technology: May 2014

Monday, 19 May 2014

Determine if your Mobile Phone will Work in Another Country,.

f you have trouble accessing a web page either because the website is blocked at your workplace, or because that page happens to be behind a paywall, there are a couple of undocumented Google proxy servers that may help you read that page.

When you access any page via one of these Google proxies, the content of that page gets downloaded on Google servers and then served to you. The lesser-known gmodules.com proxy, discussed later, will even allow you to download documents, videos and other web files that are otherwise blocked.

1. Google Translate as a Proxy

To use Google Translate as a proxy, set the destination language as the actual language of the page and the source language as anything but the destination language.
For instance, if you are to access a page written in English, set the destination language (tl) in the translate URL as “en” and the source language (sl) as “ja” for Japanese. (example)

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://example.com/

Google Translate Proxy (bookmarklet)
Advantage: This is the most popular Google proxy and the download web pages looks exactly like the original provided the domains serving the images and CSS aren’t blocked at your place.

2. Google Mobilizer as a Proxy

Next in the list is Google’s Mobilizer service. Google has discontinued the main mobilizer service on google.com (secure) but you can still access it through any country-specific Google domain like google.co.in or google.ie. The URL would be:

http://www.google.ie/gwt/x?u=http://example.com/ (example)

Google Mobilizer Proxy (bookmarklet)
Advantage: The presentation (CSS) isn’t retained but this mode is perfect for reading text-heavy pages and do have the option of disabling inline images for faster loading.

3. Google Modules as a Proxy

The gmodules.com domain is part of the Google personalized homepage service and is primarily used for hosting gadgets that are available for the Google homepage.

http://www.gmodules.com/ig/proxy?url=http://example.com/ (example)

Google Modules Proxy (bookmarklet)
Advantage: This is the only Google proxy that will let you download files (like PDFs, .MP4 videos, etc) in addition to viewing regular web pages.

Finally, if none of the above proxies work, you can always check the Google Cache or create your proxy server using either this Google Script or the more advanced Google App Engine.

Use Google as a Proxy Server to Bypass Paywalls, Download Files

1. Google Translate as a Proxy

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://example.com/

2. Google Mobilizer as a Proxy

http://www.google.ie/gwt/x?u=http://example.com/ (example)

3. Google Modules as a Proxy

The gmodules.com domain is part of the Google personalized homepage service and is primarily used for hosting gadgets that are available for the Google homepage.

http://www.gmodules.com/ig/proxy?url=http://example.com/ (example)

Google Modules Proxy (bookmarklet)
Advantage: This is the only Google proxy that will let you download files (like PDFs, .MP4 videos, etc) in addition to viewing regular web pages.

Finally, if none of the above proxies work, you can always check the Google Cache or create your proxy server using either this Google Script or the more advanced Google App Engine.

On Nokia Lumia and Windows Phone 8

The Nokia Lumia series of mobile phones stand out from the crowd. The devices, powered by Windows Phone 8, are responsive, the interface feels fresh and they have great cameras.

couch mode print story

“Which phone should I buy?” This is one question that I get asked a lot and, obviously, there is no fixed answer.

Android based phones – like the Google Nexus or the Samsung Galaxy series – are a good option for people who prefer choice as every single feature of an Android device can be customized right from the phone dialer to the on-screen keyboard. Then there’s the iPhone for those who want to have the absolute best phone and wouldn’t mind paying a heavy premium. Some people also see the iPhone as a status symbol.
Nokia Lumia - Side View

