Techwit July 2011

First Issue : July 2011

techwitmagazine.blogspot.com

Monsoon Photography Tips

PC buying guide

Photoshop & Linux Tutorials Fedora 15 Review

Google declares war on Facebook

Windows 8 : First Impression

Top Android Apps

This Month in Techwit Reviews

05 Editorial 04 Credits Contributors' Intro 42

Lenovo z460 Review Windows 8 : First Impression Fedora 15 Lovelock Google declares war on Facebook

Hardware Zone

Applying Thermal Paste on CPU Market Prices of this month PC Buying Guide Lenovo z460 Review

09 12 21 14

06 36 07 09

Software Zone

Windows 8 : First Impression 12 14 Google declares war on Facebook

Mobile Zone

Must Have List of Android Apps 18

Linux Zone

Fedora 15 Review Introduction to Linux

21 25

Graphics Zone

Text Perspective Shadow Effects in Photoshop 28 Five Tips for Monsoon Photography 34

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Credits Editor : Abhijoy Sarkar Graphic Design: Siddharth Aditya Saurav Layout and Formatting : Saurav Modak Cover Design : Siddharth Aditya Saurav Valuable Suggestions By: Gaurav Prabhu, David Kai Singson, Gaurav Butola, George Salon

Send us your articles, feedback, complaints etc to contact.techwit@gmail.com. Visit our site at http://techwitmagazine.blogspot.com or Like us in Facebook. For advertising, please contact Abhijoy Sarkar at +919002430671

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Editorial

"Shaping thoughts into reality"

Every person has their own skills, knowledge,point of view and thoughts.

Everyone wants to share them with the world. In the era of internet it is quite an easy job. There are blogs, forums, personal websites to show what one is capable of. But then those things become individual effort and it is a golden rule that collective effort is always better than individual effort. With this thought was born an idea. An idea to have the blog owners and members from different tech­ communities being expertise in different fields to share their knowledge. To come together and collectively share their unbiased views & knowledge. Thus “techwit” was born. ­ Abhijoy

Techwit always had a special place in our minds. From the day one, we were over excited about it, and now are too. Its a whole new thing, something that no one very few have dared trying before. With TechWit, we hope to remove the barriers of biasedness, physical space, money and time that all paper magazines have. This is a small step ahead as we believe that people need to shift now to something elseexcept paper for reading, specially in days when there are more burning issues like global warming, pollution and deforestation.

So I believe, techwit has a two fold task ahead, though the first point is more important • To provide technology raw and real to you • To create a different culture of reading, the reading culture of future ­Saurav

The inception of 'Techwit' was already done in other part of the country & I was oblivious to the project. It was destiny, that I happened to contact the techwit team & learnt later that they were going to approach me anyways for a role in their team.

So I was in the team as a member who would be primarily contributing 'Photography' & at times even Linux' articles. Being fond of writing & seeming a wonderful prospect, I did not ponder much & quickly jumped into the techwit mix.

Our objectives are well defined & the members are quite eager to put in their best. With each individual working at his best of abilities, I won't be surprised if we become a name in tech arena which everyone looks upto. The journey is not definitely going to be an easy one & I don't care too. I will give my best for the team & I'm confident others too will. Hard­work always pays­off & hopefully this venture will too.

Get ready to experience tech as never experienced before. ­ Gaurav Prabhu

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Applying Thermal Paste on CPU

M

ost computers problems dealing with freezing or restarting are due to over­heating. Though today's chips run way cooler than those of yesteryear but still we need to keep them under proper ventilation. Also if you overclock any component it becomes vital to keep it running stable & ensure long life. This is possible only if you learn the art of ventilation. It is not rocket science & you would get better with experience at it. Let me show you a simple method on how you can keep your processor cool with a thermal paste. This is one of the most basic method to keep the temperature of a computer under check.

Now use the bulb blower & brush combo to clean loose dirt off the processor and in between heat­sink fins. Once done apply a small amount of medical spirit onto the top of processor and clean it with the lint free cloth.

Do the same to clean the bottom of heat­sink which rests on the processor.

Requirements

Once you're done cleaning, fit in the processor in its socket on the motherboard. Now apply just a medium size drop of thermal paste at the very center of the processor on top. Don't try to spread the solution over the complete area of processor. Now quickly fit in the heat­sink in its place & close the cabinet. Reconnect all cables and boot up. Your processor should now run cooler. To verify check under 'PC Health Status' in BIOS. • Thermal Paste (I recommend the Tuniq TX2 or TX3.)

• Lint free cloth.

• Surgical Spirit • Knowledge on removing/fitting the processor heat­ sink.

• Half an hour.

The Actual Game

Disconnect all cables from your cabinet & open it in a good ventilated space having good lighting condition for you to work. Clean up with a brush/bulb blower to remove dust/dirt from the components. Remove the heat­sink fan assembly carefully. If you don't know how to do it, refer the processor manual. Also unlock the processor from the socket with care.

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Caution

The heat­sink maybe hot if you have been working on the computer. Wait for a while to cool before you can remove. Refer to processor manual/google on removing heat­ sink. Its delicate and you may break it.

Surgical Spirit should be applied on cloth rather than directly over the processor. Make sure you don't let spirit get inside the processor through its top hole(if any).

Tips

• Change the thermal paste every six months.

• Use a good brand thermal paste from Tuniq or Cooler Master. Avoid buying cheap roadside paste which come in small coin like box.

­ Gaurav Prabhu (ShutterTux)

PC Buying Guide

Basic PC Setup : 1

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 250 Rs.2600 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA MA78LMT­S2 Rs.2450 RAM: Corsair 2GB­DDR3­VS2GB1333D3G Rs.1000 HardDisk: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB Rs.1500 Monitor: DELL IN1920 Rs.5200 GPU: Onboard IGP Chassis: iBall Entizer Rs.1200 PSU: FSP Saga II 350W Rs.1500 Optical Drive: Sony MultiWrite Rs.900 Total=17000* Keyboard: Logitech MK200 Combo Rs.650 Accessories­ Mouse: included in combo.

Speakers: Logitech R5 Rs.400 Basic PC Setup : 2 Headphone: Logitech ClearChat Premium PC Headset Rs.650 CPU: AMD Athlon II X3 440 Rs.3200 Motherboard: ­Gigabyte GA­880GM­ UD2H Rs.4100 RAM: GSkill 2GB­DDR3­1333MHz Rs.1200 Total: Rs.25000* HardDisk: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 Other Options­ 500GB Rs.1550 RAM: Corsair 2GB­DDR3­1333MHz Monitor: BenQ G920WL Rs.6000 Rs.1200 GPU: Sapphire HD5670 Rs.4200 Chassis #2: NZXT Gamma Rs.2000 Chassis: CoolerMaster Elite 310 Rs.1500 Accessories­ PSU: FSP Saga II 400W Rs.1700 Speakers: Altec Lansing VS2621 Optical Drive: Sony/LG MultiWrite Rs.900 Rs.1700 Keyboard: Logitech MK200 Combo Rs.650 UPS: APC 600VA Rs.1900 Mouse: (included in combo)

Entry­Level Gaming PC Set­Up for Rs. 35000 CPU: Intel Core i3 2100 Rs.5500 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA­H61M­D2­B3 Rs.3400 RAM: GSkill RipJaws 4GB­DDR3­1600MHz Rs.2600 HardDisk: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB Rs.1550 Monitor: DELL IN2020M Rs.6200 Total: Rs.35000* GPU: Sapphire HD6790 Rs.8000 Other options­ Chassis: NZXT Gamma Rs.2000 CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955BE Rs.5800 PSU: FSP Blue Storm Pro 500 Rs.3050 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA­880GM­UD2H Optical Drive: Sony/LG MultiWrite Rs.900 Rs.4100 Keyboard: Logitech MK200 Combo Rs.650 Monitor: BenQ G2220HD Rs.7100 Mouse: (included in combo) CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper TX3 Rs.1150 Chassis­ CoolerMaster Elite 430 Rs.2400

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Mid­Level Gaming PC Set­Up for Rs. 50000

CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K Rs.11000 Motherboard: MSI H67MA­E35 Rs.4800 RAM: GSkill RipJaws 4GB­DDR3­1600MHz Rs.2600 HardDisk: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB Rs.2700 Monitor: BenQ G2220HD Rs.7100 GPU: Sapphire HD6850 Rs.9500 Chassis: CoolerMaster 690 Transparent Rs.4500 PSU: Corsair VX450 Rs.3500 Optical Drive: Sony/LG MultiWrite Rs.900 CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster V6 GT CPU Cooler Rs.3700 Total: Rs.50300*

Gaming PC Set­Up for 75000

Total: Rs.75800* Other options:­ CPU: Intel Core i7 2600K Rs.15850 RAM: 2x Corsair Vengeance 4GB­DDR3­1600MHz Rs.5000 GPU: Zotac GTX560ti AMP Rs.15500

CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K Rs.11000 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA­P67A­UD3R B3 Rs.9600 RAM: 2x GSkill F3­12800CL8T 4GB Rs.3200 x2= Rs.6400 HardDisk: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB Rs.2700 Monitor: DELL U2311H Rs.14000 GPU: MSI R6950 Twin Frozer II/OC Edition Rs.15300 Chassis: CoolerMaster Advance II Rs.5700 PSU: Corsair TX650 Rs.6500 Optical Drive: Sony/LG MultiWrite Rs.900 CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster V6 GT CPU Cooler Rs.3700

­ David Kai Singson

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Lenovo Z460 Review

I got my hands on this laptop, lets see whats there in it and how it scores.

