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Facebook:Events Made Easier For You?

Puneet Sahalot — Sat, 01 May 2010 17:08:23 +0000

Facebook has just announced a few changes to its existing “Events” system which lets you create events and invite/inform your friends about the event. The event sharing system is quite useful as it makes your task easier to get connected with your friends. You might find a number of changes in the existing events system, like, the old “Event Title” has been replaced with a keyword which looks more focused to the event, “What are you planning?”. Facebook Blog reads that the event has been made faster and easier but many of you would surely miss the old features of creating a secure, private event. Now you have only two options, event could either be public or private. Not only this, you can’t even control the photos, posts and messages by others. All the invited members would be able to share photos and messages. This looks like taking back something really important. Well, lets check out the new system and hope that the old useful features would be available soon. Facebook must keep in mind that “Everything old is not to be Rejected and Everything new is not worth being Accepted”

The new improved “Events” system lets you create an event directly from your home page. You simply need to type in your event into the “What are you planning?” field on the right-hand column of your home page. Now, you only need to add time and place to the form that opens up in front of you and you are all set to share your plans with your friends.

You can now create an event directly from the “Events” box on your home page with one step. Just start typing your event into the “What are you planning?” field on the right-hand column of your home page. A form will open. Add a time and place, and you’ll be ready to share your plans with your friends.

You can also follow the traditional method of creating events on Facebook. Simply click on the “Events” link on the left and then click the “+Create an Event” button and fill out each field step by step. The detailed creation form proves to be useful while creating more formal events.

This is the announcement at the official Facebook Blog. But the question is how many of you have this feature enabled on your Facebook Account? Not many users have yet been able to get a fresh start with the simplified Events system. Just wait for the changes to take place. You need not worry about the events which you have already created as they would remain the same. This feature will surely reduce the efforts of creating the events on Facebook.

(@via The Facebook Blog)

Google Transliteration Update: A review

Puneet Sahalot — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 21:10:04 +0000

By the end of last year Google launched Google Transliteration to help people writing in languages which are not supported by the computer keyboards. As we know that computer keyboards only input characters of Roman script, this narrowed the users of different scripts to write on Internet. Google Transliteration helped in overcoming this barrier. This tool enabled people writing in Arabic, Bengali, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu languages. They were able to write their message phonetically and transliteration converted it into the desired script. A revolutionary breakthrough it has been.

Now there have been additions of Amharic, Tigrinya, Hebrew, Oriya and Sinhalese in the above mentioned set of languages. These languages are spoken in North Central Ethiopia, Eriteria, by the Jews, people of Orissa provinces in India and Sri Lanka respectively. I feel this is a sign of Internet or Google becoming more Global.

For the offline use Google gave the world IME (Input Method Editor) which can be downloaded free of cost. IME is also added with 5 more new languages Amharic, Russian, Sanskrit(Ancient Indian language), Serbian and Tigrinya. This is not all IME will now onwards also include canonical schemes, macros and support for Windows 64-bit. To learn more about them you can visit Google Transliteration IME help page.

Well the party is not over yet. Transliteration and IME were designed to help people write in native language with the use of their Roman Script Keyboards. But it didn’t help in going backwards. We mean how can one read a webpage written in some language other then English? One of the answers could be to take help of a friend who knows that language. But where you may find the person who is well versed with Tamil in a place like Tanzania or Russia? Need not to telephone your friends to find such person Google has launched Script Converter tool. This will convert the entire web page, or some text in it to the English from the 17 languages: Bengali, English, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

Focus on regional languages like Oriya and Tigrinya points on two things

Internet gaining popularity in deeper areas we can also say people are becoming IT literate in every part of world to use this boon for their welfare and also for people around them.
If you want to become big you have to worry about everything large and SMALL. Giant like google may have realized that these interior areas of various nations are golden opportunity. If someone else comes with a tool covering these languages its monopoly will be lost along with its reputation.

Via The Official Google Translate Blog

MonkeyFly: A Tiny Add-On (Review)

Puneet Sahalot — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 05:35:57 +0000

In our last blog post, we introduced you to MonkeyFly, a tiny, light weight, powerful addon for Firefox and Chrome developed by http://egoing.net. Here is an exclusive review of its features.

As powerful as Desktop Apps:

Incorporating all the features of a Desktop App, it is a very useful JavaScript and jQuery based addon. As compared to TweetDeck, Seesmic, HootSuite, DestroyTwitter and other apps it has all of their basic twitter features except for the ability to manage multiple accounts simultaneously.

