Random Flickr Image Clock

Flickr Time is a cool flash app which randomly fetches images from Flickr and generates a dynamic digital clock out of it. Random images flies all over and renders into a neat clock with analog ticking clock at the background, A larger version of the image can been by hovering your mouse over these tiny images.

You can enter tags if you want to get relevant images. However It takes a lot of time to load these images, so might come handy for killing time rather than conserving it

Vizu Answers - Make Money With Polls

Imaging, How good it would be if you could make money without placing any adblocks, text links or referral banners?. Now you can make money by placing niche targeted polls on your blog too. This impressive new concept was coined by Vizu Answers. The payout is CPM based (cost per million) and you get paid for every click on the poll.

The process is simple, You need to start a Vizu Zone and set your own CPM rates (remember Vizu will charge 50% commission out of your revenue). Place the given ad code on your blog, preferable somewhere around the top of your sidebar. You can your poll widget by changing elements such as height, width and colors to suite your taste.

The polls are well targeted to your blog’s niche, so it encourages more user participation. While there are no polls to show, it simply hides itself and leaves no space. Payout will made either check or paypal once you’ve accumulated over 50$ in your account.

For Advertisers, Vizu Answers allows direct interaction with users of a particular taste and trend. These polls might even help publishers to know more about their readers. Overall, I’m impressed

via Digital Inspiration

Google is Secretly Impression Based Ad Network

John Chow points out that Google is secretly testing an impression based Ad Network called Google Display Advertising. This is something similar to Feedburner’s FAN, Tribal Fusion, Double Click or Casale Media and plans to capture advertisers who are planning build a brand name rather than sell products.

Google doesn’t like talking about this new Ad Network at the moment, Infact they won’t even acknowledge its existence. If this story is true, then its surely Google’s big leap towards hardcore advertising. The success of this new ad networks depends upon how the advertisers react, its surely not meant for small advertisers. According to John Chow, Google is hand picking publishers to test this new ad network and he is lucky to be one among them.

Such Impression based ad networks always face a hard time finding advertisers. Hence not all impressions are filled by Ads. I’m not against the idea of impression based advertising, it works great for me, but it’ll surely kill your return visitors as they get annoyed by these kind of ads. Let’s just wait and see if this actually comes out of secret testing phase.

via Problogger

Get Ashampoo Burning Studio 2007 for Free

Computeractive is giving away Ashampoo Burning Studio 2007 for free without any limitations, its a fully featured CD, DVD, Bluray burning application (similar to Nero). Once you download it, you need to register online and obtain a serial, but no technical support is available (Who needs one ?)

While installing, check the Get fullversion key option. Once the install process is over, a new browser instance will open and take you to this page, fill your email address and click on send to obtain the key. Now start the program and fill the key, you’ll have a fully licenced version of Ashampoo Burning Studio 2007. Remember, registration automatically signs you up for their newsletter.

Nero has dominated the CD, DVD burning software segment by bundling it with CD, DVD burners, so Ashampoo is trying to break this monopoly and gain some popularity through word of mouth. Earlier, we saw Microsoft do the same by giving away Windows Vista Ultimate and Microsoft Office 2007 for free.

via TechTites

Get Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and Windows Vista Ultimate for Free

Microsoft is giving away fully licensed DVDs of Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and Windows Vista Ultimate for free as a part of their Power Together campaign. That is 399$ + 499$ = 898$ worth of software for free. All you have to do is participate in three Webcasts and/or virtual lab sessions within 30 days of registration.

Here goes the fine print, You need to be atleast 18 and a US resident (I don’t qualify both ). The deadline is February 28, 2007 and is restricted to one gift per person. Go try your luck and let me know.

Via Digital Inspiration

Day Light Map

Day Light Map is a visual representation of Day and Night region of Earth. It allows you to set any date and time. You can bookmark upto ten locations on the map to see at a glance whether it’s daytime there, you can show their local time, sunrise and and sunset times, and length of day. These bookmarked locations will be saved for future visits.

