Google body browser

Google body browser is a website, which allows user to navigate through 3D anatomical model of human body. Several layers from muscle tissues down to blood vessels can be made transparent to allow better study of individual body parts. Most of the body parts are labeled.

Check this here:
Google body browser website

Email delegation: Granting access to your Gmail account

Google Goggles

Google Goggles is a downloadable image recognition application created by Google Inc. It is currently found in the Google Labs as a beta version. Currently, it is used for searches based on pictures taken by handheld devices. For example taking a picture of a famous landmark would search for information about it, or taking a picture of a product's barcode will search for information on the product.

The program proposed will be capable of identifying virtually anything. Currently the system is able to identify various labels or landmarks, allowing the user to learn about such items without needing a text-based search. The system can identify barcodes that allow users to search for similar products and prices, as well as save codes for future reference, similar to the failed CueCat of the late '90s, but with more functionality. The system will also recognize printed text and using Optical character recognition (OCR) produce a text snippet, and in some cases even translate the snippet into another language.

For more details check it here
http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/#text

Source : Wikipedia

Google's new Smartphone Nexus S launched with Gingerbread

Google has launched its new flagship Android phone the "Nexus S" made by South Korea's Samsung. The new phone is the first device to run Android 2.3, codenamed "Gingerbread".

The Nexus S will be made available in the U.S. from December 16 from Best Buy stores and from December 20 at Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy retailers in Britain, said Google Vice President of Engineering Andy Rubin. He further added that Nexus S delivers unfiltered access to the best Google mobile services and the latest and greatest Android releases and updates.

The new phone is a slab-style, 1-GHz smartphone like Samsung's popular Galaxy S line. It has 5-megapixel rear-facing and VGA front-facing cameras, 16 gigabytes of internal memory and HD video playback and 720-by-480 video capture. It works on both T-Mobile's 3G network and AT&T's 2G EDGE network.

The Nexus S spotlights key features in Google's Gingerbread OS, including support for near-field communications (NFC), built-in voice-over-IP calling, faster speed, better power management, more sensors and front-facing cameras. NFC chips store personal data that can be transmitted to readers.

Nexus S will cost $529 unlocked, or $199 with a two-year T-Mobile contract.

Source : SiliconIndia

Will emails die soon?

According to experts, email is dying and the time is not so far when social media will replace it as the dominant form of communication not only in our individual lives but also in the world of business. Well, with the increased use of text, instant messaging, VoIP, and now microstreaming solutions like Twitter and Facebook, it seems that email is having a tough time, but does it really indicate a slow death of email?

Research firm Gartner would answer 'Yes' to the question. According to its recent prediction, social networking services, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will surpass email as the main form of communication in businesses by 2014. It says that around 20 percent of employees will switch to social networks from email as their business communications' hub. While this is just a prediction, it has got strong support from a wide range of capabilities that have emerged in communications, enabling richer interactions among people.

It's true that features of technologies like persistent chat rooms, and instant messaging offer real benefits that can't be supported by email communication. There are people who say that email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet, logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone, we are always connected. This feeling of ever connectedness that services like instant messaging, Twitter and Facebook offer can be the key factor for email losing its ground (if it ever happens).

No doubt that newer ways of communication have brought a lot of possibilities, but a new communications medium doesn't necessarily replace the old one. Although micro-blogging on platforms like Twitter and Facebook are reshaping both individual and enterprise communications, it won't put an end to email services, it doesn't need to. Today, the distinction between email and social networks is likely to be eroded with email taking on many social attributes, while social networks developing richer email capabilities. Vendors like Microsoft and IBM are going to add links to internal and external social networks from within e-mail clients and servers, making services such as contacts, calendars and tasks shareable across email and social networks.

From an enterprise perspective, email is not just a mere form of communication and collaboration; there is something more to it. Corporate email also means 'filing systems', 'corporate memory' and the likes. These are the functions we simply can't perform with tools like Facebook, Twitter, or SMS.

Consider this; email is very good at things that seem like spam: sending unsolicited and perhaps unwanted messages to people that are unknown aside from their email address. The basic protocols of store-and-forwarding of email means that email can be filtered into spam folders, but it basically has to be delivered.

At this point, it is better to get active using email and adding it to the mix when new things come along. This will surely make a strong integrated approach. Email is alive.

Source : SiliconIndia

Blogger Buzz: Welcome, Google Apps Users!

Blogger Buzz: Welcome, Google Apps Users!: "Google Apps users have been asking for Blogger and now, with our recently launched infrastructure improvement, they can use Blogger for free..."

Access two Gmail accounts at once in the same browser

I have a couple different Gmail addresses that I use for different purposes. Historically, Google Accounts – including Gmail accounts — have only let people access one account at a time per browser, so using both accounts has been a bit inconvenient. I’ve either had to sign out and sign back in, use a second browser for my second account, or use a Chrome incognito window. And I'm not alone; lots of people have asked us for a better way to use multiple accounts at once in the same browser.
Now, you can visit google.com/accounts and click the link next to "Multiple sign-in." After you sign into your first account, you can sign in with up to two additional accounts from the new accounts menu in the upper right hand corner of Gmail, then easily toggle back and forth between them. You can even open multiple Gmail tabs — one for each of your accounts.

