Digital Dexterity

Scribble Maps - Create Personalized Maps

2010-01-29T09:30:00.002+05:30

Advances in technology has helped us in a variety of ways including improved communication. The development of satellites has given us not only higher data transfer rates but also higher volume data transmission capabilities. Apart from communication, satellites have also helped us map the entire planet. One useful form of these maps is available to public through online services such as Google Maps and Bing Maps.

Though immensely popular, online maps are not very user friendly in terms of allowing customization. One cannot change the labels or add comments to these maps.

What would you do if you wanted to plan a trip on a map and share it with you friends? The current setup impairs sharing of maps through Web 2.0 channels.

Scribble Maps is a service that lets you customize and share maps. You can draw shapes and label places on a copy of Google Maps using an extensive choice of drawing tools, hence, allowing you to plan a trip on the map which can either be saved as JPG/KML/GPX or shared with friends. It is very easy to use and does not even require a signup.

The maps created can also be exported to Google My Maps easily. In addition, it allows you to create custom widgets using your maps.

Keep tab on Social Networks using NutshellMail

2010-01-25T13:30:00.000+05:30

Social Networking is perhaps the best gift among everything that Web 2.0 has ever given us. Social Networking has revolutionized and completely redefined the way people communicate and interact with each other on the internet. Almost everything from seaching to shopping, from learning to entertainment has been transformed by Web 2.0. Social Networking giants derive knowledge out of our interaction and behaviour and are constantly improving to match our tastes.

Currently, almost every internet user has multiple Web 2.0 related accounts on various sites, predominantly Social Networking, making it very difficult to manage them all reglarly and pay as much attention as they demand.

Therefore, a tool or service that assists in keeping a tab on all these services would be very helpful.

NutshellMail is a very useful email based service to manage all Social Networks from one place by helping clear the clutter and separating what's important from what's not. This service sends a daily email, at your preferred time, containing a gist of the activity on your accounts on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn. To top it all, you can respond to the activity or start something new from the email itself by clicking on an appropriate link contained in it.

NutshellMail can also be used to bypass workplace restrictions and censorship as the communication is only through email without the need of visiting any site directly. It is also very useful to parents who wish to monitor incoming message activity of their childrens' Social Networking accounts.

Microsoft Kodu - Design and Play Video Games on Xbox or Windows

2010-01-24T09:27:00.006+05:30

Unix has always been seen as the playground for a programmer/developer when on the other hand, Microsoft's Windows has always been looked upon as a user-friendly but never a programmer-friendly environment. To this date, the reconciliation of the two environments has never been truly observed.

Microsoft has been working hard to dispel its image of being the developers of the most user-friendly-programmer-hostile operating system. Some of the steps it has taken is the development of various GUI based programming tools that actually aim to make programming easier for learners and not-so-regular programmers.

East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.

Rudyard Kipling

In another attemp to disprove the above quote, Microsoft, in the summer of 2009, launched Kodu - a programming environment for games for Xbox 360. The original version required the Xbox console to run and hence could not really become popular in spite of its very easy interface requiring virtually no programming knowledge whatsoever. But now, Microsoft has released Kodu for Windows eliminating the need for the Xbox console.

Kodu is a great tool for designing small games giving you a lot of control and flexibility in your game design. But, nothing in this world is perfect and Kodu has its share of shortcomings. Though the program is highly detailed, you do not have absolute and unrestricted control over the game. Nevertheless, it's a great tool for non-programmers to express their creativity.

The King and Dr. Nick By Dr. George Nichopoulos

2010-01-20T18:00:00.001+05:30

Elvis Presley's electrifying music and euphoric dance earned him the title of "The King of Rock and Roll". Elvis Presley's legendary life had an equally mysterious end. This book, written by Elvis' doctor George Nichopoulos, gives, perhaps, the best insight in the King's life during the eleven years when Dr. Nick had Elvis under his care. This association “ended” on the tragic day of August 16, 1977 with the trip to the emergency room where, in spite of all the effort to save his life, Elvis passed away.

Presented as first hand experiences, this book throws light on Elvis' lifestyle including his drug use. The book begins with the description of the tragic day when Elvis Presley left this world leaving his fans in pain and a never-to-be-filled void in American Pop Culture.

