Amazon.com has published the Best Of 2006 List.
Now it’s amazon’s turn after PCMag to reveal what lied beneath thier customer’s heart. You can find the list here..
Some of the interesting rankings…
XBox 360 has got a berth in “Most Popular Gift Products”
Best Selling DVD : Pirates of Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest
Best Selling Electronics : Apple iPods (what else?)
Nintendo Wii has secured a place in Most Wished-For Products.
Microsoft Flight Simulator X Deluxe has got it’s berth in Most Popular Gift Products.
DivShare, Share the files the way you wanted
Finally I found this cool online drive which gives me unlimited storage to upload my files, albums at a super fast speed with no expiration set for any file.
DivShare, a new web 2.0 application is online now to offer you a high quality online storage and sharing platform. The user interface was very cool and simple to understand with out any hassles. Except the upload limit of 100MB per upload, there are absolutely zero restrictions applicable on this application. That’s truly a “WOW”.
There are basically 3 steps in DivShare
01. Select a file : Select one or multiple files (Right now there is no way you can select more than 5 files, but we can expect this feature in future 
)
02. Upload is done ! : Once you click Upload button, the site grabs your files as fast as it can and creates a shared URL as shown below. You can also see “More Options” which gives you various types of links you can use instantaneously. 
03. The Dashboard : This makes the divShare very much different than other storage providers such as Omnidrive etc. You can track your download count. You can even co-brand your downloads page, thus makes it easy to create a download gallery for you own site. Truly fantastic !
This application is simple but powerful and faster. I hope they will be adding few more cool features to this application to make the storage world more competitive and sweet for consumer like “you” and “me”.
Overall rating : 
Technorati tags: divshare, onlinestore, share
Get Vista style Start menu on Windows XP
Who doesn’t like the cool Windows Vista Start menu? I am very much addicted to my vista Start menu these days, and almost forgotten the old pal “Windows + R” keystroke. But how can we get this cool feature on Windows XP, the most favourite operating system for many users.
To address this demand, some cool guy has developed this Vista Start menu emulator for Windows XP.
Currently this cool utlity is under development and RC1 is available for Download.
The Best Apps of 2006 Index
Believe it or not !, the year 2006 is an “Applications Year” for me. Lots of innovation poured in to small but nifty tools, and enterprise level applications too. Everyone would agree that Web 2.0 revolution has got it’s footmark on this too. Lots of web based applications started beating the traditional desktop applications. This trend is surely a new wave and a warning for enterprise desktop software makes and OS makers. They have to revamp thier homes a big way. LifeHacker has posted “The Best Apps of 2006 list“. I don’t anyone else could make a better decision than LifeHacker on application front in deciding such a list. Since 1 year my life was hacked by Lifehacker blog
- Interestingly Windows Vista has got its place in the list (despite of the delay and critisism around).
Two google products “calendar and reader” also got a place.
Enjoy the World Applications, They make your life more meaningful on the stupid computer.
Converting YouTube Videos to Zune Videos
Well, I got a White Zune (accidentally, in a raffle ). I was quite impressed with this gadget (I am a “Believe_me_I_never_used_iPod” type guy..) in my first looks. The interface was very cool with nice zoom out/in effects of background wallpaper.
I quicky synced it with my local music store from my laptop. The experience of music and quality was awesome. But…I was shocked to see not all of my videos can be played directly by this player. Even the WMV yes, wmv files too. I thought, I can simply download all On-Demand technical webcasts to my zune and enjoy. But none of them are compatible with my shiny zune. 
Then I looked at YouTube for videos. YouTube delivers videos as flash content. But I figured out a way to enjoy these YouTube videos on my Zune (100% free of cost solution). Here is the way I followed…
01. Rip the video from YouTube
YouTube uses flash media to display videos. This is called FLV content. To download the video as FLV content, I used YouTube Video Downloader. Once you install, start this application. It will start in your system tray. Right click on the icon and click on “New Download…”
Copy the YouTube Video page URL as shown below…
Use the default folder and name your video in “Rename” box, if you want to give it a different name. Otherwise the tool will pick the name from Video title itself.
