Five years in the past, Mozilla made it clear that the browser combats weren’t over after all.

In the 1990s, Netscape had lost its dominance in the browser market to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and the Netscape-spawned open-source venture called Mozilla had descended into obscurity. Even a federal antitrust fit accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive practices with its browser and Windows was not adequate to turn the tide.

Happy Birthday FireFox!

But on November 9, 2004, Firefox 1.0 emerged to conflict back again.

The venture, earlier labelled Phoenix to symbolize rebirth from Netscape’s ashes, has now clawed its way back to account for close to a quarter of the browser usage today. Microsoft may not be on the run, but it’s on the defensive, slowly erected structure its browser development effort back up into conflicting form.

It’s a past files that Mike Shaver, presently Mozilla’s vice head of mechanical apparatus, observed firsthand since uniting Netscape in 1997.

“For me it was confluence of being at the right position at the right time and having many of contacts,” Shaver recounted. He climbed into thorny subjects of making a large economic venture into an open, cooperatively deduced project: permitting, trademarks, patch re-evaluates, plans, governance.

The open-source move was planed to act against Microsoft’s growing browser clout. Initially, it failed, but the open-source move eventually cultivated the germs for Firefox’s success. That’s because the open-source ethos–which allows every one observe, alter, and disseminate a program’s underlying source code–is what empowered programmers to manufacture a thing lithe and intend out of what some observed as the bloated and uncompetitive Mozilla product.

Microsoft aided out in its own way by letting Internet Explorer languish and become a preference narrow pathway for computer attacks, but Firefox aspects for instance tempo, a tabbed interface, the skills to accept add-on customizations, and pop-up commercial obstructing aided, too. Firefox 1.0 came was downloaded 10 million times in the first month.

“When we got to Firefox, in some ways it was overnight success. Our first expansion was more than we’d ever trusted for,” Shaver said. “From where we commenced this undertaking–the strategic context in Netscape–to being the solitary largest force behind the rebirth of the browser as an fascinating programs category…It’s a beautiful astounding end point.”

Overall, the browser market has become more vigorous than ever. Even Microsoft is getting included in Web standards and is erected structure a Web-based variety of Microsoft Office. And even as Firefox’s chiefs ought grapple with the aged foe, there’s a new Firefox challenger in the configuration of Google Chrome.

In Shaver’s scenery, Mozilla has gone through two tryouts by fire. First was the transformation of the Netscape effort and the initial distribute of the Mozilla software as an open-source project.

“The first very large investigate for us was throughout distribute of Netscape 6. Between that and Mozilla 1.0, we were opens-source’s best failure“, Shaver said.

Second was the determination in 2003 to desert that effort and throw the Mozilla burden behind what became Firefox.

“Getting the community aligned throughout that wares change was our second very large investigate throughout the fitness of the project,” he said. “It was a touch-and-go period.”

And though there was abundance of optimistic opinion from the exterior world about Firefox, it took a long time before all was on board. “It was not until Firefox 2,” which came in October 2006. “It took somewhat awhile for the quintessence developers to have a favourite to work on Firefox than the suite.”

But there were meaty tests for programmers, and Microsoft’s complacency left abundant opportunities. “You could view at the overriding browser at the time, select any dimension and exceed them,” Shaver said.

Firefox in addition slowly won the support of Web developers. Supporting another browser alongside IE denoted work, but Firefox’s eventual extensive use made it worth the trouble. And Mozilla’s effort to support Web benchmarks reduced the annoyances for other people to usher in browsers, too.

The germs for Mozilla’s fiscal success–measured on the foundation of an open-source venture if not, declare, Microsoft–were sown early in Firefox. The software’s start piece of paper was a rebranded window to Google’s explore motor, and a split explore packing box in the higher right drives more queries to the site. Mozilla gets a slice of the effecting search-advertising revenue; in 2007, the last year for which Mozilla has liberated diagrams, Google furnished 89 out of 100 of Mozilla’s $75 million in revenue.

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin took a private hand in enhancing Mozilla, Shaver said.

“Google’s founders Sergey and Larry were very supportive. They desired to find a way to help,” Shaver said. “They desired to observe what we could do about the traffic we were conveying there…They had many of stuff to heed of, but for a long time they were Google’s reps to us.”

And Google augmented computer encrypting, too–spell-checking, web stack software.

Among Google programmers who aided were Ben Goodger, a Firefox programmer, and Aaron Boodman, who came up with the Greasemonkey programs for customizing Firefox’s interface.

“It was surely helpful,” Shaver said. “It was perpetually very unconnected from the profits relationship,” where Google employed its search-engine deal to exercise insist to manufacture the browser in a actual way.

For all Google’s exuberance for Firefox, it obviously desired more. In September 2008, it liberated its first beta of the Chrome Web browser. It engaged in work some of Firefox’s values–performance, security, open source. But it in addition fetched some Google-y values: a high-speed groundwork for Web requests for paid job and a quick distribute cycle.

Suddenly, a greatest Web-focused financial gathering with many of substitute wealth was in addition attempting to free the world from the 2001-era Internet Explorer 6.

“It was a little disruptive,” mostly in that Mozilla had to reply several queries about how Chrome would act on its future.

Since the attainment of Chrome, Mozilla has put a new purpose on Firefox recital, has moved to a speedier distribute cycle, is toiling to minimize the environs of browser to make more room for Web content. Ahead is an aggressive roadmap for Firefox 3.6, 3.7, and 4.0. And it’s attempting to tremble off the “bloatware” tag some bind to Firefox.

Mostly the bond becomes noticeable genial, and in certainty Chrome and Firefox developers are similar in the effort to enhance the HTML underpinnings of the Web.