The book progresses with the description of the years doctor spent with Elvis Presley while he toured the world and performed in concerts with hectic schedules which when coupled with the drugs led to slow and steady deterioration of the King's health. Towards the end, Dr. Nick makes a few startling revelations that discredits the popular belief, built over the years of unconfirmed and indiscriminate media reports, on the causes of Elvis' untimely demise.

This book is a must read for all Elvis fans as it comes from the man who was not only near Elvis during his last years but also was responsible for his health. After all, outside a family, your doctor knows you the best!

Faster Browsing on Firefox, How?

2009-08-30T17:15:00.000+05:30

Firefox, undoubtedly, is one of the most popular browsers available for free. In fact, it is so popular that the latest version, Firefox v3.5, has been downloaded over 160 million times since its release on June 30, 2009. Its immense popularity has led to the availability of a myriad of addons and extensions aimed at improving the user's experience with the browser.

SmarterFox is one such Firefox addon, available for free, which sports several features to help you browse faster.

The most important feature of all is its the ability to download all media on a particular webpage with a single-click. For example, if you are watching a Youtube video and wish to download it to your local storage, all you have to do is right-click on the webpage and choose the appropriate option to download the media. SmarterFox will download all media in parallel, increasing the utilization of bandwidth. The only downside of this feature is that you cannot select the type of media to download and the addon downloads all media irrespective of your requirement. Another important feature of Smarterfox is the ease with which it results search results for a term on a webpage. Just select the text, click on the popup bubble and results will show up in no time.

SmarterFox is a very useful Firefox addon that can really help you speed up the most common actions you perform while surfing. Apart from the above mentioned features, SmarterFox can be put to a lot more uses like endless surfing where the next page from a series gets loaded when you reach the bottom.
Technorati Tags

Firefox, Browser, Firefox addon, Firefox Extension, SmarterFox, Browse Faster, Download Youtube videos, Search faster.

Google's Answer to Microsoft's Bing - Caffeine

2009-08-27T18:00:00.003+05:30

The domains of two of the computer industry's big shots seem to be merging. Google and Microsoft, both have brewed up plans to expand their reach in both online and offline consumer solutions. The first challenge in the series came from Google's side which sometime back announced the launch of its new operating system which will be available to everyone for free. Almost at the same time, Microsoft challenged Google's stronghold on the search engine market with the launch of its new search engine, Bing. Unlike old times, both the industries have taken the competition seriously and have geared up for the next series of challenges. Microsoft, taking the lead this time, announced the release of free online version of its Office suite due sometime in the first quarter of 2010. Google has aptly replied with, well, caffeine.

Caffeine is Google's next weapon to neutralize Bing's effect on Google's search engine market share. It has announced major changes in its search algorithm to make the experience more refreshing, just like the share of everyday morning caffeine. Google has set up a sandbox where users can test the results given by Caffeinated Google. The regular Google search results are considerably different from the caffeinated results. The results not only include more diverse categories but are also expected to affect the current search engine rankings of websites.

Compare Google is another very useful tool that lets you compare top 30 regular Google results with as many Caffeinated Google brews for a query. Optionally, you can enter a URL and the tool automatically highlights the occurrences in the results. This helps in determining the effect Caffeinated Google can have on a site's rankings.
Technorati Tags

Google, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Bing, Caffeine, Caffeinated Google, Comapre Google Results, Search Engine Rankings, Google Operating System, Google Chrome.

Own a Country or even an Entire Continent Virtually

2009-07-31T13:30:00.004+05:30

Have you ever wondered how it would be if you had a whole continent all to yourself or if you ruled the world and all land that the eyes could see was yours? Fantasy does keep you drawn to itself! It has the power to appeal to your senses and keep you happy throughout your life. Though it is not possible to own an entire country or continent in the real world, you can own a large part of land mass or ocean virtually.

Buy A Place On Earth is a unique website that lets you own any part of the ocean or landmass virtually for 5 years.

You can put any picture or logo on the area that you bought and the whole world can see it. This is a unique concept indeed as the website uses a highly interactive 3d earth that can be spun or zoomed in or out as you desire. The original idea of the 3d earth was found on the Discovery website where it was used for finding shows related to a particular region. The 3d technology used here is something new to the web and holds a lot of potential within. In fact, it is highly intriguing as compared to the plain old conventional way of displaying images where no attention is paid to the placement and positioning. All this gives it the capability of attracting more attention in absence of any distractors like banners or sound.

