Techie Titbits

How to use your internal hard drive as a USB external hard drive?

2010-05-25T15:24:00.000-05:00

You can convert your internal hard drive into a portable external USB hard drive. It is easy and cheap. The reason you might want to do it is several –

Your computer is dead. If you do not want to spend a lot of money trying to salvage the whole machine but need access to your data, converting your internal hard drive to an external USB one is real handy. Remember that even if your computer is dead, the hard drive might still be absolutely fine. Even if the boot sector of the internal drive is bad (i.e. your computer does not boot due to a hard drive failure), it might be still good for retrieving your data when used as an external USB drive.
You want to upgrade your computer’s storage space but there is no room for installing an extra internal hard drive. You can buy a new internal drive and convert your older drive into an external USB drive.

So let’s get started.
What do you need to convert an internal hard drive to an external USB hard drive?

Internal hard drive.

Check whether it is an IDE/PATA drive or a SATA drive. This is important. You can either check the connection pin configuration to determine whether it is a SATA or an IDE/PATA. However a much easier way to do it is just to check your computers manual or search for your model number in the company website.
It is a 2.5” hard drive or a 3.5”? Check as in the previous case. Generally laptops have 2.5” and desktops have 3.5”.

External cover for the hard drive (might include a USB cable too)

You have to buy it in a computer store (in the range $10-$50). Make sure it is compatible to your internal hard drive (i.e. its type (SATA or IDE) and its size (2.5” or 3.5”))

A screw-driver (typically a Philips screw-driver looks like a crosshead)

Yes, that is all you need to convert a SATA/IDE internal hard drive into a portable USB external hard drive.

Now that we have everything, let’s do the job. I did it for the internal SATA 2.5” hard drive of a HP dv6119us (HP dv6000 series) laptop using an external hard drive cover bought from NexStar. The procedure outlined here might vary if you are using different components, but the method should be pretty general.

Getting the internal hard drive

Keep your laptop upside down. Open the screws holding your hard drive cover (fig p-1).
Remove screws holding the hard drive to its compartment, if any (fig p-2). Then apply a little force with your fingers or the screwdriver to disengage the hard drive and take it out (fig p-3).
Remove any protective attachment or any connector to the hard drive otherwise it won’t fit in the external case. (fig p-4a & p-4b)
Note that these steps or the position of the hard drive or the screws might vary from laptop to laptop. Also if it is a desktop, you have to open your cabinet, open the power and data cables of the hard drive and finally remove any screws to disengage the hard drive.

Putting the internal hard drive into the external cover

At the end of step 1, you should have the bare internal hard drive (fig p-5). Also you should by now have the external case for the hard drive which contains two parts, the head which includes the SATA to USB or IDE to USB adapter, the external connectors, may be an indicator LED etc and the body which covers your internal hard drive. The body if metallic prevents your hard drive from heating up. (fig p-6)
Connect the head to the internal drive (fig p-7a, p-7b)
Put the assembly inside the body (fig p-8)
Fix the head to the body using screws which are supplied with the external hard drive case (fig p-9)

Fig p_1

Fig p_2
Fig p_3
Fig p_4a
Fig p_4b
Fig p_5
Fig p_6
Fig p_7a
Fig p_7b
Fig p_8
Fig p_9

There you have it! Your like-new portable USB external hard drive! It is useful, cheap, saves you a few bucks and helps the environment. Like your hard drive, there are more things you can use from your dead computer. Check before you throw away your next one.

How to view unread emails in Gmail?

2009-08-11T18:09:00.006-05:00

We are used to filter unread messages in the inbox or a folder in a regular email or in outlook. However Gmail does not come with a handy click to view just unread emails. To view unread emails in gmail, you have to work a bit more. Since gmail uses 'unread' as a label, you can search all your unread emails.

Type "label: unread" (without the quotes) or "is: unread" (without quotes) in the gmail search box at the top of the page and click the button [Search Mail]. See the snapshot below on how to do this -

Also, you understand that you can use any other label to search your emails in a similar manner using "label: label-name".

To get one step further, you can check all unread messages under a particular label by using "label: label-name is:unread" in your gmail search box.

