Microsoft Information Card for windows live services

Just learned something new. Hum ...you would say that is usual, what is new ???. Agreed.

When online and going through certain website or web application or cloud appliance, everyday , I get to learn one or two things new.  And ofcourse I get brush up on previously grasped concepts. :)

As we are talking internet, web applications and cloud appliances, we are reaching out to different services for various purposes like managing social contacts, emails and calender as well as online banking, ticket booking, shopping etc. For each of these purpose, to maintain privacy and security, we have individual registration to each of these sites and we merrily remeber all those user id and passwords with certain security questions ( Identities ) .

Some sites now a days trying to give some relief of identity maintenance and provide alternate security mechanism like open id, google login, facebook connect and so forth.

Well, what I have learned today is about identity and how Windows Live manages it through Information Card.

Here is an excerpt from Microsoft about Information Card.

About Information Cards
Information Cards are downloadable digital certificates (An attachment to an electronic message or transaction that is used for security purposes. The most common use of a digital certificate is to verify that a user sending messages or information is who they claim to be and to provide the receiver with the means to encode a reply. Digital certificates are issued from a certificate authority.) that enable you to sign in to Windows Live ID sites and services without a password. Once these certificates are installed, you can sign in to multiple sites and services without needing to remember your Windows Live ID (The e-mail address and password that you use to sign in to Windows Live programs and services such as Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger; Microsoft services such as Xbox LIVE, MSN, and Office Live; and anywhere else that you see the Windows Live ID logo.) and password combination.
Notes
To use an Information Card, you must have Windows Internet Explorer 7 and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 installed on your computer. If you don't have the correct version installed, you'll be prompted to download and install them before you can associate an Information Card with your Windows Live ID.
You can also use Windows CardSpace to manage your Information Cards.
,IS_Windows Live ID and Account Management , , sdarc_ofni info card space cookies certificate ssl secure sockets layer

These information cards are basically digital certificates and would be managed by Windows Cardspace on your devices.

These digital certificats are interesting in a way that these has been been targed for much more higher purpose than just identifying a single user on pleathora of Microsoft windows live services.

Just to provide a glimpse of the features, Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 together could be used with these digital certificates for virtual private network and direct access to back office applications from your personal devices like netbooks, laptops, PCs and smart phones. :)

Well, I am going on further for next concept to learn from this every growing technology field...

Until then prepare your informaton cards with your data, picture and digital signature and enjoy... well...if you have a questions, comments, suggestions, ideas or knowledge bits, you know where to find me ...

AudioPal A cool free online utility to convert text to speech and voice recording

AudioPal A cool free online utility to convert text to speech and voice recording

Sometimes you would think whatever text you are typing or reading get converted to voice and somebody else could hear it if they like to. :)

Well, there are such text to voice softwares out there. Also there are softwares which can convert your voice to text.

I have come across this cool free online utility "AudioPal". This allows you "free" to convert your text to speech or to record a voice.

You have four different methods to input that textual thoughts of your to AudioPal. You can go AudioPal website and click to get to AudioPal Editor.

1. Record your message by phone
Recording your message is three steps process...
• You can call a toll free number which is given here,
• key in the passcode which is shown on AudiPal Editor and
• then record your message.
The recorded message can be previewed right on the editor. The recorded message would be forwarded to you using an email which you will have an opportunity to share.

2. Type in your text using keyboard
This is one of the cool option. This is again couple of simple steps to reach to get your text recorded in speech.
• Type your 600 character text message.
• Choose in which language you want to record this text message.
• Then you can select whose voice you want your text message.
That is it. You are ready to get your text message in different language and various voices.Rest is as it is. Preview and provide email to pick up your AudioPal message.

3. Record using your computer Mic
Simple. Record, preview and provide email to pick up AudioPal recording. That's it.

4. Upload an audio file from your computer
Just upload the file, follow the instructions and get your Audio in email.

After you receive an email, it will have a link to pickup a widget code for AudioPal entry you have made. There are lots of social sites to which they provide the sharing code.

Here is my experiment from AudioPal...

Hope you enjoy it...Go ahead Give a voice to you site...:D)

Google Wave My First Preview

Google Wave My First Preview

Latest Update: Google Wave is been donated to Apache and currently it is in incubation state at Apache Wave.

I have received an invite to preview Google Wave. Happy and glad to be part of Wave community. And would love to share my first look of Google Wave. In case, you would like, I may send an invite nominate you also. Please let me know if you are interested to preview Google Wave.

First important thing, I have observed, after logging in using my existing Gmail id to Google Wave, is a screen which has three panels and one blank panel for opening/creating new wave. Well, I do not want to stretch your curiosity, please find attached screen shot from from Google Wave opened using Google Chrome.

You may curious by this time what is exactly Wave means. In Google's Own Words,

A "wave" is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

Google Wave depends on strong JS and DOM rendering performance to provide a desktop-like experience in the browser. HTML5's offline storage and web workers enable to use desktop like features without compromising on performance.

The Google Wave protocol is the underlying format for storing and the means of sharing waves, and includes the "live" concurrency control, which allows edits to be reflected instantly across users and services. The protocol is designed for open federation, such that anyone's Wave services can interoperate with each other and with the Google Wave service.

My observations:

• The look and feel as well as usability of the Google Wave is very easy, beautiful, useful
  
  
• I have received a new email id with "GoogleWave.com" domain id.
  
  
• I can open Google Wave in FireFox 3.5.3 correctly. IE 8 has extension mark for moderator.appscout.com panel.
  
  As Google advises on Google Wave Development blogsite they will be extending the preview for IE 8. To utilize Google Wave in IE 8, they expect IE 8 user to install Google Chrome Frame.
  
