YM Emoticarolers & Power User

How much ever Google has captured the market in Search, Mail, OnlineDocs, they could never reach Yahoo Messenger in terms of the features, functionalities and grace of emoticons. GTalk could, to some extent, improve one's voice experience, but otherwise, enough are there who still prefer Yahoo Messenger when it comes to standalone client application. Integration of Chat into Gmail is a separate run-away success of Google.

Yahoo Messenger has got this concept of Power Users who, they say, will be identified depending on the end-users use of YM. More the use, sooner they will be crowned as 'Power User'. The link mentions other benefits like earlier use of new features, exclusive online indicators, enhanced customer care, custom avtaar accessories, etc. Once a Power User (or even otherwise), one can join the Messenger All-Stars group to be up-to-date with the latest in YM.

PingBox: We all know about adding GTalk badge to our websites, blogs. Now even YM gives that option. They call it Pingbox. Not bad.

Emoticarolers: Now this is interesting. With the classy yahoo emoticons (which go on improving with added age), one can send a jingle, carol to their friends!!! The look, feel is awesome. One can add their custom lyrics to the chosen tunes, currently only four. Worth a try and definitely a good way to wish :)

Disable Recent Documents in Windows

 Through Registry tweaking:
(Take a backup of your registry since incorrectly editing it, might damage windows)

• Click Start > Run > and type “regedit” 
• Find and go to HEKY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
• In right panel create a new Binary Value and name it “NoRecentDocsHistory”
• Give it value of 00 00 00 01
• Close registry editor and restart your computer

Through UI:

• Click on Start 
• Right click on the picture or your name.
• Click Customize.
• Select the Advanced Tab
• UnTick at bottom: List my most recently opened documents

Gears in full winamped gears

Continuing with its trends, Google has integrated Gears into Gmail. A much expected step with Gmail being their crown service, gears had to come in soon. This thought of existence to ease our work did pass the mind while trying out Gears on GDocs and GReader.

Winamp 5.541:
Tried this new version of Winamp, and its a lot impressive. Its no more a cylinder holding our playlists, its grown massively to hold a lot under the sun. It includes, SHOUTcast, Radio FM, AOL radio, AOL music, impressive Winamp Remote, etc. etc. (complete list of features). One can upload their favourite playlists, songs online and listen to them through Winamp from anywhere in the world. It has got its own toolbar which can be installed in the browser. The personalized data is stored against a free login ID and a password. Worth a try (download from here).

Google Friend Connect with Blogger

"Google Friend Connect means more people engaging more deeply with your website -- and with each other."
Its like one's own little forum, and in Google's words, these are socializing features which one can add to their websites. If one wants to add these gadgets to their sites, there are clear instructions at Google Friend Connect site. One has to first request for access and then one will be able to add these gadgets and use on their personal websites. When access is given, one is asked to download two files, which have to located at a particular location on your website. Then, copy the gadget code into your website code, and publish it. Your site is ready with Google Friend Connect!

Trouble is there are no clear cut instructions if one wants to add these to a Blogger account. The trick is, Blogger is readymade with these files. So, one need not download these files and try adding it to Blogger. Its already there. Just directly add the Google Friend Connect code to the 'HTML/Javascript' gadget. And your Blogger is ready for use.

Thanks to this site.

This seems to have emerged from Open Social project of Google which was a long-lost dream. They seem to be adding their work here now.

Inside Google's New-Product Process

"The philosophy is, try a bunch of ideas, refine them, and see what survives, says Marissa Mayer, the search giant's product-launch czar". An interesting article here.

Thanks to Naams, an article on Why Google Employees Quit. These are open thoughts of ex-Google employees on their stance of quitting followed by a plethora of comments.

GVid within GChat

Google has done it again. Following the trend that we see in the developments of Google services, we can guess the direction in which they are heading. Integration of all services into all of it, is the visible aim of Google. But, auto-generation of video preview within the chat window and an option to view it then and there when one sends a Youtube or Google Video links, is another out-of-the-box, least expected addition. Nevertheless, it is one of the useful addition. Gmail Blogpost.

Just yesterday, I was going through GDocs and was happy to see some of the developments there. Now one can publish a Doc (Excel, Word, Powerpoint) with Google Analytics working on it for tracking the developments. One can enable RSS feeds feature to these Docs which enables a person, who has subscribed to these feeds, know and track changes to the subscribed Doc.

Last night, tried Google Gears on Google Reader, it worked fine and well. When tried with GDocs, it gave an error on interruption. Have to check again.

Blogger seems to have made their pop-up boxes (Preview, Hyperlink) transparent. It creates a distraction since it merges of with the background.

Hacking site

It happens...Yes, it really happens for all of us. We want to Hack! Hack! Hack! and Hack! But there are no easy resources or its too complex for us to understand. But at the same time, we will never leave the fanciness to believe in ourselves in becoming a hacker one day!. So, here is one site, which under the pretext of 'Education and Knowledge sharing' concept to protect one's system, reveals some of the classic and, in some cases, advanced stuff. Sure, it would be interesting...once you start reading, you will be hooked. Enjoy.

http://www.hungry-hackers.com/

Spreeder

Wanna learn to read fast and quick? Here is the site which can help one in this endeavor:

http://www.spreeder.com/

One can decide what is the speed at which the reader can be made to read words, like 300wpm, etc. Plus, how many words should appear at a time, one or two. There are a few more basic settings which might be handy.

UnChrome

All of us have heard about this and this is one of the reasons why Chrome is not popularly used by many - it does not guarantee anonymity. It is known that Chrome collects lot of information from the user system and stores it. But now with the use of a software called UnChrome, this can be avoided. Apparently, Google Chrome identifies its users by their IDs. This is a unique ID generated with every installation of Google Chrome.  UnChrome 'Nulls' this value, effectively removing this link. It has to be used only once. Steps are as below:

 

1. First, click here to download UnChrome (make sure Google Chrome is closed first).

2. Next, click Run (Internet Explorer) or click Save File and run the application by double clicking on it (Firefox).

3. This screen will then pop up:

4. Click Remove Unique ID Now and then click OK to confirm you’ve already closed out the Chrome browser.

5. Success! The screen will then change to look like this:

Tab cloning in Firefox

Now with Firefox 3.x versions, one can clone the tab. No more copying the URL and pasting them in a new tab. One can just 'center' click on the Refresh button of the Web-browser and it will clone the tab, viz. create one more tab with the same website/webpage.
Ways of do it: 

• Center click on Refresh button (history is lost)
  
• Ctrl + Refresh (history is lost)
  
• Drag (favicon onto the tab bar) (history is lost)
• Ctrl + Drag (tab into the tab bar) (history is not lost :) )
  

Tab tearing in Firefox 3.1

Mimicking Google Chrome, one can now drag a tab out of Firefox into a new window. But vice-versa doesnt seem to be existing as of now. It needs its own time to stabilize, nevertheless, finally it has taken shape after multiple earlier attempts.

More here