Tech Overflow

20 Steps To A Football Transfer

2009-06-23T05:36:00.000+05:30

Bet you didn't know there were twenty steps to a football transfer? Well, to any switch that has the word 'saga' attached, at any rate. Here they are.

Key: We have the player (the player), the 'selling club' (the player's current team) and the interested party (the club where the player will be performing pirhouettes next season for lots and lots of lovely money).

1. Tabloid talk - There's a deadline to be met and our friend from The Sun has been out all night doing all sorts of bold things with girls called Kate from Runcorn. He needs a story, any story, so he scribbles down the names of ten players and the names of ten top European/Premier League clubs, throws them into two separate beanie hats and links the first plausible pair. He hands the story into the subs who siphon out the typos and churn it all into a lovely two-column spread of page 67. Sans quotes, of course, though he may reference a source close to the club. His mother, in other words.

2. The first denial from the player - The player in question tries to inch away from Mr Telly News Reporter, but can't because to do so would be to run the microphone-holding oaf over in his Bentley. Reporter asks question, player says there's nothing in it, drives off, goes golfing.

3. More paper talk, this time quoting the interested party - The interested party's manager says that yes, they are looking to sign new players for certain positions and that yes, if our player becomes available they may look at it. But they won't be held to ransom as their current squad is good enough. But they are looking at options. But they...

4. Denial from the selling club - Step number 3 is all moot as the selling club sees our player as an integral part of their set-up for next season. The player's current manager even wants to build his side around this player, who isn't Danny Higginbotham.

5. Another denial from the player, but he's 'flattered' by the interested party's, ehm, interest - "I'm very happy where I am but when a team of the stature of West Brom* want you, well, any player would be flattered." *Barcelona.

6. Denial from the selling club, saying the player isn't for sale at any price - "The player is a big part of our plans and is not for sale at any price nudge nudge, wink wink."

7. Player criticises current manager/team-mates/fans/climate - Even though the player in question comes from the Norfolk area, he doesn't like it up North/up in Leeds/up 'im.

8. Player is publicly rebuked by his club, possibly fined, exacerbating his keenness to move - They may even fine him for good measure, even though the player in question is not, repeat, not Joey Barton. Barca would never waste their money on that good for nothing piece of...(Ed: Delete delete delete).

9. Interested party makes first, derisory offer. Selling club reiterates stance - Because they're not selling and the public is getting bored. So very bored.

10. Player hands in transfer request, depending on his eagerness to move - On the one hand, he could lose the money from the rest of his contract. On the other hand, he could be forced to play alongside Alan Smith for another season.

11. Selling club rejects request - Because they're not selling and....

12. Player makes harsher criticism of manager/team-mates/fans/climate/all of above - The knives are out now.

13. Interested party ups offer - They smell blood and like the Catalan sharks that they are (by now we're definitely talking about Barcelona, for reasons of specificity) they won't rest until they have their prey togging out in lovely blue and red and torquoise on away days. Or is it mauve?

14. Selling club turn that down, but say that every player has his price - The first decent sign that this transfer might actually go ahead. The public re-register their interest.

15. Player is suddenly happy at current club and doesn't wish to move - The public sit back down because they actually believe, the unwitting fools, that the player will not be boarding the flight to Espana after all. Really, this is just a ploy to drive up the transfer/signing on fee.

16. Interested party pulls out. Then make offer - "We will not be pursuing our interest in the player. Oh wait, we've just found a spare 20 million notes in our dry cleaning. Give us 'im."

17. Selling club accepts offer and says player can talk to interested party - The fans weep. And then wonder who they can buy as a replacement.

18. Personal terms are discussed. Player says nice things about soon to be former manager/team-mates/fans/climate - The hypocrite.

19. Medical - Medical.

20. The player signs for his new club, saying he plans to stay there for life - And our friend from The Sun tells Kate from Runcorn that he was the one who started it all. Kate doesn't care.

2009-02-23T00:06:00.002+05:30

"Think of the environment before printing this email" - if your email signature reads like this, you may want to try something different that will actually help someone in some part of the world.

Simply sign-up with Reply for All and choose the cause you want to support - it could be Cancer cure, AIDS prevention, animal rights, children’s rights, global warming, clean water, poverty or education.

When you send an email using Gmail or Yahoo! Mail, Reply For All will automatically embed a signature into your message - the sponsor will pay the Reply For All service and that payment will be shared with the cause you may have selected.

The signature is optional so if you don’t like a particular banner in the email, you can easily delete it from your email message just like normal text.

The downside - while you can add signatures in Gmail with a simple drag-n-drop, Reply For All would require you to install a Firefox plugin.

The Credit Crisis Explained in Simple English

2009-02-22T23:59:00.001+05:30

All Email Messages in Gmail Have a Permanent Web Address

2009-02-09T01:48:00.001+05:30

Do you know that it is possible to bookmark individual email messages of Gmail just like you would bookmark any regular web page.

To experiment, open any Gmail thread in your browser and notice the address bar as it gets updated with a unique URL. That’s the permanent address of your email message and it will stay the same as long as you don’t delete the message from your Gmail mailbox.

Why Bookmark Gmail Messages

This could be a handy alternative to search in Gmail (for accessing important emails quickly) or may be useful in situations where you don’t want to create another tag in Gmail just to remember a couple of important email messages.

You can bookmark Gmail message links in your web browser or save them as private bookmarks in delicious or even add them to your Read It Later list.

There aren’t any security issue because you can only access the email bookmarks if you are logged into your Google Apps or Gmail account.

Thanks Ouriel for the tip.

How to Say ‘No to All’ During File Copy Operations in Windows

2009-02-09T01:40:00.002+05:30

I bet you guys did not know this but always thought why this feature wasnt available under windows. The feature i'm talking abt is the one while copying or moving a large number of files from one location to another folder in Windows, you may often encounter errors or warning messages saying the file(s) you are trying to copy already exists in the target location.

Windows XP provides you with four options Yes, Yes to all, No and Cancel. Well most of us tend to press Yes to all thereby wasting time if the content which you are copying has a large number of files and is of a huge size. And you might have wondered how gr8 it would be to have a "No to all" option.

Well incidentally windows provides you with the No to all option. Though there’s no "No to All" button in the File Replacement dialog but you can simply hold down the Shift Key before pressing the No button and Windows will automatically interpret this action as a "No to All" command.

This will be so useful when you are copying a large number of files and folders but don’t want to overwrite content that already exists at the target.

I know this might be an eye opener to most of you it certainly was for me.

Adobe PDF Guide: Get things done

2009-01-03T02:14:00.002+05:30

Adobe PDF is the best format for sharing documents because they are compact, the formatting is preserved and most computers / mobile devices / ebook readers can easily handle PDF files.

Here you’ll learn how to do just about everything with PDF documents without buying Adobe Acrobat. You can edit PDF files, combine multiple files as one, add signature images to PDF pages, fill PDF forms online, add clickable hyperlinks to existing PDF documents and so much more.

Adobe PDF Guide and Tutorial

Q: First things first - How do I create PDF documents on my computer without Adobe Acrobat?

A: Get a copy of DoPDF - it installs as a virtual printer driver on your desktop just like Acrobat and lets you print PDF files from any Windows application including images, documents, emails, websites, etc.

Q: I don’t want to install software just for converting a bunch of documents to PDF. Do you know of any alternative?

A: Upload your documents to Google Docs via the browser and then export them as PDF files. Simple.

Q: A client just sent me a PowerPoint presentation by email. Since I am travelling without the laptop and my mobile phone cannot read PPT files, what should I do?

A: Forward that email message (with the PPT attachment) to pdf@koolwire.com - they’ll convert the presentation to PDF and email it back to you immediately. Most mobile phones can read PDF files.

Q: How do I directly save a web page as PDF without having to save that page as an HTML file first?

A: Go to PrimoPDF, type the URL of the web page and they’ll send you a PDF version of that page via email.

Q: How can I convert PDF files into other formats like Word documents, images, HTML web pages, etc.

A: You can upload the PDF document to Zamzar and convert it any formats like doc, html, png, txt or rtf (rich text format). Alternatively, you can convert PDF to HTML using Gmail.

Q: How do I create a single PDF package by merging files of different formats.

A: Try Loop PDF - it’s a free service that lets you combine multiple documents, images and even web pages into a single PDF file.

Q: How do I merge two or more PDF files into one? Can I also change the page order?

A: You can grab PDF Fill - it’s a versatility PDF editing tool that lets you combine PDFs from the desktop. PDF Fill can also help you rearrange pages in any order or for rotating pages inside a PDF.

Q: I want to extract some text from a PDF and use it in my Word document. What is the best option?

A: Go to PDFTextOnline and upload your PDF - it will extract text from the first 10 pages of your PDF document (to start) and will also show the PDF bookmarks, document properties, and form data (if available).

Q: I can’t get the above trick to work since I have a scanned PDF.

A: You can extract text from scanned PDF documents with Google Search. It’s not an instant process but probably the only free solution we know of.

Q: I have some restricted PDF documents on my computer in the sense that they neither allow printing nor can you select text with the mouse.

A: Get the PDF Unlocker - its a free Windows utility that will remove all common restrictions around a PDF file without requiring any passwords. Alternatively, you may use the online service at ensode.net that will remove all the printing or copying/pasting related restrictions from your PDF.

Q: Some PDF files on our company’s intranet are protected by a password that no one can remember anymore. Can we still open them?

A: Check this article - How to Open Password Protected PDF

Q: I am looking for a service that would let visitors download my articles as PDF files.

A: Add the Web2PDF button anywhere in your website - it converts web pages to PDF files on demand and also keeps a track of all PDF conversion related activities on your website.

Q: Someone sent me a PDF document in Chinese but I can read only English?

A: You can easily translate PDF files using Google Translate and Zoho Viewer.

Q: How can I add annotations or text notes to some of my PDF documents?

A: Get the PDF-X Viewer - it’s like Adobe Reader but with some extra features. You can add comments, annotations or even paste images to your PDF pages. You can also add annotations, call-outs and text to your PDFs online with PDF Escape.

Q: How do I read PDF files online without desktop software?

A: You can open PDF documents in the browser with PDFMeNot without requiring any software.

Q: Can I fill PDF forms online without Acrobat Reader?

A: Sure, go to PDF Filler, upload the PDF form and start typing. PDF typewriter works by converting PDF forms into images and allowing the user to type right on top of the images.

Q: How can I add watermarks or even my (real) signature to a PDF document?

A: First draw your signature in Paint (or other photo editing tool) and save it as an image. Make sure you crop all the blank portion that lies outside the signature. Now open the PDF document inside PDF-X Viewer and copy-paste that watermark / signature image. Simple.

Q: I have a PDF book that contains some 200 pages. Is there a way to extract selected pages from that book and save it as another PDF.

A: You can either PDF Merge or PDF SAM (split and merge) to extract pages from a PDF document.

Q: How can I protect my PDF documents with a password?

A: Upload your PDF file to PDF Hammer, set a security password and export it as PDF again.

Q: A PDF document has lot of links but I can’t click them as they are in plain text. How do I make them clickable?

A: Go to PDF Escape, upload the PDF and then place hyperlinks anywhere on the page.

Q: Which online service(s) would you recommend for uploading PDF files on the web?

A: My favorite is Issuu - they have built an excellent PDF viewer inside a beautiful interface. You can also use Issuu to embed PDF files in your own website. Next recommendation is Scribd - it’s a more popular service so your PDF document would get more eye balls.

Get things done using sticky notes as your Home Page

2008-12-25T18:28:00.002+05:30

Sticky Screen is a simple online version of the yellow Post-It Note that you can set as your browser homepage.

You just have to type something onto the sticky note and set that website as your browser home page. No need to register anywhere and there’s no save button.

The yellow sticky note will show up whenever you start the web browser. The magic is due to a cookie that gets saved locally so the sticky note will change to the default one if you decide to clear the cookies someday.

Cool products @ work

2008-12-17T23:52:00.002+05:30

Some cool new products i found on the web. check them out and if u r a beverage freak like me I think you must get 1 of these 4 urself.. :P Im nt kidding.. Its affordable and both of them are USB driven..

Tired of getting up at regular intervals and walking to the fridge for a cold beverage? Do not fret, for this beverage chiller can plug into any USB port and keep your drink cold. It is a perfect gizmo for those who refuse to depart from their computers.

Price: USB Beverage Chiller is priced at Rs 678.

Available at: All leading electronic stores in India or can even be purchased online

Technological convergence can be a great thing for those who can't do without their daily dose of caffeine. This USB-powered Coffee Warmer keeps your cuppa nice and warm. So, now you can sip your mocha while you work, all you need is a USB port from your PC/Notebook to connect to this coffee warmer.

Price: You can get a USB Coffee Warmer for Rs.700.

Available at: All leading electronic stores in India or can even be purchased online

File Ai Shares Large Files Instantly

2008-12-12T23:09:00.001+05:30

Web site file ai supports instantaneous file sharing for large files, allowing the file recipient to begin downloading the file as soon as you begin uploading it.

Similar to EatLime, that means you don't have to wait an hour for a large file to upload to the site's servers before your friend or co-worker can start downloading it. Unlike EatLime, file ai has no limit on file size—presumably because the file never actually goes through the site's servers.

Instead, file ai uses a BitTorrent-style transfer protocol that goes directly from you to your peer. Like BitTorrent, if you're sharing the file with more than one person, file ai will create a swarm, speeding up the download. The downside is that if you do have plenty time to upload the file to a site's server, your recipient won't get the benefit of the fat download pipe that other file sharing servers boast. file ai is free to use, works in any Java-supported web browser.

Enable Chrome's Best Features in Firefox

2008-12-12T21:57:00.003+05:30

The internet is atwitter with Google Chrome's innovative new features, but there was no clear winner in our speed test comparing Firefox and Chrome—which means your choice of browser may depend solely on features. Apart from a few specific issues (namely process management), many of Chrome's best features are already available in Firefox 3, proving yet again the power of extensibility. From incognito browsing and the streamlined download manager to URL highlighting and improved search, let's take a look at how you can bring some of Google Chrome's best features to Firefox.

Stealther Turns On Incognito Browsing

Chrome's Incognito browsing allows you to ~~shop for your significant other~~ look at porn without keeping any history of that browsing session anywhere on your computer. In Firefox, the Stealther extension does the same thing. The main difference: In Chrome, a single window can enter Incognito mode, whereas in Firefox it's enabled globally (this is probably possible in Chrome because of how it manages each tab as a separate process). But let's be honest, are your multi-tasking skills really that good?

Download Statusbar Puts Downloads in Your Status Bar

Chrome is all about saving space, so files you download don't break out into a separate window. Instead, they live in your status bar. Not bad, but guess what: The Download Statusbar Firefox extension has been doing this for five years, and it offers lots of additional options and wastes even less screen real estate.

Speed Dial and Auto Dial Power Up Your Empty Tabs

Chrome's empty tab page—which displays your most visited sites, most used search boxes, and even your recently closed tabs—is awesome. There isn't currently anything quite as full featured for Firefox, however there are a couple of options that are very close. The Speed Dial extension (which itself is a ripoff of the Speed Dial feature in Opera) provides a very similar thumbnail-based new tab page, but you decide which sites you want in your speed dial and you can quickly access any of them from your keyboard with shortcuts.

Locationbar2 Adds Domain-Highlighting to the Address Bar

Google Chrome's "omni bar" sports root domain highlighting, a cool feature that doubles as a nice anti-phishing device (if you see the root domain more easily, you are less likely to give your information to an imposter domain). That sort of domain highlighting isn't new by any means, though; the Locationbar2 Firefox extension has been boasting this same highlighting—in addition to several other excellent features

Prism Extension Turns Any Site into a Separate Application

If you want to break out a webapp you use all day long into a separate window and desktop shortcut, Chrome makes it easy on you. Just click x and do y. The concept of separating webapps into their own application isn't new, though. At Mozilla, they've been cooking up Prism to do just that for quite some time. With Prism and the Prism for Firefox extension installed, just go to Tools -> Convert Website to Application to break a webapp into a separate window and application. Right now this extension is Windows only, but hey—so is Chrome.

Keyword Search Bookmarks Integrate Site-Specific Search with the Address Bar

Chrome boasts that after using a site's search engine once, you can perform that same search from the address bar the next time. For example, after you search Amazon once, the next time you may just be able to go to your address bar, type 'a', press Tab, and then perform your search. That's pretty saucy, but it's also not much of an innovation over keyword searches in Firefox. Granted, you have to manually add a search box , but you can also define exactly what you want that shortcut to be. Chrome also doesn't currently support keyword bookmarking in general, which is one of the most time-saving features in Firefox.

On the other hand, Auto Dial automatically populates the new tab page with your most frequently visited sites. It's not as attractive as Speed Dial or Chrome's new tab page, though. Either way, give Firefox extension developers some time. We'll have an even better alternative before you know it.

Hottest keywords typed on Google Indias search box

2008-12-11T11:46:00.004+05:30

Ever wondered what is the Google Zeitgeist??
Well, "Zeitgeist" means "the spirit of the times", and Google reveals this spirit through the aggregation of millions of search queries we receive every day. We have several tools that give insight into global, regional, past and present search trends. These tools are available for you to play with, explore, and learn from. Use them for everything from business research to trivia answers.

