10x10 -- Thats 100

TenByTen has been around now for more than two years. When it was released two years back there were not many professionals to give it a good competition, Digg was still in inception and Slashdot was not much known. In what followed in the next two years, zillions of news services surfaced, and TenByTen got lost somewhere in the ocean. Had it not accidently been rediscovered today it would have converted to fossils after remaining years inside the ocean.

Even after two years with so many news services around the interface still looked sleek and browsing through the flash based interface looked painless. The greatest drawback is that it draws news from only three sources (Reuters, BBC and NYT) nevertheless it is still worth giving a try. You can browse through the news of every month,day and hour starting 2004. The site more looks like kinda demo how a news service works.

Link : TenByTen

TailRank Tale

Tailrank is a news aggregator which has been around for a little now. The service marks the quality of a news story by the number of times the story has been blogged or linked. The stories are aggregated from various sources much like Digg. But unlike Digg which sometimes suffer from worthless Diggs, the Tailrank system looks more robust as someone will take the pain of blogging or linking something only when its worthwhile. And with the rise of bloggers at exponential rate in every field its obvious that a good story will receive a lot of links.

Features that can make a difference

1. Recently added video category populated with videos from various video sharing services (mostly youtubes) which are selected on the basis of number of links or embeds. (TailRank Video)

2. Providing deep tracking for a story with the "track this thread", to get depth and breadth of a story.

3. Easy access to news by date. For 21st dec news -- "http://tailrank.com/2006-12-21".

4. Import service from other aggregators (bloglines, newsgator). Manual uploading of OPML files. (Tailrank import)

5. Allowing for embedding Tailrank on your blog with fully customizable CSS.

Geek Guns

Here is a compilation of high-tech electronically controlled guns with video demos of all in action. In case you are interested in discovering guns right there in your office see previous post "Discover Guns in Your Office".

Spider on Drugs

These are the snaps of the webs build by spiders who were fed on drug-dosed flies. Spiders under the influence of drugs move in haphazard way to weave those irregular waves. So, moral of the story is don't drink and drive.

Link : Spider on Drugs

Foot in Mouth Awards 2OO6

Wired news disclosed a series of lamest technological quotes made in 2006 and topping the list as the report points out is the obvious, the President Bush about making comments about Google when asked on a television interview.

The words of wisdom went like this:

"One of the things I've learned on the Google is to pull up maps. It's very interesting to see -- I've forgotten the name of the program -- but you get the satellite, and you can -- like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It reminds me of where I wanna be sometimes."

Link : Foot in Mouth Awards 2006

If that made you think that the world's really went crazy in 2006, heres something to make you feel better and make your perspective a little positive : The Best Quotes

Britain's stupidest call centre customers

Now heres something amusing. Mirror is running an article on the idiotic calls received by call centers from customers in Britain. Say it the stupidity of call center customers or the shrewdness of call center employees that these calls got recorded.

A few favorites:

Customer: "I've been ringing 0700 2300 for two days and can't get through to enquiries, can you help?"

Operator: "Where did you get that number from, sir?"

Customer: "It was on the door to the travel centre".

Operator: "They're our opening hours".

Caller: "Can you give me the telephone number for Jack?"

Operator: I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand who you are talking about".

Caller: "In the user guide it clearly states I need to unplug the fax machine from the wall socket and telephone Jack before cleaning. Can you give me his number?"

Operator: "I think you mean the telephone point on the wall".

Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?"

Customer: "No" .

Tech Support: "OK. Right-Click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?"

Customer: "No" .

Tech Support: "OK. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?"

Customer: "Sure. You told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'".

More such stories on this Google group.

The Mathematician Sculpture

This mathematician works hard to bring some coherence to lost art of sculpture with maths and science. Bathsheba Grossman, a mathematics graduate from Yale University went on to pursue higher studies in sculpture to nurture her interest. She did a lot of exhibitions and presently earn a living by selling her creations over this site. She creates metallic models of complex mathematical structures by making use of latest technologies available around in the field besides her enormous capability to imagine complex 3D shapes. Most of her metallic creations are done by 3D metal printing methods. She uses modeling tools like Rhinoceros, Microscribe digitizing arm, 3D printing machines from Ex One etc.

Heres a functionalitywise list of tools she use:

Software Rendering 3D Printing Services

Rapid Prototyping Resources Sculpture Sources Laser Glass

Art & Geometry Artists

Tech of the Year

Year 2006 definitely has been an year of technology while innovativeness being its essence. Going by the report of BBC on best tech of the year it seems the Nintendo's Wii wins the battle single handedly. At the time of writing it got 57 % of votes competing against PS3, HD projector and Parallels software.

The report apart from above mentioned gadgets talks about Apple's MacBook, Mac with Intel Chip, XBox.

