ASCGEN is a small utility that converts you photographs and screenshots into high quality colored or black and white text images.
The output can either be plain text or HTML web pages (like you have seen in ASCII Art Gallery).
What makes ASCGEN different from other Image to ASCII converters is that it gives you lot of control over the output text - you can change the output dimensions, flip sides or adjust the brightness and contrast levels of the output text image through sliders in real time.
But there’re a couple of reasons why you may want to give AirTalkr a shot.
Unlike Meebo which is available only for the browser, you can also install AirTalkr IM on your desktop using Adobe AIR runtime. AirTalkr can run on Windows and Mac.
The other useful feature in AirTalkr is something called AirCards. You can view the latest photos that your buddies have uploaded on Flickr, read their most recent blog entries and Twitter tweets right inside AirTalkr.
Microsoft has just added the Windows XP Service Pack 3 (release candidate) installer to their download website.
This Windows XP SP3 installer weighs around 336 MB and includes all patches, bug fixes and security updates ever released by Microsoft since the launch of Windows XP OS.
Nothing major introduced in XP SP3 but there’s a new activation scheme which will not require a product key during XP installation on a new machine.
And unlike XP SP1 or SP2, you can easily uninstall XP SP3 from your PC using the Add Remove programs module.
Release notes for XP SP3 | Download Link [windowsxp-kb936929-sp3-x86-enu.exe]
Keotag is a convenient way to search for stuff (not just tags) across all popular blog search engines and social websites including Twitter, Digg, delicious, Flickr, YouTube, etc.
You type a search term (or tag) and click the corresponding search engine icon where you want to perform that search. Keotag is AJAX based and so you can switch search engines without having to reload the page each time.
No options to sort or refine search results but still quite useful especially when ego-surfing. Tag Viewer is another competing site but I would prefer Keotag.
If your Windows PC is taking a lot of time to start-up, chances are that too many programs and Windows services are configured to launch automatically when you log on.
To fix this issue, you can either manually clear the start-up folder and registry entries or just download the excellent Autoruns 9.0 utility from Microsoft.
Autoruns shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and the entries are in the order in which Windows processes them.
You can select the services, executables and registry entries that may be responsible for the long start-up time and uncheck them to disable.
The much awaited “friend grouping” feature is now live on Facebook (click the Friends tab on your Facebook profile).
With the new Facebook Friends list, you can now easily organize your Facebook friends into “logical groups” (like blog readers, friends, relatives, college buddies, etc).
You can send private messages to all friends in a list or invite the list to Facebook groups and events more efficiently.
Am sure this feature will reduce “invite spam” on Facebook. You can have up to 100 Friend Lists and up to 1,500 friends per Friend List. You can have the same friend on multiple lists as well.
Microsoft will release the first beta of Internet Explorer 8 in the first half of 2008 that will have full support for web standards. And the new browser will be known as “Windows Internet Explorer 8″.
Website designers will be able to write websites based on standards, insert a flag that tells IE to render in IE8 standards mode, and IE will then switch its rendering engine to use this new mode.
Thus IE8 won’t break the layout of existing websites coded for previous versions of IE (IE7 or IE6, for example). They’ll behave in exactly the same way in IE8 unless website designers opt-in to IE8 standards mode by placing a simple tag at the head of their HTML document.
It is not immediately clear if Windows IE8 will be available for Windows 2000 and XP versions. [MVP]
[Al Gore In his Office - Getting Things Done ?]
[Steve Ballmer working in his Office at Microsoft]
[Bill Gates Office - couple of Tablet PCs, very organized]
While it’s true that videos posted on YouTube can quickly get the much needed exposure but by limiting yourself just to YouTube, you are actually missing an opportunity to expose your videos to the non-YouTube crowd and that is no insignificant number.
In fact, your videos could gain higher visibility on small video sharing sites than YouTube because the overall content is less and therefore videos (that have the right tags and descriptions) have better chances of getting listed in the top search results.
