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)

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..

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 !!!

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...

Tips & Tricks : How to list contents ? on Linux/Unix or On Windows

It always happens that we would like to see what is inside that folder or inside that archive. No matter what type of contents are there, it is necessary to get it through listing those directories and archives.

So here are some handy tips, I use for my daily work:

• Directory listing on Linux and Windows

Ever wonder how to see all the subfolders under main parent folder. Here is the trick to list all files and folders recursively.


• This is on Linux/Unix


ls -R -1


• This is on Windows


dir /s /b



• Listing contents of archive files


On Linux/Unix and Windows, lots of time, in day's work it happens that we come across JAR, TAR, GZ,BZIP, RAR etc archive formats and before opening those FTPed or SCPed or magically appeared archives we do like to see if those are right archives.

So here are some tips on that:



• Listing tar file contents


tar -tvf tararchive.tar


• Listing tar.gz file contents


tar -ztvf gzippedtararchive.tar.gz


• Listing the contents of a tar.bz2 archive


tar -jtvf file.tar.bz2


• Listing the contents of a Java archive (JAR,WAR,EAR etc)


jar tvf jararchive.jar


• Listing contents of ZIP Archive. Assuming unzip is been installed on the linux box.


unzip -l zippedarchive.zip


• Listing contents of RAR archive. Assuming unrar is been installed on the linux box.


unrar l rararchive.rar


• Listing contents of GZIP or GUNZIP or GZCAT or ZCAT archive. Assuming either of these commands are installed on Linux box.
  
  gzip -l gziparchive.gz
  
  gunzip -l gunziparchive.gz
  
  zcat -l zcatarchive.Z
  
  

Please let me know if you have any such tricks to share with our readers. Feel free to put it in comments.

Thanks...

An Architectural and Enterprise Scalability : highscalability.com

As usual while lurking on internet for the search of the knowledge, I come across a very good site highscalability.com.

In today's world of internet, scalability is ever important than before. Especially given the fact that there is growing popularity of social engineering, crowdsourcing and grid networking happening out there. And this is in addition to all those ecommerce, online games, media streaming and movie/video up/down loading and what not. :D)

Here are some definitions of Scalability:

scalability
The ability to scale to support larger or smaller volumes of data and more or less users. The ability to increase or decrease size or capability in cost-effective increments with minimal impact on the unit cost of business and the procurement of additional services.

Scalability
The ability to expand a computing solution to support large numbers of users without impacting performance.

Scalability
A term that refers to how well a hardware and software system can adapt to increased demands. For example, a scalable network system would be one that can start with just a few nodes but can easily expand to thousands of nodes. Scalability can be a very important feature because it means the entity can invest in a system with confidence they will not quickly outgrow it.

Given the fact that scalability encompasses not only hardware and software but it contains processes, performance, support for growing number of users and ultimately the "Money$". Due to that it is extremely important to understand Scalability - Architecturally as well as Enterprise wide. That is the purpose of this website High Scalability.

The website's has a get started using High Scalability link which leads to a dedicated page. This has lots of cool reasons why we need to have such site. This is a nice concept I have started seeing in some really wonderful websites and HighScalability does a great job explaining their existence. :D) This page tells what to expect, how to read , how to contribute etc.

The top navigation menu bar gives links to Home,Start Here, Ask a Question, Real Life Architectures, All Weblinks, Glossary, Jobs, Submit a Link, Advertise, Contact. While the left hand naviagation side bar allows to perform Create content,Recent posts,Useful Books,Useful Products,Useful Strategies,Useful Blogs,Useful Papers etc.

The website is simple to navigate and a great architectural resource for establishing high performing enterprise resources.

What exactly impressed me is the list of popular contents for all the time. And that list do cover lots of architectural examples from real life business and high traffic websites like Amazon.com, Twitter, Google etc. Below is a quick list for kind reference:

All time:

• YouTube Architecture


• Google Architecture


• PlentyOfFish Architecture


• Amazon Architecture


• Flickr Architecture


• Scaling Twitter: Making Twitter 10000 Percent Faster


• An Unorthodox Approach to Database Design : The Coming of the Shard

Each blog article on real life architecture contains information source, platform, architectural challenges, strategy to work around or to fulfill those challenges, performance tips/tricks and some solid examples.

Overall an excellent resource for technical architects, system administrators as well as performance tuning/optimization team resources.

Thanks to high scalability...you have made my weekend !!!

