Gino's Web Crawler

Google Introduces SearchWiki

2008-11-21T16:56:00.000-08:00

With people starting to criticize Google's page rank algorithm and with Google's competitors like Wikiasearch moving towards more community based search, Google intoduces SearchWiki. Searchwiki allows users to re-arrange the search results, add your comments to any link, delete certain links from the results, also u can add certain links to appear in the search results. Mind you, this changes will affect only your own search. So in order to use searchwiki you have to be logged-in.

You can check out all the searchwiki notes by clicking on the link.

ISRO's Bhuvan - a Google Earth Killer !!

2008-11-19T14:06:00.000-08:00

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is planning to release a IRS(Indian Remote Sensing) image portal called Bhuvan(sanskrit word meaning Earth) , a rival to Google Earth and Wikimapia, which will concentrate more on the Indian sub continent. So What is so special to Bhuvan?

Bhuvan will allow users to zoom into areas as small as 10 metres wide, when compared to the 200 metres wide limit on Google Earth.

Another interesting feature which gives a complete edge over its competitors, Bhuvan will refresh the images every year, which is missing in Google Earth, which is refreshed only once in 4 years.

Easiest, Quickest way to Create floor plans

2008-11-16T17:26:00.000-08:00

Floorplanner, allows you to create and share floor plans. You can drag and drop items on a layout, create rooms, and edit it whenever u want. You can also share your floor plan with your friends and family through email/add widgets. You can also share it to the public and you have a seperate section called 'Fresh', where u get to view the latest, floor plans created by users. The free version of floor planner allows you to create one floor plan and allows you to save upto 5 design variations. There is a floor planner PLUS version which allows you to create unlimited floor plans and also allows you to view your plan in 3D which will cost you $30/year.

USB3.0 Ten Times Faster !!!!!

2008-11-16T00:43:00.000-08:00

USB, the most widely data transfer medium of the century. The serial and parallel cabled which were used to do data transfer before have been almost completely replaced by USB cables. USB 2.0 has a overall data transfer speed of 60MB/Sec. Now with the release of HD devices, Blu ray disks huge volume of data transfer are required. Intel says USB 3.0 uses fibre optic cabling, which gives a data transfer speed of 600MB/sec, though USB3.0 will retain full backward compatability of USB2.0. Expect the spec to be finished byend of 2008 and USB 3.0 peripherals appearing in 2009, 2010.

Show your care, the Geeky Style!

2008-11-15T19:04:00.000-08:00

GeoGreeting, a new way to send ecard to your friends and loved ones. Type your message and you could find buildings/ places on earth that are of the shape of the letters that you have typed. Then u have an option to send as e-card / My space Ecard to your friends.

Matrix running on windows

2008-11-11T15:15:00.000-08:00

SongBird - Mozilla back with a bang !!!!

2008-11-11T04:09:00.000-08:00

Mozilla released its Official Release 1 of its desktop music player Songbird. Tagged as "itunes killer" and "windows media player" I thought that it was yet another player in the list of media players that we have. But this one, Songbird is way way way beyond itunes/ windows media player, eventhough it resembles itunes UI, I think that is the only similarity. All the familiar firefox tools, are present in Songbird like the add-ons manager(I jus love it!!!), tabbed browser, search box and so on.

I jus downloaded the Lyric Master add-on, and its wonderful add-on, Jus click on any song, it will fetch the lyrics for u on the side-pane, once u install the add-on. It includes Gstreamer, a cross-platform multimedia framework that improves the playback performance. It also has the feature of sync-ing ipod. The neat and crisp UI, tons of add-ons, customizable options and makes this truly the itunes, WMP killer also bear in mind this is jus a release 1.0 The road map in the Songbird site gives you an idea of the list of features in the forthcoming releases. Mozilla U rock!!!!

Simplybox - Drag and drop anything on to the box and share it !

2008-11-11T02:23:00.000-08:00

Bookmarking taken to the next level by Simplybox, a San Francisco based start up. You can simply clip portions of websites and drag and drop it into the box. Later u can share it to your friends who are in your friend's list or you can share it to anyone through email. Once you register, u can download a toolbar which works only in Internet Explorer and Firefox (sadly not in chrome) and click on the "Box and Save" to clip any part of the website into a box. You can also view this video which gives you a head start on using simplybox.

PhotoFunia - Have fun with your photos

2008-11-05T00:47:00.000-08:00

Feeling bored? Want to have some fun with your photos?? But you dont have much of photoshop skills? never mind ! PhotoFunia is there.

Jus select from one of the 70 effects that are listed in the home page. Upload your image (make sure that the file size is less than 2 MB) and PhotoFunia will apply the funny effects on your image. For some of the effects they use face detection technology. Its totally free, No registration, No downloads or anything of that sort. Select effect -> Upload your image -> Save the image to your harddrive.

