ChaCha Guide Search

Well, lets say you want to buy a computer to satisfy your ever increasing appetite for games, songs, videos and programmings. Simply put you want a powerful PC. You have two options either ask your nerd friend or do a web search, and now since you yourself know a lot about searching techniques you do a Google search and get one million results. Now you have two options either you go through all of them or go back to more reliable method, that is asking your friend. But, oh no this time your friend is stuck with some very serious work and do not want to be disturbed (obviously he is dating someone). You are nowhere, doomed.

And suddenly there's a thunder, all gets illuminated and ChaCha comes to rescue. ChaCha is a web search engine gives you the most optimized search which it brings out while chatting to you. You can in much the same way as talking to your friend, chat with ChaCha and quote your requirements. ChaCha will guide to the search result that is most suited to your need. Enter your search query and click search with guide. ChaCha will suggest you with sites while you chat and if you are not satisfied with the results you can tell you are not satisfied and want more specific results.

Here is an exerpt of a typical chat session:

Status: Looking for a guide ...
Status: Connected to guide: Lakhena L
Lakhena L: Welcome to ChaCha!
Lakhena L: HI
Lakhena L: How are you doing?
You: hi
You: i am fine
Lakhena L: How may I help you with computer today?
You: i am looking forward to buy a computer
Lakhena L: Ok,
Lakhena L: any specific type?
Lakhena L: Do you want to look for destop or laptop?
You: i want a powerful PC to play games, videos and running some common compilers
You: desktop
Transfer: You are being transfered to another guide who can help you search even better!
Looking for guide ...
Status: Connected to guide: SamanthaT
SamanthaT: Welcome to ChaCha!
SamanthaT: Hello, I will be happy to help you today with your search.
SamanthaT: Please be more specific as to what you're looking for on this topic.
SamanthaT: Hello?
SamanthaT: Hello?
You: i want a powerful pc that will run games like warcraft,nfs
SamanthaT: Sure one moment while I look.
SamanthaT: Thanks for being patient! Rest assured I'm finding the most relevant results for your search.
SamanthaT: Are these results sufficient?
You: yes thank you
SamanthaT: Is there anything else on this topic I can find for you today?
You: no thank you
SamanthaT: Thank you for using ChaCha, have a great day!
SamanthaT: Please RATE ME. Thanks for using ChaCha.

Yugma - Web Conferencing

Yugma launched a collaborative service that runs entirely inside your browser. You need not download any installer on your system to make use of this great tool. The good part is that it is offering all the basic features for free and works both of PC and Mac. Web browser with Java and thats all. Sign up is hassle free, on the fly. Once you have signed up and want to start a conference or join a conference, the java applet starts loading which takes a while. After that, you are ready to go, equipped with all the basic web-conferencing features such as showing desktop, annotation tools, changing presenters etc etc.

Google Apps for Your Domain

If you have registered a domain or planned to register this is probably is good news for you. Google is giving away its goodies like Gmail, Gtalk, Google Calendar etc to serve the multidimensional purpose of your domain. The good thing is that its fully customizable to give the apps a touch of your site. Besides you will also be able to put content on the site by leveriging the power of WYSIWYG editor.

If you have planned or just decided out of shear excitement of this news to register for a domain, again this is a great time. Google has partnered with GoDaddy and eNom to provide for registration services for $10 a year. The added flavor is that you get private domains which means your privacy will be preserved and your contact information will not be revealed. Other services charge 3-10$ extra to get you private domain.

Get started here ..... happy blogging!!

Cricket Networking

Cricket in India is a game with popularity matching nothing. Some call it religion. So, I guess this is the right time to start professing your religion. Sixer which was launched about two months ago and CrickeM which is just launched provide cricketer lovers a platform they always wanted. They wanted to network with like minded cricketesters, discuss with them the crucialities of a match, comment on batting style of Sachin , share and view their favourite clips of shots. And so thee get all you desired.

Google Launches Patent Search

A patent search feature has been integrated with Google's ever increasing range of services. The patent search at the time of writing seems to search US patents only as it pulls data from USPTO database. It covers all the 7 million (approx) patents issued by USPTO since 1790. The contribution of Google being conversion of all the image database of patents of USPTO into searchable format.

Search Queries--
» To search patents by patent number(lets patent no be 1247412) -- patent:1247412

» To search by inventor (ex. patents awarded to Edision) -- ininventor:edison

» To search by assignee ( ex. assigned by Fairchild) -- inassignee:fairchild

» By classification
US Classification -- uspclass:"99/385"
International Classification -- intlpclass:"A63B 6308"

You can use advanced search to search by filing date or issue date to narrow down your results.

The Stone Mover

Watch Wally Walington (WWW) building stonehenges.

Downloads of the day

Skype 3.0 : Get feature packed latest version of Skype. [Download]

Google Toolbar for Firefox.

Google Toolbar for IE7.

Yahoo Toolbar for IE7.

Making Money -- Pixelotto Style

There exists a million ways to churn money. But not all are smart enough to harness them and Pixelotto is definitely not one of them.

The formula:
1. Show advertisers the userbase/traffic
2. Show users the money ($ 1,000,000)
3. Provide an interface and act as middleman.

And the site owner walks away with $ 1,000,000. Doesn't matter if he do a charity for $ 1,00,000.

Pixelotto is selling up one million pixels for $2 each to the advertisers and side by side registering users to click on those ads. At the end there will a lucky draw to select the winner who will be suddenly $1,000,000 rich.

Gift from Flickr

Get ready to express all you wanted to express to your beloved ones or to the world for that matter. Flickr upgraded its storage limits both for free as well as Pro users. While the upload limit for free users have been increased 4 times to 100MB, the Pro users are relieved of any limits -- yes they can upload as much as they want. [via Flickr blog]

The Google Toolbar Story

So far...

» Google released toolbar for Internet Explorer 7 which resembled just like Yahoo Toolbar (get it here) which made a good fuss in the blogosphere.

» Google later on corrected the problem and released the more Google looking toolbar for IE7 (get it here)

» How can Google forget Firefox? And so it is here.

Google Toolbar 3 Beta lets you add bookmarks and access it from anywhere on the internet. You can add custom buttons to the toolbar and share webpages via Blogger, Gmail or SMS. All these features are with IE7 toolbar too.

A feature that is exclusively for Firefox users is that you can now view the documents you come across while on web right inside your browser window without downloading anything on your computer. [via Official Google Blog]

DareJunkies Goes Live

Shortly after the coverage DareJunkies went live and in total about 75 challenges across various categories were open at the time of writing. Some of them are quoted as under:

Poetry by numbers

Go to an open mic night. Be your most artsy, eclectic self and count it like you mean it… Begin simply counting 1 through 100. We’ve got a passion for numbers. We think counting to 100 is one of the most brilliant, meaningful ways to communicate human emotions. Feel free to start weeping from 65-70 and laughing uncontrollably through the 80’s!! Express yourself. If your audience is moved, maybe we will be.

