Fifth Online Dautari Bhela, Challenges ahead

Dautari.org has been organizing the online meetup for Nepali Bloggers around the globe.
The fifth online bhela is scheduled for Aug 6th 2011. Please RSVP asap.

I would like to suggest few topics that the online bhela may  respond to.
1. Relevance of online bhela.
We meet every 6 months... and then disappear (well kinda). We need to prove the relevance of the online bhela like this. Other than meet and greet, have we been able to prove vital in the history of Nepalese bloggers?
I am biased to say yes, but lets be critical of ourselves. I have seen people who came to bhela, but then they had their own agenda. How to be more effective? Google Group, bloggers.com.np, hamrocircle, nepali blog list and what else do we have?  Have we been effective in helping the new (enthusiastic not the adsense wala) bloggers?

2. #BlogCoE: Where do we go from there?
I really appreciate the efforts. However,  as @anandnepal points out, could we have gathered bigger support to the vision of CoE? We do not want to build a road which goes nowhere.  

3. Copy paste blogger (as Dacharya named: "saarak"): Still the trouble, no cure!

4. Blogan: Umm what? is it still around?
Well, this might be controversial. But lets solve this case once and for all. If it is alive, this is the best chance to prove it's livelihood. If it is really dead, we really do not want the ghost of Blogan to hunt anyone (if any).


Lets wish all the best to the Dautari organizers. Keep up the good work!

Whats in the Name? Google+ swings hammer

Blogger Dai's G+ profile is going to go.
Few days ago aakar also had similar arguments about why google is biased in peculiar way to names.
This week, I also witnessed GrrlScientist's G+ profile being snatched and suspended...and her rants in twitter.

If you have a pet name in blog-o-sphere, forget about getting into G+ circle: Not cool! 
Stay in facebook, or twitter or whatever.

 I can hear the other side: if you want to remain anonymous... why on earth do you need profile?
I do not know.
One day google will claim that all the blogger profiles should be merged to G+ profile.  Then there will be a lot more friction.
  

Hacking Google + profile pictures

Hacking google+ profile picture for fun.

First, I created a picture in presentation, with shadow and glows.
Then I cropped it uniformly. (it was 900 px: cut it into 5 regular pieces)
Click on the edit profile and
upload the pieces of pictures  into the profile.
I did it in the reverse order... the right most one goes first.

The result is

I know, it is not that good, but you got the idea!

Magic of Prime Numbers

Prime numbers are the back bones of the arithmetic system.

In an article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14305667,
the author discusses how prime numbers have been proved useful for evolutionary tricks.
"...primes are helpful in avoiding other animals with periodic behaviour. Suppose for example that a predator appears every six years in the forest. Then a cicada with an eight or nine-year life cycle will coincide with the predator much more often than a cicada with a seven-year prime life cycle."
Interesting!

FIFA ranking of Nepal Football Team

The match between Nepal and Jordan ended with somewhat positive result (Nepal 1-Jordan 1). People wonder: is this the same team that got 9-0 result in Jordan???
The best thing: Nepal team did not give up. Even after being lagged behind by 1 goal(@62 min), Nepal returned the goal (@80 min).
The game had not much meaning for Jordan because they were confident that Nepal would not return 10 goal. After this draw, Nepal lags by 10-1 on total. However,  Nepali team should be encouraged for a good game!

One of the highest place to be in last 16 years: not bad!

According to the FIFA ranking updates, recently Nepali football team has climbed to the highest point in last 16 years.

 http://www.fifa.com/associations/association=nep/ranking/gender=m/index.html

How social virus can spread

Social networks are often the soft target for the spammers because if it can be broken into, it can be easily infected. Once I was in a machine learning conference in New York and one of the presenter was saying that the half life of the social infection is 30 minutes.

The clicks propagate very fast. So, the maximum damage is done within 30 minutes of spreading such infection.

During last few months so many friends have been infected. A few I could remember:

"I cried after watching videos"

"Who is not following you/who unfriended me"

etc etc
The topics are made spooky so that people will be interested towards it. You click, and your walls are hacked and what not. It becomes a matter of social shame.

Mahesh shares a detailed story of how he got it and how to avoid it.

