How Old Do I Look website from Microsoft

Everyone wants to know – Do I look younger or older than I actually am? Well for all those who have this question, there is now a website that can guess you age and your gender from any photograph.

How Old Do I Look

Microsoft recently released a Face detection API. Based on this API, it took a couple of developers just a day to put this website together. This website allows users to upload their photograph. The API then tries to guess the age and gender of any faces recognized in that picture.

Face APIs are a part of Microsoft Project Oxford, which provides state-of-the-art algorithms to process face images, including gender, age, recognition, alignment and other application-level features.

The key components of this website are:

1. Extracting the gender and age of the people in these pictures.
2. Obtaining real-time insights on the data extracted above.
3. Creating real-time dashboards to view the above results.

We also got real-time insights to learn more about how people were using this tool. For instance, we assumed that folks would not want to upload their own pictures but would prefer to select from pre-canned images such as what they found online. But we what we found out was that over half the pictures analyzed were of people who had uploaded their own images, said Microsoft.

The results were not bad too. The website put my age at 47, whereas I am a couple of years older than that.

Go visit how-old.net and see what it has to say about you. Let us know if it guessed correctly about you.

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Uranium Backup Free review & download

There are plenty of free backup tools available. Even the default backup tool that comes with Windows 8.1 is good enough to let you take different backup sets of the data you want. You also get to choose between overwriting backup sets and incremental backup sets. However, most people prefer third-party backup tools as they offer more functionality. This review of Uranium Backup Free checks out it features and ease of use.

Uranium Backup Free review

The download and installation was easy. There are no third-party apps that are bundled into the installation, as of date, so you need not worry about it installing toolbars and other browser add-ons. It is just the Uranium backup program that is installed.

Once installed, you can access it from the System Tray by right-clicking on its icon or by clicking on the desktop icon. In both the cases, the first thing you have to do is to create backup sets and set destinations for the backup sets.

Too many restrictions

Unfortunately, the free version has plenty of restrictions. One that I would like to mention in particular is that it won’t support incremental backups. This means that every time you run the backup using Uranium, you will be creating a different backup set or you will be overwriting the previous backup depending upon the folders you chose.

Though the image above shows you plenty of destinations to back up, all except the first are available only in the paid versions. With the free version, you can only select a place on your network or on an external hard disk drive for backing up the data. You cannot even use the DVD burner with the free version. Now, that is way too much of a limiting factor, that may make people away from using Uranium. As it is, people nowadays prefer to back up their data to cloud instead of DVDs, etc. If that option is present but cannot be used in the Uranium Backup Free, people are sure to be frustrated.

In short, the free version of Uranium backup tool will serve only those users who like to create a full backup of their data and copy it to external hard disk drives. There is no point in backing up data to the same hard disk drive even if it is a different drive letter as the hard disk is the same and if it crashes, all the drives on it will be inaccessible.

The application is good only for users using external hard disk drives for backing up data. For others who would like to back up to cloud etc,  Microsoft, Amazon and Google are the answers (for free backups). If they want to go paid, IDrive, ADrive, Mozy etc are better as they offer backups directly to the clouds.

Using Uranium

Assuming that you are one of the group that prefers local hard disk backups to external storage on network or USB connected hard disk drives (or even on a desktop with two hard disk drives), you have to first create a data set that needs to be backed up. This, you can do by selecting Create Data Set option in the File menu. You will get a dialog box that will let you browse and select the backup folders and files using check boxes. Once you are done, selecting the files to be backed up, you have specify the destination folder.

To specify the destination folder, click on the first option under the lower section of the right side of the Uranium window. It says “Click here to add a destination folder for this backup“. You can see it in the image above.

Clicking on any other option will ask you if you wish to upgrade.