Cheers,,,

Tips & Tricks : how to encrypt the clear text boot.properties manually in WebLogic Application Server?

This tip is useful for two purposes.

1. First is to recover from invalid system password situation and


2. second to encrypt the clear text boot.properties.

The trick is to execute File Realm Class from core weblogic.jar file.

1. First Identify a user and/or the set of users who needs to recover an invalid system password or to encrypt the clear text boot.properties manually.


2. Second Create a properties file with extension .src and Add all the users need to be defined within this file.


3. Third execute the File Realm class.

Here is how it is done:

Comments are allowed within the file (preceded by the # sign), and for each user within the set a corresponding entry must be defined on its own new line within the file using the following format:

user.<username>=<cleartext_password>

An example follows:

# define the WebLogic system to have the clear text password WebLogic
user.weblogic=weblogic

• The newly created fileRealm input definition file (.src) can reside anywhere on the local file system.
  


• When the input definition file has been created, the location of SerializedSystemIni.dat must be determined before the FileRealm class is executed from the command line.
  


• SerializedSystemIni.dat provides an input seed (or salt) to the hashing phase of the encryption process, and that a password hashed with a specific salt can be successfully compared only to another password hashed by the same exact salt.
  


• Therefore, the SerializedSystemIni.dat file, localized at the domain level and present within the security/ directory, has an explicit relationship to the passwords it hashes for the file realm of a given domain. Since WLS can't maintain a file realm in which the set of hashed passwords present have been seeded by different SerializedSystemIni.dat files, you should never mix passwords hashed by different salt files within the same file realm.
  


• Set system class path to include the “weblogic.jar” file from the lib directory of the WLS installation.
  <<bea_home>>\server\lib
  


• Invoke the utility from the command line as follows:
  java weblogic.security.acl.internal.FileRealm \ <path_to_output_file>\<path_to_salt_file>


• <path_to_output_file>-
  The path to the output file given by the first parameter should be identical to that of the input definition file, with the .src extension dropped for the output file.
  
  For example, if you had created the input definition file as mentioned in above steps in a folder:
  
  c:\temp\user.properties.src,
  
  You’d now need to define the output file at
  
  c:\temp\user.properties.
  
  


• This accommodates the way the FileRealm class internally handles the location of the input definition file - it concludes its location by using the same path and name of the output file, yet it assumes the input file has the .src extension added to it.
  


• <path_to_salt_file>-
  This contains a hash key (called salt) to encrypt clear text password. This
  Parameter defines the location of the SerializedSystemIni.dat file.
  


• It is under folder
  <<bea_home>>\user_projects\domains\<<domain name>>\security
  


• Upon execution, the FileRealm class will generate its hashed password outputs into the file defined by the first input parameter.


• After completion of command execution, open output file in notepad.




• To recover invalid system password Select encrypted Password
&copy it from that output files and paste that encrypted password to FileRealm.dat which is under following folder:
<<bea_home>>\user_projects\domains\>>domain>>\

• After completion of copy-paste and file save of FileRealm.properties file, start WLS server to test the password recently set for the <<domain>> user. If the password recovery was successful, the server will properly start and WLS will operate as expected.




• To encrypt the clear textSelect encrypted Password & copy it from that output files and paste that encrypted password to boot.properties.

Enjoy...

Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager 2008 : Beta Release

Microsoft Announces Beta of Virtual Machine Manager 2008

Microsoft has announced the formal name and beta availability of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, a member of the System Center suite of server management products. The announcements came April 29 at the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas, which showcased the beta of the System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM), managing both Hyper-V and VMware virtual infrastructure. Additional functionality new to this version of VMM includes Performance and Resource Optimization (Pro), which dynamically tunes virtual infrastructure, simplified virtual host cluster support, and other improvements and enhancements.

The public beta of Virtual Machine Manager 2008 is available now. RTM of the product will be in the second half of CY2008.

Features

• It will utilize the foundational features and services of windows server 2008 and Microsoft Hyper-V Server.
  