Also, you can check all unread messages in inbox only using "is: unread in:inbox" or all unread emails in spam "is: unread in:spam" or all starred unread conversations "is:unread in:star". Now you know the trick. You can mix them all.

Audacity - Free Music Editing Software

2009-07-30T18:28:00.003-05:00

Music editing can be a complicated and elaborate business. However, there are several aspects of music editing which do not require an expert training. While there are several commercial music editors in the market, if you are not looking for stuff too fancy, you can rely on Audacity – a free open-source music editing software. You can download it from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

What do you get from Audacity – the free music editing software?

You can work on audio and stereo tracks for -

Music Editing

Cut, Copy, Paste, and Delete tracks or portions of tracks.
Unlimited Undo and Redo
Editing and mixing of an unlimited number of tracks.
Zooming in to edit individual sample points.

Adding Effects

Noise reduction
Time Shifting
Changing speed, pitch or tempo
Filtering using equalizer or FFT
Employing pre-built effects (eg amplify, fade-in, fade-out, echo)

please note that some menu options are not available when you are playing a track. Click the 'STOP' button before using the effects.

Import and Export Audio Files

It can import and export wav, mp3, aiff and ogg vorbis. However for mp3 support, you need to download LAME mp3 encoder

Recording

You can record music from the appropriate hardware (microphone, line-in, CD-player, sound card). If you can listen to a music in your computer, you can record it too. Use ‘Wave Out Mix’ as your source if you want to record what you are listening to.

It has brilliant sound quality for both recorded and edited/exported music files. You can further control the quality by altering the bit formats and sampling rates. For the more tech-savvy people, it supports third party plug-ins and you can write your own. And yes, it comes for Windows, Mac OS and Linux/Unix. You can download it from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

SIP Made Easy - a Beginners' Tutorial

2009-07-09T16:30:00.003-05:00

I wrote a tutorial on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) some time back. I had to study it for a project and as any other new subject, it was confusing at the beginning. So I decided to help the beginners henceforth and created this short made easy tutorial on SIP. It has been in top 5 search results in Google, Bing/MSN and Yahoo when you search for "SIP beginners tutorial" for years now, and ranked #2 in the recent year for a more general term like "SIP tutorial". People have mentioned it in their blogs, websites and even referred to it in preparing technical documents. However, I am moving this tutorial to a new location since geocities is closing. Please visit/bookmark/link to the new site at siptutorial.net.

The original site was geocities.com/intro_to_multimedia.

How to Conserve Cellphone Battery Power

2008-09-05T16:39:00.008-05:00

How do I conserve my cell phone battery power?

You are on the go and you don't want to run out of your cellphone battery. Here are a few suggestions on how you can conserve your cell phone battery power. Hope the tips help you when you need it.

Turn off the cell phone - Obvious! But people forget that. Turn it off when you don't need it or when you can't use it (eg on a flight, in the subway).
Turn off extra features - Turning off is not always good because you might need it for the primary purpose, talking to someone. However, you can get rid of other services eg GPRS, EDGE, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth. Repeat, turn off bluetooth. It saves you battery power and saves your phone from unauthorized access. And yes! Stop playing those games you play.
Dim the backlight - The LCD screen is a major power consumer for your cellphone. Either dim or completely turn off your backlight depending on the visibility of the screen. You can find the option under setting->display of your phone.
Turn off vibrator - It's useful but if you are running out of battery, better turn off your vibrate function.
Airplane Mode - If you want to use features of a phone other than talking or if you are in a region with no/very low network put the phone in the 'airplane mode'. In other words, instruct it not to try connecting to a network. If the cellphone doesn't see a signal, it keeps searching for it and loses all battery charge doing basically nothing. Either turn it off or if you need the other features of the phone (eg organizer, notes, alarm), keep it detached from the network. You can generally find the option under your phone settings.

Import CSV to SQL using phpMyAdmin

2008-08-20T18:32:00.006-05:00

How do I import a CSV file into a MySQL database using phpMyAdmin?
Writing sql code is not required. Just use the phpMyAdmin interface for uploading the csv file.