Please keep in mind that this is a feature for advanced users, and there are a couple things to watch out for:
1) Not all Google services support multiple account sign-in yet. For the services that don't support it (like Blogger and Picasa Web Albums), you'll be defaulted to the first account you signed in with during that browser session. So if you click a link from Gmail to Blogger, for example, you'll be logged into Blogger with the first account you signed in with, even if you clicked the link to Blogger from your second Gmail account.

2) We’re still working on making Gmail and Calendar work offline with multiple sign-in. If you rely on offline access, you probably don't want to enable this feature quite yet.

3) Multiple account sign-in only works on desktop browsers for now, so if you use Gmail on your phone's browser you won't see this option yet.

Since Google Apps customers can already sign in to their accounts at the same time as their personal Google Accounts, we won’t be adding this new feature to Google Apps until the new infrastructure is in place.
If you use more than one Google Account, we hope this makes you more efficient. If you have any questions, check out our help center.

Source : Gmail Blog

Commonwealth Games 2010 Closing Ceremony New Delhi

Commonwealth Games 2010 Opening Ceremony A.R.Rahman

Meet The New Twitter

 

Google Instant

Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.

The most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because you don’t have to finish typing your full search term, or even press “search.” Another shift is that seeing results as you type helps you formulate a better search term by providing instant feedback. You can now adapt your search on the fly until the results match exactly what you want. In time, we may wonder how search ever worked in any other way.

Benefits

Faster Searches: By predicting your search and showing results before you finish typing, Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search.

Smarter Predictions: Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need.

Instant Results: Start typing and results appear right before your eyes. Until now, you had to type a full search term, hit return, and hope for the right results. Now results appear instantly as you type, helping you see where you’re headed, every step of the way.

Ref : Google Instant

Gmail Priority Inbox

New Feature In Gmail

Automatic sorting

Gmail uses a variety of signals to identify important email, including which messages you open and which you reply to.



Sections keep you organized

Incoming email gets separated into sections: important and unread, starred, and everything else. Don’t like these? Customize them.



Predictions improve over time

Over time, Priority Inbox gets better at predicting what’s important to you. You can help train it using the buttons.

Now share your location with friends on FB

Facebook has introduced a new location-based functionality called 'Facebook Places'. Now Facebook users will be able to add their current location to their status updates via Facebook Places.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook, highlighted the three main uses of Places, "Help you share where you are, help you find where your friends are, and discover new places around you."

You can also add places and can check-in at places. However, Facebook does not show you nearby places, but places it thinks are relevant to you.

Also photo tagging has been incorporated with Places. You can "tag" friends that are with you at a specific location. Thus, everybody doesn't have to check-in on their own. Implementation of tagging seems to be one of the best features of the platform.

The privacy controls for Places comprise of removing check-in and the "Here Now" button is activated only after you check in. You are notified when you are tagged and you can only tag your friends. You can also remove tags or turn off being tagged in Facebook Places. You also have the option to report a place on the iPhone if it's inaccurate or don't want it on the system.

Another interesting feature of Places is "Is this your business?" It allows owners to claim a business page. So, something is there for the business owners as well.

Facebook has kept developers in mind as well while creating Places. There's a Read API for reading check-ins and learning more about check-in pages. There's a Search and Write API for making check-ins and searching through them.

Ref: Silicon India

TCS to introduce cloud computing for SMBs

As an attempt to make the information technology services affordable for the SMBs in the country, India's leading IT company TCS is set to launch a new project, a cloud offering. The offering is expected to launch by September, writes Achalla Venugopal from WATBlog.com.

This cloud service aims to lower the cost of ownership by 35-40 percent. The traditional licensing model will be replaced by a monthly subscription model. The IT stack includes hardware, networking and software. New customers will be locked in for three years. TCS plans to focus on the domestic market with this offering first and then later expand to overseas markets too.

Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand. Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on the Internet, and it typically involves over-the-Internet provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources.

The service is expected to be a major growth engine for TCS. It can revolutionize the way Indian SMBs do their businesses providing them the same IT infrastructure which they could otherwise not afford. This offering which has yet not been branded is also been talked about as the last big-ticket project from Ratan Tata.

Bangalore IT firms logs out due to nationwide shutdown

Hundreds of IT firms, including Indian bellwethers Infosys Technologies and Wipro will remain closed Monday due to the nationwide shutdown against the hike in fuel prices.

"As a precaution, we have given Monday off to our employees working in the Bangalore campus. They will compensate by working on Saturday (July 10)," Infosys Chief Executive Krish Gopalakrishnan told IANS.

The global software major, however, made arrangements for employees working on essential projects and business process outsourcing (BPO) services to work during the day, when the shutdown will be observed from dawn to dusk.

"We have made arrangement for those software engineers handling key projects for overnight stay and transport to essential staff on day shift," Gopalakrishnan said.

The $4.8-billion Infosys has its largest software development park in the electronics city, about 30 km from here, where about 16,000 employees work in its sprawling campus.

