But this excellent article by Gwen Shapira – Hadoop FAQ – But What About the DBAs, changed my whole perspective and really piqued my interest.

Gwn lists a couple of advantages of why DBAs could make great Hadoop administrators

• Everyone knows DBA stands for “Default Blame Acceptor”. Since the database is always blamed, DBAs typically have great troubleshooting skills, processes and instincts. All those are critical for good cluster admins.
• DBAs are used to manage a system with millions of knobs to turn, all of which have critical impact on the performance and availability of the system. Hadoop is similar to databases in this sense – tons of configurations to fine-tune.
• DBAs, much more than sysadmins, are highly skilled in keeping developers in check and making sure no one accidentally causes critical performance issues on an entire system. Critical skill when managing Hadoop clusters.

After reading this, I went on to installing a 4-node Hadoop cluster and getting my feet wet in the Big Data world. If you have been asking yourself this question, I highly recommend reading Gwen’s article and may be it will change your perspective too.

It sure did change mine.

Why Should a DBA Learn Hadoop? - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2013/05/01 (RSS)

I have been using a combination of a backup WordPress plugin and a cron job to backup my site files over ftp. The WordPress plugin would backup the MySQL database and email it.

Then I’d have to FTP out backups of PHP files created by a cron job. Then if I have to restore my WordPress site for any reason, I’d have to put these both together and hope it works.

That’s when I came across a solution called XCloner which is available as a WordPress plugin as well.

XCloner is a Backup and Restore component designed for PHP/Mysql websites, it can work as a native plugin for WordPress and Joomla!.

XCloner design was specifically created to Generate custom backups of any LAMP website through custom admin inputs, and to be able to Restore the clone on any other location with the help of the automatic Restore script we provide, independent from the main package!

XCloner Backup tool uses Open Source standards like TAR and Mysql formats so you can rest assured your backups can be restored in a variety of ways, giving you more flexibility and full control.

XCloner Features

• Create custom backups
• Generate automatic backups based on cronjobs
• Restore your backups anywhere
• Store your backups on Amazon S3 cloud

How to Setup Backups with XCloner?

On plugin installation, your initial credentials to login in XCloner (under Plugins tab) Settings page is admin/admin.

1. Make sure your /<home>/administrator/backups directory is created and writable
2. Check the XCloner Wiki for step by step instruction

XCloner is a great way to get complete site backups for any PHP/MySQL based web applications including Joomla. It can backup locally or email it or even ftp it to a remote location. You can create partial or full backups and even run multiple cronjobs.

Another useful and important feature is the ability to restore your backups to a totally different server with new server and MySQL details.

If you have looked at paid solutions like VaultPress or paid plugins like Backup Buddy, XCloner is a great free alternative. You can also purchase support from them.

I am definiteely adding XCloner to my top WordPress plugins list.

Try XCloner

Free Custom WordPress site Backup with XCloner - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/18 (RSS)

Facebook just added another controversial feature and as always enabled it for all users without asking for their consent.

So far, Facebook let us tag photos with names of our friends on pictures we have. Facebook just added an automatic face recognition feature that will identify people from photos anywhere on the site.

This feature is available on desktop photo management software like Picasa and iPhoto. If you tagged a few faces it automatically scans your entire photo library and identifies people’s faces.

Now, Facebook has just brought that feature to the entire social network. And this is the kind of move that privacy conscious people hate.

When invasive features such as this should be opt-in, Facebook makes it opt-out. That is, your account has this turned on by default and you have manually go in and turn it off if you don’t want to be found automatically in photos by the new facial recognition feature.

If you would like to opt out of this, here’s how

1. Go to your Account -> Privacy Setting
2. Click on Customize settings link
3. go to Things others share section
4. go to Suggest photos of me to friends -> Edit and set it to disabled if it isn’t already.

Facebook always pushes features that they know will create controversy out the door with a setting a normal User would never care to set or know where to look for.

The least we can do is to try and share this information with our Facebook using friends and family.

How to Turn off Facebook’s New Facial Recognition Feature? - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/18 (RSS)

WordPress has become my favorite hobby and in fact my wife’s potantial business venture. There are excellent resources for WordPress and Hack WordPress run by my friend Kyle Eslick, is one of the most useful ones out there.

Hack WordPress has just turned 1 and the 2000+ RSS subscribers is just a hint at what it has acheived as a milestone in it’s infancy. If you do anything with WordPress, HWP is a site to bookmark.