I assume that you have created
1. a mysql database and within it a table with appropriate fields
2. a csv file with entries arranged in the same order as the fields in the mysql database table (eg Suppose you have a table with fields name, age, city. Your csv file might look like -
smith,12,washinton
willy,13,chicago
maria,11,tokyo) assuming you use ',' as field separator and '\n' as row separator
Go to phpMyAdmin (It should be located in your host account control panel under database section)
Click on the mysql database instance you are interested in.
Click on the table to which you want to import the data. (Remember this step, just clicking on the database is not good enough.)
Click on the 'import' tab.
This will open an interface as shown below -

Click 'Browse' button to select the csv file on your system which you want to upload
Choose 'CSV using LOAD DATA'
Fields terminated by: ,
Fields enclosed by: [delete default value, leave blank]
Fields escaped by: [delete default value, leave blank]
Lines terminated by: [leave default value]
Column names: name,age,city

Click the 'GO' button and you are done. phpMyAdmin will show you exactly what sql query was executed to upload the csv file into your mysql database table. You can now browse your database to check proper insertion of the csv file.

Amazon Prime - Free 2-Day Shipping from Amazon

2008-08-13T16:24:00.005-05:00

What is Amazon Prime?
Amazon Prime is a popular Amazon.com program that gives its members unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on millions of eligible items. All new members are offered a free trial, allowing them to experience the convenience of shopping with Amazon Prime benefits for an entire month at no charge. Join Now.

Amazon Prime members enjoy the following benefits:

Fast Delivery
No minimum purchase required
Upgrades to One-Day (Overnight) Shipping for just $3.99 per item
Members-only 1-Click buttons on product pages

Convenient Sharing

Members can share benefits with up to four family members living in the same household

Free Trial

Amazon Prime new subscribers are invited to try Amazon Prime free, for one month. Join Now

iPod without iTunes - The Floola Way

2008-08-10T11:24:00.001-05:00

How to upload/download audio/video from iPod to any computer without using iTunes?

Have you ever felt limited by iTunes? If yes, then this is for you. Personally, the main reason I wanted to get rid of iTunes, is its binding to one computer. If you want to upload or download audio/video from any computer using simple drag-and-drop, if you want have more flexibility with your multimedia file sharing then Floola is the way to go. It also has two versions - windows and mac, you can load both of them on your ipod and can access both windows and mac systems. What's more? It's completely FREE. Here is how you get started with this wonderful software -

Download the software from Floola download page. Select the operating system of your choice.
If you freshly formatted or restored your iPod, you'll need to run iTunes once and copy at least one song. (I know this is bit of an irony. But you have to do it anyway.)
Unzip the downloaded file and run the executable file.
Floola might ask you to set up the iPod automatically. It will be easier that way. If you want set up your ipod manually or have other installation issues, follow the floola installation guide.
Copy the executable file to your iPod. Now you can run the software in any computer that you connect your iPod to. That is where it's flexibility lies.
Run the software if it's not already running. Click Item -> Add... as shown below to open the 'add to iPod' dialouge box

Drag files or folder in this box and click 'Add'. Files will be uploaded to your iPod.
You can use Floola to change properties of the files, delete them or even play them.
Close Floola and eject iPod before you disconnect the gadget.
Next time you connect it to any computer, just run the executable floola file in the iPod that you had earlier copied into it. For PC/Mac run the appropriate PC/Mac executable version.

Hereby your iPod is declared free from the shackles of iTunes and a single computer.

Scour - Get paid for searching the net

2008-08-05T11:48:00.004-05:00

What is scour?
Scour is a web 2.0 social search engine. It pulls in data from Google, Yahoo and MSN and displays the combined results for your query. You see the results and click to go to any site like any other search engine. However you can do more. You can cast a positive or negative vote for a site suggesting it should go up or down in its rank or you can leave a comment. That is how the search engine becomes social like digg or reddit. The feedback of the searchers can affect the ranking of the websites. The interesting part for you is that they pay you for doing the searches, voting and putting comments. Interested? Join Scour.

