Check Against DNSChanger Malware Online

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A new kind of malware is going to be launched on 9th of July,2012 i.e. in about 24 hours from now, we will have a malware affecting the internet with its deadly effects! This malware is called DNSChanger or the Zlob Trojan. But do not worry, TechHive is here for your rescue! We will tell you how to detect if you are infected by such a worm or not and then remove it, if found! Well, this is going to be a pretty easy task if you follow all our steps!

The DNSChanger malware is a deadly thing that is going to go live on 9th of July. It is a malware which will stop all internet access around the world by redirecting all the internet traffic to a particular website, which is again malware infected or a malicious website. The idea behind this is just to make money by redirecting you to a webpage that contains advertisements and then the publisher earns money!

You might want to read How to Stay Malware Free : A Guide. This is a post that I shared with everyone a few months back  and it still proves beneficial!

The DNSChanger malware acts in the same was as any other malware on the internet. It will get into your Windows Registry and then change all the DNS settings to redirect it to a particular address and hence the name DNSChanger. The procedure to detect if you are infected by such a malware is pretty simple. Just follow the following 3 steps and you would know what is your status!

How to Check DNSChanger Malware

1. Open up your web browser and go to the following link : http://www.dns-ok.us


2. It will show you your current status. If the background of the image is green, you are safe. If it is red, you are in trouble!
   


3. If you are in trouble, then get hold of a DNSChanger Removal tool ASAP.

This is all we have for you for now! If you want your friends and family to stay safe, share this post with them on Facebook, Twitter or any other way you wish to! Spread the word around! Stay tuned for more updates on this topic! Keep Subscribed to TechHive to receive our updates in your Mailbox daily! You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

Lazy Loading Images : Reasons to Choose

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Lazy Loading is a way of loading your content on a webpage, often used for images. It is a thing made using the jQuery, which is an extension of JavaScript in a way. Well, getting on the topic, Lazy Loading is a way to speed up the loading time of your page. It working is not complicated when you look at it from a layman's point of view, but definitely gets complicated once you look at it from the view of a programmer or a developer.

 

What is Lazy Loading?

According to the developers across the world, Lazy loading is a designing technique that increases the efficiency or decreases the loading time of an object or a webpage by declaring a few variables as and when needed. This means that the object is not loaded until it is required by the program or by the end-user. This in turn speeds up the loading time and hence termed as Lazy Loading!

Why Choose Lazy Loading?

As I have already told you that Lazy loading is a way to speed up the loading time of a webpage, it is quite obvious why would one want to choose Lazy Loading over normal loading of images on their webpage. It really decreases the page loading time as it just loads all that is currently visible to the eye and when you scroll down, it shows you the rest of the images, i.e. it loads them at that point!

Have a look at :

• Tips to Speed Up Your Blog Loading Time

Lazy Loading in WordPress

This task can be achieved with the help of certain plugins or by manually coding it in! If you are running your WordPress blog on Thesis theme, just like TechHive, then it is better you code it yourself! If not, then you can download any one of the following plugins :

• Lazy Load


• jQuery Image Lazy Load WP

This is a post in our Speed up your blog series! There are many more to come! Stay tuned for more updates on these topics! Keep Subscribed to TechHive to receive our updates in your Mailbox daily! You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

Google Analytics Mobile App Available Now

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Google Analytics is the leading online website metric system and what is better than having that thing on your Android Mobile phone for being updated on the go! It is indeed a powerful tool for all Bloggers and Webmasters who own an Android Smartphone. It is an app that everyone should install on their phone in order to keep a track of your website on the Go!



Well, quoting the Google Analytics post on the Google Play Store here. This is what they have to say!

Essential data for your sites & apps. Anywhere, anytime.The Google Analytics app shows what is new and what is important on your Google Analytics profiles. See real time statistics, customizable dashboards and intelligence events on your phone.

Google Analytics Mobile Features :

• Shows you Real Time Statistics.


• Shows you the Unique Visitors, Page Views and Returning Visitors.


• Shows you any goals that you have set up on your Analytics account.


• You can set up Custom Alerts for yourself that will notify you of any change in your website!


• And it is pretty much like the Google Analytics Website.

Screenshots of Google Analytics Mobile App :

Verdict :

I would say that downloading and installing this app on your Android Smartphone is definitely a plus point for your Blog's productivity. If it does not increase your productivity, it will definitely not make it worse.

Download Google Analytics Mobile App

Get the Google Analytics Mobile App or scan the following QR Code to download it directly to your mobile phone.