This website is powered by Google Maps API and Google Ads helps them to maintain their site. So next ime you intiate a chat with someone, make sure he isn’t sleeping at the other end of the world

via Google System

Get Vista Transformation Pack 6 RC1

There’s still a long way to go before Vista comes out as a standalone product or come pre installed in new PCs, until then you can use Vista Transformation to emulate Vista’s new user interface on Windows XP. This packs offers all the goodies like Transparent borders for Windows, Icons, Bootscreens, Logon Screens along with a skin pretty similar to one seen on Vista.

From what I read on other blogs, they say that its quite hard to uninstall VTP and revert your PC back to its original state. VTP RC1 is just a test version, so handle with care

Download Vista Transformation Pack 6 RC1

You can also try Brajeshwar’s Vista Wallpaper Pack to give it a change.

Convert Black & White photos in to colour

Don’t dump those old black and white photos into dumpsters, instead scan and give them a new color life using Photoshop, refer this tutorial.

You might also be interested in adding real life tatoos to your photos. I’ll be moving out of the city this weekend, so there won’t be updates for 2 days from today. Have a great weekend!

QuickThumbnail - Web Based Photo Resizer

QuickThumbnail is a online photo resizing service which allows you to quickly resize photos through your browser. Just upload your Photo, resize it and download it back.

You can resize the image based on its percentage or use fixed sizes or use standard sizes like 100×75 (Avatar) or 468×60 (Web Banner). For security reasons your photos will be stored in their servers for 10 minutes, that shouldn’t be a problem for most of us

It works pretty smoothly without much quality lose, but it would have been better if we could see a live preview before downloading the image. Usually I use Snagit and all my screen capturing and resizing needs, but its good to see everything move online thesedays. QuickThumbnail will surely make its way into my bookmarks.

RARhost - Host your RAR Files for Free

File sharing networks are popping up like weeds these days, but Rarhost is something unique, its like Rapidshare meant just for RAR files. Unlike most of the file sharing networks, this one is completely free (no premium, or shit like that) and survives on Contextual Advertising. RARhost allow you to see the content inside the RAR file even before you download it and warns you if the file is password protected. Cool isn’t it ?

Membership is free, but its not mandatory. Users can upload their RAR file without registering, but their rar files will be deleted if they have not been downloaded in 30 days. Users who are willing to register will get additional features such as file tracking, file management and will be able to see how many times their RAR files have been downloaded. Files uploaded by registered members will survive for 2 months of inactivity period.

Downloaders can enjoy full speed without waiting any counter, but a captcha must be filled before downloading.

Thesedays most files are shared in RAR format, so I’m pretty sure that RARhost will gain some quick popularity. According to their statistics, They been up since August 14th and they own two data servers one in Texas and the other one in New York. Totally 123 GB worth of data has been uploaded (as of 24th Nov), they sound reliable to me.

Google Book Search Gets Web Book Reader

Google put an axe on Adobe by releasing Web Book Reader for reading digitized books available Google Book Search.

Web Book Reader works directly from the browser and supports zooming and fullscreen functionalities. Two page view or standard web page like interface can be set according to the users preference. This new online app from Google surely eliminates the need of bulky Adobe Reader inside browser, however the user can still download the PDF version of the eBook.

Web Book Reader works just like Google Reader and AJAX gives us a nice reading experience, thou it has sponsored links in its footer. Go give it a test drive.

Netvibes Gets New Features

Folks inside Netvibes must be working overtime, They’ve been releasing new features quite frequently and kept writing about it on their blog.

New Features:

They’ve added Hotmail / AOL module just like the one for GTalk, so this makes Hotmail/AOL lovers easier to track their mails through Netvibes. Video Search now includes MySpace videos and a new Podcast Search module has been introduced, it crawls into iTunes, Odeo, Pluggd and Podemus to search for podcasts. Searching Netvibes was a bit hard earlier, but the new Searching / Search Filtering Feature makes much more easier.

I’ve been a Netvibes fan ever since it was born, but these days I mange all my feeds through FeedDemon. My Feedburner stats say that most of the readers of this blog read through Netvibes.

