India Technology Blogs Network

Top 7 Useful Adobe AIR Applications for Bloggers [Killer Tech Tips]

Posted: 15 May 2008 07:30 AM CDT

This is a guest post by technology blogger Rakshit Khare from Aarambh.

Adobe AIR aims to facilitate access to web apps and services from your desktop. I was introduced to Adobe AIR applications just a few days back and now I am totally addicted to them. Out of a number of Adobe AIR apps that I tried and tested, here's a compilation of the top 10 which bloggers would love to have in their armoury.

But before that just make sure you have the latest version of Adobe AIR installed on your system. You can get it from here.

1. Google Analytics Reporting Suite

The Google Analytics Reporting Suite brings Google Analytics to the desktop. You can access your blog’s traffic statistics from your Desktop itself - you need not necessarily login to the analytics website.

2. ReadAir

ReadAIR

As mentioned before, you can access Google Reader from your desktop using this Adobe AIR application. ReadAIR’s features include:

Mac themed scrollbars and form elements
Add/Remove/Manage tags
Subscribe/Unsubscribe from feeds
Search your feeds
Auto software update

Another similar app is the Fresh RSS Reader

3. Twhirl

Twhirl is again a desktop twitter client, based on the Adobe AIR platform.

Some of twhirl's features are:

connects to multiple Twitter and Friendfeed accounts, cross-post updates to Pownce and Jaiku
notifications on new tweets
post images to TwitPic
search tweets using TweetScan
timeline filtering
localized to English, German, Italian and Spanish

4. Webkut

WebKut is an Adobe AIR application that allows you to capture web pages, or parts of them in a very simple way. It provides you 3 capture options: the entire page, the current view, or only a selection.

5. AIRPress

AIRPress is rich blog editor. You can create new posts, and manage your WordPress blogs AIRPress. The only issue is that it requires an older version of Adobe AIR (i.e., Adobe AIR beta 2)

6. Color Browser

Colour Browser lets you create and organize your favourite colour palettes. Sets of colours are easily viewable in a clean interface. Edit them, rearrange them, create new sets, and make your own. This is a must have application if you are going to design your blog theme or redesign an existing blog template.

7. ShifD

With ShifD, you can create notes and bookmark websites. You can add content with tags that are easily editable. These are then synced, and you’ll be able to access them from your mobile too.

I hope you like the above mentioned applications. If you know any other apps that may be useful to bloggers, please tell us in the comments.

Get latest technology and internet updates, tutorials, software reviews, tips and tricks by subscribing to Rakshit Khare's blog at Aarambh.

Partners:

TechZilo - useful software reviews, tips and hacks, web tips and applications

Is Google experimenting with font options in AdSense? [TechZilo]

Posted: 15 May 2008 04:23 AM CDT

Google AdSense does not have options for modifying font type, size or color. However, there have been reports of Google testing different font types for AdSense, live on various blogs. I managed to grab a screenshot of one such test - two different fonts on three ad units (two boxes and a skyscraper), all on a single page.

Google testing different fonts in AdSense? (click image for a larger view)

The above screenshot was grabbed from Torrent Freak, ~~a popular~~ the most popular blog about torrents and file sharing.

I hope that Google will roll out font options for the publisher, or better yet, allow the AdSense ad units to automatically inherit the font of the content around it (in post or in the sidebar, for example).

Have you noticed any variations in AdSense fonts? Tell us. If you have screenshots of it, link to it in comments and we will feature them here (with due credit to you, of course).

Partners:

Blog Creativity - blogging, SEO and WordPress (themes, plugins, hacks and optimization)
Killer Tech Tips - Software, Tips and Hacks You Can Use
ReviewSaurus - useful software reviews, web tips and applications
Visit TechZilo for more exciting content! View our top posts

Microsoft Worldwide Telescope launched [Madhur Kapoor's Blog]

Posted: 15 May 2008 03:34 AM CDT

In the previous post, i talked about Microsoft’s plan to launch the World wide Telescope project by the end of may. Now it has been released by Microsoft in ‘beta’. It’s a free tool that allows users to explore the images of the sky at night.

