Another blog ...

Check if your Android device is affected by Heartbleed bug/vulnerability

2014-04-15T03:20:00.001-07:00

Is your Android device vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug in OpenSSL that was exposed recently? Here's an easy to to check with the Heartbleed Detector app from Lookout. It determines what version of OpenSSL your device is using and if the version detected is one of the affected versions of OpenSSL, then it check to see if the specific vulnerable feature called heartbeats is enabled. The app is easy to use, install the app from the Play Store and run it. It will automatically display the test results.
Get the Heartbleed Detector App

Create/Convert PDF files for free

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

We all have acrobat reader to read PDF files. But when it comes to creating a PDF files for any purpose you are at loss as without Adobe Acrobat it is impossible to create a PDF file. Or is it so?
The truth is that you can create a PDF file even without acrobat installed on your system. The easiest way out is to create a MS word document and then convert it to PDF using any of the available PDF converter tools. Let’s take a look at some of the tools you can use.
Online PDF converters
FreePDFConvert
Convert Microsoft Office, Open Office, graphic images, vector graphic and other formats to PDF online. Upload your files and it will be send to your email after it is converted to PDF.
PDFOnline
Convert your office documents to PDF. Converted file are sent back to your email.
PrimoOnline
PrimoOnline provides you with the ability to create PDF files from your office documents by uploading them.
Firefox Extensions
PDFescape
PDFescape allows you to open and edit PSF files online. It is a free PDF editor in your Firefox.
pdfit
Convert the current page to PDF.

Free Online Personal Finance Management Tools

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

Online personal finance management tools are great to keep in touch with your finances the easy way and these services are growing fast. Here is a list of some free online personal finance management tools.
Mint
Mint is probably the best known online personal finance management tool. Mint saves you the trouble of bookkeeping by automatically pulling in your balances, purchases, stock trades, etc. It connects securely with more than 7,000 US financial institutions. Mint has impressive financial analysis tools and is definitely a must try if you are looking for an online financial management solution.
Thrive
Thrive aggregates your bank, credit card account information into a single interface. It has partnered with 8000+ banks. It categorizes your spending automatically so you can analyze exactly "where your money is going".
Expensr
Expensr is another free online personal finance manager which tracks your spending and compares them with similar people so you know where to improve. It lets you create budgets to stay on track and you can also use their forecasting tools to avoid any financial surprises.
Rudder
Rudder is another online personal finance management tools that brings all your bank / card accounts (Connect to 3000+ banks & credit cards) in the same place, It helps you track your bills, and it has a innovative feature called ‘What’s Left’ which helps predict your future cashflow.
Wesabe
Wesabe is part money management tool, part community. It pulls all your financial information together for you. It provides you with an easy way to manage your money. You can view all of your bank/ credit card details in the same place.
Yodlee – MoneyCenter
Yodlee money Center lets you manage your finances better by letting you view al your finances in one place, set and track a budget, track your spending etc..
Pennyminder
Pennyminder lets you manager you finances by tracking deposits and withdrawals so you can known what's happening with your money. It lets you share your journals with anyone by email and imports your bank statement.
Geezeo
Geezeo provides you with a set of online financial tools to help you reach your goals and make your finances better everyday. It automatically categorizes all your expenses from all your accounts into one place. Its community is a great place to ask specific questions to financial experts, connect with like-minded people, and learn from others
NetWorthIQ
NetworthIQ is a social personal finance manager designed to make monitoring your net worth easy and fun.
Quicken Online
It automatically organizes your accounts in one place to simplify internet banking, keep track of your bills, lets you check your balances from your cell phone and helps you set your budget goals and track its progress.

