The new home of Digital Inspiration is www.labnol.org - Please update your bookmarks.The site has switched blogging platforms from Blogger to WordPress but you...
Charlie Ayers - Google Chef Now a Millionaire
Chef Charlie Ayers joined Google as their first cafeteria chef in 1999. Though Charlie is no longer an employee of Google, he owns 40k shares of GOOG and that are alone worth $26 million.He also had plans to write a cookbook titled "Revealing the Secrets of the Google Kitchen" - that never happened but Chef Charlie is now busy consulting tech companies on deciding good food for their employees.Update: Chef Charlie Ayers wife Kimberly ...
Webmaster Central Error : URLs Restricted by Robots.txt
For some reason, Google's Webmaster Dashboard says that access to following blogspot URLs is restricted by robots.txt. http://labnol.blogspot.com/2005/05/guide-for-google-adsense-publishers.html...
How to Add Star Rating Widget To Blog Posts
Blogs that are on Blogger or WordPress can add the wonderful Outbrain star ratings widget to their blog posts. This ratings widget has been under a closed beta for some...
Ticker Symbol Lookup in Yahoo! Finance
When I wrote this story comparing Google Finance with Yahoo! Finance, the one area where Google had a lead over Yahoo! was ticker symbol search.While Yahoo! Finance required...
Upload Pictures to Flickr From Windows Live Photo Gallery
This is exciting news for people who use Flickr for storing photographs on the web but prefer Windows Live Photo Gallery on the desktop for managing their picture and video collection offline. Microsoft today released a new version of Windows Live Photo Gallery that lets you send pictures to Flickr directly from the desktop using Windows Live Photo Gallery. You can also bulk upload images and folders to Flickr using this new feature...
Can You Spot This Secret Feature In Facebook
Here's a simple question for anyone who has been on Facebook for some time now. How do you create a photo collage of your Facebook Friends (as shown above) without using any of the available Facebook Apps or third-party tools. And no matter how large your Facebook friends list is, the whole process should not take more than 2 seconds. Hint: This secret feature is available right inside Facebook though Mark Zuckerberg and his team...
How To Save PowerPoint Presentations Out of Google Docs
Before you upload PowerPoint PPT files to Google Presentations for editing, make sure you know that the opposite is not possible yet.Unlike other members of the Google Docs...
Technorati Blog Search Is Useful Again; Rolls Back Recent Changes
The two very useful features of Technorati - Charts and Blog Directory - mysteriously disappeared after Technorati decided to shift focus from a blog search engine to a multimedia search engine. The move may have backfired for Technorati and so they decided to revert the changes pretty soon. Other than charts and blog directory, you can also sort blog search results by authority like before to filter posts from blog sites that have...
What Will Happen When Google Becomes an Adult ?
The Forbes magazine today launched a new feature called the "The Future" where they invited personalities to predict trends and technologies that will become popular in the near future. An extremely intelligent prediction about Google's future comes from David Ewalt where he says - Over the next 10 years, Google will solidify its hold on the world's information, and as it adds data service to its portfolio, it will give away free Internet...
Google Adsense Plugin for Windows Live Writer
AdSense Coder is new plugin for Windows Live Writer that lets you to add Google Ads directly into your blog posts through Windows Live Writer itself. It will also wrap the Adsense code around your text using the align attribute. You first define different Google Ad formats that you want to include in the blog posts. AdSense Coder will then add those blocks of Javascript code to your blog posts anywhere you like. Pretty easy to use...
Modify PDF Documents without Adobe Acrobat
Since Adobe PDF is an output format, you cannot edit or recreate the PDF file unless the source documents are available. Now Adobe Acrobat does allow you to apply numerous...
Download Images From a Webpage When Right Click Is Disabled
Some websites disable the right click menu on their websites to prevent people from saving images and photographs to their desktop. There are several ways to bypass that...
