Privacy is a big deal on the web, especially in recent times when social networks makes finding individuals very easy. Anonymity and encryption are two vital way to maintain your privacy. Also there are many instances when we want to not share our Gmail or Skype ID but use something temporary but what to discuss something with someone from a forum or a group.
With free online tool PrivyTalks, we can chat anonymously and also have the exchanged information which is encrypted and hence safe.
Just visit the PrivyTalks website and start the chat. A link can be shared to invite others to chat with them.
The messages are encrypted from the browsers using the service. The website claims they only transfer the encrypted data and does not have access to any of the chat messages shared.
This makes it truly anonymous and secure way to share and share information. People sharing passwords to a service might find this PrivyTalks very useful.
Windows does not have an inbuilt feature to create multiple desktops. This is quite useful when you want to have a cleaner desktop while working.
For example shortcuts to all games could be on one desktop layout while all browser shortcuts on another.
I came across this software, which allows users to create and switch between multiple Desktops. Also users can customize the desktops with different wallpapers and icons.
The best way to stop spam is not share your email address. This is why people like using temporary or disposable email addresses. We have covered many services that allow creating temporary or disposable email addresses. Such services are ideal if you want to sign up anonymously to a forum or even if you want to register with some service.
With Mmmmail.com, not only can you create a temporary email id, but also track the email sent to that address using RSS feeds.
Just add your nickname in the box and click on ‘Check mmmmail’ The email address is created and we get a new RSS feed to keep track of these messages sent to this address.
I love Simplenote, especially its simplicity which Evernote, Springpad and other popular note taking apps lack. As I spend most of my time on the browser, I like to have extensions of the apps which I use the most.
SyncPad for Simplenote and SyncPad Webnotes are two extensions for Chrome which ease the task of taking notes and syncing them.
Quickly create notes by selecting text on any webpage, right click and choose “create a webnote”.
It doesn’t store anything locally, everything is synced to your Simplenote account.
Pin important notes, pinned notes show up first in the order.
Tag notes for better search, just tag any note with an Email address to send the note to your friends.
Create floating sticky notes on any webpage*.
Works offline too.
*You need to install SyncPad Webnotes to make sticky notes on SyncPad. The author also gives an explanation on why he made a new extension (SyncPad Webnotes) when he could combine both into a single extension.
Chrome is my favorite browser. Its clean user-interface, speed, instant page loading, a lots of apps and extension etc make it a browser to reckon with. Chrome Apps give a different angle to the browser and one of my favourite ways to unwind is to play games on Chrome.
I am sharing 5 games that can be played offline on Chrome.
#1. Angry Birds
Angry Birds is one of the most famous games around. Game is based on the revenge of birds from the green pigs who stolen their eggs . There are about 189 levels and 21 more levels in Chrome dimension.
A wonderful Chrome app for chess fans. This game has 3 levels beginners (cordy), intermediate (Claire) and advanced (Boris). Select multiplayer and type user name and password or register to start playing with other online players. It also allows looking up stats accumulated from your performance while playing the game.
This one is straight and simple game where users need to avoid touching the red-spotted dots while dragging the mouse pointer. As one goes to a higher level the number of dots too increase. The simplicity of the game makes it very addictive.
Magic cube is classic Rubik’s cube game. This like the real Rubik’s cube is extremely addictive. It is a real brain teaser. This game also supports offline play, thanks to HTML5 caching.
If you have been to a mini-golf course, then you will surely enjoy this game.
Another Good Chrome games from Fupa.com. This is not the actual golf game but quite similar to it, hence called mini-golf. This apps has 9 course which you can explore. An added feature of this game is it can be embedded on a website.
I am often stuck with the answer to the question, how to decide who to follow on Twitter? I am usually very particular about the people I follow on Twitter, that is because I want to make sure that I can actually read my Twitter timeline without the need of using lists to filter out the noise.
This means I tend not to follow people who update a 100 times a day. 😀
An online tool, that I came across called twtrland gives me a nice analysis to decide if I should follow that person on Twitter.
Just enter the Twitter handle of the account and we get neatly organized data about that Twitter account.
Check details on how many tweets are sent per day, how many of them are retweeted and how many times there are retweets.
Also a pie diagram on the right, shows what percentage of tweets show links, mentions, replies and plain tweets. This might give you a good idea on if the account is interactive of just simply tweeting out links. 😉
If you are like me and like to keep your Twitter account clean and very particular about the accounts your follow, you might like to check twtrland. If want to clean up the accounts you follow on Twitter, you might want to look up these free online tools.
From all the things we share online, be it funny quotes, pictures and files, the most care is taken while we email someone. It is an unspoken rule on the internet that when we expect someone to check something and respond, you email them.
Unfortunately, not all email addresses are valid. Also we can get a seemingly innocent mail but from invalid addresses. Before replying, we want to know if the address is actually valid or not.
Here are 3 online tools to check if an email address is valid.
Just type in your address and this online tool checks first if the syntax was correct. Then it looks up the email provider. If the check is valid, it shows a green tick mark next to the email address. This service was simple and intuitive but does not show us the logs.