  
  • Google Wave Log-in preview in FireFox 3.5.3
  • Google Wave Login-in preview in IE 8
  
  
• In regular Google tradition, there are lots of videos on Google Wave, Google Wave APIs, Google Wave Extensions etc topics.
  
  
• Wave is part email part document part conversation. It is collaborating workspace to wave around. Basic functionalities which could be done with Google Wave are
  
  • Start new wave
  • Reply to wave
  • Read new unread wave by just hitting spacebar
  • Install extensions for rich contents and integration with other systems.
  • Attach photos and files by drag-drop functionality
  • Of course you can spell check your wave.
  • Organize waves in folders and...
  • Search your waves...
• Google goes in length to tell you when you can use Google Wave like for email, meeting notes, photo and document organization etc etc
  
  
• Google Wave API and Google Wave Extensions/Gadgets are some of the topics, I am curious to know in more depth.
  
  Interestingly Google Wave provides some out of box extensions. Here is a brief list of extensions available right now:
  
  
  • Wave Sudoku
  • Conference
  • Video Chat Experience
  • Trippy :
    Co-create an itinerary: choose points of interest -- including Lonely Planet recommendations, organize, share, print, or export to My Maps!
  • Yes/No/May Be Gadgets
    This one is my favorite. It allows my wave visitor/reader to choose a response like "Yes/No/Maybe". Isn't it awesome.
  • Map Gadget
  • Extension Installer
    It is written by Google. Allows developers to create new Extension Installers.
  • You can find more extensions here.
• I am positively impressed with the tool. I appreciate the gracious sanction of my request to get me in Google Wave review to experience before lots of other cool nice people around.
  
  
• From my perspective it is the rich online collaboration tool which allows to perform all those things what MS Outlook and other desktop email + collaboration tools allow you to do. From my perspective, we are observing the rise of groupwares in Virtual World like we have used Lotus Notes, Outlook and such tools.
  
  I see tremendous value and potential in extensions and integrating Google Wave to manage my all contacts, related social media relation ships and various artifacts.
  
  I am in a situation like any young child who is been presented with a new toy, how excited he/she with toy and try to figure out what games could be played with it. Hopefully I would figure out more and more interesting things from Google Wave.
  
  
  Update
  
  
  Seems like this virtual social blogsphere has intuition of its own. After I have posted my curiosity about Google Wave use cases in front of the world, I have found this very interesting blog post titled "Google Wave's Best Use Cases" from LifeHacker.com.
  
  
  
  I have found out that SalesForce.com and SAP's research lab are early adopters of technology and are working on a Google Wave extension that facilitates real-time, collaborative development of business processes.
  
  
• Just in case you, you are curious to know and to review Google Wave, I have eight six invites nominations which I can share with you and spread technology love of Google wave...
  
• Update
  
  
  After I have submitted Google Invite for my precious and important visitors, I have received this message from Google Wave.
  
  
  

  Invite others to Google Wave
  
  Google Wave is more fun when you have others to wave with, so please nominate people you would like to add. Keep in mind that this is a preview so it could be a bit rocky at times.
  
  Invitations will not be sent immediately. We have a lot of stamps to lick.
  
  Happy waving!

  
  
  
  

Happy Waving...Enjoy...

Clixpy a usability tool for webmasters, bloggers and designers

Clixpy a usability tool for webmasters, bloggers and designers

Like to find out how usable your site is ? What actions does visitor take at your site ? how user session has progressed  ? Well, you can get all this insight and more using Clixpy. It is a online tool which captures every user visit, page view, page load and other important things. It tracks everything your site’s users do: mouse movement, clicks, scrolling, form inputs. You can watch and examine videos showing your users’ actions.

Also Clixpy guides to features which are difficult for visitors to use and which are easy, where your users spend more time and importantly why they leave your website. When equipped with this knowledge, you can optimize your landing pages and may convert visitors to be subscriber, clients and/or regular visitor.

If this all made you curious and would want to try the tool to garner more detailed information of your web site, please visit Clixpy.

There are two ways to experience Clixpy. You have 9 free sessions or you can buy more sessions. In first 9 free sessions, you can use Clixpy with as many domains and sites as you like.You can buy 100 captures to 1000 captures for a price range of $5 to $50 respectively. And you get to use your PayPal account. :D)

Registering is easy. Share your email, provide password and may "optionally" provide company name, company website link . The registration will be followed by a activation email sent to your email address. So make sure you give correct address. Once you have actiation email, click on activation link and login with user id ( i.e. email address) and password.

First login will take you to a page with three tabs. Play Session, Install and Buy Captures. Install tab will be active. Copy javascript from install tab, insert the script to your website's template/html source just before end of head html tag.

The same script could be used on multiple domains and sites. And you will have a choice to play sessions from each domain or particular website. IF you are interested in playing demo of the Clixpy, you can take a look here.

Here is the screen shot from my account:

My first session has been captured and ready to be played as seen in this screen shot.

• First observation is that You can turn on and off session tracking using the "Tracking Session" on/off button.
• Second thing if you do not want your browser to be tracked, especially if you have eCommerce site and you keep performing money transaction, then you can disable Clixpy for your site especially where you are asking user is entering credit card by manually adding attribute noclixpy="true" to such elements.
• Third good thing I have liked is I can use Clixpy in IE 8, FireFox 3.5.x, Safari 4.x and Chrome with similar experience and no issue so far. 
• It could not track Flash session though. 
• No visible difference in page load or user activities as it uses tiny javascript with AJAX. 
• If you do not want your browser to be tracked by Clixpy. Then by adding a cookie Clixpy will not trace your browser.Here is the page for disabling Clixpy.
• Last but not least, they claim that they do not track or capture any input with type "password"

PR: wait...  I: wait...  L: wait...  LD: wait...  I: wait... wait...  Rank: wait...  Traffic: wait...  Price: wait...  C: wait...

