Monitor and Control your PC remotely from your Smartphone while Gaming

This goes for all the hard core gamers out there who like to play games on their computers. The last thing any gamer want while playing games, is the disturbance which can be from someone outside or from the computer apps. How does it feel when there is some facebook message, or twitter update on your desktop when you are playing? It doesn’t feel nice when your system starts lagging due to maximum usage of the RAM and you have to quit the game to control the task manager. What if someone asks you to lower the volume of the audio being played in the background; you will again have to quit playing.

Here is a simple app that can completely monitor and control your computer remotely using your smartphone whether iPhone or Android without having you to quit playing and taking a break. Moreover the app is completely free to use.

The app is known as Roccat Power-Grid, and lets you monitor your system for statistics, control it and also access your apps on PC like youtube, outlook, social media and others. So whether it is the lagging system which can be controlled by your phone, or app message which, now, can be used on your phone or some hardware settings which can also be controlled on your phone, you don’t have to quit the action you are in already.

So how this works? Just install the app on your computer and on your phone to allow the pairing of the devices and easily monitor and control your machine remotely. Moreover the app is fully customizable as you can select the apps you want and use the most, so that you can instantly take action.

The tool is available for use for free for both computer and phone and can be downloaded from the link below.

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Buying Used Cell Phone? Check for Bad ESN/IMEI Number

We all love our cell phones so much that we can’t even think of spending a day without it. It happened to me recently when I lost my phone on road. I have a Samsung Note 2 which I really liked. Fortunately, I also have mobile insurance plan which allowed me to get a replacement device (for some cost) within couple of days but spending those two days were not easy. This was when I came to know about an all different world of used phones and the ESN numbers.

So for all those who are new to this and don’t have much information on buying used phones, here are some useful facts that you should know. These days almost all the major carriers sell their phones with a contract for like 12 months or 24 months, which is why they sell the phones at a very cheap rate of like $200 (for a phone which is about $600). So why are they heavily subsidizing this? The answer is simple; they wish to keep their customers with them for a long time.

While this idea suits many people, there are others who don’t like to stay that long with any network and want to be free. Thus they also look for some used phone in the market which is unlocked. Now, you can get a genuinely used phone which is legal to use but chances are you might also get a blacklisted phone too. In case you are already looking for some used phone, then you might have come across some terms known as ESN or IMEI.

ESN is short for Electronic Serial Number and is a number printed on the back of the phone underneath the battery to uniquely identify it. Similarly it is the IMEI number which is present for all the GSM phones. Now, if someone had lost a phone or someone had stolen a device, then that phone will get blacklisted by the network so that it can’t be used again on that network (and the ESN will now be known as Bad ESN). Same is the case if someone decides to quit a contract without paying the pending amount.

So should we buy Used phones?

Yes, there is no stopping on buying the used phones as long as they are clean ESNs/IMEI and can be used with the network of your choice. While no one will tell you if the ESN is bad, but what you should do to be sure is call your network operator and provide them the ESN/IMEI to check whether the phone is clean to use on their network or not.

If the number is clean, then go ahead and buy the phone else better to stay away from the people who want to phish you. After all, it is still your own hard earned money.

Compare and Synchronize Files between different Folders with PathSync

It is always a good idea to backup and copy your data to some other location; it can be anexternal drive, cloud storage or may be to some other folder. While I don’t like backing up and spending time on it, it is always worth it. Have you ever come across a situation when you wanted to synchronize two different folders with the same data in both of them? Well this can be a tedious task to figure out which file has already been copied and which not.

Here is a simple and small tool that will not only compare two different folders for you but also help you in synchronizing them so that you have same data in both of them, may be for the backup purposes. This tool is called as PathSync and it is capable of comparing different locations (both locally and remotely) and copying the data to and fro.

Using this tool is quite simple too, as you just need to set the local source, remote destination(by browsing both the locations) and the copy type which can be from source to destination,destination to source or even bidirectional meaning from and to both locations. When you are done setting up the tool for the use, you then need to click the Analyze button.

The tool will start comparing the files automatically and will then copy the required files from the source to the destination. This is a really useful file synchronizer for Windows which you can not only use to create similar copies of the folders in the computer but also to backup the data to an external disk or may be to a cloud server.

The tool is free to use and have been found to work well on Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8. So if you want to give it a try, you can get it from the link below.

Download

Convert Files into any Format with Right Click using Cometdocs for Desktop

There are lots of file formats being used today, and every format has its own advantage. While we use PDF files where we wish to protect the data, we use images to capture some info. So what if you need to convert the same file you are using into some other format, you may go to the free online web services and get them converted or may be download and install a tool just for this purpose.

Meet a new tool called as Cometdocs for Desktop, and what this have in different from others is that it incorporates the converter right into the file context menu. This means, if you come across any file that needs to be converted into some other format, look nowhere, just right clickon it and select the output format. The converted file will be presented to you in some time.

Cometdocs is an online file conversion site which has launched this desktop tool for Windows. While uploading large documents to convert them online can slow down your browser (thereby preventing you from working) or converting the document in the system can slow down your machine, this converter works in a different way. It still uses its old way of converting which is to upload the file from the client directly (without you doing it) and then downloading back to the machine and the same folder automatically.

Although this will use your data plan but will save the machine from getting slowed down. To be able to use this tool, you need to login into the cometdocs account which you can register for free anytime (simple email address and password is all it need).

You can convert the file into any format from the list present in the right click context menuand the conversion status can be seen in a separate window. If you think it is a really useful tool, then you can get it for free from the link below.

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Custom Screen Lock for your Windows using ScreenBlur

If you have a personal computer then it’s perfectly fine but it is not the case with everyone since most people have someone to share the system with someone. Hence it is very important tolock your screen before heading out somewhere so that no one is able to view what you have been working upon or what data you have in your computer. for this purpose, you can use the default Screen Lock key combination that is Windows + L, which is quite efficient too but too simple.

So if you guys are bored up using the same old Locking method and need a new locking procedure then here is a tool called as ScreenBlur. The reason why I am sharing this today is that apart from screen locking it provides couple of new features that might interest you like you can set up any custom image as the lock screen so that whenever your screen is locked, your own image will show up.

This is somewhat similar to the Windows 8 lock screen which shows some image. Also there is an option to put your desktop in a blackout state which means that you can instantly hide the screen with a black screen so that nothing is visible to the person. You can then unlock and enter the system as usual.

Using the tool is pretty easy too, as you just need to download, unpack and run the executable file to start the tool. To lock the screen, you just need to select the icon from the taskbar and left click on it but be sure to set up the unlock password so that you are able to unlock it by entering your own password.

Since the tool doesn’t require any installation, you can directly remove it too (in case you don’t like it), and just need to uncheck the self-starting option in the settings before deleting the package. ScreenBlur is found to work well on Windows XP, 7 and 8, so if you would like to give it a try, the link is right below.

Download