Candle in the wind

Hold a candle vigil in your neighborhood. Invite all of your neighbors to join you, but do not tell them ahead of time what the vigil is for, just imply that its important to you that they attend. When your neighbors arrive, have a candle ready for each. When a good number of people have congregated, let them know the vigil is for your childhood dog who died 10 years ago. Tell them you hold the vigil annually. Or tell them its to celebrate the life of the spider you stepped on yesterday and killed. Perhaps pass out a program with a picture of Sadie, the family golden retriever, or of the smashed spider. Look confused when your neighbors shake their heads at you and head home.

Thomas Edison Rules!!!!!

Give us a little documentary on the best invention ever. What is it? Are you typing on it right now? The wheel is outdated so make it about something more modern. Do an expose on how this particular piece of technology has helped us and what you think the best invention has been over the last 50 years. Just don’t bore us…make it funny.

No means YES

Dress up in a wife beater or one of those t-shirts that states “Sex instructor: First Lesson Free”. You’ve always known you should give back to the community. Well, there is no better time than now. Set up a stand in a public place and give a lecture against sexual harassment complete with tips and defense strategies. When a cute girl or guy passes by staring in wonder, don’t hesitate to give her the old; “How you doin’?”

See your Page from Google's eyes

Heres the SEO tip of the day. If you want to see your page indexed top slot on the search engines, seeing how search engines or bots see your site is probably a good idea. This site provides the coveted service with a number of bots to choose from( googlebot, alexa, yahoo etc). All you have to enter the URL (include http://) and choose the bot.

Run Windows and Mac apps Side by Side

[Credit: Lifehacker]
LifeHacker published a post about running Windows apps side by side Mac apps on your Mac. This killer hack requires a virtualization product from parallels. Track the full story here.

Heres a screencast:

Calc 5 - Calculate, Draw 2D & 3D graphs

Calc5 provides interface to draw 2D and 3D graphs. It is coupled with some basic mathematical functions including derivatives. The interface is easy to use and possess only few simple functions which can be learned within seconds, just check out some samples in the right hand corner of the interface, or better still check out help section. You can obtain an approximate rough plot or a precise one.

Also see: Instant Web Calculator

Darejunkies : Do u dare to dare.

A new social network typo but with a difference is coming up. Darejunkies, a site that will award you for doing the craziest stuffs. The users can take part in contests by taking up the challenges posted on the site. Challenges such as wrapping yourself in peanut butter and go to a dog park, or get your grandma to tell you something embarrassing. Challenges are listed across categories such as embarrassment, dating etc. All you have to do is to shoot a video of yourself performing the act and upload it to their site, you can win a minimum of anything between 500-1000 USD. Users can also post challenges which will be reviewed before posting to chech its legality. At the moment of writing the site was showing "coming soon" status and accepting emails to let you know when the site goes live. [via Techcrunch]

Google launches Click to Call ads in India

Google adwords, a advertising portal for advertisers launched its new Click to Call(?) service in India. This service allows advertisers to connect directly to users/consumers. It works as follows:

» Advertisers registar at Google Adwords for the Click to Call service.
» Users see a small phone icons next to Google ads.
» Users click on the icon, and it expands and prompts you to enter your phone number.
» Users phone almost immediately rings and they are connected to advertiser free of charge.

Google ensures that your phone numbers are not leaked to the consumers. Google is also trying to ensure that you do not become to prey of pranks when someone enters your phone number.

This service is already launched in US, and you can use it in conjunction with Google Maps, just click the Find businesses tab while searching (via Official Google Blog).

Wikia launching OpenServing

Going by the philosophy of open source Wikia unveiled OpenServing, which will enable users to create their own collaborative sites. It will have the following features:

» The contents of the site could be created or edited on any topic by you as well as by your users/viewers.

» Users can vote the articles, much like Digg.

» You can comment articles, also vote on comments written by others.

» Articles with most votes will make it to the frontpage.

» Add or edit additional feeds (drag-drop) related to topic.

» Most important-- You get 100% of the revenue that the site generate with ads.

Maps Mania

Google by virtue of its two killer apps Maps & Earth brought the revolution and reduced the world to fit into your monitor ( see Google Earthopedia) and it has got a lot of takers worldwide. They take Google earth, leverage their APIs and come up with their own apps. Here is a brief compilation of user created Google Maps apps:

» Webcams of the World : A collection of webcams geographically laid out.

» 7 Wonders : Seven wonders of the world classified by ancient, medieval, modern and nature.

» Ascii Art : Google maps made with ascii characters. Creative one.

» BBC news : See the news as it happens at places in Britain.

» Cheap Hotels : Affordable hotels worldwide.

» Travel n Blog : See what people are writing about places they visit. Good guide.

» Classifieds : Classified ads laid out geographically.

» Photos & Videos : Google maps + Flickr + Youtube. Lets you see pics n vids shared by others.

» Frappr : Social map. Add maps, add yourself to others maps, track your site traffice & more.

» Link with Friends : Add buddies. Good for blogs, groups, forums.

» BuddyPing : Google maps+Flickr+Del.icio.us . Shoot & Share pics geographically.

» Life History of George Bush : Bush biography geographically.

Theres a lots more useful maps spread all over the cyber space. Do a Google for them using relevant keywords like hospital maps , hotels google map etc.


See Also : Maps & Maps,
Virtual World.

Pimping Photos

In my budding days I had an immense passion to alter or pimp any human face I found on my textbooks, or some old cherished family photographs. As soon as I spot a face, a pen suddenly appears in my hand and the innocent picture is turned into a monstrous one. Today I got another chance to recall that passion. But this time it was in the form of a web-service, with my mouse as the tool. Pikipimp allows you to pimp the pictures you upload. You can choose from a range of beards, moustaches, eyes, glasses, hair styles,hats, music, tongue, teeth and lots more with each item customizable in several aspects such as size,color,transparency etc.[via Techcrunch]

See also:

» Draw Professional Criminal Sketches

» Passion = Drawing

Sites that link here

Technorati lists the sites that link to your blog or site. Just do a search for your site at technorati (if you registered) and it will give you a link to the link containing list of sites that link to you. But thats not really I wanted to say here.

I want to share this:

In order to find some really good blogs I Googled "sites that link here". This way it will show up the most relevant site with most links and traffic. And oh yes I got a good blog. I got first result from technorati and here it is -- The Gurgling Cod.

And heres a serendipity: Ctrl+5 is same as Ctrl+a , that is "select all"

Large File Sharing Services

Sharing large files have become a need in recent years. Some do it for really useful purposes such as music,movies,games, xxx and others do it for boring tasks such as projects, books etc. I thought its worthless to reproduce the whole list here which has already been prepared and put on net by some great guys. So, I just provide the links ok.

Classic list (2005) : This is a link which has been linked by most of the sites. Though slightly old, but old is gold.

Hyperguru: Good one. Gives a good list of browser based sharing services and that in Russian and German too besides English.

Wikipedia : Comparision of file sharing applications.

Wikipedia : Comparision of BitTorrent Software.

Slyck: The best one. Lates news and views about file sharing innovations.

Wordie -- Like Flickr but Without the Photos

Like Flickr, but without the photos. Yes, thats the tag-line of Wordie. It lets you maintain a list of words ( good-bad-anything). The words have links listed alongside for ready reference (NinjaWords, TheFreeDictionary, EtymOnline, Dictionary, M-W, UrbanDictionary, Wikipedia and Google). The service is addictive and one can spend hours adding words, going through words submitted by others and adding comments.