Wii Tech of the Year

Water at Zero Gravity

WebOS round up

Having been published some short reviews of WebOSs (web operation systems), it was good to see someone coming up with more reviews. This blog reviews 10 WebOSs which are set make it big in 2007. The list includes the hottest ones i.e. YouOS, Goowy and DesktopTwo.

Related :

ZCubes, The Browser your Home
EyeOS , OS on web
YouOS, another OS on web
YourMinis
NetVibes

Hidden Meaning Of Logos

Do you know the meaning of these logos? If you guessed the companies name from the logo, thats good, but theres something beyond that. Yes, they represent something deep and something interesting. This site explains the meaning and significance of these little otherwise cute logos.

Link : Logo Meanings

Vista Vulneribility

The hype of unmatched security in Windows Vista took a beating when the reports of bugs and zero day vulnerabilities came pouring after the OS was put to test about a month ago for corporate customers. The OS is yet to be released in public, probably by the end of January 2007.

The most critical of all the vulnerabilities was found on Dec 15 by a Russian programmer which lets any logged in user to alleviate its privileges to system level, therefore making one capable of running any program. This vulnerability existed not only in Vista but also in Windows 2000, XP, 2003. The vulnerability was first disclosed on this Russian forum (translated version) and later detailed on Determina security site.

Meanwhile it was also reported that hackers are selling zero day exploits and making a good fortune.

New York Times has an article worth a look about recent vulnerabilities and what guys at Redmond have to say.

Social Networking Awards

Social networking blog Mashable was running a competition for the award of Best Social Networks for a few weeks. Yesterday they announced the awards which was divided across three sections -- 1. Judges Choice 2. People's Choice 3. Hot for 2007. The people's choice awards were decided by voting. The awards were divide across various categories. In most of the cases people's choice differed from judge's choice. For example in Mainstream section judge's award went to MySpace while people's choice to Multiply, in Social news and bookmarking judge's award to Digg but people's choice to Trailfire, in photo sharing judge's award to Flickr and people's choice to Twango, in video sharing judge's award to YouTube but people's choice to Gotuit. As far as I am concerned I go with judges awards. And yes there several other categories. Check 'em out.

Link : Social Networking Awards 2006

The 25 BEST things ever said, by anyone

☺☻If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.
[ Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973)]
☺☻It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
[Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)]
☺☻Music is the pleasure that the human soul encoutners from counting without knowing that it is counting.
[Leibniz (1646 - 1716)]
☺☻To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
[Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)]
☺☻When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.
[Desiderius Erasmus (1465-1536)]
☺☻It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
[Epictetus (c.55-c.135)]
☺☻He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.
[Albert Einstein (1879-1955)]
☺☻As I would not be a slave, so I will not be a master.
[Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)]
☺☻No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
[John Donne (1572-1631)]
☺☻If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. [Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)]
☺☻My Country, right or wrong" is a thing no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober.
[Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)]
☺☻This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man.
[Shakespeare (1564-1616)]
☺☻The gods are amused when the busy river condemns the idle clouds.
[Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)]
☺☻Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
[Niels Bohr (1885-1962)]
☺☻Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
[William Pitt (1759-1806)]
☺☻Pain shared is lessened, joy shared, increased.
[Spider Robinson (b. 1948)]
☺☻The good old days. I was there. Where was they?
[Moms Mabley (1894-1975)]
☺☻All models are wrong but some are useful.
[George Box (1869-1933)]
☺☻The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny..."
[Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)]
☺☻ That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.
[Hillel ]
☺☻If I am not for myself, who is for me?
If I am for myself alone, what am I?
If not now, when?
[Hillel]
☺☻Those who would give up a little freedom to get a little security shall soon have neither.
[Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)]
☺☻If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let each man march to his own rhythm, however measured, or far away.
[H. D. Thoreau (1817-1862)]
☺☻There is nothing so horrible in nature as to see a beautiful theory murdered by an ugly gang of facts.
[Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)]
☺☻Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls, when we all ought to be worried abut our own souls, and other people's bellies.
[Rabbi Yisrael Salanter (1810-1883)]

Merry Christmas

You can wish Merry Christmas to the whole world virtually by creating your own avatar with your own christmas message at Mix-mas. You can choose from range of hair-cuts, faces, caps, shirts ,trousers, shoes etc and put up your custom message.

There are a lot of avatars already created by other users . It is fun to travel through the virtual world of avatars with avatars wishing you all the way.

Link : Mix-Mas

And heres a gift of Christmas - Collection of Free Games

Boxhead The Rooms Description: Very cool zombie survival game. Shoot through a never ending onslaught of zombies in 5 different levels with 8 different weapons that upgrade.

