Friday 30 November 2012

Temporarily Remove Any Element from a Webpage with Your Browser

There are parts of a webpage which you do not want to really use. For example when you see a Facebook public post or profile, it also shows a login box, which you might not be interested in.

We can do this with Dynamite Extension for Chrome browser or Nuke Everything Add-on for Firefox.

For instance in the example below, I will be removing the highlighted element or part from the webpage I am viewing.

I am using Chrome extension Dynamite to show how it works. Just right-click on a selection select Dynamite icon and select hide element.

The end result that element from the webpage is removed immediately.

Ideally, these are very useful tool for web designers to check how the webpage would look by removing certain elements.

You might also like to check out the following extensions which are helpful for web designers.

Do try it out and drop in your comments.

-- This Post Temporarily Remove Any Element from a Webpage with Your Browser is Published on Devils Workshop .


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Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 796541

Thursday 29 November 2012

Create Diagrams and Charts with Google Drive Integration

Diagrams and charts are useful for people coordinating in a group. I have written previously about Google charts, Lovely Charts and more recently about Creately. On similar lines, Diagram.ly also allows users to create diagrams and share using your Google or Google Apps account and integrate it with your Google Drive account.

Diagram.ly Features

The diagrams can be created with many predefined elements based on various categories. For example there are many clipart images, flowchart styled arrows and branches to choose from.

Diagram.ly - Integrate with Google Drive

A diagram can be saved on your desktop from the browser itself as an XML file.

More important it can be shared with your friends either by embeding it on a webpage or even sharing it via a URL.

My favourite part of Diagram.ly is that is can be integrated with Google Drive, allowing me to share a particular diagram with anyone form my Google contacts.

It is free and one does not even have to sign-in or register unless integrating with Google Drive. Try out Diagram.ly and drop in your comments.

Link: Diagram.ly

-- This Post Create Diagrams and Charts with Google Drive Integration is Published on Devils Workshop .


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Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 796541

Wednesday 28 November 2012

Flipkart Unveils Flyte e-book store for Android Users

Today, Flipkart has rolled a new service for Android users. It has started selling e-books from its Flyte store. Flipkart comes across as one of those companies that does not want to be acquired and rather build a large online retail business business. In other words, it wants to be the ebay or Amazon.com of India. Early this year in March, Flipkart introduced selling music in the form of DRM free MP3 files.

For a company that started selling books online, it was only a matter of time it started selling e-books.

Flipkart's e-book store: How it works

The e-books being sold on Flipkart are available only on Android at the moment. It can be downloaded upto 6 times of different devices.

I checked the prices of some of the books and they seem to be a bit less than their printed versions. There seem to be over 64,000 books available on the store. That is actually a very small number but it should soon see a lot more books available.

Over 4000 e-books on Flipkart's Flyte Store are available for free.

There are over 4000 free e-books at the moment available for download. Many of these free e-books are all time classics.

Payment options for the books include online banking, debit and credit cards along with Flipkart Wallet. Users will be able to preview upto 10% of the book before actually purchasing it.

At the moment, the app is only available on Android, but I am sure Flipkart will introduce this on other platforms like Apple's iOS and Windows Store soon.

As tablets keep getting more popular in India, the e-book business will actually get more traction.

Do drop in your comments.

Link: Flipkart e-Books | Android App

-- This Post Flipkart Unveils Flyte e-book store for Android Users is Published on Devils Workshop .


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Tuesday 27 November 2012

India to Oppose International Framework for Net Censorship

According to Hindustan Times, today India would be looking to oppose the any form of internet governance rules set up under the UN.

Internet censorship already exists in many countries, in which many social networks, YouTube and search engines fine themselves blocked in countries.

But ITU's plans are to take such censorship further in laying down rules for content published on the internet across the world. In effect it would take over all authority from ICANN and give itself censorship powers. ICANN itself does not do any content regulation and more or less confines itself to technical standardization.

The big supporters of the creating new internet governance rules at the UN are not surprisingly Russia and China along with few more countries. Some of these rules will also include issues of tariffs applied by governments on certain sites along with handing over registration of country specific domains like to the governments rather than ICANN.

The UN sponsored summit called World Conference in International Telecommunications at Dubai next month, where talks on setting up internet governance will be held between countries.

India's flirtation with Net Censorship!