Download of the Day

Try the 2007 Microsoft Office System with all its features loaded. The trial period is 60 days. It is poised for release in Jan 2007. See the estimated price of products here.

The trial links for individual office products are:

Microsoft® Office Professional 2007
Microsoft® Office Small Business 2007
Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2007
Microsoft® Office Accounting Professional
Microsoft® Office Groove 2007
Microsoft® Office OneNote 2007
Microsoft® Office Publisher 2007
Microsoft® Office Project Standard 2007
Microsoft® Office Visio Professional 2007
Microsoft® Office Visio Standard 2007
Microsoft® Office Accounting Express 2007
Microsoft® Office Standard 2007

You can save the documents created with Office 2007 in pdf format by installing an Add in "MIcrosoft Save As PDF". Get it here.

You can also open,create, edit and save Office 2007 documents in earlier version of Office. All you need is to download Compatibility pack [here].

Google Earthopedia

A so called Geographic Web Layer has been added to Google Earth by integrating Wikipedia, Panoramio and Google Earth Community to itself making it a good storehouse of geographical information. This means that you gotta see a layer consisting of icons from the above services and when you click on them you will get information put up on those services about that landmark. This integration really opens up a completely different Earth where you can fly to places while learning secrets about them, besides you will be able to see a good number interesting places or sights bookmarked by other peoples.

[via Official Google Blog]

Yahoo Search vs Google Search

Langreiter lets you compare Google vs Yahoo searches side by side with a slick graphical report. The search results of the two sites are connected by lines to show their relative position of appearance. The dots are clickable in order to get to the results.

Test Drive:

Get Mails from other Accounts into Gmail

Very recently a new feature called Mail Fetcher has been added to Gmail. Now you can have emails from your different accounts bundled into single platform Gmail. Gmail allows you to add upto 5 accounts from which you want to fetch mails into your Gmail account, thus enabling a centralized administration over all your mails. You can also create a customized From: address which lets you send mails from Gmail but appear as if send from your other mail account that you have configured. All you have to do is to go to your settings section on the top right corner of your Gmail interface, click account tab and click "Add another email address". Heres a step by step guide. Be informed though that it can be confiugred for only those webmails which enable access to there POP servers. So, at this point of time its not possible to add free Yahoo or Hotmail accounts to your Gmail.

» One last note, this feature is already there in Yahoo Mail, Go to Options->Mail->Mail Addresses. Yahoo also allows you create an extra mail account.

» In case you want disposable email addresses see "Fighting Spam with Disposable Mails".

» In case you want to do some comparative analysis of Email providers see -- Webmail Comparisions, Email client comparisions.

Link Preview -- Snap of the Target

A link preview functionality has been added to this blog. Now when you hover over a link, a snap of the target site will be fetched and previewed in a snap box (kind of tooltip). The obvious benefit is to decide between going for the target or remaining on the page depending upon your liking of preview. This service can provide your readers a better reading experience without having to leave your page now and then. Snap.com freely provides this facility, even you do not need to register, just enter your site's url and script will be generated for you which you can paste in the head section of your page. If it works fine, very good. In some cases when your site follows strict Doctype conventions as is the case with this blog, you have to do slight changes in the code. Just find out the portion of the code that resembles the highlighted portion of the above code snippet and simply delete it. This is because the script is not well formed as it contains "defer" attribute without any value and hence not well formed.

Dr Google

The way the IT has been revolutionizing all the aspects of life,empowering organisations and at the same time vesting more and more power within individuals, how can the field of Medical Science be left behind. Today it has become more than necessary to be aware of ones own health,and carry ones 'VitalBase'(health database) with oneself. Thats why Dr Google is now aroundthe corner.

">

Google started its foray into the area of health and medicine with an enhancement to its search results. Search for a medical issue or a treatment like diabetes,aids,malaria etc and you will know. Just above the search results as shown in the snap you will find links to refine the results according to treatment,tests,symptoms etc. You can also refine search based on roles such as patients,medical authorities or health professionals.No doubt this has been made possible by the recent introduction of Google optimized search (previous coverge here).

Alternatively, you can also do optimized search as laid below:

»Treatment:- diseaseName more:condition_treatment (ex. "diabetes more:condition_treatment")

»Tests/diagnosis:- diseaseName more:tests_diagnosis

»For Patients:- diseaseName more:for_patients

»From medical authorities:- diseaseName more:medical_authorities

»Symptoms:- diseaseName more:condition_symptoms

»Causes/risk factors:- diseaseName more:causes_risk_factors

»For health professionals:- diseaseName more:for_health_professionals

»Alternative medicine:- diseaseName more:alternative_medicine

[link: Google Official Blog]

YouOS -- Another OS Over Web

Found another online OS which has been there for quite some time. This one seems even more powerful in terms of readily available programs ,around 482 created by users as it claims.You can spot a shell displayed in the screenshot. YouOS, by virtue of its popularity seems to have a great future ahead.

EyeOS -- Your OS on Web

How about running an Operating System inside your browser, and accessing itanywhere on the web. I am talking about EyeOS -- a web service based on Ajax that features a basic replication of an Operating System. Besides basic file system it supports programs like word editor, web browser ( browser inside the browser !!), bookmarkingservices,calculator,calendar and a lots more. It can be furthur extented to include many other widgets by clicking on the plus sign in top right (ref Screenshot) suchas games,chat,ftp client,port scanners,flv players etc.

Online Compilers

Suddenly came to mind to look for online compilers. Though I had a somewhat greater speculation about finding Online Compilers, it failed to disappoint me as I came across a few. These compilers come handy when you do not want to go through the process of downloading or purchasing desktop compilers, or you want to compile on the fly or just to test a code snippet if it works or not. A word of caution though, these compilers do not come even near to the power of desktop compilers. In case you want a free compiler or tool here is a good collection.

Heres a little list of Online Compilers

♠ Java :Online java compiler, lets you upload a no. of files and provides download for compiled file. You can also view the compiled applets directly.

♠ DJGPP C Compiler : Online version of DJGPP compiler. Write the code and download .exe file.

♠ C/C++ Compiler : Lets you write online code and shows compiler messages upon compilation. Good to check codes.

♠ C#, C, VB.NET, FORTRAN : Compile the stated languages. (link not working at the time of writing)

Fighting Spam with Disposable Emails

Very often we come across sites that requires you to provide email address to receive their services, mostly they use it for verification purposes. But the very next day your inbox starts flooding with spams and then you decide to end your life(?). Surely your email address is leaked and sold to professional spammers following the age old business mantra "everythings fair in love and cyber world".

Fortunately, or rather driven by the need, of late some sites has come up with disposable email concept to fight the spammers. The sites provide email addresses which remain active for a limited time mostly a day or week, or limit the number of emails after which they expire. Some of them are full featured while others receive only. Almost all of them are no frills and let you create email adresses on the fly. Here are some of the sites that provide disposable email services:

DodgeIt- no registration required, provides RSS feeds, receive-only.