In and Around my Home

This place is my home, the place where I belong to. The collection depicts landscapes of Arunachal Pradesh which is situated in easternmost part of India. (Photos: Arif Siddiqui)

Mazes to amaze you

Almost all of us at some point of time have tried solving mazes in our childhood days. I was very good at mazes and wanted to solve more and more, so i end up buying lots of magazines, books on maze problems. But recently I found out this site which has exactly One Billion Mazes to be solved without a single repetition. All the mazes are in printer friendly pdf formats to let you print and make your day. Some mazes are cool, confident booster but some are real gory. It can be fun if you got some time to spare.

Link : One Billion Mazes

Bloopers in The Movies

Jakob Nielson distinguished apart some UI (user interfaces) bloopers from some movie instances arguing that they are far from what happens in reality and acknowledges that they are meant for entertainment and not for learning something. The post talks about the bloopers in the UIs that how it is so easy for a hero to become adept with new UI, how someone from past or future comes through time machine with a ready idea of present technologies and how upon authentication the UI shows big fontted "Access Granted" message instead of directly taking user to his homepage.

Link : Top 10 UI Bloopers

If you wanna do some research on Movie bloopers here are the links:

» http://www.everwonder.com/david/mistakes.html
» http://www.moviemistakes.com/
» http://www.slipups.com/
» http://www.mrfreefree.com/entertainment/movie_bloopers.html

2006 Digital Media Winners and Losers

Mp3NewsWire published a list of players in Digital Media who made out big and the list of those lagged behind in the most fateful year on the subject. The winners list (obviously) is headed by 2 year old Youtube. Apple, Myspace, Azureus,PiratesBay are other obvious members followed by some not so obvious ones. Loser's list included StreamCast, EchoStar and the recent buzz AllOfMp3.com.

Link : Digital Media Winners of 2006

Discover Guns in Your office

OfficeGuns tutors you to make weapons from common office accessories. The site stimulates the naughtiness in you by showing you creative ways to utilize your surroundings and annoy your boss or work partner. A word caution though-- it can be dangerous!

Optical Illusions

I came across a lot of optical illusions before but got some new one on this site. The site has a collection of 67 optical illusions, some of which may be the first time for you. Most of the phenomena are well explained so that you may not end up thinking something mysterious about otherwise obvious phenomenon.

Link

SuperHeros are Just a Click away

ComicVine is a wiki of superheros where you can edit the description, origin, power etc of a superhero or can create your own. You can vote for your favourite superheros through a hot or not system where two heros are put side by side and users are to vote who wins the battle between the two. Find out more at the video tour below:

3 links to sum up 2006

2006 in Review by PC mag

Google in 2006 by news.com

End of Year Quiz by Register

Random Google Image Search

I stumble upon this service that lets throws you the images from Google image search with random phrases. The service adds a random name with a random verb each time you refresh the page which means it will search form "people doing stuffs". Good for time pass.

asdf : Its not crap always

"asdf", a middle row first four letter of a qwerty keyboard, a common word that people tend to enter to test something that they think isnt important. The word is so much common that it has found an Wikipedia entry and there is a total crap website called asdf.com. But where I think "asdf" has been most productive is on Youtube, just do a search for it and you will find more than 6000 videos. Here is also a compilation of videos named "asdf". Google Image Search got me 4800 results and Flickr got me 817 results.

LiveVideo : Another Video sharing site

In the recent months it has become quite clear that YouTube is there to stay and rule with a good number of video sharing sites launching each week and lost under the hype of YouTube. Unless these services bring some innovativeness in them, they are bound to remain under the YouTube's hood. LiveVideo could have been just another video sharing site and by now lost the newly created ocean of video sharing. But this service craved out some space for itself by introducing some new features. While the interface looks too much similar to Youtube's , its the addition of following features thats making the difference: [via Mashable]

» A Digg like voting feature "Hit or Miss".

» An interactive map to browse videos by country. Just mouse over the flags on the world map and the videos for that region will be shown up. For US you can even browse by states.

» Customizable Profiles. This is probably the most powerful feature to get it an edge in the race. Users can create there profile pages which makes viewing the video a different experience as they run against a different background for each user.

» Different skins to choose from.

See the what's new section to get hold of new features as it surfaces over time.

AllPeers : Firefox p2p

It seems there is not end to Firefox extensiblility. Day in and out we hear about new addons. Though this addon, Allpeers was there for quite a while, they have recently added a chat functionality. AllPeers provides p2p functionality right inside your browser, yes thats right, no need to install or download any p2p client. The addon lets you share and receive files with other Firefox users using Allpeers.