In celebration of HWP’s 1st birthday, Kyle has unveiled a redesign and I just love the new look. Plus, he has a huge Premium themes giveaway. Here is a list of premium themes you could win:

• 6 Month Developer Subscription – The winner of this prize will receive a 6 month developer subscription to Woo Themes (Courtesy of the Adii and the Woo Themes team)
• 2008 Theme Club Subscription – The winner of this
  prize will receive a copy of all themes released by iThemes in 2008,
  valued at over $1400.00  (Courtesy of Cory Miller of iThemes)
• 3 Revolution Single-Use Licenses – All 3 winners will get their choice of which Revolution theme they want their license to be for.  (Courtesy of Brian Gardner of Revolution Themes)
• 5 One Theme Single-Use Licenses – All 5 winners
  will receive a webmaster (single-use) license of the extremely popular
  One Theme (Courtesy of Lee Cooper and Karl Forshaw of One Theme).
• 2 Gabfire Single-Use Licenses, 2 Multiple-Use Licenses, and 2 Developer’s Licenses – Winners will have a choice of which of Mehmet’s 3 different themes you would like your license to be for.  (Courtesy of Mehmet of Gabfire Themes)
• 2 TV Elements Single-Use Licenses – Winners will get a single-use copy of the extremely popular TV Elements video theme.  (Courtesy of Jason of Press 75)

How to Enter?

It’s very simple to enter.

• Blog about this contest – 3 Entries
• Leave a Comment – 1 Entry

As you can see, there are a great many prizes to win in this giveaway and it’s very simple to enter! Contest ends on Oct 9 and the winners will be announced Oct 10th.

Giveaway aside, I wish Kyle & Hack WordPress good luck as HWP has become a cornerstone in the WordPress community. I secretly wish to write as a guest author in HWP sometime but haven’t been able to due to time constraints.

Congratulations, Kyle!

HackWordPress.com Turns 1 and Has a Huge Giveaway - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/18 (RSS)

WordPress 2.7 is here! As usual the WordPress community has been very active even when WordPress 2.7 was in beta and were publishing a lot of good resources. I have been reading them and collecting them.

What’s new in WordPress 2.7

• Ten New Features in WordPress 2.7
  Demetris of op111.net has posted on 10 new features in WordPress 2.7. He talks about Mass Edit posts/pages, paging in comments, Inline quick edit, etc
• WordPress 2.7 Comment Enhancements
  Otto dissects the new comment functionality in WordPress 2.7. He shows you how to create a WordPress 2.7 compatible coments.php.
• WordPress 2.7 Keyboard Shortcuts
  WordPress 2.7 comes with keyboard shortcuts to the admin interface to make browse and moderating easier. Kyle of WP Hacks also has an useful post that goes into WordPress 2.7 keyboard shortcuts.
• WordPress 2.7 Publish Module
  Mark Jacquith explains in this cool video, what’s new in the Publish module. Slightly older but still relevant if you want to know what’s new in 2.7.
• An In-Depth Look at 2.7 Updates
  Theme Forest blog looks at the new updates in WordPress 2.7 with plenty of screenshots. If you are looking to get a quick overview of new things in WordPress 2.7, this is the post to read.
• Is Core Update Feature Compatible with my WebHost?
  WordPress 2.7 introduces core update feature that makes upgrading WordPress manually obsolete in the future. WP Hacks shows you how to find out if you web host is compatible for this core update feature in 2.7.
• 5 Amazing New Features in WordPress 2.7
  Nettus lists 5 cool features in WordPress 2.7 with a lot of eye candy. Have at it.
• WordPress 2.7 – Initital Impressions
  Stylized Web has posted their initial impressions on WordPress 2.7.
• WordPress 2.7 – 20 Must See Features
  A Mashable.com list of 20 must see features in 2.7

Upgrading to WordPress 2.7

Before you upgrade to WordPress 2.7, here are a few things to check:

• Official Upgrade Instructions
  Also check the extended upgrade instructions.
  