FlickrDown - Bulk Image Downloading Utility for Flickr

We upload our photos to Flickr without worrying much about bandwidth or reliability. Imaging you want move all your photos to some other image hosting site or just what a backup of your photos, you can’t download them one by one, its quite time consuming. There are bulk uploading utilities such as Uploadr, but download bulk image downloading is a problem. Maybe the don’t want to waste their bandwidth for downloading images to your machine, so they don’t provide any such utility.

Flickrdown a free application which lets you fetch all your photos (including private photos) with a single shot. You can either select individual photos or select the whole photo set for downloading. An authorization is required before the first download, so that you can download your private photos.

You can also use this utility search photos by tags, groups, email address or usernames and download, so you can download anybody’s public photos quite easily. This utility doesn’t have a fancy user interface, but does the job nicely. All credits must go to Greggman who created this cool little Flickr toy.

Wanna Be a Police Artist ?

We all know that drawing sketches is not so easy, that’s why police artists get a huge pay for drawing sketches of crime suspects, but Ultimate Flash Face makes it so easy that anyone can create sketches within few minutes.

You can either start the sketch from scratch or manipulate the sketches stored in their database, you can drag and drop elements such as nose, eyes, hair, lips, etc on the canvas and adjust their sizes, angles or opacity. Once done, you can either save the sketch in their database or you can print the face and share it with your friends and family. Maybe you can also create a greeting card out of the sketch.

I use it as a best way to kill time. Thou I’m not an artist nor do I have a creative brain, I create such a beautiful lady!

via Digital Inspiration

Most Popular Camera and Cameraphones on Flickr

Flickr serves as the storage bin to some of the world’s most skilled photographers. With thousands of photos are being uploaded each day, its quite interesting to the camera trends among Flickr users. According to the stats released, most Flickr users flock with Canon’s EOS Digital Rebel XT followed by Nikon’s D50. Canon PowerShot SD400 leads among Point and Shoot Cameras. Among cameraphones Sony Erricson’s K750i leads the pack, followed by Nokia’s N70. My cellphone (N73) ranks 3rd among cameraphones.

How does Flickr collect these stats ?

All new cameraphones and digital cameras save EXIF (Exchangeable Image File) data. Information like shutter speed, date and time, focal length, exposure compensation, metering pattern and if a flash was used are stored along with the photo.

Since few camera do not stores these data, the graph presented by Flickr may not be so accurate. Well, does these stats mean anything for you?

Webshots Gets Videos

CNet has added video sharing capabilities for their Webshots photo sharing service. Their new video sharing service claims to offer 50% larger viewing area and 3 time more bitrate compared to other video hosting sites. Free account holders can upload 100 video upto 5 minutes in length and its keeps increasing by 10 videos per month whereas premium members can upload 250 videos upto 10 minutes in length and increases by 25 videos per month. Here’s a sample video:

Thesedays Photo sharing services are popping up like weeds and Webshots has been facing some stiff competition from their rival. As a result, their traffic has steeply dipped by 67%. Now they are following Photobucket’s path to regain it.

OK, sounds cool but it didn’t quite impress me. They should have comeup with a liberal offer (atleast for premium members), if they need to compete against YouTube - the video sharing god. I was a big Webshots fan, until I found Flickr.

Via TechCrunch

Dropbox.com - Free Online Storage, No Ads!

Dropbox is a secure, private file storage system powered by AJAX and driven by donations, with no ads. Each Account has 1 GB of storage space and you can upload /download as large as 50 MB. Folks who love the service can donate 1$ (or more) to keep them up and running.

You can upload and download files without registering, but to make them stay forever, you need to signup. Looks, Feels and tastes nice, I’m really starting to love this service. I use Dropbox to store my temporary database backups and few other misc stuff, but I think their revenue model is too weak to support their bandwidth charges. Go donate few bucks and come back

No credits to anyone, found it on Digg

Play Classic Nintendo Games on Excessively.net

Its the Wii era, but I still can’t forget those old classic Nintendo games which I used to play for hours when I was a kid. Excessively.net helped me bring back my old memories. They have a huge collection of over 1347 classic Nintendo games of all genres like Action, Adventure, Arcade, Casino, Fighting, Humor, Puzzles, Racing, Retro, Shooting, Sports and also Strategy games.

