Wroogle

Google To Test 1 GB per Second Internet Connection In 2011

2010-10-26T09:39:00.000+05:30

Internet search giant, Google, last week announced a plan to test an ultra high-speed broadband network at Stanford University in 2011.

Incidentally, Stanford is also where Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, attended. The company will provide high speed access to over 800 staff-owned and faculty members based on Stanford’s Palo Alto, California, campus.

This connection will provide high speed internet access at about 100 times the current average connection speeds, up to 1 GB (gigabit) per second. Using Fiber-optic technology, the company plans to break ground on the project in early 2011.

Also earlier this year, Google announced plans to offer a similar service on a trial basis in one or more locations in the United States, which would allow them to test the network with at least 50,000 people or even more. It is not yet known where these location(s) will be, as Google will only announce the winning community(s) towards the end of this year.

Among Google’s many offerings are also a much faster internet browser called, Google Chrome. Among some of the positive attributes is that the actual display area of the browser is noticeable bigger than for instance Internet Explorer and Firefox

Google’s products seem to keep evolving, with the company branching out into various other areas of business and product offerings to its vast user network.

How To Tell If The Image Is Fake Or Original?

2010-10-18T09:33:00.001+05:30

Many a times we come across images where we are stuck into thinking if it is original or photoshopped (fake). Image Error Level Analyzer or simply ELA, is a free web service which helps you in determining if the photo is real or not.

How does it work?

Error Level Analysis allows you see to see the difference in quality level, represented by brightness. Things which are very bright have been edited most recently, whilst duller parts have been resaved multiple times. This allows you to see not just which parts of the image have been changed, but in what order the changes occurred.

You just have to provide an image URL and hit Process. It will then analyze the image and show results instantly after the processing is complete. You can easily compare and tell if the image is original or modified using Photoshop or any other image editor.

So here you go Visit Error Level Analysis Website

Google URL-shortener goes public

2010-10-02T03:21:00.001+05:30

Google's URL shortener Goo.gl has launched its open service and companion website to the public.

Goo.gl was originally a proprietary way for Google to abbreviate its Web addresses within services such as Google News (for saving article links) or Google Maps (for sending a location).

The new Goo.gl website will abbreviate your links and store them for you to view later or share with others.

Google says it is also using special provisions to prevent blind links from leading to malware or dangerous websites.

But Google is entering a super-crowded arena. TinyURL has been abbreviating Web addresses for nearly a decade, and the advent of Twitter has encouraged more sophisticated abbreviators, like bit.ly, which allow people to organize and search through their saved links.

Bluetooth 3.0 + HR now up to 7 times faster

2009-06-08T14:42:00.001+05:30

For the past 11 years, Bluetooth technology has played a very significant role in the way we transfer data between our electronic devices, and now Bluetooth technology will be getting an even faster version.

The new Bluetooth 3.0 + HS is said to have transfer speeds of approximately 24Mbps. That is up from the current 3Mbps for the 2.0 + EDR version, which means the new version will be approximately 7 times faster than the current version.

This is likely to open up a whole new range of applications for the nifty little device. As might be assumed, computer and mobile manufacturers are already showing interest, but that's not all: The device is also attracting attention from television manufacturers.

Bluetooth 3.0 + HS will not only boast an increased transfer rate, but it will also run on a more energy efficient system, thus saving mobile devices power that have the device installed. One could call this an evolution of sorts. Imagine your mobile device, whether it be a laptop or a mobile phone transferring data files like photos and music up to 7 times faster, yet using less power. That's efficiency.

It is estimated that Bluetooth 3.0 + HR should be available within about a year, so we should see the device making its way onto the market during, or just after, the 1st quarter of 2010.

It seems that Bluetooth technology is one of those technologies that are likely here to stay, given its worldwide use.

Bluetooth is widely used in electronic and mobile devices such as mobile phones and laptops, and gives the user the ability to wirelessly transfer large files such as music or media between two compatable devices without the need to connect the devices with a cable or connecting wire.

Microsoft's Brand-New "Bing"

2009-06-05T18:34:00.003+05:30

Microsoft's new weapon aimed at Google and Yahoo! search was just announced: it's called Bing.

Microsoft says Bing includes a "decision engine." So when a user goes to Bing to shop for a product, Microsoft deploys something called a "Sentiment Extraction" feature to scour the Internet for opinions and reviews. To make a travel decision, for example, "Bing Travel" will compare prices and amenities of hotels and provide a color-coded key of the best values.

"Bing was developed as a tool to help people more easily navigate through the information overload that has come to characterize many of today's search experiences," Microsoft said in a statement. Bing also has a revamped interface. For example, it groups search results by topic category and has a "hover" feature--if you put your mouse over a link, you can preview a page before visiting it.

Overall, it's the latest attempt from a major search engine to give users more than just Web links, and rather get them directly to the piece of information they want (about a health condition, for example) or facilitate the action they want to complete (such as making a travel reservation or a purchase).

In his statement, Ballmer said: "When we set out to build Bing, we grounded ourselves in a deep understanding of how people really want to use the Web. Bing is an important first step forward in our long-term effort to deliver innovations in search that enable people to find information quickly and use the information they've found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions."

But, of course, we'll have to wait and see how Bing actually works.

Google Wave

2009-06-05T09:12:00.003+05:30

Google Wave is a new communication service announced by Google at Google I/O. "A wave is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."

The service seems to combine Gmail and Google Docs into an interesting free-form workspace that could be used to write documents collaboratively, plan events, play games or discuss a recent news.

Google Wave has been designed by the founders of Where 2 Tech, a start-up acquired by Google to create a cutting-edge mapping service, which later became Google Maps.

"Back in early 2004, Google took an interest in a tiny mapping startup called Where 2 Tech, founded by my brother Jens and me. We were excited to join Google and help create what would become Google Maps. But we also started thinking about what might come next for us after maps. As always, Jens came up with the answer: communication. He pointed out that two of the most spectacular successes in digital communication, email and instant messaging, were originally designed in the '60s to imitate analog formats — email mimicked snail mail, and IM mimicked phone calls. Since then, so many different forms of communication had been invented — blogs, wikis, collaborative documents, etc. — and computers and networks had dramatically improved. So Jens proposed a new communications model that presumed all these advances as a starting point; I was immediately sold," explains Lars Rasmussen.

"In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content -- it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use "playback" to rewind the wave to see how it evolved."

You can see some screenshots of the service and find some details about the API that could be used to extend the service and the Wave protocol that allows anyone to run a "wave" server. Google promises that Google Wave will be available later this year.

Google Squared Is Live

2009-06-05T08:57:00.002+05:30

Google Squared is live, and it’s a lot of fun... albeit the info presented is far from always being accurate. Here’s how you use it: just enter the name of a group of things, say, I entered comic book character. Google Squared then calculates for a bit, and presents you with a table of attributes. In the case of comic book characters, the automatically found columns were name, image, description, publisher, first appearance, and author.

The cells shown are all very fitting in this case, but the values are sometimes wrong. For instance, while Wolverine’s publisher is indeed “Marvel Comics” and his first appearance is indeed “The Incredible Hulk #180” as Google presented, his author is not “NineInchNail”. In the row for Spider-Man, a Superman cover is wrongly displayed, and the publisher is shown to be “Activision” (well, “Activision” is not wrong per se – they may publish Spider-Man games – but it is intuitively wrong in the context of the other values of the column, which refer to the comic book publisher).

Still, I’m really having fun. Especially because you can add your own columns on the fly. For my character table I added “Real Name”, and Google Squared got a couple right, and a couple wrong. Note you can change your query and some values may change along; when I named my square “superhero” instead of “comic book character”, some of the values ended up different. The same when I used the plural of the original query, comic book characters (does Squared prefer the plural form?).

For each created cell, you can expand the source URL of the data bit by clicking in the cell. A source may be a site like Wikipedia, or another third-party website (like ComicVine.com, in my sample). As usual, Google prefers automatic web-wide gathering & mining of data instead of having human editors create non-scalable content, so Google Squared is another step on their knowledge mining road.

Once you are happy with the table, you can log-in to save it. It will then show under the “Saved Squared” list. You can also share it by copying the URL to send it around – try this one. One thing I was really missing from this current version (or just didn’t find) was a way to export the data, though, like to some CSV structure or so, or have it be saved as a Google Spreadsheet. Another limiting factor is the number of items you can create; I was only able to go up to 50 for my sample, and had to grow the table in steps of 10. I’m curious how and if Google will continue to develop this little app, and I’m also curious if they’ll find ways to push the data towards more accuracy in the future.

Microsoft Office Tricks

2009-05-09T12:20:00.001+05:30

No matter how long you've been using Microsoft Office, you probably don't know every trick and shortcut there is. Maybe you've stumbled upon a few shortcuts by accident after years of doing things the hard way. There are an incredible number of shortcuts hidden within each Microsoft Office application that can cut time and frustration out of your daily activities. Here are just a few of the techniques you can use to get even more out of Microsoft Office.

Special symbols
Special symbols can be inserted by using "Insert/Symbol" on the menu. However there are many shortcuts that make inserting symbols even easier.

The Autocorrect function allows you to enter common symbols quickly. A few examples:

(c) will become the copywrite symbol
(r) will become the registered symbol

If there are symbols you use a lot, such as foreign currency symbols, you can edit the autocorrect list to create your own combinations.

International characters are a snap. Simply type "CTRL+(symbol)" followed by a letter to add a diacritical mark to a letter. Some valid symbols are:

apostrophe (') creates an acute accent
grave accent (`) creates a grave accent
carat (^) creates a circumflex
colon (:) creates a diaresis
tilde (~) creates a tilde
the at sign (@) creates a ring
comma (,) creates a cedilla

So to create the letter "A" with a tilde type CTRL+^ (which is CTRL+SHIFT+6) then type "a". This trick doesn't work in all Microsoft Office applications, but it does work in Word and Outlook which are where they are needed most often.

Format Painter
An often-overlooked feature in Microsoft Office is the Format Painter. It appears as a little paintbrush on the toolbar. When this icon is selected, it makes a copy of the formatting of the text where the cursor is located. The cursor changes to a paintbrush, allowing you to "paint" that format into a new section of text. By double clicking on the icon, you can paint the format over and over again. To cancel Format Painter simply press ESC.

Shortcut keys
All Microsoft Office applications have huge collections of shortcut keys. While it might be overwhelming to memorize them all, skim the list of shortcuts in the help document to see if there is an easier way to do your work.

Also remember that you can access menus by pressing ALT-letter where the letter is the underlined letter in the menu. For example, to insert a row in Excel you can press ALT-I (to select the Insert menu) then R (to select Row). Often it's easier to use keyboard commands rather than take your hand off they keyboard to use the mouse.

Many more Microsoft Office tips
These are just a few of the tips that users can pick up by enrolling in Microsoft Office training courses. Even if you use Office in your job every day, you might be surprised just how much you are missing. A day's course could save you hundreds of hours of lost productivity as you learn to do your work more efficiently.

Your Guide For Blog Marketing, How To Use Blogs To Make Money Online

2009-05-09T12:08:00.004+05:30

Blogs also known as web logs are the latest thing on the internet. With there being so many blogs out there in cyber world, how do you make yours known and get people to read it. How do you have the most often read blog on the market that you are promoting? Because there are so many people that are trying to all accomplish the same thing, how are you going to stand out?

There are several things that you can do to make your blog marketing a success, and we are going to cover some of them right here. The first thing that you should know is that you should have your blog URL pointing to your market. For example, if you are trying to promote and sell sunglasses from your blog, you want your URL to say sunglasses.YourBlogWebsite.com. Doing so will give you an extra advantage.

The next step would be to customize your blog. Rather than having the same old blog interface like everyone else has, make your unique and interesting to look at. This will also help anyone from getting your blog confused with others that look just like it. There are so many types of blog software on the market that having your own look should not be that difficult to accomplish.

