September 2011

Play CityVille on Google+ Games

CityVille comes as a new addition to the exciting list of games playable on Google's latest social product - Google+.

Developed by Zynga, CityVille currently is the most popular game played on facebook with well over 70 million monthly active users and people playing games on Google+ have been waiting for its inclusion since its lauch and now finally, this much awaited game is out as CityVille+. Join now to play CityVille+ and get on building the city of your dream along with your friends. Enjoy!

Continue Reading >>Play CityVille on Google+ Games

Autumn Anniversary of Modern Computing Honors Ancient History

Late autumn, specifically in early December, is the anniversary time of what most people consider the birth of the modern computer. The first attributable device was invented by Konrad Zuse in 1936. His device begat the zeros and ones format called a binary system. His super-calculator enabled him to perform complex mathematical computations that had previously been, well, ruled by a slide ruler. Many of the intermediate computations found en route to the final answer were used more than once, and Zuse grew tired of tracking them. His device did that for him. But since mathematical equations were at the root of inspiration, was his actually the first mathematically-based device invented?

Reintroducing the Abacus

A simple device constructed from beads, reeds and often a wooden frame, the world as a whole was introduced to the abacus by the Chinese. Used and still used today for simple math equations, abacus experts can compute figures by moving beads up or down the rods almost faster than a modern calculator. However, the Chinese didn't invent the abacus: They just adopted it wholeheartedly around 2 BC and revised its format. Their earliest versions evolved into its current form of 13 vertical rods, bi-sectioned into differently sized areas. The upper area holds only two beads per rod. The lower portion holds five beads each. The Chinese call their abacus the Suanpan.

Early models of the abacus included a Roman version with eight vertical grooves which held varying numbers of balls in each groove. The model stylized with wax, as noted in Roman records, dates back to approximately 1 AD. But even that wasn't the earliest record of an abacus, for that was three years after the Chinese abacus was designed.

Enter: Mesopotamia

The exact origin date is unknown, but the earliest recorded use of an abacus to date was in Mesopotamia. Sumarians used an abacus-like device for the four centuries from 2700 to 2300 BC, which appeared as a tablet of successive columns, each with a value relative to their unique numbering system. Some scholars believe that the Babylonians later used an abacus symbol in their cuniform system.

From Mesopotamia, the abacus found its way into Egyptian, Greek, Persian and Indian culture. Each culture system adapted its principles to their own counting systems, but all used value-based balls or knots and manipulated them for calculations. The Koreans imported the abacus from China in roughly 2 AD, but the device didn't find its way into Japan until roughly the 1600s, and it again evolved to match local counting systems.

The Mayans are believed to use a similar system, called a nepohualtzintzin, that children were taught to use to track the sky. The approximated recreation of their design has shown extraordinary accurateness in computations.

Contemporary Status

Until as late as the 1990s, use of the abacus was taught in schools in Russia. The ancient mathematical calculators are still in wide use in Asia, Africa, Japan and elsewhere in the world.

The abacus is taught to blind people for tactile comprehension of mathematics, and the devices are often used for a lifetime. Complex computations on the device, once impossible, are now possible, compliments of construction revisions and improvements. Where the abacus was used originally for simple addition and subtraction primarily, it can now be used for computing square roots and even cubic roots.

A special abacus design, called the Binary abacus, is used to demonstrate the "on and off" positions of a computer in binary coding.

So as you use your keyboard and hear the clicking and clacking as you type, give homage to Konrad Zuse for moving us beyond the slide ruler and extra honors to the millenia of history behind the first calculating device known to Man — the abacus.

About the author: This article was contributed by Holly Miller, who writes for Coupon Croc. Looking to update all of your electronics? Save on the latest technology with an Argos discount code when you shop online.

