The GOOGLE vs a cuil

Well... I recently came to know about this new one... Cuil (Irish for Knowledge... pronounced 'Cool' though this word 'recently' dates one-and-a-half months back). And since it was being touted as the Google-killer, it commanded atleast a try...
So i set out with some search strings and tests and came out with these:

First, I spotted the black background, and a very simple yet attractive home page... which had a line written beneath the search-field : Search 121,617,892,992 web pages...

Now to some work... Searched for my favs... Man Utd on Cuil, and what I got was really heartening... A page, with much info packed in, and the page looked good, and I thought 'Cuil 1-0 Google'... but looking a bit deeper, the relevance faded away, as the side-results also included categories like: Players in FIFA 2002 World Cup!!! But still, Cuil gave it a try, so i'll give the goal to Cuil.

Next, I searched for a typo-error: Relvenace... Result?? Cuil searched for Relvenace, even when 'TYPING SUGGESTIONS' was turned 'ON' in preferences. Google knew much better, of course, and showed the usual 'DID YOU MEAN: Relevance'...

Score: Cuil-1-1 Google.

Next, I search for 'Google vs Cuil'... And surprise!! Google doesn't know what is Cuil... It shows 'Did you mean: Cual'... But still there were about 337,000 pages!! Same search in Cuil returned 9 Results!!!!! Only NINE results... This was absolutely unbelievable... Even I had read more that 20 articles on Google vs Cuil!!! So when Cuil says it is the 'WORLD'S BIGGEST SEARCH ENGINE', then I'd say 'I AM GOD'!! Even searching merely Cuil on both, Google outscored Cuil by a whopping 1 Million pages!!! (thats 1,000,000 pages)

Score: Cuil-1-3 Google... (2 Red Cards to Cuil for not knowing itself or its competitor)

Now, I search for some Google vs Cuil stuff 'only on Google'. I come up with a blog (one of the Top 5 results) and the post was written on 31st July... The screenshot showed the usual Cuil Homepage, with the page count at : 121,617,892,992!!!

This is... rather er... blasphemous for any search engine... 2 months have passed and Cuil couldn't increase its database even by a single page?? Even the G-Mail inbox's space increases faster!!

Score: Cuil 1-4 Google

So, after seeing the plight of Cuil, even before Half-Time, I am forced to end the match... Cuil is relegated to second division... I'd prefer Live search or Yahoo search anyway rather than type in a contorted word which redefines the meaning of 'Knowledge' by not knowing about Itself!! (I mean no injury to Irish people.... But i seriously mean the Cuil-team to hurt badly)...

Sorry guys... For me, Cui lwould better serve as a name of a cute little pet bird than a challenger to the 10 year old behemoth named Goooooooooogle

A Mind-Blowing Theme for Firefox

You’d have read about this one in my previous posts, but that is rare cuz this blog is new anyway, so y

ou’d better check out some pictures in my previous post, and if you like the theme, then you can get it here :

DOWNLOAD INCOMPLETE

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since the release of Firefox 3’s RC1, I’d been using the 3rd version of the fox, and it was superb even in those early days… The autocomplete dropdown was excellent, the redefined icons were classy and witty, security was better, and the browser stable. But there was one thing which always came to my, and I am sure, many others’ minds : Nearly Zilch Themes for Fx 3!!!

Things have changed now, but the number is still low, and still there are very few ‘GOOD’ themes for FX, and whatever themes I set my eyes upon were accompanied by a gray box saying :

So… There were two ways : Wait for another 12 months, or change the time limit… I chose the latter, as you’d have read in my previous two posts…

Here is a link to the theme, (which is still in the ‘sandbox’, so you’d have to become a member of addons.mozilla.org for getting the theme), but I’ll notify here when the theme goes public.

DOWNLOAD INCOMPLETE

Hope you enjoy it… And feel free to give your feedback, cuz that will help me make it more ‘Complete’ and help it get out of ‘sandbox’ into the public category.

Technorati Tags: Incomplete,Theme,Firefox,Mozilla,Addons

Making A Firefox Theme : Part 2

As my previous post showed you the basic way to kick-start your mind in the direction of making a good theme, this one tells how I did it.

