Create Slideshows with music and effects : Imageloop

Imageloop allows you to create slideshows with effects, skins and music, apart from this you can also impose certain privacy constraints which will decide who can view the slideshow and other such things. A simple sign up process needs to be followed, later you enter you account and start creating slideshows.

So, as soon as you choose to create a new slideshow, steps are as follows.

• Upload the photos/images, either from your computer or from services like Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, joinR, Netlog etc.

Create Slideshows

• Now here comes in picture, most amazing feature of Imageloop in picture, and i.e. while the photos are being uploaded you can start customizing the slideshow as per your taste, choose the Skins, Effects, Music (you need to give the URL), Size, and privacy constraints.

Once done with all this, you can get the embed code for your slideshow, just choose the service where you want to display your slideshow, or get a embed code for any website, or you can also get an URL link for this slideshow.

Embed code for services

So go ahead, and create some slideshows, show off your love and creativity.Try Imageloop

Created animated, non linear and 3D sideshows with Prezi

Traditional slideshows are effective but as technology has improved people have started looking for options where it can be more interactive and fun both. In short the way sideshows can be changed to a interactive and animated way also.

This is what Guys at Prezi are doing. This tool lets you create sideshows in very effective manner which brings not only makes it effective but also more interactive and with animated way of moving from one slide to another and zooming effects creates a difference.

In their own words

Prezi allows anyone who can sketch an idea on a napkin to create and perform stunning non-linear presentations with relations, zooming into details, and adjusting to the time left without the need to skip slides.

Prezi is in beta so you will have to wait for the invite which gets approved in like a week. After this follow the tutorials they had provided so learn how to use it. The tutorial is pretty good. The only part i got confused was zooming on which they have small tutorial. You can checkout the slide show which we created for our site here

You can add text, video, pdf or any type of image. It supports simple editor for text if you want to create list or align the whole text.

Adding text to Prezi enabled slides

Finally you can connect slides with path in the sequence you want to show it. You can even change navigation anytime you want.

Finalizing the sequence in which the slides will appear

Here are the key factors

• Grids or Frames play an important role. Anything you make put a grid around it so people when they zoom out they reach the outer frame else people viewing the slide show will get a bird view of the whole slide show.
• Learn how to hold objects, increase size and change location.
• Understand how path works. They make your navigation from one path to other.
• make sure you keep the slides away from each other. This makes sure you get the effect of non-linear presentations with relations.

So if you are looking different way of presenting your slides with more interaction, creativity and effective delivery try out Prezi

Create Banners and Slideshows with Banner Snack

Slideshows and Banners have been a very popular mode of Advertising and Communication. Here is an awesome online tool which allows you to create some great looking slideshows and banners.

Banner Snack, allows you to create the slideshows and banners, with loads of transition effects, text and image adding is simple, also gives you and embed code and direct URL to exhibit your creation.

Account will be required, so create one, and then the steps are as follows -

Choose the Size for your Slideshow/Banner

Choose banner Size

Then add the images, text, and other effects which you want.

Create Slides

Other features of Banner Snack, :

• Options to preview your slides at any point of time without saving too.Once saved the embed code and direct URL is rendered to you.
• Easily vary the time difference between two slides.
• Once uploaded images remain in gallery, next time you want to add them you don’t need to upload again.
• 25MB space is allocated to each account for gallery,
• You get a watermark on the every slide, to remove it you need to upgrade to the Premium account.

I found this tool, very easy to use, simple, but several awesome features, a big Thumbs-up to Banner Snacks, creating banners as easy as having snacks!!!! Try Banner Snacks

Create Highly customized and stylish slideshow for Free

Snack Tools, the makers of Banner Snack, launched another tool, Photo Snack. Photo snack is a photo sharing platform, which allows you to create customized slide shows using your photos.

Let us now have a look at working and other features of this tool.

You need to sign in using your account; the old Banner Snack account (if at all you ever created one there) can let you in, else create one.

Whole process on Photo Snack requires mainly three steps –

Upload photos

Before you actually begin to upload the photos, you need to choose a slide show template first, 6 different slide show templates are available as of now, more coming soon.

Done with slide chow template, move on and upload photos using the ‘Upload Photos’ button, you can opt to upload multiple photos from same folder, once done with uploading click on ‘Edit photos’.

Add name, description, remove the photos etc.