“Google gets World Wide Web on another stage than Microsoft does. It’s another stage of struggle there,” Shaver said. “But I don’t consider it’s a Chrome objective to be harming Firefox. They desired their own narrow pathway to control.”

Overall, though, Shaver trusts Firefox’s location is strong. He cites as established items the carrying on expansion rate–an assessed 160 million users of Firefox 3.0 detonating to about double that now with the prevailing Firefox 3.5.

“Pretty much all our dissemination draws close from population going to our Web place and downloading it. There’s an play-act of volition there we truly cherish,” Shaver said. “There might be 350 million users. At that scale, there’s a actual mainstream reach. We’re changing the dwells of population who don’t consider about their software. And the expansion doesn’t present any signals of expansion of reducing tempo down.“

Then, he was a youthful programmer whose work with Linux granted him open-source inclinations. He’d been encouraging an open-source distribute of the motor in Netscape Communicator that ran Web-based JavaScript programs, but was astonished in 1998 when Netscape advertised the every part of programs parcel would become open-source software.

“For me it was confluence of being at the right position at the right time and having many of contacts,” Shaver recounted. He climbed into thorny subjects of making a large economic venture into an open, cooperatively deduced project: permitting, trademarks, patch re-evaluates, plans, governance.

Image Courtesy: GarryRHess

If you accidently deleted some important data from your computer hard disk, here is a free and handy tool to restore your accidently deleted hard drive data. Named as DataRecovery, it is a useful application that lets you restore all your accidently deleted files.

DataRecovery application is capable of recognizing and differentiating between NTFS, FAT 12, FAT 16 and FAT 32 hard drives. Thus, it can easily undelete files stored on hard drives and re-allocate them to their former locations.

Besides restoring the deleted hard drive data, this tool can also be used to search and restore only selected files. The deleted files can be searched by file name and also by the partial string from their file name. Once the search result is reached, you can restore the desired file with just a few clicks on your mouse.

DataRecovery application is colossally compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista and can be conveniently used from any floppy disk or USB drive.

Download DataRecovery

There are various web-based tools that can help you create signatures and logos for use on your blogs, forums, emails, business e-cards, web banners, etc. However, most of these web based apps do not provide the needed options and flexibility which are required when designing signatures for some serious use. For such serious works, Sig Maker is a nice and handy app that you should consider using.

Sig Maker is essentially a tiny executable application which allows a quick way to create custom signatures. Using Sig Maker is very easy and pretty straightforward. You do not need to have any previous knowledge of photo-editing to use this app.

Sig Maker features a very clean and simple interface with all editing tools displayed on the main window of the application. The app window has a small ‘Help’ box at the bottom right. This box tells you the functionality of each editing tool on which you place your mouse cursor. Further, Sig Maker comes with various text fonts and background templates from which you can choose one. Once you have made your signature, you can save the image file as a bitmap image (.bmp) file.

Download Sig Maker

If you are using WordPress as your blog platform, WordPress Visual Cheat Sheet should be definitely useful for you. WordPress Visual Cheat Sheet is essentially a document that contains a practical reference guide to WordPress 2.8.

WordPress Visual Cheat Sheet is of great use for those WordPress users who do not have any idea of tags used by WordPress in its themes and codes. This document contains full reference to WordPress tags and provides sufficient description and sample codes.

Antonio Lupetti from Woorkup.com released this cheat sheet. The document is of 5 pages and is available for download in .pdf format.

Download WordPress 2.8 Visual Cheat Sheet here.

FireFox Tabs is a great feature that enhances user’s browsing experience. It lets you browse multiple webpages in the same browser window without the need to open multiple browser windows at the same time. Probably, this was an important feature that forced me to migrate from IE6 to FireFox. If you are a tabbed web-browsing lover (as I am), here is a nice and handy add-on for you.

Tabberwocky is a useful add-on for FireFox users which allows you to have more controls over your web browser tabs. It is lightweight extension and offers various options to control the tab feature. You can set the tab behaviour, modify the size of the tab to their preferred width, choose to show a progress bar on each tab instead of in the status bar, set tab clicking options, protect tab, lock tab, have multiple rows of tab, etc. using this Tabberwocky add-on.

Tabberwocky add-on is just of 25kB in size and is compatible with FireFox 3.5 and above.

Add Tabberwocky to FireFox

If you are a Mac lover here is an opportunity you would never ever love to miss. MacHeist NanoBundle is giving away 6 Mac apps of worth $154 for absolutely free. Yes, you get this right. It is indeed absolutely free.

The 6 Mac apps being given away in the MacHeist NanoBundle are -Shovebox, WriteRoom, Twitteriffic, TinyGrab, Hordes of Orcs and Mariner Write. These apps costs $154 in total but they are now free during the promotion. Anyone can download these apps by filling out a simple few lines form. There are just 5 days left for the promotion to end. So act now and get a free bundle of these wonderful Mac apps.

Download MacHeist NanoBundle

If you are an avid member of some social community sites and often share files and links on them, here is a cool web app for you. Named as Sayabit, it an online tool that makes the process of online file sharing extremely easy and simple.

Sayabit allows you to share files via short URLs. You need to register at Sayabit for uploading files whereas URLs can be shortened without even registering. As for registration, it is very simple and takes under a minute. When you register your account, Sayabit will provide you a personal page in the format – www. Sayabit.com/username where files uploaded by you will reside with their download links.

Once you have registered and logged in to your account, just click the ‘Upload’ button from under the ‘Shorten’ button and upload your file. As soon as your file is uploaded, you will be given a short URL for sharing. Besides giving a shortened link, Sayabit also allows you to add password to your uploaded files and provides option to set expiry date as well.

As of now, Sayabit allows following file formats- gif, jpg, png, bmp.doc, docx, pdf, xls, xlsx, txt, ppt and pptx files and provides 50 MB of storage capacity with option to purchase extra space (if needed). It also provides Twitter integration so as to simplify the work of file sharing.

