I just came across this very cool tool called Yahoo Widgets. I always use Post It’s on my Mac for work but I came across this with Yahoo Widgets for Windows and Mac. It has so many widgets like weather, Day Planner, Calendar and many more in their gallery and you can float them on your desktop. I have these cool post it and calendar and weather and traffic on my desktop.

It also has widgets for Craigslist, eBay, so if you are on the look out for something particular to buy from you can monitor right from the desktop without going to the site, that’s handy and something I will use.

I read up about widgets on the web and it was called Konfabulator earlier and used to cost $20 to try but after Yahoo bought Pixoria the maker of Konfabulator it is free, yippee! Ok so I am a bit late in getting this news but it is a cool tool and users can create their own widget. I am going to try and make a Zoroastrian Calendar and if I am successful at it will post here. You can get your widgets here.

Vlogs a short for video blogging, is getting easier and easier. My friends have very frequently asked me how to add video to their websites or blog and I explain to them the various steps of capturing, encoding into the various formats and then uploading the video to a server. So when I used VideoEgg to publish a video to my personal blog, I was like the next time someone asks me about this, I am just going to direct them to VideoEgg, because it has a very easy to use interface. It also captures video from any source like your camera, phone, webcam or even if you have clips on your machine without you really having to understand the techinical aspects of formats, encoders, players and stuff.

Though the video clips are only limited to 2 minutes at this time, I am sure vlogging and publishing video is just going to get easier and easier. Now if you have a Mac you don’t have to worry about the Quick Time format video as well since VideoEgg is also available for the Mac, so both PC and Mac users like me can now easily publish digital video.

VideoEgg is a San Francisco based company which has tied up with Six Apart , maker of TypePad which is the leader in weblogging software, so if you have a Typepad account you just need to log in to http://typepad.videoegg.com/ and upload your video, but if you use other blogging sites then VideoEgg gives you an HTML or JavaScript code to add to your website. And recently VideoEgg also announced a second round of financing from August Capital.

I also downloaded the trial version of Vlog It ! from Serious Magic, it was also very cool and had more features like adding transitions, narration, sound effects but it has a 15 day free trial and then costs $49.95. Though I feel for individuals who just want to add their video to their Blog or website without downloading any software, VideoEgg does the job seamlessly without downloading anything, but both the versions I tried were Demo Versions so lets wait for the real deal.

Guess it wouldn’t be a long time before Blogger has its own integrated Vlogging.
I personally feel 2006 is going to be the year of Vlogging.

Here is a video of us flying over Palo Alto, CA. I am uploading them using both VideoEgg and Vlog It!



If the video does not display properly
click here to upgrade to Flash 8

These days the news is filled with video on demand over broadband well Bollywood is not lagging behind. I just read that Indian Film Distributor Eros International is teaming up with Intel on a digital content portal for movies produced by Bollywood.

This means we will be able to download Bollywood movies at home and not make a trip to the Indian Video store to see that the movie you want to see is already rented, plus no more wait for Netflix to get the latest releases. There is always a long wait for popular hindi films on Netflix, even though has more than 600 Bollywood DVDs, which is twice the size of even their French film inventory

Some titbits about Bollywood. Each year Bollywood makes at least 800 films. Here in America alone, there are 1.7m people who are first or second generation Indians, and Indians love one thing for sure that is Hindi Films, some love to see them, some love to see and hate them, its quite paradoxical.

Some of my favorite Hindi Films

Some web designs have a lot of garbled language which mostly begin with Lorem Ipsum. I used to always wonder what language this is, the mystery was solved when a friend of mine forwarded this very interesting website Lipsum.com

Briefly talking about Lorem Ipsum, it is text that has absolutely no meaning and is used as a filler so that the user and viewer focus on the design rather than the data. You can read more about the history of Lorem Ipsum on the site.

Here is my generated paragraph from the website.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nulla congue libero. Vivamus imperdiet sagittis turpis. Duis tristique ullamcorper lectus. Aliquam eget eros. Ut sollicitudin placerat augue. Nulla viverra urna et risus. Nulla facilisi. Ut porttitor lorem vitae risus. Duis pede ipsum, molestie non, nonummy nec, varius ac, velit. Nullam id leo eu dolor volutpat vestibulum. Curabitur nec arcu.

Every other blog I read these days is talking about the MAC World  and the Intel-Mac marriage. So I am wondering and I am sure many others who just recently bought a Powerbook, which is now MacBook, did I make a dumb ass error, should I have waited, but how would they know?

I have been scouring the web to get the answer to this question. On Craigslist’s Mac forum I got a thread, which did talk something about it. So I visited Apple’s website to see if they had any input on that, but no info there, so I decided to call the Apple Store and speak to them, they said they needed my order number, well I bought my PowerBook in 2004 November so I am definitely not eligible, not news to me but the good news to people who bought their Mac’s last month, the customer service rep on the phone that  maybe they can exchange or credit but he needed to check the order number and stuff and see details.  Well if I get any more details on this I will update.  

Yes there is a most played artist across all formats combined and according to Mediabase.com “ Green Day is the Most Played Artist in all formats combined for 2005”.

I heard this on the radio, and I tried to log on to mediabase.com to reconfirm it but MediaBase needs some kind of password and stuff so I checked out Green Day’s website and yes there it was on their news page. I guess now that they are going on hiatus for 2006 after having an excellent year on tour with the album “American Idiot” lets look forward to their next smashing album.

Check out todays logo on Google it is in Braille, why is it you ask, 'coz today is Louis Braille's birthday.

I love the way Google changes their logos every time there is an holiday or an event. Apart from looking cool these logos also remind us of days which we would have no idea of, like I did not know today is Louis Braille's birthday. And if you want to peek at their previous logos check them out here

Now even Royalty recognizes the immense popularity of Apple's iPod's  by honoring iPods chief designer Jonathan Ive in the Queen's Honors List.

Ive received the prestigious title ‘Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE)’ by Queen Elizabeth II.   Really good to know that apart from singers Designer’s too are getting recognized by the Queen and that the Monarchy is not out of touch with modern technology.