Google Translate now supports Real Time Translation and Text to Speech

Do you use Google Translation ? If yes then chances are that you have already seen the new feature google has introduced recently.

If you have not come across this amazing new feature then just open Google Translation and start typing in the text box.

Did you just notice that the translation happens as you start typing?You no longer need to hit the Translate button to get your translated string.This will help the users, see the translated string as they type and correct the sentence accordingly.

Another interesting feature is the addition of Text to Speech feature if you are translating something to English.To listen the translated text in English just click on the speaker icon you see before the translated text.Check the video below to know more about these features.

GO SPeeDY with Chrome

We all know Google's obsession about speed.It was this obsession which prompted Google to launch its own browser Chrome.Chrome is now considered as the fastest available browser by many.

Then came the announcement of Google Chrome OS this July.This is what Google said in a blog post while announcing the project.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight,to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

If you thought google will stop with Chrome browser and OS then you are completely wrong.This week it announced the launch of two more exciting projects namely GO and SPDY.
GO is an experimental open source programming language that combines the development speed of Python with the performance and safety of a compiled language like C++.The video below claims that a Go package consisting of about 120,000 lines of code is compiled in just under 10 seconds.That's really great considering the time taken by C++ compilers.



You can find a review about the programming language here.The first project using GO programming language is a twitter client which you can find here.

SPDY ,pronounced as "SPeeDY" is an early stage research project which complements HTTP and is designed for minimizing the latency through various features such as HTTP header compression, request prioritization and multiplexed streams.This is what google has said in a blog post about SPDY.

So far we have only tested SPDY in lab conditions. The initial results are very encouraging: when we download the top 25 websites over simulated home network connections, we see a significant improvement in performance - pages loaded up to 55% faster.

You can find more info about SPDY here.With Chrome OS rumoured to be launched with in a week ,this is going to be interesting.Now combine Chrome browser with OS ,SpeeDY and GO and see where you are headed.

Guard your kids by locking Google SafeSearch

Google offers a SafeSearch filtering to block Sites from the search results that contain explicit sexual content.Under the SafeSearch settings you can opt either for Moderate filtering or Strict filtering.Moderate filtering applies only to Google Image search results where as strict filtering applies to both image search and ordinary web search.

If you and your kids/family members use the same computer how do you make sure the safe search is on? Well google has added a new feature to lock your SafeSearch .Once locked the filtering mode is always set to Strict filtering and the search results page becomes visibly different so that you can tell whether SafeSearch is locked or not from a distance.

Now head towards Search Settings and click on Lock SafeSearch under SafeSearch Filtering if you want to lock SafeSearch.Check this video to learn more about the feature.

Google Dashboard: Know All your Google Products

If you are asked to name each and every google product you use ,can you do that correctly?Chances are that you will miss some of them.

Well,You no longer have to remember those products. You can now see information about all the google products you use from the new google dashboard.This is another novel attempt from google to give more control to your data after Data Liberation.Once you sign into the dashboard you see the summarized data for each product you use.the Dashboard also provides direct links against each product to control some of your settings.
I'm sure other Internet companies will soon follow google.You can find the list of google products in this wiki page.Watch this video to know more about this new initiative from google.

Use Twitter Lists to organize information

I logged into my Twitter Account today and was pleasantly surprised to see the Twitter Lists in my account.Lists allows you to organize information in a better way.

Using this you can create Lists of Twitter accounts and mark them as public or private.They are linked from your profile.If you create a List as friend then you can directly access it as http://twitter.com/(user)/friend.Other users can even subscribe to the Lists created by you.You can even use @(user)/friends to reply to the List.Lists menu is available on the right hand side below the Search box.

Lists can also be used for mass following people on twitter.Now onwards you will also see another menu option to add users directly to the Lists.That means You can even add users to the list without following them.It is still not clear when the Lists API will be available for developers .But once it's available we will see a lot of third party apps developing innovative solution around this.This is going to be an instant hit among the twitter community.

