Get $50 For one hour of blogging

Blogger is willing to pay you $50 to come down to Google for one hour and help improve the design and usability of Blogger.

Very cool. The program runs through early June, and is only eligible to people who have blogged for at least 2 months, are not employees of blogging companies, and are at least 18 years of age.

Oh, and of course you need to be able to make it down to the Googleplex, Mountain View, CA.

Here are the details from blogger website
Location: Google HQ in Mountain View, CA
Duration: about 1 hour
When: late May / eary June 2005 - during regular business hours (we will contact you to schedule a specific time)
Compensation: $50

In order to participate you must:

• have used Blogger for at least 2 months
• be over 18 years old
• have never worked for a blogging company
• be able to drive to our offices in Mountain View, CA
• be willing to sign our Usability Non-Disclosure Agreement

Click here for more details on earning through blogging at blogger

Google Earth

Google is readying a software packagecalled Google Earth, which is a Google-ized version of Keyhole, an astounding 3D mapping program from a company that Google acquired. It includes some built-in searching features that let you do things like see driving directions rendered as photographic flyover animations of actual the route you'll take.

So what are Google's plans for Keyhole:
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Keyhole's technology and products are an excellent addition to our efforts to do that. We do not have any announced plans regarding how this technology will integrate with our current products and services.
From the website www.keyhole.com

Google card trick

Check out Bondoogle, a card trick performed using Google. The trick works like so: Have the person pick a card, try to guess the card, and get it wrong. Then ask what the card was, and say "I bet Google knows what card it is". You then type into Google Images "What card did she pick?" and it returns pictures of that very card, with the name of the card in the search box.

How does it work? Bondoogle has a mirror of the Google search engine which masks what you are typing on the screen. Instead of your question, you type /3d/, where 3 is the number on the card and d stands for diamonds, the suit. Once you have typed the second /, you will see, instead of /3d/, the word "What". Until you type that second slash, Bondoogle will keep adding one letter at a time, up until it says "What is it that I am looking for?". When you type that second slash, everything you type is real, so, if you only type in 4 letters, you can continue to ask "What card am I thinking of, oh wise Google master?" and the only thing Google will search for is the text between the slashes.

What's more, while the script works best automating the number and suits in a deck of cards, you can type anything into either Google search or Google Images and pull off the trick. This means that you can type "/blue/s the color of my shirt?", your friend sees "What is the color of my shirt?", and Google returns the results for "blue".

Go to ipolygraph.com/google and try it out. To take the effect to the next level, Jim Bumgardner, who wrote the script, has created a Greasemonkey extension for Firefox that changes the actual Google search engine to exhibit this behavior. This means your "mark" will be very fooled by the address bar saying google.com.

This is all very cool, and I'm off to fool my loved ones.

Gmail with Popfile

I was using a mail categorising software called Popfile, which uses Bayesian filtering mechanism to categorise your mail. It acts as a POP proxy and sits between your mail client and your mail server. I wanted to use my GMail account with Popfile and found out that I can do that easily with a ssl upgrade to Popfile. I just got that and got my GMail account running with Popfile categorising the mail. GMail automatically filters the spam mail and I can receive only legitimate mail. I can now ditch my old hotpop account, which had 10MB space and 512KB file attachment restrictions.
Click here to setup your GMail (SSL) account with Popfile.

Customised Google search page

Google has unveiled a new service that allows people to consolidate various Google features they use, ranging from web search to email, into a personalized home page. Google has created a My Google page similar to what Yahoo and MSN had created before. You have a number of modules which you can add to your customised search page. The new page will look similar to the old search page, but below the search text box, there is an option to add a number of modules.
You can add

• Stocks
• Weather(US only)
  
• Quote of the day
• Word of the day
• Driving directions(US only)
• Movies(US only)
  
• Feeds, Headlines & The "Fusion" Strategy
• Gmail (support for other mail services pending)
  

This customised Google will allow you to read news from various sources like
- Google News (top US stories)
- BBC News
- New York Times
- Slashdot
- Wired News
The option to add any feed will be introduced soon.
You can even decide upon the placement of the modules you have selected. This customised page is totally different from the regular search engine. This is expected from Google which will not push things into its users.
Get your customised Google search page here.

Ten things to use Photoshop for

Most people don't use Photoshop to its fullest capabilities. Here are just ten uses to which you could put this highly versatile software.

