How to replace Sony Vaio FW Keyboard?

So you spilled your Soda in your keyboard when you’re snoozing?? or did one of your stupid friend tried to wipe your keyboard with water?? But before you have the comfort of knowing that you can replace your keyboard what you may want to do is flip the laptop upside down for all the liquid to drain out and once you feel that you have drained all the water out then save your work and shut down the computer and let it dry for couple of hours.

But, if you just fail to notice the fluid getting all inside your keyboard and if it’s too late then fear not as replacing keyboard is not a rocket science, and you don’t need to pay an extra $60 to show it to mechanics either.

(But before you do this I have to warn you that it will void your warranty, so do it on your own risk)

What I will be showing you here is replacing keyboard for Sony Vaio FW but in general all the process are same for any laptop keyboards(not considering the screw locations i.e)

So without further a do here’s the wonderful steps.

(Video is at the bottom if you don’t feel like reading the steps.)

1. I don’t think I need to tell you to shut down your PC to do this.

2. Plug out the A/C Charger and take out the battery.

3. Get a Jeweler’s screwdriver, something like this.

4. Depending on the type of screw your laptop has select the proper tool and start unscrewing.

5. Now, I will talk specifically for Sony Vaio FW for the screw part that you should unscrew. On the sides of battery and one just below the battery sitting in the middle.

6. After that unscrew the two screw that’s inside the battery compartment.

7. Unscrewed?? Good, now it’s time to take off the speaker cover. It might need a force but be gentle. Use a knife if you have to, there are certain locks so apply pressure on the locks and not the end of speaker cover.

As shown in image below there should be a grid to let the cover pop out.

8. After you have unlocked all the locks you should have something like this.

9. Before you get excited and start taking out the component of the keyboard make sure you unscrew the screw that’s shown in the image. (Sorry for the quality of image but I only had cellphone when I did this but you should know where the screw is by now, well it’s not really a screw but when you flip the keyboard you should see the screw.

10. Now take the keyboard out, once again it has certain locks on the side and the bottom.

11. Now take the keyboard out, it should have a wire thing plugged in the keyboard. That’s the thing that connects your keyboard to laptop. The hardest thing is taking out and plugging it back in.

In Sony Vaio it is plugged in and taped by a yellow strip.

12. Get your new keyboard and and stick it on the red marked like above in the image. (In other laptops there should be a some kind of latch or some form that attaches the strip to the connector.)

13. Make sure that strip is plugged in real good if it comes out then you might have to do this again, which is kind of frustrating.

14. Don’t screw yet plug the keyboard and put your battery, make sure the keyboard works.

15. If it works then make sure you lock everything, and screw everything back to where it was and your new keyboard will be ready to be typed.

If you don’t want to read all this then check out the video I made for this. (Once again, I shot this from my cell phone so you will not find the best of quality in the video either)

Technorati Tags: sony,keyboard,howto

Zune HD unveiling

This is a must buy for any music/tech enthusiast. Even though not all the features are not fully disclosed from the looks of it, it looks and feels great. The main attraction is however the OLED and operating system and not to mention the improved UI. Just take a look at the video.

Zune HD Hands On

Source: Engadget

Linux and the credit card

Recently Linux Foundation launched it’s own branded credit card for advancement of Linux OS. But I just can’t seem how that will help Linux bring the user to use their OS. Sure the $50 will go to Linux Foundation on every activation will this really help?? I just wonder how will people look at the Linux Credit card when they have to pay their bills. But whatever the marketing scheme, a credit card is indeed a credit card so don’t go rushing into getting one just because you are a huge fan of Linux. Look at them Terms of Condition of the card itself and only apply if you are happy with it. And yes, it comes with TUX.

Apply here for Linux Card

 

Also if you are a fan of BSD then there is a credit card for that too.

Apply here for BSD Card

Technorati Tags: credit,linux,card

Do you like the new homepage of Yahoo?

 

Yahoo, still struggling on the market share, is still fighting back. Today Yahoo presented it’s new homepage that let’s you bookmark any page in the homepage. It not only bookmarks but shows a live preview of that page and in some cases lets you interact with the preview too.

Check it out yourself!!

http://m.www.yahoo.com/

Technorati Tags: poll,yahoo,homepage

Sign up for Google Wave

First announced in 21st July 2009 Google Wave is a communication and collaboration tool that lets you merge email, instant messaging and other social networking.

If you are not afraid of bugs and errors and eager to try out the beta version when it gets released on September 30th.

