E@zyVG’s Vichar::World Connected

The current blog is under fine tunning …. please be patient.

Flock is a browser which makes social networking more easier than ever bringing to you a host of tools to interact with different social networking websites. Firefox on the other hand is not social networking ready but can be easily converted into a social networking hub by using extensions and add-ons.

In this post we will take a look at those useful extensions and add-ons which will help you convert Firefox into a social networking hub. Anticipating the Firefox 3 launch tomorrow we will only be talking about extensions that are compatible with Firefox 3 and above, those extensions will also be compatible with lower versions of Firefox.

StumbleUpon Toolbar

StumbleUpon is a great way to come across wonderful sites. The StumbleUpon Toolbar extension will help you discover websites in your selected categories. It will also let you share and connect with your friends.

Download StumbleUpon Toolbar

Shareaholic

Are you a avid social networker? Shareaholic is one extension that will fulfill your addiction with social networks by allowing you to bookmark or e-mail pages to a wide array of social networks.

Shareaholic currently supports digg, del.icio.us, facebook, foxiewire, friendfeed, google bookmarks, google reader, healthranker, kaboodle, magnolia, mixx, myspace, pownce, reddit, simpy, stumbleupon, streakr, truemors, tumblr, twitter, ycombinator, bzzster and more.

Download Shareaholic

ShareThis

Another extension similar to Shareaholic, ShareThis makes it more easier and efficient to share any type of content with anyone you want to share it with. ShareThis also makes it easier to share with your friends by providing you a mash up of address book from popular social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, AIM, Outlook and more.

Download ShareThis

Del.icio.us Bookmarks

This is the official extension created by Yahoo which will help you easily bookmark any site to your del.icio.us, you can also browse all your bookmarks in the sidebar.

Download Del.icio.us Bookmarks

Dashblog

What happens when you see a interesting image and want to quickly want to share it with your friends through your blog, twitter or tumblr? Do you want to quickly be able to share those videos, images and websites without having to go through much trouble. Dashblog is a extension that will quickly collect videos, images, text/quotes, songs and screen-captures from any web page and publish them to your blog (wordpress, blogger, tumblr) or twitter.

Download Dashblog

Piclens

PicLens transforms your browser into a visually stunning experience for enjoying online photos and videos. You can effortlessly search and zoom your way around thousands of images and YouTube videos faster and more immersively than ever before.

Piclens lets you search YouTube videos and discover videos and photos from various other sites. You can also browser products from Amazon with a 3D experience.

Piclens currently supports a host of services including Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and almost all of the popular image sharing websites.

Download Piclens

Clipmarks

Clipmarks is like adding a pair of scissors to your browser, letting you capture exactly what you want others to see (text, images or video). Your clips are saved on clipmarks.com and can easily be syndicated to FriendFeed, Twitter, Facebook or other sites.

Download Clipmarks

Meebo

Meebo is a popular online instant messaging service which allows you to chat with friends from multiple IM networks without having to install any client on your desktop.

We have made a exception to include Meebo in our list even though it is not compatible with Firefox 3 since it is a real must have extension and is definitely useful.

Download Meebo

GMarks

GMarks allows you to sync and manage your Google Bookmarks from within Firefox.

Download Gmarks

Related Downloads: GBookmarks | Google Bookmarks Button

TwitterFox

The extension adds a tiny icon on the status bar that notifies you when your friends update their statuses. Also it has a small text input field to update your status from within Firefox without having to visit the site.

Download TwitterFox

TwitterBar

Are you in hurry and want to post something to twitter? TwitterBar comes to the rescue by allowing you to post to twitter directly from the Firefox address bar. Simply type in your message and click on the icon to submit your post to twitter.

Download TwitterBar

Digg Sidebar

Who can ever forget Digg when one talks about social networking? Digg sidebar is a useful extension that will allow you to see and Digg stories in the Firefox Sidebar.

View all the stories as they occur without having to refresh the page over and over again, you can also choose from various categories and topics and from popular/upcoming/all sections on Digg by just using a menu.

