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Windows 8 Developer Preview

2011-09-19T04:39:00.001-07:00

Want to try out the next version of Windows before its officially released? Well, you can. Windows 8 Developer Preview is available for download right now.

Download Windows 8 Developer Preview

Hello, Again!

2011-07-29T03:28:00.001-07:00

Hmmm. Long time no see huh? Okay, let me confess that I am guilty of being too caught up with other stuffs as well as being a bit lazy and not maintaining the blog for a long time. Well guess what, due to turn of events I now have some spare time every week so I decided to reignite the passion :) well, to say start posting regularly here again.

So, I guess I would just post this here for now till I make a real post soon enough, and just hope the blog would come out of the stagnation and be a happening place it once was.

Create/Convert PDF files for free

2009-10-06T08:07:00.001-07:00

We all have acrobat reader to read PDF files. But when it comes to creating a PDF files for any purpose you are at loss as without Adobe Acrobat it is impossible to create a PDF file. Or is it so?

The truth is that you can create a PDF file even without acrobat installed on your system. The easiest way out is to create a MS word document and then convert it to PDF using any of the available PDF converter tools. Let’s take a look at some of the tools you can use.

Online PDF converters

FreePDFConvert

Convert Microsoft Office, Open Office, graphic images, vector graphic and other formats to PDF online. Upload your files and it will be send to your email after it is converted to PDF.

PDFOnline

Convert your office documents to PDF. Converted file are sent back to your email.

PrimoOnline

PrimoOnline provides you with the ability to create PDF files from your office documents by uploading them.

Firefox Extensions

PDFescape

PDFescape allows you to open and edit PSF files online. It is a free PDF editor in your Firefox.

pdfit

Convert the current page to PDF.

Free Online Personal Finance Management Tools

2009-10-03T03:26:00.001-07:00

Online personal finance management tools are great to keep in touch with your finances the easy way and these services are growing fast. Here is a list of some free online personal finance management tools.

Mint

Mint is probably the best known online personal finance management tool. Mint saves you the trouble of bookkeeping by automatically pulling in your balances, purchases, stock trades, etc. It connects securely with more than 7,000 US financial institutions. Mint has impressive financial analysis tools and is definitely a must try if you are looking for an online financial management solution.

Thrive

Thrive aggregates your bank, credit card account information into a single interface. It has partnered with 8000+ banks. It categorizes your spending automatically so you can analyze exactly "where your money is going".

Expensr

Expensr is another free online personal finance manager which tracks your spending and compares them with similar people so you know where to improve. It lets you create budgets to stay on track and you can also use their forecasting tools to avoid any financial surprises.

Rudder

Rudder is another online personal finance management tools that brings all your bank / card accounts (Connect to 3000+ banks & credit cards) in the same place, It helps you track your bills, and it has a innovative feature called ‘What’s Left’ which helps predict your future cashflow.

Wesabe

Wesabe is part money management tool, part community. It pulls all your financial information together for you. It provides you with an easy way to manage your money. You can view all of your bank/ credit card details in the same place.

Yodlee – MoneyCenter

Yodlee money Center lets you manage your finances better by letting you view al your finances in one place, set and track a budget, track your spending etc..

Pennyminder

Pennyminder lets you manager you finances by tracking deposits and withdrawals so you can known what's happening with your money. It lets you share your journals with anyone by email and imports your bank statement.

Geezeo

Geezeo provides you with a set of online financial tools to help you reach your goals and make your finances better everyday. It automatically categorizes all your expenses from all your accounts into one place. Its community is a great place to ask specific questions to financial experts, connect with like-minded people, and learn from others

NetWorthIQ

NetworthIQ is a social personal finance manager designed to make monitoring your net worth easy and fun.

Quicken Online

It automatically organizes your accounts in one place to simplify internet banking, keep track of your bills, lets you check your balances from your cell phone and helps you set your budget goals and track its progress.

Sell your photos and earn money : Big list of stock photography sites where you can sell your digital photos.

2009-09-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

Stock photography websites are a great place to sell your photos and earn money. There are stock photography websites that are ideal places to sell your photos no matter if you are a professional or amateur photographer. There are several ways to sell your photographs through a stock photography sites. You can sell exclusive rights to a photograph or you can get paid per downloads. Also, the payment varies form site to site while the most common payment methods seems to be PayPal, Moneybookers and check. Here’s a large list of stock photography websites where you can sell your photographs along with important details like how much they pay and the payment methods. Have fun selling your photos.

BigStockPhoto

bigstockphoto pays you 50 cents to $3 per image download. You can also earn more on special license downloads. It' minimum payout is $30 and they pay by PayPal. You can also request a check for a minimum payout of $50.

iStockphoto

istockphoto pays you 20% for each file download. However if you are an exclusive contributor then it can go up to 40%. Minimum payout is $100 and they pay by Check, PayPal/Moneybookers and Direct deposit or pre-paid iStockphoto MasterCard Payoneer.

Dreamstime

Dreamstime pays you 50% fee for each transaction and 60% for exclusive images. Exclusive photographers also get an additional bonus of $0.20 for each approved submission. Minimum payout is $100 and payment methods are check, PayPal or Moneybookers.

Shutterstock

With a collection of more than 6 million stock photos shutterstock is a big player in the stock photography market. Shutterstock pays you 25 cents every time your image is downloaded. However, once you reach $500 in earnings, your commission can go up to 30 cents per download. You can also earn money by referring photographers and stock buyers. The minimum payout is $75 by PayPal or Moneybookers and $300 by check.

Stockxpert

Stockxpert is another great site dealing with stock photographs. It currently has more than 2.9 million images with thousands added every day. They pay you 50% for each download. Payment methods are PayPal, Ikobo, Moneybookers and you can also request a check.

123RF

Another great stock photography resource with over 4.0 million images. They pay you 50% of the net proceeds from each photo downloaded. You can also earn buy referring customers (15% of the purchase or subscription), and referring photographers (10% of the price of each of their photo downloaded). Payment methods are PayPal, Moneybookers and checks.

Canstockphoto

Canstockphoto pays you 50% commission for guest and member purchases and 25 cents for subscription sales. Payment methods are PayPal, Moneybookers and check and the minimum payouts are $50 for PayPal and $100 for Moneybookers and check.

Fotolia

Fotolia is another popular stock photography website with over 5 million photos and illustrations. They pay you 30- 44% commission for non-exclusive files and 47-61% commission for submissions by total exclusive contributors. You need a minimum of 50 earned credits to get paid and the payment methods are PayPal and Moneybookers.

ShutterPoint

ShutterPoint offers a high payout of 85% for full Royalty-Free license and 70% for standard Royalty-Free license. Minimum payout is $50 and payment methods are PayPal, Moneybookers and check.

Photostockplus

Photostockplus pays you 85% commission on all sales minus a 3.25% processing fee. Minimum payout is $100 and payment methods are check, bank wire or PayPal.

Crestock

Crestock initially pays you a commission of 20% but it goes up to 30% once you have reached 100 downloads. For subscription downloads you get $0.25 commission per download. The minimum payout for payment by PayPal, Moneybookers is $50 and the minimum payout for payment by bank transfers or check is $100.

SnapVillage

SnapVillage pays you a royalty of 30% for every image sold on a standard or product license. For an image downloaded on subscription you earn 30 cents. Payment method is PayPal and the minimum payout is $10.

Citizenside

Well, this one is not exclusively for stock photos but it allows you to sell your photos to perspective buyers. They pay you a commission of up to 75%. Payment methods are PayPal or bank transfer

Adography

Adography is a nice place to sell your photographs. Adography does not accept returns and so you get paid immediately when someone buys a photo. All payments are made through Amazon Payments.

PhotoShelter

Home to over 40000 photographers, Photoshelter is another good place to sell your photographs. You don’t have to wait for a check from them as you can use your own PayPal or merchant account to sell your photos.

Buy-photo.eu

Buy-photo.eu offers a commission of 50% for every sold photographs. Payment method is PayPal and the minimum payout is 50 Euros.

Alamy

With Alamy, you get 60% of each sale. They pay you monthly (if payout exceeds $250).

PantherMedia

You get a commission of 50% (can go up to 60%) of the sales of your images via PantherMedia. You can also earn by referring new members. Payment method is PayPal or direct payment to your bank account and the minimum payout is 30 Euros.

Tradebit

Not exactly a stock photography site (lets you sell sounds, photos, software, e-Books, music etc.) but you can still sell your photos through tradebit.

ClusterShot

ClusterShot helps you sell your photos. They allow anyone to sell their photos. When you sell your photos they act as an escrow service to ensure payment is successfully received before the photo is released to the buyer. You can request your payment anytime and it will be paid to you after deducting a 12% fee off the sale.

Photospin

Photospin pays you a revenue share of 50% for exclusive images and 40% for non-exclusive images. The minimum payout is $50 and the payment methods are PayPal and check.

FreePhotoMarket

Freephotomarket lets you sell your photos without charging any fee on transactions. You can set your own price for your photos and you can sell up to 100 photos for free. However, to sell more than 100 photos you need to pay an annual fee of € 199. Payment transactions are done by PayPal and full sale amount is directly deposited to your PayPal account

StockPhotography

Stockphotography splits sales 50/50 with you. They notify sales quarterly and pay you by checks in £ Sterling or US$.

Paxxion

Paxxion allows you to sell your images through them. You can set your own price for your work. Paxxion doesn't take any commission for transactions but if you don't want to be limited by the free membership account you have to pay a fee of little more than 3 euros per month. Payment is made by PayPal.

MicroStockPhoto

Microstockphoto pays you 35% of the sale price for each image that is downloaded. The minimum payout is $50 and payment is made by PayPal.

Mediafocus

Mediafocus pays you 20% to 40% of the net billing of images (the pay depends on the photographer's experience, image quality etc.). The minimum payout is $50.00.

StockphotoPro

Stockphotopro pays you 20% royalty every time your images are purchased and 30% royalty if you have a 300+ images collection. Payment method is PayPal and the minimum payout is $10.

FeaturePics

FeaturePics pays you 70% of the license fees received for all photos. Minimum payout is $50 and payment methods are check, PayPal and Moneybookers.

Imagecatalog

Imagecatalog pays you 40% for each sale of your images. Minimum payout is $75 and they pay by PayPal or bank check in US funds.

Stockphotospot

Stockphotospot pays you up to $2 when you upload any photo. You then get paid 20 cents per downloads of your photos. Their minimum payout is $100 and they pay via PayPal or Check.

Yaymicro

Yaymicro pays you a commission of 50 % to contributors on all credit sales. For subscriptions the commission is €1 per download. Payment methods are PayPal and Moneybookers and the minimum payout is €30.

Zymmetrical

Zymmetrical pays you a commission of 70% and the minimum payout for PayPal is $10 and for Payoneer it is $50.

Cutcaster

Cutcaster pays you 50% a commission for exclusive contents and 40% for non-exclusive contents. The minimum payout is $20 and they pay via PayPal, Moneybookers or check.

Stockphotomedia

Stockphotomedia pays you a commission of 35% to 55% for each image downloaded. The minimum payout is 60 EUR and is paid via PayPal or Moneybookers.

ImageVortex

Imagevortex pays you a commission of 70% of the original sale price. The minimum payout is $100 and the payment methods are PayPal, check or a wire transfer to your bank account.

ThePhotoStorage

Thephotostorage pays you a commission of 50% of the sale. The minimum payout is $100 CAD dollars.

Pixmac

Pixmac pays you a commission of 50% for non-exclusive rights and 60% for exclusive rights. Payment methods are Moneybookers and PayPal.

PictureStock

Picturestock pays a commission of 50% to the photographer when an image is sold. Payments are made by check or international money order.

Anka Agency International

AAI pays you a commission of 50% on the net sales. However they need a minimum of 100 images to be submitted.

fotoLibra

Fotolibra pays you a commission of 50% of the sell. Platinum members get 60%. The minimum payout is £50 and payment methods are check, bank transfer or PayPal.

Abundant Photo

Abundant Photo pays you a royalty of 50% each time one of your photos are purchased. The minimum payout is $10.00.