Every pixel on the virtual earth comes with a small price tag of 5 Euro cents. This becomes more economical due to the fact that this subscription is for 5 years with no monthly or annual recurring charges. Even better, the revolutionary 3d pixel advertising brings unique traffic to you making it an excellent future investment for businesses trying to gain more popularity and hence more business.

References : Buy A Place On Earth
Technorati Tags

Virtual Earth, 3D Technology, 3D Earth, Discovery Channel.

Firefox add-on to Cache Webpages for Future Reference

2009-06-25T08:00:00.004+05:30

It happens quite frequently that when one is online and is busy doing something specific, he/she comes across something interesting but can't pay immediate attention to. In such situation, the general approach is to bookmark the page and return whenever, next, there is time. This strategy works for most of the people but causes cluttering of bookmarks, especially if one forgets to return letting the bookmark stay as is.

Read It Later is a Firefox add-on that lets you save webpages hence eliminating cluttering of bookmarks with sites that are merely of a one-time interest.

Like all other Firefox add-ons, Read It Later is very easy to install and use. It can be invoked just by a click to save the current webpage for future reading.

Read It Later does more than just saving webpages for you. It allows you to save the complete contents of a webpage rather than just its URL so that you can view it while offline. Effective use of this add-on is also facilitated by the availability of RSS feed of the webpages of interest which can be synced across computers for easy access. And to top it all, it allows access to the saved webpages list through its website if you are on a computer that does not have this add-on. Recently, Read It Later has become available for iPhone users too.

References : Read It Later.
Technorati Tags

Read It Later, Firefox, Add-on, Cache webpages, Save webpages, Free, RSS Feeds, Sync, iPhone, Bookmarks.

Cooliris - Firefox addon to View Images on 3D Wall

2009-06-22T08:15:00.000+05:30

With the increasing popularity of social networking and micro blogging, more and more media is being exchanged everyday over the Internet. Most shared form of media is through photos and images and more of this comes around with websites and photoblogs specifically for sharing images. With dozens of photos and images, it becomes difficult to view and compare them and more so if you are viewing them in the traditional slideshow.

Cooliris is a Firefox addon that helps you break the monotony of the conventional slideshow by letting you view the images on a 3D wall.

Cooliris works on hundreds of websites including all the popular ones like Google Images, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, Photobucket and the like. To top it all, Cooliris is very easy-to-install and use.

Cooliris can be obtained from the Official Firefox Add-ons page https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5579. Once installed, it is very easy to use and can be launched either from browser toolbar or clicking on Cooliris icon that appears on supported sites. All the images are presented along a 3D wall that can easily be scrolled and individual images can be viewed with the help of a single click.

References : Cooliris.
Technorati Tags

Cooliris, Firefox, Addons, Free, Images, Photos, Slideshow, 3D wall, Google Images, Youtube, Flickr, MySpace, Photobucket.

Readability - Read Comfortably Online

2009-06-21T08:30:00.000+05:30

It can be very stressful to read, on a computer/laptop, for long periods of time continuously. Primarily due to the size and nature of font, coupled with regular distractors like flash ads alongside the written material on the internet, the human eyes have to strain a lot to concentrate on the text especially when the duration exceeds beyond a certain length of time. Prolonged reading hours over several weeks or months, eventually affect your eyesight permanently.

Although online reading cannot be completely done away with, there is a simple way to provide a comfortable environment to your eyes for reading.

Readability, an Arc90 Lab experiment, is a way forward in this direction. Readability is a bookmarklet that formats the text on the current page, strips all the distractive ads and presents it for comfortable reading. Being a bookmarklet, Readability is not confined to any single or group of browsers, like firefox, opera or interent explorer, that it works with.

Readability lets you personalize your reading experience by providing formatting options for background style, font, size and margin. After deciding between different options with the help of example text, simply drag the readability button to your browser's Bookmarks Toolbar. Now, every time you want to read a long piece of text on current page, just click on the Bookmarklet and text gets formatted to let your eyes read comfortably.

References : Readability.
Technorati Tags

Reading, Readability, Eyes, Browsers, FireFox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Bookmarklet.

How Does Your Site Handle A Sudden Surge In Traffic?