Download Digg Sidebar

FlickrFox

FlickrFox allows you to browse and search Flickr photos in a sidebar.

Download FlickrFox

Facebook Toolbar

The official toolbar from Facebook which allows you to easily access your Facebook account using the toolbar, without having to visit the website.

You can also access your Facebook account from the Firefox sidebar.

Download Facebook Sidebar

Email This! Bookmarklet

Email This! will send your recipient the link, title, & highlighted text of the page you are viewing using GMail, Google Apps GMail, Yahoo, and Stand-Alone Mail Clients like Outlook Express, Thunderbird, & More!

Download Email This! Bookmarklet

Other worth while mentions for bringing Social Networking into Firefox

• Me.dium Toolbar
• Del.icio.us Sidebar
• Video Download Helper

Yesterday I launched the version 2 of Linux and Open Source Blog, completely with new design with a switch from wordpress.com to personal hosting.

Here are the figues:

Sometime ago Google Translate introduced some of the major Indian languages to it’s list of supported languages, and now Gmail is as well available in Hindi and other major languages of India including اردو (Urdu) , मराठी (Marathi), हिन्दी (Hindi), বাংলা (Bangla), ગુજરાતી (Gujarati), ଓଡିଆ (Oriya), தமிழ் (Tamil), తెలుగు (Telugu), ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada) and മലയാളം (Malayalam).

To change to a different language in Gmail, go to the Settings:

That is about it. As for me, I am sticking with English.

*!!!!! I think that this post needs some modifications, as not all is working as expected. Any tips and comments are very much welcomed. (Think I have resolved the issue …. check UPDATE section at the bottom)

I am in the process of moving my blogs from wordpress.com to my own wordpress.org hosting. While doing so, I got stuck with the problem. My blog posts use several different languages, especially Russian and Hindi, apart from English. Once exported from wordpress.com using the built-in feature and imported to newly created blog, posts with other than English were not shown correctly, i.e. I was getting ????? instead of letters. So, how to fix this.

There are two ways: One is to edit wp_config.php file only, as mentioned in II, or the way, especially if you are starting a new blog, as I had a small problem at the end (see remark after I), though am not very much sure if this gives me extra benefit for future imports/exports, but does sound better.

Notice: I installed Wordpress using the Fantastico script provided by my hosting company, and my hosting provider has phpMyAdmin 2.11.4, running MySQL 4.1.22.

(choose only one of the following methods, don;t do both)

I. Check main configuration of Wordpress in wp-config.php. You should have these records:

define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
define('DB_COLLATE', '');

Open your PhpMyAdmin and check settings for default charset and collation.

Set collation as utf8_general_ci

• MySQL charset: UTF-8 Unicode (utf8)
• MySQL connection collation: utf8_general_ci

Let’s check settings for the tables. You can see that all tables have not the utf8 charset, but latin1 or any other charset, but default collation for the database is utf8 already.

Next step - Export Wordpress database and fix collation and charset for all records.

Press Export button, select “Save as file” in checkbox and press “Go“.

Once downloaded, open it in any text editor, like kwrite/notepad. Search and replace all latin1 (or your current charset) to utf8. For faster method, use find and replace: latin1 - to - utf8. Save the file.

Upload file with Import button.

Remark: This allowed me to write new posts in other languages, but the older content imported still remained with ???? instead of letters (!)

II. Editing wp_config.php file:

define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
define('DB_COLLATE', '');

//define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
//define('DB_COLLATE', '');

With only this hack, you should be able to make posts in your native language, as well as see properly all your imported content from your older blog.

Troubleshooting: Error for import tables or database - tables or database already exist

Press Drop button and selected database will be deleted (careful here :-)) Now try to import database once again.

If your hosting decide to delete Drop button from your phpmyadmin, then you can delete tables in this way:

Open database (Browse) and select all tables. Select Drop from menu.

Also maybe you should delete this line in your edited copy of the database:

CREATE DATABASE `your_database_name` DEFAULT

CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

It’s highly recommended to leave this line in a file

USE `your_database_name`;

I hope this tutrial was of help, as I myself spent few hours resolving this issue.