Search for Similar Images in GazoPa

Some days back I wrote about SAPIR ,Which IBM is currently testing in collaboration with the European Union consortium.Today I came across another interesting program GazoPa which also provides Similar Image Search and looks much more powerful than SAPIR.

GazoPa provides various methods to search for Similar messages.You can upload an image,Draw a picture,paste image URL into search field or enter a keyword to the search field to search for images.It has also built an iPhone App,a Facebook App,a Firefox plugin and a bookmarklet to complement the service.
I did a couple of searches and was satisfied with the search results.Another important feature it provides is the combined search where you can provide an image and a Keyword to search for similar images.

SAAPIR currently indexes flickr for image search and BBC for video search.GazoPa claims to index more than 60 million pictures that also includes flickr.It even allows you to filter out the Flickr images without a Creative Commons license.
In the result page it allows you to filter the images based on size ,time and various other options.Hover your mouse over a particular image in the result page and you will see a lot of information about the image such as size,similarity in percentage with the base image,originating URL and a search option to search for similar option.

Have a look at the GazoPa in this video to know more about it.

You can find other GazoPa related videos here.

This has added a new dimension to the search.Going forward we will see some big players joining the race.

Google Docs Liberated:You can now Download All your Google Docs in a Single Click using Export option

When Google Launched DataLiberation ,Brian Fitzpatrick, Data Liberation engineering manager said in a blog post:

We've already liberated over half of all Google products, from our popular blogging platform Blogger, to our email service Gmail, and Google developer tools including App Engine. In the upcoming months, we also plan to liberate Google Sites and Google Docs (batch-export).

Google has done exactly as per the above statement.You can now download or back up All your documents inside Google Docs.Select the Documents You want to Export inside your Google Docs.Click Export under More actions.Now you are ready to download the files compressed as a zip file.Choose the Export format from the drop down and click continue.

If you have more docs, the system might take some time to zip all the files.You can Click on "Email when ready" and It will send you a mail as soon as the zip file is ready for downloading.Note:The zip file will be available for three days only and will be removed after that.
If you are using Bookmark sync in Chrome then it will even download the Bookmarks as a single HTML file.I think the Export option is a great feature coming from google.This will kill a lot of third party applications around batch download.

How to Download embeded SWF or Flash files using your browser

If you are looking for ways to download flash or SWF files from a website that do not give you save as option then you have come to the right place.

You can download those embedded Flash files through browsers and the process of downloading flash files vary from browser to browser.Let us look at them.

Download Flash Files using Google Chrome
You can download them in multiple ways using Chrome.

Easiest Way
1.Open the website from where you want to download the flash or swf file.
2.Open a new tab and type about:cache and hit enter.
3.Do Ctrl+f in the new tab and search for .swf to locate the swf file you want to download.
4.Right click on the link and select "save link as".
5.Save the file to a folder and you are done.

Using View Source
1.Open the website from where you want to download the flash or swf file.
2.Use Ctrl+U to open a new view-source tab.
Note:If you do not see a new tab that means the URL points to a SWF file and it is not enabled for this.This process will not work if Ctrl+u is disabled.
3.Do Ctrl+f in the new tab and search for .swf to locate the link containing swf file you want to download.
4.Right click on the link and select "save link as".
5.Save the file to a folder and you are done.

Using Developer Tools (This is likely to work always)
1.Open the website from where you want to download the flash or swf file.
2.use Ctrl+Shift+J to open Developer Tools window.
3.Select Elements Tab (selected by default).
4.Do Ctrl+f and search for embed on the right top search box.
5.Locate the correct swf file. Available under src tag.
6.Right click on the link and select "save link as".
7.Save the file to a folder and you are done.

Download Flash Files using Firefox

Easiest Way
1.Open the website from where you want to download the flash or swf file.
2.Go to Tools->Page Info.(this opens a new window called Page Info)
3.Select Medial tab.
4.Scroll down the list under the Media tab to select the right SWF.
5.Click "Save as" button.
6.Save the file to a folder and you are done.