Copy the FLV file in to a folder, where you can play with tools.
Note : A product tutorial is available with the developer of this tool here…
02. Convert FLV files to MPEG-4 Video (MP4)
To convert FLV files to MP4, I used a tool called “Super”. This is a true Super tool which can convert so many formarts of video to any type of video.
Once you install SUPER, start it. You will see interface as follows…
Configure this tool as follows (One time job)
Select the Output Container : mp4 (MPEG-4)
Select the Output Video Codec : MPEG-4
Select the Output Audio Codec : AAC
Video Scale Size : Leave this as NoChange (Maintains aspect ratio)
Leave everything else as defaults.
Now drag and drop the FLV files in to the space shown in the above picture by Arrow mark.
Once you drop the files, the button “Encode (Active Job-List Files) will be activated. Click on it. Leave the tool until its job is done.
Once the tool is done with job, You can find all the MP4 files copied to destination folder you mentioned in SUPER tool. (Right click in the file list and select “Specify Destination Folder” where you can select a destination folder).
03. Sync the MP4 files to Zune
Copy all these MP4 files to your My Documents/My Videos directory (where Zune checks for videos).
Connect your Zune and start the Zune software. You can see the converted videos in the Zune software. Simple drag them in to Sync list of Zune Player and Click on “Start Sync”
Thats it ! You are done.Now you can enjoy the YouTube videos on your Zune..:-)
Technorati tags: zune, microsoft, youtube, super, youtubedownloader
Buy a Zune via Google for $20 less
Buy.com is selling Microsoft Zunes on thier website for a cool price $239.00 (atleast $10 compared to other merchants like staple and best buy. Wait…that’s not only the cool part of it.
You buy it using Google Checkout and get $20 more discount. Wow..You can get the player for $219.00 effectively.
Digg’s UX was now Improved (a LOT!)
Digg.com has got a major revamp in UI and UX (User eXperience).The first thing you would observe is the “Cleaner” interface of the website. The stories area was now moved to left hand side and makes the web site more readable and cleaner.
Some of the changes that made digg.com made looks cleaner..(more at Kevin’s Blog).
Navigation : This is a major change in the websites navigation. The left side navigation now turned in to a top, horiantal multi level panel navigation which makes more sense to the reader. Digg.com has also added two new sections for Videos and Podcasts. The videos section seems to be tough compitition for StumbleVideo (In looks and Stuff too).
Popular Content : Digg.com content is now shown along with time since when it was made popular and made it on to digg.com home page. This gives the sense of freshness and helps the user to choose the required content.
A new panel called “Top 10 in all Topics” has been added to the home page now. This is probably to drive traffic even on to all the topics and increase the traffic on digg.com (I feel most of the Digg.com users visit the home page and close the window…). Right beneath this panel, Kevin has got some space to add a new Google Ad panel.
Cloud View :This is still in beta (upcoming) stage. So right now I can see an empty page when I clicked on this option. But this seems to be an interesting feature and possibly could gives a meme graph of what’s happening on Digg.com at that second.
Digg Video:This will be the most envious section for Google. Because, they could’nt come up with this kind of cool interface to create a social favourite video site even after the huge buy of YouTube. This is basically a simple video rating system based on Digg.com dugg system. This can be the next big asset of Digg.com for sure.
Digg Podcasts: A big directory of podcast publishers. Digg.com has provided an inbuild audio/video player, so that you dont have to leave the site at all.
Now, Digg is going make a big difference compared to Slashdot. This leap can take digg miles apart in the race for sure.
Now it’s time for Scobliezer to re-consider digg.com back in his feedroll.
New Looks : Microsoft.com
Microsoft.com has got a new look for holiday season. Check it out.
BarCamp 3, Hyderabad, INDIA
BarCamp3 is all set to rock for tommorow @ Infosys campus, Hyderabad. The theme will be Consumer/Enterprise Software Oppertunities Around Web 2.0 Communities. The last BarCamp was hosted by Microsoft India at thier campus. If you want to know more on BarCamp, you should read this Wiki Page
This the first event that I ever heard of Infosys hosting till now. This will be the first event for me which I am gonna attend in Infy too.