Similarly, Wipro, which has two software development parks in the electronics city and on the city's outskirts, declared a holiday, directing its employees to report for duty July 10 in lieu of Monday.

"We have declared a holiday for our employees July 5 in view of the nationwide shutdown. They have been asked to work July 10 though it's a weekend," Wipro Executive Vice-President Suresh Senapaty said.

The country's largest IT bellwether - Tata Consulting Services (TCS) was yet to decide whether to give off or not to its employees working in the Bangalore software development centre at Whitefield, about 20 km from the city.

"We will let you know later. There is no decision yet. In case we decide to declare holiday, the employees will be duly intimated by e-mail and sms," a company official said.

Due to uncertainty of public transport by the state-run Bangalore Metropolitan Corporation (BMTC), hundreds of small and medium enterprises in IT and biotech sectors have extended the weekend holiday to their employees up to Monday.

"With auto-rickshaw and taxi associations deciding to not to ply in support of the shutdown, we have asked our employees to stay back in the absence of official information on public transport being available," Deepk Chandra of a start-up IT firm in the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) said.

As a precautionary measure, several multinational firms have also decided to give an off Monday and ask their employees to compensate by working on a Saturday.

Source : SiliconIndia

Google Dashboard

Google Container Datacenter

The All New iPhone 4

Gmail Web Clips

Web Clips show you news headlines, blog posts, RSS and Atom feeds, and relevant sponsored links, right at the top of your inbox. Each clip displays the source from which it was received, how long ago the clip was published, and a link to access the entire story or page containing the clip. From your inbox, you can scroll through clips you've already seen by clicking the left arrow (<) or see new clips by clicking the right arrow (>).

To customize Web Clips for Gmail:

1. Sign in to Gmail.
2. Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page, and open the Web Clips tab.
3. Browse popular clips by selecting a topic link along the left. Search for feeds by entering topics that interest you -- use this feature like you would Google Search. Or, enter specific feed URLs.
   
   
   
4. Click Add next to the clips you'd like to see in Gmail.
5. Preview
   

Add Background Images to Google's Homepage

Google's homepage has always been simple and uncluttered. Those who wanted to customize the homepage with gadgets and themes had to switch to iGoogle, the personalized Google homepage. Lately, Google's homepage has changed a lot: the search box is bigger, there's a fade-in animation and a new logo, doodles are more interactive.

Inspired by Ask.com's themes and Bing's wallpapers, Google will allow users to add a background image to the Google homepage. "We're introducing a new feature that brings a whole new level of personalization to Google by letting you add a favorite photo or image to the background of the Google homepage. You can choose a photo from your computer, your own Picasa Web Album or a public gallery hosted by Picasa which includes a selection of beautiful photos," explains Marissa Mayer.

Google says that the new feature will be gradually released in the US and it will soon be available outside US. A lot of people use Google as their homepage and many would like to customize the homepage. I'm not sure it's a good idea to add visual clutter to the Google homepage and to make it load slower, but iGoogle, Bing and Ask.com have a lot of happy users.

Google TV: Now Web On TV

Google the internet giant is out to expand its kingdom to the living room with an ambitious new service that lets people mesh television viewing with surfing the Web. Google TV, which has developed in partnership with technology titans Sony, Intel and Logitech and launched on Thursday.

Google TV, is powered by Google's Android software and Chrome Web browser, can be accessed using upcoming Web-enabled televisions from Sony or set-top boxes from Logitech that route Web content to existing TV sets. Sony and Logitech said the sets and boxes will be available in the United States in time for the year-end holiday shopping season and be rolled out internationally next year.

Google TV, which promises to extend the Internet search and advertising giants reach into the lucrative TV ad market. Initially, advertising served on Google TV will be the same as seen now by television viewers or Web surfers but the Internet firm said it is pondering ways to tailor advertising to the platform.

Source : SiliconIndia

Firebug (Web Development)

The Firebug extension for Mozilla Firefox allows the debugging, editing, and monitoring of any website's CSS, HTML, DOM, and JavaScript, and provides other Web development tools. It also has a JavaScript console for logging errors and watching values, as well as a "Net" feature which monitors the amount of time in milliseconds it takes to execute scripts and load images on the page. Firebug is free and open source, licensed under the BSD license. Firebug was initially written by Joe Hewitt, one of the original Firefox creators. The Firebug Working Group oversees the open source development and extension of Firebug. Approximately 1.7 million users have Firebug installed as of Oct. 2009.

More Details
Firebug Home Page

Source : Wikipedia

Panoramio

Panoramio is a geolocation-oriented photo sharing website. Currently, some of the photos uploaded to the site can be accessed as a layer in Google Earth and Google Maps, with new photos being added at the end of every month. The site's goal is to allow Google Earth users to learn more about a given area by viewing the photos that other users have taken at that place. The website is available in several languages.

Panoramio was started in the summer of 2005 by Joaquín Cuenca Abela and Eduardo Manchón Aguilar, two Spanish entrepreneurs. It was officially launched on October 3, 2005, and by March 19, 2007, it had archived over 1 million user submitted photographs.Three months later, on June 27, 2007, the number of photos reached two million. After a further four months, on October 25, 2007, the number of archived photos reached five million.