Is it a scam?
Getting paid for searches? Sounds fishy? Well, it did sound too good to be true for me too. I am not sure if they are a scam but nevertheless I joined. Here are the reasons –
1> It’s free.
2> I searched over the net and so far nobody has reported it as scam.
3> They pull in results from google, yahoo and msn. So necessarily I am getting the same results I otherwise would have got. The search quality remains the same.
4> The site looks good and works smooth.
5> Several newspapers and leading blogs reported the launch of scour. Check it. So it's not a hush-hush thing.
6> It’s not a quick rich game. They don’t promise to pay you hundreds of dollars each month. The amount sounds reasonable. (More about the payments later.)
7> They display their ads with the search results which offset the money they pay the searchers.

How do I get paid?
You have to sign up first. You accumulate points when you do a search (1 point), vote (2 points) or comment (3 points) with the total points per search limited to 4 i.e. if you vote for 5 sites on the same search, you don’t get 1+2*5=11 points, you still get 4 points. This is very reasonable otherwise people will go crazy putting garbage votes just for points. Once you have 6500 points, you can redeem the points for a $25 visa card. Sounds good? Join Scour? Or …

Too bad! It will take me months to get that many points.

True! Very true! And that is why I joined. If it said that I could easily get $100 every month, I wouldn’t have trusted it. Think about the amount of people searching the net. They can’t pay out easy money. And anyway, how much do you get paid now for searching? Nothing! right? Why not get some money every few months? Join Scour.

Hmmmm .... alright, but still …

You are the skeptic type. No problem. I am like that too. If you are not convinced, think what you would lose by using scour? It’s free. You get the same search results. You are doing exactly what you usually do, just on a different site. If you are scared that you would get a lot of spam mail to your email address, use a non-official email id, may be create a new one. I also used an email id that I do not use for day-to-day purposes. But let me tell you, I never received any spam from them. I think it’s worth a try. What say? Join Scour!

MySQL Server Connection using PHP

2008-08-01T21:36:00.002-05:00

How do I connect to a MySQL server using PHP?

If you are planning to do some PHP coding, most likely you will need an answer to this question. Here is how you do it.

<?php
$dbhost = 'localhost';
$dbuser = 'username';
$dbpass = 'password';
$conn = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass) or die ('Error connecting to mysql');
$dbname = 'books';
mysql_select_db($dbname);

//Do whatever you have to do with the database eg query, update, insert etc

mysql_close($conn);
?>

Hopefully that works like a breeze. If you are still having issues, please note that,

'localhost' is used as the server address when your php script is running on the same server which is often the case. However, if your database is located on a different server, you will have to use "$dbhost = 'othername.otherdomain.com:3306';" where 3306 is the default port number for mysql. It might be different, check with the host.
Often your webhost prepend your database name and username with your username with the webhost. Suppose you use host your database with xyzwebhost.com using a username 'abc'. You log in using your 'abc' username and corresponding password and create a database named 'mydb' and create an user 'mydbuser'. The xyzwebhost will actually create a database named 'abc_mydb' and an user named 'abc_mydbuser'. In your php script you have to use 'abc_mydb' and 'abc_mydbuser'.
Remember creating a database and a dbuser is not enough, you have to add the user to the appropriate database with proper permission.
Selecting a database after you connect to the server is important otherwise your queries have no effect.
Remember to close the connection once you are done.

iPod - a Portable Hard Drive

2008-07-29T19:45:00.012-05:00

How can I use iPod as a portable hard drive?

Did you know that your iPod is more than a music player? It can be used a portable hard drive (USB or firewire for PC/Mac) too. Well, now you do.

I didn't have a USB drive for a long because I always carried my 20GB classis iPod with me. I have transferred music, documents and even movies from my friends' computers using the iPod :D You have to remember to carry the data cable though.

Anyway, here is how you activate your iPod as a portable hard drive.

Connect your iPod to your computer.

Select your iPod in the iTunes Source list.

Click the Options button in the lower-right corner of the iTunes window to open the iPod preferences window.

Click “Enable disk use.” This will allow your iPod to both store your files and play your music. That's it! You are all set.

