theseus’s posterous

 



March 27, 2009

Nice..lets talk about it...



Gizmo5 provides a free service much like Skype, that allows you to make free PC-to-PC calls. In addition to providing many of the great things that Skype provides (free PC-to-PC calls, instant messaging, regular phone calls with great rates, etc), Gizmo5 provides an instant conference calling service. You don’t need a Gizmo5 account to use it and you don’t even need a computer!

If you want to create a conference room without your computer, you can just dial (605) 475-8515 (USA phone number) and press 0 to create a new conference room.  Be sure to write down the conference room number, because anyone you want to join will need to use it to enter.

If you want to create a conference room with your computer, just visit the Gizmo5 free conference call setup page. You enter your email address into the form, and then you will be brought to a page with your conference number.  You will also receive an email with your conference number.

gizmo5-free-conference-call-setup

Once you have your conference room number, just give it to those you wish to attend along with the (605) 475-8515 dial-in number.  When they call the dial-in number, they will be prompted for the conference room number.  They can then enter the conference room number you gave them.

That’s all there is to it, and you can do it without even signing up for an account.  However, If you’re outside of the USA or you don’t have an unlimited long-distance calling plan, you will need to sign up for a Gizmo5 account if you want to use the service without having to pay long distance charges.

Just download the Gizmo5 client and sign up for a free account.  They have clients available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Once you’ve installed the Gizmo5 client, you can launch it and create a free account right from the application.

Once you’ve installed Gizmo5 and logged into your account, just dial CONFERENCE.  Once you’re connected, click the Dialpad tab and then enter the conference room number.  You’ll be connected to the conference room and will be ready to chat with the others as they join.

dialing-conference

Comments [1]

March 25, 2009

Free Audio Books.. No Joke

With the introduction of digital media devices, such as the iPod or Zune, the explosion of online digital content has been nothing short of amazing. It’s soon to become your only source for purchasing music, will one day be the only place to rent and purchase movies and now with sites like Audible, may be the best place to read/listen to a book.

The majority of the employed today, have somewhat of a commute. Whether it be 10 minutes or 45, some type of audio activity is necessary to keep us from falling asleep at the wheel. Audiobooks are slowly becoming an extremely popular option for this and LibriVox brings you a free option to listen to them.

LibriVox is a user driven public domain audiobook library for any and all to listen to. They allow anyone to take any one of the thousands of public domain audiobooks, record their own voice, and distribute for all to listen to. We’ve briefly mentioned LibriVox in 2007, talking about “Joining The User-Generated Content Revolution“, but I thought it needed a little more recognition.

What separates LibriVox from audiobook sites like Audible, is the fact that a majority of the books are read by several different readers, usually by chapter. It makes the book not only unique, but keeps your interest, because you never know what that next reader’s voice is going to sound like. Such as in the below example of Aesop’s Fables, each read by four different people.

As you can see in the above screenshot as well, you have a few different audio formats to choose from, including a lower and higher quality MP3, plus OGG as well. Nothing to sign-up for or register, all audio files can be directly downloaded right from the website.

Librivox allows you to browse to the entire catalog yourself, or use their handy search engine to find what you’re looking for by author, or by title. The interface isn’t all that pretty, but it gets the job done. According to Wikipedia, in March of 2009, the site had 2000+ recorded titles ranging from short fiction stories, to lengthy novels, and even poetry. At last count, there are recordings in 45+ languages.

Some of the more famous titles you might recognize include the 9/11 commission report, Pride and Prejudice, Capital and their most popular title “The Return of Native” by Thomas Hardy. There are even religious titles, including an English version of the Koran, and several reads of the Holy Bible. Just about every genre is covered in their collection.

The other part of Librivox that can keep you entertained, is where you can actually take part in recording your own book. As long as it falls into “Public Domain“, with a audio recording application like Audacity, and a PC microphone or headset, you can delve into recording your own voice for a chapter, or an entire book! They require no prior experience either. As long as your voice is audible, you can volunteer and release your voice to the world.

There really is no other site out there like LibriVox that I could find. There are a few free audiobooks and audiobook sites out there, but none that are driven by you, the everyday reader. It’s very unique in that way, and I know I will one day dive into reading my very own audiobook, and let my voice be heard.

Comments [0]

March 22, 2009

Servers in the cloud =< not free> easy and tasty!

Got an Hour? Create a Server in the Cloud

Written by Lidija Davis / March 21, 2009 4:20 PM 


davewiner_mar_09.jpgDave Winer yesterday announced EC2 for Poets, a step-by-step guide to help you create a server on Amazon's EC2. His how-to is so easy to understand that we had our own server up and running within the hour. Sure, it may not seem like much that this fairly uninteresting page is sitting out there somewhere, but for this writer, it was an amazing coup.

"It's time to stop thinking about these servers as being things for geeks and start thinking about them as things for people with ideas," Winer said in a podcast roadmap he created for this work. The technology available today is enabling anyone with even the slightest technical bent to get out there and create amazing new things; often taking the technology in directions than the company which created it could have ever imagined.

EC2 for Poets is named after a class that Winer took at the University of Wisconsin called Computer Science for Poets, where the idea of "taking something that's inherently technical, and instead of doing something that technologists like to do with it - which is make it more mysterious - is to try and take as much of the mystery out of it as possible, and make it easy."

Much like Winer, many people find it difficult getting involved with Amazon's EC2 because of the new ideas and/or new terminology it introduces: "running instances," "EBS Volumes," Key Pairs," Elastic IPs," "Security Groups," 'AMIs." Even the definitions are more often than not difficult to understand. However, once you realize that much of the wording is just in a different form to the names of ideas we're familiar with, it becomes a lot more interesting. For instance, the term "security groups," Winer explains, "is essentially a firewall."

We went through Winer's HowTo: EC2 for Poets, and within 20 minutes had set most of it up. But for two instances, it went smoothly.