Try Sayabit

If you are a web developer or a web designer and your daily work revolves around playing with different types of codes, here is a nice web tool for you. Named as MooShell, it is an online tool that lets you test your HTML, CSS and JavaScript codes so that you may rectify it in case of any errors.

Using MooShell is super-simple and doesn’t require even a signup. Just head to the MooShell website and you will see an easy-to-understand web layout. There are four boxes in the test area – one for HTML, one for CSS, one for JavaScript and the fourth one for displaying your result. Enter your HTML, CSS and JavaScript codes in the appropriate boxes. Now just press the ‘Run’ button from the menu above the test area and the result box will display the result of your codes.

You may ‘clean’ the MooShell code test or you may ‘save’ the MooShell code test for making future updates, by selecting appropriate options from menu above the test area. Saving a MooShell code testing result saves it as a MooShell URL where you can update later and make changes.

Try MooShell

FaceBook is the most trafficked social community website. People widely use FaceBook Chat for chatting with their friends and family. A basic feature that FaceBook chat lacks is that it does not include ability to save chat history. The biggest drawback of this exclusion is that you need to do nice brainstorming to figure out over what point you and your friend were discussing the last time. To simplify things, here is a cool FireFox extension called Facebook Chat History Manager.

Facebook Chat History Manager is a simple yet really handy FireFox extension for avid users of FaceBook Chat functionality. The extension stores all the FaceBook conversations locally in FireFox so that you may not lose time brainstorming the topic you were last discussing on. The good thing here is that the conversion vault is protected by a password so that only persons you allow can see your chat history.

Once you have installed the Facebook Chat History Manager extension. Just go to the following URL – http://apps.facebook.com/firechm/ and click the “Allow” button. Now go to Tools -> Facebook Chat History Manager ->Create account in your FireFox and create an account.

Now the next time you want to see your chat conversions from the archives, just visit this page (for online viewing) or press Ctrl+Alt+F and enter username and password (for offline viewing).

Add Facebook Chat History Manager extension to your FireFox

One of the new and unique features that Windows 7 shot a line on was the idea of creating Virtual WiFi Hotspots. Microsoft fashioned it as a way to virtualize one wireless internet card as several distinct adapters.

Taking into account this wonderful feature of Windows 7, a Philadelphia developer has created a new application called Connectify. This application uses the virtual WiFi capabilities of Windows 7 to share the internet connection of a computer system through a secured WPA2 hotspot. Other devices with WiFi capabilities can connect to this hotspot for using the internet connection.

Configuring this application is super-simple and even a non-geek can do it under 10 minutes. All that is needed to be done on your part includes:

1. Choose the internet connection you wish to share
2. Choose a password for your new wireless connection
3. Click on Internet Sharing button to turn on internet sharing.
4. Your wireless internet connection network will now be seen on other computers and anyone can use it by entering the password you set.

Connectify is free of charge and can be downloaded after free registration at Connectify website. It is compatible with Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2.

Try Connectify and turn your Windows 7 into a WiFi hotspot.

If you are a ‘on the go’ type of computer user, then having good and powerful portable apps on your ‘apps-to-carry’ list is a must. Here is another portable yet power-packed PDF solution called Cool PDF Reader. While just letting you read PDF files on the go, it also provides some other cool features.

Features of Cool PDF Reader:

1. View and Print PDF
2. Convert PDF to BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS files
3. Extract PDF to TXT file
4. Support PDF files of all versions
5. Work with 68+ different languages
6. Zoom in/out and Rotate page displays
7. Slide show PDF document with full screen

The standalone version of Cool PDF Reader is just around 650 kb and can fit into any constraint of your computer’s hard disk.

Download Cool PDF Reader

First things first, English is spoken by a major population of the world and Hindi is the native language of India, the second most populated country of the world. As of Google Script Converter, we will talk about it in detail throughout the post.

Google Script Converter is an app introduction from Google Labs and is another useful tool for users who face problems with languages. Google Script Converter converts the script of the text. It is to be remembered that it only converts the script of the text and does not translate it.

This tool comes in handy when you understand the spoken form of the language but do not understand its script. For example, say you do not know to read English but you can understand its verbal form. So what you can do is convert the script of the text from English to Hindi and then read it.

Google Script Converter can convert script of a text block as well as a webpage. Just head over to the Google Script Converter webpage and paste a block of text or a URL and select a converting script for the script conversion to take place.

As of now, Google Script Converter supports Devanagari (Hindi, Marathi, Nepali), Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Telgu and English.

Try Google Script Converter

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is live but many people have yet not upgraded to it. Some are under frets that whether the current Mac apps will do well on this new release or not. For those, here is an app to their rescue. Named as SnowChecker, it is a Mac app that lets you check compatibility of your Mac apps with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

SnowChecker tests your apps against the compatibility list available at Snow Leopard Wiki. Besides just testing the compatibility of your Mac apps with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, it also tells (in detail) about which features of your app won’t work on the new Mac.

To make things simpler, SnowChecker lists your apps under three colors. Apps under red ‘X’ are those which won’t run or whose functionality will be completely broken on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. ‘Yellow’ alerts will be for those apps who’s some inessential features won’t work. ‘Green’ symbolizes complete compatibility of app with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. For those displayed with blue question mark (?), they are still untested.

Further, SnowChecker also provides workarounds for some apps that are yellow listed. These workarounds are generally as simple as running in 32-bit mode, disabling some gears, etc.

Download SnowChecker

Won’t it be cool to customize your favourite web-browser specifically for you? It will be for sure. It is really a good idea to create a custom version of FireFox or Thunderbird web browser specifically for you. A simple add-on can do this task as easily as it could have been.

