Abhiroop Basu, Author at Make Tech Easier

Meet Iris – The Android Alternative To Siri

Communication with an artificial intelligence through voice commands has been the holy grail of sci-fi nuts since the “Library Computer Access and Retrieval System” was first sighted on Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was only with the launch of Google Voice Actions, about a year ago, that voice commands became a reality. Despite being […]

Celebrate Halloween With Android Apps, Themes And Games

Halloween is a great holiday for all to enjoy and what’s a better way to celebrate than to trick out your Android phone in full orange attire. For this article I have found a number of apps, themes, and games that transform your phone into a Halloween-themed device.

A Complete Guide to Facebook Timeline

Unless you were away for the past couple of weeks, you must have heard about Facebook launching its latest enhancement to the standard profile view, the Timeline. In short, Timeline, if you allow it, will be the new default view of your profile, allowing other users easy access to your past activity on Facebook. Once […]

Android Widget Series: Agenda Widgets To Keep Your Life On Track [Part 3]

In my previous article of the Android Widget Series, I gave a few examples of clock widgets that help keep you on time. In this weeks article, I will give examples of a few different “agenda” widgets. These widgets either place calendars, to do lists, or a variety of other organisational tools on your home […]

What You Need To Know About Facebook New Friend Lists Feature

Facebook officially launched its improved Friend Lists feature today, making it easier than ever to view and share relevant content with the appropriate individuals. In this article I will highlight the main uses of Facebook’s newest feature.

Android Widgets Series: Great List Of Clock Widgets To Help You Tell The Time [Part 2]

In my article last week, I provided examples of a number of Android widgets that help users monitor and toggle their settings (including WiFi, battery, brightness, data, gps, etc.). In this weeks installment of Android widgets, I will highlight a number of useful clock widgets that assist you in telling the time. Depending on which […]

Great List of Android Widgets For Tweaking And Monitoring Your Device Settings [Part 1]

With the growth of apps, the various smartphone platforms are all becoming similar. What makes Google’s Android stands out from the rest is the ability to add “widgets” on the home screen and offer the user a unique experience. For those of you who are not sure what widget is, they are essentially interactive icons […]

More Google Chrome Omnibox Tips and Tricks

Shortly after Google Chrome launched, we came out with a guide outlining a few of its features and some useful tips and tricks. Now almost 3 years later, Chrome has grabbed a sizeable portion of the browser market share and has become the default browser for many users. During its growth, Chrome has matured greatly […]

How to Export Facebook Events to Google Calendar

Facebook has become a really useful platform to organise parties and other events. Most, if not all, of your friends, family and acquaintances are on this social media platform, so organising an event simply involves filling in the relevant information and inviting people. Although Facebook is a great platform for creating parties and sending out […]

How to Migrate Images from Facebook To Google Plus

Google+ (or Google Plus) is the hot new thing in social networking. Everyone and their little sister have been clamouring for invites to set up their account in this new playground. Unfortunately, users are having to start from scratch without any of their connections, posts or other media cultivated from other social media sites. For […]

How To Make Ringtones From Your MP3 Files On Android Using Ringdroid

Smartphones have brought a lot of useful functionality to mobile devices and one of the less touted ones is the ability to have ringtones made directly from your MP3 music files. Unlike older generation phones which often had a preset limit of tunes, newer smartphones allow for a limitless number of audio files to act […]

8 Apps For Android Lovers In Singapore

Let me preface this article by saying that unless you live in Singapore or plan on travelling to this fair island, what follows may not be particularly relevant to you. Nevertheless, the apps I am going to discuss are innovative concepts that could be implemented in any major city. Read on for 8 of my […]

7 Gmail Gadgets Make Your Inbox More Useful

Gmail’s offering is one of the best available. Its simplicity coupled with its minimal interface make it a favorite amongst geeks and newbies alike. However, users need not feel constrained by Gmail’s simplistic interface as they can easily enable enhanced features provided by Google through “Google Labs” or from third-party sources through “Gadgets“. In this […]

How To Configure Facebook Two-Factor Authentication

Earlier this year we described how to secure your Gmail account with 2-step verification. Facebook has recently launched a similar security feature called Login Approvals and in this article I will describe how to enable it. Introduction Login Approvals is a security feature that requires two-factor authentication from the user before access is permitted. This […]

Sync And Listen To Your Music With Google Music Beta

A few weeks ago, Google launched its eponymous music streaming and syncing service. Hot on the heels of Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Cloud Player, Google’s offering is minimal, fast and easy to use. In this article I will provide a quick walkthrough and my thoughts on the service.