Google - as an mp3 downloader !

2008-11-03T22:14:00.000-08:00

Once I was searching for the songs from the movie 'Sound of Music (1965)', i couldnt get those songs for free. It was available only in certain websites and I was not interested in paying 20$ for the songs. Jus then, I found this interesting hack on the website 'Haywire Hacking'. Turning Google into an mp3 downloader.

All you have to do is copy and paste this url into the google search box

-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) "<song/band name >"

Where <song/band name > - is the name of the song/band name you are looking for.

Getmooh.com - Gets you out of a sticky situation !

2008-11-03T20:15:00.000-08:00

Getmooh is an online automated call back service which plays you a recording on a specified date and time to help you get out of sticky situations. Its absolutely free. You have to register first with your mobile number and then you can place a call even on your friends mobile. At the end of the call your mobile number(person who placed the call) will be read out. This service allows you to place only two calls a day !

Listas - Microsoft's Bookmarking site

2008-11-03T03:45:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Listas developed at Microsoft Labs, is a online tool which helps you in creating 'lists' and sharing them. You can add a friend using the live id and you can monitor their activity in the Network Activity Tab present in the home page.

The Listas Community section allows us to find the lists based on the popular tags, popular lists, recently created lists, and Top users. Microsoft also provides a Listas Toolbar. Sadly this works only in Internet Explorer. You cant embed pics, or any youtube videos, or in fact any kind of HTML. You can create hyperlinks using a keyboard shortcut ctrl+k, but this to works only in internet explorer. Looks like yet another flop project by Microsoft Labs.

Adobe ConnectNow - High Impact Web Conferencing

2008-10-31T04:05:00.000-07:00

Adobe Connect Now - A wonderful tool for web conferencing. Formerly code named as Macromedia Breeze, it truly stands out in the list of web conferencing tools already available like the Microsoft Live meeting, and Cisco WebEx. It needs adobe flash 10 to run, which is available free on the internet.

All you have to do is to sign up for free, which allows a maximum of 3 participants for the meeting. Once the signup is complete you will get a unique URL and you can mail the url to the participants to meet online. This URL is permanent so its always easy to know where to meet online. The screen sharing palette, Video conferencing palette, Chat palette all are neatly docked on the screen providing us with a simple and neat interface to conference.

For a larger meeting, say for 1500 people there s adobe acrobat connect pro. There are annual subscription fee, and monthly and pay-per-use.

Tired of Convertors - Try Zamzar

2008-10-20T18:27:00.000-07:00

Zamzar, is a free online file conversion utility. It supports conversion of upto 80 file formats.

Zamzar supports document, Image, Video, Music and Compressed formats. All you have to do is upload your file, select the file format to be converted to and then enter ur email address to which the download URL will be sent to. Once you signup for Zamzar, u get a inbox to maintain the list of files converted.

You get to upload files of size upto 1 GB and less waiting time !!

There s also a web toolbar button that we can add to our browser bookmark toolbar. In case if the file format you are looking for is not in the list, u can mail them and they are quick in adding the format to the list.

WikiTrash - A list of Unusual Articles

2008-10-16T01:52:00.000-07:00

WikiTrash - This page in Wikipedia contains a list of a bit unusual articles. Wikipedia states that the page contains “unusual articles” - are articles that you wouldn’t normally find in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Probably you could spend a lazy afternoon going through the articles and editing the pages. The contents are categorized into Military, Relegion, Language, Sports, Science, Food and drink etc.

Few interesting articles from the trash PigWar, Extraterrestrial Real Estate, Vril, Guilty not proven, Longest English word etc.

SmsLife.in - Send Free SMS throughout India

2008-10-15T18:49:00.001-07:00

SMSLIFE, allows you to send 100 free sms on a day to any mobile users all over India. You have a phonebook to maintain your contacts, and also the you have an option to manage reminders, birthdays, anniversary etc.

The only drawback is that u cant send lengthy forwards to you loved ones as they restrict the number of characters per sms to 80. But anyways for people who are in abroad and who cant afford to send an international sms, smslife.in is a superb option..

PipeBytes - A new way to send large files to your friend

2008-10-15T02:02:00.000-07:00

PipeBytes a free online service to transfer any file size only to your buddy. Even though there are many sites like mailbigfile or yousendit which emails large files to the recipient, but this PipeBytes is special. No software to install. Only web browser is needed. Send files on any size.

Sender logs in to PipeBytes gets a code selects the file to upload. It gives a key and a link. Pass on the key to your buddy and he can log into PipeBytes and click “Pick File”, Enter the key. So your buddy could start downloading file as you upload it, which lacks in many of the already existing file server. PipeBytes widgets are also available, so now you can add this functionality to your website