Free Microsoft Security Essentials real time protection against virus, spyware and malware

Microsoft has released “Security Essentials” for PCs which are running genuine windows. It is a free download. You can download Microsoft Security Essentials here.

As usual this product from Microsoft is simple to install. Easy to update and quick to scan. And with green "right" mark on taskbar makes easy to tell if that PC is secure

Installation Screens

Installation Initiation

Installation Complete

Updating Security Definitions

Quick Scan after install and initial update

Final and regular screen of Microsoft Security Essentials

Also on the Security Essentials site, under support tab, there are videos which can show

• how to install Security Essentials,
• how to scan your PC
• how to address threat when detected by Security Essentials

Also you have access to online community as well as access to help and how-to. If everything else fails, you can open a support case too.

My first impression is positive for the product. I have observed that

1. the Microsoft Security Essentials can be installed along side Avast! and Spyware Blaster.
2. in quick scan mode the Microsoft Security Essentials has performed the task quickly without slowing down my Vista laptop.
3. after scanning while watching from windows tray this virus, malware protection has not reduced opening and closing of browsers, office documents or archives.

Minimum Requirements

You can find minimum requirements for Microsoft Security Essentials here. It can be installed on Genuine Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3); Windows Vista (Gold, Service Pack 1, or Service Pack 2); Windows 7. Plus it supports Windows XP mode in Windows 7.

It would be interesting to see reaction of other companies which are already in this space of PC Protection from virus, spyware and malware. Also how would open source pc tools compete with this new tool.

Enjoy... and stay safe !!!!

Shri Ganesh Festival : Ganpati Baapa Morrya

Shri Ganesh Festival : Ganpati Baapa Morrya

I would like to share eight images of Lord Shri Ganesh taking moment on just completed Ganesh Festival.

Lord Ganesh is prayed as the God of Knowledge and for his super Manager image. It is one of the social festival almost each household as well as every neighborhood in India (especially western states) has an idol of Lord Shri Ganesh. There is a ompetition among each neighborhood about decoration and special attraction around the Lord's idol.

In India and now throughout the world, every year, during month of Auguest, Ganesh Festival is been celebrated. Indian People bring a statue of Lord Shri Ganesh and situate it in their God room. Perform daily rituals and socialize among family, friends and neighbors’. The Poojan is followed by sweets called Modaka. By the way poojan is performing prayer of Lord Ganesh with a oil lamp and appropriate musical instruments. Modaka is made up of jagary, coconut inside wheat flour and then it is deep fried in oil. Other sweets are rice pudding with kesar. Yummy !!!

If you may please look at the Lord, he has the head of an elephant and big tummy. The large ears represent full attentive listening. The eyes shows concentration, focus and deep observation. While the trunk in front of mouth signifies loud and clear voice for everything but no unnecessary talking. The big head is for storing the knowledge while tummy is for all positive , negative things, secrets. The moon on head is for calmness and patience. All the attributes of Super Manager.

Also each picture of Lord Shri Ganesh signifies the Lord’s characteristics and has a story behind it.

First row

• first image - Gajanan –a God with head of an elephant.


• Second image – Mahakai – humongous body form


• Third Image – Omkar – The one who is born with and from sound of universe. sound of the sacred syllable.


• Fourth Image - Shoorpakarna - Large-Eared Lord


Second Row

• First image - Vakratunda - Curved Trunk Lord


• Second Image – Sindhurvarna – The one with color of saffron.


• Third Image - Vighnavinashanaya - Destroyer of All Obstacles and Impediments


• Fourth Image – Chatur booja – The one with four hands.


Third Row

• First Image - Mangalamurti - All Auspicious Lord


• Second Image - Bhalchandra - Moon-Crested Lord


• Third Image - Ekadanta - Single-Tusked Lord


• Fourth Image - Lambodara - The Huge Bellied Lord

And so on…

Happy Ganesh Festival…Lord Ganesh we would be waiting for you to visit us next year !!!

Freebies for green and organic lover

Freebies for green and organic lover

Thought these free goodies about Green (Energy efficient) life style and Organic Natural Herbs may interest you to use it for health as well as for energy efficient home.

• A free downloadble booklet, Herbs at a Glance: A Quick Guide to Herbal Supplements from NCCAM ( and online information)


The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is the Federal Government's lead agency for scientific research on the diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine.

Herbs at a Glance is a series of fact sheets that provides basic information about specific herbs or botanicals—common names, uses, potential side effects, and resources for more information. The following link will take you to the page containing a list of herbs. On each individual herb related page, you will have an opportunity to download PDF describing each herb, its picture, name, advantages etc.

Link: http://nccam.nih.gov/health/herbsataglance.htm

While you are here, if you like what you see, you may choose to explore more links from this page "Links to Other Organizations"




• energystar.gov is giving away free publications to improve energy utilization in and around your home. These are all downloadable PDFs.


It contains free publications on categories like

Global Warming, Home Improvements, New Home, Buildings And Plants, Small Business, etc

Link: https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=publications.showPublications

Hope you find these resources useful for your green and organic life style.

Enjoy...

Time and Date 12:34:56 07:08:09

At 12 Hrs. 34 Minutes and 56 Seconds on 7th of August ( i.e. today ) of this year 2009, the time and date will/was

12:34:56 07:08:09.

Amazing 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 - combination which is told to happen once in 1000 Years.

Del.icio.us Twitter Together A Nice Concept

Del.icio.us Twitter Together A Nice Concept

Interestingly Del.icio.us a social bookmarking website has put an enhancement. It has added an edge with allowing a feature to let users share their bookmarks to Twitter.Of course there are more stuff with this enhancement. Like they have consolidated network tagging which used to available in Del.icio.us before as well as has added email service.

