[Devils Workshop] “[Update] The countdown begins for Google IO 2011” and 7 more...

[Update] The countdown begins for Google IO 2011
LG’s G-Slate: Do we have the iPad killer? [Video]
Popular websites still not using SSL
Caption It – Write your own funny captions on online photos!
Passplex: Generate strong passwords randomly
Paper.li – Create your own online newspaper from Facebook and Twitter
How to Convert a Photo into Pencil Sketch [Photoshop Tutorial]
[Gmail] Priority Inbox now for Mobile too!

[Update] The countdown begins for Google IO 2011

Posted: 08 Feb 2011 09:51 AM PST

With just 90 days left for the event to take place, Google has started accepting registrations for its largest developer conference at its Moscone Center in San Francisco. The conference is scheduled to take place on May 10th and 11th, 2011.

The main subject of Google I/O 2011 will be about the "cloud". It will even feature the latest Google technology and products such as Android which recently grabbed its leadership officially in the mobile segment, Google Chrome and other applications. Participants shall even get opportunities to meet the entire Google team, there will be rounds of technical sessions and a lot more. Registration costs US$ 450 till 16th April, 2011 however for students and faculty, it will be only $150. Post April 16, the registration will cost US$ 550.

Last year, Google revealed few of the most awaited Google TV and the Developer Sandbox in its I/O conference itself, what do you think this year it plans to reveal? Any guesses? Do post your thoughts and comments as they come.

Source: Google Official Blog

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LG’s G-Slate: Do we have the iPad killer? [Video]

Posted: 08 Feb 2011 08:31 AM PST

Until about a year ago when you thought of the words “Tablet Computer” we immediately thought of obscure tablet models from HP. Today when someone talks about a tablet device, we think only about Apple’s iPad. Such is the power of Apple as a brand. It usually has complete domination over their niche.

The tablet seems to have the goods and as you can see in the video below, it will have two cameras which will record in 3-D format.

iPad killer or a just another tablet?

The big question will be how will it compare with Apple’s iPad. I think it will all depend on the goodies that iPad 2 will have. LG’s G-Slate could be a real threat to other tablet computers out there. I guess RIM better pull up it socks.

Here is a video about LG G-Slate on YouTube.

What do you think about LG’s G-Slate? Will it be compete or will it be brushed aside by iPad? Do drop in your comments.

Source: BGR

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Popular websites still not using SSL

Posted: 08 Feb 2011 06:30 AM PST

In layman terms, HTTPS or SSL simply means that your personal data is secure with the website and you can have a breath of relaxation. Usually it is assumed that a popular website will have SSL implemented, however still there are many such websites which are yet not on SSL. I will list a few of them here.

Google.com – Possibly the world's most popular website and search engine. Though Google's other services are already using SSL, Google is still into Beta testing. Check out the beta version too.
Wikipedia.org – Highly popular open-ended Wiki used worldwide for information.
Bing.com – Another popular search engine from the house of Microsoft.
Ask.com – Another search engine with a service which let you ask questions similar to Yahoo Answers service.
Conduit.com – It is a global network of its kind which lets publishers of content and applications to easily distribute their own products to the 230 millions users on the website.

Alexa.com – Alexa is a popular web-ranking and statistics portal which enables users to analyse the trend on the Internet.
About.com – One of the World's most popular information network featuring experienced Writers.
4Shared.com – I was somewhat confused while I started evaluating it, so I uploaded a small file and thought after that it might navigate to a HTTPS address, however it didn't.
Apple.com – Couldn’t see any HTTPS address until the payment gateway at Apple store.
Mediafire.com – One of the best file sharing portals, though only Premium users can benefit from SSL.

Though there are a lot of websites on the Internet which are not on SSL, I tried sharing those which are often used by us for our daily activities. Lets end the lecture here and now its your turn!

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Caption It – Write your own funny captions on online photos!

Posted: 08 Feb 2011 04:10 AM PST

One of the best things about images having funny captions, is that it ends up saying something that is witty, sarcastic and funny. Most times we come across such images on blogs and end up sharing these captioned photos on Twitter and Facebook. MSN Caption It allows people to go ahead and put up captions to images online. The best part is others can vote for the best caption.

MSN Caption It Features

To leave captions on the images, we need to register with the website and start leaving captions on various images. Do not worry, there is no need for a Live ID to register.
I could also go ahead and vote on the captions. Voting does not require registration.
Select a section and we get images with the option to write captions to them. When images are shown the latest captions can also be seen.
Along with captions to images, users can also use Blurb It to leave interesting messages on what two people are thinking or saying in an image.

These images are sourced from MSN and at the moment, I did not see any choice for people to upload their own images for writing captions. But I think it will be only a matter of time when someone gets all our Facebook friends to leave captions on our images from personal albums.