MrPaparazzi

MrPaparazzi is a place to sell your celebrity photographs. They pay you 50% of all licensing fees (including secondary and subsequent licensing) after deduction of applicable taxes. Payments are made via electronic transfer to your bank account or by check.

Thesnitcherdesk

Thesnitcherdesk is another place to sell your celebrity photographs. You get 50% of the sale and is paid via PayPal or bank transfer.

Photrade

Apart from earning money from their ad revenue sharing model, you can also earn by selling your photos on Photrade. You get 80% of the markup made on any sale.

Picturenation

Picturenation pays you 40% commission on each sale. However to upload more than 5 images you need to have a Pro account which costs you £10 a year. Minimum payout is £50. Payment is made via bank transfer or PayPal.

Vizero

Vizero is place to upload your photos and sell them to prospective buyers. You fix the price of the photos and Vizero charges you 25% commission on each sale if you hold a free membership account and 15% commission on each sale if you hold a paying account. Payment is made via PayPal and MoneyBookers. However the free account has a limitation of only 5MB upload space and it expires after six months.

Express Digital

Express Digital lets you sell photos through them by setting your own price. They take a commission of maximum 15% as e-commerce transaction fee for each online order along with a 3% fee as the cost of payment processing. They pay you every two weeks.

Get $30 off on Lunarpages basic hosting

2009-09-15T08:46:00.001-07:00

Need a hosting for your personal website or blog? Here’s a great offer from Lunarpages hosting. Get $30 off 24 months basic hosting plan. This hosting plan is excellent for starting a personal website. It starts from $4.95 per month and include free domain name, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth,unlimited MySQL database, unlimited add-on and sub domains,unlimited parked domains, unlimited ftp accounts, support for PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby On Rails etc.And it also includes 24 hour support and service.

Moreover with this Lunarpages Basic hosting plan you get $25 Facebook ads credit and $25 Google adwords credit and $700 worth of goodies.

Okay, now here's how to get $30 off on Lunarpages basic hosting. Just use the coupon code below to avail this offer.

Coupon code for $30 off on Lunarpages basic hosting: TD30

I am back!

2009-09-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I know I haven't updated this blog for quite a while. I have been busy in things I couldn't just ignore and thats how it was. But, I am trying to make some time off from now on to at least keep this blog alive and post regularly. So, do keep checking this space. As of now, I am off to this place to find some discount coupon codes for T-shirts.

Find User reviews and rating on Web Hosting

2009-04-08T17:24:00.000-07:00

Choosing a web hosting provider is not an easy task. You have to consider various things like uptime, cost, control panel, storage space, bandwidth etc before you can decide on the web hosting that is best for you. It always helps to know about other people’s experiences about any particular host. One way to know about any web hosting provider is to search for reviews or ask in webmasters forums to know more about it. However, it takes a lot of time to do all these things.

But the good news is that there are actually places where we can find reviews of many website at the same place saving us a lot of time. WebHostingRating is such a website which provides web hosting rating and reviews. You can find independent customer ratings for website hosting providers for Unix hosting, Windows hosting, Reseller Hosting, VPS hosting, Dedicated Hosting, Managed Hosting etc.

They also have hosting awards, the winners of which are determined by user votes in 12 hosting categories like Best Budget Hosting, Best Blog Hosting, Best Forum Hosting, Best Unix Hosting, Best Windows Hosting, Best Email Hosting etc. At the end of each month the system generates the list of best hosting companies based on the user votes. These awards are also a good indication of the best web hosting providers.

If you are looking to build your site using any of today’s popular CMS like Joomla, Drupal, WordPress etc, then you can go through the CMS Web Hosts section to find out the best hosting provider for your need. All in all, this is a great place to find user reviews and rating of web hosting providers that helps you decide on the best web hosting service for you.

97% of emails are spam

2009-04-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

In a new security report Microsoft says that 97% of the mails sent are spam. Among spam, 48.6 of it are advertisements for pharmaceutical products. There are interesting facts in this report which you can view here

15 cool apps from the Google Applications Gallery

2009-04-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

Google has an application for us to do right about anything. Here's a cool list from Webware about 15 cool apps from the Google Applications Gallery. Check this out.

Where to find Linux Jobs?

2009-02-20T21:39:00.001-08:00

Yeah sure you can use the big places like Monster to search for a Linux job but if you prefer a job website catering specifically to Linux Professionals then here are two sites which will get you going.

Mojolin.com is a job site focused on Linux, Apache, MySql, PHP, Perl, Python and other open source professionals. It offers the latest jobs and also career advice.

kerneltrap.org has a job board where you can find the latest Linux jobs.

New Nokia N86 mobile

2009-02-20T17:27:00.001-08:00

The new mobile in Nokia’s N Series is out. Nokia N86 sports a 8MP camera with Wide-angle Carl Zeiss optics and has many cool features. wwwblog runs a short review of the new mobile you can find here.

Scan Registry for File Extension problems

2009-02-20T16:07:00.001-08:00

Ever ran into problems related to file extensions? I am sure you did. I have had such a problem many times with my system. If you are not sure what I am talking about here than just try to remember the last time you installed any software in Windows and it asked you during the installation process whether or not it should associate certain file types with it, and you clicked yes (some applications actually associates certain file types with them even without asking!).

It’s fine till now, but when you uninstalled that software somewhere down the line you notice that certain file types which was associated with the program you just uninstalled isn’t associated with any applications anymore and you have to follow the long route to open those files (as double clicking on them doesn’t open them). Ideally the previous file association should be restored when an application is uninstalled and its file association is removed. But if it doesn’t happen due to any reason your file associations are broken and your registry is in a mess with many broken entries. There are many other reasons which can cause various file extension problems in your system.

So, how do you fix them? Sure, you can fix some minor problems manually with a few clicks, but it will be time consuming and there may be some problems which you may not even be aware of. This is why taking help of software for this specific job makes good sense. Here’s one such software from computerfileextensions, which scans your registry for such errors and fixes them with a single click. They also have a database of numerous file extensions with description where you can find out what a particular file extension actually is. So if you want to know what file type are the files with an extension PPS ,DLL or DMG, just access the extension database and find the description.

SiteLauncher : Launch your favorite websites using your keyboard

2009-02-19T17:13:00.000-08:00

Here's a new Fiorefox Add-on which can be quite useful. It gives you a super-quick way to to open your favorite websites using only your keyboard. One special hotkey brings up the 'Launcher', followed by a unique key to launch a site.

@SiteLauncher

GPS Tracking Solutions from Brickhouse Security

2009-02-19T17:07:00.000-08:00

GPS tracking has generated a lot of buzz off late (both positive and negative). GPS tracking finds use in many areas from employers tracking employees to spying on your spouse. Many of these uses of GPS tracking have raised concern about privacy issues. But whether or not you like it, GPS tracking is here in a big way and it is going to stay. GPS tracking can also be extremely useful to travel business owners who can manage their fleet of vehicles better with a tracking system in place. It can also be helpful to track down a stolen vehicle. But at the same time it has been used to spy on people, (especially by suspecting spouses and depending on the law of your land it may be illegal too.)

Anyway, if you have a need for any GPS tracking solution (whatever the use you may find), let me introduce a place where you can find a variety of GPS tracking solution to meet your different needs. Brickhouse Security provides GPS tracking solutions to a wide customer base. Their elite client base includes the FBI, US Navy, Police etc and is trusted by many corporate and small businesses. With their GPS tracking devices you can track any vehicle or person anywhere. There is a wide range of devices available suite your needs sporting features such as long battery life, small size, works indoors, fleet management system etc.

So, if you are in need of a GPS tracking solution, don’t look beyond Brickhouse Security. They also offer huge discounts over the current market price which results in heavy savings for you. You can also use paypal to purchase their products or order securely online by phone. For more details visit Brickhouse Security.

Livedrive Out of Beta

2009-02-18T15:37:00.001-08:00

Ok, my previous post was about the new version of Livedrive that was released yesterday. Well, today I got a mail from Livedrive which says that they have closed the beta program and Livedrive is now open to public. They are also offering a 20% discount for the first 10,000 customers. You also have the option of trying it out for free for 30 days. if you are a Livedrive beta user but not willing to subscribe to the service, your account will be automatically deleted.

Some benefits of subscribing to Livedrive now -

Enjoy a 20% discount (first 10,000 accounts only)
30 day total satisfaction guarantee – they will refund your subscription fee if you wish to
cancel your Livedrive account within 30 days from now, for any reason.
Secure your Livedrive Address
Continue using the full features of Livedrive
Access to priority support and service
Instant online activation

@Livedrive

New version of LiveDrive released

2009-02-17T14:05:00.001-08:00

A new version of the Livedrive Desktop Software has been released today. It includes a number of speed enhancements and fixes some bugs. You can download the new version of Livedrive here.

Top Web 2.0 security threats

2009-02-17T13:54:00.001-08:00

Online security threats have always been a bigger problem. Web 2.0 websites and resources are quite popular and the downside is that they also bring newer online threats. Never thought of it that way? Well, neither did I until I read this informative post at RWW.

Make Firefox your Productivity Machine

2009-02-17T12:47:00.001-08:00

The power and versatility of it make Firefox the favorite browser of most of us. The efficiency and power of Firefox can be further extended by using extensions. Mashable has a nice post on how to make Firefox more productive by giving a few tips and extensions which works wonder.

Check it here.

Technorati Tags: firefox,tips,productivity

Common Photoshop Mistakes and Malpractice

2009-02-16T20:08:00.000-08:00

So you know Photoshop? But how sure are you of the thing you do in Photoshop? Are you committing any mistakes, any misuses, is anything at all is wrong? Or how about learning a few tips which would tell you how to avoid doing some very common Photoshop mistakes. designcubicle has agreat articles which gives a nice and useful insight into common things that we often mess up Photoshop and how to avoid falling into those common pitfalls.

Antivirus for windows 7

2009-02-16T19:07:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest issues for Windows 7 beta users is the choice of a good anti virus solution. There are very few anti virus solution available that are officially compatible with Windows 7 and a couple of others anti virus tools are reported by users to work with windows 7 even though not officially compatible. Here’s a link to an article which discusses the anti virus software that work with Windows 7

100 Adobe AIR Apps for Productivity

2009-02-16T18:53:00.000-08:00

Adobe AIR has created quite a buzz and there is numerous AIR apps already developed catering to the various needs of the users. If you don’t have any idea what an AIR app can do but are curious about it, well check out this list I stumbled upon recently. It lists 100 top Adobe AIR Apps for productivity. I am sure you might end up installing AIR after you go through the list and decided to try out some of the apps. You can find the list here.

Adobe AIR Apps for Photos & Videos.

2009-01-31T19:53:00.000-08:00

Here's one more list of great Adobe AIR apps. This time around it focuses on Adobe AIR Apps for Photos & Videos.

How to find and remove duplicate files on your hard drive

2009-01-30T19:33:00.000-08:00

If you have numerous images, mp3 and other types of files on your hard drive, you may have noticed that organizing a great number of files is not an easy task. And the worst part of this problem is the duplicate files. The same file may exist in various locations with the same or different file name etc. Finding the duplicate files manually and removing them may take forever and that is where a software tool can help you. MUO has a nice post which reviews some of the duplicate file remover tools. Check it out.

10 Great Google Search Tricks

2009-01-29T20:00:00.000-08:00

Are a Power Google user? Don't worry if you are not. Here are some tips which can make you one.

70+ Great tutorials for Adobe Photoshop.

2009-01-29T19:16:00.000-08:00

Want some great Photoshop tutorials to enhance your Photoshop skills? Here’s a great list of 70+ great tutorials for Adobe Photoshop.

100+ Tools and Themes for Blogger

2009-01-27T19:39:00.000-08:00

Mashable comes up with yet another useful list. This time it is for bloggers on the blogger.com platform. The list contains 100 plus resources (tools, themes etc.) for blogger.com blogs. A must read for blogger on blogger.com

jQuery Techniques For Good User Experience

2009-01-24T19:50:00.000-08:00

jQuery has grown considerably to become one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks. It provides web developer with the power to improve user's interactivity. Smashing Magazine has a nice post compiled of some jQuery techniques for great user experience. You can view it here.