Also check out:

• Wordpress.org - Converting Database Character Sets
• WordPress Backups
• Backing Up Your Database

UPDATE (few hours later):

After trying out few combinations, I came to the following for the imported blog/new blog, either from wordpress.com or the wordpress.org version 2.2.x or older (I think), here is what will work for sure.

1. Set collation to utf8_general_ci, as mentioned in Step I.

2. Open your database , and DROP all Tables, as explained in Troubleshooting section (leaving db empty)

3. Head to your domain/url/web address where you installed your wordpress blog

4. Go through couple of install steps (change the password after setup for admin, if you want)

5. Import your XML file that you have downloaded from your older wordpress blog (using wordpress import tool, not mysql)

You will notice now that all your tables are set to utf8, older imported posts are showing all characters properly. Seems like Fantastico script for installing wordpress.org is giving head aches to many users across the web.

THAT IS IT … it takes time to ….

С чего это Акадо незаконно взимает плату (450 р.) за переход на более дешёвый тарифный план???

Предисловие: С 1-го Мая 2008 г. мой интернет провайдер Миг-Телеком был поглощен компанией Акадо за $18 миллионов. Когда Я захотел переитй с тарифа “Миг-Silver” (750руб./месец) на новыи “Онлайн+ 10000″ (700руб./месец), у меня дополнительно сняли 450руб. за смену тарифа, что незаконно по закону действующей на территорий Российской Федерациb.

Известно, что с 1-го января 2008 г. запрещено брать деньги за смену тарифного плана. Тем не менее, второй по величине московский провайдер Акадо за переход на более дешёвый тариф снимает 450 р. Ниже — обоснование незаконности такой процедуры. Думаю, многим может пригодиться.

Вот все документы, которые доказывают, что Акадо не имеет право брать деньги за смену тарифа.

В Постановлении Правительства Российской Федерации «Об утверждении перечня наименований услуг связи, вносимых в лицензии, и перечней лицензионных условий» № 87 от 18 февраля 2005 г. написан перечень услуг, которые относятся к телематике:

цитата:

---

XVI. Перечень лицензионных условий осуществления деятельности в области оказания телематических услуг связи
…
4. Обеспечение предоставления абоненту и (или) пользователю*: а) передачи факсимильных сообщений; б) передачи сообщений электронной почтой; в) доступа к информации с использованием инфокоммуникационных технологий.

---

В этот пункт перечня Постановлением Правительства Российской Федерации от 10 сентября 2007 г. № 575 «Об утверждении Правил оказания телематических услуг связи» были внесены следуюшие важные для нас изменения:

цитата:

---

1. Утвердить прилагаемые Правила оказания телематических услуг связи и ввести их в действие с 1 января 2008 г.
2. Подпункты «а» - «в» пункта 4 раздела XVI перечней лицензионных условий … изложить в следующей редакции:
«а) доступа к сети связи лицензиата;
б) доступа к информационным системам информационно-телекоммуникационных сетей, в том числе к сети Интернет;
в) приема и передачи телематических электронных сообщений.».

---

Таким образом, с 1 января 2008 года доступ в инет, а так же доступ к сети лицензиата (это на тот случай, если Акадо заявит, что оно предоставляет доступ не к инету, а к сети другого провайдера) являются телематическими услугами и регулируются п. 50 того же документа, где написано:

цитата:

---

50. … Плата за изменение тарифного плана с абонента не взимается.

---

Если хотите, вот комментарий юриста: http://www.iks-media.ru/articles/249828.html

Вот как все было: Отправив факсом жалобу в Федеральную службу по надзору в сфере массовых коммуникаций, связи и охраны культурного наследия, позже позвонили из Акадо, сказали, что произошёл “сбой программы”, что деньги сниматься не должны были (хотя о взимании платы написано на оф. сайте и это подтверждают в техподдержке) и их вернули. Просили отозвать жалобу, я отказался.