E4ward- requires registration, provides mail forwarding, allows multiple aliases of an account.

GreenSloth- no registration required, receive-only, e-mail expires automatically after a week.

KasMail- requires registration, allows up to 25 aliases, can set aliases to expire after a certain amount of time.

Jetable- provides mail forwarding, account autoexpires after certain amount of time.

Mailinator- no registration required, provides handy spam map, receive-only, e-mail expires automatically after a few hours.

MailNull- requires registration, provides mail forwarding.

PookMail- no registration required, very simple to use.

SneakeMail- requires registration, provides mail forwarding.

SpamDay- requires registration, provides mail forwarding, account is automatically destroyed after 24 hours of opening.

SpamGourmet- requires registration, provides mail forwarding, can create custom aliases which automatically expire after a certain number of e-mails received.

Spam.la- no registration required, no frills. You can see all spam being sent to all Spam.la accounts, or just your own.

SpamMotel- requires registration, provides mail forwarding, mail can be accessed through desktop e-mail clients, can reply to e-mail from your real e-mail address using SpamMotel e-mail.

TempInbox- no registration required, provides RSS and Atom feeds, receive only, supports many different languages.

Will Hack for Food- requires registration, account expires after user indicated period of time, best name ever.

Draw Professional Sketches

Heard or seen of a criminal got caught by the sketch made on the basis of witness. Obviously many times, if not in real live, in TV shows of course. The real Police here is the Artist who draws the face by merely following the descriptions of the witness. No doubt they are adept and very accurate. They envied many with their rare talents.

But now they might envy you when you draw the same face within seconds without even knowing 'S' of sketching. Thanks to the ever increasing realm of web services. I am talking about "flashface.ctapt.de". The site lets you choose from a range of types of hairstyles,eyes,noses,lips etc that just makes the coveted art of sketching a matter of few drag-drops. The drawn sketch can be saved online or distributed through emails. The wonderful thing is that its all online, without you to download anything and that is what we mean by Web Service, isnt it. [More details at Digital Inspiration]

I Want More: Online Drawing

World's Eldest Blogger

Senior netizens are on the rise and they have come a long way in spreading the wisdom of ages over net. Donald Crowdis, a 92 year old from Canada blogs about life and wisdom in his unique humoristic style. His blog Don To Earth has tints of wisdom spread allover, earned through years of experience and GenX has lot to learn from it.

Fun over Telnet

Telnet is a remote login protocol which is primarily used for accessing resources on a remote computer and for various administrative tasks. Some servers around the world have left some ports open to explore whats inside. Lets have a look on them:

For each of the addresses Go to Run ->type telnet followed by address(without quotes) ->Enter. (ex: telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl)

♠ Address : "towel.blinkenlights.nl" -- Sit back and enjoy the ASCII Star Wars.
♠ Address : "193.201.201.131 4000" -- You need to register at Shadow-Lands in order to play this game.
♠ Address: " dr.nostrum.com 2000" -- I hear you love scary explorations.

Those were just a little glimplse. There exists a good amount of servers that allow remote login freely.

Educational,Entertainment and Foreign Language Telnets[ link1 ][link2][link3][link4]

Multiplication Made Easy

This multiplication trick uses lines and dots to calculate the result.

Porn -- Not to survive

A latest analysis has concluded that there are now only about 1 percent of total web-pages that contain sexually explicit content. The porn industry is falling steeply downside. The porn sites use to make money just by showing sexual content (in the form of images or videos mainly) which until recently attracted a large number of audiences. Of late these audiences have come to know about the cheap tricks played on them and thus the downside of porn. Here are some of the methods to filter porn:

♠ A simple way to block sexual content is to configure Content Advisor in Internet Explorer (open Internet Options ->Content tab), Firefox can be configured to block Pop Up windows (open Options->Content tab). There is no built in content filter in Firefox, this is where extensions come handy, Firefox extension Procon serves as good filter.

♠ There are also a lots of porn blocker softwares available for download.One example is NetDog which works with both IE and Firefox.

♠ In order to avoid those annoying porns appearing in the search results we recommend using Google Safesearch. It can be configured through preferences section on the Google homepage.

♠ PicBlock blocks the images based on flesh content by blurring them out "PicBlock blocks porn images by detecting the amount of flesh tones in images. Since the software is not based on offensive keywords list or known URLs, PicBlock may not be a substitute for your content filtering software." [via Digital Inspiration]

HOMELAND : Home is where the heart is.

Find out more about my home here.[http://www.flickr.com/photos/siddiqui]

Yourminis = Flashy Netvibes

Yourminis resurrected the Flash world which in the recent past had its thunder stolen by the much hyped Ajax. It also widened the coverage of flash to include homepage content management and not only games and videos. Netvibes [earlier coverage here] implemented Ajax as its backbone to serve contents to the users in a highly customizable manner. Yourminis' also offering the same but with a backbone of flash which gives it an "elastic look", functions are more or less the same i.e. you can include feeds, mails ,podcasts, widgets etc etc. What remains to be seen is that who wins the battle or if we are fortunate this will simply give rise to a healthy competition and end users will be only one to get the cheers.

File Uploads

The more the skill you have for creating things, the more productive you will be and the more space you will need to put up your content online. For a free hosting service like Blogger you
cannot upload all that you wish. Blogger, Flickr etc allows upload of photos, but then if you are a video photographer or a programmer and you insist on using Blogger to upload your creations, I am afraid that you first have to invent ways to convert them to images. So, lets better be a little adaptable to the atmosphere and make use of free upload services that a good number of sites provide. Here is a good review of sites that allow uploads, most of them are direct which means that you do not have to register. In most of them you can upload any type of file including executables. After uploading you can share the link provided. I checked out some of them, such as Zupload and Mega-File, and got instant results.

Picture Downloader

Not less than often we spot a guy who opens each picture on the net and decides whether to download it or not. Even if he wanted to download all the pictures from the site, he has to open all the pictures individually , and the wait between the page loads cause some to think about the ways of committing suicide.

I was one of them until recently when I came across a lot of "Picture Downloaders" (see how) across the net. I picked up one called Abacre Photo Downloader from Abacre [download] , while a lot more were available here (nice collection).

These tools provide filters like what type of image to download (jpeg, gif, png etc), file size of image (in kb), size/dimension of image (in px). Download the whole album and delete the ones that doesn't suit your taste.

Just Married -- Orkut and GTalk

Today Orkut and GTalk were integrated, which means that you can see the online status of you friends and invite them for chat or give 'em a call. Now you can import your Orkut friend's list to GTalk. All that is needed is to go to the settings page on Orkut and check a simple radio button. Its even easier to send scraps from GTalk. Here is the help by Google and download GTalk here.

Download of the Day

Ook? Video Ook! -- This firefox extension lets you to download embedded videos from sites like YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe etc (of course when opened in Firefox browser).

[Download]

A Wonderful game based on Theory of Gravity

Remember good old days of school, bragging about gravity, now its time to rejuvenate those "horror moments" with this addictive game. The aim of the game is to let the comet burn completely without colliding with any of the planets. See how the comet bends/curves when it comes in the vicinity of a planet.