Google comes up with this list of top searche keywords every year and this time as usual a lot of surprising names have popped up in the list.

Here is a look at 2008 through the collective eyes of the Indian users on the web. The Zeitgeist offers a unique perspective on the year's major events and hottest trends based on searches conducted by users in India

Fastest Rising

youtube
orkut
katrina kaif
cricket
irctc
facebook
genelia d'souza
beijing 2008 olympic games
sixth pay commission
ipl

Top Bollywood Celebrities

katrina kaif
aishwarya rai
salman khan
hrithik roshan
kareena kapoor
shahid kapur
deepika padukone
shahrukh khan
mallika sherawat
genelia d'souza

Top holiday destinations

goa
kerala
kashmir
dubai
singapore
australia
london
shimla
switzerland
manali

Top 'how to' searches

how to reduce weight
how to kiss
how to earn money
how to get pregnant
how to learn english
how to gain weight
how to play guitar
how to create a website
how to impress a girl
how to tie a tie

The most surprising keyword would definitely be Katrina who shows up in a number of lists in the Top 10. And in case you are wondering who is Namitha it seems she is a Tamil actress and one of the top female stars working in Tollywood.
Ah in case you are wondering where are the expected keywords related to pornography, well this list is for the users with safe search mode turned on (it seems). So this list is basically a revised list going through googles Censorship board (haha) ... Ya the same radio button which you have turned off on your PC :P. In case you want to get hold of this list i guess you have to be an employee of google or get in touch with one..

In case you can guess the list of top 10 keywords without "Safe search on" you can always leave a comment so the other users can have a look at the same.

In case you are looking for what keywords are hot internationally you can visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2008/#top

10 Worst tech predictions

2008-12-11T11:30:00.002+05:30

Most of us love reading technology forecasts. It keeps us in sync with the times to come. Really? No, if the tech predictions below are anything to go by.

Made by tech czars and some of the biggest names in their fields, these predictions have gone way off the mark. In fact, many read like a `joke' today.

Here are 10 tech predictions that have gone awry (big time).
1) iPod will die by next year
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph in February 2005, Sir Alan Michael Sugar, the founder of Amstrad, said: "Next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput."

Incidentally, at the time Sugar's Amstrad and Apple were reportedly neck-and-neck in the personal computer race.

As for iPod, In October, Apple set a record for iPod sales outside of the always lucrative holiday quarter. The company sold more than 11 million iPods, an 8 per cent jump in unit growth with a 3 per cent rise in revenue over the year-ago quarter.

2) `YouTube will not go far`
There's just not that many videos I want to watch," said Steve Chen, a co-founder of YouTube, in March 2005. At the time YouTube featured about 50 videos. Just two years later, on November 13 2006, YouTube was acquired by Google for $1.65 billion in Google stock.

Recently, Collins Stewart LLC analyst Sandeep Aggarwal estimated that the video site will generate $180 million to $200 million in revenue this year. And, Aggarwal predicts YouTube's revenue will double next year to about $400 million.

3) `No need for a computer at home`
"(There's) no need for a computer in the home," these are the words of Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp made in 1977.

Incidentally, he was not the first one to predict such a thing. Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM reportedly said in 1943, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

In the late 1990s, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison called PC "a ridiculous device," said today, arguing that while information appliances won't obviate the need for PCs, the latter have hidden costs, create more labour for corporate information technology departments and don't make sense for many users with scaled-down PC needs.

4) Who needs more than 640 KB (LOL)
In 1981, Bill Gates allegedly said that nobody would ever need more than 640 kilobytes of memory on their personal computer.
However, in an interview to Bloomberg Businees News in 1996, Gates refuted the quote. Here's an excerpt of what he said when asked about the (in)famous quote, "I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time.

5) TV won't last
Here's something for all those couch potatoes there. "TV won't last because people would, "soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night," said Darryl Zanuck in 1946. Zanuck is an Academy Award-winning producer, writer, actor, director, and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood.

In 1926, Lee De Forest, an American inventor with over 180 patents to his credit, said about TV, "While theoretically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming."

6) `There will never be a bigger plane built'
In 1933, after the first flight of the Boeing 247, a plane that could hold ten people, a proud Boeing engineer reportedly said, "There will never be a bigger plane built."

Similarly in 1904, Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, said "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."

7)`Spam will be solved`
The problem of spam e-mail messages will be gone within two years, Bill Gates promised in January 2004.

Speaking at a session of the World Economic Forum, Gates, the chairman of the Microsoft Corporation, said that the company was working on three ways to enable e-mail users to keep spam out of their computers.

The first two, he said, would involve having computers reply automatically to any email messages from senders not known to that computer -- that is, not in the mail list of the email programme installed on the computer -- with a request to solve a problem that could be handled by a person but not by a computer.

The third way, which Gates said was likely to arrive later but be the long-term solution, would require that email messages sent by strangers come with postage attached, the equivalent of a postage stamp.

8) eBay will be huge in China
In February 2005, eBay CEO Meg Whitman, said, "We are on a tear to be the undisputed winner in China." Come, December 2006, eBay announces that it would close its operations in China and become the junior partner to Tom Online, a Chinese Internet portal and wireless firm.

9) `Telephone is inherently of no value'
In 1962, Dennis Gabor, British physicist and author of Inventing the Future wrote, "Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition.

Similarly in an internal memo in 1879 Western Union Co said, "telephone" has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."

10) Photocopiers are niche
"The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at most," IBM told the eventual founders of Xerox in 1959.

According to Wikipedia, by 1961 Xerox had almost $60 million in revenue, and this value had leapt to $500 million by 1965.

In 1957, the editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, predicted, "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."

Prevent write access to USB drives with USB write protector

2008-12-07T20:42:00.000+05:30

USB write protector is a windows freeware which allows you to protect , USB drives, from Viruses to get copied or any malicious activity by write protecting it. This could be very useful when you connect to some files from other network or cyber cafe

USB write potection utility

Moreover this can act as your Anti USB virus utility as now you can block anybody usb drive who wants to access your computer and his or her usb and you dont want them to copy Just Kidding. Use it foryourself and protect your drive. Simple Download USB Write protector

Open docx Files in Firefox without Office 2007

2008-12-05T07:46:00.002+05:30

I have received a few calls from my friends asking me to download MS Office 2007 so that they can open the new "x" format which is being rolled out by these version. I use the Office compatibility pack provided by MS. One had to use some version of MS Office. Im nt sure abt Open Office never tried it.
Not anymore now you can open .docx files without Office Word 2007, there’s a new Firefox extension from Microsoft that should help. Available for Windows as well as Linux machines.

Open DOCX files as an HTML document in any web browser

Called OpenXML viewer, this plug-in (download link) lets you read docx files inside the Firefox browser just like any other HTML web page while retaining all the text formatting and layout.

There’s a command-line version of OpenXML viewer (download link) available as well for converting docx documents into HTML files that you may then open in any other web browser.

2008-11-19T23:01:00.000+05:30

An experimental Firefox add-on Flash Game Maximizer lets you play any online Flash Game in full screen mode even if such an option is not available in the the game.

Whenever the Flash Game Maximizer add-on detects Flash content on a web page, an icon in the status-bar glows yellow, which when clicked, toggles that Flash content to full screen view.

Note that since this is an experimental add-on, you need to login to install this.

Zapr Makes File Sharing Painless

2008-11-19T22:48:00.002+05:30

Windows only: Zapr is a new file-sharing application that promises to make remote file sharing extremely simple. Users download the Zapr application, set up a free account, and can immediately begin sharing files with friends. Only the person doing the sharing needs to have the application installed, all others simply need the URL the file sharer gives them. The files are hosted locally, with the Zapr server only providing directions between the file sharer and the people seeking the file. Files can be shared unprotected or with passwords. There is no restriction on file type or file size. For another simply way to share files without FTP, check out a post on GBridge on LifeHacker. Zapr is freeware, Windows only.

Shutdown manager : Automatic restart, hibernate, log off computer

2008-11-18T00:46:00.002+05:30

Believe me it was a difficult task for me to find a shutdown manager that can do its job irrespective of the tasks going on. My laptop needs to shut down by 8 a.m cos tat is the time when free download ends and it is important for me that my laptop doesnt download anymore as i hv a limited download size. I found this excellent tool called Shutdown Manager. Details are mentioned below..

Shutdown manager is a free tool which allows you to set timer for restarting, performing extra tasks, log off, hibernate, lock and even just turnoff your monitor at any set time for your computer.

Many a times you require your computer to shutdown or even restart when you are not there.This is a multipurpose toll for these kind of jobs. The best part I feel is are the extra tasks which it can do before shutting down or logging of your computer. There are 2 modes available which are relative and absolute. Relative works like a count down timer and absolute is for shutting down your computer at a particular time.

Shutdown manager for you computer

The Extra Task is definitely an advantage but I was really surprised seeing IE 4 options there. Its time people are even quitting IE 6. May be they can do something about it in next version. Moreover you can also clean up your temporary files, delete recent document list and emty recycle bin when shutting down or restarting.

Over all this is a very good software which works for Windows Vista and Xp both Give Shutdown Manager a try ( Via Online tech Tips )

Convert PDF into Word with High quality

2008-11-18T00:43:00.002+05:30

Though we have seen many PDF to DOC converters and none of them give you the results which one desires, but Converpdftoword is the best tool I have seen till now which not only converts from PDF to Word but does it very well in terms of quality. Here is an example ( I have part of the files so the image retains the quality which word file has )

Sample PDF document to be converted into WORD

Sample PDF document which I will convert into word

Converted PDF document into MS office Word

Isnt the conversion just awesome?

Adobe bloated software, and how to disable automatic updates

2008-11-18T00:37:00.002+05:30

Personally, I hate the trend of software adding bloat in subsequent versions as much as I hate people saying an application is bloated just because it’s no longer a simple one-dimensional kind of program. That said, Adobe current crop of products have to be some of the worst in this sense.

At this point I’m sure nobody doubts the deserved dominance of Photoshop in the world of digital photo editing, just like Microsoft Word or Excel are your overall best bets for documents and spreadsheets despite of its cost. But when the very creators of the PDF format ship its latest reader which takes twice the amount of time for opening files than third-party software like Foxit Reader (on a high-end PC, for slower machines it can be as much as a 10x difference!) you know something is very wrong then.

But that is just one of the many examples I can give you. The Adobe installer is just damn horrible. I have to admit that adding a bunch of ‘required’ middleware like the “Extension Manager” is not something I enjoy, but I find much worse the inclusion of the stealth Adobe Updater. You may be surprised the first time this updater pops up because it doesn’t leave any traces in the Windows registry and is not listed as a startup program. So, unless you are running a full fledged firewall (which you should but there aren’t many good ones for Vista yet), the program could run and download updates without your consent. In fact it’s quite likely you won’t notice this running unless it’s taking away your bandwidth, or CPU time (bloat, remember?) or an interruption in your Internet connection happens, which will make it complain and thus become evident it was running behind your back.

Furthermore, Adobe doesn’t give you an easy way to turn this feature off beforehand, but rather you can configure it while it’s running - there’s no access through the Adobe programs’ options menus - or you will have to manually edit a configuration file. You can disable these updates fby following the methods listed below.

Brute forcing a password on a home PC.. How long does it take?

2008-11-06T02:57:00.001+05:30

Password cracking programs typically use the dictionary attack or the brute force method to break your "strong" password. And you don’t really need a super-computer for guessing passwords, just enough time depending on how strong or weak the original password is.

If you like to know how long will it take for an average home computer to guess your password, try the Hackosis calculator. Just type in the count of various characters (lowercase, uppercase, numbers, etc.) and the tool will give you a time estimate.

For instance, it will take around two months for your computer to guess a reasonably strong password with 5 lowercase, 2 uppercase and 4 numbers (see screenshot above) but more common passwords like "test", "password" or "123" can be cracked in negligible time.

Send SMS Text Messages from your GMail Account

2008-10-31T23:34:00.001+05:30

Well i was searching for a method through which i could send sms through my Gtalk and i came across this new feature developed by google labs.

Well, You can now send SMS text messages to anyone in your Gmail address book right from the Gmail website.

Go to your Gmail Labs settings and enable the "Text Messaging (SMS) in Chat" feature. The facility is currently available only for US phone numbers.

You can send (and receive) text messages via the embedded chat in Gmail website but not from the standalone Google Talk client. Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Messenger and AOL AIM service have had the SMS messaging feature for quite some time now. Thank you Steve.

The Hidden Connection Between Windows and Google Chrome Logo

2008-10-29T16:33:00.004+05:30

Well inspite of the heavy ongoing war between Microsoft and Google, google somehow managed to play with Microsofts logo and design its logo for Chrome(the latest offering: a browser from Google)

Am sure this is a mere coincidence but the Thinkfree designers probably aren’t too happy about this and have made a ‘parody’ video on how the Google Chrome logo was designed. Watch and LOL!! :P

Turn Your Name into an Avatar

2008-10-29T00:25:00.002+05:30

TurnYourNameIntoAFace, written as part of the 24 hour challenge, automatically converts your name (or anyone else’s) into an avatar.

Each name input produces exactly one avatar from over 100,000 possibilities, but not every avatar maps back to exactly one name.

This could be pretty useful if you’re looking for automatically generated avatars for your blog. There are other alternatives like Identicons, Wavatar or MonsterID which do the same thing.

This is the image it returned for me. lol nice considering i dont have a need for spectacles.

Find Pagerank, Alexa Rank, and much more for any site in one go

2008-10-23T04:34:00.000+05:30

DNfame is a free online tool, using which, you can find out loads of information about any site. You can get to know the -

Pagerank.
Alexa Rank.
Complete Rank.
Quantcast Rank.
Backlinks in the search engines, social bookmarking links and lot more.

All you need to do is enter the address for the website and you will get to know all the details in one click, also you get a thumbnail view for the site’s homepage.

You get to see something termed as ‘Famous Rank’, along with above stated data, and as stated on DNfame, Famous Rank is generated by using the Alexa rank, Pagerank, and other rankings which are already available and well in trend, also it is not a part of official stats, so should not be considered for any commercial purpose. Here is an example

So try DNfame now, and enjoy the statics for site in one click, this can be used as a quick and easy way of getting a market reputation overview for any site.

One click away from your website

2008-10-23T01:51:00.005+05:30

Who amongst wouldn't like to create a anonymous page on the web be it to target some person, express your point of view, but lazy enough to fill up all those registration forms or its just one time thing then a blog isn't probably for you. Well now you can create websites on the go without any registrations, no email id required. All you need is jot down whatever i in your mind and for this reason Jottit was created.

Jottit is perhaps the simplest website creator you could wish for. All you have to do is write some content inside that big text box, click create and your website is up and running the next moment.

You may use HTML formatting instead of plain text and though there’s no option to upload images on jottit, you can always embed external images into your own pages.

So how is Jottit any different from a wiki or those text sharing services? Well, there’re some advanced features as well like you can have multiple pages on the same site, revision tracking, RSS support and more.

Web pages created on Jottit are public by default and can be edited by anyone but you may override the default settings and can make any site private or protect pages via a password.

Finding Exact Opposite Point on Earth with Google Maps

2008-10-23T01:45:00.001+05:30

Planning to dig up a straight tunnel from your current location and reach the exact opposite point on the Earth. Wonder where you will end up at Now don't you wanna locate that place on the globe where that hole will open?

Well, you neither have to consult geography books nor make any approximations as there’s a Google Maps based web tool that will very easily solve this problem.

Called AntiPodr, this tools takes you current street address (or city name or zip code) and points you to a location on the Earth’s surface that is exactly opposite to you.

You can see the opposite location on the map as a pushup pin but they also provide the latitude and longitude co-ordinates for better accuracy.

The logic is simple: If the coordinates (longitude and latitude) of a point on the Earth’s surface are (θ, φ), then the coordinates of the exact opposite location will be (θ ± 180°,−φ).

So if you start digging a hole in New Delhi and then drop a ball in the tunnel, it will reach somewhere in the middle of Pacific Ocean.

Thanks Launchfeed.

The 20 Most Popular Websites

2008-10-19T22:47:00.000+05:30

Hitwise today released new data about the top 20 most popular websites in terms of traffic with Google.com taking the top position.

None of the finance related websites managed to breach the top 20 mark though this situation will definitely change when Hitwise release data for October.

Most Popular Websites in US

1 www.google.com    6%
2 mail.yahoo.com    4.70%
3 www.myspace.com   4.01%
4 www.yahoo.com    3.88%
5 mail.live.com    2.14%
6 www.ebay.com    1.61%
7 search.yahoo.com  1.48%
8 www.facebook.com  1.20%
9 www.msn.com    1.08%
10 www.youtube.com   0.93%
11 www.gmail.com    0.79%
12 wikipedia.org     0.53%
13 images.google.com 0.52%
14 mail.aol.com    0.42%
15 search.msn.com    0.41%
16 news.yahoo.com    0.41%
17 my.yahoo.com    0.40%
18 address.yahoo.com 0.40%
19 www.pogo.com    0.37%
20 craigslist.org    0.33%

Yahoo’s combined share in this pie of top 20 websites is higher than that of Google.

