Earlier we had reviewed Talkety, a web-based telephony service which provides you with cheaper calls from phone to phone using voip from your PC. Here are three more web services that lets you make international telephone calls from your PC.

1.Evaphone

Using Evaphone you can make free phone calls from your computer to any part of the world. The calls can be made to both landline and mobile numbers and the service is completely free to use. No registration or signup is required to use this service. To get started just visit   evaphone, select the country where you want to call, and dial the phone number.

The downside of using the Free services at evaphone is that sometimes your call may not be processed as the mobile companies may charge the provider for making calls. The service does has some limitations like advertisements, limited duration of the call and the number of calls you can make (depends upon the   location and the telephone service provider).

There are no limitations in the paid service. Your calls are processed instantly. Here is the rate card for making PC to phone calls using evaphone in different countries.

2.Talkster

Talkster allows you to make Long distance telephone calls from your PC to almost 30 countries in the world. Using Talkster you can call up to 5 of your international friends for free!

Follow the steps below to make international calls using talkster:

1.   Go to talkster and   enter your name and phone number where you will make the call from. After that enter the name and the phone number of the person you want to call.

2. Talkster will give you and your friend each a local Talkster number that you can use whenever you want to call each other.

3.When you want   to call your friend just use the local talkster number.

You pay only for a local call (if you are charged for local calls by your provider).You can also make conference calls using talkster with up to 5 of your friends. No registration or sign ups are required and there are also no talking limits or other limitations.

3.Globe 7 Desktop application

Globe 7  is a desktop application that can be used to make paid telephone calls from your PC. In addition to that you can watch videos, play games, watch live TV, listen to live radio, send SMS messages and more.

They also have a Mobile version so you can use Globe 7 from   your mobile phone.

To make calls from your PC using globe 7 you need to buy a voucher and credit your account. Here   are the call rates for different countries.

Download Globe 7 (available for Windows,Mac and Linux).

Every time you come across a interesting site or information you may want to bookmark it so that you can visit that site at a later date. I tend to use more than one browser and more than 2 computers to do my work. It would always be great the bookmarks are same throughout all the computers and browsers so that you can quickly access them no matter which PC you use or which browser you use.

There are many tools that do this, I would like to bring to you some of the best bookmark synchronizing tools, some of these tools may not exactly synchronize your bookmarks but they can ensure that you manage the same set of bookmarks across all your computers and browsers.

Google Bookmarks

This is one my favorite book marking tool and I use it on all my browsers and PCs. The good thing about this is that It will synchronize all my new bookmarks on other the PC or browser without me having to do anything.

You have to first install the Google Toolbar on the browsers where you want to synchronize your bookmarks. Once you have done that you will see a Bookmarks button using which you can synchronize your bookmarks.

At first you may not see any bookmarks at all. Below is the screen shot for both Internet Explorer and Firefox on first install.

Note you need to be signed in with a Google Account before you will see the above options. To sign in you will need to click on the Settings button in the right hand corner and click on Sign In. Once you have signed in with your Google Account you can synchronize your bookmarks.

In both the browsers you can Import Favorites from the browser into Google Bookmarks, let’s start with Internet Explorer first and then check if it reflects on the Firefox. Once you click on the import button it will load a page from where you can choose all the bookmarks that need to be imported.

Once you have imported the bookmark clicking the refresh button will synchronize the bookmarks and I will be able to see all my IE favorites in Firefox.

You can repeat the same process and Import the Firefox bookmarks, now both your browsers are synchronized. If you are using a different PC you can simply sign into your Google Account and access all my bookmarks. To keep your Favorites synchronized with the browser you just need to click on Import bookmarks option for the browser and it will add the newer bookmarks to your Google Bookmarks.

To bookmark a page directly to your Google Bookmarks you can click on the bookmark button. Google Bookmarks also provides with tagging features which you can use to organize all your bookmarks. Since all your bookmarks are stored online you can access them from Google Bookmarks page.

Del.icio.us

This is another one of my favorite book marking service and I use it quite often to discover and find new bookmarks. The fact that Del.icio.us is a social book marking service means that you can share your bookmarks with the world. Also since it stores these bookmarks online it makes it easier to access the bookmarks from anywhere in the world on any computer.