Flickr To Accept Payments for Pro Accounts Via PayPal Again
Few months ago, Flickr removed PayPal as a payment method and only those Flickr members could upgrade to a Flickr Pro account who had a Credit Card. This was met with a great deal of disappointment in the Flickr community as existing Pro members, who were not having credit cards, could not renew their yearly Flickr pro membership. Well, the news is that PayPal will make a comeback on November 20, 2007. However, PayPal will now...
PC Magazine - Give an OPML Of Your Favorite Blogs
Following the footsteps of CNET Blog 100, PC Magazine too today released their own list of 100 favorite blogs. The list includes the usual suspects but if you are new to the blogging world, this is probably a good place to quickly build your reading list. There's something surprising here - PC Magazine decided to release a Windows based installer that will add this grand list of 100 blogs right into your Internet Explorer bookmarks. ...
How to Download Contacts from Facebook To Outlook Address Book
Facebook users are not too pleased with the "walled garden" approach of Facebook. The reason is simple - while you can easily import your Outlook address book and GMail...
The Advantages of Using Gmail with Google Apps Premier
If you are also planning to sign up for a new Gmail account, consider opting for Google Apps Premier Edition that makes Gmail even better. Here are five reasons:1. While...
Al Gore's Current TV Makes Impressive Foray Into Social Networks
Current TV, which is a wonderful mix of some original programming and viewer generated content, will soon launch in a new and very impressive avatar. While the original Current TV was limited to video, the new Current is more of a social network and bookmarking site where you can save and share videos, web pages and photos clipped from the web. You can also upload original videos, just as before, except now your videos can be nearly...
Add Tags To WordPress 2.3 Posts From Windows Live Writer 2008
The new WordPress 2.3 release supports keyword tagging without requiring external plug-ins like Ultimate Tag Warrior or Simple Tagging. With the new Windows Live Writer 2008, you can easily add keyword tags to WordPress blog posts (see screen capture) though this feature is not enabled by default. To enable tagging in WLW for WordPress 2.3 blogs, follow the steps below: 1. Download wlwmanifest.xml (with some images files) here and...
Merge Multiple RSS Feeds Into One with FeedBurner and Yahoo! Pipes
One of the very popular question in the FeedBurner FAQ is about merging XML RSS feeds from different sources (like Blogger, WordPress, Flickr, Twitter, Jaiku) and then syndicate...
Microsoft Releases Word 2007 Viewer for Reading docx Documents
To open a Word 2007 document without installing Office 2007, you either had to download the Office 12 Compatibility Pack or manually convert .docx to .doc format using any of the online conversion services. The limitation with Office Compatibility Pack is that it still requires a previous version of Microsoft Office on your computer. Not anymore. Microsoft recently introduced a free Word 2007 viewer that lets you view docx Word documents,...
Excel 2007 Calculation Fix Weighs a Whooping 32 MB
After two weeks of testing, Microsoft today released a patch that will fix the Excel 2007 calculation errors. Earlier, if the result of calculation in Excel 2007 is a number from 65534.99999999995 to 65535, it is incorrectly shown as 100000 in the spreadsheet. The patch file weighs around 32 MB and that could be one of the reasons why Microsoft did not include it the regular Windows Update cycle though the patch itself is released...
Publish Your Twitter Tweets on Jaiku Automatically
Now that Jaiku is owned by Google, it will get lot of traction in the coming days - people who have refrained from micro-blogging so far are also likely to jump in. If you are a Twitter addict but also want to use Jaiku simultaneously, here's a time-saving trick - you can continue sending tweets to Twitter as before (via mobile phone, web or Google Talk) and the messages will automatically appear in your Jaiku account as well. See screenshot....
This Little Bird Is Twitting In The Google Campus
Google acquired Blogger in 2003 from Evan Williams who later launched another successful company called Twitter. Google owned a service similar to Twitter called Dodgeball but for some reason, that service never got the attention it deserved and DodgeBall soon became history. Well, Google has re-entered the "micro-blogging" space - the news just out is that Google has acquired Jaiku, another Twitter clone. The litte bird above showed...
Is Your Google Talk Friends List Too Long and Unmanageable?
