Open Multiple Yahoo Messenger Windows using Registry Tweak

If you love to chat with your friends using Yahoo Messenger, you can simply download Yahoo Messenger and start chatting. But what if you have got two Yahoo Messenger user names and want to talk with your friends from two different user names at the same time? By default, Yahoo Messenger does not allow users to open more than one Yahoo Messenger windows at the same time, but we can do that by applying a simple tweak. This simple Yahoo Messenger tweak will help you in opening multiple Yahoo messenger windows at the same time and start using both of them.

Do note that this tweak will change the registry editor and hence I advise you to take proper backup before making any changes. This registry tweak will change the value of the number of Yahoo Messenger windows that be launched simultaneously.

Download the registry key, unzip it and then double click on it. If any confirmation window appears, click Apply to save the changes. This tweak works up to Yahoo Messenger 8.1 version.

[via Solid Blogger]

Free Online Photo Editor – Aviary

Photoshop as we all know it, is one of the best photo editing software there is. Infact it actually costs quite a bit too. GIMP is an opensource alternative to Photoshop that is used widely by users who just need a photo editor to do basic photo manipulation.

What if you have to use a computer that does not have one of these photo editors installed ? Your best bet is to use an online photo editor and the best one we have seen so far is Aviary.

Aviary is a free online photo editor and manipulator that can run directly from your browser. No software to download or install. Just do a quick sign up and be on your way.

Aviary is actually a suite of applications, Pheonix being the photo editor. There are also color, vector, effects and audio editors along with an image markup application.

The Pheonix photo editor is quite easy to use, if you have a basic idea of image editors and know about layers. If not, there is nothing to worry about, Aviary has many video tutorials that can run you through the basics. Phoenix can handle complex effects that are usually produced only by high end photo editing software.

Photos can be imported from sharing networks like FlickR, Facebook and Picasa. There is a community that shares the creations made using Aviary.

If you are looking at adding quick one click effects to your photos try FlauntR.

Aviary Online Photo Editor

[via Techie Portal]

IMG4Me – Convert Text to Image online

IMG4Me is an online service to convert your text into image instantly. This way you can Protect your e-mail and other private information online against spammers and web crawlers.

It has options to chose the text color, background color, font type, text size and the image format (png, jpg, gif) to generate the image. It provides a direct link, HTML code and BB code to share your image over the web. Supports multiple languages.

Link – http://www.img4me.com/

[via WebTrickz]

How to Make a Favicon

The term Favicon stands for “Favorites Icon”. When you open a web site in a web browser, you will be able to see a small image on the address bar before the web site address, that particular image is called a Favicon.

For most users, Favicons are useful in identifing a particular site in a group of flooded bookmarks. And in the view of a web site or blog owner, a favicon has the potential to let your website stand out in a bookmark list.

This post is going to show you how to quickly create a favicon for your blog or website.

Creating a Favicon

Creating a favicon is not a huge task. It is nothing but a normal image with an “.ico” extension, but you need to do a little more than just change the extension of any image.  There are two ways to create a Favicon for your website.

Using Favicon.cc

The first way is to use a website like favicon cc. Favicon.cc lets you either upload an image or create it from scratch. This free web service provides you with all the required options to get your favicon right. Once you are done with all the customization, click on the button labeled as “Download Favicon”. That’s it.

Editing Your Own Image

The other option is to edit your own image.  Start with opening the image (that you want to set as your favicon) in your favorite image editor. Make sure that the image you start with is a square in dimensions. If it isn’t, you can crop that particular image to make it a square.  Now, adjust its pixel size to a lower value, something around 16×16 pixels. And if possible, save the image with “.ico” as the extension. If it does not allow you to do so, then save it in “.png” format.

Conclusion

That’s all there is to it.  Making your own favicon is an easy process, and it should be done in order to give your website that extra personal touch that will hopefully make your website stand out.

[via Lost In Technology]

Facebook Doesn’t Want You To Know : Defriended Gets Pulled

It seems like not only does Facebook not notify us whenever we get unfriended, they actually actively prevent us from finding out. Less than 2 days after its launch, Defriended, the “Facebook unfriend checker”  has already been blocked, forcing its developer to pull it from the App Store.

The reason for that is that Defriended actually violated Facebook’s developer agreement that clearly forbids this kind of usage.

