Two days ago Matt Cutts (SEO specialist working at Google) announced that a PageRank update would soon hit across the Internet. Finally today, it is being observed that PageRank of some websites/blogs might have been updated by Google.

PageRank and its importance remains a mystery to all. However it should be kept in mind that Google still uses PageRank as a tool to determine the popularity of a website/blog and accordingly assigns a search engine ranking position for a particular keyword.

So the bottom line is that PageRank does matter.

Google still hates advertisers/publishers who try to manipulate the PageRank algorithm by selling/buying links so to remain on the safe-side it is recommended not to be part of such activities. Other such activities which Google may not like is doing paid reviews just for the sake of link advertising.

Also another point to note is that PageRank display is not linear. For e.g. It is more than twice as hard to get a PR6 compared to a PR3.

Congratulation to all those who got a good PageRank. For those penalized by Google, Read how I managed to get back my PR.

For those of you who familiar with the SyncBack utility for file backup know the genius of 2BrightSparks software. One utility you may not know of is EncryptOnClick. This is the easiest encryption software I have ever used. It uses military grade 256-bit AES encryption with password protection. In addition to encrypting your documents, they are also compressed at the same time.

Simply launch the EncryptOnClick application and decide if you would like to encrypt a File or an entire folder. For this demonstration I am going to encrypt my “secret documents” folder.

Next Windows Explorer will launch to browse to the desired folder. Click OK.

Now we are prompted for a password. Make sure and create a strong password that you will remember. Click OK.

That is all there is to it! Now all documents contained in that folder are encrypted and can only be opened by a password I created.

Editor's note: You can alternatively encrypt files using the built-in Vista encryption and an easy to use context menu item.

Download EncryptOnClick

VLC Media Player is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. One of the best thing about VLC Media player is that it can play incomplete, unfinished, or damaged video downloads before the files have been fully downloaded.

Another good feature of VLC Player is that you can change its look by applying skins. Follow the post and I will teach you how to make your VLC Player look like Windows Media Player 11.

The very first thing you should do is download the Windows Media Player 11 skin from VLC Player’s skin library.

To install this skin on Ubuntu, Hit Alt+F2 which will bring up a dialog box and type this command:

vlc -I skins2

This will bring the player in the right mode to let you install the new skin. Just Right Click on the title bar and select Select Skin → Open Skin and then select the skin file you downloaded. You can also install any other skins the same way you installed this.

This is a guest post by Hammad from iTechMax. For more tech news and tips and tricks please visit his blog.

After writing the article yesterday about how to run CCleaner silently through a shortcut or a hotkey, many people expressed to me that they'd like to know how to run it every single night on a schedule, so I'm writing that up for everybody's benefit.

Setup Your Options

You'll need to decide which settings you want to run when CCleaner is run automatically… for instance, I'd look at whether or not you want to clean out your cookies or recent documents (which is a feature I use often, so I don't want them cleaned out)

Next, take a trip over to Options \ Advanced and make sure that the "Save all settings to INI file" option is checked (it should be checked by default). This makes sure that whatever settings you've chosen are saved out to an INI file in the same directory.

Create the Scheduled Task in Vista

Open up Task Scheduler by typing it into the Start menu search box, or browsing to Accessories \ System Tools.

Once you are there, click the link for "Create Basic Task" on the right-hand side.

Give the task a memorable name like "Run CCleaner"

Choose "Daily" or "Weekly", depending on how often you want the task to run.

Now choose a time of the day that your computer is usually on, but you aren't using it.

On the next screen, choose to "Start a program" and go to the next screen.

Now you'll need to browse down to the CCleaner executable file, which is typically found in the following location, but could be elsewhere:

C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe

Make sure to add the /AUTO switch to the "Add arguments" box.

On the Summary screen, make sure to click the box for "Open the Properties dialog" before clicking on the Finish button.

Now you'll want to choose the option for "Run with highest privileges", so that the task will automatically run with administrator privileges.

Optional: You can also take a look at the Conditions tab, and choose the option to start the task only when the computer is idle for a certain amount of minutes.

You should notice the "Wake the computer to run this task" option as well… if you usually put your computer into Sleep mode, you can check that box so that the computer will wake up to run CCleaner.

You can test out the task by right-clicking on the item in the list, and choose Run. CCleaner should run silently in the background.