Named as Rebrand, it is a FireFox add-on that lets you customize your FireFox version by allowing you to change brand name, customize logo, change logo and icons, etc.

Besides adding fun, this add-on works great if you are owner of a company or an IT firm and wants to distribute open source softwares so as to publicize your company.

Add Rebrand 1.0 FireFox add-on to your web browser

If you feel that your web browser is looking cluttered due to lots of unwanted toolbars that stuck themselves during installation of some programs or by some other means, then here is a tool you should consider using. Named as Smart Toolbar Remover, it is a light-weight app that allows easy removal of unwanted toolbars from your web browser.

To remove the undesirable toolbars from your web browser, simply install and launch the Smart Toolbar Remover application. The main window will show you names of toolbars installed on your web-browser. Simply check the box before the name of the toolbar you wish to remove and then click ‘Uninstall’ button.

Smart Toolbar Remover is compatible with Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Smart Toolbar Remover

If you are a Windows 7 user and want to customize its Logon screen, here is the easiest way to do it. A simple app named Account Screen Editor does this task of changing your Windows logon screen as easily as it could be.

Using Account Screen Editor is the easiest way to customize Windows logon screen. You just need to click the ‘Set background’ button and choose a picture for your logon screen. That’s it. Now the picture you chose would be your Windows logon screen.

In case you are in need to revert back to the default Windows logon screen, just click on ‘Default background’ button and the default background would appear on your Windows logon screen.

Another good thing about this app is that it automatically resizes large images to fit your Windows logon screen.

Download Account Screen Editor

A few weeks back I wrote about a Google Wave Desktop client for Windows system. Here is another desktop client for Google Wave but this time it is for Mac OS X users only. Named as Waveboard, it is a ready-to-hand Google Wave desktop client for Mac OS X systems.

Waveboard eliminates the necessity to use Google Wave from web browser and brings it to your desktop.

Features of Waveboard include:

• Supports Mac native keyboard shortcut
• Print single waves
• Open on “wave:<ID>”
• Copy Wave ID
• System menu status
• Growl notifications
• Bagde notifications
• Remember last open waves
• Drag and Drop support (Gears/SL)

Download Waveboard | Waveboard Website

Google Maps is a fantastic app from Google which lets you browse through maps of almost all places of the world. However, saving Google Maps as images is no easy task to do. You need to use Print Screen or an image capture utility or an image capture browser add-on for taking a snapshot of the map and saving it. So the next time you happen to save a Google Map as image, try Google Maps Server to do the task easily and to get some flexibility.

Google Maps Server is a portable app of around 400 kB in size. It has a browser of its own which lets you browse Google Maps and save Google Maps as images easily. As of the flexibility, you can save image in various resolutions and in various formats like JPEG, PNG-8, PNG-24, BMP or Targa files. Supported Resolutions include QVGA, VGA, iPhone, PAl, NTSC, SVGA, XGA, HD 720, HD 1080, Big – 5000 x 5000 & 8000 x 8000, Huge – 10000 x 10000 & 12000 x 12000 and custom resolution as well.

The images saved using Google Maps Server have a watermark on them. To remove the watermark, click the ‘About’ link in the top right corner and check the box that asks to accept terms and conditions.

Google Maps Server is compatible on Windows XP, 2000, Vista and Windows 7.

Download Google Maps Server

MegaVideo.com allows its premium members to download video files right from their website. However if you are a non-member or a free member, then you are not allowed to download the video file unless you pay for at least one month of their premium membership which costs $9.99. This might not be too high for rich folks out there but what about the commons or people who need to download video files just once or twice. For them, here is the easy solution.

This is a simple tutorial and to make it even simpler, I will put this in points.

Step 1: Go to MegaVideo.com and find a video which you wish to download.

Step 2: Once you have found the video, just go to the video page by clicking the title of the video.

Step 3: Play the video and let the video stream.

Step 4: Click the ‘//’ button from the buttons available under the video.

Step 5: Copy the link but do not close the video page as it is needed once more.

Step 6: Go to ClipNabber.com, paste the video link you copied in step 6 and click the ‘Nab Video’ button.

Step 7: You will now be prompted to “Enter video page source code and then click Nab Video again”.

Step 8: Get the embed code by clicking ‘Embed Video’ button on the video page I asked you to leave opened in Step 5.

Step 9: Paste this code in the ClipNabber box.

Step 10: Click the ‘Nab Video’ again.

You will be produced with a download link to download the video in .flv format.

In case you are tired of those boring screensavers that Windows offers and want something more interesting and more techie, here is a cool tip for you. Now instead of watching those old boring screensaver images and designs, you can now watch your favourite movie clips when your screensaver happens to occur. VisiSaver is a small app that lets you do this easily on your Windows PC.

Using VisiSaver for setting your movie clips as screensaver is a no-brainer. Just download and install the VisiSaver app and go to Display Properties -> Screensavers (in Windows XP) or Personalize -> Screensavers (in Windows Vista) from the Control Panel. Select ‘VisiSaver’ from Screen Saver drop down box. Now click on Screensaver Setting and point to the folder containing video clips that should be set as your screensaver.

VisiSaver provides some basic options for configuring your video screensaver. You can select the video to play randomly or in a serial order. You can also set length of the clip to be played. Besides, you may also enable or disable the video sound as according to your need.

Download VisiSaver

If you are a social media freak and have account on YouTube, FaceBook and Twitter; DeskTube is the perfect application for you that would serve as a one stop destination for most of your social media needs.

DeskTube is an Adobe AIR application for YouTube (in particular) and FaceBook and Twitter (in general). It lets you search, watch and upload videos. It also lets you watch your playlists, watch your personal subscriptions and even allows you to record video from your webcam and upload it directly to YouTube by logging into your YouTube account.

