How To Amplify Your Microphone in Windows 7

How To Amplify Your Microphone in Win 7 

Windows 7 is so much better than previous versions of Windows. It’s very intuitive, yet sometimes it can get really tricky. The microphone was one of the biggest “surprises” I’ve got since I installed Windows 7: I always had to shout so people can hear my voice over Skype. At first, I didn’t make the connection between this and the fact that I’ve changed the operating system, I just thought my microphone was lousy and I should get a better one. I’m glad I didn’t. I don’t know how expensive an expensive microphone is, but I managed to save all that money thanks to this trick I’m going to share with you in a moment. Browsing through menus, I discovered that Windows 7 has an option called “Microphone boost”, which I didn’t know about. This is how to find it:

Click on Start orb, then go to Control Panel and choose Sound. A pop-up menu will open.

You need to go to the second tab, Recording:

The list will show all recording devices that can be plugged in your computer. You’ll probably have only one of them enabled, corresponding to your microphone. Click on it, then click on the Properties button. This is what you’ll see:

In the next menu, make sure the microphone volume (the first slider) is set to maximum. The second slider is for Microphone Boost and it is set to zero by default. Move it to +20.0 dB and test your microphone again. If you’re not happy, go back and choose another value, until you get the volume you want.

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Incoming and Outgoing Mail Server Settings for Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, GMail, MSN, AOL and more

 

Why & when do I need these settings?

Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, GMail and other providers are basically email services designed to provide you with email mailbox accesss directly from the web. However, going online and logging on to their sites is not always the most convenient way for reading and sending emails.


On the other hand, you have the alternative to send and receive emails through such a mailbox by using a local email client software, such as Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird, etc. In order to properly use it, you need to configure your email software with the incoming and outgoing mail servers of your email provider (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail or else).

Mail Server Settings

Hotmail Settings As other web based email services, Hotmail is using the HTTP protocol for connecting you to your mailbox. If you want to send and receive Hotmail emails using an email client software, then your software must support Hotmail HTTP access for your email account. Some email clients, such as Outlook Express or Microsoft Outlook, offer builtin support for Hotmail accounts, so you only have to select HTTP when you are asked to select your email account type and select Hotmail as the HTTP Mail Service Provider. Mail Server Settings for Hotmail using the Microsoft Outlook Connector If you are using Microsoft Outlook & the Outlook Connector, you can define your Hotmail account just like any regular POP3 email account: Hotmail Incoming Mail Server (POP3) - pop3.live.com (logon using Secure Password Authentification - SPA, mail server port: 995) Hotmail Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) - smtp.live.com (TLS enabled, port 587) Yahoo! Mail Settings Yahoo Mail offers standard POP3 access for receiving emails incoming through your Yahoo mailbox, by using your favorite email client software. To setup your email client for working with your Yahoo account, you need to select the POP3 protocol and use the following mail server settings: Yahoo Incoming Mail Server (POP3) - pop.mail.yahoo.com (SSL enabled, port 465) Yahoo Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) - smtp.mail.yahoo.com (SSL enabled, port 995) POP Yahoo! Mail Plus email server settings Yahoo Plus Incoming Mail Server (POP3) - plus.pop.mail.yahoo.com (SSL enabled, port 995) Yahoo Plus Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) - plus.smtp.mail.yahoo.com (SSL enabled, port 465, use authentication) Google GMail Settings The Google GMail service offers email client access for retrieving and sending emails through your Gmail account. However, for security reasons, GMail uses POP3 over an SSL connection, so make sure your email client supports encrypted SSL connections. Google Gmail Incoming Mail Server (POP3) - pop.gmail.com (SSL enabled, port 995) Outgoing Mail Server - use the SMTP mail server address provided by your local ISP or smtp.gmail.com (TLS enabled, port 587) MSN Mail Settings The MSN email service allows you to use the MSN POP3 and SMTP servers to access your MSN mailbox. MSN Incoming Mail Server (POP3) - pop3.email.msn.com (port 110, using Secure Password Authentication - SPA) MSN Outgoing Mail Server - smtp.email.msn.com (select "My outgoing server requires authentication") Lycos Mail Settings The Lycos Mail Plus service allows you to use POP3 and SMTP servers for accessing your Lycos mailbox. Lycos Mail Incoming Mail Server (POP3) - pop.mail.lycos.com (port 110) Outgoing Mail Server - smtp.mail.lycos.com or use your local ISP SMTP mail server AOL Mail Settings The AOL email service is a web based system, designed for managing your AOL mailbox via HTTP IMAP access. Unlike Hotmail, you can use any email client to access your AOL mailbox, as long as it supports the IMAP protocol. AOL Incoming Mail Server (IMAP) - imap.aol.com (port 143) AOL Outgoing Mail Server - smtp.aol.com or use your local ISP SMTP mail server Mail.com Mail Settings The Mail.com email service allows you to use POP3 and SMTP servers for accessing your Mail.com mailbox. Mail.com Mail Incoming Mail Server (POP3) - pop1.mail.com (port 110) Outgoing Mail Server - use your local ISP SMTP mail server Netscape Internet Service Mail Settings The Netscape e-mail system is web-based, which means you can access their e-mail from any Internet connection. Netscape Internet Service also supports AOL® Communicator, Microsoft® Outlook, Microsoft® Outlook Express, and other POP3 e-mail software. The outgoing mail server needs SSL support, so make sure your email client software supports SSL connections over the SMTP protocol. Netscape Internet Service Incoming Mail Server (POP3) - pop.3.isp.netscape.com (port 110) Netscape Internet Service Outgoing Mail Server - smtp.isp.netscape.com (port 25, using a secure SSL connection) Tiscali Mail Settings The Tiscali email service allows you to use POP3 and SMTP servers for accessing your Tiscali mailbox. Tiscali Incoming Mail Server (POP3) - pop.tiscali.com (port 110) Outgoing Mail Server - use your local ISP SMTP mail server Freeserve Mail Settings The Freeserve email service allows you to use POP3 and SMTP servers for accessing your Freeserve mailbox. Freeserve Incoming Mail Server (POP3) - pop.freeserve.com (port 110) Outgoing Mail Server - use your local ISP SMTP mail server Supanet Mail Settings The Supanet email service allows you to use POP3 and SMTP servers for accessing your Supanet mailbox. Supanet Incoming Mail Server (POP3) - pop.supanet.com (port 110) Outgoing Mail Server - use your local ISP SMTP mail server

