Training your body to get stronger isn’t something that needs a lot of primer and prep.  You can jump right in tomorrow, just use weights you can easily handle and cover the basics.  After reading this weight lifting blog , you’ll be ready to stop holding your breath and jump right in.
A lot of people – and I mean a lot – avoid actually getting in shape because they keep waiting on the perfect time, perfect routine, right gym wear, etc.  This is road to failure 101.  The perfect time to get in shape is right now and if not …read more

Ever wondered what the network connection details actually mean?

Physical Address: Also called the Media Access Control address, is a serial number that can uniquely identify your ethernet card or wireless adapter.
IP Address: An Internet Protocol address is assigned by your LAN provider(say, a modem at homes) to each of the systems connected to a network through the provider.
Subnet Mask: When there are multiple systems connected to a network, the network is divided into subnetworks to avoid interference (traffic), and routers manage the overall traffic. In a manner of speaking, the subnets can be differentiated by the subnet masks.
Default Gateway: As …read more

One of the greatest advantages of using Cygwin is the vast array of softwares at your disposal. There is a lot of choice, perhaps too much of choice. And we will have to get used to that.
Take text editors for instance. A text editor is a very basic software and there has been such evolution in them. Line editors, text editors, GUI editors,… and with various advanced features.
ed is the GNU line editor. cat used to concatenate files can be seen as an editor as well.
Joe, Pico and Nano are screen editors with more features than the plain line editors. …read more

If you haven’t thought of any Christmas gift yet, consider teaching your old computer-illiterate grandma how to use computers. The ultimate goal is for her to send you a mail, but to reach there are a few important steps one must learn. Here are six steps I can think of.

Installing Cygwin is straightforward, but those who haven’t installed any UNIX-based OSs before may be lost at the last step. So here are the steps:
1. Download the Cygwin setup file, if you haven’t already.
2. Choose the installation type: Install from Internet or Install from Local Directory or Download without Installing. When installing Cygwin for the first time, you’ll have to choose either the first or the last option unless you already have the packages through some other means. I tend to choose the last for two reasons. One, network issues while downloading are preferrable to network issues while installing. Two, a …read more

Hello everybody. I am Sravan, the new guy on That Damn PC. I love computers and make a living with them. I’ve learnt a lot about them over the last several years, especially about PCs, and I would like to share them here with you.
As someone with more hands-on experience with software than hardware, you may find me concentrating more on software, security, and general troubleshooting. That, however, doesn’t mean I won’t cover hardware at all.
I encourage you all to post any doubts you might have and I will try my best to get you an answer. I am not …read more

This should be a very short post as I have a fun contest starting on Monday here so we’ll keep it light and easy for now…
Below are a few simple ways to make sure your computer stays safe and secure for that much longer (they all eventually get messed up, even you Mac):

Run a software firewall (Windows XP comes with one built in, not too sure on the Mac OS front but I would imagine they have something).
Keep anti-virus software installed and up-to-date (AVG is free for the PC and ClamXav is free for the Mac).
Install a router. Make …read more

Image via WikipediaIt’s a fact of life that information overload is not easy to escape. Whether you enjoy playing the license plate game or reading the New York Times on your way to work (Do they sill print a paper?), there is a lot to read, take in and retain out there in this cruel world. Luckily, with the help of many great Web 2.0 tools out there, it’s becoming a bit simpler. I’d like to point you in the direction of a few that I have used to simplify my life.
Google Reader (or any other web …read more

I recently came across Adocu.com – blogging gone nano through a good friend and while the product that they are proposing, Twitter with only one word, sounds strange, the underlying concept makes a lot of sense. Why do we bog ourselves down with so many words? Technical support could take a lesson from these guys.
Many of the responses that nonits (non-IT folk) receive from IT start with a, “Have you checked the amount of free RAM on your computer?” or, “What processes were running when this occurred?” My guess is that if you knew the answers to …read more

So this post will take a little bit different angle than the last few. See this one is about information. Not the kind like where the latest and greatest porn site is or where Miley Cyrus has shown her booty today… This is the kind of information that can help you in your everyday life. Sites like ReadBurner, Alltop and Technorati are trying their hardest to help you find this information and they’re doing a damn good job at it so far.