The set include user's manual, Windows7 driver for Z460/Z560, Windows XP Professional driver.

The particular model i bought comes with DOS. The other Z460 comes with Windows 7 HomeBasic (32­bit) pre­installed and MS Windows 7 Original OS disc and priced at 35000.

The Lenovo Z460 looks great. Its worthy enough for those stylish guys and girls out there to carry it anywhere they go. Its light too.

Dimensions: • WxHxD: 340x34.4x231.8mm • Weight: 2.4 kg (approx) Specs: • Processor: Intel Core i3­350, 2.27 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache • Chipset: Intel HM 55 • RAM: 2 GB DDR3 1066MHz • Graphics: Intel HD • Network: Gigabit Ethernet, Wi­Fi b/g/N­draft and Bluetooth • HDD: 500 GB at 5400RPM • Optical Drive: DVD Writer • Screen: 14­inch (1366×768) The Lenovo Z­series notebook is ranked lower than the Y­series entertainment notebooks. The new Lenovo IdeaPad Z460 laptop is aimed at customers interested in a stylish, trendy looking laptop. This laptop is meant especially for students and home­usage. The Y­series comes with good features a gaming lappy has to offer.

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The Lenovo IdeaPad Z460 laptop has a very good build quality. It has a brushed metal surface around the keyboard area and has a comfortable palmrest.

The Lenovo Z460 is a feature­rich 14­incher. Built around the Intel HM55 chipset, its powered by an Intel Core i3­350 CPU with clockspeed of 2.27GHz, has 2 GB RAM which is sufficient enough for home­ usage, Intel HD graphics, a 320 GB hard drive and a 14­inch glossy screen supporting a maximum screen

resolution of 1366x768 pixels. The 14­inch IdeaPad Z460’s has a glossy black screen, offering a better contrast ratio (though sadly it has its own disadvantage), lid with piano finish.

The laptop’s screen is good for both watching movies or reading text.

The touchpad has a nice steel border and dips slightly below the palmrest’s level and the touch buttons slightly raised making it comfortable clicking them. The touchpad has a good tactility and the overall touchpad response is very good and also in terms of design and ergonomics.

There is a USB port, a USB/eSATA combo, an HDMI port, a VGA port, an Ethernet jack, a PC card slot and a Kensington lock slot on the left side of the laptop. On the right side, there is a USB port, a DVD writer and audio jacks.

For those who are constantly on Skype, no need to worry. There's a 1.3­megapixel (MP) webcam placed on the IdeaPad Z460's screen bezel for videochats. Also, the microphone is placed below the left Control key, so its closer to your face while you speak and thus people at the other­end will hear you loud and clear.

One of the coolest thing about the Z460 is its sound qualilty. While checking out the demo of the Z460 in the LENOVO showroom i noticed the speaker sound was strangely good. At first i thought it was because of the HD­video (HD videos has the best sound clarity AFAIK) they played but i was wrong. After buying the lappy i tested it by playing videos and musics in different formats and i realized how good it was.

Its loud and clear, much better than many laptops in the same price­range. The E­SATA makes the lappy a bit futureproof. All­in­all, it’s quite a feature packed machine.

One of the salient feature about the Lenovo IdeaPad Z460 laptop is its new keyboard and touchpad. (If you are curious this style was first developed on the IdeaPad S10­3 netbook). The keyboard has chiclet­styled keys that are curved at the bottom and very good for typing. However the Shift and Enter keys are smaller than normal.

If you dont type much then you wont notice this minimal difference.

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The IdeaPad Z460 also has touch­sensitive buttons above the keyboard to mute speakers, cycle through video mode, adjust battery, and to toggle laptop sleep mode on or off.

The lid and the screen frame are black (which happens to be one of my favourite colour for a computer ), while the wrist rest has a brushed metal (matte) nickel plated finishing. The solid build quality is excellent, and the laptop is quite light in weight to carry around, a very good pick for daily use.

The battery life is also pretty good, compared to other laptops in the same range. I recharged the battery fully and disconnected the power battery to see how long it last. While doing this review viewing pics and videos and with music played in the background i got around 2hrs 40 mins of battery life. This is good enough in my opinion. I hope i dont forget to mention that there are five options you can choose for setting battery. It has been pre­set so whichever mode you select the brightness etc is/are all automatically set.

The mode I used was the highest one. The 'Super­saver' mode consumes the least battery life.

Performance wise, the Z460 is a great combo of VFM+Performance. It is said the i3 350 2.27GHz is about 40% faster than the old­Core2Duo 2.2GHz. Thats almost twice as fast! Yay! It plays HD videos seamlessly. Gaming perfomance i havent tested it since theres no discrete GPU.

The IdeaPad Z460 not only looks good but offers very good value for money and does pretty well too.

Pros: • Excellent value for money • Trendy, cool­smart looking laptop • Metal finish around the keyboard, palmrest • Excellent keyboard, touchpad • HDMI + eSATA • One cool bagpack Cons: • RAM could have been 3GB. Price : Rs. 27000 Verdict: The Best (One of the best) laptop in its price­range. Plus, you get a LENOVO bagpack worth rs.2500 for free. If you want a laptop priced for around 27000 i strongly recommend this Lenovo Z460 laptop.

­ David Kai Singson

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Windows 8 : First Impression

Microsoft demonstrated the next generation of Windows, internally code­named “Windows 8,” for the first time.

According to Julie Larson­Green( Corporate Vice President Windows Experience) "Windows 8 is a reimagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface. "

into the native capabilities of Windows usingstandard JavaScript and HTML to deliver new kinds of experiences.These new Windows 8 apps are full­screen and touch­optimized, and they easily integrate with the capabilities of the new

From the demostration what we perceive is: • The interface of the Windows 8 is more touch

friendly with tile­based Start Menu.

• The tiles are the mini version of the apps that show live data.

• These apps use HTML5 and Javascript and are dynamic.

• The users can also go back to their previous Windows 7 interface if they want.

But these all till now look just interface changes that is done to Windows 7. It looks like Windows Phone7 interface has been transported to the big screen of the PCs. According to Microsoft ­“Although the new user interface is designed and optimized for touch, it works equally well with a mouse and keyboard. Our approach means no compromises — you get to use whatever kind of device you prefer, with peripherals you choose, to run the apps you love.

This is sure to inspire a new generation of hardware and software development, improving the experience for PC users around the world.”

Windows 8 apps use the power of HTML5, tapping

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Windows user interface.

We saw also saw effortless movement between existing Windows programs and new Windows 8 apps. The full capabilities of Windows continue to be available to you, including the Windows Explorer and Desktop, as does compatibility with all Windows 7 logo PCs, software and peripherals.creativity jumpstarts a new generation of apps. Windows 8 apps can use a broad set of new libraries and controls, designed for fluid interaction and seamless connectivity. Apps can add new capabilities to Windows and to other apps, connecting with one another through the new interface.

But if there is just a Interfgace changes in Windows 8, power users and gamers may not me much interested in investing in the new Windows, given that Windows Operating Systems are priced lavishly. Also one wont find much valid point for upgrading to Windows 8, if one doesn't have touch screen based PC, or doesn't plan to upgrade to just for the interface. We are yet to see the full features

of Windows 8, but the first impression doesn't impress us much, unless one is really fond of the touch friendly, tile based system.

As announced earlier by Microsft, Windows 8 will step down from the conventional x86 Architecture and will also support ARM Arcitecture. This can open a whole lot of opportunities for tablet manufacturers and mobile computing devices to bring out devices based on this new Windows Operating system.

