Google has come into one more space. They have introduced their own URL Shortener Service.

Google URL Shortener is http://goo.gl.

The main point to be noted here is – Google URL Shortener is currently only available for Google products. It cannot be used for your blog or any other site like we use to Shorten the URL using TinyURL.

Google URL Shortener Service will be best for the following reasons:

• Security: As we do with web search, shortened URLs are automatically checked to detect sites that may be malicious and warn users when the short URL resolves to such sites.
• Speed: At Google we like fast products and we’ve worked hard to ensure this service is quick. We’ll continue to iterate and improve the speed ofGoogle Url Shortener .
• Stability: Google’s scalable, multi-datacenter infrastructure provides great uptime and a reliable service to our users.

Last year, I provided CSS Book to learn CSS

Today, I will be providing CSS 3 reference cheat sheet. I am sure it will be helpful for all the web Designers.

Veign.com has come up with a CSS 3 reference guide.

CSS 3 Quick Reference Guide contains up-to-date cheet sheets on CSS 3 specification. As we know, CSS 3 is new and includes selectors, new properties and allowed values. As a web developer, we should be up-to-date with all the latest features of CSS 3.

CSS 3 Quick Reference Guide (Cheat Sheet) Features

• Complete listing of the current CSS3 specification
• Complete listing of the properties accepted values
• Common selector pattern reference
• Organized by type / module
• Selector Type reference
• Unit reference and information

Download CSS3 Quick Reference Guide – Cheat Sheet

Download Download CSS3 Quick Reference Guide – Cheat Sheet for Web Designers

On the web, you will find lots of services which are called Cloud services. Most of the current Cloud enabled services are file and web hosting.

But, now we have new Cloud Application – Antivirus which uses Cloud!

What is Cloud Service ?

Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet.

Panda Cloud Antivirus is the first antivirus that supports Cloud. By this, it can provide you the fastest protection against the newest viruses. The Cloud service will be provided by PandaLab servers.

Most of the work of the antivirus will be done behind the scenes and on the clould. By this, you can’t notice much resources or cpu usage on your PC as everything is done on the cloud which is hosted on PandaLab servers.

One more advantage of Cloud Antivirus is that you need not update the Antivirus definitions as all the things will be there on the cloud!

Download Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.0

Download Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.0

Thanks Harris

There is a good news for all Yahoo! Messenger users. Yahoo have finally made release of Yahoo! Messenger 10 Final version. From last few months, Yahoo! Messenger 10 was in beta stage. Now, it is out of beta.

The final version of the Yahoo! Messenger 10 (10.0.0.1102) has fixed lots of existing bugs and has also come up with some new features.

Yahoo! Messenger 10 Features (from Yahoo! Messenger blog)

• Enhanced video calling – feel like you’re there with high-quality, full screen video and voice calling.
• Keep up with what your friends are doing – see your friend’s latest updates from Yahoo!, Flickr, Twitter and more with the new “Updates” view.
• Improved language support – change your preferred language in Yahoo! Messenger with just a few clicks High-quality video calls.
• Instant Messaging – send text messages in real-time to your friends on Yahoo! Messenger.
• Chat Rooms – Join a chat room to meet new friends while you discuss your favorite topics.
• Photo Sharing – share photos from your desktop or Flickr, then discuss them over IM while you and a friend view them together.
• PC-to-PC Calls – make a voice call to another Yahoo! Messenger user for free (microphone and speakers/headset required).
• Phone Out (PC-to-Phone Calls) – Call friends on their regular or mobile phones from Messenger for as low as 1¢ a minute (Phone Out account required).
• Phone In (Get a Phone Number for Messenger) – get a new phone number that allows you to receive calls in Yahoo! Messenger (Phone In account required).
• SMS (Text Messaging) – send text messages from Messenger to your friends mobile phones for free.
• Webcam- plug in your webcam to share live video with your friends on Yahoo! Messenger.
• IM Conferencing- instant message with many friends at once in a conference room (includes voice capabilities, where available).
• IM with Friends on Other Networks – IM with friends who use Windows Live™ Messenger, Reuters Messaging, and Lotus Sametime — right from Yahoo! Messenger.
• File Transfer – send files instantly to a friend while you IM (2 GB limit).

Yahoo have released Yahoo! Messenger 10 for the various platforms like :

- Microsoft Windows : Yahoo! Messenger 10 for Windows
- Apple Macintosh : Yahoo! Messenger 10 for Mac
- Mobile Devices : m.yahoo.com/messenger
- iPhone : http://messenger.yahoo.com/platform/iphone/

I am always on a look out of some free services on the web. Recently, i found one which is very interesting and thought it would be useful for all my blog readers. Hope you like it!

