Do you remember last year when Google Maps featured funny Google egg: If you ask for directions from an address in London to an address in the USA the ever helpful “Get directions” tool gives some great tips on how to cross the Pacific Ocean. Ha ha… See picture.
Today MapQuest rolled out new (fun) element, ‘Easter events search’, to their new ‘On-map search’ tool. Clicking egg icon from search tool will display all local Easter Egg Hunt’s events MapQuest map.
According to MapQuest blog: With over 233 listings in over 80 cities across the country, finding that perfect compliment to your Easter Sunday is merely a click away.
And if you are traveling on Easter day, no worries, they have functionality to find just about anything along your traveling route including Easter Egg Roll events.
Tomorrow (March 28,2009) is an earth hour day. People all over the world have been switching off lights for an hour to show concern at global warming. Earth Hour occurs at 8:30 pm on the last Saturday in March of every year. For Earth Hour 2009, 750 cities in 80 countries and counting have pledged to participate. Clearly the symbolic act of turning off our lights to show concern for our environment resonates deeply with people across the globe. Yet turning off our lights for one hour a year does not even put a dent in our energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. What is needed is a real, sustained change in the way that we live our life.
What I can do about it?
You can do something to reduce the energy consumption of your home PC by joining the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Also, turn off your (non-emergency) home lights at 8.PM for 1 hour.
Suggestion to Google.com/Yahoo.com/AOL.com/Live.com:
Google.com/AOL.com or such major traffic website should blackout their home page everyday around 5.00 PM (office leaving time) for few minutes to remind people to turn off their office light and computer before they go home. Small things make a big difference.
The Inauguration Ceremony went nicely. As President Barack Obama was giving his inauguration speech, another transfer of power was happening online. At exactly 12 PM ET, Whitehouse.gov , the official Website of the President switched over to a new design. A government website that doesn’t look like a government website.
My first impression of new whitehouse.gov website looks cool, very sophisticated, easy to navigate, most of the stuff accessible in few clicks. One cool addition is whitehouse blog. Today first blog post is written by Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media. Macon Phillips is titled: “Change has come to Whitehouse.gov.” He suggested that blog post is going to continue by him and other staff of “New Media”. He assures that WhiteHouse.gov and the rest of the Administration’s online programs will put citizens first and laid down three priorities for new media efforts. – Communication, Transparency and Participation.
There are a number of feeds (though some are still empty as I wrote this):
Hopefully, the administration will continue some of the experiments with citizen participation which it tried on Change.gov, its transition Website. Whitehouse.gov certainly has the same look and feel. However, currently, no social networking connections to be found on new website.
Congratulations to Mr. President and Mr. Vice-President. And Good luck!
Halloween is around the corner. Google has long been eco-conscious. From tips on how to save energy in data centers, to investments in plug-in cars and batteries and a fleet of PHEVs. Recently Google have created a handy energy saving calculator to help us see how simple steps in/around your house can save few hundreds and prevent scary carbon emission. In addition, Google have also put together a webpage full of tricks to help you save energy and more importantly—your money. I punch in my numbers; here is my result from the bottom of the page: “You can save 7000 pounds of CO2. That’s equivalent to not driving your car for 212 days.”
By estimation, If 80% of us follow just one simple trick (close fireplace flue in winter) we could save over $6 billion a year. So what’s your contribution, I would say what is your commitment to eliminate carbon emission produced from your home?
Just recently, Google web picasa was updated with new interface with few wow functionalities. Apart from overhaul user interface (UI) they have added face recognition feature.
Face recognition:
It is called “name tag.” This is very important feature for me as currently its taking lots of time for me to sort pictures based on person in it. The “name tag” feature presents users with collections of photos with what it judges to be the same person, and then let them click a button to affix a name. Tagging is a powerful way to sort digital photographs. Until now we all are used to create collection of photos as a album based on event, location, activities etc. But now face recognition technology gives new look and style to arrange pictures. It provides you with different lens on the same data. Once photographic subjects are named, users can browse an album of that individual on the fly. Does this feature sound familiar? Few years back, Riya.com developed such face recognition technology. I still like riya.com for face recognition technology over Picasa’s similar functionality. If you are really committed (for name tagging) the way your committed to eat your vegetables and exercise regularly then after few uploading you can create another set of database, like…
• View all photos of ‘my ex’
• View all photos with the following people my sister, my girlfriend and mom
• Create slide show with the following people …
• Share photos with the people tagged sister
“Once you’ve started naming people, we’ll start suggesting names for you based on similarity,” said Mike Horowitz, Google’s Picasa product manager. “The process of naming people is really addictive and tremendously fun.”