Keyword research is another very important part of blog marketing. If you are not using the keywords that people search on, then chances are no one is going to find your blog. Have a variety of keywords in your blog as well. Not just the same one over and over. Not everyone just uses the term 'sunglasses' when they are searching for shades to keep the sun out of their eyes. Keyword research is an important factor to remember.

Using SEO on your blog, which stands for search engine optimization is a great idea as well. SEO will help get your blog out there and read, and will also help you get a better ranking with Google. Being as high as you can be in the Google search engine results is something that you want.

Find other sites and blogs that are in the same market as yours, but not in direct competition with you to exchange links with. This will help you out a lot as well, especially if you can get some good exchanges with high authority sites. The higher the page rank of your link exchange, the better for your blog.

Many people do not realize this, but having a different title tag in the HTML code on each page makes a big difference. If you have given the first page on your blog the title of 'sunglasses', you need to be sure that none of your other pages are named this. Doing so will make Google think that you are spamming that keyword, and that will result in them punishing your blog URL.

Once you have done your keyword research, you will want to write content based on the research you have done. Using one or two keywords, make entries into your blog using the keywords will make it easy for your blog to be indexed under those terms. That will also result in people searching on those particular terms able to find your blog.

Pinging your blog frequently is another good way to get your blog seen. Every time that you update it, use the ping tools to ping it. This will let all of the blog directories know that you have added something new to your blog. This also brings you in some more traffic.

Blog marketing is pretty much the same as website marketing. However, if you have never had a website, and are not familiar with marketing these great tips will help you get started. Be sure that you put new entries into your blog on a regular basis as well. This will help keep you up to date and current and also will keep your readers coming back for more.

Blogging Platform Tips For Maximizing Your Site Visiblility

2009-05-09T12:02:00.001+05:30

Choosing which blogging platform to use is one of the most important decisions that you can make as a blogger. The right platform can make blogging a breeze, and the wrong platform can really be a pain in the neck.Because the program that you use to blog with is such a powerful part of your blogging experience, it is important to find a platform that provides your ideal balance between a user-friendly interface and a flexible framework that allows you to make your blog look and feel unique.

You will also make sure you have access to all the great features that can make your blog popular, such as RSS feeds. Finding the right platform isn't always easy, but with a little bit of research, you will be on your way to finding the perfect blogging platform that suits your needs.

Deciding what your priorities are in terms of ease of use versus customization and features. Most highly customizable blogging platforms, like moveable type, are a bit more difficult to use than very automated platforms like Wordpress.com or Blogger.com. If you are new to blogs and to internet technology, you might want to sacrifice the ability to create a custom background design or to integrate a unique font into your template in order to find a program that will be easy for you to work with.

On the other hand, if you are a veteran web designer with knowledge of html or javascript, you will probably find the limitations of a user-friendly platform annoying.

There is no such thing as a blogging platform that is objectively the best platform, because every blogger has unique needs. The blogging movement is very much about individuality, so it makes plenty of sense that there would be many different platforms available that are designed to meet the needs of different kinds of individuals undertaking different kinds of projects to express their unique voice.

This diversity is a good thing, because it means that you will almost certainly be able to find a program that suits your level of technical expertise.

However, the fact that no two bloggers need the same thing from a blogging platform can make your search for the right platform a painful task. When you are reading reviews of different platforms, try to keep in mind the reviewers point of view and the features you really need.

For example, a negative review written by an accomplished software designer who complains that a popular platform is too limited may tell you that the platform in question is ideal for a beginning blogger.

There is no such thing as the perfect platform for everybody, so instead of looking for the "best" platform, look for the best platform for your specific criteria. If you are starting and do not want the hassle of web hosting right now, you can use www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com. Later, if you want to host your blog, you have the option to easily do it.

National Geographic Goes Mobile in India

2009-05-07T13:45:00.001+05:30

National Geographic Channel fans can now access their favorite television content, packed with action, adventure, technology and the extreme wild, on the move, with the launch of Nat Geo Mobile. The channel has announced that starting this month, Nat Geo content will be available on mobile handsets. In its endeavor to consistently provide relatable, innovative and relevant entertainment to its viewers, Nat Geo Mobile will make their television content accessible to audiences, anytime, anywhere.

The channel is looking at associating with all leading mobile service operators across the country for this new initiative. Nat Geo Mobile content will be available to audiences as a pool of interesting factoids, wallpapers, animations, videos, downloadable pictures and more. The content will be available as per applicable operator tariffs.

Speaking about the launch, Rajesh Sheshadri, Senior Vice President – Content and Communication, National Geographic Channel India said, “There are about 100 million television sets and about 300 million mobile handsets in India today. At National Geographic Channel, we would like our content to be accessed across multiple platforms thereby making it more accessible to and enhancing relevance for the consumer. We are very proud to launch Nat Geo Mobile, which will bring a whole new world of information and entertainment to our viewers on the move.”

“We will promote the service extensively on the channel and will also align our on-air series related marketing plans with the same in future”, he added.

Nat Geo Mobile is another technological leap in the history of Indian television entertainment as it accesses multiple platforms to enhance viewership options and offer a choice in terms of when and where to access desired content. In India there has been a 40% increase in the average monthly ratings in the infotainment genre in 2009 over 2008 and by introducing its content through a new platform; the channel plans to expand the category further. Consumers can now access their favorite videos, wallpapers, animations, ringtones and other content through their individual mobile service operators or from the National Geographic WAP and website.

You can log on to www.natgeotv.co.in/mobile for more information and to download Nat Geo Mobile content.

Behind the Scenes of Windows 7 Enterprise

2009-04-25T15:38:00.001+05:30

Source : Windows Team Blog

There’s been a lot of talk in the community about what Windows 7 offers consumers. Today, I’d like to highlight the enterprise value of the product and how it reflects what customers and partners told us enterprises need most.

With Windows Vista, we learned a lot about how involved our customers and partners like to be in the development of an OS – in a nutshell, early and often. With Windows 7, we changed the way we developed the Windows OS in order to be more responsive to that feedback. As such, early on we identified three main principles to our new process:

Planning: Our team spent six months on planning Windows 7 in a “vision phase.” We analyzed trends and customer needs before building features. We also focused more on end-to-end business scenarios, rather than solely on features and technologies.
Predictability: We committed to giving our customers and partners a timeframe for our release and stuck to it. We remain on track to ship Windows 7 within three years of the Windows Vista release. We also only shared information about Windows 7 when we had a higher degree of certainty which has resulted in minimal changes from earlier disclosures.
Early Ecosystem Engagement: We engaged with partners during the early stages of Windows 7 development, rather than waiting for the traditional beta timeframe. This has allowed for a more seamless experience and greater compatibility in all areas.

There are three key areas we look at in our development process: industry trends, in-depth discussions with top customers and partners, and extensive quantitative customer research.

I won’t go into details except to remind you of trends with the most significant impact on IT today: costs, consumerization, reducing carbon footprint, contingency planning and compliance. As a result of the continued economic deterioration, most businesses are thinking about cost. IT is under pressure to deliver efficiencies in their environments and greater ROI on technology expenses – we recognize this through personal experience and input from our customers and partners.

We spent a great deal of time talking and engaging with our customers and partners in order to really understand what’s on their mind. Knowing where their challenges lie and what tools they need to be successful helps us deliver an OS that meets their needs and is a valuable investment, which is critical when IT budgets are tighter than ever.

This engagement came in two forms – qualitative and quantitative.

Our qualitative outreach consisted of over 100 of our top customers through five programmatic engagement vehicles:

Desktop Advisory Council: Twenty-seven active IT leaders across a variety of industries including some of the world’s largest manufacturers, banks, insurers, telecoms, energy companies and professional services firms. We used their input for overall direction and feature decisions.
OEM Engagement: Leading manufacturers from around the world. This gave us an opportunity to inform and set direction, while receiving their feedback.
Ecosystem Engagement: Members of the Windows Ecosystem Readiness Program received access to builds and toolkits for Windows 7. They also gained access to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 labs for partners.
Technology Adoption Program: Strictly engineering-focused, customers in TAP committed a large investment of their time and resources in test deployments of Beta and pre-Beta code. Their help enables us to validate features in real-world situations, produce bugs and generate feedback.
First Wave Program: Customers who are already in progress with deploying Windows 7 Beta in their environment. This group provides real time feedback on their experience deploying Windows 7 Beta and helps us see what an enterprise deployment looks like.

For our Quantitative Research, we engaged extensively with almost 4000 customers in developing and emerging markets. This research surfaced the top areas of concern: Risk Management, Compliance and Mobility. Key findings included:

56% said they needed help protecting corporate data on laptops. This validated our decision to include BitLocker in Windows 7 Enterprise, and to extend its capabilities to the portable hard drives that can be just as dangerous and more loosely monitored than laptops.
61% expressed a deep concern about ensuring their users install and use only authorized applications (for fear of security breaches from unauthorized applications). This helped prioritize our plan to develop AppLocker.
49% wanted to make it easier for remote workers to access corporate resources, bubbling a plan up for Direct Access capabilities.

So how did this affect Windows 7?

Windows 7 Enterprise mirrors what we learned during our planning and research phase and resulted in three big areas of investment:

Making users Productive Anywhere is a focus on the mobile user community and empowering users with seamless access: We built technologies into Windows 7 such as BranchCache, Direct Access, Federated Search, and Enterprise Search Scopes to enable users to access to their data and applications anywhere and anytime.
Improving Security and Control is a focus on protecting data, enabling compliance and giving IT better control: With this in mind we designed BitLocker To Go, which protects data stored on portable media, such as USB drives. This enables IT to only allow authorized users to read data or portable media, even if the media is lost or stolen. Additionally, AppLocker provides a mechanism for administrators to specify via Group Policy exactly what is allowed to run on their systems.
Streamlining PC Management is a continued focus to drive the cost of managing a Windows environment down: Windows 7 makes managing and deploying desktops, laptops and virtual environments much easier. IT Pros can use the same tools and skills they use today with Windows Vista for Windows 7. New scripting and automation capabilities through Windows PowerShell 2.0 help reduce the costs of managing and troubleshooting PCs.

And we’re not finished! Research on Windows 7 overall continues today as we receivefeedback from our Beta testers. We’ve received over 500,000 Send Feedback reports on Windows 7 Beta. Thanks to our dedicated customers, we have hundreds of fixes in the pipeline. This is a testament to how we’re taking your feedback and inputting it directly into Windows 7.

With Windows 7, we’ve advanced our vision for an Optimized Desktop to allow administrators the ability to balance flexibility and control in helping end-users work better in their environments. Windows 7 Enterprise, along with Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), delivers Microsoft Windows Optimized Desktop vision to customers: it gives users anytime, anywhere access to information they need to get their work done; while providing tools for IT to support their business securely, protect corporate data, achieve cost efficiencies, and take advantage of the virtualization trends in the client computing arena.

To summarize, customers tell us the economy is bringing new levels of scrutiny to how they manage costs, mitigate risks and make their people more productive with less. We get it. Windows 7 Enterprise is about helping both IT Pros and end users manage an intensifying – and often opposing – confluence of pressures.

Throughout the Windows 7 development process, we’ve been committed to creating an OS that is designed for the way people actually work. We’re convinced Windows 7 has an exciting and powerful offering for our business customers, but we want to hear from you. If you are one of our enterprise customers considering Windows 7, our guidance to you is to start testing and planning now and send us your feedback. If you haven’t been considering Windows 7, we think there are compelling reasons for you to take another look.

Source : Windows Team Blog

Apple Doesn't Want You Shaking Babies

2009-04-25T15:14:00.003+05:30

Apple Inc. pulled a 99-cent iPhone game called "Baby Shaker" from its iTunes store Wednesday after its premise — quiet a crying baby with a vigorous shake — prompted outrage.

According to screen shots posted on several websites, "Baby Shaker" displayed black-and-white line drawings of a baby. The iTunes description included the line, "See how long you can endure his or her adorable cries before you just have to find a way to quiet the baby down!" Once the iPhone owner finishes shaking the device, the on-screen baby is depicted with large red X's over its eyes.