Del.icio.us Twitter Together is a Nice Concept. Most of the time, it is the case that you think you have discovered something useful and wish you could directly send this link to your friends-colleagues-social network. But you end of going to some URL shrinking site and then to twitter. In these extra steps, you loose momentum and waste couple of clicks with extra tabs/pages. :D) So this integration of Delicious book marks with Twitter remove that extra efforts, time and clicks. So you are now free to share your findings with the world.










This enhancement adds two things to your Save the book mark page. First it has added "Send" text box below tags textbox plus it has added two tabs at the bottom. First one is tags and second tab is "Send" with nice "new" tooltip image.

The trick is to choose Twitter on Send tab and fill in your twitter user id and password first time. Then as usual Twitter account will need you to allow access to Del.icio.us APIs.

After you allow Del.icio.us to access your twitter user id, in the "Send" text box, you will fill @twitter. Boom...there you go..your bookmark now will be tweeted along with Del.icio.us book mark safe. :D

But hey you do not want to share some private bookmarks then you can check it as "
Mark as Private" and it will not be sent to twitter.

Also I have noticed on Del.icio.us that below the bookmark - link, contributors and short information para - there is simpler information about {{number of}} related Tweets been displayed. Hum...may be Del.icio.us could allow me to use my bit.ly or su.pr or TinyURL while letting me share my book marks socially on twitter as well as tracking how many clicks I have for that link. May be it can be part of our wish list. What you think... :D

Enjoy...

Colleagues and appraisal

I have overheard this conversation.

One of the colleague who was speaking with another.

First colleague said " I am looking over your shoulders just to make sure you are working fine."

Second colleague assertively said "Oh, Yeah !!! Sure you can look over to check if I am working or not but make sure of you pass on part of your salary as a part of my appraisal !!!"

Enjoy...

Feed2JS : The online GNU utility to convert RSS to JavaScript

Powered by Feed2JS @ Modevia Web Services

Feed2JS : The online GNU utility to convert RSS to JavaScript.

I have been searching web for converting various RSS Feeds into JavaScript and displaying it on my blog post. While researching I come across this neat online GNU licensed based utility called Feed2JS. In fact, I have liked the idea, the implementation and the ease to use the tool so much, I have experimented it to display my Top Entrecard droppers for April'09 RSS feed from EntreCard as well as my favorite Apple iTunes Store Top Featured Items.

This allows to input RSS feed url, choose some parameters and click on "Generate JavaScript", voila you are ready to display the feed on your blog.

Feed2JS is been developed by Alan Levine. The hosting of this open source utility is provided by Modevia Web Services. Most of you who are keenly observant has already noticed that in Feed2JS badge on top right corner.

Before jumping into how to use this cool tool for your benefit, let us look at what is it made up of. Feed2JS uses Magpie RSS. Magpie RSS is an XML-based (expat) RSS parser in PHP. Magpie is distributed under the GPL license. Apart from this core component, Feed2JS is using eduforge.org "Innovation For Education" for its configuration management purpose.

Now to interesting part. How to use it to convert your RSS feed to javascript using Feed2JS service. Ofcourse you will need RSS link. Go to Feed2JS.org page and input it to the text box, rest follow the series of questions, either click on Preview Feed or generate JavaScript. That is it. Everything is very intutive.

Once you have your Feed Javascript ready, just copy it. Add a

block and paste the feed javascript. You are ready to shine !!!

Enjoy..

Top Entrecard droppers for April'09

Top Entrecard droppers for April'09

Thanks to all of my visitors who always motivate me to write, to research something new, to click that extra photo and to think. :D)

Here are special thanks to all of top entrecard dropper for April'09

Thanks a ton and please keep visiting, reviewing and commenting...Sincerely Appreciated !!!!

Swine Flu : is it a pandemic waiting to happen ?

Swine Flu : is it a pandemic waiting to happen ? This is the question on everybody's mind. Daily news of spreading of swine flu. World Health Organization has increased threat level to 4 to 5. This decision by WHO to increase an alert at Phases 4 or 5 triggers signal that the virus is becoming increasingly adept at spreading among humans. Phase 6 is for a full-blown pandemic, characterized by outbreaks in at least two regions of the world.

Flu happens because of virus. These viruses have multiple strains . They do mutate into more dangerous strains and become vaccine immune over a period of time. Time to time flu virus migrate from birds or animals to humans. Because of the newness of the protein strains humans do not have immunity against those migrated flu viruses. Due to this reason, it spread faster in human.

There are tons of good information about H1N1 virus and its scientific explanation about how these viruses evolve, spread and vaccinations been used against them.

In case pandemic happens, as a worst case scenario, definitely countries are already prepared for such outbreak. The reason for that preparedness was bird flu threat. The vaccination research is going around the clock with very faster speed.

In such condition, common people like you and me, what can we do.

1. Of course, first important thing is not to panic.


2. next is to build own immunity towards influenza/flu.
   
   • There is no vaccination available for swine flu.
     
   • But still health organization are advising to be updated with common flu vaccination. Though the existing flu vaccination is not effective, it still protects from other strains of flu viruses.
     
   • Staying healthy by eating statin enriched food or may getting statin medicine prescribed
   • Keeping immune system in well condition to fight in case required. This involves sleeping enough, eating healthy food which are rich with anti-oxidants
     
   
   
   
   
3. wash your hands before eating and after eating with soap and warm water.


4. Sanitize your hands after touching door knob, phone, public places or shaking hands etc using alcohol based sanitizer.