The 1 and half hour long presentation of Google Wave

 

The 10 minute summary of the same presentation if you are short on time.

Sign up for Google Wave

Sources:

[www.phonedog.com]

Top 7 Tech News this week

1. The Office 2010 Introduction with videos:-

One of the biggest asset of Microsoft, Office with it’s great new features announced  the introduction to Microsoft Office 2010 with videos which previously was either just a teaser or just a screenshot. The new Office is more social than the previous version of Office. Now you can work on one document by more than one people at the same time.

Microsoft Office also announced it’s online version of Office which runs on any browser now.(Thank God!! Microsoft is not limiting to their own products ie IE)

Check out the videos below:-

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office Word

Microsoft Office Excel

Microsoft Office Web Application

Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft Powerpoint

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Access

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace

Microsoft Publisher

2. Windows Azure official release date:-

After the announcement of their Office 2010 Microsoft also announced their new cloud computing OS. Surprisingly Azure will be charged as a service and not the product. If you are to get this cloud computing then you pay $0.12 per hour and $0.15 per GB for a month. Azure will be commercially available in mid November on PDC

3. iPhone 3.1 beta 2 OS released:-

The new beta of iPhone OS was announced which introduced wifi connection to your development machine so that you don’t need to use your connecter anymore but it does kill tethering and also it is said that the itunes no longer support Palm Pre. A bad thing? Probably yes but Apple must have good reason to do that.

4. Windows Mobile will open App Store to Developers:-

On July 27 the developers can start working on Windows Mobile Apps which is an initiative for the Windows Marketplace for Mobile platform.

5. Google Task to be default:-

As of now Google Task will be set as a default in Gmail which previously needed to be activated from Google Labs. It still needs lot of improvement but still is good for simple tasks.

6. Google Doc Redesign coming:-

Google announced that Google Doc will be heavily redesigned interface most importantly to rival the recent announced Office web?? Personally I feel that Google is not known for it’s eye candy looks but then again they proved that wrong with Chrome. Wonder what they will try this time.

7. Palm Pre SDK Mojo launched :-

For those developers eager to develop your own app has freedom to do so with the recently announced SDK

Download SDK

 

Technorati Tags: windows,office,google,palm pre,sdk,iphone,itunes,mojo

The quick overlook of Google Chrome OS and Google itself !!

Ok let’s go way back when Google was just a search engine company partnering with Yahoo to get their funds. Whoever thought Google would come this far? EVERYONE!! The day when our Bill Gates failed to notice what this thing called Internet is all about was when people have realized that the Web is the next big thing to happen to computer after the birth of computer.

        Now let’s look at your life and imagine what you do most of the time. We try to find the answer. Even when I asked you to imagine, you were searching for answers. Search is one of the most frequent thing that humans or any living beings do. And Google as being a search engine had a strong base already and being a sole search engine back in those days played a huge role in Google’s development.

        With the increase in the websites and improvement in Web came the increase to search more. The more things you have, the more you have to dig through to find. Microsoft didn’t realize that until they started the whole Live Search campaign. But Google was already ahead of the game with the search engine. It took the advantage of the web and made those web apps to synchronize your life perfectly. All you needed was a browser to let you synchronize everything. But it’s not just the computer that people wants to be synchronized. People are always on a move and always communicating with one another with their cell phones. There hadn’t been any laptop small enough to be carried in your pocket and make phone calls at the same time. Hence Google entered the mobile world with their Android OS. But Android still needed a browser in their new OS and right then came the new browser of Chrome. A perfect tool of Google to synchronize everything at anytime. You do your word processing on browser, you organize your work in browser, you chat in your browser, you socialize in browser, you listen to the music in browser, you watch movies in browser, you play games in browser.

From the look of it, it is not surprising that your whole point of starting a computer is to start your favorite browser and surf the web cause almost everything you needed was there..except those big games (in future those also might just come true)

For a normal people virtually everything was on the internet. With just a Gmail account you had various services for free which you would have to buy. So how does Google earn money?? Advertisement!! Google took great advantage of them, After that successful campaign Google started taking over certain services and sites that has potentially changed the Web including Youtube and Grand Central. I won’t be surprised to see if Youtube is the TV Station and Google Voice aka Grand Central to be the phone service of Chrome OS. The offline version of Google apps were all the clues of this thing to come.

So the Google Chrome OS was nothing much of surprise for me. Sooner or later it was bound to happen and today was the day that Google officially announced it.

What’s next?