How To Add Files to Your Blog With Box.net

Today, most websites feature graphics, videos, images, tables, and all kinds of other data and files. Those on a budget may find it difficult to host files themselves. This is where services like Box.net come in. In this article, I will outline how you can embed a Box.net folder directly in your blog or website […]

How To Add Share Buttons To Blogger

Simply writing blog posts are no longer enough. You must ensure that your content is easily shareable across all the major social media networks. To make this easier, Blogger has recently added a “share buttons” option. Adding these buttons to your Blogger blog is fairly straightforward. Navigate to your Blogger dashboard, select Design, follow by […]

5 Alternative File Sharing Web Apps You Didn’t Know Of

Sharing files over the internet has become very common in recent years. For smaller files (usually under 20MB) it is possible to simply attach it to an email, however larger files require special websites. In this article I have outlined 5 interesting file sharing services which offer something a little bit different.

PpcSoft iKnow 2011 Professional Edition – A Great Alternative to OneNote

After many decades of innovation, word processing still remains a largely a passive exercise, requiring you to enter text onto a white background. Applications, such as OneNote shook up the industry by allowing alternative means of organising text and other media. In the same vein, PpcSoft has developed an interesting competitor which has many of […]

6 Alternative PDF Readers For Windows

Files stored in PDF (Portable Document Format) provide a versatile method of transferring documents without losing formatting and other effects. The file format was originally created by Adobe, however since in recent years Adobe’s PDF reader has become bloated and difficult to use. In this article I will look at six free alternative PDF viewers.

How To Set Up A Personalised Television Calendar

In the past, we have covered a number of methods of tracking and downloading television shows automatically and through the use of torrents and RSS feeds. Most of these methods either require downloading and installing cumbersome applications or are not portable and cannot be used on different devices. In fact, with tablets and smartphones becoming […]

How To Track Page Views on Blogger Using Google Analytics

Keeping track of all my blogs and their page views is almost a full-time job. Luckily, there is always the Google Analytics that made things much simpler to deal with. Although Blogger has started offering its own analytics, these are not as comprehensive as those from Google Analytics. in this article, I outline how you […]

How to Stream Media To Your Android Device With Skifta

I have a lot of music, videos, and pictures on my personal computer, but sometimes I am not at my desk and I still want to view my media content. Fortunately, I have an Android phone and with Skifta I can easily stream these files to my phone through a WiFi network.

7 Useful Windows Desktop Gadgets

One of the most interesting features of Windows 7 is the ability to add “gadgets” to your desktop. These are small apps that help display information and allow you to interact with your computer without launching other programmes. In this article I will outline how these gadgets can be installed, used and will also highlight […]

Find Related Apps on Android with Chomp

It has been said many times over, but it bears repeating: even with the numerous updates, the Android Market is still in shambles. It is difficult to find apps, it is difficult to rate apps and it can even be troublesome to install them and keep them all up-to-date. Fortunately, we overcame this frustration when […]

Clean Your Computer With Magic Utilities 2011

Keeping a Windows installation clean, trimmed and running efficiently can be difficult. There are multiple tools that we have suggested in the past to help with tasks such as deleting unnecessary files, stopping unnecessary programs from starting at launch, and uninstalling unused programs. However, you have to use multiple programs to achieve all these tasks. […]

9 Useful Twitter Tools To Do More Than Just Tweeting

The beauty of Twitter is that it is a simple platform for conveying complex information. You can use it to create mini-blog posts (at 140 characters they really are “mini”), you can share links or have conversations with friends, you can even use it to communicate with the rest of the world through voicemail! Most […]

Read eBooks On Android Using Aldiko Book Reader

I generally do all my reading on my Kindle. However, sometimes I am averse to carrying something that does not fit into my pocket. So, I often end up reading a lot of eBooks on my Android device. While it is relatively easy to read text files and PDFs on most Android device, other formats […]

5 Best μTorrent Apps

μTorrent has been my BitTorrent client of choice for some time. The ease of using its RSS Feed manager and its small footprint makes downloading torrents a breeze. Recently, μTorrent has created their own App Studio to extend the functionality of the BitTorrent client. These apps function much like browser extensions, in that users can […]

SMS Popup Notifies You When New Message Arrives [Android]

On Android, when a new message is received, a notification appears in the sliding panel showing the user the number and contents of the new message. While this is a handy way of displaying the message, it does not give you the immediacy of the iPhone’s pop-up notifications. Instead, you have to slide the panel […]

Create Simple Static Websites With Orbs

If you want to create a website with a lot of articles, there are many blogging platforms (such as Blogger and WordPress) which will help you do so. However, sometimes you may just wish to create a static web site that displays a set of information. These types of web sites can be for personal […]