Continue Reading >>Autumn Anniversary of Modern Computing Honors Ancient History

Google Search Basic Tips and Tricks

A Search Engine is an program designed to search for information on the World Wide Web that lets users to specify search words or queries and then it retrieves documents or pages on the web that matches to the words entered. The search results are usually presented in a list with the most appropriate result coming on the top. And over a time these search engines build a database of searchable terms that can be matched to websites.

Among all the Search Engines on the web, Google is by far the most popular and powerful search engine which has the ability to accept pre-defined commands as input and with its many special features it helps users find exactly what they're looking for. Using Google, you can search the world's information which includes webpages, documents, images, music, videos and more. Below discussed are some of the Google search basics you should know that can help you start off on the right track.

Simple is good when it comes to searching on Google and a search query need not necessarily be phrased as a question since stop words such as "what", "a", "is", "the", "for" etc., would be ignored by Google search. Also generally punctuations and other special characters including @#$%^&*()=+[]\ are ignored by Google search. All you have type in the search box is the specific keyword making sure your spelling is correct and Google will provide you with results that are most relevant to your search.

Boolean Query Usage in Google Search

Although generally the search queries are case insensitive, there are some exceptions as part of which you can use OR, AND operators (note that you have to type them in ALL CAPS).

For example, when you type a search query of the form,

x AND y it will show results of pages containing both x and y
x OR y will give you results containing either one of x, y

Google search can be used in tracking information of a package or item. Just put in the UPC code or barcode in double quotes and hit enter to get the information about that item. Also using "double quotes" around words comes very handy when searching for a particular phrase. When you put double quotes around a set of words in Google search, it will search pages matching for that exact words in that exact order you have typed.

Google Currency Converter and Calculator

Google search is a powerful currency converter, unit converter and calculator. For example, typing
1 dollar in Indian money (or)
10 usd in inr (or)
1 meter in centimeter or any other calculation you'd like to be done into the search box will give you the exact answer.

Search Weather and Time

Using Google search you can check the weather and time for many cities around the world. All you have to do is to type in "time" (or "weather") followed by the name of the city.
For example,
typing weather kakinada in Google search will show the weather for Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, India (my hometown) along with the status of wind and humidity in the region.

Google Dictionary Feature

Google search is my first choice when it comes to finding a definition for a word or phrase. Type define(space)the word or phrase to be defined to get definition of that word or phrase as given in different websites. Alternatively, to get the direct definition I'll just type "define:" (without quotes) followed by the word or phrase.

Importance of '+' and '-' in Google Search

When you attach a + immediately before a word, it searches for that specific word or item. Generally if you type the Google in the search box, it ignores 'the' as it is a stop word and searches only for the object word i.e., Google. So, if you want to search for web pages containing 'the Google', you have to type +the Google

Likewise, attaching a - immediately before a word works quite opposite to +. It says Google to exclude those terms from the search results. For example, typing -the Hindu in Google search gives results of web pages and documents not containing word 'the' before Hindu.

Continue Reading >>Google Search Basic Tips and Tricks

Embed Image Technology for Image Owners

With the increasing number of splogs and fake blogs that usually take away original images and republish it on their own website, it's getting difficult these days for Image Owners to benefit from their work. Like it or not this image piracy problem is a huge issue most blogs and websites are forced to deal with.

In general, as there are two solutions to any problem, one being straight forward primitive one which everybody can do and the second being the sophisticated knowledgeable one which requires a method of know how, this image piracy problem can also be solved either in the primitive or the sophisticated way.

The primitive solution to this problem is well known, which is nothing but disabling the right-click using JavaScript. Other widely used solution for this image copying problem which is also more or less a primitive one, is watermarking images by embedding information such as the original website URL. While the above methods may seem to serve the purpose, they aren't sophisticated and in any way useful to the image owner to get fully benefited. Contrary to the above primitive methods, the sophisticated knowledgeable solution that can help Image Owners is the new Embed Image Technology.

Released as a latest addition to the Embed Anything family, Embed Image Technology is all you need to fight Image piracy efficiently. Rather than making the images unavailable for reuse which doesn't do much good in terms of driving traffic back to you, this new Embed Image Technology will actually make all your images automatically embeddable with a link back to your website contained within each embed.

