Knowliz

How the Web paid tribute to Michael Jackson!

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:37:00 +0000

The news about Michael Jackson's untimely death shocked the world. The blogosphere started flooding with news on various mediums including Twitter, Friendfeed and Facebook. In no time apparently everyone was talking about Michael Jackson’s demise on 25th June, 2009.

There were even some instances that people were seeing rumored news about other celebrities death as well. But rumors are rumors.

So lets have a look how Web (internet) paid tribute to this world fame celebrity – Michael Jackson:

Michael Jackson Facebook fan page has over 4,778,212 fan (at the time of writing)
Michael Jackson Ultimate Playlist on Entertainment Weekly has got a collection of 16 best songs of Michael arranged in playlist.
On many music destinations like Lala, Last.fm & iMeem etc. Michael Jackson is on #1 of their list for the week.
View Michael Jackson: A Life in Pictures.
Michael Jackson to be made into butter statue.
The two best Michael Jackson videos have been viewed over 46,701,146 (The Thriller) and 31,638,839 (Beat it) on YouTube. Below is the embed for Thriller for quick viewing.
Top discussed topics and shared links on twitter (using Topsy)
Michael Jackson dies : TMZ.com (4634 Tweets) – News Breaker
Billie Tweets - a Twitter tribute to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" (1613 Tweets) – A cool interface showing song lyrics included in tweets.
Michael Jackson: A Video Tribute at Mashable (415 Tweets) – A collection of
Not even that, it is said that people who never heard of Michael Jackson, or may be just heard of him, have become his fan after his death.
And don’t just look at the people paying tribute but also there are people taking benefit of Michael Jackson’s death by trying to spread the malwares.
In fact, TechCrunch even noted that The Web Collapses Under The Weight Of Michael Jackson’s Death.

And why not should the web get collapses when everyone everywhere is talking about Michael Jackson only whether it is Google, The New York Time, Twitter, Facebook or any other social network or new source for that matter.

Myself, at Knowliz, would also like to pay a small tribute to ‘The King of Pop’ Michael Jackson by remembering him today through this post and collecting some sources of information, songs, videos and articles etc. to give Knowliz readers a way to quickly learn about Michael.

Feel free to share the best articles, videos, songs and blogs you came across for this great artist. Share it on Facebook, Twitter and with all your friends and pay a small tribute yourself.

Technorati Tags: Michael Jackson,Tribute,Music,Artist,News

Solution: iPhone Battery Drain, Apps crash, Slow response - OS3.0 Update Problems

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:41:00 +0000

I am sure all iPhone users are happy to see the latest Firmware update from Apple – OS3.0. Because they get the most wanted feature – Cut, Copy, Paste and many more enhancements including Push notifications. Find out 40 awesome iPhone 3.0 features you can expect from this upgrade.
And most probably, everyone owning an iPhone might have already upgraded it to 3.0 using iTunes. If not, then I suggest you do it today.

As always not everything comes wrapped into a gift package for you. All good things comes with some problems too. That’s true for iPhone 3.0 update too.
A lot of people (including me) are reporting that the after iPhone 3.0 upgrade, they are seeing significant battery life drop, more apps crashing and some apps even fail to load at all. They are also reporting that the overall response time of iPhone has reduced drastically. Page refresh takes longer than expected and apps take more time than ever to even load. Even the phone seems to be hot all the time.

Everything is sluggish after the upgrade: scrolling, the home screen, and especially 3d games, the frame rate gets terribly choppy. This never happened before with 2.2.1. I've restarted the phone, restored it in iTunes, nothing seems to help.
I've unchecked everything under Settings > General > Search Results thinking it could be a Spotlight indexing problem, but it hasn't made a difference. This is maddening, hope someone figures this out soon!
………says el maynardo

If you are also among those people, then don’t worry, you are not alone. And be happy, I have found a solution which worked for me. Most probably will work for you too.
One thing before you start following this guide, please understand, this method may or may not work for you. But be assured you are not going to lose anything even if it doesn’t work out for you. Though in any case, please follow this guide on you own risk, I am not responsible if anything goes wrong.
Frankly speaking, the culprit in most of the cases is ‘Push Notification’.
There are various workarounds and involves many steps of testing to see what exactly is the culprit in your case.
Method 1:
Try disabling ‘Notification’ under ‘Settings’. It has been reported that this step has helped some people.

Method 2:
This step can be combined along with Method 1. Try disabling ‘Fetch New Data’ under ‘Settings –> Mail, Contacts, Calendars’ to OFF. That has also helped some people.

Note for Jailbreakers and Unlockers of iPhone: If you are among those people who have unlocked your iPhone to use it with T-Mobile. And if you are not subscribed to any data plan, then please understand ‘Push Notification’ doesn’t make any sense to you. So just go ahead and disable it right away. (explained later)
Why? Because if you don’t have any data plan, your iPhone keeps trying to connect to the Push server and drains the battery. If you are not subscribed to any data plan then ‘Push Notification’ doesn’t even makes sense, because you are not connect to internet all the time.

If it doesn’t help, then go ahead and follow rest of the guide.
Method 3:
This method involves connecting iPhone to iTunes on your computer and resetting it to factory settings. Please follow the rest of the article very carefully:
AT&T Subscribers:

Restart your computer and iPhone before going to the next step. (This is to make sure no background process is running on any device.)
Open iTunes on your computer.
Connect your iPhone to computer using USB cable came with your iPhone.
Once iTunes recognizes your iPhone, right-click on the phone and select ‘Back-up iPhone’. (This is to make sure your iPhone is properly backed-up and you don’t loose any app and data from your device.)
Once the back up is complete, go to the iPhone ‘Info’ tab in iTunes as shown below.
Click ‘Restore’ to restore your iPhone to its Factory settings.
Follow on screen prompts to complete the process.
Once the process is complete, disconnect iPhone from your computer.
Check if everything works fine. If it works then you should see a message to update it again to 3.0 in the Info tab mentioned above.
Update by following on screen prompts.
Re-sync your iPhone by restoring your old profile. This old profile was created in step 4.

AT&T users please skip rest of the points mentioned below as they are written for T-Mobile users and those who want to use iPhone by unlocking it.

Other than AT&T subscribers:
If you are going to use T-Mobile by Jailbreaking and unlocking it. Then nothing would seems to work right now as it is not unlocked yet. You won’t be able to make any calls or anything.
So now the first step is to Jailbreak it so that it at least works as an iPod Touch. Follow the steps mentioned in this post and then come back here.
Follow Method 1 and 2 to save on battery life.
Your iPhone should be running faster now. Apps will be launching and running smoothly and hopefully they won’t be crashing any more.

I was able to sort out the battery problem by following the above mentioned process, which is basically to restore and reinstall only. But it works and hopefully will work for you too. Everyone seems to report various results, but restoring and reinstalling has helped most of us.
There is something really wrong with OS3.0 update ‘Push Notification’ which causes the battery to drain very fast. Hopefully we will see a 3.0.1 update from Apple soon to resolve this issue.
If you want to see the responses and problems other people are facing, please head over to Apple Discussion thread.
Please drop in your comments below to let me know if any method worked for you or if you are seeing any more problems. And if this article solved your problem then a little appreciation by sharing this post on Digg, Stumble, Facebook and Twitter etc wouldn’t hurt anyone. Will it…???

Technorati Tags: iPhone,Apple,OS 3.0,Cydia,redsn0w,ultrasn0w

Knowliz: Monthly Recap - June 2009

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:08:00 +0000

Once again month end is here. Half year is gone. And as 30th brings June 2009 to an end, I am here again with the monthly recap for June 2009. Here are the articles published on Knowliz in this month.
Just so you know, this month Knowliz reached a milestone of 400 articles filled with Tips & tricks, tutorials, reviews and many many lists on various topics. You may want to looks into the archives to see what interests you and read it through yourself.

Please click through the links to read the articles you missed or if you want to share them with your friends. Here is the list:

Gadget & Electronics Deals of the Week – 4th July Edition: Cool deals on Electronics and gadgets.
Unlock iPhone 3G 3.0 on Windows using redsn0w: How to: Ever wanted to know how to unlock and iPhone so that to use it with T-Mobile. Read this post for complete details.
51 Best Abstract iPhone Wallpapers – Fun Sunday Series: A cool collection of iPhone wallpapers. This is a Fun Sunday Series which will appear every Sunday on Knowliz.
Best of Blogosphere (BoB) – Week Ending 20th June: As the title says, best articles from Blogosphere on that particular week. Read it as it has many really good articles from various sources.
20+ Places to Listen & Share Music for FREE: A collection of over 20 services that lets you listen to music for FREE and let you share them with your friends on Twitter and Facebook etc.
Use IMs to update Twitter, Facebook, Blogger etc. using Pixelpipe: I know it becomes very tough to keep all your social profiles up to date all the time. That’s why this article shows you how you can easily.
20+ Ways to Share Photos/Images on Twitter: Another collection of over 20 services that lets you share photos and images on Twitter. Bookmark this article and share it with your friends who might be interested in this.
DISQUS, IntenseDebate & JS-Kit – Analysis: 3 comment services dominate the entire Blogosphere. But what is what and how do you make a choice, find out here in this article.
Indian Govt. has Online Grievance Forum now: Quite surprisingly, Indian Govt. has also got some online presence. Looks like now you can at least complain to the government directly using this Online Grievance Forum.
Why PC World wants me to renew 6 months before my yearly subscription expires: I don’t understand it. If you are also among those people then let me know your response to such early renewal notices from various magazines like PC World, PC Magazine and Money etc.
CardStar iPhone App reduces your wallet and keychain weight: No month can go without an iPhone App review. If you don’t know CardStar is a Free iPhone App which converts all your keychain tags and membership cards into digital format. This app you can use to check out and get the generated bar code scanned at the service desk.
Gadget & Electronics Offers of the week! Dad & Grad Special: Another article with lots of Electronics and Gadget deals.
How to send email in Hindi and other Indian Languages: Have you ever wished to send an email to your mom and granny in the language they understand? No problem, you can go through the details in this article and start sending the emails in your own native Indian language.
How to Uninstall Adobe Air Applications on Ubuntu? I know sometimes there is no easy way to uninstall applications on Ubuntu. But if that happen to be an Adobe Air application, then you came to the right place. Go through this artilce for details.