No downloads are required, just point your browser toward Excessively.net and start playing, as simple as that. They also provide the games applet code, so that you can publish your favorite games on your blog/website.

They don’t charge you anything, but they do have lots of Google Ads on them (shouldn’t be a problem, if you have adblock installed).

I’m not so addicted towards online games, but Super Mario made my fingers stick onto the keyboard once more. However, it would have been better if they could have made the fullscreen version of the game

GiveAwayOfTheDay.com - Try Paid Software for Free

GiveAwayOfTheDay.com gives you a chance to try one free commercial software each day, but they will expire after 24 hours, so you’ll have to install and try them within 24 hours. Its like having a fully licenced copy of the software for 24 hours.

For software developers, it works like a propaganda tool. Prospective consumers will buy a license to their product, if found to be useful and GiveAwayOfTheDay will get all the credits through hits and impressions. Their revenue model revolves round Google Ads.

GiveAwayOfTheDay is quite new, so they don’t have the right stock in their inventor to please me right now. But its surely worth a bookmark and I’ll keep tracking for updates through their RSS Feed. Guess what, their powered by Wordpress

Apple’s iPhone to Arrive Early Next Year

Nowadays Cellphones are merging with Music Players. Apple doesn’t want to stay out of the crowd, so they are coming up with iPhone. [Cellphone + iPod = iPhone]

China Times reports that the model has already been finalized and has been released to manufacturing. Foxconn has already bagged the deal from Apple to manufacture these iPhone at the rate of 500,000 to 600,000 per month starting at February and is expected to make its debut somewhere around Q1 next year.

No much details regarding pricing and features available at the moment, but its said to have an integrated 2 Megapixel Camera. Some Analysts speculate that iPhones would eat away the iPod market, especially Nano’s

Its good to see Apple making a transition into the Cellphone segment, I’m sure they’ll eat away significant amount of market share from other competitors.

People Who Slept Overnight at Best Buy to Buy Playstation 3

Today I stumbled upon an interesting photo entry of a person who slept overnight at Best Buy to buy a new Playstation 3.

Sony’s Playstation 3 went on sale across United States on 17th Nov (yesterday), they are selling like hot cakes everywhere. They’ve run out of stock and these guys knew it early. They didn’t want to take chances, so they had to spend a night outside Best Buy. lol…

Playstation 3s are selling for over 1500$ at eBay, wow… that’s simply insane. For more photos follow this link

Zune doesn’t work with Vista

Just days after release, Microsoft’s Music Player, Zune has already run into trouble with its compatibility issues with Vista. Early consumers of Zune are complaining that their music player doesn’t work with Vista. Here’s what Zune’s Official Website says:

Windows Vista
Windows Vista is not supported at this time. Check back soon for updates.

Seems like they were in a hurry to get Zune out before the holiday rush, completely forgetting to make it compatible with their own next gen operating system. I agree, Vista just reached RTM by the time Zune came out, but still they could have made it. This what Zune’s installer says when tried to install on Microsoft’s Latest Vista Build:

However, Scott Erickson (Zune’s Senior Product Manager) said that they are working on making Zune compatible with Vista by the time Vista is made available to businesses (must be somewhere around the end of this month)

Apple Teams up with Six Airlines to offer iPod Integration

Earlier today, Apple announced that they have teamed with Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM and United to offer iPod integration. Soon Passengers of these airliners would be able to charge their iPod and view video content on their iPod on the back seat display. Apple also said that they are working with Panasonic Avionics Corporation to bring more airlines into iPod connectivity.

iPod is the world’s most popular music player and is my favorite traveling companion. iPod dock has already arrived for cars, but since majority of commuters travel by Train or Bus, it would be a great idea to integrate a charger dock within them too.

Google Includes Skype into Google Packs

We all though Google Talk and Skype were two competing products (didn’t we?). With the inclusion of Skype into Google Packs, we all proved to be wrong.