These are very early days we need to wait and watch what Microsoft has to offer.

足 Abhijoy Sarkar

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declares war on Year 2007 Friend 1: Hey dude are you on Orkut?

Friend 2: No dude Orkut is lame catch me on facebook !!

And rest as we say is history, facebook defeated who ever came in its way (My Space, Friendster, Hi5, Orkut) and became the Most popular and fastest growing Social Networking platform. People started spending hell lot of time on facebook commenting on other’ status update or writing their own, uploading photos and videos, playing games and using different apps. With it, facebook making news everyday (thanks to some people who got lost in virtual world of facebook and ignored their real life) and Facebook’s popularity, market value sky rocketed and Mark Zuckerburg became a celebrity.

Everything was going fine when suddenly last week Google declared war on Facebook with its new product Google+.

Google had previous tried to gain some share of the social network space with Buzz and Wave but had

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failed badly, but this time they have gone all guns blazing...

Google+ initially has opened to a small group of people on June 28, who will be participating in the field test, people were added by invites, but due to high demand of invites Google closed down the invite feature just after 2 days of launch.

It seems like the entire Internet is buzzing about Google+ this week. The major snag, however, is that most people can't get in to use the social network.

Luckily i was one of the few to get my hands on Google+ , and here is my ride experience on the brand new Social network..

Oh! It looks so much like Facebook !!

If you are expecting Google+ to be something radically new, then change your mind. As soon as you log in, you are right at home with the Facebook like interface. Instead of news feed you have stream here where updates from your friends appear and you can share you thought, photos and videos on the stream.

Then there is the usual photo sharing tab, profile tab and yes the next one is the innovative new thing “Circles tab” where you can add people to your respective circles, see people who have added you to their circle, create new circle and invite others.

With Google+ you can edit any of your post instantly unlike FB, Share them like re­tweet, and there +1 instead of like button.

You can chat using the Gtalk integration, and control which circles can see and chat with you online. After starting a chat with a single person you can add more people to have a group chat, now thats easier and more in control than creating groups and having a group chat in FB. Now you have Sparks instead of FB pages, which enables you to follow and share topics which sparks your interests.

These new privacy options almost blocks out spam that has recently plagued Facebook and was the reason for downfall of Orkut.

Say good bye to Friend requests !!

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Circles ! No friend lists there’s circles in Google+, it helps you organize everyone according to your real­ life social connections­­say, 'family,' 'work friends,' ‘school friends” etc.

So you add people to your circles and people add you to their circles, the Twitter way, no annoying friend requests, which sometimes you had to forcefully accept.

The feature is fast and easy, just drag and drop a person to the circle you want. Creat a new circle when you want, hover on the circles and you can see the friends included in that circle and (this is pretty cool), when you delete a circle it just rolls out of your screen.

Share relevant content with the right people, and follow content posted by people you find interesting.

Want to talk crap about a teacher? Want to share photos of you and your girlfriend? Don’t worry about your family member or teachers who are on the network, just share them with your “friends” circle.

Want to share some family matter(marriange photos, ceremony videos), just share them with your ‘family’ circle. This is privacy redefined. Yes Facebook too had these type of features but you had you dive into its settings to do so, But Google+ keeps it on the forefront.

You wanna hangout with me ?

Something which Google+ has done to enhance the Virtual social life by a big margin is the Hangout feature. Its like saying you want to hangout and friends who are just strolling around can join you.

This has live video and voice chat feature along with text. People who wants to hangout with you are put in same room for video chatting. Maximum 10 people are allowed to hangout together.

You can share and view photos together, watch videos and even movies on Youtube, now thats like hanging out, going for a movie in real world. This is impressive.

“Just check your hair and make sure your mic works” and you are ready to hangout with friends.

The Google Ecosystem

Facebook: A Social Network Google: Its an ecosystem, its big and has a long list of products and services with a huge user base. Google Search, Google maps, Google Chrome, Google Chrome OS, Gmail, Google Books, Google Docs, You tube and the list goes on....(We don’t think we will be expecting, FBmail, FB maps, FB Browser etc. ) Now Google tried to connect all the service together and make a complete ecosystem with Google+. As Google representatives said that Google+ is like an extension of Google and so the ‘plus’ .

To achieve this there is the Google+ bar which you can see on top of any google page. They have integrated the Google+ with every service they provide. So you can share things on any google product/service instantly.

The notification appear on the top right corner of the bar, and you can respond to the notifications instant with the drop down feature, so you don’t have to navigate to Google+ page again and again. You are

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working on Google Docs, you receive a notification, you respond to it then and there and again continue to work. Fast and easy.

Google will be bringing out their API soon, so Games and Apps will come to Google+ similar to Facebook.

Year 2012 Friend 1: Hey dude, are you on facebook?

Friend 2: No dude facebook is lame, catch me on Google+ !!

So will Google+ be facebook killer? Will the above scenario come true?

Well its too early to tell, given that Google+ has not opened to the masses yet. But initial reactions have positiveness in them. People who use most of the Google products will definitely find it good. Ultimately users are the pawns in this war and which side will turn victorious depends on them.

For now its just wait and watch time.....

足 Abhijoy Sarkar

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Must Have List of Android Apps

If you haven't heard of Android then that can mean only one thing­ You are time traveller from the 18th century. Android is the new thing. Not everyone can afford an Iphone so the next big thing is an Android phone. (I am not hinting that iOS is better but generally some find it cooler) .The Android Market has more than 200,000 applications with more than 3 billion downloads. Now there is always a list of MUST ­have apps. I am going to tell you guys my list of MUST have apps for Android (Might include premium apps too)

Advanced Task Killer Advanced Task Killer does its job in a simple and effective way. The app has a really simple user interface. There is also a widget which will kill all the running apps once you press it. Under the simple user interface there are tweaks to mess around with to make the app work according to your needs.

App2SD Free

This application allows you to move apps to SD card (Android 2.2 and above only ­and the app should support APP2SD). What’s great about

this application? The user friendly interface which shows apps which can be moved to SD card, which are on SD card and the ones which can only be installed on the phone. The app informs you if a newly installed app can be moved to SD card. This is a great way to move your apps and more organised than going to settings and through the whole list of installed apps.

FriendCaster

FriendCaster by Hand­Mark is a Facebook application. I suggest you give this one a try if you don't like Facebook Official App. Personally I find Facebook app to be really slow and unresponsive and so after trying out various alternatives I have settled with FriendCaster. FriendCaster has a very simple UI similar to the official Facebook app. The only downer with this app is the fact that there is no chat. There are popup notifications and the app checks for new notifications automatically according to your choice. Also photos and profiles load faster compared to the Facebook for Android.

Vignette

There are users who always like to have something more than the default stuff. Vignette can replace your default camera application. Vignette adds lots of effects, frames etc to your photos. One can also import a

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picture from the gallery and then add effects to it. I am not sure if this is user friendly or not as far as I am concerned its UI is average. There are tons of stuff under the hood to mess around with (84 effects & 59 frames). Do try this one out to add some really cool effects to your pictures. It’s worth every penny.

SoundHound

Ever heard a song in a cafe and wondered what the name of the song is?

Well SoundHound can help you with that. SoundHound listens to the song for a few seconds and gives you information about it .I have tried both SoundHound and its rival Shazam and it turns out that SoundHound is a bit more faster and accurate in recognizing the songs . SoundHound allows you to buy the song, bookmark a search; search for the video on YouTube, instantly shows you the lyrics and can also share the result on twitter and Facebook. The premium version has a widget and is ad­free.

One more feature worth mentioning about this app is that it even (rarely) recognizes and guesses the song if you hum or sing it.

Winamp

I will admit Winamp has its faults but it made into the list because it’s Free.

Winamp for android has some similarity with its desktop counterpart. It has Shout­Cast Radio and another option of finding some Free Music .A cool feature about this app is the is the integrated now­playing dock, that if retracted shows just the title of the song playing with play duration. Once opened, the dock shows the full now playing screen, with all the usual details.

Another feature I love about this is the ability to scrobble with Last.Fm this is something which I couldn't find with Power AMP and PlayerPro. User can sync with the Winamp on the pc through Wi­Fi. Winamp can be made better by making a few changes in the UI and more options to tweak. But as for now this is one of the best players available in the Android Market.

AppBrain App Market

Go Launcher EX

AppBrain allows you to browse the market from your Android device and use filters to find newer and better applications for your Android device.

