instant fundas

Read Amazon Kindle books on your PC

2009-11-11T21:20:00.001+05:30

Amazon today announced the beta release of Kindle for PC, a free ebook reading application for Windows which is capable of opening ebooks made for the Kindle. Customers do not need to own the device to use the software - books can be purchased, downloaded and read directly on the PC.

If you do own a Kindle, on the other hand, you can keep your books and reading list in sync with your device. Highlights and bookmarks you applied on your Kindle appears just the same on your PC.

For some strange reason, the Amazon Kindle store isn’t integrated into the application. You have to buy them through a regular browser, download and import the ebook into the reader.

Kindle for PC lets users adjust the font size and bookmark a page. Windows 7 users with touch screen can enjoy added features using a finger pinch to zoom in and out and finger swipes to turn pages.

Other ebook reader/management software: Calibre, Mendeley

Virtual Router turns Windows 7 into WiFi hotspot

2009-11-11T12:48:00.001+05:30

Soon after Philadelphia developer Nomadio discovered an unfinished Windows 7 feature (Virtual WiFi) that can turn a laptop into a WiFi hotspot, the company exploited the feature and created a free application called Connectify, which we reviewed just weeks ago.

Virtual Router is another new application that takes advantage of this hidden Windows 7 treasure. Like Connectify, Virtual Router allows any Windows 7 laptop or computer equipped with a wireless network interface card to be used as a Wifi router. With Virtual Router you can share your Internet connection with multiple computers and wireless devices like the iPhone while paying for a single connection.

The Wireless Network create/shared with Virtual Router uses WPA2 Encryption, and there is not way to turn off that encryption. This is actually a feature of the Wireless Hosted Network API's built into Windows 7 and 2008 R2 to ensure the best security possible.

You can give your "virtual" wireless network any name you want, and also set the password to anything. Just make sure the password is at least 8 characters.

Real world Windows and OS X calculator look alike

2009-11-11T11:17:00.001+05:30

A designer at Mintpass showed off a couple of designs for calculators that look exactly like the calculator applications in Windows and in Mac OS X.

The Mac version has a metal case and a 2-liner LCD screen like its software counterpart, while the Windows calculator sports the classic XP color scheme, complete menu headers. Right now this is just a concept, but it will be awesome if it can actually go into production.

The designer is aware that neither Microsoft nor Apple will allow to commercialize their design, so he is leaving it up to the two computer makers to make real-life versions of their OS calculators.

[via Technabob]

Firefox addon InvisibleHand beta invites

2009-11-11T10:31:00.001+05:30

A while back we did a review of an interesting addon for Firefox called InvisibleHand - a tool that compares prices across dozens of different online retailers and displays the best offer available for the item you are currently looking.

A new beta version 1.8 is out and we have 200 invites to give away! To try the beta just go to this page and enter the invite code “invisibleInstant”.

The new version integrates with Google search showing you the cheapest prices when you search for a product. This allows you to view the cheapest offers even before you visit an online retailer’s page. And unlike other price comparison sites which uses out-of-date product prices, InvisibleHand gets those prices in real-time.

The new beta also has an enhanced notifications system which is more discreet, and the responsiveness of the addon has improved.

Current limitation: Not all regional Google search sites are supported. Presently supported for Google.com or Google.co.uk.

Javascripts that make web pages IE6 compatible

2009-11-10T17:27:00.001+05:30

We all know Internet Explorer 6 is a big pain in the ass, especially if you do web design/development. Professional web designers despise IE6, and often charge extra for making websites compatible to IE6 because of the additional effort needed and the time wasted on bug hunting. Here is one way to allay their troubles.

IE7 Script is a JavaScript library that makes Internet Explorer behave more like a standards-compliant browser. It fixes many HTML and CSS issues and makes transparent PNG work correctly under IE5 and IE6. The library consists of several scripts, the chief of which is ie7.js. Using this script you can fix many troublesome issues which are not possible using separate stylesheets for instance: Fixed positioning, Maximum and minimum width and height, parent>child selector etc.

Additional bugs can be corrected by using another script called ie7-squish.js. The complete list of fixes is documented here.