For others, my recommendation is often the Nokia Lumia series powered by Windows Phone. Why? No Google Maps? No Gmail? There are no apps for Windows Phone? That’s a common reaction you can expect when you recommend someone a Windows Phone based device.
The Android Store (Google Play) and iTunes Apps Store have about a million apps each and the Windows Phone Apps store is nowhere close. This isn’t however a good reason to discard the Windows Phone platform. Most of the popular apps – Twitter, Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp, Evernote, Kindle, Foursquare, TrueCaller to name a few – are already available while others like Flipboard, Vine and Path are in the works.
Google is conspicuously absent from the Windows Phone store and there’s no Instagram or Chrome in the store. But should that be a deal breaker?
I have been using the various Nokia Lumia models as my primary device for more than a month now and never found myself looking for the Android or iOS device for lack of apps. The apps I need, barring a few favorites like Flipboard and Feedly, are all there now. And this is the only mobile OS that has Microsoft Office. A research says that smartphone users, on an average, install about 41 apps but use less than a dozen apps on regular basis.
Nokia Maps, now called HERE Maps, and HERE Drive (for turn-by-turn voice navigation) are a good, in some cases better, alternative to Google Maps and they include full offline capabilities as well. Nokia HERE City Lens is an augmented reality viewing app that displays all the nearby places – not just popular public places but even the local medicine shops and mom-n-pop stores – through your camera’s viewfinder.
One of my favorite feature of Windows Phone is the people hub and integration with Facebook. Every time I wake up the phone, there’s a new picture on the lock screen pulled randomly from one of my Facebook albums. Then there’s the Kids corner where you can choose a list of apps and games that should be available to your kids and rest everything on the phone stays hidden.
The on-screen virtual keyboard in Windows Phone, with flat keys and good spacing among keys, is comfortable to type though you’ll miss the Swype style gesture-typing available on Android devices. Windows Phone 8 is also missing a proper notification center.
Nokia Lumia - Front View

The Lumia series of phones have among the best cameras in their range and the dedicated camera button make it easy for you to quickly capture the moment. Lenses are one unique feature of Windows Phones that let you open the various camera apps – like Nokia Cinemagraph, Instagram like filters or the Panorama maker – from the camera window itself.
The Lumia range is available at all price points from the budget Lumia 520 to the high-end Lumia 920. The 920 sports the biggest screen at 4.5” and stands out for its brilliant “PureView” camera that does especially well in low-light conditions. The device feels premium, sturdy and extremely responsive but the only thing that doesn’t go in its favor is the weight.
The upcoming Lumia 925 has similar specs as the 920 but does away with the extra pounds. The Nokia India website says 925 is “coming soon” but am not sure how soon that will happen.
Next in the list is Nokia Lumia 820. This one again has a great display that is slightly smaller than the 920, the camera shoots crisp pictures though it lacks PureView and the phone’s performance is also very good. Unlike the unibody 920, the 820 has a removable back cover and support for micro SD for extra storage but the device overall feels thicker and a bit heavy.
The Lumia 720 sports the same design – rectangular slab with curved edges – as the 920, the plastic back with matte finish doesn’t feel cheap and provides a great grip. The display of 720 isn’t as bright as its more expensive cousins but this is the one Lumia model that feels slim and light. The phone’s 6.7 MP camera and performance didn’t disappoint either.
Among the budget Lumia phones, the 620 is a small Windows Phone 8 device with a 3.8” display and a 5 MP camera. Lumia 520 is the best-selling Windows Phone 8 device and rightly so – the phone is a value-for-money device with a decent display that is slightly bigger than the 620, a 5 MP camera sans LED flash, removable cover and the same fluid and responsive Windows Phone 8. You can even operate the touchscreen of 520 with your fingernails.
The design of Windows Phone is fresh, different and extremely user-friendly. The live tiles, the customizable home screen, the typography, big fonts, bold system menus, the screen animations are smooth and beautiful. In my 30+ days of usage, none of the apps have ever crashed, the scrolling is smooth and there’s never any lag even on the low-range Lumias.

The apps store is growing though Windows Phone 8 may still not be the first platform of choice for most developers.

That said, look at your current collection of apps – if the ones you absolutely need are also available for Windows Phone 8, you should strongly consider going the Lumia way. And if I were to pick a favorite among this series, it would be either the Nokia Lumia 920 (for the camera and polished look) or, for the budget conscious, the Lumia 720 (good specs and great value-for-money).