AppBrain suggests you apps which might be of interest to you based on the apps already installed on your phone. One can also share the list of apps installed on the phone in Facebook/twitter. If browsing the AppBrain website you can install apps directly by clicking on them on the website if you download the add on application called “Fast Web Installer”. Although this feature is now seen on the android market site too where one can install apps on the phone remotely .But the main reason why AppBrain is popular and efficient is because of its organized manner where one can browse through apps sort by hot apps today, hot apps this week, highest rated apps, price drops etc also filter apps by free apps, paid apps, price reduced apps, app2sd enabled apps, new apps.

Go Launcher EX is one of the best home replacement apps you can find in the android market. Go Launcher has almost all the neat features from other popular home launcher apps. The app works without any lag even on low end phones and there is also support for installing themes and a user can customize almost every aspect from icons to grid sizes to fling speed(Its a long list) .Go launcher Ex also has some cool transition effects . Install this launcher and try customizing it to your

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needs and then your phone will be really unique. There is also a backup feature to backup your settings to SD card .And another neat feature is worth mentioning is that one can uninstall apps from the app drawer and then by clicking the [x] .So to conclude this is a must have mainly because its free, has a lot of features which other home replacement apps offer as premium and there is also a large number of themes available in the market.

Twitter Apps

Twitter is the new trend now. Many are leaving Facebook now a days but Twitter is more like a on the go thing and it’s more fun while you are on the move. There are tons of twitter applications for android each has its pros and cons .It’s really hard for me to suggest a twitter application as I personally think that it might vary between each person .So I am going to recommend a few apps which I have tested and you can choose the one you like.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck can manage Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter (multiple accounts are supported) and Google Buzz. TweetDeck has a similar interface like the desktop counterpart. This one of the best clients available in the market which supports Facebook and Twitter with a friendly interface .The only issue I have with TweetDeck is that it’s really slow at start­up when there are many tweets and might force close(rare though) but this is not exactly a big issue according to me.

Twicca

Twicca is a simple twitter client which has everything in a neat and tidy manner. But if you want you can mess around with a vast list of settings. It has lots of plug­in s available in the market too. Try this one out for the simplicity and the speed.

TweetCaster Pro

TweetCaster is the one which I am currently using on my phone. TweetCaster supports multiple accounts, can post to Facebook and Zip It (One can hide tweets from a certain user) .TweetCaster might not have lots of new special features or something but its really easy to use and even the widget is really cool. So far the app has never crashed but there are times when I get some errors while tweeting.

A few game suggestions

Android market is filled with fun and lame games. And due to large number of games added to the market some really good ones are not given the credit they deserve .And I am not going to talk about Angry Birds.

• Moron Test – Moron Test is a fun game where you just have to follow the on screen instructions quickly and this one will give you a good laugh and its fun to play around with your friends.

• Pumpkins vs. Monsters ­ It’s a puzzle/action game where In the game you have to manoeuvre pumpkin patches in two groups of 3 or 4 to throw at oncoming hordes of monsters. There is a story mode and survival mode • Zenonia – Zenonia is one the most popular RPG game for the Android. It has more than 40 hours of game play with sub­quests and skill tree .I found the story line ­ George Solon to be fast and engrossing .A must have game indeed.

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Fedora 15 Review

Finally its 20 years of Linux! That’s sound good because slowly and steadily this genre of computing has matured, survived and beaten all the odds. Its feel great that we are bigger than Windows both in terms of time, features and people. Wait? How can it be larger than windows in terms of people when it has just 5% of desktop users? I said so because the rumored 5% statistics (yes, rumored) is just not right. Every person who uses the Facebook, searches in Google, buys in Amazon or checks his mail in Gmail is using Linux. Its Linux that gave birth to the Internet, and for the same fact, most servers in Internet (I estimate >95%) run in Linux. So every person who uses the Internet, is indirectly using Linux.

Okay, with the above paragraph I have proved myself a Linux fanatic, so I am capable enough to review Fedora this month. One thing I also need to tell is that I am a die hard Fedora fan (please ignore that) but I will try my level best to not to be biased towards it.

My Configs

Well, these don’t matter much as Linux runs in almost any hardware available today. But as I will do some benchmarks on OS, so I am specifying then so that you have an idea as how they will perform in your systems. My configs are those that are considered just okay in today's computing environment. This includes: • An AMD x2 (dual core) 3.11 GHz • 2 GB RAM DDR3 • 512 MB inbuilt graphics • 500 GB hard disc • a fedora fanatic

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Rest, are considered least as useful, so lets not fiddle our minds with them.

Some More Info

Fedora and Ubuntu are have been in top Linux Distros list for quite sometime now. Ubuntu is the most widely used distro today. Fedora comes forth after Debian and openSuse. Ubuntu is mostly preferred by the Linux beginners, because its easy

to learn and the messages or warning that it gives are more informative (hence its called Linux for human beings). I got a computer 6 months ago and from the first, unlike others, chose Fedora as my default distro. Maybe its because of the better name, maybe its because of the blue colour, but I personally found Fedora to be more attractive.

Ubuntu was too easy for me to learn, and Fedora offered me the excitement to sweep into an unknown territory and fiddle and learn Linux my way. Those reading this article and have still not tried Linux any day, I advise you start with Ubuntu first, but after you are quite experienced, do give Fedora a try.

My own system is dual booted (with windows running in a virtual environment in Fedora). The first partition of about 10 GB is dedicated to the fedora root partition. The next 170 GB is a plain ext4 partition not owned by any distro. Following

that I have a 320GB extended partition that hosts the 310 GB Fedora home, two 2GB swap partitions for Ubuntu and Fedora and a 6GB Ubuntu root and home partitions together. Those wondering what a partition is, they roughly resemble the different drives (like drive C, drive D etc) in Windows. Root partition resemble the system partition which is mostly the C drive in Windows. Home partitions are other drives where you store your data, but unlike Windows, you can have only one home partition per Linux distro. Home and Root partitions can be merged together (like my case in Ubuntu) and can reside in same drive. Swap partitions are the space reserved in the hard disk that the operating system uses when your RAM overflows. If you have a good amount of RAM, these are less needed, however, many geeks say to keep it as large as your RAM.

Fedora 15 "Lovelock"

Truly speaking, this was the distro that I was waiting for. Firstly because of Gnome 3, and secondly because the previous distro (Fedora 14) had become ugly and just workable for me because of my constant fiddling with the configuration files. I needed a change in look, so did the developers of Fedora. So its obvious that the main difference from the previous version is looks.

Lets burn a the .iso file in a pen drive and start

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the live boot. First thing I liked here that the iso with just bare bones software (that included Firefox web browser, a photo and document viewer and few basic utilities like text editors, music players, scanning software and a few games bundled) weighs just 565 MB. That’s light weight given the fact that it has great looks and so many usable applications.

• Overall looks and feel : Fedora is pretty, I must say. Its the best adaptation of Gnome 3 in the Linux community till now. Its a whole new interface, with no menus or desktop icons. To start with, you press the “Activities” in the top panel, or press the super key. A preview of you current windows come to your sight, along with a dock that lets you quick launch your mostly used

or favorite apps. The top panel also contains space for your speaker volume, accessibility and network services. Interestingly, Fedora not only detected my phone model when plugged in, but also the service provider and APN settings of my mobile gprs connection. The only thing I needed to do was to switch it on and lo! I was connected to internet in the easiest way possible. I guess it does the same for Ethernet connection, so its time to forget the settings. The left side also shows the the current workspaces you have, which is always one greater than the number of you are using. Click on the you name in the top, and you can also easily set your

chat status (available or busy) right away.

Integrated empathy allows you to chat right from your desktop, with your friends in Facebook, Gtalk and Yahoo Messenger to name a few. If you are not satisfied with this, just start typing something and you are presented with all installed applications in your system that match your search term. Option is also there to search that in Google or look up that in Wikipedia. Your recent document also come in there.

• Workability : Looks is not everything that you want from your OS. When it comes to doing work, Fedora scored well. Its lets you do minimal use from mouse. Hit the super key and you can search and launch any application you like. Press Alt+Tab and its lets you switch between windows. Its made to help you work faster. Sadly, there is no minimize or maximize button which can be frustrating for some people. Install the gnome­tweak­tool and you can unlock them, along with more things like themes and desktop icons. Also, there is no shutdown option in user's menu by default. To shutdown, you have to press the alt key, an the suspend button magically changes to Power Off. As the Gnome 3 desktop is based mainly on JavaScript and CSS, a lot of extensions are available to add.

Install gnome­shell­extensions­places­menu and you can access most used places, such as home folder, documents, removable drives, bookmarks etc directly from your panel. This is what everyone wants, a desktop (or a wife) that is good looking as well as workable. I don’t know about you wife but Fedora scores good in both the fields.