First of all, I took a Bible-Blue theme by Bodizzle (AMO), and… well… ripped apart the theme to see its entrails… Then, I set off into creating new icons, but soon saw that just the icons would not do enough, so changed the Toolbar background image… After doing some basic icons, I felt satisfied and used it on Firefox (now I’m calling it Fx)… To tell the truth, it was not bad, so i quickly posted it on AMO (addons.mozilla.org), and even though it recieved many glowing reviews, and a 4.3 star rating, I knew, by use, that just changing the icons and toolbar background wasn’t enough. So I set off a bit deeper, and changed some more icons.

By this time, I came to the saturation point (in the field of icons), and knew I had to put my thoughts to CSS. But when I opened the files, it was next to greek… But that was because I had had a long hiatus from any HTML coding. But as I spent one more day, things started becoming clearer, and I tweaked some properties, and released another version at AMO (very prematurely).

Then after some so-so kind of reaction, I dived into CSS full time, and forgot that I was a human, and spent 2 whole days (and half the nights) tweaking every aspect of my theme. But I realized that I didn’t know what every inch of the CSS did, so I used 2 or more themes as a ‘reference’ and compared my CSS to theirs, and found out that I had made a very big mistake in my choice of the base skin… There were many loopholes, and the Bible theme was lacking many features which even the Firefox’s Classic theme had. But since I had already given my theme so much time, there was no point in turning back… Finally I overcame the shock, and after another 2 updates, I finally managed to address much of the designing part, and the theme now is… well… sort of… Complete. (But this is just v1)

Here are some screenshots :

This is the original… not anything to distinguish it from…

Here is a close-up of the toolbar : very plain…

If you think I had done enough to make it look pretty, then look below

This is the current release : very usable, very stable, and of course, very Gorgeous. Reinvented everything from scrollbars, to the dropdown menus…

Come on now… Give it a try… It ain’t tough at all…

Making A Firefox Theme : Part 1

I was inactive for a long long time (by web’s standards), not because I had nothing to write, but because I was involved in a really addicting task of making a Theme.

Sure you know what a theme/skin is cuz that’s why you have come here. So without wasting much time, lets get started.

First, you need to know how a theme works in Firefox. Well, there are ‘basically’ 3 things involved. Images, CSS and XML… You’d be thinking “Shit man… I can’t do this… xml??? what is this???” If you’re thinking something equivalent to that, you are wrong. But for now just forget about those things and read on.

First step is deciding what to create. Once you get a basic picture of your theme, you can do two things : Get a ready-made theme and open it up, edit the CSS and alter images, etc and repackege it. Or make every inch of the theme yourself (which, frankly is a pretty hard proposition… monumental actually… if u r a beginner)

Now, if you get a theme of your choice on the net, download it or get it from your user profile (find it at

%system-drive%\Documents and Settings\(your profile)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\(your profile)

Alternately, you can use firefox’s default theme (get it in firefox’s folder…)

Now, you’d have noticed that the theme is a .jar file… How do you extract all the files?? Easy… If you have WINRAR, you can directly unpack the files… or you can rename the .jar to .zip and then unzip it normally.

Now normally you’d find 5 folders (can be more)… They contain the files of those components. Now, first to the BROWSER folder. You’d see many icons/images and some CSS files… Confused?? Well, first try changing some Toolbar icons… Remember the resolution of the image though (if the icons are 32x32, and you make a 24x24 icon, the browser won’t look good… So taking care of resolution, edit the files in a GOOD image-editor (not MS Paint… it is one of the worst things around… IMO)… (A tip : USE GUIDES and Grids… It’d help you overcome the situation in which another icons parts encroach upon other’s territories…

Now, once you get involved in creating icons, do it fully. Then turn your attention to the other important part : CSS… If you prefer not changing the font colours and browser colours and behaviour of icons,etc, then you can leave these alone, and proceed to the next step. If you know atleast some HTML, this could get interesting… If you do know how CSS works, then go for it (unless the original  theme is superb).

The CSS files do exactly what they are named… So whatever you want to edit, search that file and find the relevant property and edit the desired line. You can add some more features/properties to the theme if the theme does not have some components.

Now, once you are done with CSS files, come to the root folder where you have the stored the 5 (or more) folders… There would be 2 files : icon.png and preview.png (normally). Edit these to make them look like what you want people to recognize your themes by. Now, edit the install.rdf and contents.rdf files… here you have to edit only 2 or three lines in Install.rdf :

<Description about="urn:mozilla:install-manifest">
    <em:id>extensionname@organization.tld or GUID</em:id>
    <em:version>version-number</em:version>

You can get a UNIQUE GUID for your theme here :

GENERATE GUID

Copy the generated GUID to the place of <em:id>-------</em-id> mentioned earlier.