Infact, Skype makes a double entry, Once as a standalone installer and secondly within Google Toolbar which converts all telephone numbers and Skype usernames on a webpage into clickable buttons.

What Differentiates Google Talk from Skype:
Unlike Skype, Google Talk doesn’t allow us to make landline calls. Google Talk is jabber based and serves as text messenger, while Skype is Voice and Video Call Application. Sounds logical, doesn’t it ?

Zune Hits Storesn at U.S

For the first time, Microsoft’s portable music player debuted across stores in the US. Currently only a single 30 GB model is available in three different colors (Brown, Black and White) for $250.

Features:

• Zune 30GB model - $249
• 3-inch screen (320*240 pixels)
• FM radio
• Songs cost 99 cents or unlimited subscription for $15 a month
• Two million songs on offer
• Wirelessly share songs with other Zune users
• Registered guests can swap songs via a PC

There are some mixed reaction among consumers at time point of time, some are praising, while others are criticizing. I’m quite impressed by Zune’s Social Music Sharing feature and point based Music subscription, but it doesn’t look as cute as iPod.

Zune’s Advertisement on YouTube: I found handful of Zune Ads on YouTube, but only this one looked authentic

Gizmodo got their hands early on Zune and have posted a nice coverage on unpacking Zune, Check it out. What’s your opinion towards Zune, Don’t feel shy to drop your comments.

Edit your Photos Online Using Pixer.us

Imagine, Your traveling somewhere and you urgently need to edit a pictures, but you realize that you don’t have any image editors. Not to worry, Pixer.us comes to the rescue

Pixer.us is a free browser based photo editor. Just upload your image and start playing with it. You can perform rudimentary image manipulation like resize, crop, rotate, flip along with few cool special effects like Brightness / Contrast adjustments, Saturation, ColorFX, Blur / Sharpen, Special FX.

They’ve also provided a undo button, just incase you go wrong somewhere. After completing the job, just hit the ‘Save’ button, choose the format (JPEG, GIF, PNG or BMP) and download the photo. Everything is AJAX, so you don’t need to reload the page for each function. Cool isn’t it ?

Video: I just was playing around with Techsmith’s Camtasia Screen Recorder and I decided to create a quick video post out of it. This is my first one, so I’m expecting your comments:

Conclusion: Thou its not as powerful as Photoshop or Gimp, it still comes handy for quick and dirty rudimentary image editing needs. I’ll bookmark it

Wordpress Quicky: How to Install Captcha on Your Blog

Usually Spammers don’t have enough time to manually spam a blog, so they hire robot to do the nasty job. And to prevent them, we use tools like Akismet or Spama Karma.

They effectively block spams, but at the same time they kill good comments as well. Ofcource, you can verify the spambox before hitting the delete button, but sometimes it becomes nearly impossible to verifying each one of them.

They only way to kill these robotic spams is to install Captcha (Captcha is an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart).

While there are tons of Wordpress Plugin which does the job, I use only Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam plugin because its neat and high customizable.

Installation:

Installation is fairly simple, just download the plugin, upload it inside your plugin directory and then activate the plugin through your Wordpress Admin Panel.

This will automatically insert a captcha above your comments form, but if you want to manually insert the captcha code in your template or change the configuration, you’ll need to edit custom_anti_spam.php. Don’t worry, it isn’t that hard, you’ll find all the details with the file itself.

Wordpress Quicky: How to Install Captcha on Your Blog

Usually Spammers don’t have enough time to manually spam a blog, so they hire robot to do the nasty job. And to prevent them, we use tools like Akismet or Spama Karma.

They effectively block spams, but at the same time they kill good comments as well. Ofcource, you can verify the spambox before hitting the delete button, but sometimes it becomes nearly impossible to verifying each one of them.

They only way to kill these robotic spams is to install Captcha (Captcha is an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart).

While there are tons of Wordpress Plugin which does the job, I use only Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam plugin because its neat and high customizable.

Installation:

Installation is fairly simple, just download the plugin, upload it inside your plugin directory and then activate the plugin through your Wordpress Admin Panel.