• Softwares : Well, Fedora still doesn’t have a good graphical software installer. I wanted something like Ubuntu's Software Center in this edition, but was disappointed. The graphical installer fails to resolve dependencies by itself.

Double click on an .mp3 file and you would be prompted to install a plug­in that fedora developers don’t include due to patent issues and other things (thanks to Microsoft for that).

However, you wont find a mp3 decoder in fedora repositories, so don’t forget to include rpm­fusion in software sources. After installation, music plays well and also detects my stereo output, which Fedora 14 failed to do. Yum is good, in fact the best way to install softwares and updates.

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If you want something graphical, you can try yumex which in fact shows the status of software downloads and amount of time remaining before software download completes, that fedora's default installer lacks.

Notable software included in CD iso was Firefox 4 web browser, Evolution email client, Rhythmbox music player and Totem movie player. I think Evolution needs to be replaced by Thunderbird now, which works well in offline mode and IMAP sync. Amarok and VLC replaced rhythymbox as the music players for me, while Chrome did for Firefox.

However, this largely is dependent on personal choice. The CD edition lacks an office suite chiefly to keep the size of iso low, so you need to download OpenOffice or LibreOffice. However OpenOffice cant be found in default fedora repositories.

One thing that put me in a problem was an update of NetworkManager, that handles all your internet connection. After the update, my network crashed and I was left blackout from the internet for a day.

I finally managed to get back by manually downloading the downgraded packages from Ubuntu and installing them in my system. During this lapse of time, after the update and before the downgrading, Gnome 3 used to freeze a lot. I was surprised that fedora is releasing buggy updates like this. Incident was reported by the community and the package was removed.

The rpm repositories are not as large as Debian, however, its enough to get your work done. The CD installation iso lacks things like office suites or graphics editing software, but if you are good in yum and know the names of Linux packages, your whole work of installing a full set of software is done in an hour or two.

Conclusion

Its nice working in fedora 15, you get the feel to do and enjoy your work. Now some statistics. Booting time, though not as fast as Ubuntu's 8 seconds, is acceptable, a mere 12 to 14 seconds. Disable a few unwanted daemons and you will get better results.

The GDM now allows you to switch between KDE and Gnome environments. Desktop loading is fair enough, in fact faster than fedora 14. Interestingly, Fedora automatically detected my accelerated

graphics and ran Gnome 3 smoothly from first.No failsafe environment or driver installation to get it done. Heavy things such as video conversion and file copying are handled well. The whole system shuts down in mere 5 seconds. I was surprised the amount of RAM the whole OS needs in spite of such visually appealing. I run Windows XP in virtual environment giving 1.7 GB RAM to the guest OS, and fedora was performing well even with 384 MB of RAM given to it. The installation on hard disk took flat 15 minutes.

However, the desktop hangs rarely, which is a bad thing, as it never did in previous edition. Hope that will be fixed to in upcoming bug fixes. Do give it a try and let us know how you liked it.

足 Saurav Modak

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An Introduction to Linux

The computing world is chiefly divided into two major camps. One is that every normal PC user has heard about, the Windows camp & another is the humble, old but powerful, the Linux camp. These are the two major operating system that people use today. Now whats an operating system. Well in simple terms, its a software that interacts with other software or your hardware to do your work. Its the thing that gives life to your computer, without it, your PC will just be another sample of fine machinery.

Linux is a great operating system, with out­of­the­box support for a wide variety of hardware. Linux is used from Data Centers to desktop home computers, It is less vulnerable to the wide spread Viruses and malwares floating around the web. But still there is a lack of knowledge amongst the average desktop user who still thinks that Linux is not a viable alternative to the legacy operating systems or they don't have enough knowledge about Linux at all.

In the real sense, Linux is referred to those operating systems that use the same “Linux” kernel. In fact, Linux is not an operating system by itself, its just the core software in the operating system that interacts with the hardware and gets your work done.

Some people claim Linux to be hard, only for computer geeks, and say a lot other misconceptions that are discussed below. But the true fact is Linux is not hard, nor just for programmers either. Its just a bit different. Just as when you play a new game, you need some time to be comfortable with it, in the same way, new users will need some time to be acquainted with Linux. And like most of us, if you are bitten by the Linux bug, then there will be no looking back.

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What is Linux?

Linux is a powerful, versatile and Open­Source operating system (kernel), It is capable of handling all your daily computing needs like Working with documents, listen music, browse the web, play games and all those things that you may expect from a modern operating system. Its another OS like Windows, but unlike Windows, Linux is Free, one can easily download a Linux based OS from Internet and legally install it on

their system without paying a single penny.

By saying “Linux is free” I don't just mean Linux is free as in you don't have to pay money but also it's free as in freedom.

“Free” as in freedom means that one can see the source code of it and modify it according to their convenience. One can copy, redistribute and sell Linux legally because of its free

(as in freedom) nature.

Linux is everywhere, in fact, you have not noticed it even if you have used it. All servers of major websites such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Wordpress etc run on Linux. The popular mobile and cloud operating systems such as Meego, Chrome and Android are Linux based. 91% of world's super computers are powered by Linux.

The list of great features of Linux is countless, however, the features that stand out (apart from being free and open­source) are given in the next section.

The history of Linux has humble beginning in 1991 when a Finnish student, Linus Torvalds wanted to port the so popular Unix based academic operating system, Minix in Personal

Computer, just for fun. In the beginning, installing Linux was a nightmare, as people had to write, compile and install most software and other part of the operating systems themselves. This gave it a tag “an operating system just for hackers” who could only do these tasks. As the users grew, and people started contributing code, programs and software, Linux became more user friendly and began to be available in all types of hardware. Organizations were formed and effort was made to make Linux to be available to everyone, from hackers, computer programmers to normal desktop users. Thus, a journey that started with just a few internet linked people has now spread and ruling the whole world.

Features of Linux?

1. Drivers preinstalled: Imagine the pain of installing the drivers to get your computer working after a fresh Windows installed. Linux automatically comes with most drivers installed (including sound and graphic support) and the ones that are not installed can be downloaded at an instant from the internet. You don’t need to flip multiple CDs and DVDs to get it done.

2. Complete: You can turn a Linux PC to a server, a workstation or a fun and gaming computer just by installing a few softwares. No need to format the whole machine to do all these tasks 3. State of art and latest software: Most popular Linux operating systems are released every six months. This ensures that you have the latest thing already with you. In Windows, you have full operating system updates after long times, so you don’t have the latest with you.

4. No computer maintenance: In Windows, you need to check your hard­drive for errors, may be even format it, clear the old files, defragment it, scan it for viruses and so on and so forth. We waste a fraction of precious time in our lives doing the tasks of computer maintenance. This things are automated in Linux, or you may never need to do it. No fragmentation, bad sectors, virus checks and what not. Even updates can be automated and require little or no intervention from you.

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5. Lots of choices: Say you don’t like the look of this version of Windows. So whats next?

Switch to the previous one or wait two years hoping that it would be good. Say the version of Windows you are using doesn’t have the feature you need the most. Next? Here in Linux you have a lot of choices. Don’t like this one? Well there are thousands others to satisfy you. Different looks, different feel, different workability.

6. Powerful, versatile and variety of applications: don’t like this browser? Dump it.

There are more hundreds to choose from. Music player not impressing you? Cool, change it. You have hundred of free applications to try out, entirely waiting for you.

7. One stop applications store: This one needs a bit explanation. Say you need to install a new video editor in Windows. You follow these steps. Go to Google. Search for it. Hunt a few sites. Waste an hour. Find one. If its free, well and good. If its not, there are a few more steps.

Find your credit card. Have the tension of wasting your money. Download it, install it (along with malware and viruses). Now if you are not satisfied with it, go again to step one.

In Linux, there is a single unified app store that holds most the apps and softwares you need. So instead of hunting and searching the internet, you have everything in one place, and can install anything, with just three magic words or a few clicks. And speaking of choice, you always have more than one application to choose from.

8. One click and feature rich whole system updates: In Windows, all the applications that you install need separate updates. In Linux, you can update all your applications installed as well as the whole system in a single click! Also updates are way smarter. A sixty four megabytes update gets reduced to eight megabytes, how, we will come later.

9. Protection from viruses and other threats: You are completely safe. No one is going to see or steal your data. You don’t need to

format you hard­drive and lose all your data in case of a virus attack. Windows viruses infact are harmless in Linux, they don’t run in it. I should have mentioned this point earlier, but everyone more or less knows this, so I mentioned it later.

