Indigic

This Blog has been moved to a new address www.indigic.com

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:24:00 +0000

Hello Folks,
I have moved Indigic to it's new home www.indigic.com

www.indigic.com

Find all the old posts and new stuff on www.indigic.com
Thanks for your patronage and waiting for you at Indigic.

Click here to go to www.indigic.com

Thanks for visiting!!!!

Firefox addons matching Google Chrome's favorite extensions

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 21:57:00 +0000

http://indigic.com/2010/07/firefox-addons-matching-google-chromes-favorite-extensions/

Tips to increase your blog's traffic by targeting Non-English users

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 20:45:00 +0000

Most of us have our blogs in English.That's the right language choice as English is the most popular business language in the world.
BUT WAIT!!
Have you thought of people/audience/users who actually prefer to surf the web in their own language as they are not that comfortable with english.Top examples are users in China,Russia and Japan.And mind you, thats a market big enough to be explored for your products /services.Let's see what you can do to achieve it.

1.You can reach this wider audience of Non-English speaking internet users by providing them a page in their own language. To accomplish this, visit http://translate.google.com/translate_tools

to get Google Translation Service for your website/blog.
Google gives you a reliable translation service to translate and present your page quickly.This service can be implemented on a website by simply putting in a code snippet provided by Google or in the form of a widget.Recently Google launched a new addition to this service which prompts a non-english user to translate the page to her native language.

Google Chrome browser supports this service automatically.

2. Submit your blog to major Non-english directories and search engines.Though Google is the most used search engine it is still not the favorite among non-english users.In China, Baidu search engine is ahead of Google while Russians rely on Yandex search engine more.Submitting your site to these search engines will give you a foothold in these countries and bring you increased traffic from these places.

A. How to submit your site to Baidu?

Submit your website or blog to baidu (Gives a translated page)

OR visit

http://www.baidu.com/search/url_submit.html (Chinese language page.Use Google Translation to translate)

Simply write your URL, Enter the captcha code and click the Add button to let Baidu index your site.

B. How to submit your site to Yandex ?

visit this link http://webmaster.yandex.ru/site/add.xml

Recently Yandex has made it mandatory to register before you can submit your site.Registration is a simple two step process. After registration you will be required to confirm that you have site management rights by pasting a meta tag in your page template.Once you have done that, click on check button and you will see a success message if everything goes well.

3. Visit this page to see more country specific search engines and submit to as many as you wish.You only stand to gain from this excercise.

When you try to submit your URL to these sites particularly Non-english ones you will need to translate non english pages to english.It can be easily done using translate services and plugins.Google Chrome automatically detects the language and prompts you to translate.Otherwise,translate pages using using Firefox Add on or IE plugin for Internet explorer.

Be happy that now you have made your page accessible to a large Non- English speaking audience.If you have some ideas please share them in comments.

How to See Live Twitter posts or 'tweets' on a specific topic using Google

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 20:23:00 +0000

Even if you are an avid twitter user you can not follow each and every tweet about a particular topic in tweet space.For example, if you want to know what people are tweeting about tiger woods or newly launched iPad, logging in twitter will give you tweets from only the people whom you follow.If somebody somewhere posted something very interesting about iPad and tweeted about it, you certainly will loose that info if you are not folowing that particular person or site.
Here is a better way to get latest tweets about a particular topic of your interest as they appear on twitter using your favorite search engine Google.

Lets say you want to know about latest tech sensation iPad. You open Google and type

"iPad site:www.twitter.com"

without the quotes.Google will show you some results which are not so impresive.
Now click on "Show options" and then click on "Updates" and voila!!

You will get a live stream of tweeets about iPad giving you interesting information and links.

You can search about any topic and get streaming relevant tweets about it in a very sleek way.Same method can be used to find updates about a topic on orkut,buzz,or any other micro blogging site.So, from now on, enjoy live streams about your favorite topics in one go!!!

Techno Humour - 3 funny iPad videos !!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 20:17:00 +0000

Here are some interesting iPad spoof videos from Youtube.

1. See the Keynote Presentation again....differently

2. See Hitler's reaction to iPad

3. A hilarious spoof on iPad..

Well, After all the laughters, we still have some time to go before the iPad mania abates and we get a clearer picture as to where this device stands amid peers!!

How to get maximum out of your Gmail Account using Firefox Greasemonkey scripts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:24:00 +0000

If you work on the web you in all probability own a Gmail account. Also, you may be using Gmail for managing your important communication -official or personal. Many of us own multiple google accounts and we know how irritating it is to log out of one and then log in to other and then switch back. Also you want to take notes at times but don't get it in Gmail. Moreover you may want to sort mails in a hierarchical folder structure but can't do this using default Gmail Labels. You can do all this and more.How?? Read on. . .