• Is my theme WordPress 2.7 compatible?
  Nathan Rice answers this probably most asked question when it comes to upgrading WordPress eloquently. Short verdict. Yes, it is compatible. Read the post for full details as to why.
• Check for Plugin Compatibility
  WordPress Codex has a list of plugins that are compatible with 2.7 and those that are known to have issues with 2.7. Check this list before you upgrade.
• WordPress 2.7 Theme Compatibility
  WordPress Codex also sports a list of themes that are compatible with WordPress 2.7. Find out if yours is listed. if not, follow Nathan’s advice.
• WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin by Keith
  You can still use WPAU to easily upgrade to WP 2.7. I confirmed this personally with Keith via IM. It’s a bit sad that WPAU will be no more after 2.7 as WordPress gets this feature built in. Thanks for this
  contribution buddy!
• Plugin Compatibility Notes
  This WordPress plugins lets you know of potential plugins compatibility issues by adding the WordPress versions your current installed plugins are compatible with. So, instead of upgrading and trying to find out which ones are broke, you can see ahead which ones could give you
  problems.
• How To Upgrade Automatically The Last Time To WordPress 2.7 In 5 Minutes!
  Great tutorial showing you how to upgrade easily to the current release.
• WordPress 2.7 Upgrade Tips
  Lorelle has posted an insane amount of tips tricks and gotchas when it comes to upgrading to WordPress 2.7. Check it out before you touch yours.
• 2.7 Upgrade in One Line
  For those who love the command line, Hack a day has a one-line command for upgrading WordPress to 2.7.

Advanced WordPress 2.7 Resources

If you are a WordPress theme or plugin developer, a few of these articles could come in handy to make your theme or plugin compatible with WordPress 2.7 if you haven’t already done so.

• Making Your Theme Comments Compatble with 2.7 & Earlier Versions
  Justin Tadlock delves into this nice topic and shows you how you can make your theme compatible with WordPress 2.7 as well as make it backwards compatibe with earlier versions. Aimed at theme developers.
• New Page Menu in WordPress 2.7
  Another ustin Tadlock article shows you how the new function wp_page_menu() removes a lot of the work you may do with using wp_list_pages() function.
• Definitive Sticky Posts Guide
  Sticky posts is a new feature in 2.7. Nathan Rice has an excellent guide on how to use, create and style sticky posts!
• Getting Your Plugins & Themes Ready for WordPress 2.7
  Again WordPress Codex is the best place for any info related to WordPress. This post shows you how to migrate your plugins and themes so it’s compatible with WordPress 2.7.
• Top Level Menu in WordPress 2.7
  WP Engineer shows us how to add icons to menus in the top level in the admin interface.
• How to Improve WordPress Plugins
  Again, WP Engineer shows plugin authors how they can take advantage of the new 2.7 vertical menu and add icons to their plugin menu.
• 2.7 Comment Classes
  Fun with WordPress blog explains how the new WordPress 2.7 Comment Classes look when you view it visually. This would help anyone tweaking the comments.php file for styling.
• Blogging Tips Themes Enhancements – I
  Shows you how to enhance your theme for WP 2.7.
• Blogging Tips Themes Enhancements – II
  Sarah shows you how to make use of the new comment options.
• Blogging Tips Themes Enhancements – III
  Sarah shows you how to make use of the new comment features.

Plugins for WordPress 2.7

• Compatibility Notes
  Compatibility Notes is a simple WordPress plugin that will attach a list of supported WordPress versions to every plugin’s description on the “Plugins” page.
• Post Notes
  On its own, this plugin adds a text area on the sidebar of the add and edit post pages so that users can add notes for themselves or others.
• 20+ WordPress 2.7 Compatible plugins
  Mashable has put together a great list of plugins your shiny new 2.7 install can handle.
• Make Simple Tags Plugin Work
  Ask VG has this hack to make Simple Tags plugin work in WordPress 2.7
• Top WordPress Plugins
  A continously updated list of WordPress plugins by yours truly. Bookmark this to find new WP 2.7 compatible plugins.
• 2.7 Plugin Compatibility List
  WordPress
  Codex has a list of plugins that are compatible with 2.7 and those that
  are known to have issues with 2.7. Check this list before you upgrade.

And, if you are wondering with so many significant changes in 2.7, why wasn’t it named as 3.0, this post Why 2.7 is not 3.0 will clear that up for you.

Also, Six Apart, the company behind the rival blog platform Movable Type has come out with WordPress 2.7 Upgrade Guide again!

If you enjoyed this list, please take a moment to Stumble, Digg, Tweet or share it with your fellow WordPress bloggers through your favorite social meda tools.

Top WordPress 2.7 Tips, Hacks, Plugins & Resources - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/18 (RSS)

Although I am a huge fan of WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS), I have a soft spot for another awesome open source CMS platform – Drupal.