  Specific features are ,
  1. Hyper-V's 64-bit architecture
  2. attack hardened security model
  3. fail-over cluster support.
  4. VMM 2008 integrates with new clustering support in Windows Server 2008 to allow for fault-tolerant and cluster aware virtual machines to be created
  
  


• Multi-vendor virtualization platform support like
  
  1. In addition to support for Hyper-V, VMM 2008 integrates multi-hypervisor management into one tool with its support for virtual machines running on VMware ESX infrastructure and Microsoft Virtual Server.
  2. VMM 2008 specific features such as Intelligent Placement, consolidation candidate recommendations and others can be run against virtualized infrastructure on any supported platform.
  3. Windows PowerShell™ scripts for customization or automation are also supported across Hyper-V, VMware ESX or Virtual Server implementations.
  4. VMM 2008 provides comprehensive support for VMware VI3 included moving virtual machines among virtual hosts with no downtime via VMotion, through integration with VMware’s Virtual Center.
  5. VMM 2008 specific features such as Intelligent Placement, consolidation candidate recommendations and others can be run against virtualized infrastructure on any supported platform.
  
  


• Performance and Resource Optimization


• Host Cluster Support for “High Availability” Virtual Machines.
  
  1. When you use VMM 2008 to manage a failover cluster on computers running Windows Server 2008, you can add the entire cluster in a single step. VMM 2008 automatically detects node additions and removals to the cluster. In addition, VMM 2008 enables you to manage (create, migrate, remove, and so on) highly available virtual machines (HA VMs) from the VMM Administrator Console or from the VMM command shell.
  
  


• The beta release of VMM 2008 is capable of converting a VMware VMDK to a VHD.


• A single instance of VMM is designed and tested to support hundreds of physical virtualization hosts and thousands of guest operating systems running on those hosts.


• And some more stuff you can find here on Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager 2008 website,

Download
Please visit Microsoft Connect and look for "System Center Virtual Machine Manager" from programs.

Requirements for Installation
To use VMM 208 on a single computer, you need:
• x64 architecture–based server with 2.8 GHz or faster processor clock speed and with hardware-assisted virtualization support enabled in the BIOS
• 2GB of RAM recommended
• 200GB of available hard-disk space
• DVD-ROM drive
Other Prerequisites and Dependencies:
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or later (must include Hyper-V)
• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (included in installation)
• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (included in installation)
• Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 Express Edition with Service Pack 2 (included in installation) or
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard or Enterprise Editions with Service Pack 2 (separate installation)
• Microsoft Windows PowerShell TM 1.0
• Microsoft Windows Remote Management (WinRM)
• Microsoft Internet Information Server 7.0 (needed for Self-Service Portal only)
Actual requirements and product functionality will vary based on your system configuration and the features you choose to install. For more details and the most up-to-date information, please refer to the documentation at www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm

Resources

1. VMM 2008 DataSheet


2. Hardware requirements for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008


3. Top 10 Benefits of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008


4. Video about MS System Center Virtual Machine Manager is available on right hand side bar top corner.

Hey SocialCardster ... calling all of you out there...

The Term SocialCardSter is coined by The BenSpark (http://www.benspark.com/socialcardsters). This is for those bloggers who are on SocialSpark and on Entrecard.

Ben Spark is compiling a blogroll for all such "socialcardsters". :D)

Idea is that you can copy the blog roll and add it to your blog, if you like and then you can then add the SocialCardsters image to under your Entrecard widget. It would look like this. Ben’s commitment to this blogroll includes dropping on your blogs and clicking on the blog you are advertising. Both will help improve your EC worth. Ben will also try and comment each week, not each day, he still has a full time job and needs to blog himself but will try and comment when he can.

Enjoy...

Tips & Tricks : Directly photoblog from Flickr to your blog

Discovered a cool trick on Flickr. It is to post a photo/video directly from Flickr to the blog.

Here is how you can do it:

First setup Flickr to Blogsite configuration as below:

1. Login to your Flickr Account (obviously) :D)
2. Choose "Your Account" from "You" menu.
3. Click on "Extending Flickr".
4. The "Extending Flickr" shows - your printing location, account links and "Your Blogs"
5. Click "edit".
6. On "Your Blog List" dialogue click on "add another blog".
7. It presents a dialogue with drop down containing a list of all well known blog sites like blogger, typepad, wordpress, movable etc etc. Choose one - which is yours and press "Next"
8. Depending on the blog website, it will present a page which can accept user id/password and blog URL. Enter all the information which is been asked and hit another "Next"
9. Confirm your details and click on "All Done". This will give message "Your blog has been added to Flickr." and allow you to play with your blog posting template.
10. As per your choice you may choose to customize the template. Positively, I have did it and would recommand to take a look. :D) Or you can choose to return to your blog list.
11. You would be able to see your just configured blog in the blog list.

