Make Free International Phone Calls With Tuitalk

Humans are by default programmed to be fans of Free stuff and thats the reason why i keep writing about various ways of doing things without getting it costly on your wallet. In my previous posts, you learnt about ways to send free sms, send and receive fax for free and often i have talked about a lot of freeware tools. Today, in this post, lets learn about a service called Tuitalk which lets you make international calls to over 40 countries for free. Also, do remember this is not a mobile to pc or pc to pc call. You can certainly call up your friends or family with tuitalk on their mobile or landline phones.

In order to get started with making free international phone calls with Tuitalk, follow the process below

1.) Point your browser to www.tuitalk.com 

2.) Next, sign up for the service. 

3.) Download Tuitalk client. 

4.) Press #, watch an ad and talk for free.

Get the entire list of countries where you can make free phone calls with tuitalk here. Everyday, Tuitalk gives you a set amount of time to talk for free internationally. Once you have exhausted your time slot, you can make the next call only next day, when tuitalk quota for your account is refilled.

Image: Using Tuitalk to make free international Phone Calls.

If you are wondering about the basic question related to the reasoning and logic behind free phone calls…well, its free for you but not for the advertisers. The service has tied up with a lot of advertisers. Everytime you make a free phone call, you also hear an advertisement. This is how the company intends to make money. 

Tuitalk clients are available for Windows PC and Windows Mobile Smart Phone. Clients for Apple iPhone and Windows Mobile Pocket PC are expected to be available soon.

Processes, programs and applications that run on your system during startup

Ever wondered about what causes your PC to take so long to boot? What are the various programs that start alongwith Windows automatically? now Nirsoft has released another interesting application called WhatInStartup. 

WhatInStartup displays the list of all applications that are loaded automatically when Windows starts up. For each application, the following information is displayed: Startup Type (Registry/Startup Folder), Command-Line String, Product Name, File Version, Company Name, Location in the Registry or file system, and more. It allows you to easily disable or delete unwanted programs that runs in your Windows startup. You can use it on your currently running instance of Windows, as well as you can use it on external instance of Windows in another drive. WhatInStartup also supports a special "Permanent Disabling" feature - If a program that you previously disabled added itself again to the startup list of Windows, WhatInStartup will automatically detect the change and disable it again.

Image: Using Nirsoft WhatInStartup to identify the programs that auto start with Windows

WhatInStartup doesn't require any installation process or additional dll files. In order to start using it, simply copy the executable file (WhatInStartup.exe) info any folder you like, and run it. After running it, the main window of WhatInStartup displays the list of all programs that are loaded at Windows startup. You can select one or more items, and then disable them (F7), enable them back after previously disabled (F8), delete them (Ctrl+Delete), or save them into text/csv/html/xml file (Ctrl+S).

[ Download WhatInStartup ]

Searching for Icons? Try out IconFinder.net

Most of the times as part of creative web designing, we are looking out for interesting designs, layouts, icons and much more. There exists various resources for all these, however, when it comes to finding interesting icons, i usually go to a website called IconFinder.

IconFinder is a search engine for icons. When at the website, all you do is enter the search keyword and hit search. You can even browse for icons using tags. 

As per the website, 

The goal for Iconfinder is to provide high quality icons for webdevelopers and designers in an easy and efficient way. The new features includes:

• Everybody can add tags for the icons. When new tags are submitted other users can vote. If new tags don't get enough positive votes, the changes will be reversed.

• Lots of new icon sets and a nice way to browse them all without searching.

• Setting limits to the sizes of the icons shown, changing the number of results per page and changing the background color is now possible with just a few clicks.

Image: Search for Icons with IconFinder

What are the icon search engines you use?

Add Text to Images With PicFont

Ever wanted to add text, captions, comments to Images? If yes, PicFont is another interesting and free web service which lets you do all this. In order to get started, you dont even need to signup with the service. 

PicFont, allows you to add text to pictures, captions and shapes all for free. Adding text is also something like adding a watermark to your images. 

PicFont editor gives you options to add text, customize the font,color, size and also text rotation. It even allows for undo actions on the image. Once the text is added, you can move it to the desired position before it is fixed on the image. 

 

Image: Picfont allows you to add text in Images

In order to get started, point your browser to PicFont, select the picture, shape or canvas of your choice, add text to it generate the custom images with text. PicFont even allows you to download and embed the image. With the embed code, it even provides a link for sharing the custom image.

www.picfont.com

How to Change File Association Types in Windows XP

With Windows, when you double-click ( by default, you can definitely always modify the click properties to enable file opening on single click) a file to open it, Windows XP examines the file name extension. If Windows XP recognizes the file name extension, it opens the file in the program that is associated with that file name extension. This is called as Files Associations. It is in short, an association between File extension and the application which opens those types of files. For example, when you double click on .doc extension files, if you have windows word installed, windows by default opens .doc files with Microsoft Word. This happens because of a file association set in the background. However, there always can be multiple programs which can handle a specific file extension and if you wish to change to a specific file extension from the current association, this post is what you need to read till the end.