Google Picasa for MAC

2009-01-05T16:08:00.000-08:00

Just came across this piece of news in Cnet which says Google's is releasing a beta version of their Picasa software for the Mac OS X. The Mac version is said to be having almost all the features that the Windows version has. So, Mac users can look for a different experience it comes to sharing their photos online.

Get Expert Advise on Mobile Broadband providers from broadband expert

2008-12-24T17:05:00.000-08:00

Mobile broadband is currently the rage among internet users. Mobile broadband is nothing but a type of wireless high speed internet access made possible using technologies like GPRS, 3G, WiMAX etc. Simply put, with mobile broadband you can access the internet just by plugging in your USB modem or dongle into your laptop or computer. Mobile broadband offers several advantages over conventional broadband including better coverage, simple installation, compatibility with PC, Mac and laptops, shorter delivery time, no phone line required, can be used in multiple PCs etc. So it is the preferred mode of internet access for people on the move like business executives, students and anyone who wants to access the internet while they are on the move.

If you are in UK you'll probably know how aggressively mobile broadband providers are marketing their services in recent times. But how do you choose from so many mobile broadband service providers? Which one offers the best service or which one is real value for your money?

This is where Broadband Expert comes to your rescue. Broadband Expert is a free web service which provides expert advice and information to help you decide on which broadband services to purchase.

Broadband Experts researches all broadband service providers and exposes the real facts about them (like hidden costs etc.), you can compare among many broadband packages by various components like download limit, speed, cost etc. It also provides you with guides and other online resources like forums and blog to help you research while choosing your broadband service provider. It also has tools like broadband speed checker and monthly download estimator.

Broadband Expert provides you the latest information about various types of broadband and mobile broadband services like Business Mobile Broadband, Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband, Unlimited broadband, ADSL broadband and several more. In these, the Pay as you go mobile broadband is the type of broadband access which usually doesn't require a contract of any kind and you pay for it as and when you use your connection.

Many service providers trying to get a larger share of the mobile broadband market are offering rewards like free laptop along with your broadband package. Broadband Experts also tracks such offers.

So don’t forget to check it out.

How To Use Videos As Screensaver Or Wallpaper

2008-12-24T16:33:00.000-08:00

Want to use any video as the wallpaper or screensaver of your computer? Well you can do just the same with a tool called Microsoft Video Screensaver. MUO has detailed the steps needed to do it here.

Get Unlimited online storage with Livedrive

2008-12-24T16:22:00.000-08:00

Here's a new addition to the online storage sites and it’s http://www.livedrive.com/ which offers unlimited online storage!

With Livedrive you get unlimited storage space, you can send large files to anyone, you can access your files from anywhere as Livedrive is optimized for mobile phones, it works even when your PC is disconnected, you can use your own web portal to securely access your files if you are accessing your files from a public computer, you can share your photos, videos and other files wit Livedrive, it works like a normal hard drive, access the same iTunes library from all of your PCs and it also allows you to publish directly to FaceBook, YouTube etc straight from your Livedrive.

http://www.livedrive.com/

World's first 360° Panoramic Digital Camera

2008-12-24T15:56:00.000-08:00

The weird looking gadget in the image below is nothing but the World's first 360° Panoramic Digital Camera from Giroptic. Its unique design allows you to take 360 degrees high quality panoramic digital images easily with just a click.

For more details view

Download BitTorent files directly from Firefox

2008-12-24T15:48:00.000-08:00

Here's a Firefox add-on which allows you to download BitTorrent files directly from within Firefox just the way it downloads a normal file. Its still is in early stages and doesn't include advanced features of BitTorrent or Options. But it’s worth a try

http://www.fireaddons.com/iamchosen/

allCamReviews-Digital camera review search engine

2008-12-05T14:03:00.000-08:00

allCamReviews is a new free web service (Digital camera review search engine) which aims to aid users searching for digital camera/accessories review on the web. This is what the they have to say about themselves-

When you search Google for the reviews of any digital camera, it throws up tons of results. So much, that it sometimes become little harder to find what you are actually searching for. Now, everyone knows that Google is the best search engine around, so what's the point of allCamReviews.com? Going by my personal experience, I have often noticed that out of the thousands of review websites out there the ones which contain quality and reliable reviews come from a handful of websites which have a reputation of being the experts in the field. What allCamReviews search engine does is search those selected websites only which provides reliable and meaningful reviews, rather than searching the whole of the web. Got the point? Well, let's just say that it saves you an awful lot of time by narrowing down your search to the reviews which you are most likely to read.

Check out allCamReviews @ http://allcamreviews.com/

YoYotech Fi7epower MLK1610 - Fastest PC of all time

2008-11-03T15:41:00.000-08:00

techradar has reviewed what is being said to be the fastest PC of all time 'YoYotech Fi7epower MLK1610'

Read the full review here

Google Chrome available for download.

2008-09-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

Well its out! The browser every body seemed to be waiting to try out since the news broke out yesterday. Google chrome is now available for download. If you are too impatient to wait till you download and install to know how it is, go over to Lifehacker, they have already posted a detailed post on Chromes' first look.

Am downloading it right now, more when I check it out.

http://www.google.com/chrome

Google Chrome : Finally A Google Browser

2008-09-01T18:09:00.000-07:00

The long running rumor that Google is working on its own browser finally came out to be true. Google posted this update on the official blog little after the news was already out along with the comic book that Google used to describe the browser. The beta version will be launched tomorrow in more than 100 countries.

The browser named ‘Chrome’ will be Open Source. The blogosphere has already gone crazy with reports on the new browser and seems like everyone is waiting to check it out (including me). Google claims to have ‘started from scratch’ in developing the browser as the web has evolved from simple text pages to rich applications which is why the need of the hour is a modern browser developed keeping modern rich web applications in mind. Some of the features sound useful and interesting. Chrome will keep each tab in an isolated "sandbox", to prevent one tab from crashing another and to protect from rogue sites. It will have a brand new JavaScript engine, V8, to support web applications that aren’t even possible in currently available browsers. It uses components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox and few others.

Read the official Google blog entry here.

You can view the comic book presentation of the browser to know more about its features here.

Porn Mode in Windows Internet Explorer 8

2008-08-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

IE 8 beta has been creating some buzz over sometime for various reasons. But now its something different. It now has a new feature whereas users can browse the web without leaving any traces of the site they visit. This feature hides the browsing history from other users, who use the same computer. This feature has been nicknamed as 'Porn Mode'.

There can be much more implication of this new feature than you may imagine. There is a buzz already that Google will face huge problem because of this as they depend heavily on browsing histories to deliver targeted ads. But as it is only a beta release, and things may be changed in the final release, we gotta wait and see.

How to Open Word, Excel, PowerPoint 2007 Files in Older Office Versions

2008-08-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

Are you still using an office version older than MS Office 2007? If yes, chances are you have come across MS Office 2007 files which will not open in your older version of office. In office 2007, Microsoft has changed the file formats belonging to MS office suite entirely and hence an office version older than 2007 is unable to open the files created in Office 2007.

The Office 2007 file formats are based on XML and it is called the Open XML Formats. The Open XML Formats offer various advantages over the binary file formats used in the older versions of office like, compressing files (the compressed files can be up to 75 % smaller in size) , improved recovery of damaged files, more control on personal information etc. But the many different new formats in office 2007 may confuse the new users. Here’s a list of the new formats used by Office 2007 for the benefits of anyone who is new to office 2007.

File Formats for Word
.docx Document
.docm Macro-enabled document
.dotx Template
.dotm Macro-enabled template

File Formats for Excel
.xlsx Workbook
.xlsm Macro-enabled workbook
.xltx Template
.xltm Macro-enabled template
.xlsb Non-XML binary workbook
.xlam Macro-enabled add-in

File Formats for PowerPoint
.pptx Presentation
.pptm Macro-enabled presentation
.potx Template
.potm Macro-enabled template
.ppam Macro-enabled add-in
.ppsx Show
.ppsm Macro-enabled show
.sldx Slide
.sldm Macro-enabled slide
.thmx Office theme

For more detailed information on the Open XML file formats you can visit here.

So, how to open the Office 2007 files in older versions of office? Just download and install the 'Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats’ and you are ready to open office 2007 file formats in any older version of Office. Once you have installed the 'Compatibility Pack', you can use older version office like office 2000, XP or 2003 to create, open or edit file formats belonging to MS Office 2007. The compatibility pack is under 30MB in size and hence you can carry it in your USB drive and install in any computer which has an older version of office and can not open your documents which were created in Office 2007.

Got a pirated copy of Windows XP ? Read this!

2008-08-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

Got a pirated copy of Windows XP? Well be prepared as MS plans to nag you in some big way. MS is making th WGA Notifications a bit harsher. A new update on the WGA blog says

"Starting this week, we will begin deployment of the latest version of WGA Notifications for Windows XP. In addition to the usual updates to validation that improve WGA's ability to detect the latest stolen or fake product keys and other attempts to circumvent product activation, this release will also include a couple of other significant updates."

Part of the plan is to reset the desktop wallpaper to plain black background every 60 minutes and a persistent notification that 'you might be a victim of software piracy' etc. Read the details here

Max Payne - the movie coming soon.

2008-08-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

I remember wasting hours playing Max Payne back in those days we didn't have World of Warcraft! And given a choice even today I'd prefer playing Max Payne over WoW. Anyway, I had been waiting long to watch Max Payne - the movie and it seems like finally the wait will be over. Its gonna be released on Oct 17th 2008. I hope they make the movie as good as the game.

Here's some posters of the movie.

Linux popularity across the globe

2008-08-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

Ever been curious to know about Linux popularity trends across the globe? Pingdom has posted a detailed report on the Linux trends across the globe and there are quite surprising facts that have come out. For one, the interest in Linux seems to be strongest in India, Cuba and Russia. In the US, interest in Linux in stronger in Utah than in California.

Read the detailed report here, Its an interesting read.

First Google Mobile Coming Soon

2008-08-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

The first mobile phone based on Google Android is coming soon. The phone is made by HTC and T-Mobile is going to be the first carrier to offer it, NYTimes reports. The phone is expected to compete with high end mobile like iPhone, RIM etc. The phone will have a touch screen and also has a five row keyboard. You c an watch the following video to have a closer look at the phone.

To know more about the features of the phone visit here.

Free Image Hosting Website Script

2008-08-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

Want to build an Image Hosting site like ImageShack or photobucket? Well, if the only thing that was stopping you was that you didn't know how to build a website like that then there's good news for you. There is a free image hosting website script available. You can view the demo of the script here and download the script here , for more screen shot of the script visit this gallery

Cuil Disappoints

2008-08-02T16:02:00.000-07:00

'The world's biggest search engine', that's how Cuil like to call itself. But as the initial hype dies down, we know its definitely not something which can compete with Google, forget about replacing it. Looks like Cuil was only banking on its big index size of over 120 billion pages. But the result it returns for search terms are nowhere comparable to google.

But I kind of like the inetrace which groups search results in columns and the "Explore by category " feature which shows the related results is a very good feature. But thats all Cuil has to it. Forget being a Google killer , cuil just ends up being a poor competition for Google. Its impossible to beat Google in its own game - at least not in near future.

Google Knol is now open to Everyone

2008-07-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

Google Knol is now open to Everyone. Knol which is touted as being Google's answer to Wikipedia, was eagerly awaited ever since the news of Google working on a Wikipedia like project came out.

Here's what Google official blog say about Knol

"The key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an author (or group of authors) who put their name behind their content. It's their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good."

I am yet to fully check out the new service from Google. I would post in details once I have the time to review it.

HappyChecker for FireFox 3 is ready - Have Fun :-)

2008-06-19T17:01:00.000-07:00

Okay Guys! Here it is!

Yes, HappyChecker for FireFox 3 is ready.

I know its been little late and I have been receiving continuous request for FF3 version in my email, comments in this blog and also the Addon page at AMO. Thanks to everyone who waited patiently and also for using the extension.

