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Hide your IP Address And Stay One Step More Secure On The Internet

Hide your IP Address And Stay One Step More Secure On The Internet

Online privacy is one of the most important aspect that you should consider. If you don’t then things could end up disastrous. Usually IP addresses are like your footprints, and often should not be known by the websites you visited or other users. So there are a number of methods to hide your IP address and thus making your online life a bit more secure.

Also See: How To Find The IP Address Of Your Computer

What Is An IP Address? It is your identity on the internet, which identifies your computer, smartphone, tablet, or anything else with which you are connected. As we always say ” If it’s on the internet, it isn’t private ” , Any server which you connect to, or any internet user can easily obtain your IP address.

By using IP address they can obtain the data such as the country you live in, what browser you use, even know your Internet habits and also have a chance to know your computer’s IP address. If someone else knows all such details about you and your computer, then your security is truly under question.

 

Hide your IP Address And Stay One Step More Secure On The Internet

 

How to Hide your IP Address ?

There are several methods to hide your IP address in order to protect your privacy , but neither method is 100% effective only hinder your crawl. Here are the three methods to hide your IP address:

 

#1 Web-Proxies:

This is the fastest and simplest method. No need to install anything on your computer or on your web browser. All you need to do is, just move on to any web-proxy website and enter the address that you want to access anonymously in the search bar. Now you will be redirected to your requested website by hiding your IP address.

Many of these proxies allow additional settings, such as advertising, cookies or applications running on the website and many more. There are now many web proxies, both free and paid versions, some of them are:

 

#2 Configure the proxy settings in the browser :

Another method is to configure the proxy settings in your web browser. So by using this method you can directly use your web browser itself so as to hide your IP address. To do this you must access the settings of your browser and establish a web proxy of your choice.

Another possibility to hide your IP using the browser is to install extensions that help us to maintain our privacy and security.

 

#3 Proxy software :

These proxies have to be installed on your computer , and work the same way as any normal program. One of the best known software proxies is the ” TOR Project “, which besides being free, it is one of the most reliable and safe to hide in the network methods. TOR browser is also pretty popular and is being used by thousands of people worldwide.

It is composed of a network of computers called nodes. When you connect to TOR, it follows a path through the various nodes and finally connect to the server, making it quite difficult to find the source as you can seamlessly connect to the network from a node located in any other country. Besides this, communications through the TOR network are encrypted , making it even more difficult.

We don’t say its unchangeable but surely it isn’t going to give way to intruders so easily.

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PC Guides

3D V-NAND Technology: Powering The Future Solid State Drives  

3D V-NAND Technology: Powering The Future Solid State Drives  

With the considerable improvements in storage capabilities, there is no reason why one would prefer a Hard Disk Drive over a Solid State Drive. Both these are non-volatile storage devices, which means the data written to them will not disappear even if the power is shut. While their purpose is the same, their construction differs due to which the performance and storage capabilities. A hard disk drive (HDD) stores information on a rotating disk using a magnetic arm and hence is noisy, less efficient and more power consuming. Learn more about HDDs here.

3D V-NAND Technology: Powering The Future Solid State Drives  

Solid State Drives (SSDs)

A SSD instead stores data in flash memory chips which are interconnected thus retaining huge amount of data. Though a little costlier than the HDDs, these SSDs are fast becoming the preferred choice of storage devices in desktops and laptops.

In this mix, Samsung pops out the SSD 850 PRO which features the 32-layer 3D V-NAND Flash Memory. This is an improvement over the earlier models of SSDs which were based on the 2D Planar NAND technology; the result is more storage, more speed, more efficiency and hence more reliability.

 

2D Planar NAND and 3D Vertical NAND – The Difference

Instead of using the conductive floating gate (like all the other flash memory chips) to store charge, the 3D V-NAND Technology uses Silicon Nitride (an insulator) to store charge by means of the Charge Trap Flash (CTF) technology. This little modification means that there is no memory wear (or) flash wear caused due to short circuit currents.

But the operation of a control gate MOSFET can explained practically considering a bucket of water. The water stays in the bucket until there isn’t any hole in the bucket. Once there is a hole, sooner or later the entire bucket is gets emptied. Here water is analogy to the charge present on the floating gate and the bucket that holds this water is analogous to the layer of insulating material around the floating gate.

