component or HDMI inputs. Option D HDMI from set-top box to TV. To switch directly from DRV to TV incase you don’t want to record any programs. You can switch off the DVR completely. Option E Same as Option D with component video connections Note: The availability of a DVR, similar to this one used here, is pretty difficult in India as the Indian law does not permit recording of television broadcasts for piracy purposes. Though TV tuners can record TV broadcasts, you can still record videos. Piracy of videos, rebroadcast, distribution and other forms of video distribution/sale is strictly against the law.

Run Android apps on Windows

Most Android-based smartphone users would agree that they would prefer testing an app before downloading it to their phone. The reason behind this is usually to avoid unnecessary space hogging apps. Some users might also wish to play some of the cool mobile games available for the Android platform on their PC i.e. on a larger display. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how can your favorite Android apps on your Windows-based PC using a simple and free software called BlueStacks. Installing BlueStacks is an app player for Windows, which can play Android apps faster than it can run on a phone and that too, on a full-screen. The app includes 10 pre-loaded apps and one can add up to 26 more apps of their choice. Favorite apps can be pushed directly from the phone onto the PC using an Android app via internet route. Download and install the software for Windows from the URL ‘www.bluestacks.com’. The software is nothing, but a simple virtual Android operating system, which simulates an Android phone or UI. It uses the desktop PC’s resources such as the processor, the internet connection, mouse, keyboard and the audio card. The installed folder located on the PC contains the necessary files for its use, namely the kernel, data, system, boot and storage (the SD card). The BlueStacks Android (Gingerbread) virtual machine creates a hardware environment with a limited amount of storage (around 363 MB) for installing apps and 262 MB of SD card storage space.    Once BlueStacks is installed, the application will be running the Android operating system in the background and you will see an icon in the system tray area and a widget will be running on your screen. A single click on the widget will reveal the Android system apps installed in it. Click on the apps and enjoy them on a large screen. Additional apps can be installed from the BlueStacks website by signing in using your Facebook account details. To get to this page, all you need to do is click on the BlueStacks widget, scroll to and click on the app icon/shortcut ‘Get more apps’. A website will open up where you can login using your Facebook details. Once logged in, simply click on the ‘Subscribe’ button for the available apps (in the Featured Apps section) and they shall automatically get installed on your system via the internet. The ‘Could Connect’ link on the same page will highlight a special 9-pin numerical code which needs to be entered on your Android phone running the BlueStacks Cloud Connect app (download it from the Android Market for free). Once done, you can push apps from your phone to your PC by simply selecting multiple apps and syncing it. That’s it! You can now enjoy all your favorite apps from your phone on your Windows desktop PC. Interface Cloud connect Note: There are a few (or many) apps that will not function on BlueStacks, due to reasons such as incompatible hardware (for example there is no wireless network available here and apps that need the wireless network will not function). Also a few apps cannot be installed under the free license of BlueStacks. The BlueStacks Pro version will be out soon and you can do a lot more on it. The free version has a maximum limit of 26 installable apps, while the pro version will have the possibility of installing unlimited apps.