Verify Email is also useful to check if the email address you entered is valid or not. Type in the email address and click on ‘Verify’. If the result is OK, then it means the service was able to verify successfully. This does show a log of how your email was verified.
Finally, another online tool which will also check if the email you entered exists or not. This service prominently displays the logs while carrying out the verification.
The services get MX DNS records of your domain to verify which mail server is being used. Then it checks with the mail server to see if the username exists. Once all the results are positive, the email is verified and we are given the result.
Do try out these email verification services and let me know if you know about more services and methods to verify email addresses.
Editor’s Note: The author wishes to remain anonymous.
The last time I went to buy a PC, I found myself at crossroads when it came to deciding what to choose: faster CPU or better GPU? I finally ended up asking my dad for more funds. 😛
In today’s age where you cannot expect parents to give you more funds, just so that you can get faster and better graphics, we have to make smarter choices. Thankfully if you are planning to buy a desktop in the next few months, AMD has come up with some options!
A CPU design-innovator helping out with my graphics needs? It is natural to be asking that question but before I tell you what AMD has done, let us go over what the current scenario is.
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The Problem with Processors
A motherboard chipset has typically two main areas. North Bridge and South Bridge. North Bridge handles all the fast paced communication between the RAM, CPU and GPU. While the South Bridge handles slower communication between the USB ports, keyboards and other peripheral devices. The bus speeds may vary for different Bridges. Too complicated? Let me simplify it for you.
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Assume that there are two rooms in an office called Northbridge. One of them is called the CPU and the other GPU. The front desk (known as Memory Controller Hub or for those of you with tech flair, Integrated Memory Controller) of the office deals out the work to the respective rooms. Also, Northbridge office is somewhat fancy.
It names the corridor between the front desk and the CPU as FSB (Technical Note: AMD has now moved over to a Hyper Transport technology) and that between front desk and GPU as PCI. The front door is in the middle of the central corridor as shown in the picture:
Normally, when information/work arrives at the front desk, the person there decides what sort of work it is. If it’s a graphic work, i.e., it involves complex float (decimal range upto 10^+/-32) computation, he sends the work to GPU.
GPU people are good at that sort of work.
If anything else is encountered, it is then sent over to CPU. CPU is expected to process a task as fast as possible whereas a GPU must be capable of processing a maximum number of tasks on a large-scale of data. This means GPU has lots of people working inside it . CPU has fewer, but faster workers.
It takes a lot of power to run both the rooms as resources are duplicated (like air-conditioning, lights etc). Also, as there is only one door from the front desk to the either of the rooms, a bottleneck for work flow is created.
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There is GPU-CPU communication too, which keeps increasing the overall time required to complete the job.
The Solution by AMD
Now consider a new office designed by AMD. Let’s say AMD was a consultancy hired to build more efficient office by the guys at Northbridge. They want to increase the overall performance of the office by reducing the average time required to complete each job and make efficient use of resources.
You don’t really have to be an Einstein to figure out this solution. Combine both the offices, make the CPU office bigger and add the GPU people inside it.
That’s exactly what the folks at AMD have done. They combined their CPU design and processing skills along with the amazing pixel crunching skills of ATI (AMD has acquired ATI in 2006). This way the new AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) was born!
‘What does this mean to me?’ Well, remember how the GPU had lots of people and it was draining resources like usage of electricity? Power that is very valuable when you have a laptop or are running a computer on a UPS. Power, which when saved, keeps the world’s environment cleaner and your electricity bills low.
Since the front desk doesn’t have to go through the trouble of separating out the work to GPU or CPU, we can expect faster working speed and lesser average execution time. This means, faster speeds out of lesser resources! 🙂
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AMD Fusion (APU) Features
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The innovative AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) combines the powerful AMD processor technology and discrete-class, DirectX® 11–capable graphics combined on a single chip.
It’s the perfect combination of beauty and brawn – delivering smooth HD video, powerful multitasking and energy efficiency.
AMD’s new APU features up to 4 x86 cores combined with up to 400 Radeon™ graphics cores in a single microchip.
And that is no joke in terms of computing. Infact, in their ‘Vision’ campaign they claim 10+ hrs of computer usage and 94% better performance in gaming.
Head on over to the AMD website and check out their cool videos describing how the combined awesomeness of AMD processors and ATI gfx can make gaming, video/photo/music editing breeze lightening and at nearly half the power usage. For the tech savvy this guy has the 411 on AMD Fusion. Also, for those with decent tech know-how check out the white paper (its brown!) that AMD has released.
Install the Layers App on your Chrome browser and sign-in to your Twitter and Facebook accounts.
I could add RSS feeds also into the web app, which can also be flipped through.
If you are looking at Facebook or Twitter posts with a link, the page actually loads up on top of the slide, while you can still continue looking at other posts.
Layers, is not going to replace other social clients like TweetDeck or Hoot Suite. It cannot be considered to be an alternative to Google Reader either. But for some people who only follow a couple of blogs or casually glance at their twitter timeline, Layers will be very interesting.
Do give it a try and drop in your comments and views.