If you are using Firefox as your primary browser (if you are not then I will recommend a switch!!) you can increase your productivity immensely using these five Greasemonkey scripts.Greasemonkey is a Firefox Add-on to use java scripts to enhance the usability of your browser.These scripts allow you to

Add Notes to your mails
See the attachment type in Inbox without opening mail
Switch seamlessly between multiple Google accounts
See your Google Calender events and notifications in Gmail
Sort your mails in a hierarchical folder like structure

Lets take a close look at these five scripts.

1. Add Notes to your mails

Add an annotation application to your Gmail account and take notes while going through your communication.You need to log in once using your gmail account and from then on as soon as you open a mail a create note link appears in the Notes client which can be used for notes making.

All notes can also be browsed together making it an excellent to-do application as well.

Thanks to Script Author: Johntray

Install this script here

2. See the attachment type in Inbox without opening mail

Its a nice little utility that lets you see what kind of attachment is there in your mail i.e. whether it's a documnet , pdf image or zip fille. This can save a lot of time on slow connections and help you decide which mails to see first in time of haste.

Thanks to Script Author: DMaster

Install this script here

3. Switch seamlessly between multiple Google accounts

Switching between multiple Google accounts has been a major irritant for me and this script has saved me a lot of hassle.

A nice dropbox appears in your Gmail interface in place of signout button that lets you choose which account to log into.Accounts have to be added once and then you can switch quickly between different accounts.

Thanks to Script Author: Jerett

Install this script here

4. See your Google Calender events and notifications in Gmail

If you are an active Google calendar user and rely on this service to remind you of important dates and events,then this script will help you see all those important events in Gmail itself.

This will help you to communicate effectively and quickly and also to plan your appointments in accordance with the scheduled events.This Calendar opens up in a right pane and shows your current tasks/events.

Thanks to Script Author: Jeff Killingsworth

Install this script here

5. Sort your mails in a hierarchical folder like structure

Again a very handy script.You may want to arrange your mails in an explorer like folder structure to help you organize them better.This script does exactly that for you.Just install it and all that you need to do is add new labels as "Family/Dad" or "Family/Mom";this will create a folder "Family" folder has two subfolders "Dad" and "Mom" as shown in figure below.

You can SORT and GROUP mails as per your wish and click on the little "+" sign on a folder to view subfolders. Impressive indeed!!

Thanks to Script Author: Arend

Install this script here

Install these scripts and you can make the most of your Google account.If you use other scripts which help you in using Gmail more effectively, please consider sharing it in comments.

5 Visual Search Engines you may not have heard about !!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:38:00 +0000

All of us are pretty familiar with the simple austere look of Google and Yahoo search engines.Microsoft Bing is more colorful but result pages remain sober. Now take a look at the below mentioned five search engines to find how differently they present information.They are all Visual Search Engines as they present information in a visually appealing picture rich fashion. It may be in the form of maps or in form of a sliding picture show or a 3D graphical view.These search engines also show us the way in which we may be searching information in future.

Note: All these search engines require Java and Flash supported browsers and all are quite heavy,so a fast internet connection is recommended to view them.

1. Redz

Redz presents you with a sliding thumbshot gallery where you can scroll through the results with main result thumbshot shown on top with description underneath.

2. Search-Cube

Search-cube offers you a 3D cube with images of webpages pasted on all sides.Cube can be flipped and page description is shown in a side panel on mouse hover.Cool animation makes it an interesting exercise.

3. Ujiko

Ujiko is a device shaped search engine where middle screen shows you the webpage image with descriptions in the side bars.All functions are presented as buttons and there is a lot of that machine-guy feel using this engine.Try it to see the fun yourself!!

4. Middlespot

Middlespot shows you results arranged in a grid where you can choose results in the grid and it shows up in a larger thumbnail.You can do a lot of tweaking to change your experience.

5. Tianamo

Tianamo is a 3D graphic renderer search which is in beta phase. Its resource intensive and shows you a neat 3D graph with peaks representing the importance of webpages. See it to get a hang of it.It's really geeky!!

All these Visual Search Engines give you results in a new way but right now you will find them just amusing.Also, though some of them are powered by Google search, effectiveness of results is one thing that these engines have to pay real attention to. Meanwhile, enjoy the information in an aesthetic way to sooth your senses in this age of info overload.

Jazz up your Firefox with Personas

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:48:00 +0000

Bored with your Firefox's jaded look??