5. In case of sneezing and coughing to cover mouth and nose. Dispose that napkin in proper bin. Make sure to sanitize hands with alcohol based sanitizer,


6. • Avoid traveling to areas where swine flu outbreak is happening. If it is unavoidable due to business or personal reasons, take precaution as mentioned above.
   • Depending on your daily routines and requirements, avoid crowded public places, schools, public gathering places. This will reduce risk of getting infection.


7. Keep updated information about swine flu development, vaccinations, any new precautionary measures which is been published and various health organizations announcements.

There is an interesting tool 'Google Flu Trends'. I come across while looking for flu trends. Interestingly this tool shows currently flu activity and trends are very low. Here is an explanation from Google.org about this flu trend tool:

How does this work?
We've found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity in the United States. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate possible flu activity at a state level in near real-time.

There are lots of good information resources on Flu from US Government as well as from Center of Disease Control and Prevention.

• On pandemic flu ( swine flu, bird flu etc) there is a PandemicFlu.gov website.




• The website dedicated on Swine Flu by Center Of Disease Control and Prevention shows statics about current swine flu cases and other information.

• What are your thoughts on staying safe in such pandemic ?




• Do you think Swine flu would become a pandemic?




• Do you recommend any precautionary method against swine flu?

Stay healthy...enjoy life...

Fun Feng Shui Horoscope : Make a wish

Take just a minute to take this test & see what happens!
If you are honest this tells the truth -- it's pretty good.

Write your answers on a paper, NO cheating!!

There are no tricks in this, it is straight forward !

The answers are at the bottom...

1. Which is your favorite color: red, black, blue, green, or yellow?
   
2. Your first initial?
   
3. Your month of birth??
   
4. Which color do you like more, black or white?
   
5. Name a person of the same sex as yours.
   
6. Your favorite number?
   
7. Do you like California or Florida more? ( You might not know the difference ! but does not matter)
   
8. Do you like a lake or the ocean more?
   
9. Write down a wish (a realistic one)

When you're done, scroll down. Don't cheat?
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Answers:

1. If you chose:

   Red - You are alert and your life is full of love.

   
   Black - you are conservative and aggressive
   
   Green - Your soul is relaxed and you are laid back
   
   Blue - You are spontaneous and love kisses and affection from the ones you love.
   
   Yellow - You are a very happy person and give good advice to those who are down.

2. If your initial is:
   
   A-K - You have a lot of love and friendships in your life.
   
   L-R - You try to enjoy your life to the maximum and your love life is soon to blossom.
   
   S-Z - You like to help others and your future love life looks very good.

3. If you were born in:
   
   JAN - MAR: The year will go very well for you and you will
   discover that you fall in love with someone totally unexpected.
   
   APR - JUN: You will have a strong love relationship that will
   last forever.
   
   JUL - SEP: You will have a great year and will experience a
   major life-changing experience for the good.
   
   OCT - DEC: Your love life will be great, you will find your soul mate.

4. If you chose...
   
   Black: Your life will take on a different direction, it will be
   the best thing for you, and you will be glad for the change.
   
   White: You have a friend who completely confides in you and
   would do anything for you, but you may not realize it.

5. This person should be your best friend.

6. This is how many close friends you will have in your lifetime.

7. If you chose:
   
   California : You like adventure.
   
   Florida : You are a laid back person.

8. If you chose:
   
   Lake : You are loyal to your friends and your lover and are very
   reserved.
   
   Ocean: You are spontaneous and like to please people.

9. This wish will come true if you send this to 1 person in one
   hour. Send it to ten people, and it will come true before your next
   Birthday.
   Enjoy...

Apple iTunes Store Top Featured Items

The Earth Day April 22nd 2009

The Earth Day April 22nd 2009.

A day specifically to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment.

Mother Earth has given us so much. It would keep blessing us and our future generations. This day we celebrate those blessings. Share our gratefulness towards our mother planet The Earth. While going through those grateful moments towards Mother Earth, we the earthlings would have to look forward. To realize our responsibility towards our Mother planet. We would need to use each resource like water, food, forests, animals, fishes, land and oceans very thoughtfully. The thoughts and rigorous practice of those thoughts which would enable our future generations to re-use, to preserve and to protect these resources and our Planet for years to come.

On March 28, 2009 at 8:30 pm World Wildlife Fund society has asked corporations and individuals to switch off light for an hour calling it as an Earth hour. This is to signify that if we all put efforts together, smaller thing can make big impact on the climate.

On this day,in humble manner, I am too planning to practice earth day resolutions.

• Turn off water tabs.
• Switch off each light in the room which is not occupied and not used. Or which is well lit and ventilated.
• Recycle all used papers, older newspaper and magazine as well as other goods.
• Use Energy efficient bulbs and electronic equipments.
• Dry washed cloths in open air.
• Most importantly teach ( or preach) these principles to my future generation so they can practice it too.

Some Interesting Websites for The Earth Day:

• How the First Earth Day Came About? By Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day
• The Earth Day : US Government Portal
• Earth Day Network. Protecting the Earth and its people everyday.
• World Wildlife Fund Earth Hour US

May I ask what are your resolutions or practices on this Earth day to protect our Mother Planet and its habitants?

What do you think the Earth Day celebration?

Please do share your thoughts, inputs, ideas about the Earth and protecting it. :D

Happy Earth Day ...

Special Thanks to Bobbie Peachey,http://webclipart.about.com for copyrighted Clip art.

Tips & Tricks : How to open .daa or .uif file ?