Anyway, here is how to get the app refunded.

[via App Advice]

Create desktop shortcut of webpage in Chrome [drag drop]

Google Chrome may look minimalistic but it for sure is loaded with lot of cool features. For example, easy to use ‘drag-drop’ feature to create desktop shortcut of currently viewed webpage in Google Chrome browser. This feature enable user to quickly create desktop shortcut link of any webpage opened in Google Chrome. This can done in two ways: from Omnibar or from start button next to Omnibar.

Create shortcut by dragging contents of Omnibar

1. Open any webpage in Chrome, for example: www.bing.com
2. Double click omnibar to highlight & select URL.
3. Drag and drop URL to desktop screen. A shortcut for URL will be created.

Create shortcut by dragging Star button

1. Open any webpage in Chrome, for example: www.bing.com
2. Drag and drop star button next to Omnibar. A shortcut for URL will be created on the desktop.

Both methods will result in creation of destop shortcut of webpage being viewed in Google Chrome browser. Drag and drop of star button method looks more neat and easy – take your pick!

[via Techno Life]

Gmail Ninja Tips : New Gmail Feature

Gmail has started displaying these Ninja tips for Email which offers help and suggestion depending on the volume of mail you received yesterday. The link to the tips page can be found at the right hand top-corner of your screen.

The idea is simple. You need to be productive with Gmail. Gmail has a couple of profiles of productivity enhancer shortcuts and quick tips. Chose the category you would rate yourself as and get your tips.

All these different modes have suggestions for effective usage of filters, search queries, sorting and labelling of mail. The White Belt mode gives a basic idea of labels, queries and themes, whereas the Gmail Master mode explains creating filters, setup of Google Apps, managing chats and integration of Gmail with other Google services.

Gmail is the most popular email client and has changed the way we use email. It has continued to provide excellent services from its labs and this new tip feature comes in  handy for those migrating from other mail services.

This new feature will help beginners get an insight into using Gmail in a better way, never to lose that mail and lookup and search through mail much faster. The guide is available as an on site guide as well as a printable guide. Become a Gmail Ninja today.

[via Techie Buzz]

Google Docs Opens File Storage to All Files, GDrive Cometh?

Google Docs is slowly but surely becoming a online storage medium for files and documents. Earlier, Google Docs allowed users to upload word documents, PDF files and other office related documents. However, they have now opened up storage to essentially all types of files.

In addition to that, they have also jacked up the free storage limit to 1GB with an option to buy additional storage space at $0.25 per GB. If you are looking for an easy way to upload files to Google Docs, you can use the desktop uploading tool for Google Docs. In addition to that, you can also export all your Google Docs as a Zip archive.

Don’t Miss: Get the Best out of Google Docs with some Cool Tools

So is Google trying to take over your files too? Is this a side introduction of GDrive, the much hyped and not-yet-delivered product from Google?

[via Techie Buzz]

Facebook Adds Comment Reply by Email

Frequent Facebook users get a handful of emails from the social networking service every day alerting them of new comments, but replying to these comments always required clicking over to Facebook—until now. Facebook users can now respond directly to comments via email. Handy—especially for folks whose workplaces block the ‘book. [Facebook Blog]

[via Lifehacker]

Have You Been Unfriended? Defriended Can Tell

This article is not relevant anymore, the application has been removed…

Being unfriended on Facebook is never pleasant. To smooth things over, Facebook doesn’t alert you when it happens (that must be the only thing it doesn’t alert you about), however I’m sure most of you would rather know when it does happens.

Defriended does just that.

At every launch it records your list of Facebook friends and compares it to the last one, if someone took off, you’re sure to know about it.

It’s price? $1.

The awkward encounters that follow its use? Priceless.

[via App Advice ]

Know Your Whereabouts with Google’s Near Me Now

Have you stood outside the restaurant and thought whether to go inside? Google solves this problem very easily. It has come out with yet another mind bobbling feature with Andriods and the iPhone. This Feature is known as ‘Near Me Now’. When you open google.com in your mobile like Andriods or iPhone, you see a small new addition to homepage that  is ‘Near Me Now’ option below your search box

Functionality of Near Me Now

When you open google.com your location turn into a search query automatically. This enables you to Google search and find out restaurants, coffee shops, ATM’s, banks and bars near your obtained location.
There also is an Option called ‘Explore right here’, this reveals the important places near your obtained location.  This feature also provides the rating for restaurants,coffee shop and bars with distance from your present location. For showing this result Google uses customer review sites like Foursquare, Yelp and LBS(Location Based Services) application like Twitter, Facebook Status Updates and Loopt.