Rollip – Create Polaroids from your own photos – Rollip is a web service which allows you to Create Polaroids of your own photos.

How to Create Polaroids from your own Photos – Rollip

• Keep some of your Digital Photos ready to create Polaroids!
• Visit Rollip.com
• Click on the orange button on the left (Check the image above)
  
• You will be headed to a page which asks you to “Choose one of the effects shown below by clicking on a picture.”
  
• Now, the next page will ask you to “Choose decoration”. You can skip this if you don’t want and continue further…
• You will now be taken to the last step which is Upload Photo. Just, upload the page and you are almost done.
• You will get the Polaroid of your photo with the effect you have chosen in the previous step.

Before

After applying Polaroid effects

I liked this web service. I have created Polaroids of lots of photos with lots of effects and also took print out of few ones!

Hope you also like it.

I was stumbling and found a web site called Flip Text Generator.

It is a tiny very nice online web service. It has two Text boxes. Whatever you type in the first Text area, you will see the upside down text or Flipped text getting generated on the Flipped Text section.

You generated flipped text of your Name, Website or anything and use that text in anywhere.

How to Generate Flip Text Upside Down

• Visit Flip Text Generator
• Type anything you want in the First Text box
• You will flipped text getting gnerated on the Flipped Text box.
• Copy the flipped text and use it whereever you want

In this today’s World of Web. There are lots of Social Networking Sites to get in touch with the friends.

What if you find your dear friend on one of the Social Networking sites and if you want to find what other Social networking sites he/she is using?

Identify is a Firefox extension that can quickly analyze a contact’s user name and can find out the on which other social services he/she is using.

Find Friends Online – Identity Firefox Extension

For instance, if I were to use it on XYZ’s Twitter profile it would be able to tell me what other services he’s using, like FriendFeed, Facebook, Last.fm, and more. The same thing would happen if I checked from his profile on one of those other sites, too.

This extension uses two tools to get the job done: Yahoo Query Language and Google’s Social Graph API. Creator Madgex has use the two tools together to quickly figure out where the profiles are and provide links directly to them.

Identity Firefox Extension in author’s words

Identify is a Firefox extension that combines identities across various social network/media sites and provides you with a profile about an individual. Simply navigate to the profile page or a blog of an individual you are interested in and on Windows press Alt i or on the Mac press Ctrl i.

How to use Identity Firefox Extension

After you install the extension, Just use a keyboard shortcut, Alt+i on PCs and Ctrl+i on Macs.

There are other services which do the similar job as well. It takes full user name and try to check on all other Social Networking sites. KnowEm and Namechk are the services which can find the what all social networking sites a username is registered to.

I found lots of friends using this tool. Why don’t you start using it!

Download Identity Firefox Extension

If you know any other tool, Do share it.

Technorati Tags: friends, find friends, social networking, identity, firefox, firefox, extension

Most of us know that most of the sports, torrents, bookmarking, social networking, dating sites are blocked in places like School, college, universities and work places. What if you have no work at office or no classes at college and want to surf these sites?

There are ways to access restricted or blocked sites. One way is the use of proxy server to get through the firewall and have access the restricted sites.

I some times get free time at office and like to surf websites anonymously. To do that, I use web proxy sites that allowed to do anonymous browsing.

The advantage of web proxies is that it protect your identity online. They hide your IP address and enable you to surf the web under their location. I have tried out lot of web proxy services to access blocked sites. Below, I am listing out 25 web proxies. Give it a try. It may work or may not.

How to surf Web using Web Proxies – 25 Web Proxies

1. Hide My Ass!
2. Invisible Surfing
3. Spy Proxy
4. Anon.me
5. Unblocked
6. Hide My Info
7. Our Proxy
8. Borat Proxy
9. OlympicProxy
10. Proxy Mafia
11. Anonymouse
12. Proxy Buddy
13. Proxy Mouse
14. Proxy Pimp
15. Fly Proxy
16. Kroxy
17. Anonr
18. Army proxy
19. Apni Proxy
20. Proxrio
21. Site Surf
22. Can’t Bust Me
23. TNT Proxy
24. 250 Proxy
25. Texas Proxy

If you know any other ways to access restricted site or have any other web service. Do share via Comments!

Enjoy Anonymous Browsing!

MegaVideo is one of the top video sharing sites after Youtube. MegaVideo has got a lots and lots of videos.