How to Play YouTube Videos in the Background on iOS

Do you prefer listening to music while working? Learn a trick to help you play YouTube videos in the background on your iPad or iPhone.

couch mode print story

The YouTube website is probably the world’s biggest library of songs and music videos that you can watch on any device. You can play your favorite music on the YouTube website and let it stream in the background while you work on other important tasks.
This is only possible on desktop computers and not mobile devices since YouTube on mobile stops playback as soon you put the video player in the background. The YouTube app, or the YouTube website, needs to be in the foreground else the video pauses itself.
There’s however an easy workaround ↓ that will let you play any YouTube video in the background on your iPad or iPhone. Here’s the trick:
Open the Safari browser on your iOS device and play any of your favorite song on the YouTube website. Now tap the Home button to go to the home screen, or swipe to switch to a different app, and you’ll notice that the YouTube video has stopped playing.
Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open the Control Center and tap the Play button. Voila! The paused YouTube video will resume playback and you can now switch to any app on your iOS device while the audio streams in the background.
If you are using an older model of iPhone or iPad that has not been upgraded to iOS 7, you can still use the same technique to “listen” to YouTube videos playing in the background. Instead of the swipe-up gesture, double-press the home button and swipe the notifications bar from left to right. Press the “Play” button to resume the paused YouTube video.

Whether you are reading ebooks on the iPad, browsing web pages or responding to emails on the iPhone, you can finally use YouTube to play some great music in the background.

Swipe up the screen to access the iOS 7 control center

Double-press and swipe right to access the Play button in iOS 5.

Double-press the home button and swipe right to Play videos in iOS 5.

An Easy Way to Download APK Files from Google Play.

ndroid apps are packaged as APK files. You can use any File Manager app to copy these files from the computer to your Android device and then touch the .apk file to install, or sideload, the corresponding app on your device.

There are various reasons why you may want to download the APK installer of an Android app from the Google Play store:

Google Play Store says that a particular app or game is incompatible with your Android device though you know that the app would work just fine.
Sometime an Android app may be not be available for download in the Google Play store of your region or country.
An app is listed on the Google Play store but you want to install that app on another Android device, like the Amazon Kindle tablet, that doesn’t have the Play Store.

How to Download APK Files from Google Play Store

Evozi, an Android app developer, offers a one-click online APK download app that lets you download the APK installed of any Android app that’s listed on the Google Play store. The downloader app can be accessed at apps.evozi.com.
To get started, enter the web URL of any app listed on the Google Play store and click the “Generated Download Link” button. The APK download app will fetch the APK file from the Google Play store and will host it on its own servers from where you downlaod the file.
Since the APK files are directly fetched from the Google Play Store, it’s unlikely that the Android App will be infected with any malware. Also, to prevent app piracy, the APK downloader only lets you download free apps and games from the Google Play store, not the paid ones.

The 20-20-20 Rule for Reducing Computer Eyestrain

Do you work at the computer for long hours? Learn about software that can help you reduce eye-strain, RSI and other computer related stress!

couch mode print story

If you spend a good part of your day using the computer, the 20-20-20 rule, that I recently learned recently from my doctor, might help reduce eye-strain and also relax your tired eyes.

The 20-20-20 rule is something like this.
The computer screen is bright and therefore, if you don’t blink your eyes as often as you should while working at the computer for long hours, you can have dry eyes sometimes even followed by redness.
To help you deal with this problem, the 20-20-20 rule suggests that after every 20 minutes, the computer user should take a break for at least 20 seconds and look at objects that are 20 feet away.

Eye Test for Computer Geeks [credit]

Since it is nearly impossible for any computer users to remember that they have to take a break every 20 minutes, there are free software programs that can help you in your mission. For instance, there’s a Windows utility called Eye Defender that sits in the system tray of your Windows computer and, after a fixed interval, it will auto-run a visual training for the eyes on the desktop screen. You are supposed to follow the pointer on the screen and this in turn should help relax your eyes.
WorkRave is another handy app that reminds you to take breaks at regular intervals to prevent computer related stress (including eyestrain).
It offers two kinds of breaks – micro-breaks, these are short and are mean to relax your eyes, and then there are rest-breaks where you are supposed to walk or stretch a little. Workrave also has a built-in wizard that demonstrates the various types of stretching exercises that you can do during these breaks.
Stretching Exercise for Eyes

If you are an active computer user, these tools need to be on your desktop.