[click image for full preview]

Accommodating Twitter Functionalities to a Single Page:

It aggregates your entire twitter features and functionalities to a single page. The use of JavaScript and jQuery eliminates the need of frequent reloading of the page. Besides providing all your tweets and direct messages in an organized manner, it also lets you go through the tweets to which you have replied and has taken a form of “conversation”. Such tweets can be viewed all together; it shows up the tweets of all those users who were/are part of it. You can even have a look at your friend’s conversations.

Most Useful Basic Features:

The most useful basic features are: an auto URL shortener, you simply need to paste your long URL and click the “URL Shortener” button. There is no need to select the URL. Another one is, photo uploading. The “Photo” button lets you upload your pictures directly on TwitPic using your twitter id and after the upload is complete it automatically inserts the link in your tweet box.

Username Suggestion:

A Username suggestion provides a handy way to make “mentions”, eliminating the need of remembering them.

Re-view Your Old Re-Tweets / Replies and Mentions:

You can have a direct look at your “mentions” (the tweets by others/you in which your @username has been mentioned) along with the tweets you have re-tweeted. And also, a very useful feature which lets you knows which of your tweets have been re-tweeted by others.

Easy Profile Navigation:

Even to view a profile, you need not change the page. It opens up in a pop-up box, keeping a track of the recently viewed profiles. So, you can always scroll back to them without making a search.

Speed Efficiency:

Since, it uses scripting languages to provide enhanced features; the first run of your page is bit slower as compared to the loading of the basic twitter page. A slow down of few seconds could be ignored keeping in mind the functionalities it provides and the time it saves then.

Conclusion:

Undoubtedly, MonkeyFly is a very handy tool to reform your twitter pages. Providing unbeatable features by turning your twitter page to a sleek, easy to handle and quickly navigable dashboard MonkeyFly is all that you need to manage your tweets.

You may have a look at our in-depth tutorial for MonkeyFly or subscribe to flockpost.com for latest updates.

How To: Turn Twitter into a Dashboard

Puneet Sahalot — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 22:53:56 +0000

Although there are a number of desktop applications available for you to manage your Twitter account, there is something which is quite simpler and quicker. Have a look at this picture:

[click image for full preview]

Surprised..?? Yes, it’s a twitter page. “MonkeyFly”, a free Firefox/Chrome add-on is what we are talking about. It has been developed by http://egoing.net and has salient features to turn your Twitter page into a Dashboard Style app as every desktop app does.

It’s a tiny add-on with some very elegant features such as:

Add Columns such as Lists, Mentions
Add Search columns
Collapse and expand number of columns with a single click
Collapse the Sidebar
Draft your Tweet.
Shorten URLs
Share Photos
View Profile without leaving your page
Follow / Un follow
View tweets you made as a ‘reply’ by single click.
And much more…

It has all those features which you could find in a desktop app such as TweetDeck, Seesmic, Hootsuite and others. The difference is that it is available online with no installation requirements.

It aggregates all your data at one place so that it is easy to manage your tweets, profile, DMs etc. Instead of Desktop Apps which require Adobe AIR, to use this plugin you only need to have a Firefox / Chrome.

Firefox users:
1. Go to the add-on library and install monkeyfly.
2. Restart browser, go to Tools – Add-ons and enable monkeyfly if it’s not enabled already
3. Go to Twitter and use the plus sign to customize your page

Chrome users:
1. Go to Google Chrome extensions and install monkeyfly
2. Go to Windows – Extensions and check that monkeyfly is enabled
3. Go to Twitter and use the plus sign to customize your page

If you do not use one of these browsers, you can download theme from here:

http://www.google.com/chrome

[How to] Use Features: A tutorial for using MonkeyFly in your Browser

The best of all features which makes it useful is that it is Javascript, Jquery based and hence your page is not to be refreshed frequently.

1. Auto Suggest:

While typing a username in your tweet, it auto suggests the names.

[click image for full preview]

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2. Photo:

To add a picture, click the “Photo” button, use your twitter id and password for a temporary access to “TwitPic”. Select picture from your computer and upload it. A link to picture will be added automatically to your tweet.

[click image for full preview]

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3. URL Shortener:

To shorten a URL simply paste it in your tweet box, select the URL and click “URL Shortener” button.

4. Draft:

To save your tweet for later use, click this button.

[click image for full preview]

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5. Tweet:

Click this button to send a tweet.

6. View Profile:

To view a user’s profile, click on the display picture of the user. A pop up box opens with the twitter page of the user you have clicked.

