The 2011 Google Science Fair is here and is offering internships and scholarships to children between the age of 13-17. What do you got to get it? Well you just need to enter here.

This is a sponsored post.

It is not rocket science that a good design can change the fate of a blog. That is the reason why I always emphasize on a good design on my blogs. When I started blogging, I wanted a theme which would have built-in options of integrating video, flickr, ad management, etc. I wanted all that because I was a noob when it came to coding and I wanted everything out of the box. I was able to find many themes which filled some of my criteria but they all were in the range of $150+ I then stumbled upon a design company which was selling themes for reasonable costs (read below $75) and I really liked one of their themes which had all the options I was looking for. I purchased  the theme for $70 and the rest as they say is history.

The design company I am talking about is WooThemes. I have been using their Fresh News theme on Motorbeam.com for almost 2 years now and I must say I am more than satisfied. At the time I bought the theme, they were just starting out and didn’t have many themes to choose from but today they have over 60 awesome themes each with some awesome options and design. Over the years I felt the need to tweak my blog according to my whims and fancies (having not much idea of coding) led to me to take help from Woo Ninjas. Anyone who purchases a theme from them gets life time access to their forums, where you can put forward your question and ask for help regarding tweaking of the theme.

Once you buy a theme, that doesn’t mean the end of it. They keep adding new features to the theme as and when something comes around. When I bought the theme in 2007, the Fresh News V1.5 had no Twitter (there was no Twitter) but the latest version 2.1 has so many new features added on to it. And the best thing is I can download the latest version anytime and absolutely free of charge.

However I am yet to tell you the best news that can ever be. The designers are running a 3 for 1 offer, which means for a standard wordpress theme you pay $70 and get 2 themes absolutely free. That is $70 for 3 themes. I highly recommend you checkout their theme showcase here, and if you happen to make a quick decision and purchase before the 19th of February you just need to enter the coupon code “FAIS39E7WOO” at checkout which will give you that 50% off straight away. That equates to #35 for 3 premium themes. Which is less than $12 a theme. So hurry up and make your blog look professional.

P.S If for any weird reason the coupon code does not work, send me an email using the contact form above and I will send you a new coupon code.

Portable Document Format – PDF is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange.In its early stages it was not well accepted or popular. But since 5-6 years it has become a norm on Internet. It is smaller in size in comparison to its word or .doc format. It can contain text, pictures, captions, audio descriptions, XML codes etc. You buy a e-book – its a PDF. You read a free report – a PDF again. And now a days even companies are asking people to send resume in PDF. In my college PDF files are put on our Internal Notice Board to provide us with information regarding all events.

Now that PDF is such a norm and every person is using it. People are reading PDF more than they use any other text editors. Take me for example I have so far read 5 PDF files in last 12 hours and used notepad only once. People want to do little more than just reading PDF files. They may want to protect it with passwords or join two or more files or unlock it.

To accomplish the above jobs I have found some Free Online PDF tools.These tools have a small restriction. They allow a maximum file size or total upload of 10 MB only. Most PDF files you will be using in your daily life will have size less than 10 MB, so you can use these tools without any problem.

PDF Join

Join 2 or more PDF files. You can merge up to 5 files maximum. Just upload the files and click join. The motto is one PDF is better than two.

PDF Protect

Sometime you do not want people to read your PDF. You want the content inside to be secure. The best solution is to password protect it. You just upload you file. Put in and password and select low encryption strength to make the PDF compatible with older readers or use high encryption length for more security.

PDF Unlock

PDF files can have restrictions that prevent you from for example copying text from them or editing, printing or merging them. PDF Unlock! unlocks PDF files and removes these restrictions.

PDF Unlock! does not, however, recover lost passwords or remove a password protection from a PDF file. A PDF file can also be subject to encryption by a third party, such as DRM. PDF Unlock! does not remove such.

I hope you find these tools useful. Do you already use any PDF tools? If you do then share your experience with it. If you need or want any specific type of tool ask me, I will find it.

You have one of the best antivirus software installed on your system. It is the best and has a very high virus detection rate. You think you got a impressive and 100% reliable virus scanner. Wrong! you do not have the best.