And if these numbers are any indication, here’s how the various web email sites now rank in terms of popularity: (a) Yahoo! Mail (b) Windows Live Hotmail (c) Gmail (d) AOL.

Breathing Earth : A simulation about Birth,Death and CO2

2008-10-08T03:10:00.002+05:30

I found this interesting page on the web that simulates Birth, death and CO2 emission in a country. It might generate a sense of responsibility in you towards nature. Just observe the rate of birth and death in India compared to America, it is shocking.

Breathingearth in an online application which has created a simulation of How many people die and born every minute. It alos calculates how much CO2 is every country emitting out. This is a very impressive and only tool I see which can give you a feeling that the clock is ticking and we should do something for the environment rather than dreaming to go to Space. Here is what it looks like :

Seeing this was not easy and like scary for me. Probably we sitting an AC room forget that we had nature around us. I dont know how true the claims made by the site are but it jolted me a little.

Create your own Virtual Private Network with Gbridge

2008-10-08T03:07:00.001+05:30

Gbridge is free software which allows you to create a virtual private network or secure VPN using Gtalk Service. This way you can add Multiple computers into the bridge ( VPN ) and share files of any size among the computers. This is a good alternate if you want to share large files. It also allows sync folders between two computers and remote control your desktop but in a very secured manner.

Create Virtual Private Network

However you will have to use your Gmail Username to create it. I am guessing they might have integrated Gtalk Service just to make sure authenticated users are logged in, which is similar to passport service of Microsoft.

This does work even if your friends are not using Gtalk Service however if they are you get to easy transfer bigger files and becomes ideal solution for remote computer assistance and remote presentation.

It uses :

IPv4 for authentication, encryption and mobility.
p2p for Sharing files.
Dynamic Ip and Private Ip for making it more secured.

Get all the details on Grbidge and Download the software here

Add waves effects and lake reflections to your PhotosAdd waves effects and lake reflections to your Photos

2008-10-08T03:04:00.000+05:30

Adding effects to photos is one of the most entertaining and cool way to show off your geeky attitude.

Reflet allows you to add effects in your photos as if you are standing by the side of some lake, movement and pattern in waves and reflections caused in them can be customized as per your liking. Just download and extract and run the .exe file , and enjoy the reflection of water even in the deserts, lol.

Interface is simple enough, Open a file, Choose the number of images you want to keep in your output file, Set the height of reflection (choosing a height less than 100%, will give better results to make it look more natural), Now under the options tab choose Speed and Type of waves, choose the type of reflection Regular or Perspective, and now hit the enter button to get the reflection, Save as whatever file type you wish to, later a HTML code can also be generated, if you choose to save as a gif file.

Here is a small video, which demonstrates, How to use Reflet to get the wave and reflection effects in your photos.

Download video!

Gmail Goggles: No More Drunk Emailing on Friday Nights

2008-10-08T02:35:00.004+05:30

This post is all those guys who enjoy a little drinks on a friday night and do not want to end up making the biggest blunder of your life b sending your boss or ur HR head an arbit mail. Well GMail wants to help out such people and it has come up with Gmail Goggles. It is comething like this.

This email won’t leave your Gmail outbox unless you solve that Maths problem.

Gmail Labs today released an interesting feature to prevent you from sending mails that may you may regret later. It does so by asking you to confirm whether you really want to send that email.

So if you’re writing a mail late on a Friday night, when you may not be as sober as you would like yourself to be, you can get GMail to ask you a few math problems before the message leave your Gmail outbox.

You can enable this via the "Labs" tab on the Gmail "Settings" page. By default, the Mail Goggles feature of Gmail become active late night on the weekend, but you can set it to other times as well from Settings –> General.

Monitor your Internet Speed and Bandwidth Usage in Real-Time with BitMeter

2008-10-03T11:14:00.000+05:30

You got a broadband connection at home with a data transfer limit and the ISP charges extra money for every byte of data that you download / upload beyond the limit specified in the monthly plan.

If you can connect with the above situation, what you definitely need is BitMeter for keeping a track of your internet bandwidth usage.

In fact, Bitmeter is more than just a bandwidth usage meter. You can create custom desktop alerts (see screenshot) to know when your internet connection goes offline or if the net speed drops beyond a certain level.

Screenshot A: The ISP Restrictions screen allows you to configure BitMeter with details of your ISPs monthly usage allowance, so that it can warn you as you approach your limit.

Screenshot B: Alerts can be created to notify you when you have transferred a specified amount of data (a Volume Alert), or when your speed goes above or below a specified value (a Speed Alert).

There are other free apps for tracking bandwidth as well some of them have now been abandoned by their respective developers. I have been using BitMeter for about a week now and find it very useful especially for tracking the current ISP speed.

BlogAds Invitations Available for Bloggers & Site Owners

2008-10-03T11:04:00.003+05:30

Blogads is one of the few advertising systems on the web that follow a flat fee structure instead of the CPC / CPM model. Advertisers pay a fixed monthly rate that are also decided by the publisher himself.

You get 70% of the advertising revenue while the rest 30% goes to BlogAds plus the credit card or PayPal transaction costs, which typically amount to 2%-3%.

If you maintain a blog or website with decent traffic, please fill this form and you may get a BlogAds invite.

Unlike Google AdSense, BlogAds doesn’t have that huge pool of advertisers so you may want to check out these hives (example) to know if your niche fits the BlogAds network.

This video tutorial explains how advertisers can sponsor space on your blog via BlogAds.

Google SMS Channels: Send SMS Text Messages to your Group for Free

2008-10-03T11:00:00.002+05:30

Google India has just introduced a new product called Google SMS Channels that lets you subscribe to news alerts, blog updates and other kinds of information like horoscopes, jokes, stocks or even cricket scores via SMS text messages.

Google SMS Channels, which seems to have lot in common with SMS Gupshup, is free both for content publishers as well as mobile phone users who subscribe to text updates via SMS.

Families or friends can create private SMS groups on Google SMS channels and stay in touch via SMS without paying any fees to their mobile carrier.

google sms channels

Other than receiving blog RSS feeds via SMS, you may also use the Google SMS service to get news alerts and weather information on your phone.

Another interesting part – you don’t really need a mobile phone to send an SMS to your group as there’s an option in Google SMS channels that lets you can compose and send SMS messages via the web itself. It supports English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada.

Google SMS channels currently works only with with phone numbers of India but they are “working towards making this service available to international numbers.”

For more visit http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels/browse

Visualize Internet Traffic in Real Time

2008-09-24T12:44:00.000+05:30

Akamai, a company that handles anywhere between 10-20% of all the web traffic, offers some interesting real-time charts to help you visualize traffic on the Internet in real time.

Geographic regions with the most Web traffic - Akamai

For instance, this chart highlights geographic regions on a world map that are currently receiving the highest amount of traffic. You also get to know about cities / countries that are getting hammered with malicious web traffic.

Another very interesting chart is this News Index that details the news consumption pattern over a period of time. Web traffic on news sites is more or less constant across the entire day except between 11 PM and 8 AM.

Visitors per minute on popular news websites

And finally, here’s a consolidated chart showing the total number of visitors who are online at any given point of time. This may be a good indicator of the overall traffic pattern since Akamai claims to handle 20% of all the web traffic.

Visitors per minute across Internet delivered by Akamai

Akamai also publishes a quarterly State of The Internet report that details all the network outages and web site hijacks that had an impact on users. The report is available for download as a PDF.

Piracy prevention by using Self Destructing DVD

2008-09-15T22:29:00.000+05:30

German DVD-D Germany Ltd. has created a DVD disc that becomes unreadable after 48 hours. This limited time DVDs are already on the market in some countries.

The DVD-D movie discs come in sealed cardboard sleeves. Only when you open the sleeve the time starts to count down(no explosion). If you leave the DVD-D disc inside the sleeve you can keep it even for years.On average, users get 48 hours of use from a €3.99 ($6.44) disc, while planned premium discs will offer longer viewing periods for a higher price.

It is some chemical process that starts when the disc is exposed to air outside the cardboard sleeve protection(Most of the part is kept secret).DVD-D discs are of course ideal for movie and video game rental services.

Visit the web site DVD-d for more information.

Homemade Liquid Hand Soap Recipe

2008-09-15T22:02:00.002+05:30

Well this is nothing to do with technology but i simply couldn't resist adding this post as I am cleanliness freak myself :P. And this post is dedicated to those guys who consider it a pain to take your soap to the bathroom.

Ingredients

1 bar soap (6 oz)
1 TBS honey
1 tsp glycerin
water

Directions

Grate bar of soap into small flakes, pour in blender.
Add 1 cup boiling water and whip.
Add 1/2 cup room temperature water and stir in blender.
Add honey and glycerin, stir.
Allow mix to cool (15 minutes) then whip again.
Mixture should be 2 cups at this point. Top with cool water until mixture measures between 5 and 6 cups, whip.
Pour into containers and allow to cool (do not put lids or caps on yet).
After an hour, close containers. Soap mixture will thicken up.
Shake before using as needed.

Optional: You can make this with herb infused water, just strain before using.

Source: Adapted from Pearls of Country Wisdom by Debora S. Tukua

P.S: Use green tea instead of plain water in the recipe.

9 Amazing Firefox Add-Ons That Will Save Your Time!

2008-09-14T22:29:00.002+05:30

Firefox is a fastest growing popular web browser. There are lots of ease provided by the firefox and this is the main reason for its popularity. There are lots of free download able extensions and add-ons available on the internet for firefox and there demands are increasing every day. In this post, I am listing down 9 Amazing Firefox Add-Ons That Will Save Your Time.

You are welcome to share if you know more amazing firefox add-ons that will save time which our readers/viewers may like.

readers/viewers may like.

Read It Later

It lets you save articles and webpages so you can read them later, even when you’re offline. Now the internet is your bitch. Firefox add-on

Chunkit

This add-on is so badass, that if search engines made a superhero movie, this would be the Batman. Basically, you get to search any website with sonar vision and see through all the links at once. Firefox add-on

Remove Cookie(s) From Site

So, you visited a website you’re not too proud of, but you don’t want to delete your cookies or you will lose your progress on Defend Your Castle. Well now you can have your cookie and eat it too. Firefox add-on

YourWebsiteValue

This is your childhood cardboard fort of Firefox add-ons. Absolutely useless, but very… very cool. Basically this shows you the estimated worth of most websites. Who knows how accurate and useful it really is, but hey, did you really think your cool fort could actually keep the girls out? Firefox add-on

TryAgain

This is the Drunk Uncle at the bar that won’t stop hitting on the ladies of Firefox add-ons. TryAgain will keep trying to load a webpage when the server is not found, and it won’t stop till it gets what it wants. Firefox add-on

IMDb Preview

IMDb suffers from Wikipedia syndrome. How many times have you started on Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and ended up on The Shining? Too many damn times. However, with this add-on you get to preview links on IMDb and see snip-bits of information without leaving the page. Wait, why doesn’t Wiki have this?

Aging Tabs

What’s your record? 20 tabs open at once? Well Aging tabs will help you realize your laziness by making unused tabs fade and change colors with age. Although, it would be cooler if they made the tabs blow up in a fiery explosion instead.

Tab Mix Plus

This is the ultimate tab collection, greatest hits volume, 0.3.6. It has such classics as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, and many of your other favorite hits. And if you download in the next 15 minutes we will throw in “undo closed tabs and windows!” Firefox add-on

CoolPreviews

Preview how a webpage page looks like before you actually click on the link. So now you can see how unorganized, useless, and ugly the website is before you commit your precious time to it. Dating really needs a tool like this. Firefox add-on

Ten Tech Solutions To Improve Your Productivity

2008-09-14T22:08:00.002+05:30

Social media takes up a good deal of time. Between reading blogs, visiting Twitter to check in with people, trips to Facebook and other social networks, the old tasks like keeping up with email and the like can be daunting. I’ve compiled a list of technology solutions that I thought might help you out. We can certainly add more ideas to the comments section.

Ten Tech Solutions To Improve Your Productivity

Get a system. listening to Stever Robbins, who just put together You Are Not Your Inbox, an audio program that will help you manage your email.
Get a proxy. Try out Jared Goralnick’s Away Find. It helps you with a sort of virtual message manager.
Practice keeping your inbox at zero.
Learn shortcuts. Here are keyboard shortcuts for Firefox, Safari, IE7, Gmail, Google Reader, and I’m sure you can find more.
Cut down on your browsing. Lifehacker (and Julien Smith) pointed out Freedom, a Mac application. I’m sure there’s a PC version. See also Rescue Time
Use computer shortcuts and launches. For Macs, it’s Quicksilver . For Windows, I found 10 Quicksilver alternatives listed here.
Don’t read blogs directly from the website. At least not first. Start in a good feed reader. I prefer Google Reader. It’s fast, has keyboard shortcuts, and is flexible in letting me bookmark, share, and email posts that I find useful.
Find extra time and use it. One way is to use Jott on your phone to send brief messages, to leave yourself reminders, and to take notes for future use.
Set up text replacement. This lets you type a few letters and get back several words easily. For Windows, try Texter.
Keep good notes. I’m enamored with EverNote. I’ve used it to outline documents, plan conference content, store small lists of email addresses, and even tried the optical recognition feature for photos. It’s worth checking out.

You probably have several other productivity applications to suggest. We can put together quite a list in the comments, if that works for you. What are you doing to stay more productive?

Make Firefox 3 faster

2008-09-14T22:06:00.000+05:30

Firefox 3 as we all know is now super quick at loading pages. But there is always room ofr improvement and best of all since Firefox is open source software there is a lot of ways that you can mod the app.

1. Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit enter. You will get a warning about changing settings but we are not doing anything too radical so it is OK. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 8. This means it will make 8 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

The all new Apple ITouch

2008-09-12T01:35:00.002+05:30

Apple introduces the new iPod touch 2G with the firmware version 2.1. Apple says this is the ‘The Funnest iPod ever’. The new iPod touch has a stunningly thin, contoured stainless steel design.

Apple adds dedicated volume control button, integrated speaker, and the Nike + iPod sensor. Like other new iPods, the iPod touch 2G offers the Genius feature that takes one song and creates perfect playlists for you.

Apple iPod touch 2G is available in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB capacities. The 32GB version costs $399.00 while the 8GB and 16GB cost $229 and $299 respectively.

I want this baby!! :P (sponsors if any are always welcome)

Install Google Chrome on Linux using wine

2008-09-12T01:28:00.003+05:30

Google launched a new web browser a few days ago, that has some interesting features which might give FF 3, Safari and IE8 a run for their money (you can check out how in my previous entries). Although not yet for Linux,and I no some of you Open Source guys want to lay your hands on this one, i've put together (following some ubuntuforms posts) a tutorial to help you Install Google Chrome on Linux using wine >= 1.1.3.

1. install wine (follow the official instructions http://www.winehq.org/site/download-deb)

2. make sure wine >= 1.1.3 is installed by entering the following in the terminal
wine --version

3. Download winetricks and install it

wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks
sudo cp winetricks /usr/sbin

4. Install some dependencies for Chrome (Flash is not mandatory but will allow you to play youtube videos :-))
winetricks riched20 riched30 flash

4.1 Install allfonts (this is optional)
winetricks allfonts

5. Download the Chrome installer
wget http://gpdl.google.com/chrome/install/149.27/chrome_installer.exe

6. Install Chrome (just follow the onscreen instructions and make sure you create a desktop icon)
wine chrome_installer.exe

7. After the install is finished, you won't be able to use Chrome as it needs a bit more hacking. Just close it and opent with your favorite editor the Google Chrome.desktop icon created on your Desktop. Make sure your add "--new-http --in-process-plugins", without the quotes at the end of this line:

Exec=env WINEPREFIX="/home/mimir/.wine" wine "C:\\windows\\profiles\\AK87\\Local Settings\\Application Data\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe"

to make it look like this:
Exec=env WINEPREFIX="/home/mimir/.wine" wine "C:\\windows\\profiles\\AK87\\Local Settings\\Application Data\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe" --new-http --in-process-plugins

Save the file!

NOTE: AK87 is my username, you will have something like /home/yourusername/.wine

8. Go to desktop and start Google Chrome
HTTPS Note: it seems that the https is not working due to the fact that wine is missing TSL/SSL features, the dlls that should handle that being just stubs at the moment. If you have any information regarding this, please share.

Insight Into Microsoft Codenames

2008-09-09T02:02:00.002+05:30

In case you were wondering what was the craze about Longhorn(if you heard about it) and why didn't MS release it. Well it was one of the several codenames MS gives to its products.

Mary Jo Foley, in her blog All About Microsoft on ZDnet has an interesting video on Microsoft code names.

What is a codename?

Microsoft products start life as a project codename (e.g. Longhorn which later was launched as Vista).

Some Revelations

Let us take the Operation System Line up from Microsoft:

Code Name	Product
Whistler	Windows XP
Longhorn	Windows Vista
Blackcomb	Windows Seven (next version of Windows after Vista)
Creekside	Windows XP Starter Edition

All of them have something in common, they are all skiing resorts in British Columbia.