In step 12 of launch your server, Winer explains

"You should see a single entry whose status is "starting." We're now waiting for it to change to "running." This could take as much as 10 or 15 minutes, depending on how busy the angels and elves at Amazon are."

When we got to this step, our status of "pending" took almost 30 minutes to resolve. No biggie, just useful to note that it may take longer.

The second time we got a little stuck was when trying to wake the server up.

"First, locate the Key-Pair file (mine is called Tahoe), open it with a text editor (Notepad on Windows, TextEdit on the Mac). Select-All. Copy. Close the file."

It took a few minutes to realize this is the file we had downloaded earlier in the process; most likely due to this writer getting hyper excited of having become, as Dave Winer points out in good humor "a cloud computing expert."

ec2rww_mar_09.jpg

Our 'instance' or 'server' took 20 minutes to set up; then another 30 minutes was spent waiting for the Amazon gods to make it a reality. Amazingly, a virtual server in under an hour.

EC2 for Poets is a must read if you're interested in utilizing the cloud for your server needs. And even if the cloud doesn't excite you in the slightest, we highly recommend spending an hour with Winer, if for no other reason than to truly see how technology today really is made for everyone.

As Winer points out in his podcast, "there is nothing inherently more difficult about installing software on a server than there is of installing software on a Mac or PC - it's exactly the same thing."

"Where we need to be," says Winer, "and this happens early on in every technology, we end up relying on the tech companies too much. It makes sense at first; we need someone to set it up for us and make it simple, but then, it has its downside because we end up being controlled by them and they may be taking us someplace we don't want to go."

"Then the users break out and they do it on their own," he adds. And this is what EC2 for Poets can do for us. It can help us get out there and do it on our own a lot faster.

An important point to remember: if you do decide to try this out, make sure you shut it off when you're done; you'll be paying about $1 for every eight hours you run the server.

But now, having created this server in the cloud, the question remains, what next?

We have a server which is hosting a single Web page, but we're fairly sure the ReadWriteWeb community can think of far more exciting uses for this service now that Dave Winer has made it easy for all of us to understand. So, what would you build? Let us know in the comments.

HowTo: EC2 for Poets
EC2 for Poets Roadmap (22 minute Podcast)

Comments [0]

March 21, 2009

Geek heroes on Twitter... Good Stuff.



The Inner Circles of 10 Geek Heroes on Twitter

Written by Marshall Kirkpatrick / March 20, 2009 4:41 PM 

twittercircle-1.jpgHotshots, rock stars, geek heroes - many of us follow a lot of the same people online. But who do they pay the most attention to themselves? The influencers of influencers are of interest for a lot of different reasons, most appropriately because finding them is a good way to dive deeper into niche topics.

Twitter exposes conversations that can show us who's in anyone's inner circle because conversations there are public and programatically accessible. In the following post we look at the data and find out who has the most reciprocal conversations on Twitter with 10 geek heroes - from the founders of big sites like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon to nonprofit geeks working to challenge injustices.

There's something a little uncomfortable about being able to see this information. Fact is, though, it's part of the nature of this powerful new system of communication. We expect that data parsing like this is only the beginning.

In the charts below, assembled using developer Pete Warden's service Mailana, you'll see the top 5 people these geek heroes have reciprocal conversations with on Twitter and a screenshot of their larger web of connections. You can click through the links below to visit the full Mailana interface or visit this page to learn more about the methodology. On Warden's site you can click on the "info" links and see exactly what topics these friends discuss. There you'll see explanations like "@kanter sent 47 messages to @agahran and got 46 back." Note that these charts are just based on reciprocated public replies - not private direct messages.

If this post helps you get as excited as we are about Twitter, we hope you'll join us there.

Evan Williams

evprofile.jpgEvan Williams was the co-founder of Blogger and is now the co-founder and CEO of Twitter. He announced today that he's an expectant father! Who does he converse with most on Twitter?

1. Sara Morishige Williams, Ev's wife. Good man, Ev.
2. Chris Sacca, a startup investor and adviser to Twitter.
3. Jason Goldman, Product Manager at Blogger turned Product Manager at Twitter.
4. Biz Stone, Twitter's co-founder.
5. Sarah Lacy, tech business journalist (now on staff at TechCrunch) and author of the excellent Web 2.0 history book Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good.

Here's Ev's full profile on Mailana. (Photo CC from Joi Ito.)

evtwitter.jpg

Veronica Belmont

veronicaprofile.jpgVeronica Belmont is everybody's favorite geek video host. Who does she trade Tweets with the most? You might discover a person or two on her list.

1. Ryan Block, gadget blogging rock star and founder of Gdgt.com.
2. Tom Merritt, CNET podcast host.
3. Casey McKinnon, web actress and show host.
4. Patrick Norton, Veronica's co-host on Tekzilla.
5. Felicia Day, gaming web show host.

You can explore the Veronica-sphere here.

veronicatwitter.jpg

Kevin Rose

kevinroseprofile.jpgKevin Rose, founder of social news site Digg, has long been one of the most-followed people on Twitter. More than 320,000 have opted-in to receiving Tweets from Kevin. He's following 160 people in return. Who does he have the most conversation with? Rose's list is unsurprising; it's mostly co-workers.

1. Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibrary.TV.
2. Aubrey Sabala, Marketing Manager at Digg
3. Joe Stump, a developer at Digg.
4. David Prager, one of Rose's co-founders at web TV station Revision3.
5. Alex Albrecht, co-host of Diggnation.

You can see Rose's full list here.

kevinrosetwitter.jpg

Tim O'Reilly

oreillyprofile.jpgTim O'Reilly is the founder of O'Reilly Publishing and a related series of events like the Web 2.0 Conference. Here's who Tim has mutual conversation with on Twitter most often.

1. James Governor, an open source analyst at RedMonk.
2. Fred Wilson, one of the best known venture capitalists in the Web 2.0 world. Wilson has invested extensively in Twitter, for example.
3. Validis Krebs, the man behind Orgnet, a social network analysis and consulting firm.
4. Paul Kedrosky, writer and pundit on international finance.
5. Jennifer Pahlka, Web 2.0 Conference Chair.