How to: Install Windows 8 on a pen drive

Windows 8, the latest edition to Microsoft's OS evolution is making big waves in the PC arena. We are sure that many of you are eagerly waiting to try out the new Windows 8 Preview on your PCs, to have a first look and glimpse of what Microsoft has in store for you with the new operating system. Installing Windows 8 on your PC, which already has Windows 7 or Windows XP installed can be quite a task—backing up data, clearing space for the new OS, reinstalling, and so on. However, before that, the pain of burning the downloaded ISO file on a DVD or on a USB pen drive to get the installation ready also makes it a killing task. We shall show you how you can relax and enjoy the complete features of Windows 8 on your existing PC without going through any of the above cumbersome exercises and run the new operating system in less than half the time. This How to will reveal the installation of Windows 8 on any USB storage and then running the operating system directly from the USB drive, itself. You will not have to go through any of the painful set-up procedures that the set-up installer asks, while installing Windows 8 on your PC. All you need to do is download a simple utility, a 16GB or higher USB storage drive, the Windows 8 ISO file, WinRAR archiver and your existing PC. Before we begin, we would like you to know that using a USB pen drive will suffice, but since the speed of a regular USB pen drive is very sluggish, we recommend using an external USB storage drive.  Step 1 To begin with, assuming you have a PC that already has Windows 7 running and WinRAR installed, extract the file ‘install.wim’ from the Windows 8 ISO file using WinRAR. This file will be located under the folder ‘Sources’ and is around 2GB in size. Extract it to the desktop. Now go ahead and download a tiny 500 KB utility, called ‘GimageX’ from the ‘http://tinyurl.com/gimagexv2’ and extract the file to a folder on your desktop. This folder will have both the 32-bit and 64-bit utility. Choose the appropriate one depending on the operating system that you are already running on your PC. Now, before we use the utility, we have to prepare the USB drive for installing Windows 8. Make sure you have all your data backed up from the drive, as we would need to clean out the drive completely. Proceed ahead when ready. Step 2 Plug-in the USB drive, wait for a while, if the drivers are not yet installed and let the system recognize the new drive. Now start the Windows command prompt and type the following commands one after the other as given below: Diskpart (This built-in utility will help repartition and format the new drive) List disk (This command will list all the drives present on your system. Note down the drive number of your USB drive) Select disk # (Replace the # with the drive number that represents your USB drive in the list) Clean (This command will wipe the entire partition table of the USB drive) Create partition primary (This command will create a primary partition on the USB drive) Select partition 1 (This command will select the primary partition for the rest of the process) Format fs=ntfs quick (This command will quick format the primary partition in NTFS file format)  Assign (This command will assign a drive letter to the new partition for Windows to work on) Active (This command will make the partition active to enable booting) Exit (Closes the DISKPART utility) Now that the drive is ready for installation of the new operating system, start the GimageX utility and click on the tab ‘apply’. In the source field, specify the ‘INSTALL.WIM’ file, which you earlier extracted from the Windows ISO file. In the destination field, select the USB drive letter that you just got ready. Let all the settings in the remaining fields be untouched and hit the ‘Apply’ button. GimageX will not extract the contents of the Install.wim file, which contains the necessary Windows 8 folders and system files on the USB drive. Note: This procedure should take a few minutes and will depend on the speed of your USB drive. If you are using a regular pendrive, then the time taken will be longer than on any 2.5-inch external USB storage drive. Once done, GimageX will display that the process is complete. Exit the GimageX utility and start the command prompt again. We now need to make the USB drive bootable in order to run Windows 8 from the USB drive. For this, we will have to specify a command from the command prompt window. Run the following command as below. Step 3 In the command above, F: is the drive letter of the USB drive where the Windows 8 files have been extracted to earlier by the GimageX utility. Remember to replace the drive letter of your USB drive, accordingly. This command will take a few seconds to transfer the necessary booting files to the USB drive. Once done, you can quit from the command prompt. Step 4 That’s it! Shut down your PC, get into the BIOS, enable booting from the USB drive and restart the PC. Your PC will now boot from the USB drive directly into Windows 8. All that is needed in the next step is to specify the serial key and give details, such as username and password. Windows will be up and running in no time and install the necessary drivers in the background. You can now go ahead and configure Windows 8, as you wish and install all your software and applications, as you would on a new PC. All software and applications will be installed on the USB drive by default, unless specified with a different path. Step 5 - Simply replace the drive name ''h" with "F" Make sure you have an Internet connection set-up for your PC, if you are using your Microsoft Live (Hotmail) account to be linked with your Windows 8 installation. Once done, you can simply shut down, disconnect your USB drive and get back to your older operating system without any trace of having Windows 8 installed on your PC. You can plug-in this USB drive on any other PC and have Windows 8 running on that PC.  You can also use this trick to install Windows 8 on an internal hard drive and have Windows 8 installed without having to go through the entire process of installing the OS using a DVD ROM.