Gmail POP3 Settings

 

Making a Gmail POP3 account can really come in handy and the good thing about that is configuring such an account is not at all complex. There is just an easy  two-step process for configuring your Gmail POP3 account for receiving your mails in another client. First, you have to enable your Gmail POP3 account so that you receive all your mails in another email client. After you have enabled the account, then you just have to provide the data to create a POP3 account. Creating a POP3 account is as simple as that.

Here, both the steps are explained clearly:

Step 1-Enabling your Gmail POP3 account

To enable your Gmail account, all you have to do is access your Gmail account by logging through www.gmail.com. After you have successfully logged in, click on the “settings” link located on the top-right corner of the screen. Click on the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” link on the screen.

Now you have two choices- Either you can enable POP3 for all the mails i.e. the ones that have been already downloaded and the ones to be received in the future or you can enable POP3 for only the mails which are to be received in the future.

After making your choice click on the “save changes” button and this will save the fed configuration information.

Step 2- Providing the data

Now that you have enabled your Gmail POP3 account, you can create an account now. Even though the procedure varies from one email client to another, the common values or fields that you are required to fill are as below.

Email Address: Your Gmail email address

POP Password: Your Gmail password

Outgoing Server: smtp.gmail.com

Outgoing server (SMTP) port: 587

Server Address: pop.gmail.com

Incoming Server Port: 995

TLS/SSL required: Yes

Turn Your Firefox Address Bar Into Awesome Word Lookup Dictionary

 

Often we need particular meaning of some word and we end up searching multiple online dictionaries for the correct usage or definition. Do you know that Google also provides dictionary functionality to its users free of cost and with much more features than others? We will use this Google dictionary to turn our Firefox address bar into quick and useful word lookup guide.

Many of you must have idea about the “I’m feeling lucky” feature of the Firefox address bar. For others – 

You don’t have to go to Google.com every time for reaching a specific website whose exact spelling you don’t remember or when you know that it would be the first result from Google.
Just enter your query/keywords in Firefox address bar and hit Enter key. Firefox will assume that you are doing Google’s “I am feeling lucky” search and will directly land you at that site. For example, type ‘wikipedia India‘ in the address bar and hit Enter key. Firefox will directly take you to Wikipedia’s page on India.

The magic behind this trick is possible because of little known Keyword.URL defined in your Firefox configuration settings. Instead of always getting results from Google, You can also set your location bar for other search engines as described in this article.

We will use the same trick to convert our Firefox address bar into useful word definition and lookup guide. Just follow these simple steps –

1) Go to address bar and type about:config . Press Enter key and accept the warning. You can now see most of the firefox settings.
2) Write keyword.url in the top filter keyword textbox.
3) Double click on the filtered result to change its value.
4) Paste the following into the keyword.URL pop-up box

http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=en|en&q=

5) Click OK and you are done.

To check, just open another tab and type some random word into Firefox location/address bar and hit Enter key. For example, angel. You will see Google’s dictionary result for the given word. Not only you can find the word meaning, synonyms, related phrases, pronunciation and web definitions but you can also star or bookmarks words for future. 

Along with these goodies, Google Dictionary also helps you find translated meanings of the words. To use this feature, select a language from the drop down next to Google’s logo and type your word to translate and get its meaning.

To revert to traditional Google I’m feeling lucky search, use the same steps, but this time paste the following string into Keyword.URL value –

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&

esrch=BetaShortcuts&gfns=1&q=

My favorite features are word bookmarking and audio pronunciation. What are yours?