America ..Here I come!

Visa approved.

Me in Guinness Books

By downloading Firefox on download day I became a part of the Guinness record .Here is my proof: here

Kudos to Firefox

This post is just to say a huge thanks to Firefox for making a boring thing(aka IE) as browsing into such a beautiful experience.Hope you guys have it good as you  turn 2 to 3.For newbies Firefox is the coolest browser around(I heard Opera is catching up) and if you are still stuck around with Internet Explorer maybe this is the time you make the switch.

GetFirefox

Converting Word Docs to PDF

Hi,

This post is about converting word documents to PDF .

What is PDF?

Well I know its something to do with portability,basically helps you keep the document structure independent of the software,anyway this is how wikipedia says it -

The Portable Document Format (PDF) is the file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange. PDF is a fixed-layout format used for representing two-dimensional documents in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system. Each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a 2-D document (and, with Acrobat 3-D, embedded 3-D documents) that includes the text, fonts, images, and 2-D vector graphics that compose the documents.

Ok I did not get it completely as well.

Anyway back to the crux ,how do we convert Word docs to PDF ?

Get a PDF writer, say CutePDF

You can download it from here : http://www.cutepdf.com/download/CuteWriter.exe

Once you install it ,it automatically lists itself in the printer drop down box in the Print Dialog of the word document(as a matter of fact it lists anywhere in your system which uses the printer).

Screen-Shot :

Now just print it i.e Click OK

Now you would get :

Save it as PDF file and you are set to go.

Hope this helped guys(and KD).

The jazz about RSS

I was always intimidated by the Internet(I still am!).With the amount of data present in it you could very easily get frustrated in trying to get information you want.So what do you to keep tabs on your favorite topics all across the net?

Enter RSS.

Actually this has been there for a long time ,I just started understanding how it works recently.

So how does it work?

Once you subscribe to a site’s RSS you need not visit that site anymore instead you would get the news or articles delivered onto your reader.Reader can either be online or offline.

Why does this work for me?

My interests lie in tech ,gizmos ,music,some celebrity blogs ,Google,Photoshop/GIMP  tutorials.So instead of visiting 50 different web pages everyday to get the latest news ,I get it all in my reader – centralized and aggregated - more so ad-free.

Ok I like where this going ,so how do I set this up?

Let me put it in steps:

1.Find what you would be comfortable with ,online readers or offline readers?.I prefer the online reader : Google reader  simply because it is simple (:)) and it  integrates into my other Google services.So you set up your account by visiting Google Reader or if you still want to use other readers ,you can find it here

 

2.Now you need to go the web sites you visit regularly(the last time) and find this symbol(see below)  or RSS (sometimes blogs use ATOM) or something similar .

Some examples :

This is the standard RSS symbol.

 

 

or in firefox(please tell me you use this browser only) ,it would be located in the address bar.

or in some web sites you would find it like this :

 

So you get the gist right? – Just search for something in the site which says RSS ,Subscribe or ATOM or that symbol.

Ok assuming you got it right till here the next step would be

 

3.CLICK IT

Ok now if you are using firefox you need to change the setting a little before clicking it.(Sorry)- this step is to make things faster later on.

Go to Tools –> Options –> Applications and then do this : – firefox 2 users ,it might be a little different(let me know if you have a problem)

Click Ok

And now CLICK IT.(the symbol or RSS text)

Now firefox user would get this screen

 

Click the appropriate link and then you get this screen in your reader.

 

And that is  it!

Keep doing the last 2 steps ,that is click the RSS icon and then add it to the reader for all your web sites(mind you some web sites actually don’t have a RSS feed,you can find this type of sites if you don’t find the RSS icon in the firefox address bar).

So you get all the news from different web pages delivered to you in one reader as and when they are getting updated.

Also other things can be done in Google Reader like adding tags and folder organizer (see my screen-shot ).You can also see your trends and share items with your friends.

Keyboard Shortcuts are a must if you become an avid reader.Ping me or Google it for the list.

Play around with the other settings to get the hang of it.

 

Ok now I got something,but how do I mass add RSS feeds ?

Well the feeds are usually XML files so you can find a conglomerate of them in the file called OPML(just Google for  OPML )So you can just  import an OPML file into your reader by going to the Manage subscriptions settings and a set of feeds get added into your reader.You can also backup your feed lists by exporting your feed list into an OPML file .

To start things off you can add my feed list .

Here is my OPML file : http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/5/5/1050279/google-reader-subscriptions.xml

Download this and just Import this file into you reader .

For more info on RSS ,you can check the wikipedia article here 

Hope this post helped!

Song of the Day - Potu Vaitha

Another Ilayaraaja great  from the movie Idhayam.Personally I did not like the movie as much(movie was a superhit!) but the songs were top notch.This song was also sung by K J Y (IR-KJY combination was so great that would be a common feature in this series)

Song Highlights :

• The Simplistic arrangements.
• The first flute interlude.
• The violin interlude is really good with the symphonic arrangement giving ample support.