2009-03-08T17:45:00.001+05:30

Have you ever come across a website that is facing temporary outage due to enormous number of viewers pouring in from all over the globe. This can become common if your website is not hosted on trusty servers and attracts a lot of visitors. During the outage, the site not only loses precious visitors but also the reputation that it had built in the past. Frequent outages can deter the regular and frequent visitors from revisiting your website. So, is your site all set up to face any amount of load impact?

Load Impact is a web service that simulates a sudden surge in traffic coming in on a website all at the same time.

The traffic is simulated as that of a non-cached browser and hence downloads all the content on your site making the simulated client feel harder than a regular visitor. While the basic version that simulates 50 simultaneous visitors is free, a large-scale simulation comes with a price tag.

After running several stages of the test comprising of varied number of client accesses, the time delay is plotted on a graph against the number of viewers (load level). Although the free test does not offer any detailed report and simulates a maximum load level of only 50 users, it gives a broad view as to how your site will react to a sudden increase in traffic. If you own a large website, you may go for a paid version of the test which can put you down by as much as $500!

Technorati Tags

Load Impact, Traffic Surge, Outage, Downtime, Non-Cached Browser, Free, Time Delay, Graph, Uptime.

Create 3-D Models Using Google SketchUp

2009-02-23T18:30:00.004+05:30

Everybody watched the Oscars night. One of the categories where an Oscar is awarded is the Best Animated Feature Film and the honor went to Wall-E this year. Ever wondered how these animated movies or 3-d models are made.

Google SketchUp, another desktop application from Google, helps build 3-D models with ease.

Apart from creating one from scratch, one can modify an already existing model and share it with others. Some of the things that you can do is model your home or locality and share it with friends or you can create a new roller-coaster ride for the theme park.

An easy to use tool, anyone can get started with Google SketchUp in minutes. Like all other modeling tools, SketchUp provides easy pan, zoom and rotate tools. In addition, SketchUp provides powerful yet simple-to-use tools for creating surfaces and pulling them in and out to form more elevated or depressed surfaces.

Currently available as a download for Windows Vista/XP and Mac OS X, Google SketchUp has a professional version too which is, unlike the standard version, is not free. For most general use, standard version of Google SketchUp should do.

Technorati Tags

Graphics, Animation, Google SketchUp, Free, Oscar, Best Animated Feature Film, Wall E, 3d Models, Mac OS X, Windows Vista.

Blogs in Print Form as Newspapers

2009-02-12T18:15:00.000+05:30

Till now, the global audience has been accessing and reading blogs through the internet; but blogs are now available in printed from too. This unique initiative by The Printed Blog presents blogs in printed form. The Printed Blog releases a newspaper containing blog posts and images twice a day and is available free of cost. The initiative is supported by advertisements and the blog posts and images are reprinted with the permission of blog owners. In addition to getting exposure among the offline audience, the bloggers are paid a part of advertisement revenue.

The printed editions are available in select cities of USA and are specific to the publishing location.

This means that the edition printed in different part of the city may be different from the one printed in your part of the city. Apart from the printed form, The Printed Blog is available in PDF format which can be downloaded and read on a computer.

Bloggers can gain more exposure among the offline audience by getting their content published in The Printed Blog. To get your articles printed, you must submit your blog using the 'Submit Content' link. By submitting, you are authorizing The Printed Blog to republish your content. If your work is chosen for reprinting, you will be fully credited for your work and will also receive a part of the revenue earned from advertisements in the newspaper.

Currently, The Printed Blog is available in very few locations across the USA but is fast expanding and will soon launch in other locations as well. Apart from submitting blogs articles, you can also submit photos, music, puzzles and events for printing in The Printed Blog.

Technorati Tags

Blog, Newspaper, Advertising, Revenue, Free, Print form, Republishing, Offline audience, Blogger.

Read Yahoo Mail As A RSS Feed

2009-02-10T18:00:00.000+05:30

Most people find it very convenient to be able to read email along with the RSS feeds in a feed aggregator. GMail provides a secure RSS feed that can be used to read GMail. Since the GMail feed is behind a login, one cannot subscribe to the feed in a feed aggregator directly. Instead, the feed can be converted into an open form using which can be subscribed to in an aggregator. Unlike GMail, Yahoo Mail does not provide a feed to read emails in a feed aggregator.

