Browse media on internet on 3D wall | Amazing user experience!

Have a look at this video!

Wow! excellent! Amazing!
That’s what came out of my mind when I used it for first time. It’s really a great experience while browsing media in Piclens. Yes, that’s Piclens which did the magic!

Piclens is a browser plugin which enables you to browse media like pictures, videos on a 3D wall, giving greate browsing experience. Piclens works great for popular sites like Youtube & Flickr. After installing Piclens, a one click launch button will be added to your browser. Upon clicking that button, Piclens launches a full screen 3D wall to browse the media on site. Click, hold, drag using mouse to navigate on the wall, click on a particular picture to zoom, or on a video to play!

To get Piclens go to www.piclens.com. It is available for Firfox on Windows/Mac/No Linux , Internet Explorer & Safari.

Enabling Piclens on your Blog/Website:

If you are a website owner or a blogger, you can enable Piclens on your site. This enables your visitors to experience & browse media on your site on a 3D wall. This will be especially useful for bloggers who post photographs (Photo Blog) & videos. If you use wordpress, it’s more easier, because they have WP plugin too!

You can get more details on enabling Piclens on your site at http://piclens.com/lite/

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Google has released Google talk labs edition with lot of new features. The most awaited group chat is implemented in this labs edition. Group chat was implemented on gmail web chat app few months ago, but it’s desktop application was lacking this feature. Following are new features found on Google talk labs edition:

• Group chat, have conferences in Gtalk desktop labs edition. I used to log in to Yahoo! for this feature before.
• Notification from other Google services orkut & calendar.
• Tabbed chatting, no hassle of new chat window, chat with different friends in different tabs.

There are also few things which I don’t like in this new client:

• Installation is different from previous client, is pretty similar to Yahoo! messenger. First downloads a 300kb installer, upon executing that will download other required files to install application. This installer may not work at office, because they might be blocking the port through which installer tries to connect to server.
• One more much awaited feature “Invisible Mode” is not yet implemented.
• Copying of text from chat window is not possible! This looks really annoying for me.

You can get Google Talk labs edition here. This is the labs edition, you can click on “Feedback” button present at bottom of application to send your feedback about the application & to improve next Google talk release.

It’s april first again, time to fool your friends & relatives. Will you again do that same kind of “Cockroach!, cockroach!” kind of fool? Let’s try something different wit computers without harming your computer. By the way you can fool anyone who is residing anywhere in this world! Pranks Online has a set of Computer Pranks to fool your friends. Following are the few popular programs they have:

Flasher:

This cool program will flash the image of your choice on your victim’s screen at any time interval you desire. The image will show so quickly and unexpectedly that your victim will wonder whether or not they really saw what they thought they saw. The possibilities on this one are truly endless. Use it to show a picture of your victim’s ex, steaming dogshit, or anything else you choose.

Bomb:

This program is a harmless way to give your victim a “bad day.” Bomb.exe can be set up with any application on a computer to simulate a program crash 5 seconds after the program has been run. The crash will feature the dreaded “Illegal Operation” windows message but does not actually crash the system or damage any files.

PC system crash simulator:

Maybe you’ve heard of the “Blue Screen of Death”, maybe you haven’t…  Either way, this will FREAK you out. This is a screensaver you can install easily on any Windows PC (instructions included).  When it runs, it will simulate a complete PC system crash without doing any damage.  The author, Mark Russinovich, is a known PC expert from Sysinternals.com.

These are only few, you can see more application here.

First have look at this following video:

It looks like it’s made by professional editor, but it’s created by me! When my friend Sidharth told me about this, I was not too much interested & simply went to have a try. But it exceeded my expectations.

Animoto is a web tool which converts your images or photos into professionally looking videos. Just register at Animoto, which shouldn’t take more than 5 mins & start creating videos. Animoto has a user friendly interface, which takes you through step by step process to create a video. First upload photos which you want to create video, then select a soundtrack from Animoto’s collection or upload a soundtrack from your PC. Click on create video & you are done! It takes around 8-10 mins to create video & automatically sends a email notification when video is created.

Animoto is free for short videos, which are 30 secs in length.If you want to create a video of more than that length, you will have to pay $3 per video or $30 per year. With the effect this tool is producing, I am satisfied to pay $3 per video.

Test drive to create a short video at Animoto

Image from SugarSync.com

It happens a lot of time at office, somebody asks me any document or e-book, I reply them confidently “Yeah! I have that”. Then looks into e-book folder of my office computer, “Oh! shit, they are on my home PC”. Now it doesn’t happens, as I have synced all e-books & important documents with Sugar Sync.

Sugar Sync syncs your files across computers (PC & also Mac), phone & accessible via secured web interface. Sign up at Sugar Sync & install sugar sync client on computer which you want to sync files. Select & add files to sync & Sugar Sync syncs all your files in background. It takes very less bandwidth of your internet connection & syncs files to Sugar Sync server. If you make any modifications to these files, those modifications will be automatically synced. So you will be having latest revision of your files across computers. Sugar Sync also provides a web interface to access your synced files. It creates a custom URL like yourname.sugarsync.com to access your files from any computer around the world which has internet connection. The web interface is secured like your banking login page & you will need to login with your username & password to access files. Files from your phone can also be synced & also access synced files on the go on phone!