1. Restoring Old Photographs. Have a look through that old family photo album - the really old one from up in Grandma's attic. Inside there are probably a few photos from way back when that haven't stood the test of time so well. They've got cracks and tears that really spoil their appearance. Scan them into Photoshop, and then set to work with the Clone Stamp, Healing Brush, and Patch tools. The Healing Brush in particular is a great tool for this purpose as it samples data from one part of the picture and blends it in with what's already there.
2. Correcting Mistakes. We've all done it: Had an attack of "finger over the lens syndrome," or got too close with the flash, so our subjects suffer from "red eye" and look like extras from a horror movie. Use the crop tool to salvage something usable from your obscured photo, and the enlarge wizard to blow it up to a reasonable size. For "red eye" and "pet eye," use the eyedropper tool to sample color from around the iris, and a brush to paint away the red.
3. Adding Graphics to Videos. It's a little known fact, but many domestic and professional nonlinear editing systems (especially the Mac based ones like Avid or Final Cut) enable you to import Photoshop .psd files directly into the timeline.
4. Creating Text Effects for Print and Web. There's an almost unlimited amount of things you can do with text in Photoshop. Use the Type Mask Tools to create picture filled text, then upload the results to your web page - or print them out for a one of a kind T-shirt.
5. Turning a Photo Into a Work of Art. Everyone likes to have nice things to look at. Most of us like to have pictures on the wall, and something that looks different from what other people have on their walls is a definite plus. Unless you're blessed with artistic talent, though, this can be very expensive - until now. Use one of Photoshop's many Artistic or Brush Stroke filters to turn your photos into "new masters," then print them out on quality art paper.
6. Designing Web Banners and Buttons. Photoshop comes with a predefined web banner sized canvas. Photoshop's sister application, Image Ready, comes with several - and lots of tools for animating text and pictures. You can also create interactive buttons that enhance a web browsing experience.
7. Adding Text to Photographs. Impress your boss by putting the company name on the side of an airliner, building, or racing car. Use the Move Tool to skew the text to fit the contours of the picture, adjust the opacity a little, and hey presto! The text will look like it's always been part of the photo.
8. Combining Pictures, Text, and Graphics to Make Covers for Books, Reports and CDs. Photoshop contains many of the image manipulation capabilities of high-end DTP applications that cost thousands. Use the "Layer via Cut" command to make your title text go behind part of the picture - just like on the cover of "Rolling Stone."
9. Designing Web Pages. Did you know that Photoshop and Image Ready can turn your photograph or artwork into a web page? Use the slice tool to cut your work into easily downloadable pieces, then the rollover function to embed website URLs.
10. Combining Pictures to Make the Impossible Possible. Come on! You didn't seriously think that Michael Moore and President George W. Bush really stood hand in hand on the White House lawn for the Fahrenheit 9/11 poster, did you? I don't know for certain that they used Photoshop to fake that picture, but they certainly could have done. With Photoshop you can remove the background from one picture, take some elements from another, and combine them with the background from a third to create a picture that could never have been taken for real. Who says the camera can't lie!

Photoshop Bluffs

Photoshop is an excellent image manipulation program brought out by Adobe. Many professional digital photographers swear by it. So you want to show your friends that you know Photoshop and want to bluff your way through. Then here are some tips.

Unsharp Mask
In order to bring out the details, most scans need to be sharpened. For this, most pros use Unsharp Masking. There are three parameters in the Unsharp Mask filter: Amount, Radius and Threshold. Threshold deals with levels of tonal seperation. Radius is the amount of sharpening you want. The Amount controls how effective your choice of Radius will be.
Is it too difficult to remember? I too find it the same.

Blending modes
These need two or more layers for any effect to work. You need at least two layers to blend together. A layer with a blending mode specified will blend with all other colors from layers underneath it. Photoshoppers call those original layer colors the base colors. The colors on top layer are called the blend color. The result is called the result color.
That was an easy one.

Texture Mapping
This is a favorite of wannabe Photoshoppers. They often say something that sounds like the following: "I've been having problems with using texture maps in my renderings. I'm trying to render a brick building using a texture map, but when it renders, I get these weird patterns all over my image. I've tried to increase the actual scale of the text-map, that didn't work. I tried to increase the size of the tiling, that didn't work. It happens for every image map I use for brick. It's getting frustrating..."

Just throw something like that at someone while you are looking frustrated, and they'll think you're a Photoshop pro!

Hello BloggerBot works

I am sending this picture to test Hello. This is an easy tool to attach images to one's blogs.
This was taken during the culturals. The people in the pic are (from left):
Yamini, Pratheema, Murali, Sudarsan, Raju and me.

AMD India launches 64-bit dual server

Bangalore, May 18. : AMD India on Tuesday announced the launch of a broad portfolio of what is said as the world's first 64-bit, dual-core server and workstation solutions for enterprise users to desktop and desktop-replacement notebooks for consumers and business users.