Six Best Chrome Webapps For Your Daily Use

Google recently launched the Chrome Web Store which stocks Chrome “webapps” as well as Chrome themes and extensions. These free and paid webapps allow you to extend the functionality of your Chrome browser by installing small third party programs within your browser. we have outlined the method of installing and uninstalling these webapps as well […]

Easily Create Blog Posts On The Move With Posterous Android App

Posterous is a simple blogging platform that allows you to create short simple posts with an emphasis on rich media content. It is possible to post from the web interface, however Posterous has made it incredibly easy to create posts from your mobile phones by emailing text and media to your personalised account. Therefore, it […]

Android App Review: Google Reader

I have been an avid user of Google’s RSS reader for quite some time. Since I bought my smartphone, I was able to view my RSS feeds on the phone’s browser through Google Reader. Owning an Android phone means that I have become accustomed to using Google branded applications for most of the things I […]

Blogging on Windows Live Writer 2011 [Review]

From the first day that I’ve started blogging, I found that using the web interface for Blogger and WordPress is a cumbersome task. Although, most apps seem to be moving to the web, there are some things, such as blogging, that I still prefer to do on the desktop. I have been a fan of […]

Dropbox Android App Review

In my previous Dropbox article, I highlighted that Dropbox had released apps for the Android, iOS and Blackberry platforms. These enabled Dropbox users to access their data while on the move. However, the apps, especially the Android one, was very much in its infancy and there were a lot of basic functions that it lacked. […]

How to Style Up Your Quotes in Blogger

Virtually all blogging platforms, including Blogger, have the “quote text” function. This is useful when you want to highlight sections from other texts or where you need to highlight information from within your own article. Quoted text can be customised to look different from the main body of your article and these differences make it […]

Backup All Your Mobile Data With m:IQ

We talk a lot about backing up on Make Tech Easier, but generally this is with respect to computers. Backing up mobile phones is still in its infancy as mobile internet has just recently started to become more ubiquitous. The two leading smartphone operating systems, Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, both have some backup functions […]

How To Play Multiplayer Games Over Garena

Multiplayer games over local area networks (LAN) took off once the “cybercafé” became ubiquitous. The ability to play games with friends opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for the casual and determined gamer. I personally, started playing computer games at cybercafés since 1999. At the time playing at home over the internet was […]

How to Download Torrents Using RSS Feeds

Bittorrent is a useful tool for downloading large files over the internet. In recent times it has been at the forefront of legal wrangling between major film production and music recording corporations and end-users who use the protocol for illicit purpose. Leaving aside the legal niceties, bittorrent is a robust tool with many uses. uTorrent […]

SyncToy: Yet Another Useful Windows Backup/Sync Tool

I am obsessive about backing up. In addition to using Dropbox for backing up to the cloud and Genie Timeline to backup my data to an external hard drive, incrementally, I also keep an up-to-date copy of all my data on another external hard drive using Microsoft’s SyncToy.

Genie Timeline: Time Machine-like Windows Backup Software

Backup is easily the most important step in computer maintenance. No matter how secure you believe your computer to be, having a complete copy of all your data is essential to ensure that your most important memories are safeguarded. My backup solution has evolved from the perennial “copy and paste” method to incremental backups using […]

How To Make the Most of Dropbox – Part II

Following on from last week’s Dropbox guide, I will demonstrate some of the more advanced tricks that can be performed using Dropbox’s sync tool. 1. Remotely launch Bittorrent downloads. I like to keep my various Linux distributions up-to-date and one of the ways I manage this is to ensure that as soon as the latest […]

Snippet: Keep Your PC Safe from Rogue PDF Files

Symantec’s latest white-paper reports that the top web-based attacks observed in 2009 were primarily targeted towards vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and applications that process PDF files. Apparently 49% of all web attacks (up from 11% in 2008) was based on injecting malicious code into a perfectly innocent looking PDF file. This new type of exploit […]

6 Screen Rulers to Make Your Image Fit

Since I started blogging for Make Tech Easier, I have had to ensure that all my photos and screenshots did not exceed the maximum size for the post. While there are numerous photo-editors that could cut down a pictures dimensions, it is often better to ensure that the original screenshot you take is of appropriate […]

How To Make the Most of Dropbox – Part I

Dropbox is a file syncing and backup application. Files in the “My Dropbox” folder are synced to the cloud and are then accessible from a wide range of devices, including the iPhone and Android. What initially attracted me to Dropbox was the fact that it was one of the few file syncing applications that worked […]