You need to have A del.icio.us account so that you can store your bookmarks online. For Internet Explorer You can download the installer which will add a toolbar from where you can easily manage your bookmarks.

If you are using Firefox there is a extension available for adding those bookmarks from within Firefox to your del.icio.us account.

Zinkmo

Zinkmo is a desktop software that allows you to synchronize your bookmarks between Internet Explorer and Firefox. It also allows you synchronize all your bookmarks between multiple computers too. You will need to install the software on multiple PC in order to be able to synchronize the bookmarks between multiple computers.

With Zinkmo you can access all your favorites online. You will need to signup for a free account with Zinkmo before you can access your Online Link Manager. In addition to that you can Auto Sync all your bookmarks, check for duplicate bookmarks and verify if your bookmark links are still valid.

Overall seems like a power application in itself that will allow you to synchronize your bookmarks.

Browser Specific Bookmarks Synchronizers

If you are a Firefox user then you should definitely try out the Google Browser Sync which allows you synchronize your bookmarks and more between multiple computers.

For Internet Explorer there is the Windows Live Toolbar which allows you to synchronize your bookmarks between Internet Explorer and Live Favorites.

Other Worth mentionable tools are the Bookkit  (no longer available) for which you can download  (no longer available) synchronizers for both Internet Explorer as well as Firefox.

I usually end up using a mix of all the tools but re-synchronize everything with the Google Bookmarks which acts as a central repository for all my bookmarks. Which bookmark service do you use to synchronize between computers? Do let me know through your valuable comments.

If you have a blog or a web site you will be regularly updating it with content such as images, files, videos etc. There are various ways in which you can update your web site. Here are 5 utilities which make uploading content easy for you and best of all these utilities are free.

The utilities are of two different types one which supports the regular File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and another which supports Secure Copy (SCP) which is more secure than transferring files using FTP. The list also includes two command line tools.

FileZilla

FileZilla is one of the most popular FTP clients around and I started using it around 5 years ago. FileZilla works on Windows NT4, 2000 and XP. It is a light weight client and can be used to manage all of your web sites from one client.

You can easily set up a new web site with FileZilla. To add a new web site go to the File -> Site Manager option

In that add your site hostname and any special port if required. Choose the server type, by default it should be FTP. In the logon type if the server allows Anonymous access then do not change logon type or else choose the other options available. I choose normal where I enter and store the username and password.

You also have an option to specify a default directory where FileZilla local file browser should point to when connecting to a web site. To do this go to advanced options and key in the path to your directory in default local directory box, you can also specify the default directory remote directory that should be opened up when a connection is made to a site.

That’s it you are all set now you can simply drag and drop your files to your FTP directory directly from your computer. It also supports several features such as ability to resume uploads/downloads, firewall support, drag and drop support etc

Download FileZilla Client

FireFTP

For those who just do not want to move away from Firefox there is a nifty tool that will allow you upload files from within the browser itself. FireFTP is a free, secure, cross platform FTP client that works with Firefox.

The reason this is a beauty of a tool is that it brings a entire different application right within the browser. Highly recommended if you are a Firefox user.

The UI for the FireFTP looks similar to a two panel windows explorer and you can easily drag and drop files between the windows. Adding a site is easy too. To add a site just click on manage account and select new, a new window will pop up where you have to enter the FTP details

You can set up local and remote directories in the connection tab. The keep directories in sync while navigating option will automatically choose the local or remote directory to match the one that is selected by you.

Once you have setup the web site information you can start using the FireFTP client to transfer the files to your web site.

Download FireFTP Firefox Addon

SmartFTP

SmartFTP is another one of the free options which allow you to upload and download the files to and from your local PC and web site. With SmartFTP you can schedule your uploads and downloads, cache remote directories on your local PC, use a command line FTP tool, remotely edit your files without having to download them etc.

It also provides you with file and folder synchronization and supports International Domain Names which contain foreign characters in their domains.

You can also use the backup tools to backup your important web site files.

Download SmartFTP

WinSCP

WinSCP is a windows client that allows you to transfer files securely between two computers. The WinSCP client supports SFTP and SCP protocols over SSH-1 and SSH-2 and can also be used as a plain FTP client.