After being in development for months, Drupal 7.0 has been released to the public.

In their words,

Drupal 7 is a truly revolutionary release that saw both the size and diversity of our contributor community grow exponentially. Through the formation of and strong coordination among the Usability, Accessibility, and Designteams, Drupal 7 addresses a number of our project’s longest-standing limitations and opens up access for more people to enjoy the strong web publishing framework we have all come to love.

Drupal 7.0 New Features

• Vastly improved administrative user interface thanks to the D7UX movement
• Flexible content and custom fields
• Better visual presentation and theming with Render API
• Accessibility is greatly improved
• Image support is now included
• Automated code testing
• Improved database support
• Better distribution support
• Support for the Semantic Web through RDFa markup
• Over 850 Drupal 7 contributed modules have met their #d7cx pledges.

Check out the Drupal 7.0 home page for latest new features, videos, etc. Here is video on the new release

Drupal 7 Hits the Streets - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/18 (RSS)

I talked about two best photo sharing apps that I love in a previous post. Picasa Web Albums is Google’s answer to Flickr that Yahoo bought and done a great job with. One thing that Picasa Web Albums was missing was the community element of searching others pictures by ttitle, subject, tags, etc.

Now, Google has answered by enabling the community search! Here is an excerpt from Picasa Web Albums’ What’s New? page:

Discover and explore public photos posted by others in the Picasa Web Albums community. You can look up captions, tags, album titles, album locations, and album descriptions. Search also works across only My Photos or My Favorites if you’re signed in.

Here is how they compare right now:

Flickr’s Free Account:

• 100 MB monthly upload limit (5MB per photo)
• 3 sets
• Photostream views limited to the 200 most recent images
• Post any of your photos in up to 10 group pools
• Only smaller (resized) images accessible (though the originals are saved in case you upgrade later)

Picasa Web Album’s Free Account:

• 1GB storage (and counting!)
• No other feature restrictions in free account as fas as I can tell

Flickr Upgrade: $24.95/year

• Unlimited uploads (10MB per photo)
• Unlimited storage
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited photosets
• Permanent archiving of high-resolution original images
• The ability to replace a photo
• Post any of your photos in up to 60 group pools
• Ad-free browsing and sharing

Picasa Web Albums Upgrade: Starts at $25/year

• 6.25GB ($25 USD per year)
• 25GB ($100 USD per year)
• 100GB ($250 USD per year)
• 250GB ($500 USD per year)

I am still torn between using the two web photo sharing tools! I will continue to use the two of them together for various purposes and I will post my observations in a future article. If there was a sort of plugin for Picasa to upload directly to Flickr in a few clicks, I would right now choose Flickr over Picasa. But, i haven’t yet so I am going to explore a little bit more before I shell out the Flickr Pro account!

Thanks for reading and let me know if you know of such a tool/plugin for Picasa!

Picasa Web Albums catching up with Flickr - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/18 (RSS)

If you are on Twitter, you will really like this new tool I just found.

I have come across many tools and recommendation service including Twitter’s own now-extinct recommendation list to find and follow new people.

After being on Twitter for more than 2 years I have the ‘following too many people’ bloat. I follow way too many people and I can’t remember why I follow some of them for the life of me.

Manage Twitter let’s you find Twitter users who aren’t following you back, users who have been inactive and for how long, users who are talkative or quiet, etc.

You can look through inactive users and simply unfollow them all in one shot.

I simply love the simplicity with which I could clean up my Twitter feed. I have been following dead accounts, really really talkative accounts, and people I once found interesting but no longer relevant to my interest now, etc. I was able to unfollow close to a 100 people in under 5 minutes!

All you have to do is connect ManageTwitter to your account using OAuth and then it loads up your account and presents with the screen as shown in the first screenshot. Then it’s easy going from there.

Check out ManageTwitter.com today.

Hardly the time to pimp our Twitter accounts. But, hey now that you have unfollowed some unwanted accounts, here are a few of our interesting ones to consider:

• @KIntheHouse – me
• @TopiPhone – Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad stuff (Top iPhone Resource)
• @TopiPad – Apple iPad news (TopiPadResource.com)
• @theCamerani – Digital camera deals, photography stuff (Camerani.com)
• @KarshanMedia – WordPress and web design stuff (KarShanMedia.com)

Instant Fat Trimming For Your Twitter Account - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/18 (RSS)

These days, we can follow a lot of site updates through RSS feeds. Unfortunately, there is still a chunk of websites on the internet that don’t have RSS feeds enabled. If this is something important or crucial to your blogging needs, it might get tiring to keep visiting the site to check for updates.