This is the best alternative you can provide to your readers preventing them from copying images without permission. It's clean, simple, and will bring a ton of SEO and additional traffic to your website. Other beneficial features of Embed Image Technology include:

Embedded images are clickable that will point back to the page where the original image was published on.

Overlay ad space provided on every embedded image where you can display your ad network of choice, or display your own promotion such as Twitter or Facebook Page.

Embedded Image

Ability to see which websites are embedding your images.

One click turn-off of unwanted image embeds on inappropriate websites.

Using Embed Image on your website or blog is as easy as it gets. All you have to do after creating an account is just drop a single line of code that contains your unique Publisher ID into your website's template, or install Embed Image WP Plugin if you have a WordPress blog. And That's it! From that point on all your images show a embed button upon mousing over them which when clicked by users gives a embed code to paste into their website HTML.

Try it yourself and post in your valuable comments.
No Spam Image Credit: buggolo

Continue Reading >>Embed Image Technology for Image Owners

9 Interesting WordPress Plugins of 2010

WordPress launches new plugins each day adding to their vast collection that intends to provide effectiveness and flexibility in user operations.

The following are the some of the newly added interesting plug-ins available for WordPress blogs amongst masses.

New Simple Gallery is the recent entry in Gopi's WordPress Plug-ins which is a useful plug-in for image lovers that automatically displays slideshows of user galleries.

The slideshow can be paused and resumed. Various fading effects can be applied to the images in the slideshows. When mouse is rolled over the Gallery a navigation control pops-up. The images can be set either in automatic or manual slideshow, images can be hyperlinked and associated description can be laid with the image.

123 Flash Chat WordPress Plug-in, is a very powerful tool which enables the users to create their own chat room in WordPress. The plug-in also allows the users to insert a chat-room to the sidebar making it quite flexible and easy to use.

123 Flash Chat WordPress Plugin screenshot

The 123 Flash Chat WordPress Plug-in is quite easy to configure and with the user's desired user-name a own chat room can be created in no time and it is safely hosted by 123flashchat.com

LinkXL, developed by LinkXL.com, this plugin enables Wordpress bloggers to automatically monetize WordPress blog. In just a few steps bloggers can sell text link advertising within existing content on a page.

For each website you add, you can set the maximum number of keywords allowed for sale on each web-page, set your own prices and also choose automatic or publisher approval. Besides bloggers, this plugin can be quite effective for large corporations and top sites that are looking to provide relevant ads to their clients and make money online.

WP-GeoMap, a recently launched plug-in by Iain Cambridge displays the location of the author who is posting. The location of the author is shown on Google Maps. With the help of php extension, maxmind's city web service and web service on api.codeninja.me.uk, the author's geo position can be displayed.

Enable Media Replace is yet another popular and recently updated plug-in by Mans Jonasson which allows the users to easily replace any uploaded media file by uploading a new one. All you have to do is to first locate the uploaded file you want to replace and click the "Edit -> Upload a new file" link and follow the on screen instructions.

This helps to save time and energy from deleting of previous file, renaming and re-uploading the new file. Thus using this real timesaver plugin, you can replace the old file with the new one in no time! No fuss, no muss.

Disqus Comment System is a service and powerful tool used for comments and discussions. Disqus makes commenting more flexible, easier and interactive while connecting websites and commenters across ongoing discussions. The Disqus impeccably integrates with Disqus API and syncing with WordPress comments.

This plug-in can increase the exposure and readership as it makes comments indexable by search engines, provides Subscribe and RSS options, and also the has the provision of importing existing comments and backup of existing comments. Other useful features of this plugin includes:

Threaded commenting and reply option
Full spam filtering, blacklists and whitelists
Disqus community widgets support and much more!

HTML Javascript Adder, is an amazing and recently updated plug-in that allows the users to easily add HTML, JavaScript, Flash embed codes to sidebar of their blogs or sites irrespective of the number of widgets.

