Google's Version of Wikipedia

Google is launching a new online tool, Google Knol. In a recent post on the Google's official blog, Google unveiled "knol" defining it as a unit of knowledge. As per Google, knol aims for encouraging people to contribute knowledge. The tool is currently in its development phase and only a few invited people are trying it.

The new Google tool seems to be Google's version of Wikipedia, the most popular online reference work. The blog post says,
"A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read. The goal is for knols to cover all topics, from scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions."
This is what attracts people to Wikipedia. No doubt Google noticed the high search ranking of Wikipedia on its search reults and created its own edition of Wikipedia. It may be seen as Google's answer to Wikia, which recently launched a rival search engine (Wikia is a for-profit organization of Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's founder). It also clears doubts about possible cooperation between the two companies for higher rankings of the Wikipedia articles.

Google Knol, ofcourse, features some differences to make it distinct from Wikipedia. The tool is aimed to provide recognition for authors of the content, which is contrary to the anonymous content model followed by Wikipedia. It would be possible to have multiple articles (or knols) on the same topic from different authors. People will be able to submit comments, questions, edits, additional content, and so on.

Authors could also earn revenue from their knols by adding Google ads. This would definitely give some people a reason to write. But, this may result in spammers creating their knols about popular topics to drive in traffic. Unless, Google enforces a strong spam protection policy for the knols, these posts could become a big problem on the Knol network.

Google Knol appears to be a one big tool, aggregating the features of Wikipedia, Blogger and Yahoo Answers. The basic concept of having content on every topic and the editing capabilities are similar to that of Wikipedia. The idea of providing identity for the authors and enabling advertisements are analogous to that of Blogger. Yahoo Answers' ability to ask questions, provide answers and rate those answers are also embedded in Knol.

It would definitely be a difficult job for Google to beat the popularity of Wikipedia. Wikipedia has an well established base of people who start their topic search at Wikipedia and not at Google. Knol will create a new war of content on the internet and it would be interesting to see these big players vying for traffic.

Cheapest Hotels around the World

Are you looking for the best hotel deals online? You search ends at cheaperthanhotels.co.uk. Cheap budget hotels to five star luxury hotels, you can find them all here. Browse for more than 35,000 discount deals throughout the year for hotels at all major cities across the world.

Cheaperthanhotels provides all the information you need about the hotels. It allows you to compare these hotels and their prices. You can book the rooms online and receive an instant confirmation of your bookings.

A few featured European holiday destinations by cheaperthanhotels:

Vienna
Vienna, the capital city of Austria is a city having a rich cultural heritage. The city features for the plethora of famous museums, castles, palaces and other distinct architectural marvels. A horde music, theater and opera events are organized in Munich all year round.

Book a hotel in Vienna »

Berlin
The historic capital of Germany, Berlin is a blend of both modern and historic worlds. Visitors to the city are attracted by its beautiful churches, art galleries and museums. It has a good number of recreational places to keep you busy all throughout your trip. The city also features a diverse nightlife and there are numerous festivals celebrated all through the year.

Book a hotel in Berlin »

Munich
Munich is a large German city and a popular destination for tourists all over the world. You can get around the city to see museums, palaces and castles. The is particularly famous for its sporting facilities and has some architecturally flabbergasting stadiums.

Book a hotel in Munich »

Add Social Bookmarking Links to Blogger

Social Bookmarking has been gaining momentum from a very long time. Its an effective way to improve traffic to your website without costing you a penny. So, if you have good content and feel that people would want to bookmark your page, help them by adding links to bookmark your posts on the various social bookmarking websites.

Here's how to do it:

1. Open your Blogger template and select 'Edit HTML'.
2. Check the box which says expand widget templates.
3. Find the HTML element with class name post-footer or any appropriate element where your post footers are placed.
4. Copy paste the following code between the HTML tags:

<a expr:href='"http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&amp;partner=fb&amp;url="
+ data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title'>Digg this!</a>
| <a expr:href='"http://del.icio.us/post?v=4&amp;url=" + data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title'>Save on del.ico.us</a>
| <a expr:href='"http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=" + data:post.url
+ "&amp;title=" + data:post.title'>Stumble it!</a>
| <a expr:href='"http://reddit.com/submit?url=" + data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title'>Reddit it!</a>

So, improve your search engine rankings and drive in more visitors to your blog by putting these links beside your posts on Blogger.