SpringerWidgets -- Same widget for my Web and my Desktop

SpringerWidgets is integrating the widgets what we commonly differentiated as "widget for web" and "widget for desktop". The widget will work with same look and feel whether its embedded on the web or put up on your desktop. They have developed some samples for this. One of the sample widget to read RSS feed is shown here. Remember although this widget is embedded on this blog you do not have to come to this page everytime to view it (unless you are a die hard fan of this blog :-) ), instead you can download the desktop version of the same from here.

Get this widget!

Writing Hindi with Hindi Kalam

Writing in Hindi was never this easy. HindiKalam has a very good interface that allows to write Hindi online with the very much acronyms that Indians use while chatting on IMs (such as kaise ho for कैसे हो) etc. It also lets one embed English into the Hindi Writing as I am doining now.

हींदी is fun. हींदी िलखना अब काफ़ी आसान हो गया है

Cross Site Chatting

Geesee launched its cross site chat facility a few days back. As reported by Techcrunch : "Geesee is an embedded chat service that lets users communicate across any number of web sites in common chat rooms organized by tags". While this service was continuing to gather applauds from the web community, ChatCreator stepped in to steal the thunder. It provides much similar interface like Geesee but with a better look and feel with its sleek design.

Heres an example:

Download of the Day

Google Earth 4 (beta) -- The latest version of Google earth is doing round the corners. It comes bundled with some extra features which were earlier provided as paid service. This includes 3D, polygon and path drawings. [Download]

If and only if -- Passion==Drawing && Creativity+=1

Creativity, a very abstract term for even most creative people, manifests itself through as many acts in the world as possible. The act of doing something gives a vent to the creativity nurturing inside a living being. The act could be anything from a highly applauded painting on canvas to a mere act of thinking, its just that the way of expression doesn't matter.It could even be Online Drawing if you are not biased towards those conventional paintings painted by some bearded weird looking creature.

Cumulatelabs displays a fully featured drawing canvas to get your hands dirty, provides a drawing experience much like a drawing software only with a little slower speed.Earlier it was compatible with IE only but Firefox support is also included.

Now, some out of the box creation with ImaginationCubed which has very sleek user interface with great speed and feel of elasticity. Its greatest feature is that the "piece of art" can be created online with two or more artists participating simultaneously in the same drawing. You can send invitation to your friend (or your love) to take part in the creation. Wow, now unlike good old days we will have paintings patented to a bunch of people rather that bearded single guy. After the completion of the grand act, the art can be viewed in an animated fashion -- the pencil moves the same way as you did while drawing, to recreate your piece.

Now in order to add something that people called "professional look" Drawspace can serve as a wonderful mentor online.

Netvibes - Unifying Web

The very first page that I got after entering the url http://www.netvibes.com/ to my surprise contained all my favorites. It was like whole of internet before you, and you are confused but amazed. The site boasts of providing everything and all customizable, it provides a tabbed interface where feeds, news,web searches , webmails, bookmarks , photo organizers, social networking, API search etc can be customized according to your taste. These all occurs in real time.

Download Of the Day

Express Talk -- A voip soft-phone by NCH which provides dial up facilities to VoIP numbers and ids. It can be used directly for audio blogging at Gabcast (see more detail). [Download]

Online File Conversion

Zamzar provides a cool service when it comes to converting your image, document, audio, video from one format to another as per your taste or necessity. The interface is simple and sleek, and you get your converted file through email. Now atleast you do not have to download different readers for different formats or conversion tools to your desktop.

Really the world is moving towards better web solutions second by second. Kudos to the realm of Web Services.

Downloads of the Day

Firefox 2.0 for Windows -- Firefox 2.o is the latest version of browser from Mozilla.
[Download]

Internet Explorer 7 -- Internet Explorer 7.0 is the latest version of web browser from Micorsoft.
[Download]

Absolute Color Picker 3.0 -- A wonderful tool for web-designers to pick colors from a wide range and convert it to hexadecimal representation. [Download]

Instant Web Calculator

Welcome to hassle free calculation. InstaCalc is an online calculator which provides calculation facility in real time, that means results are displayed as you type. It claims to be faster that windows and easier than excel, which seems true looking at its speed and rich features.

The most interesting part is its graph and chart calculations, it instanly draws charts on your screen as you vary the parameters.

It does'nt take much to explore all its features. A comprehensive reference section is provided.

It also provides codes which can be embedded onto your geeky page to enable on the fly calculations.

A Three Column Sample Blogger Beta Template

Here is a sample three column template for Blogger beta. As it is very difficult to find templates for Blogger beta I have altered one of the two column Blogger templates and made it three column. Three column templates are very convenient for blogs with a large content required to be arranged in categories.