-
Technorati tags: barcamphyderabad3, barcamp
Visual Studio 2005 SP1 is now available for Download
The much awaited VS 2005 service pack 1 was now pushed to Microsoft public downloads site. If you dont know what the heck is VS 2005, just skip this post , Otherwise VS 2005 is a flagship enterprise application development platform from Microsoft. VS 2005 SP1 has got around 70 enhancements including…
New processor support (e.g., Core Duo) for code generation and profiling Performance and scale improvements in Team Foundation Server Team Foundation Server integration with Excel 2007 and Project 2007 Tool support for occasionally connected devices and SQL Server Compact Edition Additional support for project file based Web applications Windows Embedded 6.0 platform and tools support
You can download the bits from VS 2005 SP1 Downloads Landing page
A mid air poiting device from Microsoft Research
Microsoft Research (MSR) has revealed a new mid air pointing device called “Soap”. Soap looks almost like a soap and feels too . This pointing device does not require a surface to identify user moves. Thus you can use this pointing devide in the air.
[via Linux Devices] Soap, contains two main elements: a “lentil shaped” core, and an elastic hull that encloses the core.
The core, made from two plastic hand sanitizer bottles, contains the functional elements of a wireless optical mouse with the sensor pointing outwards, according to the team. The hull (see illustration, below), made from a sock, encloses the core, which can move free inside the hull.
Watch this cool demo of “Soap”.
SavvyBytes
I got a new home for my blog. Now Savvy blog can be reached @ http://www.savvybytes.com
Thanks to WordPress.com for making this happen in just 5 mins. I love you WordPress.
I am now planning to design a cool logo for my blog too…
Stumble at Videos now
User favourites sharing service StumbleUpon has launched the new venture mashup called “StumpleVideo“. This is a smart service which does’nt host even a single video, but certainly decides which video suits your taste.
If you have’nt heard of Stumble Upon till now, you better go and install thier famous Stumble Toolbar and enjoy the most favourite web sites of the Internet world.
Stumble Video does a collective information gathering and polling on various Videos (Google and Youtube etc) to provide top ranked videos all the time to the customer.
All the videos are sorted in to categories called “Channels”. This makes StumbleVideo as a mini TV online to watch cool videos in one go with out searching for them. Very neat except the color they have chosen for website….I hardly can see anything on my screen. 
More coverage @ Techmeme, TailRank
Technorati tags: stumblevideo, stumble, videos, googlevideo, tyoutube
GOM : Codec Free Media Player
[The Best Media Player... I have ever seen]
We are movie lovers, We are DVD lovers ! But we hate the media players out there. The ultimate reason is, most of these media players (Including WIndows Media Player) does not play DVDs or Video for some unknown reason. In many cases It will be a codec problem. Earlier I have explained what is a Codec and Why should you need it to play Videos. I feel sometimes that what on this earth would lead Windows Media player not to have any required Codecs by default on an Operating system like Windows XP Professional. It’s weird and drives me nuts.
Ok ! Now lets see how can we avoid this problem. I want a media player which will never demand a codec to play my video files or DVDs. What is the solution ? I found 2 cool solutions.
Solution 1 : First and best option is to Install “GOM Player“. This player is absolutely free player and having a plethora of features which you cant stop yourself jumping here and there after learning them. GOM Player promises a complete Codec Free solution. It has got an embedded Codec system. To learn more about features…check here
Main Player Window
Preferences Window
Download GOM Media Player here
Solution 2 : VLC Media Player is another powerful media player out there in market. This is absolutely free and supports many audio, video formats by default with out needing any special codecs to watch videos.
You will be surprised to see a big list of features that are supported in VLC player. This player can also be used as a streaming server via Unicast or Multicast protocals. I have’nt focused much on this player, as I was more than happy to see GOM player in action for me.