Here's Tim's full profile on Mailana.

timotwitter.jpg

Shaquille O'Neal

shaqprofile.jpgShaquille O'Neal hasn't always been a geek hero. The basketball great is fast becoming one, though, and if you haven't read about his awesome real-life meetups with Twitter friends, you really should. Shaq talks to all kinds of people on Twitter all day long (usually from his iPhone, it appears) - but who does he converse with the most?

1. Kathleen Hessert, a sports marketing Twitter pro.
2. A. Jo. Martin, Director of Digital Media & Research for the Phoenix Suns.
3. @laskey is someone with protected updates; we have no idea who this is.
4. Nate Moller, a marketing consultant.
5. Mona Mohammadi, Deputy to the Senior Adviser at the Office of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to her LinkedIn profile, though that's not mentioned on her Twitter profile.

You can see all of Shaq's closest connections here, though he's such a gentleman we can imagine him taking offense at the idea that he loves any of his Twitter friends more than others!

the_real_shawtwitter2.jpg

Garrett Camp

gmcprofile.jpgGarrett Camp is the founder of StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon is awesome and Camp is a fairly consistent user of Twitter. Which lucky people get to engage with him the most?

1. Travis Kalanick is an entrepreneur who sold his P2P company Red Swoosh to Akamai in 2007. He advises and invests in startups.
2. Tim Ferriss is the author of the book 4 Hour Work Week.
3. Melody McCloskey, manager of video at Current.tv.
4. Gary Vaynurchuk, wine and social media man.
5. Zappos, Garrett Camp talks with his shoes.

Here is a full picture of Camp's network, though from the picture below you can see it's actually pretty sparse.

gmctwitter.jpg

Alexis Ohanian

alexisprofile.jpgAlexis Ohanian is the co-founder of social news site Reddit. Reddit is old school and full of developers. Whom does its founder talk to most on Twitter?

1. Brad Parler, video dude at Powered Production.
2. Ian White is the creator of music sharing site Blip.fm.
3. Tony Adam, manager of search traffic acquisition at Yahoo.
4. Wil Wheaton, a famous guy who claims he disappoints everyone with his lack of responsiveness on Twitter.
5. Jacqui Cheng, Associate Editor at Ars Technica.

Here's the rest of Alexis' inner circle on Twitter.

kn0thingtwitter.jpg

Jeffrey Levy

JLevyprofile.jpgJeffrey Levy is the Web Manager at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He Tweets a lot, and well. Who does he Tweet with when he Tweets with other Tweeters?

1. Adriel Hampton works at the San Francisco City Attorney's Office and is a Goverment 2.0-head.
2. Ari Herzog is a strategic consultant.
3. Chris Dorobek, anchor at Federal News Radio.
4. Amy Gahran, a media consultant who was one of my (Marshall's) first web 2.0 heroes.
5. Dr. Mark Drapeau, Government 2.0 guy.

Check out the rest of Levy's inner Twitter circle here.

levyjtwitter.jpg

Jeremiah Owyang

jowyangprofile.jpgJeremiah Owyang has helped bring the stuffy world of corporate industry analysts into the Web 2.0 era of conversation as much as anyone has. He's got more than 36,000 people signed up to get his posts on Twitter, but there are some who he ends up conversing with more than others.

1. Peter Kim, former Forrester analyst with Owyang. Kim is now working on a stealth startup called the Dashis Corporation.
2. Jennifer Leggio, ZDNet social business blogger.
3. Shel Israel, Silicon Valley writer and communications guy.
4. Josh Bernoff, Jeremiah's fellow analyst at Forrester.
5. Amy Worley, VP of marketing at humor book publisher Andrews McMeel Publishing.

You can see the rest of Owyang's inner Twitter circle here.

jowangtwitter.jpg

Beth Kanter

kanterprofile2.jpgBeth Kanter is one of the most inspiring non-profit tech consultants in the world. She's raised thousands of dollars on Twitter and has friends from everywhere. Who does she have conversations with more than anyone else, though?

1. Marnie Webb is the co-CEO at Compumentor/TechSoup. You should get to know Marnie; once you do you'll wonder why you waited so long.
2. Amy Gahran, see Jeffrey Levy's list above. Gahran has a lot of conversation with a lot of awesome people.
3. Jonathon D. Colman does SEO for REI.
4. Beth Dunn is a consultant and MBA candidate.
5. Dr. Mani is an Indian entrepreneur and heart surgeon.

There are a lot of people in Kanter's circle. You can meet some of them here.

kantertwitter.jpg

That's a wrap!

We really like Pete Warden's site Mailana, where all these links and images come from, a lot. We like to combine Twellow and Mailana to find the most followed people in certain industries and then explore their circles of friends.

You should look yourself up on Mailana - you might be surprised who you converse with most often! The possibilities of these and all the tools that can be built on top of the wonderful Twitter API are nearly endless. Pretty interesting, is it not? Who's in your inner circle?

Comments [1]

March 14, 2009

UBUNTU Power!

artical by: daengbo (you can follow him on twitter too....)

Friday, March 13, 2009

Extra Repositories for Ubuntu 8.10 You Might Want

Ubuntu logoImage via Wikipedia
The repository system is a great strength of open-source operating systems, but some people want the latest-and-greatest of a particular application while keeping the core system unchanged. There is also the situation where non-free applications aren't available from within the standard repositories. In these two cases, adding outside repos can help you get the functionality you want. I've done some homework for you and here are the "Extra Repositories for Ubuntu 8.10 You Might Want." Simply open up
System > Administration > Software Sources 
and add the repository lines listed below as a third-party repository.

Here are your repositories!