Information about How virus is spreading from facebook!

Beware, next time when you see "interesting" link to videos on the facebook. What might be little helpful is to watch where the link goes when you hover the mouse over the video and watch the link address on the status bar.

Nepal Vs Jordan Football: Who will win?

There are a lot of curiosity surrounding for the match between Nepal and Jordan.
Nepal team is full of hope this time. If they win or even give a good game, they will be drawn as hero.

Update: The latest match between Nepal and Jordan was uploaded by * on youtube. The match ended with much more pleasant 1-1 score. The best part: Nepal could score in the game. The game looks good.
I am embedding it here, enjoy!


Looking for the jordanian team/play, I found the AFC Asian Cup Japan Vs Jordan... Look at their game...
Can Nepal win?
My best wishes.


(game starts @ 1 min)

Jordan Vs Iran

NASA Space Shuttle missions

With the last flight of Atlantis (July 8 -21, 2011), NASA's 30-year Space Transportation System (STS) program came to an end on 21st July 2011. The Space Shuttle fleet delivered the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Space Station, and dozens of satellites, space probes, crew and supplies. Two Shuttles were lost: Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003. The touchdown of Atlantis at Kennedy Space Center marked the end of an era, after 135 missions. 

This video shows all of them in chronological order. 
From http://www.nature.com/spaceshuttle

Google Doodle celebrates Alex Calder

http://bit.ly/pRZKmD
In the wake the news of Oslo, I was trying to Google the foreign relation of Norway...
Usually I just press ctrl+T, ctrl+L and just type the search term I wanted... 

However, the google Doodle distracted me...

Usually, google's doodle mystery can be solved in a second by clicking the "feeling lucky" button with empty search. But not this time...  I had to poke around for few moments before the doodle would animate and flash what it was about:

I had not heard about him before http://www.calder.org/home/page/sitemap.html

However, I can definitely appreciate the creativity there!
I have to say this is one of the best doodle in Google search page... keep it up!
See the nice animated doodle in the video below:

Blog This! extension for chrome

Among the other useful tools in chrome extension store, I like "BlogThis" tool.

The tool was brought to my attention by the blogger's blog updates.
Ironically, the tool did now work when I was in the blogthis page.

Now anything that you liked can be blogged with it... as the tool opens a page with blogspot compose mode with the links popped in. Neat!

Tshirt folding trick

This is an amazing tip to fold the t-shirt. I need to learn this.

Stand up to your ground and bark!

Well, at first it is very scary for him to be chased away by an alpha dog (wait for it):


Then he learns to stand his ground:

The big dog then pretends that he is ignoring this little one.

You can follow the cute dog in his youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/DisneyTheBeagle

Microsoft XP to discontinue in 2014

Windows XP, a microsoft product, was liked by many. People realized how much they liked it when vista came out and MS tried to dislodge it.  Due to the popular request its support was extended for few years.

MS is finally planning to say farewell to XP in 2014.

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=11662

On the other note:
Hello Ubuntu, how are you doing? I heard that the latest version is quite nice...!

Masking in flash

Letter Masking in Flash with Background

1. Open Adobe Flash CS3 
2. Select Flash File (Actionscript 2.0) 
3. Now you are in the page 
4. You are in layer 1 and rename the layer 1 as "background"
5. For this, double click on layer 1 and rename it "background"
6. For background, either you can choose rectangular tool or you can import picture .
7. For Rectangular tool 
8. You can use it from the tool box
9. For Picture 
10. Go to File
11. Select Import
12. Select Import to stage
13. Adjust the size of of picture using "Free Transform tool"
14. Select picture whichever you want for background
15. Choose OK or Open
16. Here I have used Rectangle box using "Rectangular Tool"
17. You are in layer 1 and frame 1
18. Press f6 on the frame 100
19. Insert new layer 2 rename it "Text1"
20. Remaining on layer 2 and frame 1, type the text
21. If u want colorful letter you can color it 
22. Press f6 on frame 50
23. Add another layer 3 and rename it "mask1"
24. Remaining on layer 3 and frame 1, draw a circle and put it in one end of the text
25. Press f6 on frame 50
26. You can drag the circle to another end or
27. You can enlarge the circle until it cover the text
28. Right click on layer 3 and select "Create Shape Tween"
29. Right click on the "mask1" and choose mask
30. Now press ctrl+enter to see how it work.