Hundreds of new Viruses, Adwares, Spywares, Worms, Trojans etc are being created every day. A Tom-Dick-Harry is building a software everyday. There are new softwares claiming impressive services and features. But can you simply just download these softwares and use them.”HELL NO”. Yes some of you are very cautious and do not download softwares from unreliable sources but many of you does. You rely on you anti virus to warn you if there is any potential threat in the software package you downloaded. But your anti virus may not be able to detect all threats. You just cannot rely on one antivirus scanner.

What is the solution?

Virus Total. Virus Total is a service that analyzes suspicious files and facilitates the quick detection of viruses, worms, Trojans, and all kinds of malware detected by antivirus engines. Virus Total is a online tool/webware by Hispasec Sistemas which uses nearly 41 antivirus engines to scan a file for potential threats. Virus Total uses best antivirus engines like Avast, Antivir, AVG, Bit Defender, CalmAV, Comodo, F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee, Microsoft, NOD32, Symantec, TrendMicro etc. With 41 antivirus scanning your file, virtually no threat can hide.

How do you use Virus Total and what are it feature?

As I told you before virus total is a online free virus scanner tool, so you need Internet to use it. You can think of it as another antivirus software program just for virus checking or scanning. You just have to visit their website. Upload the file you want to scan for threats and in few seconds (may take few minutes if file is big) you get a detailed result of the scanned file. If the file you uploaded has been scanned earlier you get result in a instant.

You can see a sample result below. The picture is little big in size, so it may take time to load – please be patience or see the report in Virus Total Website. I uploaded the setup of Alexa Toolbar Version 9.0.0.30. Only one scanner showed it contains Adware. I remember the olden days when most antivirus used to label Alexa as Adware. I think now they have accepted it as no threat.

What more to know?

Virus Total has been awarded by the American edition of PC World Magazine, one of the 100 best products of year 2007 in the Security Web Site category.

If you have doubt about any file. You think it may contains viruses then you jsut upload it to Virus Total and get a scan report. I advise you to check any new software before installing. There is  also availability of SSL on the website so the file you upload are sent through securely.

Virus Total is a very useful tool which can be accessed from anywhere be it your office, home or school. Until you connected to Internet you can use it. How useful do you think this online tool is? How do you plan to use it? Would you recommend it to you friends.

You may be wondering ‘Why a Anti-Keylogger?’. Hmm! actually thats a stupid question to ask. Any ways the answer to this is quite simple – ‘because your personal data is not safe’. People do many things to increase the security of their computer. They install the best anti virus programs, install strong firewalls and even extra security softwares like anti-spywares or anti-adwares.

But they forget one of the most important security pitfalls, Keyloggers. Keyloggers are alien (not extra-terrestrial) programs which basically record all the letters, words or sentences you type. These programs can easily slip through the scanners of anti virus and other security programs.You type your username and password on Yahoo or Gmail, this program reads everything you write and send the data to the person who made the Keylogger. Now think of the situation when that person get login information for your Bank Accounts, PayPal and other highly secure and personal information. What should you do?

Use a Anti-Keylogger. And the best solution out there is, Key Scrambler. Key Scrambler is anti-keylogger which I have been using for quite sometime. Key Scrambler is very reliable and easy to install defense towards keyloggers. This anti-keylogger fools the keylogger programs. It acts as a special protective layer between keyloggers and your keyboard inputs. Whenever you type something, Key Scrambler scrambles what you have written and replaces your typed letter with random letters. Key Scrambler make the Keyloggers read this random letters and not the actual letters. For example, if you have typed ‘Apple’ then the Keylogger would read it as ’6tHI#’.Thus your typed information is safe. Below is a video on Key Scrambler tested against anti-keylogger tester.

Key Scrambler is available in three  licenses Personal, Professional and Premium. Personal edition is free and support Internet Explorer, Firefox and Flock. Professional and Premium editions adds support for more browsers and programs like Email clients, Messengers, Password Managers, Test Editors etc. Pro version supports protects some 80 odd programs and cost 29.99$ while Premium version supports protects 110 programs and costs 44.99$. If you need protection for many programs then you will need to buy the pro or premium versions but I think for most of us Personal version will be sufficient. You can read more about the difference between the versions on the Product page.

Key Scrambler is a windows only program. It runs under Windows 2000, 2003, XP, or Vista (32-bit and 64-bit). The file size is just 1.2 MB. I have tested it myself against an anti-keylogger testing program and it was easily able to pass the test. You should give it a try and increase you security. I advice you to read their press release, where you can easily see how many good reviews this program has got. Go and download the Key Scrambler Personal Version.