If you are looking to try it, i suggest that you use a fast computer. Its requirements are pretty high. You will find that it is a bit similar to Google Sky. You can explore the solar system, the galaxy, planets using your own choice of telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-Ray observatory center, the spitzer space telescope or others. You can not only view the present situation of the sky, but you can also view past, present and future locations of planet. The universe can also be viewed through different wavelengths of light to reveal hidden structures in the galaxy.

Overall, it is a nice tool for astronomy lovers and for people who are interested in learning more about the universe. But for having a good experience with it, you need a high end system with a good Internet connection

Adobe releases Flash Player 10 [Brajeshwar]

Posted: 15 May 2008 03:33 AM CDT

Adobe Flash Player 10 is available for download from Adobe Labs. Code-named Astro, the latest Flash Player is available not just for the MACs but also for the PCs and the Linux users. The general public can now beta test Flash Player 10 and file in their bug reports.

The latest drop also features some of the highly anticipated and requested ones. Some of the Key Features are;

3D Effects — Easily transform and animate any display object through 3D space while retaining full interactivity. Fast, lightweight, and native 3D effects make motion that was previously reserved for expert users available to everyone. Now, you would be able to easily move DisplayObjects in 3D with Actionscript.

Custom Filters and Effects — Create your own portable filters, blend modes, and fills using Adobe Pixel Bender, the same technology used for many After Effects CS3 filters. Shaders in Flash Player are about 1KB and can be scripted and animated at runtime.

Advanced Text Layout — Fully supported Bi-Directional Text Support. A new, highly flexible text layout engine, co-existing with TextField, enables innovation in creating new text controls by providing low-level access to text offering right-to-left and vertical text layout, plus support for typographic elements like ligatures.

Enhanced Drawing API — Runtime drawing is easier and more powerful with re-styleable properties, 3D APIs, and a new way of drawing sophisticated shapes without having to code them line by line.

Visual Performance Improvements — Applications and videos will run smoother and faster with expanded use of hardware acceleration. By moving several visual processing tasks to the video card, the CPU is free to do more.

Dynamic sound generation — Dynamic sound generation extends the Sound class to play back dynamically created audio content through the use of an event listener on the Sound object. Tinic Uro have more details on this — Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

FileReference runtime access to files. See you no longer need to send the file to the server to do this.

Typed Arrays.

GPU Blitting/Compositing.

Download, discuss with the community or read the FAQ about “Astro” Flash Player 10.

Adobe releases Flash Player 10

Rights reserved © Brajeshwar 2001-2008.
Quotes, excerpts or reproduction of any of the article is possible solely under the Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative License.

Download Free book: The Photoshop Anthology [Brajeshwar]

Posted: 15 May 2008 02:51 AM CDT

Sitepoint is giving away an entire 278 page Photoshop book for free (pdf). It will only be up for grabs for 30 days. The entire 278 page book, yours to keep, forever! The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques is the ultimate Photoshop compendium for web designers.

It’s brimming with tried and tested real-world Photoshop solutions that will add impact to your next web design project. If you’ve ever been stuck for inspiration, have puzzled over just how to create a shiny aqua-style button, or wanted to create that seamlessly tiling background image you saw on a site recently, you need download this book.

If you want to know more before downloading the book, check the details at Photoshop Support. Here are some excerpts;

Who Should Read this Book?

This book is ideal for all web designers working with Photoshop: if you’re new to the application, there’s enough beginner material here to give you a great grounding in the basics, but if you’ve got a bit more experience up your sleeve, there’s coverage of a multitude of advanced tutorials for you to get your designs looking beautiful.

What Version of Photoshop do I Need?

Most of the techniques in the book will work regardless of the version of Adobe Photoshop that you’re using. However, the book is intended for web designers using Photoshop CS2, and there are some solutions that make use of the newer features in this version. Some of the shortcuts differ between versions of Photoshop, so keep this in mind if you’re working with an older version.

Rights reserved © Brajeshwar 2001-2008.
Quotes, excerpts or reproduction of any of the article is possible solely under the Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative License.

Zoho supports Google & Yahoo sign-ons - You can’t turn away from it now! [ReviewSaurus - The Techie Dino!]

Posted: 15 May 2008 02:27 AM CDT

Zoho has announced the most wonderful feature and the feature is such that any person who cribs about having too many accounts to handle, won’t be able to say anything. Zoho now supports the ability to sign-in to Zoho using Google and Yahoo accounts!