Medibuntu

Medibuntu is the best way to get some video and audio playback capability that isn't included in Ubuntu 8.10 for patent reasons. If you live in a regioon which doesn't support these patents, you can go ahead and get them. Popular packages include:
  • Acrobat Reader
  • Firmware for the ALSA sound system
  • Google Earth
  • DVD decryption
  • MPlayer / MEncoder
  • Non-free codecs and
  • Skype
Add this line to Software Sources:
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ intrepid free non-free
When you are finished, install the medibuntu-keyring and app-install-data-medibuntu packages.

Wine

Ubuntu 8.10 ships with Wine 1.0, but the development version is able to run many more Windows programs. You can get the latest version from the Wine repository.


Add this line to Software Sources:
When you are finished, install the wine package.



OO.o3

OpenOffice.org 3.0 just missed the cut-off for Intrepid. If you want the additional functionality of 3.0, you'll need to add the PPA for the OO.o team.


Add this line to Software Sources:
When you are finished, upgrade and everything should be fine.


Opera

While Firefox is a great browser, some people just prefer Opera. Opera makes it easy for Debian-based OSes.


Add this line to Software Sources:
deb http://deb.opera.com/opera/ stable non-freeWhen you are finished, install the opera package.



Banshee

Banshee is an audio and video manager which is seeinging extremely rapid development. New features are added every month.

Add this line to Software Sources:
When you are finished, install the banshee package.



VideoLAN Client (VLC)

While I prefer Totem, many people, especially those recently from Windows, prefer the media player they've known and loved for years. VLC is in the repositories, but keeping up with recent versions means adding this line to Software Sources:
When you are finished, just install the vlc package. You can also get apt-cache-ng from this repo.

Boxee

Boxee is an amazing media center (derived from XMBC) that runs on OS X and Linux, and it does just about everything you could imagine. Right now, it's alpha, and you'll have to sign up on the Boxee registration page in order to use the software.

Add this line to Software Sources:
deb http://apt.boxee.tv intrepid main
When you are finished, just install the boxee package.

Elisa

If you don't need all the craziness of Boxee and just want a simple media center, take a look at Fluendo's Elisa. It uses GStreamer, already the default A/V decoder on Ubuntu, so it won't add a lot of weight to your installation.


Add this line to Software Sources:
When you are finished, install the elisa package and update your computer.


Netbook Remix

One of the most innovative things to come out of the Ubuntu camp is the neetbook remix interface. Want to try it out?

Add this line to Software Sources:
Then follow the detailed instructions on how to get it running.

Gnome Do

This launcher amazes everyone who tries it. These days, it even comes with an optional dock. Although I don't use it daily, I think everyone should give it a shot.

Add this line to Software Sources:
When you are finished, install the gnome-do package.

Deluge

Intrepid comes with the Transmission BitTorrent client installed, and Tranmission is fine, but Deluge is a full-featured client which rivals and may now beat the Azureus cum Vuze client that so many people swore by for years. As a bonus, Deluge is a GTK2 application, so it doesn't use up 50% of your CPU while running several torrents.
Deluge has a wide-array of features, including:
  • Web UI
  • BitTorrent Protocol Encryption
  • Mainline DHT
  • Local Peer Discovery (aka LSD)
  • FAST protocol extension
  • µTorrent Peer Exchange
  • UPnP and NAT-PMP
  • Proxy support
  • Private Torrents
  • Global and per-torrent speed limits
  • Password protection


Add this line to Software Sources:
When you are finished, install the deluge package.

Google Gadget

Google used to host a repo itself, but that went away and we are just left with a PPA for Google Gadgets. It's for Hardy (8.04), but there doesn't appear to be a problem with running it on Intrepid. Caveat emptor.


Add this line to Software Sources:
When you are finished, install the google-gadgets package.

Mythbuntu

If you installed Mythbuntu and want to keep up with the latest release of MythTV, including all kinds of extra plug-ins:

  • mytharchive create and burn DVD's from MythTV - binary file
  • mytharchive-data create and burn DVD's from MythTV - data files
  • mythcontrols External controls for MythTV
  • mythflix netflix module for MythTV
  • mythgallery Image gallery/slideshow add-on module for MythTV
  • mythgame Emulator & PC Game frontend module for MythTV
  • mythmovies Find nearby movies and cinema listings
  • mythmusic Music add-on module for MythTV
  • mythnews An RSS feed news reader module for MythTV
  • mythphone a phone and videophone module for MythTV
  • mythplugins Metapackage for MythTV plugins
  • mythvideo A generic video player frontend module for MythTV
  • mythweather Weather add-on module for MythTV
  • mythweb Web interface add-on module for MythTV
  • mythzoneminder view status and display footage recorded with zoneminder 
 Add this line to Software Sources:
When you are finished, update your installation.

Compiz

Compiz Fusion comes standard on Ubuntu, but you might want to keep up with the mosst current version to have all that extra BLING.

Add this line to Software Sources:
When you are finished, update your installation.

Miro

"Miro is a free HD video player." Somehow, the website's description falls so short that I don't know how Miro is as successful as it is. They must be going understated. It aggregates a browser, an RSS reader, a bittorent client, and a video player. Want TV on your computer? Get miro.


Add this line to Software Sources:
When you are finished, install the miro package.


Shutter

Vadi recommends Shutter (recently renamed from GScrot), an extremely capable screenshot tool. Features include:
  • take a screenshot of your complete desktop, a rectangular area or capture a website
  • take screenshot directly or with a specified delay time
  • save the screenshots to a specified directory and name them in a convenient way
    (using special wild-cards)
  • Shutter is fully integrated into the Gnome Desktop (TrayIcon etc.)
  • generate thumbnails directly when you are taking a screenshot and set a size level in %
  • Shutter session collection
    • keep track of all screenshots during session
    • copy screeners to clipboard
    • print screenshots
    • delete screenshots
    • rename your file
  • upload your files directly to Image-Hosters (e.g. http://ubuntu-pics.de), retrieve all the needed links and share them with others
  • edit your screenshots directly using the embedded drawing tool.
Add this line to Software Sources:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/shutter/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
When you are finished, install the shutter package.