Hope you find Knowliz not only interesting but also a good source of information providing lots of tips and tricks on technology and other topics. Keep reading Knowliz and help me bring the best to you always.

Gadget & Electronics Deals of the Week – 4th July Edition

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:10:00 +0000

There are some really good deals for you below through our sponsors from Gadget and Electronics section. I hope you will like them. Please hurry as most offers end 4th July, 2009.

Coupon Code Deals:

Acer Aspire One Ultra Thin AOD250-1116 10.1 inch XP Home Netbook (6 cell) $274.99 Free Shipping after coupon code SUMMER20 - http://bit.ly/zvnve
Hitachi 1TB HDT721010SLA360 7200rpm 16MB Hard Drive $69.99 Free Shipping - http://bit.ly/7kBzj
Samsung 2243SWX 21.5 inch Wide Screen 1000:1 LCD Monitor $184.99 Free Shipping after coupon code SUMMER10 - http://bit.ly/gVajJ
Samsung HZ10W 10.2MP Digital Camera (Black) $227.99 Free Shipping after coupon code SUMMER10 - http://bit.ly/L2fP2
ViewSonic VG1930WM 19 inch Widescreen LCD Monitor $149.99 Free Shipping after coupon code SUMMER10 - http://bit.ly/ofUHA
Nikon COOLPIX S220 10MP Digital Camera (Silver) $139.99 Free Shipping - http://bit.ly/p3uuR
Save EXTRA 10% off Sony LCD TVs 37" and larger with code SONYLCD1 6/21-7/4 at Sears - http://bit.ly/kTrdQ

Dollar or % OFF Deals:

5% - 17% Off Select Digital Cameras at Best Buy, Valid 6/28-7/4 - http://bit.ly/IIr2y
5% - 15% Off Select Digital Camcorders at Best Buy, Valid 6/28-7/4 - http://bit.ly/173BzU
10% - 34% Off Select GPS Receivers, Plus Free Shipping at Best Buy, Valid 6/28-7/4 - http://bit.ly/LDkTh
Samsung 32" Class 720p LCD HDTV only $449.99 after $100 Instant Savings at cart 6/28-7/4. Save $100! at Sears - http://bit.ly/DTJEC

Electronics Sale:

Laptops As Low As $349.99 at Best Buy, Valid 6/28-7/4 - http://bit.ly/ocBSg
Garmin - nüvi 260W Portable GPS at Best Buy - http://bit.ly/AZKNO
Nikon - 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera – Black at Best Buy - http://bit.ly/NvE7S
Apple® - iPod touch® 8GB MP3 Player – Black at Best Buy - http://bit.ly/KsKjI
Dell - Inspiron Laptop with Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Processor T3400 - Pacific Blue at Best Buy - http://bit.ly/2rpcRX

Enjoy these cool offers on this 4th July week. Most of these offers are valid till 4th July, so hurry. You might not get a better deal than these in near future. I will be back with more offers next week.

Technorati Tags: Deals,Sale,Electronics,Shopping

Unlock iPhone 3G 3.0 on Windows using redsn0w: How-to

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:49:00 +0000

If you are not among the people who bought an iPhone in US from AT&T, then the chances are your iPhone is locked and it can’t be used as it is with T-Mobile and other service providers. However if you bought iPhone in Europe or India then you might have already bought a factory unlocked iPhone.

To use it with T-Mobile and all, you will have to unlock this device. Unlocking an iPhone involves two steps, one Jailbreak and then unlock.

Jailbreaking is required to install Cydia which obviously is not available through iTunes store. Please follow the below mentioned method to jailbreak and unlock your iPhone so that it can be used other than AT&T.

Step 1: Jailbreaking the iPhone:

Restart your computer and iPhone before going to the next step. (This is to make sure no background process is running on any device.)
Open iTunes on your computer.
Connect your iPhone to computer using USB cable came with your iPhone.
Head over to iPhone Dev Team Blog to download the official torrent for ‘redsn0w’. ‘Redsn0w’ is a must download to jailbreak iPhone 3G and other devices but not iPhone 3GS.
(I assume you know how to download file using a torrent. Else use one of the unofficial mirror location to the file.)
Either download Apple iPhone 3.0 firmware update file,‘iPhone1,2_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw’ or search if it already exist on your computer provided you upgraded to 3.0 already.
Once you have successfully downloaded ‘Redsn0w’, please run the file by double-clicking it.
On the very first screen you will see ‘Browse’ button, please click on it to select the ‘Firmware restore’ file from step 5.
Select ‘Next’ to go to the next screen. After you click ‘next’ please don’t select ‘Icy’ at this time, let ‘Cydia’ selected before continuing.
Click Next and follow on screen prompts to jailbreak your iPhone.
(Your iPhone may restart several times. You might even feel that your iPhone is not responding, but don’t worry, just have little patience. Let redsn0w do its job.)
Once the process is complete you will be able to see the default ‘Home’ screen know as ‘Springboard’ on your iPhone. You can play with it at this time as an iPod Touch. But you won’t be able to make any calls yet.
You will see a new app on your iPhone called ‘Cydia’. This is where you can install various awesome apps that are not officially available from Apple iTunes.

If you are on AT&T and just wanted to download and use some unofficial apps which are not available in iTunes store, then you don’t need to unlock your iPhone.

Launch Cydia to search and install these apps from it. Qik, Ustream Broadcaster are some of the cool apps you can try to start recording and broadcasting video from your iPhone 3G. Or read this article to know how you can record video from your iPhone.

If you are on T-Mobile or other networks, then you will need to unlock your iPhone to use it as a phone. Please read further steps mentioned below.

Step 2: Unlocking the iPhone:

Connect iPhone to some Wi-Fi network.
Launch Cydia, let it load the packages. Please select ‘User Graphics Only’ if you are not a developer. (Most of us fall into this category.)
Select ‘Upgrade essentials’ to reload Cydia contents.
Go to ‘Manage’ tab and then select ‘Sources’
Click on ‘+’ to add a source as ‘http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com’.
Let Cydia reload the content once again. Once done, search for ‘ultrasn0w’ and run it.
Once the process it complete you can restart iPhone once and insert your T-Mobile SIM card. Now you will be able to make call and use iPhone as a phone too. (Make sure 3G is off.)
Congratulations, your iPhone is now unlocked and can be used with any GSM SIM card.
Restart your iPhone and insert the SIM card. Enjoy….

Disclaimer: It goes without saying, it is your responsibility to check and follow the on screen prompts properly. Software and other downloads are created and maintained by iPhone Dev Team. It is your responsibility to understand warranty issues and all and I can’t be held responsible if anything goes wrong with your device.

Edit: Just realised that this is the 400th Post on Knowliz. I think I have come a long way on Knowliz with 400 unique articles and obviously there is a long way to go.... Thanks to everyone who made this possible by giving some attention to Knowliz and appreciating the content time to time.

Technorati Tags: Unlock,Jailbreak,iPhone,Apple,Cydia,redsn0w,ultrasn0w

51 Best Abstract iPhone Wallpapers – Fun Sunday Series

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:52:00 +0000

Today I have brought you an exhaustive collection of 51 Best Abstract iPhone Wallpapers. I have collected them from various sources, hope you will like them. At the bottom of this post I am going to provide you the link to some of these places where you can find even more cool wallpapers.

To use these wallpapers either browse this article on your iPhone and save the images or you can download these on your computer and then sync through iTunes.

Hope you like this collection. Feel free to download, reblog, share these wallpapers with as many people as you want.

If you like this article then please consider subscribing to Knowliz too so that in future you get similar articles automatically as soon as I write them.

I request you to Digg, Stumble, Tweet this article and/or share it on Facebook, Orkut etc.

Some resources for you to look for more wallpapers: http://www.thememyphone.com/ & http://www.iphoneatmo.com/

Technorati Tags: iPhone,Wallpaper,Collection,Abstract

Best of Blogosphere (BoB) – Week Ending 20th June

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:33:00 +0000

I got a chance to go through some really interesting articles this week. I have collected them for you too. Feel free to browse through, I am providing some small details about what they contain.