The government in India has not necessarily brought about heavy handed net censorship like that of China. But many internet users are worried with rising number of content removal requests from government agencies. Indian government in the past had actually recommended manual screening of content on social media sites. NGOs and activists have also held protests against rising cases of net censorship in India.

But it a relief to see India not on the side of countries like Russia and China on issues of regulating content on the internet.

Who else is opposing Net Censorship?

Not surprising one of the biggest opposition to ITU's plans is from the search giant Google. Google owns YouTube which is a favorite target of many countries which try to crack down on internet freedom.

Would you support content regulation by the UN? Do drop in your comments and views.

-- This Post India to Oppose International Framework for Net Censorship is Published on Devils Workshop .


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Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 796541

How to Reduce Facebook Notification Volume!

Facebook notifications are actually meant for getting notified when somebody interacts with you. We get a notification when somebody likes, comments or tags you in a post or even when someone comments on a post after your comment. But most of the times we get useless updates mostly from the applications or groups even if we stopped using them. Lets tell you how you can get only relevant and useful updates in your notifications.

How to Reduce Facebook Notification Volume!

  1. First of all open your notifications by clicking on the earth icon given in the top header of Facebook with inbox icon. Now rollover your mouse on the notification that you don't wanna see in future and click cross to turn off that notification in future. See the screenshot below:
    useless notificationsThen confirm it by clicking "Turn off".
    useless notifications-1After doing this you won't see any further updates from that Application or post. This is the simplest way to unsubscribe from a post.
  2. Secondly go to the page http://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php?notifications, on this page we have an option of turning off notifications from a particular group or app. For groups, go to "Group posts" on the same page and select off for some or all of your groups as shown below:
    useless notifications-2For an app, select "
    Notifications from apps" on that page and uncheck the box given with every app to unsubscribe:
    useless notifications-3

That's it, now you will get only selected updates. Please note that apart from apps and groups, you can also turn off notification from a post in the same way as given in Step 1. Please drop a comment below for any help.

-- This Post How to Reduce Facebook Notification Volume! is Published on Devils Workshop .


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Monday 26 November 2012

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Sales Touch 5 Million!

Samsung Galaxy Note 2, which according to latest reports has sold over 5 smartphones. Samsung has confirmed that the Galaxy Note 2, itself had sold over 3 million units in the just 37 days. While Samsung has seen success over the past few years, it has not seen such sale numbers in such a short period of time. The final number of sales in Europe and North America will only go higher over the next couple of months, where it is the traditional shopping season.

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 has sold over 5 million units in the past couple of months. The phone is popular in the "phablet" category which is somewhere between a phone and a tablet.

Samsung has Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 which are its flagship products. Though a lot of attention is given to Galaxy S3 and it is often compared with Apple iPhone, Galaxy Note 2 is pretty much a pioneer in the 'phablet' category.

Samsung has actually got their bet on larger screens correct. Today almost all phone manufacturers including Apple have increased the screen size on their latest iterations of the phones. It could be because the phones are used more for consuming media content like videos, where having a slightly larger screen seems like a useful idea.

Are 'Phablets' here to stay?

Honestly, I am not the biggest fan of Samsung's Galaxy Note 2. The phone has 5.5 inch screen size. It feels too big for a phone and honestly does not comfortably fit into a regular sized pockets.

That said, the phone is preferred by many who are looking at something between a phone and a tablet.

Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 selling in such high numbers, shows that Samsung has actually made the right choice. It seems 'phablets' are here to stay and we might see more manufacturers doing the same.

-- This Post Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Sales Touch 5 Million! is Published on Devils Workshop .


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Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 796541

Sunday 25 November 2012

Google brings Chrome OS’s app launcher to Chromium

While Chromebooks haven't been successful in attracting mainstream users, Google hasn't stopped pushing updates to both – Chrome OS, as well as the hardware. With the Aura update, there's a new App drawer feature added to the OS. Interestingly, Google is looking to port the same feature to Chrome on Windows.

chrome-app-launcher

The App drawer lets you launch Chrome apps (sadly, most of them are just bookmarks) directly, without launching Chrome. It will also let you Google search, along with results from your history and bookmarks. It's more like the Chrome's omnibar itself.

It's not available in dev build of Chrome, let alone stable and beta builds. So, you will be needing Chromium, the opensource version of Chrome. Get it here.

After downloading and installing is done, open it, and go to chrome://flags (type that in address bar). This is where you can enable few unfinished features.