To use the script all you have to do is call this Javascript library if the page is accessed from Internet Explorer using the IE conditional tag.

<!--[if lt IE 7]>
<script src="http://ie7-js.googlecode.com/svn/version/2.0(beta3)/IE7.js"
type="text/javascript">
</script>

The other files in the library will be run from this script. If you choose to host the files on your own server, you can do that too.

Author Dean Edwards explains that the reason that ie7-squish is not included as an integral part of ie7.js is that it will change the behavior of some elements that can result in damage to some layouts when viewed using IE6. It is therefore up to the author to test and check whether applying squish is necessary in the first place and, if so, to test to see if it does any damage. In some cases residual issues may need a specific stylesheet to be targeted at IE6 in the traditional way to clear up remaining issues.

Dean has created another script called IE8.js Script that includes all that is in ie7.js along with many enhancements for IE7 regarding support in CSS. The result is a dramatic improvement in conformance for both IE6 and IE7.

Also see IE6 CSS Fixer, that automatically applies IE6 specific hacks to stylesheets.

FindList makes Firefox remember searches

2009-11-10T11:12:00.001+05:30

If you frequently use Ctrl+F (the search feature) in Firefox to find inpage text, you will like FindList, a new experimental addon that adds a drop down list to the search box. FindList keeps a history of the last 15 searches in the web page.

Since it’s an experimental addon, you will need to login/register to Mozilla’s website. Alternatively, you can download the addon directly from the author’s website without registering.

PrintBrush – Portable printer that prints like magic

2009-11-10T10:48:00.001+05:30

PrintBrush is by far the most amazing printer I have ever seen. It fits in your pocket and can print full sized A4 sheets at 600 dpi (black and white only). It uses Bluetooth and rechargeable batteries to print without any wires, although it does carry the optional USB and IRda interface. But PrintBrush’s awesomeness is in the way it prints. Watch the video below.

The real beauty of the PrintBrush is that it’ll print on any flat surface like, notebooks, letters, and other media that would never fit into a conventional printer device. PrintBrush uses some kind of accurate optical sensor that can detect tilt and rotation in addition to translation.

PrintBrush is due for launch by the end of 2009 or early 2010 for $199.

[via OhGizmo]

A chance to win Garmin-ASUS Nuvifone M20

2009-11-09T20:12:00.001+05:30

Opera Software and Garmin-ASUS have organized a contest that offers you a chance to win the newly launched Garmin-ASUS Nuvifone M20 – a sleek and sexy, touch screen, Windows Mobile based, GPS mobile phone, along with other daily prizes.

The contest named “Where in the world is this?” shows you a picture and you have to identify the location. That won’t be easy for sure, but with tools like Google Similar Image search and TinEye, the reverse image search, you might get lucky.

The contest which kicked off today will run for a total of 12 days, ending Friday, November 20th, 2009. Each day you’ll have a different picture and winners will be announced daily. However, there will be only one winner for the mega prize of the Nuvifone M20. The contest is open to everybody irrespective of the browser they use.

And here is the phone.

Specification:

3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0
Microsoft Windows Mobile Professional 6.1
2.8" touchscreen display
3MP geo-tagging camera
Built-in Motion Sensor

PLoP Boot Manager

2009-11-09T19:24:00.001+05:30

The PLoP Boot Manager is a very flexible boot manager program that lets you boot different operating system in a multi-OS system. The different operating systems not necessarily be installed on a had disk. PLoP Boot Manager can boot OS from hard disk, floppy, CD/DVD or from USB. The boot manager itself can reside on a floppy, CD or on a network.

PLoP is a powerful boot manager

It can boot OS from CD/DVD without BIOS support
It can boot from USB without BIOS support
No extra partition is required for the boot manager
Different profiles for operating systems
Define up to 16 partitions
It allows the administrator to hide partitions to keep other users unaware of the existence on another installed system
Password protect the computer and the boot manager setup
Backup of partition table data
Start boot manager in Text or Graphics mode
Supports graphic user interface up to a resolution of 1280x1024
Allows editing of MBR partition table

PLoP Boot Manager can be installed on the hard disk with Windows installed, overwriting the MBR. It can be also used along with Linux loaders such as GRUB and LILO. It can also be run without installing on the hard disk, directly off a CD, Floppy or from the network.