Use Google Maps as a Background of your Webpage..

his is a demo of contact form that embeds a Google Map in the background. It isn’t using a static screenshot image of Google Maps in the background but the map is an interactive one — you can zoom in and out, drag the Pegman to turn on street view or even toggle between the Satellite view and the Maps view.

There are basically two layers on the page – one is the map and the other is the form – and we are using the z-index property of CSS to define the stack order. The form has a higher z-index than Google Maps and thus the latter appears in the background. Let’s look at the actual code now.
The HTML — There are two DIV elements – the map will render inside the element with ID #googlemaps while everything that you add inside #contactform will show up in your form. You can even embed a Google Form here.


<div id="googlemaps"></div>
<div id="contactform">
  <!-- You can even embed a Google Form here -->
</div>

The CSS — The #googlemaps element occupies the entire height and width of the page while the #contactform has a fixed width. You can also change the opacity level of #contactform to make your forms slightly transparent.


#googlemaps { 
  height: 100%; 
  width: 100%; 
  position:absolute; 
  top: 0; 
  left: 0; 
  z-index: 0; /* Set z-index to 0 as it will be on a layer below the contact form */
}
 
#contactform { 
  position: relative; 
  z-index: 1; /* The z-index should be higher than Google Maps */
  width: 300px;
  margin: 60px auto 0;
  padding: 10px;
  background: black;
  height: auto;
  opacity: .45; /* Set the opacity for a slightly transparent Google Form */ 
  color: white;
}

The JavaScript — Find the latitude and longitude of your place and replace the co-ordinates in line #7. You can then copy-paste the modified JavaScript code in the footer of your HTML page.


<!-- Include the Google Maps API library - required for embedding maps -->
<script src="http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false"></script>
 
<script type="text/javascript">
 
// The latitude and longitude of your business / place
var position = [27.1959739, 78.02423269999997];
 
function showGoogleMaps() {
 
    var latLng = new google.maps.LatLng(position[0], position[1]);
 
    var mapOptions = {
        zoom: 16, // initialize zoom level - the max value is 21
        streetViewControl: false, // hide the yellow Street View pegman
        scaleControl: true, // allow users to zoom the Google Map
        mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP,
        center: latLng
    };
 
    map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById('googlemaps'),
        mapOptions);
 
    // Show the default red marker at the location
    marker = new google.maps.Marker({
        position: latLng,
        map: map,
        draggable: false,
        animation: google.maps.Animation.DROP
    });
}
 
google.maps.event.addDomListener(window, 'load', showGoogleMaps);
</script>

You may refer to the HTML source of this contact form for a complete example...

Clean Up your Whiteboard Pictures by Emails

You can capture the Whiteboard scribbles using the camera of your mobile phone and clean up the image by sending an email to a special address.

couch mode print story

Your mobile phone has an excellent camera but photos of the whiteboard aren’t coming out as good and clear as you would like them to be. Maybe there’s poor lighting in the conference room? Maybe your camera’s settings aren’t perfect for capturing whiteboard photos?

One little trick that will vastly improve the quality of your whiteboard pictures is available inside the manual settings of your cameraphone. Go to your camera’s manual settings, choose EV (Exposure Value) and add 1 or 2 “stops” (usually indicated by +2) before clicking the Capture button.
Then there’s a shell script that brightens and cleans up your whiteboard images using the popular ImageMagick library. It runs from the command line and all it needs is ImageMagick, a free image editing software that is available for Mac, Windows and Linux.
If you find it a hassle to remember commands, there’s an even easier way. Capture the whiteboard scribbles with your mobile camera and send the picture as an email attachment to the following email address.
please@make.unwhiteboard.com
Wait for a minute or two and you’ll get a prettier version of the whiteboard image, clean and legible and more optimized for printing. Here’s an example.
Before
Raw Whiteboard Picture

After

Internally, the Unwhiteboard service uses the same ImageMagick command to clean up your Whiteboard captures but on their own server so you don’t have to install anything on your computer....