Customize

Now, simply ‘Customize’ the slide show, there are several options, you can add a logo as well either on top right or on top left, explore the settings, sufficient options are there.

and Share –

So, here comes the feature which gives you a reason to use Photo Snack as your photo sharing platform, huge number of sharing options are there, simple URL sharing, email, post on social networking sites etc. However, no option like ‘Tweet this album’, gave a heart break to me, it should have been there.

Why I liked Photo Snack –

• Free account too is pretty full featured.
• 250 MBs of space for every free account.
• Enough controls to customize the slide shows.
• Very easy to use.
• Huge sharing options.
• If you have a Banner Snack account, no sign up, I personally hate sign ups.

Every slide show has a Watermark, if you don’t want it at all, try the premium account. So, go ahead and give it a try, I am sure you will love it. Try Photo Snack

Damn simple tool to convert VOB files to almost any other file type (Mp3, AVI, 3GP, MOV etc.)

This is an alternative converter, which has been designed especially to convert VOB files to any other video file format. VOB to AVI is an awesome application, which can help you convert VOB files to MPEG4, Xvid, FLV, Song PSP (Mp4 optimized for portable players), Mp3, DivX, WMV, MOV, and 3GP.

A setup file with size smaller than 3MBs is to be downloaded, install it. Launching the VOB to AVI converter, you will come across it dead simple user interface, as shown below.

Convert VOB to AVI

Probably no description is required beyond this point about the working of this software, click on open to browse the file, select the output file format, choosevv the ration if required at all, later click on convert and before it starts the processing it will ask you the location for output file, simple.

Works fine and is fast, doesn’t engage much of your system resources – light weight, its simple interface is definitely something which is quite appreciable.

Snapshot shown below is of the folder which contains all the output formats for the same VOB file, the VOB file is also shown in the same folder, size of output format says it all have a look.

Conversion Result

Above conversions were performed on Windows 7, so, works fine with it too. Give it a try, and share your views about VOB to AVI converter, with us. Download VOB to AVI

Create Sketch drawings online with OdoSketch

OdoSketch is a perfect tool if you are into painting and specially if you would like to sketch naturally pictures and make it live.

Create sketch old school

This online tool provides you with a sketch pad with different color pencil and thickness which makes this almost real. If you are into design and drawing stuff online, you must be having your Digital Pen which will make your work lot easier.

Though we had talked about converting your images into sketch ( How to create sketch of faces ) but this tool is best to bring the natural talent of a person on to computer and draw sketch.

Another interesting part of this tool is that it lets you replay every minute of how a sketch which is already created by someone and is listed there as featured. This gives you more insight how an artist works and what ideas make him change the sketch to something else. Try OdoSketch

Send a Whale against Whaling in Japan

Japan has a long history of whaling. Several articles have been written on this issue, like “Why Japan’s Whale Hunt Continues” and “Whaling Facts Summary”.

Greenpeace Australia Pacific has come up with an awesome concept against this Whaling in Japan, you too can sign the petition and create your own custom whale (yeah, a virtual Whale), and send it to Japan.

Here is the snapshot from the webpage, have a look at what they say –

Appealing! Isn’t it? So, go ahead and join the drive.

All you need to do is simply enter your email address Country name and postal code, right after that you can create your own custom whale.

Once done, simply click on ‘Launch Your Whale’, and let it swim to Japan, to roar against the Whaling in Japan.

So go ahead and Send a Whale now.

How to create buttons of different style and colors for your Website

This is an online tool, which can be used to create buttons on your website. This tool named as Buttonator.com, is damn easy to use and works fine.

As soon as you access it, you come across a very easy user interface, as shown below.

Probably, no description is required for using this tool, choose the style of button (icons can also be embedded on buttons, choose them from the ‘icons’ tab in style section), Enter the text to be displayed on it, set the font for the text on button, and finally the colors.

Done with all these, like the button you created? Simply download it, get the code as well, if interested in multiple buttons of same style with different text on them, click on batch download, specify up to 10 different text, and download them all in one go as a zip file.

Simple, isn’t it? Go ahead and create buttons for your website or blog, now. Enjoy!!

How to create a bootable USB to install Windows

As the USB drive capacities have increased you can even imagine installing Windows ( probably any version from 7 to 2008) from USB drive like we had been doing it from CD or DVD. Only thing you need to make sure that the USB is bootable.

And to do that Aris has developed an application with help of which you can make a USB device bootable for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 etc. Minimum requirement is you should have the Source Setup of windows and USB drive. It works for both 32 and 64 bit of OS versions.

