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 is possible because Twitter provides RSS feeds of all your Twitter messages and Jaiku can easily import that feed.

Just goto Jaiku Web feeds here and type your twitter URL (twitter.com/username). Then select the second option (as in the figure) and click Add feed.

The next time you write something on Twitter, it will also become available to your Jaiku Contacts.

Other than Twitter status messages, you can also add your Blog Feeds, Flickr photos, Digg, Facebook Status and everything else to Google-Jaiku that supports web feeds.

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 up on Jaiku homepage because the service may experiencing massive traffic at the moment.

Jaiku is not so popular as Twitter so Google may have definitely got a better deal here. Kevin Rose of Digg also runs a Jaiku-Twitter clone called Pownce.

Jaiku is currently invite only - While I have an account on Jaiku, the link to invite new friends is returning a 404.

Related: Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr - The Future of Blogging

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 him (or her) to your friends list.

That's the reason why many of us have long list of buddies in Google Talk (watch this video).

If the list has grown too big, try Google Talk bankruptcy - remove all existing friends from Google Talk in one go and make a fresh start.

Google Talk Friends List Getting Out of Hand? Try Bankruptcy

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 for sharing screencast videos. Unlike other online video hosting services, Screencast.com retains the original video quality and size of the uploaded screencast.

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 Talk, Firefox in the background all competing for attention.

All these little things make it tough to focus on the task at hand. If you also find yourself in a similar situation and wish you could work on the computer sans distractions, a little utility called Zorro for Windows can help you here.

Zorro is like placing a cardboard on the screen with a rectangular hole - you focus the Zorro views screen over any area of the desktop (or any running software application), hit the ESC key and Zorro will blank all the outside portion. Distractions, if any, won't be visible unless you escape the Zorro mode (i.e., remove the cardboard).

Get Zorro 1.4 for Windows and stop paying attention to stuff that's not important at that point of time. And similar to Mouse Spotlight, Zorro can be a great help when giving presentations and you want the audience to concentrate on a particular area of the slide or screen. Thanks Martin.

Related: Write Without Distractions

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 affect search engines..so that's why we say use nofollow..or use a redirect which is through robots.txt

Paid links that affect search engines (whether paid text links or a paid review) can cause a site to lose trust in Google.

Two months ago, we saw that organic search rankings of a Page Rank 7 website were penalized by Google for selling text links. The ban was quickly lifted (in less than a week) after the site owner removed the paid links.

Now another instance has surfaced where Google penalized the PageRank of a site after detecting paid links.

The Stanford Daily website, which is part of Standford University, was a PR 9 website but with the recent update, Google has dropped the to PR7. The reason, you guessed it right, is paid text links.

Danny Sullivan, who discovered the drop, talked to Google about the issue and Google confirmed that PageRank scores are being lowered for some sites that sell links.

Not just PageRank, Google said that some sites that are selling links may indeed end up being dropped from its search engine or have penalties attached, to prevent them from ranking well.

Not everyone here may agree with the rules imposed by Google Government but there's no denying that Google is the single largest source of search traffic to most websites today.

By selling paid links on your site (without using nofollow), you may be making money in the short run but once the search rankings and PageRank is penalized by Google, the incoming search traffic and link selling power of your site will dilute anyway.

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 seriously changed at Technorati this year - Richard Jalichandra is the new Technorati CEO and the last State of the Blogosphere quarterly report was released in April 2007, that's more six months ago.

Now the world (and mainstream media) have no concrete idea about the growth of blogging during this period except that Technorati is currently tracking 108 million blogs - that number was 70 million six months ago.

Anyone in the Technorati Team reading this - please don't break the ritual that Dave has been following since October 2004. The blogging community is eagerly waiting for those green graphs and numbers.

Related: Gaming Technorati Favorites, Understand Technorati Cosmos

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 Orkut app for Facebook that's not developed by Google but an Amazon employee.

The best part about the Orkut Application is that you need not supply your Google Account or password, just type the full URL of your Orkut Profile and that's sufficient to bring your Orkut data into Facebook.

Once you add the Facebook application, you can read the Orkut scrapbook of anyone, write new scraps, browse photos uploaded by other Orkut friends and more. Update: The app is no longer available.

Related: How to Create Custom Facebook Pages

And it's a good way to expose your community of Orkut friends to Facebook friends (and vice-versa). Facebook friends, who are not on Orkut, can know about your Orkut community without ever visiting that site. They can also view the Photos and Videos that you have shared on Orkut. How much fun.

Read some workarounds on how to access Orkut, Facebook and other restricted websites at school or work.

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 a worm to reveal it's attached web address (URL).

You earn points by eating the good worms (legitimate websites) and rejecting the bad ones (phishing websites or online scams). If you are unsure about a site, press T and you learned father will give you a nice hint if the site is legit or fake.

Play the Anti-Phishing game here.

Related: Google Phishing Warning Extension

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]

This is an update to the availability of Internet Explorer 7 and not a new version of the browser. Other than removing the WGA validation requirement, Microsoft has made some minor changes to IE browser.

For instance, the Menu bar will be turned on by default and the online Internet Explorer 7 tour has been updated to include how-to’s on new IE features like tabbed browsing.

You can download Windows Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2 here.