With this plug-in the user need not edit any part of code or file for adding new widgets. The users also can have access to various features and settings for each widget they use.

WP Super Cache is used for generation of static html files from the users WordPress blog. Once the generation of the file is taken place, the web server of the user will serve that file rather than processing of WordPress PHP scripts. The static files are used to serve the users who are not logged in, who have not commented or who have not viewed posts having password protection. Static files are quite useful as over 99% of people visiting site fall under the above category and the processing of WP PHP is expensive and heavy for processing.

Easy Favicon is an amazing plug-in developed by Loane that allows the users to add eye-catching and easily recognizable favicon which helps to better brand their blogs.

Favicons WordPress Plugin Select Favicon

Users can add private images, logos, gravatar or can choose from several sets of included favicons.

Continue Reading >>9 Interesting WordPress Plugins of 2010

How to Boost the Speed of Broadband Internet Connection in Windows

Broadband having a high rate of data transmission is the high-speed access to the internet used by most net users worldwide. And the broadband technologies which are being used in most areas are DSL and cable modems. When using these Cable Modems or DSL Routers in combination with Windows operating system, you can fine tune the Tcpip registry entries to optimize and boost the speed of Broadband Internet Connection.

Note: Take great care while editing the registry because if you do it incorrectly, there are chances that can even render your computer unbootable.

Just follow the step-by-step instructions posted below carefully to successfully edit your registry and thus boost the speed of broadband internet connection. (caution - this is not for the faint of heart!)

1. To open Registry Editor, click Start -> click Run -> type regedit or regedt32 & click OK.

2. From the left pane of the Registry Editor, navigate to the registry key

3. Now in the right pane, find the following DWORD values and edit their value data as shown below. If any DWORD value doesn't exist, then you'll need to create it by clicking on 'Edit -> New -> DWORD Value' and set the values.

DefaultTTL = "80" hex (or 128 decimal)
The default value for this is 32 or 64. Change it to 80 in hexadecimal mode.
DefaultTTL DWORD value specifies the default time to live (TTL) for TCP/IP packets.

GlobalMaxTcpWindowSize = "5ae4c" hex (or 372300 decimal)
The default value data for this entry is 32767 decimal or less. Increase the value to 93440, 186880, or 372300. This DWORD value specifies the system maximum receive window size advertised by the TCP/IP stack.

TcpMaxDupAcks = "2"
Set the value of this entry to 2 in hexadecimal mode. This entry is used only when the receiver supports the fast retransmit feature and it generally specifies how many duplicate ACKs for the same sequence number constitute a signal to retransmit a segment.

SackOpts = "1"
The default value for this entry is 0, now set it to 1 in hex to enables support for selective acknowledgements as documented by RFC 2018.

Tcp1323Opts = "1"
This entry controls RFC 1323 time stamps and window scaling options. The default value is "3" which enable both the options. Set it to "1" in hex mode to enable windows scaling only.

TcpWindowSize = "5ae4c" hex (or 372300 decimal)
TcpWindowSize specifies the receive window size advertised by the TCP/IP stack. The default value is "7FFF" hex. As most of you use secure network behind a firewall, you can increasing this value to 93440, 186880, or 372300 decimal.

4. Exit Registry Editor and restart Windows for the changes to take effect.

Hope this helps...
Try it yourself and post in your valuable comments.
Broadband Image Credit - Gavin St. Ours

Continue Reading >>How to Boost the Speed of Broadband Internet Connection in Windows

Numismatics

Numismatics greatly deals with the study and collection of currency which includes coins, tokens and other related objects. Here I present you the coins collected both old and new ones by Dileep, who himself is a dedicated numismatist and philatelist from Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Being a dedicated numismatist yourself, if you want to keep informed and up to date about the latest trends and other aspects of your hobby then feel free to contact Dileep at your convenience. (Contact details are provided at the end of this post)