On May 30, 2007, Google announced plans to acquire the website, and Panoramio was acquired by Google on July 2007.

More Details

Panoramio Website

Source : Wikipedia

NoBot (AJAX)

NoBot is a control that attempts to provide CAPTCHA-like bot/spam prevention without requiring any user interaction. This approach is easier to bypass than an implementation that requires actual human intervention, but NoBot has the benefit of being completely invisible. NoBot is probably most relevant for low-traffic sites where blog/comment spam is a problem and 100% effectiveness is not required.

NoBot employs a few different anti-bot techniques:

• Forcing the client's browser to perform a configurable JavaScript calculation and verifying the result as part of the postback. (Ex: the calculation may be a simple numeric one, or may also involve the DOM for added assurance that a browser is involved)
• Enforcing a configurable delay between when a form is requested and when it can be posted back. (Ex: a human is unlikely to complete a form in less than two seconds)
• Enforcing a configurable limit to the number of acceptable requests per IP address per unit of time. (Ex: a human is unlikely to submit the same form more than five times in one minute)

NoBot can be tested by violating any of the above techniques: posting back quickly, posting back many times, or disabling JavaScript in the browser.

Source : Microsoft Ajax Toolkit

AJAX Seadragon

Seadragon Ajax is a Seadragon viewing library implemented in pure JavaScript. It supports the same single image file format that Silverlight Deep Zoom uses, but does not support Deep Zoom Collections.

A version of Seadragon Ajax source code is included in the Ajax Control Toolkit. That version has been optimized to take advantage of features built into ASP.NET AJAX, reducing code size while improving integration with the ASP.NET AJAX framework.

More Details

Seadragon Website
Microsoft Ajax Toolkit

Top 10 IT Certifications In Demand

IT certifications have always been popular among IT pros to bag the right job or seek the right jump. With the economy back in green, IT jobs too are back. Keeping this in mind, technology research firm Foote Partners recently listed IT certifications that could be considered "hot" in the coming months.

1. VMware Certified Professional: With virtualization technology becoming hot, it is little surprising that VCP program is in demand. Research shows that enterprises often face lack of required expertise specific to virtualization.
2. Certified Information Systems Auditor: CISA is a professional certification for Information technology audit professionals sponsored by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA). Candidates for the certification must meet requirements set by ISACA.
3. GIAC Security Audit Essentials: This is for professionals planning to enter the information security industry who are tasked with auditing organization policy, procedure, risk, or policy conformance.
4. Certified Information Security Manager: CISM is a certification for information security managers awarded by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA).
5. Check Point Certified Security Expert: Designed for experienced security professionals, Check Point CCSE certification is claimed to be one of the most respected vendor-specific security certification. CCSE is an advanced Core security certification built on CCSA NGX, confirming in-depth skills and expertise in managing and supporting Check Point products
6. Check Point Certified Security Administrator: Another Check Point-specific certification, CCSA aims to validate a security administrator's ability to maintain day-to-day operation of vendor's security solutions and ensure secure access to information across the network.
7. Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (Security): MCSE certification provides an individual's skills in designing, implementing, and administering infrastructure for business solutions based on Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server.
8. Certified Wireless Security Professional: CWSP is claimed to be an advanced level certification that measures the ability to secure any wireless network. A wide range of security topics focusing on the 802.11 wireless LAN technology are covered in the coursework and exam, which is vendor neutral.
9. GIAC Certified Intrusion Analyst: GCIA is an information security certification entity that specializes in technical and practical certification as well as new research in the form of its GIAC Gold program. SANS Institute founded the certification in 1999.
10. Cisco Certified Network Professional: Another vendor specific certification, Cisco Certified Network Professional or CCNP aims to validate the ability to plan, implement, verify and troubleshoot local and wide-area enterprise networks and work collaboratively with specialists on advanced security, voice, wireless and video solutions.

Source : Silicon India

Google Sidewiki

Google Sidewiki is a browser extension which allows users to make and view comments about a given website, providing feedback and information, and discussing a page's content in a separate browser frame. The contributed comments are editable by the users who made them. It was launched September 23, 2009.

Google uses ranking algorithms to determine comment relevancy and usefulness using criteria such as users voting up and down a comment, and past users' contributions. Anyone can look up a contributor and, from accumulated entries on the user's Google profile, verify the contributor's credibility. Sidewiki is available for Internet Explorer and Firefox through Google Toolbar, and the Google Chrome browser through an add-on. For other browsers like Safari it is available as a bookmarklet.

Sidewiki allows users to interact with a web site in ways that the site owner cannot control, which has concerned some critics of the application, as there is no way for site owners to prevent people from commenting in a Sidewiki entry for a page.

Source : Wikipedia

Microsoft Photosynth

Photosynth is a software application from Microsoft Live Labs and the University of Washington that analyzes digital photographs and generates a three-dimensional model of the photos and a point cloud of a photographed object. Pattern recognition components compare portions of images to create points, which are then compared to convert the image into a model. Users are able to view and generate their own models using a software tool available for download at the Photosynth website.

Photosynth is based on Photo Tourism, a research project by University of Washington graduate student Noah Snavely.