PLoP Boot Manager has an interesting feature that lets you protect the MBR from changes. If another software change the entries in the MBR, the boot manager detects this change at the next startup and allows you to choose if you want to import the new values or forget them.

Limitations:

SATA CD/DVD drives are not supported. Only IDE CD/DVD drives work.
USB CD/DVD drives are not supported.
USB keyboards are not supported.

All Adobe product shortcuts

2009-11-09T15:18:00.001+05:30

Keyboard shortcuts are always useful if you want to work fast. Instead of wasting time navigating menus and looking for items and buttons, hit a keyboard combination and you are done. If you are a designer, keyboard shortcuts are an absolute necessity. But memorizing shortcuts is not easy because every program has it’s own set of shortcuts and you probably use more than a couple of products for your work.

If you primarily use Adobe products, the Adobe Shortcut App can help you quickly locate shortcuts associated with 12 programs of the Adobe Creative Suite CS4 - Illustrator, Photoshop, In Design, Flash, Dreamweaver, Soundbooth, Fireworks, Contribute, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Encore and Acrobat.

Simply click on the product’s icon and you’ll see a full listing of shortcuts for that particular program. You can also save shortcuts as favorites, and it’s ‘search as you type’ functionality lets you easily find shortcuts for almost any tool or action.

Adobe Shortcut App also gives you a link to a downloadable cheatsheet in the PDF format which you can print it out. Adobe Shortcut App is an Adobe AIR based application.

Landcraft - Cool online landscape generator

2009-11-09T13:15:00.002+05:30

Graphics generators are a cool thing. They are useful, they are fun. A while back I wrote about a landscape generator called Terragen. Terragen was a realistic 3D landscape generator capable of creating stunning Earth terrain, vegetation and water bodies that is impossible to tell apart from real photographs. Terragen is often used in games and movies. It was a real thing.

Landcraft is another landscape generator. This one is online and the focus is less on realism and more on visualization. For instance, if you are doing a seminar on land geography, or say effects of climate on geography or something along those lines, Landcraft’s beautiful landscapes will help you spice up your presentation.

Landcraft is easy to use. The controls are divided into three sections – Surface, Landscape and Render. The Surface control contain two noise generators that let’s you create random surface terrain and control the slope of hills and high grounds. Every time you click on the “Generate” button it will create a new landscape. Keep clicking until you are satisfied with the result.

The Landscape control lets you adjust the texture of vegetation, snow, water level, fog etc. There are two default settings for Earth and Mars texture, but you can create your own texture.

Finally the Render controls let you adjust render settings like sun position, brightness, contrast, shadow and so on. When you done fiddling with the various controls click on “Simulate” and behold the view!

FamiliLink – Simplified email service for older people

2009-11-07T11:18:00.001+05:30

Technology is changing at such a rapid pace that even tech people have trouble keeping up with the latest trend – multi touch screens, OLED displays, ever growing social networking tools and Google Wave. Imagine how a person born before the transistor was invented must feel in this digital age. For them technology is a huge impenetrable wall. It’s a shame because computers and the Internet is such a wonderful thing. FamiliLink helps bridge the huge communication gap that exist between the older generation and today's technology.

FamiliLink is an easy to use email service that allows technologically challenged persons to digitally connect with their family members and friends, share photos and keep in touch with them. It includes, apart from an email service, a calendar with scheduler and reminder and an address book.

FamiliLink sports almost a kid-like appearance – bright colors, big buttons and big typefaces. Navigation is easy to follow and buttons to various actions such as “Write message”, “Read more” and “Enlarge image” are prominently displayed.

Photos sent as attachment to FamiliLink’s email ID automatically appears in the “Pictures” section which can be viewed in a slideshow. To send photos the user just need to click on “Add Photo”, choose the photos to upload and then add them while writing a new message. Similarly, attached videos automatically appear in the “Video” section, although this can be a bit confusing for elder people because the “Video” tab is hidden inside the “Pictures” section.