iPhone 5: All you need to know

Putting an end to all the rumours and speculation, Apple offically pulled the covers off the iPhone 5 yesterday at an event held in San Francisco. This sixth generation iPhone is one of the most highly anticipated devices from Apple. Though the features seem impressive, the device didn’t bring in a lot of surprises, owing to the frequent leaks. The new iPhone 5 is tall and skinny, and promises speedier performance. The company has also worked out some good audio technologies and connectivity features. Read on, there’s much more.  Design Apple’s iPhone continues to shed some weight with each generation and this time it’s become a little taller too. The new iPhone 5 is longer and slimmer compared to the iPhone 4S. It is the thinnest iPhone ever at 7.6mm, but not the slimmest phone in the world as stated on the Apple website (Motorola Razr is sleeker at 7.1mm). Weighing 112 grams, the iPhone 5 is crafted from anodised aluminium and glass which makes it 18 percent thinner and 20 percent lighter than the iPhone 4S. It is easy to grip as the width still remains the same, ensuring comfortable use with one hand. Apple has even put up a 5 minute video that shows how the iPhone has been precisely engineered for a perfect finish. It says that the variances are now measured in microns. Viewing 1 of 9 Display Unlike all the previous iterations of the iPhone, the iPhone 5 sports a bigger 4-inch Retina display. Moreover, the 4-inch, 1136 x 640 pixel touchscreen packs in 326 pixels per inch. Taking advantage of the big screen, the Apple OS now adds fifth row of icons and has an aspect ratio of nearly 16:9. Reportedly, Apple has removed a layer from the display and built the touch sensors right into the panel, which means a more accurate display. It adds better colour saturation as well.  Processor At the core of the iPhone 5 lies the new A6 chip that claims to deliver double the CPU and graphics performance compared to the previous A5 chip. Apple assures us that the rise in performance doesn’t compromise on the battery life. It promises enviable battery life even with this speedier processor. At the event, Tim Cook hinted at a smaller transistor size which makes the chip 22 percent smaller than A5. However, there’s still no word on the number of cores and clock speed. Camera and related features Just like the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 5 also has an 8 megapixel (3264 x 2448 pixel) camera but the sensor is 25 percent smaller. Its five-element, f/2.4 lens now uses a sapphire crystal that is thinner and more durable than glass. The new A6 processor employs better noise reduction and improved low-light performance. The chip is capable of analysing which image needs to be processed and which needs to be left alone, claiming that this enables better low light photography. It has backside illumination and a hybrid infrared filter. The new panorama mode has been introduced that stitches together full resolution photos up to 28 megapixels in size. The iPhone 5 offers 1080p HD video capture with improved image stabilisation, face detection for up to 10 faces and the ability to snap images while shooting video. The front-facing FaceTime camera has also been upgraded and can capture 720p HD videos.  Connectivity Just like most of the rumours that have turned into reality, Apple’s iPhone 5 uses LTE connectivityand is much faster than the iPhone 4S. On the connectivity front, it supports Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G LTE (region specific), Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS.  One will also find support for GSM, UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA, and CDMA. The iPhone 5 talks about ultrafast wireless standards which include LTE and DC-HSDPA, allowing faster browsing. It is said to have built a unique single-radio LTE solution for offering faster speed while fitting into the sleek device body. The dual-channel 5GHz Wi-Fi or 802.11N support means a 150Mbps maximum connectivity speed. The iPhone 5’s connector was the subject of lots of speculation as the company has decided to redesign it after nine years. Like everything else Apple, the connector also has got a name – Lightning. The company will be launching Lightning-to-30-pin Adapter to connect iPhone 5 to legacy 30-pin accessories. Battery Even with a larger display and 4G LTE connectivity, Apple claims to have improved the battery. Compared to 200 hours of standby time offered by the 4S, the iPhone 5 will be capable of 225 hours of standby time. At the event, the displayed battery life statistics as follows: Standby time - 225 hoursTalk time on 3G - 8 hours Browsing on 3G – 8 hours Browsing on LTE – 8 hours Wi-Fi browsing – 10 hours Video – 10 hours Music – 40 hours Storage The iPhone 5 will be up for grabs in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB storage capacities. No, don’t expect expandable memory.  