What more? It lets you post updates on FaceBook and Twitter. Besides, it also offers a foursome video conferencing while allowing you to share video you are watching with your chat members.

DeskTube Website | Download DeskTube

If you are a hooked up Twitterer and also a Windows Vista or Windows 7 user, here is a piece of information that you will love. TweetZ is a Windows gadget that is designed for a cursory Twitter user. It provides good functionality so as to carry on your Twitter activities from your Windows desktop while doing other things that matters.

TweetZ’s interface is not very clumsy and it offers right amount of features that neither makes it incomplete nor too annoying. In fact, this desktop Twitter gadget is like other Twitter clients out there. It lets you tweet, post @replies (mentions) and send direct messages. Besides, it also provides an inbuilt URL shortener that automatically shortens long hyperlinks. The URL-shortening service used here is ‘is.gd’.

Updates occur every 2 minutes for the “Recent” time line. Every 6 minutes for “Replies” (Mentions), and every 10 minutes for “Direct” messages. The update schedule is reasonable for a desktop gadget because people would mostly be using this client when they are working on their systems and no one needs more frequent updates during work.

TweetZ is compatible with Windows 7 and Windows Vista only. The price is free and you can get an immediate download by clicking the link below:

Download TweetZ

If you have some of your precious photos that you took at an event and you are a computer guy, then showing it off on your desktop as widgets, screensavers and wallpapers; would definitely be a cool idea. PhotoJoy is an app that can do this task for you as easily as possible.

PhotoJoy is a utility that lets you organize your photos from your computer and put them into a showcase as some really interesting components of your computer. It can display these organized images as animated 3D photo screensavers, wallpaper collages or animated desktop widgets. It comes with some preloaded templates but you can always browse the internet to get some more suitable templates. In brief, PhotoJoy has a really simple interface which allows you to set the showcase with few simple clicks.

Besides using images from your computer, you can also use images from your Flickr account or online photo galleries for the use as wallpaper, screensaver and desktop widgets.

Watch the live demo of PhotoJoy in the video below:

PhotoJoy Website | Download PhotoJoy

Google Image Search is a great resource. You can get almost any of the images you desire by performing a simple search over here. What more? You do not get just one or two of relevant images but you get plenty of these. Though Google brings all of the relevant images in one spot, but manually going to each one of them and downloading them is quite time consuming, especially if you have to download many or all of those images.

Multi Image Downloader comes handy in such a situation. It is a simple app that can download original images from a Google search result page without you having to go through each website to download them one by one.

You just need to perform an image search using Google (as you normally do) and then copy the URL of the search page from your address bar on to the Multi Image Downloader application. Now just specify the number of search pages from which images have to be downloaded and begin downloading images conveniently.

Download Multi Image Downloader

It is not possible for us to download Halloween costumes from internet but internet does provide ways to make your Halloween more interesting. Know Your Meme is one of those web tools that aim to make your Halloween unforgettable and it does so by providing extremely weird and awesome dressing ideas for this Halloween.

They have some of the really innovative dress ideas and tips. They have instructions for everything that could add spark to this Halloween – from Zombie Mc. Cain Dressing Recipe to the Balloon Boy Hat secret. The good thing is that it tells the complete procedure and the entire list of items that is required to get you the perfect look at this Halloween.

While some of the dress designs out there are not that very interesting but some are really funny enough to get you some good lot of candies this season.

Try Know Your Meme

People have been using YouTube to listen to and watch videos of their favourite songs. Search for a song on YouTube and you will be produced with almost all version of songs (official and unofficial as well). But since YouTube isn’t built to help you with your music needs, here is the juncture where TubeRadio.fm comes handy.

TubeRadio.fm is a small and handy web music player that lets you create playlist from YouTube and even finds the entire album by using the track info and album listing at last.fm. TubeRadio.fm is more of a radio than a video player. The video occupies just a small portion of the app UI and the most part of the video pane is occupied by singer’s bio, album info and lyrics which is automagically pulled up.

The “Discography Mode” of TubeRadio.fm fetches the entire album versions of a song. However, there is another feature that searches for all available versions of a song and lets you add only the version you want.

Try TubeRadio.fm

If you are willing to give a more personal look to your new Windows 7, having a custom theme (made by you) on your Windows is definitely a cool idea. For making the process simple, you can use Style 7, an app that can help in creating Windows 7 theme using blackbox styles.

While creating theme, you start using the default Aero and then you work up through it to get a desired theme. The way Style 7 builds theme is pretty simple and is done away with a simple configuration file.

You will need UxStyle Core to run the Unsigned Themes created by Style7. Interested users can download Style 7 by clicking here.

PS – The Style 7 installer comes with the classic black-box theme. But you can search for more styles at Customize.org

If you are an iPhone user, you should be definitely looking out to cheap or free iPhone apps. Notwithstanding, there are thousands of iPhone apps in the App Store and keeping track of your favourite apps when they go for sale or are up for free garbs, is definitely a backbreaking job. However, this new app named as BargainBin keeps you informed of any such deals conveniently and without having you break your back.

BargainBin closely monitors the App store and gives instant updates when an app happens to go for a discount of 50% or more or when an app happens to be free for grabs. “Watch List” is another great feature of BargainBin app that lets you add your favourite apps to a list and add a price which you would like to pay for these apps. When the application happens to be selling at the price you desired to pay or even less than that, then an update would be sent to you.

BargainBin app is a great money saver for iPhone app lovers and the best part is that it itself is free. So go ahead and download this cool app from the Apple App Store.

If you want to show what you are looking at in your computer screen to your Twitter followers, there is nothing more easier than using Screentweetr. Developed by James Ford, Screentweetr is an Adobe AIR application for uploading desktop screenshots to your Twitter profile using some of the popular photo-sharing websites.