Anyway, once you are done with creating backup sets and setting destination for it, you can run the first backup manually by clicking on “Run selected backups” in the File menu. Some of the best things about Uranium are that it compresses the backup files and folders before copying them to backup destination and it offers encryption for the backed up files. But I did not see any option to set up scheduled backups or incremental backups. This means it overwrites the previous backup set whenever you run the backup set manually. The only method available to avoid overwriting is to select a different destination (folder) before you manually run the backup using the Uranium interface or the system tray icon.

Verdict

Uranium Backup Free is a good choice if you back up your data locally to some other hard drive connected to your computer. The paid version has options to back up to cloud but the free one doesn’t.

Encryption is present, so you can be sure about secure backup. You can save configurations using a password in the Settings menu. Beyond that, it is simply a tool offering minimal features. If you wish to back up to cloud, either purchase the Pro version or use one of the tools mentioned above. You can download Uranium from their website.

There are some other good free Imaging, Backup and Recovery Software available on the Internet. Moreover, there are also some free online backup tools that you might want to consider if you wish to back up to cloud and if your backup needs are small. Besides this, you may also use Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive for backing up, although they are more of sync nature. That is, if you delete a file or folder from the local disk, it will be deleted from the cloud storage too. An advantage is that instead of deleting them forever, the deleted items are moved to folders called Deleted Items or Trash and they stay there until you empty them manually or if they exceed the quota of Trash (in Google Drive). They can be used as backup in case you want the latest version of your backup sets on the cloud.

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AnyDesk: Best Free TeamViewer Alternative

If you are working as a team, this is impossible that you haven’t heard about TeamViewer. If you are looking for aTeamViewer alternative, then this free software called AnyDesk may interest you. This fast remote desktop software has DeskRT, a new video codec at its core.

AnyDesk review

As AnyDesk is a free portable software. If you want to use it for a long time, you can consider installing this using its installer.

To get started, at first, download AnyDesk on both the PCs. Next double-click on the executable file to open it. You will get a window that looks like the following picture:

Teamviewer alternative

A unique code will be appear on your screen. You can find this type of code, only if the software is not installed. Otherwise, you will get the unique with the Computer name.

Now, just enter this unique code of one PC in another PC’s AnyDesk window – under Remote Desk tab and hit theConnect button.

That means, if you have two PCs called “A” & “B” and you want to access “A” from “B”, just copy the code from “A” and paste it on “B”.

After hitting the Connect button, you will get the Windows Firewall popup for this new connection. Just allow it to access AnyDesk.

At the same time, you will get a confirmation pop-up on the second PC that you want to access from your primary PC.

You can hit the Accept button or consider checking few options. The options are as follows,

• Allow to hear sound
• Allow to take control
• Allow to use clipboard
• Allow to block keyboard and mouse

If you remove the tick mark from corresponding option, the feature will be unavailable. Otherwise, the main PC owner will be able to access everything.

Chat with Friends using AnyDesk

AnyDesk allows users to chat with the connected PC owner. Just click on Chat button from the primary PC and write down your message.

The message will appear on the second PC.

AnyDesk also provides some other options after connecting. You will see the following options on your screen:

• Change view mode (full screen, original, shrink, stretch)
• Quality: best audio/video quality, balanced, optimized, according to connection speed/data speed
• Show/hide remote cursor
• Allow/prevent mouse and keyboard control
• Take snapshot.

Considering all things, AnyDesk is really a useful tool. You can download AnyDesk from here. As of now, you can use AnyDesk to connect with only Windows PC’s.

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PC Win Booster: Keep your Windows PC free of Junk Files

If you find that you are running out of disk space on your Windows PC, you need to run the built-in Disk Cleanup utility or some good free junk file cleaner. Today we will have a look at one more freeware called Soft4Boost PC Win Booster.

Hard disk is the storage device of a PC which holds all your important files and data. The Windows operating system and various other programs create the temporary files and many other junk files during installation and running. All these files get piled up on your hard disk, and hence the hard disk may run out of free space. Thus, it becomes imperative that we delete the junk temporary files regularly.

This tool will help remove junk files. Not hundreds, but thousands of files get piled in the hard disk of our computer system over time, which includes cached thumbnails, temporary files, cached files, setup files, log files and much more.