You might also know that Apple has announced for its iPhone OS upgrade to 3.0 and everyone owning an iPhone is really happy to see that upgrade. But many of them including me are still waiting for ‘iPhone Dev team’ to release ‘Ultrasn0w’ which unlocks the iPhone so that it can be used with any service provider. Fingers crossed, still waiting….

How to use the best 40 features of iPhone 3.0: Very detailed article showing what all is changing and how to use those improvements. Anyone owning an iPhone should go through that article for sure. At the time of writing this article has received 2114 Diggs. [via iSmashphone]
50 Best ways to track your website daily traffic: The article details about 50 ways to track website traffic. I am sure all my blogger friends over there will want to bookmark and go through this post. [via InstantShift]
25 Twitter Apps to manage multiple accounts: For some of those who have the ability to maintain multiple twitter accounts, this article will make it even easier to do so. [via Mashable]
How to build your personal brand on Twitter: Again, an article helping you out in building your brand on twitter. What you need and what you need to do, read all it here. [via Mashable]
Top 7 Twitter Tutorials on Youtube: A collection of top 7 twitter tutorials to help you get started on Twitter. [via Mashable]
Redsn0w in June: Most important post for anyone looking to Jailbreak and unlock iPhone after 3.0 update. This article provides all the necessary information and download link you will need to Jailbreak an iPhone. Note you can’t jailbreak iPhone 3G s with this tool. [via iPhone Dev Team Blog]
How to Jailbreak an iPhone on OS 3.0 using redsn0w (Windows): Step by step details about how to jailbreak an iPhone on OS3.0 using redsn0w on Windows. If you want to unlock too, then you need to wait until iPhone Dev team releases Ultrasn0w the successor of yellowsn0w. [via iClarified]
Disqus, Intensedebate and JS-Kit – Analysis: An article giving a complete analysis and comparison of the three most popular commenting services available to bloggers. [via Knowliz]
20+ ways to share photos/images on twitter: Title says it all. Over 20 services to help you share photos on twitter. [via Knowliz]
20+ places to listen and share music for FREE: Bookmark this post and never get bore again, because this article provides you links to over 20 services where you can listen to and share music with your friends for FREE. You can listen to music on web, or on the Go with iPhone with most of these services and share what you are listening to on twitter. Let your followers listen to what you are listening. [via Knowliz]

Hope you enjoy reading these helpful articles from around the blogosphere. I will be back with such article next week. If you happen to find something interesting and you want it to appear on Knowliz, drop a comment or send out a mail to blog [at] knowliz.com.

Enjoy, Have a good weekend….

20+ Places to Listen & Share Music for FREE

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:50:00 +0000

There are numerous online destinations where you can search for and play for any song you want for FREE. None of these services cost a dime, but you can always pay to get ad free unrestricted access to the vast library they have. With free accounts you also have some restrictions like the number of songs you can skip and all.
But if you are getting bore and want to listen to some recent popular songs, then you don’t mind some advertisement in between. Would you?
Most of these services not only create a radio station of choice but also let you share songs on various social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Some of these popular destinations are mentioned below. Some of them have iPhone applications as well, which I am putting in a separate list for iPhone users. If you know any other service which is not mentioned here, then please add yours in comments below:

Pandora: One of the most popular music player on the web. Create an account to start with. Building your own radio station with the songs and artists you like. Pandora will keep playing unlimited songs matching with your interests.
Last.fm: Last.fm recommends music, video and concerts based on what you listen to. Once you start playing music on Last.fm, it starts building your own station which you can play and share anytime you want.
If you happen to be a Songbird user, then you can scrabble your songs to Last.fm so that they are available when you don’t have access to them. There are many great features which I want you to try.
You can even get FREE mp3 music downloads also.
Slacker: Similar to Pandora and others I mentioned, just search for the song on Slacker to play. There are some default stations created for you to get immediate access to popular songs also.
Blip.fm: Search for an artist or a song to play the song you want. Create your own music station and share it with others. Or you may listen to what others are playing on blip.fm. Blip.fm asks the twitter question of ‘What you are doing…?’ in a different way by asking ‘What are you listening…?’
imeem: imeem is a social network that enables users to discover, interact and express themselves with media, including music, video and photos, and form connections based on shared tastes and interests.
You can create/upload your own music, videos, photos etc too and share this with you friends easily.
iLike: iLike helps people discover and share music, playlists, and concert alerts. The iLike Sidebar for iTunes and Windows Media Player suggests new music, creates automatic playlists, and connects people through music.
Lala: is the only service where you can not only listen to your favorite music but you can also buy it cheaper than iTunes and Amazon.
Jukefly: is a music player designed to play your music collection from anywhere. Or you can listen to 1000s of radio station already up there. To start you need to sign-up and install a small app on your computer. You don’t have to upload your collection to Jukefly.
Justhearit: is in private beta, but you can still search for a song and play audio and video from across the internet like YouTube and all.

(Image Source: Slacker Radio)

Mixtape.me: Similar to other service, just search, listen and create your own playlist or browse for Popular lists already on Mixtape.me.
Grooveshark: Good quality songs are available for you to listen and share with your friends and followers on twitter, Facebook etc. Just search for a song to start with or browse a library of millions of songs.
Songtwit: Search for a song, preview it, login with twitter and post your message along with a link to the song.
Tinysong: is actually powered by Grooveshark. Tinysong actually provides you a link to the song you search which you can add in your message or tweet to share it with your friends.
Twisten.fm: It is really an amazing service which converts twitter into a radio station by searching tweets having links to songs. This is a nice way of checking out popular songs people are listening and sharing on twitter. Just login with your twitter credentials to start listening to music.
Twiturm: lets you search and share a song on twitter. You can also listen to them by browsing for new music with Genre.
Twt.fm: is not exactly a place for listening to music but you can search for a song or an artist, preview the song and then share it on Twitter. Twt.fm will create a song page with your twitter background for your followers to listen to it. Who said you can’t listen to music on your own page?
Song.ly: Same concept as twt.fm but Song.ly has got browser add-ons which makes it easier to share songs and listen to them on the landing page.
MusicIndiaOnline: If you want to listen to Hindi songs, then this is one of the choices.
Raaga: Raaga is also a choice for Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi and other regional Indian songs.
You add it… This list is no way near to complete because there are so many cool services people use to listen to their favorite music that I don’t even know. I would request you to please add it in the comments with some details as to why you like it and how do you use it. (if possible)

On iPhone:

(Image Source: Slacker Radio)

Last.fm (iTunes link)
Pandora (iTunes link)
iMeem (iTunes link)
Slacker Radio (iTunes link)
AOL Radio (iTunes link)
SHOUTcast Radio (iTunes link)
Y! Music (iTunes link)

All of these services mentioned above have iPhone applications. They provide you unlimited choice of songs you can listen to on the GO. Pandora, iMeem, Last.fm and Slacker lets you search for an artist or favorite song and then play a station based on that. Whereas AOL Radio, Y! Music and SHOUTcast Radio have a wide array of preselected Radio stations.
Now, tell me with these many choices will you ever have to worry about music anymore. And as I said this post is not at all complete unless I take readers input because lot of cool services are still untouched. I would request you to please drop a comment on this post so as to let everyone know which service you use and love.
Don’t forget to bookmark, share this article if it gave you some links to the service you didn’t know about.

Technorati Tags: Music,iPhone,Pandora,Last.fm,iMeem,Slacker,Radio,Review

Use IMs to update Twitter, Facebook, Blogger etc. using Pixelpipe

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:57:00 +0000

Pixelpipe is a service which has been reviewed here on Knowliz several times. And I have no doubt saying that it is one of the best services around to manage your photos and videos. As I mentioned earlier also, with Pixelpipe you can share almost any media file (photos, videos etc.) to almost all popular services. (Follow links in this post to read previous reviews)

Pixelpipe also lets you update your various blogs, twitter and other micro-blogging services. Few days back it was only possible with their web interface or through iPhone app. However, now you can update Twitter, Facebook, Blogger and many other services using IMs (Instant messengers) like AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk and all.

To do that, just follow these simple steps:

Add respective messenger bots as a friend in your favorite IM.

For AIM, add “PixelpipeAIMbot” as your buddy.
For Yahoo, add “im.pixelpipe” as your friend.
For Live Messenger, add “im@pixelpipe.com” as your contact.
For Google Talk, Jabber and XMPP, add “pixelpipe@im.pixelpipe.com” as your friend.

Send a message ‘verify-<Application Key>’ to these new buddies and friends with your pixelpipe application key. (Sign in to your account to get it?)
Add routine tags like @twitter, @blogger etc. to your message to be sent out to respective locations. (Don’t worry, these tags will be removed before sending your message.)
No third step. Your message is already posted.
Next time whenever you wanna tweet and all, just send a message to these new friends. Your twitter feed etc. will be updated.
If you don’t mention a tag, the message will be posted to all your services added to Pixelpipe account. Read more about it here…

Cool enough…Now you don’t have to install any more app, just to update your various social network status.

Just so you know it is a similar approach Ping.fm, another social network aggregator service, takes to update your various social networks. You may wanna give Ping.fm and Pixelpipe a try. You will never regret, you did.