Now look for 'Chromium apps launcher' located in at the end of the page, hit enable and restart browser. You should now be seeing an app drawer icon in your taskbar.

It doesn't make sense to me why Google is trying to port Chrome OS's features to other OSes, because the question arises to what's exclusive in Chrome OS.

Try the feature and let us know what you think.

-- This Post Google brings Chrome OS's app launcher to Chromium is Published on Devils Workshop .


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Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 796541

Saturday 17 November 2012

4 Tips for making most out of Android 4.2

Google has released Android 4.2 a few days back and the Nexus line-up has already got the update. The new update has brought a few features like gesture typing, quick settings in Notification bar etc. for which you'd use 3rd party apps previously.

There are also a few hidden/underrated features in the OS. If you want to make most out of it, you got to read this.

Photo Filters

Photo Filters were actually introduced in Android 4.0, but it was pretty dry without many features. With 4.2, Google has brought Instagram-like filters to Android's stock Gallery app.

To edit a photo, open the Gallery app, hit the three-circles icon in the bottom left corner, there you can choose between filters like Vintage, Punch etc. You can play with the Hue, Saturation etc. of the photo, or add Vignette/shadow effect to it. There's also a neat feature which lets you revert back the photo, to access that, hit the three-dotted button in Menu bar > Show History.

After you apply a filter, you can tap and hold on the photo to compare it with the original photo – which is really cool.

The edited photo will be saved as a new one beside the original photo. I've tried adding filters to Photosphere photos and it still works (because they're saved as standard .jpg), though without the Photosphere view for the edited photo.

I'm pretty sure users won't need to hunt for Gallery app replacements and install Quickpic or anything.

Daydream

You know about screensavers on desktop, but what about Mobile? Daydream is exactly that, except that it's more useful. Daydream will trigger when your phone is docked, though you can make it trigger when phone is charging, too.

daydream

You can customize what Daydream actually shows, it can be stream of photos from Gallery app, or just a neat Clock widget, or even news from Google Currents. The last one is my favorite.

To configure it, go to Settings > Display > Daydream. I think it does consumes considerable amount of battery, so be aware before setting it up.

Pinch to zoom in Gmail

Probably one of the most longing features in Android, finally brought to Gmail app in Android. But, guess what? It's not enabled by default.

To get pinch to zoom in Gmail, go to settings > General settings > Check 'Auto-fit Messages'.

Magnification

While this feature isn't targeted for everyone, it can be of great help for people who are poorly sighted.

By default, the feature remains disabled. To enable it, go to Settings > Accessibility > Magnification gestures.

magnify

To magnify, all you need to do is, triple tap the screen. Zooming works with pinching in and out, and scrolling can be done using three fingers.

I'm sure I've missed a few, but this is all I have found after spending a few days with Android 4.2.

Has Android 4.2 impressed you? Drop your comments.

-- This Post 4 Tips for making most out of Android 4.2 is Published on Devils Workshop .


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Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 796541

Friday 16 November 2012

mHotspot – Simple Software to Turn Your Laptop into a Wifi Hotspot

The number of gadgets we connect to the internet are growing. Now with tablets and almost everyone having their own laptop and smartphones a typical family can even have five or six devices connecting to your Wifi router. Sometimes there are more devices to be connected, than a router can handle and the best option in such situations is to turn your laptop into a Wifi hotspot. mHotspot is a free and simple application that allows users to create Wifi hotspots out of their PCs.

How mHotspot works:

  • Install the software on your computer which you want to turn into a Wifi hotspot.
  • The software allows users to customize a name for the hotspot. This will showup as a Wifi network of other devices that your need to connect. This means it works with most mobile phones and tablets regardless of platforms.
  • You can monitor all the devices that connect through your PC and more importantly limit the number of devices that can connect.
  • It also supports WPA2 password security.
  • You can also allow sharing of Wifi without internet connection to enable playing multiplayer games on LAN.

Here is a video on how mHotspot works.

The software does require Microsoft's .NET Framework 4.0 for it to work.

Try out mHotspot and drop in your comments.

Link: Download mHotspot

-- This Post mHotspot – Simple Software to Turn Your Laptop into a Wifi Hotspot is Published on Devils Workshop .


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Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 796541

Thursday 15 November 2012

Remove Sync.Me “cheap call” spam from your iPhone Contacts

Not so long time ago, I was a happy Sync.Me user. It was named SmartSync then and as far as I remember was among top application in Apple's App Store.