Capabilities

• Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle
• Zoom in or out of a photo
• See where pictures were taken in relation to one another
• Smoothly change viewing angle between nearby photos
• Smoothly zoom in and out of high-resolution photos
• Find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing
• Send pictures

More Details

Go to Photosynth Website

Source : Wikipedia

Google Latitude

Google Latitude is a location-aware mobile app developed by Google. Latitude allows a mobile phone user to allow certain people to track their location. Via their own iGoogle accounts, the user's cell phone location is mapped on Google Maps. The user can control the accuracy and details of what each of the other users can see — an exact location can be allowed, or it can be limited to identifying the city only. For privacy, it can also be turned off by the user, or a location can be manually entered. Users have to explicitly opt in to Latitude, and may only see the location of friends who have decided to share their location.

Google's 2005 acquisition, Dodgeball, offered similar facility to users by way of SMS. With Google Latitude, the service has expanded to PCs (it uses IP geolocation as well as user driven input) and automated location detection on mobile phones using Cell-ID, Cellular Positioning, and GPS.

More Info : Google Latitude

Source : Wikipedia

What's new in Outlook Social Connector

Connecting Outlook to each social network requires a provider. To get started, download and install social network provider for Outlook.

The Outlook Social Connector included in the Office 2010 Beta is not compatible with the beta providers currently available online. Office 2010 Beta users must install the Outlook Social Connector 32-bit Beta in order to successfully use the social network providers currently available. Also, you cannot install the 32-bit OSC Beta on Outlook 2010 Beta 64-bit.

Currently Support

1. LinkedIn
2. myspace

Coming Soon

1. Facebook
2. Windows Live

Stay up-to-the-minute with the people in your networks by accessing everything from e-mail threads to status updates in one single, centralized view.

Synchronize your contact data right into Outlook 2010 and obtain information about your friends and colleagues. See status updates from various networks and recently posted files—even view shared photos

Connect to SharePoint Server 2010 social data and receive updates from your workplace, such as newly posted or tagged documents, site activity, and more.

Easily track your communication history. Use the Outlook Social Connector to display a quick view of related Outlook content when you click on a contact’s name, such as recent e-mail conversations, meetings, and shared documents.

Developers can connect and feed social streams from line-of-business applications or integrate their solutions directly into Outlook.

Source

Google Earth's Flight Simulator

inside Google Earth is a secret Flight Simulator that takes full advantage of Google’s extensive satellite imagery.

To access the hidden feature, open Google Earth and hit Command+Option+A (note it must be capital A) or Ctrl+Alt+A if you’re using a Windows Machine.

The Google Earth Flight Simulator comes with two aircraft options, a F16 Viper and the more manageable SR22 4 seater. Players have the option of commencing the game from their current location in Google Earth or can pick from a list of pre-determined runways.

For More Details

Go Here : Google Earth Flight Simulator

Sharing the music track to which you're listening Via Gtalk

If you'd like to show your contacts what music you're listening to at that very moment, select Show current music track from the Available or Busy section of your status drop-down menu in Google talk

Your status will automatically update each time your supported music player starts a new song, listing the track name and artist information:

Supported Music Players:

• iTunes
• Windows Media Player
• Winamp
• Yahoo Music Engine

SketchUp

SketchUp is a 3D modeling program designed for architects, civil engineers, filmmakers, game developers, and related professions. It also includes features to facilitate the placement of models in Google Earth. It is designed to be easier to use than other 3D CAD programs.

Google SketchUp

On April 27, 2006, Google announced Google SketchUp, a freely-downloadable version of SketchUp. The free version is not as capable as SketchUp Pro, but it includes integrated tools for uploading content to Google Earth and to the Google 3D Warehouse, a repository of models created in SketchUp. They have also added a new toolbox where you can walk, see things from a person's point of view, labels for models, a look around tool, and an "Any polygon" shape tool.

While the free version of Google Sketchup can export 3D to SKP, .dae and Google Earth's .kmz file format, the Pro version extends exporting support to include the .3ds, .dae, .dwg, .dxf, .fbx, .obj, .xsi, and .wrl file formats.

Google SketchUp can also save "screenshots" of the model as .bmp, .png, .jpg, .tif, with the Pro version also supporting .pdf, .eps, .epx, .dwg, and .dxf.

Source:Wikipedia

CSS Transparency Settings for All Browsers

Transparency is one of those weird things that is treated completely differently in all browsers. To cover all your bases, you need four separate CSS statements. Fortunately they don’t interfere with each other really, so using them all every time you wish to add transparency is no big hassle and worry-free. Here they are, and are currently set to 50% transparency:

.transparent_class
{ 
       filter:alpha(opacity=50);
       -moz-opacity:0.5;
       -khtml-opacity: 0.5;
       opacity: 0.5;

}

Here is what each of those CSS properties is for:

• opacity: 0.5; This is the “most important” one because it is the current standard in CSS. This will work in most versions of Firefox, Safari, and Opera. This would be all you need if all browsers supported current standards. Which, of course, they don’t.
• filter:alpha(opacity=50); This one you need for IE.
• -moz-opacity:0.5; You need this one to support way old school versions of the Mozilla browsers like Netscape Navigator.
• -khtml-opacity: 0.5; This is for way old versions of Safari (1.x) when the rendering engine it was using was still referred to as KTHML, as opposed to the current WebKit.