If you already have a Zoho Account (signed up with your Google or Yahoo! email address), you’ll be logged into your Zoho account automatically.
If you don’t have a Zoho account with their Google or Yahoo! email address, you can simply login and use Zoho Services with your Google or Yahoo! credentials
You can also import contacts from each of these accounts to Zoho directly from the contacts section.

This update is wonderful in lot of ways and the best use is that it will allow not only Zoho users to share the documents with ease amongst those users who don’t have Zoho accounts and they won’t have to sign up for Zoho, just to work on that particular document.

Now, many friends of mine won’t be able to give me any reason for not using Zoho and will definitely switch from Google Docs. I personally know hundreds of people who don’t use Zoho because they didn’t want to maintain another account even though they liked it’s functionalities and features.

For more information, you can refer to the FAQ provided by Zoho.

Partner : TechZilo - useful software reviews and hacks, web tips and applications
CopyRights : ReviewSaurus

Windows XP SP3 (service pack 3) Install problems! [ReviewSaurus - The Techie Dino!]

Posted: 15 May 2008 01:41 AM CDT

After the release of Windows XP SP3 there are thousands of people who are facing various problems. The problems are from installation of SP 3, to post installation problems. All these problems occur because people really don’t follow the correct way of installing the service pack :

In order to ensure that you don’t face such a problem please follow these steps -

1. Download the service pack 3 from here (official microsoft download) (direct link).
2. Restart the computer and boot the computer in safe mode.
3. Install the SP 3 from there.

Note : If you don’t know how to boot in safe mode, then simply exit all the third party software and especially antivirus, firewall, anti-spyware etc.

Please note : Some people who are using Norton internet security are reporting that it’s giving false positives after they install SP3. It’s telling ctfmon.exe as a keylogger. It’s just a false positive and you should ignore that alert from Norton internet security.

Partner : TechZilo - useful software reviews and hacks, web tips and applications
CopyRights : ReviewSaurus

Send free sms to India from Desktop with AOL.IN [Technospot.net]

Posted: 14 May 2008 11:43 PM CDT

AOL.IN has now allowed to send free sms to any Indian Mobile by simply adding a buddy and a phone number to it through Desktop ( AOL Mail or AOl Messenger). This feature also allows the recipient mobile user to answer back to those SMS instantly. Currently the service providers included are Airtel, Vodafone, Spice, Aircel and MTNL.

This will be a huge setback to the Already discussed free sms services in India which we talked about few days back. You can get the all the details at the AOl.In Promos

About The Author of this article:
Ashish is one of the co-author of this blog and writes on various interesting softwares, PC tips and more. You can read more of his articles here.

Your Play Ground

	Now since you finished reading the article, Let us Engage and do one or all of the mentioned things below
	Click to save on your favorite Social Bookmark Site Add to del.icio.us \|\| Submit to Digg Add to Yahoo MyWeb \|\| Add to Google
	Add your Comments or Discuss further in our forums
	Read More Stories from E-Commerce

10 Onsite optimization quick fixes for your blog [Daily SEO Blog - SEO tips for wordpress and blogger users]

Posted: 14 May 2008 10:38 PM CDT

This week, we’ll be focussing on onsite optimization strategies and quick fixes that will give you a shot up the ladder. Less time, quick work and immediate results are what we are talking about.

Today, let’s discuss twelve super quick fixes for your blog that will help you get that extra boost on the search engines. If yours is a well indexed blog, I’m assuming that the results should show up in a week or less on the SERPs. Ok, so here goes.