It sports two different transfer interface. It has a Windows Explorer based navigation and also a Norton Commander based navigation. You can also use it as a standalone client for portable devices.

The application also has a inbuilt editor for files which can be invoked by pressing the F4 button, this is pretty decent feature as it allows me to quickly update files without having to download them to my local PC.

In addition WinSCP also provides synchronization features between the local and remote files.

Download WinSCP

PSCP

Coming back to the plain old CLI (command line interface), PSCP is a real live saver while uploading files to Linux based servers. PSCP does not require you to install any software, you just need to store the executable in a folder on your local machine and use it via Command prompt.

Download a copy of PSCP and place it on any drive of your windows machine, assuming you copied the file to C:pscp.exe.

• Open a command prompt in your windows machine.
• If PSCP is not in your classpath you can run command to add it set PATH=%PATH;C:downloads.
• Navigate to your folder where you have the file placed to upload, assuming you have placed it in C:upload, type cd C:upload.
• Issue this command C:pscp.exe filename.extension username@domainname.com:directory/subdirectory -pw password.

That’s it using the simple command you can directly upload the file using a command prompt, easy isn’t it.

Download PSCP

What is your favorite software to upload files to your web site. Are there any more better software’s that can be used to do this? Do let me know through your valuable comments. I would definitely like to try something better.

Discussion forums are great way to to get a diverse collection of opinions about a specific topic from lots of different people. There are lots of free discussion forums out there that you can quickly setup without needing to have much technical knowledge, and one that comes to mind is Tangler.

Tangler is a free, easy to setup, and full customizable discussion that you can use to host your own forums for anything that you like. Tangler hosts the forum for you and requires no downloads or installs. You simply sign up and create your forum online!

Here are some of the cool features of Tangler that make it one of the best discussions forums out there:

• Easy to setup and integrate
• We host it for you (no download or install)
• Easy to maintain
• Easy to promote
• Public or invite only forums
• And it’s FREE

• Real time conversations
• Great design
• You customize it
• Images and videos in the discussion

• User profiles
• Add and follow friends
• Private chats
• Desktop notifier option

Once you create a forum, you can create an unlimited number of topics inside each forum. You can also include videos and pictures in all of the forum discussions, which means you can quickly embed YouTube videos, etc.

It also has a social networking aspect to it so you can create user profiles, chat in private with other users, and add/follow friends.

Tangler has an excellent GUI interface and create a very nice Web 2.0 look, rather than the usual forum look where everything is just plain and simple. You can control who enters a forum or you can make it public if you want everyone to be able to access it.

You can use Tangler as a way to discuss something important between friends that are in different locations or maybe as a business tool to discuss projects with colleagues. It can also be used as a kind of knowledge base if you like. Enjoy!

Many times we come across a file, which have a filename or an extension, which we do not know. We don’t know how to use it. We don’t know how to open it. And sometimes we don’t know whether opening it can harm your PC because it is a malicious file.

There are many such occasions, when you want to know more about a file. One such instance is that when you see the processes, currently running under Task manager [You can open it with Ctrl-Alt-Del]. There may sometimes be malicious scripts hidden there, which you want to know more about.

In such cases, WhatIsThatFile.com may be quite useful.

It is a mini wikipedia of filenames. You just have to type the filename in the box provided, and without needing to click anywhere, it will search for that filename in its database, and tell you the details about that filename.

It is a user driven utility. Which means you can edit the contents of this database, which becomes part of the database, if approved.

Useful Indeed.

Web 2.0 is all about social media and networking.

Today there are a lot of websites like IMEEMâ„¢, Last.fmâ„¢, Pandoraâ„¢, Myspace, eSnipsâ„¢, Mogâ„¢, iJiggâ„¢, Radio.blog.clubâ„¢ and so on, which offer you to upload and share your favorite music files. You can also listen to music files uploaded by others.

But what if you wanna download these files to your PC.

FreeMusicZilla, is a nice little tool, which has been specially designed to let you download free music from almost all social music services.

It is small application program [about 0.5MB], which you have to download and run. After that go to your favorite music site, select the song, while running FreeMusicZilla in the background. As soon as the playing of the song begins, a download link is shown in the FreeMusicZilla window, running in the background. Click it, and you get the file in your PC.

