Web Logger Dai: Computer and Hacks

Installing Hybrid HDD

2012-08-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the advise from Shree, I am going to install Hybrid Internal HD Drives in my 5 year old laptop.

Free memory giveaways

2012-08-16T12:57:00.002-07:00

Let me quote:
"As a family-oriented company, and we know how hectic being a mom can be any day of the year. We wanted to provide a back-to-school giveaway for all of the fantastic moms out there, to give them something unique and useful. We also believe in children experiencing enriching and healthy childhoods. So, we decided to give moms something that would hopefully make their lives a little bit easier, but also help their children succeed in school, participate in rich and creative activities, and enjoy nutritious snacks."
Cheers!
http://www.usbmemorydirect.com/giveaways/back_to_school_2012.htm -

Google doc just got more awesome

2012-04-24T08:08:00.000-07:00

I saw a news in techcrunch that the space increases if you upload something into the googleDocs. Just to test it, I uploaded a test txt file and my Google doc space increased to 5 GB

moved to ...
http://ajabgajab.blogspot.com/2012/04/google-doc-just-got-more-awesome.html
.

Share your dropbox items using links

2012-04-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

Tired of getting Email clutters in your mailbox with big attachments? Well, try dropbox. Dropbox now has enabled links. (click on the link to learn more...)

You can simply get the link of the file and folder and Email it, so that your collaborators can download it. It is always easier than trying to send that 25.1MB report.

Things that you are missing by searching from address bar

2012-04-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

If you are a bit of computer person and you use chrome, then you probably search right from the address bar. Similarly, in opera you can type "g" and also search from the address bar (well, I have not used OPERA for some time now, correct me if I am wrong).
But, let me tell you. You are missing good stuffs by searching from the address bar.

You are missing the google doodle(not really, they are found here) that they do from time to time, and from time to time the tweaks that they perform on the home page.

Let me show this picture...

Yes, google search with keyboard in there!

Google's Cloud "Drive" too little too late

2012-04-17T09:58:00.001-07:00

Rumors say that Google is going to launch its own cloud storage for the users. With dropbox, Sugarsync, Box and many others offering the cloud storage, it seems that Google is a late comer to dive into the cloud.

Let me remind you that Google already offered docs, picasa and many other free services which were effectively service-based storage (where?).

In the beginning days of Gmail, it was quite impressive to have few GB of free storage in Gmail while everyone else was offering few MB at the time: (remember the excitement of getting Gmail for the first time?).

Most of the Google's products growing out of the lab, as they claim, are the product of the 80/20 projects. However, somehow it seems, Google missed to allocate that 20% of the time for cloud-app development. Just, my guess. Now that there are already available services, it has to hit the market with a wow factor when it launches the cloud service.
-- --
I appreciate Google's efforts to emphasize the collaboration and its possibilites. And I am sure it is going to be reflected in the cloud too. In fact, application like dropbox is being used by many as a place to share folders and collaborate on many fronts. However, it seems people take Google as the search engine, an advertising agent, or an Email provider. And, Google is working on to change such impression. The Google+1 project is such attempt to bringing Google products in focus, and be used in collaboration. Therefore, cloud is inevitable. And, that makes me wonder why Google took too long to jump into the cloud?

Will this product be able to float? Only time will tell.

Spams in @twitter Direct Messages

2012-04-05T14:22:00.002-07:00

I have been getting direct messages from twitter with spammy links.
Do you also get 'em?

I am not sure about this "lost message" thingy too..

My first Gmail message...

2012-03-26T14:32:00.000-07:00

This screenshot was taken on Feb 2nd 2012. Now the total inbox count has crossed 20k.

I had received the late Gmail invitation. Many of my friends got it earlier than I did.

What is the date stamp on your first Gmail?
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Box @android gets 50 GB for free

2012-03-14T19:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, free as in free beer!
The cloud-based application-Box is giving away 50 GB for installing box on your android.
Referral is dead! But this offer ends on Mar 23rd. So, if you are interested, go ahead!

Google Blogger Removed Amazon Associates

2012-03-09T12:24:00.000-08:00

If you noted, this little Amazon Associates box is not functional anymore. I used to think that amazon associate program is one of the not-so-good one. But, if you/your post can refer someone who buys books/items from the referral, you get a nice incentives. I am telling from my experience.