I have also changed the icons in this new version and though they are not quite eye candy, they are neater than the previous one.

Anyway, I assume that most of you are using FF3 now, going by the record download numbers, and so for most of you HappyChecker was not working anymore. So go ahead and download the new version and like I said before, never miss out on happy hours :-) Also don't forget to give your feedback regarding any bug or other issues.

Lastly, apart receiving from the regular 'feature request' and thank you mails through my 'contact me' form, lately I have got quite a few inquiry as to why I don't have any 'Donate' or 'By me this or that' link on my blog so people could support my effort. First, I want to thank all who thought my work was worth that. So, I thought, it's not gonna be a bad idea to have a donate button on my blog. After all, it could provide me some incentive for the time I spend on this blog and other developments including several firefox extension that are coming soon. So I have included a PayPal donate button on this blog, so anyone who wants to contribute anything for my work have an easy way to do so.

By the way, if you have any unique idea for any firefox extension, you can comment it here or just drop a word through this form, I just might create one extension on your idea (of course if I like the idea that is.)

Download HappyChecker for FF3

Firefox download day is June 17

2008-06-13T15:47:00.000-07:00

Firefox has announced the download day date for its attempt to set a Guinness World Record of 'most software downloads in 24 hours'. The date is June 17, 2008.

More details here ...

Get mails from multiple Gmail accounts into a Single Gmail account

2008-06-08T07:06:00.000-07:00

We all have multiple Gmail accounts, don't we? It only seems logical to have multiple accounts for different purposes to keep our mailboxes clean and free of spams. But one problem with this approach is that you have to login several times to your different accounts to check for emails. But here's a way to check emails from all your gmail accounts from any of your single gmail account. To make it clear lets say you have three Gmail accounts which are 'mygmailacc1@gmail.com', 'mygmailacc2@gmail.com', 'mygmailacc3@gmail.com'. Now you can create another gmail account 'mymastergmailacc@gmail.com' and set up the account so you can fetch emails from your previous three accounts into mymastergmailacc@gmail.com'. In this way you don't have to login to those other three accounts to check your mails. You will get all the emails from all four of your Gmail accounts into your master account. This feature is known as ' Mail Fetcher'.

Okay Now here's how to do it-

First, Choose any one of your gmail accounts as your master account where you will get emails from all other gmail accounts. You can also choose to create a new 'master gmail account' solely for this purpose.

Once you have your master gmail account ready, log in and navigate to 'Settings' and Click 'Accounts'. Find the 'Get mail from other accounts' section and click 'Add another mail account.' In the pop-up window enter the email address and password from which you want to fetch mails. If its a gmail account then you can leave the settings at default, for any other pop account you may have to change settings.

You will also have to verify the email accounts you add by clicking on the verification links that gmail would send. Its just to make sure that those email accounts really belong to you. You can view your email accounts you've added from the accounts tab of settings any time and edit or delete the same. (The big red marked area in the image). You can also check the status of the accounts you've added in the same tab in the section 'Get mail from other accounts' (The small red marked area in the image)

You can choose whether the replies to the mails you receive from the email accounts you've added, should be sent from the same address the message was sent to or from your default address. (You can define your default address). Take a look at the blue marked area in the image.

Important: You will need to have POP enabled in all your gmail accounts from where you want to fetch mails, Plainly put, in our example we need to have POP enabled in 'mygmailacc1', 'mygmailacc2', 'mygmailacc3' for it to work.

How to enable POP in Gmail.

POP in gmail is disabled by default and you have to enable it manually. Login to your gmail account you want to enable pop for, and Click on Settings. go to 'Forwarding and POP/IMAP' tab and then the 'POP Download:' section. Enable Pop by selecting either 'Enable POP for all mail' (POP will be enabled for all the mails old and new) or 'Enable POP for mail that arrives from now on' (POP is enabled only for the mails arriving after the settings take effect not for older mails.) depending on what your want. Click on 'Save Changes' and you're done.

For more details on Mail Fetcher click here

And hey, check out this new feature in Blogger.

HappyChecker Now Working with new Rapidshare Website

2008-06-03T16:40:00.000-07:00

I hate to release a newer version within just 2 days of releasing the previous one with a minor change in the version number, but I had no option. As I have already mentioned in my earlier post that today RapidShare made changes to their website which broke HappyChecker down. And unfortunately for me I discovered that just when I was planning to go to bed. The thought that the extension wouldn't be working for thousands of people who have been using it for the last few days since it was released made me decide to fix the extension first and so here I am now losing almost half of my sleep time and finally ready with a extension which is working with the new Rapidshare website.

Okay, don't have much to say here now, just hope that RS doesn't make anymore changes soon enough. And please let me know if anyone faces any trouble which is possible because I am yet to fully verify all the changes in RS. But I have tested the extension many times and it seems to be working just as perfectly as it was before the RS changes happened. So please don't be made at me for the inconvenience (its not my fault you see- RS changed their site! :-) and download the new extension and never miss out on happy hours.

Download the new extension

Please note the latest version is v1.2 , if the above link takes you to HappyChecker 1.1 then check all other versions by clicking 'See All Versions' on that page or by clicking the direct link below . You'd be taken to a page where all the three versions can be downloaded. Download HappyChecker 1.2 . (The reason for this is it takes sometime for new versions to appear on AMO addon direct link)

See All Versions

Okay now I am gonna go take a nap.

Zzzz.....

HappyChecker Not working? Here's why.

2008-06-03T15:13:00.000-07:00

Well you might have noticed that happychecker is not reporting the correct status of happy hours from today. If you are wondering why, go and take a look at the rapidshare website. They have changed the look and functioning of their website from today and that broke happychecker down.

However I have already started working towards making happychecker work with the new rapidshare site and I hope to upload the new version soon enough. Keep checking this space for updates.

Zip / Unzip files Online

2008-06-03T02:06:00.000-07:00

Almost everyone has some or the other zip utility installed on their computer. So why there should be any use for an online zip/ unzip utility? Well consider the situation at any workplace where there is no zip utility installed and you are not allowed to install any software too. Now considering you need to send a large file as an attachment to an email, which if not zipped exceeds the attachment size limit- you can see how useful these online zip utilities can be. So here the list goes, if I left out any, please comment ;-)

Zip-Onilne
You can add upto 5 files to zip online .Send zip file to email or download it.
Limitation - Max size per file is 650kb.

Nippyzip
Allows upto 15 files to zip online. Send zip file to email or download it.
Limitation - Max size per upload is 8192kb.

MailMyZip
Allows upto 5 files to zip online. Send zip file to email or download it.
Limitation - Max size per file is 2048kb.

Wobzip
Wobzip lets you unzip a compressed file from your computer or a direct url. Formats supported are - 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZHCHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS

Let's Help Firefox Set A Guinness World Record

2008-06-02T15:35:00.000-07:00

Wanna be part of a Guinness World Record? Here's your chance :

Firefox 3 wants to set a Guinness World Record for most software downloads in 24 hours. The download day date is yet to be announced but you can pledge to download FF3 on the download day by visiting this link. While writing this post the total number of pledges stands at 635,760. If you are the more enthusiastic type, you can get involved in the initiative in many ways described here.

If you want to be notified of the download day, just pledge to download the software on the download day and leave your email id, you'd be notified of the download day by email.

So come on' - I know everyone loves Firefox - lets help it achieve this feat.

HappyChecker v1.1 - New version of Rapidshare happy hours checker ready

2008-06-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

The first version of HappyChecker, has been downloaded 4,589 times in just over a weeks time. I thank everyone who have tried out the extension and also given their valuable input regarding it. Taking into consideration those suggestions, I am ready with the new version of the extension which has several new features.

First of all, if you are annoyed by the frequent message box when happy hours are active, well in this version I have replaced the message box with a set of icons. These are a set of smiley icons which sits quietly in the status bar of Firefox and changes color as per the happy hours status. A green smiley means 'Happy Hours Active' while a red smiley means 'Happy Hours Not Active'. If the extension is currently checking the status or having any difficulty in checking the status, the smiley turns yellow.

Apart from automatically checking happy hours status, the extension also allows you to check for happy hours manually whenever you want. Just right click on the smiley icon and Click on 'Check Happy Hour Status' . This time you'd get an alert message informing you of the happy hours status.

Sorry, but the extension is still limited to Firefox version 1.5 to 2.0. I'd be ready with a new version which is compatible with FF 3.x once I get a hang of the changes made in FF3. Any suggestion or queries please drop a comment.

Download HappyChecker v1.1

Search images in flickr by sketch

2008-06-01T16:41:00.000-07:00

Looking for any images in flickr? Instead of searching by typing in the keyword how about searching by drawing a sketch of whatever you are looking for? retrievr lets you do exactly that. Just draw a rough sketch of whatever you are looking for in the drawing pad on the left side and thumbnails of images which matches your search sketch would be displayed on the right side. for an idea of how it works have a look at the below image in which I have drawn a rough sketch of an eye, look at the results on the right side. It's kinda cool. Check it out.

Create your own social networking site with Ning

2008-06-01T15:35:00.000-07:00

Always wanted to create your own little MySpace or Facebook but never knew how to? Well Ning comes to your rescue.

If you've not heard about it yet, Ning lets you create your own social networks for free without you having to worry about the design,installation and hosting the site. Its as simple as creating an email account online. Just create a free Ning account- (if you've ever created a blogger or wordpress hosted blog, it might feel familiar to you.) and then enter information about the network you want to create like the name, then choose a url for your network. After the initial setup you'd be asked to customize the feature set and look of your network. You can add or remove features like video, forum etc. Then choose a template for your network and customize the themes settings (logo,headers etc.) and you're ready to go.

Ning is a good option to create a social community if your network is going to be relatively small, and also if you don't want the hassle of hosting your own site. By default, a Ning social network comes with a quota of 10GB of storage and 100GB of bandwidth, which should be enough for any small to moderate social networks.

Now if you are thinking how Ning manages to give so much for free, well they run their own ads on your social network and earn from it. But for a fee of 19.95 per month, you can remove Ning ads and run your own ads and earn money. You can also use your own domain names instead of Ning subdomain and in case your site is doing well enough to surpass the default bandwidth limits, you can also purchase additional storage and bandwidth.

So go ahead and create your own MySpace.

HappyChecker - 2,439 downloads in first week

2008-05-29T04:12:00.000-07:00

Just logged in to my AMO account and the Statistics Dashboard had a nice surprise for me. My RapidShare Happy Hours Checker extension has been downloaded 2439 times in last seven days. It is the first ever Firefox extension I created, so it makes me happy. I thank everybody who tried out the extension and please let me know if you have any complaint or suggestion regarding it.
One more thing, the extension is still sitting in the experimental category and thats why everyone is having to log in before they can download it. I can guess AMO must have a great backlog of extensions to review hence its taking time. But for the benefit of users who doesn't want to sign up just to download a single extension I would put up a different link where you can download the extension directly very soon.

Audio / Video in Silverlight

2008-05-29T01:22:00.000-07:00

We can play Audio/video in Silverlight using it's MediaElement object. The xaml for this is very simple.


<Canvas
   xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007"
   xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">

  <MediaElement
    Source="always.mp3" Width="250" Height="250" />
</Canvas>

Similarly we can also embed a video, just replace the audio file name with a video file name. To control playback aspects like Play, pause etc., we need to add eventhandlers for those and place the codes in the js file. Lets say we have a MediaElement object named VideoPlayer1 and an event handler "VideoPlayer_Play"clicking on which starts the playback of the audio/video. The code for the js could be " sender.findName("VideoPlayer1").play(); "

This was just an introduction on how to embed audio / video in Silverlight , I 'd be writing about it in details soon.

Three new Adobe CS4 betas

2008-05-28T01:54:00.000-07:00

Adobe has released the CS4 beta versions of some of its popular products. The beta versions are available for the existing CS3 (of the same product) users worldwide. Below are the download links.

Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 Beta

Adobe Soundbooth CS4 Beta

Adobe Fireworks CS4 Beta

Easy way to find and remove duplicate files

2008-05-28T01:24:00.000-07:00

Often we clutter our hard disks with duplicate images, mp3s etc which we have no clue about. The duplicate file finder softwares come handy in situation like this as they make it easy for us by finding duplicate files and letting us remove them. They also have the feature of doing a binary comparison, so even if there are two duplicate files with different filenames and attributes, these software can detect them. Below are some softwares you can use to find duplicate files.

Easy Duplicate File Finder
Easy Duplicate File Finder is a free tool to find duplicate files. It has Full binary feature which and customizable search feature.

Clone Remover
Features include Search by contents, Search by mp3 title, Search by properties, similar images etc.

DoubleKiller
Its another nice duplicate file finder with customizable search.

CloneSpy
CloneSpy is a Free Duplicate File CleanUp Tool for Windows

FSlint
FSlint is an utility which can find duplicate files in linux.

Several Ways to Find DoFollow Blogs

2008-05-27T01:44:00.000-07:00

For the bloggers wanting to build some quality backlinks by commenting on DoFollow blogs, the main problem is to identify blogs which are DoFollow and which are NoFollow. Below are some tools which can help you in finding DoFollow blogs. But use this at your own discretion. If you only want to find any DoFollow blog and drop a comment just to get a backlink, you are actually spamming. Okay, Here's how to find DoFollow Blogs

DoFollow blog search Engine.
http://linkbuildingbible.com/dofollowdiver/

A desktop application which finds blogs and lists as NoFollow and DoFollow basis, based on your search keyword.
http://www.fastblogfinder.com/downloads/

A handy FireFox extension which lets you know if a blog is DoFollow or NoFollow using color coded links.
http://www.zacharyfox.com/blog/free-tools/nodofollow-a-firefox-extension

Directory of DoFOllow Sites
http://www.dofollow.us/

Directory of DoFOllow Blogs
http://www.dofollowblogs.com/

DoFollow Search Engine
http://www.backlinkspot.com/

DoFollow Search Engine
http://www.commenthunt.com/

And lastly here's a rather unusual but innovative way to find DoFollow blogs ...
http://www.slightlyshadyseo.com/index.php/finding-do-follow-blogs-the-easy-way/

Images In Silverlight

2008-05-26T15:39:00.000-07:00

In the last Silverlight tutorial, we learned how to create some basic shapes. Today let's explore how we can use images in Silverlight.

Using image is very easy and simple in Silverlight. Lets look at the following example.

<Canvas Width="200" Height="200"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">
<Image Source="image1.png" />
</Canvas>

This would load the image 'image1.png' (provided it exists in the same directory as the xaml), into the Silverlight canvas.

One of the most important Property of Image is 'Stretch'. The Silverlight SDK defines it as 'A value of the Stretch enumeration that specifies how the source image is applied if the Height and Width of the Image are specified and are different than the source image's height and width.' Lets just say it defines how the image will be stretched to match the output area on the canvas. There are four possible values for this property. These are -

None - The image isn't stretched.

Fill - The image will stretch to completely fill the output area. Hence if the image and the output area have different aspect ratio, this would result in distortion of the image.

Uniform - To avoid the distortion caused by Fill, in case the image and the output area are of different aspect ratio, we can use the value 'Uniform' which preserves the aspect ratio of the image.This is the default value.

UniformToFill - The image is stretched to fill the output area completely but also preserves its original aspect ratio. So in some cases the source content gets clipped to fit into the output area aspect ratio.

Examples-
The following code will display the image (which is roughly of the size 240*210), into an output area of 200*100 without stretching it.


<Canvas Width="200" Height="350"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007"

xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">
<Image Source="Image1.png" Stretch="None" Height="100"
Width="200" Canvas.Left="100"/>
</Canvas>

Here's low it would look.

Replace Stretch="None" with Stretch="Fill" (i.e, setting the Stretch value to 'Fill'), would give you the following result.

Now, set the stretch to 'Uniform',you'd see that the image had retained its original aspect ratio although it has become smaller to fit into the output area.

Setting the stretch property to 'UniformToFill' would give you the following result. As you can see, in this case, the aspect ratio of the image has been retained and it hasn't reduced in size to fit into the output area. Hence the complete image isn't visible. It has been clipped.

Opacity
Opacity is another important property of image (it applies to shapes as well). Opacity controls the transparency of any UIElement. The value of opacity can be between 0 and 1.0, where 1.0 means its completely opaque and 0 means its invisible.

How to use the 'Opacity' property.

The following code shows how to use the Opacity property.


<Canvas Width="300" Height="300"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">
<Image Source="Image1.png" Opacity="0.5"/>
</Canvas>

Windows Vista Run Commands

2008-05-26T13:17:00.000-07:00

Nirmal has posted a nice long list of Windows Vista Run commands in his blog, which can be handy for the Vista users!

Find the list here .

Drawing shapes with Silverlight

2008-05-26T03:27:00.000-07:00

Continuing from our first Silverlight tutorial. Today, lets learn how to draw a few basic shapes. If you are new to Silverlight please go through this guide to know how to set up your Silverlight project.

In this tutorial we would be mainly concerned with the XAML stuffs. Lets create some shapes -

Creating a Line

 <Line X1="0" Y1="100" X2="100" Y2="100"
     Stroke="black" StrokeThickness="5"/>

This example draws a horizontal line form (0,100) to (100,100). The Stroke="black", sets the outline black and StrokeThickness="5" sets the thickness of the outline as 5 px.

Creating an Ellipse

    <Ellipse
     Fill="Red"
     Height="100"
     Width="200"
     StrokeThickness="1"
     Stroke="Black"/>

This example draws an ellipse with 100px height and 200px width. Its has an outline(border) of 1px which is black. The ellipse is filled with red color. To draw a circle - just make the height and width equal.

Creating a Rectangle

<Rectangle Height="100" Width="200"
     Stroke="White" StrokeThickness="5" Fill="Red"/>

This draws a rectangle which is 200px wide and 100px in height. Its outline (border) is 5px thick and is colored white (Stroke="White").The rectangle is filled with red color. So we have a red rectangle with white border. Note that, if you make the height and width equal, it would form a square.

Creating a Polygon

<Polygon
      Points="10,50 50,12 190,27 230,200"  Fill="Pink"
      Stroke="Blue"
      StrokeThickness="2">    
</Polygon>

This draws a polygon like in the image The 'points' defines the positions of the polygon points. Then its filled with pink color and with a blue border of 2px thickness.

Creating a Polyline

<Polyline Points="0,20 40,12 190,27 230,200"
     Stroke="Green" StrokeThickness="5"/>

This draws a polyline . The 'points' defines the positions of the polyline points.

Creating a Path.

  <Path Stroke="Maroon" StrokeThickness="3"
   Data="M 10,100 C 50,25 100,120 100,175 H 200" />

This code draws a path like in the image below.

A path is comparatively most complicated to draw among all the shapes we have covered till now. You already know what 'Stroke' and 'StrokeThickness' does. Let me cover the Data part.

The Data attribute string here uses something called the 'Path Markup Syntax'. The M here indicates the 'move command'. Its like defining a start point for the path. The 'C' defines the cubic Bezier curve which in this case begins at (10,100) and ends at (100,175), and is drawn by using the two control points (50,25) and (100,120). The 'H' or the horizontal line command specifies a line which is drawn from where the sub-path defined by the 'C' ends (100,175), to a new endpoint (200,175). If you're wondering why only a X-co ordinate is specified in the 'H' block, please note that it is a horizontal line which starts from where the sub-path defined by 'C' block ends. Hence it doesn't need a Y- Co ordinate. I would cover this path markup syntax in details later. Meanwhile, if you have any questions - please use the comment box ;-)

How to embed Popfly Mashup in your website or blog.

2008-05-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

Few days back I blogged about how to create a basic Popfly mashup. Today lets learn how to embed the mashup you created in your website or blog. In this example I'd be embedding my popfly mashup http://www.popfly.com/users/kraftzy/Flickr%20Puppies in this blog post.

Login to Popfly and go to your profile page. Navigate to the space down your profile page where all the mashups and blocks created by you are listed. Find out the project you want to embed in your website or blog. If your mashup is not shared it would appear something like the image below .

Click on the share button to share the mashup. Once its shared, a new link would appear in teh project description, namely 'Mashout'. See the image below.

Clicking on MashOut would open a Pop-up window with various icons (live, facebook, reddit etc.,) on it. You would also find two links saying 'Link' and 'Embed' on top of the icons.

Click on 'Embed'. A textbox would appear with the embed code on it and a button to copy that code. Copy the Embed code and paste in on your website or blog where you want to embed the mashup. (This last part is just like embedding a youtube video.)

That's it! You've embedded your Popfly mashup on your blog. Below I have embedded the mashup http://www.popfly.com/users/kraftzy/Flickr%20Puppies . If you've Silverlight installed you can view it. Else go ahead and download the Silverlight runtime, its easy and hardly takes a minute.

Getting Started with Silverlight

2008-05-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

After weeks of skepticism whether or not it is worth checking out, I finally decided to find out what the fuss is about Microsoft Silverlight. And the first thing I realized is that I only wasted time by waiting for so long in deciding to dive into Silverlight. Let me tell you, its not a 'Flash Killer' as you might have read in many places. For whatever I have learned about Silverlight in last few days, there's not much which it can achieve and Flash/Flex can't (Though its premature for me to say that). But yeah, the technology looks very impressive and might in future pose serious threat to Flash/Flex if it goes down well with the developers. Anyway, I am not really bothered about which one of Silverlight and Flash would rule the web in the future.

The sole purpose of this article is to serve as a guide on how to get started developing with Silverlight, nothing else. So lets get started.

What is Silverlight :
The Silverlight website says "Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. By using Expression Studio and Visual Studio, designers and developers can collaborate more effectively using the skills they have today to light up the Web of tomorrow."

Some Silverlight Apps:
View Silverlight in action
http://silverlight.net/Showcase/

Tools I need to start Silverlight Development:
Essentials:-
First of all you'll need the Silverlight plug-in for your browser to render the Silverlight App. (Think of it as something like the flash player).
You need to install the Silverlight SDK.

Get all the tools to get you started here
http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/

Optionals:-
Depending on the kind of development environment you're comfortable with , you'd need any or all of these tools.

A text editor (Notepad, Textpad etc.)
You can also create silverlight project in Visual Studio by intsllaing the VS template. Or use Expression studio too. Howeverthis guide would focus on developing Silverlight apps with the classic notepad way. So, once you have the Silverlight SDK and plugin installed and have a text editor, we are ready to do some Silverlight stuffs.

Your First Silverlight Project :
Anatomy of a Silverlight project-
Typically a silverlight project has four files. An base html file which will host the silverlight instance.(Lets call this as index.html). silverlight.js file from the silverlight SDK. A XAML file, where you create all those shapes and objects and JavaScript file that supports the base HTML file (in a way you can say, provides backend code for the objects and events you create in the XAML file. Now lets create the HTML file first .

Create a new file in Notepad and save it as index.html. Copy paste the following code into the file.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC
"-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>My First Silverlight Project</title>
<script type="text/javascript" src="Silverlight.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="createSilverlight.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

What happens here- Notice the two lines within the head tag and after the title tag. These two lines adds a reference to the Silverlight.js and createSilverlight.js files. These file can be found in your installed silverlight SDK directory. For the sake of convenience copy these to files from the SDK directory to your Silverlight project directory.

Till this point we have only created a basic html file which includes a reference to Silverlight. But to display Silverlight content we also need to create a host html element. Simply put a div tag where the silverlight content would appear. In your html file, add the following code anywhere inside the body tag.

<div id="Sl_Content">
</div>

Now we need some more code to initialize the Silverlight block. Add these lines after the codes you just added.