Do try out MSN Caption It and let me know if this is going to become the next addictive thing? Do drop in your comments.

Link: Caption It

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Passplex: Generate strong passwords randomly

Posted: 08 Feb 2011 02:00 AM PST

If you think you are not good at creating passwords and you still need a password which should be strong enough to be hacked, then Passplex can come to your rescue. Using Passplex is extremely easy and fast as well. In fact, you don't even need to enter anything to get started.

There are three options a user can select:

Length: This is the length of the password you want to generate. You can keep it between 8 and 16 characters only. Few people do want to keep their passwords less than 8 characters however it is not considered much safe.
Complexity: Complexity levels between 1 and 5 are available while the default is 3. This decides how complex the passwords needs to be.
The user can select whether to include only Numbers or Symbols, or both. This choice can widely change the strength index of the password.

You can even see the strength meter to select the best suitable password for yourself. Officially they have served 36864 till date. Do let me know if you think this can be of help in password selection. Keep in touch, keep Passplexing..

LINK: Passplex

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Paper.li – Create your own online newspaper from Facebook and Twitter

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 11:45 PM PST

In today’s Social-Media oriented world, if a person can himself chose the content that he wants on a newspaper, one might prefer reading a digital newspaper over a conventional one.

Paper.li, is a useful web app, which can be used to create your own newspaper of Twitter and Facebook updates.

How to use Paper.Li

Paper.li is a service introduced by a Swiss startup called SmallRivers, which can make your Twitter and Facebook streams appear to be like a newspaper. All you have to do is connect to your Twitter or Facebook account and create your own newspaper within seconds !

You can chose the content you want on the paper by selecting a search term, and paper.li will search for all articles,videos and images that contain that particular term on Facebook or Twitter (Two different newspapers can be created for Facebook and Twitter).

You can create a paper for a Twitter hash tag, a Twitter List, or your own Twitter username.

About creating a Facebook paper, you can do so by entering a popular term, and providing keywords.

The newspaper can be given a unique name, of which you become the editor-in-chief, and the people who share the links to that particular topic become the contributors.

Here is a screen shot of a Facebook paper I created titled ‘Egypt’ alongside the #India Twitter paper. Click to enlarge.

As you can see, the paper.li app looks for updates of the particular topic that has been chosen. I really found the look and appearance of paper.li to be well designed and user friendly.

Some drawbacks

paper.li allows the display of ads on the paper. Since its a digital newspaper, ads should be minimum or should not be present at all.
You cannot create more than 10 papers per user. When you try to create more than 10 papers the following notification appears.

Although you can tweet each article on the Twitter newspaper, individual articles cannot be ‘Liked’ on the Facebook paper.
Paper.li is updated on a 24-hour basis just like real newspapers, so no real-time updates can be received on your paper.

Alternatives:

Tweeted Times is a good web app which can be used to view any Twitter feed in the form of a newspaper. You can ‘Like’ all individual Facebook posts unlike paper.li.
PostPost is yet another popular Facebook stream newspaper which has an amazing layout. All the content on your Facebook News Feed is displayed in a beautiful manner on postpost.

Do try out paper.li as well as the alternatives stated above. Would you read something like paper.li every single day? Dont forget to drop in your opinions

Link: paper.li

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How to Convert a Photo into Pencil Sketch [Photoshop Tutorial]

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 11:15 PM PST

In this tutorial lets see how to use photoshop to convert a photo into a pencil sketch masterpiece. There are numerous ways to do it in Photoshop, but i will show you the easiest way to get the best result.

So lets start with good a picture.

Step1: Duplicate the image layer.(Shortcut key Ctrl+J)

Step2: Make sure the duplicate layer is selected and go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. You can refer image below.
(Shortcut key Ctrl+ Shift +U)

This will make the photo Black and White.

Step3: Again duplicate the desaturated layer and then go to Image > Adjustments > invert.

Step4: Now change its blend mode to color dodge from layer panel option.

Step5: Here comes the final step go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

Adjust the settings as per your photo. I have given 2.7 pixels radius.

So here is the Final result. Check out pencil sketch below.

Hope you found this tutorial useful. Do drop in your view and ideas through your comments.

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[Gmail] Priority Inbox now for Mobile too!

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 09:45 PM PST

If you have been always pinning your eyes into that small mobile screen finding the important mails through the long list, the news comes as a pain reliever for you. With Google finally introducing it's niche feature Priority Inbox, it is expecting more and more users to switch to the service. Till now, only desktop and Android users could use the feature, however now any Mobile browser supporting HTML 5 shall make the feature accessible for you.

You need to set up the Priority Inbox feature on your desktop version first and then only it will be available to you on your mobile web app. Don’t forget to drop in your comments.

Source: Google Mobile Official Blog

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