YmailFeed is a Google App Engine powered tool that converts the Yahoo Mail into an open feed which can be read

in a feed aggregator. Before you can convert your inbox into a feed, you need to authenticate with Yahoo. The feed, thus generated, has a permission of 14 days after which you should renew the permission. Since the authentication is done directly with Yahoo, your password remains completely secure.

The downsides of this system is that it converts only the first five emails from the Inbox folder and not from any other folder. Unlike GMail, the user doesn't have the option to read only the emails that are new and unread. The service is slightly slow and requires repeated granting of permission. With all the disadvantages, this service has a very clever application. Similar to receiving GMail as SMS, one can also receive Yahoo Mail as free SMS by creating an appropriate Google SMS channel.

The usual warnings, as with the open GMail feed, apply to Yahoo Mail feed too. You must not share the feed address, otherwise anyone would be able to read your email. In case your feed address has reached someone else, you can disable the service by restricting Yahoo Mail access by the feed service.

Technorati Tags

GMail, Yahoo Mail, RSS, Feed, Feed Aggregator, Free, SMS Channels, SMS, GMail feed, Free My Feed.

Find Where Your Friends Are

2009-02-04T20:43:00.008+05:30

Google has launched yet another unique service that tracks the user's location by latitude and longitude and plots it on a map. A very simple service to use, Google Latitude, can be launched both from mobile as well as the computer. With both devices you will need to download either Google Maps or Google Gears to make the service work. Google Latitude automatically scans your location and makes it available to people with whom you have chosen to share your location.

Google Latitude uses the GPS technology on handheld devices and Wi-fi technology on computers. It relies on its cell tower location database coupled

with complex algorithms to determine the approximate location of the user. While GPS locations are claimed to be accurate to a few metres, Wi-fi based location finding is good upto 200 m only.

One might be concerned about the privacy breach he/she might risk when using this service. In response of this concern, Google Latitude offers several protections to avoid breach of privacy. Firstly, the location is shared with only those users who you have added as your friend. Secondly, you have an option to hide your location and show it again, as you like. Thirdly, you can choose to share location on various levels like city level or street level. Finally, you can disable the service any time.

The service is pretty much just for the purpose of fun and does not seem to have many applications. In fact, it is based on the extension of idea of package tracking services provided by parcel services like UPS, FedEx, etc.

Technorati Tags

Google Latitude, GPS, Wi-fi, Mobile, Google Gears, Free, Track packets, FedEx, UPS.

Monitor Your Site's Uptime

2008-12-14T08:15:00.001+05:30

Wikipedia defines uptime as a measure of the time a computer system or a web server has been "up" and running. Uptime is a very vital parameter that defines the quality of any website since a "good" site is never down and is always available for its users. So, how can you measure the uptime of your website?

Uptime Party is a free web based service that monitors your site continuously and

sends instant email alerts in case the site is down. This free service performs check every 30 minutes on your website by pinging it from several locations across the globe. The free version offers check for only one site/server but if you have more sites/servers and wish to get the checks performed more often, there is a paid service too.

Maintaining a very good site uptime is very important as frequent downtimes can lose you precious readers. In addition, long downtimes can even push you down in the priority list of search engines drastically affecting the results page rankings.

One of the few things that Site Uptime lacks is that the highest frequency offered is once in 15 minutes. This means that if you are really unlucky, you will get the warning email as much as 15 minutes late!

Technorati Tags

Site, Uptime, Downtime, Server, Web server, Search engine, Search results, Search ranking, Uptime party, Free, Ping, Wikipedia.

Get Information On The Go Without Browsing The Internet

2008-12-13T08:15:00.003+05:30

It can get very frustrating when searching for information on a slow network. This problem is faced by the end-user more often than thought. With speeds on mobile phone networks not picking up and continuously increasing demand, mobile networks are becoming slower everyday. If you desire information on the go, searching on a mobile network is obviously not a very good solution. What would you do, mobile phone is your only means of communication.

For users on the move, SnapAsk can prove to be a very useful service. SnapAsk is an email responder

service and is very handy requiring only email access. To use the service, just enter a query from one of the many provided by SnapAsk in subject field (leave the body blank) and send it to ask -at- snapask -dot- com. The queries are well thought of and include all the basic needs from flight status to traffic, from movie showtimes to yellow pages. For a full list, visit the SnapAsk website.