<script type="text/javascript">
  var parentElement =
      document.getElementById("sl_Content");
  createMySilverlightPlugin();
</script>

Now your html file is ready. Noticed the line createMySilverlightPlugin() in the html file? This is the function that inititalises the Silverlight instance. If you're wondering where that function is, well we are going to create that now. Open the createSilverlight.js file in notepad and replace the content with the following code.

function createMySilverlightPlugin()
{
function createMySilverlightPlugin()
{
Silverlight.createObject(
  "myFirstSl.xaml",            
  parentElement,            
  "Sl_Content",   
  {                         
      width:'300',       
                            
      height:'300',         
                            
      inplaceInstallPrompt:false,
                            
                           
      background:'#D6D6D6',
      isWindowless:'false', 
                           
      framerate:'24',      
      version:'1.0'        
  },
  {
      onError:null,         
                           
      onLoad:null          
                            
  },
  null);                   
}

This function defines the name of the xaml file to use, size of the plug-in area, the background color and things like that. You can see that in the above function we have referenced 'myFirstSl.xaml' as the xaml file to use. Now its time to create the XAML file. In notepad create a new file and save it as myFirstSL.xaml. Add the following code and save the file.

<Canvas
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">
<Rectangle Height="100" Width="100" Canvas.Left="100" Canvas.Top="100"
Stroke="Black" StrokeThickness="10" Fill="SlateBlue"/>
</Canvas>

Now is a good time to have look at what we've done so far. View the index.html file in your browser you should see something like this.

You've created your first Silverlight project. But wait a minute it just displays a rectangle but doesn't respond to any event. Well lets add an event handler. Create a new .js file called backend.js and add a refernce to it in the index.html by adding the following line in index.html.

<script type="text/javascript" src="backend.js"></script>

Now we are going to add the event to the rectangle we created. Go back to the myFirstSl.xaml file you created and add 'MouseLeftButtonDown="rectangleclicked' before the closing rectangle tag. The file should now look like -

<Canvas
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">
<Rectangle Height="100" Width="100" Canvas.Left="100" Canvas.Top="100"
Stroke="Black" StrokeThickness="10" Fill="SlateBlue" MouseLeftButtonDown="rectangleclicked"/>
</Canvas>

What we did here is to tell the event handler to call the function rectangleclicked if left mouse button is clicked on the rectangle.

Now the one thing left to do is to define the 'rectangleclicked' function in the 'backend.js' file. Open backend.js and add the following code.

function rectangleclicked()
{
alert("You clicked");
}

Now refresh the index.html in your browser and click on the rectangle, an alert would be displayed. Thats the end of our first silverlight project.

I can see some of you as sighing what a drag it has been, and that it can be done in flash in a minute. I know . I know, but this was a basic project, you would be amazed at what you can do with silverlight as we move on to more advanced tutorials. Stay tuned for those.

Useful links for starters-
http://silverlight.net/Learn/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb404300.aspx
http://silverlight.net/forums/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms752059.aspx

HappyChecker - Rapidshare Happy Hours Checker Firefox Extension

2008-05-23T01:49:00.000-07:00

I finally got the time to finish my Firefox extension which alerts the user whenever Rapidshare happy hours are active. Was thinking of creating a vb.net application to do the same but decided to come out with the extension first, just because it is easier and more convenient to use. And I may build the windows application for the users who don't use FireFox, sometimes later.

The extension checks Rapidshare at regular intervals for happy hours and would display a message to inform the user whenever Happy hours are active. In case, you don't know, Rapidshare happy hours is the period of time when Rapidshare allows you to download a file without you having to go through their CAPTCHA.(the annoying Rapidshare 'Cats').

I would improve the extension in next version (to be released soon), by adding features like manually configuring the time interval to check for happy hours (currently it checks every 30 minutes), keyboard shortcuts to check on demand etc.

I have tested the extension in Firefox 2.0.0.x Please try out the extension and give your feedback, on features and report if you find any bugs,by commenting in this post. It would help me create a better version soon.

I've just submitted the extension to AMO, and its still showing under their experimental category. You can download it from the link below.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7353

Edit:
The extension doesn't have any user interface and hence it wouldn't show up anywhere in firefox. It works in the background and would display a message (like below) whenever happy hours is active.

Building a simple Popfly Mashup

2008-05-19T15:44:00.000-07:00

Microsoft popfly makes creating a mashups easy and fun. You can write a highly functional mash up in popfly without writing a single line of code. Its has a drag and drop interface where you can just select the blocks you want to use in your mash up and set some parameters, connect the blocks and that's all you need to do. Popfly will generate the code for you (which you don't even have to look into if you don't want!)

So let's take a look on how to create a mash up in Popfly. First of all, you need to create a popfly account. Go to http://www.popfly.com and create an account. Login and you'd be taken to the homepage which gives you the option of 'Create a Mashup', 'Create a Game ' & 'Create a Web Page'. For now we would bother only about 'Create a Mashup'. (I will cover the rest in future though!)

So to start creating our mashup lets click on the 'Create a Mashup' link. You would be taken to the mashup editor which is quite unlike the Google mashup editor or yahoo pipes. if you still didn't notice the difference,wait till this tutorial ends. Okay, lets get little familiar with the popfly interface. On the left side is what is called 'Blocks'. There are various categories of Blocks e.g., news, maps, shops etc. Click on any of these categories to expand it and view all available blocks. To use any of these block just drag and drop them to anywhere in the empty space in the center of the screen. On the top right corner is the link to save your project. Then there is the menu bar and just below the menubar is the Preview (To view your mashup) and clear (to start over) links.

Okay, I think thats enough of introduction, lets get something done! For this example, lets create a very simple mashup which displays a slideshow of images from flickr with a certain title.

We would be using two blocks in this mashup. One is the 'slideshow (found under Display) and another is the Flickr (found under Images& Video). First expand the Display category in the 'Blocks' list. Find the block 'Slideshow', drag it and drop on the empty area. You'll see a red 3D box with a tiny toolbar attached to it. Clicking on the wrench icon on the toolbar or double clicking on the 3D box will take you to the options we need to set like the image urls, title etc for the slideshow. But since we are taking images from flickr we first need to add the flickr block. Expand the images & Video , find the flickr block and drag and drop it on the design surface (empty space). A second red 3d box appears with the label 'flickr' and if you are doing it for the first time a message would appear which says 'Missing key' below the 'flickr' box. Click on the 'Missing Key' link and you'd be asked to enter flickr API key. Don't worry if you don't have any, just login to flickr and generate one. Once you have the API key we can start building the real mashup. Click on any of the blue circles in the flickr box and drag the arrow to the circle in the slideshow box which should change to yellow. If don correctly you would see an arrow pointing from flickr to the Slideshow box. Thats it, the two blocks are connected. if you watch carefully, a warning sign would be displayed in the Slideshow box. This is to tell you that though it has access to flickr data now that they are joined, it doesn't know how to use them. No worries, we will tell them now.

First lets fix the flickr block.
Click on the wrench to bring up the flickr options.
On the drop down box select 'getPhotos'. In the input boxes below type 'tulips' (thats what I used in the mashup, use your own value if you want), and set a sort priority of your choice. Click ok. Now this would show the flickr images with tulip in the title.

Now time to fix the Display block.
Again bring up the options clicking on the wrench. For url set flickr-->originalURl and for title set flickr-->title. Click ok. That's it, we're done. You've created your first Popfly mashup. How easier can it get? Now to view your mashup in action click on the 'preview' button above. Just remember to edit anything or to comeback to the design view click on 'Customize' at the bottom of the page.

This is a very simple example of a mashup just to give an idea of what popfly is about. I would bring in more complex mashups with more features in the future.

<<>>

Autocorrect URL typos in FireFox address bar

2008-05-18T05:41:00.000-07:00

Although, it's a popular extension already I am posting about it for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know of it yet! This firefox extension corrects typos in URLs that you enter in the address bar. For example, if you type google.con, it will correct it to google.com . Quite handy if you are prone to commiting those typos frequently.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2871

How to check your broadband speed

2008-05-18T04:49:00.000-07:00

Want to check if you are getting the broadband speed as promised by your ISP? Here are some places you can check the download and upload speed of your broadband connection. The results may vary a little.

http://speedtest.net/
http://www.testmy.net/d_load.php
http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest
http://www.auditmypc.com/broadband-speed-test.asp
http://promos.mcafee.com/speedometer/test_0150.asp
http://www.intel.com/cd/personal/computing/emea/eng/383655.htm

For firefox users, there's also an extension called 'Broadband Speed Test and Diagnostics' which can check your broadband speed and also perform other diagnostic tests like connectivity, ping and traceroute etc.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2360

Download 'The Photoshop Anthology' eBook for free

2008-05-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

Sitepoint is giving away free ebook version of Corrie Haffly’s "The Photoshop Anthology Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques", normaly worth $26.37 (paperback). About the book, sitepoint says

It’s brimming with tried and tested real-world Photoshop solutions that will add
impact to your next web design project. If you’ve ever been stuck for
inspiration, have puzzled over just how to create a shiny aqua-style button, or
wanted to create that seamlessly tiling background image you saw on a site
recently, you need to download this book.

You can check it on Amazon here
Download the ebook for free

Xbox 360 sold over 10 million units in the U.S

2008-05-14T23:54:00.000-07:00

MS says that the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system has sold over 10 million units in the US, making it the first current-generation gaming console to break the 10 million mark in the U.S. Xbox LIVE tops 12 million members globally as Xbox 360 console sales hit more than 19 million worldwide. Some impressive stats! Read the story here

Free $80.00 Amazon Gift Certificate

2008-05-13T22:51:00.000-07:00

'Adesblog' has a contest running which is giving away Amazon gift certificate worth $80.00, what you have to do is very simple, just subscribe to the RSS of the site and send a snapshot of your subscription. Details of the contests is here ...

Coming back soon...

2008-05-04T05:12:00.000-07:00

The blog has not been updated for a while off late. The reason- well I have been busy with a project which needed to be finished within a tight deadline. No, its not over yet although its near completion and I just took some time off (and logged in to a good news ) , so I could write something in my blog.

Its because of that same project that I had to brush up my rusty vb.net knowledge. Though, I was an avid VB programmer in those days, I had never mastered VB.net and also had not practiced Vb for a long time. And thats the reason I was hiding from this world all these days in the corner of my room, learning VB and Vb.net all over again (plus a bit of ASP.net). Anyway, The job would be over soon, and I would be back to make regular posts in my blog. And this time I am thinking of writing on more programming topics. Just a way to keep myself in practice. See ya!

Javascript in VB.Net webpage

2008-04-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

Using javascript in an ASP.net webpage can sometimes do small wonders. It can reduce some coding and also can be efficient at times. Lets look at an example on how to do this.

Consider this ASP.net page.


<%@ Page Language="VB" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeFile="Default.aspx.vb" Inherits="_Default" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
   <title>Javascript-ASP.NET Example</title>
</head>
<body>
   <form id="form1" runat="server">
   <div>
        <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Show Javascript Alert" />
   <br />
   </div>
   </form>
</body>
</html>

The page has only one (Just to keep things simple) with the label "Show Javascript Alert". Now before doing some tasks when the user clicks on the button you may sometimes want to display a message to the user or may even ask for a confirmation whether to go ahead. This can be easily done adding a javascript alert and associating it with the button.

Lets say you want to use a javascript alert 'if (! confirm('Continue?')) return false;' to ask the user 'Continue?' and do something if user clicks Yes and Do Nothing if No is clicked. Go to the VB source file of the page and at the Page_Load () event add 'Button1.Attributes.Add("OnClick", "javascript:if (! confirm('Continue?')) return false;")'. This is considering that the Button's id is Button1. Now view the page in your browser and click on the button , you should see the Javascript alert.

What happens here:

If you go back and have a look at the Default.aspx page source, you'll see

<asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Show Javascript Alert" />

This is the line of code which creates the Button and labels it "Show Javascript Alert". But as you can see there's no OnClick event. So the button doesn't do anything till this point.

Now go to the Default.aspx.vb to view the back end VB code of the page. We've added '

Button1.Attributes.Add("OnClick", "javascript:if (! confirm('Continue?')) return false;")

' in the Page_Load () event. This is where the buttons 'OnClick' even is defined. One important thing to notice here is that the 'OnClick' doesn't replace the 'Button1_Click' event of the button, in fact 'Button1_Click' gets executed right after the user responds to the OnClick. So we can put whatever action we want to perform if the user says 'Continue' in the Button1_Click() event.