This hole formation in the insulating oxide layer is the resultant of the stress caused on this layer while writing into the drive. Due to which over a span of time the degradation is multiplied and ultimately the floating gate gets short-circuited. Manufacturers, in order to avoid such floating gate collapses, usually thicken this insulating layer thus increasing the ‘endurance’, hence the life time of a typical 2D Planar NAND SSDs.

But a Charge Trap Flash (CTF) technology, in 3D Vertical NAND is immune to such memory wear outs and a short circuit will result in no severe effects. This is primarily because the charge is stored on an insulator and no short-circuit would disturb this charge. Hence there is no need to employ a thick oxide layer and the capacitance effect can be kept to minimum levels, thus, improving the speed of the write and read operations and the interference with neighboring cells isn’t much of a problem.

It is due to this vital aspect that a charge trapping cell can be stacked over another such cell and this is why 24 layer 3D V-NAND and a 32 layer 3D V-NAND were a reality.

 

The Plus Points:

The vertical stacking of cells is more advantageous than the planar arrangement. With vertical stacking, a higher capacity of cells can be included in a given volume. This improves the electrical efficiency as the connections are shortened hence much lower power is consumed. Thanks to the charge trap flash technology due to which Samsung has openly announced a warranty period of 10 years on the SSD 850 PRO and that’s how confident they are about the endurance of the 3D V-NAND. Hence the Samsung 850 PRO SSD will surely turn out to be a revolutionary storage device once it is set into the market.

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PC Guides

Understanding the Specialty of PNG Photo File Format

Understanding the Specialty of PNG Photo File Format

Our hard disks, smart phones, social networking sites, e-mail inboxes, websites we surf are all filled with digital image files. While there are a several types of different photo file formats each of them have their special attributes, and thereby with circumstance the image format we use should also differ.

 

Understanding the Specialty of PNG Photo File Format

 

In this article we concentrate on the PNG Photo File Format, its features and advantages.

The PNG Photo File Format – History:

The Portable Network Graphics (PNG photo file format) pronounced as “p-n-g” or “ping” format is most popular for its lossless data compression. This format is invented mainly for the web and is today the most used photo file format in the Internet. It actually is created as an improved and non-patented version of the GIF photo file format in 1996.

Initially the web support for this PNG photo file format came from the Internet Explorer 4.0b1. Now a range of browsers from the Google’s Chrome to the Apples’s Safari support this format.

 

Types – PNG 8, PNG 24 and PNG 32

You must have known about the classification of photo file formats into the JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF and other such formats. All of these differ from each other, while the PNG photo file format can further be classified as:

  • PNG-8
  • PNG-24

It is to be noted that the PNG-32 is simply the PNG-24 with full support for alpha transparency. Due to which we choose to keep that out of the classification and you’ll slowly understand what alpha transparency means as you read along.

The PNG-8 format is very similar to the GIF format. Just like the GIF, it can be saved with a maximum of 256 colors and with a support for a 1-bit transparency. The important thing about an image saved under in the PNG-8 format is its edges are quite fuzzy.

These edges could go unnoticed if the background is white, but, if it were a black background it surely isn’t so appealing. Anyways PNG-8 digital files are smaller compared to the GIF files.

If PNG-8 is closer to a GIF format, so is the PNG-24 to a JPEG photo format. It supports 24-bit colors (which means a total of 16 million colors) and because of ability of lossless image compression, these file sizes are bigger than JPEG. Even the fuzzy effect mentioned earlier with PNG-8 is absolutely gone.

But this doesn’t make the PNG-8 format worthless, for, they are the best web image format at instances you don’t have need transparent images. But the thing is PNG-24 is much better in producing graphic transparency.

 

The Alpha Transparency – The Uniqueness

Generally in any other image file formats, each pixel can either be chosen to be transparent or opaque. The uniqueness with the PNG photo file format is that the alpha channel can set each pixel the opacity from a range of 0 to 255. Here, 0 is for fully transparent appearance and 255 being completely opaque; this provides a faded look to images.