Coming to the development tools:

Code Name	Product
Whidbey	Visual Studio 2005
Orcas	Visual Studio 2008
Rosario	Team Foundation System
Hawaii	Visual Studio 2010 (unconfirmed)

All of the code names are islands!

You can find more info on codename on the video here.

Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of Microsoft Codenames for those interested.

Weird iPhone Designs

2008-09-09T01:55:00.002+05:30

Rejected iPhone Designs Pictures Gallery has a collection of some very wild and creative iPhone design people have come up with.
Some of them are:

Lemon iPhone

Apple iPhone

Mellon iPhone

Browser Speed Tests: Which Is Fastest?

2008-09-07T02:02:00.003+05:30

Google's new Chrome web browser beta is getting a lot of attention for its slick looks, helpful features, and performance, but how does it rank against the early releases of more established browsers? We've previously put the major browser releases to the speed test, but today we're measuring Chrome against the second beta of Internet Explorer 8, as well as the beta of Firefox 3's next iteration, 3.1. We tested tomorrow's browsers on startup and page-loading times, JavaScript and CSS performance, and, perhaps most importantly to the average user, memory use on launch and with lots of content loaded.

Test 1: Startup Time—Winner: Chrome!

Each browser was timed loading up "cold" load (straight off a system restart) and "warm" (having run twice already) using a locally-saved copy of Google's minimalist home page to negate net connection variations, and, to compensate for Vista's start-up fickleness, timed each browser exactly two minutes after boot-up. Here are the first results:

Test 2: Loading 8 tabs—Winner: Chrome!

Each browser was led page-by-page through the assortment of web sites pictured at right—some heavy with interactive elements, some just text and pictures—before jumping back to a blank page (entering about:blank does this in any browser) and loading all the links at once. Each browser keeps a spinning icon on tabs as they load, so it was measured from first click to the last tab settling in.
IE 8 and Chrome clock in too close to call, but Firefox fell behind. Based on the minuscule difference in cold-boot time and the two warm tests, one can call Chrome the fastest.

Test 3: JavaScript & CSS—Tie: Firefox & Chrome!

JavaScript continues to grow in importance as a browser benchmark, because it's the backbone of no-reload interfaces like Gmail, Facebook, and lots of other webapps. Firefox bests Chrome in this test by a handy lead, while IE 8 takes nearly twice as long to perform all the actions in the test. It's anybody's guess who's got the most objective test—CNET's testers show Chrome wrecking all comers, while Mozilla's own tests declare their orange scrapper the winner in tight races. I can only take away that IE 8 is definitely an improvement from IE 7's fall-behind pace, while Chrome and Firefox are pretty evenly matched.
In the CSS test, Chrome takes a commanding lead, Firefox doesn't lag too far behind, and IE 8 actually stalled and froze on just about one of every two loads I ran. When it came out of memory freeze, it did report consistent times, though—consistently behind. One could hand the Dynamic Web Performance title to Firefox for the probably weightier JavaScript test, but Chrome also shows a notable grace in running down the type frequently found on blogs. Let's call this a tie.

Test 4: Memory Use—Winner: Firefox!

How far the great-great-nephew of Netscape has come in its respect for your system's resources. Measured by Vista's Task Manager from cold boots and then with eight tabs loaded, Firefox shows some serious savvy with megabytes:

Do note, however, that Chrome handles tabs differently than others—each tab loads as its own process, so that if it crashes or stalls, the rest of your reading doesn't go down with it.

Finally we note that browsing is much more than speed and bit usage—many of us can't imagine web life without our favorite extensions, or Windows integration, or, soon enough, Chrome's unique features.

Are your E-Mails being read??

2008-09-07T00:29:00.001+05:30

It has been a long time requirement to find out when your mail was read by the receiver but none of the email service actually provides it. In case out Outlook you can ask people to send you back read receipt but then its in the hand of the users.

Spy Pig is an email tracking service which lets you find when your email was read by the person without letting them even know about it. It uses a unique image which you can embed in your email. This email is tracked and you get notified in some time.

This is pretty neat service but I wonder if people would take so much of effort. If they come out with some plugin or some script it would be more useful. But hey there are some people who would always like to use it.

So go ahead and give Spy Pig a try Oink!!

How to keep your Old PC running smooth? - Part 2

2008-09-07T00:12:00.002+05:30

In 1 of my post I discussed the Software activities to maintain your PC, Now I am going, to discuss some hardware activities, which should be performed manually by the user to keep your PC healthy. Try this at your own risk!!! :P

Cleaning the RAM

Importance of RAM in a PC, does not need any explanations, so, in order to keep your RAM working properly, you can clean it with eraser. What you need to do is just rub the eraser on the golden color connectors on your RAM. It helps a lot, and also saves you from the problems, like sometimes your PC might not boot, after hitting the power button

Keep the Keyboard Free from Dandruff

Keyboard Dandruff, is not the dandruff in real sense, its just the traces of dust, cigarette ash (if you smoke while working on your computer). To remove dandruff from keyboard you need to hold your keyboard upside-down and tap it, to get rid of the dust traces.

Taking Care of the Mouse

Mouse too is often a prey to dust, especially for the roller mouse, it’s a big headache, you can use the toothbrush, to clean the mouse, mouse pad. In case of roller mouse, open it, and clean the roller with water and soap if required.

Give some treatment to the cabinet

Like other parts CPU Cabinet too needs some treatment, apart from normal dusting, you need to clean the curves with toothbrush, as shown below.

Fan, at the back portion of your ~~CPU~~ Cabinet can also be cleaned with toothbrush, and same can be done with the small pores like openings which work as heat-sink of your CPU.

Inner part of your Cabinet also, has lots of dirt and dust, which might hamper or at times destroy some circuits, for that you can use some vacuum cleaner, even a hair dryer may work, but be careful with the temperature settings of the dryer.

Google Chrome Features that you wont find on other browsers

2008-09-05T00:16:00.002+05:30

Let’s look at some of the unique features that are only available in Google Web Browser are

you’re seriously going to miss them in other popular browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Apple Safari or Opera.

1. Task Manager for Websites

While you are inside Google Chrome, press Shift+Escape and it will open up a ‘task manager’ with a list of all websites currently open inside Chrome.

This will give you an idea about how much physical memory is consumed by different websites and if any particular page is causing your system to crawl, you can do an "end process" to close that tab directly from Task Manager.

2. Visual Browser History

This is a feature Chrome borrowed from Google Desktop / Google Web History. Type Ctrl+H to open your browser history and search for a term.

In addition to matching pages, Google Chrome will also show you a small thumbnail image of that web pages in the history results. No need for any extensions.

3. Super Clean Contextual Menus

I simply love this. You right click an hyperlink on a web page and you get only five relevant options to deal with that link.

The number comes down to four when you right click any image in Chrome. There’s way too much clutter in Firefox menus.

4. Search Your Favorite Websites from the Address Bar

This is brilliant. If you visit a website that includes site search (for instance: search.labnol.org) - Chrome will automatically recognize and add that search engine for you so the next time you can perform a search on that site via the Chrome address bar itself.

To see this in action, open cnn.com or search.labnol.org in your Chrome browser and then type cnn.com followed by the tab key to search CNN. Simple.

5. See Memory Used by Different Browsers

Open a new tab inside Chrome browser and type "about:memory" (without quotes) - somewhere at the top, you’ll see a list of browser processes that are currently running on your system and the amount of memory they are using.

6. Reopen Website tabs that you closed by mistake

Firefox 3 has this "Undo Closed Tab" option in the menu while you can open closed tabs in Opera via the Ctrl+Z shortcut.

To re-open a closed tab in Google Chrome, just hit Ctrl+T and you’ll see an option that says "Recently closed tabs" - click the one you closed by accident.

7. Launch Websites from the Start Menu / Quick Launch Bar

Desktop shortcutsfor web pages are possible with other browsers as well but Google Chrome make the whole flow very easy. Open any site and choose "Create application shortcut" from the File menu.

This will essentially create a desktop shortcut that looks something like this:

C:\Users\AK87\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
   --app=http://www.google.com/

Clicking the shortcut will launch that web page in a new instance of Chrome that may not contain have any more new tabs.

Chrome lets you move tabs around different windows but I didn’t find this feature very useful. I like the Firefox approach better where you can drag tabs onto the desktop and turn them into web shortcuts.

Overall, I am pretty impressed with Chrome but did miss support for extensions especially customize google. But Chrome may be a good thing if you are web publisher as it has no adblock plus- good for Google as well.

Aw, Snap! - This is the default error page of Google Chrome

How to keep your Old PC running Smooth? - Part I

2008-08-25T13:58:00.000+05:30

Owning an old PC, takes a lot, as far as the maintenance part is concerned, you need to take good care of it. Here I am trying to offer few tips to maintain your old PC and Make It Fast.

#1. Defragment your Hard Drives Regularly

Fragments are small chunks of free memory, spread all over the hard-drive, Defragmenting the drive, brings them together, to give you a bigger chunk of free consecutive memory locations. Running of several programs, creates several fragments in your drive. Though the fragments are created on all the drives, but the partition on which your windows is installed needs special care.

It can be done using the windows utility,
Diskeeper is another good option for defragmentation.

Defragmentation option in windows can be found under properties of partition, or under the System Tools.

#2. Keep your C:\ as Free as possible

Keeping more space on your C:\ (the partition in which windows is installed), allows you a smooth computing, Files other than installation, system files etc, should not be kept in this drive as they occupy more space.

Apart from the fact that more free space in this drive makes your computer faster, not keeping other files in this drive is safe, as at the time of installation, this drive generally gets formatted, so you can save yourself from backing up your data before every installation.

#3. Re-installing Windows

So, when did you last re-install the windows on your system? If its been very long, like more than an year or so, I think. Re-installing the windows will be a great help. If you dont want to lose any of your valuable data or installed programs perform an update installation(without downloading the updates :P ) and still it will be as good as new. How it works well it backs the required stuff before installation.

#4. Try Using Light Weight Application

Prefer light weight applications, which need fewer resources to operate.

Like for mp3 songs instead of Winamp try Foobar.
Use FoxitReader or Pdfhammer instead of Acrobat reader.
Google Docs or Open Office can be a better choice for MS-office.
For imaging, I find Picasa the best option.
You can use light weight anti virus software ( Like AVG ).

Avoid using applications like wallpaper changer, desktop side panel etc., as these are the applications, which hamper the resources and slow down the other useful applications.

Here are the download links for above said preferred applications

#5. Install some Cleaning Application

Installation of softwares like Webroot Windows Washer, Ccleaner etc., keeps removing temporary files from the Temp folders, which keeps fetching the memory locations, for smoother working.

#6. Manage Startup

Startup can be managed for better performance, steps for this are given below,

Use Windows+R,

type MSCONFIG,

Uncheck unwanted programs under startup tab,

Reboot.

You can disable the loading of programs you don't want to initialize at startup, initialization at startup, degrades the system performance dramatically

GMail Easter Eggs: Dot Blindess & Email Aliases

2008-08-18T22:28:00.001+05:30

Here are two unexplored features in GMail that will can make your Gmail inbox spam proof.
You can then comfortably share your gmail email address on websites, mailing lists and forums without ever worrying about spam or solving CAPTCHAs.

Gmail Easter Egg 1: GMail allows email aliases and unlike Yahoo mail which lets you create just one extra email alias, GMail lets you create infinite number of aliases.

An email sent to kareena.kapoor@gmail.com or kareena.kapoor+fans@gmail.com or kareena.kapoor+blog@gmail.com will all be redirected to one common email address and that is kareena.kapoor@gmail.com.

Gmail does not recognize characters after the PLUS symbol but the gmail search filter can distinguish between the different address and you can therefore redirect these email to separats gmail folders or apply different labels.

So all emails with the TO: address as kareena.kapoor+blog@gmail.com [coming from her blog readers] can be automatically redirected to a blog folder in gmail and she can safely trash them when her inbox is approaching the 2GB limit.

Gmail Easter Egg 2: Gmail cannot recognize dots or periods in email addresses or the user names - that means an address like kareena.kapoor@gmail.com is the same as kareena.hi.lton@gmail.com or kareena...kapoor@gmail.com.

This is actually a bug than a feature but you can again exploit it to have different kind of email address in your forum signatures.

Keep in mind that hyphens (-) and underscores (_) can't be used in a Gmail address. Also, gmail user names are case insensitive, so it doesn't matter if you enter upper case or lower case letters.

All Gmail Users Are Given Two Separate Email Addresses.. Wow!

2008-08-18T10:35:00.001+05:30

You probably know how to create multiple email aliases in GMail by adding the plus symbol and dots to your Gmail username but there’s something more interesting.

When you create a Gmail account, you actually get two email addresses - one is the regular @gmail.com while the second email address has @googlemail.com in the domain.

That means if your email address in Gmail is something like billgates@gmail.com, all email messages that are sent to billgates@googlemail.com will also be delivered to your own Gmail account. That’s two for the price of one.

Like the GMail Plus trick, you can take advantage of these two domains so that less spam reaches your Gmail Inbox.

Give the @googlemail.com address to your close contacts (put that in the visiting card) while keep the @gmail.com address for public (put it on your blog). Then set a Gmail filter such that all email messages with @googlemail.com in the header go a special folder so you will never miss important email from close friends.

Using Boolean Search Operators in Google

2008-08-18T10:10:00.002+05:30

Web search engines like Google support boolean search commands (AND, NOT, OR) to help you narrow down or widen results.

For instance, mp3 player -iPod will search for mp3 players other than iPod while a query like grand auto theft +review on Google News will show news stories that contain reviews of this popular video game.

Using boolean operators may be second nature to most web veterans but if you ever need to explain the same concept to a newbie or your kids, Boolify can be a big help.

Boolify is visual query builder that works with Google web search, Images and News search. You begin by dragging blocks on the canvas - these blocks, that resemble jigsaw puzzle pieces, actually represent the boolean operators.

The search results from Google will appear and change instantly as you add (or remove) boolean operators from the search query. Give it a shot.

Using Boolean Search Operators in Google

2008-08-18T10:10:00.000+05:30

Web search engines like Google support boolean search commands (AND, NOT, OR) to help you narrow down or widen results.

Using boolean operators may be second nature to most web veterans but if you ever need to explain the same concept to a newbie or your kids, Boolify can be a big help.

The search results from Google will appear and change instantly as you add (or remove) boolean operators from the search query. Give it a shot.

Collapse Your Programs Like Google Talk using WinRoll

2008-08-16T22:15:00.000+05:30

One of the coolest features in Google Talk is the ability to click on the title bar of a chat window and to have it collapse. It doesn’t exactly minimize the window but makes it smaller so that you reclaim your desktop space but you can also easily re-open the chat.

I found this program that provides a similar feature for all windows called WinRoll. If collapsible windows aren’t enough for you then maybe you will like a few of the other features like Make a window roll into its title bar, send it to the back or make it stay on top. Minimize, maximize or close all visible windows, including minimizing to the tray area. Make a window translucent on Windows 2000 or above.

So go ahead and try out this great open source utility.

Download WinRoll

Fed up of Adobe reader switch to Foxit reader

2008-08-16T22:00:00.001+05:30

As a follow up to my previous post, that tells how to speed up Adobe Reader I have decided to write about its better alternative Foxit Reader and compare it with Adobe Reader.

Firstly, the latest version of Adobe Reader is about 33.5 Mb while Foxit Reader setup is only about 3.0 MB. Clearly, Foxit Reader has no frills attached and also does not provide all those redundant plugins that are provided by default in Adobe Reader. Also, the startup time varies considerably which is about 10 seconds for Adobe Reader while only 1-2 seconds for Foxt Reader. A primary reason is that adobe loads all the plug-ins which greatly increases its loading time.

Adobe, aside from the waiting time, crashes about 50% of the time I use it; however, Foxit hasn't crashed on me once.

Another great feature of Foxit is that you can highlight text in a PDF as well as leave notes (like post-its) on text - all within the free version of the software. The current version of Foxit Reader is a significant improvement over Adobe Reader, adds useful features, has a small foot print and is easy to use.

Foxit Reader also works brillantly when paired with PDF Download extension of Firefox. Here are the steps needed to integrate Foxit with Firefox’s PDF Download Extension:

* Once PDF Download has been installed a new selection, “PDF Download - Options” will appear in your Tools menu. Select this option.
* On the ‘General Tab’, for Default Action, select ‘Open PDF‘
* On the ‘PDF opening’ Tab, for the PDF File Opening, select ‘Use this viewer‘
* Click ‘Browse’ in Windows Explorer locate the Foxit Reader (FoxitReader.exe) and click ‘OK’
* Click ‘OK’ again to exit out of the PDF Download - Options.

Now whenever you come across a PDF File, Firefox will automatically load in the Foxit Reader, a process which depending on your system speed with be nearly instant to a couple seconds. Note: Firefox downloads the PDF File in order to open it.

All in all, Foxit reader wins the battle being a less stressful PDF reader. Have your say on this topic, if you liked Foxit Reader or Adobe Reader, by commenting.

Download Foxit Reader 2.3

Tip to increase Adobe Reader

2008-08-16T21:58:00.000+05:30

Adobe Reader takes lot of time to load all its plugins. So, to speed up Adobe Reader
all you need to do is to disable automatic loading of plugings by using a utility
called Adobe Reader SpeedUp. Adobe Reader Speed-Up significantly decreases the amount
of time required for Adobe Reader to start by disabling most of the least used plugins.Also, the plugins can be freely enabled and disabled, if required.