Page2RSS

This simple web service aims at bridging this gap between the RSS savvy web readers like you and the archaic websites that haven’t put up RSS feeds yet. All you need to do is simply add the website you would like to follow to the box in Page2RSS page and you will get a link you can add to your feed reader. As simple as that.

Another way to use this service is to drag the ‘Add to Page2RSS’ link to your bookmarks toolbar. When you are on a website you would like to get RSS updates on, just click this link and you will be offered the RSS link as you did before.

That’s all there is to it. The elegance of it’s service is in its simplicity.

I am entering this blogging tip in ProBlogger’s Birthday Bash contest.

No RSS? Get Website Updates with Page2RSS - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/18 (RSS)

Dell U2713HM-IPS-LED CVN85 27-Inch Screen LED-lit Monitor

Features

Dell U2713HM-IPS-LED CVN85 27-Inch Screen LED-lit Monitor $649 Shipped - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/18 (RSS)

Have I said Dropbox is my favorite file sync – file backup service enough times? Well, I will say it again, it really is the best!

For those unaware, Dropbox is a seamless file sync utility that can keep folders and files in sync across multiple computers, multiple operating systems and over the Internet. The first 2GB of storage is free and they have affordable paid options beyond that.

Dropbox has been available also on mobile platforms like iPhone, iPad and Android. Now, they have added support with an app for Blackberry as well.

It has all the goodness you can expect to see a Dropbox mobile app

• Browse the files in your Dropbox folder easily.
• Open images and other media directly through the app.
• Upload photos to all of your computers at once.
• Share links to your files over email.
• Search through your Dropbox instantly.
• Export files to other apps.

You can easily install Dropbox by pointing your Blackberry browser to http://dropbox.com/blackberry.

Dropbox App Directory

Dropbox has taken a page out of Evernote’s App directory listing which lists all the services and products that come with Evernote integration.

Dropbox now has an App Directory that lists all the apps that have Dropbox support built in. It is categorized based on the platform – Android, Blackberry, iPad, iPhone, Web and Windows Mobile.

You can see all the new apps in various categories as well as rate them to see what is in the hot list. It is a great way to find apps based on support for Dropbox.

If you haven’t tried Dropbox yet, I highly recommend you to get a free Dropbox account and give it a shot. Also, Dropbox has a cool referral program and you can get 250MB extra space for every friend you recommend.

Full disclosure: I get 250MB extra space if you sign up with the link here. And I highly suggest you do. Just kidding. But seriously be nice, ok?

Dropbox Gets App Directory & Mobile Updates - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/10 (RSS)

Mozilla Prism, previously known as WebRunner, is a great application that splits the web applications from the browser and lets you run them from your desktop. Although in it’s infancy, Prism is already very useful for me and I use it for a variety of web applications that I need open throughout the day.

If you are new to Prism, you could read my brief Prism review. Here are a few links that can help you get started with Prism:

• What is Mozilla Prism? – a short review
  (with instructions to run from behind a proxy)
• Google Gadget for Mac/Linux with Prism

Prism probably won’t be all things to all people, but if your browsing style mimics remotely to my style you are probably already nodding your head. Prism lets me keep my usual web applications open or atleast be available on my desktop when I need to get to them. I don’t have to worry about signing back into every one of them when I have to restart my Firefox browser multiple times a day.

I have found in the past that when I share my ideas or the way I do things, most often, I usually receive better ones from you. In the same spirit, I am going to share the list of web applications I have started using on my Desktop. I am hoping to spur a discussion in the comments to find what other web applications would be best suited.