Invite Only:

Sugar Sync in currently in beta phase & invite only. You will need a invite from Sugar Sync’s existing member to have a shot. Currently I have only 7 invites with me, so first seven visitors can make use of this invite at https://www.sugarsync.com/entercode?code=IWPAJX. I have sent a mail to Sugar Sync support to provide more invites, will update if they provide. Please do share invites in comment section after signing up.

Reply from SugarSync:

Hello Prashanth,

Thank you very much for your interest in SugarSync! Due to the fact that we’re so close to our production launch, we are unable to extend additional invitations to any new sites.

We sincerely appreciate the request and will keep you in mind as we begin rolling out SugarSync more broadly.

Thanks again,

Sean
Sr. Manager, Customer Support

So you will need to wait for few days to get invite.

For those who don’t know about Skype, It’s a VOIP client/messenger. Skype is used to talk to friends all over world, many times it is also used for corporate meetings/conferences. You can get Skype for free at www.skype.com.

Callgraph got my notice at DevCamp Bangalore, a developer un-conference. Callgraph integrates into Skype & records all calls automatically. Callgraph can record calls of Skype, Skype In, Skype Out & store them in mp3 format. Recorded calls can be tagged for your convenience & you can search for recorded calls using tags. Callgraph allows you to configure it as per your requirement including changing location to store calls, enable/disable notifications, enable/disable automatic call recording…..etc.

Callgraph is absolutely FREE works on Windows XP & recently released to Vista also. Download Callgraph at www.callgraph.in, Happy Calling

Keyloggers are key stroke recorders which can record all keystrokes made on your keyboard! There are two types of keyloggers, hardware & software. Hardware keyloggers can be attached to keyboard, placed below keyboard or even some keyloggers comes built in with keyboard. External keyloggers are noticeable by the user, while built in keyloggers are not. There are various types of software keyloggers also, kernel based & hook based are popular. Kernel based keyloggers resides at kernel level, which gains unauthorized access to hardware (keyboard). Kernel based keyloggers can be in the form of keyboard drivers, so be careful while installing drivers from unknown sources. Hook based keyloggers, hook to keyboard using functions provided by OS & records keystrokes.

So, let it be your banking password or email account password, it can be easily recorded. Secured encrypted connection wont avoid keylogging, it secures your password after entering & secures until it travels to server. Software keyloggers can also be programmed to send recorded keystrokes to a pre-defined email ID, to upload keystrokes to FTP server or even to access & monitor log on your local machine via internet.

How to prevent from keyloggers:

Web Keyboard: Many banks provide you with online keyboard, make use of this while logging into your banking account.

Firewall: Use a firewall which alerts you when any application tries to connect to internet. Few firewalls are available for free, Comodo is one of those.

Anti Spyware: Many anti spyware softwares can detect keyloggers & cleans your PC.

Auto form fillers: Using form fillers on your browsers will avoid keylogging & also saves your time. There’s an extension called “iMacro” for Firefox, which helps you record any event you make on Firefox & playback whenever required. Get this Firefox addon at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3863

I am starting Future Tech catogory in Tech Bangalore with this post. It just my view on future technology & future possibilities. So what am talking about here, assume a virtual mobile phone on your PC which you can call , SMS & all basic functions you do with your mobile phone. Ya, I know it’s already there, provided by many companies online to ,make international calls for cheaper rates. But what am talking about is, it should be provided & connected to your current service provider. Say for example, You have Airtel prepaid connection on your actual mobile phone, & Airtel will also provide a desktop application to call, sms…etc. Your desktop client (virtual phone) will be linked with Airtel Prepaid account & you will be charged as per your plan. Options may also be provided for syncing your actual phone with virtual phone for contacts, messages etc.

Advantages:

1. You can avoid microwave radiations by using virtual phone on PC.
2. Better call experience, because of using mic & speakers of computer.
3. Messaging will be much faster with typing on keyboard. Typing on mobile even using t9 dictionary is a hassle.
4. No need of mobile handset, if you are always online!

This is technically feasible as per my knowledge.

Blocking unwanted calls from people you hate or from unknown people is the feature I think we should have on our mobile phone by default. I personally tired up with lot of promotional calls from tele-callers. Though many banks & services offers you to register for “Do Not Disturb”, you still receive many calls from other tele-callers. Vodafone was the first to provide “Call blocking system” to help it’s consumers avoid such calls (but at Rs.99/month). But I have not yet heard of similar service by other providers.

Fortunately there is an application which blocks unwanted calls on any network. Epocware Handy’s Blacklist is a series 60 application that blocks unwanted calls. In first run options will be provided for blocking calls from your contact list, recent callers or unknown numbers. It also provided with an option of adding rejected calls into black list automatically. It also keeps log of all blocked numbers for 60 days.

The dis-advantage of software is, It will not notify you when a call is blocked. You have to check your log to know which numbers are blocked. The application is priced $19.95 (Rs.785), I think is the better option to go instead of paying monthly rental to service provider for same. Purchase this application here.