Add an H1 tag to your headings and titles.
Check your blog theme. Select your article title, and view “selection source” (use FireFox for this) and check if the title is put within an H1 tag. If it isn’t you will have to tweak your template and stylesheet to get this done. Make sure that every title is within an H1 tag.
Use of <strong> tags.
You already know that strong tags are best weapons to highlight keywords to search engines. But have you been using it properly? Again select your article text, and view the source code. See if there are strong tags used at all. Strong tags should appear whenever you bold any part of the text. And the reason why you do it not only because you want to highlight a part of the text visually but tell to the search engines that those are your keywords.
I wouldn’t really recommend you to use strong tags for each end every keyword you use in the article. Use it wisely and carefully. If you have been using them too frequently, slow it down.
And, if you have been using bold tags instead of strong tags, convert all of those bold tags to strong tags, by tweaking your CSS.
I would suggest you to use strong tags for phrases like “windows application download here” or “mac v\s windows article read”.
Don’t annoy readers with strong tag
Now that you are using optimum number of strong tags, make sure that they don’t hinder with the readability of your blog. It looks awkward when every keyword appearance in your article looks in bold and readers would not get any clue on why the text is bold. Use your CSS wisely and make sure that all the strong tags inside the articles does not jut out as bold text, rather it should only look so in the source code.
Use “rel” tags for your links
Rel tags are relatively not popular and this is the reason why I would insist on them. Rel tags are not used for normal external links but tag related items. So it means that using more tag elements would help, so use it wisely.
Use “title” for hyper links, internal and external
The title tag too is not used wisely by bloggers because when you insert a link, people don’t really care to fill in all those details, instead only paste the URL. I’d suggest that you use “title” tags for all links internal and external as it gives quite a lot of information for the search engines about what the link is about. Be descriptive using the title tag with as less as 3-4 words, that might be the best practice, but feel free to tinker around ad find your best formula.
Use of “Nofollow
No follow tags are not just for advertisements. You can use them wisely to design your page rank. Check all your external links (use a spider simulator or google webmasters) and filter out all those links (or the necessary) with nofollow so that you retain your page rank. Don’t use nofollow on all the external links, that will make google to flag your blog. Instead, may be check all those low PR pages on your site and analyze if there are lot of external links from them. If they are huge in number, reduce the juice flow by limiting with “nofollow” tags.
Rewrite your categories
Categories and tags are great sources of content for search engine. So make sure you use sensible and worthwhile category phrases. A category like “Chocolate biscuits” makes more sense than “Biscuits”, so rewrite them and make them more descriptive so that search engines can elicit more information from them.
Avoid duplicate content or minimize it.
We’ve made numerous reference to this situation. Use all those strategies like cutting short the article length in homepage, using nofollow etc to curb duplicate content issues.
Footer text tweaks
Rewrite or rearrange your footer text if you have one with worthwhile information. If you have a copyrighted theme, you may have to keep the copyright information, but also make sure that you add information that gives you that extra mileage. More information on footer text here.
Page size
Check your homepage file size now with this tool. If it’s on the higher side and takes time to load, you got to cut it short and use light weight code. Sometimes, when the theme is not CSS, XHTML valid this happens and particularly when you are using a fancy theme, it is common. I’d suggest that you cut it down and use good healthy CSS to trim down all those frills and tweak the code to a normal size so that, the page loads quick and makes crawlers indexing quick and easy, not to mention the readers pleasure.

Copyright © 2008 DailySEOblog.com. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.dailyseoblog.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Do you want to place your link here for just $ 10 ? Contact me now.
Ask your doubts on SEO at the discussion forums and get them answered by experts. FREE of course!

10 Onsite optimization quick fixes for your blog

Random Posts

Free Designer Templates for Microsoft Office 2007 [-| Life Rocks! 2.0 |-]

Posted: 14 May 2008 09:51 PM CDT

Microsoft has made available six free templates for Office 2007 and Office 2008 (for Mac) with 9 color options. If you are using the latest version of Office suite, you can download the templates for free. The best feature of these designs are that each of them have templates for presentations, spreadsheets, invoices, letterheads, business cards, email blasts, and newsletters.

There are six designs available now, once you select the design, you can chose from nine different colors and then click on the download template button. These templates are zip files and you can use them directly. The templates are of new file formats (.docx, xlsx etc), so they wont open in older versions of Office.

If you are using Office 2007, then you should be definitely checking out these templates.

Download Office 2007 Designer Templates [ via CybernetNews]

Add Google Reader To Firefox Sidebar [dailyApps]

Posted: 14 May 2008 07:17 PM CDT

Google recently updated the mobile version of Google Reader. The New version works very well with iPhone and other smartphones. The good news is that even if you don’t have an iPhone you can enjoy the mobile version of Google Reader from your Firefox Sidebar.

Like other web apps that are designed for the iPhone interface, Google Reader fits very well in Firefox (and other browsers) sidebar.

Looks nice isn’t it? Adding one to your own Firefox is simple. Just follow these steps..