Happy Blogging !!!

ASP.NET: Add a Rich Text Editor on your Website

If you need a Rich Text Editor on your ASP.NET website there's some good news for you. Kannan Sundararajan has written a Rich Text Editor control which you can directly use on your website.



The control comes with loads of features which include font styling, emoticons, code blocks and clipboard support. It also enables you to view the html code generated by the editor. You can read more about its features here.

The source-code of the control is shared and is available on CodePlex. Also, view the live demo of the RTE control.

Its a superb control to use with forums, blogs or content management applications. Just add the control to your page and give your users this cool interface.

Orkut Diwali Layout

Orkut has a special layout this Diwali. The layout could be changed by clicking on the Happy Diwali link near the 'logout' at top-right corner. Here's how my orkut home page looks this Diwali:


Looks good, right? See, what was special at Orkut on Diwali in 2006.

I wish all my blog readers,

Happy & Prosperous Diwali

Convert docx files to doc Online

You just got an email with a .docx file, which runs on Word 2007 but you don't have it installed on your PC. Here's a solution for you.

Zamar is a free online file conversion utility which allows you to convert .docx files to .doc files. It also supports interconversion of many other file formats for images, documents, music and videos. Your file is converted in 3 easy steps. Browse the file you want to convert, select the new format and enter your email address. A link for your converted file would be sent to your mailbox within seconds.

But caution, don't upload any confidential documents as your document is stored on the server and is accessible to any person having the link of the document.

If you want to add support for Office 2007 file formats for your existing Office 2003, you can download the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack.

Random Quotes using ASP.NET and XML

I recently created a random quotes generator to be put up on my website. The code could be used to produce any random text on your website, where the text is defined in a XML file.

The following is the XML file for use with the code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<quotes>
<quote id="1">
<text>sample quote</text>
<author>sample author</author>
</quote>
<quote id="2">
<text>another quote</text>
<author>another author</author>
</quote>
.
.
<quote id="15">
<text>yet another quote</text>
<author>quote author</author>
</quote>
</quotes>

Save this file as quotes.xml in your ASP.NET project. Now open the page where you would like to place these random quotes. Create 2 labels in the page design with ids 'labelquote' and 'labelquoteauthor':

<asp:Label ID="labelquote" runat="server"&rt;</asp:Label&rt;
<asp:Label ID="labelquoteauthor" runat="server"&rt;</asp:Label&rt;

Now, add the following code to the 'Page_Load' method of this page:

string strquote;
string strquoteauthor;
Random r = new Random();
int random = r.Next(1, 15);

XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(Server.MapPath("quotes.xml"));
while (reader.Read())
{
   if (reader.Name == "quote" &&
              reader.GetAttribute("id") == random.ToString())
   {
       while (reader.Name != "text")
           reader.Read();
       strquote = reader.ReadElementContentAsString();
       while (reader.Name != "author")
           reader.Read();
       strquoteauthor = reader.ReadElementContentAsString();
   }
}
labelquote.Text = strquote;
labelquoteauthor.Text = strquoteauthor;

In the above code, the while loop reads all the lines of the Xml file and the quote having the specific random id is displayed.

You can also, make a user control from this code which you can add to each page or the master page of your website.

Web-o-cabulary 2.0

With the augmentation of Web 2.0 technologies, a whole new technical jargon has evolved. Internet users are glutted with new terms and wonder about their meanings. So, here's a list of the 'Most Essential Vocabulary for Web 2.0' or 'Web-o-cabulary 2.0'.