Now if you are convinced that you should publish videos to non-YouTube video sharing sites as well, the immediate problem is time - it is tough for anyone to visit a dozen different video sharing websites, fill in the same details about the video and wait for the upload to finish.
Luckily, there are some very good online tools like Hey!Spread and TubeMogul that can do all the hard work - they’ll easily upload your video to all popular video sharing websites in just one click.
Hey! Spread works like this - you specify the location of your video file on the hard drive, select the sites where you want to simultaneously upload the video, type your login credentials and hit Go. You’ll soon receive an email in your inbox specifying the status of your uploads and the URLs of the video on different video sharing websites.
And there’s more. If you have a video that’s already up on YouTube or other sites, Hey!Spread can fetch that video and spread it to all other sites as well. It does this on its own servers, you need not have to download the YouTube video before uploading it again to other places like Blip, Google Video, Facebook, MySpace, etc.
The other popular service, TubeMogul adds the analytics component to their Universal Video Uploader. When you upload a video to multiple website using TubeMogul, you can actually track how often your videos were watched on different websites.
And it works just like Hey!Spread. You upload the video to TubeMogul, then enter the Title plus Description and finally pick video sites where you want to deploy your videos.
You can also save your login and password information (for different online video sites) in your TubeMogul account so you don’t have to type those details again during the next upload.
I just got a message in Facebook from a friend whose Google Account was hijacked and the password was changed by the hacker. That person is now looking for some kind of a Google helpline to help him revive the account.It can be a nightmare if someone else takes control of your Google Account because all your Google services like Gmail, Orkut, Google Calendar, Blogger, AdSense, Google Docs and even Google Checkout are tied to the same account.
Here are some options suggested by Google Support when your forget the Gmail password or if someone else takes ownership of your Google Account and changes the password:
1. Reset Your Google Account Password:
Type the email address associated with your Google Account or Gmail user name at google.com/accounts/ForgotPasswd - you will receive an email at your secondary email address with a link to reset your Google Account Password.
This will not work if the other person has changed your secondary email address or if you no longer have access to that address.
2. For Google Accounts Associated with Gmail
If you have problems while logging into your Gmail account, you can consider contacting Google by filling this form. It however requires you to remember the exact date when you created that Gmail account.
3. For Hijacked Google Accounts Not Linked to Gmail
If your Google Account doesn’t use a Gmail address, contact Google by filling this form. This approach may help bring back your Google Account if you religiously preserve all your old emails. You will be required to know the exact creation date of your Google Account plus a copy of that original “Google Email Verification” message.
It may be slightly tough to get your Google Account back but definitely not impossible if you have the relevant information in your secondary email mailbox.
Ego-surfing or Googling your own name on the Internet has become a very popular activity on the web.
PEW says that around half of Internet users have googled for their own name on the web and this number has almost doubled in five years.
And its not just about self-googling, people look for contact information about old acquaintances with whom they have lost touch. [PDF Report]
Self-searchers who locate information connected to their name online say that most of what they find is accurate. Only 4 percent of Internet users said embarrassing or inaccurate information online resulted in a bad experience.
CrossLoop, which is an excellent desktop sharing software, could also be the next Elance for hiring tech support professionals who can remotely fix your computer problems in real-time.
Today, they have launched CrossLoop 2.0 that adds a “social” element to this already popular remote desktop sharing software and makes it extremely lucrative to IT Helpdesk staff and tech support personnel.
You can now create a personal profile on CrossLoop website that details your areas of expertise. When you provide remote help to others using CrossLoop, they can rate the session and that feedback is automatically added to your public profile.
See some screenshots of CrossLoop 2.0:
This “CrossLoop reputation” will become an important factor when you go beyond friends and family and decide to provide professional help to potential customers. They can view your history on CrossLoop and decide whether they want to avail your service or not.