Try Personas in Firefox to dress up your browser for that sizzling look to make your browsing stylish and energetic.Firefox Personas is a Mozilla Labs experiment and Personas are actually web arts available as skins in Firefox.Just install Personas Addon and keep experiencing freshness by changing skins from Personas gallery.

A long list of various categories is available like Abstract, Film, Seasons, Music etc. You can see how your browser will look with new skin by just hovering your mouse pointer over the desired Personas image. When you are happy with what you see, just choose your style and hit the "wear this" button to spice up your Firefox experience.

You can share Personas with your friends.My favorite three Personas are Burning Guitar [Music], Abstract Black [Abstract] and Yosemite [Scenery].

Whats more!! You can create your own personalized Personas on getpersonas.com and publish them under creative commons license. You can also choose to keep them private.For creating Personas you need to provide Header and Footer images in at least 2500x200 pixels size.Choose your colors and submit it. Please do remember to use only your own copyrighted material to avoid legal issues.You can see and edit your created Personas under Gallery>My section on getpersonas.com.

Personas can be a great way to build your brand online or to earn name as a web art designer.So go ahead and make the Firefox look the way you always wanted it to look.

Baregrep – Free desktop search utility for Windows Vista/Xp and Other Windows versions

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:49:00 +0000

If you use windows Vista you must have faced the annoyance of using Windows Vista’s search.Its claimed to be fast by Microsoft but we all know all about it .It's simply irritating to see that green bar shining intermittently without showing that important as hell, file, you know exists!!!!! Windows XP search is also inadequate though less annoying as compared to Vista. After a long struggle with Vista’s inbuilt search I decided to look for alternatives.My search took me to myriad forums and blogs where people were venting their frustration with Windows Vista search.Some users even demanded XP search function in Vista which obviously has no takers at Microsoft. But extensive search brought me to a great free utility named Baregrep by Baremetalsoft.com which serves amazingly well to answer most of my desktop search needs on windows based machines.

Its tiny (No installer.Click to use) but powerful.It has a clean interface and simple to understand GUI based navigation.Most importantly..ITS FAST. It searches as you type and has support for Wildcard (*.doc,*.c etc) and regular expressions or Regex (literal like “India” or(\S+\.pdf)).

It supports a lot of numeric and alpha-numeric quantifiers to make your search a breeze.You can also search text within the files and perform subfolders search. It searches Hidden folders by default.Baregrep search utility has both free and pro versions.The only difference is you see a startup splash screen in free version (which is for a few seconds and is lot more tolerable than that shining green bar :D).Give Baregrep a try and I am sure you will never have to grope in the dark for your own files on your own system.You can download the free desktop search version here.

Ten features of Opera 10 to help you surf the web better

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:52:00 +0000

1. First things first

The browser scores high on all vital parameters like speed, stability and security.I used it for hours at stretch and it did not eat up my system resources.It didn't hang for a single time and seems to be quite responsive.It has all standard security features as well as an option to delete all browsing data when Opera closes.Firefox 3.5, IE 8 and Chrome users may miss the "Private browsing" feature here. Opera 10 has Fraud Protection and Extended Validation (EV) Certificates which gives added layer of security.Its pretty fast and surfing speed is comparable to Firefox though slower than Chrome. For more on speed comparisons see here.

2. Revamped Tabbed Browsing

Opera pioneered tabbed browsing and it has injected some freshness again into this feature.In Opera 10 you can drag down the tabs bar to see thumbnails instead of plain tabs.Not only it jazzes up surfing experience but increases your tab finding and switching speed too.

3. Opera Link

This feature is mainly for people who virtually live online.Those who are permanently tied to the web will find this feature immensely useful.With Opera Link in it doesn't matter where do you surf the web, you will always be using your updated browsing data like bookmarks, history etc.Basically its a service where you have to log-in once and from then on, all your bookmarks etc will be automatically synchronized with a common database.That is if you bookmark a site at home computer with Opera Link enabled, you will find the same bookmark in your office computer if it also has an active Opera Link service. What's more, If you happen to surf the web from public computers then you can use the web version of this service.Also, you get to choose what things to synchronize.

4. Native Bittorrent support

Anybody hooked to internet has used torrent applications to find download and share files.Now Opera 10 has native support for Bittorrent client.The moment you click on a torrent file this bit torrent feature gets active and handles your torrent downloads exactly like a standalone application like utorrent or bitcomet.

5. Opera Turbo

This is one feature which surely other browsers will take a serious look at. As the name suggests it boosts up slow internet connections (Dial-up,Wi-Fi,GPRS etc.) to speed up your internet surfing.It uses server side page compression technology to do so and the results are pretty good.The service has to be enabled (which is a single click on the icon in the lower left corner) and effects are visible in a few moments. However,there is a downside that such acceleration services are discouraged on firewalled and proxy dependent networks (you may not be able to use it on your office network). But nevertheless its a great feature for an average home user.