Release

This feature is currently available in the United States of America only.

[via Blogsolute]

Soft drink powered phone – Nokia Green Phone

Chinese designer Daizi Zheng has come up with a concept mobile phone that can be recharged using soft drinks. Zheng reportedly was inspired by bio-batteries which generate electricity from carbo-hydrates found in soft drinks.

This is a concept phone that is being designed for Nokia ! Also known as the Nokia Green Phone. Bio batteries powering the phone will only need any sugary drink. Enzymes are used to turn the drink into water and oxygen which powers the cell phone.

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The bio battery can run three to four times longer than regular batteries and is also completely biodegradeable (coke duh !).

Enough of me trying to talk more about it. Just head over Coke-Powered Phone and read the actual report.

[via Techie Portal]

20-plus Amazing Fitness Blogs to Inspire You

Let yourself become inspired to fitness.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I need some inspiration along my journey.

Pretty much every day, if I can get it, in fact.

I usually turn to blogs for that inspiration, for whatever I’m doing. When my wife and I need inspiration for unschooling, we look to blogs. Same thing for blogging, writing a novel, simplifying my life, quitting smoking, anything.

Lately my journey has been focused on fitness, and of course I’ve turned to some of the best blogs out there to give me my daily dose of motivation.

Today I’m presenting some of the best of those fitness bloggers — the ones I truly treasure. I’ve asked each of them to list their favorite fitness blogs (up to 5 of them) so that we could benefit from what they read. Of course, everyone’s list is subjective, and there are lots of other great ones out there (share yours with me on Twitter). And of course, there’s some overlap among their favorites.

I need to give a nod to my sister, Kat, for introducing me to many of these blogs. She’s a personal trainer and nutritionalist, my running partner, one of my best friends, and definitely one of my fitness inspirations. Keep rocking, Kat!

…..

The rest of the article can be found in: Zen Habits

http://zenhabits.net/2010/01/fitness-blogs/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zenhabits+%28zen+habits%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

8 MORE Steps To Regain Control Of Your Facebook Privacy

We have covered 8 steps to regain control of your Facebook Privacy in Part 1. If you haven’t already, please read it, as we covered privacy basics in search visibility, photos and videos, relationships and contact information.

Let us now proceed with the next steps concerning privacy in the context of applications, friends, news feed, wall posts, groups, ads, and quitting Facebook.

#9: Control What Your Friends Can Share About You

As explained earlier, your Facebook friends can reveal information about you to applications of their choice even if you yourself do not use those applications. A typical example is when your friends use a birthday application that reminds them of your birthday so that they can send you a card or gift.

Unfortunately, this also means they reveal your religious, sexual, and political preferences as well as other personal information about you. Birthday information is also misused by financial fraudsters. All of this can be shared via more than 500,000 applications with more than 1 Million developers from over 180 countries.

If you don’t want to do that, go to Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites page. Click Edit Settings for What your friends can share about you. Choose what you want to share or uncheck all boxes for maximum privacy.

#10: Reduce Visibility of Your Facebook Friendships

Your friends list is visible to everyone on Facebook by default. Some people browse others’ friends for voyeuristic or marketing purposes. Unfortunately, Facebook now considers your friends list as “publicly available information” so there is no way to hide it completely. You can make it slightly harder for strangers to see your friend list. Go to your profile page, click the pencil icon next to your Friends box, and uncheck the Show Friend List to Everyone box.

Note that your friends list is still visible to all applications (and their developers) as well as to anyone who knows your Facebook username or ID.

#11: Remove Unused Applications

As explained in “9. Privacy From Your Applications” in the original guide, you should review the list of Applications you have authorized on Facebook and remove unused apps.

Go to Settings > Application Settings from the top menu, and review all applications listed by choosing Authorized, Allowed to Post, and Granted Additional Permissions from the drop-down.

