> My favorite Image/Video viewer

Cooliris: While browsing, I came across this site in mid Feb and some how i'm still holding on to it. It's become one of my favorites now...and I visit it too often.
I would try and summarize some of its coolest features so it becomes easier to check it out.

> Firstly....As soon as you visit the site, it recognises your browser and prompts you to download a related cooliris plug-in. This is required for the application to work properly
> All major browsers are supported. Incase if you don't get the prompt, you could check and download the plug-in here
> Once your plugin is downloaded you will see a small icon on images from certain sites you visit.

> When you click this icon, you will be taken to cooliris site. There will be a wall displayed with your image and all related images from the site :)
> A small video below, will explain how the content will appear.



> Cooliris is an online application that can Search, Run a Slide Show and Play all your Photos, Videos and some Games.
> To start with....you can Search images/videos from various sites like..Google, Bing, Flickr, Picasa, Youtube and many more.
> You can also perform search on you local Hard Drives...is'nt that cool?
> The Wall can be customized as required.

The above feature will give you a general idea of what Cooliris is all about. Check out the site and you will find some more great things that are visually soothing than just reading it out here :)

If you come across some more cool features from this site that I may have missed, pls write it in the comment.

> Use your Symbian phone as Webcam for free

The idea of a portable Webcam sounds great right? Here is a software that takes care of this.

If you own a Symbian phone (series 60) with a camera and bluetooth, then you can convert it into a webcam. There may be various software available for this, but my recommendation would be SmartCam since its free yet fully functional. SmartCam is a program that forms a communication link between your phone camera and your laptop/desktop.

All you need is:

> A Symbian mobile phone with camera and bluetooth enabled.
> A laptop or a desktop with bluetooth device.
> Windows or Linux OS

SmartCam has 2 components. Install one on your PC and the other on your phone.
Once you install the program, run it from your mobile to connect with your PC. You should now be able to see images from your phone camera on your PC.
This can also be used in your messenger services like yahoo or msn.


Download SmartCam

> Multiple login in Yahoo Messenger

People familiar with Yahoo messenger would know that once you login to messenger with one ID, you will not be allowed to log in with your other ID. Even if you try to, your previously logged-in account will be logged out. In simple words, Yahoo restricts multiple login.
As usual this issue can be taken care of by following some quick steps.

Procedure:

1) Click "Start" button on your computer.
2) Go to "Run"
3) Type "regedit" in the box and hit "enter"
4) This will open the Registry Editor

5) Once in the Registry Editor follow the folder path mentioned below.
6) HKEY_CURRENT_USER => Software => Yahoo => pager => Test

7) Check the right pane. If you don't see the "Reg_Dword" type "Plural" then create it by.....
8) Right clicking on "Test"..... Click on New => Dword value
9) Rename the new value to "Plural"
10) Right click "Plural" and click "Modify"

11) In the new popup that opens, enter "1" as the Value Data" and "Decimal" as the Base.
12) Click "OK" to close the popup and the close the Registry Editor.

That's it. You're done.

Now you can open Multiple Yahoo Messengers with different login IDs....Happy Messaging :)

> Youtube tips and tricks

Embedding a Youtube video in a site is becoming very common these days. People like sharing videos on Social Networking sites like Facebook, Orkut etc and it's becoming trendy. Instead of just searching and sharing the video, here are some popular Youtube tricks that you should know.

Pls note: Most of the tricks mentioned below, require slight modification in the embed src="" code.

1. View high quality videos
Incase if the video is uploaded in low quality, Youtube gives you the option to switch to high quality for some of the videos, however you can check if a video is available in high quality format by appending ‘&fmt=18?(stereo, 480 x 270 resolution) or ‘&fmt=22?(stereo, 1280 x 720 resolution) for even higher quality.

2. Embed Higher Quality Videos
While the above trick works for playback, if however you want to embed hig quality videos you need to append “&ap=%2526fmt%3D18? and “&ap=%2526fmt%3D22? to the embed url.

3. Jump to required Segment
Linking to a lengthy video where the required segment starts at 2 minutes 15 seconds, you could make your video start at 02:15. All you have to do is add #t=03m22s (#t=XXmYYs for XX mins and YY seconds) to the end of the URL.

