Recycling, that too recycling electroncis is a big problem. Panasonic, on thursday announced that is creating a nationwide program in US to provide their consumers easy recycling of TV and other consumer electronics with a simple goal of safe recycling of used electronics.
Lack of greenery is the major contributor to environmental pollution. Therefore going green should be the mantra for every citizen of planet earth and this is the idea to start are a "Tech Green" category in my blog "GREEN WORLD".
Want to read articles in this category go to GREEN WORLD.
.As per this recycling program of used electronic products, consumers can drop of their Panasonic products free of charge. Initially this program will roll out in 10 states and over 3 years will cover 50 states.
The Panasonic program will begin on November 1, 2008. A list of participating sites is available at http://www.mrmrecycling.com/.
The Panasonic program will help to move end-of-life consumer electronics out of the common waste stream and into a separate and environmentally responsible recycling stream.
Over the last two years, Panasonic has worked to test various product recycling mechanisms in several states and localities, through dozens of voluntary recycling events, and with a number of established recyclers.
By 2010, Panasonic wants to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and introduce products that are energy efficient and can be easily recycled.
Amazon rolled out the new "site stripe" feature for the newly redisigned Associates Central website. The Site Stripe feature will allow to create links to the favorite products and pages on the Amazon.com site so one can update their website more frequently and with fewer clicks. So, now I can see my Associates Site Stripe to link to any page on Amazon.
This feature lets you build your associates links right from any Amazon.com page. The Site Stripe will appear at the top of every Amazon page as "Link to this page". Amazon has provided quick and easy access for building links, adding products to your aStore, adding discussion board, earnings summary, what's new and even seeing your reports.
It is compatible with Product Links. To use the Site Stripe feature, sign in your Amazon Associates account first. Then look at the top of the Amazon.com page.
The linking tools that will help you build links to pages on Amazon are :
Link to favourite destinations
Link to search results
Link to any page at Amazon.com
Link checker
This feature is a time saver for amazon affiliates who link to a lot of product pages. So login and enable this feature and have fast selllings !!
Joining numerous social networks and making friends is a way of getting visitors to your blog. But, after starting my blog, updating these never ending social bookmarking/media sites, pinging to each of my social network aggregating sites got me real headache. Like many pinging services, I found Ping.fm.
Although I use twitterfeed (signup can be done with yahoo openid also) to update only twitter, with Ping.fm I can simultaneously submit my status and posts to Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Blogger.com, Wordpress, LiveJournal and many more.
But first what is Ping.fm ?
Ping.fm is a simple service created to post status updates and blog posts once to multiple sites by incorporating the APIs for all the social network sites. It integrates dozens of blogging and social websites. If you want to follow them at twitter go to http://twitter.com/pingfm.
I have added ping.fm for my twitter, facebook and friendfeed accounts. Ping.fm is facing some problem while authenticating some MySpace accounts. I could not add my MySpace account.
Twitter network can be added by simply signing in your Twitter account.
For Facebook, after signing in, you will be asked for application key that Ping.fm provides to you.
To add Friendfeed network,the frienfeed site itself provides a remote key as a ticket to use third party application Ping.fm Friendfeed application.
When you update/edit/add social services to your account, you are presented with very simple options as seen below from the twitter update page.
By selecting "Micro-blogging" and/or "Status updates", you are can classify Twitter (and all other services) into groups so that you don't have to post to them all at once..... I have selected Twitter only for Status updates, while Facebook and Friendfeed for both.
It is also possible to post updates to ping.fm using services Google Talk, like AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo Messenger, from a gadget from your iGoogle custom page, and many more!
In all, it is a great service that has become a massive hit among bloggers and social network users.
Music has not changed but technology has. You do not need to be a tech expert or buy expensive devices but can easily convert your golden melodies to the digital mp3 format at home that can be heard in portable audio gadgets. All you need is your cassette player, computer and a stereo in/out cable.
Technology has made possible almost everything. I changed all my old audio cassettes to mp3 in the method below. Have a look and try it.
1. Connect one end of normal stereo in/out cable to your computer's line-in terminal with a 1/8" mini-jack and the other end to player's stereo out (headphone socket).
2. Change the recording control of your PC to Rear input/Line in. You can do this by going to "Sounds and audio device properties" in the Control Panel. Then you have to click the audio tab and volume button in Sound Recording as shown in picture below.
In Sound and Audio Properties, change recording control to "Rear input/Line In".
Set audio format at 44.1 kHz in Windows by going to Program/Accessories/Entertainment/Sound Recorder.
3. Now play the music on your cassette player and start recording via the sound recorder, or other free sound recorders/encoders like Jet Audio Basic, Media Jukebox or Audacity.