Lets, get into the details. You can share files by simply dragging the file from your box on the user with whom you want to share. You get two tabs for each user in your friends list -- Inbox and Outbox. In the inbox there will be files waiting for you shared by that particular user for you. In the outbox there will be information about files that you shared with that particular user.

You can even share webpages or pictures from the webpages by simple dragging and dropping. By the addition of new chat feature the file sharing experience just became more useful with the information or feedback while you share.

AllPeers Tour
Get AllPeers

You - The Designer

In the recent months there is a surge in the online design services that let you design your custom goodies like tshirts, casino chips, cards etc. What more, you can order online the design you just made and get it home delivered with moneyback guarantee. Here is a brief description of the three pioneers in this field.

favorite products that match their interest.

» ChipLab : The service is dedicated for the creation of Casino Chips. You can choose whether you want complete poker set, customized chip set or individual chips. You can add layers, pictures, arts, pictures all customized to suit your requirements. After the design is done you can just checkout and the chips will be shipped to you.

» CafePress : CafePress is based on theme "Gift". You can almost find anything that you planned for gift to find it fully customizable. You can either choose from already created designs or created your own. The products are classified across categories like School or education, food or drink, military, sports , religion,technology or geek etc, to let you choose the nearest match to your interest or profession. If you are creative enough you can even sell the products designed by you to others. Or if you own a site you can direct your traffic to the

» Zazzle : This service has a lot to offer when it comes to range of popular products. The most important I felt was the design of tshirts. Besides you can design and sell your creations. You will earn a 10% royalty when a product designed by you sells. You can also refer visitors of your site to the products for which you will earn 7% commission for each sale.

Daytipper -- Tips for making life easier.

Daytipper is another social networking Web 2.0 service that runs on the content submitted by the user. The site seems first of its kind and therefore poised for a success. The service allows users to submit tips which in someway you feel will help others. The tips are classified across various categories. The service pays you $3 for each tip published. The importance or usefulness of your tip is judged by the users who can vote for it which will be shown as a percentage. No doubt, there were lots of negative votes. You can subscribe for the tips through email or through rss. At the time of writing there were 2,468 tips submitted but only 476 published, which shows there is really a lot of liking for this service and people are having great tips and the $3 factor is also doing its part.

Wonderful Simulation

Looks like an amazing simulation software which makes it very easy to create the simulation environment by way of sketches. This is a demo of a simulation tool by Prof. Randall Davis from an ongoing project "Assist" at MIT.

100 Most Useful Sites in 2006

The Guardian published a list of 100 most useful sites across various categories. The list is comprehensive and if you are a not a net-addict it will serve as a good ready reference. The list goes here.

TheVeniceProject beta

GigaOm published some screenshots from the VeniceProject. The VeniceProject is a mashup of television, p2p and social networking founded by the founders of Skype and Kazaa. The project is a broadband application which will harness the power of p2p to distribute TV shows over the internet. No, its not a file sharing service. This service allows users to add channels, switch between channels, join communities, chat etc.

The project is presently in beta and is accepting emails to get a invitation for beta testing.

Merry Christmas

If you are a Digg user then there is greeting for you from Google maps. The greeting is created by taking out letter shaped buildings from Google maps.

Vulnerabilities Fixed -Firefox 2.0.0.1

Mozilla fixed the following 8 known vulnerabilities in Firefox 2 with its release of Firefox 2.0.0.1.

MFSA 2006-76 XSS using outer window's Function object
MFSA 2006-75 RSS Feed-preview referrer leak
MFSA 2006-73 Mozilla SVG Processing Remote Code Execution
MFSA 2006-72 XSS by setting img.src to javascript: URI
MFSA 2006-71 LiveConnect crash finalizing JS objects
MFSA 2006-70 Privilege escallation using watch point
MFSA 2006-69 CSS cursor image buffer overflow (Windows only)
MFSA 2006-68 Crashes with evidence of memory corruption (rv:1.8.0.9/1.8.1.1)

If you have Firefox 2 then you must have been prompted for automatic updates which would have fixed the above vulnerabilities.

You can get Firefox 2.0.0.1 here.

Indian Roads Now on Google Maps

Google maps added in itself a detailed maps of national highways, roads and streets of all the major cities and towns of India. This is a measure breakthrough in the online mapping system in which the country is lacking a good deal of features as compared to its western counterparts. MapMyIndia was the only service which existed uptill now in this area and it is still more detailed than Google maps. But the Google map service is all set to take off because of its combination of both satellite imagery and maps.

Related: MapsMania , Google Earthopedia , Maps and Maps , Virtual World

Top 10 Geeks

Cnet is running a series of articles on top 10 Nerds and Geeks of all times. While the list is completely agreeable, the humoristic style of presentation makes them worth a shot.

