Web Tools

Concept of Point and Click Mobile Search

February 14, 2008 by Arun Leave a Comment

With mobile devices seeing a higher rate of adoption of PCs, it makes sense that leading web technology firms are taking a keen interest on this front. Chief among the innovations in this space are melding the features for mobile search with the interface and functionalities specific to mobility.

One innovative techniques mentioned in this regard is combining the power of image search with data mining to get results on objects that are viewed by the mobile device.

An excerpt from Google Operating System

Mac Funamizu imagines a more intuitive way to search by just pointing at objects or selecting text. An Internet-enabled mobile device that incorporates a camera, scanner, GPS could make use of services like Google Maps or an improved image search to recognize objects and deliver useful information about them.

Textual input does not happen to be the most preferred usage aspect to mobile devices. Hence technology has to focus om the other alternatives that are available. With improving quality of image capture, media playback and the rise in data services, search on the mobile will also has to factor in the new input mechanisms.

Perhaps a more important innovation would be to make it effortless to enter information into mobile devices. And at the same comes the requirement to enhance real time non-textual data processing.

25 Incredible Skins, Resources & Tools for the Gmail Power User

February 5, 2008 by Skellie 91 Comments

Gmail is one of those rare things unanimously loved by everyday web users and tech-heads alike. The possibilities are endless. It can be anything from a simple email client to your central nervous system on the web. How far you take it is up to you.

Each day seems to produce a new hack, tool or tip for better Gmail use. In this post, I want to highlight only the very best, hand-picked from hundreds of resources. This is not another resource list you’ll bookmark and never look at again. These tips, monster resources and tools will change the way you use Gmail.

Best Gmail skins

1. Super Clean skin — probably the most popular Gmail skin, Super Clean replaces the standard interface with a minimalist white and sky-blue version. Perfect for the budding Zen-master.

2. Air skin — makes subtle changes to the visual interface, adding clean lines, a cloudy color combo and changes the primary font. The perfect solution for users looking for a fresh look without any radical changes.

3. Mac skin — a Mac-inspired Gmail skin to match the Mac you’re checking your mail on! Adds a Mac-style menu and color-scheme to your Gmail account.

4. Fe Mail skin — a well-crafted and very pink Gmail skin.

5. Dark Gmail skin — almost the complete opposite to the last link, this skin is one for the dark and brooding Gmail user.

6. Silverstar skin — a popular minimalist gray theme.

7. Brushed skin — a gray and maroon theme with nifty gradients thrown into the mix.

Best Gmail resources

8. The Gmail Shortcuts Cheat Sheet — a comprehensive printable cheat sheet of useful shortcuts for Gmail. Print it and stick it to your desk: these shortcuts are worth memorizing. Did you know pressing ‘Tab’ and ‘Enter’ will send the email you’ve composed?

9. Gmail Craze: 40+ Tools and Hacks for Gmail — a frequently updated post from MakeUseOf featuring essential Firefox extensions, Greasemonkey Scripts, Desktop Apps, Web Tools, tips and hacks.

10. 55 Gmail tips — this website is dedicated to providing detailed Gmail tips. It covers everything from excluding chat from search results to importing Hotmail contacts.

11. Hack Attack: Become a Gmail Master — this fantastic guide from Lifehacker introduces Gmail’s most powerful capabilities in a way that’s easy to follow. It will help take anyone only familiar with Gmail’s basic functions to the next level.

12. Use Gmail as Your Universal Email Account — got too many email addresses to keep track of? Forward them all to Gmail and deal with your incoming mail from one central location.

13. Ultimate Gmail Collection: Over 80 Tools and Tips — a monster list of extensions, scripts, apps, notifiers, how-tos and shortcuts for the serious Gmail user.

14. Turn Gmail Into Your Personal Nerve Center — influential technology blogger Steve Rubel shares his essential Gmail life hacks, including:

How to turn Gmail into a massive personal database
How to get real-time news updates in Gmail
How to automatically store your bookmarks in Gmail
How to manage Calendar and To-Dos in Gmail
How to blog from Gmail

15. 1 Awesome Gmail Tip You Didn’t Know About. Seriously. — this easy tutorial explains how you can customize your Gmail address to serve different purposes.

16. Gmail Toolbox: 60+ Tools for Gmail — Mashable.com works its magic with a huge compendium of Gmail tools. It includes all the extensions you know and love in addition to some (previously) undiscovered gems.

17. Access Gmail When It’s Blocked at Work or School — Engtech provides five strategies you can use to check your Gmail anywhere, even when the I.T. department doesn’t want you to.

18. Mark Spam Messages as Read — this simple filters hack allows you to prevent your unread spam count showing in the main display. Best of all, it will still alert you to items that have been incorrectly marked as spam.

19. Gmail Tips and Tricks: Monster Roundup — Lifehacker’s big roundup of its favorite Gmail downloads, hacks and articles.

Best Gmail tools

20. Gmail Drive — this tool puts Gmail’s extensive storage capacity to use, adding a new drive to your computer which can be accessed via Windows Explorer. You can create folders and drag and drop files within the drive. If you’ve got unused space in your Gmail account, why not add some more space to your hard drive?

21. GTD Inbox — the email solution for productivity nuts, GTD Inbox is a Firefox extension designed to merge the “Getting Things Done” productivity method with Gmail. It transforms Gmail into a productivity hub you can use to set and manage tasks or to-dos. The interface is very subtle and won’t interrupt the look and feel of Gmail as you know it.

22. Better Gmail 2 — this simple and elegant Firefox extension, authored by Gina Trapani, makes several improvements to Gmail’s core functionality, allowing you to hide the ever-annoying Spam count, compose Mailto links in Gmail and view your storage quota as a useful graph. If you’re still using the old version of Gmail, you’ll need to download the original Better Gmail extension.