Now the Second step is to actually perform direct photoblog:

1. Go back to your photstream.
2. Choose a photo which you like to blog about.
3. On top of the photo, you will see "blog this" link.
4. Depending on the blogs in your configured blog list, it will present you the entire list and will allow you to choose one of the blog.
5. Then a page with title Blog this photo, containing textbox & text area to compose your blog enter will be presented. Enter your photo related blog contents and click on "Post Entry".
6. It will give you a success message "Your blog entry has been posted!"
7. You can visit your blog either to check the post or to edit the blog post draft. Depending on your blog settings.

Enjoy...

Do you want to take a virtual drive/walk on Seattle or San Francisco Streets?

Well, then you are in luck while you are in front of your computer with Internet connected.

Please take a look to Microsoft's new preview of "Windows Local Live". Well, Microsoft Local Live gives you three choices for this - Race Car, Sports Car or Walk.

Here is a small glimpse of it...

Please don't forget to wave your hand while driving by me...a yellow circle in this image. :D)

Enjoy...

Portal Experimention with AJAX-Solutions For Professional Coding

A great review of almost 140+ AJAX, JavaScript and CSS toolsets for RIA Development. You can find those here "80+ AJAX-Solutions For Professional Coding" and "60 More AJAX- and Javascript Solutions For Professional Coding".

I am working on using randm sampling methodology and experiment some of these utilities on various portal servers and share my research finding.

It may take a while to update this ...so please be patient...and if you have already tried any of these utilities ...please do let me know through your comments. In advance, sincere thanks for your views and research sharing. !!!!

blog.ahfr.org : Making animated GIFs with GIMP and mplayer

I come across very good tutorial on
blog.ahfr.org - Making Animated GIFs With Free Software in Four Steps. It covers steps of creation of animated GIFs in crisp language. Also it shows how to use free open source tool. Excellent tutorial.

Thanks to Noha to allow me to showcase the work = HowTo. :D)

Thought these Downloads would be useful supplement

• MPlayer related:


Mplayer Downloads

The Mplayer Frontend for Windows (MPUI)

MPlayer FreshMeat Project

MuldeR's Homepage has Some cool projects on MPlayer For Windows and MPlayer engine based tools.

MakeInstantPlayer is a tool for converting video files into self-running executables. This is very useful for distributing videos, as the user doesn't need any additional software for playback.


• GIMP for windows:


Installers for GIMP for windows

GIMP for the windows

c4lpt : Top Tools for Learning : Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies

You may be wondering what is C4LPT. It is a "Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies".

The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies provides a number of resources, consultancy services and workshops to help you understand more about how Web 2.0 technologies and tools are creating a new approach to learning (in both in education and the workplace learning) known as Learning 2.0 or Social Learning.

Well, I have missed an opportunity to uncover this resource to contribute ( to vote) for Top 100 Tools for Learning Spring 2008. The deadline is passed on March 31st. The contribution is welcome throughout the year ...By the way :)

But anyway the list will be sent as a pdf file if you like to get the results. Please visit Center for Learning and performance technologies and give your email id.

While you are around you can take a chance to send your top 10 tools to Jane Hart : Head of the Centre. You would need to provide some information about yourself, about your favorite tools plus you get to clarify guidelines about the tools in Share section.

You can take a pick at contributors in Top 10s tab. There is a good chance that you may appear on the website for your choice of tools. To get showcase on the site, you may send a note to Jane Hart with your top 10 tools.

There are lots of educational tools listed here in tools directory. The tools in this Directory are both freeware/open source and commercial. I am glad to see some of my favorite tools like del.icio.us, blogger, Google Docs, PidGin, FireFox etc has been listed as top tools.

Could you please let know your favorite top learning and productivity tools...???

Cheers...

Photoshop Express Adobe Free Web Tool

Adobe has launched a free web based Photoshop Express tool. The website is https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html. It is in public beta, Adobe Photoshop Express is a free online photo sharing, editing, and storage site. At beta launch, users will be provided with 2GB of free storage and integration with popular Web apps like Facebook and Photobucket, with further partnerships with sites like Flickr in the works. Designed to be, in part, an entry into the sometimes intimidating Photoshop series, Express offers a number of tools aimed directly at beginners, including user-friendly one-click versions of essential editing tools like cropping, blemish and red-eye removal, sharpening, and resizing. A number of other effects are also offered at launch, including sketch, pop color, and distort.