[Good Morning and a very Happy New Year to all the visitors, readers, patrons, promoters, co-authors and owners of this wonderful blog Techie Buzz, aptly titled as Know your technology Head-on]

This happens with everybody, who regularly clears his Recycle Bin and deletes the old junk from there. You just clear the Recycle Bin, and after some time you find yourself searching for one of the deleted files, which you thought will never be required by you.

What do you do ?

Try Recuva.

Recuva is a utility just made for this situation.

Recuva (pronounced “recover”) is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!

The features, which I specially like about Recuva are…

• Its simple interface and easy to use filters
• Availability for work on external media like MemoryStick, Digital cameras, Floppy disks, Flash cards, Media Cards etc.
• Ability to work on virtually all platforms like FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5
• Ability to restore different file formats like office documents, images, video, music, email, anything else.

However, as with every file recovery web tool, the ability of Recuva to recover the deleted file diminishes as the time passes, because there are more and more chances that the sectors and disk space, where the file content were stored, have now been used by some other file. So act fast.

Overall a nice free utility.

Windows has a very useful “My Recent Document” folder in the Start menu, which saves considerable time of its users. However it is also true that it is a fantastic ideas but ill-executed.

Here are two reasons.

• My first objection to the present form of “My Recent Documents” is that it makes a very serious hole in my privacy. After I leave the computer, anybody, who uses it in my absence, can easily know, which documents I had accessed last. Although I can clear this list, but clearing this list every time you leave the computer is a big big hassle.
• And the second point is that, there is no categorization of different types of files. All file types are merged in a single list, and it makes it use a bit difficult.

To overcome these demerits, FlexiGenSoft provides a very useful tiny application, named as ActualDoc, which you can download for free at PCWorld [File Size: 4006KB]. It offers you a password protection facility to keep your privacy.

It resides in your system tray. When you click the icon once, it pops up a menu, which list different file types by neatly organized categories. If you double-click it, a full-fledged window will open, giving you lots and lots of options and features.Overall, a nice utility, and it is FREE.

[Click the image to enlarge]

If you are a small company, with its presence at different geographical locations, and you are worried about how to interconnect PCs available there, you can now have an easy solution. You don’t have to spend huge sums buying networking hardware and software. Instead just a simple piece of software will do the trick.

Welcome to Leaf Networks.

Leaf Networks allows you to create your own VPN using a simple download for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. This software installed on all the host and clients, allows you to set up a VPN and share just about any device over a network.

The Leaf 2006 client software uses “Out-of-Band TCP Signaling” to form a TCP connection between two computers running the Leaf 2006 client software. This out-of-band signaling is achieved by creating a control channel that is setup using the Leaf Peer Server and used to broker all the TCP signaling traffic. Once the TCP connection is formed, the control channel is torn down and there is a direct TCP connection between each computer.

However, I am still not sure about the security of the connection, and certainly will not advice you to transact sensitive data through such VPN. But for everyday transactions, which are not that commercially important, it can be given a try.

The service has recently been officially launched. Till now, it was under its nine-month long beta phase, during which an estimated 25,000 registered users tested and grilled it.

Sometime back I had talked about some of the best free online storage websites which provided you with storage space from 1GB up to 25GB for free. I came across another such service called ADrive which beats all of the free online storage websites in disk space provided.

ADrive provides users with 50GB online storage space absolutely FREE. Recently ADrive launched a new uploader which will allow you to upload complete folders to the website. Now you will not have to waste time uploading single files.

ADrive Features

• Upload folders using their online uploading tool.
• Individual file size upload limit of 2GB.
• Supports any file types including media, documents and more.
• Access your files from any where using a web browser.
• User accounts never expire.
• Easily share your files with friends.

ADrive currently only supports Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers. You will also have to have Java enabled on your browser in order to be able to upload files.

My 2 Cents

Definitely beats the rest of the crowd with the amount of space it is giving away for free. Usability wise the upload folders feature definitely rocks. Other than that other free storage sites do provide better options such as desktop tools to upload files.

Once ADrive starts providing a desktop tool it will be a absolute must use service. If you are looking for more space then I would definitely ask you to sign up now and take advantage of the 50GB free space.

Via: [Download Squad]