Genuine Windows users, who are already running IE7, need not do anything except for downloading a new update for IE7 here that resolves a performance issue with the Phishing Filter of Internet Explorer 7.

Related: Block IE7 from Installing via Automatic Updates

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 websites and what you get is a service called disposable Web pages.


First you make a proper webpage using the rich text editor that also supports tables, images and Flash movies. Then set the time when you want that web page to expire (or become unavailable).

When others are reading that webpage, they will also see a count down clock that shows the exact time to disposal.

Disposable WebPage provides a wiki like environment where others can also edit the web page created by you provided you share with them the password (or the master key).

Could be a useful and quick alternative to small wikis for managing upcoming events and TODO lists. disposableWebpage.com

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 site.

Now the important thing - How do you know automatically when people submit content from your website to Digg.com ? Well, it's actually quite simple. You just have to setup a custom search RSS feed to track Digg like a hawk.

1. Go to Digg Search at digg.com/search

2. Type your web domain in the seach box and select "URL only" as shown in the screen capture. If you are on blogspot or wordpress, you will have to type the subdomain name as well.

3. Select "All Stories", "Sort Newest First" and hit the Search button.

Digg provides an RSS feed of these search results. Whenever a story from you blog hits Digg, it will become available in the RSS feed irrespective of the number of Diggs it has received.

You can either get this feed in your news reader or turn it into an email alert via RSSFwd or R-Mail to get an email as soon as you are Digg.com.

Then head over to your blog post and add the following Digg snippet so that visitor can digg the story without ever leaving your website. (see live example)

<script type="text/javascript">
  digg_url = 'DIGG_PERMALINK_URL';
</script>
<script src="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js" type="text/javascript"> </script>

You can read about some more interesting Digg features and tips in our guide - Digg for Power Users. A similar trick is available for tracking del.icio.us as well.

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 online image editor.

Like the live preview feature in Microsoft Office 2007, you can hover the mouse over various thumbnail images in Photoshop Express to see how that effect will look when applied to the current image - it's efficient and lightning fast.

CNET has the recording of the Adobe Photo Express demo which is embedded above. It's still not known if the online Photoshop editor can deal with layered PSD graphics.

Related: Edit Photos Online for Free

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 allow other to change your WordPress plugin settings without you noticing during the time you are signed into your WordPress control panel.

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 is look to the emerging voices from Asia Pacific (APAC) and their ability to make money from US advertisers.

Web 2.0 in APAC is rising. A lot of talented, new voices are emerging from the region - and quickly at that. Two of my favorites are Amit Agarwal, a technology analyst from India and author of Digital Inspiration, and Leo Babauta a Guam-based blogger who writes Zen Habits and also contributes to Web Worker Daily.

What's notable here is that both are making money from US advertisers. Leo, who has 20,000 RSS subscribers, works with BlogAds and Amit (15,000 daily subscribers) uses Google Adsense.

Thank you Steve. You made my day with this one. [Filed in quotes]

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 or the software vendor's website to get hold of new updates, UpdateStar will let you know as and when they become available.

Other than finding the latest version of software already installed on your computer, UpdateStar can also be used to uninstall programs just the like the Add/Remove programs or MyUninstaller.

UpdateStar runs on Windows 2000, XP and Vista. It's fast and did a decent job of finding minor upgrades for some old software running on my computer. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with software drivers.

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 help you pick the best iPod for your needs.

Smart Ways to Lower The Cost of Printing; Save on Ink and Paper

The best way to reduce printing costs is to educate people – Can employees do without printing a hard copy of that email message? Is it essential to distribute the PowerPoint training material in paper format when it’s always available on the company’s intranet?

Custom Email Addresses for Windows Live Hotmail Users in India

Microsoft is trying something unique to make Windows Live Hotmail popular among Indians (especially the young crowd). Instead of the default @hotmail.com or @live.com address, you can now opt for other email address choices that relate more closely with your personality, interests or lifestyle.

Rupee Mail - You Read An Email Newsletter And Make Some Money

A a new service in India is offering to pay you a certain sum of money if you agree to receive some of their marketing emails (that contain advertisements). You give your email address to RupeeMail and specify your areas of interest - you’ll then receive advertisement messages in your inbox.

Google may partner Anil Ambani for sub-sea cable project

Google is beefing up the infrastructure to make use of rising internet usage across globe especially in Asia-Pacific regions by setting up its own under-sea cable across Pacific, under a project called Unity. This would help Google to meet its data and video transfer requirements from US to Asian countries.

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 options?

The xlsx file format is the default extension for spreadsheets written in Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and Office 2010. The format is currently not support by GMail attachment viewer or any of the online office suites like Google Docs.

However, you can easily convert .xlsx spreadsheet to the traditional .xls format using the Microsoft Office compatibility Pack available here. This will help you open, edit, and save .xlsx files in Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003. More details on Office 2007 FAQ.

Alternatively, you can convert .xlsx to .xls or any other text format online using the email conversion service of Zamzar. Just forward the email attachment to xls@zamzar.com or txt@zamzar.com and it will send you a link to download the converted file. 

Unlike the Microsoft compatibility pack, the Zamzar .xlsx to .xls conversion services will not require a copy of Microsoft Office on your computer.

And if you have OpenOffice, Zamzar can also convert the XLSX file to OpenDocument spreadsheet format.

Also see: Open .docx Files Without Word 2007