10. Stability: Linux systems are extremely stable.

Your computer can be on twenty­four hours a day, three sixty five days a year and it would perform the same. No hangs, crashes or freezes.

11. Good Support: We have forums, mailing lists and IRC channels that are dedicated to Linux operating systems. Some distributions also offer professional support at a nominal price. If you have a problem, you can post it in forums and chances are you would get your solution even within an hour.

Common Misconceptions

Linux is something that is still considered the Operating System of tech savvy people and system administrators. The biggest misconception that I have seen in most of the people is that one can only use Linux if he knows how to work with the command line interface, which is as I said is a big misconception and one that needs to be rethought, most of the things in the modern Linux distributions (also called distro) which are done by command line can be easily achieved using a graphical interface, So even if you don't know the Linux commands you can

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still work on a modern Linux distribution without any problem.

Linux is not just for running servers and system administrators. Today there are many Linux distribution which focus on the desktop user who needs to get his daily work done rather than playing around with server and command line.

One thing that needs to be noticed is that Linux is a kernel but not an operating system in itself, kernel is a software that creates an interface between the computer hardware and the applications that are run on top of it. For the sake of simplicity, when I refer to Linux I actually mean the Linux based Operating System.

Conclusion

In this article we have discussed what Linux really is, where has it started and where it is going. We also have learned with some cool features of Linux that makes it stand out from other operating systems, & also cleared some of the misconceptions that we had. Now we are ready to start our journey in Linux. The next articles of this series will be focused on teaching Linux to you,& replace the current expensive, closed source and proprietary OS you have, whether you are a newbie or an advanced computer user. So lets go!

­ Saurav Modak & Gaurav Butola

Text Perspective Shadow Effect in Photoshop In this 1st Photoshop text effects tutorial, we'll learn how to create a popular, classic effect by giving text a perspective shadow as if a light source behind the text was casting a shadow onto the ground in front of it. I'll be using Photoshop CS5 throughout this tutorial, but any recent version will work.

Here is what final result will look like:

Let's get started!

Step 1 : Duplicate The Text Layer

To begin with, I've gone ahead and added some text in front of a background filled with a simple black­ to­grey gradient. You can create this perspective shadow effect with any background colours or image you like:

Add text to the image. We added “TECHWIT” • If we look in the Layers panel, we see that my text is sitting on its own text layer above the Background layer.

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We need to make a copy of the text, so with the text layer selected in the Layers panel (selected layers are highlighted in blue), go up to the Layer menu in the Menu Bar at the top of the screen, choose New, and then choose Layer via Copy. Or, for a much faster way to choose the same command, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J .

• Nothing happens in the document window, but a copy of the text layer appears above the original in the Layers panel.

Step 2 : Rasterize the Text

In a moment, we're going to reshape the text so it looks more like a perspective shadow, but Photoshop won't let us do that while the text is still text. We need to first convert the text into pixels, which is known in Photoshop­speak as rasterizing it. To do that, go up to the Layer menu, choose Rasterize, and then choose Type .

Step 3: Flip And Move The Text

With the copy of the original text now converted to pixels, go up to the Edit menu and choose Free Transform, or press Ctrl+T to access Free Transform with the keyboard shortcut .

• This places the Free Transform box and handles (little squares) around the text in the document window. Right­ click anywhere inside the document window and choose Flip Vertical from the contextual menu that appears

This flips the text upside down in the document window.

Next, click anywhere inside the Free Transform bounding box, hold down your Shift key, then drag the text down below the original text.

Holding the Shift key as you drag limits the direction you can drag in, making it easier to drag straight down. I'm going to add some space between the original and flipped versions

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of the text so it will appear as if my original text is hovering in the air above the shadow.

Step 4 : Stretch And Reshape The Text Then, with Free Transform still active, once again right足click anywhere inside the document window and choose Perspective from the contextual menu

Step 5 : Fill The Text With Black Press the letter D on your keyboard to quickly reset Photoshop's Foreground and Background colours if necessary, which will set your Foreground colour to black. Then press Shift+Alt+Backspace to fill the flipped and reshaped text with the Foreground colour (black).

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With Perspective selected, click on either the bottom left or bottom right handle and drag it outward horizontally. As you drag one of the handles, the other handle will extend out in the opposite direction, giving the text a 3D perspective.

Press Enter when you're done to complete the transformations.

• Make a copy of the rasterized layer.

Step 6: Apply The Gaussian Blur Filter

Go up to the Filter menu, choose Blur, then choose Gaussian Blur When the Gaussian Blur dialog box appears, drag the Radius slider along the bottom towards the right to add just a slight amount of blur to the shadow. Keep an eye on the image in the document window as you drag the slider to judge the results, since the amount of blurring you add will depend on the size and resolution of your image, but all we're going for here is a subtle effect. I'm going to set my Radius value to 2 pixels for the first rasterized layer and 6 pixel for copied one.

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• Like if you are not able to detect weather the blur is taking place or not hide the other rasterizes layer.

• And on the same hand reduce the opacity of the layers. In the case of here I made the opacity of layers 60% and 80% respectively.

Like 60 for techwit copy and 80 for techwit copy2 , refer image.

Step 7 : Add A Layer Mask

Click on the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to add a layer mask to the layer.

Step 8: Drag Out A Black­To­White Gradient On The Layer Mask

Select Photoshop's Gradient Tool from the Tools panel or press G. With the Gradient Tool selected right­click anywhere inside the document window and choose the black­to­white gradient by clicking on its thumbnail (third from the left, top row).

Press Enter when you're done to close out of the Gradient Picker.

We want this extra blurry version of the shadow to gradually fade into view as it extends away from the text, so click with the Gradient Tool at the very top of the shadow to set the starting point for the gradient, then hold down your Shift key and drag straight down to the bottom of the shadow. Release your mouse button when you reach the bottom to set the end point for the gradient. Holding the Shift key as you drag once again limits the direction you can drag in, making it easier to drag straight down. Do this gradient with both the rasterized layers respectively. If on first you drag from top­bottom than go

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opposite way for the second rasterized layer.

And with that, we're done! Here is our final "perspective shadow" text effect.

This is the basic tutorial to shadow effect, with knowing this you can easily create wonders with Photoshop. eg.

Stay tuned for more!

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足 Siddharth Aditya Saurav

Five Tips For Monsoon Photography

Monsoons present a plethora of opportunities for photographers.

One can shoot nature landscapes, do street photography or even frame amazing abstracts. The nature during monsoon looks beautiful due to awesome colors & sharpness as the dust settles down.

To enjoy & take good photographs you will need to keep certain things in mind. Here are some.

• Safety First: Safety here refers to that of both, yours & that of yours equipment. Make sure your camera bag is not worn out & is completely waterproof. Have some plastic zip lock bags & regular plastic bags handy to keep your accessories, lenses and even your entire camera if the need arises. For your safety, ensure that you wear monsoon tailored footwear so you do not slip. Next, have the necessary rain gear(umbrella, windcheaters, hat etc) handy even when you feel it won’t rain today. Be safe & be prepared in first place.

• Situational Awareness: Its very difficult as to not to get so engrossed in photographing. While you look through your viewfinder or LCD, keep another eye for a nearby passing vehicle which may splash you & your camera with mud or water. Keep an eye on open drains which you may not notice due to water­logging. Again lookout for people running for shelter as you do not want them to bump into you. I recommend to always have your camera strap on when shooting in rain. It may sound silly but it happens when you are over enthusiastic.

• Take a Photographer Along: I know, when you are with someone you cannot concentrate solely on photography. But at times, you’ll need some help to hold a reflector, shield you from rain or simply watch your back. If possible, ask a photographer friend of yours to chug along so you both can enjoy photography

& help each other out. Nobody except a photographer can understand how the other photographer wants the reflector to be held or compose the shot in which you’re into the frame.

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• Shot Treatment: Rainy season conveys a slow & soft mood. This mood doesn’t gets highlighted much when pictures are taken under color. For best results experiment with Black/White & Sepia mode. If you forget to shoot under B/W or Sepia you can always post process the pics to get the desired effect. Some of the most beautiful pics I have seen under rain are shot in B/W or Sepia mood. Off­course this doesn’t means all your shots should be in B&W/Sepia, color can help you show the saturated colors of nature in a landscape or macro.

• Shrug Mistakes & Move On: In some cases, you may not get the shot you wanted for some reasons. It is best to accept it & move on as you won’t get a better shot getting anxious. Try again, come to that place again, again & again. You will definitely be rewarded. Try to enjoy the nature, the surroundings during monsoon & forget photography for sometime. This will help you absorb into the mood and that will surely reflect in your photographs.