A FamiliLink account can have a helper - a trusted friend who agrees to manage the account for the person. The helper or administrator can’t view messages but is able to add important events, appointments, birthdays and anniversaries to the FamiliLink calendar. They can upload photos and videos for the person, add people to their address book and make easier for an elder person to start using FamiliLink.

FamiliLink is a really brilliant idea that deserves all the praise they get. Currently it’s free to register for the first 2000 users. After the free slots are gone the service is going to cost $9.99 per month.

[via Killer Startups]

Map of threatened or arrested bloggers around the world

2009-11-05T20:47:00.001+05:30

Threatened Voices is a new project by Global Voices (a community of bloggers), that maps instances where bloggers and online writers have been threatened, arrested, killed, or disappeared by authorities for speaking out online since 2000. The map is accompanied by an interactive timeline that help visualize the story of threats and arrests against bloggers worldwide. The site also has extensive information and stories about those whose right to free speech were suppressed.

Never before have so many people been threatened or imprisoned for what the words they write on the internet.

As activists and ordinary citizens have increasingly made use of the internet to express their opinions and connect with others, many governments have also increased surveillance, filtering, legal actions and harassment. The harshest consequence for many has been the politically motivated arrest of bloggers and online writers for their online and/or offline activities, in some tragic cases even leading to death. Online journalists and bloggers now represent 45% of all media workers in prison worldwide.

China tops the list with 33 on record, followed by Egypt with 29 and Iran with 23.

[via Boing Boing]

Microsoft calls Zoho the “Fake Office”. Zoho responds with fakeoffice.org

2009-11-05T19:51:00.001+05:30

One of the reason why Microsoft attracts so much bad press is their trash talk. If you follow Microsoft’s recent track record you will see a pattern. It begins with Steve Ballmer or any spokesperson from Microsoft making a disparaging comment about something, usually a competitor’s product. Later the product goes on to become a huge success and those blockheaded comments come around to kick Microsoft on their ass. More often than not, Microsoft ends up eating their own words.

In a recent interview, Ron Markezich, corporate VP of Microsoft’s online Office application - Microsoft Online, said:

We're not seeing any inclination that Zoho or Google or Zimbra or any other of those offering fake Office capabilities can replace [Microsoft Office]

Mr Markezich’s comment carries a certain degree of truth. But the name calling is uncalled for.

Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho, made a fitting reply. Then they decided to get some chuckle out of it and registered a new domain FakeOffice.org to pitch their views on Microsoft. This is so amusing!

[via Hacker News]

ABBYY FineReader Online OCR

2009-11-05T15:51:00.001+05:30

ABBYY FineReader, one of the most intelligent Optical Character Recognition software, is now available as an online service.

ABBYY FineReader Online which is still in beta, allows you to take advantage of ABBYY’s OCR technology to convert scanned copies of text, such as those from books or magazines, to editable documents. During the beta period the service will be available for free, although page recognition is limited to 10 pages per day for each registered user.

ABBYY FineReader Online automatically detects text, images and tables, retains the layout of the original, and recreates the formatting elements, such as tables, graphics, columns, bullets and numbering. It can also correctly recognizes documents written in any combination of the 6 supported languages - English, Russian, French, German, Spanish, and Ukrainian.

The service supports a wide range of popular image formats, such as TIFF (including multi-page files), JPEG, JPEG 2000, BMP, PNG, PCX, DCX GIF, and even DjVu, and converts them into editable documents in any of the following formats: Microsoft Word, Excel, Rich Text Format, TXT and PDF.

One limitation, apart from the 10-page a day limit, is that the conversion is not real time. Your uploaded document goes into a queue probably with documents uploaded by other users. When the conversion is completed, the converted document is emailed to you. I haven’t received mine which I uploaded 30 minutes ago.

5 short links for today #20

2009-11-05T11:34:00.002+05:30

1. Flickr App Garden: An official repository of unofficial Flickr tools created by developers using the Flickr API. Yeah, it’s about time.

2. Cell Size and Scale: Ever wondered how large a coffee bean is compared to a skin cell, or the X chromosome, or the HIV or a carbon atom? This interactive Flash movie will tell you.

3. ISS construction Timeline: A fantastic Flash movie showing how the International Space Station was expanded.

4. Syncplicity offers online backup, synchronization and sharing. The free plan comes with 2 GB of free backup and synchronization with 2 computers. Referring a friend entitles you to another 1 GB of space.