Public outcry ensued, with organizations including the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome and the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation condemning Apple for approving the game's sale.

The application was designed by Sikalosoft, which also makes a 99-cent "Dice Mosaic" iPhone program that converts digital photos into black and white mosaics made from dice.

YouTube video of the Baby Shaker App

Sikalosoft did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment, but "Baby Shaker" was deleted from its Web site Wednesday afternoon.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said "Baby Shaker" went on sale Monday, and confirmed that Apple removed it Wednesday. She would not comment on why the program was initially approved for sale nor about how many people downloaded the game.

Bluetooth steps into next generation with v3.0 Announced

2009-04-23T23:14:00.004+05:30

The Bluetooth SIG formally adopted Bluetooth Core Specification Version 3.0 High Speed (HS), or Bluetooth 3.0.This latest iteration of the popular short-range wireless technology fulfills the consumers’ need for speed while providing the same wireless Bluetooth experience – only faster. Manufacturers of consumer electronics and home entertainment devices can now build their products to send large amounts of video, music and photos between devices wirelessly at higher speeds.

Bluetooth 3.0 gets its speed from the 802.11 radio protocol. The inclusion of the 802.11 Protocol Adaptation Layer (PAL) provides increased throughput of data transfers at the approximate rate of 24 Mbps. In addition, mobile devices including Bluetooth 3.0 will realize increased power savings due to enhanced power control built in.

This newest version of Bluetooth technology builds on the inherent qualities of the current 2.1 EDR version, including Simple Secure Pairing and built-in, automatic security. And as with all versions of the Bluetooth specification, Bluetooth 3.0 HS provides developers, manufacturers and consumers with the benefit of backwards compatibility, enabling both the expansion and enhancement of this technology with every new specification release. Once products reach the market, the easiest way for consumers to learn which devices are compatible with other Bluetooth enabled devices is to visit the Bluetooth Gadget Guide.

Some applications consumers will experience include:

Wirelessly bulk synchronize music libraries between PC and music player or phone
Bulk download photos to a printer or PC
Send video files from camera or phone to computer or television

The Bluetooth SIG’s formal adoption of the specification is only the first step in the product lifecycle. News out today from wireless chip manufacturers and Bluetooth SIG member companies Atheros, Broadcom, CSR, and Marvell shows the second step – getting silicon solutions to device manufacturers – is already underway. End products for consumers are expected to be in the market in 9 to 12 months.

For more information click here.

Online Generators

2009-04-15T21:26:00.002+05:30

ASCII Generators

ASCII Artist
This little program converts your picture to ASCII text art
ASCII Generator
Generate a ASCII graphic from a word or text. Over 130 fonts.
ASCII-O-Matic
is a web application that can convert an image into ASCII Art dynamically

Color Generators

ColorBlender.com
Your free online color matching toolbox
Color Calculator
Color calculator, with saturation and lightness adjustment.
ColorCombos.com
Web colour combinations tool and library
ColorMixers
Remixing RGB since 2003
color palette creator v1.6
A color swatch generator based on the tutorial located here
Color Palette Generator
Generate a color palette based on an image
Color Palette Generator
Enter the URL of an image to get a color palette that matches the image.
colr.org
It’s a tool to let people fiddle around with colors and words.
EasyRGB
The first RGB and COLOR search engine on the Web!
Gradient Image Maker
Web-based tool that makes a linear gradient image between any two colors.
I Like Your Colors!
Use this tool to extract the colors from the HTML and CSS of any web site. Compare the colors easily using hue groups.
Technicolor
Automatic color palette generator with realtime preview and CSS generator.

CSS Generators

Clean CSS
CSS Formatter and Optimiser
CSS Button Generator
CSS Button & Text Field Generator
CSS Creator
Live CSS Cascading Style Sheet Layout generator for your web site
CSS Font and Text Style Wizard
Use this wizard to experiment with font and text styles and generate sample CSS style source code.
Online CSS Optimiser/Optimizer This tool is used to optimise CSS code. Enter either a URL or Copy & Paste the stylesheet into the box, and click Go
CSS Formatter and Optimiser
CSS optimize
CSS Form Code Maker
Generates ‘Colorful Box Layout’ For Forms
CSS Menu Generator
Our CSS Menu Generator will generate both the CSS and the HTML code required to produce a text-based yet appealing set of navigation buttons.
Format CSS Online
Automatically format your CSS (cascading style sheets) so they are easy to read and edit…..
Online CSS Optimizer
CSS Optimizer optimizes and reduces the file size of the Cascading Style Sheets
Colly’s CSS rollover generator
CollyLogic CSS Multi-element Rollover Generator
Cornershop
Rounded Graphics for CSS Box Corners
CSS Rounded Box Generator (Beta)
Generates both the images and code you need for a rounded box.
Online CSS Scrollbar Color Changer
Change the scrollbar colors in an HTML page
CSS Tab Designer
CSS Tab Designer is a unique and easy to use software to help you design css-based lists and tabs visually.
Free CSS Template Code Generator
Maker for 3 Column Layout (tableless)
HTML and CSS Table Border Style Wizard
Use this wizard to experiment with table border styles and generate style source code.
Listamatic
one list, many options - Using CSS and a simple list to create radically different list
Listamatic2
nested list options
List-O-Matic
Generate CSS-styled navigation menus based on list items
List-u-Like CSS Generator
Create cross-browser list-based navigation bars with ease
S5Easy: Create S5 Slideshows Easy Online
Create your slideshow in only 3 steps
Scriptomizers
A CSS stylesheet generator
The Generator Form v2.90
CSS Source Ordered Variable Border 1-3 Columned Page Maker

Domain name Generators

Nameboy
free domain name generator, search and creation
DNGenerator.com
Domain Name Generator with Domain Name Finder to register domain names if expired domain names
Domain name generator
Intelligent random name generator that finds available domains and unique business names.
Domain Name Generator
Domain Name Generator will produce a list of possible domain name ideas based on the word or phrase you input.
Namedroppers
We provide a more efficient method for finding and generating domain names. Search for domain names using multiple keywords
Whoix?
Domain Name Wizard

Email Generators

Advanced Email Link Generator
Advanced Email Link Generator with Anti-Spam Encoder
E-Mail Icon Generator
For GMail, Hotmail, MSN, Yahoo!, AOL and many more!
Email Riddler
Email Riddler is an online tool that encrypts and transform your email address into a series of numbers when displaying it, making it virtually impossible for spam harvesters to crawl and add your email to their list.
NeedASig
Email and Forum Signature Icon Generator

Favicon Generators

Favicon Generator
Make Free Favicons - Create a Favicon.ico Design
FavIcon Generator (beta)
Use this online tool to easily create a favorites icon (favicon) for your site
FavIcon from Pics
How to create a favicon.ico for your website
Favicon.ico Maker
Upload a 16 x 16 pixel PNG and click ‘Faviconify!’ to create a favicon for your website. This favicon maker supports alpha transparency.

Flash Generators

Flash Buttons Menu Generator
Free Animated Flash Buttons Menu Generator
Flash Drop-Down Generator
FLASH EMBEDDER
This tool will let you easily embed flash movies into HTML.

Form Generators

Accessible Form Builder
Generate XHTML-compliant accessible forms quicky and easily
Accessible Form Creator
allows you to create forms for web sites containing all the additional markup required to make the forms accessible under Section 508 standards and the W3C WCAG 1.0 Priority 1-3 Guidelines.
Contact Form Generator
The free Website Contact Form Generator utility enables you to create form-to-email scripts for your ASP, PHP or Perl web site with no programming skills needed.
CSS Form Code Maker
Generates ‘Colorful Box Layout’ For Forms
Form Element Generator
allows you to create forms for web sites containing all the additional markup required to make the forms accessible under Section 508 standards and the W3C WCAG 1.0 Priority 1-3 Guidelines.
FormLogix
FormLogix is an online web database and form generator solution.Free
JotForm
Web Based WYSIWYG Form Builder
PHP FormMail Generator
A tool to create ready-to-use web forms in a flash. Once the form has been generated, you have a full functional web form. Including error checking of required fields, email address validation, credit card number & expiry date checking, multiple attachments sending, and email auto responding.
Wufoo
Making forms easy + fast + fun.
Web Form Factory
Open Source Web Form Generator

Fun & Humor

Web 2.0 Generator
It’s Not Too Late! Quick! The Web 2.0 bandwagon is leaving and you are not on it! Don’t worry, there is still time if you act fast. Luckily web20generator.com is here to save the day!
Avatar Maker
free Web 2.0 Emoticon/Avatar Generator
Concert Ticket Generator
Make your own virtual concert ticket
Dreamlines
A non-linear, interactive visual experience. The user enters one or more words that define the subject of a dream he would like to dream.
Free Online Barcode Generator
Completely free online barcode generator outputs many different symbologies in JPEG or PNG format
Error Message Generator
Create your own error message
The Metaverse Excuse-O-Mat
Passende Entschuldigungen auf Knopfdruck
Magazine Cover Generator
Magazine:Create a customized magazine from your digital photographs
Mondrian Machine
Mondrian art generator
M O N D R I M A T
The MONDRIMAT is a simple system which lets you experiment with space, color and visual rhythm in accordance with the theories of Piet Mondrian.
Ribbon Image Generator
StripGenerator
Make your own cartoon online
Vinyl Record Generator
Make your very own simulated stacks of wax! Just enter some text and click the ‘Go’ button. A picture of a record will be generated for you…
Warning Label Generator
The Warning Label Generator is a fun way to generate your own warning labels!
Web Economy Bullshit Generator

Graphics & Image Generators

Ajaxload
Ajax loading gif generator
Background Image Maker
A background image maker that lets you choose the type, margin, linecolor, background color, size and transparency.
Button Maker
A quick and easy tool that automatically creates an 80×15 or 88×31 button by your specifications.
Button Maker :: Adam Kalsey
Create 80×15 stickers for your blog with any text or color you desire.
Brilliant Button Maker by LucaZappa.com
A web application to create customizable 80×15 brilliant buttons
PHP/SWF Charts
is a simple, yet powerful PHP tool to create attractive web charts and graphs from dynamic data.
ACME Label Maker
Make a label!
Create A Graph
Create Graphs and Charts
Cool Text (Logo Generator)
Logo and Graphics Generator
Online SiGGy Maker
Online Signature Maker
phpThumb()
The PHP thumbnail creator
PixelButton
PixelButton is an Antipixel online generator, easy and fast to use.
Portrait Avatar Maker
Portrait Illustration Maker
Let’s make an original icon!
RSS Button Generator
150 Fonts, 144 Colors - 80×15 Pixel Button Maker
Sparklines
You can start right away by dynamically creating a sparkline using the Sparkline Generator Web Application
StripGenerator
Make your own cartoon online
Texture Maker
Texture Maker is a seamless texture generator and designer…..
Thumbnail Generator
An easy way to process thumbnails from a large amount of images
Tile Machine 1.0
A web generator for designing graphic tiles
Typogenerator
typoGenerator is a random generator for ‘typoPosters’. the user types some text; typoGenerator searches images.google for the text and creates a background from the found images….
Wallpaper Generator
Web Album Generator 1.8
Create Online Photo Albums

Htaccess Generators

Htaccess Disable Hotlinking Code Generator
If people are ‘hotlinking’ to your image files, they are using your bandwidth which you will ultimately pay for. You can stop this from happening by placing a ‘.htaccess’ file in the folder where your images are stored…
.htaccess File Generator
Apache htaccess file generator
.htaccess Generator
.htaccess generator - will generate the files you need (.htaccess and .htpasswd) to password protect a directory of your website.
.htaccess Generator
Create Encrypted Passwords in seconds
mod_rewrite RewriteRule Generator
Our mod_rewrite RewriteRule generator will take a dynamic url given to it, and generate the correct syntax to place in a .htaccess file to allow the url to be rewritten in a spiderable format
URL Rewrite (mod_rewrite)
With this tool you can generate dynamic urls to search engine friendly urls..