The Best Places to Find Free, High-Res Images for your Website,

Good, high-quality images add visual interest to your website. Another reason why photos have become so important is because web pages that include good photos get better engagement when shared on social sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Download High Quality Images for Free

The web offers billions of photos that are just a Google search away. The images that are in public domain, or licensed under the Creative Commons license, can be used without any copyright issues.
The only problem is that Google may not always surface the best content that is free. Their algorithms, at least for image search, prefer pages from premium stock photography websites and the free listings thus lose out. If Google isn’t helping in your quest for images, here are some of the best websites where you may find high-quality photos for free.
1. unsplash.com (Unsplash) – This is my favorite website for downloading high-resolution photographs. Subscribe to the email newsletter and you’ll get 10 photos in your inbox every 10 days. All images are under the CC0 license meaning they are in public domain and you are free to use them in any way you like.
2. google.com (LIFE) – The Google images website hosts millions of historical photographs from the LIFE library. You can add source:life to any query in Google image search to find these images and they are free for personal, non-commercial use.
3. flickr.com (The British Library) – The national library of the UK has uploaded over a million vintage photographs and scanned images to Flickr that are now in pubic domain and they encourage re-use.
4. picjubmo.com (Picjumbo) – Here you’ll find exceptionally high-quality photos for your personal and commercial use. The pictures have been shot by the site owner himself and all he requests for in return is proper attribution.
5. pixabay.com (Pixabay) – All the images on Pixabay are available under the CC0 license and thus can be used anywhere. Like Flickr, there’s an option to browse photographs by camera model as well.
6. publicdomainarchive.com (Public Domain Archive) – This is an impressive online repository of public domain images that are neatly organized in categories. It contains only high quality photos though the collection is limited at this time.
7. commons.wikimedia.org (Wikimedia Commons) – The site hosts 21+ million images under some kind of free license or in the public domain. The images are arranged in categories or you can find images through search keywords.
8. superfamous.com (Super Famous) – Another great resource for finding high-res images for your websites and other design projects. The images are licensed under Creative Commons and require attribution.
old historical photos

9. nos.twnsnd.co (New Old Stock) – Here you will find a curated collection of vintage photographs from public archives that are free of any copyright restrictions. If you are trying to create a twitter feed like @HistoricalPics, this might be a good source for images.
10. freeimages.com (Stock Exchange) – This is one of the biggest repositories of free images and graphics that you can use for almost any purpose. You do however need to sign-in to download the images. The site, previously hosted on the schx.hu domain, is now part of Getty Images.
11. morguefile.com (Morgue File) – The site hosts 300,000+ free images and you are free to use them in both personal and commercial projects even without attribution. The image gallery has a built-in cropping tool and you can even hotlink the images from your website.
Related: Protect your photos from Casual Copying
12. gettyimages.com (Getty Images) – If you are looking for professional images for your website but without the expensive license fee, Getty has something in store for you. You can embed pictures from Getty Images for free on your website though in future, the embeds may carry ads.
13. pdpics.com (Public Domain Photos) – The website contains thousands of royalty free images that can be used in both personal and commercial projects but with attribution. Unlike other sites that merely curate content, the images found here have been clicked by their in-house photographers.
14. imcreator.com (IM Free) – A curated collection of outstanding high-quality photos on all subjects that are also free for commercial use. The images have mostly been sourced from Flickr and require attribution.
15. photopin.com (Photo Pin) – Flickr is among the biggest repository of photographs on the web and Photo Pin helps you easily find photos on Flickr that are available under the Creative Commons license. You get the embed code as well so you don’t have to host the images on your own server.

Tip: How to avoid common photos

Easily Unsubscribe from all LinkedIn Emails.

inkedIn is trying to reinvent itself as a social network for professionals and they are now sending way too many email notifications that one never really asked for. Whether it’s your colleague’s birthday, someone just completed two years at their current job or someone you know just joined LinkedIn – there’s a notification for everything.

The worst part is that LinkedIn offers no one-click button for quickly and easily unsubscribing from all these email notification in one go. You have to select at least 20 drop-down boxes to unsubscribe yourself from every single email that LinkedIn can send to your mailbox.
Fortunately, there’s a solution in the form of a bookmarklet authored by @chengyin [via @webaficionado].
LinkedIn Unsubscribe
Drag the bookmarklet to your browser’s address bar, then go to the LinkedIn’s email settings page and click the bookmarklet link in the address. It will change the email frequency setting for every notification as “no email” thus saving your mailbox from the LinkedIn clutter.
Internally, the LinkedIn bookmarklet executes a series of JavaScript commands to automatically select the “No Email” option in drop-down boxes and then hits the Submit button to save your changes. Here are some more useful bookmarklets.