Windows sound recorder will record the music only in WAV format. You can change it to MP3 later by using any free encoders available online.
You can listen to music simultaneously while it's recording through your computer speakers or headphones.
If you have to record multiple songs, split your recording into seperate files.
If you are using Audacity (see picture below), a free downloadable digital audio editor application, recording should be set for 2 channels (stereo) and the playback and recording devices set to built-in audio controller. Keep audio format for recording at 44.1 kHz, 16 bit stereo. This is the standard format for CD audio quality.
Do not change the volume of your cassettes during recording. Avoid playing it at full volume.
You can download some of the encoders.
Audacity, the free cross-platform sound editor
Download Audacity 1.2.6
Download Media JukeBox
Most popular Jukebox downloads
Adobe has just released version 10 of the free flash player. Adobe Flash Player version 10.0.12.36 has unprecedented creative control with expressive new features and visual performance improvements. The software is a cross-platform browser plug-in that delivers breakthrough web experiences and is installed on more than 98% of Internet-connected desktops.
Top features which are new than the older version are 3D effects, real-time effects for cinematic experiences, flexible text layout, enhanced sound APIs, hardware processing power, new typed array class for better performance, enhanced file uploads and download APIs. The new Pixel Bender just-in- time (JIT) compiler can also process sound or mathematical functions, asynchronously in a separate thread.
But, most important, Flash Player 10, includes a fix for the "clickjacking vulnerability", the process that gives an attacker the ability to trick a user into clicking on something only barely or momentarily noticeable. The Flash Player 10 update also helps prevent a clickjacking attack on a user's Webcam and microphone. Clickjacking was a vulnerabillity in flash player version 9.0.124.0 as well as vulnerabilities in browsers such as Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox, and Safari.
Newer version has many improved features and fixes for previous flaws and hence everybody should upgrade to version 10.
Have a look at the Flash Player in action.
Download at http://www.adobe.com/go/getflash
CERN GRID openlab: a partnership for tomorrow's technologies
CERN has always been in forefront of today's internet technologies - the foremost being the concept of WWW (World Wide Web) , the term coined by Tim Berners Lee , a CERN scientist.
CERN again is as usual into new ultra IT concepts like OPENLAB - This is an exciting partnership between research and industry that allows CERN researchers to assess the impact of ultra-new IT technologies on the LHC Computing Grid.
Grid computing is a form of distributed computing whereby a "super and virtual computer" is composed of a cluster of networked, loosely-coupled computers, acting in concert to perform very large tasks. This technology has been applied to computationally-intensive scientific, mathematical, and academic problems through volunteer computing, and it is used in commercial enterprises for such diverse applications as drug discovery, economic forecasting, seismic analysis, and back-office data processing in support of e-commerce and web services.
CERN openlab was launched in 2003 with partners Enterasys, HP, IBM, Intel and Oracle.
In 2008, the CERN openlab partners are HP, Intel, Oracle and EDS.
The LHC Computing Grid : a global grid for high energy physics
The LHC Computing Grid (LCG) was launched in 2002 and integrates thousands of computers worldwide into a global computing resource that will be used to store and analyze the huge amounts of data that will soon be produced by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
When the LHC begins operations in 2008, it will produce roughly 15 Petabytes (15 million Gigabytes) of data every year. Thousands of scientists all over the world already want to access and analyze these data! But the LCG must do more than just store this huge amount of data: it must also analyze the data, a task that will require around 100 000 PC processors. Also, the data should be made available to thousands of scientists across the world, in a completely seamless fashion.
The LCG already involves more than 200 sites in over 30 countries.
Dress rehearsals!
Scientists are currently performing "LCG dress rehearsals", sending simulated data between CERN and major computing centres worldwide to prepare for the LHC startup.
Related Posts:
CERN works on Project - GRID
Related Links:
Place for everyone to learn about the grid
What is Grid computing?
Distributed Computing
Yahoo has embraced the OpenID open technology. The Yahoo! OpenID (beta) service lets you take your account beyond Yahoo!. Plus, the free Yahoo! Sign-In Seal will help protect you from password theft, also known as phishing. Get rid of password scams with personalised sign-in seals.
One can use Yahoo! account on various websites. To know how to make use of this service, go to YDN - Yahoo OpenID.
Yahoo! will continue to devote resources to helping to improve the OpenID user experience and to educating its users. In addition, Yahoo! intends to expand its support of OpenID by adopting other elements of the program as the service evolves.
Y! OpenID service for various applications can be found at http://gallery.yahoo.com/openid
Plaxo, wishlistr, twitterfeed and Velog are some of the applications. I use yahoo openid to log in my twitterfeed account.