Below is the code for the type of template shown in the figure. A word of caution before you edit your template (in html mode), back up the whole template on a notepad. You can copy the code below and paste into your template editing area while working in html mode.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?><br /><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"><br /><html xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' xmlns:b='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/b' xmlns:data='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data' xmlns:expr='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/expr'><br /> <head><br /> <b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/><br /> <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title><br /> <b:skin><![CDATA[<br /><br />/* Variable definitions<br /> ====================<br /><br /> <Variable name="textcolor" description="Text Color"<br /> type="color" default="#333" value="#333333"><br /><br /> <Variable name="pagetitlecolor" description="Page Header Color"<br /> type="color" default="#FFF" value="#FFFFFF"><br /><br /> <Variable name="datecolor" description="Date Header Color"<br /> type="color" default="#f93" value="#ff9933"><br /><br /> <Variable name="titlecolor" description="Post Title Color"<br /> type="color" default="#f63" value="#ff6633"><br /><br /> <Variable name="footercolor" description="Post Footer Color"<br /> type="color" default="#999" value="#999999"><br /><br /> <Variable name="sidebartextcolor" description="sidebar Text Color"<br /> type="color" default="#999" value="#999999"><br /><br /> <Variable name="sidebarcolor" description="Sidebar Title Color"<br /> type="color" default="#666" value="#666666"><br /><br /> <Variable name="linkcolor" description="Link Color"<br /> type="color" default="#69c" value="#6699cc"><br /><br /> <Variable name="visitedlinkcolor" description="Visited Link Color"<br /> type="color" default="#666699" value="#666699"><br /><br /> <Variable name="bodyfont" description="Text Font"<br /> type="font"<br /> default="normal normal 100% Verdana, sans-serif" value="normal normal 100% Verdana, sans-serif"><br /><br /> <Variable name="pagetitlefont" description="Page Header Font"<br /> type="font" default="normal normal 100% 'Lucida Grande','Trebuchet MS'" value="normal normal 100% 'Lucida Grande','Trebuchet MS'"><br /><br /> <Variable name="titlefont" description="Post Title Font"<br /> type="font" default="normal bold 130% 'Lucida Grande','Trebuchet MS'" value="normal bold 130% 'Lucida Grande','Trebuchet MS'"><br /><br /> <Variable name="sidebarheaderfont" description="sidebar Title Font"<br /> type="font" default="normal bold 130% 'Lucida Grande','Trebuchet MS'" value="normal bold 130% 'Lucida Grande','Trebuchet MS'"><br /><br /> <br />*/<br /><br />/* ---( page defaults )--- */<br /><br />body {<br /> margin: 0;<br /> padding: 0;<br /> font-size: small;<br /> text-align: center;<br /> color: $textcolor;<br /> background: #e0e0e0;<br /> }<br /><br />blockquote {<br /> margin: 0 0 0 30px;<br /> padding: 10px 0 0 20px;<br /> font-size: 88%;<br /> line-height: 1.5em;<br /> color: #666;<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/quotes.gif) no-repeat top left;<br /> }<br /><br />blockquote p {<br /> margin-top: 0;<br /> }<br /><br />abbr, acronym {<br /> cursor: help;<br /> font-style: normal;<br /> border-bottom: 1px dotted;<br /> }<br /><br />code {<br /> color: #f63;<br /> }<br /><br />hr {<br /> display: none;<br /> }<br /><br />img {<br /> border: none;<br /> }<br /><br />/* unordered list style */<br /><br />ul {<br /> list-style: none;<br /> margin-left: 10px;<br /> padding: 0;<br /> }<br /><br />li {<br /> list-style: none;<br /> padding-left: 14px;<br /> margin-bottom: 3px;<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/tictac_orange.gif) no-repeat 0 6px;<br /> }<br /><br />/* links */<br /><br />a:link {<br /> color: $linkcolor;<br /> }<br /><br />a:visited {<br /> color: $visitedlinkcolor;<br /> }<br /><br />a:hover {<br /> color: #693;<br /> }<br /><br />a:active {<br /> color: #cc3333;<br /> text-decoration: none;<br /> }<br /><br />/* ---( layout structure )---*/<br /><br />#outer-wrapper {<br /> width: 847px;<br /> margin: 0px auto 0;<br /> text-align: left;<br /> font: $bodyfont;<br /> background: url(http://prashant.nit.googlepages.com/tile.gif) repeat-y;<br /> }<br /><br />#content-wrapper {<br /> margin-left: 42px; /* to avoid the border image */<br /> width: 763px;<br /> }<br /><br />#main {<br /> width: 450px;<br /> float:left;<br /> padding: 20px 0 20px 1em;<br /> line-height: 1.5em;<br /> word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking rightbar float in IE */<br /> overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE rightbar float */<br /> }<br /><br />#rightbar {<br /> float: right;<br /> width: 150px;<br /> padding: 0 0px 0 0;<br /> font-size: 85%;<br /> line-height: 1.4em;<br /> color: $sidebartextcolor;<br /> background: e0e0e0;<br /> word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking rightbar float in IE */<br /> overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE rightbar float */<br /> }<br />#leftbar {<br /> float: left;<br /> width: 150px;<br /> padding: 0 0px 0 0;<br /> font-size: 85%;<br /> line-height: 1.4em;<br /> color: $sidebartextcolor;<br /> background: e0e0e0;<br /> word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking rightbar float in IE */<br /> overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE rightbar float */<br /> }<br /><br /><br />/* ---( header and site name )--- */<br /><br />#header-wrapper {<br /> margin: 0;<br /> padding: 0;<br /> font: $pagetitlefont;<br /> background: #e0e0e0 url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/top_div.gif) no-repeat 0px 0px;<br /> }<br /><br />#header {<br /> margin: 0;<br /> padding: 25px 60px 35px 160px;<br /> color: $pagetitlecolor;<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/top_h1.gif) no-repeat bottom left;<br /> }<br /><br />#header h1 { <br /> font-size: 200%;<br /> text-shadow: #81A75B 2px 2px 2px;<br /> }<br /><br />#header h1 a {<br /> text-decoration: none;<br /> color: $pagetitlecolor;<br /> }<br /><br />#header h1 a:hover {<br /> color: #eee;<br /> }<br /><br />/* ---( main column )--- */<br /><br />h2.date-header {<br /> margin-top: 0;<br /> padding-left: 14px;<br /> font-size: 90%;<br /> color: $datecolor;<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/date_icon.gif) no-repeat 0 50%;<br /> }<br /><br />.post h3 {<br /> margin-top: 0;<br /> font: $titlefont;<br /> letter-spacing: -1px;<br /> color: $titlecolor;<br /> }<br /><br />.post {<br /> margin: 0 0 1.5em 0;<br /> padding: 0 0 1.5em 14px;<br /> border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd;<br /> }<br /><br />.post h3 a,<br />.post h3 a:visited { <br /> color: $titlecolor;<br /> text-decoration: none;<br /> }<br /><br />.post-footer {<br /> margin: 0;<br /> padding: 0 0 0 14px;<br /> font-size: 88%;<br /> color: $footercolor;<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/tictac_grey.gif) no-repeat 0 8px;<br /> }<br /><br />.post img {<br /> padding: 6px;<br /> border-top: 1px solid #ddd;<br /> border-left: 1px solid #ddd;<br /> border-bottom: 1px solid #c0c0c0;<br /> border-right: 1px solid #c0c0c0;<br /> }<br /><br />.feed-links {<br /> clear: both;<br /> line-height: 2.5em;<br />}<br /><br />#blog-pager-newer-link {<br /> float: left;<br /> }<br /><br />#blog-pager-older-link { <br /> float: right;<br /> }<br /> <br />#blog-pager { <br /> text-align: center; <br /> }<br /><br />/* comment styles */<br /><br />#comments {<br /> padding-top: 10px;<br /> font-size: 85%;<br /> line-height: 1.5em;<br /> color: #666;<br /> background: #eee url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/comments_curve.gif) no-repeat top left;<br /> }<br /><br />#comments h4 {<br /> margin: 20px 0 15px 0;<br /> padding: 8px 0 0 40px;<br /> font-family: "Lucida Grande", "Trebuchet MS";<br /> font-size: 130%;<br /> color: #666;<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/bubbles.gif) no-repeat 10px 0;<br /> height: 29px !important; /* for most browsers */<br /> height /**/:37px; /* for IE5/Win */<br /> }<br /> <br />#comments ul {<br /> margin-left: 0;<br /> }<br /><br />#comments li {<br /> background: none;<br /> padding-left: 0;<br /> }<br /> <br />.comment-body {<br /> padding: 0 10px 0 25px;<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/tictac_orange.gif) no-repeat 10px 5px;<br /> }<br /><br />.comment-body p {<br /> margin-bottom: 0;<br /> }<br /><br />.comment-author {<br /> margin: 4px 0 0 0;<br /> padding: 0 10px 0 60px;<br /> color: #999;<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/comment_arrow.gif) no-repeat 44px 2px;<br /> }<br /><br />.comment-footer {<br /> border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd;<br /> padding-bottom: 1em;<br />}<br /><br /><br />.deleted-comment {<br /> font-style:italic;<br /> color:gray;<br /> }<br /><br />/* ---( rightbar )--- */<br /><br />.rightbar h2 { <br /> margin: 0 0 0 0;<br /> padding: 25px 0 0 40px;<br /> font: $sidebarheaderfont;<br /> color: $sidebarcolor;<br /> height: 32px;<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/sidebar_icon.gif) no-repeat 10px 15px;<br /> height: 32px !important; /* for most browsers */<br /> height /**/:57px; /* for IE5/Win */<br /> }<br /><br />.rightbar .widget {<br /> margin: 0;<br /> padding: 0 0 10px 10px;<br /> border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd;<br />}<br /><br />.rightbar li {<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/tictac_green.gif) no-repeat 0 5px;<br /> }<br /><br />.profile-textblock { <br /> clear: both;<br /> margin-left: 0;<br />}<br /><br />.profile-img { <br /> float: left;<br /> margin: 0 5px 5px 0;<br /> border: 1px solid #ddd;<br /> padding: 4px;<br />}<br />/* ---( leftbar )--- */<br />.leftbar h2 { <br /> margin: 0 0 0 0;<br /> padding: 25px 0 0 40px;<br /> font: $sidebarheaderfont;<br /> color: $sidebarcolor;<br /> height: 32px;<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/sidebar_icon.gif) no-repeat 10px 15px;<br /> height: 32px !important; /* for most browsers */<br /> height /**/:57px; /* for IE5/Win */<br /> }<br /><br />.leftbar .widget {<br /> margin: 0;<br /> padding: 0 0 10px 10px;<br /> border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd;<br />}<br /><br />.leftbar li {<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/tictac_green.gif) no-repeat 0 5px;<br /> }<br /><br />/* ---( footer )--- */<br /><br />.clear { /* to fix IE6 padding-top issue */<br /> clear: both;<br /> }<br /><br />#footer-wrapper {<br /> margin: 0;<br /> padding: 0 0 9px 0;<br /> font-size: 85%;<br /> color: #ddd;<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/bottom_sill.gif) no-repeat bottom left;<br /> }<br /><br />#footer {<br /> <br /> margin: 0;<br /> padding: 20px 320px 20px 95px;<br /> background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/bottom_sash.gif) no-repeat top left;<br /> }<br /><br /><br />/** Page structure tweaks for layout editor wireframe */<br />body#layout #outer-wrapper,<br />body#layout #main,<br />body#layout #rightbar { <br /> padding-top: 0;<br /> margin-top: 0;<br />}<br />body#layout #leftbar { <br /> padding-top: 0;<br /> margin-top: 0;<br />}<br /><br />body#layout #outer-wrapper,<br />body#layout #content-wrapper { <br /> width: 740px;<br />}<br /><br />body#layout #rightbar { <br /> margin-right: 0;<br /> margin-bottom: 1em;<br /> }<br />body#layout #leftbar { <br /> margin-right: 0;<br /> margin-bottom: 1em;<br /> }<br /><br />body#layout #header,<br />body#layout #footer,<br />body#layout #main {<br /> padding: 0;<br /> }<br /><br />body#layout #content-wrapper { <br /> margin: 0px;<br /> }<br />]]></b:skin><br /> </head><br /><br /> <body><br /> <div id='outer-wrapper'><div id='wrap2'><br /><br /> <!-- skip links for text browsers --><br /> <span id='skiplinks' style='display:none;'><br /> <a href='#main'>skip to main </a> <br /> <a href='#rightbar'>skip to rightbar</a><br /> <a href='#leftbar'>skip to leftbar</a><br /> </span><br /><br /> <div id='header-wrapper'><br /> <b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='1' showaddelement='no'><br /><b:widget id='Header1' locked='true' title='In the testing Phase (Header)' type='Header'/><br /></b:section><br /> </div><br /> <br /> <div id='content-wrapper'><br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><div id='leftbar-wrapper'><br /> <b:section class='leftbar' id='leftbar' preferred='yes'><br /><b:widget id='Profile1' locked='false' title='About Me' type='Profile'/><br /><b:widget id='TextList1' locked='false' title='dsfdsf' type='TextList'/><br /><b:widget id='Image1' locked='false' title='Age is not a factor' type='Image'/><br /></b:section><br /><div id='main-wrapper'><br /> <b:section class='main' id='main' showaddelement='no'><br /><b:widget id='Blog1' locked='true' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'/><br /></b:section><br /><div id='rightbar-wrapper'><br /> <b:section class='rightbar' id='rightbar' preferred='yes'><br /><b:widget id='TextList2' locked='false' title='list 1' type='TextList'/><br /><b:widget id='BlogArchive1' locked='false' title='Blog Archive' type='BlogArchive'/><br /></b:section><br /> </div><br /> </div><br /><br /> </div><br /><br /> <!-- spacer for skins that want rightbar and main to be the same height--><br /> <div class='clear'> </div><br /><br /> </div> <!-- end content-wrapper --><br /><br /> <div id='footer-wrapper'><br /> <b:section class='footer' id='footer'/><br /> </div><br /><br /> </div></div> <!-- end outer-wrapper --><br /></body><br /></html>

