Technotraits.com

Embed Photos and Videos In Your Videos with ZunaVision

Satbir Singh — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:36:50 +0000

Zunavision is a video technology developed by two Indian guys studying at Stanford University that lets you embed videos and images into your videos. For example, you can replace a picture frame in video to show another picture or make it play a video.

The web interface of Zunavision is pretty easy to use, just select the image you need to add to video and the video and then submit it for editing, It’ll then add the selected image to video. You’ll need to sign up with ZunaVision to start editing.

Here’s a video on what functionality Zunavision could provide.

Movie studios already had this feature for years, but with this technology anyone can add images or videos inside a video.

This technology can be the basis of monetizing video content on video sharing sites like YouTube as they can embed advertisements inside videos using this technology.

ZunaVision [Via]

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Browse Web pages in E-mail Instantly

Satbir Singh — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:53:49 +0000

If you are behind a corporate or school network that prevents accessing Internet but provides you with e-mail access, then now you can browse web pages easily via e-mail.

Just send the URL of the page as subject of the e-mail to browse@webinmail.com and within few moments you’ll receive the requested web page. Rediff India has started this service named Webinmail.

Besides this, you can even perform Google search using google:query as subject, Google Image search using googleimg:query as the subject of e-mail and rediff search using rediff:query operators.

The service is quick to respond and the the webpage is usually received in a minute or two after sending the mail to browse@webinmail.com.

It also converts the links in web pages to mail-to addresses, clicking on which will open a new message box with URL of the link as subject so you don’t have to type in URL again.

The formatting of the web page is not retained as it doesn’t fetch the CSS stylesheet of the page. But if you just need to read the stuff and style doesn’t matter, then this service is great to use.

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Google Chrome Now includes Bookmark Manager, Updates to 0.4 beta

Satbir Singh — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:40:58 +0000

Google Chrome 0.4 is now available. It now includes a Bookmarks Manager, a decent pop-up blocker and options to control your privacy. You can update your copy of Google Chrome manually by clicking on About under Wrench icon, though it’ll update automatically in a day or two.

The new features and enhancements in this version are:

1. Bookmarks Manager:

Google Chrome now includes a bookmarks manager that lets you organize bookmarks into folders, drag n drop bookmarks to other folders, search for your bookmark and import/export your bookmarks. Bookmarks manager is accessible under Wrench icon or you can use keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+B to fire it up.

2. Privacy Options

The Privacy Options have been given a separate tab under Options Panel and has been named Under the Hood. To see Under The Hood Options, go to Options under Wrench icon.

3. Pop-up Blocker

Google Chrome now includes a decent pop up blocker, that notifies you the number of pop ups blocked on any web page and option to show a particular pop up.

Earlier, Google Chrome just minimized a pop up on lower right corner.

The complete list of changes and fixes is given by Mark Larson(Google) [Via].

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SearchWiki - Customize Google Search Results

Satbir Singh — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:08:23 +0000

Google today released a new feature for Google Search Results - SearchWiki. SearchWiki lets you customize search results by promoting a result to top place by clicking a small icon next to search results. You can also add notes to a search result that would help others find relevant information easily.

To use Google SearchWiki, you need to be signed in with Google Account. The search results you promote to top place will only be done for your account but the notes you write for a particular search result will be visible to other users with your nick name.

You can even remove URLs from search results that you found useless by clicking the small cross icon next to search results.

You can even add a url for a particular query, to do this scroll down to bottom of the search result page and click on Add a result.

With SearchWiki, you can add comments and notes for search results to make Google Search even better place to look out for information.

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Change Gmail looks without any add-on

Satbir Singh — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:51:23 +0000

Now you won’t need to use those scripts and add-ons that let you customize the look of Gmail as themes have become official in Gmail. The themes will be available under Settings in Gmail and are being rolled out to all users in a day or two.

The themes look inherited from iGoogle themes.

Currently Gmail is offering 30 themes to choose from.

Some themes change dynamically depending on your location just like dynamic themes in iGoogle.

Check out your settings panel of Gmail to see whether you got themes or not.

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10 Amazing Windows Command Line Tricks

Satbir Singh — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:56:15 +0000

Whatever eye candy the graphical interface of windows may offer but it could never match the functionality that could be achieved with command line. Here we’ve listed 10 useful commands and tricks for Windows command line.

1. Super Hide your files

Besides normal hidden files, windows file system provides another attribute for files that makes them super hidden so that they aren’t visible form explorer or with normal dir command. Use the command

attrib +s +h pathtofile

to super hide a file. Replace + symbol with - to remove super hidden attribute from file.

You can also use this command to show hidden files in usb drives, simply use

attrib -s -h *.* c command.

2. Join multiple mp3 files

Here’s a nice trick that otherwise would require some software to perform. You can join multiple mp3 files to form a single mp3 file. Simply move to the folder in command line where mp3 files are stored that you want to combine and run the command

copy /b *.mp3 newfile.mp3

The wildcard *.mp3 will combine all mp3 files to form a newfile.mp3 file. You can control which files are combined using wildcard parameters.