AJAX: Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is a scripting technique to develop interactive and fast web applications with enhanced functionality. The most commendable feature of AJAX is its ability of partial exchange of data with the server, enabling the changes to appear on the browser without reloading the complete page.

API: Application Programming Interface is a code interface over which programmers can built their own applications. APIs make it possible for the programmers to use some great features on the web without any complex coding. Some commonly used APIs include Windows Live APIs for Maps, Rich Media, Photos, Search

Atom: Atom is a commonly used syndication format for web feeds. It is based on XML and is supported by most standard feed readers.

Blog: Blog or a Weblog is an online journal, which provides an easy to use interface for users to publish content. Blogs enable people to have an online presence without having any technical knowledge.

CSS: Cascading Style Sheets is a W3C standard for defining styles of the elements on a web page. It enables the separation of content from the layout, thus providing more flexibility and control of the elements on a web page. Also, it enables layering of the content on the page.

Feeds: Feeds allow you to get updates from the websites. It allows you to check the recent articles and content from web pages on the internet. A person may subscribe to a news feed to get the latest news right on his desktop.

Folksonomy: Folksonomy is the practice of collaboratively categorizing content by tagging the content under various connotations. This method is popularly applied in social bookmarking and tagging webpages and photos.

Mashup: Mashups are a interactive genre of web applications which accumulates data from various sources and conflates it in a single integrated application. Mashup generally collects data from Feeds and Web Services.

Microformats: Microformats are a set of simple open data formats, which allows the normal data in HTML and XHTML to be categorized by providing annotations in the existing markup. It aims at easier access of information such as contact addresses, locations etc making it easily placeable by the searching softwares.

Perpetual Beta: Perpetual Beta is the software stage where the software is launched and is always under constant updates, which could be monthly, weekly or even daily. It follows the principle of "release early and release often", thus a software is released at a premature state and new features are added frequently.

Podcast: Podcast is a form of a feed carrying digital media files which could be downloaded or streamed on media players. Online radio is a well comprehensible example of a podcast.

RSS: Really Simple Syndication is a collection of feed formats. It is used to syndicate updated content from a website.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization is a process of improving your rankings on the search engines by using a set of techniques, which include ameliorating the quality of content and code of the website, placing links at strategic locations on the web and adhering to some web standards.

Silverlight: Silverlight is a Microsoft technology to develop Rich Internet Applications, which run on browsers by downloading a small plugin. It provides enhanced user-experience and media functionalities and is a strong competitor of the Adobe Flash. Silverlight is a subset of Windows Presentation Foundation of the .NET 3.0 framework and is coded using XAML.

Social Bookmarking: Social Bookmarking is a folksonomy practice through which users bookmark pages on the web and create custom tags to annotate these pages.

Social Networking: Social networking is a method to promote online collaboration of people by creating communities of (net)citizens with similar interests. It is a popular method to connect with friends online.

Tagging: Tagging is a practice of annotating the web content by creating tags or keywords to identify them. Also see: Folksonomy

Weblog: See: Blog

Web Service: Web Services are the modules enable a programmer to use these modules in their programs without actually coding them. It allows machine to machine data transfer between applications in XML format that follow the SOAP standard.

Wiki: Wiki is a web application which allows you to easily create and edit content on the web. It is used to create collaborative websites and is a great tool for social content creation and organization.

XAML: eXtensible Application Markup Language is a declarative XML-based language by Microsoft. It is a markup language enabling greater collaboration between designers and developers by providing a common platform for both.

XHTML: eXtensible HyperText Markup Language is a standard W3C markup language, which is a reformation of HTML adhering to the XML standard.

XML: eXtensible Markup Language is a markup language which allows users to generate their own tags. It enables creation of structured data that could be easily exchanged over the web.


Note: As most other stuff of Web 2.0, this list is also in the 'perpetual beta' state. This list is bound to future enhancements and modifications.

TechVista New Delhi 2007

TechVista, Microsoft Research(MSR) India's annual research symposium, was a splendid event held today at New Delhi with focus on "Computing and Technology- Shaping the Future". Six magnificent scientists from diverse technology domains came under one banner to present some of the most marvelous research and developments in computing.