5. Furk is a BitTorrent Proxy that acts a middle man between the BitTorrent network and you. It downloads torrents on your behalf and then lets you download through regular HTTP link. You stay protected from snooping Govt agencies and anti-piracy groups. Similar to BTaccel.

Can you beat the computer at Mindreading?

2009-11-04T20:06:00.002+05:30

Mindreader is simple browser based mindreading game. The rules of the game is this: the user enters a sequence of 1s and 0s and the computer tries to predict the user’s next entry. The goal of the game is to fool the computer into making the wrong prediction by entering an unpredictable sequence of numbers.

Every time the computer makes a correct prediction, it advances one position around an oval race track. If the user manages to get the computer make a wrong prediction, the user advances one position. The first one to make one complete round around the track wins.

It may sound simple but if you try it you’ll realize that it’s very difficult to beat the computer. Because there are only two inputs the guessing game becomes easier for the computer and hence tougher for you to beat.

Mindreader is inspired by Shannon's "A Mind-reading(?) Machine" and Hagelbarger's "SEER, A SEquence Extrapolating Robot", both of which were built out of relays and vacuum tubes in the early 1950's. As legend has it, they had their machines compete against each other, and Shannon's won, by a margin of 55-45.

Also see: Can you answer this one?

Compare My Docs compares documents online

2009-11-04T15:50:00.001+05:30

Compare My Docs is a new service that lets you compare multiple Word or rich text documents online to find differences. The service lets you upload up to six versions of the same document and see what's been changed, edit and save the changes.

Compare My Docs color codes any changes it finds between the different revisions of a document and gives you a quick and easy way to accept, reject, or set aside a change. When finished, you'll have a version that has all of those changes you made, which can be saved either as a Word doc or rich text file and downloaded back to your hard drive.

The service has one major limitation that it can compare only texts. Any images or charts are stripped out of the document, and so if you save the final copy to your hard drive be sure to add the images back to it.

Another problem Compare My Docs suffer from is that it tends to bring the browser down while it’s uploading the document and loading the interface. Both Opera 10 and Firefox 3.5 froze for several minutes when I tested it. If you are doing something important in other tabs in your browser like composing a mail, make sure you save those before you try this application.

[via Cnet]

TimeToGoAppi – Powerful task scheduler for Windows

2009-11-04T12:05:00.001+05:30

TimeToGoAppi is a very advanced task scheduler application for Windows that goes beyond the capabilities of the default Windows task scheduler, which is actually rather poor. TimeToGoAppi allows you to automate a wide range of tasks on your computer including but not limited to shutdown/hibernate/restart, launching programs, terminating programs, connecting/disconnecting Internet etc.

To use TimeToGoAppi, first you have to create an Action by clicking on the “Add” button.

Now from the drop down list, select an Action you want to schedule. Available actions are:

Shutdown, Restart, Hibernate, Logoff, Lock computer
Launch program, Terminate program
Launch screensaver
Power monitor off
Connect/Disconnect Internet
Wake up PC from Hibernate/Suspend
Display message

The event that triggers any of the above actions can be:

A certain time of the day or any particular day
A certain period of elapsed time
A certain period of PC idle time
Termination of a certain process
A certain percentage of CPU utilization

When waking up the PC from hibernate/suspend, TimeToGoAppi can launch a program immediately after waking up or play a music file – an action that can used as an alarm clock. TimeToGoAppi can also lock the mouse or keyboard at any time of the day.

All these actions can be set to repeat at different times for each day of the week. It also allows you to save actions with different settings and load them whenever you require.

If you will recall, some time ago I wrote about a similar program called Marxio Timer. Both Marxio Timer and TimeToGoAppi has almost similar tools although TimeToGoAppi does pack some extra power. But Marxio Timer takes the crown for simplicity and better interface design.

Browse FTP sites in Windows 7 Explorer

2009-11-03T14:41:00.001+05:30

Did you know you can browse files on an FTP server in Windows 7 Explorer just like you browse a local drive? I didn’t, until I discovered this trick on WindowsObserver.