This is a news article that you just read on TechHive and remember that this is where you read it first! Do Bookmark us and visit us back! Stay tuned to TechHive for more news and technology related tips and tricks! We provide all types of News and Tips, on Google, Android, iPhone, iPod and what not!  Keep Subscribed to TechHive to receive our updates in your Mailbox daily! You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

VPN for iPhone, iPod, iPad : Free

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VPN services are getting very common these days to protect one's identity online! And if you are one of those who uses a lot of internet on your Gadgets apart from a computer, i.e. on your iPad, iPhone or the iPod, then you also need to secure your internet usage on these devices. There are various paid and free VPN services available for the Desktop computers or laptops, but not for handheld devices. There are some available for a cost for the iPhone, iPod or the iPad. I recently found a free VPN service for the iPhone, iPod or the iPad and it is working pretty good on my iPod Touch 3rd Generation.



Here is a tutorial on how to set up a VPN on your iPhone, iPod or the iPad. The procedure is the same for all the devices. The procedure is divided into two parts. One part on your computer and the other on your iPhone. Let's begin with the first part now!

Get Free VPN Access - Register

• First, you will have to go to Very Fast VPN and register for an account.


• After you have completed the registration process, login to your account and visit this link to find a server for yourself. Since you have signed up for a free trial, make sure you choose the server which says Free Trial  next to it.
  


•  By finding a server, I just meant note down the IP Address of the server provided there.

Well, this concluded the first part of the tutorial. Now to set up this VPN on your iPhone, proceed to the next part of the post!

Set up Free VPN on iPhone

• I hope you have the server address which you copied in the previous step. Now, on your iPhone, open settings and go to General.
  


• Then choose Network and then VPN.
  


• Then choose Add VPN Configuration and do the following settings. Make sure you put the correct IP Address and the username and password otherwise it will not work! In the field marked Secret, enter "veryfastvpn" without the quotes. And make sure that Proxy is set to "Off"
  


• Now on the page that appears, choose VPN On but before that, make sure you are connected to a WiFi or a 3G Network.


• If you did everything as guided, you will see something like this!
  

 

There is just one drawback of this free Service that it is a trial period of about 2 Hours. It is not 2 hours of usage it is 2 hours from the time of registering your account. So, register your account when you are going to use the VPN Service on your iPhone or iPod! Choose wisely. Stay tuned to TechHive to know more tips and tricks about iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android and everything else! Keep Subscribed to TechHive to receive our updates in your Mailbox daily! You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

Colour Splash Photoshop Effect

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Yesterday, I shared a Photoshop tutorial, in which I shared How to Perform a Perfect Selection in Photoshop. This is a tutorial in continuation with that one. If you have not read that yet, I would say go and read that before you proceed further.



In this tutorial, I will tell you how to make an awesome Color Splash Effect in Photoshop. A color splash effect is something like the image below. It is that an object is highlighted in color while the rest of the part of the image is changed to look black and white! This is just a simple thing to do if you know how to perform a perfect selection of your object. If not, go ahead and read this tutorial first.

• Photoshop Perfect Selection Tutorial

Perfect Color Splash Effect in Photoshop

1. Before I proceed further, I am assuming that you are familiar with the Photoshop Perfect Selection Tutorial.


2. Open up your image in Photoshop and select the object you want to splash color using the tutorial described above.


3. Then, making sure that you have that selected, duplicate your Background layer or the Layer 0 and make sure it is above the default background layer.
    


4. Then, select the duplicate layer and press delete on your keyboard. This will delete the selected part on your Copied layer. Now, press CTRL + D on your keyboard to deselect.


5. Now, keeping the duplicate layer selected, go to Image -> Adjustments -> Black and White and press OK.
    


6. If by mistake some of your object turns out black and white, it means that the selection was not proper. But to correct this, use the eraser tool and erase the area on the top(Duplicate) layer.


7. Voila! This is you awesome Perfect Color Splash effect in Photoshop!
    

Color Splash Effect Tutorial Video :

Well, if this was not enough for you, stay tuned to TechHive to learn more and more Photoshop Tutorials and effects in Photoshop! Keep Subscribed to TechHive to receive our updates in your Mailbox daily! You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

FeedBurner feed not updating on WordPress? Here is a Fix

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FeedBurner is a free RSS Provider service by Google. This is a service that we use here at TechHive also. Yesterday when I published Photoshop Perfect Selection Tutorial, I was shocked to see that it did not appear in my RSS Feeds. This gave me a shock! It had been almost an hour and still nothing updated in the RSS Feeds and then I started worrying! Generally, FeedBurner has a time difference of about 30 minutes from when you post and when you get but since it had been more than that, I was getting angry at the service!

But just then I started looking for solutions for this problem and found out a few ways that worked for me! I tried about 2 or 3 ways and almost all proved to work for me. Then i decided to share these with everyone out here. So, here are a few things that you can give a try if you face these problems!

Check your Cache Plugin on WordPress

I am using the W3 Total Cache Plugin on TechHive and I also use it to Cache my feeds. I thought maybe this is what is causing the problem. I cleared the cache and also unchecked the Cache Feeds option. Then I waited sometime for the FeedBurner feed to update and voila! The feed was updating successfully! So, in order to do these, you need to perform a few steps.