Thanks for these questions from Cris (http://pintandoenpositivo.blogspot.com/):

• can we use personal tools, new fonts, brushes, actions, downloaded from adobe exchange or another site?
• how install it?
  

Here is what I have understood after playing with PhotoShop Express.

• Photoshop Express is Adobe Macromedia Flash (specifically Flash Player 9 (version 9.0.0.115 or later)) based lite version of PhotoShop product.
• Photoshop Express works with JPEG photos only. Per Adobe, TIFF and PSD are of large size and could not be uploaded without timeout. GIFF format has low photo quality.
• Photos larger than 10M and 4000 pixels in height and width cannot be uploaded. Photos larger than 2880x 2880 pixes will be shrunk after editing.
  

Here is the screen shot and tools available online for you to use with photos/images uploaded on Photoshop Express website:

• Crop & Rotate:Turn it, straighten it, crop out the background.


• Auto Correct:Automatic, one-click, optimal lighting and contrast adjustment.


• Exposure:Change the brightness of the photo.


• Red-Eye Removal:Removes red eyes caused by some camera flashes.


• Touchup:Remove scratches and other imperfections.


• Saturation:Ramp up the colors to blinding brightness, dampen them down to black and white, or anywhere in between.


• White Balance:Ever notice how people look different inside an office with the ugly fluorescent tubes, as opposed to outside on a bright sunny day? Adjust the white balance and you change the type of lighting in the photo.


• Highlight:The brightest parts of a photo are the highlights. This control lets you brighten or darken just the brightest part of the photo, without affecting the darker parts (we call those the shadows).


• Fill Light:If you take a shot facing into the sun, your subject can end up too dark due to the camera’s automatic exposure adjustment. Fill Light brightens the dark area without overbrightening the background.


• Sharpen:It’s like putting in your contacts. Suddenly everything comes more into focus.


• Soft Focus:It’s like taking your contacts out. Soft Focus creates a subtle blur for artistic effect.


• Hue:This one changes all the colors in a photo at once.


• Black & White:Control how the colors are converted when you change a photo to black and white.


• Tint:Imagine instead of black and white, you want red and white, or pale brown and white for that old Western look.


• Sketch:Makes any photo look like you drew it yourself.


• Distort:Stretch, twist, bulge specific areas of your photos.

Now to your question, about using personal tools and other goodies you have on your local machine, apart from above things I do not find any option to upload those tools.

Adobe says that "Photoshop Express is not an application on your computer so you can use it anywhere. If you want a copy of a photo on your computer, run your mouse over the photo to reveal the options menu at the bottom right. Open the menu and select Download, once you’re done editing."

So in short, you have to work with your images/photos online using Photoshop Express and offline using your all powerful complete Photoshop.

Enjoy...

CiteULike : A social service to store, organize and share acedemic papers and more..http://www.citeulike.org

CiteULike is a free service to help you to store, organise and share the scholarly papers you are reading. When you see a paper on the web that interests you, you can click one button and have it added to your personal library. CiteULike automatically extracts the citation details, so there's no need to type them in yourself. It all works from within your web browser so there's no need to install any software. Because your library is stored on the server, you can access it from any computer with an Internet connection.

Cool Web 2.0 Apps for Everyone: Webware.com

Vote for Your Favorite web 2.0 app Today at http://www.webware.com/

An interesting website. It's tag line is "COOL WEB 2.0 APPS FOR EVERYONE".

Per Webware.come

"There's a shift underway in how people use computers and the Internet. Every day more utility is being delivered over the Web. Full applications can now be run in a browser, accessible from any computer. Software? It's no longer required. Software is becoming Webware.

There are different types of Webware.

• Productivity applications. Microsoft may own the desktop, but not the Web. Online, Google has solid productivity apps. And there are dozens of upstarts in this market too.
• Data-driven applications. Many new online services rely on real-time data that simply could not be encapsulated into software. Examples include Google Maps, Zillow and Farecast.
• Community services. Webware enables people to network, share their lives, and work together. Examples are MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, and SmartSheet.