Downloads Of the Day

Starting this post a new segment will be included daily on Mere eXperiences under the heading Downloads of the Day.

Todays downloads

Eprompter --Checking Email at one place was never this easier. [download link]

Windows Media Player 11 --Latest version of Media Player from Microsoft.[download link]

Drupal 5.0 beta 1 --Drupal is a very popular free opensource content management system. Drupal 5.0 beta 1 comes with many new features, including a web-based install system, improved administration tools, and a shiny new theme.

[download drupal 5.0 beta1] [download latest stable version]

Xcelsius - A Class product from Business Objects

In the world of Business Intelligence, reporting and interactivity of reports are crucial to a report's effectiveness and hence of business. And the need of the day is to integrate the vendor specific reports (or dashboards) to the product of users choice ( thats what I call people ready business). This is when Xcelsius comes handy.

For all those who still ponder what a Business Intelligence is, here's the shot - Business Intelligence is a marriage of Business Effectiveness to Technology. It calls for analytical processing of historical data to design strategies, making forecast and investment decisions. Business Intelligence, or simply, “BI,” is the act of capturing raw data, then transforming and combining that data into information that can be proactively used to improve business (link).

Crystal Xcelsius a product from Business Objects lets one to import data directly from Excel sheets to create reports comprising of different types of charts, dials,sliders etc. and then export it to pdf, ms word, powerpoint or web besides its very own dashboard. It provides a slider option to be embedded on the dashboard, which causes instant visual variation in the charts or dials upon sliding (i.e. changing the parameter representing the slide). What is exciting is that the reports can be exported to above mentioned formats without comprising on the level of interactivity. Watch the screencast describing these features.

Gabbly - Chatting on your Web Page

Enabling a chat application on any web page was never this easy. Gabbly allows us to embed chat application to our webpages which allows all the concurrent visitors to share their viewpoints instantly. In addition you can just Gabbly on any webpage - just precede the site's name with Gabbly.com/, eg gabbly.com/yoursite.com. To start chatting on this page try this.

Checking Emails from different accounts at One Place

EPrompter is a free software that allows you to check, reply, forward, delete and all other common email functionalities through a single interface. It also offers spam protection. Eprompter can be downloaded from here.

Audio Blogging

The popular audio blog Audioblogger which provides service for Blogger is going off the air starting november 1st. Audioblogger provided audio blogging services for Blogger by providing an US number which can be used to post directly your audio through phone.