Out of the blue in one of its update they added support for some VOIP-service. As they already had access to my iPhone contact-book, they without my permission added a "cheap call" URL-field to every contact in my iPhone. You can see it below:

Initially, I ignored it but it created issues during next sync. This "cheap call" link on next-sync got added to my Mac's Contacts book (Address-book on old Mac OS version). From their it got synced to my Google Contacts!

When I tried contacting Sync.Me support, I did not get reply for 5-days. After that, their support team said that cheap-call feature is pulled so that I need to wait for few weeks after which they will add an option to remove cheap-call fields from my contacts!

AppleScript came to rescue

Sometime back I learned little-bit of AppleScript using it I first tried creating my own small AppleScript to clean this mess. When I stuck, I  started googling which lead me to amazing AppleScripts collection by Trevor.

I used Trevor's Remove Emails for Label script and after some minor changes got it working to remove this "cheap call" spam from my contacts.

How-To Use This!

  1. Open Contacts Application on your Mac.
  2. Take a backup of your contacts. Use File >> Export >> Contacts Archive... option.
  3. Download this AppleScript file.
  4. You will see RemoveURLsByLabel.scpt file on your Mac. Just click it and it will open with AppleScript Editor application.
  5. Now, go to your Contact and select contacts from which you would like to remove "cheap call" field. You can select all contacts. Script will not make any changes to contacts which do not have "cheap call" field.
  6. After selecting one or more or all contacts, go to AppleScript Editor and click Run button.  
  7. The script will first remind you to backup your contacts, then it will prompt for URL label name. Default is "cheap call" which should work fine. For non-english users, if label name is something else, type/paste it there. 
  8. Just hit OK. Script will take some time to finish if you have large contact-book. At the end of it, you will see "cheap-call" spam gone!
  9. Sync your Mac contacts to iPhone. Feel free to run this script again, if this field re-appears because of syncing to some other resource.

What's Next…

I have removed Sync.Me. They might add an option to remove it in future but I hate it when some app leaves its shit in my contact book. I removed this application for now.

I am now using iOS6′s built-in Facebook/Twitter Sync options. iOS6 sync's less data as compared to Sync.Me but I am happy with less data rather than more spam in my contact book!

Github Link: AppleScript to remove cheap-call spam by Sync.Me

-- This Post Remove Sync.Me "cheap call" spam from your iPhone Contacts is Published on Devils Workshop .


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Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 796541

Review of Android 4.2: Google’s step towards Perfection

Though Hurricane Sandy has stopped Google from pushing the Android event on 29th October, it couldn't stop them from releasing shiny new stuff which they've been working on. This includes Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10, and of course Android 4.2.

android-4-2-jellybean

I've got Android 4.2 (which bears the same name, i.e. Jellybean) installed on my Galaxy Nexus and have been pretty impressed with the improvements.

It's not a big update, that makes sense as it's not named Key Lime Pie, which may be the next version of Android bearing big changes, probably.

Here are a few initial impressions of mine on how this update actually improves Android 4.1.

Battery Life

There's a reason why I'm talking about battery life right in the beginning. That's because, 4.1 actually ruined the battery life of my Galaxy Nexus. I'm safe to say, it was OK while running Ice cream Sandwich, but 4.1 was no fun in this aspect. The phone could barely go through one full day on a full charge. It could run for 5 hours on continuous web browsing on Wi-Fi.

As you might have guessed, 4.2 is a considerable improvement in battery consumption. I'm pretty sure, most of the people can get away a day with one full charge. Speaking in numbers, my Nexus could run for 7+ hours on Wi-Fi.

Quick settings

If you've ever used a TouchWiz phone, you must have seen those small Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Brightness etc. toggles in notifications bar. Now, though I liked the idea, the implementation wasn't good at all. Google introduced (or borrowed, if you prefer that) this feature in 4.2 and I love the way it's put.

quick-settings

Unlike controls in TouchWiz, Quick settings in 4.2 won't come in your way. You tap the icon in top right corner, and it'll show the control with a nice UI transition. If you want to get to Quick settings really fast, you can drag the notifications bar with two fingers. It's that easy.