There are so many disk image, compression and archival formats available now a days. These file formats allows you

• To archive various files
• To compress it
• To rip CD or DVD disks into it and let it share across
• To transfer images over network or internet securely

These file formats comes with extension like ZIP, RAR, DAA, UIF, ISO and so forth. For each of these file formats, there are tons of tools to open, to extract and to create these archives and images. There are lots of freewares and open source utilities which can allow you to perform those functions on windows, mac, linux and unix. But still sometimes we come across some compressed file with extension like daa and/or uif and we do not know how to open .daa or .uif file?

You may think what on the earth somebody are using these formats. These formats allow you to encrypt the private file, to protect it with password , to save it in compressed mode or to transfer it over internet or network securely.

There are couple of tricks to open .daa or .uif file. Before jumping into those tricks, let me share what are these file format means.

• .DAA

stands for Direct Access Archive. It is a disk image file. It is a proprietary format. It was invented by PowerISO DVD Software company. Being proprietary format, it can not be read using any freeware or open source utility.

• .UIF

stands for Universal Image Format. UIF is created by MagicISO Maker.

To open .DAA file there are two methods.

1. Use PowerISO.

   This is free to try and $29.99 to purchase.

2. Use DAA2ISO and then mount it using Daemon Lite Tools or Magic ISO Virtual CD/DVD Manager

   DAA2ISO is a open source utility. It allows you to convert DAA file to ISO format.

   You can download DAA2ISO from either from it's author's site Luigi Auriemma or from Softpedia.com DAA2ISO download.

   Once you download, you can unzip it in a folder.

   Then click on DAA2ISO, it will open a windows command window as well as it will ask for the location of DAA file opening windows file dialogue box.

   You give the directory and file and it will happily convert the DAA file to ISO.

   

   Then you can use a virtual CD/DVD manager like Daemon Lite Tools or Magic ISO. Mount ISO drive and browse the contents of the mounted image.

To open .UIF file there are two methods

1. Use freeware MagicISO

2. Use UIF2ISO and then mount it using Daemon Lite Tools or Magic ISO Virtual CD/DVD Manager

   UIF2ISO is a open source utility. It allows you to convert DAA file to ISO format.

   You can download UIF2ISO from either from it's author's site Luigi Auriemma or from Softpedia.com UIF2ISO download.

   Rest is easy. Extract it in folder

   Then click on UIF2ISO, it will open a windows command window as well as it will ask for the location of UIF file opening windows file dialogue box.

   You give the directory and file and it will happily convert the UIF file to ISO.

   Then you can use a virtual CD/DVD manager like Daemon Lite Tools or Magic ISO. Mount ISO drive and browse the contents of the mounted image.

These are the methods to open these ubiqutous file format on Windows. Do you know any other method to open these files formats? Please do share.

Enjoy...

Tips & Tricks: How to find a java class in a jar under subfolders?

It happens so many time that you are working on Enterprise Application Deployed on AIX or other unix or linux. You suddenly want to see if one of the java class is made to the deployment. Or you want to search some java class is part of which jar. All these jars are deployed deep down various subdirectories.

Please use this script on AIX:

for f in `find . -name "*.jar" -print`
do
   jar -tvf $f|grep 'YourClassName.class'
done
echo "Done.."

In case of YourClassName.class please add your class name.

If you have script like this or a utility, please do share...Thanks

Enjoy…

I am back !!!

I have been in hibernation or stand by mode for such a long time. Like a deer in front of car head lights. Like a bee smitten by pollinated honey filled flower. Like a poet mesmerized by sun rise. So forth.

While living life like a car which zooms between two intersections to wait for next green signal, I have been observing this fast changing, interesting, lovable yet testing world.

Reading various phases of economy. Sensing hardships of the common people like me. Smelling rather unusually interesting period of life. I have been introspecting myself while absorbing each and every moment of the life like a spilled perfume on the carpet. During this introvert moment, I have left windows of my mind, eyes, ears and heart open for every waking sound of the world.

Rather capturing each difference, each change since my childhood world and experiences, I am learning that the human life is a journey between beginning and end. This journey takes various stations like childhood, teenage, middle age and elder age before stopping for final stations of the truth of mortal life. Who knows this journey may have even started well before arriving to this world and may continue beyond this existence of physical body.

With positive rejuvenation of the life continuum, I am back !!!!

Earn $500 for uploading 500 pictures on PixMac

is a micrstok site. A site where you get pictures and stock photo with royalty free rights.  Pixmac is starting a unique promotion - offering all contributors an opportunity to get money for their pictures even before they’re sold.

This is a great opportunity for photographers like us.

From 1st February 2009, all contributors who upload their pictures on Pixmac will get a $500 sales guarantee for 2 years for every 500 approved pictures.

In case to get the cash immediately, there is another option that is to get $100 for every 500 approved pictures - before having had any sales. Portfolios preferred include high quality pictures with people or isolated objects on a white background. This unique opportunity lasts until 28th  February 2009.

Please find excerpt of exact description about the uploading in their own works.  :

Detailed conditions

The contributor can choose from 2 options.

First

$500 sales guarantee for 2 years for every 500 pictures uploaded and approved on Pixmac. This means that in 2 years Pixmac will give you $500 even if your sales are 0.

Second

$100 for every 500 pictures uploaded and approved on Pixmac immediately after the 500th picture is approved. This will be an advance payment on the first $100 earned on those pictures.  Pixmac accepts the risk of selling these pictures and in the event that no sales are made, the contributor will retain the money.

If you like to read more, please check Get $500 for 500 pictures on Pixmac!

Ok here are couple of important things about PixMac and photo uploading.

1. Please register to PixMac first.
2. Then click on Sell Images and Upload Pictures.
   1. Please be prepared with following important things:
      1. Keywords : Five keywords describing your photograph.
      2. Title: Interesting and attention catching title.
      3. Description: Describe information about your photo.
3. Make sure you disable “automatic keywording”
4. For every picture/photograph, make sure to hit “Save and Send for Approval”.
5. They provide two ways to upload pictures. HTTP upload using browser and FTP Upload using FTP.