Top Prism Applications

• Google Reader – Although I miss the Greasemonkey scripts that add functionality, it is very convenient to open and close Google Reader like a desktop application.
• Remember the Milk – I use the Remember the Milk for Google Gadget url with Prism to get a desktop app that’s very functional and easy to access. Use this url to access Remember the Milk to get the Google gadget version. http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/modules/googleig/ . You could even try the mobile version or the regular website interface of that’s your thing.
• Google Talk Gadget – I prefer the Google Talk gadget over the GChat option available within Gmail. If you have a preferred IM like Digsby (Digsby Review), then you won’t need this. But, if you are stuck on a linux machine like me with the usual IM client’s proxy setting not working, then you’ll love this option. You could also run GTalk gadget in Prism. Read all about it in the link.
• Evernote/Google Notebook – Evernote is one of my recent addition to Prism web apps. I like to have this running in a separate window so I can just copy and paste any notes into it. If you haven’t seen it yet, I have written a short Evernote review last week. If you are a Google Notebook user, you could use that in Prism too.
• Passpack: Passpack is an excellent online password manager and is a great candidate for me to run on Prism. I do miss the use of the PassPack bookmarklet when I run it in Prism but the convenience of having atleast the passwords anytime I need it is heavenly. (Passpack Review)
• Google Calendar: If you are a Google Calendar user, you can run the full version of it in Prism. Or, you could use the url from the Mini Google Calendar that you may be running in your sidebar.
• Mint: Mint is a personal finance application that can aggregate transactions from all your bank accounts and credit card accounts and show you in an easy to digest format. I find it another great tool to have it in my desktop check at various times of the day.
• Any Google app: Google has a suite of useful web applications available and you can create a Prism application for any of them and access them as if they were a desktop application.

As you can see depending on what web applications you use, you can create Prism application for it. The sky is the limit.

Prism, built on our favorite Firefox technology, doesn’t support installing extensions at the moment even though it is coming soon. I have found blog posts indicating that some folks have successfully installed some Firefox extensions in Prism but I haven’t been able to yet.

Why is Gmail missing in the list?

The moment you can add Firefox extensions like Greasemonkey to Prism, the range of web applications I can see myself using is increasing two-fold. That is exactly why you’ll find Gmail missing in this list. I have gotten too addicted with the Stylish script Gmail redesigned, that I have decided to keep it in my browser for now.

I am looking forward to suggestions and ideas for web applications best suited for Prism from you and very interested to hear what you run on Prism.

Top Web Applications Best Suited for Mozilla Prism - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/10 (RSS)

Do you have pictures you publish online that you want to protect from someone else using it? There are plenty of software options for watermarking images. But, what if you want to occasionally watermark an image or you are at someone else’s computer without the right the software?

PicMarkr offers a free online solution for watermarking your pictures.

Quick facts about PicMarkr

• Upload pictures from your computer
• Or grab pictures from your Flickr account
• Supports batch processing 5 from computer, 10 from Flickr
• You can add simple text watermark or an image watermark or tiled watermark
• Very simple to use & FREE!

I really like it’s integration with Flickr and it will be nice to see support for other photo sharing sites as well like PhotoBucket, ImageShack, etc. This will be pretty good for a casual user but if you would like to watermark every image you use in your website or blog, you might be better off with a desktop tool than an online one.

Here is an image I watermarked with PicMarkr. Not too shabby, eh?

What tool do you use for watermarking your pictures?

Watermark Your Images Online – PicMarkr - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/10 (RSS)

Amazon has the Sony BRAVIA KDL46EX710 46-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV, Black for $999 with free shipping and no tax in most states.

Some features

• 46-inch Edge LED-backlit HDTV with Full HD 1080p resolution and slim design
• Motionflow 120Hz technology for smooth motion; BRAVIA Engine 3 fully digital video processor
• Wi-Fi ready (with optional dongle); access to BRAVIA Internet video and widgets; USB port for photos, music and video playback
• Inputs: 4 HDMI, 2 component, 2 composite, 1 PC, 1 USB, 1 Ethernet, 1 optical digital audio output
• Includes removable stand; measures 42.75 x 27.1 x 10.25 inches with stand

A great LED HDTV deal if you have been looking for one. We have a 46” Sony Bravia LCD and couldn’t be happier.

Sony BRAVIA KDL46EX710 46-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV $999 - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/10 (RSS)

My wife and I are big fans of Sony Playstation 3. We use it more as a media streaming device and a DVD/Blu-ray player than as a gaming console.

We use TVersity to stream videos from our desktop or notebook computers to our HDTV.

With the 3D HDTVs gaining adoption and with the impending holiday sales making a big push, there is great news for Playstation 3 owners and for those consider purchasing it.

PlayStation firmware 3.50 was just released. And it has brought support for playback of 3D Blu-ray movies on PS3.

If you have a PS3 already and just bought a 3D HDTV or planning on buying one, you can now watch 3D blu-ray movies right at home.