OS and Apps The iPhone 5 runs on the newest flavour of Apple’s operating system – iOS 6. iOS 6 is packed with more than 200 new features. One of the highlights is the Maps app. Apple is set to replace Google Maps with its own Maps app featuring turn by turn navigation, 3D maps and the Flyover view. With the new Facebook integration, you have to sign into your Facebook account only once and the device allows posting from Notification Center, Siri and Facebook enabled apps, such as Photos, Safari and Maps. Safari for iOS 6 now comes with a redesigned icon-based sharing menu. Safari has also received an update to go full screen on the device by touching the arrows in the corners. Another major feature of the new Safari app is the ability to sync tabs between the desktop and iOS versions of Safari. Apple’s iCloud functionality takes another step forward as iOS 6 enables PhotoStream shares. This feature allows quick and easy sharing of photos with a group of other users. All one needs to do is select the photo/photos, find "Photo Stream" in the share menu and add contacts. Some more interesting features are Call Rejection and Reminder, Do Not Disturb and VIP Mail. Siri has been educated further to answer questions about movies, get sports scores, make dinner reservations, tweet and even support newer languages. This isn’t all. It has been enabled with the ‘Eyes Free’ functionality, which lets you talk to Siri while driving, without looking into your handset’s screen. The benefits of this feature are expected to be soon seen in cars by top auto makers. Audio On the audio front, there is a new beam-forming, directional microphone system for higher quality sound. Apple has introduced new noise-canceling technology for clearer audio. Background noise fades away with new noise canceling technology.  The iPhone 5 has three mics to enable noise cancellation, which will be useful for both voice calls and video, and also help with voice recognition. It supports cellular wideband audio (over 20 carriers across the world will be supporting Wideband audio) for crisper word clarity and natural sounding speech. The iPhone 5 also replaces the infamous earphones and names them EarPods. The new earphones feature a breakthrough design for natural fit and more durability. Pricing Apple will be selling the iPhone 5 at prices similar to those of the iPhone 4S at its launch and has slashed the price of its iPhone 4S and 4. The 16GB, 32GB and 64GB iPhone 5 is priced at approximately Rs. 11,035 ($199), Rs. 16,581 ($299) and Rs. 22,118 ($399) respectively in the US on two-year contracts. The pre-orders will begin in the United States, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore by the end of this week while this will extend to other countries by September 28, though India is also not on that list. What we liked Going by the specs, we liked the new larger display, which is something many Apple customers have been waiting for. The new A6 processor is a great improvement. Apple claims it to offer double the processor and graphics speed. We also like that Apple has improved the sound quality which it claims will not only benefit calls but also Siri and video recording. The design is refined and the aluminium and glass make it attractive. The claimed battery life seems like the highlight if the device matches its stated figures. Overall, it is a good improvement considering its LTE abilities and larger display.  What we didn’t like Apple seems to be quite rigid with its designs, be it the form factor or the UI. Despite the new lighter and taller iPhone, it feels a little monotonous and quite similar to the iPhone 4/4S. The UI again is the same old thing, with nothing refreshing about it. We wonder if the design and UI elements will bother Apple loyalists. The device also misses NFC and the feature on our wish list for a long time, a microSD card slot. Though there are some nifty improvements, the iPhone 5 didn’t surprise us as much as we had expected it would. On paper it looks good, so let’s wait and see how the device performs.