You can use Pixelpipe with various mobile apps like Nambu, Nimbuzz, Fring, IM+ Lite and all using iPhone, Nokia and Windows mobile phones.

Let us know in comments how do you update your twitter and facebook status generally? What services you use and how often do you update?

Technorati Tags: Pixelpipe,Ping.fm,Twitter,Facebook,Review

20+ Ways to Share Photos/Images on Twitter

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:59:00 +0000

You might remember, some days back I was running a poll on Knowliz asking users, 'How do you share pictures on Twitter?' The poll was posted on twitter several times over the last couple of weeks.

Well, the poll was closed on 31st May and the result is here.

Twitpic is a clear choice with Twitter users. I also did a quick twitter search to find out if people are using something else too, but a quick glance at the adjacent image can reveal that people are using Twitpic only.

Though right now looks like there is war going on for this choice, as lots of lots of services are entering the field. These services are bringing tons of cool features to the table. They are making it easy for twitter users to share images easily through web, email or on the go from iPhone.

And yes, most of them are not down most of the time as twitpic has been.

I just feel that may be most of the people over at twitter are not even aware of the alternative services they have for image sharing.

Therefore, today I am going to make you aware of some of these great image sharing services along with a small detail about their features.

At Mashable there is an article telling you 5 Ways to Share Images on Twitter.

In fact, I got some cool services for my article also from this post.

Other than just uploading images through web, there are many ways you can share images on twitter. Most popular method is Email.

Well, without much ado, here are some of the services I am talking about. (Add more in comments if you use them):

Twitpic: As mentioned above, it the most popular service to share images on twitter. Create an account using your twitter login details and start sharing photos via web, email, your phone or from Desktop applications.
TweetPhoto: TweetPhoto lets you share photos on Twitter and interact with any user or photo. You can share your photos on Facebook too, check out who viewed your photos, favorite them or Retweet them if you want. All photos are geotagged by default.
Arguably a Twitpic killer. BTW, it also doesn't support Twitter OAuth, instead asks you to enter your twitter login details.
Twitgoo: Twitgoo is another quick and easy way to share images on Twitter. Upload your pictures through web or from most of the popular Desktop applications. You may also edit your images using Picnik and then share them on twitter within Picnik. You need to provide your twitter login details to use this service.
Twitsnaps: Another service that lets you share images on twitter as soon as you provide your twitter login information to create an account. (Suggested by @ajinkyaforyou)
Twitlens: Login using twitter OAuth and start sharing images quickly. Twitlens even lets you share video too.
Twitxr: Twitxr not only lets you share on twitter but other social networks like Facebook & Flickr as well. It works with most of the latest mobile phone, have an iPhone app too or you can share photos by email.
Pikchur: It is integrated with multiple platforms like twitter, Tumblr, Friendfeed etc. So you may use any service to login to Pikchur and start sharing images quickly. It even works with Desktop twitter apps like Seesmic Desktop etc.
Picktor: Picktor is another social picture management service & community that enables users to communicate and manage all of their popular social communities (i.e. Facebook, Myspace, Friendster, Hi5, Orkut, or many more). Picktor makes it easy for you to pull photos from anywhere, including platforms like Flickr, Picasa Web Albums, Facebook, Myspace, Photobucket, Webshots, Twitter and more!
yfrog: yfrog is a service from Imageshack that lets you share photos and videos on twitter easily.
Pixim: Login via twitter and start sharing pictures quickly. Though it doesn't incorporate Twitter OAuth, instead asks you to enter your twitter login details. See stats about your images and what your friends are sharing using Pixim.
Pic.im: You need to create an account on Pic.im to be able to share images on twitter. Though the benefit is you can share the uploaded images on Flickr too. Pic.im can be used on iPhone with Nambu app. Or you may download the native Pic.im app just for image sharing on iPhone. It is a sister service of tr.im. (@bhans uses Pic.im because of its tracking ability)
Posterous: Posterous lets you create a Photolog kind of thing for the images you share. Just email your photos to post@posterous.com or twitter@posterous.com and they will be available on your page. People can leave comments using Twitter or Facebook Connect as well. You can link your other social profiles and share images on all at the same time.
Utterli: It is a 'DO IT ALL' kind of a service. Suggested by @djuggler. It is a twitter like interface where you may follow people, comment on their utters and do similar thing.
Twitc: Twitc is a new photo, video, and file sharing application for social networkers. Upload, manage, organize, search, and download over 180 file types, including videos and content from third party sites such as YouTube, Hulu, Yahoo Video, Spike and LiveLeak.
TweeTube: As they say, easiest way to share stuff (photos, videos, files & links) on twitter.
Twicli: Twicli is another service for posting photos to Twitter, yet it stands out from the rest with a set of very useful features. Twicli is provided by Picli, a photo sharing site based on users’ votes. (Reviewed at Twitip) Darren finds Twicli to be the best service for image sharing on twitter.
Friendfeed: Friendfeed also allows you to share photos. You may 'CC' that note and picture on twitter too.
Brightkite: Brightkite lets you share photos of the places you are visiting on the go from your phone or via web. You can have your status updated and photos shared on twitter and Facebook both.
Ping.fm: Supports more than 40 social networks. You can use IM or Email to update your social networks. Ping provides you an email address you can use to send photos to twitter. There are various combination of commands you can use to update your status and blog. (@pizzocalabro uses Ping.fm as mentioned in the comments on the poll)
Tumblr: Similar to Ping.fm and Friendfeed, Tumblr also allows you to share photos and other media on twitter. (Thanks to @djackmanson)
Emails: Most of the services I mentioned above provide you with a secret email for your account. You may use these emails to send photos via these emails to post them on twitter for you.
Flickr: Flickr and other similar services are also jumping to let users share images on twitter. You may link your Flickr and Twitter account to share images quickly on twitter.

Below are the comments from the poll. Check out what people use for their image sharing needs on twitter.

That's a tremendous amount of services that let you share images and other media on twitter.

I am sure, that’s not all. People will be using many more methods and services to quench their thirst of sharing images on twitter. Lets hear that in comments below. Drop a comment below if you are using some other service/method for that purpose. I will love to hear your feedback and the creative ideas you may have in this regard.

And, don't forget to follow me on Twitter @Knowliz.

Technorati Tags: Flickr,Tumblr,Ping.fm,Brightkite,Friendfeed,Twicli,Twitip,Tweetube,Twitc,Posterous,Pic.im,Twitpic,Twitgoo,Tweetphoto,Utterli,yfrog,Pixim,Picktor,Pikchur,Twitlens,Twitsnaps

DISQUS, IntenseDebate & JS-Kit – Analysis

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:40:00 +0000

DISQUS, IntenseDebate and JS-Kit are the three most popular choices when it comes to Comment Services for bloggers.

Obviously there are so many ways people can leave comment on any blog. Visitors can use native blogging platform comment system which might support comment using Email, OpenIDs, Facebook Connect and/or the most popular web 2.0 service Twitter using OAuth. And if visitors have profiles on any of three above mentioned service then they can use these profiles to leave a comment.

Problem:

All sounds good when we look at the options in hand. I mean there are unlimited ways to recognize your online identity. But everyone has their own preference. Some prefer using Facebook Connect, some prefer the old school method of Emails and many many people like to use OpenID as the preferred way of recognizing them online.

Now you ask, what is the problem?

Well, the problem is

None of the native blog platform comment systems provide these many choices.
They don’t help increasing participation on the blog discussion.
To date, none of them support Facebook Connect, Twitter and other social media connections.
Not all platforms support replying to comments by email.
etc.etc…

That’s why services like DISQUS, IntenseDebate and JS-Kit came into existence. Because they try to provide bloggers with an opportunity to get what is missing out of their native blogging platform.

Above is a small poll result conducted on twitter using twtpoll.

Then why the Analysis?

As I said, not all of them provide the same set of features.

JS-Kit:

provides almost all the options anyone would want to use to leave a comment on your blog.
supports Haloscan, Google Friend Connect, Facebook Connect, Twitter, OpenID and obviously emails.
provides very less customization options as to how it looks on a blog.
doesn’t provide many themes and a little geeky to modify anything using CSS.
syncs your existing and future comments with Blogger native comment system. You don’t need to import or export comments to use or discontinue using JS-Kit. (Really a cutting edge feature as compared to others in the market.) Read more about JS-Kit on a previously published post on Knowliz.

DISQUS:

doesn’t support OpenID. Visitors either need to provide email, use Facebook Connect, twitter or have a profile on DISQUS to leave a comment on any blog using DISQUS. (including Knowliz) – Users are dying to get support for OpenID.
provides a cutting edge feature of pulling media reactions about an article in question from various social networks like twitter, friendfeed etc. A very cool feature provided by uberUV.
Visitor can leave a video comment using Seesmic and if they happen to have a DISQUS profile they can tweet about the comment on twitter.
Customer service is not that prompt. You need to keep searching wiki, blogs, forums to find answers if you are facing any problem. At best, you can send an email to help@disqus.com and/or include @Gianni and @disqus in the tweet on twitter to get their attention. Looks like @Gianni is the only person helping people with their problems.
doesn’t consider you the same person if you comment using DISQUS or Facebook Connect or twitter. I will say profile management is immature.
there is no way you can sync your comments with your native platform. Neither your old comments are brought into the system, nor comments made using DISQUS are synced. So you will loose all your comments made using DISQUS and you don’t get access to the old comments. No way to import comments into DISQUS. User including me are really impatient to see this feature.
But the service is improving overtime and doesn’t look like dying as compared to IntenseDebate as seen below which was acquired by Automattic last year.