Webware.com is the site where computer users can learn about new and useful Web applications. "

This site is hosting voting for the best Web apps out there. They have the best of the 300 finalists that which has been selected from a list of almost 5,000 eligible services. The news is that Webware.com crossed the one million vote count Friday. So they're getting some pretty robust data on what's popular among Web users. Categories and subcategories which are covered :

• Audio
  Music, podcasts, audiobooks
• Browsing
  Browsers, start pages, RSS readers, widgets, runtime engines
• Commerce and events
  Retail, auctions, travel, real estate, concerts, conferences
• Communication
  E-mail, chat, voice
• Productivity
  Application suites, to-do lists, groupware
• Publishing and photography
  Blogging, content management, photo sites
• Search and reference
  Search engines, encyclopedias, mapping
• Social
  Social networking, family sites, recommendations, online worlds, contests
• Utility and security
  Infrastructure providers, storage, online protection
• Video
  Video storage, playback, streaming, editing, and animation

If you like to vote for your favorite web 2.0 applications or like to see the previous year's top 100 list or may like to just take a look these categories and finalists you may please visit

http://www.webware.com/html/ww/100/2008/index.html

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V

One of the hot utilization of virtualization is Server virtualization. It is also known as hardware virtualization. It is very important to the IT industry because of the high potential of several benefits. Server virtualization enables multiple operating systems to run on a single physical machine as virtual machines (VMs). With server virtualization, workloads of underutilized server machines can be consolidated onto a smaller number of fully utilized machines. These reduced numbers of physical machines could achieve reduced costs by less hardware, decrease in energy use, and management overhead. On top of it will create a more dynamic IT infrastructure. Being said so, Hyper-V is significant development.

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the next-generation hypervisor-based server virtualization technology, allows to make the best use of server hardware investments by consolidating multiple server roles as separate virtual machines (VMs) running on a single physical machine. With Hyper-V, IT can efficiently run multiple different operating systems—Windows, Linux, and others—in parallel, on a single server, and fully leverage the power of x64 computing.

Microsoft has reached another key milestone in the development of Hyper-V, with a feature-complete version now available for download as a release candidate (RC).

You can download the update for Hyper-V RC here :Knowledge Base (KB) Articles:KB949219 Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB949219)

The release notes for Hyper-V can be found here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3ED582F0-F844-40BA-B692-230845AF1149&displaylang=en.

There is step by step how to document on how to install windows 2008 Hyper-V release candidate (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-install.aspx). Apart from this Microsoft has provided Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Started with Hyper-V here (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bcaa9707-0228-4860-b088-dd261ca0c80d&DisplayLang=en).

Once you install Windows 2008 Hyper-V and enable Hyper-V role, if you plan to install Ubuntu 7.10 (either server or desktop) on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, I would suggest to read Sriram Krishnan's blog http://www.sriramkrishnan.com/blog/2008/03/running-ubuntu-on-windows-server-2008.html. Sriram has discovered a bug around emulation of real mode instructions and the graphics instructions that ISOLinux uses to boot and has described a solution to patch .iso file in this blog.

You may ask the question about how this cool technology for hot usage in IT world works.I personally found couple of resourcs Keith Combs' Blahg : Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V 10 Minute Tour - Redux with Screencast, computerworld article "Windows Server 2008 Revealed: Hyper-V virtualization" by Jonathan Hassell, Ruben Spruijt blog on Hyper-V solution overview etc very helpful and quick to learn things on Hyper-V

Keith Comb's blog has Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V 10 Minute Tour - Redux (http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2008/02/16/windows-server-2008-hyper-v-10-minute-tour-redux.aspx) Windows streaming media screen cast mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/inetpub/keithcombs/ws2008/WSvTour.wmv

Also Dec'20th,2007 issue of computerworld does a great job of explaining the things.

The article "Windows Server 2008 Revealed: Hyper-V virtualization" by Jonathan Hassell (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=operating_systems&articleId=9053781&taxonomyId=89&intsrc=kc_feat) covers

"how it works?

To understand Hyper-V, consider its three main components: the hypervisor, the virtualization stack and the new virtualized I/O model. The Windows hypervisor basically acts to create the different "partitions" that each virtualized instance of code will run within. The virtualization stack and the I/O components provide interactivity with Windows itself and with the various partitions that are created.

All three of these components work in tandem. Using servers with processors equipped with Intel VT- or AMD-V-enabled technology, Hyper-V interacts with the hypervisor, which is a very small layer of software that is present directly on the processor. This software hooks into threads on the processor that the host operating system can use to efficiently manage multiple virtual machines, and multiple virtual operating systems, running on a single physical processor. "

Another good informative blog on Hyper - V solution overview Written by:Ruben Spruijt Publication Date:March 11, 2008 (http://www.brianmadden.com/content/article/Microsoft-Windows-Server-2008--Hyper-V-solution-overview ). It covers "an overview of the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V solution".

