Technology Madness

How to stop your activity on Yahoo news being followed and posted on facebook?

Recently you might have noticed that your Yahoo news surfing activity is being posted on your wall. Back in September, at it’s f8 conference, Facebook announced a new kind of app, with the ability to use “frictionless sharing” — basically a fancy way of saying that users’ activity can be shared without users specifically clicking a “Share” button. Yahoo news Washington post news and many others are partnered with Facebook.

Below are step-by-step instruction to stop your activity being followed and further, stop posting it on your wall

1) Log in to Face book and click on drop down box (next to “home”) at top right corner

2) Click on “privacy setting”

3) Once you click “privacy setting”, you will see following screen. Click on “Edit setting” from “apps and website section”

4) Once you click “Edit setting”, you will see list of website and apps that can access your information and post message or your activities on their website to your wall.

5) Simple remove those annoying apps

6) That’s it. You are done.

Hope this helps. Enjoy!

How to create password protected zip file (compressed) in Mac OSX

There is no need to buy third-party tool to compress or to Zip file. Mac OS interface comes with built in functionality of compressing file. There are two ways to to compress Or zip files.

if you want to compress the file:

Method 1: Compress the file without password protection

1. In finder, locate the file.
2. Do a right click on file name
3. There is an option “compress” in the contextual action menu.
4. Click on “compress”, you will find compressed (.Zip) file in same directory

Method 2a: Compress (.Zip) the file WITH password protection

1. In “spotlight” (click top right “magnifying glass”), Search for “terminal” and open it.
2. Go to the directory where the files are stored that you wanted to compress
3. type following command
4. “zip -e myzipfile.zip file1.txt file2.txt” (notice the ‘-e’, it means: encrypt)
5. Once you enter the command, system will prompt you to supply password twice. Just enter the password you wish to set, and it’s done!
6. You should see myzipfile.zip appear in the directory.

if you want to compress the directory:

Method 2b: Compress (.Zip) the directory WITH password protection

1. In “spotlight” (click top right “magnifying glass”), Search for “terminal” and open it.
2. Go to the directory where the Directory is stored (directory consist more then few files) that you wanted to compress
3. type following command
4. “zip -er myzipfile.zip DirectoryName” (notice the ‘-e’, it means: encrypt and ‘-r’ means: recurse into directories)
5. Once you enter the command, system will prompt you to supply password twice. Just enter the password you wish to set, and it’s done!
6. You should see myzipfile.zip appear in the directory.

How to move your Facebook photos to Google+

You might be curious how to get all of your photos from your Facebook account to the latest social spectacle, Google+

Step 1: Download your photos

Go to PickNZip.com and log in with Facebook.

Click “Find My Photos,” then head to Download > Download all photos.

This will download all of your uploaded albums and any photos you’ve been tagged in.

Once you’ve downloaded the file, unzip it.

Step 2: Upload Facebook albums to Google+

Go to Google+ > View Profile > Photos > Upload New Photos.

Click “Select photos from computer,” locate the album you want to upload, highlight all of its enclosed photos, and select “Open.”

Once the photos have uploaded, give the album a name, and select “Create album.”

Then, post a comment about the album and select which circles or individuals you’d like to share it with.

Extra reading:
how to feed your Facebook messages to Google+: Link
google plus social networking app available for android: Link

Google Sings Lady GaGa

Lady Gaga sat down with Google yesterday for an hour-long interview posted on YouTube. And took user’s question; wide range from clothings to vocal practice to tattoos etc; posted for her on you tube channel. Enjoy!

Super slow motion videography

Super slow motion videography. Shot on the Photron SA1.1 high-speed camera, capable of recording 5,000 frames per second (fps) at high resolution and 650,000 fps in low resolution. Directed and produced by Philip Heron and James Adair.
Enjoy!

Tempus II from Philip Heron on Vimeo.

Boeing 787 Dream-liner, first touchdown video

This is a video of a Boeing 787 Dream-liner landing at the Farnborough International Airshow for its international debut. This is Boeing’s long-range, mid-size plane of the future, and it features extensive use of composite materials. more cool information about 787: Boeing 787 Dream-liner Test flight Nippon Airways is the first customer of the plane.