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

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

Stock photography websites are a great place to sell your photos and earn money. There are stock photography websites that are ideal places to sell your photos no matter if you are a professional or amateur photographer. There are several ways to sell your photographs through a stock photography sites. You can sell exclusive rights to a photograph or you can get paid per downloads. Also, the payment varies form site to site while the most common payment methods seems to be PayPal, Moneybookers and check. Here’s a large list of stock photography websites where you can sell your photographs along with important details like how much they pay and the payment methods. Have fun selling your photos.
BigStockPhoto
bigstockphoto pays you 50 cents to $3 per image download. You can also earn more on special license downloads. It' minimum payout is $30 and they pay by PayPal. You can also request a check for a minimum payout of $50.
iStockphoto
istockphoto pays you 20% for each file download. However if you are an exclusive contributor then it can go up to 40%. Minimum payout is $100 and they pay by Check, PayPal/Moneybookers and Direct deposit or pre-paid iStockphoto MasterCard Payoneer.
Dreamstime
Dreamstime pays you 50% fee for each transaction and 60% for exclusive images. Exclusive photographers also get an additional bonus of $0.20 for each approved submission. Minimum payout is $100 and payment methods are check, PayPal or Moneybookers.
Shutterstock
With a collection of more than 6 million stock photos shutterstock is a big player in the stock photography market. Shutterstock pays you 25 cents every time your image is downloaded. However, once you reach $500 in earnings, your commission can go up to 30 cents per download. You can also earn money by referring photographers and stock buyers. The minimum payout is $75 by PayPal or Moneybookers and $300 by check.
Stockxpert
Stockxpert is another great site dealing with stock photographs. It currently has more than 2.9 million images with thousands added every day. They pay you 50% for each download. Payment methods are PayPal, Ikobo, Moneybookers and you can also request a check.
123RF
Another great stock photography resource with over 4.0 million images. They pay you 50% of the net proceeds from each photo downloaded. You can also earn buy referring customers (15% of the purchase or subscription), and referring photographers (10% of the price of each of their photo downloaded). Payment methods are PayPal, Moneybookers and checks.
Canstockphoto
Canstockphoto pays you 50% commission for guest and member purchases and 25 cents for subscription sales. Payment methods are PayPal, Moneybookers and check and the minimum payouts are $50 for PayPal and $100 for Moneybookers and check.
Fotolia
Fotolia is another popular stock photography website with over 5 million photos and illustrations. They pay you 30- 44% commission for non-exclusive files and 47-61% commission for submissions by total exclusive contributors. You need a minimum of 50 earned credits to get paid and the payment methods are PayPal and Moneybookers.
ShutterPoint
ShutterPoint offers a high payout of 85% for full Royalty-Free license and 70% for standard Royalty-Free license. Minimum payout is $50 and payment methods are PayPal, Moneybookers and check.
Photostockplus
Photostockplus pays you 85% commission on all sales minus a 3.25% processing fee. Minimum payout is $100 and payment methods are check, bank wire or PayPal.
Crestock
Crestock initially pays you a commission of 20% but it goes up to 30% once you have reached 100 downloads. For subscription downloads you get $0.25 commission per download. The minimum payout for payment by PayPal, Moneybookers is $50 and the minimum payout for payment by bank transfers or check is $100.
SnapVillage
SnapVillage pays you a royalty of 30% for every image sold on a standard or product license. For an image downloaded on subscription you earn 30 cents. Payment method is PayPal and the minimum payout is $10.
Citizenside
Well, this one is not exclusively for stock photos but it allows you to sell your photos to perspective buyers. They pay you a commission of up to 75%. Payment methods are PayPal or bank transfer
Adography
Adography is a nice place to sell your photographs. Adography does not accept returns and so you get paid immediately when someone buys a photo. All payments are made through Amazon Payments.
PhotoShelter
Home to over 40000 photographers, Photoshelter is another good place to sell your photographs. You don’t have to wait for a check from them as you can use your own PayPal or merchant account to sell your photos.
Buy-photo.eu
Buy-photo.eu offers a commission of 50% for every sold photographs. Payment method is PayPal and the minimum payout is 50 Euros.
Alamy
With Alamy, you get 60% of each sale. They pay you monthly (if payout exceeds $250).
PantherMedia
You get a commission of 50% (can go up to 60%) of the sales of your images via PantherMedia. You can also earn by referring new members. Payment method is PayPal or direct payment to your bank account and the minimum payout is 30 Euros.
Tradebit
Not exactly a stock photography site (lets you sell sounds, photos, software, e-Books, music etc.) but you can still sell your photos through tradebit.
ClusterShot