Lockscreen Widgets

Like many people have complained, until 4.1, lockscreen on Android was a waste of space. You could launch Google Now or Camera from the lock screen. In 4.2, there's this new thing called Lockscreen widgets.

lock-screen-widgets

That apparently means that, you can add widgets right into your lock screen. Currently, you don't have a lot of widgets to choose from, apart from GMail, Messages etc. widgets. Another change is that, if you swipe to right from lockscreen, you head over to the Camera app.

This will probably disappoint a few users who liked the previous minimal lockscreen.

Gesture typing

I use Swype as my default keyboard in Android, and have always preferred to SwiftKey just for this gesture typing (I know, SwiftKey Flow is about to release). Now that gesture typing has come to Android's default keyboard, I have no reason to ditch this and hunt for alternatives.

gesture-typing

In fact, the default keyboard is actually better than Swype. Firstly, it's fast. Use it for a while and you'll know. Secondly, it looks much better with Holo UI. Also, as the dictionary data is tied to your Google Account, there's no need to create an extra account (like you do for Swype/SwiftKey).

Improved Camera

The Camera UI has been changed greatly in 4.2 and that's for good. To get to the settings, tap and hold anywhere on Camera app and glide with your fingers to the respective controls. Again, this is something you got to try to understand.

photosphere

Apart from UI, there's Photosphere, that's for grabbing a 360-degree Panorama. I love how well it works, and if you're trying it on a Nexus 4 (which has really good Camera), it'll be pretty awesome. You start by pointing the camera at the blue dot and continue rotating it all the way up to 360 degrees.

So that wraps it. These are the main improvements in 4.2 Jellybean. There are many other small features like improved Google Now (which you can get even on 4.1), Daydream – which is like a screensaver for your Android. If you're trying 4.2 on a tablet, you'll see multi-user support which is cool if you share your tablet among your family.

Apple always celebrated their products with a sense of sentimentality and emotion. On the other hand Google celebrated Android as a powerful number cruncher devoid of sentimentality. With Android 4.2 it is safe to say the rise of the robots is underway.

Have you got your hands on Android 4.2? Looking forward to read your comments.

-- This Post Review of Android 4.2: Google's step towards Perfection is Published on Devils Workshop .


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Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 796541

Wednesday 14 November 2012

86% of Removal Request by India to Google are without a Court Order

Google puts out transparency reports every few months. One disturbing trend came out in the previous report was that India has 49% increase in the number of removal requests made by government agencies. The latest report shows that 86% of the removal requests by India are without a court order.

Worrying trends of Internet Censorship?

Content removal requests are not really a big issue as such. Majority of them are for copyright infringement. But these are numbers collected about requests made only by government agencies (eg: Police, courts). Usually in such cases government agencies approach the courts to block a website or webpage before sending a removal notice to Google.

The current trends shows that 86% of such requests are made without a court order. One would think that such urgency of getting items removed might be predominantly matters of national security or hate speech. That is not the case as 35 out of 64 of these requests which are without court order in the past 6 months are categorized under "Defamation" and not other more serious issues like hate speech, impersonation, privacy and security.

This is a major worrying sign as only countries with a high level of internet censorship actually try and remove content online requiring court orders.

What are your views on internet censorship in India? Do drop in your comments.

Link: Google Transparency Report 2012

-- This Post 86% of Removal Request by India to Google are without a Court Order is Published on Devils Workshop .


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Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 796541

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Google Unveils $199 Acer Chromebooks in US and UK

Today Google has unveiled a new Chromebook. This one is from Acer and is priced at a competitive $199. It is available in the US and UK markets via Google Play or Best Buy.

Acer C7 Chromebooks Features and Specs

  • The notebook runs on Chrome OS, with 100 GB Google Drive Storage with 340 GB HDD.
  • The display screen is 11.6 ". It supports resolution of 1366 X 768.
  • It will have 3.5 hours of battery time.

If you are living in the US or UK you can buy the Acer Chromebook from its landing page.

Last month, Google also had another Chromebook variant from Samsung. The price tag of that device was $249. I think Chromebooks are great if you are comfortable using Chrome OS. To be honest, I am still not very convinced about the a new type of laptop making a big dent in the computer market.

I also have realized that a lot of new updates on Google seems to be hardware related instead of web related. This post too falls in that category. Do you think Google should just stick web and Android instead of launching new phone, tablets and laptops? Do drop in your comments.

Link: Acer C7 Chromebook

-- This Post Google Unveils $199 Acer Chromebooks in US and UK is Published on Devils Workshop .


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Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 796541