techno.blah.gy

Eye-Fi

Ujwala — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:32:40 +0000

If you own a camera that uses an SD card, this is something to acquire. It is on my wishlist

Learn a language online

Ujwala — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:49:30 +0000

An amazing amount of information and tools are being made available for general access on the Net. It is meant to reach a wide audience but this is unlikely to happen till more people get net savvy. They are reaching out to people who’d be interested. I know I’m a candidate. I’ve been very keen on learning Mandarin and French. Unlikely to happen in the near future but I’m saving up the information. If any of you choose to try it out, do let me know how you fare.

If you like a conversational and situational type of teaching, download a bunch of audio files and get going. You’ll be speaking Mandarin or Spanish in no time.
Chinese Pod
Spanish Sense

This site believes in repetition and rote and you need to have access to the net to use it but you have 8 or more languages to choose from.
Mango

BBC uses multimedia to teach you that basics of a few languages.
7+ by BBC

Karaoke at Singshot

Ujwala — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 08:00:51 +0000

I’ve noticed that the maximum hits on this site have been for the iKaraoke post. I cant sing to save my life but do so anyway. Secretly I nuture the thought that beneath confusing scales etc. lurks a great singer as yet undiscovered

Recently I came across a site which allows me to have as many singing performances as I want. I thought that all you (closet) karaoke fans might be interested too. Singshot allows you to make recordings of your favourite songs. You can choose to keep it to yourself or share it with friends or let it loose on a worldwide audience! Happy Singing!

Technorati Tags: techno.blah.gy, karaoke, ujwala, singshot

Figuring out the Blogger Beta Templates

Ujwala — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 07:38:09 +0000

I’ve recently moved my blogs over to Blogger Beta. In fact, after a bit of reading, I did it the day I received the invitation. I’m a beginner and just about know the difference between HTML and CSS. I peeked into the Blogger Beta templates and found code that looked new to me and quickly closed the window.

Today while surfing I found a blog that gives an explanation for each element in this new template. This is going to be very handy when I go back to make changes to the new templates.

Deconstructing Blogger Beta HTML Template Editing

Technorati Tags: blogger, beta, template, handy, reference, explanation

Snappy Image Editing Solution

Ujwala — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 09:13:53 +0000

This is for Mac users and only for those using Panther (10.3.9) and below. These have not been tested on Tiger. Like the author, I havent switched to Tiger and do not intend to. I see a lot of applications out there which say Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) upwards and it gives me great pleasure to direct the folks who havent upgraded to a fantastic tool.

I have been reading about Image editing and resizing web 2.0 and other app reviews on LifeHacker. These gems dont seem to have been covered. Macworld Reviews carried reviews on them a couple of years back giving each a 5 star rating. These are not apps they are much smaller and become a part of the Mac OS Contextual Menus. You just need to right click ( cntlr + click ) to access.

The first is called QuickImageCM and allows you to quickly add thumbnails to images. You could also view and resize by scale, ratio, save as one of many image types, add a bunch of filters to your image like sharpen or sepia all without opening an application. It’s super quick. There is a companion menu called PhotoToolCM which allows you to batch resize, rotate and get image information. I usually use this for resizing even single files as it is a one click method. I could use the view option in the QuickImageCM but that would mean two steps

Thumbnails come in very handy as I work with images and like to be able to tell what is in an image or pdf file in a single glance. Also blogging and uploading to the web requires frequent resizing of images. Unless already working within an image application I always use these two.

Both these are freeware and designed by Pixture Studios.

My initial thought was to get LifeHacker to add this to its collection but I cant get myself to go through signing up just to be able to leave a comment.

My Index Finger is all for it!

Ujwala — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 10:42:12 +0000

I just loved the title of the article “Dont Click It” and couldnt resist clicking to check it out! (Source: Ajaxian)

The tip of my index finger is sore at the end of the day with all the clicking and tapping and double tapping that i do and this inspite of having moved from using a mouse to a tablet. Now while my wrist is in better shape the hidden index finger problem has come to light. The site is an experiment in the ability to navigate pages without the use of clicking. I’m all for it and am fervently hoping that it will catch on.