4. Hide the search box
If you wish to deactivate the search box that appears when you hover over an embedded video add ‘&showsearch=0? to the embed url. This is great if you wish to avoid direct video searches from your site/blog.

5. Embed only a part of Video
This is similar to #3 above. Just append ‘&start=30? to skip first 30s of the video. In general you can modify the value after start= to the number of seconds you want to skip the video for.

6. Autoplay an embedded video
Normally when you embed a Youtube video and load the page, the player is loaded but the video does not play untill you hit the Play button. You can make the video play automatically by adding ‘&autoplay=1? to the url part of the embed code.

7. Loop an embedded video
Adding ‘&loop=1? to the embed src puts a loop function to the video. The video plays continuously

8. Disable Related Videos
Once your video stops playing, Youtube automatically gives a list of related videos. Don’t want people to see other people’s content that may be related but may pose competition to you? Just add ‘&rel=0? to the end of the url part of the embed code. Your related video suggestion will be turned off.

9. Bypass Youtube Regional Filtering
Some videos are only available in certain parts of the world. Your IP Address is used to determine your location and then you are allowed or denied access to the video. Change the url from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= to http://www.youtube.com/v/

10. Download Video
You can refer my earlier post Here

If you know some more cool tips for Youtube. Let me know, I will add it to the list.

> Google search tips

Google search may be easy, but if you know these google search tips you have more chances to quickly reach to the exact query you want to search...
Google search is a most powerful tool to collate data from the World Wide Web (WWW). Most people use random keywords to get the deisred results, but this is more of a general search. If you wish to master your search, you need to know some important keywords that act as Google operators. These operators save a lot of your time and avoids a list of unnecessary results. I have listed few Operators below.

site:
restricts the results to specific domain. site:http://parasitech.blogspot.com will find all indexed page on http://parasitech.blogspot.com/, while site:http://parasitech.blogspot.com tricks will find all tricks-related pages on http://parasitech.blogspot.com/

cache:
shows the cached version of given webpage. Other keywords in the query will be highlighted in the returned page, try cache:http://parasitech.blogspot.com/ tricks

filetype:
returns links to documents with the given file type.
For example searching for ebook filetype:pdf will try and find file name ebook.pdf across web.
This search supports file types like mp3, pdf, ps, wk1, wk2, wk3, wk4, wk5, wki, wks, wku, lwp, mw, xls, ppt, doc, wks, wps, wdb, wri, rtf, swf, ans, txt, xml, cpp, java and many more.

link:
lists webpages that link to the given webpage. Eg. link:http://parasitech.blogspot.com/ will list webpages with links pointing to http://parasitech.blogspot.com/

related:
returns pages that google thinks are related to the given page. This is not always accurate. You can try related:http://parasitech.blogspot.com/

info:
returns some informations about the given web page. Typically website and description.

define:
returns the definition of a given word. Eg. define:nincompoop (You will get the meaning, if you dont already know it :)

phonebook:
search in residential phone book. sample: phonebook:smith Los Angeles.

stocks:
returns stock info: try stocks:goog

weather:
weather informations for the given city. weather:mumbai

movie:
returns all movies related to the search term given. Sample: movie:Love Sex Aur Dhoka
You can also find movies by locations: movie:mumbai, movie:Love Sex Aur Dhoka

flights
you can search for flights inside USA using the airport code (does not work for every airport). sample: jfk lax



SEO-oriented Operators

allintitle:
Search for documents with the given words in their title. allintitle:parasitech trick will find all the documents with title containing ‘parasitech’ and ‘trick’. This operator cannot be combined with others.

intitle:
Search for documents with the first word after the intitle operator in their title. intitle:parasitech trick will find all the documents with title containing ‘parasitech’ and talking about trick. Note that the word ‘trick’ is not necessarily in the title.

allintext:
Search for documents with the given words in their text. allintext:parasitech trick will find all the documents with text containing ‘parasitech’ and ‘trick’.This operator cannot be combined with others.