Going forward, this CrossLoop database could become the one-stop shop for finding good tech support personnel. And best of all, CrossLoop is still free.
The only downside is that CrossLoop is only available for Windows so they could be missing a large chunk of users who may be running Mac or Linux platforms. In April, Mrinal did hint that were are planning to make CrossLoop available across various platforms.
DI reader Suresh Telu has a Lenovo laptop that came pre-installed with Windows Vista Home edition.
He plans to install Windows XP on the computer but wiping off Vista completely may void the laptop warranty.
Suresh is therefore looking for an alternate solution where he can install and dual boot Windows XP alongside Windows Vista.
It is possible but before you install Windows XP over pre-installed Vista, here are some important points to consider:
1. You should have a licensed copy of Windows XP.
2. Read your warranty document carefully or consult the customer care to make sure that warranty remains valid when you install a second OS on your computer.
3. You’ll need to create a separate partition (or overwrite an existing one) for installing XP . Make sure there’s enough space on the hard drive.
Now head over to PronetWorks and HowToGeek for a detailed guide on installing Windows XP on your pre-installed Vista laptop. It’s a bit geeky method but nicely illustrated at both the places.
To create a password, you are a shown a random set of images - you look at each of the image, think of some associated object and them type the first and last character of that object’s name.
For instance, if the first picture is of a black cat, you can type “bt” in the password field. You then advance to the next picture and so on to create a 20 character random and strong password.
Whenever you are asked to log in, you will be presented with the same images (inkblots) to remind you of your associations.
Though it may be tough for most of us to rely on memory for such long passwords, the research paper says that most users find the mental images they associate with the inkblots hard to forget.
IPL is scheduled to start in April 2008 and there would be eight teams representing an Indian city playing 56 matches in T20 format. The floor price for each team is set at $50 million for a 10–year franchise, though this figure could reach much higher levels.
Most of the bidders are for Mumbai team followed by Delhi and Bangalore as these teams are expected to have the best Indian and foreign players under its fold.
Till now 90 bidders have put in their bid, which includes name of big corporates like Vijay Mallya, Anil Ambani, Sunil Mittal, Kishore Biyani and Lord Swaraj Paul. Even film stars like Shahrukh Khan and Hollywood actor Russel Crowe have put in their bids.
Other bidders doing the rounds are football teams from English Premier League, members of the American National Basketball Association, two foreign banks with operations in India, investment bankers and a leading private Indian bank.
If the trend shows any indications, then it may mean mean big money for BCCI. But for companies bidding for the teams, it may make business sense too as cricket is nothing short of religion in India and getting hold of prime players under its fold, it could mean better brand image for the company.
Also, with India becoming T20 champions, IPL is surely bound to attract eyeballs and it could be a show of strength for corporate houses, just like what happens in English Soccer League and American Basketball Championship.
Another business motive can be the scenario when the teams can be bought and sold for profit if they perform well. In that case, each team would just be nurtured as a company with its own index of performance.
Assuming that you are logged into Facebook, visit this page and you’ll get a neatly arranged list of telephone numbers of all your Facebook friend along with their names and profile pictures.
Take a print and you’ll always have those phone numbers ready whenever you need them.
When you mouse over any name in the Gmail standard message view, it pops a small window that will lets your write an email to that person, start a new chat session or even find “recent conversations” with that person.
And if that Gmail contact has an account on Orkut, you can access his or her Orkut profile directly through this new “info box” of Gmail.
Currently, this feature is only available in standard Gmail, not the Google Apps Gmail.
If you are running a pirated copy of Windows XP Professional (or Home Edition), you can very easily convert it into a properly licensed version by just updating your XP Product Key that comes with the Get Genuine kit. This is definitely a good offer for “unlicensed” Windows XP users who wish to legalize their software without having to reformat the computer or re-install the OS.
But a surprising part of the story is that software pirates, who later go genuine through the amnesty route, get a “better deal” from Microsoft than customers who buy legal software first-hand.