PC Win Booster

The main overview of this freeware is simple and displays everything. The software scans your PC and detects all the junk files stored in various folders. It lists all the unused, obsolete and harmful files cluttered in your PC.

Just click on ‘Start Scanning’, the program will scan your PC thoroughly and give you a detailed list of junk files.

It includes the following modules:

1. Junk File remover
2. Duplicate Files Finder
3. Unwanted Toolbar remover
4. Program Uninstaller.

The Duplicate Finder module of the program finds duplicate files, identical pictures, and duplicate documents if stored in your system. Unlike the other similar software, PC Win Booster compares the documents by their content, and not just the names. To use this function, select the search rule, click on the Duplicate Finder button, select the search directories and click on ‘Start Scanning’.

Moreover, this program also finds and removes toolbars that may be installed on your web browser and remove them easily – which the built-in Windows program remover may not be able to.

PC Win Booster has 11 different skins, so you can change it if you want. However, I didn’t find any of the skins beautiful enough to be changed.

You can download it from here. It brings along a program Soft4Boost Secure Eraser with it – however, it is harmless and can be easily removed using the Control Panel.

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How to display seconds in Taskbar

The Taskbar Clock in Windows, displays the date and time. The day, month and the year are displayed – and the hour and minutes are seconds are displayed. In this post we will see how to display second in the Taskbar Clock.

Before we proceed, it is important to know, why Microsoft did not build this capability into the Windows operating system to begin with. Was the constant blinking of the colon too distractive?

Said Microsoft,

The blinking colon and the constantly-updating time were killing our benchmark numbers. On machines with only 4MB of memory (which was the minimum memory requirement for Windows 95), saving even 4K of memory had a perceptible impact on benchmarks. By blinking the clock every second, this prevented not only the code paths related to text rendering from ever being paged out, it also prevented the taskbar’s window procedure from being paged out, plus the memory for stacks and data, plus all the context structures related to the Explorer process. Add up all the memory that was being forced continuously present, and you had significantly more than 4K.

Now that we know why the Windows Taskbar Clock does not display seconds, let us move on.

We have already seen how to how to add day of week to taskbar clock,no let us see if we can add seconds to the Taskbar Clock time.

Display seconds in Taskbar Clock

There is no way to natively display seconds in the Taskbar Clock. If you wish to do so, you will have to use 3rd-party free tools like T-Clock Redux or TClockEx.

T-Clock Redux in an enhanced fork of Stoic Joker’s T-Clock 2010. Apart from letting you display the seconds too, it offers many other features. It works on Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 too. TClockEx is such free tool that can help you show seconds. This one also lets you tweak additional options in the Takbar Clock.

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How to change MAC Address in Windows 8.1

A MAC Address or Media Access Control Address is a unique identifier assigned to every Network Interface Card. In this post, we will see what is MAC Address and how do you change a MAC Address in Windows 8. We will also touch upon MAC Address filtering, lookup and spoofing.

What is MAC Address

Whether you are using a wired network or a wireless one, you need a network card to connect to other computers and to allow other computers to your computer. While most of us believe that it is the IP address that is significant in contacting another computer on the network, it is not the only factor. More important than IP (Internet Protocol) address is the MAC (Media Access Control) address – an address assigned to the network interface card, so that it is identified on the network.

A Network card is a term used in short for a Network interface card. We call it NIC for short. Every NIC has a MAC address – just like a postal address so that the data packets travelling on your network can reach the correct NIC and from there, your computer.  While the IP address is the software part of the Network Interface card (Network card or NIC), the MAC address is hardware address, without which data packets will just keep on roaming on the network, as they do not have any address where to deliver the data. Each data packet on the network has a header containing MAC address of the computer you wish to connect to and then the data. The last part of the data packet will contain a bit to ascertain if the data bit was correctly delivered or was it corrupted or changed during the transmission.