6. Sleek and intuitive Design

Its difficult not to talk about Opera 10 design as its feature.I have been used to Firefox and IE browser interfaces (Most of us are!! isn't it?). Period. Using Opera 10 has been a fresh and entertaining experience.Design is pretty simple but intuitive and customizable.

A cool feature is Panel where you can choose to see commonly used utilities like bookmarks,history,page info, widgets etc.When clicked, a left pane opens up to show the contents.It can be shown or hidden by clicking on a button in the main bar which makes it pretty simple and clutter free.Tabs are easy to work with as described earlier.You have customizable search bar in the main bar and standard buttons like back,forward and home are placed conveniently around.One thing I miss here is a "bookmark it" button like in Firefox/IE.There is a Personal Bar to show your favorite bookmarks.There is a fit width button (Good addition!!) to help you re-size and fit horizontal or vertical scrolling pages.For many other common functionalities like social networking sites etc. Widgets are available and they work pretty well too. Though we mustn't expect a Firefox like addon warehose in Opera, almost all common services and functions can be used via inbuilt widgets.Opera 10 also has some innovative additions like Mouse Gestures and Opera voice to voice control your browsing.

7. Notes

You can take notes while surfing the net using inbuilt Notes function.Simply select the text you want to copy and right click to save it to Opera notes.Notes can also be accessed via Opera Panel.You can send your notes to anyone using default mail client (like outlook) or using a web service.Unfortunately option to add your favorite web service is not there so you can't use Gmail,Rediff,Hotmail etc. here.Opera developers must give that option as this "sending notes via webservice" functionality is pretty much useless right now.

8. Bookmarks

In Opera 10 you have the option to import bookmarks from Firefox,IE,Netscape and konquerer.Also bookmarks can be imported/exported in HTML format.Managing bookmarks is easy and standard.Users will miss single click bookmarking like Firefox/IE.Bookmarks can be used portably and dynamically using Opera 10's synchronizing features.

9. Productivity

Well, Its a lot of fun using Opera 10 for general browsing, but what about productivity?
A serious user will expect blogging tools and simple file manipulation functionality integrated into Opera 10.Unfortunately Opera has not paid much attention to this aspect which otherwise would have made it an all-in-one solution.From productivity point of view good things are - Opera Link and Sessions manager (which lets you save your sessions without losing data like an unfinished mail on Gmail etc.).Other great services that you get along with like Opera mail and Notes also help you a lot.But lack of apps to blog directly from Opera 10 decreases the attraction as I will have to look towards Firefox to accomplish this task.Wordpress blog widget is available but its also very basic.May be functionality may be provided later using widgets but Opera needs to push developers to do so.Until then it gets a thumbs down from me on this front.

10. Developers Tools

If you liked firebug and Aardvark addons in Firefox you can find similar functions in Opera 10 as Opera Dragonfly available in the browser as "Tools>Advanced>Developer's tools" .You can have full functionality of Firebug and Aardvark here.Moreover, Page source info is available from menu as well as via Panel.It comes in quite handy if you want to access CSS and java scripts used on a page.You can see the scripts and stylesheets as well as download them.You can also have greater flexibility and functionality by downloading the Debug Menu available for download on Opera Site.

Overall, Opera 10 is a good product which just fells short of being a complete one-in-all solution to your browsing needs but it still serves excellently for average internet surfer.Opera needs to push developers to add functionality through widgets or scripts.Meanwhile you can download it here and experience the novelties.

Add bing search to firefox

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:58:00 +0000

With Microsoft Bing on the horizon, war for search engine supremacy will only grow intense. If you have used bing and will give it some more trial space, you can use these add-ons to add bing search to your firefox browser.
Just type in "https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=bing&cat=all" and you have multiple add-ons for bing. Choose the one you like and go about binging a little longer...

PS: I have already added it and (I must say)...I kinda like binging...it brings a refrreshing change :D

Knoling on Google Knol : A new web 2.0 tool

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 05:47:00 +0000

Google has launched its new service Google Knol to encourage users to contribute articles on their choice of subjects.Its similar to wikipages but with a little difference.Here author's identity is their for all to see.You can log in with your existing Google account or you can create a new one if you wish.His profile, his other contributions, his ratings etc. is available to viewers. In wiki you can change whatever content you want to.In Google Knol this can be controlled by the author himself.He can set preferences to give full control to knol viewers or he can provide a moderated collaboration, where, he gets to choose what changes to make in an article.