ClusterShot helps you sell your photos. They allow anyone to sell their photos. When you sell your photos they act as an escrow service to ensure payment is successfully received before the photo is released to the buyer. You can request your payment anytime and it will be paid to you after deducting a 12% fee off the sale.
Photospin
Photospin pays you a revenue share of 50% for exclusive images and 40% for non-exclusive images. The minimum payout is $50 and the payment methods are PayPal and check.
FreePhotoMarket
Freephotomarket lets you sell your photos without charging any fee on transactions. You can set your own price for your photos and you can sell up to 100 photos for free. However, to sell more than 100 photos you need to pay an annual fee of € 199. Payment transactions are done by PayPal and full sale amount is directly deposited to your PayPal account
StockPhotography
Stockphotography splits sales 50/50 with you. They notify sales quarterly and pay you by checks in £ Sterling or US$.
Paxxion
Paxxion allows you to sell your images through them. You can set your own price for your work. Paxxion doesn't take any commission for transactions but if you don't want to be limited by the free membership account you have to pay a fee of little more than 3 euros per month. Payment is made by PayPal.
MicroStockPhoto
Microstockphoto pays you 35% of the sale price for each image that is downloaded. The minimum payout is $50 and payment is made by PayPal.
Mediafocus
Mediafocus pays you 20% to 40% of the net billing of images (the pay depends on the photographer's experience, image quality etc.). The minimum payout is $50.00.
StockphotoPro
Stockphotopro pays you 20% royalty every time your images are purchased and 30% royalty if you have a 300+ images collection. Payment method is PayPal and the minimum payout is $10.
FeaturePics
FeaturePics pays you 70% of the license fees received for all photos. Minimum payout is $50 and payment methods are check, PayPal and Moneybookers.
Imagecatalog
Imagecatalog pays you 40% for each sale of your images. Minimum payout is $75 and they pay by PayPal or bank check in US funds.
Stockphotospot
Stockphotospot pays you up to $2 when you upload any photo. You then get paid 20 cents per downloads of your photos. Their minimum payout is $100 and they pay via PayPal or Check.
Yaymicro
Yaymicro pays you a commission of 50 % to contributors on all credit sales. For subscriptions the commission is €1 per download. Payment methods are PayPal and Moneybookers and the minimum payout is €30.
Zymmetrical
Zymmetrical pays you a commission of 70% and the minimum payout for PayPal is $10 and for Payoneer it is $50.
Cutcaster
Cutcaster pays you 50% a commission for exclusive contents and 40% for non-exclusive contents. The minimum payout is $20 and they pay via PayPal, Moneybookers or check.
Stockphotomedia
Stockphotomedia pays you a commission of 35% to 55% for each image downloaded. The minimum payout is 60 EUR and is paid via PayPal or Moneybookers.
ImageVortex
Imagevortex pays you a commission of 70% of the original sale price. The minimum payout is $100 and the payment methods are PayPal, check or a wire transfer to your bank account.
ThePhotoStorage
Thephotostorage pays you a commission of 50% of the sale. The minimum payout is $100 CAD dollars.
Pixmac
Pixmac pays you a commission of 50% for non-exclusive rights and 60% for exclusive rights. Payment methods are Moneybookers and PayPal.
PictureStock
Picturestock pays a commission of 50% to the photographer when an image is sold. Payments are made by check or international money order.
Anka Agency International
AAI pays you a commission of 50% on the net sales. However they need a minimum of 100 images to be submitted.
fotoLibra
Fotolibra pays you a commission of 50% of the sell. Platinum members get 60%. The minimum payout is £50 and payment methods are check, bank transfer or PayPal.
Abundant Photo
Abundant Photo pays you a royalty of 50% each time one of your photos are purchased. The minimum payout is $10.00.
MrPaparazzi
MrPaparazzi is a place to sell your celebrity photographs. They pay you 50% of all licensing fees (including secondary and subsequent licensing) after deduction of applicable taxes. Payments are made via electronic transfer to your bank account or by check.
Thesnitcherdesk
Thesnitcherdesk is another place to sell your celebrity photographs. You get 50% of the sale and is paid via PayPal or bank transfer.
Photrade
Apart from earning money from their ad revenue sharing model, you can also earn by selling your photos on Photrade. You get 80% of the markup made on any sale.
Picturenation
Picturenation pays you 40% commission on each sale. However to upload more than 5 images you need to have a Pro account which costs you £10 a year. Minimum payout is £50. Payment is made via bank transfer or PayPal.
Vizero
Vizero is place to upload your photos and sell them to prospective buyers. You fix the price of the photos and Vizero charges you 25% commission on each sale if you hold a free membership account and 15% commission on each sale if you hold a paying account. Payment is made via PayPal and MoneyBookers. However the free account has a limitation of only 5MB upload space and it expires after six months.
Express Digital
Express Digital lets you sell photos through them by setting your own price. They take a commission of maximum 15% as e-commerce transaction fee for each online order along with a 3% fee as the cost of payment processing. They pay you every two weeks.