Using Screentweetr is very easy. In simple words, using Screentweetr to post screenshot to Twitter is a three way process – a.) enter Twitter login credentials, b.) take a screenshot and c.) upload the photo using one of the photo-sharing websites.

For the start, download and install this Adobe AIR application, install and launch it. Next, just press “Print Screen” button on your Windows or “Ctrl + Command + Shift + 3” on your Mac to take screenshot and follow the instructions on Screentweetr to tweet the photo.

As of now, Screentweetr supports TwitPic, TweetPhoto, Twitgoo, ScreenTweet, yFrog, MobyPicture, img.ly, Posterous, TwitrPix and TwitDoc for uploading photos.

Download Screentweetr | Check out James Ford’s Blog

Winters are setting in and Christmas is not too far. If you are planning a trip during this winter and you are a proud owner of an iPhone or iPod Touch, here is a free utility that you should consider installing. Named as BeeLoop, it is an iPhone and iPod Touch app that tells places chosen by experts that should be visited in a city.

For each suggested locations, the app gives brief information about the location with a picture and gives complete route to reach the spot including the ticket price and underground stations (if possible).

As of now, the app contains travel guide for 50+ cities in 9 languages – German, Castilian, Catalan, French, English, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese and Russian. More city guides are still in making and so you can expect some more cities to be added soon.

Visit BeeLoop.com and download the guide application by selecting a city.

uTorrent is one of the most popular torrent client and is massively used by people for their torrenting activities. A few days ago, John T. Haller and team created a portable version of uTorrent to add to their wonderful mix of portable apps.

Though there are quite some tricks to make uTorrent portable and use it on the go but still; this free and pre-packaged portable version is much more techie and convenient to use. The portable uTorrent is specifically useful when you plan to torrent while on the go and you have a small capacity hard drive with you.

Check out Portable uTorrent at PortableApps.com

Aerofoil is a simple application that can easily install into any constraint of your Windows Vista or windows7 PC and helps in extending and improving your laptop battery life and performance.

The latest version of Aerofoil, Aerofoil 1.5.0 is compatible with Windows 7as well. The application is a freeware.

The features of Aerofoil 1.5.0 are:

1. Optionally managing Windows Sidebar
2. Allowing you to manually disable Aero Glass
3. Optionally managing Aero Glass user interface
4. Optionally managing sound muting
5. Optionally managing YOUR chosen power plans
6. Optionally showing a quick hibernate button
7. Changing icon colour to show your power type

Download Aerofoil 1.5.0

Yfrog is one of the popular photo-posting services for Twitter. Recently, it added a pretty useful feature that lets you take a snapshot or record a video using your webcam and tweet it right from their website.

Using webcam for recording or taking snapshot on Yfrog is pretty easy. Just go to the Yfrog website and login using OAuth for Twitter. Now just check the tweet space on their homepage and you would see a ‘webcam’ option added under the ‘upload’ section. Select the ‘webcam’ radio button and you will see a window popping up. It will ask you to allow access to your webcam. Click ‘allow’.

Once the webcam is running, you can record a video, take a still shot or take a still shot after 5 seconds. Once you have approved a recording or a snapshot for tweeting, just enter a 100 character tweet and click ‘Post It’ button.

Besides web version of Yfrog, it can be well used from over 20 Twitter applications supported on Windows as well as Mac systems.

Try Yfrog | List of Yfrog Supported Apps

The Mill, an award winning visual effect studio, is giving away a flyspeck clump of their expertise in photo effects for absolutely nothing. This is being given away in form of a wonderful iPhone app named Mill Colour. Mill Colour is a fantastic app that can customize the colors of your photos using a handful of tried and tested presets while allowing you a powerful manual color controls as well.

As already hinted, there are two options for you to add effects with. Firstly, you can go with the pre-packed effects in the Mill Colour. Secondly, you can also try the manual side of Mill Colour application. It may seem messy in the beginning but once when you go through it, you will see how powerful it is. Mill Colour can fine-tune the saturation, gamma, gain and lift of each individual RGB channel so as to give a perfect image.

Mill Colour web | Mill Colour iTunes Link

Many of today’s professional such as graphic designers, architects, engineers, video editors, and animators, etc. use dual monitors so as to get a wider visual area and increase their productivity. The only bothering job while using dual screens is of locating the lost mouse pointer among the words and graphics spread across the two screens.

Here is a simple few steps process that would enable you to locate your lost mouse pointer (cursor) by pressing CTRL key. To enable this mouse pointer tracking system, proceed as below:

1. Go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel or Start -> Control Panel

2. Double click on Mouse Icon in the Control Panel

3. Click on the ‘Pointer Options’ tab in the open dialog box.

4. Tick the check box for “Show Location of Pointer When I Press the CTRL Key”.

5. Click Apply and click OK.

That’s it. Now when you happen to lose the mouse pointer, just click the CTRL key and you will see a contracting circle around your mouse pointer.

Google Reader is the best web feed reader I ever came across. It has lots of features that make it easy for you to read through a list of subscribed blogs. Recently, Google added “Explore Feature” to their reader which aims to provide a list of other popular feeds according to your interest.

Though this feature is useful and helpful for most of the people, but still there are a few who would like to bump-off this newly added “Explore Feature”.  For getting rid of “Explore Feature” of the Google Reader, we can use a Greasemonkey script. Here is how you should proceed to remove ‘Explore Feature’ of Google reader:

1. Download this Greasemonkey script from here.
2. Install the downloaded script.
3. Reopen or refresh Google reader.
4. The ‘Explore Feature’ of Google Reader has been bumped-off.