Open the Bookmarks Manager (Bookmarks/Organize Bookmarks)
If you are using Firefox 2, then in the File menu select New bookmark and in Firefox 3, press Organize in the toolbar and select New bookmark
Enter a name, http://www.google.com/reader/i/ for location, and ensure to check Load this bookmark in the sidebar.
Press Save Changes and now you can select the bookmark to load Google Reader in the sidebar.

bookmark-capture

Here are some more services which work very well with Firefox Sidebar. To use any of these follow the instruction as above, and just replace the location URL when required.

Facebook Chat, use the location as http://www.facebook.com/presence/popout.php
Netvibes Mobile, use the location as http://iphone.netvibes.com/
Zoho Mobile, use the location as http://mini.zoho.com/
Facebook for iPhone, use the location as http://iphone.facebook.com/

Know about some more cool services that work well in the Firefox sidebar. Drop in your comments so that everyone can know about it..

Yahoo released a new version of the add-on Del.icio.us for Internet Explorer

del.icio.us-logo

The new add-on brings on the same experience which Firefox users with the Del.icio.us extension to Internet Explorer.

New Features for Del.icio.us Internet add-on includes;

Near instantaneous searching with very large accounts (over 10K bookmarks)
Full del.icio.us sidebar and toolbar implementation with bookmark sync and typedown search
Toolbar indicators for new network activity and links for you
Works on IE6, IE7, and IE8 beta on both XP and Vista

Download Del.icio.us add-on for Internet Explorer.

[Delicious Blog] [Img: CC License]

Flock Releases a Beta version 1.2 with Digg, Pownce and AOL mail integration

flock-logo

Flock the popular social browser got even more social with integration of Digg, Pownce and AOL Mail to the already existing integration with Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube.

Here is complete list of Social networks Flock supports now.

People: Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Pownce, Twitter, and YouTube
Media Sharing: Photobucket, Picasa, Piczo, Blogger, Blogsome, LiveJournal, and Typepad WordPress.com, and Xanga
Online Favorites: Del.icio.us and Magnolia
Webmail: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo! Mail.

Download Flock 1.2 Beta

[CyberNetNews]

Thunderbird released a new version 3.0 alpha codename Shredder

thunderbird-logo

Thunderbird the popular desktop email client have released a new alpha version 3.0 codename Shredder.

The main changes in Thunderbird Includes

The new Add-ons Manager (Tools > Add-ons) can now be used to download and install a Thunderbird customization from the hundreds of Add-ons available from our community add-ons website. When you first open the Add-ons Manager, a list of recommended Add-ons is shown. Note that few add-ons are compatible with this early alpha at the time of release, as add-on developers need to upgrade them.)
The address book can now read data from Mac OS X's system Address Book, but that feature is currently disabled by default. To enable it, see this blog entry
New Crash Reporter (Breakpad) to report crashes in Thunderbird.
Searching bodies of messages no longer produces as many false positives and has become more accurate in some multilingual situations.
Improvements to our JavaScript engine have resulted in continued improvements in performance.
On the Mac, Thunderbird is now a native Cocoa application.
There is a version of the DOM Inspector that works for Shredder Alpha 1, available from Mozilla Add-ons.
There is a version of the Venkman debugger that works for Shredder Alpha 1.

Download Thunderbird 3.0 Alpha codename Shredder.

[GHacks]

Technorati Tags: Roundups,Software Roundups,Flock,Flock 1.2,Del.icio.us,Del.icio.us add-on,Thunderbird,Thunderbird 3

© Keith Dsouza for Techie Buzz, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Have a Solution Or Something To Share
Visit Techie Buzz Forum and let the world know. Not yet registered yet, Start by Registering at the Techie Buzz Forum it's easy and simple.

Who's linking ? Technorati BlogPulse Google
Want more on these topics ? Browse the archive of posts filed under Roundups.

---
Related Articles at Techie Buzz:

Create Polls for your Blog with Polls Boutique [-| Life Rocks! 2.0 |-]

Posted: 14 May 2008 01:40 PM CDT

Running a poll on your blog or websites lets you know about the opinion of your readers and there are lots of sites which offer free polls. Polls Boutique is a service which allows you to run free polls on your blog. The advantage of using Polls Boutique is that their polls support rich media, which means users can ask a question using video, audio, pictures and hyperlinks.