But you need to give either a GUID or the type mentioned above.

Now scroll a bit lower and edit this line :

<!--
<em:updateURL></em:updateURL>
<em:aboutURL></em:aboutURL>
-->
<!-- Front End Integration Hooks (used by Theme Manager)-->
   <em:internalName>extension-name</em:internalName>
</Description>     

(If you want to specify an external update link, you can specify it here… but if you are posting the theme on addons.mozilla.org (AMO), then you can skip this part. The internal name is the name by which you want firefox to store the theme in your user profile.

Now, come to CONTENTS.rdf, and replace any occurence of the original theme name by your own theme’s INTERNAL NAME… Just see the tags, and you’ll understand what you have to change and what to leave… Its plain english (nearly)

Once you are done, you zip the file (using Winzip/Winrar/ any other software you have) and rename the filename from .zip to .jar

Now Drag the theme from its location to the ‘addons’ window in Firefox. This will install your theme in firefox, see how it is, and if it is good enough, you can post it to AMO…

Best of luck…

Bill & XP’s Windows Closed

This week marked two developments for Microsoft, and both of them were monumental : Bill Gates called it quits (apparently), and XP was forced to call it quits…

The former World’s Richest Man will still be the associated with MS, but would divert his energy to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He, who inspite of being on top of the world has pledged all but 1% of his wealth to humanity, was a great man indeed. Though many would call him a pilferer for ‘stealing’ Apple’s ideas, but he was the man who made all the difference to our worlds… Imagine going 100 miles to a University or Lab to gain access to Internet!! He brought the PCs within our reach, and made the software industry what it is.

And now to the second one :

Microsoft won’t be marketing any new XPs in the main market after they took it off the shelves on 30th June, and so forcing new buyers to go with Vista. Many people see this as a bad thing, giving ‘lame’ reasons like Slower OS, new interface, and even AERO!! Isn’t it ridiculous how people go on cursing Microsoft for all of their curses, but still not move on to Linux so quickly?

I myself have used Vista for a month now, and it is very stable… Not crashed on me once… And about hardware problems : They have largely been resolved by SP1… And Vista is not a very BIG memory hog… 1 GB is sufficient, but 2-3 gigs would be great. About the rearrangement of items like in Start Menu and Menu Bar (in folders), I can say that it has been made much cleaner and easier, add to that the excellent readability and usability, here is a very good OS.. Just marred by bad publicity…

Take my word : If you hate it, Give Vista a try and you’ll feel different.

The URI schemes in Browsers

You must be very familiar with the page :

about:blank

So what do you think this " about: " is??? A protocol?? A URL?? Nopes... Actually its one of the URI Schemes(Uniform Resource Identifier).

Here are some more about about:

Browser : FIREFOX

about:	See the info about firefox... (Same as clicking on Help>About Mozilla Firefox)
about:blank	A beautiful white backgroung with the fox in pure white ashes... (some people call this as a blank page)
about:mozilla	Verse from The Book Of Mozilla... Read it and you'll see.
about:plugins	See info about all installed plugins
about:about	Lists all the about: addresses. (Not in FF3 as far as I know)
about:logo	See the Firefox Logo
about:cache	One of my favourites... It lists the cache entries on disk and memory... The reason it is my fave is because through this I can Download any song/video from ANY site... (Follow this link to read more)
	DOWNLOAD MUSIC/VIDEOS
about:license/about:licence	See the Official Mozilla Public License (Licence in British English).
about:config	The most useful about:, It lets you configure every inch in firefox... But just don't change anything without thought... It may crash the Browser.
about:blocked	Shows you the page which comes up if FF considers a Web Forgery/ Attack site... But the about:blocked page itselt is harmless...
about:robots	Added in FF3, try it yourself
about:credits	See the FULL credits... See what a big thing this fox is...

Browser : OPERA

Most of the Firefox's URI Schemes are also supported in Opera, but you'll have to replace the about: with opera:

Like :

opera:plugins

One exception is about:blank which is universal.

Browser : IE7

about:tabs shows information about Tabbed browsing (which was MS added in IE7 for the first time)

about:NoAddons displayes list of disabled addons...

There are many more... Try searching for them yourself...