Anyways, Blogger used to have nice monitization integration with amazon, which seems to have gone now. So, if you want to add Amazon associate links, you have to go to https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/ and then work from there. Not so much convenient as it used to be.

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Google Play from the cloud

2012-03-06T12:48:00.001-08:00

somehow got posted twice... here is the original article...
http://webloggerdai.blogspot.com/2012/03/google-play-from-cloud.html

Google Play from the cloud

2012-03-06T12:42:00.002-08:00

Google has introduced Google play.
This integrates the books, music, movies, apps and games into one: play!

Google can be regarded as a successful player in the apps via android market.
Given that one has amazon for books, itunes for music and netflix for movies, this has tough challenges ahead and nice future if it succeeds.

I think, if google can make platform independent items which runs on say chrome: for books, games, it should work out! (My dream tweet)

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Facebook page gets timeline: for good!

2012-02-29T06:19:00.002-08:00

I had spent some of my time designing the welcome page for BloggerDai page in facebook.

This morning I found out that facebook was rolling out the timeline feature for pages. So, I ranted a little in twitter... and then of course! changed my page layout. I like this new feature for pages, because it makes sense, more friendly for bloggers.

Please visit my new page here ...
http://www.facebook.com/bloggerdai

The cover photo is also a rant to self: stand up, do some stretching. I suggest 8 fold stretching as shown in the figure.

Previously, I had to use either FBML (static: outdated now) or use app to create facebook pages. It was kinda nice that people would just land on the welcome page. Many brands used a force-"like us" feature. For example: amazon had forced "like us" feature to run many "sweepstakes". I wonder if it will be the same!

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Beware of Spam, please change your yahoo password

2012-02-15T12:53:00.003-08:00

Started getting a lot of these lately.

These days are among those where a lot of spams are being sent specially from yahoo accounts.
Unusual to the previous cases where they wanted to send out the money from the bank of Nigeria or else, this time they are just dropping a line and putting links.
In my experience, a lot of spams are now able to make to my inbox because it is coming from legit yahoo accounts.
The spam filter can not filter those because these are the Email addresses where I did sent Emails to or received from. Moreover, we do tend to send links only in the Emails. That must be making it difficult to filter the spams.
At one point I realized that my yahoo account was also compromised when I checked my "sent" folder. There were two in drafts. Not Good!!
I think it is time to change the password.
At the moment I have only one suggestions: Do not click on the links that you are not familiar with.

Spams Emails: how they look like.
How to detect them? that is whole another level of complicated question.

#Captivate to get Gingerbread 2.3

2012-02-07T15:12:00.000-08:00

Samsung Captivate is getting the updates for android 2.3 Gingerbread.
Back in the days, when I was inside the walls, I was excited when I was able to go from 2.1 to 2.2. A lot of wind has blown since then. I rooted my galaxy S.
I am not going back after having installed the Cyanogenmod 7 into my android?
Thanks, but no thanks!
I heard that it would not be able to handle 2.4. However, CM7 is not bad at all! No bloatwares, better battery life, more control... almost makes me regret why I could not root it sooner!
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Copy path information in Lion 10.7

2012-02-01T07:16:00.000-08:00

At times, I wished for a shortcut to copy the path information of the files. I had tried Tree, but it was not that much informative.

Finally I found a helpful link in macworld. There were twenty different ways of doing things. This one worked nice for me.

Open Automator, select the Workflow.

Select Files & Folders, and drag "Get Selected Finder Items to the workflow"

click for larger view

Select Utilities, then drag "Run Shell Script to the workflow". Then change Passinput (on the right) to "as arguments".

click for larger view

Make the following changes:

for f in "$@"

do

    echo "$f" 
done

for f in "$@"

do
    echo "$f" | pbcopy

done

Save it as Application in a safe place.

Go to the saved location, select the application that you just saved. Press command+T to add it to the sidebar. Any time you want to copy the path of a selected item in finder just click the application on the sidebar. This will simply copy the path information, you can paste.

Of course, you could simply drag the items into the terminal and copy from there. But this one is much better!

Suggestion to @sitemeter

2012-01-31T12:42:00.000-08:00

The Map link does not work. My suggestion is on how to make it functional.

Dear Sitemeter,

I am a huge fan of yours and use your sitemeter on my hobby blogs.

I have been noticing that the "map" feature has been missing for quite a long time now.