More information and updates can be found at http://openid.yahoo.com
More user information can be found at Open ID FAQ page.
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Google Inc. on Wednesday launched adsense for Web-based video games. The software is still in beta testing and allows video, image or text advertisements to be placed at the start, end or change of level in an online game.
The advertising industry has got a huge boost with Google's entry into video advertising.
AdSense for Games will deliver video ads based on intended placements, as well as image or text ads based on contextual targeting with keywords and tags supplied by developers and publishers.
Advertisers are charged on a cost-per-impression or cost-per-click basis, and ad revenue is split between Google and game developers or publishers.
Google is working with game makers including Konami Corp and Demand Media, run by former MySpace Chairman Richard Rosenblatt, as well as advertisers like Sprint Nextel Corp and Sony Corp's Sony Pictures.
Among the initial advertisers participating in the program are eSurance, Sprint, and Sony Pictures Entertainment and the in-game advertising field already has several well-established players, including Microsoft's Massive, DoubleFusion, and IGA.
On Google Adsense Blog, a post mentions that as a beta user of AdSense for Games, one can display video ads, image ads, or text ads within your online games to earn revenue.
There seems a big future success for Google and if that were the case, Goggle will surely add this service to mobile games and then finally to console.
Related Links:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/annc/adsense_games.html
http://www.google.com/ads/games
http://snipurl.com/46uts (YouTube example of AdSense for Games)
Google In-Game Advertising
Bloggers whether 
wordpress or 
blogger, using tags to insert keywords is common. But, keywords in technorati tags has become a ritual for successful blogging, technorati being a real time search engine that tracks 24 million sites keeping a track of what is going in the blogosphere.
Now creating technorati tags for your blog is even more easier with greasemonkey userscript "Technorati Multiple Word Tags for Blogger version 1.0 beta" adding as Add-on for Firefox. This greasemonkeyFirefox Add-on works for Firefox only.
Steps for Technorati Tagging on Blogger :
1. If you do not have Firefox browser, download it.
2. Greasemonkey, a Firefox extension allows to customize the way webpages look and function. Greasemonkey 0.8.2. works with Firefox 1.5 - 3.0. To add Technorati Multiple Word Tags for Blogger version 1.0 beta javascript add-on download it.
After installing, you will see greasemonkey image in the status bar.
3. Open browser Firefox 3.0. Go to Greasemonkey Repository - Userscripts.org. Download Technorati Tag Firefox Add-on. Right-click the greasemonkey image at the bottom of the status bar or go to Tools >> Greasemonkey >> Manage User Scripts. You will see the the Technorati Tag Generator Add-on showing message "Changes the Edit Post Blogger form to include a tags field" as shown in the image below.
4. Open your blogger account and new post page. You will see the technorati tags box below the post editor box where you write the post. Actually, the script you have installed has created a text box to create technorati tags below the post box.
To add technorati tags just type the tags in the box sepearting each tag with a ','(comma) and press the Append Tags button and your tags will be added at the bottom of your post.
So tags for technorati, tags and technorati tags will appear as
Tags:
Default heading is Tags:. If you want, you can change the heading from Tags: to Technorati Tags: in the Tag Settings and Options below the Technorati Tag Box as seen in the image below.
I first read about this useful addon at Improbulus blog, A Consuming Experience. In his article Technorati: Tagging on Blogger with Firefox and Greasemonkey written in 2005, he has mentioned that tags in the box should be typed with space in between, but now typing ',' will serve the purpose. Morever leaving space between two tags, the end result will show a single link for all the tags together.
He has also written that the tool only works when you're in the "Edit HTML" view, not the "Compose" view of Blogger. But now, the tool works in both views. So in three years a lot many features of greasemonkey and scripting have improved. But I got very useful information from
his blog. Thanx Improbulus for the information and the script.
But this tool works only with www.blogger.com and not draft.blogger.com. Maybe, in coming days that will be seen. Blogger draft is more dynamic and easy to use.
So, what I do is write all my post in Blogger Draft, save it and then come to www.blogger.com and add technorati tags to my articles using this tool.
I hope this information will be useful to Blogger bloggers.
Related Links:
With the imminent release of Silverlight 2.0, developers and Web designers, particularly those already working in Microsoft IT environments, will have the first viable alternative technology to Adobe Flash for building rich Internet applications.
Microsoft first released Silverlight, a cross-browser runtime for Web-based multimedia and 3D applications, about a year ago. However, the development of the 1.0 version, like many new Microsoft products, was rushed, and not even close to the vision the company had for the product.