This will automatically insert a captcha above your comments form, but if you want to manually insert the captcha code in your template or change the configuration, you’ll need to edit custom_anti_spam.php. Don’t worry, it isn’t that hard, you’ll find all the details with the file itself.

Get a Live Account with live.com Extension

he default hotmail.com or msn.com is boring these days. When we say Live Account, we expect a live.com extension, but Microsoft won’t give this to us by default, So here’s a trick to get:

• Go to Windows Live ID overview page.
• Click on the Sign-Up button.
• Copy and paste the following code into the address bar and hit enter.
  
• After you hit enter, there will be an alert saying “Success - additional domains added!”.
• Now you can select which domain that you want to register instead of hotmail.com only.

Since Live.com extension is fairly new, you can get your desired username. I was lucky enough to get thilak@live.com, but if you are not as lucky as me, you can try other extensions like live.co.uk, live.ca, live.be, live.de, live.fr. live.com.au or live.it

Now that this trick has leaked on the blogosphere, Microsoft may either remove it or make it available to all. Actually I read about this trick yesterday on Raymond’s Blog, but I forgot to post it. So some credits must go to Fauzi for reminding me.

Off topic: Tomorrow is going to be a messy day, I’ll have to reinstall Ubuntu on my Desktop, clean my room, clean my theme’s code to make it XHTML complaint and to make things harder, I’m having classes tomorrow. So my regular posting frequency might be interrupted.he default hotmail.com or msn.com is boring these days. When we say Live Account, we expect a live.com extension, but Microsoft won’t give this to us by default, So here’s a trick to get:

• Go to Windows Live ID overview page.
• Click on the Sign-Up button.
• Copy and paste the following code into the address bar and hit enter.
  
• After you hit enter, there will be an alert saying “Success - additional domains added!”.
• Now you can select which domain that you want to register instead of hotmail.com only.

Since Live.com extension is fairly new, you can get your desired username. I was lucky enough to get sarun.84@live.com, but if you are not as lucky as me, you can try other extensions like live.co.uk, live.ca, live.be, live.de, live.fr. live.com.au or live.it

Now that this trick has leaked on the blogosphere, Microsoft may either remove it or make it available to all. Actually I read about this trick yesterday on Raymond’s Blog, but I forgot to post it. So some credits must go to Fauzi for reminding me.

Sony PS3 Arrives at Japan, Many Return Empty Handed

Yesterday Sony’s next generation gaming console, Playstation 3 went on sale at some of the Japanese stores. Two variants of PS3 were sold, one with WiFi and a 60GB hard drive which costs around 60,000 yen ($510) and another one with 20 GB Hard Drive and no WiFi sells for 49,980 yen ($425).

Due to the hot demand, the console is already selling at an inflated price on some the auction sites. The 60GB model is selling with a inflate price of 90,000 yen ($765), while the 20Gb model goes for around 70,000 yen ($595) at Yahoo Japan’s auction site.

Thousands of Playstation fans lined up outside stores, but only 80,000 unit were sold, so many of them had to return empty handed. Sony plans to ship 100,000 units to Japan each week and around 400,000 units will be available for purchase by the tome Nintendo’s Wii hits the market.

Playstation fans from North America, Honk Kong and Taiwan will have to waiting until November 17, European Consumers are out of luck, they might have wait until March 2007.

Photo Courtesy: GameSpot

Microsoft Releases Photosynth

The first technological preview of Microsoft’s Photosynth has been released. Photosynth is a mind blowing application which turn a set of 2D pictures into a 3 dimensional virtual space. This was project was first announced at SIGGRAPH 2006, ever since then, I was waiting for this to happen.

The first technological preview shows only photoset provided by Microsoft, because rendering the 3 dimensional space out of photos provided by the user might take days or even weeks to complete. Since this rendering process involves tons of complex algorithm, the hardware requirements are high and will only run on Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista systems with a capable graphics card.