In Windows 7 open up a Windows Explorer window and type in the address to the FTP server in the location bar. If the FTP server requires login, it will prompt you to enter the username and password. You can also select Anonymous Log in, if the server allows, and Save Password at the bottom of that dialog box.

Once that data is entered and you press the Log On button you will see your FTP server as if it was part of your local drive:

You can browse the entire drive structure, perform all the same things you can do in Windows Explorer including drag and drop, copying and moving files, deleting files etc. Of course these operations will depend on your settings and permissions on the server.

I’m told this functionality was there in Windows Vista as well, but it’s better advertised in Windows 7. When you browse an FTP site Internet Explorer on Windows 7, you get this alert.

If you click on this from an IE Windows where your currently browsing a FTP site the address will be carried over to the Log on As window in Explorer.

If you are using Windows XP, you can use NetDrive, a software that mounts remote FTP servers on your computer as local drives. This lets you view and browse files on the FTP server on Windows Explorer. I’m not sure whether this software works on Windows 7, but I guess you won’t need it.

Why it's a bad idea to send large files by email

2009-11-03T11:00:00.002+05:30

Email service providers continue to push the upper limits of allowed attachment size. Currently both Gmail and Yahoo supports attachments up to 25 MB in size, but people want more. Why do email service providers limit the attachment size when everything else such as bandwidth and disk space is virtually free? Because the mail protocol wasn’t created to handle file transmission. As a commenter on Google Operating System explains, sending large files through email is a very bad idea.

People who demand large message size limits rarely understand the limitations of the email transmission.
Because of the MIME encoding used when sending binary attachments, your files expand 33% when sent via email. In other words, a 15MB attachment requires 20MB plus the message text, plus message headers.
When you carbon copy 20 of your friends & coworkers, a separate message is sent to each. 20MB x 20 = 400MB. That's half a freaking CD.
If 5 of those friends are on the same small company email server, downloading those messages saturates the entire bandwidth of their T1 data line for nearly 9 minutes. Because each message has separate headers, it isn't easily cached and gets completely downloaded by each recipient.
Compare this to uploading the same attachment to a web server, FTP server, file transmission service like YouSendIt, or video streaming site like YouTube. One copy is uploaded. The download is typically 8-bit so minimal expansion factor. The small business' network can cache the content, so it's only downloaded once then fetched locally from the web caching server.
Bottom line, sending a large attachment via email is relocating using the U.S. Postal Service as your moving company. It is painful, limited, and expensive.

When the file size is anything over a few Megabytes, the best way is to upload it to some free file sharing service. But for the technologically illiterate people, even that is too much to ask for. For such users there is PodMail – a free service that lets a user to send and receive files of unlimited size through email. PodMail is very easy to use and integrates with your email. Sending files through PodMail is just like sending attachments.

Update: PodMail is no longer available

The Complete Guide to Google Wave

2009-11-03T10:20:00.001+05:30

Haven’t got your Google Wave invite yet? Don’t worry. Sooner or later you will get it. In the meantime, you can get yourself acquainted with Wave by reading “The Complete Guide to Google Wave” written by Lifehacker’s founding editor Gina Trapani with Adam Pash.

Currently the guide is available online for free at www.completewaveguide.com. It features eight chapters and two appendices, but it’s going to expand as Google Wave continues to grow. Later in January 2010 a PDF and print version of the book will be made available for buying.

The online guide runs on a Wiki allowing other users to contribute to it as well.

Simple English Wikipedia – concise and to-the-point

2009-11-02T17:01:00.001+05:30

You know what happens when you write long winded articles in your blog or post a verbose comment in a forum? Someone will come in and say “tl;dr”. Well, some Wikipedia articles leave me with the same feeling. Wikipedia writers and editors are so thorough that they like to cram all the information that they can accumulate into the articles. Although that makes Wikipedia a great place for researching on a subject, it’s unsuitable when you need quick information – something which is short and easy to understand.