Technorati tags: VLC, GOM, MediaPlayer, wmp, wmp11
del.icio.us tags: VLC, GOM, MediaPlayer, wmp, wmp11
Float around in TechMeme River
TechMeme is now moving one step ahead to take you towards fresh content on finger tips. “River” is basically a one stop view of last 5 days technews in headlines format in stop shop. This will give any reader a big refresh who does’nt get much time to read all the discussion stuff, but wants to be updated on a weekend. It’s like refreshing yourself on a friday weekend by reading all the happening in last 5 days.
What is this River of News Style? …Read more here
Read more @ Memeorandum.com Blog and TechMeme
[Update] : You might also want to read other famous River of News websites Megite River and TailRank River.
Google’s Web Toolkit is Open Soured now !
Google has made thier Web Toolkit open source software. That means, you can now customize that cool web tool kit as per your requirements. This source code is available under Apache 2.0 license. (via GWT Blog).
Read more @ Google Operating System Blog, TailRank Story and Techmeme Tracker
What you can do with Google Web Tool Kit :
Automatic serialization on communication for all Serialized objects in you application using Really Simple RPC
Better browser history management.
Hassle free multi-browser support (You dont have to worry on new releases of any browser)
Javascript Interop with in Java (use javascript with in Java)
My most favourite part of GWTK is Reusable UI Components. Now you can build your own Gmail interface
Internet Explorer 7 Optimized for Google
After yahoo, its now Google’s turn to optimize Internet Explorer 7. Don’t get confused on the word “Optimized”. They meant “Customized”
Internet Explorer Administrators Toolkit (IEAK) makes it easy for you to customize IE 7 as per your customer needs.
Google has customized Internet Explorer 7 for Google services and released as “Internet Exploer 7 Optimized for Google”.
When can we see a "signed" FireFox plugin ?
I have been using FireFox for a while and Installed fair number add-ins too. I felt the plugins are creating a strong backbone for FireFox.
But….
I had never seen a single plugin with a proper digital certificate which provides the authenticity of the source. I always get to see the plugin installation as shown below..(note : FasterFox is one of the famous plugins)…
When we can see a “Signed” FireFox plugin ?
Create PDF Documents for Free
There is no doubt that PDF is a de-facto standard for eBooks and cross platform documents. We love PDFs for the quality and compatibility. The biggest challenge for any PDF lovers is to “Create” them.
There are several ways, one can create PDF content for free. I did a quick search for the same and found the following ways…Thanks to LifeHacker.
01. Office : If you have Office 2007 installed on your machine, creating PDF will be a breeze of work for you. All of the applications in Office 2007 suite supports creating PDF content right with-in.
02. PDF Creator : This is an open source PDF printer available. Once you install this, you will be able to print any document as a PDF document. You can download it here.
03. PDF995 : PDF995 is a famous printer driver. Comes for Free of cost. You can download it here.
04. PDF Online : This is an online version of PDF printer. Supports many file formats including .DOC, .RTF, .PUB, .PPT, .MHT, .TXT, .PPS and many standard image formats as well. Visit PDF Online and convert your documents in to PDF Online.
[Update]
05. OpenOffice.org : My apologies for ignorance here. I was not aware of Open Office feature, as I am a full time Office user. Open Office is also an alternative office suite which supports PDF creation right with in.
Free Internet Video Player for Life
Democracy Player, the new member of amazing web 2.0 application family, plays almost all the video content available on internet via standard protocols available.
This player is 100% Free, Opensource software licensed under GPL.
Some of the cool features…
Play Anything :Play virtually any video– Quicktime, WMV, MPEG, AVI, XVID, and more. Browse your collection, make playlists, stay organized. One homebase for all your videos.
Internet TV Shows : Subscribe to any video RSS feed, podcast, or video blog. Explore hundreds of free channels with the built-in Channel Guide.
Search : Search YouTube, Yahoo videos, and Google videos and play what you want..
Torrent Client : Easily download any BitTorrent file. Fast. Then watch it in the same app. Simple.
This cute player looks exceptionally cool in user interface (looks more like iTunes…hmm better than that indeed)