The computer which if just connected to Internet has entire OS on the Web. Sounds impossible…that’s what people said when The Wright Brothers wanted to fly on a wooden object.

 

Google Chrome OS is set to launch somewhere in the mid of 2010.

A big blow to Microsoft?? Not quite, Microsoft is also working on their new browser/OS called Gazelle. So let’s see when Microsoft will announce their browser/OS.

Technorati Tags: google,os,chrome,browser,internet,news

An apology for taking a break

As of now my blog will be less regular than it was. It will be back soon in future. Let’s just say I am moving into more serious stuffs right now.

Windows 7 pre-orders begin

Just in case you didn’t know the pre-order for Windows 7 started today. And the beauty of pre-ordering is that you get Windows 7 for half the amount than the retail price but hurry the pre-order ends on July 11th or while supplies last.

Windows Home Premium Upgrade : $49.99

Windows Professional Upgrade: $99.99

This is in US only. In U.K pre-orders won’t start until July 15th. That’s like 20 days away from today. Anyway start pre-ordering today!!

Pre-Order Windows 7

Technorati Tags: windows,pre-orders,offers

What to expect on this fall?

Palm Pre SDK

If you still haven’t what Palm Pre is all about then you should first look at the video below.

Now you should also know that it uses webOS a Linux based OS. And Palm promises that SDK(Software Development Kit) will be released after the summer following the delay of course . Wait for that one if you are a software developer.

Release date:- Late summer

Zune HD

Even though the previous Zune has not really created that much of a competition for iPod there’s something about Zune HD that's just more appealing than iPod. The design and the OS both looks pretty awesome with the multi-touch, OLED display and the nvidia Tegra chip which means that it’s as powerful as your netbook or so they say.

Check out the video from Engadget:-

 

Release Date:- 5th September

HTML 5

Till now many people frown upon using HTML as lacking many features but HTML 5 tries to bring a lot of features most notably the video feature of HTML 5 where your video can be a website within using Javascript. Also many tags have been modified and will see changes for those who are used to HTML 4.

Release date:- Suppose to be October 2009 but it just depends on the browser whether they are supporting or not. Firefox 3.5 final release is supposed to support HTML 5. It’s really upto the browser for this one.

Watch the presentation of HTML 5 by Ian Hickson:-

Technorati Tags: summer,fall,release,palm pre,html 5,zune hd

Opera: Reinvent the Web

Ok so by now we know that Opera’s releasing their new version but this time Opera has something big for us. Opera promised to reinvent the web and in a way I think it did. Turning your web browser as a server is not something you would have expected from Opera but Opera being the underdog in browser world with new features brought us this amazing feature. I always hoped for some feature like this and finally the browser has built in on it. No extra software no extra plugin you download the Opera and you got it in.

The possibilities?? Well, for once you have control over your computer from anywhere around the world. Even on your cellphones. Sharing is so much easier between your friends and families and even yourself.

You can share files, photos, media files, notes and even can start the chat without extra application and share the folder you like..

Of course since your browser now acts as a server your computer or server needs 24 hour internet connection that is if you want your file to be accessible 24 hours or else the choice is on your own.

You’ll need an Opera account and with that account you setup your own url for people to share your stuffs. Usually the url starts with the chosenamecomputername.username.operaunite.com.

You chooose which files you want to share with friends or to the world and which you want to make private. Just share your url and you are done.

Opera Unite Intro

 

Opera Unite Tutorial

Download Operaunite

Technorati Tags: opera,browser,download

How to get Windows 7 for free or for low amount..

If you purchase Windows Vista after June 26th then you are officially eligible to upgrade to Windows 7 for free or for low amount after the release of Windows 7 on Oct 22nd atleast that’s what Best Buy says to their customer. But all this is just rumor or is it?

Technorati Tags: windows,release,upgrade

Microsoft Office 2010 going for free!! Yes there is a catch

First Microsoft gives out Windows 7 RC free for 1 year now they are giving out Office 2010 for free!!! But how do the big company like Microsoft make money if they keep giving out for free you say? Well it will definitely be ad supported duh!! as if that was a new idea. Office will have two version of the free Office 2010 the web based and the desktop based. But if you want no ads on your Office then you also can buy the suite. The decision is up to you.

Technorati Tags: microsoft,office,free

Windows 7 to be released on Oct 22nd

Microsoft has officially declared that Windows 7 will be launched officially on October 22nd 2009. If you have not yet tested the RC version of Windows 7 then try it and you figure out for yourself if you really want to buy Windows 7 or not. Pricing has not been released yet.