♣ Top ten Nerds and Geeks

♣ Top ten Girl Geeks

♣ Top ten Animal Geeks (yes , thats right)

The Breath Capture Gadget

The Product : Breathe Capture

"Their breath of life. A living, breathing part of them."

"Air in the form of human breath is no longer simply air.
Breath is present when we laugh and cry, whisper and shout, sing and sigh. And
once captured, it can be a powerful reminder of those we long to be around. In
short, Breath Capture™ preserves not only the memory of someone, but who they
are. So wherever you go, they’ll always be close.If love is in your heart, you
will feel the closeness of your friends and loved ones with Breath Capture. And
you can keep it that way forever." [source: BreathCapture]

This cool new gadget out in the market will give you a dose of Carbon DiOxide when you are down. Whats wonderful is that it will be CO2 exhaled from your love's nostrils, so it will not harm you and keep you in high spirits. Now you can carry bacteria of your partner wherever you go and that bacteria will strengthen the love bond by transmitting diseases between each other.

Top 50 CSS designs of 2006

SmashingMagazine listed 50 beautiful CSS-based websites of 2006 with snaps, thus earmarking the end of an year full of creativity.

Emotionslive.co.uk

Dinis91.com

Expiring Domain Names

It is often first come first serve. The early you do the domain name registration the better the chance of getting name of your choice. The domain names are filling so quickly that it has already started becoming difficult to get one word or modular domain names.

If you are looking for some good domain names, chances are that they are already booked, or they were booked and now are on the verge of expiring. There are a lots of domain names that expire everyday and you can choose from them as soon as they expire. This site lists domain names that are expiring with the time left to expire. You can navigate through the list to find some really cool names or make a search for domain names containing words your choice. You can also see the Google trends (to see how often they were searched on Google) for those domain names so that you get domain name that is most sought after. [via Digital Inspiration]

Expiring Domain Names

Fauxto : Online Imaging

Fauxto is a recently launched, flash based online drawing/image editing service which besides basic drawing capablilities provides advanced features like layering. The service is in beta right now and possess some flaws nevertheless the service has a potential as it is flash based.The strong point of a flash based system unlike an ajax based system is that once the initial interface is loaded, operation becomes pretty fast.

Related: Online Drawing, Professional Sketches, Pimping Photos

Top 10 products of 2006

CRN published a detailed review of top 10 products of 2006 encompassing both software and hardware. Here are the links:
• Best Web Development Tool
• Best Security Software
• Best Networking Hardware
• Best Storage Product
• Best App Development Tool
• Best Printer
• Best Notebook
• Best Application Software
• Best Operating System
• Best Server

Google Soap API

Google deprecated their soap search api reports O'Reilly Radar. Instead Google is promoting its Ajax Search API. The site reports:

The AJAX Search API is great for web applications and users that want to
bling their blog, but does not provide the flexibility of the SOAP API. I am
surprised that it has not been replaced with a GData API instead. The developer
community has been discussing this and do not seem happy with the change. Discussion on the forums have pointed out that Yahoo! has a REST Search API. Live Search also has a SOAP API available.

The service is stopped by not issueing the keys any longer. However, hours later, a hack appeared at Hackszine which will get you the keys. You can obtain the keys from here, the page will show error but you will receive key in email.

Disposable Phone Numbers

Sometimes it just gets very important to get a disposable phone number for a lot of business or private reasons or simply to alleviate the problem of receiveing spam calls. Craigsnumber provides a free service whereby it generates a disposable number with validity period from ranging from one hour to one week. You can distribute this number to all those with whom you do not want to keep permanent contact. The calls to this number will be forwarded to your real number which cannot be seen by the caller. Presently, this service is for US only numbers. [via Lifehacker]

Link: Craigsnumber
Related: Disposable Emails.

Blogger Out of Beta

I started blogging when the blogger beta just started about 3 months ago and this is the 100th post which is in sync with blogger coming out of beta. Blogger has come out of the beta phase today which means it has now become a standard with stability and reliability. All the bugs or known issues have been fixed over time. All in all blogging just got easier.

Digg added Videos and Podcasts section

Digg, a one stop shop for buying news and interesting stories chalked out democratically, launched video and podcasts section yesterday. Although users used to post videos and podcast news earlier also, but that had to be included in the only section available - the news section. Now that videos and podcasts sections are specifically outlined, users will get a cleaner and organized experience while looking for video and podcasts. The podcasts section which requires you to sign on to access it, at the time of writing already had podcasts spread over 28 pages with "Diggnation" and "this week in tech" dugged down 5576 and 4628 times respectively.

Top 10 Security Risks or Cyber Crimes in 2007

1. Your computer will probably crash a lot or at least reboot for no apparent reason but most likely due to some patch you got through an automated update which you are told to do for security reasons because apparently security and stability are incompatible.