Almost everyone out here loves watching videos but unfortunately, not all of us have a good internet connection and it takes a lot of time to buffer some of these videos for some of us. For those of us, I would suggest a small yet handy utility that seems to be working pretty good in accelerating video buffer.

Named as SpeedBit Video Accelerator, it is a small and handy application that can buffer web videos faster and thereby reduce the waiting time and video interruptions. It works with all web browsers without any extra plugin and this is especially good because you will not need to download any extra add-on for having it run with your favourite web browser.

As of now, SpeedBit Video Accelerator can accelerate videos from YouTube, Metacafe and 150 other videos sharing websites. Interested users can download SpeedBit Video Accelerator here.

FaceBook Chat allows you an option to appear ‘offline’ if you do not want to be bothered by chat messages of your FaceBook friends. ‘Going Offline’ means turning off the FaceBook chat completely and as a consequence, you are unable to see who all in your contact list are online. ‘Online Now’ is a FaceBook app that lets you remain invisible to others while allowing you to see who all in your contact list are online.

‘Online Now’, in simple words, adds an invisible mode to FaceBook chat. This is similar to invisible modes as offered by other IMs like GTalk, Yahoo, etc.

Using this app is pretty easy. Just go to the FaceBook website and login using your login credentials. Now go to the ‘Online Now’ app by pointing your web browser to http://apps.facebook.com/invisible/ . Now just allow access to the application and you will be made invisible. Besides, a list of friends (who are online at that time) will also be shown.

The only drawback in this application is that it doesn’t allow you to chat with friends while being invisible. This means that you need to show online even if you want to talk to just one person on your contact list while being unavailable to others.

The following is a guest post by Utkarsh Verma. You can write a guest post yourself by clicking here.

About the Author: Utkarsh Verma is a student at Symbiosis IT, Pune in second year of his MBA in ‘Networks and IT Infrastructure’. He has keen interest in technology and electronics. He has been into computers, electronics, creative design since last 10 years. He just love to have fun with technolgy. You can check out his website at Mtaram.com . You can follow him @mtaram

Today I came across this website www.windows7giveaway.com which promises to give away a free copy of windows 7 ultimate if you pay $25 as the shipping cost. This looks like a very attractive deal. One of our friends from Pune startups group took the initiative to verify it from Microsoft and here is what they have to say.

“Dear Sir,

Thank you for your e-mail concerning the Microsoft lottery. We would

like to confirm this is a hoax website and did not originate from

Microsoft. Microsoft does not have any connection whatsoever with

this alleged lottery. It’s unfortunate that some people have chosen to

abuse the freedom that the internet offers by conducting fraudulent

activity.

Privacy and security are very important to Microsoft. For more

information please visit the following website:

http://www.microsoft.com/security/lottery/default.mspx

Yours sincerely,

Microsoft UK”

I would recommend everyone to inspect such offers closely as this might make you pocket a few bucks lighter and you would not be getting anything in return except frustration and annoyance.

Moreover any such issues can be reported here http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9661492

Most people who need Windows 7 installation DVD or ISO image rely on BitTorrent networks for downloading those. The file being downloaded from such sources carries risk of being fake, malicious, infected or incorrect image file. The good news, however, is that the direct download links to the Windows 7 operating system have been leaked.

Download links for Windows 7 32-Bit (x86)

• http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-79643/Win7-P-Retail-en-us-x86.exe
• http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-79643/setup1.box
• http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-79643/setup2.box

After the three files get downloaded, just place them into one folder and double click on the executable file (the .exe file downloaded by clicking the first link). It is very important to place the three downloaded files into the same folder or else the installation will not work.

It is to be mentioned that a valid product key is required to activate the installed Windows 7.

WordPress version 2.8.5 was released a few days back. This major release aimed at providing more advanced security to WordPress blogs. With that upgrade being rolled out in the public, WordPress developers are now getting ready for next major release of WordPress, version 2.9.

The first beta version of WordPress 2.9 has been already made available to the WordPress testers. The guys at Inexoravel.org have released a video casting the features of WordPress 2.9. Though the video is in Portuguese language, it is good enough to show us the features of this new WordPress release.

Check out the features of WordPress 2.9 below:

Google Wave is a fantastic real-time communication tool. The only thing which I do not like about it is that its interface is too engorged. Besides, the web interface of Google Wave has some glitches as well. These glitches will surely be fixed as time passes and Google Wave rolls out of its Beta preview. However for those who would like a better option than glitchy web interface of Google Wave, can use Waver, an Adobe AIR application.

What Waver actually does is that it loads the iPhone version of Google Wave onto your computer desktop. So chances are that some UI elements like buttons might not show up. However, you can still click the text and use the wave.

Features of Waver 1.0 are:

1. View a list of waves
2. Reply to waves
3. Create a new wave
4. Manage wave contacts

Waver is a freeware and can be downloaded for immediate use by visiting here.

I am a FireFox fan and I hardly use any other web browser. One of the important facts that bind me to FireFox is the availability of lots of FireFox extensions that simplifies my web activities. Having said this, I sometimes realize the popularity of Google Chrome and with increase in its extensions and add-ons, Google chrome gets second on my list of preferred web-browser replacing Internet Explorer (as it used to be). ChromeExtensions.org is a website that aims to provide a better and more techie solution to Google Chrome extension users.

ChromeExtensions indexes tons of Google chrome extensions classifieds into categories. This makes it easy to search for and find an extension for a purpose. Besides, it also offers quick installation of these extensions to your chrome developer version. This feature is like the one offered by Mozilla Add-ons website for FireFox users. On top of these, every extension listed at ChromeExtensions.org is provided with user reviews so that you may find the right extension.

As far as my opinion is concerned, I find ChromeExtensions.org to be a fantastic resource for Chrome users. With more and more of Google Chrome extensions being released, such resource centre would prove very helpful in days about to come.