1. To add more fun effects
2. Add new layer 4, rename it "text2"
3. Press f6 on frame 51
4. Remaining on frame 51 type the text
5. Press f6 on frame 100
6. Add another layer 5 for masking 
7. Rename it as "mask2"
8. Press f6 on frame 51
9. Draw the circle and drag to one end of the circle
10. Press f6 on frame 100
11. You can drag the circle to another end or
12. You can enlarge it until it cover the text
13. Right click on the layer 5 and select "Create Shape Tween"
14. Right click on "mask2" and select mask
15. Now press ctrl+enter to see the effect.

NOTE : for another effect you have to add new layer for text and mask as in the second effect.

I have some pictures, I hope that will help you to do masking.

Google+ just rightly pitched?

Wave was over hyped, Buzz was under hyped.

Wave was not available to many, that made it useless. You were (luckily) in the wave, but then so what? Without many friends, what are you supposed to wave at?
Buzz was pushed as a free item. That took hit on its value. You were already in but the response was,"But ... but I was not ready for its hot-ness".

Google+ is pitched just in between. It has been properly hyped, being made available subsequently.  Increasing the expectations and value.  However, they have to rush the process of getting people in. I have a lot of friends who wanted in, but could not get in because of the systematic delay. They need to get in before it starts cooling like wave again. Google+ needs to catch the mood, and catch it fast.

The best thing so far, other than hangout, is that the wall posts are not automated.
I wonder how many people are already tired of automated  $#!* they get on their facebook wall? If it was important to post, would not you already post it manually?

Facebook Friend Exporter

Facebook friend exporter is an open source tool to export the facebook contacts to a cvs. I have already heard that facebook has blocked it. Just giving it a try after seeing few comments of successful attempts:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ficlccidpkaiepnnboobcmafnnfoomga#

I am hoping that this will work all the way down.

Update:
It did not work!
So, I went to address.yahoo.com and imported facebook contacts to yahoo... Now I will import them into Gmail/G+

New Blogger Layout in Draft

Bednath G posted the information that blogger got its new layout in Blogger World group in Facebook.

I was aware that blogger was doing something new for the blogger system from their blog. However, was excited to see the new interface.

If you wanted to test the new interface, go to:
http://draft.blogger.com/h​ome

I think the interface is quite sexzy:

The extra option on the right bar for location, labels, schedule and other options (comments/backlinks, etc) are much more handy.
The publish button with trademark blogger color looks nice on plain theme.
Overall: I love this new look the blogger is getting.

Google + to eat Blogger after picasa

Well, in other word: the black nav-bar on the top is going to help Google integrate the google-services:  similar to what they did with picasa.

Google is going to rebrand the Blogger to Google-blogs.

SRC: http://digitizor.com/2011/07/06/google-bye-blogger-picasa/

This may be a good thing to do because picasa does not have the limit of xGB after being integrated into Google+ as a feature.
The best thing: everyone with google account will have blogs.

In the age of social media, the definition of blog has changed to status updates and micro-blogs. May be, that was what blogs were supposed to be, right?

July 4 and Nepali Flag

I like this one:

The picture was taken in New York (in 2007).

The big flag hanging by the tall support inspires people in a very subtle way. I am not sure how to describe it. Let me try to relate it to my country: In the process of constitution re-writing, there are issues of drawing different states in Nepal. Probably in a way that will benefit some of them/ their group.
I think, if we ever want to learn few things from USA, the first thing   to learn   would be :
to be united, and to be proud of being the people of the country.

People might say that displaying the flags do nothing. Well, we have not really tried it. If you see the flag in the international airport @ Kathmandu: it is small, might be already weathered and washed. People are coming to visit Nepal (by air), and that's where the boundary of Nepal begins. That's where we need to impress in the first sight.  Well, how about the boarder in the south/north?  There used to be a flag in the perimeter of supreme court: bigger but usually washed/torn out. The big-triangular flag can inspire people. Keep them hopeful of the bright future.