Another way
1.Open the website from where you want to download the flash or swf file.
2.Open a new tab ,write about:cache?device=disk to the address bar and hit Enter.
You can also type about:cache and select List Cache Entries under Disk cache device to arrive at the same page.
3.Do Ctrl+f in the new tab and search for .swf to locate the link containing swf file you want to download.
4.Click on the link .This opens the cache entry.
5.Rightclick on the link and select "save link as".
6.Save the file to a folder and you are done.

Download Flash Files using Internet Explorer (IE)
1.Open the website from where you want to download the flash or swf file.
2.Go to Tools->Internet Options
3.Click Settings under General Tab.(Inside Temporary Internet files section )
4.Click View Files.
This should open the Temporary Internet Files folder.It might contain hundreds of files.
5.Sort it based on Internet Address or Type.You can also do so by View->Arrange Icons by->Internet Address or Type
Note:If you are sorting it by type then the file you are looking for should be of type Shockwave Flash Object.
6.Locate the swf file ,Right Click->Copy to copy the required SWF file.
7.Save it to another folder and you are done.

AirTel Launches Awesome Commercials to promote Twitter on SMS

Some days back Airtel brought Twitter to India on SMS platform.Now it has gone a step further and launched some awesome commercials to promote the same.Have a look at those AirTel-Twitter Commercials below.


Hitch Hiker

Guitar

Sky Diver

Customize Blogger Title and URL

If you have a blogger account ,you know that it automatically generates the URL from the Title when you publish a post for the first time.Some days back I did a spelling mistake in my title and came to know about it after I published the article.Then I just corrected the Title and re published it.

After this I realized that this can be used to user's advantage.Sometimes You want to have a Long Title .If you put that title at the beginning then Blogger will automatically shrink it because of URL length restriction and the meaning will get distorted.To avoid this you can think about a different short URL and publish your atricle first with that as the Title.Once published you edit the article and re publish it by changing the title to the original title you thought in the beginning.

For example the post Who says RSS is Dead has the title as Google Reader adds magic:Gives you another reason to believe that RSS is not dead yet and URL as http://tekunik.blogspot.com/2009/10/who-says-rss-is-dead.html .To do this I first published the article with the title as "Who says RSS is Dead" and then republished it by editing the title to have the long title.This can also be used as an SEO technique to improve your ranking on search result pages.

Facebook now has a new HomePage:Are you satisfied?

I am sure you must have seen the new Homepage that facebook released sometime back.Let us look at the changes first.
Highlights section that you used to see in the right hand side has been merged to News Feed.
You will now see two feeds in your home page Namely News Feed and Live Feed.

News Feed will focus on popular content, determined by an algorithm based on interest in that story, including the number of times an item is liked or commented on.
Live Feed will display all recent stories from a large number of a user's friends.
News Feed is similar to Google Reader's "Sort by magic" feature introduced recently.

While this is a great change and has been appreciated by many ,I do have certain problems with this change.When I first logged into my Facebook I was surprised to see that my HomePage is filled with Highlighted Material.The problem with this is that facebook does not give me an option to hide these items.I can change my privacy settings not to show my highlights to other friends but I do not have control to hide others highlights.

If you are also worried like me then you can use facebook lite till facebook provides you an option to hide others highlights.

The second problem I feel is the introduction of two feeds News feed and Live Feed.I have a feeling that some of the users may not be able to understand them because both of them will now have some overlapping items.

I also observed that this has been announced in facebook developer blog.From a technical point of view ,facebook has cleaned some of the APIs and has provided guidelines about the API usage.This is going to help facebook and other third party applications.

Google Reader adds magic:Gives you another reason to believe that RSS is not dead yet

Which side of the RSS debate are you?If you believe in RSS story then you have got one more reason to feel proud about it.

Recently Google added two new things to the Google Reader to help users find interesting items faster.