Try ChromeExtensions

Windows 7 is talk of the web these days. While most Windows users are trying to upgrade their Windows, users using other operating systems (OS) can use transformation packs to palpate the design features of this new windows. For Ubuntu Linux System users, we have a customization pack as well.

While looking through the posts on one of my favourite Spanish tech blogs – The Dark Software Tester, I came across a great collection of 9 elements that can style your Ubuntu Linux System like Windows 7.

The Windows 7 transformation pack for Ubuntu Linux System includes:

1. Panel Backgrounds
2. GTK Theme
3. Icons Theme
4. Gnomenu Theme
5. Cursor theme
6. DockBar
7. GDM theme
8. Wallpapers
9. Sounds

Download:

Download Windows 7 Transformation Pack for Ubuntu Linux System here.

Customization Guide:

Read the complete tutorial on installing Windows 7 Transformation Pack for Ubuntu Linux System in English here.

The web interface of YouTube allows simultaneous upload of multiple videos but if you are an active YouTube user that does frequent video uploading, then uploading right from your desktop may sound more convenient than uploading from the web browser. YouTube Uploader is a handy utility that lets you upload multiple files to YouTube simultaneously right from your desktop.

Using YouTube Uploader is straightforward and easy. Just download the small application, install it, login using your YouTube login credentials and you are all set to begin uploading. Now just browse and select the video files on your hard disk to be uploaded and start uploading videos right from your desktop.

Besides facilitating simultaneous uploads directly from the desktop, YouTube Uploader also allows you to categorize the video and add title, description and tags to the video being uploaded. Besides, the application also allow you to use proxy servers and provides a functionality to automatically shutdown your computer once all the uploads are completed.

Download YouTube Uploader

While just carrying on with my daily web ramblings, I found a very interesting website, a website that claims to be ‘the last page of the internet’. With a very confounding domain name of www.wwwdotcom.com, the website tells that it is the last webpage of the internet and gives a very ironical notice.

The message on the website says:

A really wry note it is. For me, I looked at it, mocked and carried on my ramblings.

See ‘the last page of the internet’ yourself at www.wwwdotcom.com

The ever increasing number of iPhone and iPod Touch apps makes it hard for a user to find the right application for a desired purpose. Thanks to UQuery, a search engine that helps you out of the fret of finding the right application for a desired function.

With UQuery application search engine, you can search for anything and find germane applications. For instance, let us assume that I am to find a chess application for my iPhone or iPod Touch. So I just head to the UQuery website and enter ‘chess’ as a search term; and I get a full list of apps that allow a casual chess gaming experience.

UQuery further provides you option to filter your search results by price, rating, category and release time. In short, UQuery is a fantastic web tool that makes finding applications for your iPhone and iPod Touch thousands time more convenient than ever.

Try UQuery

If you are one of those FireFox users who expend most of their shopping time online, here is a FireFox add-on to help you save money. Named as Invisible Hand, it helps you shop in a smarter way by showing a discrete notification when a better price is available on a product you are browsing to buy.

Invisible Hand FireFox add-on works in the background and does not interfere anywhere in your web-browsing. When you reach a product page, then it shows you notification if the same product is available at cheaper rates on other webstores.

Invisible Hand monitors websites such as Amazon.com, Buy.com, NewEgg, etc. for finding better deals. As of now, it covers over 50 retailers in US and UK with more webstores to be added in future.

Add Invisible Hand 1.7.1 extension to FireFox

If Yahoo! Messenger is your default messenger and you are willing to have a functionality to update your Twitter status right from the messenger application window, here is a blog post for you. In this post, I would like to tell about a fantastic Yahoo! Messenger plugin that can synchronize your Twitter account with the messenger application.

Named as WackyB Twitter Sync, it is a Yahoo! Messenger plugin that lets you tweet while using your Yahoo! Messenger. This plugin adds functionality to tweet from your Yahoo! Messenger and also displays last 10 tweets from you and your friends in a quick slide-out window.

Features of WackyB Twitter Sync:

1. Keeps your Messenger status and Twitter in synchronization with each other.
2. Changing your Yahoo! Messenger status updates your your Twitter automatically!
3. Update your Yahoo! Messenger status from anywhere in the world! Messenger status automatically updates to show your latest Twitter!
4. See your friends latest Twitters right in your messenger window
5. Expanded window shows the last 10 Tweets from you and your friends.
6. Alerts and notifications for new Tweets received.
7. Twitter-Sync will NOT update your status if you are currently Invisible.
8. Lots of options to configure Twitter-Sync how you want!

Download WackyB Twitter Sync plugin

Google Wave is talk of the town. Be it Twitter or FaceBook or any other social media website, there is a whole lot of buzz about this new application that Google rolled out a few weeks back. Only a few of the interested users were given Google Wave invites for the limited beta while rest did not get an opportunity to test this new invention. For those that got an opportunity to ride this wave, here is a cool Twitter tip for them.

In this post, we will see how we can update our Twitter status from our shiny Google wave account. So without any further delays, let’s get started.

Here is a step-by-steps procedure to update Twitter from your Google wave account:

Pace 1: Login to your Google Wave account

Pace 2: Add tweety-wave@appspot.com as a new contact in your Google Wave

Pace 3: Click the tweety-wave@appspot.com on your contacts and start a ‘New Wave’.

Pace 4: A Pop-up Window will appear asking you to authenticate your Twitter account. Check to make sure that pop-ups are not blocked and if they are, unblock them.

Pace 5: Authenticate you Twitter account by keying in your Twitter login credentials.

Pace 6: Once you authenticate, you will see a ‘What are you doing now?’ text box. Enter your status/tweet in this box and click update.

Pace 7: Your tweet will go live on your Twitter profile.