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Photosynth can be downloaded from here, but you need to open that link in IE 6 or 7 (it won’t work with any other browser). I hate to see Microsoft suppressing other browser and forcing us to use IE. Damn…

Google Accidentally Sends Virus

Google accidentally transmitted a virus on their Google Videos mailing list with W32/Kapser.A@mm. Atleast 3 emails containing this virus have been posted on the mailing list which approximately has about 50,000 subscribers.

Google is brushing up saying: If you think you have downloaded this virus from the group or an email message, we recommend you run your antivirus program to remove it

W32/Kapser.A@mm is a mass mailing virus and is designed to delete selected files on specific date. This virus first made its public appearance on 16 January 2006 and spreads through e-mail attachments designed to entice users to open the attachments and thereby execute the worm.

All of us are exposed to such potential threats. I use Clamwin to defend myself. What do you use ?

Yahoo Plans to Integrate Chat inside Yahoo Mail

Following Google’s footsteps, Yahoo is moving towards integrating a chat module inside the next Yahoo Mail Beta (obviously using AJAX technology). Since Google has already done it, Yahoo must be looking forward to develop something innovative, aimed at improving user experience and should be nothing less than that.

Although no specific details regarding the features have been released, initial rumors suggests that users can reply to email via instant messages, but this works only if he or she uses Yahoo and eventually it would be extended to Windows Live Messenger also. Yahoo is also planning to allows users archive their chat sessions, just like Google does, but yet again it will raise controversies regarding privacy and stuff like that.

Anyway, its good to see some competition among these giants. In terms of market share, Yahoo still leads the race, but its userbase is sharply declining, most of them are now turning towards Google and other competing products. I think Yahoo considerably lost market share after Google integrated GTalk inside Gmail and now hopes to regain its back.

Source: BetaNews

text link ads brought by Media whiz

Text Link Ads, the company which sells Text Link and RSS Feed Ads (Feedvertising) on a monthly flat rate basis has been acquired by New York’s MediaWhiz.

Patrick Gavin, president of TLA says: This is an exciting time for our team and our clients. We have found a great partner that will be able to help our publishers and advertisers profitably drive more traffic to their web sites. We are looking forward to delivering more great products and even better service in the months ahead as a result of this partnership

Under the hands of MediaWhiz,Text Link Ads promises webmasters to offer new ways to monetize your website, which includes CPA and CPM advertising, Advertisers can now think of purchasing email marketing, CPA or CPM ads through TLA.

Text Link Ads was particularly popular among bloggers due to its simplicity text link ads and high paying referral bonus. Congrats Patrick and the entire TLA team

GMAIL HAS LAUNCHED FOUR NEW FEATURES

Reply on top No more scrolling to the bottom of a long message to find the “Reply” link. Now there's a Reply button right on top, along with a lot of other options under the little dropdown arrow.

Embarassment-reducing new message notifications
Ever replied to a message only to find out that someone sent a better, smarter reply right before you? Now, if someone sends a reply while you're in the middle of reading a conversation (or replying to it), you'll get a notification that a new message has arrived. Click "update conversation" to see what you’ve missed.


Forward all
When viewing a conversation, use the new “Forward all” link on the right if you want to forward the entire conversation instead of just one message.

Chat even when your friends are offline
Chatting in Gmail just keeps getting better. Now, if you're chatting with a friend who goes offline, your friend will be able to see whatever you were typing the next time he or she goes online.

Skype 3 Beta Includes Shopping Features

The all new Skype 3.0 Beta has been publicly released with Click to Call functionality aimed at easing communication among eBay users, another fruitful feature allows users to manage up to 100 Web-based chats with users, regardless of whether or not they have the VoIP software installed.

Skype is also distributing web toolbars for Firefox and IE, which converts normal Telephone numbers on webpages into clickable call buttons. eBay also said that they are working on additional functionalities which would help them generate more revenue from Skype.

I’m a newbie, I just started using Skype since the past week, just to talk to my buddies who use only Skype and nothing else.

When I compare both Skype and Google Talk head to head, I feel GTalk has better Voice Quality, but still Skype has its own advantages. My Skype user name is xthilakx, feel free to call me.

Download Skype 3.0.0.106