Friday 12 August 2011

Now Play Games In Google Plus!!!

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According to the official Google blog, Google plus users will soon be able to see a games section which will allow them to play some cool games like Angry birds, Bejeweled and a lot more . After games like farmville being a big success in Facebook taking social networking to a whole new level, this doesn't come as a big surprise. This means that you can check out games too when you try to spot the differences between Google Plus and Facebook.


google plus games

But with games being such an important part in social networking sites like Facebook, what can Google Plus provide so that it stands above the competition. So here is a list of things that Google is promising to deliver in its Google Plus games service:


1. Games Offered

First of all the lets see the the list of games which you can play on Google Plus. On its official blog Google has provided a list of 16 games that will be available as soon as you get that games button in your Google plus account. These include games like the massively popular Angry bird from Rovio and classical games like Bejewelled, Soduku, poker etc. See the picture below for all the games.

google plus available games

More games will be made available gradually once the rollout is complete. Angry birds stands out for me in the above list which could become really fun if you could play it with your friends.


2. Control over games 

One of the best thing about Google Plus games service is that there will be a dedicated button at the top for the games if you wish to play them. So if you are someone who is not so keen to play games or even be informed about your friends update about what game they played, then you can be assured that these games won't interfere with your conversations.


google plus games share

Facebook news feed can get totally cluttered with games and application updates from friends which can get really irritating at times. Google Plus has taken care of it and you will get game updates only if you click on the games button which is really cool.


3. More for the developers

Google will take only 5% on in app purchases in comparison to 30% which Facebook charges its developers right now. I am sure this will attract a lot of great developers. More developers mean more games. So you may see some great games coming to Google Plus in future..

Well these were the things which make Google Plus games service stand above Facebook games, according to me of course. And this is just the starting, more features will be added soon which can prove to be a selling point to Google Plus.

Facebook launched some new features too: 

As soon as Google announced about the introduction of games in its Google plus service, Facebook too announced some new features which will be added to Facebook games. According to a post on the Facebook official blog, Jared Morgenstern said:

"When you’re playing games, you’ll now see a separate stream of your friends’ game activity, scores, and achievements in a ticker. The best way to find new games is through friends, and now you’ll have more opportunities to see what they’re playing"

You can read more here if you are interested Facebook Blog


So what you think about this. Game on I guess????


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Monday 8 August 2011

7 Best Firefox Addons You Must Have

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This is my collection of the 7 best firefox addons around which will improve your firefox experience  drastically. Although Google Chrome is taking away market share from firefox consistently but there is still one thing in which firefox is way above chrome, which is extensions/addons. Yes you can find extensions for almost anything you want on firefox while chrome still lacks behind in this area


7 Best Firefox Addons You Must Have


So if you love firefox addons, here is the list of the best firefox addons which you may find useful. Check them out:


1. AdBlock Plus - Download

As the name suggests adblock plus is your one stop for getting rid of all those annoying ads, For most websites and blogs Ads are the primary source of income. But at times you will feel that these ads start to irritate you and take your concentration away from the content. So at those times this program will come in handy.


Best Firefox Addons adblock plus

If you just hate all kind of ads or just the one that crosses certain limit adblock is a must. I mean there is a reason that AdBlock is the most downloaded addon in firefox.. 

2. All in one gestures - Download

With this addon you can navigate in firefox using mouse gestures. What are mouse gestures?? Think about this. You draw a line backwards holding your right mouse button and as soon as you release it you get to the previous page.This is an example of a mouse gestures. And with this extension you can add hundreds of such gestures for different tasks..

Best Firefox Addons mouse gestures

This is one of the coolest firefox addon i have ever used. And i have covered this in detail earlier. You can have a look here if you want:

Navigate in firefox using mouse gestures


3. Download Statusbar - Download

For all those who use the default firefox download manager for downloading files this one is for you. What it does is that instead of the annoying downloads window which shows the download progress, it shifts those in the bottom status bar of Firefox.

Best Firefox Addons download statusbar


4. Yoono - Download 

Yoono is a social networking addon for Firefox which simplifies your social life by providing a quick access sidebar in firefox which allows you to access all your favourite social sites like facebook, twitter and many more all in one place. What's great is that you get to see all your facebook updates or tweets while browsing other sites.
Best Firefox Addons social network


Another must have for social networking fans who like to share links and images with friends a lot. Apparently this is the most downloaded social Addon for firefox..


5. Web of Trust - Download 

Internet is full of scams and people who want to take advantage of your ignorance. So when you click on some link which you are not sure of, it can very well turn out to be a virus and they can get hold of your system. Also phishing attacks are getting more and more severe these days so you are never sure of what is trustworthy and what is not.

Best Firefox Addons web trust

Web of trust much like mcafee site advisor  informs you whether the link you are visiting is safe or not. And i must say it is much more advanced than mcafee site advisor. It provides a trust score based on user reviews about almost any link that appears on your browser. It even works for links in your email account and surprisingly it works for the ads too..


6. Morning Coffee - Download

If you for some reason don't like Rss readers and still like the idea of visiting every site manually to check out new content, this one is for you. By using morning coffee addon you can group different bookmarks together that should be launched automatically whenever you start your day(i mean firefox). You can set different bookmarks for different days and can also set if you want something everyday. 