Other Possibilities

Commenters recommend AppSpot and the Ubuntu PPA search to find repositories for applications you may need. AppSpot even has a grouping of recent searches to spur your imagination.

Keys

You'll have some package manager complaints about keys if you're not careful. Import these keys to get rid of the warnings. Allaun recommends using the NO_PUBKEY value (e.g. C5E6A5ED249AD24C) to add the key with the following command.
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com C5E6A5ED249AD24C

OpenOffice - http://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x60D11217247D1CFF

Gnome-DO - http://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x28A8205077558DD0

Deluge - http://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xC5E6A5ED249AD24C

Google - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

WineHQ - http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/Scott%20Ritchie.gpg

Comments [3]

March 11, 2009

easter eggs


Thank God those software developers have a sense of humor too. Though, they have their own arcane ways to express it. One such expression is through ‘Easter eggs’.

In the virtual world, it’s not chocolate and egg-whites, but little lines of code inserted into the main programs that show up through a combination of key strokes or commands. Often it is a prank or just a bit of playful ego on the part of the programmer that ‘hatches the egg’ but for us common folks the discovery is unexpected fun.

So here’s a look at the basket of some popular software Easter eggs found in some common Windows applications…

  1. Solitaire made easy (only in XP)

    2. If you are finding it difficult to win in Solitaire, just press Alt + Shift + 2. Presto! The game ends and you win.

  2. Foul play at FreeCell (only in XP)

    3. Start a new FreeCell game. Hold down Ctrl + Shift + F10 during play. A dialog box appears asking you to Abort, Retry or Ignore. Select Abort and then move any card anywhere to win the game.

  3. Window speaks proper (only in XP)

    4. Go to Control Panel, open up the Speech properties applet and in the Preview field type ‘Crotch’ (without the quote). The voice preview says “Crow’s nest” instead.

    firefox easter eggs

  4. Windows Welcome Music (only in XP)

    5. An ambient music track you might not have heard before. Navigate to C:WindowsSystem32. We are looking for a folder named ‘oobe’. This folder has a subfolder named ‘images’. In ‘images’ click on the sound file called ‘title.wma’ to hear the soothing track – Windows welcome music.

  5. Firefox’s comeback

    6. This was supposedly a rejoinder to the Internet Explorer 5’s own joke that the Mozilla browser caused system crashes. To see Firefox’s reply type ‘about:Mozilla’ (without the quotes) in the address bar and hit it.

    mozilla easter eggs

  6. Firefox and the kitchen sink

    7. In the address bar type in ‘about kitchensink’ (without the quote but with a space). Look at the interesting graphic that opens up.

  7. Running Firefox within another Firefox

    8. There doesn’t seem to be any apparent use for this but if you type in chrome://browser/content/browser.xul in the address bar, it will open up another Firefox instance but within the first browser.

  8. Chrome Pipes

    9. Open the Chrome browser and type in about:internets in the address bar. The background turns black and the old pipes ‘Microsoft’ screensaver plays out on the screen.

    chrome pipe plumbing

  9. Tetris in uTorrent

    10. Go to the uTorrent menu and click on Help – About. Tap ‘T’ on the keyboard and play a game of Tetris using the arrow keys on the keyboard.

    utorrent tetris

  10. Overload game with FeedDemon

    11. Enter FeedDemon Easter Egg in the web search address bar on the right hand side and hit enter. Play the funky information overload game with the arrow keys.

These are just 10 of the multitude of Easter eggs found in software and applications. There are dedicated sites which collate Easter eggs in wide ranging applications. Some of them deserve a mention.

Egg Heaven

A comprehensive site which lists Easter eggs in different categories and also has a section called Curios which mentions tricks and other program quirks.

Eeggs

Another widely inclusive site which has category listings such as DVD Easter Eggs, Software, Movies, Music, TV, Books and Art.

Mac OS Easter Eggs

Mac Users can try out the listings available here.

SoftwareTipsAndTricks

Another good list site with a section on Easter eggs.

Gamespot

The gaming site includes information about some of the greatest Easter eggs in gaming.

In listing just ten, I have deliberately missed out a lot more. Do you have a favorite Easter Egg of your own? Let us know…perhaps it deserves a mention.

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March 11, 2009

New Cool and FREE




 Check out some of the latest makeuseof discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For even more app reviews subscribe to makeuseof directory.

 

(1) DynasTree - A web-based family tree builder that helps you to discover your personal family history and stay in touch with relatives by creating a family tree online. Read more: Dynastree - Online Family Tree Builder.

(2) Online-Sign - An excellent resource where you can find all sorts of printable warning labels, add your own text and print them out. You can search and browse them by categories such as warning, prohibition, mandatory, safe condition, public information, hazard warning, fire equipment, OSHA signs…. etc. Read more: Online-Sign - Free Printable Warning Labels.

(3) Soovle - This search aid tool instantly suggests related searches to your search keyword from 7 popular search engines: Google, Yahoo, Ask, YouTube, Amazon, Wikipedia and Answers.com. Read more: Soovle - Get Search Suggestions From 7 Major Engines

(4) UnitConverter - Convert just about anything to anything else. This tool supports angle, area, bits & bytes, density, electric current, energy, force, length, mass, power, pressure, speed, temperature, time etc. Read more: Unit Converter - Instant Unit Converting.

(5) Upit.to - One click upload file hosting service that provides you with unlimited file storage and sharing. The service is absolutely free and you can upload files upto 5GB in size. Read more: Upit.to - Unlimited File Storage & Sharing Online.

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February 27, 2009

Picture this...Free.... Style. That is how we roll.


1. GIMP

GIMP stands for “GNU image manipulation program”, and it is one of the oldest and most well known alternatives to Photoshop in existence. Although it doesn’t quite have all of them, you’ll find most of the features included in Photoshop somewhere in GIMP. GIMP is cross platform and supported by a large community.

