pastebin.com, viemo, dailymotion and major torrent sites blocked in India

While looking for code of a very typical problem I navigated to pastebin.com url and to my surprise this site was also razed by DOT ( Department Of Telecommunication).  pastebin.com is one of the popular websites among software developers to share source code and examples. Upon Googling I came to know that few more sites Vimeo.com, DailyMotion.com, Xmarks.com and all major torrent sites has been blocked by DOT because of .

These sites were banned after civil lawsuit filed by Copyright Labs to prevent copyright infringement of their upcoming movies. Banning torrent sites and illegal music download sites seems legitimate but, this act on xmarks.com  which is a popular bookmarking website and viemo.com, dailymotion.com, pastebin.com doesn’t seem properly thought through. This way they will end up banning everything and bring you back in 90’s. Who knows what's lined up ahead …. just wait and watch the “Dance of Democracy”.

Increase you Internet Speed - Find the best DNS servers based your location

Is your Internet connection giving the best performance?  You might have purchased the best available plan but still not satisfied with the speed. Whichever type of internet connection ( DSL, 3G, ADSL, EDGE, Broadband) you are using, there is always a possibility to tweak it.

Domain Name Server (DNS) is a translator that converts the website name to an IP address. When you click on the hyper-link, or enter an address like www.yahoo.com in your browser, the browser sends the name to DNS servers that help route requests to the proper IP address URL. When you configure the ISP's Internet connection is set up to use your ISP's DNS service. However, you are free to use other alternatives. As such, you can use Open DNS or Google Public DNS etc., to replace your ISP's DNS.

Open DNS offers rich content-filtering options for privacy and security of the family. Google Public DNS has been engineered by Google techies for faster performance and better security. However, because of the complex variables involved, there is no single option can be said to be the best for all. So how do you know the DNS is the fastest for you? you can use the NameBench  tool, which is a free tool to help you find the fastest DNS for. NameBench is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and UNIX with GUI as well as command line interface.

NameBench hunts down the fastest DNS servers available for your computer to use. namebench runs a fair and thorough benchmark using your web browser history, tcpdump output, or standardized datasets in order to provide an individualized recommendation. namebench is completely free and does not modify your system in any way.

After scanning is complete NameBench displays a through report with recommended  DNS configuration for you system. Before making DNS changes just note down the settings and apply recommendations given by the this free tool. Apply the new settings and enjoy the Increased Speed.

Download namebench from Google Code

How to search websites written in other languages?

Technology can do amazing things. We can read websites which are written in other languages by using online tools like Google Translator, Babelfish Translator .

What if you want to search for some region specific content and want to target only the content which has been written in a different language which you can’t understand. Google Translator also provides  a nice tool which does this work for you. It simply asks for the language you want your search to run and the search work.

The search output is presented in a very nice manner where you can see the search results and it’s translation in English side by side (see the image above).

Visit Translated Search page on Google

Microsoft Network Diagnostics tool for Windows XP

The Network Diagnostics for Windows XP tool can help troubleshoot some of the most common connection problems in a home networking environment.

To diagnose network connectivity status, the Network Diagnostics for Windows XP tool analyzes the following tests:

• IP configuration test
• Default gateway test
• Winsock test
• DNS test
• Firewall test
• Internet connectivity validation test 

How to run the Network Diagnostics for Windows XP tool

• In Microsoft Internet Explorer, click Diagnose Connection Problems on the Tools menu.
• Click Start, click Run, type %windir%\network diagnostic\xpnetdiag.exe, and then click OK.
• Run Guided Help for Microsoft Knowledge Base article 326155.

Download Microsoft Network Diagnostics tool for Windows XP

Use Windows live Skydrive as Online Backup Storage - 25-GB

Windows Live SkyDrive is a reliable online file storage service from Microsoft. You can store and share any kind of files or documents here. Since it is a web based service no installation is required and you get 25 GB of enormous free space for storage. The maximum size of single file allowed is 50 MB.

Apart from web based uploading interface Skydrive also comes with uploader tool which allows you to easy drag and drop interface for upload. Download for Uploader tool  is available in File Add Screen(see image below) .

Visit Window Live Skydrive

Online Internet Speed Check

How to check my Internet Speed ?  Below are some freely available Online Speed Test Utility. You can choose any depending upon your need or choice :

Flash 8 plugin based speed test
Accurate for tests of residential DSL and cable connections

Sun Java plugin based speed test
Capable of higher speed testing, for example, fiber

Simple Mobile Speed Test (http://text.dslreports.com/mspeed)
For even very dumb phone browsers

NATIVE iPhone Speed and Latency app
Iphone appstore free speed test. Load via itunes from this link, or load from your iphone, search for 'network speed test' by dslreports.com!

iPhone browser Speed and Latency Test Beta speedtest, for full browsers on smart phones (such as iPhone)