This utility has decreased the time taken by Adobe Reader to load on my PC significantly and now I can view any PDF within 3-4 seconds.

Download Adobe Reader Speed-Up

If anyone has any other ideas, feel free to post them as a comment and I will include them here!

Remind yourself by sending an Email

2008-08-16T00:17:00.002+05:30

Hit me later is an online service which allows you to send your self an email which can after any desired interval in a day or even the upcoming weekdays like first wednesday. It is something like a reminder on your mobile phone.
There are already email services which can allow you to send emails like 10 years in future. Well I cant wait for so long but definetly thise service is handy as its short spanned and I will know I got the mail. Short , fast and does the job. So in case you want your self to get reminded for something just shoot an email. Just make sure you dont forget to check it.Try Hit Me later now

Malware: The Difference Between Quarantine and Delete

2008-08-15T18:41:00.000+05:30

Just wanted to share a nifty information I found while trying to decide whether I should quarantine or delete malwares from my computer today. Apparently, the idea of having the "quarantine" option when an antivirus detects an infected file is to avoid false positives. If by chance the antivirus software wrongly flags a file as "bad" when the file is actually something you need, like a critical program (for example Explorer.exe in Windows) such that deleting it might cause the computer to stop working, quarantine allows it to simply restore it back.

Anything in quarantine is safely segregated from the rest of your computer, it cannot run from there, so it can do no harm. So the general advice is to put the infected files in quarantine for a while you go about your normal computer activities. If everything continues to run properly after a reasonable period of time (say, about a week or two), then delete the files in quarantine permanently.

Send an Anonymous Email Message With Note2Email

2008-08-15T18:28:00.001+05:30

Note2Email is a simple web form that you may use for sending email messages anonymously to just about anyone - no need to create any account.

Your IP address is not passed in the message header so your identity remain hidden and the email recipient will never know who exactly sent that message and from where.

Other than sending anonymous emails, this service will also come handy if you are sitting on a public terminal and want to quickly send yourself an email without logging into your own web account for security reasons.

You may send unlimited number of emails with Note2Email but one at a time. Obviously there’s potential for misuse so you can ask them to blacklist your email address so that people can’t send you messages anonymously.

Rescue your data from crashed system

2008-08-13T15:19:00.003+05:30

SystemRescueCD is a Linux distribution which runs from a bootable CD-ROM disc (a Live CD) or a USB-stick, useful for repairing unbootable computer systems and retrieving data after a system crash. This CD was designed by a team led by Francois Dupoux, and is based on the Gentoo Linux distribution.
The CD is capable of graphics using the Linux framebuffer option for tools such as GParted. It is based on the stable 2.6.24.05 version of the Linux kernel with the Reiser4 support. Although it is self-contained on a CD-ROM, it has many options such as connecting to the Internet through an ADSL modem or Ethernet and graphical web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox.

Features:
1. GNU Parted and GParted to partition disks and re-size partitions, including FAT32 and NTFS
2. Ranish Partition Manager
3. Fdisk to edit the disk partition table
4. PartImage, Linux/Unix based open-source disk imaging software which copies only used sectors
5. TestDisk to recover lost partition and PhotoRec to recover lost data
6. A CD and DVD burner
7. Two bootloaders
8. Web browsers: Firefox, Lynx, Links, Dillo
9. Midnight Commander
10. Archiving and unarchiving abilities
11. File system tools: file system create, delete, resize, move
12. Support for many file systems, including full NTFS read/write access (via NTFS-3G) as well as FAT32 and Mac OS HFS
13. Support for Intel x86 and PowerPC systems, including Macs
14. Ability to create boot disk for operating systems
15. Support for Windows registry editing and password changing from Linux
16. Can boot FreeDOS, memory testing, hardware diagnostics and other boot disks from a single CD

Download Iso file

Find Your Stolen or Missing Laptops for free using Adeona

2008-08-13T00:24:00.000+05:30

Adeona is free software to help you track the location of your notebook & desktop computer that may have been lost or stolen. (Shhh.. You may also use this to know the current whereabouts of your spouse via his or her laptop.)

Adeona, that weighs less than 3 MB, is currently available for Windows, Mac OS X & Linux but going forward, it can become available for iPhone & Windows Mobile phones also.

The idea is simple - you just install the Adeona client on your laptop and it does the rest. The software runs in the background and will upload the current IP address of your computer as soon as it is connect to the Internet.

This can work because, in most cases, the geographic location of a missing laptop can be successfully determined from the IP address alone.

When the stolen computer goes online, it send a message with its own IP address on to the web and you can retrieve this information from any other computer by running the Adeona Recovery tool shown here.

Mac users enjoy another advantage - Adeona on a Macbook will also upload pictures of people who use that computer via the built-in camera and iSightCapture.

Adeone worked brilliant in a quick test run - it provided me both the internal and external IP address of the computer along with location of nearby routers. See this log:

As you would have guessed, there’s a limitation though - if someone disables the Adeona process before connecting to the Internet, the system won’t work as expected but still, its something worth considering.

Adeona, which is named after a Roman Goddess of "safe return", is developed by researchers at University of Washington.

Repurpose Your Empty CD Spindle

2008-08-07T13:25:00.003+05:30

The video above from DIY web site Instructables demonstrates four different CD spindle-repurposing projects from start-to-finish. We've seen variations on most of these projects before, like the toilet paper dispenser,bagel holder, and cable organizer, but the video provides step-by-step instructions and a few clever tweaks for alternate uses. The bagel holder, for example, becomes a sandwich caddy with an extra cut, and the cable organizer becomes a rope and cable dispenser with a couple of small adjustments.

Find holes in softwares using Secunia Personal Software Inspector

2008-08-06T13:26:00.002+05:30

Make your PC safer with this utility from Secunia, a company that tracks known vulnerabilities in software and operating systems. Available as a release candidate, this app can identify missing Windows patches and outdated, insecure apps on your PC.

The Secunia Personal Software Inspector, available as a free download, scans your installed software to let you know which out-of-date programs might be making your PC unsafe. But it doesn't stop there--for each old program it finds, it offers quick and easy action buttons such as one labeled Download Solution, which retrieves the latest software patch without you even having to open a browser.

The program also gives you links to the software vendor's site as well as Secunia's full report about the vulnerability on your system. You can choose to block future warnings about a particular program (but you should, of course, be careful before doing so).

Secunia PSI isn't perfect, and doesn't always make it easy to update unsafe program components. But for most apps it provides a quick--and very important--fix. PSI picks up the same version information you would see if you right-clicked a program file, chose Properties, and then selected the Version tab. But if an app doesn't report the right version of itself, as happened with my Thunderbird e-mail software, PSI won't list the proper version either.

If you click the name of any listed insecure software, you'll get handy links to patches or newer software versions. You'll also receive a link to Secunia's advisory about why your version isn't safe, and explanations of the multiple versions of a program you may see listed.

Download it right now

Reset Windows Admin or User Password using PCLoginNow

2008-08-06T13:22:00.001+05:30

Password is an important security mechanism to prevent unauthorized access by hackers, but it also gives severe headache and trouble when one forgets its password, especial administrator password to log on to Windows computer. Without a valid password, the Windows system can be considered inaccessible, required to be reformatted or reinstalled, and unavoidable lead to data lost.

Note: If you’re on Windows XP, try to access the system with built-in no-password administrator account.

PC Login Now (or PCLoginNow) is actually bootable live CD with tool to reset local administrator and other user accounts passwords or change security settings on Windows system, instantly to gain access to computer again immediately. Thus, PC Login Now can be used as a safe and easy solution to remove existing Windows password that has been forgotten, lost or simply do no have, and assign a new password to the Windows admins or users.

Besides the abilities of resetting passwords, PCLoginNow can also maintain, change accounts policy setting and properties. Users can easily upgrades an general account to administrator level and lock or unlock user accounts PC Login NOw also support SysKey,

The most powerful feature PCLoginNow have is to support bypass SYSKEY mechanism, a utility which is an optional feature added in Windows NT 4.0 SP1, that encrypts the hashed password information in a SAM database using a 128-bit encryption key to protect against offline password cracking attacks so that the SAM database would still be secure even if someone had a copy of it.

Features of PC Login Now

* 100% recovery rate: PCLoginNow resets any passwords on ANY Windows with 100% successful rate.
* Support SYSKEY: PCLoginNow can easily bypass Syskey mechanism and reset the Windows passwords.
* Offline running PCLoginNow runs on Linux Live CD.
* Securest technique: PCLoginNow uses the securest way to reset passwords and other settings. You don’t have to worry about system corruption after using PCLoginNow.
* PCLoginNow supports all Windows filesystems including NTFS, FAT16, FAT32.
* PCLoginNow is able to handle all popular Windows operating systems including Windows Vista (SP1), Windows XP (SP1, SP2, SP3), Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows 2000/NT.
* PC Login Now runs on Linux CD which indicates most of the new Hardwares are supported by PCLoginNow. Computers with IDE, SATA, SCSI, USB or Firewire(IEEE 1394) Hard Disks as well as a wide range of PCI PCI-EX card are completely supported.
* Easy to Use PCLoginNow is designed for non-professionals, which means everyone can access their computer in no more than 5 minutes.

To use PC Login Now, download the PCLoginNow_Full_2.0.ISO Live CD file from SourceForge.net, and then burn the ISO file to CD using your favorite CD/DVD burning software such as Nero, Ashampoo Burning Studio (free license for Ahsampoo Burning Studio 6 and Ashampoo Burning Studio 2008) and Roxio. Other freeware software programs able to burn ISO file to disc include ISO Recorder, BurnCDCC, ImgBurn (for Windows) and K3b (for Linux).

After burning and creating PCLoginNow bootable live CD, insert the CD into optical drive disc tray, and boot up computer from the CD to start and run PCLoginNow autmatically. Normally, user is required to press any key on BIOS boot screen to boot from CD. If you don’t see this message, or cannot boot from CD, change the boot device priority or sequence list in BIOS to make CD/DVD drive comes on top.

On PC Login Now wizard, select the system with the user account to recover and reset the password. Each system detected is listed with its ID, System Name, path to SAM files and filesystem to help user recognize the correct system.

PC Login Now Windows System

Then, user able to select the administrator accounts or user accounts, complete with UID, User Name, User Type and comment, to apply any of the five characteristics listed below.

1. is Administrator: if the account has the administrator privilege and rights.
2. password is empty: if the password of the account is empty or blank.
3. is disable: if the account has been disable due to the operation of administrator or the system rules.
4. is lockout: if the account has been locked due security breach such as too many unsuccessful login attempt.
5. password never expire: if the account has to set password on a specific expiry date or the password will expire after a set period.

Note that if the Windows account has already contained no password and is of administrator type, the two special properties are grayed out and disabled. User cannot downgrade administrator account to normal user account or create a password to an account in PCLoginNow. Existing states for the account are automatically checked.

Change any of the properties to the selected user account by ticking or unticking the check boxes, then click on Next button to apply the new settings. To reset the password, select the check boxes for password is empty and password never expire to make the account no longer has password, and can log on by leaving password field blank.

Reset Password with PCLoginNow

Download PCLoginNow version 2.0 Live CD: PCLoginNow_Full_2.0.iso

PC Login Now is a freeware and supports all Windows operating system including Windows Server 2008, 2003, Vista, XP. PCLoginNow can support dual boot systems too. Download size is just 55 MB.

Conduct Opinion Polls Over Email using Gmail!!

2008-08-05T12:47:00.000+05:30

In some situations, a poll conducted over email may be more practical than running a web based poll because readers can vote through their email clients without requiring a browser.

It’s as simple as replying to any other email and can be done even from mobile phones.

Turn Gmail into a Poll Software

Let’s see how you can quickly setup an opinion poll over email using only your existing Gmail account. The suggested approach will work best for polls that have a single question as in the following examples:

In this example, we’ll ask a standard question “What’s your gender” with two choices - male or female.

Step 1: Compose a new email in Gmail, make the question as your subject and put the choices in the message body.

Step 2: Now convert each of the choices into hyperlinks that link to your email address but with an alias.

For instance, if your email address is hello@gmail.com, you can make the choice “Female” as an hyperlink for hello+female@gmail.com as in the image below. Repeat this for the other “male” choice.

Step 3. We are done creating the basic poll in Gmail. You can now send this email poll to a mailing list or type the addresses manually in the BCC: field but make sure you don’t exceed Gmail’s limit on sending email.

Step 4: The next step is to create Gmail filters so that email containing votes don’t clutter your main Inbox. Also, filters will save you from the hassle of manually counting the number of responses received for every choice.

A filter would look something like this:

“hello+female@gmail.com” in the To: field, apply the Label “Poll: Female” and check “Skip the Inbox”.

Create a separate filter for the “male” choice. You are now all set.

And if you are sending this poll to a very large group, consider creating a No Spam filter in Gmail to prevent any valid responses from hitting the Spam folder.

Water on Mars!!!

2008-08-04T22:05:00.001+05:30

LOL ;-)

Different ways to use Google for searching

2008-07-30T12:31:00.001+05:30

Below I have compiled a list of 7 clever Google tricks that I believe everyone should be aware of. Together I think they represent the apex of the grand possibilities associated with Google search manipulation tricks and hacks. Although there are many others out there, these 7 tricks are my all-time favorite. Enjoy yourself.

1. Find the Face Behind the Result – This is a neat trick you can use on a Google Image search to filter the search results so that they include only images of people. How is this useful? Well, it could come in handy if you are looking for images of the prominent people behind popular products, companies, or geographic locations. You can perform this search by appending the code &imgtype=face to the end of the URL address after you perform a standard Google Image search.

Examples (notice the differences in each URL):

2. Google + Social Media Sites = Quality Free Stuff – If you are on the hunt for free desktop wallpaper, stock images, WordPress templates or the like, using Google to search your favorite social media sites is your best bet. The word “free” in any standard search query immediately attracts spam. Why wade through potential spam in standard search results when numerous social media sites have an active community of users who have already ranked and reviewed the specific free items that interest you. All you have to do is direct Google to search through each of these individual social media sites, and bingo… you find quality content ranked by hundreds of other people.

Examples:

3. Find Free Anonymous Web Proxies – A free anonymous web proxy site allows any web browser to access other third-party websites by channeling the browser’s connection through the proxy. The web proxy basically acts as a middleman between your web browser and the third-party website you are visiting. Why would you want to do this? There are two common reasons:

You’re connecting to a public network at a coffee shop or internet café and you want privacy while you browse the web. You don’t want the admin to know every site you visit.
You want to bypass a web content filter or perhaps a server-side ban on your IP address. Content filtering is common practice on college campus networks. This trick will usually bypass those restrictions.

There are subscription services and applications available such as TOR and paid VPN servers that do the same thing. However, this trick is free and easy to access from anywhere via Google. All you have to do is look through the search results returned by the queries below, find a proxy that works, and enter in the URL of the site you want to browse anonymously.

Examples:

4. Google for Music, Videos, and Ebooks - Google can be used to conduct a search for almost any file type, including Mp3s, PDFs, and videos. Open web directories are one of the easiest places to quickly find an endless quantity of freely downloadable files. This is an oldie, but it’s a goodie! Why thousands of webmasters incessantly fail to secure their web severs will continue to boggle our minds.

Examples:

5. Browse Open Webcams Worldwide – Take a randomized streaming video tour of the world by searching Google for live open access video webcams. This may not be the most productive Google trick ever, but it sure is fun! (Note: you may be prompted to install an ActiveX control or the Java runtime environment which allows your browser to view certain video stream formats.)

Examples:
- Axis Webcams: inurl:/view.shtml or inurl:view/index.shtml
- Cannon Webcams: sample/LvAppl/
- MOBOTIX Webcams: control/userimage.html
- FlexWatch Webcams: /app/idxas.html
- JVC Webcams: intitle: intitle:”V.Networks [Motion Picture(Java)]”
- More info. - More info.

6. Judge a Site by its Image – Find out what a site is all about by looking at a random selection of the images hosted on its web pages. Even if you are somewhat familiar with the target site’s content, this can be an entertaining little exercise. You will almost surely find something you didn’t expect to see. All you have to do is use Google’s site: operator to target a domain in an image search.

Examples:

7. Results Based on Third-Party Opinion - Sometimes you can get a better idea of the content located within a website by reading how other websites refer to that site’s content. The allinanchor: Google search operator can save you large quantities of time when a normal textual based search query fails to fetch the information you desire. It conducts a search based on keywords used strictly in the anchor text, or linking text, of third party sites that link to the web pages returned by the search query. In other words, this operator filters your search results in a way such that Google ignores the title and content of the returned web pages, but instead bases the search relevance on the keywords that other sites use to reference the results. It can add a whole new dimension of variety to your search results.

Examples (notice the added variety between search results):
allinanchor:”google hacks” vs. basic search for Google hacks
allinanchor:”wordpress exploits” vs. basic search for WordPress exploits
More info.