Video:

Pictures:

MapQuest to embrace open-source data for mapping site–1 giant leap.

AOL’s MapQuest announced at the 4th annual international State of the Map 2010 conference, their plan to be the first major mapping site to embrace and encourage open source mapping at scale–Open MapQuest site. As part of this initiative, MapQuest just launched their first site that is completely powered by open source data from OSM (open street map). MapQuest is the first large mapping company to embrace open-source mapping at large scale. See press note here

“Today we launched a version of the newly redesigned MapQuest, but on open data provided by the OpenStreetMap community,” Randy Meech, Head of Engineering for AOL Local.

“Not only is the map data open, but also this beta map stack uses popular open-source mapping software, including Mapnik for tile rendering, TileCache for caching, and Nominatim for geo-coding and search. We are now employing developers to contribute back to these projects for the benefit of the community,” Randy explained here–why its only for UK in first round of beta project and not US/Canada?
and Mapping

Since OpenStreetMap releases the data under an open license, there is no cost for AOL to use the data. However, AOL has pledged $1 million to support open-source mapping in the US. For the company, the main advantage of using this data source is clear, it’s cheaper. As WSJ stated, AOL’s MapQuest Looks to Wikipedia Model for Mapping. User can modify data/address/POI directly on http://www.openstreetmap.org/ that will reflect in using MapQuest Open UK site. In fact, since its using OSM, in actually works for any country data/direction/search which OSM supported, including US and Canada.

Since its an experiment site, not all functionality is going to available on UK open source site, like one click search through business carousal, search on map, 360 views, drag-able route, satellite image —all are missed. However, the open maps may, in some cases, end up being more accurate thanks to the crowd-sourced data coming from local residents for core functionality, like LOCAL search and direction. Good luck and congratulations MapQuest!

via [Paid content, WSJ, MapQuest Blog, MapQuest developer Blog and thenextweb]

MapQuest is paving a new road.

Mapquest today released beta version of most simple user friendly, colorful, fantastic and easy-to-use map portal. It’s like kicking to closest competitor. Most important functionality is single line search backed by amazing piece of algorithm which helps user to enter just about anything in one box to find something, to get direction or to plot latitude and longitude. Simple, colorful and powerful. Users can enter information ranging from the name of a major landmark (the ‘Liberty Bell’, for example) to a local restaurant — or something as vague as an intersection. Search is available for North-America region only.

MapQuest introduced newly redesigned concept called – “My Place”, a seamless integration between web and mobile devices. Prepare and save your travel plan, direction, place of interest, etc on website and access it through via MapQuest4Mobile iPhone application.

Another good feature is—its geo IP location functionality, which gives local location map as soon as they land to website. (Based on your IP address. I got Turkey map because I am accessing it from Turkey) And find just about anything in visible map without entering any location. All searches will be local search.

new mapquest.com

In nutshell–

Beginning today, users can opt in to test the overhauled site, which will replace the old version in about a month. New features include:
• A more user-friendly interface, including a single- line search box [omg, I loved it] and a redesigned main page that displays the map more prominently.
• The ability to search for “temporal types of content,” such as a fireworks show for July 4 or haunted houses at Halloween.
• A simplified log-in process that allows users to save itineraries and can access through mobile application/portal. Users also can post trip information directly to Facebook and Twitter.

In the future, MapQuest plans to allow users to upload photos, giving it more of a social-networking feel.

Very big congratulations to MapQuest engineers and managers! It’s marvelous achievement. Grab those eyeballs back. Everything looks cool including NEW trendy (web 3.0) logo.

See more screen snaps here.

MapQuest Street view- 360 view coverage is expanded to 120 cities in US and Canada

MapQuest Rolled out additional coverage of Street view / 360 views to nearly to 120 cities in US and Canada. This morning they added more cities in Canada and US.

Check it out! MapQuest website

Vertical Volkswagens’ car garage

Volkswagen Golfs are stacked in one of the massive glass silos at Autostadt; amazing German Engineering