Enjoy...

Virtualization - definition, methodologies and utilization

Virtualization
definitions:

• From virtualization wiki

"[Virtualization is] a technique for hiding the physical characteristics of computing resources from the way in which other systems, applications, or end users interact with those resources. This includes making a single physical resource (such as a server, an operating system, an application, or storage device) appear to function as multiple logical resources; or it can include making multiple physical resources (such as storage devices or servers) appear as a single logical resource."

• From webopedia:

virtualization means to create a virtual version of a device or resource, such as a server, storage device, network or even an operating system where the framework divides the resource into one or more execution environments.

Methodologies:
Three main methodologies used for providing virtualization:

• System emulation:

The execution environment is called a virtual machine and it emulates all the hardware resources. This emulation layer in turn uses the real hardware resources from the host. This enables the emulator to run a guest operating system without any modifications, as the guest OS can use the hardware resources by going through the hardware emulation layer, instead of the real hardware. The VMM executes the CPU instructions that need more privileges than are available in the user space. This approach is followed by products such as VMware (http://vmware.com/), Microsoft Virtual PC (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx), and Parallels (http://www.parallels.com/).

• Paravirtualization:

There is no hardware emulation. The operating system that runs on a guest needs to be a modified version that is aware of the fact that it is running inside a hypervisor. This cuts down the number of privileged CPU instructions that need to be executed, and as there is no hardware emulation involved, the performance is much better and closer to native speeds. This is the technique used by Xen (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/netos/xen/) and User-Mode Linux (http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/).

• Operating System level virtualization:

Each guest instance is isolated and runs in a secure environment. However, you can execute only multiple instances of guests that run the same operating system as the host. If the host operating system is FreeBSD, you can run only multiple instances of FreeBSD. This is the approach used by the FreeBSD jails (http://www.freebsd.org/) and Solaris10 zones (http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/).

Utilization:

Virtualization is highly utilized and visible in three areas of information services, server virtualization, network virtualization and storage virtualization ..

• Server virtualization:

It is the abstraction of server resources. The virtual server includes the number and identity of individual physical servers, processors, and operating systems from server users. The intention is to shield the user from having to understand and manage complicated details of server resources while increasing resource sharing and utilization and maintaining the capacity to expand later. The example could be deployment of various business applications on server racks and deployment user has to remember all the server ipaddresses,available ports etc.

• Network virtualization

it combines the existing and the available resources in a network by splitting up the available bandwidth into channels. Each channel is independent from the others. Each of these channels can be assigned (or reassigned) to a particular server or device in real time. virtualization disguises the true complexity of the network by splitting it into manageable modular chunks.

• Storage virtualization:

It is the pooling of physical storage from multiple network storage devices into what appears to be a single storage device that is managed from a central console. Storage virtualization is commonly used in storage area networks (SANs).

Predications about offerings and solutions:

Virtualization: Desktops The Next Wave Desktop virtualization enables solution providers to change the kinds of conversations they're having with customers
By Joseph F. Kovar, ChannelWeb

6:00 PM EDT Fri. Mar. 14, 2008

From the March 17, 2008 issue of CRN

http://www.crn.com/hardware/206903430?pgno=2

Top Choices PRODUCTS

VARs SELLING VIRTUALIZATION SAY THESE 5 SOLUTIONS WILL BE THEIR TOP OFFERINGS IN 2008

1 Server hosted virtualization
2 Virtual desktop PCs
3 Hypervisor-based server virtualization
4 Storage virtualization software
5 Processors optimized for virtualization (AMD (NYSE:AMD) Opteron, Intel (NSDQ:INTC) Xeon)

SOLUTIONSVARs SELLING VIRTUALIZATION SAY THESE 5 SOLUTIONS WILL BE THEIR TOP OFFERINGS IN 2008

1 Server consolidation
2 Disaster-recovery solutions
3 Storage virtualization
4 Network virtualization
5 Testing and training environment solutions

BASE: 116 NORTH AMERICAN VARs CURRENTLY SELLING OR RECOMMENDING VIRTUALIZATION SOLUTIONSSOURCE: EVERYTHING CHANNEL VIRTUALIZATION STUDY, NOVEMBER 2007

Resources:

1.Introduction to Virtualization

Introduction to Virtualization presentation was created for technical and non-technical audience with no or small knowledge of virtualization technologies.