If you exchange a couple of email messages with another GMail user, Google Talk assumes that the person at the other end is a known contact and will automatically add...
Camtasia Studio 5 Is Now Available - Review and Screenshots
Read review of Camtasia Studio 5 (with screenshots) TechSmith have just released released Camtasia Studio 5. The software works on Microsoft Windows Windows XP and Vista. The Camtasia Studio trial is fully-functional and runs for 30 days after installation. A free, 60-day account for Screencast.com is also included in the trial. Camtasia Studio 5 is quite nicely integrated with the Screencast.com, an online service like YouTube but...
The World Atlas of the Internet
Internet World Maps - Visualize the popularity of Internet and Social Networking across various countries and continents. The full list includes seven interesting World Maps. ...
Focus Your Attention On the Current Task, Hide All Distractions
Distractions are always present when using a computer. For instance, you are watching a YouTube video but hate the desktop screensaver that gets activated every few minutes. Or you are writing an important Excel sheet and suddenly there's a notification in the system tray that says "Your friend Rick is Online" or that "You a new email." Here's a real scenario - I am writing this blog post in Windows Live Writer and there's Outlook,...
Google Reducing PageRank of Websites That Sell Paid Text Links
Matt Cutts has long been giving strong but indirect hints that selling text links ads (without using nofollow) or writing sponsored product reviews could harm the rankings of your blog or website in Google search results. Google is not against text link advertising, they just don't want sites to pass link juice to advertisers. Read Matt's take on the issue: You want my links for traffic.. totally fine..just don't make it so they...
The Image That You See Here Is Not a Photograph
You may not believe your eyes but the image above is not a photograph, it's just a painting of a non-real person done using airbrush, not Photoshop. Dru Blair took around 70 hours to paint this beautiful photorealistic image - look at the eyes, skin tones, hair curls.. they look so real. Dru has the details on how he completed this painting dubbed "Tica" - Photorealism at its best. Related: Fake or Real Photos...
The World Is Missing Technorati State of the Blogosphere Reports
Do you know that 120,000 new weblogs are created worldwide each day. That the most popular blogging language is Japanese, not English. That more than 1.5 million blog posts are published each day. The world came to know about these very-interesting blogging trends and statistics courtesy David Sifry, founder of Technorati, who would religiously publish his much awaited "State of the Blogosphere" report every few months. But things have...
How to Access Orkut Account from Facebook
Something very interesting for people who are active on both Facebook and Orkut.You can now easily integrate your Orkut account with your Facebook profile courtesy a new...
Anti-Phishing Game: Learn How to Spot Fake Websites
Like the Phishing Quiz from McAfee, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed an interesting online game to help people recognize online scams and phishing websites easily by looking at their URL in the browser address bar or with the help of Google. The plot is interesting - you are a small fish swimming around the bay with your experienced father in search of food. You will encounter worms in the water - swim over...
Microsoft Removes WGA Validation Requirement for IE 7
Microsoft today released a new build of Internet Explorer 7 that installs without requiring you to validate the copy of Windows as Genuine. The new IE7 is available Windows XPSP2, x64 Server and Windows Server 2003. Now that users running pirated copies of Windows XP can install IE7, it makes one wonder if Microsoft took this step to counter the growing popularity of alternate browser like Firefox and Opera? [Microsoft Software Piracy]...
Create a Temporary Webpage That Self-Destructs After Some Time
You have heard of temporary email and disposable email services that help shield your actual address from spammers and email harvesting robots. Extend the same concept to...
Know When People Submit Your Stories to Digg; Get Dugg More
Whether you write a blog or a regular website, incoming traffic is always welcome even when the flow is from Digg.com. When a reader submits your blog post to Digg and the story gets dugg a couple of times more by other Digg members, you can quickly add the yellow "digg this" button to your website - that Digg button not just displays the current digg count but also encourages others site visitors to digg your story without leaving the...
Online Photo Editing in Adobe Photoshop Express - Video Demo
You have seen the screenshots but at the recently concluded Max 2007 conference, Adobe gave a live video demo of some prominent features in Photoshop Express, the much awaited...