Find User reviews and rating on Web Hosting

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

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

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

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

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

70+ Great tutorials for Adobe Photoshop.

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

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

Autocorrect URL typos in FireFox address bar

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

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

Download 'The Photoshop Anthology' eBook for free

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

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

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

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

Javascript in VB.Net webpage

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

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

Consider this ASP.net page.


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

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

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

What happens here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

19 Free Online Password Generators and password Strength checkers

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

Password Generators

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

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

Good Password

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

PCtools Secure Password Generator

To quote them

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

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

Free password Generator

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

Strong Password Generator

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

Webcogs Random Password Generator

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

Phonetic Password Generator

To quote them

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

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

Strong Password Generator

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

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

Online Password Generator

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

Techzoom Password Generator

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

Passbuilder

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

Getpasswd

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

4webhelp Password Generator

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

Secure Random Password Generator

Set the password pattern and length to generate your password.

Password Strength Checkers

Microsoft Password Checker

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

Securitystats Password Security Checker

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

Rumkin.com password strength test

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

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

Simple password strength checker

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

Cornell University Password Strength Checker

Simple password strength checker.

The Password Meter

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

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

Free forum/Community builder software

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

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

SMF

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

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

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

bbPress

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

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

Beehive Forum

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

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

Dolphin

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

IceBB

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

nextBBS

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

UseBB

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

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

Vanilla

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

Scan a file for virus online with multiple AntiVirus

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

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

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

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

How to remove / hide the blogger Navbar

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

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

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

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

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

Free Online Guitar Chord Dictionaries

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

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

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

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

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

MoneyChords Guitar Chord Dictionary
A 50 page Guitar Chord Dictionary,

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

VideoGuitarLessons Chord Dictionary

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

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

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

Guitar Chord Explorer by Michael Hogg

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

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

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

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

Add Rating star/ rate post widget to your blog

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

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

So now readers can rate your post easily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

authorPOINT Lite-Free PowerPoint to Flash converter :

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

FileFormatInfo Online PowerPoint to Flash Conversion:

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

Zamzar

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

How to Backup your Blogger Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

Free Blog Pinging Tools

2008-02-19T11:11:00.001-08:00

Pinging is important for bloggers as it notifies dozens of services which track blogs that you've update your blog. Some blogger platform has this facility built in where they notify the servers automatically whenever you update your blog. In case you need to do it manually, there are lot of free services which makes the job a lot easier for you. Just enter your blog url and they will ping dozens of servers. It saves a lot of time as you don't have to manually ping them one by one. Below is a list of few mostly used free pinging services.

Autopinger is a free service to help you ping your blogs and podcasts to most available blog/podcast search engines and aggregators remotely and automatically.

PingMyBlog.com pings all the major blog directories in one go so that everyone knows about your latest blogs. It saves you the time of having to do each one manually!

Ping your blog, feed, or podcast for free!