Put on any backgrounds the PNG files maintain their original appearance which isn’t the case with any other photo file formats. This feature is a boon for those who utilize it and can produce digital files of superior interest.

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PC Guides Software

Five Tools That You Should Carry In Your USB Memory

Five Tools That You Should Carry In Your USB Memory

Portable Programs are those which don’t need any installation for them to be used on any PC, only the executable programs need to be installed and in some cases a folder that contains program files is also required. If we combine these programs with the versatility that is provided by the USB sticks, then we can take wherever we want without relying on the PC that we are going to work on. Today we have a collection of programs here for you that are believed to be very essential, and are to carried in every USB drive.

Five Tools That You Should Carry In Your USB Memory

List Of Items You Should Carry In Your USB Memory :

CCleaner :

As we all know CCleaner is a very good optimization tool for computers. It Deletes cookies, files stored in the cache and even cleans the registry of your PC. It also has more advanced options like uninstalling programs, modifying the Windows startup or deleting units. In any case, this is one of the most desirable to have applications. You can download it from Softonic.

 

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware :

Security is a very important aspect in Windows, and even a slight misconsciousness may set the path for Malwares or Trojans or strain adware to enter into your computer. We suggest you the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, as it is one of the most popular complete level antivirus database. Also, offering its users best real-time analysis, a filter to prevent potentially dangerous websites and also three different methods of scanning viruses is surely a class apart from the rest. To download, just click here and once downloaded, install the version on your portable USB memory.

Also See : How To Detect Malware Infection On Your Computer.

 

VLC Media Player :

VLC Media Player is one of the most popular and simple to use player. It facilitates its users with a very wide range of codecs, so there is no need to worry about the format of the video which you are going to play. You can Download the portable VLC media player from Softonic.

Also See : Easy Way To Convert A Video to ASCII Using VLC Media Player.

 

ImgBurn :

ImgBurn is a lightweight DVD/CD/Blu-ray/HD-DVD burning application that every computer user should have. It offers many modes of operations like write, read , build , verify and discover. Its true that the use of CD or DVD is increasingly on the wane but it is worth to relocate ImgBurn on our USB as you can save the odd surprise. To download, you will have to enter the download server and once downloaded, install the portable version on to your USB memory.

 

Chrome :

One of the best browsers available on Windows could not miss our USB memory. As we are using a PC which is not ours, so in order to avoid the information sharing between the browser and PC it is always recommended to use a portable browser.To download, you will have to enter the download server and once downloaded, install the portable version folder on to your USB memory.

Similarly there are many portable programs that can be added to this list of your USB memory. For better experience just search for Google’s version of portable program and download it.

As always, we recommend that only link to download server that you have known not to contain any virus as it is very easy for any sneaking Trojan to enter your system in the name of Portable software.

 

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PC Guides

This Is What’s The Difference Between 32-Bit And 64-Bit Windows

Differences between 32-Bit and 64 Bit Computers

The computing world today has been fast shifting to the 64-bit mode of architecture. Windows has carried out a lot of promotions to increase the usage of 64-bit Windows among households. But this topic has till date been unclear to many computer users.

If you have ever wondered about the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Operating System, today you will have your answer. In this article we help you understand the concepts of 32-bit and 64-bit computing in plain English, without any jargon.

Differences between 32-Bit and 64-Bit

About 32-bit and 64-bit OS :

Firstly let’s start from the very basics and understand what bits are.

What Is A Bit?

A bit is the smallest unit of information in any digital system. It takes a value i.e. either a 1 or 0. The total number of bits in a computer states its registry width. A registry is sort of database present in your computer which is quite frequently accessed. Learn more about Windows Registry.

Anyways the bigger the registry gets the more information it can handle. Due to which the important thing is the ability to handle memory increases. A 32-bit register can hold 232 = 4.2 billion addresses (from an address of 0000…. 32times to 1111….. 32times) and the maximum RAM limitation is just 4GB. While in a 64-bit registry, the number of addresses it can hold is 264 which is about a 17.6 billion gigabytes or 16.3 terabytes approximately. [Source: Wikipedia]

Simply, in a nutshell the 64-bit processor can access 4 billion times the memory than a 32-bit processor can do.