Meta Tag Generators

META builder
This form will generate HTML META tags suitable for inclusion in your HTML document.
Meta Tag Generator
Use this tool to generate a search engine friendly Head Tag for your web site
Title & Meta Tags Generator
his code generator will build the title and meta tags for your site to help improve your website’s search engine ranking using our Meta Tag Generator
META Tag Generator
Fast track creating your META tags with our advanced META tag generator. Just select the META tags you would like and let our META tag generator spit out the code for you
META Tag Generator
Here‘s an easy to way to generate your META tags. Fill in the form and hit ‘submit‘

Misc Generators

amazonbox
Create RSS or Atom feeds for Amazon wishlists.
Backlink Builder
Building Quality backlinks is one of the most important factors in Search Engine Optimization…
FontEditor BitfontMaker
Online bitmap font editor
HTML to JavaScript Convertor
This tool takes your markup and converts it to a series of document.write() statements that you can use in a block of JavaScript.
Insta-Select
Insta-Select - An easy “select” list generator
Pretty Printer for PHP, Java, C++, C, Perl, JavaScript, CSS
This is a source code beautifier (source code formatter), similiar to indent. Please make a backup before you replace your code!
Quick Escape
It’s a tool that lets you quickly paste in HTML and for that to be converted to escaped characters which can be pasted back in to your HTML source code so that it renders on screen.
Response.Right
Response.Right converts text/HTML to server-side write statements in PHP, ASP, JavaScript and Perl.
Screenshot Generator
Screenshot generator to see your site on a Macintosh G5 in Safari, MacIE or Mozilla.
XFN (XHTML Friends Network) Link Creator
Create XFN-friendly links at the press of a few buttons
Yes No Now!
It’s a tool for quickly generating accessible, XHTML-compliant yes/no radio button choices from a list, that’s what.
Browsershots
Free screenshots of your web design in different browsers
iCapture
Safari Screenshots
Screenshot Generator
Screenshot generator to see your site on a Macintosh G5 in Safari, MacIE or Mozilla.
Webimpressum-Assistent (German)
Webimpressum schnell erstellen

Password Generators

Free Password Generator
Free passwords for all purposes
hashapass
Hashapass automatically generates strong passwords from a master password and a parameter.
Perfect Passwords
GRC’s Ultra High Security Password Generator
Phonetic Password Generator
PASSWORD GENERATOR
online Password Generator
Password generator
this is a little Javascript program that will concatenate two fields and MD5 them…
Password Generator
This tool lets you use one “master” password to create unique, complex passwords for each website you visit.
Perfect Passwords
Ultra High Security Password Generator

PDF Generators

html2pdf
Type the URL of a Webpage of your Choice to generate a PDF file
Notepad Generator - 1.0.0a
This tool allows you to customize a PDF notepad.
PDFCreator
PDFCreator is a free tool to create PDF files from nearly any Windows application.
PDF Online
Quickly and easily convert your documents into PDF from anywhere in the world
RSS 2 PDF (Beta)
Free Online RSS, Atom or OPML to PDF Generator

PHP & MySQL Generators

PHP Classes - Class: PHP MySQL class generator
Generate classes to manipulate MySQL table rows
phpMyEdit - Instant MySQL Table Editor and PHP Code Generator
phpMyEdit generates PHP code for displaying/editing MySQL tables in HTML
phpThumb()
The PHP thumbnail creator
PHP FormMail Generator
A tool to create ready-to-use web forms in a flash
POG - Php Object Generator (v1.6 rc2)
Php Object Generator, (POG) is a PHP code generator which automatically generates tested Object Oriented code that you can use for your PHP4/PHP5 application.
WWW SQL Designer
visualisiert Datenbanken und Strukturen

PopUp Generators

Accessible Pop-up Window Generator
Create pop-ups that are accessible and search engine-friendly
Popup Window Generator
Use Eric’s Popup window Generator to easily add popup windows to your site!
Popup Window Maker
Fill out the specifications of the popup window you would like to use, including the URL and the various options such as menubars, toolbars, scrollbars, etc, and click the generate button

robots.txt Generators

Robots.txt Generator
Robot Control Code Generation Tool
Robots.txt Generator
robots.txt Generator (german)
Robots Txt Generator
Use this tool to generate a simple robots file for your website…
Robots.txt syntax checker
This robots.txt syntax checker checks the contents of a site’s robots.txt…

RSS Generators

ListGarden
RSS Feed Generator Program
RSS Button Generator
150 Fonts, 144 Colors - 80×15 Pixel Button Maker
RSS 2 PDF (Beta)
Free Online RSS, Atom or OPML to PDF Generator
RSSxl Beta - RSS Generator
Convert an HTML Web Page to RSS

Sitemap Generators

Free Sitemap Generator
“Our tool creates a sitemap as defined by Google™ for your site.”
Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress v2 Final
This plugin generates a Google Sitemaps compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog.
Google Sitemaps beta
Google sitemap generator
ROR Sitemap Generator
This free tool will crawl your website and generate a ROR Sitemap with up to 1,000 URLs for ALL search engines, not just Google
Sitemap Generator
Free Online Sitemap Generator - Build your Site Map online (XML, ROR, Text, HTML)

Text Generators

Lorem Ipsum Generator
Generator for randomized typographic filler text
Lorem Ipsum
All the facts - Lipsum generator
Malevole - Text Generator
This text generator has been developed based on years of careful research and is guaranteed to improve even the most lacklustre of designs.
Typetester
The Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen.

Tooltip Generators

DHTML Tooltip Generator
Sometimes the HTML “alt=” isn’t enough to relay the detail you’d like it to. Here is a tool that will allow you to give your users more interactive tooltips.
Flash Tooltip Generator
Free online flash generator create a flash tooltip

Weblog Generators

Blogger archive script generator
This page will generate a Blogger archive script with your choice of date formatting, creating either a select (dropdown) menu, or a list of links….
BLOGPOLL
free blog poll for your weblog
Firdamatic
The Design Tool for the Uninspired Webloggers
Movable Type Style Generator
Create a Movable Type Style visually with this generator.
PsycHo
Free weblog template generator
Weblog Name Generator
Random Title Generator For Blogs

Next Version of Microsoft Office Coming in 2010

2009-04-15T20:33:00.001+05:30

Microsoft Corp.'s next version of its Office desktop programs will reach consumers next year, though not likely in conjunction with the Windows 7 operating system.

Microsoft is set to announce Wednesday that Office 2010 will be finished and ready to send to manufacturers in the first half of next year.

From there, it can take six weeks to four months or more for the programs to reach PC users, said Chris Capossela, a senior vice president in the Microsoft group that makes Office. The timing will differ for big businesses and individual consumers, and for people who buy packaged software versus those who download it.

Some industry watchers had expected a new version of Office this year, but Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer extinguished that rumor at a meeting with analysts in February.

Capossela declined to be more specific about a launch date. Windows 7, the successor to WindowsVista, is scheduled to reach consumers by the end of January 2010.

Office 2010 - previously known by the code name "Office 14" - will include slimmed-down versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that let people create and edit documents in a Web browser. Consumers will have access to a free, ad-supported version, and Capossela said the company is still hammering out what to charge businesses that want a version without ads.

Microsoft plans to let hundreds of thousands of people test a technical preview of the new Office portfolio starting in the third quarter of 2009, Capossela said. The company did not say whether average PC users will have a chance to test a more polished beta version.

Microsoft also said a new version of its Exchange e-mail server will be available for purchase in the second half of 2009. When paired with the next version of Microsoft's Outlook e-mail program, Exchange 2010 aims to prevent e-mail faux pas and would warn people against trying to "reply all" to a huge distribution list. Microsoft said it can also be tweaked to stop people from sending e-mail outside the organization, helping businesses cut down on unnecessary e-mail and prevent leaks.

A beta version of Exchange 2010 was to be made available on Wednesday.

8 Characteristics of Outstanding Blog Design

2009-04-14T16:59:00.003+05:30

Most web designers are getting more and more requests from clients to design custom blog themes.

While designing a blog theme isn’t entirely different from designing any other type of website, there are some unique challenges that blog theme designers face.

There are plenty of sources available for designers who are seeking inspiration from high quality blog design, but it’s also important to understand specifically what will influence and determine the success of a blog theme design. In this article we’ll examine 10 characteristics that separate great blog themes from the rest.

1. Readability

Since blogging revolves around content, readability is a critical priority. Even great content with poor readability will struggle to attract and retain readers. While a blog theme’s design is important, it shouldn’t detract from the content itself. When designing a blog theme, areas of the design like the header, navigation and sidebar often get a lot of the attention, and styling the content within the post itself is frequently overlooked.

There are a number of factors that influence readability, all of which should be considered when designing a blog theme:

Padding - The padding or margin that separates the content of a post from the edges of the content area can help the reader to visually separate the content and focus on it without distraction.

Short Paragraphs - Readers will have an easier time with short paragraphs. Long paragraphs on a screen can be difficult and intimidating to readers. Short paragraphs often draw readers in because they can be reader faster.

Lists - Use unordered (bulleted) lists or ordered lists when appropriate. Instead of using paragraph format exclusively, lists help to break up the monotony of the text and allow for easier scanning. The points will also stand out more as they grab readers attention.

Bold Text - Having a screen full of text that is all the same weight and size makes it more difficult for readers to quickly see what’s important. Many blog visitors are not going to read posts word-for-word, so your options are to make it easier for them to scan, or watch them leave.

Line Spacing - Especially for blogs that publisher longer, more detailed posts, it’s important to have sufficient space between the lines of text. Not spacing the lines properly causes the text to be crammed.

Sub Headers - Blog posts can be broken up by sub headers (usually h3 or h4 tags). When designing and styling a theme, these sub headers should be given plenty of attention. When done correctly they will help with readability, scanning, and they’ll help the writer to make points clearly.

2. Useful Sidebars

Sidebars are an important part of blog design because they play a large role in navigation for visitors and because they provide the opportunity to add some creativity to the design. Additionally, they give the theme designer and the blogger a chance to determine what content or pages on the blog get exposure to all of its visitors. A good sidebar will feature an attractive design, be easy to use and navigate, feature the appropriate content, and encourage a high number of pageviews.

Some common elements in blog sidebars include:

Popular posts
Recent posts
Blogroll/friends lists
Advertisements
Category links
Date-based archives
Link to RSS feed
Recent comments
Promotion of products/services

To take sidebars a step further, some blog designers create multiple sidebars or use conditional tags to include dynamic content based on the page/post the visitor is viewing. This helps to make the sidebars more relevant and useful because the information and links contained in the sidebar are more likely to be of interest to the visitors.

A growing number of blogs are revamping their sidebars to encourage more reader interaction. Some bloggers are posting links to user-submitted community news items. Others are including Flickr photo streams (Flickr groups are now pretty common for design blogs) or possibly streaming information from Last.fm. Additional social media integration is another possibility, from sites such as Twitter, Delicious or Digg.

3. Unique

With millions of blogs and thousands of different blog themes out there, it’s pretty easy for visitors to have a hard time distinguishing which blogs they have been to before and which ones they have not. Great blog designs will stand out from all of the free themes and similar designs in one way or another. The designer can take a number of different approaches to accomplish this goal, but the important part is that the design will not only be memorable, but it should also fit with the message and purpose of the blog.

4. Comment Area

The comment area is often a last priority for theme designers, but a well-designed comment area can give the blog a totally different feel for readers, especially those who comment themselves. Designers have the options of including avatars for commenters, styling author comments to stand out from others, alternating comments with different styles, using speech bubbles, etc.

Avatars are becoming increasingly common on blogs, in part because of the ease of doing so with WordPress and Gravatars. Avatars help to give the comment area a more personal touch and to give each commenter more of a personality of their own.

5. Effective, Usable Navigation

Navigation is one of the most significant factors in determining the user’s experience on the site. Nothing is more frustrating than not being able to find what you’re looking for, and visitors are bound to leave if this happens to them. On the other hand, effective navigation can lead to more pageviews and a more resourceful blog that takes advantage of the content that is available.