Pingates is a service that pings or notifies a number of services that keep track of weblogs and publish them.

Pingoat is a service that pings or notifies a number of services that keep track of weblogs and publish them. By pinging, you let the services know that your blog has been updated and hence, they crawl and index your site, publishing your blog contents, thus increasing your blog's popularity.

Ping.IN is a blog ping service that pings or notifies Weblog Services such as Blog Search Engines and blog directories that your blog has been updated.

Ping-O-Matic is a service to update different search engines that your blog has updated.

Enter your blog name and URL and select the services you want to ping.

King Ping is a free automatic pinging service that makes pinging faster and easier for bloggers and online publishers. Enter your blog URI to start pinging.

BlogBlip - Just enter blog URl and ping.

Free Health & Fitness Softwares

2008-02-17T13:30:00.000-08:00

Free Learn Yoga Software
MB Free Learn Yoga is an educational tool for learning the basics of yoga. This program is extremely simple and very useful for beginners who want to learn how to practice the different Yogas. It is an advanced yet handy software that provides information on every aspect of yoga, the different mudras, meditation, benefits of practicing yoga and meditation and the like.

EvenFit
Track weightlifting, cardio, running, biking and swimming workouts
Design Workout Templates and schedule future workouts
Track body weight, calories, sleep and much more

Yoga freeware

yoga freeware features yoga instructions (hatha yoga, raja yoga & jnana yoga), articles and photos of asanas.

Exercise Diary

Exercise Diary fitness software accurately records and reports your workouts. Exercise Diary will help you to exceed your limits and achieve the body you desire. Lose fat and increase muscle mass. Every day you wait is a day of lost progress!

Exertrack -Exercise,fitness,workout log software
Exertrack is Exercise, workout and fitness software designed to keep you in shape.Exertrack software makes it easy to create and manage your workouts, as well as find and rank new workouts.

Visual Heart Rate
This free Heart Rate Monitor software allows you to make easy and accurate measurements of your heart rate (beats per minute).

Food File
Food File is a free food database and calorie counter for 1000s of food products.

BMR Calculator

How Many Calories Do You Need? Find Out with a BMR Calculator

Workrave
Workrave is a program that assists in the recovery and prevention of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). The program frequently alerts you to take micro-pauses, rest breaks and restricts you to your daily limit.

Free Blood Pressure Recorder Download

Use it daily with a blood pressure meter to keep check of what your blood pressure is doing. High Blood Pressure or Hypertension is very common and a major cause of premature death in the western world. If you are over 40 years old, you need to make sure you do not have it. If you do then you need to see a doctor for advice on how to treat it.

Pimp My Meal
Calory calculator with many features : BMI (body mass index) ,BMR ( basal metabolic rate )and caloric needs according to the Harris-Beneditc formula.

BMI Calculator for Windows
The 'What Health BMI Calc' is an easy to use body mass index calculator for Windows. Body Mass Index can be used to determine if an person is overweight. In keeping with the World Health Organisation (W.H.O.) recommendations, only height and weight measurements are needed to calculate BMI.

The Life Ahead Program
Manage Your Exercise and Cardiofitness
Manage Your Diet and Weight
manage Your Health and Life

DietControl
DietControl is absolutely free software tool for management your personal diet program. DietControl helps you to build a variety of diet programs, according to your specific nutritional needs. It is the easy way to build your meals according to the diet program. With help of DietControl you can track and compare your body measurements, you'll know exactly how well or poorly you're doing.

Free OCR Software - Extract text from Images

2008-02-16T09:23:00.001-08:00

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OCR Tools, a division of File Innovations, presents a state-of-the-art Optical Character Recognition desktop utility that generates ASCII text from images such as a bitmap or image file. Incorporating Neural Networks, Artificial Intelligence, and trained with over 4 million font variations; our OCR utility incorporate the latest optical character recognition technology to solve all of your OCR problems. The utility is freeware. The registered version eliminates popup messages and advertising. Registered version removes popups and advertising..