You can look around at some of the other options… for instance some people run CCleaner a couple times a day (although that seems a little excessive to me… once a week would probably be good enough)

Create the Scheduled Task in Windows XP

If you are using Windows XP, there is a whole different wizard you'll have to go through… open up Scheduled Tasks in Control Panel or from the Start Menu's Accessories \ System Tools section, and then click on "Add Scheduled Task"

If you've installed CCleaner using the regular installer, you should see it in the list. If not, then you'll have to browse down to the location of the file.

Then you'll want to give the task a helpful name, and choose "Daily" or "Weekly", depending on how often you want to run it.

Now choose a time of the day that your computer will be on, but you won't be using it, like 1AM (or if you are like me, 8AM)

You'll be asked to enter the password for your user account.

Make sure to check the box for "Open advanced properties" and then click on the Finish button.

Now you'll want to modify the Run command to include the /AUTO switch at the end. Make sure to put a space between.

If you look at the Settings tab, you'll see the options to only start the task if the computer is idle, and also the same option to "Wake the computer to run this task", which is useful if you usually put your computer into standby mode when you aren't using it.

You can test out your scheduled task by right-clicking on it and choosing Run. CCleaner should open and run in the background.

Download CCleaner from ccleaner.com (Download the Slim build which doesn't bundle the Yahoo! toolbar)

Gmail has a security feature which most free online email services still lack. It is the ability to use SSL (Secure Socket Layer) or more simply a Secure Connection.

Secure connection makes sure that the data and information shared between Google servers and your web browser remains encrypted. It proves to be beneficial when using Gmail in public sector area e.g. public WiFi hotspots or college/university labs.

Previously the only way to initiate a Secure connection between Gmail and your web browser was to manually type the (https:/) protocol instead of (http://) to access Gmail but as it is not feasible for the unaware masses, Gmail has now introduced a new setting called Browser Connection.

Browser Connection lets users choose whether or not to force a secure connection. This way they won’t have to type in the (https:/) protocol again and again while accessing Gmail.

One point to note is that though forcing a secure connection makes your data safe, but it slows down the speed and latency of your connection as it has to always encrpt/decrypt data at both ends while transfering. This feature is mostly recommended for users accessing Internet through a public WiFi.

Now with all those security features in hand, who thinks Gmail is the most safe and secure email service on Internet?

Guest Post by Harishankar from Mobilejgames.com

Gmail users can now log-off their account from anywhere. Google has introduced a new feature in their Gmail website, for their users to check which IP is accessing their account. The feature also allows the user to expire all active session, so that the user has to know the password to log-in again. The best part of the tool is that, even when you have selected "remember my password" on the website, the session gets expired and the use has to reenter the password.

My Test on Mobile application:

This feature lets you check your activity on the mobile Gmail application as well. When I tried opening the official Gmail client mobile application from my mobile, the list shows access type as mobile and you can even log off from that application remotely. I opened the Gmail application on my mobile and on the website on a PC simultaneously. And tried logging off from all sessions. And next time I did some activity on the mobile application it took me to the log-in page though I have set the application to store my username and password in the local database.

This feature must be something that Google has planed far before they developed the mobile application and had their session architecture in such a way that this feature is possible without any update to the mobile Gmail application. Now, thanks for the developers at Google. I have had personal bad experience with my mobile having default login to Gmail and my friends spying my chats with my girlfriend.

CCleaner is one of the most popular freeware applications to clean up your computer, and with good reason - the application is powerful and easy to use. So how do we make a shortcut that runs it in silent mode like the "Run CCleaner" option on the Recycle Bin?

With a command-line switch on a shortcut, of course, which will run the same option as when you right-click on the Recycle Bin:

Of course, not all of us show the Recycle Bin on our desktop, and many of us like to keep the desktop icons hidden most of the time… which is why I'd rather have a shortcut or hotkey somewhere else.

Setup Your Options

You'll need to decide which settings you want to run when CCleaner is run automatically… for instance, I'd look at whether or not you want to clean out your cookies or recent documents (which is a feature I use often, so I don't want them cleaned out)

Next, take a trip over to Options \ Advanced and make sure that the "Save all settings to INI file" option is checked (it should be checked by default). This makes sure that whatever settings you've chosen are saved out to an INI file in the same directory.

You can even take a look in the file… notice that I turned off recent documents and cookie cleaning, so those are now set to False in the file. (You don't need to touch this file)

Note: You can use the Options \ Cookies tab to selectively decide which cookies you would like to keep. This is very useful if you would like to continue to be signed in automatically to certain sites, or if your bank has a "Site Key" functionality that remembers your computer.