Creating a poll widget is quick, simple and free. The widget is fully customizable and can blend in perfectly with any design. You can choose different colors, and even place your own image or logo as your poll’s background. Polls Boutique also offer in depth statistics like result segmentation by sex, age, location
and even Zodiac sign.

The poll widget works with Wordpress, Blogger and TypePad.

Polls Boutique Home Page

Ultimate List Of Twitter Applications and Websites [Techie Buzz]

Posted: 14 May 2008 01:25 PM CDT

Twitter is a real addicting service and I have been using it in and out for quite some time.

Over the time we have come across many useful desktop clients and websites which help make your twitter experience better.

Bringing to you the ultimate list of twitter tools to help you keep tweeting.

twitter

Twitter Desktop Clients

There are various ways in which you can update your status on twitter, but the best I think is updating it directly from the desktop.

If you have not been using a twitter desktop client or are looking for various alternatives, here is the ultimate list of twitter clients which will make updating your status much more easier.

Thwirl

Thwirl is a Adobe Air application that allows you to update your status from the desktop.

Digsby

Digsby is a multiprotocol IM tool which provides you with twitter support.

TwitterIM

TwitterIM is a solution for MSN and ICQ users. It allows you to update your twitter using MSN or ICQ messengers. Our Review.

Witty

Witty is a twitter client made for Windows Vista. Our Review.

OutTwit

OutTwit is a twitter client for Microsoft Outlook, you can directly update your status from within Outlook. Our Review.

Twessenger

Twesseneer is a twitter add-in for Windows Live Messenger.

Twadget

Twadget is a Vista Sidebar Gadget for twitter.

TwitterFox

Firefox extension that notifies you about your friends statuses in twitter.

Spaz

Spaz is a open source desktop twitter client for Mac, Windows and Linux.

Twitter Websites

There are lots of websites that help you do different things with your twitter account. You can schedule your twits or turn it into a feed, she what people are linking to and more with them.

Check out the list of websites that you can use with your twitter account.

TwitResponse

TwitResponse allows you to schedule your tweets for the future. Our Review.

TweetLater

TweetLater allows you to schedule your tweets for the future.

TwitterBuzz

TwitterBuzz is a website which aggregates content from twitter and shows you what users are linking to.

TwitterFeed

TwitterFeed allows you to post your blog posts as tweets to twitter over a specified interval of time.

Twitterholic

Twitterholic shows you the top 100 users based on the followers they have.

Twittersearch

Twittersearch allows you to search tweets.

TwitThis

TwitThis is a service which allows you to add buttons to your website for users to tweet your blog posts.

Twittervision

Twittervision provides you with a real-time geographic visualization of posts made to twitter.

Do you use any other clients or websites, do let us know in the comments so that I can try them out, and by the way you can also follow me on twitter.

Technorati Tags: Twitter,Twitter Apps,Twitter Websites,Twitter Desktop Apps

---
Related Articles at Techie Buzz:

Thunderbird 3.0 Alpha (a.k.a Shredder) Released [TechBuzz]

Posted: 14 May 2008 01:19 PM CDT

Mozilla Messaging has released the first alpha of Shredder email client (or better known as Thunderbird 3.0). This version of Thunderbird uses the same Gecko 1.9 engine, which powers Firefox 3. This means, you’ll get the same performance improvements which were built into Firefox 3.

Thunderbird 3.0 Alpha 1 features tabs for messages. Instead of opening messages in new Windows, Thunderbird 3.0 lets you open them in new tabs, just like Firefox. I find this really amazing because it will help me cut down the clutter and same some screen real estate.

You’ll also notice a shiny new Add-on Manager, which resembles a lot like Firefox 3’s Add-on manager. When first opened, it will show you the list of recommended add-ons. Breakpad crash reporter replaces the old crash reporter in this version. For Mac users, Thunderbird is now a native Cocoa application and can read data from Mac OS X’s Address Book.

Lightning Calendar add-on was supposed to be integrated, but it hasn’t been integrated in this release. Hopefully, we’ll see Lightning in future versions of Thunderbird 3.0. At this point, we can’t consider Thunderbird to be almost stable because many features are yet to be added and bugs are left to be weeded out.