2. You will misplace, lose, over-write, and delete documents probably accidentally but you really can't remember if you really had that document saved or not and maybe it's this one here but you don't know because when you try to open it you get a CRC error and you'll realize that nobody warned you that the ever-decreasing life of these huge hard-drives you can now buy have fallen to just under 2 years.

3. While using emule and bit torrent you think you're being watched by the MPAA and RIAA and you seriously cut down on your downloading which makes you re-discover things you downloaded that you never watched or played before but some of the media files won't play right and you won't know if it's the codec, the program, or the file so you download more and more until your ISP jacks you with a huge bill for excessive bandwidth usage.

4. You'll get spyware and adware and everything else just from browsing distant Korean servers for torrents, swapping files with "friends" you just met on IM, and accepting SMSes from unknown people. You may also get chlamydia or worse if you troll seedy places and accept sexual invitations with as many unknown people as you do electronically so no surprises there.

5. If your phone is also a computer or your TV is also a computer or your oven is also a computer and they're running some open networking protocol like Bluetooth all the time which you never read the manual on how to shut it off, expect that bad people are happy to do bad things to them just like if you leave kids running around in public places unattended then bad people may do bad things to them as well with the odds basically being the same for all of it all happening.

6. You will get emails from your bank or paypal where you have to log in there to verify a transaction which then by all means you will use the link in the mail because we all know we don't always bookmark the websites we use so often in our browser and also because you're just being click-lazy and so then bad people steal your identity and your credit card numbers and try to buy stuff and ship it to Indonesia but your bank calls to alert you that they canceled your card and will send another to you in 3 to 4 weeks but you trip on the way to the phone and get a nasty bruise on your knee.

7. Your bank will add more small print and find new ways to charge for internet-enabled things they save money on but they call it a new service so you pay more for it.

8. The cool new software you buy will ask you for the CD-Key and no matter how many times and with caps or not that you type it that damn 24-character code and wait for it to call home the message repeats that it already exists because some punk copied out of the box in the store for his pirated version and so you have all the pain and expense of going back to the store where you end up also buying some USB stuff you didn't need which ends up not really working right anyway.

9. The sweet girl from procurements with the pink-laced keds gets caught selling toner cartridges on E-bay which she stole from your office printer and she tells the boss that she didn't know it was from there because you gave it to her and when they go to investigate they find some work documents on your personal USB key drive that you needed to move files to another computer in a department with a printer that still had toner along with a file full of MP3s and spreadsheet full of numbers you'd been toying with to see if it's feasible to start your own competing business.

10. You're new video and tv-capable mobile phone will have a feature to download certain programs and ringtones wirelessly but you don't get a chance to try it because someone steals it off the conveyor belt at the airport security checkpoint.

(Source: Institute for Security and Open Methodologies)

Linux equivalent of Windows Softies

If you are one of those who abandoned the plan to switch over to Linux because of sheer lack of full feature softwares, then this post could be of some help to you to overcome your fear and go opensource. LinuxEq like the name suggests maintains a good list of softwares for Linux family of OSs with its windows counterparts. The apps range from equivalent of photoshops, office, itunes, netmeeting to notepad.

iPhones are OUT - but from Cisco's factory

The news of Apple launching iPhones which was doing quite a round in the past weeks, got a death blow when Linksys, a subsidiary of Cisco Systems unexpectedly launced the coveted gadget. The iPhone will harness the power of VoIP with the two freely available services that is Skype and Yahoo Messenger. The users will be able to toggle between the traditional phone to VoIP with a single click of a button. The iPhone could also be used to transfer multimedia contents and can be combined with video cameras besides accessing the internet which will depend upon the range of models provided below. Only snaps are provided below, you can follow the link for detailed description.

LINKSYS

» iPhone Cordless Internet Telephony Kit - CIT200 - Available globally through e-commerce retailers, retail stores, and VAR partners. Estimated Street Price: $79.99.

» iPhone Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit - CIT300 - Available globally through e-commerce retailers, and VAR partners. Estimated Street Price: $99.99

» iPhone Dual-Mode Cordless Phone for Yahoo! Messenger with Voice - CIT310 - Available in the U.S. through e-commerce retailers, and VAR partners. Estimated Street Price: $99.99

» New!! iPhone Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit for Skype - CIT400 - Available immediately in the U.S. through e-commerce retailers, and VAR partners. Global availability through e-commerce retailers, and VAR partners is expected for Q1 2007. Estimated Street Price: $179.99

» iPhone Wireless-G IP Phone - WIP300 - Immediately available in North America, Europe and Asia through distribution and authorized VAR partners. Estimated Street Price: $219.99

» New!! iPhone Wireless-G Phone for Skype - WIP320 - Immediately available in North America through distribution, online retailers and VAR partners. Europe, Asia and LATAM availability is planned for Q1 2007. Estimated Street Price: $199.99.