If just having the feature set isn’t enough for you, there is an alternative based on GIMP known as GIMPShop. It’s the same as GIMP, except the layout has been structured as close to Photoshop as possible, so anyone making the transition should still feel right at home.

GIMP - screen shot.

2. Krita

Krita has been lauded for ease of use and won the Akademy Award for Best Application in 2006. Part of the Koffice suite for Linux, Krita is slightly less powerful than both Photoshop and GIMP, but does contain some unique features.

Krita - screen shot.

3. Paint.NET

Paint.NET has grown out of a simple replacement for the well known MSPaint into a fully featured open source image editor with a wide support base. You’ll need Windows to run Paint.NET.

Paint.NET - screen shot.

4. ChocoFlop

ChocoFlop is a design application designed exclusively for Mac, optimized for Mac architecture. It’s quick and fairly well featured. This program won’t always be free, but until a stable version is released (it’s currently in beta) they are allowing free use. The program works pretty well as is, and if you’re the type who doesn’t mind an occasional bug it’s certainly worth a look.

ChocoFlop - screen shot.

5. Cinepaint

Cinepaint is designed primarily for video often used to make animated feature films by major studios, but it is also a great image editor capable of high fidelity 32 bit color. Currently there is no stable version for Windows.

Cinepaint - screen shot.

6. Pixia

Pixia was originally designed in Japanese but English versions now exist for this rich editor. Although the original focus was on anime/manga, it is a very capable editor in general. Some of the features are a little counter intuitive, but there are plenty of English tutorials available now if you want to give it a shot. The website seems to have changed recently, so be sure to use our link if you don’t want a Japanese error message. Pixia works for Windows.

Pixia - screen shot.

7. Pixen

Pixen is designed as a pixel artist’s dream, but has expanded into a smooth and well featured overall editor. It’s definitely best at animation though, if that’s your style. Pixen is Mac (10.4x or later) only.

Pixen - screen shot.

8. Picnik

Picnik is a web based photo editor that has recently taken off due to a partnership with Flickr. It has all the basic features plus a few advanced ones like layers and special effects. It is cross platform since you only need a browser.

Picnik - screen shot.

9. Splashup

Another web based application, Splashup has a strong set of features (including those layers) and will remind you somewhat of Photoshop. It integrates easily with photo sharing websites and just like the above, is cross platform.

Splashup - screen shot.

10. Adobe Photoshop Express

Adobe actually has a free web based photo editor of their own. It has all the basic functionality you’d expect as well as a few advanced features (sadly though, no layers), and interfaces well with a number of photo sharing websites. Again, completely cross platform.

Adobe Photoshop Express - screen shot.

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February 26, 2009

Open Course Tools for the New Economy


The Ultimate Open Courseware Toolset: 60+ Directories, Search Engines, and Web Tools

February 19, 2009

Open courseware has expanded to the extent that directories, lists, search engines, archives and Web tools are available free to anyone who chooses to learn through the Internet. The following list contains some individual tools, but on the whole, this list is filled with links to sites and pages that offer more links to even more resources. So, if you’re looking for an open source tool to create a video, go under “tools” below to find two links to sites filled with open source software resources.

All links under the categories below are listed in alphabetical order. This alphabetical method of organization also shows that we do not value open courseware project over another.

Directories

The following directories have done the work for you, discovering various open courseware projects from around the world or that are focused on one specific area of study. You can find books, video lectures, teaching tools and more, all labeled with the open courseware tag.

  1. 70+ Apps, Search Engines and Resources for Free Learning: You can find many open courseware projects through this directory, which lists search engines and directories, collections and more.
  2. 100 Free Open Courseware Classes About Open Source Everything : This list provides links to courses on Linux, Open Source philosophy, legal issues and more.
  3. 100+ Open Courseware Resources for Teachers: From educational approaches and theories to Open Courseware resource material, teachers can enjoy the offerings listed in this directory.
  4. 101 Killer Open Courseware Projects from Around the World: Ivy League and Beyond: This list of open courseware projects worldwide offered by colleges and universities. Course materials run the gamut from lesson plans to podcasts to video lectures.
  5. 236 Open Courseware Collections, Podcasts, and Videos: Online Education Database provides an extensive list of open courseware collections in this directory.
  6. American Memory: This link takes you to the directory filled with eighteen collections within the Library of Congress. This free and open resource contains a great repository of primary and secondary source materials on American history and creativity.
  7. British Academy Portal: This is the British Academy’s directory of online resources in the humanities and social sciences. It is designed as an entry point to available resources for those working in higher education and research.
  8. Free Online Open Courseware Directory in Arts & Humanities: Find dozens of links for open courseware in the arts and humanities here, including design, English, game art, theology and writing.
  9. Free Open Courseware Directory: This list, categorized by subjects such as arts and humanities and health and medical, is offered by College@Home.
  10. iBerry: Based upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states, “Everyone has the right to education,” iBerry offers their Academic Porthole and Open Courseware Directory categorized by main sites, subject and OER (Open Educational Resources).
  11. MIT Open Courseware: Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a world leader in offering open courseware. Their offerings are so extensive that they’ve offered this directory to help viewers find the information they need.
  12. Open Courseware Consortium: The hub for international open courseware members, this site will help you find course materials from across the globe.
  13. Open Learn Learning Space Directory: Categorized by topic, this directory provides a guideline for open courseware provided by the ever-expanding Open University.
  14. Open Video Project: The Open Video Project is managed at the Interaction Design Laboratory, at the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This directory is building into one of the largest directories of educational videos online.
  15. OpenCourseWare School Rankings: This is a list of twenty-five colleges and universities ranked by the Open Courseware. But, it’s much more: you can click on the links and each link provides more links to the actual courseware or projects.
  16. OpenCourseware Swik: Keep an eye on this page as it’s constantly updated with material that is tagged with the “opencourseware.” You can find many new open courseware resources through this page.
  17. Self Made Scholar: This is a list of all the Open Courseware projects produced by universities and colleges.
  18. Stingy Scholar’s University Podcasts, Webcasts and OCWs: This is a cool way to find open courseware — through a map. Just find a source in the list at left, and the map will zoom in on the resource. The resource itself will have links that will take you directly to corresponding Web sites.
  19. The Academic Blog Portal: This is the main portal page for the academic blogs wiki, a kind of “Invisible College” that is supposed to help make the college more visible. This categorized list provides many links to academic blogs that expound on topics from the arts to social sciences and more.
  20. The Bard’s Song: The Bard’s Song serves as a directory of information on cinema and filmmaking, literature, various forms of music, performance arts such as theater and dance, and visual arts, including photography and drawing.
  21. Top 100 Open Courseware Projects : This large list contains information about open courseware projects, labeled by categories from agriculture to social sciences.
  22. World Lecture Hall: This is your entry point to free online course materials from around the world. Find a course, browse by area, conduct advanced searches and more.