­ Gaurav Prabhu (ShutterTux)

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Market Prices Of This Month Intel Processors

Socket 1366

Socket 1155

Name

i7­2600K i7­2600 i5 ­ 2500K i5 ­ 2500 i5 ­ 2400 i5 ­ 2300 i3 ­ 2100

Specifications

8M Cache, 3.4 GHz 8M Cache, 3.4 GHz 6M Cache, 3.3 GHz 6M Cache, 3.3 GHz 6M Cache, 3.1 GHz 6M Cache, 2.8 GHz 3M Cache, 3.1 GHz

Price INR 15900 14800 10950 10275 9300 8950 5500

Socket LGA 775 Dual Core E5700 3.0 GHz 2MB Cache, LGA Dual Core E5800 3.2 GHz 2MB Cache, LGA Core2DuoE7500 2.93 GHz 3MB Cache, LGA

Intel Motherboards Name Intel Intel Intel MSI Gigabyte ASUS ASUS ASUS MSI Gigabyte Gigabyte ASUS ASUS

3000 3225 5700

Name

Specifications

i7­960 8MB Cache, 3.2 GHz 4.8 GT's 15300

i3 ­ 540 i7 ­ 870

Socket 1156

3.06 GHz, 4MB Cache 2.93 GHz 8MB Cache

Intel Motherboards

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5200 14950

Socket 1366

Intel X58SOG, 2*16x, 8 Ch. S, L, F 11500 Intel WX58BP, 2*16x, 8 Ch. S, L, F 9900 ASUS SABERTOOTH X58, 2*16x, 8 Ch. S, L, F 11900

Socket 1155

Specifications DH67BL ­ 16x,8.Ch.S,L / Vga & HDMi, USB 3, IGP DH67VR ­ 16x,8.Ch.S,L / Vga & HDMi, USB 3, IGP DH61WW ­ 16x,S,L / Vga, IGP H67MA­E35 ­ 16x,8.Ch.S,L / Vga & HDMi, USB 3 IGP H67M­D2­B3 ­ 16x, S,L, VGA IGP P8H67­V ­ 16X, 8.Ch., L, USB 3, & 3 PCI SLOTS IGP P8H67­M ­16x ,8.Ch.S,L, USB 3IGP P8H67 PRO ­16x ,8.Ch.S,L, USB 3 IGP P67A­GD55 ­16x,8.C P67A­UD3R­B3 ­16x P67A­UD7­B3 ­ 16x (3), 8.Ch.S,L, USB 3, FW P8P67­M ­16x ,8.Ch.S,L, USB 3 Sabertooth P67 ­ 16x ,8.Ch.S,L, USB 3

Price INR

5350 4800 3250 4800 5400 7200 6500 11600 9600 9800 17400 7900 13400

Socket 1156 Intel Gigabyte Asus

Price INR

DH55TC ­ 16x,S,L / Vga & HDMi IGP GA­H55M­S2V 16x,S,L / Vga IGP P7H55 M LX, 16x, S, L,V, IGP

4300 3600 3650

Name

Intel G41 ASUS ASUS Gigabyte

Socket LGA 775 Specifications

DG41WV 16x,V,S,L,DDR3 P5G41T­M­LX3 16x,V,6 Ch. S,L,DDR3 P5G41CM­LY 16x,V,6 Ch. S,L,DDR2/3 G41M­T S2P 16x, V, S, L, DDR3

Price INR

2550 2400 2475 2400

AMD Processors

Sempron Sempron 145 2.8GHz, 1MB, AM3

1725

Athlon II X2 ­ 250 X2 ­ 255 X2 ­ 260 X4 ­ 645

3 GHz, 2MB, AM3 3.1 GHz, 2MB, AM3 3.2 GHz, 2MB, AM3 3.1GHz, 2M, AM3

2750 2900 3300 4900

3.2 GHz, 7MB, AM3 3.2GHz, 2M, AM3 3.2GHz, 8M, AM3 3.4GHz, 8M, AM3 2.8GHz, 9M, AM3 3 GHz, 9M, AM3 3.2 GHz, 9M, AM3 3.3 GHz, 9M, AM3

4250 5000 5600 6700 8100 8400 8850 9975

Phenom II X2 ­ 555 BE X4 ­ 840 X4 ­ 955 BE X4 ­ 965 BE X6 ­ 1055T X6 ­ 1075T X6 ­ 1090T X6 ­ 1100T

ASUS

AMD Motherboards

GF7025 AMD760G AMD880G AMD880G AMD880G AMD880G AMD880G AMD890GX

M4N68T­M LE V2 16x,S,L, DDR3 M4A78LT­M LE 16x,8 ch S, L,F, DDR3 M4A88T M 16x,8 ch S, L,DDR3 M4A88T M LE 16x,S, L,DDR3 M4A88T M/USB3 16x,8 ch S, L,DDR3, USB 3 M4A88TD V EVO 2*16x,8 ch S, L,DDR3, USB 3 M4A88TD M EVO 16x,8 ch S, L,DDR3, USB 3 M4A89GTD­PROU3 16x,8 ch S, L,DDR3, USB 3

2375 2675 4850 4400 5700 7400 6200 8550

M68MT­S2 16x,V,S,L, DDR3 MA880GM­UD2H 16x, 8 Ch. S, L, HDMi MA880GM­USB3 16x, 8 Ch. S, L, HDMi, USB 3 890GPA­UD3H 16x, 8 Ch. S, L, HDMi , USB 3

2350 4250 5400 8950

GIGABYTE nVidia AMD 880G AMD 880G AMD 890G

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Note : V= VGA, S= Sound, L= LAN, F=FIREWIRE, H = HDMI, ES = ESATA,

AMD Fusion

Name

Specifications

GIGABYTE E350N ASUS E35M1足M MSI E350IA足E45

RAM

Dual Core, HDMI, 8 Ch Audio, Sata 6 GB/s, USB 3.0 Dual Core, HDMI, 8 Ch Audio, Sata 6 GB/s, USB 3.0 Dual Core, HDMI, 8 Ch Audio, Sata 6 GB/s, USB 3.0

Transcend

Kingston

Price INR 8300 6350 8300

Corsair

DDR 1 512 MB 1 GB

1100 1425

DDR 2 1 GB 2 GB

775 1250

775 1250

925 1650

875 1700

DDR 3 足1333 2 GB 4 GB

Hard Disk Drives

Solid State Drives

BRAND

Capacity

Price

Seagate Seagate Seagate Seagate

250 GB 500 GB 1 TB ( 6 GB/s) 2.0 TB ( 6 GB/s)

1625 1950 2775 4350

UPS Capacity Numeric

APC

600 VA 650 VA 1000 VA 1100 VA 1500 VA

1875 2975 6200 4650 9600

1500 4550

* price in INR

38

1025 1950

BRAND

Capacity

Price

Kingston Intel Kingston Intel Kingston

30 GB 40 GB 64 GB 80 GB 128 GB

3600 5200 6900 9900 11900

USB Drives Sandisk Transcend Kingston Corsair HP

4G / 8G / 16G / 32G 4G / 8G / 16G / 32G 4G / 8G / 16G / 32G 8G / 16G / 32G 4G / 8G / 16G / 32G

325 / 580 / 1175 / 2500 325 / 580 / 1200 / 2500 325 / 580 / 1200 / 2500 1075 / 1950 / 3800 350 / 650 / 1350 / 3050

External Drives 2.5" Portable BRAND W.D. Seagate W.D. Seagate Seagate W.D. W.D. Seagate Seagate Seagate W.D. Seagate Seagate Seagate Seagate

Model

Capacity

Interface

Price

3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr

USB USB USB 3.0 + USB 2.0 USB USB USB 3.0 + USB 2.0 USB USB USB USB 3.0 + USB 2.0 USB 3.0 + USB 2.0 USB USB USB 3.0 + USB 2.0 USB

2250 2075 2900 2200 2325 2900 2900 2700 2850 3150 4900 4475 4625 5400 9100

1 TB 1 TB 2 TB 1 TB 1 TB 1 TB = USB 2.0 1 TB = USB 2.0 2 TB = USB 2.0 3 TB = USB 2.0

3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr 3 Yr

USB 3.0 + USB 2.0 USB USB USB + F/W 800 Lan + USB Expand USB USB + F/W 800 USB USB

3950 3250 4750 5900 8800 3450 4900 4950 9900

Specs

XFX

Passport 250 GB Expansion 250 GB Passport 320 GB Expansion 320 GB Freeagent Go Flex 320 GB Passport 500 GB Passport Elite 500 GB Expansion 500 GB Freeagent Go Flex 500 GB Freeagent Go Flex 500 GB Element 1 TB Expansion 1 TB Freeagent Go Flex 1 TB Freeagent Go Flex 1 TB Freeagent Go Flex 1.5 TB