SnapAsk is very fast and returns results in well under 30 seconds. The results are received in the form of an email containing all the required information. Perhaps, the most interesting feature of SnapAsk is the Wikipedia search. Send "wiki search query" to the email address and get the result. Quick and easy!

Technorati Tags

Mobile, Free, Email, Traffic, Weather, Local Time, Movie Showtimes, Yellow Pages, Stock Quotes, Wikipedia, Internet.

Import and Export Blogger Blogs

2008-12-12T07:45:00.005+05:30

The much awaited blogger import and export blog feature has been officially launched. The import and export feature has several potential applications and its launch has opened several avenues for easy cross-publishing. It can be accessed from the Settings | Basic tab.

This feature can be used in different ways to do several things that include
1. Backup your blog - Backing up a blog

at definite intervals is always essential as it protects against accidental deletion of a post or an image. Blogs can be backed up as an XML files to local storage.

2. Merge two blogs - If you have separate blogs and wish to combine them into one, you can use this feature by importing one blog into another. The blogs get perfectly merged into one-another and you can now have a fresh start.

3. Copy individual posts from blog to blog - This is easiest way to cross publish posts among several different blog. Similar to last point, expect that instead of adding a complete blog, only certain posts are added.

4. Publish on a different platform - If you decide to leave Blogger for some other blogging platform such as WordPress or LiveJournal, you can export your Blogger blog to local storage and import it to the other platform. Be aware that your old readers will be lost if you decide to move your blog.

The import and export feature can prove to very helpful in integrating the different blogging platforms into one so that publishing on different blogs will not affect your visitors on the old blog.

Technorati Tags

Blog, Blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal, Move, Backup, Cross Publishing, Merge, Import, Export.

Powerful Web Word Processor for your Micro Blogs, Blogs and Social Networks

2008-12-11T08:00:00.001+05:30

Blogs are everywhere; companies use blogs to as a medium for press releases, websites use it to publicize new features and added support. Another thing that has begun gaining popularity lately is micro blogging. Micro-blogging is a form of blogging in which users post small text updates (usually under 150 characters) with compressed links. Internet abounds in several micro blogging platforms including Twitter, Plurk, Jaiku and many more. Micro blogging is a very powerful tool owing mainly to its short and frequent posts.

Publishing a micro blog is very easy but when it comes to publishing the same content on different

platforms, the job gets tedious. Ping.fm allows publishing on multiple blogging and micro blogging platforms from one place. A quick registration is all it takes to get started. Once logged in, add the networks where you desire to publish content. Now, on the dashboard, just enter the text, choose the platform from the drop-down menu and publish the post.

Ping.fm supports all the major micro-blogging platforms including Twitter, Tumblr, Jaiku and many a like. In addition, it offers support to all the major blogging platforms as well. You can also post to your blog on Blogger, WordPress, etc. And, to top it all, you have support for popular social networks too; MySpace, Orkut, FaceBook, to mention a few.

Ping.fm is truly a very powerful tool to post content on multiple sites without much fuss. A point worth noting is that all URLs posted are automatically compressed to a small URL.

Technorati Tags

Blog, Micro Blog, Ping.fm, Twitter, Jaiku, Plurk, MySpace, FaceBook, Orkut, Blogger, WordPress, Free.

Google Dictionary - Meaning, Translation and Pronunciation

2008-12-10T08:00:00.004+05:30

Lexicography has been around for several centuries and with the advent of computers and internet, dictionaries have been digitized. They are now no longer bulky books but are compact CDs or DVDs. Popularity of dictionaries has evoked the birth of a new class of dictionaries including reverse dictionary, internet dictionary, slang dictionary, etc. Today, hundreds of online services offer free dictionary. To catch up with them, search engines have integrated 'dictionary search' in them using the keyword define:.

Google has launched its latest search feature - Google Dictionary. Search for meanings is now no longer restricted

to the Google's search interface. Located at google.com/dictionary, this dictionary not only provides meanings but also their translation to different languages. One can also hear the audio pronunciation for a translated word making it a very powerful online tool.

Google Dictionary does not have a primary database of its own but extracts results from the web. On the contrary, translations are derived from the Google Translate database. Perhaps the only downside of this service is the lack of versatility in translation from one language to another. For example, one cannot directly translate from Spanish to French and vice versa. Another that is missing is the API to allow the integration of dictionary into different sites.