The new Dual-core AMD operation processors deliver up to a 90 per cent performance improvement for application servers over single-core AMD Opteron processor, an AMD statement said.

For desktop PC users, AMD announced the new AMD Athlon 64 X 2 Dual-core processor brand that will enable the multi-testing capabilities for richer computing experiences in near future, it said.

What would be the response by Intel? Watch this space regularly...

Google's Corporate Desktop Search tool

Google launched a destop search tool for corporates called as Google Desktop Search for Enterprise.
Google Desktop Search for Enterprise helps you easily manage the ever-growing mountain of information located on your computers and includes key standards-based administrator features that provide enhanced security, centralised configuration and easy company-wide deployment.

Boost your productivity with Google Desktop Search:

• Find your email, files, media, web history and chats instantly
• View web pages you've seen, even when you're not online
• Search directly from your desktop with the Deskbar
• View search results from your desktop, intranet and Google.com

Why the new enterprise features are a big deal for IT administrators:

• Centrally control user features and preferences
• Encrypt all user data and search index files
• Easily deploy using the included installation package
• Test new versions before distributing

This tool can search for

IBM Lotus Notes Email		Internet Explorer
Outlook Email		Netscape Mail
Outlook Express		Firefox
Word		PDF
Excel		Music
Powerpoint		Images
AOL Instant Messenger		Video

I really miss a Desktop search tool for Linux users. There are similar tools, but a product from Google really has its own value.

Microsoft launches Antivirus

BEIJING, May 16
Software giant Microsoft is launching a new security product, which offers virus and spyware protection, a new firewall and various tune-up tools for Windows PCs.
A pilot version of Windows OneCare is scheduled to be available by the end of this year. It marks the company's long-awaited entry into antivirus software.
It offers improved backup and restore capabilities and easy access to Windows PC maintenance tools for file repair and hard drive clean up.
Anyway I am not going to buy a Microsoft product.
(Source: CRIENGLISH.com)

CollegeRant - New Project

I was thinking of the website and got an excellent idea. Every college student wants to write about the college and how they torture them. Why dont I create a website which helps them do just that. I have decided to develop a website where the students can register and write what they think about their college. Hope this becomes a good project. I gotta start learning PHP/MySQL seriously in the holidays and must try to finish a beta version within 1 year.

Suspension revoked

Today we went and met SO and told that we had deleted all the content. He asked us to write an apology letter and our suspension was revoked. But he didn't allow Robi. I dont know what would happen to Robi.

Deletion of posts

Sudarsan and I went to a browsing centre to delete the blog and the discussion forum. First we thought that the president or someone must have searched in Google and found the link. When we seached for the keyword 'saveetha' our website came in the 3rd page of the search result. That too was an indirect link. Not a direct link to the blog or the forum. So I thought someone who knew about the site had shown the president.
I wanted to save a copy of the post in the blog, so I mailed the post to my email address. Then we went to the forum and it was a difficult time to search for that particular post. There were in total 417 posts. Luckily I had moved the very bad jokes about the staffs to a password protected forum and it saved our neck. Some one really knowing about our website must have brought up the issue. But we dont know who it was. We deleted all the posts and all the members.
Sudarsan and ananthu wanted to develop another website without using the college name and to show the real state of the college. But I was thinking of some other way. I wanted to write a review about the college in www.mouthshut.com.

Fall of CSECDept website

Today just before the exam (Electronic Circuits) Ananthu and Murali came in and said that Ms.Kalaivani (DBMS, 3rd sem) wanted to see us for publishing about her in our class website. We(Sudarsan and me) went and saw her. She asked us about the website and who had published such information in it. Sudarsan was prepared for it by telling that someone named X had registered and had posted about this. He said that we didnt know who it was. She said that the president had come to know about it and he had asked the Special Officer(SO) (Dr.B.MuthuKumaran) to enquire about it. After finishing the exam we went to see our HOD, but saw only Ms.Kalaivani who asked us to come with her and meet SO. We went with her and Ananthu was also there for geting a bonafide. She made us to stand there. Then Avanthi also came and said that she was called by SO. After a while we went in and Dr.Muthukumaran began to scold us by asking who developed the site and who gave the permission to develop the site. He kept scolding us that we had no right to comment about a staff and we were no match for her.

The entire story happened back in the 3rd semester. We had a new staff (Ms.Kalaivani) to teach DBMS for us and one day she asked us what is the difference between a compiler and an interpreter. We answered it and she said that it was wrong. She said that a compiler executes the program line by line and a interpreter reads the entire program in a single go and executes. We said that it was wrong. She said no - What she said was only right.
So I blogged about that in our blog. Here is the post from the blog.