IntenseDebate:

has many great features. But currently it looks like a service where people behind it have different priorities.
Comments don’t sync properly, though ideally as per the features mentioned on site they should.
supports OpenID and Facebook connect, but doesn’t support Twitter at this point.
lets you reply to a comment by email. Check out complete set of features at IntenseDebate.
supports plugins like PollDaddy polls, YouTube video and Seesmic video comments etc.

What people say about these on twitter?

No discussion is complete unless reaction has been captured from twitter. So lets have a look at what people say on twitter about these services:

Check out the twitter search results yourself – DISQUS, IntenseDebate, JS-Kit

One thing is for sure, these three are really competitive services and often makes it impossible to select any one. Because every service has some really cool set of features which other doesn’t. So as soon as you start using one, you start missing the other service. I can say that because I have tried all three.

For time being I am using DISQUS on Knowliz and hoping that they will start supporting OpenID and twitter soon and doesn’t consider me different person when I use my other identity.

I would love to hear from readers, what are there views about these services if they are using it on their blogs. And as a reader do you like leaving comments using DISQUS. How is your experience different from other blogs using other services.

Technorati Tags: DISQUS,IntenseDebate,JS-Kit,Blogger,Wordpress,Automattic,PollDaddy,Seesmic

Indian Govt. has Online Grievance Forum now

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:53:00 +0000

I recently learnt from a friend that Government of India now has a very informative Online Grievance Forum. Generally it is very rare to expect this kind of initiative from an Indian Government, or at least we haven’t seen anything like it before.

So I am very eager to know if this thing really works.

As per this new initiative at http://www.pgportal.gov.in the Government. wants people to use this tool to highlight the problems they faced while dealing with Government officials or departments.

Ideally, you can submit a complaint about any government office including but not limited to Railways, Postal Service, Telecom (including Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) & Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Development Authorities, Central Public Works Department (CPWD), Airport Authorities, Road Transport and Highways, Public Sector Banks, Insurance Corporations (LIC, Oriental Insurance, United Insurance etc.), Employees' Provident Fund Organization and Passport Authorities, Central Government Health Scheme, Central Board of Secondary Education, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Central Universities and ESI Hospitals and Dispensaries directly controlled by ESI Corporation under Ministry of Labor.

Now most of us know that these things don't work in India. Or at least we have never seen them working because of corruption, politics and bribery etc. involved.

But my friend gives me an example of a couple of months back story. (Not sure about the authenticity of this story, unless someone can confirm in the comments)

The Faridabad Municipal Corporation laid new roads in his area and the residents were very happy about it. But 2 weeks later, BSNL dug up the newly laid roads to install new cables which annoyed all the residents.
A resident used the above listed grievance forum to highlight his concern. To his surprise, BSNL and Municipal Corporation of Faridabad were served a show cause notice and the guy received a copy of the notice in one week.
Government has asked the MC and BSNL about the goof up as it's clear that both the government departments were not in sync at all.

Hoping this new initiative works, if not for all, at least for some. I suggest using this grievance forum and educate others who don't know about this facility.
This way we can at least raise our concerns instead of just talking about the 'System' in India. You may find out more at http://www.pgportal.gov.in.

Let us know in comments if you happen to get anything resolved with this forum or you know anyone did. No rumors please.

(Thanks to Sachin Thakkar for the tip)

Technorati Tags: India,Information,News,Government of India,Grievance Forum

Why PC World wants me to renew 6 months before my yearly subscription expires?

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:19:00 +0000

Recently I received a second reminder from PC World to have my yearly subscription renewed. But when I looked at my current subscription end date, it doesn’t expire until Jan, 2010. Then why PC World wants me to renew this subscription as early as 6 months before.

Looks at the scan of the mail I received. The second letter in fact looks a little intimidating to me,

“We haven’t heard from you. No response.
I’ve taken it upon myself to extend this offer and send you another notice and another Renewal Form.”

And then the letter ‘From the desk..’

I do read PC World and other similar magazines and really love the content. But this early renewal notice making me crazy… It seems to me that PC World wants to force me to keep the subscription.

Now you tell me, does it make any sense to renew the magazine subscription 6 months prior to the expiration of a Yearly subscription, no matter how good the offer is or how good the magazine is.

Technorati Tags: PC World,Magazine,Subscription

CardStar iPhone App reduces your wallet and keychain weight

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:59:00 +0000

CardStar – an iPhone apps which lets you reduce some weight out of your wallet and the key chain you have been carrying around for a long time.

CardStar lets you create virtual Merchant Tags with Barcodes that you can scan at the time of check-out. Cool, huh…. And the best thing, it is FREE for a limited time (generally costs $0.99). Here is the iTunes link for CardStar.

Once you have installed the application on your iPhone, just click on the ‘+’ sign to start adding all your merchant cards to it. Check out the below screen cast to see how it works.

You just search the merchant in the directly filtered with categories and enter the number below the barcode on your physical card. CardStar will create a exact same barcode for you. This barcode you may scan at the time of check out.

And if you don’t find the merchant in the list, you may add one yourself. But for now, the merchant list of over 130 companies in 6 categories (Drug Store, Entertainment, Grocery, Gym, Retail and Travel) is there. So there is a very high possibility you will find most of the popular ones.

Best thing, once you have added the card, you don’t need any internet connection for this application to work.

I will say it is one of the must have app in iTunes Store. Download and install it right away. You won’t need to carry those membership and reward cards anymore as long as you have your iPhone.

Enjoy and let me know how this thing works for you. How it helped your shopping experience?

Technorati Tags: CardStar,iPhone,Apps,Apple

Gadget & Electronics Offers of the week! Dad & Grad Special

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:23:00 +0000

Today I have brought some really cool Gadget and Electronics Deals for you. You may either use the link provided below and/or the Coupon code mentioned to get the mentioned price tag.
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How to send email in Hindi and other Indian Languages

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:45:00 +0000

Some days back I wrote about ways to write in Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and other Indian languages on any website. Now what if you want an easy way to send emails in Hindi using your favorite email service - Gmail. Well its also not tough. Couple of easy steps and you are good to go.

Most of the steps you can understand through the below images only. Still there are instructions for you:

Log in to Gmail (or Google Apps account if you have one).
Go to 'Settings' on the upper right hand.
Go to 'General' Tab. You should already be there by default.
Check the 'Enable Transliteration' check box, and
Select your preferred language among Hindi, Kannada, Tamil etc.
Save Changes on the bottom of the page.
Try to 'Compose Mail', you should see an extra icon as shown below.
That's it. Enjoy sending emails in Hindi, Kannada etc.
To learn more about it, read this Google help page.

If you have many friends in India like me, you will probably love this tip and this feature brought to you by Google Transliteration team. Kudos to Google Team for bringing such useful things to our favorite Email service.

Let me know your views in the comments below. Did this article helped you? How do you use this feature? Did your email recipient love it?

How to Uninstall Adobe Air Applications on Ubuntu?

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:38:00 +0000

There are lots of cool applications based on Adobe Air platform e.g. Seesmic Desktop, Twhrl & TweetDeck for Twitter, Times Reader for reading NewYork Times etc. on your Desktop.

Adobe Air is operating system independent so all the applications work on Windows, Mac and Linux. Installing an application is quite easy too. You just need to have latest Adobe Air installed on your machine.

Image via CrunchBase

Don't worry if it is already not installed, any application you try to install will automatically do it for you or at least ask you to have it installed.

Now the question is how do you uninstall Adobe Air Applications. Uninstalling air applications involve different steps on different OS.

Fortunately it is no different on Windows as you can remove air applications the same way you uninstall any other application.

I am not sure about Mac, because I have never used it. So I will request someone using Mac to please add in the comments if the process is different on Mac.

Removing Air Apps on Ubuntu (Linux):

Method 1: (The easy way)

Download the application in question again and save the file on your desktop.
Go to Applications ->Accessories ->'Adobe Air Application Installer' and browse to the file you downloaded.
On the prompt screen, select uninstall.
That's it. The application will be removed.