Easter Egg in Firefox

Now you must be already trying out FF3, and yeah I know its pretty intelligent and cool… (slightly buggy though)

Did you ever think where did Isaac Asimov get the inspiration for I Robot?? Maybe he was using a prototype of FF (FF 1 pre-pre-pre-pre.....-pre-Alpha) and he came along this :

But did you find out a bot lurking in the FF3 software? It is actually very friendly and is made of plastic and calls itself ROBOT.

Just type in this in your address bar and interact(!) with the robot.

about:cache

And if you click on the button named "TRY AGAIN" (which you can try only once again!!), the transformation of the label points out that out FFRobot is a bit touchy... See it yourself now in a new tab!

And about the Title : GORT! KLAATU BARADA NIKTO! It actually originates from a science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). The command(?) was used to stop the Goat.. er.. Gort from destroying good ol' Earth. (Wiki the term to read more...)

Technorati Tags: Firefox,Easter Eggs,Robots

The Easier, Funnier Side

Technorati Tags: Linux,Funny,Easter Eggs

Linux, in addition to becoming more reliable than Windows, has become even funnier…

Who said Linux is for the geek minded only? Anyone can, as you’ll see moments later, bring out a good laugh from the penguin…

Here are some very good examples, which I found on www.LinuxHaxor.net

For more reading, please follow this link :

The Funny Side Of Linux

So what you’re waitin for??? Go and have a good laugh, and try to find out more such stuff…

Firefox makes the World Record

The Mozilla team had thought about scaling a cool 5 Million downloads in 1 day (yeah… 5,000,000 downloads in 3600*24 seconds… nearly 58 downloads-per-second) based on the assumption the Firefox was popular…

What they didn’t know was exactly HOW popular was this fiery fox. Nearly TWICE as much… yeah… Our very beloved FIREFOX 3, grandson of the original Firefox, crossed the 8 MILLION mark on the day of its release… and that’s because the site would have been already clogged for late comers… and guess what?? it crossed the 14 MILLION mark in 72 hours of it’s release (which was Tuesday, 13th June)

Reports of some security flaws, and even my own (small?) grouse about FF3 (that it starts typing in reverse after some Java applications run) haven’t stopped people from drooling over this newbie (which actually has grown smarter and securer than even IE7 or FF2.xx)

Now Mozilla are ready to pack up the data and send it to Guinness World Records, which would be a first-of-its-kind record, and a hard one to break (for some time, atleast).

FIREFOX 3 : Innovation in every vein

After more than 2 years of development, Mozilla released the third installment of Firefox on Tuesday… Though the features did not surprise me, as I had already used the 2 Release Candidates for nearly two-and-a-half months, they are very useful and come handy in fast browsing.

Take the navigation bar itself :

The BACK button is intentionally made larger due to the fact that most people use it much more often that the forward button (shows how many people are retrospective!! *wink*). Though the Glassy effect is due to Vista, the buttons look very neat and polished even on XP/Linux.

Next is a very useful button : Most Visited. It lists all the sites you visit most, thus giving you instant access to your faves without requiring you to type in the address in the address bar.

And yeah… even the address bar is renovated :

It shows the URLs containing the string you are currently typing (even if the string is in the middle of the URL). And remember how you had to access the option to view the security certificates of a site earlier?? That has changed too, as FF3 also shows the Site Information just on the click of a button. As Simple As That.

And a change which may have some mouse-only users confused is the disappearance of the GO button… Instead they would encounter a yellow Star… So What’s this all about?? Actually, there was no need of a GO button when you are not using the address bar… Right?? So Mozilla did this : The Address bar shows the Star button (for bookmarking a site) when you are viewing a page, but as soon as you start writing in the address bar, Voilà, the GO button appears as a blue arrow!!!

And never forget the Password Manager… Better and more non-intrusive… Just go onto a site, an the Username-Password will be kept ready in the required fields… You just have to press Enter.

Another great feature is the library. Just press Ctrl+Shift+H/B and you will see a new window open up showing the Library where you can neatly organise your Bookmarks/History and Tags…

Wait, wait… What are TAGS??