Search Engines and Archives

Search engines provide a means to find open courseware easily. Archives, like search engines, provide easy access to materials you may need. Both types of search tools are listed below.

  1. Archive Grid: Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to ArchiveGrid. Researchers using ArchiveGrid can learn about the many items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange a visit to examine materials, and order copies.
  2. Archives Made Easy: Find archives and search materials from all over the globe. Start in Australia and end up in Vietnam if you choose, with stops in Ireland, Mongolia and Singapore along the way. Please note that only archives that have been reviewed will appear on this site.
  3. Directory of Open Access Journals : This service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. They have over 1369 journals searchable at article level through the search engine or by categorized topic links.
  4. Fathom Archive: This archive, provided by Columbia University, offers access to the complete range of free content developed for Fathom by its member institutions. Columbia encourages you to browse this archive of online learning resources, including lectures, articles, interviews, exhibits and free seminars.
  5. Google Scholar: Search for Web information, images, video, news and more through this popular search engine. The difference is that this particular engine is designed for research and scholars.
  6. INFOmine: Search through categories such as business and economics, government information, maps and GIS and more with this search engine. This site is rapidly gaining pace is a comprehensive scholarly Internet resource for collections.
  7. Internet Archive: The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, continuously adds to their digital library. You’ll discover Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, they provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.
  8. Internet TV Search Engine : Looking for documentaries? Want to find online lectures? Try this search engine, a product of WebTVGuide.
  9. Intute: Intute is a free online service providing access to the very best web resources for education and research. All material is evaluated and selected by a network of subject specialists to create the Intute database.
  10. Irish Resources in the Humanities: Although this site began as a directory, it is growing into an archival search machine. Internet sites are chosen for their information, categorized and listed. But, now you also can use an advanced search feature to discover information.
  11. Librarian’s Internet Index: Categorized by topic, this search engine will help you to find hand-picked sites appropriate for scholarly research. Each topic is defined by subcategories to help you refine your searches.
  12. Open Courseware Finder: This search engine belongs to the Open Courseware Consortium, and it provides an easy way to discover the Open Courseware materials you need.
  13. Repositories of Primary Sources: Use this listing of over 5000 websites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources for the research scholar.
  14. UK Data Archive: This search engine is an internationally-renowned repository of expertise in data acquisition, preservation, dissemination and promotion. It serves as a “curator” of the largest collection of digital data in the social sciences and humanities in the UK.
  15. Voice of the Shuttle: Started in 1994 as a suite of static Web pages, VoS has now been rebuilt as a database that serves content dynamically on the Web. Users gain greater flexibility in viewing and searching now through categories and subcategories detailed in outline format.
  16. World Public Library: This site provides a full text search of 75,000+ HTML eBooks. Stay tuned, as each year the World Public Library nearly doubles its entire digital holdings.

Web Tools

Open courseware leads to eLearning, which in turn leads to the need for tools that are open source or free to use. The follow list, which by no means taps the depth of online offerings, provides a broad range of Web tools that can help teachers, parents and students of any age. Find teaching hubs, free books and more below.