Developing and maintaining effective navigation is a challenge for blog theme designers, because content will be continually added to the blog, making it easier for posts to get buried in the archives. In some ways, maintaining the navigation is up to the blogger, in terms of using internal links within posts and updating older posts with new links. However, there are some steps the designer can take to improve navigation.

First, there should be a primary navigation menu that takes visitors to any major page on the site (such as an About page or a Contact page), and secondary navigation menus are often used as well.

Second, the sidebar should be used to nudge readers towards the most important content on the blog. Popular posts are a common way of doing this.

Third, the sidebar should also include some standard blog navigational elements that visitors will expect to find, such as category links or a link to an archive page.

Fourth, the bottom of the post area can be used to include links to related posts, or this can be done manually by the blogger when desired on specific posts.

6. High Content

Because blogs are so dependent on content, the blog theme design should allow for the content to start above the fold. Oversized headers allow for more creativity in design, but for blogs it typically works best to focus on getting the content in view quickly. This is my personal preference and there are some well-designed blogs that push content down, but as a general rule it’s best to keep the content high in the layout.

7. Subscription Areas

RSS and email subscribers are the lifeblood of blogs. For this reason it is obviously important for blogs to be able to convert visitors into subscribers. Many blog visitors will be accustomed to the standard blog convention of including links to RSS feeds and email subscription options in the sidebar. Usually these areas are located at the top of sidebars, but sometimes they’re a bit further down.

The benefit to staying with the norm here is that it’s easier for people to find the links, and you don’t want to make it difficult for people to subscribe. Most blogs also include RSS icons along with the link. There are countless RSS icons available for download in all kinds of variations.

8. Social Media Integration

More and more blogs are starting to include buttons, badges or links to encourage readers to vote for their content on social media sites. When it comes to these items, overkill can harm the look of the blog. Too many buttons can cause the theme to look cluttered and unorganized. The best method is to use a design the implements social media elements, such as voting buttons, subtly without overpowering anything else in the design.

The smaller Digg button is more friendly for the design than the bigger “Digg This” button that many blogs use.

Microsoft, Yahoo Talking on Search Deal

2009-04-14T14:46:00.000+05:30

The chief executives of Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc met last week to discuss potential partnerships between the companies' Internet search and advertising operations, the technology blog All Things Digital reported on Friday.

Wide-ranging talks have taken place between executives at the companies, the blog reported, including discussion of the potential for Microsoft to handle Yahoo's search advertising business, and for Yahoo to combine and run the two companies' display advertising business. Microsoft and Yahoo declined to comment on the report.

Expectation that the two technology giants would enter negotiations over Yahoo's search business has been rising since Yahoo's new CEO, Carol Bartz, took the reins in January. She succeeded Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, who beat back Microsoft's effort to buy all of Yahoo last year for $47.5 billion, which soured relationships between the two companies. Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo chiefly to combat Google Inc's dominance in the Internet search arena, and CEO Steve Ballmer has made it clear he would still like to do some sort of deal in that area. "Unless I'm fooling myself, over time I would expect there's a good opportunity for a deal," Ballmer told a media conference in New York last month.

BloggerPlay Shows Real Time Images Uploaded to Blogs

2009-04-14T14:28:00.000+05:30

Blogger has just released a new little toy of sorts, that shows the photos that are being uploaded to blogger accounts in real time. It’s called BloggerPlay.

Google has implemented safety watch on here, so only safe images will show. You’ll need to open a new screen in order to view the slide show, which can be paused, fast-forwarded, or rewound. The speed at which the slides transition can be modified as well, with a max speed of one image per 0.7 seconds. This function will be limited to your connection speed as well. Clicking an image will take you to the blog of its owner, or you can click the “show info” link directly in the player to see the user name and blog information.

If you don’t want your images to show up on the BloggerPlay slide show, you’ll need to opt out here. And if you’d like to watch BloggerPlay for more than an hour, it’s recommended that you use Firefox 2, IE 7, Camino (Mac) or Safari 3 Beta. Unfortunately this player cannot be embedded, but perhaps that will be included in the next release.

3-D Webcam

2009-04-10T22:42:00.003+05:30

Online video chat has gone 3-D. A new webcam with two cameras spaced approximately as far apart as human eyes sends two offset images to a computer. In real time, software processes the images according to how they'll be viewed: the camera comes with five sets of blue-red 3-D glasses for use with ordinary monitors, but the software can also output images in the format used by new 3-D displays. The webcam is compatible with such applications as Skype, AOL Instant Messenger, and YouTube.

Product: Minoru 3D Webcam

Cost: $89.95

Source: www.minoru3d.com

Company: Promotion and Display Technology

Adobe, Facebook Tie up to Create Flash Developer Tools

2009-04-10T21:24:00.002+05:30

Adobe and Facebook have announced a joint effort to enable webdevelopers to create more compelling applications using the Adobe Flash Platform and Facebook Platform.

Officially supported by Adobe and Facebook, the new ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform is a free and open source programming language library that is expected to be a complete resource supporting all Facebook application programming interfaces (APIs) including Facebook Connect.

Documentation, example applications and code are now available for developers to start building rich applications with Adobe Flash and Flex software and Facebook Platform.

Ethan Beard, director of platform marketing, Facebook, said, "Our vision is to empower the world's developers to make the Web more social with Facebook Platform and through Facebook Connect. With our official support of the ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform, our innovative community of developers can more easily use the Adobe Flash Platform to create the next generation of applications that will allow users to engage with the people they care about in even more expressive ways."

"Combining social functionality with the Adobe Flash Platform gives the millions of Flash developers the tools to create Web experiences that are truly differentiated," said Bryant Macy, director of product marketing for the Platform Business Unit at Adobe. "Flash developers are already creating great applications for Facebook, and the new ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform will accelerate the pace of social innovation on the Web."

Many developers already use Adobe Flash software, including the open source Flex framework, to build applications on Facebook, or use Facebook Connect. The new ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform affirms that applications created with the Adobe Flash Platform will continue to be an integral part of the Facebook ecosystem.

The new ActionScript 3.0 library for Facebook includes support for 60 new APIs, which are consistent with current Facebook Platform APIs to ensure seamless implementation. It is the object-oriented programming language for Adobe Flash technology, which is ideally suited for developing rich Internet applications (RIAs). It joins JavaScript and PHP as officially supported client libraries for Facebook Platform.

The ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform is available immediately as a free download along with developer documentation and tutorials at http://www.adobe.com/go/facebook.

Internet Use Down After File-sharing Law

2009-04-10T21:19:00.000+05:30

Internet traffic dropped sharply in Sweden this week after a new law cracking down on online copyright violation went into force.

Based on the European Union's Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive, the new law makes it easier to prosecute file-sharers because it requires Internet Service Providers to disclose the Internet Protocol-addresses of suspected violators to copyright owners.

Statistics from the Netnod Internet Exchange, an organization measuring Internet traffic, suggest that daily online activity dropped more than 40 percent after the law took effect on Wednesday.

Henrik Ponten of the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau welcomed the plunge in Internet traffic as a sign that file-swappers are reducing their activity for fear of getting caught. "There's no other explanation for it," he said.

Some criticized the new law as overzealous and said it puts as risk Sweden's position as a leader in online technologies.

"Half the Internet is gone. If this pattern keeps up, it means the extensive broadband network we've built will lose its significance," said Jon Karlung, chief executive of Banhof, a Swedish ISP.

Sweden has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in Europe but has also made a name for itself as a hub of illegal file-sharing.

Twelve hours after the law came into force, five Swedish audio book publishers representing 15 authors filed a request to find out details of a server suspected of containing more than 2,000 illegally downloaded works.

In a separate case, four Swedes linked to one of the world's most popular file-sharing sites - The Pirate Bay - are on trial on copyright charges. A verdict is expected this month.

The future of Bluetooth

2009-04-10T21:00:00.000+05:30

It is estimated that there are more than one billion devices in use that utilize Bluetooth wireless technology. You can expect that number to rise sharply when Bluetooth 3.0 hits the market.

Bluetooth 3.0

Bluetooth 3.0 is the new Bluetooth wireless standard currently in development by the Bluetooth SIG and Wi-Media Alliance. The new standard is reportedly up to 160 times as fast as Bluetooth 2.1, and builds upon the previous standards. With such a rapid jump in transfer speeds, the technology has the potential to revolutionize the consumer electronics industry.

It's FAST
Bluetooth 3.0 will reportedly transfer files at rates of 480 megabits (60 Megabytes) per second in close proximity, and 100 megabits (12.5 Megabytes) per second at 10 meters. At those speeds, high-quality streaming video is a definite possibility, along with a host of other applications that are simply impractical with the current transfer rates.
Picture this...
With Bluetooth 3.0, camcorders will stream video footage or still photos to Bluetooth enabled televisions and computers; digital cameras will stream photo slideshows to cell phones, and laptops will have the ability to transfer presentations wirelessly to a projector. Use your imagination — the possibilities are really exciting.
High bandwidth mitigates interference
Bluetooth 3.0 will operate in the 6-9 GHz range rather than the current 2.4 GHz range, eliminating the concern of interference from wireless networks and other devices that use the 2.4 GHz range.
Backwards compatibility
Best of all, Bluetooth 3.0 will be backwards-compatible, so all of your old devices will be able to communicate with the new ones and vice versa. New devices will feature a 2.4 GHz Bluetooth radio on the same radio chip, or its own separate chip. But bear in mind that transfer speeds are only as fast as the slowest device, meaning that the two will exchange data at the slower, 3-megabit rate of Bluetooth 2.1.

Bluetooth wireless technology has made some major strides in the past few years, and the new 3.0 standard has the potential to remove not only the wires, but the communication barriers between devices that have existed for years as well.

YouTube, Universal to Launch Premium Music Site

2009-04-10T20:58:00.001+05:30

Google's YouTube and Universal Music Group, the world's largest music company, said on Thursday they will launch a premium music video website as they bid to increase revenue from YouTube's huge usage.

The new site will be called Vevo and is expected to launch in coming months, the companies said. Plans for Vevo come in addition to the renewal and extension of YouTube's rights deal to feature video content from Universal artists such as U2, 50 Cent and Kanye West. Universal Music is owned by French media group Vivendi.

Vevo will be a premium online music video hub designed to offer higher-quality videos, as opposed to the typical grainy and often user-generated videos on YouTube. The idea is for Vevo to attract more big-name advertisers and other content owner partners. Universal and YouTube will share advertising revenue generated by the site. Both sides will be betting that building a premium site will help increase advertising rates. Many big brand owners have avoided advertising alongside YouTube's mix of user-generated videos. Vevo will also serve as a syndication platform as YouTube and Universal expand the reach of the Vevo brand, the companies said.

Bluetooth 3.0 spec to have Wi-Fi speeds

2009-04-10T20:48:00.001+05:30

The Bluetooth SIG today provided early details of the Bluetooth 3.0 spec ahead of a full formal launch. The new format should provide a jump in bandwidth that gives it speed roughly equivalent to common Wi-Fi, or several times the 3Mbps speed of Bluetooth 2.0. Transfers will be quick enough to let songs arrive "within seconds," according to the group. It will also serve as a unique way of establishing one-on-one Wi-Fi connnections: a hand-off mode will use Bluetooth to auto-discover other nearby devices and switch to a direct Wi-Fi link as long as both devices have Wi-Fi as an option.

Equally part of the spec is a new technique known as Enhanced Power Control that prevents a connection from dropping when a device is suddenly put in an enclosure, such as a bag or a pocket.

More details of Bluetooth 3.0 should be made public on April 21st, when the SIG plans its formal introduction of the technology and identify early supporters of the short-range wireless standard. No plans have circulated outlining when 3.0 will arrive in shipping products and whether any existing Bluetooth devices will be upgradeable.

Notably, Apple's iPhone OS 3.0 will use Bluetooth to establish local network connections similar to what's contained in the upcoming Bluetooth format, though it's believed that Apple is using a custom approach and existing Bluetooth 2.1 hardware to achieve the effect.

What’s the Next Internet Deal of the Decade?