There are lots of possible ways to download videos from Youtube. If you don’t know this then check How to Download Videos from YouTube

But, for those who want to strong>download MegaVideo videos face problems because, you can not download videos if you are not a premium member and also cannot use Youtube techniques. But here is a quick tip to download videos from Mega Video.

How to Download Videos From MegaVideo

Steps to download videos to your computer from MegaVideo and watch them offline.

1. Open any desired video clip in browser. Let it load completely.
2. After you have watched the whole video. In your browser, Go to Tools > Internet Options > Settings > View Files (In Internet Explorer).
3. Try to look for a large file, with a long name and unknown type. Most of the Temporory internet files are small. So, track down the large file.
4. After you spot the file, Copy that file and paste it any drive of your choice. The video file will be in FLV format.
5. Rename that large file name to something meaningful like movie.flv

Now sit back watch MegaVideo in your favourite player. Do you use VLC Player? NO. Then you need to Download VLC Media Player

If you want to convert the MegaVideo video clip to any other format from flv then check on How to Convert Videos with Any Video Converter

If you have any other tips on how to download megavideo videos, Do share it. Leave a comment

Most of us bookmark websites so that we can jump on to the website quickly. But, what if you have organized your bookmarks that have 10-20 categories each having 10-20 websites in it.

The time taken to browse through the bookmarks menu and select a particular website is more than typing the website address.

SiteLauncheris a Firefox add-on which can turn your bookmarks into shortcuts. Site Launcher lets you replace your bookmarks toolbar with a window of links that can be opened using a simple keyboard shortcut. It gives you a super-quick way to open your favorite websites that you use often throughout the day by using only your keyboard. One special hotkey brings up the Launcher (shown below), followed by a unique key to launch a site. You pick which sites you want on the list, and a one-letter keyboard shortcut is given to each.

For example, i have added these sites – Google, Gmail, NiharsWorld, and IBNLive.com to SiteLauncher – what sites to include is entirely up to you. CTRL + SPACE will popup the transparent window with links. Then you just need to type shortcut key to launch the website. Check my list below.

My favorite sites to launch them quickly!

Compared to the alternatives (standard bookmarks, the address bar, etc) the Launcher is the fastest, and most convenient way to navigate to your frequently needed sites (at least, that’s what we think). SiteLauncher also minimizes clutter, because the Launcher only appears when you press the hotkey.

When you install the extension. It comes with a some of popular sites built in. You can delete or add your favorite ones on your own. You also have several color and menu style options including setting the maximum number of columns you want, and how transparent the window is.

Check out a quick demo video of how it works:

Download SiteLauncher (a Firefox Add-on)

Via CNet.com

What do you think about this review? I appreciate your input. Do you know any other extension or tool that can be better than this? Share your thoughts

Technorati Tags: firefox, browser, firefox extension, keyboard, bookmarks, sitelauncher, bookmarks management

I know lot of guys out here who have a website or blog has to know a bit of about CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to make changes to the themes and website to design it in a better way.

Here is some some offline resource to learn CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

Learn CSS!

The Art & Science of CSS is a good CSS book (read reviews at Amazon) packed full of practical examples.

I think this book will help you a lot in learning more about CSS techniques like making rounded corners, creating navigation tabs, styling web forms and list, designing web page backgrounds with images and so on.

Here is a direct link to download the eBook. It’s about 24 MB in size.

Via Labnol

Technorati Tags: learn css, css, free book, book

Yahoo Buzz service by Yahoo is now open to public. It is similar to Digg. If you find a post which is interesting and want to share then just submit it. Anybody who likes it will Buzz on that post.

If you have a Yahoo account then you can start using Yahoo Buzz service.

Here is how to add Yahoo Buzz button on blog easily so that your readers can start submitting your posts on Yahoo Buzz:

1. There are lot of Yahoo Buzz submission buttons to be chosen from Yahoo Buzz Submission Buttons
   From the above link:

   Important! You must replace the word ARTICLEURL in the code with the URL of the page you want to submit to Yahoo! Buzz.

   If you own a WordPress blog like my blog, Just replace the ARTICLEURL with:

   <?php the_permalink(); ?>

   It’s a built-in WordPress function to print out the permalink URL of the current post. Simply put the modified Yahoo Buzz button code on your Single Post theme file (single.php)

2. Use a third party plug-in/widget.
   If you are a WordPress user, there is a wordpress plugin called “Add to Any” that has already included Yahoo Buzz on the bookmark list (I’m will start using it). For other platforms such as Blogger, Typepad, etc, you can check it out yourself on Add to Any site.