Well, they are exactly what they are anywhere else…. Tag the sites you visit with tags like ‘sports’ ,‘news’, etc and organise them. Later if you don’t remember a site’s name… just recall what it was about and search the relevant tag… And there you are…

Added to these superficial innovations are higher levels of security, where you are actually blocked from a phishing site rather than merely being warned about it. (FF replaces the site’s page with its own Warning page). Similarly you are blocked from any site reported to infect your computer…

Get ready for next generation browsing:  Speedier and Safer

Create 'Vista' Wallpapers

A great Tutorial based upon how to recreate, using photoshop, Vista-Looking Wallpaper.And if you are refraining from this task due to fear of complexity, then, take my advice : It is one of the easiest jobs... Give it a try... (And give Microsoft a run for their bucks)


read more | digg story

Making an Age Of Empires III ‘CD’

This thing came in my mind when I was so thoroughly bored by the incessant chatter of the TV and studies, that any idea of escape seemed great. I tried to create the CD Cover+CD of Age of Empires III Icon, which would later serve as the icon for the folder in which AOEIII was installed.

I started by getting a good-quality front cover of AOE III from the net and… yeah… Photoshop is rather quintessential, isn’t it?? (I have not tried GIMP till now)

aNow, open PS, load the pic, and copy the cover to one more layer (this for the ‘CD’), and better make the CD layer invisible (for better manipulation and to avoid confusion… later you can make it visible again)

Now, select the Cover and transform it to a smaller size (so that it looks like a ‘cover’), and skew it a bit for creating a ‘perspective’ or 3D effect via the Free-Transform tool… You are done with the cover… It'll look something like this :

Now for the CD :

Select the Ellipse tool, and select the Paths option from the top toolbar (to make a work path). Now draw a circle to cover the part you want on your CD… It requires some patience and practice…

Now right click and select “Make Selection”, and crop it off… Now make another smaller circle (for the middle transparency in the CD and cut it out too...)

Now for the hole in the middle, draw a circle concentric to the transparent circle, and open the 'Layer Style' dialogue box. Select "Bevel/Emboss" (for the 3D effect, adjust the values to your satisfaction).

Work Done.

And this is the finished product :

A very useful tip : ALWAYS USE GRIDS (unless they hamper your sight)

Also, if you wish to add some more oomph value, you can add 'reflections' of the CD and Cover... But if you transform this image into icon, the reflections may not look much good...

I use 'AveIconifier' for transforming images into icons... Try it... its a very handy product.

Fast Dial in Firefox

Ever used Opera?? It has a cool and mighty useful feature through which you can load “Links” of your favourite sites as thumbnails in the open tab. And now, Firefox has even that feature, thanks to the addon developed by telega called “Fast Dial”.

Here’s the link :

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5721

And it does a very neat job. Good thing is that it’s supported by even Firefox 3.0 RC2. See the pic below:

( A screen shot of the Fast Dial add-on. Click to Enlarge)

And it is very customisable too, with custom thumbnails, or even “live” thumbnails.

Try It…

Firefox 3 RC2... One Step Closer

Mozilla has made the Release Candidate 2 of Firefox available to download. This RC sees over 40 bugs fixed which surfaced in RC1 (which was very stable in itself). By doing this, Mozilla further ensure that the end product is a high quality product, which will attract more users.

Firefox is much more faster, secure, reliable... there's malware protection, a web forgery protection page, checks for add-ons and plugins, protection against cross-site attacks, and the ability to see information about a particular web site simply by clicking on its icon in the location bar, and an intelligent "Most Visited" button. Firefox's JavaScript engine has been boosted significantly, and memory leaks are supposed to be tightened up. User data (such as bookmarks, cookies, and preferences) are stored in a more secure database format so that, even if the browser crashes (which is becoming rarer with every update) they'll be protected. Plus, a whole host of features have been added which are supposed to make FF3 easier to use, including better password management, simplified add-on installation, full page zooming, tab scrolling, and better integration with Windows and Mac.

All-in-all, Firefox is much better than IE7, even IE8 beta, which I checked out a month or so ago. And even slightly better than Apple's Safari. It's ease of installation and use, combined with the myriad options provided by add-ons and extensions make it the best choice on the net. I use firefox nearly all the time (unless there's a site which says it just won't work if I don't use IE 5.5 or better... dumb demand), and the memory footprint, though not low, is satisfying, as FF uses a greatly improved memory allocation technique, which makes it's memory footprint stable. Even multiple tabs (10 or above) don't hog too much memory even on my lowly 384 MB RAM-system.

Though FF isn't the most-used browser (in fact many people haven't even heard of it), there is no particular reason for it to stay so. I think Firefox may soon take over the majority of the Browser market.
I still remember when I first used Firefox (maybe it was 1.5 or something), it had an option like Rander the Page as viewed in IE/Opera... And now, in IE8 beta, there was an option to Render the page as viewed in Firefox!!! Changes are in the air...