Installing the software

Creating Bootable usb

Detailed Minimum Requirement :

Host OS:

• Windows Vista SP1 and later ( Vista SP2, Server 2008 SP1 or SP2, Windows 7 x86 or x64)
• USB drive of 4GB

In short I can say is keep your windows update and it will work like a charm. Download Bootable USB Drive Software

Back to the Future: Hill Valley

Back to the Future: Hill Valley is a full conversion mod for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Back to the Future: Hill Valley will be based on the Back to the Future Trilogy, allowing the player to re-enact all the great moments from the films. While some parts of the story are stretched to make it more enjoyable, we are determined not to stray too far from the original story-line. The people behind this mod want the community to relive the movies and have as much fun in the process as possible. With the outstanding game play of the Sandbox hit, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, in combination with one of the best movies of all time, Back to the Future, this mod is sure to bring countless hours of fun to anybody who enjoyed the movies.

Some of the Features that will be in Back to the Future: Hill Valley are:

• 5 different eras of Hill Valley: 1885, 1955, 1985, Alternative 1985, and 2015.
• New Vehicles to correspond to the different times
• New Peds to correspond to the different times
• Spontaneous and Instant Time Travel
• New effects and sounds to accompany the time travel sequences
• Flying Hover mode for the Cars and Trains of the future.
• Custom Radio Stations
• Reenactments of scenes from the films.
• A Remote Controlled Delorean
• Doc's Time Train

After quite a bit of development, Back to the Future 0.2e is finally here!

Download Now

Installation of 0.2e

1. Run the setup program
2. Follow instructions, make sure to install into your gtavc directory
3. IMPORTANT!!!! When GTA3 mod installer comes up, select the 3rd option to install the mod, NOT CARS!!!

Features Time Travel:

• submission(capslock) + shoot(ctrl) turns on and off the time circuits
• shoot(ctrl) changes the value
• submission(capslock) moves the cursur to the next line
• drive/fly to 88 mph to time travel
• WARNING!!! Time travelling with a damaged time machine may produce unwanted effects. You can tell when it's damaged when you see smoke coming out.
• IMPORTANT: If you find yourself in the Nth Dimension (You'll know if you're there), Don't panic, and make your way safely to the nearest pay n spray

After Time Travel

• 10 second lag before you can time travel again.
• BTTF1 delorean will randomly die after time travel
• hold acelerate to try to turn on the BTTF1 delorean

BTTF 1 Delorean w/hook

• to attach/detatch the hook from the Delorean, stand by the rear passenger side and press the action key

Flying (Time Machine only):

• hit turret left/right (num 4/5) to switch between driving/flying
• same controls as helicopter
• handbrake causes time machine to go forward

Jules Verne Time Train

• the train doesn't have it's door's open normally. So press both RSHIFT and C to open it.

Flying (2015 non-Time machines):

• to enter hover mode, turret left/right(num 4/5) or lean back/foward (num 6/9), otherwise known as the ascend and descend keys
• Accelerate, Decelerate, Turn Left, and Turn Right do the same thing
• turret left/right(num 4/5) makes the car ascend
• lean back/foward (num 6/9) makes the car descend
• Hitting both accelerate and decelerate will turn off flying mode and put you back into driving mode

Instant/Cutscene Time Travel Modes

• to change between instant and cutscene time travel modes press both horn and space at the same time

RC Mode

• action and sprint to activate
• camera button to change view
• don't kill yourself

Plutonium and Mr. Fusion

• You will be notified when you are out of plutonium/trash
• Go to the back of the car and press the action key to refill
• Trash is found everywhere, so it's unlimited
• Plutonium is found at the garbage place. Beware of Lybians trying to kill you for stealing their plutonium

DMC-13 Location Circuits

• to select a location to time travel to press shoot (ctrl) when the cursor is over the location circuits, the red dot on the screen represents your destination location,
• use the arrow keys to move to a location of your choice and press submission (capslock) to confirm

Beeper (Time circuit setting reciever)

• to set your time circuits to the same destination time as an RC delorean, turn the time circuits on by pressing submission (capslock) + shoot (shoot),
• and hold horn and submission (capslock)

Skateboard

• Press the turret left/right button to latch on to a vehicle (Doesn't work on long vehicles)
• Press lean up/down to break away

"The Ride" mission

• Biff has stolen the DMC-13 time machine and Doc need's Marty's help to get it back. Please note this mission is accessable from sunshine autos from the year 2005 onwards.