Method 2: (The Geek way)

Hit the terminal.
Enter 'sudo dpkg -S /opt/*' (without quotes).
You will get an output like this:

adobeair1.0: /opt/Adobe AIR
boxee: /opt/boxee
app.destroyflickr.f242b970c206039aa6d597ec43895e3dd9c3cfe0.1: /opt/DestroyFlickr
app.destroytwitter.23ca2f9b070e2fb8c4472f982f88b1a471f11ae2.1: /opt/DestroyTwitter
com.friendfeed.friendfeed.e15dd0e93fae91f55000c2534280f7d2e075d241.1: /opt/FriendFeed
picasa: /opt/google
com.seesmic.desktop.client.d89f32799270693bef34aaa36e9b2632b59240fa.1: /opt/Seesmic Desktop
com.nyt.timesreader.78c54164786ade80cb31e1c5d95607d0938c987a.1: /opt/Times Reader
tweetdeckfast.f9107117265db7542c1a806c8db837742ce14c21.1: /opt/TweetDeck
Enter 'sudo dpkg -P tweetdeckfast.f9107117265db7542c1a806c8db837742ce14c21.1' for example to uninstall TweetDeck.
You will see the output like this:

(Reading database ... 117955 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing tweetdeckfast.f9107117265db7542c1a806c8db837742ce14c21.1 ...
That's it. Any application can be uninstalled by copy and pasting the required location from the output received in step 3.

A little explanation about the commands I used is mentioned below:

dpkg: provides the information about applications. (Debian Package)
/opt/*: provides information about all applications in 'opt' directory.
Enter 'dpkg --help' in the terminal to get complete list of commands you can use related to packages installed on your Linux machine.

Hope this information helps who are finding difficulty in uninstalling Adobe air applications. Drop a comment below if this article helped you.

Knowliz: Monthly Recap - May 2009

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Sun, 31 May 2009 22:00:00 +0000

Once again month end is here. 5 months are already gone in 2009. And as 31st brings May 2009 to an end, I am here again with the monthly recap for May 2009. Here are the articles published on Knowliz in May 2009. Please click through the links to read the articles you missed or if you want to share them with your friends. Here is the list:

How to type in Hindi & other Indian languages on any website: Step by step guide for helping you write in Hindi and other Indian languages on any website.

Best 69/100 Webware 2009 Winner products & services I use and recommend: Review of 69 web services and products out of the 2009 Webware 100 list. A great read for people want to know about cool online services to use.
Best of Blogosphere (BoB) - Week Ending May 23rd, 2009: Best articles from Blogosphere for w/e 23rd May.
Use 25 Gmail Lab Features to improve your email experience today: Find out how these 25 Gmail Labs features can increase your email experience and the way you use Gmail currently.
Best of Blogosphere (BoB) - Week Ending May 16th, 2009: Best articles from Blogosphere for w/e 16th May.
Gadget & Electronics Deals of the week: Some electronic gadget deals for Knowliz readers.
Please participate in 'Knowliz Reader Feedback Survey': A small survey to find out reader experience and preferences about Knowliz. The survey is closed now.
Government Banks like IDBI & SBI suck whereas private banks like ICICI and HDFC rock!: A very long article about my banking experience with some of the government banks. A must read for all those want to find out the best banks in India.
The Best and Free Twitter iPhone App : Vote: Another voting excercise for twitter and iphone fans asking for their choice of Twitter Apps for iPhone. Looks like Twitterfon is the clear choice followed by Twitterrific.
Warning: Spammers are trying to reach you through every possible way: Read about how Spammers are trying to reach you from every possible medium, be it email, Twitter, Facebook or even Snailmail.

How to type in Hindi & other Indian languages on any website

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:33:00 +0000

Didn't you anytime wanted to reply to someone in Hindi? Because the respondent likes to read Hindi transcript rather than the 'Hindi written in English'.
For instance, instead of writing "Mujhe pata hai ki tumhe Hindi mein type karna nahin aata hai", wouldn't you rather prefer "मुझे पता है तुम्हे हिंदी में type करना नहीं आता है." Right.
(For those who don't understand hindi, it means - "I know, you don't know how to type in Hindi.")
Don't worry. I have found an easy solution for you. With this solution you would be able to type in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telgu, Malayalam and Arabic.
Here is the step by step guide for you. I am writing this guide for Hindi but the steps remain same for any other language too. This process doesn't require to install any software or add-on. It just works with a shortcut, known as Bookmarklet, provided by Google.

Transliteration Bookmarklet is a small piece of code that you store in your browser. Once stored, you can type in Hindi in any text box on any web-site of your choice. It works on any web-sites.
For example, you can use the bookmarklet to chat in Hindi in Gmail, send messages in Hindi to your friends on networking web-sites like Facebook and Orkut etc, or edit a Hindi Wikipedia article or even write a blog post in Hindi.
FYI, you don't need to follow this guide if you are using Gmail, Orkut, Blogger, Knol or any other iGoogle gadget. As Transliteration is built-in on these sites.

--Google Code

Steps:

In your browser, just drag and drop this link [अ Type in Hindi] in your 'Bookmarks Toolbar' or Favorite bar. (You may right-click on the link and select 'Bookmark this link' to create a Bookmark as well. The steps might be a little different for Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Safari.
After creating the bookmarklet, follow these steps to type in Hindi on any web-site:
- Click on the bookmarklet you created in first step. You will see a message 'Transliteration is now enabled...'
- Click on any text box where you want to type in Hindi. You will see a icon in the text box.
- Now start typing in English as you would speak them in Hindi and words will be transliterated to Hindi.
- You will see the words being converted into Hindi as you type.
- If you don't like the way word is converted, just click on that word and select another option from the suggestions.
- Or you may even leave it in English itself. The way I have written above.
If you want to stop typing in Hindi, just click on that bookmarklet again or press Ctrl+G inside the text box.

You may want to check out this small screencast below to see this entire process live.

Screencasts and videos online

Please note, Transliteration lets you type Hindi words phonetically typed in English and then have them appear in Hindi. It doesn't translate anything. It is the sound of words that are converted from one alphabet to other and not there meaning.

Check out guide for respective language Bookmarklet -Arabic, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. You may also want to check out Google Indic Transliteration Lab page for being able to type in even more Indian languages like Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi & Nepali.
Don't forget to tell me your experience. Does your readers like the way you started typing now in their native language.

Technorati Tags: Hindi, Google, Transliteration, Tips & Tricks

Best 69/100 Webware 2009 Winner products & services I use and recommend

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:38:00 +0000

2009 Webware 100 winners were announced some days back. When I looked at the winners list, there were some of them I never heard of. Some of them I have used earlier but stopped because there were better options available.
I must say that I found a lot of great services and products through CNet's 2009 Webware 100 Award. Here is a list of 69 products I use out of 2009 Webware 100 winners list. I have kept the categories same as the actual list.
As I said, there are lot of good services which could not make it for the finals or be the winners, so I will highly recommend to go through the published 2009 Webware 100 nominees in various categories.