One can say there are a lot of issues that has to be addressed before replacing the old torn flags. Well, that's where we miss the point.

Search everything and more ...

Google, where you can search for everything and more ...

Hover Zoom, A useful add-on for Chrome

Hover zoom is a nice addon for chrome.
Using this tool, you can simply zoom into the picture. The best is that if the image is linked, you can simply hover the mouse pointer over the link, and you can see the image.

I am loving this addon for chrome. I find it most useful @ reddit, see picture...

Hoverzoom brings the picture without the need to click on. :)

URL:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nonjdcjchghhkdoolnlbekcfllmednbl

Circlehack your Facebook Friends

One of the cool factor of the Google plus was the feature of circle.  Being able to group contacts in different circle was definitely a nice feature over the facebook (FB).

Few clever people thought of doing it the other way around.
Thus,  circlehack!
http://www.circlehack.com/

The app requires few permissions, looks fine.
Once you enable, you can add your FB friends in circle.
Although it is not the facebook product, circlehack provides one of the feature that facebook lacked in comparison to Google+.

Screenshot, click on the image to see bigger version.

There are few improvements yet to be done:

• One can add to the circle, but can not remove. Being able to modify the circle would be great.  
• Zooming into Circles (does Google+ have that feature?)
• Nice animation features of Google+ are missing. But is OK.

All of the comments above becomes irrelevant once I learn that it was an overnight project (phew!).

Informed via techcrunch
The source is available at:
https://github.com/voloko/facebook-circles

Google+ suggestion

I have a suggestion to Google+ (G+) developers.

I am sure that Google is listening to the community feedback.
The noise level must have been quite high with a lot of "great!" or "facebook killer" comments. Now that I have also seen few G+ related posts in hamrocircle. However, this post is not about great features of G+.

Idea:
The notification system of G+ is quite overwhelming (because it is new) and (a bit) annoying at the moment. The noisy notification was one of the thing which turned me off the Buzz. Currently, I have put a filter that filters every notifications from the G+.  There is an option to uncheck all the notification in the system. However, I recommend a solution that there should be an option to turn the daily digest for the notification.  This is not a new idea. Such option is available if Google Groups. I use that feature and is handy.

Abriged Email option in the Google Group.
Dai wonders if G+ team can copy that piece of the code into G+ system. 

Being able to turn on the daily digest in G+ setting will keep me updated, while not annoying me.  I would love that feature the best because I mostly like to read about the activities of my circles.

PS: I am sure that G+ is designed for lively interaction. There must be bunch of people waiting for a response to jump into it and go back and forth. I am suggesting the daily digest  for people who are interested in social interaction for educational purposes. Educating oneself about the good things the network brings. 

Into the Fifth Year of Hobby Blogging

This ajabgajab blog (first post) has entered into the fifth year of its journey.
I used to do yahoo360 in 2005/2006. Around 2005, I had opened a "blogspot" blog, just out of curiosity,  in the old blogger. However, after I rediscovered blogger in 2007, there was no reason to go back to 360 because 360 was just mediocre. The best I liked about blogger platform was the simplicity, adaptability and flexibility.  Since then, the layout has been changed, may be a dozen times. Quite few many widgets has appeared and disappeared. The current one has been hanging around for long time now. Basically, because I do not have time to play with the changes.

I started it as a hobby, to write whatever I felt like. If you want to know the theme, that is it. I accept that at times, the writing was not so clearly understandable. Mostly because the first draft never saw the second revision.  The excuse: I am not a professional blogger. However, during it's peak time, it was ranked to within the 100k limit in alexa (currently not).
Currently, there are 455 posts and 37 drafts in the dashboard. The posts, I liked are labeled as ilike.

Besides, this one, I have few other blogs:

• Mirror: My frame of reference, nabinkm.blogspot.com
• WebLoggerDai: http://webloggerdai.blogspot.com/ (Computer tips, hacks)
• UsefulCodes: usefulcodes.blogspot.com (As the name says)
• HamroCircle: http://www.hamrocircle.blogspot.com/ (Blog of the nepali blogger's blogs, specially the google gadget)
• and few others :P

I hopt to continue writing and ramble around for sometime. The frequency may decrease, but will not cease!
:)

Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/nabinkm