Windows 7 Next Year?

With falling on its face, and the phenomena seeming to overwhelm even , Microsoft need a very strong and reliable successor to Vista. And what I have gathered from the Web, Windows 7 may turn out to be a LUCKY ONE for MS.

".....Vista is the most compatible version of Windows that Microsoft has ever shipped....."

Though Vista's Service Pack 1 is launched, the real impact wil take some time in manifesting itself. I think Vista faced much 'bad' publicity and overblown compatibility issues, the MAIN problem which I think was its complexity... (I had read somewhere that Vista's kernel was about 5000 files or so).
But things have stared turning out a bit better of late
Paul Thurrott (http://www.winsupersite.com) had concluded that

"...Vista is the most compatible version of Windows that Microsoft has ever shipped..."

See : http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_100days.asp

Also, I got Mandriva (A Linux Distro), and guess what the magazine said as an introduction??

".... With Vista-like looks and... blah-blah..Mandriva is a ... good option..."

And also personally, I am fed up of people lynching Vista from its birth via articles such as :

"THREE REASONS WHY VISTA SUNK LIE A ROCK"
"THE ELEVEN PILLARS OF FALIURE"

I think Vista was engulfed by prejudice more than anything else.

Now, going over from Vista to 7, if Microsoft can fulfil all, or atleast, some of the failed promises which it planned to offer with Vista, like WinFS...
And Windows 7 takes a bold step forward by NOT offering Backwasrd Compatibility... That means all you old goodies will not run on Windows 7. But then, there is the Virtualization support in Win7.
Another step forward, though troublesome in some respects, is the Multi-Touch LCD support which may not be mainstream for another 2 years or so. A 19″ touchscreen LCD monitor is not available for less than $699 at Newegg currently.

And also, for Win7 to succeed, it must learn from Vista's mistakes.
I have some words for guys @ MS :

1. Not more than 2 versions
2. Familiarity must be a key point... Just look back on Windows ME II...
3. Increasing usability by decreasing complexity
4. Keeping the OS fast and informative

Well... I'm over... I felt like I was writing Vista's obitu... Nah! Not Now... Maybe Vista is surviving out there...

The Celebrations

Okay... It's a nice landmark for me... I posted the FIFTH time in this blog... (previous best was three until it departed prematurely)

And another reason to celebrate this day is that today is my BIRTHDAY!!!

So CHEERS to me, and drink to my health... (I only take Water)

This B'day would be very lonely, in the real world and even here (an unknown blog like this won't make many people stumbleupon and surely is now a del.icio.us worthy blog till now... he he he)

But next b'day may be a lot brighter and cheerful, so expect more from me here cuz my aim is to have my "Known" rating plummet up a few Millions atleast in the Technorati ratings...

 

A Very Long Shot... What do you think ????

The Techno-Horror Story #1

This story dates back a few months (5 to be precise). One of my friends had a lot of data (predominantly images) stored on his HD... But due to the MOORE'S LAW, his requirements double up every 18 months...

He was in dire need of more space, so he picked up his 2 GB SanDisk® Cruzer Micro into the USB port, and fired a command for copying the files and went off for a nap after reading the message :

COPYING 'Images' to 'Images'..................    10 minutes remaining

After a rather long stay in dream-world when he came to his senses, nearly 15-20 minutes had passed. Thinking the task to be already completed, he rose from his slumber and strolled to the computer only to find the text staring at him :

The Folder already contains a file named 'Image004'

Would you like to replace the existing file :

Image004......... 523 KB

with this one :

Image004......... 823 KB ???

 

Though this was intended to be, and most of the time, is a very good thing, sometimes telling the dumb computer to do these kind of things is really irritating, especially when time is a constraint...

Shouldn't Windows use a rather nifty  "Auto File Renamer" kind of plugin/extension to simplify the matter...

And yeah, there are free (and paid) softwares for renaming the rather unfashionable 'Imagexxx' files into something better like 'Visit to Taj xxx' or 'B'day Party xxx' which helps you aesily sort the large collection of yours into neat folders...

Here are some of the softwares :

Batch File Renamer (Paid) from filerenamer.net

Batch File Renamer (Free) from 123renamer.com

Or for more results, try Download.com

Foolproof way to Download MUSIC/VIDEOS from ANY site

Hi... I'm back again...