The first session of the event started with a talk by Dr. Rick Rashid, Sr. VP, Microsoft Research. Dr. Rashid's presentation was titled "10 Years into the Future". He started by showing some of the science fiction gadgets which are now real, like the data crystal is now a memory stick. He also displayed the concept of Wallet PC as it was in 1999, which we are using now as Windows Mobile. Rick showcased some of the cutting-edge research projects which would have an impact on the world by 2017. He apprised the advances in ubiquitous I/O and predicted that the standard white boards may soon be replaced by LCD boards. He demonstrated the SkyServer, which is a fabulous astronomy tool enabling you to view space as you view earth from Google Earth or Live Virtual Earth. It also enables you to create video tours of the the space. Other projects demonstrated in the presentation were SenseCam, a virtual black box for humans; Digital Photomontage, a superb tool for photo morping; and a traffic monitoring system in Seattle using data mining for streaming intelligence on mobile devices.

The next speaker at session one was Prof. Eric Grimson of MIT who presented his study on "Computational Applications in Medicine". He showed how image guided surgery could be performed using some advanced computational methods. He explained the construction of structural models using AI. He demonstrated the improvements in MRI technology and Enhanced Reality Visualization.

The last speaker of session one was Prof. Krithi Ramamritham from IIT Bombay. His presentation was "LAB<- ->FIELD : A Challenging Journey". He presented a project named 'AQUA' which is an acronym for 'All QUestions Answered'. It is a project where farmers can get all their questions answered by experts through an online system supported by Government agencies. AQUA features cross lingual info retrieval, suggestive search, offline and mobile versions. Prof. Ramamritham demonstrated how the research at lab went to the field and how the requirements from the field came back to the research labs, which again went to the field and a vicious circle followed.

Session one was followed by a Special Session by Mr. Kapil Sibal, Mr. Craig Mundie, Dr. Rick Rashid and Mr. Srini Koppolu. In this session, Dr. Rahid demonstrated another fabulous software - PhotoSynth, which allows you to create a 3D view from multiple ordinary pictures. Mr. Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft Corporation presented some advancements in computing and showed how the computing pendulum is moving towards multicore processors and software+services technologies. Mr Kapil Sibal, Union Minister of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, appreciated the technologies and suggested how these could be used in public projects in India. Mr. Srini Koppolu, Managing Director, Microsoft IDC gave a small talk about Microsoft in India. This session was followed by PhD poster presentations, where some great research work was presented by Ph.D. fellows.

Session two started with the presentation of Prof. Manuela Veloso, CMU on "Multi-Robot Intelligence". She demonstrated how multi-robots are programmed STP (Skills, Tactics and Plays) Behavioral Architecture. She discussed details about her research project, CMRoboBits. She also gave video demos of the robots which were programmed using some complex algorithms. This was, no doubts, the most exciting presentation of the day.

The next presentation was by Dr. Tony Hey, Corporate Vice President of External Research, Microsoft Research on "The Role of Computing in the Sciences". He demonstrated how advanced computational technologies can solve the problem of data deluge faced by most scientists. He explained that the key steps for information management are data collection; data processing, analysis and visualization; and archiving. He exhibited the use of mashups and eResearch benefiting the scientific community.

The last speaker of the day was Dr. Michael Kass, Senior scientist, Disney/Pixar and technical Academy award winner. His gave presentation on "Pixar's Production Process" and "Clothing Animation at Pixar". He discussed the details of the animation movie production process at Pixar. He then presented Clothing Animation technologies for which he had also won an Oscar.

In the end, MSR presented rewards for the PhD poster presentation. Overall, TechVista was fabulous event showcasing some of the most cutting-edge research and developments.

Add a Google Map to your Website

I recently used Google Maps API on my college website. It was somewhat tedious to read the API documentation and figure out how to code a simple map. So, here I'm writing a basic tutorial for adding a location map on your website.