intext:
Search for documents with the first word after the intext operator in their text. intext:parasitech trick will find all the documents with text containing ‘parasitech’ and talking about trick. Note that the word ‘trick’ is not necessarily in the text

allinurl:
Search for documents with the given words in their url. allinurl:parasitech trick will find all the documents with url containing ‘parasitech’ and ‘trick’. This operator cannot be combined with others.

inurl:
Search for documents with the first word after the inurl operator in their url. inurl:parasitech trick will find all the documents with url containing ‘parasitech’ and talking about trick. Note that the word ‘trick’ is not necessarily in the text

allinanchor:
Search for documents with the given words in an anchor. allinurl:parasitech trick will find all the documents with anchor text containing ‘parasitech’ and ‘trick’. This operator cannot be combined with others.

inanchor:
Search for documents with the first word after the operator in an anchor. inanchor:parasitech trick will find all the documents with anchor containing ‘parasitech’ and talking about trick. Note that the word ‘trick’ is not necessarily in an anchor.

> Saving Orkut Images

While in Orkut, lets say, you visited an old friend's album and found that there are some old group snaps of yours. You wish to download them all but....How?
Orkut has disabled Right-Click option for security reasons. That means you can't just Right-Click and do a "Save Image".

To overcome this, most users have adopted a very crude method. Taking a printscreen, pasting it in image editor (like mspaint) and saving the required image portion.
The only drawback here is...there are chances of losing the crispness (image quality) when you save it.

If you really want to download the images in the actual form (high quality), here are few tricks that can come handy.

1) Click and Drag: The easiest and the quickest way to download an Orkut picture is to Click and Drag. Go to any image you wish to download. Left-Click the image and without lifting your finger, just drag the image to your Desktop. The picture will instantly get saved.

2) Drag to Address Bar: Incase the above method does not work, just drag the image to the Browser Address bar. This opens the individual image in the Browser. YOu can then Right-Click and save it to you Desktop.

3) Download entire Page: Go to Orkut Album. Click on a snap to enlarge...then goto File > "Save Page As". Once you save the page to your desktop, just browse the content of the page folder on your Desktop. You will get the required image in the Folder.

4) Using Java Script: You can use a code from Orkutplus.net to download images. You can get the code here (http://www.orkutplus.net/save-images-from-album.txt). un this code in the Orkut album page. You will be redirected to a page which will enable you to right click on the images.

5) Using Firefox: If you use Firefox as your browser, go to the image you wish to download. Go to the tools menu in Menu bar. Click "Page Info" > "Media" tab. Here you will get list of URLs cached in your temp files. Check the Preview for the required Image and save it to your Comp.

I'm sure there would be users having some more tricks on this. Send in your enties and I'll publish them too.

> List of useful websites

Here is a list of some useful websites, some of which I use every alternate day and the best part is it's all FREE.

1. Sumo Paint – If you are creative enough to start a drawing on your own, but feel that MSpaint lacks big time, then Sumo Paint is meant for you. It has some super cool features that can enhance your creation. Just try it to feel the difference.

2. Zamzar – If you come across a file that your system won't read, just point your web browser to Zamzar. It's an online file converter and can convert most files from one format to another. Everything is handled online, you need not download anything.

3. Spypig – This tool is useful for email marketing. It tracks emails and sends you a notification as soon as someone opens your mail. SpyPig is tested with web based mail programs (like Gmail, Yahoo) and it also works with desktop mail clients like Outlook and Thunderbird.

4. Photoshop.com – As the name suggests, it works similar to Adobe Photoshop. Its free and requires no installation. Once you register you get 2GB of storage space for saving your snaps online. If you have a Windows mobile, you can also access the mobile version of the site.

5. Skydrive – If 25 GB online space and 50 MB limit per file upload is enough for you, Skydrive is the right option. It's a Microsoft product where you can store files, photos and documents online. Your files could be stored here forever and the service is free.

6. Joongel – This is a search engine where you won't miss a thing. From General to Specific, from Images to Torrents, from Music to Videos and the list goes on. It's all under one Roof. Even if Google misses something, Joongel won't. A very simple interface lets you customize your searches. Check it out to believe.

7. Wakoopa – It's a desktop utility which tracks your system for softwares that you commonly use and communicates the same within you social circle. This increases intercation and you get suggestions on some more similar softwares.