Operating Systems:

A 64-bit processor demands software which is of the 64-bit architecture. Keeping this in mind Windows and Apple have developed their operating systems, without which not much change can be felt between a 32-bit and 64-bit processor. Even you may be using a 64-bit operating system in case you have purchased your computer recently. There’s absolutely no doubt about it.

Also if at all you are trying to run a 32-bit software on your 64-bit Windows, there won’t be any problem with that. Except that the true capabilities of your CPU are left untested. But there opposite isn’t true. With a 32-bit operating system at hand you can run a 64-bit application and you know why.

The Adaption:

Applications including software, games etc. have already started taking advantage of the extensive memory and processing capacity of the 64-bit systems. Software are also backward compatible except the virus protection ones and drivers, so you can run any 32-bit application in a 64-bit environment without any headache.

Here is a compatibility table just assuring you what all a 64-bit CPU is capable of.

64- Bit Compatibility Table
CPU

64-Bit

64-Bit

 64-Bit

64-bit
Operating System

64-bit

 64-Bit 32-Bit

32-Bit
Application

64-Bit

 32-Bit 32-Bit

64-Bit
 Yes
Yes
 Yes
   No

Hence a processor’s upgrade from the 32-bit to 64-bit makes things faster and better. That being said, if at all your RAM is less than 4GB with a 64-bit processor, you really aren’t making good use of your processor and the performance is tad normal. For applications including Image Editing, Video Editing, 3D rendering and High-End games the 64-bit architecture with a 8GB or 16GB RAM shows significant performance improvement.

If there is a comparison between a 32-Bit and 64-Bit Windows systems, you know the result now.

Also See: The Advantages And Disadvantages In 64-Bit Computing

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Tech News

Here’s What The AMD Eyefinity Technology Has In Store For You [Tech Review]

Gone were the days when multiple displays were limited only to science fiction movies, oil and gas industries, medical industries where in which they are still a necessity. Now even you can set up a multi-display system at the comfort of your home but all you need is some information about the AMD Eyefinity Technology.

amd eyefinity technology

With AMD’s latest update into its arsenal of PC Graphics Technologies, you can connect upto 6 display units back to back and each of them can be independently configured with the AMD Catalyst Centre. Plus here the point to note is, you can do all this using just a single graphic card. That’s it!

So bingo you can now have 6 times the gaming experience, larger productivity, entertainment and multi-tasking at its peaks. All you have to do is research a little if your current graphic cards supports Eyefinity or purchase something that does.

A single graphic card is all you need and this could be anything amongst the AMD’s 5000 series graphic cards; all of which are likely to have the DisplayPort support which is a must. Initially, the upper 5000 series only supported a maximum of 3 displays but now 6 is the limit with the recently more debated Radeon HD 5970 graphic card.

If you’re running on a 4000 series or some earlier GPU, just to be clear; mates your graphic cards aren’t good for Eyefinity. You better move on now. Its simply because though individually they are so good, for them to mange 6 displays is really difficult. Given their low horsepower and display resolutions compared to the modern GPUs.

But with Radeon HD 5470 supporting 4 times the 2560×1600 pixels display; and the 5870 , 5770 , 5670 supporting a maximum resolution of 6 times the 2560×1600 pixels moving on to one of these from your older GPUs to exerience Eyefinity wouldn’t be so difficult; if you know what I’m talking about.

All The Eyefinity Benefits:

So lets quickly go through the benefits these products bring in. And here are a few of them listed out for you:

Gaming – A newer level of excitement

If you love racing, shooting or flying or whatever, surely you’ll play better when you see and feel better and that’s what this technology is all about.

  • Get the best view of all the action coupled with thrill and excitement of all the gameplay.
  • In first-person shooter games, feel the adrenaline rush and detect enemies faster and sharper.
  • Your love for racing is sure to get doubled or tripled.

Productivity – Maximize the use of time

There is no arguing the fact that your workplace will transform into some newer dimensions. With multiple monitors things get a lot easier and faster. As per a study, ulitple monitor setups are 29% more effective for regular tasks, with a 24% increase in comfort and a 39% better to move through the bulk of information [Source: Tomshardware].