MAC addresses do not appear when you click on Open Network Adaptors in the Windows System Tray. Unlike IP addresses, that are provided by your ISP or network admins, and may be static or dynamic. MAC addresses are assigned by the manufacturers of network interface cards (NIC). These MAC addresses are built into the cards and are resolved using a method called Address Resolution Protocol. This Address Resolution Protocol first obtains the IP address of the computer to be contacted and then resolves it into the MAC address before embedding it into header of the data packets so that they are delivered exactly to the computer intended and not to any other computer in the network.

Structure of MAC Address

A MAC address is separated by full colons, as is the IP address (IPv4 addresses). But unlike only four numeric characters separated by full colons to make it look like a four digit sets x 4 parts, the MAC address is a combination of alpha-numeric characters. It is a set of six characters separated by six full colons. Also, unlike the four characters used in IP address per set, the MAC address employs only two characters per set. Here is an example of a MAC address for your understanding:

00:9a:8b:87:81:80

You can see that it is six sets (parts) divided by full colons and can contain both alphabets and characters. The first two or three sets indicate the code of manufacturers of the network interface card just like the first two sets of IP address tells you where you are located.

How To Locate MAC Address of NIC (Network Interface Cards)

To locate the MAC address of your network adaptors, you have to go to the command line. Press WinKey+R, type cmdin the Run dialog box that appears and press Enter key.

Type getmac /v /fo list and press Enter key. The output for each of your NIC adaptor (network adaptors – wired and wireless) will be displayed.

Change MAC Address in Windows

It is not advised to change the MAC address on networks as it may create conflicts and sometimes, may fail to appear on the network. But if you want to change the MAC address for some reason, it is an easy process.

1.    Press Windows Key + Break to open System Window

2.    Click on Device Manager to the left side of the System Window

3.    Once the Device Manager dialog appears, look for the category named Network Adaptors

4.    Click on the plus sign preceding Network Adaptors to see all the Network cards attached to your computer;

5.    Select the network adaptor whose MAC address you wish to change

6.    Right click on the network adaptor and select Properties

7.    Click on the Advanced tab.

8.    In the list of available options, select Locally Administered MAC Address or Network Adaptor; note that only of the two options will appear based on the type of your network adaptor

9.    When you select one of the above options, you will get a text box saying Value.

10.    Type a six digit alphanumeric code in the Value field after selecting the radio button; note that you do not have to type the dashes or full colon; if you wish to type 00:4f:gH:HH:88:80, you simply type 004fgHHH8880 without any dashes or full colons; adding dashes may result in error

11.    Click OK to close the dialog box

12.    Close other open dialog boxes (if any) and close the Device Manager

That is the simplest method to change the MAC (Media Access Control) ID of the network adaptor.

MAC Address Spoofing and Filtering

Spoofing is a method by which you change your MAC address to someone else’s MAC address. That is the common notion in the world of Internet. Spoofing is useful when your network won’t let you in due to MAC filter restrictions. Hackers too indulge in MAC address spoofing.

When you change the MAC address using the above method, you are actually spoofing the MAC address. The hardware MAC address remains the same, but is given preference only when there is no other address. If you want to revert to the original MAC address, just follow the above steps and instead of inputting a value, select the radio button that says “Not Present” or “No Value“. That will get you back your original MAC address.

MAC addresses are especially useful when it comes to protecting your network from unwanted connections. All you have to do is to authorise only the MAC addresses that you wish to connect to the Internet or the network. This you can do it easily using third party programs. You can also filter MAC addresses manually by going to your router page and entering the MAC addresses that are allowed to interact with the router.

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Most useful Websites on the Internet that you must visit

Most of us surf the Internet daily. But when exploring, how frequently do you came across useful websites? There are a lot of useful websites you may be visiting at least once. But sometimes, you may feel at a loss and wonder which site to visit. In such cases, some of these websites may interest you. Here os a list of useful & interesting websites, some helpful, yet others just for fun. Some of these may interest students as well. Visit them when you are bored!

