Earth Hour

Join WWF in celebrating Earth Hour this year.

Earth Hour, an international event started by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in 2007, engages businesses and households to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour on the last Saturday of March every year.

It aims to educate the global community about the threats of climate change and how easy it is for individuals and businesses to make small changes to the way they live and operate.

In 2008, Earth Hour reached out to more than 400 cities with 50 million adults participating in the initiative. Major icons went dark including the Sydney Opera House, Romes Coliseum, and Antarcticas Scott Station.

The symbolic "lights out" initiative echoes the objective of millions like us to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change.

This year, Earth Hour will take place on Saturday, 28 March 2009 from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm, local time and aims to reach out to 1 billion people across 1000 cities.

Lets support Earth Hour 2009 - 60 Mins of being together with the rest of the world.

Gmail Offline

Gmail Offline version have been launched.

To enable the gmail offline option.

1) Log into yur gmail account and click on the Settings tab.
2) Click on the Labs tab
3) Enable the gmail offline option. Save the setting.

4) Click on settings once again and now u will see a new Offline tab.
5) Enable the "Enable Offline Gmail for this computer" option. Save Setting.

Now on yur gmail main screen u will see a offline option added on top right menu.
6) Click and Download the Google Gears pack.

Now u r ready to go offline. If u get disconnected or have a bad connection don't worry just go ahead and compose, read, search, archive or add labels like u do it when u r connected to the internet... Google will sync yur gmail account once u get connected the next time.

Watch this video if u have no idea of what offline is



Got more doubt read the faq's
Happy mailing.

Flash Designs

Some good Flash websites.
http://backstage.mug.pl/en/
http://www.kheiron.net/
http://www.strogalski.com/
http://www.nalindesign.com/
http://www.celsolinc.com/
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/
http://www.mono-1.com/monoface/main.html - have fun playing making faces

Cover Art Style Nav

http://www.bencline.net/html/web/ good designer.

a cover art style nav. http://www.mstudio.com/mstudio.html
cover art 2 http://theflashblog.com/dianimation.html
real cover art(paid): http://www.webdesignerwall.com/demo/photoflip-gallery
http://www.kernkonnection.com/tutorials/itunes%20look.zip

Medallia Blog

Wealth of technology information and multi touch articles. Good if u have a .mac and like to tweak it. http://blog.medallia.com/

Online Music

Listening to music online has been there for a long time... but since a long time nothing new has happened. The last time things were hot in the online music world was when MP3 format was launched and then when Napster was launched as a peer to peer music spreading engine... The music big bosses shut them down. But now there are some interesting things happening. http://www.smashitsusa.com/ , http://www.raaga.com/ , http://radio.smashits.com/ and others been there since a while. Then came www.in.com for online high quality Hindi music listening.

www.mixturtle.com is one of my fav music search engine. The new www.justhearit.com is also very efficient. http://www.plorf.com is another place for easy search and song downloads.

As a music lover, one of my favorite innovations of the last five years or so has come in the form of music discovery services. Services like ilike.com, Last.fm, Pandora, Rhapsody and iTunes 8 have made it easy to find artists or songs that are similar to your musical tastes and preferences. The only problem with these services, is that they are based on limited databases (like the iTunes Music Store, for iTunes's Genius Mode), reviews or ratings by other users and overall popularity. That means that the music discovered might indeed be similar, but it really limits results to mainsream songs and generic genre distinctions. This is great for an automatic playlist, but not so great for really finding new bands or artists.This is why Mufin's new music discovery engine is so unique; it analyzes the actual structure of the song, not just the genre meta-data. Mufin's discovery engine just entered private beta, but Download Squad readers can get in on the action by using this invite link: http://beta.mufin.com/start?ic=e75eecf85a4a547ca9379d6f8b6c23bb.
http://beta.mufin.com/start?ic=73c9965de675083353d85d4218b808e3

Co-developed at the Fraunhofer Institute (the creators of the MP3 format), Mufin uses audio recognition technology to analyze the actual musical characteristics of a song. Mufin creates a unique "fingerprint" for each song, using 40 characteristics like tempo, instruments, rhythm structure and sound density. Then, when you search for a song in Mufin's database, an alogrithm compares the fingerprint of that song against the database and presents you with results of songs that are similar in structure.

Dilbert Strip

Technology - The Mobile Phone inventer

This might sound a bit like its from a science friction movie... but then lot of science friction movies did inspired companies and people to create futuristic gizmos.

Read what the cell phone inventor. I m sure u don't know his name...
Martin Cooper has to say.
http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/Mobile-phone-inventor-dreams-of-human-embeds/27308104733/0

Call Center Guys have all the Fun

Call center guys always have fun.