2009-04-06T22:26:00.003+05:30

Now that Microsoft-Yahoo has officially collapsed, speculation moves on to what the next Internet mega-deal might look like. Realistically, there are only two companies that can pull off anything resembling the scale of what Microsoft-Yahoo would have been – and those are Microsoft and Google.

The two technology titans are at markedly different points in their respective histories. Microsoft is desperate for a way to become more relevant on the Web, while Google is in a race against time to find its next homerun as the search advertising market matures. So who do these companies acquire to achieve these objectives? Here are two ideas:

Google Goes All AOL-Time Warner Style with CBS

Forget social networking, mobile, and space exploration. Google is a media company. They have been experimenting with extending their AdWords platform in print, radio, and television advertising, and made a number of acquisitions to further the cause. But the way to really make a splash in the enormous offline advertising market is to acquire someone with massive distribution, and that means one of the big old media companies.

Right now, the most logical target would be CBS. They have a huge presence in television, radio, and outdoor (billboards). With nearly 24,000 employees, it might sound like a lot more overhead than Google would want to take on, but keep in mind the premise behind the strategy of extending AdWords to offline advertising is that most of the advertising process can be automated. If that means a few thousand ad salespeople need to take a walk, so be it. Google showed no qualms about “determining the right staffing levels” following the DoubleClick acquisition, and I’d expect them to be equally ruthless in eliminating the bloated sales staff of an old media company.

Beyond its old media assets, let’s not forget that CBS also owns Last.fm. That’s a lot more valuable in Google’s hands than it is in those of CBS, as it finally gives Google a viable competitor to iTunes, and they has the reach (via search) to promote the hell out of it.

Microsoft Tries to be the Web’s OS with Amazon

While speculation about a Facebook acquisition might make for a sexy story, let’s get real. If Microsoft is going to do the biggest acquisition in the history of the company, it’s going to need to be through something that fundamentally changes its business model and immediately adds serious revenue growth. And the one company that can do both happens to be right down the street from the company’s headquarters – Amazon.

No, being the Web’s biggest retailer probably isn’t too high on Microsoft’s wish list. But the sunk costs of building distribution facilities and a massive global infrastructure are mostly behind Amazon. And the company knows this, and has taken that infrastructure – matched probably only by Google in scale – and started the process of transforming itself into a web services company for providing scalable computing to the masses. And they’re off to a big start – in its most recent quarter, bandwidth used by Amazon Web Services customers exceeded that used by Amazon.com – one of the most trafficked destinations on the Internet.

If Microsoft were to buy Amazon, they would be in an excellent position to push the cloud computing concept even further ahead. In remaining the dominant desktop OS, Microsoft still in reality has the largest developer community – developers that are also thinking long and hard about how to move their applications off the desktop and into the cloud. There are also the tens of millions of small and medium sized businesses that are currently Microsoft customers that are without a web strategy - Amazon Web Services fits perfectly into serving this segment too.

Finally, let us not forget Google is already moving in this direction too with App Engine. Microsoft needs to make a play in this space – and Amazon is the quickest way to do so (in addition to adding a company that grew revenue from $10.7 to $14.8 billion last year)

Will Either of these Deals Actually Happen?

The answer is probably not – mega-deals like AOL-Time Warner and the now abandoned Yahoo-Microsoft come along once a decade because of how complex it is to integrate such large and fundamentally different organizations. But both ideas make a lot of sense, and if they happen, at least I’ve put my stake in the ground so I can say I told you so .

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Google Launches Free Music Download Service in China

2009-04-06T05:52:00.001+05:30

In China, it’s easy to get free music: simply fire up search engines Baidu or Google, enter an artist you’d like to listen to, and download the melodies. In a country where (IFPI claims) 99 percent of all music files are pirated, the major record labels are happy to get at least an advertising revenue split with a popular search engine in exchange for giving out music for free.

Google’s free music search service has been in the making for quite a while, and now they’ve taken off the beta label, meaning that the service is here to stay. It’s a necessity, really; to be able to compete with Baidu, which also offers music downloads (the legality of which is, however, disputed) and holds over 60 percent of the search market, offering free music downloads is a must for Google.

Google’s service offers some 350,000 songs from Chinese and foreign artists that can be freely downloaded; according to Gary Chen, CEO of Google’s partner in this venture, www.Top100.cn, that number should rise to some 1.1 million in the following months. Google is splitting the advertising revenue share with Sony Music, Warner Music, EMI and Universal Music, but such deals are unlikely to happen in countries other than China, where the pirated-to-bought music ratio is radically different. Furthermore, although anyone can access the service at this address -www.google.cn/music/homepage - you cannot download the songs if you’re not connected to the internet from China.

Still, it’s interesting to see how very different business models can be arranged with the major labels, depending on the state of the market. Free music downloads is not something they would consider, for example, in the US, but in China they’re happy with this deal. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Top 20 Ways to Share a Great Blog Post

2009-04-05T15:48:00.003+05:30

Sharing Via Social Media:

1. Using Twitter to Tweet and Share: Perhaps the fastest and most effective way to share a great blog post is through Twitter. Sharing or retweeting a link in Twitter can spread like wildfire. Use a URL shortener such as tinyurl or bit.ly to shorten links to fit within 140 characters.

2. Posting to Facebook: Sharing a blog post on the world’s largest social network is as simple as going to the Facebook homepage and posting a link.

3. Digg it: Not only will you help bring that blog post one step closer to reaching the front page of the news site Digg(which will spread it even further), but all of your Digg friends will see it as well.

4. Post on MySpace Profile: Don’t forget about the world’s second largest social network when sharing your favorite articles. Post the link to your MySpace profile so your friends can enjoy it too.

5. Posting to LinkedIn: Some blog posts are worthy of being shared by your business network onLinkedIn. Post a link to the Network Updates area in the homepage.

6. Stumbling on StumbleUpon Stumble the post! StumbleUpon is a favorite network for discovering fun websites and useful information, so make sure that you give the post a thumbs up. The StumbleUpon Toolbar is the easiest way to Stumble.

7. Bookmarking to Delicious: Delicious is great for not only sharing posts, but for helping categorize blog posts for others to find. In addition, you can import your delicious bookmarks to Facebook,FriendFeed, and other social media websites.

8. Sharing on FriendFeed: The social media aggregator FriendFeed has a vibrant community who love to share videos, links, and pictures. Use the FriendFeed bookmarklet to quickly share a good blog post to FriendFeed.

9. Adding to Reddit: Reddit is another great social media site for sharing and voting on articles. It’s quick and easy to submit a link

Sharing Via Blogs:

10. Reblogging Great Posts: Blogging about a great article is one of the best ways to engage with the topics being discussed. Post a link, write some commentary, and share it with all of your readers. And don’t forget to share your own blog post as well!

11. Sharing via Google Reader: Google Reader has a great feature for sharing blog posts. If you use Google Reader as your news reader of choice, all you have to do is click the “share” button at the bottom of blog posts to share it with all of your Google friends. You can also add notes and comment as well.

12. Posting on Tumblr or Posterous: If you want to share something via a blog, but don’t want to write a full blog post about it, there are great options for that as well, primarily Tumblr andPosterous. They are the quick and easy versions of full-fledged blogs, ideal for posting about pictures and blog posts.

Useful Tools for Sharing

13. TwitThat: TwitThat is one of the quickest and easiest tools for sharing blog posts. It will post to your Twitter quickly and easily. Just add the bookmarklet to your browser toolbar and click it whenever you come across a great post.

14. Shareaholic Firefox Extension: There are a lot of great social networks where you can share a great post, but who wants to visit Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn to share a post? If you are a Firefox user, then install Shareaholic, an extension that goes on your toolbar. It provides quick links for sharing to all of the major social networks.

15. Ping.fm: If you’re a busy person, you might not have time to share on all of these social media websites. Isn’t there an easy way to share a blog post everywhere, all at once? Ping.fm links to all of your social networks and sends your updates to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, to any other website you wish to link to it. You can even update from your instant messenger. It’s the perfect solution for those who like to share content all over the web.

Other Ways to Share:

16. Emailing: Email has always been a good way to share articles, especially with close friends and family. Although it may not reach as many people as Twitter, it will definitely reach anyone who isn’t as deep into social media as you are.

17. Texting: Did you know you that many blogs, including Mashable, support sharing an article via text message? Look out for the ShareThis button (three green dots connected by lines) under blog posts and select the “text” option. iPhones and mobile browsers have made it easy to read links sent by texts.

18. Changing IM Statuses: You probably have dozens, if not hundreds of IM contacts. Share great posts with all of them by changing your IM status to a great post you just read or wrote.

19. IMing a friend: If changing an IM status seems too impersonal, then just IM your friends the link. You can then have a fun chat about the blog post.

20. Talking to Friends: If you don’t have a computer handy, then don’t forget about the analog approach - call a friend or tell him or her over coffee about a great blog post you read. You can always send the link later if necessary.

How Do You Share Blog Posts?

This post only scratches the surface of sharing in social media. There are hundreds of tools and resources at your disposal. If you have another great way to share blog posts, please add it in the comments.

Are We On the Brink of Finding a Second Earth?

2009-04-04T23:21:00.003+05:30

"It could happen almost any time now. We now have the technological capability to identify Earth-like planets around the smallest stars." says NASA/Harvard Teams

To date, Planet hunters have spotted more than 200 planets beyond our solar system, but the vast majority are hot, Jupiter-sized planets that would dwarf the Earth and are almost certainly lifeless.

Astronomers may be on the brink of discovering a second Earth-like planet, a find that would add fresh impetus to the search for extraterrestrial life, according to the US journal Science. Astronomers from six major centers, including NASA, Harvard and the University of Colorado, outline how advances in technology suggest scientists are on the verge of being able to detect the presence of small, rocky planets, much like our own, around distant stars for the first time. The planets are considered the most likely habitats for extraterrestrial life.

One technique relies on observing the shift in light coming from a star as a planet swings around it. Until recently, this "radial velocity" method has only been sensitive enough to pick up planets far more massive than Earth, but improvements now make the discovery of a second Earth highly likely, said Dave Latham, a co-author on the paper at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

"It could happen almost any time now. We have the technological capability to identify Earth-like planets around the smallest stars even now," he said.

Earlier this year, the world's largest and most prolific team of planet hunters, the Anglo-Australian, California and Carnegie Planet Searches ( AAPS), reported their findings of 37 exoplanets that have been discovered over the past couple of years, 7 of which were previously unreported brown dwarfs.

Depending on whose number you go by, the total number of exoplanets currently discovered is 212 or 240, the majority of which have been discovered by the AAPS and their colleagues in the California and Carnegie searches.

World’s Fastest Broadband at $20 Per Home

2009-04-04T21:14:00.001+05:30

If you get excited about the prospect of really, really fast broadband Internet service, here’s a statistic that will make heart race. Or your blood boil. Or both.

Pretty much the fastest consumer broadband in the world is the 160-megabit-per-second service offered by J:Com, the largest cable company in Japan. Here’s how much the company had to invest to upgrade its network to provide that speed: $20 per home passed.

The cable modem needed for that speed costs about $60, compared with about $30 for the current generation.

Download the World Wide Web

2009-04-03T21:19:00.004+05:30

These days, if you can't access the Web, you can't do your business or probably nothing else .

The days where you couldn't surf the web because you had no Internet connection available are no more !

Imagine if you can download the Web in your computer, you will be able to access it from anywhere, anytime !

Making your imagination true , a company called MyWebDownload.com launched this project.

Can't believe this ? or stuck with lots of doubts ?..Then read this..

Q: Isn’t the Web too big to for anyone to be able to download it?
If we consider the whole World Wide Web, yes it would be impossible to download it. The latest numbers from Google estimate that there are around 40 billion pages on the Web. If we then estimate that each page has 10KB on average, that is already 400,000,000,000 KB, or 400 Terabytes!
It turns out, however, that 90% of those websites are pornographic or gambling related. Once we removed those, therefore, the size of The Web was reduced to 10% of its initial value, or 40,000,000,000 KB (40 Terabytes).
After that we removed the illegal MP3 and movie downloads, and the YouTube videos. This further reduced the size of The Web to 3,444,000,000 (or 3,444 Terabytes), and that is the size of our file collection.