[click image for full preview]

It also saves the recent profile views to its history so that you can view them back from the profile page you are viewing. Check out the picture below:

[click image for full preview]

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7. View Conversations:

To have a look at the tweets you made as a ‘reply’ to someone else’s tweet, click ‘in reply to username’ link below the tweet you have replied to.

[click image for full preview]

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8. Collapse/Expand Sidebar:

With this feature, you can collapse / expand the twitter sidebar. When collapsed the menu appears at the bottom of the page.

[click image for full preview]

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To add a new column click on the “Plus” sign next to “Home”. It includes the following options:

9. Metions (@username):

With this feature enabled a column appears to the right of the existing “Tweets” column listing all the tweets mentioning your username. To close the column click on the ‘-‘ sign in red.

[click image for full preview]

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10. Direct Messages:

This feature adds another column to the right. It displays all your sent and received Direct Messages.

[click image for full preview]

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11. Favorites:

It displays the tweets which you have marked as “favorites”.

[click image for full preview]

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12. My Tweets:

This column displays the tweets you made.

[click image for full preview]

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13. Re-Tweets:

This is a very interesting feature; it adds a “Re-Tweets by other” Column with three tabs viz. “By Others”, “By You”, “Your”.

The first tab displays the tweets which others have re-tweeted. Second column shows the tweets re-tweeted by you and the last one lists your tweets which were re-tweeted by others.

[click image for full preview]

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14. Lists:

It displays the tweets of your friends whom you have added to your lists.

[click image for full preview]

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15. Settings:

You can configure MonkeyFly by clicking “MonkeyFly” link in the top navigation. It also supports spell check for Korean Language.

The above features make it a very useful tool eliminating the need of downloading and installing the Desktop Apps for managing your Twitter Account.

Subscribe to flockpost.com to get latest updates of upcoming articles.

You can also have a look at this 3 minute video tutorial:

Top 10 blogs, outshining the rest.

zazo — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:12:29 +0000

To have a Blog is the hottest trend today and why not? After all it is so handy to start a blog, just login or register to blogger.com/wordpress.com and your blog will be ready in minutes. After ample of news and media attentions went to famous blogs and bloggers, orkut also became one of the favourite spot for Indian bloggers community.

To increase comments, to get review, to get more cool blog themes and tips and tricks , bloggers on orkut gets a wide and quite strong platform to publicize their blogs and to learn about blogging. Some bloggers simply try to make their pocket little heavy by adding advertisements from Adsense, one of the Google’s product .On the other hand are some bloggers which have a passion for writing and are completely dedicated towards their blog and have displayed a good example of honesty for their work and readers, who really write on interesting and useful niche. During my journey and research of about a week of finding such fascinating blogs on orkut I came across many blogs out which I considered the following 10 to be taken as the best because of their respective quality.

Now, there may be plenty of other blogs which you already know and think are the best and may be you have never even heard about the blogs I am writing about . But that’s my own opinion for them, and I believe and hope that you all will agree to me once you visit them.

So, presenting before you the 10 shining gems in the world of blogs, which I came across on Orkut:

1. Surajit Dasgupta

Today when most of the news channels and print media have become puppets of some political parties, and we, the mass is watching this all as a hushed spectator, Surajit’s blog comes up in front and stands by the truth, no matter what consequences it could face because of this brave gesture. His ideology is to bring in notice the Truth; it doesn’t really matter to him if it proves to be a bitter sip for society, political group, or any organization. I remember my reaction when I walked out of the movie hall after watching “Rang De Basanti”. This blog left me exactly to same level of reaction after I went through it. One can call it a complete eye opener. It is a great concept with an extremely powerful throw. One of the most respected blog I came across during this entire activity. I am sure anyone will feel the same for this blog once he reaches here. Hats off to your endeavor Surajit!

2. Ken786

Kenneth Saldanha, a 23 year old senior officer from Times of India ,started the blog titled Definitely Maybe in 2004 and has reached today to somewhere around 65 fine articles. The blog where he pours out all tastes of emotions beautifully embedded in his impressive way of writing. It gives reader a nice mix of humor, romance, suspense, drama, bizarre emotions in a man’s life and what not, all in his bold and fantastic approach of expression. One can make out the altitude of his writing by the comments he has got from his readers itself, where his writing has been compared to that of “5 Point Someone” fame Chetan Bhagat! His blog is a perfect example to show someone’s seniority and experience in blogging. The quote suits the blog perfectly “Work speaks for itself”. His blog keeps you involved and intact and beware! He can make you an addict of his writing!