Most Useful Websites

I will take you through few useful websites among many. I felt really amazed after knowing them and thought of sharing them with you. So, let’s jump in to the list without any further delay.

1. dictation.io

It is an online dictation website. You can start speaking and the words you speak appear on the screen with the help of online voice recognition in the browser itself.

2. zerodollarmovies.com

This website provides you the list of movies which you can watch on YouTube for free. You are also provided with instant search. Watch your favorite movie on YouTube for free!

3. screenr.com

This helps you to record whatever you do on your Windows desktop and share the URL with any one you want. You can even upload the recordings of your desktop straight to YouTube.

4. Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha is a knowledge-based search engine. It gives you the solutions – not like other search engines, which just give you the links to other websites.. Get to know how best you can make use of Wolfram Alpha.

5. lmgtfy.com

‘Let Me Google That for you’ is very useful if your friend is too lazy to Google. Visit the website, enter the search and share the generated link with your friends. 

6. Rainy Mood

When you are feeling bored or irritated, just visit this website. It generates a rain sound and you will feel comfortable for sure.

7. Soundrown

It is similar to Rainy Mood, but offers some more options. You can listen to rain sound, birds voice, sound generated at coffee shop, train sound and many more sounds all at once to boost your mood.

8. e.ggtimer.com

Use this website as an online timer to complete your daily tasks. You can set the timer for 5 minutes or 10 minutes or any time you want.

9. Microsoft 15 minute webinars

Want to know how to use Microsoft Word, Excel or any other Microsoft Office help? Then, you must visit this website for sure. You will get to know how to use Microsoft Office products.

10. copypastecharacter.com

If you want to use any special character which is not present on your keyboard, then this website will be very helpful. It provides you with a wide variety of special characters.

11. followupthen.com

It helps you the send email reminders. If you want to perform a task at a particular time, then this would be helpful. It will remind you of the task by email.

12. random.org

You might need to generate random numbers or flip a coin and more. This website would help you for sure.

13. tubemogul.com

Wondering how to upload a video to other video sites along with YouTube? Then, this website will help you to upload videos to other video sites like Daily Motion, Vimeo and more, with a single action.

14. hundredzeros.com

Are you fond of reading novels and books in Kindle? This website allows you to download free kindle books.

15. similarsites.com

If you want to find similar sites to the website you are interested in, then this website helps you to find them. Just enter the website address for which you want to find similar sites and it generates a list of similar websites.

16. downforeveryoneorjustme.com

This website will be let you know whether the website you want is down only for your or for everyone.

17. mailvu.com

This one will help you to send to video email using your webcam to anyone.

18. privnote.com

This helps you to create text notes and will self-destruct after they are being read. Create notes, share the link and once the recipient reads the note, it get destroyed. The service will even notify you once the note gets destroyed.

19. mixlr.com

It is useful to broadcast your audio. You just concentrate on what you need to speak and this website will broadcast your audio all over the web.

20. 10minutemail

Want to beat spam? If you want to use an email address somewhere, but are not interested in receiving any updates from the service or website, use this website to generate a temporary email address which will be valid for only 10 minutes.

Useful Websites for Students

Here are some useful websites which may specifically interest students.

1. Create Love Charts

If you want to create neat flow charts, network diagrams and more, you can use this website. It is very easy to create any kind of flow chart.

2. codeacademy.com

Want to learn any programming or need to code online? Visit this website and learn coding online.

3. Essay Typer

Want to correct content for the topic? Visit this website and enter the title. Keep on pressing the “Enter” button and you will see that content being generated for you on the screen automatically. It is advised to read the content thoroughly, before you take it down.

4. polishmywriting.com

Use this website to check grammar and spelling errors. Place the content you wrote in the place provided and it shows you the grammar and spelling errors.

5. Khan Academy

I hope this does not require any introduction. Just head over to the website and there are various free lessons available for most of the courses.

    6. Lumosity

This website provides you puzzle games and brain storming games. Visit this website when you have some time and take up te challenges offered.

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