Technorati Tags: technoblahgy, mouse, hover, click, interface

Personalise Google Search

Ujwala — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 17:34:55 +0000

Found this on Lifehacker, who’d spotted it on Pogue’s Posts who got it from one of his readers Richard. Phew! keeping up with keeping a track of a source is getting to be difficult. The norm seems to be to name just the last source but since there werent too many I’ve listed all 3. You might enjoy sending this off to friends just to see their reactions. Me, I was just happy to try out something new and have some fun.

Technorati Tags: technoblahgy, google, fun stuff, personalise

Digital Voice Recorder

Ujwala — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 17:24:27 +0000

None of the gizmos released in the recent past have excited me. But then I spotted digital voice recorders and decided that those were pretty cool. Now I needed an excuse to own one. Being scatty I thought that it would come in handy as a “reminding” tool. I also wanted to keep a journal in which I needed to put in 3 full pages in writing first thing in the morning but by the time I got up and opened up my journalling software I’d already forgotten my dreams, thoughts etc. I’m planning to use this new gadget to dictate into and hopefully transcribe the ramblings later in the day. Read good reviews about the Olympus DS-2 and that’s what I have. To date I use it for reminders and it has come in handy. I hope to start the journalling activity soon.

Technorati Tags: technoblahgy, digital voice recorder, dvr, olympus, ds2, journal

iKaraoke

Ujwala — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 17:03:06 +0000

I havent been excited about any of the new gadgets until recently. A digital voice recorder was one – to help me remember and for journaling And now this. Things are beginning to look up. On the singing front, I’m tone deaf so watch out folks

Technorati Tags: technoblahgy, ikaraoke, griffin, sing,

Reading bit by bit

Ujwala — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 04:25:34 +0000

Technology and gadgets seem to be taking away our leisure time instead of giving us more. Catching up on reading for pleasure seems to have taken a back seat. Here’s a novel way of getting some reading done. Reading Classics that you did not manage to do in college or since.

I recently read an article on LifeHacker where the blurb said ” No time to read? Email service Daily Lit sends you a bite-sized chunk of a novel to your inbox every day”. This site will email you a page or so of your favorite classic to you everyday, Monday to Friday. I signed up immediately

It’s not as if I don’t have the time to read. I have a lot of time but can’t seem to get around to knocking off a few from my list that have been there for years. Ones that I keep there because I still want to read them. Instead I find that I read books that catch my eye in the shop or ones recommended to me recently or whose review I have liked. As you must’ve gathered from the header and the excerpt, Sons and Lovers is a book that I had wanted to read when I was in school (!) and I still have not got around to it.

This book will be sent to me in 218 installments. Each will take about 5 minutes to read. And if the experiment proves successful, I shall sign on for another. Today I got my first installment. Here is an excerpt from the book.
___________________________________
Sons and Lovers (1 of 218)

By D. H. LAWRENCE

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

THE EARLY MARRIED LIFE OF THE MORELS

“THE BOTTOMS” succeeded to “Hell Row”. Hell Row was a block of thatched, bulging cottages that stood by the brookside on Greenhill Lane. There lived the colliers who worked in the little gin-pits two fields away. The brook ran under the alder trees, scarcely soiled by these small mines, whose coal was drawn to the surface by donkeys that plodded wearily in a circle round a gin. And all over the countryside were these same pits, some of which had been worked in the time of Charles II, the few colliers and the donkeys burrowing down like ants into the earth, making queer mounds and little black places among the corn-fields and the meadows. And the cottages of these coal-miners, in blocks and pairs here and there, together with odd farms and homes of the stockingers, straying over the parish, formed the village of Bestwood.
___________________________________

Daily Lit has a selection of 93 classics, from the public domain, available for you to choose from. So whether like me you have the time or like most others life’s keeping you a bit too busy and you want to catch up on some reading here’s a new way to have a go at it.

You’ll find quite a range of reading material from Emma, Christmas Carol to Freud’s Dream Psychology all sent to you in small installments. And if on a particular day you have the time to read more or you just have to know what comes next just ask for more and you’ll get the next installment sent to you immediately. You wont have to wait! I’m sure you’ll find something you’d like to try out. If it works for you do let me know.

( this article appears on Buzzle as well as LMOG )