Tech Hacks

For movie buffs and anyone who has restrictions to use Torrents.

To download movies directly from Google

Type in search bar
+"index of" "movie name" year of release

For example

+"index of" "deadpool" 2016.

Learning to use a Fire Extinguisher. This might save your life someday.

Remember the PASS word (Pull - Aim - Squeeze - Sweep)

Pull

• Pull the pin in the handle. This will also break the tamper seal.

Aim

• Aim the nozzle (or its hose) at the base of the fire. (Don't touch the plastic discharge hose on CO2 extinguishers, it gets very cold and may damage skin)

Squeeze

• Squeeze the lever (operating handle) slowly. This discharges the extinguishing agent.

Sweep

• Sweep from side to side till you completely extinguish the fire. If the fire re-ignites, repeat step 2 to 4.

Yup! That's it. Now you know how to operate a fire extinguisher.

Word of Caution:

• Don't attempt to extinguish any fire if there is a threat to your safety. If the fire is small and you know how to use a fire extinguisher, you  can attempt to extinguish the fire. Fires can  increase in size and intensity in seconds, blocking the exit path as well as create a hazardous atmosphere.

• Before attempting to extinguish a fire, activate the fire alarm system.

• Know what kind of fire you're dealing with. If you use the wrong type of extinguisher, you might make the problem  worse. If you're not sure, let the fire department handle it.

• Make sure the extinguisher is in good condition and periodically inspected.

• Face the fire in the direction of wind. Aim the extinguisher so the extinguishing agent travels in the direction of the wind, away from the user.

• Other than the type mentioned above, there are few extinguishers (see image) which can be operated by rotating the knob in the anticlockwise direction (just like opening a water tap).

A safety tip:

Recently, one of my friend met with an accident. She went unconscious, people who gathered there tried to help her and took her to the near by hospital. She was carrying her phone and a wallet with some money. When people tried to get information about her, they couldn't.

As she had kept a password to her phone and didn't have any information in the wallet, they had to wait till she got her consciousness back.

This tip helps you in such situations by providing information about you to the people who are trying to help you.

Add your parent's or any other emergency contact information on your phone's owner information without fail.

Steps:

• Go to Settings.
• Click on Security option.
• Click on Owner info - Provide your name and emergency contact numbers here.

This information gets displayed on your screen even before unlocking the phone. As shown below.

This is really help full in situations like accidents. This might even help when you lose your phone and the person who finds it wants to contact you.

Always keep an emergency contact number and your details in your wallet also. Phone and wallets are the two things we always carry around.

How to avoid getting redirected to country specific version of Google?

If you type ' www.google.com' in your address bar, it automatically gets directed to your country's domain specific page.

If you don't want this, you can just type 'google.com/ncr' on your address bar, that will automatically take you to Google’s regular page.

The “ncr” in the link stands for “No Country Redirect” so if you include this on the URL, Google won’t geo-locate your homepage based on your IP address.

Alternatively, if you want to set Google as your homepage and not www.google.co.in,www.google.fr, www.google.co.uk etc, go to your browser’s settings then click the -->"Show Home Button" under "Appearance", click "Change" then a small overlay window will appear. Select "Open this page" then type 'https://www.google.com/ncr' instead of just google.com.

Estimate time with Your Hand

How can you estimate time remaining in case you forgot to take your watch and your mobile phone is out of battery?

Extend your arm fully and count the number of finger widths between the sun and the horizon. Each finger is about 15 minutes, which means each hand width should be about an hour. Remember that this is just an estimate, so if you want to be conservative, make sure to give yourself a bit more time than you measure if you want to get home before dark.

How about estimating the current time?

According to Telling Time Using Only Your Hand you need to know the time of sunrise first but I found it works well even when I don't know the time of the sunrise since I am estimating and not finding the exact time.

Look to the sun on horizon. If there are trees on the horizon, then use the tops of the trees as the horizon.Now hold your arm all the way out, palm side facing you like you're shading your eyes from the sun.

"Pinky" on the start of the horizon. From the bottom of your "Pinky" to the top of your "Pointer" finger,.. that's one hour!

So for example,

Starting at the horizon, lets say that it's three hand withs, stacked on top of each other, to the bottom of the sun...This means it's been light for 3 hours. If sunrise was at 6:00am, that would mean that it's now 9:15 or about 9:30. (Since I've never owned a Cell phone and never wear a watch, this has always been close enough for me.)