Here’s a nice trick using this method to embed mp3 file in a jpg image file.

3. Map a Drive Letter to a Folder

Most of the time, our hard drives get filled with huge amount of data folder, files etc that moving to a folder you occasionally use becomes a heck. However, there’s a dos command that lets you map a drive letter to a folder. e.g. to map the folder C:\windows to M drive use the command:

subst M: C:\Windows

However the mapped drive gets lost once you restart your pc, you can then create a batch file including the above command and schedule it to run at system startup.

4. Change colors of command Window

Perhaps you need to take a print out of dos window and don’t want to waste ink on black background of dos window. Windows command line provides a command to change background and text color of dos window in a snap.

Simply use color bf to change colors. b is the code for background color and f is code for text color. To know color codes type color /? at command line.

5. Use previously entered Command

Just typed a long command moments ago and need to run that again but the effort involved to type again is making you sick! But don’t worry as command line keeps track of your previously entered commands which are accessible by pressing F7 key.

Alternatively you can use Up Arrow key to use earlier commands you used.

F1 & F2 also offer similar kind of functionality but in a different way, try them out.

6. Run Multiple commands at once

Multiple commands can be concatenated using && and run at once with single press of Enter. Simply type in your commands and concatenate them with && at once.

e.g. color f8 && dir && time

would run all the three commands one after another with a single press of Enter.

7. Filter output of commands

Some commands like systeminfo provide a whole bunch of information about your pc but what if you need info only about updates installed or Processor or Virtual Memory. You can filter the output using find. Here’s how to get only updates list from systeminfo.

systeminfo | find "Update"

This will only show updates installed on your system.

8. Drag Drop Folder paths

No need to type in long folder paths at command line, simply drag n drop that file or folder from explorer onto command line window to copy its path.

9. Move selected files to another folder

If you need to move only doc files to another folder or project documents created this month to another folder from a folder containing large number of files, you would rather end up using Ctrl+click to select individual file in Windows Explorer. But thanks to command line, you can use wildcards to move selected files.

Use move *.doc newfolderpath

to move only doc files to new folder. Any wildcard combination can be used here.

10. Take screenshots of webpages

To take screenshots of web pages, you would need a tiny utility called IEcapt.exe and then place it in c:\Windows directory, now go to command line and type in

iecapt urltocapture pathofoutputimage

to get a screenshot of the webpage.

If you liked this article, then you might find future posts at Technotraits useful, so don’t forget to subscribe.

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Download Zone Alarm Pro for Free

Satbir Singh — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:00:27 +0000

One of the best Windows Firewall software Zone Alarm has a paid version Zone Alarm Pro which offers loads of features including firewall, anti-spyware and ID theft protection. It will be available for free download on 18th Nov, 2008 for 24 hours.

CheckPoint, the company behind Zone Alarm is providing Zone Alarm Pro for free on the eve of their 15th anniversary celebrations. The free download time would start at 6 AM PDT on 18th Nov. The free download would give you one year license which otherwise is sold at $39.95.

Download Zone Alarm Pro for free [via]

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Google Sketchup 7 Now Available[Easier for Newbies]

Satbir Singh — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:02:34 +0000

Google today announced the release of Google Sketchup version 7. Google Sketchup is 3D modeling software from Google using which you can easily build 3D models of houses, furniture or any 3D object you can think of. The models built using Google Sketchup can also be used with Google Earth.

Here are some of the new features in Google Sketchup 7:

1. Dynamic Components:

The new dynamic components introduced in this version are very intelligent. e.g. The scale tool will automatically increase number of stairs when you scale stairs. The dynamic nature of these components makes Google Sketchup easier to use for newbies. The dynamic components are identified by a Green icon.

2. Sharing and Collaboration:

Now you can invite your friend to collaborate with you on the model design using Google Sketchup.

3. LayOut2:

LayOut2 is a feature available in Pro version which allows you to create multi-page documents which are linked to your models and once you update documents, the models linked are automatically updated using LayOut.

The complete list of changes in Google Sketchup 7 is available here.

Below video tells about what;s new in Google Sketchup 7.

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29 Freeware Windows Tools You Shouldn’t Miss out

Satbir Singh — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:42:21 +0000

Why pay for softwares when freewares are available for almost every task you can think of. We have compiled a list of 29 Freeware Windows Tools that let you do most of your computing tasks.

You might also want to check out our earlier post about 10 Essential portable Applications for USB drive.

Here is the list.

Multimedia & Internet

1. DVD Flick

If downloaded videos are eating up your hard disk space, then it’s time to back up them to DVDs that can be played on TV. This tool will let you do exactly that. You can also create chapters, titles within clips easily.