  1. BBC Learning: Although this tool is based upon a corporate environment, it is open, useful and available worldwide. It is included, as the advice and information available here is useful for parents, teachers and students. And, it’s free.
  2. Curriki: Curriki is a community of educators, learners and committed education experts who are working together to create quality materials that will benefit teachers and students around the world. Help support the development and free distribution of world-class educational materials to anyone who needs them.
  3. Dimdim: Do you need a platform for videoconferencing, live presentations, whiteboards and Web pages? Try Dimdim, a tool that helps you to share voice and video over the Internet without a download.
  4. Docebo: Docebo is an Open Source e-Learning platform (LMS and LCMS) used in corporate and higher education markets. The Platform supports 18 languages and can support different didactic models as well.
  5. e-Learning Centre: Based in the UK, the e-Learning Centre is a free information resource for learning and development professionals and academics and staff developers.
  6. e-Learning Guru: eLearners will have a ball with this site, as it approaches every aspect of eLearning from an open source aspect. Learn news about free Web conferencing services, video phones for virtual test proctoring and more expert analysis, emerging trends and free information.
  7. Edubuntu: Edubuntu’s objective is to create an integrated and usable experience for educational users by enhancing Ubuntu with educational applications, tools, content, and themes.
  8. elearnspace: This site belongs to George Siemens, Founder and President of Complexive Systems Inc., a learning lab focused on assisting organizations develop integrated learning structures to meet the needs of global strategy execution. It has grown over the past year, and it is a great tool for anyone who wants to learn about eLearning.
  9. Global Network Academy: This is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose purpose is the research and development of open source tools that promote distance learning and online communities.
  10. Merlot: Find peer reviewed online teaching and learning materials. Share advice and expertise about education with expert colleagues and be recognized for your contributions to quality education.
  11. Moodle: Moodle is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites.
  12. OER Commons: OER content is made free to use or share, and in some cases, to change and share again, made possible through licensing, so that both teachers and learners can share what they know. Browse and search OER Commons to find curriculum, and tag, rate, and review it for others.
  13. Open Book Project: The Open Book Project is aimed at the educational community and seeks to encourage and coordinate collaboration among students and teachers for the development of high quality, freely distributable textbooks and educational materials on a wide range of topics.
  14. Open Source Education Foundation: The Open Source Education Foundation’s purpose to enhance k-12 education through the use of technologies and concepts derived from The Open Source and Free Software movement. They recently gained a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit status.
  15. Open Source Living: a community-driven dynamic archive of Open Source software spanning all major platforms. The archive is the backbone of this site, but you can join a community filled with OSS enthusiasts and use the publication outlet as well.
  16. Open-Site: This is a free, trusted online encyclopedia that is edited by volunteer editors. The project is growing, with categories that range from the arts to sports.
  17. Osalt: Open source education thrives on open source software. Use this tool to find open source alternatives to your favorite commercial products. Browse through software categories and compare pros and cons of both commercial products as well as open source software.
  18. Project Gutenberg: No list of Open Courseware tools would be complete without mention of the Project Gutenberg. You’ll find over 27,000 free books in this online library, and a grand total of oer 100,000 titles available.
  19. SchoolForge: SchoolForge’s mission is to unify independent organizations that advocate, use, and develop open resources for education.
  20. SparkNotes: Direct your young scholars and college students to this site, where they can gain access to study notes on topics from literature to poetry. While this site is no substitute for reading a book, users gain insight to their readings through these supplements.
  21. The National Center for Open Source and Education: NCOSE exists to champion the use of Free and Open Source Software in K-12 schools, to empower teachers to be heroes to their students through the use of Open Technologies and to be the vital bridge between the United States and international Open Source and Education efforts.
  22. WikiBooks: WikiBooks is a Wikimedia community for creating a free library of educational textbooks that anyone can edit. WikiBooks began on July 10, 2003; since then, WikiBooks has grown to include over 34,339 pages in a multitude of textbooks created by volunteers.
  23. Wikiversity : This is another Wikimedia project devoted to learning resources, learning projects and research for use in all levels, types and styles of education from preschool to university.

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February 22, 2009

GO LIVE or GO Home!



ive Five

Five Best Live CDs

By Jason Fitzpatrick, 9:00 AM on Sun Feb 22 2009, 18,262 views

Live CDs (and DVDs) are versatile tools, allowing you to boot into an operating system without installing anything to your hard drives. Let's take a closer look at the five most popular live CDs.

Photo by bulinna.

Earlier this week we asked you to tell us which live CD was your favorite. After tallying the votes we're back to share the top five contenders. The following tools are unique compared to many of our software Hive Fives in that they are entirely independent of the main operating system installed on the computer. Live CDs load into the memory and allow you to use operating systems and accompanying tools without having to perform a permanent installation on the machine.

Knoppix

Knoppix is a Debian-based Linux distribution and one of the first Linux live CDs that was available. While the Knoppix distribution is packed with open-source goodness, one of the most popular uses for Knoppix is recovering files from damaged drives. To that end Knoppix is packed with open-source applications for testing disk integrity, recovering files, reading corrupted drives, and more. There are a total of 2,000 programs packed into the disc covering everything from disc recovery to media playback.

Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows

The Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows has a familiar interface. If you're a Windows user, booting into a copy of Linux to get work done could be disorienting. The Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows uses your Windows installation discs (only Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 are officially supported) to create a bootable version of Windows contained on a disc. Tons of quality Windows-based tools are included in the custom disc covering everything from backing up and cloning your discs to running diagnostics to partitioning and recovering data. Many of the tools on the disc are tools you may already be somewhat acquainted with, like UltraVNC, Recuva, and CCleaner. If you're looking for a well packed toolbox that keeps you firmly planted in a comfortable Windows environment, The Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows is an excellent choice.

Puppy Linux

Puppy Linux belongs to the family of ultra small linux distributions. Weighing in at under 100MB, it can easily be loaded on everything from a CD to a USB drive. The user interface is friendly even for a non-Linux user, and the basic tools you need for partitioning and file recovery are readily available—although it's just as great for web browsing and basic computing. Puppy Linux also has a rather handy feature: If you burn it to a re-writable CD, you can save your user settings for your next session.

BackTrack

BackTrack isn't going to help you recover your lost vacation pictures, but it will make sure nobody can get into your network to steal them. Packed with 300 tools covering everything from packet sniffing to hot spot probing to brute force password attacks, BackTrack is live CD designed to facilitate penetration testing of computers and networks. Deployed by a skilled user, BackTrack will leave no corner of your computer and network security un-poked, scanned, prodded, and analyzed. If BackTrack was your friend, he'd be the friend who responded to you bragging about how secure your new house was by throwing a brick through the front window to prove otherwise. (You have weird friends.)

Ubuntu

Ubuntu's enormous popularity as the mainstream Linux distribution certainly helps bolster its rank among live CDs. Many a new user to Ubuntu has messed around with the operating system using a live CD before using that very same live CD to install the full operating system. Even if you don't intend to do a full install, just like Puppy Linux you can do all manner of computing tasks without leaving a trace on the computer you're using. The Ubuntu live CD comes packed with Open Office, Firefox, Pidgin, the BitTorrent client Transmission, and the open source image editor GIMP—a decent stable of tools for using Ubuntu as a portable computing platform.




The following live CDs are worthy of honorary mention: Ophcrack is an extremely efficient rainbow-table based Windows password cracker (here's how it works). Hiren's Boot CD is a DOS-based boot disk that is absolutely packed with utilities like Partition Magic, Disk Director Suite, and Norton Ghost. A final nod goes to Gparted, a tool incorporated into many of the above live CDs. GParted is robust disk partitioning tool for creating, destroying, organizing and mirroring hard disks.


The five and accompanying honorable mentions merely reflect the most popular portion of the live CD based tools out there.

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