Create the Shortcut to Automatically Run CCleaner

Right-click on the desktop or elsewhere, and choose New \ Shortcut from the menu.

Next you'll need to browse to the location of CCleaner on your computer, which will typically be found at the following path (but could be elsewhere).

C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe

You'll want to add the /AUTO switch at the end (make sure to put a space between it), which will typically put the full string as this:

"C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe" /AUTO

The /AUTO switch will tell CCleaner to run automatically, and not show the GUI. If you are curious what the (x86) in the screenshot path is… I'm running 64-bit Vista, which has one directory for 64-bit programs and another for 32-bit programs.

Once you give the shortcut a useful name like "Run CCleaner", you should have an icon on your desktop:

You can open up the properties of the icon and also assign a Shortcut key if you'd like. Note that shortcut keys will only work if the icon is in the start menu or desktop, not the quick launch bar.

Now, once you run the shortcut you'll be prompted with the UAC prompt (if you didn't disable UAC), and then CCleaner will run silently and clean up your computer.

For extra credit, you could also create a shortcut that doesn't prompt you for UAC.

Download CCleaner from ccleaner.com (Download the Slim build which doesn't bundle the Yahoo! toolbar)

Google Knol, the Wikipedia-like service that was released in its first alpha phase in December last year is now available to everyone.

Though the key concept of both Google Knol and Wikipedia is same but both services focus on different aspects of open-source knowledge sharing and in no way Google Knol can be tagged as a Wikipedia Killer.

As discussed by me already, Google Knol does not fall under the standard definition of a Wiki and also focuses on authorship while Wikipedia is free for everyone to edit and focuses on content. So basically both the services are different.

In Google Knols, authors can write on any article known as a Knol and each Knol is associated with an author which describes only their views and opinion so of course there can be multiple Knols on a particular subject.

Another cool feature of Google Knol is moderated collaboration which allows users from all over the world to suggest changes to a Knol and the author has full right to accept, reject or alter the suggest change. This makes Google Knol more social and interactive.

More features include comments, rate, review and Google Adsense revenue sharing.

To get started with a Knol, follow the link.

knol.google.com

While Windows has got nearly more than a thousand tweaking utilities, Ubuntu Linux has got one too and its known as Ubuntu Tweak.

Ubuntu Linux is no doubt the most user-friendly and easy to use Linux distro but when it comes to tweaking and playing with the hidden OS settings, the Terminal can prove to be quite dangerous. Thats where Ubuntu Tweak jumps in to save the day by providing a GUI for tweaking these settings.

Ubuntu Tweak provides users with options to configure the OS the way they like. It gives access to hidden system settings and preferences such as Computer, Startup, Desktop, Personal, System etc which can be optimized to ones needs and requirements.

It can also control and tweak Compiz Fusion settings. It is a free light-weight application that is being developed rapidly.

Download Ubuntu Tweak

Its here! Omg its finally here! Winpwn 2.0, the iPhone Unlocking and Jailbreaking utility for Windows has finally been released.

Winpwn does for Windows what Pwnage does for Mac. Winpwn will allow users to unlock and jailbreak 1st Gen iPhones and will also allow jailbreaking of iPod Touch and iPhone 3G.

Some features of Winpwn 2.0 are:

• Support for both 1.1.4 and 2.0
• Custom Image Support
• Custom Payload Support
• iPhone 3G support

The download link is provided at the end of this article. For a How-To please refer to the following steps:

1. First create a custom IPSW using the IPSW Builder.
2. Click “Ipwner” and browse for the custom IPSW that you just created. This will pwn itunes and allow you to flash Custom IPSW files via DFU mode
3. Once you have pwned Itunes, put your phone into DFU mode. If you don’t know how to do this click Here.
4. Once you are in DFU mode Itunes will pop up and then you can hold shift and click restore and browse to your custom IPSW file.

Make sure of the following notes:

• Remove Winpwn 1.0 completely
• Download and install latest iTunes 7.7

Download link for full iPhone 2.0 Firmware

http://tinyurl.com/iphone-firmware-sizlopedia-20

Use this guide to update iPod Touch to Firmware 2.0 for Free and then use Winpen to Jailbreak it.

For more questions and support refer to the official Winpwn site. Though I will be posting a tutorial with screenshots on Sizlopedia soon.

Download Winpwn 2.0 (iPhone Unlocking Utility)