PS3 firmware 3.50 also added

• Facebook Integration: Developers will be able to create PS3 games that have deep interaction with Facebook. Once compatible PS3 titles are available, PS3 users can choose to access their information on Facebook – including user name, profile, photos and friends list – to enhance their gameplay experience.
• Grief Reporting Function: Users can send claim reports directly from the XMB for any inappropriate messages they receive from other PlayStation Network users. This feature is accessible from the option menu of the messages list in the FRIENDS category.

As long as you have your PS3 and 3D HDTV are hooked up with HDMI cables all the way and the settings are in auto, you will be playing 3D Blu-ray movies in no time right inside your home.

We don’t have a 3D TV yet and we will have to wait a while to make this happen. But, for those looking to purchase a media device, Sony Playstation 3 continues to be on the cutting edge in entertainment.

If you are looking for a game console that can double as your media center device, look no further.

{ via Redmond pie }

Sony Playstation 3 Can Play 3D Blu-Ray Movies - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/10 (RSS)

Originally posted 2009-10-21 14:36:48.

WordPress 2.9 is coming soon and it’s time to see what we can expect from this release.

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms and is available in a hosted version at WordPress.com and as a free self-hosting version at WordPress.org.

WordPress 2.9 is the next version in the recent updates and I am pretty excited for a few of the features in the release. But, it is not as exciting as the huge changes in WordPress 2.7 but again that’s why it is a release update and not a version upgrade to 3 yet.

But there is still a slew of new features in this release and let’s take a look at some of them.

WordPress 2.9 New Features

• Post Thumbnails – With a simple filter in the template file you can add a post thumbnail from an image in many views such as index, archives, etc easily
• Image Editing – You can do basic image editing like rotate, crop, flip, etc right from your WordPress admin = faster blogging experience
• Media embeds – Easily embed videos from YouTube, Google Video, DailyMotion or any service that uses oEmbed standard in your posts. (Think Viper’s Video Quicktags plugin)
• Trash Status – Deleted posts, pages, comments are moved to a trash for you to recover quickly if you accidentally delete them
• Comment metadata – This basically means you (or a plugin) can do cool things with your comments data such as displaying popular comments, etc.
• User Registration via XMLRPC – You can now enable user registration through a XMLRPC client
• Gallery Shortcode – You can easily add a gallery attached to a post with a shortcode such as [ gallery ] It’s not new – Thanks Travis & Andrea
• Better Feedback – Better feedback on publishing of future posts and pages
• Plugin/Theme Editor Enhancement – Your scroll position is saved in plugin and theme editor which means no more trying to find the line you just edited!
• Auto Repair Tables – Added means of automatically repairing tables
• Canonical – Support for rel=Canonical for singular pages (Canonical?)

As you can see, as usual this WordPress update has a nice set of new features. I know some of us love frequent updates and new features and some of us hate it as it means frequent website updates.

Automatic upgrade introduced lately has been a great help for many (as long as you make a database and file system backup beforehand) and I have hardly seen any upgrade failure in the many WordPress upgrades my wife has been doing for her clients.

Although it needs my attention now with many new plugins I use, Top WordPress Plugins has been the most popular article in ShanKrila and I hope you will enjoy it too.

[via Dougal Campbell]

Top 10 WordPress 2.9 Features You Should Know - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/10 (RSS)

DropBox is an innovative file synchronization service that seamlessly keeps the assigned folder between computers in sync. You can even get to your files from anywehere via a browser interface. You can read my DropBox Review here.

Dropbox was on closed beta so far and they have just launched publicly! You go ahead and sign for a free account (2GB space). There will be premium accounts with more space availabel shortly at the price of 50GB Dropbox for $9.99/monh or $99.99/year.

Dropbox was previously available as a client for Windows & Mac. But, as they had promised earlier, now a DropBox client for Linux has been made available. Also, they have improved their interface to be iPhone-optimized.

Dropbox for Linux

Dropbox for Linux is available right now for Fedora Core 9, Ubuntu 8.04 & Ubuntu 7.10.

Even though only the above Linux flavors are listed, I was able to install the rpm file for Fedora Core 9 in my openSUSE 11.0 (x86) machine fine and get Dropbox running. Dropbox blog also reports that they have had reports of users running it on Gentoo, Arch Linux & Debiam distributions.