In order to change the File extension and Application association, follow the steps mentioned below

1.) Double click on "My Computer" or open up Windows Explorer view. Open Windows Explorer by right-clicking the Start button, and then click Explore.

Image: Windows Folders Options

2.) From the menu, select Tools –> Folder Options.

3.) From the Folder Options menu, select the submenu titled File Types. This then opens up a list with all the current file association mappings.

Image: Change Windows File Associations

4.) Lets assume we wish to change the file association type for file extension .zip which opens up in WinZip by default. From the list, select the file extension zip. This tell you that the current association of zip file extension is WinRAR. Now if you wish to change this to Winzip, Click the button named Change and select appropriate program from the list that comes. In this case, select WinZip. 

5.) Press Close. 

Next time you open a file extension .zip file ( or for that matter the file extension for which you just changed ) it will open with WinZip.

Set Your Google talk Status as Idle (Whenever you want)

Google Talk included within Gmail does have the option which lets you get invisible on Google Talk but when it comes to the stand alone desktop client for Google talk, you dont have much options. One of the best ways till now to avoid replying to unnecessary conversations initiated by friends and aquaintances is by setting your status as Busy; but that doesnt work always as expected. We have been hoping that Google Talk's desktop client also gets invisible status soon. However, till that happens, the other trick that you can enforce is by showing your status as idle. Idle status usually represents that you are away and therefore not able to reply. Gtalk usually sets your status as idle after a particular timeout but as soon as you are back, that Idle status of yours just goes off and the world knows the truth.

With gAlwaysIdle you can now add two new items to the context menu of Gtalk allowing you to change your status to be 'always idle' or 'never idle'. When your status is set to 'always idle', you'll appear idle to your Google Talk buddies, even if you're sitting at your computer typing e-mails and sending IMs.

Image: gAlwaysIdle lets you show yourself as idle on Gtalk.

Below is a short work description of the two new menu items

Always Idle : This menu item lets you appear away even when you are logged in and doing some work like typing e-mails and sending instant messages etc.

Never Idle : This menu item lets you appear to be at your computer even when you're far away.

[Download gAlwaysIdle]

Test whether your website is loading in all countries in the world

Chinese government is known to have strict internet censorship laws which prohibit anti-Chinese content from being displayed in China.In such cases, its always beneficial to have the knowledge about your website accessibility from within China.

As per Amit of Digital Inspiration, there are three reliable services which can help you identify if your website is available from within China.

1.Just Ping - They have checkpoints inside Hong Kong and Shanghai in China.

2. Watch Mouse - This service too has monitoring stations inside Hong Kong and Shanghai in China.

3. Website Pulse - In addition to Hong Kong and Shanghai, Website Pulse conducts website connectivity test from a computer located in Beijing as well.

Image: Are your websites accessible from China?

While the first two services only let you get the ping statistics in terms of whether the website is up or not and the round trip time, Website Pulse, i.e. the third option in the list even gets you back the HTTP Response headers.

If you are wondering about how these websites work, it goes like this. All these websites have agents ( in laymen terms, agents are software programs) which can trigger a ping or a GET request and send you back the details. The details are then processed and shown to the end user in an understandable format.

[File Conversion] convert text, documents and PDF to MP3 Format (free)

Ever wanted to convert your text , documents or PDF files to MP3 formats to be able to listen to them later? If yes, here is the good news for you, Zamzar, an online file conversion utility which is currently in the public beta stage of development has announced file conversion support for text, documents and PDF files to MP3 for later playback.

This feature definitely is a very interesting move by Zamzar and will be of great use for those who are willing to hear out their text documents while on the move using their iPod or to those who are visually impared.

Announcing this feature, Zamzar bog mentions 

We think this feature will be particularly useful for our visually impaired users, many of whom receive documents from friends and colleagues in formats that are difficult for screen readers to access. We also hope this will come in handy for anyone who wants to listen to documents, emails or pdf files on the go - All files are converted into the mp3 format, making them ideal for listening on portable music players such as the iPod.

 

The full list of supported files which you can convert into mp3 is listed below:

• doc - Microsoft Word Document
• docx - Microsoft Word 2007 Document
• odt - OpenDocument Text Document
• pdf - Portable Document Format
• pub - Microsoft Publisher
• txt - Plain Text document
• wpd - Wordperfect Document
• wps - Microsoft Works Document

In order to get started with conversion of text to audio, you need to follow the steps below

 

Image: Zamzar lets you convert text, documents and PDF to Mp3 format.

1.) Point your browser to Zamzar. 

2.) Next follow the guided screen to select your files to convert, choose the format for the converted file. Here you need to select mp3. 

3.) Enter your email address and press Convert.

Zamzar doesnt require any download or installation.