A very good alternative is Gabcast which provides paid as well as free services. For select countries blogging numbers are provided. SipBroker provides good free voip services.In order to record from your machine as it was in my case you can download some VOIP tool. I downloaded Express Talk, a soft VoIP tool from NCH which provides machine dialling facilities. It can be downlaoded from here by providing your email address. Now in order to blog on gabcast you have to dial sip:422@sip.gabcast.com and record your sound. This sound can later be heard from gabcast or its code may be copied to your favourite blog. You can check My Voice section on the right side of this page for sample.

My In-House Artist

Today I discovered a great singer, nowhere but inside my room-mate. Lets see how you like few of his creations (these are Hindi Songs).

Dil se Dil tak
Lafzon mein
Janneman

I think they are gr8, what do you say?

Whats Cooking Inside My HardDrive

The things that go inside the hard drive when you read, copy paste or delete something are explicitly shown with real life Hard Drive. Notice the movement of head in different situations:

Google Earth Workaround

I found a lot of tiny dots on the most beloved Google Earth (download it here). There are a lot of places marked by other and I am sure you will find one which is near your place of interest. My work started by searching Google. First I searched by keywords like "Google Earth Placename", later started searching with keywords like "site: filetype:kmz" or "site: filetype:kml". But then came up this great site containing a good amount of information on geographical locations. Tageo contains a lot of information about even the smallest of towns of the world alongwith latitude and longitude information, but on top of that it provides a link to KML/KMZ (to be opened with Google Earth) file for each place.

Now that I have located my place on Google Earth, in order to share it I must upload somewhere. In order to accomplish this "this wonderful site" came handy which allows the upload of KMZ and KML files. So finally I am able to share my location with you right here.

Sharing My Bookmarks

Until a month before I used to bookmark on a lot of sites, sometimes dedicate special blogs for it. But as my favorites grew at the speed of light I thought making one the chosen one and full stop. I chose Delicious. And until a day before I used to post links from my bookmarks to my blog. Now in order to increase the effectiveness and decrease the redundancy I got like "why reinventing the wheel" or for that matter why "Reposting the Wheel"(?).

Here's the thing: My Delicious Bookmark

Independent Music

If you are one of those singers who sing really well and their music do not get recognized for life or who simply who wants the world listen to her creation coz nobodys at home cares for it, or you are just a music lover tired of hearing from the same old artists. Here's a life for you. Independent Music comes under no piracy laws and their contents can be distributed and procured freely.

"In , popular music indie music (from independent) is any of a number of genres, scenes, subcultures and stylistic and cultural attributes, characterised by perceived independence from commercial pop music and mainstream culture and an autonomous, do-it-yourself (DIY) approach." (Quote:Wikipedia)

A few of the sites of note that I have noticed in recent time are as follows:

• GarageBand
• IndieMusic
• WebCDs
• MusicIndie
• Independent Music Network
  

Sure Shot Search Engine for Video,Audio,Torrent etc.

As in Google no special keywords, no special signatures and you most of the times direct links when it comes to audio, video, torrent, documents or manual. Thats what Briefli is all about. What is beautiful is that you get links from both Amazon and the good old sites who share everything for free , direct links in the later case. Its upto you to choose from legal or illegal. One more thing, it is built upon the Azaxian Technology, so no more getting blanks between page loads.

Google's New Customized Search Engine

Google released its customized search engine facility called Google Co-op that allows to perform customized search limited to few chosen websites. This search engine can be owned by anyone with Google Account. Moreover you can customize it so that other users of your search engine can add relevant links/sites. More details on Techcrunch.

Check out my search engine Latest Tech Search Engine which I have customized to search only a few good tech sites such as cnet, slashdot, techcrunch, digg etc.

Firefox 2.0 Released

Mozilla just released its much hyped version of firefox. It can be downloaded from its FTP Server.

• For Windows 5.6MB
• For Linux 9.2MB
• For Mac 18 MB

Well, later I found that Mozilla still has not announced the release officially which is scheduled on Tuesday even though it is in its FTP server. Probably it's because Mozilla don't want heavy traffic building upon the FTP server ahead of time that could cost it a large amount of bandwidth charge.

Maps and Maps

Find from a single channel how Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, NASA locate your home !! FlashEarth provides a single interface to access maps as shown by different vendors.

Virtual World

The world, initially a vast stretch of never-ending terrains,seas and deserts, started evolving slowly but with a very fast pace. The whole of the world is now at your finger-tips, thanks to the virtual revolution brought by digitals. Here is a collection of virual realities which have changed our way of life in recent past.

• Maps and satellite and Ariel Imagery:
  
  While the baton is carried by Google Earth and Google Maps, Microsoft Virtual Earth(combines MapPoint and Local Live Search) and Yahoo maps are making the competition tougher.OpenLayers ( an Open Source venture) and Ask.Com are also catching the race. Most of these include local search with GPS functionality which helps giving driving directions and lots more. There are also freely availabe APIs for these maps, so that they can be embedded in your site at your disposal and convenience.
  
  
• Virtual Computers/Platforms
  
  The virtual computers or platform helps to test all varieties of application to check for compatiblity different hardwares and platforms. Gone are the days when one used to acquire a lot of hardwares to test a single software.VMWare provides players for virtualization over windows and linux systems. Microsoft's Virtual Server provides a virtualization platform that runs most major x86 operating systems in a guest environment, and is supported by Microsoft as a host for Windows Server operating systems and Windows Server System applications. Microsofts Virtual PC also provides a similar though slightly depreceted facillty.PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine) is a software package that permits a heterogeneous collection of Unix and/or Windows computers hooked together by a network to be used as a single large parallel computer. Thus large computational problems can be solved more cost effectively by using the aggregate power and memory of many computers.
  
  
• Virtual Keyboard
  
  Tired of typing SMS or emails on your Cell or Handheld? The solution is in the virtual world where you can project a virtual qwerty keyboard from your handheld onto any flat surface and could experience a real keyboard typing. Shown here is an example of I-Techs's Virtual Kbd which both infrared and laser technology to generate an invisible field and project a full-size virtual QWERTY keyboard on any surface.


• Chat Bots
  
  Chat bots are chat robots, who are such programmed through artificial intelligence that they give very human like answers in a chat session and they learn more and more as they go through the length of chat with wide variety of people. Here is a good list of these online artificial nerds.
  
  

Web Pages That Suck

Once in a while we come across a site that does nothing but sucks, the site's layout,patterns, user interactivity everything is enough to drive you nuts. Well, now before anyone sees your site and start advertising it as the Uggliest Site, in order to take a precautionary measure check www.webpagesthatsuck.com. This site has some good articles on the topic and they even list real world examples of real sucking sites (Hope they have not already listed your site !!!).

3D Engine Animation

Being a Mechanical Engineer I always had a passion for the knowledge of inner workings and structure of an automoible engine. But even if an engine lies totally uncovered before you its not easy to get into the details of its working, and i faced the same problem back in my college days. Our lab was full with diassembled engines but we really have to work hard on our imagination to see all the parts working together in synergy.

Now here is this video that shows everything in 3D view much like you have imagined in your mind (or is it). I guess it explains nicely every detail of a typical car engine.