Monday, July 12, 2004

Today the most funny thing happened. DBMS ma'am today asked us what is
teh difference between a compiler and an interpreter. We said that a
compiler reads the entire code and an interpreter executes the code
line by line. Then she said that a compiler only reads the code line
by line and an interpreter executes as a whole. I don't know where she
got her degree. Hope the principal reads this blog or atleast HOD
ma'am reads this. I want to show the college the knowledge of our
teaching staffs. How can we expect to get within 10 ranks if such
staffs are present.
- posted by csec @ 5:37 AM

Now back to the present, SO showed us some printouts which were from the blog and also the discussion forum. There was a principal joke in it where the mother persuades the principal to goto school...
For that Robi had replied something about the principal and also said 'The same can be applicable to the Special Officer'. So the SO began to scold us for developing a website in the name of the college. He began to tell 'what would others think about our college after seeing the website?'. He also began to scold us for misusing the college name. He even threatened to file a police complaint. :-))
The charges against us were -
Me(Srinivasan) - For developing the website
Sudarsan - For developing the website
Anantharaman - For developing the website
Avanthi - For chatting with boys in the discussion forum
Robi - For commenting about the principal(who has left college now) and mainly about the SO

Ms.Kalaivani began to tell that she asked only basic questions without which she couldn't continue with the class. When she asked about compilers and interpreters, she only said "Are you sure?" and nothing else.
I was totally enraged by this big lie. How dare she tell such a lie. She also said that during the class hours, the students used to message each other and also pass messages in the form of bits.

So Dr.B.Muthukumaran suspended all five of us. The secretary typed the letter and asked us to sign in it. The letter read that
'The following students are suspended from the college for their misbehaviour by misusing the website of our college'
I wanted to ask her about the words 'website of our college' but she didn't allow me to talk and got our sign. Then our HOD was called and she was shown all the printouts. The SO then said that all the things must be deleted and we must come meet him the next day. We went to the department and waited for HOD to return.

When the HOD returned we asked her how they came to know about it. She said, the president came to know about this and he sent the links to SO and asked to take printouts of the website. She said not to worry as she had recommended for us and to come tomorrow after deleting all the stuff and the suspension would be revoked.

So what was my/our mistake?? We created a website for our class. How could we identify ourselves without using the college name. We didn't say that it was the official website of Saveetha Engineering College. The website read "Computer Science Department, Saveetha Engineering College". I dont think there is anything wrong in it. When we can have websites that can review about products like www.mouthshut.com or when we can discuss about any topic on Usenet, what is wrong in having a community website for our class? Were any copyright laws infringed? All the content on the website were the views of the members. If the views were against the college, then it is the mistake of the college by not maintaining a standard in teaching. If I say Microsoft products sucks, then it is my personal view and Microsoft cannot sue me. They have to make sure that their products are maintaining the standard.

The sad part is that they dont realise the state of the college with such staffs. I don't know where the college will head to with such people teaching us and governing us.

Formula 1 Live Timing

I could get the live timing of my favourite sport Formula 1 Grand Prix at the official website of Formula 1. It is very nice as it is created in Java and I could get the live scores from the cars, and also the weather, track conditions, etc.
And today is the Spanish GP.

Google goes down

Google went down for 15 minutes this past saturday between 6:45 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Entire Google services were brought to a standstill. Most of the users thought that it was a hacking attempt as they were redirected to another search engine. But Google confirmed the reports and said that it was due a problem with the DNS (Domain Name System).

Yahoomail - 1GB

Today I saw that my Yahoomail account was upgraded to 1GB. This is very very late as GMail introduced this concept more than a year back on April 1, 2004.
No webmail service provider can match the ease of use, features and speed of GMail. I hate Yahoomail because it is very slow and devoid of many features. But Yahoo excels in integrating all of its services like Mail, Instant Messaging, etc.
I am still waiting for an Instant Messaging system by Google. Who knows we may soon get GIM (Google Instant Messaging).

Flash For Linux

Here is an excellent software by the Free Software Community for GNU/Linux. There has been a long complaint that there is no tool for creating Flash animations in GNU/Linux. Here is the software which can change the world.
Flash For Linux

Matrix Revolutions - Navras

I atlast downloaded the famous sound track Navras from the film The Matrix Revolutions by Juno Reactor.
It is available from this URL

It is 9:08 minutes long with 192kbps bitrate.
Really cool.