Now load the page in your browser and view the HTML source. Most likely you'd see something like this :


<input type="submit" name="Button1" value="Show Javascript Alert" onclick="javascript:if (! confirm('Continue?')) return false;" id="Button1" />

As you can see the 'Button1.Attributes.Add' does the magic here. It lets you add methods to a control. Here we just added the 'OnClick' to the control Button1.

Microsoft getting impatient with Yahoo! Issues 'threat'

2008-04-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

Looks like MS is getting impatient with Yahoo for their lack of response to it's takeover offer. Microsoft has sent out a letter to the Yahoo board of directors terming the pace of the last two months as anything but speedy. The letter also notes that 'there has been no meaningful negotiation to conclude an agreement.' between the two companies. MS also argues that its offer has become more significant today due to a weakening economy.

The letter ends with a mild 'threat' that if no agreement is reached within the next three weeks than MS could take the case directly to the shareholders and initiate proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo! board.

Surely MS is impatient to get yahoo!

Read the full content of the letter here ...

New wine in old linux

2008-04-04T15:20:00.000-07:00

The new version of the well known windows emulator onlinux, Wine 0.9.59 is out. The important new features in this version includes --

Improved support for the .NET framework.

Better services handling through a separate services.exe process.

Support for ATI fragment shader.

Better support for http proxies.

Window management fixes.

Pre-compiled fonts are now available in the source tree.

Lots of bug fixes.

It can be downloaded from

Sources

http://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/system/emulators/wine/wine-0.9.59.tar.bz2

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wine/wine-0.9.59.tar.bz2

Binary

http://www.winehq.org/site/download

Even if you are an avid linux user, sometimes you just can't replace some windows applications. May be because there aren't much alternative available or just may be because you are too used to it. Whatever the reason is, wine surely makes life easier by letting us run those windows apps in linux . So if you are one of the regular wine users, go ahead check the new version out.

And yeah, I know the post title sucks! ;-)

Rickrolled by Google

2008-04-02T00:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, what do you call a blogging service which will-

automatically populate your blog’s sidebar with the most relevant possible content.
Post directly into Google search results for maximum visibility.
Header will stay fresh with new images from Google's team of artists
Unsure of what to post, a click on a button would make an automatic post?

'Unbelievable!' Well, April Fool's prank would be a better way to describe it. Check out the latest blogger buzz if you've not done yet. And see it for yourself. Do i need to tell you where the you tube link would take you?

http://buzz.blogger.com/2008/04/announcing-google-weblogs-beta.html

First commercial Microsoft Surface launch to begin on April 17

2008-04-02T00:14:00.000-07:00

The first commercial Microsoft Surface launch to begin April 17 in select AT&T stores.

Yes, in a press release MS says -

"AT&T will become the first company in the world to bring Microsoft Surface to life in a retail environment, giving customers the ability to explore their mobile worlds using touch and device recognition technology. Microsoft Surface is the first commercially available surface computer from Microsoft. Beginning April 17, customers can experience Microsoft Surface in select AT&T retail locations, including stores in New York City, Atlanta, San Antonio and San Francisco. Based on the success and learning from these initial pilot deployments, plans for further expansion across AT&T’s 2,200 U.S. retail stores will be determined."

Full text here ..

19 Free Online Password Generators and password Strength checkers

2008-03-31T00:47:00.000-07:00

Password Generators

Choosing your password can be a difficult task if you want to make it strong and also easy to remember. Thats where password generators can help us. With a single click we can generate single or multiple passwords and if you don't like the password just click again to generate another. It saves a lot of brainstorming especially if you are used to think up a few new passwords everyday for new registration, unless you use a single password for all your accounts. (which is very risky IMO, imagine if you lose the password, you lose all your accounts!)

Here's a list of online password generators and strength checkers which you can use to make a stronger password.

Good Password

You can set the length of the password (min 4 but it recommends min 12 for a strong password) and other parameters to include like numbers, case of letters etc and also what characters you want to exclude. Select your options and hit generate your string password would be generated instantly

PCtools Secure Password Generator

To quote them

The PC Tools Password Generator allows you to create random passwords that are highly secure and extremely difficult to crack or guess due to an optional combination of lower and upper case letters, numbers and punctuation symbols.

The interface is almost similar to the above one. select your options and click generate to get your strong password. It would even display the phonetics of the password.

Free password Generator

Specify which type of letter you want to use in your password. Including string letters, case to use, digits to use and symbols. Select the desired length of the password and click generate.

Strong Password Generator

Just select the length and whether symbols to be included or not and click on 'Generate Password'. Your password would be generated along with a hint to remember it. Like the one in the picture. '

Webcogs Random Password Generator

No configuration to make. The webpage would provide you with ten randomly generated passwords when its loaded. The passwords includes alphabets and numbers though I didn't see any symbols in them.

Phonetic Password Generator

To quote them

It was originally designed to help make up passwords that would be easy to remember but relatively difficult for nefarious types to guess. The best way to do this is a pattern of letters that sounds like a word but is not, in fact is total nonsense. The generator now supports two phonetic patterns. With either one, it will probably take a few tries to find a password you like

You can select options like what you want to include in your password (vowels, consonant, numbers and special) and also the pattern and then generate your password.

Strong Password Generator

It generates a password using a set of random data such as your browser, window position, timer, mouse etc. You can also provide your own random string.

You can select the password length and the bit strength and generate your password. It would also show how strong your password is once its been generated and also how effective protection it would give you.

Online Password Generator

Apart from presenting you with 10 random password when the page is loaded, you can also choose from options like the length of the password and characters to include and generate passwords.

Techzoom Password Generator

Similar interface to most of the password generator sites. Choose your options and generate the password. You can also generate multiple passwords at once just by selecting how many passwords to be generated. There is also a short guideline on how to create strong passwords.

Passbuilder

Very similar interface with most of the online password generator but with a few different type of memory aids to chose from so you can remember your password easily.

Getpasswd

The page loads with long list of generated passwords. Refresh the page to get a new list.

4webhelp Password Generator

Select the length and how strong you want your password to be (Everyday Use, Medium Strength, Strong Encryption) and generate your password.

Secure Random Password Generator

Set the password pattern and length to generate your password.

Password Strength Checkers

Microsoft Password Checker

Just enter your password in the text box and you can see the strength (weak, medium, strong, best) in the bar below

Securitystats Password Security Checker

Enter your password and see how strong is it in a progress bar with starting value of 'Weak' to Ending value 'Strong'

Rumkin.com password strength test

Enter your password and view how strong it is. It would also tell you details like charset size,

entropy and give you tips on improving your password if its found to be a weak one.

Simple password strength checker

View the strength of the password in the color bar below as you type it.

Cornell University Password Strength Checker

Simple password strength checker.

The Password Meter

It shows the strength of your password in % and also gives detailed information like different chars used, cases used and many more.

Note : Given the debate that is always on about the dependability of password generators and strength checkers and the risk factors involved (if at all) of using these, use this tools only at your own risk. However I really don't see much of a trouble to use these stuffs and in fact these should come in handy.

Can mobile phones kill you?

2008-03-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

Could mobile phones kill more people than smoking or asbestos? Thats what is concluded by a award-winning cancer expert. The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation. What's scary is that it says using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer.

Read the full story here ...

Free forum/Community builder software

2008-03-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

Look beyond vBulletin. If you are planning to add a forum or bulletin board to your site and don't want to spend a lot on the platform, the good news is that there are a lot of free alternatives available. Here are a few listed below, leave a comment if I have missed out on something.

SMF

A free community software based on PHP and MySQL. Complete feature list -

http://www.simplemachines.org/about/features.php

phpBB is one of the most widely used Open Source forum solution. Version 3.0 incorporates a professional-quality modular design, high security, multiple-language interface, support for a multitude of database servers and complete layout customisation, all with a low execution overhead. Complete feature set can be found here http://www.phpbb.com/about/features/

bbPress

From the creators of WordPress, bbPress is focused on web standards, ease of use, ease of integration, and speed.

View live here http://bbpress.org/forums/

Beehive Forum

a PHP/MySQL discussion forum with frame-based layout, for easy navigation.

View live forum http://www.beehiveforum.net/forum/

Dolphin

Impressive community builder based on PHP/MySQL With dolphin you can create dating sites, social networks, content sharing portalsThough free, it requires a fee of $39/yr if you want to remove the links to publisher.

IceBB

Try it here http://icebb.net/demo/

nextBBS

nextBBS is an open-source Internet forum system written in PHP and its currently running its public beta.

UseBB

UseBB is a light and Open Source PHP 4 and MySQL based forum package, distributed freely under the GPL license.

Try it here - http://www.usebb.net/community/forum.php?id=7

Vanilla

Vanilla is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the web.

Scan a file for virus online with multiple AntiVirus

2008-03-29T01:18:00.000-07:00

Need to check a file for virus but don't have any antivirus installed on your PC. Well, why don't do it online? And how about scanning it with more than one Antivirus, all for a single click. VirusTotal lets you upload the suspected file and then scan it with several AV engines and displays the result returned by each of them. Its quite easy to use.

You can even email your file to scan@virustotal.com with 'SCAN' as the subject line and attaching the file (within 10mb)

But don't uninstall your Antivirus yet. This online solution doesn't give you real-time protection and is only suitable for on demand scanning of single individual files.

How to remove / hide the blogger Navbar

2008-03-28T02:07:00.000-07:00

Personally the blogger navbar doesn't bother me (well, not till now!) and so it stays there. But for the ones who are bugged to see this navbar and want to remove it here's how -

Login to your blogger account and from the dashboard go to Layout--> Edit HTML. Go through the code to find section of code starting like 'Navbar1' or 'Navbar-iframe' or something similar (depending on your template) and modify the content between the braces replacing the previous codes with the following. (Make sure you backup your full template first before modifying anything in case anything goes wrong)

height:0px;
visibility:hidden;
display:none;

Now save the HTML and view your blog. The navbar should be gone.

Free Online Guitar Chord Dictionaries

2008-03-27T01:56:00.000-07:00

Okay so my guitar mania continues. After bringing out lists of Guitar tuner , Metronomes and mobile tools for guitarist today I am posting a list of online Guitar chord dictionaries. One of the difficult tasks for a beginner in guitar is to find and know the different chords formation. What adds to the confusion is that a chord can be played in many different formations. This is where the Chord dictionaries comes handy. I have listed only free and online dictionaries in the post (may be I would do a post in standalone dictionaries later) which doesn't need any kind of registration. (I hate feeling out those forms for each and every damn thing, don't you?). Anyway if I have left out some good free online chord dictionaries which you know of please comment and let me know.

Guitar basics chord dictionary
Huge database of guitar chords. The chords are presented in a simple easy to understand [0 0 0 0 0 0] like format but absolute beginners can find it a bit tough without the graphical notations portraying the guitar neck. But again, they have a short guide which explains the notations nicely.

Howard's Big List of Guitar Chords
This one hase over 42,000 guitar chords listed! To view the chord shapes, click on the root note of the chord you want to find and select the chord you want from the list of shapes for that chord.

About.com Guitar Chord Library
A chord dictionary with easy to understand graphical notations.

MoneyChords Guitar Chord Dictionary
A 50 page Guitar Chord Dictionary,

World Star Guitar Chord Dictionary
An interactive guitar chord dictionary. Select the Key and the tuning and then the chord and you can view the chord in a graphical notations (easy for beginners to understand)

VideoGuitarLessons Chord Dictionary

Not a huge chord list but very easy to understand for beginners with a nice interactive way to find and view chords.

Pompidula Basic Guitar Chord Dictionary
Decent database of guitar chords with a easy to use interface.

Amazing licks Guitar Chord Dictionary
A simple to use chord dictionary.

Guitar Chord Explorer by Michael Hogg

Impressive online tool to find guitar chords with a easy to use interface and many options to select from, needs Java.

GuitarTabsChordsChords Dictionary
Not a huge list of chords but simple interface, easy on beginners.

Guitar Consultant Guitar Chords
Over 1,500 Free Online Guitar Chords

Ultimate Guitar Chord Chart
Over 1200 guitar chord positions! PDF format also available.