8. Truveo – This search engine from AOL lets you find and play videos from all video sharing sites like  YouTube, Blip.tv, Metacafe, MySpace and more. Truveo also indexes videos from some content rich sites related to news and entertainment.

9. RescueTime – This site works in the background and helps you understand how you spend your time on the computer and the Internet.

10. Ping.fm – This site communicates with most Blogging and Social network sites and saves you lot of time and effort. It lets you interact with these sites through SMS, IM clients, Desktop Application or just Email. One message to ping.fm and your current status will be updated across all the social networks.

11. Animoto – Sharing your photos as Slideshow can be boring somethimes. A more interesting option would be converting your photos to videos. Animoto turns your pictures into videos with some awesome effects. The final result is produced in widescreen format and the quality is great.

12. Meebo – This site is a home for multiple IM clients. Just one site lets you connect with friends on Google Talk, Facebook, Yahoo Messenger and some other popular IM clients. All this without any downloads.

> Online screen recorder

What would you do if I tell you to record my activity on my Desktop.
If you are a newbie, you will probably go searching for your handycam or some video recorder and point it to my desktop.
But if you are well versed with the net, you will open an Online Screen Recorder and finish the job quick and neat.

There are various resources for Online Screen Recording, but I would like to discuss just 1. I've tried it myself and it worked wonders.

Introducing Screentoaster (For those who've never heard about it)

>Its Free to use. Registration is free and not required for creating a video
No download required. It's Compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux.
>You can Capture videos of onscreen action in one click
Record screencasts, tutorials, demos, training, lectures, online movies and more.
>Share and stream videos online in Flash
You can upload videos and embed them on blogs and webpages or just mail them.

1) Go to Screentoaster
2) Click on Start recording
3) You will be directed to a window as shown below

4) You have 3 main options
    a) Screen Area (specify if you wish to record the entire desktop or just a part)
    b) Enable/Disable sound recording in Video
    c) Use additional device for recording (eg. Webcam)
5) Enable Geek settings to gain additional options for advance users.
6) ALT+S is the shortcut to Start/Stop recording
7) Once you are familiar with the interface you can start your recording anywhere on the desktop.

You can also try your hands at the new recorder. The interface is very much similar to one explained above.

> Call someone from another number

You can call someone from another number to hide your identity. This way you can make sure you dont get uninvited call backs...
Call someone from another number or probably with their own number and surprise them. This is one the best prank you could play on an April Fool's day. Here I will explain a simple method you can use to trick your friends...
When you talk about calling someone from some fake number, its called Caller ID Spoofing. There are several sites that allow doing this and its legal in most places till your intentions are innocent.

Many of you may know this and many would have used it to play pranks. For those who don't, here is a small prank I would like to discuss. You can play it on your friends and capture their expression.

From the number of sites around, I would select Mobivox mainly because:
1) I've tried it myself
2) It works for everyone including Indian audience
3) Registration is free and you get 10 minutes of free calling



With all these features, it also allows keeping the caller's number and calling number same. This can be used to play the trick.

Now lets call someone with their own number. :)

Method:
> Visit Mobivox
> Click on Register for Free
> On the next screen, fill all required details
> Note: In the Phone number field, you will insert the Victims mobile number.

> Once the registration is done, confirm your email address.
> Login to your account
> Your account header will show enough fund for a 10min call.
> Click on Direct WebCall
> Enter your Victim's number you wish to call.....and freak him out :)

> Convert Text to Voice

This small application will convert your Text to Voice (Speech) and believe me, you can create it yourself :)
No technical knowledge required.

Am I joking?.....No I'm not......Its very easy.

1) Quickly open your notepad.
2) Copy the content in Blue

Dim msg, sapi
msg=InputBox("Enter your text","Message Box")
Set sapi=CreateObject("sapi.spvoice")
sapi.Speak msg

3) Paste it in Notepad
4) Save it with any name but the extension should be ".vbs"
5) If you wish to name it "XYZ"...then the file name will be "XYZ.vbs"
6) Close the window.

Now open the file, type anything in it and press enter..... Bingo!!!....You should be able to hear what you just typed.
But make sure your speakers are turned on ;)