» iPhone Wireless-G IP Phone - WIP330 - Immediately available in North America, Europe and Asia through distribution and authorized VAR partners. Estimated Street Price: $369.99

Do you have a secure password.

A recent phishing attack on MySpace revealed thousands of passwords in public. As the number of passwords revealed were quite large, it provided a thrust for analysing the present trend in passwords. While the most of the MySpace passwords were alphanumeric and did not contain dictionary words, there were some quite common. The point forgotten while keeping these passwords were that these passwords could be familier to anyone, not just you. Below are the few points of the analysis, check whether your's is well protected.

» Top 20 Common Passwords (in order) : password1, abc123, myspace1, password, blink182, qwerty1, fuckyou, 123abc, baseball1, football1, 123456, soccer, monkey1, liverpool1, princess1, jordan23, slipknot1, superman1, iloveyou1 and monkey.

» As expected, English vowels are by far the most frequent occurring password symbols (E, 48 percent; A, 46 percent; I, 34 percent; O, 33 percent). Other high-ranking letters included R (35 percent), S (32 percent), N (31 percent), L (28 percent), T (25 percent), C (21 percent), and M (21 percent).

» Numbers were used in well over half the passwords. The number 1 appeared 45 percent of the time, followed by the numbers 2 (22 percent), 0 (16 percent), and 3 (15 percent). Numbers 4 through 9 appeared roughly 9 to 11 percent of the time.

» When number 1 was used, it appeared 78 percent at the end.

» Cuss or profane words were very popular.

» Words, colors, years, names, sports, hobbies, and music groups were very popular. FYI, your girlfriend or boyfriend’s name isn’t that uncommon in most cases. I, too, luv Brandi, Bob, or Joe.

(Courtesy: infoworld, schneier)

Online SQL

Few days back I posted a list of online compiler. This is an add on to that in that it helps you to learn and play wiht SQL online. These online tools come handy when you do not want to go through the overhead of installing costly and bulky database systems, or you want to test a SQL statement on the fly. This list by no means is complete one, there exists a lots more, its only for the sake of add on that I am posting this.

» Sqlcourse : Tutorials for MS SQL, Oracle, MySql, DB2, Access

» W3Schools : Home of best resources for training. Covers a very wide area besides sql and the tutorials are laid out in a lucid and comprehendable ways with hands on with almost all of them.

» Grussel : SQL tutorial

» SQL zoo : SQL tutorial

ZCubes : The browser, your home.

ZCubes is a new webservice that is creating quite a buzz. But for me it was only after I tried it personally did I felt the buzz. The slick interface combined with almost all the contents you could think of makes it a unique experience. And boy this ajaxian interface is fast enough unlike online OSs that I discussed earlier (YouOS, EyeOS).

As the site claims:

ZCubes is the world's first website that seamlessly integrates browsing, searching, editing, painting, freehand drawing, cursive hand-writing, audio-video media
management, publishing, and much more into a pure BROWSER-BASED PLATFORM.

I think it really is what it claims to be. You can browse, search, paint blah blah. But the feature that interested me most was the drag drop of images, youtube videos etc from the sites open inside ZBrowser. Yes, you can drag and drop any html element from the ZBrowser to what they call ZSpace, what if its an image or a link or just a paragraph. It claims to support upto 30 file formats, so you can integrate PDF, Shockwave, Powerpoint, Word, and more. You can save your work on hardisk or publish directly on web.

The service as I see has some future in this Web 2.0ish world where every now and then innovative solutions appear.

ZCubes

Off Wits

I receive a lot of adult humors in my mailbox. I could not share them with you on this blog for obvious reasons - "Adults don't like someone making fun of them". But this one isn't an adult humor, this is a saga of a boy's wit where he comes over the challenges of really terrible riddles with his presence of mind.