Source: CSS-Tricks

Keyhole Markup Language (KML)

Keyhole Markup Language (KML) is an XML-based language schema for expressing geographic annotation and visualization on existing or future Internet-based, two-dimensional maps and three-dimensional Earth browsers. KML was developed for use with Google Earth, which was originally named Keyhole Earth Viewer. It was created by Keyhole, Inc, which was acquired by Google in 2004. The name "Keyhole" is an homage to the KH reconnaissance satellites, the original eye-in-the-sky military reconnaissance system first launched in 1976. KML is an international standard of the Open Geospatial Consortium. Google Earth was the first program able to view and graphically edit KML files, and other projects such as Marble have also started to develop KML support.

Ref:Wikipedia

HTML5

HTML5 is being developed as the next major revision of HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the core markup language of the World Wide Web. The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) started work on the specification in June 2004 under the name Web Applications 1.0. As of March 2010, the specification is in the Draft Standard state at the WHATWG, and in Working Draft state at the W3C.

HTML5 is the proposed next standard for HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0 and DOM Level 2 HTML. It aims to reduce the need for proprietary plug-in-based rich internet application (RIA) technologies such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, Apache Pivot, and Sun JavaFX.

The ideas behind HTML5 were pioneered in 2004 by the WHATWG; HTML5 incorporates Web Forms 2.0, another WHATWG specification. The HTML5 specification was adopted as the starting point of the work of the new HTML working group of the W3C in 2007. This working group published the First Public Working Draft of the specification on January 22, 2008. The specification is an ongoing work, and is expected to remain so for many years, although parts of HTML5 are going to be finished and implemented in browsers before the whole specification reaches final Recommendation status.

Ref:Wikipedia

GMAIL - Forget to sign out of a public computer? Sign out remotely.

If you sign into Gmail from multiple computers, but are worried you may have forgotten to sign out of one, you can sign out remotely. At the bottom of your inbox, you’ll see information about the time and location of the last activity on your account. Click “Details” to see whether your account is still open in another location and “Sign out all other sessions” to close other open sessions.

Touch Magix

TouchMagix is a next gen digital media that engages consumers in a whole new experience that involves interaction.

Touch Magix based in Pune, a city 120 miles south-east of the Indian commercial capital, Mumbai. TouchMagix is a product of the TechnoKarma Labs, an incubator that was established in 2002 with a vision to design and deliver world-class innovations to masses. We are a team with diverse experience in technology, gaming, advertising and marketing. We love to build products that enable brand owners to engage their consumers in an interaction that will make an everlasting impact in the consumers mind.

TouchMagix is lead by Anup Tapadia, who had bagged 2 master degrees in Computer Science at the age of 21 ! Anup is an alumnus of University of California, San Diego. At age of 14 he became the world youngest professional to pass the Microsoft Certifications (MCSD, MCSE, MCDBA). Bill gates, Azim Premji, Raghunath Mashalkar and many others have written and appreciated his achievements in the field of technology and science. Anup started his first company at the age of 16. Anup has a vision to make India an innovation hub to develop world-class products and start-ups.

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Ref:Touch Magix

Importance of !important in CSS

CSS rules marked !important take precedence over later rules. Normally in CSS the rules work from top to bottom, so if you assigned a new style to an element further down the style sheet or in a secondary style sheet then the later rule would take precedence. !important ensures that this rule has precedence

Example #1: Normal behaviour

#example p {
color: blue;
}
...
#example p {
color: red;
}

The later rule overrides the earlier rule, and paragraphs within #example will be red.

Example #2: Using !important

#example p {

color: blue !important;
}
...
#example p {
color: red;
} 

The first rule now has precedence so the later rule is ignored and the paragraph will be blue.
Note:

Internet Explorer 6 will apply whatever the last style declared is, and takes no notice of !important declarations. So in Example #1 above, the other browsers would display the paragraph in blue but IE6 would display it in red.

Ref : www.electrictoolbox.com

Google Buzz

Old Snakey In Gmail

Gmail have game too The OLD SNAKEY Game.

How to enable that

To enable this game in gmail click on google labs icon in topbar of your Gmail window and enable Old snakey from gogole labs options and after that save it Gmail window refresh automatically after that just hit shift+7 from your keyboard and enjoy Old Snakey middle of gmail

Favicon

Browser ICO PNG GIF animated GIFs JPEG APNG SVG Google Chrome Yes 4.0 4.0 No 4.0 No No Internet Explorer 4 No No No No No No Mozilla Firefox Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 3.0 No[5] Opera Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 9.6 Safari Yes 4.0 4.0 ? 4.0 No No A favicon (short for favorites icon), also known as a website icon, shortcut icon, url icon, or bookmark icon is a 16×16, 32×32 or 64×64 pixel square icon associated with a particular website or webpage.[1] A web designer can create such an icon and install it into a website (or webpage) by several means, and most graphical web browsers will then make use of it. Browsers that provide favicon support typically display a page's favicon in the browser's address bar and next to the page's name in a list of bookmarks. Browsers that support a tabbed document interface typically show a page's favicon next to the page's title on the tab. Some programs allow the user to select an icon of his own from the hard drive and associate it with a website.