Audio & Music:
1. iTunes: Apple's iTunes media store sells and recommends music, movies and iPhone Apps. It's a complete media manager where you can import your existing music, video or buy them through iTunes Store. iTunes is a required application if you own iPhone or iPod.
2. Lala: LaLa is a music search and discovery tool. Listen to full tracks and/or buy them without DRM. Just create an account and keep listening to unlimited music for free.
3. Last.fm: Social music discovery and listening tool. Listen to full tracks, and create stations around artists you like and create your music network with friends. You can play all your existing library from anywhere, anytime once you have scrobbled songs on last.fm.
4. Pandora: A free music streaming and recommendation service. Changes what you're listening to based on how you vote on the track that's playing. Search for an artist and Pandora creates a radio station for you based on your choice.
Browsing:
1. Mozilla Firefox: An open-source browser built by Mozilla. It's currently the No. 2 browser in the world. I have written numerous articles about Mozilla Firefox and the endless treasure of add-ons. Firefox is my personal choice of browser and believe me I ditched IE and even Google Chrome for it.
2. Internet Explorer 8: Microsoft's latest browser. It's faster than the old version and has made strides in compatibility and security.
3. Xmarks: Formerly FoxMarks, a service that synchronizes bookmarks across multiple browsers. Access all your bookmarks and passwords (if you allow) on any machine you use. Xmarks has made Delicious useless for me.
Commerce:
1. Amazon: Online Shopping for electronics, books etc. Has the best customer service for purchases or returns, and reliable products.
2. Paypal: An online payment service users can use to send money to each other, and online store owners can use for purchases. If you have ever sold or bought anything from eBay, then you would be familiar with that too.
Communication:
1. Dimdim: A live Web-based meeting tool. Lets users chat and share files, screens, and presentations over the Web. Way better than WebEx and a lot cheaper if you plan to buy for an enterprise. Else it is FREE upto 20 participants.
2. Gmail: Google's Web based e-mail, which currently offers users in excess of 7 GB of free storage. Comes with lots of added features with it.
3. Skype: A software-based VoIP, text, and video chat service. It runs on multiple platforms and is available world wide. Skype has changed the way people communicate, whether it is your neighbour or a family member on the other side of the earth.
4. Windows Live Hotmail: Microsoft's Web e-mail service. Users can aggregate their e-mail from other services and store up to 5 GB of messages in their accounts.
5. Windows Live Messenger: Microsoft's live chat service. It can be found on multiple devices from mobile phone's to the Xbox 360. Works with Microsoft Windows only.
Infrastructure & Storage:
1. Adobe Air: A runtime designed by Adobe Systems that powers rich Internet applications that run right on the desktop and soon mobile devices. You may see really cool applications created with Adobe Air, e.g. TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop, Newyork Times Reader etc etc.
2. Dropbox: Provides an online folder that can be synced up across multiple computers. Any files you add locally get synced up to all your other computers, and you can access the stored files from your browser.
3. Drop.io: An online storage service that centers around the idea of "drops." Each drop is a compartmentalized folder of data with its own identity, meaning you can share its contents with others without having to provide access to the rest of the files you have stored on the service. Drop.io has a whole lot of other services ending with .io which makes your life way too easy.
4. Facebook Connect: Allows site developers to let visitors of their site log in with their Facebook account to use features that previously would have required registration. In turn, whatever they do on the site can be promoted back in Facebook. It works the same way as OpenID, OAuth and all. (Review on Knowliz)
5. Mozy: An online backup service. You can back up individual files, or an entire computer.
6. OpenID: Lets you use your verified credentials from one site in another, all in place of having to sign up for yet another log-in. (Articles on Knowliz)
7. Windows Live Skydrive: Microsoft's Web-based storage service. Users get 25 GB of free storage that's shared across several other Microsoft Web services. (Various Articles on Knowliz about Skydrive)
Location Based Services:
1. Flightstats: Tracks flight delays and airport closures around the world so you can avoid them before you leave the house to go somewhere, or pick someone up.
2. Goog411: Google's free 411 service (Review on Knowliz). Users can either type in their search or speak it into their phones. I use it all the time when I don't have access to internet and I am away from a computer.
3. Google Earth: Google's 3D maps software. Its latest version added historical maps and a recording feature that lets you share your routes with others.
4. Google Maps: Google's free online maps service. It provides driving directions, traffic, and search results for local businesses.
5. Live Maps: Microsoft's free online maps tool. It provides driving directions, traffic, and search results for local businesses.
6. Topix: Local news from around the Web based on the city you set it on.
7. Tripit: Makes keeping track of travel information easier by aggregating it into one place. (Review on Knowliz) Now has an iPhone Apps too.
8. Yelp: Lets customers review restaurants and other businesses with anywhere from one to five stars. (Review on Knowliz). Now has a fantastic iPhone Apps too.
Photo & Video:
1. Flickr: Yahoo's photo and video sharing community. Users can upload and organize their photos, then share them with others.
2. Hulu: Lets you watch full-length movies and TV shows in your browser, and unlike some services that do this, the content is distributed by the companies that created it. (Review on Knowliz)
3. Justin.tv: A live streaming platform that lets anyone record what they're doing to a channel they own. Users can watch live, or after the broadcast has ended.
4. Photobucket: Hosts more than 7 billion user images and videos, and lets users share their photos on blogs and social networking profiles.
5. Picasa: Google's free photo hosting service. It's closely tied to Google's Picasa software program and can be synced up with the photos users have on their desktop.
6. Picnik: A browser-based photo editing service that lets you edit photos from your hard drive or from various social networks and photo hosts.
7. Ustream.tv: Allows anyone with a Webcam or video camera to broadcast a live show that can be watched even after it's been recorded. Has a very useful iPhone App for live broadcasting for Jailbroken iPhone. (Review on Knowliz)
8. Vimeo: A video host that's focused on creative projects from its users. It was also one of the first services to offer streaming HD video.
9. Youtube: A free video hosting service owned by Google. It's recently begun offering HD video.
Productivity:
1. Google Calendar: Puts your personal calendar in the browser, and lets you create and manage appointments and subscriptions to Web calendars in the same place.
2. Google Docs: A collection of online office programs including a word processor, spreadsheet tool, and a presentation maker.
3. Microsoft Office Live Workspaces: Microsoft's tool for sharing Office documents and mission critical files between multiple users.
4. Mint: An online finance management tool. Can track spending, credit cards, and bank accounts.(Review on Knowliz)
5. Zoho: A collection of online office tools, from word processing to personal productivity. Zoho gives you everything you need for a small office : Documents, Email, Invoices, Planner etc etc.
Search & Reference:
1. About.com: A collection of how-to guides and informational articles, written or sourced by experts.
2. Answers.com: Answers.com pulls information from several different reference sites to provide answers to user questions. Very useful if you use it with firefox add-on - Alt + Click on any word and get the complete detail about that word. Try it yourself.
3. Ask.com: Lets users search the Web for links, images, videos, driving directions, and news, along with local city listings and shopping links for products.
4. Google: The most popular search engine on the Internet, lets users search the Web, blogs, images, and more. Who doesn't know about Google?
5. Live Search: Microsoft's free Web search tool that plugs into various Microsoft Web properties as well as general indexing for pages all over the Internet.
6. Wikipedia: A free online encyclopedia. Instead of being authored by a select group of editors, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone anywhere, and at any time.
Social Networking & Publishing:
1. Facebook: A popular social networking service where you can share anything from photo, video, link and blurbs to playing with your friends, using applications within Facebook and lot many things. Check out Knowliz Facebook page and become a fan.
2. Meebo: A multi-network instant-message service that runs in your browser window and on mobile phones. Check out meebo related articles on Knowliz.
3. Twitter: A microblogging service that lets users publish 140-character messages out to the world. OMG! That's something people talk about all the time in Blogosphere. If you don't have a twitter id, create on now and follow Knowliz on twitter.
4. Wordpress.com: Automattic's two blogging services. WordPress.com is hosted, while WordPress.org can be installed free of charge on a user's own servers.
CNet Editor Choice:
1. Aviary: A suite of online design tools that emulate desktop applications and let you transfer work from one app to another.
2. Evernote: Create, clip, and share notes on the web and see them everywhere, even on iPhone.
3. Farecast: has been acquired by Microsoft now. Gives you a prediction of airfare, hotels for your vacation and tell you if you should buy it now or later.
4. Google Voice: Earlier known as GrandCentral and acquired by Google some 2 years back, this one service makes your and your friends life too easy. Because you can get one number for you life. No matter how often you actual number changes, your Google Voice number remains same. Read the complete review of Google Voice on Knowliz.
5. Twitter Search: Search engine (formerly Summize) lets users search user tweets in real-time and view words or topics that are trending.
6. Windows Live Sync: Both a file-mirroring service and a remote access tool. Users can pick a file that they want mirrored on other computers, and they can dig around the hard drive of a remote computer to get at files they don't have locally.
Knowliz Picks (Top 10):
1. Thinkfree Online: A suite of free Web-based office applications including a word processor and shared storage for group files. One of my favorite office web application after Google Docs and Zoho. The interface is exactly same as MS Office.
2. Timebridge: Helps multiple parties find a single time to meet based on each other's availability.Very good and easy to use when people have different email ids like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and all. They don't have to be from same organization to get your FREE/Busy information.
3. Qik: Turns most phones with video cameras into personal broadcasting services. The service also archives live footage for viewing later. One of my favorite because Qik has made live broadcasting so easy that you can't believe it.
4. Evite: An online invitation service and party planning tool that lets you design invites, send them out, then track who's coming to an event. Very intuitive and feature rich.
5. JS-Kit: Suite of add-ons for site owners to tack on community functionality to their pages, including enhanced comments, ratings, and live chat. (Review on Knowliz)
6. Billshrink: BillShrink.com is a unique, free web tool and consumer advocate service that saves consumers money by making continuously updated, personalized, usage-based recommendations on cell phones, gas station and credit cards.
7. Bit.ly: Makes big links smaller, and also lets you know who's clicking on them.
8. Blogtalkradio: A platform for broadcasting users' own talk radio shows over the Web. Includes controls for handling callers and queuing up pre-recorded content.
9. Jaxtr: Free VoIP calling service that connects international calls through a local intermediary number. (Review on Knowliz)
10. Howcast: User-created how-to videos that are built with professionaly-created templates and play on a video player that breaks up each step into a segment.

In fact, it would have been really tough for voters to vote for any one service. All services are good and are mostly free. I sometimes wonder what would have people used if these services were not there to be helpful in every aspect of our lives.

Anyway, now you tell me how many of these you have used and love. And how many of them you have never heard of.

(Image Credit : CNet Webware 2009)

Best of Blogosphere (BoB) - Week Ending May 23rd, 2009

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Sun, 24 May 2009 17:04:00 +0000

Below are couple of good articles from the Blogosphere this week. Most of the articles are about the social networking & some tips on how to be successful on twitter.

How to get the most out of Twitter #hashtags [via Mashable]:If you are on Twitter than you might have noticed #hastags in various tweets. Find out how you can get most out of these hashtags.
25 twitter apps to manage multiple accounts [via Mashable]: Most of the time we bloggers end up multiple twitter account to manage the activities better, but it becomes really tough to manage these accounts. Read this blog post to find out 25 twitter apps which lets you manage these multiple accounts easily.
Scribd Store: Youtube for Documents becomes iTunes for Documents [via Mashable]: Document sharing service Scribd made some changes in the service. By changes we mean, from entirely free service it has transitioned into a paid service where you may buy the documents.
How to build your personal brand on twitter [via Mashable]: Another beautiful guest post on Mashable to help you build personal brand on twitter. Some really good tips there.
How to setup a fingerprint sensor in Ubuntu [via Dave's Tech Blog]: Some of us use Ubuntu on a Toshiba or HP laptops where we have fingerprint sensor device for added security. This blog post tells you how you can setup that fingerprint sensor to work in Ubuntu.
10 even better Wolfram Alpha Easter Eggs & 10 more [via Mashable]: With so much buzz about Wolfram Alpha - the much discussed computational engine with a sense of humor, here is a blog post telling you about some hidden gems of Wolfram Alpha.
Use 25 Gmail Labs features to improve your email experience today [via Knowliz]: How you can love Gmail even more by using these ever increasing Gmail Labs features.