3. GodYears

Roshan Radhakrishnan, is a 27 year old doctor, an anesthesia resident, based in Kerala, but studying in Pune presently.
Like a million other blogs, godyears started out on a whim. One of his friends who had known him for years advised him to start blogging as he knew about Roshan’s craze for writing and ‘ a natural flair for whacky comedy’.

Godyears started out as a platform for small comical anecdotes, but has risen to great stature over a period of years. It emerged as a vent for the entire saga, which would have simply roamed in author’s head otherwise. Be they hilarious or grim, it’s a forum of discussion for the author. “It’s been a medium via which I’ve made some great like minded friends with no bias of caste, religion or any of that crap which separates us in real life… where else but in a blog can you come to like someone else for their mind before you’ve even met them” Says a keyed up Roshan.

His writing and blog has the ability to affect people and their thinking in a major way .He is known as one of the promising writers. The write ups are far ahead of all the common stuff .His articles can bring a smile on your face, can make u roll down a tear over your cheek or can make you jump instantly out of excitement. The blog is a mix of fiction, reviews, and his own experiences of being a doctor by profession, and all placed in a bracing and refreshing way.

4. Macabreday

“Everyone is entitled to my opinion”: That’s what his blog says. And that’s what he has practiced in his blog I believe. Author Divyan D’wergiz has kept his blog more as an anthology of his past experiences and his personal life. A marriage counselor by profession, Divyan is carrying on as a blogger since 2006. His blog seems like a crystal clear compilation of happenings of his life along with some relationship based posts. Less of fiction makes it more a piece of authentic information, where we come across something very real and true which gives reader an immense pleasure of not being taken into a world of dreams and mere imagination. As a reader it won’t bore you with intense philosophy which leaves you depressed by the time u finish with the reading. On the whole a very appealing blog which sets itself apart from the swarm.

5. Chandni

Looking at the blog made me felt as if ,in front of me is a beautiful Indian woman, standing wrapped in a kanjiwaram silk sari, with dark red centre filled black hair, face with a glow and eyes with a spark in it, sophistically jeweled up ,and smiling at me. I know this sounds strange. It’s not because it looks gaudy and has such color combinations and look, but the value filled blog with an Indian touch in it made me felt like this. The presentation of blog is magically satisfying. The best part of the blog is its consistency and an exhaustive collection of posts, which I hardly found anywhere else. Applause for Chandni Malik for this winning effort .The articles are not only high in quantity but also in quality. The Hindi tidbits in between is another nice style. All in all a nice ride to different topics served well garnished.

6. AnuragArch

Anurag Bhattacharya is, a 20 year old student architect doing B.Arch from NIT-Trichy and pursue a career in architectural design and 2d-animatics.Coming to his blog “Anuragarch “, let me tell you, that as soon as the blog page opens up you get to see a pleasant banner together with beautiful color combination and design, which leaves you with a real soothing effect. ” I find much in life to be funny, strange or downright ridiculous…these are the things I intend to write about.” That’s what says one of the lines in the introduction part of his blog, proof for which is the blog itself.. What makes this blog really exceptional and inimitable is the great, unique work and art Anurag has given in form of his outstanding cartoon illustrations and lovely signature at the end of each post. You will really love to see them and appreciate each time. The poems and the posts, specially the topics chosen to write are no doubt a portion of brilliance.

7. OutLooked

Representing to you a world full of, I am sorry, rather a blog full of young emotions, trying to cope up with the existing world and hoping for their dreams to come true one day. Outlooked is a joint effort of the emerging bloggers – Himanshu, Parth and Ashish to present an outlook of life in their own way .All of them highly obsessed with IIT/BITS have tried to portray the inside picture of a youth’s mind when he aspires to get into one of the top educational institutes and when they actually reach there, what do they feel. Along with all this is shown the innocent yet so mischievous thinking of a young lad, where the whole world expects sincerity and dedication towards his studies from him but their lies an another world for them too, world full of fun ,and the ability to laugh on themselves. The blog is a collection of their ideas, comments, views, outlooks on the life and the elements they face, in a hilarious mold which gives readers a pleasure to forget the worries of life, rather laugh on them at least for those few minutes which they spent on the blog.