Start by signing up for an API key. Go through this "Hello World" example of the Google Maps API. For a start, copy this code and run it. The first thing you would need to modify is the following:

map.setCenter(new GLatLng(37.4419, -122.1419), 13);

You would need the latitude and longitude of the desired location. To find out the coordinates of your desired location use the Google Map Search, go to your desired location and right click on the directions option to find the coordinates. The second argument (13) specifies the zoom level of the map.

The above code would produce the map of the desired location on your browser screen. Now lets see how to add-on some features on your map.


Adding an Info Window:

An info window is a call-out text from a particular location. To add an info window, just add the following line of code in the initialize() method:

map.openInfoWindowHtml(map.getCenter(), "any html formatted text here");

You can also add tabbed info windows, which I'm not discussing here to keep this tutorial simple.
Class Reference: GInfoWindow, GInfoWindowTab


Adding Controls:

Controls are a set of buttons which allow you to perform specific functions. To allow users to switch between different Map Types, viz. Map, Satellite and Hybrid; use the following statement in the initialize() method:

map.addControl(new GMapTypeControl());

You can add various other controls to the Map. To view the complete list of available controls, view the class reference.
Class Reference: GControl


Adding a Marker:

A marker is used to mark a position on the map. For adding a marker on a specific point add the following lines of code in the initialize() method:

var point = new GLatLng(28.631749, 77.116578);
map.addOverlay(new GMarker(point));

The above code places a marker on the desired point. You can also define a custom image as a marker using the GIcon class.
Class Reference: GMarker


These are just a few of the features of the Google Map API. These would be sufficient if you are planning to implement a simple location map on your website. For more advanced features of the Google Maps API, refer to the API Documentation.

Generate ASCII Art from Images

Here's an interesting code in C# which allows you to generate ASCII Art from your usual text images.

First a sample:
The above image is produced using normal ASCII characters. It is generated by a C# code written by Matt. The code renders an image by displaying a set of ASCII characters on the screen.

This ASCII art is reminiscent of the antediluvian DOS-like programs which created on-screen images using normal text. This code could be handy for people who like to create images for SMS-text messages.

You can download this code from here. Unzip the files, copy them to a New Website in Visual Studio and compile it to run.


Here's another sample generated from this code:

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

The image above is displayed by repeatedly using the '@' character of varying colors (you can verify it by copying the above image and pasting it on Notepad).

Tip: Try playing with the font-size and line-height properties in the CSS file to adjust the image size and sharpness.

AdSense: Remove White Space in Search Results

When you add a Search Box on your website using 'Google AdSense for Search' with the option: "Open results within my own site", the search results are opened in an iFrame of a very large height. This would cause a large block of white space to appear after the search results. You can remove this extra block of white space by adding the following variable value to your AdSense code on your search results page:

var googleSearchResizeIframe = true;

This would adjust the height of the iFrame according to your search results.

And if you need to specify a minimum height for your search results, include your search code in div tags and use the Cross-Browser solution for CSS min-height.

100% File Compression

Can you imagine compressing a file by 100%, i.e. compacting a file to 0 bytes? Sounds too astonishing. Well, don't be stupefied when you read that its possible to compress any file to 0 bytes.

BARF! or Better Archiver with Recursive Functionality can achieve a file compression of 100% by recursively compressing the file. The BARF compressor will compress any nonempty file by at least one byte. Thus, by compressing already compressed files over and over again, it is possible to eventually reduce any file to 0 bytes.

BARF is free, open source software, released under the GNU GPL. Its code is written in C/C++ and can be downloaded from the BARF webpage.

How it Works?
BARF uses recursive compression to compress the file. BARF compresses the files by using one of the 257 compression algorithms by selecting the best one at each stage of recursion. At each step it adds an extension .x or .x?? to the existing filename. This technique ensures that there is no disambiguation while decompressing the files.


I know most of you would like to try this out. But, some of you won't understand the technical jargon on the BARF webpage. So, here are the steps to try out file compression with BARF!

