Google Multiple sign-in

It’s been a long time. And in spite of many of my friends and colleagues saying my blog was useful to them and their friends, my business schedule did not allow me to think or write. Now here I am - after managing to create some time to blog - back with my posts. Keep following my blog. 

I am one of those who use multiple Google accounts to access different Google Services(for various reasons). I used to have trouble with them as I can only login to one account at a time or have to use a different browser or privacy mode in the current browser to access other accounts. Again your options are limited and if you have more than 4 or 5 accounts you are stuck. So what is the solution?

Enable Gmail’s multiple Sign-in.

Here is how you can do that.

• Go to https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageAccount
• You will be asked to login to your account.
• Type in your Google user-id and password and login
• Under personal Settings you will have an option “Multiple Sign-in”

• By default, it is set to "Off". You can use the "Edit" link next to it to change this setting.
• On the next page select the ON radio button and select all the checkboxes below it.

• Then click the “Save” button to bring it to effect.
• Then click on the "Back" link to go back to Google accounts management.

• Now, you can see that your email id which was displayed as a bolded text would have changed to a link with a small drop down arrow next to it.

• When you click on the dropdown arrow you can find an option where you can “Sign in to another account”.

• Once you are logged into multiple accounts you can use the same drop down arrow to switch between accounts.
• Make sure you don't sign out of the default account i.e., the first account which you logged in as signing out of the default account will actually make you sign out of the remaining accounts too.

Please note that the account with which you have signed in first, must have the “Multiple sign-in” enabled to make this work. So you might have to enable “Multiple sign-in” to all your accounts.

After you have done this, you can access multiple Google accounts (services) in different tabs of the same browser. Hope this is a helpful tip to you.

will catch you soon...

Facebook Photo Zoom

If you socialize with Facebook, you might have felt it irritating every time you have to click a photo - Profile Photo, Albums, Wall photos etc.,- to enlarge it and then hit the back button in the browser to continue. This can be easily fixed by customizing the browser by installing a Facebook Photo Zoom Plugin to it. After the installation, the browser starts showing the enlarged picture when you move the mouse pointer over the picture.


This Facebook Photo Zoom plugin is available for both Firefox and Google Chrome Browsers. If you are using any of these browsers install the plugins from the links given below which surely enhances the Facebook experience. 

Facebook Photo Zoom at Work

For Firefox you can click here, click "Add to Firefox" button and then restart the browser to start using this addon.
And for Google Chrome go here and click the "Install" button to enable the extension.

After using it for almost a month now, I find it very useful and addictive that I take my mouse over the thumbnails in other websites like Google images, imdb.com and expect them to show the enlarged picture.

Try these plugins in your browsers and give your feedback.


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until next time.

Hi-speed DNS servers for faster Internet Browsing.

If you have been using internet for some time now, I am sure that you would have faced some kind of a connectivity issue in your computer. One fine morning you switch it ON and try to browse through your favorite websites in your browser, only to see the "Page cannot be displayed" error on the browser. Otherwise your browser will take its own time to show you a simple website like Google. This problem may occur due to various reasons starting from network card issues to some cargo ship scraping over the underwater cable that brings the Internet link to your country.

However most of the time it is just a DNS server issue which can be solved very easily by yourself. Before taking you through the steps, let me explain what a DNS server is. 


DNS Server


Every network device in the Internet like your Laptop, Servers, Routers, etc.,  have to identify itself with a unique address called IP address. You have to use these IP addresses to access or identify a device on the Internet. Sometimes remembering these IP addresses can be very tiring particularly when it comes to remembering the address of a webpage. To make things easier, names like www.microsoft.com or www.google.com are used to represent an IP address of a website.  

In Windows 95 and 98, these names would get stored in your laptop or desktop, so that when you type www.google.com in your browser, it will replace the IP address of Google's web server and try to connect to it. Later this process of storing or caching the web addresses was shifted to distributed servers called DNS (Domain Name Service) servers. Now whenever you type a web address in your browser, a query is made to the DNS server and an IP address is fetched. If your computer cannot contact the DNS server or if your DNS server does not have the web address you typed cached in its database and could not find a website's IP address within the timeout period, you will get a "Page cannot be found" error.

So how will your computer know the IP address of a DNS server which is somewhere in the cloud. It would make a query to another server called DHCP server in your network to find the IP address of the DNS server. If you have a broadband connection in your home or office, your ADSL modem does the job of a DHCP server as well as the DNS server. So your computer will be using this DNS server most of the time to translate the Web addresses. But your modem does not always have enough buffer to hold and serve you with a web address you request. When you make a request for an address that your server does not have, a request is made to a DNS server which is above it - a server maintained by your ISP. So it is always a better idea to use a faster DNS server either from your ISP or from a Public DNS service provider to get your web pages found and loaded quicker.

Changing DNS Settings


Follow the steps given below to manually enter a DNS server address in your Windows PC.

1. Click Start button and then press Run.(Windows Key + R)

2. Type control netconnections and click OK. A window called Network Connections will open now.

3. Right Click the Network connection you use to connect to the Internet (eg. Wireless Network Connection or Local Area Connection.) and click Properties

4. Click the Internet Protocol version 4(TCP/IP) and click Properties.

5. In the TCP/IP properties dialog box, select 'Use the following DNS server Address'.

6. You can type two DNS server addresses in the boxes below it.

7. Type any of the DNS servers' address I have given below and click OK to the dialog boxes that are open to save the settings. I would recommend the Public DNS server address which are more reliable and faster.