In Picasa, once you give a name tag to a face then it will automatically suggest person name for tagging for all future uploads but in case of Riya.com, after providing some training, it will automatically tags person name, if it considers absolutely positive match. In case of Google Picasa, it may be additive to assign name tag to each person but after a while I become bored. I have few hundred pictures in my non-public albums. I would expect Google Picasa (of course, after little training) to find all pictures when my sister is in instead I tag it manually for each picture or sometimes in bulk.
Rotate pictures automatically, when needed:
Another hidden feature that I like is – to recognize the side of the pictures. Many times when my wife takes pictures; she takes it with keeping camera vertical. So I have to rotate the pictures before I upload to Google Picasa to see the person in pictures in north-south way. However Google understood my pain (and my wife’s habit of taking pictures vertically.) Google Picasa understood all pictures which are taken vertically; rotate them automatically the way we want to see during upload. (like Apple iPhone, picture will rotate and maintain correct direction when you rotate iPhone.) This saves a rotating exercise for each picture that I have to perform before any upload. For me this is way cool than face recognition. Did you find anything interesting in latest version of Google web picasa?
Generally all webpages are designed to scroll up and down. Sometimes I hate when I have to scroll right or left to get complete view of webpage. And I curse web developer of that site of being lazy.
But a new startup website: Widexplorer provides a new and revolutionary way to explore search results from multiple online information providers and gives you wide page format, laid out horizontally. You need to scroll from left to right to get same search from various sources. Search is available from prominent destinations of web for a variety of topics.
On top of everything, individual website can also be scrolled up and down site without moving the other four. I know it sounds confusing but it’s very easy, you have to try it yourself.
We all know excitement of surprises. As time progresses many of us become unenthusiastic about gifts and surprises. But now you can treat yourself and got the same excitement of surprises. Yes, you read correct. There’s a company that will sell you that feeling any time you want. For $10, the SomethingStore will sell you something. And you won’t know what it is until it arrives at your door and you open the box. Initial I thought they must be sending some crap – maid in china - dollar store quality stuff – but after looking the randomness page- here, not every item that is sent is crap or cheap products. Surprises ranging from itune gift card, $25 gas cards, an iPod Shuffle, and a $25 Amazon gift card, Most of items justify $10 (which includes shipping cost for US buyers. Rest of the world pays shipping) SomethingStore is like a gamble (but with guarantee to get something in return)
From the SomethingStore site:
1. Place your order on this page, via Google Checkout, our payment service provider. Your information is safe with us and will not be sold or traded.
2. We will send your randomly picked something within 7 business days and will confirm shipment via email.
3. You will find out what your something is when you receive it and we hope you will be pleasantly surprised.
SomethingStore is classic example of consumerism. Have fun!
The popular social bookmarking site Delicious has a new web 2.0 look. Not only they changed the design but they changed the domain name too! –From del.icio.us to Delicious.com.
The new design is way better than old style. New design is clearer, easy to read (remember that red background and badge color text) and identify popular bookmarks, good speed and better search. This was a much needed redesign for Delicious. See all what is changed and what is not AT Blog.delicious.com
Let us know what do you think about new Delicious? Are you missing those dots!?
One of the most annoying things about searching the web is when you come across websites that is not working, or under construction, or can’t load. And sometimes I wonder when I do see site problem from big reputed name, like amazon.com or cnn.com or Google.com or maybe my own blog-Technologymadness.com. So what you do? This site comes very handy for determining whether a website is truly down or it’s just you–downforeveryoneorjustme.com, (as in, “Down for everyone, or just me?”) It lets visitors type in a Web address and see whether a site is generally inaccessible or whether the problem is with their own connection/computer.
There is no shortage of alternative to Adobe Acrobat if you are looking for ‘convert to pdf’ and ‘modify pdf’ kind of software in the market without paying a penny for it. PDF Hammer is a new tool for PDF files with bit of a twist and many premium features for free. You have the option of using their web app to manage pdf files so you don’t have to download anything to your PC, and you have the flexibility to edit your PDF documents and export them anywhere you go. Also, No need to register first to use their service. PDF Hammer is a free Web service that allows you to…
.. Merge/combine PDF files together,
.. Rearrange, reorder and delete pages,
.. Lock your PDF files with password-based security.
.. Add and edit document information (metadata) fields, including author, title, subject and
keywords.
.. Coming Soon: Ability to rotate indivdual pages and option to apply custom watermarks and
stamps to the document.
Above features are not available in free version of Adobe Acrobat as well as in most PDF related applications. So PDF hammer is nice free tool with all premium features. However, PDF Hammer is lacking in other editing features, like the ability to manage text and formatting.
They also have desktop version of this application, just in case if you are skeptical uploading your sensitive pdf files online.
Tomorrow (March 28,2009) is an 
SomethingStore is classic example of consumerism. Have fun!