Dropbox is currently in a closed beta (I had given out invitations here before.. comment if you’d like one. I have 13 left). But, after installing I noticed the linux client had a way to register for an account without an invite. It’s probably Dropbox team’s way of showing their love for Linux. Nice.

Software Requirements

Whatever distribution you may be using, just make sure your OS meets the following requirments

• GTK 2.12 or higher
• GLib 2.14 or higher
• Nautilus 2.16 or higher
• Libnotify 0.4.4 or higher
• W-get 1.10 or higher 9remove the hyphen)

If you are having trouble with it, try the Dropbox forums. Or try emailing linux@getdropbox.com.

Congratulations Dropbox team for creating this awesome service. I love you guys!

I totally recommend anyone to Try Dropbox Professional. You can even get a Portable Dropbox now!

{via Dropbox}

Dropbox Goes Public & Linux Client Is Available Now - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/10 (RSS)

It’s time for another look at some of the Firefox extensions making the rounds this week.

For the new readers, I do these picks post every couple of weeks or as soon as I come across enough extensions to warrant a post. You can see the previous posts in this series at the bottom of this post.

• Zotero – Zotero is a blogger’s dream extension. originally meant as a research extension, I see a great use for it to store your notes, screenshots, references, links & images of web pages you come across. If you use Clippings or ScrapBook, this is definitely worth a look. I will do a separate review of this extension after I use it for a couple of weeks.
• Adsense Notifier – Display your Google Adsense earnings in your Firefox statusbar and updates automatically at an interval you specify. Great to see those cents we rake in with Google Ads.
• Youlicit – If you are a StumbleUpon user, you might find this an interesting option to discover  relevant sites. Youlicit recommends to sites similar to the one you are on. For eg. when I Youlicit-ed while I was on PassPack, it took me to Clipperz, BugMeNot & a password generator site.
• Read-It-Later – I just love this one! Do you have bookmark folders full of links that you just wanted to read later? With this extension, you can save pages by right clicking on a link (don’t have to open the link) to your reading list. When you have time, you could go through your list or hit articles randomly like your own StumbleUpon. [via Download Squad]
• Morning Coffee – You can bookmark your regular read websites to open on different days. For eg. you can set to open ShanKri-la every day and open Fark.com on just Fridays. You get the hint, just bookmark ShanKri-la now.

That’s it for this week and I’m sure it’ll keep you occupied for some time. Make sure you uninstall extensions you don’t use anymore to keep your browser zipping along.

Firefox Extensions: Picks of the Week 07-11-13 - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/10 (RSS)

I am always on the lookout for the next big thing in the web application arena. This one caught my eye today. While I am not sure if it’s the next big thing, it has the promising tone to it.

neighborrow has an interesting concept and here is an excerpt from their site about this service

Now imagine, though, that the inventory of every DVD, book, CD, video game, etc. in your apartment building and surrounding neighborhood was visible, suddenly, at the click of a button. Imagine a system that reveals the collective inventory of the group but can conceal the identity of the individual owner.Imagine having the ability to browse or search this inventory on-line and then extract value and utility (and joy and friendship and earth saving goodness) from these items by borrowing them when they are not being used by their owner (and getting something in return when that “owner” is YOU). Imagine that the system allowed you to do all of this conveniently, anonymously, securely, and best of all …for FREE! Plus, in an organized way that rewards lending and provides incentives for practical, safe exchanges. All this in an environment that alleviated concerns about knowing who has what, and if/when you will get it back.

I like the fact that they attempt to bring your neighborhood’s stuff that might of interest to you available easily and exchange something you have that might be value to someone else!

Perhaps, I could let someone borrow my collection of old computer books and get something that I need this summer in return!

This service is in alpha (not beta) right now and only starting to gather members. I have signed up for an account and will explore more in this site to measure its potential value to an average guy like me.

I would like to learn more about how they would ensure anonymity between the exchanges. More about it soon..

Borrowing made easy: neighborrow - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/10 (RSS)

We are surrounded by invisible WiFi signals and may more signals around us. This is especially true in urban settings.

The team at YOUrban.no (Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen, Einar Sneve Martinussen) has conjured up an instrument that shows the WiFi signals as a bulbs lighting up in a rod depending on the strength of the signal.

And they captured this as long exposure light painting photopgraphs. This creates a haunting visual effects on urban landscapes.

Check out the video below to see this in action.

{ via Flowing Data & Yourban.no }

Light Painting WiFi Signals [video] - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2012/11/10 (RSS)