Intelliant OCR is an optical character recognition commandline utility, able to convert scanned images into a searchable PDF format, including both image and text in a same standard container. This increases the value of your intellectual capital, allowing you to best utilize your image documents with any search engine. It is remarkably fast, light (the installator weighs only 5 Mb) and the recognition function makes quite a nice job for the main european languages. Several text and image compression methods allow to enormously reduce the size of the documents. Input images can be in all the flavours of the TIFF format, even already encapsulated in a PDF document. Intelliant OCR processes monochrome inputs, and now also supports gray level and colour documents. Output documents can be in ASCII format, smart ASCII (tries to produce text as much like the original image as possible), RTF and PDF. You can specify all security options and properties (title, author, subject and keywords) in the version 1.4 of Adobe PDF format.

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OCR stands for Optical character recognition. OCR software enables you to extract the text from a scanned image and convert it into an editable text document. So if you want to keep that interesting piece of article from a magazine you do not have to sit and type in the whole article. Just scan the article page and then use any OCR software to convert it into editable text. There are many OCR software available though most of them are commercial and costly. And it doesn’t make much sense to spend so much money on it especially if you’d be using it once in a bluemoon. Below is a list of freely available OCR software which does the job for you.

TopOCR
TopOCR is designed to be simple and user-friendly for use with your digital camera or smartphone. Now, wherever you go, you can create documents from business cards, newspapers, books and magazines, all without lugging around a notebook computer and scanner.
http://www.topocr.com/

FreeOCR.net V2.2
Softi FreeOCR is a complete scan and OCR program including the Windows compiled Tesseract free ocr engine. It includes a Windows installer and It is very simple to use and supports multi-page tiff's, fax documents as well as most image types including compressed Tiff's which the Tesseract engine on its own cannot read .It now has Twain scanning.
http://softi.co.uk/freeocr.htm

Tesseract-ocr
The Tesseract OCR engine was one of the top 3 engines in the 1995 UNLV Accuracy test. Between 1995 and 2006 it had little work done on it, but it is probably one of the most accurate open source OCR engines available. The source code will read a binary, grey or color image and output text. A tiff reader is built in that will read uncompressed TIFF images, or libtiff can be added to read compressed images.
http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/

GOCR/JOCR
Developed under the GNU Public License. It converts scanned images of text back to text files.
http://jocr.sourceforge.net/

GOCR Windows Frontend 1.0
This frontend for GOCR is graphical and is designed to be simple to use, just select the graphics file that you want to recongnise, and the output will be shown to you. You can then copy this output and paste it to somewhere useful. Most major graphical file formats are supported.
http://www.brothersoft.com/gocr-windows-frontend-38579.html

OCR Desktop Application
A desktop utility that generates ASCII text from images such as a bitmap or image file. Incorporating Neural Networks, Artificial Intelligence, and trained with over 4 million font variations; our OCR utility incorporate the latest optical character recognition technology to solve your OCR problems. The utility is free for personal use, the registered version turns off popups and advertising.
http://www.ocrtools.com/fi/prdOCRFree.aspx

SimpleOCR
SimpleOCR is the popular freeware OCR software with hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. SimpleOCR is also a royalty-free OCR SDK for developers to use in their custom applications.
If you have a scanner and want to avoid retyping your documents, SimpleOCR is the fast, free way to do it. The SimpleOCR freeware is 100% free and not limited in any way. Anyone can use SimpleOCR for free--home users, educational institutions, even corporate users.
http://www.simpleocr.com/

Ocrad - The GNU OCR
GNU Ocrad is an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program based on a feature extraction method. It reads images in pbm (bitmap), pgm (greyscale) or ppm (color) formats and produces text in byte (8-bit) or UTF-8 formats.
http://www.gnu.org/software/ocrad/ocrad.html

If you have MS-Office you already have an OCR tool ready. You can use Microsoft Office Document Imaging as an OCR tool.

Greasemonkey Scripts for Youtube

2008-02-13T16:38:00.000-08:00

Thousands of Greasemonkey scripts are available for download out there. But its very hard to find scripts which are really useful. There are way too many scripts to perform the same task. Here I have tried to compile a list of some useful scripts for Youtube. If anybody knows of any scripts which was left out, please be kind enough to comment on it.