 

Browser support

Browser	ICO	PNG	GIF	animated GIFs	JPEG	APNG	SVG
Google Chrome	Yes	4.0	4.0	No	4.0	No	No
Internet Explorer	4	No	No	No	No	No	No
Mozilla Firefox	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	3.0	No
Opera	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	9.6
Safari	Yes	4.0	4.0	?	4.0	No	No

The following format is cross-browser compatible and is supported by Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera.

• <link rel="SHORTCUT ICON" href="http://www.example.com/myicon.ico"/>

Additionally the following is also acceptable:

• <link rel="SHORTCUT ICON" href="/somepath/myicon.ico"/>

The following shows the supported format of link tags, using examples, for HTML and XHTML.

HTML:

• <link rel="icon" type="image/vnd.microsoft.icon" href="http://example.com/image.ico">
• <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="http://example.com/image.png">
• <link rel="icon" type="image/gif" href="http://example.com/image.gif">

XHTML:

• <link rel="icon" type="image/vnd.microsoft.icon" href="/somepath/image.ico" />
• <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/somepath/image.png" />
• <link rel="icon" type="image/gif" href="/somepath/image.gif" />

 

Ref:Wikipedia

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer, developed by Microsoft, is a desktop blog-publishing application that is part of the Windows Live range of products. It features WYSIWYG authoring, photo-publishing and map-publishing functionality, and is currently compatible with Windows Live Spaces, SharePoint blogs, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Wordpress, Telligent Community, PBlogs.gr, JournalHome, the MetaWeblog API, the Movable Type API, Blogengine and all blogs that support RSD (Really Simple Discoverability).

Windows Live Writer introduces the Provider Customization API that enables both rich customization of Windows Live Writer's behavior as well as the opportunity to add new functionality to the product. Currently Windows Live Spaces, WordPress, and TypePad have all taken advantage of this API to expose additional service-specific features within Windows Live Writer.

Windows Live Writer is currently available in 48 different languages.

Ref : Wikipedia

Cross-Browser Min Height

div { min-height: 500px; height:auto !important; height: 500px; }

This works because  IE treats “height” how “min-height” is supposed to be treated.

Alternate Using Expressions (IE Only)

div { height: expression( this.scrollHeight < 501 ? "500px" : "auto" ); }

Sets the minimum height in IE to be 500px. Make sure that this.scrollHeight < 501 is 1 px greater than the minimum height that you want or you will get some strange results.

Ref: CSSTricks

Disable right-click Contextual Menu In JQuery

There’s many Javascript snippets available to disable right-click contextual menu, but JQuery makes things a lot easier:

$(document).ready(function(){
    $(document).bind("contextmenu",function(e){
        return false;
    });
})

Internet Explorer 9 goes for HTML5, partially

Microsoft has announced that the new internet explorer will have many features supporting HTML5, which will make browsing internet a speedy experience. "HTML5 will enable a new class of applications," says Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft's Internet Explorer General Manager, speaking to the press at the company's Mix10 conference in Las Vegas, according to The Register.

But there are many features that are not supported by IE9. Like the Canvas element. "All the graphics that run in IE9 are GPU-powered, they are hardware accelerated. We said there'll be updates to the preview and we'll see what else is coming in the next preview," says Hachamovitch.

Microsoft will also have to deal with the issue of video codecs, which has left the Video tag without any officially standardized codec. Replying to this Hachamovitch says, "For IE9, the demonstration that we gave involved the H.264 codec, which is a great industry standard for video, and we will support the H.264 codec. If I made a list of all the things for the HTML5 spec to do next, it's not clear that the HTML5 video codec would be near the top."

The IE9 preview does a better job with the Acid3 standards test than earlier versions, but at 55 per cent, it remains poor, considering that some other browsers pass completely. Hachamovitch is defensive about the test and says, "The Acid3 test is something that some folks use as a proxy for standards support. It's 100 tests. It exercises about a dozen different technologies, some of which are under construction, some of which are less under construction. The most important thing: as IE9 supports more of the markup that developers actually use, the score will continue to go up, as a side effect."

The new IE9 will not be supporting Windows XP. "Building a modern browser requires a modern operating system. There are facilities in Windows Vista and Windows 7 around security, for example the integrity-level work that gave us protected mode. There are performance improvements, there is graphics infrastructure to take advantage of the GPU, that doesn't exist in previous operating systems," says Hachamovitch.

Microsoft will be using Silverlight more extensively in IE9. This might work well for Microsoft but also might slow up the speed of the browser.

Ref:

 

Drop Shadow With CSS For All Web Browsers

.shadow {
-moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 4px #000;
-webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 4px #000;
box-shadow: 3px 3px 4px #000;
}

What About Internet Explorer?