A first-grade teacher, Ms Neelam (Age 28) was having trouble with one of
her students the teacher asked,"Boy. what is your problem?"
Boy answered, "I'm too smart for the first-grade.My sister is in the
third-grade and I'm smarter than she is! I think I should be in the third-grade
too!"
Ms Neelam had enough. She took Boy. to the principal's office. While Boy.
waited in the outer office, the teacher explained to the principal what the
situation was. The principal told Ms Neelam he would give the boy a test and if
he failed to answer any of his questions he was to go back to the first-grade
and behave.She agreed. Boy. was brought in and the conditions were explained to
him and he agreed to take the test.
Principal: "What is 3 x 3?"
Boy.: "9".
Principal: "What is 6 x 6?"
Boy.: "36".
And so it went with every question the principal thought a third-grade
should know. The principal looks at Ms Neelam and tells her, "I think Boy can go
to the third-grade."
Ms Neelam says to the principal, "I have some of my own questions.
Can I ask him ?" The principal and Boy both agreed.
Ms Neelam asks, "What does a cow have four of that I have only two
of?
Boy., after a moment "Legs."
Ms Nee lam: "What is in your pants that you have but I do not have?"
Boy.: "Pockets."
Ms Neelam: What starts with a C and ends with a T, is hairy, oval,
delicious and contains thin whitish liquid?
Boy.: Coconut
Ms Neelam: What goes in hard and pink then comes out soft And sticky? The
principal's eyes open really wide and before he could stop the answer,
Boy was taking charge.
Boy.: Bubblegum
Ms Neelam: What does a man do standing up, a woman does sitting down and a
dog does on three legs? The principal's eyes open really wide and before he
could stop the answer...
Boy.: Shake hands
Ms Neelam: Now I will ask some "Who am I" sort of questions, okay?
Boy.: Yep.
Ms Neelam: You stick your poles inside me. You tie me down to get me up. I
get wet before you do.
Boy.: Tent
Ms Neelam: A finger goes in me. You fiddle with me when you're bored. The
best man always has me first.The Principal was looking restless, a bit tense and
took one large Patiala Vodka peg.
Boy.: Wedding Ring
Ms Neelam: I come in many sizes. When I'm not well, I drip. When you blow
me, you feel good. Boy.: Nose
Ms Neelam: I have a stiff shaft. My tip penetrates. I come with a
quiver.
Boy.: Arrow
Ms Neelam: What word starts with a 'F' and ends in 'K' that means lot of
heat and excitement? Boy.: Firetruck
Ms Neelam: What word starts with a 'F' and ends in 'K' & if u dont get
it u have to use ur hand.
Boy.: Fork
Ms Neelam: What is it that all men have one of it's longer on some men than
on others, the pope doesn't use his and a man gives it to his wife after they're
married?
Boy.: SURNAME
Ms Neelam: What part of the man has no bone but has muscles, has lots of
veins, like pumping, & is responsible for making love ?
Boy.: HEART.
The principal breathed a sigh of relief and said to the teacher, "Send this
Boy to IIM Ahmedabad, I got the last ten questions wrong myself!"

Time : Person of the Year

As a consequence of what the year 2006 was all about, there is no surprise that Time magazine selected YOU as the person of the year. YOU the blogger, the symbol of freedom of expression, the protagonist of world social network. As the article says

"It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes."

The Web 2.0 has really dissolved something in the life vinegar of the Global citizens as apparently now you say what you feel, what you always wanted to , what you have never said. Now you just take out your camcorder, go to streets and and build over your newly found passion and engagement. And to hear you, to support or reject your opinions you have a global audience. No boundaries.

Cogmap - Wiki of Organisational Chart

It happens at times that you need to know about an organisation, its corporate structures and governance. And if you are a reporter or an interviewer it just becomes more than necessary to keep an updated version of who's who of an organisation into your head. If you think it is a problem, then solution has arrived.

Cogmap, a wiki of organisational charts, ajax powered, maintains the structure of an organisation in a graphical format as shown in the snap. Anyone can add an organisational chart and anyone can edit to rectify the errors or put some new nodes. Now the next time you need to know who to call upon in your organisation for a problem or see organisational chart of any corporation you can just make a search on Cogmap and get to know about personalities holding crucial positions.

WengoVisio : Let your users call you

WengoVisio recently went public about offering there click to call widget that can be embed on any page to let your viewers call you. As an example a widget has been added to this blog. Check out the left side bar. Sign up is easy in 3 simple steps.

About two months back I added a Meebo chat widget to this blog, but latter removed it as it took some amount of time to load and I had to remain online from the Meebo's site. But with this WengoVisio's widget one can remain online on my own site. Just click on "Admin" on the widget and you will be asked for password to continue and you become online.

Is Vista ripped off from Mac OS X

David Pogue in his typical sarcastic way shows three examples of Vista copying OS X. Though this video drew a lot of controversies and Microsoft actually never did that, its fun to watch the whole sarcasm. This video was originally posted on NYTimes.

Tiny apps : Free and efficient Apps

There is a good collection of apps at TinyApps which are free and run on your system without much overhead on your CPU. Almost all of the apps are freeware(?), less than 1.44MB in size, does not require VB/MFC/.NET runtimes and they claim they are not adwares(?). A good number of their apps come with source code, requires no changes in registry, 100% self contained withing their own directory, do not require installation. Free apps for Palm and OS X are also available.

Its only the good old MS Paint

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’?”