8. BooBoo’sBook

A Malaya from the cultural capital of Kerala, started his blog in April 2008,

Author of Booboo’sbook who loves to be called “booboo” like reading, writing stories, and fantasies and the craze to write his wild imaginations…made him start this blog BooBoo’s Book. What made me consider this blog a unique one were the simple and plain words used, yet it urges your eyes to read more and ultimately you feel tranquil .The layout of blog is another gesture of simplicity along with sweetness and innocence. He has made a successful attempt in bringing out very common yet very important issues of society and has given a positive message to his readers. You can take blood donation and no smoking as an instance for this. The blog wins readers heart and captures it and is convincing enough for anyone to visit it quite often.

9. GeekOnNet

Ranjeet Kr. Vimal, is the initiator of the blog GeekOnNet which basically includes reviews, information on latest technologies and blogging tips. You can refer to it as a very revealing blog. It’s an assortment of informative and interesting articles, disclosing amazing facts about world technology along with current updating. It also features the position of India in the world’s race to become a budding power by providing the ideas and opportunity areas for our country. One can also thank him for bestowing astonishing thoughts and ways to earn online and make more and more money. The information provided in the blog is enriching and is worth spending time. The popularity and efficacy of the blog can be witnessed by the overwhelming response of readers because of which the Geekonnet is now headed by a team of two people. Praise worthy effort of authors towards providing their readers a knowledge-packed blog.

10. Materealistica

It could be a very resourceful and helpful blog, somewhat like a tutorial for the upcoming animators as the author himself is a professional in this field. Let me introduce to you Gulshan Gattani, the author of Materealistica. He started the blog with the intention to hare and spread his knowledge on texturing portion of 3D Animation .Its a very new venture started last month itself, that’s why I can’t predict the future of this blog, but as per my knowledge the concept is distinctive as very less people thought of sharing what Gulshan is doing, and this is the reason for why I considered it to be one of the 10 most alluring blogs I came across. Moreover animation is a flourishing field and few of the world’s finest animators are Indians. Displayed in a very detailed pattern it explains you even the minute know how of animation. The language of the blog is simple and easy to understand as per the requirement of the nature of the blog. All in all the author has succeeded doing complete justice to the objective of the blog. Keep up the good work Gulshan.

India’s sociopolitical scene- check angryindian.com

zazo — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:44:14 +0000

What is Political and Social equality? The answer could be well suited in only one word and i.e. The Democracy. India is the world’s biggest democracy and the second largest populated country is among the first in the race of developments, development of society, people, economy, education, science and various other expansion. Still, there is not some but many issues related to the Indian sociopolitical scenario which needs to be revolutionize or at least need a voice to be raised. However, raising voice against anything which is wrong is not so easy in India even if you call it a democratic country. But some people find their own way of expression. One such way is AngryIndian.com and this is a review of a blog which I prefer calling “a blog of every Indian”.

To create awareness amongst Indians about India’s socio political scenario is the main purpose of this blog which is teamed up with dedicated users (Authors) from different part of the country raising their voice against social and political inequality. Why I used the word author is because AngryIndian.com encourage its visitors to join as an author and start publishing their own articles, issues and other write-ups. Currently there are 15 authors and 3 editors who work as a volunteer or whistle blowers who prefer pen as their weapon and words are their bullets. AngryIndian.com not only encourages its authors to illustrate the problems but also persuade them to write the solutions of that problem.

Another aim of AngryIndian.com is to make people fearless of what they want to say because saying something other than direct flaming with abusive words is not a crime. And democracy also means the right of equality. The other thing which really attracted me and may be the readers of this review too is the name Angry Indian, I know that anger is a form of expression present in every human being though the name also gives out negative impression but the first question came in my mind was that what anger? And who is this angry Indian? I received a very clear and precise answer when I click their About page which says: Anger is a good way to channel the energy that we possess, one can say AngryIndian.com is all about the positive energy which generates from anger.

Indian media reports news and incidents but what left out is opinions of people for that news which is published. AngryIndian.com is a place where you can write your own opinions freely, one good thing is the blog is very less moderated so it reflects a dialog of the masses rather than the monologue of a few people talking.

All over the blog is quite updated and expected to be spread to wider audiences in near future because of its original and unique content. Though a little more need to re-design it with more easy navigation, what I only miss in the blog is social bookmarking tags/icons to stumble it to various social bookmarking sites.

AngryIndian.com has its own community on Orkut Social Networking site: CLICK IT.

flockpost.com » Reviews

Facebook:Events Made Easier For You?

More Interesting Stories

Google Transliteration Update: A review

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MonkeyFly: A Tiny Add-On (Review)

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How To: Turn Twitter into a Dashboard

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Top 10 blogs, outshining the rest.

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India’s sociopolitical scene- check angryindian.com

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