If you found this post useful or any other post on my blog, consider trying to “Buzz” the post to share it to other fellow bloggers.

Will you put this on your blog ??

Thanks to Mike

Technorati Tags: yahoo buzz, digg, add yahoo buzz button

Just now found a website Ancient Web through Stumble. I thought of sharing here.

It is a very good site which has lots of information on Ancient Worlds Great Civilizations.

The Ancient web is an online resource for Students, Teachers, and anyone interested in the cultures of the ancient world. Below is a list of the current ancient sites included in this online portal.

Check this out if you are interested in history…

Technorati Tags: ancient civilization, Great Civilizations of Ancient World, Ancient world

Rohit from Blog Solute has discovered an online service which allows users to create animated gif images for free online.

The main plus point of this online service is, it doesn’t add any watermark or logo on the image like many other free online services or Desktop applications do.

GIFMAKE

GIFmake composes with (gif,jpeg,png) pictures an animated GIF. Interesting feature is that Already animated GIF can also be decomposed so you can recreate or edit it.

via

Technorati Tags: animated gif images, gif image creator, online gif images, gifmake

From now, you can access Gmail in any of your following Indian Regional Languages:

• Hindi
• Urdu
• Marathi
• Bangla
• Gujarati
• Oriya
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Kannada
• Malayalam

To change the language in Gmail, go to the Settings tab and select a language from the Gmail display language drop down. there you go…..

Thanks to TNerd.

Technorati Tags: gmail, google

You can download videos from you tube and save it to local hard disk by the following ways

Web based

1. YouTubeX is now VideoDownloadX doesn’t have a lot of options, but it’s simple, and it works. It also enables you to share the YouTube video with your friends via e-mail. Unfortunately, all the files are called get_video, and you have to add the .flv extension manually.

VideoDownloadX.com

2. KeepVid is another simple site. No hassle, works not only for YouTube movies but for a number of other sites, including Google Video, MySpace Video, DailyMotion and others. Again, you have to add the .flv extension by hand.

keepvid.com

3. VideoDownloader is very similar to KeepVid, but supports even more video sharing sites, and it’s also available as a Firefox extension. Just like with KeepVid, all downloads are in .flv format. We recommend MediaCoder for free conversion.

javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php

4. YouTube Downloads takes the cake in the longest domain name contest. It also separates itself by using a proxy for downloading videos, which means that you might be able to get videos even if YouTube access is blocked at your workplace or in the country you live. Just search Google for YouTube videos, and copy/paste the URL into YouTube Downloads.

www.downloadandsaveyoutubevideos.info

5. Zamzar is an online file format conversion site which can do a lot more than just converting YouTube videos to another format and downloading them to your hard drive, but it’s doing a great job so we had to include it here. Thoroughly tested by us and highly recommended.
www.zamzar.com

If you know any way to download the youtube video, Leave a comment.

AFTER colonizing cyberspace, Google is going into the newspaper business.

The search engine giant is in talks with several newspaper publishers to sell space in their pages to its online clients.

This expansion will worry bosses of rival media companies who have already called for greater regulation of the fast-growing Google.

Google Print Ads is an extension of Google AdWords, the auction system that lets companies bid for a slot that appears alongside specific online word searches.

Instead of an auction, advertisers pick a newspaper online through Google and enter a bid for available advertising space on a given page and day.

But rather than offering to pay the list price, customers say what they are prepared to pay. Publishers can choose to accept or decline the offer.

Google takes a slice of the advertising revenue from every deal struck. It even offers to design the ad if the advertiser does not have the capability to do it alone. “We believe that online and offline are part of the same melting pot,” Google said. “It is not an ‘either or’.”

Google’s British advertising revenues rose roughly 40 per cent to about pound stg. 1.25 billion ($2.8 billion) this year, overtaking the publisher Trinity Mirror’s income, which includes newspaper sales on top of advertising.

Print Ads, which started in the US mid-year, already supplies 600 titles, ranging from the 3000-sales-a-day Shelby ville Daily Union in Illinois to the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina, which sells 215,000.

A British newspaper boss said: “It is an interesting development with the prospect of bringing new advertisers into our newspapers. If advertisers find it to be an effective channel, then there is the prospect to form direct relationships on a more normal basis.”

Today, i am going to tell you how to find the shortest distance in kilometers between any two points on the globe. You can also check the shortest line drawn on the Google map between the two points after calculating the distance.

After you read this post, you will be able to find the shortest possible distance between any two places on the earth. But the shortest distance can be traveled by a bird to fly alone and not by an aircraft because of No-fly zones.