The Clocktower

• the clocktower has a working clock that will sound on the hour, quarter chimes will also sound every 15 minutes. The clock will function between September 5 1885 8:00PM
• and November 12 1955 10:04PM when the clock will be struck by lightning. Note that you are able to catch a ride back to the future using the bolt of lightning that
• strikes the clock tower, however you are required to have the part 1 delorean with hook selected, then, drive to the starting line and "when this alarm goes off you hit the gas".

Maingear boasts world's fastest laptop, eX-L 18

It’s been a little over a month since CyberPower claimed the title of “world’s fastest” with their 17” X7-Xtreme S1 laptop, and now Maingear has topped it with their eX-L 18. While I can’t vouch for the validity (or the seriousness) of Maingear’s claims, I can honestly say I haven’t come across any notebooks that match the eX-L 18’s prowess.

Coming in at just under 6-grand, the new contender features an 18.4” 1080p display, an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300, 8GB of DDR3 1333MHz, dual 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 280m in SLI, an 80GB Intel X25-M SSD, dual 500GB Seagate Momentus HDDs in RAID 1 and a dual layer Blu-ray burner. The eX-L 18 also houses an Intel PRO/Wireless 5300AGN, a Bluetooth module, HD audio with surround sound, biometric security, a backlit keyboard with a numeric keypad, 7-in-1 card reader, as well as eSATA, HDMI, USB 2.0 and Firewire ports.


As sweet as the base configuration is, $6,000 is a bit steep. I managed to get the system down to $3,917 by dropping the second 500GB HDD and opting for a 500GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue, Core 2 Duo T9600, 4GB of RAM, and a Blu-ray reader instead of a burner. The extra $2k+ worth of components wouldn’t provide much if any noticeable performance to a game – so you’re only sacrificing a bit of data redundancy and/or storage.

Synaptics introduces 10-point touch screens

Multi-touch has become an important way for consumers to go beyond the keyboard and interact with their devices. While Apple made the technology popular with its iPhone, now Synaptics is looking to push it to the next level with new screens capable of tracking up to ten simultaneous touch inputs and responding to a wider array of multi-finger gestures.


Their new ClearPad 3000 series uses 48 sensing channels and has advanced power management features that will allow for screen sizes of up to 8-inches diagonally. Its sensors have an accuracy of ±1 mm, are about 0.3 mm thick and have a power consumption of 5 mA in full active mode and 12 µA in deep sleep mode. Synaptics is naturally aiming its touch screen sensors to mobile phones and other similar portable devices, but the technology might also find its way onto larger-size netbooks and tablets – perhaps that much-rumored Apple Media Pad is coming after all? Additionally, Synaptics holds high hopes for its use in future gaming devices.

The first devices using the ClearPad 3000 should hit this fall and their success will largely depend on the underlying software. The older two-finger touch technology found in the T-mobile G1 by HTC will now be called the ClearPad 2000 Series, and a low-cost version called the ClearPad 1000 Series will be available as well. The latter will offer one-finger input and some limited two-finger gestures.

Creative unveils Android-based iPod touch rival

A filing with the FCC last month offered some evidence that Creative had a new touch screen portable media player in the works. Named after the system-on-a-chip processor the company showed off during CES 2009, the Zii Egg has been officially unearthed today and its feature set actually shows promise.

Clearly envisioned as a competitor to the iPod touch and Zune HD, the Android-based device can reportedly output 1080p video, run 3D apps written in OpenGL ES, and supports Flash Lite. The handheld features a 3.5-inch 480x320 multi-touch display, 32GB of internal memory and a full-sized SD card slot, two cameras (an HD video camera on the back and a VGA camera on the front for video chat), Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, a GPS, X-Fi audio processing, an accelerometer, a light sensor, a speaker, and a microphone.

Interestingly, though, we may never actually see the Zii Egg released to consumers as an official Creative product. At least for now the company is looking to sell it directly to other manufacturers as an OEM product so they can re-brand the device and sell it as their own – possibly even adding 3G capabilities.

Creative is currently bundling the Zii Egg with its Plaszma development kit for $399; however the device alone will eventually be available priced as low as $199 if bought in bulk.

See Video :

First-ever iPhone virus spreads via SMS?

The security-conscious atmosphere that Apple likes to breed might be in danger. There have been numerous reports recently of a new vulnerability, dubbed the “iPhone SMS Virus”, that could result in the smartphone being compromised or remotely controlled. Hacker Charlie Miller released this so-called first iPhone virus yesterday, six weeks after reporting the flaw to Apple. Giving it away to the public at a security conference in Las Vegas, this could prove to be a sticky situation for the Cupertino company if the implications are true.