Hope this will help you.

Best of luck…!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy…

Google Gmail New Feature multiple panes inside mail box

Google has come out with another cool feature in its ubiquitous mail application GMail. It is multiple panes inside mail box.

It is interesting that Google is bringing out more interesting features for GMail like

• Offline Gmail
• New Shiny Buttons and drop down boxes for various actions
• Themes and colors to decorate the email box
• Color Palette for Labels
• Add any gadgets by URL
• etc...

Some of these are already available and remaining are part of GMail Labs. Well , not all the features of Google Labs will work on all of the browsers. As well as , if these features are not liked or need modifications, it can be taken away. But still, there are lots of cool functionality for online email application here. The latest feature from Labs is to display multiple panels in your mail inbox. GMail team call it as the Multiple Inboxes. Interestingly it allows you to open different emails in different pane. Help you organize your mail box conversation thread wise. In turn improve readability and productivity. Plus it is fun. :D)

• How to enable Multiple Inboxes in GMail?
  • First go to your gmail and click on settings.
  • Then choose Labs Tab.
  • Find "Multiple Inboxes"
  • Then click "Enable" radio box.
  • And click on save changes button at the bottom of settings panel.
  
  • Once you save changes, check for a small green Lab container sign on top right corner.
  • Also you will notice a new tab on Settings Panel. It is Multiple Inboxes.
  
• How to configure your multiple Inboxes?
  • Change to Multiple inboxes tab
  • Below you will find the various personalization attributes for configuration:
  • You will notice five panes with two text boxes filled with is:starred and is:drafts.
  • It will allow you to choose maximum page size. That is total number of mails/items per pane.
  • Next thing it will let you do is to choose where the extra pane would be positioned.
  • You can configure panes to show mail items grouped under labels, or to display mail folders or to check chat records
  • Play with it and come up with your choice of mail box.
  
• How does GMail with Multiple Inboxes look like?
  • The picture is worth 1000 words. Here you go...
  

Another interesting fact is that Octavian "Vivi" Costache the Software Engineer who has developed this feature has implemented this cool Labs feature in his 20% time. This feature will allow to reduce time monitoring important messages that may end up getting filtered away and focusing on more important conversation. Enjoy...

Economic turmoil and technology in America

I have read this great thoughtful blog on current state of technology in America. This is a blog post on "The View From OutSide my Tiny Window" with title "Post 81: Some Thoughts on the State of Technology in America" from The Logistician. I have liked it so much that I have dugg that story and writing my thought blog on it.

The reason I have liked the thoughts and blog post is that I truly believe that technology would definitely help to improve life of common people and will bring better economic prosperity. Another reason, very recently I have read in one of the magazine the statement of a big technology giant's CEO. He was stating that the way Detroit auto industry been outpaced by foreign industry it may happen that technology industry will also one day over taken by countries who are across the pond. Since reading that open letter thoughts, my mind is trying to gauge the gravity of such situation and any possible solutions. Here are some of my humble opinions and thoughts.

In the light of the latest economic depressing recession which has infected by housing and credit crunch. It has led to further demise of Car manufacuturers in Detroit and financial institutes along with bringing down individual families as consumers. In this situation, it is very important for America and its technical industry to take a pause and to look beyond next 10 years horizon.

First and foremost, the technology industry should perform and improve on the most basic aspect is to develop strength of basic technology industry. Then to innovate on new technology front. Follow this with grand education plan which will educate this and next generation. While doing this adapt to new economic model which is building up now with better infrastructure, new energy grids and future enhancement which is happening in information technology and artificial intelligence. This economic model will definitely bring out stronger financial sector and may lead to more owning of Government.

It is the fact that America has been super power due to its technological advancement and innovative vision of American leaders and faithful practice of American followers in past decade. To continue in future, in these present days of economic turmoil we all have to think that we have to embrace Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics once again. We have to dust ourselves and re-innovate on the technology front inspiring the budding bright scientific adventurers. This time we hope that we will make it more environment friendly, energy dependent on natural resources and health friendly.

Fortunately the internet make it easy to learn and our current generation is already adopted it very well.

There are more brilliant people around here, who may throw more light on prospering technology industry for better future of America. But do consider that this "common person" is willing to complete his squirrel share of work .

What do you think would help technology sector in America and in turn world to prosper better ?

Please share your thoughts !!!

New Firefox Extension SEO Workers Analysis Tool

I have found one new firefox extension. It is for SEO. Of course no wonder. But it is useful. Simple to install as usual for firefox extensions. Easy to use. Open a website in Firefox. Right click on web page and choose "SEO Workers Analysis Tool". Yeah, it is that simple.

Well, let me start from where world begins. You can get SEO Workers Analysis tool at Professional Organic SEO & Web Site Design Consultants website. It is free to install. It allow to perform basic SEO analysis. There are couple of other SEO tools which are interesting, useful and professional. Those are SEO Analysis Tool, Online Spell check Tool, Markup (Code) & Accessiblity Validators. Plus there are informative tutorials to compliment SEO information.

After clicking on SEO Workers Analysis Tool, it brings another web page with results grouped as below:

• General status;


• Meta tags listing;


• Meta tags analysis;


• General web page analysis;


• The page displayed within search engine results;


• Keywords found in the anchor tags;


• Keywords found in the image 'alt' attribute text;


• Keywords found on the page;


• URLs found in the page;


• Headers returned from the server;


• Spell-check your web site;


• SEO Books and Tools;


• Search Engine College.

The analysis results are basic but useful for initialization of next steps towards serious SEO work.