FeedBurner Upgrades FeedSmith Plugin for WordPress Feeds
FeedBurner FeedSmith is a must-have plugin for WordPress that redirects all your RSS Feeds to a single FeedBurner feed so you can know exactly how many people have subscribed to your RSS feed. If you are already using FeedBurner FeedSmith to manage your WordPress feeds, it is important that you immediately upgrade FeedSmith with the latest version available here. The previous version of FeedSmith has a security hole that can...
Steve! Thank You For Reading Digital Inspiration
This morning I woke up to a very pleasant surprise from Steve Rubel, author of the widely-read Micropersuasion blog. An excerpt from his post - APAC Rising: In Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat he talks extensively about "the great leveling." Specifically, he writes about how broadband-enabled populations in India, China and elsewhere will make waves here in the US. This is more than just theory. It's reality. All you need to do...
Make Sure You Alway Have The Latest Version of Software Programs
UpdateStar is a new tool to help you ensure that all software applications installed on your PC are up-to-date. Like Belarc Advisor, UpdateStar scans your hard drive and prepares a complete inventory of software products (including freeware and shareware demos) that exist on your system - it then lists the available software updates, if any, alongwith a link to download those updates. So you don't have to manually hunt download.com...
Interesting Picks
Which iPod Should You Buy? Planning to buy an iPod but cannot decide which iPod model to choose from? This quick iPod Buying guide compares all the new iPod models to...
Open .XLSX Spreadsheet Files Without Excel 2007
If you have an .xlsx file attachment in your email inbox but the computer doesn't have Microsoft Office installed to open file of that extension, what are your available...
Guidelines For PR Professionals Who Pitch Bloggers
PR professionals often approach bloggers, with decent readership, to talk about the products and services of their clients. Though most bloggers would love to read PR-pitches about products that are closely related to their niche, irrelevant pitching is always ignored and sometimes met with great frustration. To save from this frustration, Ogilvy PR team (in consultation with external bloggers) have drafted a "Blogger Outreach Code...
Adobe Office Gets A Word Processor, Outlook the Next Target ?
Adobe officially entered the web-office space by acquiring Buzzword, a word processor that works inside the web browser (like Google Docs or Zoho Writer). Other than creating documents from scratch, Buzzword can also import your existing Microsoft Word .doc files. Buzzword is done in Adobe Flex, the same technology that powers Picnik, the popular online image editor. Now that Adobe has a word processor, what could be next logical...
Move Draft Posts Written in Windows Live Writer Across Computers
Here's are simple tips for bloggers who work on multiple computers and use Windows Live Writer to compose and publish blog posts. Problem: If you write a blog post in WLW on computer A and save it as a local draft, how to you access that unpublished post from another computer ? Solution: You have two options here - the first is to use "Post Draft In Weblog" (available under "Save Draft") - WLW will put the post online though in Draft,...
A Standalone FLV Player For Watching Flash Videos on the Desktop
If you download streaming video content from the web (like YouTube videos, CNN news clips, etc), chances are that you have piled up tons of Flash Video (flv) files on your desktop. Unfortunately, these FLV files cannot play directly inside the web browser or the standalone Flash Player and you need to download an additional software like RIVA in order to watch the FLV videos. But the future of these third-party FLV players may be in...
Getting Things Done Wallpapers for Desktop and Mobile Phones
Love GTD? Make that your desktop or mobile phone background so you always remember the core principles of GTD. Stefanos Karagos has created some beautiful wallpapers for fans of David Allen's Getting Things Done workflow. They are available for the desktop or the iphone here. Some more motivational desktop backgrounds by Stefanos are available here. The wallpapers are done in MindManager, Photoshop and PowerPoint. If...
For Start-Ups Who Want Some Positive Review on TechCrunch
It's a fact that a review on TechCrunch can really make or break Web 2.0 startups. To win a positive (or even neutral) review on TechCrunch, you just don't need to build a solid product, you should also pray to God that TechCrunch editor Mike Arrington is in some good mood while he's blogging about you. Here's what Mike told PC Magazine recently - "sometimes I wake up and I'm in a pissed off mood and I trash a company. You're never...