  • Multi-task effectively and analyze more images and data across multiple screens.
  • Optimize your productivity with improved workspace and high speed data access.
  • Utilize time to the fullest with minimum mouse clicking and window switching.

Entertainment – The quality and the pleasure

Till now we are settled with the idea of having a big screen television or a home theatre PC (HTPC) but why stop there when can get a lot more,

  • Group all the monitors to form that one big screen and get the ultimate home theatre experience.
  • Watch multiple channels across different screens which mean football, music, news, movies, internet pages all at once

Conclusion:

AMD is now busy with enabling CrossFire Technology to Eyefinity Technology through which there is a scope for more bandwidth and much improved GPU performance. Hence with Eyefinity things are only going to get better.

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PC Guides Software

Know About Your Processor In Detail With CPU-Z

Know About Your Microprocessor In Detail With CPU-Z

As we have recently seen in the analysis of GPU-Z application , Windows only offers a limited amount of information about our hardware equipment. So we should use some third-party applications to get the complete information about each components present in our computer.

This time we focus on the analysis of all aspects of the processor by using CPU-Z; which can be downloaded at the end of the article.

This tool allows you to access all the information related to the processor and also the hardware that is installed on your computer.

Parameter Section Of The Processor and Other Component( By CPU-Z ):

  • CPU : It shows the microprocessor core data. This section contains the information about the make, model, frequency, bus speed, core speed etc.Know About Your Microprocessor In Detail With CPU-Z
  • Caches : This section focuses on information related to processor cache memory.Know About Your Microprocessor In Detail With CPU-Z
  • Mainboard : It contains the data related to the motherboard that is holding the microprocessor.Know About Your Microprocessor In Detail With CPU-Z
  • Memory : It displays all the necessary information about the installed RAM, like the type and quantity to the frequency at which you are working.Know About Your Microprocessor In Detail With CPU-Z
  • SPD : Shows the point Memory similar information but allows us to select a single slot instead of all available memory.Know About Your Microprocessor In Detail With CPU-Z
  • Graphics : Provides data about the graphics card installed on your computer.Know About Your Microprocessor In Detail With CPU-Z,Know About Your Microprocessor In Detail With CPU-Z
  • About : Shows the information about the CPU-Z application.Know About Your Microprocessor In Detail With CPU-Z

Hence this simple, powerful and free tool called CPU-Z lets you know every aspect of your Processor.

Download | CPU-Z

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PC Guides Software

Know About Your Graphic Card In Detail With GPU-Z

Know About Your Graphic Card In Detail With GPU-Z

Generally, any version of Windows gives us a very little information about our computer hardware, it also lacks monitoring tools for these items.

For the microprocessor and RAM, our operating system offers us a little more information, such as consumption or records but instead the important elements such as a graphics card barely have data beyond the make and model that includes the device manager .

Therefore, in case if you want any information about your GPU ( Graphics card ) then you should use third-party tools to get the parameters of the graphics card , one of the best tool for this work is GPU-Z. It is free of charge and can be downloaded at end of this article. Thanks to the developers “TechPowerUP”.

Once you download the application, it is not necessary to install. Just run the tool and select ” Not Now ” . Or you could even install it and then every time you turn on your computer, this application does it’s job.

Know About Your Graphic Card In Detail With GPU-Z

Parameter Section Of The Graphic Card ( By GPU-Z ):

We can see the simplicity of the tool, where only three tabs are employed.

  • Graphics Card : In this section, all data that define our graphics card such as make and model, BIOS version, type and amount of RAM, GPU frequency, etc are featured.Know About Your Graphic Card In Detail With GPU-Z
  • Sensors : This tab shows the dynamic data , i.e the current state of the graphics card such as frequency that it is currently working, temperature, fan speed, GPU load, etc.Know About Your Graphic Card In Detail With GPU-Z
  • Validation : Finally, the application allows us to contact the developers through this tab which is only a form where you can make suggestions or report errors.Know About Your Graphic Card In Detail With GPU-Z

This simple, powerful and free tool called GPU-Z lets you know every aspect of your graphics card.

Download | GPU-Z