Video :

Thanks to the uploader

Song of the Day - Poomalai Vaangi Vanthan

Today's Song of the Day is from the movie Sindhu Bhairavi.It is a amazing movie by K Balachander .It also won multiple national award for

Best Actress - Suhasini

Best Music Direction - Ilayaraaja

Best Female Playback Singer - K S Chitra

The movie's music had a predominant carnatic touch.Most of this movie's songs were brilliant but today' song of the day is :Poomalai Vaangi Vanthan

Song Highlights :

• The soul of this song is K J Jesudas(according to me the greatest singer ever in India,forgive my ignorance if any) - His rendition is just too good.
• The interludes ,both the violin and the flute is mesmerizing.
• I love the first line too much - Poomalai Vaangi Vantha  , Pookal Ellaya (He bought Flower Garland ,But No Flowers)
• Ilaiyaraaja - Period

Video :

Thanks for the uploader

Would You be a Live Organ Donor ?

Technorati Tags: Polls,Personal,Live Organ,Donation

Read an article in the Hindu today about New York planning to follow in the steps of Spain and would start donating live organs.

So what is Live Organ Donation ?

In case of an accident apart from the mandatory ambulance ,a special ambulance would also arrive at the scene and would ascertain the situation to see whether the injuries are fatal or not (this I think would hurt many people morally).Then, if the accident indeed leads to fatal injuries, the live organs in the body are removed and used for the people in immediate need of the organs.

Apparently in the US everyday 18 people die due to insufficiency of organs.So in a country like our India ,with our infamous population the number might hover around a 100.So I ask you  :                                                                                 

                                         

Personally I would not mind it and I am completely for this.Simply because for people like me(i.e who want to help but not knowing how to do it properly) this would be an ideal opportunity to do something for this world,alive or not. Of course this is my opinion you can tell me yours in the comments.

You can read more about this here.

Googling a Windows Error Message

How often have we got this dreaded generic screen error message or similar.

I mean its Windows(you cant hate it people) ,so expect a lot of screens like this.

So how do we solve this one.I mean we always have the mother of all encartas and encyclopedias  - GOOGLE !

So feeding the error message into Google would solve us right?

The problem is sitting and typing it would be worse than the problem itself!

So here is what we do : Copy it ! That is it CTRL+C the error message and paste it into notepad CTRL+V.

Voila!

That is it ,now use this in the google search and HOPEFULLY your problem might just go away!

Hope this helped guys!

Song of the Day - Rayile

Hi All,

Today's song of the day is from the movie Five Star,directed by Susi Ganesan and produced by Mani Ratnam(anything even concerning his name would warrant a look in!!).The song in question being Rayile.I heard this today in the iPod almost maybe after 2-3 years and it was still so damn fresh(it got a five star immediately,no pun) .

Song Highlights

• The song has a beautiful intro with the humming and strings.
• Unnikrishan just rocks.
• A beautiful medley of both slow and fast tempos - just like a train(aka rayile)
• Wonderful interludes.
• Song picturing top notch - especially the train pulling scene

Wonder why the music duo(Parasuram Radha)did not continue composing.

Watch the video of this glorious song.

Thanks for the uploader

Murphy's Laws

I have always been a ardent fan of Murphy's Law due to its uncanny resemblance to what happens in my life. It also helps in me getting a different yet humorous (humor always gets me up!) perspective of life.

Some samplers

• If anything can go wrong, it will - (this is the most generic law) 
• If you need 6 buttons, you will find 5 in your button box.
• Everything always works in your home, everything always fails on location

Lots more like this.

Hope you enjoy them!

You can find more here.

New Design!

Hi All,

I hope you guys like the new theme .There has been some changes ,actually,many of them.

• The twitter widget is back(Yippee! to micro blogging ).

 

• My blog has got a new favicon(fav-eye-con).If you don't know what this this ,this is the icon which appears next to my blog name in my tab(in firefox).The icon is a weird looking picture of mine(its my blog isn't it!).

                                  

• The labels which was boring in the initial design is now replaced by the label/tag cloud.It looks basically like a cloud(duh!) of words with the label which occurs in many posts getting bigger and darker(here my Reviews Tag would be the biggest because I have many Review posts).

 

• A Quick Link Widget is also added.I have added this for a experimental purpose so it might or might not end up in my blog.

 

Anyway finally but not the least my theme turns back to black ,my favorite color.

If you guys feel that somewhere the blog or the blog design sucks(something has got to!) ,feel free to post your comments.

Daily Blogging

Hi All,

I am going to try to make blogging  a daily thing now.I feel too much of my life is drifting away without anyone taking notice of it (Biographies Anybody?).So will try to compress most of my day's experience into my blog .Will post everything and anything which comes across my mind.I have also decided to let go of my old style of writing where every sentence ends with more than 5 full stops.

Wishing myself all the best!