#12: Minimize Publishing Recent Activity To News Feed

The ability to control the Recent Activity news feed on your wall as described in “5. Control Automatic Wall Posts and News Feed Updates” in the original guide has now been removed from Facebook. Therefore, there is no way to stop notifications appearing on your wall when you add a new friend, comment on or like a friend’s status, note, photo, video, or link.

However, you can still stop certain kinds of notifications from appearing as Recent Activity on your wall news feed. This includes notifications when you become a fan of a page, are RSVPed to an event, receive a gift, join a Group, or are tagged in a photo or video. To do this, go to Settings > Application Settings from the top menu, and change the drop-down to Allowed to Post. For each of the applications listed below, click Edit Settings, Additional Permissions and uncheck the Publish to streams box.

• Ads and Pages
• Developer
• Events
• Gifts
• Groups
• Links
• Photos & Videos

There are two additional points to note:

1. Wall-to-wall posts with a friend are only visible to mutual friends of both.
2. You can still manually Remove all Recent Activity news feed posts from your wall.

#13: Control Privacy Of Wall Posts

Your Facebook status messages can now be public and searchable from external search engines like Google. You can also control privacy level on a per-post basis, but it’s better to set the default privacy setting for your wall posts. Go to Privacy Settings > Profile Information, and select Only Friends for Posts by Me.

Next, to control your wall privacy, go to your Profile page and click the Options link under the Share button. Then click Settings. Here, you can control whether your friends can write to your wall and who can see wall posts made by your friends.

It’s better to restrict who sees wall posts made by your friends. For example, college buddies may write things on your wall that may not be suitable for a professional audience.

#14: Hide Group Memberships In Your Profile Information

The Groups that you are a member of are listed in your profile. To remove them from your profile, go to Settings > Application Settings from the top menu, and click Edit Settings for the Groups application.

Click (remove) to remove Group memberships from the Info section of your profile. Set the privacy level for visibility of your group memberships to Only Me.

Note that when you post a message to a Group’s wall, a notification will still be posted on your profile. This step simply makes the list of groups invisible on your Profile page Info tab.

#15: Avoid Appearing In Advertisements

There are no changes to Facebook privacy regarding advertisements, but the location to access these settings has changed. Now, go to Settings > Account Settings, and click the Facebook Ads tab.

Set both options under Ads shown by third party applications and Ads shown by Facebook to No one to avoid appearing in any advertisements on Facebook.

#16: Understand Difference Between Deactivating and Deleting Account

These privacy changes in Facebook have prompted some users to quit Facebook altogether. If you decide that Facebook is not your cup of tea, you must understand the difference between deactivating and deleting your Facebook account.

From Settings > Account Settings, you will see an option to Deactivate Account. Deactivation simply puts your Facebook account in a suspended state. All your profile information, pictures, friends, and wall posts remain intact on Facebook servers, but are not accessible to other Facebook users including your friends. You can resume using Facebook as before simply by logging into Facebook again.

If you wish to permanently delete your account, you need to submit your request on this page. This will remove all your information from Facebook’s servers, and there will be no way to access or recover your account and profile information again.

This completes our guide to how you can regain your privacy in Facebook to the extent possible, while also explaining which privacy options are no longer available. How are these changes affecting your Facebook experience? Do you have any other tips to share? Shout out in the comments!

[via MakeUseOf]

Flip Your Complaints to Get Them Heard

Author and entrepreneur Seth Godin has a handy suggestion for making complaints—to customer support, bosses, or anyone, really—that will actually get heard and acted upon. The secret? Reverse your starting preface, and leave out the word “but.”

Photo by cote.

It’s easy to start off a complaint about your phone, your job, or your snow shoveling service by presenting your situation as an angry fact: “I’ve been a customer for X years, and this is ridiculous!” Seth suggests that starting your complaint with a positive assessment of where you’re at, followed by a little opening for improvement, will fare much better:

“In this economy, I’m lucky to have this job, and it’s almost perfect. It would be even better if…”

or

“I love owning this device, it lets me manage my life and contacts, and the one thing that would make it even better is…”

The important capping point is to never use the word “But” to make the transition between your satisfaction and your one niggling issue.

If customer service calls, in particular, are where you’re getting your high blood pressure these days, try a little reciprocity or being a “better customer”, in addition to some positive-thinking judo, to get your way.

Amplifying complaints [Seth's Blog]

[via LifeHacker]