.shadow {
/* For IE 8 */
-ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Shadow
(Strength=4, Direction=135, Color='#000000')";
/* For IE 5.5 - 7 */
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Shadow
(Strength=4, Direction=135, Color='#000000');
}

Web Browser Support

• Firefox 3.5+
• Safari 3+
• Google Chrome
• Opera 10.50
• Internet Explorer 5.5

EARTH HOUR

Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries participating. Global landmarks such as the, Sydney Harbour Bridge, The CN Tower in Toronto, The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour.

In March 2009, hundreds of millions of people took part in the third Earth Hour. Over 4000 cities in 88 countries officially switched off to pledge their support for the planet, making Earth Hour 2009 the world’s largest global climate change initiative.

Earth Hour 2010 takes place on Saturday 27 March at 8.30pm (local time) and is a global call to action to every individual, every business and every community throughout the world. It is a call to stand up, to take responsibility, to get involved and lead the way towards a sustainable future. Iconic buildings and landmarks from Europe to Asia to the Americas will stand in darkness. People across the world from all walks of life will turn off their lights and join together in celebration and contemplation of the one thing we all have in common – our planet. So sign up now and let’s make 2010 the biggest Earth Hour yet!.

It’s Showtime! Show the world what can be done.

Google plans superfast internet

San Francisco: Google plans to build a fiber optic broadband network that will connect customers to the internet at speeds 100 times faster than most existing broadband connections in the US, the company announced on its corporate blog.

"Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make internet access better and faster for everyone," two Google product managers, Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly, wrote in the blog post Wednesday.

They said that Google plans to build and test the network in trial communities around the country starting later this year and that the tests could encompass as many as 500,000 people. They cited 3-dimensional medical imaging and quick, high-definition film downloads among the applications of such high-speed internet access.

"We'll deliver internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fibre-to-the-home connections," the post said. "We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people."

"We're doing this because we want to make the web better and faster to everyone," said Kelly, who also promised that the network would operate on open access network, in which users could choose various internet providers and which would not give preference to any one kind of content. Kelly appealed to local officials who were interested in having their community participate in the trial to contact the internet giant.

The announcement continued Google's recent initiative to expand into market sectors beyond its core web search specialty. In the last year it has made a splash in the mobile phone market with its Android operating system and Nexus One handset, and Tuesday announced a social networking feature aimed at taking on Facebook and Twitter.

While broadband industry incumbents may fear the entry by Google, Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski welcomed the move, the Washington Post reported.
"Big broadband creates big opportunities," he said in a statement. "This significant trial will provide an American testbed for the next generation of innovative, high-speed internet apps, devices and services."

Ref:

Browser Specific Hacks

/* IE 6 */

* html .yourclass { }

/* IE 7 */

*+html .yourclass{ }

/* IE 7 and modern browsers */

html>body .yourclass { }

/* Modern browsers (not IE 7) */

html>/**/body .yourclass { }

/* Opera 9.27 and below */

html:first-child .yourclass { }

/* Safari */

html[xmlns*=""] body:last-child .yourclass { }

/* Safari 3+, Chrome 1+, Opera 9+, Fx 3.5+ */

body:nth-of-type(1) .yourclass { }

/* Safari 3+, Chrome 1+, Opera 9+, Fx 3.5+ */

body:first-of-type .yourclass { }

/* Safari 3+, Chrome 1+ */

@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) { .yourclass { } }

Centering a Website

HTML Syntax

<body>

<div id="page-wrap">

<!-- all websites HTML here –>

</div>

</body>

CSS Syntax

#page-wrap

{

width: 800px; margin: 0 auto;

}

Burj Khalifa

Burj Khalifa formerly known as Burj Dubai, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the tallest man-made structure ever built, at 828 m (2,717 ft). Construction began on 21 September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009 and the building officially opened on 4 January 2010. The building is part of the 2 km² (490-acre) flagship development called Downtown Burj Khalifa at the "First Interchange" along Sheikh Zayed Road, near Dubai's main business district. The tower's architect and engineer is Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, LLP (Chicago). Bill Baker, the Chief Structural Engineer for the project, invented the buttressed core structural system in order to enable the tower to achieve such heights economically. Adrian Smith, who worked with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) until 2006, was the Design Partner on the project.
The primary builder is South Korean Samsung C&T, who also built the Taipei 101 and Petronas Twin Towers, followed by Belgian group Besix and Arabtecfrom UAE. Turner Construction Company was chosen as the construction project manager. Under UAE law, the Contractor and the Engineer of Record are jointly and severally liable for the performance of Burj Khalifa. Therefore, by adoption of SOM's design and by being appointed as Architect and Engineer of Record, Hyder Consulting is legally the Design Consultant for the tower.
The total budget for the Burj Khalifa project is about US$1.5 billion; and for the entire new "Downtown Dubai", US$20 billion. Mohamed Ali Alabbar, the CEOof Emaar Properties, speaking at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat 8th World Congress, said in March 2009 that the price of office space at Burj Khalifa had reached US$4,000 per sq ft (over US$43,000 per m²) and that the Armani Residences, also in Burj Khalifa, were selling for US$3,500 per sq ft (over US$37,500 per m²). The completion of the tower coincided with a worldwide economic slump and overbuilding, causing it to be described as "the latest ... in [a] string of monuments to architectural vacancy."
Ref : Wikipedia