Steps for an Amateur:

1. Download the barf.exe(1 MB approx.) file and copy it to C:\Windows\System32.
2. Open the Command Prompt (Start>Run and type 'cmd').
3. To compress a file, type: barf c <filename>
   To compress multiple files: barf c <filename1> <filename2> ...
   To compress all files in the current directory: dir/b | barf c
   
4. Repeat the above compression step repeatedly until the file is compressed to 0 bytes or any other desired size. Make sure to append the filename with the extension(.x or .x??) at each step.
   
5. To decompress a file, type: barf d <filename>.x
   To decompress multiple files: barf d <filename1>.x <filename2>.x ...
   To decompress all files in the current directory: dir/b | barf d
   
6. Repeat the decompression step until the original file is created. Make sure to remove one level of extension(.x or .x??) at each step.
   

Note: Replace <filename> with the complete name of the file with its path and extension.

Tutorials for Mobile Phone R&D

Do you like to do R&D with your cell phones? Hey, I'm not talking about Research & Development over here, this R&D stands for Repairing & Destroying :-)

I found an exciting site for all those jerks like me who love to play with the screw drivers - people who enjoy doing R&D (secondary meaning) with their mobile phones and other electronic items. Without wasting much of your time (I know by now you would have started anticipating to open up your cellphone), I am giving away this link: www.repair4mobilephone.org

The website contains tutorials which would help you to upgrade, repair or disassemble a mobile phone of any brand including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, LG, HTC among others. The site also has do-it-yourself guides for mobile components like IrDA, Bluetooth, Battery and many other parts and accessories.

The few tutorials I went through were really good and I also tried a couple of them. Luckily, I was able to screw back the devices (mind it, I already have a good success rate in this).

And like all other stuff posted on this blog, I don't provide any guarantee on the content provided by third party websites. So, unscrew your cell phone at your own peril...

Happy R&Ding!!!

Imagine Cup 2008

Imagine Cup is the annual worldwide technology competition organized by Microsoft. It provides a platform for young people to apply their imagination, passion, and creativity to technology innovations that can create a better world. Each year competitions at imagine cup are based around a theme, which focuses on building technology solutions for real world issue.

Imagine Cup 2008, the sixth edition of this premier student technology competition, invites students to step up to the challenge of creating a sustainable environment. The theme for the current edition of Imagine Cup is - "Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment". Students get an opportunity to compete in a multifaceted competition that comprises multiple categories, each catering to a different technological or artistic affinity for cash prizes totaling more than $170,000 (U.S.).

The students can compete in nine competitions set up under three main categories - Technology Solutions, Skills Challenges and Digital Arts, each reflecting this year’s theme. Technology solutions comprises of Software Design, Embedded Development and Game Development. Skill challenges include Project Hoshimi Programming Battle, IT - Information technology and Algorithms. Digital Arts enables students to compete in Photography, Short Film and Interface Design challenges.

The world cup finals of Imagine Cup 2008 would be held in Paris, France. You can register for any of the nine competitions at: www.imaginecup.com

ShopWiki: A Wiki with a Difference

Remember the last time you looked for a product online. You must have browsed through multiple websites before settling for a deal on the product of your choice. Still, there would be a belief, that there exists a website which would have offered the same product for a lower price. But, you have wasted enough time searching for this best deal and don't want to fret about that extra money spent.

Now, don't you think there should be a website which could search products through various shopping websites, a site which could offer you the best deal and giving you the confidence that you really got the "Best Deal". That's exactly what ShopWiki does. It crawls more than 180,000 online stores and ascertains that you get what you are looking for at the best price. Also, it allows its members to review the products on the wiki.

ShopWiki allows you to narrow your searches as per your needs. It allows you to search products between different prizes, stores, brand, color and many other parameters. The site also sports buying and gift guides to help you find that perfect gift. Another great feature of the site is the Video Reviews. Users can submit their video reviews of the products in addition to the standard text review on the wiki.