Download Windows 7 RC build 7100

Technorati Tags: windows,rc,release

Getting out of Recovery Mode in iPod on Windows w/o iBrickr

 

If you are an iPod Touch/iPhone user then yes there are lot of ways to get you out of the dreaded recovery mode including iBrickr, iFuntastic (Mac) and others but I am not here to talk about the iBrickr or iFuntastic but with only your iTunes and a little bit of command prompt. For Windows XP user you might need to download diskpart utility for this to work.

Download diskpart here (Not required for Windows Vista or above user) Also I have to warn you, use my method only if everything else fails. And I think it is not necessary to mention you that all of your iPod contents will be lost in the process.

Ok so let’s get to it. Sometimes there comes a day when even if you try to recover from iTunes you keep getting stuck in that same Recovery Mode. iBrickr does not detect your iPod then you know it's time for some brute force method to your iPod.

Follow the procedure below and comment on any problem you faced:-

 
1)Goto Start and type "cmd" if you are in Windows Vista and if you are in Windows XP then type it in run command.
2)After reaching to the command prompt type "diskpart" (Mind you that if you are in Windows XP or if you don't have diskpart utility installed in your computer then you are supposed to install it and only run diskpart)
3)Once you are in diskpart type "list disk" without the quotes.

4)Diskpart will display all the disks you have plugged in your computer. Find out the one which your iPod is and type "select disk 1" In my case my iPod was disk 1 hence disk 1 if your iPod is disk 2 or anything else you should do so.

5)Then type "list partition", your iPod should have only one partition called "partition 1"

6)So now type "select partition 1". Diskpart will display that your partition is selected.

7)Before following this process make sure you selected the corrected disk while doing list disk or else your disk will be completely wiped. Ok I'll assume you selected the disk that relates to iPod.
Now type "clean". 
8)After cleaning type "create partition primary" .
9)After creating partition type "format fs ntfs quick" (this will wipe all your content from iPod)
10) And the last yet crucial part type "assign" and you're done with the diskpart exit diskpart by typing "exit" and exit command prompt by typing "exit" as well
11)Unplug your iPod from your computer and then plug it again.
12) Open your iTunes it should again say that your iPod is detected in Recovery Mode, press the recover button in iTunes and follow the instructions, hope you got internet connection for this or else iTunes can't restore the firmware in your iPod. (if you have firmware then you can Shift + Click on the recover mode and choose the location of the firmware).
13)After this restoration then you will be prompted to input your iPod Name and there!! You got out of recovery mode without any additional application.
For those who do not want to follow these process you can try Ziphone or try iBrickr

Technorati Tags: iPod,recovery,repair,diskpart

Windows 7 RC is here

For the people who still don’t have any idea that Windows 7 RC is available for download today then here’s the buzz again.

Download the RC in Windows Official site

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

Technorati Tags: windows,rc,download,microsoft

Mark the date “May 4th” – Windows 7 RC

 

Now that we all know the look and feel of Windows we know what Windows 7 has stored in for us. As of May 4th 2009 Windows 7 RC will officially be launched on Microsoft and may be additional sources. The leaked version of RC is already available in torrents. If you don’t want to wait long till May 4 download the RC in torrents

Windows 7 RC Build 7100 X86 (32bit)

Windows 7 RC Build 7100 X64 (64bit)

Technorati Tags: torents,windows,download

Useful Web 2.0 sites you may not know

Let’s face it. We are now literally living on clouds and by clouds I mean we are in constant need of Internet. And for us who live in cloud we want everything to be in cloud right? We don’t want to come back down and get what we need, meaning your PC or Mac has all your setting tweaked to you liking and has all the programs you want. What if, one day you are at your friends house without your laptop without all your personal setting? I don’t know about you but I like the computer I am working to be in my own customized settings and what better way to get the customized settings wherever I want than get all my settings on cloud.

Which is why there are ton of Web 2.0 sites that will make your life easier and much more to your liking. Here are some of them:-

www.speedtile.net

This is my ultimate site for bookmarking sites. It is like a feature in Google Chrome, Safari and Opera with thumbnail as your bookmark. The nice thing about this site is that it even has firefox plugin which makes bookmarking that easy. And the thing I miss most is my firefox bookmark bar. I have all my favorite bookmark right there but when I don’t have my firefox with me speedtile.net comes very handy.

What would be really cool is to import all the bookmark from firefox to speedtile.net. But I don’t think that’s available in the site, not till now though.

