Tuesday, 29 September 2015

iTunes Album Art
Find Missing Album Art Automatically in iTunes

One of the disadvantages many of us who had MP3 collections before the trend of iTunes and Amazon MP3 is that many of the files lack album art. It’s annoying to browse through CoverFlow and see half your library with pretty pictures and the other half with a generic Icon. Here’s a step-by-step guide to make iTunes search for album art for you.



1. If you haven’t already, download and install iTunes from Apple’s site.

2. During the initial set up, iTunes will encourage you to create an account. While you don’t have to make anaccount to use the application, you do need an account to search for album art. Creating an account is easy, free and only requires an active email address.

3. Wait for the initial set up to finish and import your music library. While this happens, ensure that you are logged in by clicking on the “Store” tab and seeing if it asks you to log in. If so, then you’ll need to enter your email andpassword. If not, you’re already logged in and can move on to the next step.

4. Once all of your music library has been entered into iTunes, click on the Music tab.

5. On the information directory, at the top of the application, click the tab that says “Advanced”

6. In the “Advanced” dialog box, click “Get Album Art Work”

7. The status bar will change to “Getting Album Artwork”. This may take a while depending on the size of your library.

8. After a little while, the status should change to “Downloading Album Artwork” . This again may take a while depending on your music library.

9. Change your view to “Cover Flow” and you will see all or most of the albums missing art work now have some.

This tutorial will work on devices running Windows and/ or Macintosh.

Have you ever left your PC in a hurry? Have you ever felt that it is a pain to lock your system in the simple way by doing CTRL+ALT+DEL? I would imagine that you have and then, this trick is for you. This trick enables you to create a shortcut to lock your computer instead of doing the regular CTRL+ALT+DEL, thus providing you a way to quickly and easily get away from your PC whenever you are in a hurry.


To use this trick, follow the instructions given below:-

Steps
  1. Right Click on an empty space on the Desktop, point to New and click on Shortcut.
  2. In the dialog box that pops up, type the following code without quotes in the Type the location of the item.
rundll32 user32.dll,LockWorkStation
     3.  Click on Next and type a name for the shortcut in the Type a name for this 
          Shortcut textbox.
     4.  Click on Finish.

Create a Shrtcut to lock your System

Now you will be able to lock your computer by double clicking on the created shortcut. You can also add this shortcut to the Quick Launch toolbar to lock your system with only a single click.


Lock Folder Windows
All of us have some files and folders that we consider private. They can be anything from our business documents to pictures of friends and family. These are files that we don't want other people using our computer to know about. As Windows offers no way to protect our private information, most of us get in awkward situations when these files are discovered by unwanted people.

Surely, you can store this information in a hidden folder. The only problem is that anyone can easily search the contents of a hidden folder using Windows Search itself.

The only viable solution is storing this content in a password protected folder so that only those people knowing the password of the folder can access it. There are many folder locking programs available online but the problem is that most of the good ones are paid. Even if you do manage to get a good free one, you will be looked at suspiciously when people see a folder locker in the list of your installed programs.

If you too find yourself in a similar situation, you can try Folder Protector, a password protector for Windows folders that is not only free but is also portable meaning that it does not need to be installed. Just click on the exe file and the program will start running. I have created this program based on suggestions and feature requests that I have received by email over the last two years.

Folder Protector

Folder Protector offers each user a protected folder that can only be opened by entering the password in FolderProtector. Unlike most security programs, Folder Protector is small in size (nearly 58KB) and does not show the folder that it is protecting. This gives an additional advantage that people who don't know the password do not have a target to try and hack their way into. As the software is portable, you can hide it or even delete it after protecting your folder and no one will have a clue that it was used. Then whenever you need to access protected files, you can re-download the program from this page, enter the password and access your protected files.

Download Folder Protector

Download for Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Vista

Download for Windows XP


Important: 1) This program uses a simple method to lock files and should not be used to protect truly sensitive information. It is best to encrypt that kind of information.

2) Do not refresh your Windows when your folder is locked. Doing that will delete your files.

How to use Folder Protector?
When you run Folder Protector for the first time, the program will ask you for a password that you want to use. Enter a password that you can remember as this will be the password to your protected folder.

Lock Folder With Password

After entering the password, the program will open a folder named SecuredFILES. This is your protected folder. You can add all your private files in this folder. This folder is located at the Desktop. After adding all your files, you may close this folder.

Then, you can use the menu in the program to lock your folder. To lock the folder, type lock as your action. After successfully locking the folder, FolderProtector will display that the folder is locked.

Free Folder Lock

Unlocking the protected folder is easy. Just type unlock as your action. Then the program will ask you to enter your password. Upon successfully entering the password, the program will display the contents of your protected folder.

Changing the Password: Just type change as your action. The program will ask you for your current password. Upon successful entry of the current password, the program will ask for your new password and change it instantly.

Acknowledgment: This software has been made possible only through the suggestions of readers of this blog, especially Ernell Albert Galido for his idea of using a menu based interface.

Windows Compatibility: This program has been successfully tested on Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.