$('.settings li select:has(option[value=never])').val('never');
$('.settings li select:has(option[value=WEB])').val('WEB');
$('.settings li select:has(option[value=NEVER])').val('NEVER');
$('.settings li select:has(option[value=NONE])').val('NONE');
$('.settings li select:has(option[value=false])').val('false');
$('input[type=submit]').prop('disabled', false).click();

How to Force the Browser to Remember the Username and Passwords

PayPal and some other websites do now allow you to save passwords in the browser. The Remember Passwords extension overrides the behavior and lets you save passwords.

couch mode print story

When you enter your username and password to log into a website, Google Chrome will prompt you to remember the password. If you accept, Chrome saves the password internally and the next time you open that site, it will auto-fill the username and password fields for you.

The password-saving feature is available in all modern browsers but some websites, maybe for security reasons, disable this option for their login forms. For instance, the PayPal website doesn’t allow the browser to remember your password and thus you are forced to enter the password every time you open PayPal. Some banks websites do that as well.
TL;DR — Use the Remember Password extension for Chrome and it will force the browser to remember passwords even if the site has disabled the option.

You can force the browser to remember your password

How Websites Disable Password Saving

Websites can easily disable the auto-fill option for login forms by setting autocomplete=off for the password field. For instance, if the login form is written as below, the browser will never prompt the user to save the password field because form autocompletion is turned off.


<form>
 <input type="text" name="username">
 <input type="password" name="password" autocomplete="off">
</form>

Force the Browser to Remember Password

Now that you know how websites turn off the option to remember passwords, getting around this problem is simple.
You can set the autocomplete attribute of the password fields on a web page to on (if they are off) and you’ll be able to save passwords. Here’s a piece of JavaScript that will automatically turn on autocomplete for all password fields on a web page.


  var fields = document.querySelectorAll('input[type="password"]');
  for (var i = 0; i < fields.length; i++) {
    fields[i].autocomplete="on";   
  }

No, you don’t have to worry about the code as there’s a simple extension for Chrome – Remember Password – that does it automatically for you.
Install the Remember Password extension and then open a site like PayPal that does not allow you to save passwords. Login with your username & password and the browser will now prompt you to remember the password.

Also see: The Best Google Chrome Extensions

How Much Customs Duty You Have to Pay for Importing Goods into India.

Product Suppliers Source quality products at Best SMB Site - hktdc.com www.hktdc.com

You have to pay taxes, also known as customs duty, for importing mobile phones, tablets and other goods from a foreign country into India. These taxes are often payable at the port of entry (like the airport).
A package forwarding service service in India has shared the current tariff chart and it should give you a good idea of what kind of taxes you can expect to pay for importing the various categories of items into India. Here’s the chart updated after the 2013 Union Budget:

Category	Items to import	Customs Duty
Books	Books (educational)	0%
Computers	Laptop, Computers	16.85%
	Computer Printers	16.85 %
	Laptop Battery	28.85%
	Hard Disk (Internal)	6.03%
	Hard Disk (External)	16.85%
	Processor	6.03%
	Other Computer Peripherals	16.85%
	Cables & Wires	25.85%
Tablets	iPad	16.85%
Mobile	Mobile Phones	6.00%
Mobile	Phone Accessories	28.85%
Music & Games	DVD/ CDS (movie)	28.85%
	Software DVD	16.854%
	DVD Players, Blu-Ray	28.85%
	iPod	28.85%
	Video games	28.85%
	Gaming Consoles	28.85%
Photography
	Digital / Video Cameras	28.80%
	Digital Still Image Camera	16.854%
	Web cameras	28.85%
	Camera Lens	28.85%
Everything Else	Television	28.85%
	Sports Equipment	16.85%
	Hand (wrist) Watches	28.85%
	Cosmetics, Stationery, Toys	28.85%
	Sunglasses	28.85%
	Electronics and Car parts	28.85%
	Apparel	23.90%
	Shoes	28.85%
	Kitchen, Dining	28.85%
	Artificial Jewelry	28.85%

How is Customs Duty Calculated?