Sort by magic:Until recently Reader had two sort options for feeds , "Sort by newest' and "Sort by oldest".This has been enhanced by adding another sort option called "Sort by magic".If selected ,it re-orders the items in your feed and presents the topic in an order that is important for you.This is personalized for every user and the re-ordering happens based on "like' and "share" activity.That means the magic sort gets refined properly if you use "like" and "share" more frequently.

Popular items:You now have more ways to find interesting stuff .Google reader introduced Popular items under a new Explore section.Popular items contain top-rising images,videos and pages from the Internet and is ordered automatically to your liking.

I had a look at the popular items and it just seems that Reader displays this based on "like" count.

These two features will certainly help users in discovering great content much faster.I'm already sorting the feed items by magic rather than the chronological order.You can find more about this in google reader blog post.

Find Old Applications easily

How many times you have googled for a old version of a popular software application or program?Sometimes new version of a program may not work as intended or may require additional softwares to be installed on your system.

You want to get things done pretty quickly and know that it was possible in a older version.What will you do?You will google for an older version and might even end up with a spyware.Welcome to OldVersion which now has 2862 versions of 190 popular programs.
The site stores the older applications categorized into various sections such as Communication ,Graphics ,Multimedia.Some of the popular applications include Norton AntiVirus ,Mozilla Firefox ,Yahoo Messenger ,PuTTY ,Picasa ,VLC Media Player.You can safely download your required version from this place.

oldapps and downloadversion also provide similar service.

How to get more space by deleting memory.dmp file on windows

I always make it a point not to install any software on C drive in windows to save space.But C drive gets filled up because of a variety of reasons.Each time the C drive is filled ,I go and delete the temp directory to free up space.

This time I was looking for ways to clean up the C drive and came across the file MEMORY.DMP inside C:\WINDOWS.The file size was a little more than 7.5gb.From the name it seemed it can be a log file and can be safely deleted.After a bit of googling I came to know that it is absolutely safe to delete memoty.dmp file.I deleted the file and immediately claimed 7.5gb of free space inside C drive.Then I looked for ways to disable the logging and found a way where you can completely disable the logging or reduce the size of MEMORY.DMp file.
Right Click on MyComputer->Properties->Advanced->Select Settings Under Startup and Recovery.Now you should see the Startup and Recovery Window as shown below.

Under "Write debugging information" you will notice that Complete memory dump is selected under the drop down and the dump file name is given as %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP.To remove the log file completely select none from the drop down.If you want to keep a small log file,then select small memory dump from the drop down.You will notice that the log directory has changed to %SystemRoot%\Minidump.Now you will be able to save some valuable space in your C drive.

Note:This is available in Windowx XP and Windows Server 2003.Not sure about the other versions.

Twitter pushing itself aggressively to new territories

We all know how famous Twitter is as a micro blogging platform.Facebook recently admitted that Twitter was in its real-view mirror.But the September U.S. comScore data tells a different story.

The comScore data suggests that in August,Twitter received 20.8 million unique visits compared to 20.9 million in September.Which means that Twitter's growth might have been slowing down in U.S. .So to gain traction in other geographies it has recently taken some initiatives which makes me think that the top management has also become aggressive to expand it to other territories.

If twitter has to grow beyond U.S.,then what are the countries it will target ?You guessed it right,it has to be countries like India,China,Japan,Brazil ,Russia and some European countries such as France, Italy, Germany and Spain.As part of its effort to bring in more users ,it recently announced an Exclusive Deal with Airtel in India ,to make Twitter available via SMS.
Very few people know about Twitter in India.Though the Tech Community in India knows about it,Very few people find it useful or necessary to use .While it is a welcome step to make twitter available via SMS,it might take a while before people start using it on mobile platform.

On 16Th october it also launched a Japan-based mobile version.Twitter has a very small presence in Japan having less than one million users.

On 8Th October twitter announced in a blog post that it will soon be rolling out support for FIGS: French, Italian, German, and Spanish.It hopes to offer support in several languages going forward.

All these initiatives makes me think that it has become aggressive to look for new users beyond U.S..Only time will tell whether it will succeed or not.