23. Gmail Music — this nifty little web-based GUI app allows you to store MP3 files in your Gmail account and play them on any computer.

24. Dragdropupload — a Firefox extension that does away with the pesky ‘Browse’ interface. It enables drag and drop email attachments to make the process quick and painless.

25. Gmail Skins — a Firefox extension to customize the color of your Gmail inbox.

Suggest your favorite skins, resources and tools in the comments section!

Google Brings Real-Time Language Translation to Instant Messaging

December 21, 2007 by Arun 2 Comments

The Google Talk blog made an announcement that sounds like a great Christmas gift globally – Translations Bots. The new feature will let users translate different languages while chatting using Translation bots.

The bots are named with 2 letter abbreviations in the format:

[from language]2[to language]@bot.talk.google.com

All the user has to do is add the bots in the contact list and commence a group chat or a single IM session and the bots will do just what their name suggests, convert the chat messages to the destination language.

Most IMs convert from the English language but there are translation bots from other languages too. The bots are available for 24 different languages.

And in its true open spirit Google also released details on the open protocol and client libraries that users can use to create their own bots.

The spirit of innovation that drives Google’s products is what has made it such a recognized brand. Perhaps Apple only can truly match this innovation engine. But all has not been hunky-dory for Google. The roll out of new features for Gmail met with some flak as several users complained of slow connections. Nonetheless these should have been valuable lessons for the firm as it strives to achieve greater heights in technology innovation.

14 Web Apps to Help You Learn Everything Online

December 19, 2007 by Skellie 5 Comments

These days when you want to learn how to do something, the web is usually a wise first port of call. One of the many positive developments of Web 2.0 has been the rise of a whole bunch of high quality web s dedicated to sharing knowledge online.

In this post, I want to help you tap into 14 innovative social and non-social communities dedicated to helping you learn online: from being more productive to playing guitar along to your favorite song.

Learn to cook

1. imcooked is a web community dedicated to filming and uploading cooking videos.

2. iFoods.tv is another food video community, but this one features professionally produced tutorial videos.

Learn to mix drinks with what you have

3. ExtraTasty allows you to search drink recipes or enter the ingredients you have into the ‘My Bar’ section of the site. Doing so will narrow down the search to only drinks you can make with the ingredients you currently have in your bar.

Learn what rare words mean

4. Definr is a minimalist web interface that performs one important function: to instantly define the word you input. You’ll receive search results almost before you’ve finished typing, and can get a definition with a single click.

Learn to play music

5. Show Me How To Play is the musician’s web . There’s plenty of free videos available you can use to learn some really great tracks.

Learn another language

6. italki helps you find a language partner, get answers, share files, get language resources and join groups. If you’re learning a language but don’t know anyone to practice with, this web could be the answer to your woes.

Learn how to make stuff

7. Instructables is an online community of enterprising DIY fanatics who share and use tutorials on doing just about everything under the sun: from building a gingerbread house to constructing a garage from the ground up.

Learn where the cool events are hening

8. Flavorpill is a very hip events aggregator for key American cities.

Learn to live sustainably

9. Make Me Sustainable is a social community for people trying to live in a more sustainable way. The Carbon and Energy Portfolio Manager is a neat way to keep tabs on your impact.

10. Carbonrally promises to help you reduce global warming (in a small way) by undertaking quick and easy challenges.

Learn to manage your finances

11. Mint is an award-winning secure web to help you manage your finances. It helps you track debt, view multiple accounts simultaneously and keep track of your income and your expenses. The slick interface also includes a number of visualization options.

Learn to be more productive

12. Remember the Milk helps you create simple to-do lists for everyday tasks.

Learn where to go

13. Wikitravel is a user-generated worldwide travel guide currently serving over 17,000 locations. If you don’t want to spend money on a glossy travel guide, Wikitravel should do the trick.

Learn where your site’s visitors are clicking

14. Crazy Egg generates a heat map of your site to help visualize where your visitors are clicking and navigating. Measure the performance of ads and which elements of your navigation aren’t working as they should be.

For iPhone and iPad App reviews follow TheAppReviewer.com

vozMe: Text-to-Speech Web Tool

December 14, 2007 by Admin Leave a Comment

Text-to-Speech synthesis has a variety of uses. Writers might use it to correct mistakes in their articles, foreigners might want to know the pronunciation of a specific word, and other people will use it just for fun.

Regardless of what you are trying to accomplish, however, you won’t need to install a software on your computer. There are several web tools that will do this for you, and the most straight forward one is vozMe.

You just need to paste or type the text in the form and click “Create MP3.” The tool will convert it into speech, and you will be able to hear online and to save the MP3 file. The quality is obvioiusly not that great, but it gets the job done.

You can also check more Text-to-Speech alternatives on the article “6 Online Tools for Text to Speech.”

How Fast Do You Type?

December 8, 2007 by Admin 9 Comments

Do you think you type faster than the average person? Now you can test it out. 10-Fast-Fingers Speedtest is a simple web tool that tests how fast you type. You will be presented with some words and a form to type them. The objective is to type as many correct words as possible within 60 seconds.

My record so far is 359 points, which translates into 476 characters per minute. It is not bad, but I am a two-fingers typist, and I am pretty sure I could improve that rate if I learned to touch type (where you use all the fingers).

Apparently the goal of the creators of this tool was to promote their touch typing online course in fact. They have some interactive lessons and tests that are supposed to get you started with touch typing. I am going through it right now, so I will keep you guys updated if my typing speed increases.