It is important to note that the calculation of import duty is done based on the assessed value of an imported product and not the invoice value. Let me explain.
Say you have purchased a mobile phone from Amazon or eBay and have asked the seller to ship it to India. The value of the mobile phone listed in the invoics is $500. The customs officer in India may however assess the product’s value as, say, $600 and in that case, you will have to pay 6% customs duty on $600 (the assessed value) and not $500 (the invoice value).
And other than customs duty, you’ll have to pay shipping charges, broker fees, CESS and service tax for getting an item into India.
There are no taxes on importing books while the customs duty on mobile phones has recently been hiked from 1% to 6%. Also, you may import goods up to the value of INR 5000 duty free provided they are sent as gifts to you

Finding Free Movies on YouTube Made Easily,

The Best Online Tools To Know Everything About a Website.

ow do I contact the owner of a website? Where is a particular website hosted? What other websites are hosted on that same server ? Is the site using WordPress or the Drupal platform? What ad networks are they using to monetize a site? Is the site accessible from China?

The best tools to know everything about any website. Picture credit: Flickr

Here are some of the most useful online tools that will help you know each and every detail of any website. Let’s get started.

just-ping.com — Use Just Ping to determine if a particular website or blog is accessible from other countries. Unlike other online ping services that have service in a couple of locations, Just Ping has 30 monitoring stations across the world including Turkey, Egypt and China. If the ping results say 100% Packet Loss, most likely the site is inaccessible from that region.
who.is — If you like to know the contact address, email and phone number of the website owner, this free whois lookup service will help. This is a universal lookup service meaning it can simultaneously query the whois database of all popular domain registrars.
whoishostingthis.com — Enter the URL of any website and this online service will show you the name of the company where that website is hosted. This may come handl if you need the contact information of the web hosting provider for writing a DMCA Notice or if you are looking to switch web hosts.
popuri.us — You can use popuri to estimate the relative popularity of a website on social sites like Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. It also display the Google Pagerank of a website and the Web of Trust matrix.
chillingeffects.org — When there’s a copyright related complaint against a website, a copy of that letter is archived in the Chilling Effects database. Anyone can query this public database to know about all the copyright infringement complaints against a particular website.
myip.ms — MyIP.ms offers a comprehensive report of any website or I.P. Address. You get to know about the hosting provider, the physical location of a website, the IP Address change history of a website and the DNS information. Netcraft also offers similar reports.
ewhois.com — Ewhois, short for enhanced whois lookup, will help you determine other websites of someone. It looks the whois details, the AdSense publisher ID and the Google Analytics code of websites to figure out other web domain that may belong to the same owner. See example.
builtwith.com — Use BuiltWith to know the technology stack of any website. It helps you figure out the mail service provider of a domain, the advertising partners, the tracking widgets that are installed on a website and whether the site is using any CDN like Amazon S3 or Google Cloud. See example.
semrush.com — If you wish to analyze your competitor’s website, this is tool to go with. SEMrush will help you figure what organic keywords are people using to find a website, what is the site’s traffic and which are the competing websites. See example.
whatsmydns.net — When you buy a new domain or switch from one host to another, the DNS records for the domain change and it may take a while to propagate these changes worldwide. WhatsMyDNS check your DNS records from various locations and it can check your domain’s A, CNAME and MX records.
modern.ie — This online app will help test your website’s compatibility with various web browsers and detects coding errors that might cause problems. The site is integrated with BrowserStack so you can quickly know how your site looks on different devices and browsers.
developers.google.com — Find the Page Speed score of any website on both desktop and mobile devices. The higher this number, the better. The Google tool also offers suggestion on how the score can be improved.
ctrlq.org/sandbox — – The AdSense sandbox solves two problems – it shows the various advertisers that are targeting a website and it will also help you figure out if a particular web domain is banned in the AdSense network or not.
httparchive.org — The HTTP Archive is a repository of all performance related metrics for a website. It keeps a record of the size of pages, their average load time and the number of failed requests (missing resources) over time. See example...