And this time I'm going to show you how to download any MUSIC/VIDEO from ANY site in the world...

I will explain it for Firefox and IE (And every other browser will be having something equivalent)

One Word Of Notice Though :

You will only be able to do this for files which are directly downloaded to your computer... This tutorial is not useful for STREAMING MEDIA...

(If you don't know if you are viewing Streaming Media or otherwise, see for a "BUFFERING..." dialog, or alternately while playing the media, seek the pointer backwards... If the Media loads agian or "Buffering..." appears, then you know what it is...

THE TUTORIAL

1: Open your browser, and go to the site where the Video/Music is...

2:Now the Splitting starts... If you have FIREFOX follow the steps in FIREFOX section. For INTERNET EXPLORER follow the Steps in IE section.

• In a new tab/window, write this : about:cache
• Under the DISK CACHE DEVICE, you will see a path where the computer stores the Temporary Internet Files...
• You'll see a path like this :
• <SystemDrive>:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<someprofilename>.default\OfflineCache\

• 

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• Copy the full path
• Now open a window in windows explorer (like My Computer/My Documents or anything like this...)
• Paste the path in the address bar
• You will see a plethora of files in the folder... Right click anywhere in the window and select Arrange Icons By>Size
• Now come to the bottom (Video files are large more than 5-6 MB, audio files will be around 3-6 MB)
• If you know the size of the Video/Audio file, then copy a file with that same size to another folder (the Cached files will be deleted once you browse away from that site)
• If you don't know the size then try to do some guess-work based on the length of the Video/Audio... Just don't copy the files with names like CACHE_001, etc.
• Now come to the folder where you have copied the files, and add the extension to the file
• (like if the file is MP3 file, change the extension to .mp3.. or if it is a video file from youtube, the extension will be .flv)
• Run it in a supported player...
• By Some Practice You Will Learn This Art(!!)... So Give it a try... IT IS FOOLPROOF

• 

• Click on Tools >> Internet Options
• In the General Tab, click on SETTINGS under Temporary Internet Files
• In the Settings dialogue, click on the View Files... Button
• A folder with path like this will open :
• <SystemDrive>:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files

• Alternately you can open the TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES folder (if you know the location)
• Now follow the same steps (Step 4 onwards) listed in Firefox.

For Any Other Browser, the steps 4 onwards will be essentially the same...

Feel free to post Comments. I'll truly appreciate it...

How To Watch TV online without a TV Tuner

This article explains you how to view your favourite TV show on the Internet without using a TV Tuner.

Follow these simple and concise steps to set up your PC as a makeshift(!) TV :

1: Download a Internet (P2P) TV Player Software like TVU or SopCast

URL

TVU(http://pages.tvunetworks.com/downloads/broadcast.html)

SOPCAST (www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Internet-Radio-TV-Player/SopCast.shtml)

They work mainly on P2P backbone

2: Install the software... I used TVU which looked like this :

3: Now you can browse for channels in the left pane... If you get the channel you want, just click on it... But if you don't then, go to next step

4: For Sports Channels go to :

LIVESCORE HUNTER : (http://www.livescorehunter.com/)

There is a huge collection of channels to view... You'll get the match you want if you see the category-wise view on the left.

5: Check out this site for all the categories :

MYP2P.eu : (http://www.myp2p.eu/channel.php)

6: Click on the channel you'd like to watch and sit back and enjoy the fun...

P.S :

A word before you enjoy, make sure you have a good connection, because the bandwidth requirements are rather HIGH (due to streaming audio-video, of course) nearly 500 kb/s for good viewing.

Also, many of the shows are copyrighted, but you know what P2P is... Probably that's why its so popular... Man can never get enough of all-things-FREE !!!

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Technorati Tags: TV,Tuner,P2P,Online,P2PTV,TVU,SopCast,Watch Free Online TV

Relief... Finally

I had made my first blog almost at this time a year ago : NASCENT... and it was exactly what it promised... Died after 3 posts... Deleted after 3 months... (though i didn't count)... And now finally stepping into this world once again, I faced with the grimmest of situations in this world, yeah i think you got it : I was LATE. So it was such an ordeal when i went out to give a name to this one... Nothing was NOT taken-up... So I settled on something bizzarre though i would have as easily have settled on something like:
please-makethisone-harsh.blogspot.com
But hopefully I won't leave this one so easily