Ваши деиствия: Итак, если у вас в этом году при смене тарифа произошёл аналогичный “сбой программы”, звоните в техподдержку и просите исправить ошибку. На всякий случай, ниже — текст заявления, которое Вы можете отправить по факсу 748-76-80, или написать письмо на адрес: 109074, Москва, Китай городский проезд, 7, стр. 2 (все необходимые телефоны Федеральной службы по надзору в сфере массовых коммуникаций есть на их сайте, можно позвонить и проконсультироваться).
(жирным выделен текст, который нужно заменить)

---

               Заместителю руководителя Федеральной службы
               по надзору в сфере массовых коммуникаций,
               связи и охраны культурного наследия
               Власовой Светлане Борисовне от
               [b]Фамилия Имя Отчество (в родительном падеже)[/b],
               проживающего по адресу: индекс, адрес, тел

         ЗАЯВЛЕНИЕ

В настоящее время я являюсь абонентом интернет-провайдера «Акадо»
(№ договора 66666666) который за смену тарифного плана (с название старого тарифа
на тарифный план название нового тарифа, заявка № 123456 g123456)
списал с моего счёта сумму 450 рублей. О взимании платы за переход на
более дешёвый тариф написано на официальном сайте провайдера:
http://mig-telecom.ru/prices/internet/unlim/ или 
http://akado.ru/tariffs/internet/

На все мои заявления о незаконности взимания платы за смену тарифного
плана и просьбы вернуть списанные за это деньги реакции со стороны
провайдера так и не последовало.
(В связи с Постановлением Правительства Российской Федерации от 10 сентября 2007 г.
№ 575 «Об утверждении Правил оказания телематических услуг связи», с 1 января
2008 года доступ к информационным системам
информационно-телекоммуникационных сетей, в том числе к сети Интернет,
а так же доступ к сети лицензиата относятся к телематическим услугам и
регулируются Постановлением Правительства Российской Федерации «Об
утверждении перечня наименований услуг связи, вносимых в лицензии, и
перечней лицензионных условий» № 87 от 18 февраля 2005 г, которое
запрещает взымание платы за изменение тарифного плана (”50. … Плата
за изменение тарифного плана с абонента не взимается.”)).
Прошу
принять необходимые меры по исправлению существующей ситуации и
сообщить о них по вышеуказанному адресу или по электронной почте: e-mail@mail.ru

С уважением,
Фамилия Имя Отчество.

---

Скриншоты подтверждающие что Акадо до сих пор взимает 450руб. за смену тарифа по сей день:

На сайте Акадо - Миг-Телеком (будущее Акадо-ЮЗАО наверника)

На оффициальном сайте Акадо.ру

В ближаищие пару месяцов, посмотрев на качество предоставляемой услуги, буду решать переходить на Корбину.ру или оставатся с Акадо. Вы как думаете?

P.S.> Благодарю юзера -Alex- из forum.ixbt.com за предоставленную информацию.

Google Labs India has launched Translate, its translation service for Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

This launch enables automated translation between five regional languages and English.

Translating English text, or web page or issuing a query in regional language can be done at: http://www.google.com/translate_t.

Google said in a statement that it is a step towards ensuring that regional language-speaking users in India benefit from the Internet, regardless of their familiarity with English language. This launch is the latest in a series of updates that are all focused on making it easier for multi-lingual users in India, Google statement added.

Google India has introduced services such as Easier Data Entry, Express Your Views and Find Information.

You might have noticed that Google and Yahoo show different results when you search, but why? The simple answer is that each search engine uses different methods to decide what’s relevant to you, and also what sites they want you to see, for advertising reasons.

Search engines have a lot of different ways to decide what to show you. Among them are reading the page title, headings, the text, image names, the web site name, information you can’t see (in the behind-the-scenes coding) and also how many pages are linked to each site.

The first thing to keep in mind is these are both big, wealthy sites who make money from advertising. Fortunately Yahoo and Google will return free results alongside the paid ads, but they still have some big differences in what comes up.

Each engine places different values on what matters the most. If we look closer here are the main differences from Google to Yahoo:

Google looks closely at a web page’s text and also where it links to. It can tell a little better if the links make sense, and manages to filter out a lot of sites that have added fake or broken links just to try to get themselves on top of the search results.