This week it was all social networking. And when we talk about Social Networking, Twitter, is the one most discussed in Blogosphere, be it because of new twitter apps, real time search and many more tips about how to build follower base and things like that. Twitter is a phenomenon.
Hope you like the articles I collected this week. If you happen to be on Twitter, then follow @Knowliz.

Use 25 Gmail Lab Features to improve your email experience today

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:11:00 +0000

I am sure almost everyone uses and loves Gmail, but I doubt everyone uses Gmail Labs features.

Gmail Labs is a way for Gmail team to take lots of the ideas they wouldn't normally pick and let you all (who use Gmail) decide whether they're good or not. When you sign in, under Settings called you will find a tab for Labs. It has a list of experimental new features, and you can enable or disable each one. Some of the popular ones will become core parts of the product, and we'll eventually retire the ones that don't get much use.

- Official Gmail Blog

Gmail Labs has tons of small features which you should definitely enable. You won't even notice that you are using any unfinished product, as they become part of Gmail so seamlessly.

If you have been reading Knowliz, you would obviously notice that this is the second time I am writing about Gmail Labs features. Following Add-ons I have already written about, hope you are using them already. If not, then follow the links to know more about them and enable asap:

Right side chat & Labels, Canned Responses, Navbar drag and drop, Mail Goggles, Forgotten attachment detector, Google Calendar & Docs Gadget, Create a Document, Tasks, Send and Archive and Add any gadget by URL. And if you happen to use Firefox, which I am very sure you would be using, then check out these 10 Gmail Extensions/Add-on you need to use.

Now some new features which got added to the labs over some months are as follows. Enable them today and enjoy the quick functionality boost in Gmail. Following features will change your Gmail experience entirely:

Offline Gmail and Calendar: Once you turn on this feature, Gmail uses Gears to download a local cache of your email. The cache is synchronized with Gmail's servers when you connected to internet. When you lose your connection, Gmail automatically switches to offline mode, and uses the data stored on your computer's hard drive.
You tube, Picasa, Flickr & Yelp previews: For our first set, we picked stuff that often shows up in email: YouTube videos, Picasa and Flickr links, and Yelp reviews. Turn on Picasa, Flickr, Youtube and Yelp previews, and rather than having to click on a album, image or video link to see the photos it contains, you can see photos right in the message itself. Similarly Youtube videos and Yelp reviews right there in Gmail, no need to click any links.
Message Translation: Simply enable "Message Translation" and when you receive an email in a language other than your own, Gmail will help you translate it into a language you can understand in just one click.
Sender Time Zone: Turn it on and you'll see green and red phone icons next to people showing if they would be awake or sleeping in the sender's local time zone. Click "show details" and you can see when a message was sent in the sender's time zone as well as what time it is for them now.
Quote Selected Text: Just highlight the text you want to include in your reply, hit the keyboard shortcut "r" to reply, and the compose template will be just what you selected!
Multiple Inboxes: This is an advanced feature where you can configure what you want to see, as well as set the number of messages displayed and the positioning of your panels from the Multiple Inboxes section under Settings. If you keep going for the same label again and again, then you will really love Multiple Inboxes.
Gmail Search: You'll get suggestions as you type in the search box with this feature.
Google Search: you'll see a new search box on the left side of your inbox after enabling this feature.
SMS in chat: You can start by just typing a phone number into the search box in the chat window on the left, then select "Send SMS." You can also select the contact you want to SMS first and then add their phone number. Works only in US.
Suggest More Recipients: Gmail will suggest people you might want to include based on the groups of people you email most often. So if you always email your mom, dad, and sister together, and you start composing a message to your mom and dad, Gmail will suggest adding your sister.
Search Auto Complete: Enable this feature and you'll get suggestions as you type in the search box.
Inserting Images: You now can insert images inline with this lab feature, not as an attachment. The images will flow well inline with the text the way you want.
Extra Emoji: Enable this feature and get even more Emoticons while composing the message.

Once you enable these Gmail Labs features, your Gmail experience will be something different. Gmail labs keep releasing such feature every now and then, so I will suggest keeping an eye on that Green flask button in Gmail. This Green Flask button represents the Lab.

Hope you like this article with some small explanation about these features. For complete detail I would suggest following the links to Official Gmail Blog. Thanks again to the Gmail Team for bringing such cool things to the public in their 20% time.

Best of Blogosphere (BoB) - Week Ending May 16th, 2009

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Sun, 17 May 2009 19:36:00 +0000

From this week onwards, I am starting a new weekly series on Knowliz where I will be bringing you the Best of Blogosphere (BoB).

As you may guess, these articles will be from Blogosphere and generally from the blogs I follow or I happen to read on that particular week.

These articles will provide you some cool tips, not necessarily on Technology but also on other topics like Finance, Economy, Politics, Humor and many others.

Generally this article will have up to 5 to 10 links along with a little summary so that you can browse through whatever interests you more.

I hope you will find this series interesting and worthwhile to read on Knowliz.

So here goes the very first post in this series "Best of Blogosphere" (BoB) for the week ending May 16th, 2009:

7 Things you need to know about the Home Buyer Tax Credit [via Mint Blog]: Find out how you can save up to $8,000 if you are the first time home buyer.
Why you should use Prism with Firefox [via Digital Inspiration]: Prism is an application that helps you create desktop shortcuts to your favorite websites in few clicks. And when you double-click any of these shortcut icons, the associated website will open in a new Firefox window with a very minimalist interface. Firefox windows created through Prism do not support tabs, there are no bookmarks, the address bar is read-only and the right-click (contextual) menu has options related to copy-paste only. Check out the article for complete details about why you should use it.
Quick Tip: Filler Text [via MS Word Team Blog]: Did you ever thought of filling a document or template with some random text. Find out how you can use rand() and lorem() functions, generally known as 'Lorem Ipsum' in Word 2007 to fill some paragraphs or template with filler text.
How to log into Multiple Webmail (Hotmail) accounts at the same time [via IE Blog]: Read how you can use latest IE8 browser to login to multiple webmail accounts, twitter or any other web account for that matter using 'New Session' functionality which doesn't share the cookies of previous session enabling you to login to various accounts at the same time. Read more on this blog post.
5 Best iPhone apps for In-Store Savings [via Mashable]: In a tough economy, find out how you can save more using your iPhone with these apps, while doing a in-store shopping by finding coupons, comparing prices and other useful money-saving features.

For this week, I have only these 5 articles for you but for the next time I will be able to bring you more. I would love to hear your feedback on this series and its concept.

If you are a blogger and would like to have your article featured in this series, drop me a mail or a direct message @knowliz on twitter.

Stay tuned to Knowliz for some really good articles in the pipeline.

Gadget & Electronics Deals of the week

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Sat, 16 May 2009 14:01:00 +0000

Its weekend and most probably it is the right time to look out for some gadget deals. I have brought to you some cool deals from various sources. There are some significant savings if you follow the links below. They are some really great products with incredible prices. As with any deal, these are time sensitive links, so they might expire soon.

Save $42! Toshiba 400GB External Hard Drive, Electric Blue only $87.99 (was $129.99)
SAVE $45! LaCie 500GB Rugged Hard Disk only $154.99 (was $199.99)
Apple iPhone 3G 16GB Never-Locked w/Full Apple Warranty (Buy.com Price $999.99)
JVC MiniDV Camcorder w/ 30x Optical Zoom ($149.99)

HP Pavilion dv7-1285dx Entertainment Notebook ($799.99)

I am planning to bring you these kind of deals on a weekly basis, so stay tuned for some really cool gadget deals on Knowliz. Enjoy.

(Disclaimer: They are affiliate links, so I will earn commission if you happen to buy something.)

Please participate in 'Knowliz Reader Feedback Survey'

blog@knowliz.com (Anurag Bansal) — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:13:00 +0000

Today, I am going to ask you a favor. I have created a small survey to understand what Knowliz Readers want to read on Knowliz and how they want it. This is to improve the overall experience for all the readers while they are at Knowliz either through email or on the web.
I assure you this survey won't take more than 2 minutes of your time. And I request you to please spare those 2 minutes for me.
At the same time I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to 'Knowliz Fan Page' on Facebook. Now you can discuss various Knowliz articles and share your tips, images and all on Facebook as well. So if you like reading Knowliz and you are on Facebook too, then please take a moment to visit Knowliz Facebook fan page and Become a fan.

That's a whole different approach to be in touch with Knowliz fans. I am sure you are aware that you can follow Knowliz on twitter too. Just thought I will mention it here itself in case you don't know. And if you want to check out what I am doing on the web at various destinations, then I would suggest subscribing me on Friendfeed.
Hopefully it is not an overwhelming information for you. Without much ado, here is the survey, please do spare 2 minutes...(for e-newsletter readers, here is the link to the survey)

Update 31st May, 2009: This survey has been closed.