The bottom two fingers equals 30 minuets. 

Practise it and depending on whether you are in a jungle or in the city this trick can work as a life saver or an impressive trick.

Create Any Windows Shortcut You Want

Have you ever wanted to do everything in Windows with a simple key combination? This trick will let you open, say google, with a key combination of Alt+G or Ctrl+G or anything else of your choice.

This will barely take 2 minutes to learn.

There is this very simple tool called Autohotkey. This tool does the following things:

1. Define hotkeys for the mouse and keyboard, remap keys and buttons and autocorrect-like replacements.
2. It can create standard Graphical User Interfaces with controls for entry presentation.
3. Parse feeds from a variety of sources for processing and manipulation with regular expressions.

The above image, shows one such usage.

Say, you are sending an email to someone and you end with a signature at the end which is routine. Why write it every time? Instead just automate it.
Pressing "Ctrl + Alt +S" will add your signature to the Email.
Also, "btw", will expand to "by the way". There are many such uses.

How Is It Used?

To use autohotkey, follow these steps:

1. Install Autohotkey from here: autohotkey
2. Right-click an empty spot on your desktop or in a folder of your choice.
3. In the menu that appears, select New -> AutoHotkey Script. (Alternatively, selectNew -> Text Document.)
4. Type a name for the file, ensuring that it ends in .ahk. For example: Test.ahk
5. Right-click the file and choose Edit Script.
6. On a new blank line, type the following:
     #space::Run www.google.com

In the line above, the first character "#" stands for the Windows  key; so #space means holding down the Windows key then pressing the  spacebar to activate the hotkey. The :: means that the subsequent  command should be executed whenever this hotkey is pressed, in this case  to go to the Google web site. To try out this script, continue as  follows:

1. Save and close the file.
2. Double-click the file to launch it. A new icon appears in the taskbar notification area.
3. Hold down the Windows key and press the spacebar. A web page opens in the default browser.
4. To exit or edit the script, right-click the green "H" icon in the taskbar notification area.

There it is. You have just used the Windows Key+Space to open google.com.

More Examples

1. Launching a Program or document
   The Run command is used to launch a program, document, URL, or shortcut. An Example is:
   
   
   
   
   A hotkey can be assigned to any of the above examples by including a hotkey label. In the first example below, the assigned hotkey is Win+N, while in the second it is Control+Alt+C:
   
   
   
   The above examples are known as single-line hotkeys because each  consists of only one command. To have more than one command executed by a  hotkey, put the first line beneath the hotkey definition and make the last line a return. For example:
   
   
2. Manipulating Files and Folders
   To add text to the end of a file (or create a new file), use FileAppend as shown in the following example. Note that it uses `n (linefeed) to start a new line of text afterward:
   
   
   
   
   To overwrite an existing file, use FileDelete prior to FileAppend. For example:
   
   
   
   
   Some of the other commonly used file and folder commands are:
   FileRead: Read the entire contents of a file into a variable.
   File-reading Loop: Retrieve the lines in a text file, one by one.
   IfExist: Determine whether a file or folder exists.
   FileSelectFile and FileSelectFolder: Display a dialog for the user to pick a file or folder.
   FileDelete/FileRecycle: Delete/recycle one or more files. Use FileRemoveDir to delete an entire folder.
   FileCopy/FileMove: Copy/move one or more files. UseFileCopyDir/FileMoveDir to copy/move an entire folder.
   Files-and-folders Loop: Retrieve the files and folders contained in a folder, one at a time.
   FileSetAttrib and FileSetTime: Change the attributes or timestamp of one or more files.
   IniRead, IniWrite, and IniDelete: Create, access, and maintain standard-format INI files.
   RegRead, RegWrite, RegDelete, and Registry Loop: Work with the Windows registry.
3. Graphical User Interface
   The GUI options are a bit lengthy, so I would like to link the documentation here, rather than typing it here. So here is the documentation: GUI 

There are many more uses. The possibilities with this tool are truly vast. On a concluding note, I would like to give some scripts here:

1. AutoHotkey Script Showcase 
   These scripts have been submitted to the official site and there are many scripts on this link. The description is given on the page itself.
2. Show Us Your Best AutoHotkey Script
   See the comments on this lifehacker page. They contain some gems.
3. The Best Time-Saving AutoHotkey Tricks You Should Be Using
   This lifehacker page enumerates some tips and tricks of using this tools.

I hope you found the above interesting.