Lots and lots of links to different sites need to be relevant - if they are links to unrelated sites Google won’t rank it as highly as a page full of relevant links.

Yahoo will often include a page filled and overflowing with one particular word - again which the owner has repeated over and over to try to get themselves up to the top of the search results. Google realises that it’s probably not the best article if it needs this to get there, and will sometimes remove it from the results shown to you.

Yahoo isn’t quite so good at stopping “clone” sites appearing more than once. Ten sites all saying the same exact text isn’t very useful to you, and Google tends to keep these out a bit better.

Overall, Google tends to supply general information results, and Yahoo’s results tend to be a little towards the shopping side of things - even if those results aren’t paid advertising for Yahoo … personal thought.

So there you have it. There are technical scientific reasons of course, but the search engines guard these fiercely from our eyes. Which one you use comes down to personal preference. I prefer Google as it feels a little less biased, but a true shopaholic will love Yahoo. So enjoy whichever one suits you best, both are good for sure.

Community Organization to Assure Neutrality and Longevity of Specification for Building Social Applications Across the Web

Yahoo!, MySpace, and Google today announced they have agreed to form the OpenSocial Foundation to ensure the neutrality and longevity of OpenSocial as an open, community-governed specification for building social applications across the web. Yahoo!’s support of OpenSocial and role as a founding member of the new foundation are landmarks for the rapidly growing specification which will now offer developers the potential to connect with more than 500 million people worldwide.

The OpenSocial Foundation will be an independent non-profit entity with a formal intellectual property and governance framework; related assets will be assigned to the new organization by July 1, 2008. The foundation will provide transparency and operational guidelines around technology, documentation, intellectual property, and other issues related to the evolution of the OpenSocial platform, while also ensuring all stakeholders share influence over its future direction.

“Yahoo! believes in supporting community-driven industry specifications and expects that OpenSocial will fuel innovation and make the web more relevant and more enjoyable to millions of users,” said Wade Chambers, Vice President – Platforms, Yahoo!. “Our support builds on similar efforts with the OpenID community and will expand the opportunity for developers and publishers to benefit from an open and increasingly social web.”

“Together with the OpenSocial community we are setting new industry specifications for social web application development,” said Steve Pearman, SVP of Product Strategy, MySpace. “Yahoo! is an important addition to the OpenSocial movement, and through this foundation we will work together to provide developers with the tools to make the Internet move faster and to foster more innovation and creativity.”

“OpenSocial has been a community-driven specification from the beginning,” said Joe Kraus, Director of Product Management, Google. “The formation of this foundation will ensure that it remains so in perpetuity. Developers and websites should feel secure that OpenSocial will be forever free and open.”

The OpenSocial Foundation website at www.opensocial.org will serve as the portal for the community to find all information about OpenSocial and the foundation as they evolve. Developers and website owners can now visit www.opensocial.org for the latest specifications, links to other resources, and the opportunity to get involved.

Engineers from Yahoo!, MySpace, and Google will continue to work together and with the OpenSocial community to further advance the specification through the new foundation, continuing several core elements of OpenSocial since its announcement by Google, MySpace, and many others in November 2007:

• all specifications are available under a Creative Commons copyright license
• public community involvement shapes the specification’s direction
• an open source reference implementation called Shindig is being created and developed as a project in the Apache Software Foundation incubator, available at http://incubator.apache.org/shindig/

OpenSocial addresses an emerging problem for developers who are eagerly building applications people can enjoy with their friends: before OpenSocial, if a developer built a “favorite photos” application to work on one social network, it would have to be built all over again to work on another site. OpenSocial tackles this problem at its technology roots, providing common “plumbing” that lets social applications run on many different websites without requiring duplicate work from either developers or the websites.

The result is a vast distribution platform for social applications, whether they are for sharing photos or playing games or arranging real-world meetings or any number of other activities – everything is more fun, interesting, and useful when users can involve their friends and contacts.