Before we start, we need to get our basics right. Hope all of you have heard of Latitude and Longitude.

Earth is divided into Latitude and Longitude imaginary lines. Using these two lines, you can pin point any location on earth.

Latitude at equator is 0 and 90 N at north pole and 90 S at south pole. It ranges between 0 to 90 N or S. It can be donated as +0 to +90 as N and 0 to -90 as S.

Longitude is between 0 to 180 E or 0 to 180 W or 0 to +180 as E and 0 to -180 as W.

Tip: Always Latitude comes first followed by Longitude.

Take an example :

Charminar at Hyderabad, India : +17° 21′ 41″ N, +78° 28′ 28″ E

Tokyo Tower at Tokyo, Japan : +35° 39? 31? N, +139° 44? 44? E

Below is the shortest distance in kilometers and the map between charminar at Hyderabad and Tokyo tower at Tokyo:

If you want the similar kind of map generated for any two places of your choice then use this Demo Page, but before that read the below instructions then go to the Demo Page.

You must be definitely excited to find out the distance between the two places of your choice !

First decide the two places for which you want to find the shortest distance. You don’t know their Latitude and Longitude locations. No problem!!

To find out the Longitude and Latitude points for the two places, follow the below steps:

If you are using Google Earth:

• Locate or Pinpoint your place on the map.
• Once you find the place, move the mouse pointer on that place.
• Check the at the left bottom of the map. It shows pointer followed by Latitude and Longitude.
• Make a note of it and put that in Latitude 1 and Longitude 1 Text boxes in the Demo Page
• Repeat the above steps for the second place and put that in Latitude 2 and Longitude 2 Text boxes
• Use the Demo Page to fill-in the latitude and longitude and click on Calculate distance button. After that click on Map link below the result to get the Map. Gotta!!!!!

If you are using Google Maps:

• Open Google Maps
• Locate or Pinpoint your place on the map.
• Once you find the place, right click on that location and select “Center map here”
• Above step will center the map, so that your place will be exactly on the center.
• Copy and paste the below code into the location or address bar of your browser and press Enter: javascript:void(prompt(”,gApplication.getMap().getCenter()));
• A little dialog box will pop up displaying the coordinates.
• Copy the first coordinate and paste it in the Latitude 1 text box in the Demo page
• Copy the second coordinate and paste it in the Longitude 1 text box in the Demo page
• Repeat the above steps for the second place and copy and paste the coordinates in Latitude 2 and Longitude 2 text box

Click on the below link and input the latitudes and longitudes of both places and click on calculate distance button. After it shows up the distance. click on Map to get the shortest line plotted between the two places on a Google Earth Map as above.

Click this for Demo

But the above distance calculated doesn’t take mountains that come in the way between your first place and second place. so, the distance isn’t accurate but it is the shortest distance that we can calculate

Hope you were able to find the shortest distance…

Any suggestions/queries/idea/corrections, do leave a comment below.

I was wondering that a lot of people in orkut have their names in Hindi or any other regional language. I thought of doing a Google search and finding out software/site that allows me to type in Hindi.

Click on below thumbnail to enlarge
NiharsWorld in Hindi

Found out a lot of sites, of which i am listing three sites that i found very interesting:

• Hindi Kalam
• Quill Pad
• Hindi Type Pad

Out of the three sites, Hindi Type Pad allows you to type following languages:

Bengali | Gujarati | Hindi | Kannada | Malayalam | Punjabi | Telugu | Tamil

Open any of the above mentioned site, type in your name, copy and paste it in your orkut profile.
You got your name in hindi

NOTE : Make sure the application where you paste the text should support unicode characters

Recently, I found this amazing website : Twittervision .

It was great: let me tell you why.

It gives you a real-time geographic visualization of posts submitted to Twitter. The moment anyone adds post to Twitter, you see the title of the post at the location on the globe along with the name of the person. Just click that and you could read the entire post.

The website has another benefit of advertising itself. Just check it out for 5 minutes and you realize how many people are using it and uploading their work around the world.

After its success, they made Flickrvision. This is even more interesting. The only difference is that it shows images instead of posts. I have checked it many times and find it quite interesting to see the beautiful images being uploaded by people all over the world(a good way of killing time!).

Infact, there is a Macintosh screensaver which shows flickr photos uploaded by everyone on a world map.

Now that yahoo has acquired flickr, the yahoo photos have to be moved to flickr.

Technorati Tags: flickr, twitter, flickrvision, FlickrVision