1) Tech Support: "I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop."
Customer: "Ok."
Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No."
Tech Support: "Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No."
Tech Support:: "Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until
this point?"
Customer: "Sure, you told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'."
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
2) Customer: "I received the software update you sent, but I am still
getting the same error message."
Tech Support:: "Did you install the update?"
Customer: "No. Oh, am I supposed to install it to get it to work?"
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
3).Customer: : "I'm having trouble installing Microsoft Word."
Tech Support:: "Tell me what you've done."
Customer: "I typed 'A:SETUP'."
Tech Support:: "Ma'am, remove the disk and tell me what it says."
Customer:: "It says '[PC manufacturer] Restore and Recovery disk'."
Tech Support:: "Insert the MS Word setup disk."
Customer:: "What?"
Tech Support: "Did you buy MS word?"
Customer: "No..."
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
4).Customer: : "Do I need a computer to use your software?"
Tech Support:: ?!%#$
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
5).Tech Support:: "Ok, in the bottom left hand side of the screen, can
you see the 'OK' button displayed?"
Customer: "Wow. How can you see my screen from there?"
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
6) Tech Support:: "What type of computer do you have?"
Customer:: "A white one."
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
7). Tech Support:: "Type 'A:' at the prompt."
Customer:: "How do you spell that?"
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
8). Tech Support: "What's on your screen right now?"
Customer: "A stuffed animal that my boyfriend got me at the grocery
store."

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
9). Tech Support:: "What operating system are you running?"
Customer: "Pentium."
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
10). Customer: "My computer's telling me I performed an illegal
abortion."
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
11).Customer: "I have Microsoft Exploder."
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
12).Customer: "How do I print my voicemail?"
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
13). Customer: "You've got to fix my computer. I urgently need to print
document, but the computer won't boot properly."
Tech Support: "What does it say?"
Customer: "Something about an error and non-system disk."
Tech Support: "Look at your machine. Is there a floppy inside?"
Customer: "No, but there's a sticker saying there's an Intel inside."
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
14). Tech Support: "Just call us back if there's a problem. We're open 24 hours."
Customer: "Is that Eastern time?"
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
15). Tech Support:: "What does the screen say now?"
Customer: "It says, 'Hit ENTER when ready'."
Tech Support:: "Well?"
Customer: "How do I know when it's ready?"
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --
16). A plain computer illiterate guy rings tech support to report that
his Computer is faulty.
Tech: What's the problem?
User: There is smoke coming out of the power supply.
Tech: You'll need a new power supply.
User: No, I don't! I just need to change the startup files.
Tech: Sir, the power supply is faulty. You'll need to replace it.
User: No way! Someone told me that I just needed to change the startup
and it will fix the problem! All I need is for you to tell me the command.
10 minutes later, the User is still adamant that he is right. The tech
is frustrated and fed up.
Tech: Sorry, Sir. We don't normally tell our customers this, but there
is an undocumented DOS command that will fix the problem.
User: I knew it!
Tech: Just add the line LOAD NOSMOKE.COM at the
end of the CONFIG.SYS. Let
me know how it goes.
10 minutes later.
User: It didn't work. The power supply is still smoking.
Tech: Well, what version of DOS are you using?
User: MS-DOS 6.22.
Tech: That's your problem there. That version of DOS didn't come with
NOSMOKE. Contact Microsoft and ask them for a patch that will give you
the file. Let me know how it goes.
1 hour later.
User: I need a new power supply.
Tech: How did you come to that conclusion?
User: Well, I rang Microsoft and told him about what you said, and he
started asking questions about the make of power supply.
Tech: Then what did he say?
User: He told me that my power supply isn't compatible with NOSMOKE.
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- -

17) customer care officer:I need a product identification no: right now
and may I help u in finding it out?
Cust: sure
CCO: could u left click on start and do u find 'My Computer'?
Cust: I did left click but how the hell do I find your computer?

BitTorrent

There been a lot of questions regarding the Torrents, what are they? how to use, where to get it from? Here I am trying to answer most of those questions asked. mail me in case of any query.

What is BitTorrent?
BitTorrent is one of the most popular P2P protocol designed for high-speed distribution of 100MB or GB sized files. Users connect directly to send and receive portions of the file, while a central tracker coordinates the action of all such peers, yet manages connections without knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed. With BitTorrent, users upload at the same time they download, so that network bandwidth is managed as efficiently as possible. There are NO lineup queues, meaning you download right away with no wait.

The official BT FAQ is located here: BitTorrent FAQ

Where can I get a BitTorrent client?
There are many to choose from: the official BitTorrent client, the more advanced BitTornado, the multi-torrent frontend Azureus and the ultra compact µTorrent.

What is a .torrent file?
A .torrent file (aka metafile) is a small file containing the information necessary for your Bit Torrent client to download a larger file.

What are seeds?
A seed is a client that has a complete copy of the data of a certain torrent. Once your BitTorrent client finishes downloading, it will remain open until you click the Finish button (or otherwise close it). Uploading a complete file is called seeding.

What are leechers?
A leecher is a client that is currently downloading a torrent. Generally a leecher does not have the complete file, otherwise it would be called a seed.

What is a tracker?
A server on the internet that acts to coordinate the actions of BitTorrent clients. When you open a torrent, your machine contacts the tracker and asks for a list of seeds and peers to connect to.

What is an Announce URL?
The website address the tracker is using (ie. http://tracker.torrentexample.org:6969/announce). When you make a torrent, make sure you use the announce url of the site you want to upload your torrent to.

The official BT FAQ is located here: BitTorrent FAQ