Interestingly, everything in Google Knol is a knol...even your profile is a knol you write about yourself!!

We have Adsense associated with knol and you can monetize your articles.

It's still in beta phase and that shows up in some of the obvious shortcomings.For example there is no place to show viewers what new contributions or knols have come in.Categorization and search also needs to be improved. People write articles only to find that actually no one can find them on the Google knol or in the search also.Now search is something that we need not tell about to Google!!! So I seriously expect them to improve it ASAP.

So you can expect a new term 'Knoling' (like 'blogging') doing the rounds in days to come.

Hats off to Web 2.0!!

Google Picasa-Manage images in style

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:30:00 +0000

Organizing your digital pictures can be a daunting task if you are an avid collector and have hundreds of digital pics to keep.Moreover you may want to retouch/edit/print/backup your pics on the fly while arranging them.Google Picasa gives you a great tool to reduce your image handling hassles in a major way.After getting frustrated for a long time i decided to finally do something about my pics and tried Picasa from the Google stable.Its a handy tool which lets you manage your images in a really cool way.Let's take a look at what it can do for you.

1. At first instance when you install Google Picasa your whole computer is scanned for images and all folders containing images are shown to you in a neat and user friendly interface.It can scan for videos as well but i will suggest you to keep it to pics only as not many video functions are available in the software. Picasa can be configured to scan selected folders (scan options are available under Tools menu by the name of 'Folder Manager') or you can exclude folders which you don't want to be shown in Picasa.

2. Clicking on images opens them in a picture viewer -in Picasa itself-and lets you browse through all pics in that folder.Standard features like zooming etc. are available here.What enhances the experience is the fact that almost all you may want to do to an image is possible in Picasa.You can edit image for brightness, color and contrast related adjustments.If the image is dark you can use 'Fill Light' option to light it up.You can tune the image for colors and shadows and you can choose image version from various applied effects to the selected image which are shown as thumbnails under 'Effects' menu.Beside this, images can also be edited in batch mode.

3. In same window in Picasa as above, you may find a picture tray where you can place pics from various folders by pressing the hold button.when you have selected images you have the option to email them(from Outlook or Gmail) them,print them in various sizes or save them to the disk.

4. A cool feature of Google Picasa is Collage (available under 'Create' menu) which allows you to make a collage of images placed in the picture tray.You can also create a Screensaver or movie of selected images.I tried all compression methods offered and in my view X-vid MPEG-4 option works best.You can also upload images to blogger directly.However it would have been great if uploading to image sites like flickr.com would have been provided.

5. Images can be categorized under labels and by adding stars for easy access.

6. Images can be viewed in a customized slide show or in a time line view which shows you time of image creation.

7. Images can be imported/exported from/to external drives and mediums.

8. Images can be saved to CDs and DVDs as burn disc option is available with picture tray.A thoughtful functionality is 'Gift CD' which allows you to choose images to be written to a CD which you can gift to someone special.

9. Backup facility lets you backup you images by writing them to a portable media like CD or DVD.

10. You can print images as contact sheets to be used with brochures etc.A really nice feature is 'Export as web page' which automatically saves selected images to a nice web page which can be directly uploaded to a site and made available online.

Besides this Picasa can show you EXIF (exchangeable image file format) data if available with the image.

Google Picasa can be downloaded here.

Google Picasa is for anyone looking for a clean and easy way to simply organize images and get the most enjoyment from them.Its not for someone wanting professional editing features but for general purpose users its a boon.So don't wait to handle your digital image collection in a better way.

Add a free shopping cart facility to your website

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 09:28:00 +0000

Ok..you have a website or a blog and you want to sell products through it.But where to get that cool 'Buy it' or 'Add to cart' button functionality.Thankfully you can get such a service online at Mal's E-Commerce website .The website offers both free and paid services but free service is pretty enough for a beginner's purpose or for a small online store.It allows you to simply add a 'buy me' button to your page.Clicking on this button takes the your potential customer to the mal's site where other functionalities like 'add to cart' and payment options are shown to her.This database is kept on the mal's site and the site claims it to be a secure system.

It offers facilities like tax calculations,shipping information etc. to help you start selling products and services right away.It offers preferred currency types and confirmation email facilities.That is you get an email when a customer places an order and the system can be configured to send a personalized custom receipt email to the customer.The site don't process any credit card or payment and that has to be done via your own merchant account with a bank or through third part payment processors.You can visit the site at Mal's E-Commerce website and you can visit their demo store to get a good feel of the service..So go ahead and start your very own online store for free!