Warranty

3.5" Desktop W.D. Seagate Seagate W.D. Seagate Seagate Seagate Seagate Seagate

Essential Expansion Expansion Studio Black Armour FLEX Desktop FLEX Desktop FLEX Desktop FLEX Desktop

Graphics Card NVDIA Capacity

Model

512MB 1GB 1GB 1GB 1GB 1GB 1GB 1GB 1GB 1536MB

8400GS 8400GS 9500GT GT210 GT220 GTS450 GT520 GTX550 GTX 560 GTX580

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PCX­16X, D PCX­16X, D PCX­16X, D PCX­16X, D, DDR3 PCX­16X, D, DDR2 PCX­16X,D,DDR5 PCX­16X,D,DDR3 PCX­16X,D,DDR5 PCX­16X,D,DDR5 PCX­16X,D,DDR5

MSI

ASUS

1650

1500 2200

3200 3350 3300

Sparkle

2250 6600 8785 13850 27050

6600 3250 9150 14000 28200

6250 2900

ATI Capacity 1GB 1GB 1GB 1GB 2GB 1GB 2GB 1GB 1GB 1GB 1GB 1GB 1GB 1GB 2GB 2GB

Model 4350 4650 4670 5450 5450 5570 5570 6570 6670 6770 6790 6850 6870 6950 6950 6970

Speakers

Model

Altec Altec Altec Altec Altec Altec Altec Creative Creative Creative Creative Creative Creative Creative Creative Creative Creative

40

Specs

XFX

ATI PCX­16X,D ATI PCX­16X,D ATI PCX­16X,D,DDR3 ATI PCX­16X,D,DDR3 ATIPCX­16X,D,DDR3 ATIPCX­16X,D,DDR5 ATIPCX­16X,D,DDR3 ATIPCX­16X,D,DDR3 ATIPCX­16X,D,DDR3 ATIPCX­16X,D,DDR5 ATIPCX­16X,DDR5 ATI PCX­16X,D,DDR5 ATI PCX­16X,D,DDR5 ATI PCX­16X,D,DDR5 ATIPCX­16X,D,DDR5 ATIPCX­16X,D,DDR5

2150 2850 3400 2500 3585 4725 6400 4525 5050 7575 8625 11125 13350 14700 17000 23050

Mode

BXR1220 FX2020 BXR1221 VS2621 VS4621 FX 3022 MX6021E SBS A35 ­ 2.0 SBS 2.1 A120 SBS 2.1 A235 SBS 2.1 A335 Inspire 2.1 T3100 Inspire 2.1 T3130 Inspire 4.1 M4500 SBS 5.1 A520 Inspire 5.1 T6100 Inspire 5.1 T6160

Details 2.0 Channel 2.0 Channel 2.1 Channel 2.1 Channel 2.1 Channel 2.1 Channel 2.1 Channel 2.0 Channel 2.1 Channel 2.1 Channel 2.1 Channel 2.1 Channel 2.1 Channel 4.1 Channel 5.1 Channel 5.1 Channel 5.1 Channel

MSI

Asus

Power Color 2400

2400

2650

2500

3770

4950

4000

10800 13100

10200 13300

4500 8175 9900 13000 14875 19450

Price 700 3150 950 1650 3200 4700 7450 400 950 1025 1300 2000 1825 2050 2400 3550 3275

17600 21500

Monitors Brand

Model

Details

Rate

Samsung Samsung Samsung Samsung Samsung Samsung Samsung

18.5" 1930B 20" 2030 22" 2230 LED BX1931 LED LS20A300 LED LS22A300 LED LS23A300

50000:1 50000:1, DVI 18.5" 20" 22" 23"

5750 6150 7900 6500 6800 8900 11100

LG ­ LCD LG ­ LED LG ­ LCD LG ­ LED LG ­ LCD LG ­ LED LG ­ LED LG ­ LED LG ­ LED LG With TV LG With TV

16" ­ 1643C 16" ­ E1600 18.5" ­ 1943C 18.5" ­ E1941S 20" ­ 2053 20" ­ E2040T 22" ­ E2240T 22" ­ E2260V 23" ­ E2360V 20" M2062A 21.5" M227WA

Wide ­ 30000:1 Wide ­ 30000:1 Wide ­ 30000:1 Wide Wide ­ 30000:1 ­ DVI Wide Wide Wide + HDMi + DVI Wide + HDMi + DVI DVI / HDMI / TV / Spkr DVI / HDMI / TV / Spkr

3950 4150 5600 5800 5950 6100 8600 9250 9875 10450 12450

ACER ACER ACER ACER ACER ACER ACER ACER ACER ACER

15.6" ­ X163wa Wide 15.6" ­ H163wa Wide 18.5" ­ G195HQ Wide 18.5" ­ V193HQL WIDE LED 18.5" ­ S191HL WIDE LED ­ SLIM 20" V203H Wide 20" HS201HL ­ LED Wide + DVI 50000:1 21.5" ­ LED S222HQ Wide 23" S231HL ­ LED Wide + DVI + HDMi 24" ­ LED S243 Wide + DVI + HDMi

3800 3875 4875 5000 5300 5200 6100 7300 9550 12400

DELL LCD DELL LCD DELL LCD DELL LED DELL LED DELL LED

15.6" ­ E1609W 17" ­ IN 1720 18.5" ­ IN 1920 20" ­ IN2020M 21.5" ­ ST2220M 24" ­ ST2420L

4300 4950 4950 6200 8200 12900

Wide Wide Wide Wide + Dvi Wide + Dvi Wide HDMi / DVI

Prices provided by:

Delta Peripherals http://www.deltapage.com/

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­ Abhijoy Sarkar

Contributors' Intro

Saurav Modak A 20 year old Linux freak who likes to make his day by playing (not games, but with

configuration files). Loves good food and to sleep lazily all the time. He can't live offline even a single day. A mixture of several contrasting characters. Visit below sites to know more Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sauravmodak Blog: http://www.intoanotherdawn.tk

Gaurav Prabhu

I'm Gaurav Prabhu, a passionate photographer & a Linux enthusiast from Mumbai. Quite literally, I drink, eat & sleep photography.You can even call me 'ShutterTux'. When it comes to Photography, I'm my own's biggest competitor. I love gadgets & other tech stuff. Writing is my another interest which gives me pleasure. Last but not least, I love to spend time with my family & close friends.

My dream is to become a 'Master of Light'.

Twitter : ShutterTux FB : http://www.facebook.com/GauravPrabhu Website : http://shuttertux.wordpress.com Flickr : http://www.flickr.com/people/gauravprabhu/

Gaurav Butola

I'm Gaurav Butola, a tech lover and have a great interest in Linux, I can talk about it all the time.

I can't be away from my laptop for too long. I don't like studying my college books but I like reading ebooks all the time. I love the web and think it's the best thing ever.

A tech enthusiast and initiator of techwit. Currently a 18 year old engineering student.

Anything technical is always my cup of tea. Have fetish for gadgets, automobiles and books(except school books). Have gaming, photography, listening music, watching movies and experimenting with gadgets as hobbies. I spend a lot of time searching web for info on different topics. My passion for technology and doing something different while sharing knowledge gave birth to the idea of creating techwit.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/abhijoy.sarkar Mail me: mail.abhijoy.sarkar@gmail.com

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Abhijoy Sarkar

A typical 16 year old teenager who lacks seriousness towards studies. Maths is my mortal enemy and technology is my passion. Crazy and random are two words which descirbe me

George Solon

perfectly. Love to party and socialize. And I love to read (anything other than educational stuff) and addicted to my phone. Find me on the web by the username Dark69Slayer Twitter 足 Dark69Slayer Facebook足 http://facebook.com/Dark69Slayer

David Kai Singson

Likes listening to music, reading novels, comics, boredom buster! and what not!

Loves tech, computers. Gamer. Surfing the webs (spiderwebs!)! Like to make friends with like足minded people only. s0nic Is My Name, Gaming Is My Arsenal!"

Twitter: Super_s0nic

Siddharth Aditya Saurav

I am creative guy, love creating models for games, designing and integrating animation, code custom firmware for smartphones. I like to create 2d/3d mobile games. Hobbies are to play , enjoy life , chill out with friends, I am good to people who are good to me and worse for who betray!!

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