It is as simple as putting
http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?q=38.5882%2c+-121.2222
in the Map link solves your problem!

:)

It is hot as if it was January!

2012-01-30T11:35:00.000-08:00

I am not sure if this is going to be unusually hot year. But, the January has been a hot month!!

Credit:Accuweather.com

Time Pass

2012-01-29T09:05:00.000-08:00

Well, I am not that good with it. After few play, I got 5 and 7. The screenshots are below:

Let me know what is your score:
https://sites.google.com/site/commonjokes/
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Going West while the sun sets

2012-01-27T08:55:00.000-08:00

A story of two post men that my father had told me while I was small:

Two post men come from the east and west side of Nepal every morning. They meet at mid-day and exchange their parcel/packages and then return. Who will bear more pain?
Hint: See the picture.
Going west on sun set: too much photons hitting your eyes. And, vice versa for the east.

Re-Flashing Samsung Captivate with Cyanogenmod

2012-01-22T08:08:00.000-08:00

This is my second weekend flashing cm7. I am not sure why it went dark yesterday evening all of the sudden.
Few screenshots:

First things first: Install "everything"... More?

Pre-cache map area in Google Maps...

Can we do this?

Thanks Cyanogen(mod)7. Surprisingly the walpaper name is: "Fitsnugly".

Once nice feature of the Google Map: You know where the stuffs are in the HomeDepot.
I hope this feature becomes a norm for stores. No more being lost inside the store.

I am having to reinstall everything into it. I shall backup and restore.

How to Manage & Search in Firefox with key

2012-01-06T08:48:00.000-08:00

In opera, you could do "g search term" in the address bar and it would "google" that for you*.

Recently I found that you could do the same for firefox (hello! chrome users! :P).

The motivation was to have GoogleScholar (GS) as one of the search engine. So, I installed the GS search addon by BarryRidge [Link to the addon].

Now back to how to manage search engine with keywords:

In order to assign the keywords: open the "manage search engines" from the search button.

The list of search engines come up. Click on the Edit Keyboard.

Keywords assigned.

Assign the keyword of your choice. For example: b for bing, g for google... etc

b for Bing, g for google! in Firefox search bar.

Assigning keywords is fun as it allows you to search from the address bar (ctrl+L). This is so chrome, but OK. For example by doing the things mentioned, "g search item" googles search item.

* There exist a website which can google that for you:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=let+me+google+that+for+you!

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Holy Information!

2012-01-05T07:11:00.000-08:00

They should say LOL instead of regular words at the end of the prayer.

"The church, which holds CTRL+C and CTRL+V (shortcuts for copy and paste) as sacred symbols, does not directly promote illegal file sharing, focusing instead on the open distribution of knowledge to all."

From:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16424659
The website of Church of Kopimism:
http://kopimistsamfundet.se/

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15 GREAT THOUGHTS BY CHANAKYA

2011-12-24T08:28:00.000-08:00

1) "Learn from the mistakes of others... you can't live long enough to make them all yourselves!!"

2)"A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and Honest people are screwed first."

3)"Even if a snake is not poisonous, it should pretend to be venomous."

4)"There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth."

5)" Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead."

6)"As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it."

7)"The world's biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman."

8)"Once you start a working on something, don't be afraid of failure and don't abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest."

9)"The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the goodness of a person spreads in all direction."

10)"God is not present in idols. Your feelings are your god. The soul is your temple."

11) "A man is great by deeds, not by birth."

12) "Never make friends with people who are above or below you in status. Such friendships will never give you any happiness."

13) "Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends."

14) "Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person."

15) "Education is the Best Friend. An Educated Person is Respected Everywhere. Education beats the Beauty and the Youth."
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Samsung Captivate: cyanogenmod installed

2011-12-23T11:05:00.000-08:00

Problem:
Galaxy S (I) started shutting down randomly [I rambled about it here]. The worst part was that it was out of the 1 year warranty period [link]. I Updated it from 2.1 to 2.2. Did not solve the issue.

Solution:
Well, I first rooted it [link]. However, I did not install backup.
Well, after little bit of nailbiting excercise, I was able to install cyanogenmod 7.1 into Captivate.
Here are the helpful links:

http://androidforums.com/samsung-captivate/123644-captivate-usb-drivers-links-here.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBPu-GqM9RE

Taking screenshot is a piece of cake.

Cheers!

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