ShopWiki offers products under various categories. I found the electronics section really interesting. Compare your favorite iPods and MP3 Players at the personal audio & video category. You will really be amazed to see the variety available. For the photographers out there, check out the latest in cameras and photography. There are a plethora of products to choose from - books, music, laptops, clothing to name a few. Just browse the site to see what's in store for you.

ShopWiki is all set to revolutionize the way we search and shop for products on the internet.

Hide Files in a JPG Image

Here's another method to hide your files from others without using any software (previous trick: Lock Folders without using a Software). You can hide your files on the guise of an image file.

Just follow these simple steps:

1. Take any image file, say image.jpg
2. Select the files you want to hide and compress them with any file compression tool (WinRAR, WinZip etc).
3. Place the image file and the compressed file in the same folder.
   
4. Open the command prompt (Start Menu>Run and then type 'cmd').
5. Navigate to the directory where you have stored the files (using the 'CD' command, examples).
6. Now, type the following command:
   copy \b image.jpg + compressedfile.ext
   (replace compressedfile.ext with the archive you make with the correct extension, eg .rar, .zip)

Done, you have embedded the compressed file in an image file using binary copy (copy /b). But, how to recover this file? Its simple. Follow these steps:

1. Open this image file in the same compression tool which you used to create the compressed file.
2. Select the option to extract this file.
3. You will see the files that you had embedded with this image.

Though, this method may not be as secure as protecting your files using complex cryptographic techniques, still it provides a simple alternative to protect your personal files on your computer.

Blogger in Draft

Blogger has launched a special version of blogger where people may use new features before they are added to the regular version. This special version is named: Blogger in Draft. The features here are in beta version and are updated regularly.

In this version, Blogger has currently launched Video Uploads, Podcasts, Polls and Search Box. Video Uploads allow you to directly upload videos to Google Video and post it on your blog. You can also podcast these videos. Polls allow you to create polls on your blog, which are added as a page element in your blog. Search Box uses Google's Custom Search Engine to search across your blogs and any outgoing links. The search results are displayed using AJAX on the top of your current page.

Blogger intends to introduce many more features in draft soon, which would eventually be added to the regular Blogger. All these new features will immensely enhance the functionality of Blogger. To get user feedback, Blogger in Draft maintains a blog, where people can post comments about these features.

To use the Blogger in Draft with your Blogger account, log-in to: http://draft.blogger.com

Read more about the Blogger in Draft, here.

Blogvertise: Let your Posts Earn

Are you a blogger who reviews a lot of stuff on your blog? Well, if you are one, you would definitely like to get some benefits for your critiques. But the problem is that, how do you connect to these advertisers. So, here's a solution: Blogvertise.

Blogvertise connects Advertisers and Bloggers for their mutual benefit. There are lots of Advertisers out there who would like to create a buzz about their products by getting featured on Blogs. Likewise, there are many Bloggers who would like to dedicate a few posts on their blogs for monetary benefits. Blogvertise provides a perfect solution for both.

Bloggers can earn between $4 to $25 for each post they write for Blogvertise. All posts have to be approved before they qualify for payments. Payments are made through PayPal after 30 days of your posts being approved.

Check if your blog qualifies to join Blogvertise. If it does, click here to register.

Adsense Ads with Rounded Corners

Google has recently added support for rounded corners for it AdSense Ad Units. There are two variants for rounded corners: slightly rounded and very rounded, the latter having the sharper curve.

To sport these ad-units on your website, login to your AdSense account and select the most suited "Corner Style" from a list of Square corners, Slightly rounded corners and Very rounded corners.

Alternatively, you may add one of the following attributes to your AdSense code:

• google_ui_features = “rc:10″; for very rounded corners
• google_ui_features = “rc:6″; for slightly rounded corners
• google_ui_features = “rc:0″; square corners

These rounded ad units go well with many web templates that sport rounded corners, a feature common in Web2.0 style sites.

Still not using AdSense? Start monetizing your website, click on the Google Adsense button at the right pane of this blog to get started.