Notice the icon that appears onscreen. Double-click the icon to see what’s stored on your iPod.

Drag the files you want to store on your iPod to the iPod window. OR you can click the icon that appears under your 'my computer' menu like your C drive or floppy drive and use it like any other disk storage.

When you’re done, click the iPod Eject button in the lower-right corner of the iTunes window. The iPod screen will display “OK to disconnect” when it is safe to unplug it. When enabled as disk storage you might have to eject your iPod like other USB drives. Click 'safely remove hardware' to eject it.

Extract Audio from YouTube Video

2008-07-28T19:44:00.007-05:00

How do I extract audio from a youtube video i.e. how do I convert downloaded youtube video (.flv) to a .mp3 file?

Now that you have the youtube video downloaded into your system, you might want to extract the audio from it. If you don't know how to download a youtube video, check my previous post on 'how to download youtube videos'. Assuming you have downloaded the video, here are the steps to extract the audio from it.

Go to Free Studio Manager website. Choose any of the listed softwares to download. Yes, for now, download any of them as marked on the snapshot below.
On the next page, click the 'Download now' button.
Save the file and install it.
Once installed, open the Free Studio Manager from your start menu. Start-> All Programs -> DVDVideoSoft -> Free Studio Manager
It opens the studio manager with which you can use several softwares. For today's purpose, click on the 'YouTube' tab as shown in the red circle below. Then in the list, click on 'Extract audio from YouTube video' as in the blue circle.
The softwares which you don't have are in regular text whereas those you have are in bold. If you don't have the software installed already, it will ask for download and install. Go ahead and install the software.
Once installed, the name will appear in bold. Click it again. Choose 'continue' to run the software. It opens a dialouge box where you specify your youtube .flv file as input and the .mp3 file as output. You can choose the quality of the output file also. The default value of 'optimal quality' works pretty good.

... So there you have your mp3 file extracted from the youtube video.

Notes -
1> As you have noticed already, the free studio manager has a bunch of different softwares which you might wanna use.
2> For the mp3 extraction, you can also specify the url of the youtube video. However it might be slow and sometimes there are problems with the conversion.

Download YouTube Videos

2008-07-27T22:27:00.009-05:00

How do I copy/download youtube videos/audios to my own computer with just one click?

Youtube is a great service, no doubt. However you might want more. What if you want those video/audio on your own system? The reasons may be several. You want to access them while offline, or may be your internet connection is slow and the videos don't load smoothly, or you just want your fav things in a single folder. Whatever the reason, here is how you do it.

1> You can use an online service on http://vixy.net/. You can type in the url of the youtube video and download a file of your specified type (avi, mp3, mp4 etc). However due to excess load, the server is often busy. And even when it does covert the file, sometimes the quality is not as good.

2> The other option, which I recommend, is use an add-on of mozilla firefox. Here is a step-by-step guide. Steps 1-4 are one-time. Once set, you can save videos with just one click.

If you do not already have Mozilla Firefox. Download and install it from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
Install the add-on named 'Fast Video Download' from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3590
Once installed you have to close and restart the mozilla browser. Before you do that, make sure you have the url of this page in the history or otherwise saved to come back to this post.
After the installation, you will see icon at the bottom right corner of the browser as shown below.
Now go to the video which you want to download. And click this icon. It will ask for the file name and location to save like a normal windows dialogue box. Fill the info and hit 'save'.
The file will be saved in .flv format which is a flash format. You can open the downloaded file in an .flv player from http://www.download.com/FLV-Player/3000-2139_4-10467081.html
Often you would like to convert the file to other formats eg avi, if you want to retain the video or to mp3, if you want to extract just the audio. This can be easily done too with other free softwares. Read my other post on how to extract audio (mp3) from youtube video.

A few notes -
1> If you click the video download icon on a page which does not have an embedded video, you will get an error saying "can't handle this page". Recheck the page you are on and browse to the proper page before hitting the button again.

2> It can used to download videos from other sites too eg video.google.com, metacafe.com, hi5.com, vids.myspace.com, break.com, current.com, dailymotion.com, putfile.com, Streetfire.net, vidiac.com