Depending on your source, the potential damage this flaw could cause varies. Some go so far as to claim it could let remote users make calls with your phone, pilfer data from it or even more. What makes it especially scary is that it can be spread completely via SMS messaging, requiring no intervention on a user's behalf. An iPhone can be compromised through specific crafting of malicious text messages, most of which would be hidden to the victim.

Though unofficial patches have reportedly surfaced, there has been no official response from Apple on what the flaw entails and how long users will have to wait for a fix. I wouldn't personally suggest installing third-party software, and would instead hope that Apple comes up with an official response – either dispelling this as hyped nonsense or confirming it as a danger and offering a solution. Interestingly, one of the most plausible-sounding do-it-yourself fixes requires having a jailbroken iPhone, which can let you disable the messaging application on the iPhone without removing it.

Prevent accidental or forced shutdown with Shutdown Guard

There are lot of cases when you shut down your computer accidentally or just think I should not have done. May be your friend did even when you asked him not to shutdown. These things happen and you really can help it either.

This software prevents anything from shutting down your computer. It runs all the time and when you do try to shut down it notifies that shutdown auto guard is running and you can do it directly. This saves lot of accidents and sometimes a huge work which we loose when the shutdown starts and you can do anything except worrying.

Prevent Accidental shutdowns

Another place it might be handy is blocking the update applications from shutting down though they are configurable not to prompt for next 4 hrs in Vista. Download Shutdown Guard which works both in XP and Vista.

Run Vista Aero glass effects in Windows XP

Fast Aero allows you to get aero glass effects in windows XP which is available in Windows Vista. And the best part is you just need to run it instead of installing like themes. Basically this program simulates the Windows Vista Aero effects like transparent borders, making your windows backgroud translucent, thus giving your a close look of aero effect on your Windows Xp machine.

Fast Aero on Windows Xp

The language set is for Polish which you can change to English when you run it for the first time. Download FastAero

Clone Spy : Powerful duplicate file finder

Downloading files, copying from one location to another and many situations like this tend to generate lot of duplicate files which occupy lot of hard disk space unnecessarily. Moreover we sometimes have numerous and same version of a file to confuse us which is latest.

Though windows provide us with time stamps, sorting etc but its a cumbersome job to find duplicate files like that. I remember doing when I was in college to hunt down all duplicate songs.

Clone Spy is a perfect answer for all of these cases. Its a powerful file comparer witch along with options of file size checking, name checking, creating check sum files makes it the ultimate duplicate file finder.

Features of Clone Spy

• Selecting folder is very impressive. If there are some set of directories which you need to check often, like your download folders, you can add them and save it as pool. Next time just load the pool and find duplicates.
• You can even compare two different directories or two set of pools. I like this one most.
• Create a check sum file.
• Dont want to delete ? Generate a report of files which are equal.
• Search by name size or just use default options
• While a duplicate file is found you can open it from there, select newer files etc and then choose to delete, skip or stop the scanning completely.

Here are some snapshots of Clone Spy :

Select folders to find duplicate files

Options to find duplicate files

Duplicate file comparison

Works with Windows 7, Vista and XP. Download Clone Spy

Syspad : Network paths on your Fingertips

In corporate or IT environment we regularly deal with shared path when it comes to transferring files or taking backups or sharing data between team and Most of my team members had hated on thing : Remembering the share path which takes lot of remembrance specially if your computers are have naming conventions like columns rows and grid.

The other option is to map them in My computer as network drive but then its like opens invitation to go and see to anybody who access my computer. So we manage in mails or notepad or even on scratch pad.

Syspad is small but pretty efficient solution if we face similar problems. Its lets you manage folders and files and even network path with a name which you can remember so instead of having \\xyzserver\\xyz123backuparea\u348976 you can just have xyzproject has tag name to remember.

Syspad comes along with a scratch pad which is like multiple notepads and folder pad which is the hero of this software. As soon as you launch the program, Syspad just sits on your notification area / system tray ( Its pretty silent, so just don’t wait for something happen), just look for this icon and make a right click:

This launches the folder icon where you get quick access to sections like my computer, my network , control panel etc and also you can browse and any number of folder path which is launched when you click on it.

That is, keep on adding any number of path and you will never forget. The only thing I would suggest is you make it run with Admin privilege to make sure it doesn’t get any problem in I/O operations. Download Syspad. And yes there is notepad like program which I am leaving on you to explore. You gonna love that too.!!