List of DNS servers of the ISPs in India.

If you use Airtel Broadband Connection use any of the following DNS servers.

202.56.215.6

202.56.230.6

203.145.184.32

203.145.184.13
202.56.250.5

For BSNL use the following.

61.0.0.5

61.1.96.69

218.248.255.147

218.248.255.146

For Tata Indicom

203.197.12.30

203.197.12.42

For Reliance 

220.225.236.84


List of Public DNS Servers.

Apart from using the above IP addresses you can always use the Public DNS servers given below irrespective of your Broadband connection.


Google
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

Cisco

64.102.255.44

Level 3 Communications

4.2.2.1 

4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6

Verizon

151.197.0.38
151.197.0.39
151.202.0.84
151.202.0.85
151.202.0.85
151.203.0.84
151.203.0.85
199.45.32.37
199.45.32.38
199.45.32.40
199.45.32.43

GTE

192.76.85.133 

206.124.64.1

One Connect IP

67.138.54.100

OpenDNS

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

Exetel

220.233.167.31

VRx Network Services

199.166.31.3

SpeakEasy

66.93.87.2
216.231.41.2
216.254.95.2
64.81.45.2
64.81.111.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
66.92.64.2
66.92.224.2
66.92.159.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.45.2
216.27.175.2
66.92.159.2
66.93.87.2

Sprintlink

199.2.252.10
204.97.212.10
204.117.214.10

User Profiles for Web Browsers - Part II

Creating User Profiles in Google Chrome is not as simple as it was in Firefox which I explained in my previous post. You will have to manually create Profile folders and have to create a shortcut for chrome with the Path of the Profile in the command switch. I wonder why Google has made this option so complicated. Let us go to the steps now.

1. Open Windows Explorer and go to
 for Windows Vista and 7 : C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\
 for Windows XP : C:\Documents and Settings\xxxx\Application Data\Local Settings\Google\Chrome


Note:
xxxx is the Windows User in which you are Logged in.


2. Make a copy of the folder "Default" and Rename it any name you like. Of course, I should be your name. Now this will be the Profile folder for the New Profile we are about to create.

3. Now go to Start and then Press Run (or Windows Key + R). Type the command given below in the Run Dialog box.


chrome.exe --user-data-dir="C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\yyyy" -first-run

Note: 
a. Replace "xxxx" in the path with the Windows User Name and  "yyyy" with the name of the Profile folder Name you gave. 
b. The -first-run switch is used to take the New Profile to the Factory default Settings. 
c. The path should be with the double Quotes 
"C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\yyyy"
d. For Windows XP, use appropriate path.


4.  Create a new shortcut in the desktop and type 


C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe 
--user-data-dir="C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\yyyy"  




in the Location text box.


Note :
For Windows XP, User Appropriate path.


5. Name the Shortcut with the Profile Name and Close it.


From now every time you open the shortcut you created, a new Google Chrome browser will open with an entirely different settings from the Default Profile you are using right now.




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User Profiles for Web Browsers - Part I

This Post will take you through the steps on creating separate user profiles for different users of a common PC or a Laptop that is used by all the family members.

Yeah I can hear you saying "What is the need for a Separate Profile?" or "What is a User Profile?"


Let me answer these Questions before taking you through the steps.


User Profiles


We use User Profiles for User specific Data Storage and Settings. Or Simply put, you can have a user profile in your computer to have your documents, pictures, music, videos etc., for you. You can configure the desktop wallpaper and resolution that suits you. Put shortcuts of the Applications you use frequently to the desktop and you can also customize you start menu.


Meanwhile you can create create a separate User profile for your kids and family members so that they don't meddle with your official documents in your My Documents or change your Preferences like wallpaper.


User Profiles for Web Browsers


Why do we need Profiles for Browsers, anyway?


The answer is simple. Each one of us have different preferences and different patterns of browsing while browsing the internet. You may not want to share it with others or you may want your Browsing History and Bookmarks to be organized and you don't want that to be mixed with browsing data of others who are using your computer.




Now let us see how we can create profiles for different Browsers.


Internet Explorer

 There is no Specific option for creating a separate User profile in IE. But you can maintain a Separate login for individual users using your PC in your Windows operating system. Windows creates a Separate Browser(IE) preferences Folder for every user you create in Windows. This can be tedious, at times, because you will have to completely logout of the User profile you are working on and then login to a new User.


Mozilla Firefox

In Firefox, creating or modifying a User profile is made very simple compared to other browsers. To manage profiles in Firefox, first you will have to close all the Firefox windows. Then Click the Start button and click Run. If Run command is not available in start menu, simply press the Windows key + R on the keyboard. In the Run dialog box type "firefox.exe -ProfileManager" without the quote.

Click OK. Now you should get a dialog similar to the one given below.

Remove the tick mark in the Don't ask at startup check box. Now every-time you click on a firefox shortcut you will be provided with a dialog box like this so that you can select the necessary profile and start Firefox by clicking Start Firefox button.

Click create profile to create a profile. Click Next in the first page of the Wizard that comes up and in the Second page type the Profile name.

You also have an option to select the path for the Profile. This is the location where Firefox stores all your personal data. Click Finish and the new user will be listed in the Choose User Profile window.

You can also use this procedure to troubleshoot problems in Firefox as the new profile will not have any of the addons that you have installed in the previous user.


I will explain about User Profiles in Google Chrome in my next post as we will have to do some manual configuration in Chrome and So I am going to dedicate a complete Post for Chrome's User Profile.


To be continued................




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