TECH TOLA

Webware 100 - 2008 winners have been selected from over 1.9 million votes from netizens all over the world.

Under the Browsing section we have Firefox, Google Reader mentioned on the top with......err...... IE7 mentioned in the FOURTH PLACE ??

Bebo was mentioned on the top of the Social Networking list. We also have FaceBook, Friendster and My Space in the list. But where is Orkut ? I recently read somewhere that Orkut has more page views than FaceBook. Most probably because, the majority of Orkut users still being Indians and Brazilians who are not active on other web activities like Reading Blogs, using RSS etc.

They have not released any vote count for each of the winners. So it doesn't make sense to rank the winners in each categories. Best example for this fact is YouTube, which has been mentioned last in its category.

And well, I need to mention that my favorite ZOHO suite is also one of the 10 winners in the online productivity applications category.

Check out the full list here

A Quick study about interior designing will reveal that Workplaces and their elements like color, lighting, sound, placement, designs etc have been proved to have a great impact on the performance and mood of the people who work there.

They almost directly affect the growth of any company. Is it not making you think about how offices of world famous web companies will look ?

I recently landed up on this page which has pictures of Offices of 4 major web companies which are rocking the web now - DIGG, FLICKR, FACEBOOK and TWITTER !

I liked the Office of Twitter most ! What about you ?

Click here to see the pictures

With more and more users recommending not to use Windows Vista, one Mr.Ubuntu, a descendant of the Linux family is growing at the pace of lightning by its massive community of users, testers and developers. Its like the Gol Gumbaz here in India - "You ask anything, anywhere and you get your answers right away". That is exactly how you can describe the help you get regarding Ubuntu. It currently the most documented Linux Distro on earth, with the maximum number of users active on the Forums and Newsgroups.

Ubuntu Hardy Heron, version 8.04 is expected to be the best release of all, making it an ample choice for Desktop users. Though its final stable version is not yet released, you can preorder your FREE Ubuntu CD so that it will be shipped once it is released.

When folks claims it to be FREE, fast, stable (It actually is !) What are you waiting for ? Book your Free CDs today and get them delivered at your door step as soon as its ready.

Click here for preordering your free CDs

India's largest social network Orkut has officially launched its mobile version. They claim its optimized for the mobile web and its bandwidth. To access Orkut Mobile just type http://m.orkut.com from your Mobile Browser. [via Orkut Blog]

Orkut yesterday released the Applications feature (Orkut Apps) similar to what FaceBook had, for India. Applications were the ones that made FaceBook shoot to the sky and the ones which drove most users out when they became really annoying. [via Orkut Blog]

MySpace - the Emperor of Social Networking, has launched a localized version just for India. To access please visit http://in.myspace.com [More Info]

Extra Info:- Yesterday, I tried to access Google Music Trends which is still in Google Labs at http://www.google.com/music/trends and found the link to be dead. The Guys at Google Blogoscoped Forum have already been discussing about it here. I hope and wish they don't permanently discontinue the service.

This blog is completely about Computers, Internet and Gadgets, but who doesn't like it with a pinch of humor. How about the joke below

A helicopter was flying around above Seattle when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and communications equipment.
Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter's position. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, and held up a handwritten sign that said "WHERE AM I?" in large letters. People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER."
The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely. After they were on the ground, the copilot asked the pilot how he had done it.
"I knew it had to be the Microsoft Building, because they gave me a technically correct but completely useless answer."

Source: http://jokes.comedycentral.com/random_joke.aspx?joke_id=5915

Scenario:- I had an AMR audio file which is a funny recorded conversation of my friend. I needed to put it on the web and share it among my friends' circle, but I was sure many won't have a media player compatible with AMR format. I needed to convert it and host it. I searched, I found !

Welcome to Media Convert. I found an impressive list of a huge number of formats that were supported. I needed AMR to MP3. I clicked on it, then it asked me for MP3 settings too ! I was able to select any bit rate (CBR/VBR)

Here are some cool extra features that the site gives:-

• You need not always upload media, you can also Convert From URL
• Gives you option to host the converted media for 120 days FREE !
• Gives you a WAP link for the converted media apart from normal link.
• Allows you to take screen shot of any web page in virtually any image format in the world.

Here is the site link
http://www.media-convert.com

The Time.com has released it first annual blog index and listed the top 25 blogs of the entire blogosphere which is composed of over a 112.8 million blogs approx. .

What makes the article more interesting is the list of most overrated blogs - Blogs which are popular for no reason. Please Note - Slashdot has made the top of this list.

Check it out

My thoughts on the list

I seriously think, this is just like the Oscar. I mean to say its for blogs which are liked by the Western World, more precisely the US. I agree the Lifehacker, TechCrunch, Engadget which are on the top 25 are my most favorites too, but still there are millions of blogs which might be in Chinese and other native languages and being loved by a lot more people than the top 25.

Yes, English is the universal language. If you notice the posts from the top 25 blogs, especially about politics, current affairs and others, its written in way targeting only the readers from the US.

BUT DOOD, India and China form 2/6th of the World Population. I request the readers to kindly comment about what they think my opinion.

Twitter - one of the flamboyant buzz words of today's Internet is still a maze of menace to many. I know about people who have signed up, tried it out for a day or two, then completely quit using it.

On the other hand, there are million who are twitter addicts. Here is a video whose link was taken from one of the top 25 blogs in the world - Web 2.Oh Really (as mentioned by The Time)

READ THE FULL POST FOR THE VIDEO

Courtesy: http://2ohreally.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/finally-twitter-explained/

This article is outdated and the methods discussed here no more work as twitter has removed IM support. I have removed my script also. If I get requests from twitter users I will put it up again.

Today I created my first, fastest developed useful (PHP) application - a twitter bot for tweeting Indian Cricket scores every 5 minutes. I know this is not the only bot available, but all the bots which I got by searching were down.

Okay now, don't get furious @ me if you don't understand anything in this above sentence. It is going to be just a bunch of jargons for many. Read more for the actual article..

Update

• People who twitter, just follow IndiaCricket on Twitter.
• People who don't use twitter follow the steps below to get score updates for every 5 minutes on your Google Talk.

1. Login to Google talk
2. Add twitter@twitter.com as friend.
3. Once it is added, send the following messages without the quotes
1. 'track'
2. 'follow IndiaCricket'
4. Congratulations, now you get cricket scores every 5 minutes.

P.S. If you need the full detailed score card with ball to ball description, just click the link at the end of each message you receive.

Please do leave your comments and let me know if this is useful or totally useless.
Please recommend Techtola to your friends if you like the articles you receive here.

If you have more ideas for various twitter robots / Google talk alerts, please send them to me. I will develop them in my free time.

Update:- I have fixed a bug. Now no more duplicate score tweets.