Add Rating star/ rate post widget to your blog

2008-03-27T01:12:00.000-07:00

Always wondering after making a new blog post what the readers think about it? Well now there's a way to know it instantly. Add the rating star widget to your blog and get immediate feedback from readers about your post. Its available free of charge and can also be used with TypePad, WordPress (hosted) or Drupal platforms besides Blogger.

So now readers can rate your post easily.

How to add a Privacy Policy to a blogger blog (Adsense requirement)

2008-03-24T04:42:00.000-07:00

The updated Google Adsense Terms and Conditions makes it mandatory for your site or blog to have a Privacy Policy. Though I am not using Adsense on my blog yet (and so I still don't have a privacy policy), I am posting this guide for the bloggers who display adsense on their blog but don't have a clue on how to add a privacy policy to a blogger blog.

First you need your privacy policy to be ready. You can do a google search to find from a variety of templates or you can use one specifically for adsense . Choose a template and make changes to it as per your specific requirements. Once you have your own privacy policy ready its now time to post it.

As blogger don't have a static page feature, we need a little trick. We are going to backdate the privacy policy post to a very old date. Create a new post with a title like 'Privacy Policy' , so that its easy to recognize its purpose. Copy paste the content of the privacy policy you have just prepared. Click on the 'Post Options' (on the bottom left side) to see the date time option. set the date to a very old date so that your privacy policy doesn't show up as just another new post in your blog and click publish.

There, your privacy policy is ready. Now one last thing to do is to post a link to your privacy policy from your blogs index page. One you've published your 'privacy policy' post, view it on a browser and copy the permalink for the post. Now add this link as a sidebar widget from the Layout--> Add a page element. You can either create a list with other useful links and put your privacy policy link there or you can just create a single link to your privacy policy with href tag.

Thats it! Your blogger blog privacy policy is ready. Any issues please feel free to ask!

New Layout !

2008-03-20T03:27:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed the changes in my blogs appearance. Well, I finally created my own blogger layout. I had been planning to do this for quite some time, but due to time constraint, it took me a while to learn the basics of a blogger layout and how to create one yourself. As you can see the layout of this blog isn't complete yet and some fine tuning is required before it becomes a nice layout, but I was too impatient to see how it looked on my blog and so I just applied the layout.

I would be making changes to the layout now (the fine tunings!) and at the same time I am planning to make more layouts and put it up here for download (for free of course!). But it may take some time as I am yet to learn some more tricks and may be need a little more practice. Once I have a few good layouts ready, I would put those up here. So don't forget to keep checking this space. And you can also provide me with ideas, tips and mabbe just a word if you like, it would be appreciated.

FUEL for firefox extension developer

2008-03-18T01:29:00.000-07:00

If you are a firefox extension developer or planning to be one, here's some good news for you. Mozilla has introduced a JavaScript Library to simplify many of your most common tasks. Named as 'FUEL' this JavaScript Library is designed to help developers build extensions using terminology and interfaces that are familiar to them. It is new in Firefox 3 and will be backported to Firefox 2 as well.

To quote Mozilla Dev Center

FUEL is about making it easier for extension developers to be productive, by minimizing some of the XPCOM formality and adding some "modern" JavaScript ideas. We want to start with areas that will provide the most benefit.

Find out more here ..

Two hands not enough for social networking. Get 8 hands!

2008-03-07T20:24:00.000-08:00

8hands is a desktop application which simplifies your experience with social networking sites. You certainly have multiple accounts in different social networking sites like MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr etc. How much time do you spend on them each day and how much effort does it take to browse and refresh those pages and tabs again and again. Now save yourself the trouble and let your 8hands handle it all. With 8hands you can organize and optimize your different online profiles from one place, while receiving real time notifications of your events. You can also get notifications of new comments, messages, friend requests, videos, feeds etc. in real time, IM and share online content with your friends, drag and drop your YouTube videos, Flickr pictures and more into the chat window, receive summaries and statistics on your social networking activities, easily access your community locations from a single entry point.

Currently the networks supported by 8hands are :-
Facebook
Flickr
MySpace
YouTube
WordPress
Twitter
LiveJournal
Blogger
FeedBurner
TypePad

And they plan to add soon to the list :-
Friendster
Xanga
Last.fm
Bebo

8hands can be termed as an essential tool for anyone addicted to these networking sites. You can find out more about 8hand /download here.

Desktop Clients for del.icio.us

2008-03-07T19:17:00.000-08:00

A desktop client for del.icio.us lets you do almost everything you usually do on del.icio.us, like post new bookmark, tag etc from your own desktop without having to use a browser. Here are a few such clients which you can use to manage your del.icio.us account from your desktop.

Delicer
Delicer is a desktop program which allows you to manage your whole delicious account, easily search for your own tags, post new, rename existing, and delete old tags etc.

Cocoalicious
Cocoalicious is an open source del.icio.us client for Mac OS X. It acts as a desktop interface to your del.icio.us bookmarks.

Netlicious
Netlicious is a desktop client for del.icio.us. It's for Windows and requires dot NET 2.0 Framework

Know what's behind those links before you click them

2008-03-07T17:49:00.000-08:00

Not knowing what's actually behind those links on a webpage can sometimes result in some annoying experiences. For example, how annoying is it when unsuspectingly you click on a link thinking it would take you to another html page when suddenly the adobe acrobat splash screen pops up and your browser freezes for a second. Damn, it was a pdf link, is what you say to yourself. Not anymore!

Here's this firefox extension which comes to your rescue. It changes the cursor when you place it over a link to indicate the type of target of that link. It shows you if the target of a link opens is a new window, if its a secure site link, email link, Word document, PDF file, ZIP file, Images, RSS link etc. etc. So, you can have complete control on the type of link you would open and the type you don't want to.The current version of the extension works with Firefox: 1.5b1 to 2.0.0.

Watch screen shot of the extension at work.

Download the extension here.

Get free live tech support / promote your tech expertise

2008-03-07T16:07:00.000-08:00

Is your PC acting funny? Don't worry now you can get live tech support for your computer issues for free.

CrossLoop is a freeware desktop sharing utility which enables users to connect with their trusted contacts to recieve help on their computers. With CrossLoop people can help their contacts remotely as if they were working side by side. CrossLoop enables you to see the screen and control the mouse and keyboard on a remote computer. Popular uses for CrossLoop range from technical assistance to trouble-shooting to software and application training, such as how to set up a blog or create videos online.

CrossLoop is also secured. It encrypts all files and messages exchanged on the network to ensure user privacy. A CrossLoop session can only begin on your computer by explicitly inviting someone to begin a session. All data sent over the CrossLoop network is encrypted at the endpoints using a 128-bit Blowfish encryption.

With a free CrossLoop account (though not necessary for using desktop screen sharing application) you can access your history of all the CrossLoop sessions you’ve had, including who you had a session with (if known), the purpose of the session (if provided), and the time, date, and duration of the session and rate the people you have CrossLoop sessions with and share your comments.So if you are an expert on the subject and are a frequent helper, it would help build your credentials and promote your expertise.

System Requirements :
Currently it works only on the Windows OS- Windows 2000 or newer, including Vista- Pentium 500MHz +- 128 MB RAM or greater- 2 MB hard drive space- Broadband Internet Connection (works on Dial-up but Broadband recommended)

You can view some CrossLoop screenshots here

Download CrossLoop

Another free screen recorder

2008-03-06T19:33:00.000-08:00

Here's a new addition to my list of screencasting softwares, published quite a while back. TipCam is an easy to use screen recorder for windows (XP and Vista). It can record upto 20 minutes of video and the recorded videos are ready for sharing instantly. You can also add your voice to the screen recording. There's also a Facebook application for sharing your videos on Fecebook.

Fore more details and download

Preview and navigate Firefox tab contents through popup.

2008-03-06T18:42:00.000-08:00

If you don't already know, let me introduce one of my favorite firefox extension, Tab Scope!

This useful Firefox extension shows a popup on tabs and enables you to preview and navigate tab contents through popup. Its major features are : -

Real-time preview of tab contents, Navigate through popup, Scroll pages or frames in preview with mouse wheel, Click links or buttons directly in preview. This extension is avilable for firefox versions 1.5 to 3.0b4pre.

Download it here .

Three Ways To Convert Your Powerpoint Presentation (.PPT) To Flash (.SWF) For Free

2008-03-06T17:26:00.000-08:00

Converting a Powerpoint presentation to flash can have many advantages like smaller size, better web integration etc. There are many commercial options available to convert powerpoint (ppt) files to flash (swf). However you may not want to invest on such softwares if you need this functionality once in a blue moon. So, here I have described three ways to convert those powerpoint to flash absolutely free of charge.

authorPOINT Lite-Free PowerPoint to Flash converter :

authorPOINT Lite is a free PowerPoint to Flash converter that converts PowerPoint presentations to Flash. authorPOINT Lite works as a desktop application. Once installed, it can import and convert unlimited PowerPoint presentations to Flash files.

FileFormatInfo Online PowerPoint to Flash Conversion:

This free online service converts from PowerPoint (.PPT extension) to Flash (.SWF extension) using OpenOffice via JodConverter.The interface is quite simple, just browse to your powerpoint file and click the start button to start conversion. After the conversion you'll be taken to a new page with the download link for the converted flash file on it. Click and download the flash file. The downside of this is that it allows .PPT files of upto only 5MB to be converted.

Zamzar

Converting your powerpoint presentation to flash with this online file converter (where you can convert among hundreds of other file formats) is very easy. Just upload your powerpoint (.ppt) file , select 'swf' as the output format ,enter your email address and hit the 'Convert' button. The download link to the converted file would be sent to your email from which you can download the output flash file

How to Backup your Blogger Blog

2008-03-06T16:05:00.000-08:00

You may want to take a backup of your blog for many reasons. May be you are moving to a new platform (Blogger to Wordpress for example), may be you keep accidentally deleting your posts or may be you just want to be safe, in case. But Blogger does not have any tool which provide bloggers to backup their blog. But here's a feature built right into Blogger which can be used as a way to backup your blog posts. Well this doesn't involve any third party tool and its not a full fledged back up solution. However it is effortless on your part and is effective as you will have a back up of all of your posts. It involves the BlogSend feature of blogger.

To enable this feature, login to your Blogger account, and from your dashboard click on Settings --> Email. You will see two fields here the 'BlogSend Address' and the 'Mail-to-Blogger Address'. The 'Mail-to-Blogger' Address is the email you set up to create a new post just by emailing to that address. For now our concern is the 'BlogSend Address'. Enter your email address here and save the Settings. Once you have set up 'BlogSend with your email id, every new post that you make would be emailed to you. Don't set up more than one email id as the posts would be sent only to one email address. This way you would have a backup of every post of your blog right in your inbox. Create a separate folder for those emails and save them in that folder for easier access when you need them.

It's out - Internet Explorer 8 available for download

2008-03-05T16:27:00.000-08:00

Well, it came as somewhat unexpectedly at this point of time. Microsoft has announced that their next generation web browser Internet Explorer 8 is out. The Internet Explorer 8 Beta is available for download now. Some worthy features of IE 8 include the whole new links bar, Automatic Crash Recovery, Improved Phishing Filter, Facebook Integration, WebSlices (a feature for websites to connect to their users by subscribing to content directly within a webpage) etc. Read the complete list of new features

The Beta version is currently available for :
Microsoft Windows Vista® Service Pack 1 (SP1) Windows Vista
Windows XP® Service Pack 2 (SP2) Windows Server® 2008
Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2)

Download Internet Explorer 8 Beta here

Get rid of the 'There are unused icons on your desktop' Popup in Windows XP

2008-03-04T03:44:00.000-08:00

I find the Windows XP popup balloon asking to cleanup unused icons on the desktop very annoying. And if you too feel the same way, there's a way to disable it.
Go to desktop properties by right clicking on the desktop and select the Desktop tab (the one where you probably change your wallpapers). Click on the Customize Desktop button. In the new dialog that comes up, uncheck the option "Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard every 60 days" and click OK . That's it. You just go rid of that nagging balloon.