Bonus Material:

Here is a list of my favorite Google advanced search operators, operator combinations, and related uses:

link:URL = lists other pages that link to the URL.
related:URL = lists other pages that are related to the URL.
site:domain.com “search term = restricts search results to the given domain.
allinurl:WORDS = shows only pages with all search terms in the url.
inurl:WORD = like allinurl: but filters the URL based on the first term only.
allintitle:WORD = shows only results with terms in title.
intitle:WORD = similar to allintitle, but only for the next word.
cache:URL = will show the Google cached version of the URL.
info:URL = will show a page containing links to related searches, backlinks, and pages containing the url. This is the same as typing the url into the search box.
filetype:SOMEFILETYPE = will restrict searches to that filetype
-filetype:SOMEFILETYPE = will remove that file type from the search.
site:www.somesite.net “+www.somesite.net” = shows you how many pages of your site are indexed by google
allintext: = searches only within text of pages, but not in the links or page title
allinlinks: = searches only within links, not text or title
WordA OR WordB = search for either the word A or B
“Word” OR “Phrase” = search exact word or phrase
WordA -WordB = find word A but filter results that include word B
WordA +WordB = results much contain both Word A and Word B
~WORD = looks up the word and its synonyms
~WORD -WORD = looks up only the synonyms to the word
More info.

CUIL: New search engine in the web world

2008-07-28T22:57:00.002+05:30

Ex-Google employees unveil a new search engine today out to challenge their former employer: Cuil , pronounced "cool," launches with 120 billion web pages in its index. Initial tests show that Cuil's results aren't quite as impressive as the size of the index, but they're pretty good. From Cuil's scant black homepage, enter your query (and it will offer suggestions as you type) and go. A search decent results (though with bizarre images) and an "Explore by category" module on the upper right, which offers related searches. This category list is perhaps the biggest indicator of Cuil's smarts;. Give Cuil a whirl with terms you already know something about. How are the results? Think Google's got something to worry about? Let me know in the comments.

The First Visual Search Engine!! Ain't it COOL??

2008-07-27T16:57:00.003+05:30

Search is the most valuable part of the internet. So why does it still look like the first versions of the internet browser? text, text, and more text.... argh!
The field of Search is years behind where it should be, as it hasn't fundamentally changed in more than a decade. Search results may have improved a bit, however people search in literally the same way they did in 1995.

With this lack of innovation, results have essentially become a commodity. ManagedQ capitalizes on this fact to transform Search as we know it from a command-line driven database query to an elegantly-designed Application which can be endlessly improved and optimized to add increasing value to the entire Search Experience.

With a highly visual interface and Natural Language, Processing algorithms that instantly identify the key Ideas (People, Places, and Things) related to a Search query, ManagedQ uses Google to provide the same high-quality Results to which people are accustomed.

The real power of ManagedQ kicks in with the ability to explore your Results without leaving the Results page. With traditional Search engines, you enter a query and ten or so text results are spewed back at you. From there on out, you're on your own. You have little idea which of the Results (if any) holds the information you're looking for, which can result in quite a bit of back-and-forth as you try out different Results.

Aside from visual previews of the Results pages that help you identify what's on the other side of the link, ManagedQ lets you instantly Search through you Results to find what you're looking for. This Instant Find feature allows a user to find any piece of text in the Result set simply by typing. Mousing over the Ideas performs a similar function, highlighting both full and partial matches in the Result set.

The end result is an entirely novel and compelling Search Experience, guiding the user by identifying relevant content and visually facilitating the "ah-ha" moment of discovery.

ManagedQ is currently working to organically grow and develop a user community as well as continue to overhaul the Search Experience. Initiatives such as the Conversion Kit are integral to this effort. The site may be a little heavy on bandwidth and may take a little time to load but its worth the wait i feel..

ManagedQ is a startup to track in 2008.
managedq.com

RSS feed to Javascript

2008-07-27T16:46:00.003+05:30

I haven't posted anything yet about Feed2JS.org, the "Feed 2 JavaScript" service. Using this you can display your favorite blog contents in you sidebar.

Feed2JS is a web-based utility which will take an RSS feed (from a blog, from a wiki, an RSS feed of your del.icio.us tags), and turn that feed into a javascript so that you can insert it into a webpage environment. You cannot display RSS directly in a webpage environment because RSS is pretty scary-looking computer gobbledy-gook, but the Feed2JS services takes the gobbledy-gook (also known as XML) and turns it into something humans can read (in other words, HTML).

You can configure just what part of the RSS feed you want displayed - the name of the source (or not), the dates of the posts (or not), the number of posts, and so on. For serious web folks, you can also play around with CSS in order to create a particular style for the way the content will be displayed. The only caveat is that the javascript sits on the Feed2JS.org server; if it goes down for maintenance or some other reason, your script will come up blank. So, you might want to talk to the IT guys in your school or company about running your own copy of Feed2JS locally; you can get information about how to do that at the Feed2JS.org website.

Meanwhile, here's how you can use the standard Feed2JS service in just a few easy steps:

Step 1: Generate Preview. Get the RSS feed address you want to use, and go to the Build page at the Feed2JS.org website. Paste in the URL of the feed, and choose any of the options shown there. Then click on the Preview Feed button to make sure the results are what you wanted.

Just as a sample, here are the latest three items from the feed for our student newspaper at OU, the OU Daily:

Step 2: Get Code. If the results look good to you, click on the Close Window button. Then, click on the Generate Javascript button, and get the code from the box on the screen. You need to highlight all the code that is in the box, and copy it:

Step 3: Insert Code. You are now ready to insert the javascript code into a web environment that allows javascript (I've posted previously in this blog about how to insert javascripts into Blogger.com blogs, Desire2Learn, and PBWiki, among others).
Do check it out and comments are always welcome.

Inside MacBook Air

2008-07-26T16:28:00.000+05:30

I found these nice pictures trough the digg.com while I am browsing through my friend's activity page.These pictures were originally published at iFixit.com. You can see more pictures with some details in this link.

FreeRice.com

2008-07-26T16:24:00.002+05:30

I found this site called FreeRice.com. I think idea behind this site is awesome and very creative like the design of the site. They have a vocabulary game in their site and you can play this game without any kind of sign up. For each question answered correctly 10 grains of rice will be donated by the sponsors to help people living in poverty. Creativity behind this idea is visitor get to play the game, then visitor got chance to improve their vocabulary, FreeRice get the traffics, advertisers get their exposure, and most important thing is people get the free rice. I think it's a nice idea to spread around the community. Please help to spread out the word. You can find details from their FAQ page.
All you GRE, CAT guys you can prepare for your test while helping the hungry too. So please do check it out..

Contaning the spread of USB viruses

2008-07-26T13:05:00.002+05:30

Well most of us know how irritating a USB virus can be. In a matter of seconds it can infect your computer with some arbit virus and before you know it you will be spreading the virus. As we are occasional (:-)) vistors to the lab where most of the computers are infected with these dreaded USB viruses and before we know, it infects our computers. After seeing so many infections spread through USB devices I decided to post on how to stop these infections.

Method 1:
Use Linux!! The best solution and you will never face another computer infection.
If you have linux and are regular windows user like myself ( as i have to play some computer games and most of them are written for windows!!) what you can do is boot to linux open your pen drive and delete any unknown files and executables. Always delete any "autorun.inf" file if you find any.

Method 2:
This is the method I practice cos my hard disk is screwed up and it takes ages to boot into linux. USb viruses normally spread when you double click on your pen drive to open it and the autorun.inf file is checked and it starts the virus executable. If you are thinking that I will right+click and open some new viruses have found a way to run the autorun.inf. So the best way is to disable the autorun.inf file. how can you do this??
Initially, i created the autorun.inf file in some text editor and then set its properties as system+hidden file so that it cant be overwritten but this method went down the drain when i realized a few viruses overwrite the same. Then i came up with this ingenious idea to create a folder named autorun.inf and Voila! no more overwriting (atleast not till now :) ).

But do not forget although you have stopped the USB worm from spreading but the executable is still at large in your USB device safely hidden as a system+hidden file. You need to remove this otherwise you might click on it someday and all your efforts will be in vain.
Follow these steps to delete a executable worm or for that matter any system file. Go to your Command prompt ( type cmd in Run). change directory to the folder or drive in which the file is in. type in the following : dir /a :it will list all the files in the directory including hidden and system files. now identify files which are there without your knowledge. if you are unsure google the executable cos most of the viruses will be reported somewhere or you can directly find the system files using the command dir /as . remember the names of the files reported by the command. you cannot directly use dir /f as the file isnt visible to DOS.
Yyou have to remove the files system+hidden attribute. you can do this using the attrib -h -s (note clicking on Tab might show you the fie but just in case it doesnt, also you can remove attributes to multiple files using the metacharacter '*' eg. attr-b -h -s *.*, attrib -h -h *.exe etc Note: attrib -h -s means remove(-) hidden and system attribute). now you can use the del /f keyword to delete the file and your USB is virus free.
You can also use the above method if you are not sure whether the autorun.inf file will run or not. make sure you delete the files and create a directory named autorun.inf.
hope this post has been useful i have written this based on my experience.
P.S: soon i will update this post on how to remove viruses that have already infected your PC.

Run Two Google Talk Clients Simultaneously on your Desktop

2008-07-26T12:33:00.002+05:30

This simple workaround may help if you maintain two different Google Accounts and have to chat with Google Talk friends who are spread across both these accounts.

The desktop edition of Google Talk comes in two flavors - the standard client and the labs edition. The trick is that you can install both these clients along side each other and even run them simultaneously using different Google Accounts as in the screenshot.

I am running Google Talk standard desktop client using my Gmail login while I have logged into the GTalk Labs edition using my Google Apps login. Both clients run simultaneously on the desktop without any problems. If this fails to interest you, try the Digsby option.
Isnt this cool??Try it today...

10 Efficiency Tips for Digital Photographers

2008-07-21T20:10:00.001+05:30

For some people, "efficiency" brings to mind a hotel room with a kitchenette. When other folks hear the word, they think about ways to work faster and smarter. I suppose I fall into the second category.

1. Don't Procrastinate
Delete obviously bad shots before you download them to my computer. In the past, I promised myself I would weed out the good from the bad while sifting through folder after folder of photos on my laptop, but by then the job is very daunting. These days, I make myself stop and delete unwanted pictures from my camera, and I am much happier with the scope of my photo library.

2. Choose Your Best Shot
When uploading photos to Flickr, be sure to upload your best shot last, since that's the one that will be at the top of the page. And remember that uploading a bunch of photo to Flickr all at once is okay, but it'll be a waste because no one will generally see all but the very last few that you upload. It's better to upload a few at a time, spaced out over the course of a week.

3. Don't Share Memory Cards
If you share a camera with someone else in your home, each person should have their own memory card. That way, instead of having to sort through dozens of photos that aren't yours just to find the pictures you recently shot, swap out the card and you'll never have to waste time that way again. Memory cards are so cheap even your kids can own their own.

4. Don't Overtax Photoshop
I've found that when using Photoshop, it's best to only open a few images at a time. Opening many large digital images at once will slow Photoshop down, sometimes to the point that everything slows to a crawl.

5. Make a Simple Tripod
I may have read this here, but it bears repeating. You can make an incredible tripod (monopod?) for free, and it's small enough that you can always carry it with you. All you need is a quarter-inch bolt, some string long enough to reach the ground, and a small weight for the bottom. Screw the contraption into your camera, stand on the bottom to keep it taught, and most camera shake is eliminated. Alternately, you can use a retractable key chain instead of a string--that works great too!

6. Resize Before Sharing
Don't share your photos at their full size. Whether you upload your photos to Flickr, Photobucket, or even Facebook, larger file sizes mean long load times for you and your viewers. Your high-speed Internet connection might be able to handle 8-megapixel photos in a flash, but Grandma might still be on dialup. Use a program to shrink them down to screen size or smaller.

7. Make Smaller Copies
After I download my full-size photos from the camera, I immediately use software to reduce all the images to a smaller file size, and I move the originals into a folder named "Originals." This way, I already have the images in a smaller size that I can e-mail to friends or upload to photo sites, but I still have the originals for printing or editing.

8. Back Up Your Photos
It is really important to back up your photos often. All you need is an external hard drive and a free program like Sync Back.

9. Make Duplicate Backups
Before I delete the photos from my camera's memory card, I download them both to my computer and to an external hard drive. I organize all photos by date, and every new year I make two sets of CD backups of that year's photos. I keep a complete set at work. This way if some disaster strikes my home, I still have a complete set of my photos. And this system works: A few years ago, I was wiped out by Hurricane Andrew, but I didn't lose a single photo. Many people don't realize how important their photos are until they lose them.

10. Shoot Faster
If you are disappointed by how long it takes your camera to take a photo, try holding the shutter halfway down and hold this position until the perfect shot comes along. There will be less of a delay before the shutter actually opens. This is a great if you are photographing kids or animals that never stop moving. Beware, though, that this step locks the focus, so if your subject is moving towards or away from you, you might need to let go of the shutter and then press it down halfway again occasionally.

Computer Keyboards Made of Pure Gold

2008-07-16T17:55:00.009+05:30

Check out pictures of some computer keyboards from Japan that are made of pure 99.99% gold. They are real.

9 reasons not to date a T-Rex

2008-07-15T23:58:00.002+05:30

The Logo Designs of YouTube and Airtel - Separated at Birth?

2008-07-14T13:49:00.003+05:30

Bharti Airtel is the largest cellular service provider in India while YouTube, a Google subsidiary, is the largest video sharing site in the world.

Am sure this is purely coincidental but the logo designs of these two very popular brands do bear a striking resemblance including the logo tag-line.

How to Politely Ask Someone to Stop Sending You Junk Email

2008-07-14T13:45:00.000+05:30

What do you do when someone known (like a friend, relative or a work colleague) starts to spam your email inbox. They regularly forward you all kind of junk emails but you can’t block their addresses because one out of their 100 email messages may be useful.

Now if you know the person, a possible solution is to send him a polite but firm email asking him to stop sending you all those annoying and forwarded email messages.

If you are feeling a big hesitant to do this on your own, a free service called StopForwarding.us can help.

Stop Forwarding will send an anonymous but polite email to your friend requesting him to refrain from sending junk emails. This mail is sent anonymously so no hard feelings.

Here’s an excerpt: "Avoid sending forwards to friends or relatives that you’ve grown distant with. It can be frustrating for the recipient when the only correspondence you have with someone is via impersonal, unwanted email"

For all you command line freaks!!

2008-07-13T20:24:00.004+05:30

Google Search Inspired by Unix Command Shell
Goosh is brilliant. You can execute Google search commands in the browser just like using the Unix shell and the results get displayed inline. You can even search for feeds with Google. Try it out today.

Print Your Guinness World Record Certificate for Firefox 3

2008-07-13T20:12:00.003+05:30

Have you ever dreamed of having your own Guinness world record. Well Congratulations you might be a part of a Guinness World Record. All those Firefox users who helped create the Guinness World record for most downloads can flaunt their own certificate now. Learn how.

You just may have helped Mozilla set a unique Guinness World Record for the “Most downloaded software in 24 hours.”

Though the official body of Guinness World Records is yet to approve this record attempt, Firefox is celebrating with certificates that also carry a Guinness World Records logo.

To print your own certificate, go to spreadfirefox.com, type your name and download the certificate in PDF format.

P.S: Those who missed the feat can download the certificate too, unfortunately you weren't part of the feat. Hope for another one soon :-P!!

Reminder to Unplug Your USB Flash Drive from the Computer

2008-07-13T19:57:00.004+05:30

How many of you have faced a situation where you have forgotten your pen drive/memory stick at the computer you were using, especially on those PCs' without a USB port in the front.

Flash Drive Reminder is a handy utility for people (especially college students like me) who work across different computers and carry their data on a USB memory stick.This will display a desktop reminder saying that the USB drive is still in the computer if you try to log off without unplugging the stick.
Next time you go to an Internet cafe, computer center or the digital library you dont have to worry about forgetting your pen drive especially if the pen drive is not visible to the naked eye. Isn't that just great for us scatterbrains!!

Close All Websites in Firefox

2008-07-13T19:46:00.002+05:30

Panic is like the perfect boss key for Firefox. It will not just prevent you from getting into an embarrassing situation but boss or teacher may even take a leave from you totally impressed. Howz that!!

You press a keyboard shortcut and all website tabs open inside Firefox will close automatically.

To give boss/teacher an impression that you weren’t wasting time, you can configure Panic to replace all open tabs with a single work-related website like your company’s/college intranet homepage or any other web page.

Get Panic [Firefox add-on] - Please note that Panic will close all open websites not just hide them from view by minimizing Firefox. Thanks Pratham.

Enjoy tension free browsing in your cubicle/lab. Only if I had found this out sooner :-( . I guess Better Late than Never!!

How many 'brains' your PC has?

2008-07-13T19:30:00.000+05:30

Just how many "brains" does your personal computer need, anyway? Not that buying a PC was ever as easy as, say, buying a toaster or an electric toothbrush, but the companies that make the electronic brains, or microprocessors, for PCs today have managed to make it even more complicated.

It used to be that Intel Corp, the biggest maker of chips that are the central computing engines of PCs, and rival Advanced Micro Devices(AMD) Inc would sell to PC makers versions of the same chip that run at faster speeds.