"[Silverlight] 1.0 was a stop-gap measure -- they were late to market and wanted to get something out there early after Adobe had done an amazing success [with Flash]," said Al Hilwa, an application development software program director for research firm IDC. But Silverlight 2.0 "is the real deal -- they've put out architecturally what they've always wanted to do," he said.
Silverlight 2.0's final release is imminent. Insiders said it could be available in a few weeks. The first release candidate for developers is already available on the Web.
It may be fair to say that Microsoft moved faster with Silverlight than it ever has to get a product in shape as a viable competitor to already-established technology. In this case, that's obviously Flash, which has enjoyed great success for years as the predominant technology for adding high-impact multimedia applications and graphics to Web sites.
It was this early trend that spurred the current development of more complex Web-based and business applications that make the user experience as important as stability, security, or general performance.
Though it's no match across the board for the more mature Flash technology yet, people who have used early versions of Silverlight 2.0 said Microsoft indeed has made great strides with the technology.
However, developers should not be misled into thinking that Silverlight is meant to be a "Flash killer," warned Christopher Smith, president of Aquent Graphics Institute, a Boston training and staffing firm that works with developers and designers using Adobe and Microsoft development software.
"I don't think Microsoft is trying to go after the hard-core Flash people," he said. Instead, Microsoft is "offering an option for designers and developers who want to build an interactive front end that will tie into their existing Microsoft infrastructure and platform," Smith said.
For that goal, developers said that Silverlight 2.0 and its companion tools -- the Expression toolset, and in particular, Expression Blend -- actually have an advantage or two over Flash for companies and developers that already use Microsoft infrastructure.
Fred Gerantabee, a training manager and instructor at Aquent who has used Flash for 11 years and also is now using Silverlight, said that because of this tie-in, Silverlight is a better runtime than Flash for data-intensive applications.
Technorati Tags:
silverlight microsoft flash multimedia applications Read more
Google Chrome's share of the browser market is fading as users who abandoned Internet Explorer and Firefox start to return, an Internet measurement company said today.At the end of its third week of availability, Google Inc.'s Chrome accounted for 0.77% of the browsers that visited the 40,000 sites tracked by Net Applications, down from a 0.85% share the week before.
"The trend line on Chrome still has a slight downward angle, and these weekly numbers reflect that," said Vince Vizzaccaro, Net Applications' executive vice president of marketing. Although Chrome popped above 1% within hours of its release, the new browser now reaches that mark only in the middle of the night, U.S. time, Vizzaccaro added.
Chrome's numbers, like those of Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox and Apple Inc.'s Safari, typically climb after work hours and then fall as work resumes the next day. Many businesses standardize on Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer (IE) and don't allow employees to use alternate browsers.
IE and Firefox still showed share erosion compared to the period immediately before Chrome's Sept. 2 debut, but both browsers regained users last week, Vizzaccaro said. IE picked up 0.24 percentage points last week, while Firefox regained 0.06 points. Both, however, remained down for the month, as was Opera Software ASA's Opera and AOL LLC's now-defunct Netscape.
Safari, the only browser to escape Chrome's impact, was still on the plus side for September, ending last week up 0.45 percentage points before Chrome, although that was down from the prior week's 0.68-point net gain.
Last week, Vizzaccaro said Safari's immunity could be traced to the lack of Chrome competition. Although Google has promised a native Mac OS X edition, its browser is currently only available for Windows XP and Windows Vista.
Computerworld's site metrics echoed Net Applications' trend for Chrome. The percentage of visitors to Computerworld.com who used Google's browser dropped to 4.01 points last week, down from 4.96 points.
Chrome's slow slide may be because of Google's low-key promotion, Vizzaccaro said. "The only marketing effort I've seen from Google is in sponsored links on search results for 'browser' or 'browsers' search terms," he said. "On Google, Chrome is naturally the top sponsored link.
On Yahoo, it was second. And on Windows Live, I couldn't even find it in the first five pages of organic results."
Week starting Aug. 24 Aug. 31 Sept. 7 Sept. 15 Net Change
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IE | 72.39% | 71.03% | 71.24% | 71.48% | -0.91% |
Firefox | 19.54% | 19.78% | 19.35% | 19.42% | -0.13% |
Safari | 6.27% | 6.67% | 6.95% | 6.73% | 0.45% |
Chrome | ----- | 0.67% | 0.85% | 0.77% | 0.77% |
Opera | 0.74% | 0.75% | 0.70% | 0.68% | -0.06% |
Netscape | 0.77% | 0.83% | 0.67% | 0.66% | -0.11% |
Technorati Tags:
google chrome firefox browsers
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