• Go to your Plugin's Configuration page (Page Cache if W3 Total Cache)


• Look for Cache Feeds option and deselect it.


• Maybe this will have solved your problem!

Set Limit on the Items in Feed

WordPress by default has an option to keep the latest 10 news items in the news feed. But sometimes the bloggers decide to increase this to about 15 or so. But when you do something like that, it increases the size of the feed and hence FeedBurner can not process it easily. It takes up a lot of time processing it. So, the solution to this will be to go to Reading Settings on your WordPress blog and enter 10 as the items to keep in the Syndication Feeds.

Show Article Summary in Feeds

Again, by default WordPress keeps the full article in the RSS Feeds. But when you keep the full RSS Feeds on your Blog, it again increases the size of your RSS Feed and FeedBurner can not handle it. I read somewhere on the internet that FeedBurner can handle around 512KB size of the feed but if it exceeds it faces problems. Maybe that is the problem you have. The solution for this problem is to just make sure you choose Show Summary in RSS Feeds on the Reading Settings page of your WordPress Blog.

Activate Pingshot on FeedBurner

Pingshot is a service provided by FeedBurner which makes sure that your Feeds are always up to date. If any of the above things did not solve your problem, this is the thing you should try! This should be activated anyways because it makes updating your feeds an easier task for FeedBurner. So to do this, follow these steps.

• Login to your FeedBurner Account.


• Choose Publicize on the tabs on the top.


• Choose Pingshot from the list on the left and then choose activate this service.

Resync your Feed on FeedBurner

If none of the above things worked for you, maybe this is the last thing you can try to fix it! This is an option in FeedBurner which re-syncs your feed from the source. To use this feature, follow these steps.

• Login to your FeedBurner Account.


• Choose Troubleshootize from the tabs on the top.


• Scroll down till you find a button that says Resync Now.


• Click on that button and it will resync your feed with the source.

Well, these were the possible solutions for your problem! If you still face problems with your FeedBurner Feeds, feel free to contact me using the contact page or use the comments section below! Stay tuned to TechHive to know more about everything! Keep Subscribed to TechHive to receive our updates in your Mailbox daily! You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

eBook Reader for Android : The Top 2

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Reading books is a good habit but with the development of technology, everything got digital. Even these books got digital! Everything is available in e-format these days. But purchasing an eBook Reader is not a simple task for a lot of people and also they do not find it sensible enough to buy one! So, the next thing to choose for reading an eBook is your own mobile phone and if you have an Android smart phone, try these apps on your Android device which I rank as top 2 eBook readers.

Android market is flooded with apps for almost anything including eBook Reader and choosing the one for your need is a big task! So, here I am sharing the top 2 eBook Reader for Android devices which are available for free on the Google Play Store.

Aldiko eBook Reader for Android :

Aldiko eBook reader has two versions, a free one and a paid one called the Aldiko eBook Reader Premium. This is one of my favorite eBook reader for Android as it provides many features that other apps fail to provide. Also, i like the color scheme used in this application as it suits my eyes and does not cause pain in the eyes! Here are a few salient features of the free version.

• Support EPUB, PDF formats as well as Adobe DRM encrypted eBooks.


• Support eBooks from public libraries.


• Fully customizable reading experience: adjust font size, font type, font and background colors, margin, alignment, line spacing as well as brightness to best suit your preference. The Aldiko Book Reader also supports night-time reading.


• User-friendly interface: the Aldiko Book Reader supports both Android phones and tablets. You can create your own bookmarks anywhere in the book, rapidly jump to a different section of the book through the table of content.


• Other cool features not to miss: global-text search in a book, dictionary, add your own favorite catalogs and many more


• And many more...

Get the Aldiko eBook Reader :

Scan the following QR Code or Get Aldiko eBook Reader from Google Play Store.

Kindle eBook Reader for Android :

The Kindle app for Android is my second favorite app for eBook reading. I use it mainly for reading documents rather than reading an eBook on it. It also provides a lot of features which I really like. Here are a few salient features of the Kindle App for Android.

• Read Free Books—Choose from thousands of free ebooks such as Pride & Prejudice or The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.


• Shop for Books—Easily shop for ebooks, including new releases and New York Times Best Sellers.


• Sync Your eBooks—The Kindle app lets you read the same book across devices and automatically syncs where you left off so you can start reading on one device and pick up where you left off on another device. The app syncs your furthest page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights between Android, PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7, and any of our Kindle devices using our Whispersync technology.


• Borrow eBooks from the Library—Check out ebooks from your local library and have them delivered wirelessly to your Kindle app.


• Sync up your documents with this app by sending it an email with the document attached!


• And many more...

Get the Kindle eBook Reader :

Scan the following QR Code or Get Kindle App  for Android from Google Play Store.



Well, this is all we have for this article for now! Stay tuned to TechHive to know more tips and tricks about Android, iPhone, iPod and all other gadgets! Keep Subscribed to TechHive to receive our updates in your Mailbox daily! You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.