I guess it makes sense.

The files are very big, each with over 100 Gigabytes. The site recommend users to use a download manager software to make sure that they will be able to pause and restart downloads if necessary.

Overall it is a nice idea, and certainly a website to keep an eye on.

75 websites you can submit your blog to

2009-04-03T15:23:00.001+05:30

Blog directories will never bring you a huge burst of traffic however it’s still worth submitting your blog to a few sites, particularly if you are promoting a new blog. This post lists 75 websites which bloggers can submit their blog to.

Blog Communities

Blog Directories

5 Star Blogs | Submit Page
Aviva Directory | Submit Page (has a blog section)
B4Blogs Directory | Submit Page
Best Blogs | Submit Page
Bigger Blogger
Blawg | Submit Page
BlogAdr | Submit Page
Blogarama | Submit Page
BlogBunch | Submit Page
BlogCode | Submit Page
Blog Directory | Submit Page
Blog Dust | Submit Page
Blogdup | Submit Page
Bloggernity | Submit Page
BlogFlux | Submit Page
BlogHop | Submit Page
Blog Point | Submit Page
Blog Watch
Bloggapedia
BloggerNow
Blogging Fusion | Submit Page
BlogIntro | Submit Page
Blog Listing | Submit Page
BlogListing.net | Submit Page
Blogoozle | Submit Page
BlogPulse | Submit Page
BlogRankings
Blogs Collection | Submit Page
BlogSearch - Submit Page
BlogSweet
Blog Top List | Submit Page
Blog Universe | Submit Page
Blogz | Submit Page
Brit Blog | Submit Page
Dmoz Open Directory Project
Eaton Web Blog Directory
FindingBlog | Submit Page
GetBlogs
Globe of Blogs | Submit Page
I Blog Business | Submit Page
IceRocket | Submit Page (more of a search site but they have a blog submission page)
LS Blogs | Submit Page
MyBlogDirectory
Read A Blog | Submit Page
Small Business Blog Directory | Submit Page
SpillBean
Strategic Board | Submit Page
Super Blog Directory | Submit Page
TailRank
Technorati | Submit Page
Top Blog Area | Submit Page

Paid Submissions

Most of the directories who charge for a listing will waive the fee if you have a link to them on your blog.

All-Blogs | Submit Page - $10 fee, Free submission if you link to them
Best of the Web Blogs | Submit Page - $39.95 One-Time Review Fee
Blog Announce | Submit Page - $9.95 fee, $6.95 if you link to them
BlogBib | Submit Page - $15 fee, Free submission if you link to them
Bloggeries | Submit Page - $19.99 fee, Free submission if you link to them
Bloggers Directory | Submit Page - $1.99 fee, Free submission if you link to them
Bulletize | Submit Page - $14.50 fee, Free submission if you link to them
Delightful Blogs | Submit Page - $11 fee
Submit Blog Directory |Submit Page - $5 fee, Free submission if you link to them

RSS Feed Directories

I hope that you find this list useful. If you know of any more useful sites please let me know and I will add them to the list

Google's Web Server Secrets Revealed

2009-04-03T01:03:00.003+05:30

Google is tight-lipped about its computing operations, but the company for the first time on Wednesday revealed the hardware at the core of its Internet might at a conference here about the increasingly prominent issue of data center efficiency.

Most companies buy servers from the likes of Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, or Sun Microsystems. But Google, which has hundreds of thousands of servers and considers running them part of its core expertise, designs and builds its own. Ben Jai, who designed many of Google's servers, unveiled a modern Google server before the hungry eyes of a technically sophisticated audience.

Google's big surprise: each server has its own 12-volt battery to supply power if there's a problem with the main source of electricity. The company also revealed for the first time that since 2005, its data centers have been composed of standard shipping containers--each with 1,160 servers and a power consumption that can reach 250 kilowatts.

Internet is Fragmenting

2009-04-02T23:57:00.001+05:30

If you want my theory in short, this is whats happening, instead of the Internet growing as a whole and taking together every person that hops on to it, the Internet is fragmenting into smaller parts and breaking down the free transmission of data that used to happen.

The first major change that affected me when Google News switched to Google News India automatically when I would go to it. What happened is instead of all the international news showing up, my news gets India centric. Now I am more of a global person, its not that Indian news does not interest me, it sure does cause it affects me the most. But my perspective is narrowed down to one part of the world which I get to know anyway in the local newspapers.

Apart from not being able to see everything I want on a global level, YouTube that just launched YouTube India, I am not too sure how good the move is, perhaps it will benefit documentary makers and small scale filmmakers in India, but its also going to stop the exposure of a person to a completely new level of learning. The moment you get to YouTube India, you have the same stuff thats there on TV, people singing, reality shows and the scenes from bollywood movies. Why is the Internet replicating the same content that can be found on television? Wouldn't it be better for an Indian mind to learn much more from a YouTube.com than a localized version of the same. Perhaps YouTube will do what it claims to on their blog, act as a democratic platform for communication, but what if the democratic government does not allow them to give them the opportunity to give its Indian users the freedom the American version requires. YouTube bent over for the Chinese when they were asked to do it, well only time will tell, lets get the debates on YouTube, lets get the bribing cops caught, I wish all the self made Tehelka to do their democratic duty and give us the show of our lives!Another point to ponder on is if YouTube's move is basically to reap the benefits out of an emerging market. Rather than helping people learn and get exposed to global cultures and events. The doors are slowly being closed on these levels as Google's just turning out to be another big clog in the machine, with them narrowing down our exposure to information and making maximum profits out of it. Perhaps YouTube India could be the change required to get Indian who are glued to the idiot box online.

It would be much better for websites like Google to take active steps in educating the masses on global levels. This is what our Earth and this civilization really need at this point of time. Educate the people about to the numerous amounts of catastrophes happening, like climate change and the ones lurking around the corner.

Top 10 Reasons to Fear Google

2009-04-02T23:19:00.001+05:30

There are naysayers in every crowd. They are the people who hate Microsoft because it’s so ubiquitous. On the same page, there are people who loath Wal-Mart because it is a global company that is supposedly wrecking local retailers everywhere. But when most people think of operating systems or cheap shopping, they think Wal-Mart and Microsoft.

Enter Google. Once just a search engine, it is now sprouting up extensions like Jack’s bean stalk on steroids. These extensions are what’s making Google so irreplaceable for many people who want the one stop shop. Google is fast becoming the Wal-Mart of the Internet. And it’s for that reason that some people are starting to fear the company.

10. Google Video

When most people think of looking for videos, YouTube is the automatic choice. However, Google has gone a step beyond YouTube. Not only does a Video search yield all of the YouTube results and play them in the Google window, but the search engine also searches the entire web for your content. While Google Video may not feature categories like YouTube, when you can search the entire web, who cares?

9. Google Maps & Google Earth

A few years ago, Google created an application called Google Earth that would let a person input an address and the application would give them the most recent satellite images of that area. Another nifty feature was the ability to plot a course between multiple locations similar to Mapquest.com. Now Google Maps has taken on Mapquest and many other map making companies. However, Google Maps has gone beyond the simple map adding in the flexibility of a Yellow Pages with displayed directions to the pizza parlor or local electronics store.

8. Google Books & Google Scholar

Libraries across the world are wondering what they will do with all the books they house once Google is done. Years ago, Google Books announced that it would try to make every page of every book available and searchable online. They are still working on that one due to copyright laws; however, they have now made searchable many scholarly articles. The library may still be the place to complete most of your research, but maybe not for long.

7. Google News

Who wouldn’t like a searchable database of recent articles on any topic imaginable? Perhaps the media companies who want to be the sole source for your news gathering. Though having that searchable source of news might mean a more balanced view of the news, when someone gets thousands or millions of hits, how do they choose what is the best news source for them?

6. Google Shopping

Retailers everywhere are cringing over the fact that their prices are being compared to other retailers with one simple click. The Google Shopping feature searches Web sites for whatever you want and gives you only what you want or more than you can handle when you are not specific. eBay and Paypal beware – Google Checkout is coming. You will soon be able to do all of your shopping through Google as well.

5. iGoogle

Similar to Yahoo, Google has branched out by giving the search engine a customizable homepage with multiple features such as news feeds, weather, horoscopes and others. A one-stop shop has a tendency to leave out all the small details that some people crave; and it seems like iGoogle could be just the icing rather than the whole cake when it comes to the details.

4. G-mail

Again like Yahoo and even Microsoft, Google has created an online e-mail system. While millions of people have been using online e-mail for the last decade, this is just one more step for the Big G in making it the first and only destination on the Web.

3. Google Docs

Google is not satisfied just going after Yahoo, Mapquest, libraries and retailers. Microsoft and all the other word processing software companies beware. Now with a G-mail account, you can create documents such as invoices, letters, calendars and many more. Or how about a PowerPoint like presentation? The possibilities seem endless and your documents can be accessed by yourself and anyone else you allow online. Who needs Word anyways?

2. Frankenstein Internet

What Google has not created itself, it has started to wrap under its envelope. YouTube and Blogger are just two examples of other sites that have joined forces with the G Empire to create a monster. And if Google can’t find a suitable partner, then it has started to build its own version of popular sites such as an IM system (Google Talk), a social networking site like Facebook (Orkut) and other features. With pieces and parts from here, there and everywhere, one has to wonder if Google isn’t going to fall in the same trap as Microsoft – being too large and diverse to get one thing right.

1. Google

The main thing that Google is known as is, of course, a search engine. And that is one thing they have done correctly though many people question the validity of the search optimization methods used by the company. That said when most people want information where do they go? Google, of course. The name is so synonymous with search engines that is has been added to the dictionary as a known for searching on the Internet. If that’s not scary enough for you, perhaps you should Google scary see what you think is scarier.

World’s first flying car prepares for take-off

2009-04-01T17:12:00.003+05:30

Is it a car? Is it a plane? Actually it’s both. The first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air next month.

If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds, is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months’ time.

Its manufacturer says it is easy to keep and run since it uses normal unleaded fuel and will fit into a garage.

Carl Dietrich, who runs the Massachusetts-based Terrafugia, said: “This is the first really integrated design where the wings fold up automatically and all the parts are in one vehicle.”

The Transition, developed by former Nasa engineers, is powered by the same 100bhp engine on the ground and in the air.

Terrafugia claims it will be able to fly up to 500 miles on a single tank of petrol at a cruising speed of 115mph. Up to now, however, it has been tested only on roads at up to 90mph.

Dietrich said he had already received 40 orders, despite an expected retail price of $200,000 (£132,000).

“For an airplane that’s very reasonable, but for a car that’s very much at the high end,” he conceded.

There are still one or two drawbacks. Getting insurance may be a little tricky and finding somewhere to take off may not be straightforward: the only place in the US in which it is legal to take off from a road is Alaska.

Dietrich is optimistic. He said: “In the long term we have the potential to make air travel practical for individuals at a price that would meet or beat driving, with huge time savings.”

LG GD900 : World’s First Mobile Phone with Transparent Keypad

2009-04-01T17:03:00.003+05:30

LG really has some good looking phone in its lineup. Here is another addition to the list. This concept phone, introduced at the latest GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, features a transparent keypad that will glow in dark. Read on to find some more information.

Thickness : 13.4 mm
Wireless Connectivity : 7.2 Mbps HSDPA
Double Camera
Dedicated Bluetooth Headset
Will be available in second half

Google announced free Internet connection upto 8 Mbps

2009-03-31T22:00:00.061+05:30

In 1998 when google landed on internet there were merely 100 million internet users worldwide.
By the time of Y2K ( year 2000) , Internet users reached 360 million .
By 2006 , it crossed 1 Billion mark and now in 2009 it touched 1.6 billion mark with almost 350 % growth compared to 2000.