Videoembed
Automatically adds embedded videos after links to pages like: glumbert, metacafe, google, yahoo, photobucket, youtube, myspace...(and many others) so you can view the video without opening a new page.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/7686

Download Video
Save video clips from YouTube, Google Video, Myspace, Metacafe, Break.com, Putfile, Dailymotion and Sevenload.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/4037

Thumbs2Links
Thumbs2Links is a Greasemonkey script that gives you the ability to download large groups of videos in a fast and easy way. It works on Youtube and similar sites.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/7940

YouTube Cleaner 2.1
A simple script that removes unwanted clutter on YouTube pages. What makes it special is that it includes controls to restore them instantly.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/8345

YousableTubeFix
Removes ads, allows downloading and resizing videos, displaying all comments on video page, etc. (fixed)
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13333

Youtube Theater
Mods Youtube videos, includes only the video/searchbar and enlarges the video.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/9342

No YouNoobs - Hide YouTube Comments
Hides the comments in YouTube.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/7981

YouTube comments next to videos
Puts YouTube comments in a scrollable box on the right side of the video so that you can read them without scrolling away from the clip, similar to Google Video.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/7174

Download YouTube Video and Convert with Vixy
adds "Download This Video" link and icon to Youtube , on click you will be redirected to Vixy or DirectDownload.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/10917

Youtube Blackout
A script that blacks out the rest of youtube when watching a video. This script reduces distraction, allowing for maximum viewing experience.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/9145

YouTube Full Description
Automatically shows the full description on YouTube video pages.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/10038

Youtube Fullscreen Redirector
Redirects YouTube videos to the full screen version.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/12350

YouTubeImageLink
Turns embedded YouTube videos into clickable images that link to the YouTube video page.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/12159

Free Stock Photo Resources

2008-02-13T04:07:00.000-08:00

If you need stock photos for your website or any other reason, there are lot of websites which offer free stock photos. Below is a list of few such websites. Some of which are completely free to use whereas some needs giving credit to the creator or a link -back etc. Be sure to check out the T&C of the sites to know more.

FreeFoto.com is the largest collection of free photographs (made up of 113340 images with 148 sections organized into 3198 categories) on the Internet (link back and attribution required).
http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp

artfavor You can use any resources only for non-commercial projects.
http://www.artfavor.com/

Palouse photography: This is a repository of stock images focused primarily on the Palouse region of the Inland Northwest of America.
http://www.palousephotography.org/

Geek philosopher : Free to use, but might require a linkback from a page.
http://geekphilosopher.com/MainPage/photos.htm

bigfoto : You have free use of all pictures if you provide a link to the bigfoto website.
http://www.bigfoto.com/

Barry's Free Photos offers over 2300 FREE Stock Photos
http://www.barrysfreephotos.com/

amgmedia : All these digital photos (taken with Nikon Coolpix) are 72dpi. You may use any of the royalty free photos shown at right as long as you give credit to the photographer.
http://www.amgmedia.com/freephotos/

Creating online : Premium High-Res Photos for Personal or Commercial Use
http://www.creatingonline.com/stock_photos/

Gimp-Savvy The photo archive at Gimp-Savvy.com has more than 27,000 free photos and images, consisting of over 2.5 Gbytes of data.
http://gimp-savvy.com/PHOTO-ARCHIVE/

Free Photographs Network: The Free Photographs Network is an online resource for royalty-free stock photographs for non-commercial use.
http://www.free-photographs.net/

morguefile : Free high resolution digital stock photography for either corporate or public use.
http://www.morguefile.com/

freeimages : More than 2500 original stock photos for free.
http://www.freeimages.co.uk/

freephotos : Free to download, no link back and no credit required. Photographers: Publish your stock photos free and enter to win prizes!
http://www.freephotos.com/

amazingtextures : Hundreds of free textures to download, high-resolution textures, images, backgrounds, wallpapers and texture maps.
http://amazingtextures.com/textures/index.php