There are lots of tools out there...Do you know any of SEO tools which you use frequently and happy with results ? Please do share.

Thanks to Entrecard Dropper for Jan'09

Thanks to Entrecard Dropper for Jan'09

Top 10 visitors and Entrecard Dropper For Hidden Gems From Untold Treasures
Dropper	# of drops
BMWF1Blog	31
Celebrity Body Gossip	28
Inspector Electra	27
Philly Today	24
BloggerRap	23
Earn Blogger	20
AdsenseAddict	19
The Buster	18
Nazham.com	18
TechnoGadge	15

Thanks and Please keep visiting...

Tips & Tricks : How to restore Microsoft IE 7 original settings?

There are lots of choices available on Brower front now a days. These choices include Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Google Chrome, Flock and list goes on.

But suppose you are quite happy with your windows setup and love IE very much. While you browsing happily, you start accumulating lots of add-ons, plugins and other ActiveX controls. These goodies are apart from from browser cache, history tracks and other resouces you accumulate while surfing the ubiquitous internet. All those accumulated artificats, start impacting Browser behavior. Like it will start storing unnecessry form fields, popping up non-required dialogues from add-ons, distorting HTML fonts and so on.

There is a trick to make your IE healthy again. And start living together happily ever after.

Open your IE. On Top Menu, select Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced.

Then click on "Reset..." button. It will display following dialogue box.

It is pretty much self-explainatory. It disables toolbars and add-ons, deletes browser history along with unnecessary items, resets web browser settings.

After completion of restoring of MS IE 7 original settings, you would need to re-start the browser.

If necessary, you can uninstall old tool bars, add-ons as well as other ActiveX controls using Revo Uninstaller or CCleaner freewares.

This will revive IE 7 and speed up browsing.

Enjoy...

Get your own Windows 7 beta preview

Updated 01/11/2009
Microsoft has re-opened Beta Download. Get your own windows 7 beta preview on MS site.

• IMP Note: Please use MS Internet Explorer for this. It has not worked for me on Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Flock.


• You will be asked to pick up 32-bit or 64-bit version


• Choose one of the language from drop down


• Register using Windows Live Id (Hotmail email id)


• Then you will receive a page with Windows 7 Beta 32-bit Product Key and two buttons. Download Now and Installation Instructions.


• If you have not downloaded Beta versions before from Micrsoft, it will download MS Download Manager and will start download


• IMP Note: It may happen that you have to click download now multiple time, before you get your download started.


• IMP Note: Do not forget to copy and to paste product key somewhere you can find. Please choose the product key when download actually starts

Enjoy...

---

Updated: 01/10/2009
====>Microsoft has withdrawn Beta Download due to overwhelming traffic to Microsoft Download site<=========

---

Microsoft has announced that new better and improved OS Windows 7 will be available as a beta version for general public download from Jan 9th. It will be available to all the mortals ( I mean general public ) at Windows 7 website . Microsoft will put the download URLs worldwide at noon,Pacific time on Jan 9th. Microsoft will allow the first 2.5 million downloads. The windows 7 beta will be available in 32- and 64-bit flavors for downloading.

By the way if you are one of those elite immortals who live and breath IT technology ( aren't technology already commodity and everybody know it by heart, oh except my grand mother...I am pushing it too far..Isn't it...), and have Microsoft TechNet and/or Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscription, you probably already have it through your bundle of subscription or you can rush to Microsoft Technet Windows 7 Beta site to get your Microsoft Windows 7 beta version.

Apart from Windows 7 and Microsoft Technet Sites, you can get your Microsoft windows 7 beta from Microsoft's IT-oriented Springboard Series site. Supposedly this site will add a "Windows 7" tab to the existing Windows XP and Windows Vista tabs already there.


What Microsoft has to say about its Windows 7 preview...hear it from them only

Windows 7

Over the past few years, you've asked us to make some changes to Windows. We listened closely. Now it's time to share an early look at how we've used your feedback. Windows 7 is faster, more reliable, and makes it easier to do what you want. Both the everyday things and the killer "is that really possible?" things. Dig into this site to see what's coming. Want to try the Beta? Come back the afternoon of January 9. And remember—this is just a preview. There's more to come.

If this all has turned on your curiosity and if you have decided to get your own windows 7 beta preview but in between like to learn more about Windows 7, you can visit Windows 7 Beta videos: a peek at the coolness to come and ComputerWorld article "Windows 7 in-depth review and video: This time Microsoft gets it right" to get a cool-aid for your curiosity.

Amazingly this version of Windows is very stable, fast and atheistically pleasing. This "Feature complete" windows 7 beta version can run on a a PC with a 1-GHz processor, 1GB of memory, 16GB of available hard disk space and support for DX9 graphics with 128MB of memory. Your PC will need a DVD writer to burn downloaded disk images to a blank DVD. Microsoft says that final product may need different configuration depending on improvements and modifications. Another thing I am reading on various sites is that

Though Microsoft is playing down this release due to Vista's non-popular welcome by IT community. They seems to be on target and keen to make it positive impression to user community.I am surely excited about this new OS from Microsoft. Technical Reviews are positive. During this recessionary downturn, if new OS catches on and fulfills the technology promise to run agile and nimble, it will definitely start its own eco-system consisting of hardware resellers, driver development, software affiliates, software development and of course integrators, implementers as well as blooger :D). This eco-system could lead to technology jump start which may in turn push economic recovery. It could lead to better access to MS Cloud computing OS (Windows Azure) through already added windows live components and relevant SDKs.

If I could get hands on Windows 7 Beta, I will definitely put some of screen shots here. And I am sure more reviews will be all raving around blog sphere.

I know we have to wait till Jan 9th noon pacific time to get our own windows 7 beta preview...till then...