Download Shredder Alpha 1 | Release Notes

[Via: Mozilla Links]

IT Helpdesk [Techtites]

Posted: 14 May 2008 01:10 PM CDT

Hopefully, all IT Helpdesks are not like this! Though I do know several that are

Del.icio.us Bookmarks Extension for Internet Explorer [Quick Online Tips]

Posted: 14 May 2008 12:57 PM CDT

Firefox users have been utilizing the full power of del.icio.us social bookmarking, while Internet Explorer users had to continue with a limited feature version. Now a newly released del.icio.us bookmarks extension will let Internet Explorer users enjoy most of the best features of the Firefox extension.

An overview of the IE features reveals Instantaneous searching with thousands of bookmarks, Full del.icio.us sidebar and toolbar implementation with bookmark sync and typedown search, Toolbar indicators for new network activity and links for you and it now works on IE6, IE7, and IE8 beta on both XP and Vista. Download here (.exe). For the regular IE buttons, go here. Visit the Yahoo! Group for downloading and discussing the Internet Explorer release.

Recently they had released an enhanced version of Firefox Add-on for del.icio.us, especially for Firefox 3 users that promised some amazing new features like Jump to Tag feature, bookmarks using the keyboard, new layout for saving bookmarks, Status bar indicators for network activity, new links for you, and the del.icio.us website and and a Classic mode for users who just want simple buttons without the overhead of sync. Download here (.xpi), but remember it is prerelease version under trial. For the regular Firefox extension, go here.

Now IE users can tap the full power of del.icio.us right from their browser.

ReadAir: Desktop Client for Google Reader [Quick Online Tips]

Posted: 14 May 2008 12:32 PM CDT

I always wanted to use my favorite RSS aggregator Google Reader as a desktop client, but it was available online only. Check out ReadAir, an OSX themed Desktop Client for Google Reader, and experience a new way to read your feeds.

Readair works on both Mac or Windows and was built with Adobe Air. If the Googly design bothered you, then welcome the sleek Mac OSX design. ReadAir will allow full synchronization with Google Reader Account, let you manage tags and subscribe / unsubscribe from feeds. You can also search your feeds and resize the viewing pane.

I installed Adobe Air and then installed ReadAir. It was all a smooth installation, and in minutes all my feeds were in ReadAir. Then I realized that ReadAir still needs more work to give me the full Google Reader experience.

Firstly all feeds were unread, which is expected once you import to a new reader client, but there was no unread count. Then I realized that my favorite shortcuts do not work and I cannot read more than 20 articles per feed. I checked my own feed, but could not see embeded Youtube videos, the feedflare was gone and I could not star or share the articles. Autologin is good, but I am still figuring out a how to logout.

ReadAir is hosted on Google Code and the creator is aware of the drawbacks and is working on the todo list. I see a lot of potential for this tool if all Google Reader features can be incorporated well enough. Remember that this ReadAir has an Auto software update feature and hopefully new versions will fix several of these issues.

Maybe Google Reader will release its own desktop version, different from Google Desktop that will let Google reader fans power up their desktops with more feeds..

Found via Sizlopedia.

Power Plugin to Customize Kontera Ad Links [Quick Online Tips]

Posted: 14 May 2008 11:47 AM CDT

Do you keep editing the Kontera code whenever you need to match it to your new site design? Do you wish to display Kontera ads only after the post is one day old? Do you want to display Kontera only on your numerous comments, and not the content? Its simple.

This degree of customization is possible now with the latest Kontera Wordpress Plugin which promises to customize Kontera to your liking. Some new features are -

* Add the ContentLink tag to all your pages in one click
* Block ContentLink ads from appearing on particular posts or categories
* Determine when ContentLink ads will begin appearing on new posts
* Display ContentLinks only on posts
* Display ContentLinks only on comments
* Change ContentLinks color

Download WordPress Plugin for WordPress 2.5 (.zip)

Now those are some amazing features and will help you better optimize Kontera to your site. Many regular readers find In-text advertising very obtrusive, but we still persist for earning those few dollars.

You can now disable Kontera on fresh posts and only get ads when articles get older, thus, not annoying regular readers who hate in-text advertising. If you get thousands of comments, you can now choose to get ads only on comments. And if you think high paying Google Adsense ads in your web hosting category pays well, simply disable ads in those categories…