Technorati Tags

Lexicography, Dictionary, Online Dictionary, Free, Google Dictionary, Reverse Dicitionary, Internet Dictionary, Slang Dictionary, Search Engines, Translate, Pronunciation, Online Translation, Spanish, French.

Looking For Free Storage? Try SkyDrive

2008-12-09T08:15:00.000+05:30

Free online storage is a very difficult thing to find. There are a multitude of services on the internet offering free online storage but most of them are either too slow or force ads on users. A good, trustworthy and robust online storage service is one of the most difficult things to find on the net.

If you are looking for such a free service, try SkyDrive. SkyDrive is an online storage service

offered by Windows Live. This service offers a whopping 25GB of online space with an interface that is very simple to use and resembles the Windows, barring the right-click menu. You can create, password protect and delete individual folders; move, copy or delete individual files. SkyDrive's privacy features let you choose what should be public and what should not be.

Unlike other services, with SkyDrive, you can build networks of users to facilitate easy sharing of files between them. Folders can also be configured such that they are visible to some users and not to the public. Apart from just files, you can also store your bookmarks and favorites on SkyDrive and later access them from any computer.

An additional feature offered by SkyDrive is photo sharing feature on the same lines as Google's Picasa. It is very simple to use; just upload, tag and share your photos. Like the files, you can also configure the visibility options of your photos. All the upload/download to SkyDrive can be done using the SkyDrive upload tool available, sadly, only for windows. Post installation, a couple of clicks is all it takes to manage files on SkyDrive. Easy, isn't it?

Technorati Tags

SkyDrive, Windows, Windows Live, Privacy, Free, Upload Tool, Photos, Picasa, Network, Password Protect, Online Storage.

Use GMail To Conduct Opinion Polls

2008-12-08T06:00:00.000+05:30

Power of GMail is immense and ever expanding. Apart from being used as an online mail service, GMail can be used to do much more, even conduct opinion polls.

Conducting an opinion poll using GMail is virtually as simple as sending

an email. All you need to do to conduct an opinion poll is to create an email with the question in the Subject field and options in the body of the message. Convert the options into hyperlinks pointing to a special email address of the form yourusername+option@gmail.com. For example, if the option is 'Today', the email address should be yourusername+today@gmail.com. Repeat this for all the options.

The next step is to create GMail filters to transfer the incoming messages to a specific destination. If desired, you can choose to archive the messages too. Now, you are all set to launch your poll; send this email to everyone whose opinion you desire. Whenever someone clicks on one of the options, an email will be sent to you and it will be filtered by one of the filters you created. At this time, a point worth noting is that the email containing the poll question can be sent from any email service and can even be forwarded. Hence, your friends can forward the email to their friends too.

The advantage of using this feature of GMail is that, firstly, you can instantly reach the people who you desire to ask. Secondly, since the reply is by an email, one will not require any special software installed or run a script to vote. Thirdly, the votes are automatically counted by the use of filters. Finally, it is too convenient and you don't require any other online service.

Technorati Tags

GMail, Opinion Polls, Free, Filters, Votes, script.

Cuil Search Engine - Three Times Larger Index Than Google

2008-12-07T08:00:00.000+05:30

Cuil (pronounced as "Cool") is a search engine launched by a group of former employees of elite companies like Google, IBM, PayPal and Cooley Godward Kronish. Prior to its launch, this search engine was widely talked about in the mainstream media including Wall Street Journal, TIME, New York Times and CNN. This publicity earned Cuil over 3 million hits on the day of its launch. One of the most startling fact about Cuil is that it claims an index of over 124 billion pages which is "as much as three times larger than Google's and and ten times than Microsoft's".

Searching on Cuil is a totally different experience. Cuil has a very

simple and beautiful layout. Unlike the traditional list display of search results, Cuil displays results in columns with about a 50-word snippet includes relevant images from each results page. You are also provided suggestions as you type the search query into the box. Another interesting feature is 'Explore by Category' that presents results sorted in several heads making search even simpler. Just choose the appropriate tab to view the results.

The best thing about Cuil is that it does not store any private information of users or IP addresses on its servers. Lately, Cuil has been under fire for not providing results "as expected" while a large chunk of internet users also hold the view that "Cuil is far better than Google". If you are confused, try Cuil yourself to decide.