Firefox Running Slow? Make It Fast Again Without Re-Installation
Firefox is your favorite browser but, over time, it keeps getting slower and slower. Not only can it get slow, Firefox may sometimes hangs for no reason, consumes a...
Add Picture Frames to Your Digital Photos Online
flauntR is a new web based image editor - extremely fast and works in the browser. It's layout looks no different from any desktop based software.While the basic image editing...
Tumblr Bookmarklet for WordPress Blogs; Post Stuff Quickly
Tumblr is probably the easiest and fastest way to publish blog posts online - select anything on the current web page (be it text, video or pictures) and they will be on your Tumblelog almost instantly via the Tumblr Instant Post Bookmarklet. Unfortunately, that quick posting bookmarklet can only be used for publishing on Tumblr.com - there's no way to integrate Tumblr with your existing WordPress or Blogger Blog. However, here's some...
Google Warez Search Engine
It takes lot of effort for websites to rank high in Google web search results - you require lot of incoming links, unique content, good reputation and sometimes a decent PageRank as well. However, warez sites (that illegally distribute pirated software) seem to have discovered a way to trick Google. Do a search for "adobe cs3 master collection" on Google.com and you'll be so much surprised to know that five out the top ten results on...
Record Skype Calls and SkypeCasts with Skype Recorder
Skype Recorder is a simple tool for recording podcast interviews, skypecasts and voice calls made through Skype as MP3 or Windows Media audio files. Skype Recorder will start the recording by itself as soon as you start talking on Skype. Once the conversation is over, Skype Recorder will encode the audio recording to your preferred audio format. It has an in-built audio player, so you can replay your Skype recording immediately and...
Add A Picture To Your LinkedIn Profile; Help People Recognize You
Your work colleagues, old classmates and friends will now have no problems finding you on LinkedIn even if there exist a dozen profiles with the same name as yours. Starting tomorrow, LinkedIn members will be able to upload a photograph to their profiles. You can control if the photos become visible in your public profile page or just your approved connections can see the picture. Thanks Adam. Click here to connect with me on LinkedIn....
Fix for Excel 2007 Calculation Error
If you are an Excel 2007 user, try this:Type =77.1*850 in any cell and press Enter. Excel 2007 would return a value of 100,000 instead of 65,535.Any combination of numbers...
Fix Blogger Sitemap XML Warnings Inside Google Webmaster
Though you can easily redirect Blogger Feeds to FeedBurner now, this has a side effect - you will see some warnings when you submit the Sitemaps file (xxx.blogspot.com/atom.xml) to Google Webmaster Tools. (see screenshot) The following Sitemap warning messages are shown in the Google WebMaster Tools control when using Blogger feeds with FeedBurner: Line: 2 Invalid XML: too many tags - Too many tags describing this tag. Line: 2 Incorrect...
[Fix] Microsoft Office Contacting Server For Information
When you try to copy paste some text from a web page to a Word 2007 document, the application freezes for few seconds and the message in status bar says "Contacting the...
Closed An IE Browser Tab By Mistake? Get It Back Easily
If you accidentally close a tab in Firefox, you can easily retrieve it by pressing Ctrl+Shift+T. If you do the same mistake in Opera, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Z will help you reopen the most recently closed tab. Or click the Trash icon near the toolbar to see a list of closed tabs arranged in reverse chronological order. Coming to Internet Explorer, there's no inbuilt feature to restore closed tabs but there's a free add-in called IE7 Open...
A Convenient Case For All Your Memory Cards
If you carry multiple Flash memory cards of different formats, the Elecom card reader is a perfect thing for you. Elecom MR-C12 series has numerous slots for housing a variety of Flash memory cards that may be from your mobile phone, PDA, digital camera or other devices. As in the figure, the card reader attaches to the computer via USB port so you don't have to worry about slipping the SD Card in the Compact Flash slot or vice...