In 10 minutes you'll have an overview of problems modern virtualization technologies can solve and what alternatives the market is offering today.

btw, you can even download the video for later viewing here http://www.virtualization.info/webcasts/WhatisVirtualization.swf

2. virtualization WiKi

3. virtualization

"The only online dictionary and search engine you need for computer and Internet technology definitions."

4. XenExpress tutorial: Introduction and installation

5. VMWorld 2008 (Europe),2007 to 2004 Free Sessions and Labs

This has free keynotes, sessions videos/mp3 as well as labs pdf. very interesting collection.

6.Xen and the Art of Virtualization

7. More Virtualization Resources:

This list is by no means complete. Please feel free to add your favorite virtualization engines here in comments.

a. OPEN Source

i.qemu - open source processor emulation

QEMU is a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer.

When used as a machine emulator, QEMU can run OSes and programs made for one machine (e.g. an ARM board) on a different machine (e.g. your own PC). By using dynamic translation, it achieves very good performances.

When used as a virtualizer, QEMU achieves near native performances by executing the guest code directly on the host CPU. A host driver called the QEMU accelerator (also known as KQEMU) is needed in this case. The virtualizer mode requires that both the host and guest machine use x86 compatible processors.

ii.XEN

Xen™ is a virtual machine monitor for x86 that supports execution of multiple guest operating systems with unprecedented levels of performance and resource isolation. Xen is Open Source software, released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

b. VMWare

VMWare is the pioneer in virtualization technology. They have tons of virtual appliances and free tools to play with them. Please visit VMWare downloads sections to download VMWare server (Includes Drivers & Tools and Open Source ) and VMWare Player.

c.Microsoft Virtual PC

Microsoft has caught up with virtualization very fast and has great offerings available as multiple versions of Microsoft virtual PC available for its windows product line. To learn more about Microsoft and virtualization, please visit the Virtualization Web site, or the Virtualization TechCenter.

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the next-generation hypervisor-based server virtualization technology, allows you to make the best use of your server hardware investments by consolidating multiple server roles as separate virtual machines (VMs) running on a single physical machine. Microsoft has reached another key milestone in the development of Hyper-V, with a feature-complete version now available for download as a release candidate (RC).

d. Citrix XENserver

e. Video: Intro to Novell SuSE XEN Virtualization

more to come...soon...

vmware Workstation : Your host does not have synchronized TSCs. Please read VMware Knowledge Base article 2041

VMWare Workstation evaluation

While trying out vmware workstation trial/evaluation copy, come across warning messages. Here is what happened. Downloaded VMWare workstation from VMWare downloads section.

• Hardware

The home PC has amd athlon X2 64 and Windows xp sp 3 with 250 gb hdd and 3 gb ram.

• Installation

Installation of VMWare workstation is easy breezy .

• Fedora core 8 for guest OS

Downloaded Fedora Core 8 to play with VMWare workstation.

• Creation of virtual machine

On completion of successful download of Fedora Core 8 at c:\temp, started VMWare workstation.Using new => virtual machine have invoked virtual machine wizard selected custom option to choose other linux 2.6.x kernel. And allocated resources like virtual hard drive, RAM, etc.

• Warning Message

When powered on fedora core 8, it give warning message



"Your host does not have synchronized TSCs. Please read VMware Knowledge Base article 2041".

Clicked on ok and let Fedora Core 8 power on.

• Issue Resolution

To resolve the issue I have added following lines to config.ini which is existing in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware workstation

processor0.use = TRUE
processor1.use = FALSE
host.noTSC = "TRUE"
ptsc.noTSC = "TRUE"
host.TSC.noForceSync = "TRUE"

• Interesting findings:

While digging into the issue, I have come across some interesting resources. These resources are related to .VMX file which is generated by VMWare workstation and performance degradation issue for computers running windows xp sp2 on multiple processors with resolution fix pack from Microsoft.

Here are those resources for further reference on virtual machine file:

• Advanced parameters VMX-file parameters

http://sanbarrow.com/vmx/vmx-advanced.html


• Article ID:896256 Computers that are running Windows XP Service Pack 2 and that are equipped with multiple processors that support processor power management features may experience decreased performance

http://support।microsoft.com/?id=896256


• Xtravirt is an innovative experts company dedicated to VMware Virtualization technologies and solutions. They have VMware Hot Tips, Webcasts, Downloadable Utilities, White papers and free virtualization products for VmWare ESX Server.

http://www.xtravirt.com