The only thing lacking is the Cuil Toolbar and add-ons for different browsers. In addition, Cuil has no API that can let users integrate it into their sites and blogs.

Technorati Tags

Google, Cuil, Yahoo, Paypal, Cooley Godward Kronish, Column Display, IBM, Snippets, Image results, IP Addresses, Private Information, Cuil Toolbar, Cuil API, Cuil Addons.

Google Friend Connect - Social Network For Your Site

2008-12-06T08:00:00.000+05:30

Google has added yet another innovative service in its suite called the Google Friend Connect. Friend Connect is primarily a service helping webmasters set up a social network for their sites and blogs. It is very simple to set up without the need of any programming; all that is required is signing up with the service and hosting two files on the web server. But, in case, your blog is hosted on Blogger.com, then you are all ready to go. This service allows virtually anyone to join by just using their OpenID.

Google Friend Connect has several advantages as it helps you build and

maintain a community of your site audience. Visitors can invite their friends to look at your site. Since, Friend Connect allows users to share web links they like, it is very likely that friends-of-friends will visit your site and join your community; thus, helping you build a larger audience. In addition, social gadgets will keep visitors deeply engaged within your site and its community.

Apart from site owners, Google Friend Connect offers a lot to users too. They can build their profiles, share their links, comment on posts, add other users as their friends and do a lot more. One can view other users' profile by simply clicking on their photo. Joining a community is very simple and requires only an OpenID without any additional signing up. Alternatively, users can also use their blog addresses to join.

Technorati Tags

Google, Yahoo, AOL, OpenID, Google Friend Connect, Social Networks, Widgets, Gadgets, Communities, Social Communities, Free, Profile, Webmasters, Blog.

Search Flickr Photos Seamlessly

2008-12-05T08:15:00.001+05:30

Searching for photos on Flickr can get very frustrating as the search provided by Flickr is very ineffective and returns lots of inappropriate images. Moreover, since use of images are subject to the Creative Commons License, searching for images having suitable license is also important.

Compfight is beyond comparison when it comes to searching photos on

Flickr. Compfight is not simply a search engine; it houses immense power to dig down deep into Flickr to bring the best and closest match. Whatever you might search for, you will always get appropriate images. If you don't get any results, check spelling!

Compfight lets you perform an advanced search where you decide the CC License type and also choose if the images to be searched must be original (I'm quite unsure how the originality is decided). In addition, Compfight also has a safe search feature.

The search results are provided in a very graceful manner with images appearing with a very nice fade-in effect. The dimensions of original images appear when you hover on the images. The duplicate ones show no such feature.

Technorati Tags

Flickr, Yahoo, Search, Compfight, Creative Commons, CC License, Original Images, Free, Safe Search, Dimensions.

Digital Dexterity

Scribble Maps - Create Personalized Maps

Keep tab on Social Networks using NutshellMail

Microsoft Kodu - Design and Play Video Games on Xbox or Windows

The King and Dr. Nick By Dr. George Nichopoulos

Faster Browsing on Firefox, How?

Related Topics

Google's Answer to Microsoft's Bing - Caffeine

Related Topics

Own a Country or even an Entire Continent Virtually

Related Topics

Firefox add-on to Cache Webpages for Future Reference

Related Topics

Cooliris - Firefox addon to View Images on 3D Wall

Related Topics

Readability - Read Comfortably Online

Related Topics

How Does Your Site Handle A Sudden Surge In Traffic?

Related Topics

Create 3-D Models Using Google SketchUp

Related Topics

Blogs in Print Form as Newspapers

Related Topics

Read Yahoo Mail As A RSS Feed

Related Topics

Find Where Your Friends Are

Related Topics

Monitor Your Site's Uptime

Related Topics

Get Information On The Go Without Browsing The Internet

Related Topics

Import and Export Blogger Blogs

Related Topics

Powerful Web Word Processor for your Micro Blogs, Blogs and Social Networks

Related Topics

Google Dictionary - Meaning, Translation and Pronunciation

Related Topics

Looking For Free Storage? Try SkyDrive

Related Topics

Use GMail To Conduct Opinion Polls

Related Topics

Cuil Search Engine - Three Times Larger Index Than Google

Related Topics

Google Friend Connect - Social Network For Your Site

Related Topics

Search Flickr Photos Seamlessly

Related Topics