Best Firefox Addons morning coffee

Another great way to visit your favorite blogs easily although i still prefer RSS


7. Tabmixplus - Download

Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox's tab browsing capabilities. It includes features such as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combination of opened tabs and windows.
 
Best Firefox tabmixplus

Although most of these features like 'undo close tabs' are now integrated in firefox, it still has many features that can save a lot of your productivity time. One of the best feature it provides is the grouping tab, where you can add certain open tabs in a group and then can switch back and forth between different groups visually.


Well this completes my top 7 list. I will leave you with links to some other firefox extensions that you may find interesting and useful. 

Some Other Useful Firefox Extensions/Addons:


I know some of these may appear pointless to you and some others may become your absolute favorite in the future. Everyone has different needs so something useful to one can be quite useless to the other. In this list I have tried to include the extensions/addons which most of you should find useful. 

If you know of some other cool firefox extensions then feel free to share it with others in the comments section below. 

Thanks for reading...

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Friday 5 August 2011

Control VLC Player With Your Phone

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Did you know that with VLC remote you can convert your phone into a remote for your VLC player. You can play, pause, stop and do a lot more while sitting comfortably on your bed. Sounds cool?? In this post i will show you how you can control your computer with your phone, i mean the VLC player.

vlc remote for iphone

First lets see the requirements.

Devices supported:

  • VLC remote supports iPhone, iPad, android phones and blackberry. 
  • There is a similar app available for windows phone 7 too. I will provide the link below. 
Price: 
  • Although there is a free version available for android, you have to pay for it if you want it on other os. The price is 2.99$ to 4.99$ which is not bad for such a great piece of software
Other requirements:

  • Wifi support both in your computer as well as your phone. Most smartphones have wifi so that won't be a big problem


Configure VLC player

  • First open VLC player. 

  • Go to tools-> preferences.Click on all in show setting box at bottom left.
       vlc configuration for vlc remote
      • Now go to interface-> main interface and select the checkbox 'HTTP remote control interface'. 
       vlc http for vlc remote
      • Lastly click on save. this completes the VLC part. Now you need to setup VLC remote on your phone


      Install VLC Remote in Phone

      Now download and install VLC player from these links corresponding your smartphone model

      • VLC remote Free for android - Supports features like play, pause, stop, volume control, etc. There is also a beta version which has some more feature. Here's the link:
                     Remote control for VLC media player
        • VLC Play for Windows Phone 7 - Paid software which allows you to control nearly every function of VLC from your Windows Phone and some other advanced features like Shutdown/Standby of your computer 

        Configure VLC Remote

        • Launch VLC on your computer. Unless VLC is running on your computer, the VLC Remote app will not work. 

        • Now launch VLC remote on your phone. It should automatically detect your PC and you can now control VLC player
          vlc remote autodetect android
            • If it doesn't autodetect your PC, go to settings, click on "Add VLC server" and type your computer's local ip address there with the port '8080'

            Use VLC Remote

            After you are done with setting up VLC remote using it is pretty simple. You will see all the available controls on your phone like play, pause, stop. Note that the free version for android supports only the basic features. If you want to get more features you will have to buy it. Here is the screenshot of VLC remote in action

            vlc remote android
             


            So what you think about this software?? If you have an android phone go ahead and try the free version. It will be set up in minutes. If you like watching movies on your computer you will love it. You can share your views in the comment section below.

            Thanks for reading...


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            Thursday 4 August 2011

            All You Need To Know About RSS

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            What the hell is RSS?? You must have seen blogs asking you to subscribe to their feeds. Some blogs even show some annoying popups which ask you to subscribe. And some even provide free gifts in return, ebooks being the most popular. So why are people so crazy about getting more subscribers? What's so great about Rss?? Why don't they just ask you to bookmark their site??

            According to a survey, only 10% people who use the internet, are actually aware of and use RSS. So I thought it will be a good idea to explain you in detail about what's so great about RSS and why is it still not that popular.



            What is RSS??

            RSS stands for 'really simple syndication'. And syndication means sharing of content among different Web sites. So basically RSS is a way to share your blog content with others. It provides the standard for syndicating articles on the Internet. Let me explain..

            We all read newspapers where we get to know about different things that happened the day before. We quickly go through all the headlines and if we find something useful or interesting we read through it. So newspapers keeps us aware of all the new things that happened around the world.


            In a similar manner, RSS delivers the latest posts published by your favorite blogs all in one single place. But unlike newspapers, you can choose which blogs you want to subscribe to and only there updates will be delivered. So if you are someone who loves to know about new things, you can now subscribe to the blogs that deliver them and you can be assured that whenever something new is published you won't miss it.

            RSS vs Bookmarks

            Bookmarks were the old way to keep updated with latest information. You could just bookmark your favorite blog and check 10 times a day to see if something new was posted. And i must say that a lot of people still use bookmarks to keep in touch.

            So lets see some of the advantages of RSS over bookmarks.