As far as consumers were concerned, Intel made Pentium chips and AMD made Athlon chips. Yet that hasn't been the case for a while now, and in the last few years, the choices facing consumers when they go to buy a PC have mushroomed.

With computer games becoming more mainstream and more people making and editing digital pictures and home movies, PCs can now boast microprocessors with two brains, four brains, and soon, even more.

But does the average Joe really need such souped-up chips?

"It's an interesting question," said Tim Bajarin, a long-time technology analyst and consultant with Creative Strategies. "If the basic issue is productivity like Web browsing, word processing and e-mail, you don't need all that much. A dual-core processor is good enough."

If I only had two brains
Dual-core processors have two brains instead of one. Intel sells dual-core Pentium and Core processors, as well as quad-core chips for more demanding PC uses such as editing high-definition video of a family vacation or intensive games.

"When you actually break it down, the base processors like 1.3 to 1.6 gigahertz are more than enough," Bajarin said, noting the basics are fine if you're watching a YouTube video or a network TV show online, though the video quality won't be anything like a regular TV, let alone high-definition TV.

AMD's website invites visitors to compare its different microprocessor offerings: The AMD Phenom, Athlon and Turion chips. All of those come in varying clockspeeds, or how fast a chip will perform the instructions or tasks it's given.

On Intel's website, once you navigate past seemingly simple introductory pages, you find 11 different basic products from which to choose, including the Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 with Viiv technology, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium dual-core and Celeron processor. And those are just the desktop versions.

"The reason we got into a multi-core world was not because we needed more and more cores to do the computing work, but because Intel and AMD had run out of room to increase the frequency on the processor," said Endpoint Technologies analyst Roger Kay.

Before Intel and AMD started selling chips with two or more cores, they had simply cranked up how quickly the transistors -- the tiny switches that make up semiconductors -- could turn on and off to process computing tasks.

But as chips ran at higher and higher frequencies, the processors began using too much power and generating too much heat inside cramped desktop and notebook PCs.

So now consumers choose from different dual- and quad-core offerings (AMD even sells a processor that has three brains). And prices for PCs from brand name companies now range from $300 to $4,000 and more for a high-end extreme gaming PC.

With that sort of variety, PC makers like Dell Inc and Hewlett-Packard Co and the processor makers have responded by placing all the different types and speeds of PCs into three basic categories that you can think of as every day computing, some performance and lots and lots of performance.

"What you've got is basically good, better and best, but the PC makers don't like you to call it that," Kay said. For those who want to surf the Web, watch online videos, store music and photos, watch movies, do word processing and e-mail and keep a home budget, a PC with a dual-core processor from either AMD or Intel should do the trick, analysts said.

But consider spending more for a quad-core system if you plan to edit HD video you've taken with your HD camcorder, have a budding musician in the family who likes to mix digital music tracks, or are into the latest hard-core video games that are especially taxing on processors and video graphics chips.

"This particular question goes back almost to the beginning of computing: You basically try to buy the most computing power you can afford, with the understanding that you can expect applications will continue to get better," Bajarin said.

How to Use Wikipedia More Effectively

2008-07-13T18:41:00.003+05:30

Wikipedia, the largest online encyclopedia, needs no introduction. We use it prepare for our seminars, project report, for that matter to know about anything we are not familiar with. Here are some of the best tools, tips and tricks to help you use Wikipedia more effectively and productively.

1. Find knowledgeable writers for your Blog or print magazines via Wikipedia

Say you are looking for people who know about "Earthquakes" and can write for your publication. Open the Earthquake page on Wikipedia and switch to the history tab.

Here you’ll see a list of people who have contributed to that Wikipedia article - click the profile name of the contributor to read more about him and then use the Talk feature of Wikipedia to send him a message via Wikipedia.

2. Read Wikipedia Pages without Internal Links

Wikipedia pages are written in black text but sometimes they appear blue because each and every word in the article is an hyperlink to another Wikipedia story - see this snapshot from Google’s Wikipedia entry.

If you like to view Wikipedia articles sans excessive links, there’s a simple hack - just go to your browser address bar and append &printable=yes to the URL. Alternatively, click the "Printable version" link in the sidebar.

Before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google
After: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google&printable=yes

3. Track Wikipedia Articles via RSS or Email Alerts

You can track changes edits for any Wikipedia page via RSS feeds or instant email alerts. This is useful in two situations - you want to prevent vandalism or you want to keep yourself updated when some new information is added to topics of your interest.

To track Wikipedia stories, click the history tab of any article and then select the RSS feed from the sidebar. It looks something like this - replace Google with a different title.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Google&feed=rss&action=history

You can either subscribe to this feed in any newsreader or go to sendmerss.com to get the same information via email alerts.

4. Read Wikipedia on Mobile Phones

While the lengthy pages of Wikipedia may look good on your large desktop screen, they are not really optimized for the small screen of your mobile phone.

Enter wapedia.mobi - it’s a Wikipedia search and browse tool for mobile phones. If a Wikipedia article is particularly long, Wapedia will split it into multiple page so they load faster on your phone similar to Google Transcoder. Also see: Read Websites on Mobile Phones with Google

5. Find Wikipedia Articles About Places / People / Events Near Your Home

Go to Google Maps, type the address of your home in the search box (or for that matter, any place on earth) and turn on the Wikipedia layer - it is available in the top right corner of the map.

Zoom in and you’ll see markers that resemble the Wikipedia icon. Click to read a summary of the corresponding Wikipedia article.

6. Download the full Wikipedia Encyclopedia

If you want to browse Wikipedia on computers that are not connected to the Internet, you may download Wikipedia to your hard-drive and browse the entire site offline. The latest dump is for 04-07. For geeks, the latest dump is available here - it’s in SQL / XML format.

7. How to Credit Articles Published on Wikipedia

Unlike stories published on news websites and blogs that generally remain static throughout their life, Wikipedia articles change with time.

Therefore when you refer to a Wikipedia page in a blog, try linking to the current snapshot, not the primary article, else your readers may miss context when they visit Wikipedia because the page may have completely changed.

The URL of the latest snapshot is in the sidebar as "Permanent Link".

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Google&oldid=213435959

Who needs Brittanica or Encarta etc.. when we have Wiki. Wikipedia Rocks!!

Biggest tech myth's

2008-07-01T01:11:00.003+05:30

What's common between the Lochness monster, Yeti and radiation from PC monitor causing cancer? Well, they all are myths!
One of the long timer in the list of tech-related myths is that switching off power without shutting down damages the PC.
Also, many believe that as their email account is password-proof it can never be hacked.
Well, with little grounding there are many such myths that haunt the tech world.

I list some of the most common technology myths.
1) No magnets near my PC
This would have been true in the case of a floppy drive, however, hard drives and laptops are immune to magnetic radiation as they are free from magnetic composition.

And like this, thumbdrives, memory cards and CDs too are, so don't get hyper and go crazy with those fridge magnets.

Most of the storage devices, like SD cards are immune to magnetic fields.

2) PC monitor radiation causes cancer
No! It won't. Radiation from your cell phone might give you a brain tumour, but a monitor is harmless. The radiation from your monitor is too weak and also at a different frequency, so rest assure you are totally safe.
In fact, according to several studies the amount of ultra violet radiation produced by a computer monitor is only a small fraction of that produced by florescent lighting.

3) Cookies track every move
Cookies do track your activities on a website. But they are simple things which will make sure that your next visit to the site is simple and hassle free.
Cookies are basically small text files that help the browser remember specific information like your ID and password, preferences, shopping cart information etc. Plus, they are usually deleted when you shut down your browser.

4) `Stop' a USB device before unplugging
This applies only in a few cases. This is said to ensure that the USB device is not unplugged while data is being read from or written to it. Doing so would corrupt the file being transferred or maybe damage the USB drive. However, when the USB is in an idle mode it can be unplugged without going through the entire process of 'Safely Remove hardware’.
For devices like keyboard, mouse, printers and scanners, you can just unplug them when not in use.

5) Never switch off before Shut Down
Many believe that turning power off without shutting down PC physically damages its hard drive. However, this is an age-old myth and has no grounding. However, users do lose their data if they were working and have not saved before switching off the power.
Also, many users believe that one should shut down PC every couple of hour so that it can rest. The thought may be nice, but shutting down your PC every few hours may actually be harmful to your PC.
Components in the PC are most stressed when they have to either boot or shut down. Doing that every few hours will keep it under constant stress. However, this doesn't mean you must keep your computer on forever. Operating systems do need a shut down once in a while, because even the best operating systems crash if not given a rest.

6) Clearing recycle bin deletes data forever
Well many may relax when they delete their trash files. However, this is no reason to cheer. In fact, Windows just marks the area of the disk occupied by such files as empty, but does not delete the data.
There are many file recovery software available such as TOKIWA DataRecovery that enables you to undelete files, even if they have been removed from the recycle bin. Such programmes can track the deleted files in the hard disk.
Recovery of the deleted files is possible as long as the disk area is not overwritten by any new disk.

7) Anti-viruses are foolproof
Though an anti-virus is a must-must, but one cannot just relax especially in a 24X7 connected world. No single antivirus programme can completely safeguard you against virus, trojan, malware and spyware attack.
There may be chances that the anti-virus programme loaded in your PC may not be effective against spyware or other kinds of malware not classified as viruses.
Also, in case of a bigger attack, the security vendor may take long time to issue a security update.

Pump down the volume, say experts

2008-06-27T03:24:00.002+05:30

Well, everybody likes listening to music. Ipods, headphones and earphones attached to mobiles have been serving the purpose for a long time now.

My parents often lament at me for listening to music on my phone, laptop or IPOD with my head phones on and that this may cos me some hearing problem in the future. They fear that this lifestyle will create hearing problems in me later on. Is there any ground to their fears?

Research reveals that if you’ve ever suspected that the popular earbud headphones — which place the sound of music in the ears — might have a deafening effect, you had it right. With the volume turned way up, even an hour a day of direct-to-the-eardrums sound could lead to hearing loss.

Music addicts like myself are quick to discover that, headphones let them listen to tunes at a higher volume without anyone yelling, “Turn it down!” But whether the noise is hip-hop or Bach, overexposure can harm the ear’s sensitive hearing mechanisms — temporarily, if you’re lucky, permanently, if not. With headphones and earphones, sound is now pumped directly into the ear, which is a potential health issue as it increases pressure on the ear.

Says Dr Nitin Gupta, an ENT specialist, “Listening to music at high intensity is bad — 120 decibels is the most harmful. For that matter, even 80 decibels is bad. In fact even listening to 60 decibels of music for more than an hour a day can cause hearing problems. But if its a very low sound like less than 50 decibels, it won’t harm the ear,” he points out.

It’s a good idea to limit both volume and the time spent wearing any headphones, but especially earphones. But to keep hearing sharp for years to come, noise researchers studying headsets recently recommended using them no more than an hour a day.
Says Dr Rakhi More, another ENT specialist, “Any noise beyond a certain frequency is dangerous to the ears. Youngsters who go to discos are exposed to loud decibel levels of music and they can have hearing problems in the long run because with high decibels the hair strands in the ears get continuously stimulated which is not good. Similarly rock music at high decibels can damage the ears. But listening to soft, soothing music at a good decibel level is not harmful,” she says.

And in case of loss of hearing, consult an ENT immediately as otherwise it can cause a lot of complications like nerve damage and in some cases even brain tumour.

So pump down the volume! That’s if you don’t want to be hearing aid candidates by the time you are in your 40s. When using stereo headsets or listening to amplified music in a confined place like a car, turn down the volume. Remember: if a friend can hear the music from your headphone when standing three feet away, the volume is definitely too high. Don’t be afraid to ask others to turn down the volume. Listening to soft, soothing music at a below 50 decibel level is not harmful.

Well first it was the ear phones having millions of bacteria in them and now this. I think soon they will ban the use of ear phones. The topic is debatable lemme no ur views about this and how this will affect the way you play music.

Indian, French & Chinese tourists amongst the world's worst: Survey

2008-06-24T23:46:00.002+05:30

Indians might have covered miles to reach places, but when it comes to tourist etiquette, they still have a long way to go, while Japanese have mastered the art, according to a new survey.

In the survey, while Japanese were voted the best tourists, Indians were among the worst, reports an Australian news website.

More than 4000 hoteliers were questioned in the inaugural Best Tourist Survey and among the topics probed were tourists' behaviour, manners, generosity, willingness to learn the language and try local cuisine and their propensity to complain.

In the best tourists category, following Japanese were the British and Germans in joint second place, and the Canadians in third position.

Swiss came fourth, with Dutch landing the fifth spot.

The French, Indians and Chinese were considered the worst tourists among the 31 nationalities.

The World's Best Tourists:

1. Japanese
2. British/Germans
3. Canadians
4. Swiss
5. Dutch
6. Australians/Swedes
7. Belgians
8. Norwegians
9. Austrians/Danes/ Finnish
10. New Zealanders

Spin dry: The washing machine that needs just one cup of water

2008-06-24T11:51:00.003+05:30

A washing machine that uses only a cup of water to carry out a full wash, leaving clothes virtually dry, has been developed by British inventors.

Researchers say the technology, which uses less than 2 per cent of the water and energy of a conventional machine, could save billions of litres of water each year.

The machine, which has been created by academics at Leeds University, works by using thousands of plastic chips - each about half a centimetre in size - to absorb and remove dirt.

Around 44lb (20kilos) of the chips are added to each load, along with a cup of water and detergent.

During the washing cycle, the water is heated to help dissolve the dirt, which is then absorbed by the plastic chips.

The makers say the chips should be removed at the end of each wash, but can be used up to 100 times - the equivalent of six months washing.

The technology, dubbed Xeros, is already being compared to the Dyson bagless vacuum cleaner, which revolutionised the home cleaning industry when it was first released in the mid-1990s.

If adopted by many homes across the UK, the machine could save billions of litres of water each year. The average UK household uses almost 21 litres (37 pints) of water daily on clothes washing, 13 per cent of consumption. Nationally, this equates to approximately 455million litres water a day - enough to fill 145 Olympic sized swimming pools. Although the Xeros is currently in the design and testing stage, the inventors say they are in talks with a commercial partner.

The machine could be on the market as early as next year, they added.

Peek into all that is new in Firefox 3.0

2008-06-18T03:10:00.003+05:30

The latest version of Mozilla Foundation's popular browser, Firefox is all set for an upgrade. In fact, the Foundation is eyeing Guinness Book of World Records for maximum software downloads in a day for Firefox 3.0 as it goes live today. Firefox 3.0 promises to add several new features that will enhance the users browsing experience as well as make it for secure. In fact, Mozilla claims that Firefox 3.0 will run twice as fast as the previous version while using less memory.

So, here's a peek into all that is new in Firefox 3.0.

Firefox 3 adds several new features that will make it more secure against online frauds, forgeries, viruses and Trojan.

An important addition is One-click site info where the users can click the site favicon in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if their connection is protected from eavesdropping.
Also, the Identity verification is prominently displayed in the new version. When a site uses Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company users are connected to.
The new version has enhanced malware protection which warns users when they enter a site which can install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware.
Version 3 also lets users to access Web Forgery Protection page that displays the content suspected of web forgeries.
Also, the new version of Firefox automatically checks new add-ons and plugins and will disable older, insecure versions.

The new version promises to make users browsing experience more organised and clutter-free.
An information bar replaces the old password dialogue so that users can now save passwords after a successful login. The add-ons whitelist has been removed making it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks.
The revised Download Manager will make it easier to locate downloaded files, and users can search the name of the website where the file came from. Also, the users will be able to resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting their network connection.
Simplifying add-on installation, the new version will make it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks.
Another feature that adds volume to the new version is Full page zoom. This functionality will let users zoom in and out of entire pages, scaling the layout, text and images, or optionally only the text size. Users settings will be remembered whenever they return to the site.
Multiple text selections can be made with Ctrl/Cmd; double-click drag selects in "word-by-word" mode; triple-clicking selects a paragraph.
Another new feature, called activities, allows users to highlight text on a page, click on it, then instantly send it to another site, like a mapping, e-mail or blogging service.

Next time a user wants to add a bookmark the new Firefox will make the task easier for him. He will be able to add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click. A dropdown box will let him name it, choose a folder to put it in as well as add a tag to categorise it.
According to Firefox team, improvements to the JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimization has enhanced the performance of Firefox 3.0.
The new Firefox 3.0 will enable web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office to run twice as fast compared to Firefox 2. Also, SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases.

Firefox 3.0 has several developer tools too. Like there are new tools for graphics and font handling. New graphics and text rendering architectures in Gecko 1.9 provides rendering improvements in CSS, SVG as well as improved display of fonts with ligatures and complex scripts.

Firefox 3 endeavours to reduce the amount of memory used over a Web browsing session. Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator has been added to reduce fragmentation, a large number of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned.
Google has announced that it is going to discontinue its Browser Sync Firefox extension with the launch of the Firefox 3.0 browser.Google Browser Sync is a Firefox extension that synchronises users' bookmarks, Web history, browser sessions, and passwords across multiple computers by temporarily saving them to Google's servers. Google recommends that users download and use Mozilla Weave or other software in its place.