BUT.....When compared with the estimated world population (2008) , 6.7 Billion ( 6,710,029,070 to be specific) only 1.6 Billion uses internet and the rest is still far away from this creative world

This means not even 25% of the world population is using internet. To create awareness and make internet available to the rest of the world Google launched it's new industrial project named Internet G+.

Through this you are going to get a free internet connection with a speed upto 8 Mbps ( speed depends on your geographical location ). All you need to have is just a computer .

Download Application
or

Select your location

Apply Online

Official announcement : Google announced free internet connection upto 8Mbps

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Could the Internet run out of space?

2009-03-30T21:33:00.000+05:30

When a small group of university scientists began linking computers on different campus sites at the very end of the 1960s, they had no idea that their work would one day spiral into a globally-accessible network in which the total number of pages is measured in the tens of billions.

Such has been the Internet's phenomenal and dizzying growth that much of the technology which supports it has grown organically and without much forward planning.

But what if the Internet was to run out of space? This isn't just a theoretical debate, but something experts warn could become a real issue within a few years. Now, one business school professor studying the issue believes he may have come up with a solution.

The problem isn't one of storage, but of location, the so-called IP addresses which are handed out to new sites. These are all given a unique number based on something called the IPv4 (Internet protocol version 4) standard, the system under which the web first expanded globally.

IPv4 assigns main host addresses using a system which gives around 4 billion possible combinations, a figure which at the time seemed greater than could possibly ever be used. But now the numbers are running out. A new system, IPv6, has been developed, but technical issues and a reluctance among Web companies to begin using it means it could be years before this is widely adopted.

Benjamin G. Edelman, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, is warning that such a bottleneck could seriously hamper the Internet, saying the Web is in danger of becoming "a victim of its own success."

If new technology businesses can't acquire sufficient IP addresses it will be difficult for them to get a foothold in the industry, he said.

"Entry and potential entry are an important part of competition. We need to make sure new firms can easily begin operations so that existing providers can't hold customers hostage."

Edelman believes he has come up with an interim solution -- a free market in defunct or unused IP addresses, of which there are many millions, which can be transferred, at a price, to new owners.

"It's unlikely that other networks would return their space for free. Why would they?" he said. "But if the price is right, they may be willing to transfer the space to someone who needs it more."

In the Web's early days, Edelman explains, when the number of IP addresses seemed inexhaustible, some networks were allocated huge numbers by the non-governmental independent regulators which control this. Some of these companies later scaled back their Internet activities or even went out of business altogether.

These unused addresses could attract a market price, bringing not only what economists call "allocative efficiency" -- moving resources to where they are most needed -- but also another benefit.

"By putting a positive price on IPv4 space, a market mechanism would remind current v4 users that their v4 space is valuable, and that they might want to try to vacate it, to the extent they can, perhaps by moving to IPv6," he said.

"A market basically tells networks: 'We will pay you to use v6 instead.' That's a transition incentive quite different from anything we've seen to date. That's a transition incentive that just might work."

Economically efficient it might be. But would this mean ordinary Web users having to pay in order to surf? Edelman believes not.

"If this transition goes smoothly, consumers should never notice. To date, IP addresses have been a trivially small part of the cost of Internet access and Web site hosting. Even if IP address prices increased 100 times, consumers still probably wouldn't notice," he said.

"The bigger worries come if Internet Service Providers just cannot expand, or just cannot enter the market. If that were to come to pass, I wouldn't be surprised to see effects on service price and quality."

Earth Hour saved 146,000 kWh of electricity in Dubai

2009-03-29T21:58:00.001+05:30

Power consumption in Dubai fell by 146,000 kWh during Earth Hour 2009, the Dubai Water and Electricity Authority (DEWA) has announced after the Earth Hour on 28th March.

The reduction in electricity was 46 percent up on 2008 and represented an 88,000 kg drop in CO2 gas emissions. Thousands of Dubai residents, business establishments and organisations switched off unnecessary lighting and electrical appliances, as they joined the global one-hour power down.

Saeed Mohammad Al Tayer, the managing director and CEO of DEWA, led the official public display of support for Earth Hour. Government officials and members of the public placed more than 5,000 lit lanterns on Arabic and English cut outs of the words Earth Hour to mark the occasion.

Mr. Al Tayer said: "We wish to thank everyone who participated in Earth Hour. The cut in electricity of 146,000 kWh shows what can be done when people act collectively to save energy. It is vital that people work individually and collectively to reduce energy consumption to protect our Earth."

Among the Dubai landmark buildings whose exteriors were plunged into darkness were the Burj Al Arab, Madinat Jumeirah, Jumeirah Beach Hotel, DIFC's The Gate, Emirates Towers and the World Trade Centre. Billed, by the WWF, as a vote for the Earth over climate change, Earth Hour embraced more than 4,000 cities and towns across the globe.

Nasa and Microsoft to make Universe of data available to the public

2009-03-29T20:03:00.003+05:30

WASHINGTON -- NASA and Microsoft Corp. announced Tuesday plans to make planetary images and data available via the Internet under a Space Act Agreement. Through this project, NASA and Microsoft jointly will develop the technology and infrastructure necessary to make the most interesting NASA content -- including high-resolution scientific images and data from Mars and the moon -- explorable on WorldWide Telescope, Microsoft's online virtual telescope for exploring the universe.

"Making NASA's scientific and astronomical data more accessible to the public is a high priority for NASA, especially given the new administration's recent emphasis on open government and transparency," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Under the joint agreement, NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., will process and host more than 100 terabytes of data, enough to fill 20,000 DVDs. WorldWide Telescope will incorporate the data later in 2009 and feature imagery from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, known as MRO. Launched in August 2005, MRO has been examining Mars with a high-resolution camera and five other instruments since 2006 and has returned more data than all other Mars missions combined.

"This collaboration between Microsoft and NASA will enable people around the world to explore new images of the moon and Mars in a rich, interactive environment through the WorldWide Telescope," said Tony Hey, corporate vice president of Microsoft External Research in Redmond, Wash. "WorldWide Telescope serves as a powerful tool for computer science researchers, educators and students to explore space and experience the excitement of computer science."

Also available will be images from a camera aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, when publicly released starting this fall. Scheduled to launch this May, LRO will spend at least a year in a low, polar orbit approximately 30 miles above the lunar surface collecting detailed information about the lunar environment.

"NASA is excited to collaborate with Microsoft to share its portfolio of planetary images with students and lifelong learners," said S. Pete Worden, director of Ames. "This is a compelling astronomical resource and will help inspire our next generation of astronomers."

This agreement builds on a prior collaboration with Microsoft that enabled NASA to develop 3-D interactive Microsoft Photosynth collections of the space shuttle launch pad and other facilities at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The images featured on Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope will supplement existing imagery and data available on NASA's Web site, the Planetary Data System and other sources.

The WorldWide Telescope is a Web 2.0 visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from ground- and space-based telescopes for a seamless, rich media guided exploration of the universe. Through WorldWide Telescope and Microsoft technology, people will be able to pan and zoom in on these images and the most interesting locations on Mars and the moon without distorted views at the poles.

Attracting millions of users since its release last spring, WorldWide Telescope provides a base for teaching astronomy, scientific discovery and computational science. Tours with narration, music, text and graphics create interactive learning experiences that allow people to search, explore and discover the universe in a new and unique manner. Additional information and a free download of WorldWide Telescope can be found at:

http://www.worldwidetelescope.org

Soccer robots being built to beat humans

2009-03-27T19:24:00.001+05:30

The European champions and current highest-ranked soccer team in the world, Spain, are beaten 3-0...by a team of robots.

It may sound ridiculous, but robot developers in Asia, the U.S. and Europe are dreaming of that very goal.

Working under the umbrella organizations FIRA (Federation of Robot-Soccer Association) and the RoboCup Federation, researchers and developers are aiming to advance robot technology to the point that a team of humanoids can beat the best humans in the sport by 2050.

Since robot soccer competitions began in the mid-1990s, researchers have already made significant developments towards their goal.

Phil Culverhouse of the Center for Robotics and Intelligent Systems at the University of Plymouth told CNN that the first robots in competition were controlled by humans and many were on wheels or four-legged, but that is changing.

"Since 2007 the team have progressed to bipedal robots that have cameras on board," he said. "Our robots are autonomous -- they have no control from outside sources. The cameras try to work out where the goal is, where the ball is and where the other players are."

Further robotic developments appear to be close. Researchers at Carlos III University of Madrid released a study in the March 2009 online edition of 'Expert Systems with Applications,' showing they had refined a technique known as machine-learning.

Basically, the scientists were able to teach a virtual player simple reactions to visual stimuli -- based upon how real humans react in the same situation.

Do you think robots will one day be able to beat humans at football? (Post your comments here)

This year robots will go head-to-head at both the RoboCup event in Austria in June/July and the FIRA RoboWorld Cup in Korea in August. The most advanced classes at present are the bipedal classes for 'humanoid' robots.

Co-chair of RoboCup 2009, Gerald Steinbauer, told CNN this year's event was the 13th edition of the cup, and he was impressed by progress by advances since the competitions began.

"At the last RoboCup in China 2008 we had games of teams of three humanoid playing attractive soccer. They walk on two feet, fight for the ball and of course score... so we are approaching the goal," he said.

Culverhouse said interest in both events had steadily grown, especially since the two-legged robots had been introduced. This year up to 3,000 competitors from 40 countries are expected at RoboCup.

"This has been extremely effective in gaining interest. These are much more exciting to watch. We have seen a steep level of change in interest from not just young people but everybody."

Despite the increasing profile, Culverhouse said there are still plenty of major challenges before the humanoids can seriously compete with humans.

"This is still a long way from competing against humans. The next big challenge to be met is to get robots walking like humans and then running like humans.

"One of the most challenging things is getting a robot to walk on uneven terrain without falling over," he said, explaining that some fall over after kicking at goal. (Although, it's not hard to think of professional footballers who have suffered the same problem.)

The University of Plymouth team is currently researching how robot's feet can be improved, and hope to release a concept later this year that could usher in a new era of in foot design.

For Steinbauer, the critical issues are that of perception and cognitive abilities.

"Perception is one of our major problems. It is important that a robot is able to understand a scene like a human does. If you enter a complete unknown room you are able to recognize the important things like furniture and also relations and functions of objects very fast," he said.

"Despite huge progress in this area we are far behind the capabilities of animals or humans.

"And of course there's cognitive capabilities. To reason about new, uncertain or even inconsistent facts is easy for a human but very hard for a robot," Steinbauer said.

Size and cost are other limiting issues.

"In order to make this affordable we are developing robots 50 to 60 centimeters high. At that size each robot costs about 10,000 pounds to make. At full human size each would cost about 50,000 pounds," Culverhouse said.

Soccer is an ideal testing ground for robotics as it encompasses many different elements including movement, vision and strategy, Steinbauer said. But the applications developed in these robots could serve a greater purpose.

Steinbauer said robot technologies could be used for entertainment or performing simple tasks around the home and office. They also could be used in rescue scenarios -- where robots could be sent into dangerous situations in place of humans, he said.

Vote Earth ; Your Light Switch is your Vote

2009-03-27T17:58:00.000+05:30

This year, Earth Hour has been transformed into the world’s first global election, between Earth and global warming.

For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.

This meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol. It is the chance for the people of the world to make their voice heard.

Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008 the message had grown into a global sustainability movement, with 50 million people switching off their lights. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all stood in darkness.

In 2009, Earth Hour is being taken to the next level, with the goal of 1 billion people switching off their lights as part of a global vote. Unlike any election in history, it is not about what country you’re from, but instead, what planet you’re from. VOTE EARTH is a global call to action for every individual, every business, and every community. A call to stand up and take control over the future of our planet. Over 74 countries and territories have pledged their support to VOTE EARTH during Earth Hour 2009, and this number is growing everyday.

We all have a vote, and every single vote counts. Together we can take control of the future of our planet, for future generations.

VOTE EARTH by simply switching off your lights for one hour, and join the world for Earth Hour.

Saturday, March 28, 8:30-9:30pm.