2. Free ISO creator

A simple straightforward tool to create ISO images. Bootable images can be created, and CD, DVD-5, and DVD-9 are supported, and you can also specify your ISO to be created as ISO 9660 or UDF

3. ISODisk

This nifty freeware allows you to create up to 20 virtual drives from ISO images without requiring to install any virtual drive manager software.You can also create ISO images from a CD or DVD.

4. Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 Free

This freeware will cater to all your CD/DVD burning tasks from creating Music CDs, video DVDs, copy disks, creating encrypted disks etc. It even supports Blu-Ray disks.

5. K-Lite codec Pack

The ultimate codec pack that’ll let you play almost any audio/video file you could think of.

6. KM-Player

KM player plays acomprehensive range of media format, including broad DVD support using all internal filters and codecs. With features like applying filters during playback, playing and capturing streaming media, it is a must have tool for your multimedia needs.

7. Any Video Converter (Free)

Nice freeware tool to convert videos. It supports avi, asf, mov, rm, rmvb, flv, mkv, mpg, 3gp, m4v, and vob to avi, wmv, mp4, 3gp, mpg (PAL or NTSC), MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, wmv and flv Formats.

8. Audacity

An easy to use audio editing software even better than some of paid counterparts.

9. Free Download Manager

As is clear from its name, it is a download manager and accelerator having inbuilt support for bittorrent protocol, youtube video download, HTML spider to download websites for offline viewing and much more.

10. Orbit Downloader

Downloader Manager and accelerator that offers loads of functionality including automatic detection of streaming audio or video to provide download option, supports rapidshare downloads and also lets you schedule when the downloads should occur.

Windows Utilities

11. Smart Defrag

Forget Windows Disk Defragmenter, Smart Defrag is an extremely fast and efficient disk defragmenter with loads of features. It quietly runs in background to keep your hard disk optimized for performance.

12. Easeus Partition Manager

Easeus Partition Manager Home Edition is a clean and simple disk partitioning utility for Windows that offers a good set of functions like resizing partitions, formatting partitions, hiding partitions, setting active partitions etc.

13. Recuva

Accidentally deleted a file? No need to worry, here’s a freeware that recovers deleted files from hard disk, memory cards or MP3 players. It an even recover files deleted during system crashes.

14. Windows System Control Center

This application provides single window access to windows utilities from Nirsoft and Windows Sysinternals. You can use these utilities to tweak your system according to requirement.

15. Z-Cron

A robust and easy to use task scheduler for windows that lets you schedule system shutdown, launching applications, cleaning directories etc.

16. Revo Uninstaller

A faster alternative to Windows Add/Remove Programs with some nice functionalities.

17. Xplorer 2 Lite

If you aren’t satisfied with the features Wndows Explorer offers, then give Xplorer Lite a try. It provides options to multiple renaming, tabs, dual panes while browsing folders, folder comparison features that let you handle greater amounts of data more efficiently.

18. ClipX

Power up your Windows Clipboard with light weight ClipX. It allows you to retain more than one items in clipboard though it doesn’t retain formatting of text while copying.

19. M8 Free Clipboard

Here’s another clipboard extender that allows to copy 25 times without losing any data. It also retains formatting of text

Others

20. Launchy

Forget about using start menu to launch applications, just press Alt+Space and start typing application name and launchy would search it for you to get started.

21. Multiple Find and replace -

This utility will let you replace occurrences of a particular word with another word over multiple files with simple click.

22. Adobe Reader Lite

Adobe Reader without useless and annoying stuff. It is a lot lighter on resources than official Adobe Reader.

23. RocketDock

Get a Mac like application dock for windows

24. 7-Zip

Freeware tool to manage compressed archives. Lightweight and supports most of compression formats.

25. sLife Usage Tracker

Know where you spend most of your time working on your PC. It tracks your activities and generates reports to let you know where you are spending most of your time.

26. XinOrbis

An intuitive disk analyzer that provides complete overview of hard disk usage and allows to generate reports and graphs easily.

27. Notepad++

A must have replacement for Notepad.

28. Sun xvm VirtualBox

Try different operating systems without putting your data on risk using Virtual Box.

29. RBTray

RBTray provides you with option to minimize your open windows to system tray rather than taskbar. Just right click on title bar of window and select minimize to tray.

You can also right click in the bottom right corner of minimize button to directly minimize window to tray.

If you would like to add something to freewares list, feel free to do so in comments below.

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Google Reader offers Feed translation

Satbir Singh — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:49:17 +0000

Now you can read blogs of your favorite topic regardless of the language they are written in as Google Reader now provides you with an option to translate the feed content into language of your choice.

It uses Google Translate service to do translation and therefore those languages will be available which Google Translate understands.

Next time you find an interesting feed in another language, just subscribe it in Google Reader as you always do and click on Feed Settings and then on Translate into my language. You can adjust your language in Google Reader Settings page.

Google Reader remembers your choice of translating the feed, so that next time you open that feed in Google Reader, you don’t have to choose Translate from Feed Settings.

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