So what are you waiting for download the new Firefox 3 right now without wasting anymore time. Hope the next time you check my blog you will be browsing through Firefox 3..

Pleasures of an External Hard Disk!!!

2008-06-17T02:52:00.003+05:30

I am planning to purchase a new external hard disk for myself and i wanted to blog about the things i have come across while i go about my purchase.

One of my had gone to a place (something like Burma Bazaar etc..) to purchase the external hard disk, there the dealers tried to lure him into buying cheap Hitachi hard disks enclosed in local Intex casings. What they do is that they take regular internal hard disks and mount them in casings of cheap Chinese companies, these casings have an IDE to USB interface so that these internal (externalised) hard disks work with your computer. In fact one of his classmates had bought one of these makeshift external hard disks and as expected , the disk is giving him problems and has given it for repair.
So anyone looking to buy an external hard disk , be warned , the dealers at will try to shove these assembled notebooks in your face, beware of them.

Coming back to the pleasures part, its great to have a huge external storage. You can keep all multimedia in the external drive while keeping the hard disk space for software. Some of the advantages and problems of having an external hard disk is:

It is small. Dimensions of my external HD are 13-7-1.5 cm. Not as small as jump drive, but, anyway, I use to carry it in my ridicule.
You can choose the amount of disk space – HD itself can be 10-250 Gb. And, honestly, the difference in price between HD of 20 and 80 GB is so tiny that the choice is merely the matter of your taste.
It is mobile. Your computer is always with you. Carry all your favorite music and videos in single little box.
500mA rule. If you buy eHD to plug to your laptop or simply going to use it one day with laptop pay attention to how much energy it needs. Not more than 500 mA is a rule – laptop’s USB port is limited to 500 mA. Basically, HD needs more. But if you have bought eHD consumes more than 500 mA try to plug it into 2 ports. Usually there is an option for this on eHD case. 2-nd mini-USBs or something similar. In this case you’ll need to get a cable for this. And – don’t forget – it will be one device for 2 USB drives which is essential with notebooks. A bit of advice. Energy consuming depends on the “size” of HD. Forget about 100 Gb eHDs.
New device found! It may happen that you have bought appropriate eHD, plugged it but it is not shown in the list of disks and devices.
Check if the device is found. If you explore USB concentrators from control panel you will see it. If so – relax, device works, you just need some magic passes.
External HD is not a jump drive and it is not natural to expect it to behave like one. It is a mobile HD in a box. You will need to initiate it as any new disk. It’s in “Add hardware”. When the disk has appeared you may forget forever about these manipulations.
Plug carefully. Data is transferring trough USB cable and if it is not properly connected you can found mistakes on disks later. For instance, when the space for file is reserved and names are copied but nothing else. It’s quite a usual story when you can not move or delete file. Simply check disk (it’s in HD properties).
Laptop with plugged HD works less.
You can backup system just like with regular HDs.

I hope this post has helped you. If you are interested in seeing the products or knowing the price you can click on any one of the google ads and im sure you will get a good deal.. :P

Difference between Clay and Grass surfaces

2008-06-14T02:48:00.000+05:30

Ever wondered why Nadal demolishes Federrer on Clay court but cant do the same on Grass. The reason being the difference between Grass and Clay court. Here are the major differences between the two surfaces:

Bounce: It has already been mentioned that the different surfaces change the way the ball bounces. When you play on clay, the ball buries itself in the clay every time that it hits the ground. In terms of pure physics, this causes the ball to lose momentum in the horizontal direction which leads to what tennis players refer to as the slowing effect of clay. On the other hand, when balls bounce on the grass they actually slide and this means that much less of the ball's momentum is lost in the horizontal direction than when it hits the ground on clay or even on hard courts.
Speed: On clay, the surface slows the ball down significantly each time that it hits the court. This means that if a player relies on his/her power to beat opponents, their shots that are usually more effective on other surfaces will be less effective on clay (this is why Pete Sampras could never win consistently on clay, and why Andy Roddick, the product of the power game, will never amount to anything on clay). On grass, the ball slides each time it bounces and, as was mentioned previously, it looses less momentum than it would on other surfaces. This makes grass an extremely fast surface and is why big servers and serve and volleyers do so well on grass.
Spin: The different surfaces also change the way tennis balls react with different spins. On clay, topspin really "grabs" and so that's why modern clay court specialists all use extreme grips to give the ball more spin. As a side note, topspin gives players more margin for error because it allows the player to hit the ball higher over the net (less chance to hit the ball into the net) but at the same time it causes the ball to fall quicker (more chance the ball will fall before the baseline). Furthermore, since the ball loses momentum when it bounces (see previous two points), the rallies on clay are much longer and that is why players want to maximize the amount of time that they can stay in a point before committing an error by adding topspin. On grass however, spin has less effect than on other surfaces (because it slides instead of having a pure bounce), and that is why clay court specialists have such a hard time winning on grass: their game is ill-suited for its speed.(that surely doesn't mean they cant compete, Nadal proved it wrong, he was after all last years Wimbeldon Runner Up)
Players: Finally, because the style of play changes so much between the surfaces, different players are able to succeed on different surfaces. On clay, the long points require players who are able to hit with consistency and last during the long and grueling matches. Whereas on grass, the points often last no longer than the serve or the return (although, that is changing as there are fewer and fewer serve and volleyers on the pro tour).

I would conclude by saying that Grass court doesnt really show ones tennis skills it is suited more towards people with more power.. I would go on say that "Playing on Grass surface isnt Tennis".
(I'm not taking anything away from Federrer though he is a wonderful player yet NADAL kicks ASS!!)

If you dont agree with me just today i saw a match between Rafael Nadal(ESP Seed:2) and Ivo Karlovic(CROATIA Seed:8) where Rafa was taken to three sets and believe me i just saw only 1 winner (little exaggeration may be but surely <5)>100mph and an accuracy >80% he fired 40 aces in the match and has the most no of aces in the Tour presently but whenever his service was returned he just could not last more than a 4 shot rally (max going to 8 just 1 :P) with most rallies being won by Nadal. Nadal rarely goes through a match without breaking serve but he just could not do anything against the service.
So next time you say or think that Nadal or any other player for that matter "knows only to play on Clay surface" think once again.

"Vamos Rafa"

Planning to buy a laptop..Read this first..

2008-06-10T17:06:00.000+05:30

Planning to buy a laptop? However, don't know how to start hunting for the ideal notebook. One that meets your requirements and fits in best into your work regimen. Remember, while specs are what manufacturers tout -- dual core processor, large screen, size, and lightweight -- there's more you need to consider while zeroing on the laptop of your choice.

When you buy a notebook computer, pay special attention to whether the LCD display is "glossy" or "matte". Increasingly, manufacturers are offering glossy screens. While these are great for watching movies on your laptop, they're not optimal for doing traditional office work.
The reason is that the glossy screens are highly reflective. In typical office environments, glossy screens can be hard on both your eyes and your concentration, as you'll have to work harder to ignore the ambient lighting and background objects that are reflected in your screen.
Bottom line is that if you're buying a notebook primarily to get work done and not to watch movies or play games, avoid glossy screens. Also, glossy screens are more susceptible to scratches than matte screens. So if your laptop is likely to go through some rough and tumble daily, this is another reason to go for a matte
The wireless transmission standard is about to get a big boost in speed with the official unveiling of the 802.11n standard, which provides Internet and networking connectivity speeds that are about 10 times faster than the wireless standards currently in use. That's a significant speed boost, and it's one you want in your notebook computer, especially because changing the type of wireless connectivity that you have in a notebook is difficult or impossible once you buy the machine. Avoid notebooks that offer only the built-in 802.11b or 802.11g wireless cards. Even if the version of 802.11n offered in a notebook sold today is dubbed "draft" or "pre-release", it'll likely still be far faster than the 802.11g standard -- and you'll probably be able to upgrade it later, once the standard is finally ratified.
The unfortunate fact is that as competition has forced manufacturers to offer notebooks at rock-bottom prices, quality of exterior construction has suffered. If you'll be doing a lot of travelling or will be buying a notebook for a youngster, think about buying notebooks that were made to take some abuse. The Dell Latitude series, the Acer TravelMate, or the Lenovo ThinkPad are all highly regarded in terms of durability.
Combine a powerful processor, fast hard drive, and hefty battery, and what do you get? Heat and lots of it. There's a good reason why the moniker "laptop" has all but disappeared: Some notebook computers are really not suitable for resting on your lap because they get too hot on the underside to hold comfortably. But some notebook computers are still designed for those who wish to work from their lap. That's why it's important to find out just how hot a laptop gets on the underside. Either contact the manufacturer and ask specifically about this or visit a store in which the notebook is running, and feel the underside.
Noise is less of a problem with notebooks than it once was, but it can still be a factor -- especially if you're easily bothered by noise while working.Noise in notebooks generally comes from two sources: the hard drive and the cooling fan. If you want to eliminate the source of hard drive altogether, consider a new notebook with a solid-state drive
Batteries act like your laptops in-built UPS. They are the lifeline of your machine. So, it is important that you check up how many hours your battery will run. Some batteries last long, but some don’t. There are three main types of batteries:
- Li+: Most people get Lithium-ion (Li+) batteries. These are generally good, safe and secure.
- NiMH: If you want something cheap, a nickel metal-hydride (NiMH) battery will do.
- NiCad: This probably won't be an option, but if a dealer does try to sell you a nickel cadmium (NiCad) battery, run away. They require constant recharging.
In these days of technology obsolence it is very important to find out the upgrade options available. Also, one should keep in mind that laptops can be upgraded up to some extent only. While it is possible to upgrade main memory, and removable drives, the upgrades can cost twice as much as a desktop. It is even cheaper and environment-friendly to upgrade your laptop rather than to discard it. So, before buying try and explore upgrade options available.
Though this may not be that important, still there is no harm in checking the best deal available. Do a recee of the various combo plans being offered by various vendors. Like presently Compaq is offering WiFi music player free with its notebooks. Also, check which dealer is offering accessories like free bag, headsets, wireless mouse or some discount coupons.

Making pictures email friendly

2008-06-09T16:53:00.000+05:30

Digital cameras have formed an integral part of our life. It has replaced the old cameras, yes the one with the negatives.. Do you remember using one?? Well although digital cameras have really made photography a child's play but sharing these photos with your near and dear ones through email seems to be difficult.. Some websites provided you with an option to upload the photos but that did not guarantee privacy and emailing them seems to take a lot of time to upload as well as it clogs the recepient's email.. Some complaints you might hear are
"The pictures are so huge my work email is clogged,"
"All we can see is the top of your head, what sort of pictures are these?"

What most people don’t know is that the original files on your digital camera are so large that they run off the sides of the screen and can’t be viewed in totality. This is because when set to the highest resolution, standard digital cameras tend to capture images with file sizes that gobble about 3MB of space.

Resizing pictures is one of the easiest skills which can be acquired with the help of applications. Here is how you go about making your pictures email ready.

Before you start playing with the size of your pictures it’s important to know the nuts and bolts of resizing.

Always remember to make a copy of the original pictures, otherwise if something goes wrong, your Statue of Liberty moment will be forever lost. Also, resized pictures are no good if you plan to print them. For this you will need the original images.

As a thumb rule, stick to a size of about 80-100 KB for pictures that you want to post online or email.

While working with photo-editing programs the most common terms to keep in mind are 'resample', 'resize' and 'constrain proportions'.

The ‘resample’ option tells the application to recalculate and modify pixel dimensions while ‘constraint proportions’ prevents distortion. An image showing this is given below:

Therefore, it’s a good idea to keep these options on, especially if you are a newbie.

The easiest way to shrink photos is to use the free software that comes bundled with your operating system. If you are using Windows Vista, then simply open your pictures with the Photo Gallery application. Next, click on the email tab to bring up four resizing options as well as the choice to maintain the original size. Pick one of these and click on Save. Once done, your pictures are good to go. The routine is the same with Windows XP, but here you get only three sizes.

The other option is to use web-based photoediting services like Shrink Pictures (www.shrinkpictures.com) and Snipshot (www.snipshot.com). Simply upload an image from your hard disk using the Browse button, pick options to resize and then click on Save. The images saved on your hard drive are ready to mail. However, beware of going overboard, especially if you are using a fixed plan that allows only certain MB of uploads, because uploading too many fat files will eat into your bandwidth.( Imagine you receive a phone bill of Rs.5000 lol...)

The best way to resize images which you want to share online is to use photo-sharing websites. This is because in addition to resizing, these sites also offer great ways to share your photos with friends and family. Flickr (www.flickr.com -Check this out!!) and Picasa (www.picasa.com) are one of the most popular photo-sharing sites. Once uploaded, your pictures live on the website itself, so all you need to do is email the link to these pictures. Similar options are also available with social networking sites such as Orkut (www.orkut.com) and Facebook (www.facebook.com). With these, you simply post new albums on your page and all your friends automatically get a notification.

If you have a photo viewing software like ACDSee, NeroPhotoSnap etc. they have inbuilt editors in them which provide you the option of resizing (normally provided ). All you have to do is click on resize and give the appropriate pixels or percentage of original size and the rest it will do.
So next time you want to share your photos and want people to actually see them all try to do any one of the following.

Supercharge Your Camera

2008-06-09T15:57:00.000+05:30

Supercharge Your Camera with Open-Source CHDK Firmware

CANON CAMERAS ONLY!!!!!

Digital cameras have powers beyond what is immediately available to the user. On a standard Canon, for example, the fastest shutter speed option offered is 1/1,600 second, but the hardware can handle much more than that -- up to 1/60,000 of a second.

CHDK, the Canon Hacker's Development Kit, is an open-source software project that can be loaded on cameras using Canon's DIGIC II or DIGIC III firmware platforms. It unleashes new features including RAW file format, live histogram display, a battery readout, and the ability to run scripted actions on a camera.

CHDK does not replace the existing firmware on your Canon, so the process is completely reversible. The existing firmware stays intact, while the CHDK software is loaded on demand from an SD card.

What You'll Need

A compatible camera (see a list)
An SD memory card
An SD card reader (but see possible workarounds below)

How To Install It

It's best to start with a blank SD card, so if there are pictures on your card, remove them.

There are numerous incarnations of the CHDK software, different builds incorporating different features. If you don't have a particularly rare camera or unusual needs, the best build to start with is probably Allbest, a good all-purpose build that incorporates a majority of features.

Determine which camera model you own, by looking at the model number on the camera. Download onto your computer the appropriate package for your camera, from this site.

Tip: Note that the "Ixus" designation is European: what Americans call the Canon SD800, Europeans call the Ixus 850. The filename of the firmware should include both names, e.g. allbest-ixus850_sd800-100e-49.zip.

Also download the "english.lng" language file.

Unzip the zip file. It should contain two files, DISKBOOT.BIN and PS.FIR. Put your SD card in your card reader and copy those files, plus english.lng, to the topmost directory on your card.

Card readers are cheap and handy, but if you don't have one there may be a workaround for you. A Treo or Palm with an SD slot can be made to act like a card reader with Card Export software. Or you can try uploader software, which is designed to allow direct installation from PC to camera without ever removing the card from the camera.

Once you've put those files on your card, put the card back in the camera.

How To Use It

Switch the camera into View (not Shoot) mode, and turn it on. When you press the Menu button, you should notice a new menu option: Firm Update. Select this option (remember, it's non-destructive) and the CHDK software will be loaded on your camera, which should reboot itself. Immediately, you'll see a display of battery percentage and storage remaining.

The extra features can be accessed and configured via "Alt mode," an alternate mode into which you toggle by pressing a particular key. On the SD700, it's the Print key; it may be different on your camera. It should be configurable in the Alt menu.

You can tell you're in Alt mode when there's a little displayed at the bottom of the screen.

After entering Alt mode, press the Menu key to bring up the menu. This reveals all sorts of options: customizing the on-screen display (called the "OSD"), playing games, you name it. Use the camera's directional keys to navigate the menu.

Play Around

Your camera is now set up to take all kinds of fancy photos. You can do Edgerton-style high-speed photography, or low-light high-ISO tricks, or script complex actions. The CHDK wiki includes lots of tips and tutorials and user-written scripts. Here are some of our favorites:

Unlimited Interval Shooting -- Use your camera for surveillance, or use it to shoot at precise intervals during a lunar eclipse or meteor shower.

High-Speed Shutter -- Use this override option in the AllBest firmware to explore life's littler moments. You can also override the camera's slowest shutter speed settings to shoot exposures of a minute or longer.

Long Exposure Intervalometer -- Take multiple long exposure shots all night, then assemble the shots into your own time lapse videos.

Shoot better HDR pics with CHDK's auto-bracketing features.

Set CHDK as Your Default

At this point, CHDK is only loaded manually when you select Firm Update as you did above. When you shut the camera off, it'll be gone (although your configuration options are stored in a config file on your card). If you want to have it load automatically every time you turn on the camera, follow these steps.

1. Go to Debug Parameters in the Alt menu, and select "Make card bootable."

2. Turn off the camera, remove the card, and switch its manual switch to Lock position. If your card doesn't lock, you can't auto-boot CHDK, sorry.

3. Put the card back in. Now CHDK will load automatically whenever you turn on the camera. Unlock the card to disable this.

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