            • As i said above, you have to visit the blog regularly just to find that nothing new is available. By using Rss you will be informed whenever something new is published
            • If you follow a lot of blogs you will have to visit all of them one by one manually and scan for new content while you can get all the updates in a well organized single place in case of Rss.
            • Managing bookmarks can be cumbersome if you have a lot of bookmarks.

            Some advantages of Bookmarks over RSS

            • Not all websites support RSS while you can bookmark any website.
              • If you like a specific article which you would like to revisit again, bookmarking is still the preferred option

              How To Use RSS??

              First of all you need to choose some RSS reader. What is RSS reader?? Remember i said when you subscribe to blogs you get the latest updates all in a single place. Well the RSS reader is that place. There are many RSS readers available, most of them are free, some are paid too. Here is a list of some popular RSS readers:

              My favorite is Google Reader of course. 
                  Once you are done with signing up with your favorite reader you are ready to subscribe to your favorite blogs. In most blogs you will see an orange icon that will allow you to subscribe. Just click on it, and choose your favorite reader. You do not need to provide any personal information while doing this.

                  Now from now on when you sign in to your google reader or any other reader for that matter, you will see all the recent updates from the blogs you subscribed too. You can then choose to mark them as read, star them and do a lot more. Simple isn't it?

                  Subscribe to updates by email

                  If you are not so keen to use Rss readers you can also subscribe to Rss by email. In that case you will get an email whenever something new is published. Of course to subscribe by email, the blog should support this first. Most blogs will have an option to subscribe by email but not all. And note that you are giving your personal information i.e your email id while doing this. So beware that you trust the site before subscribing by email so that they don't spam you.


                  Why is RSS still not Popular??

                  This is a debatable question whether Rss is loosing popularity these days. When trying to find out more about Rss i found that a lot of people think that Rss is dying. But the fact is that Rss may not be a hot topic right now but people still use it in the background. And as i said earlier a lot of people are not aware about Rss so that's a big problem too.

                  I am sure when people will actually use it, they will love it and we as bloggers should make our readers aware of it.


                  Subscribe to Digital World

                  Lastly if you like this blog and would like to receive free updates, you can subscribe to my blog by Rss or email whatever you prefer.

                  What will you get?? 

                  You will get free updates, that means you will be informed whenever something new is published. I am really busy these days so posting everyday won't be possible for me. So instead of visiting this blog everytime to find new content you can just subscribe to Rss.

                  What will I get??

                  Well I will get some loyal readers who like what i write and that will act as a source of motivation for me to write even more great content. And of course there is nothing big as a blogger to find out that people like what you write .

                  So if you like this blog, you can subscribe to the RSS feeds below.

                  Click Here To Subscribe

                  To subscribe by email, enter your email address below. No spams promised.


                  Enter your email address:


                  Delivered by FeedBurner


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                  Tuesday 2 August 2011

                  Google To Launch New Page Speed Service Soon!!!

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                  In an effort to make the web a richer and faster place google  introduces new services from time to time.  Recently google launched the instant pages service which allows google to cache pages even before the user finsishes typing the search query and expected that it will save atleast 3-5 seconds in this process.

                  Now google is all set to launch a new "Page Speed service" through which google will fetch all your data, host it in its own servers and lastly tweak them to get the lowest loading time possible. Read on to find out more..


                  google page speed service logo
                  Image src - cbsnews.com

                  How Will Google Page Speed Service Work?

                  Google explained how the page speed service will work:

                  "Page Speed Service is an online service that automatically speeds up loading of your web pages. To use the service, you need to sign up and point your site’s DNS entry to Google. Page Speed Service fetches content from your servers, rewrites your pages by applying web performance best practices, and serves them to end users via Google’s servers across the globe. Your users will continue to access your site just as they did before, only with faster load times. Now you don’t have to worry about concatenating CSS, compressing images, caching, zipping resources or other web performance best practices."

                  So that means you are almost guaranteed some amount of gain in page load speed. According to google they saw improvements from 25-60% on several sites they tested.

                  How much speed i will gain by using this service?

                  The service is not available for public right now. Only some beta testers can get to try this. But if you are really curious to know how much speed you can gain right now then you can head on to this compare page

                  WebPageTest

                  It provides a complete comparison between the loading time of the original page and the optimized page. I tested it on my blog and saw an improvement of around 19% which is not that amazing. Here is the screenshot:


                  page speed serice result - digital world


                  Curious to find out more i tested a site i follow, netchunks and i was surprised to see the result. It predicted a gain of about 50% in loading time which is truly awesome. Have a look at the screenshot below:


                  loading time improvement for netchunks

                  Will It Be Free?

                  Sadly no it won't be free. If you were expecting it to be free like other google services then you will be disappointed. And i can totally understand why it won't be free. After all they are optimizing and hosting your site on their own servers which will cost something to google. But the actual price is still not out. Lets wait and see..

                  If you are interested in beta testing of this service for free then you can register here and hope that they approve your request:

                  Google Page Speed Service sign up page.


                  So what you think about this service? Will you spend some of your hard earned monry to improve the user experience. Personally i won't go for it if the price is too high and/or if there isn't any significant improvement in the page load time. What do you think?????


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