BurningWell is a repository for public domain (free for any use) images. You are free to download, copy and use the photos you find here for any purpose. These free images were donated by photographers from around the world, do you have any photographs you would like to donate?
http://www.burningwell.org/

freestockphotos : Free Photography for Personal or Commercial use. Read T&C for restrictions.
http://freestockphotos.com/

holylandphotos : Free photos of Holdy Lands
http://www.holylandphotos.org/

davidniblack : Free stock photos, images.
http://davidniblack.com/imagebase/

ImageAfter is a large online free photo collection. You can download and use any image or texture from our site and use it in your own work, either personal or commercial.
http://www.imageafter.com/

freemediagoo : Free stock photos.
http://www.freemediagoo.com/

photorogue : You can request a picture of anything you want, and volunteer photographers will go out and attempt to actually take the picture you want. It's entirely free, although we don't guarantee that your request will ever be filled.
http://www.photorogue.com/

stockvault : Over 9.000 royalty free, high resolution stock photos, templates and logos to use in your personal and educational design projects.
http://www.stockvault.net/

Vintage Pixels is a large database of free historical, high quality, free-for-use images which allows people to share their archived photos.
http://www.vintagepixels.com/

pdphoto : Free Public Domain Photo Database. ( few aren't Be sure to read the license under each of the enlarged pictures.)
http://pdphoto.org/

Bluetooth Remote Controls - Turn your mobile into a remote control

2008-02-08T14:46:00.001-08:00

Turn your mobile into a remote control for Windows or Linux PC.

Its nice to have some frequently used actions on your PC to be run from your mobile. Its always convenient to control winamp, xmms etc (may be a powerpoint presentation too) from your mobile. All you need is a Java enabled mobile with bluetooth and an application which turns your mobile into a remote control for your PC. Check out these apps below most of which are free.

blurc - Bluetooth Remote Control

Control your Linux computer with a Mobile Device running J2ME and BT. blurc is splited in two parts: blurcc, the blurc client, running on the mobile device; blurcd, the blurc daemon running on the linux computer.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/blurc

Linux Bluetooth Remote Control

A small program allowing a Java 2 ME and bluetooth enabled device to control a linux computer. It consists of a client part on the device and a server part on the controlled computer.

http://lbrc.berlios.de/

J2MERC

J2MERC is a multimedia remote control software for your PC.

http://www.borgomasino.net/j2merc/

Bluetooth Remote Control for Windows Mobile

With this software, you will be able to control remotely your desktop, mouse, and applications like Winamp, iTunes, the Windows Mixer, the Windows Media Player, PowerPoint, Media Player Classic, PowerDVD and the Vista's Media Center. You'll also be able to pause your favorite music software when the phone rings, then play it back when you hang up.

http://www.jaylee.org/remotecontrol/

jm2pc

Remote control your desktop or laptop computer with any Java powered phone. Access and edit your files, start and stop applications, control your mouse, keyboard and another devices.

http://www.jm2pc.com/

RemotePC2

Control your computer from Mobile Phone over GPRS and Bluetooth. Server runs on your pc and client runs on your Mobile Phohe.

http://www.getjar.com/products/5700/RemotePC2

Amora

It is an application for S60 Nokia smartphones written in Python (PyS6). It allows you to send keyboard events and mouse moving in your Linux desktop. You can control slides, movies, and any other application. Supported features include: mouse drag, double clicking, mouse left button, and some common keyboard keys (Enter, Esc, Space, F5, arrow key left/right, 'F', etc.).

http://code.google.com/p/amora/

Remuco

Remuco is a system to remotely control Linux music players with JavaME capable mobile devices via Bluetooth.

http://remuco.sourceforge.net/index.php/Remuco

ToothMote

ToothMote is an application to control Linux computers using a BlueTooth enabled cell phone. This program provides a basis for communicating with a connected cell phone, and then uses a plugin architecture to easily expand the amount of functionality it provides.

http://toothmote.sourceforge.net/