You’ll have to create an account for this site but I think it’s obvious. And you can also arrange them in different order. Give it a try and you might think “How could I have lived without this site?”

www.getdropbox.com

This one helps sync your PC with your dropbox account. The only downside is that you only have 2 GB limitation but if you want to sync your work or college files then the size should be enough.

Dropbox let’s you either install their dropbox program or you can just use dropbox from browser but the advantage using the dropbox program is that you don’t have to go through all those clicks, it’s just the matter of drag and drop and it automatically uploads it to your account.

The web version is also really easy to use and user interface is very friendly. Now the thing I would want in getdropbox.com is the search bar. Sometimes you just don’t have enough time to keep everything in folder and these are the times that you need to search for files. It would be great feature if they managed to put the search bar where you can just type for your file and it automatically displays it. Other than that it is a great sync/sharing files. Oh yes you can even share files with your friends.

Save this site in your speedtile.net.

www.prezi.com

Prezi's controls: Zebra from Ali Kuru on Vimeo.

This one is really for the people that needs to present things. Great for presentation with just drag/drop and click. I won’t say it’s powerful as powerpoint but it does the job for you if you don’t have powerpoint or openoffice.org. Of course that means that your browser needs a flash support and that’s the only downside of it.

www.cometdocs.com

Once in a while we come into a situation that we want to convert one file type into another and although there are lot of conversion software out there, sometimes you need a quick solution and that’s where cometdocs.com comes. It supports lot of file types and can convert them which sends directly to your mail.

The only problem with this is that it has got cheesy user interface which might make you think that the site really doesn’t work but it’s not so.

www.doink.com

If you’ve heard of Adobe Flash or Air then you might know how animation works and even if you don’t then doink.com is perfect for anyone to start animation. It is a flash based webapp that lets you easily make animations in flash.

Doink Tutorial

Drawing Tutorial from Aaron White on Vimeo.

www.scr.im

Scr.im is an email encrypting site. If you want to give out your email address on any public site but don’t want your email address to get on the hand of spammer then you can encrypt your email id with  scr.im.

Scr.im is simple and quick. You go to the site and type out your email address, scr.im makes you a personal url for email which you can share on forum and public sites without worrying about spammers. The person who wants to view your email address has to go through captcha process and if they get the right captcha only then are they allowed to see your email id. Dowside? It’s in beta, but do we really care?

www.screencastle.com

Screencastle.com is the one for video tutors. If you cannot afford video capture like camtasia then this free web-based and java based screencastle.com does the job just as equally as others. The only thing that it lacks is the editing video.

What it really does is opens up the java applet to capture the screen so you’ll have to allow the java applet. Once it starts don’t get freaked out by the numerous java application running in background it is only being used by screencastle.com and you will see a record a video bar once you pressed start the recoder. The buttons there are pretty much self explanatory.

My little Screencast on screencastle.com

I know I sound funny.

Technorati Tags: web,screencast,video,tip,tutorial

Google Voice and Gmail for mobile phone

After 5 years of Gmail, Google is bringing out more services in the mobile world too. Google Voice for iPhone and iPod Touch coming soon. And also, even though Gmail app is already in Android, Google has new improved Gmail for both iPhone and Android with features like floating bar, offline access and many other features. Let’s hope Gmail doesn’t stay Beta version forever now.

The video is posted accordingly:-

Google Voice

 

Gmail for iPhone and Android

 

Technorati Tags: gmail,iPhone,android,voice,service

Vimax Ads…A Trojan virus!!!

Remember, some days ago I said how come the Vimax ads are popping everywhere?? Well, it looks like my computer was affected by trojan. Apparantely SearchSetting.exe was responsible for the amazing “big budgeted Vimax”. And it’s not April Fool joke.

Removal of SearchSetting.exe:-

• Uninstall from Program Files
• Goto start and type regedit (Goto Registry Editor)
• Search for searchSetting.exe and then delete all the entries.
• Usually the searchsetting.exe appears in Program Files/Search Settings/

Technorati Tags: virus,trojan,removal

Windows 7 RC in May

I think by now everyone has heard of Windows 7. If not then there will be a big buzz again at the end of May when Windows 7 RC is released. The RC will run till 2010 June 1st, yes, that’s a full one year and there is no limitation in download time either so take your time downloading and testing Windows 7.

Currently I’m running Windows 7 Build 7057 and it runs smoothly. I would like to see what changes are made in RC.

Download Link will be available on:-

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

Technorati Tags: windows,rc,release