Simple English Wikipedia is a version of the Wikipedia encyclopedia that was born in 2004 to cater to the special needs of students, children, or adults with learning difficulties or short attention span developed as a result of addiction to things such as Twitter. ^{[citation needed]}

Articles in the Simple English Wikipedia use fewer words and easier grammar than the Ordinary English Wikipedia. Because of the simple language the Simple English Wikipedia helps people understand unfamiliar topics or complex ideas. The Simple English version tends to stick to commonly accepted facts and rarely tells you more than you want to know. For instance, compare these two different articles on “Special Theory of Relativity”.

Ordinary English Wikipedia article:

Special relativity (SR) (also known as the special theory of relativity or STR) is the physical theory of measurement in inertial frames of reference proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein (after the considerable and independent contributions of Hendrik Lorentz, Henri Poincaré and others) in the paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".[1] It generalizes Galileo's principle of relativity–that all uniform motion is relative, and that there is no absolute and well-defined state of rest (no privileged reference frames)–from mechanics to all the laws of physics, including …… *yawn*

The Simple English Wikipedia article on the other hand, begins matter-of-factly

Special relativity (or the special theory of relativity) was developed and explained by Albert Einstein in 1905 because he was unhappy with the explanations of electromagnetism in the physics of the time. Einstein thought these explanations did not agree with the principle of relativity…

The second article is definitely easier to comprehend.

Simple English Wikipedia is a good place to go if you need to answer questions coming from a fifth grader. Like say your kid wants to know why the Second World War took place. Simple Wikipedia will come to your rescue. However, not all Wikipedia articles have a simple English version. At the time of this writing, the Simple English Wikipedia had 58,145 articles, as opposed to more than 150,000 in the original Wikipedia.

Quick Tip: The quickest way to get to the simpler version of a Wikipedia article is to replace “en” in the URL “en.wikipedia.org” with “simple” to make it read “simple.wikipedia.org”. If however, a simpler version of that article is not present you will find yourself reading the original article (even though the URL says “simple”).

How to enable RAW image support in Windows XP, Vista and 7

2009-11-02T12:40:00.001+05:30

Most digital cameras today support the RAW image format. Unfortunately, Windows doesn’t. RAW images cannot be viewed in Windows image viewer or Windows Live Photo Gallery, and Explorer doesn’t show thumbnails of RAW images. Thankfully, the Windows Imaging Component for Vista and 7 makes it possible for 3rd party tools to add support for RAW image formats to Windows, complete with thumbnails in Explorer.

FastPictureViewer WIC RAW Codec Pack is such a third party platform that brings support for more than 20 different RAW image formats to Windows. The codec pack currently supports the TGA raster image format along with the 20 raw image formats from more than 13 camera manufacturers, covering about 300 camera models.

FastPictureViewer WIC RAW Codec Pack supports both 32 and 64-bit editions of Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP SP3. The package also ships with a Windows XP thumbnail provider, that enables thumbnail view support in XP SP3 Explorer. This codec pack also enables you to set RAW images as desktop wallpapers.

Windows XP users can also use the official Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer that enables users to view photos captured in RAW image formats from supported Canon and Nikon digital cameras.

To enable thumbnail support for other image formats not natively supported in Windows XP, you can use ThumbView.

Svchost viewer tells you what service each svchost.exe is running

2009-11-02T11:16:00.001+05:30

What is Svchost?

Svchost is short for “Service Host”. Many components of the Windows operating system are implemented through what are called "services" - programs that run in the background that aren't necessarily associated with whomever is logged into the machine. A fair number of those services are implemented in DLLs rather than in stand-alone executables to ensure reusability. But a DLL is only a library of functions that can't be run on its own. It can only be called by executable programs. Svchost was created to fulfill this purpose.

Svchost is a standalone program whose job is to execute services that are implemented in DLLs. Since there are so many services to run, these are collected into logical groups and assigned to one svchost.exe. This is why you see so many instances of svchost.exe running. (Thanks AskLeo)

Svchost viewer

Svchost viewer is a small application that lists all the services which are running under each instance of svchost.exe. It gives a brief description of each service, the amount of memory it’s currently using, the amount data of data it has read and written and whether the service can be paused or terminated.

It’s an extremely useful tool to have if you want to diagnose problems relating to svchost.exe, or just to know what’s going on under the hood.

Svchost viewer is portable and runs on Windows XP, Vista and 7. (requires the .NET 2.0 framework)